Using The Kolbe Index to Find More Success in Business with Eryn Morgan

 

Catherine A. Wood  00:00

All right, Eryn, welcome to the podcast.

 

Eryn Morgan  00:05

I am so thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.

 

Catherine A. Wood  00:07

Happy to have you. Well, I’d love to maybe just jump in, maybe you could share your pronouns. And maybe just kick us off with a little bit of your story. Like even I know, we’ve only been connected for a little while. So I’m hearing interested to hear more of it myself.

 

Eryn Morgan  00:23

Yes, well, thank you. So my pronouns are she her. And my story really started back in my days of being a marketing director at a small nonprofit. So, at this nonprofit, we brought new york times bestselling writers to speak to audiences of 600 to 1600, I got to work with some amazing, amazing authors, everybody from Elizabeth Gilbert to Margaret Atwood, and 125 others. I mean, it was a really, really cool career. But when my my mentor, the woman I had gotten really to work for at this nonprofit, I really wanted to learn from her and work from her. With her, she retired. And they passed me over for Director, because I was too young. So the new person who came in, I knew I had another 10 years to sit around and wait to see if I was ever going to be able to get that spot. And I decided to chance and start my own business. And that was in 2015. So I’ve been around for a while. I mean, there’s certainly people who have been around longer than me, but I sometimes feel like a dinosaur on the internet. And I absolutely love what I do. I love being able to have my own business, work with my own clients choose the people who really vibe, and work with me, well, and so I’ve done a lot of different things, everything from marketing and sales to back end operations, and CO work and just a lot, a lot of variation in the time that I’ve been online. But it’s been so fun to use the skills use everything that I’ve gained in that nonprofit world to be able to help creative entrepreneurs, it’s been pretty fun.

 

Catherine A. Wood  02:07

What are some of your favorite skills that you took from the nonprofit world into entrepreneurship?

 

Eryn Morgan  02:14

A level, like my top one is the level of ability, I had to have to be able to pivot on a dime. When we were running an event. I mean, we would have, we worked in this historic Music Hall Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh, and it was a three storey marble floor Music Hall. And there would be times when I was literally running up and down these flights of stairs to get to where the thing was needed. But it this level of resilience of just being able to adjust pivot in the moment, that’s not working authors not happy something happened with the speaker system, like we just had to be so quick on our feet. And so it’s it’s taught me so much around, when we’re inside of our businesses, especially in the creative, entrepreneurial world like we can, we can think we can have the luxury of being able to pause and stop and think because so infrequently. Is it such an emergency that we need any immediate response. So I loved being in a world where I needed to be able to make those immediate responses because I feel that connection to my clients that are like, What do I say to this person? How do I respond? It’s like, the grace that we get to be able to just pause and think. And that’s been a huge gift to see that contrast. I love the evidence of contrast.

 

Catherine A. Wood  03:41

What does that mean, that evidence? What do you mean by that the evidence of coddled,

 

Eryn Morgan  03:44

I look for I call it that, I mean, I don’t know if it’s really. But anytime I can look at situations, and I can look at A and B and see how incredibly different they are. And the journey that had to happen for me to get from A to B. The just, I mean a silly things like we’ve recently moved to Florida and just the way that the weather affects me I think about this time of year and where we’d be in Pennsylvania and what would be happening in Pennsylvania and just having that contrast and being able to witness that and and see how far I’ve come as as it relates to change. So I just like I like to look at.

 

Catherine A. Wood  04:26

I mean, I hear I hear a theme of adaptability. And I think all life Great. Feels like that’s the entrepreneurs life.

 

Eryn Morgan  04:37

Yeah, yeah. So it’s, it’s been just a very, very cool adventure.

 

Catherine A. Wood  04:44

Well, something that’s fun that I hear you speaking about, and you’ve said it now a couple times is like the idea of being a creative entrepreneur. And you’re a business coach, right. So like I think many business coaches wouldn’t necessarily self identify fie or self proclaimed themselves as a creative entrepreneur, but you do and so I wonder, you know, how how do you see yourself as a creative entrepreneur? And how has that been a part of your journey?

 

Eryn Morgan  05:13

Sure. Um, well, I like to get a part. So for me, when I think about entrepreneurship, I define it as somebody who is willing to take a less than typical financial risk. And you can ask my husband, the number of times I’ve bet the rent, or the mortgage, on the big idea, the thing that’s gonna work, I am really willing to it in most cases, it’s betting on myself. So I have that entrepreneurship piece, but the creative piece, it comes for me, I’m not necessarily pushing the pixels or, or, you know, coding the website like my clients are, but I don’t have formal business training, I have real life business training, I have those in the trenches running a small nonprofit business training. And so my creativity comes from the fact that I don’t have formulas or frameworks, or it has to be done this way. For my clients to follow. I am creative in how I design every single business, every single client, because I’m thinking about what’s actually going to work for them. What are their skills? What’s their experience? What are their goals? What are they care about? And how do we meld and mesh their business together in such a way that we truly get to the outcome that they’re looking for. And if I had to go buy the book, I wouldn’t be able to do it, my ability to be able to literally make stuff up as we go along. Right? It’s the building the plane as we fly it with every business I’m working with. That’s where the creativity comes in. For me, coming up with that new idea, or a different way of thinking about it or so you don’t want to do Facebook, okay, well, let’s think of a different way we can do this, how can we get to the same outcome. And I think there are a lot of business coaches online, and they’re amazing at what they do. But they do have that rigidity of a formula, or a framework, or these are the steps that we follow in this order. And I never fit with that. I just it never worked for me. And it’s never worked for the clients I’ve worked with. So that’s where I bring that creativity into the the risk piece. Well,

 

Catherine A. Wood  07:19

I love that you answered it that way. Because, you know, I, I work with business owners also. But I take a different approach than you which I know we chatted about when we last talked like, I come from this purely mindset or ontological perspective, right? ontology is the study of being. And so when I look at business problems, like I’m even breakdowns really, I don’t even use the word problem. We look at who someone is being and whether they’re bringing a creative consciousness or of a victim consciousness. And, and, and so I love like that reminder that, you know, when we are being a creator, when we’re bringing a creative mindset, where we’re focused on solutions, we’re focused on forward momentum forward action, so we’re really kind of being in the exploration of, you know, the path forward versus focusing on what’s not working. And so I hear, I just hear a kind of a similarity in our approaches.

 

Eryn Morgan  08:23

I think we have a lot in common and the way that we work even though we’re coming from, from different angles, as we’re looking at business, you’re, I’m glad that there are people like you who are able to approach from more of that mindset being direction. That’s so not my strength. And so being able to have those. And that’s really how I’ve, I’ve built my business, I find all of the mentors, coaches, who, who bring together this combination of support. So having a mindset coach and having somebody who’s looking at strategy, and the different ways that they interplay, I think that’s critical for our clients to be able to find the match of putting that support team together, I used to joke that even my person who cuts my hair is on my support team. But it really, I think back to some of the best years of my business. And it was I had a strategy and a mindset coach to different people. And they were totally in lockstep. And that’s what I loved about that, that synergy of working with another, another coach, in addition,

 

Catherine A. Wood  09:28

that’s very cool. Well, I want to shift gears there, because I know that you do a lot of work with your clients with the Kobe assessment. And that’s not my specialty at all. Like I don’t use any assessments in my coaching. It’s so much more holistic. And so I would love to hear more about how you incorporate the Kobe assessment into your work, how you kind of chose that path as something you were interested in getting certified in like, I’m so curious.

 

Eryn Morgan  09:59

Yeah, you So I love I love the covey. The primary tool is the Colby a index. And the reason that I love it is because it brings me a reliability and predictability about how each business owner is uniquely wired to be in the world as a business owner, from a cognitive perspective. So when we’re looking at the mind, we have our cognitive or our skills, what we can do, we have our affective or our personality, things that we want to do. And then we have this third and much less explored piece of conative. Or what you will do. So I like to define it for my clients. And when I’m working with people who aren’t familiar with it, it’s how you take action and make decisions. And so when I received summons, results from them taking the index rate off four numbers, and those four numbers for me, because I’m certified, and I have had a lot of experience with it. I know how they’re wired. And if they’re free to be themselves, I know what they’re going to do. There is a level of predictability when we approach certain kind of problem business. And I can say with relative certainty how they’re going to take action, or they’re going to think through that problem. And sometimes they there are times when somebody has been so out of being themselves and doing things their way that they will resist the way that they’re wired uniquely. And when we can find that, that realignment with who they’re who they are, and how they they naturally make these decisions, it helps business work better. So it for me, it’s almost like a, like a secret code. Somebody tells me their Colby score, and I instantly know how to talk to them and work with them. I can mediate through challenges before they even happen, because I already know they’re gonna happen. It’s it’s just such a superpower tool for me as a business coach, Coach consultant that I had to get certified out of the software, I had to have it be something I relied upon and used. So it’s been it’s, it’s really amazing for me

 

Catherine A. Wood  12:22

when you got first certified, did you? I’m curious, like what were some of your personal aha was like and were there areas of your business where you noticed you were operating out of alignment with your own score.

 

Eryn Morgan  12:36

Yes. And so it’s funny because I first learned about the Colby from my business coach way back in 2016. And she had me take the assessment before she would do her intensive with me, it was like our first experience working together a three hour intensive and she wanted me to take this this assessment, I would have done anything she would have gotten to the moon if she had asked me to at that point. And so I take the assessment and it comes back that I initiate in the mode of Quickstart that we don’t have to go super down the rabbit hole of Colby to know that I am somebody who is naturally designed to take risks. I meant I’m I’m really cool with risk and uncertainty and with. And so what was happening in my business at the time, is I was trying to plan with a level of rigidity, and a level of sometimes complexity that my programs were too heavy, they just had too much in them, they were too just hard to execute, because they were loaded with stuff, you know that with modules and there was this like it was just too heavy. And I remember her saying your Quickstart you need to stay lean and you need to be able to quickly test and change. So let’s put some offers out in the world try some things before you go building out this ecosystem. You don’t know if it’s gonna sell yet you don’t know if people are gonna resonate with it or they’re gonna want to buy it from you. So let’s skip all the planning and do a little bit of just imperfect action taking it changed the entire way I run my business

 

Catherine A. Wood  14:13

I love that. I mean, I so so I there’s a part of me with my coach background that that has a distaste in my mouth for assessments because it’s like the idea of some external force, assessing who you are, how you operate. And then there’s this other part of me that also understands that when some assessment or person or test can can speak clearly to who we are, it can help it can help see ourselves in a new way. So I am an empath highly sensitive person and an introvert and you know, I think there there are some great personality tests to distinguish for each of them. those traits, right, the highly sensitive person quiz and Elaine Aaron’s book, The highly sensitive person and the introvert quiz in Susan Kane’s book quiet and, and for me like, and most recently, I’ve just, I’m just reading, I think it’s the empath Survival Guide. And there’s a, an empath quiz in there. And, and I have to, I have to say that a part of me is kind of falling for these assessments more, because I think that it to a degree, it does allow you to be you more easily, like it allows you to embrace parts of yourself that you may previously have rejected or tried to stuff.

 

Eryn Morgan  15:47

Sure. Yeah, I love the way you’re thinking about this. And when I when I think about effective personality tests or assessments, it’s a the effective part of the mind is one that changes it is constantly evolving and changing and becoming the next version of itself. So we think about how we interact with a new group of people. And suddenly we have these little things that we renew interest might emerge, or even like patterns of speech, when you start to hang out with different people, which you’re reading the interactions that people have. That personality continues to evolve as you grow and change. The thing that’s different for me with CO nation is it is it is so reliable, and it doesn’t change. So we’ve done 20 years studies with it, and somebody takes the test, and 20 years later, they get the same score. And what I that’s the reliability for me in business that I love. And I love effective personality tests for getting to know ourselves better and watching the evolving and the changing as we as we grow as humans, I think that’s amazing. So I think there’s a place for both. And certainly that not a test doesn’t define who you are. It just gives you some signals and clues of who you might be.

 

Catherine A. Wood  17:12

Yeah, or in my experience, it gives you permission to own who you are. Just when you define coordination for me,

 

Eryn Morgan  17:22

so coordination or volition, and it’s all about what you will do. So it’s a pretty old word. And Kathy Colby, the founder of Colby discovered it doing research. So her father was the creator of the wonderlust cognitive like skills based assessment. When she was a little girl, she remembered him telling her that there’s more he said, I know there’s more, go do the research, go figure it out, go find the more. And she in her studies discovered this. This word is old word, co nation or volition. And that’s what she built her research and really her life’s work. It’s 40 plus years of she’s in her 80s. Now, she continues to tweak it, which drives the certified consultants a little crazy, but it’s also a living theorist, and she’s watching it evolve as as time goes on. So it’s pretty fun.

 

Catherine A. Wood  18:22

That’s cool. And I love that there’s that generational kind of passing down of knowledge and wisdom.

 

Eryn Morgan  18:30

It’s also one of the reasons why Colby is not well marketed because she watched her dad’s test gets spliced in 27 different directions and appropriated here and there, there wasn’t enough protection around his work. And so she there was a pretty strict contract that we signed around how we’re able to talk about it, what kind of marketing we’re able to do around it, but she really has protected it. Unlike something like Myers Briggs, which you have 16 personalities that has sort of joined the different way of taking it but it’s the same information right? She didn’t want that to happen. And hers test is the only test on that measures donation that exists. So she’s protected it sometimes to her to to everybody’s detriment sometimes because that marketing engine never really gets going from the consultants themselves.

 

Catherine A. Wood  19:20

So does does Kobe. Is that the primary goal of Kobe that it tests for volition or are there other personality traits that I was testing

 

Eryn Morgan  19:29

all it does it just test for that and volition piece? And so sometimes, and I’m not particularly involved in this piece, but Kathy has gone into career because of that connection with her dad and the whole cognitive of what you can do those skills that you have. She’s got a lot of real interest in helping people choose careers based on their cognition. So their cognitive style informs the career they choose I’m and to get people to work more in harmony with their natural tendencies and how they’re wired to be. So that’s kind of an interesting path. I haven’t really gone down because I don’t do a lot of career exploration. Usually people are coming to me with with a business, and they’re pretty sad from where they’re headed. But it’s a neat, neat river that she’s gone down.

 

Catherine A. Wood  20:21

How many snom? So curious. So what is how many like, when you when you get a score, like how many different paths are there or dials? Yep,

 

Eryn Morgan  20:32

so there are four columns that represent a continuum or a range of possible numbers. So So typically, when we see one to 10, we go one is bad, and 10 is amazing, right? In this case, those numbers only show where you land on a continuum of strengths. So there are four columns. And each column has three strengths. So there’s a combination of 12 strengths that any combination of columns, so for me, I’m a 4483. So on that one to one to 10, scale, I land in the middle on the first two, I and the eighth. So I’m at the high end of the range for the third column. And that’s how I initiate your highest numbers, typically, or initiation. And then the final three is they all but their corresponding strengths not good or bad. It’s a when we’re working with particular combinations, anywhere from one to 10. And four columns is where your potential score could could land.

 

Catherine A. Wood  21:33

Sounds a little bit like, like a formula

 

Eryn Morgan  21:38

a little bit. And it’s true, because once you can code a test, and you know what the numbers mean, you know what strengths they correspond with, it literally feels like that locker combination, right? And you’re just sort of clicking in, it all falls into place. And though it is challenging to teach it, because the numbers mean different things, and they go in different order. So you really do have to find a consultant who knows what they’re what they’re talking about, in order to, to understand yourself better when it comes to those numbers. But that’s how it starts. For numbers.

 

Catherine A. Wood  22:13

So how do you so I’m curious, like when you’re working with a client with a client engagement, like, how does the Kobe? How does that play into your work with clients?

 

Eryn Morgan  22:23

Yeah, so I had a gal who had her score was a 7373. And what that told me is that what she liked to do was gather tons and tons and tons and tons of information, her business, she would research. And then she would go and start something, she would go and start to take action on something, but very quickly get distracted by the next new interest, research interest. And so instead of putting things out in the world, and letting people buy from her, she would have a good idea. And then she’d go back into research mode. And she would spend so much time stuck in research mode, that she was never really willing to go and take action on those ideas, because she’d have the next idea to research so we it felt like a seesaw, right that she was always either in the we should do this great new idea. And then she’d go to research mode, and she would never launch it, she would never execute. So once we realize that for her, we could we created some systems around how she was researching what she was really researching. We used team to support some of that to take some of the research impulse and, and reassign that we also ask different questions like, Okay, do you have enough information to make a decision? And that’s really key for somebody like her, you know, making making real certain that, okay, you know, what you want, you know, all there is to know about this particular topic. Now, let’s go and take some action. And so people would, with that kind of seesaw energy, they get really frustrated, because they feel like they’re doing all this activity, and they’re doing all this work, but nothing ever launches. And they don’t understand why because they want to go with the next new idea and put it out in the world. So that was like just one specific example of what we were working with with a score.

 

Catherine A. Wood  24:17

Yeah, that’s fun. I’m just imagining like, so you have a client, you help them develop their score, or it could be any assessment, right? Because there’s so many out there. And I wonder like, how do you like what is your experience with your clients of being willing to implement what they discover? Because I think sometimes we can get really set in our ways around how we do things, how we approach business, how we approach marketing or sales, or developing a new program or plan.

 

Eryn Morgan  24:51

Yeah, I’ve found that the they, when they first learn their numbers, they first get They’re their results back and they learned their numbers, when I can explain them to themselves, there’s a level of trust that is built so quickly, because it’s immediately oh my gosh, you get me. Okay, so based on the fact that I understand not only who you’re wired to be, but where you’re stuck. Now we get into that creative space, like I was talking about earlier, of trying to find the path forward, that’s going to work for them based on their unique strengths. So somebody who really has an aversion to putting things out before they’re perfect, right, they every single piece of it’s got to be perfect. So I will find these many opportunities for us to test just one aspect of it. And I can convince them that that’s a great path forward, because we can perfect one little thing, we can test it and informs our next step. So we just, we sort of work with what works for them, and find ways to modify. So when it when it’s completely custom, you don’t get the level of pushback on it, at least I haven’t. Because it, it’s all for their best and their highest and good when they see the way they’re wired versus the way they’re operating their business. When we can get that into sync, then stuff starts to work and money starts to flow and clients start to show up and all the things that they want it all because we make those little tweaks. So it’s, it’s been incredibly well received for me.

 

Catherine A. Wood  26:31

I mean, I think there’s a couple of important lessons in that because first of all, I hear just the reminder that like when someone feels fully seen, seen and who they are and how they operate, and how they get in their own way. Like they’re, that there’s more immediately more trust and rapport built. And then secondly, like, you know, everyone wants small wins, like everyone wants to create winnable games with their clients so that they can start to see the impact of their work together. And it’s, it’s really it also supports in building trust.

 

Eryn Morgan  27:08

Yeah, that’s exactly what I think is the secret for me to why it’s worked. Because on paper, people used to look at my business, I remember I went to this conference. And I don’t know why revenue at the time was irrelevant in the framing of the conversation. But I shared my revenue number, and afterwards, one of the presenters pulled me aside and didn’t believe me. And he asked me, he was like, how are you this profitable? How do you have this much revenue? It’s just you, like, how are you doing that? And I sort of shared the behind the scenes of how I built my business, it’s literally built around exactly what I’m really good at, and what I’m not so great at, guess what, I don’t do it. Or I will hire a contractor counting not really a thing books, I got a person for that. Or like I’m never going to do that don’t do the things you suck at. And just because you can doesn’t mean you should so I can cut my own hair I shouldn’t. So these are the things that when I look at, at why my clients have succeeded, it’s I goes back to that idea. I just don’t know what the rules are. I don’t know what the formula is and the foundations and the way you’re supposed to. I don’t know any of that stuff. So it doesn’t get in my way when I’m helping them find that unique path forward. Because I’m not bound by any of those of those traditional ways of doing things.

 

Catherine A. Wood  28:36

Yeah, I mean, totally right. Like it’s a completely client centric, strengths based approach.

 

Eryn Morgan  28:43

Absolutely.

 

Catherine A. Wood  28:47

Well, this has been interesting, I find myself getting even more curious, I think I need to get assessed Nicolino.

 

Eryn Morgan  28:55

It’s a simple, simple assessment. And, boy, it uncovered, you know, and the thing that I like about Colby beyond just business is it’s applicable in life. So silly example that I have permission to share my husband is what’s known as an implementer in Kobe, and the way that that manifested for us in our relationship is that he would not sit at a table and have a conversation with me. He was always pacing around the room. I’m talking to him. And he’s going and I’m unloading the dishwasher and I’m like, Are you can you just please pay attention to me? And he’s like, no, no, no, wait, I’m paying attention and I’m like, No, you aren’t paying it. And we don’t have that that little squabble back and forth. But I didn’t feel like he was paying attention to me, come to find out his implementer is so high that he actually processes and engages in the conversation via physical interaction with his environment. So when he is unloading the dishwasher, he is listening to me that is how he processes information. It just so happened his Career landed him in a place where he’s using his hands and in implement interacting with implements with tools to create the value he does in the world. But we didn’t know that until he took the Colby. We just thought our communication was off, or we just like didn’t know how to talk to each other. I was too whatever. As soon as we learned his numbers and put them against mine, we solved 90% of our of our relationship communication challenges. It was it was that’s the reason I love it. Because there’s little things that can change somebody’s life. You never know what a what assessment like that could do if somebody is really struggling in a particular area of their life. So that’s why I love it.

 

Catherine A. Wood  30:43

I mean, that’s powerful. Such a powerful takeaway of how the I mean, it’s so true, right? It’s like the the professional impacts the personal in every way that we both see and don’t yet see.

 

Eryn Morgan  30:56

Their true. So true. Well, I

 

Catherine A. Wood  31:00

know I mean, I know that you work with a lot of introverts, and do you identify as an empath? I think I feel like we talked about this on our last

 

Eryn Morgan  31:08

call. I do. And you know, you our conversation, or our previous conversation has really challenged me to notice in more places in ways where I actually have that, especially the HSP. piece. And so I would say yes, although it was never brought to my attention. And so I never really owned it or knew it. It wasn’t something that I had fully embraced. But when I think about everything I’ve learned from you, I go who absolutely yeah, I definitely am. Well, that’s so great. I’m

 

Catherine A. Wood  31:39

so happy to hear that. It’s fun. And I guess the reason I ask is because I’m curious what, what you’ve noticed differently with some of your clients who, who identify as sensitive introverts or empaths, and how you how you perceive working with them differently.

 

Eryn Morgan  32:01

I think that that combination of of empathy, that the highly sensitive, introversion, depending on how they’ve come together in combination will tell me why the creative has left the corporate world or whatever company, you know, whatever version of corporate. So the corporate world is not built for these kinds of creative people who they just they don’t feel like they fit in. So for many of my clients, they worked at a creative agency, or they worked in a creative job inside of a corporation. And they have no, they have to be a corporate job out, they just don’t know how to stay in that world and take care of themselves and be good and healthy in that space. And so they take the risk to go out on their own, but they don’t, they don’t ever look at it and think I know what I’m doing, I’m starting a business, they don’t think that they think I’m gonna try freelancing because I just can’t take this anymore. I can’t continue to be in these environments, I can’t continue to be treated these ways that are so high harmful for them. And so they go on that entrepreneurial journey, and think I can just do some freelance, and I’ll earn as much doing some projects, as I did it my corporate job, and I’ll sort of figure it all out, right. And oftentimes, they show up on my doorstep, when things are working really, like better than they knew that they could work. And that’s when it’s I think I accidentally started a business. And it works for them, because they call the shots, they control their environment, they control the clients they work with, they get to have that, that strong level of autonomy over their day to day. And so it matches for all of those pieces of who they are. And where they get stuck is that the sales piece and the marketing piece is sometimes not well aligned with being introverted, right? So if I ask an introvert to go to a networking event, they’re gonna be like, do I have to write? And so it’s, it’s finding ways for the sales and marketing pieces to work for someone who is introvert, or who is an HSP and finding the systems and support they need around that so they can feel like themselves as they’re going out and building a business. So I think, I think maybe it was because I didn’t know I was one that it works, that they come to me, because I have this very practical real life type of way to look at stuff with that I can bring that level of sensitivity to their experiences, because I am one so it was a really interesting shift in my overall perspective for how I choose to run my business for sure.

 

Catherine A. Wood  34:47

Well, I’m just thinking of some of your clients because I’ve had I’ve already had a couple on the podcast which is which is always fun like when I feel like the more I podcast the more kind of like my circles become smaller and No, this person knows this person, this person knows this person and, and so I’ve had both Morgan SPECT and Sadie Crestridge on the podcast who are both former clients of yours, and I’m even friends. And I’m thinking about some of their entrepreneurial journeys and, and their origin stories. And they’re, they’re similar to what you’re sharing like this, this idea of being an accidental entrepreneur, of not fitting in in corporate and just needing to go off on their own. Yeah,

 

Eryn Morgan  35:29

my ideal client is Morgan spec. So everything I do, everything I create, I create for her as a real live, she came to me with I think I accidentally started a business. And everything that we did over there, I think about four years that we work together and just watching her trajectory and seeing what she was able to create. She is how I have built every single piece and continue I’ve actually hired her to do my branding. For this next iteration of where I want to go with my business. She’s who I think about and, and Sadie, gosh, Sadie Prestidge. That girl, she’s an absolutely amazing business owner. And I think I’m not sure we debate did I learn more from her, she learned more from me, she I really, she was the challenge the most challenging client ever worked with, because she just pushed and grew and, and went to the next level. And she was doing it so fast that it really it, it really caused me to stretch into the best person for her. And weave. It was their great, I adore them both.

 

Catherine A. Wood  36:40

I love that you share that. So I have I have a client, a former client and dear friend just like that. And she has been on the podcast. Also, Liz roar has a nurse practitioner course for new nurse practitioners. And I also wonder, you know, like who stretched the other more. And, and it’s so cool. Like, I think as as Empath entrepreneurs, you know, we, we we are just natural relationship builders and we maintain relationships, right. And so having that that person who can really be your ideal client avatar and you and you just know that on so many levels, it just makes the process of am I communicating effectively, so much easier, because you just know the person so deeply?

 

Eryn Morgan  37:29

Yes, it is, it has been a really cool gift. Those relations, that’s the thing I value more than anything is the relationships. And I’ve I’ve been lucky enough to maintain so many of them. And that I was never a big famous business coach I never really aspired to be. And then as I’ve had recent experiences and gotten behind the scenes of some of those businesses, I know who I am, and I am so glad that I didn’t achieve all those things that I thought I wanted. Because when you got to the inside the behind the scenes of it, yeah, I actually didn’t want that at all. But it was relationships like ones with Morgan and with Sadie that really have kept me grounded and coming back to who I really am. So it was under Morgan’s encouragement. She’s like, Why? Why? Why can’t you say I work with website designers, graphic designers and branding, professional creatives. Like why can’t you make it that narrow? That’s what you do. That’s who we all are. That’s how we’ve all come to, to be in your world. And she just encouraged me to own that space. So it was just it’s been a really cool journey, great relationship over so many years.

 

Catherine A. Wood  38:51

And honestly, I feel like that really speaks to the heart of being an empath entrepreneur because while we are supporting and standing for our clients to thrive, we are also allowing ourselves to be contributed to we are allowing the two ways of relationship to work which deepens trust and rapport. And I’m just like chuckling over here because the reason I started my podcast is because Liz and another former client, now one of my best friends and bridesmaids like at my wedding. Were like we need to hear your voice like you have to do this, you know, and, and you were asking me about how my new program launch went before we hit record and next month I’m hosting a retreat for my mastermind. It is something that has been a long time in the works. When I launched the mastermind in 2020. We were going to host a retreat that first year were real. Got indefinitely paused and that same year, I closed the doors of my second business which was an international retreat company and It was, it was a really hard time for me because I ended the partnership with my business partner for that retreats company. And that was also the end of our friendship. And there was so much grief to process there. But it was truly a result of my mastermind authors who’ve become friends over. Now these four years later being like, cat, we want this like, you create community, we want the retreat, do it, when are we doing it? And now we’re doing it next month. And honestly, it wouldn’t be otherwise if it hadn’t been for they’re like, calling me forth.

 

Eryn Morgan  40:39

Yeah, thrilled for you. That’s awesome. Yeah. So that’s the beauty of having the ability to be selective about who we work with. And our messaging can be out in the world and attract the people that we most want to, to have around us. I say all the time. If I don’t want to have dinner with a client, I can’t imagine having them around that mastermind dinner table, then they’re not right for my group. Yeah. And that is been that guiding touchstone for me, of knowing what it feels like when it’s a well aligned group of people. And the messaging and the vibe attracts your tribe, I guess they say that,

 

Catherine A. Wood  41:18

and why it is also a necessity in particular for empaths to only work with clients who they would have loved to have dinner with or go on a trip with or take a walk with, because our energy is our power, right? Like it’s where our strengths come from. And so if we are giving our energy away to clients who aren’t ideal fits, then they are taking so much more from us, then then contributing, and consequently taking away from the rest of our clients

 

Eryn Morgan  41:51

agreed. And that’s the part that I didn’t, I didn’t know that part about being an empath. I just knew there were certain clients that I was able to serve better. And that felt more fun to be connected to end. I always the the sales conversations that flow and don’t feel like sales conversations are the ones where it’s always the right fit. And the ones that I’ve got to just slog through, and there’s 27 objections, and I’m just trying to work to get them Don’t you see where you could go if you just invest in yourself? And those are the challenges. Those are the ones where I look back and go Why did I do that? It wasn’t it doesn’t end up being to their highest good or mine. And I can always feel the resistance as I go through the process. And so now I understand what that is. But I didn’t have a word for it before.

 

Catherine A. Wood  42:46

Yeah. Yeah, man, that’s been such a blessing in my business. Like just truly surrendering to that if a client is not a hell yes. If I don’t feel a hell yes, desire to work with them, then they are no and I can bless and release them or hand them off to someone who I think would be a good fit, right? It’s been a game changer. It’s honestly like those knows, like, they they contribute energy to me, because I know I’m making a decision for both my and their highest and best.

 

Eryn Morgan  43:18

Agreed. Yeah, that’s that is definitely that is a new standard. As I’ve come back to my business and refocused in on who I want to work with. That is a that is definitely a new standard that I hold. I had periods of time where I would say yes, if they wanted to work with me, and they had the money to pay me, I would say yes. And I had to learn how detrimental that is. on lots of different levels before I finally said enough, I’m not doing that anymore.

 

Catherine A. Wood  43:47

Mm hmm. I’m happy for you to think Well, this has been lovely. I’ve learned a lot and honestly Erin, I I really appreciate talking about the cobia wasn’t sure where we’re gonna go on our conversation today. And, and I learned a lot and it it really makes sense. So I love that I appreciate you educating me and and my audience because I’m sure

 

Eryn Morgan  44:11

it’s a fun. It’s a fun little tool. It’s not the answer to you know, secret to life or anything. Definitely, definitely. It’s something I enjoy talking about. So thanks for asking me about it.

 

Catherine A. Wood  44:22

Yeah, totally. Well, as we wrap up, I asked this of all my guests what what supported you and becoming a prosperous empath.

 

Eryn Morgan  44:31

People like Sadie freshers and Morgan’s fact, it’s been the people. It’s been the amazing clients that I’ve had over the years and watching when the resonance there was just this resonance with these amazing women. And they’re the ones who pushed me to my next level every single time and encouraged me to my next level. And so that is absolutely it’s been the people I’ve worked with.

 

Catherine A. Wood  44:55

Yeah, love it. Well, thank you so much for today. This has been such a delight.

 

Eryn Morgan  45:00

Oh much for having me I’ve loved being here