Purposeful Pivoting with Jen Pasquale of Pride & Grit
Purposeful Pivoting with Jen Pasquale of Pride & Grit
Strengths Coach. Consultant. Military Spouse. Mom of Teens. Champion for Military Connected Entrepreneurs.
And that’s just a few of Jen’s diverse hats that she wears on a regular basis (as if that’s not enough!).
Jen is a self-professed accidental entrepreneur. She created Pride & Grit originally as a blog so that she could tell the stories of seasoned military spouses to give them a voice to share the wisdom and struggles of military life. Later she returned to her consulting roots working with spouses, corporations, and teens to help individuals lean into strengths to be more successful in their world.
About Jennifer Pasquale
Jen is a 16-year active duty military spouse, certified strengths coach, and the founder of Pride & Grit – a Transition Support Organization for Military Spouses. Jen is passionate about helping seasoned military spouses rediscover their identity, embrace their unique strengths, and thrive in their final season as a military family. She’s also the owner of Jen Pasquale Consulting, where she offers strengths coaching and team development workshops to small and large organizations.
Grab your free guide now to see if the universe is giving you signs that it’s time to pivot!
Is there that one thing that you have always wanted to do but are afraid to take the leap?
Did you know that you can learn from and transform your life just by conquering your fears?
Our guest Kristine Goad, owner of Surfing Your Edge Coaching, was just like (what we’re guessing) is you. She started her coaching business on a leap of faith and to conquer a fear.
In today’s episode, Kristine and Wendy talk about women who have that one thing that they want to do but shelve it because they were afraid or didn’t know where to start or just did not have the time.
For so many of us, we may not even realize it was a fear holding us back… it seems more like a distraction from something else important to us, so it’s easily justifiable, right?
As we chat about conquering fears, learning from mistakes and how perfection is not normal, think about what is the one thing that you would love to do but haven’t for one reason or another.
Spoiler alert: Wendy’s is surfing.
But we’d love to know, did something pop into your mind about this? Hit reply and let us know what it is.
About Kristine
Kristine Goad is the Surfing Your Edge Coach. She helps women over 40 break out of their “reality-sized” version of themselves so they can live the bigger, bolder, more badass life they know they were born for.
She’s also the author of the memoir Your Mileage May Vary, and the creator of the Surfing Your Edge Experience and Bigger, Bolder, Badass, a 6-month adventure to help you fall in love with life and be the you you were always meant to be.
Grab your free guide now to see if the universe is giving you signs that it’s time to pivot!
Let’s have a rhetorical raising of hands for if you got starry eyed when starting your entrepreneurial journey – imagining how quickly and easily you’d have success? Even if you flinched and raised a pinky just now, know you are not alone! One of the most irritating beliefs we’ve run into as entrepreneurs that is ever-present even today, is the idea that you can become an overnight success… and the dark flip side, you’re a failure if you don’t achieve this. In this week’s candid interview on the Serendipitous Rebel Podcast, we talk with Tammy Pereira, Facebook Ads expert and CEO of Tammy P about this notion of overnight success and how she took her corporate skills and turned it into a business that is ever changing.
One conundrum Tammy often faces is how to define success in her own business and life, when her whole job is defining success in tangible, black and white measurable ways such as Facebook ads. Listen hear to our discussion around:
How she felt like a foreigner in another land when it came to the online space
How success is not instant but a journey that evolves
How her life shifts (pivots) to meet the next steps in her journey
She’s a mom, a wife, an entrepreneur, a house manager, a worship leader. I could also add having known Mallory for a number of years right now, an amazing marketing strategist. She currently runs her own marketing agency, Mallory Schlabach formerly known as Girl Boss and is the host of the Marketing Magic Podcast
We are so excited to welcome Mallory Schlabach for our first interview for Purposeful Pivoting.
After working as a journalist for a newspaper after college, it became apparent very quickly that this was not the space for her. Mallory got started in the online space as a coach for moms. After many signs from the universe she began to lean into her marketing degree and started to help other female entrepreneurs learn to love their marketing strategies again.
Q: How did you get started in the online world?
I started out as a journalist in college, and I worked at a newspaper. And I quickly decided that was not for me. So I pitched myself to my dad, who was also an entrepreneur straight out of college and said, “Hey, here’s my resume. Here’s a job opening for a position you do not have that I’m creating, can you hire me?” and he did.
He took a chance on me a long time ago to basically learn the ropes of his business, do all the marketing and grow with it the past 15 years. So really, He sort of introduced me to Jeff Walker Product Launch Formula, Ryan Levesque of the Ask method Shailene Johnson. We started to go into all of their workshops and events and joining their masterminds together. Because we were trying to figure out what was our side thing going to be, we both wanted to do something I had no idea it was possible, he gave me this bug.
I actually started out in the space as like a mom coach, and I was called the happy mama coaching. My thing was, I was going to coach women who were moms who were just overwhelmed with their life. When I started this, my four kids were 1, 3, 5, & 6,- they were all they’re all very close together. And everyone asked me like, why do you do it? How are you so calm and how you did it, us.
I got certified as a life and business coach through IFC, and I was like, I’m gonna coach Moms, I’m gonna save the world. It’s gonna be amazing.
Except for I found the first year, nobody wanted help. They just wanted to bitch and moan about their life, which I get. And I was like, this is not working. I had to save the world. But what I was getting traction on was people would be like, “Hey, can you like, read this copy?”
I’m like, this is not gonna save the world. And so finally, my husband was like, you should maybe just do the thing you’re really good at because it will still help people. And I’m like, it’s not. It’s not worthy. I was like, Fine. I will just put out this thing in a Facebook group. I’ll say I’m doing a free marketing strategy session. Just see what happens. And overnight, I got 54 people applied. I did them all in the span of two weeks. And I was like, dang, I think I have something. And so that’s where the start of me doing an online marketing business happened, was realizing I could step into my strengths, and I could build change the world just wasn’t the same way I envisioned it. And that’s kind of where my online journey has begun.
Q: And was it an instant success or success? In your initial online venture?
Oh, Lord, no, no. And actually, it’s kind of funny, because I would tell you, I was at a retreat this past weekend in Miami with all these really successful business owners. And personally, we’ve had one of our highest grossing months, this month, I spent the weekend in tears still, you know, just, you know, there was just so much emotion. And even though we’ve had our best month, I just felt like a failure still, like today. So even so I think like success I’m learning. It always feels like it’s moving. And so I have to stop chasing success and what success looks like because it’s always a bar that moves.
Q: Were you scared? Every 30 days? Are you scared when you you’ve made pivots?
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I always try to be very honest with my team, but also like, not scare them. I have one person on my team who I talk a lot to, and I’m like, “You’re my therapist. today. I just want you to know, this is where I’m really feeling.”
I tried to be really honest about “Hey, guys, we’re going to do this because this happened.” And I don’t ever think it’s a freakout thing. I don’t take you know – clients coming and going and crazy things happening – I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Like I might have emotions freaks out, but we’re gonna get through this together. And so I think for me, I’m always scared. But I tried to be really, really brave about the decisions I’m making. Despite the scariness.
You can listen to more of this amazing interview with Mallory on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts or wherever you get your pod on!
About Mallory:
Mallory Schlabach is a marketing strategist with over 15 years of experience guiding six and seven-figure businesses. She’s the CEO of The GirlBoss Agency, her creative digital marketing agency for female entrepreneurs that helps them say goodbye to soul-sucking, boring marketing forever.
Whether she’s helping clients explode their visibility on social media, crafting marketing messaging so compelling clients are throwing money at you, or turning boring websites into lead generating machines, Mallory makes marketing easy, fun and magical for every single person.
She’s the proud mama of 4 humans under the age of 13, two dogs, a guinea pig, and an assortment of fish. She will request tacos as her last meal (and every Tuesday of course) and you’ll find her at 90 years old still wearing hot pink lipstick, heels and hoarding books.
Being a Mom and being an Entrepreneur – what does that look like?
What does that mean? And what choices do you have to make along the way, and why is that even relevant to entrepreneurship?
Before we dive in, we want to set the tone: This is a non-judgmental zone. The choices women make for their families and businesses are personal and very much unique.
It is our desire here to pull back the curtain to how we made the decision as mothers and entrepreneurs and how we got to where we are in our businesses and our business model.
For reference, Wendy is the mother of 16 year old twins, and Krystal is the mother of a 4 year old and a 9 year old at the time of this recording.
The online space can often be predatory to moms
We see it all the time – stay at home moms, or moms that want to stay at home asking for work from home opportunities. Because the balance struggle is real. And often women are at the forefront of having to figure out how to juggle all of the things.
But also too often, the MLM opportunities are the first to pop up and try to grab women. It is a tale as old as time and they go for the jugular. Promising the moon of freedom, flexibility, and a ludicrous income. The reality is often much further from that.
Low entry often means low pay. And when your commission split is 8% on a $15 product, you have to sell and hustle a lot of volume to make that happen.
So does that mean you shouldn’t try to work from home?
Not at all! We’ve written about this and talked about this before – there are a ton of opportunities for moms to run their own businesses. There are a ton of opportunities for moms to start their own businesses where they can leverage their gifts and talents if they know how to systemize well and set up the foundations of their businesses the right way. And that’s what we help entrepreneurs do.
When it comes down to it, life is about making choices.
We’ve spoken in the past about balance as an entrepreneur. When it comes to balancing your business and your family, at the end of the day we are talking about competing priorities. Which one do you put first?
In order to make that decision you have to ask yourself, what are your “Be” Goals? Who is it that you want to be? And how is your business model in alignment with that goal?
Often conflicts arise when our “Be Goals” and what we are making a priority are out of alignment. In the end tough choices have to be made about time and ability in order to fulfill your “Be Goals”
In other words, you can have it all – just maybe not all at once.
Grab your free guide now to see if the universe is giving you signs that it’s time to pivot!
What does a cycling trip through bourbon country have to do with entrepreneurship?
It turns out, everything!
In this week’s episode of the Serendipitous Rebel Podcast, Krystal interviews Wendy on her big takeaways from her most recent adventure in bourbon country.
We created this podcast for the adventure loving, purpose driven, action minded, purpose driven entrepreneurs. And what is more adventure loving and purpose driven than a cycling from distillery to distillery and having a lot of fun on the way. Wendy spent a long weekend enjoying the Bourbon Country Burn in Lexington, Kentucky. It was 3 days of cycling between distilleries along with 1,100 bikers. In the end she rode 100 miles and toured 7 distilleries while clamping along the way.
Why the Bourbon Burn?
This had always been a bucket list adventure for Wendy. She always wanted to partake in a Backroads Cycling Trip. Her husband wasn’t a huge fan of the idea of group travel, but did find this as something fun that they could do together that would marry her desire for a cycling trip and his love of bourbon.
What was her big epiphany along the way?
Doing any kind of an endurance challenge is a precursor for running an online business.
Both require you to step out of your comfort zone. It’s a huge risk that can be very freeing, but there are a lot of amazing experiences along the way.
You’ve gotta do you!
In this life people are always judging you. There are people out there that will make snide comments about they way you do things. There are people who feel very strongly about processes. You will have to resist the urge to justify everything you do.
We of them spend so much time looking at what other people do or say that we lose focus on what we need to do. That’s how we end up in situations that we are resentful of or unhappy.
Set up your business so that you can take the opportunities to have adventures when you can!
There are a ton of people who look at us and wish they could do what we do. Many people choose to work from home so that they can have the laptop lifestyle and travel more. Yet, many don’t set up their business so that it will lend itself to that kind of a lifestyle. It is possible to intentionally set up
This week is a continuation of last weeks episode. If you haven’t listened yet, we encourage you to go back and check out Part 1.
What does it take to show up in your business every day?
In our opinion: confidence.
Often it takes just a small initial push to get started. We want the flexible laptop lifestyle, and everyone likes to make this look easy.
The fact is that the process is simple, but it is definitely not easy. You need a certain amount of confidence to get moving. And as you keep going on your entrepreneurial journey, you will build confidence along the way.
But if you are solid in your purpose and you know why you are doing this and why you are showing up in your business, then you’ll be able to show up with even more confidence.
As we continue with the discussion on purposeful pivoting we touch on “what is our personal purpose?” This is not the same thing as your entrepreneurial purpose. It is a hard truth as to why you are here in this space, the online space.
Is it to make a change?
Is it for money?
Is it for your family?
We, as lifestyle entrepreneurs, want to have a certain standard of living and want to be able to do certain things and have certain goals. They are driven by wanting to feel like we are accomplishing things, that we are making contributions to our family and to our world.
In this episode we are talking about how we are leveraging our own strengths and gifts, because we don’t want to work 60 hour weeks, and we don’t necessarily want to run an empire of seven figures.
So we thought that we would ask, why are you doing this? What is making you show up everyday?
Assessing Your Values & Strengths As An Entrepreneur
How much do you really know about yourself? Scary thought sometimes, right? As personality tests such as Myers-Briggs, and recently the Enneagram, have taken the world by storm – do you take the time to take them? Are you *mildly* obsessed with personality assessments like we are? Here’s something slightly controversial: We don’t think we really have weaknesses.
From here on out, we’re hereby calling them: ‘lesser strengths’.
Rather than looking at something as a weakness that will always be, why not have a growth mindset and look at it as a muscle that can be strengthened and that we can get better at if we put the work in?
And trust us, we doubt you’ve heard about it.
This tool differs from some of the other personality tests out there like Myers-Briggs and Enneagram in that instead of placing a label on your type and putting you into a box, this tool gives a list of universal human values and shows you which ones are your greatest strengths and which ones could use some improvement.
Here is a quick breakdown of our results from our work-cation a few months ago.
Did you start your business to get paid for doing that thing that really lights you up, only to discover that running the actual business doesn’t light you up at all?
It’s inevitable. There are going to be parts of running your business that
A. You aren’t very good at,
or B. You don’t enjoy.
So what can you do in this scenario?
You can form a partnership!
Wait, wait, wait. Hear us out.
We KNOW they often get a bad rap and can be scary, BUT ….
Partnerships are really amazing opportunities that allow you to play to your strengths instead of having to focus on your weaknesses.
On this week’s podcast, we’re sharing the many pros (and the cons) that come with forming a business partnership and giving our best tips on how to find the best possible partner for you and your business.
Plus, some things you definitely want to consider in the process… because we’ve had experience with awesome (and not awesome) partnerships, and how they can make or break your business.
Have you ever thought about the role that your fur baby plays in your life as an entrepreneur?
Whether it’s a puppy running through the house like a toddler without a diaper, or a cat that simply must lay right on top of the computer while you’re trying to work, our pets are there with us as our constant companions as we work every day in this virtual world.
Our pets are also a great way to connect with others. They’re so much a part of our family and what’s more relatable than swapping stories about your snoring dog or how you came up with your pet’s name?
We love sharing pet photos and pet stories so come on over to our Facebook Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/rebelonthego) to introduce yourself and drop a picture of your fur baby.
Grab your free guide now to see if the universe is giving you signs that it’s time to pivot! 
