She Did What?! Kate Goodall, Co-Founder and CEO of Halcyon
This is a platform to share the radical pivots, risks and self evaluations and reflections of people I admire. We dig into the moments that led the people in their lives to go, “She Did What?!” and ultimately, to their personal or professional metamorphosis.
My good friend Kate is one of the most impressive business women I know. She is the Co-founder & CEO of Halcyon, a non-profit that incubates early stage start-ups pursuing environmental and social impact using scalable, for-profit business models. Halcyon has a number of programs that support impact-driven businesses and their founders, providing them with space, community, and access to networks, resources and capital. Prior to this, Kate helped establish WE Capital, a consortium of leading businesswomen investing in and supporting women and women-led companies. She has received a number of awards including DC Inno’s 2020 Fire Blazer, Washington Business Journal’s Power 100, 40 under 40, and Washington’s New Guard 2018, Washingtonian’s 2017 Tech Titans, and Techweek 100 DC’s Talent Cultivators. She also received the 2021 Crittenton Leadership Award and was a founding Board Member for Black Girl Ventures.
No stranger to hard work, success, entrepreneurship, making big leaps and risks I was glad for the opportunity to sit down with Kate. I started our conversation by asking her what tools she has found particularly helpful for not only herself but the entrepreneurs she works with at Halcyon. She reflects,
In general, I’m a huge believer in, and advocate for, coaching. Athletes use coaches to improve performance, so why shouldn’t we all?! One of the pieces of the Halcyon program that our entrepreneurs find the most valuable is the leadership coaching service. For readers who have never used a coach, they are most helpful as a mirror, a provider of tools you may not have refined yet, and an accountability partner. They’re also a bit of a luxury item that early-stage entrepreneurs, particularly those creating first generation wealth, can’t afford, so it is a real game changing resource alongside the non-dilutive capital, Deloitte consultants, Arnold & Porter lawyers, Amazon Web Services credits, mentors, and free residence that Halcyon also wraps around them.
All that is to say, Halcyon’s focus on coaching is important to me because I, too, have found coaching essential when approaching pivotal decisions as a leader. Whether it’s making a bold new move, like introducing Halcyon’s funding vehicles to complement our fellowships, or giving me new tools to help a team come together or reenergize, coaches have helped me hone my process and ask the right critical questions.
It’s great to see Kate lead with the importance of coaching. As high achieving self starters, it can be hard to ask for help and acknowledge the need for coaching. Here Kate not only recognizes her personal need for coaching but also has integrated coaching into the curriculum and program at Halcyon. In her words “it’s a game changer” for entrepreneurs to have access to solid coaching especially at an early stage.
We all know that the Covid-19 pandemic hit startups and businesses all across the U.S. hard, forcing many leaders to make hard decisions. On having to make a tough decision Kate reflects
We have run the Halcyon Incubator since 2014. In 2017 we started a residential arts program to provide similar resources to civic-minded artists. In terms of supporting creative humans to take big risks they were similar, but people did always struggle to understand why the two programs were part of the same organization. I enjoyed them both equally, but it was much harder to find financial support for the arts side, and it did divide my attention in ways that weren’t always helpful. Covid forced us to be pretty sober about decisions that needed to be made for the financial health of our organization, and we decided to discontinue our arts programming in 2021. While it was painful, it was the right decision – we have a full team aligned around supporting start-ups that are using scalable business models to pursue social or environmental impact. We’re all rowing in the same direction and our mission is easier for external stakeholders to understand.
Even with all of her accomplishments, experience and knowledge Kate says that there is still so much that she doesn’t know and that consistently evaluating and then recalibrating is critical for continued growth and success. When asked about her own personal growth process, Kate points to her long time business partner and mentor Dr. Sachiko Kuno.
Someone I have seen make radical changes with great effectis my cofounder, Dr Sachiko Kuno. She thinks of her life in 3, 7, and 30 year chapters, plans accordingly, and doesn’t flinch at making big decisions and changes around those milestones.
My priorities have been the same for 16 years – my children come first, then work, then friends, then boyfriends. I’m gradually starting to integrate time for myself and for sleep (!) in my later years. I saw a great Sarah Blakely post that best exemplifies this somewhat non-traditional balance I’m inherently curious and energetic, as well as competitive, restless, and hard to satisfy, AND I’m lucky to have a job that I love that creates a positive impact, so it's not even a conscious thought to stay motivated to grow and evolve, I’m always learning, and, I hope, growing. For me, rest and recovery is the most precious commodity, and the thing I could always be better at for my own benefit and that of the people around me.
When I was in my 20s, a great mentor forced me to say out loud the biggest, most ambitious career desire I could think of. He then encouraged me to make it even bigger. That became my north star to evaluate every opportunity by. Because time is so precious it was incredibly useful to have that filter, and to know that one opportunity would be higher yield compared to another because of the skills it would help build, or the doors it would help open. Even if you’re a bit uncertain about it, naming a direction is affirming and stops you from being or appearing rudderless. You can always change it 😉
I appreciate the spin Kate put on this question. Instead of having a set process that she goes through, she says that she is in a continual state of growth. Always changing, always growing, always evolving. This reminds me of the concept that instead of setting New Year’s Resolutions, we should adopt daily practices that improve our life, not just big goals that we state at the beginning of the year. I appreciate Kate’s holistic approach to how we change and grow as individuals.
I asked Kate if she had tips for our reads to help them see radical self-evaluation as a continuous process. She shares,
What’s your negative track? What does the voice in your head tell you about who you are that you’re subconsciously listening to? It’s a little trite, but so very true that we are not static beings, and the voice probably isn’t correct. For example, It might be telling you that “you’re just not good at networking”. If you can catch that subconscious pitfall as it’s happening and change it just slightly to “you haven’t had much practice at networking, but with practice you’ll be better at it”, you’ll really see results. Change the voice and you’ll change the behavior. Change the behavior and you’ll change the outcome.
Similarly corny, but also true, embrace all of yourself: your clumsiness, your messy car, your love of McDonald’s fries, and own it. Be smart about it – your shadow-self isn’t the side to bring out in every venue and every conversation - but it needs love, too, and showing all parts of yourself, particularly any that you might find a little shameful, enables you to show up authentically and therefore more powerfully in every instance. Possible side effects include discomfort, but also more meaningful conversations, real human connections, deeper friendships, and increased happiness.
Evaluate your four quadrants – are you fulfilled mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically? These are the different ways to feed yourself and therefore show up in constructive ways for others. Usually we’re all a bit lopsided and it’s a constant reworking process. There’s lots of info online, and books, of course!
Don’t do it alone. You need to gather different perspectives from those you trust to give you earnest and constructive feedback, but its also helpful to have someone, like a coach, help you figure out which bits are the most helpful to focus on, and how to create and stick to the new habits and behaviors you will need to evolve.
You can’t change what you don’t measure – I’m big into feedback loops and dashboards (did I mention that I’m a bit type A?!). For physical health that means an Oura ring, and just recently Noom. It helps you get honest with yourself about what you’re ACTUALLY doing, instead of what you THINK you’re doing. At work, we have our strategic plan mapped to departmental and individual goals that are measured and evaluated to help us all stay on track or make tweaks. If you can see the data, it becomes a lot easier to make decisions and prevent debates based on subjective feelings.
Thank you Kate for your candid, original insights and lessons learned that have helped shape you into the successful business leader you are today. We are excited to see what you do next. In pivotal moments, how do you self- reflect and self motivate so you have confidence in yourself and your choices? Tell us in the comments below!
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