Built a $34M Company on One Lesson From Her Dad at 7 | Ep. 401 with Kate Monroe

0:00Daniel Robbins:You're a Marine. You're an entrepreneur, a singer, film star. Who is the real Kate? I think I am all those things. I've written seven books. I took my company from 750 ,000 sales a year to this year, nearly 34 million. So you have Bodyman. You're obviously the main star in that. How do you balance the success of each of these things? There's a hundred apps open in my brain at all times trying to figure out how I can make more money, how I can duplicate myself. it's healthy for you to finish things. A lot of people will start writing the book but not finish. If you can make content at a fast rate that people actually want to watch, you're a lot closer to getting to it.

0:35Daniel Robbins:What has been the secret sauce for you to be able to scale to that level? So I just try to keep myself focused on... So Kate, you are a lot of things, which by the way, I would imagine people ask you like, how do you sleep at night? Like, do you have any time to sleep? because I always get the same question. I'm like, I'm a lot of things. And they're like, do you ever sleep? But I think as we know, entrepreneurs, we're always moving. Like there's always something going on, but you're a Marine. You're an entrepreneur, a singer, film star. You just had a movie come out. Basketball team owner, a mother.

1:10Daniel Robbins:When you're alone at the end of the day, when the day is ending, who is the real Kate? Well, wouldn't it be nice if we can compartmentalize and pull everything apart? I mean, I think I am all those things. But when I'm at home at night and I'm winding down and I have a nine-year-old and I'm starting to put him to bed, it's that version of me that I think he values most. And because he is a reflection of me, I end up valuing that the most because I see myself through his eyes in those moments when he's just like, I love you so much, mommy. Thank you for taking the time to snug me tonight. Thank you for taking the time.

1:43And that just, that fills my cup and that lets me do all of the other things that I have to do. But at the foundation of it all, once a Marine, always a Marine, and I don't say that lightly, it does really sort of dictate every movement that you make, your resiliency, your ability to get up and grind. In fact, it helps you fall asleep at night. Boot camp teaches a very good trick. Hey, you know what? I work really hard tonight. I deserve my sleep. I'm going to go ahead and lay down and go to bed.

2:07Daniel Robbins:I like that. So if you tell yourself, so essentially what I'm hearing is like, if you tell yourself something, you eventually do it. when you were nine years old, when you were your son's age, did you see yourself that that one day I'm going to be something like was the drive there even when you were younger? So funny story. When I was nine, when I was his age, I started babysitting. Can you believe Gen Xers? People let us babysit kids when we were nine. We would never do that now. I was already babysitting. So I started babysitting. Then I got seven babysitters that worked for me. I became their babysitter booking service.

2:41And I had kids mowing lawns. I got a paper out. I had somebody take it over by the time I was 12. I've always been so entrepreneurial. I'm like, if there's a hundred apps open in my brain at all times, trying to figure out how I can make more money, how I can duplicate myself and clone myself. So I've been this crazy since I came out of the room. Probably.

2:58Daniel Robbins:It's what do you say that I always love to hear like the first business someone did, right. Or the, the first thing they sold, we just had the kind bar founder on, and he was also sharing something similar, like when he was younger, doing all these things. It's almost, it's almost like innate. It's like you will become that one day because of the culmination of all the things that you did. What, what else did you do in your life that has really culminated in you to, okay, I want to also be a movie star. I also want to be a basketball owner. I also want to do these other things because it seems like you're, you're almost never settled.

3:37It actually is that I'm never settled. I actually had to do some cognitive behavioral therapy because I was realizing that when I was accomplishing something, I was getting to the top of that mountain. I was feeling a loss and I had to teach myself, Hey, I have all these micro wins that I have to focus on every day. You know, every, every little step I'm making toward my goal, I'm going to celebrate. And I've got better at celebrating myself, but I've got better at celebrating the journey because you're absolutely right. If you just wait till the moment that you finish it to win, you're standing up there by yourself going, well, damn, it's over.

4:06You know, what do I do now? Shit, there's another mountain. There's another mountain that I got to climb. So I think that that could be very difficult for a lot of people. And so I just try to keep myself focused on and and and have gratitude because it used to be just and what and what next and what next and what next. And now it's like I feel like God blessed me to do quite a lot, to take quite a lot on. I just feel really grateful to be able to do it.

4:29Daniel Robbins:How do you become grateful? Because I feel like every time I become grateful, there's another milestone or, you know, something bad happens, right? Like you have a deal, it's about to close and then it gets destroyed and then another deal comes in and then you win. I feel like it's this roller coaster that sometimes causes me to not be able to do that. Yeah. Gratitude is, is hard. You know, having joy is hard. You know, joy is supposed to take us the distance, you know, happiness. Well, I'm not happy. Well, okay. Well, that's like Chinese food. Good luck being happy all the time, but you certainly can be joyful.

5:06And that starts with your choices. I make a choice every day to have gratitude. I make a choice to give thanks and to recognize people in my life. Like I take a lot of time to tell my little son how good he is and how grateful I am for him. Because again, he's a replace and a reflect that back to me. I just have always thought, you know, in the Bible, the David and Goliath story, you don't have to be a Christian to have heard this story. They say that he, God did not give David courage. he gave him Goliath. He gave him these problems. So for me, I feel like it breaks you and then strengthens you.

5:38To give you an example, I was in the Marine Corps. I got assaulted. I crushed my nose and eye socket. I crushed my right elbow, my right ankle, all of my feelings. And very easily that could have led my life down a very dark path. But instead I said, you know what? I'm going to turn this on a dime. I'm going to go from victim to victor very quickly and just pivot and pivot and pivot to the positive and stay grateful for what I do have and for what I don't have, because that teaches it a lot.

6:04Daniel Robbins:It's like belief system. It's like if a situation can happen, you can say this is positive or a situation happens and you can say it's negative. It's almost like you have the control is what I'm hearing from you. When I talk about words, because obviously words are extremely important, a word that's changed your life is decided. Yes. And maybe this is along the lines of what you're saying. So what is the final thing that made you say decided is so important? Well, I think decided is a past tense word. So if you say I have decided to do something, that means you should already be moving toward that target.

6:38You should already have made changes. You already got up earlier. You're already stretching yourself farther. You already put your intention there. So I very rarely will ever say I have decided to make a movie. I have decided to own a basketball team. I have decided to help 27 ,000 veterans and then not do it because that is where your intention goes. I think words are very powerful. Telling people what your intentions are, saying it aloud and holding yourself accountable is, is, is quite a lot. Like the power of choice. To give you an example, when I was in the military in the Marine Corps and I got assaulted, I went to go do some therapy with a chaplain for a week.

7:13And he said, you know what? Sounds like you grew up and you had a pretty good life. And I said, I had the best life, best parents, best grandparents, parents, everything perfect. He said, well, you have a choice to make that other people don't. And this is where I heard that word, that choice that I had to make at 19. He said, you get to decide because you had a trauma-free childhood, do you want to make this an event or have it ruin your life? Do you want to say, hey, this is just an event and I'm going to lay it down and give it to God and walk away? Or do you want to carry it with you for the rest of your journey?

7:39And at 19, I went to bed that night and I went, wow, that's really something. I have that much choice over my feelings. I can decide how much energy I want to give this for her. When I said, God, this is not for me. I don't want to carry it the distance. I prayed that night, I gave it to God and I drew a line. I stepped over it and I marched on and on and on. So choice and decision and I have decided on my life for sure.

8:02Daniel Robbins:Something I've always wanted to do is be an actor because I want to know the feeling. Like when you watch something, like if you're watching Netflix or whatever, and you see yourself, what is the feeling? So you have Body Man that just premiered. It's coming out. You're obviously the main star in that or a main star. What was the feeling when you saw yourself there at the premiere? Well, it was actually different than I thought. I actually thought I would feel how I did when I watched the movie alone to critique the movie. I thought I'm going to be sitting there seeing my face giant on the screen bigger than I've ever seen it before.

8:36And that I would be going, oh, your neck, oh, this, oh, that, oh, you sounded, all the nitpickery that we do of ourselves. But when I watched it with 300 other people, I got to watch it through their fresh eyes and listen to them laugh and say, wow, that was so good. They were not nitpicking me. And getting it to watch it with them made me appreciate it more, made me appreciate my performance, the movie at large, the fact that we even tackled it in the first place in the face of adversity. That's a whole nother story for another day. But I think it actually elevated my experience watching it with so many people.

9:08Daniel Robbins:I, oh my gosh, I hate listening to myself. So you're right around, I might nitpick myself. So maybe I don't want to watch, but maybe that gives me hope when you are with other people, you're not what you're doing when you're alone. I like that idea. You're also a singer. I mean, how do you balance the success of each of these things to where, so one thing doesn't fall off, Right. So it's like if I if I have these two things here and now I move to these three or four things, how do I ensure that these first two things don't then fall off? Well, I think that it's it's healthy for you to finish things.

9:44A lot of people will start writing a book, but not finish it. They'll start an album and not finish it. Right. Everybody tinkers and toys around and as a hobbyist with things, but they don't finish it. So to give you an example, if you if you want to write a book and finish it while you're also running an eight figure company, you have to put it in your calendar. You have to happen to your life. So when I was writing one of the seven books, I just created a formula that said for 14 days, I'm going to put an hour in my calendar every day and I'm going to write a book. And it only takes 14 days.

10:11An hour a day takes 14 hours to write a book, period, dot. I don't care what kind of book it is if you sit down and do the work. But that's not what most people do. They're like Jack in the Box making egg rolls and hamburgers on the same grill. And it tastes like garbage. They're not like In-N-Out. In-N-Out says, hey, we make fries, we make burgers, shakes and sodas. That's all that we do. And so when I snap in to do something, I'm a lot more like In-N-Out. I snap in and I get it done so that complete work can be delivered to the world and it can be monetized.

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11:18Daniel Robbins:Listeners get 20 % off at cheershealth.com with code founders. Cheers. Tell them the founder story sent you. That's cheershealth.com code founders. And I think that's kind of a secret to my success is that I happened to my life. One, two, through compartmentalization. Most very successful people are very compartmentalized. When I was seven years old, my dad said to me, I was having a bad day. I was self-reflecting, like I did something bad at school and everybody hates me. And you're having one of those down days as little kids do. And he said, Hey, I'm going to teach you a trick. There's only two kinds of people in the world.

11:54I said, okay, I'm seven. Great. Okay, dad, there's two kinds of people. He said, follow me. If your mom takes a red lipstick and the cap is off when she throws it in her makeup bag, what's going to happen to everything in the back? I said, well, it's going to be ruined. It's going to be covering that red lipstick. He said, but what if she took that same lipstick and she put it in my toolbox in a compartment? I said, well, then it would only ruin that one compartment. He said, exactly. There's only two kinds of people in life. Who do you want to be? Because right now you're acting an awful lot like a makeup bag person.

12:21and you're like this one piddly shit thing ruin your entire day and from seven years on i i i catch something because problems happen outside of us and we let them in i catch it and i go not gonna throw that in the makeup bag i'm gonna put it in a compartment and i'm not even gonna deal with it but right now i'm gonna go on with my day and by the end of the day i don't even remember that that that is very helpful compartmentalization oh i love that i'm gonna

12:44Daniel Robbins:use that quote i'm gonna quote you on that i i really like that do you want to be the makeup bag or do you want to be the compartment yep taco box toolbox whatever it is toolbox you want to make a bag or you want to be the toolbox i like that so you you've talked about how being a female team owner can make other women realize that they can do it it's like if you see it you can be it yeah who is a woman in your life that made you also realize this first well i think both my grandmas are pretty powerful ladies. My dad's mom, who I'm named after, she was the president of the Chamber of Commerce.

13:23She was a president of the Women's Club. She owned real estate. She was a very good speaker. She was a very driven lady. And you got to think for her era, she was way ahead of her time. I remember sitting at an old typewriter typing up her notes for her. You know, and I just remember thinking, wow, this lady is really important and people are taking her very seriously. And that made it okay from a really early age. I said, well, my grandma can do it. I certainly can do it in this day and age. And I think that that's where that spark came from. And I just had been a light bearer and carried that torch forward for her all of these years.

13:57She was a Mary Kay lady. In fact, when she died, I was giving a speech and I reached back to touch her casket when I was talking about her. And I just started crying because it was like a pink casket. Like she went in the graves. Everything that she was is pastel pink, beautiful, powerful woman. And I hope that I do the same. I would be so lucky.

14:16Daniel Robbins:Isn't it crazy to think 30 years ago there was like a typewriter? This episode is brought to you by Schedule 35. And I'll be honest, this is a topic I was skeptical about for a long time. But the more I started researching psilocybin and hearing stories from entrepreneurs, creatives, athletes, everyday day people, the more I realized this conversation is becoming impossible to ignore. What I like about Schedule 35 is they've made the experience intentional and approachable. Whether someone is microdosing for focus, creativity, clarity, or taking a more recreational dose to disconnect from the noise and reconnect with themselves, everything is precisely dosed so you actually know what you're taking.

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15:51No, I don't understand. I'm going to ask God later, why spiders? But we'll get to that at a later date. But I think what scares me is apathy. And apathy is the one thing that I would delete. Our society being so apathetic, we're so inundated with things, and we're so desensitized that we don't even know what we should stand behind, what we should be doing, what should I be mad at, who should I be marching for, what really matters. Because every second of the day because a 24 hour news cycle, you don't even know it's true anymore. And with AI and with the way that news are, everything is so disingenuous.

16:25It has people be very apathetic. That's why the murder rate is up. That's why people can commit fraud, waste and abuse at the level that they do. Cause we just go, Oh, I guess that's what they do. I guess that's just how it happens now. And apathy is just a killer of men. It's absolutely horrible.

16:41Daniel Robbins:Do you think that social media and maybe the structure of this very short video cycle that we're in, do you think this is in the end going to hurt society or help society? Because I've been really faced with thinking about this lately. Like, I don't know if social media is the worst thing for society in the end or the best thing for society. Well, I mean, this might be an unpopular opinion, but if I could snap my fingers, there would be no social media. There would be no cell phones. Our lives have not gotten better. We like to think it's brought us together. It's been the most divisive thing because it's a let people think that every little opinion you have, that you can get so convicted in that everyone really cares.

17:25So I think about the reviews people leave about restaurants. I mean, just think about the way that we're willing to talk to each other and troll other people and threaten and bully and cuss people out. You would never do that in person. You'd get smacked right in the mouth. I mean, I'm a, I'm going to be 47 years old next week. I could tell you right now, none of this stuff would have would fly in the 80s and 90s people would go pardon you i will see you tomorrow you might not want to be so bold i think it's horrible i think people have never been more lonely i think gen z and gen alpha the the suicide rate amongst them is i actually asked i did i did a study i asked 300 gen zers we did a survey in a poll 70 of them said if they could go and get in a pod and go take a dirt map they would do it They have no hope.

18:08They are lonely. They feel disconnected in a world where we're supposedly so connected by social media. Nobody goes outside. Nobody plays. People don't go talk to each other. They sit on their phone. I think it's it's for I know people are going to hate me for this, but nuke it, nuke it quick. That's what I.

18:24Daniel Robbins:Yeah, no, I mean, I'm beginning to understand what you're saying. And I see it too, you know, having kids that are in the Gen Z age range and seeing their friends, what they're talking about, also the news, AI companions, people will date robots at some point, like, all these things could be escalated because of our lack of connection, which is quite sad. And I know the good thing is, though, we have people like you who I are. And I think you, I, other great people who our goal is to create positive content, positive things to also bring people together. Something I've been watching a lot lately is vertical shorts.

19:06Daniel Robbins:I know we're talking about shorts, but I like vertical shorts. I really, really like I can't stop watching it. And it's been kind of like a guilty pleasure of mine because it's a way for me to disconnect and to get into a story, but also not have to watch like a three hour bit of a movie. What are you doing in vertical shorts? So I watched 20 or 30 vertical short series and thought, oh, my gosh, this is like Cracker Jack. So Papa is the worst. It's just the worst. It's so bad. You can only watch so much. And I said, what if we could deliver feature film level verticals? What would that look like?

19:41Would people be more enticed by watching that quality? And I think that they will. But what I want to do is there's all these creators out there. There's creators out there making multiple millions month after month after month through fan monetization. So the creators make it a ton of money because the fans are watching them and they're getting paid for all these clicks. But the fans make nothing. In the model that I want to propose, the performance participation model, you can share and be a goodwill ambassador of other people's content and make part of the money. That way, when you have people with one to 5 million followers, they can be an ambassador of your vertical, and then they can make thousands of dollars.

20:20And the consumable nature of verticals is there's not enough people to make enough verticals. We're already out. The second you watch a vertical, you're like, where's season two? I sent out my vertical to 300 people. Everybody called me like, we're season two. What are you doing? They were already ready to watch it because, again, our attention span is so low the other thing that verticals do is they're a good testing ground like i think this crying drama i made the hails i think that if it proves concept and has a good audience somebody's gonna want to turn it into a show or a movie it's an amazing way to test market ideas with a with a 10 budget of what you'd have to do to have a film wow that is an incredible

20:59Daniel Robbins:model because as we know putting all your money into a film or a show it's a massive risk risk huge risk and i think as i've talked to people that do financing for films majority of the time it's like a startup nine times out of ten it flops and it doesn't make money and then you're hoping for that one out of ten or one out of whatever so this could be like game changer for the industry is that how is that how is this like what you see that you'll be focusing on in the future this like way to be able to test things for a longer form i mean right now i'm in the process of raising the first$10 million for studio men, my company, and we'll make a combination of movies in vertical shorts and we'll put them out, proliferate them in the market, do all the marketing and ads.