entrepreneur

The Illusion of Money

October 5, 2019 By Kat

Everyone’s got a complex relationship with money and has their own money story. I believe that healing our money story will move us past our limiting beliefs so we can start to step into all that we are capable of.

If you spend energy worrying about money or the scarcity of it, I highly recommend watching this documentary on the Illusion of Money by Kyle Cease.

It makes you feel even more expansive and limitless in your abilities and potential. He says most people act like time is unlimited and money is limited when in reality it’s the opposite; time is limited and money is unlimited. Zing!

It’s a great perspective shift on life and money. I believe your life will be better after watching this. Just sign up below to access it for free.

https://kylecease.com/movie/

Fearing Happiness

August 20, 2019 By Kat

What a triggering title. I’m almost afraid to write this post, which is why it must be written! Anyhow, this thought (of me fearing happiness) flashed across my mind the other day. I was thinking about how many great blessings I have in my life, yet how I feel a constant worry or anxiety beneath it all. Through some self-reflection, this is how I’ve come to explain it.

I think I somehow developed this habit or fear of getting too excited about something because I had this misconception that if I actually felt happiness, then it would soon be followed by a crash or something bad happening.

You know the quote, “what goes up must come down” and vice versa. I suppose this is a comforting thought when you’re down in the dumps because then you know it’ll only get better from there. But somehow my mind played tricks on me and got me to believe that if I accepted being on a high / being at the top of that curve / being happy, then I would be caught off guard and surprised by some tragic event.

And since I didn’t want anything terrible to happen, I never allowed myself to be happy for sustained periods of time and to finally relax into that happiness. I can only describe it as being hesitant to be happy.

Even recognizing this fear of happiness has helped me acknowledge and move past this unhealthy thought. When you can become conscious of what’s going on and can realize how silly a thought actually is, then you can rebuttal it.

And in this case, when I catch myself falling into this habit or coming up with unnecessary things to worry about or feel bad about, then I can respond to myself with: “No. That isn’t a problem. And it’s okay to be happy.” Usually this thought will be followed by a deep breath to relax into the feeling of “everything will be okay.”

It’s almost like giving yourself permission to be happy. And no one can give this to us except ourselves.

What do you think? Have you ever got stuck in this type of mentality before?

My Documentary:
Finding What’s Real (watch on YouTube)

How to Stop Binge Eating – An Interview with Eating Disorder Therapist Jared Levenson

July 17, 2019 By Kat

As a personal stylist, I work with clients who want to change how they dress and what their image is. Clothing is one part of it, but how they feel about their body is another aspect of it. Developing a healthy relationship with your body is no easy task!

That is why I’m excited to share this special interview of my friend Jared Levenson, who is an Eating Disorder Therapist in the Bay Area. For those who are struggling with weight loss or wanting to be more active or wanting to accept their body as-is, Jared has a fresh perspective on these challenging topics.

KK: Since your speciality is helping people to lose weight without any fad diets, what is your “secret” for how you help people achieve that?

JL: I help people first stop binge eating, and then after they have stopped binge eating to lose weight. So, my specialty is really focusing on compulsive eaters or people who might themselves be food addicts. My secret? Stop trying to lose weight! Seriously. It sounds weird, but you first have to stop compulsive eating behaviors first. Trying to lose weight or go on a diet before you’re ready emotionally is only going to hurt you. Yes, hurt you. There’s a painful side to diets and weight loss that many people don’t talk about, and I’m here to talk about it.

KK: I’ve heard you use the phrase “eating intuitively,” can you elaborate on what that is?

JL: Intuitive Eating is a beautiful healing journey. I’ve gone through it. Heck, I’m even certified in Intuitive Eating, a specialization on top of my Master’s Degree in Counseling. I got into Intuitive Eating because I used to binge eat all the time when I wrestled in high school. I even got anemia (where your blood doesn’t have enough iron and you have low energy all the time), and abused weed to manage my depression/anxiety. Then, I became a zen monk for 13 months and stumbled into intuitive eating principles. Long story short, my eating habits regulated and I fell in love with mindful eating.

However, Intuitive Eating is weight loss neutral. Intuitive Eating recognizes the tremendous harm done in terms of people trying to lose weight via dieting, and gaining all the weight back and ruining their metabolism in the process. To wrap up this answer, I say I help people to eat intuitively and go on a journey that results in weight loss.

KK: What are some of the root causes behind the behaviors of binge eating and stress eating?

JL: The root cause is deprivation, physical or emotional. This is one of the hardest concepts to grasp.

We first start with physical deprivation. Oftentimes people don’t realize that they are binge eating because they are secretly dieting! What do I mean by secretly dieting?

Oftentimes you try a diet and unconsciously pick up rules about food that you carry with you. For example, one woman I worked with started trying Weight Watchers in middle school. Even though she no longer followed Weight Watchers, she still would find herself evaluating foods by their points. This meant oftentimes she would neglect her hunger.

And if you neglect your hunger, guess what? You’re at risk for binge eating. So we first address hunger and the beliefs/obstacles preventing you from connecting to your body and getting satisfied.

After that work, we dive into meeting emotional needs. There’s no way around it. Stress eating is in large part caused by unmet emotional needs. So we start learning mindful eating skills and different ways to handle stress and learn how to handle intense feelings.

KK: One thing I love doing for my work is helping people embrace their body as-is, imperfections and all, by finding clothing that flatters them. What do you see your clients struggling with in terms of their body image?

JL: Body image is extremely tough, but so necessary to talk about. I think the best advice I got on this topic was from Linda Tucker, who said that we live in a culture of tremendous body shame.

We live in a culture where social media, magazines and so forth … all of these say our bodies are not good the way they are. So, given this culture, to expect that there will be moments of disconnection, where you hate the way you look and who you feel you are.

But given this expectation, given this built in struggle to love yourself, there is hope. In the pit of darkness, you can learn to love aspects of yourself and your body. And perhaps most healing of all, you can start to trace back and own your story. By this I mean, can you remember a time when weight wasn’t an issue? Perhaps this was back before you first started dieting.

You might have weight less back then too. What happened? Well, for many people, dieting happened. And dieting actually leads to WEIGHT GAIN! Long-term science has established this without a shadow of a doubt. Unfortunately, and this is the understatement of the year right now, because tremendous, awful shame results when you try to lose weight and fail.

So for years, many people believe they are flawed somehow. They carry this image of their body and who they are based on perceived failures. However, it’s not your fault.

It’s not your fault you couldn’t lose weight. You were in a paradigm that could never work. Dieting seems like it works in the short-run, but just doesn’t work long-term. So, I think the most healing thing for many people, is being able to start forgiving themselves for all the self-hatred they have directed their way over years of dieting and weight loss failures.

KK: Can you talk about your personal training background and how you got into eating management?

JL: Yes, I worked at a gym and hated it. I was told to get people on diets which went against the very fiber of my being. Fortunately, I was able to become self-employed and start a practice where I focused more on eating intuitively and emotional healing instead of high-pressure “magic” bullet diets.

KK: For someone who wants to get into shape, but has always had an inconsistent exercise schedule (like me!), what do you recommend?

JL: Hahaha, I hear you. For many people the word exercise has all these negative associations. Let’s examine them real quick. Exercise, you need to do a certain amount to have succeeded. Exercise, you need to burn off calories. Exercise, you need to work hard. Exercise, you are good at it or you suck at it. Exercise, needs to be hard. Exercise, you need to push yourself. Ok, you get it.

However, a new term ‘movement’ is often times used because of the different connotations. Movement is simply where you move your body – for fun. Not for weight loss. Not for calorie burning. Not because you should. Not because your doctor ordered you. But because you like it.

It’s fun to go on a walk. It doesn’t have to be a long walk. It doesn’t have to be high-stakes. Do it because it makes you feel good. Don’t have all these perfectionistic expectations on yourself.

Paradoxically, by really embracing a lighter standard for success (one where you feel good and make it easy on yourself) has much higher chances of changing long-term behavior than pretty much anything else.

KK: How do you personally stick to good habits in terms of eating and exercise?

JL: I’ll answer this one in an untraditional way, but it’s sooooooo important to understand this way of thinking. Let me break down the question a bit first of all, how do I ‘stick’ with good habits. Oftentimes this work ‘stick’ is used. It’s almost like I have to ‘stick’ with something because I don’t really like it. Like I don’t really like eating or exercising, but I am successful if I stick with something that I don’t like to do.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a little bit of that. But ALL healthy people who don’t have to force themselves to ‘stick’ to their health routines, they are seeing health as a skill or as an exploration. Perhaps the best analogy is actually seeing health as a game. A game that’s fun to play. So … I don’t stick with good habits … I have found ways to make it a game, or a skill that I’m mastering, or a journey that I’m going on. This way I am intrinsically motivated. And this is the key here, intrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation starts with little success, and builds it’s way up. You’ve heard this before I’m sure. Just do a little bit each day. That’s true, but we really need to be careful. Just doing something each day isn’t enough. We need to feel that we can WIN. It’s this feeling that’s really important. We need to feel that we can IMPROVE. We need to feel that we can feel good, win and improve, etc … without killing ourselves in the process.

I also talk a lot about perfectionism. Because oftentimes people will beat the sh*t out of themselves, without even knowing it, when they fall short. This is the worst thing possible. You might have just gotten a little win, but then your too-high-standards made this experience a miserable thing for you. So you literally shot yourself in the foot with your perfectionistic judgments about your work, your worth and your progress.

So to really embrace a mentality of play, exploration, and learning without judgment. One where you can experiment, test, and try things out. An attitude where you can make mistakes, be lazy sometimes and be motivated by genuine pleasure and self-interest. This is the most important thing.

KK: You mentioned that you lived as a zen monk for 13 months. Wow! How was it and what did you learn from that experience?

Oh, it was awesome! I lived at Tassajara up in the Big Sur mountain range. Because I had the experience there of healing my body, it’s always stuck with me. Like this whole eat intuitively thing, this whole thing … it’s about realizing you have it within you. But realizing this in a practical way. It’s one thing to believe and hear, you have it within you. But how do you live it? Well, one way is mindfulness. Another way is self-compassion. I started learning these things up there. And … I started trusting my body … See, I was away from all electronics. No phone, no internet, nothing. I was fairly desperate and filled with enough self-hatred to do something crazy like this. So … if I wasn’t so unhappy I probably wouldn’t have become a monk in the first place. However, after doing it, I now see it was an incredibly, incredibly beneficial experience. To have so much time to heal, to have so much time to reflect and meditate and just be totally surrounded by healthy positive thinking people in nature for months on end … Yeah, it was awesome.

KK: Awesome! What is one tip that all of us can follow to become more healthy?

JL: You need to sleep more. Yes, there are folks that only need 5 hours. You’re not one of them. Stop fooling yourself. Seriously, stop. I tried for years getting by on 6.5-7. Now I am no longer in denial. I know full well ahead of time that I need 8 hours. I need it. No more pretending that I can get by on less than that. Coming out of sleep denial for me has been huge.

It’s really that I was in denial for so many years about sleep. I’d always think I didn’t need it. I’m not saying I always get 8 hours or that I don’t struggle. I do struggle with going to bed on time. Fortunately I sleep through the night but going to bed is tough.

But by being honest with myself, I have the mindset where I am doing the right things generally speaking – like winding down, giving myself time to relax, and going through a night time ritual. This tip is so important! Do not neglect it! The rest becomes WAY easier if you just get good sleep! Less cravings, way better decision making, more energy, etc. And without, the rest just doesn’t work as well. So embrace the zzzzzz.

KK: Where can people find out more about you and your services?

JL: Eating Enlightenment is my website. I’m also creating tons of content, which you can find by searching for Weight Loss Enlightenment on your podcast provider or on Youtube. Thanks for the interview!

Thanks so much Jared for your sharing your expertise and personal story with us. Check out his website to learn more from him!

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The 10X Rule Book Review

April 27, 2019 By Kat

This book was excellent!! I was so excited to start writing a book review for ya’ll before I even finished the book. This book is called The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure. This audiobook was 7hr 30 min long, and it captured my interest the WHOLE time, and left me wanting more from this author Grant Cardone. I continue to watch his videos on his YouTube channel.

What is the 10X Rule?

The 10X Rule is about taking massive action (10X action) in order to achieve success in life, business, any area of your life. Grant says that if you want to achieve a certain goal, it’s going to take 10X the amount of effort AND time that you think it will take.

He says that oftentimes, people underestimate how long or how much effort it’ll take to finish something. So then when they put forth a little effort and don’t get the results they were hoping for, they give up. But he says, DO NOT GIVE UP. And keep funneling in massive energy and time towards it (and money if you have it). Because you have to commit and invest in something, in order for it to happen. You can’t just invest pennies and be cautious with small risks and expect a big return.

Who Is He?

Grant Cardone has built a sales training empire and a huge real estate portfolio – he’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. His wife Elena Cardone is his business partner, and she describes him as a beast. At first, I didn’t know much about him, but after going through this book, wow Grant Cardone is a beast. He has this fire within and intense focus and ability to go after what he wants, no matter who or what is standing in his way. The way he reads this audiobook is with the same fervor he attacks life – he is very passionate and has a very urgent tone of voice that convinces you to act now. I actually listened to the audiobook when I was running on the treadmill and it really motivated me to push harder on the treadmill, haha!

Four Types of People

He talks about how there are 4 different types of people when it comes to taking action.

People who don’t act, and won’t be convinced to act. They like making excuses.
People who retreat and do what’s safe, perhaps because they tried it before and they saw that it didn’t work out.
People who do an average amount of action and convince themselves they’re doing enough.
People who take 10X massive action and are very successful in what they set out to do.

He says that the biggest trap is the third group of people – people who do normal amounts of action and convince themselves they’re doing enough. They’re in denial basically. But they haven’t created enough momentum. They haven’t committed enough. They haven’t gone all in. They’re still stoppable if some big obstacle happens, or they don’t act with the urgency they need and opportunities slip away.

Count Results, Not Effort

He says don’t pat yourself on the back for trying or for putting forward some effort. He says to focus on the result. For example, he says if you called someone 40 times and still haven’t closed the deal, it’s basically as if you didn’t call at all – in terms of results. So he emphasizes results. Sure, there are other benefits to growing and learning from putting forth effort, but he says that you need to push yourself to get the result you want.

10X Goals

The 10X rule is about putting forth 10X effort AND also having 10X goals and dreams. He pushes you to think bigger than your wildest dreams. He doesn’t want you to dumb down your dreams to make them more reasonable / achievable. He wants you to 10X your biggest dreams. Now that was a way of thinking that I haven’t been pushed to do in a long time! Isn’t it weird that we live in a world where we’re not challenged to think of the biggest, wildest possibilities for ourselves? Instead we’re encouraged to think small? Hmm that’s not cool.

His Own TV Show

Grant gives an example of how he wanted to have his own TV show. But he started with no connections in the TV industry. He details the steps that he took to get his foot in the door and land his TV show. It wasn’t like the opportunity just came to him and fell in his lap. This guy had to HUSTLE and show up at people’s offices to ask for appointments and had to invest his time and money to move things forward (even fly out for trips without a guaranteed meeting). He had to take a gamble on things hoping for the chance that it may work out. He didn’t wait for the TV networks to move forward with his show, he convinced the guys in charge that he was the one for the job and moved the timeline forward. I was amazed at his story because it took guts and such a strong belief in himself to practically create space for himself in this industry.

The Early Days

Grant also talks about his early days when he had nothing and was starting off. He was 25 and had just gotten out of a drug rehab program. He had gotten fired from a bunch of jobs, and got his start by cold calling and knocking on doors to gain customers. None of these people knew him and he kept showing up and calling them – even at nighttime and even on weekends. People started to be impressed with how persistent and how hardworking he was. And he built up his businesses from there. He still does things like that – picking up the phone and calling. So you can’t say that Grant inherited lots of privilege and that’s why he was successful. This guy literally built it all up from scratch and a lot of hard work.

The basic gist is that whatever is too much trouble for other people, he’s willing to do that and go above and beyond for his clients and for his business. He doesn’t shy away from hard work. He knows that taking incredible amounts of action is the only way to move towards your goal.

Obscurity

Another interesting point he made was that a new entrepreneur’s biggest challenge is obscurity. Just not being known by enough people. That’s why marketing is so important. Potential customers can’t buy from you if they don’t know who you are or what you’re offering!

In those early days, he didn’t have any money to spend on advertising, so he had to keep making phone calls and going to people’s offices to become known. Now he uses social media, his YouTube channel, talks, books, partnerships and more to broaden his network.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I thought this was a really good book to light some fire under me to get me to take more action. And it really depends what you need in your life right now. If you want someone who will soothe you and encourage you and tell you that you are enough as you are, then I would check out other authors / resources like Louise Hay. If you want someone who is more blunt and will tell you to start hauling a** and work harder, then Grant Cardone may be your guy. There’s a time and place for both types of methods to motivate yourself. 🙂

One Word on Massive Action

I leave you with one more thought from Grant. He said something interesting about the 3 types of people listed above who aren’t really taking much action: If you look more closely at their life, they are probably taking massive action on some other area of their life – maybe video games, or shopping, or a TV show, or some other area of their life. I can vouch for this theory. In the past, if I wasn’t taking massive action in my business, I was probably obsessing over something else that wasn’t important. Or just being extremely distracted by it and sinking a lot of time into it. SO if you’re going to take massive action on something in your life anyways, make it be on the thing that will make the most difference in your life. Make it count!!

If you’re ready to 10X your life, here’s the book. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure.

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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this book regardless.

Pros and Cons of Doing My Own Business Taxes

March 21, 2019 By Kat

Hallelujah! I’ve finished my 2018 taxes. It was no easy task. This year, my second year in business, I decided to do my own taxes with TurboTax. (Last year I had a CPA do them for me because I had zero clue about what was involved.) Since doing my own taxes this year was quite the harrowing experience, I wanted to summarize the pros and cons.

Pros

Save money instead of paying a CPA to do it for you
Understand the finances of your business better
Get more organized with documentation
More in control of when it goes done instead of relying on someone else’s schedule

Cons

You could be doing it wrong lol
Takes a lot of time and research
Can get stuck on questions that you don’t know how to answer
Could be missing out on some deductions

It is quite a tricky balance. Doing my own taxes was a huge time commitment. When it comes down to it, the hours that I spent on it probably could have been spent on my business earning enough to cover the cost of a CPA. However, despite all those cons, I feel like the educational value I got from the experience far outweighed everything else. And the long-term effects of this newfound knowledge will serve me well beyond the tax season.

Yes, taxes are a necessary evil to keep your business running. But at the same time, the process is so detailed that you must pour over the details of every dollar that went in and out of your business. I was in Google spreadsheets forever filtering, categorizing, sorting, and summing up all sorts of columns and things. I had to login to all my accounts and figure out when things happened and make sure I didn’t miss anything.

In a way, it was re-living my entire past year and all the financial decisions I made and results I received. It made me extremely reflective on what were some not-so-great choices about how I spent my money and what activities were very effective in getting an ROI.

It made me very aware that even though a new business owner gets BOMBARDED with ads for classes, tools, events, resources, etc.., in the early days, you really don’t need all of those things. You need to get your way to a good business model and try to operate as leanly as possible.

I know that going into this coming year, I’m going to try to keep impeccable records and do proper bookkeeping as I go. Because I don’t want to deal with the frustration of going through a whole year of records at the end of this year, like I had to do for last year. Once you know the documentation and format of numbers you’ll need for tax time, it makes it easier to know what to keep and to use some sort of organizational system. Mine is still a bit ad-hoc at the moment. 🙂

Highlights on What I Learned

Track every source of business income
Count inventory at the end of each year (books in my case)
Download all business bank account and credit card statements for record keeping
Track car mileage for business purposes
Track all home expenses, figure out size of home office, and you can get a deduction as a % of your home expenses
Some expenses like phones or internet bills can also be deducted at a percentage based on how much you use them for work vs. personal use
Track business expenses. Here are some examples for me last year: advertising/promotional costs (like online ads, book launch party, business cards, supplies for events), business travel (went on a trip to NY for a workshop with my business coach), legal and professional fees (coach, lawyer, professional association membership dues), meals with clients or when traveling, educational expenses (classes, magazine subscriptions, events), shipping supplies (for my book), software subscriptions, license and fees (city business license fee), equipment (vlogging camera and payment reader), and other miscellaneous expenses.

It’s pretty great how many deductions you can get as a business owner! It’s just that you need to keep good records to back up everything you want to deduct, in case you get audited (hopefully not!).

Screenshot from TurboTax Home & Business edition
Part of the business deductions list

I also must include that I could not have finished my taxes without the amazing help of my CPA friend Wendy (@thetaxmuse). She specializes in working with creatives and small business owners and has free tax tips + resources on her Instagram page (go follow her!).

Wendy and I (inadvertently twinning at the chamber expo event!)

I attended 3 of her group tax workshops, where she thoroughly answered so many of my newbie tax questions. Her first workshop was actually last year back in October, when she first advised us entrepreneurs to start getting our papers in order and reviewing the year’s numbers. (Even though I started back in last Fall, it still took me a long time! I wasn’t very organized…) Anyhow, without her help, I can’t imagine being able to do it on my own otherwise.

Hence, if you decide to do your own taxes in a future year (it’s probably too late to do that this year), try to find someone you can ask for help. Turbo Tax is great, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out where to put numbers or how to answer their multiple choice questions.

Okay best of luck! Hope you can get lots of tax savings $$! And more importantly, I hope you can become more empowered with tracking the numbers in your business!

If you enjoyed this article, you can check out more business articles on my blog or sign up for my mailing list here.

Photo by 3Lopez

Interview with Co-Founder of Ava James NYC: a New Workwear Brand Exclusively for Sizes 8-18

March 2, 2019 By Kat

At the end of last year, my friend and classmate from MIT, Eugena Delman, launched a brand new clothing line called Ava James NYC with her co-founder Saena Chung. It is a workwear brand with high-quality tailored dresses for women who are sizes 8-18. This is an underserved market, as the fashion industry has a long way to go in terms of inclusivity and creating a range of options for all body types. Hence, I was thrilled to hear about how this duo is working to create beautiful and sophisticated clothing for this target audience. Furthermore, they manufacture locally in New York City, which is awesome!

Read on for the story behind Ava James NYC.

Isn’t this pic so elegant??
All photos from Ava James NYC

Co-Founders of Ava James NYC: Eugena Delman (left) and Saena Chung (right)

I’m fascinated by people who have the courage to start a new clothing line, so I had lots of questions for Eugena! Below is my interview with her. Hope you enjoy!

Eugena Delman

KK: First off, what inspired you to create the Ava James NYC clothing line?

London Dress in Baby Pink & Black
London Dress in Black

ED: I was inspired by my older sister who lives in Hong Kong and has been a size 14 her entire adult life. I had just left my corporate job and was hanging out in Hong Kong with my family (I grew up in Hong Kong although my family is Korean).

I was mulling over my next steps when my sister jokingly suggested that I start a wholesale business that would import plus-size brands into Asia. She had mentioned that there was a large expat community and there were more and more women who had struggled to find larger sizes in stores. Having grown up there, I knew that any clothing options greater than teeny tiny was difficult so I thought that this was an interesting business proposition and I started doing my research.

Pretty quickly, I started to realize how limited options were in the US, where the average woman is a size 14-16! It didn’t make any sense to me that a huge swathe of the population was massively underserved by the fashion industry. So I figured if it doesn’t exist, why not try to create it?

I knew I couldn’t do this on my own so I tapped my bestie from Hong Kong, Saena Chung, to join me on this venture. She had graduated from RISD and had spent her entire career in fashion so I knew she was the perfect partner.

KK: How did you meet your co-founder Saena?

ED: I met Saena when we were tweens in 90s Hong Kong. We actually have no recollection of how we met – it was probably at Korean Saturday School (every Korean in Hong Kong was forced to go to Korean school on Saturday mornings which was universally hated) or at church (super stereotypically Korean!).

KK: What was your background prior to starting this business? How did you know when it was time to make the leap?

ED: I worked in finance at Goldman Sachs for 9 years before making the leap. I held several roles while I was there – I was originally supposed to start in the Public Sector and Infrastructure team in Investment Banking but the recession hit almost immediately after graduation and I was moved to the market risk team.

I eventually switched to a structured product marketing role where I stayed for 7 years. It was a great place to be as a junior person but as the years went on, you could feel that business was starting to slow down. A lot of new regulations started popping up and directly affected the bank’s ability to play in super structured and illiquid products. I could see the writing on the wall.

Moreover, I had just turned 30 and had my first kid – I felt like I hadn’t really pushed myself in the last few years and knew I had the energy and risk appetite in me to do something totally crazy.

KK: Sounds like perfect timing! How did you pick the name of the brand Ava James NYC?

Berlin dress in Salamander
Berlin dress in Salamander

ED: I wish we had a better story for this! Originally we wanted to do something with our first names but every combination we came up with sounded like an insect or biological specimen.

We finally decided to come up with the name of a woman who could be a potential customer of ours – a sophisticated and elegant name that is easily spelled and pronounced and could (hopefully) last the test of time.

KK: Where do you manufacture your clothing?

ED: We manufacture everything locally in the Garment District here in NYC. We decided to produce here because we were very particular with our quality standards and wanted to make sure we worked with a factory that was experienced with higher end brands. We wanted to observe the entire production process to ensure that our standards were maintained.

Moreover, because we were very particular about fit, we knew we were going to have multiple fit sessions during our pattern development process. It would’ve been logistically impossible to handle all of this in an overseas factory.

KK: What distinguishes your line from the other clothing brands out there?

ED: There’s been strong growth in the offerings available for plus size women, particularly at lower price points. We wanted to offer a premium product with a super feminine and sophisticated design aesthetic that we felt was missing in the market.

Moreover, our size range is meant to capture women who just about size out of the “straight size” designers (many of whom produce up to size 8 or 10) and are too small for the traditional plus retailers.

Berlin dress in Dove Grey
Berlin dress in Dove Grey

KK: What has been your proudest moment so far in business?

ED: Getting our first collection designed, developed, and manufactured in about 5 months was incredible.

My partner is an amazingly creative person but sometimes needs a little prodding to get deadlines in place whereas I’m no creative genius but I get things done efficiently with the financials in mind. We make a great team!

Also, I launched this business while I was pregnant with my second child and gave birth to my little girl, Chloe, the day after Thanksgiving.

People thought I was crazy for starting a business while pregnant but to be perfectly frank, there is NEVER a good time to be pregnant. I figured I would just deal with it and it turned out not to be so bad. My husband was a saint – he helped me with some of the fabric deliveries and dealt with all the ups and downs of starting a business / being pregnant. The poor guy had to deal with all of my emotional highs and lows and we hadn’t even had the baby yet!

KK: Haha sounds like you have great teammates in work and life! Where is the best place to find out more about your brand?

ED: We are online! Check us out at www.avajamesnyc.com and on our Instagram @avajamesnyc. We also have a showroom on 30th and 7th and happy to show our products in person to anyone who would like pop by. We do participate in pop-ups on a pretty regular basis (we are heading to Florida for the World Equestrian Festival in Wellington in March!) so keep an eye out on our instagram and sign up for our email newsletter.

New York dress in Black
Madrid dress in Charcoal

Chicago dress in Dark Spruce
Chicago dress in Dark Spruce

KK: Eugena, thanks so much for the inspiring interview! Wishing you and Saena amazing success above and beyond your wildest dreams!

Check out their website and social media to support these ladies!
Ava James NYC
@avajamesnyc

All photos courtesy of Ava James NYC. Note: this is not a sponsored post, just posting about awesome female-owned businesses!

The Joy of Work

February 26, 2019 By Kat

Last week was a really hectic, but fun and fulfilling week of work for me. I wanted to write this post because my work now has a different feeling to it, compared to when I had internships / jobs at corporate places. In the past, I’ve been lucky to have some very rewarding experiences on projects had a lot of purpose and meaning. But somehow it feels different now.

The word that probably best captures my sentiment about work now is: joy. A close second is probably the word stress, haha! 😉 But the joy outweighs the stress and keeps me going!

As I drive to meet my clients at the mall or at their homes, I have a lot of excitement about what’s coming up. I have excitement to talk to them, spend time getting to know them, and being able to figure out what knowledge or resources I can share with them to help them with their challenges. It’s very mentally stimulating because it involves deep listening and empathy and drawing on the best of my communication skills to articulate my thoughts as clearly and compassionately as possible.

With each work experience, I learn and grow and gain more confidence in my chosen career path. And of course, what follows joy is gratitude for this joy – gratitude for the people, places, and events that led me to my personal styling business. And gratitude to myself for making the leap of faith that this seedling of an idea (that fashion would be something I’d really enjoy doing) actually did come true!

Who knows what’s to come, but right now, these days, I feel so happy.

Happy doesn’t mean everything is easy and working 100% in my favor. But I feel happy as in fulfilled and feeling useful to the world.

A long time ago, my church gave out this card that says “God Use Me” to whoever attended service that day. We were supposed to take it home and pray about it, ask God how we could be of use to Him. I decided to frame it and leave it on the mantle. I prayed about it but not much happened. I still felt lost as what I was to do next.

As glamorous as it may sound to not have work and to just sit around with no obligations, it is quite stressful actually because I was always wondering, should I be doing something productive? Or I wish I had something to do. Or I wish I could make progress towards my next step in life. Anyways, that whole period of time in my life deserves its own detailed explanation, which will have to be saved for another time.

However, my point here is that when you’ve experienced having “no work” to do, you really do cherish when you have meaningful work to do. The other title I was considering for this blogpost was: “The Gift of Work.” Because now I do see that having work is a gift, to do something meaningful and contribute to someone’s life in a positive way – however big or tiny. It’s a gift for ourselves, really.

If your current work doesn’t feel that way to you, then maybe you’re doing the wrong type of work. If it’s draining or you loathe doing it, perhaps it’s time to consider if something else would make better use of your talents and skills.

Try to listen to what pulls you or attracts you. That may be a sign for the next big change in your life.

For more behind-the-scenes insight on what Kat Kuan’s life as an entrepreneur and personal stylist is like, subscribe to her mailing list here.

Photo by @lailaniafrica of @chicreativeagency

Two Types of Discipline

December 7, 2018 By Kat

As an entrepreneur, it’s so hard to be the boss of yourself. You work on something for a goal or deadline, but you’re also the one setting the deadline on yourself, so you can just as easily change it. With better tools, I’m learning to manage myself better, and I came to realize that there’s 2 types of discipline in this world.

Discipline Out of Fear

This is the type of discipline I grew up with. Being in an Asian household, there are strict expectations to study hard and do well in school. In school, there is pressure to do well on homework and exams, otherwise you could *gasp* get a bad grade. School turns into the myriad of college entrance exams and college applications where the constant driver is to do well otherwise *gasp* you may not get into a “good college.” The pressure doesn’t let up in college either. You vie for good grades otherwise you may not get a “good job.” And once you land in a good job, there’s the fear of getting a bad performance review or disappointing someone who’s a higher-up, so you work and work. It’s really a culture of fear that we’re brought up in. And it’s quite toxic because we do things because we’re afraid of disappointing others or bringing shame onto ourselves. We fall prey into thinking that if we can’t do something, it may reveal that we’re incompetent or not good enough.

All this to say, I got very good at being disciplined out of fear. I could crank through lots of work and memorize my way through a class to remember the content long enough to pass a test and then forget it afterwards. I was able to pull through on an extremely challenging deadline by sacrificing my own health and well-being, but it was for a good pat on the back or a good grade / performance review.

But when I left the normal world of formal education / corporate America, I found it very hard to get things done because I had operated so long on discipline out of fear. Sure, I was afraid of failing at my business or being embarrassed that I couldn’t meet a goal that I had announced publicly on social media. But that fear wasn’t enough to get me out of bed and to the gym, and taking care of myself, and doing the hard work of building a business every day.

I learned that I needed a different type of discipline.

Discipline Out of Love

I’m starting to learn that there’s a new source of energy, a new source of motivation which is much more boundless than fear. It is doing things out of love. You can be disciplined in your work and show up raring to go every day because you love it so much. You’re so pumped to make progress towards a dream that puts you on Cloud 9 just thinking about it. You can be disciplined in how you take care of yourself – exercise and eating healthy because nourishing your body feels good to you.

Here’s another way to put it. You can eat healthy because you fear dying early or getting some incurable disease. Or you can eat healthy because it feels good in your body and gives you energy.

For a long time, it felt weird to do things out of love, especially out of love for myself. But when you do things that make you feel good, or find a way to make something feel good (finding a form of exercise you really like), then you are much more willing to stick with the consistency of discipline because it feels great each time.

I also had a mental block on this because sometimes “feeling good” in our society is labeled as indulgent or short-sighted or irresponsible. We’re conditioned to expect that we need to suffer in the short-term for a happy future. But actually self-inflicted suffering just cripples our energy and enthusiasm for life. So I call BS on that. I think “feeling good” is a good thing, and we should pursue more of it, in a healthy way of course.

Instead of doing things out of obligation, I continually challenge myself to do things out of love for myself, love for others, or love for my work. It’s definitely a mind shift, but I think one that will ultimately change the course of my life.

What mode are you operating in these days?

Why Life is like Leaning In For a First Kiss

October 11, 2018 By Kat

THE FIRST KISS

In the movie Hitch, Will Smith plays a dating coach named Hitch, who teaches guys how to win over the woman of their dreams. It’s a fun romantic comedy, and there’s a scene where Hitch is teaching Albert about the art of the first kiss. Hilarious clip here.

They talk about the 90-10 rule, where Hitch says, “The secret to a kiss is to go 90% of the way, and then hold… Hold for as long as it takes, for her to come the other 10.”

Hitch explains that most guys make the mistake of going all in, at 100%, while his technique makes the girl work for it. With his move, the guy should be so irresistible that the girl leans in at least 10% for the first kiss.

LIFE LESSON

I think of this scene as an analogy for life, except we are the ones receiving the kiss, and we have to go the 10%.

I think about this a lot because I feel like life is giving me all these signs. First of all I have to be observant about them – or be quiet / reflective enough to realize these signs. The signs can include: go talk to this person, or go to this event, or write / create a video about this topic. There’s all these things that I get hinted about. And I write them down, but sometimes I don’t have time to get to them. Or maybe I get too intimidated and don’t want to follow up on them. But then we don’t get the results we’re hoping for.

ENTREPRENEUR

I think the mistaken belief I had as a new author and new entrepreneur was that good things would just come to me automatically – at 100%. I believed that they would just land in my lap.

What I’ve realized over the last year is that we must take that 10% step to meet life halfway – or not even halfway. Life already brings good things into our life, but we still need to take initiative to grasp them and make them ours.

For example, life will plant a seed in my mind about a certain event to go to. It may be through the form of an email in my inbox about the event, or it may come up when talking to someone. Then my curiosity is piqued. Then it’s me to register for the event on time, and then to get dressed and show up to the event. Life / fate / God can’t magically transport me to the event. I have to put in the effort to get myself to the event. What ends up happening is I meet someone new or something positive happens, and I’m glad I went!

SELF-DOUBT HOLDS US BACK

What makes the process difficult is that sometimes we’re tired and we don’t want to take that step towards our goals, or sometimes we’re too overwhelmed by self-doubt. For scarier opportunities that require more visibility, we may feel like we’re not ready for them and we’d rather hide in the shadows than be seen.

So I think sometimes our mind will rationalize all these excuses and try to talk ourselves OUT of going.

COMMITTMENT

And I think that’s where commitment comes in. Being committed enough to our dreams and goals, means that we are willing to do whatever it takes to seize each opportunity as it comes.

Because unlike the first kiss strategy, “the guy” or “the opportunity” won’t always wait forever. Sometimes the opportunity is only available for a limited time window, and then disappears. And all you get left with is regret for not acting soon enough.

I feel the tides are turning. I’m realizing the signs that God has given me, and that it’s really my choice and responsibility to act on them. Some days, He will give me wonderful surprises all the way, but I think He wants me to work for it and to learn what’s really involved in building a successful business from the ground up. There’s a long road ahead and I’m going to need lots of bravery and guts.

I’m going to say it here, so I am publicly accountable: Regardless of my doubts and fears, I commit to leaning in to life. Hurrah!

Thanks for reading. XOXO

Is there a time in your life where an opportunity came up and you had to lean in to accept it?

How to Stay Focused & Manage Your Time

October 10, 2018 By Kat

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a procrastinator. I’m also super ambitious and have tons of things on my to do list. But it’s hard to gather the energy to do what I need to get done, especially for the more challenging tasks that I’m not sure how to do yet.

I’ve tried all sorts of routines and things to stay on top of my tasks. These are the tips that worked best for me.

1. SETTING A COUNTDOWN TIMER

I use the countdown timer in Google search on my computer. You can use a physical timer or one on your phone if you prefer. I set it to 30 minutes and then start working on a task – like writing this blogpost!

That makes me feel like I have a short term deadline to get the task done, instead of feeling like I have all afternoon or an infinite amount of time. Otherwise the task will drag on and fill up the entire space that I allow for it.

If I start to feel antsy and want to do something like get up to get a snack or take a break, I’ll tell myself that I can do it after the 30 minutes are up. Hence it reduces distraction because the timer is running. Seeing the timer jolts me back to focus at the task at hand.

If the task takes longer than 30 minutes, then I can reset the timer, but then I’m conscious that now it’s taking me an hour. And so on, if I need more time. This is helpful rather than letting hours slip by unconsciously. If I reset it a couple times, then I realize I should hurry up because it’s taking longer than it should. Or maybe the task is too big and needs to be split up into parts that can be done in smaller time increments.

2. TRACKING TIME SPENT PER ACTIVITY

At the end of the workday, do you ever think, “Wow, where did the whole day go? I got nothing done!” Well, I’m sure you got something done, but maybe not the right priority item.

In any case, tracking what you did and for how long can bring you awareness of where your time is actually going. I use the Toggl website, which is a free tool. You can start/stop/pause the timer when you change activities. I’m not the best at remembering to always start the timer, but you can go back and add entries if needed.

I wish I could be better at tracking everything because Toggl has this cool aggregate report where they show you a breakdown of what you spent your time on for the week. As you can see, I got lazier with tracking as the week went on. It’s hard to remember to track things when I’m driving around and not sitting at my computer. In the column on the right, it also shows what you spent the most time on.

Anyhow, Toggl has a bunch more features like tracking multiple projects, tracking for a whole team, track billable hours worked for a client, etc… There’s so many features, I haven’t dug into them much yet. I use the basic free plan. I don’t know if Toggl has a countdown timer, so I use it in conjunction with Google’s countdown timer.

3. PLAN AHEAD OF TIME

In the SELF journal I use, there are 30 minute time slots to schedule each day from 6am – 9pm. The 30 minute slots are really important than just a big old blank space for the whole day. I find the 30 minute time slots force me to be very specific and account for what I will do throughout the day, instead of hand waving approximately how I’ll spend my time.

Hence I started planning my days the night before, trying to block out time for eating, gym, cooking, meetings, content creation, even accounting for driving time to get to places.

I definitely don’t follow the plan exactly, but sometimes I try to pencil in how long actual tasks took so that I can learn how much time to allocate for them next time.

One thing I learned is that my morning rarely goes as planned in the journal. -_- And that sleeping past my alarm makes me go off schedule as well. Ah well, tomorrow’s another chance to stick to the schedule!

CONCLUSION

Trial/error with these different techniques is the only way to figure out if they work for us or not. It often requires repeated attempts at the same technique to get it to work.

I’m still grappling with how to manage my time. Time is our greatest and most precious resource. So I hope that by all this planning, tracking, observing, and reflecting, I can get a more realistic view of how I spend my time and be more intentional about how I use it.

Alright, well checking the clock, I’m 10 minutes overtime already, so it’s time to wrap this baby up and go take a break! 😛

What techniques do you use for managing your time? Would love to hear what works for you!