From Fighting Her Dragon to Learning to Slay Like a Mother, Katherine Wintsch

Katherine Wintsch- Slay Like a Mother

Kristin: Consultant researcher, CEO writer, speaker, mom, Catherine. Thank you for joining me and taking time out of your busy schedule. How are you?

Katherine: I'm great. Thank you for having me on.

Kristin: I have a million questions to ask you. There's certain people that I'm just like, where do I even begin? so much of your life was shaped with this I'm going to call it perfect. Quote, unquote, childhood upbringing that you had. I would love to talk a little bit about your family and where you started.

Katherine: Absolutely. So I was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, and raised by two amazing parents deeply in love, still married today. And there was a lot of happiness and a lot of success. But there was a lot of pressure to perform and a lot of perfectionist tendencies that in many ways, benefited my life for sure.

You know, I developed an extraordinary work ethic. I was trained to be a champion in the way, and in a sense, my parents. Didn't fail. Didn't talk about failure. And so my older brother and I were definitely pushed to succeed and achieve as much as we could, but there was some part of that that hurt my soul in a sense, because I was always striving to achieve whether it was, in school or with part-time jobs or with anything that I took on.

And It left me often feeling that I wasn't good enough because in my mind, perfection was the goal. I saw it around me everywhere. And when I fell short of that perfection, it hurt me a lot. And I didn't, no matter what I achieved, I could have straight A's. I went to the top graduate school for my discipline in the country.

And. It never felt like it was enough. I always needed to do more achieve more. And while I had a lot of trappings of success on the outside, often felt pretty hollow and empty on

Kristin: It even got to the point when you were a teenager, that you were acting out, rebelling, a suicide attempt. extreme performance anxiety, if nothing.

Katherine: Yeah, it got to the point, in my book, Slay Like a Mother, I talk about this dragon of self-doubt that lived inside of me. And when I was 16 years old, the dragon was just in charge of my life, it was driving the bus, and it was always yelling at me and saying, you're not good enough, thin enough, nice enough, smart enough.

You'll never be XYZ. And it got to the point where I really didn't feel like I was in control And I was so exhausted by this performance anxiety, as you say, I just didn't want to live anymore. It was too much. It was too hard. I didn't know how to handle it. I was 16 years old. I didn't know how to talk about it.

I didn't know how to deal with. And so I really didn't want to live anymore. And I felt my life would certainly be easier if I could turn off the lights and I was causing some pain in my household by, acting out, doing very typical teenage things, sneaking out, running around with boys.

But I had disappointed my parents so deeply And their disappointment in me hurt me so badly that I genuinely thought, and this is such a warped belief, and it's horrifying as a mother to think about this, but I genuinely believed that my parents' life would be better if I wasn't in it. And I talk about this in Slay Like a Mother, but someone once said to me that suicide is the most selfish thing that anyone could do.

And I don't believe that. And I don't buy into that because. As someone who wanted to end her life before it really had even begun. I believed I was doing others a favor, so it almost felt selfless and not selfish, at all. But thankfully I made it through and came out, a lot stronger on the other side.

Kristin: And from that, I think your parents ended up putting you in therapy and things like that, but it didn't necessarily what was happening inside of you. It wasn't, if anything, it, what I understand, it made you want to push even harder.

Katherine: For sure. And my, rationale at the time was that if I couldn't disappear and make the pain go away, then I would show up even bigger and better and more perfect. And I really believed that if I could become perfect, then the pain would go away. And so that really ignited 20 years of overachieving.

And as I said earlier, no, in school, in sports and relationships, what you name it. I was going to pre. And so I wore a mask for those 20 years from age 16 to 36. And I worked my ass off and I again, achieved some success a significant amount of success. But it was a facade. I was achieving that success so that I could feel better about myself.

And then eventually when I reached 35, 36 and I had two young kids, I was like, I can't do this shit. I can't, I was working 80 hours a week. I was saying yes to everything. And I had two young kids and I just couldn't do it anymore. And I had to stop and that's where I really started much more intense therapy.

I'd been in therapy on and off for many years of my life. But at age 35 36, that's when I really took myself on as a project. I was like, okay. I now see from so much therapy that drawing my self- esteem my self worth from the external world is not a good equation. And in fact it just doesn't work. And so I had to learn to love myself from the inside so that I no longer required it from the outside.

Kristin: And I know you were working a really super high profile job and, with the young kids, how did you. Go on this kind of self-help journey. I I read that you spent a couple years really intensely on this journey. I think one of the things that so many working women working moms deal with is finding the time.

you know even knowing anything about themselves beyond working.

Katherine: Yeah.

absolutely. And you know, I like to say that it was a time consuming project. It was two years and it was filled with lots of therapy, lots of Oprah episodes, lots of self-help books and lots of red wine. And it was very time consuming, but when I hear other women that I talked to say that they don't have time to work on themselves, my response to that is then you're just not broken enough yet because I was so broken and so hollow and living two different lives. The world thought I was very successful, I thought I was a schmuck, you know? and so it was it got to the point where I just didn't have a choice. I had to do this work. There are ways that you can do it that are less time consuming. You know, Therapy going to therapy does not take that much time, like talking to somebody for an hour a week could change your life.

And It's not an extraordinary commitment of time. Secondly, I, at the time read a lot of the self-help books that I was into because I wanted to highlight them. I wanted to dog ear the pages, I wanted

them to be my Bible. Yeah.

Kristin: of success, I'm a high achiever, so

I will achieve in my sales help.

Katherine: Yeah, but, you know, in recent years, I've really started to listen to a lot of books instead of reading them. And so that's a way that if anybody listening is struggling and you need to work on yourself, you need to learn how to love yourself. Just start listening to self-help books and you can do it in the carpool line.

You can do it when you're walking, you can do it when you're washing clothes, washing dishes. And so it's a pretty powerful way to consume information to learn about yourself. But. Most of us are so tired. We would just fall asleep if we tried to read a book, but you'll know, when it's time and when you just simply don't have a choice.

Kristin: And one of the things you mentioned is a lot of Oprah episodes. I was reading that you would watch Oprah and answer the questions that Oprah asked in an interview. I love that so

Katherine: It was one of my favorite things. So.

I would put the kids to bed and I would always record her show. And then I would watch it. After the kids went to bed on the couch, like box of tissues in my right hand, glass of red wine in my left. And I would cry my eyes out and my poor husband would walk in their room and be like, what is happening here?

And I'm like, I'm learning to love myself, you know? And he's like, "I'm going upstairs, I'm going to bed." but yes, so she, and it didn't matter who she was interviewing. It could be a rock star, it could be a drug addict. It could be a mom. Like it didn't matter, but she really helps people be so introspective. So I would just sit on the couch and answer all her questions.

So I say in the book, You really learn a lot about yourself when Oprah interviews you and not really me, but I felt like maybe she was, but I really related to the pain in the people that she was interviewing. And and our pain is all different, but Oprah always talks about that pain is a a universal tie that we all have. And so it made me more confident in talking about my pain, too, you know, seeing her guests on national television, revealing their deepest, darkest secrets, and their pain was very empowering to me, because for the 20 years that I wasn't so much pain, I told no one.

Kristin: Yeah.

Katherine: I never told my parents. I never told my husband, I never talked about it with my children. It was just put on the mask and smile. And, I always wanna, make clear that my parents were extraordinary parents and I have to take some of the heat for how I experienced our relationship because my parents love me unconditionally. And I know that, but I couldn't always feel it. And I felt like it was tied to my perfection, but that is how I received the message. It's not the message that they were trying to send. It's what I received. And so just being able to talk about all that, really came from watching her show.

Kristin: And somewhere along the line you suffered from infertility. Was that something that you could talk about? I don't know exactly where on your timeline that happened, or if it was when you were still holding everything in is.

Katherine: Yes. It was definitely when I was holding everything in. My husband and I went through the challenge of infertility for a year and a half when we were trying to conceive our daughter and and so I was around 30 years old, so I was pretty much at the height of my insecure over achieving ways and the mask and, lying.

So that was another thing that I just hid. And it was a very painful experience. I think, especially when you're the woman in the relationship, it's every time I started my period, I felt like a failure and it was my body that was giving the signs, you know, starting my period, that it wasn't working.

And then I had to deliver that news, to my husband and so obviously he knew that we were going through it, but there's so much pressure on women to have children at a certain age. And so I was just flooded during this year and a half with questions of when are you in? You're going to have a baby.

When are you going to have a baby? You know, For awhile, I would lie and I would say, oh I'm so focused on my career. It's just not time yet. And then finally something came over me and I don't even know what it was, but I was like, I'm not gonna lie about this anymore because this is something that a lot of women experience and me lying about.

It certainly is not helping me. And it's not helping anybody else that's dealing with it. And so people would then say, when are you going to have a baby? I would look at them - right in the eye - and I would say, my husband and I are trying, and it's not working.

And it would immediately shut them up Ooh.

And it, it made the, the person I was talking to uncomfortable, but their question made me uncomfortable, and and my truth was we're trying and it's not working. And so it was very freeing to me because I didn't have to lie about it anymore. But also there was part of me that was hoping that, for the dozen of people, this occurred to that, I could teach them that let's not ask that question,

Kristin: Yeah. And if you are going to ask that question, be prepared to talk about the fact that not everyone is successful, quote, unquote successful. I don't even like using that word. Not everyone is able to have children, not everyone, instantly says, I'm going to have a baby and gets pregnant the first time they have sex.

You know what I mean? It's, it is a challenge for so many women and so many couples and to constantly badger someone about it. You should be ready to have the conversation if

Katherine: Exactly. Yup. Good point.

Kristin: Every once in a while I like to get up on my soap box

Katherine: I know it's.

Kristin: one of my issues.

Katherine: But it is. It's another example though, of this like cyclical relationship where women historically, I think we're getting much better, but historically women have not been okay talking about it, not comfortable talking about it as I was not for awhile. So because we stay silent about it, people think it doesn't occur.

That much. They don't think miscarriages occur as often as they do or infertility. so I think it's really going to benefit again, not only the women or men that are going through this, also society as a whole to know that it happens a lot. This is a very common, very painful, very silent, battle.

And so I just feel this sense of the world opening up a little bit more and women talking about it on social media and then we can really get the support and the help and the love that we deserve during such a difficult time. But it's up to us to be honest about it. And, while it made me nervous in the beginning, I felt like I got a lot more.

I certainly got the question a lot less, but I just got a little bit more love and respect and, and maybe, you know, I I never thought about it until we were talking about it just now, but maybe that was part of my journey of learning to be honest, because that really was one of the first things in my life that I was honest about when I was struggling.

So maybe that was a spark for the

Kristin: I did think about that. I thought, oh, maybe that was the early days of, I'm really, I need to be a more honest, I need to

Katherine: Yeah.

Kristin: who I am a little bit more. So much of what you do now is supporting moms, but do you think that experience how you were, how you started out maybe as a mother or how you started looking at motherhood when you did have kids?

Katherine: I do. And some of this even dawning on me now, I'm like in therapy again.

Kristin: I like to do that. I like a little therapy

Katherine: Yeah, this is good. I love it. Yes, I do think so because I've always been a little bit mystified by the fact that for 20 years of my life, I wore this mask. I'd lied to everybody and pretended like I was happy. And then

when I became a mother and I had my daughter, I was very honest about motherhood being hard. I never felt like I needed to wear that particular mask. Meaning when everybody else was like, oh, it's so great. Everything's lovely. I was like, this shit is hard, and I would go on vacation with, eventually two v ery young kids and go to the beach and people will be like, how was your vacation?

And I was like, it was terrible. There's sand and every crack and these babies and I never slept. And so perhaps the spark was being honest about infertility that then when I had children, I was always very frank about how hard it is. I was still wearing the mask professionally, and at work and I can, I'm your girl, I'll do whatever you want.

climb the ladder, you know, but it was such a relief when I knew so many other mothers were wearing masks and pretending like it wasn't hard. I didn't feel the pressure to do that. I just felt be myself and admit that it was hard, but I can't take all the credit because the other reason that I was able to be honest about how hard being a mother is, is because I studied mothers for a living.

And I had done a study with mothers in 17 different countries. And I wanted to uncover the one emotion that all moms had in common. This was probably when I was, you know,

32-ish, so already had one child. And so again, wanted to uncover the tie that binds, you know, forget working versus stay at home,

like what do we all have in common as mothers and what the research revealed is that the number one emotion that all moms have in common is self-doubt. Meaning I doubt whether I'm good enough and everybody else is great and I'm pathetic. And so knowing that other women felt this way also gave me the courage because I thought, wait a second, if everyone's full of doubt, why are we not talking about the doubt?

If everyone has this in common, why are we wearing these masks? And pretending like this is easy. So that was another driving force in my mask removal.

Kristin: I know that this research was really groundbreaking and it's, now thinking about it now, it seems shocking that it took so long for someone in advertising and marketing to say, we need to have these frank conversations. It's not let's sit behind a mirror and watch these women try to impress each other.

Why do you think it took so long?

Katherine: I think it took.

so long for a couple reasons. One, I think mothers lie. I don't think they do. I know they do. And so in traditional focus groups, which you were alluding to, when you get eight, let's say you're, when a launch, a new potato chip or whatever, the common practice is you get eight moms together, in a room and a focus group facility.

Those women don't know each other. And you try to learn about their life and their habits and the products that they want. Well, Those women show up and because they're strangers to each other, they posture and they say their partner is super helpful, their children are obedient angels, they eat broccoli three meals a day.

Like it's all lies because mothers want to look like good mothers in front of other mothers, especially mothers that they don't know. So that's part of the reason. So you're in marketing and advertising, you're sitting behind the glass in a focus group and you're hearing what you believe to be the truth.

These women are perfect. They have no problems, so that's part of the problem. And then the second problem is there's not enough women or mothers in advertising and marketing to say, "That is bullshit.

Kristin: Yeah.

Katherine: those women are lying." And and I to, to be totally honest, I noticed none of this before I was a mother and honestly not before I had my second child.

So I'd worked in and advertising my entire career studying, most of the time, women, mothers. It never occurred to me. And then I was on maternity leave with my second child. So I had a two-year-old and an infant, and I was either crying or drinking myself to sleep. And the ads that I watched on television during my maternity leave were filled with Kelly Ripa dancing in high heels, folding laundry, making cupcakes.

And I was like WHAT IN God's name? I just was like, it struck me. I was like the gap between the reality that I am living and what I am watching or being told is, you know, a reflection of my life, is ridiculous. It's the grand canyon. Like it couldn't be further from that. And so that really sparked my journey to starting my company, The Mom Complex, and really helping a.) Mothers be honest with marketers and advertisers and not posture, but then also helping these big companies

understand the truth and develop better products and services to support real mothers, not the fake ones.

Kristin: And looking at your work and reading about you and everything. I was like, this self doubt thing is so real and this perfect life vision. I think. I don't want to stereotype all women, but I think it's pretty easy to say that it's not just, I'm not a mother, but I, the self doubt is familiar.

The, I don't want to tell people this, but I'm gonna say it on the podcast. Before I talked to you, I heated up cheese sticks and ate, store-bought cheese sticks for lunch. Yesterday I had a salad, but today the cheese sticks. So you know what? Not perfect.

Katherine: Y- you're well-rounded

Kristin: I'm very well rounded. But yeah, I don't want to see somebody dancing around cleaning the toilet, folding the laundry, because that's not what I'm doing either. Whether it's as a mother or just as someone who's busy and has better things to do, then put on my high heels before I do my laundry.

Katherine: Yeah. And you're exactly right. You do not have to be a mother to have self doubt. I've looked into that in my research. And what I've found is that 75% of the time a woman's self doubt is born during or before adolescence.

So when you were a teenager or younger, most of the time, 75% of the time, that's when women start doubting themselves are comparing themselves to other women, other people feeling less than.

And if that starts very young for some women, it comes after later in life after a divorce or, you know, but for a lot of women, it starts very young. And then there are triggers in life. Maybe getting a divorce, maybe losing a job, maybe become a mother, maybe not becoming a mother and where it just flares up.

It makes you know that dragon of self-doubt inside of you gets bigger, more ferocious.

Kristin: I definitely recognize everything you were just saying because their story of the perfect childhood, by no means, were we a perfect family, but my dad was such a perfectionist. My mom was constantly on a diet because, there was six kids in my family, so she was always trying to lose weight.

So for me, there was body image things, there was, everything has to be perfect. And then the double whammy of, oh, it all just resurfaced. When I got a divorce, all of these kinds of things. it was the self-doubt and needing to slay dragons was which leads me to you Slay Like a Mother.

external for women is The Mom Complex in that you're helping them, all the things they need in their life. But the internal thing came with Slay Like a Mother. Tell me a bit about the book and how that exactly came to be.

Katherine: Slay Like a Mother came to be because I went on that two year self-help journey and I really healed myself. I really learned to love myself and I could have stopped there and just said check, I'm good. And not that I don't have any problems or challenges or, struggles. I have plenty, but I still love myself through them.

And that was, a pretty miraculous change in my life. And there was something about me that felt very selfish if I kept these tips and tricks and tools that I learned to myself. And so I never thought I would be an author. I never dreamed of being an author. Never really fancied myself, a writer, but I felt very called to take these lessons that I learned.

And again, I was a huge connoiseur of self-help books, so I could see it coming together. I could see the exercises, I could see women, writing in this book. And and so that's why it came to be. And the proposal, for Slay Like a Mother was rejected for four years by 23 publishers. And I never gave up because I wasn't doing it for me.

I wasn't doing it to be an author. I wasn't doing it for accolades. I wasn't doing it acknowledgement. I was doing it to heal the souls of women around the world that I knew were in pain. From my research. That's why I never gave up. it's a very empowering self-help book that will teach you where your dragon of self doubt came from, it has done to your life and your sanity and your soul, exactly how to slay it.

And then the book ends with really what life looks like on the other side of living with that dragon. So, I'm of course biased, but I think it's pretty good.

Kristin: I love it. I have to say, I have not read the entire thing and it will be exercises yet, but I have gone through it quite a bit. And I think it's really interesting because like I was saying, I don't think it is just You have to be a mother. In fact, I think one of the quotes on it for review is "this is a must read, not just for moms, but for anyone struggling with self doubt."

Now that was from Dana Vollmer, who is a five time Olympic gold medalist who also happened to be the first mom

To win a gold for US swimming. I absolutely agree with her because there was so many things I was recognizing. So I'm just going to agree with you. I think it's pretty good too.

Katherine: Thank you. And when my father read it, he said, No one has to be a mother to read this book because it really is about the human condition of self doubt and what it does to us and how we are complicit in it. And we, allow it and we have to be aware of it, it has like stories and anecdotes, of motherhood kind of sprinkled throughout.

But as I mentioned earlier, it's self-doubt starts so early in life that my father even said that he thought. That not only women who are not mothers would benefit from this, but even teenage girls. If we can give the next generation of women, the language and the tools that to talk about this dragon to slay this dragon, I think it's pretty powerful.

Kristin: Yeah. even In your blog, you were talking about your son () and you) forgetting some of his equipment for a soccer match. Sorry. I'm so half British, half American.

Now I'm like a soccer match, a

Katherine: Yes. Yes.

Kristin: But I loved that. You taking a moment to breathe and all the things you've learned imparting on him. I just imagined that as a young man is going to grow into someone with, the tools to cope with all the things that life throws at him as well.

Katherine: Yeah, I

think it's another point of how a lot of women think that self care and soul care and self-help is selfish. I hear that from so many women, I don't want to take this time for myself because my partner needs me. My children need me, the whoever my boss needs. And what you just said is an example, the perfect example of self care and self love not being selfish.

So I did take time out of my life to go on this journey and learn to love myself. And it absolutely benefits the people around me. So I am able to stay calmer, when my children do things that frustrate me, I'm able to help them through challenges and their life, as you mentioned. If you don't know how to play basketball, you can't teach your child how to play basketball.

And if you don't know how to love yourself, it's, you can't teach what you don't know how to do. And I think that's been a nice reminder that. It's not selfish that you can actually benefit the people. I help my friends. I help lots of people with the knowledge I have learned. And so it's the opposite of selfish.

Kristin: In a strange way. I'm listening to this and thinking about how. You seem like you've become just such a different person and you were, you were already married. Of course, you'd been with your parents your whole life. did that kind of change those relationships? Because it would be really strange to see someone become a different person in front of the very eyes and

obviously for the better, but...

Katherine: The crazy part is that I don't think that anyone really My husband may be an exception, but

my husband, my parents, even my colleagues, I don't think they would tell you that I changed. the difference is I finally learn to see myself the way that they always saw me. they saw me as a beautiful human being that was successful and caring and compassionate and whatever, like they saw me better than I saw myself. And so it's really like the outside world, didn't necessarily change that much. It was that my insides caught up with my outsides, meaning that the change was internal and it was silent in the sense that when I learned to love myself and I slayed this dragon, there was nothing waiting for me, external on the other side. Like I didn't win any awards. I didn't get any trophies. Nobody said good job for learning to love yourself because they didn't know that I didn't love myself. And so I was lying so much that when I finally, caught up, that's all that it was, in a magnificent way. There were no external accolades for me, healing myself on the inside.

And for the first time in my life, I was okay with that, and so I think that my husband being the exception could just see that I was so much more at peace. You know, I wasn't working until 10 o'clock at night. I wasn't, always out of breath, I was going to yoga was going to meditation. I was going to therapy. And so he maybe had a front row seat, but even, my husband, I don't think, would say that much changed.

Kristin: Some of the accolades that you have gotten because of the book and The Mom Complex ... I love the idea of being these things being said about me. And yet I feel like it'd be really easy to put undue pressure, and go back to these 80 hour weeks with all this kind of stress.

"Outstanding Woman" "Working Mother of the Year", those kinds of titles, I would be like, okay, now once again, I have to be perfect.

Katherine: That's interesting. Yeah.

I didn't see it that way. I I got this award that you're mentioning like a working mother of the year for the advertising women of New York. And honestly it was it was flattering and it was a boondoggle and I got to go to New York and take my family and I drank lots of tequila that night, but it wasn't my identity.

It was, it was a sense of okay, somebody thinks I've done some neat things, in this industry. And they want to celebrate me and pay for me to go to New York. And I was able to stop it there. It wasn't where previously, to your point, if I had gotten a certain title/trophy/accolade, let's say, in my advertising career, I had become a vice-president. I was very proud of myself for about eight days. Yeah.

good job, Catherine, way to slay. You've worked hard for this. You got recognized, but on the ninth day I was like, what's And. What's the path to senior vice-president? How many hours I have to work? And how many years do I have to wait?

So that was a sign. And for anybody who's listening, that is a telltale sign that you have a dragon of self doubt when the pride that you have in yourself for your accomplishments or your success, or your achievements is super short term. And then you just get back on that treadmill. When you do learn to love yourself from the outside, you don't rely on those accolades to be your oxygen.

So when I got the working mother of the year, I was like neat! And that's all, it was, it was- neat. And my parents were proud, but it, it wasn't me. It wasn't my identity. And I certainly wasn't trying to top it, with the. Step or rung. It was just neat.

Kristin: And how did COVID affect everything? Cause I know you do a lot of public speaking and all that kind of thing. I'm assuming you probably did quite a bit online, but have you been able to take something out of, I don't know the lessons we've learned from less time, maybe at work or less time away from home.

Katherine: For sure. you know, We were blessed to have a relatively positive experience with COVID and I know so many people didn't and and so I want to acknowledge that, but for me it was life-changing because I used to travel for my job at The Mom Complex and for book talks quite frequently, nowhere near the travel that I did before, when I was in marketing and advertising, I was gone very frequently.

And so at least with The Mom Complex or with Slay Like a Mother if I was getting on an airplane, I was choosing to. I wasn't told to, I was choosing to, which is a whole different energy, but I was doing it, for the sake of the business . I would fly all the way. California for a two hour meeting and stay in a hotel and fly back home, and for book talks, I would get on a plane, I'd go to Jackson, Mississippi, I'd give a talk. I'd spend the night and I'd come back. And I will never do that again because while I didn't feel. Push to do it again. Nobody was telling me to do it a lot of times with the book talks, I felt like I needed to be there in person and I wanted to save these souls and I wanted to help these women.

So when I was asked to go to these places, I would go. And then with COVID I just did the talks virtually. And what I have surmised and experienced is that with book talks, It's about 85% of the same experience. The you're still hearing all the words that I'm saying you're still moved by this.

You now want to work on yourself, but the difference is after the hour book talk, I turn off my computer. And I go hang out with my family and I'm not in another state, I'm not in another country. And so to get 85% of the same experience with no strain or drain on me is pretty remarkable. And the other thing I learned, which COVID taught me is that when I do a book talk it, let's just say there's 200 people, that are watching.

There's something that I think has been beneficial for these women to not be in person because they can turn their camera off. They can cry their eyes out and they can turn it back on. And they're not sitting right next to a stranger because a lot of the things that I talk about in Slay Like a Mother and in my talks are pretty dark and pretty deep.

And for a lot of women, they've never thought about this before. They've never realized that they don't really like themselves or how hard they are on themselves. And so to do that somewhat anonymously, I think has been a gift and an upside of not being in person.

Kristin: Yeah. Talking about that. It reminds me of your video, where the women said that some of the worst things they said to themselves as mothers and it's such a beautiful what, three minutes, something video. But I was crying my eyes out because to hear the way these women talk to themselves and to recognize that in myself, I'm about to get emotional, just talking about it, but there is, I can imagine was me sitting at home in front of my computer.

Nobody has seen me. I've watched it a few times. Every time I'm in tears. And I have to admit, it's nice that I wasn't sitting in public blubbering about this video.

Katherine: Yeah. And I always believed that it had to be in person because it's just the way it's always been. For authors. Like you travel around and you promote the book and you do these talks, but yeah, to your point, and I start every talk with that video. And so for anybody that wants to see it, you can go to SlayLikeaMother.com it's right on the homepage and it rips people apart.

And it to see, like you said, the way that we speak to ourselves as women, it can be startling. And so I'm quite happy that, somebody can be in their pajamas on their couch watching it.. It also makes it more accessible. So you're busy or you're a woman, you're a mom and you don't have to drive across town and park and going to this venue and get dressed up.

It's just makes it more accessible. So there's been some upsides for me.

Kristin: You've done so much for women, with your talks and the book and everything. But I know you've also done a lot of advocates ad. Ad-Vo-Ca-Cy. See, I can say the word... advocacy with incarcerated women. And so it's taking it another step further. What drew you to that?

What drew to that group of women?

Katherine: Yeah, I I've always just innately in my bones and in my soul believe that we're all equal. And and I think that women who go through really tough experiences like being incarcerated, drug addiction, homelessness domestic violence, I think don't get the love and the help and the support that they so right.

Deserve. I think a lot of people forget about them and or look down on them and I think it's kind of gross. And I had an experience- I think everything happens for a reason -and I had an experience where I was booked to be on The Today Show during the launch of the book. And so my publisher, did a second print run, thousands and thousands of extra books that normally wouldn't have been printed.

And and then The Today Show canceled three days before the show for a scheduling conflict and never rebooked it. So I have all these extra books and I thought. I don't know why this happened. It was disappointing of course, that it happened. But I think it happened for a reason. I don't know what that reason is, but then I got introduced to a corrections officer and I was telling him about my book and he said, you know, who would love your book is women who are incarcerated because they love to read.

They want to be better. They want to do better. And I'll introduce. To somebody that you might be able to work with. So that's where it started. And so I spend a lot of time pre COVID. I spent a lot of time going into prisons and speaking to women directly and always donating, signed copies of the book creating videos for different prison systems to have in their libraries.

And now it's expanded. We still do all that work. But to your point, we also help donate books and do book talks for women overcoming addiction, homelessness, and domestic violence. And I feel called to do it. And I feel like when I talk to women who are incarcerated, they say the exact same terrible things about themselves, that executives at fortune 500 companies say.

And so it's just proof all over again, that we're all the same. And we all struggle with self-doubt . So I purchased all those extra books from my publisher and I give them out to any woman who's struggling, who needs them.

Kristin: I think it's amazing what you said to you because. You can look at the term self-help or, we could sit here from a place of privilege say, I have a decent job or I have a decent, I've had, you know, a loving family or whatever, the lucky things that have happened and it's luck, it's just luck of the draw.

But a lot of what you're saying, the self-doubt like you said, it is the same and some of the things you can do to help with it. You talked a lot about meditation, for example, I mean sitting still with yourself for two minutes or 10 minutes or whatever that is, doesn't cost money, but you have to know that it's an option to you you have to know that you're facing this dragon as you would call it, that needs to be slayed to begin with.

It is really it must be exciting for you to know that, maybe somebody who hasn't come from that place of privilege, who hasn't had the loving family or the fortune to be born, into a system where you can be educated or whatever that is, has that same opportunity.

Katherine: Absolutely. I have been afforded a tremendous amount of privilege in my life. And one quote I heard about this many years ago, that just really struck me was that so many of us are born on third base thinking that we hit a triple when so many people are never even allowed in the stadium. And so first just makes me emotional thinking about it for so much of my life, because I was trained to work so hard. I believed that I got myself to third base, but I really didn't. I was born on third base and all I had to do was not screw it up, and I'm not taking away, you know, my own work ethic and what I've done in my life, but when you're born on third base, it's not that hard to hit a home run. And so for the people that are not even allowed in the stadium, if I can leave the stadium and go hand them, this book, is the joy of my life. And it's you're right. Like all of the tips and tricks in my book are free. But you have to know about them. And I had access to so much therapy and I had access to a lot of support and a lot of people that loved me that could, you know it doesn't hurt when the people love you around you. And some people don't even have that. And so you're exactly right. If I can be, an olive branch and help women that need it, it's a blessing. And it's just another example that for the first time in my life, it's not about me. It's not about selling books to be on some list or getting a bigger advance. Like it was never about that. I want to help heal people.

Kristin: I was going to ask you for a quote, but you just gave me such a good one. Is that your quote?

Katherine: Oh, that's such, that is a good one. But the one I was thinking about is one that I just saw two days ago. And I don't know who's quoted it is, cause it literallywas printed on a plate at The Dollar Store. It was not attributed to anyone, but the quote was through what you go through". And I thought that was really beautiful.

Perfection is no longer my goal, but growth is, and I mean that, growth spiritually and personally, and also struck me as, the hard times in our life that we all have. If we see it as opportunities to grow and strengthen our resolve and, be better people better to ourselves, better to others.

It positions our challenges in a different light, they're not there to destroy you. They're there to help you grow.

Kristin: Did you buy the plate?

Katherine: I did buy the plate and it's now I'm in my kitchen window.

Kristin: I love it. I was going to say if the person didn't even get the attribution for the quote you at least have to well, I don't know. Maybe

Katherine: getting nothing out

Kristin: they're not getting anything.

Katherine: maybe I'll have to Google it. I'll have to see. And maybe multiple people have said it. I don't know. But it was. It just repositioned pain for me, it was going through pain is about growth.

Kristin: Yeah. I've seen things that are similar, but I like that one. It has a nice, alliteration and rhyme and everything too. So it's all good.

Katherine: always helpful.

Kristin: Is there anything else you'd like to say to people who are listening?

Katherine: I would like to say. Just make sure you don't wait too long to love yourself that I've studied a lot of older women and older mothers in their eighties and nineties as a point of reference. And I interviewed a woman not too long ago, 85, her name's Nancy. And I asked her what advice she would give younger women, younger mothers.

And she said, just put your head down, do the best you can, and don't care about what other people think. And it dawned on me when Nancy said that, that we're all going to get to where Nancy is when we're 85, if we're lucky enough to live that long, we're all gonna say that. We're all gonna say that so many of the things we stressed about and fretted about didn't matter.

And so if we're going to get there at 85, How can you get there at 35 45 or 55? So I'm not trying to take women to a destination that they're not already going. I'm just trying to help you get there faster. And so, um, you to read the book, listen to the book. And I promise you, it will be life-changing.

Kristin: One last thing based on what you just said, has your mom said anything that has changed her own " mom complex" or things about how she felt maybe as a mother, based on your work.

Katherine: Yeah, I think there was some pain for my mother in this journey, in that she really didn't know how much pain I was in, as a teenager. And I think. That was hard for her to hear, as you can imagine, it would be very hard for me to hear that from my own children. And so I think that was a challenge, but I think she is so proud of me helping other women, you know, solving this for myself and helping other women.

And so she's always been very proud of me. Always loved me very much, but I think the pride is even deeper, knowing that I was able to address this and help other women do the same. But being a mother is hard. And I think her, reading the first chapter of my book was painful, but it's my truth and it's who I am and it's my lived experience.

And it's been a joy to share it with my parents. And they're very proud.

Kristin: Thank you so much for joining me today, Katherine, it's been such a pleasure to chat with you. I'll put all the details about Slay Like a Mother and where they can watch the video and everything in the show notes, because I definitely think everyone listening should definitely watch that video, Pick up the book and just thank you very much.

Katherine: Thanks for having me.