Rebecca Dhrimaj on Choosing Purpose Over Paychecks—and Winning Big

After months of disheartening job interviews and soul-searching in a San Francisco hotel room, Rebecca Dhrimaj chose purpose over predictability—and never looked back. As co-founder of The Empathy Collective, she now helps organizations lead change with clarity and compassion. With tools like the ResilientIQ™ diagnostic and insights drawn from her podcast-turned-strategy engine, she’s built a business rooted in meaningful transformation. In this Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight, Rebecca shares how leaning into empathy—and a nudge from her mentors—ignited her leap from stalled job seeker to change-making entrepreneur.

Hi, Rebecca! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?

The Empathy Collective is a forward-thinking change management consulting firm rooted in empathy as a driver of individual, team, and organizational resilience.  We specialize in helping teams and organizations embrace and lead people through change, one conversation at a time.  With the ResilientIQ™ change readiness diagnostic, immersive Change Conversations workshops, and action learning peer coaching, we empower leaders to meet sustainable transformation with clarity, confidence, and compassion.

Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.

I was sitting in a hotel room in San Francisco preparing for a job interview the next day and started to have anxiety about getting the job offer.  Will I have to give up my empathy podcast if I go back to corporate?  Will I really make the impact I want to make if I get this job?  Fortunately, I didn't get the job, and a few weeks later I stopped interviewing and started thinking seriously about what my own business would look like.  This is when I pulled in my former manager and good friend, Adine Stone, who is now my founding partner.  She always saw my potential before I did and played a huge role in propelling me forward from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.  If we hadn't gone through our own personal transformation together, we may not be where we are today.

Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.

After 6 months of interviewing for corporate roles and feeling uninspired by the whole process (getting ghosted by recruiters, reading job descriptions that looked exciting but felt mediocre during the interview), I regrouped with my two biggest mentors - Adine Stone (my former manager) and Dave Galloway (my dad who has been consulting for 10 years).  They both encouraged me to look at my podcast, E3: Engage and Empower with Empathy, and figure out how to turn it into a meaningful consulting business.  I took their advice seriously and never looked back after that!

Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?

Riverside, the podcasting software I use, has its bad moments, but overall it's so helpful.  I do all the production, and Riverside makes it so seamless. I love that it uses AI to create an "edited" version of the episode that I can work with rather than starting from scratch with the editing.  The platform also creates "magic clips" that I can use for my social media teasers.  Although podcast production still requires a big time investment, Riverside streamlines my whole podcast recording and editing process.

We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.

We realized very early on that we needed to create more flexibility in our consulting model so we could expand our reach and impact on people's lives.  We decided a few months ago to invest in the development of an online program, The Resilient Change Leader™.

What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?

We used our podcast content to build our consulting business rather than using an existing business to launch a podcast.  Our podcast has always served as a research tool on workplace empathy.  When we started to get serious about building our change readiness consulting business, we combed through all our interviews with leaders across sectors and pulled out all the key themes from those conversations.  This served as the foundation of our 8-question change readiness diagnostic, ResilienceIQ™.  The podcast continues to play a strategic role in our business for discovering potential clients, partners and thought leaders.

What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?

You may have an idea in your head of what your business is going to be, but it's important to stay open to that evolving - especially in the beginning when you're first starting out.  Don't be afraid to pivot.  It's a natural part of the process.

Want to dive deeper into Rebecca's work? Check out the links below!

• Visit The Empathy Collective's website: theempathycollective.com
• Subscribe to The Empathy Collective channel on Youtube
• Follow The Empathy Collective on Instagram: @theempathycollectivellc
• Follow The Empathy Collective on LinkedIn: The Empathy Collective LLC
• Subcriber to The Empathy Collective Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcast