Katherine Jennick is a business owner, mother of two children, Careers Adviser, Mentor, Educator, and the list goes on.
In 2017, Katherine was working in a sector that she had always loved, but she suddenly found herself struggling. She had two young children at the time and was working part time in a new role within the Career sector, and a manager who she had not previously worked with.
The situation with the manager was becoming increasingly challenging, and in Katherine’s words ‘I felt bullied and undervalued – so my confidence hit rock bottom’.
Katherine knew something had to change, so she accepted a redundancy as her way of escape, and took some time off work to reflect, and find her inner strength again.
After some reflection, Katherine retrained as a massage therapist, and set up as a self-employed mobile massage therapist. Katherine says: “Little did I know at the time that everything I learnt in this self-employed role would be crucial when I founded my now business – What’s Your Strength?”.
To help fund her career change, Katherine did some careers work on the sidelines with a former colleague who had set up their own business. Katherine claims it was working with her former colleague and in an industry, she once loved that she ‘found me again’.
Katherine says: “I fell back in love with careers work and realised that I was good at it after all. I’d just been made to believe otherwise and taken a knock back. So, whilst all this was happening, me juggling my massage therapy business, and finding my feet in the careers sector again – a seed was sown. That seed is my business – What’s Your Strength?.
“I noticed that young people often struggled with recognising their strengths and I wanted to do something, create something that would help them to realise their own amazing talents. Reflecting on this now, I can clearly see that I was struggling to identify my own strengths due to my negative experience – so creating this tool was an experiment for me too.”
Katherine’s biggest lesson from all the above is: “Ask for help when you need it! When you are passionate about an idea, and people can see that drive in you, they really do want to help, so accept the help. I will be forever grateful to each and every one of them who helped me along the way the past five years”.
What’s Your Strength is an award-winning resource created back in 2019 by Katherine Jennick to empower teenagers in identifying their personal strengths. This pack of cards has now evolved and is available in three different packs: one for young people, one for adults, and one for people with additional needs in mind. Over 4, 500 packs have sold in over 15 countries in the past 5 years, and Katherine still can’t believe that it took a complete shake-up with her career, a blow to her confidence and a rediscovery of herself to get to the position she is now in.
