“Nothing weird, I promise.”

That was the invitation we got from a dear friend that was also a pastor at a small local church. Our chance meeting and subsequent friendship had led to a few curious conversations surrounding faith on our double-date nights together.

The invitation to step outside of our Catholic faith upbringing and into the doors of the quaint, progressive Christian Church – even if just as a visitor to one day – felt like we were committing some sort of…sin.

The tugging of our unsettled hearts and the mere fact that we were wrestling with trying to belong to something that we no longer felt aligned with was enough to push us out of our comfort zone.

We anxiously stepped through the doors on Sunday evening.

There were people mingling and checking in with each other over a cup of coffee before the service started.  The ambivert in me (and my husband, for that matter) couldn’t find a seat fast enough! Don’t forget – we were raised in the Roman Catholic Church – there was no talking before mass! There was also no organ droning on or gold flanking the altar.

What had we gotten ourselves into?!

When the service started, we were finally able to relax a little. With my guard down, my heart seemed to open.

I remember very clearly hearing the pastor say, “…because, this is how Jesus rolled.”

What?! This is how Jesus rolled?! I leaned in…”tell me more…”

I remember going for a walk that evening with my husband. We both reconciled that it was a great experience (even for the ambiverts that we are). It was church unlike anything we had ever experienced. Almost sheepishly, we both admitted that it was the most engaged we had ever felt at church. There was a strong sense of community and curiosity that was alive and welcomed. All of this was very unlike our childhood experience.

Great. What were we to do now?! Our Catholic guilt was kicking in…hard. Would we go again?! Should we?! What if our parents found out?! We were like teenagers all over again stepping outside of the parameters that had been set for us.

The easy thing to do would be to text our friend and thank him for inviting us. Close the loop and settle back into our decision to be okay with ‘doing nothing’ about this crisis of faith we had fallen into.

I’m not sure how but, the following Sunday, we found ourselves back at Church. There seemed to be something pulling us back despite all of the resistance we felt.

It’s two years later. We’re now active members of our church community. We are exploring our faith through a different lens. I feel like I finally have a voice within the church.

The thing I don’t want you to know:

Two years later and, honestly, we still haven’t come clean with our families. Not because we want to be dishonest but, rather, we don’t want to hurt them. Growing up in very devout Catholic families leaves little room to wander. I guess no matter what, you’re always still someone’s child.

The Guidance of My Inner Mentor:

✤ I knew that if we continued to take the ‘easy’ route of pleasing our families’ expectations of our faith, we were going to lose our faith all together.

✤ You need to find the community in this world that opens your heart and makes you come alive – whether that be a community of faith, friends, work or even friends that become family. To live small in fear of ruffling feathers will leave you looking back on a life poorly lived.

Before becoming a business coach, Jenn established and led a thriving marketing agency – a time filled with challenges, yet great fulfillment. By personally experiencing the highs and lows of business ownership while balancing a family, she gained invaluable insight into overcoming difficulties and achieving goals.

After 13 years, she realized she was ready to expand as an individual and business owner and wanted to assist other female entrepreneurs to do the same. Leaving an established business and embarking on a new path took every ounce of bravery she had, and became one of her greatest accomplishments.

  Website | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

“You’re suffering from chronic depression.”

What?! With those five words, my doctor delivered the knockout punch that I wasn’t expecting. I remember pulling up to my office and just sitting in my car not knowing exactly what to do now. I texted my husband the update and then I just…sat there.

Suddenly, my identity had changed. Only a couple hours earlier, I was a mom, wife, daughter, sister, colleague and entrepreneur. Now, I was a depressed mom, wife, daughter, sister, colleague and entrepreneur.

Honestly, it took me days to really start to even understand how to cope. Not only to decide what the path of healing looked like but, also, how I would talk about it with my family, my friend, my staff, my partners. Would I even talk about it?

Personally, I confided in my most trusted inner circle. Usually over tears, I did my best to string together where I was and how I got to this point. Sometimes, there just weren’t words. Usually, people just wanted to do something to help. Unfortunately, I didn’t really know what it was that would help at that point. An open heart to sit with the tears and, even the silence, was the most precious gift.

Professionally, it seemed much more difficult. I’m certain that for anyone looking in, it was painfully obvious that I was falling apart. In my heart, I felt that telling my team would be the best course forward. We were close – a small team that spent a lot of time together. However, for some reason, this didn’t feel like just my decision to make. Instead, I brought my business partners into the room to update them and let them know that I was needing to take some time away from the business as I began my journey into therapy. The only thing I can remember from that conversation is, “I wouldn’t tell the staff – you wouldn’t want them to think you’re weak.”  I agreed that it was probably the strategic thing to do for the business. So, for the next six months, I came and went without much explanation. I would excuse myself from meetings when I didn’t have the capacity to participate that day.

The thought was that I would be perceived as a weak leader if I was honest about my struggle with my team. Instead, I acted like the business owner that suddenly didn’t give a sh$t about her business. In my heart, I knew it wasn’t the right approach but, I said okay to staying quiet about the struggle raging within me. I said okay to losing my own voice as a leader.

The thing I don’t want you to know:

Even sharing this story makes me upset. I’m upset that I let another person quiet me in a place where I really needed to speak. I’m pretty sure that their intent was never to hurt me at the time. Like many hurdles we had come across in our business journey, it was about survival.

I’m even more upset that I agreed to it. Not only for me but, for every person suffering from a mental illness.

The Guidance of My Inner Mentor:

✤ By putting a label on what I was feeling was the scariest and most liberating thing to ever happen to me. Trust me, It was scary for a long time before it was liberating.

✤ Once I was able to put some context around my feelings, I was able to emerge as a stronger leader. One that was more human and more empathetic. I believe finally sharing my story with my staff allowed them to know that being vulnerable in our workplace was okay.

✤ Struggling with mental health is no longer something that I stay quiet about. I have a voice in that conversation. Even more importantly, I can be the listening ear and open heart for someone else who is suffering.

Before becoming a business coach, Jenn established and led a thriving marketing agency – a time filled with challenges, yet great fulfillment. By personally experiencing the highs and lows of business ownership while balancing a family, she gained invaluable insight into overcoming difficulties and achieving goals.

After 13 years, she realized she was ready to expand as an individual and business owner and wanted to assist other female entrepreneurs to do the same. Leaving an established business and embarking on a new path took every ounce of bravery she had, and became one of her greatest accomplishments.

  Website | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

The trouble with being an ambivert is that I’m not always content with playing the role of the shrinking violet. The trouble with having a business partner that is a strong extrovert is that there is rarely a time or place to be anything but a shrinking violet. 

That was the dynamic of my previous business partnership, one that spanned a decade. In the beginning, it worked! In fact, it worked really well. We would tag team almost everything and people seemed to love the yin and yang that we naturally created when we were in the room together.

Like any relationship, ours evolved over time. As did our business and or roles within it.

We also grew up together throughout this relationship – going from starry-eyed twenty-somethings into business owners who had seen (and survived) many challenges.

There’s no doubt that this journey together changed us as individuals as well.

Together, we faced and conquered the same challenges, successes, hurdles and triumphs and yet somehow, they impacted us each very differently. What once was a relatively balanced duo started to feel out of sync.

As time went on, we were no longer a homogenous voice. Unknowingly, I was bringing a stronger voice into the duo and there didn’t seem to be room for it.

Looking back, I can see how that in order to create a seamless brand (that was very much attached to our ownership/leadership), we both had to contort our two natural (and very different) personalities into one – leaving neither of us showing up as our authentic selves.

Unfortunately, this story doesn’t come with a fairy tale ending – we just weren’t able to find a way to balance our voices within the business and our partnership came to an end. I continued on with the business while my partner moved on to strike a new path. In the end, we both created the room we needed to be the authentic leaders we had individually grown to be. 

The thing I don’t want you to know:

After we parted ways, I found myself not even really knowing what my real voice sounded like anymore. I was scared to even write anything on behalf of the business. How crazy is that?! I was the CEO and I didn’t know what my business was supposed to say or how to say it!

Once I could start to see parts of me within the brand voice, the words came much easier. The tension of delivering the (unnatural to me) curated brand voice had finally dissipated.

The Guidance of My Inner Mentor:

✤ Welcome to my journey of finding my voice again. As I transitioned from the role as CEO of the agency into an Entrepreneur Coach, I knew it was important to me to strike this path on my own. It’s providing me with an opportunity to tune back into me – and into my authentic self.

Before becoming a business coach, Jenn established and led a thriving marketing agency – a time filled with challenges, yet great fulfillment. By personally experiencing the highs and lows of business ownership while balancing a family, she gained invaluable insight into overcoming difficulties and achieving goals.

After 13 years, she realized she was ready to expand as an individual and business owner and wanted to assist other female entrepreneurs to do the same. Leaving an established business and embarking on a new path took every ounce of bravery she had, and became one of her greatest accomplishments.

  Website | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

I would categorize myself as an ambivert; treading the fine line between introvert and extrovert tendencies.

I’ve always surrounded myself with a few cherished friends. I do much better in small groups than large gatherings. (Note: with a large Polish family, my ‘context’ for small vs large may be somewhat skewed ;-). I guess you could say that I’ve always gravitated towards ‘quality’ over ‘quantity’.

That also means that I would rather speak in front of a group of 20 people instead of 200. One of my favourite things to do is to present or facilitate a group workshop…within the parameters of a small group. It means that I can meet everyone personally, learn about them and build rapport with the group. It becomes about ‘us’ and not about ‘me’.

Here’s the problem – even in writing these first three paragraphs, I’m giving myself the permission to say, “That’s okay, Jenn. You do what makes you feel good.”

What’s wrong with that? Well, I’m pretty sure that that’s where growth stagnates. I know that in the last decade of my life, I turned down opportunities to take a bigger stage. I nominated other people to do the larger speaking engagements or media relations on behalf of my business.

I told myself that I was helping them build their professional credibility and identity and, in some ways, I was. BUT, I was also allowing myself to sit happily in my ambivert comfort zone. 

Fast forward to today, and I’m back to being an organization of one. I have no team members to nominate to keep me in my comfort zone and still represent my business.

It’s just me. But, lucky for me, I’m older, wiser and more in tune with my personality now. I can see how I created a safe cocoon for myself that doesn’t really serve me or my business. I’m working hard on re-emerging and building my public profile once again.

The thing I don’t want you to know:

The idea of ‘reading’ in public makes me very uncomfortable. Ask me to speak to a group – I’ll happily accept but, if you ask me to read a script, I’ll likely decline (at least for now).

The Guidance of My Inner Mentor:

✤ No matter where you find yourself on the personality scale, never let it be an excuse for staying quiet. You have value to add to the conversation!

✤ Understand the platform that works best for you and seek out opportunities to practice.

✤ Build on each step you take towards bigger opportunities.

Before becoming a business coach, Jenn established and led a thriving marketing agency – a time filled with challenges, yet great fulfillment. By personally experiencing the highs and lows of business ownership while balancing a family, she gained invaluable insight into overcoming difficulties and achieving goals.

After 13 years, she realized she was ready to expand as an individual and business owner and wanted to assist other female entrepreneurs to do the same. Leaving an established business and embarking on a new path took every ounce of bravery she had, and became one of her greatest accomplishments.

  Website | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

It was 1999. I was 19 years old. Fresh out of college with an Advertising diploma, I was ready to take the world by storm. At least, in my heart that’s what I wanted.

I recall the first day of my internship. I was so nervous. In fact, the only reason I even had this internship was because one of the professors had connected me with an industry peer that had an opening. Looking back, I’m sure that if the job was to restock the beer fridge I would have happily accepted.

I entered the coolest office I had ever seen, an old warehouse-conversion located in downtown Toronto. There was a palpable energy that pulsed throughout the walls. Lots of jargon, ego, and seasoned industry veterans buzzing around and getting sh#t done. I was so out of my element.

You know the ad world – it’s intense! Deadlines come fast and fierce. There are many egos to navigate and jargon to learn. I was given the job of researching websites of the competition for my assigned account.

I remember sitting down at my desk and digging in. The only problem was, I didn’t really know what kind of information they wanted to know and what would be helpful. Instead of asking my supervisor, I decided that ‘looking busy’ was the strategy that would serve me best. I printed off hundreds of pages that were essentially useless. Day after day, I would sit down and get to work on…nothing important (or helpful).

My second strategy was to make friends with the lovely receptionist. She was awesome and, when I needed to figure out how to get an outside line on the phone or where to get some basic office supplies, she was my secret weapon!

I also had an intern buddy there at the same time. He was great. We would get lunch together and chat about our school programs, etc. However, as the weeks went by, I started to see that he was chatting with the strategy team more. Asking questions, sharing his ideas, making jokes. Suddenly, he had crossed the threshold! He was invited into the client meeting. I was left sitting at my desk.

Looking back, there are only two things that I’m sure of about my time there:.

First, I had no idea what I was doing and I’m 100% confident that everyone there knew it.

Second, I never had the courage to ask (anything). I didn’t ask for clarification. I didn’t ask for mentorship. I didn’t even ask how to get an ‘outside line’ when trying to make a call. I went to my desk every day. I quietly did some work and I went home. I got nothing out of the experience and I gave nothing to them.

I spent 31 days there. And at the end of day 31 I said, ‘thanks for having me’ and I went on my merry (unemployed) way.

The thing(s) I don’t want you to know:

The ‘firsts’ of new things still make me feel anxious – usually, it’s the most trivial things.

When I started golfing, I hated to call to book a tee time. I felt like I would be ‘found out’ for not belonging.

It still takes a big helping of courage for me to enter new situations.

The Guidance of My Inner Mentor:

✤ No one will advocate for you like you. Without a voice, you get the internship (job, raise, timeslot) that shows up, not the one you dream about.

✤ It’s okay to not know things. It’s also okay to ask.

✤ Jump in. Don’t sit on the sidelines waiting for someone to ask you to participate! Have a voice and make yourself visible.​

Before becoming a business coach, Jenn established and led a thriving marketing agency – a time filled with challenges, yet great fulfillment. By personally experiencing the highs and lows of business ownership while balancing a family, she gained invaluable insight into overcoming difficulties and achieving goals.

After 13 years, she realized she was ready to expand as an individual and business owner and wanted to assist other female entrepreneurs to do the same. Leaving an established business and embarking on a new path took every ounce of bravery she had, and became one of her greatest accomplishments.

  Website | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram