Plenty with Kate Northrup

I’m writing this to you as my girls sit on the kitchen floor painting giant pieces of paper that I traced their bodies on. It’s risky, but you and your business’s (and psyche’s) ability to thrive during this time are worth all the paint I’m going to be cleaning off the floor and my babies after. Last week I found myself curious about what some of my friends who I admire in business are thinking about this unusual moment we’re in, and what they’re sharing with their communities. So, I asked them. And then I decided I’d share their answers with you because what’s mine is yours. We’ve never done anything like this before on the podcast, and we’re super excited to share the wisdom of the following incredible friends/business experts with you: • Patrice Washington, bestselling author of Real Money Answers for Every Woman and host of the Redefining Wealth Podcast • Rachel Rodgers, Esq., IP lawyer, founder of the Hello Seven Podcast and We Should All Be Millionaires: The Club • Gina Gomez, Business Strategist and Advisor aka “the Olivia Pope of the personal development industry” • Amy Porterfield, host of the top podcast Online Marketing Made Easy and creator of Digital Course Academy • James Wedmore, host of the Mind Your Business podcast and creator of Business By Design • Rha Goddess, bestselling author of The Calling, Entrepreneurial Soul Couch, and founder and CEO of Move The Crowd In this week’s episode of The Kate & Mike Show, you’ll hear them all answer this simple question: How are you thinking about this moment as a small business owner and what are you sharing with your community? Their answers are as diverse as their backgrounds, and in this episode you’ll learn: • The biggest opportunity to focus on right now for small businesses • The 3 areas you need to consider when making a timely pivot • 3 simple steps to navigating this moment of change to make sure your business stays solid • 2 stories of thriving businesses birthed in the 2008 recession (one of which rose from the ashes of a 7-figure business that was lost) • The paramount question to ask about your business to ensure sustainability • 4 Vital Practices to engage in to ensure you’re getting the message and gift this moment has for you specifically Listening to the wisdom that these 6 humans shared in their messages was salve to my soul. May it be the medicine you need right now, too. After you’ve listened, we’d love to know: Which piece of wisdom resonated with you the most? How are you going to implement it? Leave a comment and let us know. Being in conversation with you during this time (and always) is such a gift. I’m sending you tons of love and lots of strength for navigating this moment in your business and your life with grace, compassion, and power. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Over here at HQ (aka our house), we’ve got a 4 ½-year-old and an almost-2-year-old and a company to run. Plus many of our team members are in the same boat at their houses. There are so many different permutations of how this moment of quarantine is affecting different households, but for those of you who find yourself with the literally impossible task of working full-time while parenting full-time and also possibly guiding homeschooling, this message is for you. (This will also be particularly useful for folks caregiving in any capacity, even if it’s not for kids.) First of all, I will say that I am by no means the world’s leading expert on working from home while parenting. No one should be. This is for the birds. Second, though, I am obsessed with the logistics of time and how our rhythms can either support or deflate our wellbeing and impact. So, when a bunch of folks in our community reached out asking how Mike and I are navigating the fact that we both work and we have no childcare right now, I figured we’d share what we’re doing behind the scenes. You can count on me for one thing always: transparency. I’ll tell you when I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’ll tell you what’s working. That’s my promise. In this week’s episode of The Kate & Mike Show we share: • The daily conversation we’re having that makes a world of difference in the logistics of working and parenting together during this weird moment • A critical ingredient that any ask for support needs to have during this time (and really anytime) • Mike’s excellent wisdom for those of us who are going a little nuts with no breaks from our children (🙋) Press play if you’re trying to work from home without childcare too. At the very least you’ll know you’re not alone. ;) Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

So, I’m usually someone who recommends not sharing what you’re going through publicly while smack-dab in the middle of going through it. Mostly this is because I think sharing from the messy middle is unearned intimacy and secondly because I’m someone who likes to be useful and usually I don’t have a helpful perspective to share until after a little time has passed. However, this week I went against my own advice. As a recovering achiever, I don’t love the feeling of being out of control and not having my sh*t together. And while vulnerability and I have continued to make better friends over the years, feeling lost in the murk in public feels deeply uncomfortable. But at the end of last week, we recorded our podcast right when I was in the murk of feeling lost and like there was a lot of pressure for me, as someone with a platform, to say the right thing or know how to guide people. In many ways in that moment, I felt out of my depth. When we finished recording, I had a major vulnerability hangover because I didn’t feel like I’d presented the “with it” version of myself that I prefer to be out in the world. But there it was. And Mike assured me that admitting on our podcast that I have no idea WTF is going on would be useful to folks. So, if you want to listen in on a conversation that made me super uncomfortable and witness me in the messy middle, this week’s episode is for you. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

No matter what’s going on in your corner of the world, I want you to know that I’m sending you love. No matter how this global situation has affected you and your family, I want you to know that I’m thinking of you and our entire community. Mike and I are committed to showing up in a way that contributes to this being a healing experience for all of us. So, we recorded a new episode of The Kate & Mike Show for you where we shared: • How we’re navigating self-isolation (including some missteps and how we’re learning from them) • 5 specific tips for tending to your nervous system during this time so you can signal your body to rest, restore, and heal instead of activate fight, flight, or freeze • 6 steps to take stock of what’s happening and pivot your business in an effective, helpful way • Why giving away all of your stuff for free may or may not be the best thing to do right now as a business owner • The way we’re staying informed without freaking out • One perspective on this unprecedented time that’s bringing us a lot of peace and solace If you need some healing thoughts during this uncertain time, this episode is for you. This is weird. We’re here for you. Take really good care of yourself and each other. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Over here in my little corner of the world in Maine, things are kind of weird and weirdly quiet. I know that’s not the case everywhere in the world, and however this odd global moment is affecting you, please know that I’m thinking of you and sending love, healing, and prayers your way. We’d already planned for March to be an exhale month, so it turns out the slowdown is in sync for the most part. Our kiddos are home with us for a minimum of 2 weeks, so Mike and I are doing a bee-bop of parenting, "homeschool Pre-K" (which basically means circle time and coloring), and running our business. I’m changing my expectations across the board, and while I wish this moment had been precipitated by different circumstances, I’m welcoming the mandate to do less. At times like this I really think it’s important for us as business owners to check in on whether our messaging is appropriate for the global temperature. We’ve gotta check in and see if what we’re promoting is relevant and helpful given the moment (while not trying to please everyone, which is ultimately impossible). The big thing we have coming up is the newly revised paperback release of Do Less with a brand-new subtitle, new stories, new data, and some reworking so that it’s now geared toward "ambitious women" instead of "busy moms." In celebration of the revised paperback edition, I’m hosting a free, virtual Do Less Book Club starting the week of April 6th for anyone who pre-orders the new edition. When I checked in with our team and myself as to whether or not it feels appropriate to move forward with our plans given the developing global health situation, I decided it does. Lots of us are home unexpectedly with kids. Lots of us are trying to work and care for loved ones simultaneously and navigating new challenges around managing our time and energy. Lots of us are in a situation where we need to continue to earn money while doing less. Turns out, I wrote a book about how to do that, and I revised it to make it even better. This week on The Kate & Mike Show we’re talking about: • Why I decided to revise Do Less less than 6 months after its release despite people being thrilled with the first version • How to navigate times when marketing wisdom doesn’t exactly align with your inner knowing • Niching down versus broadening out • How to identify your creative process and own it for peak output and joy • What the Do Less Virtual Book Club is going to be all about and how to get in on it During this bizarre time I’m taking the opportunity to simplify, be super present with the people I love the most, serve my existing customers in an even deeper way, tend to my nervous system, and savor the space. I hope you join me in whichever of those sounds useful to you. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Whether you’re new here or have been hanging out with me for a while, it’s important to know that I don’t see any parts of our lives as separate. That’s why the conversation about balance rubs me the wrong way, as though we’re trying to create equal space for different parts of our lives rather than learn how to be fully ourselves in an integrated way-- whether we’re working or playing or doing both at the same time (my favorite). When it comes to the health of your body and the health of your business, I feel like they’re the same conversation in many ways. But so often we allow our business goals to overshadow our physical health, and instead of supporting our goals, like we assume, letting our bodies take the back seat jeopardizes our health as well as our businesses. That’s why I’m excited to share this week’s podcast with you. It’s with Elizabeth Rider who’s been a friend of ours for over 14 years. In many ways, we grew up in business together. Elizabeth is in the business of health, and we dove into the ways we can increase our wellbeing physically and financially through our businesses. Listen in to this week’s episode of the Kate & Mike Show with Elizabeth to learn: • How to ramp up your blog traffic without focusing on keywords (whaaa?) • How to make the most important aspects of your health a habit so you don’t have to waste time and energy trying to make yourself do them • Why "boundaries" is Elizabeth’s favorite word and how she uses boundaries to have thriving physical and financial health Be sure to check out Elizabeth’s book, The Health Habit: 7 Easy Steps to Reach Your Goals and Dramatically Improve Your Life, for practical, non-dogmatic health tips and gorgeous, simple recipes that even someone like me who struggles in the kitchen can make. And, as always, remember: Body first. Business second. When you do it in that order, both things get the care and attention they need. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Two weeks ago I did something I swore I’d never do: I started talking publicly about informed consent, body autonomy, and medical freedom as it relates to immunizations. This message is not about immunizations, though. This message is about navigating speaking up about something controversial, particularly when it appears that you’re on the less popular side. I knew speaking up would mean I would lose followers. I knew speaking up would likely mean we’d lose sales. I did not know that speaking up would wreak such havoc on my nervous system, however. I did not know that 24 hours after my post went live I would want to take it back and crawl in a hole for the rest of my life. And I did not know that on the other side of the initial fallout I would feel stronger, more informed, and more myself than I’d ever felt before. I also had no idea that taking a public stand about something so polarizing would bring gifts beyond my wildest imaginings. This week on the podcast we’re sharing about the journey of speaking out about something we believe in at the risk of losing followers, money, and cache. Listen in to find out: • Why all of the risks of speaking out have been so worth it • How to think for ourselves while swimming in a cultural soup that wants us to do anything but that • How to signal safety in your nervous system so that you can keep standing up for what you believe in • The wild thing that happened on social media from my standing up that I didn’t expect Once you’ve listened in I would love to hear from you. Have you ever spoken out about something you believed in that was unpopular or controversial? What were the risks? What were the rewards? How did you navigate any potential fall-out? Leave a comment and let me know! Know this: If you feel like you can’t talk about something, especially when it questions the mainstream, it’s because someone is benefitting from your fear and silence. But they can’t benefit anymore when you speak up. And the more who speak up, the stronger our voices become. No matter what your stand is, even if I don’t agree, know that I support your right to say something about it and that I’m cheering you on for saying something even if you’re scared. Especially then. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

We certainly record our podcast every week to deliver education, insight, and hopefully some entertainment to you every week, but sometimes the truth is, we do it for ourselves. Sometimes someone says something that makes us see something really clearly for the first time in a long time, or perhaps ever. When we sat down to record the interview we’re sharing this week, that happened to me. There was a moment during the interview with Laura Roeder, who originally founded B-School with Marie Forleo, when she was talking about why she walked away from the gargantuan program and opportunity and my mouth literally began to water. There’s something about the simplicity and clarity with which Laura, also co-founder of the incredible social media scheduling and repurposing software, Edgar, speaks about how to determine what kind of business to create (and then how to create it) that blew my mind. This episode is a MUST listen if you: • feel like you’re just going through the motions in your life and business and haven’t picked your head up to ask, "Is this really what I want?" in a while • want to hear the incredible story of why Laura walked away from B-School (and how leaving ended up making her more money than staying) • want to learn how Laura grew a business that she could walk away from and still make amazing money and how you can apply that to your situation • want to hear what Laura said that made my mouth water (because I know I want more of that!) Not all of us are made for the same kind of business. And sometimes a business model is right only for a season, and then it’s time to pivot or split. Laura is such a brilliant example of this and we’re so excited to share her story with you today. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

I just finished leading the first retreat for our 2020 Origin ® Mastermind, and something became so clear to me as I listened to the brilliant women in the group share: Specificity in business is such a turn-on for me! Why? Because when folks are specific about what they offer, who they offer it to, and how people are going to hear about it, they eliminate friction and significantly improve their results. And in full transparency, I get so excited about specificity in other people’s businesses because it’s something I’ve struggled with in my own business for years. I’m getting better and better, but I know I’m not alone when I say that I have to remain diligent to not get sucked down in the quicksand of vagueness in my copy, pitches, and offers. There’s a lady who’s become dear to my heart (even though we have yet to meet in person) who really nailed the specificity game, and no matter how many times I hear about it, I get a little hot and bothered. She co-founded and sold her half of the company Simple Green Smoothies, where she grew their community to over 355k subscribers and 415k+ Instagram followers. And you know how she did it? Simple specificity. They had one product, one platform where they promoted it, one promotional strategy, one plan, and one ideal kind of person who bought it. And then they did it over and over again and grew like bananas. (Pun totally intended. #wordnerd) What was this brilliantly specific and simple promotional strategy? Online challenges. We invited Jadah on the podcast because we wanted to share her incredible story with you so that you could learn how to build your email list in 30 days or less with an online challenge. Plus, Jadah is such a love, and I know you’re going to adore hearing about her journey with Simple Green Smoothies and how she’s made a powerful pivot into what she’s doing now with her current business incarnation, Love Over Metrics. Listen in to this week’s episode to get going with your simple plan to grow your email list in 30 days or less. I’m SO excited for you to catch the specific simplicity wave with us! You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Ever find yourself getting all fired up about something and loving the part of yourself that you access when you get all feisty? I have found myself in this place A LOT lately, and based on our sudden spike in podcast downloads and Facebook live views, you’re on board, too. Thank you for being my feisty friends who are ready to shake sh*t up with me. I’ve always been a stationery enthusiast. Blank journals, papers, pens, and planners have always held a certain mystique for me. I got started creating my own planners when my age was in the single digits, and I graduated to a DayTimer in high school and Filofax in college. Then somewhere along the way, that straight-A student who was so adept at coloring inside the lines started to question the whole idea of creating success through trying to fit more into our days. She craved the structure and grounding of her planning obsession, but something was missing. It turned out what was missing was the entire other half of the energetic polarity we all carry as humans. It turned out what was missing was the exhale. What was missing was the softness. What was missing was the pause. So she listened, and a whole new way of doing things came through. This new way creates: • More ease and more flow while improving results • A process-oriented approach that leads to tremendous joy and satisfaction • Health on all possible levels This week on the podcast, Mike and I are diving into the feminist time management system that will change your life, and we’re really going there. We outlined the 3 ways that traditional time management systems are keeping us stuck and exhausted (plus wasting our lives) and how the feminist approach that came through me 4 years ago gives us our lives, results, and health back. Plus, we talked about why a widened view of feminism is good for everyone. This was a feisty one, and I think you’re going to like it. Here’s to getting fired up about the things that matter. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

One night last week after I’d gotten the girls to bed and washed the 350 dishes piled beside the sink (why did I decide to make a dinner requiring like 6 different bowls when Mike was out of town and it was just me and the girls - and they ate virtually nothing, I might add?), I put my sweats on and cozied up by myself in the basement to do something I’ve never done before: Record a solo episode of The Kate & Mike Show! Despite having spoken on stages in front of thousands and showing up lots on camera live and recorded, I was surprised to find that I was pretty nervous. I get the following question all the time: How much content do I give away for free? In the information marketing world when we’re giving away free content that will eventually lead to people paying us for more content, I can see how it could be confusing. In my first ever solo episode of The Kate & Mike Show, I let you in on: • The 3 reasons we made the bold (and risky) choice to give the Core Lessons of our newest program, Make Time for Business, away for free • How we do the dance between strategy and intuition • Why holding your content back out of fear that giving it for free will mean people won’t buy is preventing you from making the kind of money you want • 3 ways to unlock a flood of new content ideas, so you never wonder what you should talk about next Please be gentle with me. It was so weird to record without Mike! Hats off to people who do solo shows every single week! Once you listen, I’d love to hear from you in the comments or on Instagram with your insights and any follow-up questions. As always, thanks for listening. :) You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

It was a sleepy Monday in a sleepy town in Maine. We had our panties in a wrinkle because we found ourselves feeling short on time and long on pressure. And yet again, because old habits die hard, we realized we didn’t need to push so hard. We could give ourselves more space. Then we walked into a random restaurant and...BOOM. There she was. One of the most iconic people in the world. In Maine. 20 minutes from our house. It was a watershed moment on so many levels. A Divine confirmation that we’re on the right track as we diligently work to unravel our default setting of overdoing it. We decided to do less and ran smack dab into one of the biggest personalities on the planet. Talk about doing less to achieve more. This week on The Kate & Mike Show we’re telling you the full story, including who this incredible person is and what meeting her meant for us...and for you. If you find yourself under pressure with more to do than you have time for, and that the pressure is often self-imposed, this episode is for you. In it you’ll learn: • The shift we’d decided to make in our business and why meeting this big icon felt like such an affirmation • The new policy we’ve incorporated into our business as a result of this encounter and how it’s already helped us make powerful decisions • Why setting goals and not achieving them isn’t something you need to be worried about • Why I believe there’s no such thing as wasted action and how to trust the process, even when it’s not linear (because it never is) There are moments that just change everything. The story we’re telling in this episode is of one of those moments. May it be a gift to you as the experience has been for us. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

It was March in Boston. The weather sucked, as it does in New England that time of year. This thing that happened had happened to me only one time before. I saw a woman I hadn’t seen in years for the first time, and without much warm-up or fanfare, something inside me knew I had to hire her. It was as though my body said, "She’s what’s next for you." It happened with the coach I worked with in 2018 who helped me unravel some deep patterns that needed...well...unraveling. And then it happened again in March 2019. I got home after sitting next to Rha Goddess on a panel at Harvard Divinity School and said to Mike, "I need to work with her." I hadn’t even been looking for a coach, but there she was. And just as my book launch dropped me into a postpartum heap of "I don’t know what I’m doing I think I’ll just quit everything," sitting on my living room floor crying amongst my Mastermind sisters, I was off to New York City to spend a day with Rha. I feel so silly saying this now but until I spent that day with Rha, I thought trying to figure out your purpose was a waste of time. Can’t we just all keep doing the next right thing and move it along rather than bothering with trying to articulate our purpose? Who really cares, anyway? Aren’t we all here to be of service and feel good, in the end? We started at 9am and by lunchtime I realized how wrong I’d been. Turns out that for all of us there’s a unique intersection of our gifts and talents, our true nature, and the world’s needs...and it is calling us. I just wasn’t ready to listen until I was. I learned that I’d been living adjacent to my calling but not precisely aligned with it. In the 7 months since that day in NYC, I’ve realized how much friction and discomfort had been created by living very close to but not right on my calling. Just like when you have two magnets really close together so that you can feel the energetic pull between them and it requires concerted energy to prevent them from coming together and aligning, I was living in a constant state of utilizing force to keep myself a few inches from the very place that was calling me. And ever since I let go and let myself rest in alignment with where I’m meant to be, everything has gotten so much easier, so much more powerful, and so much more clear. I want this for you. That’s why we invited Rha on The Kate & Mike Show this week to talk about her game-changing work that guides us all to stay true, get paid, and do good. In this episode you’ll hear: • How it’s truly possible to do good and make great money and allow yourself to be part of the healing of toxic capitalism • Rha’s inspiring story of moving from the world of hip-hop and activism to personal development and entrepreneurial soul coaching • The shift that allowed Rha to triple her income in 8 months • A beautiful moment where both Rha and I are moved to tears by what she has to say (and show) about how to truly love others • Why Rha has held nothing back and put all of her worksheets, exercises, and content into the book, so you can have access to everything for the cost of a library card • Where you can start to identify your calling and stay true, get paid, and do good When I featured Rha as a Maven Masterclass leader in our membership for entrepreneurs who identify as female or with feminine energy, they went bananas for her. In our end-of-the-year survey, her class was far and above the one mentioned most as the favorite. You’re going to get tremendous value out of this conversation. Once you’ve listened in, please share a screenshot of the podcast with us on your Instagram stories and tag us - @katenorthrup, @mikejwatts, and @rhagoddess - so we can witness your insights. I’m so ecstatic to share this woman who’s impacted my life so profoundly over the last 7 months with you. Get ready to be rocked. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

When I was a senior in college, Tim Ferriss came out with the first edition of The 4-Hour Work Weekand I was fascinated. As a productivity junkie since the age of 14, I couldn’t get enough. I devoured it. One of the concepts in particular changed something in me forever. The school system had taught me to become well-rounded. The college application process had groomed me to fill in all of the areas and how important it was to excel in academics as well as the arts, athletics, good citizenship, and any other extracurricular activities I could possibly pack into my schedule. The pursuit of being good at all the things all the time left me feeling wrung out. Enter Pareto’s Principle. The concept is simple: 80% of your results will be caused by 20% of your efforts. Wait. I didn’t have to be practically perfect in every way? What a freaking relief! For the first time, I had permission to go all in on only the things that I was the best at that got me results and to stop trying to be good at everything. And, if I did, I would actually get better results. This felt like the closest thing to magic I could have possibly discovered. It wasn't until my early 30’s when I was recording a lesson on Pareto’s Principle (aka The 80/20 Rule) that I realized I’d never found a practical way to apply this theory. I wanted a list of my 20% of activities so that I could stay focused on them and not go back to my old way of being kind of good at a lot of things. I wanted to really rock a few things to amplify my results. Everyone else seemed to just be talking about the theory, so I came up with a simple way to get a list of the 20% of activities that I needed to zero in on to get 80% of my results (and by default a way to get a list of the 80% that I could let go of, outsource, or simply not give my all to). If you want to achieve more by doing less, the single most important thing you can do is get clarity on what the 20% of activities is that gives you 80% of your results. Turns out you can apply this rule to lots of other areas, too. • 20% of your customers will bring in 80% of your revenue. • 20% of your customers will give you 80% of your headaches. • 20% of your revenue streams will bring in 80% of your money. Etc.! Want to know the simple way I came up with to figure out your 20% and all of the ways you can apply this rule to your life and business so that you can reduce the number of things you’re doing while increasing your results? You’re in luck because that’s what this week’s episode of The Kate & Mike Show is all about! Please don’t just listen to the episode. Do the exercise. It will take you less than 10 minutes and will give you years of your life back. I swear. Once you’ve listened, take a screenshot of the episode and tag Mike and me on social media to let us know what your 20% is. We can’t wait to hear from you! Get ready for some serious life-giving clarity! You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Have you ever had something about yourself that you don’t think is that big of deal, but when you share it, everyone else seems to think it is a big deal? That’s Mike and me with drinking. Or not drinking, as the case may be. Our most popular episode of The Kate & Mike Show of 2019 BY FAR was the one we did about Sobriety, Substances, and Choosing to Live Awake (episode 137) in which Mike shared his sordid journey with drugs and alcohol, and I shared mine (not so sordid but still worth mentioning). That’s why we’re kicking off 2020 with back-to-back episodes on sobriety. Last week we talked with Holly Whitaker about our culture’s f’d up relationship with alcohol and the ways in which the traditional, patriarchal structures of recovery don’t serve everyone. This week we’re back with an equally powerful episode with memoirist Laura McKowen about her journey with addiction, getting sober, and then falling deeply in love with her sober life. As Laura shares, she thought that sobriety was a sentence for a sad existence without fun or sex or truly living. Until her life required her to get sober and discover the truth: that sobriety is an invitation to a truer, more beautiful life, not a sentence. You don’t have to want to get sober in order to get the gold from this episode, though I would totally cheer you on if you do! In the episode you’ll hear: • What Laura did about the shame she was carrying from the things that happened while she was drinking • How we forgive ourselves for things we think are unforgivable • How to actually feel your feelings and why they won’t kill you (and what opportunities lie on the other side) • About the beauty and possibilities of a sober life • Laura’s story of getting a book deal (I always have to ask some business questions) I’m really excited for you to get to soak in the beauty and wisdom of Laura. She’s a gem. So are you. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Wondering if you have a drinking problem? Yeah, I know. That first line is intense. Well, here’s what: Today is the first day of a new year. The first day of a new decade, in fact. Can you think of a better time to talk about the most widely-used, (abused), and normalized drug on the planet (responsible for more deaths than all of the other drugs combined) and your relationship with it? I can’t. If you’ve been wondering if you have a drinking problem, if you’ve dubbed yourself sober-curious, if you’ve tried to reduce your alcohol consumption or have tried to quit, if you’re a non-drinker, have someone in your family who struggles with alcohol, or are sober yourself, have I got something for you! But before I get there, please know this: I come from a family where there’s alcoholism and other addiction, and my husband is sober. It’s estimated that 43% of people in the U.S. grew up with, are married to, or have a blood relative who’s an alcoholic or problematic drinker, so the chances that your life has been affected by this drug and addiction are really high. This topic has impacted my life profoundly, and I’m bringing it up not from a place of judgment or feeling any shred of blame toward you if you struggle with alcohol. I’m bringing it up as a gentle, loving invitation to consider your relationship with alcohol (or that of the people you love) and how it’s adding or detracting from your life. What does this have to do with doing less to have more and/or growing your business, you might be asking? EVERYTHING. Our bodies are our vessels for everything we bring to this world. A whole cocktail of biochemical things are happening inside us at all times that result in wild creativity, incredible energy, bliss, and chutzpah up the wazoo or brain fog, confusion, anxiety, depression, tremendous self-doubt, and an inability to manifest what we actually want. One of the main things that can cause your body to serve up the latter grouping of human experience is drinking ethanol (which is the same substance that you put in the gas tank of your car) and how much of it you’re drinking. It’s my deepest desire and commitment to offer up the best ideas, strategies, experts, insights, and stories for you to access the best of you, so you can light up the world without burning yourself out. So, ignoring the topic of alcohol would be irresponsible on my part. All right, enough with the preamble. I’m so excited to be bringing you an incredible episode of The Kate & Mike Show to kick off this decade with a truly remarkable woman.Ever since I read her new book, Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol, I have told virtually everyone I’ve come into contact with that they MUST read it. We invited Holly Whitaker, founder of Tempest Sobriety School and author of Quit Like a Woman, onto the podcast to have a powerful conversation about: • The bizarre way our culture thinks about alcohol and why it’s critical to our liberation that we question how it’s been normalized (whether we choose to drink or not). • The radical alternative to calling yourself an alcoholic that can grant the gift of a beautiful, conscious, awake life that’s available for problem and non-problem drinkers alike. • How alcohol affects women in a profoundly different way than men and the insidious way it’s used as a tool of oppression (this was the part that made my jaw drop the lowest). And so much more! I know this sounds like a super-heavy conversation, and it certainly was one with gravitas, but the episode is actually really fun because Holly is hilarious and a total firecracker. I think you’ll especially love the part where she talks about how and why she’s raised millions of dollars for her sobriety start-up. Liberation is available to you. I hope this conversation unlocks as much awakening for you as it (and Holly’s book) did for me. Once you’ve listened, we definitely want to hear from you. What did this episode bring up for you? What surprised you? What’s your next step? You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

You’re out there serving your people (your clients, community, kids, family, etc.) and making sure they’re living their best lives...but there’s also you. How are you taking care of you? One of my favorite things to learn about leaders is how they take care of themselves because I get inspired with new ideas to enhance my own wellbeing, capacity, and performance. This week on the podcast, we have the extremely good-looking and insightful husband and wife team behind the fitness and adventure brand Bee The Wellness, Vanessa and Adam Lambert. I was on their podcast over the summer, and I resonated with them so much that I invited them on for a conversation with Mike and me. During this episode we covered: • The super-weird wellness trick that has Adam feeling way better than before • How their background as firefighters has helped them dial their business in • Their best techniques for getting ahead of the content machine that online business can become • How their business model is actually one of the ways they take care of themselves • How they use plant medicine to move through their blocks And so much more! Identifying our non-negotiables for taking care of ourselves is so critical not only to our wellbeing, but that of our clients, our family, and our whole community. I know I’m not the first person to say this to you, but I hope that if you’re not caring for yourself right now that this might be the time that it actually sinks in. You matter. Your wellness matters. Your body matters. Your emotional landscape matters. Your mental health matters. As we near the closing of this year, know this: There is nothing worth investing in more than yourself because your wellbeing magnifies your impact in a way that’s not possible when you’re not nourished. I’d love to know what you learned and what inspired you during the Vanessa and Adam episode and/or what your insights or questions are around caring for yourself as a leader. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Last June I had the absolute pleasure of standing in the back of the room watching my husband Mike share his heart and wisdom on a panel of incredible men at the BirthFit Summit. I was so freaking proud of him. Mike shared the stage with a man who spoke about something that really touched me. This man was raised as a woman and transitioned to being a man in his early twenties. He shared that he was the only person on the panel who knew both what it was like to be perceived as female during one time of his life and male after a certain point. As a result, he had a unique perspective because he understood the experience of being a woman in our culture in a way that most other men cannot. Aydian Dowling is a transgender man, a trans activist, a speaker, an entrepreneur, a husband, a dad, and someone who is impressively fit, compassionate, and articulate. His wife, Jenillee, is an intuitive, a healer, a (MSW) social worker, a mother, a wife, an entrepreneur, and someone who is impressively empathic and transparent. Together with their son Antler, they’re a family. Not everyone understands what it means to be a trans person. Not everyone thinks they’re worthy of all of the things that everyone deserves. But everyone deserves to be loved and to feel a sense of belonging and to be a family. We wanted to feature the Dowlings on The Kate & Mike Show for a number of reasons, including that we really resonated with them as parents navigating being independently employed with a young child while also being committed to personal growth and awakening. It’s also important to make configurations of family that challenge the status quo more visible, so the world can see that love comes in all forms and configurations and that everyone is worthy of it. Listen in to this week’s episode of The Kate & Mike Show to learn: • How Aydian, the first transgender man ever to be on the cover of Men’s Health or any other mainstream magazine, first realized who he was. • What Aydian understands about women that many men don’t because he was raised female. • What the t-shirt that our daughter Ruby wears says that makes Mike uncomfortable and why. • The love story between Aydian and Jenilee and what baking had to do with it. • How becoming parents has challenged them and made them grow. • What’s next for both of them career-wise (they were both beautifully transparent about the moment they’re in right now in co-creating the future). Once you’ve listened in to this important episode, we’d love to hear from you. What did you learn from this episode? How can you apply that to your life and community? You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

At Thanksgiving dinner last week around a big table with chosen and biological family alike, we went around and shared something we were grateful for that we couldn’t have said we were grateful for last year. At least 50% of us cried. (That’s how I know I spent the holiday with my people.) A few days later over dinner, my dad noted that almost everyone had gone through some pretty intense turbulence in the last year and that we all somehow seemed to be on the upswing at last. (If you listen to our podcast, you know that I keep finding myself singing the refrain to Gloria Estefan’s "Coming Out of the Dark" for this very reason.) Because the folks gathered that night are some of my nearest and dearest, I’m privy to many of the details of their lives, both the exciting and the mundane. Here’s what I know from knowing them and knowing myself: The reason we’re on the upswing is not because of some gargantuan opportunity that swept in and changed everything. Yeah, there have been chance meetings that led to lifetime dreams being fulfilled. There have been super-exciting doors opened. There’s been some fairy dust. But the thing that’s allowed each of the people I adore to not only get on but, more importantly,stay on the upswing are the things that aren’t particularly sexy (and that they sometimes don’t feel like doing) that they do day in and day out, week in and week out. Another word for these mundane things that seem little but, when done regularly and combined all together, contribute to a beautiful life is: habits. Your habits matter because they create your life. Beautiful lives do not happen by accident. They happen because of things that people do (or don’t do) every day to weave a life they want to live. Mike and I sat down to record an episode of The Kate & Mike Show about our daily, weekly, and monthly habits, and we both chuckled because when we say some of this stuff out loud, it’s actually kind of weird! But it works, so we’re sticking with it. Once you’ve listened, we’d love to know which habits we talked about that you’re inspired to incorporate into your own life and what other weird habits you have. Leave us a comment and let us know! Habits matter. The things you do every day create your life, so choose wisely. (But have fun with it because nothing is worth doing if it feels like punishment!) You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

There’s a little trick I started using in my twenties to determine whether or not I should do things, especially things I was afraid of doing: I would project myself into the future and ask if my 80-year-old self would be happy that I’d done that. Somehow adopting the mindset and life experience of a well-experienced lady crystallized exactly what my not-so-experienced current self should or shouldn’t do. This week is Thanksgiving in the USA, and I find this time of year to be incredibly nostalgic as we meander toward the close of one chapter and the opening of a new one with the new year. There’s a fine line with nostalgia, though. If our lives aren’t what we’d expected, nostalgia can morph into bitterness or regret really easily. And honestly, whose life is exactly what they’d expected? So how do we avoid the spiral of what could have been that tends to stall us out from enjoying the what is that’s right in front of us? We ask older people, specifically people who are on their way out of this particular lived experience in a human body. We ask people who are dying. There’s a woman who has spent a lot of time with people who are dying. She took care of them for 8 years as her career. Her name is Bronnie Ware and when I spoke with her, I found my entire system slowing to the speed of presence. As someone whose tendency is toward action and the next thing, it’s always wild to be in the presence of someone whose mere way of being shifts my whole vibrational rate. This week we have Bronnie on The Kate & Mike Show to talk about regret-free living and what she learned about how to live from spending so much time by the side of people who were dying. She wrote a book about it called The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying, and this feels like the perfect conversation to have as we head toward the close of a decade and prepare to start a new one. In this episode you’ll learn: • The critical ingredient you need to alchemize an experience from something you regret into something that you learn from and let go of • The most helpful way to be around people who are dying • How to live regret-free so that you’re making the most of your precious time here on Earth While our culture tends to be really squeamish when it comes to talking about death, I absolutely love how Bronnie teaches us how to live through talking about this subject. None of us knows how long we have here. You don’t have to have more than one loved one gone too soon to realize this. I’d love to know what this episode stirred up for you. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

I just saw a meme today talking about how November just feels like this crazy month with 13 looming deadlines and holiday family stress and endless to-do lists...plus it’s DARK. I get that this time of year can be really hard. Maybe you’re approaching the holidays solo for the first time in years after a breakup. Perhaps you’ve overscheduled your promotional calendar, and the pressure of the deadlines is squeezing the joy right out of you. Or maybe there’s a family member who’s incredibly challenging to be around but who you feel like you have to share the holidays with. I want to offer up another possibility for you. One that can change the way you experience this time of year and ensure that every year starting in 2020 and beyond can be even better than the last in terms of your health, joy, abundance, and impact. In 2013 Mike and I bought a really big blank book for a practice that we’ve committed to every year since. We wouldn’t miss this practice for anything, and every year we carve out more and more space for honoring it. It’s our year-end review and annual planning practice, and this single practice has been responsible for: • Feeling more connected to one another and falling more and more in love every year • Buying the home of our dreams with money we earned from sharing our ideas with the world • Creating a family life and environment to raise our daughters in that we’re incredibly proud of • Ensuring that we grow our business with the Do Less principles front and center so that as we grow our audience, revenue, profits, and impact, our personal wellbeing and joy doesn’t shrink but instead grows right alongside This week we’re taking you behind the scenes in our year-end review and annual planning practice and telling you exactly how we do it, step by step. We’re letting you in on: • Exactly how we set goals (and the critical second category we outline at the beginning of the year) • A new practice we’re implementing this year to ensure that reaching our goals becomes inevitable • The critical step we take to ensure we integrate the lessons from the past year to make the next year even better • The 10 key categories we’ve identified in our lives that each get airtime during our annual practice • The single biggest thing we did in 2019 that allowed us to finally break a bad habit that’s haunted us for years, so we’re not carrying it forward into 2020 Whether you already have your year-end review and annual planning time on the calendar for this year, or you don’t even know what I’m talking about, this episode will help you set yourself up for a year that exceeds your wildest expectations. Once you’ve listened in, we’d love to hear from you. Do you do year-end reviews and annual planning already? What elements do you include? What did you hear in this episode that you’re going to incorporate moving forward? You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

I’m the kind of person who sometimes isn’t sure what she thinks until I’m talking to someone else. Not because I’m looking for their opinion or reaction, but because I’m an external processor and there’s something about being witnessed that helps me understand myself better. Last week Mike and I sat down to talk about something that I’ve been working on since November 2016 that’s finally ready for the world. Until I sat there in our basement with my love and partner in all of the things listening to me, I didn’t really get the magnitude of what I’ve been working on. I finally realized what a big deal this creation is for me—but also how much potential it has to be a big deal for women all over the world. Here’s what I’ve found: When we strike out to make things with the purpose that they become a big deal (or with the purpose that they make us a big deal), they often fall flat or are somehow unsustainable. When we make the things that are so much an expression of ourselves that we cannot help but make them, even if it’s slowly and quietly in the privacy of our own minds or closets (where I get some of my best ideas), they’re often the things that end up being the biggest deal. This week on The Kate & Mike Show, we’re taking you behind the scenes in the making of the brand-new Do Less Planner, and in the episode you’ll hear me acknowledge how major this thing that I made for you is. You’ll also hear: • The things about producing our first digital product that have been trickier than we expected (nothing is ever all rainbows and unicorns) • How this planner will change your relationship to time, your body, your work, and your worth (I know it’s a big promise but I stand by it) • How this planner came to be with some really important nuggets for anyone making anything, digital or physical • What the elements of my planner system are and how you can use the insights behind them to get better results with less stress • Why this planner has the potential to revolutionize your experience of life After you’ve listened in, I’d love to hear from you: What did you hear in this episode that was a new perspective on time and planning for you? How will you implement it in your life? I’m not sure I’ve ever been as proud of something that’s come out of me other than my two girls as I am about the Do Less Planner. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be sharing it with you now. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

I love the smell of new office supplies. Going back-to-school shopping at Staples was my heaven. And I love planning so much that I plan my planning. How about you? Do you use an intersecting system of 3 different color-coded calendars, or are you holding on tenuously to your "keeping it all up here" [points to brain] system? Either way, I’m glad you’re here. We officially have 7.5 weeks left, not only in this year but in this decade. I’m officially naming 2020 the year of clarity because...you know...20/20. 👀 One of my favorite quotes is: Money loves clarity. I’m pretty sure my friend Barbara Huson, author of Sacred Success, was the one who coined that phrase. (Although I see it used without credit a lot on the interwebs. Side note: credit your sources folks!) You know what else loves clarity? Your goals! Your dreams! Your desires! And you know what you need for clarity? A plan. Mike and I are already doing some strategic planning for 2020 (super exciting things coming down the pike for you!), so we thought we’d let you in on the behind-the-scenes of some of our process. Today on the podcast we’re sharing 3 ways you can use strategic planning to get the biggest results with the least stress in 2020. Listen in for: • The most important question you need to be asking yourself as you plan 2020 • The map we create for the year to ensure we don’t overschedule ourselves • The formula we use for a pre-launch runway and why it will make all the difference in your launch results • The exact calendar and planning system I’m using in 2020 to ensure we have the biggest results with the least amount of stress possible. Once you’ve listened, we’d love to hear from you: What are your tried-and-true planning practices? What calendar and/or planning systems do you use? Which one of the 3 planning tips are you the most excited to implement? Here’s to making 2020 the best year ever and the start of the most incredible decade so far! You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

When one of the women who joined our high-level program told me that the reason she’d joined was because she was sick of being the smartest person in the room, I absolutely loved her honesty. It also made me think of the rooms I’ve been in over the years and the rooms I get on airplanes to be in these days. Why do I wrangle childcare and leave my family for 4 days to go stay in a hotel across the country in a room of almost all strangers? Why do I invest money that feels like a lot to work closely with teachers and coaches? Because expansion. Because growth. Because upleveling. On today’s episode of The Kate & Mike Show, I shared 2 specific things that happened just last week. Both were insights that I received from people who have knowledge and skill sets beyond those I have in certain areas (which, by the way, doesn’t always have to do with revenue). Both insights took less than 3 minutes for me to receive but are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars because of what will happen in our business as I implement the shifts. If you feel stuck, uninspired, or like, "Is this all there is?" I’m going to suggest you get yourself in some new rooms. Rooms where people are being their true selves, not the selves expected of them. Rooms where people are unapologetically celebrating their awesomeness. Rooms where people are taking action according to their dreams, not the normal reality that most people think is possible. Taking courses and getting new content is one way to uplevel, and I’m a big believer in it. But even more powerful than that is connection. Connection with people whose presence calls you to expand is one of the most "do less" ways to uplevel I’ve ever experienced. Getting yourself in a new environment catalyzes growth by osmosis in many cases. I can’t think of many things better than growing my business by osmosis. Listen in to the episode to learn how to uplevel through relationships, for behind-the-scenes stories, insights, and some after bedtime hilarity because this was a "late-night" recording (meaning 7:30pm). You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

If you hang around the planet long enough, you’re going to get sick, and for sure someone you love is going to get sick. A year ago my husband was so sick that he dropped 40 pounds in a month, his skin kept peeling off repeatedly, his entire head swelled, cracked, and was oozing, and he could do little more than sit in a chair all day. This is a screenshot I took while we were on FaceTime when he was spending a week at my mom’s because she was away. I couldn’t do anything to help him, and he couldn’t do anything to help me take care of the girls and our business, so it was easier for him to be somewhere else. I couldn’t allow myself to realize how bad it all was in the moment because I needed to keep it together to take care of our kids and our company, but looking back now, it was really bad. I’m so happy to say that Mike’s health is 95% better and that the dark period we went through a year ago is becoming more and more of a distant memory. But here’s what I’m even happier to say: Mike took the assignment. See, I don’t think illness is simply our bodies needing us to pay attention to something physical going on that needs medication or a procedure. I believe illness is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for awakening, growth, repatterning, presence, and expansion. But only if we’re up for the assignment. Mike is a different person than he was a year ago. Or, perhaps, he’s actually the person he was always meant to be that was hidden under layers that literally needed to fall off in order to reveal his most beautiful self. At the one-year anniversary of the sickest Mike got during his 9 months of struggle, we recorded a conversation about The Opportunity in Illness for the podcast to let you in on: • The surprising way we view illness that helps us embrace it instead of fear it • The critical switch your body needs to make in order to heal, how the medical system hampers this shift, and what you can do to make sure it happens anyway • Practical steps for getting your body into a healing state that have nothing to do with what you put in your mouth • The question that I ask myself every time I get sick that ensures that I uplevel instead of being taken out Once you’ve listened, I’d love to hear what this episode brings up for you. What did you learn? How can you apply it to your own healing journey? Leave us a comment and let us know. Here’s to all of our healing journeys, physical and otherwise. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

So many people who are healers go on to medical school because they want to live out their dream of helping people. But then they discover some of the things that are broken about our medical system, and they don't know where to channel their healing passion. That was the case with Sophie Maffolini, who practices medicine for part of the year in the Arctic and lives between Montreal and Brazil the rest of the year. When she discovered mindfulness to heal her eating disorder and anxiety, a whole new world opened up for her, and she knew she needed to bring this healing to others. Harnessing the power of online business, Sophie has created an impressive business online teaching mindfulness, and it's now making as much as her medical practice. Listen in to hear how this 2019 Origin Incubator member learned to tap into her own intuition to grow the business of her dreams and do the true healing work she's come here to do.

This week we’re bringing you something a little different in our weekly conversation. Ever since the #metoo movement and the uncovering of the toxic masculinity embedded in almost every layer of our society, masculinity has been up for scrutiny, and rightly so. Some men feel scared to open their mouths or have meetings with women one on one at the office. Some are questioning everything they learned about what it is to be a man to decide if they want to carry those beliefs forward or embody something different. And no matter your gender expression, this conversation affects all of us. Whether you’re raising boys, you’re a grown man yourself, or you’re simply in relationship with men as a sister, co-worker, partner, or friend, this conversation is one we all need to be engaged in. What is a version of modern masculinity that we want to be supporting and living into? We brought Jason Rosario, founder of The Lives of Men and host and executive producer of the Yahoo original show, Dear Men, on The Kate & Mike Show to share his perspective on modern masculinity. When I was too sick on the day of the recording to be part of the interview, Mike and I both agreed it was a blessing because we knew the conversation about masculinity would be different with two men talking about their lived experience than it would be with me there. So, we tried something new and had Mike host the episode himself, and after listening to it, I knew we definitely made the right decision. Listen in to this week’s podcast episode for: • An incredible piece of wisdom about what to share with our kids (and what not to) • The one thing we shouldn’t do as co-parents if we want to be supportive of our kids’ journeys • The critical piece that fathers bring to the table (and it isn’t being around all the time as you might assume) • How to deal with your partner making more money than you (especially if you’re in a heterosexual relationship and you’re a man) • An updated concept of masculinity that our world very much needs After you’ve listened in, Mike, Jason, and I would like to know: What did this episode bring up for you? What did you learn or are you now considering differently after listening? Here’s to being, raising, and/or loving great men. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Between a full schedule of postpartum doula clients in her thriving 10-year-old practice and kids with very full plates, Darcy Sauers had a lot going on. She craved long expanses of time to complete the projects she wanted to work on to build out the online portion of her business, so she could help even more moms (outside her local area in NH) and make more income while doing less. But she thought her business wasn't big enough to "deserve" hiring an assistant or someone to help her with household tasks or driving her kids around. So instead, she would work for an hour, drop a kid off at soccer, go see a postpartum doula client, go pick up another kid, and then find herself always regrouping and never getting traction on the projects she needed to get out of the loop of trading hours for dollars. Until she made a super important mental shift. She let go of something that was holding her back, and everything opened up. Listen in to find out how The Doula Darcy - who's helped over 1062 new moms through quite possibly the most difficult transition of their lives - learned how to grow her business while doing less.

Until quite recently I was firmly in the camp of: Any amount of screen time my kids have is not optimal. I’m not a purist when it comes to parenting, and Penelope can watch a show on the weekends and on the days of the week that she’s home. Even with that small amount, I’ve found myself feeling guilty and like maybe we should be a no-screens-at-any-time house. Until I was introduced to the book The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World by Jordan Shapiro. I’ll be honest: I started listening to it with my eyebrows raised, ready to disagree with his ideas that our fear and distrust of technology for our kids is misdirected and, at times, ridiculous. And then, as he presented his well researched, well thought-out ideas about kids and technology and the fact that we need to raise them to interact with technology in healthy ways, not feel guilty any time they use it, I began to soften. I could feel my body relax, and I breathed a sigh of relief because it all made so much sense. We brought Jordan on The Kate & Mike Show to talk about kids and technology because there are so many myths that I personally was buying into, which was causing me unnecessary stress as a parent. And I know that I’m not the only one. If you think all screen time for your kids is bad, you’re terrified of them being on social media, or you’re simply looking for some guidance as to how to navigate the increasingly connected world we live in, you’re going to find this episode so helpful. Here’s what you’ll learn: • Why getting your kids on the internet as early as possible is actually the best way to go • How to prevent your kids from becoming screen-glued zombies who don’t respond to your calls for dinner • Why "closed social media" is important for your kids to get in on early and how to facilitate it • The reason people say disrespectful, awful things to each other online and how to ensure our kids don’t do that or fall prey to it • How to teach our kids to navigate a connected world so that they’re thriving, contributing, happy citizens After you listen, we’d love to hear from you. What was surprising? What did you learn that proved something you’d previously believed wrong? How are you taking action on what you learned? You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

When you're operating your business under the belief that the right answers lie outside of you, there's a lot of wasted time and energy, and it's nearly impossible to find your center. That makes things feel chaotic and confusing for your customers, too, and it's hard to get traction. Alex Hughes is a Life Coach committed to helping busy mothers carve out headspace and optimize their creative soul nourishing energy, so they can live their life purpose and be the change agents the world needs. Specifically, she helps mothers unravel internalized patriarchal belief systems and bring feminism home by teaching them how to come into healthy, self-honoring relationship with their time, energy, and emotions, and to create conscious equitable partnerships at home. But when she joined the Origin Incubator a year ago, she was lacking the clarity and center that she needed to take her business and clients to the next level. Listen in to this episode to hear how she made the critical shift that allowed her to go from fuzzy to focused and get some serious traction in her business, including having made enough to cover her expenses for the remainder of the year by August.

While I love sharing ideas that are against the grain, I rarely go full-on controversial. But today, I am. To be honest, I’m squirming as I write this because my central nervous system has trouble with the inner explosion that happens when someone has been offended by something I’ve said or an idea I’ve shared. My husband, on the other hand, is built differently. With Scorpio rising, he goes right for the truth in an at-times-shocking way and is far less (and sometimes not at all) concerned about what other people think. So here’s the deal: We have an incredibly important podcast episode for you today that is going to piss off some people in our community and also has the potential to save some of their lives. If you choose to listen in, would you be willing to do the following? • Know that everything shared by our guest is grounded in evidence and if you choose to learn more, you’ll be amazed by how much data backs up these unconventional ideas. • Know that I do not believe there is one right thing for everyone (nor does our guest). So, please know that if what is shared in this episode challenges the choices you’ve made but you feel really good about those choices and they’re working for you, I celebrate that with all of my heart. • Know that if what is shared on this episode challenges some of the choices you’ve made and you are pissed off, but there’s also a part of you that knows that those choices aren’t entirely working for you, then dig into the resources shared. That’s a lot of preamble. That’s how nervous I am. This episode is about mental health and psychiatric drugs and the pharmaceutical industry in general, and there is critical information shared that you need to know as a human to have informed consent about what goes into your body. Also, the beliefs shared in this episode are not in any way the party line. It’s why our guest, the brilliant NY Times bestselling author, Dr. Kelly Brogan, has been launching her revolutionary new book, Own Your Self, in a grassroots way. Her ideas are so groundbreaking (and controversial) that she knew she wouldn’t be waltzing onto The Dr. Oz Show or any other major media (because hi, hello, they’re funded by pharmaceutical advertising dollars). Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode: • The truth about chemical imbalances and the shocking discovery made from 6 decades of research • Why the information you get on Google is completely biased and how to find the truth • How to send your body signals of safety to turn on your own healing mechanisms Know this: We are at a critical time in history where we are being called upon to be far more conscious consumers and realize the source and motives of the media we take in. I’m incredibly grateful for the privilege to have a platform to share messages like the one today that may not always be the most popular but are so necessary. After you’ve listened in, I want to hear from you: What did this episode bring up for you? What did you learn? Did it cause you to question anything that you’ve held as truth so far? You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Like most entrepreneurs, Beth thought that what she needed to reach the next level in her business was nitty-gritty strategies and marketing plans. It turned out, she needed something far more powerful that she never would have never sought out but she's so grateful she found. Listen in to hear how this videographer, editor, and online business owner cleared her blind spots, pivoted her business, discovered her worthiness, and identified her mission and what makes her unique in 2019 so that she could build an unshakeable business foundation for strong growth.

Years ago I sat in a beautiful theater in Downtown Salt Lake City and was swept away by the stories the energetic woman was telling from stage. I walked out of the session and immediately texted the conference organizer, letting her know that this woman needed to be keynoting on the mainstage next time. Little did I know, when I had the honor of getting all fired up by her captivating brand of storytelling, Kindra Hall was just getting started. Now she’s keynoting conferences in front of 7,000+, teaching the power of storytelling in business, and it’s been so inspiring to see her trajectory. It’s also proof that what she teaches works because she’s one of the best storytellers I’ve ever heard. Somehow over the years, Kindra Hall and I became friends on Instagram, and when I saw she had a book coming out that teaches how to use stories to transform your business through captivating your customers and influencing your audience, I knew we had to have her on The Kate & Mike Show. (Her book, Stories That Stick, is out this week wherever books are sold and it’s AH-MAZING. A must-read for any entrepreneur or person who wants to connect more deeply and effectively with other humans. Oh wait, that’s everyone.) If you’ve struggled with getting people on board with your vision... If you’re not making as many sales as you’d like or making them as easily as you’d like... If you feel like your story isn’t big enough to be worth telling... And if you’re ready to make your brand incredibly sticky so that your customers rave about you to everyone they know and keep coming back over and over again...then today’s episode is for you. Listen in to this week’s episode of The Kate & Mike Show with Kindra Hall to learn: • The 4 critical elements your story needs in order to be compelling • What storytelling, orgasms, and breastfeeding have in common • The obscure connection Kindra and I discovered during the episode that locked in my love for this new friend of mine • Why it doesn’t matter how big your story is, but what does matter instead • How to make sure your stories serve your audience and aren’t just self-indulgent You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Everyone growing a business is going to fail along the way. What Dr. Cleopatra Abdou-Kamperveen realized is that she wanted to fail as soon as possible, so she could get on the right path even more quickly. As a newly tenured Professor with a proven pre-conception and fertility protocol that has a 97% success rate, Dr. Cleopatra was ready to get the word out there in a bigger way. Listen in to how she was able to shorten her learning curve as she got up to speed in online business and which elements were key for her growth and early mastery. It's been an incredible honor to support Dr. Cleopatra this year as part of the 2019 Origin Incubator, and I'm so excited for you to benefit from her wisdom and apply it to growing your business!

Back in 2012, Mike and I were living in a drafty rental on Long Island figuring out how to live and work together. (Oh wait. Still trying to figure that out, minus the draftiness.) Over lunch at a little golf course cafe, we came up with an idea to give our community something they’d been asking for: access to my methodology on falling in love with your money. Here’s the problem: The methodology was alive and well inside my head and in the manuscript I was working on, but it didn’t live anywhere else yet. I’d taught some of it live before and I’d lived all of it, but I didn’t have proof that people would get out their credit cards and spend money to learn it yet. So, we decided to open the doors to The Money Love Course before the course had even been created. We had a list that was less than 10% of the size it is now. We had never created a course before, and I’d only ever taken one digital course before. We had never sold anything of our own online. We didn’t have any fancy tech knowledge or equipment. I had a lot of doubt as to whether or not what I had to share was valuable enough to sell because I’d only ever taught this material before for free. But we thought, "Well, what the heck? The worst-case scenario is that no one buys and then we’re no worse off than we are right now." So we went for it. And you know what? We made $20,000 in that one week, promoting a course that didn’t even exist yet. There are a lot of things that hold people back from getting started creating digital courses: I don’t know what I’m doing. Who do I think I am to be charging people for my knowledge and expertise? I’m not techy. I have a very small (or non-existent) audience. I’m a solo show and I have tons of other things to do. I don’t have time for this! Well, in today’s episode of The Kate & Mike Show we’re taking you behind the scenes back to 7 years ago when we got started with digital courses, and you’ll hear: • How we knew it was the right time to create a digital course • The incredibly simple setup of our first course launch and delivery • What we did to eventually create $123,000 with the launch of that same course • How we set up an automated system to bring in up to $50,000/month of recurring revenue from that same course, which helped us immensely during our first year of parenthood • How a friend of ours took our same plan and turned it into £18,000 within a week You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Changing directions in your company, especially when it's a 3-million-dollar home-manufacturing brand, takes guts (or ovaries, as the case may be). Following your heart and calling is not always the easy decision. But Sinclair Kennally has never tried to take the easy way out. Listen in to this special bonus episode of The Kate & Mike Show where we're going behind the scenes of this 2019 Origin Incubator member's business trajectory from manufacturing to e-commerce to wellness and detox for visionaries. You'll learn why every leader needs to be paying attention to their toxic burden if they want to function at their full potential, how we can all contribute to the greater good of the planet with our buying decisions, how to economy-proof your business, and what the critical ingredient for Sinclair was as she made these big leaps and changes this year (even in the face of great personal loss).

When Mike and I became parents, we experienced the most difficult year of our life up until that point due to a combination of the fact that becoming a parent is hard, I had a traumatic birth experience, I struggled with postpartum anxiety and insomnia, and we had a sick baby who would wake herself up throughout the night scratching herself so much from her severe eczema. It was not awesome on so many levels. However, the reason everything didn’t fall apart was because our business remained solid the whole time, despite the fact that both of us were working less than half the amount of time we’d worked previously. So how did we make our money that year? Digital courses that didn’t require us to trade hours for dollars (or be showered or coherent because we created them before having a kid). For us, having a thriving digital course business meant we kept it together (barely) during an incredibly grueling year and could be with each other and our baby without having to worry about how we were going to make money. For others, having a thriving digital course business means being able to homeschool their kids, travel to spend a month or more with family that lives far away, not needing to have as many (or any) 1:1 clients, being able to leave a job that feels soul-sucking, or being able to keep the doors open to the business that they love. What might having a thriving digital course business mean to you? There are a lot of misconceptions about what it takes to create and launch digital courses successfully. I don’t have anything special to teach. I don’t have a big enough (or any) audience. The digital course world is over-saturated. There’s no room for me. The tech is too complicated and I can barely navigate my email inbox! I wouldn’t even know where to begin.It’s too overwhelming. Turns out, creating a thriving digital course business is not necessarily what you think...and you CAN do it. Today we have a really special episode of The Kate & Mike Show featuring the QUEEN of digital courses, our dear friend and creator of Digital Course Academy, Amy Porterfield. In the episode she debunks the common myths about digital course businesses (including the ones listed above), and by the end of the episode you’re not only going to fully get that you can have the kind of freedom digital courses create in your business, you’ll also know how to get started. Here’s what you’ll learn: • How to get the 10% edge over the competition that makes all the difference • How one woman saved her business by selling 313 units of a $200 digital course on making caramel candied apples - and how you can use her story to inspire your successful course • 2 common mistakes that kill course creation success • What your #1 priority needs to be if you’re going to have a thriving digital course business • The counter-intuitive, but incredibly effective, strategy for deciding what to teach • How to determine which content to give away for free and what to charge people for (this is GOLD!) • How to stay ahead of the curve in the digital space And so much more! You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

I'm so excited to kick off a special 8-week series of bonus episodes on The Kate & Mike Show, featuring a group of women I've been working with closely over the past 9 months to support in growing their businesses while doing less. This week I'm introducing you to Whitney Bishop who's a change agent working in the non-profit space. She came to me wanting to lean into her thought leadership and create more leverage in her business, as well as begin to reach an audience beyond her native Louisville, KY. Listen in to hear what she did to expand this year, including what made the difference for her getting the impressive result of besting her 2018 revenue by the end of August of 2019!

If you want to leverage your time so that you don’t have to trade hours for dollars anymore, a digital course is an excellent idea. However, firing up your laptop and recording your voice over slides or shooting some videos and then getting them up on a password protected site by no means guarantees you’re going to have a successful digital course that reaches the people who need it and gives you the income you deserve. I want you to have wild success with your digital course (or maybe even courses) but I don’t want you to slow yourself down unnecessarily by making the mistakes we see over and over again. So, Mike and I recorded a brand new episode of The Kate & Mike Show for you to give you a few ounces of prevention. Whether the idea of creating a digital course is brand new to you or you’ve already created and launched one, this episode is for you. If I’d had this information 6 years ago when we first launched The Money Love Course, or even 2 years ago, I would have saved our company so much time and we would have helped more people (plus had more profits.) Don’t head on your digital course creation journey without a map. This is one area where winging it will cost you a lot of time and money unnecessarily. Listen to the episode because it will get you started on the right path. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]. Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

I honestly didn’t realize it until last week when Mike and I sat down to record this week’s Kate & Mike Show episode, but there’s something I’ve committed to since the very beginning of my business that I think has been the single biggest contributor to feeling like, despite the ups and downs, my business is wildly successful and I’m a thriving entrepreneur: Circling up with a group of fellow entrepreneurs who are also committed to upleveling with a set structure and container to encourage all of you to grow. There’s actually a word for this very thing. That word is mastermind. It’s based on the idea that we’re more powerful together, that 1 + 1 = 3 (not 2), and that when you get a group of people together who are an energetic match, everyone accelerates in a way they couldn’t possibly if they were going it alone. I’ve participated in all kinds of masterminds over the past 11 years, and regardless of their structure, cost, or length, all of them have had one thing in common: They’ve caused me and my business to grow exponentially in relationship to the time I invested. A mastermind is like kiln-dried firewood and perfectly crumpled newspaper for your growth. Your ideas are the matches or sparks or that clicker thing where you have to hold one part with your thumb while you pull the trigger with your finger to get fire to come out of it, which can sometimes take a few tries to coordinate. No newspaper and dry firewood? All the sparks in the world won’t catch. They need something to ignite them and let them grow and burn. You may have never heard the word mastermind before, or you might have been considering joining or starting one. Either way, if you want to take your business to the next level in a Do Less way, a mastermind is a must and this week we’re giving you: • 6 reasons to join a mastermind • how to find the right one for you • how to start your own Once you’ve listened we’d love to know: What’s your experience been with masterminds? What additional questions, if any, do you have? You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]! Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Want to know what the #1 indicator of a woman’s success in her career is? A tight-knit group of female friends. Yep. It’s true! This is exciting but here’s the problem: After the age of 25 our friendships start to suffer, and our social circles contract. Why? Because our culture tells us to be focused on getting married and having kids and getting ahead in our careers! So we ditch or stop prioritizing the very thing that would contribute to said success on a deep level: Our friends! When I recently asked you what you wanted to learn more about, tons of you came back and said you wanted to learn about how to make friends as an adult, and, more importantly, how to form and maintain super connected friendships. Like the ones that feel like the family you get to choose. We’re giving you 7 things to keep in mind when it comes to forming close friendships that will contribute not only to your career success, but also to your immunity, mental health, and overall joy (which, for the record, is my highest priority these days. If it’s not bringing me joy or I can’t figure out how to do it joyfully, I’m not doing it!) If you struggle with making friends, if you’ve had your heartbroken by a friendship ending, if you love your friends but find it hard to prioritize them, if you’re feeling lonely, if you don’t know where to find your people, or if you just want to know how to feel even more connected to the friends you already have, this episode is for you! After you’ve listened, we’d love to hear which of the 7 tips we gave resonated with you the most and also if you have any other friendship-building stories or insights to share! You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]! Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast

"If I want to make more money, I have to work more." This belief has rung in the ears of entrepreneurs for long enough. I believed if I wanted more success, I needed to work more until I’d been in business for nearly 15 years. You know what finally proved me wrong? Getting pregnant. You may be wondering: What the heck does pregnancy have to do with growing my business? Stay with me. Mike and I had the goal of hitting 7 figures in revenue in one year for years before we hit it. Believe it or not, it was pregnancy knocking my old ways of working (pushing harder and hustling) right out of me, plus a first year of parenthood that was one of the darkest times of my life, and figuring out how to run our business...and be profitable...at the same time that shook the belief that in order to make more money I have to put in more hours out of me. Mike and I finally hit 7 figures when we started working less because we’d become parents and we simply didn’t have the time (or bandwidth) we used to have. How exactly did that work? Well, I’d love to tell you...and we recorded a whole podcast episode for you in order to do just that. This week’s episode of The Kate & Mike Show is the second installment of our August Podcast Listening Adventure designed to help you upgrade your business and your life, and in it we’re sharing: • The 4 shifts we made to finally hit our goal of 7 figures in revenue within one year • Why waiting to learn how to manage your money well until after you’ve started making more money is a terrible idea • The very scary thing we did that helped us grow our business by over $400K in one year • The single most important thing you can do to improve your business or your life (and it has nothing to do with putting in more time) Once you’ve listened, we want to hear from you: Which of the 4 shifts resonated the most with you? How will you put it into action in your own business? You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]! Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

When I recently asked our community what their biggest business challenge is I got floods of: Getting enough clients or customers. Is making sales something that’s a sticky wicket for you? If so, you’re in the right place. I got a text last weekend from the guy who organized a fundraiser for our girl’s co-op daycare telling me that my husband Mike was hands down the MVP when it came to making sales for the weekend. Unlike many people in our community, Mike LOVES to sell. While I don’t love it as much as Mike, believe it or not, I kind of love it, too! We’re kicking off our August Podcast Listening Adventure with an episode that’s going to help you make more sales, whether you’re brand-new in business and feel like sales is a dirty word or you’re well-established but would love to up your conversion rates. In this episode of The Kate & Mike Show we covered: • The specific strategy Mike used to be the MVP of sales at our recent daycare fundraiser and how you can use it to up your sales in your business • Why I was secretly excited when Mike told me he used to sell drugs (yep - for real!) • 3 specific ways to get more people to buy what you’re selling (trust me - even if you don’t like to sell, you’re going to LOVE trying these out) Once you’ve listened, we want to know which one of the 3 tips we gave was the most useful and how you’re going to apply it to your business. Enjoy, and we’ll see you next week for the next installment of the Podcast Listening Adventure! You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]! Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

She grew up in a tiny town in Tennessee and fell in love with track and field, practicing high jump using an old sewer pipe that her coach would hold, falling onto an old mattress that they’d found and put in a sand pit. She got herself a full scholarship to college because of her athletic and academic achievements, but a sharp pain in her back one day that caused her to fall to the ground took her out for the season, leaving her wondering if her dreams of being an Olympian were ever going to come to fruition. A counselor told her to try yoga, and even though her Southern Baptist roots made her fearful that doing yoga meant worshipping the Buddha, she gave it a go because she was promised it was "just stretching." This woman’s story of healing injury, coming back to her athletic ambitions, going for it again, becoming injured again, going for it again, burning out again, and then coming back in a whole new way is one of overcoming tremendous obstacles and ultimately, finding wellness and joy in unexpected places. Koya Webb did not go on to compete in the Olympics as she’d dreamed of her whole youth. Instead, she let her first dream die so she could live the true dream: making a difference in the lives of people all over the world. As an internationally recognized yoga teacher, personal trainer, holistic health and wellness coach, motivational speaker, model, and author of Let Your Fears Make You Fierce, Koya is a force of love in the world. This week we have Koya on The Kate & Mike Show and, like a total dork, at the end of the podcast I blurted out, "I just really like you!" This woman is delightful and her joy is infectious. I’m so excited to share her with you today. If you’ve ever pushed yourself so hard that you got injured, this episode is for you. If you’ve been wondering how to grow your influence using social media to get the word out there about what you love, this episode is for you. (Koya has 1M followers, and the strategy she shares on the episode is simple and powerful.) If you’ve ever been afraid of being the first in your family or peer group to go to college, surpass a certain income level, change your diet, prioritize your health, move far away, or have a happy relationship, this episode is for you. If you’ve ever needed to let one dream die in order for another one to live, this episode is for you. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]! Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

The number one thing I’ve heard since making the rounds on all the podcasts and launching Do Less is that people’s minds are blown by the information about cyclical living and how we have this inner blueprint for productivity that no one has ever taught you...until now. It’s pretty straightforward if you have a normal, healthy, regular 28-day menstrual cycle, but there are so many reasons that may not be the case. Pregnancy. Menopause. Being a man. Bleeding on the full moon. Hormonal birth control. An IUD. Breast cancer treatment. Nursing. Irregular cycles that vary between 17-43 days. PCOS. Perimenopause. Working in a corporate setting that doesn’t support this whole cyclical living thing. Since Do Less came out, my DM’s and our inbox have been filling up with your questions about your period, the moon, and how this whole cyclical living and planning thing works for your specific situation. So, Mike and I recorded a brand-new, incredibly meaty episode of The Kate & Mike Show to answer all of your cyclical living and planning questions. (Well, mostly I answered your questions and then Mike asked me more.) Here’s what we covered: • How do you plan for your cycle if you’re pregnant, nursing, in perimenopause, or are past menopause? • The cyclical macrocosm of pregnancy and how the trimesters align with the phases of the moon/menstrual cycle/seasons and how that may impact your creativity and productivity. • How does this work if you’re on hormonal birth control or have an IUD? • How do men’s cycles work? How can we support the cycles of the men in our lives? (We really got into this one and answered it a way you probably wouldn’t expect.) • My personal, very efficient period, new moon, and full moon rituals. • What to do when you bleed on the full moon vs. the new moon. • How to change the timing of your cycle if you desire. • Best practices for the luteal phase when you’re feeling prickly and low-energy. • How do you marry your own menstrual cycle with the lunar cycle and what do you do with that information? • And so much more! If you’ve had questions about how your energy cycles, productivity cycles, and creativity cycles work, I’m 99% sure we covered it in this episode. Plus, even if you don’t think you have a cyclical living question, I guarantee we’ll answer a question in this episode you didn’t even know you had. Once you’ve listened, we want to know: What was your biggest insight from today’s episode? Do you have more questions that we didn’t cover? How will you use what you learned in your business and life? Leave us a comment and let us know! You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]! Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

A few weeks before Do Less was going to launch, I decided to follow my intuition and reach out to a few women who I was loosely connected with on Instagram to see if they’d be open to receiving a copy. There wasn’t any real strategy behind who I reached out to. I just trusted that if someone popped up in my feed and I felt called to send them a DM that I should. So I did. One of these women responded immediately, and we got into an instant back-and-forth banter that made me smile and felt like I was texting a lifelong girlfriend. It turned out she lived in LA. I was headed to LA during launch week. She asked if I was doing an event. I said no...but then I paused and thought, "Maybe?" She offered to do an "in conversation" (a phrase I’ve seen circulating in the literary world - a world I’m not part of - that means two people talk on stage at an event) to sell books. This woman I don’t know is offering to take time out of her schedule as a mother of a toddler on the eve of her first book being published to help me spread the word about my book. Wow. Sparked by the generosity of this big-hearted new friend, my LA book launch was born. Had it not been for her message, I never would have gotten to throw the party that I secretly really wanted to throw but didn’t think I had the bandwidth, energy, or budget to make happen. This angel of a woman is Jennifer Pastiloff, and she is not only beautifully generous of spirit and freaking hysterical, she’s a damn good writer and is honest AF about her life. It’s a stunning combination. Jen worked as a server for 15 years and then created her own career teaching On Being Human workshops around the world. Her story is so inspiring, and I’m so excited to be sharing it with you. This week we have Jen on The Kate & Mike Show sharing about her incredible debut memoir, On Being Human (I lapped it right up and laughed and cried out loud on many airplanes on book tour as I read it) as well as: • Her tips for getting over social anxiety and truly connecting with strangers (this was based on my questions because, believe it or not, I’m so scared to talk to strangers) • How she programs her workshops and how doing less has made them even more powerful • The super innovative way she activated a big group of people to spread the word about her book • Why she doesn’t read her reviews • The thing she started doing that attracted new customers in flocks • How she cultivates a feeling of enoughness that makes her one of the most generous people I know It was a yummy conversation and when we ended the Zoom call, Mike and I both looked at each other and said, "I love her." You will too. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]! Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

You know how some folks were raised to believe in one very specific set of beliefs and don’t ever question where that set of beliefs came from, who came up with them in the first place, and what greater motive getting a bunch of people to believe in those things might be serving? And you know how everything everyone has ever told us came from another human being who has biases, is flawed, and has impacted that knowledge in some way so there’s really no such thing as "pure truth" coming from someone else? I want you to know something: No one else can tell you what’s true. You have to learn to source the truth from within. Learning how to do this will be the single most important skill you’ve ever invested time in mastering. It will save you time making decisions. (Did you know that the average person spends 7 hours and 36 minutes deliberating about their choices every week?) It will ensure you always do the right thing for your highest purpose. It will guarantee miracles in your life because your inner truth can orchestrate magic in a way that your ego couldn’t even fathom. There is a person who lives from the truth she hears within more than any human being I’ve ever met, and I’m so blessed to call her one of my very best friends. She’s a scholar, a theologian, one of the wackiest dancers I’ve ever seen, a total comedian without meaning to be one, a fierce mother, a deeply generous friend, and the author of the game changing book, Mary Magdalene Revealed: The First Apostle, Her Feminist Gospel & the Christianity We Haven’t Tried Yet. I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to have Meggan on The Kate & Mike Show, but I know that we were saving ourselves for the very conversation I have for you today. As she always does, Meggan gave us all of her mind, body, heart, and soul as she shared the depths of her own personal journey to find what was missing in the Christianity she was raised with, how she discovered Mary Magdalene, and the healing journey she’s been leading to champion the Christianity we haven’t tried yet. In today’s episode you’ll hear: • The truth about the Bible and what was purposefully left out of it (and why) • The path to truly know God (hint: it’s not what you think) • What happened to all of the women in Christianity and how we can bring them back • How to know the difference between the voice of fear and the voice of your intuition • How the metaphor of resurrection can inform our own daily transformations • A new meaning of the word "death" that opens up profound possibilities for new ways of living • How to connect with the eternal while living in the confines of time and space in a human body • And so much more! We have never had a conversation like this one on The Kate & Mike Show. Prepare to have your assumptions challenged, the beliefs that aren’t serving you shaken up, and to walk away from the episode holding the keys to access the very thing we’ve all been searching for the whole time. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]! Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] \regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

This week Mike and I are talking about my favorite unorthodox tool for ramping up your productivity: prioritizing your body. In it you’ll hear: • An incredibly simple tool for organizing your workflow that will have you palming your forehead with how obvious (yet overlooked) it is • The daily practice that Richard Branson holds responsible for his business success • A revolutionary approach to your work life that will change how you do everything (and make everything way easier and more productive) Once you’ve listened in, we want to hear from you. Which strategy will you try out? What have you noticed already from putting your body first and your business second? What kind of resistant thoughts come up when you hear us talk about body first, business second? Leave us a comment and let’s continue the conversation! Having a body is the great equalizer for all humans. Yes, all bodies are not built the same, nor do they all have the same abilities, but on a fundamental level they all work the same. And they can be the source for all of our best work when we learn how to tap into the supply. Listen to this week’s episode because this perspective shift is critical for sustainable results in your work and life. You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]! Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

When I read about the heartbreaking things going on around the world (the children in detention centers, the conflict in Sudan, the abortion ban, ICE raids, genetically modified food, police brutality, mass shootings, hate crimes, how seriously Mother Earth is suffering, and more) I often find myself freezing because it all feels so big and so terrible, and I feel very small in comparison to the depth of the problems plaguing our planet. I used to deal with this by not paying attention to what was going on in the world, but I realized that was a privileged opt-out that wasn’t helping at all. Now I deal with the enormity of looking at the world’s problems differently. I don’t scroll the news 24/7. I don’t ever watch it on TV. I get in, get the facts, then I get out. And then I have real conversations with real human beings working to create real solutions to learn from them, see how I can support them, and to be reminded that for every atrocity around the world, there are thousands of good people with huge hearts who care deeply and are taking inspired, healing action. I often find these people on social media, and then I do what I can to move the conversation off the internet because I’ve found that true healing happens eye to eye, and, when possible, heart to heart. One of the beautiful souls I came across on Instagram (my favorite place to discover new people doing good work) is Aaron Rose. I found Aaron captivating from the moment I started following his account, not only because he’s a beautiful writer about topics that are hard to talk about, but because despite having been through so much as a gay transgender man growing up in a devout Cathollic family, light and love shines out of his eyes in a way I can feel radiating out of my phone. We invited him on the podcast to take the conversation out of the comments, so we could hear one another’s voices and go deeper. During this conversation we talked about: • Practical steps to build emotional resilience to keep going and do good work in a world where a lot of sh*t is going down on micro and macro levels • Being a recovering Catholic and how to navigate loving people who think and believe very differently from you • How to stay connected to love when you’ve been through really hard things • What to do when you hear someone you don’t know saying prejudiced things in public and you want to say something but you don’t know how • How to be part of the healing of our crisis of separation that’s truly the root cause of 99.9% of the problems we have, personally and globally Once you’ve listened, Aaron, Mike, and I want to continue the conversation with you. Which one of Aaron’s tools for building resilience resonated with you the most? Which part of the conversation was the biggest a-ha for you? How can you take action on what you learned? You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]! Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

It’s lovely to hear about folks working 4 hours a week while having their best revenue months EVER or sending one email and making $50K, but do these stories not leave us wondering: Is this person full of sh*t? What’s the real story here? I was asked in a podcast interview the other day whether or not I’d managed to launch Do Less in a "do less" way. Like, was I really walking my walk with this launch? The answer is mostly yes. And a little bit no. (Because we’re all a work-in-progress.) Whether you’re launching a book or a program or a business or a dinner party, getting your creative work out there takes some oomph. But doing good work does not have to do you in. That’s why we recorded an episode of The Kate & Mike Show for you this week that reveals the 7 lessons learned while launching Do Less in a "do less" way. In this week’s episode you’ll hear: • The most important question you need to ask about your life before embarking on a launch • My big secret to self-discipline • How to launch something to sell for the long haul, not just to be a flash in the pan • My top tip for pitching podcasts and other media outlets so you stand out from the crowd • The most important ingredients that prevented me from getting sick or burning out (like I did during my last book launch) despite the fact that my life is way more full than it was 6 years ago Once you’ve listened, we’d love to hear from you: What are you launching right now? How can you apply the 7 lessons I shared to your own situation? You can get your own copy of Do Less and still receive incredible bonuses at http://katenorthrup.com/book! Kate wants to hear from you, and you can post about your #DoLess experiences on Instagram, DM her (@katenorthrup) or email [email protected]! Would you, or a company you know, be a good fit to sponsor The Kate & Mike Show? If so, let’s talk! You can email [email protected] regarding current sponsorship opportunities.