Navigating the Seasons of our Careers
Our founder and CEO, Jennifer Zick, was recently the featured guest on the SuperPower Success podcast with host Jaime Taets.
In this podcast episode, Jennifer candidly shared her experiences in the marketing field, the challenges she has faced as an entrepreneur, and her journey to show up as her authentic self everyday.
Gain a genuine understanding of her drive as a visionary leader and how she brings her team together to turn dreams into reality. In this down-to-earth conversation, Jennifer sheds light on resilience, leadership, and the everyday struggles and triumphs on the path to success. She emphasizes the significance of surrender and stewardship as integral aspects of navigating life’s journey and every season of your career.
Listen To The Podcast
Key Takeaways
- Success is living without regrets, shaped by challenges that redirect us toward purpose.
- Authentic leadership means combining vision with humility, surrender, and stewardship.
- Work-life harmony comes from honoring life’s seasons and making intentional choices without guilt.
- Personal and professional growth require reflection and learning in community with others.
- Great leaders are honest and hopeful, balancing vulnerability with the ability to inspire during hard times.
Full Episode Transcription
Introduction & Background
Jaime Taets: Welcome to the Superpower Success Podcast. At Keystone. We believe exceptional organizations don’t just happen. They are built by focus leaders that recognize their authentic leadership superpowers. Join us for a serious dose of inspiration. Welcome to the Superpower Success Podcast. So glad you’re back. We’re always glad to have you here to really help you redefine success, understand your superpowers. And so my job is to bring brilliant people on, and I’ve done that again today. You’re welcome, Jennifer Zach, who’s the founder and CEO of Authentic, and they are an amazing fractional marketing firm based out of Minneapolis, but work nationally. Who knows? She might tell you they’re probably also international. I can’t keep up with everything that they’re doing, but they’re really changing the conversation around marketing and what marketing means to companies.
And I would say 99.9% of companies that we work with that aren’t working with you, like marketing is this. This void. So I’m excited for her to share her journey, but I’m also excited for her to share just wisdom as we all think about what is the future, because there’s a lot happening in that marketing space as well. So welcome, Jennifer, to the Superpower Success Podcast.
Jennifer Zick: Thank you, Jaime. I’m so delighted to be here with you and with your listening audience.
Jaime Taets: And you and I have had so many conversations that it probably would have been good to record because it would have been therapy for people. But I think, you know, this is going to be a great conversation . You have achieved a lot of success, and I would say in a relatively short period of time. And as you and I both know, it’s not a beautifully paved road with puppies and unicorns along the side of it to get to that point of success. So tell us a little bit about your story. As much or as little, you know, as you want to share, personal or professional, that got you to this point in your success.
Jennifer Zick: Oh, thank you. I just want to start by sharing what success means to me, because I think that’s changed shape a lot in my life. The older I get, and I hope, the wiser I become. But, you know, there was a time in my younger life when success might have looked like a plan for how much I would earn, the titles I would achieve, the accolades. And I’ve more recently come to understand in the last decade or so of my life that success really looks like a life lived without regrets. That’s the most honest definition of success I can create for myself, because I don’t think that there is a number, I don’t think that there is a title, I don’t think there is an award that can suddenly define you as successful.
And so I’m always just, you know, humbly in awe when people look at me and call me successful. Because to share with you, kind of where my story originates. I wasn’t born into a pathway that looked like entrepreneurship in the least. I grew up in a small rural town in Minnesota with a loving family in a very blue collar community where the entrepreneurs that were in that town were the dentists or maybe construction company owners. But I had no experience, exposure to the professional world. I was just a outspoken, excited, high energy young lady who did all the things, knew that I should go to college. I was the first in my family to go to college. I wanted to go to college because I loved education, I loved to learn, and I was really passionate about seeing a bigger world.
And so. But I didn’t have a bigger vision. I had no clue about what a career might look like. And in fact, my vision for my life was to go to college and find a husband and settle down and have a family and be a mom. And that’s a noble vision and I’m grateful that I’ve had that life. But to kind of get to you, to where I am now. It was through a very windy, twisty road of exploration, experimentation and learning about myself that I discovered that I even had the makings of a potential entrepreneur in my heart. And so it was a lot of bumps along that path that kept redirecting what I thought my career was going to look like.
Things that at the felt like massive obstacles that were really just the moments of fate that pointed me toward where I was really meant to be. So some of those big milestone moments were certain promotions in my career, certain opportunities to move into new sales and sales leadership and marketing leadership. Those were building blocks. But the biggest monumental moments that got me to where I am now were the hardest things like surviving a scare with ovarian cancer when I was only 35 years old, like mothering three children while my husband and I were both juggling full time careers and trying to navigate, you know, who’s got their foot on the gas, who’s got their foot on the pedal, and who’s got their arms around this craziness of life, right, like the, the parenting partnership journey.
And then, and then it was, ultimately it was the loss of a job that made me brave enough to reevaluate my life. Understand what success would mean for me and then take that entrepreneurial leap. So there’s a lot inside that story. But those were some of the major moments.
Jaime Taets: No. And knowing a little bit about you. Right. And kind of where you’ve gotten. But you remind me of what you’re saying. And I’m not going to get the quote right. So don’t quote me on it. But the whole premise is that, you know, what if the obstacles are the journey instead of thinking of them as they’re in the way. All of those obstacles and there are people listening right now. I mean the amount of job loss that I’ve gotten, you probably too. Right. Connections in the last three to four months. But those are some of them. When I talk to people and being sensitive. Right. To the fact there’s real families that need to be supported and financial concerns. It’s. This could be the absolute best thing that’s ever happened to you. Right.
It can be one of those pivotal moments that you skyrocket from because you’re forced to really redefine who you are.
Jennifer Zick: That’s right. And now I’m so grateful for that life promotion.
Jaime Taets: Yes.
Jennifer Zick: You know, losing my job was an excellent life promotion and. But it was very trying because at the time, with three children and two mortgages, just after starting my business, my husband was laid off from his large corporate job. And went through like four combinations of layoffs and job losses in about a five year span. And it was absolutely chaotic. And so my heart does go out to everybody who’s in that transition and experiencing those are truly losses. And they do come with grief, but they also open up the world of what’s possible and they give you a chance to reflect on what are my priorities, what are my values, what do I want to look back in 20 years and know to be true about myself.
Jaime Taets: I already know to be true because a job loss doesn’t strip you of everything you’ve built. Right. And the journey you’ve been on and those skill sets, it’s sometimes for a brief period of time makes you forget.
Jennifer Zick: Right.
Jaime Taets: Your confidence in that. But I think the more people like you and I can tell those stories, it normalizes some of this that there is something better on the outside. It’s about your mindset. So I want to shift to your kind of growth as a leader. Right. Starting a business even before you were a leader, but starting a business and kind of getting to this point, is there a leadership moment, a personal event that really shaped who you are today as a leader that you can look back and say, I remember thinking, I don’t want to be like that. Right. Or that’s who I want to be. I want to lead in that way.
Jennifer Zick: Yes, to all of that. I think that when I look at the, you know, 25ish, I don’t know, years of my professional career behind me, I can pinpoint exactly those moments where I realized the kind of people I don’t want to work with if I’m given the opportunity to choose that, and the kind of leader I don’t want to be when I’m given the opportunity to lead. And lead does not just mean management. Leading is how you show up and embody your role and the way you interact with all the relationships around you, that’s how you lead in life and in work. And so I have to think I have really one big chapter of my career that was so informative to creating leadership skills and opportunities and exposure that really set me up for my entrepreneurial journey.
And that was a 13 year time period that I spent as a member of a startup here in the Twin Cities that was originally called Reside, eventually became Magnet360 and is now owned by a global organization. But I was the first employee with the two founders of that business when we were all in our 20s with big ideas, great dreams, great attitude, but no resources, no experience, and, you know, so we just believed in what we could do together. And in that relationship, I had the opportunity to come on board as the third founder and owner in the company. But at the time I was in my early 20s, not long out of college, and still very fearful, very afraid of all the things I did not know. Not a lot of confidence in myself at that stage.
So I just asked them to make me my first, the first employee in the company. And then there went in building this business. And I was there for 13 years through many stages of growth in that business. And I got to wear a lot of hats along the way. But a business that starts off with three people and by the time I left was closer to 150 people, goes through a lot of evolution. So I had the blessing and the benefit of what I would call being in the entrepreneurial business with a second row seat. I wasn’t an owner, I didn’t have the risk of ownership, but I did get the benefit of learning at close proximity with the owners and as an influencer in the growth of that business and every step of the way in the growth of that business.
As we moved from zero in revenue to the first 5 million to 10 million to 15. You know, every incremental step as I was asked to lead at scale and take on new responsibilities, I was always asking in my own heart, like at what point does this company outgrow me? Because everything I’m doing for the first time. I do not know what I’m doing. But what I was really excited to learn about myself was that I had the capacity to keep elevating and keep learning and leading. And in an entrepreneurial business environment where things are changing rapidly, a lot of people will just naturally fall off at certain growth intervals. Right. And I was really grateful that I was able to grow with that business. I learned a lot.
And so, and the leaders in that company were very passionate about culture and it was such a tight knit culture of people who were so joined in their vision and so collaborative in growing that organization. There was so much I learned from being part of that I was able to bring into building my own business.
Career Evolution and Leadership Growth
Jaime Taets: Yeah. So it’s just, it’s amazing to think about that you still took a risk to go work for a company at that stage, but you didn’t have the entrepreneurial risk. Right. Writing the checks. But you got, I just love that kind of. story Because there’s those opportunities and most of us stay in fear and don’t take that door that just opened. Right. And say, I don’t know if I could go work for a company that small because I’ve always worked at a multi billion dollar company. It’s like, well, is that making you happy? Right. There might be another opportunity. And I also like the idea of this. Business growth and personal growth sometimes are not on the same trajectory and people have to leave and sometimes they come back later. Right.
But especially in an entrepreneurial environment if you’re going to go through growth and pains and changes and what the business needs and sometimes people need to change. And I think there probably are a lot of people that are just staying in places that are safe that aren’t really allowing them to grow like what you talked about, because they could have outgrown the company.
Jennifer Zick: Yes. And one of the pivotal moments in my story with that organization was that at some point along the line after we had really gotten to the point where we couldn’t scale the business because none of us had the experience beyond a certain point, we started to implement a business operating system and we started to make more conscious decisions about growth and had some growth guides around us in that process, which was really imperative, but that was the same time in my life that I had two children, was thinking about a third. I was giving a lot of my life energy to building a business that I wasn’t an owner in. Right.
And I had to start making some conscious choices to balance what my family needed, what I and my heart needed, and to make sure that I didn’t look back with regrets. And so there was this really pivotal moment in that life cycle journey for me where I actually left the business because I felt I had to leave the business to be home and raise my kids the way I wanted. But the leaders asked me to stay on part time in whatever role I would be willing to perform. And that was when I left the head of sales and marketing role to take on just the marketing role and give it the attention it needed on a part time basis. What I didn’t know then, it felt like I was leaving a lot on the table by downsizing my role so significantly.
But I knew in my heart it’s what my family needed and what I needed for my family. But what it ended up being, what I could have never predicted, was my chance to test the model of a fractional CMO role which would become the genesis of the business I would launch years later.
Jaime Taets: Right.
Jennifer Zick: So I got to be a fractional head of marketing way before that was ever a category. And it created for me the opportunity to love my life and love my work and stay connected to a business that I loved and help them grow without compromising my own values. And that has been such an informative piece of the culture of who Authentic is today. Because our value prop for our client, for our employees, our promise is love your life, love your work. And it’s important for me as the owner that we keep that in harmony.
Jaime Taets: Yeah. And I love that idea of the seasons of our career because I experienced this too, is that, you know, I don’t believe there is no such thing as work life balance, at least not as a working mom.
Jennifer Zick: No.
Jaime Taets: Balance is not the thing we should be striving for. To me, it’s work life choice and, or harmony. I’m listening now. Great. Right. But it’s. There’s seasons. There were seasons in my career where I needed to. You said gas and brake. Right. I know that exact same feeling with two working parents. It’s like sometimes I’ve got to take a step back, focus on the family and let you know your spouse or just let the business move on and then there’s going to be Times when you want to push on the gas and not that your family takes a backseat, but it’s just a different season of life and you need support around you in a different way to be able to do that. But I think there’s a lot of guilt around those seasons and there doesn’t need to be.
Jennifer Zick: No. And I think that’s one of the biggest blessings that’s coming out of the lessons learned through Covid is that we need to be real humans with one another and we need to create spaces and opportunities for families to have the flexibility that they need to thrive. And you know, when I left Magnet, I was recruited by a big five consultancy and I had never been, and I had resisted ever joining a large enterprise because I’ve always been so entrepreneurial. I like to move fast, I like to make an impact. But I recognize that I have an opportunity to move into a giant large corporate environment and build a new set of muscles and understand it from the other side.
And you know, I very intentionally made that decision with my husband about what that would mean for our life from me moving from what had turned out to be a four day a week marketing role into what would be a 70, 80 hour a week big five airplane role. Right. So there are the trade offs there. And actually my husband stayed home with our kids for a year and a half during that time in order for us to create the balance and the harmony we needed. Because there is no balance. It’s never in balance. It’s all about, for me, it’s always been about like, what are the priorities? How do we arrange our life in the order of our priorities and values so that those are not compromised and then where we apply the energy and where we need the support to change.
Jaime Taets: Yes. And being very true and honest and open with your family and also your business. I mean, I remember when I was in, and I still am, my kids are older now, but when they were younger, middle school, you know, elementary, middle school, and I was traveling, I would sit down with them the night before I left for a business trip and I might be missing a soccer game or a band concert or. Right. And I tried not to, but if I was, I would tell them, here’s where I’m going and why I’m not just traveling to travel. I’m going to help these people. Right. And I told them about the client that I was going to work with. And even now I can tell, like when I travel, they’re like, who are you going to help now?
Or who are you going Like, I just wired my kids to know that they can be independent and resilient even if I’m not there and I’m reaching for things and, you know, and I have goals and dreams, and hopefully that’s inspiring them instead of me carrying around just a load of guilt all the time for missing the soccer game.
Jennifer Zick: Yes, yes. And if I can speak a word of encouragement to the moms and dads who are in the. The heavy days of parenting, Littles and juggling the daycare and the handoffs and the decisions about who’s home more or who’s. Like, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And as somebody who went through that phase of my life shouldering a lot of cultural guilt and burden and question and feeling like I was half-assing everything, categorically, you know.
Jaime Taets: Yeah.
Jennifer Zick: But I’m on the other side of that now and launching my kids. I have a daughter in college. I have a son graduating high school. I have another that’ll be in high school next year. And I have such wonderful relationships with my kids. And they are so curious and interested in what my husband does for a living and what I do for a living. And it’s such a part of the fabric of our family that we share these life experiences together. And. And so there’s no right or wrong way, but there’s just no. There’s no benefit in feeling guilty about the decisions that you’re making to support your values and your priorities in life, whatever that looks like.
Leadership Philosophy and Challenges
Jaime Taets: It’s a beautiful message that people really need to be reminded of. I think we know it, but in certain seasons, you need to be reminded of that. So if you kind of, look, if you were to ask people around you, right. To describe the type of leader you are today, having gone through all of the jungle gym, right. Of the career, you know, opportunities that you had, you know, what are your biggest strengths, superpowers, we call them on here. Like, what do you think are your biggest leadership superpowers?
Jennifer Zick: Well, I think that I fit neatly into that description of visionary in the sense that I’m a very passionate leader, but I’m not passionate in a way that is scattered and chasing shiny objects. I’m passionate in a way that’s incredibly focused. And so one of the gifts that I have is the ability to articulate that vision, to bring others along on that vision, to help them to transfer the belief, the deep belief I have in my heart into their hearts. And so I think if my team were to describe to you the kind of leader I am, they would say energetic, passionate, authentic. I hope that word would fall in the mix somewhere and approachable and human.
Like, I feel like as I think about being a leader this year, as I’m thinking about looking to the future of my leadership, there are two words that I’m really seeking to balance. One is to surrender all the things that I cannot control, which is almost everything, as it turns out. So surrender in one hand, but stewardship in the other hand. I want to be the example of someone who, because I’ve been given an opportunity, a platform and resources, I want to use them wisely and well and in the most loving way for all of the people who touch into my circle.
And so that’s the kind of leader that I hope to project to the world, is someone who, while I’m passionate and I’m driven and I want to win and I want to grow, I also want to hold in both hands those realities of surrender of all the things we cannot control, and stewardship of the resources that are passing through my hands, I love.
Jaime Taets: It’s beautiful. So my word of the year is surrender, because it really. And I don’t know if it’s an entrepreneur thing, but, like, not being able to surrender to some of those things is an absolute. The biggest detriment to me as a human, because there’s just. There’s so. And. And I think this is a translation to leadership. I was just having a conversation this morning with someone about the level of global risk and pressure that leaders are bearing right today in corporate environments and small entrepreneurial environments. And I know you see it with your clients all the time, if we can’t learn to surrender to some of these, the things we can’t control, it will kill us. It will literally kill us.
Jennifer Zick: Yes.
Jaime Taets: And are you seeing that, too, in leaders that are just, like, exhausted from these burdens?
Jennifer Zick: At the time of this recording, we are in Q1 of 2024, and we’ve all just endured 2023 and the whiplash of coming off of the 2022 boom, recovery after Covid and 2023, you know, hit the brakes. Everything.
Jaime Taets: Yes.
Jennifer Zick: Yes, it was the most disruptive year that I feel my company has ever faced compared to even Covid, when everything froze and started in a different direction this past year just froze and stayed stalled out and stodgy and slow. And in a survey of all of our clients and all of my CEO peers, there were very few people that were not impacted with that slowdown. So I think when you’re driven and your growth motivated. And, like, I don’t know about you, Jaime, but I think I know enough about you to say that you and I are a lot alike in the sense that, like, winning, you know, winning is. Is an affirmation that we’re heading in the right direction. Right. So I had to be really honest with my team last year.
Like, it’s my job to bring the weather, and last year it was really hard to bring that positive weather, even though my belief was so incredibly strong. Every single day just feels like a slug. And if I’m not winning, it’s like my batteries are draining, and then I’m not able to pull my team forward the way that I want everybody to. Right? So I had to just be really honest and vulnerable with my team and say, you know, I feel it too. I’m a person, too. I’m in this with you.
Jaime Taets: I feel like you’re reiterating a conversation I have had with my therapist. And I’m not joking. It’s the exact same. And I know leaders are relating to that. It’s this belief deep in your gut that is still there. It hasn’t gone away. It’s just, like all of the stuff piled on top. I guess I would equate it to your chest. Right. Everything piled on our chest. It’s this heavy weight. Just makes you feel like you are bogged down and you don’t know which way to turn. Right. And what next decision to make.
Jennifer Zick: And I think that what’s an added weight to that, just reality is when we try to pretend it’s not there, when we’re trying to muster up some kind of, you know, face for the world that we’re strong, we’re winning, we’re brave. And of course, there’s still a lot of good things to celebrate. So I’m always plucking those out. I’m always looking for the highlights. Like, we did manage to grow last year. We doubled our profitability. Like, we. In the face of all of it, we had the wins, and we celebrated the wins. But I think what really crushes us.
Back to your earlier question, like, this could kill us if we don’t surrender, is not the weight of the pressures which we all bear together as humans, but the pretending it’s not happening and not having an outlet to process that or to talk about it, even with your team, that’s what will kill us. And that’s where that inauthenticity comes from. Teams feel that too. So that’s the balance that healthy leadership I think needs to find is that real vulnerability, but also that belief and optimism both.
Jaime Taets: Right? So we need to be human, and we also need to be the hope for some people at certain times. And I think as leaders, we. We are dealers of hope, but. But we have to make sure that we’re healthy in order to do that. I want to talk a little bit about, you know, you get to a point of success and, you know, how do you continue to invest in your own growth? Because there’s always another level, right? You’ve figured it out up to this point and you could just coast, right? You’ve got a successful business set up. It could just continue to operate. But how are you challenging yourself to constantly grow?
Jennifer Zick: Yeah, for me, that’s very multidimensional, more important than ever in my life. Like, I’m at an age and a stage in my life where I’m really feeling how important it is to balance mental, emotional, physical, spiritual health and wellness, rather than focusing only on driving professional development and knowledge gain and all of those things. And so I really have shaped my entire calendar and schedule around prioritizing all of those facets, not perfectly, but making sure that there’s integration of those components. And then I work hard to surround myself with really wise people who I can be real with and learn from. I do read business books and listen to podcasts here and there, but primarily I learn by being in good company. So I’ve been a member of Vistage for two years. I’ve just joined Allied Executives this year here locally.
Like, I just want to be surrounded by leaders of different experiences who can share the wealth and knowledge and create this ecosystem of learning around me. And it’s, you know, just like we foster that at Authentic through what we call our mind share. All of our CMOs or W2 employees of Authentic. And part of what makes our model so strong is that we have a cultivated mind Share, which brings our CMOs together to meet and solve problems weekly, to use slack and constant collaboration like, we’re always learning and growing. Because any of us individually are so limited.
Jaime Taets: Yes.
Jennifer Zick: We’re just so limited in our ability to learn fast enough. So, yeah, the solution for me in growing the business and developing myself is really about who I’m bringing around me to challenge me and to open my eyes to what I don’t see.
Jaime Taets: I think that’s a great perspective because you’re right, sometimes we think it’s got to be that conference or the, you know, seven books. What you’re just saying can also be systems and processes that you’re putting around you that help you grow in the day to day. Right in it. Instead of having to be like this other thing I have to plan for. Some of it does need to be planful. But you can build it in.
Jennifer Zick: Right.
Jaime Taets: Build the right things around you. Right. And the processes and bring the right people together.
Jennifer Zick: Yes, that’s right. Yes. It just becomes part of the way we work inside of the community we work in and the environment we put ourselves in. So I would not do well in a work at home office by myself. Just cranking away at work, that does not feed my heart, my soul. I would shrivel up and die. Authentic is always going to have a world headquarters because I need people with me. Right. We’re a hybrid organization. But so that’s a very intentional way that forces me to keep growing.
Personal Growth Practices and Advice
Jaime Taets: Yeah, I love it. Okay, so we’ve talked about a lot before. We get to the bonus round of questions. You know, a leader that’s listening, a leader that’s stuck, a leader that’s in a life change. Like what’s one thing you would tell them to do? To think. What’s. What’s your guidance and your wisdom?
Jennifer Zick: Yes. So the one practice I’ve put in place that would be easy to fall off the radar, but I make sure that it does not because it’s been so instrumental for me is that I take time away. Every quarter, I take time away. Now this could look different for different people, but my biggest encouragement is stop. Leave it all behind for whatever period of time and let yourself reflect, let yourself ask yourself new questions, look backward, look forward, Just take some quiet time. And for me, that means I go up to my Northwoods cabin by myself for like three days a quarter. And I don’t work in the business, I don’t work on the business, I work on me.
I spend a lot of time in prayer and reflection and journaling and imagining and also looking back and being like, what did I think this would look like five years ago and where are we now? So it’s just. Those moments just re-energize me. They re-center me, they give me so much clarity on who I want to be as a wife, a mom, a business leader, a person of faith. How am I going to live that way in this next iteration? That’s just invaluable.
Jaime Taets: It is this idea of reflection. We have a CEO summit that we lead with just CEOs of our clients. And it’s all about reflection because we’re not doing it. It’s not going to be built into the nine hours of meetings a day and your commute. And you’re right. What you’re talking about is that deep reflection, and that’s where growth actually comes from. Growth doesn’t come from going to the conference or attending the webinar or insert whatever reading the book. Growth comes from actually stopping and saying, what did I just take from that? And what can I do differently? Right. Or better than what I did yesterday? And as humans, I think we all need to build that in, even daily. Right. I have five minutes. Five minutes at the end of the day can be a quick journal before you go to bed, Right. Sitting next to your bed. Like, there are easy, simple ways to build this in. But I. You’re a role model for me in truly disconnecting even your sabbatical, what was almost two years ago now. Two years.
Jennifer Zick: About a year and a half ago.
Jaime Taets: Yeah. I mean, like, it sounds impossible to me, but I’m planning mine for 2025. Right. So it’s just like, you can do it.
Jennifer Zick: You can. You just have to decide and then not put yourself on the back burner. You really have to just decide and protect that precious time. And because you’re right, like, growth is not the same as learning and knowledge increase. And learning is great. It’s a piece of growing as a human. But growth is much more than that.
Jaime Taets: Yeah.
Jennifer Zick: And I think growth leads us to be more settled, confident, peaceful inside of our skin. Right. That real growth means coming to peace with the fact that we don’t always have to be growing by what looks like growth to the outside world. Right. If we’re honoring ourselves.
Jaime Taets: And that confidence inside is what allows you to show up authentically as a leader outside.
Jennifer Zick: Yes.
Jaime Taets: And yeah, we. That’s all. We could literally do this for a whole nother hour. Now we’ve gone down a hole of, like, I want to get your opinion on that. So maybe we’ll just have to record again at some point. But we could go down that rabbit hole. A whole nother topic. So I want to get to the bonus round. Three questions. The first one is, what makes you belly laugh? Like, really laugh?
Jennifer Zick: Who or what?
Jaime Taets: It can be a who.
Jennifer Zick: Okay. So what makes me belly laugh the most is when I spend time with my daughter, who will soon be 21. We both just absolutely love puns, and we’re both wordy girls, and we’re always coming up with puns that the boys in our family think are just stupid and ridiculous. But we just laugh so much together. We have so much fun just like putting words around the crazy situations around us. So, okay, I absolutely do. My daughter is just my little best friend. She’s great.
Jaime Taets: And then it’s great for inside jokes, right, that you remember later. Because only you guys know that if you could have a billboard, right, you’re a marketing, I’m gonna give you a billboard and you could put anything on it. What would you put on the billboard?
Jennifer Zick: Honestly, truly, it would probably be some kind of a statement of faith and hope for the world. Nothing to do with business. Because really when I think about what my life purpose is in this world, it’s not about building a business. It’s about making an eternal impact. That’s far more important to me. And so my business is simply a platform through which I get to be a real human and hopefully share my faith with the world and give people some hope. That’s probably what it would be.
Jaime Taets: I love it. And then the last one is you kind of gave us this. But I want to know, in your day to day life, so we talked about, to lead well, you need to be well meaning, be well energy wise. What’s one thing you do daily consistently to be your own CEO, Chief Energy Officer. Right. Of your own life. What is that consistent thing that you would never give up?
Jennifer Zick: Oh, well, I don’t know that I do anything so well that I consistently do it on the daily. But I think I see because you and I are meeting via video that we’re both doing this Oura ring thing. Yes.
Jaime Taets: Okay.
Jennifer Zick: So this is a new daily practice for me in tracking my sleep because I think that once I entered my 40s, I really came to understand that sleep is medicine number one. Like through my 20s and 30s, I would pull myself out of bed at 4, 45 or ridiculous times in the morning with not enough sleep because I had to fit in the workout, fit in the quiet time, fit all the things in and check the box. Now I’m so much more gentle with my body because if I don’t get sleep and I’m raising teenage boys, which means sleep starts way later than it ought to. And so anyway, one of my new daily practices is to listen to my body.
And this technology is a pretty cool device to help me listen to my body and understand what’s going to get me the right kind of sleep so that I can show up with a good readiness for my day.
Jaime Taets: And it is amazing. I mean, I love technology, but what you eat, what you drink and how it affects your sleep. And like you said, I love that idea of sleep is now medicine in your 40s and 50s. Like it is the greatest medicine that you can give yourselves. And I no longer feel guilty on a weekend for taking a power nap or sleeping an extra hour, like listening to your body instead of just trying to push through. I think something we all need to think about more. Thank you first off for just taking the time because I know what your schedule looks like. Thank you secondly for being vulnerable and just saying it’s not all what it might appear to be on the highway. Highlight reel.
And there’s a lot behind the scenes and a lot of things you’ve endured to get to where you are today because I know it will inspire somebody to just keep going if they’re in that messy middle because we all, we continuously go through it. So I just appreciate you doing that and sharing what you shared and taking the time to be with us here today.
Jennifer Zick: Thank you. It’s a blessing to spend time with you. I always learn and grow being in your company and I really value having such wonderful other female leaders in my world too. So I appreciate you for that.
Jaime Taets: How can people find out more about you, follow you right for your inspiration, like what’s the best way for them to connect?
Jennifer Zick: Well, to connect with me personally, you can find me on LinkedIn. Jennifer Zick. That’s Z as in zebra. I C K would love to be connected on LinkedIn. To learn more about Authentic and the work we do as fractional CMOs, we are working mostly with small businesses and mid sized businesses. So for us, those are companies between 5 million and 100 million in revenue. And for those businesses, we’re helping them Overcome Random Acts of Marketing® and confidently take next steps toward growth. So to learn more about our business, find us at authenticbrand.com all one word, awesome.
Jaime Taets: And we’ll make sure and put all of that in the show notes. So if people are driving or running or whatever you do when you listen to podcasts, you will have it. So thank you again for being here and to the listeners. You know, the engagement we get from this community, the reactions we get from podcasts, like what Jennifer has just shared here is why we keep doing this, right? You don’t do a pod. We’re going to be seven years old this May on this podcast, which is ridiculous to me. It is absolutely a labor of love. But it’s because we know that there’s inspiration happening that is moving people forward and so to the community. I just appreciate you engaging in subscribing. There is going to be someone in your network, in your life, that’s going to need to hear what Jennifer shared today.
Jaime Taets: And the greatest gift you can give Jennifer and I is to share this podcast with someone else who needs to hear this message. Even if it’s not you, right? Or you got what you needed out of it, share it with somebody else. Because I think that’s really how we can become the dealers of hope, right, for everybody else in this kind of somewhat dark time that we are in as a society. So I wanted to end with that today. Share, subscribe, get engaged in the community. Thanks everyone. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and hit that subscribe button so you get the latest episodes as soon as we release them. And remember to keep maximizing your unique leadership superpowers. It truly is the key to building success both in your career and in life.
