Elise Madrick is the Founder and CEO of Cerené, an executive experiences company that helps people become unrecognizable to themselves. She combines her expertise in developing leadership programs for a world-class business school with her personal passion for human transformation to design experiences that even the most worldly executives find mind-blowing. She serves as a guide and growth partner for those seeking to embrace radical reinvention and the thrill and challenge of the ultimate metamorphosis: who we are to ourselves.
Could you elaborate on the nature of your business, highlighting its purpose and the ways it benefits people?
At Cerené, we believe that all humans have untapped potential, some of it hiding behind our blind spots. When that hidden untapped potential is unleashed, it leaves us surprised and delighted by who we become.
We exist to unlock the hidden potential within extraordinary humans. We bring small groups to exotic locations around the world and lead individuals, partners, or leadership teams through a process that transforms hidden potential into their reality. Our team helps them shed limitations, rewriting the story of who they’ve been, who they are, and who they can become. Together as a community, we step into new possibilities we might not have considered before.
People come to Cerené at pivotal moments—times of transition, reinvention, or deep curiosity about what else is possible. Through immersive experiences that combine eight key elements such as insights, philosophy, methodology, adventure, poetry, and community, we create the conditions for transformation. Participants walk away with a new sense of who they are and what they are capable of and a methodology for transforming not just once but over and over again. Because, why not experience the fullest expression of ourselves? We have the potential to create a ripple effect that shifts teams, communities, and the world around us.
What inspired you to start your journey as a coach and entrepreneur? Were there any specific events, challenges, or people that motivated you to take this path?
If you were to know me four years ago, reading this today, you’d be asking, “Who are you?” And mean it in the best way possible. Several years ago, I found myself in the darkest period of my life. I quite literally loathed the life I was leading—I was unhappily married, living in a house I never wanted, and feeling the pressure to have children I never dreamed of. Now, I had a decade’s experience transforming leaders through education and prior experience as a therapist, so although I had all the tools at my fingertips, nothing was getting me out of the wallowing pit in which I found myself. Well, put myself! I needed to do something different, I needed to become someone different, but there was just one problem… I had no idea how.
So I sought out the people who could see in me what I couldn’t see for myself, traveled to serene places around the world, and explored what could be possible for me. I thought the six-week “Eat, Pray, Love” trip where I felt free to be whoever I wanted would be my ticket to eudaimonia! But then I returned home to reality, and life kept on “lifing”—I got divorced, sold the house, and continued to have ups and downs, like every human, and I realized there’s no end to this transformation game. I then understood that the process of transformation is what creates the most joy—discovering new parts of ourselves, trying on new ways of being in the world, and becoming someone we previously never dreamed possible. This realization, and experiencing the process myself, inspired the creation of Cerené, where today, my team and I have the privilege of helping people in all sorts of transitions unleash their hidden potential, sometimes even becoming entrepreneurs themselves!
Looking back at the beginning of your career, what were the major challenges you faced when establishing yourself as a leader/coach? How did you overcome those obstacles?
There are significant life events that have had an impact on my career, of course. When I consider the path to establishing myself as a leader, the major challenge I continue to face is the age-experience paradox. I am a younger CEO, so I am often asked about my life and professional experiences to gauge credibility and reliability. While I could go on listing the successes I’ve had in life, I take a different approach, which is to say, “Rather than share with you all the things I’ve done and accomplished, why don’t I tell you about how I went about gaining the experiences I have?”
I then proceed to share, “I work with hundreds of executives each year, so as anyone does when wanting someone to feel welcome and seen, I ask, ‘How do you do what you do? How did you get to where you are today?’ And across the board, those who are most successful saw an opportunity and took it when others hesitated. It sounds easy, but it’s harder in practice. I tried it out, and goodness, is it working for me!”
Would you like to share any remarkable achievement?
Once you’ve participated in a Cerené Experience, you are part of our community that we nourish and cherish. This is a community of individuals who see for us a future we could not see on our own. And it is within a community that transformation is nurtured into something unrecognizable—something extraordinary. Together we step into futures we could never have imagined for ourselves. From an accountant who has become a writer and storyteller, to a salesperson that has become an actor, to an executive at a life insurance company who is now also a yoga instructor—the people in our community are extraordinary humans living rich, full, and multidimensional lives. Together, we all take on a new opportunity every 108 days to step into a new possibility for ourselves and for our lives.
What are your thoughts about women in leadership today?
There are many arguments and differing views across the globe about needing more females in leadership positions and which gender is better at leading. This is not my concern. The question I am most concerned with is: To where are we being led?
The last 100 years (and beyond) of our world being led by predominantly male leaders has resulted in a general consensus that the only goal of business is shareholder value over everything else. You don’t have to look far to feel the impact. What I am interested in exploring is who might lead us to a different destination—a destination that is of value to humanity over everything else. I believe women are the people to lead us to this new destination. And isn’t that the purpose of profit, anyway?
What message/advice would you have for future women leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs?
We simply cannot see the greatness in ourselves that is obvious to others. My advice to every woman leader is to call three people you know—perhaps a loved one, work colleague, or neighbor, and ask this simple question: “Based on everything you know about me, what do you see for my future that you think I am missing?” And then listen like your life depends on it because it does.
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