Kate Erickson is the Engine at Entrepreneurs On Fire Podcast & Host of Ditch Busy Podcast

Whoa, that's so cool. And Kate is also the co author of The Podcast Journal. Oh my gosh. Ideas to launch in 50 days, meet Her goal to help entrepreneurs achieve financial and lifestyle freedom. Oh my gosh. I totally need that. This is awesome. This is so exciting. Okay. So Kate, thank you so much for being with me on she's all over the place. How are you?
I'm so good, Katie. Thanks for inviting me super happy to be here.
Yeah, my pleasure. So, okay, so the Podcast journal ideas to launch in 50 days, what is that? And where can we get it?
Yeah. Awesome. Thank you for asking. So we launched a podcast journal in 2018 and it came out of this recurring question and struggle that we heard. So many people talk about is like, I want to start a podcast. What do I do now? And we kept finding that, like, we could provide all these resources, but that doesn't change the overwhelm and the different steps and the moving pieces. And what equipment do I get? What software do I use? How do I figure out what I want to Podcast about the format, the frequency, how do I launch it? Where do I launch it? Like, you know this? Oh yeah, yeah. So, I mean, there's a lot going on. So we thought, why not put it into a journal where every day for 50 days you just have one action item.
We tell you exactly what the action item is. We give you an exercise to work through that action item. Then by the end of the day, you've checked that one thing off your list. You're one day closer to the launch of your podcast and it's [email protected]. It's available on Amazon. We have a digital packs. If you just want to fill out the PDF version of it, or we have a physical copy to
Wonderful. That sounds amazing. So this is just the basic 1 0 1 backbone for starting and aspiring to have a successful podcast. That's such a, it's a, it's a gift you give to people
Or it's $49 for the hardcover version of it. And then the PDF version is $39. Okay,
Great, great. That's awesome. That's a lot of value and insight and totally worth it. So you're on the right train tracks, getting going. That's so cool. That's so cool. Thank you for sharing and letting us know about that. The other thing is it says here you help entrepreneurs achieve financial and lifestyle freedom. I mean, this is huge. This is so major like, oh, financial freedom. I mean, w it in traps. So many of us and, you know, we're so limited by our psychological circumstances and sometimes our physical day-to-day circumstances and then lifestyle, you know, choosing happiness and choosing circumstances and choosing, you know, patterns and behaviors for our everyday routine for our lifestyles that feeds us cause so many times where people pleasing other people and we're not living with our authentic truth self of who we are.
So let's just break it down. I don't know if you want to start with financial or lifestyle freedom, but I mean, we could just dive in those areas. That'd be
Sure. I mean, for me, like both of them are kind of intertwined in a lot of ways, right? Because whatever your definition of freedom is, whatever success looks like to you, you know, financial freedom, that's going to be different for everyone based on the lifestyle that you want to live. So if you want to hang out in a shack on the beach for, you know, that's a very different finance definition of financial freedom and lifestyle than somebody who wants to be like living large in New York city and like a penthouse apartment. Right.
So inside right now. Yeah.
But I mean, the thing about that though, is that we can't get there until we understand what our definition is, what it is that financial freedom means to us. What does lifestyle freedom mean to us? I think so many people get caught up in those traps of like, you kind of alluded to it when you were mentioning, I like kind of introducing this topic is that so many of us are, you know, conditioned to think of financial freedom or success as more money, better job title, more accolades, more recognition, but really all of that is what you make it. So until you understand what's most important to you, how you want to be living your life every day, what financial freedom looks like, what lifestyle freedom looks like, then you can't start taking the actions to help yourself get there.
And I know that you're big on this too. Like you have to be authentic and be taking actions in alignment with what you want to see in your future. Otherwise like, okay, you say you want this thing, but if you're doing this every day, that's not in alignment. So like, no matter how badly you want this thing, the fact that you're doing these things, it's just never going to get you there. So having like that clear picture in your mind is the first.
Okay. So thank you. And so a couple of things I'm putting together while I'm listening to you is one, the first step is maybe writing down a list, having a list of the what's, right. What you were saying, what a lie. So what does this look like for me? What is success for me? And then another question is like, what is success for my ego? Right? What is success for the ideal version of what I was taught through programming of television, through, you know, you know, generation of family, like what is success for them? The expectations of, oh, you know, become a doctor, become a lawyer to like, do this, do this and the, the acclimate, or go to and get a degree and all of that stuff. So break down the list of the why and the what of what lifestyle success, financial freedom means to us.
So a little short story about my personal background. When I was a kid, see my dad ran cross country and he turned me on to cross country running. So I learned about short term, medium term and longterm goals. So strategy, right? And then I applied it to the principles of my life and seeing the bigger picture of the goals, but then understanding the micro and to kind of pat myself on the back and acknowledge my daily goals and my weekly goals. And to build up my, you know, my self-esteem and myself were to praise myself. Because what you were saying is when we're out of balance and out of line is like, you're saying one thing. So energetically, this is a lot of energy spitting out or get like I energetically going here.
So we're saying one thing, but then the actions show another. So like write down what we say, maybe record it. If people don't want to write it down, record what we actually say to people all the time, because we become so foggy and blindsided with our own limiting beliefs, we believe our own crap or Luke, our own bull, like this energetic self, we're saying one thing. And we mean another. So to get them in line, maybe record, right, write those things down. So what I did as a, as a youngster, when I, when I was a kid, what you were saying earlier about these things, I did grant Cardone, did this 10 X method. And I was like, okay, cool. Well, I created this 11 X method because when I was a kid, what I would do is I would do 11 things for my career.
And I would do 11 things for my personal, and I would fulfill those things. And on harder days it could. And I tell my clients, and I tell people if it's 11, the 11 X method, if it's 11 things for your professional, if it's 11 emails, cause you're having a whatever day, that's 11 emails, it's an actionable step. Like you said, however, if you're on the go like kind I am right now, then you can say, oh, well the one thing I sent 11 emails, the second thing is boom. And it can be whatever you consider for your personal and for your professional, but taking those actionable steps to creating the lifetime goal and being okay with those goals, pivoting and shifting because such as life we, we pivot and we shift. Right?
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, flexibility is so key and all of this, I feel like in life in general and absolutely as an entrepreneur, a business owner, somebody looking to create big dreams, you know, sometimes those dreams shift and they change and like the path to get there looks different for, and we all have different obstacles and roadblocks that we have to overcome. So yeah, absolutely being flexible, being willing to pivot, being willing to take a step back and give yourself space to like check in with yourself. Is this still what I want? What I wanted 10 years ago? That's not the exact same thing that I'm going to write down today because I've achieved a lot of stuff. Like, as you said, pat yourself on the back, you know, congratulate yourself for the achievements that you've made.
I've made a ton of mistakes too. And I've learned so many lessons from those things, which are always informing, you know, what I'm doing in my present, it's creating my future. And so to be able to check in with yourself on a regular basis to, to kind of reevaluate, like, am I still on the path I want to be on? Am I still building the business that I want? Like, based on everything I've learned of achieved, failed at et cetera.
And then based on like, what happened with the world pandemic? I think it gave us a lot more space of knowing what you're saying, but to actually, we were kind of forced to take those, take those steps as well. So yeah. Thank you for sharing that. So actually, I just want to circle around here, because when we talk about your actual profession, you are the behind the scenes for a multi-million dollar podcasting business. I mean, wow. I feel so lucky to have you on my podcast. This is so cool. I'm like totally geeking out over here. Like you're a boss lady, like making it happen and like, let's talk about, you know, being behind the scenes for a multi-million dollar podcasting business.
I don't want to assume. I think I already know, but let's hear it from you. Which Podcast is this?
Yeah. Thank you, Katie. That's super sweet. I'm honored to be here. Thank you for inviting me again. So the podcast is entrepreneurs on fire. John Lee Dumas been hosting this podcast since 2012. So we've been doing this for quite a while. Now. I joined the team in 2013, about six months after he launched, he started gaining momentum and you know, the audience started growing and he started getting requests and feedback from his audience about more things that could help them beyond just the podcast. And so we started growing a team and started creating products and services and masterminds and events. And yeah, here we are.
Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. And then I heard when I was at podcast movement last October, you know, where we met and I was hearing his name in the chat rooms flying by all over the place. And so he, from what I gathered, he made a commitment to do a one podcast today for 365 days kind of like Gary V style, just like consistency, consistency. How much can you put out? And so did he schedule sometimes six podcasts in a day?
Yep. 365 days a year. He's published over 3000 episodes to date. So he did daily up until 2000 episodes and then switched to like a 3, 4, 5 days per week. It just depends on our volume of guests and whether or not we have awesome to put out which lately we've had so many requests for people to be on the show and so much awesome content. And people's stories to share that we pretty much publish on the schedule that we can. And yes, he batches his interview. So he'll do sometimes seven interviews in a single day. And so we're always 30 days ahead, which we want to touch back on the lifestyle, freedom that we mentioned earlier that really gives us full flexibility.
We can pretty much batch anything in our business so that if we want to go away for the weekend, if we want to kind of unplug for a week, if we want to travel, we're able to do that by batching our content, our business will still run. Even if we're not there,
I want to pivot to a Time management and Productivity and stuff. But before I do that, I got an email from him like a few weeks ago about his new book. So do you want to like share with the audience, his new book and is it available on audio if people are more audio people? Yes,
Absolutely. So very exciting. The book is called The Common Path to Uncommon Success. It's a 17 step, A Roadmap to Financial Freedom and Fulfillment again, right on par with everything we're talking about, this book is 273 pages. It is a fantastic writeup, not just of the 17 steps and what each of those steps are. John also gives an example of that step on his journey. And then we also have 17 contributors. So we reach out to 17 incredible entrepreneurs and they each give their experience with one of the steps on their journey. So it's a really like cool 365 degree view of like, here's the step.
Here's how I leverage it on my journey. Here's how another awesome entrepreneur leverage it on their journey because you know, everyone's journey is different. Things are going to look different steps, look different. Exactly. Yeah. Different ideas, different structures. I'm so proud of John. It's an incredible book. We signed with Harper Collins. So it's in partnership with Harper Collins leadership. So it's first traditionally published book route that we're going launches March 23rd. So by the time this is out, the book will be out and it's available on Amazon. It's on audible. There is an audio version. There's an ebook version of hardcover version. Like all the versions,
Since it's an interactive piece, when you're reading it, who is doing the audio?
John does the audio as well.
Does he? Just for fun? Does he like play characters for the people are straight.
He reads it pretty straight up. Yeah.
Cool. Cool. Cool. Okay. And then, okay, so you are a power couple and y'all have been together for 10 years.
Almost 10 years. Yeah. And you guys
Are like bossing in the space. That's so cool. And it's awesome for like, you know, females and males and partners out there to, you know, see and watch the steps. So, you know, you know that you don't have to do everything alone, like, and you might, while you're doing, and you're on purpose it with the intention of, you know, your life and what excites you and what you're doing along your path, you can meet your partner or you can build an empire, whatever that empire is a little mountain, a big mountain. I mean, the sky's the limit they say, right. So with this being said, this is going to take me to, which is how I met you as being a podcast host of your own podcast called Ditch Busy.
So you have Ditch Busy. And I was like, Ditch Busy. I'm like, oh my God, I need her in my life so much. So Tom BI-LO and Luke story, I was watching a podcast they did together. And like, one of them was like the protege, like the muse, like okay. And it was like about a relationship thing. Cause he was like in dysfunctional relationships and like, couldn't find the one. So I kind of want to put the needle to me and I'll be the Guinea pig here. And I want to give the viewers some insight and my heart and soul, some insight tips you can share with us, for example, like Ditch Busy, it's all about ditching Busy. So time management Productivity. So like maybe we can pivot into those kinds of areas about actionable steps.
And then obviously everyone needs to go to Ditch Busy and binge at marathon. It, you know, like ASAP because it's streaming obviously all over the place. So yeah. Congratulations on having your own podcast. How's that going? And when did that start recently?
Thank you. Yeah. So Ditch Busy is more recent Launch January, 2020. But before that I actually had another podcast called Kate's take where I would give a behind the scenes of how we run our business. Cause that's what I do in our business. So I'm like, why not talk about this and share it with people because that's how we roll. And that was awesome. I love the podcast so much. I kinda got to a point where when I decided to transition from Kate's take two Ditch Busy. I wanted to just kind of niche a little bit more and really dive into something that was top of mind for me that I know people struggle with. Like literally every, I don't know anyone who doesn't struggle with time management on some level myself included.
It was really a great exercise and allowing me to call myself out on stuff and then record episodes about it, to share with people. I mean, one of the biggest issues that not issues, but struggles, I guess you could say that I come up against is I tend to say yes to too many things. And you know, in the moment I want to help, I want to give, I want to like be everywhere and that's just not cool for our sanity or for our goals or for the life that we say we want to live. So it was really empowering to call myself out, to share that with my listeners and to let people know that they're not alone.
And you know, having these kinds of daily like scheduling snafoos where all of a sudden, like you would love to have an open day so that you can do yoga and meditate and hang out with your friends and you know, X, Y, and Z, whatever you want to do in your day. But you look at your schedule and you've got all this other stuff that like, doesn't really sound like that much fun. So
Quote unquote, I call it a K day and century your name's Kate, you may call it a Katie too, but it's like a spot a Katie. So you have to schedule like four hours or like 24 hours or 72 hours. Like this is a Katie or a Kate day. Like, and you have to schedule that because of sometimes of how we work with patterns and organization. Some people just need to schedule that and like put ourselves first. And I really loved what you said about the resistance and the struggle that you have and how you transmuted that resistance and struggle. And you called yourself out on it. And then you transmuted it by empowering yourself to apply an actual podcast. So when you're just talking, talking, talking as the teacher is helping people as the giver, you know, as the teacher, then you can actually be the student and apply what you're actually telling people to be in alignment of what you were saying.
And then you're checking yourself and you're checking in with yourself. It's like, I'm sharing all this stuff with people. Like I need to apply this to myself. I totally get that by March 21st world Poetry day, I have wanted to be a published poet since I was 12. I wrote my first piece called the oddball. So to like cut the corners. And like you said, actionable steps, one step at a time, take those actionable steps. Like in the book, the podcast, you're in a one step at a time. Take that one step. And when you take that one step, we're on firing when we're, unwiring the resistance and the things that aren't holding us back, but we're taking that one step. So then we're like raw Fire, like entrepreneurs on fire are like being really empowered and then we're taking massive steps. So thank you for sharing that with us. That's really, really awesome.
Let's dive deep more into the podcast.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's so much unpacking to do and everything you just said. I mean, first off, kudos on you. Good for you for doing that. Something that scared you, that you got out of your comfort zone, that you had anxiety around. I mean, that's talk about confidence booster when you do it. You're like, oh my gosh, that was actually really fun. And all the benefits from it and look at the people I was able to reach and look at the impact I was able to give, like, I mean, that's something that we need to do more is if something creates like a little bit of fear, then that should be your permission to do it. Because if it's just easy and comfy and cozy that doesn't get you to where you want to go, what you do right now, if you want to be, or what got you here, doesn't get you there.
Like you need to start doing something different. Right. So that's awesome. I love that. And then, I mean, you talked about it a ton, like w w really what I like to focus on in the podcast is like, look, this isn't rocket science. If you want to reach a goal, you have to break it down into micro goals. You have to take one step every single day towards that micro goal. And that creates momentum and a snowball effect so that if you continue taking action every day, you will get to your goal by virtue of holding yourself accountable and taking action. You're going to have questions. You're going to hit roadblocks. You're going to come up against really frustrating days where things did not go the way that you wanted them to. And you're going to have days where you feel amazing.
And like you've made a ton of progress. Every single day just has to be one step forward. When you start building that momentum and you start congratulating yourself for taking action, and you hold yourself accountable to showing up every day, you reach your goals. Like that's really all there is to it
And not judging ourselves along the way of how much we did that day. Right? There's this book by Miguel love him the four agreements. And it's like, you know, one of the things it's like, you know, be impeccable with your word is number one, but the other, the fourth one is do your best. And maybe today, this was my best. I've had days where it's like, this is just my best and you know, and we have to be okay, and just give ourselves that permission. Thank you for that. And I know you mentioned in the podcast journal for podcasters there's tools and softwares and things, but for somebody who's not a podcaster, are there online platforms, MailChimp? I know the later app, the desktop version, there's a, there's a free version. So you can schedule your social media posts, you know, to batch things.
And I know a sauna has a free version for organizing tasks for entrepreneurs. It's just them. Or they have one or two people on their team, 10 or less, maybe just even just an artist. And I have so many artists on this podcast whom maybe they don't have even a VA, a virtual assistant, you know, any suggestions of programs for people who are getting started. Yes,
One, any calendar and Google calendar, apple calendar, I calendar, whatever they call it don't care. What type of calendar it is. If you are having issues with time management, it's because you're not putting things in your schedule and you're being totally unrealistic with what you are able to accomplish. That creates the overwhelm, the frustration, the disappointment, because we tell ourselves I'm going to do a hundred things today, but like, nobody can do a hundred things. Like you said before. How about you do one thing today? How about you do three things today? So get a calendar. I don't care what kind of calendar it is, a notebook, a paper calendar, an online calendar.
That tool will change everything. If you use it appropriately and actually start scheduling in what you've committed to, what you want to accomplish that day, like actually write it down so you can hold yourself accountable to that. And so that you're not overbooking yourself one program that I, well, actually there are a lot of programs that I couldn't live without. You already mentioned a sauna. This is a beautiful task management and project management software. Like you said, there's a free version. I literally create tasks for myself. I don't even have to, I do use it with my team members, but if you don't have any team members use it just with yourself, just schedule tasks, put a due date on it, leave comments, leave links.
That will be helpful for you when you revisit it a week from now two weeks from now, it's such a great task management tool,
And it's super cool for all the new sauna users or new to be users it. Then it sends you an email, a reminder of the list that you made, and then you can do daily, weekly, monthly goals, things like that.
Awesome. Very cool. Very cool. Two other tools that I love that I'll spit off real quick. Boomerang for Gmail. It's a great email task management tool helps you create reminders. Send follow-ups have emails, come back to you. If you need to follow up with someone, I do a ton of follow-up work just by nature of what I handle in our business. That tool saves my life. How do you find the boomerang? It's actually an add on. So if you just Google boomerang for Gmail, or if you use outlook, like just Google boomerang for outlook, it's not called boomerang. They call it something different, but almost every email program has a tool like this incredibly helpful. And the last one I'll mention is text expander. I just got my monthly text expander report.
I saved one hour and 42 minutes last month, just type like I would have spent one hour and 42 minutes more typing. If I didn't use text expander, I expanded something like 900 snippets or something. Ridiculous. What is text expander? So you can create basically short keys for your email address for your physical address, your phone number websites. I mean, you can literally create shortcuts for anything. My bio. So when someone asks me for my bio, you saw my bio. It's like three, four sentences. I typed three keys and it expands into my bio. So anything that you type over and over again, email replies, email signatures, your bio short paragraphs instructions.
Again, your email address, your website, all these things can be created into short snippets with tax expander.
Well, I'm just telling you right now. I really got a lot of value off the last two. I had no idea about that and I'm going to have my virtual assistant hook that up right away. That text expander. That's that sounds amazing. Well, I want to honor you and your time, but you are a boss lady and I am so happy and lucky to be connected with you. Kay. Seriously, thank you so much for being here. You were mentioning one of your favorite people in women out there who you get inspiration from is Marianne Williamson. And you have like a quote you want to read from her.
One of the, my favorite things that she says is her quote about our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. And I just resonate with that so much. I mean, I remember growing up, like I was usually the one at the back of the classroom. Like I could raise my hand, but I don't want to say the wrong thing or like, you know, shyness and, and all this, like playing small and backing down. And like, it wasn't until way later in life, how I realized like how much that was not serving me and not serving anyone else around me.
And I just think it's so important to like step up to our calling, to step up to what we're here for, what we were brought to this earth for, to impact others, to share love with others, to encourage others, to support others. And yeah, I wish I would have learned that earlier, but I'm feel very blessed to have learned it when I did.
Yeah, totally and stuff we were talking about during our beautiful conversation about the resistance and the fear and the actionable steps are all intertwined with that very quote, you know, about showing up for yourself because we're powerful. And that's the fear that that's so beautiful. I appreciate you sharing that. I love that quote. I love her book called a return to love and anyone can listen to it on YouTube. It's actually her voice. She sounds so angelic. She reads the audio book version on YouTube of her voice. Also, I I'm the overdrive app. You can download up to 30 audio books per month for free e-book to read it or audio book on overdrive. There's going to be show notes below of John's new book, a link to Kate's podcast, Ditch Busy, and then also a link to the podcast Journal.
So check out those links and find Kate on social media. All her social media handles will be in the show notes as well, and definitely get my new book. I love her S fairy tale, 11 pieces of poetry that I wrote all about love during my travels from 2004 to 2012 international experiences of traveling the world, being at one with God and the universe, and, you know, not love in a partnership in a, in that kind of, but the aesthetic and the meaning of love and nature of animals and life and culture and food and people. So it's, it's the overall love of, of being in the world.
And now more than ever, we just need to really, we know lead by love. So it's, it's an honor to be able to finally take that stuff within, and hopefully you listening, take those things that are within and share your gifts with the world. It's so important. And I'm so happy. You shared moments with us bottom base, before you go your roots, where are you from something that was like the turnkey? I don't know if it was a book or an experience or a movie or something that like, was like, oh, I want to be like her, or I want to be like that, or this is what I want in my life. Hmm. Awesome.
All right. Well, I grew up in San Diego, California, so I'm beach girl. Love it out there. I miss it very much, even though Puerto Rico is beautiful as well, love being here and a turning point for me. Gosh, I've had so many, a book that I really love and that anybody who's interested in time management and taking more back, more control of their time, essentially Chisholm by Greg McKeown is a really incredible read. I mean, it just like exponentially charged my love for time management. So it's a really awesome rate. Great.
Kate bringing the value in the inside boss lady. Congratulations on your engagement. Thank you, Katie. Thank you so much for having me. It was great chatting my pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much, everyone. And we'll see you next week. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. CD eight key over and out.