Transcript Episode 78:
Setting Proactive and Productive Business and Life Boundaries with Katrina Widener
Transcript Episode 78
Welcome to the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast. The show for purpose driven entrepreneurs who wanna get inspired to step outside of your comfort zone, expand it to your purpose and grow your business in a big way. I’m your host, Stephanie, Skryzowski a globe trotting CFO, whose mission is to empower leaders to better understand their numbers, to grow their impact and their income.
Let’s dive in.
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to 100 degrees of entrepreneurship. I’m Stephanie and I have a good episode for you today. So my guest Katrina Widener is a business coach that went from a super toxic nine to five. To helping early stage entrepreneurs really set up their businesses to fuel their lives. And I think that’s what we’re all about and avoid burnout and really set up a business that works so well for them.
And we talk about all kinds of things today. [00:01:00] I loved our conversation around taking stock of your business and really thinking about what’s working before you just. Press on and try to solve the wrong problems in your business. I’ve done it, um, many times before, and she’s just got lots of great wisdom on that and so many more things.
And then we spend the end of the podcast talking about books. So if you’re a reader, stay tuned all the way to the end because we talk about some of our favorite books and she gave some great recommendations. Anyway, here is our official bio. Katrina Widener is a business coach podcast, host and community leader.
Simply put, she helps establish entrepreneurs make more by doing less reaching full alignment in their business, through human design business strategy and mindset say, see, and ever to draining compromises and elevate your empire in a way that feels joyful and builds wealth. Katrina’s awesome. You’re gonna love this episode, so let’s dive right in.[00:02:00]
Stephanie Skryzowski:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to 100 degrees of entrepreneurship and I am really excited to share with you today. Katrina Widener, Katrina. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. So I would love to start, first of all, with you just sharing about who you are and what you. Yeah, so to put it really simply I help entrepreneurs make more money by doing less.
So my big thing is like, let’s streamline, systematize be really strategic about your business so that you can have a business that feels really good to be in, but also helps you make like the consistent income that you wanna have. So I do that through. One on one coaching, I have a mastermind. Um, and then I am also the host of the podcast, the baddest business squad.
I feel like that’s what Everett, like, everybody wants you, everybody needs what you are doing. I love that. So how did you get to doing what you’re doing now? What did [00:03:00] your journey look like? Where’d you start out. Yeah. So I actually started in like the traditional nine to five world, which a lot of entrepreneurs have.
I was a digital writer and editor for better homes and gardens magazine was a marketing specialist and a social media strategist. And I knew all the things about search engine optimization and email marketing, et cetera, cetera, cetera, cetera. And really in my like professional career, I. Major corporation.
I did small startup. I did freelancing and I was just like every single time I’m beholden someone else’s rules. And this also may have just been my experience, but I was. Finding myself in incredibly toxic environments that were not honoring my boundaries that were not really seeing me as anyone, but a number I remember sitting in on a meeting once for someone was like, well, we need some budget to do this new initiative.
And one of like the, uh, CSU leaders was basically [00:04:00] just like, oh, we’ll just fire a couple people. That’s fine. And it was, it was just like the most blatant, like we do not see people as people. We see people as dollar signs and I just knew that that was not a life that I could. Stay in for the rest of my life.
Right. That was not like an environment that was good for me. I, right before I started my job, I probably like I experienced depression for, it was the first time ever. I was at a place where I was just like, my day to day life is so like toxic in my work environment. And I was in a partnership that wasn’t the best choice for me.
And I basically had this like transition period where I realized, okay, if I’m going to. Make a change. I need to make a change. Like I always call it like deciding to be an entrepreneur, being a like capital fee choice. It’s not something that you’re like, oh, I’m flirting with this idea of this thing. It’s like, no, I’m, I’m making a decision.[00:05:00]
And that’s what I needed to do. So I started out as a life coach. I ended up talking business strategy with every single one of my clients anyway. And so I just really easily transitioned into business coach from there. Oh, that’s amazing. It’s interesting. Some people’s journeys. I mean, first of all, I’m sorry that you had such like toxic experience, um, because I’ve.
I’ve been there. I completely get it. And one thing that you, you were like, they didn’t respect my boundaries. I’m like, I’m pretty sure there’s like no boundaries in like most corporate environments. There’s like, that’s not even a word that’s used. Mm-hmm like, there are no boundaries. Um, it’s just interesting.
Cuz some people’s journeys. Start out with something this, this sort of really bumpy start that we’re like, okay, this is not for me. And it takes that unfortunately some moment where it’s like, okay, I can’t do this anymore to bring us into, um, into something new. So I’m so glad that you have found, um, what really lights you up and gotten out of that type of environment.
That’s awesome. So what type of [00:06:00] people do you work with now as a business? Yeah. So most of the entrepreneurs I work with are, I mean, they’re creative people, they’re the, but. It’s it’s funny. Cuz whenever anybody asks me the demographics for this, I’m like I have the demographics, but I also just have like the vibe of the person, right?
Yeah, exactly. So it’s like exactly. Like I call my mastermind, the baddest business squad. I like you look at my Instagram, you look at my website. I’m like wearing graphic t-shirts and like, even if you look at me right now, I’m in black, I’m almost always in black. I’m like, I’m the type of person where I’m like, I’m not afraid to swear, but I also.
The type of coach, who’s going to both support you and maybe ask you stuff outta your comfort zone, but I’m never gonna just like hand someone a formula and be like, this is how I made it. This is how you’re gonna make it. Cause I really value and see everyone’s individualistic aspects and their personal strength.
Their personal marketing strategies, right? Like I’m an [00:07:00] extrovert. I’m not gonna market the same way someone else will because we are different people. And that needs to be honored and recognized in business. When we are talking like straight demographics though, like normally the people who I work with are people who are within that 50 K to 150 K range, because they’re like, I know how to bring some money into my business.
I’ve done this beforehand. But last time it felt like shit. Like last time it felt. Really difficult. There was struggle. I got overwhelmed. I felt like I was started spaghetti at walls. Like I was able to make it work through hustle and through like devoting my time and energy to this, but I wanted to feel good next time.
I want it to feel easy. I wanna have launches where. I can take time to go for a long walk with my family and have dinner with my partner every night and all of that kind of stuff. And that’s why we all started our like jobs as entrepreneurs anyway. And so for me, it’s really just saying like, let’s, let’s figure out the personal way [00:08:00] for you to make more money.
Without having to spend more time. And it’s really that like people who are no longer looking to trade their time and energy for money and are wanting to do it in a really scalable and systematized way. Mm-hmm, that phase of business where you’re at, you know, 50, 50 or a hundred or $150,000 a year.
You’re hustling. You’re like in it, because you haven’t nailed down the, you know, your magic formula yet. I feel like. Takes a while to like, figure out what that is for you. And so I would imagine that there’s like lots of burnout in that phase that you’re probably helping clients with, because I feel like that’s like your make or break time.
Like if you, if you wanna get past that a hundred or 150,000, like you have to figure things out and sort of get past that burnout. Oh, 100%. Yeah. So talk to me. How does somebody who’s in those early [00:09:00] days, like avoid burnout and get to the other side so that they can continue to grow. And. Definitely. So the thing that I always tell people is I approach business as you’re either in a reactive or you’re in a proactive business.
And what I mean by that, cuz when I first say those people are like, okay, is when you’re in a. Reactive business. You’re doing the day to day things. It’s almost like when people are like, you’re in like in the trees instead of looking at the whole forest you’re in the day to day, you’re dealing with the things that are just coming to you in the moment, I guess, is the best way to say it.
And when you’re in a proactive business mindset, you’re able to take a look at the big picture and say, how can I plan in advance for the life that I wanna have? And. I don’t know. Do you know what the profit first method is in? Like yep. Like business finances. Okay. So this is like one of the easiest ways I can [00:10:00] describe this to people.
If anyone listening does not know the profit first method, it’s basically where you, when you take your business finances and when you first get paid, you automatically divvy that money. So that you’re guaranteed profit every single year. It’s really a way to say, I’m going to look at how much money’s coming in and plan and budget and like split things up accordingly so that I’m never spending so much in my business that I don’t receive profit at the end of the year.
And the truth is, is that’s really the way that I recommend approaching everything in your business. If I say I want. To start my business because I want to have this like freedom and I wanna have this specific lifestyle and I wanna be able to approach my day to day in a way that feels good. That means sitting down and saying, if this is my angle, how do I plan backwards to make that happen?
[00:11:00] So when I talk to people about like systematizing and streamlining, I’m not a systems and automations coach, I’m not the person who’s gonna be like, well, here are all the different CRMs you can use. And I recommend this one. I’m the one who’s saying, let’s take a really strategic look at your business as a whole.
How can we make things go faster? How we can, we streamline the things that you’re doing in the business so that you can have the goals that you want at the end of the. So for me personally, I don’t work on Fridays. I take Fridays off every single week. I want to have that freedom in my business. I also wanna have the freedom in my business to say the other days, maybe I’m working, I don’t know, four to six hours a day, as opposed to like, well, then I’m gonna work 10 hour days, uh, the other four days.
So then I can have my Friday’s. I will also say, I specifically set my business up in a way where my hours working are dedicated just to client meetings. Like I don’t have a client meeting [00:12:00] and then four hours of work to do on their project, or imagine a website designer or social media strategist where you’re planning all these things outside the meetings.
That’s what I chose specifically. So I, I acknowledge that I have that like freedom and I have that privilege, but. I sat down and I was like, okay. So if I don’t wanna have. If I don’t wanna have to work on Fridays, how do I get there and how do I get there now, as opposed to waiting for this magical day in the future, where I have decided on some certain dollar amount where then I, when I get here, then I can take that time off.
When I get to this point, then I can hire someone to help me. It was it’s flipping it on its head and saying, no, I wanna feel that way. Now I want this goal to happen. Right now, or at least in a couple weeks or a month or something like that. And how do I set up my business in the moment right here, right now to plan for that.
And that is being proactive. That’s not saying one day in the [00:13:00] future when this happens, which that’s being reactive. It’s saying, no, I want this to happen now. So I’m going to make these changes in my business in this moment right here right now, so that I can have this feel easier. Mm-hmm honestly, I love that so much.
First of all, our audience definitely knows profit first. Cause I talk about it all the time. Yeah. A money person, but I love that. And honestly, my business coach challenged me to do this like five or six months ago as well, because I had the SA like the example that you use, where it’s. I have meetings all over the place and they were scattered all over my calendar every day of the week, morning, afternoon.
And I only had like a couple hour chunks of work, like in between all these meetings to get work done, to like actual work or like even just time to think. Um, and so I was like, ah, I would love to be able to have just like two days of meetings a week and then have the other time to be able to just have free space to think and do work and.
I was like, you know, maybe, maybe I’ll be able to do that [00:14:00] someday. And just like you’re saying, you’re like, no, like that’s not a Sunday thing. Let’s figure out what do you have to do right now to make it happen? And so, Now I have specific days of the week that I take calls. I do not take calls on the other days of the week.
And I have that time to think, and to get deep into projects and things like that. And I love, I, I just love the, um, you know, how you talked about being proactive, because if you say like, okay, yeah, like down the road, when I hit whatever point, like I’ll do that, it’s never gonna happen. No, it isn’t. It’s. It will never happen if you were like, oh, I would love to be able to like, just take Fridays off, but you didn’t actually take any action to make that happen.
you’d still be working Fridays. Like it, it would not have changed. So I love that. I love that so much. So what if somebody is listening and they’re like, okay, cool. I want that. I know what my, like, say just my dream schedule since we’re talking about that. I know what my dream schedule looks like, but I honestly don’t even know like, How I can get there.
Is it systems, is it software? Is it [00:15:00] people like, is it like, what is it, how do you help people sort of uncover what that next like proactive step actually is? Cause I feel like a lot of business owners who are at that maybe a hundred thousand dollars mark, they just don’t even know what to do with this point.
So how do you help them figure out what that action actually. Yeah. So that’s, I, I’m glad you asked this question. Cause this is like, what I love doing with people. I L like, this is my favorite type of coaching is because it is, it’s really sitting down and. Most of the time people are just like, I know the goal that I want, but I don’t know how to get there.
And I feel like that is like the number one challenge that entrepreneurs face on a day to day basis, whether that is a beginner entrepreneur, an incredibly experienced entrepreneur. And the thing is, is that like, We often don’t sit down and actually take stock in our businesses of how we are feeling about how our things are moving.
I do this a minimum of once a year. I honestly have done it more than once a year, depending on where I’m [00:16:00] at and what I’m doing. Um, and that’s sitting down and saying, where did all of my clients come if I’m gonna use the example of once a year? Just cause it makes more sense, but it’s like, where did all my clients come in the last year?
Did they come from SEO? Did they come from referrals? Did they come from like social media? Where did all, how did this funnel in? Okay, cool. Now I have that information. What are my different services? What takes the most time? What do I like doing the most chart that out? If something takes a lot of time and you don’t like doing it immediate cut for me.
I am such an extrovert. I am such a people person. When I started my business coaching, I was doing one-on-one coaching and I loved it. But I wasn’t getting that group connection. I wasn’t getting that community aspect that I really valued and that I could see time and time and time again, [00:17:00] that business owners were craving.
And so that’s why I started a mastermind is because I was like, look, here’s an opportunity for me as a human being Katrina to do what I love the most, which is work in a community setting. It also allows me to. Six entrepreneurs in two hours a week instead of having six hour and a half long calls a week.
So I was able to say from a strategic standpoint, this is opening up my time. This is opening up my like mental and energetic space for me to be tackling other things for my clients. It was also offering a lower priced option than one-on-one coaching and a community based option instead of one-on-one coaching.
So it was really a very strategic choice. It wasn’t just me being like, oh, well maybe I’ll try that. It was me sitting down and actually taking stock of where I am now, where I wanna end up what are like interesting ways or [00:18:00] new ways I can get there. And the thing that I, I don’t think everyone really does is sit down and do that.
Taking. Step before they act necessarily. And that’s one thing that like I also work on with my clients is really confident decision making. How can you make decisions that you feel really, really good about and have no doubts about every single time you make these decisions? And I will say it’s also one of the areas that I get the most pushback from my clients, because it requires you to get uncomfortable.
Like, if you want to learn a different way of making decisions over time, it can, like the end result is I feel so much lighter. I feel so much easier. I don’t have these spiraling thoughts around this thing. I’m not going back and forth and back and forth. There’s no pros and cons lists it’s this is how I naturally operate, but that’s out of our comfort zone.
Like that’s not how we’ve made decisions for the, our entire life up to this point. And so. It’s, it’s always [00:19:00] kind of this process where I talk about it in terms of strategy, systematizing and streamlining. But that strategy piece is the biggest part. I work with people for a minimum of six months at a time, I would say at least four of those six months are just focused on the strategy part.
Where we’re just taking in stock of how do you feel? Where are you in this place? What is working, what isn’t working, what’s dragging you down the most, where are you not having boundaries? Right. A lot of the reason why we get stuck in this rabbit hole of a rabbit wheel, I should say. Hamster wheel, I think is what I’m going for.
Sorry, guys. A small animal that runs on a wheel, small animal running around in a wheel. Yes, we gotcha. um, but when people get stuck in that hamster wheel, it is oftentimes because we’re also overgiving to our clients. It’s also because we are not necessarily holding our own boundaries with our clients, with our family [00:20:00] members, with our partners, et cetera, et cetera.
And. It’s really this holistic view and that’s all what I incorporate into this strategy. Quote, unquote section we’ll say is because like, this is where we’re talking about alignment. This is where we’re talking about actual business strategy. This is where we’re taking stock. This is where we’re like getting curious about what you like, what you don’t like, et cetera, et cetera.
How do you naturally operate? How, what are the shoulds that you’re carrying around? Like, I should be working a lot of hours, so otherwise I won’t make a lot of money. And then once we kind of. Muddle through all of that, we can make a plan. So for anyone who’s listening, who’s like, okay, this sounds great, but I wanna do it on my own.
I just say like, start by like taking stock, you’ll find action items as you start saying, like, what are the end goals I wanna have? What are the things that are currently in my way of having that end goal? What are the things that I really love doing? What are the things that I don’t really love doing and how can I make changes in my business?[00:21:00]
And I think also people can get a little bit. Stuck around this idea of, well, if I make changes, I’m going to throw my clients off. Or I like, what if I make this change? And it doesn’t work. And the reminder is, first of all, nothing is permanent. Any change you make, you can change back. If you say I like, for me, I’m like I only do podcast interviews.
Tuesdays and Thursdays for my podcast or for other P people’s podcasts. I, if I open that up to a Wednesday, no, one’s gonna notice. Literally no one . Right, right, right. And when you do try a service, if you try it and it never goes anywhere, your clients aren’t gonna notice, no one is paying as much attention to your business as you are.
And I think that those are like the things that people can like really get stuck on is this idea that. It’s gonna be this way forever or that I’m gonna really throw my clients off. And I don’t wanna [00:22:00] take that step mm-hmm
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It’s so interesting because I think when we’re thinking about like, Okay. I have this like sort of dream life or dream schedule or thing that I want to achieve. We often think that it’s like, oh, well there’s just like a software solution. Or if I just hire like X, Y, Z person, like all of my problems will go away.[00:23:00]
But it sounds like what you’re saying. And what you’ve experienced with your clients is that actually it’s mostly like confidence and decision making and really understanding what’s working. And maybe even like changing your offers in your business, like you shared. Adding your mastermind or, you know, switching up your offer to, to make that a mastermind.
So I think that’s a really interesting point is that sometimes the work is not necessarily like buying a new software it seems like, yeah. That’s like the easy, like low hanging fruit. We think that’s gonna change our life or adding this contractor. And that’s like, not usually the answer well, Sometimes it is the answer, but we won’t find that answer unless we do that first step, I think is like also the big thing that people don’t think about.
And to give you all an example, I have someone where we were talking about, they really wanted to hire a social media VA or like a strategist to just come in to actually coordinate and create [00:24:00] all of their social media strategy. And would that have. Worked. Yeah. Like if you hire someone to do your social media, your social media’s getting done.
Instead though, we sat down and we talked through what their goals were with their social media, what their goals were for like what they wanted to have on their grid. Are they the type of person who is gonna be great for reals? Are they the type of person who should be doing a lot of lives and all of this?
Like what is the strategy part of social media that we wanna figure out? What are your goals, et cetera, et C. And this person is a website designer and they’re like, I really want it to just be like a portfolio. I just like. They were basically saying, like, I want people to follow me and interact with me and my stories and interact with who I am and interact with the work that I’m doing.
But I get really annoyed when I follow a website designer and they’re just posting here’s another website I did. Here’s another website. I [00:25:00] did. She’s like that. Doesn’t get people outside of maybe other web designers wanting to follow me regularly. Because if you need a website designer, you’re going out and looking for them in that moment, you’re maybe not necessarily gonna be like, I’m gonna just for fun follow these website designers all the time.
And so we were able to actually sit down and say, okay, well, what if we created a really unique static? Six post strategy for your Instagram feed that you have to create one time. You’re not regularly updating it. You’re basically turning your Instagram feed into a mini magazine where people can say, oh, Hey, start here.
This is who this person is. This is what their offers are. Here’s a freebie in conclusion. Here’s this thing. Your highlights can be the portfolio. Your stories can be the portfolio. Now look at this. We have created one strategy. You can execute a single time, all that money that you would’ve been throwing at a social strategist, you get to [00:26:00] save.
and you get to turn that money and put it toward a junior designer who can take some of your time off in a different area, or put it toward a business manager who can manage your like systems and who can like start implementing those and do your emails and all that kind of stuff. And I love using that example because it’s saying Y she could have just gone and hired a social media coordinator.
Right. And that would have given her a presence on social media. But would it have been exactly the goal that she needed to accomplish? Would it have accomplished that for her and. That’s where, like, if you take stock and you sit down and you actually like, think through and say, strategically, what are we trying to accomplish here?
You might be able to save yourself money in other ways, instead of just like throwing money at the problem or saying, I don’t wanna think about this, or I don’t wanna do these things. And I even tell people who are like considering hiring a coach. It’s like, that’s the beauty of a coach is you get to actually do this [00:27:00] strategy.
And now you’re not also throwing money in other areas. You’re saying I’m choosing to. And one person to help me take like a high level, look at my business. And that’s why I also talk about it’s like, it’s making more money by doing less things, because we’re saying you’re not gonna throw money at things just to try, like, again, like you were saying, like, not just like a new software thing, just to see if it works.
We’re gonna say, what is really what you as a human being need and what is it that your business as a separate entity needs and let’s go and get that mm-hmm . Yeah. And I think I love that example cuz it’s like the initial thought of that client was like just. Maybe solving the wrong problem. Like if you don’t do that sort of taking stock exercise, you’re gonna be solving the wrong problem.
You’re not gonna get the solution that you want because you didn’t, you know, you didn’t solve the right problem. And I love that idea of taking stock. And I do that all the time in my business as well. And I think like tying the finance piece to that and the money, like [00:28:00] I realized I had an offer that was, um, Making about like 1%, literally one or 2% of my total revenue, but I was spending so much mental energy on it.
It just like, it wasn’t profitable, but I just had this weird like attachment. I was like, I just have to do this thing. And I eventually was like, you know what? I think we just have to shut it down. And so we shut it down. And so all of that energy that was being wasted. On this thing is now able to go into the things that are working in my business.
And I, I knew that because I had done exactly what you’re talking about. Like taking stock of what’s working, where are clients coming from? Where are we making the most money? And like, let’s do more of that. I feel like. We, and I’m including myself, like get so distracted by all the things we’re on social media, everybody’s doing like the new, like coolest thing.
And, you know, I’ve even thought to myself before, oh, I need to create reels. Everyone’s creating reels. Well, first of all, Are my clients coming from Instagram. Like, no, they’re really not. So like, do I [00:29:00] need to be spending time creating reels when clients are not coming to us through Instagram? Probably not.
Unless it’s like a fun hobby, but it’s not for me. So it, it helps you, you know, looking at the numbers and I love that sort of that taking stock exercise. Do you have like a, if somebody was like, oh, okay. I think I, I wanna do this. Do you have like a way that you walk your clients through sort of taking stock of their business?
I will say it differs from client to client, but I can. I can give people some like beginning places, first and foremost, I have a workbook on my website. That is, it’s a self discovery workbook, but it’s really asking you those hard questions it’s sitting down and saying, when are the moments in my business that I feel really good about who I am when I’m in them.
Right. Like, I love speaking. I love showing up and talking about this type of stuff, because I know that it can help people. I know it can open people’s minds. I know it can do those things. I also, like I said, I [00:30:00] love coaching, but specifically the mastermind. So it’s also providing you like those insights, but then it flips it and it says, what are the moments when you’re in your business?
You don’t like who you are when you’re in it. Right. And it’s like when, like in the past I did not love who I was when I was having pushing energy. Like, right. Like imagine when you cold call people, imagine when I’m like doing a launch by someone else’s like. I once hired a long strategist and they just gave me like a list of things to do.
And I was so stressed out and I felt like I was pushing the entire time. And I like, while I was executing it, cause I was just like, this isn’t me. This is your strategy. This isn’t my strategy. And so like really having that clarity on like, when are the moments that I feel good about who I am and what are the moments when I don’t like who I am.
Like, those are some of the examples of what’s in that workbook because it’s really. Forcing you to kind of take a step back from what you’re doing and [00:31:00] approach it from an entirely new angle. Um, I also really have some. Blog posts on my website that take you through some of what I would do at the end of every single year taking stock of where are my clients coming from?
Where is most of my marketing energy being put toward? Most of your marketing energy is being put toward SEO and you’re getting most of your clients from referrals. Maybe you don’t need to be focusing so much energy on SEO. mm-hmm. exactly. But I also use a modality called human design. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it.
Um, that allows me to also get some insights into my clients of how do you naturally market the most like easily, right? How do you naturally market? How do you make those confident decision making? Skills or get those confident decision making skills. And for anyone who’s listening, human design is a modality.
That’s kind of similar to anyo Graham kind of similar to Myers Briggs. It also has like a little bit of like a [00:32:00] astrology, like sprinkle on top just because it uses your birth time. Um, but I am specifically trained in human design for business, and it’s really about how do we utilize this to learn about how we naturally show up in the world.
And so that’s another rabbit hole people can go down is kind of. What is human design? How do I show up? What are the things that are natural to me? How, where have I been putting shoulds on myself? But it, it really is just taking a step back overall and trying to look at your business from a different person’s perspective or from like a different way that you’ve been currently living in it and taking stock and saying, what is it that I’m enjoying?
And what is it that is working. What is it that I’m not enjoying? Or what is it that is not working? Mm-hmm yeah, I love that. Like I said, it’s exactly what we do, you know, in my business, especially when it comes to our numbers, like your numbers tell you a lot and they do, if [00:33:00] you, um, Yeah. Even if you’re like, not an, if you’re listening, if you’re not a numbers person, like it doesn’t, there’s no like confusing math around it.
It’s just like literally looking at like, okay, how many of my clients came from here? How many clients came there? And yeah, it’s it’s um, I just think that yeah, using those numbers to help you make decisions. That’s what I talk about all the time. So I love that you do the same. Awesome. Well, yeah, I just pulled up your free resources page and I see your workbook on there.
And so I would definitely encourage everybody to go check that out. We’ll put the link in the show notes and it’s Katrina widener.com/free-resources. So you got a lot of stuff on there. There’s a lot of good, a lot of good resources on here. So people definitely need to go check that out. Um, so a couple questions that I always like to ask as we’re kind of wrapping up our conversation.
Um, I know you are a reader and I’m a reader too. Um, what’s your, give me a book recommendation. It could be, usually people give like nonfiction, so like business or, you know, [00:34:00] personal development type books, but anything, anything you got? I always need more books add to my list. Yes. So, um, I actually have a book book, Instagram as well.
That’s ATR reads. So I can send you the link for that too, but it’s need to follow. It’s just like a fun passion project for me. I just hit my annual goal last night. I’ve read 52 books this year. Stop. Gosh, um, it has, it has been a good book year for me. I do not normally reach 52 books. Halfway through the year in early June.
Yeah, my goodness. I would say last year I read 60 books the entire year. So this has just been an amazing book year. Anyway, I can talk about books for way too long. Um, I guess what I would actually first say is what is your favorite type of book? And then I’ll give you a book recommendation. That’s similar to that.
Oh my gosh, if that was that alignment here, guys. I know. Okay. [00:35:00] I love, I mean, I do love, like I’m looking at my bookshelf. That’s why I’m leaning over. I honestly like business books. I like personal development. I like, uh, memoir. I’ve been reading lots of like silly, like chocolate kind of fiction lately. Cuz it’s just easy, easy way to decompress the brain at night.
Yeah. I love like. Yeah. I don’t know. We’ll start there. So like business personal development, I love memoir and I like light, easy, happy reads where no one and no, no animals get killed. nothing like that. no, I okay. That gives, I will give you one for each, I will say, um, for you and anyone listening, if you have not already read essentialism, that is my number one business book, but I also love the E myth revisited.
So, no, I haven’t read that one. I gotta read that one. Theit through visited is one that’s very actually aligned. Now that I think about it with the ideal client I have, which maybe is why I love it so much, but it’s [00:36:00] basically. Tells the story of a business owner who reaches that place, where she’s ready to go to the next level and tries and takes this like falls back in and tries and falls back in and tries and falls back in over and over and over again.
And it’s really talking about that scalability in business. How do we reach that next level without falling back essentialism? I don’t know if you’ve talked about it on the podcast beforehand for anyone listening is really. To boil it down. In a nutshell, you have a hundred units of energy. If you’re spending them in 10 different directions, you’re only moving 10 units of energy in each direction.
But if you’re spending a hundred units of energy in one direction, you’re moving a hundred units of energy forward in that area. And so it’s really asking you again, to take stock of what are the things that I like to do. What are the things that I. I’m seeing are profitable or are I’m seeing are worthwhile, and I’m gonna devote my energy in those areas instead of separating my energy amongst [00:37:00] 8,000 different directions for memoir, I am currently reading Gabrielle unions.
Um, I think it’s, do you have anything
stronger? Gabrielle union. This is my first time reading Gabrielle union, and I love her. I love it. She starts you off immediately. Super, super vulnerable. I will say there are some trigger warnings. If you might wanna look up before you read it, if anybody is curious about that, but her style of writing is just very vulnerable, very open.
Like everything’s out on the table. She holds nothing back, which is, I, I find really, really admirable in nonfiction memoir writers. Um, and then if you haven’t already for a like fun read, I would recommend book lovers just came out by Emily Henry just finished that last week. Yes. So good. Cute. Yeah. Love it.
Yes. In [00:38:00] 2020. In the midst of like the like stay at home order pandemic. I also started reading some like more light chicklet romancey books, cuz I was just like, hello, I need some, some happiness. Can we just inject some goodness into my life right now? Exactly. And you can fly through them in like a few hours.
Oh yeah. Like, oh yeah. A couple hours. You can get through it. And it just is like, it’s a little bit of escapism for me. So yeah. I’ve read several of her books in the last I’ve discovered her recently in the last few weeks. So yeah, that’s a fun one for sure. Oh my gosh. Yes. I’m like, I’m, I’m gonna reign myself in.
I’m not gonna talk anymore about books because I can be long winded. um, well I just found you on Instagram and tell me, like, what is this 12 hour readathon like, do you literally sit and read for 12 hours? Oh yeah. So, um, there is someone else who did a 24 hour readathon, which she, I think she basically read from like 6:00 AM, till 6:00 AM or something along those lines.
So [00:39:00] I participated in a 12 hour readathon that she hosted later on. I’m gonna be honest. If any of you guys were like me and were like the 12 year old who would sit and read Harry Potter for hours on end 12 hour, Rita thumb really? Wasn’t that difficult? you’re like, that’s a normal Saturday. No, I I’m. In Minnesota.
We had, uh, in April a lot of really, really cold rainy days when everyone was just like, I mean, honestly, right now it’s really gray and dreary and it was just the perfect day to be like, I’m just gonna read all day long. And I am in two different book clubs. I had a bunch of books from the library and I just used it as an excuse to try to finish as many books from the library as I could and get those back.
So, yeah, it was fun. It was fun. I, if she does a 24-hour read sound, I think I’m gonna challenge myself and try. Wow. I feel like those hours after 11:00 PM for that like 11:00 PM to 6:00 AM. I I’m toast. I don’t, [00:40:00] I I’m, yeah. I need my sleep, but 12 hours doable. She did kind of say like get an audio book. So if you need to, you could like go for a walk and listen to your book, listen to things while you’re cooking, give yourself some like ways to mix things.
And she also was like, my husband fell asleep in the middle of it. Oh, well, still counts. So it’s like very laid back. Right. right. It’s just like a fun, a fun thing to do. So do you read on like a Kindle or a electronic device or do you read like a physical book from the library? Well, you can see behind me.
I see lots of books. I have these huge bookshelves behind me. Um, I have over a hundred books in my home. I have not read, so we’ll start off there. And I have read 52 books this year. I utilize the library a lot, both, uh, the Libby app and, um, I can walk to my library. So, um, I use both physical books and the Libby app, which I will normally read actually on [00:41:00] my phone and then, oh, wow.
Every once in a while, I will listen to an audio book, but I only like listening to non-fiction audio books, I, or mysteries, like, that’s it like I’m, I’m not the type of person who can like listen to a normal book on a, as an audio book. Yeah, I’ve never tried. I feel like I like the act of like reading a book.
Mm-hmm like, I enjoy holding even if it’s my, even it’s my iPad and just reading on the Kindle app. Like I enjoy like sitting and yeah. Looking at something. So yeah. I feel like I could talk books all day too, because I was, um, as a kid, I was too, uh, I. Harry Potter came out after I was a child. So I did not read those as a kid, but I was the type of kid that yeah.
Would just like hole up in my room all day long and go through my entire library stack in like a day. And I’d be like, mom, I gotta go back to the library. She’s like, you got like 12 books. I’m like, I read them all already. so yeah. Yep. Yes. Yeah. So funny. Um, anyway. Okay. Well, yeah, let’s stop [00:42:00] talking about books.
We gotta go. um, I was just gonna ask you one of the last questions I ask is always like, what do you do to disconnect from work? I feel like I may have an idea of what you do to disconnect from work based on what we’re talking about. But yeah. Do you have any, like any little things that you like to do to really disconnect yourself from your work?
Yeah. Well, so I obviously read. I also really get a lot of peace and calm from going for long walks. Um, sometimes with an audio book or a podcast or music sometimes without, I also have gotten really into gardening this year. So spending as much time outside, I have a huge yard that has was neglected for a long time.
I just moved in in October. So I. I’ve been doing a lot of gardening. And for me, I can really tell, getting outside as much as possible is very, very grounding for me and anyone else who lives in the Northern part of the world. Um, we only get a limited amount of time to do [00:43:00] it. So. Take advantage. yeah, same.
I’m like, cuz I’m in Buffalo, New York. So we probably have very similar weather. So I’m like anytime the sun is shining, I am outside. Exactly. And it’s rainy and gray and cold today. So not today. So I hear you. Awesome. Okay. Where can our listeners find you? I know they will want to check out your free resources page, but um, yeah.
Where should we, where should we go to find you? Yeah. So I would, first of all, say, check me out on Instagram. I’m there pretty much every single day, at least almost every single day. It’s Katrina dot Widener. So it’s pretty straightforward. Um, and I am also the type of person where I’m like, my DMS are always opened.
So feel free to slide on in ask me any questions. I am here to help also, obviously my book Instagram, I am there as well but then my website is just Katrina, yn.com. And then my podcast is the badass business squad podcast. And it’s. 20 minute episodes of [00:44:00] really highly implementable, like advice and takeaways and deliverables.
So I really also recommend that if you just want, like I’m going for a quick walk or I’m driving to the grocery store and I wanna be able to have something really bite size and digestible in the moment. Love it. Awesome. Thank you. There’s so many places that we can find you and follow along. So I hope everybody does that.
Well, Katrina, thank you so much. Thanks for sharing all of your wisdom and all of the book stuff at the end, for sure. and, uh, yeah, appreciate you being here. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Thanks for listening to the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast. To access our show notes and bonus content.
Visit 100 degrees consulting.com/podcast. Make sure to snap a screenshot on your phone of this episode and tag me on Instagram at Stephanie dot S K R Y. And I’ll be sure to share. Thanks for being here, friends, and I’ll see you next [00:45:00] time.
