7 Lessons on the 17th Anniversary of How She Really Does It (Part 2)

Music (00:00:00) – She is dreaming, she is drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else that she would rather be.

Koren (00:00:19) – Hello and welcome. This is Koren Motekaitis. And you’re listening to How She Really Does It, the place where inspiration and possibility meet. All right. We’re on part two of seven lessons on the 17th anniversary of How She Really Does It. As we celebrate and look back and reflect on lessons of starting something, of dealing with the vulnerability and creating what you desire, whether it’s building a business, leveling up your career, the different stages of family, the different stages of your own life, what is it you truly desire? So I’m hoping that with this show and with these lessons, they can be the windows of possibility that can provide insight, idea babies or reassurance that you’re going to get through this. So last week I talked about the first three lessons, and you can go back and listen to them and a bit more about the backstory of how it started.

Koren (00:01:25) – I’m going to just review them real quickly. Lesson one: Often we are our own biggest barriers to what we want. Lesson two: I had support and that’s what helped me have the courage to do the show. Even walking into the studio the very first day. Lesson three: I started small, right? I had small steps. I had six shows that I thought of. Now I’m going to talk about lesson four. Let go of the need for certainty. So if you recall, when I talked about my college job, one of the things that it fulfilled in me was that 11 year old kid who would hear her parents in the darkness of night arguing about money and the lack of money. And I would sit in bed scared what was going to happen to us, not knowing the answers. And my solution, my brain would say, well, become a lawyer. Because that is security. I say this ironically, I have a lot of clients who are lawyers. So my job was a good fit in that internal heart desire of wanting security.

Koren (00:02:39) – Right. I was tenured at the age of 29. That was something that was really, really important to me about feeling safe. It came from a place of fear. So the show was a vehicle to help me learn about letting go of the need for certainty because I had it all planned out, right? I was tenured at 29. I knew what the pay scale showed. I figured there’d be, you know, cost of living increases. I knew if I retired after 40 years that, you know, this would be my retirement. I didn’t know if I could make it to that, but I had it all planned out. This would be my life and I hated it. So lesson four is let go of the need for certainty. Now, here’s the thing. I’m going on live radio every week, and the show is not scripted. And back then my guests were in person. So I was finding local people who could come to the studio and be in person. And yes, I had done my work ahead of time because, you know, of course, I worked hard at whatever it was that I did.

Koren (00:03:44) – So I had my list of questions. And as Jonathan Clements, who’s a former Wall Street Journal at the time, is a Wall Street Journal columnist, like one of my favorites. And I remember getting on the phone with him years later because at that point I stopped doing it in person. But he said to me, he’s like, Koren, because I sent him four pages of questions, double spaced, but four pages. And he said, you know, there are more questions on here. Then we will have time to get through. And I said, oh, yeah, I understand. It just makes me feel better. Just in case more is better. I still struggle with the more is better. I’ve always been afraid of dead air, right? So having the list of questions. But then what it allowed me to do is because I had those guardrails, it allowed me to get in flow and be present. Right? I knew I had something to fall back on. And when I was present in those conversations, my guess would say something and my brain was so curious.

Koren (00:04:43) – I would ask a question. Right. So it taught me to let go of the need for certainty. I learned how to reduce the overworking, and I learned how to let go of the need for certainty. And that was from the show. In walking into a live radio show for 30 minutes, you do let go of the need. I remember I had my friend Kate Duran on.

Koren (00:05:07) – We must have talked about motherhood or something, and she was like a mother mentor for me was fantastic and helped me with my kids with sleep. But she had a baby and he came to the studio, you know, and we’re on live radio and you have a baby in the studio. And I had to figure out how to move through it. My good friend Michelle Woodward, who’s been a guest and co-host with me, her dog sometimes would start to chirp in the background. Right. Or I guess bark, not chirp. So I learned how to let go of the need for certainty.

Koren (00:05:40) – And also when I’m realizing, as I say, this is perfection, because when it was live, we went with it to the point of when I had Brené Brown on, we actually had dead air, right? And we had to go back and for the recording, when it was later recorded into the podcast, we had to go and add some stuff about the intro part because it was dead air. She and I were talking, but the microphone wasn’t on over the air. So learning how to let go of my need for certainty. Lesson five is doing it more than once again. Thank goodness for the framework of the six shows that the studio had put upon in the proposal. With me it wasn’t like, oh, go do it once because after once I don’t know, I might have been like, I’m out. Right? But it had me thinking a bit longer term, but not too long. Six shows is six weeks, a month and a half of live shows. And then there was the preparatory period of time, but it had me thinking a bit longer range, but not too long.

Koren (00:06:42) – It wasn’t a forever, even though I knew inside of me that if I started this I’d be doing this for a while now.

Koren (00:06:53) – I didn’t think that I’d be doing it for 17 years.

Koren (00:06:58) – Right. And I’m already making plans for the 18th year celebration, so I didn’t think I’d be doing it for 17 years, but I knew I’d be doing it for a while. And as you can see, I still don’t have a clear end date. And I didn’t back then. And that’s okay because I’ve learned to let go of the need for certainty. And doing it more than once is really important because so often those nerves and that vulnerability that you show up with and those fear, it may still be in that situation. And so we need to keep going back to then be able to evaluate and see what is it that we like. And I did. I started to really love it and to talk with people and to learn and to be willing to like suck at something and not be good at it as a newbie, right? Especially at that point in my life when I was all about, no, look, I know what I’m doing.

Koren (00:07:47) – I mean, I was young, I was 33. I was much more into being a knower at that time in that sense of like. In my professional life like, no, I am good. And then having to walk into an arena where I’m brand new. Lesson six is I get to do what I want. This is so important, and this is still a lesson that I must keep reminding myself. Like, I get to do what I want, and I’m really grateful that I split this up into two because I would have really rush through this concept. And this concept is really important because oftentimes we think it’s either or. I get to do what I want or I have to take care of my family, right? And we treat it as binary. It’s me or my family, right? Or it’s me or my job. And it’s this all or nothing mindset. And I’m constantly coaching my clients around this. It’s not all or nothing. There is a continuum. We’ve heard my guests, like Carol Dweck, talk about the growth mindset and the fixed mindset and how it’s a continuum.

Koren (00:08:52) – We’re not one place or the other. We think that man, if we can get whatever that goal is. So if we want to be more of a growth mindset, if we can get there, then we’re going to be set. If we can make X amount of money, we’re going to be set. If we can get that job title, then we’re going to be set. If we can build our business to X, we’re going to be set.

Koren (00:09:10) – And I say this because once my clients get there, they realize like, oh crap, all that same mind trash that I was dealing with before still coming up, right?

Koren (00:09:21) – So it’s not about being set. There’s no promised land. There’s some beautiful living and amazing life and then there’s still shit shows, there’s still vulnerabilities, there’s still hard stuff. But we get to do what we want. It’s okay. And take care of our responsibilities. Right. It’s not me or my family. It’s me and my family. It’s not me or my job.

Koren (00:09:47) – It’s me and my job. We need to put the and and get rid of the or. We need to get rid of the all or nothing mindset, because that’s not life. Life is not black and white. And I’ve talked about this for 17 years on the show, life. We live in a world full of color. Let’s let ourselves experience this colorful world versus boxes in to these golden handcuffs and this prison wall that’s black and white. So, yes, I get to do what I want. And the context is that as well as fulfill my responsibilities as a parent, because I did choose to go down that path. I did choose to be a part of a blended family. Right. Or I did choose to raise bonus kids. I didn’t know at that point that I’d be also birthing children. But then I did make that choice and finding ways, and I figured out a way that I can do work that I love. And it’s part of the job that I do. And yes, there are also crappy things that I do in my work, right? Not everything is like, you know, a party.

Koren (00:10:57) – It’s not everything’s a beautiful experience. And that’s the thing that we need to all remember is we get to do what we want. And there’s also things that we do that sometimes we don’t want. So I get to do what I want and support my family. I get to do what I desire and do my work. Asking that question of what do I want is really, really hard, right? Because for a long time I did what I was supposed to do. I did what was better for others, and I wasn’t part of the equation. And it’s about being a part of the equation and making sure we have that aren’t. We need to ask ourselves, what do I want? And then look at the context of what are the other things that we carry in our lives as well. So lesson six was a really important one. And why on that first day in October in 2006, my 33 year old self was crying because she forgot about herself for the years prior. She did what she was supposed to do.

Koren (00:12:00) – She was in survival, not wanting to have her kids be that 11 year old self that she was when she was crying in bed because her parents were fighting about not having enough money, that she was willing to do what it took to not have that. And that meant for her. Not listening to what she wanted, but doing what she thought she was supposed to. So lesson six is I get to do what I want. And what’s invisible is in the context of the other chosen responsibilities. It’s all part of the equation. It’s not less than it’s not more than. It’s all part of the equation. Now, lesson seven not being transactional and there’s a lot of risk, right? Starting something doesn’t make sense. Totally illogical. Why are you doing this radio show? You have a job, you have a family, you’re really busy, and now you’re going to go start a radio show and you’re going to say, this is work and you’re not getting paid. But it’s one of the biggest lessons that I learned from doing this show was to not be transactional, right? Work is often transactional.

Koren (00:13:06) – We go to work, we get paid. And especially from doing my job was one of the reasons I kept sticking around was because I didn’t want to go back to that 11 year old self or put that on my family. And I thought, this is the only way I have to be responsible now. So work is often transactional, right? When we especially when we grow up from a survival sense like I did. And that’s what I thought work was like, okay, this is what I need to do. And it’s interesting because it wasn’t always that way. Like I think about my teenage self when I was a lifeguard at The Goon, it was this lagoon in Fremont and I was a goon guard. And I remember thinking this is so cool. I get to work here and then they give me a paycheck on top of it.

Koren (00:13:49) – Like I thought that was so cool. Or when I was coaching swimming or I’ve had all these different jobs, right? And sometimes the work was like, okay, I’m going because I need to get paid.

Koren (00:13:58) – And sometimes the work was like, wow. It’s like being a goon guard. Like, I get to do this and I get paid. How cool is that? So there were times that my work wasn’t transactional, but later in my life, especially when I thought I was supposed to do as an adult, right and adulting was that it had become transactional. So not being transactional and going and doing something that doesn’t make sense, that also doesn’t hurt my family, it doesn’t harm them. It was Friday mornings at ten, which meant, you know, I was prepping during the evenings when my kids would go to bed and I would probably have to leave for the station at 930 and get home and, I don’t know, 1130 or 12, but they were typically in school at that point. So I manage the risks of things. It wasn’t that like, oh, well, screw this, I’m not going to do this. I honored all my commitments, but I took up space in my own life and I didn’t know what was going to create from it.

Koren (00:14:53) – I didn’t know like, oh, I’m going to start this and eventually build the business on the other end. I didn’t know that. I appreciated what Elizabeth Gilbert said in her book Big Magic: don’t put the burden on your art to make a living. And one of the things that with this show is that the shows I’ve never made a dollar from doing the show right at the radio station, I was a volunteer radio host for a local radio station, right? And then I switched it to and it became a podcast. And my company, the one that I built after the show. So my company, which is Koren Motekaitis Incorporated, and this is where I coached leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals. My company is the one who funds the show so that it can be produced by my team and listened to worldwide, because that’s also a really important value, is that I only have so much capacity to work with people and I want this to be accessible information for so many. And recently I had the thrill to meet a long time listener who told me she’s like, Koren, I have listened to every one of your shows and she was so grateful because I was able to walk alongside her literally sometimes, probably in her ears, right, walking, listening to the podcast.

Koren (00:16:11) – But I was able to walk alongside her and be her support system. And she said to me, she goes, I probably owe you a lot of money. And I told her, and if she’s listening right now, you know who you are. I told her she didn’t owe me any money. The fact that this show has walked alongside her. It fulfills me. And I’m fortunate that my company is able to support the show that, you know, at times we’ve looked at advertising, we’ve looked at other models, and we’ve kept it this way. Who knows? Moving forward will be like because we don’t have you know, we’ve let go of the need for certainty and we’re not transactional, but that’s where we’re at right now. So I did this work that didn’t make sense, and it opened up things along the pathway that I didn’t even know. But had I not done this show, I wouldn’t have seen those other pathways. And so sometimes with my clients when they’re doing stuff, they’re like, I’m not sure about this.

Koren (00:17:06) – I’m not sure like, what if it’s a waste? And I’m like, But what can you learn? What can you learn from this? What are the risks that we need to manage? And that’s important having the context of it all. Because sometimes I remember in 2008, 2009, there’s a lot of stuff in the entrepreneur world of like just leap and the net will appear and there are people that leapt. And then we had the financial crisis and that was a really brutal time for a lot of entrepreneurs. So I’ve never been a leap in the net will appear. I’m a commit to the best case scenario and let’s manage risks. Let’s have some guardrails on it and dream and pursue what you desire. Right? But that way we’re not in this all or nothing and you can still create this extraordinary life. You can achieve the goals. So I’m not saying you’re living a smaller life. I’m definitely not living a smaller life. I mean, this the life I live oh, is way bigger than I would have ever thought possible.

Koren (00:18:10) – For me, it’s way, way bigger. Lesson number seven not being transactional. Oftentimes you’ll hear me say it’s like planting seeds and seeing how your garden is going to grow, even though I don’t do any gardening. I don’t even like dirt. I like to see things grow, but I don’t like to touch it. But more planting seeds were not being transactional. And we’re learning and we’re managing the risk because we are adults. And there’s the realism, right? We have responsibilities and how do we make it forward? So this show has been a place for the windows of possibility for you, for me, for my guests. And it’s been designed here to spark idea babies nuggets of insight for you in your life. It’s not a protocol to follow. I laugh because.

Koren (00:19:05) – My people and myself included really don’t like being told what to do. It’s like you’re not the boss of me, right? They want to have their own agency. So it’s not a protocol. It’s not like do this, and it’s not transactional.

Koren (00:19:20) – But there’s more vulnerability with it and there’s so much more beauty. So I’m not saying. Start a podcast and become a life coach, because really this is not the path for everyone and this is my path over the last 17 years, starting in this new landscape is different. I’m sharing these seven lessons as they are universal and can be applied with what your heart desires as well as with the constraints in your life, the realities in your life. We all have constraints. My invitation for you is don’t let that voice in the back of your head tell you that you shouldn’t have constraints or other successful people don’t, because there is not a successful person that I’ve interviewed that I work with that I coach that I lead who doesn’t have some sort of constraints. We all have them. So the seven lessons that I’ve shared with you in these last two episodes are lesson one. Often we are own biggest barriers to what we want. Own that part and then look at what are you telling yourself that may or may not be true? Lesson two.

Koren (00:20:34) – I had support. To get the show started. And along the way, I started doing more and more on my own. And then I had to bring in more support. As I do this show today, I realized like, oh, where else can I add in support? Notice the support I talked about in the beginning. It wasn’t paid support, it was friends. It was an email chain. It was letting my friends know that, hey, I’m going to do this thing. I could fall flat on my face. My friends were amazing. They were so excited for me. I remember being so uncomfortable because I didn’t want to be seen. I still don’t really, but I would show up someplace and they would always introduce me. Oh my gosh, this is my friend Koren and she has a radio show. And again, this is before podcasts. People’s eyes would get big. They were like, wow, you have a radio show, Tell me about it. I’d be like, oh, right.

Koren (00:21:23) – But they were so proud of what I was doing and they were so supportive. So make sure you have a support squad in what you do. Right. I had a station manager, Jeff Shaw, who was incredible when I would be in the vulnerability of being in that arena, of being in that studio every week. Right? The guess who said yes and came on the guess who came back and continued to come back. And I’m so lucky about that.

Koren (00:21:51) – Right.

Koren (00:21:52) – And then over time now I have paid support because I have a team that produces the show and puts it together. Thank you. But it doesn’t always have to be paid in. Notice where do you have support? I had support in the fact that in the early days, you know, my husband may have been the only man listening to the show because with the show name of How She Really Does It doesn’t really invite men. Right. Or I have a friend, Tom, who would listen to it every week and he’d tell me about it.

Koren (00:22:20) – And my friend Don just recently listened to the family field trip, right?

Koren (00:22:24) – So it’s always nice to hear of the people who are supporting and it can look in different ways paid and unpaid. Lesson three is I started small, six shows. That was the commitment, six shows and then reevaluate. Tell the Aqua Monster parents come to at least three practices before you evaluate and never evaluate on the drop off. Right? The drop off. Walking into the arena is vulnerable. There’s tears just like I had tears. If I had evaluated on the drive to the station with the tears, I’d be like, What’s happening? You don’t cry. That’s not something you do. Turn around. You need to quit this right now, right? I would have missed so much because I would not have become who I am today. Lesson four, let go of the need for certainty; it’s vulnerable. And we think if we have a plan and we have this certainty, we’re going to be safe. But we may be missing the beauty that’s right in front of us.

Koren (00:23:26) – So what are the things that you need to know for certain and what are the things that you can allow the space to allow it to create, to form? Sometimes the certainty is like often I use the swimming thing. I never know how we’re going to get through a swim meet. Right. Because a lot of things can happen. Kids can fall down. They can miss their races. Computers can stop, which is always an issue at swim meets. But I do know that in the end, we’re going to finish the swimming. I know that like it’s going to happen. It may take a really long time, but we will finish. And parenting one. When my kids were little and my sister in law’s mother went on Christmas Eve, she had four kids and she said, you know, the first kid I had, I did everything right. I followed the book, did all the stuff, made sure we hit this milestone. Second kid, I tried my best to do that.

Koren (00:24:19) – She was like by the fourth kid, I figured, you know what? By the time they’re 21, they won’t have the binky and they’ll be eating food on their own.

Koren (00:24:27) – And I laughed. And that’s always been a great thing for me. So wanting certainty, as long as we have the time frame long enough, we’ll get there, right? So in those hard days of potty training, it’s.

Koren (00:24:38) – Like, okay, it doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to happen today, but I know that we’re going to get there. You’re building your business and you may think it’s never going to happen, but then that limits your brain. Focus on, okay, where do I want to be in three years? Where do I want to be in five years? I don’t really know how it’s all going to happen, but that’s the goal. What’s the small step I can take? So let go of the need for certainty. Lesson five. Do it more than once. Keep practicing, have a plan.

Koren (00:25:06) – Go in with how many times are you going to commit to doing this before you evaluate whether you’re going to continue? Do it more than once, at least three times, sometimes at least three months, depending on what it is. Lesson six. I get to do what I want. And so do you. You get to do what you want. And remember the words that we don’t say that go along with that, along with the context of the other responsibilities that you’ve chosen to do. Right. You get to be part of the equation. Lesson seven. Let’s not be transactional. I started this show in 2006. Because I thought, Oh, this will help me be a better parent. And I work harder, right? And it’s opened up so much more for me in my life. Before I go and tell a story that I’ve told about here. In 2009, we started our national parks thing and I didn’t realize that we would continue to do it and my family and myself would be such a big national parks person.

Koren (00:26:11) – But we went to Glacier Park and it was not part of our planned trip. Friends were like, You need to go to go into the Sun Road. I had no idea what it was. Anyways, we wound up finding a hike to go on and our kids were nine and seven at the time, so they are young. And the ranger suggested this hike to Avalanche Lake. And I was just like kind of grumpy because I wanted to see my friend Calmac in Big Sky, Montana. And I’m like, We’re in Glacier. It’s still six hours away. I’m like, why do we have to be on these hikes? I was like, totally grumpy, right? And a hike is a hike. A tree is a tree. And I remember just grumbling the whole way and I was like, I was being very transactional. Like, okay, I just need to get to the end of this. I can turn around and go back and say, I did it very transactionally. I remember getting to what I thought was the end, and then I realized like, Oh, I’ve got to go around this bend and there’s a voice.

Koren (00:27:00) – And he said, You can just turn around. I’m like, nope. Because there’s those of you who know me like I have to actually finish what I start. So I go around the bend and I’d been grumpy and frustrated. I go around the bend and I see Avalanche Lake and all of a sudden I got connected to the earth. And all of a sudden I started to understand the importance of being with nature. And it was a feeling. It was a sensation. It was maybe an off state. And I had tears go down my face and I realized. So much more. So let go of being transactional. Here I thought I was just doing, I don’t know, 2 or 3 mile hike and I got so much more that to this day sticks with me. We just don’t know what the adventure will be or the journey. So as you listen to the show today, my hope for you is that there were insights and idea babies and that you create a space for them into your life without attachment as you deliberately create the life and work you desire.

Koren (00:28:06) – Thank you for being a part of this experience with me. I’m smiling big for all of us. Hey there. Before we go, I have a question for you. Have you subscribed to the show yet? This is an awesome opportunity for you to preserve your brain juice. I love the fact that I can subscribe to podcasts and television shows and they go straight to my iPhone or they go straight to my DVR and then I don’t have to worry of, oh no, especially with television shows. Did I hit record? Is it going to be there or now do I have to watch it on demand and go through all the commercials? So go and hit the subscribe button. There’s a link in the show notes and that will ensure you that you never miss a show. And you can also save your brain juice for other things in your life. There’s way more important things, but you and I will still be connected because the show will be waiting for you in your phone. Go to the link in the show notes.

Koren (00:29:03) – Subscribe to the show so you can automatically get all the shows to your phone.

Music (00:29:09) – She is dreaming, she is drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else that she would rather be.