Be Scared and Do It Anyway: Courage, Leadership, and Sales in Construction with Kate Selbie - EP # 248

In this episode of the Diamond Effect Podcast, Maggie sits down with Kate Selbie, owner and Strategic Director of Stybek Roofing, for a powerful conversation about what it really takes to lead, sell, and grow in a male-dominated industry.

Kate shares her journey from executive HR leadership into business ownership in construction, and how the skills she built in change management, talent strategy, and leadership now help her grow a roofing company with courage and intention.

Together, Maggie and Kate talk about courage before confidence, overcoming imposter syndrome, hiring great people, building a strong team, and why sales is often simply learning how to communicate value in the right room.

This episode is a grounded, honest conversation about leadership, mindset, and what it looks like to show up fully, even when you feel scared.

If you are a business owner navigating growth, leadership, or a big transition, this episode will leave you thinking differently about courage and what becomes possible when you trust yourself enough to take the next step.

Connect with Kate on LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/kate-selbie-a10ab712
Follow Stybek Roofing:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@stybekroof
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stybekroofing/
Stybek Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stybekroofing

Kate's Bio:
Kate Selbie is the Owner and Strategic Director of Stybek Roofing, a commercial roofing company serving clients across Ontario, Canada. After spending more than a decade in executive HR and leadership roles, she stepped into business ownership in the construction industry, where she now leads growth, sales, and strategy alongside her husband, Andrew.

Kate believes leadership is built through action, not perfection. She is passionate about developing people, building resilient teams, and working with individuals who are really going for it, those who are willing to take ownership, do the work, and grow.

Transcript

Kate & Maggie - podcast interview

Maggie Perotin: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the next episode of Diamond Effect podcast. And today I have another fabulous guest with me, Kate Selby, owner and strategic director of Tyberg Roofing Company.

I'm very excited to have as my guest, the woman in the construction industry because that's very rare. And Katie, welcome. Thank you for doing this with. 

Kate Selbie: Thanks Maggie. It's so good to be here. I appreciate you having me. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah, thank you. And if you could introduce yourself to the listeners and viewers a little bit more in depth, I would really appreciate it.

Kate Selbie: I have a very unique background. So my history actually is, uniquely in hr. So I started my career in that space. I grew into organizational development, , took on executive leadership roles in hr, so responsible from everything from organizational development, leadership.

Creating talent funnels, talent development, and actually strategic direction for business [00:01:00] from a transformative perspective. So how do we change and evolve to grow to meet the changing demands of marketplace? And, a couple years ago, my husband actually bought a roofing company, so in the ICI space, and it had always sort of been the plan for me to help at some point.

And I actually decided to jump ship from a corporate job, to join him. So we own it together and we run the business together. And ironically actually, we met in the commercial roofing space 16 years ago, so now full circle. We own and run a ICI roofing company together.

I'm also a coach too, actually, so we have that in common. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah, I think we have a few things in common. , We're both corporate leaders or ex carpet leaders. We both met our husbands at work, 

Kate Selbie: that's right. 

Maggie Perotin: We have 

Kate Selbie: You don't still work with yours though? 

Maggie Perotin: Sorry. No, I don't. 

Kate Selbie: I say you still Yeah.

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. I work from home. He works. Yes. We kinda work together, but on different businesses. 

Kate Selbie: Love it. 

Maggie Perotin: I wanna explore that a little bit more is, how [00:02:00] your background is helping you right now in leading the business. 

Kate Selbie: That's a really interesting question because in every possible way, it's a really unique space right now, especially the construction market.

There have been a lot of challenges, the political landscape. The economic landscape. So there's been a lot of evolution, yeah, really the challenge has been getting creative when it comes to filling the pipeline, making sure you have the right talent to respond, and also getting creative with the type of work that you're going after.

And the reason why that's so important is because you're not seeing development that the way that you used to, so you can't rely on new construction. Infrastructure is aging. So that's really great because that means we need to take care of existing facilities, but it's also finding those niche markets.

So I come from, continuous operations is really , the background of my HR work. So we had to keep the funnel full with talent to be able to run continuous operations all the time. So it feels very similar in that regard because you're constantly trying to meet the demands of the [00:03:00] marketplace while also looking for a unique space to build your business while at the same time trying to grow.

The thing that I really didn't realize that I had, that is an innate transferable skill is HR is oddly a sales role. You don't realize that it is, you're having to make changes to policies. You're having to make changes to people strategy. You're having to make business direction changes as far as leadership goes.

And when you're doing change management, you have to get people on the bus because it doesn't work if you don't have everybody rowing in the same direction. So now what I've realized is when I go into a room, I'm effectively doing the same thing.

What I'm pitching my company and what we do. It's just a different room every time. Yeah, and it was very similar in the HR world, because you're dealing with, you could be dealing with operators, you could be dealing with quality teams, you could be dealing with engineers, and they all have a different view.

They all care about different things. They all have things that they value that are important to their work. So basically I had to take my whole world and just flip the way that I was applying it. And if I'm being really honest, I loved [00:04:00] that work. I did, but I don't think I realized just how much I could love what I was doing until I stepped into this.

Maggie Perotin: Mm-hmm. 

Kate Selbie: Because there's something really exciting about walking away from a meeting with somebody brand new, or, just happening upon someone where a conversation starts up and you realize, oh, we could really help each other. And I find a lot too, the thing that I really love about this industry,

I have never encountered a space where women support each other as much as I've encountered that in this industry. And I think it is because it is so historically a male-driven industry. 

Maggie Perotin: Mm-hmm. 

Kate Selbie: And women are really trying to not only elevate each other, but be the, be partners for each other. I get referred through women, I refer women, I create connections through women.

I pass along connections through women. Um, I think a lot of women in this industry are trying to see each other really succeed and get promoted and step into big opportunities and be leading decision making. And I have not encountered that quite at this level and other aspects of my career until now.

So I think [00:05:00] that has been something that has really lit me up because 

Maggie Perotin: mm-hmm. 

Kate Selbie: It is a very old school male dominated space. Yeah. And so it's really, really cool to see that. 

Maggie Perotin: And you said so many things start, dive into it. A couple of things that come to mind me. First, I think you remember I told you that like my corporate background was in facility management Yes.

Which is very directly correlated with absolutely what you do in your business. 

Kate Selbie: Actually, that company was a company that a lot of roofers partner with, so Yeah, 

Maggie Perotin: I found in my career that actually it was the women who supported me, who mentored me the be that really the most right.

Who helped me get promoted and build a career. I had the best mentors in the few women that were there at the time, at the higher, higher. Position, so, i'm not surprised, and I'm glad to hear that, because that was my experience as well.

Kate Selbie: Well, I think what's the most [00:06:00] interesting to me, and I, I ask this question a lot to people, so I think a lot of people, see construction as a legacy industry, but they don't truly understand what legacy industry means. I asked this question at an event very recently, and the response that I got actually was a gentleman saying, legacy industry, I picture.

That old picture in New York City where you see all the men sitting eating their lunch on that balance beam. And it's just old school. You gotta have courage and , you gotta be willing to do the scary thing, literally in this context, sitting on a balance beam in the middle of New York City on a skyscraper, eating your lunch.

And I laughed because I thought you're kind of there, but you're not quite, because legacy industry truly means, an industry that has been the least disrupted by technology. And interestingly enough, so I also spent about a decade in manufacturing. And manufacturing certainly is a legacy industry in a lot of ways.

But automation has also very much changed. A vast majority of that industry, not all of it. There's still definitely pockets where it is still done the same way it once was. But construction, you still need [00:07:00] hands on tools. 

Maggie Perotin: Mm-hmm.

Kate Selbie: And certainly AI is coming. But a robot yet cannot build a building. A robot cannot put a roof on a robot, cannot detect what the leak is and be able to respond if there is water down pouring in rain. And you've gotta solve a problem right now before your roof collapses. It's just not possible. 

Maggie Perotin: And that's what I see as well. Like I have two step boys that are going into trades. I'm like, they'll always have work. 

Kate Selbie: Yes. 

Maggie Perotin: Robots are not gonna do it. AI is not gonna fix your toilet. It's not gonna build the building

Kate Selbie: Realistically, is it possible that it could perhaps at some point, but also when you think about the scale and cost of what it would require in order to do that?

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: And could the average citizen, or even quite frankly, company afford to invest in that? Probably not. So we're still gonna need those human skills 

Maggie Perotin: If you think about building a robot who could not only do the trade well, but then as you say, troubleshoot in the moment. Mm-hmm.

And figure out. All the things that could possibly happen that, that are always happening [00:08:00] right in, on every job there is things that happen that you never encountered before, that you didn't predict and so on. Yeah. As you say that, I can't even imagine how costly that robot would happen. 

Kate Selbie: No kidding.

Maggie Perotin: So one thing that I do wanna talk about, and just to help our, listeners here, because you're very skilled, as you say, in keeping the pipeline in off the employees. And in the construction industry, for a lot of contractors out there, it's a challenge not only for small businesses, it's a challenge to attract talent and keep and so on, and then they create those beliefs that, oh, there's no good people out there.

Nobody wants to work, nobody's reliable, and all those things. But I always say it takes a skill to. Hire the right people to nurture them and coach them. And you also need to know, have a hiring process. So what do you do? What are some tips that you could, share? [00:09:00] What do you do to keep your employee pipeline open?

So you have enough people to respond to work on the projects and there are the right people. 

Kate Selbie: I actually have a couple very simple answers to this question, but my overarching answer would be, keep your standards high. 

Maggie Perotin: Mm-hmm. 

Kate Selbie: And the reason that I say that is I have had experience, throughout the course of my career where there's a level of desperation, and it's a, we just need a warm body.

Is is sometimes literally what a hiring manager will say. I reject that notion on its face. I think that keeping your standards high maintains the culture that you have when you go around saying you're good at what you do, you better mean that because your clients are gonna be counting on that.

And when they haven't experienced that counteracts that. That is going to go a long way because word of mouth in any industry for the vast majority of the time, is your power play. And if you don't have that, you don't have much. So keeping your standardized critical, because [00:10:00] the reality is application boards can get flooded with hundreds of applications for one role, and you might not have a qualified applicant in there.

I would say secondarily, it's not always the technical requirements or the job description that you need to hire to, it's the attitude. And you hear that time and time and time and time again. But what does that actually mean? That means somebody who's truly got a willingness to learn and that's adaptable because things are always in motion and the skillset that's super valuable today, we might have to pivot and jump into another.

Vertical tomorrow. We might be doing a new application tomorrow, so you could have these 10 different skills, but I've gotta be able to teach you to do something new tomorrow. And have you not only willing to do it, but like ready to get your hands dirty. 

Maggie Perotin: Mm-hmm. 

Kate Selbie: The last thing that I would say is good people know good people.

And I don't know that enough companies are rewarding, bringing in team members that are referred by their own staff and actually compensating their team members for that. I would rather [00:11:00] hire someone that somebody I trust has worked with in the past and would vouch for and would say, I know this person's gonna show up on time.

I know that I can rely on them to come to work. I've seen their quality in the past. So for me, keep your standards high good people, no good people, and be willing to train people who are willing to learn. If you can do those three things, which I recognize in some cases you're looking at an investment, but that will pay off tenfold more so than hiring off a job board and hoping for the best because hope fundamentally is not a strategy when it comes to talent, and it's not gonna take you very far. If anything, you're gonna find yourself exhausted and doing the same thing over and over again, and it will cost more. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. And a hundred percent agree whenever, I learned also the hard way as hiring managing manager, when you desperate hire.

It's like, I just need somebody. Never works out. Never. At least it never worked out for me, 

Kate Selbie: I have a couple unicorns over the course of my career that I love to tell stories about. Most of them know who they are, but they are [00:12:00] few and far between and it is a difficult market.

It is, I mean, the trades especially is a difficult market because there just hasn't been the driver for people to invest their time into learning the trades. Yeah. And first thing is unique because you can get, your journeyman, there is a red seal that you can achieve through that process, but a lot of companies don't require it.

And it's not like it is if you wanna be a millwright or a plumber where there's applications you have to have. So it is just a very unique space in, in the trades in that regard. So it comes with its own challenges in finding, the best possible talent that's out there. But again, good people know good people, so I lean very heavily into that because it's been a model that's very much worked for me in my career.

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. And even for me,, hiring people who are willing to learn and willing to work hard, and there are always people like that, and you are just being willing to invest in them and teach them. Those were some of the best people I've ever hired. 

Kate Selbie: I've had people who had no skills and came in and were just ready to go.

I will do whatever you ask of me. I will [00:13:00] start from the bottom. I just want to be part of what you're building. And I think the other thing too, when I say hold your standards high, it's know who you are. Because when you know you're a great company and you have something amazing to offer, you know that not only are you great people, but you're willing to invest, you're willing to train, you're willing to provide opportunity.

When you have all that on your side, you know the truth will do. When you're honest about that, people will pick up on that. Yeah. They will want to work with people like that. They will wanna go to the wall for people like that. And they will wanna learn from people like that. So that strategy speaks for itself.

And quite frankly, as far as I'm concerned in my experience thus far, has been a very large key to our success and our growth. 

Maggie Perotin: So let's talk growth and sales. 

Kate Selbie: Okay. 

Maggie Perotin: You mentioned the sales as well. 

Kate Selbie: Yes, 

Maggie Perotin: and and you are right. I truly believe that we always sell. We sell or relax. We sell our, I don't know, partners to do something they might not wanna do, but we wanna do.

We sell. Our kids on eating things that they don't wanna eat but you, right? And as you say, [00:14:00] as leaders in corporate, even if you're not sales, when there is change and there's so much changed lately, you are selling your team right through the change management and all the things that are changing that need to happen, or all the things that are new, but we did them that way and so on, right?

Tell me a little bit how you personally switched that mindset from being in HR and coach into, you know, being the owner of the company. And I know that you are doing a lot of sales for your company, what that transition was like. What's helping you be successful at it? 

Kate Selbie: I love this question.

I'm so glad that you asked me this. I have to answer your question with a bit of a story. So I was at a panel recently, it was a women in construction panel, but anyway, they asked the question. How do you deal with imposter syndrome? To the person who was answering and I wanted to just stand up and yell, my answer to how you deal with imposter syndrome is so simple, which is everything comes down to court courage.

[00:15:00] And courage just means be scared. Do it anyway. Be scared. Do it anyway. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: And there's a million people who are argue with me on how courage doesn't apply to every situation. And that's fine. I'm not talking about every situation. But when I came into ownership, when I jumped in with Andrew full tilt and said, okay, we're doing this.

There needed to be someone spearheading business development, and we have a divided focus. So he focuses a lot on existing client relationships. Building out work with that. And he also does most of our operational and strategic stuff on that side now.. I'm front end face of the company.

So what do I do? Well, the thing that has been the most exciting to me is I literally, when I first got there, sat down and started going through. Maps and just looking at buildings and making phone calls. Then I started going to events and showing up, which is business cards in my name, and just telling people who I was.

And interestingly enough for me, the thing that was the greatest driver of conversation would be, my name's Kate [00:16:00] and I'm the owner of an ICI roofing company. And they're like, oh, nice to meet you, Kate. Did you just say you own a roofing company? And then I get the double take. Yeah, I do. So wait, do you build houses?

No, we do like big box, new construction, capital roof replacements. We do asset management with portfolio managers. And then they stare at you like, oh. Seriously. So it's become such a conversation driver to just be an owner in this space. So I love that. I love the element of surprise in a lot of ways because it just becomes a conversation starter.

Maggie Perotin: Mm-hmm. 

Kate Selbie: But the thing that I love the most about it solely has been, I am used to having to stand up in front of a room full of people, explain things that are going to happen, talk about policies that were changing, or getting in front of a panel of people and answering questions, whether it's a board or oppositely, being part of a panel and interviewing a candidate.

All of those things to me were second nature. I had done them forever. Now I'm doing all of the same things, but now I'm presenting, here's all the different services that we offer. Here's our [00:17:00] experience, here's our insurance, here's the people who can speak to that work. Or I'm going into a room full of people I have never met before, and I'm just walking up to random strangers and introducing myself.

And quite frankly, every time I do it, it's like. How people get scared going up to a microphone for public speaking, and then you don't actually feel comfortable until you're either done or you started doing it. Yeah. For me, I am always uncomfortable. I'm always nervous, like I'm about to step out on stage.

But there is something very, very exhilarating for me to do that Anyway. I, I genuinely love just now. Okay. I park my car, just get out and go in like this is it. In fact, I went to an event very recently. I kind of psyched myself out 'cause, it was a much bigger deal event. I can't speak to what it was, but,

was a big deal event. There was a lot of big deal people that were gonna be there. And the whole day I'd like psyched myself out. I'm not gonna know a soul there. I'm like, am I sure I can do this? This is a big deal. I got myself very much into that imposter syndrome belief system throughout the course of that day.

My kids were [00:18:00] particularly challenging that morning. There had been, it was a rain day. It was a frustrating day. So, I get in my car and I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna totally re rewire this thought for myself. And I'm like, you're the most important person in that room. Everybody wants to talk to you.

Everybody's excited to learn what you have to say. And I just did this whole thing my whole way there. And when I got there, instead of waiting for a minute to just breathe, I just got right out, went in, go grab a drink from the bar, turned around, and the first person I saw, I just started talking to them and then bang, bang, boom throughout the night, just, I probably met the entire room.

It was probably 75 to a hundred people there. And it's 'cause I, I completely talked myself through a new script of everybody wants to talk to you. They're all excited to hear what you have to say. And that's part of sales is just putting yourself out there, being absolutely terrified doing it anyway, because you have no idea where it's gonna lead.

You could meet, ironically we met in the strangest of context and yet we probably know a lot of the same people and there was a lot of crossover of how we could also benefit each other. Exactly. And had no idea until we [00:19:00] started talking. 

Maggie Perotin: And I love that a, you mentioned courage. That's actually one of my core value in my business because I believe in that toolkit, the same thing, like you don't get confident just by psyching yourself.

You get confident by just being courageous, meaning you're scared and you do that thing anyway by putting yourself in the situation that help you grow. And as you do that over and over, then you gain confidence because you're more and more comfortable doing it and you get better at better doing it. So I love that you mentioned that.

Kate Selbie: So I have this, and I don't know if it's a quote I read, it probably is at some point. But it said, if you knew that if you knocked on 150 doors that a door number 150 would be the greatest win of your life, how many doors would you knock on?

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. I love that. 

Kate Selbie: I mean, to me, that's the silliest question of all time. I, I think that everybody would say you'd knock on all 150 doors. So basically what I realized was my job was to knock on 150 doors. And, and the [00:20:00] thing I love the most is it never actually takes that many, because more often than not, or at least my experience has been, and I'm really grateful for that.

But I think that's an attitude and a perspective. Thing as well. I think that, whatever belief system you have, universe, God, whatever it is, spirit doesn't matter. You put out that kind of energy, you become the magnet for it. 

Maggie Perotin: Mm-hmm. 

Kate Selbie: And I have a fundamental belief system in owning your gifts and your skillset as well.

I think you have a fundamental duty to actually bring your talent to the world they need it.

And an absence of that, you are robbing, the people in your little pocket of the universe of what they're meant to receive from you and vice versa. You are meant to receive that as well. So if I'm not showing up as my full self, if I'm not stretching myself to those really exciting, scary things, I might not have met those three people.

And I have people like that. I have this little collection of people from the last couple years that I wouldn't have known at all. And I cherish those relationships if I hadn't shown up in the rooms that I've shown up in. So that [00:21:00] very terrified Kate, who was knocking on 150 doors. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah, 

Kate Selbie: I might not have won the biggest prize yet because who even knows what that is?

But I've got a lot of wins along the way, so I'll take it.

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. Yeah. So here's the question.

Because you are using coaching tools on yourself, to help yourself do that. So even that reframing,. You're noticing, okay, I'm not in the greatest Head space; as I'm going into a big meaning that could be potentially very beneficial. A lot of opportunities. And as you're driving, you're reframing how you think to put yourself in a mindset that makes you feel better and therefore show up better.

Kate Selbie: Mm-hmm. 

Maggie Perotin: Which I love that because I do the same . What else do you think how coaching experience or being a coach helps you? Not only with yourself and how you show up in your business, but in leading the company? 

Kate Selbie: Oh, [00:22:00] Maggie, how much time do you have? 

Maggie Perotin: We have lots of time. 

Kate Selbie: It's funny that we use the word coach because I have a love hate relationship with it because I.

I don't know how you quantify all of what that is to be a coach into a singular word. Like there's so many facets of the work that I do, but also what I have experienced. So, you'll notice very quickly there's a trend in how I share, which usually comes with story. So I had a mentor for about 10 years, who passed away in 2023.

And I mentor, guide, coach, I don't even know, there's a million words that I could offer for who she was to me. And I learned a profound amount from the experience of working with her. And ironically, she was actually a consultant for the company I worked with previously. But it was such a, it was so much more than that, the dynamic that we had created and just the way that she would teach through story.

The, one of the things that she said to me a long time ago had to do with practice. When you think about practice, you [00:23:00] take your kids to hockey practice and then they play the game. So the skills that they learn, they apply to the game, and that's the way that it goes.

And I always pictured it like. That like it needs to actually be a practice that I utilize in my day-to-day life. And I'm not great with journaling. I'm not great with, note taking or recording or whatever. So for me it's just become this thing that I adopt in my thought process. Like I've mechanically changed the way my brain responds to situations as a function of the work that I have done through my own mentor.

And part of that was actually superseding through some of the biggest challenges I've been through both in my life and in my career. And so I use the power of story like I fundamentally believe. I have a friend who says, and it's also probably a quote out there, um, everyone's story is someone else's survival guide.

So I use the power of story in our business. So I will share anecdotes about my own lived experience or anonymously share stories of things that I've witnessed of other people, to help people relate, to make it personal. So [00:24:00] like it's, the challenge that you have in front of you right now.

You are not, you're not alone in that. Here's, another example of somebody who persevered through something that was really tough and let's look at what they learned from that and how can we apply that. And also I think one of the toughest things in business, and especially the world today is how powerfully stress impacts us.

Yeah. And our belief around what success actually looks like and how we measure that. So we're holding ourselves to standards that are impossible. , Women talk about having it all and balance. What on earth does that even mean? Some days the balance is 90 10, other days it's 40, 60 other days it's

You can only do the best with what you have to work with. So the best that you can do sometimes is just to get really present in the moment you're in and remember that you're alive. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. '

Kate Selbie: Sometimes when I'm dealing with people who are stressed out or challenged, my greatest goal is just to get them here right now because they're suffering their own imagination of all the horrors that could happen seven months from now. Okay. [00:25:00] But it's Tuesday, it's sunny out. 

Maggie Perotin: 2:00 PM 

Kate Selbie: Let's just, why don't we just get here for a second, because the future, Kate.

Isn't gonna worry about that right now. That's future Kate's problem. She's not here yet. I got seven months to build the skillset for that Kate, to be able to respond to that. Yeah. So sometimes I help people with how to think.

We're not really taught how to think. We're taught very much what to think. It's just absolutely hilarious about the world today. But we're not actually taught how to think. And to me, it's not even about critical analysis. It's about how we move with our own thoughts, because we actually believe that everything we think is real.

It's 

Maggie Perotin: true. 

Kate Selbie: Is real. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: And my immediate way to pull people out of that is to ask them, if you were to look at your thoughts like a movie, everything that was happening and everything that you were experiencing was the movie you were watching in your head Picture every movie you've ever watched, every horror movie.

Were you like, don't answer the phone, don't go in the basement. What would you scream at the main character to do? [00:26:00] You'd probably be like, can you sit down, take a breath, and just calm down for a minute? Everything's gonna be fine. Look at your life nine times outta 10. We're usually actually pretty happy with all the things we have.

We just have no idea that we are, because we don't ever let ourselves live there. We will camp out and camp this is hell and everything sucks and I don't sleep and I forget to eat. And I don't know if I'm ever gonna be a success. We'll live there, but we don't wanna camp out for a minute. And Oh, like life's actually pretty good.

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: I spend so much time, I even have clients that will call me, basically be like, I'm having this day 9 1 1, talk me off my ledge here. 'cause I'm going insane. And my usual go-to is just, okay, like you're in the car, you're driving, you have a coffee in your hand, you're listening to your favorite song.

Let's just take a minute with that. Nine times outta 10, that brings you back down to, oh, right, actually I'm okay. Everything's fine. Because quite frankly, that's usually most people's biggest problems. I struggle with that just as much as the rest of us do. But I'm also hyper aware of that. So my [00:27:00] rebound rate is a lot faster.

Where it would've been five years ago, it could have taken me a week, three years ago, it could have taken me three days. Now I can be minutes between certain experiences, sometimes days, depending on how big it is, especially when it comes to the kids. They can drive you up the wall sometimes, but, yeah, I mean it applies. It's a mindset thing. It's a how to help people learn how to think. 

Maggie Perotin: Mm-hmm. 

Kate Selbie: How to dance with their own thoughts, because that's all that it really, is this dance that's constantly evolving and changing all the time. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: And it's the self-practice of, of actually recognizing that this isn't something that you can just do if you're not actually creating awareness around the fact that it is, in fact a practice, in absence of having it, you will lose it.

Just like if you don't get on skates, you're probably not gonna be very good at hockey. So 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah, a hundred percent. I always tell my clients, as you say, like, oh, don't try to solve for a problem in the future.

Kate Selbie: It's 

Maggie Perotin: not there yet. We'll worry about it when it comes.

Let's focus on right now, right here, and as 

Kate Selbie: one of my [00:28:00] colleagues would love this, because one of the things that I routinely say to her is, I have these like weird habits and things that I will do where I will like, fix something up really detailed and maybe save it somewhere so that, I'll give you an example.

We had, we had this really complicated progress, progress report we had to send to a client and really complicated invoicing that we had to do, and so I just like tooth and nail detailed, dumped this major PDF into the file, and then sure enough, 6, 8, 10 months later, we got a random question from the client.

If I had not done this document, it would've taken us a day or two to figure out how to answer it. But because it was just saved neatly there, already wrapped in a little red bow, we just opened it, found the answer within five minutes and answered, and I'm like, God, I love pass Kate. Like I will literally say like, thank you.

Pass Kate randomly to things that I have done. Thank you so much for doing that. Because to me it's like the future, me saying thank you to the past in the same way that I'll be like, Hey, future Kate, I'll be ready for that. Don't worry, you're gonna be prepared.

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: But I got time. So that language, [00:29:00] just actually baking that into the day-to-day too.

Again, it's just like it yet another practice of, okay, these are very separate things. That's not for a year or that's not for six months. I don't need to give my entire. Sanity to that right now. 

Maggie Perotin: And as you say, it is a practice, it is a skillset that you need to develop by implementing in practice.

Unfortunately, maybe down the line, if we survive as a species than we evolve more will be able to do it automatically. But right now our brains are programmed to worry and to stay believe every thought that like ever crosses our mind and swan and that doesn't serve us 90% of the time or 99% of the time.

And it takes practice, to develop those skills. But they're so powerful that your employees and people around, you're lucky to have you. And then anybody else, there's coaches for it, do that. But 

Kate Selbie: It's funny 'cause when we have our meetings too, we've had people say I guarantee you the average [00:30:00] roofing company is not having a meeting like this right now.

'cause I open our meetings with , what's our energy levels at a scale of one to 10. And I'll write everybody's name on the board and their energy levels. And anybody who's not like north of a six will be like, what would it take to get you there? Like, how do we get you there? How do we help? How do we support?

Because everything is energy at the end of the day. So if you wanna move, you wanna grow. People have perspectives on hustle and grind culture, but there is a work element required of you. And we all wanna be sort of vibing together. So how do we make sure that everybody gets what they need and you have the support that you need and you're armed with the tools.

You have to show up for people. So you've gotta be prepared with that as well. It's just very unique, the way that we approach things. But at the end of the day, we also get the work done too. So you create something very new. 

Maggie Perotin: I love that. So let's talk, being a woman in the industry, having kids, and I don't like the word balance because I guess people think that balance, oh, it has to be equal everything.

And I always say that it's not about that, right? It's about defining. [00:31:00] What you want out of your personal life, out of your professional life, and put equal importance to the things that are important to you. So first of all, knowing what's important for you, right? And then equal importance doesn't mean equal amount of time, right?

It just means that, hey, if I decide to spend time with my kids, let's say on the weekend, then I'm gonna be totally present and focused, even if it's couple of hours. And I'm gonna enjoy my moments with them while during the week. The majority of time, let's say, might be work.

But as you say, like when we identify those things that are important to us, and then we take moments to acknowledge them, that actually our life is not that bad. And we manage, we have practices to manage our mindset, our stress level, our energy level. You can achieve harmony, balance, however you call it, majority of the time.

And it's life is not perfect. We all have our stressors and on, but [00:32:00] how you handle it, how you teach yourself to handle it, that's what matters. So I would, I wanna learn from you. How do you handle, being a mom, being a woman in, a leader, in the industry that's not necessarily, female dominated, and how do you,

keep your sanity. 

Kate Selbie: Well, who told you that I do is my first question. 

Maggie Perotin: Okay. If you don't, then tell us about that too. 

Kate Selbie: Sanity is also in a lot of ways and the context that I'm speaking to, it is also a choice because it's a function of practices. So,

for me, I have a fundamental belief system in healthy, happy parents.

Healthy, happy kids. So I, I didn't always live by that, I mean through the pandemic. I had two under, basically two I was working in, in a high level job, high powered executive position and a plant that worked 24 7 in a growing business. And it was incredibly stressful and I had no idea, I actually hated the [00:33:00] term self-care so much during that time.

'cause I thought like, who the hell has time for that? What even is that? I still have a love-hate relationship with the terminology of it because I think it's so much more than that. But. There was a lot of guilt that came with the way that I operated at that time. And also I think everybody was feeling that you just could not possibly do all the things that were expected of you.

I think coming out of that pressure cooker, a lot of people had to wake up to what really mattered to them. And I was certainly one of them. I think that was one of the bigger drivers of having a look at my life and going, how do I want this to look? But more than that, it was what do I wanna teach my kids about what life looks like and who they have the opportunity to become?

So my first questions are always to myself, and then it's a, how does that reflect on the people who witness my life, so for me, I need to prioritize my own health. I need to prioritize my sleep. I need to prioritize the opportunity to eat well. I need to prioritize movement at some point, even if it's just a walk in the [00:34:00] sunshine or the rain doesn't matter.

There are things that I fundamentally need. I need a space and time throughout the course of the day where nobody needs anything from me. 'cause I went through five straight years where it was all high needs, all the time from everyone. And I felt what that depletion was like, and I refuse to live that again.

It's not sustainable and it's no way to live. You're not offering anything to anybody. Your husband, your kids, your colleagues, your team members. When you're in that space, you think you are, but you're not. And worst of all, there's nothing left for you. Someone once said you were the first human, you were given.

We think that our babies are the only people that we have to take care of. 'cause you have this human in your hands that is res you're responsible for, but we were the first human we were given. So if we don't take care of that, we're actually teaching this human, we have in our hands that they don't matter either.

I refuse to do that. So for me, I also want my kids to see that it is okay to want things. It is okay to want time. So I will sometimes say, when, my water level's here, I will say, mommy [00:35:00] needs this hour so that she can be a really good mom and she's just going to, , maybe go watch a show by herself, or take a bath, or go for a walk or whatever.

But when I come back, you're gonna have fully present time. I do prioritize time with my kids, being an entrepreneur, there is time where I can flex my schedule and I can be home. And they can take the bus that day and I can be at the bus stop to pick them up, or, we prioritize family time at certain times.

They get to stay up later on weekends, we prioritize doing things together, but then they also are very involved because it's our business. So our kids get excited about things that we get excited about. We prioritize family dinner almost every night. If I'm, at an event or my husband's at an event, Nona will come over, but we prioritize rituals so that we have traditions that they can count on.

And when they don't happen, we usually make up for that. So we do an extra special dinner on a Saturday if I wasn't home on a Thursday evening. But balance is an impossible word. It's not something that you can seek out. For me, it's [00:36:00] a what do I want them to learn about life? I want them to learn that there are things that you're gonna decide that you really want and you're gonna have to work really hard to get them.

There is a such thing as sacrifice. Sometimes you have to sacrifice more time than you might've wanted to, or you have to drive really far to get to something, or you have to not go to that thing you were really excited about because something else comes up that's really important. Those things happen.

It's part of life. Um, disappointments as much a part of life as success and achievement are. So I let them in on both. If a big job we were really excited, we might get doesn't happen. I let them experience that with us. We'll tell them about it. But we also do gratitude every single night at the dinner table we go around and what are you grateful for?

Everybody has to answer the question. And for me it's because then again, you anchor yourself in the moment and what are you really just happy you have in your life? And some days it's a really big thing and there have been days where I'm like, I'm just grateful I had a hot shower. It was by myself and nobody bugged me.

And maybe that was the best part of that day. But it's hopefully those days are fewer and farther between. But, I [00:37:00] don't really think that anybody just has the perfect recipe for it, and I think we're all trying to find that. And I think it's sad, mom guilt was something that I didn't have any idea of what on earth that was until I became a parent, and man was I riddled with it.

I have just released that now. I don't hold any guilt for that. I'm gonna say the wrong thing. I'm gonna do the wrong thing. I'm gonna respond in the wrong way at some point. But my kids also know that if I make a mistake, I own it in the same way that I would in my work life. My kids also know if they make mistakes, they need to own it.

So all I'm trying to do is model the behavior that I would expect of myself with them and do the best that I can as far as being a woman in construction, I feel like, the truth will do. You know when you do good work and you're committed to. Even the reality of the situation that you're not gonna be perfect, that you will make a mistake at some point.

One of the things that I love, that people love so much about us, and they even say when they're giving references, it actually [00:38:00] just happened today. We had somebody, let us know we had, been chosen for a really exciting project. And you said you're reference, the thing that sold the person on you guys was not only did you do great work, but the reality is that you, like everyone will have something you missed or made a mistake or whatever, but that you were there to make sure you understood it and, and made good on your word to, , do a great job and make sure that things were taken care of.

And I think for whatever reason, that seems to be something that people feel like is missing in the world today. And that, to me, speaks to integrity. And I am who I am when I come home, when I go to the office, when I go to a client meeting, I don't I might wear different hats in terms of what people need from me and how I need to show up.

But I am the same person because the truth will do. If you're living in truth, you don't have to put on the face, you don't have to wear the facade everywhere you go. I find that exhausting. I've done it. There have been spaces in my career where that was required of me, but that's just not, it's just not on the [00:39:00] ticket for me.

So I also want my kids to know that, the truth will do be who you are. You'll find your spot, you'll find where you're meant to grow, and you'll grow and flourish because it's so much easier to do it from a space that you are exactly who you are. You're going to respond with the best of intentions, and when you do make a mistake, you're gonna own it and you're gonna make good on that.

If you do that, there isn't, failure's always gonna be part of anything that you do., It's literally the key to success. You can't have one without the other, but it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean ultimate failure. I think people see failure as like it's a point in time thing and when it happens, that's it.

The only time that's the case is when you're dead. If you have a day and you're up and you can move and you have the world at your feet, you're not done. There's no such thing as that. I absolutely love the saying where people say, no one's coming to save you. So like, you gotta get up and you gotta move.

I read recently someone added to that. They're like, if no one's coming to save you, absolutely you gotta move, but no one's coming to stop you either. And I just love that because that is [00:40:00] me through and through. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. I love that. And as I say, like failure. Unless you let it, . Unless you give up, you can fail.

Kate Selbie: Exactly. '

Maggie Perotin: cause if you just keep going, if you keep trying, if you keep reiterating whatever innovating, you'll never fail. 

Kate Selbie: No, no, there is no ultimate failure. Even you can read stories of every major entrepreneur, I'm sure you love and thought leader that you love. I guarantee you at least one of them has gone bankrupt or had a business completely fail.

You know, you ha you hear stories of people who slept outta their car at some point in their life and now they're a billionaire. There is no linear path to success that looks like this. It just does not exist. Yes, 

Maggie Perotin: yes. 

Kate Selbie: And it's a hell of a standard to think you need to live up to that.

'cause quite frankly, comparison is the thief of joy. So if every single time you're like, oh, this person did this, and look at me, I'm nowhere close. Well, great. You never will be if that's what you're spending your time doing. 

Maggie Perotin: A hundred percent. I agree. And truly, again, balance might be the [00:41:00] bad word, but would you describe for me, like how you live and how you.

Operating right now. For me, that's balance. Because being in, knowing who you are, what's important to you, prioritizing those things and Yeah, like living the life where sometimes things go that way and you recalibrate, and sometimes they go that way. Nobody's life, life is perfect. It's not, it's 50 50, there's things happening in Sowan, but if you're, what's important to you and you recalibrate and you just live in your truth, that's, for me, that's what it's,

And we definitely have a similar story just for me, it happened like a little bit earlier, maybe because I'm older than where, when my kids were little, I was just like going, going, going, giving, giving, giving. Because that's what I thought we were supposed to do, as women, as mothers.

Finding myself. Behaving not the way I wanted to behave in front of my kids. And at some point I was like, no, no, no. That has to stop. And it had to start [00:42:00] with me taking care of me. I always say, I wasn't even on the list, you know, it's not like I was hundred, I wasn't even there. 

Kate Selbie: Mm-hmm.

Maggie Perotin: And when I realized that and that was the thing that was preventing me from being the mom and being the person that I wanted to be, I started implementing changes that led me to where I am now. Living the way I live now. And I'm very grateful for it.

Kate Selbie: I think it's a profound moment for anybody who's used to not being on the priority list is the moment. Even if you make the list and you're not used to making the list, you're like, oh, this feels different. Yeah. And, it's, you maybe you're never gonna be someone who can put yourself first.

And I get that. Some people, it's just so ingrained in them that, your kids come first or your family come, whatever it is, business comes first. But if you make the list and you're the top three, it's gonna feel a hell of a lot different than either not being on it or being number 100.

I always try and tell people too when I'm working with them is if perfection is the goal, we have a hell of a slog ahead of us. So why [00:43:00] don't we just aim for , marginally better than we are right now? So if you're, maybe struggling with anxiety all day, every day, and you like heart pounding out of your chest, let's just take three minutes.

Once a day, all you have to do is go, okay, my heart's beating, my brain is telling it to do it without me having to, so I'm not dying. 'cause this is happening all on its own. Sometimes I just want people to be aware, like, oh, your body is actually keeping you alive without you doing anything, so you're not dying.

So just remember that you're not having to go. Okay. Heartbeat, heartbeat, heartbeat. Constantly just coming up with that awareness is like, oh, okay. Yeah. Just do that for three minutes a day for a while, and then come back and talk to me again. Oh, I did that and I'm feeling a bit better now. Okay. Let's try the next thing and just keep adding on over time.

Maggie Perotin: Yep. 

Kate Selbie: You gave a redefinition for balance for me. I had this profound learning a couple years ago, after I lost my mentor. And she always used to say to me, you've always had everything you ever needed. You just didn't know it. and I have a whole story that goes along with this, but I just [00:44:00] had this moment once, it was about six months after she passed away where it, it finally landed.

It had been a decade of her telling me this. And six months to the day, actually, after she passed away, it just landed, it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I ended up bawling my eyes out, but also laughing simultaneously because I realized, oh, like all of these things. That I think that I need, I don't like, I have it.

I'm alive. My kids are healthy. . We have this business. Everything that I need is right here, right now. I can respond. I can choose how I want to think, how I think is going to influence how I feel.

I can decide if I want to be on the priority list or not. Like I have everything that I need. I just need to decide what I wanna do with that. Because I've always had this and we all do. We just convince ourselves that we don't.

Maggie Perotin: And that's where it comes that compare, I call it compare and despair, yes. The moment you start comparing yourself to other people, [00:45:00] usually to their, let's say, social media version of their life, then you are not really seeing their full life. You are not understanding the journey that they went through to even get to where they are.

Kate Selbie: Mm-hmm. 

Maggie Perotin: We all do that. That's what our brains are kinda, programmed to do. But that's where comes to practice, to noticing as fast as possible when you get there and then moving yourself back. And, seeing all the bad, all the good that you already have, and then focusing on your journey and so on.

Kate Selbie: Well, I mean, it's funny that you say social media, the reality is everything that you see about someone else's life is curated to some extent. You're only seeing a small slice of them in the moment that you're in with them. You have no idea what other people's journeys look like.

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: Or how hard their life could be or what they're going through. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: So to try and compare yourself to anything, whether it's their social media account or the way they acted at dinner, or what their family looks like, or the clothes they wear, or the house they live in, like you just have no accurate picture of what that looks like.

You don't live in that person's skin. So [00:46:00] that's, it's such a waste of lived experience to spend time living in that. So 

Maggie Perotin: So one more thing that I wanna talk about is differences between running an online business. So you were a coach a little bit for some time.

And our businesses are online. Versus running a service-based business, that it's construction, it's in person with, people and all that. What are the key differences that you're experiencing, and maybe some wisdom behind it? 

Kate Selbie: Coaching in the online space, which I didn't just coach in the online space, so I did do some in-person coaching.

Okay. But it was just me. So there was no staff. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: So first and foremost, when it's just , you can decide what you wanna do with your time. The only people clawing for your time are your clients. But I, I was very, adamant about boundaries in terms of scheduling to make sure that we did things that worked, for both of us, because you have to be with your clients because otherwise they might call you [00:47:00] 25 times a day.

And there are some clients that would take advantage of that. It was unique in that space, but it was very much, driven by exactly what I wanted to do. When I wanted to do it, I could curate everything about what I wanted it to look like. Yeah, even just the amount of time that I wanted to invest it in on a day-to-day basis.

I also was very particular about the clients that I would take on, and I still actually do dabble in the coaching space. I only have one active client on my, well, technically two on my roster right now. And it's just solely based on the limited amount of time that I have to offer to it.

I don't market it at all. In fact anymore, I only work off of referrals. And that's that side of the side of me that I still like to do because if somebody's excited enough to come and talk to me, I'll do an intake with them much like you do and decide if it's worth my time.

Because the last thing I want too, on that space, which is also very different from the construction world, is I don't wanna offer my time to someone who's not really going for it. There's a lot of people who think they wanna coach, but they're not actually willing to do the work.

Can show up and have the same [00:48:00] conversation week after week after week, and be six months in and be no further along than you were.

I can teach you every single thing that I know, but if you're not willing to go out into your life and apply it, if you're not willing to do the hard things, if you're not willing to come back, like I call it homework because to me it's the same as when you're in school. You gotta do the homework. And I give very creative, unique activities for people to do to sort of practice the things that they're challenged with.

If they're not willing to do that, I can tell pretty quickly who I'm dealing with and I just don't want my name attached to it. I don't wanna spend the time like it. There are people who are willing to spend some good money on coaching, but to me it's not worth it if I'm just gonna have the same conversation week after week because I have so many other things that I could spend my time doing.

On the construction side of things, we have a huge team of people, so as soon as people become part of it, people are innately fallible. So. You've got the flex of just scheduling people and organizing people and, allocating the right resources to the right places at the right time, making sure you have the right [00:49:00] people on the bus.

There's that element, there's, so I very much operate as the financial controller of our business. So it's being very strategic about investments. It's being very adamant about, scheduling. It's making sure that we have, I call it fill the fridge. The fridge is full so everyone can eat.

So then when we get our invoicing and our payroll, so I'm managing much bigger items that have a much wider ripple effect in the coaching space. I'm dealing with one person who has their ripple effect in their life. Um, and obviously that impacts me. I have, one of my more recent clients said to me.

Working with you for three months was more powerful than the 11 years of therapy I just invested in those moments are huge for me. Yeah. What a hell of a compliment. So that's a huge ripple effect for me, and I take that into my business world and apply everything I can possibly I due to support the people that we have.

But it's bigger business. And in that space too, you're not gonna be as selective. You're gonna make sure you're working with quality clients, you're gonna make sure you're working with people who are gonna pay for the work that you do. Um, you're gonna make sure that you're dealing with people who you know are gonna be able to [00:50:00] manage their projects well, because we are effectively a subcontractor being the roofer.

So if it's a new construction project, we're one of many multi tradees on site. So you wanna work with good teams who know how to manage things really well. So you're gonna be selective in that regard, but you're also going to open yourself up to opportunities with new people. So you're learning people a lot more.

So you're learning teams of people. It's comparing like. Two entirely different worlds different. They're just so fundamentally different. Being a leader and an owner comes with its own pressure too. So my day does not stop when my team's day stops. So when our technicians have gone home, even if they're working late, 'cause it's a really great day and they wanna take advantage of weather, they might go home at six o'clock.

My office, it's four to five depending on the person and the schedule. But if I get a call at nighttime or a client can only speak to me at nighttime, or somebody has a question, or we have an emergency response, we are a 24 7 service operation. We take those calls after hours.

So an owner's job never stops [00:51:00] because again, you wanna keep your teams working, you wanna make sure that you have work in the pipeline. You wanna make sure that they have ways to pay their mortgages and feed their families. Your job is 24 7. In coaching, my boundaries are very clear and when and how they can contact me on the roofing side.

There's still definitely boundaries, but there are ways and mechanisms where like that will filter through because we want that to be the case opportunity is gonna knock. You wanna respond to that. And it's also in the industry and the construction industry. , In order for you to get your name out there, it's not just great marketing or social media.

You have to be in the rooms and there's events that you need to be at and places you need to exhibit at. And , I don't do that on the coaching side. I've never marketed myself, I've never needed to. But in this space, we'll do a trade show, or I will go to a large, commercial real estate function.

Because the people who are managing, like you come from, all the big properties are gonna be there, and you wanna make sure that you've got FaceTime with them [00:52:00] because they're not gonna call you if they don't know you.

It's literally apples and oranges, which is the most minute way for me to say it, but they could not be more different.

It's just such a different world. 

Maggie Perotin: I do agree. And even like, if you take any online business, it's so simple in a way. 

Kate Selbie: Mm-hmm. 

Maggie Perotin: And there's not a lot of complexity. Yeah. Maybe technology, you can say that it, there's some complexity to it, but if you put that with actually construction industry, that's not only project, but also operation when it is 24 7, no matter what.

Right. Things happen in building. All the time. It's like it's 

Kate Selbie: If you think about it on the coaching side, that was such an amazing compliment that, and I don't think my client even meant to say it that way. It was just, I want you to know that this was so powerful for me, which was a huge moment, but she couldn't tangibly hand me something.

Whereas I can get you in the car and I can [00:53:00] drive by really cool buildings and be like, we build that. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: I did not know how much I love that until I started doing it going. Oh yeah, that, that's us. Oh, that's us. Oh, that's us. And it's just so cool. I wish I could say that I literally did it.

Sometimes I get to go on the roofs, but I have never, I've never built or installed one. But I also recognize it, everybody has their part to play. It wouldn't happen without me either. So it's a function of a whole team of people that come together and pull that off. So there one is very intangible and one is very tangible as well from just the industry perspective.

'cause interestingly enough, even with the challenges that the construction industry has right now, with the trades issues and , needing more people with skills and just with the way the market has been, the last probably year and a half. It is, it'll always be a growing industry. We are always going to need the roof over our head.

We are always going to need the spaces that we spend our time, whether it's your homes or your grocery stores or the malls or community center, like you name it. We need spaces. We need [00:54:00] these buildings. So building is never gonna stop in the same way that the work of coaching and the human work that needs to get done is also never gonna stop.

They just look very, very different. 

Maggie Perotin: Okay. So before we finish, is there anything last nugget of wisdom that you would like to leave the listeners or the audience with? 

Kate Selbie: Yes. I had a profound moment of awareness. I've had a few that I've shared with you, probably about two, maybe three years ago now.

It was three years ago, it would've been just before I decided to take this leap. So, coming back to the mentor I mentioned, I'm gonna name her. Her name was Sharon, who's an amazing human being. She used to say to me all the time, we have endless resources available to us. Use your resources. And I never really fully understood what she meant.

I always thought she meant I have a team and they can go do this and I can have them help me with this. But it was just never like, ah, I don't feel like that's it., That didn't solve this problem. I still feel frustrated or stressed out, or whatever it was. I had this moment in my old office where I was sitting one day [00:55:00] and I could visually picture a bookshelf in front of me and it had

all books that were titled of the things that I was using at that point in my life. , Certain people that I relied on, or the name of those books, and certain mechanisms that I would use for one of them was called Wine, because I definitely use that a lot as a resource to get through. So I'm looking at this, bookshelf visualizing this, and I go, okay, like those are my resources.

And then I had this moment where I just sat back in my chair and I, I like literally had my eyes closed and I looked up and I realized, oh, the bookshelf keeps going. It was like Beauty and the Beast where it was like, 8,500 levels high. And I went, oh, okay. So these resources on this shelf got me here.

As I lean back, I realize there's resources on these shelves as they go up. And every single time I take a leap in my life, I'm gonna have to step into utilizing new resources. So what are the resources on the next shelf? And when I started thinking about life that way, I was actually able to fill in the blanks of those book title covers [00:56:00] to realize, okay, so if I wanna step into entrepreneurship, what are the things that I'm gonna have to learn?

When I came into our business, it was okay. I've never managed ar and AP before. I'd never looked at the balance sheet or the p and l for I had within the context of the business that I was working for. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: But I was not responsible for it in the way that the financial controller was, or the CEO was.

But when you step into ownership, you've gotta have your hands in every piece. So I realized, oh, I gotta know all these things. And then it was sales. That's another book, that's another resource. Okay, so what does that mean? What do I have to learn? And there was something very empowering about that experience of going, we do actually have every resource available to us.

We live in a world where it's information overload. Well, if it's information overload, we can also curate it and go, I wanna learn this skill, or I wanna read about this thing, or I wanna know about what this means. And it was just this profound realization, right back to you've always had everything you ever needed.

Maggie Perotin: Mm-hmm. 

Kate Selbie: You have these endless resources and when you take a chance or you make a choice, you just need to lean [00:57:00] back and go, okay, I need to look at the next level of resources to step into that. And it's okay if you don't know what that is right now, but the reality is you will, as long as you have courage and you're scared and you do it and Right.

That's right. So that mechanism for how I've moved through the world is I constantly have this moment where I lean back and I'm like looking at the next bookshelf going, okay, when I get there, those are the resources that I'm gonna need. And I just prepare myself that way in knowing I don't know it all yet.

That's okay. That I don't know it all yet. But I also know that these past versions of me got prepared for where I am now and I'm gonna keep doing that. So that has been such a game changer for me, from a perspective point of view, from a learning point of view, and just for quite frankly, sometimes how to get through the hardest days.

There's the resources you have, you have endless resources available to you. How can you reach out and grab one of them right now where you need it, that I guarantee you, we have more than we think. 

Maggie Perotin: Okay, I'm here, I wanna go there, what do I need?

What skillset do I [00:58:00] need to develop? What do I need to learn? What tool do I need to learn? Whatever that is, to get there. And when you do that, it's not about knowing it all and being perfect right away, but just understanding that, hey, I can learn anything I want.

Like those things are acquired, you're not born with them, you don't need to have magical talents or whatever. You can just learn them. And as you say. Now everything is available. 

Kate Selbie: Absolutely. 

Maggie Perotin: I lived in a time where you had to buy a book and sort through the book and you, and there wasn't even everything in the book,

Kate Selbie: the encyclopedias when they used to sell those door to door. 

Maggie Perotin: Yep. 

Kate Selbie: I will add this as well because it's, it's funny, even when you send me this completed, I guarantee you I will notice it. So trust yourself at the end of the day. Like I said, you have everything you ever needed.

And the reason I say this is, you had mentioned to me, oh, I sent you the topics, what we're gonna talk about. And I told you point blank, I didn't even look at it because it will influence how I show up. I'll be priming myself, okay? She's gonna ask me about this. I'll try to pre-bake answers and I'm so much better on the [00:59:00] fly, so I can already tell you.

I guarantee you, when you go back to the beginning of this. There was a Kate who was a little unsure., I probably even in my first few answers probably sounded a bit more cookie cutter because you would expect a podcast to open. But tell me a little bit about yourself and your career and all these wonderful things that you need to do to set the stage.

And you'll hear it. It'll sound a little bit more Okay. A little bit more buttoned up. And then as we get into it, when I realize, okay, just give 'em the goods, you have it, just be you. It just, it totally changes that dynamic. Like I can tell you, even the way I feel now versus the way I felt when I started was okay.

I trusted myself enough to not look, but I also still was like, okay, I gotta, yeah. People want to hear the textbook answer. Here's the thing. Oh, leadership and HR and great. But it's a melting pot of a human being. And all of my lived experiences and how I show up in the world, how I apply that to business, how I apply that to parenting, and just quite frankly, how I apply it to being a human.

Yeah. Figuring it the heck out the way everyone else is. So, yeah. 

Maggie Perotin: [01:00:00] Yeah. I love that. Thank you for sharing, 

Kate Selbie: trust yourself, 

Maggie Perotin: so where people can find you, where people can connect with you. 

Kate Selbie: LinkedIn. I am an avid user of LinkedIn. I love that as a tool. Our social platforms are definitely out there as well, but to connect directly with me would be on LinkedIn.

So I am under my first, last name, Kate Selby, owner of Steinbeck Roofing. So that would be the number one space I would say, if you wanted to connect. I'm a very active user there, so would love to hear from you. 

Maggie Perotin: That's how we met. 

Kate Selbie: I know I love LinkedIn. I've made so many connections there, PE I don't think people really u know how to utilize it yet as a tool.

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: Those who have are doing well. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. 

Kate Selbie: And there are lots of ways to use it poorly too. I think that's the true of any of these tools. So 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. It's okay if you go out there and try LinkedIn and use it poorly at first and ask you use it better. Exactly. No problem.

But we'll link all the social media for your company and your profile in the show notes, so that's gonna be available. Thank you so much for, 

Kate Selbie: thank you Maggie, 

Maggie Perotin: doing this with me. I really, really loved our conversation. [01:01:00] Thank 

Kate Selbie: you. It was really fun. I know we're gonna be talking more. I can already feel it.

Maggie Perotin: Awesome. Thank you. 

Kate Selbie: Awesome.