143 Empowerment through Vision Crafting and Strategic Life Planning with Katrina Purcell

0:00 Well, hello and welcome to Connect, Inspire, Create. I'm your host, Carol Clegg, a progress and mindset business coach, here to help you thrive and flourish and turn those challenges into opportunities for growth. I'm so pleased you're here. Join me for the discussions that I hope will not only encourage you, but also provide the dose of inspiration that you might just need today. This podcast is all about giving you your weekly dose of practical strategies, motivation and insightful conversations designed to boost your business skills, personal growth and happiness. So, whether you're looking to find balance, say goodbye to procrastination, or just in need of a friendly nudge towards your goals, remember we're all on this journey together, so grab your favorite cup of something, be it coffee, tea or something else, and let's dive into this conversation today.

1:02 I also want to thank my new listeners who are here. As I mentioned, I am back after taking a short break and I just am so excited about the fabulous guests that I have joining me, and today my guest is Katrina Purcell. Introducing you, Katrina, I just wanted to share a little bit about you being a results-driven business strategist and an operation leader who specializes in business transformation, but I am looking forward to hearing so much more about behind the scenes with Katrina, so welcome.

1:42 Thank you so much for having me. I love what you shared about the passion and enthusiasm for life and that you had a lot on your plate. At one stage you spoke about and I just this is fascinating a full Ironman, an executive MBA program, and you were working full time. So take us on that journey. What did that look like? Sure, I certainly love a full plate. I often joke that if I have to just sit I'm going to come up with something to do, and so you know, my family and my husband know that that's probably dangerous. So the full Ironman happened first. A friend of mine said she wanted to sign up for the race, asked me to join her, and I didn't really know how to swim very well.

2:26 I didn't own a bike. I hadn't ridden a bike in years. When my dad tried to teach me how to ride a bike, I used to jump off If I felt like I was going to crash. I would just bail out. And so it took a lot of training and a lot of effort and putting together a plan and a team and getting a coach, and so when I completed that race it was such an exhilarating feeling, both mentally and physically, to overcome the challenges that come about. And about a year later I was having some work challenges and I thought maybe I should get an MBA. I think the discipline of training for the race showed me that I had these extra hours in the day and I was able to structure my schedule in such a way that I could create that accomplishment.

3:06 So why not now structure those hours to pursue education? And so I did a program at Columbia University which allows folks who are working full time to go to school on Saturdays, and it's two year program. You take three classes every Saturday for two years and you're able to take electives and other things at night or block week classes, but essentially you're in school every weekend for two years and it was so worth it. It was such an exhilarating accomplishment at the end of it, and so in a different way than the Ironman, but I think I'm just the kind of person who likes to be busy. I like to have a lot of things to do. I feel like I work very well when I'm structured and when I am able to understand that I'm working towards a larger goal.

3:51 That is incredible and I love you know the association because, yes, preparing for an Ironman is huge and especially, as you shared, you know, not coming from riding a bicycle or being able to swim. So that dedication, I'm curious to know that. You know you mentioned that you left corporate America to launch your own company. Was that before the MBA or after? the MBA. It was after the MBA, so I launched my company last year. For me it was really a culmination of all the different things that I had done up until that point. For a long time I had said I'd love to start my own company. I just don't know what I would do. If someone has a great product idea, I would go and I could execute it.

4:31 But I didn't have a great idea. But last year, while helping a company do a Series B fundraiser, I realized that a lot of the investors were looking for companies that were more efficient. They were looking for them to be using their capital in a better way. They were looking for operational excellence, and a lot of startups and a lot of companies don't necessarily have access to the talent that they need to be operating at that level of efficiency, because in the past they were able to burn cash and as long as they were showing revenue and they were getting customers, that was fine, and so this shift took a while for founders to really understand, and in going through that process of raising money, I realized wait a minute, my skills are actually really useful and I decided that I would feel more fulfilled if I was able to work with companies where I felt a passion for their vision, their vision, and also I now work with nonprofits as well as tech companies so that I'm able to maximize my impact and help the nonprofits maximize their impact, because a lot of them also need operational efficiency and they want to grow, they want to scale and they want to know how to do that in a way that doesn't involve just throwing bodies at a problem.

5:43 Right, yeah. And as you say, throwing money at a problem, does that involve for you a lot of travel? You find yourself. It does involve some travel. I'm very lucky I live in the New York City area, so you know the world is my oyster, Absolutely. And travel is easy from there. Travel is very easy from here, so I work with US based companies, but I do travel for onsites. I find onsite workshops to be really effective with teams. A lot of companies have moved to fully remote environments, but there's still a lot of value in a quarterly meeting where you get together in a room and you're able to workshop and you're able to exchange ideas in real time, as opposed to on a Zoom call. While Zoom has allowed a lot more flexibility and it allows people to be employed all over the world, there's definitely something to be said for in-person interaction.

6:31 So I do do quite a bit of travel, but I am based in New York. Lovely and I know you shared things about. You know you love walking and your positive mindset, and so you. You get that. It is so stunning to be in such a vibrant city and you know, get that inspiration. So what does a positive mindset look like for you? How do you implement that into your daily balance of I? think a lot of people, when they hear positive mindset, they think they have to be positive and happy all the time, and that's not true. There are plenty of days where I wake up and I think to myself today is not the day. And part of having a positive mindset is knowing how to pull yourself out of that, how to recognize it and then how to change your situation.

7:14 To you know, either have a self care day or take a walk in the park or go do a workout class or something that's able to reset the day for you. And it's just to me so important because it's not that I'm happy all the time it's that I try to find the positive outlook. I try to always make sure that when I'm interacting with folks, I assume positive intent. I try to make sure that I, when I'm going into an interaction, am giving positive energy and giving hopeful and optimism in my outlook so that other people can feed off of that. But there's definitely days where I don't want to interact with anyone and I'm not in the mood. And you don't have to 100%, always be positive.

7:55 You can have a down day, that's allowed 100% agree with you. How are you able to pull yourself out of that? Well, I like what you said about the reset, because I think that is the important part is recognizing that and then going that you can make the shift. And what does it take to make the shift? So you know, yes, it might be the walk, it might be the yoga, but it comes back to self-care. But it comes back to self-care. Exactly. It always comes back to self-care, but also self-awareness Understanding that you're spiraling into a down day or understanding that you're having trouble accessing that part of you that's optimistic and happy, and then, once you recognize that, doing something to change it. I have some when I need to. I can't remember where it is at the moment, but a wheel of words, and I think that's another space to encourage people to not just put the standard I'm angry, I'm unhappy, I'm this, I'm that, but to explore some other words to attach to the feelings that you're feeling, that just to.

8:51 I don't know if you've done something like that. I have done something similar to that and also colors. So attaching colors to the emotions that you're feeling and digging into what does that mean? And it just helps to reframe a little bit, because sometimes I think that we're afraid to experience certain emotions. We don't want to be angry, we don't want to be mad or sad, and so by taking it and putting it in a color wheel and associating with a color, it's somewhat less abrasive than maybe saying I'm really angry. You can just say I'm current today. I love that, I mean. So what's your favorite color for? yourself. My favorite color is purple. Okay, and what's the association that you've learned with purple and moods?

9:33 I mean, to me it's a very vibrant sort of royal color, yes, so vibrant royal. To me, it's a very vibrant sort of royal color. It's, yes, so vibrant royal. To me, it's also part of that blue family which is calm, that's my favorite, you can see with the glasses. Which is calm and very for me it's the water, right. So you know that concept of just the relaxing of the waves, right, the ocean's just going to keep moving and it's going to keep having that cadence which is somewhat of a soothing cadence, and so to me those colors are kind of all in the same family and that's sort of what it makes me feel. Yeah, I'm very much the blue girl. I've got blue stickies, I've got blue everywhere. And then when you spoke about ocean and blue, I'm not. Yeah, I have the right color in my role.

10:16 I'd love to one of the other things you spoke about. I mean, you love bringing women together and letting them be seen and give them advice and just sharing your journey, which I'm hoping that my listeners are going to thoroughly enjoy and be inspired. But you spoke about vision boarding and bringing together a group of women I'm presuming was this in corporate or in a startup or nonprofit. So this was. It's a great question, but this was part of my, so my company hosted it. Over the summer, when I launched my company, I started going to a lot of networking events across New York and I really started to branch out to groups that I wouldn't normally interact with, and what I did through this time was collect a lot of new relationships, a lot of people who I wouldn't have met in other companies or in other walks of life, and what I decided to do was host a vision board party where I invited people from all of these different points who hadn't had a chance to ever meet each other, may not have ever met each other without coming to this event and the thought process there was.

11:19 Really, when you're setting up a vision board, you're being very vulnerable. You're talking about your big goals for the year, you're really opening up and to bring these women together who didn't know each other I was the only common connection for any of them and have them be vulnerable and be able to talk about the things that they wanted to accomplish. These were women in their 20s, their 30s, their 40s, who were all coming together to kind of say what are the life things that I want, what are the relationship things that I want, what do I want for my career? And everyone was at different stages and it's just so valuable to hear other people's stories, to hear how they've navigated change, how they've navigated a challenge in a relationship or in corporate America or by starting their own company in corporate America or by starting their own company.

12:06 And so the goal was really to create an atmosphere where everyone felt supported, everyone felt that they could voice their big dreams and goals, and it started to spawn little subgroups where I'll see now people who I introduced at that party out at events together or doing exciting things, and it really makes my heart feel good because as you start to, you know, look at your life and your impact. For me it's thinking about when you drop a rock in a pond and you see the ripples that go out from that, and so you can't necessarily impact everyone, but when you impact one person, they go out and they start impacting other people and then other people and other people and it becomes a much larger ripple.

12:46 And so that's the part that I really love is creating that space, but then allowing now those other women to think about how can I create that same space and impact even more people. And keep just sort of moving and keep the momentum going. I can so relate to what you're sharing, because I think we are so instrumental and it's so important the community, I mean, especially where we are now. Yes, you're getting back into live events and bringing people back together again, but we need to be able to connect and then continue that and keep that moving on. And also just the respect I think, for when you do invest in these relationships, you watch them over years blossom. I've seen that just with my. I don't know where your favorite place is to build community online, but mine is linkedin, you know, just watching that over the years and the.

13:33 You know it takes time, but having a supportive community that, just if somebody was listening now and they wanted to go off on their own and sort of put a little vision board together, how did you actually do that? Was it big pieces of paper? Did? they just have words. It was so fun. So there's actually so many resources out there, probably to the point of overwhelm. Right. What we did is I got us little cork boards because I wanted to be able to use pushpins. So I bought some different kinds of pushpins, some butterflies, some flowers, some just regular, but trying to signify, you know, growth and change. And I think butterfly is such a good inspiration for, you know, cocooning up and then becoming something beautiful, but that way you can also change and move things around.

14:22 I got some beautiful colored paper from a craft store and then from Amazon I got some quote books and some they've got some amazing vision board books that have beautiful photos in them that you can cut and use. And then we also had some magazines. I think for me I really wanted specific things I was looking for, and then those came more from the Amazon books than magazines. But I think some people were called to sort of flip through a magazine and just see what they liked and what they were able to create from that. So the goal was really creativity. So I had wasabi paper, I had different kinds of pencils, different kinds of scissors, you know just, my apartment was filled with craft supplies and everyone's board looks so different and I think that's just such a good indication that it was successful, because everyone is different and they.

15:10 You know you shouldn't have the same exact board as someone else just because you had only the same materials. It's so funny how we can take all the materials and just turn it into something so beautiful. That's ours, oh. I thank you for sharing that because I just love it. That's a practical application that, for somebody who's listening, they can go. I could do this, I could just do this by myself. And the cork board because you can move it around. Yeah, I, here in my office I've got four glass whiteboards from Ikea that I absolutely love. You know, right on them and move stuff around. But I'm sort of visualizing this cork board that you can move around with you and, you know, take where you want to and then add different things.

15:52 So, thank you, I appreciate you sharing that. So, before we wrap up our conversation, I had just wanted to ask you, you know, if you had to look back at your 25 year old self, would that be a word of advice? All of the experiences that I've had since then have made me into the person I am today, so I don't think I would actually change anything, but I think the one piece of advice that I would give is really to be more confident and more settled in myself and in what I want, not what I think success is supposed to look like, based on other people's definition. I think especially in my 20s, I and when I was 25, I left Virginia where I had grown up, where I had lived my whole life. I moved to New York City and started a new life, and it was a very exciting time.

16:36 It was a very nerve wracking time. It was, you know, right going into a financial crisis, probably not the best time to move away from your support system, but it was definitely a time of unimaginable growth and a time where I really learned what I was able to accomplish, and I wish I had embodied that a little bit more and felt successful. I think I was constantly searching for oh, but people won't think I'm successful until I'm married, or people won't think I'm successful until I have this job title, or I have to. And the older you get, the more you realize it's actually about your internal happiness and what makes you happy, not a checklist box of things you have to have to get there, and enjoying the journey is really important.

17:17 Yeah. So I hope the young ones that are listening, because it's so easy. You know, you relate, you know when you're 25, you don't want to know that, but listen because there is value in just embracing who you are and I think that would be one gift that I would love to give, you know, to 25-year-olds is just say, accept who you are and, you know, start this journey. And you know, let's don't try and measure up to other people's expectations. Yes, and just enjoy every day. Enjoy it. If you learn something, that's a great day, you know. If you fail at something, great you still learn something and move on. You know. Absolutely. Yeah, put that all into the filing system.

17:58 Katrina, if you had to just wrap up our conversation and just leave our listeners with one thing that you'd hope that they'd take away or learn from our episode, what would that be? I think progress over perfection. So I think we spend an awful lot of time trying to make everything perfect and that makes us fear acting. Just try to make progress every day. Even if it's not beautiful, even if it's not pretty, even if it's not as far as you wanted to get, at least you made progress. And the Ironman training really taught me that as long as you're moving forward, you're moving. That's really all you can account for that day. Right? It doesn't matter if it was beautiful, it doesn't matter what your time was, it just matters that you move. Just make progress.

18:39 Yeah, yeah, and even if I'm thinking what you're sharing right now, if you put that into a smaller container of time and then celebrate that each baby step each day Celebration is so key. I'm terrible at that. I know that's one's got to remind me it can be so small, but it could be so small or even journaling about it at night before you go to sleep, because I think that kind of leaves you with sweeter dreams, exactly Well, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate the inspiration that you've shared with us today. Thank you for listening today.

19:20 If our conversation has sparked some inspiration for you or you could just somebody comes to mind that you think of they need to listen to this episode, I ask you, please, to go ahead and share it with others, and today I encourage you embrace your own unique way of connecting, inspiring or creating, and let it bring a sense of joy into your world. In my role as a coach, I love to work with women, business owners, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs and help them explore fresh ways to focus on their projects, find the right tools for accountability and learn how to build a positive mindset which, in turn, allows for more empathy, not only for yourself, but for others and situations.

20:03 With my personalized accountability and progress coaching, which I combine with the powerful positive intelligence program, you will find ways to shift into an overall happier space. If you would like to take the complimentary saboteur assessment, I offer a follow-up complementary coaching session to help you explore your results. Do take a note of the link in the show notes or visit my site, carolcleggcom. Until the next time, thanks for listening.