She Spent Decades Perfecting Her Craft - Then Let It Go | Success Redefined Podcast

Imagine picking up a cello at four and a half years old, building an entire identity and career around it for decades — and then one day quietly deciding you'd rather be somewhere else at 8pm on a Saturday night than on a stage. No crisis. No burnout. Just a clear-eyed moment of: I think I'm done. Now imagine being told by your entire industry that people like you don't do that. And doing it anyway.

My guest today is Kate Kayaian.

Considering a career change?

After dedicating decades to the cello, Kate faced a difficult realization: her professional path no longer brought fulfillment. This conversation explores the personal journey of acknowledging when a long-term goal stops serving your life direction and why it is necessary to re-evaluate your commitments.

If you have ever felt trapped by your own success or wondered if you are on the right track, this video offers a relatable perspective on navigating a major career pivot. You will gain insight into the emotional process of letting go of a career change that no longer aligns with your personal growth.

Subscribe for weekly career and life reflections, and comment below if you have ever had to restart your professional path.

MORE INFORMATION:

Kate Kayaian is an author, speaker, and career strategist for high achievers who want to build lives of impact, purpose, and sustainable success.

A former professional cellist, Kate performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist in venues ranging from Boston’s Jordan Hall to leading European concert halls. She trained at the New England Conservatory of Music and held a fellowship with the New World Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas.

Today, Kate’s work centers on helping accomplished professionals—creatives, executives, educators, and entrepreneurs—define success on their own terms and create careers that feel as good as they look. Through her 1:1 coaching and her signature group program, the Creatives Leadership Academy, she guides clients to develop clarity, confidence, and the practical strategies needed to lead at the highest level without sacrificing their well-being.

She is the author of Beyond Potential, a practical guide for high performers navigating the next chapter of their professional lives, and the host of Tales from The Lane, a podcast exploring the hidden challenges and unexpected joys of success. As a sought-after speaker, Kate delivers keynotes and workshops on leadership presence, mindset transformation, and redefining what’s possible for high achievers across industries.

Alongside her private practice, Kate serves as President and Artistic Director of the Bermuda Philharmonic Orchestra, where she continues to champion creativity, collaboration, and innovation in the arts.

She lives on the island of Bermuda, where she spends her days coaching clients around the world, writing, speaking, and tending to her garden.

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I hope you enjoy this episode!

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MS BELLA ST JOHN
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PS:  No animals were harmed in the creation of this video.  Made with recycled data.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Success redefined with Miss Bella's job.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Imagine picking up a cello at four and a half years old, but then having this realization, this is what I want to do and what I want to be, and being a professional cellist for decades, only to one day wake up and go, you know, this isn't for me anymore. How many of us have been in that situation where we've just realized what we've been doing for the last whatever period of our time is not where we now need to be? My guest today, Kate Kayin, and I hope I pronounced that correctly, is a former professional cellist who had that moment and she pivoted her life. She's now an author, speaker, and incredibly successful career strategist for high achievers. So let's go join the conversation. Kate, you have a really interesting name, your last name. What's the origin of that?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Kayan is an Armenian name. So my dad's family is Armenian. My mom was German, Welsh, American. She's just sort of an American mutt. But yeah, my my family grew up really with that Armenian heritage. So I grew up, my mother learned to make Armenian food. And so that's what I grew up with. I don't speak the language, unfortunately, but um definitely consider myself Armenian American.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

I I love and so how has how has that because I'm I'm very interested in in different people's cultures? You know, I've lived in a whole bunch of places around the world. I have a my accent is just confused. Um so how has having parents from different cultures affected your outlook on life?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

What a great question. You know, I at some point, I think even as early as college, I had the idea that if I ever wrote an autobiography, the title of it was going to be called My Life as an Other. Because as much as I loved my Armenian heritage, I went to Armenian summer camp. There was always this feeling amongst my friends who were 100% Armenian, whose both parents were Armenian, they spoke it in the home, that I wasn't quite Armenian enough. Right? And it's true, like I couldn't speak the language with them, I didn't have relatives living there, like so I wasn't quite Armenian enough. But growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, where most people were blonde-haired, blue-eyed, very white, lovely, like great friends, I was definitely not like them either. I was a little too foreign-looking, I was a little too much an other. So I, and and that's kind of been how I felt throughout my life, uh, in certain ways as a professional musician. I wasn't this enough, but I wasn't also this enough. Uh and yeah, so it is a gift and a curse at the same time. A gift because, you know, I'm a Pisces too. So I'm very good at sort of adapting through and in different waters and making do. And sort of I always had, I was never in one click. I was kind of the person who was friends with all of the different groups in school, um, but never anybody's sort of like go-to ride or die. Um, but I loved that I could kind of navigate different waters. It made me very adaptable. And uh so yeah, overall, it I I have loved having a sense of culture, especially as an American. It is such a melting pot, and I think that it's a gift to sort of have something different, have something to cling to, whether it's a food or different holidays or music and dance. Uh, I think it's it's a wonderful way to grow up.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

I love that. And with this podcast, was it we're very much talking about success redefined, particularly over the last six years. And you can count back and decide for yourself when that change was really starting to happen. And so with a lot of people that I'm talking with, they they're saying, you know, I I've decided that the American, particularly, I lived in the States for a decade, but very much the American version of success, the stereotypical American version of success, is not what they're considering success anymore. And before we dive a little more into your story, is there a stereotypical Armenian version of success? In different cultures around the world, you know, success is a very dear friend who he says for a man to be considered successful in particular rural uh Russia. It's that he builds a house for his family, doesn't go and buy it, he builds a house, he has two sons, and he plants at least one tree. So that's that's a definition of a successful man in Russia. Is there, do you know, is there a very stereotypical version of Armenian success?

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah, I think there's a stereotypical version, and I think that there's a very personal version in my family. The the stereotypical version of Armenian success, I think they're Armenians are very scrappy, right? They have been persecuted throughout history, they have also been royalty and rulers throughout history, uh, and they have always like the fact that we are still around as a people is kind of a miracle. And so there is a strong resilience of you, you land on your feet, you start a business, you have a trade, whether it's you know, making rugs or cobbling shoes or jewelry is a big one. But um, starting a business is a big thing, and and making it a financial success to support your family um is very important. With my personal family, my my grandparents grew up in in Turkey, they were part of the Armenian genocide. My grandfather had gotten out earlier, made it to the States, was working the railway lines, during the Dust Bowl. And he would tell my father, and my father told me, I never met my grandfather. He said, you know, my father always said to me, if your family is healthy and you have a roof over your head and food to put on the table, and no one is actively trying to kill you, you have everything you could ever want in life. And that last part really got me. Right? Like there are pe there are a lot of people in this world that have to worry about being killed on a daily basis. That is something that we generally don't have to think about in America. Of course, it happens, it happens everywhere, but it's not really something that people wake up thinking about. And so I really think that has been a perspective I think a lot of that has to do with Maslov's hierarchy of needs of my grandfather, unfortunately, was really never got past that first level of survive, eat, shelter, health. But he realized that's all he needed. He just needed his community, he needed a family, um, he had lived through so much, he had survived so much, and he was just grateful to be alive and to have his family around him.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah. And I think it's interesting as well, not in addition to cultural, also from generational, looking at you know, those who went through the First World War, those who went through the second world war, those who went through both, and how they were redefining what a successful life was for them. And a lot of that came back to exactly what you your grandfather said.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And you know, for me personally, growing up as a as a cellist and going into a career as a professional cellist, my idea of success was you perform every weekend. If you are not fully booked, every chance you could you could be booked, you haven't succeeded yet. And at a certain point, pre-six years ago, just pre-six years ago, uh maybe seven and a half years ago, I started to wonder if there were other places I'd rather be at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night than on a stage in some random city. Um I love traveling. I have friends all over the world. So on in that sense, it was always wonderful to fly somewhere and you'd meet somebody for dinner after a concert or the next day, or it was great, right? Um but I maybe it was age, maybe it was just I was ready for a different life experience. I reached a point where success was Saturday night, I'm at a dinner party with a group of wonderful friends and just relaxed and enjoying conversation and not exhausted because I just played a concert and it's midnight. And uh yeah, so that that's how success was redefined for me.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

I love that. And so so when we were when we were talking just before we went to air, I said, I'm terribly sorry, but I'm looking straight past you at that beautiful image behind you, and you said, Oh, that's my book. Yeah, we trend and I'm still fixated on that particular image, by the way. So every now and again, excuse me if I glaze over and I'm looking at that image. So, what was the story, first of all, before we actually show everybody your book, what was the story? How did that come into being? Have you always wanted to write?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

What was the gem, the germ, the yeah, both a gem and a germ. Exactly. You're a writer, you know how that feels. Exactly. Well, you know, I when I first had these thoughts of like, I think I don't want to be a professional cellist, I don't want to be a cellist. I had been a cellist since I was a four and a half years old, and at that point I was in my 40s. So you can do the math. I mean, that is most of my life that I had played the cello my whole life. I couldn't find any resources for somebody at the height of their career, in the middle of their career, just wanting to put it down, no crisis involved, just like I think I'm ready to go do something else. I couldn't find anything that would help me through that process of uh, is it okay to do that? Finding permission, figuring out what was stopping me from doing it, figuring out what had kept me in this industry for so long, figuring out how to redefine an identity that I had owned since I was four and a half years old, and figuring out how to, okay, if I'm gonna do something else, how do I make it happen? What are the steps I need to take? And so after doing all of that and making lots of mistakes and figuring it out the hard, scrappy way, like the good Armenian that I am, I decided that I would write the book that I needed at the time for other people. Because of course, whenever you do something that hasn't really been done before, or you know, not widely in one's industry, people come out of the woodwork. You know, at first when I said, Oh, I'm I'm leaving, I'm I'm not going to perform anymore, I'm not going to be a cellist anymore, and all of my colleagues and friends said, I'm sorry. What? You can't do that. We don't do that in this industry. We play until the day we dropped out of a heart attack on stage.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

And they bury our instrument with us. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

No, I mean, they don't even retire, right? Like, let alone quit. And uh, as soon as I did it, I said, Well, I'm sorry, I'm doing it anyway. I would get these messages, DMs on Facebook, on Instagram, emails from people through my website. Hey, can you tell me how you did it? I'm thinking about doing the same. So I said, Okay, all right, this is something big that people are not talking about. And it wasn't just musicians, it was people in all industries, uh, mostly creative industries, because that was my world, that was who I knew, and that's when I started writing the book. And as you know, again, as a writer, you write a book and it comes out two years later. By the time the book came out, and now a year after it's come out, it's everyone. It's C-suite executives, it's people in tech, in law, in medicine, all of them are coming um out of the woodwork saying this book is really helping me. So here's the book.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Really so proud of. I just people say that when they see the book, it makes them really happy and they just they just want to grab it and read it. And uh not only is it beautiful, um, but I think it's super helpful. Uh so it's in three parts. The first part is about reassessing your old stories, the ones that are getting you stuck, uh keeping you stuck. The middle part is redefining who you want to be, and the third part is reigniting the steps to take you from point A to point B to really, you know, anybody who is redefining success, anyone who is reimagining what their future life could look like. Um, I start the book with a story, it's not religious in any way, but I start it with the story of like, let's say you die and you go to heaven, and the first person you meet is the version of yourself that has done all of the things that you want to do. And now, Bella, you have done a tremendous amount of fascinating things in your life. So maybe this doesn't really work for you, this exercise. You're like, no, I've done them all.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Yeah, I'm really I'm really 167 years old.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

I have left everything on the table. I've done it. Pretty much, pretty much. Yeah, but I think for most people, when I say that, like you're gonna meet the person, the version of yourself that's done all of the things that you actually want to do. The first thing out of everybody's mouth is, oh wow. And like sheer horror of like, oh yeah, that's a long list. And so the book really helps you question, okay. So there you are, you're just you've just confronted yourself with those things that you want to do that you are not doing. Like you've always wanted to be fluent in Italian, and for you know, people come to me and they say, and I I experience this myself with my own list. When we say someday I am going to study Italian and I want to be fluent in Italian, we truly believe that that is going to happen. But we never take steps to start. And so when you imagine yourself, like you show up, you die today, you go to heaven, and you meet the person, and they took the steps, and they are fluent in Italian. And you just think, God, what why didn't I just download Duolingo and or get a teacher and go to Italy? Like, whatever. Why didn't I just start? One of the little things for me was I had this crooked tooth. And it wasn't that bad, but it bothered me. Like every time I saw a photo of me smiling, I'd be like, I hate that tooth. And that version of me that I met in heaven, she had straight teeth. And I was like, Yeah, because she got invisalign. Why why don't I just get Invisalign? So literally the next day I made an appointment and now I'm I'm almost finished. So uh Well done. Thank you. And every time I look in the mirror, I'm like, you go, right? Good job, Kate. Good job. Check that off the list, right? And so um it's been such a joy for me to over the last six years to really explore these ideas and to help. You know, I work as a coach, um, and so I help people through these ideas as well. And and writing the book was it was the ultimate irony because growing up, I was not a writer. I didn't consider myself a writer. I was a you know, a Gen X kid. Both of my parents worked all day. I was a latchkey kid, I was on my own most of the time, and I wrote in a journal every day. I think I just needed somebody to talk to, and my journal was that function for me. Now, of course, I hopefully my mother never read my journal, and I don't think there was any good writing in there at all. It was mostly like, I hate my parents, you know. Um But my whole life, as supportive as my mother was, both of my parents were very supportive of my music career. Um even so, every once in a while my mother would pop in and she'd be like, Are you sure you don't want to be a writer? And I was like, What what are you talking about? I have never once mentioned writing or a desire to write. You know, I went to a good school and I got good grades, and so if I was assigned an essay in English class, I would write it and I'd get an A. And you know. Um and I think as a student, you think like, oh, I did the job. They asked me to write an essay, and I've okay, I'm a good student, so I did a good job and I got an A. That's how it is. And I think as an adult, my mom was looking at that saying, like, that's really good. Like for a teenager, that that is really good writing. And so for her, she always thought like you should be a writer, you should write more. So when I got around to, you know, I had quit cello and I was writing the book. I asked her, I said, you know, does it bother you that I've quit cello? She certainly sacrificed a ton, right? For me to do that. And she said, Well, no, it's your life, you can do whatever you want. She goes, but I am glad you're writing. So, yes, to answer your question, a gem and a germ for sure.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

I I love that. And also circling back to something that you said about you know uh me meeting that version of you in heaven that's done all the things that you wanted to do, etc. And that there are so many of those things where it really is just a matter of taking the first step and following through. There's also, though, a lot of people that I find that I just call yeah but yeah, but. And it's not that they say, yeah, but I can't make the time or anything. For a lot of them, it's a yeah, but here is here is the problem that is stopping me from doing this. And I think if only we start focusing on the solution instead of the problem, it's an entirely different mindset. If you say, look, you know, there is a solution here somewhere. If we focus on that, you tend to find it. If you focus on the problem, you're even just your your reticular activating system is going to give you more examples of the problem.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Absolutely. Absolutely, 100%. You know, there's a section of my book that I think is the most mentioned section when people write me. Like people who have read the book, they mention this section more than any other section. It's I call it the yes if mentality. And I talk about how most people will approach something and they'll say, uh, no, because it's the same as your yeah, but right? Yeah, but yeah, but uh, you know, you could do this, uh no, because, you know, oh, you you want to run a marathon, you should just start training. No, because uh I have to get the kids ready for school in the morning. No, I you know, I don't sleep enough as it is, I could never get up earlier. There's always a reason. And so I I talk them through the exercise of turning around to uh now you're not on the hook for doing it. You're just gonna flip it around and say yes if. Okay, like what would it take? You wanna you wanna go for some training runs in the morning? Okay, yes, if somebody else got the kids ready for school in the morning. Okay, is that possible? I mean, I'd have to ask my my neighbor to come over and do it, or I'd have to ask a friend to come and do it, right? I mean, there are a lot of that say you're a single parent. You can't just say, hey, spouse, it's your day, right? And so, but you do have to think like who could do it? How could this be possible? As you said, to find the solution. And now for some things, because I talk about this in in companies and um and businesses, sometimes it's a okay, yes, we could do that if we can raise one million dollars in the next three weeks. For some of them, that isn't actually possible. Maybe something could be possible, but they'd have to put everything else aside and those things actually take prior higher priority. Okay, so maybe right now it's gonna be a no, but the no is a more intentional no, and it's a no not right now.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Yeah, it's a not now, it's not a no.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Right. And so they can say, okay, we're not going to do this right now, but we do see all we have to do is raise that million dollars, and then we can move forward. Then it's a yes, right? And here's how we can do that over the next six months or three months, or and so this attitude of ending the yabits and moving towards a yes if mentality is really changing people's trajectories and really helping them to see what it would take and see that those things are usually possible.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah, I love that. And I'm also very much a yoda. Girl. Do or do not? Make a decision, people. Do or do not. There is no try. So to wrap us up, what would be the suggestion that you have for people who are in that space? Because it's really interesting. Out of all of my podcast guests, even all the ones that I have lined up that we've not recorded yet, even if their bio talks about this or that or the other, at least 80% of them all have this one story of a life pivot.

unknown 22:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Because they felt where they were wasn't exactly serving them. Or life handed them something that resulted in them going, okay, need to pivot from this. Yeah. So what, Deling, what would be your top suggestion for somebody who's at the point of acknowledging it, but not knowing, not knowing what is what is my next step? What is my first step for this?

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Well, um, anything can be your next step. I would say, I've had clients who have come to me and said, okay, I want to pivot. I I am doing this currently, and I want to do that. Very clearly, like, how do I go do that? And I there's a process for that. I have also had a lot of clients who say, I don't want to do this anymore, but I'm not sure what it is I want to do. And I asked them just one question. What is one thing that you know for sure? I had a client who was working towards being an artist, and he wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do. Oil painting, drawing, did he want to draw hands? Did he want to draw toys? What did he want to do? And he was really tormented by this. And I said, Well, what is one thing that you know for sure? And he's a former software designer, and he said, I love math. So that's the only thing I know with a hundred percent surety. I love math. And as a coach, I'm like, um, okay, uh, what do I do with this? And I said, Great. Oh, I can so relate to that one. Please continue. Yeah, I was like, okay, go with that. Whatever that means to you, go with that. And he came back two weeks later, and Belly, he had come back with three or four drawings, like pencil color drawings of visual representations of mathematical formulas.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

They were stunning. Stunning. He ended up doing an entire show of these things. And so that's what I tell people. Just think about one thing you know for sure. Maybe it's I know that I want to work from home. I don't know what I want to do, but I know that I want to work from home. Or the opposite. I've been at home, I've been a creative, I know that I want to belong to a place, to a work culture, I want to go to an office and have colleagues. Start with one thing you know and and just meditate on that and take one step towards that. And then what's the next thing you know? And add that to the list.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

I love that. Thank you, Telling. All of your details uh are in the show notes. So I'd suggest that people reach out to Kate. It's a fascinating, fascinating story, and it's just is just able to help in so many different ways. So thank you, Telling, for your time.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Until next time, I'm Bella St. John. This is Success Redefined, and we'll catch you next time. Bye.