Katrina Owens (00:07.214)
Hello, my famous friends and welcome to Fame Ready, the podcast to show you that anything is possible. Yes, including fame. I'm your host, personal branding and public relations expert, Katrina Owens.

I'm not gonna lie, you guys, it's been a bit of a rough one. Even as I'm recording this, I'm like, stood her up. I'm sure you heard it in the intro, right? Okay. Let me set the scene for you. My internet is so bad. It's so bad. Over the past couple of weeks, it's gotten considerably worse. So yesterday we had a wonderful man from TELUS.

come out to like assess everything and he told us that there is like, I guess, out there in the streets, there's a tree branch on the line that brings our internet to our house. I don't know, beyond me, but essentially there's a tree branch and it's interfering with our internet signal and it cannot be fixed immediately.

now they are going to go fix it. But that, I believe, is what has rendered me unable to even use Riverside, which is the podcast recording platform I typically use. So I got a little bit scrappy this morning and we're using Zoom. Okay, she's resourceful. I was like, I just need a platform to record this in. So I guess Zoom it is, and I hooked everything up and it seems to be fine. So now I'm like,

Do I need to be paying for Riverside? Let me think about that one, Heather. Let me know. I guess we use it for editing, but like maybe there's something else, another tool we already have that can actually be used for that because, oh my gosh, you guys, the subscription line item on my bookkeeping reports every single month is like horrific, honestly. How can someone spend like $1,200, $1,300 a month on fricking subscriptions?

Katrina Owens (02:16.768)
Software, it's insane. Okay. If you notice that there's a little bit of an edge to my voice, it's because besides my internet, had a little bit of a tiff with Gabriel this morning, which, you know what's really interesting? The conversation that is coming up a lot right now in my coaching programs with all of my clients is this concept of your personal brand and your personal life are not the same thing. And...

It's on days like today where the day didn't get off to a good start. And then I'm like, huh, having a business that revolves all around you and your perceived personality online, which, and even in person, which is bubbly, warm, happy, all of those things when really like, I could cry right now, like I'm laughing, but I want to cry. It's hard.

And today's one of those days where it's like, okay, I'm in the middle of Black Friday promotions. So I've got to show up on social media and sell. I've got to, I'm doing an in-person session with one of my corporate clients later today. So I've got to like bring the energy and be like on the ball. I knew I had to record this episode. So it was just a lot, create social media content and just like really come from a place of like loving my life and business, which like,

today is not the case. Like it really isn't. And what's interesting is this is where having a personal brand can feel hard, but then I also feel like so lucky that this is the work that I get to do and it's so gratifying and so profitable. But I think a really important conversation to have today is this differentiation between personal brand and personal life and like

how to even navigate it because it is hard. And to tell you that I'm like up here, like doing this podcast episode while like, honestly would rather put on my new skims sweat suit and just like have a little bit of a cry and watch reality TV on this very gloomy November day. Yeah, I really would. yeah, and that's where we're at today.

Katrina Owens (04:42.897)
It's not awesome. hope you're going to listen to this episode regardless of me. I'm apparently giving thumbs up to the zoom. don't know if that's going to be seen in the recording, okay. We'll just live with it. my God, life right now. okay. Well, like let's get down to business because like, let's just talk about how did I get here? How did I get to, like being upset, being angry, feeling a certain type of way, but then knowing, okay, you've got to

you've got to record this podcast episode, deliver value and like still remain true to your commitments. And I often think like, ooh, times like these, so easy to have a corporate job because like if you're pissed at your partner, can just like go to work and be absorbed in a different environment for, you know, the day and the deliverables, at least in my corporate career, like they're not, they were never personal. Like you can just get absorbed into somebody else's.

shit and problems. I miss it. But I didn't have that choice today. I I still have to record a podcast episode. My weeks are still really, really stacked. you know, we still like, I can't be recording this. I don't want to be recording this on the weekend. I can't wait until early next week, because by early next week, I got to be recording something else. So

Yeah, it's tough. guess what I did was I just tried to give myself a little bit of extra time to like, decompress, like I sat at my desk, answered some emails, did some like more kind of like internal client work just so could like, kind of cool myself down. And hopefully get myself shifted into a little bit of a better mental state to be able to do this and bring you guys some value. And actually,

that was the right move because I got to a point where I was like, okay, I am going to actually just talk about this. I'm just going to talk about the situation I'm in this morning and then how I'm going to continue to show up for my business, even though today is hard and heavy and dark and gloomy and that's such as the Pacific Northwest life. But yeah, taking that hour to cool down is what

Katrina Owens (06:59.723)
helped me kind of recenter myself. Obviously, I don't feel like totally fine right now, but I am just feeling like if I bring you guys these thoughts and these feelings right now, and if I share how I move through them and what it looks like to like talk about your personal life without actually sharing it. This really is a lesson in personal branding and maintaining your personal brand. So I'm glad I gave myself that time because it did give me the clarity to

to know like, okay, that's what I meant to talk about today. We're not gonna talk about results. We're not gonna talk about pitching. We're literally just gonna talk about how do we show up how we need to when it's hard because when your personal brand can like sometimes tow the line between business and life, it's not always easy. So I'm recording this episode after a week of doing a lot of coaching inside the Famerity Entrepreneur Program with one-on-one clients where we talk about this boundary, right?

personal brand and personal life and what that really looks like. I have always maintained the fact that like I help business owners craft their professional personal brand. So this means whatever elements of your life you don't want shared, whether that's like on social media or in conversation or just like out there in the ethers, you don't have to share it. I really remain committed to the fact that like

your personal brand is like a marketing strategy. So what you choose to share as part of like your personality, your interests, your hobbies, what makes your business unique because of you, that's what makes the personal brand impactful. It's not whatever you're working through with your kids or your spouse or your family. I mean, I have some like family matters that

I'm sure a lot of people could relate to if I ever brought them to the surface and decided I wanted to talk about them. I think a lot of people could relate to some of the things that I have to deal with with some family members, but that's just not pertinent to my personal brand. It's not really a story that I want to tell. It's not a situation that I feel like is relevant to the work that I actually do. So there's absolutely no need for me to share it.

Katrina Owens (09:22.185)
This actually also goes for like moms specifically. Obviously I'm not a mom, but there's a lot of like mom business owners that I work with who are like, okay, well I like don't want to share my kids. Or for example, one of my clients was pregnant this year and she was like, I just don't really want to share that journey and I don't want to talk about the pregnancy and I don't really want to like make it this like big thing or like have to talk about it all the time. And I was like,

And you simply do not because when you're an agency owner, that doesn't really matter. But there were some ways that we could strategically like kind of build up her brand and business so that while it was still reflective of her personal brand, we kind of let some of her team members stand in and bring the personality of the agency without having to.

have my client front and center all the time, which was really beneficial for her during that kind of nine month period where she really didn't want, she didn't want the pregnancy to be a storyline. She also just like, wasn't feeling comfortable enough or even confident enough to show up on camera, which I totally get. It happens, right? So that's really how I look at it.

When I work with one on one clients, especially like we break down like a really tangible strategy like okay what what are the the hooks the angles the the content pillars that you actually talk about with a client of mine that I was working with yesterday, she has.

kind of like a double life in the sense where she has her entrepreneurial venture that she really, really wants to grow. But she also has a very, very professional career that she cannot jeopardize right now. So it's a matter of how does she grow and scale both without feeling like she's leading a double life, without having these two very separate identities that get confusing and could have a negative impact if the worlds ever were to cross over. There's a way to blend everything together without it making

Katrina Owens (11:30.954)
without making it seem like it's going to impede on the goals that you have. I work with lot of corporate professionals who are in this situation. mean, even the client that I have a session with this afternoon is in a similar boat where they have this personal brand, but they also have obligations to a very, very big business. And it can't be seen that they're spending all of this time creating content or like,

working on like personal ventures when they're technically on the clock for like the other business or job that actually pays them most of their income right now. So I'm very sensitive to that. I know what that's like. I've seen it play out in many different ways. And I would say that's one of my like secret areas of expertise because I really just believe personal brand doesn't mean sharing everything about you, but it does mean like strategically bringing in

your personality, your values, the things that make you you into the brand, but only to whatever point that you feel comfortable with. Because I really relate like comfort and authenticity together. Because if I was to show up on this podcast today and just like a word vomit about the argument that I got in this morning, that would be very uncomfortable. But it would also be like very inauthentic to me because I don't actually enjoy

sharing those parts of my life and I would be trying to share them for I don't know a justification You know an interesting story that's inauthentic to me So I know sometimes people are like well, like if you hold things back, it's it's inauthentic and like it's just simply not like to me Leaning into authenticity means like really staying true to what you feel like you want to share and express so

That's what that looks like. The other very interesting conversation, we actually were talking about this on the fame ready entrepreneur hot seat coaching call is because we are humans, like as personal brands, we're people and we have all these different interests, right? you know, humans are multi-passionate by nature. think this word multi-passionate has been developed when I personally don't think that it really needed to. We're allowed to have like multiple interests. mean, like

Katrina Owens (13:53.115)
I would say that's just normal. And I think in this world of like niching down and like being a category of one brand, like that sort of a language has made people feel like they can't have multiple interests that work together. And I would just say that's entirely untrue. So I'm going to use an example of one of my clients who's a mom, a very passionate mom. She loves her family. She's also very, very talented professional in the work that she does.

and she has had this idea to grow a business related to motherhood, but she also has this very successful professional business that's growing as well. And for her, based on where she's at right now, growing both to the scale that she wants right now at the same time is just not a possibility. Okay? I believe you when you say you can have it all. I never want to make anyone feel like we can't, but...

I sometimes don't feel like we can have it all at once. That's just my opinion. She has like two things that she wants to grow, but speaking from experience, because when I tried to grow my agency and my personal brand at the same time, literally neither of them grew efficiently. They both started to really, really get stagnant. Neither of them were growing. My social media content was like getting confusing.

I started to lose a lot of the very clear brand identity that I had because people were kind of recognizing me for two different things. And so I know we see business owners like Kim Kardashian and don't know, Gwyneth Paltrow or some of these very, very established personal brands who spin off and do all of these different ventures. And that's great. But let's acknowledge the fact that we're not there yet. We really have to focus on carving out our

identity, what people know us for and find success in that first. It's like scale that very particular goal first until you move on to something else. Because as soon as you try to do two things at once, this is speaking from like, you know, not even my agency, but when I was running these women's golf events too, same thing was happening.

Katrina Owens (16:10.993)
I was just starting to feel like my energy and my identity was getting split in all these different directions. And I started to not see growth in any of the areas. And I was almost like paralyzed with like, well, what do I work on? Where should I spend my time? All of those questions really kind of came to the surface for me. And it just like paralyzed me. And so I didn't really make traction on anything because I couldn't just like dive deep. I was like splitting my attention. I was getting distracted.

And I really just encourage all of my clients to like eliminate the distractions for now, like scale your first business, the first thing to the level that you need for it to provide a sustainable income for you. So you feel comfortable. So you're at ease and then you can move on to the next thing. Multiples at once is going to be very, very challenging. And for this particular client, that's what she's experiencing. She told me that she'd recently went on a podcast.

where she really wanted to talk about her professional career. But the person interviewing her kept wanting to ask about this kind of like motherhood initiative that she has. And she was getting really, really frustrated because she wanted to talk about her professional career that she's really trying to grow, which is the income generator for her family. And I was like, yes, that is because we have now kind of split our identity and it allows people to kind of take us in multiple directions.

I had to give her some pretty hard advice on our hot seat coaching call, which I get a little bit nervous to do, but I basically said, I think you're going to have to choose. And I think it's dialing these particular initiatives that aren't a moneymaker right now that are distracting you from like your main income revenue generator, it's scaling them back to like 20%, maybe even less than, but I gave her 20%.

And I really admire her because she was like, okay, I'm gonna have to think about this because I was actually planning to ramp up in 2026. And I was like, yeah, I personally would not, but you've got to think about it. You've got to, you know, lean into your feelings and decide what you really, really want. But this is just what I would recommend. And it's interesting towards the end of the call, she came back.

Katrina Owens (18:33.879)
and said like, look, I really appreciate you giving me this advice because I feel like I'm surrounded by people who just kind of say yes to me and tell me what I want to hear. And I didn't sign up for your program or to work with you to just be told like, yeah, you're doing everything right. And everything's great. So I appreciate you giving me this advice, even though it wasn't really what she wanted to hear. And it made her feel uncomfortable. And that's

Honestly, I really respect that because it is uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable for me to even give advice like that. But I would be doing myself and all of my clients a drastic disservice if I just let some of these things go without kind of speaking the hard truth out loud. So that was the advice that I gave her. And I said, hey, it doesn't mean that you don't put this idea on the shelf and you get to take it down in a year once you've gotten to a more comfortable place financially with the first goal and maybe like

you're fine with you've reached whatever goal you want to achieve at that point. And then it's onto the next thing. And this is like something that we're talking about a lot in my programs and my content right now. It's what is the North Star? So I kind of like use some creative liberty on this concept of North Star. I know that typically we say like our North Star is our guide. It's not necessarily like the like thing we're trying to like get to.

destination wise, but that's the way that I look at it because I always say like I'm on a rocket ship. I'm going to the moon. So if I'm going to the moon on my little rocket ship, then obviously I'm going to my North Star too. We're going to visit that one. And so what I mean by those metaphors, the North Star is what is your biggest goal for the year ahead? So for me in 2025, I needed to scale my coaching programs to a point where it provided

comfortable recurring revenue so I could actually like start to expand my revenue streams under my personal brand, not under separate businesses. So what do I mean by that? So obviously last year, if you've been following me and following this podcast, you know that last fall in 2024 is when I shut down my agency and I let go of all my recurring revenue streams. Social media management, PR management, brand and web design, all of them. I was at like

Katrina Owens (20:56.824)
almost zero dollars in recurring monthly revenue. was paying myself for my personal savings. It was rough. And I ended up pivoting into coaching because that's what I really, really wanted to do. My personal branding PR coaching programs are really unique and I have successfully done that. So now we're celebrating the fact that now for the last couple of months, I've actually been able to not just like

meet the same amount of recurring revenue that I had in the agency, but actually like over, overachieve it. So surpass is the word. my God. I've surpassed my agency monthly recurring revenue. So that feels really, really good. But if you listened to last week's episode where I break down, like getting a building a personal brand that gets paid on what that actually looks like, like it took a while. Okay.

It's not like I just launched them coaching programs and had a $100,000 a year in a day and all of that. You the things that the internet wants you to believe are true. It took me a full 12 months to really come full circle and build. And I am now at a place where like I have earned the ability to be able to look at what something one of my clients is doing and say,

you haven't committed to this long enough. You haven't invested enough time, energy, money, and to bring it to life. If this is your North Star, this is what you need to do. And I've earned that right through experience because I've invested the time, the money, the energy, I've taken the risks and have seen what the results can be. And so that's why I believe so, so deeply in the process that I offer to each and every one of my clients. So when it comes to this North Star, it's...

What is that North Star for the year? Figuring out what that is and then letting every single thing that you do contribute towards that goal. So for me, it was scaling my coaching programs. So every single thing that I did in the last 12 months was with the ultimate goal that I would pick up more clients. Every event that I went to, every speaking gig that I did, every single thing that I invested in was under the skies of, okay, I want to continue to pick up more clients so I can stabilize my revenue and feel

Katrina Owens (23:13.377)
comfortable, at ease, secure. And I did it. It took me 12 months, but I did it. And that was with making sure every single thing I did was linked to that North Star. Now, my North Star for 2026 is the launch of my book and my book becoming a best seller. So that means every single thing that I do this year, yes, I still am taking on clients, scaling my programs and all of that, but now I'm...

also primarily focused on the book because I know what systems marketing and processes work for scaling my programs. So it's not like I'm ditching those things. Okay. I continue to implement. I continue to show up, sell all of that. But now because I've scaled that revenue to a certain point where I feel at ease, comfortable and secure, it's a success. I'm a very, very successful coach. Now.

I can add this new goal of this book on top and the book and my coaching programs are related, which is by design. So it's not like I'm really trying to build two entirely separate businesses. The book is just a new goal. So some of the things I might say yes to this year or invest in actually might look quite different than what I did in 2025, but it's because there's a different North star. There's a different destination I'm trying to reach. So when I see my clients,

or even just people in my community who I know what their goals are when I see them investing time, energy, money into things that aren't working towards their biggest goal. I feel like they're distracted. And at least when someone's working with me, I have the liberty to be able to say that. Came up with another client this week who started another Instagram. And let's, I think this is a really interesting thing to talk about because I think sometimes there's too many cooks in a kitchen and I think

Everyone can have different viewpoints and advice. And this is why the coaching industry gets convoluted, right? You might work with someone in some capacity, they tell you one thing, then you have a call with someone else, they tell you another thing. So typically for me, if someone's working with me, I did this actually yesterday with this new client who working on her one-on-one strategy, I'm gonna bring it to life in the new year. I asked her,

Katrina Owens (25:31.711)
are you working with anybody on your content or on any of the things that we're talking about here? I need to know because I'm going to give you advice that conflicts with what they've said. I know that. I don't have to know what advice. I just know that it's going to conflict. And so what I've seen happen with other clients who may be like go to different events or have friends that are doing something, you know, that they find interesting or they like just go to their friends for advice. Their friends might suggest something to them.

And then it's like, okay, well, that's a great thing to consider, but like, let's not pull the trigger so fast because when we pull the trigger really quickly, we distract our audience too. Like if all of a sudden I decide to like launch a brand new initiative unrelated to anything that I've ever spoken about before, the audience now gets confused and they get distracted.

from what I'm actually trying to sell. And this particular client is someone who has a very, very clear North Star this year. And so I again had to put on my big girl coach pants and say, this initiative is not going to contribute to that North Star. So be very, very discerning about how much time you spend on it. At end of day, I'm a coach, okay? So I can't tell anybody like what to actually do or how to actually spend their time.

But what I can say is some words of caution, some words of advice, offer some anecdotes. So I'm not sure where she's landed on that one. I don't think she was absolutely thrilled with my advice, but this is someone who I've seen invest a lot of money into a very specific project too. So I want to make sure that project is a success for her. So whenever I catch my clients feeling distracted, I'm like, it's okay. It's okay to want to do all of these different things, but

stay so committed to your number one goal first. Stay so committed to that north star. And then once you achieve it, that's when you can move on. Because think about it this way, you guys, if you're like constantly getting distracted, starting all of these different projects, but never seeing any of them through to the finish line, it is going to feel like nothing was a success. Or, you know, I had a lunch with someone this week who said marketing doesn't work. And I mean,

Katrina Owens (27:49.915)
I'm familiar with her business. I've seen her social media and I'm like, well, you've never really done marketing before. Like doing one post on social media is not marketing. So to say that it doesn't work, I mean, we've got to at least spend a year really trying testing, experimenting until we can really truthfully say like, this doesn't work for my business. If I would have stopped after the second event that I went to in the summer and said events don't work.

for my business because I hadn't given myself enough time to actually see the results through to the end. I would have missed out on incredible opportunities, revenue. I wouldn't have seen the absolutely mind-blowing results that I created through going to events and speaking this year. Okay? Stay committed. If entrepreneurship, if running businesses and growing a personal brand was easy, wouldn't everybody do it? But it's not.

It was not easy for me to come pull myself together to like come record this this morning. It was not easy for me to sit at my computer until 7 p.m. last night finishing a bunch of things I wanted to work on. None of the nothing about this is easy. It's just worth it if you're really committed to the process. But that's my final point. Right. How committed are you to building your personal brand? For me, there's no plan B.

There's no exit plan. There's no like, okay, well I can be like 90 % in because there's a 10 % like a little buffer over here that I'm fine with. Like there's not. And that was really the place that I got to. And at some point in the summer, I was like, I'm too far in now that I must find a way to make this work. And I knew that I could, but that was my level of commitment. It's like, well, I can't just turn around and go get a corporate job because that actually is.

not going to allow me to pay down everything I need to pay down. It's not going to give me the gratification and fill up my cup in the way that it needs to. So I had no choice but to continue trying, testing and staying committed to my goal to bring all of these results to life. So that's all I have to say about that. So you guys, I have absolutely no idea how long I've been recording for. I usually record in Riverside, which gives me a cute little clock that tells me

Katrina Owens (30:13.54)
how much time I have recorded for, so I can kind of judge, like, okay, we've got about like half an hour here, or we'll add on a little bit of 10 minutes, but I have absolutely no idea how long I've been doing this for. But I'm feeling a little bit better, honestly, after talking to all of you, letting myself just verbally work through all of the discomfort from this morning and this week. So I hope you found this

episode helpful. mean, I know it was a bit chaotic. I know that you're like probably maybe missing some of the warmth or like bubbly Katrina that's usually sitting here with all of you. But let's just say this was really real. And I think this is a very real example of what it is really like to put that boundary.

in between personal brains to personal life. I mean, hey, none of you actually need to know exactly what my argument was about this morning, because that part doesn't even matter. You all get into arguments with your spouses, your friends, your family. And it's like the content never actually really matters at the end of the day. It's how you work through it and how you continue to show up afterwards. So I guess that's what I'm doing. So with that, please, please, you guys, now that we're entering the holiday season, you know what would mean so much to me is if you

could rate and review this podcast wherever you listen. So on Spotify or Apple podcasts, this will help other people find this show. We are starting to see this show hit new audiences. The monthly downloads are growing and it's really, really exciting for me. So my wish is that you just share the show with someone else that you think would benefit from it. Please follow me at Katrina Owens PR on Instagram. You can follow the podcast on Instagram at Get Fame Ready.

If you're interested in working with me in 2026, you can also access the Fame Ready Entrepreneur program below in the show notes. And if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, I'll drop the discovery call link as well. We need to connect one-on-one before you can work with me one-on-one, just so I can really understand your goals and make sure we're the right fit for like a long-term working engagement. So that's all I got for you. Thanks so much for putting up with me today and I'll see you all next week.