In this distinguished episode, Cecile Peterkin, Founder of The Leadership Coaching Centre, shares how she helps aspiring entrepreneurs and Dissatisfied Employees find their best path to fulfillment.
You will discover:
– Why your future hinges on your “why” and how to create clarity around it
– How to determine if you should find another job or create one as an entrepreneur
– How to identify and eliminate the root cause of your frustration at work
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And here with us today is the one and only Cecile Peterkin, who is the founder and chief Transformation Strategist at the leadership coaching Center. She has over 22 years of expertise and experience as a distinguished confidence coach and mentor, helping 1000s of professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs to unleash their unique strengths, pivot with purpose and craft legacy careers. She balances authority with compassion, cultivating leadership, a leadership style, sorry, that is human centric and dynamic. This not only guides her interactions, but shapes the empowering and inclusive environments that she’s committed to creating. Cecile, when I was getting ready for this episode, I got really excited, because I help a lot of founders, and have so over the years, and one of the things that I’ve found is virtually every single one of them has this season before they start. What that I call the dissatisfied employee, right? It might be dissatisfied employee or student or something. There’s just this frustration that builds ahead of time. And I have found that that’s actually as near as it can be a necessary season for founders. But I’ve also found, especially as entrepreneurism becomes more popular that a lot of folks mistake being dissatisfied with meaning you’ve got to, you’ve got to go start your own business. In many ways, that kind of can be a big reset on a career. It’s a really tough thing to do. But, I mean, you know more than most that there are many ways for us, as employees, as entrepreneurs to find fulfillment. Do you think that just because someone’s dissatisfied that they should, that they should, that that means that they’re on a path to becoming an entrepreneur?
Cecile Peterkin
Well, not at all, not at all. They’re dissatisfied, maybe with the company, maybe with their manager or leader, but it doesn’t mean entrepreneur. It Simple means and what I’d like to do, and I’m speaking to my client about things like that. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Simon Sinek leadership, and I use it as personal leadership, not just about a company. So I always say, why? I always ask the questions, why. And if they don’t have a concrete plan to tell me why they want to do it, I say, Well, maybe what you should be thinking is maybe changing the company, changing career, looking at anything else. And I work with a client like that, where she was let go. So she got a nice package, and her package included coaching. So she came to me to coach for her to coach to turn into an entrepreneur. She had, didn’t have a plan, but she had something she wanted to work on. So I talked to her about the plan, what is required in a business plan, and asked her, her, why? Her? Why was not bad. It was actually pretty good, because she had ideas, but putting together business plan, she wasn’t able to, she wasn’t able to put the business plan, and eventually she realized. She said to me, I get it. I get it. It’s time for me to look for another job at another company. I was let go. I’ve got a good package. Instead of wasting a package, starting the business that might not work, I’ll go back. Yeah. So no, you are so correct. It’s not, it’s not for everyone. And I didn’t quit to become an entrepreneur. My company was sold. I was thinking of moving out on my own to do training, and I said, thought regular training. I don’t really see myself doing that. So I was in the process of thinking and researching what I could do. Then my company was sold, which was fantastic, because it gave me the push I really needed. And the company that bought us, I was in finance, a company that bought us, I didn’t want to be on their management team anyway, so it was the push, but it took me a year when and why I got started in coaching, actually, is my partner was working. He worked in Toronto, but he got transferred to an office in Connecticut, and there was a coaching magazine about coaching, and he came home and said, This is what you should do. You mentor all the time. You’re coaching everyone. You’re doing it, but you don’t realize you’re doing it. I thought, yeah, I think I’d like that better than training. So I took a year off to get certified, and while getting certified, it’s just meeting more people, going to networking events, talking, doing things like that. And then I realized it is really me. That’s what I’m going to do, and that’s what I did. Yeah.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that, and I think what’s what’s so important about that is for for those who are our founders, who are entrepreneurs in the making, one of the things that I found is that even when the circumstances get better, that frustration doesn’t seem to go away, right? It just kind of it might be on the back burner a little bit, but it kind of just haunts you and and so one of the things that we see. I’ll zoom out for a second. One of the things that we see in in times of financial crisis, right? 2008 crisis, we even tell this coming in the wake of COVID, is that there’s a sharp rise in entrepreneurship. Right? Folks are laid off and they think, Hey, I got to go start my own business. We also see a commensurate rise in the the the failures of new businesses, right? It goes, it goes quite high, because a lot of folks, you know, it’s just not the right path for them. And so what, what I think is is really helpful for folks, and what I love about your your approach here, I want to dive into a little bit more is, how can we start to separate out that and understand what that frustration is. Is it really that we’ve got the kind of seed of being a founder in there, or is there an easier way? So my question for you is, is we’ve talked about the why, maybe, what are some good examples of the why that might lead someone to to pursuing another job, like, like the story you told earlier, versus the why? For someone who might want to consider entrepreneurship?
Cecile Peterkin
There’s two things. It’s funny. You should bring that question up, because it’s a very good question. Yesterday, I went for a walking coaching session, but a young client of mine, very bright. I’ve been working with her for years on and off, and she has great ideas. And when she first approached me with the great ideas, she was even talking about it as well. And then she realized she she, I think she was maybe 25 at the time, and her mom was a client, and their mom, she actually, her mom was working at the bank, and her mom left the bank. I started coaching her mom at the bank, and her mom realized that she’ll never get anywhere in the bank from through the coaching. So what she actually did was she went back to school and got her Master’s, I think, in administration, and she got a really good job at the hospital, I think, in a really high position. And she was happy. So she wanted to leave the bank. She got a coach to see if she could stay. She couldn’t stay at the bank, so she decided to go back to school, to further education, to get the job that she was looking for that she wouldn’t have gotten in the bank. So I’m working with her daughter. Before her mom set up a program for her daughter, and she did well. She left the job she was at. She was in a managerial position. And during COVID, of course, she was in hospitality, so that hotel closed, and so she started doing things on her own, and she was going back to entrepreneurial stuff, and she have got it figured out. She does fitness and wellness, so she’s teaching at various gyms, and she’s doing so well that one of the gym owners said to her, if you want to go out on your own, try and speak to at least five clients. Some of the gyms you’re in, like big corporate ones, you cannot. It’s dear clients, but I’ve watched you, and I’ve seen how the clients gravitate towards you, so I’m giving you permission to speak to say maybe five of the clients who might be interested. And you can also use my space. I’ll charge your rent, but not the going rate. And you can use my space to actually change these clients. Wow, and she was excited about it, and she’s got her plan and of how she’s going to do it, what she’s going to be doing. And it’s funny, because during the lockdown, she started another another company, cleaning service, though she was cleaning houses and things like that, and she wanted to branch out to make it a lot larger now doing both. And I said to her, because her background is relatively she went to school, so she has a degree in business, and I said to her, Well, look at which one do you think is going to be easier to start? Which one is going to be better to manage? And then what? And the moment I said, she goes, Oh, my God, you’re right, the fitness. I loved fitness, and that’s going to be easier to start, because I’m going to have a space. But the cleaning, what she was looking at was she would purchase a van, and she’d pick up the cleaners, and then they would then, then she’d drive them to where they’re going to be located. And she was speaking to her dad about it, and her dad said that’s otherwise idea. It’s going to cost you too much in gas to pick up all these people. And I said, Yes, he’s right. It doesn’t make sense. So it’s best that you hire cleaners who actually have a driver’s license and they can drive. And I said to her, you have to remember too you’re going to need, they need, going to be bonded, a license and everything else, because I had a cleaning company, but I wasn’t working in the cleaning company. I just as a partner and a friend of mine, he was doing all the cleaning. I don’t want to clean anyone’s house. There’s no way. I’m sorry. I’m a cleaning lady. Why am I being a cleaning lady? So I was telling her, it’s not easy, because you’re going to. A lot of people, you’re going to get complaints because people have a cousin accustomed to her doing the cleaning, not other people coming in now to do the cleaning, so and said, You’re going to have to train them. And immediately she said, Back burner. I’m going to move on to the fitness and wellness. So she had the mindset, and she has the drive and the goals, and she already had figured out what she want to do is just now, instead of try starting both first, I said, No, you can’t. It’s going to be too much. You’re very ambitious, but too much, and yes, so you have to, I don’t think people realize just about everything you approach in life, you need a plan. Yes, you’re going to buy a house, you need a plan. You know, you make it a big purchase, you need a plan. It’s not just you just get up and you start doing something and expect that it’s going to be successful. Because it takes a long, a long time to start a business and get it going where you’re actually known and people trust you. Yeah. And there’s the networking piece, when you’re not working and making any money because you’re trying to gather more clients. So it is difficult, yeah.
Scott Ritzheimer
So let’s say there’s someone out there. They’re frustrated at work and they just want to be more fulfilled. What are some of the things that they can do to better align that you had mentioned going back to school, you’d mentioned exploring some entrepreneurial ideas, are there some common things that folks do to find that fulfillment?
Cecile Peterkin
Yes, you know what? I actually also I’ll ask my clients, before you started working. What were you interested in? Deeply. Have any hobbies? Do you are interested in reading? How many books have you read? Have you have time to read now, because everyone has a life outside of work that you enjoyed before you started working, and suddenly, eventually you put it in the back burner. So I would try to get them to go to that place and said, What is it that’s making you frustrated? Are you missing your hobbies? Are you missing that you’re not spending enough time with your kids? And then I would say to them, Well, if you’ve been in the company long enough and you like the company, why don’t you ask if you can reduce your hours or work from home someday so you can walk to school to pick up your kids. So I said, don’t just COVID a job before you’re frustrated. Because you’re frustrated, look at what’s causing the frustration. Because if you can stay at that company and actually still get you what you need. That’s a bonus. Because, in fact, when I was planning that I want to Branch, Branch out on my own, I reported to the executive vice president, so I was planning to see him, to talk to him, to set this is what I’m planning, and I’d like to work three days a week, and I know he wouldn’t say no. So then I could plan my business, but then the company was sold even a bigger push, and I’m also getting the package, so I’m cool to take, you know, a year or two off and still have money. So that’s what I said to her. So I explained, that’s what I did. So I said, you can approach your company and speak to them about it, to say, this is what I want to do, because my kids are young, and I want to see them grow up to reach, you know, middle school or something like that. So people get frustrated because of work. It’s easy to blame work because or our time really is consumed by work. The travel to get there while we’re there, some people get frustrated because, if you’re in management and in management, you’re managing more people than managing projects. It’s time consuming, and it’s like being a parent when you’re managing kids, it’s like now a lot of my clients are complaining about Gen Z’s and the frustrations. And I’m trying to say, but what are the age group of your kids? And a lot of them have the same age groups. I said, Are you frustrated with your kids? No, because they’re my kids. I said, Well, put your mother hat on, but it’s for work and get to know them, because then it’s like your kids. And for some it worked. For some, they’re just don’t want anything to do with them. And I’m thinking to myself, I guess you don’t want anything to do with your kids either.
Scott Ritzheimer
Oh, my goodness, Cecile, there’s I could keep going with this conversation. There’s so many different ways to go and questions that I want to ask, but I have one question that I do not want to let go by us, and that is, what would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all. What’s that one that you wish everybody watching and listening today knew?
Cecile Peterkin
Before you do anything. Take a job, start a business, get to know who you are. That’s a big and be truthful about yourself. You can even get your friends to help you, but you need to do some on your own, because once, what I find is, once you figure out who you are, it’s just easier to maneuver maneuver life, whether it’s at work or in business like because the people get to know you, because a lot of times people don’t know you, and you’re not just your job, your outside interests, and you let people what your no outside interest is all about. Here’s a perfect. Example, what happened to me at work? I I love working out. I go to a gym every day, and I still do and I was busy. I’m in management, senior management, so I’m busy. So I used to split it, going early in the morning, when no one is there, get some of my work done, and then just walk down the street to my gym because it was closed, and then come back and I would start work. Not a big deal. And and then I would leave again in the evenings. I’d finish at four, because I’ve been in so early in the morning. And then I’d go to the gym, finish off what I want to do, so to do my cardio and my weights. And then I would go back to work and do some more work till maybe eight o’clock with single I don’t have kids, and that would be good, but I always take my lunch at noon, and we were in a management meeting, and my director, she’s always going overtime, and I always just say, Okay, fine. And this day, I said, everyone knows my lunch is at 12 because I’m here at six o’clock in the morning. I choose to be here at six o’clock in the morning, and I choose to leave at eight. So I’m not complaining about that at all. But you also know my lunch is at 12, therefore, and this meeting is supposed to end at 12. This is why you schedule it, because I need to leave to have my lunch. I said, I’m not staying. She goes five more minutes. I said, No, I’m not staying. She never did that again. She started, and everyone said, You did that. I suggest you have to look after you, and you have to set boundaries. And I was looking after myself like I’ve been up since four and it’s time for me to eat meat lunch. But she’s doing it all the time, and she and I had a really good relationship, and we always did, and even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be afraid to talk to her about it, because you have to speak up and stand up for yourself in order to get respect and set boundaries, even at work, setting boundaries at your kids. Set boundaries at everyone, your friends. So they that way. They know who you are. So good. Yeah. So, yeah.
Scott Ritzheimer
So Cecile, there’s some folks listening, and they’re there. They’re frustrated with work. They want to find more meaning in what they do. They don’t know if it’s entrepreneurism, if it’s being an employee. They want someone who can help guide them along the way, where can they find more out about you and the work that you guys do?
Cecile Peterkin
So what I do, I work with entrepreneurs. Because when I was approached, when I had my this is my newer business now, and what I always take the root of, it’s your business, your entrepreneur, but you’re also your own employer. So there are boundaries you need to set for yourself as your own employer as to how you’re going to achieve things. So if, if that’s your roots, you have to the first thing you have to do. And it’s the same thing like looking for a job. Looking for a job is a job. Being an entrepreneur is also a job when you go about to start, because there are things you have to do. Got to research, you got to set up business meetings or with people who are in the same field and what you’re doing, and find out, you know, if they could change one thing about when they were getting started, just asking questions, so you don’t have to go down the same route that everyone went down. That why it didn’t work. So that is the job that you have to do, and you have to be prepared to do that. And that’s why, when I was coaching this client, he said, No, I want to go back to a work where I know exactly what I’m doing, because you know what you want to do as an entrepreneur, but to get there, that is the part that is a lot of work. And I always say to people, think about it this way, your paycheck is guaranteed at work until they let you go. Your paycheck is also guaranteed when you’re an entrepreneur and you’re working, but it’s not guaranteed when something happens in the economy. So how will you feel? So it’s just all these different things to start thinking about. It’s like, oh, well, you know, I’m young, recently married, planning a family, I’ve got a house. Maybe this is not the time, and that’s the things you have to think about. I was on someone else’s podcast, and she’s young and an entrepreneur, and she started Women, professional women meet up, and it’s all virtual, and that’s exactly what she did. She started as an entrepreneur before she got married and have kids. Now she married and have kids, it’s perfect. It’s working out perfectly for her, because she doesn’t have to worry, because she built that now for 10 years, and her kids are only six and seven, right? So you know, it’s getting going out to network, to meet people and meet other women entrepreneurs who you know having kids, or they’ve gone through it, and then you realize, oh, yeah, I can do this. Ask someone to become a mentor. Do you mind mentoring me, you know, and just guide me along the way, because you got there and I’d like to be where you’re at. Yeah.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. I love that. Well, Cecile, thank you so much for all that you’ve shared today. Just really it was an honor and a privilege having you here today. I appreciate you being on the show for those of you watching and listening. You know that your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Cecile Peterkin
Cecile Peterkin is the Founder & Chief Transformation Strategist at the Leadership Coaching Centre. She has 22+ years of expertise as a distinguished confidence coach & mentor, helping 1,000+ professionals & aspiring entrepreneurs unleash their unique strengths, pivot with purpose & craft legacy careers. She balances authority with compassion, cultivating a leadership style that is human-centric and dynamic. This not only guides her interactions but shapes the empowering & inclusive environments she’s committed to creating.
Want to learn more about Cecile Peterkin’s work at The Leadership Coaching Centre? Check out her website at https://leadershipcoachingcentre.com/
Podcast Booking Status: Open
We are looking for podcast guests, and we want to share your story.
Are you a coach, consultant, or advisor for entrepreneurial organizations? If so, let’s do a great show together – and we can promote you to our audience on all our social media channels, website, and email list.