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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
I look back and I feel like we've been duped, ladies. You know, we've been duped, I am living proof because I work two fucking hours a week. This is one of literally two hours I'm working this week. Okay?
Kate Northrup:Oh, good.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I have plenty of money plenty of money, you know, to, you know, enjoy my life, and I am totally self sufficient, and all that I want is a family. Okay.
Kate Northrup:Today's episode is unusual. It is beautiful, and it is with my friend, doctor Kelly Brogan, who is the host of Reclamation Radio. She is a New York Times bestselling author. She's written her most recent book is called The Reclaimed Woman. She is a pioneer.
Kate Northrup:She is controversial. She is someone who's interwoven in my path in some unusual ways since about 2016, 2017, and we're gonna tell those stories. And listening to Kelly, for me personally, is incredibly healing because there are so many parallels between her career and her life and my mother's career and her life. And then Kelly and I come together in some interesting ways in the choices we've made about our mothering, our careers, our lives. So if you are a woman exploring your victim consciousness and healing that, getting out of the victim perpetrator, and rescuer archetypes.
Kate Northrup:If you have been listening to activists in activism in any way, if there is any way that you are wanting to put down your own sword and find the exhale, this episode is for you. Kelly has some really controversial ideas about so many things including women and money, and I just love hearing her boldly claim the thing that some people wanna say but are too afraid to. So whether you agree or not, enjoy. Welcome to Plenty. I'm your host Kate Northrup and together we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy, and to have abundance on every possible level.
Kate Northrup:Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty. Let's go fill our cups. Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrup or anyone who works within the Kate Northrup brand. Hey, Kelly. Hello.
Kate Northrup:Thank you for coming.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Oh my god. Such a pleasure.
Kate Northrup:So I don't know. I think I told you this already, but I ended up I don't know why, but I ended up listening to you on so you and I were in touch, and then, we weren't in touch. I don't know why. I needed to
Dr. Kelly Brogan:go through a few rebirths. Yeah. I needed a minute.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. To or the same. And then I listened to you on our friend Emily Fletcher's podcast randomly. I was just like, let's see what Kelly's
Dr. Kelly Brogan:up to. Meanwhile, she lives ten minutes down the down
Kate Northrup:the road, but I was like, I'll listen on a podcast, find out what she's up to. And I was so delighted to hear about your transformation, which we're gonna talk about. And then I went to message you to just say, hey. And I went into my voice messages and realized that you had sent me a message that I had never listened to two years prior. I was like, oh, hi.
Kate Northrup:Sorry. And it was like a request for help on something, which also I was just like, well, hello. Two years later, I'm assuming you no longer need help on it. Hopefully.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I told the source.
Kate Northrup:Went dark, but and it was just, like, such a fun reconnection, because I first met you when you did a book launch party or event with my mom when she launched her book Dodging Energy Vampires? It could have been dodging energy vampires, or it could have been goddesses never age. I'm unclear. Regardless, it doesn't matter. But it was around the same time you had come out with your first book.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. So, yeah, 2016. A mind of your own. Yeah. A mind of your own.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. So it was a long time ago. Yeah. And then I we sort of, like, witnessed and whatever. So, anyway, hello.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And Oh, no. No.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Also, this is like, I'm friends with your mom dynamic. Like, it's it's a whole
Kate Northrup:fucking so funny is that you when you when I messaged you back and was like, hi. Sorry. I didn't respond for two years.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Assuming you got that thing handled, but if you still want help, I'm available.
Kate Northrup:And then you said that somebody, I don't remember who, had said to you like, oh, you live in Miami. Why aren't you in hanging out? And you were like, we're not, and I don't know why, but maybe it's because I remind her so much of her mother, which was super accurate, but I'll tell you what Not so
Dr. Kelly Brogan:much your mom just sort of like the whole The activism. Thing. Which world?
Kate Northrup:Yeah. That energy. Because listening to you on Emily Fletcher's podcast about your process of putting down
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. The sword or however you would describe it. Exactly how
Kate Northrup:it healed something in me, so I just wanna say thank you, and I wanna start there. Yeah. Right? So you were actually, let's start with snapshot of your life and career in let's pretend it was 2016 or 2017 Yeah. That book launch event between you and my mom.
Kate Northrup:What was going on? What what did your life and and and career look like at that time?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. So that was a cataclysmic time in 2016 where I had already been broken open by very unexpected cosmic two by fours, both with my health because it was around the time that I was diagnosed around the time that I was diagnosed and then recovered, however you want to put it, from Hashimoto's thyroiditis. It started my activism career and I wrote that book really with a spirit of like a glorious fuck you to the medical establishment, and of course really the parentified projection of my bad parents kind of energy. And I also had fallen in love with a man who would become my second husband. And I had been happily married or so.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I understood myself to be when that happened. I was in a creative whirlwind that I can't even truly like access or fathom. When I look back and I think about writing that book, I think about creating Vital Mind Reset, my program. It's like it it just happened. I I've had experiences, I'm sure you have too, creatively where it just kind of falls out of you.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yep. But that level of productivity, enthusiasm, and energy, I've never really touched that since. So that was an extraordinary, expansion. And also it was like the annihilation of the ecstatic. I don't know.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I felt like pixelated into bits. Like my whole identity was, simultaneously like unavailable and bigger and better than ever. I don't know. It was all of the old versions of myself were done. My my identity as a conventional doctor, soon to be my identity as a New Yorker that was on the chopping block, my identity as a a daughter, as a sister, as a wife to my husband, as a mother, to my children, just you name it.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I, I didn't realize that I was moving through like the biggest of birth canals, and of course many would follow. I also was, totally unaware of I hadn't I hadn't done really a moment of true inner work. And that's not to say that I wasn't curious. I wasn't psychologically interested in things. Of course, I'm a psychiatrist, you know, I'm familiar with these, you know, patterns and things.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:But there were just massive elephants in the room and dots that hadn't yet been connected. And it really wouldn't be until actually probably later that year that I would start to, the conditions were set for me to start to really look at my early childhood and the ways that I had met my needs emotionally up until that point that were probably not going to be, sufficient or fulfilling, I guess, in the next chapter of my life. So, yeah, it's really powerful
Kate Northrup:time Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:To put it mildly.
Kate Northrup:And I came across, I was looking for a photo for some reason, probably for some slide deck or something. I came across the photo I had taken Oh, wow. From the front room from the front row at that event of you and my mom.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Oh my gosh.
Kate Northrup:So fun. Obviously, like, your face looks like the same person. But other than that and even that doesn't actually even look like you were, like, really dressed in a super buttoned up way. Yeah. Your hair was Barrel curls?
Kate Northrup:I don't I don't yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Like, each of weekly blowouts.
Kate Northrup:Oh, I love a weekly blowout.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Moving to Miami disabusing of that. I was like, must have
Kate Northrup:very, you looked very Academic. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. Academic, professional. You probably didn't hear me swear.
Kate Northrup:Or No. And then the next time I saw you okay. So the next time I saw you was 2021. Yeah. I had just moved to Miami.
Kate Northrup:I remember it very clearly. I had just moved to Miami. I didn't know that we were, like, actually living here. We thought we were here temporarily. And I ran into you at a children's birthday party.
Kate Northrup:Yes. And it was you were wearing, like, high top, like, pink sneakers, and like yoga pants, and like a mid trip top, and like had feathers in your wild hair, and I was like, wow. Something's happened over New identity. Like really different. You know, like visually different, of course.
Kate Northrup:That's not always an indication of the inside, but obvious many times it is. So so, like, now, obviously, so many changes happened between 2016, 2017 to 2021 the next time I saw you. But what feels, like, relevant to say today about where you were by 2021 and what had fallen away? Gosh. Fascinating, like, timestamp because I I moved to Miami in 2018, and that was when Was that for this other relationship?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yes. Okay. Mhmm. And just the impossible made manifest. I mean, my entire family, my, first husband, his woman, my, you know, my parent, like everybody, everyone who molest in this place even though it was like a like a shrapnel field.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I mean it was it was really, just a testament to like destiny almost, you know, the way that things come together whether or not you're directing them consciously or even believe fully that they're possible. Right? Because some might say, well, you have to believe and really get behind. I mean, was no reason for me to believe that this was possible. I
Kate Northrup:love that so much.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. It was wild. So so I came here and now I see like when I'm in and we talk about this, but when I'm in Florida, my body is just a yes. My my muscles soften. My skin is dewy.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I feel ease. I just feel like I am a human being that belongs in this realm, you know, in ways that I did. I actually don't anywhere else in America. And it's it's just the humidity and the temperature and the the sun. I don't know.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:It's just what I'm Irish Italian. I have no idea what I'm doing in like a tropical, you know, sort of climate, affinity. But anyway, I love it. And so my my whole system started to shift and relax. And, of course, culturally, you can't maybe now it's a little bit easier, but you can't really bring a lot of your New York neuroses here and expect them to be upheld and honored by others.
Kate Northrup:No. No one gives a shit.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Nobody gives a shit. You know, you're It's like I'm three hours late.
Kate Northrup:The end. Appointments are like guilt about that.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I'm not we're actually not having a conversation about it also, I'm not addressing it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like an appointment is a suggestion. It's just very different.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Here, I was running ten minutes late for an appointment, and I called No. No need to to
Kate Northrup:be like, hey. I just wanna let you know I'm on my way. I'm gonna be ten minutes late. And the woman on the phone was just like
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Are you canceling? What are
Kate Northrup:you doing? Literally, she was like, are you on drugs?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Like, why are you making making this call?
Kate Northrup:It was just the funniest. I was like, oh, I'm not in the Northeast anymore. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I felt over the past, you know, six, seven years almost like an expat. So it was, you know, a a material shift into this feminine dimension for me. And so I began to slowly but surely prioritize, you know, what my inner girl has been interested in, you know, the whole time.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And so that took the form of adopting pets, you know, and dressing differently, you know, painting my nails, growing my hair, you know, very, you know, differently than I ever imagined would be like appropriate. Appropriate? Yeah. You know, I was never I've never really been a classical good girl, because I've always had like oppositional defiant disorder. So it's not like I was I'm not a perfectionist.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:It's not like I fit that mold. But I had a very curated persona that was aligned with my masculine values, you know, achievement, externalized validation, productivity, success, honor, all these things. Right? And so I behaved in a way whenever I was promoting that persona that was in line with what I thought was needed there. And so I would always, you know, dress conservatively and meaning when I was like in my professional persona.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:But then I had this other part of me, you know, that loves to twerk and, you know, that loves to dress in whatever wild weird colors. So it was it was this fragmented split. And these two parts of me were at least two parts of me were not talking. So, you know, I slowly allowed for these different things to be prioritized. And I also was in a a love relationship that compelled me to look at how I had been sourcing connection and love for my entire life and how, deficient that really was at that point.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I was really doing the codependent dance, as fast as I could. And as any codependent knows, if you wanna use that label, you know, it did compel me to look at myself and what I could do differently. And so I began a lot a lot of inner work. I mean, you name it, I tried it. Every single course and program and teacher and guru and, you know, curating a lot of that has been basically what I have to offer anybody, because of my own experience with how I could possibly create safety for myself when so many aspects of my security were gone.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And so 2021 was actually post, a resurgence of that activist identity because it had sort of been, you know, put aside while I prioritized my girlfriends and my I hadn't fully prioritized my kids, but I prioritized the idea of being a like a more available mom. Because I've always been a, you know, Pat Allen says, a career woman versus a woman with a career. I had always been a career woman. My career came before my marriages, before my kids, before my friendships, before anything. And the shift slowly started to happen at that point.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:But 2020, you know, in some ways many of us had anticipated. So it was like not surprising. So I was one of the first out the gate yapping about, you know, what was going on or so I you know, what I thought was going on. And it was, about six months that I was in my know it all, you know, I gotta educate the ignorant energy of activism yet again. This time I had feathers in my hair and, you know, rainbow spandex Right.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:But I was still kind of in that energy. And 2021 was when I suppose I had done enough inner work primarily on my, you know, sort of mother woundology, if you wanna look at it that way, that I began to see I had choices that I didn't perceive prior. And I decided to leave that relationship, that marriage. And I wonder, you know, the timing of when we saw each other, I'm not sure exactly in the calendar year, but that was the beginning of the next shift. And this season where I look at it and I'm like, oh, well, that's when I began to do my father wound work was in the in the wake of that divorce and really learn what it is to create safety for myself as a single woman.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I'd never been a single woman before. My whole life, actually.
Kate Northrup:So serial numbers. Out of, like so from the time you started dating in your teens
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Since I was You just were literally 14. With someone the whole time. Like, really no gaps. No gaps. Unbelievable.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. Yeah. And also not. I mean, don't have some of the most classic love addiction Mhmm. Patterns.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I have a lot of them. And so I have a really good amount of experience chasing the love that I want from the person I imagine can give it to me if I only help them change a bit. Right? And so sometimes it would be very subtle, but I've learned a lot about what I refer to as trying to buy eggs from the hardware store in these dynamics of sourcing love from the impossible place. And I've done it with different flavors and over monogamous, you know, trajectories.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And it has ultimately, of course, as it usually does, if you choose to work with this, I guess alchemically, brought me home to myself, you know, and only took a couple decades, you know, of my adult life. And, yeah, it's funny. I was saying to a friend the other day, I was like, wow. There's a couple books that I've read recently that if I had been given these books when I was like, but let's say before I was 25, my entire life would have been different. Really?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. Like what? Well, there's probably many on that list. But the two relationally, if we just stick to you know? Because I've become, like, very interested in mate selection.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Right? Because I'm very interested in the power that women have, as I know you are, the power that women have to to influence change in their life without anybody else participating. Right? So no couples therapy,
Kate Northrup:no family That is power.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yes. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Because it is also the it's the the the record scratch for the codependent because you don't gotta get anyone to see.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:My shadow lives under the banner I'll get you to see. And I am rhetorically very skilled in arguing my case. Oh, yeah. And even in a friendly way Yeah. You know, persuading you to see that, well, of course, you don't have the full story.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Of Right. And here, I'm right about this. Yeah. And and let me just help you to see. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And whether that's with my kids or a family member or a friend even or as a professional. Right? And so the trouble when you when your wounds, in my case, lead you to a profession that is by definition a know it all profession. Right? So so a coach, a facilitator, a doctor, of course.
Kate Northrup:Well, yeah, because you're like the OG. I mean, when when you have a medical background, especially as a psychiatrist, like, it's like, oh, because we just so worship the mind. Right. Right? And it's like, oh, that's the original spot of all the things even though it's not, even though like, it is, and it's not right, so we can talk about that.
Kate Northrup:Like that. Like, that is, like, the ultimate, the penultimate. Right. Because, like, coaching facilitators, whatever, like, yes,
Dr. Kelly Brogan:we can put them on pedestal, but they don't have
Kate Northrup:an MD. Right? Like, they're not prescribing drugs. They're not, like, the one. And so there's, like, that extra massive cultural bolstering of that Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Pedestal.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And it's very complicated as you would know, you know, with your mom for a female MD. Yeah. And I actually have done like a lot of work on the guilt that I've carried in the history I have medicating women, you know? And the the way that they trusted me perhaps because I'm a woman
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And then I leveraged this masculine authority to lead them down, you know, a path. Obviously, there's some reason that we all found ourselves, you know, in that field. However, I, I've really looked at how complex the energetic dynamics are when you bring this very yang dominant energy of a credentialed MD with a female package, And it scrambles, I think, a lot of people's perception so that they're projecting both mom and dad onto you. And 100%. You're, of course, a perfect match for it in your own, shadows and and blind spots.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So there there was a lot for me to, yeah, to look at there and and still is. I mean, I sometimes think that, you know, I'm in my retirement arc in a way because when I am not in a position to have the answers, even in this kind you know, we're chatting. But Yeah. You know, even in a
Kate Northrup:But totally. Like, you're yeah. Inviting you as an expert is even there. It's at odds.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:It's at odds. In my case with my history, it's at odds with a polarized relationship. Mhmm. And I sometimes think, you know, now I'm in a a sort of prioritizing my role as mother moment, with my girls probably for, you know, until they leave, so for the next couple of years. And that's just sort of a realignment with the priority that was always there, but that I gaslit myself into denying and prioritized other things, including, you know, a man who was not their dad, including, you know, my career.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And honestly, even including my girlfriends. I mean, there have been times where my female relationships were more important to me even then. My role as mother, I'm certainly not saying my kids, but it's Right. My identification as a mother and prioritizing my fulfillment from there so that I'm not washing the dishes annoyed that I could be doing something more productive. Right?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Where that whole thing is gone because that's how I interact with the field of my children. Right? It's it's all coherent. And so sometimes I look at, oh, well, my next partnership is probably gonna be when I'm largely retired. You know, like when I'm no longer in this position, invoking this dimension, this persona who knows the answers, who, you know, has the expertise, who's in that dominant, energy.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And it's it's been fun to play with certainly, and it has served me, you know, socioeconomically. Sure. And, you know, my my inner girl, if you wanna call it that, or these dimensions of me that really just want to exhale and relax and and play are, are really do, you know, sometime.
Kate Northrup:Okay. There's so much here, and I wanna we're coming back because I so wanna talk to you about money Yeah. And marketing. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Oh, yeah. What's, like, say about that?
Kate Northrup:The whole business engine because you do have some specific opinions that, like, I know are like, they're just, like, different than what other. Hot takes. And I'm like, let's talk about them because they might unlock something for somebody listening of, like, a permission. You know? So we're coming back.
Kate Northrup:But before we get there, I heard you on Emily's podcast really talking about, like, the dissolution of your need to be an activist and, like, tell people how things were out of what happened in 2020 and and onward. And that was the part for me, you know, very personally of just, like, that's possible. You like, that level of identity shift is possible, so I wanna know what happened and what was the process of you putting that down and, like, giving yourself permission to be a woman instead of, like, always needing to be beating a freaking drum about, you know, whatever. Right. And you were you were you were part of the quote, unquote disinformation dozen Right.
Kate Northrup:With my mom, with RFK junior, with you could name the other people on there. Probably not, actually. Okay. Great. Fantastic.
Kate Northrup:Let's not. But just this idea of, like, okay. This is you know, and I think it's asinine that you could even decide these are the people who are responsible for the vast majority of the misinformation, blah blah blah. It's literally impossible to
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I think whoever was choosing just like thought I was hot. Like, I'm pretty
Kate Northrup:sure that's I love that.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Thank you. I do not even belong
Kate Northrup:in that list.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Because there's so many people who had so much more interesting, relevant, consistent information than Like, how did I end? Yeah. I mean, that your mom doesn't count. My mom is super high.
Kate Northrup:No, totally. So you two were the two hot ones. I love that. That's Makes
Dr. Kelly Brogan:no sense.
Kate Northrup:So just to paint the picture, like, that's what was, you know, that's what was going on. And there there was actually, like, an organization called the Center for Digital Hate or some DCDHA. Yeah. To whatever. Is
Dr. Kelly Brogan:that it?
Kate Northrup:I I literally don't know. Whatever. Me neither. That's not good. I'm leading the blind.
Kate Northrup:I need more power than it deserves, but that they came up with this. And so you were out there banging your drum, doing your thing, saying all the things that were, like, unpopular Yeah. For some and very popular for others. And what was happening for you inside that personally? Like, what felt good about it to you?
Kate Northrup:I'm curious. Yeah. Well What were the internal satisfaction?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:A piece of context is that my health related work and health related activism, which was really focused on, showcasing and in some cases publishing in the medical literature history making outcomes that defied the dominant narrative about what is possible with regard to chronic illness. Right? So so in that realm, I came to really understand the victim consciousness that underpins the patient identity, the sick identity. And I had really come to see, wow, well, there's actually some reasons that it makes sense to be sick and to even subconsciously need to be sick. Right?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Like what are these needs that are getting met through chronic migraines? Right? You don't have to ever learn how to say no cause you got a built in Your body will just like pop Your body does that for you. Pop all
Kate Northrup:the eggs and hatch and you just Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. Exactly. And you get attention and you get to feel connection. You get to reenter the child's space of being guided and caretaken by the idealized parent, aka, you know, the savior and the doctor. So I was familiar with this triangle, like through my own experience and both as a conventional doctor who had
Kate Northrup:Like been perpetrator, victim, savior. Or or how would Yeah. You
Dr. Kelly Brogan:The the victim villain villain savior, havoc, rescuer
Kate Northrup:you Okay. Wanna call
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And so when when this went down in 2020, of course I had that initial flare of sounding the alarm. And it went on for a couple months that I was, you know, up all night doing all the studying of what was happening and becoming an expert.
Kate Northrup:Mhmm.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And became one of one of the people that others turn to for like a ticker tape of what's happening. Yeah. Right? And of course, what do I get from that? I get to feel needed, useful, important, and I get to imagine that I have a very specific role in saving somebody, but also the very familiar energy of the martyr.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Right? So of course I have to sacrifice my other interests. I have to sacrifice time with my own family. I have to sacrifice, you know, other things that could be lucrative for my business, etcetera. And I had already become enough aware of covert intentions and the hidden reasons that we do things because of my studying that in the health arena that I guess I don't know really why, but I became curious about how it might be that I was just like those people that I was judging.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So in this case, like the totalitarian, you know, authoritarian, you know, technocratic elites. And like big pharma. Yeah. And it yes. And in this case, it was like a little more sort of government and then secret government.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So I'd gotten into sort of like that bigger arena. And I took stock. I did an inventory of my life. And I just said, you know, where and how am I like that? And I found it in a couple hotspots, specifically in my mothering.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Now I've never been a helicopter mom because I'm a workaholic. So I've never been
Kate Northrup:Can't be both.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:You can be both, actually. And it's not right? Because it's not because I was, like, emotionally mature. No. That's hilarious.
Kate Northrup:I just was, like Too busy.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Too busy to, like, put, you know, plug protectors or whatever, let alone, like
Kate Northrup:I never did.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Lease my kids I didn't know about that. Right. Exactly.
Kate Northrup:We didn't do gates on the stairs. Yes. Didn't do the stairs.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And it wasn't because I was like, oh, I trust you. It was just because I was writing blogs, you know, or whatever I was doing. And I had my parents, you could argue, enabling me, you know, so they were totally available to always support my kids. And so it seemed like a great setup. So there were a couple of places where I did see it though.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:It would be with with food. Right? So where I would, of course, I was not of course, but I was a total, you know, food tyrant around, you know, gluten dairy stuff and organic and even sort of not a lot of, like, finish your plate, but a little bit of, like, try it. Just sort of Yeah. Commandeering their relationship to their own nourishment.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Okay. So I saw it there. I saw it in, like, their rooms. Like, I used to tell them to, like, clean their room or this this kind of mundane stuff. Where I really saw it was in the energy that I brought to the communities.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:By that point, was community related to Vital Mind Reset that I ran and even that program. And so I rerecorded 44 videos in my program, and I decided to do it from a different energy, you know, from a less because I I was fresh out the allopathic box, you know, when I created that program. So I decided, okay. Well, here I am, slightly different energy, and I'm gonna just re rerecord these forty four days of of videos, and I'm gonna change the dynamic with my girls, and I'm just gonna throw away all the rules. No rules anymore.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And to to this day, I have no rules with my kids. There's no chores. There's no nothing.
Kate Northrup:When they when that was happening, when this shift started.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So if the if this was five years ago so let's see. I'll do the math. Like, 11 and, like, eight. K. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Like, tween Yeah. Years. Yeah. Awareness that I had some of the qualities, if not all, but I had some of the qualities of the people I was in people in secret societies who I ever thought that I was empowering, you know, as the enemy. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Was I guess the beginning of looking at like, what am I doing? Like what actually am I doing? It didn't really crystallize and I didn't really put down the sword, I guess, until I became more interested in the exploration of why I was doing anything I was doing. Like it became more compelling to me and more fun to learn about psychospirituality and, you know, intergenerational dynamics and to really start to practice owning my shit became like a sport for me to find the ways that I was just like what I was judging. And that is a full time job.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:You you Literally. It's yeah. It's it's totally a full time and for decades. Right?
Kate Northrup:It's For the rest of our lives can keep us occupied. Uh-huh. So I took my focus Self inquiry.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. Exactly. The focus went from those so the anonymous victim over even my own children. The anonymous victim and the villain out there. I just took my focus and attention off of that.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And I found many, many relationships to clean up in my own life. And my experience, no shade, but my experience is that most of the biggest big time activists out there, their personal lives are dumpster fires. And in my case, I'll speak for myself, it was a very elaborate avoidance tactic for looking at the emotional immaturity, the fear of intimacy, and the many incoherent places in my relational life that I didn't yet have the courage, the true courage to address. Because so many people, you know, I'm sure you've you know, you're familiar with this these tropes, like, are like, oh, you're so courageous. Thank you for speaking out.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I've gotten that for a decade. Oh. Never did that feel true. Like, literally never one time ever. Why?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Really? Because my activism was a compulsion. It was an addiction in a way, to a way of experiencing myself, to meeting my needs, and also to really crystallize this elaborate defensive structure that I had as a woman who was terrified of men, truly. Terrified of men, had not looked at that, had not owned that, had not acknowledged that fear was beneath my every move as an activist, not love for other people. And and I'm only speaking for myself.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Sure. But the awareness that this was keeping me from really like invoking the true courage. The most courage I've experienced is having tough conversations with my family, owning and taking responsibility for my part in something I felt victimized by, like truly humbling myself, and putting down, you know, my like stepping off of my pedestal as like an expert on anything with my kids, for example. That has taken a degree of emotional maturity that I just I just didn't have. I just didn't have a minute before I had it.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And the the courage to act out on the public stage whatever it was that I was doing, I didn't experience it as as scary. I felt it as, like, as if it was soothing the fear. Right? So it's it's antithetical to to what I was my inner experience. And I always knew that.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I was always like, this is easy for me. In fact, I cannot do it. So interesting.
Kate Northrup:Because, like, standing up and saying some of the things that you say looks terrifying to me. Right. Or used to like, used
Dr. Kelly Brogan:to say,
Kate Northrup:because that's not really been your mode as operandi lately. Although, I will say so I wanna, like, transition us and and talk about how that choice to kind of maybe step out of activist identity and and and turn that attention on your own cleaning up your own, you know, behind the storefront window relationships. How did that impact your business?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:That's a great question. I don't think anybody's ever asked me that. You know, because activists don't talk about business.
Kate Northrup:Mhmm.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Right? Yeah. Same as doctors. Yeah. Right?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So the virtue signaling there
Kate Northrup:Right. You're not supposed to like, somehow you're, like, beyond the economy at Totally.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And you're and you're actually profiteering if you are combining, you know, the effort to fund your life and feed your family or go on vacations and buy Ferraris, whatever the hell you with your money with your money. If you're combining that with helping others, saving others, informing the public of what they otherwise would never learn about. Right? So you need to play this vital role as a savior. And I mean, what's funny, just a little side note about activism too, is you experience yourself consciously as the savior.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Right? I'm doing good. It's philanthropic. It's altruistic. Mhmm.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:It's for others. Mhmm. But the the energy is is most aligned with villainy. I mean, I was out for blood. I would not have stopped until I saw the enemy, like figuratively or literally, like brought to their knees.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:It's a zero sum game of the highest order. It's a punishment oriented, like, externalized finger pointing vector.
Kate Northrup:Flipping yeah. Anytime if if you're in that triangle can I make a triangle? Like, you can flip it any direction and any point on it, you're suddenly the other one. It's Totally. You you're in the triangle no matter what role you're playing.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. You're still stuck in that, and someone has to lose. Totally. And someone has to be the bad guy.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. And my energy, like when I would, you know, rile up an audience, I would feel now I see it as arousal. I would feel this somatic like aliveness that could only otherwise be accessed through relational drama in my life. So, you know, these past couple of years have mostly been titrating into stability and harmony and a kind of simple sweetness and it's yeah. So business wise, it was interestingly, my I lost a 100,000, newsletter subscribers.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So I had built, because activism, you you can rally a lot of energy.
Kate Northrup:Deeply sticky. Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, have Controversy.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:A million people on the news side.
Kate Northrup:In marketing, they're like, oh, you wanna build a following? Say something controversial. And I'm like, I can't. My nervous system can't. I'm like Yes.
Kate Northrup:I'm gonna say it gently, but that's my way. Right? Because it's far more effective, honestly, to grow an audience But they also through saying something controversial.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:But this audience and here's an interesting thing probably only you will appreciate. Because it's like it's so it's there's so so much nuance here. I lost most, not most, but I lost half, like of my subscribership, okay? I experienced I was deplatformed off of Facebook. I experienced shadow banning on and a cap on my whatever, on Instagram, blah blah blah, whatever.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So you could say like, oh, that's terrible for business. Victims don't like to spend money. Oh, yeah. They're extremely invested in their story. I jumped an entire figure.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So I went from 6 to seven figures in the following year with half of the audience
Kate Northrup:I love that story.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Before. And it's inexplicable because I could have told myself the story, like, I just and I did did it again. I sabotaged my business again a couple years later when I started pole dancing on the Internet or whatever, as you do. You know? Great for money actually.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I lost a
Kate Northrup:That's lot the business. A lot
Dr. Kelly Brogan:of folks. I lost a lot of folks again, and it didn't seem to matter at all.
Kate Northrup:Right. Because people who are incensed by your by any like, somebody who would be like, oh my god. I can't believe she's pole dancing.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:No. They're not investing in Transformational offerings.
Kate Northrup:Low, because people who invest in themselves tend to be able to Be curious. See a bigger picture, and be able to hold simultaneously, like, maybe I wouldn't pole dance on the Internet. I I probably would, but, like, I'm being, you know, Sue in Kentucky. If you're Sue in Kentucky,
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I love you. I'm like, right? Like, how
Kate Northrup:how does she? And also at the same time, like, that doesn't mean that she doesn't have incredible knowledge and this this this transformative protocol that's gonna help me come back to myself. Right? Like, those two things can be true at the same time. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Which anyway, that's okay. So so you so you you came out guns blazing 2020, you know, deplatformed, da da da. Your following went in half. Yeah. But you raised a whole a whole up to 7 figures the next year in Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Your Then you did it again because you kind of, like, put down the sword, stopped with your activism. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in a It's manner true. Was no longer a source of information. That was the most injurious to my identity.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. I stopped being the news.
Kate Northrup:Right. Or the
Dr. Kelly Brogan:alternative Nobody came to my
Kate Northrup:You channel stopped being the alternative media. And so so you lost people again or no? Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I lost people again when I kind of broke character more fully. And as somebody who is focused on health, and that's obviously a very all encompassing word, I had I had a, you know, good permission field of what I was allowed to talk about according to my audience. But when I had this this moment of emotional alchemy, I was, you know, a couple weeks out of leaving my my last marriage and I was like in the fetal position on the floor for I what felt like weeks. I mean, I think I'd eaten like a date, you know, in in all that time. And I was just into like heaving sobs.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And I remember that I had this little awareness, just like a teeny little sliver of a watcher in me that felt like this is kind of it. Like, something here is kind of interesting what what I'm up to in this moment. You know? And it was almost like I could feel the aliveness in the grief that was somehow, like, exciting. And from that moment, I got up, I put on a song, and I recorded myself myself personally.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So I've been in, you know, we've been in dance classes together. I've of course been in like group choreographies and whatever, but I'd never like put on, believe it or not, my phone for my own eye at that moment anyway, and just danced to like a down tempo song. Just I don't even know why to do it. Right? It just because it felt like there was a conversion from pain into erotic energy in in my case.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And so I just did this little sensual dance for myself. And then there was a voice that almost like tauntingly said, post that. Bring people into your process and see what happens. And I did that, and it was the beginning of this next shift where I was confronted with a lot of feedback, unsolicited feedback around my inappropriateness, how embarrassing I was, what a bad dancer I was, how I am endangering people, how I'm a narcissist, how I have an eating disorder, how I should stay in my lane and talk about health, how I'm a psychiatrist, how I can't believe I mean, they can't believe I have daughters and look what so it was the litany of things that hit me so differently than you're reckless, your information is incorrect, like whatever the intellectual scientific assault, there was not a there's not a part of me that thinks I'm stupid. There's not a part of me I mean, of course there is somewhere in there, but
Kate Northrup:it's it's not It's a not
Dr. Kelly Brogan:a belief that I am that I have buried. The beliefs that I have buried were basically line by line every single thing that was shared with me on social media around this, you know, exhibition of my sexual energy. And I decided again, because I'd been in this realm already, I said, you know what? I'm gonna try this on. Now I call it, you know, wearing the villain crown, but I decided to try each of those statements on just with myself in the privacy of my own home and see, is it true?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I guess it's like Byron Katie ish. Right? Like, is it true? Possibly. What if it's true that I'm embarrassing myself and I met the part that said, yes, you're embarrassing yourself.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Can you please stop? You know? And I met the part you know, all of these parts. And I began to reclaim these hidden beliefs and all of the associated creative gems that these parts of me had been holding at bay probably for many, many decades. And I allowed myself the permission to be the woman who maybe is womaning wrong, the woman who's figuring it out, the woman who's doing a weird thing, you know, publicly, that classical midlife crisis airing your dirty laundry kind of a dumpster fire.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And it was probably the most rapid expansion of my sense of self and my experience of safety in the world that I've experienced in my life. It was probably like a six month window. And after I moved through it, I mean, these days, you know, I don't I don't really post that kind of stuff anymore. And it's not because I think it's wrong or embarrassing or I did the wrong thing. It's just because I've moved on.
Kate Northrup:You did that. Right.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I did it. And I moved on. It was like an initiation for
Kate Northrup:me A 100.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Of my masculine. Like, could I hold myself and my feeling state through this experience of being ostracized socially and no longer belonging anywhere. In many ways I don't fit easily in the feminine embodiment, you know, like huge permission field world of BDSM and, sexual exploration and everything else because my health beliefs are pretty radical in that camp. Okay. Right?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So like, you you wouldn't have found me wearing a mask, you know, on on a stage talking about, I don't know what, bowl dancing with other people who do that. Right? There's there's like a, for me, what feels like a blind spot when it comes to health related sovereignty in the feminine embodiment worlds. But then in the the health reclamation worlds, I mean, there was just like nowhere for me to, talk about sex, sexuality, relationships, or even the psychospiritual dimensions of what the hell we were doing over there. So I found myself in this like weird in between and In your own my own kind of space.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And it was perfect. It ended up being really perfect because now I have just such a, greater capacity to connect to people who are not 100% like me. Which it turns out, like,
Kate Northrup:in the side conversations and in the private voice memos that I receive
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:It turns out you can't put anyone in a box.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Like, we're all sort of orphans.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. Misfit. In our
Kate Northrup:own identities and, you know, intersectionality of, like, well, I'm a little bit over here and I'm a little bit over here. And especially in, you know, the strange time that we find ourselves of the world shifting, and it's just like the idea that we could be part of any group and hook, line, and sinker be like, Oh yeah, I'm totally in on all these bullet points. It's like I think that whole system is in the process of dissolution for many of us. Yeah. At least for myself.
Kate Northrup:Like, I I have felt for years like I didn't belong to any particular group or identity in any group I find myself in. I'm like,
Dr. Kelly Brogan:yeah. Well, little bit of that. Yep.
Kate Northrup:Nope. Nope. Not that one for me. You know
Dr. Kelly Brogan:what I mean? And
Kate Northrup:so I wanna know kind of, like, as we bring it home here, I have loved hearing you say some of the radical things you're saying about women and money. Yeah. And, you know, basically, you've said more or less, like, you don't think women should have to worry about making money. Is that more or less like the the statement? Talk to me about why.
Kate Northrup:Tell me more. Yeah. And how did you get there?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. So I I feel like I came out the womb of feminist. And my mom was a stay at home mom. And she encouraged me with the best of intentions to be a financially independent, self sufficient woman.
Kate Northrup:And is that because she didn't have an experience? She didn't have a good experience in her identity?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Don't. Like I won't speak for her, but my it's yeah. It's a good guess. Okay. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:It's a good guess. Yeah. And I think also because the pendulum swings. Right? So my greatest delight for my daughters would be that they find healthy love with a wealthy, ambitious, mission oriented man.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And then they get to spend their entire lives doing whatever the fuck they wanna do. And if they want to run an 8 figure business, enjoy. If they want to make pottery on the back porch, wonderful. If they wanna lay on the couch and fan themselves all day and have, you know, three people feeding them grapes, that's fantastic. So the experience that I had of really being well colonized by the hegemony of masculine values and feminist programming that says, I will feel okay when I am free.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Right? I will feel okay when I need no one. I'll feel okay when my the liabilities of my female biology are no longer an impediment to me. So I'm taking my birth control, I'm having my medicalized birth. I mean, in many cases, I'm taking my psych meds, you know.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I am having other people's hands raise my babies. Breastfeeding, who needs that? Like all of this abdication of the trappings of my female biology that might interfere with my ability to mimic a man. Of course, I didn't know this at the time, but it would be the man that I'm terrified of and biologically vulnerable to The reality that any man can kill me with his hands was never something I acknowledged because it would have required I acknowledge that I am a woman and he said, man, we're different. And I was, really inculturated to believe that we're not different.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And in fact, I'm better. You know, I was a matriarchal feminist. I can do what he can do way better than While he can do bleeding. Exactly. While Exactly.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. And it really dovetails well with that codependent psychology we were talking about earlier where it's this know it all illusion that you have a better sense of how somebody should be living their lives. Right? And so that sense of control gives you a surrogate hit of safety. And I really climbed that mountain.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Right? So I, you know, credentialed New York Times, this and that, all these accolades. And when I got to, you know, a 7 figure business by myself, raising my kids by myself, you know, buying my own home, activating all of these masculine competencies in my life. And I looked around and I felt like a kind of pride, almost like a defiant energy, like, oh, I did this. Totally.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:But then I recognized that all that I really wanted, this makes me wanna cry,
Dr. Kelly Brogan:was like a family. I saw that I sacrificed that, and, like, that's all that I ever wanted. And, like, for me, I'll never have it in this lifetime. Like, I will never have a family with the dad of my kids. And it's, like, so fucking devastating, and it's been ten years.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And I'm still grieving it.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And so now, of course, I've become, like, an activist for marriage. You know? Because it's like that is a wound that never ever heals, and I will die on the hill of what women can do to align with the choice that they made to procreate with that man. And, you know, I happened to my dad, my kid's dad is a great guy. And, you know, there were many ways that I was interfering with polarity in that dynamic, and, course, now I understand so much better how to be a wife.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And I understand that putting my career first was behaviorally interfering with any capacity that my marriage is, but specifically my marriage to the father of my kids ever had, to succeed. So I look back and I feel like we've been duped, ladies. You know, we've been duped, and I am living proof because I work two fucking hours a week. This is one of literally two hours I'm working this week. Okay?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Oh, good. I have plenty of money plenty of money, you know, to, you know, enjoy my life, and I am totally self sufficient and all that I want is a family. You know? And of course I am a deep believer, as I know you are, that there are no mistakes and that my journey, my journey is fascinating and I've had extraordinary experiences and I literally wouldn't trade a single one. But if I were to whisper to myself, you know, fifteen years ago, I might say something like, I know you're in $200,000 of medical debt.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I know that you feel lit up about this very important thing that you came here, maybe even you were born to do as a woman, and just be with your kids. Just three years. Just for three years, be with your kids, put your career on ice. It's gonna be there. Life is long.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:It's gonna be there, and you can come back around to it. And I just wonder, you know, what might've happened had I been fertile soil for those words, which of course I wasn't and I don't think I could have been, right? So all of that is to say that I am a good test case for what it is to have an extraordinary career, right? Doing service oriented work that I'm pretty good at, that comes very easily to me.
Kate Northrup:That changes the world.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And that is lucrative. Right? So that, you know, I'm sure you know the icky guy term, like that Japanese concept, like I've hit the marks and somehow I got to the point after a decade in the digital game, that I had to have practice before that, but in the digital game, I got to the point of burnout. And not classical burnout like a lot of women, you know, experience More like in the hospital. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Exactly. But really to the extent where I was like, fuck this. Yeah. Fuck this. I'm fucking over this.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I don't wanna market another thing, and I want everybody else to do it for me. And then I got really disgruntled and disappointed and resentful at my team, and my team has, you know, of course shifted over the years. Whoever it was Yeah. Was not supporting me enough. Like, why was I still having to be involved in every decision?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Why after so many years in the game and so much money invested am I still, you know, giving a shit about all of these stresses? And my creative energy started to become more and more constrained by the operational management of the business. And so that mix of feminine and masculine yin yang dynamics really started to impact me and bring me to a place where I could have walked away aggressively. Now I'm a big believer, having left a couple of big relationships, that you want to come with love and go in peace. And until you're at that point, don't leave a damn thing.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Not a job, not a city, not a relationship. Beautiful. Okay. So I knew I had more work to do, and that's when I started to look into the biological, so go back to my roots, the biological realities of a woman's system vis a vis acquisition, let's say. If you want to call marketing anything, it's the chase.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:It's it is this outward penetrative energy that, of course we can do it. Yeah. And we can do it No.
Kate Northrup:It's being the sperm.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yes. Exactly. And I started to look at, I'm a tough bitch. Okay? And it took me ten years to get to the point where I was really done.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And maybe it'll take a woman six months, eight months. Maybe she won't even wanna start because there's something that she feels allergic to when it comes to putting herself out there and developing, you know, brand strategy and marketing plans, let alone, you know, sort of figuring out how to sustain a creative business through the, growth model of brand development. For me, after ten years, I got to this place and I started to think about the parallels between my business life. So again, my interfering behavior with the kind of support that I wanted was not getting, and the chronic disappointment I would feel with that, and the sense that I of course had to be involved because I was the most competent person in the room. I started to look at that and the parallels in my romantic relationships, and I saw that it was perfect match, that the journey in my business was the exact mirror of the journey in my relational life and how it was that my inability to attract dynamics where I could rest into surrender, where I could just trust and have faith, where I could allow for true leadership in my life.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:It was undeniable. So then I started to say, okay, well, what does leadership look like in my business? Right? It's tough with women, in my opinion, because we're not hierarchical by nature. We're collaborative.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Right? You put six men in a room, they're gonna organize themselves according to their competencies. Charge. And it'll just naturally happen.
Kate Northrup:And the ladies are like, what do you think? I don't know. What do you think? Yeah. What do you think?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And then you have the alpha woman
Kate Northrup:How do you feel?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:In the room
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Who often declares herself as the leader. Right? So you or me, let's say, in this situation. Right? That's my daughter, Sofia.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Literally,
Kate Northrup:it's like a lot of leadership potential.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yes. So we do have these qualities, of course, but we don't organize well around them because the support like, I've only ever hired women, and the support that I would have would be women who are extremely capable Yeah. But not more than me. Or they'd have their own business, or they themselves would be entrepreneurs. Or they would wanna be you.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Right. Even more problematic.
Kate Northrup:Right? I just I don't know. Yeah. So it happened. Exactly.
Kate Northrup:Perhaps that happened.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So the dynamics are actually dysfunctional by by their very nature. So that's when I started to look at, okay, well, what is it for a woman to be in her creative energy and for that creative energy to be well contained? So the same topic I I've talked about in in my last book and other teachings is this this
Kate Northrup:containment the reclaimed woman.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. Yeah. Yes. This containment concept. So how do I create the conditions for safety so that I can just express whatever.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Of course, it's like the fantasy of every entrepreneur. Like I can just be the visionary. And I started to to see, well, that's actually the same dynamic as being provided for and protected as a wife. Right? And to trust your man, at least in my situations, I never trusted a man to provide for me.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:And I wasn't conscious. It's not like I said, you can't
Kate Northrup:do it, so I'm gonna do it. Which is interesting because you were raised by a father who did provide. Who did provide. So that's fascinating.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. But then I became But you became him. The father.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. Exactly. Well, maybe not him specifically. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Exactly. The great him. I became, in many ways, the great him. Yeah. I I really was like trying that on.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:So I have sort of, at least preliminarily, as you know, come to the conclusion that for me the answer is having men in my business and specifically in sales and marketing. In the sperm rolls.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. So I have In the acquisition. Men. So you have three men. And how long has that been so far?
Kate Northrup:Couple months. Okay. So we're we're newly in, so we'll have a follow-up conversation and talk about how I that's will say we have so two now almost three years ago, I, by accident, blew up our business. And Mike, at that time, was out on his own doing a very successful small business consulting. He was bringing in multiple 6 figures, and he was not running the day to day of our company anymore.
Kate Northrup:And I lit a match Yeah. And poured gasoline on it and dropped the match in completely unconsciously and quote unquote by accident. And it was so bad that I basically well, I'll never forget the day I called him in, I was like, hey. So just blew everything up by accident, and I just need you to come back and save the company. And I need you to do this because he can do, like, five people's jobs.
Kate Northrup:And and those people were now gone. And so I remember that very clearly, and it felt so good to just say to him, like, I really need help, and I actually can't do this alone. Not not I'm not choosing to, but a full on, like, if you don't come in and save it, like, I fold. Yeah. I'm just I'm folding.
Kate Northrup:And he did, and he was like, I'm giving you a year, all in, all of me. And, you know, now it's been nearly three years, and here he is. And we just hired another man as well, and it is the greatest because I had an all woman team for so long, and, you know, no shade to women. You know, when I both love women, take you somewhere. And it's like having, and Mike can be kind of grumpy and cranky, and we talk about it, and sometimes I'm like, why were you so mean on the team meeting, whatever, but it's the best to have that masculine energy holding that container, and we have tripled the business since that time.
Kate Northrup:And and there are so many ways that I could still even relax and surrender more in in this conversation. It's process. It's a process. Yeah. We are having a date night tonight, we're gonna be discussing some of the ways that I am still holding the fucking reins.
Kate Northrup:Because this it's a journey. Right? It's not a one and done, and and I just I love this so much, and I love the boldness with which you speak, and how elegant and eloquent you are, and it is very rare to be able to speak of your own journey and ways that maybe behavior you wanted to change it while at the same time remaining someone who I'm like, I would learn from her. Like, that is hard to do at the same time, and I just really that's a particular medicine, and you're really fucking good at it. It's hard to remain, like, in your authority while at the same time being so vulnerable and transparent.
Kate Northrup:That's amazing. So, like, that's wow.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:I don't know. I mean, it's it's unclear what I even have authority around at this point beyond just, yeah, my my willingness to share my, very many wild and weird experiences and and really just my fascination with dupes. Right? Like my fascination with the bait and switch and and what I call the poor bargain and all of the ways that I I, with such certainty and commitment, really thought I had it figured out. Well, that's the
Kate Northrup:thing that I think is so beautiful. It's like many people will go their entire lifetimes holding on to a particular worldview from birth to death. Well, maybe not from birth until, you know, whatever age you are aware that you have a worldview. Right? Right.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Whatever that is.
Kate Northrup:And just for you to iteratively be like, oh, cool. Letting go of that one. Like, ones that you would have died on, like, right, like, that you were like, oh, no. This is for sure the way. It's so beautiful and so refreshing and so delightful and, like, very generative to just be like, wow.
Kate Northrup:I could just be totally new.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Well, no. It just feels fun. Like, when I get to text you and say, I joined a gym, and I started weightlifting. Never saw that coming. Good.
Kate Northrup:So good. Yeah. We'll talk about weight training offline. Thank you for being here. I do wanna say, because I just know this from the community, I do know that your program, Vital Mind Reset, is changing lives, changing the lives of women I hold very dear, so I just wanna honor that I know for sure that is something you know about, and and it's really it's really healed some women dear to my heart, like, and and helped them come back from some really dark places.
Kate Northrup:So physically, emotionally, all of that. So I just wanna honor that. And I'm assuming whenever this goes live, that will be available. So anywhere else that you would like to invite people to connect with you if they wanna learn more?
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Yeah. I well, I, have a podcast that you will be on soon, called Reclamation Radio, and and as I'm sure you can attest, it's been like a really wonderful creative outlet. In fact, when I think about my retirement arc, I'm like, 'll probably be the last thing to go, but maybe even that too. So, yeah, I have also that and then, yeah, the rest of the support for women's experience of safety is all my sight. Beautiful.
Dr. Kelly Brogan:Aw. Such a pleasure to connect you, woman. Thank you.
Kate Northrup:Thanks for listening to this episode of Plenty. If you enjoyed it, make sure you subscribe, leave a rating, leave a review. That's one of the best ways that you can ensure to spread the abundance of plenty with others. You can even text it to a friend and tell them to listen in. And if you want even more support to expand your abundance, head over to katenorthrop.com/breakthroughs where you can grab my free money breakthrough guide that details the biggest money breakthroughs from some of the top earning women I know, plus a mini lesson accompanying it with my own biggest money breakthroughs and a nervous system healing tool for you to expand your abundance.
Kate Northrup:Again, that's over at katenorthwick.com/breakthroughs. See you next time.