Podcast recap: Ruth Furman shares her biggest lessons from the Catalyst Mastermind program

To achieve success in business, sometimes it’s less about overcoming challenges but welcoming them instead. 

That was some of the sentiment Ruth Furman shared when she recently sat down with Sonia Petkewich, host of the Catalyst Mastermind Collaborative podcast. 

On the segment, Furman discussed some of her biggest lessons in business over the years, and what she learned specifically when she participated in a Catalyst Mastermind Collaborative workshop. 

Catalyst is a premier members-only small business group that provides small business owners with networking and education opportunities to help further their success.

Embracing discomfort

Furman described the Catalyst program as a “coed fraternity with only nice people.” The program strikes a balance between encouragement and accountability, with the understanding that you won’t get better in business unless you face your deficiencies.

As an entrepreneur, over the years Furman has overcome what she calls her “default behavior” or needing to handle “every little detail” of her business. This has often led to feeling overwhelmed, she said on the show. Through experience and the support from other Catalyst business owners, she has learned to delegate more work to relieve herself of that overwhelmed feeling and be more productive. 

Her biggest takeaway from the program, however, was to embrace discomfort. By doing so, the idea for the PR SEO arm of her business was shaped.

“The [Catalyst] work was uncomfortable,” she recalled, “but in retrospect it was so important. It encouraged risk taking and helped me create an entirely new business model.”

Being uncomfortable has also become a motivator to the PR pro.

“It drives me to achieve, stop procrastinating, to get results. To be super resourceful,” Furman said. “By letting myself get uncomfortable, it has allowed me to evolve into a little bit more of a unicorn in my business, and it’s made me a lot more marketable because I’m willing to help people with things that are out of my lane.”

Slowing down

With more than two decades of business experience, she has also learned to slow down and be more selective when choosing clients. Slowing down doesn’t necessarily mean turning away great opportunities, she clarified, but doing more vetting and making sure she and clients are on the same page from the start of an engagement is now a priority.

“Through the years, I’ve had to learn the power of the pause,” Furman said. “I tend to want to move really fast. The shiny penny is super attractive to me, but sometimes it’s better to learn more and have that clarifying conversation. … I used to say ‘if you can you should’. Now, I’ve changed that narrative to ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should.’” 

Her business roots are still the same

Even with shifts in how she runs her business, one thing about this entrepreneur hasn’t changed. She is still driven by good stories, and holds her clients accountable for being good resources to the media.

 She sees her business as “an extension of journalism,” the subject in which she majored in college and planned to pursue. “I love promoting and sharing good stories and ‘amplifying awesomeness’ as I like to say.”