Welcome And Guest Background

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome back to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, the show where we talk about real, everyday mental wellness with people who have actually lived through what they are teaching. I'm Yusuf, and tonight's guest is someone whose story I have been looking forward to unpacking. She is an award-winning CEO, entrepreneur, and author. She co-founded a firm, Bootstrap Date from Zero, grew it into an INC 500 out of 5,000 company serving Fortune 100 bands, and was honored as most admired CEO. She wrote a book called The Rules of the Game for Women in Business. And she now spends her time helping women get unstuck, get in the room, and lead like they were always meant to. I'm talking about Catherine Langline and I welcome her to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Thank you so much for having me today.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Absolutely. So, Catherine, before we get into the business of business, I want to start somewhere a little softer.

From Career Detours To Owning A Path

SPEAKER_00 1:17

So you mentioned in your own words that you bounced through several career paths early on before you found your footing. So when you look back at that version of yourself, the one who did not know what was coming, what would you tell her now if you could sit across from her for five minutes?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

I would tell her that she is going to find where she belongs. Um I think in a lot of cases, especially when you start out your career, um, you take jobs that pay well, and maybe you take the job because you need a job. You know, it gets sometimes could be a little desperate. Um, but I was finding that as I was doing that, I was never in the right place, was never the right management style that I worked with. I always felt a little bit like an insider. Um I had a lot of ideas that nobody would really listen to. And uh it came there, an opportunity came up where somebody said, Well, you want to start a business. And I thought, well, maybe that's exactly what I should do. And I had always had a side hustle a little bit where um being a graphic designer, I would uh do side projects and things like that. And um so I understood kind of the concept of running a company just from a small scale. But because I worked for larger companies, I saw how they were doing it, how they were doing billing and responsibilities and things like that and really selling. So that alone was a great education for me. I I think working for large companies was kind of like getting a master's degree in business. And when uh, and I always like to tell people, you know, learn on other other people's money, you know, and then you can start your own and make your own money. So after doing that for about 15 years, I decided to just go all in and start a real company that you know that we could hire people. And I guess say I was a CEO of. And um, but it was really based on, you know, what my beliefs were, how my what my passions were that weren't being answered with other jobs. I was not getting that sort of fulfillment.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Okay.

Going All In With A Calm Mind

SPEAKER_00 3:20

And you say you were not built to play small or follow someone else's rule, but that's a clarity most women don't arrive at quickly. So was there a specific moment, maybe a meeting, a job, a remark, where you knew you could not keep doing this, the things that you'd been doing them?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yeah, I always found myself really um reaching for more in every job. It's like, you know, I want to be promoted, I want to keep doing more, I want to keep taking more on, have more responsibility and kind of just be kept in a little box of these are your responsibilities, and that's all you can do. Um, when you start a business, you get to do everything, which is a gift and a curse, and that you have to, you can't delegate anything, especially at the beginning. But um, for me, it was just the time just seemed to be right to just um uh start applying all the things that I had learned and did it a little bit with confidence. Now, going all in, I think, is a mentality that everybody has to kind of accept. For me, it kind of started out as if I can't do this in six months, if I can't pay myself in six months, I'm gonna have to get a job. And since I was doing all the work that a CEO should do, I was also networking too. So I could always just find a job with one of the people that I just talked with yesterday or something. But um, it went on for 20 years, so it worked. And I never had, I never missed a payment to myself. You know, we always paid our bills. There was it's not to say that um everything was easy, but I gotten to the point where I was got to be really good at problem solving too. And some of that taps into having a healthy mind versus one that is really all kind of wound up all the time. When you get really stressed, when you get feeling feel really under pressure, you almost become paralyzed with fear or how to make the next thing. But if you kind of just, you know, live in that space where everything has flow, um, you can start to problem solve and figure out where you want to go. So, like, for example, within the first year of the company, I wanted to have one of those Fortune 500 companies that I used to work for be one of my clients. And that was just gonna happen. I mean, I was like, we're gonna get them and we're just gonna figure out how. So it was based on just what I knew about so much about that company to know that I could do the work for them and convincing others that I understood their process and their values and things like that. And they were they'd be foolish basically not to hire me because it was like um having somebody already on the inside that really understood them and just figuring out different ways to get them to work with us. You know, they're they put up a barrier, for example, or a barrier came up. Well, how do I get around this? And a lot of that was just based on a lot of the creativity and uh breathing room that I gave myself to just kind of move around. It's like, okay, if we can't go this way, but then we're gonna go on this way. It was never a no, it was a not not now. Um so it was just kind of a process of being tenacious, being, you know, reassuring that you're the expert and being creative on how you can get into those buildings and you know open those doors.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Yeah.

Learning The Real Rules Of Business

SPEAKER_00 6:25

And yeah, that I think most stories keep we hear about the leap, but we rarely hear about the weeks before it, like the fear in it, like the hard work that you are there. And when someone is just sitting with and knowing that they are not yet ready to act on, that waiting is on its own kind of a courage.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And you kind of get this feeling in your gut that now is the time. Um, I could have started a company like very young, like run out of school, but I wasn't ready yet. And I had to get some experience, I had to make some connections, I had to understand how business operated. And that's a little bit where my book kind of came from because I was realizing as I was running into more and more women that had businesses, that they were just doing it wrong. They were not playing the game, if you will, like everybody else was playing. And it is a business, you know, a business is a situation that was started by men. And we have to kind of accept that. And I'm not saying you have to go in and be act like a man, but you at least have to understand where they're coming from and how they do business, because then you can have better communication. Um, if their uh main goal is like we're gonna, we're gonna crush the competition and we're going to, you know, um be really competitive, just know that. Okay, I understand that that's what you want to get out of this. Now, does that mean I have to use um the same tactics? No, but I have to understand that that's what they're going for. And it really helps communicating with them as far as you know, trying to get new clients, you know, how to get people on your team. And it's it's about creating that whole team mentality on everything. And once you show that you're a good team member, then people want to do business with you.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Talking about your book, your book is called The Rules of the Woman or the Rules of the Game for Women in Business. I want to ask you about the title itself because the word rules is doing a lot of work there. You know, it implies that there's a game, that there are rules, and the most women are not being taught about them. So what is the one rule you wish someone had handed you on the day one of your career?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Oh, that's a good question. Um I think it would be just to know that ever everything that I've been in have been taught as a woman is not gonna work in business. And I think that is because women are taught to, and there's nothing wrong with these qualities, to share and be compassionate and be giving and give and give and give. And when you get into the big leagues, especially with business, nobody's doing any of that. I mean, people hire and fire based on their end goals and their scorecards and who's the best player and all these terms, you know, um, you know, people get the ball passed to them when they're good. If you're lousy, you'll never see the ball. And um just know that that, you know, that whole I'm gonna, I'm gonna share or I'm gonna give up my space um as a woman because that's how women operate, is not how you get success in business. And like I said, it's not, it's great uh to be woven into some of the things as far as being successful, but in order to be successful, you have to think on a with a different playbook, if you will. And I refer to it a lot of where, you know, women kind of show up to a um a football game and they're wearing, you know, skates or they're wearing skis or things like that. Like, well, I thought we're playing this game. We're like, no, we're not playing that at all. It's something entirely different. And when you really kind of study what do I need to be successful on this field, then it becomes a lot easier. And that goes even just like like when people um, you know, um, I can't think of the word, but you know, like you try and get other players maybe on your team to that, so your team is more successful, that people will pick and choose. And there's some people that never get to play. They get to, they drop down, they get to stay in the amateur level. And sometimes you just get really comfortable at that level. Um, but I'm like, if you want to play in the big leagues, you have to you have to play the game.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

And why do you think that rule is not being passed down? Is it that nobody wants to say it loud or that the women who learnt it are too tired to come back and teach it?

SPEAKER_01 11:05

I I think um, like I said, I I think women sometimes come in thinking that they're gonna change the game with what they have. It's like, well, why can't we all just be friendly and nice and share? And it's it's not that at all. And women will sometimes uh put each other down when they're not like that. So for example, if I say I'm ambitious, some women will kind of say, oh, I don't know if I like her because she's ambitious. But if a guy says he's ambitious, it's seen differently. If a woman um projects her feelings on something, people automatically think, oh, she's mean, like have other words for that. And uh rather than uh really thinking about whether or not she is saying something that that's important. And it's again, it's it's mostly women that kind of um, you know, kind of bully other women into thinking, like, no, you have to be more like us. You you you can't be like them. And I think sometimes women get scared to step out of that safe zone of being like everybody else.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

And that is such an honest answer. The women who made it through often had to pay such a high personal price that turning around and mentoring become its own emotional labor.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Right, right. And honestly, we've only been in the game, if you will, not that long. You know, since maybe like the 70s or 80s, that women start getting real jobs before that they were secretaries and assistants and things like that. Uh, nurses, they got to be nurses and teachers. And that was really kind of it. I mean, my mother-in-law was a nurse because that was only that was one of the options that she was given. Um, and she's still alive. So it's not that long ago. Uh, so for the most part, women are really, really new to getting into some of these tighter situations. And I'm just saying, you know, if you practice, you come prepared, you know, you you'll be you'll be accepted. I mean, I think sometimes people think that women are people sometimes women feel like they're not allowed in. And you are, you know, I have so many men that are champions for me, um, because they believe in what I do, they know I'm a good team player, so they'll speak up for me. Um, but if you're not, then they're like, okay, well, you can just go sit down, go sit on the bench and we'll call you when we need you.

The Inner Shift Before Any Strategy

SPEAKER_00 13:36

So for listeners tuning in tonight who are in mid-career, who are quietly ambitious, who are watching less talented people get promoted ahead of them and not understanding by. So, what would you tell them is the inner shift they need to make first before any outer strategy will work?

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Well, this is uh precisely why I wrote the book because it is does get very introspective on why you're not doing these things because we like to live in a space of comfort. Everybody does. Uh, women more so. And when they start crossing over, they run this risk of, you know, losing friends. Maybe they start making more money than their spouse or partner. Um, they might um start getting a little more alienated, they might have less time for their children. That you know, and all of these things are seen as things that women shouldn't do. Again, the women should not be ambitious. Women should not say, I want to, you know, conquer the world sort of thing. Um, because it's it's just not, they're not used to hearing that. So get out of your own head with that. You know, what is stopping you from doing that? Is it somebody told you once that, you know, this is a cute little job you have, you shouldn't want anything more than that? Do you have a partner or spouse that gets really uncomfortable if you start doing better than them? Um, I look at it as, you know, with my husband, it's, you know, we're all in this together. So if I do well, you do well. And, you know, it's uh really kind of having that sort of understanding. Uh, but a lot of it is just fear-based things. I've mentored women that have said, I don't want to make more than my husband because he likes to be the breadwinner. That's lovely. But what do you want? You know, do you want this company to be bigger? And, you know, how do you kind of get to that spot? So we disqualify ourselves a lot. A lot of people, I hate to say use the excuse of, you know, I got so much to do. I have to take care of the children, I have to do whatever. You can delegate a lot of that. That's what I did. I have a great relationship with my daughter. Um, but I I she was in daycare and she was in school and she was, you know, I had my husband would help. You know, we can do things by just figuring it out, but you have to get past that mental block first.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

I think that is exactly the kind of practical handle people need because the abstract advice is everywhere, but the actual advice that they can follow on a Tuesday morning is what actually changes our career.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Exactly. Exactly.

Building A Company That Runs Without You

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Katharine, you built and sold a multi-million dollar business over 20 years. Which is a long time to build and sold a multi-billion dollar business over 20 years, which is a long time to hold the weight of a company. I want to ask you about a side of entrepreneurship that does not get talked about enough. The mental and emotional toll of being the one everyone is depending on. So, what did the hard seasons of building that company do to you internally? And what did you have to put in place to stay with?

SPEAKER_01 16:55

That is an excellent question because the only way you can sell a company is if it can run without you. Um, that makes it way more attractive. Just say, you know, you can take this company and I don't have to be there because the last thing they want is for some CEO to be hanging on and still telling me what to do. So I uh made sure that the team could run everything, all the day-to-day stuff. I just turned myself into the voice of the company, the passion of the company, the true CEO. So I would promote the company as much as possible, but all the day-to-day stuff was done by somebody else. So when I was able to present the company for sale, I could again say, um, I don't have to be there. You know, you can take this and just go. And I'll hang around for a little bit to make sure everything is smooth and we all are under the same um understanding of how this operates. Um, here for the clients, for example, that are really attached to me and just say, you know, you're in good hands now. You know, I you've worked with this person, you love them, but you know, it's time for me to just move on. So that is super key, is it makes sure that it can run without you. And that is probably the most challenging thing for owners, is because they always like to be in it in some regard. Their fingers are in all the pies. And it's like you if hire people that are better than you in some instances too. Like if you know somebody who's better at you in sales or accounting or recruiting or whatever, hire those people and then start giving those projects away, those those tasks away. And um you start becoming in this whole separate thing. And once that's in place and you're ready, ready to sell.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

And and was there ever a moment where you thought you might not make it like mentally? And what got you through?

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Um, I knew that I would have enough talent to at least get a job if this all blew up. Um, it was uh a case where it's like, if this doesn't work, I know I can go back to being a graphic designer or I can go back to doing some other thing, and I could I could help somebody else set up a company. I I knew I had talent to do something else. Um, there were not a ton of stressful days in that, that doesn't say there weren't any. We had uh a fair amount, but each time that something would come up, I saw it more of as a problem-solving exercise versus, you know, the now we've now we've done it, we're in trouble, we're gonna get sued, we're gonna get, you know, audited or whatever. Um I started talking to other people that had businesses. Did you have this problem? How did you fix it? Um, is, you know, what can we do to make this client happy? You know, how do we get, you know, just constant swirling of ideas, ideas, ideas to get through each situation. And each situation was typically very unique. So we might have to attack it in a different way. But, you know, once you started getting this flow of problem solving, if something came up, you're like, that's okay, we're gonna figure it out. We'll figure it this out somehow. What did other people do? Who could I talk to that had the same problem? And really having some mentors or people that you admire close that can help you talk through some things because sometimes at the top, it's just you in your own head and you only know so much. Be, you know, truly honest with yourself and saying, maybe I can't figure this out. I have to talk to somebody else about it. I found people to be very generous with their time when I could help when I would ask for help and they would um walk me through some. Here's some of your options, here's some things that you can do legally, here's some things that you know you might want to avoid. Um, but it was never really, you know, that many days. I'll I'm not gonna say entirely none, but not that many days where I did not lose sleep. Because I felt like I could figure it out.

Where To Connect And Final Charge

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Catherine, for people who want to connect with you or want to learn more about your work, where can they do that?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

They can go into my website, which is Catherylang Klein.com, nice and simple. Uh, but no dashes in there, just all one word. And that is where they can find a link to my book. They can, you know, find all the information about me there or LinkedIn. LinkedIn's always a great place too. I'm I'm on there and I'm always accepting invitations.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Perfect. And to everyone listening, all these links are in the show notes. So just go and check those out.

unknown 21:10

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Kathry, is there any last message that you want to leave us with?

SPEAKER_01 21:15

I just want people to know that they, if they have a passion for something, that they can do it. And it might not necessarily be, don't think about it as I need to have a multi-million million dollar company initially. That just kind of happened. It really kind of grew organically based on a passion that we had to um to find the right people for the right jobs. Because I had a staffing company and I knew specifically I wanted to deal just deal with creative people. So we just think of the best at it. And I was truly passionate about making those fits right. And then it just happened, you know, because more people start getting interested in what you do, that you you have this passion for something, that you believe in something, and it gets a little infectious, and that's how it kind of catches on. But honestly, if you just have even a small company and you're doing something that you truly, truly love, there's nothing better than that. And you can make a living on it. My God, that's awesome. You know? So take you know, just really think about what it is that you love, love, love doing. And the rest was just kind of, you know, it just happened.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

That is our time on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life tonight. Katherine, thank you so much for coming and sharing uh your knowledge, your experience, and your story. This has been a very important perspective for me as well. Seeing a very successful woman running a business and then passing on the torch to other women who wants the same. Thank you so much for that.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yes. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you giving me some time today.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Absolutely. And if tonight something Katherine said tonight made you sit a little stated, send this episode to a woman in your life who needs to hear. Ambition is not the opposite of mental illness, it is a part of it when it is pointed in the right direction. Take a good care of yourself this week. We'll be back here very soon.