Ep 39: How to think big when you've been conditioned to think small with Kathryn Birchwood

You are listening to episode number 39 of the Reinvent You Podcast, How to Think Big When You've Been Conditioned All Your Life to Think Small.

If you're someone who wants to make major changes in their life, someone who wants to achieve their goals, or maybe you're someone who knows this is not as good as it gets, but you have no idea where to start. On the Reinvent You Podcast, we explore different types of people. Their successes and failures, and how they reinvented themselves to create the life they love. It's our hope that from hearing their stories, that you too may have more insight into what it takes to build a life that you envision for yourself. Here to help you do that is performance and life coach Travia Steward.

Today on the Reinvent You podcast, I have an absolutely valuable conversation with an income strategist and mentor.. And as I reflected on my conversation with her, there were some things that became very, very crystal clear to me. Well, I've always known that I allowed my environment, you know, my upbringing, my parents' beliefs, my parents, my experiences, my perspective of things, all the things that were passed down to me. I always allowed those things to shape who I was and who I became. And we all do. Your environment influences who you are and who you will become. It can, it can have you going down that exact same path, or maybe it motivates you to do the exact opposite. But who I became was a person who was happy, who was optimistic, and generally a good person. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I was also a person who didn't know how to really challenge myself and take risk. I also became a person who just wanted to, to stay safe and not really put myself out there and, and do things that I wasn't certain about the outcome. And it wasn't until I was able to really, really analyze and assess the depth of the influence from my past, from my environment, the influence that it actually had on me based on the actions I took or didn't take. The perspectives that I had about my ability to do certain things. Going through this process has taught me how to flip the switch to fix it, to fix the environment, to fix my thinking and create a totally new environment, one in which I am thriving. I am confident. I am an action-taking Coach who has major work to do on this earth. And if you are someone who could benefit from having a coaching conversation with me so I can help you flip your switch, I would love it if you would schedule a free consult at traviesteward.com/contact. Before we get into it, if you're finding some value from this podcast, I would love it. You know, we all, at least I do, like to have a little bit of validation that I'm going down the right path, that, that people are finding value in this. And so right now I'm thankful for another review that came in, and I hope I'm saying this name correctly, but it's from A Furry Man. I can just imagine what that really looks like, a furry man, right? So A Furry Man titled, great title, great concept, great conversation. I absolutely love these topics, love the honesty of the conversation. Thank you so much, A Furry Man. And so again, please feel, feel free to leave a review of the podcast. If you're finding value, I would love it if it could be 5 stars. So let's get into it. Today on the Reinvent You Podcast, I have income strategist and mentor with me, Katherine Birchwood. And on today's show, we will delve specifically into how to reinvent your work by leveraging your skills. And then we're also going to talk about how and why the path to success is actually through other people, but not necessarily listening to every word that they say. And then we're also going to delve into how to become financially resilient so you can survive tough economic times. Catherine has a program that is, is, is going to be out this February. And so that's in another week or so. So if you've been thinking of generating a second source of income, but you actually doubt that you have the skills and you have nowhere to start, no idea of what to do. So sign up for Kathryn's Idea Income Incubator program. She will help you clarify the life that you want, generate the income ideas that fit your unique styles and goals, and help you establish your action steps. Even if you're saying today, I have no idea what to do. I have no idea what to start. You will leave Kathryn's program saying, I Have a Plan. Catherine also has a freebie, Quick Tips on Finding an Income Based on Your Skills. And again, I will leave all of those links down in the show notes. So let's get into it. All right. That's what I'm talking about, my peeps. Welcome to the Reinvent You Podcast. My friend, I just met her, but you know what? I feel like we are sisters from, you know, she's got a mother, I've got a mother, and I just finished sharing with her how much she reminds me of my sister who passed in 2015 because there's just something about her with the shortcut and she just looks like my sitter. And so I'm feeling the vibes and the goodness that's coming through the screen. So ladies and gentlemen, I want you to welcome to the Reinvent You podcast, Katherine Birchwood. Katherine, how are you doing today?

I am doing just fine, Travia. Thank you for having me on. I'm so happy to be here and thanks for the lovely intro. Absolutely.

Absolutely. You know, so Catherine, before we dive in, you know, into the subject matter, I'm so excited to talk about this because I feel like it's my calling right now, you know, but let's give some context to who you are, how you came to be a mentor and an income strategist. So just a little bit of a blurb. So people listening who have never heard of Catherine Birchwood have a little bit of a foundation.

Sure. I consider myself to be a corporate refugee. So I lived in the corporate world for 20+ years, and it got to the point where I realized that, look, I have a lot of skills, and I'm not necessarily using them, or I'm not enjoying how I'm using them in my job. And it was time to take them and use them for my own good. So I started off as an accountant, And then I switched into IT, and I leveraged my accounting skills that way. And then I jumped out of IT eventually, and I leveraged my process building skills to create courses and help other people to understand what their skills are like and how they can create second sources of income with their skills.

Wow.

That's why I'm an income strategist, because I help you figure out how to make income from your skills. And I'm a mentor because I hold your hand and show you how, just as other people in the marketing world have shown me. Yeah.

So, so what's your motivation for that? Like, you know, I know you're talking about leveraging your skills, you know, but what would be your big why? It's like, why now? Why do we need this? Why, you know, why does anybody need this? I know you predominantly work with women. What is your why in dealing and throwing that out?

My personal why, I have to say, is because I like to be in control of my life and And I, when I sat down and I looked at it, I said, you know what, yeah, I've done all these different jobs. And after a while you start dragging yourself and then you switch jobs, etc. When you are an employee, your employer is in charge of you. I need to be in charge of me. So it was to the point where I said, you know what, you get to a certain stage in life and you think, can I do this until I'm 65? And you realize, no, I can't do this. I gotta do something else. So it's about being in control and being in charge of my own destiny.

Oh, I love that.

That's what it's about for me. And I like to help other women. Absolutely. To be in charge of their own.

Okay. So, you know, unpacking what you said, because I know you've reinvented yourself over two professions, you know, from employee to consultant, freelancer to entrepreneur, but how do you not be content with being in a job where you know you're going to receive a paycheck, where you know you're going to be able to put food on your table and have a roof over your head, because that's a, you know, quote, guaranteed check unless you screw it up and they fire you. But it's not like you got to go out and make it happen. How do you get to a point— how do you— because I had to get to my— that point myself. How did you get to a point outside of just wanting to be in control going, oh my goodness, I can really throw myself out there and do this because I don't want to be stagnant?

Well, I think it all boils down to what you want in life. And as a lot of people learned last year with the pandemic, there is no such thing as a secure job. Yeah, you are there at the pleasure of your employer. The job belongs to them. They are in control of it. They do with it what they want to do. And if they want to get rid of it and get rid of you then too bad for you. So we're not really in control, and there's nothing like a steady paycheck until it's gone, right? Right. So at the end of the day, I think work has changed. You know, my father worked for the same company for 30 years and retired and got a pension. My generation is not going to have that. And not only that, we don't stay in the same place. We jump around. I've had how many jobs? I can't tell you. So it's about figuring out or deciding what you are going to do for you when you look at the way the world is going and you realize that you don't really have any security. It's an illusion, and employers want us to think that so that we stay there forever doing their bidding. And I'm not telling anyone to quit their job, but all I'm saying is make sure that you are not relying on something that is inherently unreliable. And that was what I came to. I realized that, you know, recessions come, jobs go, clients come, clients go. At the end of the day, all you have that you can rely on is you.

Yeah.

And when you build up enough skills, you can find a way. You can find a way, you know.

And as I sit here and listen to you, you know, thinking back, the person that I was 12 years ago. When I think of some of my immediate family members, no one thinks like that. No one in my environment or my neighborhood, not many people in my family. There are a few, but the people in my family are like, this is what I have, I have a job, keep that job. You know, I, I always think about my brother. My brother's My brother's goal, he went to college for like one semester. He came home because he just, you know, he didn't want to go there, and that's fine. And then I remember he worked for like someone else for like most of his life, and then he said, oh, I'm going to quit that job because I want to start my own lawn care business. Oh, absolutely do it. Well, he had no idea how to do that and nowhere to seek the help to do that, so he gave up on that idea in about 2 days. And then said, my dream job is to work for the parish, which is a county, like a county in other states. Yeah. It's like, you know, they're like manning things in the parish, whether it's, you know, the cattle, those. And I was like, wow, that's my brother. How do you, you know, get that message across, like people in your family, the people that you're closest to, that there is more for us? How do you do that?

Well, that's, that's a tough one because people have to want. You can't want for them. Yeah, right. And I was fortunate to be brought up with a father who always raised us to think big, you know, to not be stuck. And then we— being born and raised on a little island, a twin island state, his, his mentality was always the world is not just this. There's a big world out there. Get out, you know. And so that's one of the reasons that he sent us to school in different countries, and we traveled as much as he could afford, because he wanted us to understand that your circumstances are not what you are limited to, you know. And yes, he wanted us all educated and to be able to go out and find a good job and blah blah blah, because You got to support yourself and you got to be an adult, but he never said this is all you can do in life and this is all you should— you should hang your hat only so high. It was always the sky is the limit. And so you have to really think to yourself always, what else can I do? Can I do better than where I currently am? You know, as he always used to say, when you know better, you do better. Do better. Right? And that each generation had to do better than the previous one. So it's a question of always thinking to yourself, okay, this is where I am. Do you look at your life every year and say, okay, where am I, where am I in life now? What am I going to do for the next year to get to where I want to go? People don't analyze their lives, they just live day to day. Yeah, every year I sit down and I say, okay, where am I? Where do I want to be? How am I going to get there? You got to set goals, right? You know, you, you're the one who knows what you want. Nobody else can tell you. So for your brother, you know, maybe you should sit him down and say, look, I see that you are capable of X, Y, and Z, and maybe you are hanging your hat too low. I know that you say that this is all you want to do, but is that all— is that all that you can be? You know, we all have gifts and abilities, and it's to make sure that we do the best we can with them, not to settle for, right? So maybe you just sit him down and say, "Lamile, I think you're settling. I think you can do better than this, and maybe you need to look at your life in the bigger picture, not this little— this is my job, this is what I do." My job is not my life. Nobody's job is their life.

See, you know, Katherine, that sounds amazing. If it were that simple, you know, because the first thing is you came from a family, your dad was like, the world is your oyster, you go out there, you do some big things, right? Trinidad and Tobago is where you were born and raised, which is completely different than, you know, the situation today, like where we are in the States. Like, as an African-American, you know, that's what I love, that we are, you know, we're both Black women here What is the difference between your dad instilling in you that you can do whatever it is that you want to do, having that environmental foundation? Because I must say that I don't think I had, I had that, that foundation. I always believed I could dream and, and theoretically do whatever I wanted to do, but I didn't see everybody in my life doing that. So it was just always a dream in the movies and on television.

How did you—

how did that become so real and the impact that your dad had on your life compared to what you see now?

Well, I guess, you know, I was fortunate, but he also pushed us. It wasn't just say that and then you guys go. It was push, push, you know, in school. Oh, you're getting a B? No, you need to get an A, right? Right. It's, it's, it's not settling. Really, I think is what it was. And he was relentless.

But why?

Like, you didn't understand, you didn't understand it as a child. You thought, oh my God, he's just being so hard. But when you become an adult and you get out into the world, you realize this is why he did it. Yeah, this is what he was about, you know. Everything, I think, I mean, he's not with us anymore, but I think Everything was, was a plan, you know. He taught us to play chess, not because he wanted us to play chess— at least I don't think so anymore— I think he taught us to play chess because he wanted us to always be thinking 10 moves ahead. Wow. Understand that you need to think more, think ahead. Don't just go into a situation without knowing what's your next move, right? Do you think that was—

yeah, do you think that was handed down from his parents?

No, no, absolutely not.

That's okay.

My dad did not— he did not come from, you know, educated parents. He was the first in his family to have a university education. But you read books, you know, you, you— again, he was always thinking better. What can I do better? And that's what I always think, right? If you are not happy with where you are you can find where you want to be. But if you are just going to say, well, okay, this is, this is where I am and this is where I want to be, then okay, nobody's— they're not going to want it. But if you are not happy with where you are, you are going to find a way to get out of that situation. I think that's human nature, right? And unhappiness is motivation.

Yeah, yeah, I get that, right?

Yeah, when you're settling for, there's no motivation because you've basically given up, right? And I'll tell you, I had a friend who told me when I said, you know what, I'm just getting out of this whole job thing, I gotta go start doing my own thing, she basically lectured me. I cannot begin to tell you. She's like, I don't know what's wrong with you, you go from job to job, you're always unhappy, blah blah blah blah blah, and now why can't you just sit there and suck it up? You know, you're like everybody else. This is what you're supposed to do when you're a grown-up, you know. This is what I do every day. You think I like to do it? Blah blah blah. You should just sit there and suck it up. And I thought to myself, well, if you want to sit there and suck it up, good for you, but I am not sitting there and sucking it up. No sucking it up over here. Exactly. I think for myself, you want to do that, go right ahead, sister. I decide what I am going to do and what my life is going to be like, right? Nobody else. Sucking it up is your standard. That's not my standard.

Oh, I love that. Yeah. Do you think there is a sense of, you know, she's like, why can't this be good enough for you if it's good enough for me? Quit your complaining. This is what we're supposed to be doing.

That— there's that resignation that, well, when you leave school and you start in the workforce, this is how life is. Yeah, right. This is the way it is. So you are just trying to buck something that has been going on for centuries, and what's wrong with you, right? But every entrepreneur, everybody who's not an employee, has bucked that. So I'm just one more person, right?

Right. Do you ever feel like, you know, because there are times when I feel like, you know, people my people think I'm doing something that, you know, goes and disagrees with what they're doing. So now I'm looking down on them for staying in their job. And so it makes me feel like, number one, like I can't talk about certain things because I perceive, you know, we make a lot of this stuff up in our heads. I know we do, but I feel like sometimes it's like, oh, I shouldn't talk about that because I know 100%, again, in my head that they're going to think that I feel like I'm better than them. And I'm putting them down by doing this, you know. And so I feel like because I don't openly share how I feel and what I'm doing, like, with my, with my people, with my family, with my brothers and sisters, I feel like there's an internal conflict of me holding myself back with expressing it, but also not sharing the goodness with them enough. Do you think that's prevalent in the Black community where are we holding each other back? Are we not offering enough to one another so that we all— we don't want to be crabs, right? We want to all succeed and get to the top of the mountain. What do you think about that?

I don't know if it's specific to the Black community. I think it's human nature, right? The person who does something different is the pariah, right? Is, oh, what's wrong with her? And I have learned certain things I say in front of certain people and certain things I just don't. That's just the way it is, and I'm okay with that. Find my tribe, right? I find the tribe I can talk to about whatever. Like that friend who was telling me to suck it up, I'm not going to talk to her about this kind of stuff, right? We'll still be friends, but that's just not going to be part of the conversation. Okay. But the people The people who, or certainly are not negative, you know, are the ones that I'll say, hey, you know, this is what I'm doing. And I mean, as you know, it's not all up. There are ups and downs, peaks and valleys, right? Sometimes things are rough and I say, you know, well, okay, this is not going so great, or I thought I would get this done by now and it's still, you know. I just think that you need to find your tribe, but your tribe is people. It's about how they think.. It's not necessarily where they are, because you can have people who are sitting in jobs or settling for at the moment, but if they are thinking, I can do better, I need to do better, then that may be your tribe. They're just in a different place from where you are, right? But it's not about looking down on people. I believe it's about choice. Everybody has choice in life. My thing is, you choose to do that, I choose to do this. Neither one is better nor worse than the other. They're just different choices. Just different choices, right? Yeah, different lives, different choices. Yeah, but the way I look at it is I have to make the choices that when I get to the end of my life, when I look back, I'm not going to regret. And I would regret if I settled for— if I sucked it up, right? And so for me It's about when I'm 99 years old and sitting on my rocking chair, am I going to regret that I stayed in that job, or am I going to regret that I left it? And I'm never going to regret that I stayed in any job, because the way I look at it, as I said to my friends, jobs are everywhere. Well, they were before the pandemic. Everywhere. Why am I gonna stick myself here if I don't like this one? There's another one out there. There's a million of them. I can always find one. Right. So it's about what is it that you want out of your life? And that's why I always say not to listen to people because they don't know what you want. You're the only one who knows what you want.

Oh, that's good. So not to listen to people, but you believe that you need people. The path to faster success is through other people, but don't listen to other people. So what's your clarity with that?

It's contradictory, but I say the path to success is through other people because nobody's an island, right? Nobody is where they are because of their own steam, right? The person who is the Nobel Peace Prize— the Nobel Prize writer, yeah, had an English teacher in primary school who got him started, or whatever, right? We all came through some form of community. And then even in the workplace, when you start working, there are people who show you the ropes. When you come out of school and you start working, you don't really know anything. Even if you've gone to university, you don't really know anything until you start working, right? Somebody has to show you. So you have to listen to people for certain things and you need their help. Even when you join business, I don't do everything alone. I have people that I partner with, that I run things through, that I bounce things off of. Off of? Somebody's done this already. Why am I reinventing the wheel? Hey, what did you do? Right? So you need people, but at the same time, you should not listen to them. And I'll give you an example. Years ago, about 10 years ago, I moved up north to Yellowknife. That's in the Northwest Territories in Canada.

Okay.

And I just went up there before. I said, okay, I'm gonna move, but I'm gonna go up in the summertime, of course, when it's warm, and I'm gonna start looking around, see if I can find some work. I had one friend up there, and he put me on to some other friends, and I remember talking to one girl, saying, you know, okay, do you know anybody? Do you know anywhere they're looking for this kind of help? You know, because at that time I was in IT. And you know what she said to me? She said, well, why don't you just come and waitress until you find some work? I just thought, why am I going to become a waitress? Why am I going to leave a good job, you know, paying me good money, become a waitress? But that was her— that's where her ceiling was. And that's why I say don't listen to other people, because their ceiling is different from yours. Yeah, right. If I listen to her, why would I go and move halfway across the country? It's like, I don't know, it's 4,500 kilometers or so. I don't know how many miles that is, maybe 3,000 miles. Go all the way across there to go and waitress when I'm not waitressing here?

I'm not waitressing anywhere.

I'm not looking down on waitressing. I'm not looking down on it at all. I'm just saying, why set your sight low when you can set it high, right? In the end, got the job in the area that I wanted. I'm not, I'm not even going to consider waitressing. It was just so out of consideration for me that I just thought, no, I am not. You know, when she said it, I was kind of like, huh, what? Yeah, you know. And so the other thing people put on you is not just their ceilings but their preconceived notions. And, you know, within— we all, we all go through this as Black people, where people decide who you are and what you can and cannot do just by looking at us. Right? And I remember there was a case here that I heard about last year or so. At the time, the boy was a teenager. He was in secondary school, and in the school system here, you have to— they stream you at a certain point. You go into, I guess, vocational, or I don't know what the streams are, but his teacher said to him, "You think you're going to be a doctor? I don't think you're going to. I think you should—" you just, you know, you're just going to be a barber. I mean, that's, that's as much as you can be. Now, it was a Black— it was a Black youth, and his parents were from the Caribbean, and basically his parents said, uh-uh, nobody's going to be telling my child what he can and cannot do and where his limit is. And he's in medical school now, right? If you listen to other people, you are taking in their ceilings and their preconceived notions. You are the one who decides what your limit is. And as far as I'm concerned, I don't have a limit. I just have what I decide to do and what I decide not to do, right? Yeah. So it's, it's— that's why I say that you need people, but you need also to know what to listen to, who to listen to, right, and who not to listen to and what not to listen to.

100%. Totally get it. Thank you for clearing that up. I love that, you know, and I believe, you know, again, again, everything happens for a reason. And so just having someone like you in my circle of influence, you know, where we can influence each other, that there is no ceiling, we can do some great stuff, right? How long— how— what age did you move, uh, to Toronto from Trinidad and Tobago? Well, I'm not gonna say because then you'll know how old I am. Got it.

Okay, tell you how long— I'll tell you that I've been here for 24 years.

Oh, okay, okay, okay. We don't need to do that.

I went to university here.

Okay, okay, got it, got it. What— have you ever been to the States? Have you ever been in the United States?

Oh yeah, I visited. I have a sister who lives in California. Okay. And a brother in New York and another brother in Boston. Perfect.

So you're aware of the 3 different countries culturally, like, what do you think are some of the differences, like, things that you hear between, like, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, the United States, like, entrepreneurially, like, where people think their ceilings are? Do you think it's limited to location? You know, people generally think higher about themselves in Trinidad compared to Canada or compared to the United States. What do you think those differences are?

They think higher. They think differently, and I'll tell you why. I, like I said, I came to school here at 18, um, and I was never aware, so aware of the color of my skin until I came to Canada. Yes, of course I knew what color I was, but only when you come here and you're a so-called minority, and then you meet people who ask you questions that you kind of wonder, why are you asking me that? You know, because again, I'm coming with a different paradigm, right? I am coming from a school system where all kinds of people excel, and then I come into a university system where they don't think you belong there, or they're surprised that you can speak English. Or, you know, I had one, one professor who— by then I was in my last year and I did accounting, and I was the only person who looked like me in the class. And we had to do this paper, and I didn't finish the paper, but I submitted as much as I could. And so he's handing them back, and he's calling the names, and people putting up their hands for him to give them the paper. And when he came to my name, I put my hand up, and he looked at me, and he said, "You're Catherine Birchwood?" And I just thought, why would you question that? Everybody else put up their bloody hand, and you don't ask them if they wrote who they said they were, right? But it was because I had the best paper even though I didn't finish it, and he didn't think somebody who looked like me could have the best paper, right? It's that kind of thing that made me open my eyes. That would never have happened back home. You're a good student, you're a good student, doesn't matter what you look like. But here, people cannot wrap their eyes, their heads around somebody who looks a certain way that is different from me can be as good at this subject or better than or whatever. It's like everybody's thrown into this monolith where we're all the same, we're this one-dimensional thing, whereas everybody else is allowed to be multi-dimensional. And that's the big difference, I think, between living here and there, you know. And I have been to the States, I've worked in the States, When I was in consulting, I worked in Florida for a bit, and I remember somebody just came and said, "There's a package for you in the mailroom." And so I went down to the mailroom, and the man behind the counter said— I told him, I said, you know, "There's a package for Katherine Birchwood," and he said, "Yeah, it's for one of the consultants." And I said, "Yeah, that's me." And he said, "Oh, you're the consultant?" And I'm like, Why, why is this even being questioned? Right. You know, so there is that thinking that when you look a certain way, you can't be certain things. Yeah, right. Well, sorry, everybody doesn't play basketball, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's this kind of one-dimensional thing where if you don't fit in the box, and a lot of times I don't fit in the box, right? And they don't know what to do with you. Yeah. Then they start— then the questioning starts. Oh, well, okay, where were you born? Oh, why do you speak like that? And it's kind of like, I'm not answering anymore because I know you want to put me in the box, and sorry, I don't belong in the box. You go with your little box somewhere else, right? Take you in your little box and go home. Yeah. Oh, I love that.

I love that.

So, you know, Katherine, it's that. Yeah, yeah.

You, you You just have such a great quality about, and the confidence that, that just exudes from you. I love that. So when you talk about helping people leverage their skills so that they can do other things, what does that look like? Someone comes to you and says, I need help. What's your plan? How do you help them?

So my first, well, I do, I do different things. I would say my, at the intro level, I have a program program called the Income Idea Incubator, and it helps— and it's, it's geared to women. It doesn't mean that men can't go through it, it's just my, my target market is women. Okay. And it is to help people understand that they have lots of skills. Often in a job you're using this many skills, right? But that's not all you are, right? And it's to help people create a second source of income from skills that they already have. And the biggest issue people have is not understanding that they have lots of skills and that they have skills that they can monetize. So I take them through a process of an inventory of their skills. We look at, okay, what can you do? What do you like to do? What do you really want to do with your life, right? Because first we look at what do you want to do with your life. Forget about the skills and the income. What do you want in life? And I have 8 categories that we go through, and then we look at, okay, what are your skills? What do you like to do? Who do you want to work with? And do you want to work with people? Do you want to work with animals? Do you— I mean, people want to do different things, right? And basically, I, I remove that ceiling that they keep putting on themselves, that this is all I can do, and it has to be related to what I do or what I got my degree in or whatever. Man, if I thought that way, I'd still be sitting in accounting bored out of my mind. Yeah, yeah. So I take them through that process to figure out what their skills are and how they can monetize them, because I really do think that people need to always have a backup source of income besides their job, and the pandemic has illustrated that, right? It's unfortunate that so many people people are on unemployment and food banks. It's very, very sad. If you had that backup, you at least have a little bit more financial resilience.

Right. What's your definition? How would you define being financially resilient?

It's being able to weather financial shocks without a huge change in your lifestyle. So yes, everybody has to adjust, right? When you lose a job or you lose a source of income or somebody gets sick, like with this pandemic, we always have to adjust. But when we depend on one thing, you're not really financially resilient, because when that one thing goes, what happens to you? That one thing being your job, right? So financial resilience is having multiple sources of income or assets that you can depend on when there are huge economic shocks to your— well, to the— to your, your country and yourself, right? Because sickness doesn't affect your country. But if, if I got COVID tomorrow, yeah, that's affecting me only, right? Right. And if you don't have a job and you don't have sick leave, what happens if you get COVID? Right. Money-wise. Yeah.

So what does that exactly look like? Do you teach people, it's like, this is how you, you know, do currency trading here, or, you know, you should be in stocks and bonds, you know?

So people are going, well, what does that look like?

That sounds good, you know, but what, what are you going to teach me to do? How can you teach me to be more financially resilient?

Well, I am not a qualified, uh, I guess we call them certified financial planners here. I am not, so I certainly do not advise anybody about how to manage their money. I personally trade the stock market because I learned to do that. It's one of my many skills. Nice. But, um, what I help people understand is how to turn their skills into another source of income. Got it. So that you can when there's a— when you lose your job, you still have another source of income. And you can have multiple, there's no limit. I start— we start with one, of course, because you got to focus, right? Right. But it's— I'm planting that seed that this is possible so that when you— when you— we finish with one, you know how to go and do two and three and four because there is a method to it and you just follow. The same method, right? So the reason that I focus on what people want to do and like to do is because that's what they will stick with, right? There's no point going and creating another job that you're going to be dragging yourself to. Focus on what you like. Yeah. And what you feel called to do. Of course. And that will carry you through, right? And so what they choose to do is up to them. Mm-hmm. Um, somebody might decide, well, okay, I'm gonna go learn currency trading. Somebody might decide something else. I'm not saying yes or no, I'm just saying take stock of your life, take stock of what you want, take stock of how— what cushions you are providing for yourself, right? Nobody could see this pandemic coming. We knew one day there was going to be some disease, but we didn't know when. Yeah, right. But if you have that, you're not really kind of holding your head and crying because you have, you have something to fall back on.

Absolutely. Yeah. So someone could come to you with just a simple idea and go, I have no way, I just feel like, boom, I should be doing this thing because I felt great when I did in 7th grade. And you can take them to a full-blown plan. Is Is that correct?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I take you from even I have no idea to I have a plan. Okay. And sometimes somebody could come and say this is what I'm thinking, but, but end up with something totally different, right? Because they haven't really taken stock of the big picture. They just have this idea, you know. Like, I took somebody who went through my, my incubator course. She came to me thinking she was going to do event planning. And this is before the pandemic. And when we were done going through the process, she's not doing event planning. She is taking a specialized skill that she learned at work that not a lot of people have, and she is going to offer that as a service to specific types of business, right? Event planning is gone. Down— she, she was like, I never thought I would come up with anything so different. And I said, that's the value of understanding the big picture of you, all of your skills, right?

Right. So that's your digital product, right? And people can find that on your website. Why do you think you chose women instead of just people? Because I know you said men can do it too, but why did you like specifically go women?

Yeah, I don't want the brothers to feel left out, right? Right, right. I chose women because we are the ones who are more financially impacted. The jobs report came out last week or the week before, and there were 140,000 jobs lost, and all of them were women. All. For last year, women lost a million more jobs than men did. Wow. They are calling this economic downturn not a recession but a She-session, because women are the ones who are harder hit, right? Between having to quit your job because your kids are on Zoom school to losing it anyway, right? A lot of these people in, especially in lower-paid jobs, are women, you know, and so women are harder hit financially right now through the pandemic, but even before that we earned less. The gender pay gap, you know, in 2020 Equal Pay Day was March 31st, and we are earning 82 cents on the dollar that a man is earning. Right. So we're earning less, then we have to be out of the workforce more because we're carrying the burden of child care, and that translates into the future. Because we earn less, we save less for retirement. We're more likely to be financially strapped in retirement. There are so many more reasons for women in particular to make sure that they have more than one source of income. Because at the end of the day, we have to stop working, and when you stop working, if you don't have retirement income, how are you going to live? You know, this is why we have all these seniors going to be greeters at Walmart. They do not have income, and retirement is about income. It's not about saving a pile of money and expecting to live off the interest because the interest rate's practically nothing. It is about making sure you have income, right? So women, because we're always financially behind, that's why I focus on them. And let's not even talk about divorce, because divorced women also suffer. So it's not that I'm leaving out the brothers, it's just that I think they don't need the help as much. Got it, got it.

Wow. So, you know, we're, we're recording this in January What does your planning look like? You know, as an income strategist and mentor, do you have a certain process where you, you know, you set goals, you set your vision?

What does that look like for Katherine? Yep, every year I sit down and look at those 8 areas and decide what I want. And I look at it into the future, not just for the year. Some things are going to be on there all the time because it's 10 years out, 5 years out. But if you do not have in your mind where you're heading, then you don't get there, right? Absolutely. And I write it out because there is a connection between the brain and the hand that we don't have when we're typing things, right? So I'm planting it into my brain by writing it out and then looking at, okay, so this is my long-term then bring it into short term, then bring it into one year over the next year. So for 2021, I have my goals, and then I break them down by each quarter. Yeah. And I make sure that I'm tracking it. So it's anything like habits. What are the habits I want to inculcate this year? I said, I'm going to get off my duff and go for a walk every day. My gosh. You can sit on this computer forever, right? Oh my gosh, you know, you're in lockdown and it's like, well, no, you need to move your legs, you need to get in some sun. And I just feel like, yeah, there are habits I want to inculcate this year, and I put those down too, and I track them. I use the Clever Fox Planner because to me it has everything that I need. I don't need to track appointments, I put that on my, you know, on electronically. Yeah, but in terms of what is— what's my my 4 key things for this week, for this month, for this quarter, right? Yeah. And the same process I take my clients through.

Of course. Yeah. What's, what's the timeline that you like? Do you like once a month you look at all the 8 categories? Once a week you look at your week ahead? How do you break that down?

I look at all 8 categories once a year and once a quarter, okay, because I plan quarterly, although I'm changing that to 16 weeks this year. Um, so every— like, for the 16 weeks starting the first week of January, I know these— this is what I'm working on, right, to accomplish goal X, Y, or Z. And then every week, every Sunday or Monday morning, depending on how my weekend is, I will look at, okay, where am I? What did I get done? What did I not get done? What are the most important things for this week? And I keep going that way. But in terms of the overall vision, what I do is I write, I write the life that I want as if I have it. Yes. So I basically paint the story, right? And I tape that into my planner. And I look at that, I read that. I read that once a week. I should be doing it every day, but I read it when I'm looking to plan my week and remind myself of where I'm going and why I'm doing this. So it's multiple layers of, of planning and fixing it into your brain.

Absolutely, totally with you there. Yeah, I have all my clients do a vision board. I do a vision board. Board. I write it, I look at it, I do some incantations in the morning, and, you know, I am such a— you know, all of that. And then, you know, and my spouse is like, let's close the door, she's doing weird things in there, kind of thing, you know. And it's like, you know, I'm just— I'm just in my— in my zone here. So I'm totally with you with that. So, Catherine, what is your big mission here on Earth? You know, if you're like— you live to be 100 years old and you're like, if I can just make sure I do this thing. I know you probably don't have any regrets right now because you're doing all that you want to do, but do you have a bigger mission?

I have a personal mission in terms of— I believe that we're all put on this planet with gifts, capabilities, skills, right? And the onus is on us. We are obligated to use them, use all of our gifts and skills to the max. And you choose how you want to do that, but I think the worst, one of the worst things is wasted potential, right? And so I try to maximize my potential in ways that I, that I decide, you know, I want to do this, I want to do that, blah blah blah. And the second thing I would say, the reason that I'm I'm doing what I do is because my mission is to lift 10,000— well, I'll say women, but I could say people— help them to be in control of their own lives. And the way you control your life is by controlling your time. And the way you control your time, the best, fastest way to control your time is knowing that you're in control of your income, right? Because when you are an employee, your employer is in control of your time, right? So to, to be in full control of your time, for me anyway, I need to do my own thing. And if I can help 10,000 women who feel the same way, who are motivated to that, to get to that point, and use all the skills that I have been given and the ones that I have acquired, then I will think when I am 99 years old and on my rocking chair, I will think it will be a good life. Wow. Yeah, that sounds incredible.

Absolutely. You know, and it is, it is Coaches who sit and do that kind of work and thinking. And I wish that everybody would do it, you know, because, you know, I used to think very selfishly going, no, just me. No, I don't want to tell anybody. I don't want to share what I know with anybody else because I just, you know, for a long time I was that crab who was like, no, get out. No, just me. You know, but you can't get, you can't get anywhere like that. And, you know, for the, you know, especially with coaching, you can't do that. And so I have, I have become, I mean, I've always been a very giving person, but, you know, I always looked at other people and envied their life and I don't have to do that. Yeah. I don't have to do that anymore. You know, and we talk about, you know, how to think big when you've been conditioned to to think small, and it's taken work for me to think big, to think that I can have it all. And I sit here and I converse with you, and we have this great conversation that we've been having. And I think Katherine Birchwood is a woman that I want to work with. And so someone listening to this episode is going, I want some of that. How can people get some of what you're throwing out here? I mean, you're in Canada, but I know we're we can all reach each other digitally. How can people work with you and what is it that you have to offer to the general public?

Yeah, everything is digital nowadays, and so I have a quickie, a little— my little freebie is how to find your income idea based on your skills. Because again, I'm trying to get past that, I don't have any skills, right? I don't know, I don't think I can do it. So I give you some, some tips on how to think about what your skills are and what you can do to earn income with it. And anybody who really wants to take it and start going down the path of, yes, I want to create that second source of income to, A, give myself a little bit more control financially, more financial resilience, and to really utilize my skills, I would say come to my Income IDA incubator. I'm going to be be offering the course in early February. And if anybody wants to join, they're more than welcome, even the brothers. Again, it's not that I'm excluding them, it's just that, you know, this is, this is my market for now. But I think it's a new year. What are you going to do different from what you did last year? And last year was a horrible year for everybody. It was the annus horribilis for the planet. So we have to think about, okay, what can I do different, better, bigger this year so that my life can be different, right? If you're not constantly thinking, what can I do different, better, then you stay stuck. Absolutely. But if you're always thinking of what else can do, you're never stuck and your life is never boring. I can tell you that.

No, it's not. Wow. I love that, Catherine. Thank you so much. Everything that you shared today, you know, with your Idea Incubator, you know, program, I think can really make a difference in a lot of people's lives, you know, and I love your, your approach and your attitude of just wanting to do more, always striving to do more. You know, a lot of us think that in theory that, oh, let's be more, but we don't take the action. That says, I am going to do better than I did last year. How can I make this year better? You know, I love that those are the standards that you stand for. And so people working with you, I think you're going to make an incredible difference in their lives.

I try, I give it my best. I try.

I bet you do. Well, thank you so much, Katherine. This has been a blast and I will make sure I have all of your information down in the show notes. Notes where people can connect with you and find you. And so right now your only place that you want people to connect is through your, your website, correct? Yes. Yes. Okay. And what is that website one more time for somebody listening who's pulled over on the side of the road now to write it down? Oh, I don't— it's a Bitly link.

I don't remember it offhand, but I'll give it to you so you can put it down below.

Absolutely. I'll put it down in the show notes. Okay. All right.

Thank you so much for inviting me. I have enjoyed our chat, as I knew I would. Absolutely.

I knew we would too. So cool. Thank you so much, Catherine. Thank you so much for listening. If you even want to know more about what I'm up to, head over to TraviaSteward.com. And if you like seeing the videos of the podcast, every episode is on my YouTube channel. Take care, guys.