The Buzz | Kath Clarke from Kathclarke.com

Kath Clarke is a ball of positive energy and as soon as she enters your space you can feel the possibilities.

Kath always runs at life head on, collecting experiences and knowledge, meeting the incredible and above all thinking big!

If you are searching for a mentor that believes in you before you do, then Kath is your woman as she helps you amplify your impact on everything from life to career.

Please welcome to The Buzz, personal brand strategist Kath Clarke

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
K Clark is a ball of positive energy. As soon
as she comes into your space, you can feel the possibilities.
Kath is someone who is always running at life head on,
collecting experiences and knowledge, meeting the incredible and above all,
thinking big. If you are looking for a mentor that

(00:22):
believes in you before you do, then Kath is your woman.
As she helps you amplify your impact on everything from
life to career. Please welcome to the buzz personal brand
strategist Kath Clark.
I'm pretty damn excited about today's guest, and I have

(00:42):
a very strong feeling that these notes are gonna go
out the window
and we'll end up riffing about all things business. Family info.
Strap yourselves in as I welcome Kath Clark, a personal
brand strategist who has coached over 3000 people in workshops
and programmes across Australia, New Zealand and the UK, she
has spoken on stage to audiences in Portugal, London, New

(01:06):
Zealand and Sydney.
She was an Optus and my Business Awards judge for
three consecutive years and been featured in Ticking news Channel
nine ABC. This woman is passionate,
so bloody committed to helping people find their unique contribution
to business. Love what she does and how she does it.
Welcome to the buzz, Kath. Clark.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Thank you, sweetheart. Karen, it's so nice to be

Speaker 1 (01:30):
here. It's a pleasure to have you here, Kath. Take
me back to you. Finishing up high school. Where were
you headed? Career wise.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yep. It's like right between the eyes. Um, OK, where
was I headed? Well,
high school? Nowhere, actually. Funnily enough, everyone else went off
to uni, and I said no. Why? I didn't want
to be like everybody else. I didn't want to do
what I was what was expected of me. So I
jumped on a plane to the Gold Coast and went

(02:00):
and hung out with my uncle, who is an entrepreneur
and and, Yeah, I think I just I hung out
with him for about a week and and And I
think at that point things got real and I went, Oh,
this looks like hard work, too. Maybe I'll go back
to uni.
I was like, What's the least amount of pressure I
can take on at uni? I know I'll just do
the two subjects I was really good at at school,
which was art and geography and nothing either of them,

(02:24):
and just did a part time workload for a little
bit until my dad's current wife, that current. At that
point in time, the wife said to me, I think
you'd be really good at marketing, and that's

Speaker 1 (02:38):
how I ended. Was she from a marketing background?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yes, she sort of worked in the promotional space. So,
you know. Yeah. So, yeah, she had her own business.
She she's actually she was actually the, um, Lord, mayor
of Hobart. Up until recently, she's pretty, pretty extraordinary chick,
And she was the one that set me off on
that pathway.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
So then what happens? Well,

Speaker 2 (02:58):
actually, to start with I Well, I started studying journalism.
It was the first year that University of TAS
and this is showing my age had offered a media subject.
There was no such thing prior to that. I don't
know how anyone did their media in Tasmania. Up until
that point, I

Speaker 1 (03:12):
didn't clearly to the mainland.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
That's right. And so I started off studying journalism and
I nailed it. I was I was. I loved storytelling,
and I loved the whole media landscape.
Um and so I did a I did a half, um,
bachelor of commerce, half arts and marketing and journalism. And
so I majored in both of those. And at the

(03:37):
end of that, I got selected by this particular university, um, lecturer.
There was an opportunity with an SBS docco to work on.
And it was

Speaker 1 (03:47):
just Was that what you were thinking? Like? And when
you were finishing up, your media
studies were going do 100

Speaker 2 (03:55):
percent I wanted to do. And I think if there'd
been more funding in that space and I and it
had it had a bit more longevity in it, I'd
probably still be there telling stories today. The people that
I worked with back then were phenomenal storytellers, directors, writers
and I. I just can't believe, you know, like I
feel like that was sort of like the highlight of
my career at 19.

(04:15):
I mean, that sounds bad because I'm absolutely loving what
I'm doing now, but that's I kind of want to
get back at that point. It was the storytelling side
of it was just

Speaker 1 (04:22):
extraordinary. Yeah, OK, so you got selected. You're on this
SBS do

Speaker 2 (04:30):
delivering tea in tea basket to the people. Just a
little runner. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah. And what happens after that?

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Then I
I went for a job with ABC as a pop
music presenter. It was called Fly Digital, which was one
of the first digital TV channels. God, I'm so old, um,
and I I remember positioning this great big red leather

(04:59):
couch on a cliff in Tasmania and interviewing my my
one of my best girlfriend's brothers who was in a
local band and
he was getting a lot of gigs. And I did
this big sort of, you know, dynamic, sort of journal
journalistic sort of interview with him. I got my mate
to film me walking on a beach, doing some, you know,
piece to camera and this and that and the other.
And I got down to the last four people in

(05:22):
the in the in the country to be this and
I just feel like that was one of those sliding
door moments and they said to me, We want you,
but you're too old. And I was like, I'm 19.
How is that too old now, apparently in their mind,
you know, 13 year olds wanna watch 16 year olds
and so that they they changed the parameters. They actually

(05:43):
sacked everybody that had come down to that level. And
then off I went again. And I think the next
step after that was, um, jumping on a plane. No
jumping in a in a van, doing a trip around
Australia and ending up in Perth and working in documentary
in Fremantle. Yeah. Got this gig working on a snake documentary, right?
Have I stood in a pit of 100 times
snakes and let them crawl around my feet? Yes, I have.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah, it was pretty

Speaker 2 (06:08):
interesting.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah. Yeah. OK, so then what happen

Speaker 2 (06:15):
then? Uh, so then I worked in doo in Perth
for a couple of years and it was a bit
of a one of those situations where I was really
good at. Well, actually a director told me this right
between the eyes. She said, Cat, you're so good at
a B and C. But you're terrible from D through
to Z.
And it's only just now that I realise that it's
because I'm a creator, not I. I'm not a detail

(06:37):
oriented person, but I was I was thrown into a
job there where I was essentially researching stories, connecting with
incredible people in very small indigenous communities and outback Australia,
you know, get finding out stories about about snakes and
just various things that it was. It was sort of
like a, um it was a bit of a rip
off of Steve, but Steve Irwin, actually what we were

(06:58):
sort of producing.
And, um, but I I was My job was to
find those stories, But then I was also the production coordinator.
So then I'd organise the crew. Um, I'd make sure
everyone was fed. I was like the mum on the
on the on the shoot trips. So I'd go away
for weeks at a time and come back and my
partner at the time who turned out to be my
husband is now now no longer, um, he was studying architecture,

(07:18):
so he stayed put and I travelled all around and
just had this extraordinary time. And then, unfortunately, all the
funding for docco at that time dried up, dried up
and I found myself working in reality TV,
which was the beginning of the end of my TV career.
I just couldn't do it, man. I ended up working
on this studio show show called Where are They now?

(07:39):
And I really, really, honestly believe that that show should
have been No one gave a shit in the first place.
So why are we doing a like a like a rejoin? Like,
where are they now? And being yelled at by Molly
Meldrum was was a moment, You know where I just went. Mm. So,
you know, this is what my career
come to having the right whiskey in the in the
green room for

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Molly. And how old were you at that point? By

Speaker 2 (08:00):
then, I was about 2520

Speaker 1 (08:03):
six. And during all of this time, were you Did
you ever did that entrepreneurial spark come back from when
you Revis? When you were visiting it sort of 1819.
Did you ever think 01 day I want to work
for myself? Or were you quite happy in that
media TV?

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Well, see, everybody in my family runs small business runs,
small business, actually, not my immediate family. And so I've
I've I grew up with a shopkeeper as a stepdad
and a pharmacist. Like my dad was a pharmacist but
ran his own. So I was working in his pharmacy from, like,
day dot you know?
So, um, that was always running in my blood. Just
the ability to sort of manage yourself and and make

(08:41):
something

Speaker 1 (08:41):
like you. I'm my family is the same, so that
was

Speaker 2 (08:45):
always there. But I guess I'd never really consciously thought
about Is that the pathway I'm gonna go down
and with TV you, but sort of reflecting on it.
You actually kind of are doing that anyway, because you're
doing these contract gigs, and so you're constantly selling yourself
to get the next gig. No one takes a break
in television. And that's why the burn burnout is real
in that industry. Because you're always wondering what's the next gig?

(09:07):
Am I gonna have the next gig?

Speaker 1 (09:08):
You know? So you're in a subcontractor? Kind of.
OK, OK, so you're not employed by you do

Speaker 2 (09:13):
get employed, But you get employed for the period of
the contract. So and most shows run 1212 parts. So
you get to, you know, that might be a three
month gig, and then you're back on your back out
on the streets again. So you gotta hustle again, you know?
So then

Speaker 1 (09:26):
what happens after? Yeah, what happens after Molly? Mel?

Speaker 2 (09:31):
I wonder if he knows that he was responsible for
the reason I quit. Um,

Speaker 1 (09:36):
it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Um, yeah. No.
So what happened next?

Speaker 2 (09:42):
After Molly? Um, let's call it Molly Gate. Um, we
What happened then? Uh, Molly. Molly? Oh, we went overseas. Um,
so that was so that was Yeah. That was That
was kind of something that was sort of
special about our relationship at the time was that we
we we weren't scared to travel. And, um so my

(10:03):
ex-husband said, you know, we can live anywhere in the world.
Let's do that. What? What do you want to do?
And we'd we'd move back to tassie. We got married,
and and that was when we were sort of like, Well,
let's go have the times of our life. And he
wanted to study for a F
with a famous architect as an intern. And I had been, um,
in Tasmania, you know, I couldn't get a TV gig,
so I ended up working on a radio show with

(10:25):
Charles Wooley, who used to be on 60 Minutes and
I was producing and researching for him and then on
my lunch breaks, I'd so I'd get up at 4 a.m.
do that until, like, 11 a.m. And then I'd run
down to this cute little cafe in the Salamanca Arts
Centre
and cook out of this cookbook called Rose Bakery. And
she's Rose Carini and she started a bakery, an English

(10:45):
bakery in the heart of Paris. And I just thought, Well,
if I'm really gonna dream, I'd love to work for Rose.
So I started writing her letters, and while we were
in Tokyo, she finally wrote back and said, Yeah,
come and work for me. And so I jumped off
the plane after a year of living in Tokyo, supporting
Anthony's dream to work for a famous architect, which he did.

(11:06):
Then we landed in Paris with about 200 bucks in
a bank account, and, uh, and and I remember a
friend of ours. Actually, he was married to a doctor
and he met us. We we had a little stopover
in Ireland, and I said to him,
So you know, Rory, you know, he's He was pretty frugal,
pretty good with money. I guess you can be if
you've got a wife. That's a doctor. Didn't he always
seemed to forget his wallet. And, um yeah, and I

(11:28):
And he goes, I said to him, You reckon we'll
be all right with 200 bucks to get to Paris
and get started? And he goes, Yeah, of course you will. Yeah,
you'll be right. And we really And it meant so
much to me that Rory said that, and I was like, Oh,
Rory thinks we're gonna be fine. We're gonna be fine.
And then he just looks at me and goes,
Oh, God, no, No, you're not, you know, And I
was like, Oh, God, OK, we're not gonna be OK.

(11:48):
So I sort of arrived there and I was just like, Right,
Let's hustle. Let's get this thing done. So I walked
in and I looked Rose in the eyes and I
practised this wine in French. You know, I'm here for
job
with Rose da Da, and her husband, who's quite typically French,
looked at me and just speaks to me in plain English.
I'd spoken in this my best French, and he just

(12:09):
looks at me and speaks to me in plain English
and goes, I don't think you do have an interview
here today and I went,
I don't And he said, No, no, there's no job
for you here. And then Rose Side was up next
to him and she said, Are you the lady that's
been writing letters? And I said yes. And I was
arriving there thinking I had a job. This was gonna
be us for the next year and I was gonna
support Anthony. And this is gonna happen. No, no, there's

(12:29):
no job. And I was like, Well, she said, no. Yeah,
now you've got an interview and I said, Oh, OK,
so I've just moved my entire life from Tokyo to
Paris to work for you, and it's an interview. All right, well,
let's hope I nail it, and I did.
And then I ended up managing this bakery for a year, Um,
speaking in only present tense French, um, to people that
thought I could understand a lot more than I could.

(12:50):
So that was an interesting

Speaker 1 (12:51):
conversation. So that's really stepping out of your comfort zone
like security, financial security. Um, not speaking the language, working
in a totally different industry. How do you do that?

Speaker 2 (13:05):
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know that I,
um
I don't know that. I think what you're saying is
that that's stepping out of a typical comfort zone that
wasn't one of my comfort zones. Like that wasn't a
problem for me. I actually always I've never really Financial
security has never been a, um, driving factor for me, actually,
experience and
purpose and, um, gathering experience and telling stories was my

(13:30):
was my driving force. So it wasn't even really scary,
to be honest, like this was just this I was
I was accumulating chapters. You know, I didn't mind. So

Speaker 1 (13:41):
you wasn't scary. That's amazing. That's amazing. So you managed
to stay a float with $200 until payday? Well, this

Speaker 2 (13:50):
is where the synchronicity came in
when we were in Ireland visiting Rory. I got on
Craigslist trying to find us a house, and I connected
with this woman called Renata. It's so weird. I remember
all these people's names and she had an apartment in
Paris for rent, and I texted her and she said,
and and I And, you know, I was quite worried

(14:11):
first about just securing something, but let alone something we
could afford in an area that was within walking distance
to Rose Bakery. And she answered my text and I said, Um,
you know, it'd be so great if we could meet, like,
because I'm really keen on this place And she said,
She said, Well, where are you now? And I said, actually,
we're in Dublin and she went, Oh, so am I.
She was, like, five minutes down the road. So we

(14:34):
met for coffee, and she's like, the apartment's yours. Here's
the key.
Pay me rent when you can afford it. This happened
to us all the time because we were just You

Speaker 1 (14:45):
were living in your passion. You were living. You weren't
worrying about anything. You were just being in the moment.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
And then Anthony rocks up like he's so hussy. This guy,
you've got no idea rocks up and he's he's like, Oh,
I'm I'm gonna get a job with, um, an architect.
And
I was in my heart of hearts, like every girlfriend
I wanted him to sacrifice for me, you know, like
so I was like No. You're gonna work in the
Aussie pub while I do my thing now, because I
just travelled all over Tokyo while you did your

Speaker 1 (15:14):
thing that time.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Anyway, we get there and he gets a job with
John Novell, who's the most famous? He just won the
Pritzker Prize for architecture that year. Like it was just
synchronicity art. It was just opportunity. Oh, yeah. It was
just
So you're

Speaker 1 (15:29):
living the dream right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were.
What is it? You know, obviously you you, um you
manage the bakery, and you lived a French life, you know,
around French business, 100%. What do you think French do
best in business,

Speaker 2 (15:47):
I reckon. Creating experience. And I reckon, um, Japan,
um, they they do it well there, too. It's the
customer experience. Um, and I and I know that that
might not be people's first thought, but when you think
like every day I walk to that bakery, I walked
past five other bakeries and they were, you know, the

(16:09):
the the actual kitchens were a lot of the time underground,
And so you'd have this sort of, you know, strip
of windows that were just on pavement level
and the aromas that just leaked into the street. It
was just extraordinary, you know? And
so I and I think, and you walk into those big,
um uh, shopping. What do you call them? Like you know,

(16:33):
those beautiful shopping complexes.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
And yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
And everything is just, um, a feast for the eyes
and a feast for the senses. And I found that
in Tokyo as well, it was exactly the same, um,
in a different way. You know, that's much more like
Paris is much more gritty. But in Tokyo, it was
so refined,
and you know, the packaging of things that which you
know from a sustainability perspective makes my heart leap. But

(17:01):
watching the care, you can buy this tiny cake and
it'll come in this gorgeous wrapping and then another wrapping
and another wrapping, and then you into this gorgeous bag
and you end up you go shopping for three things
and you come home with, like, you know, 10 kg
worth of luggage on the train because there's just so
much experience

Speaker 1 (17:18):
and the attention to detail and yeah, yeah, Amazing. Ok,
All right, so then it's back to Australian shores. What
was it it was? How does the move go there? Why?
Why does it all come to an end when you
live in the dream?

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Well, at the time, um well, actually, because you said
you live in the dream, and I and and I
said yes, but there was a little thing in the
back of my mind that was no. And it was,
um it was what I was missing was a sense
of belonging.
I wa I'm I'm not. I'm an amazing traveller when
I've got somewhere to root myself, you know? And And

(17:58):
when I know my community is and I can come
back and be a part of something, I wasn't a
very good floater. I wanted to be known and understood.
And to me, that creates that sense of belonging. And
that was what was missing in Paris, even though it
was extraordinary. Um,
and, you know, there was some, like, amazing experiences. One time, actually.

(18:21):
I walked into a bottle shop and said, um, ju
VB the vans, um, preservative. And she just looked at
me and she goes, So you want a bottle of
wine without condoms
and I went Well, that wasn't exactly what I was
trying to say. It's just saying I drank a bit
much the night before and it's giving me a little headache.
She said, Sue, that's the word you're looking for. I

(18:42):
was like, Thanks so much. Yeah, so So, you know,
funny times, great times. But without that sense of belonging I,
I wanted to come home. Um, I knew that I
was I actually kind of always knew that even being
from tassie that
and having lived in Sydney and Perth and Paris and
Tokyo that I was always gonna end up back in Melbourne.
Half of my family's from Melbourne, But, um but not

(19:04):
necessarily a half that I'm close with. Um But I
just knew Melbourne was my city and I wanted to
start creating that community.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yeah, beautiful. So the call of
and and and you know what better place to be
part of that than your first job back? I understand
what Victorian farmers

Speaker 2 (19:23):
market. Well, yeah, I sort of, um I came back actually,
having worked in the bakery, and I came back and
I thought wouldn't it be cute if I had this
great little cake business that I could supply different, um,
cafes with cakes while I have a baby.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
It wasn't the farmers.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
It was sort of in parallel. I started frank food
and me my my first ever brand. And I met
people from the farmers markets, and I'd actually met one
of the key players from the Melbourne Farmers Market. Um,
group was a group of accredited farmers markets.
Um, Miranda. I met her at the slow food saloni

(20:05):
in Italy, and I went up to her and I said,
I'm I'm living in Paris at the moment. I'm so
pleased to meet you because I'm gonna come back to Melbourne,
and I'm gonna start a little cake business. And I
wanna sell at the farmers' markets. So

Speaker 1 (20:16):
you knew then. So you knew in Paris that you
were gonna go home and and start that up. And
where did that? Where did that come from? I

Speaker 2 (20:25):
think, um,
I do You know what it probably like thinking about it.
It probably came back from playing sylvan and bears with
my sister in that cute little bakery that I don't know,
something childhood. I just felt like, um
what I I did have this drive when we were

(20:46):
living back in Tassie and we were saving up to
go overseas and getting married and all that stuff I did.
I baked every weekend all weekend, and I was just
feeding people with it. And I just, um I had
that real passion of
having grown up in Tasmania. And I didn't realise this
until I lived in Paris. Just how connected I was
to food and Land and Taro are. And, um and

(21:09):
I and I really, really am still very driven around that. Like,
if there was a way that I could be kind
of become a bit of an exclusive brand strategist and
marketer for Australian farmers, I would if they had any
money to spend, To be honest, because I'm so so
committed to supporting local and sustainable
food, which is what? How I ended up simultaneously ending
up at the Farmers Market Association.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
Right. We have to be careful because you tend to
have a way of things making things happen, so it
could be very well on its way to you. Um, yeah, OK, ok. OK,
so your you've got your cake shop, you've got your
time at the farmers market. How are they going? Like
how are you fitting all of that in?

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Well, um, yes, I am pretty good at doing seven
things at once. So I also had a job in
a bakery, um, called sugar dough on Lygon street at
the same time as all of those things. And, uh,
but

Speaker 1 (22:04):
how does that happen? Like, how does that happen if
you've got your own cake shop? Doesn't that have to
be manned?
The hours that you would have been working at Sugar Day?
It wasn't

Speaker 2 (22:13):
It wasn't a cake shop. I was a wholesale manufacturer.
So I'd get up and I'd go in on Saturdays.
I'd go to the farmer's market and buy all the
fresh produce from all of the local local growers. Um,
and I knew the names of my pear grower, my
Citrus grower, my rhubarb grower and all of them, um,
And then I'd go to my kitchen, which to start

(22:34):
with it was at home until I got a a
contract with, um,
a cafe that was in David Jones called Sensory Lab.
The same guys that own ST Ali, um started this
cafe and I became one of the their their cake supplier.
So that then kind of grew my business exponentially. Um,
actually beautiful. Um, Benjamin Cooper, Who's the head chef? Executive

(22:56):
chef of Chinch. He
I was running sensory lab at the time, and so
we've got a nice connection with him, and he's local, actually,
in Molenbeek now, which is nice. I run into him.
So So we that kind of kicked off. So the
brand took off. Then I started making Christmas puddings and
manufacturing that. So, Yeah, so I do Mondays in the
in the in the, um, kitchen Tuesdays, Delivering,
um, Wednesday's book work Thursdays in the kitchen Friday delivering farmers'

(23:19):
market Saturdays. And, yeah, there was a bit of crossover
with sugar dough. I think I was doing a couple
of days, just as that was starting, you know, until
I had enough. I ended up with about 30 cafes
around Melbourne that I was

Speaker 1 (23:29):
supplying.
So so then what happens? Well, then

Speaker 2 (23:33):
I got pregnant. Yes. Bless that blessed child. And the
day that I realised that he didn't love going to
sleep next to an industrial dishwasher, um,
and screaming, um you know, like I was like, Oh,
that sounds like a womb, you know? And then I

(23:55):
think I just took it to the next level. One
day I remember driving back along warrier way, calling my
mum after a full day of baking with a three
month old in a pram, and he had screamed the
entire day with no sleep, and I just felt like
the worst mother in the world. And I was crying
and he was crying, and I was talking to my mom.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Oh, God.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Why don't they have, like, emergency mother lanes on the
freeway that you can just overtake everybody and say, Do
you have any

Speaker 1 (24:22):
idea what's happening right now?

Speaker 2 (24:25):
So that was a moment, and I thought, I think
I need to sell this business.
And did you Was

Speaker 1 (24:30):
it that clear? Were you not thinking? How else can
I do this? Can I get an extra support?

Speaker 2 (24:36):
I've done all that by this point. I I've just
fast forwarded a couple of years, a bit of time there,
So I did a lot of while I was pregnant. I,
I planned for all that and I brought on, um
I had that, uh, the local tafe. You had, um, students,
um, that need work experience. And so, yeah, the thing was,
it wasn't that financially viable, to be honest. So what

(24:59):
had happened was I'd ended up with all of these, um,
kids working for me that wanted to have all of
this experience. And I thought I looked around and went,
If I'll just pay all you people like honestly, this
is not a financially viable business. What was financially viable
was the brand that I built around it accidentally. The
story of Frank, who was my grandfather, who I'd never met.
And my guardian angel

(25:19):
and food and me. And there was a whole story
around the brand. And so when I realised that, I
just couldn't be putting her up three by three marquees
with a baby strapped in the front, Um and, you know,
putting him to sleep next to an industrial dishwasher. Um,
that was the moment where I went. I think this
needs to end now. And this this thing that I
had visioned, which was going to be, you know, I.

(25:42):
I kind of imagined buying a big farm down in
Gippsland or something like that and starting my whole own
food brand,
and it wouldn't just be baking it. It'd be a
whole lot of things under that under the food and
meat brand. And I had this whole vision for the brand,
and I decided to sell it. And I thought, How
do you even do that? Like? And I was. I

(26:03):
only asked $15,000 for it, right? Um, and that was
probably all it was worth. And I just ended up
putting up some signs in local cafes with those little
rip off tabs along the bottom
poster. Number two, a woman walks in the door. Her
husband's a chef. He's been at home looking after the
child she was working. She'd just done a deal on
some software she'd developed and sold it to Deloitte.

(26:26):
She was like, That's, you know, a piece in the pot.
15 grand. Here you go. Handed it over. Gave the
brand to her husband and guess what he did. They
bought a farm in Gippsland, and it went on to
become like the The brand lived out its vision anyway,
just without

Speaker 1 (26:39):
me. Yeah, Yeah. Oh, my God. And you hadn't shared
that with her the big vision. Holy moly. How did
you How do you reconcile that, though? Like I mean,
it's beautiful that it went on to, you know them
to live out that vision. But how do you make
peace with that?

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Oh, it was. I make peace with it because I
know that I'm a creator, not a maintainer. Yeah, and
I was done. I was done with the maintenance. You know,
food manufacturing is not that sexy.
As it turns out,

Speaker 1 (27:10):
speaking to the listener who might be on the edge
of doing exactly that, making a new business idea happen.
What pearls of wisdom would you share that you think
would have been nice to know, Starting out.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
I think that probably one of the pivotal moments for
me that I now look back on. Uh, that was 2012.
So what have we got? 12 years, basically since I
sold that business
and the reason I got out of it was because
I was trying to do too many things. I had
too many products in my product suite,

(27:46):
and I was really inefficient with the way I ran
the business. And my cousin, who had an MB a
and was, um uh, working in efficiency and acquisitions and
da da da da da for cabbage reps At the time.
I remember one day she came over to my house
and she said, You need to start organising things better
like your day, your timings, the size of your containers,

(28:08):
how they fit in your fridge, she said. Because if
you can even buy yourself back 10 more minutes a day,
even if you're just lying on this couch with your
feet in the air,
you can do this more efficiently, you know? And that's
the only way you're gonna scale this business. And she
was so right and I didn't listen to her because
I I because I had this real belief that if
I made it more efficient and more scalable and more

(28:31):
businessy that it was gonna lose the passion and the
purpose and da da da So I'd had this twisted
limiting belief that was entangled together. That actually meant, ironically,
that I had to step away from the whole thing
and kind of, you know, I mean, it turned out
beautifully and and and on I go, and that's totally fine.
but at the But it was funny because simultaneously at

(28:52):
that time, I I ended up When I moved into
a AAA commercial kitchen, I sold the oven that I
had at home. It was a sort of like a
portable big oven.
Um, that made the whole house vibrate when I turned
it on. And you could only run electricity up one
side of the house when you had that on, because
otherwise the whole thing would shut down. It was

Speaker 1 (29:09):
hilarious. Not even gonna mention what council you were in.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
It was all

Speaker 1 (29:17):
OK, so I'm really not gonna be now,

Speaker 2 (29:20):
And, um and this chick came to me and she said, Oh,
you know, I'm gonna buy this this oven off you
and I live just around the corner. I'm gonna start
my own little,
um, baking business, too. And I was like, Cute. Good
luck with that. You're gonna hate it in, like, two
years time. And, uh, anyway, but she did the right thing.
And this is what I think that I wished that

(29:41):
I'd listened to my cousin

Speaker 1 (29:42):
at the time would be

Speaker 2 (29:44):
one product and do it well before you scale. Don't
try and be something to everybody because she did one thing.
She made these cookie sandwiches and I saw them in
the cafe just downstairs. We were just and she's still
going strong, but a bing and she's all over Australia.
And she did one thing really well and scaled it,
you know? And now

(30:04):
she's got this brand that everybody knows, OK? And I
avoided that at all costs. I loved being something to everybody.
The vegans, the gluten free the this the that.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So pick your line and stick in it.
Um OK, so then I think my research is correct.
You might move to the UK.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
No, no. Didn't move to the UK. Um, no. What
did I do here? Because

Speaker 1 (30:30):
where did one of one of many come in? Was
it that UK based?

Speaker 2 (30:33):
My sister came here,

Speaker 1 (30:36):
so

Speaker 2 (30:37):
yeah, so one of many was a creation over a
AAA cafe table in, um, Carlton North, where my sister was, um,
nursing her first. So she she got She lived in
the UK. She came, she got pregnant and I talked
her into coming back here to have the baby. I said, Babe,
it's gonna be really hard to do that on your

(30:57):
own over there. So they came back her and her
husband and they lived in Carlton North, just around the
corner from us. And we created one of many in
this cafe, and it was born out of
Joey essentially nursing this child in the dark and realising
that of all the women, she'd been in very successful businesses,
that she'd run herself up until that point, realising that

(31:18):
all the women around her,
um, she'd read that Gandhi quote be the change you
want to see in the world. And she she looked
around all the women that she was working with and
and men in that fact and realised that they were
the ones that he was calling. That's that's who he
was talking about is us to be the change, not

(31:39):
some far off, you know, distant leader that we can't touch.
That's gonna do something magical and fix everything. It's us.
And so she created, um, the vision for one of many.
And we got a brand strategist involved at the time
in the, um in the development of it and the
naming and the all the visual identity.
And I just loved that process. And then I realised

(32:02):
I married that back to what I'd done in frank
Food and me and how I'd created really a business
that was not worth anything much on paper. But the
brand was worth something and just the power of that
storytelling and that brand. And so one of many was
born out of that moment. And now. Then she moved
back to the UK. And
and took that on, and I worked by correspondence with that.

(32:23):
So I was in 2014 through to 2017. I was
I was there every day, overnight, working all hours. Yeah,
that's how I raised Artie. Actually was working overnight in
on UK times and nursing during the

Speaker 1 (32:37):
day. Yeah, right.
Oh, my gosh, that sounds intense. And were you on
your own at this point? No, no, no.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah. No. Anthony and I were still together, and, um
and yeah, but that was, you know, that was probably
part of the reason, right? Like he's working during the day.
I'm working during the night. Didn't make much of a
great relationship.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yeah.
Oh, OK, so then one of many you're working full time,
but out of hours, basically, um, and you've got a
whole lot of new skills adding into the mix, right,
Because you're helping with the setup, your sales, your like,
public speaking, which, you know, my next question was going

(33:19):
to be around, um, again being out of your comfort zone.
But I can imagine your answer is going to be
the same, right? It's like, Well, this is all part
of the story and it's the next chapter.
But over that time, did you know self doubt or
imposter syndrome? Come in at any time when you were
really doing stuff that you hadn't really done before?

(33:40):
Yeah, it

Speaker 2 (33:41):
was, um,
it was It was less, um
what was it?
I'm a really fast processor. So I see the vision,
and I just want to be there. I'm not super
patient with the work that it takes to get there sometimes.
And I learned so much from my sister in those

(34:04):
sort of three years that I worked with her closely
with her and her husband building that business. Um, she
knew a lot about marketing, um, and a lot about sales.
She's She's an extraordinary saleswoman, and
I just kind of almost did like an apprenticeship with her. Really? Totally. Yeah,
she was she she'd already run. The first business she

(34:25):
ever ran was AAA multimillion dollar business per year. Immediately,
she used to run a speaker training company. Many of
Australia's best speakers were trained by my sister, and then
she she she wrapped that business up because of this
calling to something greater.
And so she, um yeah, so it was It was
quite an quite an amazing sort of an apprenticeship, you know,

(34:46):
just living and listening to everything that she was doing
and and, um, and and and how she sort of
set the business up.
And so I guess it was less less imposter syndrome
because I had her by my side. But what it
was was a sacrifice. Like I needed to really back myself.
We'd gone into partnership, and I was a co-director on

(35:06):
this on this company. And, um, I needed to really
back that my sweat equity going into this was gonna
be worth something.
And so what it really was was the tension of
holding that vision while my partner and nobody else around
us could see it. And Joey and I could see it.
We knew exactly what we were doing. Uh, but that

(35:27):
was hard. And there was one day where I I
called her, um, on Skype, back when everyone used Skype. And, um,
I had eczema from head to toe, which is what
I get when I get really, really, really stressed.
And we were so broke, like, so so broke. I
think it was It was about 2014 or 15. And, um,

(35:49):
Artie was three or four. I was working basically five days,
but full time. Oh, I think he was in, like,
two or three days of childcare at that point. Um,
massive invisible load, mental load my husband had was had
just started the architecture practise and was making no money. Um,
had very little money. Um, he was starting out on

(36:10):
his sort of artistic journey as well. So it was
just a lot of pressure,
and I called her up and I said, um, you know,
what do I do like this is like, I'm beside myself,
and she said, Now, I want you to go tomorrow
to a cafe and buy yourself a cup of coffee,
and I want you to write down and stream of
consciousness for as long as it takes what life looks
like when the problem's gone away. She didn't specify which problem.

(36:32):
She just left me with that, and I went I
can't even afford a cup of coffee and she said, Oh,
for God's sake, I'll pay for the coffee Just go
to
So I went off to this cafe and I sat
there and I wrote three pages of stream of consciousness
of what life looked like. And I painted out this
extraordinary house that I still see to this day that
I will build that was sitting up above the trees,

(36:54):
that mist hanging over this forest black box, full glass
on the front, AAA big glass sort of walkway out
to this hexagon, um, workspace that had a border collie
on the mat and an iMac there
and out this side was the at the other side
was bedrooms, and this gorgeous man walks in the door. Big,

(37:15):
bushy beard, salty grey hair puts his boots on the
on the mat, and there's a slow cooker on, and
I can smell that night he walks in and he
looks at me with all the respect in the world
of somebody of a long history together, um of like,
you know, you're over there doing you and I love
you And there's just this respect in his eyes

(37:36):
and I and and I knew he just walked up
from his furniture design studio and I. I was just
so in the moment, right? I was just writing this
thing out and I wrote, and the years 2000 and
19.
And then I stopped and kind of came out of
this weird trance that I was in. While I was
writing it, I went, Oh, my God, that's not actually
my husband that I was writing about. And I suddenly

(37:57):
realised that I had accidentally started manifesting my current partner
that when I saw the first photo of him and,
you know, we met on a dating website and I
was like, Oh my God, that's him. That's the guy
and the house and everything. Like I have lived in
variations of that house and and, you know, I was

(38:18):
imagining that I was working with people where sometimes my
clients would come to me sometimes I'd go into Melbourne
and work with them like everything that looks like my day.
Now I have components. Components of work. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not all like
exactly. It's not weird. But everything that was in that
vision has come true over the last five years. Basically,

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah, right. OK, so you've written that all down, but
you're still coming to the end of that, and you're
barely affording the coffee, and you've got to move on.
So how did that help you? Yeah,

Speaker 2 (38:54):
so I feel like I started. Um,
I guess that started to sort of once I had
that vision. I guess that was sort of I was
starting to agitate towards something change that had to happen.
And I think my ex and I would both agree
that we weren't compatible. It was just that we just
grew apart. That was that, um and and it was time. Um,

(39:17):
he had a big dream. I had a big dream.
And so in 2017, we called it and Artie was six.
And
oh, actually, just a year before that, we'd been asked
to house sit a friend's house because they had a dog.
They'd gone away, and she was a defence lawyer. And
she had this extraordinary house in Northcote. And my sister

(39:39):
said to me because we were still so, so, so broke.
And she said, Just live in that house energetically. As
if you can afford the mortgage on it, you know?
And so I used to walk around that house thinking
exactly that. Like it was polished concrete, stunning backyard, huge backyard. Yeah.
Um, sometimes I'd put on a couple of her clothes,
walk around like so Fiona. Um and, uh and I

(40:03):
thought

Speaker 1 (40:03):
you you living energetically beautiful.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Within that week, I met my sales coach, um, that
and and it was him that actually transformed, like it
was his input. It was it was spending $5000 I
didn't have on him turning up to a three day event,
selling something that I hadn't created yet and backing myself.
That was

Speaker 1 (40:23):
where it all shifted. So
how? You know, for the listener who may be in
that very same situation, you know, you you're getting there
pretty pretty rock bottom. Where do you come up with
the $5000? And how do you get back up.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Well, I had a credit card with a little bit
of money on it. Um, from running my the frank
food and meat business. Um, I rang up the bank
and said, Can you bump that up to a 10
grand limit, please? Um and I didn't I don't think
I even told my partner that I was gonna do
it because I knew that it wasn't going to be
something that was cool with him.
Uh, so I backed myself, and I just said to myself,

(41:01):
it was just one of those pivotal moments where you're
just like, if you are going to create this change,
like if you this is either your life where you're
turning yourself into a pretzel, you're scratching yourself to pieces
through financial stress. Um, you're you're falling apart. Um, you're
modelling all of this to your beautiful son, like you're
either that person or you put your money where your

(41:23):
mouth is and you back yourself and
and And when I did that, it was it was
that it was making that decision to back myself first
and turning up to that event.
And then I said I, I just modelled him, and
I am a good modeller. I just modelled every single
thing he said to do. And in three months, I'd
made 300 sales calls and I'd turn my business around

(41:47):
from a $50,000 a year business where I was basically
just building conversion funnels for other people who were paying me, like,
15 bucks an hour in reality, um, to I'd sold
$250,000 worth of, um, training programmes that I was still creating,
Um, within the next three months. And then I delivered
those and I cracked it in the first group of
incredible women that worked with me, who then went on

(42:07):
to become my mastermind ladies, and it all started from

Speaker 1 (42:12):
there. So how does your time with one of many
finish up then? Well,

Speaker 2 (42:17):
that kind of finished up in the middle of, um,
in in 2017, frankly, because I was not being a
very good business partner. I was in the middle of
a divorce and I wasn't very present.
And we just had that kind of come to Jesus
conversation where it's just like, you know, what are you
gonna do about that. And she My sister? Of course
she understood. Yeah, so we just replaced me, and, um

(42:38):
and I handed it all over, and that was that. Really? Um,
I still whenever she needs to, I jump in and
do a webinar for her people and and, you know,
help her out wherever I can. Um, and we're still up.
I'm still I feel like I'm still a part of
that brand. And that business. It's just not mine anymore.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, fair enough.
So then, clark.com, um so was it something you had
been considering for a while while you were still at
one of many? Or were you not at all? It
wasn't until you had that sort of wake up call.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
It sort of happened. It was It was all sort
of happening in parallel because I had. So what happened
was with one of
many. I was part of the brand strategy and the creation,
and then I went on to be the lead marketer
in that situation. But I needed some training. So my
sister paid for specialists to come in and train me
how to do something so I, instead of keeping them
on as consultants. I became the consultant, so I learned

(43:30):
all these extraordinary skills, like how to run Facebook ads,
how to copyright, how to build S sales funnels. And
then I got an opportunity to speak, um, at one
of Joe's events in Portugal, and there was 80 people
in the room
and my grand had just died. My grandma and I
were born on the same day. It was December 2016. Um,
bless her 2015. Sorry. And, um, I'd seen her a

(43:53):
month earlier, and I said, But I said, It's OK,
It's time to go, I said, But just don't die
on our birthday. So she she died at 1 a.m.
on December 8. Our birthday is 17. She died at
1 a.m. on December 18. She did. She did, and
then a month later, I'm standing on stage in Portugal,
which I'd gone over just to look after my sister's

(44:14):
son while she ran an event.
And I said, Look, the only way I can really
kind of justify taking a week out of my own
family life to come and look after your kid because
a nanny had just quit. Um, I said is if
you give me an opportunity to speak on stage. So
I jumped up on stage and right before I did,
I looked in the in the mirror and I said
to Gran, Just let me be everything that an audience

(44:37):
needs me to be today. And I got up there
and Jo, I watched Jo because she has a whole
plan with these events. Like she knows what she wants
to sell, right? And I spoke and before you knew it,
everyone I said something about I'll be up milling up
the table at the back if you want to come
talk to me
at that lunch break when they were all supposed to
be buying her thing, I had 70 of the 80

(44:58):
people lined up to buy my thing. And I just
did these back to back meetings with these people 15
minutes at a time for the next two days, and
I came home and I made my 1st 10 grand
of leveraged income. You know, not not working for an
hourly rate but actual leveraged income,
and that was that was sort of the beginning. And
then around that time, too, I'd met the sales coach.

(45:19):
And he said to me in April 2016, He said, Kath,
I don't care if you do what I tell you
to do or you don't do what I tell you
to do
but make a decision and take responsibility for the outcome.
And it was just another one of those moments

Speaker 1 (45:34):
Really important, right? It was. It

Speaker 2 (45:37):
was right between the eyes. I hated it for it
at the time. But then that changed everything. Because everything
I did after that, every decision I made was far
more powerful because I was already
accounting for the re the outcome and how I was
gonna handle it. And frankly, that's how I made the
decision to pull the pin on. My relationship was like, actually,

(45:59):
I can do this now, like I'm I I'm I'm
ready for this.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
It's your choice. And be accountable for the choices that
you're making. Yep, yep, yep.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
It was pretty powerful. It was a pretty powerful lesson.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Now I know you know, you are a single mom.
You've got your partner. But, you know, we've had discussions before,
and I know firsthand how tricky navigating a blended family
is let alone running a business now with you at clark.com.
Very successful. Um, business. How do you make it work

(46:31):
in the family realm? Yeah, in the family realm. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Um, I feel like,
you know, maybe I'm taking too much credit here, but
I'm a bit of an emotional barometer in the family.
And so I feel like if I'm focused on my
energy being right, then everything else is OK. And so
I do a lot and and and and,

(46:56):
you know, I am a bit of a translator between
my son and my and my my partner, his stepdad,
and between my partner and my ex-husband, I'm the communicator.
That kind of makes it all work. And I feel like,
um when I listen from all perspectives and put myself

(47:18):
myself in the shoes of the people that I'm talking
to
with their lived experience, and I really conjure that up energetically,
I really understand how they're making decisions, why they're making
that decision. What has led them to think that that's
a good idea. And then I spend a bit of
time disentangling that and then repackaging that up in in

(47:39):
in the communication.
Um, that that that the person that needs to understand it,
you know, can understand that sort of thing. And I
feel like that communic work that working that communication like
that is, is about the only thing that makes it
all keep ticking over.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thats interesting, because I know, uh, there
was actually, um, you shared a wonderful piece of advice
with me and again last night at this event that
we were both at. It's, um, asking the question, you know,
what
can I do to help you be OK with this,
which I think is really good when you've, you know,

(48:15):
potentially you're the entrepreneur in the family, and you've got,
you know, your partner who's not necessarily that way inclined.
And then there's this sort of blended family layer on
top of that, like there can be a lot of
friction and and stress in the house. Yes, you can
make sure that your energy is is is good and
pure and

(48:36):
communication, you know, be that communication, um, conduit,
But that's exhausting too, Right? So, um, I think just
being able to ask that question, I feel like that
was a really great piece of advice. Where did that
come from? My

Speaker 2 (48:51):
sister. She's a genius like that. She's She's done the work, man.
She's She really has done the work on communicating with
the masculine, um, and really understanding the feminine and how
the two polarities sit so well together. When when you've
got an empowered relationship and
she's she's constantly working on herself and and finding new

(49:11):
ways to make things work in her own relationship. And
she's extraordinary like that. She's the only one of us
three girls that's still married. Um, and yeah, and that
that that that sentence And you're right. I did say
it last night was, um what can What do you
need in order for you to be able to give
this to me?

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2 (49:32):
yeah. It's a it's a it's a
and I don't know that I ever actually use those words,
but I'm usually always seeking with my partner. What does
he need in order for me to be able to? Yeah,
get what I need?

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Yeah, Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Which is only ever to feedback to the family dynamic. Anyway,
to be honest.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Look, I can't stress enough from my own experience having
a support network. Whether it's you know, personal or professional,
is a difference between surviving and thriving in business. Can
you share maybe one person in your professional support network
and what you value most about their support?

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yeah, well, that's an easy one. Mirror Claudia,
My, my beautiful business soulmate. My, my, my female soulmate
when it comes to business, Um, what do I value
most about her support? Um,
so much of what her and I have got is

(50:30):
is actually unspoken. Like we we work to WWW. We
work together so intuitively that on often like we will
things when we're working on a project together, she'll just
pick something up and get it done before I've even
thought about it, and I'll do the same with the
other half of it. There's not often there's not even

(50:51):
a discussion about it.
So there's there's this sort of invisible energy that's working
between us, which I knew from the moment I laid
eyes on her that that was how it was gonna go. Um,
but
what I love because so much of my business is
based on how I energetically show up on any given
day when there's troubles at home or things like that. Um,

(51:14):
and you know, life's full of pressures. Um,
I find that she just so ever so gracefully can
reword something that I'll say in haste or in judgement
and just quickly reframe me on it with no, um,
attachment to whether I do or don't take it on. Um,

(51:36):
and it's just that little perspective shift. Just that little
dial turn. She's sort of like the good angel on
my shoulder just going, you know, just just reframe that
cat and it and that's often enough. It's like the
butterfly effect. It's often enough to just change how I'm
actually
approaching an entire situation. She doesn't need to explain it
all to me because I get it mostly. But sometimes

(51:57):
you just get stuck in your own stuff, and you
don't realise how you're talking and how that's contributing to
the frequency that you're putting out. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (52:04):
and what about in your personal network? It's, you know,
hard to pick one, as it, you know, really does
take a community. But who is it in your personal
network that you would lean on the most and and, um,
you know who would really help you then, you know,
be the best in your business.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Absolutely. Without a shadow of doubt my pa partner, Matthew. Yeah,
he's extraordinary. He's he's really had to lean in because
he's a career man, right? Like he's never taken the
big leaps. As much as he'd love to run his
own business, that's still on the cards for him. Um,
he chose a different pathway. And I do think that
he called me in to sort of model that in
front of him to show him that it's not as

(52:42):
scary as it looks, Um, and
and he's just always there he has. I really feel
like when we talk about that kind of yin and
yang energy, like whilst Mirra and I, I'm the Yang
to her yin. He's the yang to my yin, and
he's He's got this mind for efficiency and productivity and

(53:04):
his favourite word to say to me all the time
is focus. I want to wring his neck, but he'd say,
but I thrashed about like a fish on a bloody
jet for a while with it, you know, I'm like Oh, God,
I'm a creative stop telling me to focus. I just
want to make things. But for the last couple of years,
I have And there's this whole new sort of renewed, um,

(53:30):
drive and purpose fulfilment. Because I had focused and I
have taken his advice and I've just locked down and
done what needs to be done. And there's this sort
of much more, um, solid, um, satisfaction. That's sort of
coming out of it. And
I'm attracting much higher level clients now, too. Yeah, there's

(53:53):
something that's shifted in my frequency because of his input,
let alone the fact that just every time I knock
on his office door, I'm like, Babe, can you help
me with the spreadsheet? And he's like, Yes, of course
it can. You

Speaker 1 (54:02):
know, beautiful. That's amazing. What would you say is your
biggest hurdle in business right now?

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Um,
I actually think it's my own well being, um, I,
I For some reason, uh, my body is deciding that
enough is enough on a lot of different levels, and
it's a it's It's the, um it's Yeah, I've got
a bit of AAA mind juggle going on with the

(54:33):
the belief. I. I broke my wrist in February, and
I and I think that that's kind of created,
um, some sort of, um, lack of trust with my
body and what it's capable of. And I know how
much with, as an entrepreneur, how switched on you need
to be and clear in your mind. And I know
for sure there's been times in my in my my
life where I've felt
more, um, less brain fog and more clarity around that stuff.

(54:57):
And and so I just I feel like my biggest
hurdle is is probably a time thing to take better
care of my my physical body, which will then take
better care of my mind. I just when I give
to my clients, you know, um, it's I know that
it can come from a more um
um sort of. What do you call it, like a

(55:17):
a an evergreen kind of space, you know, like it
can top itself up more energetically than it is at
the moment. I'm I'm feeling kind of a bit burnt out. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1 (55:27):
yeah, yeah. Fair enough. And how are you going to
address that?

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Well, uh, I'm excited to say that it's the time
problem will be solved soon because my beautiful son is
moving schools much closer to home for grade seven, which
means I gain 15 hours a fortnight, which I am. Yes,
I'm going to spend quite a big chunk of that
at least half of that on physical health and taking

(55:52):
care of myself. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (55:53):
good, good. So there's a light. There's

Speaker 2 (55:56):
a light. It's a very practical light.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
It is a very practical absolutely. What gives you the
most satisfaction in your business right now?

Speaker 2 (56:03):
Oh, my God. Moments like last night? Um, that sounds
a bit dinky. Uh, no. Last night was the final
dinner of a,
um, a series of six months of of monthly dinners
and a and a group of beautiful women of which
you're a part of my love, the series. And And

(56:27):
we spent some time going around the room, probably much
to the chagrin and some of the women in the room.
We made them say what they'd achieved this year, um,
in business and what they were really proud of and
what they had to get over to get there. And
whilst I feel like I know most of those women
quite intimately.
Some of them admitted things that I still didn't even
know they were struggling with in business. And you don't realise.

(56:50):
And and And what I loved the most
was that it wasn't myself and mirror that it necessarily
had the impact. It was the the space that we'd
created that allowed each other to meet each other and
this fabric to be stitched between them, where you'd all
helped each other, Um, in business. And I think that
was my my proudest moment because I've kind of come

(57:13):
because I've come through the marketing stream. There was a
lot of big gurus in the space in 2014, 2015.
It was a bit of a bro down, kind of
who can lean on a Lamborghini and look like they're
making $300 million in 3.5 seconds. The fastest, you know
kind of thing.
And and II, I just turned away from all of
that in lockdown, um, and and and really dug into

(57:35):
what I wanted to create. And it was really coming
back to that community and that belonging that thing, that
I was missing when I was living in Paris, and
I really feel like last night was a moment Where
and and it happens to be more and more often
now where I see, um, people not necessarily just women
but people collaborating

(57:56):
in a way that I actually envisaged. In 2018, I
went and did some work with my energy coach for
a two day retreat, and I had this vision, and
it's gonna sound bonkers. But I had this vision in
a deep meditation
of a Petri dish with little a sort of cells
that started vibrating next to each other and then gently
sort of overlapping for a second and then just bouncing

(58:18):
off over to the next one and then vibrating next
to that one and bouncing off. And I could see
to me that looked like this sort of community of
of women that were just gonna sort of, you know,
energetically combine
for a little minute until they got what they kind
of both needed, but in a really mutually respectful way.
And then they'd just bounce off and over to the
next one. And there was no ownership. And for a

(58:41):
real good period of time there. When I first came
into the marketing space, there was this real sense of
ownership over your community and in an ugly kind of way, like, yeah,
and I didn't like that and I didn't know how
to break that. But I had this vision
for it, and I feel like last night I witnessed
it

Speaker 1 (58:57):
well, the bar series. It was the initial, um, programme
that kicked off. We were the OGS. But there's another
bar series coming

Speaker 2 (59:09):
in

Speaker 1 (59:09):
January in absolutely can you share two top tips on
how women can show up more authentically
in their workplace?

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Yes, I feel like you know, this is probably quite
a broad top tip. That sounds make. I make sound
very simple, but I would really say own your unique.
You own your uniqueness, which,
when you've been told as a child that you're too
much and too chatty and too out there or that
you're too introverted and shy. And why don't you speak

(59:41):
up a bit more, you know, just to just to
name two polarities, right? That is that That sounds a
lot simpler than it actually is, especially for women because
there's there's a lot that we that we don't realise
is conditioning us. Um, I mean, it's for men too II.
I mean, I love men. It's for men too.

(01:00:02):
Um and
I So I So I Yeah, I really feel like
if if there's a way, however you get there whatever
path you take to really owning who you are and
understanding that how you do life and what your life
experience is and your skill set and all of that
combined together can create

(01:00:25):
an experience for other people that can create a transformation
for other people just by you showing up and being
in the room, Um then that that's kind of my
my one big, big hope, and my second top tip
for business
is probably just don't be afraid to bloody scream it
from the rafters, you know, be bold about it. And
I

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
think that was an interesting thing that you'd noted, you know,
even last night, everyone was, you know, and myself included
just quietly, you know, saying what our what our achievement was,
and
they were all pretty big achievements in that room. Um,
but none of us really shouted

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Yeah. And you know that I introduced that ridiculous what
we call the bar Bravo. And I'd stomp and shout
and carry on for you all. At the start, everyone
would sit there so awkward. I wish I'd got you
all at the end. Kind of screaming and shouting like
we were at some sort of football match, you know,
because that's how I feel about the achievements that were
coming out

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
last night. Really? Shout it from the rooftops. Don't be shy. Yeah, Yeah.
What? You know, for the listener who has maybe started
their own business and might be struggling a little bit
with motivation. What pearls of wisdom would you share

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
if you're struggling for motivation for your business? You're probably
doing the wrong one,
I reckon. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, why is it a trouble?
You know why? Why aren't you busting out of bed
to get this done like you? You You're not dreaming
big enough, you know, And And don't you know I
started a business from literally from This is all I

(01:01:59):
can do and be present for my son and be
there at pick up like that. So you you But
you can start the wrong business doing that. I mean, God,
I worked with my father. God love him,
um, on an LED lighting business for a period of
time in all of that that I carefully omitted from
the story. Right? But that was just to make money.

(01:02:20):
Like I was just hassling my little booty off. I
started an eBay business. I did 100 wrong things before,
did the right thing. Um, and yeah, they were hard
to get out of bed for, um, so don't just
do it for the money, babes.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great advice. Oh, my goodness. So
if listeners are keen to connect with you and
get some of that amazing light that you shine on
people and really, truly get to understand their authentic self,
how do they get in touch?

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
How do they get more? Well, um I mean, I
guess you can follow me on Instagram at K Clark
under What is it? Little under dash thing. Times two,
underscore two.
Um and, um, they can also jump on my website.
Clark.com happy to have a chat. I've got some pretty good. Um,

(01:03:12):
you know, I took a long time with my website
to really explain what I'm up to in the world,
and it's really like I feel like it. It works
for the people that are ready, makes

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
sense to them. Absolutely. And what does someone who is
ready look like?

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Oh, she's amazing
to me. She looks like expansion and potential and everything
that she's dreamt of. Um, but she's a little bit
lost in that. So she shows up with some mud
stuck to her that life flicked at her and, uh,
and and and something's agitating inside. And she's probably been

(01:03:48):
told that she's brilliant at this or that.
You know, don't Don't you realise, Simone, how you just
rock up and Du, du, du du du No, I
don't And I don't know how to articulate what that
thing is, And I feel like if I could articulate
what that thing is, then I'd know what to do
with my life or my career or my business.
So if she's feeling like that, that's that's who. I

(01:04:09):
work really

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
well with you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
For some reason, I can just tell you babes what
you're great at, and I don't know how it's a
bit like a beautiful

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
mind. It is totally is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, OK.
So I could speak to you all afternoon, but, you know,
time is ticking.
And we have been here a while, so which I
knew we would be. Um you're an absolute pleasure. Your passion.
Your light shines so bright. And, um yeah, I'm so
grateful to be part of your world. Thank you for

(01:04:39):
being who you are and what you do much love.
Thank you. Thanks.
If you're looking for some free resources to start creating
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Knees marketing.com dot a U backslash free. That's bees Knees

(01:05:00):
marketing.com dot a U backslash free. Follow the prompts and
take advantage of our free resource library and get your
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