Transcript of Episode

Leah Gervais: Hey visionaries. Welcome back to the Your Biggest Vision show. I’m your host, Leah and I’m very excited to have Kathryn Roberts with us today. Hi Kathryn.

Kathryn Roberts: Hi Leah. How are you?

Leah Gervais: Good, how are you?

Kathryn Roberts: Doing great. Doing great.

Leah Gervais: Good. So Kathryn is the founder of QuestFor47.com. She is a huge creative and a self proclaimed nerd by nature. She has pursued blogging, writing and so many creative endeavors. She is absolutely amazing. She’s in my mastermind. She is one of my super rockstar clients and I’ve loved working with her and seeing her business grow and she has a full time business of her own quest for 47 which is relatively newly full time. But it is been amazing to see it grow in a short amount of time. So thanks again for being here, Kathryn.

Kathryn Roberts: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I’ve been so excited since we talked about this a few weeks ago.

Leah Gervais: Awesome. Well, my show as you know, is all about your vision and pursuing it. So I’m wondering what you envisioned your life to be like when you were younger?

Kathryn Roberts: That’s a really great question. I didn’t really have a solid vision for my life until I was about 19 years old. So when I started college, I was working in the athletic department at the University of Arizona in media relations and I had this amazing opportunity to work the basketball tournament, which was in L.A. at the Staples center during my spring break. I was there and I was looking around and I was just seeing everything that was going on and all the people in the business and all my peers. I was like, this is really cool. I want to do this for my life. So at 19 years old, I decided on a career path that I, I pursued successfully for about a decade. Then, you know, my, my vision changed and I decided that I wanted to go into business for myself, to not just be self employed and do that thing where you live on your own terms and you don’t have to commute to work. You don’t have to be building someone else’s dream. But I really wanted to build something that would allow me to write novels full time and to also follow my passions as a writer because I’ve been doing that my whole life and I have come to realize that to realize my dream of being a writer, I need to have some sort of income driven vehicle that allows me to work when I want, where I want and what I want depending on the day and the time of day.

So you pursued for almost a decade you said, pretty successfully, a career in sports, and professionalism of the athletic world. What was it like or what was the moment when you sort of realize that this career path you had been pursuing for the better part of a decade and have been doing a good job wasn’t actually going to be the right fit? Was that scary? What made you realize that? What was it like?

Kathryn Roberts: It was a lot of a lot of things. There was some pretty tumultuous stuff happening in the athletic department that I worked in. Not in my direct office. Those people are some of the best. It was a little bit external and I just realized, you know, this might not be the right place for me, but I also realized very quickly that I was not willing to move to another school, state, institution what have you to continue to do this. Also I am a record keeper statistician by training. That’s kind of my specialty with sports is the statistic side. There’s been this really big push within the last few years of more of a digital media, social media side, which is not so much my forte. So then after that, the question was, you know, if I don’t do this, which is the only thing I’ve ever done professionally, what do I do? And that was a really scary question because I didn’t have an answer to it. I didn’t want to just stay in my job and not be happy. It took me a very long time to figure out what my path was going to be from it. There were, you know, tons of ups and downs and twists and turns. I had no idea that it was gonna take me onto this road to entrepreneurship. But I’m so freaking happy that it did.

Leah Gervais: Yes. Well, it’s amazing. But, I’m sure it was scary at the time. So what would you tell someone who might be listening to this, I felt similar to you, I hadn’t been doing it for as long as you had, but someone who has been on a certain road or path for a really long time and is starting to realize this is not the path and has no idea what the other path is. I mean, that’s a scary moment. So if you could go back and tell yourself, or if you could tell the woman who’s there now, what would you say?

Kathryn Roberts: That’s actually really interesting because I very recently had a conversation with a friend who is… he’s frustrated in his own position but doesn’t know where to go or what else to do. I think this would’ve been the same thing that I would have told myself back then is start looking because the thing that I didn’t do, and I distinctly remember standing in the kitchen of a friend’s house that I was dog sitting for talking to my dad and saying I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t do this. The thing that I didn’t do is I didn’t start looking for other options or opportunities. I didn’t start seeing what might be a good fit for me or, or see what else that I could do. Because from my perspective, the only options were my weird job in sports, which was really fun and unique. It was like really 24/7 opportunity or a typical nine to five office job. Online entrepreneurship didn’t occur to me. Service based business was not something I wanted to be in like retail or food service. So I didn’t just look around and I didn’t start trying to peel back the veal and see what all the unique opportunities there really are out there in business and that’s definitely what I would have told myself is just start looking and you never know what you’re going to find.

Leah Gervais: Right. That’s great advice. So walk us through the next chapter then. So you stopped working in sports and then you eventually realize that you are going to pursue your dreams of being a writer and you’re going to do it in a way that entails you building something of your own first. What, what was going through your head then? What was that actually like in the moment?

It was a really, really weird time in my life. So I decided… I had written a novel while I was working my sports job. From 2015 to 2016 I wrote a novel that *unable to transcribe* because I don’t know how to not write a story that has 14 different stories interconnected into it. I knew that I wanted to pursue that, you know, get an agent, go the traditional publishing route instead of self publishing and make that, you know, the, the sci-fi answer to JK Rowling is pretty much what I’m looking to do. I got some advice from some people and I started my first website, TheFakeRedHead.com, which evolves into a writing prompts and writing tips website, that I love dearly and I’m very proud of and just didn’t monetize the way that I wanted to, the way that would have allowed me to, you know, run that and also write because I also had some very serious stuff that happened with my family that ultimately led to me cutting off ties with my mother and being disowned by my father.

It really knocked me for a loop and trying to build something when you have this really unstable family situation, when you’ve had this really great relationship with your father for your entire life, really knocked me off myself for a while. It ultimately led me to thinking, mistakenly in hindsight that I needed to just have a traditional nine to five job and that’s just what you do. I took one at the end of 2017 and realized very quickly that it was not the right place for me and that entrepreneurship and that route is definitely where I need to be. So I recommitted, I came up with the idea of Quest for $47, which is how much money I needed to bring in and passive income every single day for a year so they wouldn’t have to pay my rent or my expenses out of my corporate salary so I could use the money that I got from my day job to do what I want and live my life.

It ultimately turned into, you know, there’s no better time for me to just go all in on this, on teaching young women specifically how to create these income earning side hustles so that they don’t have to be solely dependent on their corporate salaries because they’re often, you know, really inefficient. There are so many women and I’m definitely one of them who was in  in a job, in a position that she was incredibly overqualified for but incredibly underpaid for. And I feel very strongly that there is no reason to be scraping by especially in your twenties when you should be living your life and enjoying your life and doing anything and everything that you want. So I am here to teach these women how to create these businesses that allow them to live right now without having to worry about where the money is going to come from to pay their rent or their bills.

Leah Gervais: Wow. My God. How far you’ve come in just a few years feeling like you had to take a in different job to deciding that was not what you were going to do to now helping other people have complete autonomy over their careers. It’s so true because I live in one of the most expensive cities there is and every conversation seems to revolve around, well, what do you want to do? Well, how much is it? Oh, do you want to live there? Well, how much is it? You say you want to take that job but they don’t pay you enough? Then you can’t. Nothing really seems to stem from a place of what people actually want to do anymore. And I know that New York is especially expensive, but considering the Internet and the potential we have, there’s no need to be making big life decisions or career decisions based on money or the lack thereof when there’s other ways you can can be getting it. So I love that you empower people to do that. Let’s talk a little bit about something that I talk about a lot on this show and it can be somewhat painful, so only share what you’re comfortable with. But, when it comes to pursuing your vision, it seems somewhat obvious that things are going to work against it. But a lot of times, like everything is working against it really. Because the only thing working toward it is you, even your friends and family that love you most are not. And that’s okay. That’s not their job. It’s your job. A lot of times your ego might be in your way, or finances might be in your way, holistic things. But it sounds like you had a pretty intense threat to your vision when things got heated with your family and your parents. So are you willing to share whenever you feel good about sharing, how, how you overcame that and continue to believe in yourself when something so difficult was going on and what advice you have for other people when huge threats to their own dreams appear?

Kathryn Roberts: Yeah, yeah. It was not my favorite time in my life, but I definitely came out on the other side of it so much stronger then ever in my entire life. My older sister and I were talking recently about, you know, she’s like, you have never been so happy and I pity your parents or the fact that they don’t get to see that. It was very difficult to basically… I had always had a very, very tense relationship with my mother. We just kind of never really clicked the way she wanted to and she was never willing to kind of meet me in the middle. My father and I were incredibly close for my entire life and he kind of turned on a dime and basically turned his back on me in order to salvage his relationship with my mother and to go through that… when he decided to make that decision, that was when I was really able to empower myself and realize that I didn’t have to deal with that anymore because there was about a five month period between me not talking to my mother and when my father disowned me where it was very difficult to navigate conversations with him and it was incredibly stressful to have to censor myself and be like, can I talk to about this with him? Because he’ll have to tell my mother all, all of the things that we discuss because that’s what they do now. But when he decided to go against his integrity and his background and what we thought of who he was as a person to follow her down her rabbit hole, it freed me from having to worry about their expectations and their life and it really empowered me to do what I wanted without worrying what they were going to think and allowed me to really become my best self without having to worry about pressure or navigating tricky conversations or just having to deal with hearing the stories of the stuff that they get up to. It doesn’t impact me anymore and not having the weight of that impact and being in the middle of that situation, it allowed me to actually be able to focus on what I want to do with my life and not have to worry about anything extraneous that really doesn’t matter to me anymore.

Leah Gervais: So what would you say to someone who is in somewhat of a comparable transition for lack of a better word, whether that means they’re getting rid of a relationship that was toxic to them or maybe a family member or maybe even a friend or maybe a thing or a habit. For you, you have an amazingly strong view on the positives that came with releasing toxic experiences in your life and people from your life. But a lot of times and I’m sure that this happened, you too, when you’re in the thick of it, it’s very complicated because you might know you need to release it, but then there’s all these things keeping you toward it and making you feel like you can’t let it go. What would you say to someone who’s struggling to let go or disconnect with themselves and they could be on the other side like you are, they could be more for you, they could be more aligned and they’re just struggling to make it happen.

Kathryn Roberts: I really think that you have to decide what’s best for you and you have to really put yourself first,head of even in your family or your relationship or whatever it is. I think about it all the time, especially this time of year with mother’s Day and father’s day coming up up and all the commercials talking about, oh, you have to love your mother, she’s your mother or your father is the best thing in the world. I’m like, your father and mother may not always be that best person and be that right person to be in your life and it’s not an easy decision. I can talk about it very nonchalantly now because it’s been almost a year since I’ve talked to my Father, a year or more than that. I don’t even know. Time just passes by so quickly, more than a year. It’s not easy to say, okay, I’m, I’m done with you. So you have to do that. Work yourself and find the people who will support you, because the support system that I have now with the rest of the family who also got excommunicated in the fallout, I wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for them and I wouldn’t be as empowered without their help and their support and their understanding and just their ear to vent. So you need to A, empower yourself and B, find the people who will support you. You have so many options of who those could be. It could be other members of your family, it could be other close friends or it could be some random people you meet on the Internet. I’ve created so many amazing friendships this last year since I’ve started in on, you know, working on my own business and there are some amazing people that I don’t know where I would be without.

Leah Gervais: Okay. So you have such an amazing sense of self and it’s very clear to me that, you know, it’s probably one of the things that has made you successful and that we’ll continue to. How do you feel like… because this is a concept every entrepreneur needs in some sense or another, you’ve kind of had the extreme doses, but things get loud quickly when you’re putting yourself out there. People have opinions, people have different, you know, feedback on what you should be doing. People can be mean. You can be mean to yourself like it can get before you know it, things are completely in a different place than you intended them to be. So having a strong sense of self is totally critical. So I’d love to hear from you, how do you feel like you experience and gone through and the work you’ve done to put yourself first, has contributed to your success in entrepreneurship?

Kathryn Roberts: Well going through everything that I’ve gone through, it’s not common for people, especially when you have the traditional family upbringing of, you know, it’s not perfect, but it’s not awful. So, if I can survive my entire family going nuclear, I can do anything. It really has just allowed me to cultivate this success based mindset. When I decided to get really serious about Quest for $47, I decided that I was going to tell myself, and I do tell myself every single day that’s success is my only option. It doesn’t matter how long it takes for me to be successful, it doesn’t matter that I may have to pivot or change or that some days may be harder than others, but ultimately I will find success and I do find success with this business and it’s only going to take me to an even better place in my life than I am now and my life right now is amazing. I just can’t wait to see where it takes me.

Leah Gervais: Oh my gosh Kathryn, I just got chills for you. You have such an amazing outlook and such an amazing mindset and that’s why it’s been so amazing to see what you’ve done in an incredibly short amount of time and just thank you for opening up about your family. I’m sure that’s very painful. I really appreciate your vulnerability and I’m sure everyone listening does too, because the concept of what you shared, you know, you should have very dramatic version of something that we all need to know. Yours was especially intense, but if you want to be successful and if you want your own dreams and your own vision to come through, then you have to not only… how do I put this, you have to not only try to ignore things that are toxic to him, but you have to actively reject them because they can seep into your mind, your thoughts, your conversations, your beliefs very, very easily and you know, Kathryn, I think you’ve just got a crash course in putting yourself first, to say the least, but it’s something we all all need to listen to you when all need to remember. You know, there are so many things and people, whether they mean to or not, that will threaten your wellbeing all the time. That’s not malicious lot of the times. I mean, *unable to transcribe*. But, it’s still your job and your job only to make sure that you are guarding your vision with your life. You have to protect it like your life. So I’m gonna just, I’m so proud of you Kathryn, and I’m so honored to be on this journey with you because you have an incredible outlook, a very strong sense of self, and a confidence that I’m sure takes people most of their lives to ever create.

Kathryn Roberts: Yeah. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you and everything that you have done to help me these past few months. But the mindset I came of my success based mindset is really based in being stubborn and not caring about what other people think. I distinctly remember the day I decided that I just wasn’t going to care about what other people think anymore. I know so many people put so much pressure on other people’s opinions and I did that for so long. Then I was walking on the track and field facility at the university that I worked with two days before my 24th birthday and I said, you know what, I’m going to stop caring about what other people think. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. I’m just gonna go and I’m going to do what I do and I’m going to keep my head down and be awesome at what I do. And it doesn’t matter if people think that it’s weird or it’s, you know, not traditional or whatever. I’m just, I’m going to do things my way and it’s going to work out amazing.

Leah Gervais: I love that you remember the time. I wish I had a memory like that. I don’t know if you’ve read, they did magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, but she talks about when she was like 16 and she like lit a candle and had a whole little like seance in her room and she promised the universe that she’d be a writer for forever.

Kathryn Roberts: I just don’t forget things. I also remember two days before my 25th birthday when I found my first gray hair.

Leah Gervais: Oh my God. That’s so funny. Well, why don’t we talk a little bit more about recently, so I’d love to hear about the day that you then decided you were going to leave your nine to five job.

Kathryn Roberts: Okay. It was a wild day. It was a Thursday, January 3rd, 2019. I still work a little bit in sports. I work at events as the statistician because the programs and software that they use in sports are antiquated to say the least. Not many people know how to use them. I’m one of the few people in the Phoenix Metro area where I live, who knows how to do it. So it gives me a little bit of job security. But it was always very stressful working my nine to five job and asking for time off. I know that especially, young women, millennials, whatever you want to call them, they don’t feel encouraged to take their time off that they earn. I always just felt so uncomfortable asking my boss for a little bit of time to just beat traffic to get from one side of town to the other so that I could get to the events in time and to get to these obligations in time and there was a really big event that was coming up that it was the season opener for a gymnastics meet. There were four teams coming in. It was going to be an absolute circus and I knew that I needed to be there two full hours out before the meet started. And my boss did not want to give me the the half hour I needed on a Friday afternoon on a slow day to do that.

I just realized that the job was, was never going to allow me to not even just, not feel guilty about leaving a little bit early to get to my sporting events. But it was never going to allow me to also dedicate the energy that I needed to dedicate to my business because I would be up at 5:00 to get some work done before leaving the house at 7:15. I would work till 5:00, battle traffic on the way home and I would intend to work and just be so exhausted by the end of the day that I would sit down in front of my computer and just my brain would be fried and I knew that it was not something sustainable and that with Quest for $47 being my priority. I decided to say, you know what? Things are not going to change at work. It’s not going to get better. It’s not gonna. I’m not going to be able to find any sort of balance between my work life and the business that I’m building. So I’m just going to go all in on building my business. Two weeks later, I had my last day as a an eight to five employee and then on Friday, January 18th, I had my first day as a full time entrepreneur.

Leah Gervais: I love that story and again, it just reflects your sense of self worth and your understanding of how important and precious your life is in your time and for those listening, this is when I knew you were going to be like a firecracker, Kathryn because you started my mastermind at the beginning of this year and she said that one of her goals was to quit her job within like six months and then like three weeks later *unable to transcribe*. It’s amazing. Awesome. Okay, great. Well then why don’t you just continue telling us a bit about what is new with your business and what’s coming up next.

Kathryn Roberts: Yeah, absolutely. So I recently did my first full length masterclass, The Seven Fatal Mistakes that side hustlers make and how to avoid them. That just went so well. It’s been so much fun. So I can’t wait to give my current audience and future audience the opportunity to watch that masterclass and to learn about all the great content that they provided there. I’m in such awe, I’m just in this massive growth phase right now and I have so many irons in the fire, so many projects that I want to do that I am doing. I’m still very passionate about my weeknight, livestream. I call it 10 minutes before dinner where in the 10 minutes my dinner is cooking, I hop on Facebook and Instagram live and talk about a randomly decided topic about business and it’s just been so much fun to be able to meet people, to connect with my audience, to find out what they want so that I can be that person who gives that to them and to really give them the opportunity to empower themselves to the same way that I have because it’s just so important to me that people just have to know that it’s, you don’t have just have to toil for years until mythical age of retirement. My grandmother tells me all the time, these are not the golden years. You need to live your life right now and I take it to heart, I really, really do and I want people to know that as well.

Leah Gervais: Yeah and you are like a content creating Wiz and I know that you’ve really helped people who are in side hustles, are around there nine to five jobs, you know, I remember what it was like, I couldn’t even figure out WordPress, let alone come up with a blog post or a social media post or whatever when I was starting out and you have really helped people that are short on time, but do need to put content out there. That’s kind of like your bread and butter right now, right?

Kathryn Roberts: Yeah. Yeah. Content is the linchpin of pretty much your entire business because if you know what you’re going to be posting, whether it’s once a week or twice a month or what have you, whatever works on your schedule, which is part of what I work with my clients is to figure out what content plan works for them and around their lives. And once you know what kind of content you’re going to be creating from week to week, then you can go everywhere else and you can do the promotions in the social media and Instagram and Facebook and Pinterest. So if you take the mystery out of that one thing, which is content creation for your blog, then you’re going to be able to take the mystery out of everything else in your business.

Leah Gervais: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it really speaks to the number one thing you do. You listen to any successful entrepreneur out there, Marie Forleo, anyone, the number one thing they’ll tell you is you have to be consistent and you can’t be consistent if you don’t know what you’re posting. So this really like nips that in the bud. So I love that that’s what you focus on because I think it’s going to help me. I know it helps people that are in the beginning stages. So you are amazing Kathryn. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Thank you for sharing your business with us and thank you for all you do. I have a couple Biggest Vision questions and then that is all, are you ready?

Kathryn Roberts: Yeah. Hit me with it.

Leah Gervais: Well, what are you most proud of thus far in pursuing your biggest vision?

Kathryn Roberts: Leaving my eight to five job has definitely, it’s been one of the most amazing, empowering things that I’ve done for myself in a very long time. I just remember it was like a switch flipped the day I gave my notice. It just like that weight was lifted off of me. I knew that I was coming to the time where my business is going to be my priority. It was just, it was really fun to be able to live those last two weeks at work knowing that everything that happened there was not going to follow me here and it’s just been absolutely amazing to see how far and how fast my business has grown. Even just in a few short months.

Leah Gervais: Heck yes. Very, very proud of you. What is a daily practice or something that you can recommend people do when they feel like things are fighting against their vision?

Kathryn Roberts: Definitely take a break. That’s the biggest thing I have. But it’s been very, it’s been a long path for me to figure out how to, to kind of maintain that balance of, you know, working in my business but oh, I want to do something, you know, for fun or for me. So I’ve, I very recently gotten back into creative writing, part of my steps of getting back into my manuscript and, and going back into, finding an agent and getting published. But I’ve been getting back into writing again, and it’s taught me that you can take a little bit of a break from your business. It’s not gonna ruin things if you’re not thinking about it at all hours, all day. Even if you’re not, you know, working from home and you do have a job, you don’t always have to spend every single waking hour when you’re not at work on business related things. You can take that break, you know, go take a walk, spend some time with your family, take up a hobby, start knitting, or write like I do. Just, you know, take a little bit of time to do that because you’ll be able to turn your mind off of that and when you come back to it, you’ll just, you’ll feel refreshed and energized. It’s really important that you keep that balance and don’t burn yourself out.

Leah Gervais: Love it. What podcasts do you recommend or do you love?  

Kathryn Roberts: That’s a great question. I have not listened to a lot of podcasts lately, but I will definitely have to give credit to Kathy Heller’s Don’t Keep Your Day Job podcast, which I actually started listening to the day I gave my notice. There’s an episode very early on. She’s got so many episodes by now, but there’s an episode from 2017 with Saul Blinkoff who was a creator at Disney. His story is just amazing and really exciting and it’s so engaging to listen to. It gave me chills and it was all about his path and how he decided at a very young age that he was going to be an animator for Disney and he did it. He decided that despite the fact that he wasn’t the best animator ever or at his school, he was going to do it and he did it. And he actually ended up doing some art on Mulan, which is my favorite Disney movie. So that was just even cooler and awesome to listen to.

Leah Gervais: Sounds like an awesome talk to us. I’ll have to check that out. What do you think has contributed to the quick growth of your business? In other words, what would you tell new entrepreneurs is helpful to grow?

Kathryn Roberts: Having support and having someone who has done what you want to do. That is the absolute most important thing. One of the things that tripped me up the first time around with my first attempt at business, was that I was taking advice from people who had not done what I wanted to do. So it was very well intentioned, but it did not apply and it did not work for me. So working with somebody who knows what they’re doing and who has done what you want to do a.k.a you in this case for me, has been the, the 100%, the biggest, most important thing. And the thing that has helped me grow so much that and being a part of your mastermind and finding people who, whether they’re in your niche or not, who are the same mindset, who are just as driven towards successes you are, who can see things from different perspectives, especially when they’re in different niches that you can take into your own business and really apply and then grow at this really amazing exponential rate.

Leah Gervais: I love that answer. Thank you so much for point. Well, first of all, thank you for your compliments on my mastermind. I think it’s so important to also really filter in whose advice you take from it. I mean, all the time clients come to me or people come to me and their like my boyfriend thinks that my prices are too high and that’s why it’s not selling. And it’s like, well, is your boyfriend your ideal client? Has Your boyfriend started this business? I don’t think so. Why are you taking advice from him or your parents or whatever. Again, you’re right, it’s all well meaning people are all trying to help but it’s not applicable. So that’s great advice. Okay. The last question I have is how can people find out more about you?

Kathryn Roberts: Oh, you can find more about me at QuestFor47.com. I am also a QuestFor47 on Instagram and facebook.com/Questfor47. Like I said earlier, I go live every single week night at around 5:00 PM Pacific Time, in 10 minutes before dinner. It’s usually about 5:00, 5:10 and it’s about 10 to 15 minutes long depending on if I ramble. I also have my free five day email course content explosion, which you can find at front and center on my website and they’ll walk you through how to create an entire year of blog content so you can take away the mystery and really focus on what matters to your business, which is the promotion side of things. Because if you’re spending more time on content creation than you are on promotion, then you need to reevaluate and change that up.

Leah Gervais: Amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you so much Kathryn. Your story, Your Business, everything about what you’ve done is incredible. You are so inspiring and I’m so grateful that you came to share your story with us today.

Kathryn Roberts: Thank you so much for having me Leah, I really appreciate it.

Leah Gervais: I’ll talk to you soon and for all you listening out there, I hope that you loved this and I am cheering you on in pursuit of your vision. I’ll talk to you guys soon.

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