Finding Courage in Professional Path Changes

Amy Stone [00:00:03]:
Katie Kremitzos, welcome to Imperfect Adultic.

Katie Krimitsos [00:00:07]:
Amy Stone, thank you for having me here.

Amy Stone [00:00:09]:
Are you ready for a fun chat, girl?

Katie Krimitsos [00:00:12]:
Let’s do it. Bring it on.

Amy Stone [00:00:13]:
All right, so before we get to the interesting stuff, I’ve got two easy warmup questions because this is our first conversation. Share with the audience what part of the world you call home?

Katie Krimitsos [00:00:24]:
I’m in Tampa, Florida, not far from you.

Amy Stone [00:00:26]:
Actually, not far from me at all. That’s absolutely true. All right, so the next question. So that, just so that we can know more about you before we talk about the topic of the day, which is a career change, tell us as much or as little as you want about your family.

Katie Krimitsos [00:00:41]:
Yeah, I. Let’s see. In my immediate family, I have an amazing husband. Like my big fat Greek wedding husband. Like, that’s where I got my Chromitzos name from. And then I have two daughters. I have a nine year old Sedona and a six year old Savannah. So. And they both were named very specifically for, like, cities that we loved and names that were a little different. So, yeah, they’re pretty, it’s a pretty fun family. And we have a lot of birds. Those are our, those are our pets. Like, we are a bird family. We’ve got lots of birds. My husband’s obsessed with parrots and therefore I became obsessed with parrots. So we’ve got these little birds chirping around the house.

Amy Stone [00:01:20]:
That’s pretty much our thing. Or big ones. You have big ones. You have the big, big macaw type ones.

Katie Krimitsos [00:01:26]:
We have all of them. My. So yes, our very first parrot we got when my husband and I first got together 15 years ago. And she’s a small little sun conure that you could hold in your hand and. But now we have sort of a, a variety of the sizes and breeds. Let’s just say that.

Amy Stone [00:01:43]:
Wow, that is very cool. That’s a commitment. That’s a commitment.

Katie Krimitsos [00:01:49]:
That’s the best word for it. It is, it is. But they’re, they’re just such. Yeah, I’m just an animal lover and so I feel like they’re such beautiful souls. And you just realize, like, I think with any pet or any animal in general, like, once you start seeing them as these little souls, you’re like, wow. Like, they’re so full of personality. They’re so smart. They’re so, just beautiful. Like Sammy, my little son Conyer, who is the first one that we got 15 years ago, like, she didn’t, you know, we raised her from a baby and she, we didn’t have any other birds at the time. So, you know, she thought she was human. So she goes in my shirt, she snuggles, she likes to lay in bed with. Like, she just, you know, over the years she’s realized she’s a bird, but they’re just so magical. And it’s always just such a great reminder, like, you know, that we’re all just connected.

Amy Stone [00:02:34]:
So that is very cool. Some of the big ones live like 80 years, right? Yeah, yeah, that’s. Yeah, that’s. That is a commitment. Okay. So most of the guests that I talked to on the show, I’ve never met or have any connection before the first conversation. But you have a very distinctive name, and so I recognized it right when it popped up. And you and I, I were in the same place and sort of met in 2020. And so I knew. I’ve seen that your kids were younger than I have viewed your family from a distance. But all I know, really, about our topic today is that you’re going to talk to me about a major career change. And so let’s do that. Right?

Katie Krimitsos [00:03:15]:
Let’s do it.

Amy Stone [00:03:16]:
Let’s do it. All right, so before we go into the weeds of what you did as an adult, I want to rewind the clock and ask you if you remember what you wanted to be when you were about 8 or 10 years old. Like, if when you were a kid and somebody said, what do you want to be when you grow up, what would you have said?

Katie Krimitsos [00:03:30]:
I would have said I wanted to be an architect.

Amy Stone [00:03:33]:
An architect, okay.

Katie Krimitsos [00:03:34]:
Yeah. I actually really loved. I mean, this is more in, like, young high school, so, like teenage years, but I took like a drafting class. And I remember love loving, like, designing a house. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t do it technically, right. But, like, I had a whole notebook of, like, little homes that I would design. And it just was very intriguing to me to like, be creative and make a dome one and let’s put the pool in the middle of the house. You know, like kid type stuff. But yeah, yeah, yeah. And I actually went to college my very first year. My. My major, I declared a major as architecture major. That didn’t last long, but I did.

Amy Stone [00:04:10]:
So that was going to be the follow up question. Like, did you like, did you then, like pursue that and then so you sweat. You’re in school and you’re studying. And so what did you. What did you end up with as a. As a degree from school or as a focus? Not even a degree, but as a Focus.

Katie Krimitsos [00:04:26]:
So my first year at Arizona State University, I sat down with the counselor and was like, I’m going to be an architect. You know, take me through the curriculum for as an architect. And I was already in. I was already in like drafting 101 or whatever. The intro to architecture class was met still to this day one of my dearest friends, Melissa and she. She and I were kind of doing it together. And I think like by the end of that year when I met with my counselor, she was like, okay, great. Here’s the next four years of every single class that you need to take. And there was no wiggle room or very little wiggle room for anything creative. And immediately kind of the free spirit in me was like, no, no, no, no, that’s not what I want. Like, that’s not what my college is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be me trying things and experimenting. And I want to take photography and I want to try this. And that didn’t give me any room. So I immediately was like, nope, I’m not going to be an architecture major. And I kind of looked around, I was like, what can I do that allows me a lot more electives or that allows me a little bit of, you know. And so she guided me to a communication degree. And not ironically, not a broadcast journalism type of a degree, but a degree in human communication in. At Arizona State. It’s called the Huedown School of Human Communication. So it’s actually the study of how people communicate in relationships, in groups and work settings. How people communicate non. Verbally. Verbally. It’s. It was. I always tell people it’s the perfect thing to do if you’re a people watcher and you really like studying people.

Amy Stone [00:05:58]:
That’s amazing. I’ve never heard about. So my degree is in mass communications. And then as an adult I studied interpersonal communications for stuff like this because, you know. But I’ve never actually heard of that as a program. But it’s maybe the most important thing that anybody should ever. Like, they should really kind of teach it to everybody because it’s. It’s really, you know, it’s really interesting. And it makes everything. So much of what we do on a daily basis, no matter what you do is actually communicating. And so then the joke as an adult is sometimes like, oh, well, nobody uses what they study in school. Yeah, I’m always like, no, I use it every day because I learned how to research and write and craft a message and. You learned.

Katie Krimitsos [00:06:40]:
And have a relationship.

Amy Stone [00:06:41]:
Have a relationship, yeah.

Katie Krimitsos [00:06:44]:
So the. So the interesting thing is that I went, I actually got my undergrad at Arizona State and actually came to Florida. The reason I came to Florida is because I got a scholarship to go to University of South Florida for their communication department. And so I got one of the scholarship, like assistant professor program positions and was like, yes, I’m going to be a professor. I’m going to, I’m going to go, I’m going to get a PhD and then I’m going to teach. And impact, you know, I had a minor in women’s studies and so the, the collision of those all or the mixture of that all was always very intriguing to me. So I was like, I’m going to change women and I’m going to be a professor, not change women. But, you know, like, I get it, I get it.

Amy Stone [00:07:23]:
Yes, yes.

Katie Krimitsos [00:07:25]:
So at that, it didn’t take me very long. It only took me a couple months in academia to, to realize that wasn’t what I wanted to do. Like, didn’t actually want that. And so I just sort of begrudgingly finished my degree. But if people were to ask me like, what do you do as a communication degree? I would say, I don’t know any. Like, if you give me, you know, when you become a nerd, when you have a nursing degree, it’s like, here you could be a nurse and here’s all the ways you could be a nurse. Communication and even mass communication is very vague in that regard.

Amy Stone [00:07:54]:
Very vague. Yeah.

Katie Krimitsos [00:07:55]:
I, because I all of a sudden didn’t want sort of the path that I thought that I wanted. It was sort of this. Oh my gosh, I’m gazing out into this wide open nothingness of what’s possible.

Amy Stone [00:08:04]:
Yeah.

Katie Krimitsos [00:08:05]:
And the, the good and the bad about that is the good obviously is like you can create whatever you want because you’re literally going to use this anywhere in management and leadership and team building, like in, in your ability to sort of work with people.

Amy Stone [00:08:18]:
Right.

Katie Krimitsos [00:08:18]:
Which is what everybody needs in every job or every relationship. But there’s no definitive, like, here’s a list of jobs that you could get with that. It was absolutely not that. So it was who Post.

Amy Stone [00:08:29]:
Post graduate degree doesn’t fit in the LinkedIn like hacks.

Katie Krimitsos [00:08:35]:
No. So it was at a very early age, kind of once I got out of and finished my master’s degree, it was a really bumpy road to sort of like step into the professional world and sort of like, where do I fit here? What do I have a skill set doing and what do I like doing? And so that was pretty bumpy until I eventually ended up, like, quitting that world and being like, I’m gonna do something on my own.

Amy Stone [00:08:57]:
So I’m so glad you said that because that’s one of the threads that sort of pulls this podcast together and the underlying currents, which is, I think that the experience of it, Rocky, is actually the experience that most people have with the exception of the things that we all know. Right. Like, so if you study nursing, you apply for nursing jobs. If you study dog watching, then you go for dog watching jobs. But I think that most of us have, if not right out of college, then five years down the line or 10 years down the line, we have the experience of, oh, what now? And we think that we’ve done something wrong. Right. Or we think that we’re on a. Were off the path. Like, people would say, oh, you’re off track, or you’re not mainstream. And I just kind of think it’s a misdirection. And maybe there was a time in the past where that wasn’t true, but everybody I know has gone through that. I had the good fortune to graduate when the journalism industry was like, not. Was tanking. And so, like, my, my path out of journalism school was. Was full of force. Right. And also all the counselors were like, so these are the skills you have and this is how you can use them in grad school or in your life. Like, they mapped it out. All right, so fast forward to when we talk about making this change. I don’t know if that’s where we are now or. Or if it was the future. What was your life like then and what were you doing before you made the change that we’re talking about today?

Katie Krimitsos [00:10:16]:
Yeah. So, I mean, to be honest, you know, talking about a career change, I feel like I’ve probably got a good seven to eight examples of those, but I’m going to take you to the most recent and prominent one. But let me give you a little bit of a backdrop so it all makes sense. You know, I discussed sort of like bouncing around in the corporate world at some point. In 2009, I quit the corporate world with very idealistic green thoughts of, like, I’m gonna. I’m gonna do things on my own and I’m gonna be able to supplement myself or replace my salary within like, three months. So that didn’t happen. And it was a very. I wanted to.

Amy Stone [00:10:54]:
I don’t mean to laugh. I’m sorry, but.

Katie Krimitsos [00:10:55]:
No, please. It’s very relatable and very gullible. Like it’s so I’m the eternal optim. I think that that actually worked, works to my benefit because I’m the reason I quit my job. I think this is so important. The reason I quit my job. I was dating my now husband and he had started a startup company and I met him because I had written a book. You asked me what I really wanted to be. Like, I’ve always had sort of the underlying desire to be a writer, but I was never brave enough to actually admit that to myself until my young twenties when I was sort of bouncing around in corporate and like, let me write a book about how to find your true love. Because I was desperate to find my true love. So I wrote this book, needed to go out sort of on the business circuit in order to learn marketing and how to do it on my own. Meet my husband. He just started a business group, you know, my then boyfriend. And then I was inspired enough and sort of like felt powerful enough to look at my corporate life and say, if, if I don’t, I’m going to ask myself for two weeks straight, if I were to die next month, is this the work that I would want to be doing?

Amy Stone [00:12:01]:
Oh my goodness. Okay.

Katie Krimitsos [00:12:02]:
Yeah. And if I say no every single day, I’m quitting the damn job now. And I said no for every day for two weeks. And so I quit. I put in my two week notice and I was done. And I just knew, I was like, I’m gonna figure this out. I don’t know how. So I had a little few weeks of trying to like do the marketing of the book until I was like, you know, the employee in me who is used to a full time check all of a sudden wasn’t getting a full time check. And I was like panicked, like, okay, Chris, I’m gonna help you with your business. You’ve kind of got a business model going already. And let me just help you because if we both put our energy there, we can really make it happen. So there was this season from 2009 until 2012, 2014. Sorry. When he and I were doing that. And it was a big deal. It was, I call it our peanut butter and jelly years because we were barely keeping the doors open of the business. It was a, it was a thriving business, but it, it was not paying for us.

Amy Stone [00:12:52]:
Okay.

Katie Krimitsos [00:12:52]:
So it’s sort of like, let’s keep the doors open, let’s rack up as much credit card debt as we can and just like do something we love. And it taught me so much. It was like my education on entrepreneurship. So fast forward 2014, I started a podcast called Biz Women Rock. That was a business, a women’s entrepreneur show where I was doing interviews like these with women like yourself who own their own companies. And it was amazing. I fell in love with the podcasting world, but that’s not even really. So that’s the backdrop. I was in Biz Women Rock. I had my first kid, figured out the mompreneur thing. There’s a lot of detail I’m missing here, but that gets me to this point in 2018, where the business finally is sort of chugging along and moving. I’ve hit my first, you know, six figure year. I’m feeling really good about myself and feeling super inspired and like, I know how to triple this. Like, let’s do this. Like, super ready to go. So I make my plan in January. By April, I’m like, we, we closed. Q1, we’re on target. Let’s go. I’m ready to launch all these things. And then we find out, find out we’re pregnant with my second daughter.

Amy Stone [00:13:57]:
Okay.

Katie Krimitsos [00:13:58]:
Immediately, I just hear the whisper, you’re done. You’re done with it.

Amy Stone [00:14:02]:
Okay?

Katie Krimitsos [00:14:03]:
And I was like, because when we hear that intuition and it’s not what we expect, right? We have two choices. We can either keep going in, in what I now know would be like the old version of you, or you can actually listen to that whisper and you could say, okay, my intuition is always right. Okay, let me look you in the eye. Where are we going? And I chose the latter. And so I was like, okay, what are we doing? And so I took a lot of time by myself. I just, I kind of press pause on everything. I was about to launch. I kind of, like, kept low key. I just kind of did the bare minimum working with the clients that I had, kept the podcast going. And I just, I went on walks with my husband every day. And I was like, what do I do? What do I do? And one day I would spout out like, oh, my God, I could totally do this with two kids. Like a, you know, a toddler and an infant. I could. I’m going to stay in this business. I’m going to. I’m going to blow it up. It’s going to be amazing. And then the next day I’d be in tears, be like, I’m done with owning a business. I’m going to be a stay at home mom. Like, that’s what it’s going to be.

Amy Stone [00:15:05]:
Those are the only options.

Katie Krimitsos [00:15:07]:
Only options or the other. So I Vas for what amounted to a few weeks. Every day we’d walk, and I would just. He would let me talk. He would let me talk. He would let me vent. He would let me vent one day in May. So a couple weeks after all this is going down, I’m done kind of vomiting my thoughts and emotions. And in the silence, he looks at me and he says, what about that meditation idea? So what he was referring to was when I had made this big plan for 2018, one of the, like, off ideas that I had was creating a meditation podcast for women. You know, I. I was into meditation. I used it with a lot of my clients. I just. I gave it as a tool to a lot of my clients. I wouldn’t consider myself a meditation expert, but I was like, that would be cool, right? Never did anything with it because it wasn’t in. It didn’t really fit with what I was doing. So now here he was going, what about that meditation idea? And I said, what about it? And he said, what about it? And that was the opening. That was the opening for us to. I mean, within an hour, like, we were just brainstorming about what it could be, what would this be? What would I do? How would I choose to. To put it out there into the world? Why would I want to do this? And within, like I said very quickly, I just got really clear. It’d be called the Women’s Meditation Network. It would be more than one show. It’s a whole network. I knew enough at the time. I had done my research at the time, being a smart podcaster of, like, you know, months prior, like, when I type in meditation and women into Apple, what do you see? I saw one podcast, right? And I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. I can’t believe the space is open. And so I. I just. It all sort of converged in that moment of me knowing, like, having a deep. Knowing I have something to share and contribute to this space that is wide open. And I know that at least 50% of the people searching for meditations are women. And I know if I put that. If. I know if they could see themselves in my logo and in my title, I know they’ll click on me and give me a chance. And I know I have something really beautiful to share with them. And my approach to meditations back then and even now in a more mature way has always been as a writer. So I’ve always put the script first. I have always sat down and write, wrote, written scripts that are sort of a message that I want to be able to share with the subconscious, with the, with the soul of the woman listening. Sometimes they’re your, sometimes they’re your typical, typical, you know, body relaxation meditations, very practical meditations. But a lot of times they’re very much these emotional. Let me, let me talk to you in that moment of fear. Let me talk to you in that moment of feeling boxed in. Let me talk to you in that moment of overwhelm. Let me, let me say something to you that is sort of packaged in with music and with sound effects and with this emotional cadence that’s really going to hit your soul. So, you know, I started that right away within, within a few weeks of that conversation with my husband. I had my very first podcast live called Meditation for Women. And it was terrifying because I had an enormous amount of imposter syndrome. Like no one knows me for meditation, right? No one even knows I meditate. Like, no one knows this about me. They know me as a businesswoman. So how am I going to shift into this brand? So I just, as a businesswoman, I like leverage the hell out of my current community at that time, you know, really tried to get everyone over as I could to just try me out. And then it, it got legs and within three months it was getting more downloads on a monthly basis than my six year old podcast at the time.

Amy Stone [00:18:46]:
Like it was immediate validation. All right, so we went through, we went through a lot of stuff there. I want to back up. One of the things I think is really interesting is it’s like that you mentioned that you had a business podcast and a business personality and I mean, sort of a Persona, a frontward facing Persona as a business coach with a business podcast. But you had this sort of other piece of you that was doing meditation and you didn’t let people see it and you didn’t show people that. And I think that’s really interesting because I think that’s very similar to the sort of conversation you were having with yourself, like where you were battling between I’m gonna keep the business going with two or 50 kids or I’m gonna be a stay at home mom. Because those are the, those are the choices that were shown, right? It’s like you’re a business person or you’re, woo, you’re a mom or you’re in business, right? Like either of those things. And I think that we give each other, ourselves and other people a hard time still to this day when we come up against those choices, like, you know, can I straddle both of these. Both of these things.

Katie Krimitsos [00:19:53]:
Yeah. And I think the answer to that is unabashedly being myself and being ourselves because like, you know, I have almost the opposite right now where everyone thinks I’m like super woo woo. Like now I’m known for meditation. So the fact that I actually have a really wise business brain and you know, can speak about business and entrepreneurship in a pretty, you know, pretty advanced way, people are surprised by that. So they’re like, in the beginning of the brand actually really growing and getting legs. I, I saw a distinct difference. Like people sort of were taken aback by me sometimes because I would sort of lead with like, okay, this is how I’m going to grow the business. Like I was. I’m very, very business brain with this company. And so I run it. Not, I kind of run it with a beautiful combination as a creator and a, and a businesswoman where. And that’s worked to my advantage because so many people in my space are the total creative and that’s awesome. But it is not. They don’t, they haven’t yet developed sort of the business part. You know what I mean?

Amy Stone [00:21:01]:
Yeah.

Katie Krimitsos [00:21:02]:
And so they’re wonder. They’re, you know, I’ve gotten a little bit of like, how, how are you doing that? And I’m like, oh, I mean, step one to step two, step three. Right. And, and cause it. Because I wanted that. That’s how I wanted to approach it. I wanted to approach it as a very business centric desire to like express and grow, you know.

Amy Stone [00:21:23]:
Yeah. And I think that. So the word I usually use for that these days is authentic. You’re being authentic to yourself, all the different parts of you. And, and anytime we change, right, anytime we change from one silo to the other, it does get confusing. So like when, when you shift from being a professional to pushing a stroller with a baby and people like, then immediately are like, o, you know about is diapers then. And you know, and you’re like, no, actually I had a brain before I had this little human. I can. But I do have this experience. So. But yeah, I think that, I think it can be scary to do that, but I think most people do go through that. So you shift from being a person who’s hosting a business podcast and doing business coaching, but already an entrepreneur, to starting the Women’s Meditation Network, which is not just one show, but it’s a group of shows. So you have a lot of information about. I mean, people are listening to this on a podcast. They may know. But explain the difference between A podcast, like a network and just a singular show.

Katie Krimitsos [00:22:24]:
The most simple explanation is literally that I have like the network itself. The name of the network is the umbrella for 20 different podcasts that we have. So each podcast has a name and the, and it’s part of the larger network, right? So I have sleep meditation for women, morning meditation for women, affirmations for women, sleep stories. Like these are just examples, meditation for kids, Sleep meditation for kids. And they’re all a part of the Women’s Meditation Network. So it’s, it’s really just making sure, you know, from a, from sort of a, a visual standpoint. It’s just making sure that the met, the podcasts I have individually all aligned with sort of the larger brand. Which is why, which is why example, for example, like I had, the last five shows that I launched were all meditation for kids. And I deliberately launched them under the Women’s Meditation Network because it’s moms typically who are looking for podcasts for their kids. Right. So I knew that that was in line and that I wanted to be able to reach, be there when a mom was searching for a meditation for her kids.

Amy Stone [00:23:30]:
That’s so good. I also think that podcasting, audio podcasting is uniquely perfect for meditations, for guided meditations, because different from. It’s like YouTube. Like if you are going to try and listen to it on YouTube, you have, you can’t do anything else. You have to like, you know, unless you pay for the YouTube upgrade. Right. And you can have ads that pop in and all kind of stuff like that. But podcasting with the headphones on is very personal and private and it delivers it into the. Nobody knows what you’re doing. You know, you can be standing in the grocery store or in a PTA meeting listening to the podcast Meditation. Oh no, 100%. So you, a lot of the things that I thought I was going to ask you about, follow up, you like totally just went through them. Like you shared where the name, where the, where the idea came from. You were very clear on the name from the get go. You know, why you were changing, which was a change in your family situation and a disconnect between your job. You didn’t think about it all that long before you pulled the plug, which I will say that goes under the category of the confidence of a serial engineer, serial entrepreneur. It’s like not working, working. And then you talked about some of the concerns that you had that people were not familiar with what you would look at. What else were you concerned about when you were thinking of making this change, if you can remember. Yeah.

Katie Krimitsos [00:24:45]:
Oh, I remember perfectly. You know, I think ever since I’ve become a mom, I’ve always been concerned with how, how am I managing the amount of time I’m spending with my kids versus how am I spending, how am I managing the time I’m spending on my work? Both are very important to me. I, I love what I do. It’s part of my self expression. It’s. It feels very much like I, I have to do this right, so. But I always want to be very self aware of that because I don’t want to get too far in any one direction or any, you know, and so, so what I was worried about was, you know, at the time I launched it, I knew that I couldn’t just stop my other business. I was still. So there was, you know, the, the not so pretty part I’m kind of glossing over is that there was about a year and a half from when I launched the first podcast Meditation for Women to, to when I then had like, I immediately had two podcasts slash two businesses. I pretty quickly had now two kids. And then, so there was like this year and a half time period where I was still managing not only operationally but emotionally what I was doing with the other business and what I was doing with the new business, what I was doing with the new kids.

Amy Stone [00:26:06]:
Like, right.

Katie Krimitsos [00:26:07]:
I was, there was all of that. So there was like this year and a half where I was just, I can look back now and see it, but I was figuring it out every step of the way where I was just sort of like slowly stepping down my attention and my offerings for my, for my business. I was trying to do that in a way that still could provide for our family for a certain amount of time. Because then I knew like, this is a startup, like it ain’t making money right now and it’s, it’s not going to make money for a little while. So, so I was trying to like practically, but also very spiritually kind of create the path as I was walking of what this might be. And so I have to say that I kept really in tune with myself with how I felt about the business podcast and that business. I was still offering one on one coaching. I sort of pulled the plug on all my masterminds, all the other things that I was doing, and just solely focused just on the one on one clients because that’s what I really love and that’s what gave me the biggest profit margin. Right? And then I just was like, okay, everything else I can put on the business. But here I am with an, with a two month old and you know, a three year old. So what? How am I making sure this happens? In a way. So it’s. Then it became the practical. Every mom out there can, you know, nod with me on this, the very practical, like I call it my mompreneur mission statement. How much am I like? What are my values in order and how do they show up on my calendar?

Amy Stone [00:27:33]:
And how can I do this in 15 minute blocks if I’ve got a two month old?

Katie Krimitsos [00:27:37]:
Well, yes and no. Like I, it’s so funny you say that I actually don’t work well that way at all. I am not a good microman or what do you call it? I don’t, I don’t do well with multiple things at once. And so like I need to work on one thing with focused time and attention. And I thank God I know that about myself because if I so like it, for me it wasn’t how can I have the baby and on me while I’m working? Like for the most part there’s some exceptions to that, but for the most part that doesn’t work for me. So it had to be how can I have kid free time to be able to do the things that I want to do and to be able to do them very efficiently? I think if anything I’m, I’m kind of obsessed with energy management and time management both at the same time so that I could get a lot done, the most important things done in a short amount of time. And then how can I, when I’m with my kids, I’m not checking my phone, I’m not checking my email, I’m not trying to do all the other things. I’m fully with them and I’m not perfect at that. But I think I’m pretty damn good because I know that about myself and my personality. I’m not knocking it with anyone else because everyone else has their own personalities and how they work, but I’m somebody who gets very overwhelmed very fast if I have too many things and my energy feels split. So I feel like that was something I established very early on and that I was constantly sort of working through in those early years and still constantly sort of like always rearranging and kind of like reassessing that mompreneur equation.

Amy Stone [00:29:05]:
And I think that for me the piece about knowing yourself really, really is important there because I don’t know if I’m similar to you or it’s slightly different. I am A person that I. When I’m doing something, I’m doing that thing and I forget about all of the other stuff. So I have to plan accordingly. Right? I plan. I cannot, like, I cannot, like, make a. Write an email and make cookies at the same time. It’s like I have to separate them. And so that drove, like, my decisions when kids were young, because I didn’t want to be. I knew that about myself, and I didn’t want to look back and be like, oh, I shortchanged everything by not doing this. So as a result, when people say, hey, well, do you batch products? And I’m like, batch projects? And I’m like, sure, if that means I do one thing, and when it’s done, then I stop and I do the next thing. We can call that batching. But do I do 54 emails in a row? No, that doesn’t work for me. Like, you know, like, that’s the. So. But I know that other people are totally different.

Katie Krimitsos [00:29:58]:
Yeah. So, like, I’m actually an energy bachelor. Meaning, like, for example, I record a crap ton of meditations. Right. Like we. With.

Amy Stone [00:30:06]:
Yeah, I was gonna say. So all of these are yours? Yes, record them. Okay.

Katie Krimitsos [00:30:10]:
No, no. So let me be clear. So I write actually, you know, six and a half years into it, I actually only write for a few shows, and I’m recording for that show. But so I have other writers, but oftentimes I’m the voice for what they’re writing. And then I do have shows where I have other writers, other guides. And so we kind of have a. All. It’s a giant.

Amy Stone [00:30:30]:
All the things. Okay.

Katie Krimitsos [00:30:31]:
But I’m still recording a lot of meditations. And so. But when I sit down to record a meditation, like, I’m like, how many. How many hours do I have? Like, in my head, I’m like, okay, I’ve got two hours. I’m going to sit and record as many as I can. I will. I will bust out because I’m in the energy of recording. And, you know, if I sit to do emails, I’m in the energy of. Of getting checking those things off the list. So I will stay with that one task.

Amy Stone [00:30:56]:
Okay.

Katie Krimitsos [00:30:56]:
So the energy of that task.

Amy Stone [00:30:58]:
So we are different. Because I am. I’m very different. So, like, I will, like, do one thing and then I need, like, a break and I have to re. Retool for the other things. So if I write one email and then go to write another email, I’m actually still writing the first email. And I have to know that about Myself and I have to like, I have to like, separate. I have to write. Exactly. I have to like get up and go get a glass of water or I just write two of the same email, which is ridiculous. So. All right, so you talked about you have a very entrepreneurial family. Your husband also has a business. It is apparent in this story that he was supportive of this change from the get go. And so what, were there any surprises along the time? Like when you look back, so you had a lot of support, which I think is really phenomenal and amazing. But were there any surprises about like support that you needed or that you wished you’d had as you were going through this change that might be helpful for other people as they’re trying to design this in their life?

Katie Krimitsos [00:31:54]:
Yes. This is such a great question. I’m so glad you asked this. So it’s worth noting. I don’t come from an entrepreneurial family at all. I come from a lower middle class, blue collar family. And so the idea of me quitting my job freaked them the hell out. So. And everyone blamed it on my boyfriend at the time. Like, he’s a bad influence, right? But my husband has been an entrepreneur since he’s, he’s been in diapers. So he’s used to the highs and the lows. He’s, he’s. I think one vital thing to really own and to, to embody as an entrepreneur is a money mind. It’s a really positive money mindset, healthy money mindset, and, and just an overall like value mindset value. So that’s. We can unpack that for days. But like really what it is, I had such a hard time at the beginning coming out of an employee mindset of getting paid every two weeks and into this like, oh, shit, I gotta.

Amy Stone [00:32:54]:
Make my own money.

Katie Krimitsos [00:32:55]:
Right? Even though mentally I understood that it took me years to really get it. And because I’m such a financially obsessed person, I’m the financial manager, I’m the CFO of our lives. Right. I love numbers. I love moving numbers. I love managing the money. And because in the early years I saw that I would just be looking at how much runaway we have. We have two more. We have two more months until we can’t pay the mortgage anymore. Okay, what are we doing? Right? My husband never looked at that stuff because he already got like, he already got like, you don’t look at the Runway. You put, you shift your energy into how we can produce more, how can we provide more value. So more people want to pay us, right? So I, it Took me a long time to learn that lesson. But I’m. I’m saying this because while my family, who I’m very close with, they. They could not understand, but they absolutely would cheer me on in the ways that they could. They. They still probably don’t really understand what the hell I do. Like, it’s still really a weird thing that I do.

Amy Stone [00:33:53]:
Okay.

Katie Krimitsos [00:33:54]:
But they cheer me on. And in the early years especially, it would be like, you know, my mom would send me, like, oh, hey, oh, I have. I’m just gonna send you, like, the Southwest gift card. Come home for Christmas. You know, like, they.

Amy Stone [00:34:04]:
It was.

Katie Krimitsos [00:34:05]:
I so much love. So much like, let me just pay for this. Let me just do this. Because they just knew we had absolutely no money.

Amy Stone [00:34:11]:
Okay.

Katie Krimitsos [00:34:12]:
And then. But in that time, my husband has been my rock and. And my bit, and it continues to be my biggest supporter. And so when I dove into the entrepreneur world, he already was 20 plus years into. I know how this game works. He hadn’t yet. You know, he was still on his own path of mastery. But. And so there were so many ways that my ego felt so much less than compared to him. Yeah, there was a huge power dynamic that we really had to work through as a couple because we were kind of doing. We were doing the same business in the beginning. So it was this, like, oh, no, you know better. Even though maybe my intuition be like, oh, actually, we should do this, or I have the confidence to be like, I think we should do xyz. And he’d be like, oh, okay. Like, I had to build that muscle. So I. There’s so many examples, and we’ve had such an evolution, but it has taken. He continues to be the one who will cheer me on no matter what. He simultaneously is also one of my biggest critics, but in a very. I think, in a very healthy way that forces me to either stand up to him and say, actually, no, I know what I’m doing, or forces me to actually look inside and be like, you know what? He’s right. Even though I don’t want to admit it or see it, because he can see me, that he’s the closest one to me.

Amy Stone [00:35:28]:
Yeah.

Katie Krimitsos [00:35:28]:
So I. I am so lucky in that. And I think the biggest piece of support that I have ever gotten from him and will continue to get from him is everything’s going to be okay. Because I’m. I can be high stress. I can be like, I want to. I want to control things. I want to have, like, you know, what I call ROI regularity. Of income, you know, like, I like that.

Amy Stone [00:35:49]:
Yeah.

Katie Krimitsos [00:35:50]:
Where my husband is very much this kind of like the startup entrepreneur who’s used to the highs and lows. And so he’s always the one sort of wrapped my. My, you know, his. His arms around me, and he’s like, this is all a game. Let’s just make sure we’re having fun. You know, he will always do that. And I really want to tell this story because it’s so beautiful emotionally about. About that, about him. When I was making this transition from Biz Women Iraq, the. The business podcasting company to Women’s Meditation Network, because we’re both entrepreneurs, we sort of have always, like, sometimes I’m the breadwinner while he’s starting things up, and sometimes he’s the breadwinner while I’m starting things up. Right. So we’re. I’m about a year into the Women’s Meditation Network. Mind you, I’m still kind of at the tail end of, like, letting go of Biz Women Rock. Biz Women Rock’s revenues are going down, down, down, down, down. And there’s a moment at which, even though we sort of talked this out, there’s a moment at which I have to say, okay, I can’t pay anything next month. Like, I’m done. Are you ready? And we had agreed on that. And I remember that month passed, and it was the first month where he would be, like, fully in charge financially. And I. I still remember this. We were in a hotel room, and I just bawled. And he’s like, what’s wrong? And I was like, I’m having an identity crisis. I’ve never in my life had anyone pay for me. Like, I have always been a very financially independent person. And. And I just sort of. I knew what it was. And so I’m talking that through with him, and he looked at me, he said, katie, if it’s that important for you to pay for your own things, then go back to business coaching. But I don’t think that’s what you really want. I think what you really want is to keep riding this wave of something you love to do. So trust me, I’ve got it. Go. And I, like, I still get goosebumps talking about that because there’s so. I know so many people out there who don’t have that support intimately. And here I am. I feel what that feels like. And it’s the. Like, I could completely blow up and nose dive into quote, unquote failure. And I know he’s there, and I know he’s cheering me on, you know.

Amy Stone [00:38:01]:
So I think that’s special, actually. I think very few, very few people have that level of support in their support networks. And I think so. I do think. I agree that’s special. The other thing, having talked to him, bazillion moms, that moment of, is it safe for me to depend on somebody else? That scares the crap out of a lot of people. And it’s something that we do ourselves a favor. I mean, you came from women’s studies. We do ourselves a favor to talk about that story over and over again and remind people that is a moment. It’s a very vulnerable moment for people with families. And you gotta have that conversation and move forward and believe that it is going to be okay. You’re going to figure it out. You may not know what it’s going to look like, but you’re going to figure it out. All right, so very good. Okay, so in a minute, we’ll do the final fun questions, but tell people how they can find you and all these wonderful meditations and all the things.

Katie Krimitsos [00:39:00]:
Yeah. So whatever podcast app you’re listening to this episode on, Go Search for Women’s Meditation Network, you will see all of our shows there. That’s a variety that, you know, the branding is pretty similar on point for most of them, so it’ll be obvious which are ours. Or Meditation for Women. Many of our shows have that in their title. And just go listen. Or go to womensmeditationnetwork.com you’ll see all of our shows there. And I, I, I, we deliberately pump out hundreds of meditations every single month across the entire network. Because I want you to feel like you could go at any given moment, what, no matter what season of life you’re in, no matter what kind of emotional state you’re in, mental state you’re in, and you can find something that really matches with what it is you need to hear and the experience you need to have. Whether that’s a sleep meditation to help you finally let your brain stop and go to sleep and get the sleep you need, or whether that’s like, you know, the, the meditation of, you know, when you’re overwhelmed and overstimulated and you need that meditation right now, you know, right now, right now. Or I have one from the early years called Mommy Needs a Timeout. It’s a very good meditation. So, yeah, I’ve deliberately.

Amy Stone [00:40:11]:
You’re putting your kids in timeout and you’re like, sorry, we’re going to trade. You can stay here with the Blocks. Mommy’s going to timeout.

Katie Krimitsos [00:40:18]:
I mean, I’ve done that many times. Like, mommy needs a timeout right now. And you guys staying out here, so, you know, that’s where you can. Where you can access all these meditations. And they’re there completely free for you to use anytime you want to use them.

Amy Stone [00:40:31]:
I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that. Okay, so now we’re going to end. We’re going to wrap up with three questions. They’re supposed to be rapid fire. The idea is to answer with just a couple words. Full disclosure. It never actually works like that, but we go with it anyway. Okay, so let’s see what I can do. I’m the problem. I admit it. Okay, so do you have a favorite movie? And if you do, are you willing to share with us what it is?

Katie Krimitsos [00:40:54]:
Oh, my gosh. I mean, the first one that came to mind was Shawshank Redemption. That’s from a long time ago.

Amy Stone [00:41:03]:
It’s a good movie.

Katie Krimitsos [00:41:04]:
Yeah. I mean, there’s probably a gazillion others that I could. That I could name. I’m going to say Bluey, even though that’s not a movie, because I am in love with that entire show. Writers, everything. I love that show.

Amy Stone [00:41:16]:
Very good. All right, Very good. Okay, so now this one. I know you’re heavy into meditation, so this may or not be a perfect question, but what is a favorite thing you do for self care? Like for yourself? Not that you would tell other people to do, but for self care?

Katie Krimitsos [00:41:29]:
Yeah, I get outside a lot. I’m in nature. We deliberately move to a home that has space and nature, and I’m outside a lot. I spend a lot of time either barefoot in the grass or just outside. Especially when my brain starts going, so.

Amy Stone [00:41:43]:
In the Florida grass full of fire ants, you’re barefoot. I’m never barefoot. I’m barefoot.

Katie Krimitsos [00:41:46]:
You’ve got to be brave. Gotta be brave. Yes. I love it. Or I wear my, you know, I have muck boots to take me on property. So yes, it’s. I love being outside. I will do anything. I work outside. I do anything and everything I can do to be outside.

Amy Stone [00:42:02]:
When I. Many years ago, I had people in from out of town and they were looking at my yard. They live up north. And they looked down at my grass and they were like, I think I just pulled this up out of my yard as weeds. And I was like, that’s true. What we call grass in Florida is what you call crabgrass everywhere else. But yes, this is what we do. We call it Bermuda Grass. All right, so this is a weird one, but I think that we can divide the world into two groups of people. Don’t panic. This is not a political question. I promise. People who have a go to karaoke karaoke song on demand, ready to go. And people who do not have a go to karaoke song. And so the question is, are you a person with a karaoke song or not?

Katie Krimitsos [00:42:41]:
Without. I’m terrified of karaoke. Me, too. I don’t even know what I can sing. I can sing, but I’m terrified of karaoke.

Amy Stone [00:42:48]:
Okay. Yeah. There we go.

Katie Krimitsos [00:42:50]:
All right.

Amy Stone [00:42:51]:
That’s it. Katie Kremitzos, thank you for being a wonderful guest today on Imperfect Building.

Katie Krimitsos [00:42:55]:
Amy, thank you so much.