Plenty with Kate Northrup

I write this with a little tear in my eye but also a swell in my heart knowing that we’re in the final countdown of The Kate & Mike Show. Thank you if you reached out to tell us you’re going to miss the show. We’re going to miss it, too...and we’re also SO excited for the new possibilities that ending it will bring. (More on that in the weeks to come.)

We’ve talked about doing a show where we get to answer your questions for the last 4 years. I know you know how it goes: You think about doing something and then never get around to doing it until the very last minute.

(That’s actually my creative process with everything. I’ve learned to not label it procrastination but just the way I work. The energy I’ve saved beating myself up about it has been amazing to reinvest in things that actually pay dividends...like just doing my work instead of judging myself for the way I do it.)

We thought it would be really fun to find out what was on your mind and do an “Ask Us Anything” show, and I gotta tell you:

I was really surprised to find out what you wanted to know more about!

We went a lot of places in this episode, and I know you’re going to get some key takeaways.

We talked about:

• The story of how Mike proposed (and what really surprised me about it even though I knew he was going to do it)

• How to successfully pitch guests to be on your podcast and how to conduct a memorable interview

• Our biggest parenting triumphs this year

• Our biggest business mistake to date

• And so much more!

Plus, we had more questions than we could answer in one session, so we’ll be putting out a second bonus Part 2 “Ask Us Anything” episode in the coming weeks. If you don’t hear your question answered, stay tuned!

Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

At the very beginning of the pandemic, I somehow came across a podcast episode that introduced me to a person who’s become my favorite thinker/teacher at this time (and up there in my top favorite thinkers/teachers of all time).

I have never before gone to the podcast app and typed in somebody’s name and then proceeded to listen to every podcast they’ve ever been on.

My family can’t even get me to watch a 3-minute video they text, so listening to hours of content is highly unusual for me...but this person is that good.

I have wanted to email you about this person so many times, but I was patiently waiting (actually, I was persistently nudging his team) so that we could interview him ourselves and craft a conversation to serve you.

When Mike and I sat down to plan our final episodes of The Kate & Mike Show, this person was the only guest we felt our show would be incomplete without having had on.

And I can tell you, he was worth the wait.

Today, I bring you a conversation with a man who’s helped me feel profoundly calm and safe during a time in our history when there are a lot of forces pushing in the direction of fear.

And he’s affirmed the deep trust I already had in the innate intelligence of nature and how it can be our guide to true healing and collective evolution in our businesses, bodies, communities, and lives.

I couldn’t be more thrilled to be sharing what I think is possibly the most important conversation we’ve ever had on The Kate & Mike Show with you today.

In this conversation with Zach Bush, MD, which was 2 hours of intellectual ecstacy for me, you’ll learn:

• Why the mainstream narrative that we’re hearing about the pandemic is missing the mark and what 30+ years of data shows us is actually going on

• What viruses actually are and how they’re critical for our health, survival, and even for our thriving

• Why the conversation about either being pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine is completely missing the mark and the new paradigm about immunity that will lead to true health and resilience

• About the fact that we’re experiencing an extinction event and what we can do about it

• A “hit you between the eyes” perspective on the upcoming election that might push your buttons but also shake you out of a complacent slumber and get you into purposeful action

• The crucial information about flu season that you’re never going to hear on the news

• How to take hold of the hope embedded in all of this and use it to heal your body and the world using alignment with 3 key elements of life

Listen in and allow yourself to stay open to ideas and evidence that’s different from what you may have believed up until this point.

Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

While a huge part of the Do Less Methodology is about learning to let go and let others do things, there’s one thing that I don’t recommend outsourcing.

Ever since I started talking about the power of our monthly energetic ebbs and flows and how tracking them can change your business and your life, I’ve gotten the following question a lot:

How do you talk to Mike about your menstrual cycle, and what do you tell him about what you need at different times?

The answer is WAY simpler than you may think.

This week on The Kate & Mike Show (the 6th-to-last episode of the show), we’re giving you the ins and outs of:

• The thing you don’t ever want to outsource when you’re trying to reach peak productivity

• How Mike tracks his energetic ebbs and flows and what he’s noticed about his own cyclical energy

• Specific examples of what I need at different times of the month

• What I do (and don’t) ask for when it comes to support throughout the month and why

May this episode bring more peace, joy, and connection to your body and partnership.

Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

The last week of July I was supposed to be in NYC with the Origin Mastermind on our second live retreat of the year.

For reasons that I think are obvious, we begrudgingly decided to have a virtual retreat instead.

At first, I was feeling really concerned that I was disappointing the Mastermind members.

But then, as we embraced the “is-ness,” as my friend Dr. Shefali says, and surrendered to what was happening rather than wallow in wishing it was different, magic began to emerge.

Many of us are finding ourselves needing to lead virtual gatherings—from small meetings to Mastermind retreats to full-on conferences—online this year.

Something happened during the event that I did not see coming, and I was thrilled by the surprise.

Listen in to this week’s episode of The Kate & Mike Show to learn:

• The specific steps we took (with the timeline) to set ourselves up for a glorious virtual retreat

• How we used the element of surprise to weave magic throughout

• The specific swag we sent, including a small $11 item from Amazon that I can’t talk about without feeling giddy

• The questions to ask yourself when being in community online, so you’re not missing out on an opportunity for genuine connection

This episode is a must for anyone leading virtual events this year.

I’m excited to hear what ideas the episode sparks for you! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

I’m keeping it short today.

Mike and I have some bittersweet news to share, and we recorded a new episode of The Kate & Mike Show to tell you.

Here’s the episode.

Whatever moment of endings and/or new beginnings you find yourself in, we’re with you.

Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

Last night I sat on my couch, cheeks still wet from tears, soaked in the bittersweet moment of feeling sad that I was closing the cover of a book I’d just finished and that I was deeply moved by.

I both wanted there to be more to read and also felt so totally satisfied and changed by the experience of taking it in.

We’re 3 months away from the 2020 United States Presidential Election.

An election in the midst of a pandemic and racial justice awakening is an even bigger deal than your average election.

And so, here we are, entering a season of even more intensity.

Why am I talking about the election?

Because the book I finished last night is the manual for how we can come together as humans to heal in what is the most divisive time I’ve ever lived through (though I know that historically there have been more divisive times).

4 years ago, just before the presidential election of 2016, I sat in a huge auditorium in Brooklyn holding a dear friend’s hand and weeping as we listened to the author of this book offer her son’s birth story as a metaphor for the intense time we were navigating then.

She asked, “What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb? What if America is not dead, but a country that is waiting to be born?”

We passed tissues up and down the aisle to people we didn’t know, yet who were not strangers.

Valarie Kaur’s practice of Revolutionary Love is the blueprint we need to heal as a nation and as a world.

As hate crimes, xenophobia, white nationalism, and other symptoms of fear increase, now more than ever we need a new roadmap...one guided not only by love but also by the body and joy.

This week we’re sharing a new episode of The Kate & Mike Show, featuring activist, scholar, and bestselling author Valarie Kaur, and in it you’ll hear:

• Why wonder is the path to true healing

• What Valarie experienced at Guantanamo Bay and how it changed her

• How to know when to breathe and when to push in the labor of revolutionary love

• The freedom in forgiveness and how to do it even when it feels like you can’t

• How to love your opponent (including how to know when it’s safe to do so and when it’s time to allow someone else to do it for you)

• How to know what your role is in the transition of our country and world

This was one of the most stirring conversations we’ve ever had on the podcast.

Listen in, get your tissues, and prepare to pick your chin up off the floor.

As we enter this pre-election season, may we all learn to practice Revolutionary Love so we can breathe, push, and birth a new world for us all.

Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

If you’re new here, there’s something you need to know about me and this space: I’m obsessed with the body and I talk about it a lot.

I love to learn about how our bodies work and how they relate literally and metaphorically to everything, specifically our emotional lives and productivity.

If you’ve been around for a while, you already knew that.

So many important conversations are missing a MAJORLY important piece of the puzzle:

We all live in bodies, and they impact everything in our entire lives.

One important conversation that often completely skips the topic of bodies (ironically, because it’s inherently about the mistreatment of bodies) is the conversation about racism.

When I heard the woman I’m about to introduce speak for the first time, my body felt different than it had ever felt before during conversations about race.

My body knew the potential for healing immediately because she was one of the first people I’d ever heard talk about race and racism in the context of how it impacts our bodies and why healing racial trauma needs to start with the body, not exclusively our minds.

As a facilitator, author, and speaker, Milagros Phillips has been doing racial healing work for over two decades.

When she came to speak in Origin last month, I got several messages from members after to the affect of:

I’m in a puddle on the floor integrating the beauty that just transpired at the hands of Milagros. WOW.

Several members asked if she was taking applications for niece adoptions because we all want her to be our auntie.

Her work is powerful. Her heart is huge. She’s hilarious. And brilliant.

If you’re ready to heal racial trauma in your body, be it black, white, or brown, so that you can affect healing in the world, this conversation is for you.

Listening to Milagros will change you in the most beautiful way. I can’t wait to hear how this one moves you (and your body).

Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

We’ve just crossed the threshold into the second half of the year.

Every time I look at this wall we have in our basement of 12 really big monthly planners with a beautiful plan we made for 2020 back before we knew what 2020 was going to be, I chuckle.

None of us could have planned for this year, I think that’s clear. This year has been particularly humbling for a planning nerd like myself (who also sells a planner).

But it hasn’t made me abandon my planning practices (not all of them, anyway).

In fact, I’m leaning hard on the ones that are bringing me peace and solace...and ensuring that I can still pay our team, pay our mortgage, and show up for the places I feel called to effect change.

One of these planning practices is a mid-year regroup and planning session.

You may be tempted to curl up in a ball under your dining room table and wait for this year to pass at this point, but, if you’re game, I’d love to invite you to join me in a simple exercise that will bring you more joy and results than acting as though this year is cancelled.

(It is not, BTW. We have 5 months and 10 days left to infuse with our presence.)

This week on The Kate & Mike Show, we’re walking through how to do a mid-year regroup and planning session so that you can really be here for all that life has on offer for you for the rest of the year.

I give you the exact steps, and we’re even taking you behind the scenes to share what we’re gleaning from the last 6 months and how we’re integrating these lessons and infusing our dreams and goals for the next 6 months with them.

Listen in for a powerful regroup and planning process.

Can’t wait to hear what you think!

Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.

So much of the information we take in as humans is based on this idea that when we do or get x, y, or z, we’ll finally feel better and then we won’t have to feel discomfort anymore.

We’ve been told that the whole point of being human is to find ways to either feel less or feel better.

But what if that were not the point?

What if trying to feel a different way than you feel and popping out when you feel a way you don’t like to feel is thwarting your efforts in business, marriage, parenting, and more?

What if we’re making it harder than it needs to be?

If there’s nothing else this pandemic has taught us, it’s that we don’t know what’s going on and that so much is out of our control.

There’s a gift nestled in all of the confusion and angst, should we choose to open it.

It’s an invitation to a deeper experience of being human, which offers a deeper experience of everything that being human includes. (Daunting? Yes. Awesome? For sure.)

The most impactful thing that Mike and I have been practicing to allow us to unwrap this gift is expanding our capacity to be uncomfortable.

The pandemic is uncomfortable (in a variety of ways, depending on who you are).

Talking about race is uncomfortable for many.

Not being able to plan past the next week, not knowing if kids are going back to school, or if you can go visit your grandmother, or if you can fly over a border to attend a gathering you’ve been looking forward to for more than 12 months is all uncomfortable.

We’ve been sold the idea that the whole point is to learn how to avoid or get rid of discomfort as fast as possible (mainly by companies trying to profit off the promise of relief).

But, at least in my life, the greater capacity I build for feeling what I’m feeling (whatever it is), the more meaningful everything becomes.

This week on the podcast, we’re giving you 3 specific tips to expand your capacity to be with discomfort.

If you find yourself crawling out of your skin from time to time or minute to minute, you’re going to want to listen in.

Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast .

There’s a pattern so many of us have been indoctrinated into that’s depleting our bodies, our relationships, our planet, our innovation, and even our productivity.

What makes it so insidious is that we’re celebrated for it, and many of us spend our whole lives in a reward loop that affirms a behavior that’s not doing us any favors.

The addiction?

Work.

Alcohol addiction, drug addiction, sex addiction, shopping addiction, gambling addiction, and more are recognized as problematic behaviors for which treatment and healing can and should be sought.

Overwork, however?

We just throw each other a parade for that.

Today on the podcast Mike and I are talking about our collective obsession with work and how it’s killing us on multiple levels.

If you suspect that your addiction to work is holding you back in more ways than one, you’re gonna want to listen in.

This episode is likely going to get under your skin in a way that’s simultaneously uncomfortable and necessary.

And just in case you think we’re being righteous on our “we’ve already figured this thing out” high horses, we’re not.

We share our recent foibles with slipping back into overwork and how we tend to those old patterns on a daily basis so that they don’t get the better of our souls.

Can’t wait to hear how this one lands with you.

Show notes and links for this episode can be found at http://www.katenorthrup.com/podcast.