Catalina Velez-Watson:
What we're doing here. This is not just a job, like we wanna create a sense of a space for people to feel like they just can be. So this is a purpose.
Kristiana Corona:
Ever feel like everyone else has leadership figured out, and you're just making it up as you go? I've been there. I spent two decades leading design and technology teams at Fortune 500 companies, and for years, I looked like I had everything pulled together on the outside, but on the inside, I felt burned out, overwhelmed, and unworthy of the title leader.
Then a surprise encounter with executive coaching changed my life and dramatically improved my leadership style and my results. Now I help others make that same shift in their leadership. This podcast is where we do the work, building the mindset, the coaching skills, and the confidence to lead with clarity and authenticity, and to finally feel worthy to lead from the inside out.
Hello and welcome back to The Worthy To Lead Podcast. I'm your host, Kristiana Corona, and I'm so glad you decided to join us for today because I have a special guest joining me who is somebody that's very, very important to the worthy to lead business, and her name is Catalina Veles Watson. Welcome to the podcast, Catalina.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Thank you, Kristiana. Hi guys.
Kristiana Corona:
So Catalina is my operations manager, and she's a coach, and she and I are kind of two peas in a pod when it comes to Worthy to Lead. And so we wanted to take a moment to just go back and reflect on this year to talk a little bit more about what went well, what were things we learned, what was it like building this business from scratch, and how did we figure out how to work together because we knew each other very well, but.
We hadn't worked together. So, you know, what does that actually look like to form something new and learn how to work with each other and then evolve something forward. So we're gonna get into the details a little bit more behind the scenes for you all about how it feels to work at Worthy to Lead and what we do.
And I wanna give Catalina an opportunity to just introduce herself so that you can get to know her and appreciate all that she brings to this company the way that I do. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to you, Catalina. Feel free to introduce yourself.
Catalina Velez-Watson: I'm so happy to be here and doing this with you.
So a little bit about myself. I'm originally born in Columbia, South America, and that is Colombia with two O's. Not a uh, not one u. I grew up in New York City. I got to New York City when I was like eight years old, so that was pretty much where my roots really started, was in New York City. I consider myself a New Yorker, and now for the past 20 years, I've lived in San Antonio, Texas, which is what I call home now.
This is where I have my family, my husband, child, and so on. My background actually is in design. I went to school in New York for advertising. Graphic design, and I've been doing it all my life. I knew it was something that I wanted to do since I was a little girl. It was either becoming a cop or being a designer.
Kristiana Corona:
Totally. Those two go together in every, every sense of the word.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Um. I thought I was gonna be a sketch artist, uh, in NYPD. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Didn't play out like that. So I ended up being straight into graphic design. I dove in since the moment I graduated, and after I moved to San Antonio, Texas, I got an opportunity to be introduced to operations and from that moment on, I thought it was like two beautiful worlds operations in design, and just helping the people within design. I've worked in Fortune 500 companies also as startups that went public and yeah, it's been very different industries from tech to medical to education, just very different industries.
Uh, now I'm the operations manager and a coach to Worthy to Lead and I'm on the path to becoming an ICF-certified coach, so, yay.
Kristiana Corona:
Which is so exciting and we are gonna dive into that a little bit more later in the conversation because I think people are gonna wanna know, again, how does one make a transition from something like design and operations into coaching?
So I'll just do a super brief intro for myself because I feel like it's been a while since I've done that. So. My name is Kristiana Corona, and I am the CEO and founder of Worthy to Lead. And I originally came from a small town in Minnesota, so pretty much the opposite place of where Catalina started, and then I moved across the United States to Austin, Texas.
So I am currently in Austin. And I did spend over 23 years in design and technology working for Fortune 500 companies. And it was quite an interesting ride. A lot of that was focused on logistics, interestingly. So when you think about designing in, uh, a corporate world, you imagine like this really fun and shiny stuff, and really what I actually enjoyed was sort of.
How do things work on the backend? How do we solve complex problems? Logistics is not the thing that everyone jumps at when they're like, Ooh, I wanna design something. Right? But found that user experience is absolutely the right cross-section between complexity and solving important problems, and also the value of design.
And throughout that path, I ended up becoming a leader very early on in my career, and so the past 17 years have been in leadership, and I did encounter executive coaching as part of that path, which then helped me to pivot while I was still a leader in, into doing executive coaching and leadership at the same time.
So, just this past year, I ended up transitioning out of corporate and now have my own business where we do executive and professional coaching. We train leaders, and we have a membership to help create community and help up-level skills so that leaders feel confident and they feel worthy to lead. So I would love to dive into our story.
So, can you just give a quick recap of how we met and then how we ended up working together? Because I think it's a really interesting story.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Oh my God. Yes. I love it. How far do I go back? Let's go back from the beginning. So we met at USAA. Actually, you, I knew you had started as a leader in USAA, but my manager at that moment, which was Jeremy Carney, I think it was, he mentioned that you knew how to do the StrengthsFinder and that you wanted to implement it into our team.
So you came to our team to implement the StrengthsFinder finder and you know, you got a. Large group together and the way I believe you were pregnant at that time and the way you just interacted with us, I loved it. You helped me understand a little bit more about myself. That's why I got introduced to StrengthFinder, and then I started like diving into, so I was like, oh, Kristiana's.
Cool. So, and that was that, right? Uh, I knew you worked for another team at USAA. I worked for a credit card and. I knew of you, but we never interacted from that point on. Mm-hmm. Years past you left, went to other places. I left, I went to a startup, then I left that startup, and I went to Meta for, you know, for a few years and in that transition of being at Meta, I started having health challenges and also work challenges. And a good friend of mine, Monica Butler, mentioned, Hey, do you know Kristiana Corona as a coach? It's like a coach, like, like a life coach. Like what kind of coach? She was like, just a coach. Just reach out to her.
She'd love to talk to you. I did, I reached out to you, and you were like, I told you my story. And you were like, yes, I would love to do it. I have space for one more client. I was like, oh my God. Count me in. And from that moment on, I think you were my coach for, I mean, almost a year. Um. So, yeah, it was a, it was a, it's,
Kristiana Corona:
It's a long time. So, um, from my perspective, Catalina had like a very intriguing situation and story and a lot of wrestling to do, a lot of things to work through. And so it was really enjoyable for me as a coach to have someone who's so invested in wanting coaching who had kind of this really important thing within their life that they wanted to work through.
And so she showed up with so much passion and enthusiasm and like discipline and all, all the ways that as a coach you want clients to show up, like they really care and they do the work in between the sessions. And Catalina was definitely that person. And so it was just interesting, like at the time you were at a crossroads in your career, you were deciding if the corporate road was still something that you could continue down and, and then similarly, I was, you were just a little bit ahead.
On that road, I think, than I was. And then eventually I got to a place where I had to make some tough decisions in my own career and say, I think that, you know, life is happening right now. My, my family's health challenges, the logistics of all of this with returning to the office. Like, I think that now is a moment where I need to make a pivot too.
And I'm pretty sure I just made an. Offhanded comment about like, I think I'm gonna start my own thing. You did. And you were like, uh, count me in. Count me in. I believe I raised my hand, too. I was like, oh yeah, whatever you need. And then I'm pretty sure I said, don't say things like that to me unless you really mean them because mm-hmm.
I might actually. Be serious. Take you up on it. Yeah. And you're like, no, no, no, I'm serious. Um, so it was really interesting, like how I think the timing of all of that, and then just, it felt like I knew you so well by that point. I knew where your heart was, I knew how you showed up. I knew, you know, you were very capable.
And so when I thought about starting a new business and having someone alongside for that journey, it was so obviously you. From day one. So yeah, like you hopped in right away. You hopped in before we even had a name for the business, you were willing to get started, which I so appreciate. And then, um, yeah, after I left and we started full-time, it was, it's been what, 10 months now?
I think 10 months. About 10 months. So, um, I just think that story is so glorious because it's like we could not have planned that. Oh yeah. We could not have architected that. That was, that was divine intervention. It was like that was a divine intervention. All the things at the right, at the right time, at the right moment are happening.
Okay. So maybe we should describe a little bit like what are our roles? What is it that we do at this company? And like, how do you help me?
Catalina Velez-Watson:
So I have a box full of different hats here, right? To my right, and I just pull up depending on what hat I need. But no, I help within Word data lead. And for you, my goal is to try to create systems, try to create organization within what we do from a day-to-day basis.
Try to be strategic, looking at what the future holds, how can we organize that into a way that plays out not only for our members, but just for our listeners, for your content, what you're doing. I do also manage the podcast flow, help you from, you know, from scripting, from connecting with our vendors that do the editing.
Bringing back just the whole podcast, posting it or. Social media. I also, I'm responsible of the communication that goes out for our members within the, uh, core leadership lab. Mm. I do a lot of design support. Obviously, my background is in design, so I do a lot of design support from. You know, it was, it was wonderful when we started doing the naming for the company, 'cause then we got to work with a designer that helped us organizing that, keeping track of what the design looks like, doing our workshop documentation, making sure it's consistent to brand anything that goes out to our core leadership lab, making sure it's consistent tech support. I help a lot with tech support.
I'm even. Communication with people, you know, keeping track of your emails and keeping track of like, some of the LinkedIn that comes up. Just kind of like, I try to be everywhere. A leader told me this a long time ago. When you are supporting a manager or somebody that's, or, or, or a director, you're supporting somebody that's in the upper management, you always try to look around the corner before you even get to the corner.
So that's really what I try to do for you. I try to. See around the corner before we even get to that block, and think about like what could happen, what cannot happen, and we have conversations about it. So yeah. And you also coach, oh my God, how can I forget that? But yes, I also coach, I have like five clients already.
Yeah, you do. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. It's a big, it's a big deal. I can't believe it. Uh, but yeah, I do have like five clients.
Kristiana Corona:
So I think what's fascinating about this as you explain this, is there's probably a lot of people thinking like, oh my gosh, that's a lot of things. You know, it's a lot of things to have your hands in, and typically what you see from like.
You know, virtual assistant roles or operations roles for new businesses is like a very strict set of, okay. They only do email scheduling, maybe marketing, different things like that. And I think what's really beautiful about this is you and I established early on that we were gonna keep it open, right?
Like we were gonna make it seamless. Um, you were gonna do some things, I was gonna do some things. We just wanted it to flow so that it didn't become like a giant bottleneck on one side, and then the other side has got nothing to do. And so I think we have really kept things quite open in many ways to see what works for you.
What are your strengths? How do we lean into those strengths and maybe, you know, maybe you hit a certain level of tech support, and you're like, okay, I'm so done with this, this is not mine. Well, that's fine 'cause I don't mind doing that part. And then we can trade off, and we can figure out who's the most efficient for, for certain things.
So from my perspective, like I enjoy this because I can do more focus on business development, on strategy. Lean into coaching. I can focus on the trainings that I wanna have and wanna do, but I'm not solely responsible for every aspect of pulling those trainings off. So, for example, I think a great example of you and I and how we work is when we're putting together kind of a custom training for something.
And I might put together an outline, and then you might put together a draft of slides, and then I would go in and edit those slides and move them around. And then you'd go in and check my edits and make sure that things are consistent. And then you'd go in and put the QR code for the survey. And then I would go in and work on something else.
Maybe you'd work on the workbook, I'd come in and polish it. You'd go back and then make sure it's there and then, you know, upload it during the training or, or whatever. So it just, it's. Really, really lovely to work in such a way that you don't have to worry about doing all the things yourself. And I think that's where people get really overwhelmed as a new business owner is trying to do all the things.
Anything else you would like to say about that piece of it?
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Yeah, I think for me and, and you highlighted something about this fluidity that we have about working together, I think one of the important things that I wanted to do is not only to. Ease the way you work because you know, you're the face of the business.
But I wanted to make sure that I understood like, okay, what is Kristiana thinking? How would Kristiana answer this? How would Kristiana and I think we've gotten within the past 10 months, I think we've gotten to a place that, I know what Kristiana might think. I know this is a little dorky, but we even say the same things at the same time sometimes.
And it's, it's, yes, we do like, we'll even, we'll even think that we wanna like. Talk to each other and we'll texting each other at the same time. So it's like kind of like wonderful to know that we're both thinking and have the business and the people we're supporting in mind. Like, everything we do is center to their needs and how can we support them?
So we're, I know we're always constantly thinking of how to make that. Even better. So I think that's wonderful because we're, there's no more of like, you have to tell me something. I mean, I don't even think that ever happened that you would have to ask me to do something to tell me, Hey, can you get this done?
Like that never even happened. And I think now we're at the point that we're just like flowing. It's just flowing. It's like water flowing. So I really love that.
Kristiana Corona:
And I think you also bring a lot of great ideas to the table. And so. To me, it would feel like a waste to have someone that has so many great ideas and not incorporate them and not try them and not, you know, use that perspective to make this business stronger.
And so one of the things that people might be thinking about is like, okay, is this a contractor relationship? Like, what does this actually look like? And. That was a really important decision that we made early on as I was thinking about this. 'cause I knew you weren't gonna work full-time. You were gonna work part-time and trying to figure out like, should that be a contractor situation?
Should that be an employee situation? And the thing that really pushed it over the edge for me was that, and this has always been the case, to be honest, ever since I've worked at Target and other places that had that contractor restriction, was you can't give feedback. To a contractor, you can't develop them as a person; you can't coach them.
You know, they don't get the same rights of being able to have a strategic input on the business or anything like that. And I'm like, that is like the most important thing I'm looking for here is commitment and understanding and being mission oriented and, and wanting coaching and wanting to improve. So it was hands down, we're going employee route, and I feel like that's been a good choice.
Yeah, a hundred percent. Okay. So we talked a little bit about your big leap away from corporate. You've had to make a few of those leaps, right? Like, I mean, you, you chose to leap into a new business before it was even formed, and I know how hard you worked to get to where you were in your corporate career.
Like that's a big milestone and a big achievement. So. I'm curious for you, what was it like leaving your corporate career?
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Yeah, that one, that one was definitely a tough one. That was you coaching me for over a year of me making that decision. So I was in the corporate world for, I don't know, 23 plus years or so, and I worked really hard to make sure that I always leveled up, that I learned that I improved, that I grew, that I was seen as.
A, a source of truth. I was seen as a good thought partner, and I had the opportunity to work at Meta as a design operations manager for Instagram, and it was a dream come true. I had made it right, I had made it in my career, and I loved it. It was amazing. Unfortunately there was many thing and many factors that happened at the time that I got hired.
Layoffs started. Thankfully, none of those layoffs affected me, but I was also hit with a health crisis that I'm still battling, and that kind shook the ground I stood on and it caused me to reprioritize what was important. And I always had put my career, first, my career, and making sure that I was supporting my family and I was continuing to grow and climb up the ladder.
And when my health crisis kicked in, I had to make a choice, me or my career. And even until this day, it's very emotional, sorry. Mm-hmm. Um, but you know, at the moment I did not see it. As it had to happen for a reason, I saw it as a failure. I saw it as, you know, I'm giving up, but I think I hit a moment in which my health caused me and the extremity of the work that I was doing because it's meta.
It's not just a easy company. I burned out and I couldn't do it all, and I couldn't show up well to my job, to the people I worked for, and I needed to. Take a decision to to leave meta. So I ended up leaving meta and I was pretty lost for a while, but I landed safely because you were there in a sense. You were there to like, not only coach me, but you too embarked in this journey of like ownership of your own business and I felt like I wanted to be part of that quickly.
Fast, right? Because I, I cannot just sit here at home doing nothing. But there's been a lot of self-growth in the process. There's been a lot of learnings in these past two and a half years. Like a lot, like the person I was three years ago is not today.
Kristiana Corona:
I a hundred percent agree with that. Yeah, like the process, I think we sometimes talked about it as a metamorphosis, a little like going through the process of becoming liquidated, becoming cracked, open, and what it took to get through that and to get to the other side and to, to really find yourself and to find what it is that you wanted and what you needed to feel good and to know that you were having the impact that you wanted.
It just looked a lot different than what success was, I think, originally in your mind. Right. And I think that's true for so many people. Like so many people are working towards this ideal of the perfect career. Like we've made it the perfect title, whatever that is. And sometimes what you find when you get there is you actually wanted something else.
You are climbing a ladder to someone else's success, and your success might be entirely different and. I just think so many people can relate to that path, and the more we allow ourselves to go through that process, it hurts. It's messy. It's not fun. Done. Oh, it's challenging, like, yeah.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
There's no way through it as the way through it.
Yeah, totally. A hundred percent. I call it a messy middle. Um, just being in the messy middle. And I've, and for the past couple of years, I've lived in the messy middle and, and trying to find yourself through the messy middle. It's really, I mean, it's foggy in there. It's, it's, it's, you know, you have no guide, you have no map, you have nothing.
It's challenging. Yeah. And yet you did make it through. You found yourself on the other side. And I'm so happy. I am so happy. And the fact that I'm now in this coaching journey to helping others, it's amazing.
Kristiana Corona:
I think what's fun about this is ever since I met you, I was like, oh, she might be a great coach.
And I remember the first time I said it out loud to you, you're like, nah, nah, nah, I don't think so. I don't think I could ever do that. And then I'm like, well, but you're, no, you're very wise. Like you have a lot, you have a lot to offer people. The way you ask questions, your curiosity, all of those things.
You know, speak really well to the type of coach that people wanna have. And oh, by the way, you're already doing it in your personal life all the time without calling it that. And so there's this moment where you and I were wrestling a little bit with, okay, what would it look like for you to take another step in that direction, right?
And you got to go to a bootcamp, a coaching bootcamp, and tell me about that experience and how that changed your perception of you becoming a coach.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Well, can we highlight that? I mean, look, can we just talk again about the fact that you said, yeah, I think you'd be a great coach, and I fought you for a while, and you were like, no, no, you would be kept on fighting you.
Then you found this program through somebody that you met and you said, this is for you. This is perfect, and I was still doubting it, and you're like, okay. Do you wanna do it in person or you wanna do it virtually, which one you want because you're doing it. I was like, okay, I guess I'll do it in person.
So for, for a while, I, I doubt that I could be a coach to that point of like, one who's gonna want it, who's going to want to get a guided by me or helped by me. And I always wanna show up. Well, no matter what I do, and I always wanna show up helping others no matter what I do. And I didn't know if I could help people come out of that messy middle.
But going through that bootcamp, it was a seven day bootcamp with Positive Coaching Solutions with Mena Brown and man. That lady was created for me. She was phenomenal. She's amazing. She's bold. She tells it how it is. She teaches you the importance of coaching is like from the core. It's not just like a step process, it's a feeling.
It's a sense. It's like it lives within you. And embodying what a coach is was an amazing journey to learn with her and through her program. So I'm still in the making. I'm still getting my hours to get my a c, C, but I couldn't have been any more happy and I'm glad you damn kicked me into the pool because I needed to be there. Period.
Kristiana Corona:
What has this shown you about just your own capability to grow and become the person that you wanna be?
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Coaching for me has been, it has opened so many internal doors. Empathy, listening, learning about the five levels of listening, being present, having quiet moments. Just even, even like the simple things of like, don't ask accusatory questions.
Like why? Ask more of like what, and I say this again, like the presence of being there, listening, like being engaged, that's so important and I've implemented that internally for me to be able to show up with my family and everybody else. And now it's almost like things that used to hit me don't hit me as strongly as they used to.
So the response level that I give. It's very empathetic. It's always from an understanding ear, like an understanding essence. Like it's very hard to explain. I even try to explain it to myself because I look back at myself to how I used to digest information, to how I digest it now, and it's just night and day.
It's night and day. So coaching has definitely helped me internally and even when I get to like coach with you, 'cause I have an opportunity to coach with you. So even coaching with you is phenomenal because I get to put all that into practice and I want you to like critique me and you're like, no, that was amazing.
I'm like, oh, wait, what? So yeah, it's been a phenomenal journey.
Kristiana Corona:
Yeah. And I think, um, and now you're going even deeper into burnout, coaching and you know, finding different paths that really align to your experience, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I think that's the joy of both experiencing what it's like to be coached and then also to learn the techniques around coaching.
And yeah, that's why I'm so passionate about leaders having these skill sets. It's not that you have to quit your job and become a coach. Not at all. You can do this. In whatever role you're in, but it changes your perception of the world. It changes how you interact with people. It changes the type of questions that you ask others and get them to think things through and find their own capability and develop their own new path, right?
And all of those things are things that you are capable to do if you have some basic coaching skills, but. A lot of us go through our life thinking about how do I tell people the right answer? How do I solve this problem? Everyone needs me to do it. You know, all of that. And really what it comes down to is most people don't.
Occasionally they do, but most people are creative. They're capable. They just have been kind of trained to believe that they need to rely on everyone else to provide the right answer or validate or approve or whatever it is. And. I think coaching kind of busts that wide open and you realize, no, what I need to be doing is creating a bunch of leaders around me who are independent and confident and can do things themselves.
So I just love that you now have that skillset and like how that has shifted your communications at work and also with your family and your friends, and like you can use it in every direction of life, right?
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Totally. Totally. Because it removes you from this essence of being transactional. A transactional human to like a present human, and I'd recommend it highly to everybody, not necessarily to become a coach, but to learn those small skills of like, for example, even just learning.
Five levels of listening and if you really understand what those five levels are and how most of us are living between the one and two level, and yet when you start opening the door of like what the four and the five looks like, it's like another world. So imagine implementing that with your kids, with your partners, with friends, it's different.
Kristiana Corona:
It's less transactional and I think a lot of us. Weren't necessarily taught these skills throughout life. They're not necessarily taught to you in school or by your family or you know, as part of your HR training for your job as you become a manager, or not even a manager, an individual contributor. And so they're kind of this secret layer of like, how do you observe the world differently, which is really powerful.
Okay. So I have one more question for you just about your reflections on this year. What has been the most surprising about this journey so far?
Catalina Velez-Watson:
For me, what has been the most surprising about this journey is that we had an idea of what we wanted to do, but we didn't have the exact stops that we were going to do it and how we wanted to do it.
And it all played out perfectly. So I was afraid that I was gonna let you down. I was afraid that things were not gonna pan out and the business was gonna not work out and within. You know, five months we're gonna realize it, but it hasn't been like that. Everything that we have wanted planned for or even kind of like just put it as an idea, it has come through.
So the most surprising thing is that things just have come to us naturally because of the relationships that you have built, because of the people that, the relationships that I have built. And it's almost like things have connected organically and. Things just happen and the business shows up. Like I remember we were just gonna coach people.
Then all of a sudden we started doing a membership and it's just like, it's every time ev, I swear. I think every Monday that we meet, we level up one more thing. We continue to level up and out of each meeting, we come up with more ideas and we continue to move forward. So it is just been phenomenal to say that we haven't known everything that we needed to do, but everything that needed to happen has occurred.
So that's been pretty surprisingly for me.
Kristiana Corona:
Yeah, and I, I think what's interesting about that is, is again, if you look back, it isn't like a track record of a hundred percent success for every single thing we've done. There have been failed experiments. There have been partnerships where we're like, Hmm, nope.
Wouldn't do that again. There have been things where we thought, oh, we'll get this many people, but we got half that many people. I think at the end of the day, the way we're treating it is it's all learning, right? And so I think one of the things I really love about how we work is our wall of worthiness.
And that's one of the things that really stands out to me because that's where we actually put our post-its. We talk about here's what our actual wins were, here's the things that materialize that we didn't know were gonna materialize. And then there's space in there to say like, what wasn't working?
What did we learn that is not working? What do we not wanna do again? Uh, what's been surprising, like where we thought it would be this, but it was actually that. And, and so that constant process of reflection and learning and building makes you feel like it's not wasted. I think it's very easy to look at, well, this is the goal for what we wanted and we didn't hit that goal, but.
When you look backwards again, the gap in the gain, when you look backwards and you see all of the things, see the progress you've made, you've built something from nothing. You developed trainings that didn't exist in the world. You developed a membership that didn't exist in the world. There are people whose lives are changed because of being here.
All of those things give you the momentum. And the learning to continue. And I think anything along the way that wasn't perfect, that was messy, that was a mistake, that was an investment we shouldn't have made that we're, we spent too much money on something and then later we're like, oh, why did we do that again?
We didn't lose that. We didn't lose that. Learning along the way. We put it in its place and gave it meaning. And because of that, I think it feels more secure. It feels more like intentional about building a business versus just racing as fast as you can and then feeling like you're never measuring up. Is that fair?
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Yeah, that's fair. And also, I feel very grateful, the fact that we have each other so we can. We troubleshoot. And one of the things that we talk about in coaching, like when we tell people, Hey, these are some skills that you should use as a coach, and one of them is like experimenting and learning and pivoting.
Obviously we do that in design all the time. So to that point is like we have each other to talk these experiments out and to get each other's feedback on like. What did work, so Wow. I call it Wow. Because it's wall worthiness, so Wow. Is super cool because we get to go back in there and yeah, we kinda like high five each other every time we see things.
That did work. And then we have a conversation when things don't work. So, yeah, I agree with you. It's been. An experiment of its own.
Kristiana Corona:
I would also say another thing that you don't always get right, right away is like, how do you give each other feedback? How do you figure out like, what is the right level of critique versus like, let that thing go And just being able to find a rhythm where we're like comfortable just saying this isn't working.
What can we change? Um, and knowing that it's coming from a good place, it's intentional. It's not to say like, oh, you know. This is good or bad, or right or wrong. It's just, you know, how do we make this successful moving forward? Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that's been really meaningful to me, and I'm curious what you would say to this question, is like about our partnership.
I think the fact that we work different types of hours. The normal, like maybe in a corporate setting we would be nine to five or something similar to that, and we're always trying to kind of fit within those hours. What's fascinating is you and I have found a different rhythm in building our business where I like to get up early and do some stuff.
You like to start your day later, then we'll kind of sync up in the middle and then you'll keep working at a certain point. And then I'll probably check in late at night and, you know, see where things are at and maybe do a few things. And so our trajectories, like our paths are not like completely synchronized at the same time, and yet I feel like we have the flexibility to fit our life in.
So if I need to go do something for my kids at school, or we have a dentist appointment or you know, whatever life comes up, it's fine. We work around that. And same for you, when you have a doctor appointment or you have a pickleball tournament or whatever, that might be my expectation that we are fully flexible.
And so I'm curious how that has been different for you compared to previous places you work.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
It's funny to say to think that we're, I guess, worthy to lead is open 24 7. Uh, but it's been amazing because nothing gets bottlenecked. By one or the other. It's a continuous loop that it just, I know what I have to do.
I hand it over. I may go to a pickleball match or whatever, come back you finished it and we'll solidify it and it's done. And we have also tools that have helped us to stay constantly communicating on something that we don't have to be texting each other or calling each other. And when we make comments or when we were giving each other feedback on the spot, we understand what, you know, we understand the assignment, so we know how to move forward with.
That particular thing that we did. So I, I just think it's amazing because I get to have my flex time. I get to have my own personal time, and I know that I have where did to lead top of mind, and I know that I'm not just dropping the ball if I walk away because I know you're there.
Kristiana Corona:
Maybe one quick story that sort of illustrates this, which I think was really funny, was when you and I went to the Texas Conference for Women and.
So not only were we there for a conference, but we were like, okay, we're gonna be super productive and when we get to the hotel, we're gonna have a work session at night. Like that's gonna be brilliant. Somehow we were like, yes, that makes total sense. So we do the conference or we're like preparing for the conference, go out to dinner, have a nice dinner, and then we come back for this like super amazing work session in the evening, drinking lots of coffee and stuff and like.
I think that was so funny because we did actually get a lot done, but yet we did at some point. Yeah, at some point there was a level of loopiness where we were trying to eat M&M's and they kept falling on the floor in the lobby of this hotel, and everyone around us was like, what is happening over there?
She's like, well, yes. This is just how we work. This is, this is how we work.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
This is it. This is what we do. But there was a lot of great. I mean, we had a collaborative moment and it was surrounded by laughter. It was, you know, we love being around each other. And that's one thing that I'm super grateful.
It's not this sense of like, oh, my boss, I'm afraid. Should I say, should I not? No, it's like a, it's almost like a friendship, like with all respect to your sister, but I see like a sisterhood. I'm not taking you away from your sister, but I see it like, it's like a sisterhood in a sense, and I know what you care for.
I care for as well. And yeah, so I just love every interaction. I look forward to every interaction that we have.
Kristiana Corona:
It's like that saying, when you do what you love, you never work a day of your life. I think that's very true. Is it feels like work, but also play. And it's fun and it's creative and you don't have all the red tape.
And so it just feels like showing up for something that you would choose to do. Like if you had free time and you wanted to do something fun and interesting, like that might be something we would build. And you know that it's helping other people and. That is ultimately the goal.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
So can I also say one more thing about that is the fact that it's not just you and I and it's not just our members of their listeners, it's also our family.
Because like I know your family, you know my family. It goes beyond that, right? And they know what they're, that what we're doing here, they support us. This is not just a job. This is. We wanna create, yeah. A sense of like a space for people to feel like they just can be. So this is a purpose.
Kristiana Corona:
Speaking of purpose, I feel like that leads me into my next question perfectly, which is, what is a dream for the future of worthy to lead that has you really excited right now?
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Wow, so many things. Growth, exposure. I wanna make sure we, we touch as many people as possible. I. Get into more places that we can help people grow more, places that we can teach. And help people learn about coaching, not for them to become coaches. That's not the goal. The goal is for them to start kind of understanding what the essence of being a coach is so they could implement it in their space.
I wanna have more individual coaching. I definitely wanna have my a CCC as well. Selfishly, I'm thinking about that because I think it, it goes back into what did lead and I could show up as a coach. You know, like as one of your coaches within where to lead. And that's phenomenal 'cause we could serve more people.
So I think is, how can two people multiply to make it seem like it's 20 people? So that's what I'm most excited about, is like this level of expanding. To the masses for 2026.
Kristiana Corona:
Well said. And I think for me, um, I echo all of those things because we talk about them all the time and I think we're very aligned.
One of the biggest things is you always regret leaving a, an environment where. You know that you were doing some good and you don't wanna leave people behind and then say, sorry, you know, I'm not, I'm not doing that thing anymore. And now you don't get that style of leadership anymore. What I want is for so many human-centered leaders to be developed, that everyone has an opportunity to work for a leader who cares about them, who knows how to coach them well, who invests in them.
And drives amazing business outcomes because it's possible. It's very, very possible to do both. And I've seen it. I've lived it. I think there's so many people who just haven't had that experience. Right. And people who, you know, work for managers where it feels toxic or where they just are like, I, I need to get out of here as soon as possible, and I can't.
Help but think that if we can be successful in our mission, it's gonna be developing these human-centered leaders everywhere. And so there's a lot of things that can lead towards that, whether it be affordable memberships that people can join, where they can continuously uplevel, maybe where we get more coaches involved so that we can continue to develop people in a more intentional way and give them access to executive coaching that usually only C-suite leaders get access to.
And I think just, again, there's just a lot of different ways that we can go with this, but I think to your point, the things that work out are the things that are supposed to work out. And so we're just gonna keep putting things out in the world. We're gonna keep sharing what we know to be true, and eventually I think those opportunities will manifest.
So I couldn't agree more on the future and this conversation today, which has been really, really fun to just dive a little bit behind the scenes.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
This has been great, Kristiana. So now as we're kind of ending this, I do have a question for you. What would be a wish that you could offer for each other, uh, as we're heading into the next year? What would that be?
Kristiana Corona:
I think my wish for you is that you will be able to fully step into your identity as a coach to fully embody exactly who you wanna be when it comes to, you know, not just. The things that you've already done and doing them well, but branching into the areas that are new for you and where, you know, and you feel that sort of tug in your heart.
Like, I, I wanna do more of this. I wanna become this. Um, that you fully step into that and believe in your own leadership and believe in your own capability to change lives. And I think. You are making so many amazing strides. So my wish for you is that you will feel it on the inside too.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, for me is, and I think we've always said it, I see you on stages. I see you writing a book. I want you to. See that what you're doing here is so powerful and it's beyond just worthy to lead because you already came with this power to worthy to lead. You've already have moved mountains and you've already have impacted people.
I've seen some of the message that people even send you of like, I miss your leadership and I miss your presence, and I miss your challenges. So I want that to be multiplied even more so. And I want you to be on TED Talks. I want you to write your first book. I want you to be in spaces with phenomenal, already inspiring people like you, and I'm gonna do whatever I can in 2026 to get you there.
Kristiana Corona:
So this is, this is why we needed to have this conversation so that people can see the level of support that I truly receive. It goes far beyond, far beyond operations and coaching. Um, so I'm just so grateful to be on this journey with you and thankful that you took the leap. And I think there is. So much goodness here for people to find, like if, if they're thinking about doing their own thing or if they're a solopreneur already and they just feel like they're lonely and they need some support, I cannot strongly enough suggest getting your own Catalina so that you are on this journey with someone who is passionate and supportive and talented, and that can help lift you up on the days when you're not sure.
Or you're having a hard day 'cause it really makes a difference. So thank you Catalina, for being on this journey together and for bringing your whole self to work.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
I really appreciate you. Thank you Kristiana. And thank you for trusting me with this 'cause I know it means the world to you and it does to me as well.
And then this is where we do this kind of business. Oh yeah. And hopefully the hearts. But you always get the hearts. Oh, I got 'em finally. Yay. I have to like connect them. Okay. Alright. I never get it. Anything else you wanted to say? I just wanna say besides thankful to you, I'm also thankful to the members and the people that are along this journey with us because they're not only learning from us like I am learning tons from them because.
These are, as you mentioned before, these are people that are already capable, already have all that they need to be resourceful and everything. And just them showing up to this space and showing us what they know has been phenomenal. I'm learning from them every day. So. Thank you, truly. Thank you. I love that.
Kristiana Corona:
I think, you know, if people are out there and they are listening to the podcast and they're just new to this space or don't have a support network, again, this is a open invitation to come and talk to us, both of us. We really love bringing people in and helping them to find that clarity for themselves and that confidence in themselves.
'cause it feels really good when you can work through that and come out on the other side. To your point about going through the messy middle, like we all have our messy middle, but it feels great when you can get to the other side of that and understand what you really bring to the table and being proud of that.
And so definitely wanna invite people to, to come in and join us or start a conversation if that's helpful.
Catalina Velez-Watson:
Connect. We're open 24 7.
Kristiana Corona:
Um, you do sleep. You are not a robot. I know that. So,
Catalina Velez-Watson:
But I just kidding.
Kristiana Corona:
All right, well thank you so much for having this conversation and thank you Kristiana. Looking forward to 2026. Yes, ma'am. See you then.
Thanks for sticking around for our conversation today. It was really fun to chat with Catalina. This is pretty much what we do all the time, and we just sort of hit record. To talk about it with you today. So this will be our last episode for season two for the year. So we just wanted to wrap it up with something personal, something a little bit behind the scenes, and just give you a flavor of what it's like building a new business together.
So we look forward to having you back for season three starting in January, and if you are not currently subscriber, you can go to worthytolead.co/subscribe to get added to our list so that you get notified every time we release a new episode. And if there's anyone in your life who is going through a similar transition or who's interested in figuring out how to run a business and not get discouraged and lonely, feel free to send them this episode.
Hopefully this gives them some encouragement and also the leaders in your life who need to learn some coaching skills, who could really uplevel the way that they're developing their teams and build their confidence. We are so excited to have you all as listeners of Worthy To Lead. We're so grateful for your support.
And we look forward to seeing you next season. So until next year, keep showing up. Keep doing the work that matters, and keep leading like you're worthy to lead because you are. Bye for now.
