Plenty with Kate Northrup

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 info@katenorthrup.com. 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 mike@mikejwatts.com 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 info@katenorthrup.com. 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 mike@mikejwatts.com 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 info@katenorthrup.com. 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 mike@mikejwatts.com 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 info@katenorthrup.com. 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 mike@mikejwatts.com 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 info@katenorthrup.com. 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 mike@mikejwatts.com 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 info@katenorthrup.com. 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 mike@mikejwatts.com regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

The hosts delve into the emotional journey of transitioning family dynamics, weaving in humor and personal anecdotes. They advocate for year-end reviews as a transformative practice to reflect on achievements and growth from the past year. Listeners learn about small changes that can yield big transformations in mindset and environment. Emphasizing the importance of planning amidst holiday chaos, they share insights on setting aside time for intentional reflection, blending personal and business goals for clarity and ease.

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 info@katenorthrup.com. 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 mike@mikejwatts.com regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Dive into the world of strategic planning as the hosts reveal their personal love for organization and its power to reduce stress. Discover the critical question to ask when planning for the new year and how to avoid overscheduling. They share a unique formula for successful product launches and the vital role of clarity in achieving goals and dreams. With anecdotes on personal struggles and the importance of self-care, this discussion encourages a balanced approach to entrepreneurship and life.

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 info@katenorthrup.com. 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 mike@mikejwatts.com regarding current sponsorship opportunities. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.