83. From Corporate to Solopreneur: Navigate The Transition With Confidence with Kate Walker

Show Notes

When it comes to solopreneurship, sometimes the hardest part is just taking the leap from corporate into the unknown world of running a company of one.

This discussion with Kate Walker revolves around the themes of courage, resilience, and the values inherent in the realm of solopreneurship. Kate offers invaluable insights and practical advice for aspiring solopreneurs to help make this transition less daunting.

Episode talking points include:

1. Practical tips for taking the leap into solopreneurship

2. How to cultivate everyday resilience

3. A walkthrough of a values audit that can help people with decision-making based on their core values

4. How to create a healthy money mindset

5. Red flags to be aware of before diving into these working relationships with other contractors

6. Tips for defining success on your own terms

Helpful Links

• Access show notes and transcript.
• Read A Candid Conversation: Lessons in Life, Love, and Leadership.
• Going solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. Join The Solopreneur Community.
• Solve your business challenges and connect with like-minded solopreneurs at the next Solopreneur Problem Solvers.
• Join the next Solopreneur Success Sessions, a monthly micro-event covering a variety of topics to help you having success as a company of one.

 

What is The Aspiring Solopreneur?

*Formerly known as Solopreneur: The One-Person Business Podcast*

Welcome to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the weekly podcast that dives deep into the world of solopreneurship. Join us as we bring you insightful interviews with industry experts and successful solopreneurs who have mastered the art of running their own businesses.

Are you a solopreneur looking for guidance on how to attract clients? Or maybe you're searching for ways to stay motivated and overcome the challenges of working alone. Perhaps you're even struggling with the intricacies of taxes and financial management. No matter what obstacles you face, The Aspiring Solopreneur Podcast is here to provide you with the knowledge, inspiration, and practical advice you need.

In each episode, our hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries, sit down with a diverse range of guests, including seasoned solopreneurs, marketing gurus, financial experts, and productivity specialists. Together, they unpack the secrets to solo success, sharing their personal stories, strategies, and actionable tips.

Learn from those who have paved the way before you, as they reveal their tried-and-true methods for growing their company of one.

Subscribe now and join our community of solopreneurs who are committed to achieving their goals, mastering their craft, and creating a fulfilling and prosperous business on their own terms. Get ready to unlock the secrets to solo success and become the best version of yourself as a one-person business owner.

Want to learn from and grow with other solopreneurs? Join our movement for FREE at https://www.lifestarr.com/solosuite-intro-for-solopreneurs

Kate Walker (00:00):
I actually joined, in 2023, Mastermind group. These are people also doing the same thing. So it's having these like-minded people in your corner who when you're having a down day or downtime kind of help pull you up.
Intro (00:15):
Welcome to the one Person business podcast, the show for solopreneurs, consultants and contractors who are ready to take charge of their business and reclaim their freedom. Join us as we bring you inspiring stories, invaluable insights and practical strategies from successful solopreneurs and industry experts, empowering you to create a thriving business that aligns with your unique goals and allows you to live life on your own terms. Here are your hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries.
Carly Ries (00:45):
Welcome to the One-Person Business podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Carly Ries.
Joe Rando (00:49):
And I'm Joe Rando.
Carly Ries (00:51):
Joe, you and I spend all day, every day working with solopreneurs to create a business that fits their lifestyle. And that comes from usually leaving the corporate world, unless you start off as a solopreneur. It's funny, I actually posted a LinkedIn post this morning about what courage it takes to become a solopreneur. I don't think that gets enough credit, which is why I am so excited for our guest today. Key Walker is here. We need a round of applause button or something. We don't have that with our audio set up, but she has just launched a book this week. We are recording this on October 27th, 2023. On Tuesday this week, she launched "A Candid Conversation: Lessons in Life, Love and Leadership". We are going to talk about her journey into leaving the corporate world and becoming her own boss. She's going to share little tools and tidbits that she learned along the way, both with having that courage to jump ship, but also balancing a personal life and everything that goes into that. Kate, before we get into our questions, we're just so excited to have you and we just want to extend such a huge congratulations. Launching a book is such a big deal. Welcome to the show.
Kate Walker (02:01):
Well, thank you. So good to be here. Carly and Joe. Thank you.
Carly Ries (02:05):
Are you doing anything to celebrate
Kate Walker (02:08):
Not writing on the weekends. That's my celebration.
Carly Ries (02:13):
That's enough for me. Kate, you do have such an interesting story, which is why I'm so excited that you wrote this book and full disclosure, I have not read it yet, but I have purchased it, so I'm very excited to read this book. I think it sounds so interesting. When I think of you and everything you've done that has led you to your new book, I think again, of courage. I really want to talk to you about that before we dive into the rest of the question. Can you give us your background and kind of a sneak peek into what the book is about?
Kate Walker (02:45):
Yes. I'll give you a little bit of business background. Well, maybe I'll start a little bit before a business, but I'm a California girl, grew up in Sacramento, and then I went to San Diego for college and had a wonderful experience down there. I couldn't really find a career in San Diego unfortunately after graduation. So I made my way to Los Angeles where I got into the entertainment industry and I thought I might have a career in the music industry or entertainment, but just found that LA maybe wasn't the right spot for me. So continued my journey north where I also had met a boy who lived up North, so I moved for career and relationship. Then by complete accident, I was temping when I first moved to the Bay Area, and a friend who was at a temp agency sent me to a biotech firm. I jhad ust come out of glamorous, Hollywood music industry.
(03:35):
She sent me to a biotech firm to temp in the HR department, and I wondered, what am I doing here? This feels very wrong, but I grew to be very intrigued by human resources. I thought, I've never heard of this before. It sounded kind of weird, but I really like how you work with everybody at the company. So I thought, I think Armand does something, but I don't know that a biotech room is really my spot. I feel like a more creative services minded, creative industry feels more appealing to me. So by chance, but maybe not by chance, I found a job in HR at an ad agency and the rest is history. I had a great boss there. I loved working with creative services people and learning and growing. So that was the start of my HR career. I've been in HR for now a couple of decades and have learned to really love working with leaders and working with teams and working with leaders in teams, dynamics.
(04:27):
There can be a lot of breakdown in a team, different breakdown areas, and I am fascinated by that. I love to be a little bit of a fixer in those scenarios. That became a little bit of my wheelhouse. I can tell you more about why I quit after these fantastic corporate jobs. But, I was there for a long time, learned a ton, met a lot of great people and had a tremendous experience. Then in another department of my life was in a relationship and got married and had some children. So that was all going on as well. And that's a little bit of my career in a nutshell.
Carly Ries (04:58):
So can you take us to present day? It's so funny, I got so wrapped up in your story because my whole college career, I wanted to be a talent agent. All of my internships were at agencies in L.A. and production studios and all of that. I moved out there after college, realized it wasn't for me, and fell into the advertising world. So when you were talking, I was like, "Hey, this is my bio." So, take us to present day because you're talking about your corporate experience, but you are obviously not in the corporate world anymore. What happened and how did you ultimately decide, "this isn't for me, I'm leaving"?
Kate Walker (05:40):
I think there were a few things at play. One of them was I really love the human resources, functional areas. There's so much good work that we do. I know HR sometimes gets a wrap like, oh, the HR police or, oh, I got to call HR. Really, it's a fantastic career. Fantastic people work in it. I really loved it. But I also knew that in HR we're doing many things and I was growing to like doing a few different things. More coaching, more teamwork, team dynamics. So I thought, do I really want to continue a career or keep going up the ladder running these whole departments? I thought, I don't know that that's really where I want to go. I want to work where I really love. And I couldn't see that in the corporate setting.
(06:26):
I thought, I think I might have to go out on my own to do what I want to do. To get a little more narrow, a little more niche of what I wanted to do. So I had that going in my mind. Then it sparks, and you know this. Then you've got to start thinking about what are the tactical ways that I can do this? How do I actually leave? What's the game plan? So there's tactical and then there's the mindset. Do I have the strength in my mind and my brain to really have the courage and take a risk to do this because quite frankly, I'm comfortable and I love my coworkers. I get my paycheck and I get my benefits. So why am I doing this again? It can be a mind game as well, but I knew that to do what I wanted to do, and you talked about this earlier in the kickoff, kind of identifying with your values. For me, I'm like, I need some freedom. I need some flexibility in my life. I knew that I needed to make a change to go and try to pursue those things. So that was a little bit of the impetus to the "why" behind it.
Joe Rando (07:24):
So you really just walked away from a perfectly good job.
Kate Walker (07:27):
Yes, I did.
Joe Rando (07:28):
So many people will get laid off or something happens and they or have a disagreement and quit. But you just went, "I love this, but I love this idea more." That's cool.
Kate Walker (07:42):
I did. And to add on to that, I did it during covid. I did it during the pandemic too. I was extra crazy. And, I had to send a kid to college in four months. So I had a lot, but I really knew that it was a strong pull just to say, no, I got this. I could do this. I believe some groundwork, let's go and try this. The other thing I have talked about too is there's a woman I follow online, her name is Katherin Zenkina. She had quit her corporate job. She called it the one year experiment. She thought, okay, if I quit corporate, give myself the year. I'll call it the one year experiment. I can try it and if the experiment fails, then I can go back. That actually was in my mind as well thinking, "oh, that's a good idea. Okay, I can leave too, and if it doesn't work out, I can just go back." So that was a concept that was also helpful for me.
Carly Ries (08:37):
It's funny, one of our personas at our company, Lifestarr, is this aspiring Anna. It's kind of people in the situation where they want to become solopreneurs, but just haven't quite made that leap or are going through the things that you were going through when you're like, benefits, you need those benefits. So many people rely on that. What tips do you have for these people? It's scary.
Kate Walker (09:04):
It is scary. To say it's not scary would be lying. I definitely had days where I'm like, "what have I done? My nervous system is on high alert. What have I done? This is crazy." You really can have those moments of sheer panic, but again, kind of that tactical, "okay, how will I set up this business? What's a basic infrastructure? How am I going to pay my bills? Do I have a year runway to pay my bill?" Then it's that mindset game, and that's been the most, call it a challenge and an opportunity for me, just managing the mind. Even a couple of months after quitting corporate, I'm on LinkedIn looking at full-time jobs, being tempted. I took a couple of phone calls from people who were trying to recruit me just to say, "should I go back? Do I go to a different company? Do I try something else?" I did dabble a little bit. I thought I was going to do one specific thing in leaving corporate, but ended up doing something a little bit different. So once that formula kind of dropped in I could exhale a little bit and say, "okay, I've got my formula. Just keep going." I think that's one thing the two of you probably would endorse as well. You just have to keep going.
Joe Rando (10:23):
I'm a very concrete person, and it's a very common story of starting out doing A and then doing B or C or whatever. Would it be possible to explain a little bit about what you planned to do versus what you wound up doing?
Kate Walker (10:38):
Yes, absolutely. I thought that I would be doing full-time executive coaching. I thought I would have full time one on one clients and that would book up my roster. That was the idea. When I left my corporate job, here's another crazy thing, I didn't have any clients. I had zero clients and I left. One of the reasons that happened is because my corporate job had a very strict no moon lighting policy, if you will. So it didn't feel an integrity for me to go and build the whole thing. Build it up and start earning money and then quit. Trust me, I built a little bit of infrastructure but I just quit with no clients. I thought I was going to build an executive coaching exclusive company, and that wasn't coming into fruition because I hadn't done enough groundwork yet.
(11:27):
What I ended up doing as it was still a little quiet, there was actually a human resources executive search firm here in California. I knew that. They had tried to recruit me many times throughout the years, calling me for full-time jobs, but they had a small advisory division. I had contacted them when I was still in my corporate job to say, "Hey, I'm thinking about leaving. I just want to put this on your radar. If you know anybody looking for executive coaching or something like that, keep me in mind." Never heard from them again. Then as days are becoming a little too empty, I thought, I want to call them back and see, just remind them, Hey, I'm here. So I called them and she said, "oh, I thought you started your own company." I said, "well, I did, but actually I have a little bandwidth in case you have clients who might need some HR advisory work. I have just a little bandwidth." I had a lot of bandwidth. Literally a couple of days later they called and said, would you be interested in helping one of our clients? Would you be interested in being an interim HR director and come in for a couple of months and help them out? I said, "yeah, that sounds great." And that's been a revenue stream for me this whole time. Doing these interim HR director type of assignments where I kind of parachute in and help someone and then parachute out.
Joe Rando (12:44):
Is it full-time temporarily or part-time temporarily?
Kate Walker (12:48):
It is a little bit of both depending on the assignment. I'm helping a company now where it is mostly full time, but they're looking for a full-time chief people officer. That's the role I'm in now. They're looking for a full-time, so I know that it will end, and that's okay with me. People are like, do you want to stay? I'm like, "no, I'm good." I love to come in and help, but I will go and then go on to my next thing.
Joe Rando (13:11):
We have a lot of people that we work with that are fractional CFOs or fractional CMOs, chief marketing officers, chief financial officers. This is the first fractional chief people officer I've heard about, but very cool.
Kate Walker (13:27):
Yes. That's exactly it. The word fractional was new to me, but now I get it. I understand it, and that's exactly what it is.
Carly Ries (13:37):
I want to go back because right now you're saying, "no, I'm holding my ground. I am my own boss now. I'm not going to go full time." But you were saying that you almost did. As a solopreneur, you have those highs of like, I'm my own boss, I have my own schedule, but you have those lows of imposter syndrome, which we all get, and it's the worst. How can people build mental resilience? How did you do that? How did you end up fighting off that imposter syndrome and say "Nope, I am sending my kid to college on my terms. I am living my life on my terms. See ya corporate!"
Kate Walker (14:13):
Yes, it's such a daily exercise, I'll call it a battle. It's a daily exercise and I can't do it alone. I listen to podcasts, I look at books, I look at blogs, I talk to friends. I think you have to keep that inspiration, that motivation. So probably on a daily basis I'm doing something. Listening to a podcast or I'm reading a few pages of a book, or I actually joined in 2023, a mastermind group. These are people also doing the same thing. So it's having these like-minded people in your corner who when you're having a down day or downtime, they help pull you up. I feel like it is a solopreneur, but it's also having those cheerleaders, that support system around you to keep you going in that way. I could not do it alone. I would be in the corner crying. I need the support. Again, it could be a book, it can be very simple, but for me, that really helps.
Carly Ries (15:15):
It's so funny you said that. I talked about my LinkedIn post earlier about courage, but what it was really about was a shout out to the solopreneur community as a whole. Not our specific one, but anybody that's in this world. Because we have found that people don't see each other as competition. They see each other as support systems. It's just been so amazing to witness because we work with solopreneurs all day, every day. It's such a warm hug. That's the only way I could explain it . You don't see the rivalry, you see the cheerleaders like you were just saying. I'm so happy you found that for yourself as well.
Kate Walker (15:53):
Yes, definitely. The comradery is useful. And it's interesting because there are people that I know that are doing very similar things to me, and it can seem like competition. It's like, why does she have 10 clients and I only have two? What is that? But I also do think that we're all unique individuals and everybody's going to resonate differently with a different person. You bring your own magic and your own experience to a client interaction. So I don't see it as competition. It's just everybody's offering or bringing something different to the table as the solopreneur working with the client. We all have a little bit of a different flavor. That's just everybody's uniqueness so I don't see the competition.
Carly Ries (16:36):
Yeah, that's great. Well, the other thing I like about you is you seem to have figured out how your career can play into your life and that it hasn't completely taken over your life. That's exactly what we're about at Lifestarr. Creating a career while having a living at the same time. You have a values audit, if I'm not mistaken, that helps people with decision-making based on their core values. Can you walk us through those steps? I think that would be so helpful for people looking to be in that position.
Kate Walker (17:03):
Yes. The values audit is in the book, so check that out when you get a chance. Just full disclosure. This is something I came upon in one of my corporate jobs. It's called the Leadership Challenge. And you can go get the book. It's actually one of my favorite business books, the Leadership Challenge. I learned it when my company was hosting a leadership challenge training. Training managers how to be better leaders. There's kind of five key elements for the leadership challenge. The other thing we did in this training is that we did a values audit, and there are maybe 70 different values that you can look through and choose from. There were cards at this exercise with a different word on it. The exercise was to go through this entire deck of cards and pull out your top 10 values that really resonate with you or are core to you or key to you, what drives your decision-making.
(17:55):
I write in the book that one of the cards I pulled out, this is maybe six years ago, one of the cards I pulled out back then was Freedom. I was sitting at a small group table and we were supposed to go around the table and share our top 10 values. As people went around the table, some of their values were achievement and all these different things. I thought, okay, this Freedom Card feels really stupid. I feel dumb. I should put away the Freedom Card. I feel dorky. So I did. But I came to learn a little later, especially as I was getting ready to leave corporate, "freedom". That is a value of mine. I do value freedom in many ways, let freedom ring, but freedom and how I want to design my day. Freedom of who I want to work with, freedom in all of those different things.
(18:43):
One of the cards has been one of my values that I've had for many years. That is integrity. I've had integrity as a value since I was a kid and bring that with me. But through the values audit, I realize that some of my values shift just a little bit. For example, the freedom, it's like now here today, freedom feels very important or more important as a value. So that's something I bring up to the top, and that helps me make decisions. Is this decision going to support my freedom? Flexibility is another value. Maybe more flexibility is what I'm looking for, but will this decision help support my flexibility because when there's flexibility, I feel good. I feel better in my body and my mind. It's really just taking time to think about those things. I know we're busy, we're running it and we're going. Sometimes we just don't stop to say, "am I aligned with what makes me feel good?" I do think that the values audit is something that's really interesting and fascinating. I've had my kids to it.
Carly Ries (19:48):
I think it's funny that you said that you put away the freedom card because I think it's getting better now with remote work and flexible work and just the way that the workforce is these days. But I feel like freedom used to equate to laziness almost. If you weren't going 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM at night, you're lazy. And that is not true. It means you prioritize. I think it's so funny. My dad is very old school. When I joined the workforce, it was nine to five, make sure you have benefits, never leave a job without another job lined up, it was very strict. So when I had my first remote job, it was kind of like, whoa. You can be self-motivated. You don't need a babysitter. I think it's so funny you said that. For people that are struggling to articulate that or for leaving their job, freedom and flexibility does not mean you're lazy. It means you know what you want.
Joe Rando (20:48):
Absolutely. This pre-dates you, but you've got to understand that the whole freedom thing was the keyword for the hippies. "I want to be free." They would travel around in Volkswagen buses and getting stoned and going to concerts. So that's I think where this stigma came from originally in terms of freedom.
Kate Walker (21:08):
Absolutely. Yeah. Why do you think I hid that card? They're going to think I'm that. That's not really what I'm getting at. I think freedom to your flexibility as far as being lazy maybe not means that I completely structure my day in four hours. I'm very efficient. So it's like I want freedom of flexibility to have a really tight schedule and be really efficient so that I can go do different things for the rest of my day that fill me up. Yeah, it's not lazy. It's having a different mindset to how you approach your work or your life.
Carly Ries (21:41):
I'm glad we're talking about mindset because I think another mindset hurdle people have is the financial mindset. We always say, just because you're in a salaried position or at a corporate job, that's a false safety net. You could get fired at any minute. How can people mentally prepare financially for this jump?
Kate Walker (22:06):
This is tricky too. I've read a lot about money mindset, and many, many people have money mindset challenges or just what they grew up seeing as true or accurate or correct. My mom was very frugal growing up. I was having a conversation with her a week ago, and I'm thinking about moving to a different city. She says, I was reading in the Wall Street Journal that that city is very expensive. It's going to cost you a lot of money. She just keeps bringing her limited beliefs to me. I'm like, maybe I can afford it Mom, maybe I'll find it'll all work out for me. I think that we bring a lot of beliefs and baggage, for lack of a better word, from our upbringing on what we saw in money and how it all worked.
(22:54):
This is something that I've had to work on for a long time. It's still a work in progress. Believing, especially leaving a corporate job, it's like that corporate safety net. It's like, is it really there? Having worked in human resources, yes, you might get laid off,. You might lose your job. This is not your company, it's their company. So don't think that there is safety. So especially in preparing for leaving corporate, I had to read a lot of books to get my mindset. I did have to set my financial runway just to make sure I had about a year of money. But it is a little gremlin. I like to call it just a little gremlin that peaks up and pokes up. It's like, "oh, you are aren't making enough." It says all kinds of things to me. It's something that I have to work with on a regular basis and really trying to be strong about expecting that if I'm doing the right things and all of that, then the money will come with my efforts.
Carly Ries (24:04):
Do you remember any of those books that you read?
Kate Walker (24:06):
Yes. The book is called A Happy Pocket Full of Money. This is a book, no joke, that I open and read a few pages usually every day or a few times a week. It's a really interesting read. I hate to keep using the word money mindset, but it's really a fantastaic money belief book about unwinding those beliefs that don't serve you. That is definitely a book I recommend. There's also a woman I follow online. Her name is Amanda Francis. She talks a lot about money and just belief. I would say acquiring money feels too strong, but attracting money, believing that money is coming to you. I use a lot of different resources, but those are two.
Carly Ries (24:52):
We will add those to the show notes and I will add those to my personal list.
(24:57):
The other thing that I wanted to pick your brain about is money. You were saying earlier that you've built a community of people that you can reach out to, you have a mastermind, you have that support system. But I think something that people struggle with is finding the right partners and trusting the right partners. You said you pivoted to what you were originally going to do, and maybe people have people in mind that they can rely on, but then they pivot what they're doing and they're starting from nothing. How do you know if it's a working relationship worth building? What are some red flags? How do you find trust in the workforce when you're alone?
Kate Walker (25:38):
That is such an interesting question. I have done a lot of trial and error in the last two years. I'm a solopreneur, so if I work with anybody, it would be a vendor, someone I hired to help on an hourly basis or a project basis. It's interesting having her from human resources. I'm used to interviewing people and screening people and trying to know who's right but I have found as a solopreneur, unfortunately, I have a little bit of shiny object syndrome. Thinking that someone knows more than me, someone could do better than me, and I should trust them and believe them because they know better. I don't, because I'm new over here in this arena. I am okay in corporate, but in this arena, I'm new, I'm learning snd what I've learned is, wait a minute, I've got to give myself a little more credit. I'm not as newbie as I think I am. I think I have a little more experience and wherewithal. I've entered into some working partnerships that hadn't worked out. Those have been hard learnings because I did trust that someone was smarter than me. I did trust that someone knew better than me. I did trust that someone could really show me the way, and they weren't able to deliver as I had hoped. I'm also in a little bit of a season where I need to, as far as working with new partners, new vendors or such, need to be really careful about my expectations. I feel that there's been a little bit of a disconnect with some of them that they haven't met my expectations, and I have to turn the mirror back at me and say, well, did you really screen enough? Did you really vet enough? Did you really let them know specifically what you wanted? I've had a couple of personal misses in that way. It's a lot of personal reflection and try to keep doing better.
Joe Rando (27:34):
Sometimes you don't give yourself credit for what you know. You know more than you think. Then you go, "wait, I'm paying somebody to tell me this. I knew that." it does happen.
Kate Walker (27:46):
It does happen. It's really disappointing. It hurts.
Carly Ries (27:51):
Well, Joe and I have actually run into this with a few marketing agencies. My background is in marketing and working with agencies. So I feel like I'm going in like. "I know exactly what we're going to look for", and we have not had the best experiences. We think we're vetting them correctly and then it's a lot of over-promising and under-delivering.
Kate Walker (28:12):
Yes, you put it perfectly, I find the same thing. Even when I journal or think about what I want, I really do try. I want people that really nurture me and take care of me as business partners and people that really over deliver. And I've had all these misses. It's like, "what is it?" Again, I can only turn it back at me that I'm doing stuff. I need to fine tune something.
Joe Rando (28:42):
I'm developing a concept that's a hashtag, #hireasolopreneur. Every time I've done a solopreneur, I've been happy. We've got a number of solopreneurs working with Lifestarr, and they're all awesome.
Carly Ries (29:02):
Yeah, but I just am so curious when I talk to the jump ship, because that's just something I think we all struggle with. I'm glad you were able to shed light on that.
Joe Rando (29:22):
That hashtag was #lifeleap.
Carly Ries (29:25):
Oh, yeah. Remember you did have that hashtag. That was when you leave your job and go straight into a solopreneur,
(29:33):
We are basically trendsetters over here.
Joe Rando (29:34):
Yeah, #life.
Kate Walker (29:36):
I love it.
Carly Ries (29:38):
So Kate, you have redefined success for yourself. What does success look like for you right now, and how can people determine that for themselves?
Kate Walker (29:52):
Success for me at this stage, and I go back to those little values card, flexibility? Am I having a day where I'm doing work that I really love, that lights me up? Am I having a day where I have enough time to feel really good that I spent quality time with my, I have one child at home now, one son at home, I one at college, but did I get some quality time with him? Did I get to go out and take a walk like I wanted to, did I go to the grocery store and not have to run in and run out in 30 seconds? So just really trying to plan my day in a way that's a little more easeful. When I was in my last corporate job, I also had a commute that was really just insane. I was always racing from one thing to the other, racing to the office, racing home, racing to go get my lunch racing.
(30:35):
I just felt like I was racing for many years. That can really do a number on your nervous system where you're like, okay, do I have PTSD? I am so spun up right now. I'm so wound up. This chapter has also been about trying to exhale. Regain some calm and some ease and some peace. That is really fulfilling for me, doing great work. I love my career. I love what I do, but also balancing some other things. I do work from home, I work remote. Now my commute is 30 seconds, and it just feels a lot more calm for me. That's just been really important in this chapter as well, not racing the clock all the time.
Carly Ries (31:19):
Well, Kate, we've come to this part of the episode. You were just talking about how you define success. We ask all of our guests what their favorite quote about success is. So do you have one for us?
Kate Walker (31:30):
There is a quote from the book, The Secret that I came upon many years ago when I was first starting a lot of personal change in my life. The quote, I'm not sure who said it, but it is in the book, The Secret. "Money comes easily and frequently." This is a decade ago when I was thinking about making some personal changes and business changes, and I was having some money challenges, we'll say. I just maybe wasn't earning enough as I wanted to or had hoped to at that point in my life. I began seeing this mantra very regularly when I was driving, when I was doing whatever, just to really have that be in my mind and have it be something I was mindful about or it was present in my mind. I know it's just a mantra or an affirmation, but it really did help me go back to that quote and think about, "money does come easily and frequently". It's something I still break out every now and again. The success part of that is just the mindset of it, just anchoring into what can be true for you if you want to believe it.
Carly Ries (32:37):
Yeah. I love that. I think that is so relevant to our discussion so far, and for people wanting to take the leap just to say, you'll be okay financially once onboard.
Kate Walker (32:46):
Yes
Carly Ries (32:47):
I have so enjoyed this conversation and it's made me so excited to read your book as well. For people wanting to read your book, wanting to learn more about you, where can they find all of the above?
Kate Walker (33:00):
I'm excited to say the book is out finally. It's been a labor of love. It's out, it's on Amazon, and I believe many other outlets, BarnesandNoble.com, probably at this point, but for sure in Amazon.com. It's called A Candid Conversation: Lessons in Life, Love and Leadership. I'm excited about that. You can find me on Instagram at The Kate Walker or LinkedIn, Kate Walker, SPHR, and then there's my website, which is just katewalker.com.
Carly Ries (33:27):
Wonderful. Well, all of these will be in the show notes. We are so excited for you. Big congratulations. Again, thank you so much for coming on this show. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Kate Walker (33:38):
Likewise. Thank you so much, Carly and Joe, honestly, I feel like I want to be friends with you.
Joe Rando (33:43):
Join our community. We'll send you a link.
Carly Ries (33:54):
This has been great. Listeners, thank you so much for tuning in today. We'll be back next week with another episode of the One-Person Business Podcast. See you next time.
Closing (34:07):
You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes running a one person business and figuring it out as they go, so why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one-person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.