Whenever I meet someone who’s got a really cool job, who runs a thriving business, or who has completed an amazing project, I always want to know: “How did you do that?”

I’m always curious to hear the “behind-the-scenes story” — who they emailed, what they said, how they got their first client, how they got their foot in the door — the exact steps that they took to achieve their goal.

HOW DID YOU DO THAT? is an interview series where we get to hear the REAL story behind someone’s success—not the polished, neat and tidy version.

To see a complete list of all the interviews that have been completed to date, head over here.

Name: Julia Ixchel Plevin
Founder: Forest Bathing Club
Author: “The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing”

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You have such a fascinating career. Tell us, what you do?

I am an author, designer, and the founder of the Forest Bathing Club. My first book comes out in March and I’m currently working on writing another book and launching a nature connection accelerator and seed fund. There’s a lot of work to do right now for Team Earth!

(Note:  You can pre-order Julia’s book here.)

Tell us a little about your background; how you came to do this work, and were you always interested in the outdoors? Was this sort of a surprise to you, or was this something that always brought you joy as you were growing up?

I grew up in Maryland, right outside DC, near Great Falls Park. I spent a lot of my childhood running and hiking on trails near the Potomac River. I always felt best in nature even though I didn’t know why. I was the President of my high school’s hiking club called the Hiking Vikings and chose to go to Dartmouth, mainly because of the outdoors club there. I used the Outside Magazine college rankings to decide where I wanted to go to college.

It wasn’t until I was living in New York during graduate school that I realized the mental health effects of being disconnected from nature. I was dealing with anxiety and depression and realized that it stemmed from a disconnection from nature. My thesis work was all about this disconnection and how to reconnect.

I studied history in college and I’ve always been a writer and a storyteller. I studied design in graduate school, which is all about creating the future. I really see this continuum of evolution from where we came from and where we’re going. What’s ironic is after immersing in the past and the future, I finally came to forest bathing which is all about being in the infinite present.

It took me a long time to really listen and surrender to life as opposed to how I thought I should be living. It’s a way of moving through the world that I was not taught in school or in my family, and I really had to discover it first on my own, and then as I deepened into this journey, I’ve met so many teachers, mentors, and peers who are also moving through life in this expansive way.

Forest Bathing is an ancient Japanese tradition in which the participant connects deeply with the natural world around them. Can you tell us more about it? Is the tradition still alive and well in Japan?

Well the term forest bathing comes from the Japanese word “shinrin yoku” which evokes bathing in the forest atmosphere. While there are ancient nature connection practices in Japan, this term was coined in 1982 when researchers were able to determine the scientific benefits of connecting to nature as a way to lower cortisol levels and boost NK (natural killer cells).

While the term itself is relatively recent and trendy, the practice is thousands of years old, and is universal. It harkens back to the Original Instructions for how to live on Earth. If you listen closely to the Earth, she will tell you how to live in a connected way. I have found similar practices in many different indigenous and ancient cultures.

So in its simplest form, it’s just about going out into nature, and being present with it.

To me, forest bathing is about going to nature with the intention to heal. Or with any intention, really, but it’s important to have a clear intention. And it’s about getting out of your own head, and dropping into your heart: quieting all that noise, awakening your senses, and being present to moment. It’s a continuous practice of being open to receiving whatever messages or wisdom nature wants to share with you.

You started a Forest Bathing Club in San Francisco. How many members do you have? What does a typical forest bathing club outing took like? Do you just go out into nature and let the forest do its work- or are there certain practices that take place?

We have over a thousand members around the world. A forest bath is a two-and-a-half hours transformational journey. It’s not a hike or a yoga class or a guided nature walk. I act as a guide and a facilitator: I hold space, and lead people through different invitations. I’m always working alongside Nature and she’s doing the real healing work. A forest bath always varying based on what the situation is calling for, and I’m always working with the elements.

It’s all about attuning to the moment. Sometimes it’s around different astrological moments, like a new moon or a full moon. I bring in rituals from teachers I’ve had around the world, including a Shugendo Buddhist monk in Japan. There’s always time to go off on your own, and then integrate back with the group. When we share what we are each experiencing, it starts to create a shared container of understanding.

We always end with tea and snacks that are local and healthy. Eating is an important part nature heals us from the inside out, as well as from the outside in. During this time of year, we’ll do something with acorn flour because acorns come from the trees. I like to use cacao for the same reason. Cacao comes from the trees, and is a really powerful heart-opener (we connect to nature through our hearts not our minds!). We’re better able to digest our food and garner its nutrients when we are relaxed so eating outside is a nice practice.

Sounds wonderful. So how has it healed you? How has this practice
been healing for you?

This has been my healing, and continues to be my healing. I spent a decade of my life dealing with Lyme disease and I have this theory that the Lyme was nature’s way of trying to get me to connect. I tried everything but it was when I went into the forest that I was finally totally healed. Many people I have talked to have experienced similar things.

I do believe that I have a calling to do this work. I just finally listened to it. There is an expression- “The harder the journey, the stronger the medicine”. I really resonate with that. I learned that you have to heal yourself before you can heal others. It’s when you take your healing into your own hands that you regain your power. Nature is the greatest teacher. Nature has healing for all of us. So I’m here to show people how to connect, and how to open to receive their own healing from nature.

How do you reconcile what you do with all the technological things you need to do to keep it going?

This is what happens when you’re offering your own medicine. Forest bathing healed me and yet I spend a lot of time in front of the computer talking about it and writing about it. For example, I have the Forest Bathing Club, and I have an Instagram for it, and I do some marketing for events (although I mostly trust the trees to bring in the right people!)

The way that I manage it is through a very dedicated morning ritual practice that is sacred time in the morning and again at night. I have my own way of getting really connected — it’s a mix of nature qi gong, yoga, meditation and shamanic practice, and then my own heartfelt prayer. And it’s a lot of movement prayer, so I’m moving the energy through from the ground to the cosmos and to my heart, doing some asana, like back-bending, opening my heart, setting intentions, saying different affirmations. Every day, I greet the sun and the four directions, and I give an offering to a tree, and I breathe with the tree, and I sit in my sit spot. It can take a while but I notice that I’m a lot clearer and more productive (and sane!) during the day when I do it.

Do you find it hard to unplug from technology? And what happens when you re-enter the city?

Yes, totally! I feel like I lose my phone every few months just so that I can remember what it’s like to be present. I know how distracting technology can be and that’s why it’s important to have tools and a practice to disconnect. As much as I sometimes wish I could live in the forest, I know a lot of my dharma is about bringing nature to cities so it’s really important to learn how to integrate the lessons from the forest into urban life.

Nature is everywhere. It’s not some place “out there.” Whenever you take a sip of water or pet a dog, you are connecting to nature. It’s all about what you pay attention to. If I notice myself getting stressed, I will look for the city trees and the weeds growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. I will look up at the sky or take a big breath of air!

If you have a square foot of Earth, you can take off your shoes, and put your feet into the earth. Just this alone will reduce chronic pain and inflammation. You can even have a little plant on your desk or a flower and even looking at pictures of nature helps. I like to keep collected shells and rocks on little altars to remind me of the interconnectedness of all things. You might hold on to a sacred nature object from a forest bath and keep it with you to remind you of a time when you were in a calm and expansive state.

You have just written a book called ‘The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing’. How did that come into being? When does it come out?

When I started the Forest Bathing Club, a journalist happened to come to the first one I ever led, and wrote an article about it. The article was good but I had just finished a Master’s Thesis on the topic so there was a lot more I wanted to share. And so I wrote an article about it, and it caught the eye of a publisher who got excited about the idea of forest bathing, saw that I had press, and approached me to write the book. She saw me as a leader in this emergent area, which was really exciting.

I’ve been a writer my whole life, I’ve always dreamed of writing a book, but I was stymied as to how to make this happen. And that’s really been the story of since I stepped into the forest, as I call it. Opportunities occur where I think, “I don’t know how to make this happen.” But then it’s just all happening and I’m mostly a vessel and a witness.

I truly, truly believe that I’m speaking for the trees, for the forest, and they have messages to share with us right now. And those of us who are open channels are being called to help the trees work their magic.

So with the book, I just knew what it had to be. In many ways, it was the hardest and the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I gave it so much space, and so much heart, and time, and dedication.

When you’re in the writing processes, everything that happens is informing what you’re writing. You meet someone and they recommend a book, and it’s the one thing you need. It’s just a beautiful way to move through the world. I feel like I’m in deep collaboration with the universe when I’m writing.

What do you see happening for you in the next 3 years? How would you like to grow this passion?

I’ve been experimenting a lot with living in flow right now, but to be in flow requires both discipline and surrender. I think it’s like getting in the river, and then just trusting that the river is taking you there. When you’re in flow, it’s most important to have that clear vision. Otherwise, I think you can kind of start to get overwhelmed by it. But my greatest vision is to be a stand for this nature-connected way of living. And by nature-connected, I mean connecting to your true nature. So listening to your truth, and living in a way that is healing for yourself, and for your communities, and the planet.

I see that manifesting for myself in more books, workshops, a nature connection accelerator, and a seed fund for creatives and entrepreneurs who are doing earth-aligned work in a good way.

Last question. If someone wants to create more of a practice of being in nature- what are 3 things you would tell him or her to do?

1. First thing I would tell them to do is to leave their phone at home, or at least bring it with them on airplane mode or off, and go out to nature, and just follow their heart. Let their heart lead them to where they want to go, and just kind of wander.

2. Second is to have some kind of daily nature connection ritual. I have lots of examples for that, but I also think it’s something that you can just create on your own. With any element, with a rock, with water, with fire. Over time you will start to build a relationship and that will unfold in a mysteriously perfect way.

3. And third, I would say, have a sacred spot. Just a place where you sit every day, or as often as possible, 15 to 20 minutes, and just be without any agenda.

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ONE MORE THING…

Do you have “one more quick question” that you’d like to ask Julia? Email me and tell me what you want to know! I might choose your question for my ONE MORE THING… Podcast (Coming soon!!!)

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YOUR #1 CAREER GOAL: ACHIEVED

Do you need some encouragement to help you achieve a big, daunting career goal? Would you like to have a career coach/strategist in your corner—feeding you ideas that you’d never considered before, helping you figure out who to contact, and what to say, and checking in to make sure you don’t procrastinate? If so… click here to find out how we can work together. I’d love to coach you!

Whenever I meet someone who’s got a really cool job, who runs a thriving business, or who has completed an amazing project, I always want to know: “How did you do that?”

I’m always curious to hear the “behind-the-scenes story” — who they emailed, what they said, how they got their first client, how they got their foot in the door — the exact steps that they took to achieve their goal.

HOW DID YOU DO THAT? is an interview series where we get to hear the REAL story behind someone’s success—not the polished, neat and tidy version.

To see a complete list of all the interviews that have been completed to date, head over here.

Name: Lindsay Jean Thomson
Co-founder:  Women Catalysts
Breast Cancer Advocate
Co-lead: #100DayProject
San Francisco, CA

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What is your background and training?

I studied English in college then worked in PR for a few years after. When I moved to San Francisco in 2008, I started my first business providing yoga and wellness programming for start-ups. A few years later, I trained as coach. I’ve done a lot of different things with that, everything from career coaching to business consulting. And then in early 2015, my best friend Kim and I started Women Catalysts.

You’re clearly a woman that loves to collaborate.  Tell me, what attracts you to community building?

I’m a Cancer, the crab – I’m just naturally drawn to building homes for people.

When I was young, my friends would call me the “social activities coordinator”.  I was always the person who said, “These are all of the things that are going on this week, and here’s what we should do.” On so many levels, personally and professionally, everything boils down to your connection to other people. It’s just something I’ve always innately done.

What caused you to start Women Catalysts?

Women Catalysts started as an idea that Kim and I had while flying kites and drinking beers in the park.  It was seemingly out of the blue, but culturally there were some things going on and we were also meeting a lot of women who didn’t have the friendships or the professional relationships they really wanted in their lives. We decided to create a space to make that easier and more accessible.

We know so many women who are doing so many cool things that we thought it would be a lot more inspiring and motivating to create a space where women had control over their narrative, where we could talk about what was working and what wasn’t working. And in the very early days, a lot of the speakers were our friends.

 

 

Networking is something that’s so hard for many people. Certain people love talking to people and engaging in conversations. I don’t even think of it as networking. But for a lot of people, it paralyses them. With Women Catalysts, you’ve created this really fun environment for people to interact and feel comfortable.

Who is the typical person that comes to these events? And if somebody is an introvert, is there a place for that?

I think for a lot of people, and women particularly, the transactional nature of networking is really off-putting, because relationship building is about so much more than what can you do for me and what I can do for you.  I’m never looking at somebody and thinking, “What am I going to get out of this conversation?”

Any job you get, any apartment you rent, any boyfriend or girlfriend you meet, it’s never going to be because you decided that you wanted something from somebody. It’s going to be because you built a relationship with them. And so we like to think we’ve made something unique, in that we’ve created a space for people to connect in a meaningful way.

As far as introverts, I get it. One of the early inspirations for Women Catalysts was that Kim and I had gone to a networking event for founders and it wasn’t a great experience. I left that event thinking, “What would this be like if you were an introvert?”

I’m pretty comfortable talking to strangers. But for a lot of us, it’s very uncomfortable, particularly because if you’re going to a networking event you’re often in some kind of transition, and you might not know how to talk about that yet. So how do we make that easier for you and more effective?

You are a breast cancer survivor. And you chronicled your journey in 2016 on Vice. Obviously, it was a life changer for you. What has been the impact of cancer on your life and career?

I don’t even know where to start. I guess I’ll backtrack and say that one of the things I was really resentful of early on was this feeling that it would always be a thing in my life. The truth is that it is always going to be a thing in my life, but I’m no longer resentful of it. It has been an incredibly healing experience personally. It has brought me closer to my A-team, to my people. It has strengthened my community, it has helped me relate better to myself and to other people, it has made me realize how resilient I am. And it was incredibly challenging. It was a lot of things all at once.

What do you say to a woman who finds out she has breast cancer? Obviously, there’s this amazing amount of confusion and information and overwhelm, and all those things that happen when we suddenly enter the confusing world of illness and recovery. What should be the first few steps a woman should take? And is there anything that happened to you that you wish you had done differently?

I do a lot of education around breast cancer. I think it’s really helpful to get to know it better, because it’s actually very common. One in eight women in America will get diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime and over 40% of Americans will get diagnosed with some type of cancer in their lifetime. And for something that is so common, I think it’s really scary and not something people talk about enough. Especially if no one in your family has had it. I was one of those people.  No one in my family had cancer; no one I knew had cancer. And so my only experience of it was seeing it in film and television when it’s being highly dramatized.

I educate people about what the process is like, what it’s like to go through chemo, what it’s like to do radiation, what it’s like to have a mastectomy. And also try to clear up some common misconceptions. For example, a lot of people think that if you get diagnosed with breast cancer young or “relatively young,” as my doctor likes to say, that it must run in your family. But that’s not even close to being true.

85% of women who get diagnosed don’t have a close female relative with the disease. I put off going to the doctor for a long time because on a conscious level I was telling myself, “Well, why would I have cancer?” And the reality is that anybody can get cancer at any age and it doesn’t have to be a death sentence or even close to it. Breast cancer has great survival rates. If you get diagnosed at stage zero or stage one, it’s almost a 100% survival rate relative to the general population.

As far as a woman who gets diagnosed, I would say you don’t have to decide today what you’re doing; you don’t have to decide what the outcome of this is going to be. You don’t have to be in a rush to figure out what the lesson is. You’re allowed to feel what you feel. This is an opportunity to trust yourself and your intuition. If you want do what your doctor says, cool. If you want to get 20 opinions, cool. You do whatever you want do. A lot of people are going to have a lot of ideas about what you should do, but ultimately only you get to decide that for yourself.  And let people help you.

Along with everything else you do, you co-lead, along with Elle Luna, the #100DayProject. What is that and how did you get involved?

Michael Bierut, a very well known graphic designer, started it as a yearlong personal project.

Every single day he’d open up The New York Times, pick a photograph, and draw something based on the image. A couple of years later, he was teaching a course at Yale, and one of his colleagues said, “Hey, have you thought about doing that thing for your students that you did for yourself?” And oddly enough, the class started on one day and ended exactly 100 days later. So his yearlong project became a 100-Day project for his students.

Elle, who is a very dear friend of mine, had heard about the project and really wanted to do it but she wasn’t at Yale. She was talking with some of her fellow creative friends and they decided to do it themselves on Instagram. They started their own individual projects, collectively using the hashtag #The100DayProject.

#The100DayProject is a free global art experiment that anyone can do. People participate all around the world. The only parameters are to pick an action, do it every single day for 100 days, and to document the process on Instagram with the #The100DayProject and your own unique hashtag so that your posts are easy to find.

Elle has led it every year for the past five years, and I’ve co-led it with her the last two years. That collaboration came about really organically. We were brainstorming different ways to make it more fun and easier for people and we ended up putting together a group program that runs in tandem with the free public version of #The100DayProject.

 

 

Do people find it challenging to commit and follow through on a project for 100 days?

It’s very challenging to make a commitment to yourself. We have limited time and space and resources, many of us, and unlimited pulls on our attention. And I think it’s pretty radical to make that commitment.

Elle and I have done this enough times that we know the cycles. The first day you’re kind of scared, but you’re really excited and it’s like the first day of school. And the first week, it’s like the beginning of the year.

Then you miss a day or two days and enthusiasm ebbs. It’s hard to pick it back up when you’ve missed a day. We learn to be gentle with ourselves.  We learn to let ourselves be human. 

How many people were in the last round?

Hard to say. There are over one million posts on Instagram with the hashtag #The100DayProject and people use other variations of it, so I would venture to guess that there’s quite a bit more than that.

What is the impact of doing a small act, not necessarily a creative act, but a small act every single day and sticking to it? How does it impact your other 265 days of your year?

I think the only way to build creative confidence is to earn it through action. That doesn’t just show up on its own. I think a lot of times people wait to do something until they feel confident enough or good enough or prepared enough, and that day never comes unless you just do it.

People get a lot of different things out of the project, and I think ultimately it’s about figuring out what the purpose is for you. Some people have an outcome that they’re aiming towards, like finishing  a book or having a show or building their portfolio. And that’s great. Some people just want to get better at using a new type of brush or a new type of knitting needle. So they’re really focusing on process. Some people have no idea, and it’s revealed to them through the course of it, or it changes. It’s not uncommon for your goal to change midstream.

Ultimately, I think that there’s a lot to be learned and earned through commitment to yourself and to what matters to you. It’s actually pretty radical to take up space to say I have a right to express myself, to put it out into the world merely because you like it.

One last question. If someone is interested in building community around something that’s important to them, what are three pieces of advice that you would give them?

1. Think about how you want people to feel.

2. Think about what you want them to know or learn as a result, and

3. Think about what you want them to be motivated to do as a result of coming or participating.

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ONE MORE THING…

Do you have “one more quick question” that you’d like to ask Lindsay? Email me and tell me what you want to know! I might choose your question for my ONE MORE THING… Podcast (Coming soon!!!)

---

YOUR #1 CAREER GOAL: ACHIEVED

Do you need some encouragement to help you achieve a big, daunting career goal? Would you like to have a career coach/strategist in your corner—feeding you ideas that you’d never considered before, helping you figure out who to contact, and what to say, and checking in to make sure you don’t procrastinate? If so… click here to find out how we can work together. I’d love to coach you!

Photos: Christine Chang and Regina Felice Garcia.

Whenever I meet someone who’s got a really cool job, who runs a thriving business, or who has completed an amazing project, I always want to know: “How did you do that?”

I’m always curious to hear the “behind-the-scenes story” — who they emailed, what they said, how they got their first client, how they got their foot in the door — the exact steps that they took to achieve their goal.

HOW DID YOU DO THAT? is an interview series where we get to hear the REAL story behind someone’s success—not the polished, neat and tidy version.

To see a complete list of all the interviews that have been completed to date, head over here.

Name: Victoria Mitchell
Location: San Francisco, California
Profession:Placement Manager at Burning Man and Operations Leader

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You described that your life’s work is cultivating the culture of community. Tell me what you mean by that and what that means to you.

I grew up Mormon, and it was just an incredible experience in so many ways. I’m no longer a part of the church, I no longer subscribe to the religion, but the closeness I felt to my family, to the elders in my community, to other families, made me feel very whole. And when my immediate family left the church, there was this missing piece for me.

In addition, I moved a lot growing up, and so, I always had to make new friends, I always had to reinvent myself, and didn’t have that continuous thread of people who knew me my whole life or through every context except for my immediate family.

I’ve only since come to realize this thread has carried forth in everything I’ve done. I think a lot about how disconnected our culture has become and how the influence of technology on our relationships is so powerful. I love technology, but if we don’t think about it in a human-centric way, then we have a very, very strong likelihood of driving ourselves far apart.

I don’t want to be a part of that future, and so, my life’s work is to cultivate that culture of community; that deepest level of knowing and being and doing when we interact and relate, and prioritize connection.

You work to create the mother of all communities, Burning Man. Tell us what you do and how you go about setting up Black Rock City each year, how long it takes, how many people are involved. Just give us the whole picture.

Black Rock City is the largest Burning Man event, one of more than 70 that take place throughout the year. Every year in the late summer we collectively create a city of 70,000 people. It takes place on the Black Rock Desert, which is in Nevada.

There are about 100-year-round folks in the Burning Man headquarters, many hundreds of seasonal paid folks, and then many thousands of volunteers who make Black Rock City happen. The other 60,000-plus people who attend Burning Man are also contributors, though it’s not like a typical festival where you have the staff that put on the entertainment and get the vendors and the food set up and then you show up with your tent or your car and you car-camp. It’s not like that at all. Everyone is a contributor. We’re all citizens of the city that we create together. So, part of that, and part of my role, is working with all of the camps and the people that come to Black Rock City.

There are over 1,500 organized camps, with anywhere between 5 to 400 people per camp. Camp questionnaires are due by the last Thursday in April. When you register, you tell us what you’re bringing to the city, what experiences your camps will provide, what services, what funny weird things, and what kind of visual creations you’ll make. After all the camps register, my team, the Placement Team, looks through all of the information, and creates the map of Black Rock City. We do a very unique city planning exercise each year where we get to create a city. We figure out what kind of neighborhoods we want to build, who will make good neighbors, etc.

It’s kind of like playing Tetris. You have all these different city blocks and you’re like, “Hey, this is a 100 x 100 ft. camp. This is a 300 x 200. This is a 50 x 50.” The team spends two full weekends mapping the city using pencil and paper. The city’s divided into sectors, so each sector team does their mapping and puts their area together, and all together, that makes Black Rock City.

You obviously get to Black Rock City way in advance of the actual event. How early do you get there and what takes place before the people arrive?

I get there by the beginning of August. Our Department of Public Works are the infrastructure creators of Black Rock City. They also do the initial survey of the whole place. Where is the Man, which is the center of our city, where are the major points that this event can take place in this desert?

And then another team I oversee, the Flagging Team, puts in all of the little survey flags for every single camp. Last year, a team of about 10 people put over 18,000 survey flags into the ground over about three weeks. It’s like taking that Tetris and making it real. It’s an amazing feeling when it all starts coming to life.

The Placement Team’s job is to place each camp. So, when the first arrivers of each camp come, we show them to their spot, we show them their boundaries of the space. They bring everything to fill it in and to create the experience.

Is there an internal political system? Do people end up jockeying for power?

There’s no political system, we don’t have a mayor or elections or anything like that. We have what we call Rangers, who are essentially a community-based force for good. They’re folks who can do conflict resolution, who can handle a sensitive issue, or help someone who’s struggling. So, they’re always around; they’re a community resource. We also have emergency services, a hospital and an airport; basically all the things that a large city would have.

And people bring their own food, so you don’t have to worry about that.

Yes. One of our principles is Radical Self Reliance. We pretty much just set the platform for engagement and then people make it happen. I like to think of it as a co-created city.

Burning Man’s been around since 1986 so it’s had a long evolution. We’re now a non-profit spreading our culture through the global network of people affiliated with Burning Man,  civic art installations, education programs and the other events around the world that I spoke about. Black Rock City is a big push for us.

How does it feel to build all of this and then to have it destroyed? Is that difficult?

I find it beautiful. I really love it. I think impermanence teaches us a lot. One of our principles is Gifting, so, the experience of gifting something and then having that kind of evaporate into the ether just really reinforces why we give and that giving doesn’t have to be connected to getting. When the get isn’t there and you don’t get to keep the gift, you really just give to give it. It’s pretty fascinating.

What happens after it is done?

We debrief and then we take a deep breath and start again.

 

What were you were doing before you joined the team at Burning Man?

I was the Director of Operations at Zesty, a catering start-up in the Bay Area. They were recently acquired by Square. We served about 50,000 meals a week at the time I left. I was there since the early days and oversaw the operations support, our workforce, inventory, and did a lot of people management.

There’s been a lot written in the past few years about all the money that’s arriving at Black Rock City, the airports and the helicopters and the beautiful tents. How do you feel about that, how does that impact the whole experience?

It’s been interesting. Festival culture has really taken off to a new popularity level in the last five or so years, and so those impacts are bigger than Burning Man. One of our principles is Radical Inclusion, and how we evolve is a really tough question that our community’s been grappling with. I think about it on a cultural level, and I’m doing some strategic work around how we figure it all out. I don’t necessarily have the right answer.

When I was at the American Planning Association’s Conference last fall with California city planners from all over the state, issues such as gentrification, class change, homelessness were the topics everyone was talking about and dealing with. I don’t think I talked to single person who could have said that it wasn’t impacting their community.

I’m really interested in how Black Rock City learns from, teaches and has relationships with, other places that are experimenting and trying to figure out that balance of the diversity of a community that makes it what it is, but also embraces impermanence and changes.

I read a description of you on your LinkedIn profile, that you are good mix between a unicorn and a lion. I thought it was one of the best lines I had ever read. Does it describe you? Is that how you would describe yourself?

A Colleague from Zesty wrote that about me. I think it’s pretty accurate.

I tend to throw myself into things, get things done. I try to be courageous whenever I can and confront my fear or at least notice it. Sometimes it’s hard to actually push through it, but I like to at least sit with it. So that is the lion part of me. And the unicorn, I think, is the magic of how I view the world and how I’ve woven together all the people in my life and the experiences I’ve had.

What are your favorite parts of Burning Man and your least favorite?

I just like being able to build things, and so that’s a big one. And, the people. I’ve really found the most important people of my life through my connections in the Burning Man world. I also love watching the different types of communities go through their cycles: watch them build, watch them grow, and watch them dismantle everything at the end.

I think something I don’t like is the workaholic culture that comes along with building something as massive as Black Rock City. I struggle with overworking, and I have my whole life. It is very easily fed out there. We do a lot, we got a lot done, but people burn out, people hit rock bottom.

I also sometimes struggle balancing the party atmosphere of Burning Man with the contemplative aspects. It’s easy to fall into extremes at Burning Man and navigating that can be tough.

When you’re having a really hard day, how do you get through it? What do you do to deal with it?

I have a whole series of grounding rituals that I do that have evolved over time. And so, if I’m having a hard day, I will pull something out of that repertoire, to help get me back to what’s important.

I’m very committed to my daily meditation practice. Every morning, I have a whole series of things that I do: I stretch for five minutes; I breathe into my belly, and then I flip and I breathe on my back; then I meditate; and then I write down my intentions for the day.

The other way that I focus on this is I zoom out a lot. I’ll think of myself when I’m 90. I’ll just close my eyes and I’ll picture 90-year-old Victoria looking back at me, with all kinds of compassion.
She’s very wise, that future me.

One last question. If someone wants to cultivate an intentional community, whether it’s a work space, a Facebook group, or living with a lot of people, what are three pieces of advice you would give them?

I love this question.

1. You can’t do it alone.

No matter what kind of community you want to form, consider it a participatory process. How can you involve other people? How can you lean on participatory process tools to help you through tough conversations, through decision-making, and create something that other folks feel connected to and want to be a part of?

2. Stay focused on your why.

There will be those hard times, those knockout, drag-out fights, those moments when you’re thinking, “Why am I even doing this? What’s the point?” And so, write down your why, let it evolve, and come back to it. It will be a little bit different for everybody who is engaged in your community, but it is important to stay focused on why you are there in the first place.

3. Pay attention to the tactical side of things.

Figure out who is going to be in leadership roles, who is going to be accountable for taking on different aspects of projects, who will determine how you’re going to move everything forward. You need some structure when you’re involving a lot of people. I’ve witnessed so many communities come and go, and rise and fall. Sometimes they fall apart almost perfectly. It was the end of the road. There was nowhere further to go. But sometimes they fall apart because they just weren’t organized enough. And I think that one’s totally preventable.

 

To learn more about Victoria- check out her website: https://www.victoriamitchell.me or follow her on Instagram at @hivictoriam.

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ONE MORE THING…

Do you have “one more quick question” that you’d like to ask Victoria? Email me and tell me what you want to know! I might choose your question for my ONE MORE THING… Podcast (Coming soon!!!)

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YOUR #1 CAREER GOAL: ACHIEVED

Do you need some encouragement to help you achieve a big, daunting career goal? Would you like to have a career coach/strategist in your corner—feeding you ideas that you’d never considered before, helping you figure out who to contact, and what to say, and checking in to make sure you don’t procrastinate? If so… click here to find out how we can work together. I’d love to coach you!

Whenever I meet someone who’s got a really cool job, who runs a thriving business, or who has completed an amazing project, I always want to know: “How did you do that?”

I’m always curious to hear the “behind-the-scenes story” — who they emailed, what they said, how they got their first client, how they got their foot in the door — the exact steps that they took to achieve their goal.

HOW DID YOU DO THAT? is an interview series where we get to hear the REAL story behind someone’s success—not the polished, neat and tidy version.

To see a complete list of all the interviews that have been completed to date, head over here.

Name: Natalie and Dave Sideserf
Location: Austin, Texas
Profession: Cake sculptors

Cake artist Natalie Sideserf is based in Austin Texas. She works with her husband, Dave Sideserf at their bakery, Sideserf Cake Studio, where they make some of the most intricate cake sculptures in the world. I serendipitously came upon an article about them and their amazing creations, and I knew I just had to interview them. They did not disappoint.

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There are thousands of bakers and bakeries in the world, but you two have developed a very interesting twist on the whole thing. Severed heads, anatomical horrors. Did you wake up one day and say, “I want to make a cake of a unicorn farting a rainbow” ? Tell us how you got started and how your career evolved.

I was an art major in college, with a concentration in painting. After I graduated, a friend of mine mentioned that she had seen a bunch of TV shows where people were making these crazy cakes. She told me to try it and I did! So we made a cow skull cake. She helped me, but it was pretty much me just trying to dive in and see what I could do, having no prior experience working with cake. I immediately felt drawn using cake artistry as a way to create.

What drew you to making these very quirky cakes?

I am drawn to the aspect of pop culture that’s a little bit off or that some people may call strange. Dave’s always been into horror movies. That’s where our severed head wedding cake came from. Our work is a combination of making other people happy by baking these interesting cakes and then also a little bit of me just finding these different creations fascinating.

As I started putting out cakes that I thought were interesting, I started getting orders that were unique. The customers were actually placing orders for these hypre-realistic cakes (for example someone ordered the unicorn farting a rainbow!), which was nice, because then I got to make it!

Austin, Texas is a perfect place for us to live to because the moniker here is to keep Austin weird. So hopefully we’re doing that.

When your friend said “Oh, I saw this on TV, you should try it,” was there something that just appealed to you and struck a little chord? Were you a baker?

I wasn’t a baker. But I was so used to trying out different art media, I already had the experience of teaching myself how to do things. You have to get your hands on it and you have to figure it out. So whether I’m using plaster, clay or wire, I’m sculpting with found materials. I just treated it like that. Now I’m sculpting with food. It just felt so comfortable to just experiment with cake and see what I could do with it.

I love that you just went for it. Were there other people in the field doing this or did you just start this new art form?

It’s a little hard to say. One of my very first sculpted cakes was a replica of Willie Nelson, that I made for a cake competition. And when I made that, I really had no idea what I was doing. I learned while I was working on it. In typical artist fashion, I researched other people in the field to see what they were doing. Not surprisingly I couldn’t find any bust cakes at the time. So I decided to just go for it. I studied traditional busts in clay because referencing images in other mediums is really important. Then I had to figure out how to do it with chocolate and cake. I don’t know if I was the first one to ever make cakes like this, but it really wasn’t out there when I started.

We also started calling ourselves Sideserf Cake Studio, because we wanted to delineate between a traditional bakery and what we do, which is a little bit more of an artistic angle. And at that time, when we were coming up with the name, we couldn’t find any other cake studios, or dessert studios. But now cake studios are pretty common.

Are there other people making these very realistic cakes and sculpting? Has this become a thing?

Each year more and more people seem to be getting inspired. People reach out to me all the time saying, “Wow, I had no idea that you could do this with cake,” and that I inspire them to try to get more involved in this art form. That said, there aren’t as many as I think there will be in another 10 years.

Interestingly, we are seeing the crossover from special effects makeup artists over to cake. You can airbrush a food color. That’s a big deal in special effects. The whole gore aspect translates really well.

How did people start to find you? How long were you struggling until you started getting steady business?

In 2012, after I started Sideserf Cake Studio, the Willie Nelson cake went viral. My brother, who lives in Tokyo, posted an image on Reddit. And then once it went viral, I thought “Okay I think I’m onto something. People really are interested in this. So if this cake circled the world and people are reaching out to me, I’ve got something that I can do.” So that was when I started the business. But it was a slow process. It wasn’t like all of a sudden one day everybody came knocking at our door.

How long does it typically take for you to make a cake from start to finish?

Every cake is different, so while some things are similar throughout each creation, they’re all originals.

I’ve found so many different ways of saving time. Dave was a software developer before he quit to join the business, and we really approach the process much like software development. There are phases. There’s a sales phase, then there’s a design phase, and then a build phase, and then there’s a finishing touches kind of phase. We really break it down and we kind of go back and forth. We have all these systems that we use and we task things out to each other that are all related to a particular order. I give myself a window of time to keep the cake fresh, so it’s probably about three days before delivery where I just have to work really, really hard, long hours to get the cake done.

You do a show for the Food Network called ‘The Texas Cake House’. Is that an ongoing program?

There was two seasons. Right now, we don’t have plans to do more, but we do have other filming projects in the works.

We also do YouTube videos that show how we go through each stage of our process. People can’t really wrap their heads around how these cakes are made, so putting out YouTube videos and doing shows on TV answers those questions. People really seem to like it.

The YouTube videos are based on actual orders. They educate and also serve as great advertisements. People can buy their cake and then they can see it being made after it’s delivered. The person that ordered the Wolverine cake can has a permanent keepsake.

Life is filled with ups and downs and starting a creative business can be overwhelming. When you look back over the last 10 years, what was one of your most discouraging experiences? What happened and how did you get through it?

There are moments that are obviously much harder than others, and since we’re husband and wife, I think that there’s honesty and a relationship that most business partners don’t have. Whether that’s good or bad, depends. We almost always agree but when we don’t, trying to work through that is kind of tough.

Dave had a really great job. He was a director at a software company and when he quit, we realized that we had to go all in with the cake business. And that was when the Food Network show started, and that transition was just pretty wild. It was scary because it was quite a leap.

It was like being on the edge of a diving board and then jumping into the pool without really knowing whether there was water in it.

Who are your heroes? Who do you really admire?

Trey Parker, Matt Stone, the guys that made South Park. Mike Judge, the guy that made Office Space and Beavis and Butthead and Silicon Valley. We love their outlandish style, of course, but what’s best about those guys is they just do what they know works.

I also like to look up special effects makeup artists. I’ve always liked Ron Mueck. When I was in college, I saw Evan Penny had a series that was going in the local art museum. When I saw his hyper-realtistic work on these really large-scale, faces, I found them so interesting.

Let’s say somebody really wants to have an unconventional career like you do, but they feel that there’s no possible way to make a living doing something that they love. What are three pieces of advice or words of encouragement you would give them?

1. Surround yourself with positive people who are taking chances. It is awesome to bounce ideas back and forth, Whether they’re having successful moments or hard times, it’s great to have that conversation and know that you’re all in the same boat.

2. Feel the fear and do it anyway. You will always find yourself in uncomfortable situations, but remember it gets more comfortable the more you do it.

3. Don’t let the day to day of running the business ever stop you from working on your art and your passions. Always remember why you started doing your work in the first place.  That will get you through the hard moments.

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Sideserf Cake Studio is also the focal point of the series Texas Cake House on Food Network. For more information about the series and to get an inside look at some of Natalie and Dave’s killer creations, visit Food Network.

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ONE MORE THING…

Do you have “one more quick question” that you’d like to ask Natalie and Dave? Email me and tell me what you want to know! I might choose your question for my ONE MORE THING… Podcast (Coming soon!!!)

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YOUR #1 CAREER GOAL: ACHIEVED

Do you need some encouragement to help you achieve a big, daunting career goal? Would you like to have a career coach/strategist in your corner—feeding you ideas that you’d never considered before, helping you figure out who to contact, and what to say, and checking in to make sure you don’t procrastinate? If so… click here to find out how we can work together. I’d love to coach you!

Whenever I meet someone who’s got a really cool job, who runs a thriving business, or who has completed an amazing project, I always want to know: “How did you do that?”

I’m always curious to hear the “behind-the-scenes story” — who they emailed, what they said, how they got their first client, how they got their foot in the door — the exact steps that they took to achieve their goal.

HOW DID YOU DO THAT? is an interview series where we get to hear the REAL story behind someone’s success—not the polished, neat and tidy version.

To see a complete list of all the interviews that have been completed to date, head over here.

Name: Meral Arik
Location: San Francisco
Profession: Founding Team Member & Growth Lead at Hello Chava, Founder of DOER Society

Meral Arik is a go-getter in every sense of the word. She is a founding team member and Growth Lead of Hello Chava (B-Corp), a technology startup using AI to power client relationships for solo entrepreneurs. Her popular instagram @my.startuplife is the first of its kind, documenting the day-to-day experiences of a young woman building a tech startup in Silicon Valley.

Meral is also founder of DOER Society, a fast-growing entrepreneurial community for women. She built this active community on the firm belief that real, shared experiences are the best way to improve & scale mentorship.

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You are a busy woman. And VERY motivated. You seem to work 24/7. You are working in a startup called Hello Chava and are also the Founder of DOER Society. First things first. Tell us a little about your career path. How did you end up working at Hello Chava? What exactly do you do and are the steps you took to get this job?

I got to where I am today by putting myself out there and taking chances. I started my entrepreneurial endeavors with a dog walking business at 8 years old. Fast forward a decade and I co-founded an events & ticketing company during my time at UCLA. Though that company didn’t go too far, the lessons I learned did— and by the time I decided to shut that company down (towards the end of my junior year), I was more determined than ever to find my way into the startup scene.

I started reaching out to founders/CEOs in the LA area, offering to help them with anything from marketing, business development, and growth/ partnerships to coffee delivery. I was ignored by what felt like hundreds of founders, until one day, I “lucked out”: the CEO of one of Mark Cuban’s companies, Dust (fka Cyber Dust), responded to my cold LinkedIn InMail and the rest was history.

I spent the next year working at Dust, where I learned lessons about building companies that I couldn’t learn in the classroom. Throughout that year, I made sure that on top of working and successfully completing my senior year, I was networking as much as I possibly could. That was the year I met Zac Choi, a brilliant McKinsey alum who was still ideating Hello Chava at the time.

When the time came to make a decision on “what I was doing with my life,” I was almost certain I would start my own company until I took a trip to SF, met up with Zac and his cofounder, Leonard. I fell in love with their vision for Hello Chava, and eagerly agreed to join their team as employee #1. Today, I lead user acquisition and growth at Hello Chava, and I couldn’t be more excited to roll my sleeves up and hustle hard everyday in our quest to make the world a better place.

You started DOER Society in 2017. It is a community of mostly women who share their experiences, learn from each other and grow together. You presently have over 1700 members in your Facebook group. I have noticed that there seems to be a hunger for women to join together in community: coworking centers, Facebook groups, gatherings of all sorts. Was this the motivation behind starting DOER society? Do you have a specific goal for this project? What is it? Where are you at, right now, in terms of reaching that goal?

I built DOER Society because I wholeheartedly believe in the power of community. I’ve seen the crucial role that community (i.e. networking, mentorship) has played in accelerating and enhancing my professional career. I’ve also felt the negative impact of the lack of community that comes with the entrepreneur’s journey.

My goal is to build a positive, friendship-first community that provides massive personal and professional value for entrepreneurial women. We currently have a Facebook group, newsletter, interview series, website, and exclusive member opportunities (like this year’s partnership with Startup Grind, where we brought 55+ female founders to the Startup Grind Global Conference). I’m proud to say we are currently growing our early team and getting some more exciting partnerships together! That said, how DOER Society takes shape over the years will be up to the community. Stay tuned!

Can you share one piece of advice for someone who’s thinking about starting a side project like the DOER society?

Do what you love and play to your strengths. When it’s time to grow, find a team that believes in what you’re doing and complements your strengths.

A lot of things happened in order for you to get the job yu have now. Were there any moments along the journey that felt discouraging, stressful, where you felt worried, or where your attitude went into a negative place? What happened? How did you get your attitude back on track?

My toughest obstacle has always been myself. I constantly dream big and push my limits. Though in many ways this works to my advantage, I also spend a lot of time feeling like I’m not good enough, fast enough, doing enough, etc., as a result.

Whenever I catch myself feeling overwhelmed or in a state of self-doubt, I do a few things to get back on track:

• Give myself credit for what I HAVE done. As an overachiever, it’s important to get in the habit of stepping back and putting things into perspective.

• Prioritize! I often find that my negative feelings stem from trying to do too much at once, while mentally assigning equal importance to every single thing I’m trying to accomplish. I combat these feelings by asking myself the question: “what one or two things MUST I get done today?” This exercise reminds me to focus my time on the tasks that will have the greatest impact- and that I am in control of my work, my life, and my attitude.

• Talk it out with a trusted source. A conversation with a friend, family member, team member, or DOER Society member always does the trick!

You are still so young (23!!) and at the beginning of your career and life journey. So far, so much of what has unfolded for you is part serendipity and part grit. Is this the path you see yourself on 10 years from now? Or do you have other dreams and plans in mind? If you had a crystal ball, what do you see yourself doing in 10 years?

First things first, I see Hello Chava becoming wildly successful. Since we’re an early stage startup, this will require a few more years of fantastic growth – I really believe we’ll get there!

10 years from now, I’d love to find more ways to empower others at scale whether that’s through DOER Society, investing, speaking, etc.

Rapid fire round! (1-2 word answers!!) What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

Business Podcasts

What’s the last TV show or book that you really, really enjoyed?

HBO’s Silicon Valley

Who is your #1 hero?

Zac! (Hello Chava Co-founder)

What’s something you always carry around in your purse or pocket?

Black eyeliner

If someone looked in your fridge right now, what would they see?

Peanut Butter

Do you prefer typing or writing by hand?

Typing

What is your favorite smartphone app?

Hello Chava, of course!

What is one habit you’d like to change?

More exercise

3 THINGS

If you were to sit down with a newly minted college graduate who wants to find work she loves, what are the 3 things you would tell her?

1. NETWORK, network, network.
Put yourself out there, meet with people that inspire you, and stay close to people you want to be like.

2. Give value without expecting anything in return.
There’s good business karma.

3. Fail fast and fail often.
Experiment with different opportunities, and when one doesn’t work out, pick yourself up and go for it again. You have time.

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ONE MORE THING…

Do you have “one more quick question” that you’d like to ask Meral? Email me and tell me what you want to know! I might choose your question for my ONE MORE THING… Podcast (Coming soon!!!)

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YOUR #1 CAREER GOAL: ACHIEVED

Do you need some encouragement to help you achieve a big, daunting career goal? Would you like to have a career coach/strategist in your corner—feeding you ideas that you’d never considered before, helping you figure out who to contact, and what to say, and checking in to make sure you don’t procrastinate? If so… click here to find out how we can work together. I’d love to coach you!

 

photos by Sergio Gomez

Whenever I meet someone who’s got a really cool job, who runs a thriving business, or who has completed an amazing project, I always want to know: “How did you do that?”

I’m always curious to hear the “behind-the-scenes story” — who they emailed, what they said, how they got their first client, how they got their foot in the door — the exact steps that they took to achieve their goal.

HOW DID YOU DO THAT? is an interview series where we get to hear the REAL story behind someone’s success—not the polished, neat and tidy version.

To see a complete list of all the interviews that have been completed to date, head over here.

Name: Katrina Mcghee
Location: On the road
Profession: Life Coach

Katrina McGhee is a life coach who recently sold all of her worldly goods, stuffed her car with the bare essentials, and is now on a journey to find her next home.  This is not the first time that Katrina has taken major time off for a BIG adventure.  I recently talked to her about what it is like to take these big jumps and to live on the road. We could all use a little of Katrina’s adventurous spirit!

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Your life has been quite a journey. You have had 3 big careers, taken major time off for some BIG adventures and are now on the road, trying to find your next home. Tell us a bit about your career path.

My career path has taken several big twists and turns. I was grateful and excited to start my first career as a healthcare actuary right out of undergrad. I have to admit – I had no idea what an actuary was, but I knew that it paid quite well. Within my first year, though, I realized it wasn’t where I wanted to end up.

After 8 years of bouncing around at 3 different companies, I finally had the courage to leave the profession completely. I headed to UNC to get my MBA and hoped to switch to a new career. That opportunity came with an offer to work as a market researcher for General Mills post-graduation. It was a good opportunity but less than 8 months in, it became very clear to me that the corporate culture was not where I wanted to be.

This led to a chain of events that culminated in taking a 20-month career break and eventually choosing to start my third career as a life coach, helping others who have struggled, like I had, with deviating from a traditional career path.

Does taking risks come naturally to you or have you had to build the muscle?

Taking risks comes more naturally to me these days, but courage was definitely a muscle I had to build. I remember my first big risk. I had a “good” job offer coming out of undergrad. It was going to pay $38,000 which was a huge amount of money to me at that time. But the job was in Hartford, Connecticut and I desperately wanted to get out of New England. In fact, I was obsessed with moving to Atlanta to start my next chapter.

So after delaying the decision for over a month, I turned the job down. My mom freaked out a little and I worried that I would disappoint my parents (and myself) by ending up jobless when I graduated. But a few weeks later, something magical happened – a recruiter found me online (an anomaly back then) and gave me a chance to interview for a position in Atlanta. A few weeks later, I landed the job with a signing bonus, a relocation package AND a starting salary of $45,000. Sometimes we can’t see the way ahead, but I’ve learned to listen when my inner voice makes demands. Things will unfold that you could never have seen coming.

Once you make up your mind, do you second guess yourself?

When I make important decisions, they are very thoughtful so I tend not to doubt my decision once it’s made. I do, however, sometimes struggle with doubt about my own abilities and/or worry about the outcome. Like when I decided to turn the Hartford job down, I knew it was the right decision.

I knew I didn’t want to stay in New England and that I really wanted to move to Atlanta. But once the decision was made, I definitely had moments of doubt and panic about not being able to find another job. I think when you’re facing the unknown, it can be hard to have unshakable faith. I just have an agreement with myself to not let the fear and self-doubt stop me from doing the things I need to do.

One of the goals of this present journey you are on is to find a new city to call home. What are some of the top places on your list? Will you know it when you see it?

That’s a great question – I’m not sure if I’ll know it when I see it or not, but I definitely hope so! Finding a sense of alignment, like a “Yes – I must live here!” feeling is definitely part of my criteria, but I’m not sure if that will happen immediately.

I’m staying open to the possibilities and would consider trying a few places out for several months if there’s not a clear winner after this experience is over. There are quite a few cities on my list but some of the highlights include: Santa Fe, Boise, Kansas City, Bend, Pittsburgh, Greenville and Salt Lake City.

How do you incorporate your work into your life style?

I’m currently learning a lot about that as I go. While I was able to work two jobs almost seamlessly over the past 2 years, I’m finding that constantly being on the road has made it tough to really focus on building my business. I’ve recently come to realize that while I believe it should be “easy” – it’s just not. And that’s okay. So right now, I’m experimenting to find a better balance.

I’m committing to having fun without doing any work AND also spending one day each week focused on my business. It’s a learning curve for sure and I’m learning so much about myself and my work style in the process. Right now, I have 5 clients enrolled in my Massive Momentum program, so I generally work out my travel schedule around those appointments. This group is my highest priority right now, so I’m flexible to accommodate this them.

Has traveling changed you and if yes, how?

YES. One thousand times yes. In so many ways. I didn’t have the opportunity to travel abroad growing up so my first international trip wasn’t until I was 29 years old. But once I got started, I couldn’t stop.

I think one of the things I love most about travel is that I’m always learning. I think one of the biggest benefits travel has given me is the ability to truly be present. When you’re on the road, a lot of the small things we get too wrapped up in during our day to day (e.g. laundry, cleaning, doing dishes, managing paperwork, etc.) just kind of disappears. There are many moments were you can just be still and observe. My mind is really active and always jumping around, so the ability to just be present and not sweating the small stuff is such a gift.

A lot of people don’t always talk about the challenges, but travel can also be really difficult. Especially if you choose to travel on a budget where you will be more immersed in the local culture (e.g. taking public transit, eating at local restaurants where the staff might not speak English, etc.). These moments have really stretched me and allowed me to see how capable I truly am. To be sure, they have been hard, scary and uncomfortable. But I always come out okay. And that has been a really meaningful lesson to learn. I can do hard things and I will be okay at the end of the day.

Do your clients dream of selling everything and leaving it all behind or are most people somewhere in between that?

I think a lot of people dream of selling everything and leaving it behind. My clients are no exception. That said, when it comes to reality, it’s not a genuine aspiration for most. It’s more the fantasy of stripping life down to just the essentials and finding more simplicity and less expectation in life. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to purge your way down to nothing.

That said, I do think the idea of bringing it back to the basics and uncomplicating your life is motivating concept for many and one worth pursuing. I think somewhere along the way, we’re taught that consuming more stuff / having more stuff is what will ultimately bring happiness and satisfaction in life. But that’s simply not true. In fact, it keeps us distracted from the things that really matter most, like living a life with purpose and passion.

Pretend you’re sitting down for coffee with a woman who wants to make a radical change in her life but feels for emotional or financial reasons that she just can’t. What are three pieces of advice that you’d give her?

1. Seek inspiration.

It’s important to surround yourself with stories of what is really possible. Many times our big goals feel impossible, but someone somewhere has already done the thing we really want to do. Listening to their stories and advice allows us to begin believing in the possibility for ourselves. Books, blogs and podcasts are great places to start. Inspiration goes a long way to make big dreams come true.

2. Get your finances in order.

This doesn’t mean you have to become debt-free, build a 6-month nest and start investing before you make a big change. I actually took my 20-month career break with more than $40,000 in student loan debt. But the fear of not having enough money is a universal fear that keeps people stuck. By becoming intimately aware of your true financial situation, you can reclaim your power and reduce the fear. Start tracking exactly what you spend each month and see where you might want to make some changes.

3. Get support.

This can take many forms but is a crucial step to getting unstuck. I actually hired a life coach back when I felt trapped in my corporate job with General Mills. Her perspective and leadership really helped me see new possibilities for myself. I love providing this support to my own clients and I often use my past experiences to help inform and guide them. If hiring a coach is not your thing, then consider finding a peer group of like-minded people (virtually or in real life), take a course in a subject of interest or simply find an accountability partner you can check in with to keep yourself on track.

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ONE MORE THING…

Do you have “one more quick question” that you’d like to ask Katrina? Email me and tell me what you want to know! I might choose your question for my ONE MORE THING… Podcast (Coming soon!!!)

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YOUR #1 CAREER GOAL: ACHIEVED

Do you need some encouragement to help you achieve a big, daunting career goal? Would you like to have a career coach/strategist in your corner—feeding you ideas that you’d never considered before, helping you figure out who to contact, and what to say, and checking in to make sure you don’t procrastinate? If so… click here to find out how we can work together. I’d love to coach you!