The Ultimate Blog Podcast - Creating Meaningful Connections Through Blogging with Katy Purivance

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Today is a special episode where we’re sitting down with a student from our membership, The Ultimate Blog Membership! Katy Purivance is a passionate furniture refinisher and blogger who took her love for DIY projects online. She discusses how a sense of blogging community can make all the difference when navigating the journey of blogging. Katy shares her journey from finding success on Instagram to growing her blog, finding a community of bloggers, and how a blogging community has changed the game for her. Plus, she shares her best advice for new bloggers. Tune in to be inspired to find your community!

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. This podcast is the podcast we wish we had when we started blogging. I'm Amy Reinicki. I'm Jennifer Draper. Our episodes dive deep into how to monetize your blog, sharing unique insights and practical tips. We bring you in-depth interviews with successful bloggers and experts who offer valuable, actionable advice.

Our mission is to educate, support, inspire, and empower you in your blogging business. Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. When Jennifer and I started Spark Media back in 2017, we started it with an idea of helping people start blogs. And that idea shifted, and it has shifted and continues to shift. But one powerful thing that has come out of this business since then is the opportunity to connect on a deeper level with our students.

The way that Spark Media started was helping people by building their websites for them. And what we quickly learned is that we were missing a key component of the whole blogging journey. And that was helping someone, usually women, empower themselves with the knowledge to start, create and grow their own blog. So in 2020, when we made that shift to start

what was then the ultimate blog bootcamp, we started having students. And in a couple of years, what we realized was then we needed to deepen that community. And so in 2022, we launched our community. And it's been an amazing journey that we have had to meet people literally from all over and meet them where they are in the middle of a dream and see what's inspiring them and

understand what keeps you up at night. Like, what are you thinking about or what is this gift that you want to lean into? And so what is really exciting about this is meeting all the different people that we have. And then when the podcast started, bringing some of those people on to share their stories because stories are really powerful. And we have had the honor of helping Katie Proviance with her blog, but she had the dream first.

And today we are here to talk to her and share her story with you. So welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast, Katie. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Anytime that we get the opportunity to sit down, like I'm going to call it two on one with our students, especially for the podcast, we love doing this because we are most of the time with you in a group setting in the membership. And I love hearing like all the other things that are going on that we don't always see

in the group. But to get started, I would love for you just to kind of share a little bit about where you started in regards to blogging and what that idea was initially and just how it's progressed over time. Yes, of course. So I sort of got into blogging or had the idea of blogging back in 2020 when the world shut down. And I went hand in hand with furniture refinishing, which is what I am now blogging about. My husband and I both stopped working when COVID hit and he's a dentist. I worked in his dental office and so we were both

home and we were not working. And so I needed to find something to do for my own sanity. I had kids home and all of that. So I had some old furniture in the basement that we had been meaning to get rid of and I decided I was going to pick up a paintbrush and I was going to fix it up and I was gonna try and sell it. It got me into the garage, it got me out of the house, and I had done a lot of painting and refinishing of my own stuff, some stuff for family, so I wasn't new to the process. I just had never done it in a way to help or sell or do anything like that for other people. So I wasn't new to the process. I just had never done it in a way to help or sell or do anything like that for other people. So I did those couple pieces. They sold very quickly and using Facebook,

I was like, I really had no idea what I was doing, but I was like, I want to keep doing this. This is fun. I'm really having a good time. It's a great outlet. And so I thought, well, how can I share this? How can I be more just like this journey? I had time to share my journey. So I thought I want to start a blog and I can blog about this whole process and what it... Because I didn't really know what I was doing, but I thought it'd be interesting to share as I went. So again, no idea what I was doing. I did a little bit of research on blogging and just thankfully decided to start a self-hosted blog on WordPress. I did enough research back then to do that and so I started doing that. I was very bare

bones. I didn't want to spend a whole lot of money. We didn't have any money coming in at the time so I was really trying to just do it for as a hobby and as something to keep me busy. So I started doing that. And at the same time, I started up an Instagram account, I started up a Facebook account, just I needed somewhere to really share the actual pieces that I was doing and really start selling these pieces. And so I really leaned into Instagram and Facebook on that. So on Instagram, just by total accident, I ran into this amazing community of other refinishers. I had no idea that there were other people like me out there

that even existed. And so that was very cool, especially in a time where we were all shut in. It was great to have this community of people, everyone sharing information, sharing tips, just the whole process and sharing their finished pieces and inspiration and stuff like that. And so I just, I really, really had a lot of fun with that

and I really just leaned into Instagram. And in that process, I sort of let the blog fall by the wayside. I think it just, it was a much more lonely thing to be doing and Instagram felt so much more community based at that point. And so I just really leaned into that and, you know, just built a relatively successful Instagram page over the last few years.

So fast forward to last fall, I just, as I said, was successful on Instagram, but I just, I was starting to I said, was successful on Instagram, but I just, I was starting to feel like I was on a hamster wheel. It just wasn't as creative and as inspiring as it was when I started out. It just, the content is so short-lived. You know, you pose, you make this post,

you, you know, I'm going through, I'll make a video and teach somebody how to do something. And you post it and it gets traction for a couple days and then it disappears. And then you just sort of are doing it again. And I just, I was at the point where I was sharing the same content over and over again. And I just wasn't feeling inspired by that anymore. And there wasn't a good way to organize my content. If I, somebody hey, can you teach me how to move your hardware on your furniture and drill new holes? I'd be like, oh, I have a reel on that. Let me search. 25 minutes later, I can maybe find the reel down in my feed. And so it just felt like a really, it wasn't a great way to organize. And I really wanted to teach and help people more. And it's a hard platform to do that on, I felt like.

And I knew a couple of people who had these big accounts, big successful accounts that were hacked or shut down. And that terrified me, too. So I remembered I have this website. And it still had it. I still was paying for the hosting. But I hadn't opened or touched it or looked at it still had it. I still was paying for the hosting that was on, but I hadn't

opened or touched it or looked at it in several years. And so I was like, maybe that's the pivot that I need to take. And maybe I want to explore that. That sounds exciting. That sounds something that's challenging creatively. And maybe we'll just sort of fulfill that void that I'm feeling from, you know, sort of that lack of creativity and Instagram right now and so I said but this time I'm gonna really I'm gonna do a little bit of research and figure out what the heck I'm doing and the one good thing about painting furniture is I've lots of time to listen to things books audio books podcasts so I found you our podcast about a year ago probably last October November and started listening and I just, I loved it.

There was so much great information, there wasn't a lot of gatekeeping, and it just, it felt so authentic. You guys were so honest about the work that goes into blogging. This wasn't a quick and easy, quick and easy moneymaker. And I was hooked, it sounded like a lot of work, but I was like, work I can do. If I envision the outcome. You know, I'm willing to kind

of put that in. And if I'm building something more permanent, that's and that's what I felt like I was missing with Instagram. It just didn't feel like a permanent landing place. So yeah, so I decided in I said after the holidays, I'm going to get going and I'm going to start blogging again. I love your story because I think a lot of us, especially who have been on Instagram for a long time, have felt exactly what you described there of it feeling like it's a hamster wheel and like that you are constantly having to pump out this new content. And I think the recognition that I'm glad that you had was that honestly at the end of the day, like you enjoy furniture painting and it's something that you want to help other

people do. But is it true that it was like the joy was being sucked out by the way that you were sharing it? Yes. Yes. I just wasn't, it started to feel like a chore and I didn't want it to be a chore. I wanted to be able to share and enjoy doing that. I think that's something that a lot of content creators, that shift of feeling like you have to be on all the time for social media.

And blogging does, I'm not saying that blogging has not worked, but there's a lot of other things that go into it that you can focus on that you don't have to feel like you have to be on for all the time. You have to be working it, but it's not, okay, I have to create all this content today for just like you said, then it's gone. In just a couple of days, then it's, oh my gosh, I spent three hours doing that content and now it's gone. Nobody cares about that anymore. Hold on. I just spent a lot of time doing that. This is a really awesome idea. Why are you not still engaging with this? Yeah, and then in two months,

then you repurpose the content and you just put the same stuff out over and over and over again. And that was what I think was so, I just needed something more than that. Yeah. I think your story is so similar to so many people because you start something just as a hobby

and something that you enjoy and you want to share about it to other people so they can see what you're doing. Then at some point along the way, there's this little bit of a shift where you're like, wait, I'm actually helping people. People are interested in what I'm doing and they're asking me questions and I'm able to show them how to do this I think that's I think that's so powerful and I Think that's what helps us grow our confidence too because it can be hard

Do you go to school to be a professional furniture refinisher? I think most of us like whatever we're passionate about may not necessarily be what we have a lot of training in it's just something that we like and enjoy and we practice it and we get better at it. People are sharing that journey along the way with us. When you were sharing it on Instagram, you said at some point you realized, hey, I'm successful on Instagram. What did that look like to you? How did you know this point of success?

Is that when people were like, hey, I have questions. I like what you? How did you know this point of success? Is that when people were like, hey, I have questions. I like what you're doing. Is that kind of the point where you're like, hey, this could be something? Yeah, I think it's so funny because how do you define success on social media sometimes? So I guess success for me on Instagram, I mean, you can look at vanity metrics like followers and all of that and you know I did, I was able to grow my following pretty substantially. But you know at the end of the day it's all these people that are following you and I did have some affiliate

stuff going and I did make some money doing that but not a ton and I just, I didn't enjoy that part of it. I wanted to teach people how to do stuff. I didn't want to sell them stuff. And so, and there's a lot of that on Instagram. There's so much of that on Instagram. And I just, I didn't, I was like, I don't want to be the same, one more person trying to sell the same thing to the same people. And so I just, I didn't enjoy that part of it,

but I did have, you know, people would, and I still do, I'm still very active, especially like in my DMs and stuff on Instagram. I get a lot of questions from, and I still do, I'm still very active, especially in my DMs and stuff on Instagram. I get a lot of questions from people and I do try to answer those as best I can. And I think that is, I'm like, wow, people do come to me and have questions or they like the way that I do something

or even paint colors or this or that. Just knowing that I'm inspiring others out there is a great feeling. And so I do feel like, and I, I still am on, I'm still active on Instagram. It just doesn't look quite the same as it did a year ago, but I still use it for all those things. I think that, you know, we can, we talk about like social media, some here, not a ton, but I never want to give anybody the impression that like we are anti social media. I think that we just have to put social media in its place, if that makes sense, and say it can be a great way to get to know your

community and talk to your community and have that, you know, camaraderie, but also knowing like there was a point and there was a shift in your journey that you were like, hey, this could be something more. And recognizing what does something more mean? Does that mean having a website? Does that mean starting an email list? Does that mean treating this like a business versus treating this as just a fun hobby that I started in the middle of a pandemic that turned our world upside down? Right.

But like truly looking at yourself and saying, hey, I actually know what I'm talking about and people seem to enjoy learning from me. How could I turn this into a business? And I think that's an important shift that somebody who I'm going to call an influencer on Instagram shifting over to a blogger on a self-hosted WordPress site, that can feel like a scary shift because you're betting on yourself then. Now you're like, oh boy. Okay. So I'm going to call this a business now and I'm going to invest some money in this and not only money, but I'm going to invest my time because time is of the essence. We all need more time. And so if I'm going to invest all of this, I want it to work.

And so I'm sure that you had some of those feelings when you made that shift. Was there anything that you had to say to yourself? Like, let's say when you're like, okay, I'm going to join this course that Amy and Jennifer are talking about. Was there a moment in time that you're like, okay, this is why. This is why I'm deciding to do this. What did your thought process look like when you decided to shift from just being on Instagram

to then I'm gonna build this into something more like Instagram is gonna be a part of the puzzle, but it's no longer the whole puzzle. I think I really just, I felt like I needed a change and I'm also lucky in that, you know, part of my business is actual selling of pieces of furniture. So I could say to myself, and I think I am lucky in this situation, I have some income coming in and I'm going to divert. I took a look at my finances and I'm going to divert some of that.

I'm going to reinvest that in myself and try this new path. And I will say, if I decide I want to do something, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to divert some of that. I'm going to reinvest that in myself and try this new path. And I'm going to, you know, and I will say, if I decide I want to do something, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to figure it out. And I'm going to commit my, and I said, I'm going to give myself a full year, which I'm coming up on now, where I'm going to do this. I'm going to be consistent with this.

I'm going to put my time and energy into it. And I'm going to see what I can accomplish in a year's time and then look at it in a year and reassess and see if this is the path that I want to keep going on. You know, and it's sort of cliche, but start of the new year in January, like I'm going to do this thing. And that's what I did last year. If you're a blogger or thinking about starting a blog, let's talk about something crucial, email marketing. It's the backbone of building a loyal audience and growing your business. And that's where Kit comes in. Kit has been the top choice for bloggers for many years who want to connect with their readers and turn casual visitors into

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We believe that every great blog starts with a great email list, and Kit is our number one recommendation. Click the link in the show notes to learn more about Kit today. I think some of those moments in our lives are what propel us forward to try those new things whether it's a new year, a birthday, whatever milestone it might be. But I think it's great that you were realistic with yourself too. I'm going to give myself a year to see where this goes. And I think that if you're expecting like, hey, I'm going to start a blog and then I'm going to have traffic next month and all of this, that's probably not always realistic.

It's not to say it could never happen, but, you know, it just takes time. And so you're coming up on a year now. And I'd like you just to kind of reflect back and say, okay, what were the most surprising things that I've learned? And here's how I feel about it today. Like, okay, I'm excited or I'm whatever about the next year. What are you looking forward to? I mean, I guess I'll look back first. So I will say that when I sort of went in in January and I joined your boot camp and one of the main reasons I did that was because I really, we all, time is of the essence. We're all busy people and I wanted to set it up the right way and I wanted to do it, I wanted to get going as quickly as I could. And so I

after, I think I may have emailed you before I signed up and just to get a sense of exactly what the path was going to be. And I decided that was, again, I had set aside some money to really invest in this process. And so I decided that boot camp was definitely a good way to go. And I will tell you, it really just propelled me forward and got

all the nuts and bolts down and just really all the technical stuff so that I could have a website that looked, you know, a thousand times better and was technically more sound than what I had before. And so that was great. And then once I had that in place, I could really just start focusing on the content and really trying to build content. And so I think in terms of surprises, I think when you talk about surprises, I will say one of the things of going through and being active in social media

and active in content creation is that I think surprises aren't surprising after a while. I just, and I think I do have that perspective maybe from just getting thrown curve balls or you think you do this great thing and it doesn't get shown to anybody in the algorithm that they, or everything, you know, and everyone, I will say, I think there was a lot of talk

about the Google algorithms changes and a lot of talk about the Google algorithms changes and a lot of chatter about that stuff. I didn't let it bother me too much because I just I wanted to keep moving forward. I learned from Instagram that you can't worry too much about the algorithm. It'll make you crazy. And so I just I think that sort of experience really helped me not be surprised or worried or panicked or whatever when the latest thing that people are talking about Pinterest algorithm change, there's always something changing.

And so I think I've, I feel like I'm lucky that I had that perspective and it's able, it allowed me to keep focused and really on the things that I need to do to move forward. Yeah, I think that's a big win. And I think it's also the mindset of a business owner. I don't know anybody who starts a business, big or small, whether you have a franchise, whether you own a dentist office, whether you are a blogger, whether just pick a business. Nothing ever is smooth sailing all the time.

There's always gonna be a rocky terrain of some sort. And I think the way that we can define success in that is like, how are you gonna get through it? Are you gonna give up on yourself with the first sign of defeat? Or are you going to come back to the drawing board and create a new path? And I think that's essentially what you did.

Whether you intended to start a business in 2020, refinishing furniture, that's essentially what you did. You just kind of came in the back door and was like, oh, I just want to take a peek inside here and see if I actually like this. And ooh, I do. This is exciting. And then you do. But I think that can be a very common way of becoming a blogger. That's exactly how my journey started. I started on Instagram just like you in 2015. And Jennifer was my next door neighbor and was like, you should start a blog. And I was like, no, I'm not going to do that.

I don't want to do that. And then in 2017, I started a blog because I had somebody who was like, I see more in you. You're more than just sharing on the squares on Instagram. You can do more, you can help more, you can cast a wider net, you can help more people. And that's what I hope that people gather when they turn on the podcast each week or when they join our community is that we know that you're more than just chasing the social media algorithm.

There's more to your purpose and your story and who you can help and who you can serve and what you're doing. And it's really powerful and you don't need special training. You don't need a degree. I mean, sometimes, but like most of the time with what people want to share about blogging, like you don't. You just have to have a passion for whatever it is you're talking about and you have to have the willingness to keep figuring it out when things change.

And truly, I can say this now because we've been your coach for several months. You've done that. Like from the get-go, you've done that. I feel like you signed up for the course and you're like, okay, like I'm doing this. Like I'm going through the course. I'm asking my questions, we would respond to questions. You're like, all right, my blog is set up, what next? And the what next was you immediately got plugged into our community. And that I think is just as powerful as that initial yes, I'm going to bet on myself is

how am I going to continue to bet on myself is how am I going to continue to bet on myself and how am I going to invest back into myself because blogging can be very solitary and it can be very lonely and that is why we've created the community that we have is because we don't want people to feel alone. We want you to have somebody to remind you of that person in 2020 who was like, hey, I think I can do this. We want to remind you like, hey, you did believe in yourself at one point. And so there's going to be days that come that that belief is really hard to find again. And you're going to need somebody to answer those questions. So I'd love for you to talk about that. Like you took the course,

but then you decided to continue to stay in our community. And I know that that is something that not everybody might find valuable. And they can listen to us talk about our community all day, every day. But I would love for you to share as a member of our membership community, what does that mean to you to be part of a community as you're growing your blog. I think you said it exactly that blogging can be very solitary. And I think if I look back to when I sort of dropped blogging, I think that was one of the big reasons why I did back in 2020 was that I felt like I had this amazing group of people on Instagram that I talked to every day and I had nothing. I didn't have any support in this other arena. And

so I naturally was drawn to that community aspect. And so when I finished the bootcamp, I knew I was like, I definitely want to give this a try because I feel like there's so much. Yes, I have all the technical stuff down, but there's going to be so many questions along the way. Like I know that I don't know it all. And I know that everything's changing. And so the community part was really important to me. And I knew that I knew myself in that, in order to be successful and to keep pushing forward,

to have people around me doing the same thing was going to be helpful. And I will just say, participating on the calls that we have as part of the membership, bringing in guests, learning new things. It's not always something that I want to apply at that moment, but it's still great to know that there are all these different ways that you can go about blogging. That's what's so great about blogging. Everybody does it a little bit differently. And so it just, and that's, I think, I love that creativity and that creative part of it is that you're just, you can take little parts and like, oh, that's interesting. The way that this

person is doing it or this guest comes in and gives us another way to, you know, to do something or a tool to use. And it's just, it's constantly evolving. And so while it may not be something you use right at that time, it's still great to know what's happening. And I love that about it. And it's funny, I have, there's a group of two or three of us who we actually now part of the community will chat monthly. And I think it started as we were trying to grow our email list and trying to fake.

So we wanted to talk about emails just sort of offline or just as a smaller group. And that's been great too, just connecting with individual people. We do still talk about email, but we talk about all sorts of other things too. So that's been really great too. I think we're actually talking this afternoon. I have to look at my calendar. I love that though. Very one step at a time. It's so important, I think, to build those connections. And when you're at home, like in front of your computer, it can be very hard to like

connect, because people don't necessarily, I feel like connect with blogs the way that they used to. That's another shift that's changed. When blogging first came out many years ago, it was all about commenting on blogs and things like that. And we would love for that to happen again, but it might not. And so like, how can you connect with people in that way? And so creating a very intentional community, that's part of our vision is that we want

the people in our community to be connecting with each other too. And we all need people in our corner. Yeah, absolutely. We all need that. It's so important, whether it's in the form of a coach, whether it's in the form of somebody who's just doing the same work that you're doing, but having somebody in your corner who's reminding you of why you're doing it. Or like you said, it doesn't mean that you're always going to take something that you're

taught or whatever and put it into immediate practice. But I think what it does, and hopefully this is what the podcast is for people too, but it's always like you have a slew of ideas to where if you ever feel like, I don't know what to do next. I actually don't know. I've done everything. Have you? Have we? Because we haven't.

Even Jennifer and I haven't. Nobody has done it all. There's always a new avenue that we can take. There's always something new that we can look at, a new resource or something that can breathe life potentially back into our blogging business that I think that we have to give credit to that too and know that we can't do everything that is shared, but we can do something and move that needle forward just a little bit. And I think it's so important too, just to have somebody to bounce those ideas off of, have somebody to encourage you along

the way. Because it doesn't matter how driven you are or how great of a business plan you have, I think we all start to falter along the way. We get burned out or we get overwhelmed or tired or we just start to do the same thing every day. And I know whether it's one of our membership calls or we go to a conference or whatever, just any time you have the opportunity

to connect with somebody in a similar space, they don't even have to be blogging about the same thing. They might have a course, they might be a coach, but anyone doing this work, I always feel inspired again and it gets my wheels turning and it gets me feeling good about what I'm doing again, because you can lose your focus, you can lose your purpose sometimes,

and just having somebody to kind of remind you, hey, we're helping someone, your ideas are great, this, you could try, what if you tried this? I think that's just so powerful in a community like this and that's what I love about bloggers in general is I feel like we're all so supportive of each other. Totally agree. And I also think that I love having people from different niches. I think it's super valuable because you can bounce an idea off of them and they may not know your topic, but that's great because if you're trying to appeal to an audience that may not know your topic that well, either

I think it's so great to bounce ideas off of people that aren't as in it as you may be. And so that's super valuable, I think. What is something that you're working on right now? I would love just to hear. What is like a focus that you're working on with your blog right now? Like you've been, we're recording this on October 10th. And so you've been really building for 10 months, like working diligently. Like where

is your focus right now? Because like I said, you can't do everything, but we all usually have one thing like, hey, I'm really focused on this. What is that thing right now that you're really focused on with your blog? So I'm really focused on just creating more content and getting my number of blog posts up. And I'm focused on Pinterest. Those are the two things that I'm trying to really hone in on.

And I'm in that time of year where I'm starting to think forward to the beginning of next year. And one of the things, I don't paint a lot during the winter just because of my setup and so it's a great opportunity for me to reset. And I think come January again, I'm going to really sit and I want to start going through some of my older posts and updating things and taking care of some loose ends and take another look at the website as a whole and figure out where to go next. But I'm trying to stay true to this. I wanted to really push and do this for a

year. So I'm trying to just do content. So really just focusing on Google and Pinterest as the ways to drive my traffic. And I'm not super focused on the traffic itself, but using creating good content and trying to get hopefully Google to pick up on some of that and trying to focus on Pinterest to drive some of that too. I just love hearing that because I think we all have different stages of blogging. We have different. It's the basics, but I feel like that's just really where I need to be right now. Yeah.

Well, I love that it's the basics though. I was hoping you're going to share the basics. I think that we can get shiny object syndrome, you know, like, I should be doing this. But you just gave, sometimes we overcomplicate things and you just gave a very simple thing. Like, that's one of the things that we share is content is king. That is, you have to have content. And then from there, you got to think about how you're going to drive content to your

blog. And for most niches, Pinterest is a great driving source. Pinterest has changed. That could be a whole other podcast episode. But like figuring out like how can you make sure that you at least have a strategy of some sort or whatever and using that one vehicle to potentially drive traffic to your site and just having those be your focus and knowing that it's a long game. You've said it multiple times, but you gave yourself a year. And I think that is critical advice that somebody needs to hear today that you have to give this time.

It does not grow overnight. The blogger that you've heard that got on Mediavine within three months, I don't know how that happened. I'm just going to say that. That is not typical. That is not typical. It takes a while. It takes some blood, sweat and tears a little bit.

It takes some belief, it takes some grit. And so be willing to like do that and give yourself like solid time to grow and build a really strong foundation. And I just wanna say I'm really proud of you that you're doing that. Thank you. And that you're very realistic.

I genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, appreciate your positivity in the group. And you just have a business mindset and like, I'm just gonna do the next thing. What do I need to do? Tell me the next thing or tell me what I need to do to solve this problem. And it's very objective and I just really appreciate that. I think that is going to serve you well as you continue down this journey. I'm just really glad that

we get to be a part of it. I'm really glad that I found you and you're a part of it too because I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have the direction and focus and all of the things that I sort of have. I would say, again, I don't know how you define success in blogging, but I feel like I've had a successful year. I gave myself a year and I'm going to keep going. Thanks to you too. Yeah. It's great news.

Yes. We love to hear it. What would you tell, before we close out, I just would love to know, what would you tell a new blogger today who is where you were a year ago? Maybe they have an Instagram following, maybe they're teetering on that thought of, should I do this or not? What would you tell that person today looking back? I think if it's something you're passionate about, you should go for it.

Realizing that it's a time commitment. It is something, I've refinished less pieces in this past year because I've been doing this instead. And so it's a transition year for sure, but I would do it all over again. And I think just be careful of shiny object syndrome, as you've sort of mentioned. There are so many things and it's great that there's so many things, but it can feel overwhelming sometimes. And so for me, I just, you know, it's kind of sounds nerdy, I guess, I don't know, but

I write down my goal at the beginning of the year, I write down my goals and I monthly goals, quarterly goals, and they change throughout the year. But if I'm feeling stressed, I'll go back and I'll look at what did I say I was going to, what am I supposed to be doing in April? I said in April, I wanted to do this thing and I'm worrying about brand sponsorships or I'm worrying about LinkedIn or I'm worried about, and I was like, that's not on my agenda for this year. I didn't write it down. And so let me just go back and focus on the things that I really wanted to focus on.

And then maybe they'll get on, maybe those things will get on the agenda next year. Maybe they won't. And it's not a heart and fast list. It changed. I'll readjust as necessary. But I find it's grounding to have that piece of paper to look at and remind myself what

I'm supposed to be doing. Grounding is a great word. That's very thoughtful advice. Very thoughtful. And I think it's empowering to know you give yourself permission to focus on the few things instead of focus on all the things. Because we can easily get diverted and we can easily like, oh, this sounds better than what I had initially planned.

And so let's go that direction. And staying focused on those basics, I think, can be a really good encouragement to people. That you don't have to have all the fancy frills. It really doesn't need to be that. It can just be the basics of content creation and how that shifts. So I know that people are going to want to connect with you, Katie.

So can you please tell them where they can come learn more about refinishing furniture and connect with you? So Instagram again is, I do a lot of stuff through DMs on Instagram. My website, furniturerefreshed.com is a great place for furniture refinishing resources. You can always contact me through the website as well. That'll come to my email,

but those would be the two places where I hang out the most. Well, thanks for coming today. We always love getting the opportunity to have some one-on-one time with our students and thanks for being a very important part of our community. We appreciate you. Thank you so much. I'm so excited that I got to do this with you. Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about building your blog, visit theultimateblogpodcast.com backslash newsletter

to get signed up for our email newsletter. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to share it with a friend, subscribe and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for tuning in today and we'll see you next time.