Stop Hiding and Make a Living Doing What You Love with Kathleen GageStop Hiding and Make a Living Doing What You Love with Kathleen Gage
Katherine Arati Maas
Catherine Arati Maas and Kathleen Gage talk about how principles from recovery can support women in building honest, profitable businesses. The conversation focuses on money beliefs, mentors, marketing and the courage to stop hiding and do work that truly matters.
0:00•14 Jun 2016
Stop Hiding: Turning Sobriety into a Business You Love with Kathleen Gage
Episode Overview
- Sobriety can be a powerful base for business success, grounding work in honesty, integrity and consistency.
- Money is described as energy, and changing limiting beliefs about it is key to charging fairly and serving more people.
- Start small and be consistent: short daily writing, gradual price increases and basic structures help move a dream into reality.
- Choosing the right mentors and surrounding yourself with successful, ethical people accelerates growth far more than staying isolated.
- Treating your work like a real business, including proper bookkeeping and outsourcing key tasks, prevents burnout and self-sabotage.
“"Put the big girl pants on and run it like a business."”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation between host Catherine Arati Maas and marketing strategist Kathleen Gage shows how recovery principles can fuel a meaningful, money-making life doing work you actually care about. Aimed at women in recovery, the chat is honest, practical and occasionally very funny.
Kathleen shares that she has "31 years sober" and calls sobriety the foundation of her success: "Don't take a drink, don't do drugs, and amazing things happen." From there, the two move into the fears many women have about business: low self-worth, old conditioning, and feeling like dreams are "for other people".
You’ll hear them talk bluntly about money, with Kathleen stressing that cash is "simply energy" and that you can be spiritual, ethical and financially successful at the same time. She links business principles to recovery principles: honesty, integrity, consistency and being willing to do the work instead of just visualising on a mountaintop. Marketing and pricing are stripped of their mystery.
Kathleen jokes that if you’re treating your work like a hobby, "call it a hobby", and adds, "Put the big girl pants on and run it like a business." She suggests starting small: writing short blog posts daily, raising prices a little at a time, and learning to charge so there’s a fair exchange instead of hiding behind “donation only”. Mentors, sponsors and community appear as crucial support.
Kathleen explains how high-level mentors pushed her past fear, much like a tough-love sponsor in recovery. She also warns against trying to do everything alone, urging new entrepreneurs to get help with bookkeeping, tech and admin, rather than staying stuck. If you’re sober (or getting there), tired of shrinking yourself, and wondering whether it’s really possible to make a living doing what you love, this conversation might be the nudge you need to stop hiding and step forward.
What small, practical step could you take today toward the work you secretly want to do?
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