27 | How a 20-Minute Café Chat Changed Everything

I planned a quiet, focused café work session. The universe planned a new friend, a TEDx invite, and a whole cascade of opportunities—because I chose curiosity over control. 

In this episode, my guest and new friend, KB, and I talk life design, radical responsibility, and why saying yes to a 20-minute conversation can do more than weeks of “productivity” grind. We get into feminine receiving, pattern-disruptors, and building a life that feels like yours, even if it means being wildly misunderstood on purpose.

If you’re a high-achiever who’s tired of hustling for crumbs, this one’s your permission slip: let it be easier, let it be fun, and answer the door when opportunity knocks. Stay bold, stay balanced, and I’ll see you next week.

About the guest:

KB has spent the last decade working across every corner of marketing and advertising—from leading strategy as a Marketing Director, to consulting on the agency side, to advising brands and agencies in adtech. She now runs her own consulting business, where she brings a holistic, solutions-oriented approach to helping brands thrive. Known as a “conductor of an orchestra,” KB ensures every channel, from social and search to programmatic and traditional media, works in harmony toward one goal.

Connect with KB here:

- LinkedIn

- Website

Love the pod and want more?

The Weekly Brew is your behind-the-scenes voice note from Carly - think real stories, health tips, quick hits of wisdom, and the occasional tough love to help you stay bold, balanced, and moving forward.

📩 Click here to get it delivered straight to your inbox.

Transcript

0:00:05 - (Carly): Welcome to Coffee with Carly, your weekly wake up call to a happier, healthier life. I'm your host, Carly Shade, and I'm here to uncover how good life can get. Today's episode vibe is all about life's greatest surprises and how they usually appear only once we let go of control. So this guest is someone who I feel like I've really known forever, and yet we only just met a week ago, right? But sometimes the universe comes knocking with a beautiful, beautiful opportunity, but you're too focused on what you had in mind to answer it, right? So a planned afternoon of focused dialed in work in a coffee shop turned into an unexpected friendship and exciting new opportunities.

0:01:02 - (Carly): But only once I allowed myself to let go of my plan. Okay, I could have chosen another seat. You'll hear the the story in the beginning in a second. But like, I could have chosen another seat. I could have left the coffee shop entirely because this woman was so distracting to me. But instead I thought, maybe I'm supposed to be distracted by this woman. And I leaned into this feeling. And a week later, she's here in my house and we're attending a woman's TEDx networking event later for my entrepreneur coaching business.

0:01:34 - (Carly): And then also my fiance happened to land a catering gig for another TEDx Women's event in November. Success, progress, achievements, opportunities, they don't always have to come from hustle and from force and production. And this is a lesson that it has taken me a long time to unlearn, right? I was very in my head, I was very in my masculine, especially for a lot of you overachieving women, right? Like, don't let go of your ambitions.

0:02:04 - (Carly): But what if we can shift to realize that I'm a woman, I'm feminine. The feminine energy is also to receive. And I don't mean you just have to wear skirts and all that. I'm talking about true science of energetics. You are. Therefore, you get to receive, but we have to let it. We have to get better at being open to surprises, being open to abundance, being open to the reality that sometimes it doesn't have to be really, really hard, right? What if things get to come to you? What if you get to become a frequency where you magnetize the opportunities that you want, right?

0:02:47 - (Carly): What if life gets to be fun? And one conversation, one 20 minute conversation for me opened up weeks worth of what quote, unquote, focused energy might have done, right? We are very often stuck in this productivity trap, right? I need to do my emails, I need to do this thing, blah, blah, Blah. And then all of a sudden, instead, 20 minutes, a conversation. I had a lot of fun. I met a new friend and we landed a massive gig. So all of this, though, has to come with getting comfortable with the unexpected, leaning into these little bits of distraction and surprises and this idea of navigating the discomforts, allowing ourselves to be surprised, moving in the uncertainty is a massive theme in today's episode.

0:03:37 - (Carly): So we're gonna dive in now. I hope you enjoy it. But just a reminder, like, let the universe surprise you. What if life gets to be fun? What if work gets to be easy? And what if the universe really does want to spoil us, but we just have to answer the door? Enjoy. I love you. This is my fiance's, by the way. This is not mine. It's not my vibe, but here I am, like the fucking Zen master about to interview you.

0:04:08 - (Carly): Okay, well, so excited to have you. Kb, thank you for making the trek up here. First guest ever in person, in my cozy little office, doubling as a recording studio. How are ya?

0:04:20 - (KB): So good. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's so cozy in here. Got the real setup. I love it.

0:04:25 - (Carly): Thank you. Yeah, I mean, the vibes are everything. If you feel good, you're gonna succeed.

0:04:30 - (KB): Agreed.

0:04:31 - (Carly): So I wanna just dive in. We met a week ago. Literally a week ago to the day. Today.

0:04:37 - (KB): Yeah.

0:04:38 - (Carly): And we were at a shared table in a cafe and there was a few buzzwords within, like, seconds of sitting down. I was trying not to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help myself. You project well. And so you were talking. It was pretty obvious you were figuring out some flights. And I think you were on the phone with like, Chase or whatever. You were navigating some flight issues, which led to. You told me that you're about to go on a two month sabbatical in like, I don't know, five days.

0:05:05 - (Carly): So let's just start there. Like, where are you going? What prompted this trip? Are you still working? How do we do that?

0:05:12 - (KB): Yeah, so I recently left my ad tech job to kind of pursue contracting because it was always in my master plan to do a sabbatical for my 30th. So I turned 30 in October. And I had wanted to do like, Central America, Caribbean, do a little bit of backpacking and things like that. So, yeah, I leave in about a week or so, two months all over the Caribbean and Central America. So basically every single country except Haiti, Nicaragua, and Honduras.

0:05:38 - (KB): And really what prompted it is it's already been a part of kind of like this idea of like the Designing of a life. Right. I wanted to make sure when I was really young that my life's ambition would be to travel the whole world super hard. You know, ambition when you think about like how much of square footage there is to cover on this earth. And so I realized that if I kind of broke it into different like regional junkets, it became a lot easier to tackle those travels and like more bite sized pieces.

0:06:05 - (KB): So when I graduated from, from Purdue, I moved out to Denver so I could do like Texas and Arizona and Utah and obviously Colorado and all like the southwest kind of travels. And then I moved to Seattle to kind of conquer the Northwest. So California, Oregon, you know, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and then Hawaiian, Alaska. It's a really easy launch pad. So I'm moving to Miami because that's obviously a really easy springboard to do Central America in the Caribbean and then hopefully eventually while I'm there, also South America. America. So the sabbatical was really just like I knew for my 30th it would be a really big milestone and by then I would have completed 10 years in corporate America. And so I just wanted to give myself both like the freedom and autonomy with my contracting role to kind of be able to pick up and do that sabbatical and just make sure that I kind of lived life a little lawless.

0:06:53 - (Carly): I love that, that very strategic, like life design because yeah, you had mentioned again we had like a 20 minute conversation, but there was just these little nuggets and I was like, let's just talk about this in a week. So you said, yeah, you have this life plan to move every four years and that's going to help you conquer the world.

0:07:12 - (KB): It originally started that way. The timelines I think been a little bit more compressed just because obviously traveling is very income based. Right. You need to have enough money obviously to travel. And lucky for me, I've always been really, really good and intentional with my finances. And so I originally had to spend, you know, four years in Denver because based on when you're first out of college, right. You don't actually have as much maybe discretionary income.

0:07:34 - (KB): And then the four years in Seattle was because there's so much to do here in the Pacific Northwest, I'm hoping that I don't need to spend at all four years in Miami. I'm hoping I can maybe conquer it in a little less time. But I kind of did that. Because you spent high school in college four years and at the time it just made sense to kind of like put that same junket of time for, like, places that I lived.

0:07:53 - (KB): So the number of years doesn't necessarily matter. It's just once I'm able to actually complete. Complete those travels, then I'll move on to kind of the next city with hopefully New York being the one after Miami. So I can finish up all of the northeast and then like Canada and be done with North America and South America. Cool.

0:08:08 - (Carly): What an awesome plan. And so, okay, travel. Travel is obviously what first sparked this conversation. You have traveled a lot. You're going solo. Correct. For that whole two months and travel. Right. I mean, a lot of you guys know my listeners. I worked at a travel agency for eight years. You know, I have done a lot of travel. And when I was thinking about this kind of conversation for you, it sounds like you've had this goal for a really long time.

0:08:36 - (Carly): Which do you think happened first? Or, I'm curious, your relationship, almost like the cart before the horse of your love of travel. And then because you've started your own business, you've left jobs, you've moved, you've done any one of those things is an accomplishment for a lot of people in a whole lifetime. So do you think that it's like you were just kind of born or nurtured or whatever it is, this love of travel and then that's kind of spiraled into you taking a leap in your career world or what do you think the relationship is with travel and kind of this, like, this audaciousness that you have?

0:09:12 - (KB): I think I grew up as an only child in the south side of Chicago. Chicago, especially with the Midwest, not very, you know, nature oriented. You know, we're very much like the. The Industrial revolution people. Right. And so I think that my love for travel came from the fact that everything kind of looks the same, you know what I mean, in Illinois. And so I, for someone that was raised an only child, I really wanted to, you know, I needed other people. I wanted, you know, I felt like I didn't really have my home or like my tribe. And so I felt that travel was my way of kind of turning over every stone to really find, like, who are my people? And then also when I think about my retirement, which, you know, the goal we're all working towards, I was like, how do I know where I want to end up if I don't try everything on for size? And so travel, I think, was mainly like, the avenue to, like, explore new relationships, to find my people, to find the place that I felt most at home. As much as I love Chicago, love my Family. I was just like, I don't just want to live what was ever given to me. Right. I want to be able to have that choice and that intentionality.

0:10:11 - (KB): And for me, it's like, I'm not just going to choose choose based on what's on paper or like, what other people tell me if I don't go out and experience it firsthand so that I can really make that decision for myself of who I want to be around, where I want to end up. And also just being like the adventurer that I am. I think that I am someone who's driven by just wanting to have as many experiences as possible.

0:10:31 - (KB): Experiences I feel like have helped me become who I am. And then the thing I love about travel is you get the experiences, but also those challenges. You know, I'm a planner. I'm very much an organizer, but travel requires both of those things. I also find that solo traveling kind of challenges me in a way that maybe my career or family or friendships don't. Where really got to think under pressure, you've got to be very independent, very, you know, self confident in order to, like, maneuver maybe some of the ups and downs of traveling, that happens.

0:10:59 - (KB): And the thing that I love is that every time I come back from traveling, I just feel more like myself. I feel like I'm putting together the kind of the pieces of the puzzle of who I am and what I like. And so the travel, I think, was just more of a means to an end to really, from my only childness, like, find my family, find my place, find where I belong. And I just happened to be like, well, let me try it all on for size. You know, I'm not just gonna pick a few places and then be like, okay, I've gone to 10 places. You know, I wanted to make sure that I had, like, actually truly tested everywhere so that hopefully by the time I'm 50, when I truly want to retire, I'll have a few places where I'm like, oh, I'd love to retire there, or I'd love to, you know, have my family be there, that type of thing. So I think it came from needing to find a tribe and ultimately just wanting to challenge myself while also garnering those experiences that travel brings.

0:11:45 - (Carly): Wow, a lot of nuggets in that one. So, yeah, it's almost like you. You've had that goal and then that constant kind of challenge discomfort is what's. It's kind of kept you motivated, right? You've had that compounding result of like a little discomfort here. A Little discomfort there. Because, I mean, one, you're right about experiences. Life is nothing but the sum of our experiences. So don't limit yourself.

0:12:10 - (Carly): And I love what you said, too. I mean, we're just going to spit off all the travel quotes. The importance of travel here of, like, if you travel far enough, you find yourself. And that huge thing that you said about I'm not going to live just. It's almost like you're not going to take yourself at face value. It sounds weird, but, like, when we're younger, in our 20s, in college or whatever, we kind of are who everybody told us to be, you know, and that's what has prompted my own journey. Right. Is actually this unlearning.

0:12:40 - (Carly): And travel is one of, you know, we can both speak to this. There's lots of ways to do this. But obviously travel, I think both impacted us really, you know, largely is that there is a peeling back of layers. Like, right, you travel far enough, you find yourself, but it's through the unveiling, the unlayering that really you bring it back to yourself. You know, it's like when you are without the discomforts. That was a huge thing with the travelers that I guided. You know, a lot of them came by themselves, and all of a sudden they were so different.

0:13:12 - (Carly): And why? Well, it's because they had permission to be. Nobody knew who they were, so they got to choose who they wanted to be. And it is hard to do that sometimes in your own backyard. You know, I just had an email about this where it's like someone attended a master class. And she's like, oh, these conversations are so inspiring. And I think that is sometimes where we get discouraged because we are only looking in our own backyard.

0:13:37 - (Carly): And the reality is sometimes you do need to move, change an environment. Like, it is on you to seek out that inspiration, that change, like that discomfort, you know, whatever it is, the expansion, it is kind of on you.

0:13:52 - (KB): And I think too, like, if you seek out challenges, you'll feel so much more confident when they come. And back to what you said too, about the un kind of layering or unlearning, it's like when I do travel, it kind of forces me to, like, be the Persona that I want to be and not the Persona that people know me as. And so I do think it gives you a way to kind of shed those skin. Skins and like, reinvent yourself, which, I mean, even my name, kb like growing up a Katie, you know what I mean? I was like, no, like, even that's like a reinvention And I think I implore people to find ways, either in their backyard or not in their backyard, to continuously reinvent themselves, because that's what we're here to do, is evolve. And I feel like traveling allows mirrors that catalyst evolution, where I can see other different perspectives. I can see other cultures, other foods, things where you don't even know what you like until you try them. So go out and try everything you. You know, that's just like, my perspective, the experimentation.

0:14:43 - (Carly): That is actually what that master class just was. Free to roam. It was inspired by my Scotland trip.

0:14:48 - (KB): Cool.

0:14:48 - (Carly): But right. Their law of, like, you can roam wherever you want. And it's like the art of exploration. And we have so many of us is just like, we've been told this kind of story, this narrative. Decide what you want to be, go be it. But at 17 years old and. And I think especially for you and I, you know, in entering our 30s and all that, so many people are afraid to be seen figuring it out, right? Like, that was those two questions. Like, you either know what you want, you're too afraid to go see it, or you don't know what you want, in which case, go explore and figure that out.

0:15:22 - (Carly): But we get so nervous. Like, nobody bats an eye if someone was. If you were like, I'm 21. I'm taking a sabbatical. I'm gonna take a gap year, whatever. But God forbid you take a gap year at 30. And everyone has sticky opinions about it. But it's like, let this episode be your permission to go explore and figure it out. Because until you do, that life that feels like yours, like, it's just not gonna happen. You have to be in the driver's seat.

0:15:47 - (KB): And I used to think about this. Maybe when I was younger, I used to journal, and I was very much like a writer. Maybe it's like the only childness of just, like, feeling like, you know, you kind of, like, have to say it to somebody. There's not like a sibling around. But I used to be really, like, morbid and think, okay, when I'm on my deathbed and I'm reading back the story, story of my life, it's like some notebook stuff, right? Where, like, you're thinking back to, like, your years, and there is going to be a design. There are going to be patterns and characters and themes that come out. And so when you think about that and you're forward thinking about, what do I want that design to look like at the end of the day? What do I want those stories and Those chapters to be. I think that people, if you find that you're stuck or you're looking for a new chapter or you want that autonomy to, like, design a different life, think about it. You could write that chapter, right? You could hop on a plane, you could take the move, you could break up with the guy. You know what I mean? Or whatever that is. And I think that most people on the other side, they think, okay, it's. It's the fear, right? The fear of, like, letting go of what that is, and a little bit of the fear of the unknown. And I find that if you can be comfortable in the uncertainty and comfortable in the unknown, you're gonna get so much farther in your goals and that design. When you think about it, at the end of your life, you're going to be so much happier for the.

0:16:55 - (KB): Those leaps of faith. Then you were just getting stuck in the same chapters and the same routines and the same patterns. And so maybe journaling is something I do because I love looking back year after year, like, even, you know, trip after trip, and being like, all the insights or things that I learned. But at any point, you can rewrite your story. You know what I mean? If I'm like, I'm sick of this, you know, whatever this life is or whatever this vibe is, okay, well, let's start a new chapter. What do you want that to be like? And even just writing it down or. I'm someone who very much has to map it. If you. You saw my Google Drive, my Excel spreadsheets be crazy.

0:17:24 - (KB): But I think that that's something that I implore everyone to do, is that if you are feeling stuck or you are feeling like maybe it's not the norm or you don't have necessarily the autonomy to do so, like, it's your world to create. It's your world to design. Think about what you want written down. You know what I mean? In that book, when it's all said.

0:17:39 - (Carly): And done, yeah, you create who you are. And it is interesting because, saying, like, I love to romanticize my life, right? And I want to write a book. And. And, yeah, a lot of our listeners, it's like they're standing on the edge of what's next, right? They're maybe burned out, they're tired of doing things a certain way. And I think sometimes we think that the next chapter has to, like, seamlessly flow from the other one. Like, there needs to be some perfect transition that makes it make sense, but it doesn't. I mean, one, like, a book is art, and Your life is your art.

0:18:12 - (Carly): And so also, there's so many books where all of a sudden, you flip the page, it's a new chapter, and it's like, oh, they've introduced a new character. Or it's like, wait, wait, wait. We've skipped 100 years. Like, it can be whatever you want. And so that's that thing, that reminder, too, of, like, it can be a drastic change. So tell me what you. I mean, it sounds like this is the beauty of your plan has kind of kept you in perpetual discomfort. That sounds horrible.

0:18:40 - (KB): I love it. No, I love it. Seek the uncomfortable.

0:18:42 - (Carly): Yeah. And I think that was a very pivotal moment in my story when I worked for eight years and I was traveling and I was in discomfort. And then Covid happened, and I. My role had to change. So it was either, like, change your environment, because I'm still living large and my environment's not matching that. But I wasn't ready to do that. So therefore, I made myself smaller. And that was kind of what led to my burnout, is I stopped seeking discomfort. And it was really quick.

0:19:07 - (KB): How.

0:19:07 - (Carly): It's crazy how quick you kind of just, like, shrunk back into it. So for you, though, you were kind of in perpetual discomfort, but still you're human. So like, even leaving your job, making that decision, like, what were some challenges that came with it? What were still feelings that came up? Was it just the easiest decision you've ever made or kind of take us through that emotional.

0:19:31 - (KB): Yeah. I love what you said, too, about burnout, because I think our generation, especially, we were the burnout generation. I don't know about all you guys out there listeners, but if, you know, I was a young millennial in the sense that we were the standardized test kids. We were the, you know, AP, get a 4.5 GPA nonsense, like, do every extracurricular. Like, I literally worked so hard in high school to get a scholarship to try and get out of the south side of Chicago and, like, kind of break some of the, like, cycles that I was in.

0:20:00 - (KB): And I basically, like, sacrificed my entire childhood in pursuit of this idea of success, right? Academia, what other people wanted me to be. I was the star, you know, sports kid. I was perfect attendance. Like, I was, you know, most decorated kid in my class. While always be, like, being the youngest. And I remember that I got to college, and I looked around, and I was like, there are people here who are just as successful who didn't do any of that. It's almost like the book Smart Movie where she's Like I could have done both.

0:20:27 - (KB): Like I could have done, like I could have been the A student and had fun. Like what? So I think that that very much kind of affected how I was going to approach my career and having that burnout so young. I realized and I wanted to put these bump in my life to make sure that there was a work life balance that I was making sure that there wasn't going to be any burnout in my life or my career or in my relationships.

0:20:53 - (KB): And so that was something I think to your question about like with my job and stuff like that. It wasn't necessarily that I was entirely burnt out. I was a little bit, I mean corporate America for sure. I think working for any boss, right? You're going to have those moments where you know, you're like, oh my God, I have to ask an adult to take a lunch break. Like what are we doing here? I'm like 30 years old, come on.

0:21:12 - (KB): It wasn't necessarily burnout for that one. I think it was that I knew that I had this life plan. I knew that I wanted to move to Miami and do this sabbatical and do this next phase of my life again, forcing myself out of complacency. And I was never going to sacrifice those goals for like any job or any person or anything. You know, I'm not going to be tied to things, I'm going to be tied to my goals.

0:21:32 - (KB): And so when I realized that they weren't going to allow internal transfers anymore where I could keep that job and then also move, move to and kind of have both satisfied, I was just in a really fortunate position that some of my clients wanted to work with me. The only thing is you can't have you know, five full time jobs. So contracting was a very easy segue for me to bridge the gap between leaving my corporate ad tech job and then just waiting, you know, to maybe potentially do another full time job or, or keep the contracting kind of going post sabbatical. But it wasn't an easy decision because I will say all decisions, like all changes for hard. At the end of the day, like anything that you do, it's never going to come easy. I actually find that that's better. Like easy things aren't as fun. Like I don't like adore easy things the way that like after a hard day or after something hard where I'm like feel that sense of achievement.

0:22:16 - (KB): So I'm a freak. I like the hard things. I like to challenge myself because if I challenge myself first, then like when the World challenges me. I'm like, I got this. But it wasn't necessarily easy. I will say self employment was definitely a trip. Just not having health insurance, right? Not having PTO and not really having a team. I'm such a collaborative person that just like living alone, even working remotely, but spending literally like 50, 60 hours a week just on my own. Nobody to say good job. No one to say like, you're doing the right thing. No performance review.

0:22:44 - (KB): So you can kind of get some positive reinforcement. So that was a bit of a shock for me. And honestly with contracting, you know, you have some contracts, you gain some, you lose. Some things are very unstable. And in my life, just the way that I was raised and like grew up, I really wanted financial stability. That's why I did the corporate America thing. That's why I'm sure all of us crave stability right at the end of the day.

0:23:05 - (KB): And this is the first time that I really wanted to challenge myself, especially going to my 30s, I was like, I need to try what it's like to walk not on stable ground because I'm so used to having like a salary, knowing I've got health insurance. I wanted to see the type of person I would become when I didn't have that stability. You know what I mean? There's a lot of emotions that were precipitated.

0:23:24 - (KB): There were things that came to light that were very negative that I had to work on. And I feel like that's what I really love about challenges and things. And the discomfort is like the things that I can work on and the way that I can feedback loop myself. I would never know that about myself or know that those are areas I need to work on or know that they're triggers. If I don't actually put myself in the spot to like really do that exploration, both externally, right through travel, but also internally with these changes.

0:23:47 - (KB): So I think that if I want to better myself and I always want to be moving the needle and evolving, like I've got to go through those things and see like what problems I'm going to solve, what is that I'm going to learn and how can I like make myself better in the process? So no, definitely not easy. I even now I'm like, wow, it'd be really cool to have health insurance. But I think what I found in it is autonomy and also just self confidence. Like I've never been more confident in myself ever because there's no one there to kind of prop me up. I've had to do it all myself.

0:24:16 - (Carly): That'S, that's an incredible story. But okay, so I have question, two questions with this. So one, I'm going to reiterate again. I think the thing theme of exploration is pretty obvious here in our podcast. And like what you had said is it brought patterns to the surface about myself. Again, why that is a key part of my route to rise method. It's the final part is experimentation because I think you and I are very similar. The two Midwest high achieving girlies here where just like sitting and meditate. Here I am sitting on a meditation, literally.

0:24:49 - (Carly): But I promise that's not what I do every day, sitting and meditating, right? Like for me it was the, the burnout, right, that healing journey, it just wasn't working for me. I was like, I can't just like look within and see what's happening. Like for me that wasn't where, where the unlearning, the learning that change could happen. It was through exploration. And same thing, I had all these kind of ideas about myself, about the world, about business.

0:25:15 - (Carly): And then I started my own business and, and same thing. Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. And it brought these patterns right. I had left my old job, I had blamed a lot of people there for my own experiences. Then I was left with a team of me and some of the same feelings happened and it was like, well, shit, it's amazing.

0:25:34 - (KB): I can't blame anyone else.

0:25:36 - (Carly): And so again, it doesn't necessarily need to be quitting your job, but changing an environment or changing something in your life or just experimenting, even if it's just like starting a new hobby. And you know what, maybe you decide you want to start knitting and then all of a sudden you hate it. Then stop.

0:25:55 - (KB): Amazing power of exclusion. Start crossing all the things off the list that you don't want. You'll arrive to the things you do.

0:26:00 - (Carly): Every no brings you closer to a yes. And so I hope, yeah, both of us are living tales of just like if some of these other quote unquote healing transformational tactics where it's a lot of just like sitting in stillness or feeling hard, then actually just take movement and it can start to bring things out. But I do still want to give credit to yes, exploration, but still what you're talking about is hard for a lot of people.

0:26:27 - (Carly): And that's also where I talked about, you know, the rise part of my method is really the exploration. But for a lot of my listeners and people that come to me, my clients, they are kind of in the burnout, right? Where their choices They've caused themselves to be really disconnected from themselves, right? They, they are just being who people told them to be and are kind of still stuck in. Should, should, should I should do this?

0:26:52 - (Carly): So what practices, like if any, do you have? Because a lot of the decisions that you've made have come from self trust, right? And like there's a lot of unknowns that you step into and you're able to do that because you have this sense of, I got this right, I don't need to know how that's going to work out because I know who I am. And so do you have any practices or things that kind of help keep you grounded in the midst of this, you know, ever changing environment that you have?

0:27:20 - (KB): I think like, I don't know that I have anything that I do like consciously, but I think that's something that has always been really important to me is this idea of like first hand experiences and like have being like a free thinker. Like at the end of the day when I think about the story that I'm gonna write, do I want that to be, to be the story I wrote or a story that someone wrote? For me, right? It's like autobiography versus like biography. And so I think for me maybe just the control freakness of being like, don't tell me what I'm gonna be, you know what I mean? Has always been kind of innate. I'm very lucky that I always had parents that were like, you know, you do you, you be you.

0:27:54 - (KB): But I think that's always been innate to me is that this idea that like I'll try anything once, I'll travel, whatever that is, because I want the first hand experience. I don't want to live second handily through either. Other people telling me that that's their opinion, them telling me how cute the Paris, you know, Eiffel Tower is. Like I want to go and experience like, do I like Paris? Well, let me tell you, based on my experience versus, you know, you some travel magazine or something like that.

0:28:16 - (KB): I think I look to external sources for inspiration, for feedback, for, you know, knowledge. But I make sure that every choice that I make or the parts that I write of my story, or the things that I design about my life and come from me, they're my internal source. Because I think that I'm someone where like radical accountability and that if anything ever were to go wrong or if I am in a place where I'm unhappy, there's no one else to blame, it's all on me. And I find peace in that, you know, some people want that scapegoat. They want to say, well my parents did this or you know, like my job, like, you know, the kind of us with the pointing fingers kind of there. But for me, when I kind of take that perspective, everything's on me. And it helps me grow more because at the end of the day like the only thing, only person to blame is myself.

0:28:58 - (KB): But that also I think gives me that independence. And my mom will even tell you I've always been wildly independent ever since I was a kid. But at that idea of like free thinking, like I don't necessarily want anyone to choose for me. I don't want it to come from anywhere else. And so I don't know that there's anything conscience maybe like just the stubbornness, like the wild stubbornness. I have to be like, no, I will take your advice, I'll take your knowledge and I will definitely adopt it.

0:29:21 - (KB): But at the end of the day like the choice remains mine. I want to be, be the, you know, the creator of my story and like control that narrative. I don't want it to be anyone else that ultimately has that control over like how I'm gonna live my life or the choices that I'm gonna make. So I wish I had like a three step method or like a methodology or practices out there, but I think just like radical ownership and that free thinking mindset will just like kind of set you free. It definitely has for me that no.

0:29:47 - (Carly): Perfect answer, A plus on that. That's what we were hoping for. I mean ultimately what you're saying is you're like, I listen to myself and I, you know, cultivate that. Yeah. And I think a lot of where people go wrong is again like achievement, hustle, using your edges. Right. Your stubbornness, you're like kind of some of that controlling but also being able to be flexible. It's like use some of your edges. And I think something too of like, you don't have to get rid of your hustle. You don't have to get rid of that with, with burnout and all that. I think some of us are afraid to get started again, but it's because it's coming from you.

0:30:24 - (Carly): You have your self trust and you know what your decisions are. And so therefore if you do have to hustle a little bit, if you do have to push, it's not going to lead to burnout because you know it's fully your decision. And that's the answer like yes. Do we share tools? Do we share strategies? Those are all Important. The that's the ultimate thing though, is you get to decide what's in your tool belt. You get to build your toolbox.

0:30:49 - (Carly): And that is the key. Like, you don't need another productivity hack. Like, we love to learn a lot of these high achievers, right? We love to learn. You're staring at my books right now. We love to learn. But ultimately, like, the only thing that set me onto this new path, that got me through this new chapter is like, you can't just bypass it with another five step hack or five step program. Like, it has to be cultivating that within yourself, you know, and that was something.

0:31:15 - (Carly): When I was a dietitian, there's no one size fits all diet. People just wanted to be told what to eat, what to take. Like, and so if that's you, also, you're not going to change. You're not going to reach that next chapter. So that's. That key that you just explained is just like radical responsibility, you know, and just kind of recognizing it's all on me. But twisting at in the sense of like, oh, yeah, it's all on me. Like, it's just a tone change, people.

0:31:44 - (Carly): It doesn't have to be that scary. But that is, I think one of the biggest takeaways that I would love from this podcast is just like, no one is gonna do it for you. And there is no bypass besides just letting yourself trust yourself.

0:31:58 - (KB): Yeah. And I think I always say too, like, it really is like, you're the hardest slate to clean is your own. Right. Like, and that's why I kind of do these moves and because it is a way to, like, almost milestone a chapter turn. Like, even moving to Miami's precipitated a lot of conversations with my Seattle friends about the future of our relationship. Like, are we going to stay in touch? It's shown me people who I didn't realize I matter to as much and then the people that maybe I didn't matter as much to.

0:32:22 - (KB): And so I love having these kind of built in, kind of, you know, paradigm shifts in my life, because I do think that allows me a moment too, to, like, clean that slate. It's really hard when you're stuck in this, the same environment, stuck in the same patterns where you're like, how am I supposed to give myself a clean slate? And sometimes just taking that leap or going on the trip or doing the move or, you know, even just changing apartments or scenery or environment, it allows you to feel like, okay, I've cleaned that slate. I can start anew. And I feel like for burnout, especially sometimes like that moment of let go is the biggest thing that you need to feel like. It's not that I'm not going to give any more energy, like I'm still going to hustle, but like let me take that and direct it and in a new way. And I feel like that's like what the nice thing about change is. Like you can finally clean your own slate because it usually is the hardest to clean. I struggle with that a lot too.

0:33:06 - (Carly): Yeah, I mean we're always our worst critic and biggest enemy and all those things. Well, I. Pattern disruptor, I love that. And I think we, you know, you and I have gone through some big changes. We've talked about moves, leaving jobs, starting your own business. But I want that to be a little micro takeaway for today as well. Is just a pattern disruptor because again we talk about nervous system. The body loves battle balance, it loves homeostasis, the path of least resistance. And that's what makes change so hard.

0:33:36 - (Carly): So if you maybe do desire like hey, I want to move across the country, I want to take a two month trip to you know, Central America. But that feels like way too much to bite off. Like create pattern disruptors in your daily life. Right. Whether it is like cleaning your house. Right. There's so much science behind the Marie Kondo method. Truly love that book. But yeah, just little pattern disruptors. Like you know, notice instead of you're tired and pushing through work and like chugging another cup of coffee, like recognize that and take a walk instead, you know, like where in your life can you just pattern disrupt even if you're overthinking, like to disrupt that thought pattern, just start saying thinking.

0:34:22 - (KB): Yeah.

0:34:22 - (Carly): You know, instead of ruminating on something, just thinking. So there's a lot of power in establishing a pattern disruptor and starting small. If it maybe has been years, you know, and you don't have something like UKB where you've, you know, sought out this constant discomfort. If you're ready to just kind of get taking that first step, find one little thing that you can disrupt in your day.

0:34:46 - (KB): Yeah. And I will say too, not only pattern disruptors have been really helpful for me and some, you know, other people that I talk to too. It's like I specifically for travel when it comes to burnout, like travel is my incentive program. It travel is my reward. You know what I mean? When I'm hustling, I'm grinding, I'm doing the corporate thing or I'm doing the, the Starting your own business, doing all the things. Because life is hard, right? Daily, it's so much easier for me to sometimes make some of those sacrifices knowing that it's for the greater good of this bigger design or like this trip or this move. And so it almost like fuels me and inspires me on a day to day basis to be like, I'm working towards something to make that everyday kind of hardship a little bit easier. Because when I'm like, oh, if it's like money problems, you know, or something like that for people, like, oh, you know, it feels weird to say no to myself, you know, or that's. And I'm like, well, no, I'm not gonna spend that, you know, $10 on chick fil A when that could be like travel fund money for later, right? Or like I'm gonna, you know, maybe like work a little bit later today in order to be able to buy that, like, you know, four day weekend or whatever that is for.

0:35:45 - (KB): So if you already have to do the hard things in life, why not build an incentive program for yourself or some kind of reward system that allows you to feel like that burnout, you know, there's a little bit of like a reason behind why you're hustling, why you're grinding, so that when you are burnt out, you're like, okay, I'm not necessarily like burned out. I'm just like, this is the grind that I need to, you know, award myself whatever that incentive is. Travel's my incentive. It can be different incentives for everybody.

0:36:11 - (KB): But at the end of the day, I think pattern disruptors and incentive programs, for me at least those two things have been really, really essential for me. Getting like, solving from like, who I want to become to where I want to become and kind of like bridging that gap.

0:36:23 - (Carly): That's a great piece of advice. Yeah. And again though, knowing that it's your decision, right? You wholeheartedly know that travel is an incentive that's for you. And so if you don't know some of those questions, instead of asking what do I want to do? Go back to the drawing board of who Am I? And kind of start there. Absolutely amazing. So we're gonna talk forever. We could talk forever, but we also have a networking event to get to later tonight. That's also the power of these conversations led to just.

0:36:52 - (Carly): I couldn't not say something to her at this coffee shop. It ended up being I'm now her plus one to this fun TEDx women's event tonight. So like just go meet people Go put yourself out there. But before we wrap up, so you are a, you know, entrepreneur. You have your own marketing business. That is definitely something that everybody could use in their life. So just tell us a little bit about your business and if anyone is interested in working with you, where they could find you.

0:37:17 - (KB): Yeah, I mean, you can find me on LinkedIn. My government name is Katie Bilak. That's where the KB comes from. But you can look me up by Mac and McMarketing. So just like MacandMickMarketing.com same stands for like macro and micro approach. Right. Bigger picture down to each puzzle piece. Very much aligned with the mapping that we kind of like talked about today. But yeah, I've been in marketing and advertising for about 10 years. I play volleyball. If there's any volleyball girlies out there, if you guys need any connects around Seattle to get in the game.

0:37:44 - (KB): But yeah, you can always contact me on LinkedIn or find me from my website.

0:37:47 - (Carly): Awesome. We will absolutely make sure to include all the show notes there. Okay. Well, before we wrap up, do you have any other words of wisdom, a piece of advice? I mean, you've done a lot of the things, you're kind of an expert in travel, in moving, all the things. Anything you want to share?

0:38:03 - (KB): I think the mantra I live and die by that's perfectly aligned for today is just always know where you're going so no one can lead you in the wrong direction. At the end of the day, it's your step forward, it's your sure footedness, it's your journey. And own that.

0:38:15 - (Carly): Oh, I love that. Yeah. And get good at being misunderstood.

0:38:18 - (KB): Heck yeah. Be so misunderstood.

0:38:21 - (Carly): It's a. It's a goal. Awesome. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in again today. I hope you guys enjoyed this very fun conversation. I had so much fun with this one. I told you the universe wanted me to hear her conversation at this coffee shop. So as always, everybody like a good cup of coffee. Stay bold, stay balanced and I will see you next week.

0:38:47 - (KB): Sam.