Overcoming Doubts and Doubters with Kara Goldin

A Personal Note From Orion

Have you heard of the movie Joy? It’s about a woman named Joy, played by the talented Jennifer Lawrence who’s trying to make it in life by selling products. It’s a rags to riches story about victory against all odds. It’s a film that garnered mixed reviews, but I personally love it. Stories like that feel so close to home.

Have you ever persevered so much over something in your life? Now you’re glad you did because it brought you to where you are today? My guest, Kara Goldin, and I have our personal stories to share on this episode, and we’d love to share them with you.

Kara is the Founder and CEO of Hint, Inc., best known for its award-winning Hint water, the leading unsweetened flavored water. She’s also the author of UNDAUNTED: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters. She is an active speaker & writer and hosts the podcast The Kara Goldin Show, where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs, and other disruptors across various industries.

To me, she is a real-life Joy, and her story inspires everyone to live life undaunted. Without further ado, on with the show!

In This Episode

[01:02] – Orion introduces Kara Goldin, the Founder, and CEO of Hint, Inc., best known for its award-winning Hint® Water, the leading unsweetened flavored water.
[04:16] – Kara explains why she calls herself an “accidental entrepreneur.”
[09:46] – How did Kara handle all the rejections during his journey of launching her product Hint Water?
[14:21] – Kara explains why she did not choose Walmart as one of the first companies to sell her product.
[20:03] – Kara shares one of the inspirations in writing the book, UNDAUNTED: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters.
[25:44] – Kara tells the story of when Starbucks had to replace Hint for another product that they’ll be selling and how that situation led her to a bigger opportunity.
[30:29] – Kara describes the impact of creating a relationship with her customers through her own channel.
[34:53] – What to expect when you read Kara’s book, UNDAUNTED: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters?
[41:51] – How does Kara manage her time being a CEO of her own business and a mother to her family?
[48:08] – Follow Kara Goldin on her social media accounts and visit her website KaraGoldin.com to learn more about her and check out her book, UNDAUNTED.

Jump to Links and Resources

About Today’s Show

Hey, Kara. Welcome to Stellar Life Podcast. It’s an honor having you here. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you. Before we begin, can you share a little bit about yourself and your passion? How did you get to be the incredible entrepreneur and teacher that you are?

You’re so nice. I call myself an accidental entrepreneur because I didn’t plan on being an entrepreneur. But I had this idea for a beverage, water that just tasted better because I didn’t love the taste of water. I aspired to be a water drinker but I wasn’t because it was just boring. So I started slicing up fruit and throwing it in water, it helped me come off of my huge diet soda addiction that I had for years, I didn’t even call it an addiction. But when I was trying to get off of it after realizing all the crazy ingredients that I was putting into my body, then that’s when I got a lot healthier. I lost a bunch of weight, my skin which had terrible adult acne for years suddenly cleared up, and my energy levels went up. And so anyway, lots of “Aha!” moments just by giving up something that I thought was healthy and better for me. And then when I started slicing fruits and throwing it in water, I said, “Why isn’t there a product like this on the market that just has fruit with water? Everything has some sort of sugar or diet sweeteners in it.”

Frankly, I kept making excuses for the fact that there was no product like this on the market and thinking that I was shopping at the wrong stores or something and looked everywhere. I looked in California and New York but couldn’t find it. That’s when I decided, “Gosh, it would be really fun to get this product on the market.” When my friends heard that I was trying to get a product into my local Whole Foods, they said, “That’s so cool that you’re launching this company.” And I said, “Wait, I’m launching a company? No, I’m just trying to get a product on the shelf at Whole Foods.” I always tell people those lines. Sometimes if you psych yourself out or you put it on, you make it a lot bigger than you need it to be. You won’t move, it’ll paralyze you in many ways. And so that was my story that I started with just this idea that I saw that was helping me get healthier. I thought if I could take that out to other people, then maybe I could help them get healthy too. That was the start of it.

Don't let anyone crush your dreams! Whatever you want to achieve, no matter how hard it might seem, you owe it to yourself to live the life you want. Click To Tweet

But I’d worked for entrepreneurial people, I’d worked for a startup that was a spin-out of Apple, that was Steve Jobs’ idea, that was doing CD-ROM shopping, that’s what they called it back in 1995. Before that, I had worked for a later stage startup but still very much a startup which was the brand CNN, and then I also worked for America Online. So I’ve worked for different stage startups as small as five people to thousands of people when I came on board. I think the consistent thread has disruptive ideas that changed the industry, never anything around health, but one that could help a lot of people in some way. That was really what I saw and what I was doing with this product that I had developed in my kitchen.

Wow. Did you ever imagine that you’ll become who you are today?

No, I’m still a consumer. I’m a mom, I’m having fun every single day. I’m probably busier than I necessarily want to be at times. My big kind of “Aha!” moment was “be careful what you wish for.” Between running a company, launching a book, and doing a ton of speaking events, what drives me is helping people, whether it’s with my product, Hint Water, or some of the extensions that we’ve done around sunscreen, and now the book. The consumer’s message is “Thank you so much, you’ve helped me.” And that to me is a really powerful thing and something that I like to share with people, especially people who are trying to find their purpose. Because I think if you start with how can I do something that I love that I have an idea for, but in addition, figure out a way to incorporate help. And I think that it’s a powerful thing, that even when there’s bad days or a pandemic, or something pops into your life that you can’t control in some way, having consumers say, “Thank you for helping me.” I remember most of these people. They’re just touched by a product that they enjoy and they smile over it, and that’s a powerful thing to know that I founded it, and I’m running that company.

That’s amazing. But you said your friends were so happy for you when you launched it on Whole Foods. This was not an easy journey because you got many no’s.

Totally.

So much rejection. The biggest thing for me is the fear of rejection. How did you handle that?

It’s an interesting thing because I think that the more you get rejected, and you sort of stand up and pick yourself back up and brush yourself off, however you want to visualize that, the easier it gets. Instead of thinking, “They don’t want me. They don’t want my product,” you instead think, “They’re not ready for it. They just don’t understand it in some way.” Sometimes, that is because you haven’t explained it properly, or they just don’t need it in their life. Even when I started Hint 15 years ago, I think about this a lot, especially through the last year of the challenging times that we’re all in. That the consumer, a couple of industries have sped up. The health industry has sped up over the last year. People are more focused on health. Whether that’s finding a vaccine, or trying not to get sick, or wearing a mask, or whatever that is. I think people are looking at ways that they can take control of the situation, and making sure that they get healthy and stay healthy.

I’ve been saying for the last 15 years that if you look at what you’re drinking and start drinking water and it should be clean water, which is a whole other topic. But I think that is the biggest start for many people, if they start drinking water they will feel better and they will start getting healthy. For example, you’re really tired, and you don’t know why. I mean, dehydration can cause you to be tired or not feel well.

Thirsty as we speak.

Yeah. And so I wish I could give you a Hint. We are launching our new one-liter bottles next week.

It’s not enough to declare your desires. You must believe what is destined for you will come true.

Congratulations.

That I’m drinking. Anyway, it’s a category that I think has definitely come to focus but 15 years ago when I launched and I was saying, “I gave up diet soda, I’m drinking water and got healthier.” People would say, “Wait, what’s wrong with diet soda?” Slowly over the years, I think more and more people have focused on it, they’ve gotten the memo or whatever.

Must be so hard to be the first one to say, “This is not good for you,” and people are so.

It is. It’s something that I taught before.

They’re brainwashed. They’ve been told over and over again that it is good for them and its diet.

Totally.

They see all those beautiful models with their wavy hair, drinking Diet Coke and feeling amazing. Subconsciously, the image shows that it is the best thing ever. Why would I drink water?

Yeah, and that’s the thing. This is not just true in the beverage industry, and my company, but in any industry. I always share with entrepreneurs when they tell me that the idea that I have, there’s nothing like this out there. It’s the thing that I’ve realized because that was me 15 years ago. When you’re launching a new company, that is one thing. But when you’re launching a company in an industry and no one has ever done it; unsweetened flavored water, that’s a new category. The problem with new categories is that, while you may be the only one there, if you’re reliant on a buyer in a store, or you’re reliant on the consumer purchasing it, you are at their mercy, and they need to be educated. And so how do you get the consumer educated or the buyer at the stores educated? You have to have money. You have to go out and market it, and that is the challenge.

And I also think that you can’t buy your way into educating people either because I think consumers want to discover it. I was just sharing this story with somebody the other day, we had a huge opportunity early on with Walmart, and we are in Walmart now, we’re in Sam’s Club, we’re in all stores across the US. But I had made a very conscious decision not to start in Walmart, not because I didn’t like Walmart, or was being snobby about it in any way, but I didn’t believe that brands are developed in Walmart. And I remember thinking that.

You can say that again.

They’re just not developed there. When you grow and once you have mapped other distributions, there’s always an order that goes into play. When you have a consumer product, Walmart is not the place where consumers go for trial. And they may not know that but it’s something that I’ve realized over the years. I’ve cautioned against it to entrepreneurs. I think it’s really important because I just see these brands just die. They get an initial order. That’s great because there’s a lot of Walmarts but it’s not a place where the consumer wants to experience it.

Sometimes it's in the challenging times that you discover who you're meant to be. Click To Tweet

You are playing a longer game.

It’s a longer game. And again, like the initial to have PO’s for millions of dollars. I mean, it’s amazing. All of a sudden, you’re sitting there, and that’s not the place where the consumer is going to come, they want to discover it at Whole Foods, and then see it at Walmart or Target. So we finally decided, at the end of 2019, that we were going into Walmart in early 2020. And it was going to be a huge year, but a lot of people said, “Oh, like why did you decide to go in there?” There were two reasons and the brand was ready. Many places across the US don’t have access to Whole Foods or even Target. Walmart is the store in a lot of these smaller towns across America. We’re also available online at Amazon and on our site at drinkhint.com. The other thing that I realized is that if I want to give everyone access to better-tasting water, then there are communities where this is the store that they shop at, and they should be able to have access to it.

So many people have said to me, “Oh, you know, to get healthy and get a better product, you would buy at Whole Foods. It’s just so expensive.” And I said, “It just depends. You can get Hint at Walmart for most days, like a buck a bottle.” It’s not outrageous. It’s a great product, and it’s the same product that you would get at Whole Foods. Anyway, that’s probably a different topic, but I think it’s one that’s interesting.

What was the journey of getting from it? No, no, no to yes, yes, yes! Definitely yes.

Undaunted by Kara Goldin

Well, I think that the key thing was early on, I felt that I was getting a lot of no’s. And my book that just came out is called Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters. And I talked about being human and how I had been running AOL, e-commerce, and shopping partnerships. And even though I had come from a place of, I was a senior executive and I was one of the few females actually at the time, that sort of level. And it was a great job in tech, I was there early and sort of saw the hockey stick, and I enjoyed it. I was on an airplane way too much. I’d started my family and had three kids under the age of four, when I left.

Oh my god, wow.

It’s crazy. I thought I got to go home for a little while and just be. And so I did that for a couple of years. And then I was ready to get back into work and do something outside of the house. And that’s when I had this idea for Hint when I decided to get healthier but it was interesting, because as I was going out, I was putting myself out there trying to learn this industry because I didn’t know this industry. I hadn’t been into beverages. So when you do that, I mean, maybe they don’t say the word “No,” but I was asking the questions, “How do I get a product on the shelf at Whole Foods?” Some people would talk to me, some people wouldn’t talk to me. Because it was obvious, I didn’t have the experience, I’m asking kind of dumb questions. You’re in a place where you feel uncomfortable, and again, call it “No”, call it having doubts, you’ve got your doubters around you. But what I found was that somewhere in there, the more you started asking questions, you would run into people who would be helpful. And then you would run into kind of success stories, little glimpses.

And that’s why people have always said to me big statements like, “Never look back.” And I’ve always felt uncomfortable about that statement, because I’ve thought, “I don’t know, if you look back, you can learn a lot of things about what you’ve accomplished.” And so those no’s, I did get them, but how about instead of looking at the opportunity to look at the fact that maybe there were some no’s, there’s always going to be no’s, there’s always going to be people that are going to kind of tell you that you’re never going to be able to be successful, but also prove them wrong. Part of the reason why I came out with this book was to share my story of woes and to share that Hint is the largest non-alcoholic beverage in the country that it does not have a relationship with Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, or Snapple. That’s a big deal. We started from nothing and I didn’t have the experience. My hope in writing this book was to share with people, and let them hear my stories of successes, failures, and learnings along the way and know that, “Gosh, if she can do it, maybe I can do it too.” That was my purpose.

That’s beautiful.

Thank you.

A long time ago, I arrived in New York and I studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater. I studied there for two years, I was very lucky because back in the days, they only accepted a small percentage of second years. I did the first year and the second year, and I was so excited to be the next Angelina Jolie or whatever. I didn’t know that auditions were so hard for me and because I’m from Israel back then, I think my accent was a little thicker. Still, you can hear it. Casting directors told me, “Well, you know, where you’re from, maybe the biggest role you can play will be a terrorist.” And I believe them, I believe that I was too old, I was 26 at a time. They believed that because of where I’m from, I won’t be able to land a major role. And so I eventually gave up, I didn’t do what you did, which was to block it and follow your dream.

In retrospect, it just put me on a different path in my life. Now I’m a coach, and I’m helping people. So I’m fulfilling my purpose differently. But there is always this little sensation of, “What if I didn’t give up? What if I kept going?” The funny thing is Wonder Woman is Israeli, and Wonder Woman is the iconic American superhero. And she’s Israeli, and she’s got the thick Israeli accent.

Yeah.

She changed their reality. She manifested her reality so beautifully. In the first movie, the cast had to learn her accent. So all the Amazons had to learn the way she speaks. So they will sound like her. This will be the accent of Wonder Woman.

I love it. I love it.

So I’m looking at that. And I’m like, wow. And I’ve done things in my life that I’m looking back. I’m like, “Yeah, this would never have happened if I didn’t believe in my dream.” I manifested my husband, I manifested my child. The doctors gave me a 5% chance to conceive and I just worked with the Creator, and I decided for myself, this is going to be 95%. And now I have this beautiful boy. He’s a year and four months old.

Congrats.

I understand what it is to follow your dream. But you know, for those dreams of manifesting my man and my child, I think when the desire is so strong, you just block all the noises outside and you say, “No, this is what I want.” I think God puts dreams in our minds because we have the possibility to fulfill them.

Block the noise and just focus on your dreams. Sometimes hearing criticism can leave you feeling unmotivated.

I think that the other piece that I always say to people is sometimes when you’re in challenging times, or you look at, you got to the US because you thought you were going to do this theater program. There were messages that came at you and then you made decisions to do something else, but then you also met your partner. And would you have met them?

Probably not.

And I always think about those things and whether it’s related to a spouse or whether it’s related to a job, or whatever. One of the stories that I share in the book is about a story involving Hint where we got into a bunch of Starbucks stores. We got into 11,000 Starbucks stores which was very exciting, and something that we had been looking forward to. After six months, we had asked them going into the relationship, what was success. We felt like we had done our homework and had all the goals and something to strive towards and within six months, we hit those goals. And then a year and a half into the relationship, we’re doing great, almost triple what we were supposed to be doing, then we got the email from the new buyer. It said that we were being removed from the stores in two weeks, and so I said, “There must be some misunderstanding. We are excelling, and definitely doing great and so why are we getting removed?” And they said, “We’re sorry. We understand that you’ve been doing well. Unfortunately, we’re gonna put something else into the case that has a higher ring and a higher margin. We’ll make more money off sandwiches and salads.” And so somewhere in there, it made great business sense for them, but not for me. I had millions of dollars worth of inventory that was going to have to be destroyed because it was going to go bad. In my warehouse, and here I had investors. It was really bad.

How do you handle stuff like that?

I think it’s interesting, because when you’re in it when you’re sitting there in that situation, I mean, I don’t cry very often. But that was a point when I cried, I thought, “Oh, my God, what am I gonna do?” And then when I got a hold of myself, after a couple of days, I went back to my team and I said, “Listen, it’s bad. I got to figure out what to do with this inventory, I’ve got to figure out how to talk to my investors about it. Everything about it is bad. But what I will say is that they paid us on time and over the last year and a half, and they exposed us to a lot of customers in places that we wouldn’t have been because there’s a Starbucks in every city.” So we were very fortunate to be able to have that situation. Now I have to figure out how I can tell those consumers that we’re no longer in there and that we’re not out of business, because we weren’t in very many stores.

But then the other piece of it, that kind of hit home and something that I frequently share with entrepreneurs is that 40% of my business was sitting in the hands of Starbucks. That was why it hurt. If it was 5% of my business, it would stink, but wouldn’t be the end. I mean, this was almost the end. It was 40% of my overall business, it was a huge hit. So that is something that I always share with people. First of all, the fact that it was 40% of my overall business. That was stupid. That was just dumb. Why did I allow it to get that big without focusing on other pieces of business to grow? People have said to me, “Well, you’re not going to hold the business back from growing.” I said, “No, but you also have to make it a priority to go get other accounts.” Because they could discontinue or in some cases, not Starbucks, but in some cases, you’ve got a retailer who could go out of business, and you don’t understand what’s going on behind the scenes. It seems like it’s doing fine but that stuff happens.

For me, there were so many lessons. One, putting too many eggs in one basket, but then I was just kind of thinking I’m absorbing and still trying to figure out what to do with my inventory. And then I got a phone call from another Seattle company called Amazon. Amazon was starting this grocery business and they said, “We are interested in getting your product in our grocery offerings, and how soon could you get it to us?” And I said, “Actually, I have a bunch in my warehouse.” I didn’t know if I should share with him that we had been discontinued from Starbucks, when he said to me, “Oh, I buy a bottle of blackberry Hint every morning at Starbucks in my building.”

Dare to be a little bit uncomfortable. We often live a life where we choose the easy route, but there's no growth in that. Click To Tweet

Wow.

Here’s the buyer, and he was a huge fan and a consumer. First of all, I was excited to get my product into Amazon but I didn’t realize it right then. About a month later, I caught myself saying, that’s why we were in Starbucks. Because there was this bigger opportunity, there was a bigger possibility. And I think that and I share the story and it even extends further.

But I have a question for you.

Yeah.

Did you tell them?

Tell Amazon?

Yeah, about the?

No, I never told them and they never asked. He never asked. He didn’t say, “Hey, what happened to Starbucks or anything?” He just started, maybe he was getting his supply now that we may have fallen. But it’s interesting because it was also that moment from Amazon, that about a year into the business, we realized that selling on Amazon was great. We were getting a lot of people buying it on Amazon and shipping it to their home. But the buyer said to us that he loved the uniqueness of Hint because the consumer who was buying Hint on Amazon was different from the other beverage offerings that they had. That this consumer was buying diabetes monitors or healthier products. That definitely said that they had this like health halo over them. And I thought that was fascinating. And I said, “Could you give me some customer emails? Because I’d love to reach out to them?” And he said, “Oh, no, Jeff Bezos won’t give customer emails. That’s his business.”

It was that moment when I realized even at Starbucks when I was getting discontinued, that I couldn’t reach out to my customer. And then I thought about all the stores, Whole Foods and Target, and everybody else who was selling our product, and lots of other products, that they controlled the relationship with the customer. So I thought, if I want a relationship with my customer, not only to talk to them and ask them questions about how they’re thinking about things and overall, who knew that a pandemic was coming, but be able to when stores were challenged or shut down, or whatever, I was able to sell directly to them. It was at that moment when I realized, so it’s 55% of our overall business today is drinkhint.com, and we’re still at Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, we’re in lots of stores, we’re not in Starbucks.

But I go back to this point of challenging time because so often we don’t want to talk about these challenging times, maybe we don’t want to share them with people. Maybe it’s appropriate to share with people, maybe it isn’t. But I think in your little head, instead of kicking yourself, instead think about it as lessons you learned and how you do better. Trusting the journey is another really important point because it’s a roadmap. It is a journey. When I look back, and I’m looking back and in your journey that you’ve shared with me, you’ve got from here to here because of XYZ, but then you went here. And it’s almost like there is a map out there. You don’t know what it is. All you can do is look back and connect the dots. But it’s fascinating and so fun to me to be able to go back and look at that with people.

The purpose of running a business is to improve the lives of others.

That was a beautiful story, by the way.

Thank you.

Thank you for the beautiful story. I just want to talk to you about your book, Undaunted. Why did you write it and what do you want the readers to take with them when they’re reading that book?

So often we live a life of the easy route. Even when things are going super well, and you can look at it in a lot of different examples. Maybe you’re inside of a company, and you’re growing up in that company and taking on a management position, and then vice president and you do all of this all along the way. Maybe you become the CEO, you become less likely, the more sort of great stuff that happens to go out and challenge yourself and be a little bit uncomfortable, have maybe a little fear, know that there could be some failure going on. And so many people have said to me over the years like, “Are you okay with taking risks?” Or they’ve made big statements about entrepreneurs in general how they’re risk-takers. And, you know, that’s not them in some way. And how do you get that way? Or were you born that way?

You do seem like a unicorn.

But it’s interesting. It’s stuck in between and they consciously put themselves into situations that are really about seeking education not just going back to school but also not being afraid of putting themselves into a room where they don’t know anything. There are people out there that don’t want to do that, that they want to be the smartest one in the room and the most knowledgeable person. Versus actually throwing themselves into a situation, no matter what their level is, or their celebrity status, or whatever they want to go in and learn. Those are the people that are the most interesting. I would even venture to say happiest in some ways and the ones that live on undaunted.

It was interesting, I was on a call yesterday and Ashton Kutcher was on the call and was on the keynote. And it was interesting, some of the questions I just wanted to hear him speak and I know he’s done a lot of angel investments in different things. Obviously, he’s an amazing actor. It was interesting to hear him talk about his journey, and how he grew up on a farm in Iowa, around lots of cattle. And somebody had talked to him about some of these brands and products like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods and some of the stuff that they’re doing that is kind of against cattle. At the end of the day, it’s vegans, all of that. But in addition, it sort of goes against what he grew up in, sort of thinking that this is the way and he’s, I can’t remember, he’s an investor in one of the companies but he talked about how he was uncomfortable learning about this because this is how he was raised. This is how his family made money. And I thought, here’s the person who could go and do a movie tomorrow, and yet, he’s put himself into positions and situations where he doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand that it goes against what he’s used to hearing. Again, that is living undaunted.

That is somebody that is challenging themselves in some way, whether it’s physically or it’s mental. I think that he’s a great example of somebody that I see doing this and maybe not even conscious that he is doing it. But again, I think that there are so many people that don’t do it to your point where it’s just easier just to have things easy. And I think that is such an important thing that we need to realize about ourselves that we are on this journey. Oftentimes, we put ourselves into situations where we’re going to go learn, or we’re going to challenge ourselves in some ways, and we learn a lot about ourselves. That doesn’t say that you’re going to be successful, you may fail, you may have to, if you’re going right, you may have to make kind of gut decisions and go left but you’re gonna learn a lot about yourself and learn about what you’re more capable of doing than maybe you would have anticipated.

Wow. Tony Robbins says that all growth happens outside of your comfort zone.

I totally agree.

The more you stand back up and brush yourself off again after being rejected, the easier the challenges get. Click To Tweet

I know in my life every time I was very uncomfortable and I had a breakthrough. The more uncomfortable, the bigger the breakthrough.

I totally agree. And I think it’s something that we just don’t think about. And I think we also live in a society where the older we get, the higher level we get, the more success we get, we’re often kind of put into a position whether we place ourselves into that position, as I touched on earlier, or society does. And it’s interesting because it takes a lot of courage to step away from that and go do something else. You and I met at Joe Polish‘s conference. I don’t know, was it a conference or a mastermind?

Genius Network Mastermind.

Yeah. And when I heard that he was taking the year off to go and explore.

Oh, my God, this was like, mind-blowing. Like it’s almost like, “How dare he?” “Wow, how dare he” in admiration.

But I mean, he knows that about himself. And I’m sure he’s going to come back with all of these things that he learned about himself.

Yeah.

And I think that it’s awesome on so many levels. So anyway, I run into people. When you become conscious of living a life of being undaunted, I think that’s another piece that you notice in other people. They may not call it undaunted but then when they read my book, and as Joe has and picked it up, they’re enamored by it, primarily because they believe in it, and that’s what they want to be doing.

Beautiful.

Thank you.

Beautiful. How did you manage to create all this success, and be a learner, and go to all the conferences, and speak, and write a book, and run this humongous company, and be a mother? How do you mix that? How do you work it out?

You know, I think the most important thing is that you need to do what you love. It is finding that thing that you not only love. But it’s interesting when you’re doing something valuable for other people, you do great work, but you also find time to do great work. It’s fascinating, I didn’t get this when my kids were really little. I learned later. I talked about my son, who’s now 18, in my book. When he was 12, he saw somebody on television, Sheryl Sandberg talked about the fact that there aren’t very many women CEOs. Not conscious of the nerve it was going to hit but he said, “Mom, women aren’t CEOs, did you know that?” And I thought, “Oh my gosh, where are we going with this?” And he said, “I wonder why, because you do a great job, and you’ve always been a CEO.” Of course, I was like, wait, hold on a minute and I said, “Well, thank you. That’s very nice.” And then the next day, he came to me. He plays a lot of tennis. He came to me and said, “Mom, why do they separate? The girl’s tennis team from the guy’s tennis team, there are girls on the girl’s tennis team that are better players that I’d rather play with than some of the boys on the boy’s team?” And I said, “Well…”

That’s deep.

It was fascinating. Because I realized that just by being a mom and doing what I love, and maybe doing what is not the most popular, or what other people don’t say is possible that I can be that role model. It’s interesting, I now believe that he will not only be able to work for women, but with women, if he chooses to be a father, and be a great dad to women. All of those things because I’m doing something not only that I love but also has a purpose, and I find the time to do these things. People have always said to me, “Do you talk to your kids about what you do?” I don’t talk to them. I mean, they hear what I’m doing and how I’m living. Do I lock myself in a room and cry when Starbucks kicks me out? No. But did they know that Starbucks was kicking me out at the stores? You bet they did. And it’s a good lesson for them to learn and watch me go through it. Will I get through it? You bet. They should see those kinds of things because life isn’t always easy.

Sometimes we set kids up for a trophy every four seconds for something. Do you know what I mean? That’s not life. They need to understand that there are going to be things that don’t exactly turn out the way that they had thought and it’s okay. There are lessons to be learned and all those things. That is the biggest lesson that I’ve learned. This whole idea for years I was asked, and I love saying this to you as a new mother too because, for years, I was asked like, do you ever feel guilty? Balance? All these topics. Of course, you just sit there because there are so many people that are…

Trust the journey and the process. Be patient and just keep going. Everything will fall into place accordingly. Click To Tweet

No matter what, as a mother, whatever you’re going to do you’re going to always feel guilty that you’re not doing something different.

Yeah, but it’s a powerful thing. When the person that you felt guilty about suddenly turns around and says, “Thank you for teaching. Thank you for showing me.” I think that somebody said, “What do you want for your kids?” And I said, “I want my kids to be happy and find something that they like to get up and do every day.” I have three in university right now and somebody said to me the other day, “What’s one of your kids majoring in?” And I said, “I don’t even know. I mean, I don’t even care. I just want them to be happy.” And I think it’s a great idea to get some education but they’re choosing they want to go to university. At the end of the day, I want them to find what they want to get up and do every single day and that to me is success.

That’s where happiness lies, the number of people I know who end up going off to whatever law school because they think that they’re going to make a lot of money and they’re not the happiest people. That’s not to say that there aren’t happy lawyers out there, there are. But I think that the people who find passion and purpose are the ones. You can have a family too. That’s the other thing, I had another child, Justin. I was pregnant with him when I birthed Hint. I had four kids under the agency set. I mean it’s funny, he read my book and he said “Mom, this is funny. The day you were gonna have me you were getting Hint on the shelf. You were birthing. You birthed Hint before you birthed me,” and I said, “That’s right.”

Well, Kara. I want to speak with you for longer, but I want to be respectful of your time. Before we go, three quick tips to live a stellar life, and where can people find you?

Three quick tips, I would say that the first one is to find that thing that you can visualize, that you would enjoy working on every single day, even if it seems a little silly. Just start to think about, “Oh, gosh, if I could do this every day.” Is that baking? Is it developing a beverage? Is it doing yoga? I mean, whatever it is, find that thing that you want to do every single day and try and figure out, can I make money? Can I work? Can I live this way? I think that that’s the most important thing. The second thing is to know you’re on a journey. That this journey today may not be exactly what you want. Maybe the last year isn’t what you want but think about the lessons and know that you’ve come this far. Those challenges will only make you stronger, going forward. And then finally, I believe that every day is yours to decide on whether or not you’re going to be happy. I think that figuring out how you get there, whether it’s changing jobs, seeing a therapist, whatever it is, make the decision that you have to move forward in some way, exercise, whatever it is, to be a little bit selfish and get happier, and I think that that is so critical.

Wonderful. And where can people find you and get your book?

The book is called Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters and it’s on a lot of bookstores. You can see more about it at karagoldin.com. The book is available there as well as Amazon, and it’s a Wall Street Journal bestseller. Very exciting. And Kara Goldin, I’m all over social media as well and I would love to hear from you.

Thank you, Kara. Thank you so much. This was incredible.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you. And thank you, listeners. Remember to find your passion, accept the journey and the lessons and make a decision to be happy every day and have a stellar life. This is Orion till next time.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓} Start with a specific goal in mind and let that become your driving force in everything you do. In the process, make sure you’re doing what you love so it doesn’t feel like work at all.
{✓} Visualize the life you want. It’s not enough to declare your desires. You must believe that it is destined for you and will come true.
{✓} Overcome your doubts about your strengths. Block out the noise and just focus on your dreams. Sometimes hearing criticism can leave you feeling unmotivated.
{✓} Aim to help people with the businesses you create. The purpose of running a business is to improve the lives of others.
{✓} Handle rejections like a pro. Achieving the life that you want will not always be rainbows and butterflies. There will be more nos than yeses but never let that faze you.
{✓} Be more mindful of what you consume and how you nourish your body. Discipline yourself to lead a healthy lifestyle. It’s essential to be fit and healthy when running an empire.
{✓} Be more resourceful and flexible in dealing with challenging situations. Develop an open mind whenever a problem arises. Try to look at things from a different perspective.
{✓} Don’t put too many eggs in one basket. Strategize business processes wisely and handle how you scale gradually.
{✓} Maintain an excellent connection and relationship with your community. Your clients and customers are your best assets. Everything you do in your company must be for their best interest.
{✓} Grab a copy of Kara Goldin’s book, Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters Kindle Edition, and check out the Hint website.

About Kara Goldin

Kara Goldin is the Founder and CEO of Hint, Inc., best known for its award-winning Hint® water, the leading unsweetened flavored water, and the author of UNDAUNTED: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters. She is an active speaker & writer and hosts the podcast The Kara Goldin Show where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs and other disruptors across various industries. She lives in the Bay Area.