We recently connected with Routh Chadwick and have shared our conversation below.
Routh, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?
Whenever I end up exploring this question, I always come back to the conclusion that I am happier as a business owner. I have to say, though, that the question comes up rather often. Last time it was a Saturday and I was hard at work on a project I am developing and I looked up at my husband (who has a corporate job) buzzing around the apartment doing whatever he felt like doing at the moment. I often experience these moments of envy at the freedom he has on the weekends. I don’t work every weekend, but I work many of them. And it’s not just weekends that are the issue. It’s the fact that I spend a lot of my time thinking about my business – the projects I am developing, marketing, how to increase my impact, etc. And so I go through the mental exercise of WHY I am doing this. And it is because I am passionate about what I do. And even if I am working weekends it is because I CHOOSE to work weekends. I choose everything I am doing. I guess I may have a little problem with authority ;) But at the end of the day, too, I have complete ownership over what I am building. I don’t have to worry about getting laid off or having my “boss” tell me I can’t take certain days off. In the times of my life when I did work for others, there was always this lack of motivation for a lot of what I had to do. I don’t feel that working for myself. I am 100% invested in everything I do.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
After years of struggling as a performing artist, I finally surrendered to the fact that I needed a more stable lifestyle. As my other second passion in life was personal development, I went back to school and earned my Masters in Clinical Social Work. After I got my degree, I went through rigorous training at a municipal hospital and then at an outpatient mental health clinic. As soon as I could, I opened a private psychotherapy practice. A few years in I stumbled on the field of transformative coaching, and this cutting edge field really resonated with me. I spent the next few years training with the leaders in the field and cultivating my own toolbox. I feel my background in the creative arts and my clinical foundation are both important aspects that I bring to the coaching framework. I am passionate about this approach because it offers a total paradigm shift to those who want to level up in their lives. My specialty is helping burnt out professionals bounce back from daily exhaustion and stress to finding the spark in their work lives again as well as greater health and wellbeing in their lives as a whole. It’s a holistic process so the shifts that happen in their careers also create shifts in other areas. I help people recognize their blindspots and become aware of imbedded beliefs that have been keeping them from finding success and fulfillment. We also engage in a powerful dialogue about the current culture of work in the U.S. and how each of us can be agents of change. All in all, nothing brings me greater pleasure than seeing people who are frustrated and stuck bounce back to their highest states of vitality.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
When I was in my early 30s, I had hit a wall. I had come to New York City after college to make it in the entertainment industry (like so many young hopefuls). When it came to show business, I had come to realize (to paraphrase Gene Wilder): I love the show; I hate the business. Or the older I got, I really didn’t like the odds. So I had to face the fact that I would have to let go of the dream I had had since I was a young girl. That was no easy thing. I spent a few years really mourning that dream (for which I am truly grateful for my own therapy which gave me the space for that). And also during that time I had to figure out what direction I wanted to take next. That exploration took a few years, and I say that because many of my clients come to me and want a quick resolution to their loss of direction. But oftentimes, there is a lot to grieve, a lot to sort through, and new things to discover buried deep in the unconscious. But the good news is I came out the other side, and for me that was graduate school and really sinking my teeth into a new course of study that led me to the career I have now.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
When I finally got credentialed so I could practice psychotherapy on my own, I knew I wanted to start my business ASAP, but I had zero capital (and a lot of debt from graduate school and low paying social work jobs). But I was determined. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to fill my practice, but I got an office in the Flatiron District of Manhattan. In the beginning, I would go sit in the office even though I had no clients, but I needed to show up to my business as if I had a thriving business. That was a difficult time as I had to talk myself down from panicking every day. But I also knew that I just had to take the steps every day to get clients. I enlisted the support of friends and colleagues who could refer people, I got on insurance panels, I went to networking events, I put my profile on every health and wellness listing online. And slowly but surely the practice filled. I could easily have given up and gone to work for another practice or freaked out and taken a full-time job somewhere. But I felt that I was on the right path and so I trusted that somehow things would work out.
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