Today we’d like to introduce you to Kathryn Sabol.
Kathryn, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I owned a business for 12 years manufacturing children’s clothing and gifts and I loved it. I loved the challenge of creating new products, keeping up with trends, supplying customers with new and different ideas, of creating back end systems that would keep us competitive and efficient. I loved the whirr of the company which on a good day felt like a well-oiled machine. On a bad day, it sounded like a high-speed train crash, with metal clanking and pieces flying. Luckily those bad days didn’t happen often, and when they did, just like in a train crash, we figured out how to clean it up until days or even hours later, no one could tell it had been a bad day at all.
People used to say, “It must be amazing to own your own business!” To which I would reply, “Some days. I have good days and I have bad days. My good days are just a lot better and my bad days are a lot worse.” It was amazing to see the incredible global success as the brand grew over the years and I loved it, though I was growing increasingly tired and depleted until one day I realized I was burned out, totally and completely. Design ideas no longer flowed to me like water out of a faucet. It was like the spigot had been turned off. Running the business became difficult. I became frustrated and the work I once loved seemed hard and cumbersome. So, I decided to sell.
I successfully sold and exited the business in January of 2016 and settled in for (what I thought would be) a long hiatus. Within six months, I had the itch to get back into business again. This time to celebrate all of my victories and failures as an entrepreneur with other business owners through the medium of coaching. I trained and became certified to become a business coach in 2017, also completing an international 10-month leadership program in Spain that same year.
I now work with amazing entrepreneurs who range from first-time start-ups to established business owners. They are all on journeys of their own and their roads are paved with successes and failures, just like any entrepreneur. What they all share is the desire to make their idea work. They are driven, passionate, and amazingly talented. I am blessed to be able to do what I do everyday.
Has it been a smooth road?
In my children’s clothing business there were definitely struggles along the way including the economic downturn of 2008. People weren’t buying frivolously and nothing we had was a necessity, so we had to change our model completely. In coaching, I feel challenged when a client has a problem or issue that they cannot find a solution for. I want them all to be successful and when they suffer, it weighs on me.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I specialize in coaching entrepreneurs and corporate executives alike and mostly women. Many of them have children and are struggling with the work-life balance of wanting to raise their kids with as much space and compassion as they can but feeling the pinch of being a business owner. When the day doesn’t go well at work, they come home and take it out on the people they love the most and then they feel badly about that. I get it, I was there once, and so we talk a lot about setting goals, taking small steps to reach those goals, accountability to ensure that it happens and then…this is the big one….letting go and letting the universe work its magic. We all need to trust more and fear less. And this is what most entrepreneurs have the most difficult time with.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Coaching is a growing industry and it needs some regulation. Anyone can be a coach, whether you’re trained or certified or not. I’d like to see that changing and that there be some regulation around the industry of coaching.
Contact Info:
- Email: kathryn@kathrynsabol.com
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