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From Layoff to Legacy: Building a Personal Brand That Pays

• Alex Romanovich

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Stop waiting for a title to validate your value. Alex sits down with internationally recognized mentor and TEDx speaker Katrena Friel to map a 90-day path from layoff anxiety and plateaus to a market-ready expert brand. A painful early misstep forged her resilience and her done-for-you, book-first method: codify your philosophy in a short, publishable book; use that rigor to drive your brand, website, keynote, and premium signature program.

We unpack the psychology most pros skip. Self-doubt doesn’t vanish; it becomes a signal. Confidence is domain-specific, which is why speaking feels scary until your ideas have structure. Write the book, then turn it into a keynote, and fear flips into readiness. Katrina also outlines seven revenue streams — author, speaker, trainer, coach, mentor, facilitator, consultant — to stabilize income across cycles.

You’ll get no-fluff strategies by life stage: proof and stripes in your 20s; a dual track for Gen X; and for boomers, packaging wisdom as paid expertise. Saturation is solved by story — your lived patterns and language. If this resonates, follow, share, and leave a quick review so more people build brands that outlast job titles.

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Alex Romanovich:

Hi, this is Alex Romanovich and welcome to Global Edge Talk. Today is April 22nd, 2025. Spring is here finally, and our guest is Katrina Frail. Nice to meet you, Katrina, and welcome to our studio.

Katrena Friel:

Thank you so much for having me, Alex. Great to be up this early in the morning in Australia.

Alex Romanovich:

Yes, I just realized that you are calling in from Australia, and it's 6 a.m. in Australia, is it not?

Katrena Friel:

Yeah.

Alex Romanovich:

So we appreciate your uh waking up so early. Reminds me of my calls with Japan on the few projects. But uh let's jump in and introduce you properly. You're an international recognized business coach and mentor. You're guiding a number of global entrepreneurs and leaders through the mastery of what you call the field of excellence. You've been known as a business mentor to the awakened. You've written a few books. You were a guest, star guest at the TEDx presentations and speaker at TEDx as well. You um have a very interesting career that spans corporate, like electronic arts, you know, in the gaming days, if you will. You had a very interesting um approach to sales where you combine sex and sales. You're gonna tell us more about that because I think that's exciting. And you guide professionals, executives, and companies to leverage their strength and become true masters of what they do well. Wow. I mean, I I I can go on and on and on, but I'd rather have you tell us more about what is it that you do and how you do it, and a little bit about your biography as to as to how you actually came to this.

Katrena Friel:

Yeah, well, I had a corporate career like most of us do. And uh when I left about 25 years ago, um I was starting to create my coaching company and training and speaking. And every time I would get up there and speak in some format or another, there was always one person that came up and said, I'd love to do what you do. I really would love it. And I started to think, well, how do I do what I do? And I started to realize there was a bit of a market there for people that were sort of wanting to do um a mixture of things, which in those days was, you know, training people, coaching people, mentoring people, facilitating groups, consulting to companies about the people piece. And um, I started to kind of look at it and see how can I break it down? How did I get here? You have to sort of reverse engineer it, as they say. So originally I started out doing groups. So I would put groups of people together and we would go through how I do it and I'd share all everything that I'd picked up the good, the bad, and the ugly over the years. And then what I realized was people weren't doing the work. They weren't actually locking it all in. And so I was bitterly disappointed with that. I felt I'd put a lot of energy into it and I wanted them to have it put together, their full brand. So I started to do it for them. And back in the day before Done For You, I was doing done for you over 20 years ago. And now it's come back into fashion again, which is really interesting that everyone's doing done for you because I think business runs in a loop where online programming was starting to come into fashion, and everyone thought everyone would just go to cheap and cheerful online programs and get it done. But when the stats started to come in, 75% of people never opened their online course. And of the 25% that did open it, about 95% never complete it. So to me, I was on to a good winner with Done For You because I was actually creating it for them from the brand, uh, the book, the website, the signature program that was usually premium in pricing, anything from sort of 10 to 20,000, and then uh right through to setting up all their socials and everything. So I started to create this becoming the expert program. And I've been doing that now for over 25 years and still love it to this day. Just helping people get it, get it done so that they don't waste five years of time and about 75 grand worth of money. And it's all just done for them. So, and done with them and done, you know, it's all relative, isn't it?

Alex Romanovich:

Tell us a little bit about your path, your personal journey, if you will, because you told me before when you and I first met and uh spoke that it wasn't without disappointments, it wasn't without failures. And of course, God knows we have so many failures right now everywhere, and disappointments as well. We have layoffs, global despair, economic woos, and so forth and so on. And you've experienced a lot of those things before you actually came to uh realize that there is a system to cope with all of this, and you teach that system, you teach that, you coach individuals on how to cope with that. Tell us more about your path and your journey and how you came through that.

Katrena Friel:

Well, for me, it was about look back in early 2000s, where I had a miscarriage. And when I had had the miscarriage, I feel, now looking back, that I was in a very weak position. Something had happened, and I think grief really affects the way you see the world in that moment. And at that time, I saw an ad for a coaching business and I went full pelt into that, ended up leaving my corporate job and signing up to this guy, and so did other people. And after a little while, we all looked at each other and went, There's nothing here. There's just nothing. We've bought air. And, you know, went to my solicitors, of course, ready to try and get my money back. And he just said to me, Look, you can throw good money after bad, but um, is there any chance that you've you've learned a $30,000 lesson? And in that moment, it really sort of clicked that I had. And the it was about personal resilience. It was about having what I needed already inside of me, and that I didn't need this guy. And this guy had taught me that lesson that holds true to this day. Um, and I think now my my program is particularly full of a lot of value because he had none. And so I think it's in response to that where I got ripped off so badly and before I'd even got started. So it was horrendous. And my husband always thinks that it was because of the miscarriage and the grief that must have been going on. I wasn't thinking straight. But at the same time, I learned that really valuable lesson that everyone needs to have, and that is this resilience, because business is the best personal development program you'll ever do. And every time you think you get to one level, there's another level, and there's another level in the game. Along the way, you're not just only learning, but you're also developing spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally, and your resilience is going up and up and up and up. The thing is, most people give up before they've broken through. And I think you and I, and people like us who have been around decade after decade, we realize that it's all part of it. You just face the challenges along the way. And in fact, people see COVID as a really terrible time, and it was a terrible time. We certainly had our challenges within the COVID, but my business boomed during that period. So that's the time that I, when when times like this hit and they're hitting again now, this is the time where they come running to do the work with me. Because now they've broken through their fear because the worst has happened. They've been retrenched and they don't have a J-O-B. And now they're ready to build their personal brand. And so I often do very well out of trying times. And I don't apologize for that. I think that's a good thing because people are finally able to do something for themselves and get beyond their fear. Because every decision we make, every dollar we spend on our business, every year that we're in business, there's um, you know, things, decisions we need to make. And, you know, a lot of people are so institutionalized from their job and from their career that they, you know, they don't step into entrepreneurial ship that easily. And so having a mentor like us just helps traverse that initial period of going from institutionalized thinking and being given a fish at the end of every week versus knowing how to fish and being able to get out there and be very much in a growth mindset, very much in an entrepreneurial mindset. And that's very different vibe to being in a job. Very different. And so we've done it. We want to help others come over to this other world, this other world where it's unlimited potential as opposed to very limited potential working for some of these corporates.

Alex Romanovich:

I totally agree with you. And you know, uh, right before the Easter holiday that we just uh were in the midst of, I wrote a little uh LinkedIn post that talked about resurrection, death and resurrection, right? Yeah. And uh basically I titled that post as uh Easter is for everyone because it's about death and resurrection, right? It's about despair and resurrection, and everybody goes through it. We all go through this: some form of death, death of a career, death of a relationship, death of uh a lot of um, you know, uh different things. And then um uh how do we uh you know, how do we come out, come back with that from that? Tell us more about what you think.

Katrena Friel:

Well, I think there's a whole lot of psychological issues going on, and within my program, I like to work on the psychological issues. I almost know when they're gonna feel it, at the time they're gonna feel it. I know where in the process they're actually gonna come up against different things. And so one of the main themes that people will find psychologically is that they're gonna face self-doubt pretty much at all times. And it doesn't really go away. So I was like, well, if it doesn't really go away and we have to live with this thing, then why don't we make friends with it? Why don't we still be able to do that?

Alex Romanovich:

That's what we call the death of confidence, right?

Katrena Friel:

Yeah, the death of confidence. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Um, so I want people to make friends with self-doubt and really look at self-doubt as actually an ally as opposed to the devil in disguise and start to work with it. So in my TED talk, I decided to talk about that specific topic because everyone used to, you know, everyone just kept coming at me for 25 years talking about their self-doubt. And it's like, yeah, well, we all have it and it never goes away. And so why are we trying to get it to disappear? Um, it never will. In fact, if we didn't have self-doubt, we would all be arrogant sons of bitches and nobody would like us anyway. So when you think about it like that and you sort of make a joke about it like that, you sort of realize, yeah, it's sort of silly saying, let's get rid of it. Um it keeps us safe, it warns us of things, it's you know, um, it's kind of like a beacon that you can sort of follow along, going and unpacking it as it happens. So self-doubt's one of the issues I'd love people to sort of think about. And they're that they're that's one of the things you should be working on, overcoming, but not so much overcoming that becoming friends with it. The other one psychologically is everyone comes to me saying they're not very confident. And I go, okay, well, confidence is not an overarching thing that you can really define yourself as. You will go up and down with different things. Now, I might be confident on my delivering my program, but I might not be very confident on various technical things that you need these days. Nobody's particularly confident on AI at the moment because it's a moving feast and we're all just getting our sea legs and we're all just trying to work it out. So, you know, trying to define yourself as confident or not confident is ridiculous. So again, we're working on the confidence saying, well, what are you not confident on? And the main thing that we see is people are not confident on is speaking. And so I do a lot of work around getting people speaker ready and making sure that they are understand the art of it as well as the science of it, as well as the business of it. So speaking's a common one that people are scared of or not confident on. The other one that they come out with is um there's a lot of people pleasing going on. So people are sort of built and bred to be a people pleaser. And in this game, you really can't be a yes man. We come out of corporate where we might have had to have, you know, placated bosses and worked around incompetence and bad communication skills just to survive day to day. But when you're in your own business, this is where you start to choose who you want to work with, who makes you happy, what brings you joy as opposed to misery. And uh yeah, I think it's really important that when you're working with clients, that you're able to say that they're wrong. And that you've got some conversations that you can have that changes their position and gives them a different point of view. And that's important as a consultant and as a mentor, is they're not interested in you placating them, but they want to hear the truth. And we are meant to be giving the truth, not just in our people-pleasing mode. And a lot of coaches come out of college just as still as a people pleaser, and that isn't gonna really bode very well because these people need redirection, they need new perspectives, and that's what we're being paid for. So I could go on, but there's nicely but let me yeah, but let me ask you something very specific.

Alex Romanovich:

You claim that in 90 days you can help somebody uncover their expertise much better than they perhaps can do it themselves. And um, with a lot of layoffs that are going on right now, and more to come, of course, we can see that our leadership in the United States is on this firing spree. All of the uh federal workers or most of the federal workers in certain areas, uh, and then corporations actually follow because they have to follow the Wall Street. They have to show profitability, they have to show uh an answer to their uh shareholders that they're actually following the trend and they're adjusting quickly to that trend. But that's not it's not a great consolation for um, or consolation, I should say, um, to you know, a lot of these folks who are being laid off or fired. And frankly, there's just a lot of, you know, I'm thinking about this, and just so much expertise that's out there that is simply going to either get lost um in the time warp or it's going to get resurrected. Now you help folks uncover their expertise. And I I've actually uh I've encouraged a lot of folks to to focus, to look at what they're experts at. But tell us about your process. Tell us about how you help somebody uncover that level of expertise and then monetize it, then take it to the market, perhaps not as a CYA corporate employee that spends 70% of their time doing the CYA, a cover US for those who do not understand what CYA is. Um, and then all of a sudden having the freedom to discover, to share, to package themselves, right? And then sell themselves to the to the market as the expert.

Katrena Friel:

Yeah. So I do it in about 15 minutes, and I like to do it in the free discovery session. So that's always a really great opportunity where I get to have a little rummage about, and you got you get to tell me your story. And I what I'm listening for in the story is I'm looking for clues, and I go and pick up all the breadcrumbs, all the clues, because the clue to your personal brand is in where you've been. And usually your pain is your medicine, and usually we can turn the medicine into a personal brand business, usually, as long as that lights you up, though. Because sometimes I can say, look, I can see this, and they go, No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to keep telling my pain story for the rest of my life. And it's like, okay, fair enough. Um, so we have to switch into some other gear. But for me, it's very easy. But you know how we all have our genius zones. So what I'm looking for in them is their genius zone. My ability to find clarity in all this mess is just my genius zone. Uh, and so you want to get that for free. So at the end of the free discovery session, you're walking away with absolute clarity as to what your personal brand expertise would look like. And that's why I call it becoming the expert, because then what I'm gonna say is it's a process. So, what we're gonna do is we're going to, once we know the direction we're going in, we then look at the seven streams of income. And in 90 days, I'll build that out. And so the first thing we'll build out is the book. And the book is the philosophy, it's who you are, what you stand for. And that's what people are gonna connect with, that message. And not just the message, but you personally. So we we build that out, we write the book, we put the book together, we become a number one bestseller just for fun. And then from that book, you've done some of the rigor. Whereas a lot of people jump straight to the signature program or jump straight to the online program where they haven't done the rigor of their philosophy, of their message. So I like to do the book first. That is my recommendation. And from there, it dictates the language of the brand, the brand values, the vibe. It absolutely gives me everything I need to then build out the brand, which builds out the website, which builds out the signature program, and all the social media and everything that goes along with it. So to me, it all starts with the book. It all starts with the philosophy. And in 90 days, I build all that out and then spend the rest of the 12-month program holding your hand, teaching you how to fish, and making sure that you know how to make money.

Alex Romanovich:

So is this coaching? Is this consulting? Is this mentoring? Is this all of the above? You know, a lot of the um certified coaches will say, well, no, coaching is very structured, it's very different. You have to really go through a very long certification program to become a real coach. Then consultants will obviously say, look, we only zoom in on the uh business problem and we solve that problem, whether it's optimizing your processes or um, you know, helping you with finances or, you know, uh selling your marketing your product, a service, or what have you. Then mentors will hold your hand and, you know, uh take you through a particular valley or a particular, you know, challenge, you know, help you overcome a particular challenge. It almost sounds like you're combining a lot of those things in one. Is that true? Or are you considering yourself one or the other?

Katrena Friel:

I teach seven streams of income and I partake in seven streams of income. So the the first stream of income is being an author. So this is where you get your thoughts together, your thought leadership, who you are and what you stand for. And then we move into um speaking. So speaking is an important part of the sales and marketing process of what we're doing. So the book will open the door, and then the speaking will make you a star, and that will attract people to your business. So it's an inbound sales strategy, an inbound marketing strategy rather than an outbound marketing strategy. And then from there we go into training. So you sell your signature program. Training to me is where you've got a program, you've got an agenda, you've got a step-by-step thing that you're gonna follow. That's what they've signed up for, that's what you deliver. So training is already set in stone as to what you're gonna do. Then they move into coaching. So coaching is where any time you ask a question, you're essentially coaching. Then I might be mentoring. Most of the time I mentor because they don't know what they don't know. The mentor, mentoring means I tell them what I do, tell them what I've done, and tell them what has worked and what hasn't worked. So they want my experience. A mentor has been there, done that, and it's just a few steps ahead. And then your facilitating ties into the training. So training is here's my agenda, I know what I'm gonna deliver. Facilitating is getting the wisdom from the room. So that's more of an advanced program. So they might do your training year one and facilitating a group in year two. And then consulting is kind of my whole program that's being put together that they can buy that can be a bolt-on to what they're already doing potentially, or a lot of them haven't got any systems or processes. So I give them all mine and they have all my systems and processes installed and all my financial, you know, uh way of thinking about things. So for me, what I do is what I teach. And so I'm not one thing or another. I need to be doing all of that often in one conversation. I can be training one second, coaching another, speaking at another, mentoring the other second. That's just the way it goes. I don't believe in pure coaching. I think it takes too long, and these people in this particular market don't know what they don't know. So they, you know, don't know the answers to your questions. Why would they?

Alex Romanovich:

So it's almost like a Steve Jobs approach. You're not really gonna know what you need until you see it, right? Um, tell me more about speaking. You were um a Tet speaker in the past, and a lot of people have a lot of fears of speaking or public speaking, especially in front of large audiences. How does one overcome the fear? How does is it tied to the expertise the more you know? Or if you focus on some particular topic, it makes it easier? Or is it tied on something or tied to something psychological where you almost have to overcome certain fears and you have to do it maybe the uh a certain way? Um, or maybe some uh trickeries involved, such as, you know, I remember when I was um getting into public speaking, somebody told me, one of the mentors told me, imagine, Alex, just look at the audience and imagine they're all naked, right? Or they or imagine that they owe you some money or whatever. Now, that never didn't necessarily help me by doing it over and over and over again, starting with smaller audiences, starting with teaching some classes to customers and so forth. I overcame the fear, I overcame the uncomfortable feeling about that. But what's your secret about uh effective public speaking?

Katrena Friel:

So I will get that response every single time I start with a client. They always say, I can't speak, I don't want to speak, I'm scared of speaking, or oh my God, don't make me speak. And I say to them, just park that because you haven't done the rigor. Park it. Just park it. It's a non-issue at this point. Go and write the book. So when we write the book, we're doing the rigor. We're actually unpacking our thinking, we're unpacking it in a sensitive way, we're unpacking it in the right structured way, we're editing it, we're going over it, we're proofing it, you know, we're really getting deep into our material. And when the book is done, and I've put together their keynote version of their book, suddenly it's a completely different story because now they've got like, let me add them, let me add them, let me add them, because now they understand their message in the structure it needs to be delivered to demonstrate who they are and what they stand for and what the philosophy is that somebody would buy. And so I always just disregard that comment up front. So you haven't done the rigor, you don't know what you stand for, you don't know what your philosophy is. Leave it. And then once you've got your book, once you've got your keynote and you've practiced a little bit, and I get them to practice and record it, and I give them a little bit of feedback. But what I'm looking for when I'm coaching them and teaching them how to speak is I'm looking for the moment that they drop into their true self, drop into their authentic self. And you can just see it. When they first do it, they drop into it rarely. And I'm looking for that real moment where I can see what type of speaker they would be quite naturally. And, you know, some people are what I call extroverted, and some people are introverted. So the problem is that the introverts will love writing their book and hate speaking. And then the extroverts will look forward to speaking but can't sit down and write their book. So I'm asking them to be a multivert. Write your book, do the rigor, and you're speaking. Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, I do not care because speaking is so essential to the success of this program, they can't do it any other way. They have to speak. Otherwise, they're the world's best kept secret and no one gives a damn.

Alex Romanovich:

Let's talk a little bit about multi-generational type of uh phenomenon, right? So you have a lot of uh Gen Zs and millennials that um are very aggressive when it comes to, hey, I have this idea, I have the my philosophy, and I have my startup and I I want to take this to market, right? And they live by um by a slightly different mantra, which is hey, the sooner you fail, the sooner you succeed, right? They've they've been uh coached by you know famous uh brand names, they've read all the books, they uh even present themselves as coaches and they know what they're doing, right? Versus the boomers and the Gen Xs who may have been laid off, or maybe they're reached their peak of their career, or maybe they want to leave the corporate uh grind and and become more of a consultant, a coach themselves, or a board member, or something along those lines. Tell us about those experiences of how you've handled both types, if you will, maybe somebody in the middle, somebody in their in the midst of their career, you know, grinding for the corporate or you know, struggling with their or being successful with their business for that matter. But tell us about these multiple generations. Are we all the same or are we that different?

Katrena Friel:

Look, I think boomers are probably a little bit more humble and a little bit more sensible when it comes to um tooting their own horn, whereas the younger generations haven't earned their three stripes yet. So they don't know what they don't know, and they're filled with all that bluster that doesn't underpin anything. There's no experience underpinning that. So with younger people, I say to them, look, between 20 and 25, you're gonna earn your first stripe, 25 to 30, you're gonna earn your second stripe, 30 to 35, you're gonna earn your third stripe. By now, you're looking getting interesting. Now you're starting to realize what you like, what you don't like, what you're good at, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, and you're starting to formulate who you are as a corporate identity. And, you know, by the time you hit 40, in my view, you start the beginning of your peak. Now, what I want to ensure and what I would love to do is have people positioned, ready to go at 40 to maximize their top of their bell curve. And the top of their bell curve is going to go for 40 years. But if you're well positioned, ready to go, you know, in your own business and in your own personal brand business, you can maximize that, travel the world, speak at conferences, and have the grandest life there is available to you with a lot of freedom and a lot of, you know, good. I don't know, the world oyster, put it that way. But what I find is back boomers have stayed in the jobs too long. They should have left a long time ago. They've been miserable, but because of their resilience, they've stayed there miserable for 20. And then when they come out, they they have no appetite for risk anymore. So they're they they say, oh, don't worry about it. I'll I'll just wrap it up or I'll just be a do a couple of consulting kicks. And so they play real small instead of positioning, packaging, and pricing themselves correctly as the expert in the market. The X's are different. The X's have debt up to their eyeballs. And so what that means is they are unable to take the risks that they'd love to take. So what I recommend for them is a side hustle. So we build the personal brand business in the background as a dual strategy. So get a job or stay in the job, but having goals and dreams running in the background, and we're building something in the background, makes them happier in the now. So actually, what was misery, now they're using that money that they're getting to fund something awesome. Whereas before they had no goals. So they were miserable and they just wanted to leave. But now they've been retrenched. What would have been better is if they had been building this in the background all along. So by the time the retrenchment comes, and they come, it's a cycle. It's a cycle. We've seen this. I've seen this how many times in my I'm 56 now. I've seen these retrenchments globally three times in my career. And so So I don't know why people are so shocked when it happens. It's a cycle. It's gonna happen. And what you wanna be, what you want to have done is the work. You haven't done the work. You haven't built anything in the background. The smart people have built something in the background, a personal brand business that's ready to go. So when the when you get your payout and you leave, you now hit the ground running. You've done the book, you've got the website, you've updated your LinkedIn, and you start to hit the phones and go, go, go. So to me, the generations, there's a lot going on with the generations. There's a lot I have to say about the different generations. But my main market is that sort of Gen Xy kind of market. The boomers are kind of starting. If they could wrap it up now, they would. A lot of them can't afford to. So they need a personal brand business better than anyone. And if they've got wisdom to share, that's what a personal brand business is there for. Is to express and teach and mentor the people coming up. You are you're you're the one meant to be shining the light just a couple of steps ahead to others trying to traverse that same landscape.

Alex Romanovich:

But I love the fact that you're actually making them actually, you know, do something, create an asset or create a number of assets, if they don't have any, such as a book or a profile or website or what have you, because then they can hold on to that and say, okay, at least that's my, you know, that's my uh lifesaver. Because, you know, if I'm an introvert, I'm I'm terrified of going out there exposing myself, exposing my weaknesses. What if they think I'm stupid? Or if what if they don't, you know, don't buy my expertise or what have you. And there's a so there's a lot of doubt at that level, obviously. But at the same time, if they have the asset, as you as you mentioned, they can hang on to it and they can actually package it and they can sell it almost as a product, but not realizing that that's their product, it's them that actually they're selling. But with all the saturation, I mean, it seems like everybody's doing the book, or everybody is doing an e-book, everybody's doing a podcast like we're doing right now, and so forth. There's a lot of that going on, and it seems like with the um you're gonna be empowering even more people to do the same. How does one differentiate himself or herself? What is the um what how do you differentiate you and uncover that gem, as we as we say, that you can then position to the market and say, you know what, I'm different. You know, I mean, we hear a lot of that. I'm different, I'm focused, I fit into that niche, or um what have you. How do you handle that? Or how do you handle that with them?

Katrena Friel:

I focus on the person. So the person is what's unique, the way to coach, the way to mentor, the way to train, that's not unique. There's an art and a science to all of that. It's the content, and the content is you, the content is your story. So you do it through a brand and story. So brand uh dresses your cake differently from all the other cakes, and the story is the story of you. So, what are your gems, your wisdom, your w-isms that are inside your book? And the book allows you time just to think that through. And I'm there as your ghostwriter, helping unpack that. So, again, part of the process is me pulling your philosophy out of you. And quite frankly, very rarely does anyone know the philosophy is even there. So it's a real art in pulling it out of you and realizing who you are, what you stand for, and why would that be of value to anybody else? So it's all brand and it's story, but it's the main show is you. That's unique, that's completely unique. Nobody has the same ingredients put together in the same recipe and branded in the exact same way. So think of it like a cake. You know, I put, get a big bowl and I put your story, your experience, your highs, your lows into it, mix it all up, bake a cake, and then we we cover the cake in in um, you know, a covering that's unique to you.

Alex Romanovich:

But a fascinating discussion, Katrina. And I guess uh some of the final questions I have for you are one would be what would be the advice to the audience out there, you know, quick advice based on your history, based on your experiences. Or if, you know, if you met yourself 10 years ago, 15 years ago, sit down for a cup of coffee, what would you say to Katrina 15 years ago?

Katrena Friel:

Well, the main philosophy I live by is feel the fear and do it anyway, because that just gets me through. And people are so worried about failure, and yet you haven't got a chance to fail. One iota if you don't build anything to fail with. So working with a professional is to avoid a lot of the stock standard failures. You you may still fail due to your own mindset. That will be the main thing. But putting yourself together and putting yourself out there, that's seriously just practice. And once you're positioned correctly, packaged correctly, and priced correctly, the rest is up to you. It's simply just practice after that. And you get better and better and better and better. And even though I've been doing this for 25 years, every year I like to see an improvement and I'm improving every time. And you just get smoother and smoother and smoother until you're a shining diamond. But most people come to me in the row.

Alex Romanovich:

Yeah, yeah. It's funny that you mentioned failure. It seems to me that uh in this day and age, your probability of failing is a lot less if you're on your own, you know, in comparison to if you're working for somebody, it's so easy to fail for them to fail you by simply firing you, you know, without even realizing it, saying, you know, I thought I was doing a great job. And yet, here's that layoff, or here's that firing, or something like that. Well, it's been a fascinating conversation. We thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, for sharing your methodology, for sharing your approach. It seems an exciting one. And um, you know, we will be sharing more information with our audience, global audience. And um, you know, we will uh find that on the landing page we will uh create and this obviously this uh video podcast and a number of different channels. We wish you lots of luck and uh hope to see you and hear you again.

Katrena Friel:

Thank you so much for having me, Alex. It's been my pleasure. Thank you.

Alex Romanovich:

Thank you.