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.