Meet Jenna Dillon | CEO, Founder & Executive Coach

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jenna Dillon and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jenna, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I realized I had the right ingredients in my life to create something delectable. Ingredient 1 – The work I do I believe is truly a right fit for me. I’m both creative and analytical – i.e. right and left brain oriented – and in executive coaching, it allows me to use both qualities. Ingredient 2 – I deeply believed in the work. I saw it create incredible positive impact on my clients (that is, the work works; there’s evidence), and was a continual need in the world. Ingredient 3 – A dynamic, professional community. Not only do I thrive working with people rather than alone, but I love surrounding myself with people who are FAR better than me. I saw many of my colleagues who were elite experts in their field, all excelling and in work that complimented that complimented each other. Knowing that Creating An Impact is my biggest motivator, I asked myself “If I were to create something with all these ingredients that could have an exponential ripple effect of positive impact on the world, what would it be?” It was a no brainer. It was E.P.I.C. (Executive Performance Institute for Coaching).

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Think of people who truly have a craft. They’re able to be artistic, and creative and use their own unique strengths, techniques and training. Now sprinkle it with their own personality. That starts to get fun. Now imagine that’s there’s sixteen of those people in a room together. Let the games begin. We have various executive coaches working one-on-one with our students, while simultaneously having trainers who are currently at the top of their field working with our students. You can’t get a change management consultant, a business consultant, and executive coaches who are at the top of their industry in the same room in a training program. Most training programs consist of trainers who are paid to be trainers for an educational program. Our trainers aren’t. They’re coming in to be trainers in this program while they’re out there working full time as experts in their industry. You can’t get something better than that. Another thing that sets us apart from other training programs is the design of our curriculum. We have the students not just learn the skills, the methodology, the paradigms and concepts of coaching, but also have the opportunity to apply these things with practice clients while their in their training. Within our programming, our students are also learning the business development of coaching. So they begin to not only develop themselves as an executive coach but as a business owner at the same time. This is why our graduated coaches have the success that they have and at the rate that they have it. Before I started this company, I was an executive coach with my own practice. Though I still have that, it’s a whole other ballgame when you have a company with more than just you. For me, one of my biggest challenges has been making sure all the various plates keep spinning; or the various hats I wear, I wear them well. Whether it’s a coaching session with a one-on-one client, or meeting with my assistant to discuss/develop internal processes, or training our students in our programs, or meeting with my advisory board, or having a discovery meeting with a potential company clients, or running a meeting with the trainers…there are all these different hats. I’ll have six different meetings in a day and each requires me to wear a different hat. I’ve been building my “mind muscles” around flipping from plate to plate on a dime, every day, for a year. The purpose of this company is to develop people to be epic, to do epic things, and accomplish things that they wouldn’t have even imagined. It’s our job to help people prove to themselves that they are far more capable than they ever thought they were. AND, they’re far more capable when there’s people around them working together with them and for them.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Given our limitations with our COVID closures, we’d be in various delightful settings outside. We’d start by driving down the PCH and stopping in a Rosenthal Winery to have outdoor social distanced wine tasting with live music and food trucks available for snacking. We’d have an afternoon walk around one of my favorite best kept secrets in LA, the Venice canals. If you’re up for an adventure, we’d go hiking in Malibu, Burbank, or the Los Angeles National Forest to have both accessibility to nature but incredible views of one of the largest cities in the world. We’d top off our hike with my favorite frozen yogurt spot, Humphreys yogurt, located in the grocery store Gelsons.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to thank everyone in the E.P.I.C. community. The graduated coaches, the executive coaches, the trainers, the consultants, my assistant, the advisory board. All of them create the village that feeds and fuels us all. We are better together and are a rocket ship because of how dynamic they are and show up for each other.

Website: https://executiveperformanceinstituteforcoaching.com
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