Taking Action Before You Are Ready + Pursuing Your Passions For a More Meaningful Life with Author & Podcast Host Cathy Heller

Speaker: (00:29)
Hey guys, welcome to this bonus episode of the glam life of real estate podcast. I'm your host, Stephanie Lindamood and today we have a special treat. Cathy Heller is going to be joining us here in a bit and we're going to dig into a ton of topics including finding your purpose, the importance of getting into action before we have clarity, giving ourselves permission to want more and to grow so many things that regardless of where you're at on your journey, they will be applicable to help you grow and thrive and your life and businesses.

Speaker: (01:01)
Stay tuned. If you guys don't already know, Cathy Heller is the author of don't keep your day job. She's got a super successful podcast called the same thing as her book. Don't keep your day job. It's got over 10 million downloads or I think on their way now to 15 million downloads. So she is a powerhouse of wisdom and experiences and she's going to share it all with us today. So make sure you also stick around to the end of the episode because Kathy's going to share an event that she has coming up in Los Angeles and how to get an insane discount on tickets. So make sure to stick around to the end of the show. And I'm just really excited to be here with you guys. You know, I bring you the podcast every week because I want to help, whether it's sharing my experiences, my expertise, whether it's in real estate or just in life. And I am just so thrilled that I get to have guests on this show that are going to help you guys on your journey as well. So if you want to reach out to me on Instagram, on social and let me know topics that you guys are wanting, whether it's work-related, whether it's social media mindset, any of that kind of stuff that just helps me know what you guys want more of. And that's what I'm here to do is serve you guys. So without any further ado, let's get to Kathy.

Intro: (02:15)
You're listening to the glam life of real estate podcast where we talk about everything from productivity tips, social media strategies, business hacks, and more to get ahead of the curve and crush it as a real estate sales professional. Whether you office out of a model home or your car where leopard print and high heels never go out of style. Here's your host, top producing real estate agent, social media strategist and Fur baby mama, Stephanie, Linda. Mood.

Speaker 1: (02:47)
Hey guys. So today I am so excited. I've got someone on the show that I've been looking forward to interviewing for a while and we're going to have an awesome chat. Her name is Cathy Heller. Kathy is the host of the podcast. Don't keep your day job. It has over 10 million downloads and counting. She features conversations with creative entrepreneurs like actress Jenna Fisher blogger, Seth Goden and more. She is a phenomenal coach and she is sparking a movement for every soul to add their gift to the world. I am so excited to have her here. So welcome Cathy.

Speaker 2: (03:19)
You're awesome. I have to tell you, a lot of people slide into my DMS and it's so filled up, but you make an impression and I just want you to know your energy is like right there. So thank you. I appreciate that. That's just true. That's why we're here today.So

Speaker: (03:37)
there's probably, everyone listening is probably familiar with you, but just in case they're not, can you just give everyone a quick background and then, because I, I mean, I listened to your podcast. I read your book. I mean, I can't imagine, honestly, truly that people don't, but just in case I don't,

Speaker: (03:56)
a lot of people don't. You're very, very sweet. Um, how cute is Stephanie, by the way? Um, I got on with her today on zoom and I'm like, your, your whole thing is like gorgeous. Like her office and then her together is like a winning brand, like all of it. Anyway, I am a mom. I have three kids. I do host a podcast. It started at three years ago. We're pushing 15 million downloads. It is really fun and exciting. I am married to the guy who was my next door neighbor that has been an up and down rollercoaster, but he's a good human. I went on a virgility journey to have my kids. I was a songwriter. I moved out to LA. I can't believe it's almost been 17 years. I came out here when I was 24 I wanted to get a record deal.

Speaker: (04:40)
I grew up wanting so badly to be famous and I think a lot of us don't always know like what is the thing? So we either think it's all or nothing like either on Beyonce or I have to go work in an office. So that's what I thought. So I came out to LA, tried to get a record deal. I worked really hard. I wrote bad songs. Then my songs got a little better than they were. A little less bad. I did wind up getting better and I did get a record deal. I was signed in our scope for five minutes. It was like no time at all. Ron fair was my producer. I would do that to talk to lady like lady Gaga. Right. I didn't talk to her, but she was in the studio with me. And you're, you're a good student of mine cause you remember that, um, she was actually recording paparazzi for the VMs.

Speaker: (05:21)
Um, Oh, it's amazing with the strings. So good. And uh, and I was hanging out there and that was really surreal. And then, um, a few months later I got a call, I was driving in my little blue sob. They don't even make those anymore. And I was on the 10 freeway, which is where you spend all your time in LA. You are on the freeway. So I hear, yeah, I'm in Dallas. Right. Then I pulled over and Ron was like, Jimmy [inaudible] says he's not a hundred percent iron clad shore that we're going to sell your records, we're gonna drop you from the label, but we really love you cath. We know you have something inside of you that's really special. I'm like, thanks, but no thanks. Like Oh my God. And I want to say I can't a compliment, not great. And so I was like, what the hell do I do?

Speaker: (06:04)
What the hell? How do you go from that to like, hi, I'd like to apply for a job as a receptionist. And how old were you? 24 25 okay. So I got a bunch of jobs. I worked in a floral office. I thought, well, I'll just be creative and I'll do some, no, I'm not good at that. I that was actually hard. I worked in a casting office. Somebody was working on the ghost whisper or pilot and they were like, do you want to work as an assistant? And I was like, yeah, I do. And then no I don't. That's a really weird career. I don't even want to get into how they pick people, but it's like grody to the max on fourth grade grody to the mat. It was like not good. So I left that and then a friend of mine was like, just do something good for the world.

Speaker: (06:45)
So I was like, you're right, I'll just go work in a nonprofit. I worked for this guy who was an oncologist. He turned out to be no good. He was like a me too person. He was like asking me to do inappropriate things. I'm like, I'm out of here. I'm not even making any money. This is ridiculous. And then a friend said to me, Stephanie, Stephanie knows, go do real estate. And I was like, right real estate, like if I'm going to give it to my dream, Oh they'll make money. So I met this guy in Brentwood who really to this day is a very kind, very kind person who also has to be a billionaire. He owned with equity, a billion and a half dollars in real estate cause he bought shopping malls with his buddies. They would buy. It's called the tendency in common. Who the hell cares?

Speaker: (07:25)
They would buy these big retail shopping centers. Okay. So I went to work for him and out the gate he goes, you have a really good person. Anything you want to do, I'll hire you. I'm like, isn't it nice to have that kind of money? You could just give someone a job. So he buys me a CLK Mercedes and I'm like, this is cool. I can get into this. Any car baby. Yeah. And then it was like total golden handcuffs. Who knows what I'm talking about where I was like, I can't leave this. I'm eating spicy tuna every day. My mercury was like through the roof and I'm wearing the cutest clothes all of a sudden. And I move into this apartment in Beverly Hills renting it, but like super cute with the anthropology couch. You know what I'm talking about? And now I'm 26 I've been there a year and a half and I'm like, I'm happy.

Speaker: (08:03)
They're like, it's fine, but I'm not really fulfilled. And one day I'm leaving for work and I look at myself in the mirror with my pantsuit, like mrs Hillary Clinton with the suit on and I look in the mirror and I'm like, I don't know who the hell this person is. Don't recognize her. And I'm like, this, this isn't good. Like it's really not good. And I was dating a person who I wouldn't have dated. Do you know what I mean? You know when your life becomes a character and you're like, I feel empty inside. And so, um, I didn't want to be the person who woke up every day to watch law and order. I didn't want to be the person who woke up everyday just to read people magazine. I wanted my life to feel like me and I started to get depressed and I was like, what is this feeling I don't like get, I started to eat, I started to like gain 15 pounds and then I started to gain 30.

Speaker: (08:49)
Okay, you taught me, but boy does she, she could use to lose a gain 30 pounds. She's so skinny. Anyways, I wound up being like, I can't date this guy anymore. I don't even know who I am. This is all a joke. It's like I've, I'm playing apart, you know, like Barbie astronaut, Barbie, vet Barbie. It was like a costume, the whole, you know. So I go into my boss who's really, I told you, very kind, very enlightened person. He spends a lot of his money on like being enlightened now. So he like gets it. He goes, yeah, you don't seem like yourself. It's true. Like you should go and then if you want to you could always come back. So that kind of was like nice, you know? Except PS, I did try to come back three months later and he was on a sabbatical and like Europe and they didn't let me come back.

Speaker: (09:31)
But that was actually a blessing because it forced me to really legit leave the job. I left the job and long story to make it a short story. I found another way to do music. I started asking the question, is there any other way to monetize music other than being Beyonce? And I started to read articles about people who were licensing music to shows like Dawson's Creek, Grey's anatomy, pretty little liars, whatever was on at the time. Right? And I'm like, why didn't I think of that? And long story short, I started to reach out and get meetings and bring coffee to the offices of NBC and CBS and paramount. And I started to make these relationships and using actually some of my real estate like learned behavior actually was really helpful to make cold calls and all of that stuff and get over your fear and just fricking make a relationship.

Speaker: (10:13)
Actually that helped me and I just did it. I bit the bullet and you know what? I figured out what they needed. And I started to make 300 grand a year, no joke, writing songs for all those shows, pretty little liars, criminal minds, younger, switched at birth. Um, and then I wrote songs for a Netflix theme songs. And then I wrote songs for McDonald's twice, two different Bionicles ads, two different Walmart ads, Kellogg's, Pepsi crate and barrel. It just started paid me 75 grand, attract 55 grand, attract just for the right to use it, Nordstrom, all the, I'd be like, Whoa, I'm just giving you a license, right? I get to keep my song. So it was actually pretty bonkers. Awesome. I did it for a decade and long story short, I thought, Oh my God, I'm doing so well. I'm being featured in billboard variety of the LA weekly, the cover of the USA today, music section, bam, bam, bam.

Speaker: (10:58)
Everyone's talking about me and how I'm making a great living. I'm going to get record deal for real now, but I never did. Instead I got a call from the head of Atlantic records asking me if I would come in and teach his artists how to license their songs and I'm like, Ooh. He doesn't see me as an artist. He sees me as this girl who's really good at getting songs on TV but actually want to being a blessing. Sometimes we're led to where we're supposed to be. You know the drill. Sometimes the plan is not what we have in mind, but it's better. Yup. You know what happened, you guys, what happened was other artists started to do this. Hey, I'm at your door. Can you teach me what you're doing? No, go away. No [inaudible] no, I don't do that. No, I'm not the right person to do it.

Speaker: (11:36)
No. Why would I teach? I don't know how to find competition. All those things until two years of that like consistently being asked after after a decade of a lot of press and a lot of street credit and like social proof of what I'm doing. Yup. My husband's best friend was like, you're missing huge opportunity to teach this and you should make an agency and help other artists. And I was like, alright, you know, I'm going to surrender. And so I started an online, I started online course called six figure songwriting and um, and would you believe the online course called six figure songwriting and started helping, I'm not joking. Thousands of artists, thousands. They started to realize how to be resourceful, how to think about what the company needs them to write, not just what they're writing, but what's the story that's being told in the ad in the film and a TV show.

Speaker: (12:25)
And um, that class on it making about 2 million a year. And then because of that class, I started a podcast to help all creatives figure out how to do what they're doing. And I started the podcast three years ago and it got really, really much bigger, much faster than I thought. And I got a book deal offer a couple of weeks later and I've just gotten to do so many things. I've interviewed Howard Schultz who created Starbucks and Barbara Corcoran and Mark Manson and I've become friends with Jasmine star and Jenna Kutcher and we are on each other's podcasts and we hang out and I've gotten to up level and now I make multi seven figures helping creatives

Speaker: (12:59)
do what they love. Isn't that fun? That's awesome. That's my story. So guys, if you haven't already checked out Kathy's book, don't keep your day job. I want to kind of go into a little bit about here today and she's kind of gone over some of it. But one of the things I hear when you talk about your story is you are in action, right? Yes. And I think like you know, I get into the research, I get the analysis by paralysis, try to figure everything out. And now there's so much data out there, it's almost like overwhelming cause you're going, Oh my gosh. Whether it's you're trying to learn a new skill or you're trying to get into a different career or whatever it is. So talk to me about action leads to clarity versus waiting for clarity to take action. Oh my God, it's, it really is the question. It's the only question because everybody has Michael Jordan level talent at something. Everyone, some people are great at listening and having empathy and they could be a great leader, coach, therapist. Some people are great at music, some people are great at pottery. But what people

Speaker: (13:58)
or missing is momentum. There's no momentum cause they don't take action. They're stuck in the, I don't know. I don't know the how. I don't know who. I don't know how to serve, what to serve if it would work. Correct. We don't know. The only way to know is through doing it. When you do it, you're building the engine while you're flying the plane and you go, Oh, this is actually what we're building. Oh, this is actually who I'm serving, and you start to actually get the data, get the feedback right. That's why Amazon is crushing every other retailer combined big data. They know what you want, they know what you like and they're not going to try to sell you something you don't want. They're going to just invite you to pick up the thing that they know that you asked them for. When you go to make dinner for your best friend, when you go to buy something for someone, when you go to do anything, isn't it better to know who she is, know what she wants.

Speaker: (14:41)
You'll hit the bullseye then like just shooting darts in the air and you just don't know where you're going. How do we get there? We have to make the thing. We have to think about one person, one, one human. All right, I'm about to write a song. Let me get the feedback of someone who might be my person who might want to pay me for this. Also, what is the difference between a hobby and a business? There's only one thing. By definition, the business means somebody paying you. That's because there's, there's, there's a, there's a economic involvement here, okay? If someone's paying you their hard earned money, it means they need or want what you're making, okay? Which means you have to care about what they need or want. If you want to have a hobby that's just about you have one, but if you want to make a living, getting to do something that's really fun, that you really enjoy, that you're really good at and you want to make a living from it, someone needs to want it in order for that to happen.

Speaker: (15:37)
Don't make it so hard on yourself and try to build that in a vacuum. Go to that person and collect the data. What do you want me to make? What would make you happy? How can I now marry those two things? What I love making right, and where that, where that intersects is what you need. Michelangelo, last time I checked, he was considered one of the greatest artists of all time. He was not a sellout. He was commissioned to paint the Sistine chapel. He was commissioned to make the David commission. They told them exactly what to paint, exactly where to make it, and this is what we're gonna offer you for it. And then he got to be free now to use his creativity to be himself, but making it for someone else, using our gift to light someone up. Every single person who's ever started anything.

Speaker: (16:22)
Jim Henson started with a sock, a green sock. That was Kermit the Simpsons was an interstitial on the Tracy Ullman show and it looked different. The characters were different. They sounded different. They looked different. It got picked up. They were like, Oh, it's going to get picked up. I don't know what this is going to be. Oh, what are we going to make it? Oh, let's, let's make the drawings better. Let's make the right Kermit turned into ms piggy and Fonzie and Ralph and a thing and another thing, right? It's always messy and as we build it, we get more momentum. We get clear about who we're serving, we take in what they need. It gives us another idea and we start to get led to all the magic that we can pull out of ourselves and we can serve the world with. I think that's so important because I think with technology there's a lot of great things that we can go on Instagram or go wherever and see these beautiful images or see these really successful people like yourself, but then we're sitting here going, how do I get there?

Speaker: (17:18)
Or way I can't. I can't do this. I only have however many followers, and so it's kind of that balance between we don't know where to go, but we see really successful people and we're afraid to get, like you said, it's the messy middle because we just want it now or we want to just get there and not try to figure it out. Yeah. Well. Also it's because we're in a tremendous amount of pain and most people have not done the inner child work and what I mean is by the age of seven or eight, everyone who's listening, you can just nod your head if it's true. By the age of seven or eight, had you been through a lot? I can say for myself that that's really definitely true. My parents had a really hard marriage. There was a lot of violence in my house.

(18:06)
My mom suffered from depression. He tried to commit suicide. My dad left the house, got remarried, got remarried again, I was very invisible. I was my parent's therapists. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. We moved from our house into an apartment. My mom was struggling with her mental health as well as with everything, financial and just everything, and I was alone. What happens when we go through heartache and we all have been through it. Either someone died or someone left or you witnessed something really hard, whatever the story is, there's a lot of trauma and real trauma stays in the body. And then what happens is you're very smart because you had just survived. So what you did as a survival skills, you told yourself, I'm going to protect myself from getting hurt so I'm not an idiot, because the pain was really actually too much.

Speaker: (18:55)
And in order to survive, which by the way, have you pulled over on the side of your life lately to congratulate yourself? Because it really is, it's, it's kind of unbelievably extraordinary that all of us have survived what we've survived. The human experience is filled with drama. You know, you don't need to see a movie to no drama. Just ask your best friend what happened when she was in 12th grade. You know what I'm saying? So the point being, we have this survival skill that at one point really served us and now is actually crushing us because we don't want to take action because we're afraid we're going to fail. We're afraid we're going to look stupid. We're afraid we're going to be rejected. We're afraid it's going to break. We're afraid someone won't love us if we take the stand. If we do this thing, we don't feel we're even worthy.

Speaker: (19:37)
Who am I to do it? I'm a fraud, so all gosh comes up and then we say to ourself, the best thing I can do to to hide from that pain, to shield myself from it is not to do any of that stuff and stay in my comfort zone. But the deal is that we all have this like ceiling. It's like upper limit. I'm like, this is how much is possible for me. This is how much I'm capable of. This is how much money I can receive. This is how much love I can receive and when we stay in that comfort zone, we're not growing and our soul gets really heavy and starts to get really sad because we want to have that breakthrough. We want to level up. And that is because we've got to get messy, which means fortune favors the brave, which means you probably will fall down a few times, but that will happen even in your comfort zone.

Speaker: (20:28)
Like there's no way to escape having a human experience. You're going to feel ups and downs anyway. You may as well allow yourself to be messy and to not get it right. And when you think about all the heroes who had the courage, we talked about Jim Henson, we talked about any person, Serena Williams, your member. There was a time where her sister was dominating and then she was like, um, you ain't seen nothing yet. And she probably felt like throwing up blood when she was practicing half the time, you know, it wasn't like she was out the gate. Michael Jordan tells a story about how when he played in North Carolina, his coach was asked to be on the cover of sports illustrated and to choose six players. And he walked into the locker room and chose six players, which didn't include Michael Jordan. And he literally, he sat on the bus and cried and he goes, I never forgot that.

Speaker: (21:23)
So even when I was at the prime of my career playing for the bulls, literally the best player of all time, every night before I went out, I would think about that day on the bus so that I could break through the next level. That resistance can be a gift, right? That's the hero's journey. It's never about the money anyway. It's never about the how many podcast listeners, it's about who you get to become. It's about rising up every movie you've ever seen, whether it's Milana, Rocky, Charlie, and the chocolate factory, I don't know. Give me a movie. Dirty dancing, dirty dancing, perfect example. Actually. It's all about a person who thinks they can't do something and then winds up pushing through their own BS. And that's, that's what we all get so much out of watching. If the movie dirty dancing started with that end scene and she does and does the C because you see her saying, I can't forget it. And you see him going, well the hell with this, you know, and you see all those moments and she's like falling on her face and feeling like an idiot and she keeps going back and then you see her do it at the end and you cry your eyes out. Cause there's a part of all of us that wants to have the courage to get back in the game and get off the bed.

Speaker: (22:37)
Yeah. And I think that there's a key in there, the growth and the wanting something more. Even if you're doing well now, right? Like even if what you have on paper looks good, it may not be what's fulfilling you and I love you wrote about in your book living by default and how, you know, how is it that you just get up everyday and react, react, react and then one day you wake up and you're like, wait a second. Like you said, who's life am I living? Like I had a point in my life where if you asked me what color my favorite color was, I couldn't have told you

Speaker: (23:08)
I was like that. And I actually had that exact conversation with someone when I was at the real estate firm. It was like my third to last day before I quit. And I remember saying to someone, if you gave me, I said this, if you gave me a box of 64 color crowns, I don't even remember now which one I want cause I'm so used to playing someone else. Yes

Speaker: (23:25)
I want to appease, I want to make everybody else happy like I, you know, so what, what color do you like? I like that too. It's fine. You know,

Speaker: (23:34)
you know what? We get so distracted. We get so distracted from what we're doing here. We get so distracted from what the hell we actually want to create and we spend years distracted doing something that we don't want to do. That's why the number one regret that they've found that people have when they're dying is that they didn't live life on their terms. They didn't paint, they didn't do the thing they like kept doing what their dad wanted, what their mom wanted. You know, it's, I've learned actually only recently I went on this like week long retreat in December and I learned a few months ago that that's called codependency. I learned that I was a codependent my whole life because I wanted other people to like me. So I would set myself on fire, pretzel myself, you know, fill in the blank so that somebody else would be okay and well, let's go back.

Speaker: (24:27)
You don't have to be a psychologist. I told you before, my mom tried to kill herself, right? So when you're a child and you're afraid your mom might not be able to make it through the day, you probably are walking on eggshells. You probably feel like you have to do everything to save her. You probably don't feel like you could just run around outside and eat grilled cheese all day. You have to be very cognizant of taking care of something that you have no control over anyone, but you do your best to take it on. We all have the different reasons why we become codependent, but I just posted on Instagram, when you learn how much you're worth, you stop giving people discounts and just posted that. Yup. And it's like, Oh my God, like how much of our life do we just like give? We just sacrifice it all. We're like, here you can have my entire life, I'll just do the thing I hate all day long. That's no problem. And we'd like quickly make that decision as if it's,

Speaker: (25:21)
Oh and I think when you grow up like that thinking you can appease everybody in a way. You grew up thinking, Oh, I can control everything and I can't, you know, you have this like burden of, Oh well if I act a certain way or do a certain thing, then that'll make the impact or that makes the, exactly, I can't control anything for myself. Right. Yeah. So one of the quotes that hit me, and I wrote a blog post about Kathy's book, guys, I'll link it in the show notes. I know you did. That was so nice. She says the opposite of depression is not happiness. The opposite of depression is purpose. And when I read that I was like hold up. Like it's kind of like one of those Oh crap moments cause you go, Oh I guess I have a part because if the opposite of depression is not happiness, it's purpose of I'm depressed or not filling my best, then I'm not in my purpose. And kind of unpacking that.

Speaker: (26:19)
Well I have a really, um, I have a, I have a PhD in depression cause my mom was depressed my whole life and still suffers from it. Um, and you know, one time I had someone on my show and she said, everyone, whatever you're doing, writing your book, doing your podcast, we do it for our moms. I'm like, Oh my God, that's so deep. She goes, on some level it's all about your mother. I'm like, that's so weird. And so meta and probably so true. The point is this, I learned that why my mom was dying is because her gifts were dying inside of her. I realized that happiness is not the thing we're trying to attain because you don't stay happy, right? Like you're a human. Things are going to make you sad so you're not going to arrive and be happy forever. Right?

Speaker: (27:08)
So what then are you chasing? Everybody wants to feel seen. Everyone wants to feel that you get them, you see them. How do you do that? First you stop hiding yourself. Then you put your gifts in the world and then somebody goes, you are a good writer. That was a good brownie. You did host a great retreat. I'm taking in, I'm receiving what you offer. That makes us feel amazing. So that sense of purpose, that sense of I'm getting to contribute my thing in the world. That's what we're craving. And when we feel like we're in alignment with ourself and we're doing that, that's the quote unquote happiness that we seek.

Speaker: (27:48)
Yeah. And what I love about when I was reading your book, I felt like it gave people permission. So for the audience out there, if you're listening and you're in a great career or things are going well, but maybe you're not happy, and sometimes that really sucks because you're kind of looking around going, what's wrong with me? Because everyone looks around and goes, Oh, well you've got a great family, you've got a great career, you're healthy, whatever the case may be, you're just high maintenance. You know, you're just, why, why should you have more? You have plenty. And I think what I really enjoyed when I was reading through your book and when I listened to your podcast and you interview the entrepreneurs that you do and tell their story, you're giving us permission to say, Hey, I may have what you want, but it may not be everything that I want and it's okay for me to keep growing and I don't want to want to or need to apologize for it. And you're kind of given that permission to say it's okay to want more and to chase those passions, even if what most people would think is on paper a great life, it's okay to want more.

Speaker: (28:54)
Well, there's so much shame that we're taught around having more. Yeah. Let me give you a really good example is my friend Alex benign, wrote a book called the third door and he interviewed Steven Spielberg, lady Gaga, Warren buffet, bill Gates, like all the biggies. And um, it's an Epic battle because he didn't know any of those people. And he was a 19 year old, 20 year old kid trying to get interviews with them. So it's kind of amazing. But here's the point. After he met and interviewed all these people, he realized what they had in common was they all found a way that there's always, always, always, always a way, even when you're not famous, even when you don't have a big bank account. There's always a way. But here's the biggest take home I from it. He said, it's like going to a nightclub. There's the line around the block where everyone's waiting, just standing in line.

Speaker: (29:49)
That's the first door people just wait and there's a second door. If your last name is Kardashians or you know, a guy you get on that list, right? But there's always a third door. Every building has another entrance. That's a fact. So there's always another way in. Always. And that's what Spielberg and the Gates and buffet, everybody took the third door. Everyone went in the third door said, forget the line and no, I'm not on the list. I'm going around the back. I'm going around the side. Right. And they went in. But let's really capture what I'm saying. When you hear that, what comes up is, yeah, but you can't go in the third door. Right? We can't go around this side. Hang on. Let's keep unpacking this. Why? Because you've spent your life with people in the first line, and people in the first line say to you, who are you to leave the line, right?

Speaker: (30:42)
Who are you to walk around the side of the building? Well, I know there's a door there. I'm just going to walk into it. Well, it's probably locked. Well then I'll go to the other side. Every building has more than three doors by eight doors. Yeah, forget it. Oh, who do you think you are? You'll never, it'll never work. You know, you could get in trouble for that. You know that someone might not like it. You know, duh, right? All the noise. So here's the biggest takeaway. The hardest part is leaving the line. It's actually not walking in the third door. It's leaving the line, leaving all the voices that tell you who are you to ask for more? What are you arrogant? What do you think you're all that you're going to fail anyway, that's, that's, that's the big leap. Of course we deserve more.

Speaker: (31:27)
And so to all of that, all of those people, but they've conditioned themselves. They have shame. They were taught that from their parents. Don't be too happy. Don't have too much joy. Now why do people do that? Because when you really, really ease into joy, about five seconds later, you think to yourself, I'm so lucky, everyone's healthy. I have so much money. But there's a little voice of fear that goes, why would you say that you could lose it, right? Something don't want to jinx yourself. So what we do is we don't really let ourselves feel all that. So what we do is we condition ourselves to stay in a little bit of fear and a little bit of pain as if having a really good time means that you're setting yourself up for something bad to happen. It's like we're waiting for that shoe to drop so we don't do it, which is amazing how many people have conditioned themselves to live that way because it actually is so much scarier to get to give into this state of joy and it's a little bit easier to just stay in a little bit of dissonance like, ah, it's not that good cause now I don't have to be afraid that something will happen.

Speaker: (32:36)
That's why people don't really want to fall in love. Someone that they love, then the person might leave. That's why they don't really want to surrender to a job that they absolutely really want because they might get hurt, so it's better. I'll just cut my losses. There's not as much at stake. Do you understand how much spiritual growth it takes to let yourself have more? Having more is actually a spiritual muscle. Building the vessel to be able to have more money and have more joy is a spiritual conquest. So how do you go about that? You do it. You go and do it and it starts to, you do this thing that you're really scared of doing and it starts to break through the upper limit. There is no way to learn to be a better standup comedian by sitting in the audience. And so you've got to get up and do it.

Speaker: (33:26)
There's no way to get over your fear of flying without flying. So if you want to get over your fear of flying, get on a hundred flights between now and two months from now and you'll be over it. How do you get over learning how to ride a bike, get on fall down six times. You'll be so past that you'll be onto the next thing and you'll be rock climbing next week. You'll be on the next thing after that. So getting into action because there's no other way. Yup. How do you get better at being a mom? Well, don't read the book. Go be a mom. How do you get better at kissing someone? Kiss someone. Remember when you were like in eighth grade you asked your friend, but how do you do it? And she's like, you'll just figure it out. How do you get better at being a podcaster?

Speaker: (34:06)
Make six bad podcasts and the seventh will be better. And this is the thing that no one wants to do. And why don't they want to do it? Because it goes back to the pain. I don't want to suck. I don't want to fail. Okay? So either stay in that comfort zone or get the sweet nectar of growth. Even if you made something awful, you just grew. How lucky for you that you even can break through your upper limit that you can even see where there's an upper limit for you to break through today. What a gift to go give yourself. So that's it. If you were to look back like five years ago, could you have visioned out where you are today? No, five years ago I didn't have a podcast. I didn't know I was going to start a podcast five years ago.

Speaker: (34:54)
I lived in a different house. I thought we were going to have to leave LA because our house at that time was like a cute little Spanish house that was 1 million bucks. And it was like a big deal that we could even buy that. And now we live in a house that's $4 million. My husband doesn't even work. No, I didn't think that my husband would be quitting his job and that I would be making multi seven figures and having a podcast. I didn't even know that I would be on a podcast, let alone have a podcast. I hadn't even listened to a podcast five years ago. I didn't ever think I would write a book five years ago. Um, and when people ask me, where will you be in five years? I'm like, I've no clue. But I know that every day I will ask myself, where's the growth, what scares me and put it on the calendar and do it. And from that I'll probably get led to some pretty cool.

Speaker: (35:43)
And do you get led? Like, do you have a sense of peace about stuff or how do you navigate when it's something new where you're kind of like scared because it's new versus just that's not, you don't feel at peace. It's not the right door for you to walk through. It's hard

Speaker: (35:58)
to know that sometimes. Um, but usually you can feel it when it's coming from fear and you know you're supposed to do it or you just don't want to do it. The fear is usually in your chest and the, I don't want to do it as in the gut. So when you know you don't want to do it, check your body, your gut might just go, I just don't want to do that. I just don't want to talk to that person. I just don't want to get on that stage. I don't want to fly there. It's not worth it to me.

Speaker 4: (36:29)
Yeah.

Speaker: (36:31)
But when you do want to do something, usually in the chest there's like this fear of constriction that goes, Oh man, I have to do then. Oh and your guts going, you need to get on that stage and your chest is going. But no, I don't want to. It's scary. The body is amazing. The body doesn't lie. Tune in, work your practice however you can get into the body if you need it. If you need to check it out, check in with your body. The gut is usually I don't want or I do and the chest is usually this feels expansive or this feels scary if it's scary, but your gut says yes. So what? You're going to get something? Well then you get a real reward cause you get to break through that, you know? Okay. Um, but I, so I check in there and I just kind of learned, Oh this is, I'm so scared of this, look at that.

Speaker: (37:21)
And then I just step back and get like really curious without judgment. I go, Oh my God, look at you calf. You are so scared of having to have that conversation. You are so scared of being asked to speak on that bigger stage. Like I had to just go speak for 1500 people now. Yes. My podcast has millions of downloads, but I don't get to see millions of people. I'm not standing at a stadium every time I podcast, I'm just sitting in my office. So I was like, Oh, 1500 people. And I loved it and I'm so glad I went. It was so much fun. I was so relaxed and I taught myself that I could do that. So now I'm like ready for 5,000, you know? But, um, I was scared and I was like fighting it. I kept being like, maybe I could cancel, but I knew it was just fear. I know. Yeah. Good old fear.

Speaker: (38:04)
Talk to me about the process and the power of journaling to kind of, if, if someone's listening right now and they're kind of like, they want to do something different or they want to grow in a certain area of their life, but they maybe don't know where to start or what that looks like. You wrote about when you were doing this exercise called morning pages, and that was for you. And I started doing that as well. And I, at first it was like I'm writing my grocery list because it just wasn't natural. But then it starts to open up. Yeah. Well what

Speaker: (38:36)
happens is like we need to get through some of the, you know when you turn on a faucet and you haven't been to the woods in this cabin in awhile and the faucets like Brown water, but then it gets clearer. Yeah. A lot of times our thoughts, we have like 70,000 thoughts a day and a lot of time all we hear are those like first 40,000 thoughts that are really kind of repetitive and we don't really know ourselves well because we are very distracted. So like all day long, how much time are we really spending with ourself to get clarity? We're not, we're on our phones, we're doing our work, we're with our kids, we're running around. And then all we hear are those repetitive like 40,000 thoughts that just go round and round. So when you do morning pages every morning and you say, this is so dumb, I don't have anything to write, but I'm going to force myself for like three weeks every morning just to see what happens.

Speaker: (39:29)
To write three pages front and back and just write. I have nothing to say, but keep my pen moving. Oh I have to go to the dry cleaner. Oh, this is fun. So glad I'm doing morning pages. This is so stupid. But if you keep doing that, what happens is you'll get, you'll write out all those annoying, weird, dumb thoughts that don't seem to be anything interesting and you get them out. And then by page three there might be something under there that you, you kept going to like the Brown sludgy water came out and now you're, now you go, I wish I could take a guitar lesson. And you go, huh, okay, whatever. And then on day seven it comes up again. I really wished that I was can play guitar. Maybe you move into action and then like the third week you actually book a lesson and maybe it leads to something because we just sometimes need to go home to ourselves and get some insight.

Speaker: (40:24)
See, we're always looking around for the answer, but we're blind cause we're taking in everybody's opinion. Insight you do with your eyes closed, you go inside insight, right? That's when you see clearest is with your eyes closed. Go home to yourself so you don't have to journal. You can meditate for five minutes. You could just close your eyes and say, I'm going to sit here without trying to force an answer and for five minutes I'm gonna be quiet. My mind is going to for sure get distracted. I'm going to bring my awareness back to the breath. It's going to be annoying. But by the end of this, my intention is I'm going to ask myself, what do you want today? And maybe if you just sit for five minutes and okay, you're restless and okay, it's kind of annoying at the end. You could say again, what did I hear?

Speaker: (41:12)
What do I want? Or what is the thing that's, that I need to focus on and you probably will get an answer. What else could you do? Well, you could paint, you know, a lot of monks, they're not only meditating, they make these mandolas like they do something creative that like takes their focus and focuses the attention on something that's relaxing. You could knit. There's a lot of things we can do that calm though swirliness in the mind and help us come home to like what's really there. Um, you can also direct your attention with things that make you feel bold. You know, like if you clear out all the negative thinking and you listen to a podcast like this or you go for a walk and listen to an amazing playlist of fight song and Katy Perry roar and whatever songs make you feel like you can do anything. The greatest showman soundtrack, you might move through some of those negative thoughts. And then there might be something underneath the, has a tiny little whisper that gets a little louder and says, Oh, well if I was really feeling this way, I would do this. And then maybe you can write that down.

Speaker: (42:17)
Yeah. And then you get more connected with yourself and figure out separate from the day to day and even if you love your nine to five, even if you are out of the workforce right now, figuring out what your passions are and what drives you internally is I think is so key because so much of our life has been on autopilot or default mode or what we think we're supposed to be doing. And we only have one life. Right. And it was, it's sad because the NY, I was writing the posts, I was Sunday night and it was, I was posting Monday morning for the blog about your book. I literally, I was at work all day, I had client appointments, I got home, was finishing up the post and literally got an alert on my phone about Kobe Bryant. And at first I was like, this is what, this isn't true.

Speaker: (43:10)
And then I started reading it and I was just like, Oh my gosh. And then of course the topic, you know, the book covers and that I'm writing about and I'm just like, you don't want to make light of it, but you only have one life. And so much of us I think just react to the things around us and we don't realize that we are the artists and the designer of our life. Yeah, we've got things we can't always control, but you can, you can do a lot and have a lot more control over your life and you probably realize a hundred percent.

Speaker: (43:40)
I felt the same way. Uh, that day I had just written something about how we only have one, you know, chance at this. Like there's no, there's, this is not a rehearsal. I'm just curious actually what I posted that day now. Um, but it was something just like that. And um, what was the day that he died? 26. January 26. Okay. Hang on.

Speaker: (44:10)
And it's crazy because I'm not even a basketball fan and I didn't have like, Oh my God. Yeah. Look, you know, anything you already 26 I had just posted. This is not your practice life.

Speaker: (44:20)
I was in the morning and I wrote, so here's the thing, we've all been through a lot of pain. So we say, I don't want anything. I don't want to dream too deeply. I'll build walls around my heart. We keep safe and we miss out. Life was made for living, not scrolling your phone. Yes. It's scary to be messy, to love someone to trust, to do the thing. You forget the wonder that can happen in the magic. The universe sends your way when you take those brave steps. And I said, raise your hand if you're ready to live. That was literally like three hours before I heard the news. So we were on the same page. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Frequency. Yeah. Sorry, I cut you off. No, you're good. I could, we could go on forever, but I know we both have hard stops. So I ask each guest five questions just to get to know you better. You good? All right. So what's one thing that most people don't know about you?

Speaker 5: (45:09)
[inaudible]

Speaker: (45:09)
well do they know I have freckles? Probably kind of my face. But if you're a listener, you don't. Um, I love curb your enthusiasm. I don't know. People would know that it's the only thing I watch on TV. I don't watch anything else. What else? What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? You don't have to earn God's love. God loves you and you don't have to earn that in. You could just show up and be yourself. What's the best piece of advice you'd like to give the audience today? All you need is 20 seconds of pure courage. What's one of your favorite books? So the one that's had the biggest impact on you? Um, it's a book called endless light by David Aaron. Amazing book about how we're all a masterpiece, a piece of the master and how God is not Godzilla. God is someone, something that you can't see or touch but is, wasn't always will be and created us to make the world better.

Speaker 5: (46:06)
Okay.

Speaker: (46:07)
What's your current morning routine? Oh boy. I have a three year old. So like disclaimer, I have a three year old, six year old and eight year old. So my morning routine is getting them ready for school and uh, getting them happily out the door and then, um, doing things that sort of like fuel my mind. Um, and then diving into work. Nice. And last question. How do you unplug and unwind a glass of rosé? Um, a bath, a lighting, a candle. Um, I try to sprinkle those things. Not every day, but one of those things once a week or something like that. Well, I really appreciate all your wisdom. I appreciate your time coming on the show. It's been such an honor and a privilege. So, um, where can people find you? I know you've got an event coming up, you've gotta take. So let's talk about the things quickly.

Speaker: (47:11)
I'm on Instagram at Cathy dot Heller. Cathy's with a C, come find me there. I'm very, very active. I'm present there. There is an event coming up. We have a buy one get one free ticket. Um, and I don't know when you're running this episode, but if your guests get their tickets and they just let me know they heard it on the show, I will still honor it. Okay. Um, it's called the arrived summit. It's two days in LA. Buy one get one free. Lisa Simpson, Yardley Smith, she's going to be there as well as a bunch of my friends who are amazing business coaches and entrepreneurs and it's going to be two full lit days at the Marriott and Beverly Hills. March 22nd and 23rd go get your tickets. Buy one get one free. Um, just email me and let me know who your guest is going to be and let me know that you heard about it on this show.

Speaker: (47:50)
You can get the tickets at Cathy [inaudible] dot com slash arrive when you go to Cathy heller.com, as Stephanie said, there's a free quiz on the homepage that helps you figure out what career might be the best one for you. And it's free and it's fun. And those are all the things and my podcast, you can listen to the podcast where every, listen to podcasts, it's called don't keep your day job and you can go get the book. Don't keep your day job. Um, in fact, um, forget the a buy one, get one free. We have another thing that if you buy a book, um, we have a coupon code where you can get an arrive ticket for like 50 bucks. How insane is that? If you buy a copy of the book, you can use the coupon code. I'll tell you right now, if you just buy a copy of my book, we just created this. Um, if you buy a copy of my book, you can use the coupon code book 50 and you can get a $50 ticket to arrive. Sweet. That's a sweet deal because the tickets are like $1,000 normally.

Speaker: (48:48)
And where do they buy the book? Anywhere with

Speaker: (48:50)
Amazon, Barnes and noble. You and then you go by the book and then you go get your arrived ticket and use the coupon code book 50 and just email us a screenshot of your book order. Do that cause it's on $50 to come to this two day summit.

Speaker: (49:05)
Make it real quick. What's going to be at the summit so we know just

Speaker: (49:09)
Oh my God, two full days of all the things that are going to help you level up, arrive home to yourself and arrive to the next level in your career. Business strategy workshop, breakout groups as well as panels on how to make a living doing what you love in all four of the different ways that I talk about in the book. Okay. Awesome. Thank you Stephanie. Thank you so much girl. Talk soon to be continued. Bye honey.

Speaker: (49:33)
Goodness. So many good things in this chat. Thank you so much for joining us. Okay. So links are all going to be in the show notes at the glam girl, boss.com forward slash bonus and the number two. So the glam girl, boss.com forward slash bonus to to get Kathy's book. You can grab it on Amazon or anywhere else that books are sold and then head over to her website, Cathy heller.com. Kathy's with a C and click on the arrived summit tab to grab your tickets with the coupon code book 50 book and the number five zero and then you're gonna want to send them a screenshot of your receipt from Amazon or wherever you bought the book so that they will give you your discount for the tickets so that they're only $50 versus like a thousand so, and it would also mean the world to me. Guys, if you would subscribe to the show, hop on over to the [inaudible] page, leave a quick review and a five star letting me know what resonated with you the most today and also to let me know how much you love Kathy so we can thank her for her time today. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you want to connect with me on Instagram, find me at miss Stephanie Lindamood and we'll talk soon. Bye guys.