Have you ever felt the urge to break free from corporate chains and design a life more aligned with your passions? Katie Pulsifer, a master certified coach, joins us to share her exhilarating transition from a career in product development to guiding GenX women through their own transformations. She throws light on how to tackle perfectionism and overwhelm by channeling one's rebellious spirit, proving that coaching can lead to profound changes not only in careers but in the deepest personal avenues, including the trials of blending families in cozy living spaces.
Embarking on a New Year, many of us set ambitious resolutions, but I'm here to tell you about the magic of 1% shifts—those tiny, consistent tweaks that lead to lasting change. As Katie and I discuss, coaching is far from a cookie-cutter process; it's an art that adapts to each individual's journey. I'll also take you through how my experiences in retail and product development have enriched my approach to coaching, where nurturing and resilience are key.
To cap off our conversation, we celebrate the subtle yet significant milestones that pave the road to success. We exchange tales of joy in connecting over shared interests like live music and creative pursuits, emphasizing the importance of savoring these moments and harnessing them as fuel for our personal growth. Katie also extends an invitation to the listeners to discover more about her coaching approach and how to engage with the wealth of resources she offers for those ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery and redefine their own paths to fulfillment.
Connect with Katie Here
Connect with Lea Ann Here
Have you ever felt the urge to break free from corporate chains and design a life more aligned with your passions? Katie Pulsifer, a master certified coach, joins us to share her exhilarating transition from a career in product development to guiding GenX women through their own transformations. She throws light on how to tackle perfectionism and overwhelm by channeling one's rebellious spirit, proving that coaching can lead to profound changes not only in careers but in the deepest personal avenues, including the trials of blending families in cozy living spaces.
Embarking on a New Year, many of us set ambitious resolutions, but I'm here to tell you about the magic of 1% shifts—those tiny, consistent tweaks that lead to lasting change. As Katie and I discuss, coaching is far from a cookie-cutter process; it's an art that adapts to each individual's journey. I'll also take you through how my experiences in retail and product development have enriched my approach to coaching, where nurturing and resilience are key.
To cap off our conversation, we celebrate the subtle yet significant milestones that pave the road to success. We exchange tales of joy in connecting over shared interests like live music and creative pursuits, emphasizing the importance of savoring these moments and harnessing them as fuel for our personal growth. Katie also extends an invitation to the listeners to discover more about her coaching approach and how to engage with the wealth of resources she offers for those ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery and redefine their own paths to fulfillment.
Connect with Katie Here
Connect with Lea Ann Here
Welcome to Mind Over Medium, a podcast for artists who want to make money doing what they love. When you tune in a twink, you will learn how to attract your ideal commissions, approach galleries for representation, have a great online launch of your work, and how to do it all with less overwhelm and confusion. You will have the opportunity to hear from amazing artists who will share how they have built their successful creative businesses. My hope is to create a space where artists and the creative curious can gather to learn about one of the most important tools creative entrepreneurs need in their toolbox their mindset. Thanks so much for tuning in to Mind Over Medium podcast. Let's get started. Hey, today I'm excited to chat with Katie Pulsifer. Katie is a master certified deep dive coach and someone I've known for several years, and someone I also would say is my friend, so I'm excited to have you here today, katie.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:I'm yeah, I'm super happy. I'm all tangled up in my cords here. I'm gonna have you introduce yourself and if you can tell people who you are, where you live, and give us a bit more detail about what you do, sure.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So yes, I'm Katie Pulsifer. I live in Maine and I am a life coach, as you said, a master certified, and we had the pleasure of meeting at the school where we both trained. I might have even been your instructor way back.
Speaker 1:You were my instructor. Yeah, I actually was a little afraid of you for a little bit. Oh no, I desperately wanted to please you.
Speaker 2:Oh goodness, that's funny. We got to work side by side supporting students and doing all kinds of things, which was really fun. But since 2024, is that where we are now?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have stepped back into my private coaching practice full time. I started this business back in 2015. After passionately falling in love with coaching, I hired a coach in 2012, I think, and worked with her through some huge transitions in my life First marriage, ending my beloved career of product development and design. Doing apparel design and brand work was really not, I don't know, not fulfilling, frustrating. Everything just kind of came to a head at that particular moment and therapy was incredibly beneficial and supportive and exactly what I needed and left me hanging a little bit in terms of like, well, now what do I do? And so a good friend connected me with a coach and the looking forward work that we did together was just absolutely life changing and I was like I have to know all about this, I need to do this, this is my thing. And so I started coaching people gosh back in 2015,.
Speaker 2:I've always been coaching in my private practice, but now I'm doing it full time and I'm working with GenX women, who are those rule followers you know the ones I'm slightly familiar. I'm hieroglyphically striving to do it all and perfectly, only to experience that crushing sensation that they're actually doing it all wrong. So I'm coaching them, working with them, helping them to break all their own rules, get a little rebellious, get a little feisty so they never feel wrong again. Which is so damn fun, because start a conversation with a woman in midlife who is depleted, frustrated, exhausted, and you finish working with her and she feels proud and accomplished and more energized, and just okay. Now what's possible for me, which is really cool.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Yeah, you know, isn't GenX the smallest of the generations? Like the population is, it's the smallest, I think.
Speaker 2:That's sounding familiar, but yeah great with that. But it's sounding familiar. Yeah, it's just interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for telling us about yourself and that I've never been to Maine. Not that's important, but I would like to go because I think it looks beautiful and it's like so many great books are written and set in Maine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would go to Maine. Yes, I highly recommend July, august and September. October is also very doable. I think it's just a hard pass on all the other months that are darker and grayer and colder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could see that, but now tell me about a time in your life when you felt the most creative. I ask everybody this question.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. So when you asked me this question, I was immediately. My first answer was well, I'm not creative. I don't do creative things for a living. I'm sure you've heard this before. I don't get paid to be creative. First, immediate, not helpful answer to your question, and then I started thinking of things times, and then I couldn't stop.
Speaker 2:actually, and my list is so long, but I'll just tell you. The first one that came to me was when I blended families about oh my gosh, I don't even know six, seven years ago, maybe at this point, and we purchased a house that was not great but had so much potential on six acres of land we're a half an hour from the ocean. But I mean, you really needed to have a big vision and a big dream and be able to, like, see something possible here, which my husband does beautifully. So imagine a tiny little house, five of us. We don't really know each other very well and, as I've always said, the only thing we have in common is that we've all been divorced. That's about it, and we pack into this house.
Speaker 2:There are not enough bedrooms for people and three girls, high school and junior high. You want to make sure everyone has a space. So guess who didn't get a bedroom, guess who's entire closet, and everything was in the garage. Oh my gosh, okay, coaching office was in the garage, my husband's office was in the garage, and I just think about that time of just like, and I now laugh and think about the creativity that we had to use the space we had, use our mash-up of furniture that we had focus, most importantly, on being together for all the right reasons and the flexibility, the ingenuity, the imagination, whipping up dinners in the kitchen that was like this big. It's fun to now think of it as like oh, I had to actually be so creative to like, create, to literally create something from nothing which was a family who would never live together before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's no small thing, I also. We also blended a family, and it's not easy.
Speaker 1:And then to have that on top of it Because we remodeled too, but we lived in my house while the house we were in right now, way better, now we we lived in it while we remodeled it and blended and, yeah, I love that answer because it does take massive amounts of creativity and it's so funny how people think creativity and it's like you have to be a musician or a writer or an artist. We're all so creative If we just change the way we look at that word. Yes, and that I love that. You found that to be a creative time, so it's great, it's so good. Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1:Of course, I love what I read on your website about your coaching practice. It says my genius is showing you the exact thoughts and emotions that keep your life pretty damn good, but not extraordinary. Then I get you dialed into who you want to be and what you need to do to create the exact experiences you truly crave. I call this radical self responsibility and what I love about this is I. That feels very compelling to me. That's something that really speaks to me. But I know from doing my own work like self coaching and getting coach that takes some real bravery to get to that radical self responsibility and not saying that I'm there, but do you find that your clients need to dig pretty deep and be pretty brave when they start doing this work?
Speaker 2:That's such a nice way to put it. And yes, definitely, and they get to decide how deep they want to dig and how brave they want to be, and I think we just have different levels of tolerance for that on different days and at different moments in our lives. But most of the people that I'm speaking with are kind of so hungry for that that it kind of doesn't matter how hard it is, and they've already actually done way harder things Birthing babies, sending them off and launching them into the world, being married, being remarried, taking care of aging parents or all the things that we are confronted with. That, like actually sitting down and giving themselves their undivided attention, feels pretty special and feels pretty sacred. I think what ends up being challenging for all of us, myself included, is the oh.
Speaker 2:The reason I am kind of in this rut or spiraling in this same kind of place and not really having the awesome experience I would like in my life is because I've inherited all of these borrowed rules. I'm so worried about what other people will think I'm so used to taking care of others that I haven't really checked in. What do I want? What matters to me? Who am I in my 50s, and is it okay that it's not the same person I was in my 40s or my 30s? In my 20s, what do I want to go experiment with, what rules do I want to shatter and smash, and what do I want to try and not apologize for? And so it's just this kind of reckoning time, and the way I try and do it is just make it as fun as possible. I try and just laugh with my clients as much as possible as we blow up these maybe outdated versions of ourselves in favor of having what we really want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so beautifully put and you know, when you were talking, it just came to me like there's so many we're not taught that we don't have to adopt those things that were from our parents or where we're from, or well, this is just the way we do it, kind of thinking Like, really, I didn't know that I couldn't do that until I discovered coaching. And then when I did like that kind of like oh, misaligned feeling I'd always have, like like I don't feel like I fit into this space where I am told I'm supposed to fit in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it gave me the information and permission to make decisions based on my own personal alignment 100%, totally agree with you, and I think, unfortunately, what many of us do is we mischaracterize that misalignment and we think, oh, something's wrong with me because I can't actually contort myself into acceptance of this thing Versus. Oh no, I just I've been inherited this way of looking at the world from whomever who were doing the best they could to show me a way, and I followed that way for a while and that way actually no longer is in integrity with me, or that got me to this point, and now I've got to jump ship and go somewhere else. And it's not a dismissal of the previous path, it's not something's wrong with me. It's just like an embracing of. We change or we outgrow rules, or they no longer get us where we want to be heading, or we actually can make different choices or come back around to that same role later in life. So just giving ourselves some more freedom, more permission.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's almost like opening all the doors to which one you choose to walk through, when before they all felt shut, or like you could get a glimmer like that looks pretty cool in there, but I don't think I can go there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people like me, we don't go through those doors. Yes, okay, yeah, I used to think that for a long time, and is that something I want to continue to believe, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I know you probably hear this all the time with your clients too. I hear it with mine like well, a lot of, what will people think? You know, no one else in my family is creative like just the things, the limiting beliefs that we put on ourselves. Yeah, I love that you're working with Gen X women because, being one myself, I do feel like and I think maybe I read this somewhere there's a book Gosh, it's the name of it is escaping me. I think it's called why we Can't Sleep. It is on my bedside table.
Speaker 2:In fact, I read it many a night when I can't sleep in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think I listened to it when it first came out and you, since you're in it right now, you might be, I might be getting my books mixed up, but something that I took away from that was we were kind of the first generation to be told that we could have it all. Yes, yes, but our partners or the other people in our lives didn't catch up to the extra help having it all, us trying to have it all required.
Speaker 2:So we are having it all and doing it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, exactly. I don't know if I have to explain that well, but yes absolutely yeah yeah, it's a real thing.
Speaker 2:It is, and I think, because that was just part of the culture the air we were breathing, the water we were drinking, the idea that anything was possible we were fully bought in, again for all the right reasons. I think there's a lot of good in that, a lot of good that came of that, and it's also exhausting and I think what many of us are now realizing actually completely impossible.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. So when you're working with someone, what does unwinding all that look like practically speaking?
Speaker 2:Oh, it can look like maybe diving into the smallest habits that have been formed, like I had, I'm working with this one client who brilliant, so accomplished, like tremendous education, and has her own business, mother, lots of support in her life and for her, having a couple of hours in the evening just be actually lost to scrolling and snacking just vanish, like her own time, just like absolutely disappearing, and she couldn't really understand why.
Speaker 2:And so just even talking about what happened between 730 and 930, once her littles are in bed and that time, and what she's thinking and how she's reflecting on her day, and why scrolling and snacking seem so necessary, but she's like going through her mind thinking about all the things she didn't get done, freaking out that her to-do list is way longer than it was when she started her day, and just this constant like I'm not living up to my own expectation for myself.
Speaker 2:And so spending time talking about Hershey's chocolate chips and Instagram blew open this entire like transformative conversation about what she's saying to herself, about how much she should be doing, when she should be doing it, what it should look like, what success means, and then just unwinding all of that which, as you know, working with people a lot of its mindset. A lot of it was her unwillingness to feel her emotions, which are really struggle with. So, instead of just having the agitation or the exhaustion be there or the frustration, the best idea she had was like, well, chocolate makes those emotions go away. So I don't know, I just always think about her so fondly because that's an unraveling. It's like chocolate chips and Instagram, and we just opened up this whole conversation into how did she get there and, more importantly, like how can she begin to think about herself differently so she doesn't lose those two hours, those precious two hours, or?
Speaker 1:hers every night, yeah, and I'm sure that just adds to the exhaustion as well, because that's not restful, yes, in your body at all. I mean, I know, because you know, I know exactly what she's doing, because I will sometimes do that.
Speaker 2:You do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just I feel my nervous system just like ugh, firing in a way that I don't want it to.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and her rational brain, her intellect, her higher self, the best version of her, could watch herself do it and know like I'm going to be more tired doing this, I'm going to feel even shittier tomorrow, but yet it felt like the most kind answer, Awesome, and it's like it's that tug of war, it's like. But it feels so good, but it's so wrong. But it feels so good, but it's so wrong, and it's like a coach can come in and like help, pull that apart and dissect it. We do, you know, again with a lot of compassion, a lot of grace, a lot of laughs. Yeah, yeah, we've unpacked that. The chocolate chips are gone.
Speaker 1:It's great Anything, only chocolate chips from time to time, no, they're. So Instagram and we're good with that, exactly, yeah, well, something else I read on your website. It was just making 1% shifts, which I think is such a good message, especially as we're recording this at the first of the year, when people are making, you know, resolutions and like burning things down and wanting to build them back up again. And talk to me about that being part of your way of coaching and helping people, because I think we are kind of programmed to want to take big swings, have big results really fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I think there are definitely moments to go for it, absolutely, absolutely. I can count ample times where I have just gone big or gone home and I just personally don't believe that it's sustainable. I just I think that the success comes. I think that the gratification comes in the small incremental steps changes, new thoughts that we adopt each day, or the new patterns, the new habits, but it's the pile of all the little ones that actually is the foundation of success. It's always built on those little incremental steps, and so I also think that it makes it more accessible. It speaks more realistically to the limited time that we have most days, because most of us are doing many things. So I would much rather say you can actually feel better by just doing this one little thing today, versus you need to completely upend your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I mean, do you ever get resistance to that small step thing and like, no, I want to do more. I want to do more.
Speaker 2:Probably I can't, and then I think that's where we just dial it up and we move a little faster with certain people that are maybe have more capacity and more space in their life to do bigger things, yeah, faster things.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of freedom and a lot of flexibility to adjust to whomever the client is in front of us at any given time. I think more often than not, I'm having conversations with people that are like, yeah, I just want the one degree, I'm not. Yeah, it's not a 180 degree or a 360 day for me, it's a one degree day for me.
Speaker 1:And those really add up? Yeah, yeah, they do. It's pretty remarkable, yeah, so you know it's funny. At the beginning you said what you did before and that was one of the questions I had, because I've only known you as coach. Katie so tell me about that. And then also well, yeah, I'll just ask one question at a time. I can be guilty of asking like five step questions that are a little confusing for people, so we'll just start with one.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, fresh out of college, I started working in retail just because I absolutely loved fashion clothes, shoes, all the things and worked in small boutiques, had my own store for a while and then got in on the back end of retail on the product development and design side and got to do some really fun innovative projects launching younger customer initiative brands and things like that. And yeah, it was fun learning how to make things and learning how to. And even though I wasn't the designer, I was supporting the designers or managing the designers. But thinking about the raw materials and the zipper choice and the button and the thread, color and the fabric and how you washed it and the hand feel and the fit and I mean I just I loved having that experience. Yeah, I loved my life on a photo shoot and things like that.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's great. My background was in retail as well, oh yeah, yeah, I was on the merchandising and marketing and oh yeah, so that caught my eye or my ear when you said that okay.
Speaker 2:So we speak the same language.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and from that to coaching, that was a big transition.
Speaker 2:Yes and no, because what I began to realize as I was managing a team of product developers and designers was they were such experts in their role they didn't need me to do their jobs for them. But the role that I got to be really good at was helping develop them in their careers, giving them feedback, doing their annual reviews, checking in with them, giving them suggestions on how to present themselves more effectively when pitching to the next year's line, to senior leaders, things like that. And so what became very apparent to me even though I was like wait, is this really happening? That I'm kind of falling out of love with making products and putting products into the world was like, oh, but what I really love is watching these younger designers kind of come up in the world, gain more self confidence, more self assurance, handle rejection like a boss.
Speaker 2:There's so much rejection in the world. Oh my gosh, a product developer is like I hate it, I can't afford it, and the design is the most perfect button I've ever chosen. It can be soul crushing. And so helping everyone have those conversations where it is about business but not about you as a person, I was like, oh, okay, no wonder coaching feels like the next logical step. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a hard thing to untangle, your untangle the rejection from being about you as a person when it's coming from you as a person. Yes, that's, you know, in my world like that's a big one too.
Speaker 2:You must talk about that all the time.
Speaker 1:actually, we talk about it a lot, yeah, and just trying to normalize it as information. It's great data, you know, which is sometimes a hard sell, honestly, especially when people are just getting familiar with doing this work. Yes, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I also think pricing probably is a big place. That it's you know people can. I can imagine your clients receive rejection to pricing in a very personal way. My mom is a painter and I know this is a place for her. She's like, oh you know, it just hurts when you know, and she just belabors her pricing decisions so much because I think she's trying to, and I know she'll listen to this and I love her so much, but I think she's trying to protect the future self. That doesn't sell it.
Speaker 2:So she's trying to prevent that disappointment by, like really keeping her prices low. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a complicated thing and yeah, it is something that I work with my clients. So pricing rejection marketing is a huge one. Yeah but I don't know, that's just with being in the creative industry. I think that applies to a lot of people now, especially entrepreneurs. I mean, yeah, I mean you have to really get used to hearing the word now, you do.
Speaker 2:You do, and that, no, is just information, no, is just that particular person on that particular day, at that particular time, make it, maybe just mean that and not occur.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a big one. Things were not really taught as young people or in school. That would be very valuable to learn.
Speaker 2:No, because, as you know, we're taught to really take external opinion and validation as expert knowledge, as everyone else but me knows best, unfortunately and so that really does require a lot of deprogramming and massive identity shifting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and again, it's great work to do. I think it's so important. When you were doing your own work with coaching and therapy and things like that that you mentioned at the beginning, did you find a certain part of this work to be more challenging than others, limiting beliefs or something like? I'm asking this because there's still something in my life and it might always be here and I've come to terms with it. There's a certain thing that will happen in my life that almost immediately my knee-jerk response to be like, well, I'm not considered. It's so in me. It's hard to unwind it With coaching, therapy things. It's gotten a ton better, but was there anything like that or that still is really sticky for you?
Speaker 2:I'm dying to know what is this? I'm not considered thing. We can't talk about it before we talk about you? I might have to coach you on this.
Speaker 1:You can coach me anytime, Kate.
Speaker 2:What do you mean when you say that I might not be considered?
Speaker 1:I think for me it goes way back, just overlooked or not important, not valued yeah, and giving more than I receive, just energetically or even practically speaking, yeah, that's a big one for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say I have something kind of similar in the like my go to used to be. My default feeling was unappreciated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they seem like cousins yeah.
Speaker 2:OK, I thought so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:It could often be my default, and now, through this work, I realized that, oh, the reason that I was always setting myself up for that is because a lot of my relationships were based on people pleasing energy. I'm going to do all these things for you that you have not asked me to do, that are literally none of my business. That I've decided will make your life a thousand times better, and in exchange, I'll feel better. And when you don't notice all that work and all that care and thought and attention, I am ridiculous to talk about, but when you don't notice all of that, I'm running to my door to like, thank me. I am going to feel so unappreciated. So, yeah, that was some. I do it every once in a while. For sure, that was kind of a similar thing that Loching really solved for me. Your question, though, was is there something that I'm still struggling with?
Speaker 1:Not even struggling, but just that you've accepted my like. For me, there are some things Like well, this might always be here, instead of trying to make something go away completely and just being like well, I've dialed it down so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So whenever I am about to do something new, my first thought is I can't do it. Just, even though I have so much evidence to the contrary. I can stack the lists of things that I've done that make this thought ridiculous. And it's just before I know it. It is just in my brain. Yeah, I can be able to do it. It's going to be hard. I don't know why I have to do this. This is stupid, it's going to take forever. It's just all the resistance, all the excuses, and I think now I like you. So thank you for actually having this conversation, because this is super helpful to name. Is that instead of like oh, it needs to be gone. I think what I've now done is like oh, yeah, oh you again. Yeah, exactly, this opinion again. All right, you're here, have a little temper tantrum, have a little bit of a fit, and the truth is we know I'm going to do it anyway, so maybe that's my thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I'm familiar with that, and it almost feels like a little internal temper tantrum or like a toddler tantrum, like oh yeah, it's so annoying it's like, oh, we've gotten over this by now.
Speaker 2:I don't know that we will. Or we will and something else will be there today?
Speaker 1:Exactly, absolutely. It's just the beauty of being a human, living the human experience. Yes, totally Sure. Well, tell me about how it feels to be out on your own with your coaching practice again.
Speaker 2:Well, it feels like freedom, and I mean I loved how I've spent my last five years having a beautiful job, working for someone else, supporting amazing students and training coaches and working with people like you who I adore, and if you had asked me a year ago, or six months ago even, I would have told you I would have stayed there forever, and now that I am fully in my business again, like fully giving it my undivided attention, I'm so in love with it.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great.
Speaker 2:And maybe it's because I'm not the same person I used to be, maybe it's because my capacity is so much bigger. My view of what's possible for me is so much bigger. I just kind of feel like the sky's the limit. There's so much I don't know how to do in running a business and I need to find some experts which I have that are going to help me figure some basic marketing out, because I just don't really know that part. And the idea of waking up every day to have conversations with people and maybe hear things that no one else has ever heard, and laugh together, cry together, make incremental one degree progresses together every day. I can't think of any better way to spend my life right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. Your whole face lit up when you were talking about your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really feel it. It feels very like, oh, this is so right. This is how I'm in. My feet are on the ground, I am in my body, I am in this and it is exactly where I am supposed to be right now. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:That's so good. I love that for you, thank you. Well, I mean, I'm sure there are things that feel daunting or hard, because that's just how it is. Do you work with a coach to help you through those things? Do you have a very dialed in self-coaching practice? How do you take care of your own? Needs in that area.
Speaker 2:I self-coach in a kind of unconventional way I am. Sometimes I write things down in a journal, but more often than not I go for a walk and more often than not I listen to music and I let my mind wander, I talk to myself, I walk in a weird way or move my body and I kind of dance in a weird way, like I just it's like it's this whole expression thing versus just sometimes getting it out on paper. So it feels very physical to me. Myself coaching. I'm just watching my brain work through things or try and make sense of things, and then it's like my body's just got to get it out, and so I do it like that. I also spend a lot of time alone, I think that, and quiet alone, like I. Just my introvert itself needs solitude, needs my door closed, needs processing time to think.
Speaker 2:What I now know about myself is those little freakouts that we were talking about earlier. They're so temporary. Yeah, they always pass. They don't feel amazing, but they always pass, and so sometimes it's just a matter of saying I've just got to get myself through this moment, but it will not last forever. I do have a coach. I just joined Karim Crabtree's BS membership. I might even saying the right thing, the right way, so yeah, so I adore her and think that I have a lot to learn. I always have learned from her and it will be fun to just I'm kind of excited to be a student and learn business and marketing and let someone else. So, being in the teacher role for so long, I'm so excited for someone else to be my teacher. Yeah, so that will be cool.
Speaker 1:That's great. Yeah, that's exciting. What emotion do you feel is most important for creating success and then.
Speaker 2:Ok, well, I'm going to have to give you a couple. All right, do Well, and maybe it's a category of emotions, but I definitely think the love, grace, compassion, kindness, patience realm is mandatory. It's absolutely. It's like you cannot bake the cake without those ingredients. I just don't believe that we get there with cruelty, punishment, discipline only in a dictatorial like. You'll follow these rules in this particular way. I just don't think the results are great and I think the experience of getting to success, whatever that means, it's just like it's not fun at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I do also, though, believe that it does require commitment, follow through. I think of that as an emotion, or at least an energy of I'm going to do it, no matter what energy, so I think it would be the beautiful blend of those two things, yeah.
Speaker 1:Almost like the soft, not hard, but like harder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or maybe yeah, like there's a consistency or a reliability of those other emotions. I think yeah, Like I guess that's the way I'm thinking about them because that's how they feel to me Mm-hmm, Like there's a lot of trust there. Yeah, so it's very solid and grounded and real.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, grounded is really good. I think that like kind of sums it up in my brain.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that all works and I like the analogy of baking a cake, because you have to have so many different ingredients to be able to do that, to create anything.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:That is well-rounded and palatable. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's good. You are an amazing encourager and I know this from being one of your students, you know have you always been this way. Did someone in your life like model this for you? Tell me about that.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, both of my parents are and still to this day incredibly supportive. I mean, I've kind of always given them a hard time behind their backs because I'm like they're the people that are going to like clap for me just because I took a breath, and sometimes it was not my favorite quality about them. I was like can you please be harder on me? Can you please ask more of me? Can you please not be so enamored by me? It's funny, right? I got a lot of coaching on this over the years.
Speaker 1:This is embarrassing to me that's great.
Speaker 2:I think that's just kind of who my parents are Like. They just see goodness, they see beauty, they're very present, attentive people that just notice the world that they're in. My dad built wooden boats. My mom is a painter, so both are creatives, they're entrepreneurs, both worked from home, both see a lot of beauty in a roaring fire and a sunset and an eagle flying overhead and just light moons. They just start like little hippies and so just into all the things, and so I think it was always role modeled for me. And then I don't know when it happened, but the switch flipped from this is just what you're supposed to do, because it's never felt hard for me to do that to oh, this is just the way I want to live my life, like there's so many assholes out there, everything hard and hurtful.
Speaker 2:And it's like I don't want to live my life that way at all. Yeah, I just want to be kind encouraging. There's always something good to find in somebody and name it and say it and make that matter. It's just the way.
Speaker 1:I want to live. Well, you do it. I mean, I see you do it. So, yeah, I hope that feels encouraging to you, because you were doing it for sure. Thank you. Yeah, that's amazing. Your parents sound awesome. Yeah, they're pretty cool. Yeah, they're pretty cool. Do you have a lot of ideas? Because people I work with we tend to have a lot of ideas, and if you do, how do you like pick the ones to follow through on?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think I do have a lot of ideas. And then I also I think I have a shut off switch in, and I've never said it that way before, so I don't know how this is going to come out. Oh yeah, just go for it. But there is something within me where I that shut off switch, just I can really trust it. And maybe there are times I shut it down too soon. For example, I never have been confused about when I'm full, like when my body is full.
Speaker 2:you know, like the shut off switch is quite reliable and dependable, and so that has served me quite well. I wonder, now that I'm talking about this, though with my ideas, if the shut off switch it's more to protect me from feeling overwhelmed. Yeah, I wonder if it's not so good actually. Huh, I wonder if I deploy it a little too fast. You might have to coach me on this, right.
Speaker 1:All right, that's interesting because I was going to ask you when you feel overwhelmed, how do you move through it? I, but it almost is like you like, get to it before I override it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting. Maybe I override it or I prevent it, but when I get overwhelmed, I am, I can't sit still, I can't finish anything I like. I always describe it as like I bounce around. You know it's just like ooh, laundry actually must be done.
Speaker 1:Right, so the laundry, always laundry.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God. I'm in the middle of writing an email newsletter to my list and it's like no laundry.
Speaker 1:Got to fold stuff for sure.
Speaker 2:That stuff.
Speaker 1:Super important.
Speaker 2:Gosh, but yeah. So I think there is a yeah. Overwhelm is not my favorite.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I do think I try and avoid it. So, and I noticed, the reason I'm saying this too is because my husband is bursting with ideas, bursting, and he tells me all of his ideas and I think I have that auto shut off for that too. Yeah, I stopped listening after a while. It's almost like I can't take them all in. Yeah, this is really interesting. Oh my gosh, you know what I'm going to be working out when I go on a walk later tonight.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's. I feel like in this relationship you are my husband, because he'll say to me he's like so are these like real ideas you're talking about? Are we just like talking? I'm like I can't quite tell you yet you know.
Speaker 2:So he's like I only do that, but now I'm going to use those words. You just keep to. Let me be in your brain and hear your thoughts around all the ideas. I know. I write this one down.
Speaker 1:Are we executing? I don't know yet, but yeah, that is really funny. I was talking with someone another artist, yesterday and she I'm completely stealing this idea. So maybe your husband can steal it too, or maybe already does it, because I have lists and notebooks and I write them down. But then which list, which notebook? So I'm going to start doing index cards with a bucket, with an idea bucket, oh. And so they're all there, an index card. Put them in the buckets, because then they're not rattling around in my brain and I can go back to it easily. Right? Not sift through seven journals, yes, oh, that sounds pretty amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a simple solution, that sounds really good. I think we won't pick those little hacks, I agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just going to spread them because they do make a world of difference. I know I'm pretty excited about my idea bucket. Do you make resolutions? Not anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Kind of the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I used to do the whole thing where, on New Year's Eve, I would spend a lot of time writing down what I didn't want to bring into 2024 and I would or the New Year, excuse me and I would burn it in the fire and think about what I did want to keep from the previous year and what I wanted to do differently. And I tried to do this last year and I was like I don't want to burn anything, I want to keep it all, and then it just led me to this. I'm just taking all of me in and I just trust that I'm just going to keep doing new things, asking more of myself, setting a higher bar, failing, buying a new bar. It's just the way I live. So, doing it as a resolution in the month of January, it's just kind of lost the I don't know, maybe that's just also part of me breaking all the rules too, just because everyone else is doing it.
Speaker 1:I'm for sure not doing it. Oh my gosh, you and I have that in common. I'm like, oh, everyone else is doing it and not doing it. I'm like, okay, I could be a little bit more mature about it.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm so bad.
Speaker 1:I am so bad about stuff like that. That great, yeah, that's a thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's really funny. I lost, completely lost my track of thought. Katie, I'm so sorry. Oh, how do you celebrate your wins?
Speaker 2:Well, I've started something new, which is to actually tell people oh yeah, hi, I'm so bad at it, I'm so bad at celebrating my wins, because I think I'm so good at celebrating everyone else's wins. I'm like I don't care about my wins, there's no time for my wins. So now I it's still a little bit of a force, but I am making myself Okay, tell somebody about every win I get.
Speaker 1:Awesome, I love that. So you can text me any of your wins, Okay.
Speaker 2:I will, I will. Yeah, so I'm starting so small, but it's big for me.
Speaker 1:That's a huge one, because it doesn't seem small to me. I think that's a big one.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's the. I don't really like to be center of attention. I don't really like the spotlight on me. Let's talk about you. You're way more interesting. I feel way calmer and more relaxed when the focus is on you.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, that's a big one. It's good stuff. Well, when you're not working and coaching or taking walks, what do you like to do for fun or to relax?
Speaker 2:Okay for fun. I love seeing live music. Love going to concerts so much Love going to live performances in general, especially dance, oh my gosh, oh, that's the best, that's great. Let's see what else. Spend a lot of time on my boat when, that's great, when it's your dad, did your dad make your boat, I made my boat, hi dad.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love that so much so boating, paddle boarding.
Speaker 2:I love to ice skate. I was an ice dancer growing up and so I still do that, so that's really fun. Nice and hanging with my husband. Love doing puzzles, like as like introverted activities, like puzzles reading I read a ton. Go out to dinner, hang with your husband Sounds great.
Speaker 1:What's the most recent concert you went to? Okay?
Speaker 2:let me. This is where the brain at 55 is. No, not my friend.
Speaker 1:Because there was one. I know, as I asked you that, because we go to a lot of live shows too and I'm like where did we go?
Speaker 2:There was one, there are some coming up.
Speaker 1:I know I have some coming up.
Speaker 2:Well, this summer maybe I haven't gone this fall, that's why I can't recall. Oh no, I did. In December I saw Alice in Russell.
Speaker 1:Oh, that sounds familiar. Oh, life changing. Okay, I'm writing this down.
Speaker 2:Incredible, incredible, that's fine. So I saw her in December, saw the revivalist this summer. Last summer Dispatch was amazing, band of Horses, nice, so good. Oh, that's great. What about you?
Speaker 1:I'm trying to think what I saw most recently. I know what's coming up we're going to go see Jason Isbell in the 400. Me too, oh nice. And there's something else I can't remember. I have to look on my calendar. It's like if it's not written down, we were in New York right after Thanksgiving. My husband went to a concert. It's like the only place our taste in music diverges. He loves this one particular band and I'm just like. I just feel like they're yelling at me the entire time. So you can go by yourself. So I just walked around the city and had a great time. So that's a wise decision.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's very wise.
Speaker 1:Well, this has been the most delightful conversation. I appreciate you taking the time so much. I'm so excited for you in your coaching business Because, I mean, truly, you are a gifted, gifted coach and I can say that with the utmost authority because you've coached me several times so you're going to be wildly successful and any Janx women out there would be lucky to have you in their corner. Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:This has been really fun and thank you for asking me questions that I never think about and stirring some stuff up inside of me that I need to now handle and concentrate, which is always great.
Speaker 1:That's great. Well, where can people find you?
Speaker 2:I'll link it all. Oh, thank you so much. I have a website katiepulsaphercoachingcom. Lots of information about me there. It's where you can sign up for my newsletter, and I've got a couple of cool freebies there as well. I'm also on Instagram as katiepulsapher, on Facebook as katiepulsapher so pretty easy to track down.
Speaker 1:That's great, that's really great. Well, as I said, this has just been a delight and I appreciate you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 2:I am so glad I know you and thank you for doing everything you're doing in the world and being in my world, Aw.
Speaker 1:I'm happy to Thank you so much for listening to Mind Over Medium podcast today. If you found the episode inspiring, please share it with a friend or post it on social media and tag me on Instagram at lianslotkin, or head to my website, wwwlanslotkincom, to book a discovery call to find out more about working with me one on one. You can also head to my website to get a great tool I've created for you to use when planning your own online launch of your artwork. It's an exercise I've taken many of my coaching clients through and it's been very helpful. It's my way of saying thank you and keep creating.