Maestro on the Mic

MOTM #090: How to Create a Badass Anything & Everything – with Kathy Sierra

Monday, February 11th, 2019

If you choose to listen to but a handful of my podcast episodes, please let this be one of them. The Instagram algorithms saw fit to bring me and Kathy together, and I can’t help but feel that they actually got it right this time. Kathy's Instagram account may be dominated by pictures of horses, but her background tells a thousand stories, punctuated by leaps of faith and unimaginable success…over, and over, and over again. And honestly, it's just nice to see someone who writes longer Instagram captions than me 😉

Kathy has written a book that sold over 2 million copies, she was a sponsored skateboarder in college, she was the director of training at some of the largest sports clubs in LA, she taught at UCLA, she is still an international speaker and is revered by the likes of Tim Ferris, GaryV, and Jeff Bezos, she was an extremely successful computer programmer, and now she's following her passion working with horses on her farm and introducing the equestrian world to modern movement science. Did someone say ‘Most Interesting Woman in the World'?!?

Movement really does unite us all, and this episode demonstrates this perhaps more than any episode that I've ever done in the past. If you're at all like me you have to be wondering just what Kathy knows and does that has helped her succeed in nearly every endeavor she's taken. Apparently it's quite simple, and she has no problem sharing it with you. Want to find out what ‘it' is? Tune in to the full episode. I promise you won't be disappointed.

In this episode you'll hear:

  • Who is Kathy Sierra
  • Why Kathy left the fitness industry and didn’t set foot in a gym for 10 years
  • Kathy’s life as a computer programmer
  • Her success in writing a book as a last resort/final effort and then becoming an international speaker
  • How to Create Badass Users
  • How she handled making huge career leaps and her only regret while making those leaps
  • The remarkable concept of ‘Word of Obvious’
  • A completely different way of thinking when it comes to designing products and services for people
  • An amazing metric that she looked at to try and understand the success of her books versus the next closest competitor
  • One of the most incredible stories you’ll ever hear: Draumur
  • The striking similarities between working with humans and working with horses
  • Intrinsic motivation and the role of autonomy
  • The connection between movement and motivation
  • What her ideal physical therapy clinic would look like
  • Bringing back ‘aliveness’
  • A gene that allows certain horses to have an extra type of gait
  • A parting message that everyone needs to hear

Contact Kathy

IG: @pantherflows

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