LIFE UPDATE: My Identity Death, Cali Summer & Why I've Been Quiet On Social Media

This episode is a real, honest life update.

I’m sharing what’s been happening behind the scenes - from my mom’s recent cancer diagnosis and what our family has been navigating, to how it’s shifted my perspective on time, priorities, and what actually matters.

We also get into:

• Why I’ve been quieter on Instagram 
• How I've been spending the summer in California
• The rebrand and business shifts I’m moving through

If you’re in a season where life, business, and identity are all evolving at once - this one will feel like a deep exhale.

Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Building Her podcast. I'm your host, Katia Lilien. If you've been loving this podcast, go ahead and rate the podcast five stars and DM me on Instagram when you do that because I want to connect and personally thank you. If you are new here, hit that subscribe button. It really helps the podcast grow, and that way you will never miss an episode. So let's dive in. Hey, my name is Katia Lilian, and I am obsessed with all things mindset, personal development, and helping you build the best version of yourself. I'm a women's life and mindset coach and an entrepreneur who started a fun hobby of posting #sweatyselfies, grew a successful side hustle, and now I run a six-figure coaching business. I teach you the secret of building a life that aligns with your deepest values and one that you wake up excited for. This podcast is designed to expand your mind and challenge the status quo. So get ready to uplevel your life and let's start building her. Lately, I have been recording shorter episodes in the 15, 20-minute mark, and I feel like it's better because I am one to ramble and talk all day long, hence why I started a podcast. But I don't know if that communicates effectively over to you and get my point across clear and concisely, and that is something that I've been working on here behind the scenes for the last two months for Instagram. And so I want to bring that over here to the podcast and just make sure that I hit my points home and make it as clear as possible what I'm talking about versus long-winded run-on sentences. Now, this is more conversational, and that was the whole idea behind a podcast because I want it to feel like we're two friends grabbing coffee together, having very introspective, insightful conversations. But What tends to get lost on this platform is then the, the clarity behind the point that I'm trying to make. And that's something that I've realized this summer with me going back to the drawing board and looking my- looking at my brand and everything that I wanna do and create moving forward. I am really working on speaking with conviction, and like I said, clearly. And I, I guess it's less trying to sound clever and more so clear, and I've heard that now from multiple personal brand marketing experts. And I'm like, "You know what? We're gonna do that." So that's why I'm gonna probably lean closer more to the 15, 20-minute mark podcast episodes. I might once in a while, if I feel like I need to go on a tangent, I will absolutely still do the 40-ish minute ones, but And especially if I have a guest on, maybe an hour. But, um, I think with these solo episodes and for me to really just check in, catch up, give you some value, I like this 15, 20-minute mark. So hopefully that works for you as well. Obviously, you can always DM me on Instagram, @katia.lillian, what you prefer. I know my previous mentor, Rob Dial, has the Mindset Mentor podcast, and he always does solo episodes that are about 20 minutes long. And I personally really like that type of content. I think it makes it super digestible and easier to grasp, and it makes it also easier to apply and implement to your life because, again, it's very clear, and usually there's steps involved. And then there's some kinda action plan towards the end. And I recognized in myself as a consumer of that podcast that I would actually go do more of the things that he was talking about versus just listening to kill time or, you know, whatever. So yeah, I'm really excited for this change in the podcast. Again, I think it'll be the majority, but I'm gonna leave room for those days, those episodes where I do feel like I need to dive a little bit deeper and talk a little bit longer. But I think for the majority of my episodes moving forward, I wanna do, I wanna keep it in that 15, 20-minute mark. Now, for today, I really just wanna give a life update because I've been getting the question more and more, and I can just feel people are like, "What the fuck? Where are you?" Um, but not in, like, a way of, you know, m- anger, of course. I think it's just more of, like, they put a story in their own head and try to think of, like, what's going on with Katia without actually asking me. And so I kinda wanna just clear the air of where I've been. So, um, if you've been listening to the, the other few episodes that I've recorded the last few weeks, you know that I've been going back to the drawing board and trying to think through what I want to create, what I wanna stand for, what is my personal brand all about. And all of this started with the Well, f- number one, I should go, I should go back 19 months. Number one, this started from becoming a mom. I had a huge identity shift, and I didn't really see how that would translate into my business, and so of course I just kept doing everything that was sustaining and maintaining the business. But in the background behind the scenes, I didn't know who I was anymore. I would look at my content, I would look at my programs like The Big Shift or She E-O, and the photos and the language. I was like, "Who is this bitch?" Right? I, I've said it multiple times now. I just felt like it was giving off boss babe, especially in She E-O, and that's clearly not me anymore. I could not be further from that type of version, which, n- you know, th- there's nothing wrong with that. There's no judgment, no shame, no nothing. It's just, it is what it is. It's reality, and I've moved on, and I'm a different person now in the best way, and I'm really excited for this next chapter. But what that means and what I have come to find out is everything that I've built up until this point literally needs to crash and burn so that I can rebuild everything. Now, that, that's for the most of my product suite. I'm not talking about one-on-one coaching. That's not going anywhere. That is my bread and butter. I love my clients. I will be working with them. I have been working with them for years, and I will continue working with them for years. I love the relationship. I love that, uh, a few of us, and hope- hopefully more, get to meet in person, and just the depth of the relationship and the intimacy. You really don't find that anywhere else. And so my one-on-one coaching is not going anywhere, but pretty much everything outside of that, so my product suite of The Big Shift and She E-O have both now been retired. They are not live cohorts anymore. I wanted to just turn them into self-paced cohorts, but that didn't feel right because I felt so detached from the messaging, and I'm, I'm far removed from the, yeah, the examples, the concepts, the teachings, the lessons, which is so crazy. You never know, uh, or you never think that far in advance of creating a digital product. Like, will this actually be relatable in five years from now? Like, no, we don't know. But that's the point. Like, you have to make a challenge, you have to make a course, you have to create something that is timely, um- so that, you know, people wanna buy it and then later on if it doesn't exist anymore, it doesn't apply anymore, it's like, okay, well, you know, retire it. Don't sell it anymore. So I've definitely learned that now. Um, but what I'm really excited about is... So that was hard to come to that reality of, okay, everything that I've built really needs to crash and burn. That was hard because that's a part of you dying off. Um, that's part of my identity death and rebirth. But now I'm excited to share that I'm on the other side of that. And so while I still haven't shown up on social media I have been working in the background on new content and forms and concepts and pillars, and I've really been revisiting my personal brand. What do I stand for? What do I wanna talk about? What do I eventually want to sell again? What do I just feel so passionate about, like in my bones, even more so now as a mom, but maybe brand new as a mom, right? That I didn't feel so passionate about before, and that's obviously being a mom. So, um, Jessie Jean, I joined her first YAP challenge, which was, um, just so insightful. And the way I describe it to my friends and my peers who I've stayed in contact with over the summer has been, um, I felt like it was relieving and refreshing to hear her perspective, but also just her story, and then of course her wins and how she shares her money transparency. I think a lot of us need to do more of that, myself included. And so, you know, just the other day I, I was working on content and I was crunching my numbers, and, um, I guess you guys can hear it here first, an example, but part of my content will be money transparency. And so I crunched all of my numbers 'cause quite honestly, I didn't even know. And in my lifetime of coaching investments, so this dates back to end of 2019. Um, let's say 2020 just to keep it simple. But six years of investing into coaching, in total I have invested $48,000. It's a little over 48,000, like I think it was 590, so $48,590. Like, let that number sink in. It did for me. I was like, "Wow, that's a lot of money." But... or I should say, and it has garnered me, in terms of ROI, over 400,000. It's been like, it was like $443,000. I, I don't have the specific number in front of me. But that specific number, I cannot wait to share that on social media because I could alway- I could say all day long, "The power of investing, the power of, of investing," and then, you know, the ROI attached to that or, "I've built a multi-six-figure brand." But it's like until you actually hear those numbers, that lands so much more deeply and resonates more, um, with you listening to this, right? And so that's what I've been working on in the background is, is, you know, those scripts and, um Just more of that transparency, and that's with money, but it's also building a coaching business and primarily the mindset around it, but also leaving corporate America and doing entrepreneurship full time. And then of course here being a mom, uh, a working mom. A working stay-at-home mom, I should say. So those are my content pillars as of right now. This is all draft mode But you listen to the podcast, so you hear it here first. And I've been spending all my time, well, writing scripts, right? So like the dialogue and what I'm actually going to say in my videos. I still have to then record them, and then I still have to learn the editing, which I feel like I've done a good job with editing, but more so, right? Like, with the zoom in and the zoom out and the clickety-clackety sound effects in the background and all that kind of stuff. So, um, I'm... but I'm really excited. Like, I'm on the, the tail end now of the excitement phase, right? Like, there was the crash and burn phase and the heal phase and the lost phase and the oh God, who am I phase. And now I feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel where I'm excited again for this new vision, this new brand. Um, I really had to go back to the drawing board and rebuild the foundation of everything. I, I've had to choose brand colors. I've had to choose Canva templates. I've had to choose fonts, like a whole 360 over here with my brand. And quite honestly, I've never taken the time to do that because how I started my coaching business was through, um, content, sure, but not like amazing edited content, right? 'Cause I didn't want to be a content creator or influencer at the time. I just wanted to be a coach. And so a coach didn't need amazing content 'cause I needed... I didn't need to pop off and go viral because I just needed to, um, hit the right people with my messaging because then that would lead to a DM conversation, and then that would lead to a call, and then should it be right and should it be a good match, and timing is everything, then there you go. There's my client. And that's what I've been focusing on for the last three, four years. Um, I should say six 'cause I got my first one in October 2020. But in terms of a marketing piece, I really, you know, dialed it in the last three years. Um, but now with the whole crash and burn identity crisis, let's call it I realize that coaching is just one arm, just one piece of this bigger brand that I could build. Like Katia Lilian is the personal brand, so let's, let's act like it, right? Like Katia Lilian is number one. There's a little arm from this brand where she can be a coach and make money with coaching and one-on-one and whatever else she creates. But outside of that, I'm cutting myself off to brand deals or affiliate links or, um, UGC or, you know, whatever. There's so many different ways. And so I just had that realization, that epiphany of like, okay, this is what I'm going to lean into hard now, and so therefore my content needs to change and really just figure out what does my brand stand for because if I don't know, nobody else will. And that was really hard for me to understand and accept, if you will. But it's also been really enlightening, and it's really helped me take this step forward in my next chapter. So again, if you've listened to the last few episodes, you know that I wanna be more vulnerable, I wanna be more transparent. I wanna just let you in on my world and the ups and the downs with my daughter, like literally everything that motherhood brings, while also building this business. And Jessie Gene just really gave me permission to do that because she's my age, and she has a son, and she's in an interracial marriage. I'm like, "This could not be more perfect for me," right? I felt so seen and heard and understood with just who she is. And of course, her story is so inspiring. Um, so that's what I've leaned into. But then there was also this guy that she invited into her, um, YAP challenge. It was Caleb Ralston. So I've been following him on YouTube, and he has so much advice, and solid advice, to building a personal brand and just figuring out, like, again, your belief system and what you stand for and how you communicate that, and your branding, which he talks... He refers to it as wrapping paper. And yeah, there's just so much I've been basically consuming. I, I've been a sponge over here because I recognize at this stage in my business, I do need to be a student again. If I want to build and grow, I have to learn, and then I get to apply and implement And then, yeah, hopefully grow from there. So that's what I've been up to in the, in the business sense. Um, I'm still here in California. I've been here since May 23rd, and I'm going I'm gonna leave now here July 29th, July 30th. We haven't booked the flight yet, but that's what we're looking at. And, um, I'm really excited to get back home to my husband and my two dogs and my house and just my routine. Although it's hot in Florida right now, and will be again for August, but hey, I reduced it down by two and a half months, which I'm excited about. And I'm just also really grateful that I've built my business in a way that I can take two and a half months off of social media. I can take two and a half months away from home and basically live here with my parents in California. So yeah, it's not lost on me that I am able to do this because of my business, because of the freedom that I have built, while also craving more and different, which is wild, right? That's, that's the caveat of growth. It's like it never is good enough. You always want more and more and more. But there are healthy ways to do that, of course. Um, and so yeah, I'm here till the 29th or 30th, and I have been traveling. I did a road trip up with my husband. He left early. He left end of June. So in June, we did a road trip for like a week and a half to Northern Cal. We went up the coast. Um, we had two weddings, one in Laguna Beach, one in Pismo Beach, both breathtaking locations. Um, now I'm here in the mountains of California, so the weather is just pristine. I have been hanging out with my Oma and my Opa, which is Grandma and Grandpa in German. Um, I've been hanging out with my friend Jas, Jas Leaf, if you follow her on, um, Instagram. She's all about recipes and healthy food and eats, and everything has, you know, um, a quick way to make your food. That was a really bad way of explaining it. But anyway, she just moved to Santa Clarita, and so I visit her now. Literally just came back today. Uh, I saw her twice, and so it's just been really nice. I've been filling up my cup with family time, and friend time, and outdoors, and hiking, and nature, and ocean, and pool, and barbecues, and a lot of Pilates. I've been doing a lot of Pilates and walking. So yeah, it's been really nice just to be this sponge in business, and learn, and not have any pressure of posting. I've been serving my one-on-one clients. We've been having our calls, and I just get to pour into their cup, and we voice note and text. It's just felt very relaxed, and I think that's the whole point of building your own business, is to have this freedom that feels good and chill, you know, on your terms. Um, you know, having the white space in your calendar so that you actually get to enjoy what you've built and, and help those. So anyways, that's a little update for me on the business front and also personal front, and I'm just really excited to bring new content to Instagram and hopefully record these podcasts again on YouTube. And then, um, maybe even Substack because I feel like I have really good content on these other platforms, but I just need to put it into a written form for Sub-Substack. So yeah, I'm excited. I think I just wanna leave you with, you know, stay tuned. Um, I wanna film here next week and then hopefully get some content up for you either next week or the following week, depending on how long the recording and edits take. But I'm getting to the finish line with, uh, the learning phase, so yeah, I'm excited. Um, thanks for tuning in. That's all that I have for you today. We'll keep it short and sweet. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I wanna keep this 15, 20 minutes, and I hope this was digestible, and I just hope you feel seen if you feel this way or have ever felt this way, um, in business or if you're a mom and it's, you know, hard to figure out how to build your business and the time. And I j- I just see you, and I totally understand. Um, I'm going through it myself, and that's gonna be one of my pillars moving forward. I just wanna document this journey. So, um, I love you all. Thank you for tuning in, and if you ever want to shoot me a DM on Instagram, my DMs are open. I am the one who is responding. And, um, yeah, I'll catch you next episode. Bye.