Welcome To My Blog
I’m thrilled to share that I’ve been featured on The Coffeehouse Invite, which highlights local businesses and artists.
In the video, I sat down for a coffee with Lailani Africa and I share why I jumped from being a children’s book author to being a personal stylist.
Here’s a short and sweet Q&A I did with her on fashion and business as well.
Follow CHI Creative Agency to hear more about creatives in the Bay Area. Cheers!
Meeting new people can be intimidating but you can’t avoid it if you’re trying to build your career or grow a business. In this YouTube video, I share my top 3 tips for how to make the conversation flow a little easier! Do you have any tips for networking?
I had an ant problem a few months ago and had to clear everything out in the kitchen into the bedrooms and it made me literally see all the stuff I have. My boyfriend says that I don’t have a lot of things, so I guess this is subjective, but in my mind, it feels like I have way too much stuff. Because I feel like I only use a fraction of it. And I realized that this stuff I don’t use is actually weighing me down. It’s taking up space, I often have to look at it every day, and I feel guilty about throwing it away.
But not anymore! I’m either donating or throwing stuff away, and I’m not feeling guilty about it. I donate anything that is in good condition and usable by others. I throw away things like makeup from 10 years ago, worn-out shoes that I’ll never wear again, or empty product boxes that have been sitting in my closet.
Some things I’m donating:
I also need to figure out a place to recycle old electronics. I have an old router that I need to get rid of.
*Deep breath* Whew. That makes me feel so much better. Even writing it out makes me feel like I’m releasing it from my life. I think it’s easy to forget how many things we own – especially when they’re tucked away in drawers or closets.
One pattern I realized is that I get tired of decorative items, so maybe clear counters and spaces would be better for me.
I also realized that my preferences have changed. I used to love love love stuffed animals (well into adulthood haha) and especially winning them at carnivals. But now I don’t feel the need to have all of these in my possession.
I’m realizing that it’s necessary to let go of the past of who we were and what we liked, to make space for our present selves and allow for growth.
My goal is that by clearing my physical space and creating order, I can have a clearer mental state. Because every time I see or walk past clutter, it makes me feel heavy or burdened knowing that I need to take care of that pile at some point. But clearing that surface makes me feel lighter. Also it’s nice to see the counter or the floor of a closet or an empty shelf.
Anyways, I still have a lot of decluttering to do, but that’s my progress so far! What do you need to get rid of?
You HAVE TO see the below video. Bravo to Chloe Bennet for expressing these words that so many of us feel. I saw this video as an ad on YouTube and it resonated so strongly with me (and apparently 5.4M other people as well). I’ve watched it multiple times and it evokes emotion for me every time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNPLbbluze8
(By the way, if you’re curious, she is reacting to the brand SKII’s short film called The Expiry Date.)
My favorite part of Chloe’s video is at 2:01 when she says, “I think the moment that resonated with me the most in the film was when you see all these women really deciding to take their destiny into their own hands and make that decision to be true to themselves and say ‘Look this is who I am.'” These words (and the powerful way she says them) just sends chills through my spine. She goes on to describe the woman leaving the date as a powerful moment of standing up for herself. YASS GIRL!
For me, the moment of “getting up from the table” was leaving my secure, well-paid job at Google. “Getting up from the table” was moving from being an author into personal styling. Sometimes it takes us months, years to realize that we need to get up and put ourselves in a different situation – whether for work or a personal relationship.
I think this gets a bad reputation because it looks like we’re unfocused / giving up early / unable to commit, but it’s just part of the journey. When we do something, we give it our all. But we don’t stay in the same place for very long. What worked for me at 28 years old, may not work for me at 30 years old.
Change is the only constant, and I’m not going to let anyone else box me into something they think I should do or be. And I’m definitely not going to go the “safer” route because oftentimes that makes me feel …(for lack of a better word) dead inside, like I’ve betrayed myself.
I’m going to be someone who is willing to re-invent myself over and over again until I get closer to who I am. I won’t minimize the hard work or fear involved. It’s going to be a daily challenge, but I’m going to keep “getting up” and going after what I want.
What are you going to choose?
I released it and committed to a goal of recording 1 podcast episode per day for 30 days. I wanted to try out podcasting as a platform, and I felt like a 30-Day Challenge was a quick way to see if I liked it or not.
Caveat: I started the challenge on June 1 and completed it on July 25, so it took me 55 days to create 30 episodes, but better late than never! I skipped some days or was too tired on other days, but nevertheless, I powered through and completed it!
Amassing a large number of subscribers was never a primary goal, I wanted to have zero expectations for my podcast, so I am pleasantly surprised that I have some listeners! Thank you, you know who you are!! I don’t mind sharing my analytics – everyone starts off with humble beginnings – so here are they are:
If you’re interested in doing your podcast, check out my earlier post on How to Start a Podcast. My friend Orlando mentioned he’s interested in doing a podcast now too, yay! It makes me super excited that I can encourage folks to do a podcast too and get their voice out there! 😀
Now to the main point of my blogpost. Here are the lessons learned from completing 30 episodes of my podcast:
I’ve always struggled with perfection, spending hours proofreading my blog posts and editing YouTube videos. When recording these podcasts in the Anchor app, you can’t edit individual audio segments. In cases like these, having limited functionality in an app is great! When I was recording, if I didn’t like the direction that I was going in, or I had a very long pause, then I would stop / delete the recording, and restart again. My episodes were around 5 minutes long, so that was one continuous audio recording. I learned to be okay with brief pauses or tiny stumbles because I didn’t want to record from the beginning again. This process could take me anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 mins to do an episode – much less time than doing a blogpost or YouTube video. Having a quick”win” by publishing an episode also gave me a high and a sense of accomplishment to keep me motivated to move onto my next work task during the day.
I got lots of practice “public speaking” on my podcast. Technically I was talking into a phone by myself, but later other people would listen the podcast episode, so I would say it is somewhat like public speaking. I usually don’t like having the spotlight on me. Even in a 1:1 setting, sometimes I won’t know what to say, so I’ll redirect the focus onto the other person by asking them a question. Doing that habit over the course of my life means that I’m not used to having lots of blank space to fill with my own words. By having a one-woman podcast (monologue style), in a way, I was forced to fill the blank void and verbally express my thoughts and feelings. Over the 30 episodes, I noticed (and other people noticed), that I started to stutter / stumble / pause less. Hooray for progress! Now I do find it easier to talk on YouTube videos when I’ve had recent and consistent practice of doing my podcast.
Through podcasting, I found an outlet for me to be pretty raw and vulnerable but in a safe way. It is scary to put myself out there, but with audio only, it’s a little easier. Maybe it’s because people can’t see me that I feel a little safer. Regardless, I’ve found podcasting as a place to open up and chat. Sometimes I ramble. Sometimes I talk about things that inspire me. Sometimes I talk about things that confuse me, or things that I’m not very good at (i.e. cooking), or the life skills I’m still working on (i.e. remembering to eat 3 meals a day). But in admitting all these imperfect sides of me, it gives me relief that I don’t have to hold up the mask of perfection of having it all together – because that is just tiring to keep up. And interestingly enough, once I admit these things publicly on my podcast, I feel that I’ve acknowledged/ accepted it as a part of me. Then I can take a deep breath and move onto other things.
I’m sure there are more lessons that I’ve learned, but those will continue to unfold over time. I will continue creating podcast episodes because it brings me many positive feelings and benefits as mentioned above. But I probably won’t be publishing on a daily timeline. I’m happy to do it at my own pace, when I feel like I have something to share.
If you’re curious to check out my podcast, search for “What Kat Found Out” in your favorite podcast player or listen here: https://anchor.fm/katkuan
Have you thought about creating your own podcast? If so, what topic are you thinking of?
I’ve been keeping it under wraps for a while now, but I’m finally ready to share about the new shift in my business! I posted a new YouTube video on my channel:
One of the things I’m working on is to become more patient.
I think it’s very easy to become impatient when we have ambitious goals (including starting a business) because we want everything to happen as soon as possible. But alas, life is a process. When accomplishments take longer and are harder to earn, we end up valuing them more.
So I want to share this Bible verse from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (I don’t know even know how to pronounce that…). Anyhow, this verse / poem gives me peace and reminds me that things will unfold on their own time:
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
– Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
For my life in the present moment, I think it’s a time for stretching beyond my comfort zone, which can be exciting yet uncomfortably scary. What time is it for you now?
Love, Kat
I’m over halfway through my 30-day experiment to podcast every day. There are 18 episodes now posted!
I share things that inspired me or lessons learned that day.
You can find my podcast What Kat Found Out on Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Castbox, Breaker, and Anchor.
I recently decided to make the big decision to hire a business coach.
I don’t want to disclose my coach’s name yet until I have lengthy experience working with them and can vouch for them. Before I came to this decision though, I had been following this person’s online presence and content for awhile. I discovered them because they were a coach for a successful female entrepreneur I admired. I listened to this coach’s interviews and tried to apply their advice in my daily life. I thought the advice and strategies were quite good. I also had a couple conversations with the coach to decide if working together was a good fit or not.
Hiring a business coach is a sizable financial investment, so my decision was not made lightly. It came down to 3 big reasons:
This was probably the hardest thing for me to admit. I was hoping to save my money to use towards my living expenses and extend the length of my runway. But at the same time, I had to look at the hard numbers of my business and realize that I was still a long way off from being able to make a sustainable living off it. It feels like I’m working constantly on my business, so working harder or longer hours isn’t really a viable solution. I also had to admit that I lack business experience and am not very good at marketing or sales. 😐
So to summarize, I had to admit that I didn’t know how to make a sustainable business on my own.
Since I don’t have co-workers, the conversations I have about my business arise when I’m talking to my boyfriend, friends, and family. Sometimes I’ll get an idea from a conversation and all of a sudden, I’ll be all gung-ho and excited about trying that idea out. So my focus suddenly shifts to something that randomly came up in my last conversation. On the flip side, relying on my own inner voice is tricky because the voice of fear inside myself sometimes holds me back from doing things.
What I believe I need is advice from a single person who has successfully built a business and has gone through the growing pains that I have. I need help with setting priorities and goals from the braindump of ideas that I have in my mind.
To summarize, there’s plenty of business advice out there, but I need a single voice telling me what to focus on next. And then my personal relationships can purely be personal time.
It’s easy to have lots of grand ideas about where I could take my business, but executing them on a disciplined schedule is very hard. I find it challenging to make plans and stick with them. Often, it’s because I get discouraged by the lack of results when I’m part way through, so I scrap the whole idea as not worth doing. Or a better idea comes along that I’d rather try.
When it comes to the things that are hard and outside my comfort zone, I easily procrastinate on them, so the hardest milestones can get pushed back repeatedly because there are no set deadlines.
To summarize, I need accountability on the plans I develop – to make sure I’m pushing myself outside my comfort zone daily and making strategic use of my time.
This article was not meant to convince anyone to get a business coach. I’m just sharing my experience. I know that hiring a business coach isn’t right for everyone. It especially depends on what point you are in your life and your business. Last year I wouldn’t have been ready for one.
Also, finding the right coach is a long vetting process that is going to be very different for each person. There’s a lot of business coaches out there on the internet that sell very expensive coaching packages with fancy email funnels and lots of social media advertising. It can be easy to fall prey to them when feeling emotional and frustrated about the state of your business. If you decide to look for one, please be careful and thoroughly vet them!
As always, I hope that sharing my thoughts was helpful to you. I try to be more open and vulnerable about the challenges of entrepreneurship.
I’m also doing this daily in short segments on my podcast.
Thanks for reading!
In my podcast, I share daily snippets of life as I try to make it as an entrepreneur.
I’ll keep the episodes short, and I’ll be doing this as an experiment for 30 days. Currently published: