Leading Through Change: Turning Chaos into Clarity with Executive Coach Beverly Jurenko

0:02Beverly Jurenko:Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs Podcast, where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. as we go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it. Hi, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McCrane with Action Coach Business Growth Partners, where we work with local business owners to turn big ideas into real scalable growth.

0:46Beverly Jurenko:Today, I'm excited to be joined by Beverly Jarenko, Beverly Coaching. Beverly, thanks for being here. How are you doing today?

0:54Cliff:I am doing very well, Cliff, and I'm so excited to have the opportunity to talk with you. Thank you for the invitation.

1:02Beverly Jurenko:Yeah, thank you very much. And yeah, let's go ahead and jump right in. So for those of you who may not know it yet, who is Beverly Durenko and what is Beverly Coaching?

1:13Cliff:Yeah, I am an executive coach and I work primarily with high performing leaders who tend to be in a moment of transition, often because their company is changing, their role is changing, or they are. Earlier in my career, I spent years inside organizations navigating growth, pressure, and change of control situations. And what has fascinated me wasn't just about strategy. it was about what happened inside people. And that's one thing that inspired me to go through the training and become a coach. I saw incredibly capable leaders lose their footing when the ground shifted. And I've been one of them.

2:02Cliff:I've been one of those people in a company going through transition where I felt like I was literally losing my head. So my work is to help leaders find clarity and steadiness in moments where they feel destabilized. This has been one of the most exciting chapters of decades of a career, and I am truly dedicated and inspired by my clients. Okay.

2:30Beverly Jurenko:Okay. Yeah. Love it. Love it. So take us back to the very beginning. What made you say, you know, yep, I'm doing this. I'm starting that business.

2:39Cliff:Well, this is the third business that I've started. The first one was actually in 2003 in Houston, Texas, when I found myself wanting to do something meaningful, but also at home with two very young children and a husband who was traveling all the time for work. So I happened to start a janitorial business, which followed my time as being a private equity investor. I grew that business and sold it in 2007 and then started another business in 2016 in EdTech. That was a company called That's Math, which was attempting to provide family math engagement for parents and kids, elementary school kids, in English and Spanish in Texas.

3:27Cliff:I sold that to my partners. And so this is my third time starting my company. It's a different phase for me. I'm not trying to build this and become a unicorn. But what I am trying to do is make a positive impact on other people, as many of them as I can in the next 10 years. Okay.

3:48Beverly Jurenko:Okay. I like that. I like that. So, you know, so since you started, you know, quite a few businesses, I'm sure you can help out and, you know, maybe smaller entrepreneurs listening today. If you had to start any of those businesses from absolute scratch, no brand, no clients, no safety net, what would you do differently the second time around?

4:10Cliff:well that sounds like me when i started the janitorial business i had a couple of people who wanted to do cleaning but they didn't have business skills and that's why they asked me to partner with them and through my connections i got a contract for 15 000 square feet of commercial cleaning. But I had no idea how to operate a janitorial business. It had never been something that I had thought of doing. I could barely clean my own bathroom, let alone clean 15 ,000 square feet of commercial space. So what I would do differently is I would have been more conscious about bringing in an operating partner early.

4:57Cliff:I have the business skills, I have the strategy skills and the finance skills, but running a floor machine, if you saw me in person, I'm not actually a big person. I'm not a small person, but you think about those big floor machines that bounce around. It wasn't my core strength. And I think if you're going to run a very physical business, you need to bring in somebody early who can handle the things physically that you can't handle. Okay.

5:28Beverly Jurenko:Great, great. So what would you say, you know, digging into a little bit more, what's a lesson you learned the hard way as a business owner that no one really prepares you for?

5:39Cliff:Oh, that is such an interesting question. What have I learned the hard way? I think running a business, now I'll switch back to the coaching business, building a client list and getting to the point where you're not sweating every month to bring in new people takes time and it takes resilience. and if you look at each lack of response as a rejection it's going to hold you back from being aggressive and positive and connecting with people that can bring a new business a lack of response isn't necessarily a no it can mean not now or not yet or a maybe So taking everything as a sign of rejection is absolutely limiting.

6:36Cliff:I think that people who are trying to build companies need to have this overwhelmingly positive outlook on the world that anything is possible. Today is a new day. I can do it and I'm going to try. And if it doesn't work out, at least I've tried and there's something I can learn from it.

6:56Beverly Jurenko:I love that advice. That's good. So what would you say is one common myth that people believe about running a business that makes you laugh now?

7:10Cliff:Yeah, this is. So so I actually teach the foundations course at Mountain BizWorks and I coach through Mountain BizWorks in English and Spanish. so um i think mindset has a lot to do with um actually can you just repeat the question i lost the train of thought no you're fine you're fine what's one common myth people believe about running a business that makes you laugh now yeah the myth of running a business is that you can have it all you can never have it all it is so much work to run your own business you have to be on day and night ready for anything that can happen if you truly want to build a business and be better than your competition you never get to a point of coasting there's always something new to learn there's always somebody who's trying to gain a toehold into your space and so it's it's not a place where you can stop and have a wonderful lifestyle and cash the checks running your own business is something that takes day-to-day effort and also resilience in terms of making sure that you do carve out time for self-care.

8:42Cliff:So that, that really is the biggest challenge. I think finding time for self-care and taking care of your whole self when you know that every day your business is something that needs your attention.

8:56Beverly Jurenko:So be honest, are you naturally more of an entrepreneur or an employee?

9:01Cliff:I am an entrepreneur.

9:03Beverly Jurenko:Okay, perfect. And why would you say that?

9:05Cliff:I see myself as somebody who's very creative and very much willing to speak my mind and try new things. I also love working with people and managing them. If you look at my Enneagram profile, this uh this is something which comes out i truly believe that the group can do better when we are organized and supporting each other and have the right cultural outlook so one thing that i try to do in every company that i've run and in working with other people is to maintain this mindset of welcome, belonging, inclusion, and importance because everybody has something to say, an idea that is important.

10:05Cliff:If we feel that we know it all, we are going to be the first ones to fall because we do need other people and their input to succeed. So as an entrepreneur, I love the process of creating and connecting the dots, but I do it in a way that involves and cherishes the input from the other people who are part of the process.

10:30Beverly Jurenko:Okay. Okay. Love that. Love that. So how do you personally handle stepping away from the business? Like, you know, vacations, downtime, unplugging at the end of the day. are you type of person 6 p.m i'm done i'm not taking any not doing any more work or

10:45Cliff:do you work around the clock how do you handle that at this point in my life i'm at a really great phase in my coaching business i can make my own schedule so if i'm planning a trip or planning an outing or have a really good pickleball game that i want to play i'll just black out my schedule and nobody can book an appointment with me. So I'm at the point now where I do what I want to do and I feel I have a good balance. I haven't always been this way. When I was working in corporate, when I was in the janitorial business and trying to grow the ed tech company, it was much more frenetic. And I think that that impacted my mental and physical health.

11:32Cliff:So this is an area because I've been through it and I know the importance of seeing the long term and the balance and things when I feel I can help my clients look at who they are, what they want, what's important to them so we can put together a plan that's going to be sustainable, not something where somebody is burnt out in six months. Okay.

11:58Beverly Jurenko:So looking back, what do you attribute most to your growth so far in your business?

12:04Cliff:showing up keeping trying learning new things testing tools with people and being willing to being being willing to put myself in a place where i'm making myself vulnerable i think that as a coach that's the most important skill that you can bring to the table because i don't know what my clients want i may have an idea from them i may have business experience where I could tell them what to do, but I don't, it's for them to decide what their path is. And that's the process of coaching that I uncover with them. So by making myself vulnerable, I feel that's the greatest tool to opening up a place of safety so people can look at what is coming up for them and be willing to change.

13:00Beverly Jurenko:okay all right so switching gears here a little bit so when you're building a team you know maybe you're looking to hire somebody to work with you or what whatnot what traits matter more to you

13:11Cliff:than what's on someone's resume what traits matter more to me let me think on that for a second okay I value in people the character that they bring to the table. And when I talk about character, I think character comes in many forms. But there's a straightforwardness and an honesty and authenticity that I see in some people. and those are the ones that I strive to be around. Another thing that I look for is the willingness to strive for excellence. Not everyone wants to do the hard work, to look at the details, to keep making mistakes and learning to become excellence, imminent in their field, you might say.

14:12I look for people to be around who have that drive and enthusiasm and who want to be truly the best they can be.

14:24Cliff:That's very important to me. And the last thing that I look for is opinions and views and world experiences that are different from mine. I was born into this body. I have only one life that I know. But other people come from different backgrounds, neighborhoods, races, religions, all sorts of forms of diversity that can bring a creativity and insights that I don't have. So I want to be around people who would tell me they disagree with me. I want to be around people who will tell me they have other ideas because together we can create a new model, a consensus, a new way of looking at the world so that we can truly be innovative and be the best that we can be.

15:16Okay.

15:17Beverly Jurenko:So what's one thing you would do intentionally for your employees to keep your workplace positive, motivated, and productive, especially during stressful times?

15:29Cliff:I really like the book Radical Candor by Kim Scott. And she talks about the value of challenging people professionally while caring for them personally. Too often, we don't tell people what we really think when they're giving them feedback. We tell them things are okay when they're not, when we want something more or we want something different. With practice, we can be better at telling people what we want and where things need to change while showing them that we are aligned with them. We care about their development. We want them to be successful and we're here to enable them to be so. So I believe in kind, compassionate honesty.

16:21Cliff:We don't help people if we tell them they're doing a good job when they're not. And equally, we don't help people when we celebrate their successes. so both sides of that candor are things that i strive to create in the cultures in the businesses

16:38Beverly Jurenko:i'm in okay i love that that's really good advice all right so what we're going to head into now is what's called the quick fire round so um you know basically i'm going to give you i'm going to say one word and basically i want you to give me the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that word in regards to running your business all right first word is yeah first word is education

17:02Cliff:keep learning that's not one word i guess that's not really what you wanted

17:07Beverly Jurenko:no no no no no because that's perfect but you can expand upon it i mean it's your answer doesn't

17:14Cliff:have to be one word i'm just going to give you one word okay education is never ending you should never stop trying to be educated.