What do you want to be known for?
Your brand can get to the heart of what you want to say, create a vision for where you're going next, and give you renewed focus and confidence in sharing what you do.
Kathleen Shannon, who is the co-founder of Braid Creative and the co-host of the Being Boss podcast, has perfected her branding.
Through her work at Braid Creative and Being Boss, she has helped thousands of creative entrepreneurs worldwide to authentically brand and position themselves as creative experts, cultivate confidence in their business, and blend more of who they are into the work they do.
She continues to have a positive impact by co-authoring the book, Being Boss: Take Control of Your Work and Live Life on Your Own Terms.
During this interview, you'll discover...
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Branding advice and insights
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Brand vision, positioning and platform
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Creative services and media strategy
To learn more about Kathleen, visit her website.
For her Facebook page, click here.
To connect with her on Twitter, check this out.
To find her on Instagram, read this.
To learn more about the Being Boss podcast and book, visit here.
To read about Braid Creative & Consulting, click this link.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
Michael Palmer: 02:09 Welcome back to The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. I am your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be terrific. Our guest is the co-founder of the branding agency braid creative and Co-host of the wildly popular being boss podcast that inspires creative entrepreneurs and provides them practical business advice. She's also a first-time author with the release of being boss. Take control of your work and live life on your own terms. Kathleen Shannon, welcome to the podcast
Kathleen Shannon: 02:39 Thank you so much for having me, Michael.
MP: 02:42 Yeah, it's fantastic. And we had your coauthor and cohost. Yup. Uh, on the podcast recently as well. So I'm really excited to get your take on things your take on business, your take on life and I know it's going to be highly valuable to our audience. But before we get to all of
MP: 03:00 that, tell us a little bit about your business background and how you ended up being the Kathleen Shannon of today.
KS: 03:15 Sure. So it probably starts with me going to college for art school. I thought I was going to be a painter, but then I found out how competitive the graphic design program was. So I thought, well I'll try that. My older sister who's seven years older than me was also a graphic designer that went through that same program. So she kind of paved the way for me and I got into this highly competitive program and graduated, got a job as an art director at an advertising agency and probably about five years into that I worked my way up to senior art director. I was really taking the lead on a lot of accounts, including whenever the NBA Hornets came up from New Orleans to Oklahoma City after Hurricane Katrina.
KS: 03:49 I was a lead on their account, but I was also working on other accounts where I was not only client facing, but really managing the budgets behind the scenes and it really set me up to be able to do the creative side and the Admin side of working for myself. So about, you know, five years into working at an advertising agency, I was feeling that itch. Like I know I could do this on my own, I could do it on my own terms. I could create when I want to create and have the flexibility and freedom to travel the world, whether I want to go to mount Everest and hike through the Himalayas or if I want to go work from the beach for a week. So I was really craving that flexibility and freedom. I was also really wanting to work with a certain specific type of dream client.
KS: 04:35 So for me, that was creative entrepreneurs who were sharing their content online and really blending who they were into the work that they do. And with my strategic background, I was able to bring not like the kinds of systems and processes that maybe even my cohost Emily spoke to you about an, I don't know what she spoke to you about, but sometimes I think of her as being kind of like the more logistical side to my creative side. But even with like being a free-spirited kind of creative, I still had a lot of strategy and agency background that I was bringing into the work that I was doing for other creative entrepreneurs. So I really got into branding and positioning other creatives who wanted to blend more of who they are into the work that they do because ultimately people buy from people. I think that sometimes we try to put on our professional hat and end up sounding like robots and really repelling the kinds of dream clients that we could be getting otherwise.
KS: 05:32 About a year after I started freelancing for myself, I convinced my big sister who was a creative director at an advertising agency to join me, and so we joined forces. We created braid creative. We thought that we would be working with credit unions and financial institutions. That was something that we had a background in and it is something that we're working. We are working with larger organizations now, but that's seven years later. Whenever we launched our business, I said, hey, you know, I'm excited to do whatever we've got to do and whoever we want to work with. I love working with marketing directors within organizations, but I also really love working with creative entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, people who are really wanting to make a name for themselves and position themselves as experts. So we really created this dream client profile and it worked for us. So we've been doing that for the past seven years now and it's, it's been great.
KS: 06:27 And then somewhere along the line you all met my cohost, Emily Thompson. We started our podcast together called being boss, where we were really sharing a peak behind the scenes of what it looks like to run a successful business and what it's like to be in it. Because I think that we're all seeing these things on Instagram and on Pinterest of, you know, make six figures in one launch or you know, how I became a seven-figure creative. And that's just not the case all the time. Sometimes it's about being a working creative and figuring it out as you go. And those are the conversations that we're having behind the scenes. We call ourselves business besties and we wanted to hit publish on those conversations so that people, you know, just like you're doing for your audience, that people can see what it really takes to build a business that works for you.
MP: 07:18 I love it. It's so, so interesting. And you know, I think the theme definitely between your cohost and yourself is you know, bringing all of your experiences and the things that you're great at and and as well you just, your own personality and strengths as a human being found a really great combination in the two of you that has now put out something really valuable to people who were actually doing really doing the work. I mean, yeah, there's lots of lots of people out there in the marketplace offering like the get rich quick type of hey just add this one little thing and you'll magically be on a beach drinking my ties while your business is pumping out money. And for those of us that have, you know, there are some people that have done that, but for those of us that have done the grind and done the, the actual real work of building a business that drives real value, not always like that.
MP: 08:08 So I just love that you've brought what you're great at, your superpower to, to this conversation. When we're talking about branding, that seems to be your, and and from my take and speaking with Emily is that your very, very much a creative person. What's that like working with someone like our audience? They, they're very much, I mean it's not that they're not creative, but they're creative in a very specific way around financials and very detailed oriented around, you know, this is what they're looking for. The fine, fine details of everything. How does that work when you're working with somebody who's bringing your expertise in your gifts as a, as a big thinker, big creative thinker, anything to share around that?
KS: 08:54 Yeah, of course. I mean, so whenever I see the word branding, what might come top of mind is a logo, like a brand identity, but a brand is so much more than that. A brand is really bringing what you value to the forefront. It's that outer layer of, you know, kind of that hour layer of an onion for example, of what people, whenever they see you on the outside, what they can expect whenever they go deeper. A brand is a promise, you know, it's a story. It's what you deliver on. It's what you want people to know do and feel. It's a first impression. So a brand is so much more than just a logo. It's all those things I just listed. And so for a bookkeeper for example, I think that, you know, whenever I talk about personal branding, a lot of people think about celebrities like Beyonce or Michael Jackson or you know, other personal brands that are like Ellen.
KS: 09:50 You know, people who have TV shows named after them or have an album or are a spokesperson for something. Or you know, you might even think about some of these like celebrity bookkeepers, like even those people within your industry that are making a big splash and you don't necessarily have to be like them. You just have to turn up the volume on who you are and what it is that you offer and provide. And so, you know, it's so funny because for example, right now I'm trying to find a graphic designer for my company and I put out a call for applicants and I'm getting these like really long winded cover letters and stories about how I'll work late into the night and how I just want to be a great team player. And I'm looking for someone who just has really great typographic and layout skills.
KS: 10:38 And so for a bookkeeper, for example, I want someone who can crunch the numbers, do it reliably, and not get me in trouble whenever it comes to tax time. Right? And so I don't think that you have to like go overboard with your personal brand or blending or personality into your brand story, if it's going to confuse the main message of what you want your customer to know, do and feel. And so thus, you know, the main thing that I would say for your audience is like, what is it that you want your customers to know? What is it that you want them to do and what is it that you want them to feel? And I think that that feeling part is where you can really bring in some more of your personalities. So do you want them to feel taken care of? Do you want them to feel empowered to do it themselves?
KS: 11:28 Do you want them to feel organized? How is it that you want your customer to feel? And I think that's where you can start to bring in that brand story and blend the emotional side of what you have to offer into the really practical nuts and bolts side. But at the end of the day, what you are offering, what you want your customers to know is how they can hire you and what it is that you do. So I think that a lot of getting clear in your brand is really getting clear on your offering. What is it that you do? What's the process along the way and how do you explain that to your customer?
MP: 12:12 Beautifully said. So simple and I think often gets over complicated.
KS: 12:17 Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And, and it's easy to get over complicated or to be too simple. You know, like on one hand, you know, we see people that don't have any sort of brand consistency, you know, they don't have any sort of look and feel to convey who they are, what they do. And I think that that can be a challenge. On the flip side, they might be trying to be so creative or big vision or even, you know, I've found vagueness is a threat to brand clarity. Like whenever you're vague about what you do and what you offer, I especially see this like among coaches, so this might not be as much of a problem for your audience. Like your audience is in a really great position to say, here's what I do, here's what I offer, here's what you're going to get and here's how we do it along the way.
KS: 13:05 So as long as you're clear on what you do, then you can start to blend in some personality on top of that. And sometimes it's as little as if you are working for yourself saying I instead of we. It's really just being a little bit more honest in how you communicate what you do. It might also be being a little bit more plain speak and not speaking like a robot or using industry jargon that your client might not understand. These are really simple ways to blend a little bit more personality into the work that you do.
MP: 13:36 Yeah, it's fantastic. I think that the challenge that our audience and many of the bookkeepers that I've worked with, the challenge is their expertise is not the work and things that we're talking about right now. And so they know they want to attract a certain type of clients. Perhaps, maybe more clients, maybe better clients, but yeah, how do they do that? And you know, to think about a website or logo or anything, it's just, it goes so much deeper into a conversation like we're having and, and I think the opportunity that I'm hearing in this is, is to, is to give that some thought and think about number one, what you, the way you see things is probably not the way your ideal clients see things. And so how can you be very clear about what you do, but at the same time bring the, the, the natural differentiator, which is yourself and your own personality to something that's simple, clear, uh, shows them how to buy what you have, but brings that personality that can differentiate them selves. Cause I do hear a lot of complaints like, well how do I differentiate myself? What would you say about differentiation? And you know, there's a lot of bookkeepers out there. How do, how does our listener become the one that the, their ideal target audience, a customer picks them?
KS: 14:56 Well, I think that really having an ideal customer is one of the first things that you can do to differentiate yourself. So think about who you like working with the best. I have, we were talking before we hit record, I have actually a few different bookkeepers on my team and on my side. So I've got one for my branding agency and she's handling a lot of the media dollars that are going in and out and we're talking like hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. So her personality and what she's offering is a little bit different than my other bookkeeper who specializes in working with creative entrepreneurs. And that might be different from someone else who's implementing a profit first model or you know, someone who specifically partnering with Zero. So not only like the tools that you use could help differentiate you, but who your dream customer is and what their needs are can differentiate you.
KS: 15:49 And that's going to automatically start to narrow down your expertise and what you're known for and your positioning toward your dream client. One of my favorite ways to think also about differentiation is to imagine that you are in a coffee shop and you're grabbing a cup of coffee and you go and sit down at a table and you overhear one of your clients talking about you. Think about what you would love to hear them say. And what you're doing here is you're getting into the mind and language of someone who is not you. So this is, you know, perception, right? It's outside perception. So it might be, oh, I love my CPA. She really breaks down concepts for me. In a way that I get or I love my CPA, I don't know how she does it, but for the first time ever I haven't had a pay thousands of dollars at the end of the year.
KS: 16:46 In fact, I got a tax return. So you can almost think of this in terms of plain speak testimonials, but also on the flip side of that overheard conversation is what would you be terrified to hear? So for example, you might be terrified to hear, I don't know what I'm spending money for. I could do this myself in quickbooks. You know, like the, maybe that's your biggest fear. Well then how do you respond to that biggest fear? Or you know, your brand isn't just about the people that you attract, it's about who you repel. So you want your brand to automatically turn away people who are not a good fit for you. You don't want to be everything to everyone. And that's a really great way to remember to differentiate yourself.
MP: 17:28 That's such a fantastic exercise. I just love that. And I think if our audience were to do that, a lot of interesting things would come up not only for working on your brand but taking that brand and that positioning and those thoughts around to sales conversations, to networking conversations and as well content perhaps for, for the so valuable. Tell me a little bit about being boss and what being boss means to you.
KS: 17:57 Being bosses all about taking control of your work and living life on your own terms. So it really is about blending that personal side of you with the professional side of you. It's about being able to take a Friday afternoon off to take your kid to the zoo or it might even be having no limit to your potential and how much you can earn or how you can scale. It really is about being creative and connecting dots and getting into that confident mindset, knowing that you've got this, getting your systems and processes organized in a way that feels good so that you can scale or hire a team. Um, it's also about getting into habits and routines that really help you do the work. So it really is all about doing the work. And so for you, that might be meditating for 10 minutes before you sit behind your desk or it might be, you know, getting a workout in every single morning. So, or it might be taking off at 3:00 PM everyday or having unlimited vacation or being able to work from anywhere. Being bus is really just defining what it is that you want. You know, setting these like really big goals and then breaking it down step by step and trusting that you're gonna hit hiccups, you're going to have failures, but that you'll figure it out along the way and that step by step you will be able to get to your biggest dreams.
MP: 19:21 Beautiful. Now this, this is an interesting, I love how you, you both refer to it as your business besties. What were some of the best conversation topics that you had before you decided to launch your podcast being boss?
KS: 19:37 Oh, that's a good question. I think that, and you know, just like that, I think that good conversations start with really good questions. So I remember one of the first questions I had was whenever I was working one on one with my clients, helping them with their branding and their positioning and their identity and really thinking, okay, but there's only so much of me and there are so many people wanting to work with me. Is there a way that I can scale this in a meaningful way, in a way where I can make money while I'm asleep and help people without being there and be more affordable for people who can't afford to hire me one on one. And so this was the question and that was answered in a conversation where with Emily, and this was probably, yeah, this was about six years ago.
KS: 20:26 She said, why don't you turn your one-on-one content into an ecourse? It is perfectly set up for it. I can help you build it out. And so we did it and that ecourse has made me well over six figures since launching it. It's been iterated a few different times and I would have never thought to really do that or had the confidence to do it without really fleshing it out with Emily and we continue to ask questions. So even just yesterday we were having more, it's so funny because sometimes we'll have to like separate business partner conversations with business bestie conversations. So I'll say, okay, I'm talking to you now as a business bestie. What would it look like if we completely got off of social media altogether? I know that that's such a stressor for so many people and probably for your audience as well.
KS: 21:15 They're probably hearing that they need to be on social media, but they don't know where to begin or where to put their efforts. And now more than ever, there are so many questions coming up against the ethics of social media and we're just constantly being sold to. And so I love social media. I have a love hate relationship with it. And I was like, okay, I love it. But also what would it look like if we completely ran our business off of social media and as an online business? That's a really big question and I don't have questions. I don't have the answer to it, but really just asking what would that look like? Allows us to get really creative and innovative and start to come up with even more solutions for our audience who also has a love hate relationship with social media.
MP: 22:04 I love that. I mean, the question, I mean that question resonates for you or resonates for me. I'm sure it resonates for anyone that's listening, that uses social media to grow their business or uh, in some way. But, uh, what I love about it is that there's so many other great questions that our listeners could just sit there and, and maybe write down two or three questions. Like what would it look like if x, Y, Z, whatever it is, to start thinking creative about how you're handling, how you're dealing with business, how you're dealing with problems in your business, how you're dealing with opportunities in your business. I just love that. Now you had the privilege of, of having a best, a business. Bestie. Yeah. Emily. And so maybe that's the other part of the formula is, you know, asking these questions by yourself and you know, in a room by yourself might not be necessarily, wouldn't be a bad thing, but to amp it up, make it better as to have, uh, a business bestie. What would you recommend around getting a business bestie.
KS: 23:04 All right. Well, I mean there are so many different online communities and there are some offline opportunities as well. So I think that podcasts have been a huge part in making people feel a little less lonely. And that's why we decided to hit publish on our podcasts over at being boss or to hit publish on our conversations that we were having because a lot of creative entrepreneurs didn't have a business bestie. And we went into invite them into the conversation. So we started hitting publish just like you're hitting publish. And that alone can make people feel a little less alone and it will give you some food for thought that you can start pondering on your own. So if you don't have a business bestie, if you don't have a mentor, you can find these in, you know, places like podcasts or books. For example, right now I'm reading Tim Ferriss tools of titans book, which is incredible.
KS: 23:57 And there are so many different prompts and thoughts from different leaders and creatives and entrepreneurs in there. It's incredible. And it has really opened my brain to be more creative and innovative and to pondering, you know, new questions. So that's the first thing. But then if you, I think that is incredibly valuable to have someone to talk to you, to have someone to talk about marketing tactics, to talk about branding, to talk about money and numbers. I remember, you know, I felt like my business Bessie conversation with Emily went to a whole new level whenever I was like, okay, here's the deal. Here's how much money I'm making. How can we double that? How can we triple that? You know? And so finding that person is imperative. I think that right now there are a lot of, even though I talked about getting off of social media, there are a lot of really great Facebook groups where there's some interaction happening and you can go in there and find somebody, but then you have to take it to the next level and either you know, join a mastermind or even just find someone individually and say, Hey, would you like test Skype?
KS: 25:03 I definitely recommend, you know, if you don't live in the same town as someone where you can literally go grab coffee or grab lunch and have this conversation, is to hop on Skype and have a video conference where you're chatting face to face and schedule it for every single month, if not twice a month, if not once a week, just depending on how much you need it. You've got to make space in your calendar for it. You've got to treat it like an incredibly important meeting because it is, it's going to help your business grow to the next level and it's not. What I love about a business bestie conversation versus hiring a coach is that you're really in it together. You don't feel like you're being like coached. I guess it's more of a peer relationship, like of what's working for you. It's more like studying with somebody in college versus going to office hours for your teacher. Right. There is something really valuable in figuring it out together and I think that you get a more creative approach and different things to try like in real-time in real practice.
MP: 26:03 So cool. Yeah, I think there's a lot, a lot of great ideas around taking things from online to offline to, uh, but literally the, the big theme is get, get this out of your own head, get it into a question, get it into a conversation, don't do it alone. Do it with other people. And I know from my own perspective in my business, which is when I hired my first staff member, a member, it wasn't, I'd, and I don't even really call him a staff member often I feel like he's more of a partner. Uh, but that's where things really started to gel in the business because I could have those almost business bestie conversations where it's like, you know, what do you think about this? Because my train of thought, my creativity, my, the things I'm good at alone on their own has a limited life span or limited potential. But with other people's expertise, what I've found is that it's like, wow, you know, it's like that bad, that piece, like putting together a bit of a puzzle. Uh, and it's a heck of a lot more fun.
KS: 27:06 Yeah. And you know, they don't even have to be an expert. So you were talking about your staff and we have a team as well and we are certainly the leaders of our team, but we invite and encourage all discussions. So whenever it comes to podcast content, sometimes it's even nice to have someone without as much expertise or experience cause they lend a different perspective. So sometimes it's really about, you know, getting out of the weeds and looking at it from a different point of view to have something new to talk about or to position yourself in a new way or to market yourself in a new way. I think that's incredibly valuable and really understanding how you process. So for a lot of it's, it's verbally, it's talking out loud, it's why podcasts are so popular right now because we get to chat it out and there's so much nuance in tone and in expression and in conversation, but you can also write it out. So I'm a huge fan of lists and lists making magic and so I'm not, I'm not really a big journaler like I can't sit down. I always feel very dear diary whenever I sit down and try and journal like in the traditional sense of it. But if I sit down to make a list, I can really start to process a lot of new ideas and just get what's pinging around in my head out on paper. I think that that can be hugely valuable as well.
MP: 28:25 Totally agree. Have another question for you. It's, you know, our audience, uh, many of our audience members are, are females just like yourself and, and have businesses. They're running businesses. You have a bunch of businesses and I'm sure that's not always easy to manage a life. I'd love to hear your perspective on how you handle a bad day.
KS: 28:48 Oh, okay. And how I handle a bad day. Like so do you mean say more about that? Like, like do you think that like how do I keep it from effecting? Like how do I make a bad day? Yeah.
MP: 29:00 Well it's actually stems from a question we had in our Facebook group speaking of, of social media, but on the Facebook.
KS: 29:07 Oh good. So you have a Facebook group, so your, your listeners can find their business. Bestie in your Facebook group.
MP: 29:13 I'm sure some, some of them have. I'm sure some of them have, which is, which is lovely. But I've, I have not asked. I mean, I'm so curious now. I love this business bestie. I've got to be looking and encouraging everybody to get a business bestie. So I just love it. But, um, I should've framed the question a bit better. What, what happened is, uh, one of our members of the group said, look, I'm having a bad day. How, how do ya, how do you, how does everyone here deal with having a day like this? And I think she some, you know, the situation that she was in, but it was just interesting to hear how the different perspectives of how all these different people were dealing with a challenge. A challenging Dan and let me say a bad day. I mean you sound like the type of person that doesn't have bad days.
KS: 30:00 Yeah.
MP: 30:00 You probably have like days where you have more barriers or things that don't go your way, whatever the case may be.
KS: 30:06 I certainly have my fair share of bad days. So I think it works in both ways because I blend so much of who I am into the work that I do and vice versa. A bad day at work can certainly affect my life at home. So I can be quick tempered with my husband. I can be really short and impatient with my four-year-old kid. Like that is certainly a challenge. Or if I'm feeling challenged by my child, like I went two years without sleeping. My kiddo whenever he was born was up 10 to 12 times a night every night for the first year. So I was incredibly sleep deprived and that was certainly challenging whenever he came to work. So I think that for me, whenever I'm having a bad day, it really is this series of questions and prompts. I feel like there's so much opportunity to get to the other side of that bad day.
KS: 30:58 If you can understand one, what is it that you're really afraid of? Because I think that any time a day feels quote-unquote bad fear is the underlying root of that. So what is it that you're actually afraid of? Continue to get down to the nugget of that fear? I find that every single time, ultimately I'm afraid of dying, right? Like, I'm afraid of my own mortality. And I know that this is getting really deep, really fast. But at the root of it, it's like, okay, what happens if I don't get this client? What happens? You know, if I can't pay the bills, what happens? You know, I just keep like almost following that bad day into it's worst case scenario. Like truly what is the worst thing that can happen? The worst thing that can happen is that I die without making the thing that I made, right?
KS: 31:46 Or without it being successful. And that always then challenges me to find a new creative solution to it. So yes, I will have a bad day and I will let myself feel it and I will let myself examine what I'm afraid of and then I'm going to get back to work. So I'm going to use that fear. I'm going to use that challenge. I'm going to use that problem to find a new solution to find a new answer. I also find that, you know, I deal with a bad day by just getting really vulnerable. So instead of being a jerk to my husband, I might just say, Oh, I'm sorry, I'm kind of freaking out about this deadline. I have this thing I have to design and I'm afraid I'm not a good enough designer. You know, like I get really vulnerable and then he knows it's not about him.
KS: 32:28 It doesn't spiral into something else that it's not. So I think I deal with a bad day by one, getting clear about my fear and to getting really honest with the people around me. So even like, let's say I'm having a bad personal life, like let's say I haven't slept or I got in a fight with my husband, or whatever it might be, whenever I get on a call with my team or with Emily or with my business partner, I say like, ah man, I got in a dumb fight with my husband and we might spend like three minutes on it and then we move on. So for me it really is about blending the personal with the professional, getting really clear about what is I'm afraid of and getting really honest with all parties involved about what I'm going through.
MP: 33:15 I love your take on it and I think it's such a common thing that when we're having a bad day, often we're just dealing with it on our, on our own. I think the theme for you and what you've built with being boss is it's like, don't just leave these things to be on your own shoulders, uh, spread, spread it across, be in communication, open up. There's so much more, not, not only from relieving the pressures of a bad day or a challenging day, but to invoke creativity, invoke business growth and vote, you know, happiness and joy with the people that you surround yourself with.
KS: 33:48 Totally. And I'm also a big fan of like I run my body like a machine and so I'm a big fan of working out. I'm a big fan of eating really well. I take some really like hippy supplements, like mushroom powders and my coffee and I'm staying really hydrated. And so I, this might sound like off topic, but I think that really taking care of yourself can really lend itself to, you know, you thinking more clearly to coming up with better creative solutions to really just taking control of who you are and how you're living in the world.
MP: 34:24 I don't think it's off topic. I think it's, I think it's an interesting, um, uh, uh, improvement upgrade on the conversation or topic, which is, you know, just in terms of taking care of ourselves and, and leveraging things that can be helpful. I mean, the body, the human body, I mean it often, I have thought not that much about the ship that sorta sailing me around here. Right? Yeah. It's like this is it. That's all I got. It's not like, oh, I broke that one. I'll go buy a new car. Um, it is, and I, I recently, I mean I'm, I'm a healthy person. I, I've been, I think relatively knock on wood than born with good genes. You know, I get relatively, you know, I get out exercise a little bit here and there, but I'm blessed that I don't have to worry too much about this or that.
KS: 35:14 So far in my life. And yet just recently I've gone on a new, and I don't even like calling it a diet, but I've started to put new things or different new choices I guess is a good way of putting it. New choices around what I'm eating. And I can tell you that my performance, my productivity, my clarity has tripled, quadrupled, 10 x, I don't even know what you want to call it, but I'm now 45 years old. I've spent 45 years doing what I was doing and now here, 45 years later, I've just recently had this whole new energy. I have more energy than I think I've felt in 30 years. And so I think it's a great topic to be if we're, if we're trying to do something great in the world, we're out there trying to help business owners. I am speaking for our audience. Our audience is out there. You know the pressures of the world, pressures of life, pressures of family, different things like this. If we take care of ourselves and find a way that works, that that how that's going to work for us to really have our bodies and our minds be in the best possible condition to do that. Life just gets a lot more fun and I would say easy
KS: 36:27 for sure. I mean, you know, whenever you were asking like how do you deal with a hard day? I wanted to say a glass of wine, but honestly that's not the truth anymore. So I just turned 36 and even one glass of wine just does me in the next morning. I don't think as clearly. I love wine on the weekends. I love pizza on the weekends, but during the week I'm eating, you know, pretty like a Paleo style diet for the most part. So like no sugar, misleading, just clean protein, eggs, healthy fats like Avocados and oil. I'm going green, free lagoon free. This might sound crazy to your listeners, but it really does keep me super sharp mentally. And then I also really am getting into, and I'm not perfect at it, but really trying to get into meditation and one of my favorites is called the candle concentration.
KS: 37:15 And I wrote about this in our being boss book, which also like presenting some of our concepts and ideas of self care as health care and how that helps us be more boss in our book to our publisher. It felt so weird, but it really truly is how we integrate living like a holistic life and not just being the boss of our work, but being the boss of our bodies. And so I like this candle concentration exercise where I simply light a candle and it can be a smell good one and I focus on the flame without training. Have any other thoughts for 10 minutes? I set a timer and I found that it boosts my concentration through the rest of the entire day. And so something as simple as that. I'm really trying to get into finding a way to relax my heart rate and relax my mind and get into, you know, the brain waves that are conducive to creativity. Like it all. Like you just can't, you can't work well if you're freaking out. Like if you're in that lizard part of your brain and what you eat and how you relax and how you sleep and how you take care of yourself, like it all goes into that.
MP: 38:21 Absolutely does. And such a nice turn in our conversation. And I think, I think you're going to talk about this but we never know. We never know, but it's, I think it's valuable and for those that didn't find a valuable that you can turn it off. You know, I think, I think everyone can turn ask themselves is like, how do you feel each day? If you feel like superhero ish energy to, you know, spend for the rest of the week, 10 x, all that good stuff, then you're in the right shape. But if you ask yourself that, and it's not that well, there are ways it's, I think it's different for everybody to figure out what, what it works. But things that you've mentioned already, getting rid of the sugar, some of these things that just don't work. But we need as much energy as we can and focus as we can so we can give it to our clients, do great work for them, and then bring it home to their, to our families where they need us most. So love the conversation and, and that's forever our listener to explore, go explore it being boss, learn more about Kathleen. And on that note, Kathleen, tell us a little bit about how our listener can find out more about you, but the book about your podcast.
KS: 39:27 Yeah, so you can find being boss where every listen to podcasts and you can find the book being boss wherever you buy books. So it's pretty easy if you just Google being boss, you'll find us there.
MP: 39:39 Beautiful. Well, this has been an absolute pleasure. I've gotten so much out of this myself. I know for sure the listener has as well. I just really want to thank you for the generosity of your time and for being on the podcast.
KS: 39:51 Thank you so much for having me.
MP: 39:55 You bet that wrap up, it's another episode of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast to learn more about today's wonderful guests. And to get access to all sorts of valuable free business-building resources. You can go to Thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com until next time,
MP: 40:07 goodbye.
