Echoes of Impact (Aired 01-14-2025) Overcoming Fear, Business Growth and Smart Tax Strategies

[00:00:29] Speaker A: Hello, my name is. Welcome to Echoes of Impact with Nora. We believe that everyone is capable of making an impact and changing the world around them. So we challenge limitations and uncover stories that inspire a greater impact for you and the world. Today we are going to address fear. Before we start talking talking about my subjects for today, what we are gonna end back for you. I want to let you know that this segment is sponsored by Noura's Books tax and accounting firm. Nura's Books is going to be sponsoring this segment and it's going to be a recurring segment save Taxes with Nura. So we're going to talk about taxes and does it sound familiar? A lot of you guys are afraid of taxes. Afraid of the letter that you maybe received from the irs. Raise your hand if yes, I see your hands. If you're afraid, raise your hands because I know a lot of you are. I was afraid before even though I've been an accountant for my entire life. However, I haven't started doing taxes until five, six years ago. Like as a career. I did my taxes like some relative taxes before as just like a help to help them. But I never had the courage to make it as my career. And so I started numerous books and this is when I said okay, it's if I'm going to do this as a profession, I'm going to study tax law and I'm going to be licensed. Well, we're not allowed technically to say licensed because I'm an enrolled agent and that is the highest designation from the irs. We technically have to take three exams, business tax law, individual tax law and representation. So I can represent any clients, any entity in front of the IRS offices and then you go ahead and you start doing taxes. Now you don't have to do that in order to be able to do taxes because the tax regulation, tax industry is not regulated. Anyone technically can go get a better number and get background check and then you are able to file taxes. Getting paid to file taxes without any knowledge. That's why when maybe you are price shopping and finding people who are not charging you decent because maybe they are just doing data entry. And for data entry you can teach it for anyone who's in grade school as well. But when you want to really know the law and take also the clients as a case that you want to win, just like if you want to go in front of any, any judge, right? Or any you want to win the law, you want to use the law to win to make sure that you are taking care of your client is different Than just like taking the information, do data entry. Totally different. So when I start doing taxes, I found out that I really enjoy it and I love it. And I found that every client is literally unique. Your case is totally different than mine, Totally different from your brother, your neighbor, your colleague. It might sound the same, but there's a lot of different details that will make it totally different. And the tax law is written for you to use it, not to be afraid and not utilize it for your advantage. Technically, all governments, when they write a tax law, they want to encourage a certain behavior or discourage a certain behavior. Think about it like when they give you a credit for having energy saving things like solar panel or an electric car, they want to encourage you to buy them, to have them to save in energy. That's why they give you tax credits. Same thing with everything else. Like with the deduction they give to you for your business, for the credits they give you for going to school, for a lot of other credits, for investing, tax free accounts, rental property investments. They give you a lot of really, really detailed things that you can take advantage of. They want to encourage that behavior so you don't have to afraid to be afraid of taxes. And I understand that you're not gonna be knowledgeable of every tax law because it's continuously changing. Especially this year. Look at now, like we're gonna have a new administration and we're going to have a lot of change in the tax law. And even when there's no change in administration that you see, tax law is always revised, always new law, new laws from the Treasury Department, no one expecting you to have the knowledge of all that, the change that the government does on the state level and a federal level and sometimes in the city level. So that's why you always want to have a professional on your side, because that's our job, to really have this information ready for you and update you everything there's changes. And tax law, even though it's written in English, but it's not necessarily English, that you know, sometimes simple English answer would be yes, but that law answer would be no. Just because they written the law this way and they tell you, oh, okay, if this is the case, then the answer no, even though it doesn't make sense. So you need to know and understand how to read the law. So if you don't, you want to make sure you have a tax professional on your side who understand the law and who takes the time to always educate themselves on the law. This is very important for you to succeed. And let's say you are a business owner or even if you're not a business owner, you have a job, you have a life, you have more other priority that you would love to do that you don't want to just keep yourself updated with the tax law, right? Because this is not your full time job. So it's better for you, for example, if you are a business owner to go make money, get more revenue and then pay professionals who knows their jobs better than you know their jobs. Because I don't know how you do your job. If I need something, if you are a landscaper and I need to do a landscaping for my home or for my office, I will call you. Because if I try to do it, I'm going to waste time, waste money, waste energy, get tired and I will perform a very bad job. It's not going to look nice, it's not going to get a good results. So always hire the professional and focus on making more money. And when we all focus on that, focusing on us making money for what we can do and focusing on also hiring the professional, that's going to save us time and money. The economy of the entire country is going to change, our lives are going to change and every business around us will flourish. But when we all like try to save money, make sure we don't want to spend on this, we don't want to hire this person, let's try to fix this ourselves. We don't want to bring a general contractor on handyman, like let's just fix this door ourselves. We're gonna end up like wasting money and time because maybe we know how to do it. But if we do the job that we were supposed to do, we're making more money because this is the thing that makes us money. Or if we are trying to do it and it's not something we know how to do, maybe now we break it further and have to bring someone to take care of it and we're gonna need a lot more. And that happens often with tax tax clients. They try to do something and then they end up like messing up. And then we have to spend so much more time to do their books correctly and then to do their taxes correctly and to amend the taxes. It takes longer time, it's harder for the professional side and it takes longer on the IRS side in case they owe you money. It takes sometimes one year to get you the money with continuous follow up when you do an amendment. So do the things right in the beginning and don't be afraid of it, but understand it Talk to your professional. Make sure you have basic knowledge but have a professional along your side so you can keep your money. So don't save a couple of hundred to end up paying thousands of dollars more just because you tried to save a couple of hundreds. All right, this is the segment for today. I'll be seeing you after the break. This is Echoes of Impact with Noura. We'll be right back. Welcome back. This is your host Nura Mosri. And this is Echoes of Impact with Noora. As we're talking about fear, I am have, I have a guest who talks always about fear and she has a great things to share with you all. Welcome Amanda to Echoes of Impact. How are you doing today? [00:11:59] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm doing well. Happy to be here. [00:12:03] Speaker A: Thank you. Happy to have you. So usually I love to have my guests introduce themselves just a little bit. Overview on, on yourself and what do you do. [00:12:14] Speaker B: So I right now do business consulting and motivational speaking. I owned a franchise for a long time and just through lessons that I learned of being a small business owner and just certain things that I wanted to take with me, I now teach other people about. [00:12:30] Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. So how did you end up this with this business? Like what made you start, start this business? [00:12:37] Speaker B: So when I was in franchising, I kept seeing the same things over and over and over again and I kind of tell people, some people want to tell you all about their success and I like to share the things that I failed at so that it could keep other people from making the same mistakes. So business consulting kind of teaching people what not to do in a way. [00:12:58] Speaker A: Yes. Awesome. So what's, I know you, you said before we start like you like to encourage people to pivot. Like can you elaborate about that? Like because I, I know like sometimes, let's take me as an example. For example, I changed my career a couple of times. I'm an accountant. I went to a non profit and then I changed back to accounting. I then I started doing taxes. A lot of people I see like they just stick with something and sometimes the same company even like they don't have their business, they, they stay with the same company for years until something happened that make them like have to change. Like not their strongs. They just don't like change. Mostly people don't like change. So how do you go around this and what's, what's your advice to people around these stuff? Like okay, like so they're not afraid of change because a lot of people are. [00:14:00] Speaker B: I Think the thing with fear of change, especially in a working business setting, it's really the fear of failure. That's what keeps people stuck. And as soon as they realize it's okay to try and maybe it wasn't the best option, then you just pivot. So I always say, give yourself permission to pivot like you've done. You did this. It might not have been your favorite thing. So then you segued into something else. And when you let go of the fear of failure and you at least try, try something different, then usually you'll find your way through that. And I don't know if you've ever heard the Teddy Roosevelt quote about the man in the arena, but it basically says, I would at least have rather tried and been the man in the arena than the critic on the sidelines. So letting go of the fear of failure and going for what really sets your soul on fire versus saying stagnant. [00:14:48] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So can you like give us like more around your business and how you help people, like some examples maybe that you had to do lately? [00:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. So I have a worksheet that I bring. If I work with a one on one client or if I speak, I take people through some exercises and the first place to start is getting clarity. And I make people write two to three sentences about themselves. I say, who? Tell me who you are, but you're not allowed to give me your occupation or your role in your family, because that's kind of what we allow our identities to be. And when people have to sit back and say, okay, who am I? If it's not my job, it's not being a mom? And they kind of come up with that. And I say, then take that, whatever it is that you said about yourself and think through how, if fear was not in your way, if you were not worried about what other people think, how would you take that and turn it into a career or a legacy or your next step? And then when we work through that, I say, okay, so that, what's your next thing you want to do from there? If you say, this is who I am and this is what I want to do, the last thing I work through with clients is, okay, what's the next step? Because if you look at too big of a picture and you say, you know, I want to be a seven figure business, that can feel so overwhelming. So let's not say what the 10 year goal is. What's just the next step to get your feet in motion. And that's kind of where, how we Work through it. [00:16:14] Speaker A: So I'm curious to know like, what's examples like of that answer. Because if you tell someone who you are and then like you're not allowed to say your name and what do you do? What type of answer they come up with usually. Yeah. [00:16:29] Speaker B: So I had a client yesterday and I could see when I said that she kind of was like, oh, you know, and even myself, I don't think I could have answered that like a year ago. But for her yesterday, she said, okay, you know, I am kind, I love deeply. And she kind of just said some things about herself. She said, I enjoy nonprofit work and just kind of went through more of like soul level of who she was. And I said, okay, well how does that help you to show up in the world? And she said, you know, I want to show up enthusiastically for other people and maybe start a podcast of encouragement. So that's kind of how we work through that. When she said, oh, I'm kind, I'm enthusiastic, I like encouraging other people. It kind of sparked her saying, maybe I should do a podcast where that's what I do. And it kind of, that's how it goes usually when they really dig into it. [00:17:20] Speaker A: Oh, this is amazing. Like how sometimes like when we have a coach or someone like you who is encouraging just talking to people, you can get things out of people that you wouldn't get otherwise. Like if we keep just talking to ourselves. [00:17:37] Speaker B: Yes. [00:17:39] Speaker A: Okay. I can't figure it out. Like when just talking to someone, especially like if you have the expertise on how to extract this information from people, it makes a lot of difference. So did you just curious, like, did you have someone like really go take the next step and changing their career based on you working with them? [00:18:02] Speaker B: I did, actually. So kind of the reverse of what people think of changing careers. So she, when we really talked through it, she decided that she in her heart wanted to be a stay at home mom. So she, you know, that's not always easy to do. You know, she wanted to be a stay at home mom. And that's not something you can always decide like overnight. But she started financial planning for it and after a year she was able to actually move forward and stay home to be home with her baby. So, you know, some people think of changing. I think that's a career change, going from full time working to being a stay at home mom. But I've had a few people that have. Some people it starts as a side project or a passion project, but it's still getting them in motion towards what they really want to do. [00:18:51] Speaker A: Absolutely. So, yeah, this is really interesting and it takes a lot of courage. Not saying the same thing at home mom is not work. It's actually 24, 7 work that you can take break from. But it's really, it does really need a courage to do that and to have also the planning to do it. Like, it's not always easy. I would be curious to know, like after she tries that she really find herself liking that or not. Let me know. I would love to. [00:19:23] Speaker B: You know, I've done both. I have done both. I was a stay at home, I worked full time and then I was a stay at home mom that I worked part time then. Now I'm back to full time and I tell people like, gosh, stay at home mom is hard. It is really. I loved it. But man, it's hard. Like you said, it's 24, 7. There's no lunch breaks, there's no even bathroom breaks when your babies are little. So it's. But yeah, it's. And it's always like you said, courage. I think that's the right word because that's what keeps people from trying to begin with. And when they try, usually they do find, even if it's not that specific thing that they land on, it's just like, wow, I didn't have to stay stuck in that job or, you know, in that situation. Sometimes it's even like a toxic relationship or family member boundaries, you know, just kind of realizing you don't. You're never stuck. You always have options. [00:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like every phase in your life will have a different option. You change as a person and your circumstances changes. Like if you have little kids. Yeah. Why don't you enjoy them for a lot for a while and then go do something else? I was, you know, I was staying home when I had my two little ones as well. Like for. I stayed home for like two years and then I went back to work. So, yeah, like, it's always nice to enjoy your kids. [00:20:43] Speaker B: And that's kind of back to the pivot. You know, it's not forever. I tell people that if you. Anything, if you try something different and you don't like it, you know, you can pivot again, you can go back. It's not, you know, we think of success as such a straight line or, you know, just building life as a straight line. And it's. It's not. Most of the time it doesn't go that way. So you get to choose along the way. The dips and the turns and what it's going to look like. [00:21:10] Speaker A: Absolutely. The only unchangeable thing is change. [00:21:15] Speaker B: That is true. That is so true. [00:21:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So we are about to run out of time. Before we run out of time, I want to make sure to give you like a time to just share with people like anything that you want to share with, like, or if you how do they find you as well. [00:21:33] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. So all my social media is just my name at Amanda Delop and if you guys are interested in the worksheet that I talked about, it's actually a free resource that I'll send to anybody who's interested and you just email [email protected] and I'll send you that worksheet for free. [00:21:50] Speaker A: Awesome. Can we repeat the email again? [00:21:52] Speaker B: Yes, it's [email protected] Awesome. [00:22:00] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Amanda. It was great talking to you guys. This is Echoes of Impact with Noora and this is your host, Noora Mosri. We'll be right back. Foreign welcome back. This is your host Noora Masri and this is a cause of impact with Noora. We're back to talk to another guest. An amazing woman who help empowering women to start their own business. She's also working on a new book and we can talk, we will talk to her about fear that woman has. But first, let's welcome Katherine. Katherine, welcome to Echoes of Impact with Noora. How are you doing today? [00:23:09] Speaker C: I am doing fantastic. Thank you so much for having me on your program today. I'm very excited. [00:23:16] Speaker A: Of course. It's my pleasure to have you. I usually like my guests to introduce themselves to other audience a little bit about your background and what you do. [00:23:24] Speaker C: Absolutely. I'm Katherine Lang Klein and I was President and CEO of Portfolio Creative for about 20 years before I recently sold it. Prior to that I was 15 years in marketing and prior to that I was an art student. So it's been a lot of career changing throughout the throughout my journey. But it always seemed just really right, you know, just, just kind of treated as building blocks to the next thing because I graduated with a degree and then I got into marketing because you can't make money as an artist. And then everything that I learned in marketing then just was adapted to creating this company where I would find jobs for people in marketing and advertising. [00:24:07] Speaker A: So right now you find you find job for people in marketing and advertising or this. [00:24:13] Speaker C: Okay, that. Yeah, that is what I did for about 20 years and like I said, in the last six months, I have sold that company. So now I'm on to my next thing, which is mentorship, you know, helping women start their own businesses and, you know, perhaps getting this all into a book. The book is started, so we got to make sure I can drag this to the finish line. [00:24:33] Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome. So why did you decide to start, like helping women start their own business? [00:24:38] Speaker C: Well, it's kind of interesting because when I started my business, everybody said you have to get around other people that own businesses. You know, you can stay in your own vacuum and keep figuring things out, but until you really understand the culture, the cadence, all of that sort of stuff, you have really just kind of created a job for yourself. So one of the organizations I joined practically day one was the national association of Women Business Owners, which is a nationwide organization. And I met a lot of women that were essentially doing what I wanted to do. So when I kind of came in at that ground level, I had a lot of people to look up to. The longer I was in that group and the more organizations I joined, I found that some women were just kind of stopping short of really growing their business and really staying in that mindset of I've just created a really awesome job for myself, which there's seriously nothing wrong with that. But I think women think I'm going to go on my own, I'm going to open this company and I end up doing everything. And I might have somebody help me do other things, but I really help women get in that mindset of guess what, you're the president, you're not just the owner. So be the president and hire people to help you achieve your goals. [00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I can't agree more. Like a lot of us like wants to leave the 9 to 5 just to have 9 to 9 or 9 to exactly result that not we, we quite not and expect exactly. This is true for all of us. Like not only women, I guess. [00:26:09] Speaker C: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I mean, and that's expected when you first start out. But you know, like I said, the longer I was around some of these women, and I'm talking like a couple of years even, I was really keeping an eye on what some of the real go getters were doing. And I'm like, oh well, she's not changing the toilet paper in her own bathroom at the office, you know, which is what I would always do. I was like, it was a nice break for me. You know, just, I'm going to do the trash and I'm Going to. It's like, why? And people would ask me, why are you doing that, Catherine? People are looking at you as a president of the company and you're doing just these crazy tasks, you know, so thus delegating started in my company and I didn't look back after that. It was, it was one of the best things I ever did. [00:26:49] Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. Like, I see, like, sometimes, like, there is fear behind all of that, because what if I cannot afford to be these people? What if I don't make enough money to cover the expenses? Like, I should be doing everything on my own? Like, all of these comes from. So how do you advise the women that you work with? Like, what. How do they overcome that fear and make sure, okay, like, let's delegate. Let's like, find someone else to do this work instead of me. [00:27:23] Speaker C: It is a hard hurdle to get over, I will say that. You know, because it's a place that we haven't been before in a lot of cases. So there is definitely some fear involved. But for me, and what I tell other people too, is if you are getting that busy, you have to start getting help. Because there's certain things that only you can do. Only you can be like the top salesperson because you have the passion. Only you can be the president. And if you can get somebody who is better at you at accounting, at sales, at marketing or something like that, the faster you grow, you have to start duplicating yourself. You have to start finding other people that are better than you. And as far as the cost, which is always the scariest part, you would be surprised. I don't say how little it'll cost, but it's not usually as much as you think. I think people automatically think in terms of, I have to pay somebody, you know, $60,000 a year, um, break that down into a week. What would you pay somebody a week? And you find out it's really not as much as you might think, or it's. It's at least a bite sized version of what it would be overall. And if you're not making that kind of money per week, then you might want to think about doing some markups because you're probably not charging enough. But it is a little bit of a mindset too. You're just like, you know, once I do this, that changes everything. And it does, and it's for the good. So you have to kind of unplug your fear brain and plug in your logic brain and say, okay, logic. Logically, the math works here. Logically, I Need help to grow and just take that leap. [00:28:55] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I found it in my business like once I have the intention to do something and take the first step towards, for example, for hiring, like the first thing I would do, like just have a job description and then every steps are the way like takes care of itself. Even though I wouldn't think, oh, I can afford that person for long term. But I ended up doing that because I freed my time to do things that I only can do. Like you said, like you, you are the only, the top salesperson. So when you talk about your products, you know how to navigate through and you know how to make a higher dollar amount sales and can grow the business really far. So you can, you can and you can create jobs. Like I, I guess women like we love to create opportunities for others like that motherly figure, like inside of us, we want to take care of people and this is a way to take care of people, to provide those jobs, like help people and helping yourself. And now you are the CEO of your company. [00:30:02] Speaker C: Yes. And I love that spin that you put on there is how you are actually helping other people. Some of the first people that we hired were women that wanted to still be stay at home moms and, and they said if I can get my child on the bus and then come into work and then be home to get them off the bus, that I will work for you. So they might have given us maybe four hours in the middle of the day, but they were fantastic. These were women that had careers, great careers and they decided to take a little break to just take care of their children. That, I mean, I can totally recommend finding people like that that maybe are caring for parents or children or things like that and just can offer you even just a few hours, it doesn't have to be a full time role. In some cases you might have to just kind of say, I'm going to slowly delegate this away. The other thing that I really loved you said was talking, making the job descriptions. Because that was one of the first things that we did is we wrote down every, we made it created a job description for every job we thought we needed and then divided them up between two people. So that means I was doing the finance and I was doing the sales and I was doing the customer service and you know, my business partner was doing, you know, a bunch of other things that the operational side of things things and HR and all that sort of stuff. And then the minute we could hire somebody or felt comfortable hiring someone other part time or full time we handed that job description to somebody else and say that's off my plate now and now somebody else is doing it. But I, I agree that kind of calculating everything that you need ahead of time is super, super helpful and because then you start envisioning it too, someday somebody's going to have this job and it won't be me. [00:31:27] Speaker A: But it is scary. Like sometimes we feel like, oh my goodness, yes, gonna do this better than I do. Like, how do you help women navigate through that? [00:31:36] Speaker C: Well, I, I think we immediately get caught up in the, well, what if it fails? What, what if it just, you know, totally explodes? It might, I'm not gonna lie. But I'm gonna say chances are if you did your math and it like again it's, it all logically makes sense. It'll, it will be fine. And if you find that you have someone for a while and you suddenly aren't able to afford them, you unfortunately can let them go in order to, you know, save your business or what have you. But just be always looking at the good of the business. Not so much your own fear, but what's going to serve the good of the business. And that sometimes helps you release a little bit of that fear factor that you're dealing with because you're like, I have to do this, I might be nervous. And then after you've done it a couple times, then it becomes pretty easy after that. Yeah, the first time in anything's always scary. [00:32:26] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Like also when you, you are used to hire like entry level people is different than when you are now. Like when someone with experience, you bring them a higher value. There's always like first time for everything and, and fear is good sometimes. Like just to help you make sure you're covering all the aspects and making sure you have a plan. What if this happened? Like then you have like you said, you can always let people go and have that expectation. Like if you don't help me grow my business, then like I won't be able to keep you even if I want to. So that. [00:33:03] Speaker C: Right. [00:33:03] Speaker A: The motivation for the person like to really make sure that give you the value they should they you hire them for. [00:33:11] Speaker C: Yeah. And, and just with to add on to that and it could be a whole separate conversation is really talk about the expectations that you have too. It's like, here's why I need you and here's what my expectations are from you. Because then there's no confusion because you can hire people and they're not really sure what their job is because you just need another body and you make a quick hire, but really think all of that out. So when you're interviewing them, making sure that they're the right fit, they meet your values and you will not have any problem. [00:33:36] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. We're going to come back to you after the break, guys. This is Echoes of Impact with Noora. We'll be right back. Back. This is your host, Noora Mosri. And this is Echoes of Impact with Noora. We're back with my friend Catherine talking about, like, empowering women to start their own business to delegating to others so they can be the CEO of their business. Welcome back, Katherine. [00:34:33] Speaker C: Thank you. Thanks so much. [00:34:36] Speaker B: Sure. [00:34:36] Speaker A: So we're talking about, like, how significant is like to get people into your business and how to mitigate the risks of hiring people. So what's the most challenge you find the woman have? Like, like I want to shift kind of like to how you encourage them to start their own business. Like, what's the main challenge? Like, why wouldn't, what's the fear? What's, why wouldn't they want to start their own business? Usually from your experience. [00:35:09] Speaker C: Oh, there's a lot of different things and I have to say that most of them are psychological. They don't necessarily make sense. And we talked a little bit about fear. There are a lot of things that are based in fear because they've never done it before. They're not sure if it's going to work. They start from scratch. But I think if you really think it out, well, it could totally work in that. So, for example, when we started our business, we had some clients already started. I was a freelancer and essentially those were my first clients. And we went right to them and said, hey, you know, it's not gonna be me being the freelancer anymore, but I can hire someone for you that's just as awesome as me. And we're going to do this a little different. You know, we explain the markups and, you know, and guaranteed that the people would be fantastic. So if you have some people that you already know are going to willing to work with you, that makes that switch super, super easy, you know, rather than just saying making a leap and then you have zero clients. So come up with a strategy of how you're going to get that first client. And you might have to feel, you might feel like that you have one foot on the dock and one in a boat and then the two are slowly splitting. So I know some people who have had a job and Then they slowly started building their own book of business. There are many, many ways of doing it, but I would really encourage people just to say, you know, what if the timing feels right, if you have a great support system, just give it a shot. Because, you know, the worst that can happen. Let's just say the worst that could happen, it's a complete failure. But then, you know what? You get to go get another job. You tried it. Go get another job and then try it again. And I've known some people that had a couple of false starts, and there just wasn't something right. It wasn't truly based on their passion. It wasn't, you know, that the timing wasn't right in the. Or things like that. So just kind of really think some of those things through. But if you really have a passion for it, you really think you can do it, I mean, just. Just try it. We just took a leap of faith and it. It worked out and, you know, 20 years later, it was fine. [00:37:03] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And what's a better time to start your own business? You can start just from your home. Do everything from your home if you have a laptop. Some people do even start from their phone, even if they don't. Yeah. Have a laptop for some profession that can work. So it's. [00:37:19] Speaker C: You don't have time because now everybody's comfortable with zoom and with, you know, working from home. Yeah, it's. There's really no heavy investment in a lot of cases, especially if you're doing a service business. [00:37:32] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I can't. I can't agree more. Like, I had a fear. I wanted to always start a business, tax and accounting firm, long time ago. Like, this is 2010 maybe. But I was like, okay, I'm gonna have an office and all of these things. I always put this off, but in 2021, like, once I was able to start virtually, and here I am, I'm still. I still have a company. I'm growing consistently. [00:38:00] Speaker C: Yes. [00:38:01] Speaker A: So you have the passion, like you said, like, you have the passion of the business that you started. You always can work on it and make it happen. And worst case scenario, like I said, go find another job. That's fine. [00:38:11] Speaker C: Exactly. And sometimes, too, you might get into something and you realize you didn't have the target 100% right. But it's really more over here, you know, so be prepared for it to be a little bit fluid to find out who your target market is and who it is that you're wanting to have as that ideal customer. [00:38:27] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:38:28] Speaker A: And it Always help if you work with someone like a coach, even if you think that they know the same exact thing that you know. But having one from outside telling you, seeing the picture from outside, it does really help. I always work with coaches. [00:38:41] Speaker C: Coaches. [00:38:42] Speaker A: I always have some coaching program I am in just to make sure I am aligned. So this really helps people think sometimes. I don't want to waste money, but actually, it's. You're investing money. You're not wasting money. Anything with your business is investment. [00:38:55] Speaker C: Absolutely. And you can, like I said, join organizations. And there's also people there that you can grab as mentors, have lunch with, you know, buy them lunch, and just ask them some questions. I've had great partnerships with women that were a lot further down the road than I am, and I could come to them in a panic. Like, I would see. I'll never forget the story where I ran into this woman at an event. I was like, okay, great to see you, but I'm gonna be drinking heavily this evening because we were told that we're getting audited and by Workman's Comp. And she said, have you never been audited by Workman's Comp? And I'm like, no. She's like, oh, my God. Everybody does. It's no big deal. They come in and they look at your stuff and they leave. I am in a full cold sweat about this whole thing. And I ran into her, luckily, and she said, don't worry about it. I was fine after that. And that's exactly what happen, happen. So it's great to have people on your team that can kind of help you. You know, like when I. I mean, like, you're. You're. You're in your circle of people that can really help you with some of these things. You say, what is. What does this exactly mean? Should I be upset by this? And, like, no, no, that'll happen. Like, somebody just quit. Oh, my God. People quit all the time, Catherine. It's no big deal. And here's. Here's what you're going to do. You know, it's. But, yeah, it's great to be. Have the coach or have a mentor or just be around other people that have kind of, you know, walked a little longer down this road. And it takes a lot of that panic, sheer panic away. [00:40:20] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. I want to shift to your book. You're working on a book right now. Can you tell me about it? [00:40:27] Speaker C: I am. It started out as a podcast idea, and my podcast is a Secret Art of Business. And that's Based on how I believe that the left and the right brain have to work together to have business success, I would totally encourage people to listen in. It's a lot of fun. It's not a heavy lift at all. But when I started writing that book, someone had said to me, you know what, Kathryn? That's great. But what I really want to know is, how did you do it? How did you win the awards? How did you start a business? How did you get in the boardroom? How did you get into all the rooms? And I said, you know what? That would be an easy book to write. So that's what I'm working on right now. And that book is called. It's kind of a rough title of Winning the Rules of the Game for Women in Business. And what I'm doing is, I'm talking about how in business, basically everything is in sports speak, and the book is in sports speak and sports speak. And women are going to learn all the rules that I learned along the way in order to make things happen. And it's not necessarily as frightening as people might think. It's just literally knowing how the game is played. And I'm working on that now. It's about halfway through. I'm hoping to get it out next year. I would encourage people to follow me on LinkedIn or Instagram, because that's where all the information is going to be about the book. But it so far has gotten a lot of interest from people, so I'm really kind of excited in sharing again everything that I kind of learned along the way, and hopefully that will save some people some few extra steps. [00:42:00] Speaker A: That's awesome. So is this book dedicated for women, or can men also benefit from. [00:42:05] Speaker C: You know, that's an excellent question. It is really geared towards women, but I gotta tell you, it could be. It could be men, too. I mean, there are some things that I'm sure that they might not know that, you know, it's like, if I just do this one thing that's going to make a big difference in being remembered about being, you know, asked to be on somebody else's team. For example, I. I like using the sports analogy because in many cases, if people are looking for board members, they're going to want good players. So what makes you a good player? And those are the sort of things that we. We talk about. It's like, how do you. How do you get noticed? How do you get remembered? What do you. What can you do to make an impression? How do you basically get competitive in. In a space where Maybe nobody else does what you do. So it's. It's been really kind of fun to write. My. The only thing is I'm going to be so critical of myself in writing it, so I might have to get a partner just to read through it and make sure it's. It's all good to go. But yeah, I'm hoping to get it out at least in the next couple of months, but that's going to depend on the publisher, too. [00:43:12] Speaker A: Awesome. So it's going to Happen now in 2025? [00:43:16] Speaker C: It is. Yes. [00:43:17] Speaker A: Yes. [00:43:19] Speaker C: I'm saying it aloud so it happens. It's early enough of the year. How could. How can it not be done this year? [00:43:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Awesome. That's awesome. I can't wait to read it. And how do you say it's different from other business books? [00:43:33] Speaker C: Well, like I said, I'm kind of treating it from the sports perspective. I don't. I've read a lot of books that have been geared towards women and they have a little more of a holistic approach. They have that. More of that motherly approach like you talked before, you know, it's. They talk about life balance, they talk about all these soft skill sort of stuff, which. That's what makes us women and 100 love it. But I cannot think of a time where that has actually been handy when it comes to getting ahead. So it's a different perspective. Not everybody's gonna like it, but this is what I did. This is, you know, hopefully some things that other people could at least try. But yeah, the perspective is just a little bit different in that it's not really squishy. It's. It's. This is. This is how you. This is like, oh, what did it. This is like, you know, you just had. I don't want to use the word bold. This is about just kind of just really getting your hands dirty, you know, and you're gonn pushed and fall, fall down. You might have to fight for the ball sort of thing, but when you're good, when you know what's going to happen, it's. It's not frightening at all. [00:44:40] Speaker A: So awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much for being that courageous to publish the book. Can't wait to read it like. And I'll help to that you come back to Echoes of Impact. So we can talk more about your book once. [00:44:55] Speaker C: I would love it. [00:44:56] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes. And I want to make sure, like, guys, you want to f. Follow Katherine so you are aware when she has that book. Thank you so much, Katherine. I hope you have a great day and can't wait to have you back on the show. Right guys? This is Echoes of Impacts with Noora and here we came to the end of this episode. I'll see you again next Tuesday at 5pm Central. Share this episode listen to it again, listen to the wisdom of my guests and come back again every Tuesday at 5pM Central. Until next time, keep making an impact. [00:45:37] Speaker B: This has been a NOW Media Network's feature presentation. [00:45:41] Speaker A: All rights reserved.