Whitney Kenter, CEO and founder of Glowe Connective, discusses the failures and successes of her personal life and professional career. Her career consulting with businesses to prioritize human energy to overcome challenges within a company has given her insight into following a career path that brings you light or makes you “Glowe.” Whitney shares some of the risks she has taken that have helped her continue to thrive in her professional career and help her excel with her new business.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6TPeNcQiSE&list=PLbvB0kVmlTP7mo99UtYan6rAaz5uNOzyN&index=1

Brett Gilliland: Success. I'm your host, Brett Gilliland, and today I've got Whitney Kenter in the office with me. Whitney, how you doing? 
Whitney Kenter: I'm doing great...
Brett Gilliland: Awesome...
Whitney Kenter: ...thanks for having me.
Brett Gilliland: Well, it's good to have you. It's uh, it's exciting. I got introduced to you from, uh, Kristen. Kristen said great things about you at a, uh, at a lunch the other day and I said, you know what? I gotta, I gotta meet her. And, uh, reached out to you on LinkedIn and not even a week later, here we are. So...
Whitney Kenter: ...that's right. 
Brett Gilliland: It's been awesome. Um, well, you are the founder of Glowe Connective. And, uh, you've had an unbelievable career and been in the finance industry and now doing this thing with Glowe, and I can't wait to dive into that.
But if you can, Whitney, just maybe give us a little lay of the land on what's made you the woman you are today. 
Whitney Kenter: Oh my gosh, that seems like a very loaded question. , I'll try to be brief. Um, I think when I think about my life, I feel like it's been this very non-linear, but very synchronistic path. When I, you know, it's easy to look back and say, oh, that was clearly the time to do this change or whatever.
But from a career perspective, I feel like even though I've been in finance, accounting, wealth management, all of these very quantitative driven fields. My interest the entire time has always been on the humans, and their behaviors and how they make decisions and what they're concerned about. And even in my very early career days, I'd be, as a tax professional at KPMG I'd be sitting with these CEOs and we'd be talking about, you know, after they do this big transaction, what are they gonna do?
How's this gonna impact their family? And I was in my twenties having these very deep conversations. You know, so somehow, gravitating back towards the things that, ironically in college, I really wanted to study psychology and marketing. And my dad was like, you will never get a job with those two degrees, so you have to get an accounting now.
Brett Gilliland: Dad, I started a company with it. 
Whitney Kenter: Right, exactly. And so it's just so ironic because every, every step of my journey, I was gravitating right back to either psychology or brand and marketing, which is fascinating. 
Brett Gilliland: Well, I think, I mean, I was joked that we're part-time psychologists, even in the wealth management space, right.
I, I was like, I got a box of Kleenex in there. Just because the conversations that happen, man, they get deep and they're just, you know, it's, it's way more important the, the, the things in life they want to go do versus just like you said, the quantitative stuff. Right? Yeah. It's, it's there. So, um, what, what are some of the risks you took in life?
Um, you know from, you know, obviously starting a company, leaving a great career, all those things, but what are some of the risks when you look back on your career, are you happy that you took? 
Whitney Kenter: I think the first risk that I took was at KPMG when, um, you know, I was in auditing for two weeks and realized that that was not for me.
Brett Gilliland: Yeah. 
Whitney Kenter: And so going straight to my boss literally two weeks into it and saying, I really don't think I'm in the right spot. That was a big risk, because you're the new kid, you know, you're part of a huge class and they're weeding you out, and I took a big risk in saying, Hey, but I really think this is not for me.
So they ended up putting me in this financial planning group, which was a division of the tax department, and then not even a year later after that, was introduced to the folks at headquarters that were kind of in charge of this whole group, and they were saying, we wanna expand it. We wanna have somebody come up and help us with the marketing and how do we expand this?
And I raised my hand and they, they looked at me and laughed. They said, you've been here for two years, or not even two years? This is usually for seniors or managers or whatever. And I just kept pushing. I was like, but I really...
Brett Gilliland: You asked the question, right? 
Whitney Kenter: ...yeah. And so I think those were two, very in close proximity to one another, big risks that I took. 
Brett Gilliland: And did you get that? 
Whitney Kenter: I, did. I got it. 
Brett Gilliland: Oh, that's amazing. 
Whitney Kenter: And went to New York and lived there for a year and a half and had this amazing experience meeting all the heads of the departments across the country. 
Brett Gilliland: Wow. 
Whitney Kenter: And it was just, it was amazing. So...
Brett Gilliland: That's awesome.
Whitney Kenter: It was a huge risk.
Brett Gilliland: Yeah. And what do you think from there? What did you learn most about that, taking that risk? Being a person that's, you know, quote unquote not ready for it. Yeah. Uh, what did you learn most from that? 
Whitney Kenter: Um, mostly, and this is something that we talk a lot about now at Glowe, but I really felt strongly, I mean, it was like a whole body. Have to do this. I don't just, maybe this sounds kind of cool, kind of thing. It was like, no, I need to go, I want to, you know, I want to get out of here and go experience this. I never lived anywhere outside of Kansas or St. Louis. And so I was like, okay, this is a big move for me and I've never lived on the East coast, let alone in New York.
And, um, but it just, it just felt right and I didn't let any of the extra noise or the, you know, even my own mind probably at the time, justifying this makes no sense financially. This makes no sense. You know, there's probably a lot of reasons where I could have said, yeah, you're right. That's, I should keep on the safe path of continuing to, you know, move forward in my career in a linear way.
Brett Gilliland: Yeah. I, I think sometimes the risks are, uh, like you just said, the financial may not be the smartest thing. Right. Things we can walk away from, and I, it makes me think of when I started Visionary, my business partner, Tim Hammett and I, it's, you know, we made this step, right. We were both doing very well in our careers. My wife was seven months pregnant, uh, eight months pregnant by the time we started. Um, you know, like with our fourth child, we just built a new home and she's like, is this the right decision? And I'm like, I don't know. She's like, is this the best time? I'm like, no, it's a terrible time. Right. But I think to your point is like you always knew in your core kind of what you wanted to go do.
Right? And I think sometimes it's just taking that leap, a calculated leap, right? Knowing what you're getting into and planning and all the stuff that goes. But sometimes just doing it and kind of building it as you go. Would you agree with that? 
Whitney Kenter: Oh yeah, absolutely. We talk about it all the time with people is that, you know, if, if something feels like a full body, yes.
 If you just feel it, even if on paper it doesn't make sense necessarily. Yeah. Or whatever. But if you just feel it, it's usually the right answer. Cuz your body knows. Your heart, your gut know way more than your mind on what's right for you, so.
Brett Gilliland: I agree with that. And I think that's, for me, that's what I felt was this, it was right.
Like it just, I mean, I guess if you put it on paper, people, like, you're doing what? Right. Like, you're just gonna go out and start your own RIA and do, it's like, yeah. Yeah. But like, it was like burn the bridges. We're never going back. It's like exactly's, this is what we're doing. And I think, again, having the plan.
So, um, let's go and talk about what Glowe Connective is. This is a company you started a number of years ago and what, three, three years ago did you say? You just told me this.
Whitney Kenter: Almost three years. 
Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Three years ago almost. And so what are you doing exactly and how are you helping impact the world? 
Whitney Kenter: And talk about a risk.
Everyone thought I was crazy in 2020 going out. They're like, what are you doing? We're still at home and you're start this new company. 
Brett Gilliland: Great timing...
Whitney Kenter: Kind of leaving at the height of, uh, of your career and what you built. So, um, no. So Glow is a, a company that we're all about transformation, whether it's personal or business.
So we talk a lot about how there's so many things that are happening in our world right now that are almost forcing the hand of people to rethink systems, to rethink how we do things, to rethink, um, mostly the human side of our businesses. And I just became really passionate about that. You know, businesses are going through a lot.
Even pre covid, post covid, um, and nothing to do with covid. There's a lot of changes that were happening, and so I wanted to do things differently from the standpoint of, yes, we need to focus on vision and strategy and processes, but it's the people part that makes or breaks the business. Right? Yeah. And so, so many of the complaints, I guess, that business leaders were having was, you know, people's motivation, people not wanting to work, um, which I don't subscribe to. Right. Um, how they work when they work, all these different things and,

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