Unlearn The Crap with Kathy Baldwin

Nicole and Kathy Baldwin unpack how inherited beliefs, trauma, and outdated expectations can quietly shape our choices until we decide to unlearn them. We connect personal healing to a bigger societal shift and share practical ways to choose new values, build better systems, and step into what’s already inside you. 

• Kathy’s Gen X perspective on going from analog to digital and what that pressure reveals 
• “Unlearning” as the path to authenticity, alignment, and health 
• Rebuilding your beliefs and values like you would build a business 
• The pot roast story as a test for inherited habits 
• Generational trauma and why fear can live in the body across generations 
• Taking responsibility for patterns that were never your fault 
• Systems breaking at scale and why rapid change demands new thinking 
• Decisions as instant identity shifts and how to use that power 
• Gratitude as physics, measurable health effects, and the biology of belief 
• Podcast systems, automation, and removing 10+ hours of backend work 

If anyone is thinking about or has a podcast and they're wondering how they can remove 10 plus hours of back-end work that nobody sees that's required in order to have a successful podcast, I've got quite a few resources at my finally podcastautomation.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello there and welcome back to the next episode of Overcome Yourself the Podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole, and I'm so excited to be here today with Kathy. And Kathy is

Meet Kathy And Her Work

SPEAKER_01 0:13

someone that was uh introduced to me from a fellow entrepreneur that we work together. Um we're actually in a coaching group together, and she introduced me to the fabulous Kathy. So I'm so excited to have you here today. Take it away, Kathy. Tell us a little bit about who you are and who you help. I'm so excited for this episode.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Absolutely. Um, Nicole, thanks for having me here. I'm so excited to have this conversation. You're right. It is amazing when you meet people and they say you have to meet so-and-so. So I'm so glad for collaborations in this community that's being created. I am a Gen X original, born in 1965. I uh have gone through the transition of what we have seen in the last 60 years, going from very analog, um, everything uh being in your head to extremely digital. And in that process, I had a complete breakdown that led to my breakthrough, probably along the lines of so many people this day, because the systems that were in are breaking. So that led to me becoming a three-time best-selling author, uh, unlearn the crap, which led to me becoming a successful podcaster. And now I have a uh system for podcasters called Finally, which is the that sense of relief when finally everything can be taken care of, so you can just live in your zone of genius.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

I love that so much. Um, so tell us tell us that story. Um, we want to know how you overcame yourself. So tell us the story of Kathy and how you got here. Because I know when I graduated from high school, the world had changed completely. Like everything I had trained for was out the window, and we've experienced another revolution just like that. So, can you tell us a little bit about what led to you ending up writing your best-selling books?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yeah. Um I I told you I was an original Gen X. So uh I was in corporate in the 80s and 90s and the early 2000s.

Unlearning Conditioning And Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 2:35

So I predated computers, cell phones, and Google. I actually was coming into the ranks when women were finally being able to give in the rights to have their own bank accounts and credit cards and autonomy. And so we were in that time of the Helen Reddy song of um I am woman, hear me roar, but yet we still had ourselves chained to the old expectations of what women were supposed to do. And I believed all of it. That's where Unlearn the Crap comes from. It was ingrained in my system that service above self and all of these things. You can sleep when you're dead, and you know, put on your big girl panties and soldier on. But I am now discovering that in order to be fully healthy, we must be aligned and authentic. And so that's where my breakthrough came is I had to unlearn all the condition responses and automatic programming that went into taking me out of alignment, putting others before me, not knowing what boundaries were, not knowing how to uh say no. All of this was something that I think we should be learning from birth. And because I believe that we really all have something special to give. So I had to unlearn that. You call it overcoming, I call it unlearning.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yes, well, I did have to unlearn a lot of stuff, but I did have to overcome myself. I felt like there was just something about me where I really had to um, I don't even know how to explain it, but it was really like like you know, get over the lump in the road that you are right now. Um, but yeah, I can totally relate to that. Um, and really just having to set new values, like just literally starting from scratch. Like, what are my beliefs? Like, what do I believe? What is right, what is wrong, like how am I gonna react in these situations? And it really is a process of of just creating a blank slate and just starting from scratch. Just because I used to decide things like this doesn't mean I have to do it anymore. Just because I thought this before doesn't mean I have to stay there. Um, and so yeah, there is a lot of unlearning of crap. So yeah, yeah, absolutely. Of course you're right. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Um it's funny that you say that because that what you just described is exactly how I unlearned my crap because I was taught how to create a business. I was taught, you know, you create your mission statement and your value statement, um, you create um your boundaries and all of that. And I thought, okay, well, if I can create a business and who I am got me to my breakdown, maybe I can create myself. And so I sat down and thought, well, what do I believe in? What do I want to believe in? What do I want to let go of that I had been ingrained in me? What do I want to choose? And and so I started to choose my beliefs, I started to choose my values, and that right there is something I think everyone needs to know is you don't have to just evolve as we were uh raised in whatever family or society or whatever. We can choose, and that's where our power is.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yeah, like the this is reminding me of the lady with the pot roast. Have you heard the story of the pot roast? And so this lady, every

The Pot Roast And Inherited Habits

SPEAKER_01 7:12

every time she would make a pot roast on Sunday, she would cut off the end and toss it, and then she would make the pot roast. And then one day her daughter's like, Mom, why do you do that? She's like, I don't know, because that's how your grandma did it. And so the daughter went to the grandma, Grandma, why do you do that? I don't know, because that's how my mom did it. So she went to her great-grandma and she's like, Grandma, why did you do that? She's like, Oh, because my pot wasn't big enough, and so I had to cut off the end so it would fit, and then I could put it in the oven and it would cook. And so I just threw away the part that didn't. And so these three generations of women had been cutting off the end of the pot rows, wasting a piece of the pot roast, even though theirs fit into the pot. And it was the granddaughter who's like, Why do we do this? Um, and so it's your, it's our, you know, it's our job to stop and be like, why do we do it like this? Like, why do I do this this way? Why? Where do we learn that from? Um, yeah, and then choose. Maybe you don't have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Do you know that there was a science experiment that um taught monkeys how to wash the sand off of their food in the river? And by the time they gone through, they call it the hundred monkeys. By the time they had gone through a hundred monkeys, it was ingrained in the monkey DNA energy, regardless of where they were around the world. And now monkeys were who were afraid of water were doing that. That's how it gets ingrained in us. That once something is taught, it just becomes part of who we are.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

All right, let's talk about this because this is really important. Um, because now what you made me think of was a study that I read about that they did about generational trauma.

Generational Trauma And Seven Generations

SPEAKER_01 9:05

And it was these little rats, and they put them on this little electric, they put them inside a little cage, and then they electrified their little feet. And then they took, you know, they took the rats away, they brought them back, the same rats. The next generation of rats who had never been in this cave, in this cage before, the moment they were put in, they got nervous. Yeah. That space made them nervous. And down like three, I think it was down to like seven generations that these mice were still nervous of this room, even though they had never been shocked in the room before. They carried it in their genes. This room is bad, bad things happen. And we have to unpack those generational traumas, right? It we have to be the little rat that looks up and we're like, why are we scared of this room? What happened here that made my family so scared? Why do I feel this in this space? And I think those are really important questions to ask because down to our, it's it's in our cells sometimes. We carry this with us, and it's subconscious. We don't know. And so just bring a light to it and be like, why is this happening? Why do I feel this? And sometimes that requires talking to your doctor. Um, that led me to be like, why do I feel like this? I told my doctor, and they're like, Oh, you have a vitamin deficiency, let's fix it. And then I felt better. So, yeah, it's just shining a light to those areas and be like, why? Why does this happen? Why am I feeling this? Why am I seeing this? That's such a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah, and sometimes it doesn't matter why. It just doesn't, it's not working, it's disempowering. There's something that is happening there. Um, you know, biologists have proven that, first of all, the egg that created us what existed in our grandmother. Yes, we are uh biological chemical beings, and that chemistry within our body changes our DNA, and so it gets replicated over and over again. And this is one of the things that made me you just brought up for me as I was thinking. Um, I'm not a religious person, I'm not a Bible scholar, but there is a line in the Bible that was written thousands of years ago that the sins of the father will be seen for seven generations. That's what you just talked about. They knew what we go through is going to affect seven generations, it's built right into our DNA, and so if we can unlearn our crap, we can put the line in the sand right here, right now, and says this ends with me. Yeah, I know I'm gonna pass some stuff on, but I'm not gonna carry the previous seven generations anymore, and it ends here.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Interesting, yes, but the New Testament it says the child will not be judged for the sins of the father, and so that we can break it, it can be broken. It doesn't have to be seven generations, it can be broken right here, right now. So, yeah, oh, I love that. I love how it comes around full circle, and I hadn't put those two together, so thank you. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Um, but yeah, seven generations. So it's it's so scary how it matches, right? And the science is like, yeah, that's exactly how long it stays. Um, but yeah, so some of this stuff that we have to unlearn, that the I think that the important thing to bring up here is that some of the stuff that you have to unlearn, and tell me if this is true in your case, you is stuff that you didn't even learn. It was already in you, like it was it was already brought. So you didn't choose this. And I think you're right. The question is not why, is where is this coming from? That was the question that really helped me. Where is this coming from? Because we have to take responsibility, even though it wasn't our fault, it wasn't caused by us, it wasn't something that we decided to learn, but it's still our choice to to stop it here, to unlearn it here and there. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

One of the very first um retreat for personal development I went on uh was with James Arthur Ray from The Secret. And he did this exercise where we had to identify a core belief. That's I mean, this was like 20 some odd year, maybe even more. Anyways, um at the end of it, uh, someone said the belief was I'm not good enough. And what James Arthur Ray said was 99% of his audience, no matter how many times he does this, has the same answer. And I started to think about that. My grandmother um was in the war, she lived in uh Estonia, where the Russians and the Germans were trying to constantly take over that land. She carried all of this trauma also from her parents who were, you know, very poor. So as a childhood, then my my mother was a um teenage bride. I came along carrying all of this baggage, and I grew up thinking, not not thinking, because it was it wasn't cognizant, I wasn't cognitively aware of the thought, but it was I need to earn my place, I need to be of service and value to prove that I am worthy, and so I was always overgiving, self-sacrificing, and it wasn't until I started to challenge those thoughts and identify where did this come from? It's not mine, you know, and it was once I was able to identify that this had come on from generations of trauma, it became crystal clear that I could choose to let it go.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

And you know, what's really cool is watching the next generation and your family, the the little cousins and the all these little kids who are growing up on the other side of all of those things, right? Because I see my little cousins and they're so not traumatized, and I'm like, oh my god, like they're so healthy and and they're just so like you know, moody, but in a good way, like they're just like, oh, like, you know, the mango store's not open and it's so annoying. But that's such a good thing for them to be mad about, right? Because they don't have to worry about any other thing. So they're just you know worried about like the the little things in life, and they're like, oh, right. And to just to see that generation coming up, and you're like, wow, I could have done so many things if I hadn't had so much drama. But watching the next generation come up and and they are building on the work that we did, it's beautiful to see them because you're like, oh, this is this is this is the goal, right? Like this is what we were working so hard towards, is that it's not it's not the same for them. Um, and they don't have to carry those things so that they can they can do greater things, right? They can um, yeah, what we didn't get the chance to do because we were dealing with all that junk. Um, you know, and so that's the reward.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Well, uh Nicole, we're in a massive, massive societal um paradigm shift that's happening all around the world. The systems that were built from the industrial revolution, from the dark

Systems Breaking And Rapid Change

SPEAKER_00 17:02

ages, all of those things that were carried on are breaking. And they're breaking. One futurist says that we have uh we'll see in the next 10 years the equivalent of the uh hundred years that we've just gone through. That's the rate of change is happening so fast, and so in when things are moving that fast, anything that is not working is going to crumble below us, and it's going to fall apart. And so that is happening in real time, and we're living in a shift where we are seeing everything crumble. Our education, our government, our financial, it doesn't matter what system, it's breaking. And so that is calling each and every one of us to realize we're the change makers, we're the line in the sand right now, and we are being called to level up. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Um, yeah, to speak out, to spread hope, to to lead the way, right? Because, you know, just like when I said when I graduated from high school, everything had changed, everything was different. I walked into a world that I had trained for that no longer existed. It was all poof, it was gone. Um, you know, like going to going to work and working there for 50 years and then getting like a big pension, like we watch pensions disappear. They're like, oops, sorry. Um, it's gone now. So good luck. Like go back to work. Congratulations. Um, and so, you know, we we didn't we didn't have that luxury of just hanging out. Um, and so we got to see those changes in real time. And it's funny, Gen Xers, millennials, like we've seen so many things that they were like, oh, this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and we've gone through like three times already.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

And we're in one right now, yes, we're in one right now with AI and technology and automation. There is no way that we can go back to an abacus or a calculator. Uh uh, we just can't slow this one down.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Oh my gosh, I remember when I was working in a restaurant and the power went out, and they still had a carbon copy machine. Do you remember those? So we had to put the credit card and then we had to put the little paper and we had to go so we could copy the numbers, and then when the power came back on, we had to type them all in. Yeah, and it was like I don't know how people used to do this, but that's how credit cards started, right? Like you would go to Birdines, they take out the oh, the big clunker. Birdines, look at me. Oh my god. That was a big uh that was the big department store in Miami back in the day, right? So you go to Macy's and they take out this big clunker. Can you imagine us doing that now? Like, even the TVs, remember how big the TVs were?

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah, you don't want to know what I remember about TVs, about how there was a box.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

No remotes.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Yeah, no, no, we had a brown box with these buttons, and then it would have a top and a button, a bottom switch. And so you hit these manual buttons to change the channel, which was such an amazing thing because we didn't have to walk to the TV and go click, click, click.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Right, but like it's exponential how fast the next the next thing is, right? Like it went from like oh TV, and then it was like, oh, now it's in color, and then it was like, oh well, now it's small, now it's bigger, and now you TVs take up over the whole wall, and it's it's amazing, but it's exponential the way that it's growing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Um, I think it always did, um, but now that we're understanding quantum physics and quantum mechanics, uh, that we don't we don't have to do things in time in a linear fashion. We understand that everything changes in a moment. And my do you know my favorite example of this? Tell me. My favorite example is when someone gets married, when they walk up the aisle or wherever,

Decisions Change Identity Instantly

SPEAKER_00 21:34

they say I do, they go from single to married, their identity changes in that instant, and nothing really happened other than a decision that says I do. And everything, their world changes, their identity, their future, everything. That's how powerful decisions are. That's how powerful. And so when we're understanding that we have this power in this moment and that we don't need to wait for slow evolution of catching up, we can do it right here, right now.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah, yeah. Um I'm thinking like of Malcolm Gladwell and like starting small pandemics, um, you know, small things. I have to read his new book, though, Revenge of the Tipping Point. So I'm looking forward to that one. Um, but yeah, it's exactly what you're talking about. And the other thing I was thinking of is we're so connected. Because like back in the day, you would have to wait to hear the news in the newspaper. You know, the newspaper would come and you would read it and you'd be like, oh, there's a new invention. But now someone invents something and they get on their phone and they're like, oh my God, look, a new invention. And within seconds, everyone around the world can see that. Um, and so I think what you were saying that is not not necessarily that it's well, I think it is going faster, but then we can also see it faster. And so it's just it's just exponential.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Um awareness of it is what's changing because physics happened the way physics have always happened. Physics didn't change, yeah, just our knowledge of it. And so when we understand that there's so much more that we don't know, and we we need to walk in faith, and we need to walk in hope, and we need we need to bring forward that which we want to receive. Yes, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Oh, yeah, and then excited, yeah, it just reminds me of of gratitude, right? Because one of the most powerful things I learned about practicing gratitude is that you can actually redirect that gratitude towards the future and be grateful for that thing

Gratitude Physics And The Placebo Effect

SPEAKER_01 23:56

now, like that's a huge part of manifestation. You know, I'm grateful for this thing that maybe hasn't even happened yet, but it will happen. Like it's just it clicks into place. Um, because you know, gratitude is a very strong emotion. What you know, before we we sign off here, what part in this journey of yours in in your books and everything, what part does gratitude play in all of that?

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Gratitude is a perfect example of universal laws at work in so many ways. Because if you think about the universal law of gestation, there's a gestation period for everything. If you think about um how everything is created within energy before it comes into the physical, if you think about the law of compensation, that you will be equally compensated for that which you put out into the world. If you think about any of the universal laws, gratitude is an expression of those laws at work. It's not airy fairy, it's physics. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

It's it's physical because like there's been studies that show and it's it's worked for me, like even reducing blood pressure. Like I've taken my blood pressure and then I practiced gratitude, and you know, and then I took my blood pressure again, and it those numbers went down. So I know that's not like an official study, but I was like, damn, this does work. And there's actually studies that show that people feel less pain, they heal faster, their numbers get better, not just with blood pressure, with cholesterol, with with everything. And I mean, these are measurable things that we're talking about here. So yeah, you're absolutely right that it's not woo.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Do you have you ever thought about what the placebo effect actually means? They measure our belief against their drug.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

The placebo effect is our thought that we are having something come and work, and they measure our thoughts against their drugs, and they call it the placebo effect. It's not a placebo effect, it is the biology of belief, as um uh Dr. Bruce Lipton talks about. It is the energetic science.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Hmm. Yes, yes, yes. You're absolutely right, and the placebo can have changes as well, right? And that's why we have to have it so we can see what the changes are, and then they compare the placebo to the results of that, you know. So, yeah, you're a hundred percent correct. That is so interesting. I love it. But the placebo is our natural thoughts and beliefs, yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

But just without any like direction, any instruction, it's just kind of like yeah, we we we we live in a world of polarity, we need um that contradiction in order to see. So if we're comparing our thoughts to a drug, have we ever thought about without the drug? What are our thoughts? Where how much more powerful can our thoughts? Because the they talk about these medical miracles that they can't explain, but it all comes down to our thoughts and our beliefs.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Yeah, yeah, because thoughts are energy, right? Um, yeah, that's so interesting. You got me thinking. I love it when people get me thinking. That's a that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

That's what unlearning the crap is all about. It's about reducing the complacency and coming into the moment and critical thinking and really figuring out what works and what doesn't work. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

And speaking of which, you have a gift for the audience, if I'm not mistaken, to help them do that. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Absolutely. Um, when

Podcast Automation Gift And Final Tips

SPEAKER_00 28:05

I developed my podcast and I found the power of my voice and coming into alignment with myself, I realized that I could connect this whole thing that we were talking about, the speed of change with AI and automation, and totally automate the back end of my podcast and reduce the manual work. I believe so strongly that what is happening in this time of change is that humans are no longer having to do the manual labor, the repetitive tasks. We have technology and automation to do that. So if anyone is thinking about or has a podcast and they're wondering how they can remove 10 plus hours of back-end work that nobody sees that's required in order to have a successful podcast, I've got uh quite a few resources at my finally podcastautomation.com. And other than that, I'd love for them to uh check out people like you on my podcast where we talk about things like this.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

I love that. And all of those links are going to be available down in the show notes so you guys can grab those free resources. And um, how do we connect with you on social media?

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Kathy Baldwin with the K, Unlearn the Crap, you'll find me everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Awesome. Perfect, perfect. Now, before we sign off, um, give us your biggest tip. Like, what's the biggest, best, juiciest tip that you give your clients? The, you know, that gives them the biggest transformation.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Can I give two?

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Okay, so you brought up authors. Uh, one of the quotes that I live by is James Clare from Atomic Habits. We don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems. Get your systems uh organized so that your dreams and goals can just thrive. Yes, and personally, this is gonna age me, but uh the Wizard of Oz. When Dorothy was there with her Ruby slippers, and Glinda the Good Witch says, My dear, you've always had it within you. We have everything we need already. We just need to unlearn our crap so that we can level up.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Yes, yeah, um, I love that. There's a new, there's a new wicket coming out, so it's not that out of place. The the for good is coming out. It'll I don't know if this will be out before that one. I think it's coming out in December 2025. I don't remember when this episode comes out, but yeah, it's very relevant, and um, I love that. But I want to know why she didn't tell her that in the beginning of the movie, but anyway, that's why we're here to go on a journey, yes. But that's why we're here to tell you in the beginning of the movie before you try to go down the yellow brick road and go meet the wizard, you don't gotta do all that, it's already in you.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

I love that absolutely, and that that's actually my um driving force right now is to tell people they don't have to have the breakdown to have the breakthrough at any moment and any time. You can stop and choose.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yeah, yeah. I love it. Some of us have to get there to the you know, some of us are are bad listeners, so we had to learn the hard way, but don't be like us, like just listen to us because we already did it the hard way.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

You can just step into your Ruby slippers and and just soar right over the yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

We're just trying to save you some time. I love it. Thank you so much, Kathy. This has been absolutely wonderful, and we will catch you guys next time on the next episode of Overcome Yourself. Bye.