Mary Kathryn: I’ve got my stories powered up and ready to rock, John.

John: Yes, as an author, entrepreneur, and mom, Mary Kathryn has created success for over 12 years. A fall while pregnant with her second son landed her with her first book and business. And she is now on her third business, helping other parents create their own entrepreneurial success. Mary Kathryn, say, “What’s up?” to Fire Nation and share what’s going on in your world right now.

Mary Kathryn: Hey, what’s up Fire Nation? I am so excited to be sharing the mic with you today, John; I just can’t even believe it. It’s fantastic. I am a mom to two boys as you said, ages 13 and 16. I’m a mom to two Australian Shepherds and kitty cat, but I’m also a wife to an amazing man who stayed strong and true when I broke both my legs as you mentioned, when I was eight months pregnant with my second son. I had to go through labor, delivery, caring for my newborn, my toddler, my house, all while I had casts up to the knee on both legs. One of them pink and the other one blue because we didn’t know what we were having.

John: That’s quite the sight.

Mary Kathryn: I know. And my husband got to clean my bedside commode twice a day, so he’s a keeper.

John: Yeah, yeah, we’ll keep that guy.

Mary Kathryn: But that broken legs while eight months pregnant experience basically taught me that if I could get through this with my sense of humor intact, I can do anything. So I started my first business, MommyLoves, 18 months later and, as you said, I now get to help other parents do the same.

John: Well, Mary Kathryn, you have quite the journey to share and just as a little aside, you’ve been an amazing Fire Nation listener, fan follower, everything for so long, so I just want to thank you publicly for that because we, myself and Kate and the rest of the team, appreciate just the amazing community that we’ve built and you’re just a very valued member of that. I can’t even wait to share with Fire Nation today your journey. We’re gonna talk about the downs, we’re gonna talk about the light bulbs, but we’re gonna first talk about what I call the one minute mindset because you just have this incredibly optimistic mindset.

So I want to get inside that mind, Mary Kathryn, and ask you five questions. So take about a minute-ish to answer these questions. The No. 1 question being, ideally, what are the first 80 minutes of your day look like?

Mary Kathryn: Well, we definitely have to go 80 minutes and beyond to get through my first – everything I do in the morning. But first, I really do start, just like many of your guests have talked about, specifically Hal Elrod before, I start with what I call my power day, my power start. It typically starts around 5:00 a.m., sometimes earlier, sometimes later, but I really follow the power, the letters in that word.

The P is for peace and I start off in my favorite leather chair, sitting with my headphones doing head space. I just totally prepare myself for the day with peace. Then I go to openness and that is really my journaling and my visualization of, not just what I want long-term, but what steps I need to take today, I visualize those. And then I go to the W, who, what and why. Who needs me today? Who needs my attention, my love, my patience, whatever it might be. Who are those people? Typically they’re my family, but they could be customers, they could be mentees. What are the top three things I have to accomplish today? And I write those down. And why the heck am I up at five in the morning doing this? Those are my whys.

Then E is for exercise, every day, some kind of movement and R is for reading. Some kind of education in myself or even just fictional reading. Then I make my green smoothie and breakfast and lunch for all my family, get them out the door to school and work. Then I get myself ready and I actually start work around 9:00 a.m. So I think that’s beyond 80 minutes, but that’s my morning.

John: You focus, though, on the power, which I do want to come back to because I think, for lack of a better word, it’s so powerful. And Fire Nation, one more time, that’s peace, openness, who, what, why, and exercise and reading. I love just breaking it down in that phrase, making sure you’re checking those five blocks as you go through your day and, Fire Nation, if you challenge yourself to do this for the next 60 days, I just have no doubt, zero doubts in my mind, just the complete awesomeness that you’ll be experiencing from this. And Mary Kathryn, I have a hard time believing that you have any weaknesses, just knowing what I know about you, but if you had to dig deep, what’s your biggest weakness?

Mary Kathryn: Oh, you’re too funny. Yeah, right. I’m just as human as the next gal and guy, but my weakness; I guess you could say is my adaptability. Really, because I loathe routine. I rarely do anything the same way for very long. Okay, so I do the same as most other people that are podcasters and bloggers, I batch my tasks. I do all of that in batches, but I just can’t do the routine, the same way or on the same days of the week for very long.

I exercise regularly, but I can’t do the same thing at the same time for very long. So I need something different to keep me interested. It’s a wonder I’ve stayed married to the same man for so long, but we keep it interesting and he is very routine guy, so he keeps me grounded. But really, that routine, I just I loathe routine. So I guess that’s my biggest weakness.

John: Yeah, I want to take that as a weakness, too. We need to be honest with ourselves. Every time we need to come up with something new and different, that takes mental bandwidth that could be being used for something else. I thrive and rely on my routines being so regimented and so same, so that when I do need to get creative I’m tapping into that untapped creative balance that I haven’t even used yet. So I hear you Mary Kathryn and I’m gonna let you go on that one because that’s a weakness for sure. But let’s talk about your biggest strength now.

Mary Kathryn: It’s the same thing. Really, I look at it as it’s the same thing. It’s also my adaptability because, yes, I wish I could be more like you, John. I wish I could – you are just so incredibly regimented and that really speaks to your success. But I really look at that adaptability on the other side, the flip side of that coin, as also a strength. So because I’m not so much into that routine, I still do the same things, I can still podcast, I can still write, I can still batch all those things.

But the way my mind works, I need, I thrive, on that new, that thing that comes up to the forefront that I grab onto and it really helps me to keep myself fresh, keep what I say fresh, keep what I do fresh. So your strengths and your weaknesses are usually flips of the same coin. So there you go.

John: They are and that’s why I’m gonna give you a green light for this as well, not that you asked for it. But the reality is this, too. One problem with being routine and regimented, Mary Kathryn, is that we can get so comfortable in that and it’s just so cozy and it works so we stay in that little bubble.

And that image I love to talk about at EntrepreneurOnFire comes to mind, where it’s this nice little fluffy white cloud and in the middle of it says “the comfort zone.” That’s where our routines are, we get it, we know how to do it, but then there’s that dot outside of the cloud that says “where all the magic happens.” And that’s where we need to push ourselves and we’re not gonna get there by just being the same person every day and routine, routine, routine. So great things, both sides of the coin. Mary Kathryn, your power habits, though, are incredible. But what’s a habit you wish you had?

Mary Kathryn: Keeping habits. No, really, like I mentioned with exercise, I exercise regularly and even if it’s just a walk with the dogs, but there are times where I go down into slumps and let go of some of those habits for a short period of time. I even, in terms of adaptability, we’re talking, I even change the way I brush my teeth sometimes after a few months. I really just can’t – it’s almost like someone’s telling me I have to do something this way and I fight against it. So I really wish I had that habit of keeping those same habits for longer than however, a few months.

John: Mary Kathryn, I’ve been on your podcast, it was quite the honor. I’ve read your blog; you put your heart, your soul into it. It’s a great read, I definitely encourage, Fire Nation, you to do both and you have a lot of things going on right now. You have a lot of things that you’re fired up about, too, but what’s the one thing that has you most fired up today?

Mary Kathryn: Today I am just powered up and fired up about the Power Parents Academy. That feeling people have, and I know you’ve talked about this on your podcast John, where someone says, “Oh, somebody’s already built a business around the idea I had, so I can’t do it.” Well, I’m fired up that parents should know better than to say that, okay? Seriously, did you as a parent, if you’re a parent, did you say, “Oh, ho hum, somebody else has already had kids so now I can’t do that.” Well, duh.

John: I know you’ve heard me say that because I definitely use the ho hum.

Mary Kathryn: I know, I know. But of course they haven’t said that. Of course they went ahead and had kids and did it their own way and created their own family. And not starting a business for that reason is just as silly. So I’m really fired up. I’ve developed a free course with nine steps to use your parenting power to start and build your entrepreneurial journey because we go from vision to community in nine steps. And these are steps that parents already know because we already have the patience, the perseverance, the adaptability; we already handle fear every day with our kids, flexibility, all those things.

So through that, but what’s really – the reason I’m really fired up about it is because in this academy I’m connecting with and mentoring and learning from the stories of incredible parents. I mean, John, you know that when we teach, we also learn and grow. Yeah, and I’m having a blast mentoring and learning from just incredible people because that to me is what life’s all about, so how could I not be fired up about it, right?

John: I love the fact, too, that you went the free route with Power Parents Academy. I have been trying to scream from the rooftops for some time now about how huge going free for EntrepreneurOnFire has been. Not even talking about going back to the early days of just the podcast, but with freepodcastcourse.com, the webinarcourse.com, that has brought, over now, combined, 10,000 people through those courses and that’s the reason that we had our biggest revenue month last month was because we double down on free. So talk to that just for a second, Mary Kathryn, because a lot of people are scared. They’re like, “I have this community now, I’m gonna create something,” but why would she ever offer it for free?

Mary Kathryn: You know, I agree. All these steps are out there, they are there, they’ve helped you and me both. Yes, you had mentors. Yes, you invested in yourself, but there was a lot of information, I’m sure, that you tapped into that was free. Once you start your podcast to start your business. They’re out there, but what we need to do, and the reason this is free for me and for you, is because we speak the language that someone is looking for. And when we speak that language and we allow them to absorb what it is we have coming from the same place, or at least speaking that same language they need to hear, then it powers them.

And once they’re powered they can only help us grow and help themselves grow and then they will be ready, if we are speaking their language, they’ll be ready to take the next step and the next step and then they will be happy to pay us for the more detailed, more powerful language that we can give them through other courses that they might pay for.

John: Well said and I’m just gonna put a cherry on top. And Mary Kathryn, let’s move forward now into your journey and you know the drill. We’re going down to your deepest, darkest, worst entrepreneurial moment. Tell that story.

Mary Kathryn: Oh, boy. This one started in 2008 and it didn’t end until late in 2011. So I just recently got over the rawness of it all, really. But when I started MommyLoves, it was actually 13 years ago now; I just celebrated 13 years, March of this year. Once I started that, though, 13 years ago, I saw only increases in revenue and customer satisfaction. I mean, everything grew.

It would just – the next year and the next year and everything got higher and higher. 2007 was my biggest year and it surpassed any income I had ever experienced as an employee. It was amazing. And I was the main breadwinner of my family until my first son was born, so that was my entire livelihood. In 2008 that all changed, but unfortunately I didn’t. Of course, we all know what happened in 2008, right?

John: Oh, yeah.

Mary Kathryn: And that year my revenue dropped by half. I had just launched a new line of high end maternity shirts; because that’s what MommyLoves was, maternity, novelty maternity wear, and these high end maternity shirts had Swarovski crystals on them so they were gorgeous. And that bombed, spectacularly, okay? But I still had all the inventory, I still had everything that I had to try and sell. I had a little debt from the launch, but that quickly started to climb. So I started to panic. I tried blogging more, I tried selling more, I tried to get more wholesale accounts, I tried every new idea that popped into my head or that I read from online experts.

2009 came along and my revenue dropped by half again, and again dropped by half in 2010, but I kept hanging on while my debt climbed over $60,000.00. John, I just couldn’t let go of this business or make a quick decision as to its fate because it was interwoven with me. I would go to bed every night and wake up every morning for three years with a burning pit in my stomach. And that burning pit was, what I saw as my own shame and disappointment in my business and myself. Because MommyLoves was basically a part of my personal identity. It was my personal identity. If it failed, that meant I failed and that just wasn’t an option.

So, finally, in 2011 things started to turn around just a little bit, but more importantly, I started to turn around and my amazing husband came to my rescue. We liquidated some of our assets, part of our IRAs and things and paid off the debt completely and I finally let go of my personal attachment to MommyLoves. And, you know, looking back there’s one thing that could have stopped this from going on so long and stopped me from beating myself up so badly. I know now that if I had a mentor or a mastermind group, they would have helped me see this situation clearly instead of through that cloud of emotions.

But as it was, I used the only mentor available to me at the time, and that was Pat Flynn. I used his techniques and turned MommyLoves into a residual income business. And I turned over all the manufacturing to someone else, I sold all my equipment, but I kept designing and promoting. And that finally freed me to pick my head up and breathe fresh air so I could start something else. And that led to Parent Entrepreneur Power and sitting here talking to you.

John: Wow, well, the phrase that you used, Mary Kathryn, that I just loved was “it was interwoven within me.” Because I know that entrepreneurs listening right now, you’re resonating with that. If you’ve ever created something from scratch, if it’s your baby, it gets interwoven within you and it’s not easy to let go. And that’s why your biggest take-away was definitely mine as well. You needed that mastermind of like-minded entrepreneurs who could see through your cloud.

You needed that mentor who had been there, who had gone through stuff like that, to shake you and say, “Mary Kathryn, it’s time to let go. It’s time to move forward.” And fortunately you had Pat Flynn, who was that mentor from afar and that’s super powerful. He gave you that aha moment and that’s what I want to segue into now, is that was a massive aha moment. So take a second here and share with us the aha moment that you want to tell the Fire Nation right now, as the one that you had, that you know the we, as listeners, are gonna resonate with. Tell us that story.

Mary Kathryn: Well, I’ve had three entrepreneurial aha moments. I won’t go into all three, obviously I only have an assignment of one, so the most recent, though, involves my two favorite online mentors from a distance, as you mentioned a minute ago, and that’s what I call the mentors from a distance. But first, like everything else in life, a series of events leads us to actually recognizing an aha moment. Because we can have them, but if the series of events has not prepared us to recognize them, we won’t and it’ll just slip by. And the first event that led to this particular moment was the death of my mother-in-law.

Jean, my mother-in-law, took me in, oh my gosh, 32 years ago this year, John. I’ve been married 32 years. But she took me in, not necessarily with open arms because she wasn’t a hugger or anything, but definitely with an open heart. And my husband and I were first girlfriend and boyfriend and married very young. I was 19 and he was 20. I’m Italian-Irish and I was raised with hugs, so my poor German mother-in-law, who never hugged anyone, didn’t know what hit her when I joined the clan.

When she took her last breath in September of 2009, I was the last person she saw. And mine was the last voice she heard and I will never forget the look in her eyes. At that moment I knew that if I were blessed enough to have someone who loves me around my bed as I die, the look they see in my eyes will be peace, happiness, and determination to kick ass in the afterlife. Let me tell you.

John: Shivers. Got it. Shivers.

Mary Kathryn: So early in 2012 when I was looking around for my next gig I knew I wanted to start a podcast but I had no idea what I wanted to talk about. So MommyLoves was in its teenage stage, pretty independent with some direction from me, and I had dabbled in self-publishing, but quickly realized that was not the niche that I wanted to sink my teeth into. Then August 16, 2013 I was listening to a chat between my favorite podcaster Pat Flynn, and my soon to be favorite podcaster, Mr. JLD.

John: Oh, schnapples!

Mary Kathryn: Seriously, episode 77 of SPI is where I heard you say “the baby effect” for the first time, John, and I was hit over the head by my next entrepreneurial idea. I was driving to pick up one of my sons from school and I almost got in an accident. Really.

John: Oh, wow, and that’s not a legacy I want to leave.

Mary Kathryn: No, no, no, I didn’t, thank goodness. I’m sitting here, I’m fine. But you know those times when you’re so consumed by a thought that you can’t even see anything in front of you? You can’t even see where you’re going. That’s how hard this hit me over the head and I remember my son asking me as he got in the car, he was asking me, “Is something wrong?” Because he could tell I wasn’t my usual self, asking the normal questions, “How was your day?” all that stuff.

But I was a bit gun-shy about my entrepreneurial ability so I really had to start learning everything I could about podcasting and I started a subtle campaign to get my husband warmed up to the idea. Unfortunately, though, this was before Podcasters Paradise. So I had to use Pat’s free podcasting tutorials, which were amazing, but I would have loved to have had your wonderful program. But I took baby steps doing research, getting equipment, building a website, blah, blah, blah, because I was still the main caregiver of my two boys.

And then finally in August 2014 I jumped in the deep end and started this new venture. And just like with MommyLoves, I did that during naptime and bedtime, I now worked during school time. My first podcast interview request that I sent out was, of course, to Pat and boy was I nervous when I sent out that email. But he accepted graciously and his comment that my concept was a topic that really needed to be addressed, man, that just fueled me to keep on going. And quickly approaching my 100th episode with amazing parent entrepreneurs coming up, like Aaron Walker, Success to Significance, that you had here.

John: He’s amazing, twice.

Mary Kathryn: Yeah, and incredible conversations already with the likes of Dr. Katie Reid of Unblind my Mind, and Shawn Stevenson, I know the model health show that you worked with real closely and I’m launching business courses and specifically around parents. But most importantly, again, I’m talking with and learning from incredible individuals like you John, and I’m having a blast with every single one. But just like my first business, this one happened with hundreds of small choices, small steps, to do something significant every single day.

John: What I love about this story specifically, Mary Kathryn, is that you’re really highlighting for our listeners, Fire Nation, the ripple effect. I mean, you heard episode 77 where I was on Smart Passive Income for the first time and I just kind of used a phrase that I honestly had just been working with and was a little nervous to even use because it was such a big stage, SPI, but I threw it out there and that hit you over the head and that went on to be one of the reasons that you went for it and have now a podcast that’s nearing the century mark, which puts you in the one percentile, by the way, of all podcasters of all time, which is absolutely…

Mary Kathryn: Wow.

John: Yeah, yeah, an incredible, incredible achievement for so many reasons and that, Fire Nation, is the opportunity that you have when you go forward and share your passion and share your skills or the combination of the both, as [inaudible] genius. You have the opportunity to impact people that you don’t even know you’re impacting at the time. I did not know that those words hit Mary Kathryn over the head like they did when I said them. And here we are talking about it now and the ripple effect that you’ve now had, Mary Kathryn, with people that would never would have heard of JLD, Pat Flynn, EntrepreneurOnFire, SPI, never.

You’re now impacting people and making this world a better place. And that’s what we’re doing Fire Nation, we’re building this massive ripple effect, that’s just making this world a better place. We could go on for eternity about the awesomeness of this stuff, but Mary Kathryn, I think you know what time it is. You’ve listened for long enough. We are about to enter the lightening round, but before we do, let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors.

Mary Kathryn, welcome to the lightening round, where you get to share incredible resources and mind blowing answers. Sound like a plan?

Mary Kathryn: Ready to go.

John: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Mary Kathryn: Fear, fear, and more fear, coupled with the imposter syndrome, how’s that?

John: I love it all, with the cherry on top being the imposter syndrome. Mary Kathryn, what’ the best advice you’ve ever received?

Mary Kathryn: I’m not trying to suck up, John, I swear to God.

John: I believe you.

Mary Kathryn: I have to tell you, it’s follow one course until success.

John: Focus!

Mary Kathryn: No, totally. Because of what I mentioned already, because of that adaptability, and all that kind of stuff, I really have to focus in order to really get anything done. So that one thing made a huge difference in my business.

John: What’s a personal habit that you do have that you believe contributes to your success?

Mary Kathryn: My power morning routine, really. Head space helps me clear my head so I can get out of my head.

John: Love that. Do you have an internet resource, like Evernote, that you can share with our listeners?

Mary Kathryn: Yeah, it also pertains to focus. I use a Pomodoro Timer. I set that and I do just total focus blitzes, basically, for 20 to 25 minutes and then I come up for air and go do something else and then come back to my timer and do it again.

John: And just knowing that you only have that much time to get a task done is like, “Okay, I need to step up to the next level, laser focus down and make it happen.” And Mary Kathryn, if you could recommend just one book for our listeners, what would it be and why?

Mary Kathryn: Well, I’m sorry, but I have to tell you two. One’s a nonfiction – okay, real quick. One’s a nonfiction book and it’s called One Less, One More, Follow Your Heart, Be Happy, Change Slowly and that’s by Robbie Vorhause and the reason is because it’s all about little choices every day. Do one less thing that makes you feel bad or that you want to let go of and do one more thing that makes you feel good or that that you want to move toward, every single day.

And fictional book, I have to tell you one of my favorite quotes is “It is our choices that show who we truly are far more than our abilities.” That probably hasn’t been mentioned on eofire yet, but that’s from a fictional character Albus Dumbledore. Do you know who Albus Dumbledore is?

John: Is that Harry Potter?

Mary Kathryn: Yes, of course it is. Yeah, that fictional book, that book has so many amazing lessons and it talks about an amazing journey that you could just pick pieces out, like that one thing, it’s our choices. So those are the two books I would suggest.

John: Well, Fire Nation, I know that you love audio, so I’ve teamed up with Audible and if you haven’t already, you can get an amazing audio book for free at eofirebook.com. And Mary Kathryn, this next question’s the last of the lightening round, but it’s a doozy. Imagine you woke up tomorrow morning in a brand new world, identical to Earth, but you knew no one. You still have all the experience and knowledge you currently have. Your food and shelter is taken care of, but all you have is a laptop and $500.00. What would you do in the next seven days?

Mary Kathryn: Okay, since there are over 7 billion people in this new world, just like the one I left, and now there are over 900 aliens just like me, by the time I’m dropped off, I would start day one researching to find those other 900 people. I don’t start businesses without some kind of personal experience in the game, so I’d find as many of these other aliens as possible and by now many of them have probably created insane successes, right?

John: They are alumni of EntrepreneurOnFire.

Mary Kathryn: Yeah, so of course, so that would take me more than seven days, that I’ve got right now, but during that time I would get the domain eofirealiens.com and start blogging around my experience being dropped in this world and start a podcast around that experience. And once I found and interviewed at least 50 of these aliens and my other fellow aliens started to find me, I’d create a combo live and virtual conference to get us all together to talk about our experiences and what we learned and built. And the other 100 or so newbies like me could gain incredible experience and wisdom from the old timers like Pat and all the other amazing people you had on. Isn’t it amazing that he’d be guiding me even then?

John: He never goes away.

Mary Kathryn: He does, he does. But I’d find some common pain points and partner with those other wise aliens and no matter what business resulted, John, I would have found some incredible friends with whom I share a very unique characteristic and really that’s what business is all about, as far as I’m concerned. Community and going beyond yourself, right?

John: Absolutely. And eofirealiens.com, I’m sorry Fire Nation, it’s not gonna be available because I’m gonna go buy it right now.

Mary Kathryn: You better.

John: Mary Kathryn, I want to end today how we started, on fire, with you sharing one parting piece of guidance, the best way we can connect with you and then we’ll say goodbye.

Mary Kathryn: Walk step by step like you know where you’re going and you will surely get there. Fear is a barrier you need to own then leave behind to truly enjoy the journey. Fire Nation, I hope you walk step by step where you want to go. And you can find me at Parent Entrepreneur Power on iTunes and online and of course powerparentsacademy.com and you can email me directly at mary@parententrepreneurpower.com. And John, I have a free gift for Fire Nation.

John: Fire Nation loves gifts.

Mary Kathryn: So do I. I have the audio version of the book that I wrote from that two broken legs while eight months pregnant story and it’s called Say Bump and Take a Left, How I Birthed a Baby and a Business after a Huge Bump in the Road. You can also get the free audio book if you wanted that link, too. The link will be at powerparentsacademy.com/fire.

John: powerparentsacademy.com/fire and Fire Nation you know this. You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You’ve been hanging out with MKJ and JLD all day today so keep up the heat and head over to eofire.com. Just type in Mary or Mary Kathryn in the search bar, her [inaudible] [00:31:05] page will pop right up with all this goodness and I do just want to say one more time it was parentsentrepreneur.com and your email again Mary Kathryn?

Mary Kathryn: Mary@parententrepreneurpower.com

John: Mary@parententrepreneur.com and don’t forget the gift Fire Nation, powerparentsacademy.com/fire. This will all be linked up in the [inaudible] page. Don’t be afraid to go directly to the links either. And Mary Kathryn, I want to thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that we salute you and we’ll catch you on the flip side.