Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin

After months of fighting to change the law that treated Mum's death as a misdemeanor, we finally heard the words we'd been hoping for. Wyoming's Joint Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to advance a vehicular homicide reform bill, adopting two amendments I proposed to strengthen accountability when criminal negligence costs someone their life. There's still a long road ahead, but I'm sharing what happened, why it matters, and the emotional moment of witnessing this progress holding hands with another grieving mother.

If you have questions or want to learn more, please reach out to me via my website www.kategladdin.com - And as we head toward the next legislative session, please keep Mum, Mak, and our families in your prayers. We can't bring them back, but together, we have a chance to change the law in their names - and help protect other families from the nightmare we've experienced.

Envy gets a bad rap.

We're taught it's something to be ashamed of. You're supposed to push it down, scroll past, and pretend you didn't feel that twinge when someone posted the holiday, the career move, or the life you didn't know you wanted.

But what if that twinge is one of the most useful pieces of information you've got?

This week I'm joined by Suzy Rosenstein, life leadership coach, host of Women in the Middle, and the coach who first taught me the tools that changed my life when I was 24 and brand new to coaching. Suzy makes the case that envy, met with curiosity instead of shame, is a doorway, not a character flaw. It can lead you straight to what you want, especially when the big questions ("What's your passion? What's your purpose?") leave you with nothing but a blank stare.

In this episode:

• The difference between envy and jealousy, and why one is far more useful than the other
• How overhearing a stranger at a tennis club front desk sent Suzy to the Grand Canyon
• Why "what first, then how" stops your brain from squashing a dream before it's had a chance to breathe
• Suzy's "cinder blocks," and how to start identifying your own
• A single question that gives you an instant zap of insight (I answered it live, first thing that popped up)
• The regret people name again and again at the end of their lives. It isn't what you'd expect.
• What a humpback whale taught Suzy about slowing down

Put this episode into practice

If a little envy has been tapping you on the shoulder, Suzy has created a free exercise to help you follow where it leads. Happy Highlights walks you back through the chapters of your life to find the moments that lit you up, and the patterns hiding in them that point to what you want more of now. It's the gentlest way I know to start answering "what do I actually want?" without the pressure of the P-words.

Download it here: https://suzyrosenstein.com/passionproject50/

Connect with Suzy

Suzy was one of my very first coaches. Long before I ever had a podcast, she helped shape the coach I am today, so it was a real full-circle moment to have her on the show. If you loved her wisdom (and her whale stories), you'll find so much more of it on her two podcasts: Women in the Middle: Loving Life After 50 and Women in the Middle Entrepreneurs: The Reality of Running a Business After 50. Both are available wherever you listen.

Learn more about Suzy and her work here: [LINK]

If you've been sitting on something you want to build from what you've been through (a podcast, a book, a speaking career, a nonprofit, the thing that just won't leave you alone), I offer free 30-minute Direction Calls. It's a working session where you leave knowing what's been stopping you, what you actually want to build, and your one next step. Book yours at kategladdin.com/coaching.

Scared you'll go after the thing, miss, and feel like it was all for nothing? This one's for you.

Recording from my leopard-print dressing gown after a huge week, I'm getting a little fired up about why so many of us never start the thing we keep circling. Usually it isn't the goal that stops us. It's the question we're asking about it, and what we're afraid we'll do to ourselves if we fall short.

I share where I'm at with my fight to change Wyoming's vehicular homicide law. There's a real chance it won't pass this session, and I'm doing it anyway. I also walk you through the questions I ask myself to stay in the game when the outcome isn't guaranteed.

In this episode:

• Why outcome-only goals make you fragile, and what to aim for instead
• The real fear hiding underneath "what if I fail?"
• The invisible skills you build even when you miss the target
• Questions that let you win on an ordinary Tuesday, not just at the finish line
• A simple pen-and-paper exercise to finally get unstuck on your "maybe one day"

Ready to stop sitting on it?

After almost every keynote, someone asks me, "How did you turn what happened into something like this?" My free Direction Call is my answer.

It's 30 minutes, one-on-one with me, for anyone who's been through something significant and is ready to build something from it. That might be a speaking career, a nonprofit in someone's honour, a podcast, a book, an advocacy campaign, or the thing that just won't leave you alone.

This isn't a vague "let's connect" chat, and it isn't a sales call. It's a working session, and you'll walk away with:

• The real reason you haven't started, named. Not the one you tell yourself. The actual one.
• Clarity on what you want to build and who it's for.
• The one block that's kept you circling instead of moving.
• One specific next step to take before the week is out.

You don't need a plan. You don't need a dramatic story. You just need to show up honestly. Whatever you decide afterwards, those four things are yours to keep.

The idea's been sitting long enough. Let's figure out what you're building.

👉 Book your free Direction Call: kategladdin.com/coaching

Not ready to talk yet? Start with my From Story to Platform workbook ($17) at kategladdin.com/workbook.

The day this episode comes out, my dear dad, Vince, turns 70! So to celebrate the big milestone, I've dedicated this episode to Dad and 7 lessons I've learned from him that have shaped me to become the woman I am today.

I love you, Dad.

Pedestrian safety ruffles more feathers online than almost anything else I talk about. Who knew?

Most of the comments on my advocacy posts are beautiful. Some stop me cold. And my first instinct is not calm, graceful or enlightened. It's to crack my knuckles, open my notes app and write a three-chapter rebuttal, complete with an appendix.

Maybe you know that feeling. Maybe it's not a comment section for you, but a partner, a parent, a boss, or your sister-in-law at Christmas. Someone says something that gets right under your skin, and suddenly you're in a tug of war that nobody wins.

In this episode, I share:

• The mistake I made for years in my travel safety work, and why having the facts on my side never changed a single mind
• What the research says actually does shift people's thinking (hint: it's not a better argument)
• Three phrases I use, from gentlest to firmest, so I can stay true to what I believe without people-pleasing or picking a fight
• The one phrase I refuse to say when a comment feels like it's about my mum, and what I say instead
• A simple image from therapy that has saved me hours of wasted energy (and a few late nights in the comment section)

Plus, an update on my dad and his very strong opinions about phones.

If you're tired of either biting your tongue or burning yourself out trying to win, this one's for you.

Want to turn your story into something bigger? If there's something you've been through that you want to build from, like a talk, a book, a podcast, a nonprofit or a cause, book a free 30-minute Direction Call. You'll leave knowing what's been stopping you and your next step, whether we work together or not. → kategladdin.com/coaching

Bring this to your team or event. I speak to organisations and conferences about resilience that goes beyond forced positivity, with practical tools for real challenges at work and in life. → kategladdin.com/speaking

Tell me which phrase you try this week. I'm on Instagram at @kategladdin

I've had a last minute speaking gig come up, so this episode is short yet heartfelt as I share a passage I recently read that puts into perspective what being 'rich' really means. ❤️

To learn more about how I can speak at your next event visit: https://www.kategladdin.com/speaking

Everyone tells you to think big. Set the goals, picture the future, dream about where you'll be in five years. Most of the time, that's great advice.

But when something sudden and painful knocks the ground out from under you, that same advice can be exactly what makes it feel impossible to breathe.

In this episode, Kate shares the simple shift that's helped her through some of her hardest days. It's not forced positivity, and it doesn't ask you to pretend it doesn't hurt.

You'll hear:

• The everyday object that explains why your brain feels so scrambled when life falls apart
• Why a 50/50 chance of pain is more stressful than knowing it's definitely coming
• The prisoner of war who said the optimists were the ones who didn't make it out
• Why "the rest of my life" might be the heaviest phrase you can say to yourself right now
• The question to ask when you don't feel strong enough to face the day

If you're in the thick of something hard right now, this one's for you. And if you know someone who is, please send it their way.

Ready to explore what you might build from what you've lived through? Book your free Direction Call: kategladdin.com/coaching

Does your workplace, conference or organisation bring in speakers? My brand-new speaker reel is live! Watch it and share it with whoever books your events: kategladdin.com/speaker-reel

There are three words most of us say every single day without noticing.

They're small. Polite. They sound like humility. They sound like consideration. One of them sounds so much like good manners that you'd feel rude leaving it out.

And every time you use them, you hand over a little bit of ground.

Not dramatically. Nobody's life falls apart over one sentence. But language is rehearsal — and the things you say on repeat teach your brain what role you believe you're allowed to play. Say them for long enough and you stop being the woman in the room with an idea. You become the woman hoping nobody minds that she's there.

In this episode, I name the three words, unpack where each one actually comes from — usually somewhere genuinely kind — and give you the swap for each, so you're not left knowing what's wrong with no idea what to say instead.

Because this isn't about policing your vocabulary or never apologising again. A real apology matters enormously. But there's a difference between taking responsibility and apologising for taking up space.

In this episode:

• The three words to start listening for — and why the first one is the hardest to give up
• How care quietly turns into self-abandonment in a very polite outfit
• The word that asks a room not to take you seriously before you've finished your sentence
• What the third word is really protecting you from (it isn't uncertainty)
• My one-week experiment for catching all three — without spiralling about it
• Why confidence usually turns up after you speak, not before

You can be kind without disappearing. You can be humble without minimising your value.

But nobody can honour a boundary they can't hear.

Ready to stop making yourself smaller than the life that's calling you?

If there's something you've been through that changed you — and part of you knows you want to build something meaningful from it, but you keep overthinking whether you're qualified enough to start — I'd love to help.

Book a free 30-minute Direction Call with me.

It's not a vague "let's connect" chat, and it's not a sales call. It's a working session: what you want to build, what's been keeping you stuck, and one real next step you can take.

Schedule your call here: kategladdin.com/coaching

There's an old fable I heard again recently about a water bearer and two clay pots. One is perfect. The other has a crack in it, and leaks half its water on the walk home every single day — for two years.

Simple little story. But there's a line near the end of it that quietly dismantles most of the advice we get handed when life goes sideways.

Because "look for the good in it" assumes the good is already there. Hiding. Waiting for you to be observant enough to spot it. So you go looking, and you come back with nothing, and now you feel like you've failed a test on top of everything else.

This episode is about what the water bearer did instead - and why it's a completely different question to the one most of us have been taught to ask.

Also featuring: my neighbour Kevin, a runaway dog, and a farm gate that very nearly took me out. Turbulent episode. Wouldn't have it any other way.

If you've been sitting on something you want to build from what you've been through - a podcast, a book, a speaking career, a nonprofit, a thing that just won't leave you alone - I offer free 30-minute Direction Calls. A working session with a real outcome. You'll leave knowing exactly what's been stopping you and your one next step this week, whether we work together or not.

Book yours at kategladdin.com/coaching

Go looking for help with how you're feeling and it's all the same promise: get rid of the anxiety. Stop the overthinking. Build the confidence. Find the motivation.

Sit with what that's actually teaching us - that the feeling is the problem. That something's gone wrong. That you have to fix yourself before you're allowed to get on with your life.

I don't think that's true. And I think believing it is costing us a lot.

Because the nerves before the presentation? The overwhelm when your boss is away and you're carrying double? The complete absence of desire to get out of a warm bed and go to the gym? None of that is a sign you're broken. It's a brain doing exactly what it was built to do.

What actually creates the problem is the second layer — the judging, the resisting, the story you build on top. I should be past this. Everyone else copes better. I'm just not disciplined enough. That's where the spiral lives. Not in the feeling.

In this episode I'm sharing the four words I've been saying to myself for years without ever realising it, and the question I ask straight after — the one that gets you moving without waiting to feel ready.

It won't make the nerves disappear. It's not meant to.

Come for the reframe. Stay for the bit about my massage chair.

Stuck circling something you want to build — or just stuck full stop? I do free 30-minute Direction Calls. Bring me the thing you keep going round in circles on and we'll work out what's really in the way. → kategladdin.com/coaching