Beyond Career: when being a housewife is right for your partnership (but hard for your ego) with Katri Josling 

0:04Hello and welcome to The Slowdown, your time to redefine success and growth on your own terms with a little inspiration from others. We're back for season four, recorded at Brazen Studios in London. From the outset of this podcast, I've really felt it my duty as host to bring to light stories that don't get mainstream attention. I'm interested in questioning what we've been taught to value in our work-obsessed culture. One of the things I've always held judgment around is the idea of being a housewife. Growing up with my mum, she climbed the career ladder and became a professor and I just couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to or choose to work.

0:43But after years of chasing goals, building things and burning out myself, I've come to see that choice differently. With empathy, understanding and maybe even a little admiration, I've started to ask myself if I could build enough of a passive income, would I stop working? Which brings me to today's guest, Katri Jostling. Katri does not have a job title, awards or even a social media account. In fact she's so present when we spend time together that I haven't even seen her phone and in today's world I think that that really is a worthy headline. Katri is a constant learner whether it's completing a new boating license, a culinary chemistry course to create the most amazing meals, learning her fourth language, going ski touring in Svalbard or training her two giant Rhodesian Ridgebacks.

1:33She was also a high powered consultant with a UCL degree in political science and an MA in European politics. She was working and traveling the hours that you can imagine so when her husband's career took off she had to make the choice between her own career and spending more time when possible together. I wanted to know more about her decision to leave work, how she finds purpose and what architecting a world in that partnership looks like and her view on it all now. In a culture where we are pushed to overachieve, where the only goal touted by media seems to be to have a million dollar business, I want to share stories that make those who have not chosen to do that for whatever reason feel valued, worthy and acknowledged.

2:16Listening to some of this top podcast right now can leave you feeling that you aren't doing the right thing with your time, like you must be doing more and more. But the truth is you define success for yourself and the more examples of success that I can share with you, the more I feel like I have achieved my mission with this podcast. And so I really hope you enjoy this wide ranging conversation with my dear friend, Katri Jostling. Hi, Katri. Thank you so much for joining me on The Slowdown. Our pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. Well, the funny thing is that you're not slow at all. You're one of the fastest moving people that I know.

2:53You ski and trail run and get things done faster than any woman I know. So the irony is not lost on me. On an average week, how much would you say that you run in miles? You know what I do? I love running. Running doesn't love me as much as I love it. So I resulted in many injuries. So I'll try and limit myself to 10 Ks a week. Well, there's definitely a thread that I really want to unpick with you, which is around redefining success for yourself when you no longer have a career in the traditional sense and I know that that is a nuanced and touchy territory because like me you are Eastern European, hyper-independent, self-actualized so I know some of these words can feel confronting as I'm sure they are to many, many people in similar positions but I love the life that you have built.

3:49I really admire it and I hope that you trust me to go on this journey of your story. Absolutely. Great. Well, I want to take it right back to the beginning because I love providing context for people's lives. So where were you raised, by whom, and what were your kind of early ideas of success? Oh, good question. So I was born in Estonia and my mum remarried when I was around five to a Finnish, Swedish man, my stepdad. And that was like, it was late 80s. So the context around it is, you know, the Soviet Union, and I will say this openly sucked in every way and everything was terrible about it. But suddenly, you know, in the 80s, there was Glasnost and Perestroika and it was opening up.

4:36Foreign companies could come and JV with Soviet companies. The reins were starting to loosen. And I think like, you know, the West was becoming visible. And, you know, having lived in the USSR, right, And I'm a person who started with memories early, right? Like I remember a lot of my very young childhood. It's amazing the difference of like how gray and shit the Soviet Union was. And it really was like the colors were like faded, like quite literally, like everything was horrible. And then there's obviously the shiny West, right? Honestly, I think it's my mom actually, like, you know, she married him and it was very obvious that her marrying my dad was like this great statement of like her wanting to leave this horrible place.

5:15It was just like the USSR, like what a ridiculous thing. And like what a ridiculous thing for anyone to like want to go back to or be nostalgic for. Life was like faded gray, like it was awful. And yeah, so I think my early years were very much influenced. And until you ask this question now, I actually never thought about it by the fact that I think she really like did not want to be there forever. Not physically there, but in that system forever. and so I went to school my first year at school I went to Tallinn in Estonia and I would have foreign notebooks because we could travel to the west right to northern Europe and go to Finland and I'd have Mickey Mouse notebooks and I'd have like blue jeans that were like nice and trainers with like velcro wow so cool so not just like crappy tennis shoes right and so I would go to school with my cool new notebooks and you're like I'm like seven like of course you're proud of your a cool Mickey Mouse notebook, right?

6:10And the kids would be so pissed that like, I wouldn't be allowed to play that day because of my notebooks. So I think it was like, all of that together very early was like, okay, like, you know, definitely makes you want to break out of that, right? But we actually, ironically, then moved to Russia after that. So like, Estonia was still like the Western-most Republic, right? Where people went on holiday, like being the West in the Soviet you need to sanatorium moving then to St. Petersburg which was like deep Russia and the and the union hadn't collapsed yet um I mean you really see then like which way you want to look it's like east or west and I think that until we speak about it now actually was a very impressing moment for me.

6:57And then did you know what you wanted to do or what you wanted to be when you were little like how did you choose what you started ended up studying? You know it's funny No one dreams of what I became. But it's, I don't, not really, I think, you know, like I didn't, I didn't really know what I would study. And I think when you're a little kid, I was like, I love animals. I want to be a vet, right? But also, it's very hard to get to veterinary school. And it's a very hard physical job. And you know, all those things you don't think about when it's like, yeah, I want to work with animals at eight.

7:28Like, you know, I think I didn't really know. I uh my parents worked in for scandinavian airlines so I flew a lot and I loved it and I guess for a long time I was probably like I want to be a pilot I probably would have loved to be a fighter pilot because it's very cool but uh but you know like that's not a real dream right that's just because I watched top kind of like oh wow but I think and I'm very like I'm very good at being present in life I am a very present person I think about what I need to right now and I think when I was like 15 I'm like I don't need to worry about that right and I live like that generally in my life I'm like do I need to worry about this problem today if it's not a problem for today I'm just not going to think about it today I will think about it when it's a problem I think really hard and I'm going to fix it but when it's time but that's such a great way to be because I think I spent most of my youth just like stressing out about a hypothetical future and I think when you're I don't know at least in London being a teenager you always wanted to be older and you always wanted to live you lived in some sort of hypothetical future that you may or may not have and so then how did you pick you went to ucl i went to ucl political science yes and russian so four years with a year abroad how did you choose that degree there what was your influence so again back to the like worry about it when you need to i didn't really think about these things very much but at school i did the ib program i think in reality what i really wanted to study was probably biochemistry my grandfather was a scientist he was a geneticist and we had a very like scientific environment at home when I was like six he would do little like like chemistry experiments you know like blow things up and like it was so cool and so and you know he would cross crossbreed his own tomatoes and like there were flowers like gladioli that were like the kati is what they call me as a child not katri so there was a kati gladioli and the tina it's my mom and like so we lived in this environment and I think really what I wanted to study probably would have been like biochemistry like science that that's definitely what would have suited me what I should have done.

9:23I didn't have a great like dialogue with my parents about these things because they didn't really relate to my world. I don't think they could relate to like what it is making a decision in year 2000 about what you'll study. Like I just think they were stuck in their own world. So it wasn't useful advice. And I've always been very good at it. I'm like, if this is not useful advice, I'm not even going to ask it because it's not going to help. And so I just chose politics because it is interesting. And I loved history. And history was Second World War history, which is essentially I mean I miss Japan like you know the whole thing was about Cold War and you know World War II Cold War all that things relevant to you so you found them interesting and it was year 2000 it was very relatable because like the thing fell over nine years before right and UCL is a really good school and then it ended up being very like very relevant and very suitable to me and my story but should I really have studied something else yeah I just didn't know I like the, it tracks with the spontaneity of your life.

10:17And then you moved to London. What was it like living in London? Oh my God. I came from a Swedish boarding school, right? Six years in boarding school. And it was like pretty strict in the sense that we even had this program, the A &T program. Alcohol, narcotics, tobacco. We really were policed. And I think that was good. We were urine tested randomly to make sure we didn't do drugs. which is I think really good for teenagers don't do drugs when you're 15 it isn't good for your life right and so and you know we'd go and like smoke in the forest and we'd take like a twig and then we'd tie it around the cigarette then hold the twig so your hands don't smell because they'd smell your hands and be like you've smoked so like I came from this environment to suddenly and they're like university released me into central London wow I couldn't believe it I think I like subsisted on beer for the first three months.

11:11And I was actually surprisingly thin at the end of that, because apparently if you don't eat food and only drink beer, it's actually quite a good diet. Doesn't make you look very beautiful in the face. But and I was like, I probably should start eating now as well. But it was amazing. So good. But I lived in Shepherd's Bush. I went to UCL too. And obviously has a tendency of kind of, if you're, I suppose, somebody like you, that's like, what's available right now, they very much push on you this idea of go into consulting, go into banking, go into finance. Was that something that then? At the end of my degree, so I did a four-year degree, so I spent a year in Moscow.

11:45And how was the year in Moscow after your childhood there? So fun. So it was a totally different experience. Now it's like walls fallen down, oligarch central. Totally. And it was in 2004, 2005, Moscow. And there was this hilarious song, this DJ smash. DJ smash to the song called Moscow Never Sleeps. and Moscow never sleeps. Like, oh my God. And obviously like, I guess I get, I like also the fun, like the fun in life, right? Like if I go out, I don't want to go home. I love doing everything a lot that I'm doing in that moment. So we were studying at, I think it's called, it's called Mgimor Moscow School of International Relations or Moscow School of Diplomacy.

12:27It's where like Putin went to and all the Russian politicians go to. And all their kids. And all their kids. And then these like super smart kids who graduated at 16 who get scholarships there. So it's a super interesting place. We had very senior professors who spoke to us about Russian politics and Russia's position in global affairs or global politics, but from a Russian point of view in year 2004 and 2005. Super interesting. And then it's Moscow. Moscow's insane. Nothing closes. It's crazy, right? So you have this wild time in Moscow and you are around these different people and just seeing the world with these crazy eyes.

13:06But it also sucks you in a little bit. So there are, like, many foreigners who go there, and then they move back and they can never leave because, like, it's like this vortex. Like, you need to, like, just, like, release yourself and be like, either I'm going to be here forever or I need to run now. And then, yeah, and then I went back, finished my degree in UCL, and then actually did a master's in Sweden because I was like, I'm absolutely not working yet. Like, it is too soon. So I've done five years at university. Like, how do I drag this out as long as... Well, the thing is, where we're from, at least in Serbia, degrees are much longer.

13:34This idea of like, I finished my degree in three years. I was 21 when I graduated. And it was like, here is the world of work. Yeah. Please enter it. Go be a consultant for 18 hours a day. And you're like, wait, what? Like, I'm 21. Yeah. And also, it's even more so it's like, it's not just be a consultant for 18 hours a day, but it's also go and try and consult to someone at 21. They're like, who are you? But that's kind of how, like, I guess that ties into what I then chose. It's like, you know, you finish UCL. It's a good school. be a banker a lawyer or a consultant if like you want to make any money and and if you want like a if you have good grades you come from good school that's the advice right and it made sense for my personality you know I like variety and I get bored easily and like so so you know you go to different companies and and so yeah so you that's just how they that's how you end up there right so you went and did this MA at Lund yeah and then what was the first job I got a job in Sweden actually with a small consultancy um where I worked like eight months while I was applying to the big ones in London and then I got a job I kept Gemini and at the same time I got a job with Google in Stockholm and I said no to Google and they were like this was like 2008 and they were just like what if it's about money we'll just pay you more money and I was like no you wanted to be in London I felt like I'd studied here and I lived in Sweden for like a couple years and I I was like, I just like, I need to come back here.

14:55I stand by my logic, but then obviously we will get to the point where it didn't last forever. But then Capgemini consultancy, what does that mean for people that don't understand what consultants do? Yeah, so basically this is like pure, this is management consulting. Because now the word consulting is used for everything. But like in reality, it's like this is the old school, like the one. You will come into a company and you will consult in either like strategy or operations or whatever it is. to try and improve their either top line or bottom line, right? Capgemino hired older people, a little bit older people.

15:28Like I was like 25. A lot of us were sort of 24, 25, something like this, to have a bit more experience and you're not so very fresh. Because if you come out at 21 and they train you, like you're still going into companies, but people are like decades older than you, trying to advise them. And of course, when you're junior, like they hide you a bit more and you do like more of the running around. But you would go into a company, you do analysis and design in a team, and then you implement your solution. I chose, in the end, when I specialised, I chose supply chain, and I did lean in operational excellence, which I thought was really interesting.

16:01And I worked a lot with food industry and also IT, which is a lot less. And you would go in and in big teams. And, you know, I spent a year up north, like in a factory in Manchester, helping like people like analyze and like run their machines better from a human performance point of view right which is very interesting but like lifestyle wise so talk to me about the lifestyle of that like doing that for a few years what is the reality because there's people a lot of people trying to get into that line of work so there's a level of competition it's not an easy job to get it's a huge amount of interviews and steps you do psychometric testing and blah blah which all the big corporates do anyway or did back then I don't know now and then you get in and they're like you're one of 7 000 know that you know like that's like the first thing they say to you and then they immediately you get your contract and well when when you sign before even starting you get your contract and then you get like you know the waiver the eight hour waiver immediately and then what's the eight hour waiver basically you're supposed to not work more than eight hours and then immediately you sign the thing that you waiver right because that's not how it works but it's kind of like look it is like you know being young and going into that you know you're in this in this team this thing like you know it's it's a it's like a mission it's this thing together and you have your intake and like you're sent into different projects and then you have your project team yeah it's kind of cool and like you know you're part of something and you know like obviously you're earning well to what other people are earning at that age and like yeah you work hard but also 25 like it's okay to work hard at 25 you don't need to sleep that much and like nothing hurts you that much traveling every Monday morning and coming back every Friday afternoon you know having a family like it's like not great like I slept in my bed like three nights a week at best in London and then I traveled to a hotel and then I lived in hotels very good for hotel points but not good for life not good for life but yeah in in that time like it was cool and I don't regret it like it was it was amazing I was just like do I want to do this forever that's a different thing and then you rapidly also start getting underpaid because as women unfortunately we're not that good at negotiating our salaries and that really is true like you looked at across the board I think in a lot of industries but in consulting it was very obvious women were constantly paid less because you have to negotiate your salary personally with no benchmarking and we just negotiate less hard we just don't ask and it really was like hard because it's like these guys would come in and they're like I'm amazing I did this and and then in performance that was not true but it's just that first interaction and we just got paid less and I feel like you told me before once about this concept of up or out yeah so basically you have a great one is the best five is the worst if you're not at a three then you probably need to leave so there's always competition like I guess with yourself but it's like you know you have a lot of internal work you need to do but people aren't trying to like trip each other up like there's enough space for everyone to work all hours of the day there's so much and you have to do client work they need to do internal work they need to thought leadership um which is like trying you know bring something a new learning from a project you know for others to use right so like you're very busy and you're very busy with your own competition against yourself right because you're always trying to go up up the levels you don't want to be staying the same that's the interesting thing about consultancy right it's like it's not just like you need to get this great job be on this great pace stay there for the next 10 years that's not what they want you to do no no you need to be like progressing within the grade and you need to always be evolving right the problem is obviously because of the pay thing back then it was like you know people would change companies quite frequently to get paid more because that's your ability to negotiate better right and then you have to sort of your knowledge kind of yes you learn new things but you don't know the company um and so then you get like set back or the company gets set back a bit because you constantly have new people trying to understand how like the thing works right because you are like you're working on client site you have ways of working that are different for each company and then you have your own company that you don't even know right and so it's not very efficient to do that but uh but that is kind of the evolution and the game sort of was like to not stay in the same company forever and so then at what point in all of that living in london in your mid-20s did you meet james i was 26 and uh we were 26 i met through a friend from university and it was very random.

20:24We met and it was very fiery and we lost our minds is probably a good way of describing what went down. And then we got married from 10 and a half months after our first handshake, having both been people like we never ever want to get married. Like this is not our thing. And so we got married. How were you converted to the idea of marriage in 10 months? I mean, you're going to laugh now because this is the best bit, like the stories you can tell yourself. it felt rebellious we were the first so like no one's getting married like everyone had either lived together for a really long time and we're like well what do we do now or they had just broken up 25 is like that milestone you know we're like it's us forever or like curtains right so many people were at the curtains that i'd also broken up with my ex at 25 so like you know everyone does the same thing in life at the same time regardless of who you are like we all literally live the same life it's hilarious and so um so I met him and uh and it was just like unexpected and crazy and and it just felt like this like statement this rebellious statement that that we'll get married because no one's doing it and uh and so we got married and it was like not traditional we got married in a in Fulham Town Hawks like we'll just do it quickly I don't want to I don't want to have poofy dress because that's not my dream I didn't have flowers I wore a mini dress my mom was livid it was great so that whole thing of like the shock factor it definitely helped but it was also funny because like you get married at 26 you don't really have very much like you don't really have assets and things and James had a flat but like you know a little flat and like and we were young and and so you don't really think it through right but marriage is actually like legally and financially a massive step.

22:11And like now being 41. And still married. Still married, thank God. But people around me, like, you know, these things are dissolving now because like people are getting to age where like, oh my God, is it you forever? Because this is the next milestone. We're like, oh, not you. So again, again, these are moments that happen in life, right? Dissolving these things, it's very hard, right? Like with kids involved and a lot of assets And like, it's just very complicated. And we never thought for like a millisecond what this legal thing that we're doing is. And like, if you want to like break up, like you have to live apart for years.

22:46You have to go to court. Like, I mean, like, it's so complicated. But we're like zero thought. We're like, yeah, cute. Like, you know, like no one's doing it. We love each other. But that's the presence, isn't it? That's you being like, right now, what do I feel like doing this? And what was James doing at the time? He's English and he was also working in... So he was at Glencore. He's an oil trader. We then ended up moving abroad. We were really like in London. Now it's the next step because we did this thing. Now we want to do something else because we've been doing this for a long time. And I was like, I'm on palm trees and I'm on 30 degrees.

23:20And he's like, I got you. We're going to Lagos. Which taught me that I'm like, be more specific with your dreams. Be more specific. Be more specific. But you moved to Lagos. We moved to Lagos. And what were you doing and what was he doing? Because I really want to get to the essence of if you're both running, working, running businesses, doing whatever you're doing, how little time you end up spending together, which was then becoming an issue. Well, this was actually the interesting point, which kind of was like the precursor for how I have lived my life since. We go to Lagos and obviously there's like two people moving together.

23:56I'm a consultant in London. you do not like that world doesn't work the same way or didn't when I was there then probably not now either but there wasn't like an obvious job for me to go to in Lagos right and so I was like well you know we're married we're a team well we can do this together I didn't I didn't love like I think I was ready to move on from Gap Gemini I wasn't necessarily ready to leave consulting but but I was like it's time you know like to try something else so we're like and me being me we're like oh fuck it let's try it you know like oh well like we'll figure it out we'll figure it out and like you know it's kind of like I don't I don't deliberate about these things for very long because sometimes you just kind of know it's your gut right you're like you don't need that much more information because like either you want to do the thing or you don't want to do the thing and you can deliberate but you're still going to do it right and so we're young and we might as well try it and so he was working quite a lot and I wasn't working and that was I'm you know impatient I'm fidgety.

24:53I run around and, and I ended up in a place where traffic is so savage that like, like a kilometer can take you two hours. I didn't know anybody. And, and I had nowhere to go because like, there is literally nowhere to go outside your house. I mean, there are cafes, but in 2012, they weren't great. I'm sure it's better now. And, you know, the roads are bad, but I still had this mindset, you know, you've been like, you've been studying and you're like, and you know, university and then you work and you're like, you're constantly running. And I was like, oh, I've got free time. so I was like I'll read books and so I went slightly crazy and so I read 22 books in one summer but I'd set like targets so crazy I'd be like if I don't read to page 400 I won't have lunch oh wow I know but I was like later I was like why did I do it's crazy you take this mindset of do achieve strive with free time with free time it won't leave you it's like this like Western capitalist curse.

25:50Yes. Like, how do I keep striving? Yes. And I was like, and like, I'm like, like, I'm a planner, right? That's the thing, which is funny. It's like, I'm spontaneous, but I'm a real planner. I plan for everything. I like, it's scenario planning, right? So if I make this decision now, what's the downside and how much time does it make to like make it a better decision? Do I need to, right? And so for that reason, I was like, it's funny because like, I, the time thing is important to me. So I would easily like, I started time setting my reading. What is wrong with you? And for like ages, I'm actually going crazy now.

26:23So I'm like, okay. And we arrived in Lagos in April, the rainy season, like Nigeria, like Lagos has a hardcore rainy season that goes for four months. And like a deluge comes from the sky for like four months. Like it's so much rain. It's like genuinely hard to explain. like how much rain can come down from the sky in one place without like reaching like your window so we were like stuck there that summer and I was just like reading like a crazy person after that I was like okay I need to do something like this is actually like not a productive way of living and so I got a job a local like a Syrian or Nigerian company um in sort of a procurement-y supply chain kind of undefined role, which lasted for a short amount of time.

27:09But culturally, was a very difficult thing to do for a Western consultant in like a Syrian-owned Nigerian company. So I left. And then that thing of like James working full time and being very busy and me not working and maybe learning to like not like read with targets and so but still like you know in a place that there aren't that many places you can't go anywhere and like and I'm an only child I'm really good at hanging out with me but like we also had like 2g internet you know like it was a different time right and then it started becoming obvious that it's like I can do this but I'm maybe not ready yet like it's like it's it's it's too early to just like lean into it and like we don't have children and we didn't want children so we're like that I can't keep myself busy with that like that's not my that won't be my solution which often in that environment would be because like if you have a baby like it's a pretty good environment to just be at home with your baby right um and then at some point I was like okay I need to leave like we I think I think there was there was some semi-hysterical crying on a plane from Thailand And not a big, that sealed the deal.

28:22I'm not a big cry. So James was like, oh, wow. Wow, this is very weird. And like this sort of spontaneous, like, ah! And he's like, okay, maybe go to London for a bit. So I went back to London. So my old boss had then joined Vodafone. And then I went and worked as a consultant in Vodafone. And I got the job and I was like, sayonara. And then James came back. I made a commitment to being transparent about the making of this podcast right from the start so here's a quick update of the financial side. Season four of The Slowdown does not currently have a sponsor. I really want this podcast to bring to light people, stories and approaches to life that I admire and don't often see in mainstream media so I'm taking on the studio editing and making costs of this season myself.

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29:42Thank you so much for your support. And then you stayed living in London, both working, doing these jobs. Yeah. What point were you then like, again, something has to give with our time? Well, it was a funny thing, actually. It was our dog, Duke, the ledge. He was the guy. When did you get Duke? So Duke came in Nigeria we got him in Nigeria in like 20 it was point 2012 and so um and Duke is a Rhodesian Ridgeback he's a Rhodesian Ridgeback and he was oh I called him the magical wonderhound and he was he was amazing it wasn't amazing if you were like if you were a Labrador it wasn't amazing but if you were a human if you were a human and a friendly one to us it's great if not friendly less he was less cool but um so we got him and I've grown up with dogs James got up with dogs like it's a thing a dog was always going to be part of your story it had to be like we love dogs it was going to be a thing and a day it was a good time and obviously it's not super safe so having a dog in the house is also like an additional thing even though he would also sleep like our bedrooms were divided like the main area and then there was a bulletproof door to the bedrooms in case someone came in with like guns and so duke would obviously be on the inside of the bulletproof door so it's funny we have the dog for protection but we're all like hiding back to bulletproof door and so but it was um so we came back to London and partly it was a change for me because I was like I'm no longer in a consultancy I'm now in-house which pays a lot better but it's not the same environment like it's not as like consulting staff like it's a really energetic environment and like it's that's what's cool about it like you know like you're in different places and you see different things when in-house it's a different world you're still in the bureaucracy of that company and um and then and james was working a lot traveling a lot and then we had the duke so when you live in london what's cool about london is like you put your clothes on in the morning you go to work you then go straight to dinner then you go to drinks whatever it is that you do and then you come home whenever and go straight to bed right that's like how the city functions the best whereas when you have the big guy at home like you've got to go home after work even though we had a dog walker that took him one of us will then go home he worked in mayfair I worked in Paddington and we lived in Fulham.

31:58So one of us has to go back to Fulham, walk the dog. Then he's like, Mara, you're not home. And then feed him and then be like, okay, I'm not going to go back out for dinner. That makes this city unlivable. Like you can't, like you literally can't do that anymore. Like I like, and now I'm stuck in a tiny flat with a big dog. It was like, we should have a garden that's bigger than this. The dog's like side-eyeing your tiny garden. Yeah, and he's like, that's not big enough, that garden. which is amusing because when you have ridgebacks and then you have big gardens all they do is follow you around and never go in the garden like and like james and i hunt for large gardens and dogs are like we don't care so so i think after two years and we'd actually been to south africa for christmas new year's and and we were like what an amazing place and again time for a change but this time more specific palm trees in cape town in cape town well the aim was it was actually joeberg so it goes to the interview before joeberg gets the job we both like leave our jobs and we'd been down to joeberg to like see the place found a house we're like we'll buy the house like we are so in juke and i were gonna come like a few months later james is gonna start like a month later and we did the celebratory road trip from new orleans to san francisco through southern texas and as we land in atlanta to go to new orleans they call and they're like the founder of the company died the job's in geneva now but we have no other jobs so we're like no and then realized like wait you can ski every weekend okay bye wait just to understand this better because i think it's key people in the the kind of work that james does in oil trading and commodities trading yeah you get moved around the world they could literally ask you to move tomorrow i mean it depends on like what region he's he's an africa guy so it's either africa or where he in geneva right but other people in the company would be like you're going moving singapore you move to houston and and a lot of that is set up similar to yours where you're describing where it's like you've met your partner you want to be with them you want to spend time with them you realize at some stage that actually their career makes more than enough money for you guys to sustain yourself so then you there's quite a lot of basically wives and partners of commodities traders who end up moving all over the world with their partners did you struggle with that sense of uh this isn't my decision I don't feel enough control over this or were you the spontaneous, present part of you?

34:37It's like, great, this sounds like an adventure because I'm sure you'd, in your mind, created an idea of what life in Joburg would be like. I'm spontaneous, but I'm like, I'm rational. I take care of myself. I'm like, I'm not reckless with myself. It makes sense why it plays out like this, right? It's like, you look at, my job would have meant traveling Monday to Friday. My husband mostly travels Monday to Friday. And just for people to understand, when you say he travels Monday to Friday, he could be going to three different african countries yeah yeah it's not like he had to catch a train to swindon no no no exactly no no no he's like flying intercontinental every week there's a calculation to be made which is like which how much money do each of us make right because like there's like there is a career thing but then there's like the life thing right like you know you need like a house and like stuff and if you want to have kids like you know like all of that is like a very like that's like the base calculation for life it's like how's life going to work out right and so you have to be like who's going to be able to deliver this best and if we both do it what's the cost of it right right what's the cost of how we spend time together or not I by that point like I knew that the lifestyle of consulting and and for a variety of different reasons I didn't really enjoy it anymore and I didn't I didn't like the fact that like as a consultant like you spend all this time awake forever right working like a dog and like they're probably not even going to use your solution like it's just probably not even like they'll try and use it for a while and it falls over or like they never do so why did I stay awake for all that time like there's no point right and so partly that and then it's the thing of like if we're both running and if you both love your jobs I get it right but then like what does your like home space what does that thing look like when you come home both on a Friday afternoon you can like have a full-time housekeeper if you want i mean it's fine but it becomes slightly less personal one of us being here especially for that giant dog because we also can't leave him all week long because that would be cruel it just becomes more logical that one's the racehorse and the other is the vet right like it just makes sense and to like have like a nice environment to be in and and it's like everyone lives their own way that's sort of the rational calculation but of course then there's ego right and then that's the question so my follow-up question is you move to Geneva and suddenly you are one of the wives the housewives that stay at home which is so counterintuitive to your personality you would go to I assume dinners lunches with the wives and also you would go to events where people would ask you what do you do and so for the first like few years of that experience how did those situations make you feel what was your response did you connect with and resonate to the other wives you know it's funny actually first of all it's like you move and when we moved we arrived on a Sunday with the Duke and and our car and on Monday James flies to Nigeria right and just go fuck on Friday and then he does Monday Friday in Nigeria for like 15 weeks and I'm in Geneva and okay there's like we have a little like car for like driving around town I don't have a phone contract I like I speak no French and I know nothing like I I don't know a single human this is pre like a social media app where you could make some friends on yeah find a community or something I'm all alone at this point again I'm an only child I'm good at being alone but by some point by day four of the first week I'm like if like nobody I've spoken to knows my name like for four days no one actually knows my name like and I can't talk to anyone anymore because I don't speak French and in central Geneva everyone speaks English but you know you it's actually like a lot of loneliness in the beginning and like and I'm not a very lonely person because I'm like love hanging out with me so much and I'm not that lonely but like you are really like isolated and alone and so the first challenge is actually that is like it's just solitude right then eventually you get to know other people but because the other people know each other and you and you're trying to fit into their already existing friendship social structure yeah and like you know it's uh somewhat like it's clicky like the world is clicky anyway and that can be clicky I don't have kids so if you had kids and they're in the same school it's fine but if you don't how are you gonna meet anyone I don't and so it was actually very hard in the beginning to like create a social life and Geneva was not an easy place to create a social life either like that's like for anyone who lives there will attest to this um so that was probably the first struggle and then it's like then it was a thing of like oh I've like I did everything right you know like I studied hard I got good grades I got the right jobs I did I did it right like I did what I was supposed to do right and then I'm like but it's not making me very happy and so now what do I do so then it was the time of like how do I make peace with stepping out of that thing because like I did everything what I was supposed to do and it wasn't right and then intellectually like I know that it wasn't right for me and I know it's not right for us and I know strategically for our life it is better if I don't do it and then you know and it is actually like it's actually really hard to change career like I did think about you know but as like a supply chain consultant at my level because I hadn't spent enough time you know be stepping into like an industry company is actually kind of hard because like oh you're not a specialist at like this specific thing because I hadn't spent enough time to be super specialized um so I was like I don't want to do any of this and I actually don't have to do any of it right so how do it's just ego well it's ego but also you've got to fill your days right and purpose and purpose and that purpose is that's the thing it's like you know what impact like what I don't know what what impact will I have yes what memory what legacy will I leave right um and and so but all of it is also like you look at life it's like you know and you know we talk about like success right and like that's an that's an interesting word there because like I like I don't have like my life I'm successful at life but I don't have a successful career right and it's okay how do you define success success is about career and I don't have a career right and and that's just making peace with that it's like you don't have to have a career like it took me like many many years and a lot many many chance with myself like really a long time like it's it's actually comedic how long it took and to this day I'm like I'm like the one thing I'm like yeah I walk into a room and you meet people like a cocktail party or whatever it is and like you meet people and like don't tell them you were a consultant because the thing is when you say it they're like they're like oh okay like like you're not just a housewife because that's that word I'm like and even to this day I'm like oh it's hard like I know it's true but like I can't so I'm like don't say you're a consultant and then I just hear the words fall out of my mouth I'm like okay I did it again because they assume it was like last year or something no no I can say I was it's just that if you say you were everyone's like oh okay and you see their face change like every single time if I don't say it they're like trying to figure it out and they're like who are you what are you and as soon as you frame like yourself like that they can they feel like they can put you in a box it makes sense to them yeah but also like and and the response is better right like the way oh she's smart they speak to you better yeah right otherwise you can also not say it and eventually get to the conclusion that you can still have plenty of things to like discuss and have in common and and but you know that initial judgment is so interesting like people determining whether they want to continue a conversation with you.

42:07Pretty much, yeah. Based on what do you do. The other thing was short hair. I used to have long hair. I had long, long hair and I'm very straight, I'm going to sneak. And cutting it, I have better conversations with people. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. It's true. It's funny because we obviously spoke about that when I saw you last in Geneva and this kind of awkwardness at dinner parties of not really knowing what to say and your reaction. it's so visceral your like reaction to the word to the word housewife and to the word so the idea of not having a career and this like reflex in you that goes oh well I was I was a consultant you know like you can't sit in the presence of like this is what I do now and so I remember at the time being like well can I write your bio because I'm insanely impressed by you and everything that you do and I look up to your discipline and your presence so much so can i read it to you you can't okay katri jostling is a philomath constantly learning and excelling at everything from culinary chemistry and languages to boating and dance she is the matriarch of two large rhodesian ridgebacks zulu and nala she commands strength and leadership daily she runs a multi-home multi-sport household with precision and flair managing everything from staff and logistics to diaries and domestic details.

43:29With husband James Jostling, she curates a life marked by sharp skis, hot saunas, Michelin meals and joyful, chaotic dinner parties. Catri is also a vibe, an important, rare and often overlooked job. Intangible as it may be, it has led to a rich social life, a circle of great friends that regularly make the pilgrimage to Sassfe simply to relish in it. also a verb to be cat read which is not something we've covered thus far is to be unintentionally swept into an evening of intoxicating hospitality persuasive pause and joyful excess with inevitable consequences on your brain cells the next day in short catry is a doing word she does everything and she does it probably better than you with excellence wit and just enough danger to make it and unforgettable experience how do you feel when something like that is read out about you that doesn't mention the word consultant it doesn't no you know what it's funny it's it's like the nicest thing anyone's ever like it's funny because it's like it's flattering that what I see is like a life that I I'm very satisfied with but I have to make peace with it right like really like knowing be like this is the right thing but like and then put the ego to bed and be like calm down like your life isn't about the things you say at a cocktail party they're actually about how much you enjoy your life like that is the reality it's not about other people's perception of your life either or external validation or that moment when someone's like oh and then oh you do this and you're like and then you have to do it all day long some people love it but like there's no world where like also being at work isn't stressful right and I'm not saying my life isn't sometimes stressful like for other reasons right I know that this is the right solution for me it's a great compliment to my life and my choices and I would never see it that way over time it's it's getting better but reading that makes it it makes it a lot better I think so it makes me happy well one of the like main things that you are and you mentioned it is this kind of architect world builder of your life with James and I think a real positive of that is hobbies I think people have become such generalists now that they've lost the concept of having a hobby just for the joy of doing a thing so what are some of your main hobbies um and how do you actualize them in your life because I think it's important to stress like to want to heli ski in Svalbard is is something you really have to timetable yes it's actually well Svalbard actually can't fly you've got to ski tour you've got to hold your own ass up that mountain um I guess those things come like you know where in many ways the hobbies are also like I think as an in a relationship it's very important to try and have the same ones so you can do spend time together right so we're lucky that we both like that we live in Switzerland so going to the mountains every weekend and having a place in the mountains during the season is how you spend time like and it's fantastic so you get really good at it but then also you have to be like is this how I want to spend my time you're taking risk right because so like often when women have children and they do less of that because obviously you're taking your the way you view risk is different right even though with guides and etc but you're still taking risk right um so partly it's the natural incidence of these hobbies that James and I enjoy doing together and then the other thing is like I love details I love them so much I love details so much that when I talk I go on a tangent I forget what my initial point was because I need to tell you everything and then I don't actually know what I was talking about.

47:11And so like, and I love details in everything. And I love cooking. And I did this like online, Harvard did this like online chemistry and physics of cooking course, where I spent most of my time by calculating the distance between molecules rather than actually making the emulsion. But it does make the emulsion better. It's true. So like, I will go to this level of detail because it's awesome. And I want, I really want to know everything about stuff so being this person and not having like a job it means you're never bored because like there's always like something and like because I cook a lot for example I have to then like I obviously have to make my own bread and then I have to like perfect the sourdough and I make my own sourdough pizzas but I also make my own passatas and so then in August I need to be canning my canning my tomatoes and like and so if you're like this it's amazing how like much time you can spend and I know that makes me happy and that's why I'm like now I joke about it I'm like oh my god a job like I'm so busy a job would get so deeply in the way of my life because I'm so busy and like so I think I'm lucky like that I feel like I use my time well but I just find it very hard to explain that you know so you say top top three hobbies are cooking and food cooking for sure skiing mountain everything related to mountains and I think a lot of like I think like travel adventure travel like james and i travel a lot and we love we love doing the same things and like going to like new places and like that's i think yeah like and i'm very much a novelty person and like you said sort of like the world builder thing is also like i'm like i always want like more or better and i'm going to a room like it needs something you know like and james loves because he's like is like can you just like stop buying shit and like but actually being like this it's like you can build the world right and it's like not about being like just like incessantly buying stuff but it's like a room can be great with a few things but you can make it really good with like a few more plants and some more things right you know like building the world and be like oh in our garden like you can have this corner and so like for that reason it's the same as like we love traveling and seeing new things it's again the more like I want to see more I want to find out more because I just want to know more um and that's that's I guess it's like the big yeah and you know you've touched on it a couple of times the fact that you guys don't have kids and was wondering if you'd be willing to share your thought process and decision together to decide that yeah it's um well it's interesting I think it's like different our reasons are different right but obviously when you have this viewpoint and when you feel like this you need to talk about it before you get married and obviously we didn't have like that much time before we got and you might change your mind when you're 25 to when you're 35 but the thing is the thing about having kids and not having kids is if you don't have them you think all the time about them whether you want them and if you do have them you're never going to be like I wish I didn't have you like you know that's not how it works right so like when you don't have kids you're constantly queering whether you should be having children like all the time um and so like you're never going to be like we decided something at 25 and oh my god I'm 43 and I can't have kids like that's not how it goes down right there's like you know things happen in life that test that and like you know for sure and if you get to this age like at 41 like I know for sure but it's like but as far as like you know I think James's reasons maybe are different to mine but I'm like I just like and I've thought about this a lot and I'm like am I what you know is this like a weird thing a family thing whatever but really it's like for me it's independence right and I'm like everything all these choices that adults make together like choosing to get married is a choice and we can also dissolve it that's a choice ultimate freedom is like my solitude or like me being like like I can choose to have I have lots of people that I care about and are like not dependent on me but like you know make these choices together a child is dependent on you in a way that you're like that to me like strangles my solitude and my freedom like me being me right and that's uh and that I've thought about a lot over the years and like you can't think your way out of that you know then then you get to have more hobbies yeah and and you're a great godmother and and all of those other things I think there's a real case to be made for like mothering as a concept I think I'm like a grandmother I think I'm a granny like I missed the mother bit but I think I'm like a granny to everyone that's probably true and you know we mentioned this before but like how where are you at with other people's opinions of what you do now well I think in terms of like other people's opinions it's weird because like it's not other people's opinions it's the way I view it the problem was always me right me making peace with how I view the world like and how I think about things so and actually when I tell people now like obviously I get like wildly awkward right when someone's like what do you do I just like burst out laughing now when someone asks me what I do I just like literally just start laughing and they're like oh god I'm like no no no it's fine it's fine so I make it so insane that it's like it's comedic right and then I try and explain the feel of my thing but then I just like don't take myself seriously and it just like here's a latin word that means lifelong learner how do I explain this to you exactly and they're like ah then I start laughing and so that's weird so what terminology do you use do you say I world build oh god I like that with James I know and like but it's hard to also say that because then like you run the great risk of sounding like a total douche right which is also dangerous is is there any wording that you're comfortable with I think I I I sort of muddle my way through it and giggle my way through it and try and talk about like other things I think is probably with some people and then some people are I'm more relaxed about it and then it's fine and like people generally are like well that's great like I love this point of most people don't care it's your own reaction your own perspective yeah exactly and like my judgments right clearly that I'm like and also a mirror well yeah and also like sometimes like no one can beat you up as hard as you can beat yourself up right like you know so there's sometimes some subjects are like, oh, like, I'm, you know, one can be one's harshest critic, right?

53:08But so like, I do feel much more peaceful. Like, it's because the thing of like, it's just the ego. And it's just like, by now, I think like, it was harder at like 33. Whereas now I'm like 41. And like, everyone's more peaceful at 40 anyway, about everything. Like, you're just like, you just have to make peace with who you are. Like, because you just if you're still fighting with yourself now oh my god it's such a long time well the follow-up as well as you mentioned earlier you know people think about legacy when it comes to career but have you redefined legacy for yourself because as somebody that has a bit more expendable income you could also you also invest a lot in charities and project work and stuff so are you how do you see legacy now how do you see your Or have you completely gone, I'm just a drop in the ocean, I'm going to have the most fun I can while I'm here and that's it?

53:59No, no, no. And I think that's the thing is like for the longest time I try to sort of, there's like one thing that is like I feel like is a big failure on my part and it has to be fixed and is in the process currently of trying to be fixed. It's that it's true. Like there's, I have time and income to obviously to give to charity, but also like a lot of it is also I have time, right? and I haven't done enough of that kind of work I haven't and I would like to do that like I don't actually want to go and work for a company because I fundamentally do not care about companies which is funny for someone who's a consultant I like fundamentally don't care money's useful in life but I don't love money like some people just love money right and so but what I do feel very passionate about is you know spending one's time doing something good for people and like and you know the time has come and it definitely has come donate my time to work foundations that work with like education in africa for children like female education i'm very passionate about right and so things like this for sure like now is the time to start and i have that sort of like the commitment i made to myself i'm like do more do more do more for others that like you know i can still do my sourdough and do that you know it's true and like you know and it's like i can And I could be in a soup kitchen and give soup, but maybe I have a better use of my time.