00:24:43.460I was working as an assistant for three hedge fund managers, which is as horrible as it was as horrible as it sounds.
00:24:50.620But I was like. I have diabetes, like, how am I going to get really good health insurance and like, how am I going to be able to afford a studio apartment in New York?
00:25:00.460Like, I guess I have to take this job. And I had the Sunday scaries on Saturday because I knew that I was just going to have one more day and then I was going to have to do it again.
00:25:10.100every time my phone rang I was like what do they want you know and like just living in that was
00:25:16.740horrible and we do live in capitalism and I wanted to do the thing that I most love to do which I
00:25:24.580initially thought was liberating people from uh thinking in in a way that limited their sexual
00:25:34.120expression and self-love, but was actually very similarly liberating people from thinking that
00:25:40.680they had to do this job that they hated and that there was no other way. So, so much of who I am
00:25:47.200as a person is like, people said it was supposed to look like this. Well, if it doesn't look that
00:25:50.760way for you, like how, what way would make you happy? And in my business, it's about helping
00:25:55.580people build that from a business perspective, doing the thing that makes them happy. So that's
00:26:01.900what i would say soul work is and you you say that entrepreneurship is a liberatory practice
00:26:08.260and and i love this because the the implication is like the freedom to sort of make your own rules
00:26:14.480and this is something that reese and i go back to we've been doing the missing riches project for
00:26:19.400five years and the first and kind of only rule that we ever made was our podcast our rules like0.56
00:26:26.420we don't have to emulate the gross fucking negligence and you know exploitation of each0.52
00:26:34.440other it's just the two of us um let's create something and every day we sort of have to0.95
00:26:41.280remind ourselves that we don't have to fall back like i i'm i'm recovering from covid and i was
00:26:47.120like i i can do it i can you know like and reese was like babe like you are more valuable to me
00:26:53.740alive than not alive so like let's take a week off like there doesn't have to be an episode this
00:27:01.800week there doesn't have to be whatever that we had planned like are we are more valuable to each
00:27:08.500other than whatever we're we're producing right but I would love for you to explore the the the
00:27:14.840idea and expand on the idea of entrepreneurship as liberatory liberatory is one of my favorite words
00:27:22.500thank you for like all of the questions that you're asking me today because it's really
00:27:27.480the I think the first time I've on a podcast episode like woven together all of the parts of
00:27:34.800like I worked this job that I hated I felt depressed because of my medical condition I
00:27:38.700like went to school for this I thought like and how wishcraft plays into it because it is a kind
00:27:44.340of a story that encompasses so many things and I haven't really gotten to talk about them like this
00:28:09.480It like recognizes, like, I think witchcraft is so liberatory.
00:28:14.560It's like people were murdered for communing with this sacred recognition of their power.
00:28:22.940And what I always think about is like the reason that witches were targeted and oppressed and murdered and or not even witches, people who maybe were not even wouldn't have self-identified that way, but appeared.
00:28:39.840It's like the that story is about trying to put out the light of somebody recognizing their own power, because if you deem yourself to be, quote unquote, sovereign, like God hath giveth me this power because he said so, there is nothing scarier than a person who is like, actually, I am aware of my divine power and I commune with it.
00:29:05.580Like, of course we killed witches. So witchcraft is a liberal, it's a reclamation. It's a
00:29:12.460liberatory returning to, I'm nobody outside of me knows my power better than me, like,
00:29:19.860and the divine and my relationship to it. I polyamory is a liberatory practice. If you
00:29:26.680think of it as a practice for some people, it's an orientation for me, it's a practice of like,
00:29:31.560somebody told me love was supposed to look like this but like it's actually been looking like
00:29:36.040this and like that is so beautiful and it is not um less valuable or less what love means because
00:29:44.420it doesn't look like some societal prescriptive definition entrepreneurship was liberatory
00:29:52.020because I didn't have to work a horrible job that I hated anymore but it's also because people tell
00:29:58.740us, you know, you go to school, you get a degree, you pay off student debt until your 40s, or maybe
00:30:02.720even your 50s. And then you get a job and you work there for your 401k. And then hopefully you retire
00:30:07.960and have some good years. And I was like, I don't want to do that. Like, I don't work on Fridays,
00:30:13.680I take the majority of Fridays off, working four days a week is liberatory experience of my
00:30:20.700schedule, where previously Saturdays, I would have anxiety. Having access to enough money that
00:30:28.240my dog got a fungal infection and I didn't have to stress out about how I was going to pay for it.
00:30:33.780Or my mom, I paid her mortgage last year when she needed that. And I was able to like having
00:30:41.600goals to have money that like, for me, money is not the goal. Freedom is the goal. And like
00:30:46.340money is a tool that has created freedom in my life. Not a hundred percent of the time.
00:30:50.620Inflation is insane right now. Like I'm building out a lot of things within the business. I do
00:30:55.380have less disposable income than maybe I did this time last year. And like I have freedom that a lot
00:31:02.220of people do not have because of my access to money that the business has made, which I didn't
00:31:08.580feel like I would have if I worked the job that I thought that I was supposed to work in order to be
00:31:14.060both like, quote unquote, safe and successful in society. So like entrepreneurship has been
00:31:19.400hugely liberatory for me because of that can you like maybe rant for me and then we'll turn it into
00:31:27.480a positive once once we've angrily ranted about this i mean in the united states specifically
00:31:34.920i'm in canada so i'm already liberated from this um but the fact that your health care is tied to
00:31:43.200your employment seems like an insane capitalist dystopian oh yeah and we've spoken to so many
00:31:58.400people who who would would love to do what you do and like you know forego their corporate job but
00:32:04.640like yourself maybe they have a chronic illness um maybe they have children and who have chronic
00:32:11.800illnesses or there's something that fundamentally requires them to have good insurance so like
00:32:19.280can you maybe commiserate with those people and then and then turn it around and tell me how you0.98
00:32:25.320conjured the bravery to reject that oh my god it's so fucked up here it's like it is insane0.85
00:32:32.840the thing of like to paint a picture for people who are listening to this in a country where maybe0.97
00:32:38.700they have access to universal health care um i pay 747 a month for my insurance which is like
00:32:49.800the platinum one and i bought the platinum one because like i'm sorry so gross like we're using0.81
00:32:59.600the same terminology that we're using for like fucking credit cards and like okay sorry carry0.96
00:33:05.760on. And no, please rant with me. It's, it's horrible. So yeah, even, and also I just heard0.98
00:33:11.940my phone off because I can feel my blood sugar going down and I'm like, it's going to make a
00:33:15.700loud alarm noise, sirens and alarms. What does it say about me versus your other guests who like
00:33:21.760their background noise is wind chimes, but I, I digress again. I do want to say like your health
00:33:29.820is more important than this podcast. If you need to take a second and like get it, I need to get
00:33:35.360some honey we will pause and like promise promise totally i wouldn't be able to not pause like it's
00:33:42.380and also look at how you wanted to give me that but it was hard for you to give it to yourself
00:33:46.320when you had covid so i just want to mirror that to you okay but yes i have in the middle of client
00:33:51.780calls been like i need to go get some honey i do these little like rip they're like tiny pre-packaged
00:33:58.420like honey things that's my because because glucose tabs which is what other diabetics
00:34:03.400eat, they taste, it's disgusting. It's like Tums. So I do honey. Anyway, if I need honey,
00:34:07.780I'll let you know. But yeah, platinum version versus gold or bronze or whatever. And the
00:34:14.480difference in that is an out of pocket that you would have to pay out of pocket before your
00:34:22.520insurance would even start to cover anything. So if you buy like the bronze, the out of pocket
00:34:29.360is like, I don't know, I've seen it 3,600. I've seen it eight grand. So like you have to pay
00:34:35.980$3,600 for whatever it is that you're buying before your insurance kicks in. So the reason
00:34:41.420that I buy the platinum is because by the time I pay the out of pocket on insulin, it's the same
00:34:48.280amount as it would be to just pay more a month. So it's like a stupid math equation that is like,0.98
00:34:56.540okay, so I pay $3,600 now, plus two or three or $400 a month, or I pay $747 a month,0.95
00:35:06.880and you're already covering this stuff that I have to buy anyway, because I have a chronic
00:35:10.440condition. So like I knew going into entrepreneurship that I would be having to buy
00:35:18.180like the most expensive health insurance where other people in my age range, who don't have
00:35:23.180chronic conditions are maybe paying between two and four hundred dollars a month but like
00:35:27.900if they knock on wood you know have an emergency are then paying like three thousand four thousand0.98
00:35:36.860five thousand dollars out of pocket it's stupid it's terrifying yeah yeah and now the light at0.98
00:35:48.340the end of the tunnel turn it around tell me about how you conjured the bravery to to like1.00
00:35:53.560enter this system can we stay in the dark for like five more minutes oh let's let's do some
00:36:01.220shadow work let's wallow and the reason i say that is because i i want to share it like i
00:36:07.800graduated from college the year that obamacare and the open market for health insurance uh the
00:36:14.680year that it like started, but it didn't actually go into effect where I could utilize it until
00:36:23.200November of that year. So I graduated in May and I had six months where what people prior to that
00:36:31.560point had been dealing with for decades, which was that if you did not have employee-sponsored
00:36:38.360health insurance, you could just get rejected from any open market plan for having a preexisting
00:36:45.300condition. So that was like the situation in the United States. Like that's what Obama, like what
00:36:51.860to me, why, what, what he did that was most important in his term in office was really like
00:36:58.120create Obamacare because I graduated from college. I got kicked off of my student health insurance.
00:37:04.620I was diagnosed my senior year. So I didn't know that this was a thing where I was like, okay,
00:37:12.520well now I have to go buy Blue Cross Blue Shield, whatever. And everyone was like, okay, yeah,
00:37:18.340you're 21. You're not a smoker. We have tons of plans for you. And then they get to the question,
00:37:23.720you have diabetes. Oh, we have no plans. So I was uninsured from May of that year to November
00:37:31.540of that year living off of insulin samples that my doctor would give me. And I went to a diabetes
00:37:37.860support group because I was like, what the actual fuck? And this was honestly, for me, the birthplace0.99
00:37:42.760of like, I'm an activist because I didn't realize that people were living inside of these kinds of
00:37:47.520systems. So I went to this diabetes support group and I was talking to a woman in her like 30s or
00:37:55.820forties. I don't know. I was 21. Everyone was just older than me at that time. Right. And I told her
00:38:02.000what I was like, what do I do? And she goes, okay, this is what you do. Because I was afraid I was
00:38:06.880going to have a seizure because I was newly diagnosed and learning how to manage it. And I
00:38:10.980didn't want to be foot with a $20,000 hospital bill. I was already paying off a $12,000 copay
00:38:16.600for being in the ICU for three days when I got diagnosed. And she was like, this is what you do.
00:38:23.160have your boyfriend put you in your car and drive your car into a wall and your car insurance will1.00
00:38:27.820pay your hospital now shut the fuck up I'm laughing which is what my therapist says I do0.99
00:38:39.400to avoid feeling the discomfort of very difficult things yeah same same same same I I just have to0.99
00:38:45.820tell you my spouse is always like Amy like it's it's not funny and I'm like I know it's not funny
00:38:52.400this is how my body reacts to like uncomfortable absurd like yeah yeah insane so I that's why I
00:39:01.600took that job the horrible hedge fund assistant job because I was like I can't make forty three
00:39:08.540thousand dollars a year and then like the for a just insurance like there's just no way so I took
00:39:16.200that job because I thought that I needed to have a job. Like I was also at that time copywriting
00:39:22.660and like doing side hustles that like have made me a great business owner today. They like
00:39:27.200cultivated a lot of the skills that I use in my work. Like I was doing all these freelance fashion
00:39:32.200writing, like having fun in New York, you know, I was like 25, but I thought there is no way I
00:39:38.260could pursue this as a career because I would not be able to afford the health insurance.
00:39:42.940so the light at the end of the tunnel is like I got very lucky like I'm very privileged when I
00:39:51.260left that job my dad had started displaying signs of dementia so I took family medical
00:39:58.680leave of absence so I had like four months of paid wages before I left and I was like I'm going
00:40:09.160to use this time where I have insurance for four months, uh, to figure out what I'm going to do.
00:40:16.860And then I had Cobra, which is a program in America that when you leave, if your employee
00:40:22.980options to give it to you, which they did because they subbed, I probably can't say more than that
00:40:29.300without violating something, but they did. So they gave me Cobra, but I was paying, then it was like
00:40:35.960$600 a month for the same insurance I had had when I was covered by them, which was a good plan
00:40:42.060because capitalism, we give people better coverage when they opt into working within the system that
00:40:48.920is most convenient for the relationship between political pundits and corporations. You will have
00:40:57.840better healthcare if you step in line and you work for a company, right? So this is another way in
00:41:04.200which I think entrepreneurship is a liberatory.
00:47:41.340That could be 8k a month, like depending on where you live.
00:47:44.160And if you have children and like if you have a partner, like whatever the number is, is what I teach people to create, not some kind of hypothetical like mountain with no top, which is what the greed kind of is.
00:48:02.160And I love this idea from another money book I love that I think we talked about on my podcast, The Soul of Money by Lynn Twist. That's my favorite money book of all time, where she talks about sufficiency, where it's like, what do you need to feel good about what you do? And that's why freedom is the goal. Freedom is what I value. I value being able to go visit my mom when I want to without stressing out about how much it's going to cost to fly across the country and get dog care.
00:48:30.780like I value being able to invest in the business in a way that like impacts more people which means
00:48:36.960that I'm gonna have to spend money to like have somebody help me do things that I just frankly
00:48:41.040can't or I'm not interested in doing money is the tool that you use to create those things
00:48:46.720and the feeling of being abundant inside of capitalism inside of white supremacist patriarchy
00:48:53.380on stolen land that like, how could we ever actually own as ours anyway, is like you feeling
00:49:00.640abundant doing things that you like doing for your livelihood, like that is liberatory. And that's
00:49:07.800what I coach and teach. And I think it makes me very different from like most practitioners doing
00:49:13.400this work. But my goal is that I can help other people with similar values do that kind of work
00:49:20.220because we need it and you being like oh my god I don't want to charge too much or oh my god like
00:49:25.920what are people going to think about me is not helping anybody it's not helping anybody
00:49:29.720and you I know like so much of your work is like um values-based you talk about this like
00:49:38.040values-based what would you say are your core values I love this question it is uh the first
00:49:45.680assignment in my signature course business, which, which is the same name as my podcast,
00:49:50.660which like is coming out the month that this episode will be released. So people can go check
00:49:55.280it out. Um, but the first module is about values and two, I love giving resources and also credit
00:50:02.920because like, I didn't come up with having business values, but, uh, Brene Brown has a
00:50:07.180great exercise on values and dare to lead. And then my coach, Trudy LeBron, who wrote the anti-racist0.81
00:50:12.460business book, her book starts with values. And the point of values is like, I've coached people
00:50:19.700who are literally running like million dollar companies with no values and everybody has no
00:50:25.600shared vision. Like if you have a huge team and you're making a lot of money, but you have no
00:50:31.700values, there are problems. Look at Amazon, like look at like any large company, maybe their values
00:50:40.300are like efficiency and profit and like how those things are run. So the first thing I do with
00:50:46.960clients and in my programs is like pick your business values, because if you are operating
00:50:51.960from your business values, it's very hard to not necessarily mess up. Like I've spent money that I
00:50:58.840wish that I hadn't spent. I've definitely harmed people. We can't guarantee safety because we're
00:51:03.020imperfect people, but like you act in accordance with your values. They provide a foundation and
00:51:08.320a compass and a framework for any decision that you make. And they help if you have a team,
00:51:13.740your team be unified around a particular mission. So in my business, the values that I operate under
00:51:21.480the first is integrity. The second is accountability, which is the newest one and came, you know,
00:51:28.320from really divesting from a system that I do believe is harmful that I know that I taught.
00:51:32.840so that has been really important for kind of rebranding the shape of my work and pivoting and
00:51:40.180like building what I've been doing for the past couple of years um and it's also just an
00:51:44.460acknowledgement that I'm like a cis white lady who is probably going to do something that is
00:51:49.420like going to require accountability at some point um so I want people to know that they
00:51:54.380can expect that from me like instead of safety they can expect accountability um sovereignty
00:52:00.660you know better about your life than I do. I think another way in which coaching can be like a cult
00:52:07.700is the presumption that the coach has some kind of divine knowing or agency that then the person
00:52:17.720who is operating as their client is making like major life decisions and taking their coach's
00:52:23.980advice instead of their own advice. And I only know what you're telling me right now. I don't
00:52:29.200know like if it was a miscommunication between you and that employee and then I'm telling you
00:52:34.800to take a particular action and then you do that and then like it fucks up something in your life
00:52:39.560like you know you're the best authority on yourself um and then authenticity because I
00:52:47.900I don't think I would have been as good at being a therapist I have a yearly existential crisis
00:52:53.260where I think about becoming a therapist instead, because I love therapy. Like I love my therapist
00:52:59.440has been like really helpful in a different, and it's an art form that is so different from
00:53:03.720coaching in that, like you leave a lot more for the client to say, whereas I really direct people
00:53:10.940and guide them to take particular kinds of actions. So I'm always like, oh, like, should I
00:53:15.860be doing that instead? And I think of it as a healing art and I love that. But anyway, the
00:53:21.880point being I think I would be a bad therapist because I don't think I couldn't talk about like0.94
00:53:25.840fucking candles and being like like like authenticity is like if you don't like this0.79
00:53:35.220as a brand identity like go purchase services from somebody else like I can't I'm a Leo rising0.99
00:53:40.560I can't really like be not this you you have spoken about how your your coaching is is trauma
00:53:49.240informed I think you you've done such a beautiful job like you were saying before of like
00:53:54.400integrating all of these different aspects of your whole self into this coaching that you do
00:54:02.300it's really remarkable and listeners if you're like me and you just wish that this conversation
00:54:10.160could go on and on and on um Kara is going to do a class for our coven mates so if you're not
00:54:18.380already a coven member maybe this is you know your your call to action otherwise
00:54:24.260i just i've been having such an amazing time and i really feel like even just in this conversation
00:54:35.820that i'm i'm starting to like get how to flip that switch of of you know um devaluing myself
00:54:45.360because i don't want to allow greed into my system um and i and i don't think that those0.61
00:54:53.100things are are synonymous like valuing yourself and being greedy are not fucking synonymous
00:54:59.720and and i love that that that is is part of your message um for those people who are not members
00:55:07.040of the missing witches coven who still want you know they want to cut out the middle man cut out
00:55:11.580missing witches and go straight to you that's fine you know you don't got to do nothing i i
00:55:22.800really listeners like to follow your heart and follow follow your values more specifically um
00:55:31.100and if that yellow brick road leads them straight to you then i'm happy with that so how how do how
00:55:38.840would they do that how would they join your non-cult so there are a few free things we have
00:55:46.260for for folks so there's a mini course called how to think about your business like a business and
00:55:52.160not your personal existential crisis that is the gift for signing up for my email list and I send
00:55:57.280emails every Monday um and you get like a video and a workbook and I'm like I love my email list
00:56:03.040like you can find me on Instagram at Kara Kovacs coaching but if you want to hear me say what I
00:56:07.540really think, come to my email list. And then Business Witch, my signature course, it is $9.97.
00:56:18.720At the time of this broadcasting, I believe it will be $9.97. We are considering raising the
00:56:24.800price in next year, but at the time of this recording. And it's four modules. It's self-guided.
00:56:30.680So it's building your business from your values and your mission, ethical client acquisition and
00:56:37.100sales, trauma-informed care and accountability and coaching. So it basically teaches like healers,
00:56:42.260coaches, hypnotherapists, service providers. We've had people who like work in nonprofits
00:56:46.260and want to transition into coaching nonprofit leaders. We've had all different kinds of folks
00:56:50.940in the program. It teaches you ethical sales and money work that is rooted in some of the stuff
00:56:56.000that you and I've been talking about today. And there's twice a week office hours where you can
00:57:01.980drop in and ask your business questions. So like people come in and they give me, like, they'll
00:57:06.840read, you know, the, the sales pitch that they've been working on and I will lovingly rip it to
00:57:11.900shreds. Or they come in and they're like, this is the strategy for how I want to launch, or I'm
00:57:19.760having this issue with a client. It's literally like office hours. You can drop in whenever you
00:57:23.240want. We have those twice a week. And then I do have for more established business owners,
00:57:27.500a one-on-one practice. And that is really for somebody who like already knows what it is that
00:57:32.120they're selling. They've sold a couple of them, at least in the past, like, you know, if, if you
00:57:39.400are just starting out, I probably wouldn't take you as a one-on-one client, but those people who
00:57:44.320have clear missions, my specialty is like helping them shape and expand them. And always happy to
00:57:50.500have conversations with people who are interested in that. And then my podcast business, which you
00:57:55.040can listen to amy and risa's episode over there from september of 2023 yeah we'll we'll put that
00:58:00.600in the show notes for this too okay um also um instagram your website is kara kovacs
00:58:06.960but i always pronounce it like that because people won't know how to spell it
00:58:12.720and your instagram is kara kovacs coaching yes that's correct okay for business which it's
00:58:21.660karakovacs.com slash course but there's a button on my website so you can toggle to it there and
00:58:28.700I'm like very chatty with people and also very good at stating the boundary of like
00:58:34.420unless you're a client we're not going to keep having this conversation but if you want to dm
00:58:38.840me I am like really open to connecting with folks okay my final wrap-up question so you can answer0.99
00:58:46.160this as briefly as possible other than fucking yourself with a candle what is a magical practice0.94
00:58:51.400that people can integrate into their business aspirations I thought you were gonna ask me0.98
00:58:57.340what else like a carrot a cucumber I was like where is this going where's this going
00:59:05.400no I'm a huge fan of like sigil magic too so like writing the intention for what it is that you want
00:59:12.740to create making it into a symbol also carving that into a candle um I do a lot of just like
00:59:19.980journaling and dreaming and embodying the feeling of having had the thing which that was like really
00:59:25.400how I started my business and even though it was not I thought it was going to be around sexuality
00:59:30.840so the things that I were envisioning and like imagining took their own shape and their own
00:59:36.720course there was a feeling of arriving and like there was a lot of the things that I really did
00:59:42.980think about and I think that there's a way in which I'm not answering this shortly but there's
00:59:47.360a way in which manifestation can be a lot of spiritual bypassing and kind of appropriative
00:59:54.700in nature. But you also cannot build a successful body of work if you do not intentionally imagine
01:00:03.980yourself to embody the energy of the person, the version of you that you want to be. Like
01:00:09.360when I taught my first workshop and I was so anxious, like I slowed down and I prayed and
01:00:16.040And I imagined like feeling really powerful on the stage, you know, before I teach a class,
01:00:21.420I still engage with that kind of ritual or prayer.
01:00:24.660So like if you are getting stuck in a cycle of imposter syndrome or fear or procrastination,
01:00:30.460like the version of you who has this thing that you want is not doing that.
01:00:34.420And imbuing yourself energetically with it is a very powerful, but also kind of necessary