Boss Your Business - The Podcast

[00:00:00] Yvonne Heimann: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Boss Your Business. And I would say today, we're going to have a lot of laughs, a lot of fun, and a little bit, a different business than we had in the past. So I'm really excited today to have Cathy on today. Cathy, you are a health and wellness advocate, the founder of Cathy's Crawly Composter. So guys, you already get a little bit an idea of what kind of business we are talking about today and Cathy's Proud Us and Cathy's Laughter club. You are multi award winning environmental innovator who knows, who uses workshops and inspirational speaking to motivate people to live a more sustainable life.

[00:00:45] You're also a certified laughter yoga teacher, appointing, appointed laughter ambassador in 2017. And by the way, I do love your laugh. That is going to be a fun episode for me today with my [00:01:00] German language and the English. You guys, bear with me. And you are also an avid cyclist and gardener. Welcome Cathy to the show today.

[00:01:10] I'm excited to have you, even though it might cost me some time for us.

[00:01:15] Cathy Nesbitt: Oh, I thought you were going to say to squirm.

[00:01:19] Yvonne Heimann: That too. It's the whole laughter and everything. It's. Once in a while, my tongue still even, I'm like, I've been in the States now and speaking full time English since 20, 2007, there's still some of the things where I'm like, blah, blah, blah.

[00:01:35] Okay, let's try this over again. So let's see how I'm going to do today with all the laughter going. Cathy, we already hinted on what your business is.

[00:01:47] And before we dive deeper into what you do nowadays, I would love to hear, how did you get here? What did past Cathy go through to [00:02:00] get to 2023?

[00:02:03] Cathy Nesbitt: Love it. Thank you. Perfect. I'm located in Canada, just north of Toronto, largest city in Canada, and in 2002, our landfill closed. And although Canada is a pretty large country, second largest in the world, we couldn't find a place to site a new landfill, and we started to export our garbage to the United States.

[00:02:23] A thousand trucks a week. Wow. I know it's, it hurts my heart every time I say that, and I've said it a lot in 20 years. And I had a solution. So this is, what I'm proposing is indoor composting with worms. So I don't want to talk about the heavy part about how ridiculous governments are and the stupid decisions that they make.

[00:02:47] Because they do. They don't, they're only thinking about three to four years. They're not long term thinkers. So anyway, that's another episode. But for this, I had a solution and I had a hopeful [00:03:00] solution. A way to manage food scraps and paper. So back to Toronto, 6 million people in the Greater Toronto area, half live in condos, townhouses, without space to do outdoor composting, and even everyone that lives in a house doesn't compost, by the way.

[00:03:18] But whatever, no judgment, a little bit. So this was a solution for the people that live in condos. This was indoor composting with worms and the worms are in a container. So not worrying. They're not free range. Right there in a, like a Rubbermaid container, it's your food scraps, your paper, they eat it all.

[00:03:37] Their poop is the fertilizer. We use that in our gardens. So there's a whole like infinity sign. It's really a huge mission that I'm on. And I thought, Oh my gosh, everybody needs worms. And I set forth. I was a secretary before that, then a social worker for 20 years.

[00:03:58] Yvonne Heimann: I'm curious about that. Were you [00:04:00] always in, into worms or what's your background?

[00:04:04] How did you get to worms?

[00:04:08] Cathy Nesbitt: Yeah, it's it, the universe is a fascinating place, Yvonne. I know you've heard stories. I never would have chose this business. It's really a ridiculous business model. Like it's hopeful. It's a great solution, but nobody wants worms. Who wants worms in the house? Not very many people.

[00:04:25] So I was a secretary for 20 years, getting my psych degree. It took me 15 years. I went at night. I just, I love learning. It wasn't for the paper. It was because I like learning. In 2000, I got my psych degree. I got a job at a group home working with challenged adults. And, oh my gosh, I was, I loved it.

[00:04:45] And let me go back. Before I was, I'm from Toronto, but I live in a small town now. And when I bought my house in '93, a teacher friend, I, as an avid gardener and composter, a teacher friend asked me to look after her worm bin. [00:05:00] Yvonne, I'd never heard of this. I didn't want worms in my house.

[00:05:03] Yvonne Heimann: I heard of doggies sitting or just the house sitting and taking care of the cat.

[00:05:09] But they ask you to take care of their worms.

[00:05:12] Cathy Nesbitt: Yes. She was a teacher and she was going away for the summer. So she wanted, so she needed someone to care for her worms for the summer.

[00:05:19] Yvonne Heimann: So I, yes, my grandparents compost and all the things. I'm one of the bad ones. So pretty much what that means is feeding them because by the, if she's gone for the summer, that timeframe is too long.

[00:05:36] They would have worked through all of the the biomaterial and they wouldn't have any food. That's it. Got it. So I'm guessing that was like the first time you are exposed to worm sitting.

[00:05:49] Cathy Nesbitt: That was my first time. And like when we do anything new, it's weird. But I was like, as an avid gardener and composter, I knew the value, but I didn't [00:06:00] really want to do it.

[00:06:00] And I also come from a school that we should do things for ourself. Like everyone's going to tell you, Oh, don't do it. Blah, blah, blah. You won't like that. Okay. Yes.

[00:06:08] Yvonne Heimann: They're fierce.

[00:06:16] Cathy Nesbitt: I think we need to try things for ourself, right? And see, maybe it is for me and look at that. If I didn't try it. If I said, Oh, I don't want worms in my house and let the fear overcome. I never would have had this cool life. Right? So I did that worm thing and really fascinating. It was a disaster. It was, I had fruit flies.

[00:06:34] I would throw the food and I was like, open up the thing. But I had to keep them alive for my friend. The fruit flies don't cause any problem for people. They just bug us, right? They're bugs. We call them bugs. So they're just doing their job, but they don't carry any disease. They just they're decomposers that, okay.

[00:06:52] Just to get that out of the way. So I had a house full of fruit flies. And at the end of the summer, I separated the worms in the compost. I had big gloves. I was, [00:07:00] it was, oh, I was like, oh, I'm never doing this again, but I'll just buy the worm.

[00:07:06] Yvonne Heimann: Audience, you already know what kind of business she is running now.

[00:07:10] I would recommend, don't say never. You might actually in the future do it again as Cathy is living proof of this.

[00:07:20] Cathy Nesbitt: Okay. So that was '93, then 2000, I got my psych degree, got a job at the group home. They didn't compost. They had 10 homes and a farm and they didn't compost.

[00:07:31] Yvonne Heimann: They already have a farm, so they are already doing something, but they don't have a compost.

[00:07:38] Cathy Nesbitt: They don't compost. They put it all out to the curb, like the garbage. And I was like, so I questioned them. I said why don't you compost? And they said, Oh, we don't need the fertilizer because we have cows. What? What are the kids? Don't bring the cows into this. And it was the first time that I realized people don't connect what they're doing here.

[00:07:59] They are creating [00:08:00] all of this food waste and then they're paying all of this money to get rid of it. When they could, so I said, if you don't need the fertilizer, you could sell it first of all, but you could just spread it on your ground. It's not toxic. You're going to save money. You're going to give your client something to do, because you have this work program anyway, a vocational program at the farm.

[00:08:23] Okay, so there we go. I propose that and the greenhouse manager said, why don't, what about worm composting? There it is again, right? The universe putting another in my place and have you ever done something, Yvonne, where you were like, so excited about it, but then it didn't really work out.

[00:08:42] You're like, I'm not going to do that. But then somebody says, Hey, Yvonne, why don't we do that thing?

[00:08:50] Yvonne Heimann: It comes back around and it comes back around

[00:08:52] Cathy Nesbitt: and you get that feeling, right? You're like, Oh, last time I that's what happened. I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach, oh [00:09:00] no. But then I was like, Oh, wait a minute.

[00:09:02] This is an institution. They're not getting worms tomorrow. So I did research.

[00:09:08] Yvonne Heimann: I love how you brought the whole corporate thinking into that. It's Oh yeah, sure. We can say yes, because I know they're not going to show up with worms tomorrow. Oh my God.

[00:09:19] Cathy Nesbitt: I have to have meetings, find the money. It's going to. So I was like, okay, yeah, I'm an action person. And anyone listening, if you want to have a business, you got to take action. Like you can have all the ideas you want. If you don't act on them, they're just wishes, right? So I came home, I did research about worms and because I was introduced already, I knew about them.

[00:09:44] This was my second introduction. I discovered the magic of these worms. They eat half their weight per day in food scraps. So a pound, you would have, say, a pound of worms, half a pound of food scraps per day, three to four pounds per week. They [00:10:00] have five hearts each. Eight hundred to a thousand worms in a pound.

[00:10:04] That's four to five thousand hearts in a pound of worms. Wow! They convert what we call garbage into black gold for nutrient rich foods. Fertilizers, so we can grow more nutrient rich food so we can be healthier people and not take as many medications and be healthier and happier. And wow, I was like, wow, everybody needs worms.

[00:10:28] And that's how I started my business. I didn't realize that people don't buy what they need. They buy what they want.

[00:10:36] Yvonne Heimann: Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest lessons every business owner has to learn, if they haven't yet. Where it's like a lot of us entrepreneurs that start a business, we are solution oriented.

[00:10:51] We already know the problem. We already and it's here's your solution. But people don't buy solution. No. people don't buy [00:11:00] solution. People buy, take away my pain. It's a different language. It's a different thinking, which can be quite a struggle. So how did you package. Everybody needs worms in their home until, yes, I'm actually gonna put a worm farm into my one bedroom apartment.

[00:11:20] Cathy Nesbitt: I would exhibit, I had a table wherever I could, farmers markets, trade shows, whatever, anything, all kinds of markets, wherever I could have a table, educating people. And then I have a psych degree, so I'm fascinated by people.

[00:11:35] People were saying, Ooh, worms in the house. And then I was like, wow, how am I going to do this? How? This is hard. What is happening? And then I thought, Oh, why don't I start doing school workshops? So I started to educate. I needed to create the market. That's what happened. I needed to, create the need for what I had.

[00:11:54] I really needed to create the want actually.

[00:11:57] Yvonne Heimann: And I love how you brought up [00:12:00] educating the market, which is pretty much marketing, which is what I'm doing on YouTube and all the things. So it applies to every single business, but I also love how you went school workshops, because in my head is, I'm not going after the adult that already have the perception of, Ew, worms are weird.

[00:12:22] Doing school workshops with kids that first of all, always love worms. Let's be honest. There is an age frame where they are so excited and so fascinated with worms, no matter how disgusting they might be, because there are some weird worms out there. Get them excited. Educate them and let them do the job with their parents.

[00:12:44] Is that what happened or am I just imagining things?

[00:12:46] Cathy Nesbitt: That's what I thought. I was like, okay, why would I go after the adults? They already they've already said, Ooh, they've already said no. They've already made up their mind. They've already made up their mind. And so that's going to be really hard to try and change them.

[00:12:59] So let [00:13:00] me educate the kids and then I thought now I need just need to wait 20 years to till they have buying power you be I made it. Can you imagine I would say

[00:13:11] Yvonne Heimann: yes. I don't know if that's necessarily a feasible business plan though, because you need to pay bills now too.

[00:13:21] Cathy Nesbitt: Well. I was paid. I'm well compensated for my workshops.

[00:13:25] I'm well compensated for bringing the knowledge, because it is knowledge and it's if we don't know about it, one of my favorite expressions is without awareness action is impossible and I came up with that and it has to do with anything, but I came up with that about my business because if you don't know you can have worms in the house, then you're not calling me.

[00:13:46] That's bad for business. Yeah. So workshops and then I, just at like entrepreneurs, you have and flow and you add things, you're like, Oh, what else can I add? And you add on and add on. So I've [00:14:00] got a whole whack of things that, you know. People that are sustainable. And my three strands are the worms, education and worms, and actually worms.

[00:14:10] Sprouts grow your own. I have a sprout grower and I met the men that sold that sprout grower. My very first event that I was exhibiting at 2002. So I've been eating sprouts for the same amount of time that I've been selling worms and I've only been selling the sprouter since 2012, but I use her since 22 2002 and sprouts are like another beautiful magic thing that are low cost.

[00:14:36] People can grow their own. They're instant farmers. Like we want instant gratification. Who has time for a garden? You can grow sprouts though. I don't know.

[00:14:45] Yvonne Heimann: Has room or has room for a garden. I'm like, you easily can grow sprouts on your kitchen counter.

[00:14:53] Cathy Nesbitt: Exactly. And then the laughter. So the laughter came about because in, in [00:15:00] 2012, although I'd heard a lot of times I wasn't paying attention, they say in business to pay attention to your clients, listen to what they're saying and what do they want?

[00:15:08] I wasn't, I was like no, you need this. It's important. Come on. So I was really probably pushing them away with my urgent energy. Cause I just felt it. I was like, this is a solution. We need this. I knew, like you said, entrepreneurs have solution, but that's not what people buy.

[00:15:26] They buy stuff to get out of pain. Yeah. Hello drugs and alcohol. Sorry.

[00:15:33] Yvonne Heimann: Oh no, I'm like I'm in there with you. It's especially living in the States, coming from Germany and so much is being done to just take care of the result of an issue, AKA Mets, rather than diving into the reason for that manifestation.

[00:15:54] I'm there with you.

[00:15:55] Cathy Nesbitt: Alright, thank you. So 2012, 1 more person said, Ooh, worms in the house. [00:16:00] And for some reason that one got in and I felt it. Oh, my gosh, I questioned everything. I was like, Oh, wow. 10 years. What's happening here? I don't know what's going on. How am I going to do this? This is so hard.

[00:16:13] Why don't I just get a job? Who would have me? Don't tell me what to do. Entrepreneurs are not employable if they've been in it too long there. Yeah, the employee mentality has been bred out and now it's like you. I think we're really survivors. I think that's how I would talk about entrepreneurs.

[00:16:32] For the most part we're bootstrapping it and we're like, I, I making things happen and yeah, we make things happen. We do make

[00:16:38] Yvonne Heimann: How did you pivot? So you finally were able to receive that. Ooh, worms in the house. Yeah. You were able to receive that. You are an entrepreneur, so you did something.

[00:16:49] What did you do?

[00:16:51] Cathy Nesbitt: Yeah, the very next day I was introduced to Laughter Yoga, and Laughter Yoga saved my worm business and changed my life, and now it's something that I do, [00:17:00] too.

[00:17:00] Yvonne Heimann: Oh yeah, how did Laughter Yoga save your business?

[00:17:04] Cathy Nesbitt: Because when people said, ew, worms in your house, I took it personal and empathic.

[00:17:09] So I was just like, Oh, they're saying, Ooh, maybe I took it like, Oh, Ooh, it's about me or just whatever. It's my baby, right? The worms are my baby. So it was personal. What laughter allowed me to do was become more present when we're laughing. Laughter is the best medicine. So we're fully present.

[00:17:26] It's we're right. We're flooded with the love drugs. So it opens creativity and it allowed me to not take personal the things that people were saying, like it, it's a beautiful gift for entrepreneurs to laugh rather than bottle things up and get stressed or anybody, because it's a really stressful time.

[00:17:47] It's a really like extraordinarily stressful, even though all these tools are here, we can't employ the tools when we're stressed, because we're in stress. We have to get out of stress [00:18:00]

[00:18:00] Yvonne Heimann: and being in stress. We are less creative. I'm like, I feel it with my YouTube channel. It's, I cannot be in a, even in a positive stress situation where it's like we're getting stuff done.

[00:18:12] We are in a big launch or whatever. I am not creative in a sense of coming up with new ideas, coming up with new videos when I'm in stress mode, when I'm nice and balanced, I have my coffee in the morning, I got to do my workout and all the things, and I'm just like content. That's when the magic is happening, when I can just be me and not worrying about all the things or what other people think or do or say or all this stuff.

[00:18:40] So really being able to find that space. And it sounds like that's what Laugh Yoga did for you.

[00:18:50] Cathy Nesbitt: Yes.

[00:18:51] Yvonne Heimann: It's a magic place to be at.

[00:18:54] Cathy Nesbitt: It's so beautiful, like laughter's the best medicine. And my next question is it wasn't a question. [00:19:00] Have you had your daily dose? Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins, like truly the happy hormones, versus cortisol and adrenaline when we're stressed.

[00:19:12] We're in charge of our own pharma. And I think the most important reason, all so creating the love drugs is so beautiful because like for me, I float around each day. I'm awash in these. I just feel good. I feel peaceful and it's and I just feel different than I did before. And I didn't know before, because when you're in the stress, you're in it.

[00:19:32] We're in a perpetual state of stress today. So we don't know what it's like to not be that and I can just let your viewers or your listeners know it's just such a peaceful and it's our birthright to feel joyful and creative and connected, not depressed and sad and disconnected.

[00:19:54] Yvonne Heimann: And it can take a little bit.

[00:19:55] It's been a journey for me coming out of having been in fight or [00:20:00] flight for ages, way too long. Balancing my hormones back out, getting into a level where my body is not fighting me because my body just thinks, okay, we need to fight somebody here in just a minute, getting out of that and really getting back into happy hormones, balancing my hormone household and all the things makes all the difference.

[00:20:24] Is stress going to happen. Yeah, we have our own business, stuff is going to happen, but finding that general balance, I realize, especially working with my energy coach as of late, I realize how fast I bounce back, how fast I don't think take things personal. If somebody says, Oh, this video is shit.

[00:20:45] Yeah. That's your perception. Cool. If somebody says, this is what I want. Yeah. That doesn't align with me, so you need to find somebody else. It is easier to deal with outside influences that might not [00:21:00] align with what we expected them to be. And just be okay with what it is.

[00:21:08] Cathy Nesbitt: Absolutely.

[00:21:10] Yvonne Heimann: It's just so much more fun.

[00:21:12] And with that, you are helping people have more fun. You told me in the intake form, you do zoom laughter Tuesdays, tell my audience about it. And where can they find that?

[00:21:24] Cathy Nesbitt: Yes. It might be a little early in California, but there's early people. It's 9:30 AM Eastern. 30, 30 minutes of super fun self care as a laughter yoga teacher, I incorporate tapping, brain gym, other healing modalities.

[00:21:39] I truly want people to get out of stress and into joy. And so this is just, and of course we do laughter yoga too, which laughter is, Laughter Yoga is simply, it's not doing yoga and laughing. It's laughing for the health of it. Deep diaphragmatic breathing and the practice. And I would like to just comment on what you [00:22:00] said about, it, it might be take a while.

[00:22:02] It took a while for us to get here. If you have a chronic illness, if you're inflamed, if you're always sick, if you always have digestive issues, take a look. Pain is not normal. If you're, if there's something askew in your body and you're not feeling right, take time to notice because we only have one, one beautiful health, like one life, one body.

[00:22:27] We can't eat our money.

[00:22:30] Yvonne Heimann: And if our body is saying something is wrong, then dig deeper. Where's it coming from? What's happening? And I am so happy you help people do that. And with that, guys, as always, all of Cathy's links are going to be In the description down below, wherever you're watching, listening, or reading this episode, we got the links ready for you.

[00:22:54] Go join one of her zoom laughter Tuesdays. Cathy, thanks so much [00:23:00] for joining me and thanks so much for putting the worms out there.

[00:23:05] Cathy Nesbitt: Oh, I loved it Yvonne. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Join me any Tuesday.

[00:23:11] Yvonne Heimann: Thanks everybody. See you in the next episode.