Hi friend!
Let’s keep it simple this time.
Let’s remind myself: I am doing these updates to
keep me accountable with people I value and who’ve been super nice & supportive to me (if you are reading this, yes, you too ❤ )
give myself perspective once a week, help me appreciate my progress, reflect on the lessons learned and course-correct if needed.
So as the updates should be net-energy positive that means - ideally - not keeping me up til midnight every Friday night.
Hence I decided to give you a good night KISS tonight - Keeping It Short & Sweet.
Kitschy cuteness overload: KISS = Keep It Short & Sweet TONIGHT!
What I am proud of this week
I am building up my conviction towards committing to producing a show for the local TV station.
This week I went through the entire loop of pre-production (preparing the concept and a lightweight script), production (studio shooting time) and post-production (editing & packaging it all into a presentable output).
I did a pilot episode about public speaking (no guests or cameo from anyone else, but technically tried it out to understand what it would take) and I feel like I am getting an idea what will it all take. Additionally though, this inspired me to rethink the show concept and the main topic (more on it in the next point)
The station let me take the equipment with which I successfully recorded a Toastmaster meeting on Wednesday night, compressed & uploaded it on YouTube —> the quality is solid, so I can happily repeat the process and record my next speech
I also realized that whatever I talk about, the show would be a solid marketing for whatever I want to do and here I got an aha moment
I am critically evaluating a few concepts for the show, as I realized I got way too far on the soft skills and I miss the actual business/ content substance
Probably not the final title & concept - but hey, let’s embrace the process!
Look, a girl I know does a podcast Stars on Stars. It’s an astrology reading for (somewhat) famous guests. I listened to it and it made me wanna get a reading from her, even though I don’t really believe in it. But she’s actually booked out months out - I am apparently not the only person who she converted into a fan.
That made me think - if I do an amazing content on public speaking (the first concept for the show), what will people reach out to me about. And then it hit me: “Katka, help me apply those tips, I want you to be my speaking coach“. I sat for a moment with it and it didn’t feel fulfilling.
So I tried this mental exercise again - my lieblingstopic of connecting people and building professional relationships. Let’s imagine I create fantastic content on this topic, people will be reaching out - we want more! That would be awesome for more speaking referrals but in terms of services provided… I would be in demand as a (career?) coach again
Aha. So let’s start from the end:
what do you want people reach out to you to do for them?
What do you enjoy most doing for the other people?
In other words, how do you enjoy creating value and what do you want to be paid for?
Ha. And the truth is - we are back to my professional consulting past - I feel most alive & value-creating -when building and growing businesses (as in those years of working for private-equity-owned media&tech companies).
And I know this because this week I experimented with helping a friend with reach-outs and general business strategy & business case building for his retail robotics very early-stage startup. My husband told me he hasn’t seen me this both excited & you-know-what-you-are-talking-about in a long time. And I felt the same.
Maybe all the TV show, networking, speaking, connecting, building business relationships, blah blah… is the MEANS to an END. Maybe that’s what I am decently good at and what I enjoy doing - but I shouldn’t confuse it with the content what I do it for.
More experiments to be done on this.
And I just started having fun with offering to “speak” 🙂
“Don’t get attached to the outcomes, enjoy the process instead.”
Thank you for the leads & suggestions!
It became so much lighter and enjoyable, I have now a couple of them in discussions, if they work out great, if not right now, fine too.
The lightness come from me no longer offering to “speak“. When I branded myself as a speaker, I felt a little imposter-ish - why should someone listen to me speak.
But when I offer to share about my experience, my knowledge and my expertise - relative to my potential audience, it makes so much more sense.
Do I believe this group of people would benefit from me spending one hour with them sharing what I know about current tech trends, business building and the best way how to expand your network?
Hell yeah. So if it works out great, if it doesn’t this time, it wasn’t a good match 🙃.
I hope I caught you (by surprise!!) on this lovely Friday night - good night 🤩 .
xoxo, Katka
PS: If you want to refer back to any of my previous updates, I put them online here 👇 (you need to be on my list to see the whole updates, this is still in a closed beta 🤐).
