#notawinewith Kathryn Elliott
MEET Kathryn Elliott, founder of The Alcohol Mindset Coach.
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:07):
Kathryn, welcome to Spark tv. I am so excited to have you here.
Kathryn (00:12):
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Danielle. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.
Danielle Lewis (00:17):
I am too, because we've already been talking for 10 minutes and we're like, okay, wait, wait, stop. We have to hit record, but I want to interrupt our regular programming to let everyone know that today is not a wine. With today, Catherine and I are sharing a cup of coffee and a cup of tea, and that is going to make a lot more sense by the end of this conversation. But let's start that. Let's set the scene. Let's tell everyone who you are and what you do.
Kathryn (00:47):
Thanks, Danielle. Really appreciate the introduction to Not a Wine with today. My name is Catherine Elliot and I'm based in Melbourne in the south of Australia, and my business is called the Alcohol Mindset Coach. So I support high functioning women and men who identify as having an issue with drinking and want to live more productive, more engaged lives. I started my business three years ago, and my business was grown from, I guess what I saw as a need through my own lived experience with problematic drinking. And my problematic drinking wasn't what you would term as a daily dependency or even physical dependency. I was very much a teenager that grew up in the 1980s, started in the workforce in the nineties, and it was an very excessive drinking culture. So I was very much a binge drinker and had a positive affirmation around that binge shrinking identity because I was a woman who could drink a lot, I could keep up with the boys.
(02:05):
And so as I went into my teenage young adult years, I always felt that Cath, the big drinker was something to be proud of. But I saw the negative impacts of my relationship with alcohol in those early years blackouts, not remembering things, feeling ashamed, not being the person that I really wanted to be with any integrity and aligned to my values. And so it wasn't until I was 46, 47 that I decided to take an extended break from drinking because I wanted to really see what life was like, what it was like to live a life without alcohol in it. And I'm now still on that break nearly five years later, and it's been a miraculous five years I started this business. I also have been through a very traumatic experience of breast cancer early on in that journey. I am as well as I've ever been now. And that has also taught me a lot about women's health, women's, I guess, unique relationship with alcohol and also the links between alcohol and direct links between alcohol and breast cancer.
Danielle Lewis (03:25):
Wow. Well, firstly, I'm so glad to hear that you are well and healed, which is absolutely fantastic. Look, I think that there's so much there. So I really appreciate you firstly accepting this podcast interview knowing that it was going to be not a wine with, because I think this conversation is really important. And I think the most interesting thing that just struck me as you were sharing your story was that this was a decision or an experiment perhaps that started when you were So 43 or 46, sorry.
Kathryn (04:03):
Yeah, 46.
Danielle Lewis (04:05):
Yeah, so 46. That just to me is unreal because I feel like we get to a stage in our life and we think it's too late to make change, and I just love that this hasn't been something that, sure, look, if it hadn't been in your twenties, we still would've had a conversation, but I just really connect to that as someone of this age group who is, okay, well, what is the conversation that we need to have? And it is not too late to make a change, and there's no shame or judgment around making a change or even just questioning perhaps our habits. So I'm just really interested in that. What was the catalyst? So at 46, that is again an age where you kind of think you might be a little set in your ways. What was the catalyst for taking this step?
Kathryn (04:56):
I think it was a long time building. Honestly. I think there'd been a lot of cognitive dissonance, these arguments in my head. For a long period of time. Here I was this person who was very much into their exercise, their meditation, their yoga, their grain juices and smoothies and looking after their health. But then on weekends, I was binge drinking, getting wasted and waking up and not feeling good about who I was, and then I'd punish myself during the week. I've got to make sure that I get up early and do exercise and really pay penance for what I'd done on the weekend. So I think that mindset for me was really punishing. It wasn't a place that I really wanted to continue to be in, but there were two instances, I guess two things that really I guess were pivotal in that in my forties.
(05:57):
One was my brother's wedding. I was a bridesmaid at that wedding. I drank quickly, I drank too much, and I really embarrassed myself. I spoke to my mum in a way that was really unkind, and it was a special day for our family, and I was not in my values or integrity. I was drunk and I wasn't able to regulate my emotions. And so I did quite a bit of soul searching after that. And that led to me trying to put rules around my drinking and trying to take breaks from drinking, which I did. I'm a disciplined person. I was able to stop for months. But whenever I went back to drinking, that off switch was, I found really hard to find. It was like this years and years and years of this pattern of drinking a lot, drinking quickly, binge drinking really hard for me to break.
(06:57):
And then I guess the absolute turning point was when I was on a family holiday in 2019, my three boys were there and we were out with another family making cocktails and drinking cocktails in quick succession. And I literally went from being pretty okay to horrendously drunk, fell and hit my head. My boys thought that I'd died. They were really worried. And then I woke up the next morning, not only with a sore head from hitting my head, but also from a hangover, but also just I guess this clarity that what I had been doing was not working for me and that I had to take responsibility for my own relationship with alcohol, how I was feeling my own life. And it came to me there. I just thought, I actually need to embrace having a long break and see what that feels like. Try it on.
(08:06):
There was nothing about, oh, you must stop drinking forever. It was really about being kind to myself and saying, Hey, this hasn't been working. You're not happy. Why not give this a go and see what may open up for you? And then there could be some positives in this experience because I'd known that when I'd taken a month off here and there, how good I felt. And so I didn't stop straight away, but literally within two months. So that conversation was happening in my head at the end of April, by the 1st of July. That was the day that I started 1st of July, 2019 was my first sort of, yeah. Oh my God. So you survived covid with no
Danielle Lewis (08:54):
Wine, how?
Kathryn (08:56):
Well, this is the thing, and I watched so many people's relationship with alcohol change during Covid, particularly in Melbourne where we were under, oh
Danielle Lewis (09:07):
My gosh, yeah,
Kathryn (09:08):
Credible lockdowns here. And for me, it was a worry actually that alcohol was seen as an essential service because I ended up seeing clients after Covid whose relationship with alcohol had gone from probably being something more social to being something where they were completely physically dependent or didn't know how to change back to what their drinking had been like before Covid, because a lot of people were working from home. They started drinking at lunchtime or drinking earlier in the day or drinking because what else do I have to do because I can't go and see friends or catching up with friends over zoom and drinking. It just became the go-to, but it's really important to remember that even though alcohol is legal, it is a drug, right? Yes. And it's a highly addictive drug, and the more we use it, the more likely it is that we will become dependent on it and that we need more of it to get the same sort of effect. And we all drink for different reasons, and this is the thing. We can be drinking for stress. We can be drinking socially or for fun. We can be drinking for a reward, we can be drinking to numb, to numb pain. So many different reasons. And often we don't look at the reasons why we're drinking.
Danielle Lewis (10:34):
One of the things that you said that I love is when you were having this conversation with yourself and you were going through the, I guess pre gearing up for 1st of July was that you spoke to yourself in a kind way, which I think is so lovely. Even touching on your point about before when you're like, I've got to punish myself during the week and I've got to exercise and eat healthy and try and offset the damage that I'm doing on the weekend, such a mindset shift to say, okay, what I'm doing isn't currently working for myself, but we can be kind to ourself about this situation if we have someone listening right now who has perhaps been unkind to themselves. Are there questions that you think people should start with when assessing their own relationship with alcohol?
Kathryn (11:30):
Yeah, that's a great question. And I think the really important point is your own relationship with alcohol. It's not so much about statistics or number of drinks or when you're drinking or how much you're drinking. It's about how you feel. If alcohol is impacting you in a negative way and you are asking yourself questions and you are feeling worried about it, then it is very likely a problem for you. And I think this is the thing people get into this kind of arm wrestle around, well, do I have enough of a problem? And that was one of the things that went on in my head because I knew I wasn't in that sort of, I guess, that scenario where I needed to go to rehab or AA or resonated with anything like that. But
Danielle Lewis (12:22):
I think it's a really interesting point that you raised. I think when we think about alcohol problems, we think about people who hide drinking or a drinking and then they can't go to work. Or when you kind of think of, oh, they're an alcoholic, and there's a really, I guess just a way a stigma around what we think is a problem, and then everything else is like, oh, it's
Kathryn (12:46):
Not a problem. Exactly.
(12:49):
And this is where I'm really passionate about talking about my relationship with alcohol because it falls in that gray area spectrum where you are questioning your drinking. You are worried about your drinking, you are drinking more than you want to. You don't like the way alcohol is making you feel either during or afterwards. You're having regrets about your drinking. You're behaving in ways that you don't like potentially. It's holding you back from being the best version of yourself. If you're into personal development and you want to be really clearheaded and you want to be doing your best, sometimes it can be holding you back from that. So whoever you are, whoever's listening to this, it's really important to look at the role alcohol is playing in your life, in your health, in your mental, physical, and emotional health. And only you can really judge that and where that's at.
(13:48):
But having that honest conversation with yourself, putting your hand up and saying, actually, yeah, it feels like it's not working for me. And sometimes in life we might be using alcohol socially, but then it morphs into something else. And obviously the longer we drink for the more likely we are to start to have issues with drinking. And in particular women as they get older and they go through into perimenopause, that is an area and a time when alcohol can really impact women's health differently to men's health because we have less of an enzyme that breaks down alcohol than men. And so we are more likely to have issues with liver disease and heart problems from alcohol.
Danielle Lewis (14:43):
Wow. Yeah, it's interesting. We had a Spark masterclass a couple of months ago about perimenopause and menopause and how it affected women in business. And that was one of the interesting things that came out of it because we were talking about strategies to ease some of the symptoms so that we could more so show up as our best selves in our business. And alcohol definitely came up as one of those things. So it is interesting that we are very quick to, oh, it's just one drink or it's just when I'm social or it's just, and we kind of, I guess pass it off and make this excuse that it's not an extreme problem, but we've probably less quick to talk about the things that are perhaps a little invisible. So yes, if you've had too much to drink, it's very easy when you wake up in the morning and you have a headache. But perhaps if we're going through perimenopause or menopause and or we are not feeling like we hate our business because we're tired and don't have energy, we tend not to associate these negative things with perhaps the wine or bottle of wine that one might've had the night before.
Kathryn (15:59):
Absolutely. And this is the thing, I think sometimes you do hear about the links between alcohol and certain types of cancer. Obviously for me, it's important to mention here the direct links between alcohol consumption and breast cancer. Only 20% of women know that there is a direct link. We obviously know there's a link between alcohol and liver cancer and throat cancer, but breast cancer is one that hasn't had as much awareness around it. So I do like to mention that. I
Danielle Lewis (16:32):
Had not heard that until you said that today, so that's really interesting.
Kathryn (16:36):
Yeah, and without scaring people as little as one standard drink a day can increase your risk by up to 20%. So it's only small to moderate amounts of drinking that can increase your risk. And I do want to say it's can because every human being is different. There are plenty of people who never drink and get breast cancer and plenty of people who drink excessively all their lives and don't get breast cancer. So it's really about educating people about the risks so you can make better choices around your own health, I think. Yeah. So what was the first part of that question again?
Danielle Lewis (17:22):
I have no idea.
Kathryn (17:25):
I know I went on that cancer tangent.
Danielle Lewis (17:28):
Oh, no, no, no. Well, I think where we started was That's hilarious. I was just so into the conversation. I think where we started was just around the questions and how you do start to have that honest conversation with yourself and whether there are any tactic strategies to help us evaluate our relationship with alcohol.
Kathryn (17:48):
Yeah, yeah. And the questions I think that are really important to ask yourself are how long has this been coming up for me as well? When it's sort of a repetitive thought when you are worried or regretting your drinking, that's probably when it's like, actually, maybe this is a problem for me and is there something I could do about it? What could I do about it? And this is the other thing, sometimes people are like, well, what do I do about it? Who do I talk to? And I think there are more conversations we're starting to see in the media. I obviously see a lot now in newspapers and on TV about women in particular and alcohol problems because unfortunately women in our demographics, so women between the ages of 45 and 60 years are one of the only demographics where there's an increasing binge drinking problem.
(18:52):
And so I'm really passionate about ensuring that women of this age know that it's a problem. And I think it's a problem because they've been juggling so much, so much and that it's become a coping mechanism. Wine o'clock pick up a drink. And so I just always like to, and that's why I'm so grateful to have this opportunity. When I saw the promotion, I was like, oh, that feels difficult. But I thought, no, this is an opportunity for me to have a conversation and to generate some awareness around what not a wine with is. Okay.
Danielle Lewis (19:34):
Oh, yes. And I love it, and I'm so glad that you actually said, could we take a different lens on this? I'm like, yeah, of course we can. But interesting that perhaps people don't feel courageous enough sometimes to say, let's make it a coffee instead. We do. Oh yeah. There's just so much associated with drinking, like the relaxing, being social, celebrating. We can do all of those things without alcohol.
Kathryn (20:08):
Yes. And the thing is, when we look often back at our own history, and I looked back at mine, I had not done much socializing without alcohol when I picked up a drink when I was 14 or 15, generally I was drinking when I went out socially. So to then put yourself into those situations without alcohol, of course it feels uncomfortable, of course it feels a bit weird, but as you practice that muscle, you start to learn that there are real benefits in being in situations without alcohol. I mean, for me, the benefits that I've noticed is I'm just much present. I'm more likely to go and talk to different people. I can drive up there, drive home, drive people home if they need to. I often leave a lot earlier because I was always that person who stayed till the end, never get enough.
(21:04):
Now I'm the person who, well, I will stay if I want to, but I'll also leave when I want to because you do get more tired when you're engaging in conversations and remembering everything. And so you don't know really what it feels like until you do it. And that's what I love when my clients try it for the first time. And I'll get a text message from them saying, oh my God, you were right. It was better than I thought it was going to be. And they have these positives and they're like, I can do this. I'm going to do it again. And what we all realize is when we go into social situations for the first time, we all experience a bit of social anxiety because we're trying to find our way, who we fit in with, who we're going to talk to. And often the way we release that is we go and get a drink, we go to the bar or Can I get you a drink? And when you don't have that necessarily that go-to, you've got to learn new strategies and ways of doing that.
Danielle Lewis (22:00):
Yeah, that's interesting. So good segue into, okay, so July 1st rolls around, and I love that you have framed this as let's just try it on. Let's just see what happens. And I love your client saying, oh my God, okay, I did it once. I can do it again. And so it's not, that's it, life band, everything's done. It's more let's just put one foot in front of the other and see how we feel different. And again, just how it shows up for us. I love that too. It's not this whole, you've got to be in one camp or another and you've got to identify with something. It's more, okay, how do I feel now and how is this not working for me? And then let me try this on and let's just see what happens in my world. So I'm really interested if we're okay, somebody's listening and we've gone, okay, I've been talking to myself. This is really something that I want to try on. What is the first step to take?
Kathryn (22:59):
So the first step to take once you've thought I want to do some work on my relationship with alcohol is to see it as that it's your relationship with alcohol. And the first advice or recommendations I always give to people is start to read. There's some great books around alcohol and its impact on the and brain and body. It's one called This Naked Mind by Annie Grace, and another one called Alcohol Explained by William Porter, an Australian woman, Sarah Ratch has just written a great book called Beyond Booze. She's based in Perth actually. So educate yourself, get some knowledge around alcohol and how it could be impacting you. There are some great podcasts around as well that can really help give you some insights that you may not have had. But in terms of tools and strategies that you can bring into your everyday life, some of them is just about challenging our behavioral patterns, looking at your drinking, getting an idea about, well, when am I drinking?
(24:13):
When am I thinking about drinking? How much am I drinking? Getting some more mindfulness around those patterns and thinking, well, is there a way that I can change this up? Maybe I can build some alcohol free days into my working week that may have an impact on how I show up at work, whether I attend my exercise classes in the morning. I always find that clients find that really powerful. They go, okay, I'm going to build in an alcohol free day and see what that feels like rather than going right, I've got to quit drinking altogether, which again is never the KPI for the programs and the work that I do with clients because everyone has a different idea of what success is. Sometimes people will come into working with me and they just want to feel better about their drinking. They dunno what that looks like or feels like, but they want to feel better in themselves and they don't know what the behavior will look like.
(25:09):
And I'm like, that's perfect because it changes along. It changes along the way. And I think the most important thing is to be honest with yourself and to take responsibility for your own situation and not compare yourself to your friends. I've got plenty of friends who were drinking in the same way I was or drinking more than I was. Now they're still drinking and they don't have a problem with their drinking. Or maybe they do, but they don't want to do anything about it. That doesn't enable me to keep drinking. I need to say, cth, you are not happy. It's time to do something about it. And there are lots of courses, books, coaches, hello, Sunday Mornings, a fabulous organization in Australia that has some great support through their app and lots of blog posts. There's many ways that you can get engaged. There's a great Australian podcast called Sober Awkward, which is hosted by a wonderful friend of mine, Vic Vanstone. So immerse yourself, start asking questions, start listening. That is a great place to start. And then start to maybe bring in some new, as I said, some new changes into your week and see how you feel when you're not drinking compared with when you are drinking as well. I love it.
Danielle Lewis (26:40):
It's just such a beautiful way to make a change. And I really love as well, your acknowledgement that you don't have to change all of your friends and you don't have to stop being friends with people. It's not actually about that. It is, this is me and this is how I'm showing up and this is how I want to improve my life. And also, I love the idea that you don't have to do things for other people. So just because you are going to that social event and they will be drinking, that's fine. You don't have to go and change anyone, but you don't have to go and change yourself when you show up at that event. You can still go and connect with your friends and be there and be present for any milestone, but acknowledge what works for you and what doesn't work for you, and actually do things that are going to build your health and wellbeing, whether that be mentally, physically, from here on in.
Kathryn (27:40):
Yeah, absolutely. And one of the interesting conversations I had with a friend of mine the other day was she was saying, no, I definitely don't have an issue with alcohol and I feel really good about it, my relationship with alcohol. And I just said to her, can I pose a question to you? And she said, yeah, of course. And I said, well, how would you feel about taking 30 days away from drinking and how would it feel to go to the social events that you've got coming up over the next couple of weekends and choosing not to drink? And she sort of looked at me and she went, that feels uncomfortable.
(28:20):
And then she said to me, well, then I probably got more of a passion and a dependency than I think I do. And I said to her, challenge yourself. Challenge yourself to go to some parties or go to some social events and freely choose not to drink and do it with a mentality of what am I going to gain from this? What am I going to gain from this situation and trying this out? And just as an experiment. And a couple of my friends have done that, and they're like, you know what? It was uncomfortable going into a big party when everyone else is drinking really uncomfortable and I'm not. But then you get into it and it all changes for me now. Yes, it's initially a bit uncomfortable and not even now for me, it's not because five years down the track, everyone knows that I don't drink. People are more worried about what's going on for them than they are for you.
Danielle Lewis (29:16):
Oh, absolutely. And that's such an interesting point. I told someone this yesterday. I'm like, people are far more in their own heads worrying about their own stuff than thinking about whatever's going on with you.
Kathryn (29:29):
Totally. So a lot of what, and that's the thing, a lot of what is going on in your own head, as we know, most of our thoughts are not true. They're based on assumptions from the past or just, yeah. So again, those thoughts are often stories.
Danielle Lewis (29:45):
Absolutely. And I think that there's so many, I actually think that we are getting more accepting as a society of people that do choose not to drink as well. I know even some of the last networking, business networking events that I've been to, there's been alcoholic wines and non-alcoholic wine options, which is just so fantastic because I think one of the things I was thinking was sometimes when I want to go to event and I don't want to announce that I'm not drinking, I will just fill up my cup with some bubbly water or whatever and hold it for a idol or whatever, which is probably a social crutch because I don't want to have to explain myself to it. But I'm like, you know what? If gets me through different things, then I'd far rather do that and employ different strategies to make myself feel more comfortable in those situations.
Kathryn (30:35):
Yeah, it's so great to hear that some of those networking functions have alcohol free options, and I'm seeing that more as well. And I think there are many reasons why people may choose not to drink. And it might not be that they're a non drinker. It may be that they have certain health issues going on, or they might be just deciding to take a break that night. I mean, there is this rise of the sober curious movement now in Australia, which is people choosing not to drink alcohol more for health reasons than because they've had a problem with alcohol. And that's a younger demographic that are really making more conscious and mindful choices. It's not, yes, we drink at every occasion, and alcohol needs to be part of everything. It's about looking at it and saying, well, actually, we know that alcohol can affects our sleep patterns really significantly. It can increase feelings of anxiety and depression sometimes for certain people. It's like the cost of drinking is not worth, and that's the other thing in your own life, you've got to do your own balance sheet, benefits versus costs and sometimes over your life. Again, that can change as well.
Danielle Lewis (31:56):
No, I love that. I love that so much. Now I feel like we could talk all day. So I want to switch gears very quickly to find out. So obviously this niche makes a lot of sense based on your personal history and experience, but how did you decide to actually start a business around it? What happened there? What's your background?
Kathryn (32:18):
So my background was in PR and media. So I worked in PR consultancies probably for 20, 25 years. So it's sort of in many ways I bring a lot of the skills that I learned through that work into this work. And I trained as a health coach in 2017, purely out of my passion for an interest. I never really thought I was going to set up a business because I wasn't really sure what the niche would be. And of course, then I went through my lived experience of changing my relationship with alcohol. I started doing some work with this Naked Mind in America who are well known in terms of training alcohol coaches. And I thought to myself, I know what I want to do after going through breast cancer. I just had a huge sort of transformation in terms of I wanted to do more purposeful, passionate work.
(33:19):
And I was like, I want to be an alcohol and binge drinking coach, and I want to be that coach for people like me, high functioning kind of professional people. And I thought, I think there's a niche. I think there's an opportunity to create a successful business. And there absolutely has been. I mean, three years down the track, my business is growing and these are the types of people that I'm working with. Some of them have become really good friends of mine as well. And so what they notice as well, which I love, is that when they change their relationship with alcohol, they feel better about themselves. It has an incredible ripple effect on every area of their life. And most importantly, their work productivity and creativity and potential just goes through the roof. That promotion they didn't think they could go for, they go for, and they get those sales figures they were trying to get for months and months.
(34:29):
They start hitting targets, they start wanting and believing that they can do better. And a lot of that is because they've got so much more time because the time that they were thinking about drinking, recovering from drinking, worrying about drinking sets them free, and they start to be more intentional about where they spend their time and hours. So for the business owners that are listening to this, it's another opportunity to think, how can I make changes that are going to make me more productive, more present in my business? And often in business when we're stressed, we start to drink, but that can actually be,
Danielle Lewis (35:08):
Oh, it becomes a vicious cycle. A
Kathryn (35:09):
Vicious cycle, exactly.
Danielle Lewis (35:11):
Totally. That I'm stressed, I'll have a drink, and then I'm more tired, less energy, so then I'm more stressed, so I have another drink. Yeah, it's not great, but I think it's such an interesting point. I think absolutely the audience here for Spark TV are high achieving business women. And I love the idea that it's like, okay, well let's just get curious. Let's just try this. Let's just ask ourself. Let's just be very kind because we are in business, so life is hard and there's a lot of moms, so they're juggling businesses and home responsibilities and so much. But I love the idea of just being kind and asking ourselves where we are at and how life might be enhanced if we were to try some no drinking in our life.
Kathryn (36:06):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think what I know to be true from my own experience and obviously through working with a lot of people, is that people are often in a lot of shame
(36:17):
And feeling alone in their own heads. And what I would say is you are not alone. There are millions and millions of people all over the world who struggle with their drinking to varying degrees. And if you are struggling, the most important thing you can do is actually A, admit it to yourself, and then B, look for some support and try and get some support because it's hard sometimes to do it on your own. And when you get support, you can be guided through a process that can really, and as you say, help you get curious, help you be kinder to yourself and help you to bring in some, I guess, real action in life that'll help you disrupt some patterns that you've brought into your life with drinking that have been repeated again and again and again. It's hard to break those on your own sometimes.
Danielle Lewis (37:15):
Yeah, absolutely. There is no shame in asking for help. That is the hard lesson I've learned over the last decade in business, but the one that has served me the most, because I'm always blown away by how asking for help in any area of my life and business people are always willing to show up for you, and there is always a solution. So it's just if anyone's sitting here thinking that they don't, are feeling a little bit of shame around whatever's going on for them, there are places to go, and there are people that are more than happy to help. So yeah. That's beautiful. Now, I know we've not talked a lot about business in this today's podcast, which I love, I love, I think it's very relevant for everybody listening in, but I would love to wrap the way we always wrap up. So reflecting on your time in business, so now putting that business woman hat on, what would be one last piece of advice that you might offer up to another woman in business who is on this crazy journey with us?
Kathryn (38:24):
Love it. Love it. The one piece of advice that I would have is that I started this business in my mid forties, and I think sometimes there's this feeling that it's too late or that you can't, or that you've got to stay in a career that you may have already built some success in. And I would just say connect with and believe in your dreams. You can make them happen. And that often this time in life in our mid forties or going into our fifties, we have so much wisdom and experience that it's actually the ideal time to start a business. And I know that to be true for my situation. And I think it's really important that if you do feel that there's something in there about a more purposeful way or a dream, believe in yourself and yeah, take action. You can do it.
Danielle Lewis (39:25):
Oh, Catherine, you are absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for sharing your journey, your story, your wisdom with the Spark community. I'm so grateful for you for coming on and sharing a cup of tea with me today. You are incredible.
Kathryn (39:43):
Thanks Danielle. Not wine.
Danielle Lewis (39:45):
She's not wine
Kathryn (39:47):
Today. Thank
Danielle Lewis (39:48):
You. I love it. Absolutely sensational.
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