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Transforming tragedy into a bigger future: a personal story from Strategic Coach® client Mike Bischof.
An entrepreneur finds a mission.
Because it was a murder-suicide, there was no one for the courts to prosecute. This saved family and friends the ordeal of a trial, but left Mike on his own to channel his efforts and emotions around this senseless tragedy. He had to do something.
As with anyone facing such a tragedy involving a loved one, Mike had to find his own way to process the shocking reality. “I had to tell myself this happened for a reason—reasons I don’t understand—and that if my sister had been half as beautiful, half as successful, had half as many resources and contacts, and didn’t have a brother who could dedicate time like this, it wouldn’t be getting the press and attention it has. As much as it hurts me that it was my sister, this happens daily to people. Every day, it’s someone’s loss. So I figured, hey, we can either sink in despair, or we can swim with new meaning.”
While there was nothing Mike could do for his sister, there was one thing he knew he could do for others in her situation: have their stalkers tracked with a bracelet whose location can be pinpointed on the Global Positioning System. “GPS monitoring was one of the things she asked the judge for, and the judge turned it down, saying it wasn’t within his jurisdiction to require [Giroux] to wear that. But had he been wearing this bracelet, she would have known he was near her office.”
“Freedom is at the root of our country—freedom of movement, personal freedom,” Mike says. “And that’s what my sister had taken away from her for the last nine months that she lived in terror. I felt she was driving me to hand–pick GPS as one of the first things she’d wanted for others and herself. I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to carry the torch to see that others like her would have more freedom from fear and that offenders would be held accountable for their actions.’”
But how do you go about changing a law? Mike had no idea. “I was, and still am to a degree, naïve about the bureaucracy of the whole legislative process. I’m not in the least bit a political person. So I went in with a fresh approach. I think that’s why I was so effective—because I didn’t go through the traditional channels. ‘You can’t do that,’ ‘They won’t’—I didn’t want to hear it. I just wanted results. It wasn’t political. Remove your cap, your party affiliation, and do what the right thing is for people.”
Eleven days after Cindy’s death, Mike was scheduled to attend a Strategic Coach® makeup session, having missed his regular workshop because he’d had the flu. “I was numb,” he says. “It was a rainy, miserable day. But I felt like that was going to help me get back on track. It was important for me to go.” While at the Chicago headquarters, he got a call from Fox News: They wanted to interview him.
Mike had never met his makeup workshop coach Lee Brower before, but told him his story. “Fox wanted me to join them at their studio, to interview me live on TV. I thought, ‘Oh God, that’s so far outside my comfort zone, I want to throw up!’ I was searching for leadership, for someone I could turn to, and Lee was able to help me. He told me to stay in constant motion and create opportunities. So I reluctantly said yes to the interview and went down there the next morning—and through another unknown door. I did it, and that evolved into another opportunity, which evolved into even more opportunities.”
A foundation is born.
Mike established a foundation in his sister’s name and gathered a handful of people together to be his team. “It was this whirlwind of emotions, like the fire was lit in me, and I was saying things to people, putting things out there that I was going to do. I didn’t even know how I was going to do them. I felt like my sister was pushing me in the back, pushing me out into new territory.”
His skills as an entrepreneur were invaluable in this new project. He knew how to set goals, forge new relationships, and make things happen. He also knew what not to do: “We’re not pointing fingers. We never did the blame game, like there should have been a law. There wasn’t a law. There wasn’t the jurisdiction allowed for added protection. Well, we’re here to make that so. And the people who want us to tackle the gun issue, I’m not going there, because that’s been an issue for the last hundred years. Others can fight those battles, but we have to go with the one thing we can change in a quick and efficient manner. From that, we will then build on those successes and see other areas to protect victims.”
While trying to make this change in state legislation, Mike still had to be there for his business and his family. “I’m trying to manage everything now,” he says. “My business, our foundation, the legislative process, being the father of three young kids, the baseball coach, the husband … ”
He says, “The principles I learned in Strategic Coach have helped me keep my head above water, to rise above the stir of commotion and remain clear to be able to access new situations. It slowed down the environment to a point where I can more easily understand what’s going on, make assessments, and make on–the–fly adjustments to my business and the foundation.”
He concentrated on using his Unique Ability® in the foundation, just as he does in his business—not getting bogged down in details, but keeping himself up at a CEO–like level so he could stick to his vision.
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