Blog - Kathleen Hassan

How Do I Learn to Love Myself?

Did you know that if you type, how do I learn to… into Google, the #1 searched skill is—you guessed it—love myself. Why is it that so many of us never learned this essential and vital ingredient to living a life of wholehearted happiness? Oftentimes, it’s the negative messaging that we received as kids that has become our conditioned and programmed response to life. Like an operating system that’s been running in the background, it affects our self-image and the way we see ourselves in relation to the world. My negative programming was installed and had been operating beneath the surface since childhood. My dad died when I was ten years old and my mother died when I was sixteen. The six years between their deaths were not happy times as my mother, a widow with five kids, suffered from a debilitating heart condition and a broken heart. She [...]

By Kathleen| 2021-06-07T13:37:50-05:00 June 7th, 2021|

One Small Step For a Girl

I can't believe it's been fifty years since the Apollo 11 lunar landing. What's even more incredible is that, because there is no atmosphere on the moon, the astronauts' footprints are still up there, perfectly preserved exactly as they were that day. On July 20, 1969, an estimated 450 million people around the world sat transfixed, listening to radios or watching their television sets, as the Apollo Lunar Module touched down on the moon. We held our breath and didn’t exhale until Neil Armstrong announced to Mission Control, “The Eagle has landed.” A collective cheer was heard around the world as he stepped off the ladder, put his foot down onto the lunar surface and spoke these legendary words, “That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.” The significance of that day has been burned into my memory, but not for the obvious, historical achievement for [...]

By Kathleen| 2019-09-13T16:17:09-05:00 July 19th, 2019|

Healing Teen Anxiety: 5 Ways to Break Free

There's an anxiety epidemic in our culture today and it's affecting millions of teens, especially girls. Nearly 32 percent of adolescents in the United States have an anxiety disorder, according to survey data reported by the National Institute of Mental Health. Society's solution is often prescribed medication to alleviate the symptoms, but like a bandaid on cancer, it only masks and rarely eradicates the problem. In order to heal it, we have to fully understand it and become aware of the insidiousness of this disease. Make no mistake about it—this is indeed a disease, as in, not being "at ease," and it's literally killing our kids. According the CDC (Center for Disease Control), suicide rates are up 30% since 2000. 23% of high school girls seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year (YRBS - Youth Risk Behavior Survey). Just last year alone, four of my teen girl coaching clients [...]

By Kathleen| 2021-06-07T13:35:42-05:00 April 3rd, 2019|

What Are You Waiting For?

What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for your big break? A book deal? A financial breakthrough? A promotion? Your house to sell? The love of your life to come and sweep you off your feet? Your daughter to respect you? For her to love and accept herself? To lose twenty pounds? For your roots to grow out? To get all your ducks in a row? The legendary Tom Petty sang, “And the waiting is the hardest part.” No one likes to wait. We live in a world of instant gratification and quick fixes. In today’s society, entitlement has replaced empowerment and as a result, our kids are suffering with depression and anxiety. We need to teach them persistence and resiliency skills, how to stop looking to everyone else for their sense of self-worth and how to stop being so damn afraid to fail. There’s a worship song we sing at [...]

By Kathleen| 2018-05-01T01:30:25-05:00 May 1st, 2018|

Wanna Make God Laugh?

You know the old joke, "Wanna make God laugh? Tell him your plans!" Well no doubt, God is laughing his ass off right about now as I embark on a mission trip to Medellin, Colombia this summer. Never in a million years did I imagine I would be a freaking missionary traveling to remote regions to share the love of God. It was never part of my five, ten or even twenty year plan. But four years ago I walked into a church and it felt like home. I'm not even sure I was looking for a church, but happened to see a sign on the main road one day for Life Christian Church. The logo was a tree and I always loved the symbolism of the tree of life and so I decided to check it out. Six months after that, I got baptized in the Gulf of Mexico! [...]

By Kathleen| 2018-04-06T14:23:10-05:00 April 6th, 2018|

Need help? Hire a Girl!

My business naturally yields itself to working with girls. Let’s face it, my business is girls! But even if you’re not specifically in the female empowering biz, hiring a girl might be the best thing you could do for your company, and will probably be the best thing that could happen to a girl too. This past summer, I hired an intern for some special projects, one of which was getting organized and clearing out all old files from my desk and computer. While transferring files onto a external memory drive, I came across a series of audio files that I had created years ago while mentoring a group of girls at GirlTalk Radio, a station run by girls in Boston. All the girls had cool DJ names and they dubbed me “DJ Kat.” I created twenty short audio clips/confidence tips that they could play regularly on air as girl empowerment [...]

By Kathleen| 2017-12-24T14:47:04-05:00 December 24th, 2017|

Stand Beside Her

I'm so honored to be a national partner in the Stand Beside Her movement, which encourages girls to support one another and help each other succeed. We were asked to create a video of our own #StandBesideHer story and here's mine. <https://youtu.be/rEnxYcaIdNA> Last week I spoke at an 8th Grade Girls Summit and their brochure had a picture of a mountain and I used that theme throughout my talk to demonstrate the journey from where you are to where you want to be and most importantly, it's not the goal but what it will make of you to achieve it. In other words - it's the climb. During my talk I referenced a Hindu Proverb that says, Help thy brother's across and LO! thine own has reached the shore. I told the girls that we need to change that up and say this instead: Help thy sister up [...]

By Kathleen| 2017-11-03T15:21:39-05:00 November 3rd, 2017|

You Are Here! But Where Do You Want to Be?

You are here! You know that map at the mall? The one you look at when you're trying to find Forever 21? In order to get there you have to know where you're coming from. It's the same thing in life. You can't get where you're going until you know the starting point. Last week was the final session of my brand new pilot program called Buried Treasure: A Girl's Guide to Discovering Inner Strength and Confidence. It's a social emotional curriculum that helps girls deal with their feelings and relationships more effectively so they can navigate the onslaught of pop culture that constantly sets them up for feeling like they're not good enough. This particular program was a six-week after school program, but will be adapted for a weekend retreat experience as well. The Buried Treasure™ curriculum was developed to help girls explore their place in the world, to [...]

By Kathleen| 2017-06-05T15:50:09-05:00 June 5th, 2017|

Perfectly Imperfect: Adele Models the Art of the Do Over

Thank you Adele! Last night during the Grammys, in front of millions of viewers, Adele modeled the art of the do over to perfection. She was singing a tribute to George Michael and a few bars into her rendition of Fast Love, she stopped and said, "I'm sorry, I can't mess this up for him. Can we start over?" A collective gasp shot round the world. Then, as if realizing what she'd just done, she dropped an undeniable f-bomb. You might wonder, what's so perfect about that? Often times our greatest failures become our greatest life lessons, but try telling that to a teenage girl who is obsessed with perfection and will do just about anything to achieve that. There's an anxiety epidemic in our world today as our girls are bombarded with air-brushed images and unrealistic standards of beauty and perfection. To witness a pop culture icon publicly screwing [...]

By Kathleen| 2017-03-07T10:59:57-05:00 February 14th, 2017|

Grace Under Fire: Turning My Mess into a Message

Over the past twenty years as a professional speaker, I’ve had my fair share of speeches that didn’t go my way. But last week’s presentation to the National Charity League in San Antonio was an epic disaster. I was so excited because the NCL’s mission aligns so well with my message of fostering the mother daughter relationship and developing confident young women leaders, and 250 mothers and daughters would be there for my talk. Never in a million years did I imagine that weather would be a factor in traveling from Florida to Texas, but that day 50 mph winds prevented us from landing in San Antonio and we were diverted to Houston. My speech was at 4:00pm and it was already 12:30. As we sat on the tarmac, I kept telling myself, “God makes all things come together for my good,” even though things didn’t look so good. Then [...]

By Kathleen| 2017-03-07T11:02:22-05:00 February 6th, 2017|