An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Don’t stop learning — self-development is critical. It’s been said that most people don’t read a book after they leave school. This simply cannot be the case for an entrepreneur or anyone in business. Read. Re-read. Time management, leadership, tax strategies, selling and prospecting, habits & mindset — build it into your schedule and just do it.
We are starting a new interview series about the world of entrepreneurship beyond the classroom — a realm where theory meets grit, and education meets real-world challenges. We want to hear about critical business wisdom that often goes unspoken in academic settings. I had the honor of interviewing Angele Gerten.
Angele Gerten is a passionate and dedicated entrepreneur. After starting and selling a successful clothing company, she fell in love with the financial industry and has built a business helping others understand how money works. She leads a team of advisors committed to building financially strong clients, families, and communities through financial education — something often overlooked by schools. When she’s not working with her team or clients, she enjoys traveling and going on adventures with her husband of 20 years and their two amazing boys.
Thanks for being part of this series. Let’s jump in and focus on your early years. Can you share who was your biggest influence when you were young and provide specific examples of what you learned from them that helped shape who you’ve become and how you live your life today?
I grew up playing sports, so from an early age, I was drawn to the success stories of athletes like Michael Jordan, Derek Redmond & Lance Armstrong. I loved the fact that Jordan was cut from the varsity high school team and still went on to become the best player of all time. Any Cinderella story, any come-back tale that gave hope or inspiration — I was all about it. I guess I was ignorant enough to think if they could do something great, so could I.
As I grew older, and even now, this holds true. Stories of people stepping out and taking chances, striving for something bigger, and winning. Individuals like Steve Harvey, Steve Jobs, and (at the risk of sounding totally cliché) Oprah. Reading their stories gave me the courage to take risks, showed me the importance of having a burning passion and vision, and taught me to dream beyond myself — to have an impact and purpose.
Staying on the topic of influence, who has been your biggest catalyst more recently and what can you share that you’ve learned from them that led you to making changes in your life?
A year ago, I joined a group of powerful, seasoned women business owners & leaders. It has been an incredible experience learning from one another and feeling comfortable and confident to cheer each other on.
Recently, we discussed the phrase “imposter syndrome.” One leader encouraged and challenged us, that if we aren’t feeling that, we aren’t playing big enough. Talk about a perspective twist! So often we are told to “fake it until we make it” in business or “flip the switch” and pretend we are confident. But the reality is whether you are starting a business or scaling one, there will be a level of fear you’ll experience. The goal is to push past it, to take the next step anyway. And if you aren’t feeling some form of imposter syndrome, play bigger.
In this interview series, we aim to reveal what seasoned entrepreneurs wish they had known when they were starting out and capture what the textbooks and college professors left out.
Mistakes are invaluable. Can you name one specific mistake that you made early on, and learned the most from, but wish you’d been forewarned about?
There are so many to choose from! Let that give our readers hope. There are simple organizational things I wish I would have changed, systems and skills, hiring sooner, understanding tax strategies — I’m not sure I’ll ever master that one (thank you, IRS)! The mistakes that hurt the most are the ones that dealt with people. Those I wish I could change. I was immature as a leader and had great people around me. I didn’t know how to lead and how to coach great people. If I had a great team member, I made the mistake of assuming they knew what to do. I think a lot of that was based in fear and my insecurities as a young leader.
It would have been invaluable to have a leadership course, something that helped set the stage for how to lead people, not just manage them.
Is there a leadership myth you believed early on that you’ve since debunked through your real-world experience?
I believed the leader was the only face of the company or the organization. Sure, the team was involved, but the leader was the one getting the accolades. I confused recognition with responsibility. When I learned to recognize my team for the wins and take responsibility for the losses, that was a big shift. Recognize your people, and celebrate them. They deserve it, and it’s a game changer for the culture of the business.
What’s the key operational insight you’ve gained since running your business that was never mentioned in any classroom?
There are several, legal & compliance, but a big one that can impact the success and longevity of a business is customer retention strategies. There’s a lot of competition out there, very good competition. If we aren’t continuing to build into our client relationships, we could potentially lose them. This was never discussed in any classroom — but retaining a client is as important as bringing in a new one.
Did college prepare you for scaling a business? What specifically was missing?
I want to say yes! But the reality is I wasn’t prepared. In my experience, establishing systems is a fundamental requirement and I, surprisingly, went without them for years. Think chaos management — it was a day-by-day, client-by-client process. Nothing was solidified so scaling wasn’t even an option. I was simply working harder at the same things, trying to do more & more. It all changed when I read The E-Myth, by Michael Gerber. If colleges would simply take Gerber’s book and teach a course based on it, we’d all walk out ready to implement systems to help us scale.
Any unexpected challenges in team dynamics that your academic experience didn’t prepare you for? How did you handle it?
Dealing with people in business can be challenging, but it is also highly rewarding.
I’m an action-oriented person, and as our team grew, I realized not everyone is — so I struggled. I didn’t understand how to connect, how to motivate, and even how to communicate with others. The differences paralyzed me at times.
I poured over leadership articles, and John Maxwell books and thankfully, I quickly learned to see the differences as strengths -like puzzle pieces coming together to form a picture — and how to delegate accordingly.
As a result, part of our systems now is various personality tests when we bring someone on board, which has been so helpful. Our communication as a team has skyrocketed and the culture is stronger as a result.
Have you had to unlearn any widely-accepted business ‘wisdom’ in your journey? What was it and how did it affect your strategy?
I was very inspired initially to do things the way they had always been done because those ways worked in the past. If something worked, do that. “Don’t reinvent the wheel.”
While that may be true in some areas, I let it take over, and any creativity I felt to try new things or a new approach I quickly stifled. It took a lot of the fun out of it for me. Regardless of your industry, stay creative, push boundaries, and enjoy your business! (If the joy & fun are gone, you’re essentially left with a job and a boss you can’t get away from, which is exactly what entrepreneurs do not want!)
What’s your advice for new entrepreneurs? What are your “5 Things You Won’t Learn in College But Must Know to Succeed in Business”?
- Don’t stop learning — self-development is critical. It’s been said that most people don’t read a book after they leave school. This simply cannot be the case for an entrepreneur or anyone in business. Read. Re-read. Time management, leadership, tax strategies, selling and prospecting, habits & mindset — build it into your schedule and just do it.
- Find a mentor — preferably in your industry. Someone who’s ahead of you, that can help guide you. The only shortcut to success is to learn from other people’s mistakes — it saves you the time of making them yourself. If you don’t have someone personally, see recommendation #1 — read. Learn from biographies, and make the greats your mentors.
- Network — in two ways. 1 — Find strategic partners that complement your products and services and you complement theirs, creating referral partners. 2 — Connect with other business owners & entrepreneurs who can relate to the struggle and encourage you. Not everyone is going to understand the highs & lows and it will help to get around those who do and will cheer you on. I find success can make the rest uncomfortable.
- Know what you want — keep your priorities straight, and be authentic to who you are. Welcome advice, but you don’t always have to take it.
- It’s okay to fail — it’s how we learn. The more you fail the more you grow. Embrace the struggle as a sign that you’re getting better. I’d rather have failed and something than have never tried and wondered for the rest of my life if it would have worked had I tried.
How do you ensure your team not just understands but embodies your business principles? Any techniques you wish you’d known earlier?
Talk about them. I used to think goal setting happened once a year in January. And the mission & vision, it’s set one time, when you establish your business. But these are things that need to be discussed often. We reset goals monthly, even weekly, and daily. The mission & vision don’t change — but it’s talked about. Decisions are filtered through these things — distractions often come disguised as opportunities. If the team knows our principles, we are less likely to get off course and more likely to seize the right moments and potentially accelerate towards our goals.
If we were sitting together two years from now, looking back at the past 24 months, what specifically has to happen for you personally and professionally, for you to be happy with your results?
I love this question. It would have been a hard one to answer in the early days, caught up in the day-to-day. I encourage everyone to have a vision of the future and think about it often. I like to track time by the ages of my kids — I only have 18 years with them, how many more are left? How do I want my business to support my family, and my life? Right now, we are scaling for freedom of time. And since I only have a few more years with my oldest in the house, I have a sense of urgency. Specifically, I am going to be hiring more. I know our reach will expand as our team expands.
If we are sitting together 24 months from now and it wasn’t difficult to get on my calendar, I’ll consider that a win!
Thank you so much for joining us! We wish you only success.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein, a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience as the Founder and CEO of multiple companies. He launched Choice Recovery, Inc., a healthcare collection agency, while going to The Ohio State University, His team earned national recognition, twice being ranked as the #1 business to work for in Central Ohio. In 2018, Chad launched [re]start, a career development platform connecting thousands of individuals in collections with meaningful employment opportunities, He sold Choice Recovery on his 25th anniversary and in 2023, sold the majority interest in [re]start so he can focus his transition to Built to Lead as an Executive Leadership Coach. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com
Angele Gerten On 5 Things They Forgot To Mention In College was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.