← The Messy Parts
The Messy Parts
Fired from My Own Company — By My Husband: Chocolatier Katrina Markoff on Trusting Yourself and Making Bold Decisions
00:33:41
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- [00:00]
A
If you look back, what's the piece of advice you would have for somebody based on sort of the serendipity that you followed?
- [00:07]
B
How do you get to know who you are so you can actually trust yourself to make decisions and take risk? Because so often, and it creeps in and it's not a bad thing, but if it overtakes, you will never do anything interesting in your life. You will just live in codependent, fear based relationships because it's safer to stay in a job that you get paid a lot of money. It's safer to stay in a relationship because you have kids. Like those kinds of things are like unconscious almost. But you stay in those things because you don't trust yourself.
- [00:47]
A
Today on the messy parts, we're going to have on Katrina Markoff. She is the founder of Violet Flame. It's an incredible high end chocolate company. Her second because her first voge, which, which she lost after her marriage fell apart. A big deal fell apart and her entire life, frankly, fell apart. So this is a story about resilience and how you learn to trust your intuition and make hard decisions early before everything blows up. Katrina, thank you so much for agreeing to. Come on. I'm so excited to have this conversation. Usually we shoot in our living room, as I think you know, but we decided that we would give it a go and actually do a zoom because I know you're in Chicago and we're you and I got a chance to meet when I lived in Chicago and I was the global CMO at Hyde Hotels. I have this incredible vivid memory of being at the hospital coming to find you when there was this incident around your husband. And we're going to get all into that because it was a very memorable moment, I'm sure, for you, but also for me. I want to kind of go back and start a little bit before that. I want to start with sort of the young Katrina. Right. I know you ended up going to Vanderbilt and you studied chemistry and psychology, which is not the usual way most people find their way into the world of chocolate. What was that journey that brought you even to Vanderbilt?
- [02:07]
B
I mean, I think the young me, which is the real me, was developed probably from the time I was like 5 to 10, maybe. And so I think that was probably the most formative way of talking about who I am because I grew up with not a lot of parental supervision. And I remember loving chemistry as a kid, like really young. I wanted to get a microscope and I was fascinated with cooking and my grandmother lived next door to me. And she would make yogurt with me and showed me how to ferment it and how the temperature was important. And I started seeing changes in states of matter. And, like, my imagination was my best friend. My mom wasn't around a lot because she had to work. And my parents were divorced and I had to run the garage sale. And we lived on this really busy road. It was like an interstate highway. But there were, like, what town?
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A
Remind me what town you were.
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B
Fort Wayne, Indiana. And I thought, well, it would be so much better to have a garage sale with selling some cakes. And I had an Easy Bake Oven and made cakes, frosted them. And I was a shy kid. And I think my way of breaking the ice with people was cooking, making food and trying to make them happy through giving them food. And then when I got into high school, I had a cake business. And not only was I making cakes, but I would, like, decorate the room because my mom worked all the time, so when she come home, I wanted to express, like, a connection with her gratitude. So I would, like, decorate the house, like, if she was gone, I don't know. It's just like that. This was what I was doing, sort of shaping like an experience with the cake.
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A
How did you end up going to Vanderbilt for chemistry?
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B
I had a great science teacher in high school, and I was an AP Science. I knew I loved chemistry. And, and then I, I, I didn't know my brother was dyslexic, but I clearly had some kind of adhd. But all the attention was on him being dyslexic and having a really hard time with school, that I kind of developed my own language of how I got through school. I mean, I was an okay student, but I think I approached it in a really different way. And I started.
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A
What way did you approach it?
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B
I started, like, realizing there was this other system at play in the world that was like, sort of outside words and language. It was like these, I guess, signs, like, things that felt like it was the right thing. And I remember in eighth grade, I saw the word Vanderbilt because, you know, it was on the jeans and there was a perfume and all that.
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A
Oh, Gloria Vanderbilt. Yes.
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B
Right. And then when I was looking to apply to colleges, I mean, I didn't know anything about really Vanderbilt. I had spent a lot of time in the south riding horses and showing. But this thing that started to develop at a young age where, like, certain things resonated and I didn't know why they did, but they just did. I just knew things without knowing anything about it. And so I started to just trust it. And so if it felt right, I just did it.
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A
You were a good enough student to get into Vanderbilt for and be able to study chemistry and psychology. How do you end up pivoting from that to the world of, I mean, not just chocolate, but high end chocolate?
- [05:26]
B
I had this woman who was a bit of a mentor for me and she said, let me just tell you, you don't want to do something you don't really love to do because you're going to spend a lot of time doing it. Because I was thinking I'd be a doctor or whatever. And so she gave me this book. Where your heart leads you, success will follow.
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A
She gave you this book and the book was called where your heart leads.
- [05:48]
B
Where your heart leads you, success will follow. And so there were these exercises to go into a beautiful natural environment to somewhere, nature. So I went onto the lawns, you know, on one of the campuses, and I started just writing down like whatever came to my mind. And I had been practicing knowing what resonated for a long time. So I just started thinking.
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A
You mean like trusting your intuition?
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B
Yeah, like trusting like. Yeah, like there was a reason that I was drawn to something and I trusted those, those, the, that natural draw magnetism to something as being a sign of like a step I was supposed to take.
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A
I have so many questions already, but okay, let, let's, let's do the journey and then we'll come back. So you graduate and what happens?
- [06:31]
B
I did not do well in college. Like, I barely passed. And my friends were getting jobs at, you know, Deloitte and Goldman and like all these places. And I was like, I am not, that's just not the path for me. And I told my mom, I really think I want to go to culinary school. And she's like, after Vanderbilt, like, well, you know, it's just what I'm drawn to do. Like, you know, I've always wanted to work, I think with my hands. In some way it's like, it's like heart and hands and head, like all together. And I really felt like I wanted to do it. She said, well, all right, if you're going to go to culinary school, just make sure you go to the best one you can find. And that's always how my mom was. She was always like the, just go to the best, whatever you, the top is, try to get there, you know. So I looked into culinary schools and I found the Cordon Bleu in Paris, which seemed like the perfect school because it was all about the cooking side and it wasn't so much about the business side or sanitation and like the business of food. All the classes were in French. I didn't speak French. But then you just start to pick it up.
- [07:33]
A
How did that feel?
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B
I mean, it felt this, this interesting tension between like massive insecurity, uncertainty, was this the right choice and this huge like font of feel good hormones, like the both in the same. And I was like, oh, this is, this is an interesting tension to. It's almost feels wrong and right at the same time. You know, like all of my friends were getting real paying jobs and starting their lives and I was taking a real chance to be like, I just am passionate about this. I really feel like drawn to this. I need to do something. And I think because there was a healthy amount of consideration in what I was doing that maybe this could be considered flippant and irresponsible. That always kind of kept me focused on my path. Okay, so what does this mean? Why am I doing this? What is the point?
- [08:37]
A
So you do nine months and then where do you go after the nine month training?
- [08:42]
B
So then I moved to Spain and I worked at El Buli, which was really Michelin star. Yes, Michelin star. But not only that, it became this, it became the beginning of the movement in molecular gastronomy.
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A
But you're making it sound so easy. It's like here you go from Indiana to Vanderbilt and you're not doing well in school. And you know, you then decide, okay, I'm going to go to culinary school. You go to culinary school where they're not a lot of women in a pretty male dominated field. And then you're like, and now I'm in Spain working in a Michelin star restaurant. You know, it seems so easy.
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B
I guess I'm. I guess I'm leaving out a few
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A
parts because it had to have been messy.
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B
Okay, So I originally I was just going to do three months in Paris and then I was going to come back and get a real job. Turns out that I loved Paris and I convinced my mom that I needed to stay to continue the full program. I needed the full, you know, nine months and get my grande diploma. And then my. I happened to meet a friend who was from Bogota.
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A
Who are you mentioning? Because our listeners won't know.
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B
Maria, Maria Villegas. She was my friend that I met who was also in culinary school. And she says there's this chef in Spain, I mean, he's doing really interesting things. And France thought it sounded obscene what he was doing, because this was not cooking. This was not Escoffier's methodology. This was like molecular gastronomy science. Like, what are we doing? Making foie gras sorbet? Like, it was all wrong. And again, it was like that tension moment of like, wrong or right or cool or interesting or magnetic. Because I think the more you have opposites, the more interesting it is. She's like, we gotta go. And I'm like, okay.
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A
Teddy already gotten his Michelin star.
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B
He was known, but he wasn't known as like, the world's best restaurant. The, the innovator, the mad scientist. Like, so we go there and all of a sudden Joel Robuchon, who at the time was at the top in France, says, the best chef in the world lives in Spain. And then all the media was like, who is the chef Ferrandria? So we go there and this kitchen where we work is absolutely stunning. I mean, it's windows onto gardens. There's glass door, refrigerators. Everything is neat, like, beautiful lighting. And like everything in France was like, it was fluorescent light, linoleum tiles, like back of the house, like, not beautiful.
- [11:21]
A
How did you get them to take you seriously and give you a job?
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B
It was through personal connections, which it was just so random.
- [11:27]
A
But I'm going to pause because there's so many kids who are graduating now, right? And so if somebody is listening to this story, if you look back, what's the piece of advice you would have for somebody based on sort of the serendipity that you followed?
- [11:41]
B
How do you get to know who you are so you can actually trust yourself to make decisions and take risk? Because so often. And it creeps in and it's not a bad thing. But if it overtakes, you will never do anything interesting in your life. You will just live in codependent fear based relationships. Because it's safer to stay in a job that you get paid a lot of money. It's safer to stay in a relationship because you have kids. Like, those kinds of things are, like unconscious almost. But you stay in those things because you don't trust yourself.
- [12:14]
A
So you go to Spain, you end up working for like the best chef in the world, not just the country. And then you go into chocolates. What takes you back to Chicago.
- [12:25]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, so I. So Faran has this conversation with me. He says, okay, what are you going to do next? And I said, oh, I want to. I'd love to work with Michelle Bra. And like, I start naming off all these Michelin Three star restaurants. And he goes, why would you want to waste your time with that? Use your imagination and your palette to guide you and go travel the world. As if I just could get a ticket to travel around the world, right? Well, just turns out my mom had been making a little bit of success, so we were born pretty poor. And then my mom started, like, figuring stuff out, and she. We have this little house that I grew up in on the side of this highway, and she rents it out to a guy that works at Delta. And the guy says, oh, Michelle, you're so nice. Let me help Katrina. What is she doing? And she's like, oh, well, she just called me and said she wants to travel around the world and use your imagination and palette to guide her. He's like, oh, I can get you a great deal on a ticket around the world with Delta. $800.
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A
That's amazing.
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B
This is what I'm saying. Once you start to trust that things are going to show up, I just always thought everything was going to work out.
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A
I believe that somewhere.
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B
I believed it. I really not. I felt it. And it was kind of like a game.
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A
I remember those round the world tickets. You get this amazing round the world ticket. Take me to what brings you to Voge and how you start that, because that was an amazingly successful. I mean, I remember those purple boxes in o' Hare at Bergdorf, everywhere.
- [13:57]
B
I ended up taking, you know, going on a trip around the world, going east. And I went, you know, mostly throughout Europe, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Little Korea and Australia. And I got back and I started, you know, realizing there wasn't any innovation in the sweet side of things. Like, we would go to all this fine dining restaurants, and we would just, you know, be studying and working on a cookbook. Because my friend from Colombia, her dad was a publisher of books, nice books. So we started thinking, my God, we're never going to work in these restaurants. This is terrible. How could we ever live in this lifestyle? It's just like, not for us, right? It's just tough. It's tough. So then we decided we were going to write a cookbook. And so she and I were traveling together, my friend from Bogota, and we started writing down dessert recipes, what we were going to do. And we got back to the States, she went back to Colombia, and she's like, you know what? I really don't think that our styles are meshing, so I'm just going to do the book without you.
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A
How did that feel? Because here was your close friend who basically did a 180 on you.
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B
It felt like betrayal. I felt ashamed, like maybe I hadn't done enough work on the book. I felt like I screwed up. I felt like a loser.
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A
How did you pick yourself back up and figure out what to do next?
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B
So my uncle was living in Dallas, and he said, listen, I talked to your mom, and she said, even if I pay you $8 an hour, you need to get a job. He had worked at Neiman Marcus and he had started like a, like the beginning of, like a mail order home furnishings, like, website catalog. And he's like, you can help me just do everything in the startup. You know, like, I need someone to help me, like, buy product, do photo shoots and the photo styling and write the copy. And you need to write copy so the people that can't touch, they can't feel it. They. That they feel something from your writing. So I moved to Dallas and basically, you know, started working with him. And he was like, okay, we need to find some great foodstuffs for the catalog. Fourth quarter. People buy a lot of food. They buy hams, they buy candies, they buy fudge. And he's like. And just so happens that in Dallas they have a gourmet food mart, so you can go there and sell out the wholesale prices and go choose. So that's. So I went there and I started looking at what they had, and I was like, oh, my God. I would never put any of this in my body. Like, it's all like preservatives and chemicals. And the story was all the same. It was like my grandmother's recipe. My old story, my old, old. And I was like, I didn't even feel authentic. None of it. And I went home that night because I had had all these ingredient spices for my travels. And I was thinking I was gonna write this cookbook. For some reason, I had this neck from the Nagaland tribes. And I started researching what this necklace was made out of. And I found someone who told me this was all tiger's teeth. And I thought it was shell. And I was like, oh, my God. And I felt even worse. I had tiger's teeth on my neck. And then I was like, well, I better do something with this to really honor the tiger. And so that was the moment an epiphany occurred. What if you use chocolate as a medium to tell stories about the cultures you fell in love with and about the Nagaland and about this tiger and about. And then it was like. Like a flood, like an epiphany, like a light, like a path. Like a whole. And that night, I, like, I created all these recipes. But it wasn't just the recipes. It was the names, it was the stories. It was like, soul. It was a whole experience. It was an experience, and it could not just be food. It had to be experience. And that's how Vosh started.
- [17:50]
A
Where did you end up in business with your sister and your husband?
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B
I had a friend in Chicago. I knew she didn't have anything going on, and I was like, oh, it'd be fun to do the business with a friend. Like, that's a good idea. No, not unless it's, you know, strategically,
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A
we're going to get to that.
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B
But, you know, I love her, and she was. It was fun. We laughed. But not everyone is an entrepreneur. Not everyone can handle risk at that level. And so I started. And then, you know, bit by bit, Neiman Marcus, Whole Foods created the kind of exotic chocolate, interesting ingredient movement. And then my partner, my friend, she just felt really uncomfortable about the risk, and she asked to be bought out. So I asked my brother, do you have $68,000 I can borrow from you? We hadn't made a profit yet to buy her out. He gives me a loan from some account that he had that he couldn't touch, but he did. So it was a little bit complex, but nonetheless, we did it. I bought her out, and there was this really big feeling of, like, freedom after that happened. Like, I didn't need to worry about necessarily her gut instinct. I could focus on my own. And I lived my whole life like that. So it really was a powerful shift. And I decided that we needed to open a store in New York. We still didn't have a profit. I didn't tell my accountant that I was going to do it because I knew what she would say. And this was right after 9 11. And there was a store available in SoHo. It was on Spring Street. I mean, it was the perfect spot between Worcester and Green. And though the rent was very expensive. Expensive, I don't know, I just felt like all the media at the time was based in New York. Being in New York was the right move. I did it. And I remember that was the first year we became profitable. It was just like. Just like went over the hill, like, got onto the other side of things. And then it was kind of off to the races from there, because it just.
- [19:57]
A
I remember at the time, your. Your company was on fire. Like, it really was so successful. I mean, the chocolates were amazing. And I remember that you were telling me that things were not Great on the personal side for you. And you were sort of trying to process how you were gonna deal with that. Right. You were already in business with your husband and your sister, so they didn't
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B
have ownership in the business. But I was working with them.
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A
But you were working with them.
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B
Yes.
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A
And so one day I get a phone call from a mutual friend who says that your husband's had an unexpected accident and that you're in the hospital. And I show up at the hospital to find you. Cause we, we all were very concerned about the news. And I remember I showed up at the hospital to find you. You had just gone home and I was in the room with your husband, his brother, and I think like his best friend, and things were not good. Can you just take us back to that moment and what happened after that?
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B
Yeah, so he had gotten sepsis, so he was in septic shock, multi organ failure. He was in his early 40s, like
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A
totally out of the blue. Because you'd been like, at Disney or something.
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B
Yeah, we were on spring break and he came back early and he had gotten sick by the time he got back. And a friend of his heard him slurring on the phone and said. And his friend had had meningitis as an adult, said, something's not right, I need to come take you to the hospital. So when he got him there, his blood pressure was incredibly low and he was losing basically all his faculties. And they said, you know, he probably wouldn't make it through the night and that I should try to fly back to Chicago as soon as possible. And so I did. And I got there and they said, he is the sickest person on the floor. His notes said it was 100 mortality. He was not going to make it. It was impossible. And something snapped. The negativity of every communication to me just burst me into like, like a, I don't know, a warrior or something. I was like, this will not happen. And I really wanted my children to have a dad. You know, they were young, they were 6 and 9. And I was in the middle of a massive transaction for someone to buy the business. And it would have been life changing.
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A
So now you're in the middle of a massive transaction for your business. That's life changing. Things were on the rocks with your husband and now you've been told that he's not going to make it. I mean, how did you even process all that?
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B
I like to do hard things and I have a high tolerance for pain and probably to my detriment. And I was like, he will live. He will not die. I had it in my head that it was going to go a certain way. And every single doctor was like, he's brain dead, he's a vegetable, he's blind, his pupils are fixed, his blood pressure is 30 over 30. He's going to die in two minutes. And it was just like, where there is a will, I swear to God, it's so true. There is a way, if you believe became like this mission to get back.
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A
I mean, not only did he survive, he's still around.
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B
Oh, yes, yes. And so he ended up having to lose his limbs. He had black and green because they, they try to profuse all the organs that are critical for life. And so there's something that can occur where you start to get black and green on your extremities, which unfortunately happened to him.
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A
So I mean, he basically, let's suffice it to say that it was not good. But he made it back.
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B
He made it back. He made it back. It was shocking. His blood pressure went from 30 over 30. I was working with a doctor who had experience using something called protein C. And if your blood, if you have very low blood pressure and you have very low protein C and you start giving someone protein C, you can start to regain blood pressure. And we were able to get him back to a normal blood pressure.
- [24:03]
A
Okay, so I'm going to fast forward because the part that's crazy about this story is things were not great. He has this life threatening moment, you stand by him, he comes back and then the next time I talk to you, you're like, he's left and he's taken the business. Like, I just wanna, I just wanna. I'm gonna do the shortcut version of your very messy story because this then like your baby, not only does your marriage unwind, your baby, your business also leaves. And you've. Now I'm going to use somebody else's word, which is like a phoenix rising from the ashes. With your new chocolate company, which you came to New York and we did a tasting and everybody was blown away. Right. I mean, this is a messy story that has a happy ending of sorts.
- [24:55]
B
I had a lot going on in my life with the kids. The deal fell apart. I had someone internally signed for a loan they weren't authorized to do. A bank said, you got to take us out. They wouldn't fund the business anymore. I had a huge account that was coming in that was worth many millions of dollars and they wouldn't fund it. And I needed the funding to be able to build the inventory, I went to two people that I had known, one being my husband, who I was divorcing. And I brought these two investors in. They told me, we'll work it out in a different way. Don't worry. We'll give you equity back. Don't worry. We'll make it right. We want to give you credit for building what you built, but thank you very much. We'll take it from here.
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A
How does one process that? How do you get up from that?
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B
I mean, I honestly feel like vomiting thinking about it, because it's like, whoa. But I think that, like, vomiting is actually something that I needed to do. I kind of needed to get rid and shake off so much of this stuff that I was holding on so tight to.
- [26:01]
A
It's like your ayahuasca.
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B
Yeah, I guess so. I mean, it really is. I mean, I feel like I knew I needed to move a long time ago, and I wasn't doing it. I was holding on tight, holding on tight, not allowing change to happen for fear of the unknown.
- [26:17]
A
But this goes back to where we started, which is sometimes we hold on to things. Sometimes we think the things that people tell us are right are right. And you are forced into a situation where you. I mean, we could say you shed things, but frankly, everything just totally fell apart.
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B
Yeah, it completely fell apart.
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A
And, like, why don't you. And why don't you tell us why you decided to go back and tell us about your new line? Because everybody should go out and buy some chocolates from you. Because this is the phoenix rising from the ashes, and it's a good time to stock up on really amazing chocolates.
- [26:53]
B
Thank you. Thank you. Well, I think what I ended up realizing that I needed to make my own medicine. I needed to be my own healer. And I was in a pretty bad spot materially. Nothing, you know, emotionally, physically, spiritually, energetically. I mean, it was just a complete raising of the building. Like, it was burned to the ground. And I was standing there going, okay,
- [27:23]
A
I'm gonna do another chocolate line.
- [27:25]
B
I'm gonna, like, Okay. I feel like when you get into something that you might call massive. I'm not going to use the word trauma, but something that's massively moving you because you knew. And I knew I should have moved a long time ago, but I didn't. I stayed. I stayed, I stayed. I held, I held, I held. And then I needed to be kicked to the curb in order to move, and so be it. And that's what happens when you don't listen to the subtle nudges. And so I decided that in this new brand that I was.
- [27:56]
A
What's the brand called?
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B
Tell us about the Chocolate Flame Chocolate. That the Violet Flame Chocolate was going to utilize the power of imagination and an exercise of connection to true self, to essence. So that through the tasting of chocolate, through this energetic experience, you would be able to remember who you are and start to trust yourself.
- [28:25]
A
This is so interesting to me because you were always somebody, from the minute I met you, you were somebody who had a very spiritual side to her. Right. There was all these mythical things about you and. And yet you didn't trust, even though you did trust yourself on the one hand, right? Because you started this incredible high end chocolate line. You didn't trust yourself on another hand. Because I remember coming to see you and giving the boys a ride in the car and you thinking that you were going to leave him but not being able to pull the trigger. And then the world turned things on its head for you and it sort of forced you into that situation.
- [29:01]
B
Yeah, I know. Why do I feel the incessant need to make things better when they're not working?
- [29:08]
A
Like, wasn't that a human thing? Don't we all have that jobs, relationships?
- [29:14]
B
I know, but this is my point. Like how long are we going to sit there when we already know the answer? And then you let other people's opinion, you let the logic of the mind, which is very loud. The mind is critical and loud and it's helpful, but it overpowers the wisdom of the body almost all the time. A lot.
- [29:33]
A
Well, I know you came last December to New York and we invited some people to try your chocolates and everybody became obsessed and wanted to support the chocolates, not just because of your story, but because they were unbelievable. So we're going to tell everybody to. Where do they find your chocolates?
- [29:49]
B
Violetflamechocolate.com Exactly. Yes. Finaltheft.com and what's your favorite?
- [29:56]
A
What's the flavor that they should try? I mean, because, you know, they're not Hershey's. No, not Hershey because we do love a good Hershey.
- [30:02]
B
No, no, this is like all about energetic ingredients that are coming from soils that are not nitrogen flushed without microbiome and minerals and they're filled with, you know, this intention around what the farmers are trying to grow. And I think there's a definite transference of energetics from that, from that land and those people and that consciousness into food. And that's what I'm playing with. So I have A very curated set. There are only nine chocolates that are in the truffle bonbon form, and they're all very intentional, so it's hard to choose one. Of course.
- [30:38]
A
No, you got to get a box of nine.
- [30:40]
B
Yeah, you got to get. Yeah, you got to get the box. And. But. But if you like milk chocolate, I'd say Gendua is exceptional. It's from this beautiful farm in Piemonte. The hazelnuts are grown there, and if you like dark, there is a gorgeous organic red walnut from a regenerative farm in California that's infused as a South African rooibos tea that can only be grown in the soil because of the microbiome in South Africa.
- [31:08]
A
You can see how storytelling and the experience from the very beginning comes full circle for you. Okay, I'm gonna try rapid fire questions with you. We're gonna do a handful of rapid fire. So I'm gonna ask quick question, and you're gonna just say the first thing that comes to mind.
- [31:21]
B
Okay.
- [31:22]
A
Of all the messy parts you had, of which we've gone through many, what was the messiest and what was it on a scale of 1 to 10?
- [31:28]
B
I would say being fired from my own company was.
- [31:34]
A
And was that on a scale of one to ten? It was a ten. Being the worst A ten. Okay.
- [31:40]
B
I don't know. Maybe an eight and eight.
- [31:42]
A
I don't know. I'm remembering standing in the hospital with. Okay. And I'm thinking, that was intense.
- [31:50]
B
The hospital thing. I must have taken 10 years out of my life fighting.
- [31:53]
A
It took 10 years out of my life. And I was just visiting. Okay. The last time you cried yesterday. What would you tell somebody to do before they're 35?
- [32:02]
B
Take a trip, hopefully around the world by yourself.
- [32:06]
A
What is the best advice that you were given along the way?
- [32:10]
B
Follow your imagination and intuition.
- [32:15]
A
What would you tell someone who's having a very messy moment and a crisis of confidence?
- [32:20]
B
Slow down your breathing and try to calm the nervous system by humming. It works. You can't have a thought when you hum.
- [32:34]
A
Oh, it's somebody interesting. Somebody else was just telling me about humming. Katrina, thank you so much for coming on. I want everyone to out and try violent flame chocolates. I need a Delta around the world trip, because that. That seems like something they don't offer anymore.
- [32:49]
B
Amazing hope that they do make it.
- [32:53]
A
You'll have to come back to New York. You're our first Riverside virtual podcast, so we'll see how this is as an experience. So thank you for willing to be messy. With us and try new things. Thanks for listening to the messy parts and making it all the way to the to the end. Katrina's story is incredible, and when she told it to me on the phone and then in person, I honestly couldn't believe it. So I wanted to share it with you now. If you enjoyed the episode, please follow, share and tell 10 friends because that is how we're going to keep going with the messy parts. Something we need to normalize so that none of us feel alone when we hit the inevitable bumps, which are really just part of getting to success. Whatever that means for you.
- [33:33]
B
You.
- [33:33]
A
Thanks again for listening.