(27) How to be Resilient and Remain Vulnerable? with Kate Bradley Chernis

Kate Bradley Chernis, founder & CEO of Lately, opens up in this episode and reveals her self-doubts, the roller-coaster journey of entrepreneurship, dealing with rejection, managing fears, being vulnerable and above all why Kate still loves this journey. Hope you enjoy the ride as much as I did! 

 In this episode, we cover:

• Career change from Radio Hosting to own business
• How to change how we feel through how we express ourselves
• How to deal with rejection on a daily basis: ‘I Eat bitter pills for breakfast, lunch & diner’!
• Struggles to see own success when focused on things to improve
• The rose petals metaphor

 ABOUT Kate Chernis:

 
Kate Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately, the only social media management platform that creates content FOR you with the power of AI. As a former marketing agency owner, Kate initially created the idea for Lately out of spreadsheets for then-client, Walmart, and got them a 130% ROI, year-over-year for three years. Prior to founding Lately, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise.

 CONNECT with Kate

LinkedIn
Twitter
Website

VIDEO of this episode

Video 

ABOUT Katie Stoddart
 
Katie founded ‘The Focus Bee’ and is an award-winning, international, high-performance coach. Katie supports founders and executives on sustaining peak performance in their business.  

CONNECT with Katie Stoddart, aka 'the focus bee':

Listen Katie Stoddart PODCAST
Visit Katie Stoddart BLOG
Connect Katie Stoddart on LINKEDIN
FREE TRAINING ON BEING FOCUSED

Transcript

[00:01] Katie: Welcome to the Focus B show, where Katie Stoddart high performance coach interviews experts around the world in performance and mindfulness. Now, here's your host. Katie.

[00:32] Katie: Welcome to another episode of the Focusby show. Today I'm here with Kate Bradley Cherness. Kate is the CEO and founder of Lately, which uses AI to transform long post content such as blogs into short posts. Kate is also an award winning radio producer and used to serve over 20 million listeners as an air host on SiriusXM. Thank you so much for joining the show today, Kate.

[01:05] Kate: Thanks so much, Katie. Good work. It's a wild bio, right?

[01:10] Katie: Yes. I tried to condense it into the pieces, the ones that drew attention to me. This is actually the first bio I want to talk about. So how come you transited from music director and air hose to being a CEO of late day?

[01:30] Kate: Yeah, so that is the question. Right? So I was in radio, and I'd been in radio for about a dozen years up and down the eastern seaboard here in the states in a really cool format. It's called AAA, which means adult album alternative. So I'm 46, Katie. I like rock and roll, and this particular format was really interesting because it jumped around from new and old music and rock and jazz and reggae and funk and all kinds of different genres. Kind of like your album collection at home, right? And it would pay not only the singles, but the deep cuts as well. And so I was taught to pursue the theater of the mind as the end all be all right. And I'll talk about this because it ties into now, right? So what's so interesting to me is the way we consume music, right? So music is a very emotional thing. It's incredibly valuable. It's something we really can't live without, interestingly enough, and the way our brains process music. So, the neuroscience of it says that your brain has to literally catalog or access every single song you've ever heard when you hear a new song in order to place that song in your music library inside your brain. And when it's doing that, there's nostalgia built into it, right? So it's also making you think of memories of every time you've heard all the songs it's accessing in order to place this new one in there. So that's why there is this great emotion about music, and that's why there's this feeling of comfort when something in a new song touches something you've heard before, right? So new and old together like a sandwich, right? And so your voice, Katie, is also a note. There's a frequency to your voice. And so the way you read text, when you read text, you hear it in your head. You're reading it out loud. So there's a similar idea with marketing, right? Whether you're reading it or hearing it is that it's the same idea of getting you to accept something new by making it familiar, couching it in something old, right? So interesting. And I was a fiction writing major in college, so writing is something that is interesting to me, of course. And so, as I was in radio, just to tell you the honest know, it was a boys club. It was sexual harassment galore. I didn't even know that was wrong, Katie, because it was just normal everywhere I'd ever been. That was just the right and but interestingly, the thing that bothered me was the hostile work environment. Like I couldn't understand. Why wasn't I getting the credit for what I was doing and why was I being pushed aside? And that started to really anger me. And my body I don't know if this has happened to you, but my body started it was trying to tell me to get out, started reacting. I had all these pains and I wasn't listening until finally I was incapacitated and I literally couldn't type. I couldn't do what everyone in the world had to do for work, right? And this obviously scared the heck out of me. And so I started to learn how to use voice activated software. This is almost 14 years ago now, right? So this was a new idea. So meaning I couldn't type at all without extreme pain and I looked normal, so people didn't believe me. So that was the other thing I was experiencing, was like even more hostility because I looked totally fine. What do you mean you can't do your work? You're faking it. Right? And so, first I hired an intern to type for me because no one would pay for it except for me. Then I hired a coach to help me with this voice activated software and I could only pay her in CDs because that's all I had. And finally this is a long story, but it's a good story. Finally I moved to another music related job and it was the same thing, another boys club. Didn't look like there's anything wrong with me. And I was terrified. I didn't know what to do. And I was trying all these alternative medicines, I was trying to pull from every toolkit that I had, but nothing was working, right? And my dad and I was crying all the time, right? I was just this toxic person. I used to smoke a lot. And my dad one day had enough and he shook me by the shoulders lovingly and said, you can't work for other people and there's no shame in that, right? So that was a pretty big moment for me. And I was like, oh, yeah. Okay. There's this other whole other path that I hadn't thought of. And so my now husband, my boyfriend at the time, he was so thoughtful. He walked down to the Barnes and Noble bookstore and he got me a book called The Art of the Start, which is Guy Kawasaki's famous startup book, right? And I started to read the book, and right in the first chapter, it says, don't make a plan, just get started. So I was like, I don't need this book. Stop reading it. And the next day, I met my first investors, who gave me $50,000 to start my first company.

[06:45] Katie: Amazing.

[06:47] Kate: Thanks. It was amazing. And it goes to show you a couple of things, and there's a little bit more to the story, but if we stop here, there was one more catalyst that I didn't tell you about because it's kind of embarrassing, but do you remember the book The Secret? Katie?

[07:01] Katie: Yes.

[07:02] Kate: Okay. So I was starting to read that book, and I hated self help books. I was just like, this is not for me. I'm too cool for this. And also, that's a very poorly written book, frankly. It's just very cheesy and corny. And I was like, I got to plow on because something is wrong. I got to fix whatever is wrong with me. And the good thing was that book reminded me, or it made me aware that what was coming out of my mouth all the time was, I hate work. I hate everything. I hate myself. I'm in pain, right? All these negative things were coming out of my mouth, and I knew I just had to change this cloud around me, right? So that was one thing. But there were some catalysts, both my husband and my dad. So my husband believed in me. And my dad, what he said was, there's no shame in that. And that was interesting because I felt shame, right? I was disappointing my male bosses, right? And this is something that's so interesting to me that I found I don't know if this happens to you, but women specifically do. Our first instinct is to self doubt and run through all the reasons why we are wrong, not the situation is wrong, why we are wrong. Right? And that sucks. It's a really crappy feeling to live in that place. All the stories that go in your head about how you're causing this, right? And it's called gaslighting right? Now. We have a term for that. It was fascinating that so I was in this moment, and then the guys that I met, I didn't even know they were angel investors. They just happened to go to lunch with me on a random thing. And when I was talking to them, I had my filter off. I was just being myself. And myself is very rough around the edges. And I just started cursing and talking about how I thought this idea was full of and they were like, oh, my God, we love you. So we went into business together. We had another music related company, and as we were marketing that, somebody else came along and said, hey, you're really good at marketing. Would you consult us? We'll pay you a lot more money, and you don't have to listen to bad music. Anymore. And I was like, this sounds like a great idea. And essentially that was Walmart, right? So that's how I got from radio to owning a marketing agency, and I created for Walmart a spreadsheet system that got them 130% ROI year over year for three years, which was the brainchild for what is now lately.

[09:35] Katie: That is such an amazing story. I have so many things to bounce off it's. Just sorry. I loved everything you said. From what you say, as women, we take to take it on, first of all, and then in general, your journey. And I had no idea it could be that toxic in that sort of environment. And also, it was interesting what you said about The Secret, because at the end, it just reminded you to be careful about what you were saying. So it doesn't really matter if it came from The Secret or another book or a blog post you read. Essentially, you started to pay attention. And of course, that has an impact on subconsciously how we absorb information. But that's amazing. And since you've done this transition and now that you're in marketing before Walmart, and now that you have lately as your own company, how has the journey been since then? How are you enjoying it? What sort of struggles have you had but rewards also.

[10:31] Kate: Yeah, so thanks for asking that question. I mean, it's interesting. In the beginning, right away, my whole mind shift started changing, even the pain that I was enduring, right? And it was because I opened the door, I changed the channel, and I learned very quickly that for me, not knowing where my next paycheck was, that level of stress was way more endurable for me than working for an Ahole. Right. Which is so crucial to know because so people think all the time, oh, I'm just going to start a company. I'm like, wait a second. The stress doesn't go away. You just have to decide which one you can tolerate, basically. Right. And amazingly, Katie, I'm clearly addicted to that because startup life is one hell of a roller coaster and it's all the way up and all the way down within an hour, several hours, several times a day. Right. Like, I get punched in the face multiple times a day, and I have for seven years now, but I get back up because I love it. Right? There's this manic addiction to it. Right, which is so crazy. And one thing I love the most is a little bit what we talked about, which is the understanding of when you're an underdog, the acknowledgment of the real reasons why and not policing other people about it, but letting them know that, you know so I've gotten really good at you could call it standing up for myself. Right. And not in a ***** way, but just really clearly saying, like, hey, what you're doing is not cool. I see it. I don't need an apology, but it ain't flying with me, right? And this is very hard to do. I still struggle with it. There are multiple occasions that happen all the time where something happens, and then later on I think, oh, my God, what the hell was that? And I didn't have the wherewithal in the moment even to say something. And we're going off piece a little bit, but one of the things I love about the women I work with, and I'm trying to teach them this as well, is that it's okay to not know that it's effed up in the moment, right? It's okay to realize that later and to talk about it later. You're not weak, you didn't ask for it, you're not accepting of it. Like, whatever the I mean, we had a guy I can tell you this real quick. We had a guy, an investor. We were having a meeting with an investor, and he started the conversation telling us about this sex toy and shared his screen, and there's like, penises and ****** all over the screen. No, I'm not kidding you. This happened like a couple weeks ago, right? And I had my head of growth. Lauren was on the call with me, so I would thank God there was someone to validate because I tell them these stories and they believe me, but it was right happening there, and I was like, dude, I'm telling you, this is crazy. And I'm slacking her in the background and I'm like, I'm going to get you off this call, which is the only thing I could manage in that moment. So I did. I was like I made up an emergency for her to go, and I just stood there and I tolerated it, right? I didn't get off the call because sort of I was amazed, right? Anyway, later I talked about it with some of my other investor friends, and I talked about it online a little bit as well. And I told the person who introduced us, I was like, hey, your intro sucked. Here's why. But anyways, it's a wild ride back to your question, and I feel like A-J-O-B is a dirty word. Now, I don't want to go back, no way in hell. Whatever I do, if it's not lately, I'm just going to start another company.

[14:25] Katie: I loved what you said about weighing which one matters most in terms of the price you pay for having your own business or for working at a job. And I think we don't often consider this. So people that want their own business, they tend to idealize it. They tend to think all their struggles will go away. Their annoying boss, or the fact it doesn't have purpose, or the fact that they have to ask for days off and they think all this goes away. And they don't see the struggles of entrepreneurship, or they see it's unstable and they're scared of it and they just don't do it. But it's a balance. Like you said, it's a roller coaster when you're in, but it also has advantages. You could just take a day off, but it also means you might work weekends, whatever it is. And so it's finding that struggle. And I could totally see myself in your words. I was just like, yeah, I choose a punching and I'll even share with you and the people listening that one of the reasons I started the podcast is I was getting a lot more yeses. I love being on calls with people. People are scared to get on calls because they always think it's sales. I generally do free audits and if people are happy, we continue. If they want to stay at that, that's fine. But just getting people on, they're so scared that you're just going to massively sell on them that there's so many no's and so many people refusing. I thought, oh, loads of people are accepting to be interviewed. So I just ended up doing loads of podcast interviews because I get to talk to people. That's what I love to do. And one of the reasons is because it helps me have less rejection in my life. Because as an entrepreneur, it's ongoing rejection and you deal with it, you learn from it, you stand up every time, but it's still nicer when you get yeses. So I just invite those who call people on podcast shows. That's part of the reason.

[16:15] Kate: I love that. And it's true, I said I get punched in the face, but you call it a no. Which is the same thing, really. And when you're on the front lines, when you're your own boss, that no is just obviously it's coming to you and not anybody else. And it can feel so personal, I think, and there's nothing wrong with that. By the way, somebody said to me recently, oh, well, I know it was a bitter pill to swallow. This is the words he said. And I was like, Dude, I eat bitter pills for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Like Pushaw. But yeah, it's funny. And I like too, what you said about how people are scared to be sold to, that's so fascinating because getting back to lately, we're an AI company, but we very carefully and purposefully insist that the AI and the humans work together. And there's a lot of reasons. The clearest one is, number one, the AI learns from the human. Hello. That's obvious. But number two is that humans are the emotion behind everything, right? And we're not interested in replacing a human. We want to make a one plus one equals three equation here, right? But the human is the trust, right? And when people trust you, then they're not scared and so similar to you. That's why saying yes to a podcast is like, oh yeah, there's no reason not to trust you here, right? What would your mo possibly be except to make me look good or something. But we think a lot about and we learn a lot about how the role that customer trust plays in pitching. And once you have a customer and how you keep them, how you learn from them, and then how that's been evolving right. Over the last for me, since I've been doing this a couple of decades now, just really watching what it takes to earn it. Right?

[18:23] Katie: Yeah, really nicely put. I think dealing with rejection and building that resilience is such an important part as a female entrepreneur, entrepreneur in general, but female, like you say, there might be a few headed difficulties in some ways. So I think it's also really nice to be open and vulnerable about it. And the way you say you eat those bitter pills for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, also for me, when I hear this, I think therefore she's really successful because actually, the more rejection you're getting shows how often you're putting yourself out there. So if you said, oh, it happens once a week, I'd probably be thinking, you're not proactive enough. Right? Because you need to get more no. Because more no's also means more yeses. And so when I hear people that are dealing with a lot of rejection or a lot of failure, I actually know that they already successful or about to be, because the more actions you take, the more it's all proportionate. So it's the way you manage it. So I'm curious, how do you manage it? So every time you have a bit of pill to swallow and it's personal, sometimes we can rise above it sometimes hurts more than less, but sometimes it hurts and you still need to stand back up.

[19:30] Kate: So what you do it's true. A couple of things. So I used to do a video a day, about 60 seconds video every day. And I do it once in a while now, but not every day anymore. And what I found was that people loved the ones where I was crying when I was having a **** day, which wasn't too often, but those are the ones that went crazy. So interesting, right? So here's a stat to digest as we're talking about this. So female founders only get 2% of all of the venture capital in the world, okay? 2%. So that means I have to work 98% harder than a white dude to get something done. Now, if you're black, you're not even on the scale, okay? This is telling you something, right? So those bitter pills I swallow, I'm not kidding, right? It's just such a higher bar, and it's very frustrating. It's very annoying. I have to often have other people tell me what's going on because I can't imagine it. Right. That's one way I survive is a lot of support. I mean, it takes a village. I have a lot of people, not only investors, my personal investors and my team, who is amazing. But I also have a great husband, but I also have a team of therapists, acupuncture, chiropractor, workout person. I decided to put money into these things, and that was a hard investment for me to make. I don't have a lot of money, but I need these people to make sure I stand up because I fall down a lot. I'm only human, and my personal capacity for pain of all kinds is very high, right? So I've had a number of surgeries, and not to be some cool person or whatever, I can't take all the drugs they give you because they make me very ill. And so I don't but I don't really have that pain. I got a tetanus shot recently, and someone's like, oh, it's going to hurt for three weeks. And I'm like, It didn't hurt at all. I'm like, it's just my jam. So I have this weird capacity. And when I've thought now three times now, I thought I found the end of my rope. I thought I did, but apparently I hadn't, which is amazing to me, right? And so I think it was one time. I've only said one time, I don't want to do this anymore out loud, right? And what I meant was I did not want to do lately anymore. What I didn't want to do was the dog and pony show around fundraising because I was tired of the 98% bullshit. But when I said that out loud, what I realized was the mountain of stuff coming at me was actually never going to stop anymore. I'm the kind of person who tries to get to zero in my inbox and all these kinds of things, and I got beyond a place where that wasn't going to happen anymore. And so I knew something had to change because this is overwhelming. I can't manage it. And so I thought, okay, well, again, back to the Secret. My perception has to change. What am I going to do? And for years, people had been telling me to meditate, and I thought, that's not for me. It's not cool, whatever my mindset was. And then finally someone who I respect a lot, who is cool. And a friend of mine mentioned an app, and he's like, it's only ten minutes a day, and it's not fluffy. And I do a lot of fluffy things too, so I'm not poo pooing that stuff. It's. The waking up with Sam Harris is the one I use. So ten minutes a day, that's actually very hard for me to find. And I do it almost every day. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and do it. But I found that the ability for me to, like, we're talking about, to witness the ****, witness the stuff coming by me as opposed to take it in has really expanded because it happens so often, right? And the tapes that my brain runs through of why it's my fault that never goes away. That's just so hard. But I found that the weight has lifted around. I'm just struggling with words because it's so important to me. It's just such a deep learning to literally just there's no better way than, say, witness. So actually, a friend told me this great metaphor, Katie, that we can share with people now, which is, when you're dealing with somebody who might be not ideal, if you imagine that there's a fresh, beautiful rose that you're holding between the two of you, and as they're talking their toxicity, the petals of the rose fall off. And when there are no more petals, you simply just whip out another rose. Right? So I love that. That works for me. But once in a while, though, like you, I'm sure imagined I totally crumple. And in those moments, I rely on my founders. They know this journey and the pain and the joys more than anybody, right? Of course. And they often will translate what's happening in a way that I don't see at all. Right? And I'll give you an example. I'm sorry for talking so much a couple of years ago, I couldn't close a deal. This is my perception. I couldn't close a deal. I was trying to raise $2 million, and everybody said no to me. No, I couldn't do it. Right? I'm failing. I'm a failure. This is what my brain is thinking. I'm failing my team. I'm failing my customers. I'm failing my family, my investors. I can't do this. Something's wrong with me. Right? And I couldn't figure out why. I check every box, all the boxes, a million times over, and the goalpost keeps moving. And so I'm just like, how can this be? So then I'm in a place of scarcity where I can't pay people. I have to ask my teammates not to take paychecks. It's really hard. And then I struggled, and this is my story. And then we got to another point where same thing was happening, and I failed again, right? So in my mind, I'm like, oh, my God, I just can't raise I'm a total failure. I'm the worst CEO ever. Now, here's what really happened, okay? And my co founder, Steve, actually said this out loud at a public. Was that's what it took for me to realize what happened? So what really happened was I had circled $2 million. I couldn't find a lead investor. All the data came out right in those same weeks about how it was 98% harder for me. And so that's what was really happening. And so this is what else he said, which I didn't know how to verbalize. I dropped the burn of our company from one hundred thousand dollars to ten thousand dollars, which is very impressive. And in that year time, I doubled our MRR. And I landed SAP and Anheuser Bush and Bev and Jason Calicanis, and I got us into Silicon Valley. And then I went there and I won the final demo day and I had $4 million circled oversubscribed with a term sheet in hand. Right. And then a global pandemic hit. So the raise fell through. Right. And so this is just so interesting that's Steve's perception I had to literally wrote this was recorded because it was on stage. I literally wrote down what he said and learned how to say it in my future conversations. Not kidding. You. Right. So isn't that amazing? Like, the difference. This is what I need. I need these people. Otherwise I can't do this. Right.

[27:46] Katie: It's so interesting that you didn't see that aspect, that it was almost as if your brain had sort of blocked that aspect and all you could focus on was the failing and the failure, and you couldn't see all the progress you made getting into Silicon Valley, these other things, and you were just stuck on the bit you hadn't managed to do. That's so interesting.

[28:04] Kate: Yeah, we all do it's still, by the way, it still bothers me. Part of me I usually cry at this point because I'm trying not to, but part of me still genuinely feels like I failed that. But now more, it's annoying to me because now I just want to check that box. You know what I mean? It just bothers me. Why can't I check that box? Since then, by the way, in the last ten months, I've increased our sales 186%. So I'm feeling a little bit better because everybody is getting paid. And it's one of those times this never happens where the roller coaster is at the top, and it has been for a little while. And I'm able to appreciate it because my gift, Katie, is to unfortunately for my husband, is to see the glass half empty. That's my gift. And so I almost never revel in the joy. Like, all right, we hit 72k, MRR. All right, what's wrong with this pattern? Why aren't we hitting 78? But it's what makes a CEO good, is to always look at what can be important. But my team has to tell me, like, dude, there's a global pandemic and you just increased our sales 186%. Like, whatever anybody is saying to you, that's negative. F them, right? Like, this is good, but that's how it is. You get pounded into you right. That's not good enough.

[29:39] Katie: Yes, that's interesting. I always feel that there's a balance to be found between sort of celebrating the achievements and the progress you've done and also, obviously, still seeing what can be improved and what's missing. And the danger is, of course, if you focus too much on what is lacking is that you end up burnt out or it totally breaks your state. So I totally see where you come from. I've done the same. But it's important to sort of keep both in mind. I also loved what you said about meditation because a part of my podcast. Is also to focus on Mindfulness because I think it's so important and there's so many people out there that still think it's this weird, fluffy thing and they can't add value to their lives. And I'm just like, Guys, please try it. You don't have to become a Buddhist monk. So, yeah, it adds so much, I think, for people like you and me that are sort of high intensity and driven and sort of go go, we're more reluctant to try something like meditation because it's anti our pace. We're fast paced and driven and motivated, and we're like, I'm not just going to sit and do nothing. Right? Therefore, we need it more. This is what I found. I found that the people that are like us, that are the most resistant to meditation are actually the ones that benefit the most from it because our brain needs to shut down for a while so it can perform at its highest level.

[30:53] Kate: I think you're absolutely right, because that was my hold up, is I thought that this time wouldn't be productive. Right? Isn't that and like, then you realize and this is one thing I like, by the way, about the way Sam Harris talks about it. He says, like, you're doing this for your friends, for your right. This is why you're doing this. And he's so right. It's so you can be more present, more receptive, more whatever. And just one thing, which I bet we'll share love for, which is I learned about the meta lovingkindness meditation. Right? So for those who don't know, and maybe, Katie, you can do a better job of describing me, but you spend your meditation time actually imagining somebody else. Sometimes people you don't like, but hopefully you can do both, but imagine them in full joy and just all you're doing is sending them a message, like, may you be happy, may you be happy, may you be free of pain. Right? And just kind of meditating. And then here's what I really liked is then he asks you to turn it on yourself, which is so wonderful because how many of us don't take the time to wish ourselves joy, a pain free life, right? Yeah, it's true.

[32:18] Katie: I actually do it the other way around. When I do meta kindness, I begin with, may I be well and peaceful, happier. Then I go on the other I don't know why I must have read it that way, but I think it's better the way you're doing it because we're more likely, if we're really focused on the others, to really feel that joy and love, maybe for the other person and then turn it onto us. If we begin with us, it's probably like a smaller flame somehow, and then you spread it. So I like it the other way around. We've already out of time. I loved everything you shared, and thank you so much for being so vulnerable and open. You talked about really difficult topics that loads of people haven't dared to talk about on the show. And I think by being vulnerable and open, it also inspires others and helps them to overcome these things. And I love your rose metaphor. I'm going to keep this in mind with the petals and, yeah, it's really important. It's a way of protecting ourselves, too, which is also important when we're dealing with these types of yes, difficulties sometimes. So thank you so much for being on the show, Kate, and thank you so much for sharing all of your insights. And, yeah, it was amazing. Thank you.

[33:23] Kate: Thank you, Katie.

[33:26] Katie: Thank you for listening to the Focus B show. We would love to hear your feedback. Let us know in a review how this episode inspired you. Keep buzing.