Founder's Story - Hardship, Being an Immigrant, and Not Feeling Like You Belong | Ep. 16 with Katty Douraghy Founder of Cre8action

Episode Date: May 2, 2020

Katty is the founder of Cre8action, a forum and team facilitation practice. She is also the president of Artisan Creative, a digital, creative, and marketing recruitment agency with a focus on creative, marketing, and design talent. Artisan Creative is... ---  Please visit Pix11 or Fox5 San Diego for more details. Our Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Inspired by Her, the podcast that will give you the inspiration, motivation and tips for success from some of the top executives, CEOs and influencers from around the globe. With your host, serial entrepreneur and named one of the most influential Filipina in the world, Kate Hancock. Hi everyone. Yes. So today I have a special guest, Cathy Daraghi. Hello. Did I pronounce that correctly? Perfect. Okay. All right.

So, Cathy, for anyone who didn't know you, if you could briefly introduce yourself. Absolutely. My name is Cathy Daraghi. I am the president of Artisan Creative, which is a creative staffing and recruitment firm based here in Los Angeles and supporting clients both in San Francisco and in LA for freelance talent, as well as nationwide for a direct hire. And I also have my own forum facilitation and team facilitation business that I just, you know, both businesses I love and they keep me on my toes and I have an amazing staff. So all good. Wow. Well, so I remember meeting you about, I think it was four years ago. You were a forum. I was super new with EO and you were the first person, the high touch experience. Oh, wonderful. Yes. So that was, I think, 2017 or 2016. Yes. So I know you are super active with EO. You currently the champion of Women of EO for

Entrepreneurs Organization. And I love that group. I mean, so you run it so amazingly. Thank you. It's our tribe. It's our tribe. Yeah. The amount of support that you're getting there, it is truly amazing. And it's a gift yes absolutely I mean women of EO is a gift EO as a whole is a gift and I especially during this time I don't know what I would have done without having the support and all the information that is coming through things that I otherwise would have to dig through myself to have that information readily available. It's just been amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I can truly attest to that, especially this time. And I

remember at one point I was very vulnerable sharing and, you know, a life event and everyone was so embracing and supportive. So thank you for really getting that going. Oh, my pleasure. I'm so glad that you got so much out of it. Yeah. So Kathy, what was the city or town you grew up in like? So I grew up in Iran. So I was born and raised in Iran and I was there until the age of 13. And it was my memory of it as a child certainly was amazing. And I was loved. And Iran was beautiful, Tehran especially, that's where I grew up. And I spent my summers in the Caspian and with my grandma on her farm. So I grew up really experiencing both the city life because Tehran is a very, very big and crowded and cosmopolitan city. It was at the time as well. And then I had my summers that was very rural and with animals and farm and tractors. And so it's

kind of fed both sides of my, my personality really, really well. I also grew up, I would say very sheltered to the, and you know, very protected, as I said, very loved to the point that I was really clueless. I had no idea that there was a revolution brewing in Iran, that there was discord in the country. So when we immigrated, I actually thought we were going on vacation. I didn't realize that it was, you know, it was going to be something that ended up being, you know, it's been 42 years now since we left and we left just with two suitcases. So

I thought, Hey, we're going on vacation. Yeah. So straight from Iran, you moved to the U.S. or you live somewhere else as well. Yeah, we moved to England for a short time, to London for about six months while we were trying to figure out if it was going to be temporary or permanent. The revolution hadn't quite happened yet. You know, it was going to end the throes of things. And I think once we knew that it was, you know, we weren't going to go back home, then we came to the States. I grew up in Northern California. Northern California.

And tell me, what is that like growing up super new in this country? Well, for me, I went to high school in the middle of ninth grade. So when we moved here, it was October. No, I'm sorry. It was February. So the school year had already started. And high school is hard enough as it is, let alone starting it in the middle of the school year. And then add to that, the hostage crisis had happened. So being Iranian was not something that I was at the time proud of. And I truly just pretended I was Italian for a long time. And not something that I'm proud of now. I, you know, I, you know, I,

I had a facade, you know, I, I pretended I was Italian. I pretended I was Greek and I passed for a lot of different personalities, nationalities. So I just was desperate not to be Iranian at the time. And it took a long time and it took EO really, and being part of forum for me to just rediscover and fall back in love with and be proud of my heritage and who I am. But high school was not the place to do that. I could imagine. Wow. That is powerful. Yeah. And so what kind of kid are you in high school? What kind of kid was I in high school? So my cousin, Melisse, also moved with us at the time. And while she was in high school with me, I did not have a single other friend.

I was with her the entire time. And I was a pretty good student. I've always been a rule follower, and I've always been very, very creative. So my favorite teachers were my English teacher and my history teacher. So those were the two classes that I just loved because I could escape into books and escape into history. And I always loved that part of it. And then my cousin Millie, she graduated a semester before me and she left. She went to another state where her sister was. And suddenly I had to fend for myself. I suddenly had to make friends.

So the first few years of high school was a very different experience than my senior year. My senior year, I think I flourished and finally made friends and went out and went to the prom and things that I just hadn't done any any of it the first three years because I had a you know a security blanket in my cousin so but I was happy when I graduated I was done with high school yeah that change of having a cousin with you and then by yourself I could really relate to that that's a very lonely and scary that that change oh yeah for sure yeah yeah and it sounds like you didn't have any issue of like making friends was that it just comes naturally or tell me It does not come naturally. In my heart of hearts, I'm more of an introvert, which although it's not, I think people are surprised when I say that. I love being around

people and I love to be in places and noise and crowd. However, I need to be able to retreat and just going to be inward and reflect and recharge. So when I make friends, I make them for life. I think my best friends are friends that I made on my school bus when I was in Iran, you know, when I was 12 years old, and they're still my closest friends. So it takes me a while to make friends. However, when I make the friendships, I'll do anything and everything for my friends. Wow. Yeah. I'm loyal. I can tell. I can tell. You know, I am that kind of person too. And like we're in a crowd. If if I don't know anyone I would just be in the corner because I'm just not like out there and I'm not the one that would first introduce myself I would be quiet in the corner it was more like you oh yeah absolutely absolutely and being part

of EO being part of the entrepreneurs Organization and especially stepping into leadership has forced me into a place that didn't naturally come to me. However, I always say EO gave me a voice and I didn't have it before. However, now I do and now I have a hard time being quiet. I kind of finally found my voice and now I'm talking so and you're writing a book you're a podcast host like can you like it's a big right yeah so Kathy um how would youryear-old self react to what you do? What I do professionally or who I am as a person? Professionally. When I was 10 years old, I wanted to join the SWAT team.

So what I'm doing now has nothing to do with it. Yeah, my 10-year-old self had quite a bit of an adventurous mind. And I think my parents wanted a boy for a long time. And all my pictures as a kid, I looked like a little boy. So I think in my mind I had adventures that had to do with the more physical adventures, like joining the SWAT team. And then for a while I was going to be an astronaut. So it was very adventure focused. However, then my brother was born and suddenly all the attention changed. So it's interesting. And then I think that's when I came into my own.

That's when I started to, I think at the age of 12 is when I met the friends that I mentioned earlier. And that's when I really was able to kind of just become the person that I am today, gradually, of course. So my 10-year-old would probably think, what kind of job does she have now? I don't think the 10-year-old me would have thought of entrepreneurship as a path. And now I work with creatives, and it's the piece that gives me my creative juices and it gives me an opportunity to constantly ideate and innovate and change. And my 10-year-old person was not that. Wow. Wow. Okay. So what was your journey like to get where you are? So my, so, you know, Winnie Hart. Yeah. She, no, she, she asked me once,

what do you stand for? And I had to really think really hard as to what it is that I stand for. And I realized that everything that I've done career wise has actually been this united fabric that has woven into what it is that I do on a natural basis. So I started my career in fashion, actually. I was a personal shopper and I ran the studio side of Macy's for about 10 years. Wow. And I loved it. Loved it. Absolutely loved it. And then my husband, Jamie, had started his business and he asked me if I could come and help him out. So my foray into artisan really was just to support Jamie, not really with any other thoughts around that. And, you know, fell into recruiting, loved it again, kind of being around creatives all the time,

just kind of just opened up a door for me that I didn't quite realize that it was there for me to enter. And that entered with what I do on the facilitation side. So when you asked me that question, I realized that what I stand for is to create relationships based on trust so that people can become a better version of themselves. And that's what I did as a personal shopper. I did it through clothing there, right? I did it through fashion and I did it through empowering people to feel better about themselves physically. And I do that in recruiting in terms of helping people

become a better version of themselves through better careers and through progressing in their, you know, in their path. And I certainly, you know, with Forum, as you know, we do that. It's more of a self-discovery journey, but however, creating a safe space so people can get there. So it's interesting that I started my career path really more from a passion place because I loved fashion. And then I just did it because I was going to help Jamie. And then I took over the business and then moving into the facilitation piece. That's been the common thread. The common thread has always been about relationships and creating trust and being a friend and being with people. Wow. Wow. Wow. So you're shopping for Macy's,

your buyer is in, it's a women's clothes? Yes. It wasn't a buying position. Okay. Yeah. It was a personal shopping. So helping people with their image. So it was an image consulting position. And then the studio services was selling clothing to the studios for all the TV shows and the movies and working with the costume designers and the stylists. And it was so much fun. Sounds fun. I've never, now that you're telling me, I love this story. Oh my gosh, it was so good. I could just imagine, right? Especially you're buying for someone else and you're just spending whatever. So that sounds fun. It was fun. The only challenge with that was, you know, with retail.

And I loved retail. And my heart goes out to anyone and everyone in retail right now with how they're being impacted. The only challenge with retail was I worked, even though I wasn't on the selling floor myself, I worked every weekend and all the holidays. And, you know, so after a while, after 10 years, you know, with just my family life, you know, it was time to make a change.

Yeah. It's very difficult. Actually, my very first job in the U.S., I actually worked for Macy's. Oh, you did? Yes. Where? It was in Florida and I was in a cosmetics department. I worked for the Estee Lauder counter. That was my very first job. That was my first job too, Macy. Yes. Yeah. Well, they have a great training. And then it's super solid.

Yeah. It was a great company. Yeah. I was actually down in your way. I was at South Coast Plaza for four years. Oh, wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So I remember selling the star awards, you know, I was so good at it, the selling the credit card. That's so funny. Yes. And you know, some of my co-worker at that time, they struggle into selling

the star awards and I was so good at it so I would give them my credits because I don't want them to get in trouble for their jobs it's like okay this is yours give me your idea I'll give it to you that's so funny it was so much fun good for you um Kathy um what have been the biggest challenge you've had to overcome as as a person or as a as a well I guess I'll just use it as a person because with entrepreneurship personal and business is all intertwined right yes uh the the biggest challenge personally um you know it has I think it had to do with recognizing that we all fall down. That's the recognition of it. And that it's the challenge isn't in the falling down.

The challenge is in making sure that we get back up, dust ourselves off and continue. And I think in the beginning, a failure just seems so big and to learn that you know what this too shall pass I think that was the biggest lesson and I think from a business perspective in our company is 24 years old so the big I think one of the biggest lessons was in you know when 9-11 happened and kind of just its impact. And then several years later, when the economy was impacted in 2008, and then here we are today. Just kind of just recognizing that we need to just be strong, or I need to be strong at my core. There's obviously there's team members, there's family, there's, you know, there's a whole industry that is being challenged right now. And if we're each focusing in on our core

and can just look beyond, then we're strong and we can kind of, you know, get past that. And then on the personal side of it, and this is what I talk about in my book, is just overcoming adversity. In my case, it had to do with several family members who passed away and the lessons learned there when I just thought it was the darkest moment ever and that I would never come out of it. I did. And I came out of it much, much stronger. So yeah, it's just recognizing that we all come out of this cocoon. And we do metamorphosize into, in my instance, I call it my butterfly years into a butterfly. Tell me about that experience. You said you'd never think you'd be out of that. So tell me, was that a death of the family that's so many in one year? Or I think, tell me, what was that? Yeah. So my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer and she had, it was a pretty grueling battle for a number of years. And she passed away in April of 2011. However, two months before that, in February, my father had passed away. And a month

before that, my stepmother had passed away. So the three of them within a four month period was, you know, a pretty challenging time, needless to say. And then a couple of years later, my cousin that I was mentioning, Melisse, she passed away from breast cancer. And she was very young. She was younger than me. So that was very hard. And then my uncle passed away.

And then my stepfather passed away. So it was just for the number of three and a half, four years, there were seven different people who died. And you never get used to it. You know, it's not, it's not a thing that you get used to. Each person impacts you in a different way. But I think the lessons learned there for me were, and it was an interesting lesson in that as dark and hard as it was just kind of like the birds were still chirping you know like a sun was still coming out and it was still beautiful the flowers smelled good and I had a hard time reconciling between the two you know like I was like it just seems so awful but how come the birds are so pretty, and they sound so lovely, and just realizing that circle of life, and just realizing that, you know, it is a process that we all go through, you know, and it's a process that I'm using now,

even with everything happening with COVID, and just being at home, I open my window, and the birds are chirping, and the sun's coming out, you know, it just gives me hope and it gives me, it's a good healing process for me to recognize that the world still goes on. Even though at the time I thought my world had ended, it hadn't. So is that the source of your strength of looking at the bird and the sun? I think so. Yeah, I think so. And I never necessarily had thought myself as the

nature person but it's the rebirth of nature that um just you know gives me gives me energy and kind of fuels my feels my spirit just even looking at those pretty flowers behind you is you know it's it's just so uplifting yeah yeah i think the other night dan and i we we started walking in in our park and everything's look all together and still intact yet we're dealing with it and it's just so real because everyone's at home but everything looks the same yeah yeah so now that you're sharing me your viewpoint it kind of i kind of relate to that like wow everything looks normal but the struggle inside us is we're we're saving our company and you know one after another and yeah around us still look the same, exactly. And growing and flourishing, right?

I mean, even without us interfering with it, the birds are chirping even louder. The grass is growing faster. So it's interesting to kind of be part of that cycle of life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what scares you the most about this current situation? I know you mentioned you went through 9-11 and the 2008 crisis, and this is way different.

So tell me what scares you the most. I'm actually pretty calm. Very, very calm. Sometimes surprisingly calm. And I keep thinking to myself, shouldn't I be more stressed? And I'm not. And obviously, this has impacted my business quite a bit. It's impacted my team quite a bit. It's impacted the creative community just incredibly. Actually, today we decided, we just created a complimentary talent portal for any talent who's been, you know, any creative who's been laid off for them to just post their resumes for whomever wants to hire them. We're not even involved, but we just want to be able to facilitate people getting jobs and getting back on their feet.

So I think what I don't want to miss, so if I'm concerned about the main thing that I'm concerned about is I don't want to miss the lesson from what is happening right now. There's a woman who had spoken at the Bali conference for women of EO last year. Her name is Susan James. And she had this line that really resonated with me. And she said, the test comes before the lesson. Wow. So we've definitely been tested and I want to make sure that I don't miss what the lesson is and you know just the connectivity just with myself this the time for self-reflection now the time for ideation the time for creativity this time the time for being more strategic I want to make sure that I can do something with it and not let it pass me by and say, oh, I had this opportunity to do something here and I didn't.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. In this current situation, I'm so grateful with the EO community. When I feel like my anxiety level is up, I have to go listen to Warren and then it comes to me down. Then now I'm like, yeah, it just, yeah. It's hard not to be, you know, not to feel what's going on, but like, it's really great to really go back to that.

Like, what's your purpose and the vision of clarity? I mean, like, it just calms you down. Yeah, it does. And I don't know if I will have a clear head without listening to it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think for us, for all of us entrepreneurs, all of us who've started businesses and grown businesses, we've done it once, we can do it again.

Just kind of just remembering that, right? We all started at a point where it wasn't there and then it was. We may not want to go back and do that again. However, it's within all of us to be able to do that yeah that's absolutely right yeah we'll always figure it out always and we have eo it's so grateful for eo to be able to have that you know have that sounding board and have forums and have friends and have all of that to be able to really rely on and communicate with and learn from.

Absolutely. Yeah. So what's your typical day like now? So it's interesting because my company has been remote for 10 years. So I've been working from home in this office for the past 10 years. So that part of it's not new. However, I'm finding that to make sure that I get centered and I don't get caught up in the news and in the chaos of it, I'm actually, I have even a much more disciplined plan than

I did, I have in the past 10 years. So my typical morning starts around five in the morning. Jamie and I go for a walk, you know, before anybody else is awake for about two to three miles every morning. I come back, I meditate, I take a shower, I get ready, you know, put my makeup on. I never used to wear makeup now for the past month. I'm wearing makeup every day. Maybe because I'm on zoom so much yes yeah it's so funny yeah I'm I'm noticing

I started brushing my hair normally I wouldn't care it's like we're doing the zoom so much we actually don't care what we look like right that's so funny yeah and then just jump back into work you know our business is down um however i'm trying to make lemonade out of lemons and you know just really focus on marketing and focusing on this talent portal that i mentioned and just really making sure that my team is, you know, my team feels safe and my team is busy and my team feels, you know, productive. I truly feel this too shall pass. And just, we need to make sure that once it does pass that we're prepared and we're ready. And in the meantime, just help as many people as we can. Yeah, absolutely. And what are you most grateful for?

Well, of course, family and health. That goes without saying that, I think, without having that foundational piece, it's hard to function. So I think I'm most grateful for having that solid foundation and just recognizing, it really goes back to what I was saying before with the birds and everything. I'm really grateful for having had my eyes open to recognize all the little things that are beautiful in my life and not focus on like a disaster or, you know, one thing. There's multiple things that keep me solid and sane. Wow. Powerful. And what advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?

So I don't give advice, as you know. So my experience, my experience share with that would be trust your guts. I think that's probably the biggest mistake I made earlier on is self-doubt and not, not relying on what my inner voice was telling me and what my heart was telling me. So that would be, I think, the biggest experience that I could share with someone is if you're passionate about something and if you have the drive to go after something, do it. If it doesn't work out, so what? You've fallen down, you get up, you dust yourself off, and you go after something else. It's the not trying that is, I think, the biggest loss. Absolutely.

So tell me about that self-doubt. What was in your head at that moment when you questioned yourself? I don't know. I'm assuming everybody has that little voice in your head that, you know, that Christina Harbridge, if you remember her from- The storytelling. Yes. Yeah. You know, it's the roommate. It's the roommate in your head that is telling you, you know, you're not good enough. You're not strong enough you know you're you're silly it's just that voice in your head and just recognizing to uh not listen to that voice and just listen to your own voice you know when there's two voices up here it's hard to be able

to focus and to concentrate so to shut that one that does you no good and just to listen to the one that is the encouraging voice and the one that really wants you to flourish the one that does you no good and just to listen to the one that is the encouraging voice and the one that really wants you to flourish the one that doesn't have an agenda it's wonderful yeah yeah the agenda-less voice that's the one agenda-less i like that i love that and so what do you see as your place or purpose in life? Kathy. My purpose in life is really, I think, to create the space so that people can be a better person, a better version of themselves. You know, it's not my job or anybody else's job, I think, to make somebody be better, it has to come from inside of someone, but to be able to create the trust and to create the space so that people feel comfortable to, you know, scratch the

surface and get there on their own is, I feel pretty confident about that, that that's a superpower of mine is to be able to create you know create safety for someone yeah and that's the most difficult job that's like I remember you I remember you when I think of you I remember the Johari window that you were training us you know so that was yeah that's that's very amazing so Kathy where can they find you what's your handle they can find me everywhere yeah so depending on where they want to look uh I'm on LinkedIn uh just link Kathy if they I think there's I must have had this handle many many years ago there is no other no last name needed just katie as well as our website artisan creative.com is the recruiting

and staffing side of our business and then createaction.com is the facilitation side of my business and i'm on facebook i'm on instagram i'm on Twitter so if you just put in my name you will find me yeah and when is the book is going to be out it's with the editors so this is the second pass with the editor so I'm hoping that by the time she gets it back to me that it's in a good enough place that we can see the finishing line so absolutely definitely for sure this year whether it's in a month or three months it all depends on what she comes back on the editing I can't wait um what's the title of the book it's called the butterfly years yeah I just had a death in a family

though and I'm sorry so much because he's so young so you know I would love to have that book like I want to read it because it's been a struggle for me oh I'm so sorry to hear that I'm happy to talk to you anytime you want about that so much okay Kathy thank you so much this is so amazing I actually learned so much from you oh thank you yeah. Thank you for asking me to be on this call with you. I really appreciate it, Kate. I had so much fun and thank you for sharing and have a great day. Thank you. You too. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe and visit katehancock.com so you don't miss out on the next episode.