← Confessions of an Implementer
Confessions of an Implementer
S2E41 | Work-Life Balance: How To Rest Without Feeling Guilty with Katie Koester
00:56:18
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- [00:00]
A
As an entrepreneur, it's okay to say that for a season, this is what I'm going to have to do. You know, sometimes you have to work like no one else to work like no one else. And so there's going to be a season of this for my business, where I'm going to work all the time so that I can get to this. And so I have to enjoy the rest period.
- [00:26]
B
Welcome to Confessions an Implementer. I'm your host, Ryan Hogan. We share unique stories of EOS implementers and the companies they've transformed to give you a rare glimpse into the successes and challenges of the system in action. Let's jump in. Katie, thank you so much for taking the time today to come on the show. Welcome.
- [00:46]
A
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.
- [00:49]
B
So, one question that I had, and you had said this during our last call, which is you were a high jumper, and I always wonder with a lot of these different sports. So I grew up playing soccer. I played a little bit of baseball, but then I was afraid of the ball, and so my mom took me out. It's an embarrassing story already, but I often wondered with some of these kind of unique sports, how'd you get into high jumping? And how did you take it to the level that you took it to?
- [01:20]
A
Yeah, one thing to know about me is I'm six foot tall. So being tall and high jump is definitely an advantage. And it really started in junior high because I'm not a fast runner. And I wouldn't say I sucked at everything else, but I didn't have, like, that thing every. I grew up in a really small town, and so everybody played every sport and I went out for track, and they're like, well, you're tall. Just run up and fall backwards over this stick. Like, how hard can it be? And turns out it wasn't that hard, especially when you're already, like, up there. You can fall over fairly easy. And so I had some success and then continued that into high school. And it's funny because people are like, oh, you ran track? I'm like, I did as little running as possible. I did field and I did other things. Like I did discus. I did. I don't have the exact build to be a thrower, but I was okay at that and did some long jump because, again, if you're tall, you go a little further. And so started to do it about my sophomore year, I really kind of realized, like, hey, I'm actually good at this. Took a couple camps and started to actually Build some technique around it that wasn't just running up and falling backwards over a stick. And figured out that I was kind of good at it. Actually set my school record in high school and went to state and it just kind of turned into the thing. And then colleges started to call me about it and I was like, I am I really this good at it? And ended up going to do college and had an incredible coaching staff. Ed Phi was my coach and he told me on day one, for you to get really good at this, I need you to unlearn all of the stuff that you know. So I'm going to make you suck really, really bad to make you really, really good. So. So trust the process. And it's really interesting as I'm saying that, because there's lots of parallels to my life with that. And it worked. My junior year, I actually jumped 5 foot 9 and 3 quarters inches and I won an NAIA Indoor National Championship and actually qualified for Nationals. All four years that I was there. That was the closest I got to winning was second place or was. I won my junior year. I did not win any outdoors. I got second one year. But the. There was one particular athlete that was tremendously gifted. I think she went on to be on an Olympic team for Canada, but she was jumping six foot. The closest I ever got was like five, ten.
- [04:05]
B
So, yeah, I mean, that's still. I. And I realize we're talking inches here, and you might be like, yes, 2 inches is like, when you're talking about high jump is a lot to me. I'm like, gosh, like you were, you, you're there. You're only two inches from one of the, you know, most elite that went to the, the Olympics. I, I would say that's pretty. That's pretty awesome.
- [04:26]
A
It is, it is. And it's, you know, it's one of those deals where I loved it at that period of my life. And I probably could have continued on with it, but there were so many other things that I wanted to do that I just decided, you know, I had a great high school career, I had a great college career. College really prepared me for what I wanted to do next level, which wasn't high jumping. And so I hung up the cleats after that.
- [04:52]
B
That's such a good segue. And I feel bad now because I'm going to bring us back because I do want to. I want to touch on the sports just a little bit. And there's two reasons. The first is we do sales recruiting and we have found this Phenomenal correlation over the last couple years between collegiate athletes and people that were part of, of some sort of like competitive club. It could have been chess club, it could have been anything. But there's this correlation between that type of background and people that excel in, in sales really excel in, in life, but excel in sales. The, the other thing that, that was interesting is I've got a buddy, he played college football at the Naval Academy and he tells this story and the story is, is that he was really bad at football, really bad at football. And basically I, he was either, he was either late middle school or early high school and basically someone threw a ball at him on the bus, they were coming back, they lost the game and they were like, you're never going to mount to anything. And he grabbed the ball and he looked at him, he was like, I'm going to play, I'm going to play, you know, at the highest college level possible. And he did. But something clicked, like he made a mindset shift on that day where like that's, that became his life was like one proven that guy wrong, but the other thing of like just excelling. And so he went from one of the worst to the best on the team and then got picked up for, for the Naval Academy. So my, my question to you is like, did you, did you try at this? And this might be leading the witness because I know that we're going to have a great conversation around work, life balance. So there might be like some leading witness on this one. But like did something, did something shift in your mind where you were like, I'm going to be great at this or, or did you just, you know, ship it in each day? Like, what, when did that change happen? Or was there a change there?
- [06:42]
A
Well, so you have to probably dig into my child a little hood a little bit to answer that. So I'm the oldest of four, I grew up on a farm and I have always been competitive as a person and I have two younger brothers and a younger sister and me and then the second one, which is my brother, were 18 months apart and we were both very competitive with each other and he was naturally talented from an athletics, you know, and I wasn't, I was kind of clumsy and just kind of like, you know, a kid that wasn't necessarily overly athletic. And I did volleyball. And the interesting thing for me was everybody expected me to be amazing because I was, I was like 5, 10 when I was in 8th grade. So everybody expected me to be amazing. I remember they convinced me to go out for Basketball my sophomore year and I didn't know anything about basketball. I was in practice one time and the coach was screaming, katie, you need to box out. You need to box out. And I was like, I don't know what that means. And she just looked at me and I'm like, you convinced me to do this. I have no idea what I'm doing. So my point in all of this is I wasn't necessarily naturally gifted in athletics, but then when I did track, it was kind of my thing and it was kind of the thing that I could tinker with and I could get better at. And I was a little bit of a perfectionist, a little type A. So whatever it was that I was doing, I was going to do it the best. And that's really where it was. And so then when college came around, it was a situation where, you know, those numbers are not small with what it's going to cost to go to college. And so for me it was, well, hey, if I can get really good at this and do this, it will pay for my school, which will then help me complete, you know, my 50 point life plan. Because of course I had one. None of which has all worked out. But that being said, it was a way to do that. And so then when I got into it, especially after I started winning a couple meets, it really clicked, the interest. Interesting thing, when you were first asking me this question, you said, you know, a lot of people want that competitive college athlete. I have a couple clients who have actually said that to me. We're only hiring kids who grew up on farms and who were college athletes. And I was like, okay, can we dig beyond that and figure out what are those characteristics you're looking for? Because there's good people out there that weren't athletes and didn't grow up on farms, you know. But the interesting thing that came to mind as you were asking me that question was the mindset piece of it. Because to be a competitor and you know, quite honestly to be a leader, you have to have the mindset that you're going to do whatever it takes and you're going to have hard times, you're going to have to push through one of the scariest things. When I was a high jumper, as you got to the collegiate level, the starting height got higher. Like when I was junior high and I just had to follow over. I think the starting height was like four foot. I mean, you could step over it, right? When I got to collegiate level, it was 5 foot. And you know, yes, that's 12 inches is a big deal. And when I went to nationals, it was like 52 or 5 4. Well, sometimes if you didn't clear that, you got three tries. If you didn't clear that, you what they called no heighted, which means basically you got last because you didn't do anything. And I had this just huge fear about no hiding and it could eat you alive. It actually, there was a conference championship where I literally got last. I was the front runner going in. I know heighted on a 5:2 start height and didn't place at conference. Coincidentally, that's the exact same season that I won my national championship. But you had to go through the mental. You had to develop mental perseverance to know how to perform when it met mattered. And I think that's one of the things that athletics taught me. Also growing up on a farm, I mean, my, my dad was always out there working. My mom always was either working with my dad or she had a job in town. And so I was the oldest. I had to take care of my siblings a lot. And there were expectations set every single day when we were home of, this is what needs to be done when you get home. And we all work together as a family to, you know, keep things going, whether it was cutting thistles or cleaning the house. And so it, it was really, for me, it's about setting proper expectations and figuring out the mindset to hit those expectations.
- [11:37]
B
Actually, I love that your, your client was like, we're only going to hire people from the farms plating because you said this thing. This is like, it's mindset. And it's this mindset of like, doing whatever it takes. I can very easily see all the things that you just described. I could see how, like, that type of resiliency and that type of mindset at a very early age, like, is. Is ingrained in you. I don't, I don't know if you have the answer to this, but like, where else, where else can you find it? Like, if you, if you are not going through those types of challenges, that type of adversity, like, early on in age, like, not to agree with your clients, but how else, how else do you find people with like, with that type of grit?
- [12:19]
A
With that type of grit? You know, I don't want to say that it's just childhood. I have a lot of friends, I have a lot of clients that have gone through some horrific things in adulthood and really, you know, not to get into like, Alcoholics Anonymous, things like that. But there's a Point at which I think sometimes you hit rock bottom or what you think is rock bottom, and you have to decide, am I going to do something different? And I don't want to get into a discussion around nature versus nurture, because I'm not sure which one I agree with. But it really is about what are the characteristics, maybe even the core values of that person. And a lot of times, experiences in our lives will change us in those ways. And so even if you didn't grow up on a farm or you didn't, you know, like legit athlete or, you know, you weren't a collegiate athlete, I have a friend that, you know, her parents kind of stopped parenting her when she was 12 and she had to send herself, you know, I mean, she's, she was still kind of a child at that point, but she went to high school online and she moved here and she had to kind of figure things out for herself at 18. And now she has a really great job and she didn't go to college, but she graduated from high school, she put herself through school, she's married, she has a kid. She's, you know, like, probably one of the best in her field at what she does. And so I think it's about just what experiences you go through and how you choose to respond and learn from them.
- [14:01]
B
I love that you said you had a 50 life or 50 point life plan. Have you given yourself any grace on that? Or are you still, are you still like, we're going to hit every single one of these?
- [14:14]
A
Yeah. EOS implementer wasn't. Yeah, no, I have. That's actually part of like the grand journey over the last three to four years of my life. So in eos, we teach Colby, which I learned, you know, helps you understand your thinking style. I am an eight fact finder, which means I love details before I can make decisions. And I'm probably going to give you way more details than you need. Some of sometimes my clients are probably like, yeah, Katie, we get it. You can stop talking. I work on that. But I remember being, you know, very type A at an early age. Freshman year in high school, they. And again, I went to school in a very small town. The graduating class was 40 people, so I'm not falling through the cracks, but I remember them giving us this guide of like, the classes you had to take to graduate. And, and as a freshman, before school had even started, like going into my mom, anxiety ridden because I didn't think I was going to graduate from high school because I didn't know how I was going to complete all these classes over four years. And so those are because I wanted to do it perfectly and, you know, over time then, you know, you go to college, you get married, you have kids, you have a good job. This is all the stuff you're supposed to do. And I hit a point, honestly, probably right after Covid, where I finally woke up, my kids were getting a little bit older, and I said, is this even what I want? You know, there's this plan, and sometimes executing pieces of the plan isn't what's best for me. Is this truly what I want? And then it led me down a tremendous therapy journey. I spent a year in therapy figuring out that I was an extreme workaholic and that my entire worth was wrapped up in my work. And, you know, you were, you were talking about competitiveness and that work ethic and everything. And it's, it's a tremendous thing to have. But if you don't have, you know, knowledge of how to manage it, it can become a very detrimental thing to your life. And that's what happened to me. I was working all the time and I struggled with delegation and I was in an environment that, you know, things people weren't always held accountable. And so it was really creating a lot of issues for me. So after therapy, after, you know, the rest of my journey that we'll go into in a minute to answer your very simple question of have we loosened the plan? I don't even have a plan at this point, I. I take it. Yeah, well, I shouldn't say that I have a vto. Let's, let's be honest. I have a VTO Vision Traction Organizer. I have that plan for my business and for my life. But the, the thing that I really found with EOS is sometimes that changes and we got to be flexible and adaptable to be able to change with it.
- [17:22]
B
I love it. Do you, do you, do you change it once a year? Do you, do you. If you look at something and it doesn't resonate today, do you change it then? Like, how often are you. Are you. Because it sounds like you held onto those 50 for quite some time and then you're like, all right, like, something's got to change.
- [17:39]
A
Yeah. So I would say I'm a big believer in like the long term issues list. Parking lot. That's something that I grasped very early with EOS because it allows me as somebody who struggles with anxiety and is always thinking and feels like she has to do everything. It allowed me to put it somewhere and know That I wouldn't forget it or that I could come back to it. And it gave me permission to set it down. And so I'm. My long term VTO issues list is long and every quarter my assistant and I go through it. A lot of times I've spent a clarity break or two ahead of time going through certain things because I mesh my life and my work together much more than I ever did. So sometimes there's stuff on there that doesn't necessarily pertain to my assistant. And so I work through some of those things. Things and you know, I follow the EOS process in my business. So every quarter we're evaluating it. Every year I set goals and honestly I am getting better and better at predicting you still have to have some of that. I'm much more loose in my life than in my business. And then I'm consistently updating my three year picture, you know, at least once a year. I will say about halfway into this year I'm two and a half years into my EOS journey and I've really started to realize what that three year picture needs to look like. For me, I didn't know what it needed to look like in the beginning. And so there's definitely a list of things that will be adjusted at my annual in January.
- [19:15]
B
Got it. Also, congrats. Certified implementer in less than two years. That's. That's pretty incredible. I mean the competitiveness is still showing. By the way.
- [19:24]
A
I know
- [19:27]
B
when you were going through this at work and it sounds like it was after Covid, is your thing about proving people wrong, Are you competing against other people inside the organization? Were you competing with what you thought was going on in other people's lives? What was driving. And again, if it's not too personal,
- [19:47]
A
I realize, no, I'm reflecting on that question. So let me give you a little bit of history about where I was at that might help you understand kind of the answer to that question. So I worked for a family owned construction company and they had a lot of, they had a lot of different industries that they operated in. The other thing that was made them unique and different is they actually had three business units in one. So we had commercial electrical contracting, low voltage and data cabling and then business technology which was like IT managed services and business phone systems. I started at the company on the help desk for the IT managed service side of the organization and I went to school to be an IT technician and I did get a business degree at the same time because I thought, you know, it'd Be good to know business at the same time as your programming switches. Well, I spent about a year on the service desk and realized, yeah, I don't want to sit and code, I don't want to fix switches. I don't want to do that stuff. I had a healthy appreciation for the customer service aspect, but I was much more interested in the spreadsheet, operational efficiency process, all of that type of stuff. They afforded me the opportunity to move into a role that allowed me to do some project management and estimation. And then eventually. And how I found EOS was I was leading the IT and phone system division and Red Traction and implemented that into the organization. The entry, the first, you know, reflecting back on your question and saying, did I have this, like, competitive will to prove somebody wrong? You know, a female in the IT industry is not always common. It's definitely getting better. But I remember walking into my first CCNA certification class in high school because, of course, you know, overachiever, I took them in their college class. I took them in high school. I. There was a guy in there, and he said, what the hell are you doing here? And I'm like, what are you talking again? High school of 40 in my graduating class. Not like, I didn't know this dude and was going to see him 600 other times. He's like, what are you doing here? And I'm like, well, I'm taking this class. He's like, girls can't do networking. So, like, there was a little bit of that to show him wrong, which I definitely did more with my degree than he did. So there's that. But I would say when I first got into it, that was kind of what fueled me, proved people wrong. But then as I grew in that organization, for me, it really became about just making things better. I was working with great people, but we didn't have process and we were struggling. And so it just became this fight to win. I wanted to prove that we could win, that we could do the right things, we could take something that was broken and we could fix it. And Traction aligned really well with that because it gave me a roadmap and a guide to do that. And so I implemented that into the IT department. And then we eventually shifted. The president of the company came to me and said, what did you do? Because we see the success. And I showed him the book Traction and said, by the way, we need to hire an EOS implementer, because I'm not doing this. Because I was spending all my time on basecamp and doing all these things, and not being the leader of the IT division. And so we hired an EOS implementer in 2019 and at that time I had already started to convert over to the construction side of the organization, which was definitely met with that same like, girl doesn't belong in the construction side. She doesn't know what she's doing. And I grew up blue collar, so I, I just kind of approached it head on. I can't say that it really like fueled me. Kidwell was my prior organization. They were very welcoming. There was never a female doesn't belong on a leadership team. None of that. They were very welcoming. They always wanted to promote. I think that there was a few guys in the field that I think it was less I was a woman and more that they just didn't want to be told what to do. And so I had to adjust my leadership approach. We moved them from paper timesheets to a digital IT tool. And that's really where the conversion of my, my journey went to the construction side. And so I moved over to the construction side. We started implementing EOS into the business and they named me the Integrator. And I went into that full force. It was like I had found my home and I was drinking all the Kool Aid, everything was orange, couldn't get enough of it. But I also couldn't get enough work. And so what, what I would say, you know, in kind of like that 2016-2021 22 time frame, what really drove me is the, the competition and the wanting to win. Not necessarily to prove anything, but with enough therapy, I can also say my entire self worth was wrapped up in my performance. And so I could never perform enough
- [25:03]
B
to feel enough as you were, as you were getting to kind of that tipping point. Like what were some warning signs? What were some things that, that you may have missed like pre Covid or pre. Kind of going through some of these life changing experiences. We're looking back, you're like, gosh, if I would have, if I would have like acknowledged these two, three, four things, like I could have made progress much, much faster.
- [25:29]
A
That's an interesting question. I think it's interesting because there were people in my life that were trying to hold a mirror up and I wasn't necessarily listening. I mean anytime you're working 60 to 80 hours a week and you're planning your life around your work schedule and the first thing you think of when you wake up and before you go to bed is work and everything is that. I mean those are some pretty big warning signs. I think also I very much. My identity was working at that particular place, and I didn't know what I wanted for myself. And so people would ask me, like, well, you know, what are your hobbies? What are your passions? I couldn't answer that. I couldn't answer that in a way that wasn't somehow related to something with my work. And I think that, you know, now I've done enough work to understand that's really not healthy. But it also taught me a lot about doing the work to understand what you want and being able to slow down when you're not getting that. So, yeah, there were warning signs, I think, that there were great people in my life holding up a mirror to me, and I wasn't ready to see it until I was ready to see it.
- [27:01]
B
Interesting. I. As you were going through that, like, one of my questions immediately was like, well, are hobbies important because you're. You're listening things. I was like, well, crap, because I get asked same thing. Hey, what do you do for fun? I'm like, you know, business. Go on a flight for a business trip. You know, just. That's what I find fun and enjoyable.
- [27:19]
A
Here's where I'm at with that. The answer to that question. And I'm a big Taylor Swift fan, so this is the era that I'm in. Okay. I'm not going to tell you that I have, like, this is my hobby. These are the current hobbies that I am exploring. I had a garden this summer, which was mixed results because my two children play baseball. So it was planted late, and then the weeds took over because we were at baseball half the time. So learned a lot, loved gardening, need to do a better job. But it was. It was definitely a hobby. I think I spent more money than I. Than I. Somebody told me once, a hobby is something you have no expectation of making money at. It will actually cost you money. Yeah. So then I parlayed the gardening into canning. So I canned salsa, and I have canned pasta sauce and strawberry jam. And that was super fun. And I don't know if I'll continue to do it, but it's been fun. That was like a cool hobby. And I have a sourdough starter that's probably Taylor Swift's fault, too, that has not produced any bread yet. I think I've killed it six times. So I think for me, there are things that I'm passionate about that I spend more time consciously devoting time and energy to. I can't tell you, like, oh, my hobby is gardening or canning. Or any of that, but I'm currently exploring those as hobbies.
- [28:56]
B
Is it less about the things that you're doing and more about the clarity break that it provides? Like, how do you. Or are you, like, really, you are really hoping that, like, you can stumble both into a clarity break and a hobby that you actually enjoy where you may not be killing plants?
- [29:11]
A
You know, I think there's a part of it that is, you know, maybe I will find something that I really love. Like, you know, call me crazy, but I really love going to my kids baseball games. Like, I actually really love baseball. And, you know, I. It feels like a job sometimes, but that's probably a hobby because you got to be crazy to chase these kids around as much as you do. I would say there for me right now, it is probably more the clarity break side of it, of just allowing my brain to do something that has nothing to do with. With performance in a work professional setting. Because for so long, that's all I focused on in my downtime. I read professional growth books, I read business books, I did all. I organized spreadsheets and things like that. And there's still moments of that, you know, like, I got a whole process for how I clean my house, of course, and it's automated. And so, you know, I mean, there's still pieces and parts of, you know, my very type a high fact finder personality. But I think that giving myself the grace to just have these hobbies and know that I might suck at it and it might be a waste of time and money, it gives my brain the break from constantly thinking about my work.
- [30:37]
B
Yep. By the way, I'm a two on fact finder, so I think I would drive you nuts. Like, like, it would. It would be a really interesting dynamic. What are you. Are you. Are you intentional and disciplined about allocating a certain. And the reason I'm asking this is because, like, you have struggled with it. I definitely struggle with this. So I'm sure if you and I are having this type of struggle between work, life, balance and trying not being able to answer the whole, like, what are your hobbies Question, I'm sure there are thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands out there with a similar struggle. And so that's why I'm so curious about how you're going about this in your approach. And I love it. I love that you just said it's less about the. Hopefully we stumble into something that actually like and stop killing plants. And it's more than a clarity break. But right now it's doing exactly what it's intended to do. Are you setting a quarterly rock where you're like, I'm going to explore one new hobby that I may or may not like each quarter. Are you saying, hey, each week I'm going to allocate 10 hours to this thing? Like, like how are you executing on, on this strategy?
- [31:47]
A
Yeah. So I of course as a high fact finder and process driven leader have applied process to it. So last quarter it was golfing, which do love that one. That one's definitely a hobby. That one's staying. So it was on my scorecard. I had to golf nine holes of golf every week. I was in league with a friend and so that helped me hit that. But there was definitely rain outs and so then I would have to find time on a Friday afternoon. It was very hard work, very hard find time on a Friday afternoon to go golfing. And so I did apply some scorecarding. I have used rock setting around it. Sleep was something I had to figure out and so I scorecarded on sleep for a while because I was averaging about six hours of sleep and I wanted that to be closer to seven and a half. So I started tracking my week average and you know, as we teach with scorecarding, it got better. And so I would say that I'm not, you know, this is a very busy quarter for me that we're in now because I have annual planning. I'm not going to be as hard on myself. That's the one thing I have to be careful of is because I was such a 50 point plan list driven person, I have to be careful to not create so much rigidity that then I feel bad and I've somehow failed because I didn't find a new hobby this quarter. And so I just find little ways to incorporate it. The other thing that I've really reflected on has been you can have seasons and EOs taught me this because we have a seasonal business. Everybody wants to do their sessions the first month of every quarter and then nobody wants to talk to me the middle month. And then a couple people want to talk to me in the last month of the quarter. And so it's, you know, I have busy times and slow times and it was killing me because for 13 years I worked a set schedule. You know, I would wake up and I would go to work and you know, 6:30 in the morning, I was in my desk until 3:30, 4:00 in the afternoon. Like there were set times and I associated like you're only working if you're physically there. So then when I became an EOS implementer and it's like a random Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 and I can just go do something for myself because there's not anything on my to do list, I had a lot of guilt around that. And so balance is a really interesting concept because I think we think that there's like this perfect balance and there's not, you know, last night just because it was a night where we didn't have any activities going on and it was kind of, you know, easy. At my house, we had done laundry over Labor Day, so there wasn't anything to do. I ended up sitting at my computer and working until like 6 o' clock last night, which meant today I didn't really start my day until like 9. I took the kids to school, washed my car, did a couple other things. And so for me now I have had to put a little structure back into my day to make sure that certain things are being done every single week. But it's also somewhat intentionally saying, what white space can I keep in my calendar? Not specifically saying this is what I'm doing there, but just keeping the space there and not feeling guilty if I decide to go get my nails done at 3 o' clock in the afternoon on Wednesday.
- [35:10]
B
All right, quick break friends. Do you find it impossible to hire and retain top sales talent or worse, are you paying insane recruiter fees who are all using outdated hiring processes? Yeah, I was too at Hunt a Killer. We were spending hundreds of thousands on recruiter agency fees. And after I sold that company in 2025, I started Talent Harbor. And the whole vision here was to make sales recruiting accessible to small and medium sized businesses. Because the organizations that can hire and retain world class people are the ones that ultimately win. Most organizations rely on things like ZipRecruiter or LinkedIn and they get hundreds if not thousands of resumes. But we find that the best salespeople are already perfectly placed somewhere else. And that's why our approach is to go after them. And we do that through a business model called recruiting. As a service, we do not charge commissions, we do not have success fees, we don't have contracts, we don't have long term engagements. And we become an extension of your team as experts. Sales recruiters. If you're tired of the same old recruiters and want to actually grow your sales team, check us out@talent harbor.com that's Talent Harbor. T A L E N T H A r b o r.com let's get your next sales superstar hired. Let's, let's start with the 90. I was trying to figure out which, which direction to, to take that because the, the guilt thing is, is real. So I, I'm going to come back to that one. But you, you said, you said nine to six. You said I didn't get started until nine. That's, that's normal people, by the way. Like, normal people work nine to five. So the average, you could just, you just gave where you were. Like, this was a struggle. 9 to 5 was basically a struggle today. So like, balance to you is more like, what, what does that mean? Is it, is it a blend? Is it, is it like, do you think people think about it wrong? Because, like there's work time and that's one and then there's not work time and that's off. And it should be more like if I get my nails done at three, I guess just like peeling back that, that layer a bit on, on what is balance.
- [37:21]
A
Yeah. So I do want to just like disclaimer. I am very blessed as an EOS implementer that I get to set my schedule. So I have, you know, a lot more flexibility right now. Come October, I will be in session and I will be in session from 7am until 5:36 at night. You know, if they're annuals and I've got notes and things like that. And so it comes in seasons. But what I will say is in the past, I went to work super early and, you know, definitely stayed more than eight hours. But my mindset was like from the hours of 6:37am till 5:00pm Monday through Friday, that is work hours. And you shouldn't be doing anything else. You should be at work or working on the phone. You know, sometimes I traveled between offices, things like that. And so if you weren't working 50, 60 hours, you weren't working. And a lot of it really started to be like, about the number of hours. And I found that when I would track my hours, I actually, you're going to be shocked. Thought it was a competitive thing and I wanted to see how many hours I could get in a week.
- [38:43]
B
So then I scored metric.
- [38:45]
A
Great scorecard metric. Had to stop tracking my hours because I found that I wasn't cutting hours, I was adding hours because I wanted to hit a new high score. And so stopped that when I left my integrator job, you know, I had full flexibility. And so then I had to start thinking about, like, what are the optimal hours? Nobody's taking my call at 7:00 in the morning. So when I was at my desk at 6:30 in the morning, nobody's taking my call. And so I had to start thinking about what is a good schedule. I'm a big Michael Hyatt fan. He has a planner called Full Focus Planner. The EOS Life Planner is actually loosely designed off of it. And I use the US Life Planner because it's got all the things that I already need. But he has this tool called the Ideal Week and I've spent a lot of time with that. And you plan out like what your ideal week would look like and you know that it's never going to be perfect or be that, but it gives you guidepost to like, okay, my best work for email is going to be 30 minutes in the beginning and 30 minutes at the end of the day. And so I try to like weave that into my calendar. I am playing with a little AI now with my calendar and my assistant is helping me with my calendar because she's making sure that I don't do dumb things because like the old competitiveness still catches up to me. And I also think I'm like invincible. And so I'll think I can go do a session in Colorado, drive six hours and then wake up and do another session at 8 o' clock in the morning after getting home at midnight. So bringing on an assistant really helps me stop doing stupid things like that. But I think the illusion of balance is don't let one person tell you it's this or it's this. You have to spend the time figuring out what works best for you. Like when are you best? For me it's typically the mornings by about 3 or 4 o' clock if I'm not in session. I'm not gonna probably do real well with high thinking activities cause my brain is fried at that point. And so, so you have to figure out what that looks like. Part of me becoming an EOS implementer and leaving my job was to spend more time with my kids and with my family. And so I leaned into that hard this summer. And there were times that I think my two sons who are 10 and 13 woke up and didn't realize mom still has a full time job because they'd be like, we're going to do this today. And I'm like, no, no, mom actually has to go to work today. And so I leaned in hard to that. But now we're going into the fall, that's my busy season. And so now I'm working more that 8 to 5 schedule so that I can be ready for my clients in October.
- [41:31]
B
Yes. There are so many things. If you saw me looking around. I actually had Michael's book literally somewhere. But he's got this great book called your world class executive assistant. And it changed my life on how to properly train and onboard an executive assistant. This was like probably 2018, 2019. So big shout out because I literally just had on my desk for. I had Vistage yesterday and somebody asked some advice and I was like, hey, look at this book. Go, go read it because it's, it's huge. The second thing you said, which is really funny is, is I don't know what happened, but like post Covid summertimes are craziness because there's this expectation because we all work from home or we figured out how to adapt. And our, our kids are off for the summer and they walk in like we're. And I'm like, hey, I love you so much, but I like someone. We. We've. I've got to work. And so there's just been this weird thing over the last several years where, where I think they think it's summertime, which means it's summertime for everybody, which is, you know, which is great for them. Okay, you, you talked about this, this idea of, of guilt and, and I wanted to touch on it just a little bit because I think it's important. I've been in the Navy now for 23 years. Eight of them have been in the reserve, but I was active for 15 when I became a surface warfare officer. So I was enlisted for the first about 12 years, 11 years, became a surface warfare officer. And basically your job is, especially while you're underway, like you've got some sort of division or department, depending upon your rank, you've got something that you're ultimately accountable for administratively leading KPIs, things like that. The other thing is when you're underway, you have a second job and it's not necessarily secondary. It's actually fighting or driving the warships. You're either standing watches, call it like five to seven hours a day in combat or, or on the bridge. You're either driving the ship or defending, fighting the ship. And if you were not working 15 hours a day, there was a guilt. And so like in the Navy, there's this, this guilt specifically in like the surface warfare community entrepreneurship. Like, I feel like I'm letting my partner down if I'm not feeling every waking hour with some. Something that's like driving it forward. There's like this guilt how, like, how have you kind of worked through that? What have you had to tell yourself? Like, where's it come from? I just wanted to touch on that a little bit because I thought it was an important topic.
- [44:03]
A
Topic. Yeah. So first, thank you for your service. I am. You know, the military is a big part of my heart. My brother is a Marine. And so thank you very much for your service.
- [44:14]
B
Yes. Nice. They got to get somewhere with us.
- [44:19]
A
Exactly. So to answer your question, again, I think there's seasons, and I think that's part of this illusion of balance. When I was starting my business, I was working a lot of hours. I couldn't have taken the whole summer off. You know, I'm two and a half years into my business, and so this was my third summer home with my kids, and this was probably the first summer that I was able to lean into that. And so I think it's okay to just say that, you know, I'm going to address the entrepreneurship and then I'll address the organization side. As an entrepreneur, it's okay to say that for a season, this is what I'm going to have to do. You know, sometimes you have to work like no one else to work like no one else. And so there were definitely times where I was going to every networking event, I was sending out books. I was doing all of these things to build my business, and I still have to build my business, and I'm still building my business. But what that looks like, two and a half years later, I am able to. To be a little less, oh, my gosh, I gotta work every waking moment. The important thing, I think, is to understand from an entrepreneur's perspective, you can't stay stuck. One of the things that EOS really helps you do is helps you get all those visions and plans out on a piece of paper. And I think entrepreneurs feel like, okay, if I accomplish that, they don't sit with and enjoy that feeling, and then they're just on to the next thing. And so Dino Wickman has a great book called Shine that he wrote that's out that addresses a lot of those topics for entrepreneurs that just feel like it's never enough. And so I would recommend that book. But I think as. As, you know, leaders, as entrepreneurs, you know that guilt is something that you have to take a clarity break and ask yourself, like, there's going to be a season of this for my business where I'm going to work all the time so that I can get to this, and so I have to enjoy the rest period. There's a lot of stuff out there around REST being what allows us to get ready for the next stage of growth in our business or our growth as a person. And so I feel like I embraced REST this summer because I have a really busy quarter and I'm hoping to bring on a couple new clients. And my family knows that that means we're going to be really busy this quarter. But that allows me to go to Disney with them in February and take a whole week and do some of those things. And so it's figuring out what that looks like for your life. So that's, that's kind of the, the guilt side of that is you have to get in touch with what does this season look like and what are you trying to get to, but then commit to yourself to enjoy the reward if you're going to work like that. Now, when you're inside of an organization, I think that you have to ask yourself, and this was a big piece of me, is the organization asking that of you or are you asking that of you? Because for me, it was a little bit of both and two and a half years of reflection. I definitely was part of the problem. You know, if you were to go back and ask my visionary, I don't think he would tell you, oh, I expected Katie to be here 60 to 80 hours, actually, he would tell you. I told her she needed to go home. And I constantly fought that and said, like, hey, this is what it's going to take. This is what it's going to take. And there was definitely things that that's what it was going to take. But I didn't appreciate that. Maybe in one season I could rest. In one season I would do those things. And so first you have to ask yourself, is that what the organization is truly asking you, or are you part of the problem? If you're not part of the problem, and it's truly an organizational thing, you have to do a people analyzer. Does the organization, now the military is a little different, so this doesn't exactly apply there, but you have to really do a people analyzer and ask yourself, do I fit the core values of this organization? Do I get it, want it and have the capacity to do this seat? If you don't have the capacity, maybe you can do a delegate and elevate. Maybe you don't want what that role looks like anymore. You know, I was, I was listening to the people book on my way in to work this morning, and she was telling a story in the book about how somebody they. He Just did not fit the culture. And they helped him out of the organization. Seven years later, he sent a thank you note because it was transformational to his life. You have to ask yourself, are you in the right place? And that's what happened to me. You know, I still, you know, I love the organization that I worked for. And was there great stuff? Absolutely. Was there bad stuff? Absolutely. I still have a lot of respect and appreciation for that organization. But I also got to a point where I realized I couldn't stay there anymore. And that wasn't necessarily their fault, and it wasn't necessarily my fault, but I decided what was going to be healthy for me was to leave. And now I get to do what I love and be an EOS implementer and help other organizations build cultures that attract the right people and help the people that aren't culture fits out of their organization.
- [49:51]
B
Yeah, that's. I loved how you, you started that with, you know, is that, is that the company asking or is it like a burden that I'm putting on myself? That that's beautiful. And, and the other thing that, at least in the Navy, and I'm sure this, this same thing is, is dealt with on the civilian side, which is like, you may, you may say, okay, it's time to draw the line. And like, it almost looks like a degradation of performance. And it, it's not performance. It's that you've gone from like 60 hours or 55 hours to 40. You're still doing the same work. It's the same quality. You're just not doing that much. It's like, what's, what's with your performance? Well, you saw me working double time, maybe not getting paid double time or something like that. And now what you're seeing is like, you know, me operating at 100% instead of 120%. And that looks different. So I'm sure that can create, that can create pretty significant challenges as well. It's because it's like, no, I don't care any less. No, my performance hasn't degraded. Like, I'm, I'm literally just giving you everything that you pay for.
- [50:50]
A
And if you're in the right spot and you have the right leader, you should be able to have those conversations as part of a healthy expectation setting conversation, a quarterly conversation, and saying, this is what I expect. These are your expectations. You know, let's put the issues on the issues list and let's figure out how to solve them.
- [51:12]
B
Love it. Okay. You are, you are growing very fast inside of the eos. Ecosystem. What, what, where have you found kind of success? Like, like what's an ideal client, client look like to you? Do you deal locally? Do you deal, you know, virtually? Like, what's, what does that look like in your world?
- [51:33]
A
Yeah, so primarily locally, I have a couple travel clients that I can drive to. I don't have anybody. I have to get on an airplane that I love them, I think they'll probably graduate over the next year. But I have primarily tried to stay local. And that is because part of doing this was to be available to my family and my kids and I, you know, I live in a pretty special place, Lincoln, Nebraska. There's some really cool companies here and I love working with them. I work all throughout Nebraska and I do all of my sessions in person. Not that there's anything wrong with virtual. I just don't think I'm a very good virtual facilitator. And so I haven't had that as a request. I have had to because of sickness or just a canceled flight, I have had to put a person virtually into a session and they'll even say, you just don't have the same experience. And you know, maybe someday I'll grow as an implementer and be able to facilitate in that way. But I love to have people in the room to be able to feel the energy and sit across face to face. And so that's how I facilitate my sessions from a client perspective. I really love, you know, that blue collar service industry. Obviously I have a lot of construction because that was my background. But I have some hospitality clients and property management, different things like that. And what I've really figured out is that it is truly more about the client and their personality than what it is they're doing. You know, I can probably bring a couple insights to their construction business. But as a high fact finder, I think I'm more valuable sometimes to my clients for industries that I don't know because then I don't vomit my opinion on them, which as a coach I'm not supposed to give them my opinion or advice. And so I think I sometimes I'm a better implementer when it's not a construction company. But I really have found that the people that I work with the best is they're just open, honest people. They want to get better, they're willing to be vulnerable and say, you know what? We don't have it figured out. You know, we're going to cuss a little bit in the session room or we're going to struggle a little bit. In the session room. But we're willing to do the hard work to figure it out. We're not here to have somebody else do it for us. We know that it's going to be messy, but we're willing to do what it takes because we actually want to build a lasting company, not because we want something that looks good on social media. We actually want to make an impact. If you're just here to check the box, you don't do real well with me and my session.
- [54:19]
B
Got it. That, that makes a lot of sense. And I will, I will save the, the in person slash virtual debate. Every time I go out there and, and, and take that hot take, everybody's like, no. Like, everything's the same virtually. It's like, no, it's, it's not, it's not at all. That's, that's for another. Another day.
- [54:38]
A
Yeah. And I, and I, I stay out of the fray too.
- [54:42]
B
Yeah, that's. I just like. But let people, let people believe. Okay, cool. If someone just listened to this and they're like, holy crap, like, Katie's the, the implementer for me. I need to talk to Katie. I need to get a hold of Katie. How can they do that?
- [54:57]
A
Yeah, so my email is Katie K O E S T E R@eos worldwide.com or you can always go to eosworldwide.com katie-k I am on a lot of the social media platforms. KatieKuster US or I'm on LinkedIn as well.
- [55:14]
B
Awesome. Katie, thank you so much for taking an hour. This, this was a really good. It's a path that, that we don't normally explore this idea of balance. And I think my, my personal take on this is like a lot of people struggle with this and so I, I loved how one open and honest you were through this and also like actually sharing like tangible strategies and tangible actions that you've taken. I've taken a whole bunch of notes and, and hopefully other people have too. But thank. Oh, there's the, there's the book. It was under. It was under the notepad bad the whole time. But thank you so much for coming on.
- [55:45]
A
Well, thank you so much, Ryan. This was so fun. It was fun to reflect and you know, I love what you do with this podcast. It helps all of us implementers get better. And I know that several of my clients have enjoyed it as well. And so thank you so much for your work.
- [55:59]
B
That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm on. I was talking to somebody about this last week I'm like, I'm just happy that people decide to come on and just have a conversation. So I appreciate you, and I appreciate you sharing it, so thanks so much.
- [56:11]
A
Thank you.