Suzanne Proksa:
Welcome to the Suzanne show with me, Suzanne Proksa, HR and business strategist, former featured Etsy seller, plant addict, concert lover, gardener, landscaper in training, and human straight up obsessed with helping others and cheering on women. Here, we talk a little business, personal development, women's health, and a whole lot about things that matter, help people, and give them joy. Grab your coffee or your wine, Break out one of your hundreds of notebooks. Light that soy candle, and let's dive in. Hello. Hello everybody. So today I am talking with Micah Kinney about constructing the life you want by leveraging the life you have. So Micah has a very interesting background.
Suzanne Proksa:
She is actually a civil engineer, but is also the founder of joy to the Food, a food blog that is all about making the kitchen joyful, not stressful. I'm sure we can all say we could use a little bit of that. So I am going to turn it over to Micah to just start by telling us a little bit more about herself and how she actually got into doing the Joy to the Food Law. Hi there. Thank you
Mika Kinney:
so much, Suzanne, for having me on. I'm super excited to talk about this. As you mentioned, I am a civil engineer by day, so that's my 9 to 5. And then nights and weekends, my husband and I run Joy to the Food, our food blog. A little bit about me, I am from California. I moved out east for school and then finally settled in the Midwest. We have 2 lovely dogs. 1 is snoozing on the couch right now.
Mika Kinney:
The other, I don't know what she's doing. She's in that case. But anyways, yeah. So we settled in the Midwest, but we actually took a year off to, in Southern California and on one of our trips back to California, because who doesn't love it? So we visit quite often. We were stopping at the sandwich shop that we always stop at and that, man, how do we create the flexibility in our lifestyle to travel out to California multiple times a year or stay out here for extended periods or just have that flexibility. And so my husband goes, well, what about cooking? And I was like, yeah, I like to cook, but like, what would you what would we do with that? And he says, well, what about a food blog? And I'm like, I'm not gonna do a website. Like, I do enough technical work in my 9 to 5. I have no desire to do that.
Mika Kinney:
So the deal was he did the website and I would do the cooking. So here we are 2 years later and we are grinding, but we also feel like we're thriving because we've really been able to utilize our analytical thinking that comes with being engineers in the food blog, and we're just striving to get a little bit better every day. And I wouldn't treat it for the world.
Suzanne Proksa:
Thank you so much for that introduction, Micah. So you have a very interesting journey, but I really don't think that this is that uncommon for women to be in roles that they love, but they just don't feel like, you know, everything is there that they need. Right. They feel like something is missing or perhaps they aren't using all of their talents. What are your thoughts on that?
Mika Kinney:
Yeah. So that's interesting that you say that because I, I would agree. I'm not unique in that I often or that I'm trying to find a different or alternative path or alternative lifestyle that better suits me. So I don't think that's unusual by any means. I guess my take on it is that there are lifestyles or jobs or different things that suit you in the moment that you're in or the season of life that you're in. You know, when I just got out of school, being in the construction field was everything that I had ever dreamed of. As I've gotten older and there's other things that I've learned about, I've explored, what I want out of life has changed. And I think that's so true for most of the population.
Mika Kinney:
I mean, everybody's on a journey to figure out what is your passion. And so just knowing that you're going to have seasons of life where something will fit that season of life and later it's going to change. So being adaptable is the number one thing that you need to do in order to create the life that you want eventually. Maybe that's not today. Maybe it's not tomorrow. Maybe it's a year down the road. It takes time and it takes work to figure out what that is.
Suzanne Proksa:
So we agree then that this is something that does occur and it happens pretty frequently. I know I have that experience myself that I have always felt like I just wasn't using all of my talents. And hence one of the reasons, you know, why I do the podcast, why I do strategy and coaching. And but there are things that get in the way for a lot of women in this regard. So can you talk to us about what you think some of the things are that are holding women back from taking on other opportunities for doing an additional things and using all of those wonderful talents that we've been given?
Mika Kinney:
Oh my goodness. Yes. This is such a great question. What's so cool about people and life in general is that we all have talents and skills and interests that we are geared more towards, you know, something that we're born that we're kind of born with, to be honest, and other things that evolve over time that we learn that we like, or we learn that we can be good at something, you know, like, did I ever think when I was younger that I would be searching for great hiking trails to do with my dogs? No. That I hated hiking. I'm not built for this, but here I am. So, yeah, as you age, you develop different interests and skills and you evolve and you adapt. And so when you are faced with that decision, like, okay, I know that what I'm doing now does not utilize all of my skills.
Mika Kinney:
What's stopping you from getting from using them is quite honestly, probably your own limiting beliefs. Yes. There are a ton of other factors, and I'm totally privileged that, I don't have as many things to consider because I do have a full time job that financially supports me. And I have a husband who is able to help out, and those are huge. But if you have something that you wanna do, you put it on a vision board, put it everywhere. You see, look at it before you go to sleep. Look at it the first time you wake up, set that goal and then figure out those tangible steps to get there. So, you know, like, I have a younger brother and we talk about this all the time.
Mika Kinney:
If there's something you wanna do, you do it. There are people out there who are always gonna say, are you sure you should do this? Are you sure that that's the most logical? Like, you really should be spending your time and your resources elsewhere. Who cares? Do what you wanna do. Follow that little inner voice that says, that sounds exciting. And that's the direction I wanna
Suzanne Proksa:
go. All right. So let's get into the nitty gritty here. So you titled your taught constructing the life you want by leveraging the life you have. So talk to me first about what it means to leverage the life you have?
Mika Kinney:
Yeah. So leveraging the life you have might sound opportunistic, I guess, but if you are in a position that allows you a little bit of freedom, whether that be time wise or financially, because of the life that you are currently living or in, you should take full advantage of that. You know, like I mentioned, I, being an engineer, I am lucky that I have the ability to put time and resources into the blog, whereas I might not have that otherwise. So it, it allows me to say no to, you know, brands that don't fit our niche or aren't paying your worth or things like that. It just allows you a lot more freedom. And in addition to that, utilizing the skills that you've developed in this life that you have, you know, whatever brought you to where you're at currently, you've developed skills along the way. For our case, both me and my husband are engineers. So we both have developed our, thinking side of our brain and our ability to analyze and, detailed orientation, things like that.
Mika Kinney:
All of those things that my creative sides, but because I've spent so long developing these aspects to be good as an engineer, I am able to bring those to the website. You know, we're able to look at the numbers and say, what is and what is not working? I'm able to think about how did we reach out to clients for this project? Okay. I'm gonna utilize that same strategy and reach out to clients for the site. So it's really great to recognize you have a skillset. You're trying to build onto that skillset. You're not trying to just switch. So building onto it by utilizing the life that you have is the quickest way to do that.
Suzanne Proksa:
That is awesome. Okay, great. So now that we know what it means to leverage that life that you have, how do we then go about constructing the life that you want?
Mika Kinney:
Okay. So to build the life that you want, you do have to have at least an idea of a direction. You don't need to know, yes, I wanna work in this industry, and this is exactly what I wanna do, because I can almost guarantee you that will change. But you, you need to have at least an understanding of your inner voice that says, okay, I like doing this thing. So let's, let's explore that a little more. Let's do a little more, a little, oh, wait, no, turn left here. And then we'll go down this path. So you at least have something guiding you.
Mika Kinney:
Once you have that, then you can look at, okay, what are the tangible steps that I can do in my daily life right now that fit in with the life I currently have that are gonna get me to where I wanna go. So in our case, the life that we want is a lifestyle of flexibility. It's one where we generate passive income, cooking and blogging. Right? We can travel, we can spend more time with our dogs. Those are that's what we want. In order to do that, our tangible steps are get enough page views by producing x amount of recipes a month to qualify for an ad network for that passive income. In addition to that, it might be brand partnerships, ghost rating, building your social media. These are the tangible steps that are gonna get get us there.
Mika Kinney:
So we have set a path that we're gonna follow and also understand that there will be many, many iterations of that, depending on what our current life demands of us, because we are still living in our current life and we enjoy that life. So we're not trying to get rid of it. We're trying to build on it.
Suzanne Proksa:
Let's talk about tapping into that talent bank as I call it. You know, this is all the different things that we do really well or that people tell us we do really well. Let's face it. Oftentimes people don't even realize they have. So how should women go about determining where their greatest strengths are that they might be able to use to find a new kind of success?
Mika Kinney:
Yeah. So this is something I had to learn firsthand because inherently, we, as humans, focus on the negative. There've been a couple studies out that show that your brain retains bad information much easier than it retains good information. The same is true with what's good and what's bad about yourself. Right. We all have things we can work on. That's a no brainer, but we also have things that we're really good at. We have talent banks, as you say.
Mika Kinney:
So in my life, I was actually criticized for how quiet I was, how shy, until they made people uncomfortable, things like that. And it wasn't until later on when I became a professional in the engineering world that people, suddenly there was a change. It was like all of a sudden I was in my element and I could talk to people, And I didn't feel that what I was doing was any different than how I had been, but people around me suddenly began to say, wow, Micah, you're really good at communication. You're really good at managing complaints. You're really good at everything that has to do with that coordinating and communication. And I was like, what? It's not true. But by having someone outside of yourself or your circle tell you these things, it's not only is it a confidence boost, but it's something that you need to say, okay, somebody who has no incentive to tell me something good, someone who does not know me, who's only known me for say a week or a month or whatever, thinks that I'm good at this. So if they're seeing that there must be some little bit of truth to it.
Mika Kinney:
So I think that's the best way to hone in on those skills is listen around you, you know, ask people who don't necessarily know you that well, like, hey, if you were to say like, what is one thing I'm good at? And one thing I could work on? See what they say, you know, it you don't wanna make them uncomfortable because sometimes that can sound kind of boastful, but to ask that, but if somebody makes a comment in a meeting, like, oh, thanks so much, Mika, for bringing that up. I'm glad you're always following a task or something like that. That's a tech that's a skillset is following along or keeping things moving. So listen to these outside opinions when it comes to good things. Don't listen too much to bad things unless you're getting the same comment over and over, then maybe you should reevaluate that. But I think that's the best way to tap into your talent bank and know where to spend your time to grow. So Micah,
Suzanne Proksa:
many women are starting to do what is referred to as pivoting, basically a change in career or life path for, you know, people that don't know what that is. What is your insight on how to approach doing this, including finding the confidence to actually follow through with it? Oh, confidence
Mika Kinney:
in pivoting is a really hard one. Some people are, I believe are just born confident and some people like me are depressed. But even if you're not born confident, I think there are like 3, maybe 4 things that have really helped me to pivot successfully, or be in the process of pivoting, I should say. Number 1, you need to have either the confidence or somebody who pushes you or something to take the first step. You know, whether that be something as simple as writing your end goal on fridge, that's a step towards your goal. So with each step, you will gain some confidence. Number 2 is that you do need to have someone who believes in you or something. That could be your dog.
Mika Kinney:
Quite honestly. I mean, just remember that no matter what happens, when you come home at the end of the day, your dog or your cat or whatever it is still thinks you're the best person in the whole wide world. And that is 100% true because you are. Number 3 is you need to be okay with failing. And the more you fail, the easier it gets. And I, I say failing because that's the common terminology, but I don't believe in failure. Each thing that doesn't go exactly how you planned is an immense lesson learned. So what's cool about that is that for everything that doesn't go right, you not only learn what didn't go right, but you also learn how to make it go right.
Mika Kinney:
So you learn 2 things in 1, where is if you if it goes perfectly, that's great, that's dandy, Went perfect the first time. You can just continue on blissfully unaware of what could go wrong. And I don't think that really helps you. So what's awesome about, quote, unquote, failing is that it means next time, you're gonna be able to jump farther, go further, and succeed faster than you would have the first time. So it's like skipping a step. It's great. The other thing with confidence is understand that you will always have self doubt. Confidence comes from learning yourself and learning to listen to your inner voice.
Mika Kinney:
You can always see the bad. I mean, I think I don't know anybody who can't see the bad, so that's always easier. But just knowing that no matter if you see bad or you're like, oh, I can't believe I did that. That was so dumb. As long as you can always come up with one good thing that you did, you're gonna be okay. And you're gonna continue to grow your confidence.
Suzanne Proksa:
Micah, I think that this has been a really powerful conversation for women. I think that it's one that we absolutely cannot have enough. And so I am guessing that there are quite a few of my listeners out there that want to know how they can reach out to you, get more insight from you, or maybe even, you know, check out your blog and, and what you're doing. So how what's the best place for them to reach out to you on social media or your website? Do you have a freebie or something like that, Or even just an email list that you would like them to join?
Mika Kinney:
Yeah. This has been fantastic. I could talk about it all day. But if you wanna get in hold of me, get a hold of me. My email and DMs are always open. You can get a hold of me at joy to the food contact at g mail dot com or submit a comment or a contact form on our website. Our website is joytothefood.com. You can also find us on Instagram, _joytothefood and on Facebook at joyinthesood.
Mika Kinney:
As far as freebies, yeah, if you head to our site, it actually we're offering a goal planner and meal planning template. So when you sign up for a newsletter, that'll get sent to you. And I use the goal planner daily because I like to strategize and really stay on with those tangible goals to get us to the life that we want.
Suzanne Proksa:
I am so grateful that you decided to be on the show and share your experience and share your expertise. I always like to ask my guests if there are, you know, maybe just 1 or 2. Heck, maybe even 3 takeaways that you really want the listeners to come away from this interview with?
Mika Kinney:
Yeah. So the things that I hope your listeners take away from the episode, the nuggets as I like to call them, is number 1, the life you have is not inhibiting you. The life you have will allow you to get to life that you want, whether that be in the skillsets that you have learned in the financial freedom, in the time that you have available. It is utilize what you already know and have to get to that next step. The second thing I hope that listeners take away is it's okay to change your mind and it's okay to fail. Failing, I don't believe in it. Failing gets you where you want to go faster. You learn twice as much in half the time.
Mika Kinney:
And although it sucks in the moment, it is so beneficial and so valuable down the road.
Suzanne Proksa:
Again, thank you so much for joining me. It was absolutely my pleasure, and I hope to talk to you again soon. Thank you so much, Micah.
Mika Kinney:
Thank you so much, Suzanne, for having me on. I thoroughly enjoyed chatting, and I really hope that your listeners do get confidence and some value out of this episode.
Suzanne Proksa:
I hope that you loved this episode. If you did, give me those shout outs, show me some love on iTunes, give me a rating, and, hey, if you wanna know where to find me, you can find me on pretty much all social media at Suzanne. That's suzanneproxa and you can also head over to my website suzanneproxa.com. Until then, I'll see you in the next episode in here's parte music for you.
