Episode #697 - #700 Highlights: Finding Purpose in Skating and Marketing with Kate of Legacy

Welcome to this edition of the million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

I would say probably around the age of 10, 11. Yeah, most people, most people, most, at least women retire usually around 15, when they either it's like a make it or break it kind of age. 14, 15. Am I going to continue doing this every day for multiple hours a day, or am I really going to go hang with my friends and see what life has to offer? And so I would say around 10, 11 is when I really start to get. Get that competitive itch and feel like I had to start performing in order to continue to move forward, continue to advance. And I worked really hard for every. Every piece of every element, every edge was something I really had to work towards. And I have had one coach that was pretty defining in my career there. And he told me one day, he said, kate, you're, you're really good at a lot of things, but you're not great at one. And that has stuck with me forever. And I realized, I said to myself, like, I, I want to be great. I want to be known for something. And so that was a pretty defining moment for me when he said that and decided that that was the path and I wanted to be great at skating and that's where I was going to go.

How old were you?

I must have been around 13 at that point.

And it was getting competitive at that point. It already had gotten competitive, I guess, right?

Yeah, we're competing at a regional level at that point. And then when I moved to Montreal is really when I started competing more at a provincial national level to the world Championships.

And as you, you know, you started focusing on being great. What was the part of your skating that became your greatest strength? And how long did it take you to get to where you said, you know, I know winners and I know champions and they never really feel they're that good. What causes them to keep improving every day? But at some point along the way, do notice that you're a whole lot better than a whole lot of people? And where did you start getting that in your mind? You know, a conf. A kind of confidence comes from accomplishment.

You know, it is such an ironic thing how we, the more we get better, the more skilled or more competence we get at something. Sometimes our confidence actually doesn't follow parallel to that. But I would say I started to get my confidence. I am A. I was a very. How do I describe this? Like, emotional skater. You could always really feel my presence on the ice. And I think that was really what I started to tap into, is learning how to communicate with the audience through my eyes, through my. Through my hands, through my body language and really create a performance around. So not just about the jumps or not just about the elements, but really about making the audience feel something.

Now, are these things that you wind up. It's one that we all know that, you know, it's like the boy Scout pledge, you know, you know, let it go, whatever. But when you're going through, you're living through it, you have to kind of talk through it and reasons, you have to get it head. And when you're living it in your face to face and you're by things out of your control, I mean, how did you come to that? You know, it's a mature look at it. And so did you. How did you come to that with a coach? Is that something, you know, you come off, you deal with it, you get in there and huddle up and, you know, talk yourself through it to where. Okay, got that talked out and we're back. Back on it again, harder than ever. How do you have to work through that? And who played a role in that? What made the difference?

What made the difference? I think the part that comes up for me the most, we were in Germany at a competition, and we overheard another country's judge talking to another to their team, saying, hey, did you like what I did with the Danish team? So we overheard them being like. And that for me was like a. This isn't just a concept we think is happening. This is something that really happens. And that was a very challenging moment because it solidified what you were thinking. It wasn't just like, oh, we think we're good and we're being placed lower. It was. So that was a pretty challenging moment. And we brought that to our coach and he essentially said something along the lines of, like, and how can we influence that? How can we change that? And we were like, well, we can't. That's what they're doing. And like, they're doing it anyways. And you said, well, then you just have to be that much better. You have to work that much harder. And so these are. What if these are the cards you're dealt and this is what you're playing against? How. How do you get around that? You have to be so undeniably good that they can't. And so that was kind of let.

Me ask you about your coach. Let me ask you about your coach. Had your coach competed? How did your coach. How did your coach know to tell you that? Because I'm telling you people right now. If you've got a life coach or you got a mentor and you go through a thing like that, okay? And you don't get that answer. You don't get that coaching. Get rid of your coach, okay? And it's like, I just. You know, there was an article in the paper about Bill Parcells, which I'm sure you don't know much about, but he was the head coach of the Giants. New York Giants football. Yeah. And he won two Super Bowls. But before he won the first one, the year before, they went and lost a playoff game in Chicago. And they're riding back on the plane, and I've got this story in my book. They're riding back on the plane and across from him, he had his. On his staff, he had his high school football coach.

Oh, wow.

You know, and this is a guy who is always. It's like his sidekick, you know, to kind of keep him balanced, you know, and they drive it. You know, they're flying back. And finally, Bill looks over at his coach. He said, they're really good. He said, they're really good. And, you know, the coach told him, he said, yep. And you still got to find a way to beat him.

Exactly. How do you be undeniably greater and.

See if you don't get that answer from whoever's coaching, you get rid of them, you know, because. You know, because it's. That when you're facing that kind of challenge, you're. We all are. You know, to get over the hump, you got to have someone who's not going to make you softer and give you more excuse. We can think of all the excuses ourselves about how it wasn't right and this, that, and the other. But, yeah, you know, and Parcells figured it out, and he won two Super Bowls. And so the thing is that he had it in him, and you guys had it in you. So what happened after that? I mean, you had that. They said you just got to be that much better.

Yeah, we went. We went back to work. We made our programs harder, we trained harder, and we were more committed than ever, to be very honest. It lit a fire in me. And I'm someone who, um. If you give me a goal and you tell me I will do everything in my power, sometimes that can also be a weakness. But to go and achieve that. And I was like, you Know what? You're right. We really need to make sure that we're putting everything that we can into this. And instead of playing the victim and saying, why does this happen to us? Why do we. Why do we escape for this country? Maybe we should change. It was like, no, let's. Okay, fine. Let's go prove to them that we. We are better and we can do this every single time.

Yeah. And so what happened in your comp. How did the competitions go and how did that. You know, how did that play out?

Yep. So we reached junior World Championships and World Championships that year. We ended up placing relative. Not. Not relatively high, but still being the first team in the history of the country of Denmark to ever make it to World Championships. So that was a pretty phenomenal feat for us and for the country. There had never been anyone who represent Denmark at that level of sport in ice dance. And I think it actually had a lot of repercussions later for us as well. Where we started, actually, in our visualizations prior to the competition and in our preparation, we'd almost train for adversity. So we'd imagine, like, what could go wrong? Skates couldn't show up, bus gets delayed, or we have to take a. Whatever the thing was, you don't have the right food at the hotel that you could. Whatever the thing is.

Yeah.

And so we would plan for that and visualize that in our minds. And so it's about not thinking about bad things, but it's thinking about what is your response in that moment to how you deal with that. What is the next right step that I can take? And so we did a lot of work on planning for that kind of adversity that could come our way. So then when it does come, you're much more equipped to deal with it.

Yeah. And that reminds me of Bobby Knight, the great basketball, college basketball coach, wrote a book about. It's like the power of negative thinking. Start thinking, well, what if this went wrong? What if this. How am I going to react that, you know, in that situation? Because, you know things are not going to always go perfect. And so you might as well.

Sure.

Think about how did that change and what kind of advantage did that give you to do that and preparing yourself like that.

I would say, like, to your point about, like, being anxious or getting worried, it created actually quite a sense of calm because then you know that you're equipped to deal with whatever comes your way and you've prepared for that, and you have already the answer of how you're going to do that. So I remember actually feeling quite calm going into competition after that.

Yeah. You know, and another one of those situations is now, you know, you've lost your athletic ability and you got to change careers. So it's like, what can I do? I've got to focus now on what I can do because, you know, my body's not. My leg's not coming back. You know, it's, you know, my. My skating leg and hip and everything is not my teeth. No, no. And so now what can I do? So talk about that transition.

Wow. It was actually. So there's. There is quite a sense of grief in that because you lose an identity in that moment because you identify like I was. Hi, I'm Kate. I'm a figure skater. That was who I was. It was everything that I am and had been for the last. My whole life, essentially. And so there was a big sense of who am I and who do. Who do I want to be and what else can I do in this world? And I knew when I did make that decision to retire that I. That there was much more to life than sport. And I was very intentional about making sure that I completed that as well, knowing that, like, I had done everything that I wanted with this sport. I had reached an elite level and. And learned a tremendous amount. And so I remember sitting in the fourth floor of my business school and calling my coach and telling her that this was it for me, but knowing that ultimately I wanted to do probably some sort of business or marketing or something like that. And so the transition for me was. I was very fortunate, actually. In one of my marketing classes, we had to do, like, presentations like you do, like, this is our project. And.

Yeah.

And one of the girls who was sitting in the very back of the class saw me present. And because I love to be on stage and perform, and that was my nature, she came up to me after class. She said, you. You need to do case competitions. You need to. We. So at the school that I was at, they were very, very highly ranked in international case competitions. For essentially, you've competed on a business case around the world.

And so what's a case competition?

Yeah, so essentially, you have a business, could be any sort of business. They have a problem they're trying to solve, and they bring it to a group of students to come up with the answer. And so you would. We've went to Spain, I went to Alberta. I went to a whole bun of different ones. And so schools from all around the world come and compete at this competition to come up with the best solution to the company's problem and the judges are the actual company who are trying to solve this problem. And so I got into that program and was fortunate enough to do very, very well there and again traveled the world and did competitions there and was able to channel that like performance competitor of side of me into something quite productive quite quickly.

How long did you do that?

I would have done that for two, two and a half years.

Wow. What about experience you got now? So you would show up in Spain or someplace and you would have no idea what you were gonna the problem. So how many other teams were there?

The biggest one had 24. And so you have, and there's two different cases. So the first one is you have three hours to solve it. So essentially you go into a room with your, with your small team and every team gets the same case. And then the best answer or the best solution wins. And then you have it all.

24 make a presentation. How are the presentations usually?

About 30 minutes.

Wow. So you got to listen to 2430 minute presentations. I'm thinking that's 12 hours and so.

Goes over two days.

Remember what the first people said, you know.

Yeah, that's a good point. And then, and then the other, then the other side of it is you have a 24 hour case which means you get, you can put a lot more research into it takes a bit more time, is a more complete answer and then ultimately they judge the winner. So I think when it comes down to marketing, especially from a B2B perspective, you have to be looking at where your customers already are. And what I mean by that is that if you are looking at small medium businesses or you're looking at. The business I work for now is actually a sperm testing and freezing business. So we talk a lot about like where men go for information. It's thinking about really where are they already and how do you be in those places. And so I think especially in the B2B world, you really have to think through how do you deliver value, how do you really educate them on how to make them better business owners, how to make them better marketers? Because those are the things that these customers need and are looking for. And so how do you be in those places? So the driving of the business came a lot through digital advertising events, heavily present online and really making sure that we're hitting all those touch points where these people are already looking for information or going.

Yeah, find out where they're already looking and make sure you're there. You know, the intersect of where they're looking, where they're going, you know, and the. So you leave this company and you go now, did you. Is that this. Is that where you are now with Legacy?

No. So there were two businesses in between that, but now I'm at a company called Legacy.

So how to talk about, you know, how you move through those businesses and why you're at Legacy now.

So I went to a small organization.

What we see is a person getting established because you don't know what you don't, you know, you don't know. And then you work and you maximize the situation. You move on to the next one and you maximize that one. And that's either long term or short term. But then, you know, you're creating options. Eventually you settle into things, but you work your way into it. And so what we're hearing is, you know, championship athlete coming out of that working or way through success and where success takes you and success can take some big places. But, you know, at 32, you're, you know, you got so many successes in front of you. Your family, you know, we already got the family started and, you know, you got this great life. And it came from the principles and approaches about making things happen, responding to challenges and those lessons you've learned. And now it's going to continue to fire your growth going forward. And so talk about how you move through those two companies to the Legacy.

Yep. So the first one was a consumer research business, much smaller. Again, we built a marketing team there and we really reworked on their brand, but ultimately didn't feel aligned with. With their product and really what I wanted to be doing. So I ended up moving to another very big company in. Based in Montreal.

Let me, let me stop you.

Sure.

Aligned with their product and what they were doing. Now, how long did it take to find that out?

I was only at that business for about 10 months, so not very long.

Yeah, and so there, there's certain things you need to be. You know, this comes up all the time. You. You got to be flexible and you got to adapt to reality. You know, you look at things from the outside. There. There is a way you can look at decision making and say, if you're an intelligent person, you never make a bad decision. You make a good decision at. Because none of us are going to make a bad decision for ourselves, but we make the best decision based off the information we have at the time. And so if you make a decision, and you did about that company, like, man, this is exciting. I want to get into that and Then it starts to. Once you're behind, it's like, well, not so much. You don't have to hate it. You don't have to be, you know, bad. It's just like not a fit long term. And so it took you like 10 months to not only see that, but also to see your next step.

Yep. I think you bring up a really good point about decision making, and I think a lot of people struggle to make a decision, but I think ultimately you just need to decide. And once you make a decision, you move on to something else. You'll either get into that and decide, this is. This was where I want to go, or you need to make another decision to then go out. And so I think it's really coming down to just making that decision. And in that, it was clear to me that that wasn't where I was supposed to be long term. And so I just decided, okay, great, have no hard feelings. There's nothing here. Just not the right fit for me. So I moved to a company called plusgrade, which is in the ancillary revenue space for travel. And my first day was actually the first day of the pandemic. So if you can imagine, I joined a travel company in the pandemic, which was quite an experience. But ultimately I stayed there for just over two years. I was their VP of product marketing and to really helped them come up with. So I ran their entire marketing function, really focused on like, how do we brand this, how do we talk about what we do well, how do we really drive ultimately more sales for these ancillary revenue managers and the travel companies that they represent. Had a fantastic, fantastic leader there, and he really an incredible mentor to me. But what I realized in, in. In that time is I ended up having my first baby and realizing that I wanted to do something a bit more meaningful for me and something that related a little bit more to where I was in my life at that time. And so a friend of mine who was working at Legacy reached out to me and essentially said, kate, you're the best marketer I know, and we really need someone who is going to help us communicate this thing that nobody knows that they should be doing or need to be doing. And it was in the fertility business. And so for me, if I was able to help other people have that same sense of joy and just this opportunity had to have a, have a baby was something that really resonated quite closely to me. And so I made the jump from really heavily B2B sales, B2B marketing, to direct to consumer into fertility and sperm. Just totally different, totally different topic.

And so how's that transition been for you? Has it been an eye opener? Has it been, you know, some kind of educational thing or has it been what you thought it would be?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing I realized in the transition from business to business marketing to DTC is that ultimately people are just people and people think that there's such a difference between marketing, like software products versus marketing consumer products. And for me, it's the same because you're ultimately talking to someone on the end of that, on the end of that conversation, on the end of that ad or whatever you're doing. And so that was probably the biggest, like, not revelation, but the biggest thing I learned, but I learned so much about fertility. It's crazy. And sperm and all the things that it does. So it's been a really great experience and I've got to do some very, very creative marketing that I haven't got to do anywhere else. So very happy so far.

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