IAM998- Dating Coach Guides People to Love with Confidence

Katie Grimes is a Dating Coach, prepping single women to confidently date the right one by first, learning how to feel secure, trust yourself & spot red flags. Her unique background of growing up in an alcoholic home and becoming Addicted to love makes it easier for her to teach you “why you attract certain people and how to heal your overthinking in your love life.” Whether it's on Instagram at “kg.katiegrimes” or her podcast “Anything for Love” – Katie keeps it real as she guides you to make sense of the confusion you're experiencing so that you can LET LOVE IN with confidence and ease.

• CEO Hack: Having a business manager
• CEO Nugget: It's not easier if you do it yourself
• CEO Defined: Staying passionate and leaving a legacy

Website: http://www.katiegrimes.com/

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/anything-for-love-katie-grimes/id1490607022

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kg.katiegrimes/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLzJeH5X6pYXUgqCN-BGN6A

Full Interview:

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Transcription

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00:10 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:38 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Katie Grimes of katigrimes.com. Katie, it's awesome to have you on the show.

00:45 – Katie Grimes

Thanks. I appreciate you having me on.

00:48 – Gresham Harkless

Definitely super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Katie so you can hear about all the awesome work that she's doing. Katie is a dating coach prepping single women to confidently date the right one by first learning how to feel secure, trust yourself, and spot red flags. Her unique background of growing up in an alcoholic home and becoming addicted to love makes it easier for her to teach you why you attract certain people and how to heal your overthinking and your love life. Whether it's on Instagram at KG.KatiGrimes or her podcast, Anything for Love, Katie keeps it real as she guides you to make sense of the confusion you're experiencing so that you can let love in with confidence and ease. Katie, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:28 – Katie Grimes

I sure am. I'm super pumped.

01:30 – Gresham Harkless

I'm pumped as well, So let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock here a little bit more on how you got started when I called your CEO story.

01:37 – Katie Grimes

Yeah. So I got fired. That's how I got started. I had been diagnosed with PTSD back in 2019, 2018, after being a victim of a crime. And I've been in commercial real estate for about 5 years prior to that and always had a passion for health and wellness. I'll be honest with you, like no matter what corporate job I've been in, you know, finance right after I graduated at one of the top investment management firms in Boston, trying to work my way up through like executive assistant roles at software security companies and information management companies. But I just felt like something was always missing.

And so health and wellness for me was always that outlet. So I was always teaching fitness classes. I was always talking to my friends and family about health wellness and fitness. But I thought going into corporate America was the way that I needed to go to make more money so that I could do what I wanted to do, which was traveling the world, connecting with people, and talking about the things that I loved and admired. And what I found was after getting let go from my job, and I don't say that, I mean, I know I was laughing when I said it, but like it was actually the best thing that ever happened to me because it gave me the kick in the butt that I needed to be like, okay, so you've been working for someone else almost your whole life.

I had started businesses here and there had started it with other people and found that this was the one time that I needed to either sink or swim. I knew that I didn't wanna go back to corporate America because I knew that other organizations were not gonna understand my symptoms of PTSD and recovering from, like I mentioned, growing up in an alcoholic home and also growing up being addicted to love and starting to get into recovery around that, you know, for anybody who suffers from addiction in any way, shape or form, be it food, be at work, whatever, nobody really understands it, or at least we don't think they do.

So we hide and we feel shame and we feel guilt. And what does that do? It just perpetuates all the symptoms that you're having. And I was like, you know, I'm gonna set out on in this mission to one, be open about my recovery and be open about mental health and be open about what had happened to me back in 2018. And then also start my own company so that I can help other people who may be suffering silently from these same symptoms. And what ended up starting, I started going and talking to people, I just went to my corporate connection. So started talking to people who, hey, can I put on a talk about how do you fear less at work and how do you be more vulnerable at work?

Or how can you talk about shit that really matters at work so that you can all connect with one another so that they often say business isn't personal? Yes, it is. You have people there and people are going through real-life scenarios. And so you can't separate, it's the same. What I found was I didn't feel that I could make a big impact in corporate America because, predominantly in the Boston area, it was a white male-dominated society. Many of them were baby boomers and I'm not set here to set out and change them. I wanted to actually impact people who wanted to learn and change. And don't get me wrong, there are certainly some white males who want that, but that wasn't who I was running into.

And So what I found was I was like, I really wanna impact the 20, 30-something-year-olds who love personal development, who want to change and grow. And so long story short, some of the clients that I first started coaching were those that were feeling unfulfilled and thinking maybe they'd go back to get their masters. But what we realized is that they actually felt that they weren't good enough. So that's why they kept going back to school. And then eventually what I realized is I was very passionate about talking about love and talking about self-love and talking about how I tried to do anything when it came to love and how it impacted me at work, the money I spent, the foods I ate, how much I worked out, what jobs I was chasing and what relationship I was in or trying to be in.

And I realized I think more people are suffering from love addiction who don't know it because I had been suffering from it. And love addiction is just a compulsive need to be loved or want to be loved. And it usually stems from codependency. And it stems from growing up with dysfunction, be it. And we've all been through dysfunction in some way, shape, or form, even just the simple thought of not feeling good enough or feeling too much. And I thought this is what my intention is. This is really what my mission is, is to get this out in the world. And while I do have male clients as well, or those that identify as men, I find that predominantly who I talk to are women because sometimes in that safe environment, we can talk about pretty meaningful things, like fantasy or, even the word masturbation.

I mean, like there's some things that we can kind of go a little bit deeper on that maybe they wouldn't feel necessarily as comfortable with people whom they're attracted to with the group. So that has been kind of my journey in a nutshell, but then starting the podcast and a YouTube channel to talk about it and have this baby grow into a, what was just in the Boston area has now been an international company over the last year and a half. It's been pretty cool.

06:12 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, definitely sounds exciting. I appreciate you for being so, you know, transparent and talking about that, because I think, as you said so well, that when you're going through addiction or stress or depression or so many different things it's like right in alignment with that is that isolation feel you feel like you're by yourself you feel like you're the only one that's potentially going through this but and like you said you know so many times in business but also in life, in general, we forget about that human aspect and so many different aspects of, wanting to belong, wanting to be loved, and so many of those things and how that might manifest itself that we often look outward to try to, I guess, solve that.

And I don't wanna say that setting it up for failure, but I think if we don't sometimes talk about what's within and understand that we're imperfect and that we have those flaws and things that we need to kind of talk about and do, then it really doesn't lead to that success or to that, I guess solving the whatever it might be. So I appreciate you for talking about that, having so many platforms to help people do that, and really just helping people feel like they're not by themselves.

07:11 – Katie Grimes

Thank you for saying that. And it's a great summary that you just shared because that's exactly what it is. I've been on a mission that I'm not going to say I'm good, I'm fine, or I'm busy anymore. I'm actually going to tell you how I'm feeling when you ask me how I'm doing. And I try to be transparent about that because I think there's a term that's been coined around Instagram called toxic positivity. And that is assuming that everything is fine, good, or we're just busy. And the reality is, I think, whether it was before COVID, I think COVID was a blessing in some ways because it really gave us the ability to get in touch with how we were feeling and many of us felt very uncomfortable sitting by ourselves and sitting alone.

But for many of us, we decided to thrive, in that environment and say, you know what, I'm going to look at my part. I'm going to look at why am I so lonely. Why am I unhappy? Why am I choosing to not feel fulfilled in a job that I've been chasing my whole life or a relationship, whatever it may be? And that's why I often say to people, listen, I am not your average dating coach. You're not going to come to me because you're over here swiping on the wrong one, or you're on 6 different dating apps and it's not working. My encouragement is to get off the dating app and get off dating for at least a couple of weeks, 6 to 8 weeks, and look at your part. Why is it that you're attracting the wrong people?

Why is it that you're sleeping with people too soon? By the way, we all do it, right? So I'm not shaming or judging or criticizing by any stretch of the imagination, But let's look at our part as opposed to looking at, oh, there's all the good ones are taken, or it's hard to date during COVID. No, no, it's not. I actually have many clients who have successfully been dating, but it's really being able to get in touch with what we need, what we want, where are the aspects that we're not using our voice, not only in dating and when we put people up on a pedestal but also where are we not using our voices at home with our families or within our own lives and being able to take ourselves out on dates and where are we putting, not trusting that we're going to be taken care of and provided for by God, higher power, whatever it may be.

And really diving into that spiritual aspect so that you can go to the practical tools. And guess what? When you start doing them and you start doing a daily practice every day to focus on yourself and not date, you actually get exactly what you've been looking for your whole life, which is this level of self-acceptance and this acceptance from other people. And I think that's, I think that's a common bond that regardless of background or body size or where, you know, our family background, whatever it may be, I think we all want 2 things, self-love and self-acceptance and acceptance from other people. And I'm on a, I really am on a mission to try to help myself first and then other people figure out the tools that they need to do to make that happen.

09:41 – Gresham Harkless

That's extremely powerful. I love how you said, you know, help yourself first and then help other people Because I think so many times we zoom past ourselves and we're always, I don't know why, maybe it's just certain things that are kind of pulling at us to tell us we're not enough or we need X, Y, and Z, as you mentioned, getting more schooling or potentially finding Prince charming or princess charming or whoever that might be to complete us. But if we really don't look and create that time and that space to be able to kind of understand ourselves, not to judge ourselves, but to understand why we're taking certain actions, why things might manifest themselves in the way that they do, then it's really hard to take the step forward from that without understanding that information.

So I love that you do that. And I know you touched a little bit upon how that manifests itself. Did you have anything else that you do as far as helping your clients what you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique is what I like to call your secret sauce?

10:30 – Katie Grimes

Yeah, I would say the thing that kind of sets me apart, like I had mentioned is I encourage people to stop dating for about that 6 to 8 week period. And the purpose is to reconnect with themselves. Now, don't get me wrong. There are certainly some people that come to me that are in relationships And that's very hard to do, right? You can't like Sam taking a 6 to 8-week break, but who I market to who my niche is, who I talk to on a daily basis is that it's specifically that one person who is literally feeling like they're giving up hope. They're just wanting to focus on themselves. They recently broke up with somebody and they just do not want to date. And really underneath that is the fear that they're going to get hurt again. Really underneath that is the fear that either A, they're too much, or B, they're not enough.

11:12 – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

11:22 – Katie Grimes

I have a business manager that I have hired. And I gotta tell you that I hired her when she was a virtual assistant. I think I was maybe, I think $35 an hour or something, but I knew really early on that the power of me was much greater than the power of I. And that I only know so much, and I'll be honest with you, I can operate at really high levels of stress given how I grew up. But what I noticed is that my health and wellbeing at the very beginning of starting this business was starting to take a heavy decline pretty quickly.

Whether it was eating too much sugar, trying to spend course after course after course, or trying to get as much knowledge as I could to be as efficient as I could in my business, I realized I actually needed help. I asked around and a friend of mine said, hey, I've got this girl, she can help you out. She started making in Canva, she started making graphics for me. I have to tell you, it eased up like so much time because that's not something I enjoy doing. And then eventually I started to trust her more and more because every time that I'd ask her for something, she would deliver it like that, or she couldn't, she'd communicate that she couldn't.

12:28 – Gresham Harkless

Truly appreciate that hack. And so I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something if you were to hop into a time machine, you would tell your younger business self.

12:39 – Katie Grimes

I think it's in the same vein, you know, the expression that sometimes people will say when they're trying to delegate the work and they're like, it's just easier if I do it myself. It's really not. It's actually really not. To me, what that means is that you don't trust or you wanna control the outcome.

12:57 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that's extremely powerful. And I was gonna ask you for what I call the definition of what it means to be a CEO. But I almost wonder if that is part of what you and how you would define it. Is it about that, what I hear is that legacy piece of understanding how the actions that we're taking, the things that we're doing on a daily basis, not only benefit us and create that great experience today but also into years and years and years in the future. Would you consider that to be part of your definition?

13:21 – Katie Grimes

Absolutely. I think one of the best feedbacks I ever got from one of my teammates, where said, you have this ability that makes me feel like I can come to you with anything that will make this business better and that it doesn't feel like it's your business, it feels like it's our business. And I got to be honest with you, I learned that from being in corporate America where I never felt that way. There were times I was working on projects and sure I felt that way a little bit, like, but, but then mostly I didn't, I didn't feel like I could really use my voice. And when I was using my voice, I was often scolded for being too aggressive or too assertive. Well, that's another way of saying passionate as far as I'm concerned.

13:56 – Gresham Harkless

Katie, so truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic so to speak just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best they can get hold of you. Subscribe to the podcast to find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

14:09 – Katie Grimes

Absolutely. I would say that if you are somebody who is an entrepreneur in the closet meaning that you have this you dream of a life where you have financial freedom and time freedom. Those things are definitely possible within entrepreneurship, but you will likely give more of yourself than you probably have given to your family or to your friends or to any career that you've ever had because it means more. And for me, what I found is that when I stopped looking at the numbers coming in, meaning the financial numbers, and being scared of how much money was going to come in or how much money wasn't going to come in, because by the way, a lot of money didn't come in right away and COVID hit and a lot of money came in quick.

And then we had to figure out how to adjust is if you have this passion and this drive to do something that's on your heart, you can, one small step you can take, you don't need the website, you don't need all these extra things is that you can literally just start talking about what's most passionate to you in social media in a way that feels really authentic to you. And I think what ends up happening is when you think no one's listening, actually everyone is listening. And if you guys want, I would really strongly encourage you to just say hi at the very least on Instagram by hitting me up at kg.katygrimes.

Make sure you Let me know that you saw me here at IMCEO so that we can have a real and authentic conversation. When you're talking to me, like when you say hi, you're talking to me. And it gives us the ability to really find common ground on what's the calling in your heart right now. Is it taking time off from dating? Is it starting a business? What is it? And then the other thing you can do is check me out on my podcast, Anything for Love. And if any of those things feel like calling to you or something I've said resonated with you, please feel free to share it with me.

And it would mean the world because I think, like I said earlier, I do this because I want to be of service and I want to know that what I'm saying matters. And I'm not doing that for validation, but in fact, connection, it brings us closer to each other. And I think we all need connection now more than ever. So I look forward to hearing all 3 soon. And I'm really impressed with the work that you're doing here at IMCO. So thank you so much for having me on.

16:03 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Pleasure is definitely all ours, Katie. I truly appreciate you for all the work you do, and all the knowledge-value gems that you dropped for us today. I think, you know, understanding that we do have something that's innately within and being able to kind of take those steps forward in order to have those things come to fruition and have the people that we can lean on to make that happen is absolutely huge. So truly appreciate you for being one of those people as well today. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:26 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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