Disrupt Status Quo with New Thinking. Catherine Cantey

Bob Wheeler:
Catherine, thanks for joining us today. So looking forward to this conversation.

Catherine Cantey:
Thank you, Bob. I appreciate you having me. I look forward to this as well.

Bob Wheeler:
So you are the founder and CEO of Business Vitality. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is and how it helps business leaders?

Catherine Cantey:
Yes, thank you for asking. So business vitality is my 20 years of living in corporate, visiting with countless businesses. When I say countless, we did three, 400 proposals a year bringing in new business to the bank. And we did that for over a decade.

So I’ve had exposure to a ridiculous amount of businesses that are out there. And what I have found is for businesses to remain vital and for them to continue to succeed day after day, month after month, year after year. they go back to practical applications. And so instead of making things really complicated, we get back down to the business basics. We find practical applications that we’ve all researched and read, but sometimes we just need to get back to the core basics to really drive business, especially when there are major changes that are happening in the market.

It’s just good to get back to the basics. And so for me, business vitality is my 20 years of corporate, bringing that and sharing that with my clients and also using that with my executive coaching as well.

Bob Wheeler:
Cool. And can you give an example of where somebody’s maybe been in business for 20 years or 15 years and they’ve sort of maybe moved away from basics? And then do you base, like how do you sort of bring them back or get them to like shift

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah.

Bob Wheeler:
the mindset?

Catherine Cantey:
So all of the work that I’m doing is tailored to each individual client. I think one example is, you know, if you’re still moving the big boulders around, that’s one thing. But as you become more and more successful, you may be able to think you need to create a new boulder in the mix of things and you may take on a new business and it’s not proving to be successful and it’s draining your resources, your time, your money. f

rom the one business that is creating the money and the results. So knowing that you need to maybe cut that off or knowing when the stop button needs to be hit on that new particular business, knowing that is important and to be able to create the pros and cons of, okay, what’s working, what’s not, is this the life that you wanna continue to live is one example.

And some businesses that are just continuing. to do just great things, maybe they got the core business there and now they’re just gonna have to start picking up the pebbles. And these are like small tweaks and reports, creating more in-line KPIs, simplifying the information that’s being shared with the team.

And as we grow, we don’t need to add 1,400 more reports, we probably need to just focus on those key differentials of what we need to measure. And so it’s gonna be different for all the different clients that I work with, but those are just two examples.

Bob Wheeler:
Okay. And would you say with technology, at least my experience in the accounting world, where I live, in taxes, there’s become such a reliance on automation and… things just being done by computers and AI.

And I think sometimes, at least in accounting, we start to disconnect from the data and from the client because I’ve got CPAs are like, look, you never have to talk to anybody, just push a button and then it uploads from here. And we lose that interaction. And I feel like so much gets lost sometimes when we’re so busy being automated.

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah, things get to be over automated. One example is, I was in banking for a number of years and these folks are writing millions of dollars a day in checks and yes, that needs to be automated as far as the reconciliation of it, but we still need to have an eyeball check of what these numbers are and do we see any analysis as we’re just scanning through it? Are the dates wrong?

Is the serial number off? Are there big large numbers? Do we remember writing that big large number? And even, that’s somebody who’s writing millions of dollars of checks that are clearing every day. So yes, automation is fantastic, but you also have to be able to go back and look at it and just be able to scan it. And you don’t have to do it every day, but at least scan that thing and make sure that there’s nothing hairy in there.

Automation is great when it works, but just like chat, GBT likes to tell me, I’ve got this information for you, but I can’t promise you that it’s 100% valid. So just like we’ve got automation, yeah, we can take it as far as we can. But we can’t say that is 100% valid. We’ve got to be able to touch it and look at it and understand it.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah. Absolutely. Now I’m curious, did eight-year-old Katherine say, I want to take over the banking world and take

Catherine Cantey:
Hmm.

Bob Wheeler:
over corporate? Like was this what you wanted to do as a kid or did you pivot at some point? How did you get into the corporate world and then out of the corporate world?

Catherine Cantey:
That’s a great question. Yeah. So when I was eight, I wanted to be an architect. And just like every good parent that puts their kid in front of the architects and make sure, you know, does this, what you want to do? And so I met with probably half a dozen architects and what I realized was they weren’t happy.

And they said, they would pull me to the side and they said, that’s real cute that, that you want to be an architect and everything. But basically this is a field of dream killers. We come up with these beautiful solutions for our clients. And then our clients come in and they want to change the plans. And we have like just put blood, sweat and tears into these designs. And then we have to change them for our clients. And so as I’m looking at this, I’m going,

God, I don’t know if I want to be with them because they’re just, it just wasn’t like the vibe that I wanted to feel. So I kind of reevaluated as I got a little bit older and said, okay, what else can I go do? And then I started shadowing some business people and I thought, well, That’s not bad. I definitely knew I didn’t want to do accounting because I shadowed that one day and I thought, Oh my

God, if I have to do reports all day, I might lose my mind. But you know, as I began to look at business, I said, okay, we’ve got tons of opportunities out there. This could take me a plethora of different ways. Just go get a double major marketing and management and see where it goes. And so natural curiosity took me down that path and it proved to be beneficial.

I still remodel homes, I get to do my own designs, and I get to keep them because I’m the one that designs it and I’m the one paying for it. But then I also have the business, so I get to live the best of both worlds.

Bob Wheeler:
That’s so cool. I love that you do that. And I love that you shadowed and checked things out and that your parents were having you talk to architects early on so that you could actually have options or digest the information because a lot of people just jump in blindly, graduate and realize, oh, this was a mistake.

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah, big mistake. But, you know, as long as we’ve got that college degree, we can, you know, hit the ground running and be able to apply to a number of different jobs and just see where it takes us. It’s not always a straight path. So just be curious and keep leaning in.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, and how does the power of new thinking, and also another word that I saw in some of the literature that you have is disruptors. I’m wondering

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah.

Bob Wheeler:
how those two things play into the work you do.

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah, so as far as I can remember, I remember at age 14, kind of disrupting things and looking at things in a different way, asking a lot of questions from people who’ve been here and have done that, and not always doing exactly the way they did it, but how do I take it and make it my own? And when it comes to the power of new thinking, I’ve got a number of ideas, just a simple one.

If you go back to architecture and remodeling houses, we would take mill homes, small mill houses. and we would gut the entire thing and then reconfigure it plus add on the square footage. So it worked for today’s, you know, family or today’s world. And so, you know, the kitchen used to be small and in the back. Well, we don’t want to have a kitchen small and in the back.

So how do we reconfigure this and understand where the load-bearing walls are, where the, you know, electrical panel is and like, how do we make this work again? So thinking about things in new ways that way. I was the second woman in 100 years to take on a customer facing role in a $300 billion financial institution. So talk about disruptive. You know, I wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms into that position. And it was very clear that, you know, they didn’t really want me.

The CEO did because he needed some new thinking. But the other folks, they already had their guy picked out who was going to take that job. And I came in and I didn’t fit the mold. And they challenged me. And I was able to come out and by the end of it, the guy said, oh, you’re my best hire. And I’m thinking to myself, you didn’t want me, but okay, we’ll pretend. And then I’ve got another example of a $12.1 million public and private funded broadband opportunity. So we were able to,

I was just curious, listen to, you know, it’s a long story, but listen to what the need is in our community. And also knew that. the federal government was putting out a reconnect grant. And I was told that, you know, trying to get a federal grant is, it’s like catching a unicorn. And so by the end of this thing, we caught a unicorn and got $12.1 million to help close the broadband gap that we have here. So hopefully the broadband is gonna hold up for this call.

Bob Wheeler:
It will, it will. I have the faith. I have the faith. Well, I want to go back to this piece about disruptor. Some people hear that and think it’s a negative connotation. To me, when I hear disruptor and what you’re talking about with new thinking, is we’ve got to disrupt the ways we’ve been doing it if we’re trying to move from where we are.

Like if we’re sitting in a stuck place and going, it’s not working. We got to rethink it. We’ve got to change it up. And so for me, disruptor more is like, you know, shaking the snow globe, um, and, and unsettling things that we can actually see it from a different perspective and see if we can move from that place.

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah, I do it real slow. Everything I do is just very slow and just kind of test a little bit just to see if we get a little bit of traction. And I have found that if we test it and the community’s open to this idea of having reliable broadband. And then I cold call on a telecommunications provider.

They took my call. That is a small step, but a big step. I was able to rally the folks in the community to be able to help them respond to the RFP or request for a proposal. And so all these things are small, but when you, if you said, you’re going to get 256 miles of fiber for this community, buried in the ground in 18 months, that sounds kind of disruptive.

Like how in the world is that going to happen? But everything that is disruptive or I like to call it in banking because you can’t disrupt things in banking. But I would say respectfully challenge. How can we respectfully challenge how we traditionally think about getting broadband into rural communities?

And so. That was one way of doing it. And so knowing how to tailor our language, understand what the client or the customer or the people that we’re trying to work with, what is most important to them and how do we serve them in the best way? Because if we can serve them well, then we’re going to be able to show up as a better leader.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah. And how do you do that? How do you go about creating a personalized approach to coaching with these individual clients? Do you, you’ve got to do a lot of listening, I

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah.

Bob Wheeler:
would imagine.

Catherine Cantey:
Yes.

Bob Wheeler:
And then a lot of What about like, and then a lot of solutions or options or

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah, so

Bob Wheeler:
how does that

Catherine Cantey:
I

Bob Wheeler:
work?

Catherine Cantey:
think that was a great thing about putting together three and four hundred proposals a year for 10 years and having a 90% success rate. Like we tested storytelling all the time, way before Storyframed was even around. And, you know, I just did a, um, a group coaching event, a kickoff and the morning session was for the entire team, the afternoon, just the executive team.

And I mainly worked with the COO and one of the founders. And then the other founder came in, the other co-founder came in with the rest of the executive team for the afternoon session. And he was bamboozled. He said, how in the world did you know that we were gonna have a team goal and this is what it was gonna be?

I knew exactly what their language was gonna be. He was like, I don’t understand it. You used it, it’s written. It’s on page eight, it’s on page 18, it is on page 22. How did you know? That was exactly what we were going to do. And I just kind of listened to them. And I mean, I hated to tell them the how behind it, but basically I listened very intently with the COO, with the other founder,

and I listened to what their language was. And so what one person may call is communication skills. It could be listening, it could be speaking, it could be the executive presence on the stage. Like listen to what…

The words are that they’re using just like the call before this one that I have. I want the client’s language because if I can get their language, we can accelerate and create change in a much quicker way. So in a nutshell, listen, listen.

Bob Wheeler:
I love that. You know, it’s interesting because I have a tax practice. I work with a lot of entertainers. And I have a very short period to have their attention. And one of the things I learned early on is if I don’t understand their money mindset and all their fears around money,

if I don’t understand where they’re coming from, no matter what I say to them, they’re not going to listen. I’ve got to understand their language and meet them where they are instead of asking them to meet me where I am.

Catherine Cantey:
Yes, yeah, we’ve got to stop meeting. We have to stop expecting people are at the same place that we are and just be okay with it, have a little empathy and self-compassion and know that maybe we were there, maybe we’re going to be there, maybe they’re further along than we are, and just meet them where they are if we can do that. It’s just so much easier for everybody.

Bob Wheeler:
And when you decided to go out on your own, like, you know, all right, we’re going to leave corporate behind. We’re going to, you know, you’re involved with corporate, but you’re not corporate. Uh, what was that like? Was it scary to say, no, I’m ready to go out on my own. Uh, I’m going to pull from my savings. I’m going to get people to lend me money. I’m going to borrow from a bank. Um, and, and then how did you trust yourself to say, I got this.

Catherine Cantey:
good question. I had been planning it for 20 years. So I knew when I was going into corporate, and that’s part of that mindset when I was younger, I was around enough older people who worked in corporate and older for an 18 year old is you know, you see the 50 and 60 year olds.

And now I’m closer to that. So it you know, it’s all perspective that as a teenager in high school, I learned about you know, layoffs and reshuffling and reorganizations and The team is no longer needed for the company. So that team is gonna be dissolved. And so I’m watching all this and I’m like, ooh, that’s gonna be hard, you know, mid 40s, 50s, and that’s gonna hit because that’s what I’m seeing as a younger person.

And so I said, look, I’m gonna have some great experiences. I’m gonna see how far we can take this. I’ve had incredible opportunities given to me, stuff that just wasn’t normal to be able to sit in these rooms and boardrooms as a very young person. and be able to learn as much as I could. And like they said, you drink from a fire hose. So like I just sucked it in as much as I could. From there, I knew around 20 years in, 25 years in, that it was gonna be time to go.

And so probably three years before, I’m just very curious and wanna continue to see what else is out there. And so I mentioned to my husband, I said, you’ve been a serial entrepreneur. I was stable at the 401k, I had the healthcare. you had your 20 years and now it’s my term. And I just said, I’m going to retire from banking. And I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I knew that, you know, I wanted to go out while everything’s still happy and great.

And I did. And three years before that, I hired a coach to help me kind of figure out what in the world do I do? What’s it look like? How do I even say, I’m going to do this? Like practice that role playing versus standing in front of a stage of a couple hundred people. Like that was easy, but we didn’t get there overnight. And so how do you say, it’s been fun,

I’m going to go out and start my own business. And so it was a lot of conversations for those three years that led up to it. And figuring out through a number of just reflections and books, like the artist way. And I think it was the six months before it was the summer before the year before I ended up turning in my resignation. I drove from Florida all the way up to Vermont and the month of June. And I had that many business trips lined up and it literally had me go on the whole coast.

Well, I listened to the artist way and it was annoying in the sense that it kept asking different questions, but it was the same answer. I was like, well, now we know what I need to do. I need to continue to work with CEOs and C level leaders and just collaborate with them and help guide them and be a resource to them to create more leadership and more efficiencies. And so that happened. I ended up getting trained by Marshall Goldsmith

Bob Wheeler:
I’m

Catherine Cantey:
in New York and spent some time with him. Loved it. It’s measurable leadership change. And then I remember taking a full week off in March and before that June and practiced working. It was the best week ever. And so turned in my notice June 1 of 2019. And that

Bob Wheeler:
going

Catherine Cantey:
was

Bob Wheeler:
to

Catherine Cantey:
my

Bob Wheeler:
take a

Catherine Cantey:
last

Bob Wheeler:
few minutes

Catherine Cantey:
day

Bob Wheeler:
to get

Catherine Cantey:
was

Bob Wheeler:
this done.

Catherine Cantey:
June 30.

Bob Wheeler:
Wow, that is so awesome. Well, I want to come back to the artist’s way and I want to ask about coaching. But, Catherine, it’s time to test your nerve. So we’re going to test your nerve. Test Your Nerve is brought to you by The Money Nerve, where we explore why we do what we do when it comes to money. We’re just going to jump energies just real quick. What are some core values that guide your financial decision making process?

Catherine Cantey:
Pay yourself first. That was always a very big core value even from a young age. Pay yourself first whether it’s in a retirement account, an HSA, whatever it needs to be. Like just make sure you take care of yourself first. And even at a younger age, as you get more money, you have more money exposed to you, continue to live that conservative lifestyle and take that reserve money. Yeah, go buy like a nice item but continue to take that money. and reinvest in yourself, your accounts, whatever it may be. So those are just two things that just started at a very young age for me. That allowed to have, because

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah,

Catherine Cantey:
of that, it

Bob Wheeler:
that’s

Catherine Cantey:
created

Bob Wheeler:
awesome.

Catherine Cantey:
freedom for me later.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, absolutely. Delayed gratification, folks. Delayed gratification.

Catherine Cantey:
It’s not sexy at all.

Bob Wheeler:
How do you approach charitable giving and what… It’s not sexy. It’s not sexy, but you know what? I’d rather have not sexy and an abundant life. Because eventually that gets sexy. How do you approach charitable giving and what role does it play in your life?

Catherine Cantey:
Charitable giving is a very big thing for me, for my family. Over the years, we didn’t have much to give in the beginning. We would flip houses, you know, we’re still working, starting up businesses, and we’d flip houses, we’d take 10% of that, and we would give it locally. It wasn’t a lot in the beginning, and so a lot of people, we reached out to nationwide foundations that are always on the TV commercial.

We’re like, oh, that’d be cool, we’ll send our money there. For us, that was a lot of money. and they never returned our calls. So we started working locally. Because the same problems that are around the world, we probably have them in our own backyard. So we started learning about some of the charities that we have around here.

We’ve got our local United Way of Kershaw County. They support 19 different local charities. They can stretch a dollar like nobody I’ve ever seen. So we begin to make donations to them. It’s not a lot of money. But then as time goes on, we are asked to black tie or chair a black tie event, my husband and I are. And I said, OK, that’s fine. But before you put my name on it, can I see what it is that we’re going to do?

And it’s a transition shelters, the only transition shelter in our community for hardworking moms, their kids, the families to go from homelessness into permanent housing. And so we went and looked at it. And I’m like, oh, my gosh, these people live on the same street as I do. And they are living in ridiculous situations like. some of these little cottages nobody needs to be living in. And so we educated ourself on it. We knew what they were doing. They have a 90% success rate of getting moms and kids from homelessness into permanent housing.

Fantastic job, stuff I could never imagine doing. And so we start doing these charity, you know, fundraisers to have a party and just educate the community. And so we start doing that and we realize we need to build a cottage for one of these moms. And so a local church, this is where the community comes together again. This is not just, you know, one person doing this. This is a local pastor has a mom and a daughter that they have been working with to just like see if the consistency is there.

Are they working? Can they get the job? Can they show up to work on time? Like they’re taking all the small steps. And this guy puts his neck out and says, I have the family. We met with United Way. United Way has They have the new down mill program for the mom and the kid to get all the services to get back in. So we’re all sitting around the table and we get a lot donated from Habitat. And we start building this cottage that I designed.

So, you know, using those old architecture skills, but we build a little a little cottage and we clear the lot. We build it. And the church is still supporting, you know, the family just, you know, as a consistent support system. And then we got the mom out of a housing situation that just wasn’t safe and secure and into a clean brand new home.

We used all the subs that we’ve used for all of our renovations. The paint store donated their paint. The electrical guy donated his time. I mean, everybody came together to be able to do this. And that was a long answer, but giving back and charities are just really important. And if we can just find one or two that we can make an impact to, just… know that they appreciate it and when you can do that concentration of funds and focus, you can really deliver a pretty amazing gift.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, that’s awesome. And yeah, it is important for the folks that don’t have as much. to make sure that they’re included, not excluded from community because it does take a village in that respect and problems don’t go away if we don’t, uh, if we just ignore them. So we might as well embrace it and find solutions. So I think that’s, that’s awesome. What’s one thing that you wish you knew about money and emotions earlier in life?

Catherine Cantey:
The way you were brought up around money is not your forever way of having to deal with money as you become an adult. So whatever you know as your younger version of you, that does not need to be your future version.

Know that there are other solutions, other ideas, other mindsets out there. And if you don’t feel good about the way you were brought up with it, know that might be off and start. researching, Googling, listening to podcasts, just start educating yourself and let you make up your own mind on what you really wanna believe about money in your mindset.

Bob Wheeler:
Absolutely. And you may not get it perfectly the first time. You’re allowed to make mistakes and pivot and keep listening for new information.

Catherine Cantey:
Yes, totally.

Bob Wheeler:
What’s the most unusual or memorable thing that you’ve ever spent money on?

Catherine Cantey:
I remember spending some money on a ring. I got a bonus. Normally my husband would give me jewelry, but I went and I took a little bit of a portion of a bonus because I’d worked really hard that year. And I thought, you know, that’s gonna be kind of cool. So my mom and I went and picked out this sapphire ring that I loved and I was like,

I paid for it. I worked for it. I delivered the results and I’m gonna take a portion and just go have something because For me, jewelry has stories and for me that was important and it wasn’t extravagant or anything, but it was just that memory of, yeah, I’m just gonna go treat myself to something. I saved so much, like just go spend a little bit every once in a while and have a little fun.

Bob Wheeler:
cool uh… what is the main emotion that you experience when it comes to money in finance

Catherine Cantey:
The main emotion, my first emotion is I love money. I love what it can do. I don’t think it’s a bad thing because I think if you have money and you use it correctly, you can give it and empower other people around you.

You can model to other people how it could be. You know, just to be able to show up and be okay with it and to be able to share with others, I think is a good thing. And you know, we… It’s okay to be successful, it’s okay to work really hard, and it’s okay to show to other people that you can have humility and work really hard and still be able to give back.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah. Awesome. I’m going to take a pause because

Catherine Cantey:
Okay.

Bob Wheeler:
I have to do a little. I don’t. Can we do it later? Yeah, I just. Close it out though by saying to the listeners, and listeners if you’d like to test your nerve, be sure to visit testyournerve.com and understand why you do what you do. We don’t have them there, right? Don’t worry, we’ll just record it after. Yeah, sorry. All right. We’re going to jump…

All right, this one. All right. So, Catherine, I got to jump back to you talked about the artist’s way. Um, and I want to know a little bit more about that because most people in business, you’re either right brain or left brain and not a lot of people. I’m very left brain, right brain. Um, but a lot of times stuff about an artist, how can an artist help a business? Um, that sounds very woo woo.

Um, I love that you brought up the artist’s way. Uh, I love that book. Um, and that information. So can you tell me a little bit about, um, the importance of artistry in business or the artist way?

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah, okay, so the artist way helped me in the sense that I do everything through audible just because I spend so much time in the car or I used to when I was working for the bank and so I put this thing on audible and I listened to it and you’re supposed to answer questions.

And what I have found that I’ll listen to these workbooks or I’ll listen to these books, instead of writing it down. It’s just helping me think in a very proactive way intentional way as I have countless hours driving down the road. And I remember driving through the mountains of West Virginia and they just keep asking just different questions And what did you enjoy doing when you were younger?

What do you enjoy doing now? What have you lost touch with and what do you want to rekindle all this stuff? So I’ll go through this whole thing I was like this book is so annoying. It is asked me the exact same question 500 different ways And so for me like then

Bob Wheeler:
Right.

Catherine Cantey:
I went oh, it’s not annoying. This is clarity. This is what this is Like there’s consistency with the answers, there’s consistency with like a theme and what I think I’m meant to do next. And so for me, you know, sometimes we just gotta get a little creative to be able to figure out what’s next for us. And so that’s the artist way, as far as like creativity and business mindset. I mean, every opportunity that I was afforded was because I creatively co-created a solution for somebody else.

And so we would listen to client needs. I would understand this is what I do really well I listen in the boardroom what the strategy is I listen to what the frontline folks are willing to pay for and then I go and I sit in operations and I hear What do we have the capacity to do and between those three different things? You’ve got to get real creative You’ve got to break down acronyms. You’ve got to break down the conversation break down exactly

How expensive operations do you think that’s gonna be? Turns out it was a two hour report and nobody wanted to run it. And I said, well, if we can basically just get paid a ridiculous amount of money for this report because the client really wants it, would you do it? And they were like, I mean, yeah, that would pay for two full-time employees if you can just get that particular thing solved for. And I was like, well, it’s done because I just went ahead and got a feeler for it. And they said, oh, that’s fantastic.

And then, you know, from a strategic standpoint, now we have a new product offering that everybody else wants on the market. And, you know, it keeps them happy, but we gotta create that language. You don’t do that by staying in the box. You don’t do that by just taking the order. You do that by getting creative and listening to people, and you connect the dots, and you give more than you take.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, and I love that. I mean, as you were talking about all this and I was just, you know, the artist’s way at creativity, even the simplest, you know, faucet on a sink or something that we just a rivet or whatever. It still needed somebody to create it or say, hey, there’s a need for that. So even the most boring businesses started from some need that wasn’t being met or that, you know, that was new that people would want.

And so I love that piece that really, it all does spark from creativity. The second question I have, you talked about when you made the transition. You already knew ahead of time. So you knew even 20 years out. At some point I will be pivoting. And so it was on your radar and I’m curious about the piece. So I hear the intentionality, which I think is awesome.

Um, but I’m curious, how did you know you found the right coach, right? Because there’s a lot of coaches out there. There’s a lot of people that say they can help. And then, you know, some of them know what they’re talking about. Some don’t. You know, I’ve had a couple of clients go down a rabbit hole that didn’t help. And then I’ve seen other people just blossom. What are some traits or what are some signs that I’ve found the right coach?

Catherine Cantey:
In that scenario when I hired my first coach, she started off with, this is going to be a short-term relationship and when this no longer works for you, someone else will appear and you’re going to transition to them. I can only teach you as much as I can and we’re just we’re going to work together as long as it’s mutually beneficial and just know at the end of it something else is going to be waiting for you but you got to get through this before you can get to that.

And so knowing that, and then a lot of this stuff is we’re just not going to get married to every single thing. Like we think we’re going to go do xyz and then it turns out there’s a need and an opportunity that pays pretty well doing this over here. So do you want to go and create a solution for that? And then just knowing that over time we may outgrow ideas, we may outgrow people, we may outgrow different things and just to be open.

to know that the right thing will be there when we’re ready for it and jump in, get as much as you can, as fast as you can in my world, get as much as you can, as quick as you can, and then reevaluate and see, well, okay, where do we go from here? So just knowing that it wasn’t permanent and that this was part of the natural growth process.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, that’s great. Because I just, yeah, it’s always, you know, it sounds like a little bit of trust your gut and the languaging that she used was pretty cool because it wasn’t like you got to have me for the next 20 years.

Catherine Cantey:
Thank

Bob Wheeler:
I

Catherine Cantey:
you.

Bob Wheeler:
know everything. It’s, hey, this is short term. I don’t have the answers for everything and you will outgrow me. So it makes it feel like there’s more room to. to pivot or wiggle room.

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah, I think it’s good to know that if you can come up with the end at the beginning and just go ahead and know how you’re going to break up before you get into the relationship or the business arrangement, whatever it may be have the end in mind.

That’s proven to be helpful. And so in that scenario, it’s there when I’m doing executive coaching, we’ve got a clear six, nine, 12 month engagement, like we know what the process is going to be. And we know it on the front end. And then if we want to expand it, we can. But I want to have a natural break at the end because it may not be a good fit for me.

So I may need to get out or the client, they may have a shift in the business and the business, that wing of it is no longer relevant. Everything’s changing. But just knowing that, hey, we’ve got to end in sight and that way we can both recheck and see if we want to revisit.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, that’s great. What would you say to the people that are listening that are thinking about starting their own business? They’ve been wanting to, there’s a little bit of fear, they’re not sure if it’s the right thing. Like somebody that’s listening, what would you say to somebody out there that’s thinking like making that leap of faith. What would you advise

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah,

Bob Wheeler:
him?

Catherine Cantey:
so a couple things first is know your numbers, know how much money you spend and know how much money you actually need to be able to bring in. Break that down into tangible, you know, months, weeks, whatever it needs to be because you gotta be able to pay the bills or at least be able to have that number in savings.

And anytime you build a house or I think start a business, you might as well put two X next to the number and two X times the time that you think it’s gonna take. And just know

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah.

Catherine Cantey:
that you’re going to have a whole lot of humility along the way because it’s just going to be clunky and awkward and people are going to have their opinions and usually the people who have opinions are the ones who’ve never taken a risk.

So just know that you’re going to get through it and this may not be the business that you thought you were going to start out with but maybe there’s another business at the other side that you had no idea that’s going to be even better than what you thought you were going to solve for. And I think one thing that’s overlooked is the whole sales and marketing aspect. Yeah, you got a great idea, but are you comfortable selling it?

Are you comfortable talking about it for the rest of your life? Is that what you want to do? And, um, you cannot begin to get educated on sales and marketing soon enough because you can have the best thing out there, but if nobody knows about it, it’s going to be a very long road ahead.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, let me ask you this. So, you know, our goal is to have successful businesses. I think most people’s goal is to have a successful business. How do you find the balance between like not necessarily being driven, but being successful in business and then finding that balance with personal life.

And I’m not saying it’s a 50-50 balance because it doesn’t need to necessarily be 50-50, but finding that space where I’m living my life with the success that I’m having from my business without letting my business run my life.

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah, there’s a lot of people that let the business run their life and I just don’t think it’s worth it. I love, I love working. I love working with my clients. I love creating solutions. And then I use a lot of time blocking to get things done.

I put buffers in with my time. I know how to protect my time in the morning because if I don’t take care of myself and do the thinking stuff in the morning, like it’s just not going to be good. So knowing how to manage the time is going to be the first step. But you’ve got to schedule family time like you schedule work time, like the most important meeting out there.

You’ve got to schedule time to be with your spouse and just go out and get out of the house, leave the kids behind and go and have that time and don’t talk about the kids and don’t talk about work but just talk about whatever else you want to talk about because work is going to come and go.

The kids are going to come and go. And what else do you have in common with this person? Something used to be there. So like, how are we going to get, get back to that? And, and it keeps it fun. Um, you know, this is probably my busiest month ever. And, you know, we have to go through times where we got a lot on our plate. I remember in sales, I would drive two, three hours and do five presentations, get back in the car and drive back two or three hours. And that was one day’s of work.

And I just thought. All right, well, that was max capacity there. Like I was no good by the fifth call. Wasn’t really good by the fourth call, but now I know what my bookends are. Like that is no longer going to be productive for me. And so as I look at this month, like this is what I wanted. I wanted to have the speaking engagements. I want to have the team coaching, the individual coaching. I want to have time to speak a podcast like this.

And so this is what I want. And now at the end of this month, and I’ve got time for three vacations, which is pretty awesome, but I’m going to look at this and say at the end of the month, is that what I really wanted? Is that, you know, did you want to work for the condensed three days for a week and then take the next seven days off for vacation? Is that what you want for your life? And so I have to be intentional about that and just probably reflect back on that. Is that the best use of my time for what I want to do in regards to my overall life?

Bob Wheeler:
I love that. And, you know, it’s interesting. I’ve said to people, clients, to people I work with on coaching and stuff to schedule in playtime, schedule in time with your significant other, schedule in certain things. And they’ll say, well, that doesn’t sound. that doesn’t allow me to be spontaneous or that doesn’t sound very sexy or it does.

And for me, when we schedule that stuff in, okay, maybe it’s not spontaneous that I plan two weeks from now, I’m going to go have fun. But when I’m in that moment, I can be spontaneous and I just think it’s, I’d rather have not as sexy and get results than be focused on it looks sexy, but I’m not actually making anything happen.

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah, it’s really not sexy when you’re working all the time and you have no time for anybody else. That is not sexy. Sexy is making that time and having it carved out and owning it and just saying, hey, Bob, it’s been good, but I got to go because my family’s out on the boat right now. So like that kind of stuff, you know, that’s OK.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Katherine, we’re at the M&M moment, our sweet spot, money and motivation. I’m wondering if you can give the listeners a practical financial tip or a piece of wealth wisdom, something that’s worked for you.

Catherine Cantey:
Hmm. This took me a while to figure out, but as you accumulate wealth, you have these fees from your advisors and I didn’t think much of it, but I read one of Tony Robbins books about it and in that book, it actually talks about how much money does it cost for you to live your lifestyle and at what age do you want to retire? And then, you know, assuming a 7% return or whatever it may be like go ahead and calculate it out.

And so the first thing was like. wow, it really doesn’t cost that much to retire if we do this on the front end. I mean, because we all think it needs to be some like a hundred million dollars and I’m never going to get there. So I’m never going to be able to retire. But

Bob Wheeler:
Right.

Catherine Cantey:
then in that book, I remember thinking after the clarity of like, this is totally doable. I will not be 95 years old and then eligible to retire. Um, but after that, they also talked about the investment fees. And so the normal fee, you know, they just want 1%, 1.25% the assets that they manage

Bob Wheeler:
Just,

Catherine Cantey:
and so

Bob Wheeler:
yeah.

Catherine Cantey:
have the courage to ask hey I want to discount on that number because they’re gonna make it regardless and nobody else is asking for it and just get even 25 basis points off of that fee because that’s your money compounded over the long term that’s gonna help you they’re gonna get that regardless of whatever return you’re getting make sure you negotiate that on the front end

Bob Wheeler:
I love it. And you know, you said something that so many people don’t do or are afraid to do.

Catherine Cantey:
Yeah.

Bob Wheeler:
Just ask. If somebody says no, you haven’t you. Okay, you’re no worse off, but at least you know the answer.

Catherine Cantey:
Yes. Yeah, don’t be afraid to ask.

Bob Wheeler:
Don’t be afraid to ask. Well, Catherine, you know, here’s the thing that I’ve what I found great about this conversation I found so inspiring is even though you didn’t say a lot, you know, explicitly intentionality, like. Having the vision, knowing where you want to go, being intentional. And I think when you do know the end result of where you want to be, the universe will line up and give you that if you’re trying to figure out how to get there.

Uh, yeah, sometimes there’s like lots of complications, but if you know, that’s where I’m going to be. Everything else just falls into place when you know where you’re going. Um, as opposed to like maybe over there, maybe over there. So I really appreciate that intentionality piece. And you also, um, talked about this, which to me is so important. Curiosity. Um, I wonder what will happen if I do this? Hey, I wonder what, what goes on.

Um, if I ask this question. And so this piece about curiosity. I think it keeps us alive and creative. And so I love that you’re out there being creative, and curious, that you’re out there being curious. And the other piece that I really love is that you talked about listen, listen. So many people are so busy presenting their answers that they’re not even actually listening to what the other person’s saying. And in this world, I think we could all do a little bit more active listening and be a lot more attentive. instead of just trying to defend our positions.

Catherine Cantey:
I totally agree. There is a great book by a gentleman by the name of Oscar Trimboni. He’s in Australia and it’s How to Listen. I think it’s the, I’m pretty sure that’s the name of the book, but Oscar wrote it and he is fantastic. He educated me. I mean, the stuff that we know, but our brains think at 900 words a minute. We speak at 125. So we are not articulating what we’re thinking. And if we’re not thinking before we speak, We’re just

Bob Wheeler:
Right.

Catherine Cantey:
speaking garbage. And so it makes it real hard for the listener to be able to connect. So I’m a big listener.

Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, I love it. And which in a way ties back to storytelling, which you all so talked about. I think storytelling. is so important. Katherine, where can people find you online and in social media and find out more about you and find out about your coaching?

Catherine Cantey:
Thank you for asking. They can find me at my website, KatherineKantze.com. That’s Katherine and Kantze with the letter C. You can also find me at LinkedIn. I am doing LinkedIn Lives on Mondays at 1.30 Eastern. So I’m just sharing leadership information as I’m learning and usually have a case study or two that I like to share. So between KatherineKantze.com and then also on LinkedIn, my name is Katherine Kantze.

Bob Wheeler:
Awesome. Well, we’ll put all that in the show notes, but we just like to have it spoken and putting out to the universe. So, Katherine, thank you so much for taking the time today to talk with our listeners, share your wisdom, and love what you’re doing out there in the world. Thank you so much.

Catherine Cantey:
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate your time.