Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal and career development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Kilani Daane, Co-Founder and Executive Coach of Level V Partners located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

I’m an Executive Coach for young professionals and pre-executives who have big life and career goals. I operate out of a global coaching and consulting organization called Level V Partners, which I co-founded alongside my dad, Marcel Daane, who’s been a coach for close to two decades. Together, we coach, consult, and train leadership teams to work better together in less time and with less effort.

Tell us about yourself

My driving force in both my life and career is to create space for other people to feel seen and heard. In a world with a lot of noise, those moments of silence and welcoming are even more important. I’m a third culture kid, I was born and raised away from my home country, and I’ve been extremely fortunate to be able to travel much of the world and experience beautiful, diverse cultures. In fact, this openness to the world at such a young age is what inspired my fascination with human behavior and communication, the foundation of the work I do. What I learned throughout my travel and getting to meet so many people from so many different backgrounds was that, at our core, we all want to feel accepted and listened to. And how much better of a place the world becomes when we take the time to do so. It’s since become my mission to impact every person I meet with that same intention.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I’m often asked this question as a business owner, and I’ve come to find that my biggest accomplishment doesn’t come down to one instance but rather every time one of my clients comes to me and tells me how much of an impact our work together has made in their lives. I’ve had a number of profound experiences in which my client has said that our working together is the reason they’ve been able to turn their lives around. That they struggled for a lifetime, and the pieces suddenly began to fall together perfectly when we began our coaching sessions. To know that I can play a part in impacting lives on such a big scale is the biggest accomplishment and motivating factor I can experience.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

In my opinion, one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner is also one of the keys to achieving success. Consistency. Most of us run on the belief that we need to be motivated to work towards something. However, as humans, we’re not physiologically designed to be motivated all the time. Sometimes, showing up every day and doing the work can feel tough, but being able to do exactly that is where the results compound and grow.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  • The first tip is to be consistent. This can be the toughest part of running and growing a business, but it’s also the most rewarding. When we show up every day, we improve. Even if it’s the slightest bit. Over time, those results compound into something big - something that looks exactly like what you dream of.
  • The second tip is advice I received as a sixteen-year-old competitive athlete who had Olympic dreams and still sits with me today through my adult years. My coach asked me, “Do you know what faith means?” I said not really. He said, “Faith is the ability to trust in achieving the outcome without the evidence proving that you’ll get there.” Oftentimes, as a business owner, you won’t have a written guarantee that you’ll achieve your goal. Having faith in yourself to get where you want to be is your guarantee. Strengthen that.
  • Last but most certainly not least, just don’t quit. Being a business owner comes with ups, downs, plateaus, and peaks. All of which are equally important parts of the process. When things feel like they’re not moving, they still are. Just keep going, and you’ll see. (Side note: I highly recommend reading the book Mastery by George Leonard for more on this).

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://levelvpartners.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kilani-daane-35080b186/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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