119: Be your authentic self: The ZEROFKS Movement with Kat John
You are probably often told - be your authentic self…
But what does that mean? Because this has a different meaning for everyone.
Well - this week on The Essential Shift Podcast we are treated with a real journey to authenticity with Authenticity Coach - Kat John!
You will learn more about ‘authentic self’ and how to join the ‘ZEROFKS Movement’. This episode is full of inspiring moments and you will finish the episode ready to be true to you!
If you LOVED the episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag me @essential.shift and @kat.john!
✨ JOIN US FOR RETREAT IN 2024, LEARN MORE HERE ✨
KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS
Kat’s health journey and self-discovery story (very inspiring)
What is the No F*cks Movement and how it can help you
How to be your authentic self
Importance of consistency and resilience in building a successful business
How intuition plays a role in business
SHOW RESOURCES
FOLLOW Kat on Instagram - HERE
LISTEN to the REAL, RAW, RELATABLE Podcast - HERE
Check out Kat’s website - HERE
JOIN us in the next Retreat in March 2024 - HERE
FOLLOW me on INSTAGRAM - HERE
Find out more about how to WORK WITH ME - HERE
If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me @essential.shift.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Kat John is an Authenticity Coach, Keynote Speaker, soon to be author, podcast host and
creator of the ZEROFKS movement. For eight years she’s been working with people to help them powerfully manage the thoughts in their head, so they can remember the truth of who they really are and live a life that is true and genuine to them.
After overcoming life-altering experiences from childhood sexual abuse, bulimia, addiction,
mental health struggle, chronic pain and brain surgery, Kat is an example of hope, showing others that there is life beyond our pain. You can find her over at www.katjohn.com.au, instagram at @kat.john and get stuck into her podcast ‘Kat John is REAL, RAW, RELATABLE’ on Apple iTunes, Amazon and Spotify.
Bless it be.
With love, Laetitia!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Laetitia Andrac 2:48
Hello, Kat, thank you so much for being on the essential shift podcast.
Kat John 2:52
Thank you for having me. It's good to be here.
Laetitia Andrac 2:55
It's so nice to have you on the show after meeting you in person a little while ago and discovering the beautiful energy that you have online in person. It's such a joy. Thank
Kat John 3:08
you much appreciated. And it's nice to see you again too.
Laetitia Andrac 3:13
Yeah, thank you. So today we're going to talk about you and your business and all the beautiful things that you've created around your brand. But before we get into that topic, I love to always invite our guests to share a bit more about who they are as a human being. And you can share with us if you know anything about your astrology sign or your face whatever is coming up for you around who you are and what we need to know about this.
Kat John 3:41
Hmm, beautiful. So I know my star sign I'm a Libra and I have I've I remember a while ago you know that rising moon in astrology I absolutely forget what it is. So that's that's that's pointless in me even bringing it up. I know that I'm some kind of generator slash something when it comes to the what's it called?
Laetitia Andrac 4:08
You know those human design so human design ,
Kat John 4:12
I'm pretty sure I'm a manifesting generator. Yeah, yes, you must. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and what else do I know about my stuff? Science? Well, one of the things that I know is that out of the four Claire's I'm not sure if you're aware of the four Claire's sentience yet Claire Claire audience so my strong suit is Claire sentience, my ability to feel beyond what is there, which is a blessing and a curse at times can be very difficult to feel the energy in a room that is uncomfortable or awkward or the things that people aren't saying and you know what they are saying it's like, Oh, I wish I could turn this off. But then other times it is a true gift in in many ways as a business owner as a bonus mom as a partner and all of that jazz as a as a coach. So that that I guess all of that adds up to this human that I am motioning through the world and trying to you know, you know, always trying to not trying but I guess I'm covering layers of myself that I've buried that I've shamed that I've made wrong, that I've said you're bad that I've said you're not allowed to be here. Yeah, I really am. That That. That ever, ever evolving soul here as a human and collecting more of myself along the way, you know? The Good The Bad, the Ugly, so that kind of sums me up in a nutshell. I love
Laetitia Andrac 5:48
it. Thank you for sharing all of that cat and definitely with the way you are close and chance and I'm close to insurance as well and clear audience. I'm not clairvoyant, but it really is a clairaudient and clairsentient. And it's really true that when we are sentient, we really feel the space and feel the energy of the space and the work that you are doing and you're going to share in a minute about how you ended up doing this work. The energy of the room is really something that you must be actually gift but also sometimes can be very taxing.
Kat John 6:20
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yes.
Laetitia Andrac 6:24
So for you know, anyone who don't know your business or don't know what you're doing, it's okay. We're going to go through your origin story. How did you end up creating this business? Can you take us because love listeners are established businesses or they're starting out and so mines is messy middle where they think they fell out of love with it and they just need to figure out what is the next time so it can take us through your own journey, obviously, to refer back and learning about how you've navigated that journey because you've been in business for quite some time, right? Yeah, this would be my 10th year this year. That's what I had in mind, but I didn't want to say anything wrong. So yeah. Do you want to share with anyone your origin story? How did you end up doing the work that you're doing today? Oh,
Kat John 7:12
I guess, you know, to my little logic brain. It was all by accident. But, you know, as I said before, my soul's evolution was like, this is exactly what we're going to this is exactly how we're going to get her to shift change and morph into something as to what she's really meant to be doing. So, prior to my life now prior to the work that I'm doing now is actually a registered nurse. And I was working in the public hospitals in cardiothoracic, neonatal ICU Children's Cancer Center. I always wanted to be in the caring space. I always I think I just naturally gave a shit about people. My mum's a nurse, my dad, he was an accountant, but he very much was around volunteering and they grew up quite poor mums. In the Philippines mom grew up in the Philippines and dad here and they had very strong roots in in their family and you know, we we were very much brought up my brother and I as privileged, but they mum and dad made sure that we saw where they came from and that they knew what they had come from. So there was this very giving nature I think that was just natural and innate. And again, if you go to the star signs, a human design and all that kind of stuff, it adds up together life path, etc. So I was when I was studying to be a nurse, I was going out partying a lot on the weekends and taking all the wonderful concoction of things that made me as high as a kite and danced the night away. And there was just one night where I had this very awful pain the flare up in the back of my right shoulder blade, and it was nothing like I had felt before it was like fire had just went boom and it lit in my body and I thought that's that's not good. You know, intuitively, intuitively not good but the cat back then was Little Miss ignorant, Little Miss, I'll be fine little miss. I don't want to deal with anything that's hard. And I was really at that time of my life running away from a difficult past and a past that had been haunting me that I just didn't want to deal with. So I was just like, How can I squash it down? I'll squash it. Down through going out partying and having fun. But, you know, along the way there were these nudges you know, that had turned into like baseball bat hits that had turned into a big Mack truck like coming and hitting me in the face. That will like we're going to wake you up now girlfriend and this pain over a course of five years. So this is our this is our avoidant. I was for five years I didn't do anything about it, but it spread through my body and I was 18 at the time. I then went into nursing, I stopped for party scene, at least like say 90% And then I went into the hospital settings but the shift work really messed up with this pain that was in my body and it was turning into like chronic nerve pain at that at that time. So I started taking prescribed medications and it started off quite low dose and then ended up ended up at end own oxycodone, Tramadol, Valium type stuff. And I was becoming dependent upon it. And again, whilst I was nursing, I would walk and I would my eyes would flicker I'd walk I'd miss some steps, but I just didn't want to I didn't want to address what was going on. My hands were swollen, and I was in chronic constant nerve pain. So I left traditional nursing after a good number of years because the shift work was just killing my body with this pain that was there. So I worked for a plastic surgeon and a nine to five job like trying to look for basically the answers outside of myself. You know, just like okay, cool if I do this and that should be better and my pain will go away magically and all will be well. But there was one day I was 23 now at this time, I was at the top of the stairs to go get the next patient with my boss and I couldn't walk. I couldn't walk down the step my brain and my foot just had no, there was no connection. There was no communication. And my boss looked at me and he's like, What are you doing? We gotta go get the next patient. And I looked back at him. And I just said I can't move. I can't walk. And he was aware of what had been going on in my body and the way that he looked back at me i I shot myself. I thought I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble here. And so once movement came back, and I was able to walk I went and had an MRI. We got the results and we're all like, What the hell is this? No one can no one can read this. We don't know what it means. And then two days later, I'm in a neurosurgeons office being told that I have a congenital brain condition that is very slowly if if not corrected will slowly turn me into a paraplegic. And I was like, Can you repeat that again, please? So I had brain surgery at 23 to correct what was going on in my body. And it didn't it corrected everything in my body but for five years my nerves were so compressed by my brain being too big and jamming down on my spinal cord and these benign tumors being in my spinal cord that my nerves were like a kink toes and so the water or connection couldn't move through my body beautifully. So there were all these like fiery warped signals sent to the rest of my body which is then the nerve pain. And that was pretty debilitating. So I I said to my surgeon like I'm 20 I'm 23 How the hell am I supposed to live like this? And he said, you may just have to manage this for the rest of your life. And at that time, you know, I was I was very depressed, dark, unhappy, overweight, all of those things. And he gave me this medication that said, Look this, this try this. This may work and that medication completely blacked me out. It took away whatever light was left, whatever hope was left, whatever possibility of a different future left. And it was the first time that not the first time but it was really a dark time where I thought I don't want to be here anymore. And so long story short, I reached out to my family and I said to them, I need help. I need real help, like proper help. I'm scaring myself. And I was put in front of a professor of neurology. And he said you've been told to ship card. There's no doubt about that. But I reckon you can change this for yourself if if you really want to and I've never heard anyone talk to me like that. You know, it was very New Age stuff like your beliefs and thoughts and affirmation and manifestation all that kind of stuff. It was hell a new age back then. And he said, you know, cat, Olympic athletes will train for their gold medal and they will rest they will sleep they will meditate. They will eat, they'll train they'll do everything they have to do to have that gold medal. around their neck because they wanted so bad. And he said, I need you to want something as bad and as much as an Olympic athlete wants that gold medal and so much so that you're willing to train for it every day. And he just said close your eyes and tell me what you want cat and I said, Doc, I want to be free. I want to be free to be me. I want to be free to be happy. I want to be free to live my life. I want to dance again. I want to engage with life again and they said that's your gold medal. And he said your invisible prescription for 12 months is to imagine that cat every day and do one thing that serves her and I was like who the fuck is this nutty professor, you know, who is he? Was he on? And should I take his advice, but he was like he is a top notch professor at the Austin hospital. And so I went away and I I did what he said and I also asked if I could stop taking medication so I could do this clean. I wanted to do it clean and with no fog in my brain. So I was so foggy from the medication. And every day I'd wake up a play music I'd imagine that cat I feel her sensor all of those beautiful things. I added all the Claire's into one all the Claire's into one. And I saw her I felt her I knew her and missed her. I heard her all of it. And every day I just started to move closer toward her. I would ask her what can I do today to be closer to you? What can I do today to be closer to you? And often that for me was engaging back with life. I wouldn't move my body I'd walk I'd run I'd go to Pilates even though I was still in chronic pain. I just thought Fuck it. I'm giving this everything that I've got. And within 10 months
I was a brand new fucking human. I was a brand new human human. I had no chronic pain and I still don't to this day. I was on no medication and I'm still not to this day I had lost all the weight that I had put on from medicating and not moving my body and I thought to myself, and by this time I was 24 and I thought I don't know what the hell I've done. But I need to go find out what I've done and that sent me on a quest. My quest had begun to learn study. You know, really sink my teeth into like I said What have I done to myself and I want to go figure it out. So I studied different many different things in many different modalities, which then led to the next layer of that voice inside that said, you've got a calling darling and you got to listen to it. Nursing is not it and that was the beginning of what has led me to here today.
Laetitia Andrac 17:45
It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing all that story. Kathy's very inspiring and for anyone listening to this podcast, and being like oh my goodness, I am kind of stuck in a day to day or in a body pain is it's really beautiful to hear you sharing how we can reclaim that hour and listening to large it's so funny how it's the same with me. I was not listening to the knowledge I had to not be able to wake up in the morning being lying. down in my bed to actually listen to Okay, you've pushed yourself too hard. Yep, we like many of us. Unfortunately don't listen to the subtle sign we wait till we are a bit down the track but then this is a blessing. You know the silver lining. Totally fine. We'll listen to the subtle sign you know when I have very similar like, Oh, stop there, babe. You're gonna go down the rabbit hole
Kat John 18:43
is that totally, totally. Totally. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I couldn't agree with you. More.
Laetitia Andrac 18:52
So now Kat with you speak about you know the the No fuck movement and reading creating this beautiful, empowering community around you. And how did you grow this business and how did this grew to this thriving community? Do you have any tips for anyone who's listening to this? And I you know, I don't know if you know, but we are entering this new stage was Pluto being an acquires? And it's asking more and more community collaboration, co creation and this collective of healed human coming together. So, you know, this is really timely, but any tips for anyone who is listening to this and craving to actually create a movement like this sharing expertise, their experiences and knowledge beyond closed door?
Kat John 19:48
Yeah, I mean, look, first things first, the first three years of me and business were fucking hard. They were really hard. I was I was thinking but I had to swim. Because I left I left my nursing role or more specifically, my boss gave me a 10 grand check and he said, get out. The world needs you more than we need you. You need to go and do your thing in the world. But I was I was so scared. I was like, Ah, I'll put it off or put off or put it off, and then again, booted out. So the first three years were so messy. I made like 30 grand profit, not even 30 grand profit. 30 grand gross. In my first year of business, like it was fucking rough. I was turning on I would not turn on the electricity. I'd use candles for light I had rice tuna when I was not vegan back then rice tuna. Eggs couldn't even afford a fucking avocado. You know, like, I did it tough. I was doing nursing shifts on the side. So by no means to what as to what you see today is where it began. I had no community I had no Instagram, none of that none of it existed. But I had fucking tenacity. You know I had the resilience in me to go now I have not been woken up by some great big giant force in me and outside of me where there's a match that has said this is what you're meant to be doing. I have not done this for nothing. And so I will find a way and yes that means I will need to hustle. Yes, that means I will need to try this fuckup that try it again. Fuck it up again. But always learning from you know the mess right? The first three years they were ill they were ill. So really, what I think that I've done well though, is I've remained consistent in showing up despite what is going on internally, and that has now become my strong suit. So when I the beauty of me being an authenticity coach is that if I if I show up to a speaking gig, if I show up on Instagram if I talk on Instagram or even to my podcast, I'll be like peeps, I'm in Stach anxiety right now. I am peaking with anxiety, and I start talking about it and I start letting it out and I start clearing it as I talk about and I'm like Alright, cool. Now let's get to the topic today. I just wanted to get that out of me. And, you know, show up authentically that I mean that is now because it's part of me and I get to share that. It's a real big bonus. You know, I have no I've set up my business as a ways that I don't have to show up perfectly all the time. Because that's not how I want to show up all the time anyway. And it's not how we show up all the time anyway. So I think what I've done well and what other people do well when they do well is they show up consistently despite what the gnarly thoughts in their head are telling them. And I think what can happen is when we start out with our business, we go through these cool periods. And then we have all this energy where everything's going well and then when the movement starts to settle a little bit where the traction starts to get stuck. The thoughts in our head start to get loud, gnarly, crazy. Then we start to feel like shit and then we don't want to show up because we're like, Oh, I feel like a loser. I feel like a failure. I feel like this. I feel like that and then we don't show up. And so then people who are our audience who are our clients, future clients, there's this unspoken pneus of don't rely on this person. Yeah, you know, I It's a brand that I can't fully trust through like I'm exactly yeah. So, for me with the ZeroFOX movement, this started probably I think 2018 must have been 2018. So a while ago now. It started out as a again, accident, you know, again, accidental but also soul evolution. I've always used dance as a as a way to express myself. And there was this one day I was dancing in my room. And it's a little voice little little voice inside that just said share it. And this is when Instagram was was a photo based platform. So dancing online was like who the fuck is doing that? Whereas now it's like every Tom dick and how are you doing it? You know? So back then it was like a it was a not a common thing. And his voice just said share it, record it and share it and I was like, Oh my gosh, no. And I didn't have a big community and didn't have a big community then online. And but I listened to the knowledge and I shared it and I spoke about it. And it was just meant to be one video and my audience were just like, we love this. We want to we want to feel confident to do that. We want to feel confident dance like you dad's there. So we can't wait till next Tuesday and I was like what the hell is his next Tuesday business because I posted it on a Tuesday. I'm like, What are you talking about? And literally the movement created like that. The movement created like that. So the next Tuesday I showed up dance. Again, people were so wrapped up in it and I think what I was showing them was an embodied or showing them an embodied example of freedom and embodied example of liberty and embodied example of I don't I do care about my ego cares about what you might comment below this, but also I don't care enough because here I am dancing, posting it. Right. So without saying all these words online, I was sharing it through movement, and I think people can feel that people can feel that embody embodied self. And for five years, that's what I did, and I still do it. Every Tuesday, I do a dance and I share a message and then reels became super popular. People then started to send in their own dances. I then created events ZeroFOX dance parties, and then late 220 22, early 2023 I believe in this thing called the tipping point or an accumulative effect, where you do something consistently and eventually it's going to tip you know, and you never know when that's going to tip and for me, it was like 2022 2023 where I was my online following was 32,000. And when within a matter of four months, it went up to over half a million. And I was like, What the fuck is happening, but I knew exactly what was happening. I knew exactly it was just it was just the right time for things to shift. And I get that that's hard for people listening because you think what am I doing this for? What's the point? Should I just give this up now? No one's listening. No one's commenting. No one's is no one's out. No one's buying but like I said, when you've got that? No, something in me says to keep at it. And you don't give a fuck about the thoughts in your head that need that reassurance. But you do it for the sake of your own expression for the sake of serving someone who's going to be listening to that something will shift I believe that anyway, that's my belief system.
Laetitia Andrac 27:40
And I'm with you with that don't it's what you know, we call in finance in finance is a compound effect. It's exactly what you describe. $5 $5 $5 Exactly. And then one day you check out all my goodness, compounded and compounded and compounded and this is really beautiful. To take us back to the beginning. And how many people are watching someone else chapter 10. And they're like, oh my goodness, look at that. It's so easy. But actually, there is a journey. There is a process behind the scenes, things happening and things moving through. And actually, yes, the first three years were really hard but if you take us back to your origin story, which you shared, it's been years in the making and see is you know, making accumulating all of this knowledge and a lot of people are like, you know, watching my business, no politician. It's been almost three years. How can you have such a thriving business? I have grinded as a strategy consultant, for big firm for 16 years and you know, taking all that knowledge and experience and expertise but oh my goodness, late night and working on weekend like it's just there's no easy path. There
Kat John 28:57
is no easy path. There is no easy path. You're exactly right. And that's the hard thing and you know, even when you do so call make it it's still not easy because then you have these new visions for yourself. You want to or either you want to maintain where you're at and that that's also that can be difficult. You want to create new goals for yourself and intentions for yourself. In fact there's my next stretch. And it's, it's yeah, it's we're always in a dance with with with where we're at where we'd like to be and then the mess that goes on in between. So it's not easy for anyone, even though it may look easy on the outside comfortably
Laetitia Andrac 29:42
and the first time I met you cat so I didn't know about you didn't know about your movement. I'm just gonna share with the listeners, this moment of me being so authentic. And so we were had this book launch and I was sitting side by side and I asked you what you were doing and you told me you were in affinity coach, you started writing your book, which we will talk about in a moment. And I you know, I was like, Oh, this is my business card because I'm pretty sure you have you know, a lot of people liking your work because I could feel your energy. And then you gave me your Instagram. I was like oh my goodness. Are you kill like what's that? And so it was so interesting. How I knew before knowing Yeah, how you work would be impacting so many people and many listener here knows that I leave a bit of in my cave i don't really consume as much social media as you know, maybe my clients do because I love to protect my own energy being you know, kind of very gifted with mediumship gifts and things like that. So I like to protect my own energy and live in my cave. So I'm not really like the fun girl looking at all the you know the influencer on Instagram and so on. But what came out of this meeting with you was really your energy and how you are definitely embodying the brand. And I think that's where everything shifted for you in 2022. It's just there's so many people totally pretending but then when you just cry, you're like, Oh, this is just pretend. Whereas I saw the flash and then I started following you on Instagram.