Episode 98 transcript: Thriving as a Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur: Katy Murray’s Story

[00:00:00] Katy: the indicators that you probably should slow down to some degree is if you're feeling burnt out, if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're being reactive in any scenario, you get an email and the person says something that doesn't sit well and you feel feelings, not just thought like, okay, let's respond but like actual feelings. Pause because you're way too in the weeds. You're too deep in it to see it from that boss lady standpoint that you want to be at that 30, 000-foot view.

[00:00:29] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breath depth and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.

Welcome back to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My guest this week is Katy Murray, and she's a business owner and entrepreneur. She's an executive of human resources, a private organization, a mother, and a wife. She is multi-passionate and she's won numerous awards and recognition for her photography talent.

Her images have been featured in over 30 publications, and she is the co-founder of Katy and Co. VA, which helps other businesses grow and meet their success. Katy has been a guest speaker at multiple universities on high-ranking podcasts and is the host of her podcast called Ginger Biz. On her podcast, she shares all the tips and tricks to be successful in business while also working full-time.

She loves her sweet family and practices self-care to maintain her sanity. Katy is a fun, loving business guru who wants to share her passions with the world. She is the epitome of someone who is multi-passionate and who has created and designed a life that works for her regardless of whether someone else understands it or not.

So we talk a lot about setting healthy boundaries in both personal and professional life. And how individuals can effectively communicate their boundaries to others without feeling guilty or conflicted. We also talked about how to achieve goals without burning out.

We talked about how to prevent burnout as being a multi-passionate, and how she manages her time and her energy. And also just this notion of achieving excellence and how knowing when good enough is good enough. And other times when we needed to be excellent, we had such a wonderful conversation. She is just someone who is inspiring for anybody that is looking to start a side hustle, and who wants to continue to have a full career while still being a parent. I learned a lot of things from our conversation. I hope you enjoy the episode. Take a listen.

Katy, it is such a pleasure to have you here. Thanks so much for joining me today.

[00:02:59] Katy: Yeah, thank you, Aneta, so much for having me. I'm excited.

[00:03:03] Aneta: I was like just reading your bio and you described yourself as passionate and I would describe myself in the same way, but I just want to highlight that you work full time, you have a business on the side, you do photography, we're going to get into that. And you also have a podcast.

And so for anyone listening who thinks that life is a set of very small binary choices, I just think that you and the way that you have structured your life is so amazing, especially for someone interested in many things. So tell me a little bit more about your background and how you came to have this very full life.

[00:03:45] Katy: Yeah. Well, again, thank you for having me on the show. And yes, I finally settled on calling myself multi-passionate because otherwise, it was like, I was just trying to grab everything and maybe I felt like I was aloof or like, just kind of spread thin, but I realized, like you said, have to be controlled by these binary patterns. I can do so much more.

So a little bit about me I did start as an entrepreneur over a decade ago, we launched the photography business and that was kind of the bread and butter of everything that I've done. And then I've always had full-time roles in there at some realm, whether it was like hosting or working in finance or things like that.

But as it is today, I am a full-time human resource manager. I'm the head of my department in a private organization, and I'm so in love with this job. I love what I get to do. I love how I get to help people and just the challenge that every day brings. And with that, I also then have photography still, I focus mainly on brand photo sessions.

So supporting other businesses. And then we do have a virtual assisting firm, which we launched two years ago, which was kind of a pivot away from photography where we could do more remote work. And I could share my passion for business with other people. And then I do have the podcast as well ginger biz and the way that I kind of compartmentalize it and need us so that people can be like, she's all over the place is I think of it as a triangle.

At the top of the triangle is Katy and co-virtual assisting Ginger Biz, the podcast is all about business and helping others. And then my human resources hat and KMP, my photography, and all of those in the center are helping others. So in whatever realm that looks like, I'm helping others in their business.

I'm helping them in their career. I'm helping them with tips and tricks on how to balance life. So that's. A little bit of me in a nutshell.

[00:05:38] Aneta: Interesting. How long did it take for you to get to a point where you could identify how these things all align together, I know sometimes as passionates we get excited and want to do a lot of different things and you might even have the energy to do it, but it isn't always easy to share it with

So I love this idea of the triangle and being able to articulate that. So what was that process like identifying it for yourself and then maybe for others as well?

[00:06:05] Katy: Yeah, great question. It took far longer than maybe it should have for me to realize that I could articulate it that way. Because oftentimes people in my life think, you're doing that too. You're going to add that on as well. And oftentimes I would get mistaken as a busybody. And I quickly realized like, I'm not a busybody. I'm not trying to be busy.

I prefer to be productive. So anything that I can do that's productive. Just gets me excited. And so it took probably, I mean, within the last two years when I figured out the triangle idea and how all those things fed into helping others. Before that, I too, a little bit felt like this was not normal. I need to focus.

Maybe I should just be an entrepreneur. Maybe I should just focus on business. Maybe human resources is what my identity needs to be. And I'm also a wife and a mother, and I think motherhood also taught me a little bit that you kind of just go with the flow. Each season is different, and that I think is what helped me realize, no, I can do all of these things with intentionality and make them work for me as well, and so, it took a while, but I think for anyone listening who's like, I can relate to that, I would say give yourself grace and space to kind of think and be in the moment and have that almost overwhelm.

And then try to kind of quantify or identify where the overwhelm is stemming from. Because when you have multiple endeavors, you can think, well, if I quit my day job, I'll be fine, but I've done that. I did photography and business for a year and then other small stints in between, and it wasn't satisfying.

It didn't scratch my itch. And so what I realized was. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. I don't have to quit these things to do these things. You just get the flow of how much you give to each one at any given chapter.

[00:07:57] Aneta: I'm so glad you brought that up because I was curious if you decided at some point to stop working full-time. So what does your full-time job give you, or how does that serve you in ways that maybe just focusing on entrepreneurship or the podcast alone wouldn't?

[00:08:14] Katy: Yeah, great question. And this is something that I've enjoyed exploring recently. So had you asked this, three years ago, I probably wouldn't have an answer, but for me, I get the same people every single day. So I work in an organization. We have about 560 employees. And so I get to know each of them and I get the rapport and building up the relationships.

Whereas with photography, let's just say brand or weddings. It's usually a couple of times a year that I'll see that couple or that family or that business. I don't get to see them regularly. And one thing that I find is I enjoy the dynamic of learning from my team members or my colleagues in this environment.

I also get pushed to learn things that I wouldn't know, otherwise. Like, I can tell you so much information about being an employee versus being a contractor versus being like a solar. Like, I can just go into all these things because my job forced me to learn them. And then when I have a conversation with a potential client or someone who just wants to pick my brain, and they're talking about expanding their team, I can see it from a 30, 000-foot view of, well, this is what it looks like if you employ them.

This is what it looks like if they're freelancers or contractors. And so it kind of feeds into each other. So I love that. And then lastly, the challenge of every day, I'm constantly faced with new challenges, things that forced me outside of my comfort zone, which then when I step into my entrepreneur role or even motherhood, and I'm like, wow, I haven't ventured down this avenue before.

It's not as daunting because I'm constantly doing that in my day job. So I believe that not only financially does it give me some security, but it also enables me to step outside of my comfort zone within certain parameters, which then helps me stretch that muscle and then I can do it in all elements of my life.

[00:10:04] Aneta: It makes me think that you probably have spent some time focusing on establishing boundaries because it could get very overwhelming. Working full time and then also having a business, being a mom, as you said, doing the podcast. So how have you created boundaries for yourself to be able to maintain your energy and to be able to still enjoy all of the things that are on your plate?

[00:10:33] Katy: Oh, Such a good question. And I know that you're multi-passionate as well. So it'd be cool to kind of bounce it around because I love conversing with like-minded people. For me, it's ever-evolving. But for boundaries it's twofold. It's not only having boundaries but then adhering to those boundaries, which is very challenging at times but for me, it's, doing big picture and daily things.

So big picture is with my podcast. I release a solo episode and a guest episode weekly. And so I batch content. So let's just hypothetically say that this would be a week of content for me. I plan around my day job so that I'm not staying late. And that extra time in my day is spent doing interviews with guests.

And then what I do is that's this whole week and then I set a goal of like, I'm going to try to get in. 10 guests recordings this week, and then a week or two weeks from now, I'll block my entire calendar and have no extracurricular. I will only go to work and stay home. Like, there are things that I have to do, like non-negotiables like gymnastics for my daughter or grocery shopping, but I don't book any other meeting.

I don't do any other things. And that's because I know coming off a hot week where I'm doing 10 interviews, then next week I need time to recoup. So that's a little bit of a bigger picture. I did this very clearly in the fall because I ended up doing a month's worth of podcasting and getting those all batched and ready.

And then I took an entire month where I just. Didn't record anything. And, you find what works for you and your ebb and flow. Maybe that's too long a gap or too long a push-through for someone. So maybe it's a week on a week off. Then with my day job, I am pretty lucky. I am the head of the department, so I'm able to kind of control my schedule, and do that so I can take time off if I need to.

I usually with quotations try to leave at 4 p.m. So I'm able to leave at 4 p.m. I go and pick up my daughter and then I do two hours or three hours of just family time then in the evenings I roll into doing anything that needs to get done regarding entrepreneurship or business.

But it's just for me. I'm very analytical. So having kind of time gaps and leaning into those when I have free time and I've only recently started paying more attention to my body, I guess, with attention management. So again, if I set a boundary that I'm going to do X amount of work tonight, let's say from 7 to 9 PM and I sit down and I just can't create graphics, I'll shift and move my attention management to something more analytical because I'm not feeling creative.

So there are small pivots and shifts within my boundaries, and I'm getting long-winded, but the other thing is just really focusing on where my mindset is and how I'm feeling. If my daughter needs extra attention this morning and she's not able to just read her book in the morning, like she normally would when maybe I'm doing my devotion or doing my timing, then we have to have a mindset shift and just roll with the punches.

And then we're going to read together and we're going to do it together. Or if she doesn't go to bed on time tonight, that's okay. I have to have clear boundaries because for me, then the gray area is much easier to navigate.

[00:13:52] Aneta: So good. You said so many wonderful things here. Do you use planners or do you use any tools that help you to block your time to automate some of these things? What would be helpful for someone who's saying, I'm just living in the moment, too reactive, but I need a little bit more structure.

[00:14:10] Katy: Great question. So I use time block systems. I have sheets on my website. If the listener ever wants to go snag them, that it's just a time block system where for the day I'll sit down and say, from eight to nine, I'm doing emails from nine to 10, I'm doing this from 10 to 11, I'm recording this podcast, and structuring it that way.

But what I've learned, and that worked well for me in the earlier years, even probably five years ago, but now I also leave some blocks that are just open because you don't know what's going to come at you, especially working in HR. I'll have people reach out and want to connect or need some time.

Or even yesterday, I was horrible. I didn't even check my email at all yesterday. And a couple of people had emailed me for business sides of things. And I felt bad, but I was like, honestly, 24 hours, it's fine. Yesterday I needed my space because I needed my intentions to focus on a bigger project.

So I use time block systems and I am huge into systems and automations. So I could talk until I'm blue in the face with this one, but it's April 2nd at the time of the recording. So that means I'm rolling out the certain first-week-of-the-month items, such as for my day job, I do like a birthday calendar, but for my business, I do an email campaign that goes out the first week that kind of gives a summary of the last month of the podcasts and stuff.

So I do have some deal breakers or non-deal breakers if you will, that fall into my schedule and then they fill out my time block system and then. Nowadays, as I said, I've pivoted to attention management, so I'll leave a couple of hours in the evening. So we try to have two working nights a week and three either nonworking or just home productivity things that aren't working. And if we have to pivot those, we pivot them. But again, I do have that kind of set structure.

[00:16:05] Aneta: I think you and I have a lot in common. I always say that discipline and structure create freedom. And when you're able to get in a place where you've got a really good rhythm for most things, and you give yourself a little bit of space to pivot, if you need to, to check in with your energy, to make sure you're tapped in.

It just freezes up time and allows you to do all the things that you want without having to worry or think too hard about making it happen. So thank you for sharing and giving us a little bit of insight. I'm obsessed with planners. People know my listeners. I also love that. And I time block all the time and I'm pretty strict and disciplined about time that I manage.

But I also love that you said sometimes, even though we have the best of intentions, maybe to create content or create a graphic or do whatever it's not there. And so it's okay to give yourself a break and give yourself a little bit of grace and say, maybe I need to do something else right now.

So, what do you do if you feel like you might be blocked creatively are there things that you enjoy doing? For me, walking outside in nature is just one of the things that always is helpful, but curious about some of the things that you do to kind of maintain your energy and just provide any necessary shifts if something is blocking you.

[00:17:23] Katy: Yeah, and real quick before I dive into that, I love that you talk about discipline and structure creating freedom because you did mention, how do you not be so reactive. And there are times when I feel myself starting to be reactive. Like I get an email that comes in. I'm like, I got to do this.

And evokes emotion in me that normally it wouldn't. And that's when I'm like, okay, you've lost a little bit of control. Let's take a step back. Let's reevaluate, because like you said, if I know that in six hours I have time to sit down and be intentional with that email, that gives me freedom to right now not have to be reactive.

So that is huge. And planners. I don't use a time planner. I do use a notebook though, that is a planner and it does have dates and times. But I write my to-do list in there so that it's ever-evolving. And I can always go back if I have to not hit on something. So with that, if I'm struggling to feel creative, I can do two thing

One. If I'm like, okay, it's probably not happening, I'm a little too tired, but I do need to put some time in, I'll go back to that book, open it up, and go to the further back spots, and anything that wasn't checked off, I'll try to focus my energy on that. Because it's probably not going to take as much creative juice to do it, because it was in as a to-do list, and it's been sitting there.

I've had some thoughts about it for the time that it's been on the list. So I'll go back to those back-burner projects and try to just invest in them. Or if I'm like, I need a couple of quick things. I'll pick and choose which items in the front of the book that I need to hit on.

And again, it's a running to-do list. The other thing that helps me, is like you go for a walk. I think movement is huge, even if it's not to be quote unquote healthy, like physically, but also just to get someone like me and your listeners won't see this, but I'm always talking with my hands.

I'm a hand person. Like I have to be doing something fidget toys were probably invented for me, but, they're not productive, so I don't use them as much. But with that, I like to use inspiration to lead to motivation. So if I were to go for a walk, I would want to spend time looking at nature and hearing the sounds and just really letting it like be engulfed by it.

Because then it starts to fuel me. I'll get excited. I'll get excited to come back in. Also things like this, like just speaking with like-minded people. I feel it gives me energy. I'll get off this call and be like, I'm going to do this and this. And it just fuels me that way.

So really finding that inspiration to motivation to keep me ticking is helpful. And of course, there are days when I'm just like, Nope, this project has to be done. So we're just going to sit here and we're going to do it. If I can't just sit down and focus. Sometimes I'll draw a picture. I like to illustrate things.

So I like to draw flowers and keep my hands busy. It allows my brain to have some space and then I come back to it. So within there, there are a couple of different tips that people could take away but ultimately knowing yourself and if movement is going to get your heart flowing, if it's going to keep you engaged, that's a great one.

Like-minded people have conversations pulling from their energy and their inspiration or just finding it within and giving themselves that space. That's kind of my approach and it can be applied in so many different ways. So it depends on the season or the time. If it's late at night, I'm probably going to draw a picture and not go for a walk, but there's a lot in that.

[00:20:51] Aneta: Yeah. And I love that you said it is creating space for the brain. And sometimes it's just taking that shift away, especially if we're focused and not going anywhere, just allowing yourself to just relax. Sometimes in the middle of the afternoon, I'll just put a song on and just dance to it, to move energy and to just really create some energy, create some movement, shift things through, especially if you only have like two minutes.

It's hard sometimes to do that, but it makes such a big difference. And so I agree with you. It's like, knowing yourself, trying different things, and seeing what works best for you. Now I'm curious about this because, with someone who is so multi-passionate you've got a lot going on, a lot on your plate as we talked about, and even maybe it's not a lot on your plate.

Your life is full. You've got a lot of things that you're excited about that you focus on. What is your philosophy around determining what needs to be excellent, and what is good enough, or do you have a philosophy around just how you approach everything that you work on?

[00:21:58] Katy: Yeah, great question. And, I'm a former perfectionist. I'm recovering mostly. And with that, it can be challenging. It can be really hard to sit down and be like, well, this needs to be so excellent, so perfect. And this not so much. I work at a private country club, so we are all about excellence.

We're on Platinum Clubs of America. It's very prestigious and I'm thankful for that because it's pushed me to integrate things that come so naturally now that you don't necessarily hear from other industries or other corporate America. So I've been blessed in that way that it's just been incorporated through my bones if you will.

But with that, if I'm trying to collect payment and my automation and my workflows are set up, to me that's good. It's getting the job done. Now, could it be more frivolous? Could it be more beautiful? My logos are on it. That's good enough for me. And I don't mean good enough as in good enough. I mean, that gets the job done.

And my clients probably don't care about the fluff around the invoice. But there are other elements where it's super important, like grammar spelling, and punctuation. All of that is to me very important because you have to be professional. So I guess the change for me where you decide what's good enough and what you want to make excellent is professionalism.

If my workflow on my invoice is set up, it collects payment properly and it doesn't have any spelling errors. If it looks good then it's check the box. But where I want to go above and beyond in my professionalism is how I interact with a client who may be difficult or upset with a service or has an issue.

That's where I'm going to go above and beyond and create excellence. Because that's huge. Now, my husband says this a lot I start at like 30 miles an hour and everyone starts at zero. So with that, again, my systems are built in place because they accomplish a job. So if you have a system, a workflow of an invoice, but whenever the client tries to pay and it won't accept their credit card, that's not good enough.

Or if it's confusing with how they get to that portal link, that's not good enough. So the bare bones is that they can do it and they can do it well. And then you add in the fluff and the excellence, does that make sense?

[00:24:28] Aneta: Yeah. You've established the standards and for you, professionalism is the standard. And then it's based on that. Some things are going to require more time, more investment, more creativity, and other things are, okay. And I agree with you because I think it's very difficult to try to bring the same level of standard for everything.

But if you know, like, everything needs to at least be at this level, and then you can pick and choose where you get to spend a little bit more time being creative, or maybe spending a little bit more time being very intentional. I think that's important. And I think that also permits people as they're thinking about starting something new.

Maybe it's a side hustle. Maybe it's a project. Maybe they want to launch a podcast. I know for me, I said, I will launch a podcast and I'm going to figure it out in a month and it's going to be professional, but it's not going to sound like someone who's been doing it for five years.

And I'm not going to wait until I get to that level, because it's going to be too late. And so every time, I had the standard and there were glitches of course, but it continues to get better and better. And I think that it's important as we start new endeavors to know what your level is and get comfortable with it and then just begin. Because otherwise if we wait until things are perfect, sometimes we'll never do it.

[00:25:50] Katy: It will never happen. And I love that you like to set a goal for yourself. I think it's so important. You're like, I'm going to do this in a month, but I'm going to have realistic expectations. And like you said, you're only going to get better because once you pull the trigger and do it, as long as your baseline is met.

And that's kind of how we approach our podcast too. I say we because my husband was, a cheerleader in it and getting me to do it. But I was like, no it's not going to be great. And he's like, no, it will, and it'll only get better, but setting that goal. And I mean, you also have to figure out what works for you.

I launched a course and it didn't take off. And I realized that wasn't really where my passion was. That wasn't working for me, but I set a goal. I launched it. I saw how it worked. And then I learned so much that if I do launch another course down the road, It won't be a complete and utter failure, even though maybe back then I would have said that because I can learn from that and build from that.

But for me, I realized that wasn't where my energy needed to lie at that time. And sometimes done is better than perfect. And like you said, you may never do it if you're waiting for it to be perfect. And that's unfortunate. And that's coming from someone who used to be that way. Everything I did had to be just so perfect.

And then I realized, I don't think you can attain perfection. So it was just going to be a never-ending game.

[00:27:11] Aneta: Did something happen, Katy, where you made that shift? Do you remember the day when you're like, okay, I'm just going to let this perfectionism thing go? Or was it a gradual process?

[00:27:22] Katy: It was gradual, but I would say that around my daughter turning four or five months old, I realized why am I making everything a battle? And it's all internal. But I was like who cares if I can't keep her shoes on her feet or who cares if there's a little bit of spit up on her?

I'm also not technically a germaphobe for anyone who is but I'm pretty close to it. And I'm very meticulous in my approach to things and there's just a lot going on inside my mind and I realized that's just me against myself. And so I had to start shifting my mindset. I had to start saying slow down, it's okay if you leave five minutes later, it's okay if you don't do the same routine every day.

And so that was the gradual part. But then when she became I think four months just coming out of the newborn stage, I realized I don't need to have these fights with myself to get out the door or to get work done. I need to just give myself grace. And that's when grace became my word. I am embraced by being gracious with myself, with my child, with my husband, with my coworkers, everything.

[00:28:28] Aneta: It's such an important lesson. And I remember having a lot of those thoughts too, as a new mom, because things change, everything changes. You've got this whole other human that you're responsible for that can't speak and tell you what's going on. You've never done this before. It's brand new.

And motherhood is the perfect example of where you do something before you think you're ready. Because even no matter how many books you read or how often you babysit or how many nieces and nephews you have until it's your child, and you are responsible for this other little being 24/7 you're not ready.

And so after that, you can take that and apply it to anything you want to launch a podcast. You can figure it out. So I love that you brought up motherhood because I do think that it's a wonderful opportunity to give ourselves more grace and to also release judgment of others.

I don't know if this happened with you, but I find that by giving myself more grace and releasing some of my self judgments along the way, I'm just always, my motto is everyone's just doing the best that they can. And wow, it's so much more liberating to live that way. I know Brené Brown talks about that in her TEDx talk, but do you feel like with the grace you've been able to also release judgment or give other people more grace as well?

[00:29:47] Katy: Yeah. You are so right on so many levels. Like you just get thrown into parenthood and you have a living being that's now you're solely responsible for, and you make it work and you figure it out. And I've given her more grace. The amount of patience that I have with my child is mind-boggling because I'm not a patient person.

But even sometimes like my husband is ridiculously patient and I'll be like, babe, slow down. Let her go at her speed. And like, that's mind-boggling to even hear myself saying that, and yeah, you're right too if someone doesn't get back to me, it used to be if we were emailing back and forth a big, I'm not a priority because it's been X amount of timeframe now, it's like, hey, you responded to me.

And I forgot that we were even in a conversation because I too lost time. And so just having that grace. It's amazing to the empathy that it's evoked in me as well. That I'm like, I didn't know I was this nice. I didn't know it was this kind and yeah, judgment, I don't judge anybody if they're walking around the grocery store and their kids in a pull-up and they're not dressed. I'm like, you made it to the grocery store. That's right. Good for you.

[00:30:54] Aneta: Good for you.

[00:30:55] Katy: I hope you get home with groceries. It is what it is. And I think that it's, again, going back to the triangle in the first place, all of this just feeds into, the way my heart has grown for my child and the empathy and patience that I have for her. I'm able to carry over in my day job, in my podcast, and my conversations with clients, and it's really neat.

[00:31:16] Aneta: Thank you, Katy. So if anyone's listening and maybe they also find that they're multi-passionate and they have a full-time job and they're curious about maybe starting a side hustle or maybe doing a podcast or starting a new hobby, whatever it is, just something outside of what they traditionally do, but maybe, others in their lives don't understand or aren't as supportive. What advice would you give them if they want to try something new and just really expand what life could look like?

[00:31:46] Katy: The first thing I would say is find your community and that doesn't have to be family or friends that are existing. You can build out a new community with like-minded people because there are a lot of people in my life, and I love every single one of them, that don't understand my drive. I don't understand why I'm so determined to be successful at these other things.

And yeah, I probably could live a much simpler life if I just went to work and came home and was with my family, but that's not fulfilling to me So I think finding like-minded people and there's so many watering holes of where you can do that. I believe that I found your podcast through another like-minded person, but there's also you can go and see what podcasts they're listening to and learn from those podcasts And make connections, or you can go to Facebook and go into the groups.

There are tons of groups. If you specifically want to do a podcast, there are tons of podcast groups, but you can also hop into other entrepreneurial groups that are online and just start connecting and chatting. And you'd be surprised. I believe if you jump in one of those watering holes and state, I'm a full-time person. I do my job, but I want to do more.

And so many people will just come in, get in an echo chamber with you, and bounce ideas around with you. And that's huge. And then I would also say, just give grace to those that don't understand though, because I have people in my life who are stay-at-home moms.

They're not like a stay-at-home mom who's an influencer. They're just stay-at-home mom. And that's wonderful and amazing for them, but give them grace because they won't understand why you want to do more and their mentality might be different. Like, I know that I can love my daughter 10 times more if I have a break from her.

And so I love going and picking her up from the school and I love that they teach her, but I come from a homeschooling group. I was homeschooled growing up. And so a lot of my friends are homeschooling and they can't fathom why I'd want someone else to watch my daughter all day. And I don't expect them to understand that, they can't. Just like, I can't understand why they'd want to be at home all day with their kid.

You just, have to give them grace too. And I think sometimes people get in this mindset of like, well, let me cut out all the naysayers. No, use them to motivate you to push yourself forward and to do more and be more. And yeah, maybe you'll have a couple of internal dialogues that are like, told you so, or look, I did do it and that's okay. And just channel that in a positive energy.

[00:34:12] Aneta: Community is so important and it's easier than ever, I think to find communities, whether it's local, whether it's based on similar interests, whatever it is, and you gave great examples of things that you can find. So do you have certain communities that you're part of that are helpful either from a business perspective or a working mom perspective?

[00:34:33] Katy: Yeah. One of the bigger ones is the Gold Digger Podcast inside group. It's by Jenna Kutcher and that's like my main go-to group on Facebook. I don't spend a lot of time on social media, but that's a huge one. And it's just refreshing. Because most of those people look up to Jenna Kutcher. And so I think that that gives us a common factor of like, we're driven women who want to support women. So that's a big group that I love.

[00:35:01] Aneta: Yeah. Well, it's interesting because she started as a photographer, so you've got some, common interests with Jenna. She's awesome. And one of the other things too, that Katy, I know that you had mentioned before is that sometimes you have to slow down to go deeper, or to expand. So can you share a little bit about your philosophy or advice that you have there for maybe high achievers who feel like we have to hustle constantly to be successful?

[00:35:30] Katy: Yeah. And this is one that I have been able to see just make a difference in my life exponentially over the last probably year, maybe two years is slowing down. I always thought that if I wasn't spinning my wheels, no matter what direction I wasn't doing something productive and now I'm the type of girl who like, we'll sit and paint for a couple of hours at the end of the night and just go to bed.

And it's not productive at all. It feels good. And I enjoy it. And it's taken a long time to get to that point. It's gotten easier and easier. But with that, I started by doing like a time audit of myself. Where am I investing all my time? A time audit looks like you just write down what your to-do lists are and quantify it by how long you're spending on each item.

And if you're able to take a few minutes to step back and look at that, then you can look at it from a perspective of what systems or automation or delegations can I put in place so that I alleviate more of my time. So I can take not the low-hanging fruit, but the next level and the next level, and then work on scaling your businesses.

So with that, for me, I started by doing a time audit and the indicators that you probably should slow down to some degree are if you're feeling burnt out, if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're being reactive in any scenario, you get an email and the person says something that doesn't sit well and you feel feelings, not just thought like, okay, let's respond but like actual feelings.

Pause because you're way too in the weeds. You're too deep in it to see it from that boss lady standpoint that you want to be at that 30, 000-foot view. So that's when then you slow down, do a time audit, and look at where you can either like I said, outsource delegate, create a system, create an automation or a workflow so that you can alleviate that time.

For me, probably 12 years ago, it was contracts And I know this is crazy, but there wasn't the same level of CRM platforms that you could utilize to build your business, 12 to 15 years ago. So it was like, here, Aneta let me send you my contract and then they'd have to scan it and sign it and send it back.

Or some people would snail mail me checks and they would put the contract in there and I'd be like holding a date for them for like 7 to 10 days waiting for this to come in. Well, now we have so much technology that if your contracts are taking you more than a click of three buttons, then you need to slow down and revisit because there are automation or CRM platforms that can help you.

And then all you need to do is go in and pick which contract. So if you're a photographer, is it a portrait? Is it a wedding? Is it a birthday party? And then you push that contract and you can build from there. That's a huge one for me making sure your automations are working for you. And then reoccurring payments are another big one.

you don't need to be on top of pushing your clients to pay. You should, because that's why we're doing it, but you can set up an automation that on the first of every month, they get their new invoice and it just functions without you. So again, that's something that's wasting time. And then you'll start to see going back to what you said that discipline and structure of setting up those automations, freeze up your time.

Now you can think about adding in a new freebie for your clients or doing an additional email campaign that month. Another one that's a little bit untraditional, but for me, I hire house cleaners. They are professionals, they're women and they need money or want money. And so I want to pay them because if they come in and clean my house for three hours, that's three photo sessions I could have done, or three new social media management clients I could take on.

And if you're ever like me and you're thinking, well, I can't afford a house cleaner. But can you afford not to have one? Because for me, these are round numbers, but let's say I pay a hundred bucks for the three hours. My house is clean, way cleaner than I'd get it. And I'm not trying to navigate my dogs and my child and all this. Then I can add in clients. I charge 600 an hour for a portrait session. So I've already made that money back.

So things like that, where you have to slow down and be like, is this working for me? Or am I working for it? And then taking that pause, being real with yourself. You don't even have to have this conversation with anybody else.

And maybe someone like you wants to kick off a podcast, but they have no idea how to produce it. Well, does it make more sense for you to spend 10 hours a week trying to produce one episode or to pay a professional to knock it out so you can build out more content and record more episodes?

So that's what I mean by slowing down and just giving yourself a little bit of space to think. And yes, I know if you feel like you're still stuck in 2022 because the to-do list keeps getting longer and longer, I promise you that slowing down in this way will help you get two steps ahead in the long run.

[00:40:29] Aneta: I completely agree. It's about being intentional and purposeful. I follow Matt Gray on LinkedIn. He has great content all about automation. He has several businesses he runs. He's great. And he's got a lot of good tips as well. In addition to what you've shared, how can people find you? What is the best way if someone wants to work with you? They want to listen to your podcast and hire you for any work that you do. How can they find you? What is the best way?

[00:40:56] Katy: Yeah. The easiest way I would say is to go to my website, which is WWW dot K-A-T-Y-A-N-D-C-O-V-A dot com. So that's Katy and Co. Katy with a Y, or you can find me on social media on Instagram at ginger biz, G I N G E R B I Z. I'm a redhead. So I call it GingerBiz. Those are probably the two best ways.

And I do have a handful of different freebies on the website too. If the listener ever wants to hop over there, like I said, the time block scheduling one is a great one. I have some Pinterest templates. Pin templates for printers they could use too. I just like to share stuff and get people grooving, giving them back a little bit of their own time.

[00:41:39] Aneta: Hmm. Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing those resources. We'll include the links and the show notes for everything. Katy, I've just really enjoyed our conversation. I think you're so inspiring and I love that you've shared how you can be multi-passionate without getting burned out by creating boundaries, by automating, by really being intentional with the choices. And my final question for you is how do you live the width of your life?

[00:42:04] Katy: I love this question. It's so fun, and I think you just be present and enjoy every little moment that you can so that you're not just living like you said, the length, but getting the most out of the width of it.

[00:42:19] Aneta: Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure meeting you.

[00:42:23] Katy: Thank you.

[00:42:24] Aneta: Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones, or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you who took imperfect action towards their goals, created more joy and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.