What's next for Kate?

Three days before 2012 Alpine Team Tryouts. What a ride. 

I've been wondering that myself. And I've made a decision. For the last three months, I've been working with my little sister, Liat, and my team from Skiing in the Shower trying to figure out, what is the next step? And then, how do I take the next step?

The first thing was to figure out what it is that I want to do, simply. What am I passionate about? What is it that I do best, that I love doing most?

It turns out it is personal journey and relationship building! (Shocking I know.) Understanding interpersonal communications and helping people identify what is keeping them from moving forward. How to see obstacles both internal, in our understanding of ourselves, and external, in our understanding of others and how we fit in to, and define the relationship.

My challenge (as you can see from the last paragraph) is a verbosity issue. I need focus and distillation. Not just with the information, but with my approach to doing it as a business.

Now what?

I realized this personal growth thingy was my bag a few years ago, but I didn't really know how to package it. giving talks here and there, writing proposals and clinics, but it wasn't quite gelling. Because it wasn't sorted into small, sticky clumps.

I spent about six years writing from a personal perspective, which taught me a lot about my own journey.  This, in turn, made me realize that my journey, fundamentally, is the same as everyone else's. We all want to know where we fit in and how to feel safe, secure, and happy while growing and contributing something meaningful.

Lots of people teach this, and talk about this. What sets me aside? Is there room for another teacher in the personal growth field? This path is rife with mine fields of inauthenticity and ego. Ew. How to navigate?

Enter my INSPIRATIONALLY organized surprise teacher, (my little sister). I taught her how to stop spilling her milk, and she is teaching me how to organize my thoughts and beliefs in a way that holds true to my core values. She is helping me before we even get to talks, books, blog posts and eBooks, with the foundation. Who am I? What do I bring? Who is my audience? How do I reach them? What am I helping them with? What's the best way to deliver the message? I'm so excited, I've never gone this route before.

This is a fun and scary challenge for me, I've lived in a first draft world for a long time. I've lived from passion, which has been a great teacher. I'm a putter out of fires and a plate spinner. But mostly because I didn't plan so that I wouldn't have fires to put out. Now, I'm learning new skills and moving into strange, new, uncharted territory of information wrangling, which requires a much broader-spectrum vision, patience, persistence, and a lot of introspection.

I wondered if I should shut down Skiing in the Shower, now that the six year experiment is over. Is it a distraction now?  Does it take me away from my goal of developing this material into something concrete and deliverable? I don't think so. Skiing in the Shower is one of my favorite places to connect with people who are on their own journey. Its my reality. Its my truth. I'm grateful to go at it, embark on my unsure journey, knowing I'm not alone. I cherish your comments, your stories, and your growth.

I'm so glad to know you are there, on your journey, while I'm here, on mine. 

So I have decided to keep Skiing in the Shower going, as a personal blog about the experiences I have and the lessons I learn as I take this next journey.  I have some friends who worry that being so personal might be detrimental. But I think its a fundamental truth of who I am, I like to work things out out loud, writing helps me do that. And its given me the gift of a relationship with a likeminded community. It keeps me facing the honest truths, it keeps me accountable. I wouldn't let that go for anything. We started this journey together. Lets not chicken out, now.

There will be a new website and blog that center around my consulting business, which I'm tentatively calling "Making the Jump" (I'm going to say that's it's working title, its a bit "corp speak" for me. If anyone has another idea, let me know...)

So here we go, again, gentle reader. Another ski season is upon us, and this year I have a different challenge, a different focus. I've been invited to present some materials on Trust Building for the Ski Company, and other fun topics, and so my focus isn to sift through my material with clarity, extrude it into its foundational pieces, and split it into digestible, easy to understand chunks that can be understood easily and taught by anyone.

I am building a business, from the ground up, new mission, new biz plan, new financials, new materials, new talks, new books, and it all starts with a clear idea of my brand, a clear strategy to spread that brand identity, and an open heart to my teachers while I'm learning new skills.

Its funny, I've owned a business before (several actually), and I've learned a lot each time. But I always have gone at it from a place of passion, with planning happening almost in real time. I function well under a heavy deadline. But that's not a recipe for longevity.

This time, I ALMOST did the same thing I often do, (because I'm eager and excited) but I've decided to open my ears and find my leverage points. So. Liat, Weems, Jonathan, Andy, Kurt, Peter, Megan... I'm listening.  And I'm so grateful to be launching from the ski industry, for all the lessons and mentors I've had to this point, and all the ones to come in the future.

Next Tuesday's blog post: Being willing to learn your lesson. (Eat your peas!)

I loved this business, I had it in Pasadena for about eight months. It was called Prelasser, the Relaxing Bath. All passion, no planning. Very soothing. A vision of what it could turn into without a plan for how to get there.  

Thanks for coming along on the journey!