Interview with Cathy Derksen
In this episode, we will uncover 3 keys:
- Navigating Midlife Challenges Through Reinvention
- Empowering Women Through Collaborative Midlife Narratives
- Conquering Career Transitions and Building Collective Success
A Podcast Transcription
Episode 27: Empowering aspiring authors by collaboration! 11-time Bestselling Author & Coach~Cathy Derksen
Intro
Odiva Vasell: (00:00)
Welcome, welcome, my fabulous entrepreneurs. I am excited to have you here with Cathy Derksen, and she is a published author and a very strong advocate for sharing your voice and amplifying that voice. Welcome, Cathy.
Cathy Derksen: (00:24)
Thank you very much for having me.
Odiva Vasell: (00:26)
And I just want to start by asking you what inspired you to create this business that you have?
Navigating Midlife Challenges Through Reinvention
Cathy Derksen: (00:37)
Well, it goes back about a decade now when I really got started. And at that point, I knew just in listening to my intuition that I needed to be doing things that help me to help women really impact their life, to change their life in a big way. In a positive way and to just get into things they weren’t doing before. And so that was kind of where I started. And I’ve really been evolving and fine-tuning. How is it that I can help women change their life?
Odiva Vasell: (01:05)
Okay. And so that is so important for women to have a voice. It’s something I’m very strong and strongly believe in, and I’m very passionate about. But how does that connect to writing a book?
Cathy Derksen: (01:23)
Well, that’s the interesting thing. And people don’t always realize the real value of being in the books. And that’s actually why the books doing collaborative books has become a main part of my business because I found, through my own experience, that is an excellent way to build your network, to share your message on a much broader scale. And if you’re in business, also amplify the exposure of your business to build visibility. And so that’s why I really encourage women to jump into the book. So basically, what we do, all of my books have roughly 20 women from a global community. So these women are now meeting women that they would never have had an opportunity to meet otherwise. We’re working together as a team. They’re getting to meet each other, to know each other. There’s a lot of collaborations that come out of the book projects. So it’s not just people submitting a story that gets published. It’s a team of women working together on a theme to then bring that message out to the world. Like one of the books in January. The book I had out was called Embrace Courage. So again, a book of women sharing their stories about taking on courage in their life. And from the perspective of that, courage isn’t just about rushing into the burning building to save the child every single day. We are being courageous in what we’re doing in life and really focusing on that.
Odiva Vasell: (02:39)
I love that. I love that what you said every single day. We are being courageous in our life. And as our relationships change, our roles change, it can be difficult. And if we think about we focus on the difficulty, then we might just want to give up. But if we look at it as being courage is from day to day, and then we have a story to tell. And if I understand correctly, you bring 20 or so women from different parts of the world together to tell this story. Tell us more about some of these projects that you’ve worked on.
Cathy Derksen: (03:15)
Yeah, a big part of what I focus on as well is midlife women. So women that are in that time in life when we know we need to make big changes, we’ve got dreams of bigger things and looking at the traditional model of life when we’re supposed to work until the fifties and sixties and then retire, which traditionally looked like we would just kind of putter and disappear into the background. Whereas these days I would say most women in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, we’re not ready to putter and disappear into the background. We are ready to start something new that inspires and excites us. So that’s really the big focus. So one of my other books that just came out in June was called Midlife Awakening. And so again, a group of 20 women from around the world sharing their journey of how their life has unfolded and what came up for them and how they made those changes. So the chapters in each book include both that personal journey as well as their tool strategies, wisdom around how can they support other women to now step into bigger things. And to me that is the real important part. But I think women, we learn from each other. And the more we see examples of other women stepping into bigger things, other women being courageous, other women just moving into other possibilities in their life,
Odiva Vasell: (04:33)
Modeling
Cathy Derksen: (04:34)
I find that seeing those examples, that’s what really gives women just that feeling of, hey, I can do too.
Odiva Vasell: (04:42)
That is true. It’s that kind of mentorship. Even if you don’t have a typical mentor who’s talking with you or meeting with you, you get to view what other women are doing and the progress they’re making. Is there a midlife story that you can share with us? Maybe an interesting story from one of those women’s examples or yours or both? I love stories. I love books. So tell me a story.
Cathy Derksen: (05:15)
I can give you a quick example of my story. And so I actually, my first career was in medical genetics. I spent 25 years mainly working in hospital labs. I, you know, got married, had kids, bought the house, all those things that we’re supposed to do. And in my mid-40s was when I really started noticing that I was living and working in a very toxic environment. So my family life was abusive and toxic. My job I was working in was a very just negative toxic environment. And so to me, that’s where it really hit. That suddenly realizing, life is too short for this. This is not what we’re here for. And that’s when I started making all my big changes. And I left the marriage, left the career, started over at that time, did a lot of thinking about, what am I supposed to be doing with my life? And like I said, that’s when I really realized. That working with women was a huge thing for me, and having an impact, like, really having a real positive impact on women’s lives. And at that time, I thought finance was how I could do that. So I went into financial planning, did all the credentials. But after about ten years working in that field, I realized that I still was not really having a big impact on people’s lives. Because a lot of our success and success with money isn’t really around a lack of information. There’s so many other factors, the stories we tell ourselves, the limiting beliefs that we have. And so I knew that in order for me to really have an impact, I needed to leave that as well and do it my way. So it’s been about three years ago since I decided to, okay, walk away. Focus on what is it I’m here to do? And that’s when I started my business. So it’s called Inspired Tenacity. And the whole focus is around supporting other women to step into bigger things in different ways. And the books are the main way that I do that right now. And I love it.
Odiva Vasell: (07:05)
Oh, that is huge because you talked about being courageous, but that’s a very intense level of courage that it took to leave a marriage that was toxic, to leave a career that was toxic. Most people, they know they’re in these bad situations, but the fear of having the rug pulled out from under them, there’s this security versus, well, sometimes life or death, surviving in these toxic environments. What motivated you? Or what was the key thing that brought you to the place of I need to change?
Cathy Derksen: (07:49)
I think one of the really key things was when it really hit me the impact it was having on my kids living in that family environment that we had. Even as a mother, I’m sure I was not the mother I wanted to be when I’m stressed and not happy. And so I think that was really the key when that hit me, that my kids are all suffering in this environment, and it’s up to me to get them out of here. It’s up to me to show them to be that role model of that we don’t just put up with stuff because that’s the way it is. And even when it hit me, is this the example of a relationship I want them to have? Like looking at the toxic marriage I had. Is that what I want them to think that marriage is? I think that was really the key thing that really told me, you need to change right now. Get going.
Odiva Vasell: (08:38)
How old were your kids, and how many boys, girls?
Cathy Derksen: (08:43)
They were both in their teens. I think they were 16 and 14. So my son is the older, and my daughter is the younger of the two. And they were both suffering from just being in that environment. And so I definitely have no regrets about making the big changes. And they both were definitely better off and have come through that in an amazing way. And I know if I had stayed together for the kids, like so many of us think we need to, I know that would not have been the right decision. That was definitely the factor for me. That was, yes, it has to be now. And regardless of how painful it’s going to be, I knew it just had to happen.
Odiva Vasell: (09:26)
And then the career change. Was there a point that you were like, what am I going to do? What’s happening? Here. Why did I do this? How did you deal with that?
Cathy Derksen: (09:40)
No, there were definitely a lot of times when it was because you know that where you were was not right. But that at the same time, yes, those challenges and that struggle of getting moving forward and figuring out, where am I even going? What does forward even look like? And so, yes, there were many sleepless nights, and in one of the first books that I did, I talk a lot about that journey and how I got through that. And I mentioned I had kind of a mantra or just a line that
I would often say it out loud or in my head just chin up, keep moving. And literally, that was what kept me moving. Sometimes when everything was up in the air and everything was chaos, it’s like, okay, now just keep moving forward. Chin up, keep moving. And that was it. That was what I hung onto.
Odiva Vasell: (10:28)
I like that. Chin up, keep moving. And I was listening to a business coach the other day, and she was saying how her mantra got her through. So it was like this little tiny seed, this little thread that you held onto. No matter how life was dragging you around, the kite was flying, and you were going around with it.
Cathy Derksen: (10:46)
That’s a good example
Odiva Vasell: (10:50)
That’s the image I have in my head that you’re just holding on and like, cheer up, keep moving. That’s a lot there because it’s like when you have nothing, you probably didn’t have the support system or the family or some other final support coming alongside you and saying, hey, you’re doing this right thing for yourself. They’re probably saying, no, what are you doing? This is insane.
Cathy Derksen: (11:14)
Yes, I definitely had a lot, especially around the career change, to walk away from a job. That had good pay, good benefits, retirement plan to walk away from that. That was what I definitely got a lot of. What are you doing?
Odiva Vasell: (11:28)
Okay. Yeah. Because that is it for many of us in life. And I’m going to go back to the kite flying example. We’re just holding on, holding on. It brings me back to a memory of when I was working in Newton, in Newton, Mass. And there was this industrial plant where there were huge companies with thousands of employees. And when I started working there, there was, like, 50. So this entire huge five-story building was empty, literally. And everyone was just, let me just hold on to retirement. They were miserable. And it’s one of the reasons that motivated me to pack up and move to Japan. Because living a life. Yeah. Living a life of just doing what everyone else is doing just for the security of it. No. I couldn’t do that.
Cathy Derksen: (12:22)
I think especially for a lot of midlife women, I think they’re caught in that because they don’t see other choices. They feel like they’re too old to start over, that they’re too old for anyone to let them into new career. They’re too old to go back to school. That feeling of being stuck, I think, is even more common in our age group, that they just feel like they don’t have choices. So, again, that’s what I’m here to do. You do have choices. You’ve got a community. We’re here to work together.
Odiva Vasell: (12:49)
And I like what you said about you started in finance. Now you found out that in for you afterward, but you actually trained yourself to start a new career. What did that look like?
Cathy Derksen: (13:05)
A lot of work, a lot of studying, a lot of just jump and run is how I like to say it. That you don’t really know exactly what’s coming or what’s going to happen next, but, you know, you’ve got to get moving, get to it, get going. I guess part of it is I think I have a lot of confidence in myself that I can figure things out. So I think that’s really helped me along the way. That just that kind of base confidence that, yes, we can figure this out, that there is a way. How do we do this? Looking for resources, looking for how do we do this? And I think that’s one of the things that really has helped me is just that inner knowing that, okay, we can do this. Let’s go.
Odiva Vasell: (13:47)
Yeah, I like that. And I definitely can believe that increases as you get older and approach midlife. Not caring what other people think as much, their opinions, you know, kind of going not going away. But the voices are less louder because you are tuned into what makes you happy. And when you arrive at that place where you were doing what made you happy and you were having that impact, how did that feel?
Empowering Women Through Collaborative Midlife Narratives
Cathy Derksen: (14:20)
Amazing. When I first left my job in financial planning, I wasn’t quite sure what this was going to look like with my company. And so at first I was doing kind of a coaching finance model and I still didn’t quite feel right. And so I kept kind of evolving and looking and then I realized how books or something that I love to do and that I knew had a big impact on me. And so that’s how I got moving into that. And But when I actually had my first book published so it was the first book that was my project, where I had come up with the idea. And I’d brought the coach or the authors together and I had coached them through getting their chapters ready, and we went through the whole thing together, doing the Amazon launch with an international bestseller and all these things, and then all of the other opportunities that come with that. So speaking opportunities, podcasts, summits, all these different things. And when I had women coming back to me and saying, oh, I’m so glad I found you. I’m so glad I jumped into this with you. Basically just oozing that excitement about, wow, I’m so glad I did this. Thank you. That’s when it really hit me that, wow, I am having a huge impact on these women’s lives. That’s what I just love about it. And so far, I’ve been in eleven best selling books. They’re all collaborative compilation. Books. And I’ve worked with seven different publishing groups now, and I just find that every book you’re in, you build a whole new network. You are working with a whole new team with a different theme. And it really is a way to just build on what you’re doing, come up with new ideas, collaborate with people that you would never, would have met before, and I just love doing it.
Odiva Vasell: (16:02)
And what kind of stories are these women telling? Are they talking about a transition in their midlife years or what kind of stories are they telling?
Cathy Derksen: (16:15)
Well, in that book, the midlife awakening was specifically around those shifts in midlife about new things going on and looking at new opportunities. Right now, I’ve got five different book projects on the go, and one is focused around sharing those stories of how women are changing leadership—so transforming leadership in business and community and looking at those ways that women are coming to leadership with more collaboration, with more, “How do we do this together? How do we support each other? How do we lift each other as leaders?” So that’s one of the books that I’ve got going on right now. I also have one focused on grief, so that one will be both women that are experts. It’s in the field of grief, sharing what they know and with tools that work on different types of grief, as well as regular people that have gone through some experience in their life. And again, grief isn’t just about losing a person. It’s losing a job. It’s getting divorced. It’s the loss of what you expected to happen. I mean, even COVID has created a lot of grief in our life just from the loss of what we thought life was going to be like and our safety and everything else that’s gone on. And one of the other books right now, I do have another midlife book getting worked on. In that one, I’m calling it Midlife Makeover. So again, women sharing those stories of how did I reinvent myself, how did I shift, how and why? And so that’s an exciting one. And another one is called the Ripple Effect of Impact. So a lot of us that are coaches and other kinds of women that are trying to help women change and shift, and that’s really what we’re working on, is creating a ripple effect of impact with the work that we’re doing.
Odiva Vasell: (17:54)
Yeah, and I love how all of this is being recorded in a book. I know a lot of us use video and social media for more entertainment stuff, but this is something solid that you sit down. I love books you can sit down with and take the time to kind of absorb what you’re reading and recognize that these women made a tremendous change in their lives, that you also now can make a change in your life because you’ve been given a tool.
Cathy Derksen: (18:28)
And they’re a great way also for women who are in business to promote their business because now they are in a book that’s like an example again with the grief book. So women whose business is in the field of grief now, they’re in this book, they’re in a community who is amplifying each other in that level. But then also in the books, they have a bio page where there’s a connection directly to them. We do a gift page where they’ll put different opportunities to connect with them, get their free downloads, get a free session with them. So again, ways for the readers to connect directly with them, to build their business that way. So it’s a great opportunity in that case as well.
Odiva Vasell: (19:08)
I have never heard of this kind of collaborative project. I mean, it sounds like it should be on every news report, on every article and everything, but this is such a phenomenal idea or concept that you came up with and built into this global network of impact. And so tell me again, when was the first book, when did the first book come out and how long did it take to develop it?
Conquering Career Transitions and Building Collective Success
Cathy Derksen: (19:35)
Well, of the ones that I’ve done myself because I was in several before, and so it was about this time last year that I really stepped into creating these on my own. And so basically, what I’ve done is I’ve collaborated directly with my favorite publishing group, and so I come up with my themes, titles. I bring together my team of authors and get their chapters ready. And then we take the project over to the publishing team, and they take over with the professional editors, proofreaders, formatting. They do the whole Amazon launch and marketing. So it’s kind of like I do the part that I love doing and then they do the part that they’re good at doing. And so it’s about this time last year when I really stepped into doing this on my own. And so the part that takes the longest is this beginning part when I’ve come up with that theme. And now I’m bringing together these women. So as we’ve mentioned, I’m literally opening it up to the world looking for women who that theme calls to them. They come into my project, and then we get the chapters ready. And the chapters are each about 2000 to 2500 words, which is really only about four or five pages in a paperback book. So it’s not a lot, but just putting it clearly on paper can take a little while. But definitely something that we could probably do over a couple of weekends. So it’s not a huge time commitment, but I think for a lot of people, it’s kind of a daunting task that they feel they’re not ready for until they really get into it.
Odiva Vasell: (21:03)
And they have you to guide them. That’s the huge thing about it because writing a book by yourself, all of the pieces that you’ve just spoken about is something that the person would have to learn by themselves. But as with you at the helm of the ship, a very seasoned captain, eleven best sellers, they can kind of take a seat on that journey to help them. So again, the very first one did it take about a year to get people together, or how?
Cathy Derksen: (21:36)
We started last summer, and it was released in January, so I guess about six months.
Odiva Vasell: (21:39)
Okay. All right. Wow. This gives you an idea of how this process works, and it’s a phenomenal concept. I’m so glad you’re doing this.
Cathy Derksen: (21:51)
And I find for a lot of people, they have an idea they want to do their solo book, but they tend to get started, and years go by. And I’ve talked to people; it’s been five years, ten years, even 20 years they’ve been working on their book. And I always recommend jump into one of these collaborative books because, as you mentioned, it’s relatively quick. It’s simple. You’re guided, you work together as a team. We bring the book out, it hits bestseller. You get to promote yourself, and then you have that confidence to go back to your solo book and finish it up. And the real bonus is that now that you’ve earned that international bestselling title, you can put that right on the cover of your book.
Odiva Vasell: (22:30)
Yes.
Cathy Derksen: (22:31)
That’s one of the things I love. If you’re going to do a solo book, do a collaborative book first. Earn that status. Put it right on the cover.
Odiva Vasell: (22:38)
Well, I just want to applaud you, Cathy, for being a role model and just really a pillar. That’s the word I want to use, a pillar of impact by allowing other people to come on board. A lot of people do their own books and say, hey, it’s a bestseller. But you allowed other people to come on board with you and you help them gain that visibility by taking them through the process, and you strengthen each other, it sounds. Yeah. Not just for the book, but for a lifelong process.
Cathy Derksen: (23:15)
Yes. One of the women that was from Australia that’s been in one of the books, she is really doing amazing things with the collaborations she’s made with the project. She’s even come over to North America and done a speaking tour based partly on the connections that she made from the book.
Odiva Vasell: (23:31)
So just you’ve amazed me. You started in medicine and then you went into finance, and you left behind the things that were toxic. And then you said, Ladies, I’m going close to seven seas. Come on with me. Get on board. This is really, really inspiring and so beautiful. And I want to thank you for sharing this journey with us today, Cathy.
Cathy Derksen: (23:54)
Well, thank you for having me.
Odiva Vasell: (23:56)
You’re very welcome.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Cathy Derksen’s remarkable journey serves as a testament to the transformative power of courage and self-discovery. By taking that bold step away from toxicity and embracing her true passion, Cathy not only reshaped her life but also paved the way for countless women to follow suit. Through her collaborative book projects, she has created a ripple effect of empowerment, providing a platform for women to not only reclaim their voices but to let them resonate globally. As you reflect on Cathy’s story, may it ignite the spark within you to break free from any constraints, walk your authentic path, and contribute your unique narrative to the world. Your voice matters, and Cathy’s legacy stands as a beacon, guiding others to unleash the strength within and redefine their stories with courage and purpose.