Building a Career Through Community, Trust, and Connection with Suzanne Sitrin

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, our guest is Suzanne Sitrin, executive coach, leadership development expert, facilitator, and trusted advisor who helps individuals and organizations unlock greater potential through coaching, self-awareness, and meaningful professional relationships. Drawing on her extensive experience supporting leaders, teams, and emerging professionals, Suzanne shares valuable insights on navigating career transitions, building strong support networks, developing coaching capabilities, and creating sustainable success in an increasingly complex world. We explore the importance of community, mentorship, collaboration, and authentic connection, as well as the role these elements play in overcoming challenges, building resilience, and achieving both personal and professional growth. Whether you're a coach, entrepreneur, executive, or someone looking to elevate your career, this conversation offers practical wisdom and inspiring lessons on the power of relationships and lifelong learning.

You can find her on:
https://www.bluebirchconsulting.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanne-sitrin/
https://www.instagram.com/suzsit0623/

Transcript

Suzanne Sitrin 0:00

I made a big investment in myself three years ago when I launched Bluebirch and I told you I hired a brand strategy firm. That was a big financial commitment. It was a big time commitment. You know, I'm a small business. So making that kind of strategic investment, I had to really think about it. I'm so glad I did it because not only did it help me clarify my brand, my buckets of work, what I'm going after, it also helped me articulate or begin to articulate where I see this going directionally.

Davis Nguyen 0:32

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues, the podcast where we interview business owners on how they built their businesses and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swain, and I'm a business coach and the founder of Purple Circle, where we help business owners achieve their first six-figure, seven-figure, and eight-figure year, all without sacrificing their quality of life. Before becoming a business coach and before founding Purple Circle, I started to scale with several seven and eight-figure coaching businesses and have been at consultant at several businesses doing over $100 million each, including some that are publicly listed and doing over a billion dollars each. In every episode of the podcast, you're going to learn lessons that took our guests years to learn. You'll be able to learn that in minutes. No matter if you're a new business owner or an established business owner, every episode is going to give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro Stein 1:16

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Suzanne Citrin, whose experience spans from broad scale leadership development and strategic planning to direct organizational solutions with particular focus on helping leaders from C-suite to frontline create alignment between strategic objectives and team accountability. Suzanne combines her MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business with extensive certification in assessment tools, including Center for Creative Leadership, Hogan, Leadership Circle, and Disc, plus unique training from second city members in conducting improvisation in the workplace sessions. Suzanne has served as a facilitator within the effective leadership curriculum for the part-time MBA program at University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, teaching conflict management and team effectiveness. Her approach centers in helping leaders at all levels develop emotional intelligence while building team effectiveness through competency model design, performance management, and both individual and team level executive coaching that drives measurable organizational results. Welcome to the show, Suzanne. What an intro.

Speaker 3 2:38

Wow. Thank you for having me. I haven't heard it read out loud in a little while.

Pedro Stein 2:46

Well, Suzanne, you're the one to blame it. I'll put it simply like that. You know, you're the one who created all of that. Okay. Now, um, it's great to have you, you know, from the moment we met. Um, and you know what? I'm kind of a comic book nerd myself. I always open with this because I love the first editions, right? I love the origin story. So let's rewind a bit because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you?

Suzanne Sitrin 3:20

It was when I realized that I wanted a couple of different things. I wanted to be able to blend my passion and education in business with my passion for helping people. I come from a family of therapists, and so I say I'm a therapist with an MBA instead of a PhD or a social work degree. So I really felt a calling, and I was working at a big consulting firm, getting a lot of enjoyment about that, but I knew that that wasn't my path. I wasn't aspiring to become a partner at a large firm. I'd had a child, but I also knew I wanted to get back into the workforce. And so I thought if I could have this opportunity to take the things that are most interesting to me, as well as create something that was my own, this was my time to do it. And so I kind of took that leap. I left a big firm after a couple of years. I took a client with me, and that that's actually a good piece of advice I'd give people. I I would have the opportunity to actually start my firm with a client in hand. And I just kind of went from there.

Pedro Stein 4:30

Okay. It sounds like there was somewhat to an extent a leap of faith, right? And I I love to get a little bit uh into that, okay? From you know, in the coaching space, from I'm helping people to I'm building a real business around this, right? There's revenue, there's invoice, or paying clients, and sometimes it is an identity shift, right? So, oh, I'm a coach now. So, can you walk me through how that leap of faith worked out for you? How did that look like?

Suzanne Sitrin 4:57

It was very nerve-wracking. Um, I have to be honest to say that I was in a fortunate position to be able to take the risk, where some people can't. Um I was it's just I just had a good opportunity to do it. Um, and so I I would have felt worse had I not set myself up before jumping ship by knowing I at least had one client as a starting point. And so I think the fact that I had a lot of support and scaffolding from my family, and I had this client I could take with me, it made the leap feel a little more palatable.

Pedro Stein 5:46

I think that's a very important reminder, you know, and the reason I feel like it, it's because there's also this scarcity mindset, right? That it bills are knocking on the door, and sometimes I see coaches all over the place. They're like, okay, there I don't see a lot of alignment here, but they're pushing through a client or they're closing someone because they don't have that nest egg, they don't have that uh those savings, or even that first client, right? So can you imagine how would that look like for you if you didn't have that?

Suzanne Sitrin 6:16

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, some people would need to start it as you know, that quote unquote side hustle, which may or may not be realistic depending on the work you're doing. I will say the other thing I failed to mention is I started by having a marketing partner who had established a practice three years prior. So I was joining under her umbrella, even though I became my own corporate entity entity. I started an S-Corp. I marketed under her brand, Red Rooster Consulting, that was a better known brand in the marketplace because she had done some of the legwork for the previous three years. So that made me feel a little better too. So for me, it was being with someone who had taken the risk already and started establishing a brand name, having a first client to at least dig my teeth into when I was just starting off and it felt so unfamiliar, and then also having the support on my home front to be able to do this.

Pedro Stein 7:26

Ah, super interesting. Okay. Now I'm curious about one thing, right? So you're stepping up in a business that had already a founder, right? And you're you're managing it right now, and like today, that's the situation. You're the one who's running it, right? I got that right.

Suzanne Sitrin 7:42

Yeah. So just so you know, so from 2003 to 2023, I was always my own corporate entity, but I marketed myself as part of Red Rooster Consulting. So to the outside world, it looked like Rosemary, who is the founder of Red Rooster and I were partners, but we were actually two individual corporate entities. We did some work together, we did some work independently. When I saw that she was going to be potentially pivoting, whatever, I thought my brand needs to be more outward-facing. I need people to know me for my brand and not her brand. And so I made Bluebirch Consulting. I I formed it with an already existing LLC and made my own personal brand more outward facing and separated out a bit more from Red Rooster Consulting. But I've been doing this work for 30 years.

Pedro Stein 8:29

Okay, got it, got it. Interesting. So I'm curious about one thing. When you went your own way, right? And doing your own things the way you want to do it, right? 100% you. Did you eventually change the people you start serving? Like, or were the same people or the same frameworks kind of the same? Or I'm curious about that if you eventually went to a different route.

Suzanne Sitrin 8:52

I would say yes and no. I started my own brand with the same work that I had been doing. So it felt seamless to the clients I was serving. But what I did do is I hired a brand strategy firm so that I could get clarity on where I wanted my brand to go and the messaging I wanted and the buckets of work I wanted to do, I needed more clarity at that stage. So it has evolved, and I'm leaning into the work that I think I'm really good at, and that really suits my passion and my interest. And I've gotten such clarity on that in the last three years.

Pedro Stein 9:38

Okay. So if you had a pinpoint for me and for the audience right now, right? And we kind of browse through it during the introduction, but who do you serve right now?

Suzanne Sitrin 9:49

I serve companies, privately held, publicly traded, you know, Fortune 100 to startups. And I I hate to sound so broad, but that is truly it is broad. And let me let me give you an example. I've partnered with a private equity firm, and whenever they bring a new company into their portfolio, they bring me in actually to assess their leadership team. So we're talking about fast-paced growth companies, but they're, you know, at a certain stage of development where they're still pretty young. So that's a niche of mine. But then I'm also working with major publicly traded companies across industries and doing a lot of executive one-on-one coaching, as well as working with leadership teams, either for one business unit or that span the scope of an organization. So it's situation dependent. Um, and I do not I always say my expertise is in the process and the methodology I do, and that I'm able to really adapt to different industries because I've gotten good at absorbing myself in your business when you engage with me. And I've got a way of getting up to speed very quickly on what the company does.

Pedro Stein 11:06

Okay. Now I want to do a quick exercise with you, if you don't mind. Okay. I want to pretend I'm one of those companies. Okay. I want to pretend I'm your avatar, your ideal client profile, whatever that looks like. I know we can go from startups to uh Fortune 100 companies, okay? So I'm gonna try to pretend I'm I'm a founder. You can we go from there, but let's say first, okay. How would I be able to find you marketing-wise?

Suzanne Sitrin 11:36

So through the traditional marketing channels, I've got a robust website, I've got social media presence through you know, Instagram and LinkedIn primarily. And I feel fortunate that a lot of my business has become from referral and repeat sources, right? So the reason that I'm working with this private equity firm is because the head of portfolio management is the former CEO at a healthcare company that I worked at for years. He and I established such a great relationship that he took me with him to this, you know, PE firm and now introduced me to his whole portfolio of companies. So I feel like the way people find me is actually connecting with others who have solved similar problems to what they're looking to solve. And I feel great about the reputation I've established in the marketplace and how many clients I've been working with for 10 plus years. And then they leave and they go somewhere else and they bring me, they take me with them, they introduce me to colleagues. That's that's a big source of my business.

Pedro Stein 12:47

Okay. Now, same exercise. Okay, I'm still that founder. Let's say I I visited your website, LinkedIn profile, the Instagram, or even I was referred to you. Okay. Um, so what I want you to do right now is like let's speed up a little bit on the sales process, okay? Let's say there's alignment there, okay? Now walk me through the point of view of a client like me in this exercise. How does it look like to work with you? The potential outcomes I can expect out of it. I know you could have different offers, right? For different sizes, sounds like a very customized experience, but you can pick the main one, okay? Okay. Can you do that for us?

Suzanne Sitrin 13:30

Yeah. So one of my passions is helping leadership teams create culture for organizations. So let's say it's that. I'll have a CEO come to me and say, you know, we're growing at a rapid pace or we're about to go through a major change and we need better alignment with our, you know, top line leaders so that they come together and they work as effectively as they can to drive the organization forward. Can you help me do that? And they may not be able to articulate it that way because they don't necessarily know what they need until we have a conversation. And through our questions and through our conversation, we understand that there's there's opportunities for better alignment. And so I will come in and I believe that helping a team optimize how they work together first starts with understanding who they are as individuals. Everyone who's sitting at that table, what's your style? What do you bring to the team in terms of how you make decisions, how you communicate, how you resolve conflict, how you engage with others. I want you to understand who you are, what's working, what's not, and share that with the team. And then I want to expand out to understand how the individual styles come together to form the team, what's gelling well, where are their growth edges that are preventing them from being really effective at driving things forward. Because at the end of the day, businesses have strategy and they've got results. And this space in between is accomplished through people. And successful organizations recognize that. And it starts at the top. So that's so I've now talked about the first step is understanding who they are as individuals. The second step is how their styles come together to form a team. The third step is acknowledging what's been working well and what's been roadblocks that have been getting their in their way and having honest conversations and building trust amongst the team so that we can have that honest conversation and hold ourselves and each other accountable and come up with collective commitments or what we call group norms or rules of engagement for how we want to operate as a leadership team going forward. So that's typically how my C-suite leaders engage with me. And I'll often use a very brief assessment and take the CEO through a sneak peek and make sure that it resonates for him of who's sitting at his table and if there's value in having that broader conversation with the team based on what he sees from the way the team plots and the work to be done and where there's alignment, where there's a disconnect. So we have a lot of pre-meeting conversations to really get into his or her head to understand what's keeping them up at night and how I can support fixing that.

Pedro Stein 16:30

Okay. Interesting. Now I'm still that person, okay. FYI in the background. I'm I was a former consultant here in Brazil, okay, for Ernest and Young. And um, I'm noticing a pattern in your language, okay? It it sounds like there is a hybrid approach. You talk in a way coaches talk, but at the same time, you talk in a way consultants talk. So I'm trying to wrap my head around it. Are you a consultant, Suzanne? Or are you a coach or or are you something unique? Considering your therapist, therapy background and the family running, right? I'm trying to understand as the ICP, trying to wrap my head around it because I'm unsure if we're gonna light up some candles, dancing the kumbaya, you know, the coaching style, but not necessarily like that. We also know that. Or are you trying to implement frameworks into my business? You know what I mean? As a consultant. Yes.

Suzanne Sitrin 17:23

So which one I think that's a good observation because I would argue I'm both. I mean, my background is in consulting too, big firm consulting, right? Like I came up through my MBA, I went to work for what was Towers Perrin, became Willis Towers Watson. Um, and that's where I got my, you know, background and foundation. So I'm a very framework-oriented consultant and coach. I would not, I believe firmly in building what has unfortunately been called soft skills, but I actually use a very methodical approach to even improve someone's communication skills, how they navigate conflict. So I blend both my consulting background and my, I'm a really strong communicator as a coach. And I'm very, I'm direct and straightforward and honest with people. I hold them accountable to the things we agree to work on together, and I use frameworks and pro and methodologies to do that. So I don't know if that answers your question, but I do feel like it's a blend. And I didn't mean to cringe at the lighting candles in Kumbaya because there's a place for that.

Pedro Stein 18:32

Right.

Suzanne Sitrin 18:32

And I feel really strongly because my background and my work is with organizations who have are trying to build performance cultures, and you know, they have you know very big goals that they're trying to achieve. And so my job is to help create line of sight for them. And how do they engage with their people? The definition of leaders is achieving results through others. And and so, how are you driving accountability while inspiring people to perform and finding that sweet spot that that does both well?

Pedro Stein 19:09

Okay, by the way, I'm a crystal bro. Okay, so nothing against lighting up some candles. Yeah, it's just that sometimes like I was uh and uh I I had clients as a high-ticket closer for other coaches, and sometimes I was talking with people, and I could sense the misconceptions, right? And sometimes they feel like, oh no, but that's that doesn't belong in business. You know what I mean? I just want a consultant, I just want the outcome, blah, blah, blah. And we both know, and people listening and that are coaches know that you ended up coaching the whole person, right? Yes. And uh eventually we're gonna touch some some accountability bits, like you mentioned. Someone, you know, you mentioned some some words that really resonate, like what's your style? Understand who you are, the way the terms you're using, coaching terms. So I get that's in a high it's in a hybrid space, and it makes completely sense. Okay. Uh now I I feel the urge to throw you a small curveball if you don't want to. Oh boy. Oh, it's small. Really small. Go for it. I see a lot of coaches out there advocating against burnout, right? They're like, oh, you should style, don't get yourself burnout and all that. But sometimes they're wearing all the hats, right? They're the marketers, they are uh doing business development, they're the salesperson, they are doing the delivery and all that. So your work seems pretty hands-on, right? We're talking about almost a customized experience. So, yeah, Suzanne, how do you think about capacity? So you don't stretch yourself too thin, you know?

Suzanne Sitrin 20:38

It's a great question, and it's actually a challenge. And because, as you know, it's an ebb and flow situation. And I was actually just saying to someone this morning, when I'm deep in the work, I have to be extremely conscious and time block for business development. Because if I don't, I'll just get very immersed in the business and I'm not creating that pipeline. And I'm gonna be honest that it's happened before, where I finally come up for air from a really, you know, big engagement from just an investment of time. And I'm like looking around after I've caught my breath and said, Where's my next, where's my next thing? And it's it's anxiety provoking. And then I have people around me who always remind me we've heard this before, and it always ends up working out. You always end up getting your next client. But in an ideal world, I'm doing what I coach my clients to do, and that is time block. And stick to the commitments you've made of dedicating time to business development. I also do, so there's three buckets of work I do. I've explained two. One is working with C suite teams and leadership teams, the other is the one on one executive coaching. The third bucket is we offer this frontline leadership 12-month development program called Living as a Leader. My partner, we are 50-50 partners on this business with Rosemary, who I mentioned previously. I used to be the one to actually facilitate it and coach it. There was one point I was coaching 40 people just for that program, as well as the other parts of my business. It was not sustainable. And we've now built a virtual team of facilitators and coaches who do the work for us. So Rosemary and I market and fill the series, and then our team facilitates and coaches for us. So that has been a great remedy for capacity issues. I don't have full-time employees, but I'm often finding myself subbing out to other consultants and coaches when I need a second seat or a team of people. And I've got a really great network that I leverage.

Pedro Stein 23:01

Okay. Now I have a question for you. You have people facilitating the work. You mentioned that yourself. And I see a lot of coaches struggling out there to create first cohorts. Second, um, the handoff, right? If they're getting referred to you, they want to buy Suzanne sometimes or even your partner, Rosemary, right?

Speaker 4 23:23

Yeah.

Pedro Stein 23:24

So how do you do that for other coaches listening? And how and and if I'm a potential client, I'm like, okay, but I want to talk to you. How does that work?

Suzanne Sitrin 23:34

Well, it depends in what capacity they're engaging because there are certain things where they do want me. And I will say there have been times where we have sold this Living as a Leader series. We do it in two formats: open enrollment, where we'll have seven companies enrolling three or four people. And I always use my team for that. And by the way, our team is 25 plus years. My coaches are of experience and expertise. So I have 100% confidence in my team, and we were very selective in our recruitment process, and we have the luxury of being able to be selective. But the other way we offer it is taking it in-house to a client and it's customized and delivered at a cadence that works for the client. And if it's my client, if it's a long-term client of mine, I have actually said, I no longer typically teach this in coachip, but I will for you because of our relationship. And I think my ability to thread from the work I've done with the C-suite team to these frontline leaders we're training. I think it's really important that I be able to create that thread. So I'm not opposed to doing it and it's situational. But we won't, I won't ever bring someone onto my team that I wouldn't feel 100% comfortable handing off one of my longest clients to. And I've done that many times. Like I said, I have clients for 10 plus years, and my team are the ones coaching them. And we do regular check-ins. How's it going? Give me feedback. Do we need and and there have been a few select situations where we've made a change just based on fit because you know not everyone is a fit for everybody, but uh, but overall it's worked really well. And after a little bit of trial and error, we had a little bit of turnover originally when we expanded our team, and now our team, we've got three coaches and facilitators and our six plus years, and we've only been a licensee for 10 years, so I feel really good about it.

Pedro Stein 25:39

Nice, but I want to dive in into a little bit about that. You mentioned the license, right? And you mentioned you're handing off your own clients. So, also a lot of coaches out there they're afraid of doing that because of quality control, tarnishing their brand. Can you walk me through how did that felt for you at the beginning when you were like, oh my god, I'm gonna do this. This is exciting, it's and it's scary at the same time, right?

Suzanne Sitrin 26:04

Yeah, and I was really nervous because in the business we do, we are the brand. And so you're absolutely right that I had to talk some of my clients through it and being willing to work with some of my team. And part of it was being extremely thoughtful in our kind of interview and onboarding process when we expanded and the certification of new people because there is a certification process to get them up to speed on this curriculum. And I was very I was intimately involved in their onboarding and certification and doing check-ins and observing them. I would, you know, observe them in in facilitation format. We would do mock coaching sessions so that I could really get a vibe on how they were. And then, as I mentioned, once I gave, I kind of let them run with my clients, I was very closely connected to my clients to get feedback. I'm now at a place where I've completely let go. It's kind of akin to how I encourage my people to delegate, my leaders, when they're so used to doing something themselves, and now I want them to delegate it to someone else. You don't just throw it over the fence and say, run with it, and then you go on to something else. If it's high profile mistakes are high, you communicate up front how often you're going to be involved, what the checkpoints are, what the metrics are for success. And that's how we ensure that you're setting someone up to be effective and that you feel like you can walk away because it's trusted.

Pedro Stein 27:46

Here comes this consultant, right? The metrics, the checkpoints. I love that. Okay. Now, appreciate you sharing that, by the way. Yeah. Now I'm curious about one thing. I want to shift gears for a second, right? Um, let's talk about future, you know. So looking ahead, where do you see the business going? You know, are you thinking about scaling, even more hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about?

Suzanne Sitrin 28:08

Yeah, I've been I've been thinking about that because you and I had talked about it. And I am always thinking about it. You know, I made a big investment in myself three years ago when I launched Bluebirch and I told you I hired a brand strategy firm. That was a big financial commitment. It was a big time commitment. You know, I'm a I'm a small business, so making that kind of strategic investment, I had to really think about it. I'm so glad I did it because not only did it help me clarify my brand, my buckets of work, what I'm going after, it also helped me articulate or begin to articulate where I see this going directionally. I do not aspire to grow this huge business and sell it. That's that's not where I see this going. What I am wanting to do is be seen as a thought leader in the space I work in. And really wrap my arms around what does that mean? Um, you know, on my vision board is I want to do a TED talk. I want to be seen as an expert where people seek me out for keynote addresses, for panels, for that TED talk aspirationally, because I have established expertise in the space that I've been operating in for 30 years. So that's the future orientation. Um I want to keep having a thriving practice. I want to increase my profitability for sure, but I also feel tremendously fortunate that I have flexibility and still a thriving business, and it allows me to play in different spaces. So I want to do this. I I see my runway. The reason I engage someone is in 2023, I said, I at least have 10, 15 years on my runway. I want to be intentional about this, how I use this. I don't want to just float by. I've been doing this work for a long time. I could just continue to do it as is. But I'm a really intentional person and I like to know the plan and work the plan, even if the plan evolves as I go. And I know for me, I have it has to be, I have to feel good about it, and it has to be aligned to my values. So being a knowledge thought leader is gonna make me feel good about the work I'm doing.

Pedro Stein 30:46

Okay. Ted Talk, love it. I'm I'm getting excited by hearing you, okay, by the way.

Suzanne Sitrin 30:51

Okay, no, no, whenever you help me get that.

Pedro Stein 30:55

No, whenever we're aiming towards the next chapter, always something we're refining, you know, in the present. So, Suzanne, what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business right now?

Suzanne Sitrin 31:05

Oh I am trying to tighten up my time allocation. I am trying to be better about not it's a it about what I just said before, working in the business while working on the business. And I I literally at times I'm amazing at it, you know, and I've got so after my engagement was over with that brand strategist, she connected me to now a marketing person that I'm working with on a regular cadence. And she keeps me accountable, which is amazing with the plan for marketing my business. Without her, it would not be on my radar, and every once in a while she has to pop back up and be like, you were doing great for a while, and now you're not. Where are we at? Um, but so I just I really want she keeps me honest about working directionally on the business. And I want to just be good about my allocation of time, energy, and attention to doing that so that I always have a pipeline. And that I'm not just working with the same clients because I, you know, breadth and depth is is really the perfect combination.

Pedro Stein 32:22

Yeah, it aligns perfectly with uh the people you serve, right? You it sounds like you really like uh the evolution of it, like the the type of people you talk and you connect with and you have different experiences and all of that. Now, I want to tap into our experience a little bit for a second, because people listening, Suzanne, can really benefit from this, you know, not because you've been in the game long enough, like 30 years, okay? Not just that, but you you navigate in two different worlds, it sounds like to me, right? The coaching, the consulting, I really like that. And um there are business advice is all over right now on the internet, you know, social media and all that. Some are good, some are terrible, you know. Yeah, so what would you say is one piece of business advice you hear all the time that you think, oh my god, this is overrated or misunderstood, you know?

Suzanne Sitrin 33:16

That's I mean, I could I could answer that question in a number of different ways. Partially because I, in addition to having my business, I'm also dealing with two young adults who are entering the workforce or one who's been in the workforce a couple years and is is considering, you know, where to take their career. But I feel like something I hear a lot is like, do work you're passionate about. And I think that is important. And I feel lucky because I do get to focus primarily and is I get to be selective on doing working with people who excite me, who are committed to the work we're doing together. I've I've you know gotten rid of people who are not committed to the process and who are not growing because I'm not adding value to them and I can't make a difference, and it's not good for anybody. Um, but I also am honest about not everything you do every day is joyful in roses, right? Like some of the work we do, you're gonna drudge through it a little bit, and that's okay. And especially early on in your career, right? Or early on in launching a business. I've always believed that our goal and our North Star should be what do we value? How do we want to be known? And are we doing work that aligns with that? But you also have to know kind of what your bread and butter is, and even if you're not a hundred percent passionate about your bread and butter, you need to do it, right? So I think it's not great advice when people say, like, do work you're passionate about. I I don't know, I don't know if you follow Scott Galloway at all.

Pedro Stein 35:00

I've yeah. You know, at the end of the day, at least on my end, I agree with that a hundred percent, right? Um, first of all, it's like I have two boys, right? One is three, the other is seven, and like, hey daddy, I I don't want to brush my teeth. But you gotta do it, right? Yeah, it's not about uh there are certain things in life that to get to the outcome we want, uh we gotta do the boring stuff, right? It's like eventually you're gonna have to do and that's I think that's the main pitfall, especially people there thinking there's a magic wand or something magical that happens. Oh, what's the secret for the millionaire or blah blah blah. It's like during doing the boring stuff, man, usually, right? It's there is no shortcuts. I'm not sure if you're there with me, but I kind of feel like I am.

Suzanne Sitrin 35:47

No, I am there with you. And the reason I brought up Scott Galloway is is he talks about that we should not do we should not be as focused about doing work we're passionate about. We should be focused about doing work we're really good at because that can help you be passionate about it, and you didn't even know you could have passion for it until you're like, oh, I'm good at this thing. It isn't necessarily my favorite thing to do, but I'm really good about at it, and I can be passionate about being good at something.

Pedro Stein 36:14

That's true. That's true. Okay. Now moving forward, um, on the other side, which is basically the side we already established, but I'm curious about this one. What's a piece of advice which more people actually took seriously, right? Is it consistency? Is it what is it?

Suzanne Sitrin 36:31

It is it is consistency, although that feels like a boring answer, but there is something about just like chipping away at something regularly, makes you feel like you're building momentum. You know how like an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest. I know if I just do one little thing that that actually builds on to doing more of those things, and I get momentum and excitement, and then I want to keep doing the work. When I'm not being consistent about it, it's hard for me to get myself like excited or invested in doing it. So I want to be, and at times when I am chipping away at it, I feel really so much better than when I've created a little inertia. And when I'm not actively working on a client engagement, I am my own only motivator, right? Like no one is standing there telling me I have to do something. And there's a and in this environment where we work remotely, there's a lot of other things calling at your energy and attention that you can do. And so you have got to be vigilant about blocking your time and holding firm to that to feel good. That that's really what I would say. Those are the times when I have felt the best about the work I'm doing.

Pedro Stein 38:03

Work and a day-to-day basis, so I can get the outcome I want. So that's uh that part really stood out to me. Um, I would say also when we were talking about the capacity beat bit uh for the coaching space, you know, and you were so open about oh, what I was doing back in the day was not sustainable, you know. Yeah. And being open about that, I think that's a sign of a a true coach, which is vulnerability at the end of the day, because you're gonna ask hard questions, right? For your clients and and even for your staff or everyone that is involved with you in the coaching space. And eventually, it's only fair you do the same. You can navigate that, you know, uh have ownership of your own story. So by being open, like being open about that, that is so uh interesting to watch, you know. I'll put it like that. The last but not least, uh the licensing, uh being hands-on about that, you know, not just hey, uh take it out of my plate, no, go run with it. It's like it's in a in a hands-on, really hands-on white glove approach, so people can get can get to be in power and and they got the the work and all that, but you you at least at the start, you have a very good idea of what's happening, so you can have a sense of things, quality control. And walking the talk.

Suzanne Sitrin 39:17

They are an extension of me, right? Exactly. Whoever you bring on is an extension of you and your brand. So the care you take in helping them be successful is critical.

Pedro Stein 39:28

And at the end of the day, it's like you said, for your client. You do that for your clients. Only fair you do the same. Gotta walk the talk, right? Gotta practice while we preach, Suzanne. So, this is my long-winded way of saying that. I appreciate what you do. I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today, you know. It was great having you on.

Suzanne Sitrin 39:44

I loved getting a chance to connect with you. I appreciate your questions and your thoughtfulness. So thanks for your time.

Davis Nguyen 39:50

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business through six, seven, and eight figure years, all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at joint purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you and your business.