Erica Castner joins us and shares her powerful journey from a life filled with self-doubt and unfulfillment to one of intentional living and profound personal growth. This episode is a deep dive into the ways we can shatter old beliefs, awaken to our true potential, and step into a brighter, more intentional future. If you're looking to reignite your relationship's spark or find inspiration for personal transformation, join us for this enlightening exploration of living with purpose and passion.
Connect with Erica
https://ericacastner.com
IG @ericaqueeniecastner
IG @thecouplescatalyst
Connect with Heidi
Work with Heidi
IG @realheidisawyer
If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review!
Checkout the Heart First Leadership Podcast with Ryan & Heidi Sawyer
Erica Castner joins us and shares her powerful journey from a life filled with self-doubt and unfulfillment to one of intentional living and profound personal growth. This episode is a deep dive into the ways we can shatter old beliefs, awaken to our true potential, and step into a brighter, more intentional future. If you're looking to reignite your relationship's spark or find inspiration for personal transformation, join us for this enlightening exploration of living with purpose and passion.
Connect with Erica
https://ericacastner.com
IG @ericaqueeniecastner
IG @thecouplescatalyst
Connect with Heidi
Work with Heidi
IG @realheidisawyer
If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review!
Checkout the Heart First Leadership Podcast with Ryan & Heidi Sawyer
As you listen to my conversation with Erica Kastner, consider the following questions. Are there old beliefs or stories about yourself that are holding you back from trying something new? That may be holding you back from living into your full potential? Are you holding someone else to the standard of their past behavior, instead of choosing to see them with new eyes each day? Consider these questions as you listen to my conversation with Erica. Hope you enjoy, erica welcome to the show.
Erica:Hi, heidi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so stoked to be here today. Great.
Heidi :I would love for you just to share a little bit about you with the listeners.
Erica:Thank you. So, in a nutshell, I help busy leaders communicate with more confidence, not only in the professional world but also in their personal relationships, and I happen to be a podcast host twice. I have my own solo show. My husband and I recently just launched a show, and a really fun fact about me is that my husband and I are both Iron man triathletes something we never thought was possible four years ago, because neither one of us knew how to swim.
Heidi :I'm inspired by that, because I'm not a runner. So at all Girl I'm not either.
Erica:I am, so not either. So don't let my status tell you that I'm a runner, because I do not like it at all.
Heidi :So in this show we talk all about reinvention, and one of the things that I like to do is to find out from my guests when that moment arrived for you, when that what I call a choice point moment or a wake up call moment what was that in your journey? And then we can unfold the story from there.
Erica:Yeah. So I didn't know it at the time, but back I didn't know it was going to be. This pivotal moment of my life is what I'm getting up In the summer of 2013,. On the surface, I look like a rock star. I had a really high profile position in our surplus for our community, which is where I currently live. I had just gotten married with my best friend.
Erica:I gained two beautiful gift daughters in that process, but behind the scenes, things were like a hot mess, so I was also grappling with the fact that I didn't like the way I looked. I was like 35 pounds heavier than I am today. I was $10,000 in debt because my husband and I both came from door situations. So imagine that situation coming into a new union and being like, oh crap, you're in debt, I'm in debt too. So trying to figure that out and then working this job that really wasn't fulfilling. So I literally drank myself every single night to sleep because I was just so tired of being in that repetitive mode of OK, I'm getting up going to this job. That doesn't feel fulfilling, doesn't? I don't look good. I feel like my marriage is falling apart, and that was the other thing too, ed and I, our marriage was unraveling within six months of us getting married, and so I was like, look, I can't look at the worst court for the second time before in 40. That is not a good look for anybody. Nor can I drink myself to a situation where I'm going to get in trouble or I'm going to die or kill somebody. That's not good either.
Erica:And so I woke up one morning literally having that thought, like after a really good night of drinking and a really awesome morning of a massive hangover, and I thought things have got to change. And literally within 20 minutes of having that thought process, I got this invitation from this life coach that I had been following for quite some time to go to one of his life mastery workshops. And I'm like mm-hmm, yep, I need one of those. I need life mastery of my work and my world. And the hardest thing at the time, heidi, was convincing my husband who on the weekends we would like to go boating. We were drinking, we were having a good time, we weren't doing anything to work on us. It was convincing him to go to this workshop with me. And so, thankfully, he did, and we heard so much of that weekend that made sense.
Erica:It really caused me in that moment. I won't speak for my husband, but it caused me in that moment to realize everything that's going wrong in my world right now was me. It was all stemming from my actions, my habits, my self-destructive behaviors. And so, within four months of really committing to some sort of help and getting counseling and getting support that I needed to start changing my life, I lost the weight without pills and drugs, and Ed and I were able to save our marriage. We were able to get a good game plan to get out of that debt and then, within 18 months of that process, I left my not so fulfilling job and started my own firm. So lots happened in a short amount of time, but when I look back on the changes that I've got going on today, that was really the turning point in my world. It was just having that come to Jesus moment, being on the floor in my bathroom, being like holy hell. This cannot be how my life is supposed to be and I just I need to make changes.
Heidi :Yeah, I think so many people can relate to many different levels of that right, Just within what you said having the health and body image struggles, struggling with maybe not alcoholism, but definitely over-drinking and using that as a buffer to not experience what's actually happening inside and in trouble with your marriage, and also that fear of, like you said, am I going to go down this divorce road again? Right, and being faced with all of that. So really, it never surprises me that we do get this serendipitous invitation for the help that we need. Sometimes we don't listen to those invitations, but you did and you said I think this workshop is something I need to be at and I need to make a change because I can't go on anymore this way.
Erica:Yeah, and something I want to touch on, heidi, that we just said is like when we get those serendipitous invitations, we probably like as humans, we probably get those invitations all the time, but we're too far into our own struggle, or too far into, like, our self-pity to even see the blessing of that invitation in front of us. So I mean, I think it was just the culmination of like getting that reminder of like hello girl, you can't go down this path again and getting that invitation. It was just, you know, it was divinely timed, but I had to be willing to open up and receive it. Let me ask you this?
Heidi :Something that I hear all the time is how do you get your husband into personal development when because I hear this all the time from clients and obviously you know my husband, ryan, and I are both coaches we're about as deep into personal development as you could possibly get Borderline obsession right? That's all we breathe, that's all we want to talk about. But it wasn't always that way. I was actually the resistant one in the relationship in the beginning to doing the personal growth work. How did that kind of transpire with your husband? What was his response? Because you said he wasn't like hey, let's, yeah, let's go to the workshop right off the bat. You kind of had to mention a little.
Erica:So here's what's funny about that is, I assumed that he wouldn't be on board with it, right, and so, like that was a flaw in my thinking and my perception of like, because my ex-husband would have never been behind that, right. So taking that perception of like how my ex-husband behaved into this new marriage, I mean that's where you get super deep about it. That was what I was doing throughout our entire first six months of our marriage, first year of our marriage. Actually, so like for me it was literally just asking him, like not even asking but just being like, hey, this is something I'm going to do for me, I help and have an extra ticket. Would you want to come? And then he just said, well, yeah, I mean, if you're going to go, do that and you're going to be gone what you know, five or five hours for these two days, yeah, what else am I going to be doing? Like you might as well, like we might as well go.
Erica:So like, right away, it was just my perception of him thinking like me, thinking that he wasn't going to be able to wear that, but I actually just asked the question or just said to him this is what I'm going to do. And then he was like, oh okay, well, then I'll go. So that was like kind of the now. Granted, all of our conversations are not that easy. I'm sure we'll talk about that through our conversation today. But that was really just the start of just not assuming that he was going to say no, just saying, hey, this is what I'm going to do. Do you want to come? And he was willing to come.
Heidi :I love that. It's one of the four agreements. If you've ever read that book before don't assume right, Never assume.
Erica:So powerful.
Heidi :So many times we do treat people that we care about, that we're in relationship with. We treat them as if we are holding them to what they did yesterday, or holding them to something that they have absolutely no control over, like a previous relationship Reference, a story that we have in our head about this is how people are in relationship to me, and then we end up kind of unconsciously playing out those patterns that, hey, you're acting just like my ex. Well, I'm treating you as if I'm expecting you to act just like that, and so I think that that's a really powerful lesson that you got out of your experience is just not to assume and not to hold people to things that aren't really who they are, because we're all changing and reinventing ourselves in every moment. So why not look at someone with fresh eyes and be able to say that.
Heidi :Hey, I'm not who I was yesterday, and neither are you.
Erica:Yeah Well, and also from my vantage point at the time, and I find myself like it's like, even though I'm a student of this in terms of assault development and helping people connect, I mean I still find myself because we're human going back to like old stories and like being like, okay, hold on, this is just an old story, this is not a full on blow on trigger point that needs to move you into like this level of you know, whatever you're going to do back in the like you would have done back in the day, and so I think it's just important to realize that those trigger points, I mean they're there to guide us.
Erica:I mean, like a lot of people will look at them and be like well, that's just the way I always am and that's how I always react. But it's like if you could just use that intuitively to guide you on your next decision moving forward and the next thing that you're going to say out of your mouth kind of positive way, in a way that's going to get you both on the same page and relationships, obviously, as we're talking about, you're much better off because you're not letting the triggers set you by default. They're you're actually guiding you in a more healthy, approachable way.
Heidi :Yeah, and I think what I'm hearing you say is to use them as a point of inspection, to build awareness and to say, okay, I'm noticing. I'm just responding in a repetitive, in a pattern right now, and I always say, once you notice the pattern, you're not the pattern, you're the one observing.
Heidi :That's a good one, yeah, so I think that's really powerful. I'd love to hear from you what were some of the sacrifices because you mentioned. Obviously you had to probably change your diet and the drinking, so tell me about some of the things that you had to sacrifice to start to have that transformation.
Erica:For me it was definitely about what I was consuming in my body, but it was also what I was consuming in my thoughts and how I was consuming information. Like I wasn't reading, I wasn't like, I mean, my only source of information was like whatever the garbage was on, you know, whatever news channel was on, right, and so you know, like let's, let's be real, a lot of that stuff isn't it's all made up, you know not, I wouldn't say made all made up, but I mean there's a lot of that stuff that's twisted and turned in such a way that, you know, makes a person think a certain way. So For me, I had to get into changing my habits and my beliefs around the things that I was already doing and so really letting go of those beliefs, letting go of habits that were no longer serving me and also no longer serving the future self that I wanted to be. So just being in that situation of taking ownership of that and then realizing with my relationships, how did I want that to look like? I mean, what were those things that I was doing to carve out time? So like if I was just wedging out on a couch drinking a glass of Pina Grigio. That's not doing anything for my marriage. It's not doing anything to elevate the conversation, my sex life like nothing is good with that, even if he's drinking side by side with me like there's nothing that's good about that.
Erica:So, just being able to carve out that time with my husband and be more intentional about the things we were doing I mean he was going on this, you know, he was going on his own growth journey, but we were going through it separately and so we were just like, look, I mean, can we carve out the next hour Instead of watching television? Can we just write in our journals for an hour and then have a 20 minute check-in on? You know what we want to share? I mean it doesn't have to be the whole thing, but like how can we start being more intentional with our conversation and how can we start moving the needle in some of these areas that we want to, you know, improve like our finances and just even the things that we were doing to raise our kids.
Erica:I had to set dollars in the process. So, like just doing all of those things to really work that out. They weren't really sacrifices, but they were just really shifting you know what I was doing over here and were they moving it to put something else in that place to make it aligned with where I wanted to go?
Heidi :I agree with what you're saying. It's sometimes we can see things as a sacrifice and other times we can see that what we're doing there is we're creating space for transformation. So we do have to create the void. I can't just come into your house and start redecorating on top of what's already there and moving more furniture in. That's not going to work. We have to create the space first, then to be able to thoughtfully curate what is going into it. For that example of space, but within our life, right, what are the values that I want to have in my relationship and how do I want to be spending my time with my partner? And then how do I bring those things? And then what's? Other inputs, like you said, that are not serving me Circle of influence. Sometimes we have to oh, absolutely to limit time with people.
Erica:Yeah, yeah, 1000%.
Erica:And you brought up the whole holding space, or actually making space not necessarily holding space, but making space for situations.
Erica:And to me that meant forgiving other people that had done me wrong, and it wasn't like I needed to forgive them for them because I didn't want them in my Speaking of circle of influence.
Erica:I didn't necessarily need to spend time and holding energy for those people that had cross boundaries, but it was going through that process of letting go of maybe my opinions of them, truly going through the forgiveness process, and that was a long cryfest of a thing, but it really did help me feel like, okay, I can, I don't have to hold space for that stuff anymore, I can move on because I'm clearly, you know, in that place of forgiving that person, forgiving myself in that situation, and now I can make room for other things that are going to evolve me and evolve my marriage and all the things that I wanted to do. But I was just holding on to, you know, oh, this person did me wrong and those things just really they cripple our ability to go out there and kick butt and take names. So just being able to forgive was a huge lesson in that process as well.
Heidi :It is it's like you know what they say, that when we hold a grudge, it's like drinking the poison and expecting the other person to die absolutely and and really that's been a big part of my journey, as well as learning to forgive, you know, not only others who have done me wrong in in relationships, but also, like you said yourself, within the situation. Right, oh my gosh.
Heidi :Yeah, realizing that's not who I am today, I have the choice to be someone else and to, instead of react, to respond in a different way. I think that's really powerful and I hope that people listening will consider you know where in their life they may be holding on to negative energy that's impacting either their current relationship, their self-concept, or even the opportunities that they're allowing themselves to receive and can.
Erica:I drop a bomb in here really quick. Yes, I would love it, because if we have listeners right now who are like, oh no, I'm good, that's usually the first sign that you're not Like I was in sultanaio for the longest time like, no, I'm fine, I'm a positive person, I'm this, I'm that. And it's like when I really got to that place of saying, oh, my goodness, I'm the one that's, you know it. Is there some introspective ways that I need to be looking at my contributions to the chaos in my life? And like, the minute I got that message, it started, you know, making those changes.
Erica:But, like you know, for our listeners who are again you're going to that place of saying, oh, you know, that's not me, I don't have anybody to forgive. I, you know, I can forgive and forget. Maybe that's a sign for you to take inventory. Um, this is just a gentle nudge to just take that inventory and just say am I really good? Um, because if I'm, you know, really salty, yet, like Taylor switched right now, it's like, why are you salty at Taylor switched right now for doing anything? Like she didn't do anything to you, like in this example, like anybody that is, you know, throwing shade at you, like you, if you're going to that assumption of letting those people kind of you know, bravo world, your freedom and your happiness and torment your, you know your mindset. I mean it's time to probably look into what your responsibility is on all that.
Heidi :A good indicator is if somebody else is the matter with you. If somebody else is the matter with me, then they're all they're doing is being a mirror. They're showing me something within myself that's a need of healing, and it's the bravest thing that we can do is to be willing to look in that mirror, to be willing to face the, the person that is the matter with us, or the circumstance that's the matter with us, and to say, okay, what is this here to show me and how can I learn and grow from this? Where's the gift in this? And I know that that sounds really tough For people who have really been hurt in horrific ways to say, oh, my gosh, like what is there for me to learn in this?
Erica:But I promise you, if you're willing to do that, there is something thousand percent, because I feel like in a lot of ways, where I'm at today, I could not have had these experiences happen to me if it wasn't for some really dark times in my world and I couldn't necessarily appreciate the gift of those dark times in that time Because I was going through all the feels. And so I think you know, like what I'm hearing you say, heidi, is like you have to see that that gift in someplace, but then also give yourself that freedom to feel all the feels. You have to go through the motions of Processing how you truly feel in that situation. Because if you just keep sweeping it under I use it this way If you just keep shoving stuff in a junk drawer when people come over for, like, let's say, you have an impromptu Company visit coming, somebody's coming over and visiting your home and you're throwing all the crap on the counter in the junk drawer, well, what happens to that stuff in the junk drawer usually never gets revisited, right? It just, it always just kind of gets collected there.
Erica:If you keep throwing stuff in the junk drawer, like our emotions, if you just keep sweeping it under the rug, throwing it in a drawer to get to it another day. It's kind of eventually come out and it's going to come out at an opportune time. It's going to come out when you know You're wanting to present yourself in the most bold way and you can't because you're falling apart behind the scenes. So it goes with the feels. Address those things so you can feel Confident in your ability to communicate processes and also accept those gifts in that, in, in that healing process. You know, whatever it is that you're trying to do to go through those motions, your, your, that will start showing up for you if you can go through the feels. I love journaling. That's a good place to start to get my thoughts out of paper. But you know, being able to recognize those gifts in the process is is paramount.
Heidi :So tell me about some of the gifts or lessons that you received through your experience. I mean, you've touched on a few of them, but what are the? What are the big ones?
Erica:You know there's actually two. So for me, you know, when my husband and I started making that commitment to upload with our world, it was amazing to see what started coming into our world in terms of opportunities and growth Um, not just like for many, but for relationships and people and opportunities that we're going to help us impact more people. And the other part of this is like for me, challenging other people's beliefs in my story, with me being an iron man, like we'll go back to that for just a moment. For 40 some years, I believed everybody when they said Erica's not athlete, erica doesn't know how to like your ball ball, erica doesn't know how to hit a ball, like I mean, I did not have an athletic bone in my body and I believe that I never challenged yet.
Erica:So just being able to go through that process and saying, okay, I don't have to believe everybody else's beliefs about me, what can I do to challenge that belief system of myself? And then, while I'm discovering that, what can I do to use that to to fuel other Entities in my life, whether it's work related, whether it's professional related or sorry, personal related, philanthropic related? So those are the two biggest gifts that I got in this process that I didn't think were. You know, I just I wasn't looking for those things. But, um, when you start doing this work and you start opening up yourself to exploring what's inside, what's deep down inside, and clearing out the crab, it's amazing what can start presenting itself in terms of relationships, opportunities and and thanks for you to do to challenge your own growth.
Heidi :Great question for that as to like. Is that my story or someone else's? Yeah, yeah.
Erica:And for so many years I just held onto the belief that it wasn't something that was urgent for me either, heidi, I mean, obviously, like I wasn't like going out there trying to be the next Olympian athlete, right, but like the second, I was like, okay, that's actually probably doable If I just got the training and if I surrounded myself with people that know what they're doing. And I think that's the other gift in this process it's a subtle gift that I'll throw in here is that you know, that realization of we can do what we want, what we set out to do, but we have to have a game plan, we have to have the right people on the bus and we have to be willing to do the work. Like we can't just be like let me manifest it into my existence and not do any of the work. That drives me crazy. You've got to actually show up and do the work. How does that plan? How does people on the bus but then be willing to show up and do that hard work to make it happen?
Heidi :Yeah, it sounds like that's what you did in your relationship as well, because you both were like, okay, this is not, this is not where we want to be. So did you set kind of a vision for what you wanted your relationship to look like, or did you just know that you wanted it to improve and started taking steps?
Erica:Yeah, I mean, I think selfishly, at the beginning of it it was like, okay, I just want to feel sexy again. Right, I wish, just want my husband to think that I'm sexy, but like that's where it started. And then, before you know it, you get that little spark of confidence and you're like, okay, well, what more could I have, what more could I expect, what more could I work towards. And so just having that ability to not look at it from the end result, saying what do I want to happen the next five years of my marriage, because that seems so farfetched. But looking at it from the well, what would I want to happen this month? What are some things that I want to achieve with my spouse, with my husband, this month? Is it going on a quality date? You know, maybe you're so.
Erica:The two of you are so busy that you're not taking that time to slow down. So is it really just the one goal you have is to find that time to have a date? Not even like leave the house, have a date, like be at home, enjoy each other's company, like do things together that are intentional. That could be where your starting point is. So I always advise people like in any aspect. Don't always try to think of the five year, 10 year game plan, because that's just too much for people. Look at what's right in front of you and say what can I do to shift or make a more impactful shift in my relationship in this case, or anything else in the next 30 days to make it happen, like, what do I need to do to start?
Heidi :Yeah, and sometimes it is kind of the low hanging fruit. There are things that are like you said let's put down the Pinot Grigio, let's turn off the TV, right, these types of things. But one thing I like about what you were just sharing is that I don't know if you just did this intuitively, but you were focused on how do I want to feel? Yeah, if you said I just want to feel sexy, I want to feel confident, and then when we can really feel into what that would be like, what that experience is like in our body and also in our mind, then we can start naturally taking those steps to do that Right, and it sounds like what you did.
Erica:Yeah, and like, let's be clear, like my husband was not, he never thought it was not sexy, like he was always. Like you weren't. But again, going back to presumptions and assumptions, like I just assumed, because I've gotten to this point in my health journey where I'm not feeling my spryus, I'm not feeling my most confident that he's not going to desire me and it's like that was not the case at all. It was in something entirely different, probably conversation for another show, for another day. But just having getting rid of those assumptions and just being like, what do you need to do? First and foremost, what do you need to do to take ownership of that feeling? And then, how can you inspire other people to do it?
Erica:Like if Ed never said oh, I mean, if he said, oh, I don't want to go to that workshop, that wasn't going to stop me from showing up at that workshop, like, and eventually he was either going to get on that same page or he wasn't. Thankfully, we got on the same page with that. So I just you know, but you have to take it once up at a time. You can't assume that you're in a problem and you're going to snap your fingers and it's automatically going to, you're going to jump out of that problem. It's step by step, day by day.
Heidi :Yeah, and then tracing it back. Tracing it back Like if I want to feel sexy and I want to feel confident, then I can't depend on someone else to tell me that and for me to feel that, as a result, it's not something outside of you that creates that feeling, it's something inside. I mean, we can visualize, you know, victoria's secret model who's not confident. Right, right, it's not sexy.
Erica:It was so funny, heidi, as I go back to like so when I did lose all that weight and then I was like, oh my gosh, that check was so hot. My husband is like, and I look at myself today and I definitely have more of a muscular build today and so I feel like my weight distribution is way different and my husband's like you are way sexier today than you were back then because you're a badass Like you go out there and you just charge ahead and so, like it's not just the looks, it's the aura, your vibe like, and people are attracted to that. So you know, yeah, people want to. You're going to judge a book by its cover because most people, from a human nature standpoint, that's how we look at things. But, like, if you can just get inside yourself and say, what do I need to do to feel this way and enable myself to look at myself this way and not rely on validation from anybody else, that's the power, yeah.
Heidi :I would challenge people listening. It's like what can you do to get yourself into the highest vibration possible?
Heidi :Is there a song that you can listen to that totally uplifts you. Is there something, a way that you could start your day? If this was the most impactful day of your entire life, how would you start that day? Do that one day? Go out and interact with the world and watch how different people interact with you versus, maybe, your baseline energy level? Yeah, because I've done that so many times as an experiment and I'm like, oh wow, you know the response right. And then the goal is to be there more of the time. So what are the things I need to do to raise my energy, to be there more of the time and create more of that?
Erica:Yeah, and it's all a practice habit. I mean, none of the stuff that we're talking about. Heidi, were you born with that ability to know that? No, neither was I. I mean, we've learned this over time and we had to be students of understanding ourselves and the world around us and how we can get ourselves into that energy so that people are on vibe with that. They get behind that and it's amazing, putting that little shift in your mindset can do wonders in terms of helping you open up other doors for opportunities.
Heidi :Really, really powerful lessons and gifts that you received in that. Thank you, yeah. So, I have a question I'd like to ask my guest is what's one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?
Erica:It ties back to something I said earlier, as it relates to you can do anything, you can have anything, but you just have to be willing to do the work and you have to have people on the bus that are going to support you, cheer you on and some sort of vision plan, like some sort of plan that's going to put this into place. And so I mean Iron man for me. I went from not swimming at all when I was 41 to actually no 42, and then crossing Iron man finish line just after my 42nd birthday, within two years. So I had to have, I had to put in work, I had to do it.
Erica:And my younger self, I mean she sometimes didn't have that work ethic, I mean, and a lot of times didn't have that work ethic. But also, like you know, she used to blame it on people around her, like for not having that within herself. But like, honestly, going back to that young girl, she wasn't doing the work, she wasn't fighting for those opportunities. And so you know you can have the plan, you can have the people, but if you're not willing to do the work, that's going to be where you'll drop the ball. So, just being willing to have that work ethic, to cross that finish line on your biggest goals. You've got to do it Now. Nobody else can I mean people can cheer you on and they can give you a roadmap, but you still have to show up at the end of the day.
Heidi :Yeah, yeah. What age did you need that message?
Erica:the most. I feel like I really needed that between like 10 and 14, right, I mean she because I felt like I had all the confidence and all the willpower in the world to be the next Madonna when I was, you know, like six, you know, and I actually went to Houston because I think that was I used to sing a lot and entertain from my family. We're going way back in the archives, but like I had that gumption. And then, you know, somewhere on the awkwardness of turning 10 and 11 and 12, I just lost sight of that. So you know, being willing to just say this is only temporary, but you still have to show up and do the work, like nobody else is going to do it for you. What?
Heidi :are you in the process of reinventing now? That's a lot of questions.
Erica:Yeah, so we're embarking. As we're recording, this is the beginning of 2024. My husband and I so I have a communication companies where I help leaders with their communication processes, not only in their personal world but in their professional world, and my husband and I, we have been toying with an idea and a concept for the longest time about how we were going to help couples do that on a deeper level. And so we both like to cook, we both like to entertain and we're like how do we put our hobbies into something that's going to help change other people's lives? And so this year, the couples catalyst podcast was just launched and we're launching something called the date night dossier, which is actually like the secret file that's going to help people get an at home date night experience where we've curated everything for them.
Erica:So we've really reinvented the way at home dates, you know, look for people. So, instead of having to go out and think about what they're going to do and bumble around figuring out who's going to be the designated driver not that we're into that much these days, but like but trying to figure out those like little nuances and not even having a quality connection out we're putting that intentionality back into that. So that's just one more thing that we're adding to the mix. He's still going to be an insurance agent in his world and his in his respective ways, so it's been fun. It's challenged me in a lot of different ways, but we're excited about that reinvention process for couples igniting and being more intentional with one another.
Heidi :I love it. You've totally got me because I'm I am a homebody. My husband and I are both homebodies, so you know there's always the new hot restaurant and we might get there in a couple of years. We might go check it out at a few years because we're not. We're just not out enough. We love our home life and so having some ideas for at home dates and connections and ways to do that is, I think that's going to be really valuable for a lot of people.
Erica:There's a lot of us especially after COVID.
Heidi :you know we got comfortable being at home, so we don't want to go anywhere.
Erica:And my husband's usually like, okay, do I really want to go spend money on this meal that I'm not going to remember and I can actually probably make it at home better anyway, like, and we know what's in it, we know what's here.
Erica:We know, we know that there isn't like 50 pounds of butter in it. You know like nothing against butter, because you know I do love it but it doesn't love me back. So yeah, I mean it's those things. So we're just really about creating intentionality and that reinvention process. I think it's just the main focus this year is just putting those intentions out there in a more thoughtful way.
Heidi :Yeah, I love that you have found a way to do something together as a passion project too.
Erica:Thank you.
Heidi :So where can people find you?
Erica:online. Oh, thank you for that. So the best place to connect with me online would either be Erica Cassnercom or our newest podcast site, just simply couples catalystcom.
Heidi :Wonderful. Thank you so much for being here. I really enjoyed the conversation with you today.
Erica:Thank you here, heidi, you rock my friend. Thank you so much.