Fandom, Pathways, and Self-Reflection with Kathleen Stone

Ed Buchanan: Hello everyone and welcome back to our little space where we connect, collaborate and co-create. I'm Ed.
Paul Tonden: And I'm Paul and this is the Thought Partners podcast. And today Ed and I are welcoming Dr. Kathleen Stone, joining us for our conversation today. I'm very excited to see you, Kathy, and it's a joy to have you on our podcast. Thank you for taking a little bit of time out.
Kathleen: Yeah, sure. And I was laughing because, ⁓ one, the formality of saying doctor. And I think you said Kathleen, Dr. Kathleen Stone.
Paul Tonden: I did. It just flowed right out.
Kathleen: It cracks me up when I hear people say that. So got my doctorate a little bit later in life. And the only person in my world who ever calls me doctor anything is my cousin's little daughter who calls me Dr. Kathy. Professionally, I hardly ever hear doctor. And then the other funny part to this is that you introduced me as Kathleen, but then said Kathy, right? So you'll see that, you know, I even will write my name out as Kathleen. I always write my full name out on anything, emails, paperwork, whatever. I'm always Kathleen. But I would say that half of the people in my life know me as Kathy, and half of the people in my life know me as Kathleen. And it changed, and I, this point in life where I don't know how to introduce myself, I have to pause and think, ⁓ do you know me as Cathy or Kathleen? And do I care which one you use? Nope, not at all.
Paul Tonden: Well, that was gonna be my next question is if you had a preference, but.
Kathleen: I don't have a preference. Like I said, for some reason, I've always written my name out fully. So I think that that makes people think that I really want to be called Kathleen, but I don't really care. can call me Kathy.
Paul Tonden: Well, as someone who is actively in the process of getting his doctorate late in life, ⁓ I don't know that I'll ever ⁓ experience very many people calling me doctor. And ⁓ it feels natural to me to call you Dr. Stone ⁓ because we worked together in a space that was surrounded in academia and where there was a lot of that use.
Kathleen: You Yes.
Paul Tonden: of honorifics, if you will.
Kathleen: Yes. Yes.
Ed Buchanan: Whereas I know you as the stone party from way back in the day where you and I ended up listening to that get called out from a restaurant about 20 times when we were standing right in front of.
Kathleen: Nice. Yes. Yes, yep. And I have been the stone party. And I also remember I oddly got my MBA after I got my doctorate degree. So I have too many degrees. We can talk about that if you want, but I don't know that I care. I got my MBA afterwards.
Ed Buchanan: Fun story.
Kathleen: And so there was a little bit of group, a couple of you Ed, that also ⁓ called me like master Dr. Stone or something like that because it came in the wrong order.
Ed Buchanan: Yeah, somewhere Holly is smiling.
Kathleen: Probably, yeah.
Paul Tonden: Alright, well, K-Stone, good to have you on the podcast. It's nice to see you ⁓ and we're grateful to have you here. ⁓ As I already mentioned, ⁓ I have spent some time with you in our past lives working together and I haven't seen you in a very long time and I'm very excited to catch up and to hear a little bit about what you've got going on and what you're thinking.
Kathleen: It's been a while.
Paul Tonden: and experiencing, you might not be surprised to hear one of the things that I like to inquire about. And I'm really curious about your background with Ed and tell me a little bit more about your relationship as ours ⁓ was work-related for the most part. And I'm picking up that there was a little bit more with Ed.
Kathleen: This Yeah. Well, no, it was work-related, but also... I don't, Ed, I don't know how, here's what I'm gonna say, Paul. We worked together, you and I did, but not closely. We were tangential. I think that people who work closely with me are gonna feel like Ed. And what you just described that, ⁓ it seems like you know each other more than at work. It's because I am one of those people that likes to build and I'm sorry I'm getting a weird pop up on here hold on a second. What is going on with my computer hold on this is a freeze things for a second. My computer is doing something weird and it might freeze me. Can you still hear me?
Ed Buchanan: We can hear you, but it did freeze you.
Kathleen: Yeah, I...
Paul Tonden: You were so right, throws you. It's so strange. You called it. It's like you're, it's like you know.
Kathleen: Hold on, ⁓ I'm gonna try to close some things. I've never seen it do this before. It's very weird. So we'll have to cut this out.
Ed Buchanan: Yeah, that's fine.
Paul Tonden: We do have some vicious storms coming through the central Florida area right now.
Kathleen: No, it's like, I doesn't like everything happening on my computer for some reason at once. is telling me something's wrong with the application memory.
Ed Buchanan: Well, if you need to log out and restart, great. ⁓ there you go.
Kathleen: Okay. Let me see if this works. Okay. ⁓
Ed Buchanan: Everything is all... all of sudden.
Kathleen: And now we've got to pick it up wherever we left off because that was way too distracting at that moment.
Ed Buchanan: You're fine. All right. So people that work with you showcase this easygoing connection with you. That's what Paul was highlighting.
Kathleen: Yes. I tend to form close relationships with people that I work with, It is... People are the center to everything I do. In whatever role I'm in, whatever job I'm at, ⁓ it's always about the people that you work with in so many ways, right? The people are what drive the organization forward and it's good for the company. But also these are the people that you spend often more time with than you spend with your family. And so I've always been very much the type of person that builds strong connections to the people I work with, ⁓ especially anybody who at some point reports to me. And because of that, I have, know, whether it was, whether they reported to me or did not, right? I tend to have certain people that
Ed Buchanan: Very true.
Kathleen: I just stay connected with over time from those relationships as well. So Ed is one of those people, right? He worked with me, worked for me at one point, I think. And then because of that, yeah. But we stayed connected because of that, right? And the interesting thing that I have found in my life and
Ed Buchanan: for like six days. It was a very odd time.
Kathleen: probably has hit me more recently, say in the last couple of years, is that I have a lot of people who I've worked with before who reach out to me very frequently. Even if we're not talking anymore, they'll still reach out to me for like career advice. What should I do about this? What should I do about that? So that's just. So that's where you're getting this thing with me and Ed, right? We work together. We work closely together.
Paul Tonden: and you intentionally ⁓ manifest that. Can you say more about that and talk about the weight?
Kathleen: I don't know that I do. I don't know that I do. I don't know that it's intentional. I think it's just who I am. It's more authentic than that, right? I don't sit out to go, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to create these really great connections with people. It's just, it's that, I think it's because of that part of me that I explained where the philosophy I have around that it's the people that are important in the organization. try to connect with those people. It just makes sense to me. So I don't know that it's something, but I don't like plan on it, so to speak. I think I'm just a normal person who talks to people and listens to people.
Paul Tonden: This is exciting. I don't know what normal is, so maybe you can help fill me in on what-
Kathleen: In the workplace, think that sometimes we can get so focused on whatever hat we're wearing that we just don't always just talk to people like they're a person. I don't know if that makes sense to you, but Ed.
Ed Buchanan: So it does. I'm going to jump in here because let me tell you a story. So about 10 years ago...
Paul Tonden: I love stories.
Ed Buchanan: You don't have a choice because I'm a storytelling type person. So you're going to get the story. So about 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to transition from full-time in the classroom to a creative design oriented role. I wound up, that's how I ended up wound up in the training and development space. And through this, I found out a few things about myself, which I will share in a moment. Number one. When I get invested, I put my head down, I pour myself into something, I can very much just brain dump information out into the world and I get talking and I make sure that I'm going to get, if I have something to say, I'm going to get it out there and it's going to be in the chat, it's going to be in wherever, whatever the particular avenue is. And. I will give you a moment to think about how wonderful it is to have that person that's in a particular meeting, a session, a brainstorming group that you're in, that literally does not stop just filling, throwing ideas out. ⁓ It is the best advice that I've ever received that it is very important to make sure that there is space for all voices. And that leadership advice came from one stone party. And I have, I took that, that is the best piece of leadership or career advice I ever received. It came from Kathy and it came in a moment where she and I were just talking and she said, you know, Ed, I love the passion. I think it's fantastic that you're, you have all these ideas, but sometimes people are intimidated. They don't. feel like they have a chance to join the conversation and making space for people to have that opportunity to join the conversation is part of growing in a role like this. And to this day, in every one of my presentations, in every one of my meetings that I run, in every professional development seminar, I always have taken a moment to think about how I'm going to prioritize making space for all the voices in the room. And that
Kathleen: you ⁓
Ed Buchanan: comes from that moment 10 years ago where, you had the wherewithal to pull me aside and say, hey, this is important for you to develop. And I think that's one of the reasons why people come to you and will go to you for career advice or for life advice or for just anything. Because you do relate on that people level. And it's something that I know I will carry with me through no matter what area I end up when it's something that is built into the way I present myself now. So there's your story for the day. Do with it what you will.
Paul Tonden: Well, it all just sounds so straightforward and simple. And like to even just to say like, you know, it's just normal. It's just, you know, you're just nice to people. And yet I hear so many stories. I hear so many accounts from a lot of folks who talk about things like corporate PTSD and they talk about the hustle.
Kathleen: Thank you.
Paul Tonden: of it all and the lack of connection in such an interconnected world. And I don't hear a lot of situations, Cathy, where people are staying in touch with people that they work with, because when they work together, it was for the purpose of this task or this job. And that was the context in which they had a relationship. And yet there's something else. I think there's something a little bit more extraordinary than normal that happens. And I'm trying to understand that a little bit. That maintains connections and makes it different.
Kathleen: I mean, that's a really great question. I don't know that I have the answer though, right? I'll say, maybe that's part of it, actually. Let me go with that. So. I'm the last person that will tell you that I'm perfect, that I will never tell you that I'm an expert at anything. Right? So I don't like that term even. I have flaws. I make mistakes. I don't always do or say the right thing. And that's okay. I'm not gonna be perfect all the time. So when I'm working with other people, I don't expect that they're always going to be perfect all the time. I try to help them when I see that they run into a challenge or if I see that there's something that they're doing that might hold them back, I will share that. Now, sometimes some people don't want to hear that. They've never heard that before. They don't want to hear it. And those people aren't going to reach back out to me later, right? But I try to do it in a way that is not going to make them feel bad.
Ed Buchanan: I would imagine there's a lot of people.
Kathleen: and hope that they take it as something as a growing experience because that's how I take things. I remember my very first job in higher ed. and writing an email and I made the most egregious error you could ever imagine. And Ed is going to go, you did what? Without thinking, I used.
Paul Tonden: Did you not use the Oxford comma?
Kathleen: I used the wrong yore.
Ed Buchanan: ⁓
Kathleen: I had a lovely human who pulled me aside. and called it out and said to me, you gotta be really careful now that you're here. You can't do that. Cause she knew the type of people that would be reading it. And I thanked her. And from that day forward, you better believe that I overcheck every email I send.
Ed Buchanan: Yeah.
Kathleen: I will never forget that though. I appreciate when people... call me out as well, or that give me feedback, positive, negative, doesn't matter. I am not perfect. Another example, same place. I remember the first time as a new leader, I had this really horrible bad habit, and I still will check myself on this one sometimes, of talking over people, because I'm that person that's thinking, it's, you know, you're. you're thinking too fast in your own head and you're afraid you're gonna forget something and you would just spit it out, right?
Ed Buchanan: I think that's really along the lines of where I was having issues was just pop and there goes. And it was like not taking the time to step back and give people room.
Kathleen: I had somebody who was reporting to me at the time who I did that to and he got very angry and upset with me and spoke to me about it. And after that, I was very, very careful and cautious. And again, going back to, this is a behavior I need to change. So from day one of being a leader, I immediately was called out for something and then have worked to try to not do that again because I don't want people feeling the way I made that person feel.
Paul Tonden: And how's that going for you? Have you ever used the wrong YOR since then?
Kathleen: Not in emails.
Paul Tonden: Hahahaha!
Ed Buchanan: It's a good space to be.
Kathleen: I will say when I'm typing really fast and have my my mind's on a lot of different things, I might have a, an instant message to somebody go that I have to then whoops, go edit really quick. I'll catch it as soon as I do something like that. But my typos in my, in my team's messages is pretty, pretty wild.
Ed Buchanan: That's just auto correct. It's not your fault.
Kathleen: ⁓ no, no, it's not auto request. That's me not being able to type well and thinking too fast and going too quickly.
Ed Buchanan: See you. That was the grace that we provided and you just didn't take the path. You took the correct path.
Kathleen: Nope, nope, I'm not gonna take it. I own it, right? I know it's a thing that I do.
Paul Tonden: Is that one of your secrets to success? Is this humility, ⁓ this willingness to acknowledge, accept, and address that you are human and therefore flawed and are able to have compassion and grace for others to also be flawed?
Kathleen: Probably, that's probably where that all gets connected. I do have my limits though. ⁓
Ed Buchanan: It's false.
Kathleen: Like, I do. There's a part of me where I can work with. I can work with things only so far, right? And then at some point... you know, take some responsibility and do the right thing. So it's, yes, we're all flawed. Yes, we're all gonna make mistakes, but you also need to learn from your mistakes.
Ed Buchanan: So what I hear is there's a space for grace, there's a space for responsibility, and at some point, if you do not transition from one space to the other, you may run aground of an iceberg.
Kathleen: Yeah, yep, that is a good analogy.
Paul Tonden: I don't know, something about standards is coming up for me. I wrote down the word standards or, ⁓ know, I feel like it's that intersection between.
Kathleen: Giving yourself others grace, giving yourself grace, knowing that people are not perfect and that things are gonna go wrong, that's important. But it is important that you have some level of standards and that you're putting, especially in the workplace, putting out quality work. It's all part of the same conversation, right? It's you're not always going to be perfect, but you are going to learn from what you're doing when you're not perfect. And then it's going to make your what you do next better because you've learned from it. So it's that constant kind of continuous improvement, continuous improvement.
Paul Tonden: I'm so glad you brought up learning. I'm so glad you brought up learning. Because I think learning is a skill in and of itself. And there is a mindset to it, there's a practice to it, and it is ⁓ lacking. in a lot of spaces, especially in the workplace. And I don't know what you mean when you say workplace today, because I'm not sure what the workplace or what we mean by the workplace or like where we get work done or like, what does it look like? I am someone coming out of being in a corporate job for a decade and shifting into being ⁓ a small business owner, entrepreneur with a franchise operation. and shifting into thinking about work differently, thinking about earning differently and approaching it from a place of people first and leaning into this idea that there is, that it is not scarce, there is abundance, there is enough, and there's enough ⁓ for everyone and part of the game plan.
Kathleen: I'm going to show you guys a little sneak peek of some stuff we got going and then we're to end this video off. Make sure you guys subscribe to the channel. Smash that like button, subscribe to Dougie's channel.
Paul Tonden: is speaking out and looking for those optionalities. And as I'm doing that, I am noticing in a big way, so much crisis in wellbeing and mental wellbeing and mental health and the ability to ⁓ authentically show up. ⁓ and authentically receive other people's emotions and feelings in real time in a way that is helpful, in a way that is to a certain level of standard and expectation. And I'm really curious if you have any thoughts about... What might help with that? What might help with me being able to maintain my own ⁓ ability to not absorb any of that, that I'm coming in contact around me and then also ways to help others almost re-figure. ⁓ ways to take care of themselves so that they can show up as their best selves or in the best way that they can at the time.
Kathleen: I wish there was a simple answer to that, right? There's obviously not. I do think that where we are right now as a society. People are under a lot of different stress, lot of different things happening in their lives around them, whether it's work, personal, the world. And I think it's the best advice I could give is to go in with that knowledge that people have a whole lived life experience happening around them. And you're just stepping into their space and that one moment in time. You don't know what they just did 10 minutes ago. You don't know what's going on in their lives really. Even if they try to share, they may not be sharing with you everything that they have going on. And so keeping that perspective. And also the grace for that, right? That they might have a lot of stuff happening. I think that's important, right? To just keep that in mind when you're interacting with people. You give people a little bit of benefit of the doubt too, depending on how they're behaving and acting. They again, might have a lot of things going on in their life. If you knew about, you might interact a little bit differently, but you don't know about it. I think just keeping that in mind, right? That people always have other things happening that we don't see on the surface.
Paul Tonden: Is the mindset then everyone's doing the best they can with what they're working with?
Kathleen: Mm-hmm, for sure. Again, though, if it's in a professional kind of role, depending on how that role is, you might be able to have a conversation with them, right? You might be able to say, hey, I've noticed this, right? Hey, I've been worried because. and open a conversation. You can do that. But yeah, it is hard. At some point in a professional relationship, also have to, once you understand what they're going through, if they're willing to share, right? You still have expectations. So if you're trying to start up your own business and you're working with somebody, You have expectations as a business person of what that transaction relationship needs to be. But you can still, at first, hold a little bit of grace. the, is everything OK? I've noticed something. Right? But still know that I need you to do this by this date for my business to continue to be successful.
Ed Buchanan: I wonder if, Paul, I don't know if there's anything you wanted to jump in there, but I wanted to take that idea of I need to have space to connect and to listen and to interact and to make sure that my business has the space to continue. One of the things that I've known about you and the work that you've been doing in the last year, year and a half, you've been doing a lot of content creation and exploring the career space in less than conventional ways. I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about that and how that connects to your message or doesn't or anything interesting that you picked up along. Or not.
Kathleen: And I want to clarify, are you talking to me or are talking to Paul? Because I think Paul's done that too.
Ed Buchanan: Yeah. I thought you knew, well, specifically, I was thinking about, I was thinking about you posting on LinkedIn and the whole like journey of conventional, unconventional conventionalists, for lack of a better term. That's the way I kind of categorized a lot of the things that you were doing in the career space and exploring that space.
Kathleen: Okay, yeah, it's a funny story that I don't mind sharing. So yeah, so what was I doing in the career space? So if you don't know me, I'm a little bit...
Ed Buchanan: Okay.
Paul Tonden: Love stories.
Ed Buchanan: That's the second time you said that today.
Kathleen: Corky, geeky, how would you describe that Ed? I am a...
Ed Buchanan: ⁓ so this is on my list for us to talk about because the things that go down are thrill rides, fandom, leadership, unconventional conventional paths.
Kathleen: ⁓ fandoms. Okay, okay. So I've definitely had, yeah, I've definitely had an unconventional path. Yeah, I've had a very unconventional path, but I won't go through that whole story, not yet. Well, forever, we'll see. But as far as the career stuff goes, so I started to get this sense, this is what I was talking about, that people kept coming to me for career advice. And I'm like, well, maybe there's something here.
Ed Buchanan: All of that mixes together into an interesting pie. All safe.
Kathleen: with this, right? Okay, so people keep coming to me. Maybe I should do something with this. However, I also wanted, just plain old career type advice business just seemed kind of boring to me at the time. So my first ⁓ attempt at doing anything like this was ⁓ a blend of a career, it was going to be a course basically, a career course and it was really to help you find your path. What is it that you want to do is for those people who were unsure, but it was really for those people who were unsure who also happened to be Disney fans.
Ed Buchanan: Fandom.
Kathleen: because all of the examples that I would use were pulled from Disney films and you know it was there's a lot of this is where the geekiness comes in right there's a lot of lessons to be learned in some of those shows ⁓ you can say that whether and it's not just Disney it This is really my media take on things. Movies, TVs, books, ⁓ yeah, movies, television shows, books. They all have something that you can learn lessons within them, right? So I was in general, yeah. So I was taking inspiration from Disney stories and creating a career exploration, basically, course that I was gonna offer to people.
Paul Tonden: Art in general, yeah.
Kathleen: Before I, I got the course together and I started down that path and then I already got bored of it. To be honest, I went through this thing where I'm like, I wasn't feeling like going to Disney myself for a while. So my own personal fandom was starting to wane a little bit at that moment. And I'm like, I'm not doing a Disney themed career course. This is ridiculous. ⁓ So I stopped that. I had built some interesting resources from it and I've openly shared them. think that's what one of the things Ed was I think alluding to. I had some LinkedIn posts I did last fallish maybe around career identity. I had a series I did focused on career identity. And... One of the last things I did was I did share some of the resources I made that were not Disney-fied that people could use ⁓ to help them think through it. I'm a very ⁓ also data type of person. So it was also things like, well, if I want to get a new job, how much money would I need to make to be able to live the lifestyle I want? pay off bills, things. So I had a little spreadsheet calculator and different things like that and different activities people could do to try to help them figure out what they want to do next. Was that what you were asking about, Ed? Am I missing something? Is there something you found more unique to it than that?
Ed Buchanan: No, I thought so that was interesting because because you and I have had, I guess, side conversations about a little bit to do with that. ⁓ Just in terms of content creation and exploring the career space, I've always known you to be someone who is interested in the path in front of you and equally as interested in the path behind you. but not defined by the path behind you. And so that seems a lot more convoluted than it sounds, but I think it lines up directly with the career exploration, the career pathway conversation. So definitely in line. I think I'm curious because I have spent time developing content. Paul and I are doing a podcast in case you didn't know. Which by the way, several hundred views, I'm just going to throw that out there. People are finding it. Just, just plug, plug. Any rate, Paul's about to fall out of his seat. He loves when I do that. but it's interesting because so many people are like, this is going to be the thing that springs me forward, which is exactly not the message that you were, you were providing in. not only conversations that you and I have had, but conversations that you had with the world on LinkedIn. So I was just curious about that process and how you got there. The Disney resources is hilarious. ⁓ If it's not Disney, it would have been Harry Potter. And ⁓ I can see either of those paths. So that makes complete sense. And never shall the two cross, but...
Kathleen: Uh huh. Look, look, look, something's going on. Something's going on with it. I got this really silly homework. See, it's down, down. Oh, this is big. No, wait a minute. There's actually another way. There's actually another
Ed Buchanan: So we've dropped a lot of franchises on the floor here as we were walking through this cutting room.
Kathleen: Yes Yeah ⁓
Paul Tonden: I'm really curious to learn though, Cathy, what are some of the practices contained within those resources that you worked on and developed? Even though you got kind of disengaged from them or maybe didn't finish them, there's gotta be, there's a.
Ed Buchanan: little disinterest.
Kathleen: ⁓ no, I built it all out. And then I think I even rebuilt it another time, Paul, without the Disney. So it was really... Yeah.
Paul Tonden: And that's perfect, there's gotta be a philosophy that's an undercurrent to it. And I'm hearing bits here and there, and I'm picking up on a little bit of like Buddhist philosophy, a little bit of mindfulness, a little bit of this and that. And I'm curious, ⁓ what's the undercurrent, what's the drive, ⁓ and how does that show up in your work?
Kathleen: of the undercurrent and the dry. I'll tell you that most of the resources were really focusing on self-reflection is what it comes down to, right? It's a very methodical steps to get you to think about where you've been, where you're going, where do you want to be, that sort of stuff. yeah, it's really hard work. It's really hard work to think about that. Yeah.
Paul Tonden: Gosh, that's so hard though. I was just, that is hard work and that's a joke. I was just actually funny. was speaking of podcasts and wanting to put in plugs of franchises. Dan Harris has an excellent podcast called 10 % Happier with Dan Harris. I don't know if you've ever heard of it or listened to it or know anything about it, but it's one of my favorite ones. And I was just listening to him talking about a study he was doing. where he had to abandon the study because it was about self-reflection and everybody stopped doing it. They had nothing to study at the end. And when he interviewed them afterwards and said, why didn't you do it? They not only said they didn't have time, they said it was a waste of time. I'm really curious what you think of
Kathleen: Because I do think that some people think that. think they think that it's, here's one of the things that I think I may have talked about in the LinkedIn stuff too, that's connected. Don't remember, not at this point anyways, but career identity. Who you are as a person and how is that connected to the work you do? Is your work, when you say, when somebody asks you who you are, do you start by describing what your career is? Do you say that, I do this, I'm X, Y, Z. Most people they do because it's easy. It's really easy to say, yeah. That's, yeah.
Paul Tonden: Yeah, I mean, it's pretty natural to say what your job is, right? Like, you know, I'm a business owner. I'm an entrepreneur. I am a learning and development professional. I'm a leadership coach. Like what you do, yeah. What's the alternative,
Kathleen: But who are you without all of that? Who are you without all of that, right? Who are you as a person? And that is hard for people to think about. And so yeah, if you're trying to go through a career exercise with them, where they have to stop and think about what brings you joy, that's hard for some people. And so I...
Paul Tonden: Not just some people, humans. There's a negativity bias that's very real in a ⁓ scary world where we all have these propaganda boxes that we carry around in our pockets that push us scary things all day long.
Kathleen: Yeah. And so when you're living in that world, how can you figure out what brings you joy? Who are you at your core? Because if you can figure that out. You're going to be able to find a career you're more aligned with. It's all about alignment, right? If you're doing something that you do not like to do because it goes against who you are as a person, you're going to be miserable. You're going to be always looking for another job. You're gonna be stressed, tensed. There's a lot of things that if you can find that alignment of doing, it's not, and I'm gonna be really clear about this too. It's not about finding your passion. That's not it. It's about finding something that's aligned to the type of person you are that's gonna be a good career path for you based off of who you are as a person. You don't have to be, ⁓ I'm really passionate about, I don't know, bees. I have no idea why that came into my mind. I need to do a job that's gonna be working with bees. That's not what it's about. Because maybe the job working with bees is not a good fit for you because you've gotta be wearing that beekeeper thing all the time and you're gonna get hot and sweaty and you don't wanna be outside and like. So you've got to stop to think about like, what are the things that do matter to me? What are the things that are important to me? What are my values? Who am I as a person? And try to align your work with those things. It doesn't have to be a passion project. It just has to work with who you are.
Paul Tonden: Now I will add to that because I couldn't agree more with most of it. And some of it I'll say maybe. What I'll add to it though is sometimes you don't always have to like the work. Sometimes the work is not fun time at the zoo, right? Like sometimes it's hard work and you don't necessarily have to always love it.
Kathleen: ⁓
Paul Tonden: What I think I'm hearing you say, you can redirect me if needed, is that as long as there's a why behind it, as long as the connection that you have to it can help with some of that. So I'll give you an example of one the things I'm thinking about that's personal to me. And that is that I don't necessarily love every aspect of my small business. I don't love the lifting and moving. I don't love some of the physical aspects of it. I don't love some of the situations that we find ourselves in that can be difficult, whether it's because of human interactions or it's a challenging ⁓ physical space. ⁓ Also, it's hot and ⁓ I'm old and tired and I don't like doing physical labor and yet sometimes that's involved. However, why I'm doing it helps motivate me. It helps get me there and it helps get me to the other side of it because why I'm doing it is because to your point I reflected on what is important to me. Playing a different game, abundance, helping people see that there is enough. helping rescue things from the landfill and reduce, reuse, and recycle the things that are out there in the community. And to help our community find things ⁓ that are still of value to them that otherwise may have gotten thrown away. And to tell people stories. I love people. I love the human experience. I love learning about people. And then...
Kathleen: You
Paul Tonden: relaying those stories to other people, right? There are aspects of the work that I do. It's very much that. And to your point from earlier, I don't love all of the things that I have to do, but I do know why I do that.
Kathleen: Yeah, so I see what you picked up on there. It was the beekeeper outdoors thing. And you went, whoa, I don't like being outdoors. And I have to be outdoors. Yes, that's going to happen. There's going to be things that you have to do that you don't want to do. That's not what I was trying to say at all. So thank you for sharing that, because I don't want to give the wrong impression. When I'm saying you don't have to People have this sense that I have to find a passion. I have to be passionate about something to do it. And I'm saying, no, you don't. Does that work for some people? Yep, it does. It doesn't have to work. It doesn't mean it has to work for everybody. What you described is perfect, Paul. You have a value, right? Something that you believe. You really wanted to do these things. Then you've picked the right career for yourself.
Ed Buchanan: Yeah.
Kathleen: You're doing the right thing for you. Now, no, you're not going to like every single aspect of it. And as a business owner, as you get down the road, you can, you'll figure out how to delegate the things you don't like to other people, right? But you're doing what makes sense for you as a person and what, and what, the things that you, again, what brings you joy, what's going to connect to the things you want to do. those, your values, your goals in life. Those are the important things. And I say that because if your goal in life is to make a certain amount of money and retire on a certain day and you are perfectly happy doing one specific job day in and day out to get there, do it.
Paul Tonden: Absolutely, there's 8 billion people in the world and there's all different ways to get there.
Kathleen: Yeah. And it's also okay if you change your mind at some point. I just want to throw that out there because I think people have this sense that I'm supposed to figure out what I'm doing with my life early on and that's what I'm supposed to do.
Ed Buchanan: You start getting asked that when you're in eighth grade, I feel like.
Kathleen: Yeah, yeah. And so you get this idea that, I'll see people, younger people in their 20s, 30s, like, oh, do I make a career change after all this time? And I'm like, whoa, wait a second, I'm in my 50s and I'll make a career change several times if I have to, right? It's okay. Your path is not set in stone. You can change your mind. You can do something different. Now, Does that mean the rest of your life and your world might have to look a little bit different to do that? Probably. And so there again, you have to decide what are those values? What are the things that are most important to you before you make a decision to change your life completely? Is this going to work for me? this new thing that I want to go off and do going to work?
Paul Tonden: So then that begs the question, Kathy, what brings you joy?
Kathleen: I'm happy to share that. the one thing that you didn't ask me is who are you at the beginning of this call? Because I will not describe myself in work terms ever. No. What brings me joy? ⁓ gosh. I am a little bit of a fandom geek. So ⁓ you may or may not be aware, but Megacon is coming up this weekend, which is a giant comic convention.
Paul Tonden: by your work.
Kathleen: Right? I will be there. I will be cosplaying as some folks from Harry Potter world and Doctor Who. That's my other big fandom, Ed, if you were not aware. ⁓ So.
Ed Buchanan: can only bring so many to the table.
Kathleen: I have quite a few fandoms. been, you know, woof, listening to the whole Firefly buzz this past week. If you've seen that, you may not have. Old show, everybody loved it. They've been trying to get it to come back for years. Anyways, it sounds like they wanna try to do an animated version. anyway, the fandom is on fire right now around Firefly. I love that sort of stuff, right? Battlestar Galactica, ⁓ anything I have, I have a supernatural smallville, some of the older shows that I follow. And if you were able to see my whole office space, you would see on the wall, autographs from them and pictures with them and fun things like that, right? So I have all sorts of geeky stuff like that. That brings me joy, Paul. You what else brings me joy? It's gonna sound cliche, but I've been married 32 years. I have two children, lovely, beautiful, wonderful children who have gone out into the world and made a life for themselves. One is 30, the other one's 25. any moment that I get to spend with them is amazing. Absolutely amazing. That brings me joy. So my family, my husband, my kids, my friends. my weird fandom things that I get into. anything, anything sci-fi, that kind of stuff. Love it, just love it. So that's my oddball thing. ⁓ And honestly, being in the warm weather after living most of my life in the far reaches, almost Canada of New York, ⁓ I moved to warmer weather and I love every minute of that. So just being able to do the small things, go sit outside by the pool.
Ed Buchanan: So you and I have had this conversation before, and I think it's something that goes really well with the whole, am looking for warmer weather. Many people don't make a change, like moving from New York to Florida, until they are retired and they have nothing else to do except for whatever it is that they are gonna do and retire. You did not.
Kathleen: Yeah, no, I took a leap. And I didn't even get a chance to talk about my theme park fandom stuff. So yeah, Disney, Universal, I love the parks. ⁓ Anyway, I had been to this area quite a bit for usually work reasons, right? Conferences, different meetings, different things would come up. And I would get off the plane. and where everybody else gets off and they're like, ⁓ my gosh, I can't breathe. I would get off and go, It just felt like home and it just felt so good for me. I actually do have the like those weird things where your fingers would turn blue from the cold and stuff. My, I, I've always been, I've always had a hard time with the cold growing up as a kid, every, you know, it's constantly. And so I always just felt this sense of relief when I'd get off the plane. And so it was basically as soon as my daughter, when my youngest one graduated high school, I didn't want to pull her out in school. So I did keep the kids in school till they graduated. ⁓ There wasn't a whole lot else keeping us there at the time. We had a house and stuff like that. But ⁓ I was lucky at the time to be working a remote job. And this could be a whole nother conversation, ⁓ but I took care of my parents ⁓ until they both passed away. So they lived with us for about a year and a half. They both had major health issues. So caregiver role. and something just... clicked in my brain after all of that, right? You get this, ⁓ life is too short. I've spent most of my life taking care of other people. It's time to do something that I want to do. I said, we're going to move to Florida. so I put the house on the market. It literally went in like two days, which was much faster than I anticipated. we, yeah, no, this was like May or something. can't remember. was, yeah, I think it was May. ⁓ And then my daughter graduated high school towards the end of June and
Ed Buchanan: You didn't have time to cancel it.
Kathleen: We moved that next week and that July 1st we were living in Florida. ⁓ We moved with both kids because my son had graduated college but he hadn't flown the nest quite yet. So we had both kids, two dogs, two cats. We loaded up a U-Haul. ⁓ Actually, no, we did the like U-Haul boxes. We loaded up the van. We drove two cars and we drove to Florida and started a life here. My husband had to find another job because he wasn't remote, but I took the plunge. It was scary. We didn't know the area. We didn't. ⁓ I did have one relative down here, but I wasn't really particularly close to her at the time. We are now, but we were not close then. So it was a scary kind of jump to do that. Got here July 1st. I scheduled to get our driver's licenses on July 2nd or 3rd. It was really close so that I could go get our Disney passes right away. And part of that, yeah, well, and you know, seriously, part of that, so part of why, you know, I have this, I just have a different outlook now. And a lot of it, I will say, was from the experience with my parents. It's just that you get, you just look at things differently after you go through something like that. And it's kind of brought me to where I am today, which is I still don't have all the answers for myself.
Ed Buchanan: Priorities. Priorities.
Kathleen: I still constantly feel like I'm going through something, change process in my head. I don't know how to explain it. I'm not there yet. I'm going through something, some phase, some where I'm going, something else is gonna emerge, know, like a caterpillar butterfly scenario. I've been in a little cocoon for a little bit. And part of that is doing a lot of the self-reflection, Right? You tend to go inside yourself a lot when you go through stuff like that. So coming, moving was a big deal for us as a family, but it was also really important for me. It was important for me to do that because it was something that was mine, something that was about me in some way, shape and form. it turned out lovely for everybody else, just so you know. There wasn't anything negative for anybody, but. it that move for that was about me doing something for me for once. And the fun stuff I do, whether it's something fandom or yeah, going to a park or also just exploring this area and all the different things there are to do. It's fun. It's fun. And it it just gives you a different perspective on life when you're not just always focused on I don't know, know, work and doing the laundry, right? You got to have other things in life. And so that's, that's my coming to Florida story. So here I am, I'm here. Don't regret it. Love it. It's what I needed at the time.
Paul Tonden: And how long had that chapter been going? The Move to Florida chapter, how long ago was that?
Kathleen: almost seven years ago now. And don't regret it at all. ⁓ We rented a house for two years and then we bought. So we're going on five years in our house. And there's so many fun things to look forward to. I look forward to where we live. we have some new roads being built that I'm looking forward to. We're redoing our bathroom and it's going to be Harry Potter influenced. I'm excited about that. I will share pictures at some point. ⁓ Airbnb, think Airbnb someday, right? My house is gonna look like an Airbnb, but I'm gonna live in it. ⁓ Because why not? Isn't that fun? Isn't that the whole point in life to do the things that you enjoy and to have things that make you happy? So that's what I wanna do. I'm doing something fun this year as well. where I am doing a 26 and 26 challenge. So it's 26 things in 2026 that I'm going to do that are new for me that I've not done. It might be something I've wanted to do or maybe just something that I hadn't even thought of. I am the way you do that. The 26 is ⁓ the letters of the alphabet, by the way. So you pick something for each letter of the alphabet to do. And one of the things that I decided to do with that was to, for the letter V, I'm vlogging it. So if anybody wants to see the ridiculous things that I do on YouTube, it's Kathleen Living Life. And you will see me just doing little short, really horribly done. They're not nothing fancy, but little short reels, basically. of whatever that particular letter was that I did. ⁓ Because it's fun, right? And it's something different in life. And you should do that and put yourself out there.
Paul Tonden: I love that. think that's going to be a great plug for you to work in Ed, Kathleen Living Life on YouTube, along with the other ⁓ IPs that we called out throughout the show today for our listeners. Kathy, you said something a little bit ago that has been staying with me. And so I need to...
Kathleen: Yeah.
Paul Tonden: I can't just leave it hanging there in my head, so I've got to pull on that thread.
Ed Buchanan: Paul does not like unresolved strings.
Kathleen: Go for it.
Paul Tonden: You said that we didn't start out with who are you? And we didn't prepare this big long bio of Dr. Kathleen Stone or Kay Stone or Kathy or whatever you go by, whatever your cosplay name is, the Stone Party. And I am curious because what you mentioned was is that you do not
Ed Buchanan: party.
Kathleen: I'm pretty.
Paul Tonden: identify by the work that you do. Even though you talked about how your relationships with people are often built off of the fact that we spend more time with people at work sometimes than we do with our loved ones and our family and our friends and these fun things that you're talking about. So it's very real that we have these relationships. And so I do want to ask and give you the opportunity to share.
Kathleen: Mm-hmm.
Paul Tonden: Who are you? And before I do that though, I want to note some of the things that I've been thinking as I've been listening, which are wise. And I don't know if you'll identify as wise, but I view you as wise because of your uncertainty. I view you as wise because you are wary of strict certainty. and you have humility while willing to give advice. Because I know that there's a lot of ⁓ stress that I've heard from folks between like the advice monster and giving advice, ⁓ how that goes against humility. And I think that's like, it's always a little mashup of a little bit of everything, right? And Fun and nerdy also came up for me, but transformational was a big one for me. So those are some of the things that have come up through our conversation that I have sort of jotted down as I was noticing and listening to you. But who are you?
Ed Buchanan: you
Kathleen: It's a good question. ⁓ Usually when somebody asked me that now, today, not years ago, but today, it's going to be that I am a... I'm a woman who's in her 50s with an empty nest, right? Who's trying to have fun in life. that's, that's like the core of who I am today, right? I try to be an authentic person. I don't, I don't like people that feel fake. So I tend to not try to feel fake. ⁓ then I actually do have a career. Like I'm not going to, I'm not going to avoid it, Paul, right? I'm not going to say I don't have a career. It's just not what I lead with anymore. Right? So as you, you know, you started it off calling me doctor. Dr. Kathleen Stone. Well, that's because I, for some unknown reason, I had a love of learning. And I went to college. I went to college as an adult learner when I had the little kids and all of that good stuff. And I got an associate's degree. And then I got a bachelor's degree. And then I thought, ⁓ that was interesting. I'm going to get a master's degree. And then I ended up teaching, I ended up getting full-time jobs in a workforce development type role. And then I got another full-time job doing instructional design and online courses for science courses, because my bachelor's degree is in geology, which usually confuses people when I tell them that. So ⁓ stone, rocks, geology, there's the connection. ⁓ loves, I love science. There goes the sci, now you can also see the sci-fi part, right? I like the science and then it's more fun when you throw the fi on. Anyways, so I went and got all these degrees and then ended up, as I was moving up my career, I was getting more degrees to go along with it. It kind of all flowed together, right? You give yourself, career-wise, I would always try to position myself so that my career would advance.
Ed Buchanan: Don't go any deeper.
Kathleen: So a lot of positioning that I did early on. I've kind of jumped off that mindset now, but back then it was, well, if I do this, it's going to give me these X, X, Y skills that I don't have that will lead me to another level. ⁓ So we could have a whole nother conversation around professional development and how do you, how do you do that? But I kept the degrees going along the side as the jobs kept moving up. So eventually I got my doctorate. So I have a doctorate in ⁓ basically adult learning. Um, and then went back and got my MBA and then went back and I got a master's certificate recently in AI for business optimization. Um, so I haven't, I have a mix of education and business background basically. And I worked, um, most of my career in the higher education space. Before that, I worked as like accounting clerks and accounts payable. did a lot of accounting, accounting type jobs. So. numbers, data, it's all my thing. I taught math ⁓ and geology and you know did the higher education thing then once I had all the degrees done and then hit a certain point in higher education where I couldn't, this is this is where life changed for me. I couldn't see my next step. So all of my life progression wise was the next degree, the next role, move up, do this, do that. I hit a point where my next step was not a job I wanted. And so I was seeing a dead end finally, if that makes any sense. And so I got off. I got off and I do similar work, but in a nonprofit mental health space. So, which felt and like that's something that is a more of an alignment with who I am as a person. But to my point earlier, I've got a lot more years of working before I can retire. I don't know what my next step is. And you know what? It's OK. It's OK if I don't. And that's a message I want to make sure people understand. It's OK if you don't know what your next step is. Maybe there's not a next step for me. Maybe this is where I'm, this is it for now, right? And that's okay too. Or maybe there is something. I don't know. Don't know right now.
Ed Buchanan: So. So I joked earlier and I said that you're the picture of you that I have. One of the components is the unconventional conventional paths. And I think through the different stories that you've told today, through your fandoms, through the very small amount that we touched on in terms of the theme parks and your Look for the why your look your journey into the self awareness sphere. All of this does all tie in so well together in terms of telling the story of how you are here with us today versus where those next steps may be versus you starting YouTube channel, you branching out and doing the things that just they pop on your radar and you're like, yeah, I'm going to go get that degree because that sounds like a good place to be. Yeah, I'm going to start a YouTube channel because that's going to be fun. And driving everything is driven by you either searching for or being happy with the why that you found. And that to me ties every single bit of all of these things that you said. these random fandoms, but they're not. They're just connected to the why and the centering that you've done. And I think walking away from this conversation shortly, like we will be doing, I'm thinking that that's the core message here that I'm walking away from is you may not have all the answers, but that shouldn't stop you from trying to find. What do you think about
Kathleen: I'm going to pull a poll and say yes and.
Ed Buchanan: Ooh, Paul, yes, Anne.
Paul Tonden: Yes!
Kathleen: ⁓ Yes, yes, yes, that is a good ⁓ takeaway, And I would say that you don't have to know the why forever, meaning the why is going to change. And that's OK, too. You might know this is my why today or for this year or whatever, but also know that That's gonna shift. can't, that's why the career part was so hard for people to do that kind of introspection because guess what? You need to do it a lot. You change as a person. Everything you do, every people you come across and interact with is gonna change you. Your life experiences are going to change you. And so what worked for me those years ago that I described doesn't work for me today. And so my Y changed. And that's OK.
Paul Tonden: And that's okay. Biggest takeaway today. And that's okay. That's tough for a lot of people and I think it's a beautiful message. And I'm so grateful for it. Speed round! What's your favorite thrill ride?
Kathleen: It's okay. a tie. There's a tie. Sorry, Velocicoaster or Hagrid's. Yeah. Universal Islands of Adventure. Yep. Yep.
Paul Tonden: Nice, good choices, both at ⁓ Islands of Adventure, right? Yeah, both the Islands of Adventure. What's your favorite dinosaur?
Kathleen: ⁓ gosh. Well, I mean, I guess I'm going to just keep going with the velocicoaster direction. So velociraptor. Yeah. Yeah. Going to have to be velociraptors.
Paul Tonden: The velociraptor because of the velocity. ⁓
Ed Buchanan: Wait, is it the universalized Jurassic Park version or the actual version? I already know the answer, but continue.
Kathleen: Do you think you know the answer? Is it my science or my sci-fi part of me?
Ed Buchanan: I would, ooh, crap.
Kathleen: Mmm.
Ed Buchanan: I was going to go with the universal, but the science. ⁓ no. Now I don't know the answer. Now you got to tell me.
Kathleen: No, it's still going to be the universal version. The movie version. But it was a good question.
Ed Buchanan: Science solutions. Got it.
Paul Tonden: What's your favorite Kathleen Living Life vlog that you've done so far?
Kathleen: ⁓ gosh, I'm only a couple in, so it's early in the year still. ⁓ I did one not that long ago on the Orlando Auto Museum. It is inside of an old mall. And that was fun just because it's just so unique and different with what they've repurposed the space for. ⁓ So that was cool. I like that one. Yeah.
Paul Tonden: Awesome, that's the end of my speed round. I just wanted to get a couple of those questions in before Ed told us it was time to wrap.
Ed Buchanan: Like I have any control.
Paul Tonden: You
Kathleen: You
Ed Buchanan: Kathy, it has been a pleasure having you join us here in our Thought Partners Arena, as all coined the phrase long ago now. ⁓ In season one, season two, which if you would have asked Paul and I back in August, September, if we would make it through season one even, we wouldn't be probably saying, hey, yeah, season two, we're gonna be doing this.
Kathleen: was fun.
Paul Tonden: We weren't sure, we just hit record. Yeah.
Ed Buchanan: We hit record. So that definitely goes with the YouTube channel, the content creator, the fandom, all the things. When you just do the thing that drives you, you end up in a good spot. Imagine that. ⁓ So thank you for joining us.
Kathleen: Yeah, just do it.
Paul Tonden: And whatever that is, it's okay. Yes, go ahead Ed. I was gonna say whatever it is, that's okay.
Ed Buchanan: What'd say?
Kathleen: It is, it is okay. It is okay. Whether you decide to do it or you don't. But I would encourage people to take that little bit of a chance.
Ed Buchanan: So you. And that is a perfect place to be in terms of wrapping up today. Find that instance of self-reflection, that self-awareness that people are so difficult to try and find. It's so difficult to walk up that hill sometimes or look in that mirror. That is something that I'm taking away. I'm also taking away that you're not going to have all the answers. and have some grace with others and have some grace with yourself. Any closing thoughts you have, Dr. Stone, before we wrap up?
Paul Tonden: You know I do. You- Yes, any closing thought, Dr. Stone.
Kathleen: ⁓ Other than how strange, yeah, other than how strange that is when somebody calls me that.
Ed Buchanan: I know how much you love that.
Kathleen: It's just, it's just different, you know, you don't see yours. It's not, it's not how I would describe myself. So it's weird to hear that. So yeah.
Paul Tonden: Cathy, it's so fun spending time with you. It's so fun to see you again after so long. And I'm so excited to hear about all the fun things that you're doing. I am now going to check out Megacon. I am super curious and interested. I'm going to be looking for your cosplay. I am going to check out... Kathleen Living Life, which interesting to me that you called it Kathleen Living Life. Again, with the naming conventions, with the naming conventions. And who knows, maybe, I don't know if you have all of your letters. Do you have something for all 26 of your letters already or are you still looking for some of the letters?
Kathleen: Again, I typed my full name. Yep. I will, my, data side of it, yes, I have a spreadsheet with ideas. Now it doesn't mean that's what's gonna happen because I'm not gonna be that, ⁓ I am not gonna be that planned, but I do have some tentative things.
Paul Tonden: Okay.
Ed Buchanan: Flexibility, grace.
Paul Tonden: If ever, Kathleen Living Life ever, and I'm so thrilled that you intersected with us here on the Thought Partners podcast, which is one of the many things that I and Ed have going on. But if Kathleen Living Life or even just Kathy intersected at any time with one of our events, whether it was an estate sale, that would be a good E. ⁓ Or if it was,
Kathleen: You're right, that would be.
Paul Tonden: or if it was some sort of ⁓ market, which we're also going to be doing some makers markets in the area or community events. ⁓ I would welcome and be delighted at that. And I would love to have those intersections.
Kathleen: Okay. Good, good plug. You'll have to send me the details,
Paul Tonden: Yeah, I just I would love that little intersection. I would love to interact with you again, see how it's part way through the year, maybe even have you back for
Kathleen: Yeah, well, and you still owe me a Velocicoaster ride.
Paul Tonden: There you go. do owe you a Velocicoast to ride. You're absolutely right. And I think I'll be getting my universal passes soon, so that might actually...
Kathleen: you You Okay. All right.
Ed Buchanan: I'm sticking with Disney.
Paul Tonden: Yeah, Ed and his family are big business folks.
Kathleen: Well, there's some there's some good ones there too. It's okay, Ed. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Tonden: For our listeners, I do want to remind you all to please take care of yourselves and each other. And I want to thank you, Kathy, for joining us. Really appreciate it.
Ed Buchanan: I'll take a film.
Kathleen: Thank you, this was fun. It was good chatting with you both.