Blaze Your Own Trail – Kt McBratney (co-founder) Ep.27

OwnTrail is a social platform that helps people visualize and achieve their next milestone in life and work through offering tools and community that fuel a more authentic definition of success.

Kt McBratney is co-founder and chief community officer of OwnTrail, founded in 2020 (just three weeks before the pandemic hit). After meeting her co-founder Rebekah Bastian in Seattle she moved across the country to a new home, sight-unseen, and now lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Before that she’s been a chief marketing officer, a brand marketer, production director, worked at a zoo, and in higher education (all while secretly wearing a superhero t-shirt under her business suit). Kt seeks to “disrupt the status-bro” by helping people reclaim their stories and loves building strong, inclusive communities. “The status-bro tricks us into focusing on a mythical one ‘right’ path through life, instead of focusing on OUR path. It makes us feel like we're only as good as our resumes and social media.”

In this episode we explore being authentic to yourself and why LinkedIn is great for job-hunting but not really great at helping you figure out what you really want to do. We talk about the rising feminine, burnout, frogs, pagers (143 anyone?), and the power of help-beacons; how OwnTrail is designed to be a totally different kind of social platform. Kt explains finding themselves fascinated by people who do many things… people she calls “ANDs.” We also talk about the crucial importance of play (Spoiler alert: the job is never done!) and why Steve is a Mokey sun with a Janice moon and a Scooter rising.

There was one social media quote that I couldn’t find for the episode that I think sums everything up perfectly: “Be a Kermit the Frog. Have a creative vision and no ego. Recognize the unique talents of those around you. Attract weirdos. Manage chaos. Show kindness. Be sincere.” – Richard R. Penner (@timescanner)

Guest: Kt McBratney

OwnTrail

Kt’s Trail

Twitter: @k_to_the_t

References

Jennifer Fischer (Language of Creativity Ep. 2 | Medium | Twitter | Think Ten Media)
Seed&Spark

Proposals for a Feminine Economy – Jennifer Armbrust (sister.is | book | short video)

Ecosystem Restoration Camps

Kiss The Ground (documentary)

The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music – Victor L. Wootin (GoodReads)
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future – Daniel Pink  (GoodReads)

The “Bad Vegan” Scandal (TastingTable)

AuthenTech: (from Rebekah Bastian’s Trail) “Once OwnTrail has a liquidity event, I plan to take that money and re-invest it into the startup ecosystem, focusing on under-estimated founders that are building AuthenTech companies. In the meantime, I'm starting to dabble in some small investments, as an angel and LP, so I can build up my experience and portfolio.”

Short Circuit (IMDB)
Weird Al Yankovic (Washington Post | New York Times)
Weird Al work ethic in the studio (Behind the Scenes on the making of Strait Outta Lynwood)
(Weird Al and Steve share a birthday!)
Scorpio/Libra cusp astrology
Mokey Fraggle

Steven’s Trail

Host: Steven Leavitt

Steven’s Trail
Site: https://www.icreatesound.com/
Portfolio: http://stevenleavitt.com/

Featured Music
“Boom Cat” by Raul Hernandez
“Nothing Wrong” by Lobate Scarp

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Website: https://thelanguageofcreativity.com/

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Tags

Founders, startups, saas, online community, values, woman-owned, LinkedIN, CMO, marketing, board-room, careers, zoo, higher education, employment, indie film, motherhood, book hoarder, moving across-country, Atlanta, home buying, Seattle, pandemic, dad jokes, Jennifer Fischer, health insurance coverage, social media, algorithms, gamified, #winning, safety, milestones, marriage, getting a job, miscarriage, burnout, community, help-beacon, tools, pagers, payphones, fax-machines, starting a podcast, TED talks, life path, questions, artists, square peg in a round hole, creatives, creative careers, environment, sharing stories, non-binary, feminine spaces, abundance, representation, race, disconnection, loneliness, compartmentalization, Los Angeles, individualism, collectivism, John D. Liu, Kiss The Ground, Ecosystem Restoration Camps, mycelium networks, cross-polination, nature, ecology, support, pivot, authenticity, inclusion, curiosity, Muppet astrology