Candace Yaeger MBA MA is a community cultivator, people connector, non-profit co-founder, renewable energy entrepreneur, former mental health therapist, TEDx speaker, and award-winning Executive Coach who has been featured in various news media outlets, including ABC and CBS. She is dedicated to helping others step up to their true potential and achieve successful, fulfilling work lives, keeping true to her life mantra “Lift as You Rise.” Born in Philadelphia to dedicated public servant parents, her passion for helping others and serving the community began at an early age. A self-proclaimed nerd with a Master’s Degree in Psychology and a Master’s in Business Administration, Candace also describes herself as an Aunt, beach bum, and wife. In 2021, Candace and her husband moved their businesses to sunny Sarasota, where she continues her passion for community involvement, service, and adventure!

Key Moments

[00:06:22] The best part of being an entrepreneur is the freedom to take care of oneself and do what one wants. Being strategic and having good support can prevent burnout.

[00:08:06] Moving to Florida helped me slow down and take on enjoyable projects, including starting a accidental nonprofit. While I enjoy the freedom, I worry about burnout and distractions from current projects.

[00:11:40] The speaker is mostly on Instagram, enjoys conversations there, and is accessible through their username. They can also be found on Facebook for conversations.

Find Candace Online

https://bit.ly/CYtalk

https://www.candace.coach/

https://www.ted.com/search?q=candace%20yaeger (or type my name into TED.com)

https://www.instagram.com/candaceyaeger/

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Transcript (Provided by CastMagic.io)

Seth [00:00:00]:

Entrepreneurs Enigma is a podcast for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, the wins and the fails that we all face being entrepreneurs. How we learn from adversity. Every week, I talk to a different entrepreneur with a story to tell. I’m Seth Goldstein. Come with me on the journey. This is Entrepreneurs Enigma. Let’s get started. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneurs Enigma podcast. As always, I’m your host, Seth. Today I have a good budy of mine, Candice Yeager can do. Candice, as I like to call her. She is an executive coach and entrepreneur. She is or was a therapist at one point. She’s done a lot, and she’s not old, so she’s done a lot. So let’s bring her in. Hey, Candice.

Candace [00:00:58]:

I love that introduction. I’ve done a lot and I’m not old.

Seth [00:01:02]:

Yeah, you’ve done a lot.

Candace [00:01:03]:

I have.

Seth [00:01:04]:

You’ve done a lot. So how did this all start? Where did you go to school, all that good stuff. Did you always want to be entrepreneur, that kind of thing?

Candace [00:01:11]:

No, I did not always want to be an entrepreneur. In fact, I really never wanted to do any kind of business at all. I was a mental health therapist. I went to Arcadia University, which is not far from where your office is, about maybe 35 minutes. Then I went to La Salle for grad school, and I was on that track. I wanted to have my own practice as a therapist. That was, like, the closest I would get to being an entrepreneur. So my only interest in business was really to make sure that I would have a successful therapy practice one day. So I accidentally became an entrepreneur. I know, seth, you’ve met quite a few people who have become accidental entrepreneurs.

Seth [00:01:56]:

It’s almost always accidental, yes.

Candace [00:02:00]:

So my husband and I, when I was a therapist, my husband and know he had his own company, we started kind of a side hustle together, and it started doing well. And ultimately, I made the decision to jump into that full time because we realized we needed it.

Seth [00:02:21]:

Yeah. What was the side hustle?

Candace [00:02:23]:

Renewable energy company, which is now a utility scale solar company called Green Skyline. That is now his full time baby, and it is doing quite well.

Seth [00:02:34]:

Good for him. Good for him. And then how did you trip, stumble, bump into executive coaching?

Candace [00:02:43]:

So when I was exploring or navigating this whole journey venture chaos, that was my first few years in entrepreneurship. I realized that there was a lot I didn’t know. I am someone that I do best with formal education. Most entrepreneurs do not need formal education. I am a big believer in that. But I figured, okay, I can go back to school, get my MBA, baptism by fire in an accelerated one year program.

Seth [00:03:18]:

Oh, wow. That is baptism by fire.

Candace [00:03:21]:

Yes, it was.

Seth [00:03:23]:

That’s a lot. An MBA is a lot when you do it normally.

Candace [00:03:27]:

Yes. And I went to Drexel. They had a program that was one year, and you were part of a cohort. My year. There was 22 of us that started, and 18 survived.

Seth [00:03:38]:

That’s not bad. It’s a bad return.

Candace [00:03:40]:

But when I was there, found myself, a lot of the undergrads were coming to me and wanted me to mentor them, and I was like, I can’t be a mentor. I’m just trying to figure this stuff out. And I didn’t realize that I had a lot of the abilities to mentor just by tapping into my roots as a counselor and a therapist, and I would just have chats with them, and I wasn’t even realizing that I was mentoring and helping the way that they were looking for. So then I realized I really missed working with people one on one.

Seth [00:04:18]:

Yeah.

Candace [00:04:19]:

And that’s when I hired my own coach. I became a coach. I developed my programs, and it took off from there.

Seth [00:04:27]:

Oh, that’s wild. So if you can tell, Candace is a Philadelphian. Let’s see. She went to Arcadia. She went to La Salle, she went to Drexel. So pretty much they’re all within, what, 10 miles of each other?

Candace [00:04:41]:

Yes.

Seth [00:04:42]:

Literally. And she also says water the way it should be said. Thank you very much. And it’s not Italian ice. It’s water ice. Damn it. Everyone else goes, oh, it’s shaved ice. No, it’s not. It’s water. God, don’t get me started on that. We’re going to take a quick break, hear from our sponsors, and get right back to the been. But now you’re an expat down in Philly, expat down in Florida. Doing with the humidity down there? How are things going down there? How’s business going on now? Are you all remote, really?

Candace [00:05:18]:

It’s really interesting because it’s a very different way of life down here, which I love and appreciate, but it’s taken a while to get used to. Up in the Northeast, we are very fast paced. We move fast. We don’t have a lot of patience. We expect things to get done very quickly. But that’s also because I think that just our culture in business up north, especially the Northeast, is to be very effective, very efficient. We don’t really sit around and play around. Now, whether that’s healthy for us or not not. So it’s definitely a healthier way of life down here. I still do have a lot of my clients up in the Philadelphia area and in the Bucks County area. Yeah, that’s the beauty of technology.

Seth [00:06:11]:

Oh, yeah. So got us through the pandemic. Seriously. It’s amazing. That’s fantastic. So in your mind, what is the best thing about being an entrepreneur?

Candace [00:06:22]:

There’s so many amazing things about being an entrepreneur. I think for me, it’s being able to do whatever the hell I want. And I mean that in a number of ways, right? Because there’s absolutely things like I’m a big proponent of taking care of the entrepreneur as a person first. We’re our best asset. So if I need a half day Friday, by the way, I am done work in an hour and a half today, and then I’m going, good job, good job. I’m a big proponent that if you’re an entrepreneur, then you’re able to listen to what you need better and take care better care of yourself and do what you want. If you’re smart about it and very strategic about it and you have good people around you helping you notice certain things, then you can be a really healthy person as an entrepreneur and prevent burnout.

Seth [00:07:18]:

Yes, absolutely.

Candace [00:07:19]:

For me, that’s important. I’ve had severe burnout in past careers. We were talking about this on text or email or something about my Ted Talk. I got burnout as a mental health therapist in less than two years.

Seth [00:07:34]:

Wow. I would get all these migraines.

Candace [00:07:37]:

I’d be sick, all the like. That’s why I did the Ted Talk I did this year.

Seth [00:07:43]:

I can see that, though. I mean, mental health is tough, and I burned out from journalism. Same kind of rigor and hear horrible stuff, see horrible stuff. It takes a toll. If you don’t take care of yourself during that, you burn out. You get PTSD and all that jazz. Absolutely. On the flip side, what keeps you up at night?

Candace [00:08:03]:

What keeps me up at night?

Seth [00:08:05]:

Yeah.

Candace [00:08:06]:

Besides, I think that for me, in all honesty and this has been helpful for me, when I moved to Florida, I slowed down a bit, so I’m still taking on fun projects. Of course. Seth, a few years ago, a group of us went on that whole adventure, and we accidentally started a nonprofit. I tend to take on projects. I’ve been able to slow down more being here and take time to volunteer, take time to do things that I want to do. So that’s been really wonderful. But then at the same time, what keeps me up at night is that internal dialogue of, okay, but there’s all these projects that I want to do, but is that going to cause me to get burnout? Is that going to distract me from the projects I’m working on now? Don’t all entrepreneurs have that? We’re like, oh, look at this shiny thing. Oh, no, stay focused.

Seth [00:09:06]:

Absolutely. Oh, shiny object is strong with this one right here.

Candace [00:09:09]:

And we have all these ideas, and if we did them all, we wouldn’t be able to ever sleep.

Seth [00:09:15]:

Absolutely. You can see that with me. I have a podcast. I have a newsletter. I have my business. I’m mentoring things you’re doing. Oh, my God. I’m constantly doing something, so you have to be careful.

Candace [00:09:26]:

If you come up with some brand new idea, you have to be really strategic about, okay, do I jump in headfirst, which entrepreneurs love to do, or do I put this off until later, or do I have to just stay focused and ignore it completely? Right.

Seth [00:09:41]:

Absolutely. It’s crazy. So what is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

Candace [00:09:48]:

Like, physically?

Seth [00:09:49]:

It can be anything.

Candace [00:09:51]:

Okay, the first thing that comes to mind, in all honesty, is two things that I carry with me physically. I have the mass card from my brother’s funeral and the mass card from my sister in law and niece’s funerals. And I know that sounds dark and grim, but hear me out. I carry those with me constantly because then anytime I open my purse or I open my bag or whatever it is that I’m carrying with me, that’s a reminder that life is too short. I think that a lot of the decisions that I’ve made in my entrepreneurial journey and also just in my personal life, I try to remind myself that life is too short and we should be doing whatever the heck we want to do.

Seth [00:10:37]:

Absolutely. Kind of a dark side to remind yourself of that. But if it works, sometimes you have to have those jolts.

Candace [00:10:45]:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think having for me, at least that little reminder, especially if throughout the day I’m stressing about and I’m running from one meeting to the next, I open my wallet to go pay for my coffee and I see that, then I’m like, okay, take a beat, take a deep breath, everything’s fine. If I’m two minutes late to my.

Seth [00:11:07]:

Next meeting, yeah, it’s hard when you’re hiding.

Candace [00:11:12]:

My career is not going to crumble because I’m two minutes late. Like, take a deep breath, relax, everything’s fine.

Seth [00:11:18]:

Love it, love it.

Candace [00:11:19]:

You know, I’m the queen of being late, Seth, for everything.

Seth [00:11:22]:

Oh, I’m aware. Yeah. Fashionably late. Fashionably. Always dressed to the nines. Always fashionably late. Like, literally fashionably. So, Candace, where can people find you online? Actually, first off, where’s your watering hole? Where do you hang out the most? Online?

Candace [00:11:40]:

Online? I would say I’m probably mostly on Instagram. Yeah, I’m one of those people. I don’t really post a lot on Instagram, but I always have a lot of really interesting conversations going on with people in DMs and on commenting on their stuff. So I’m on Instagram often. My Instagram handle is my first and last name altogether with no spaces, no shapes, nothing like that. So I’m most accessible on there and I love to have conversations on Instagram. Also, if you want to check out my Ted talk where I do talk a bit about burnout and about being more selfish and doing whatever the heck you want to do, that can be found at bit lee. Capital C. Capitalytalk. Love it. Or you can just go to the TED.com website and type in my name and I’ll pop up. So that’s easy too. I’m on Facebook. Same thing. You type in my name. I’m the only one that has my name with my spelling. You can find me. Same thing. I’m not big on posting there, but I like to have some really great conversations with interesting people on there.

Seth [00:12:56]:

Yeah, it’s fun. And, of course, Candace. Yeager.com.

Candace [00:13:00]:

Yes. Candacer.com. Or you can just type in Candace Coach.

Seth [00:13:05]:

That’s the one I was remember there’s a slicker one, candace Coach. I like that one.

Candace [00:13:10]:

Candace Coach. Which a lot of times when I switched over to Candace Coach, I was so excited. I’m like, that’s so easy. Especially because Jaeger gets misspelled a lot a lot of people. Seth, how interesting you’ll appreciate this because you’re so in the tech sphere. So many people didn’t realize that was a website. I didn’t realize you could have anything other than.com and I’m like, my husband.

Seth [00:13:35]:

Has had solar since I have a Doylestown Dog site. Dog for the dog park.

Candace [00:13:43]:

Exactly. But yeah. So candace.com or Candace coach.

Seth [00:13:49]:

So, Candace, thanks so much for being on. This is so great. We got to hang out again when we’re not recording a podcast. It’s been so.

Candace [00:13:58]:

I am trying to get back to Pennsylvania soon.

Seth [00:14:03]:

We’ll have to hang out.

Candace [00:14:04]:

We’ll have to have a reunion with our group.

Seth [00:14:08]:

Absolutely. All right, Candice, thanks so much. And we’ll see everyone next time. That was a great show. If you’re enjoying entrepreneurs Enigma, please view us in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps other podcast listeners find our show. If you’re looking for other podcasts in the marketing space, look no further than the Marketing Podcast Network@marketingpodcasts.net. Goldstein Media hopes you have enjoyed this episode. This this podcast is one of the many great shows on the MPN Marketing Podcast Network.