Episode 73: Empath Entrepreneurs: Creating Success Habits and Boundaries
Success Habits & Boundaries for Empath Entrepreneurs
Learning to create success habits and boundaries as an empath entrepreneur can be challenging.
In this episode, discover practical strategies for self-care, mindset, and setting clear boundaries to protect your energy and maximize your productivity.
“Belonging: Overcome You Inner Critic and Reclaim Your Joy” by Catherine Wood
Connect with Catherine:
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Collab with Kiva.
See you next time!
Are you ready to take massive action in your business and harness the power of data in your decision-making? Let’s chat 👇🏽
Podcast Transcript:
Kiva Slade 0:01
Welcome to Collab with Kiva, where we let our inner nerd geek out on all the non sexy parts of your business. I'm talking data and operations. Neither as flashy or glamorous, but both are foundational to your business growth. I'm your host, Kiva Slade, your strategy and analytics guide here to break down what feels complicated, so it is understandable and executional. Let's dive in. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Collab with Kiva. I am excited today to welcome a friend and colleague to the show. Her name is Catherine Wood. Catherine is the Founder and Head Coach of Unbounded Potential, a boutique coaching firm, supporting all aspects of growing a scalable, and impact driven business while prioritizing living a joyfully aligned life for ambitious empaths and sensitive entrepreneurs. I love this already. Her firm coaches entrepreneurs, creatives, and C suite leaders on their performance, leadership, and holistic success through one to one coaching and year long mastermind for empath entrepreneurs. She also hosts the Prosperous Empath Podcast. So welcome to the show today, Catherine.
Catherine Wood 1:27
Thank you so much. I'm so excited for this conversation.
Kiva Slade 1:30
Me too. So let's dive in. And I know that we discussed business boundaries and success habits. I'd love to hear your take on success habits. Let's start there before going into the boundaries. And really, how do entrepreneurs and maybe I might be asking for myself, avoid self sabotaging in my habits for success? I'd love to hear your take on that.
Catherine Wood 1:54
Oh, my gosh, I feel like that could be an entire book. Um, gosh, where do I even start? So I'll start from the beginning. Because I think as entrepreneurs, prioritizing our CEO care, and embracing ritual in life, is a way that we can ground in to who we are taking care of ourselves prioritizing ourselves first, that can then support us and showing up from a more grounded place in business. I think that it can be harder to do in theory. But I think when we start the day prioritizing us, and we gain some muscle memory around the facility, with prioritizing us what's in service of our vision, our mission, it allows us to be more generous, but boundaried throughout the day as we support clients, as we collaborate with colleagues, we can really start from that lens of you know, what's in service of the business. What's in service of me, as a visionary. I work with a lot of empath entrepreneurs who are so practiced and caring, and considering other people that it really takes some muscle memory, some muscle removed, like reforming, to look through the lens of what's in service of us, is in service of everyone else. Communication is so key in supporting our relationships and thriving in expressing feedback and communicating transparently and directly our needs in assuming positive intent and positive regard. Now, those those feel like a lot, so I kind of want to break those down.
Kiva Slade 3:51
Definitely.
Catherine Wood 3:53
So you and I both work with purpose driven entrepreneurs, right? We care so deeply about the missions and visions of our businesses. So naturally, when people have feedback for us, whether it's around the caliber of their experience working with us, whether it's around the languaging we're using, whether it's inclusive or limiting. We can we have a penchant to take that feedback personally because of how much we care. And I always try to remind myself and my clients that if someone is wanting to go out on a limb to give us feedback, it's probably because they care, because they care about our success. They care about our reputation enough to spend their precious time sharing and imparting feedback with us. So I think starting with that premise, see that there's positive regard that this person clearly cares, which is why they're sharing feedback, can first of all allow us to receive it more open heartedly, and from a generous place. But also, I think that there's just a lot of kind of significance and heaviness out there about feedback. People have, you know, bad raps with receiving feedback, if they've worked with a leader who's really poor in communicating feedback, then they already have this kind of lived experience, they may already be on guard and their nervous system defended against hearing feedback. So kind of having a lens on, you know, what's my experience with receiving and sharing feedback? How does it typically go for me so that you are coming into the conversation, aware of your bias, so that you can be responsible for that bias, it's so helpful, it makes such a difference. And then the last thing is, I think anything can be communicated and offered inside of a relationship. And sometimes when we give feedback, or we receive feedback, we do it outside of relationship, right. We might be coming from an angry or confronted or frustrated place. So we're kind of already defensive and on guard. And then when we give or receive feedback from that place, it's clearly not going to go as well as intended or as it could. So I always say, getting connected, getting into relationship, checking in, maybe, you know, articulating any biases that are in this space to kind of clear the air, allows so much more room to not only communicate and receive the feedback more constructively, more effectively, but also without damaging the relationship. There's I think there's the possibility of deepening business relationships through giving and receiving feedback, if we do it in a conscious and responsible way. Wow,
Kiva Slade 7:23
Absolutely love that. I was over here, jotting down notes upon notes. Because I feel that so much of that is like assuming positive intent and assuming positive regard, because of past experiences. And when you touched on how our nervous system like, we don't always realize how interconnected all of that is. And that because of our past experience, like we actually might be developing a defense before anything is even said, because of what we think is about to happen because of what has happened in our past. So assuming that positive intent, assuming that, like you said, the person cares enough with this feedback, like they're going out on a limb, I love that visual for me, I could literally saw like someone out on a limb like, I'm actually willing to go out on the limb and share this. Because oftentimes, people don't have to give us feedback. Like that's the whole other part of it is they don't have to give us feedback. They could just let us go on and everything would be okay. But they are going out on a limb to actually share something with us. And it reminded me recently that a client and I. I've done numerous interviews for her, like just hiring for her team and things. And this last round, I got a little slack in my interviewing, and she caught me on it, but in a very kind and pleasant way. And it was just like, well, I think it was like, at first there was a little "How dare". I am so concerned about all aspects of her business and all the things like there was that other part of me that was like "Wait girl, check yourself" and like actually receive what's been said, you know, evaluate what's been said. And then it was like, once I sat with it, and I did that and it was like, actually, yeah, these two interviews you are way too casual for like what this was and the way you kind of answered this question for the person. I was able to just much more objectively view myself and see where I had lowered the bar and the standard for how I had been conducting myself. And then I was able to just better appreciate, like you said, someone going out on a limb and telling me that because I didn't see it. But I also took away from that that I was tired of doing hiring. And then made a choice for myself, kind of like a boundary moving forward, I want to subcontract that out because I have grown to a point where that process just drains me. And I wanted it over. So I was short circuiting the process to get to my end point, which does not necessarily serve my client. Well. So sorry, yeah, this became Kiva's therapy session.
Catherine Wood 10:26
That's so beautiful Kiva, because I feel like, well, first of all, I just love you sharing that with your audience. I think that willingness to be humble, and transparent is why people work with you, and also why people work with me, because we're not willing to own what there is for us to own and acknowledge, you know, where we could have done or been better. And I think that that's a huge success habit, right. It's like the entrepreneurs who are willing to take ownership for how they contributed positively and negatively to their clients successes, it creates the roadmap for long standing relationships, and most of us who have been in business for a while, prioritize long standing relationships. Yes, most of the people I work with, I've worked with, well, clients and contractors on all both sides, right? My team members, the contractors, I hire my clients, it's just years and years. So having that capacity to just be transparent, to take ownership, when there's something to acknowledge, it creates room for long standing relationships, which I think is success habit number three.
Kiva Slade 11:44
I love that, absolutely love that. And I love that you also shared like you said it's that communication, being willing to share, but also understanding communication is two ways. So we have to be willing, we share to receive. So I appreciate that, so, so so very much. So, I wanted to go a little bit deeper into how do you define an empath? And what does that mean, for the work that you do in the people that are attracted to you?
Catherine Wood 12:16
So, I have a very loose definition of an empath. It is not a clinical one. But I will, I would say that it is without a shadow of a doubt, probably one of my highest values and one of my most clear, clearly defined qualities. And I define an empath as someone who cares deeply about other people, often at the expense of themselves, if they don't have that in check, and someone who can also perceive or sense other people's emotions, and also shining a light of keeping that in check too.
Kiva Slade 12:58
Yeah, thank you for that. I think that many of us, especially I feel service based entrepreneurs, like you can resonate with that, because, as you said, not keeping it in check. The pendulum swings so far in that direction of the care and nurture of the clients business, and all of the things that go with that, tying back to the success habits of really grounding ourselves in what we need. And it's often hard to elevate ourselves, like in a way that we actually do you prioritize what we need and what our business needs. And so I joked with someone the other day, like I've done all this Q2 planning with my clients. What Q2 planning have I done in my own business? And it was like that kind of moment where you shed the light on yourself, and you're like, Okay, Kiva swing the pendulum back the other way. So, as you said, there was balance. So, my next goal is to knock out my own Q2 plan. So, the same things that you wish for and you're striving for and in the work that you do for others, you actually pour that into yourself, which I feel leads into somewhat of around those boundaries. How do we establish them that we do find the time to not only prioritize ourselves but not over prioritize ourselves, if that's a word. Like the pendulum swings too much in the other direction. So,what says Catherine about that?
Catherine Wood 14:50
Well, Ithink we have to start with biases again. Because if we think about the world of business, historically the world of business is a man's world. So, I think being an empath entrepreneur, running an empathic business is often more feminine, more nurturing, more caring, more of the qualities that are often attributed to feminine qualities versus masculine qualities. So, we're essentially redefining the world of business. Redefining the world of business so that it can be a more heart centered and empathic driven model, versus a masculine goal oriented, competitive based model. If you think about all the movies, all the culture, all the books that we read about business, what are we being taught?We're being taught this cutthroat, competitive, highly materialistic world. And so we have to redefine our way of being in business, and who we want to be as entrepreneurs, the values that we want to drive our decision making the business practices that we want to support how we run our business. So, I think you can't talk about being an empath entrepreneur without kind of just naming the turd in the space. It's all starting here.
Kiva Slade 16:36
I love that though. But yeah, like, that's really I think, what we're taught. And do you find that it's challenging to help people with that shift in the redefining? I guess the reason I asked this is, when I came to that boundary for myself around, I don't want to hire anymore, I want someone else to do that, I struggled reaching out to some of my communities to find people who just wanted that piece. Like I don't need kind of all the other parts. I was looking for a piece, like a project based work. And it was a little challenging finding people who wanted to just do that. And I must wonder if, as we redefine that shift, keeping our own encouragement up as we continue that redefining process that when we run into what seemed like obstacles, and it just might be that the ripple effect of our own redefining spreads out to their other communities and people that we interact with. So, in that question, in the challenge of redefining that, what are the challenges? And how do we kind of overcome those?
Catherine Wood 18:02
Yeah, well, I mean, everything to us everything that you said, absolutely. When we don't have mentors and peers who are embracing entrepreneurship in the way that we would like to, it can be more challenging to pave our own way. It's something I deeply believe in that, specifically for empath entrepreneurs, we can thrive much more quickly in community than we can when we're siloed off on our own. It's one of the reasons I love running a mastermind, because when you see other values aligned entrepreneurs, doing what you want to be doing, running their business in the way you want to be running your business, pricing themselves in the way you want to be pricing yourselves, it just becomes a lot more possible for us. We start to believe that if they can do it, then I can do it. And as we start to shift our relationship to possibility, you just become so much more likely and willing to be and do what it takes to fulfill on our visions. So, having communities, having coaches, mentors, who are really embodying the being of business, the ways of business that you're aspiring to create is so crucial. It's so important. So I think that's key.
Kiva Slade 19:33
Yeah, definitely. Because if you can see it in someone else, it does help you in your own definite aspirations as to oh my gosh, Sally did so I can do that too. So, there's that level of it. But I think also just that healthiness that comes from understanding that it is going to be challenging at times, but to keep moving forward in that, and being in that community helps drown out the other. The narrative that has existed is still most likely the most prevalent narrative around business. And we're not partnering up and gotta get what's mine. I always tease them, fill in the blank with whatever sweets you like, but there's enough brownies, cookies, whatever it is for each of us. And it feels like awkward sometimes when I say it, but I really do believe that there's enough clients, for each of us, there's enough everything for all of us, because the people who might want to work with me may not want to work with someone else. And people who want to work with someone else, they may not want to work with me. Like you said, those values alignment, and that's okay. Like, it's okay, when a client says, Oh, I don't really think this is a good fit. It's okay. When you say, I don't really think this is a good fit and like trusting, believing, knowing, hoping that your right fit client is coming. And that relationship will be one, like you said earlier, that's long standing. Because of the mutual alignment that it started with. So, I think that's so critical. And just what we're all building, and what we're doing, but finding that community of people to surround yourself with and having amazing coaches, like Catherine, to help in that community and in that mastermind, so I absolutely love that.
I love what you said, Kiva, around we need to embody the values we believe in, we need to extend the energy that we hold, because values beget values and energy begets energy. So if we're operating inside of a belief system, that there's enough for all of us, then that's the energy that we're attracting to us. Those are the types of relationships that we are nurturing, the types of partnerships we're cultivating. And if we operate from that mindset in terms of abundance versus scarcity, then we're just creating more of what we want, we're creating the possibility for more of what we want, versus reinforcing a fear based story that we are scared of.
Yes, absolutely. And I think also, as we grow, and just from some conversations with colleagues like us, some of us, we come into these spaces, and we feel we need to do all the things. So, if it's marketing, I need to do all the marketing from soup to nuts, you know, if it's operations, I need to handle every aspect of it. But when we really sit with ourselves, we might find you might excelat team management, but not necessarily like some of the other parts. Or marketing you excel at strategy. But you know, when it comes to some of the other nuts and bolts, that's not really your jam. So, finding others who do that thing, who do the thing that you don't necessarily want to do, or it doesn't necessarily light you up. and realizing that the two of you together, can divide and conquer, so much more than it's like you trying to force yourself to either a) do things that you don't really want to do by taking on a full retainer or something like that, or, you know, doing some things that are turning away clients because you don't want to do the a), the b), the c) and the d). So, I felt like that understanding that if we could partner and come together I like a) you like b) such and such, likes c), like d), let's pull all that together. And we're all operating in our strengths and in our gifts, and in still making that impact and still being transformative, but not holding everything to ourselves, even the parts that we don't even really like to do.
Catherine Wood 24:26
I feel like you're speaking to a value that I really embraced when I started in business because I joined BNI. Are you familiar with BNI? So, the mindset of BNI is givers gain which as an empath I'm all about that. But seeing it practice and having 35 entrepreneurs who are committed to contributing first, referring first, being of service first, and just seeing the ripple effects of that and how what you pour into allows you to be poured back into. It continues to impact me nine years later in business. Before we started recording, we were chatting about my wedding and I invited four of my... Absolutely, they've been so foundational to my growth. I think that's what being an empath entrepreneur looks like. It's you keep people with you.
Kiva Slade 25:39
Yeah, I so love that, that they came to your wedding. Oh, that is so beautiful. And like you said, you keep the people with you. It's about long standing relationships and in community, and I think we need more of that in the business world and in life in general. Like we aren't made to go through this alone. So, like having others on the journey with us just makes the journey that much more sweet. So, I absolutely love that. Oh, give me your wedding.
Oh, my goodness, Catherine, I feel like we have touched on all the things and again, to my audience, you guys know I love you. And some days you get therapy with Kiva, me a way of coaching by Catherine. So I really do appreciate, though you sharing. And so as we wind up, I would love to hear if there were, I don't know, three things that you would love for the audience to take with them, what would those three things be?
Catherine Wood 26:48
So the first one is permission to run your business by your own rules, and your own rulebook. When we transition from being a nine to five, we forget that we've been following a job description for much of our career. And now we get to write our own job description and then adhere to it. And that is a huge mindset shift that we get to enjoy and create and redefine, or the rest of our entrepreneurship journey. So that's huge permission, given permission granted. The other thing, and we talked about this before recording as well, but it's the degree to which your business thrives is the degree to which you thrive. So, if you were constantly operating on the cusp of burnout, resentment, bitterness, exhaustion, that says more about you than it says about your business. It says more about who you be in relationship than the people that are in relationship with you. I think that can be a tough pill to swallow.
Kiva Slade 28:04
Yeah, that requires some looking at ourselves and admitting some things that we might have tried to not see in that mirror. So yeah.
Catherine Wood 28:14
And then I'd say the third lesson is about freedom. Because I think most of us who go into business for ourselves, aspire to have more financial freedom, more time freedom, more agency to do things our way. And that freedom is often the first sense that we lose sight of when the nine to five becomes the five to nine. So building our business to support our ideal lifestyle, removing that sense that business has to be an externally driven rat race where we always have to be focused on the next goal, the next client, the next contract the next, the next, when we can start to allow ourselves to have more of the experience of life and relationship and family and health that we want today, we gain more access to fulfillment, we gain more access to personal satisfaction and contentment. We gain more capacity to dismantle the strains of internalized capitalism that we all operate with in our nervous systems. And we gain more access to enjoy the fruits of our efforts and our passions today. And I think everyone benefits from that.
Kiva Slade 29:43
Yes! Oh, I love all three of those. I am so thankful for you today. And for all of you who do not know, Catherine is in addition to being a host of the Prosperous Empath Podcast, which we will link in the show notes, she also has a book. And so Catherine, can you tell us a bit about that as well?
Catherine Wood 30:06
Totally. You know, when I started coaching in 2014, I realized that some people, many people required some of the same lessons and insights and awarenesses along their journeys. So, I wrote Belonging: Overcome Your Inner Critic and Reclaim Your Joy", to allow more people to gain access to some of the personal transformation that is cost prohibitive, time prohibitive, energetically prohibitive. For so many of us, I think it is a great place to start your personal transformation journey. It's very action oriented. It's kind of a short day, a daily lesson with an exercise because if we intellectually understand how we're getting in our own way, and we're not willing to take a different action, we will never create a different outcome.
Kiva Slade 31:00
Now that right, there's the mic drop. We will make sure to also link Catherine's book in the show notes. And I hope that, I know I've taken copious notes over here, and will be taking more as I read listen to this, because as I shared earlier, there was a lot of this that was Workfor Kiva. So I am so grateful for you, Catherine, and for sharing just your wealth of knowledge with the audience, and really just that heart of yours that I can hear in all that you've shared, to really help us be that better version of ourselves as we grow in transform basically, in our own journeys. Like we all have our caterpillar to butterfly moments that are constantly taking place and in our lives. And I just feel like that your work just brings that out of us and brings out that best part of us. So, I am so thankful for what you do in those of us that you serve. So, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you.
Catherine Wood 32:11
This has been so special, it was exactly what I imagined to be.
Kiva Slade 32:18
I'm so excited. So, thank you everyone for tuning into this episode. Make sure you check out the show notes for more links of how to get connected with Catherine. And also to learn more about her mastermind and her coaching. So, if this was something that definitely resonated with you, as we look to redefine and reestablish what we consider to be boundaries and success habits within the world of entrepreneurship. So, thanks again for tuning in. And we'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Collab with Kiva. I'm wildly cheering you on as you go forth and execute data and operational efficiencies in your business. If you need additional support, connect with me via my website, the516collaborative.com. Your reviews on Apple are appreciated. See you next week.
Meet Kiva Slade - the Founder and CEO of The 516 Collaborative. With a unique background in high-power politics on Capitol Hill and sixteen years as a homeschooling mama, Kiva found her calling in the online business world as a trusted guide for entrepreneurs looking to build the business of their dreams.
Kiva's work began behind the scenes, orchestrating the back end of businesses and managing teams. But her inner data diva couldn't help but notice that small businesses needed help harnessing the power of data for growth. So she and her team set out to uncover and tidy up the data required to enable clients to grow their businesses confidently and easily.