Episode 6: Women Entrepreneurs - Defining success

Host Peter Reynolds & Damon Adachi speak with Jennifer Kendall, CFO of Discovernet and Owner of Acuity Path about the unique challenges facing women Entrepreneurs and how to “create a business you love, while living a life you love”. 

Transcript

00:00:03:05 - 00:00:25:14
Peter Reynolds
Hi. I'm Peter Reynolds, and welcome to Pros and Conversations, the podcast that not only interviews people from the world of the arts, science and business, but also provides you, the viewer with some tips to help you reach your entrepreneurial goals. Today I'm joined by Damon Adachi, and he is a marketing consultant with Sevenfold Marketing. How you doing, Damon?

00:00:25:16 - 00:00:26:29
Damon Adachi
Good. Thanks for having me back.

00:00:28:01 - 00:00:47:14
Peter Reynolds
Excellent, excellent. So today we're going to be shifting gears a little bit and talking about women in entrepreneurship. And I know that you know, you were we were talking about this earlier, how that, you know, women are basically only 50% likely to start businesses than men.

00:00:48:22 - 00:00:57:14
Damon Adachi
Yeah. It's very interesting stat. I'm not really sure what the what the rationale is behind that. But hopefully we'll get some at least anecdotal insight from our guest today.

00:00:58:22 - 00:01:11:21
Peter Reynolds
Absolutely. And that's a perfect segue way to interview our guest, Jennifer Kendall. And Jennifer Kendall is the CFO with a Discovernet, as well as the owner of Acuity Path. Welcome to Pros and Conversation, Jennifer.

00:01:12:01 - 00:01:13:29
Jennifer Kendall 
Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Damon.

00:01:15:14 - 00:01:18:23
Peter Reynolds
So, Jennifer, just to jump right into it, what is Acuity Path?

00:01:19:27 - 00:01:42:26
Jennifer Kendall 
Acuity Path is a training and coaching company that I started about two years ago. And we focus in on helping entrepreneurs, mainly female entrepreneurs with productivity systems and processes so that they can thrive in their business. Essentially, I'm trying to help the female entrepreneur build a business that they're proud of, that they love while living a life they love.

00:01:42:26 - 00:02:07:24
Peter Reynolds
It's interesting that you say while living the life they love, you know, that balance, between between work and and and life. What I always find interesting, though, is that, for a lot of us, myself included, you're working in the corporate world. You're putting in 50, 60 hours a week and you're thinking to yourself, I need to get off the hamster wheel.

00:02:08:03 - 00:02:14:26
Peter Reynolds
You know, I need to, you know, take control of my life. I'm going to start a business where I'm going to put in 100 hours a week.

00:02:15:05 - 00:02:15:16
Jennifer Kendall 
Yes.

00:02:16:12 - 00:02:33:14
Peter Reynolds
So can you maybe back us back it up a little bit for the listener and tell us sort of, you know, where you came from and, how you sort of made that both mental decision, mental leap to get to do your own thing, but also how you accomplished it.

00:02:35:04 - 00:02:56:21
Jennifer Kendall 
Well, it's an interesting question because I think that a lot of entrepreneurs get into business based on their pain. So there's this concept of pain purpose. So our pain leads to our purpose. And essentially that's how Acuity Path was born, out of pain. So in my old life, I like to say I was an accountant. I'm a designated CPA CGA.

00:02:58:04 - 00:03:24:23
Jennifer Kendall 
And I was climbing that corporate ladder when one day I kept looking at that ladder, and I didn't think that's what I wanted forever. You're right. The hours get longer as you climb that ladder. I was already at controller level getting promoted to director. And I'm looking up and I'm like, do I want that level of responsibility? And I mean, as an accountant, my life was limited right I, I had year ends.

00:03:24:23 - 00:03:44:17
Jennifer Kendall 
I had quarter ends. Your first two weeks of the month were booked solid. And that's not what I was looking at that forever and I was like, this isn't what I want. But I didn't know what I wanted, which is what led me onto this path. My husband was buying a second business and offered me an opportunity to join him in the entrepreneurial world, which is what I did.

00:03:44:17 - 00:04:06:08
Jennifer Kendall 
And that's where I started to experience the pain, because when I joined him, I floundered. I was raised to be an employee, and not an entrepreneur. And so all of a sudden, I'm faced with things I've never had to decide before. I had to come up with the plans, I had to come up all with the systems and the processes.

00:04:06:19 - 00:04:32:26
Jennifer Kendall 
And I really I, I didn't do it well. And so I eventually, because I'm a great accountant, showed my, my husband, my partner, that financially it would be better for me to go back to work and I did. But once I was there, I realized I was already making that shift, that mindset shift that comes from moving from an employee to an entrepreneur.

00:04:33:05 - 00:04:57:12
Jennifer Kendall 
And I was no longer comfortable in the employee space. It still took me another few years to figure out how to make the transition back to become an entrepreneur, because I had to do the work on myself and get my confidence and figure out what was not working for me. But once I did that, I came back and joined my husband full force in his businesses.

00:04:57:12 - 00:05:26:27
Jennifer Kendall 
And what I discovered was that I wasn't unique. There are a lot of entrepreneurs out there, especially women, who, when they make that transition, they do so based on a skill. But becoming a business owner requires other skills. So we might know our craft, but we don't know how to then run the business. And what ends up happening is we end up working so hard, we take a 40, 60, 70 hour workweek in our corporate life and turn it into 100 hours.

00:05:27:10 - 00:05:47:16
Jennifer Kendall 
In fact, that was one of the reasons I hated being an entrepreneur the first time around. I gave up everything. We used to ballroom dance, and that was one of the first things I cut out. So I gave up an extracurricular activity that I enjoyed doing that was good for my health. It was, you know, fun, social, and I gave it all up.

00:05:47:26 - 00:06:07:14
Jennifer Kendall 
And by cutting that out, I made my life all about a business that I wasn't in love with. And in the end, I hated everything I did every day. I resented the businesses we had. And that's why I went back to the corporate world. When I came back, I realized I needed to learn how to make not balance.

00:06:07:14 - 00:06:17:19
Jennifer Kendall 
I hate that word, harmony. I had to create harmony between the business that I wanted to work in and create and build and a life.

00:06:18:02 - 00:06:18:13
Damon Adachi
Wow.

00:06:18:13 - 00:06:19:19
Jennifer Kendall 
That's I loved.

00:06:19:24 - 00:06:37:18
Damon Adachi
Fantastic information. There's a lot to unpack there. So I'm going to pull it back a little ways to when you were started. And I want a little more detail from you on when you you were more trained to be an employee than an entrepreneur. What does that mean in terms of your experiences leading up to your entrepreneurship?

00:06:39:01 - 00:07:04:29
Jennifer Kendall 
So I come from you know, not a rich family. It's a, we struggled with...my parents claim bankruptcy at one point. We lived in apartments with not enough bedrooms. So you think about the way we go through life where actually, you know, your success is defined as going to school, getting a post-secondary education and getting a job and a good job.

00:07:05:10 - 00:07:23:09
Jennifer Kendall 
And so I literally I'm conditioned for that. So I go out into the world thinking I'm going to get a job. My goal at this point is not to live paycheck to paycheck because that's what I knew growing up. Right. So there's security in having that paycheck But what you don't realize that there isn't really security, right? Like, there isn't.

00:07:23:22 - 00:07:36:20
Jennifer Kendall 
I mean, I think that's what I saw as I looked up the ladder is that the job security actually disappears as you climb up because you're taking on more risk, more responsibility. And that's where you know all the challenges.

00:07:36:21 - 00:07:57:14
Damon Adachi
I find it really interesting that you talk about that traditionally, we are trained to think about education and employment and success is measured in those and those factors. And yet, you know, when we watch film and TV and movies, there's the shopkeeper and he's a proud, you know, entrepreneur all by himself with his apron on and the butcher shop or whatever it is, right?

00:07:57:24 - 00:08:18:07
Damon Adachi
But I wonder if there's enough of those examples for women to feel inspired, to think about entrepreneurship outside of the traditional paths of becoming part of the workforce. And the bigger challenge seems to be for women in finding that work, life, harmony, love that, way better than balance.

00:08:18:07 - 00:08:23:20
Damon Adachi
And then it doesn't really create a ton of room to think about, you know, starting out on your own and being an entrepreneur.

00:08:23:20 - 00:08:42:06
Damon Adachi
So maybe that's what's leading to these statistical anomalies of having far fewer female entrepreneurs The next thing I'm going to let Peter jump in, in a moment, but the next thing I was interested in is when you say the skill set is so different for an entrepreneur versus an employee. What are you what are the major differences you find there?

00:08:42:07 - 00:08:43:22
Damon Adachi
Because I've had that same experience.

00:08:45:03 - 00:09:05:26
Jennifer Kendall 
So for me, I think I had a head start because I was an accountant. So because I was an accountant, I had the financial background. And being an accountant means I'm very detail oriented, I'm very organized. I love systems and processes. But what fascinated me as I look back on my journey is that I didn't take those skill sets and bring them with me.

00:09:06:06 - 00:09:29:20
Jennifer Kendall 
It was like there was a corporate me. And then all of a sudden it was an entrepreneurial me. And I was like, but I don't know how to do this. And so if you look at a lot of other entrepreneurs that start businesses based on their craft and you know, Peter, you said like or one of you said the butcher standing behind the counter that you think of our all of our traits.

00:09:29:25 - 00:09:53:06
Jennifer Kendall 
They're starting a business because of their craft or because what they're passionate about. Every coach and nutritionist, anybody who is taking their passion. They don't necessarily have the skill sets of making a plan. And if you make a plan, how do you follow through on that plan? How do you then transition that you're going to hire even a VA even if you don't have staff, hire a VA?

00:09:53:18 - 00:10:10:28
Jennifer Kendall 
How do you delegate? How do you then share, you know, the space with someone else to create something at the end and meet timelines? How do you do sales? A lot of us in the corporate world have never had to sell anything. We do, but we don't realize we are, right? But how do you do sales? How do you speak up for yourself?

00:10:11:09 - 00:10:36:15
Jennifer Kendall 
In my world, I'm trained to understand that communication is a lot more than what we're saying. It's more about our tone, our our physical. Like, I'm a very a hand talker. I get very excited. I also get very red. I but all of that comes out. And if we're feeling unconfident on the inside without us even realizing it, that's showing up in how we present ourselves.

00:10:36:26 - 00:10:46:09
Jennifer Kendall 
And if you don't have an idea of what's happening between your head and the rest of you, everything else breaks down. Those are the skill sets I don't think we have coming in to be an entrepreneur.

00:10:47:06 - 00:10:54:28
Peter Reynolds
100%. I totally agree with you. I think that I also found it much easier to sell somebody else's business than my own.

00:10:55:02 - 00:10:55:15
Jennifer Kendall 
Yes.

00:10:56:04 - 00:11:29:12
Peter Reynolds
I came from a world of sales and and graphic design and working for printing houses and going in to a random business and saying, here's the company you need their services. For me, was very easy. To suddenly say, it's me that I'm selling became extremely difficult. And it's absolutely true that a lot of those skills that we either we don't transport them over or they, you know, it's very interesting.

00:11:29:12 - 00:11:53:01
Peter Reynolds
I also like what you said about passion and how we start our businesses because we're passionate about something and we do it well. And I and this line I know I've talked to Damon about this, this idea of, oh, I love what I do so much. I'd do it for free. And my wife saying to me, but you're not going to do it for free.

00:11:53:03 - 00:11:53:11
Peter Reynolds
Right.

00:11:55:18 - 00:12:04:21
Peter Reynolds
And that's where that business comes in, because if you, if you don't have the those, those business skills behind it, you're not going to succeed at your passion.

00:12:05:28 - 00:12:06:18
Damon Adachi
Exactly.

00:12:07:05 - 00:12:28:13
Jennifer Kendall 
Do you want to know something interesting about entrepreneurs? Your comment about, you know, I'd do it for free. If you think about how a lot of us are raised, were raised that money is evil, you know, that money brings out the worst in us or you don't need money to be happy. Think about all the things you've heard about money.

00:12:29:01 - 00:12:42:00
Jennifer Kendall 
So when you when you actually sit down with an entrepreneur and you start looking at their values, money doesn't appear in their top five values. So how are we going to make money if it's not something we even value?

00:12:42:20 - 00:12:58:18
Damon Adachi
And I think that's part of the big mind shift that you talk about going from corporate to, you know, to being self-sufficient and self-employed, is that corporate is very driven about profit. And one of the things that I struggled with when I was in the corporate world was saying this is how I want to operate in my job.

00:12:58:26 - 00:13:20:22
Damon Adachi
And getting pushback from higher ups saying that doesn't help us meet the bottom line. Versus in my self-employed entrepreneurial world, profit is the last thing on my mind when I'm servicing a client. It's client satisfaction, it's relationship building, it's feeding my ego of getting approval from other people. That's that's usually number one. I should put that in number one.

00:13:21:03 - 00:13:51:07
Damon Adachi
But ultimately, you know, I had a meeting this morning with somebody who was a little sticker shocked by the price of the design work that they required. And I just went, Yeah, I'll just do it for free then because I want to do this project and it looks like fun. So yeah, it's a very, very different mindset. And yet that has to be balanced with the fact that you have to be responsible for the income and the revenue on a not on a scheduled paycheck coming in the door anymore, but project by project for a lot of us.

00:13:51:07 - 00:13:53:19
Damon Adachi
So it's a very, very different mindset.

00:13:54:12 - 00:14:01:12
Jennifer Kendall 
Very different mindset. Yeah. I actually recommend that we don't look at pro bono work until we're making a certain level of income.

00:14:02:27 - 00:14:03:19
Damon Adachi
Good practice.

00:14:04:12 - 00:14:24:25
Peter Reynolds
I agree. I agree. It's easy. That was actually something because I started in the world of working with nonprofit organizations and it's very easy to fall into that. Well, I really believe in what I'm doing, so I'm going to, to drop that price this time. And then that seemed to be the price all the time.

00:14:24:28 - 00:14:39:14
Jennifer Kendall 
Yes. There's there's also you know, Peter, you talked about how hard it was for you to go out and sell your product versus someone else's. There's a vulnerability about going out there and asking people to believe in you. That's hard.

00:14:40:29 - 00:15:05:23
Female Voice
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00:15:06:10 - 00:15:10:17
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00:15:12:01 - 00:15:30:18
Damon Adachi
And do you think that there's a, sorry. Do you think there's a difference between men and women in that angle of things? And is that, as you know, we're I'm very, very interested in the difference between male and female entrepreneurs. And I'm interested in your clientele because I know you focus on women as your customers for your coaching, but I know you also have some male clients.

00:15:30:29 - 00:15:34:29
Damon Adachi
And what are the differences there? And I find this fascinating, to be honest with you.

00:15:36:18 - 00:16:05:05
Jennifer Kendall 
You know, what is one of the most fascinating things I've seen is women entrepreneurs almost shy away from the processes, the systems which they absolutely need, because they want to stay in the creative, in the flow. They want to let life guide them. And I'm like, you can have both. But getting them to see that if they have the systems and the processes that they'll then create the freedom, is a little bit more difficult.

00:16:05:24 - 00:16:08:12
Jennifer Kendall 
My male clients seem to grasp that faster.

00:16:09:09 - 00:16:13:08
Damon Adachi
But do you have to coax them back into their passion.

00:16:14:03 - 00:16:22:03
Jennifer Kendall 
Yes. They're much more you know, they don't allow themselves to feel almost .

00:16:22:03 - 00:16:23:26
Peter Reynolds
Really?

00:16:23:26 - 00:16:26:21
Damon Adachi
Silly. Silly men.

00:16:26:23 - 00:16:47:05
Jennifer Kendall 
It's not silly men. I think, you know, you're asking for the difference between, you know, men and women. And when I think about myself, something you said right at the beginning, there was never a female entrepreneur for me to look at in my life to say that is how I can be.

00:16:47:19 - 00:17:27:23
Jennifer Kendall 
I had, you know, models that were working and were struggling for that balance or harmony I prefer ,of being a parent, a mother and working.. There was no one in my life that showed me how to do it well. And the business owners that I had as examples, their business has failed so there wasn't a woman leader. And if we think about the ones we know... now, maybe it's because, you know, my husband's business is in the field, but there's no IT leaders that are women.

00:17:27:23 - 00:17:52:07
Jennifer Kendall 
There is now. If you think of I think it's Google has a female leader. Correct? But I'm not a or hire. She's a VP or something like that. I'm not sure I might have the wrong company. Might be Facebook. Actually, I think it's Facebook, but there isn't a lot of well-known female entrepreneurs that are strong.

00:17:52:19 - 00:18:15:16
Jennifer Kendall 
So I think Damon, you're right. There isn't that leadership. But there's it's also hard to find a strong female. And I'm not one of them, but a strong female leader that has kids and runs a successful business. I don't have kids. I think a woman who has kids running a business, I see it in my clients has a whole other different challenge that I don't have.

00:18:17:00 - 00:18:40:23
Damon Adachi
Yeah. And I wouldn't want to generalize on that. But I think that, you know, we saw that COVID impacted female entrepreneurs disproportionately to male entrepreneurs. And part of this is because what you're looking at is some home based businesses where you are, you know, trying to manage a sales account for a product with stay at home children that are being homeschooled through online schooling.

00:18:40:23 - 00:18:44:29
Damon Adachi
And it's just it's impossible. Peter, you were going to say something there.

00:18:45:20 - 00:19:14:29
Peter Reynolds
Yeah, I know. And just to follow up with what Jennifer was saying, you know, and I think it does disproportionately affect female led businesses when it came to the pandemic, because a lot of women sort of fall back into those traditional roles, of, you know, parenting and taking care of the house. And it just seemed like a natural fallback position where it might be less so for men.

00:19:15:17 - 00:19:33:11
Peter Reynolds
I wanted to ask Jennifer about for people listening there, you know, when they're thinking I'm in that same boat, I don't have any role models out there that I can sort of base my business ideas on and how I can actually manage a family and a career. What can they do?

00:19:34:20 - 00:20:02:12
Jennifer Kendall 
Peter, that's a great question. We think of networking events as just for business owners. It's not I have seen some incredible things that networking events where, you know, recent grads have come and joined in networking events just to meet people. They not necessarily do they know what they want to do. They're not sure if they want to own their own business, but they're coming out and meeting with other with other people.

00:20:02:12 - 00:20:29:02
Jennifer Kendall 
And especially if you target a female networking group. We love to share. We are natural nurturers, we are natural mentors. An organization that has female leaders, you'll see that their mentoring opportunities are stronger. So just to consider that you go into that networking event, find people that you connect with, reach out with them after and ask for the coffee and start picking their brain.

00:20:29:27 - 00:20:46:23
Jennifer Kendall 
Ask them to perhaps mentor you or guide you or, you know, whatever you need and likely you'll get the help. But that's a great opportunity to surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do and succeeding.

00:20:47:25 - 00:21:13:27
Peter Reynolds
And just to connect that to Acuity Path, because one of the things that I know is a big issue for me when I started as an entrepreneur was accountability. You know, I'm the only one getting myself out of bed in the morning. I'm the only one that if I don't hit my quarterly projections, there's no one to to tell me off or to call me on to the carpet, you know?

00:21:13:27 - 00:21:23:20
Peter Reynolds
So, and I know that with Acuity Path, you have accountability groups and I thought that was such an interesting I'd never heard of that before. Can you talk a little bit about that?

00:21:24:01 - 00:21:45:08
Jennifer Kendall 
Yes. The accountability groups came because I was looking for a way to connect with entrepreneurs. To, you know, get my name out there. So I started interviewing entrepreneurs and taking my own advice there. But I started interviewing entrepreneurs and asking them when they networked what was working, what wasn't working. I originally thought I was going to do a networking group.

00:21:46:04 - 00:22:15:08
Jennifer Kendall 
What I learned from that research by, you know, looking for my target client and sitting down with them and asking these questions was they didn't need another networking group. What they needed was accountability. They wanted something where they had support and they weren't alone because working as an entrepreneur becomes extremely lonely. It was one of the things that that struck me, is there's no colleague beside you that you can go vent with or bounce an idea off of.

00:22:15:08 - 00:22:39:25
Jennifer Kendall 
You're by yourself. And if you do have a team, you can't share the struggles and the challenges you're having with your team because they need to look up to you. And depending on the relationship you have with your spouse, if they're not an entrepreneur, they also don't get it. I remember that when before I became an entrepreneur, I didn't understand the struggles my husband was going through, and I would get, you know, frustrated and angry with him.

00:22:40:01 - 00:23:02:05
Jennifer Kendall 
Now we can have those conversations, but back then we couldn't. So depending on your situation, it's very lonely. Then the pandemic hit literally. And I was I wanted a way to help people through, especially those first initial weeks. So as I was talking about starting an accountability groups and all of this happened, I said, let's do one. And I did it for the first three months for free.

00:23:03:02 - 00:23:25:02
Jennifer Kendall 
I got a group of people together and started my first accountability group and then because it was the pandemic and life was changing so fast for us, I did it weekly. And what I ended up seeing in those three months was that we needed each other. And so going out and networking online at that point with other entrepreneurs, I saw the difference between those that were in the accountability group.

00:23:25:02 - 00:23:50:21
Jennifer Kendall 
They were starting to thrive They had been able to pick themselves up, you know, make the changes to their business that they needed. But they were supported by the other entrepreneurs in the group getting questions asked. We were sharing information with one another. We were supporting and cheering each other. And I realized that I had something special. And so from there, I turned it into a paid model and opened it up.

00:23:50:21 - 00:24:13:15
Jennifer Kendall 
And now we have more than one accountability group. But every accountability group for me starts with a celebration. Everybody has to share a win. We don't, as entrepreneurs, celebrate enough when we don't share our successes. And even if it's a little thing like, you know, you did your morning routine three days a week, let's celebrate that. So we start every every meeting with celebration.

00:24:13:20 - 00:24:34:16
Jennifer Kendall 
We then do a check in. And one of the things I try to stress is that if you didn't get items done on your accountability list, ask yourself why. What got in your way? Where were you uncomfortable? What do you need support with? Just because you didn't achieve something isn't a bad thing. It's an opportunity right there to find out what you need help with.

00:24:35:05 - 00:24:49:24
Jennifer Kendall 
So I've heard people say that they don't want to be shamed. There's no shaming in our accountability groups. It's more a lift. It's How can we support you? What do you need help with what? Where were your roadblocks? Sometimes it's just life.

00:24:50:04 - 00:24:50:12
Damon Adachi
Right?

00:24:51:06 - 00:24:58:09
Jennifer Kendall 
But other times it's because we're absolutely terrified of something and then how can we get over it?

00:24:59:17 - 00:25:20:01
Damon Adachi
You know, this is extremely refreshing for me. And the thing that is resonating for me the most is the difference between balance and harmony. And it's almost as if balance is the masculine version of that concept of trying to keep everything in place and managed. And the female version is harmony, which is more about integrating those things and integrating with other people.

00:25:20:06 - 00:25:42:15
Damon Adachi
And I think that in the world of small business and entrepreneurship, this has got to be a growing trend where we get more of the Zen Yoga kind of, you know, the more of the present and mindful approach to business which is going to come from the female side of the spectrum first. That's where the early adopters will be and that's where the champions will be.

00:25:42:21 - 00:26:04:09
Damon Adachi
But it needs to come across the line. And in our in our networking group that Peter and I belong to. The female presence changes the dynamics so much, so positively. It's immediately we have that harmony in the room and it allows us to operate much more holistically. So I know what you're doing is fantastic. I love it, and I hope there's more of it to come.

00:26:04:09 - 00:26:05:24
Jennifer Kendall 
Thanks.

00:26:06:18 - 00:26:29:06
Peter Reynolds
No. Agreed. I think that, you know, particularly with networking and that's one of the reasons why I joined our networking group, Damon, was that you know, it's so easy. We live in a vacuum. You know, I live in this, you know, black hole of you know, I have ideas. Are they any good? I don't know. Let me try them, you know, never looking to see if someone else has done that, you know, has gone down that path.

00:26:29:29 - 00:27:09:02
Peter Reynolds
So, you know, that ability to bounce ideas off of other people who are in a similar situation. Absolutely invaluable. And also can impact the loneliness. I think you know it when you said that, Jennifer, I absolutely didn't realize how much I felt that until the pandemic. And the the joke is, you know, as my wife would say, you know, there was a lot of obviously many negatives associated with the pandemic, you know, in for people's lives and business.

00:27:09:23 - 00:27:29:14
Peter Reynolds
But my wife will sometimes come up and she sees me playing with my son and, you know, or I'm talking with her in the middle of the day. I have people around me all day, which I didn't have. And, you know, that has been a real benefit for me to be able to to have that more of that harmony that we've been talking about.

00:27:31:08 - 00:27:42:28
Peter Reynolds
I wanted to we can't couldn't go. I saw this on your website, and it says that you're a Master Practitioner, NLP Coach. I couldn't let you go without asking what that was.

00:27:43:24 - 00:28:02:12
Jennifer Kendall 
So NLP is neuro linguistic programing. It's a way of looking at how we communicate with one another and what is going. And, you know, remember earlier I talked about how we our communication is more than just our words, how we receive information and then how we filter it impacts everything we do.

00:28:04:15 - 00:28:24:23
Jennifer Kendall 
Also, 90% of what we do is driven on an unconscious level. We do things without even realizing we're doing it. We have a strategy for how we buy, how we make a decision. And if you don't believe me, think about how you put on your pants. You put on your pants likely the same way every single day, and you don't even think about it.

00:28:24:23 - 00:28:55:06
Jennifer Kendall 
It's a strategy. So when you think about how much we do that's unconscious, all of that is happening because of the communication between you and your actions. So NLP looks at that communication and dives into the unconscious part to figure out what's stopping you. Most of what we do is all been programed when we were young children. This isn't about you know, diving in and dredging up all the pain that we've been through.

00:28:55:06 - 00:29:18:18
Jennifer Kendall 
It's about reprograming so that you can get rid of the strategy that no longer work for you. And put in new strategies. I mentioned, you know, that money isn't a value. We can actually help an entrepreneur change that and we can actually take money and insert it as a value so that they then want to make money versus doing everything for free.

00:29:18:29 - 00:29:41:00
Jennifer Kendall 
And if you have trouble picking up the phone or avoiding conflict, you're running a strategy and that's what it's all about. So I did a lot of training to work through tools and processes that will help clear up things because I can teach you how to write a plan. I can teach you how to plan, I can teach you how to organize your day, your week.

00:29:42:14 - 00:30:10:07
Jennifer Kendall 
But there's a point where that no longer works because there's something else running or we hit a ceiling and we can't up level any further. We hit this wall and you need to break through it to get to the next level in your business. That's when the Master Practitioner inner stuff comes in play, and I help with what's running underneath so that you can get to the next level or you can, you know, clear out that stuff that's stopping you from your success.

00:30:11:14 - 00:30:34:11
Peter Reynolds
And on that theme of of next level. So for the entrepreneur who's listening, whether they're a young person who is, you know, in a corporate job and looking to make that leap, or maybe it's someone whose children are all grown up and they're looking for that next step in their lives. What's a piece of advice, something actionable that they can do right now.

00:30:36:00 - 00:31:07:22
Jennifer Kendall 
Something that they can do right now is go interview people. I honestly I wish I had done more of that. I wish I had known where my roadblocks were going to be before I got there. I think if I had known that I was going to you know, people talk about your inner critic. If whatever it is for you, if I had known that becoming entrepreneur was going to amplify that, that voice in my head, the voice that isn't always so nice to us, I would have been prepared for it.

00:31:08:07 - 00:31:31:15
Jennifer Kendall 
But I wasn't prepared for it. So take that advice of finding a especially a woman entrepreneur networking group and connecting with people who you resonate with and ask them what it's been like, what do they recommend? What do they suggest? Where do they think their next steps are? Women love to share.. We love to share. Reach out to them.

00:31:31:15 - 00:31:37:21
Jennifer Kendall 
Let them share with you and find out what you're going to face because that sets you up for success.

00:31:38:23 - 00:31:40:28
Damon Adachi
And where is the website that people can find you.

00:31:41:29 - 00:31:43:20
Jennifer Kendall 
AcuityPath.ca

00:31:45:09 - 00:32:09:08
Peter Reynolds
Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for sharing your time and your insight with us today. I definitely learned a lot and I think our listeners are going to take a lot away with from this conversation. We've been speaking with Jennifer Kendall, who is the CFO of Discovernet, as well as the owner of Acuity Path, as well as Damon Adachi, who is a marketing consultant with Sevenfold Marketing.

00:32:09:17 - 00:32:13:04
Peter Reynolds
I'm Peter Reynolds, and thank you for listening to Pros and Conversations.