Daily Inspiration: Meet Julie Penner

Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Penner.

Hi Julie, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I have been hanging out with founders for my entire professional career. The first startup I worked for was still in college and so were the founders. By the time I move to Boulder in my mid-20s, I knew entrepreneurs were who I wanted to serve. While I was in graduate school at CU, I attended the very first startup weekend. I spoke at the first Ignite Boulder. I helped launch CU’s New Venture Challenge. I helped the Boulder New Tech community find a home. I was there for the blossoming of tech in Boulder.

It wasn’t until 2014 when I started working for Techastars and where I spent the next five years that I really got to know founders, how they work, what motivates them, how they learn and what holds them back. I’ve worked in a dozen different startups across my career, and worked as a coach or an investor with hundreds or companies, and I still love founders. They have the energy and audacity to bring something new into the world, and in that way, they are like artists.

Now I am a founder, and I am still working with founders. I believe that the world that is coming into being will require more of us to be entrepreneurs, that they are acquirable skills and that each of us has something to gift to the world if only we had the motivation and means to do so.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
A smooth path wouldn’t be very interesting (and wouldn’t have taught me very much).

Like many, I have struggled with feeling understood and valued. Most of that is my shadow, some of it is cultural. It’s a wound I continue to work with.

I’ve struggled with with trust personally and professionally, and I know I’m not alone with these struggles.

I’ve struggled with scarcity thinking and how to balance productive paranoia and gratitude for the many gifts I’ve been given.

I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety, less than some but enough to have great empathy and to learn the way out of the hole when I find myself in one.

I’ve struggled to get my ideas into the world, to complete the project, to get it launched. It turns out that can be the hardest part.

I have not struggled to see and feel joy completely when it is present. I have made peace with the universe, and it took some work to get there. I do not struggle to be grateful for the life I have and the opportunities I’ve been given.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
While I understand the value of focus, that’s not my current reality. I have a number of different projects going at the same time. I have a coaching practice called Soul Of Startups that I love and feeds my soul because I get to work with founders. I also work for a venture fund, I’m working on a startup, I’m writing a book and just for kicks, I serve ceremonial tea a few times a month.

My speciality in my work is understanding the deeply personal drivers behind entrepreneurs and their endeavours while having an equal understanding of the business realities that entrepreneurs face. Said differently, lots of the mentors and investors will talk to you about your business, but they’re afraid to talk about your inner demons and doubts. And your coach or your therapist will talk about your inner world, but they carry a tune when you want to talk about your profit and loss statement. I live at the intersection, I will meet you where you’re at with the problems and realities of today, be they inner challenges, outward challenges or both.

What does success mean to you?
My favorite question is, “What are you here for?” The question can be interpreted so many ways, but at least one of them goes right to the core of your purpose. I define success on this of whether the work I’m doing matches my purpose for being here. I feel fortunate that I have clarity around my purpose for being here, and I know that not everyone does, and that’s OK.

I am here to enable myself and others to meet their highest potential. That’s what success looks like for me. It is not easily ordered up, it might not be easy to measure, but you know it when it’s true about your life and your life’s work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://soulofstartups.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliepenner/
• Other: https://www.meetup.com/bdnewtech/