December 12, 2019 • 67 mins
About the episode:
In this inspiring conversation, host Ryan Nell talks to leading executive coach and Forbes contributor Katy Trost about her early travels, her passion for coaching leaders, her experience with fibromyalgia, and how she healed herself from her chronic pain. We also talk about the loss of her mother, her relationship with social media, her time management tips to supercharge your productivity and more.
Links for Katy:
Katy's website: www.katytrost.com
Katy's ebook: SCALING UP – NAVIGATING THE CHALLENGES OF ACCELERATED BUSINESS GROWTH
Katy's instagram: @katy_trost
Book a coaching session with Katy: here
About the show:
On the podcast, Levitate® founder Ryan Nell chats to inspiring people who have travelled some distance. Whether they’ve overcome great personal hardship, launched a social enterprise, or changed the way we think about a subject, all of them are united by passion, purpose, and the desire to make the world a better place.
About Levitate:
At Levitate, we’ve been helping people to connect mind, body and soul since spring 2018. We teach meditation and mindfulness for the real world to people with busy minds. We do this in drop-in group classes at studios and companies in London and across the world. We are also passionate about all aspects of wellbeing - yoga, nutrition, sleep and more.
Connect with us!
Email any suggestions and feedback to podcast@levitate.london
We get all our inspiration from connecting with the community :)
Listen & subscribe for free to the podcast here: levitate.london/podcast
We're on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Breaker and more.
Please leave us a rating and let us know what you think!
You can also subscribe to the podcast RSS feed at Transistor: feeds.transistor.fm/levitate
Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: bit.ly/levitateyoutube
(Oh and make sure to hit the BELL icon to be notified of new videos!)
Web: www.levitate.london
Instagram: @levitatelondon
Twitter: LevitateLondon
Facebook: levitatelondon
Credits & copyright:
This show is hosted, recorded and edited for Levitate by Ryan Nell (Instagram: @ryannell)
Original theme music by Nic Nell (Instagram: @casuallyhere)
Copyright Levitate 2019. Levitate is a trademark of Levitate Meditation Ltd.
★ SuppoMark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to Levitate, thehome of inspiring stories with me,
Ryan Nell.
In today's episode we talk about how togrow as a leader and beat chronic pain
with Katy Trost.
Katy is an executive coach who workswith leaders in the startup and scaleup
(00:21):
industry.
She traveled for four years rather thango to university and set up her first
business at the age of 21. She
has overcome some personal hardships- chronic pain and fibromyalgia.
We chat about her childhood and how thatshaped her and influences who she is
(00:45):
today and also the morerecent loss of her mother.
Katy and I chat about community and socialmedia and how she finds balance in a
world that demands a lot of us.
She also shares some reallypowerful tips on time management,
which I know I'm going toapply to the way I work,
(01:08):
and I hope you enjoy thisconversation as much as I did.
They just gave me cortisone shots butdidn't tell me that it would come back
after. For like a week, I felt like anewborn person. I was like: "Oh my God,
this is amazing!" And then it cameback even worse and the side effects of
fibromyalgia are chronic fatigueand like you just get so depressed.
(01:29):
I think I told my mumon the phone, I'm like,
if this is going to go onfor another year or two,
I'm not going to be able to makeit. But she told me the whole time,
"just don't give up... just don'tsettle without having an answer".
(02:04):
[Levitate theme music by Nic Nell]
So I'm sitting here with KatyTrost. Katy is an executive coach,
a regular Forbes contributor,
and she advises CEOs in variousplaces across the world.
She's got an incredible background,overcome some things in her life,
(02:26):
like chronic pain,
and has flirted quite deeplywith mindfulness and meditation,
and we're hopefully going todo a bit of work together,
but our paths have crossed and Icouldn't wait to get her on the podcast.
So welcome Katy.
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'mreally excited. Looking forward to it.
(02:47):
Would you just tell the listeners andviewers a little bit about yourself,
what your journey hasbeen to get to this point?
Where it all started?
Yeah.
You already said my work background,
so I'm an executive coach and I specialisein working with founders and CEOs,
and sometimes the entire leadership team,
(03:08):
and I help them navigate the challengesof accelerated business growth.
So when a company growsfast and dynamics change,
and there's a lot of newpeople on the team for example,
and they usually partner with me tohelp to optimise structure within the
(03:29):
business to optimise their personalperformance and to become more effective
leaders. And I'm originally from Germany,
so I left 2013 and I traveled for fouryears around the world to 30 countries by
myself, which was an amazing experience.
And then I moved to New York city fortwo years and I lived there and that's
(03:53):
when I really got into executive coachingand more into the startup scene and
the tech and finance industries.
And then I started myfirst business at 21...
Wow!
... and while I was abroad -what you mentioned earlier,
and kind of how we get togethertoday - while I was abroad,
(04:14):
I spent a few months in Buddhistmonasteries and I studied the mindfulness
teachings of Thich NhatHahn and then Vipassana.
And I wanted to learn how I can implementthose in order to improve balance and
then also performance in life and inbusiness. And yeah, so as you mentioned,
I also cured myself from chronic pain.
(04:37):
I had fibromyalgia for two years - Ibelieve that was 2016 through 2018 and so
very recently - and that was anincredible journey and just experience for
myself, with myself, because you'repretty much by yourself doing that.
And yeah, so, and as you said,
(04:58):
I write for Forbes and I write for SuccessMagazine and partner with We Work and
Soho House.
And I did some trainings with QuinnipiacUniversity in Connecticut and I do
workshops and trainingson entrepreneurship and on high performance psychology,
on mindfulness and everythingrelated to executive coaching,
(05:22):
leadership stuff as well. Yeah.
And signed with a few coaching firmsacross the world and help them with their
clients and have mypersonal practice as well.
It's incredible!
So you sound like the world's most busyhuman with all of that stuff in the CV
(05:42):
and these different things that youare working on. What prompted that...
did you say you traveled for four years?
Yeah.
What was the inspirationbehind that journey?
That's a great question because I onlyremember myself riding my bike to high
school and it was coldoutside and rainy outside.
(06:02):
And I just was so convinced that Iwanted to leave Germany and I wanted to,
I was very "Type A"...
very forcing myself intoa very strict schedule.
And I would say I've reallysuffered under my own pressure,
and I had incredible...
(06:24):
I had incredible doubts about myselfand I feel like every teenager and every
person kind of goesthrough that at one point.
But I really wanted to get rid of itbecause I believe that there is something
on the other side of that and that therecan be an amazing quality of life and,
yeah,
just confidence and morewellbeing on the other side.
(06:48):
So I wanted to take that time to exploreand to get rid of my negative beliefs
and to explore me and really developa good relationship with myself.
So I just left and I went as far as Ipossibly could - to New Zealand [laughs]!
And were your family fans of the idea?
(07:11):
Were they supportive ora bit worried probably?
I would say my mum was.She was very supportive.
She didn't know what I was doing yet,
especially when I got intocoaching as well. She was very much
confused, but she alwayssupported me in, you know,
following what I believedwas the right thing.
(07:31):
But she also said that if I want to dosomething that's maybe a little bit more
unconventional, I neverwent to college by the way,
that I would need to dedicate myself toit and that she expected excellence in
whatever I choose to do,
but she didn't tell me whatI had to do. And my dad,
(07:55):
I think he wasn't that supportive ofit, but he was a big part of why I left,
so I didn't really care... [Laughs].
We don't have to get into that...But a bit of rebellion is good!
I'm an open book [laughing].
Yeah.
So you went to New Zealand and wereyou working out there or were you...?
(08:16):
No not at all. I mean, I finished school,
finished high school and during thesummer after I finished high school,
I just worked as a waitress and Isaved all my money and I went with
I believe like $7,000 and I thoughtI was going to travel for 10 years.
I'm like, what's that about?
It will never run out yeah.
So like, yeah, threemonths and I'm like "Oh"!
(08:41):
But I went to New Zealand.I ended up getting,
I hitch-hiked and went to hostels andcouchsurfed - it was, it was amazing.
My English was absolutely horrible.
So I was basically using emoji Englishand hands and feet to communicate.
I went to Sydney, got a jobthere just for three months,
just waiting tables and then left Sydney,
went on a road trip and then I justtraveled and just used my savings.
(09:05):
I traveled within Australiaand traveled in Asia,
Southeast Asia,
for about three months and then inWestern Europe to Spain and Portugal and
France.
And that's where I went to the meditationretreat for the first time in...
Which is Thich Nhat Hahn's Plum Village.
Yeah. So it's in the South ofFrance or it's in Bordeaux,
(09:26):
so like mid South of France,a little bit outside,
and so when I went tothe meditation retreat,
I was going to become an architect after,
because at that point I had traveledfor a year and I was going to become an
architect and move to Vienna.
And I think I only did it because thatwas like the only thing that I liked in
school to model - the houses - and Iwas really good at it and it was really
(09:50):
cool to become an architect. SoI was like, of course I'm going.
It's very sexy profession. Yeah, yeah.
I just imagined myself at these,you know, dinner parties. I don't,
I don't know. It was so fancy life to me.The idea of it! Yes. So I had no clue.
But my friend was like (10:07):
"I just did an internship with an architecture firm...
Katy, it's horrible. It's only numbers.
There's nothing design,like nothing". Like, okay,
I'm not going to do that.
And I believe for me the idea ofhaving a nine to five was just not very
appealing. So yeah,
(10:29):
within that month ofbeing at the monastery,
I talked to a lot of people and I metobviously a lot of people that were at
some kind of crossroads in their life.
If that was because theydidn't have children and they wanted to start their own
business and make that their life's work,
or if the kids were out of thehouse and they were like, you know,
re-evaluating what they wanted to do withthe remaining 20 or 30 years that they
(10:52):
were fit.
And I just saw a pattern of peoplethat went in the wrong direction for,
for a long time and then came back tothe same point and kind of started from
scratch and had a completely new career.
But now there's a mortgage and nowthere's responsibilities and kids.
(11:13):
And I asked myself "do I want to be atthe same point again at 20 years?" And
then do something I really like,
or am I just going to take a little bitmore time and just explore who I am,
what I want, what I'm goodat, and then go for that?
And even if it's a little harder,at least I have like, you know,
(11:33):
I'm 20 years ahead basically of everybodyelse because they do it after 20 years
or 10 or whatever.
Right, so to get the midlifecrisis out of the way early,
skip it entirely ideally?
Yeah. It was a little hard, right?
Cause at that point all of my friendsstarted going to college and I didn't have
any idea what I was going to do.
So I went home after thefirst year and I was like,
(11:56):
I want to do somethinglocation independent. Freedom is a big value of mine.
And I wanted to
be able to to travel for another year.So I told my mum and she was like,
"I don't know what you're doing but youjust do your thing, I believe in you,
it's all good". And I left and I wentto the States for the first time.
I went to New York for the firsttime, moved to the West coast.
(12:19):
I was dating somebody there.
So it was kind of like in and out of SanFrancisco for about a year and went to
central America and just cruisedthrough central America by myself on the
chicken bus. It was amazing.
And a friend of minetold me about coaching.
This is a very long versionof my story by the way. Sorry!
No, this is great. This is great.
(12:39):
So many avenues that I want to kindof pick up on. But yeah, keep going...
So actually because youasked how I was working.
So after the first year oftraveling, I went to Switzerland,
went to a town called Davos where theyhave the World Economic Forum and I
waitressed and I did the seasonthere, I think I saved like 20 grand,
and then did another yearof traveling and yeah,
(13:01):
so moved to the West coast,
was in central America for a while andI just kind of explored and did all of
those exercises that I now sometimes dowith my clients. Like "what's my values,
what's important to me,
what am I strengths?" And I did all ofthat without knowing that I was doing
them. So just explored myself. Read a lot,
(13:25):
did a lot of meditation because at thatpoint I already had all the experience
with the monastery,
and a friend of mine told me aboutcoaching and I think it was more corporate
leadership coaching thatyou can do, you know,
some kind of courses at universities,and that was a new thing.
(13:45):
And I looked into it andI was so fascinated by it and I never had that thing.
You know, some people,they are photographers...
photographers from when they are sevenyears old and they are like "yeah this is
what I'm going to do for the restof my life"! And I never had that.
And when I saw this I was like,"yeah, this is amazing"! And
yeah,
so very quickly I signed up for a programwhich is an American school and it's,
(14:12):
I believe one of the top twoinstitutes in the world next to the -
what's it called - CTI. And theone I went to is called IPEC.
And I did that program,which was partly remote.
And then the rest is online and youhave webinars and calls in between.
(14:33):
And it's about 15 hoursof work a week I believe.
So I did that. And while I was doing that,
I realised that I didn't want to go backagain and waitress again for those two
or three months and save upagain and then, you know, travel.
So I started, I kind of likeconnected the dots and I was like,
(14:54):
I'm just going to start a business that'sbasically assisting other coaches so I
can get a look behind the scenes athow it works. So that's what I did.
And I reached out to probably athousand coaches on the, on the ICF,
the International CoachFederation, website.
And I told them my story -"I'm Katy, I'm traveling,
I want to be your assistant". And Istarted with like 10 bucks an hour, just,
(15:18):
you know, being anassistant copying, pasting,
putting some stuff on social media.
Yeah. And then I
just added more and more toolsto my to my belt, marketing, PR,
that kind of stuff, increased my prices.
And then I had a freelance business thatbasically allowed me to travel and work
(15:39):
about 10 hours a week orwhatever it was. Yeah.
So I did have to go back
to Switzerland though, one more timebecause the money just wasn't enough.
And that's when Ideveloped my chronic pain.
I was carrying these really heavy stonesbecause the customers were able to
(16:01):
grill the steak on, ona stone on the table.
Like a pierrade?
Yeah. It's like you get thewhole stone or something.
And I carried it and I think it was morethe mental stress than anything within
the restaurant. And I hated thehospitality industry - from the beginning,
it was not my cup of tea at all.
So I think I just didn't likethat somebody told me what to do,
(16:25):
I think that was the whole problem.
Yeah. I'm getting that theme. Yeah.
In the beginning I thought itwas like Carpal tunnel. Yeah.
And then I went to get these wraps andthen it went over my, over my hands,
and I had these bumps here and then itwent into my shoulders and then went all
over my body. And within three months Iwasn't able to move. It was just like,
(16:47):
"what's going on? It's crazy"! Yeah.
So I wasn't able to finish that thoughand then went back to California,
because I was still dating theguy in California. And yeah,
so I was basically laying inbed for, for multiple months,
and I had my business and my coachingcertification and started having my first
(17:07):
clients and I couldn'tdrive or put my clothes on.
It was just absolutelyhorrible. I mean it was...
So you're speaking to theclients on the phone or...?
Yeah.
So that was an very intense experienceand I broke up with him there and left.
(17:29):
Right after actually my mumgot diagnosed with cancer,
so my fibromyalgia was just like, wow,
like very intense.
Yeah.
Because it was a very intense period...
And did you want to talkabout that more now or later?
About the fibromyalgia?
Now's as good a momentas any. Yeah. You know,
(17:52):
I'd be interested to knowwhat you think was going on,
you know, because obviously we had alittle chat before the podcast, but
quite often sort of mental,
spiritual angst in a way, you know,
plays out physically if weignore it for long enough.
But do you think that was whatwas going on for you or...?
(18:14):
I think so yeah! So I mean,
I was trying to cure it in so many waysand I'm not a person who just pops pills
and takes drugs and, you know,kind of cures the symptoms.
My mum was always, she'slike, she was a huge fan of
homeopathic remedies.
(18:35):
Yeah.
And
at one point I just didn'thave the option anymore to only
basically try to help myself with diet.
Like I think I only ate green vegetablesfor like three months. I only...
Yeah, that sounds terrible.
Yeah... it is terrible.
Unless you like vegetables,but even then... monotonous.
(19:00):
Exactly. I tried hypnotherapy. Andthen when I went to the doctor,
I spent so much money on the doctors and,
and in the U.S. because it's so...
That's how they get you!
Yeah, exactly. And they had no idea whatwas going on. And I was like, "well,
it's basically arthritis orsomething like that"! You know,
I never heard of fibromyalgiabefore. "It's basically arthritis"...
(19:21):
And they were like, no, you can't havethat. You are too young. But I'm like,
"well, but I havesomething"! Like, you know,
so they just gave me cortisone shots,
but they didn't tell me that it wouldcome back after. For like a week,
I felt like a newborn person. I waslike, "Oh my God, this is amazing"!
And then it came back even worse andthe side effects of fibromyalgia are
(19:42):
chronic fatigue and like,you just get so depressed.
I think I told my mumon the phone, I'm like,
"if this is gonna go on for anotheryear or two, I'm going to...
I'm not going to able to make it.Like, I don't want to live like this"!
But she told me the whole time, "justdon't give up... just don't settle
(20:03):
without having an answer what this isand how, where is this coming from"! So
I did leave San Francisco and I traveledwith her in Colombia for a while
because she had the diagnosis and I waslike, "you know, you have two options,
basically lie in a hospital anddie in like three or four years,
(20:25):
or you just come travel with me inColumbia and we can dance salsa and have
tequila and you're gonnadie whenever you die"...
Yeah, yeah.
"She's like, okay, I'm bookingmy flight"! I'm like "cool".
I mean she sounds like an amazing woman.
She was definitely. So yeah.So she came to Columbia.
I had an amazing, just amazingtime with her for like two months.
And then we went to Guatemala and shehad to home because she wasn't feeling so
(20:49):
well.
And I still had the fibromyalgia and atthat point I think I had traveled for
about three, three and a halfyears. That was beginning of 2017.
Yep. And I left end of 2013, so
she passed away I believe, three,three weeks after she left,
and I came home just after, soI didn't really see her again...
(21:12):
But yeah,
I was still having my fibromyalgiaand I was in the house with my sister.
My parents had divorced and my fatherwas not in the picture and we were just,
you know,
we just had to like figure out a funeraland to get rid of all the stuff for the
house and how to, you know, how toget tenants and all that stuff, and
(21:33):
finance, and just craziness.
And I imagine none of which youwant to think about at the moment.
And I was building my business, my twobusinesses basically. So, yeah, it wasn't
very relaxing, Let's put it that way!
Yeah.
When I,
(21:53):
I believe when I went to Germany or justbefore I found somebody in a Facebook
group randomly and shewas just like, you know
if you have chronic pain, text me orreach out to me. And I was like, okay,
I never saw anything like this beforein a comment off a Facebook post.
And I reached out to her and I don'teven remember what she told me on the
(22:16):
phone. I was just like, "take my money".
I tried everything I can do with thisis the absolute last resort. Like I,
I have no idea. So Ipaid her barely anything.
I think it was like 300 bucks or somethingand before I'd spent thousands on
doctors, you know.
Yeah, who told you nothing.
Yeah.
She explained a concept to me thatmade sense and I already believed in
(22:40):
something similar before,
but I just couldn't put the piecesof the puzzle together and how it all
[formed] the biggerpicture and what she said,
well she recommended a book tome that I've read multiple times.
It's called Mind BodyPrescription by Dr Sarno. Yeah,
he actually passed away two years ago,
(23:02):
and he was a doctor at NYUuniversity at the hospital,
and he came up with this method thatyour brain always tries to release stress
in some kind of way andit can come out with
(23:22):
physical symptoms. So that could bechronic migraines, chronic back pain,
chronic. For example,
fibromyalgia or you have somethingchronic on your knee or on your foot...
And it usually startswith some kind of injury,
and then it just doesn't go away,
and it becomes actuallystronger and stronger over time.
(23:43):
And what your brain does is it takesemotional pain and in order to distract
you,
it it just makes theemotional pain physical,
so you don't have to dealwith the emotional pain.
And sometimes it comes outas anxiety and depression.
So it could be physical,it could be emotional.
(24:06):
And what she taught me to do is to firstoff activate my parasympathetic nervous
system with a lot of meditation,with a deep relaxation every day,
journaling so releasing the energy...
Kind of like a rest and digestmode rather than fight or flight.
Exactly. Yeah.
(24:26):
I was definitely in fightor flight for for a while.
Through those experiences. So I did that.
Then I read the book and I think thatthe trigger was to not buy into it
anymore. Whatever yourbrain does with you,
like you cannot reduce stress anyof that... that's the first rule.
(24:47):
You cannot reduce stress because thereis positive and negative stress in your
life. You have a child, you haveresponsibility, that's a stressor.
You get married, that's exciting. Butit's really stressful and it's very,
you know, it's a new thing. Youget a new job that's exciting,
but responsibility. See,there's no way for you to,
to reduce the amount of stress tozero and this just like impossible.
(25:09):
Yeah, yeah.
So it's more about how isit translated in your brain.
And for a long time, nothing happened.
I believe for two or three months I didit every single day. Nothing happened.
And then I went to New York for the summerbecause I just couldn't stay at home
anymore.
So was it like a particularkind of like a practice?
It's just these daily things that Ihad to do to read some of the book.
(25:32):
It's like knowledge therapy.Read the book for 15 minutes,
then I had to do a meditationfor 15 minutes, do the deep relaxation 15 minutes,
journal 15 minutes and...
Oh yeah one one importantthing is also to stop all,
how do you say, therapy or treatment?
(25:54):
So if you go to the physicaltherapist or the, you know,
anything to the massage, whatever it is,
you give your brain basicallythe information that something's wrong with you,
so you have to act as ifnothing was wrong with you.
Yeah, yeah.
It's really like it was,
it was a little bit twisted andI couldn't get the hang of it.
(26:14):
It's very interesting.It's counterintuitive.
Yeah, yeah. And I couldn't...
I understood the concept, but nothinghappened. I dunno, it was weird.
And then I went to New York and Ibroke down for five days. Literally.
I remember it didn'tleave the bed, nothing.
And by the day I couldsee the bumps on my hands,
swelling down and I got up afterfive days, zero pain. I was like,
(26:39):
what just happened? I was likeblown out of my mind. What happened?
It was crazy. And so I wasin New York over the summer.
I had an amazing time there andthen decided also to move there.
And yeah.
And the thing with chronic pain is,
I believe once you, once you cureit, it's like with emotional pain,
(27:00):
it might come back, but not that much,
and you know how to handle it.
So you solve it again and it might comeback in a longer period of time even,
you know,
and you just know how to handle itand it just doesn't come anymore.
It's, it's really interesting.And when it comes,
sometimes it comes and I feel that like5% or something of what I used to feel,
(27:25):
and I just literally think of the coverof that book and it just disappears.
It's because effectively you're like nowa repository of all of that knowledge.
Right. See, you know, it works.
I know there are some sort ofreally interesting studies,
like longitudinal onesthat Jon Kabat Zinn did.
(27:49):
There's sort of, I can't callhim the father of mindfulness,
but he is one of the guys who brought itinto Western medicine in particular in
the 70s.
And in his programme "MindfulnessBased Stress Reduction",
one of the major kind of groups ofpatients they work are with people with
chronic pain and it's uh, they'revery much doing the work of...
(28:15):
"We're unlikely to be ableto get rid of the pain.
What we want to do is help you changeyour relationship with it so you're no
longer suffering it. It's justsomething you're experiencing".
But there is some mental acrobaticsthat you need to do to get there.
You have to, but I don't evenbelieve in that because I,
for a long time I thought maybe now Ineed to more learn how to manage them,
(28:38):
how to manage the pain.
But I believe if you weren't born withsomething and it's like you know the way
your body is built or something,I believe you can get rid of it.
And it's really hard tobelieve that even for me,
I can say it in a very convincing way.I lived through it, I experienced it,
(29:00):
I experienced the doubt in thebeginning... "Is this going to work?",
at the whole process, andthen the final result.
And when I talk to people who dohave chronic pain, they always say,
"I know about it's not going to workwith me" or "yeah but it's back pain",
"but I have hurt for so long", "butyou can even see it under X-ray".
And that's actually interesting becausethe guy - Dr Sarnos - he says once
(29:23):
you're diagnosed with something,or once you see it on an X-ray,
it becomes even worse.
And what you see on the X-rayis usually a normal abnormality.
So it's very, your body is much,much stronger than you think.
And even if you have that abnormality,
(29:43):
you should be able to live without pain.It's kind of like the excuse of that.
You know, the,
It's almost a case. It's kind oflike confirmation bias, isn't it?
Where we we form,
I suppose we form a kind of picture ofhow the world is and then we'll encounter
all sorts of things thatdon't fit with that picture,
(30:04):
but we tend to just push them to oneside. They don't get as much weighting.
Yeah. Absolutely. So yeah, that was the...
Don't go and get an x-ray.That's the advice from Katy...
Yeah.
Just kidding.
You know, I don't know.It's, I don't know,
especially through my mum's death wherethe doctors wouldn't want to give her...
(30:31):
Like she wanted to test on her liverand they just wouldn't want to do that.
And she had to like ask five times andthen once she got [the test], it's like,
"yeah, your liver is literallyfull of cancer". It's like...
I just don't trust them anymore.
Yeah. Yeah.
They told me I can't have arthritis.
So I don't have arthritis just becauseI'm too young and this is just,
(30:52):
I don't necessarily believe intraditional medicine or traditional...
I don't know... I have a weirdrelationship with it, I guess.
Yeah. I mean I can totallyimagine why that is and
yeah, I mean there's a big, you know,big bit of obviously mindfulness is,
(31:13):
is you know,
trying to get people back to beingable to hear their own intuitions...
You know, to be able to payattention to what your body's saying,
what your mind is saying. We're very,very inclined to... I think now too,
obviously the, there's somuch science out there,
(31:34):
so many people have kind of done thethinking for us it's quite easy just to
kind of go along with it ratherthan developing your inner voice,
which clearly have. Yeah.
It's also interesting
I think what he said in thebook was that in certain,
in certain times there are "in illnesses".
(31:57):
So for a while everybodyhad [indecipherable],
then everybody had back pain,
and it was kind of what isrespected. And like if you,
if you tell your coworkers "Ihave such back pain", you know,
and it's kind of respected, thenunconsciously your body just develops it.
It's crazy. So many like differentgenerations have different,
(32:20):
it's almost like thefashion, you know, like
Yeah, there's a good kind ofevidential base that, you know, if you,
if you tell someone they have ADHD,
then the symptoms will like intensify.
They start believing it.
Yeah. Yeah. You can almost give it tosomeone by diagnosing them. So that's...
Absolutely. And you can removeit by doing that. Yeah. Yeah.
(32:45):
My workshop tonight is exactly about that.
Okay. Amazing. What's thetitle of the workshop?
It's about identity and thepsychology of the self-image. Okay.
So how you see yourself and howthat influences your results.
The way you show up yourperformance, your wellbeing,
and you can change your perception ofyourself without changing your actual self
(33:07):
and it's going to change your life,and completely changes your reality.
You just have to design your identityinstead of being a product of your
environment.
Yeah. So you seem like a real,
you're like a fighter andan explorer. Is there... is
(33:28):
there an early childhood memory thatmight give a bit of insight into the Katy
of today?
Um, an early childhoodmemory... I mean, I think
when I grew up, er...
My parents got divorced when I was notthat young, I think like 15 or something,
(33:49):
or they separated andthen got divorced later.
But there wasn't like a goodenergy necessarily in my home.
Like when I started, whenI had my first memories,
when I started thinkingaround like nine or ten...
and the problems that Iobserved my parents had...
If there was conflict emotionally,or in terms of relationships,
(34:13):
family, like the rest of thefamily, how they you know,
related to my mum, for example,my dad's family to my mum,
and financially, are differentin all kinds of ways.
I just remember myself standing inthe kitchen and I just looked at them
fighting and I was like,
(34:34):
I never want to have those problems.
And I just made this decision for myselfthat I don't want my life to feel that
way. And I think that's alsowhat I kind of ran away from.
And don't get me wrong, I didn'thave like a horrible, traumatizing
childhood, but I was,
I knew that there was abetter way of living I think.
(34:57):
And I made this decision for myself andI kind of wanted to go on this journey
to explore how that looks like. AndI think on the way I discovered that,
I would say 95% of people are living alife that's not necessarily fulfilling
and doesn't feel so great, you know,
and waking up to life that's not you,
(35:18):
or where you suffer from a lot of negativebeliefs about yourself and about the
world...
It really takes away the joy and the,
you know, the quality of yourlife. And I just never wanted that.
And I made this decision and whenI traveled I just felt so alive.
And I went bungee jumping and skydivingand hitchhiking and was only surrounded
(35:43):
by strangers and my worldimage completely changed.
I saw everybody I didn't knowas a friend I just don't know,
and I always believed in the bestin people. And I don't want...
And even though many things happened,and my mother passed away and you know,
I built a business,
I still want to believe inthe good things in life,
(36:06):
and I still want to trust in life, andwant to feel like they're... in the end,
everything is going to be good. And...
Yeah.
I think it's a, when you havethat belief, it doesn't matter,
you know,
what challenges you have because youhave a positive outlook and it's...
You're going to use that challenge tobecome better instead of become broken.
(36:30):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I thinkthat's really, that's really,
really wonderful what you just said.You're slightly, you're reminding me of...
this sort of idea that a lot ofpeople are out there and not that,
not that happy, not thatkind of content with what...
Potentially they're perhaps notliving the life that they could be.
(36:54):
There's an interesting statistic I cameacross the other day about florists and
solicitors I think in the UK. And anyway,
they did a study andsurveyed, I don't know,
2200 people or something and
40% of solicitors...
(37:14):
found some meaning in whatthey do. You know, there's,
there's like there's job satisfactionversus something like 67% of florists,
flower sellers, and what theflorists had was you know,
this sort of sense that every day theycan improve what they're doing and
(37:34):
they've got direct contactwith the customers.
Yeah.
They're right in front of them.There's a sort of, there's an art,
they're in contact withnature, versus you know,
what most of the world is now, orthe Western world, is now doing,
which is service jobs whereyou're potentially very,
very far away from nature.Your customers are, you know,
(37:58):
on the end of video-conferencing, and,
you don't have a chance to relateas humans with each other really.
I want to get a sense of obviously you,
you coach and you don't just coach.
You're working with these sortof CEO and founder types...
I'm not sure I'd quite kind of qualifyor count myself among their number yet,
(38:22):
although I give myself the title,but, you know, I'd just be really,
really interested to know
actually what coaching involves.
I've had a couple of coaches in my time.
Everyone's had a very differentmethod. There's obviously...
The more I've looked into coaches andmaybe bringing them into Levitate,
(38:44):
my business,
I've kind of understood that almostanyone could call themselves a coach.
There is a very low entry bar.
Low bar of entry.
Probably similarly low asmeditation teachers actually...
Anyone can call themselvesa meditation teacher.
But then obviously there are a couple offar more accredited bodies and you've,
(39:08):
you've done a lot oftraining. I'd just be really,
really interested tounderstand how, how it works,
what you're doing with yourclients, what's the methodology?
So when I got trained,
and especially when I moved to New Yorkcity after my mum died and I cured the
fibro, that was my main focus.
(39:29):
Yeah.
So in the beginning I was pretty general,
so I wanted to coach everybody.I just wanted to, you know,
get an understanding how this works.
And I believe the definition of theInternational Coach Federation is that
"coaching is partnering with clients ina thought provoking and creative process
(39:52):
to help them maximise theirpotential" or something similar.
And yeah, it's different from mentoring.
So it's not that somebody went throughan experience and then tells the other
person that this is whatyou should be doing,
which obviously also has great value,but that's just not the same thing.
It's not consulting. So again,
(40:14):
it's not telling what to doand it's also not therapy.
So coaching is a partnership where thecoach facilitates a certain project,
certain goals that want tobe achieved, certain results,
and creates a personalised developmentplan for the client and agrees on
(40:41):
how
they can strategically achieve that goal.
And for some peoplethat's more of an internal
process. So removing certain beliefs or
yeah, I mean in business it's, Iwould say it's more external stuff,
(41:03):
but it's also internal in terms of whatI said earlier with the identity. Okay,
who am I? How do I carry myself? Howdo I come across how do I lead people?
How can I let go of control?All of those things.
But then also externalexternal objectives that
some people want to address,which could be hiring,
(41:26):
which could be, again, leadership,structuring a business differently.
Yeah.
Optimising their performance.
So it very much depends on theclient. So it's very personalised.
So in the beginning I did a verygeneral coaching... life coaching,
career coaching. I was signedwith a corporate firm in New York,
so I did some corporatestuff which I liked,
(41:51):
but I wasn't necessarilyso inspired by. Yeah.
And I did some careercoaching and life coaching,
especially for people who wanted to findout what they wanted to do with their
life because I just kind ofwent through that process.
So what are the values? What's thestrength? Who am I, what do I want?
What do I not want? Who do Iwant to work with? And for me,
(42:12):
I believe I always wanted to work withbusiness owners because I believe they,
first off, you have thehighest, the biggest impact,
because they really can decide howthey want to move things around.
They're not just a numberin a big corporation,
and I believe they have usually certainkind of personalities that are very
(42:33):
inspiring to me.
And many business owners use theirbusiness as a creative outlet to express
themselves, and want tomake a change somehow.
So change the way we live as humans.
And I mean there's companieslike Apple or like I don't know,
but whatever Elon Musk does...
(42:55):
Yeah, yeah, everything he does.
It's a huge impact on howwe live, and how we travel,
and how we interactwith each other. I mean,
all of this was created by some...
It was an idea in somebody's mindand now it's reality. So, yeah,
I think that's really amazing.
So I always wanted to workwith business owners and CEOs.
(43:17):
I didn't ask myself the questionif I was qualified or not.
And looking back now I'm like,huh, maybe I wasn't qualified,
but well now it's too late!
Yeah [laughing]!
But yeah, I pretty much justasked myself the question,
"who do I want to workwith"? And then I thought of,
and asked people the question: what they struggled with. And yeah, (43:33):
undefined
so in the past, I would saya year and a half, two years,
I got into executive coachingand kind of dropped the rest.
I do it sometimes - I'm signed witha firm here in London and I do career
coaching for them. Butin my personal practice,
(43:53):
it's all working with smallto mid-sized companies.
So I don't do a big corporations.
Usually I would say up to maybe 300 peopleand they would bring me on while they
grow. So when a company gets funding,
or sometimes I'm hired through a VCfirm and they use me for their founders,
(44:17):
then they would bring me on to
help the founder or the CEO to be themost effective within that growth period.
So from my experience,
there are three main components that Iusually work with and everybody has a
(44:39):
little bit of a different focus. Sosome people come to me for one thing.
And then the other twowe touch on a little bit,
but it's not that theyreally dive deep into those,
and it's usually personal performance.
So becoming most effective,because a company,
especially when you'renot a big organisation,
(45:01):
very much depends on on thefounder and on the leadership team.
And if the person on top of the, you know,
like basically the head of the companyis not operating optimally and not
functioning, then usually the restof the company doesn't either.
(45:22):
They don't know... They don't have...
Yeah. This sort of dysfunctionjust spreads through the whole...
Confusion - there's no structure to it.
It's just a big mess.
And then scale up kind ofgrows that mess exponentially.
So we don't want that. Soit's personal performance,
which I usually work on optimizingenergy levels, physical energy,
(45:45):
emotional energy, which isobviously meditation, mental energy,
also meditation. And...
It's almost like a bit of a life audit.
Yes, exactly. So, I do a lotaround focus and deep work,
so cutting out distractionsand being really strategic and
(46:11):
taking on more tasks that...
bring the business forward,
rather than working on day to day stuff?
Yeah.
So it's optimizing energy, it's focus,
emotional intelligence and yeah, that's,
that's pretty much itin terms of performance.
(46:34):
Then there's structure. SoI work on time management,
delegating, on bringingstructure into the team,
and to the company, andautomating processes.
And the third one is leadership.
And I do an exercise usually to havethem determine what an ideal leader looks
(46:55):
like for them, becausethere's not one set formula,
but everybody has a differentidea of what an ideal leader is.
So I want them to define their role and
design their role as a leader, howthey want to be, who they want to be,
how they want to show up, and howthey want the team to see them.
(47:16):
And I work on creating acompany culture and yeah,
on delegating, that's pretty muchthe three areas, the leadership,
the structure and thepersonal performance. And then everybody has, you know,
their focus where they dive deeper.
So now I imagine,
(47:36):
particularly if it's a founderand VC money is coming in,
so there's this sort of scale upthing going on. There may be some,
occasionally you might,
you might encounter some sortof reluctance or challenge from the founder who's
been told that they needto have a coach. Is there,
is there an element of that? I mean,
(47:57):
do you need a kind of challenge inorder to get somewhere interesting?
You mean that they don't want to...
Yeah, yeah...
No.
I think coaching used to be to fixpeople within organisations that are not
performing well. AndI think now it's more,
it's almost a compliment. Like,"oh, somebody invested in me...
(48:19):
because they believe that I have thepotential to become even better". And
usually because if it's, if it's afounder and they hire me themselves,
then they already have the...
They're already enthusiastic.
Yeah, exactly.
And I had a few clients, they were...
(48:40):
they had the opportunity to,
the option to go out and find themselvesa coach. So then when he found me,
he's a CFO at a VC...
he he liked my profile and then hewas enthusiastic about it as well.
Yeah.
And the other one whowas higher, yeah, he's
(49:04):
an MD, and he already wanted to have anexecutive coach anyways, so he was like,
"yeah, sure. This is perfect"!
Oh great.
So yeah, no, I never had that.
No, no. And then, you know,
when you're kind of inthere exploring, you know,
what are your personal barriersand what does a leader mean to you?
(49:24):
I suppose it's almost...
you're facilitating them answeringthose questions for themselves.
Yes, yes.
I mean we determine in the beginningwhat the terms and what the goals are,
and if that's something that standsin the way of them getting there,
then we work through that.If not, then it's an extra,
(49:46):
it's a nice-to-have, butit's not, you know, in need,
like we have to work on this. But yeah,
I believe if you're a leader orjust in your personal life to,
to understand, to havea personal brand almost,
that you also know who you are. Like,this is my values. This is what I do with,
(50:07):
this is what I not doing, orthis is who I'm surrounded with.
So this is what I eat... You know,
like you know what you'redoing and why you're doing it.
I think it's just instills confidence.
If you're a leader or a mother ora business owner or an employer,
it doesn't really matter. So Ithink it's important either way.
(50:29):
Yeah.
And it gives you kind of guidelinesof how to act when you're challenged.
If you're a bit lost at sea.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah. So now,
I want to chat to you alittle bit about community.
I try to do it on everyepisode of this podcast.
(50:50):
Community can mean a lot of thingsto a lot of people. But you know,
perhaps for me...
right at this sort ofbedrock of meditation,
that we chatted about abit earlier on about...
Something being very simple, but wetend to kind of over-complicate...
(51:11):
Maybe right at the verybedrock of meditation and mindfulness is the sense that
we are happier and morejoyful when we're connected.
And then, you know, connected to what?
Well then you can insert anythingalmost after that - connected to nature,
connected to the world aroundus, connected to people...
(51:33):
And conversely we're probablyleast happy when we feel isolated,
disconnected, cut off you know?
Where do you get yoursense of connection from,
and who do you think ofwhen I say community?
So I think it's interesting what you saidwith how we feel most isolated when we
(51:55):
feel disconnected. And I believe it'swhen we feel disconnected from ourselves.
And a friend of mine actuallyasked me the other day,
'cause I don't really have a familyanymore... I have a smaller sister.
My mother passed. My dadI'm not really close with.
And she asked me how many days,
how many times a day I feel lonelybecause I don't have a family.
(52:16):
And I said never. I never feel lonely.
I feel full of life.
Like there are so many amazing people outthere and it's your choice if you want
to make them family or friends or not.
And I think having the selfawareness of what's important to you,
and who you want to be surroundedwith, and who inspires you...
(52:40):
It gives you clarity on
who you want to connect with.
And then reaching out andcreating the connection...
it's kind of your responsibilityin a way. And I'm not saying, "Oh,
you should only hang out with onekind of person". I believe especially,
you know, in meditation youfeel connected to everything,
you're very open minded,
(53:03):
you respect all kindsof different viewpoints.
Like I don't feel resentfultowards somebody who has a different political view
than me, or who thinksdifferently of money than me,
or of relationships.
Everybody just has their ownway of thinking about something.
And I very much respecteverybody's way of thinking.
(53:25):
But I still know my point of view,
and I know that it's easier for me toswim with the current when I'm in the
right river, than you know,
than [if] I tried tochange people around me,
and be surrounded by people I'm notnecessarily on the same page with.
And I very much feel inspiredby people who own companies,
(53:49):
who have freedom around howthey want to create their life.
It's a completely different, it's acompletely different life. I mean,
the way you have to manage yourself,there's nobody to tell you what to do.
Yeah.
It creates a differentpersonality I believe.
And it's very inspiring to me.
And what's also interesting,when I thought of,
(54:13):
because when I left New York,
I didn't really know where I wantedto go and what I wanted to do. No,
I knew what I wanted to do,sorry, but where I wanted to live,
and I kind of discovered that there isthis community that's kind of all over
the world, and they areso connected in a way,
and you meet them in alldifferent kinds of places.
And I don't mean necessarilylongtime travelers,
(54:36):
but really people who runcompanies, but they, you know,
you just have a home maybe in London,,
and one in Barcelona and then everyoneto everybody goes in the South of
Portugal, whatever, you know, just,just making it up. But there is,
no matter what you do and who youare, there's people who do that.
There is a community for it and I thinkyou just have to know who you are,
(55:00):
and then plug into thatcommunity. So yeah,
I think that's, that'smy community. Basically.
You become who you want to hangout with, and who inspires you,
then you find those people. It'sthe same with love I believe.
You become the person you wantto date and then you're gonna...
you're on a frequency...
(55:22):
Where you look for the personyou want to become. Yeah, yeah.
One way or the other.Yeah. Mm. And you've got...
We'll do the plugs at the end, so youcan mention Instagram and everything...
But were you to stumble across Katy'sInstagram - I think I saw like 12,000
followers there - does that...
(55:45):
feel like connectionor is that a sort of...
necessary evil for actually...
getting your brand out there and makingyour business what you want it to be?
Hmm, I would say the,
you can kind of choose who you want tohave in your primary inbox and in your
general inbox.
So in my primary inbox is just friendswhere I connect with and I kind of,
(56:09):
when I do Instagram stories forexample, I kind of do it for them.
And because I know from them I get theresponses, they kind of know where I am,
and maybe they're telling me,"oh, I'm in the same town, like,
let's have a coffee or something".
And yeah, and the rest, I mean,
I use Instagram as much as I want to,
(56:29):
like sometimes I post five times aday, and then I don't post for a week.
I don't feel obligated to do anything,
but I know that it is a toolto get recognised by brands,
by media and so and so forth.And I use it as a tool,
let's put it that way. I don'tlove it, I don't hate it,
(56:50):
but I know it has value.
Yeah. And I wanted tochat a bit about your...
You write for Forbes amongst, amongstother titles, Thrive Global and
many others. What do you get out of the
(57:10):
writing, what do you get out ofputting those thoughts out there?
Yeah. Organisation andstructure of thoughts.
I remember I started writing the firstday I left Germany and I started a blog.
And for some reason it got traction,
and for some reason I deleted thewhole thing. I don't know why...
(57:31):
I regretted it so much after. Itwas on blogger.com or something.
Oh right, yeah.
I was just documenting my journey within,
and from obviously where I was,
but I think people were drawnto it and they just saw, "okay,
this is what she's going through,
(57:52):
this is where she's developinginto this kind of person".
And it's a form of self expression.
And at one point it came a littlebit more business related obviously,
but to me it's all connected anyways.
And I think it's about reallyintensely researching a topic,
thinking of your ownexperience with the topic,
(58:13):
thinking of what experiencesthat your clients have,
and then putting it alltogether. And for example,
I wrote an article on the chronicpain and when somebody tells me,
"hey, I have chronic pain", I send themthe book, and I send them the article,
which kind of describes just,"okay, this is what you have to do,
do it for three months and youwill get rid of it. If you do that,
(58:36):
it's almost guaranteed that youwill get rid of it". And yeah,
so I think it's just kindof like a summary yeah.
Also I haven't been writing for along time so I have to do that again.
I want to do it!
You feel the pressure, probablyself-exerted pressure though.
Uh yeah, I feel like nowI kind of have the...
(58:56):
I get my foot in the door because I didwrite for some media outlets and you
just get accepted then when you,when you pitch an article. But I,
the moment you know, you can do somethinganytime, it's kind of like, "yeah,
well tomorrow, tomorrow", and thenone year later you're like, "what?!
I kind of shut down"!
Gosh, I know personally, Ireally, really struggle with,
(59:20):
I don't know if you callthat time management,
because I'm sure you are managingyour time very well, but you know...
knowing what to prioritise.You know, if I'm...
I always feel like if I'm working on myInstagram, which I know I have to do,
then I'm not building my business.
And in another way the finances arebeing neglected and I'm certainly not
(59:41):
developing as a teacher. And yetif I'm doing any of those things,
then I'm not growing my socialmedia following, and like knowing...
what is important?
Yes. I, I think with that...good thing at the end,
that you're saying this, 'causeI... What I started doing is,
I started to split my dayinto certain time blocks,
(01:00:05):
of like an hour and a half, or two hours.
And in the morning I work out and I goto the gym, and shower, and meditate.
So it's my body and mind block.
Then I have about twohours of content creation.
So that could be, rightnow I'm writing an ebook.
After that I will kind of pick that ebookapart and make like 12 articles out of
(01:00:29):
it, because it has 12 sections.
And during those two hours,it's basically creating content.
It could be recording a podcast,it could be recording a video,
it could be developing a workshop, itcould be anything that's content, or
that's related to contentcreation. And then after that,
(01:00:50):
I do about an hour and a half of socialmedia and email. So that could be,
you know, direct outreach topeople, posting something,
being in groups, answering comments,
answering and commenting on posts.
And then obviously the emailthat is always, "oh"...
Stacking up.
(01:01:12):
Yeah [laughing]. And then I have lunch,
and in the afternoon I have my clients.
And after that I usually doanother hour of emails or so.
And yeah,
so I kind of want to get a littlebit of everything in every day,
if that makes sense. So I have, yeah...so I never have to worry about, "okay,
(01:01:33):
am I slacking on this or not?", becauseI know I'm going to do it these hours.
So it's actually, it's very highlystructured within these blocks.
Obviously you've got a little bit ofleeway, and you can be creative, but...
Exactly. And I can move theblocks around if I have to.
So if I feel like, you know,
maybe one morning I don't wantto do the content creation,
(01:01:55):
I'm going to move it to aSaturday or something, but...
Oh, okay. Yeah. So there'sa little bit of flexibility.
I'm just, you know, I don't want toenforce, I want to inspire me doing,
doing it.
Yeah. And what do you doon your downtime? You know,
when you're not working on these blocks,
or does the downtime get brokeninto blocks as well [laughing]?
(01:02:20):
Well I would say, I mean, Ilive in Barcelona currently,
so over the summer there was alot of just being on the beach,
exploring the city because Ijust moved there in May and, no,
actually in July sorry. What else?
I do love food a lot. Like I have,
(01:02:40):
I'm actually surprised Idon't have a food blog yet.
I have like all my favoriterestaurants, and I do research,
and then I go to them, and then ratehow good they were at the service. And
it's at a point where I'm like "oops".
[Laughing].
Yeah. And then I read,I don't watch TV ever,
I really don't enjoy thatmuch or movies and yeah,
(01:03:05):
I would say I'm a very social personso I'm always surrounded by friends.
I think ever since I moved toBarcelona until this very day,
actually until the middle of November,
I had guests with maybe two orthree days inbetween [laughing].
Oh wow, okay!
So I'm always busy.
Everyone wants a friendwith a place in Barcelona.
(01:03:29):
Exactly! Like the day I get back fromLondon, my friend from New York is coming.
So she's going to basically bewaiting there for me [laughing].
Yeah. Oh God.
I know the block isprobably coming to an end,
so I want to say like a huge thankyou for giving your time today...
(01:03:52):
you know managing to fit us in.
Is there anything that you want the...I'm not sure when this is going to air...
but that you want to plug,
that you want the listenersor viewers to know about?
Should they follow you on Instagramor look out for the next ebook?
(01:04:13):
Is there a website?
Yes. That should launch soon.
Definitely before the end of the year.
And it's going to be every...
All the information is on my websiteand also to all of my social media
channels... I would say LinkedIn,I am the most active on,
or email katy@katytrost.com - very simple.
(01:04:35):
So if anybody has any questions,feel free to reach out.
Okay. So thank you again so, so much.
Thank you!
I've really, really lovedthis conversation...
Thank you I did too.
And I think the listeners will too. Right!
Thank you so much for joiningfor that episode. At Levitate,
we've been helping people to connect mind,
body and soul since spring 2018.
(01:04:56):
We teach meditation and mindfulnessfor the real world to people with busy
minds. We do this indrop-in group classes,
studios and workplaces inLondon and across the world.
We're also really passionate aboutall aspects of wellbeing, movement,
nutrition, sleep, and more.
(01:05:17):
But we get all our inspirationfrom connecting with the community,
so we're really, reallyhappy to have you here.
If you enjoyed the episode,
please do share it with someone elsewho you think might enjoy it too.
I'd love it if you'd subscribeto our YouTube channel.
Just search for Levitate and hit subscribeand do make sure to hit the bell icon
(01:05:40):
to be notified of new videos.
We're going to put up episodes of thepodcast if you prefer to watch them.
And we put guidedmeditations up there as well.
Please also subscribe to the podcast.
It's on iTunes, Stitcher,Breaker, TuneIn, Spotify,
Google play. In fact,
(01:06:01):
wherever you get your podcastsand we want to hear from you.
So please do send us an emailto podcast@levitate.london and let us know what
you think, what you'd like more of, whoyou'd like to hear next on the show.
And please do consider leaving us a fivestar review on the podcast platform of
your choice. They really do helpkeep the lights on. Finally,
(01:06:25):
we're on the interwebs.
You can find out more aboutLevitate at www.levitate.london ...
We're on Instagram and our handleis @levitatelondon (one word).
The same goes for Twitter and Facebook.
The theme music for this episode,
(01:06:46):
and the show was composed by Nic Nell.
You can find him onInstagram as @casuallyhere.
We can't wait to have you back.
So please join in soon for anotherepisode of Levitate with me,
Ryan Nell. Thank you.
(01:07:16):
[Levitate
theme music by Nic Nell]
Hello and welcome to Levitate, thehome of inspiring stories with me,
Ryan Nell.
In today's episode we talk about how togrow as a leader and beat chronic pain
with Katy Trost.
Katy is an executive coach who workswith leaders in the startup and scaleup
(00:21):
industry.
She traveled for four years rather thango to university and set up her first
business at the age of 21. She
has overcome some personal hardships- chronic pain and fibromyalgia.
We chat about her childhood and how thatshaped her and influences who she is
(00:45):
today and also the morerecent loss of her mother.
Katy and I chat about community and socialmedia and how she finds balance in a
world that demands a lot of us.
She also shares some reallypowerful tips on time management,
which I know I'm going toapply to the way I work,
(01:08):
and I hope you enjoy thisconversation as much as I did.
They just gave me cortisone shots butdidn't tell me that it would come back
after. For like a week, I felt like anewborn person. I was like: "Oh my God,
this is amazing!" And then it cameback even worse and the side effects of
fibromyalgia are chronic fatigueand like you just get so depressed.
(01:29):
I think I told my mumon the phone, I'm like,
if this is going to go onfor another year or two,
I'm not going to be able to makeit. But she told me the whole time,
"just don't give up... just don'tsettle without having an answer".
(02:04):
[Levitate theme music by Nic Nell]
So I'm sitting here with KatyTrost. Katy is an executive coach,
a regular Forbes contributor,
and she advises CEOs in variousplaces across the world.
She's got an incredible background,overcome some things in her life,
(02:26):
like chronic pain,
and has flirted quite deeplywith mindfulness and meditation,
and we're hopefully going todo a bit of work together,
but our paths have crossed and Icouldn't wait to get her on the podcast.
So welcome Katy.
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'mreally excited. Looking forward to it.
(02:47):
Would you just tell the listeners andviewers a little bit about yourself,
what your journey hasbeen to get to this point?
Where it all started?
Yeah.
You already said my work background,
so I'm an executive coach and I specialisein working with founders and CEOs,
and sometimes the entire leadership team,
(03:08):
and I help them navigate the challengesof accelerated business growth.
So when a company growsfast and dynamics change,
and there's a lot of newpeople on the team for example,
and they usually partner with me tohelp to optimise structure within the
(03:29):
business to optimise their personalperformance and to become more effective
leaders. And I'm originally from Germany,
so I left 2013 and I traveled for fouryears around the world to 30 countries by
myself, which was an amazing experience.
And then I moved to New York city fortwo years and I lived there and that's
(03:53):
when I really got into executive coachingand more into the startup scene and
the tech and finance industries.
And then I started myfirst business at 21...
Wow!
... and while I was abroad -what you mentioned earlier,
and kind of how we get togethertoday - while I was abroad,
(04:14):
I spent a few months in Buddhistmonasteries and I studied the mindfulness
teachings of Thich NhatHahn and then Vipassana.
And I wanted to learn how I can implementthose in order to improve balance and
then also performance in life and inbusiness. And yeah, so as you mentioned,
I also cured myself from chronic pain.
(04:37):
I had fibromyalgia for two years - Ibelieve that was 2016 through 2018 and so
very recently - and that was anincredible journey and just experience for
myself, with myself, because you'repretty much by yourself doing that.
And yeah, so, and as you said,
(04:58):
I write for Forbes and I write for SuccessMagazine and partner with We Work and
Soho House.
And I did some trainings with QuinnipiacUniversity in Connecticut and I do
workshops and trainingson entrepreneurship and on high performance psychology,
on mindfulness and everythingrelated to executive coaching,
(05:22):
leadership stuff as well. Yeah.
And signed with a few coaching firmsacross the world and help them with their
clients and have mypersonal practice as well.
It's incredible!
So you sound like the world's most busyhuman with all of that stuff in the CV
(05:42):
and these different things that youare working on. What prompted that...
did you say you traveled for four years?
Yeah.
What was the inspirationbehind that journey?
That's a great question because I onlyremember myself riding my bike to high
school and it was coldoutside and rainy outside.
(06:02):
And I just was so convinced that Iwanted to leave Germany and I wanted to,
I was very "Type A"...
very forcing myself intoa very strict schedule.
And I would say I've reallysuffered under my own pressure,
and I had incredible...
(06:24):
I had incredible doubts about myselfand I feel like every teenager and every
person kind of goesthrough that at one point.
But I really wanted to get rid of itbecause I believe that there is something
on the other side of that and that therecan be an amazing quality of life and,
yeah,
just confidence and morewellbeing on the other side.
(06:48):
So I wanted to take that time to exploreand to get rid of my negative beliefs
and to explore me and really developa good relationship with myself.
So I just left and I went as far as Ipossibly could - to New Zealand [laughs]!
And were your family fans of the idea?
(07:11):
Were they supportive ora bit worried probably?
I would say my mum was.She was very supportive.
She didn't know what I was doing yet,
especially when I got intocoaching as well. She was very much
confused, but she alwayssupported me in, you know,
following what I believedwas the right thing.
(07:31):
But she also said that if I want to dosomething that's maybe a little bit more
unconventional, I neverwent to college by the way,
that I would need to dedicate myself toit and that she expected excellence in
whatever I choose to do,
but she didn't tell me whatI had to do. And my dad,
(07:55):
I think he wasn't that supportive ofit, but he was a big part of why I left,
so I didn't really care... [Laughs].
We don't have to get into that...But a bit of rebellion is good!
I'm an open book [laughing].
Yeah.
So you went to New Zealand and wereyou working out there or were you...?
(08:16):
No not at all. I mean, I finished school,
finished high school and during thesummer after I finished high school,
I just worked as a waitress and Isaved all my money and I went with
I believe like $7,000 and I thoughtI was going to travel for 10 years.
I'm like, what's that about?
It will never run out yeah.
So like, yeah, threemonths and I'm like "Oh"!
(08:41):
But I went to New Zealand.I ended up getting,
I hitch-hiked and went to hostels andcouchsurfed - it was, it was amazing.
My English was absolutely horrible.
So I was basically using emoji Englishand hands and feet to communicate.
I went to Sydney, got a jobthere just for three months,
just waiting tables and then left Sydney,
went on a road trip and then I justtraveled and just used my savings.
(09:05):
I traveled within Australiaand traveled in Asia,
Southeast Asia,
for about three months and then inWestern Europe to Spain and Portugal and
France.
And that's where I went to the meditationretreat for the first time in...
Which is Thich Nhat Hahn's Plum Village.
Yeah. So it's in the South ofFrance or it's in Bordeaux,
(09:26):
so like mid South of France,a little bit outside,
and so when I went tothe meditation retreat,
I was going to become an architect after,
because at that point I had traveledfor a year and I was going to become an
architect and move to Vienna.
And I think I only did it because thatwas like the only thing that I liked in
school to model - the houses - and Iwas really good at it and it was really
(09:50):
cool to become an architect. SoI was like, of course I'm going.
It's very sexy profession. Yeah, yeah.
I just imagined myself at these,you know, dinner parties. I don't,
I don't know. It was so fancy life to me.The idea of it! Yes. So I had no clue.
But my friend was like (10:07):
"I just did an internship with an architecture firm...
Katy, it's horrible. It's only numbers.
There's nothing design,like nothing". Like, okay,
I'm not going to do that.
And I believe for me the idea ofhaving a nine to five was just not very
appealing. So yeah,
(10:29):
within that month ofbeing at the monastery,
I talked to a lot of people and I metobviously a lot of people that were at
some kind of crossroads in their life.
If that was because theydidn't have children and they wanted to start their own
business and make that their life's work,
or if the kids were out of thehouse and they were like, you know,
re-evaluating what they wanted to do withthe remaining 20 or 30 years that they
(10:52):
were fit.
And I just saw a pattern of peoplethat went in the wrong direction for,
for a long time and then came back tothe same point and kind of started from
scratch and had a completely new career.
But now there's a mortgage and nowthere's responsibilities and kids.
(11:13):
And I asked myself "do I want to be atthe same point again at 20 years?" And
then do something I really like,
or am I just going to take a little bitmore time and just explore who I am,
what I want, what I'm goodat, and then go for that?
And even if it's a little harder,at least I have like, you know,
(11:33):
I'm 20 years ahead basically of everybodyelse because they do it after 20 years
or 10 or whatever.
Right, so to get the midlifecrisis out of the way early,
skip it entirely ideally?
Yeah. It was a little hard, right?
Cause at that point all of my friendsstarted going to college and I didn't have
any idea what I was going to do.
So I went home after thefirst year and I was like,
(11:56):
I want to do somethinglocation independent. Freedom is a big value of mine.
And I wanted to
be able to to travel for another year.So I told my mum and she was like,
"I don't know what you're doing but youjust do your thing, I believe in you,
it's all good". And I left and I wentto the States for the first time.
I went to New York for the firsttime, moved to the West coast.
(12:19):
I was dating somebody there.
So it was kind of like in and out of SanFrancisco for about a year and went to
central America and just cruisedthrough central America by myself on the
chicken bus. It was amazing.
And a friend of minetold me about coaching.
This is a very long versionof my story by the way. Sorry!
No, this is great. This is great.
(12:39):
So many avenues that I want to kindof pick up on. But yeah, keep going...
So actually because youasked how I was working.
So after the first year oftraveling, I went to Switzerland,
went to a town called Davos where theyhave the World Economic Forum and I
waitressed and I did the seasonthere, I think I saved like 20 grand,
and then did another yearof traveling and yeah,
(13:01):
so moved to the West coast,
was in central America for a while andI just kind of explored and did all of
those exercises that I now sometimes dowith my clients. Like "what's my values,
what's important to me,
what am I strengths?" And I did all ofthat without knowing that I was doing
them. So just explored myself. Read a lot,
(13:25):
did a lot of meditation because at thatpoint I already had all the experience
with the monastery,
and a friend of mine told me aboutcoaching and I think it was more corporate
leadership coaching thatyou can do, you know,
some kind of courses at universities,and that was a new thing.
(13:45):
And I looked into it andI was so fascinated by it and I never had that thing.
You know, some people,they are photographers...
photographers from when they are sevenyears old and they are like "yeah this is
what I'm going to do for the restof my life"! And I never had that.
And when I saw this I was like,"yeah, this is amazing"! And
yeah,
so very quickly I signed up for a programwhich is an American school and it's,
(14:12):
I believe one of the top twoinstitutes in the world next to the -
what's it called - CTI. And theone I went to is called IPEC.
And I did that program,which was partly remote.
And then the rest is online and youhave webinars and calls in between.
(14:33):
And it's about 15 hoursof work a week I believe.
So I did that. And while I was doing that,
I realised that I didn't want to go backagain and waitress again for those two
or three months and save upagain and then, you know, travel.
So I started, I kind of likeconnected the dots and I was like,
(14:54):
I'm just going to start a business that'sbasically assisting other coaches so I
can get a look behind the scenes athow it works. So that's what I did.
And I reached out to probably athousand coaches on the, on the ICF,
the International CoachFederation, website.
And I told them my story -"I'm Katy, I'm traveling,
I want to be your assistant". And Istarted with like 10 bucks an hour, just,
(15:18):
you know, being anassistant copying, pasting,
putting some stuff on social media.
Yeah. And then I
just added more and more toolsto my to my belt, marketing, PR,
that kind of stuff, increased my prices.
And then I had a freelance business thatbasically allowed me to travel and work
(15:39):
about 10 hours a week orwhatever it was. Yeah.
So I did have to go back
to Switzerland though, one more timebecause the money just wasn't enough.
And that's when Ideveloped my chronic pain.
I was carrying these really heavy stonesbecause the customers were able to
(16:01):
grill the steak on, ona stone on the table.
Like a pierrade?
Yeah. It's like you get thewhole stone or something.
And I carried it and I think it was morethe mental stress than anything within
the restaurant. And I hated thehospitality industry - from the beginning,
it was not my cup of tea at all.
So I think I just didn't likethat somebody told me what to do,
(16:25):
I think that was the whole problem.
Yeah. I'm getting that theme. Yeah.
In the beginning I thought itwas like Carpal tunnel. Yeah.
And then I went to get these wraps andthen it went over my, over my hands,
and I had these bumps here and then itwent into my shoulders and then went all
over my body. And within three months Iwasn't able to move. It was just like,
(16:47):
"what's going on? It's crazy"! Yeah.
So I wasn't able to finish that thoughand then went back to California,
because I was still dating theguy in California. And yeah,
so I was basically laying inbed for, for multiple months,
and I had my business and my coachingcertification and started having my first
(17:07):
clients and I couldn'tdrive or put my clothes on.
It was just absolutelyhorrible. I mean it was...
So you're speaking to theclients on the phone or...?
Yeah.
So that was an very intense experienceand I broke up with him there and left.
(17:29):
Right after actually my mumgot diagnosed with cancer,
so my fibromyalgia was just like, wow,
like very intense.
Yeah.
Because it was a very intense period...
And did you want to talkabout that more now or later?
About the fibromyalgia?
Now's as good a momentas any. Yeah. You know,
(17:52):
I'd be interested to knowwhat you think was going on,
you know, because obviously we had alittle chat before the podcast, but
quite often sort of mental,
spiritual angst in a way, you know,
plays out physically if weignore it for long enough.
But do you think that was whatwas going on for you or...?
(18:14):
I think so yeah! So I mean,
I was trying to cure it in so many waysand I'm not a person who just pops pills
and takes drugs and, you know,kind of cures the symptoms.
My mum was always, she'slike, she was a huge fan of
homeopathic remedies.
(18:35):
Yeah.
And
at one point I just didn'thave the option anymore to only
basically try to help myself with diet.
Like I think I only ate green vegetablesfor like three months. I only...
Yeah, that sounds terrible.
Yeah... it is terrible.
Unless you like vegetables,but even then... monotonous.
(19:00):
Exactly. I tried hypnotherapy. Andthen when I went to the doctor,
I spent so much money on the doctors and,
and in the U.S. because it's so...
That's how they get you!
Yeah, exactly. And they had no idea whatwas going on. And I was like, "well,
it's basically arthritis orsomething like that"! You know,
I never heard of fibromyalgiabefore. "It's basically arthritis"...
(19:21):
And they were like, no, you can't havethat. You are too young. But I'm like,
"well, but I havesomething"! Like, you know,
so they just gave me cortisone shots,
but they didn't tell me that it wouldcome back after. For like a week,
I felt like a newborn person. I waslike, "Oh my God, this is amazing"!
And then it came back even worse andthe side effects of fibromyalgia are
(19:42):
chronic fatigue and like,you just get so depressed.
I think I told my mumon the phone, I'm like,
"if this is gonna go on for anotheryear or two, I'm going to...
I'm not going to able to make it.Like, I don't want to live like this"!
But she told me the whole time, "justdon't give up... just don't settle
(20:03):
without having an answer what this isand how, where is this coming from"! So
I did leave San Francisco and I traveledwith her in Colombia for a while
because she had the diagnosis and I waslike, "you know, you have two options,
basically lie in a hospital anddie in like three or four years,
(20:25):
or you just come travel with me inColumbia and we can dance salsa and have
tequila and you're gonnadie whenever you die"...
Yeah, yeah.
"She's like, okay, I'm bookingmy flight"! I'm like "cool".
I mean she sounds like an amazing woman.
She was definitely. So yeah.So she came to Columbia.
I had an amazing, just amazingtime with her for like two months.
And then we went to Guatemala and shehad to home because she wasn't feeling so
(20:49):
well.
And I still had the fibromyalgia and atthat point I think I had traveled for
about three, three and a halfyears. That was beginning of 2017.
Yep. And I left end of 2013, so
she passed away I believe, three,three weeks after she left,
and I came home just after, soI didn't really see her again...
(21:12):
But yeah,
I was still having my fibromyalgiaand I was in the house with my sister.
My parents had divorced and my fatherwas not in the picture and we were just,
you know,
we just had to like figure out a funeraland to get rid of all the stuff for the
house and how to, you know, how toget tenants and all that stuff, and
(21:33):
finance, and just craziness.
And I imagine none of which youwant to think about at the moment.
And I was building my business, my twobusinesses basically. So, yeah, it wasn't
very relaxing, Let's put it that way!
Yeah.
When I,
(21:53):
I believe when I went to Germany or justbefore I found somebody in a Facebook
group randomly and shewas just like, you know
if you have chronic pain, text me orreach out to me. And I was like, okay,
I never saw anything like this beforein a comment off a Facebook post.
And I reached out to her and I don'teven remember what she told me on the
(22:16):
phone. I was just like, "take my money".
I tried everything I can do with thisis the absolute last resort. Like I,
I have no idea. So Ipaid her barely anything.
I think it was like 300 bucks or somethingand before I'd spent thousands on
doctors, you know.
Yeah, who told you nothing.
Yeah.
She explained a concept to me thatmade sense and I already believed in
(22:40):
something similar before,
but I just couldn't put the piecesof the puzzle together and how it all
[formed] the biggerpicture and what she said,
well she recommended a book tome that I've read multiple times.
It's called Mind BodyPrescription by Dr Sarno. Yeah,
he actually passed away two years ago,
(23:02):
and he was a doctor at NYUuniversity at the hospital,
and he came up with this method thatyour brain always tries to release stress
in some kind of way andit can come out with
(23:22):
physical symptoms. So that could bechronic migraines, chronic back pain,
chronic. For example,
fibromyalgia or you have somethingchronic on your knee or on your foot...
And it usually startswith some kind of injury,
and then it just doesn't go away,
and it becomes actuallystronger and stronger over time.
(23:43):
And what your brain does is it takesemotional pain and in order to distract
you,
it it just makes theemotional pain physical,
so you don't have to dealwith the emotional pain.
And sometimes it comes outas anxiety and depression.
So it could be physical,it could be emotional.
(24:06):
And what she taught me to do is to firstoff activate my parasympathetic nervous
system with a lot of meditation,with a deep relaxation every day,
journaling so releasing the energy...
Kind of like a rest and digestmode rather than fight or flight.
Exactly. Yeah.
(24:26):
I was definitely in fightor flight for for a while.
Through those experiences. So I did that.
Then I read the book and I think thatthe trigger was to not buy into it
anymore. Whatever yourbrain does with you,
like you cannot reduce stress anyof that... that's the first rule.
(24:47):
You cannot reduce stress because thereis positive and negative stress in your
life. You have a child, you haveresponsibility, that's a stressor.
You get married, that's exciting. Butit's really stressful and it's very,
you know, it's a new thing. Youget a new job that's exciting,
but responsibility. See,there's no way for you to,
to reduce the amount of stress tozero and this just like impossible.
(25:09):
Yeah, yeah.
So it's more about how isit translated in your brain.
And for a long time, nothing happened.
I believe for two or three months I didit every single day. Nothing happened.
And then I went to New York for the summerbecause I just couldn't stay at home
anymore.
So was it like a particularkind of like a practice?
It's just these daily things that Ihad to do to read some of the book.
(25:32):
It's like knowledge therapy.Read the book for 15 minutes,
then I had to do a meditationfor 15 minutes, do the deep relaxation 15 minutes,
journal 15 minutes and...
Oh yeah one one importantthing is also to stop all,
how do you say, therapy or treatment?
(25:54):
So if you go to the physicaltherapist or the, you know,
anything to the massage, whatever it is,
you give your brain basicallythe information that something's wrong with you,
so you have to act as ifnothing was wrong with you.
Yeah, yeah.
It's really like it was,
it was a little bit twisted andI couldn't get the hang of it.
(26:14):
It's very interesting.It's counterintuitive.
Yeah, yeah. And I couldn't...
I understood the concept, but nothinghappened. I dunno, it was weird.
And then I went to New York and Ibroke down for five days. Literally.
I remember it didn'tleave the bed, nothing.
And by the day I couldsee the bumps on my hands,
swelling down and I got up afterfive days, zero pain. I was like,
(26:39):
what just happened? I was likeblown out of my mind. What happened?
It was crazy. And so I wasin New York over the summer.
I had an amazing time there andthen decided also to move there.
And yeah.
And the thing with chronic pain is,
I believe once you, once you cureit, it's like with emotional pain,
(27:00):
it might come back, but not that much,
and you know how to handle it.
So you solve it again and it might comeback in a longer period of time even,
you know,
and you just know how to handle itand it just doesn't come anymore.
It's, it's really interesting.And when it comes,
sometimes it comes and I feel that like5% or something of what I used to feel,
(27:25):
and I just literally think of the coverof that book and it just disappears.
It's because effectively you're like nowa repository of all of that knowledge.
Right. See, you know, it works.
I know there are some sort ofreally interesting studies,
like longitudinal onesthat Jon Kabat Zinn did.
(27:49):
There's sort of, I can't callhim the father of mindfulness,
but he is one of the guys who brought itinto Western medicine in particular in
the 70s.
And in his programme "MindfulnessBased Stress Reduction",
one of the major kind of groups ofpatients they work are with people with
chronic pain and it's uh, they'revery much doing the work of...
(28:15):
"We're unlikely to be ableto get rid of the pain.
What we want to do is help you changeyour relationship with it so you're no
longer suffering it. It's justsomething you're experiencing".
But there is some mental acrobaticsthat you need to do to get there.
You have to, but I don't evenbelieve in that because I,
for a long time I thought maybe now Ineed to more learn how to manage them,
(28:38):
how to manage the pain.
But I believe if you weren't born withsomething and it's like you know the way
your body is built or something,I believe you can get rid of it.
And it's really hard tobelieve that even for me,
I can say it in a very convincing way.I lived through it, I experienced it,
(29:00):
I experienced the doubt in thebeginning... "Is this going to work?",
at the whole process, andthen the final result.
And when I talk to people who dohave chronic pain, they always say,
"I know about it's not going to workwith me" or "yeah but it's back pain",
"but I have hurt for so long", "butyou can even see it under X-ray".
And that's actually interesting becausethe guy - Dr Sarnos - he says once
(29:23):
you're diagnosed with something,or once you see it on an X-ray,
it becomes even worse.
And what you see on the X-rayis usually a normal abnormality.
So it's very, your body is much,much stronger than you think.
And even if you have that abnormality,
(29:43):
you should be able to live without pain.It's kind of like the excuse of that.
You know, the,
It's almost a case. It's kind oflike confirmation bias, isn't it?
Where we we form,
I suppose we form a kind of picture ofhow the world is and then we'll encounter
all sorts of things thatdon't fit with that picture,
(30:04):
but we tend to just push them to oneside. They don't get as much weighting.
Yeah. Absolutely. So yeah, that was the...
Don't go and get an x-ray.That's the advice from Katy...
Yeah.
Just kidding.
You know, I don't know.It's, I don't know,
especially through my mum's death wherethe doctors wouldn't want to give her...
(30:31):
Like she wanted to test on her liverand they just wouldn't want to do that.
And she had to like ask five times andthen once she got [the test], it's like,
"yeah, your liver is literallyfull of cancer". It's like...
I just don't trust them anymore.
Yeah. Yeah.
They told me I can't have arthritis.
So I don't have arthritis just becauseI'm too young and this is just,
(30:52):
I don't necessarily believe intraditional medicine or traditional...
I don't know... I have a weirdrelationship with it, I guess.
Yeah. I mean I can totallyimagine why that is and
yeah, I mean there's a big, you know,big bit of obviously mindfulness is,
(31:13):
is you know,
trying to get people back to beingable to hear their own intuitions...
You know, to be able to payattention to what your body's saying,
what your mind is saying. We're very,very inclined to... I think now too,
obviously the, there's somuch science out there,
(31:34):
so many people have kind of done thethinking for us it's quite easy just to
kind of go along with it ratherthan developing your inner voice,
which clearly have. Yeah.
It's also interesting
I think what he said in thebook was that in certain,
in certain times there are "in illnesses".
(31:57):
So for a while everybodyhad [indecipherable],
then everybody had back pain,
and it was kind of what isrespected. And like if you,
if you tell your coworkers "Ihave such back pain", you know,
and it's kind of respected, thenunconsciously your body just develops it.
It's crazy. So many like differentgenerations have different,
(32:20):
it's almost like thefashion, you know, like
Yeah, there's a good kind ofevidential base that, you know, if you,
if you tell someone they have ADHD,
then the symptoms will like intensify.
They start believing it.
Yeah. Yeah. You can almost give it tosomeone by diagnosing them. So that's...
Absolutely. And you can removeit by doing that. Yeah. Yeah.
(32:45):
My workshop tonight is exactly about that.
Okay. Amazing. What's thetitle of the workshop?
It's about identity and thepsychology of the self-image. Okay.
So how you see yourself and howthat influences your results.
The way you show up yourperformance, your wellbeing,
and you can change your perception ofyourself without changing your actual self
(33:07):
and it's going to change your life,and completely changes your reality.
You just have to design your identityinstead of being a product of your
environment.
Yeah. So you seem like a real,
you're like a fighter andan explorer. Is there... is
(33:28):
there an early childhood memory thatmight give a bit of insight into the Katy
of today?
Um, an early childhoodmemory... I mean, I think
when I grew up, er...
My parents got divorced when I was notthat young, I think like 15 or something,
(33:49):
or they separated andthen got divorced later.
But there wasn't like a goodenergy necessarily in my home.
Like when I started, whenI had my first memories,
when I started thinkingaround like nine or ten...
and the problems that Iobserved my parents had...
If there was conflict emotionally,or in terms of relationships,
(34:13):
family, like the rest of thefamily, how they you know,
related to my mum, for example,my dad's family to my mum,
and financially, are differentin all kinds of ways.
I just remember myself standing inthe kitchen and I just looked at them
fighting and I was like,
(34:34):
I never want to have those problems.
And I just made this decision for myselfthat I don't want my life to feel that
way. And I think that's alsowhat I kind of ran away from.
And don't get me wrong, I didn'thave like a horrible, traumatizing
childhood, but I was,
I knew that there was abetter way of living I think.
(34:57):
And I made this decision for myself andI kind of wanted to go on this journey
to explore how that looks like. AndI think on the way I discovered that,
I would say 95% of people are living alife that's not necessarily fulfilling
and doesn't feel so great, you know,
and waking up to life that's not you,
(35:18):
or where you suffer from a lot of negativebeliefs about yourself and about the
world...
It really takes away the joy and the,
you know, the quality of yourlife. And I just never wanted that.
And I made this decision and whenI traveled I just felt so alive.
And I went bungee jumping and skydivingand hitchhiking and was only surrounded
(35:43):
by strangers and my worldimage completely changed.
I saw everybody I didn't knowas a friend I just don't know,
and I always believed in the bestin people. And I don't want...
And even though many things happened,and my mother passed away and you know,
I built a business,
I still want to believe inthe good things in life,
(36:06):
and I still want to trust in life, andwant to feel like they're... in the end,
everything is going to be good. And...
Yeah.
I think it's a, when you havethat belief, it doesn't matter,
you know,
what challenges you have because youhave a positive outlook and it's...
You're going to use that challenge tobecome better instead of become broken.
(36:30):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I thinkthat's really, that's really,
really wonderful what you just said.You're slightly, you're reminding me of...
this sort of idea that a lot ofpeople are out there and not that,
not that happy, not thatkind of content with what...
Potentially they're perhaps notliving the life that they could be.
(36:54):
There's an interesting statistic I cameacross the other day about florists and
solicitors I think in the UK. And anyway,
they did a study andsurveyed, I don't know,
2200 people or something and
40% of solicitors...
(37:14):
found some meaning in whatthey do. You know, there's,
there's like there's job satisfactionversus something like 67% of florists,
flower sellers, and what theflorists had was you know,
this sort of sense that every day theycan improve what they're doing and
(37:34):
they've got direct contactwith the customers.
Yeah.
They're right in front of them.There's a sort of, there's an art,
they're in contact withnature, versus you know,
what most of the world is now, orthe Western world, is now doing,
which is service jobs whereyou're potentially very,
very far away from nature.Your customers are, you know,
(37:58):
on the end of video-conferencing, and,
you don't have a chance to relateas humans with each other really.
I want to get a sense of obviously you,
you coach and you don't just coach.
You're working with these sortof CEO and founder types...
I'm not sure I'd quite kind of qualifyor count myself among their number yet,
(38:22):
although I give myself the title,but, you know, I'd just be really,
really interested to know
actually what coaching involves.
I've had a couple of coaches in my time.
Everyone's had a very differentmethod. There's obviously...
The more I've looked into coaches andmaybe bringing them into Levitate,
(38:44):
my business,
I've kind of understood that almostanyone could call themselves a coach.
There is a very low entry bar.
Low bar of entry.
Probably similarly low asmeditation teachers actually...
Anyone can call themselvesa meditation teacher.
But then obviously there are a couple offar more accredited bodies and you've,
(39:08):
you've done a lot oftraining. I'd just be really,
really interested tounderstand how, how it works,
what you're doing with yourclients, what's the methodology?
So when I got trained,
and especially when I moved to New Yorkcity after my mum died and I cured the
fibro, that was my main focus.
(39:29):
Yeah.
So in the beginning I was pretty general,
so I wanted to coach everybody.I just wanted to, you know,
get an understanding how this works.
And I believe the definition of theInternational Coach Federation is that
"coaching is partnering with clients ina thought provoking and creative process
(39:52):
to help them maximise theirpotential" or something similar.
And yeah, it's different from mentoring.
So it's not that somebody went throughan experience and then tells the other
person that this is whatyou should be doing,
which obviously also has great value,but that's just not the same thing.
It's not consulting. So again,
(40:14):
it's not telling what to doand it's also not therapy.
So coaching is a partnership where thecoach facilitates a certain project,
certain goals that want tobe achieved, certain results,
and creates a personalised developmentplan for the client and agrees on
(40:41):
how
they can strategically achieve that goal.
And for some peoplethat's more of an internal
process. So removing certain beliefs or
yeah, I mean in business it's, Iwould say it's more external stuff,
(41:03):
but it's also internal in terms of whatI said earlier with the identity. Okay,
who am I? How do I carry myself? Howdo I come across how do I lead people?
How can I let go of control?All of those things.
But then also externalexternal objectives that
some people want to address,which could be hiring,
(41:26):
which could be, again, leadership,structuring a business differently.
Yeah.
Optimising their performance.
So it very much depends on theclient. So it's very personalised.
So in the beginning I did a verygeneral coaching... life coaching,
career coaching. I was signedwith a corporate firm in New York,
so I did some corporatestuff which I liked,
(41:51):
but I wasn't necessarilyso inspired by. Yeah.
And I did some careercoaching and life coaching,
especially for people who wanted to findout what they wanted to do with their
life because I just kind ofwent through that process.
So what are the values? What's thestrength? Who am I, what do I want?
What do I not want? Who do Iwant to work with? And for me,
(42:12):
I believe I always wanted to work withbusiness owners because I believe they,
first off, you have thehighest, the biggest impact,
because they really can decide howthey want to move things around.
They're not just a numberin a big corporation,
and I believe they have usually certainkind of personalities that are very
(42:33):
inspiring to me.
And many business owners use theirbusiness as a creative outlet to express
themselves, and want tomake a change somehow.
So change the way we live as humans.
And I mean there's companieslike Apple or like I don't know,
but whatever Elon Musk does...
(42:55):
Yeah, yeah, everything he does.
It's a huge impact on howwe live, and how we travel,
and how we interactwith each other. I mean,
all of this was created by some...
It was an idea in somebody's mindand now it's reality. So, yeah,
I think that's really amazing.
So I always wanted to workwith business owners and CEOs.
(43:17):
I didn't ask myself the questionif I was qualified or not.
And looking back now I'm like,huh, maybe I wasn't qualified,
but well now it's too late!
Yeah [laughing]!
But yeah, I pretty much justasked myself the question,
"who do I want to workwith"? And then I thought of,
and asked people the question: what they struggled with. And yeah, (43:33):
undefined
so in the past, I would saya year and a half, two years,
I got into executive coachingand kind of dropped the rest.
I do it sometimes - I'm signed witha firm here in London and I do career
coaching for them. Butin my personal practice,
(43:53):
it's all working with smallto mid-sized companies.
So I don't do a big corporations.
Usually I would say up to maybe 300 peopleand they would bring me on while they
grow. So when a company gets funding,
or sometimes I'm hired through a VCfirm and they use me for their founders,
(44:17):
then they would bring me on to
help the founder or the CEO to be themost effective within that growth period.
So from my experience,
there are three main components that Iusually work with and everybody has a
(44:39):
little bit of a different focus. Sosome people come to me for one thing.
And then the other twowe touch on a little bit,
but it's not that theyreally dive deep into those,
and it's usually personal performance.
So becoming most effective,because a company,
especially when you'renot a big organisation,
(45:01):
very much depends on on thefounder and on the leadership team.
And if the person on top of the, you know,
like basically the head of the companyis not operating optimally and not
functioning, then usually the restof the company doesn't either.
(45:22):
They don't know... They don't have...
Yeah. This sort of dysfunctionjust spreads through the whole...
Confusion - there's no structure to it.
It's just a big mess.
And then scale up kind ofgrows that mess exponentially.
So we don't want that. Soit's personal performance,
which I usually work on optimizingenergy levels, physical energy,
(45:45):
emotional energy, which isobviously meditation, mental energy,
also meditation. And...
It's almost like a bit of a life audit.
Yes, exactly. So, I do a lotaround focus and deep work,
so cutting out distractionsand being really strategic and
(46:11):
taking on more tasks that...
bring the business forward,
rather than working on day to day stuff?
Yeah.
So it's optimizing energy, it's focus,
emotional intelligence and yeah, that's,
that's pretty much itin terms of performance.
(46:34):
Then there's structure. SoI work on time management,
delegating, on bringingstructure into the team,
and to the company, andautomating processes.
And the third one is leadership.
And I do an exercise usually to havethem determine what an ideal leader looks
(46:55):
like for them, becausethere's not one set formula,
but everybody has a differentidea of what an ideal leader is.
So I want them to define their role and
design their role as a leader, howthey want to be, who they want to be,
how they want to show up, and howthey want the team to see them.
(47:16):
And I work on creating acompany culture and yeah,
on delegating, that's pretty muchthe three areas, the leadership,
the structure and thepersonal performance. And then everybody has, you know,
their focus where they dive deeper.
So now I imagine,
(47:36):
particularly if it's a founderand VC money is coming in,
so there's this sort of scale upthing going on. There may be some,
occasionally you might,
you might encounter some sortof reluctance or challenge from the founder who's
been told that they needto have a coach. Is there,
is there an element of that? I mean,
(47:57):
do you need a kind of challenge inorder to get somewhere interesting?
You mean that they don't want to...
Yeah, yeah...
No.
I think coaching used to be to fixpeople within organisations that are not
performing well. AndI think now it's more,
it's almost a compliment. Like,"oh, somebody invested in me...
(48:19):
because they believe that I have thepotential to become even better". And
usually because if it's, if it's afounder and they hire me themselves,
then they already have the...
They're already enthusiastic.
Yeah, exactly.
And I had a few clients, they were...
(48:40):
they had the opportunity to,
the option to go out and find themselvesa coach. So then when he found me,
he's a CFO at a VC...
he he liked my profile and then hewas enthusiastic about it as well.
Yeah.
And the other one whowas higher, yeah, he's
(49:04):
an MD, and he already wanted to have anexecutive coach anyways, so he was like,
"yeah, sure. This is perfect"!
Oh great.
So yeah, no, I never had that.
No, no. And then, you know,
when you're kind of inthere exploring, you know,
what are your personal barriersand what does a leader mean to you?
(49:24):
I suppose it's almost...
you're facilitating them answeringthose questions for themselves.
Yes, yes.
I mean we determine in the beginningwhat the terms and what the goals are,
and if that's something that standsin the way of them getting there,
then we work through that.If not, then it's an extra,
(49:46):
it's a nice-to-have, butit's not, you know, in need,
like we have to work on this. But yeah,
I believe if you're a leader orjust in your personal life to,
to understand, to havea personal brand almost,
that you also know who you are. Like,this is my values. This is what I do with,
(50:07):
this is what I not doing, orthis is who I'm surrounded with.
So this is what I eat... You know,
like you know what you'redoing and why you're doing it.
I think it's just instills confidence.
If you're a leader or a mother ora business owner or an employer,
it doesn't really matter. So Ithink it's important either way.
(50:29):
Yeah.
And it gives you kind of guidelinesof how to act when you're challenged.
If you're a bit lost at sea.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah. So now,
I want to chat to you alittle bit about community.
I try to do it on everyepisode of this podcast.
(50:50):
Community can mean a lot of thingsto a lot of people. But you know,
perhaps for me...
right at this sort ofbedrock of meditation,
that we chatted about abit earlier on about...
Something being very simple, but wetend to kind of over-complicate...
(51:11):
Maybe right at the verybedrock of meditation and mindfulness is the sense that
we are happier and morejoyful when we're connected.
And then, you know, connected to what?
Well then you can insert anythingalmost after that - connected to nature,
connected to the world aroundus, connected to people...
(51:33):
And conversely we're probablyleast happy when we feel isolated,
disconnected, cut off you know?
Where do you get yoursense of connection from,
and who do you think ofwhen I say community?
So I think it's interesting what you saidwith how we feel most isolated when we
(51:55):
feel disconnected. And I believe it'swhen we feel disconnected from ourselves.
And a friend of mine actuallyasked me the other day,
'cause I don't really have a familyanymore... I have a smaller sister.
My mother passed. My dadI'm not really close with.
And she asked me how many days,
how many times a day I feel lonelybecause I don't have a family.
(52:16):
And I said never. I never feel lonely.
I feel full of life.
Like there are so many amazing people outthere and it's your choice if you want
to make them family or friends or not.
And I think having the selfawareness of what's important to you,
and who you want to be surroundedwith, and who inspires you...
(52:40):
It gives you clarity on
who you want to connect with.
And then reaching out andcreating the connection...
it's kind of your responsibilityin a way. And I'm not saying, "Oh,
you should only hang out with onekind of person". I believe especially,
you know, in meditation youfeel connected to everything,
you're very open minded,
(53:03):
you respect all kindsof different viewpoints.
Like I don't feel resentfultowards somebody who has a different political view
than me, or who thinksdifferently of money than me,
or of relationships.
Everybody just has their ownway of thinking about something.
And I very much respecteverybody's way of thinking.
(53:25):
But I still know my point of view,
and I know that it's easier for me toswim with the current when I'm in the
right river, than you know,
than [if] I tried tochange people around me,
and be surrounded by people I'm notnecessarily on the same page with.
And I very much feel inspiredby people who own companies,
(53:49):
who have freedom around howthey want to create their life.
It's a completely different, it's acompletely different life. I mean,
the way you have to manage yourself,there's nobody to tell you what to do.
Yeah.
It creates a differentpersonality I believe.
And it's very inspiring to me.
And what's also interesting,when I thought of,
(54:13):
because when I left New York,
I didn't really know where I wantedto go and what I wanted to do. No,
I knew what I wanted to do,sorry, but where I wanted to live,
and I kind of discovered that there isthis community that's kind of all over
the world, and they areso connected in a way,
and you meet them in alldifferent kinds of places.
And I don't mean necessarilylongtime travelers,
(54:36):
but really people who runcompanies, but they, you know,
you just have a home maybe in London,,
and one in Barcelona and then everyoneto everybody goes in the South of
Portugal, whatever, you know, just,just making it up. But there is,
no matter what you do and who youare, there's people who do that.
There is a community for it and I thinkyou just have to know who you are,
(55:00):
and then plug into thatcommunity. So yeah,
I think that's, that'smy community. Basically.
You become who you want to hangout with, and who inspires you,
then you find those people. It'sthe same with love I believe.
You become the person you wantto date and then you're gonna...
you're on a frequency...
(55:22):
Where you look for the personyou want to become. Yeah, yeah.
One way or the other.Yeah. Mm. And you've got...
We'll do the plugs at the end, so youcan mention Instagram and everything...
But were you to stumble across Katy'sInstagram - I think I saw like 12,000
followers there - does that...
(55:45):
feel like connectionor is that a sort of...
necessary evil for actually...
getting your brand out there and makingyour business what you want it to be?
Hmm, I would say the,
you can kind of choose who you want tohave in your primary inbox and in your
general inbox.
So in my primary inbox is just friendswhere I connect with and I kind of,
(56:09):
when I do Instagram stories forexample, I kind of do it for them.
And because I know from them I get theresponses, they kind of know where I am,
and maybe they're telling me,"oh, I'm in the same town, like,
let's have a coffee or something".
And yeah, and the rest, I mean,
I use Instagram as much as I want to,
(56:29):
like sometimes I post five times aday, and then I don't post for a week.
I don't feel obligated to do anything,
but I know that it is a toolto get recognised by brands,
by media and so and so forth.And I use it as a tool,
let's put it that way. I don'tlove it, I don't hate it,
(56:50):
but I know it has value.
Yeah. And I wanted tochat a bit about your...
You write for Forbes amongst, amongstother titles, Thrive Global and
many others. What do you get out of the
(57:10):
writing, what do you get out ofputting those thoughts out there?
Yeah. Organisation andstructure of thoughts.
I remember I started writing the firstday I left Germany and I started a blog.
And for some reason it got traction,
and for some reason I deleted thewhole thing. I don't know why...
(57:31):
I regretted it so much after. Itwas on blogger.com or something.
Oh right, yeah.
I was just documenting my journey within,
and from obviously where I was,
but I think people were drawnto it and they just saw, "okay,
this is what she's going through,
(57:52):
this is where she's developinginto this kind of person".
And it's a form of self expression.
And at one point it came a littlebit more business related obviously,
but to me it's all connected anyways.
And I think it's about reallyintensely researching a topic,
thinking of your ownexperience with the topic,
(58:13):
thinking of what experiencesthat your clients have,
and then putting it alltogether. And for example,
I wrote an article on the chronicpain and when somebody tells me,
"hey, I have chronic pain", I send themthe book, and I send them the article,
which kind of describes just,"okay, this is what you have to do,
do it for three months and youwill get rid of it. If you do that,
(58:36):
it's almost guaranteed that youwill get rid of it". And yeah,
so I think it's just kindof like a summary yeah.
Also I haven't been writing for along time so I have to do that again.
I want to do it!
You feel the pressure, probablyself-exerted pressure though.
Uh yeah, I feel like nowI kind of have the...
(58:56):
I get my foot in the door because I didwrite for some media outlets and you
just get accepted then when you,when you pitch an article. But I,
the moment you know, you can do somethinganytime, it's kind of like, "yeah,
well tomorrow, tomorrow", and thenone year later you're like, "what?!
I kind of shut down"!
Gosh, I know personally, Ireally, really struggle with,
(59:20):
I don't know if you callthat time management,
because I'm sure you are managingyour time very well, but you know...
knowing what to prioritise.You know, if I'm...
I always feel like if I'm working on myInstagram, which I know I have to do,
then I'm not building my business.
And in another way the finances arebeing neglected and I'm certainly not
(59:41):
developing as a teacher. And yetif I'm doing any of those things,
then I'm not growing my socialmedia following, and like knowing...
what is important?
Yes. I, I think with that...good thing at the end,
that you're saying this, 'causeI... What I started doing is,
I started to split my dayinto certain time blocks,
(01:00:05):
of like an hour and a half, or two hours.
And in the morning I work out and I goto the gym, and shower, and meditate.
So it's my body and mind block.
Then I have about twohours of content creation.
So that could be, rightnow I'm writing an ebook.
After that I will kind of pick that ebookapart and make like 12 articles out of
(01:00:29):
it, because it has 12 sections.
And during those two hours,it's basically creating content.
It could be recording a podcast,it could be recording a video,
it could be developing a workshop, itcould be anything that's content, or
that's related to contentcreation. And then after that,
(01:00:50):
I do about an hour and a half of socialmedia and email. So that could be,
you know, direct outreach topeople, posting something,
being in groups, answering comments,
answering and commenting on posts.
And then obviously the emailthat is always, "oh"...
Stacking up.
(01:01:12):
Yeah [laughing]. And then I have lunch,
and in the afternoon I have my clients.
And after that I usually doanother hour of emails or so.
And yeah,
so I kind of want to get a littlebit of everything in every day,
if that makes sense. So I have, yeah...so I never have to worry about, "okay,
(01:01:33):
am I slacking on this or not?", becauseI know I'm going to do it these hours.
So it's actually, it's very highlystructured within these blocks.
Obviously you've got a little bit ofleeway, and you can be creative, but...
Exactly. And I can move theblocks around if I have to.
So if I feel like, you know,
maybe one morning I don't wantto do the content creation,
(01:01:55):
I'm going to move it to aSaturday or something, but...
Oh, okay. Yeah. So there'sa little bit of flexibility.
I'm just, you know, I don't want toenforce, I want to inspire me doing,
doing it.
Yeah. And what do you doon your downtime? You know,
when you're not working on these blocks,
or does the downtime get brokeninto blocks as well [laughing]?
(01:02:20):
Well I would say, I mean, Ilive in Barcelona currently,
so over the summer there was alot of just being on the beach,
exploring the city because Ijust moved there in May and, no,
actually in July sorry. What else?
I do love food a lot. Like I have,
(01:02:40):
I'm actually surprised Idon't have a food blog yet.
I have like all my favoriterestaurants, and I do research,
and then I go to them, and then ratehow good they were at the service. And
it's at a point where I'm like "oops".
[Laughing].
Yeah. And then I read,I don't watch TV ever,
I really don't enjoy thatmuch or movies and yeah,
(01:03:05):
I would say I'm a very social personso I'm always surrounded by friends.
I think ever since I moved toBarcelona until this very day,
actually until the middle of November,
I had guests with maybe two orthree days inbetween [laughing].
Oh wow, okay!
So I'm always busy.
Everyone wants a friendwith a place in Barcelona.
(01:03:29):
Exactly! Like the day I get back fromLondon, my friend from New York is coming.
So she's going to basically bewaiting there for me [laughing].
Yeah. Oh God.
I know the block isprobably coming to an end,
so I want to say like a huge thankyou for giving your time today...
(01:03:52):
you know managing to fit us in.
Is there anything that you want the...I'm not sure when this is going to air...
but that you want to plug,
that you want the listenersor viewers to know about?
Should they follow you on Instagramor look out for the next ebook?
(01:04:13):
Is there a website?
Yes. That should launch soon.
Definitely before the end of the year.
And it's going to be every...
All the information is on my websiteand also to all of my social media
channels... I would say LinkedIn,I am the most active on,
or email katy@katytrost.com - very simple.
(01:04:35):
So if anybody has any questions,feel free to reach out.
Okay. So thank you again so, so much.
Thank you!
I've really, really lovedthis conversation...
Thank you I did too.
And I think the listeners will too. Right!
Thank you so much for joiningfor that episode. At Levitate,
we've been helping people to connect mind,
body and soul since spring 2018.
(01:04:56):
We teach meditation and mindfulnessfor the real world to people with busy
minds. We do this indrop-in group classes,
studios and workplaces inLondon and across the world.
We're also really passionate aboutall aspects of wellbeing, movement,
nutrition, sleep, and more.
(01:05:17):
But we get all our inspirationfrom connecting with the community,
so we're really, reallyhappy to have you here.
If you enjoyed the episode,
please do share it with someone elsewho you think might enjoy it too.
I'd love it if you'd subscribeto our YouTube channel.
Just search for Levitate and hit subscribeand do make sure to hit the bell icon
(01:05:40):
to be notified of new videos.
We're going to put up episodes of thepodcast if you prefer to watch them.
And we put guidedmeditations up there as well.
Please also subscribe to the podcast.
It's on iTunes, Stitcher,Breaker, TuneIn, Spotify,
Google play. In fact,
(01:06:01):
wherever you get your podcastsand we want to hear from you.
So please do send us an emailto podcast@levitate.london and let us know what
you think, what you'd like more of, whoyou'd like to hear next on the show.
And please do consider leaving us a fivestar review on the podcast platform of
your choice. They really do helpkeep the lights on. Finally,
(01:06:25):
we're on the interwebs.
You can find out more aboutLevitate at www.levitate.london ...
We're on Instagram and our handleis @levitatelondon (one word).
The same goes for Twitter and Facebook.
The theme music for this episode,
(01:06:46):
and the show was composed by Nic Nell.
You can find him onInstagram as @casuallyhere.
We can't wait to have you back.
So please join in soon for anotherepisode of Levitate with me,
Ryan Nell. Thank you.
(01:07:16):
[Levitate
theme music by Nic Nell]
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!