Welcome to the Entrepreneurial Leap Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dubay. For context, this podcast is inspired by the book Entrepreneurial Leap by Gino Wickman. Gino is the founder of e o S Worldwide, and an author with over 2 million copies of his books sold worldwide. Now, in his next phase, he's taking his passion for helping entrepreneurs by partnering with five equally passionate, successful entrepreneurs, myself included, who have created the E LEAP Academy, where we teach the content from the book in a one year program guaranteed to increase the success of early stage businesses. Now, a quick note about me, I've been an entrepreneur since the age of 14. When I started my first business selling Blow Pop Lollipops outta my locker with my best friend, I ran a company that I sold to a public company and later bought back. I'm an author, speaker, host of an annual leadership retreat, and I'm partners in several other businesses.

I'll be your host for the Entrepreneurial LEAP Podcast, where every other week you will be hearing life stories from successful entrepreneurs who took the leap into entrepreneurship. You will learn from their mistakes and successes and be inspired as you move forward on your journey. Now, before I introduce my guest, I'm going to share with you a bit about Ewe Academy. The Entrepreneurial Leap Academy provides an immersive nine month experience for new entrepreneurs with a focus on the three Cs, clarity, competence, and community. Let's start with the first C, clarity. You'll learn to be clear about who you are, what you want from your business, and how to get it. The next C confidence, you will learn to be confident you are on the right path, equipped with powerful mindset tools. The last C connected you will become connected to a community of entrepreneurs just like you. Now, all participants receive four full day in-person classes led by experience entrepreneurs to equip you with the tools and strategies necessary to build a successful business. The Academy's dynamic community connects participants with a tribe of like-minded individuals for support and networking opportunities during in between classes. Students also receive a seasoned mentor offering personalized guidance and expertise to help you navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship. To start building the business of your dreams, visit our website@eleap.com. Again, that's e leap.com. There you can learn more about and sign up for the next Entrepreneurial LEAP Academy.

Today's guest is Kathy Kolby, an acclaimed theorist, bestselling author, and pioneer in her field. Kathy was the first to prove the existence of the cognitive mental faculty, which causes us to act, react, and interact, believing that we are all equally perfect in our own way. She has spent over 40 years collecting and analyzing cognitive traits to ultimately help us be ourselves. She founded Kolbe Corp and was the c e o for 30 years and is now its Chairman Emerita. Kolby has been called Maslow's Successor because of her work in showing how the three parts of the mind cognitive, effective, and cognitive affect the creative problem solving process. Based on this seminal work, Colby was able to identify the algorithm for team synergy. After decades of research with hundreds of organizations, she was also able to author a comprehensive set of programs to assist leaders in making wise decisions based on a comprehensive set of human factors involving cognitive, effective, and cognitive levels of effort. Kathy now works to reform learning and wellness fields at every level. She has consulted with the US Department of Education individual schools from pre-K through high school, more than 50 universities and more than 200 health and medical organizations. Not only has she helped to change the entrepreneurial community, but she is one heck of an entrepreneur herself. And you are going to love my interview with Kathy. So here we go. Please enjoy my chat with Kathy Kolby.

Kathy, welcome to the Entrepreneurial Leap Podcast. I'm so grateful that you're taking the time to speak with us today.

I'm delighted to be here.

So, you know, I always like to start with a quote, and so I'm gonna read a quote and then I'd like, if you seem to know who said the quote, that would be great, but no pressure and just what comes to your mind when you hear it. Is that okay? Sure. Okay, great. So the quote goes like this. The Atlantic says personalities change at 65. That can happen, but I assure you, your instincts will be intact for the rest of your life. Cognitive strengths are everlasting. You're stuck with me being me, and I'm glad you will always be you. All right, youy, you have any idea who said it? Oh

Gosh, I wonder who said that.

Sorry. I set you up. Oh, so what? Tell, tell. Expand on that. Tell us more.

You know, I, I don't very often go on social media and take on a particular person or their ideas. Sometimes I just can't help myself 'cause they're so off and that article was just so off and they're so full of themselves. I think, you know, if I write for this journal, if they publish it, it's gotta be the truth. Well, no, most of the world, after I, you know, for 50 years now, I mean next year will be the 50th anniversary of my discovering Connation and the four modes. I'm a little sad. No, I'm a big sad about the fact that so many people still believe that they can change who they are. And gosh, if I just go to this, we used to call them finishing schools. If I go to this place and they tweak me, I'll be more this or more that as a person, it makes me very, very sad.

How many people are still picking the wrong careers? How many leaders are still demanding the wrong kind of behaviors from the people that they are supposed to be managing? The world is messed up with a lot of stress that's totally and completely unnecessary. Most of the stress in the world is caused by misplaced cognitive expectations, interesting and responsibilities. It's easily fixed. I've been working so hard to train people who will go out into the field and teach this for major corporations, entrepreneurs. I mean, it is true of all of us. It's not just some of us who were created with natural problem solving abilities. We were all created to be creative problem solvers. We're all equal in that sense, and yet so many people think they don't have what it takes to do that. Wow. Wow. And, and they think they'll never get it. Our schools haven't taught individuals how each and every one of them is equal.

I'm so big on this mesh of mission for equality in terms of how we create solutions. We are all able to, Hmm. I'm the youngest of four. I got pretty sick of and tired of watching. Oh, the oldest are the only son because they were three girls in the boy. They're the ones who know the answers. I'm sitting there with the answer folks. And so I was, I became rebellious very young. Interesting about, no, I, I know the answers. I'm gonna tell you the answer. Pay attention to me. And I, I just took over so many things where I saw the wrong way happening. I got up in classrooms and stood in front of teachers and started talking to the students, ignoring the teacher and taking over the class. I did that in middle school. I did it in high school. I did it in college. I can't stand to see people mistreated conatively. Hmm.

So, you know, before we hit record, I was sharing with you the, the six essential traits, and I'm just gonna read 'em off for the listener, visionary, passionate, problem solver driven, risk taker, and responsible. And you, and, and I'd mentioned that in our academy, you know, we teach that at the beginning and we allow for the students to leave if they feel they don't have these traits. And you mentioned you thought you could kind of, in a way predict what percentage might leave. Does this, do these traits fall into what you're saying right now? And how does it come to you that about 15% may actually not have the traits that signed up to do an academy like this?

Well, that's a big question. I have found many people think they're entrepreneurial who are not, and they think it because they wanna be, wanna be. Entrepreneurs are worse than a nuisance. They're, they're a danger to themselves. In others. We weren't all created to be entrepreneurs, and not every entrepreneur was created to use those abilities in the same way. So some people with the entrepreneur, Mo and, and I deal with four instinctive modes that I identified. I didn't create them, I identified them. And the one that is most necessary for quick start is to be a risk taker and do trial and error and to figure out what works. When you see it happening, the manager has another instinct that is strongest for them. And it's the FactFinder. Now, we, we all have all of these, but in different zones, you either initiate with it or you accommodate or you prevent. Entrepreneurs prevent taking too much time to figure out what's happened in the past. They don't deal with the past. They deal with the future. And I think that's one of the key traits of the entrepreneur is they just don't dwell on what happened before. In fact, they can't even remember some of it. They could if they tried, but yeah, they're into the future.

That is so good.

The fact finder is not only dealing with the past, but is very strategic. So my son is a FactFinder. There's nothing genetic about these traits. And so my son, who is now president of the company I founded, he is in the room next door to where I'm talking, and I, I passed him by and said, I'm gonna go talk about you. And he said, yeah, I like usual. My family's used to my using them as examples. But David Colby is a fact finder with a second suit in quick start. That means that he will look at the past, he'll be very strategic. He cuts a good deal because he is very sure the numbers add up and that everything is fair. As a little kid, he keeps saying, that isn't fair. And I'd say, so, David, someday you'll be a lawyer and you'll be able to say that in court and you'll be really direct.

And so sure enough, David's a lawyer, but a lawyer who found he really loved the Kolby business and wanted it to thrive in, I was never gonna make the kolby thrive long, long, long term. I, this is our 50th year for Kby. We, we start the 50th year at the end of this year. Hmm. So it's, it, it's had longevity because it tells the truth. But what I know about people is you don't change. And a lot of people think, oh, I can take a course in entrepreneurialism and I can become a good entrepreneur. No, you can't. And by the way, the one word that I have a little problem with, with your list of words is responsibility. There is, that's an affect. That's not an instinct. Your other things tie to human instincts. Interesting. And natural innate behaviors, responsibility is an affect that I care enough and I'm going to take responsibility for that. And I have to tell you, there's no core, there's no predictive validity in an entrepreneur taking responsibility. Interesting. Established. Yeah. But when some of them, when they fail, blame everybody else. And it was really on them. But the rest of your words, I, I think fit and tie very much with how I see entrepreneurs. So that's a, that's that's pretty good. 80%. Yeah.

Not bad. Yeah. Let's talk about your entrepreneurial story. I mean, 50 years is remarkable, so congratulations on that. And how did you get started? Where did you feel like, okay, I'm going to, you know, take this to the world?

Well, first of all, I started three businesses 50 years ago, and they're all highly functional now. And I like that record.

That's amazing.

What made me do it, I am the daughter of Wonderlich of the Wonderlich personnel test, and the Wonderlich personnel test was and still is. And I, it's based, it's not an IQ test, but it's an intelligence test. In other words, it, it's not as accurate as an IQ test, but it will measure your, your working intelligence for office type work. I, before I could read or write was fence posting the results, it was my job as a little kid to each item was, was, you know, one of four things. And I, so I learned how to fence post and build data. I can say I was a test analysis person before I could write my own name. I had a terrible, I'm, I'm very, very highly dyslexic and proud of it. Hmm. It, it's, it's been one of the glorious of my life to overcome the bad part of it and to use the good part. And there are good parts. Hmm. But it took my poor mom weeks and weeks of tutoring to get me to write my own name. So having been there, done that in terms of doing the research when I didn't really know what I was doing, but asked a lot of questions. And we had one category for male female, another category for age. And I found biases in some of the questions by both. And before I could read or write, I was arguing with my dad, your test isn't fair.

I'm surprised they've fed me. I'm the youngest of four. I'm mouthing off criticizing my dad's work. And by the way, I was an unwanted child and told that many times that they did not want, in fact, the doctor thought I was a tumor and was gonna cut me out, but I kicked his hand and, and got rid of the knife just in time. So I've been kicking my way in into the world and where I wanted to be since I was born. What was interesting to me was my dad found it amusing, courageous, and interesting that I would criticize him. He did not like it, but it amused him at the same time. And he said, he would argue with me and say, okay, you tell me why I'm wrong and how to fix it. And I would, and so I was learning about fairness and I was learning about developing test questions before I, literally, before I could read or write.

By the same token, I never wanted to be a part of the Wonderlic business because I didn't think it was measuring the right thing. And I would say, but dad, you know, I loved being a leader, whether it was sports or student government. I, oh, the high school musical was the most fun. But I always loved being a leader. And one of the reasons I liked being a leader was I could help more people become involved in a fair way. That we were using what they were good at and keeping pe people from feeling sad about what they were doing. So that was the beginning of my in grade school, how do we help people be equal and make it fair, be they're so different? And how do we make the differences work together? I was worrying about that in third and fourth grade, and I was talking about it with my friends and teachers. And I remember in one teacher conference, the teacher said to my parents, Kathy can't stand it when things aren't fair, but she doesn't know how to keep quiet about it.

That is still my problem. I can't keep quiet about, you know, it's kinda like dummy, dummy Kathy. Can't you just shut up and, and just let it be? No, I cannot. So why did I start what I've done? It's because I was looking for what's fair and how to identify what makes us equal. And when I was almost killed in a car accident and my brain was so severely injured, I couldn't read or write for a year and a half. Wow. That's when I discovered the truth of connation. That there was a part of the mind. My brain was cognitively dead and they didn't know if it'd ever come back.

But I could listen in the ward I was in, in the hospital, and I was there for over a month. So I got to know the nurses, I got to know other patients. I, I didn't even meet some of them, but we were in a circle in this odd, oddly shaped hospital so I could hear everything. And I would say to the nurses, the problem with the guy in the room two doors, and I don't ever know left from right. I'm dyslexic. It's that way. Zach, I is not telling you what's really hurting him. I don't know if it's his pride. I don't know if it's a language problem, but he is not telling you the truth because when he goes out and walk, I see where he puts his hand and where the sore is and what's troubling him. And he is not telling you that. And so I'm being this little, I dunno, it, it, I, because I was bored, it was so interesting to talk about people I wasn't seeing, I didn't know their names, but I could give the nurses clues. And finally the nurses said, you know, everything, every clue you've given us has helped us help the patients. How do you know these things? I ended up, while in the hospital, still unable to read or write, do a seminar much like I do now on Connation. That these are the four modes. And how did I know all that?

By watching people all my life. By not, I knew what not to believe and I didn't believe in my father's work. It, it wasn't that he was lying. He didn't, he, he really believed, he believed in his work. But I knew how smart you were on the kind of tests the Wonderlic is, would not say anything about how productive you would be or creative you would be. So my work was to figure that out, the things that my dad hadn't done. And when I was in the hospital, you know, I already had a successful business. I had resources for the gifted, it was successful 'cause of the brilliant name. Everybody wanted their kids to be gifted. So, I mean, I was in time. Mag Magazine is one of the most successful entrepreneurs early on, really and truly come up with a name like resources for the gifted. And you will be successful.

That's what you attributed to, huh? Well, I worked,

I worked very hard and I did a lot of creative things, but the most intelligently creative thing I did was give that title. So I was writing books and I would write four to five workbooks for kids a week. I kept coming up with new things and new things and new things because, 'cause I'm a flaming quick start. Yeah. And I just have to keep doing new things and new things. But they all sold well, no, I'll tell the truth. I would send out a catalog to schools and, and parents and organizations and I would list and describe all these books. And then I wrote the ones that sold, if they didn't sell, I never wrote 'em. So I did things like that that any entrepreneur listening would identify with. Right. You have to get creative, especially in the startup stages with a good name for the company with not overpromising. I only sold the books that sold. I only wrote the books that sold. And I would tell say the others were out of, what did they say out of stock? They were in stock. But I, I think having fun and doing something purposeful and trying to make a difference in the world. Yeah. Those are the three things that helped me be what I became.

Yeah. You know, I hear so many things I wanna allude to. I wanna start with something that you said about you worked really hard and one, we, we have a list of, of eight must dos. And one of them is work hard, really hard. And so what do you think about that?

I love to work. I, I was really upset this weekend because I didn't have a lot of work to do. And it, you know, it's 115 to 118 where I live today, Arizona. I, I want, yeah, I wanna be working. I don't pay attention to heat if I'm in my air condition unless I'm working. But I'd had nothing on deadline for today that I had to write or do I do for tomorrow. I'm gonna be doing a live seminar tomorrow, but I prefer to have work to do. And my husband's in assisted living and my cat is like all cats. He just wants to watch me work. He doesn't help me work. He doesn't start the work. So I find work is one of my greatest joys and I need to be doing it. Mm. I love my work.

Yeah. And, and you know, just thinking about your passion for around how you developed these products, another must do that we talk about is that the bigger the problem you solve in the world, the more successful you'll be. And had you ever thought about this big problem that you're solving?

Which one?

Exactly.

'cause Exactly. I've been trying to solve multiple problems. The biggest problem is the lying, absolute lying of the scientific world about the existence of Connation. I've been lying since young And Freud lied about it. I mean, they knew it existed and it was too hard. It was too much work. Neither one of them was known for hard work, by the way. They both referenced Connation and said, I'll leave that for someone else. Okay. So you left it for this dyslexic woman with no science. I mean, my degree is in journalism because I was so dyslexic. They were. And, and I would write backwards and I would, and so I went into journalism 'cause it was my weakness.

Geez.

I had to do that in order to be credible. And so four years of journalism took all the good writing out of me, but made me credible. Go figure, would I do it again? Mm, yes you would. Well, because school was so boring. I started a major crusade with a student government association and they were, they were lying and cheating. And Tom Hayden, remember Tom Hayden, the Chicago seven, the communist, he was representing students. And I said, no, he is not. He's a communist and he is older than the rest of us. And so I debated him in colleges across America and talk about fun. First of all, he is, he is a lovely person and brilliant. And I disagreed with him on every single thing that came out of his mouth. So baiting him was a joy. But I got to travel America while I was still a college student and be in campuses arguing for something I thought was important to argue about. Yeah. I don't argue for the sake of arguing. Some people think I do, I will argue for the sake of the truth. I believe in two things being fundamental, the truth and equality. And my work tells the truth about what makes us equal. That's why I love my work.

So you, you just in your discussion about going to college, you know, we, we talk to entrepreneurs and, and some will ask, should I go, if they're young, they'll say, should I even go to college? Is it worth it? And so we always like to ask, you know, did you go to college? Which you did, I think you went to Northwestern, if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct? In Chicago. And, and, and so what I just heard from you, but please like build on this if you think it's necessary, is that the coursework itself wasn't necessarily the education that you received. It was everything beyond that. And that in itself was worth of

Coursework. Say again? I I got a full year's credit without going to classes.

When you went around debating. I,

I made up my own work. It was the, around the country debating. And I wrote a thesis, I wrote a document on the inequality that was, oh, I've always been, equality's always been a major thing for me. But also I wrote about how American students were being duped. And guess what I didn't find out for decades later that the c i a was tracking me because they thought I was a double agent. Kidding me, some of the funniest things in my life have just happened because dumb luck. Or just 'cause I was willing to argue and I, I'll be out there. Okay, fine. But I had no idea that they thought I I was the communist. Oh my gosh. For

A while. Gosh,

That sounds good. And that I was just setting it up. I mean, it just, there there've been a couple books written about student activism in, in the eighties. And that was May Wow. Eighties. Amazing. Sixties.

Sixties or eighties. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Let's stick with

Eighties. I've been an activist all those decades and you know, I'm in my eighties and I'm still an activist. Yeah. So I dunno when the, it feels sometimes like, you know, I'm just meant to be me. You

Were, but yeah, you were for sure meant to be you. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, it's always been that, that my goal was to make a difference. My goal was to make a better world. Yeah. I'd never cared about the money. And that's where I'm different from Entrepr so many entrepreneurs. And, and by the way, it makes me angry when we talk about entrepreneurs as making money. I think I'm a classic entrepreneur. And to this day, I really don't care about the money. It, it is a way of keeping score, as we all say. But it isn't my way of keeping score. How many people did I help? How many lives did I impact? How mu how much change have I made when I've had an interesting thing I'm almost hesitant to talk about. Maybe I, please, I guess that'll please. In the last few months I have had several people call me or, or it's all ended up being phone calls eventually, who over the years have taken the Kolbe and who are now on their deathbeds, they're in hospice or they, they know that they're not gonna make it and they're calling me.

Some of them I knew and some of them I didn't know to thank me for the fact that they were dying, knowing who they were. Wow. That they felt whole because they, the Kby index had clearly defined for them, this is who you are. Yeah. And that knowing that has brought them peace and that they're dying with peace, knowing that they were who they were. And in some cases I knew them very well. In other cases, I wasn't even quite sure who they were. So I can honestly say I, I don't care about being an entrepreneur. I've never cared about money. What I care about is that, that people have found peace and joy from the work I created. But it wasn't my work. There's a higher power. I I feel very strongly that has guided me through this. Yeah. And I began studying carnation without knowing the word.

When I was a little kid, when I was in middle school and all the work, I mean all the time I was Tom Hayden. I'm trying to figure out what makes you tick. What's your mo what, who are you? But by the time I discovered the word ation, it was just being taken outta dictionaries. 'cause it was a useless word. 'cause nobody was using it. Do they? Or academic world, is it back in? Oh, very rarely. Very rarely for the audience Explain it. Well, connation I found is the ancient philosophers talked about the three parts of mind thinking, feeling and doing. Thinking is the cognitive feeling is the affective. And doing, Freud again, had the word young, had the word connation for it. Conative comes from the Latin word CITAs, meaning action, doing.

I studied all this on my own, finding ancient stuff, trying to understand these three parts of the mind, because I believe there were, but in no class I, I called universities and asked if they had a course on Carnation. And most of them would say, we don't even know what that is. Some said, well, why would we do that when no one really believes it? So I did a lot of research and I did it with data and I did it studying real people. And I was so empowered with all my data and all my proof. And I, one of my high school friends was the dean of, of the school of psychology, whatever they call it, at Harvard. So I told him I was gonna come to Harvard and show him my data and wanted to talk to him about my work. And we'd been buddies. And so we, okay, fine. I'm interested in what you're up to, lady.

So I get there and I show him my work. And I had to have him take the Kolby index and he has some of his patients and coworkers take the kolby. And, and then he gets back to me and, and he, then I'm back in Boston and he said, Kathy, turn around and run as fast as you can. Run away from Harvard. Said, what did you, what did you see? What's wrong? And he said, what we saw is your work is the truth and you know, something we don't know. And you've proven the third part of the, the brain, you've proven it, that makes all of our textbooks wrong. It makes all of our lectures wrong. And he said, there's no professor at Harvard that doesn't want you to die. Yeah. Jesus. I mean they, you are the most powerful negative in their potential future. Wow. They don't wanna admit they're wrong. They don't wanna correct themselves in their lectures. They want, don't wanna have to write new theory. So you are a serious problem here. Get out because they will destroy you.

Geez.

Yeah. Amazing.

You know, you shared this story a moment ago about the people that had contacted you that they were on their deathbed. And we talk about for entrepreneurs, there's the story of the dream. And like to me that sounds like a dream after all this, these years, 50 years being in business, that somebody would come back to you at that point in their life. Some people that don't even, you know, that you don't even know that well or well at all and come back and share that with you. It's such an impact. But we also always like to hear the story of what we like to call the nightmare. And so in your time in business 50 years, I gotta imagine you'd have one or two stories that were kinda like the nightmare story.

Oh, folks. Trademark, copyright. Oh, mark copyright. My nightmares were when people stole my work and put their names on it. Oh

Geez.

And I went through hell with that. I ended up in the Ninth Circuit court that's just below the Supreme Court. I paid over a hundred thousand dollars in legal fees to try to protect the Colby Index. And the guy who ripped me off w had been in my training classes, he'd gone through the training on how to use my work. And so he set this up in court. It, it went for weeks and weeks, a trial that was very long. And at the end of the trial, they still hadn't called me. They interviewed all kinds of people and they were trying to prove that my work was fair game, that anybody could use my work. So they finally call me and I'm sitting there in the courtroom and the judge decides, he wants to ask me a question. Their attorney has had asked me a few. And the judge who I done some research on, a kindly old guy who believed in seeking the truth, A man of faith, strong faith. And he said, Ms. Colby, is your work fact or fiction, how do you think I answered that

Backed

If I say fact, it's public domain. Facts are public domain. I can't own them.

Oh,

If I say fiction, you wouldn't be interviewing me. Kathy made this up and she admits it.

Geez.

A lot of people think I made it up.

Interesting.

I I never sold a single index. It took 10 years of research with in extensive data. Yeah. Before I sold the first index 10 years. And he is asking me, listen

To that entrepreneurs 10 years, I did

10 years of research.

That's passion.

It's passion. And it's, and I was single parenting two kids during most of that time. Amazing.

So back to the, I'll tell you this, the judge asks you, is that factor

I'm, I'm proud, I'm sorry. I'm proud of several things. Certainly the truth of my work. Yes. But my kids, my son is now president of Kolbe Corp. Yes.

David

And David Kolbe's, a brilliant lawyer and a brilliant c e o. And so I got payback for all that time that I struggled to keep this business alive. It's fun. I I'm down the hall from where he is working right now. It's so nice. It's just such a joy to have my son running this. I can't imagine.

Thank

You. And me not having to run it. 'cause it's no more entrepreneurial. It's a fact finder job now. That's

Right.

So, but let me answer the the question, is it a fact or fiction? I turned and looked at the judge eyeball to eyeball and I said, sir, my work is neither fact nor fiction. It's the truth. Ooh,

That's good.

Oh yeah. I,

And what did the judge say? Maybe I'm,

I'm severely dyslexic. I'm a D H D I got all these, you know, I have to go to, you know, I, I'm really a, a dummy in so many ways, but when I need it, I'm a creative problem solver. And in that case, all of you entrepreneurs listening out there know, I didn't know what I was gonna say. I just said it. Yeah. And it was the truth. The truth is it's the truth. And the judge looked at me and he closed his book and it was clear he was stunning. He knew all he had all he needed. And in his decision, which was for me, he said, he quoted me and said, this is neither fact nor fiction. It's the truth. Wow. And only Kathy Kolby owns her own truth.

That's good. That's a great story.

Yeah. You know, it's sometimes what you don't think about.

Yeah. Yeah.

That sometimes our greatest wisdom just comes from saying the truth.

You know, the one other must do that's coming up for me is, and, and I imagine this happened and I'm picking up on different, you know, cues to it as you speak, is that we need to take criticism and doubt with a grain of salt. And, you know, how did you navigate that as you were gr you know, growing your businesses? Because I imagine you I

Didn't take it, I did not take it with a grain of salt.

You didn't, you did it,

Did

It motivate you?

I would say to every entrepreneur out there, seek the wisest advisors you can possibly find and tell them you want the truth and you want the armed varnished truth. You want to hear it, you know, give it to me. I, I need to know. And I had, and still have the same accountant that I had in the early years. I mean, we're buddies and I had a couple different attorneys, one in particular who was in the courtroom when I said what I said, said he wished he could take credit that. And I said, yeah, you can take credit. 'cause you taught me to keep my mouth shut mostly, which is not easy for me. The, the fact I had brilliant advisors. There were so many times I had a time when five of my employees, I called them the gaming of five, were hired by an outsider with a promise that they could take over the business, take it from me, and he would lead it and they would become rich.

Kathy didn't know how to make money. Everybody knew Kathy didn't care about making money. She wanted to make a difference. And he said, you can make money off her work. We just need to get rid of her. And you know, the, the company almost failed to get through that because five key three of them were managers. Yeah. And they were stealing all kinds of things from me, my intellectual property, financial security, et cetera. I made the decision I couldn't close down the business because one of my employees was a handicapped minority who would've no other place to work. And we labored hard to try to figure out how to protect her if I closed down the business. And we decided we couldn't protect her as well as we could with a corporate programs we had. So I said, okay, we will close the office. And my advisors and I met in a car parked in the grocery store parking lot to have our meetings because we knew it would, they were probably anyways to tap into what we were saying.

And I ran the business from a car in the grocery store parking lot for several weeks. Oh my. And my advisors would meet me there. And together we figured out how to keep the company alive. Amazing. And the five people ended up making a mistake or two, which they, people, people of ill will who think they're really smart enough to harm someone like us who are truth seekers. And it, it's a lot harder to find the truth than to steal from people. So they don't have they don't have the cognitive testing that, that you and I would have. Yeah. And my advisors were brilliant and we caught 'em all. No kidding. Well, we caught 'em because they started sending texts at the time, it was not text, it was faxes, faxing. And they were sending faxes to each other and they copied faxes to their own attorney to show the attorney all the things they were doing. And the attorney turned them in. Oh my goodness. Yeah. He said, this is not right. What a story. But I have, I had to fight a lot of bad employees. You have to be, I mean, I trusted everybody when I started in business. Now I know we can't do that. You just can't do that. You gotta be very watchful. Yeah. So then I set up traps.

You, you mentioned, you know, you're, you're a visionary. Do you, do you see yourself as that way? I don't know if you've used that word. I can't do that. I don't

Use that word for myself.

It's

Not my vision.

Okay. I mean, this,

This maybe sounds corny, but it's an

How about an idea person?

Oh, yes.

Yeah. Okay. So let me refer to you in that way.

I'm definitely an I idea person.

So as an idea person, was there a point in the business where you brought in sort of like a complimentary counterpart? So you could be the idea person in the complimentary counterpart part would run the day-to-day operations, which I imagine that's what David's doing right now. But was there ever a time before David?

Yes, I tried with several people and it was very difficult because people, first of all just, just sounds impossible. Men would not wanna interview with a woman. And the men who did mostly were doing it and one who interviewed very well. And I said, I I, I'd like what I hear you say, and I'd be interested in hiring you, would you be interested in taking a job? And he said, no. I said, well then why are you here? He said, I'm here for the experience of being interviewed by a woman. I just couldn't imagine what it would feel like. Yeah,

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was so hard different times to hire men at, at first, at first Kolbe Corp was all women employees. Is that right? Because no man would, would interview with me. And, and then Time Magazine did a cover story on me and suddenly I had some credibility. Makes me mad that something like that gives you credibility. But, but it did. And it helped me hire some

Kathy, you're a trailblazer.

I am a trailblazer. Zer.

Someone's gotta cut the path on the way. And you're one of those people.

And I got lost because I'm dyslexic. I love when someone said, you're a trailblazer. And I said, yes. And you can go down all the places I got lost and you'll get lost too. If you follow me. Do not follow me on all my paths because I've gone down some really strange paths.

But, but one thing I find interesting, and you mentioned it at the beginning, was that although you had trouble finding kind of like a counterpart with David there now he seems like the perfect counterpart because I notice a sense of, in a way, maybe it's not the right word, but relief. You know, in other words, he can now run the business. I saw you kind of go, oh, and he can run it and I can, you know, and, and it just gave me a sense that you could be, you know, the idea person and work on the things and be, you know, in what we like to call in different stages. Be in your personal sweet spot.

Well, I was single when I, I did mo I was married for the first part of the business and one of the reasons I became single is my husband didn't believe a woman should be running, running a business. Didn't believe I should be an entrepreneur, didn't I should stay home and take care of the two kids who were very competent. And a large part of why I didn't stay in the marriage was because he didn't believe I could be who I was. And then they didn't believe I should have the freedom to be who I was. He thought it was disgusting was his word. It's disgusting that you have a business and, and I'm embarrassed by it. And now, okay, fine. Bye.

It's not just David. I remarried. My second marriage was after the car accident. I mean, this guy who I was going to meet before the car accident to go with me, there was this thing Phoenix 40, which is supposed to be the top 40 executives in town. Yeah. And guess what? I was the only woman invited and I had to find a man who could, you know, deal with that. And there was this guy that I was in. Yeah, you can deal with him. And so I married will rap and all we got to know each other because when we were first supposed to meet was the day of the car accident that almost killed me. And I was in the hospital for over a month. The doctor told me I would never work again. And when that upset me, he said, why do you care? You'll get insurance and you'll be fine. And I said, you don't understand. I have to work. I have to, of course you. And so it's a long story. And it could be a book, how I recovered, because I had such severe brain injuries, I could not read or write for a year and a half. And I am an author and a publisher.

The hardest work I've probably ever done is retrain my brain to read and write. 'cause I had to do it on my own. But there was no doctor who believed in me. They no doctor ever. They all told me I would never work again. And I, I could get good, I could get probably enough money from insurance that I would be okay. And I said, I don't care about the money I have to work. Hmm. Anyway, when I got back to the office where I had had 32 employees, when I went back after it was a little over a year, there were only three people in the office.

And one was my accountant, one was my personal assistant, and the other person was cleaning up in the back. I don't know what gave me the gumption to go back in there and start from scratch. Hmm. But I did, and I know people were watching me, some journalists were writing about me that I didn't know at the time, local journalists. But the people who needed my work were still out there. So I put out a catalog with the same as I'd always done. And if they wanted it, I'd figure out how to. And so I dictated, I couldn't write, but I dictated books and I went back into business. But the business was never the same because now I had to start, I, I knew about connation. I discovered the truth of Connation the week before the car accident because my dad died. And all I, I didn't ask for any money.

I didn't get any inheritance. All I got, and all I asked were, were the textbooks in his office, in our home. And when those books came, it included a thesaurus, this paper with covered thesaurus. But I remember him using it and I'd used it and I'd been working on the will. What, what is the will all about? I had to understand that law. Again, this is before the car accident, but it's, they'd been trying to steal from me all along. And I'd had to be willful to keep it together. I looked up the will and under will in the real thesaurus and ro not the one made up by Americans. It's alphabetical now. Real sru under will is the word connation volition and will and connation. Hmm. I decided I'm gonna figure out what ation is. And three days later I was in the hospital with brain damage.

Mm. But I spent all the time in the hospital trying to understand, am I using my thinking? No, I, my brain's gone. I can't read or write, but I was willfully they would tell me they'd put me in water, leave me alone. But tell me, just lie there. We want you to be in the water where you have less pain. The minute they go, I'd start moving everything I could move and trying to build my muscle strength. And I knew what I was doing was cognitive. Hmm. It was cognitive. It was cognitive amazing. It wasn't emotional. It was conative. So it was while I was in the hospital recovering from severe brain injury from a car accident that I learned the truth of connation. Hmm. And once I knew it was true, I wasn't making it up, I wasn't reading it out of book. I personally experienced the power of connation. That's what changed my life.

Hmm. It's a great story. Very inspiring for especially anybody but the listeners, the, you know, early stage entrepreneurs and how you turn this situation that you had into your life, into, you know, life's work.

You know, I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur. I thought of myself as

Responsible for communicating with the world part. Children and parents read these books, do this creative problem solving. You'll find it doesn't matter that you don't get a's you are a creative problem solver. I was trying to reform education. I was using the materials I was writing now dictating to tell people you have what it takes to be a creative problem solving solver. And that's more important than iq. That's more important than any other way you could achieve you. If you have creative problem solving, you decide what you wanna do and you'll be able to do it.

So Good. Thank you. Kathy. Kathy, is there any last words that you'd like to share with our,

Before I croak? What wonder?

Well, we know you have an amazing sense of humor. That is for sure.

Well, let me say this. I think my humor has been one of the most important things about me. If I, I have a, a pretty sad personal story about my life and how I've been ripped off and cheated and, and denied. And, but it's always, I've always found humor in it. It just, I've always found that the people who thought they were harming me had no idea how often I laughed at them about them. Have I ever written a book about it? No. Because I don't know how to write it Funny. I've never tried. I can say it and people laugh, but the, the truth is, I'm a weirdo. There's nothing about me that's ever been normal is, I could tell you story after story. I, I have no talent. I, for music, I can't sing. Well, I had a fam, my sister was a fabulous singer.

I trying to dance because my dyslexic, after the first dance class, the teacher asked my mother in front of me to never bring me back because she'd be saying, turn to the left and I'd turn to the right and mess up the whole thing. She said, we, we just can't have her here. I, I wanted to play the piano. And, and the music teacher said she can't look up at the music and then down at the keys it, she loses all sense. It, it doesn't work. Kathy will never play the piano. So I became the director of the high school musical.

Of course.

Voila. I mean, there you go. I've, I would say to my children, my grandchildren, everybody listening to this, anybody, I can say it to never say can't because there's always a sneaky way you can. But, but sometimes you gotta get really creative and use your creative abilities to figure out, I didn't wanna do that anyway. What can I do that I really wanna do? Hmm. There'll be lots and lots and, and things you never thought of. I mean, I never thought when I was a school kid that I would be a publisher. I never thought I'd be a theorist. I never thought I'd be a brain expert. Well, I know more about the brain than most people studying the brain. But I don't go around saying, oh, I'm a brain. Yes, I am a brain expert and if you wanna know, I'll help you. But I, I wanna have more fun than being around brain experts. I mean, I haven't found that much fun. That's a good way.

So

I choose to be around entrepreneurs and media people and interesting people selling kolby indexes. 'cause we all have a good time together. I don't think if I was working in brain research, I'd even

No, you wouldn't be having that kind of fun.

I'll, I'll have lunch with them.

There you go. Yeah. Kathy, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. It was so fun and interesting and wise everything that I heard today. And I know the listeners are gonna feel the same way. And to all the amazing entrepreneurs who are listening today, I greatly appreciate you spending time with Kathy and me. And I wish you all much love and gratitude.