Despite her success, Jessica Cerato still struggles with self-doubt. After spending 15 years in corporate HR roles, including time on Wall Street, Jessica took a leap of faith and pursued her passion for numerology, a field that delves into the hidden meaning behind numbers. However, her journey certainly wasn’t without struggle, and Jessica finds herself grappling with imposter syndrome, especially when it comes to connecting with corporate-minded individuals. To help Jessica take on these challenges, we welcome back Erin Schnarr, President of the pay equity solutions company CompenSage. Erin's own entrepreneurial journey is filled with moments of doubt and imposter syndrome, making her the ideal mentor for Jessica. Together, they dive deep into strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome, embracing their identities as entrepreneurs, and learning the importance of trusting one's instincts instead of simply referring to hard data.
Despite her success, Jessica Cerato still struggles with self-doubt. After spending 15 years in corporate HR roles, including time on Wall Street, Jessica took a leap of faith and pursued her passion for numerology, a field that delves into the hidden meaning behind numbers. However, her journey certainly wasn’t without struggle, and Jessica finds herself grappling with imposter syndrome, especially when it comes to connecting with corporate-minded individuals.
To help Jessica take on these challenges, we welcome back Erin Schnarr, President of the pay equity solutions company CompenSage. Erin's own entrepreneurial journey is filled with moments of doubt and imposter syndrome, making her the ideal mentor for Jessica. Together, they dive deep into strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome, embracing their identities as entrepreneurs, and learning the importance of trusting one's instincts instead of simply referring to hard data.
Learn more about CompenSage and Jessica's numerology practice.
In this episode, we cover:
Quote of the Week:
"The difference between 'risk' and 'reckless'...is knowing when to walk away from the slot machine." - Jessica Cerato
Hosted by Katherin Vasilopoulos. Made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee.
Music by © Chris Zabriskie, published by You've Been a Wonderful Laugh Track (ASCAP).
Songs used in this episode include: "Air Hockey Saloon," "What Does Anybody Know About Anything," "The 49th Street Galleria," "Is That You or Are You You," "Cylinder 9"
Used under the Creative Commons 4.0 International License
[00:00:00] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Hi, I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos. Starting my own venture wasn't easy.
After a decade working in the corporate world, I realized that so many things were out of my control, like layoffs and changes in direction. I didn't like the instability. I didn't want that to define my whole career at professional story, and so I left. I started my own company and achieved more than I ever imagined.
Now I'm on a mission to share stories from extraordinary entrepreneurs who are changing the world and who never gave up on their vision.
Before we hop into the episode, we'd like to highlight another podcast that we're loving at the moment. World Gone Good shares unique stories from a wide range of incredible guests dedicated to making the world a better place. Sound familiar? If you're a fan of And So, She Left, you'll find a lot to love about World Gone Good.
Every Wednesday, Steve Silverman and his team bring an amazing story to the table with great humor and undeniable positivity. Here's just a taste of what they have to offer.
[00:01:09] Steve Silverman: Hey there, I'm Steve Silverman and you're about to enter a World Gone Good. So here's what happened. I thought to myself, like many of us do, Hey, maybe I'll start a podcast, and in this very moment right now, what would I want my podcast to be about?
The answer was simple. The good. I wanna hear about the good in the world from family.
[00:01:32] Trailer Guest 1: So everybody could bake in my family but me. I was the one where they'd be like, Aw, she pretty though.
[00:01:39] Steve Silverman: To friends.
[00:01:40] Trailer Guest 2: I think that's the true nature of friendship is you'd be willing to throw yourself in front of a bullet for another person.
[00:01:45] Steve Silverman: From relationships.
[00:01:47] Trailer Guest 3: I mean, it's my second marriage. I finally figured out you gotta marry a nice Jewish guy.
[00:01:51] Steve Silverman: To strangers doing really good things.
[00:01:53] Trailer Guest 4: I know a lot of good can come from a bad situation and it's so easy to be negative. I don't wanna cry.
[00:02:03] Steve Silverman: So if you're ready to get your good on, let's go start a World Gone Good.
[00:02:08] Katherin Vasilopoulos: New episodes of World Gone Good release every Wednesday. You can find them wherever you listen or on worldgonegoodpodcast.com. So show some love to Steve and the rest of the team at World Gone Good. Thanks, and enjoy the episode.
And So, She Left is really about the emotional journeys of women entrepreneurs.
By listening to these journeys, we often discover new things about ourselves, who we are, what we really want, and what we need to do to get to the next level in our professional lives.
Jessica Cerato is ready to take that next step. After 15 years in corporate HR positions, including time spent on Wall Street, she left her old life behind to start her solo practice as a numerologist, a specialist who analyzes numbers and offers insights into the hidden meaning behind them. It's an emerging field, and Jessica's work heavily relies on her instincts and intuition.
Connecting with more corporate minded people hasn't always been easy for Jessica, and working in such a unique profession has caused her to become hesitant when networking. Even though her practice is flourishing, she still regularly grapples with self-doubt and imposter syndrome. Joining us again this week is Erin Schnarr, president of the pay equity solutions company CompenSage. Erin's entrepreneurial story is filled with moments of hesitancy, imposter syndrome, and doubt. She's the perfect expert to help jessica navigate the issues she's facing today. Together they go into greater depth on addressing imposter syndrome, learning to embrace their sensibilities as entrepreneurs, and why trusting your instincts is just as important as validating your approach through hard data.
Erin, welcome and Jessica, welcome to the show. First, what I'd like to do is invite Erin to remind us or introduce yourself a little bit to the audience.
[00:04:13] Erin Schnarr: Yes, sure, it's really great to be here. I've got over 25 years of corporate experience. It was quite a haphazard career in that I fell into it. Rather than looking at the entrepreneurial spirit that I always had and I knew I had, and I kept kind of neglecting it and kind of trying to fulfill it through other means within the corporate career.
I really had some rude awakenings cuz I thought I had some sort of loyalty to the corporations I worked for. I treated them like my own business, and that was one of my outlets. So it was very unfulfilling. Every time I got to something, like I said last, in the last session, it was, it was like having a chocolate bar.
It was a quick fix. It was very delicious in the moment whenever you got a raise or you got a promotion or some opportunity came up, but it never actually fulfilled that underlying desire of being an entrepreneur and kind of owning your own thing, your own business, um, until I actually dove into that last year.
[00:05:16] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Jessica, can you tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurial story so far, and what made you decide to shift from corporate to what you're currently doing, and tell us a bit about what that is and why are you doing it?
[00:05:29] Jessica Cerato: Well, I laugh, Erin, because when you just said you were loyal to, or you treated the corporations as your own, I just had a light bulb moment and this is why I lasted two months on Wall Street. So I actually started my career in finance and I worked at a brokerage right out of university. And when you just said that, I was like, yes, because I traded people's money like it was my own. So when the trade didn't go so well, it was like I had lost that money and I knew at that time I couldn't be as aggressive, um, as I wanted to in my trading because of that reason.
When I decided that that was not for me, I thought I just needed a bit of a break. And so I decided to go work on a cruise ship, and I wanted to work there for a season. And seven years later I was still there. Why? Because I loved connecting with people. I loved the different cultures and the places that I was seeing.
And when I came back to land, I still had that business aspect, right? But I wanted it to be more about the people. And so I went into human resources. It was in the tourism industry, and I was there for 15 years. In 2020, I started to get the sense of there was not one defining moment, like my story, I even laugh, this is where I feel a little bit of an imposter. You wouldn't wanna make a movie about my life. There wasn't anything huge that happened in my corporate career that made me want to leave. It was fine. I don't know if you ever like, how you doing? Fine, I'm fine. Like it was fine. And I really wrestled with, oh my gosh, am I gonna give up something good for the potential of great?
So I wrestled with that, um, for a bit, and I, at that moment decided to pursue my passion, you know, off the side of my desk. And that is numerology. That is what I do today. I'm a numerologist, I'm an energy strategist. I'm an intuitive healer. About two years after doing both simultaneously, I said, you know what?
I am willing to give up good for the potential of great, and I did that. So March 27th, 2022, I left corporate and I've been pursuing my business.
[00:07:34] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And I find your story is gutsy, you started thinking about it at a time where a lot of people were losing their jobs. It was right at the beginning of the pandemic.
And as we know, many people start something as a side gig, and then when they feel confident or comfortable, then they're able to maybe take a sidestep out of their corporate life and then make that jump. So this whole thing of don't be afraid to let go of the good to go for the great is one of the actual sayings that I had on a piece of paper when I did that jump. So let me ask you now, Jessica, you, you got to know Erin's story a little bit by listening to the podcast and what is it exactly that you are looking to find out today?
[00:08:17] Jessica Cerato: Yeah, I mean, I would love to hear more about building connections outside of a corporation where kinda, you spoke a little bit about, you know, in corporate, everyone, you have this strategy, you have this agenda, and you feel that everyone is working towards this, right?
It is very much of a team and you don't need to be an expert in everything because there is someone. In my case, quite literally in the office next to me, who I could just pop my head around and be like, Hey, how do you wanna market this? Or, I have this idea and now I'm in my house and I'm by myself and I still have these amazing ideas, but like there's no one there.
So how did you really intentionally build that, and how does it feel for you now? I guess.
[00:09:07] Erin Schnarr: One was through finding associations like PARO, which is an Ontario organization for women and entrepreneurs. That allowed me to get introduced to groups of women. We didn't necessarily have the same industry experience or the same intention of where we were going with our businesses.
In fact, some didn't even have ideas of what they wanted to do. They just knew they wanted to be an entrepreneur. But that was a really nice introduction. Because I was the same as you. I was sitting at my dining room table. I felt like I had sent something and it was just a black hole cuz I didn't know where I was supposed to be talking or who, who would actually hear me.
The associations that you find in your regional areas tend to be very supportive and welcoming. And I, that was a really good first step. After that, um, I used my network. I actually reached out to a former coworker that I knew he had gone into a smaller company. He introduced me to a woman that had, was leading the company that he was working in, and she was a great resource.
So she was able to kind of give me a sense of what events to go to, introduce me to people that were maybe ahead of me and where I'd be looking like a venture capital contact or something like that. But at least she gave me the ideas of where I kind of am trying to go with my business. Also, I, uh, LinkedIn was great cause I had the network and there's uh, actually quite a few women that left corporate. For, um, an entrepreneurial experience.
It wasn't until I started actually looking at where people were and seeing what they were doing. I was like, Hey, that's a small business and, and you're the president of it, and setting up lunches and talking to more of them and they just share these different insights, different perspectives.
We all have different experiences, but they all kind of helped me kind of build that conversation and feel a little bit more settled with myself that I am doing the right thing. People are kind of guiding you. You weren't alone. You don't have them next necessarily next door to you in an office, but you do have them a text away or a phone call away or a coffee away.
Once you start getting into those networks and getting just initial contacts. The evolution and the explosion of the network just built exponentially. And it really did help me feel like, oh, I am doing this. And I actually, you know, when I write something, it doesn't just stay on my computer, it's an idea.
And I can actually verbalize it to somebody who's listening.
[00:11:48] Jessica Cerato: That's beautiful.
And I think part of it is I question myself of when I go on LinkedIn, I meet my numerologists in other places. Uh, bringing business and energy healing together is a unique mix. Right? But I actually think it's like kind of like this peanut butter and chocolate, like who thought to bring that together in the beginning, but like, thank goodness they did.
Right? But what you just said actually inspired me to say, Hey listen, like I might feel a bit awkward on LinkedIn because for 15 years I was on LinkedIn as a human resources director. Right? But now, is this energy healing business as good as a typical HR consulting business, which would've been the more safe or natural route for me.
But when I even say that out loud, I'm like, oh man. I think that reminds me maybe the openness of people here. I am looking for similar people in similar industries and I can't find them because. Scary as this sounds. Maybe I'm one of the first, but maybe to find other entrepreneurs or other women who don't have the same type of business that I have, but who share perhaps the same energy or the same passion for their business.
[00:13:07] Erin Schnarr: And it's interesting that you say that you're kind of atypical because I felt like that as well, because I was in tech and in media, and then suddenly to go to HR, I was like, who am I to be an expert? I kinda had to ramp up and kind of feel like I legitimize myself being in this industry. So you do feel a little bit atypical.
And whenever I say pay equity in it, to most people, they glaze over. You know what it is, cuz you're in HR, but most people kind of glaze over and they're like, what are you talking about and why you're so passionate about it? And always having the challenge of trying to explain to them what they do as well with my product, not just pay equity.
So it is, it's interesting, you'll, you'll find people that are in similar situations with you, but different industries or different positions. It won't necessarily be a like to like.
[00:13:56] Jessica Cerato: I'm just laughing because of just your example with pay equity.
[00:13:59] Erin Schnarr: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:00] Jessica Cerato: I can use the same for numbers.
[00:14:01] Erin Schnarr: Hmm.
[00:14:02] Jessica Cerato: People are like numerology, what's that? I'm like, do you notice the numbers on the clock? Do you see your receipts? You're utilizing the energy of numbers, you just don't know it yet in this way. Yeah. So it's just maybe more about educating more just in your sense, like you educate more about what pay equity is and what it's important.
And I'm here to educate people on what numerology is.
[00:14:22] Erin Schnarr: And even your energy work. Um, you may not find a lot of people on LinkedIn who are corporate skewed, but you may find people who know people. For example, I know several people that do energy work, so I could introduce you to some people that have done it.
Once you start talking and opening up about it, you'll be surprised that the number of people that will go, Hey, I, I know somebody that does that.
[00:14:46] Jessica Cerato: Some clients that I have now were former contacts that I has in my corporate life, and I just always remember when I would share the reasons why I was leaving or what I was leaving to pursue.
I did maybe get the glazed overlook, but then the pleasant surprise now where I just laugh at, I just. So much joy. He's probably listening of this one person who I never expected to come back into my world a year later. I think that's an also important lesson of you never know what impact you have, and it might not be so linear, it might not be in the moment.
Um, it might be. A year later, two years later, and you might never know, right? But that shouldn't stop you from sharing openly about what you do and why it's so important.
[00:15:30] Erin Schnarr: Well, and I think the beautiful thing about your business is that it's applicable to everybody. Everybody can use that numerology, energy, work, all of that.
So you have like your whole LinkedIn network, everybody around you is a potential customer, which is beautiful.
[00:15:46] Jessica Cerato: Well, you've just inspired me to post on LinkedIn for the first time. I wanna say ever. Cause even with the different resources, I rarely posted there either.
So That's funny. Yeah.
[00:16:05] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I have a question for Jessica because I wanna go back a second to what you said earlier, which was really intriguing. You said, I'm maybe one of the first people doing this, I'm carving the way. So when that's part of your entrepreneurial journey, meaning not many other people out there have done it, what kind of doubts do you have?
[00:16:25] Jessica Cerato: Is this like how I should be spending my time, right? Like, will this even work? Like I'm gonna get emotional, like, ugh. Like spending all this time and getting to the end and being like, it didn't, didn't work, but the faith that it will is what keeps me going. Right? But Erin, I really like resonated with you and I laugh. I, I know Katherin and Ethan are used to me like, I run emotions very quickly and so it will subside. There you go. But Erin, when you talked yesterday too about like, I know you have young children and so do I. When that 2020 hit, which was so tough for everybody, I was not on the receiving end of it, but in my role of human resources, I had to sit across the table from hundreds of people and do the layoffs and do the terminations.
And every time I did, I thought, wow. This security and stability that we all thought we have is a facade. And so how can I create more safety and security within me, regardless of the external factors? And so I think to answer that second question, Katherin, is like, I wonder, like, can I do that for myself?
Can I actually be the one to create the structure of my business, to create the process of my business? I didn't think about really this before, but maybe that's part of the pressure I put on myself of listen, like I want more people to follow their passion. I want more people to give up fine. Like I want more people to do the thing they want to do.
And so I feel a responsibility a bit to pave the way for that.
[00:18:02] Katherin Vasilopoulos: It's a perceived security when you're in corporate, and Erin's said the exact same thing last week that it's a mirage. It's almost a fallacy. We think we are secure, and in many cases we are, but you never know when the next layoff is gonna happen.
You don't know when you're gonna be restructured. You don't know, and that's your one client. You're one source of income. And then when you realize that when you're in business for yourself, you have multiple strings of income. And if one drops, you have a whole bunch of them still there. Hopefully.
[00:18:34] Erin Schnarr: No, I totally, I totally agree.
For me, as strange as it sounds, going to be an entrepreneur has been more settling because I have an active role in it and the effort I put into it. I'm actually gonna be able to get back in a corporate environment. All the effort you put into it. Well, it doesn't matter if the business use unit isn't profitable, the corporation's gonna cut it or they're gonna go in a different direction.
Or even if the company is really profitable, it could be acquired. And merge with another company. So there's no guarantee, and I think that that's what was really unsettling and really unfulfilling for me, was that in the corporate world, it didn't matter as much as I perceived it to be my own business and every I was putting in all my effort, I was still an employee number.
And I was still at risk of whatever the strategic initiative or whichever way they decided to go or what CEO came in, I was gonna be at the mercy of that. So I wasn't in control. And I think that's so much more gratifying and confidence building, is that what I put in and what I do with this company, I'm gonna see the end result and I'm gonna dictate what happens to me.
And that's just so much more empowering at the end of the day.
[00:19:55] Katherin Vasilopoulos: With every new client you have validation that you're doing something right.
[00:19:59] Erin Schnarr: Yeah.
[00:20:00] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And with every return client, there's even more validation I find.
[00:20:03] Erin Schnarr: Oh yeah.
[00:20:04] Katherin Vasilopoulos: I wanna hear about your challenges though, like what's currently on your plate or on your mind, and maybe Jessica, you can describe it and Erin, you can maybe offer some solution.
[00:20:14] Jessica Cerato: I think this goes to. I am a thousand percent confident in my abilities as a numerologist and an energy strategist. I have no doubt that this is what I'm meant to do. I struggle with identifying with an entrepreneur or a business owner because I did not say I want to build a business. I was like, I love numerology.
I love the work so much that I spend so much time with clients. And in the work, I have achieved a baseline in my business, which I love and I'm so grateful for. And I want to expand. I wanna scale to the next level, but I know right now at this moment, my capacity to scale is not there. So I guess my question is, or my challeng is, how do you build that capacity to scale? How does a person who has a service-based business, and I am the service, how do I really fulfill my mission of bringing numbers mainstream? Making sure everyone on the planet knows about numerology, um, but still stay true to doing the thing that I do, that I love every day, which is working one-on-one clients and seeing that transformation that they have.
[00:21:31] Erin Schnarr: For me, I guess, um, one thing that I noticed with speaking to other entrepreneurs, they really do organize and respect their week and their time.
Sometimes they'll say, oh, Mondays are when I work on the business, not for the business. So I'm not that organized. I tend to jump around a little bit more, but I do tend to look ahead at a day and go, okay, no, I need to work on that document or, and dedicate specific chunks of time within my week. It's just like parenting.
You can love your kids and play with 'em all the time, but you know you have to feed them well. You know, you have to give them education, you know, you have to get them to go outside and play and off their devices. You do have to do that care for the business as well, cuz it is like a child. The other thing is that whenever you're saying about, you know, how do you scale it?
I'm from technology and I'll always tell you go, go tech. Go tech. Um, but I would say like, there's several avenues for you to scale your business because you can always leave the premium service as that one-on-one. And really charge the highest prices for that and really book in those clients and really dedicate and protect that time with those clients that you're working on.
But then at the same time, when you don't have clients, produce content, get that out there. So people who build awareness for you. It's marketing, but it's also, you could have downloadable papers or some sort of digital sharing of information about numerology that may be paid service at some level, like a subscription service.
You can always, uh, make an app of some sort where it's a generic information that people can engage with, and then you build them up from there if they want custom time with you, and that's where you'd explore it during your nurturing time of your business is what can technology do for me? Because technology's in every industry.
So it can definitely, there's opportunities there for you in your industry as well.
[00:23:33] Jessica Cerato: I love that.
Whenever there's resistance in my body, I know it's actually the thing I need to do, which is so annoying. As soon as you started that, I was like, she's gonna say technology, and I'm like, I knew it. Yeah, but that's actually an interesting part about being a solo business owner and entrepreneur is, I was spoiled in corporate. 24/7 IT support. I think even from this conversation, I'm realizing, well, I don't have to do that on my own. You know, there are contractors or there are other people that I can trust to help me do this. You get to the 10 K months.
The scaling, like the technology has-
[00:24:10] Erin Schnarr: It has to kick in.
[00:24:10] Jessica Cerato: It has to be there.
[00:24:11] Erin Schnarr: And it can also be content marketing. It can be lots of things. It doesn't have to be necessarily that you build a platform, but just leveraging technology, leveraging social media, getting your brand out there so that you can build it, you get followers, things like that.
[00:24:34] Katherin Vasilopoulos: You were saying that you can always go back to corporate. So that's a bit comforting in that we can try different things. They're all learnings, they're not failures. And if we find that the profit isn't there, we can go back. So corporate is not this evil thing that we're all saying, you need to leave. It's not, it's not good for anybody.
Of course it's good for a lot of people.
[00:24:54] Erin Schnarr: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:55] Katherin Vasilopoulos: And I do wanna ask Jessica to maybe go back and tell us a little bit about a great moment in corporate.
[00:25:02] Jessica Cerato: For the record, like, I just wanna reiterate this point. I loved my job, it was good. I liked corporate. I, again, I didn't have this sense. I need to leave corporate because. You don't need to not like it to know it's time to leave.
Looking back. I'll tell you a quick story about the first time I used numerology in my business, but I didn't know it. So I was on the subway in New York City and I was headed to very early because I was on the trading floor, the commodity floor, and I was trading coffee. And I was in the subway and I saw an advertisement for a specific coffee company, and I got off the subway platform, the same coffee was there.
I got to my desk and I was like, I don't know why, I'm gonna trade that. I gotta trade it. I gotta trade it. And the next morning I, I was so scared. I mean, I was 21 and I got yanked into my boss's office. He said, sit down. He's like, did you seriously make that trade yesterday? And I said yes, and I'm really sorry.
I went to say I had, I thought I had lost all this money, and he opened it up and he said, 2.4 million dollars. How the heck? Because I was the only one that traded in that direction. Everyone else traded the opposite. And I couldn't, at that moment, I did not have the guts to say, Well, I was in the subway and I saw this, right?
So I went back to my desk and I spent the rest of the day reverse engineering data. But this is, I mean, I think this also is a broader message, and Erin, like, I'm curious if you've ever had that where you just know something in your business.
[00:26:45] Erin Schnarr: Yeah.
[00:26:46] Jessica Cerato: And you just don't know why you can't prove it, but yet you still do it anyway, and I'm curious if you have a story to tell where you knew it. You had no idea why, but you did it anyway. You trusted yourself.
[00:26:59] Erin Schnarr: I remember once, this is the, the early digital days, and there's this client, I was running a lifestyle channel for a corporation and there's this one client. I was like, I want that client.
I, and I wasn't a salesperson and I had no contact. I had no reason to pursue them. But I, I'd asked around, I found somebody that knew somebody there, not in the right contact, but I went and had lunch with them and I told them what I wanted to do. And in these days, large corporations were not even really playing in digital in a big way.
So I was like, Well, this is what I wanna do and I think you need to do this. So they said, okay, we'll pass it along. And so I went back to my job and a couple of months later, somebody called from that company and I was like, okay, let's do this. So I put together a plan. I put together the pricing. I dragged a sales rep with me to the meeting.
I presented it, and we get into the cab as we're pulling away, and she's like, Do you really think they're gonna buy this? And I'm like, No. Yeah, they're gonna buy it. I was just confident. I had no reason. They had never advertised online before. I had priced it quite well. Um, it was a, I guess, six figure purchase, which was a lot at the time.
They didn't even have a digital agency at the time, and sure enough, they bought it. Like there was no reason that anybody should have believed me. There's no reason. I just fixated on them and I knew that they were gonna do it, and I knew that they had to do it, and I was gonna build it for them, and they were gonna do it.
There's no way I could reverse engineer that in logic. It was just that timing. Like we talked about last week, it's luck. It's preparedness, meeting, um, opportunity. It's following that gut instinct or the numerology. And I'm intrigued by numerology. I think that, um, it definitely has a bearing in life and overlooked so often.
[00:29:03] Jessica Cerato: I think for me it actually bridges like you have learned to trust your intuition. You have learned to trust your gut, and I think people want to. But sometimes they just need the middle something. The bridge, the science and the math.
[00:29:18] Erin Schnarr: Yeah.
[00:29:18] Jessica Cerato: To get there. But eventually, I mean, I know this isn't a great business thing to say, but my goal with my clients is to work with them so that they do not need me anymore.
I am just a conduit in the beginning. Right? But then through our work together, my goal for them is to trust their intuition, maybe without all of this underlying context. And so I will work until I work myself out of a job for that. But that is like, that's the beautiful thing, right? It can be kind of this middle ground or a way to help people bridge that.
Um, until they can get to this point where I love this, like you trust, I feel this from you. You trust your gut implicitly. The only way to trust your decisions is to make decisions.
[00:30:04] Erin Schnarr: I think a lot of people in the corporate world also do tap into that, but they don't like to talk about it openly.
[00:30:10] Jessica Cerato: Agreed.
[00:30:10] Erin Schnarr: I think that's-
[00:30:11] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Do people associate, um, intuition or gut, your gut reaction or your gut feeling to higher risk taking, and maybe that's why people don't necessarily wanna use that as a business tool, because there is no scientific explanation sometimes.
[00:30:26] Erin Schnarr: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:27] Katherin Vasilopoulos: It's just a ethereal or energy around you.
[00:30:31] Jessica Cerato: Woo woo?
[00:30:31] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yeah.
[00:30:31] Jessica Cerato: Woo woo. That's what everyone always said.
Exactly. Yeah.
[00:30:33] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Exactly. But at the same time, making calculated decisions to make sure that everything makes sense, and you don't wanna invest all your money in the wrong thing and go, well, that's my gut telling me to do that.
It's the difference between risk,
[00:30:44] Jessica Cerato: it's the difference between risk and reckless.
[00:30:46] Erin Schnarr: Yeah.
[00:30:47] Jessica Cerato: Right?
[00:30:47] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Mm.
[00:30:48] Jessica Cerato: It's the knowing when to walk away from the slot machine.
[00:30:50] Erin Schnarr: Yeah.
[00:30:50] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Oh, that's well said.
[00:30:51] Jessica Cerato: I always think of this like, you can put like 999 pennies and then you walk away and one person comes and puts one, [click], jackpot.
[00:30:59] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yes.
[00:30:59] Jessica Cerato: But also, Do you wanna be there years later now putting the thousandth penny in there?
No, there is that discernment about the risk versus reckless.
[00:31:09] Erin Schnarr: And I think like how you reversed engineered things. It's responsible way of doing it. It's amazing how things, whenever you have a gut instinct and you do reverse engineer it and see how the numbers flow out of it, they tend to come together very easily.
Speaking of numbers. Sometimes I'll think, um, oh, you know, this isn't what I think something is of value, right? Be it, I dunno, advertising campaign or whatever. I'll just kind of think to myself, I think this is about the number that I think it should come out to. And sure enough, whenever it comes all the way down to reverse engineering at all, it ends up being the number.
And it's like, well, I, I don't know how that happens because I, I couldn't have done all those calculations instantaneously, but I just followed my gut. And that validation of seeing the numbers all flow out of it and kind of confirm, you kind of come into the same ballpark or it land on the same number.
It's just like, ok. And you'd start to get confidence after you do that a few times and you're like, no, it is gonna work out because my gut instinct is good.
[00:32:15] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Do you think sometimes you have to start thinking differently about things as a business owner? Because you come into it with one mindset and maybe sometimes you have to give yourself permission to say, I need to start thinking differently.
Something new has emerged and I need to reassess to make better decisions. Have you reached that point yet, like Jessica or Erin?
[00:32:38] Erin Schnarr: Usually whenever I want to, it's my doubt creeping in and it's that imposter syndrome, all that stuff that, that messy stuff. Then I have to actually stop and reassess. Why are you doing this?
Right? So you start having to question your questions and then you kinda, wait a minute, no, I, this is a good business. This is the right path and it does make sense. And talk yourself off the ledge when I think I need to reassess or question. It's actually more an insecurity than it is. A flag, per se.
[00:33:08] Jessica Cerato: And I have to encourage myself, I think, to change more because in corporate, we're so used to the longevity being rewarded. 20 year length of service, 25 year length of service, right?
And of course, being the person who administered these programs, this is embedded in me. Um, but right now I actually use my kids as inspiration because, uh, I asked them yesterday what their favorite color is, and then I asked them today, and it's different. And they're like, well, I changed my mind. I'm like, yes, you did, and I don't judge you for that.
So why do I have this sense of, oh my goodness, if I change my mind about this, am I going to be perceived as not dedicated to my business or be perceived as flaky, or be perceived as wishy-washy? I have a very clear sense of, I mean, it's in my numerology chart, but I need to experience it for sure. I never regret things that I do. I regret things that I don't do.
And so knowing that about myself, I know that I'm gonna have to change many times because right when I do something, I'm like, oh, no, but if I didn't do it, I, I wouldn't have gotten that feeling. And it's hard to change our mind, right? Because when we change our mind, what we're saying subconsciously to ourselves is how I thought before was wrong.
[00:34:29] Katherin Vasilopoulos: You're also saying that it, it takes a, a level of personal humility to admit that you were wrong or that you didn't know better up until a certain moment, and then an experience happens to you and then you're like, ah, now I know better and I can do better. That classic say,
[00:34:46] Jessica Cerato: Yeah, that Maya Angelou quote. Yeah.
[00:34:47] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Yes, yes. And you know, you have to be humble in business too, because you can't just be always thinking that you're right, cuz some element will show up to prove you wrong and things keep evolving in business. If you stayed where you were 10 years ago, you wouldn't be achieving what you're achieving today.
Let me ask Erin, if you have any final suggestions or advice for Jessica now that you got to know each other a little bit and you've seen what the journey brought so far.
[00:35:17] Erin Schnarr: Keep talking to people, keep networking, keep sharing your story because those are the, where the opportunities where people will give you new insight.
People will affirm that you're in the right direction, confirm that you're doing the right thing, and even just having the opportunity to verbalize it yourself. You're putting it out there. I mean, you talk about energy work and that you kind of make it happen by the more you talk about it. I think that in entrepreneurship you can get really isolated really fast.
And so really, um, recognize the importance of community, of talking to people, taking every opportunity. Uh, sometimes I go out for coffee and I'm like, I don't even know what we're gonna talk about if there's any connect here with this person, but you never know what path that's gonna take me down. I get excited and I put as much energy into it as somebody that I know, oh, we're perfectly aligned.
In fact, it's usually the other way around. I see more opportunities come outta the ones that I don't expect there to be much of a fit. So yeah, I just say embrace that and talk to people. Connect, share your story as much as you can, and I think it'll make the business solidify even more for you.
[00:36:36] Jessica Cerato: Thank you. I feel that. Right? And it's always the, the simplest things that we kind of forget.
[00:36:44] Erin Schnarr: Yeah.
[00:36:44] Jessica Cerato: It's like, yeah. It is the connection and also what it is a lot of the times we enjoy, like you just said, Erin, like there was this connection.
[00:36:52] Erin Schnarr: Yeah.
[00:36:52] Jessica Cerato: I didn't spew all these facts or give you all the science or math, which actually is so much easier to me than actually like talking like a human.
Again, this goes back to the very beginning of the conversation. Why? Because we attach ourselves so much. To what it is we do.
[00:37:24] Katherin Vasilopoulos: Many thanks to Erin and Jessica. You can learn more about compensate and Jessica's numerology practice in the episode description. If you like the show, let us know. We'd love to hear what you enjoyed in a review, no matter what platform you use to listen. And So, She Left is made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee.
We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode. Our music is by Chris Zabriskie, edited for your enjoyment. You can find a list of all the songs you heard here in the episode notes. I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos, and thanks for listening.