Steve Schlafman: Why Steve Left VC, Executive Coaching, and Building a Personal Brand [Ep. 43]

Ari Lewis (0:04)

Welcome to Mastering the Attention Economy Podcast. I'm your host, Ari Lewis. Human attention is a scarce resource that millions of companies across the globe are fighting for.

Once a week, I interview entrepreneurs, executives and industry leaders on how they earn attention for their brands without paying for it.

To learn more about my work, visit arilewis.com and subscribe to my twice a week newsletter on marketing, branding and communications. Today's guest is Steve Schlafman. Steve is a certified professional coach and angel investor. He currently operates High Output, a boutique leadership development company based in New York City.

Steve Schlafman (0:39)

Yeah, great to meet you, Ari. Thanks for having me on the show.

Ari Lewis (0:42)

So I was really excited to get you on as a guest. A lot of the people I've had on are in the communications industry, more working at an agency or working internally, but you're a CEO coach in addition to your investing. I know a lot of the podcasts you go on, they talk about investing. So this is going to be a bit of a change of pace where we're going to talk more about your coaching and thought leadership and sort of how CEOs and how they can build brands and the companies they're at building brands. But before we get into that, I always like to ask you an interesting question to start things off.

And I found out that you're actually an identical twin.

Steve Schlafman (1:17)

I am.

Ari Lewis (1:18)

Yeah. Can you just talk about that experience and I feel like that type of relationship growing up could have a big impact on your career?

Steve Schlafman (1:28)

Yeah. So it's interesting because it's all I've ever known is to have someone that looks and sounds exactly like me.

I would say that we were inseparable as kids and we did everything together. And then once we got to college age, we actually went completely different paths. I went into business and he went into arts.

So despite our love for technology and design and things of that nature, he just decided that he wanted to be an artist. And so what's interesting is we've both been in technology our whole careers, 20 years later. He is now in Netflix and runs product for their interactive TV division or their interactive TV products, and as you said, I'm a CEO, coach and an investor. And so yeah, it's a trip to see how similar we are yet, how different.

Ari Lewis (2:30)

As we sort of go from that twin to going more into your career, so you've spent the vast majority of your career investing, but you sort of always had this passion for coaching even when you're at primary, you're a partner there. You also list on your LinkedIn bio, leadership coach as well.

So when did you begin to notice like you had this expertise as a leadership coach, but also why did you begin to seek that out as like an area that you can build upon? Because I think a lot of people in the VC community, they're sort of this stigma, but maybe it's changed in recent years around like CEOs getting coached and that like, oh, that means there's something wrong with them. Maybe we should replace them. When did you begin to notice that you can be a leader and help with those types of things?

Steve Schlafman (3:27)

So I should back up. What's interesting is when I was in high school, I think it was in my high school yearbook, they said I was going to be the football coach of the high school hometown team one day. So I guess I'm not necessarily doing that, but perhaps something that's related. So I think just from a young age, I've always loved this concept of coaching and being excited about the idea of leading other people.

About five or six years ago, I was an institutional investor at one of the top funds in New York. I was on the verge of making partner. And one night I came home to my wife who happens to be a founder. She runs a company called The Sill.

And I said to her, I think I want to be a coach. And she said, well, I know you would make a phenomenal coach, but you can do that later in life when you retire.

And what's interesting is, the more that I dug into the profession, the more it just began to really speak to me. And so about three and a half years ago, I walked in to my partner's office and I basically said, this isn't going to be an easy conversation. And they said, what's going on? And I said, I'm leaving. And they said to go and do what? And I said, you know, I don't really know, but deep down inside, I knew that it was going to go to become a coach. And so I ended up enrolling in a coaching certification program about three years ago, and I haven't looked back since. And so I predominantly coach really three core groups. I have a pretty small practice that I call High Output. It's a boutique leadership development company. And I typically work with early stage CEOs, so I would say anywhere from, call it pre-C through C or EC, so call it like sub 150 employees.