Connection and belonging - Speaker and Facilitator Kat Vellos
About this episode…
Connection and belonging — Freelance Speaker and Facilitator Kat Vellos
Kat freelanced on the side of her design jobs for years, with work coming in via word of mouth referrals from her large, local community. After designing day and night for years, Kat eventually pulled back on freelancing so that she could spend her free time exploring other creative pursuits.
Later, Kat spent several years writing a book while still working as a designer for companies including Slack and Pandora. After self-publishing that book in January 2020, opportunities and offers began pouring in and Kat’s now freelance full time, speaking and facilitating around the topic of her book — cultivating better friendships in adulthood.
She chats to Steve about finding community and connection, pricing her work, and writing a book and the self-publishing process.
Read the highlights in the next tab.
On self-publishing
Kat's book, We Should Get Together, explores the four biggest challenges that adults face when trying to make or maintain friendships during adulthood.
"I used all of the same skills I was using in my day job to do qualitative interviews and research and write to come up with what are some better designs for how we can have connection during adulthood. Having a design background, doing editorial layout and laying out many thousands of words, long stories and really love type, illustration and research, I was like: I am capable of creating this book. There's nothing stopping me.
"I am fiercely independent and I don't believe in asking for permission to do things that are simply possible for me. Individuals who care enough about a thing can apply their skills and talents to create change in the world. And they need not ask for anyone's permission to do that. And that is the way I like to live my life."
Getting the price right
Kat's freelanced for years, sometimes part-time around her day jobs, now as a full-timer. She says it took her a while to get her pricing right.
"Back in the day, we did not have websites like there are nowadays that just create this amalgamation of all the rates that freelancers are charging and all different regions for all different kinds of roles and all different kinds of work. You just did not know what other people were doing. And I will say looking back on it, I was definitely undercharging a lot for all kinds of things.
"Over time you will adjust your rates as your demand and expertise grow. You're not going to be Barack Obama overnight, who's getting paid half a million dollars for a speaking gig. But as a human being with reasonable experience, there are pretty standard rates out there. And it varies."
Finding community
Kat wrote a book about building friendships in adulthood, so what advice can she give freelancers about finding community?
"One of the biggest pieces of advice I give for people who want to feel a greater sense of belonging or community is to acknowledge first what you yourself are interested in. What are the things that you enjoy? How do you enjoy spending your free time? What matters to you in this world? And then look for groups of people, communities that already exist that also care about that thing or do the thing that you want to do.
"Show up consistently. Join, participate, be active, be friendly, talk to other people and show up again and again and again. And if you do that, you'll become a regular. And once you become a regular in a space, whether it's a physical space or a community that's online, then you start to get familiarity. And if you just stick with it long enough, you will then find that sense of connection and belonging.”
On being freelance
"When I was younger, I didn't ever think I would work for myself. I think I was trained very well in capitalist Western society to enter the nine to five. I never really aspired to work for myself. And when people said they wanted to work for themselves, I was like, why? What would that be like?
"But very quickly I adapted to it and I actually love the freedom. I love the flexibility. Sometimes I still have to get myself out of the thinking that I think many of us are indoctrinated to, about what work must look like, but I really, really enjoy it. And I love the variety. I love the mix of people I get to meet. I love the companies I get to work with.
“I have a vision of what I have to do.
“And it’s my responsibility to communicate that to the world and to say, this is who I am, this is what I’m here for.”
Kat Vellos, freelance speaker and facilitator
More from Kat Vellos
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and UX and Product Designer Kat Vellos
Steve Folland: As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Kat Vellos: So I've really got two different ways I've been freelance and the past version differs from the current version. So I started out doing freelance graphic design and design work on the side of whatever my day job was because like many people I've worked a very long time in the corporate world or the nonprofit world, or just basically working for other people. And during that time, I always had freelance design on the side. Lately, within the last year, year and a half, I started working for myself, independently full-time and that really kicked off around the release of my book and the way that the world was responding to me after that. And it became very clear quickly that I was going to be doing this full time.
Steve Folland: What sort of designer were you?
Kat Vellos: So I got my degree in graphic design and over the years I've done graphic design, visual design. Most recently I was doing UX design and product design for digital websites and apps and things of that nature, like Slack, Pandora, some startups here in the bay area.
Steve Folland: So you were working in house at the likes of those companies and then freelancing on the side. How did you go about getting those freelance clients when you were doing that?
Kat Vellos: I was doing more of my freelance design on the side, I would say before, honestly, I got into doing UX full-time because it's just a very different pace of work. So for example, after I graduated college, I was working as an art director of alternative news weekly. And I would do freelance on the side because I had a pretty sizable community that knew I was a designer. And so it was really through word of mouth that I would get most of my freelance gigs that way. And it was just something I did on the side because it was really meaningful to me to always have a creative practice outside of my day job. Some of that side thing has sometimes been work like freelance and some of it's not been non-work and just creative practice, side projects, things like that.
Steve Folland: When you said you had a sizable community, in what way?
Kat Vellos: Well, after I graduated college, I stayed in my college town for about another five years. And so when you stay in one place that long, and it was not a big, big city, you just get to know people, you just get to know so many people in the community. And so in that way, I knew who a lot of people were. A lot of people knew who I was. I was also running a spoken word night that was every two weeks for four years. So I was visible in public and people knew that I was a designer and a writer. And so simply by being known and part of a community like really embedded, then you get a lot of like word of mouth referrals and things like that
Steve Folland: When it came to sort of pricing those freelance projects. So, you know, some of it was your own thing and side projects, but for the things that you were getting paid for, how did you find setting that?
Kat Vellos: Yeah. And, you know, back in the day, we did not have websites like there are nowadays that just create this amalgamation of all the rates that freelancers are charging and all different regions for all different kinds of roles and all different kinds of work. You just did not know what other people were doing. And I will say looking back on it, I was definitely undercharging a lot for all kinds of things. And it was because, there was not a lot of... like Americans in general, don't like to talk about money, it's often considered rude. And so it's like, there's just a black box. You're like, I'm not sure, maybe I could ask this designer or buddy, like, do you think this is a good price, but looking back on it I was giving away work at a steal.
Steve Folland: What sort of period are we talking about years wise? Just to put things in perspective.
Kat Vellos: So that would have been from about 2000 to about 2010 or so, but then in the last six, seven years, you know, doing UX design and product design full time it's... The analogy I always make, they always say if you have a job, like cooking burgers all day, the last thing you want at the end of the day is to see more burgers. And in a similar way, I have an interest in, a passion in anything related to design, because that is my training. That is how I see the world. That is what I do. But at a certain point, it was like, I can't just spend all my free time doing the exact same thing I do all day long. That is just a recipe for burnout. So, yeah, it was a very different experience and I definitely pulled back on the freelance design work I was taking at that time - kind of hit the pause button because I just need to recharge in a different way and to be creative in a variety of different ways.
Steve Folland: If people go to beingfreelance.com now, and they click through to your site they'll see you and your personal brand. And I'm wondering how that emerged. Like, did you already have that sort of presence, back in between 2000, 2010, or did you start to develop it while you were working in house and not freelancing?
Kat Vellos: The latter. Because again, before it was all word of mouth, I was not as focused necessarily as I am today on like, oh, do I have a personal brand? And even the conversation around those things, I think was different in that era than it is today. And I didn't see any specific need to go beyond that. Like I had a very minimal web presence before and honestly, it was more so like blogging than heavy heavy design stuff. And yeah, it was just a completely different time on the internet and a completely different time in my life.
Steve Folland: So how did you start to change towards where you are today?
Kat Vellos: So I wrote a book and that took several years, and that was honestly what I was doing on the side of my day job more recently. And I don't know if you've written a book, Steve, but it takes a lot of time. You got to limit how many things you're going to try to juggle simultaneously if you're working on a book because it takes so much time. And so there was no way I was going to be doing extra design work on the side while I was also working on a book and working full-time in house as a designer. And so that was my number one project that I was doing outside of work for the last several years. And when the book was released very, very quickly, it became apparent to me that I was like at a crossroads.
Kat Vellos: And I was like, I'm either going to keep my day job and say no to all of these opportunities that are actually coming to me from the release of this book, or I'm going to say goodbye to this day job and do this full-time. And there was enough volume in terms of requests that I could do it full-time. And I was very excited and motivated to do it full-time because releasing a book is like... I've never had kids, but it's the sort to me, it felt like having a kid 'cause like it's released to the world and it's just like newborn and you just want to spend all your time with it and other people want to talk to you about it. And they're like, oh, we love it. And you're like, I love it too.
Kat Vellos: And so it was really that way where I was very compelled to give it all the attention it needed to grow and thrive. And the world was like, wow, share your baby with us. Like we want to see it. We want to be a part of it. And so the inbound requests I was getting for speaking and consulting and facilitation and all of the things that I have, you know, done at different capacities over the years, it was like... oh, this is what the world is asking me to do full-time now okay. Put in my two weeks notice. And I was like, okay, here we go. And very immediately just started working independently from that point up until where we are today.
Steve Folland: What was the book?
Kat Vellos: The book is about adult friendship. The title is 'We should get together: the secret to cultivating better friendships'. And I wrote this book because one of the things that I realized when I moved to the Bay area is that I and many, many, many other people were having a hard time creating the kinds of friendships that we really want to have in adulthood. And I'm an introvert, but I'm not shy. I don't dislike people or anything like that. I love people. I love connecting. And one of the things I've done over the years is run different kinds of communities and bring people together around shared values or shared creative practice.
Kat Vellos: And when I moved to the Bay area, I was meeting really cool, really smart, amazing people all the time. But a lot of those conversations were one-offs. They would not necessarily continue into an ongoing friendship or I would make friends with people and very quickly they would move away because this is a highly transient area and people come and they go - it's just the thing. And I was meeting lots and lots and lots of people who said that they were having a hard time making friends during adulthood. They were pretty much RSVPing to an event that I hosted called better than small talk. And they would describe how they were having a hard time making friends. And I was like, this doesn't make any sense because these people are so lovely and so friendly, and there's no reason why they should have a hard time. And so I got really curious about that and being a user experience designer, you know, in a nutshell, that job means investigating anytime people have a task to accomplish or face a challenge, accomplishing a task and then designing better solutions to solve that problem so people don't struggle with that thing anymore or so that the process is easier and more simple.
Kat Vellos: And so I used all of the same skills I was using in my day job to research, do qualitative interviews and research and writing to come up with what are some better designs for how we can have connection during adulthood. So in a way, it was related to my work, but it was completely different because it wasn't about creating an app or a website or a visual design or graphic design. It was creating experiences that lead to connection.
Steve Folland: Yeah. It's fascinating. And, and did you get a publisher or did you self publish?
Kat Vellos: The thing to know about me, Steve is I am fiercely independent and I don't believe in asking for permission to do things that are simply possible for me. And my first job out of school in fact, was working for an independent newsweekly. That was like award-winning every single year, like amazing investigative journalism, beautiful writing. And I was art director of this for four years. And so what I saw as my first example in young adulthood was individuals who care enough about a thing can apply their skills and talents to create change in the world. And they need not ask for anyone's permission to do that. And that is the way I like to live my life. So having a background, doing editorial layout and laying out, you know, many, many thousands of words, long stories and really loving type and really loving illustration and really loving research. I was like: I am capable of creating this book. There's nothing to stop me.
Kat Vellos: And I did a lot of research into different avenues available to either seeking a publisher who like 'maybe' will buy your idea and then take most of your profits, or you can do it yourself. I'm a DIY kind of person. I was like, this is very clear. I was like, I'm just going to do this myself. And that's one thing that as a designer and as somebody who has a background doing editorial layout and has laid out books many, many times, I don't need to ask somebody else to help me make a book. Like I already know how to do that! I got some consulting along the way from other people who had worked in book publishing and they were like, wow, like you should sell this to an agent. Do you want me to connect you to someone? And I was like, maybe, but that's not my goal. My goal is to help people. And I'm going to do this the most efficient way. I know how and that's to get it done on my own timeline.
Steve Folland: But then when it came to putting it out into the world, how did you get eyes on it?
Kat Vellos: One really lovely thing is that in our world, many lovely people have created tools that make such things easier. One of them is Ingram, which is a publishing house and they have an entire wing of their work called Ingram Spark, which is for independent publishers. And you get to use the parent company, Ingram's worldwide distribution network. You get to use that when you create a book with them. And so I was like, oh, I'll just sign up for this. Here we go. And they are the ones who help get the book to Sweden and Mexico City and Spain and Australia. I'm not shipping those books. They are. And that's really amazing that that's an option that's available to people.
Kat Vellos: Now that's one part of it. And then the other part of it for any writer is like, it's not just about writing. It's also about creating a community of people who care about the thing that you're writing about and want to engage about it. So getting community and building relationships, which are all things I really love is a part of that process. And so whether it's through engaging with people on social media, I also run a weekly newsletter. Like I also run events, which, you know, it's different during COVID than IRL, but all of those are things that come naturally to me and they are necessary if you want your book to be a success, because you have to tell people about it.
Steve Folland: I clearly have to ask about these communities then because you've mentioned them and it sounds like they've probably helped you in many different ways. And it sounds like there's more than one. Can you talk me through what community has sort of meant for you and how it's happened for you?
Kat Vellos: So over the years, I've put together and facilitated a number of different communities that were all connected to either some part of my identity or my creative practice. So for example, after college, when I was working at that magazine, I described the town that I lived in, had a very thriving arts community, like visual art community and music, but it didn't have necessarily a very strong, active literary community. And I, being an active poet and spoken word artist, was like, we need this. Cause I was regularly driving 45 minutes away to Jacksonville, the next biggest city to attend spoken word events. And I was like, I could organize this myself. And so I started organizing an event I called Poet Speak that I created and ran every two weeks for four years where people could come together and sort of have that open mic experience and that supportive community experience around sharing poetry together.
Kat Vellos: And that was the first community I ever ran. And it was honestly such a positive experience. I was like, oh, I just like doing this. Later on, I learned that there's a word for this called facilitation and I got trained in and certified as a facilitator. And I did facilitation for many years in the Seattle area around creative community. Most recently here in the Bay area, I also started a community called Bay Area Black Designers. It is exactly what it sounds like we're in the Bay area, we are black designers. And this is a professional development community and just a supportive place because quite honestly, the design community is not that diverse. And many of us have been the only ones inside of a company. And I've not necessarily had the chance to have community with other people who look like us in our profession. So that's one group that I've run as well for the last five or six years.
Steve Folland: And so there was a point where the referrals for your freelance, 1.0 work were coming from these sort of communities as well. People knowing what you did, right? And now these people who get to know you and are passionate about your book when was the book was released. When was that?
Kat Vellos: The book was released in January 2020, January 4th.
Steve Folland: And shortly after that, what happens is like a buzz...
Kat Vellos: Yeah. Because when you release something big like that to the world, I heard a quote when I was writing the book that says, your book really has two lives. It has the life, it lives while you're creating it and writing it. And then it has its own life after you give it to the world. And that was very true for me. You just don't know what's going to happen. You can do as much prep work and promotion and all of the things you're supposed to do should help make that a less mysterious process and a little bit more predictable, but you just never know. And so that was very much what it felt like, you know, and I love that feeling of anticipation. When you release something to say, what's going to happen next? What can we learn from what happens?
Kat Vellos: And very quickly, I started getting inbound requests for speaking and for facilitation and for people who wanted to learn from this body of work I had put together. And it literally just came down to logistics of there's only so many hours in the day. And it's one thing to write a book at night and on the weekend, but you can't necessarily engage with the rest of the world at like 11 at night or some random hour on the weekend. So it just came down to logistics. I was like, if I am going to say yes to these invitations, there is no way that I can also be working 40 or 50 hours a week at my job, sitting in meetings when I could be doing this other stuff. And so I chose to do the thing that the world was asking me to do, which was to focus on this full-time.
Steve Folland: And so was that when you then started to create your personal brand?
Kat Vellos: Yeah, I guess so. I mean, a part of sharing anyone's work or creativity or offering to the world is telling the world what you are there to do. And in many ways it was, it was kind of like a dance. Like the world was like, we see this thing that you do or that you can offer and we want it, will you do more of that? And for me to say, yes, I will do that. And part of that also means clarifying how I describe what I'm doing to the world. So for example, I spend most of my time now speaking and facilitating around this body of work, I'm still a designer. I design different things now. And I'm designing for IRL, like in real life experiences for humans rather than digital experiences for humans. But that is still a type of design. It's just a completely different format and medium.
Steve Folland: How are you finding managing this new type of workload where opportunities are coming your way and you need to make a living from it.
Kat Vellos: I really like it. I really do. When I was younger, I didn't ever think I would work for myself. I think I was trained very well in capitalist Western society to enter the nine to five. I never really aspired to work for myself. And when people said they wanted to work for themselves, I was like, why? What would that be like? But very quickly I adapted to it and I actually love the freedom. I love the flexibility. Sometimes I still have to get myself out of the thinking that I think many of us are indoctrinated to, about what work must look like, but I really, really enjoy it. And I love the variety. I love the mix of people I get to meet. I love the companies I get to work with. It's just really cool. I really like it.
Steve Folland: Would you say anything in like your first experience of freelancing has helped you this time around?
Kat Vellos: I don't even know if they are similar enough to even relate to each other, Steve, because it's just a completely different kind of experience. I mean, maybe one thing that's similar is like there's some level of unpredictability to it. Because it's like, how many clients will there be three months from, or two months from now? I like to plan far enough ahead. Like I'm booking gigs, like Q3, Q4. I don't like to wait until the last second and I like planning things and I like cultivating relationships. And so by being in this constant conversation again with the world, not just like sitting alone in a room, then there's less unpredictability to it and there is more structure and there is more idea of what's on the horizon.
Steve Folland: And you use Calendly to help you stay organised with requests that come your way right?
Kat Vellos: Yeah. As far as automating certain steps of the process or incorporating certain tools into my business, that was something that had to be set up pretty early on because otherwise, it's just maddening. I love having a conversation with someone, but I find it challenging to go back and forth scheduling something. And so, yeah, like immediately I think I might've been using Calendly. Actually, I was using Calendly before I started working independently because I was using it to book the qualitative interviews that I did for the book. And so it's just so much simpler than emailing back and forth like, oh my gosh, when are you free? When are you free? Instead, it's: here's the link to my calendar. Take the spot that works for you. And so finding ways to simplify, and this is related certainly to user experience design, which is like, is there a simpler, more enjoyable way to do something? And so whether it's scheduling and booking or sharing, like here's the parameters, or like, if you answer the short questionnaire, this will be really efficient for an intake process. Things like that. As far as like designing it an efficient business practice is something that definitely is important. And I definitely focused on setting up quite early on because without it it's pretty slow and painful and nobody needs to experience that. Not me and not any client that I'm working with.
Steve Folland: Are you somebody who sets goals? Do you have a vision of like what you're trying to do or are you kind of like going with the flow?
Kat Vellos: A little bit of both. I do have a vision of what I have to do, and then it's my responsibility to communicate that to the world and to say, this is who I am, this is what I'm here for. And then for the world to then say, is this what you're looking for? How does this fit? Let's have a conversation. And the majority of my work is inbound. Like almost all of it is inbound. So I don't have to spend a lot of time focusing on like advertising or promotion. Maybe someday I will be less lucky and will have to do that. But for the first year and a half of this business, it's been so heavily inbound requests that I don't necessarily have to stress about that part of it. Is it really lucky? I feel really blessed.
Steve Folland: Well, lucky... It's that kind of luck that you've built for yourself though? Isn't it? I touched upon pricing in terms and like the business side of the freelance design work. How have you found that this time around, when it comes to suddenly, you know, the main way it looks like you're earning your income is for example, as a speaker or a facilitator of running workshops, how did you know how to gauge that kind of thing?
Kat Vellos: Well, like I mentioned before, the internet is a wonderful place that can help you figure out what is adequate pricing for your level of experience, the level of exposure, the level of what you have to offer, how many things you've done, how many years of experience you have. And because I have again been running and speaking, running communities and doing speaking events for many, many years, although this topic I'm speaking about now is new. My expertise is not new. And so there's a lot of really great tools online that can help somebody who may be interested in being a speaker to figure out what their pricing should be. My buddy Smiley also wrote a great book called The Breakthrough Speaker, where he shares a lot of examples in the book about using some of the tools that are available online, but also figuring out again with your level of exposure level of experience, like what are the different tiers that you can expect to get paid in certain types of speaking gigs, whether they're a nonprofit or educational or corporate or conference, like all of this stuff is quite standard, honestly, and it's very easily available online.
Kat Vellos: And then over time you will adjust your rates as your demand and expertise grow. You're not going to be Barack Obama overnight, who's getting paid half a million dollars for a speaking gig. Like, no, but as a human being with reasonable experience, there are pretty standard rates out there. And it varies. And also one thing that Smiley includes in his book that I think is really helpful is to tell people that it's not just about the money. It's also about who's in the audience, like, what is the value of speaking to this particular group of people? And sometimes that means you're a little bit more flexible with your rate because it's a group of people that you really, really want to connect with and who might lead to future work. So it's not just dollars, it's also, what's the relationship. What might grow out of an opportunity?
Steve Folland: What have you found your biggest challenge?
Kat Vellos: Definitely this 'unbuckling' from the corporate nine to five mindset, particularly around work hours. This is something I think about a lot lately, because for example, as a writer who wrote my book mostly on nights and weekends, sometimes the time that I feel most creative is between 10 PM and 1 AM, you know, and no job that I've had before was like, yeah, that's an appropriate time to work! And so giving myself the permission to say, maybe I'm not available every single day from nine to five, just because that's what the corporate world does. And maybe I let myself be more flexible and creative and imaginative with honouring what my creative cycle is, what my energetic cycle is and to say, yeah, I'm going to spend part of my night writing because that's literally the time where there's no texts, no emails, nothing's happening on social media, like there are no interruptions coming in at that time of day.
Kat Vellos: But I also happen to feel very focused and very clear about wanting to get a piece of writing done, which is part of my work. And so things like that are interesting. And also some of the work I do coaching means that my clients are available in the evening after they get off of work. And so if I know I'm going to be running a group coaching program and it's happening, you know, Tuesdays and Thursdays from six to seven-thirty in the evening, that means it's okay if I'm not working from nine in the morning, cause I'm going to be already working until almost nine at night. And so it's very different to again, feel a sense of permission to not necessarily be quote-unquote going full-steam working during all of the hours of the daytime if I know that I'm going to be working at other hours in the evening or sometimes on the weekend.
Kat Vellos: But I do try to be really mindful around balance because burnout is not fun. I've had that before. I don't want it ever again. And I also think that being freelance or working independently is such a cool opportunity to literally design the kind of work-life that you want. I know a woman here in my area, who's a women's business coach and she works three days a week and she makes a really good living working three days a week. And so she's designed her own life and her own work to be both profitable and enjoyable. She gets to spend time with her son, the other four days of the week, she goes on long walks in nature. It's a different way to live. And it's a different way to work than maybe what a lot of us are told as kids: oh, you get a job, you go work at a company and then one day you die. Actually, it doesn't have to be that way.
Steve Folland: You mentioned cultivating connection. For people listening, maybe working from home, often isolated, but also, want to get into communities of some sort... what would be your advice?
Kat Vellos: So when it comes to finding a whole bunch of friends quickly and wanting to be a part of a community, it takes courage and some vulnerability to put yourself out there. I just want to acknowledge that it's not always easy for folks to do that because we grow up with fear of rejection and sometimes feeling unsure of how we fit in socially and all of those things. I just want to acknowledge it's not always easy, even though the steps might be simple. One of the first biggest piece of advice I give for people who want to feel a greater sense of belonging or community is to acknowledge first what you yourself are interested in. Like, what are the things that you enjoy? How do you enjoy spending your free time? What matters to you in this world? And then look for groups of people, communities that already exist that also care about that thing, or do the thing that you want to do.
Kat Vellos: And then just show up consistently. Join, participate, be active, be friendly, talk to other people and show up again and again and again. And if you do that, you'll become a regular. And once you become a regular in a space, whether it's a physical space or a community that's online, then you start to get familiarity. And if you just stick with it long enough, you will then find that sense of connection and belonging. Again, if you're showing up openly, really connecting in a positive way with other people and being dedicated, you know, it's not a one-shot deal. Sometimes people want to go to one meetup and leave with all your best friends. I wish it was that simple. It's not quite that simple. And in adulthood it does take a level of intentionality and dedication to show up and make sure that these things happen because they don't just happen spontaneously. You have to put in a bit of effort.
Steve Folland: Love that. Now Kat, if you could tell your younger self, one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Kat Vellos: I would say that it's not as scary as you think, and it's a lot more fun than you think.
Steve Folland: Were you scared though?
Kat Vellos: I think when I was younger, I was because it seems so unstable, you know? Especially as someone who grew up, with these very stable kinds of training or expectations about what being a grownup means or what that looks like... It was always a very cookie-cutter nine to five corporate job thing. And so I believed that. And I didn't have a lot of other examples. And so it just seemed like the wild, wild west to not make that choice. And I was like, how do people do that? And it wasn't something I was drawn to until suddenly I was. And so when you feel that pull and you jump in with both feet, you realize very quickly, you're like.. Oh, I know how to swim! This is okay. I can do this.
Steve Folland: Brilliant. Thank you so much. And all the best being freelance.
Kat Vellos: Thank you, Steve. Same to you.