How Community Saved Me: Identity, Loss, and Becoming a Leader – with Kat Ling

Mike Montoya: (00:00:00) Welcome to The Stronger Podcast. Each week we have honest conversation with education and social impact leaders about their leadership and career journeys. We talk about their origins, inflection points, and the work that they're doing today. The conversations are honest, human, and practical. If you're here for real stories, and real takeaways, you're in the right place. Let's jump in and let's get stronger together.

Today I'm with Kat Ling, CEO of Moonshot Ventures in Denver. Kat's path runs from multi-racial queer kid finding belonging in the white suburbs of Connecticut to teaching fourth grade in the Mississippi Delta to building a network that helps youth thrive across schools, nonprofits, and community spaces. We talk about Village over Lone hero, redesigning systems, not just launching programs, and learning to make their decisions without losing inclusion.

Before we dive into today's conversation, I want to give a quick shout out to podcastmatter.com. Their mission is to help impact driven voices get the visibility they deserve. If you want to share your message with the world, check out their website in the show notes. All right. (00:01:03) Good morning, Kat. How are you?

Kat Ling: (00:01:04) Good morning. I'm good. How are you?

Mike Montoya: (00:01:06) I'm great. It's great to see you. Thanks for taking the time with me today. Okay.

Kat Ling: (00:01:09) Yeah. Thank you.

Mike Montoya: (00:01:10) So, before we got started, I asked you what's ahead and you you shared a couple of things um about potential travel. You want to share any more? about that.

Kat Ling: (00:01:21) Yeah, I've got a mix of um fun fun work and personal travel. So, I'm heading tomorrow to go to Mexico City for the first time with some of my best friends, which I'm super pumped about. We're going for a few days. And then after that, I head to South Carolina for a board meeting of a family foundation whose board I just joined. And then after that, I've got I get to see my new baby niece who was just born on October 1st. And so, I get to meet her for the first time. This is my first niece or nephew at all. So, I'm a first- time auntie.

Mike Montoya: (00:02:00) So, you get to be the the banical aunt playing that card, huh? That's super fun.

Kat Ling: (00:02:05) Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Mike Montoya: (00:02:07) Where where where in the country is your niece now?

Kat Ling: (00:02:10) Maryland.

Mike Montoya: (00:02:11) Maryland. Okay. So, you get to do a little east coast loop over there. Exactly. (00:02:16) So, I'm curious about the family foundation. I'm guessing where it probably is. I know which one it is potentially, but we'll talk about that afterwards. But, I'm super excited about So, Mexico City, I've heard it's like only so amazing things. Right. One of our team members lives in Mexico and he like knows everything about these locations and so he's always jonesing me to get down there. He's like, "Get going. Get going." I'm like, "So, I want to hear about the trip." You guys have like they call it big plans on like meals and things like that. They have supposedly have some of the best food in the planet basically. So,

Kat Ling: (00:02:54) yes, that's what I'm most excited about. And I kind of whenever I travel, the most important thing to me is where are we going to eat? So, that's kind of where I've been focusing my energy. But, I've got a friend who's kind of taken responsibility of planning it. So, he's got a whole spreadsheet and lots of activities planned for us.

Mike Montoya: (00:03:14) That's awesome. Okay, I want to know your friends so that they can help me in the future because

Kat Ling: (00:03:19) I know it's such a gift. Such a gift.

Mike Montoya: (00:03:22) Okay, it's super fun. So, you're going to go to Mexico. You're doing some personal play. (00:03:26) This is a little bit of the life of a of a leader, right? You have to you fit in the the work in the play. It's kind of all blended together. Is that kind of like your typical Is that kind of Are you comfortable with that lifestyle or do you kind of miss home after you've been gone for a while?

Kat Ling: (00:03:40) I definitely miss home after being gone for a while. This year has been a lot well the past few years have been a lot of travel particularly moving into the CEO role and then also I feel like now that travel's picked up again that I've been figuring out how do I make travel feel just as like ritual and just as comfortable as it is being at home to try to make it balance out a little bit more but I found that right now it's kind of like traveling for a full month then I'm home for a month then traveling again so and then kind of figuring out how to make it all work.

Mike Montoya: (00:04:22) Yeah, the the ritual. I love that that ritual idea because like sometimes it can be super stressful with all the moving parts that are involved in and packing and moving and changing locations and sleeping and not sleeping and all that stuff that comes with hotels, etc. So,

Kat Ling: (00:04:47) yes. And I'm a horrible packer. So, I have tried to learn that and become a little bit better by just having a packed bag ready to go versus have to unpack and repack all the time.

Mike Montoya: (00:05:01) Yeah, that's true. And you're like, "Hey, these are the clothes I really like. Why are they in the packed bag I like? to wear them,"

Kat Ling: (00:05:08) right? Exactly.

Mike Montoya: (00:05:10) I try to like plan my favorite shirt, the things I want to wear. I'm like, make sure it's not used the days before I go on the trip so I can have them on the trip because I have a pretty basic wardrobe, right? It's like not very exciting, but it's like, you know, as long as I have it, I'm like, "Oh, it'll work out." Most of the time it works out.

Kat Ling: (00:05:28) Yeah. Same. Same. I'm after this, we'll be doing lots of laundry to get ready. So,

Mike Montoya: (00:05:35) yeah. I always have a hard time when I blend the personal and professional travel because then I end up with like I call it like my fun clothes. I don't, you know, I don't wear as much. And so, So, I end up like getting to, you know, pull those out of the out of the closet and that's more fun for like Mexico City. It sounds like I'd be slow. So,

Kat Ling: (00:05:58) yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I know. There's some like queer bars, queer clubs that I'm excited to check out in Mexico City, but I have to remember to pack accordingly. So,

Mike Montoya: (00:06:12) yeah, that's good. I know. Cuz you show up and people are like all decked out, right? You're like, you're like, "What?" You know, people really like I call it Latin America and Central and South America. Like, they do I call it better job of enjoying their life in some ways, right? And they just do it better and I'm like always feeling like I'm behind the curve on those things.

Kat Ling: (00:06:40) Yeah. It's also coming from Colorado where dressed up is like Birkenstocks and like comfortable pants. I sometimes have to remind myself how different it is when I travel to all these different places.

Mike Montoya: (00:06:54) Yeah, that's right. People are Yeah. People don't just wear flannel or whatever it is all the time.

Kat Ling: (00:07:01) Yeah.

Mike Montoya: (00:07:01) I live in Oregon now and like flannel we call it the flannel season. It's like everybody's starting to pull out their plaid and we all like sort of look the same when we go outside.

Kat Ling: (00:07:11) Right. Right. That's very funny.

Mike Montoya: (00:07:14) Well, let's jump back. (00:07:14) I like to I love to hear people's kind of origin stories a little bit like and kind of in in some ways like sharing about how you got to this place in your maybe your career but also your life, right? And and the the elements that you're willing to share about like you know back to childhood if you want to and and and kind of like what's the journey and and we can kind of just follow that for a little bit. Does that sound reasonable to chat about that?

Kat Ling: (00:07:46) Yeah, that sounds great.

Mike Montoya: (00:07:48) Great. So yeah, tell me like where did you where Where did you grow up? How did you get to Colorado? Things like that.

Kat Ling: (00:07:55) Yeah. So, I grew up in Connecticut in kind of white suburbia. And I my family is one of, you know, few families of color there and really grew up with my I have two older brothers and grew up close to my aunts and uncle and grandparents and really had a it takes a village kind of upbringing where saw my family a lot. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 1 years old and battled that for 7 years before she passed away. And I so had a lot of family helping and a lot of you know community collective care throughout my life and I kind of defined very early on what I saw as you know our responsibility to one another and felt very lucky to have my mom's parents move in with us and help raise my brothers and I and I really saw community as one of the most important things things growing up and also grew up queer Asian-American and I mentioned in white suburbia and so was always looking for community and belonging as a as a kid and I think that really defined a lot of where I am now and you know what I've kind of been searching for throughout my whole life.

And then when I got to college I started to put words to a lot of the feelings and experiences I had had had I took my first feminism 101 class. I, you know, found queer community and found community of people of color and started to think more about what multi-racial coalitions look like and felt really like this is what I needed when I was younger. This is the language and the community. (00:10:04) And then after college, I was recruited into Teach for America. And you know, all I knew was that I want a way to live out social justice work on in my day-to-day. And at the time, Teach for America kind of presented an opportunity for that. And so joined the core and I checked the box back in the day when they had this where they said, "Send me anywhere." I was one of those.

Mike Montoya: (00:10:30) Brave world.

Kat Ling: (00:10:31) Yes. And so they sent me to Mississippi Delta. And so I taught fourth grade in rural Mississippi and then joined staff at Teach for America and worked there for about eight years. And in Arkansas and in the Mississippi regions. And then did a lot of work in teacher development. A lot of really focused on how do we support leaders of color to move into positions, school leadership to take on more responsibility. And then was starting to get a little burnt out at the end and found Moonshot (00:11:15) and I met CDL at a coffee shop. Moonshot's founder.

Mike Montoya: (00:11:18) We'll talk about her. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Kat Ling: (00:11:20) And was, you know, had no connections to Denver, but was really excited to meet this Asian-American woman who was helping make people's visions a reality. And so, I decided to move and become our chief of staff.

Mike Montoya: (00:11:34) Yeah, that's awesome. (00:11:34) So, you picked up So, I hear a couple of threads there. Like, one's the well the community that was necessary to raise you as a as a kid, right? And and the loss of your mom, which I'm I I don't know exactly what It feels like at that young age, but it probably I mean there's there's a gap, right, that your grandparents and other people filled in on, right? And so you had that unique growing up experience and and then I mean in isolation I don't did you experience the isolation in school like like was it notable that you were like the only I don't know maybe you weren't the only but like one of a few non-white kids in your in your school experience?

Kat Ling: (00:12:13) Yeah, it was really I remember in fourth grade when we were taking standardized tests. And you know if you have to check off the race category and I remember the teacher was kind of guiding everybody through okay like okay now we're at this section everybody circle white and then she kind of caught herself and was like oh wait Catherine you you don't do that one you do Asian. And I think that was like the fir Yeah. And that was the first time where I was like oh wow this is like this is the language for why you know I'm different in this way from everybody else. But I think that was like a pretty representative like you know once I kind of understood what is the difference here. I was just it was something that I was always trying to put words or meaning to like why did I feel so different or so out of it and out of you know the mainstream. And I think with later on especially once I moved into education learning about like mental health outcomes for Asian-American girls in particular I was able to to see, oh wow, this is it wasn't just me. This is, you know, actually like a a broader community that I'm a part of and there are disproportionate, you know, mental health and health outcomes there.

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(00:14:38) Yeah, that's I I think I know a little bit of that data there, which is basically to say like, you know, the isolation that can happen with with folks, right, can like, you know, negatively impact rate them over time. And it shows up in women in particular in the I think there's a pretty robust study that came out maybe four or five years ago that I think I saw that was like basically saying like hey like as they get to be adults they have all these like deficit components right that have shown up that's a result of like that isolation as a kid right or or the high demand sometimes like the whole performance expectations that were necessary in some cases right so

Kat Ling: (00:15:33) yeah

Mike Montoya: (00:15:35) that makes sense yeah you know that that makes me you know as you're sharing about that I'm thinking like oh yeah I remember feeling like a part of my school community but also like separate from and I think I had innate internal piece. And I think, you know, I grew up as a gay kid, but I didn't know it, right? I didn't know anybody. I didn't know I didn't know that nobody else felt like me, right? Until I couldn't figure out like in middle school in particular, you're like, how come I cannot connect with people in this in the way that like feels like I'm a part of this community, right? This group of boys or this group of people. I didn't have the I call it the facility around that. And there was no language, right? This is like in the 70s or the 80s, right? The early 80s. And so there was no language that was available to kids. to put a number on it, right? Or to explain it, right, in particular, right? So, I think I had a little bit of that like, oh, I'm wandering around without the without a guide book, if that makes sense, like very un Now that I got older, I'm like, that was not very fair, right? I wish somebody had said like, "This is okay. You're going to be okay." But nobody knew that.

Kat Ling: (00:18:22) Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's, you know, not having folks who shared my identities in positions of power growing up was such a like I knew one gay person growing up which was a gay white man. And so I was, you know, I saw we don't feel similar. So I couldn't really understand like what my identity was cuz I didn't really see any adults who shared those identities. So I didn't really have this like model of what what does it look like to grow up and have these identities or have these feelings that I don't really see reflected for me yet.

Mike Montoya: (00:19:07) Yeah, for sure. And and like you don't even know that like maybe I'm not labeling saying that this is you, but like kids don't know that they can ask question about that stuff. At least when I was a kid, there was no space for those conversations, right? That was safe. He asked it like basically I knew that I didn't feel like it was okay or safe to feel weird about it. Like what? How come I'm like the glove isn't fitting, but I can't tell anybody that it's not fitting? Because if I tell them it's not fitting, then I might get in trouble or something will happen that's badly. Right. So

Kat Ling: (00:20:00) Right. Right. Exactly. And there's such um we're just like put in such boxes as kids. And so I didn't even, you know, I'm multi-racial. And so it was growing up in a white town, I was always Asian, but I didn't really understand what it meant to be multi-racial growing up because the box was Asian. And then same with like gender, too, where it was like there's girls and there's boys and there's nothing else. And it didn't really give any space to be like, well, what if something doesn't feel like it fits exactly or I'm not really seeing myself within the box that everyone else is in?

Mike Montoya: (00:20:55) That's I mean, well, there's there's the kinship, but I think that's part of why the the queer community, right, exists in as a, you know, pan holder, right, as a space where all these things that are like I call I I call myself a misfit, right? It never really fit in the right thing, but the queer community at least gives me a place that I can like say I at least I can operate in this experience in this in this much larger a bigger box, right? That made me feel safer, right? To know that like, oh, I'm not the only even if it's a very small percentage of the total population when you get together there's a whole bunch of us. Right. And that's super empowering, right? And I'm like, is this how everybody feels all the time?

Kat Ling: (00:22:15) Yes.

Mike Montoya: Right. Right. Like that's not very that's not very fair.

Kat Ling: (00:22:21) Yeah. It's like it's why I found affinity groups in the beginning of my career to be so powerful. And particularly when I was living in Arkansas, Mississippi, to be connected to affinity groups of people across the country was just a gamecher of understanding, you know, similar experiences and different experiences and that all everything within the spectrum could still fit within this one group.

Mike Montoya: (00:22:58) Did you find a community like that? I mean, maybe in college it sounds like that was likely, right? Did you find that when you went into Teach for America down in the in the Delta area? Like, did that exist?

Kat Ling: (00:23:14) Yeah. So, I when I first moved down to Mississippi ended up being with a group of women who all of us were kind of the last people to find housing in our small town of 3,000. And it ended up, you know, being kizmmet for the five of us finding a house together and it was all women of color with different racial identities. And so it was like this, you know, community of color that was really really helpful. And then and I mean as well as all of us being first year teachers too, which was also, you know, a very shared intense experience.

(00:24:00) And then when I worked for Teach for America, I think it was such a I feel really lucky to have worked for an organization at a young point in my career that was national because even though I was in Arkansas, Mississippi and I maybe didn't have another Asian-American on staff for a while or you know there wasn't a huge queer community which I later found that there was actually a really robust you know queer community in the deep south and that was really special. But I got connected to Asian-American leaders across the country through the resource group and affinity groups and some of those folks are still some of my closest friends now because we bonded so much about those shared experiences even while living in really different places.

Mike Montoya: (00:25:21) Yeah. Well, yeah, that's kind of amazing. I think that that supernational network, right, the TFA has both because of the teacher bonded first couple years of your early early career life, right? Like that's a huge component, right? And then the fact that they were I call it more tuned up about this, right? And I think the ed space in general has been more tuned up about being aware of it than like say corporate America for example, things like that, right? So like it's it's a thing to have that experience and opportunity. For sure.

(00:26:11) Did you feel like like now that you've I call it grown up more, right? Now that you're now that you're not the same age and person at that as you were when in your early 20s, like do you feel like you're still able to find those spaces and and create those spaces? Like I find myself like intentionally creating those communities in places where I live by trying to like find individuals that are maybe just out there on their own, but intentionally I'm like let's get together and like let's start to find connections because I feel like If you don't build it, it doesn't just show up for you, right? That's my experience, right?

Kat Ling: (00:27:01) 100%. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I Well, I feel one lucky that Moonshot is majority people of color and also has a really strong queer community within our alumni and our fellows. And so sometimes it feels like I live in a different Denver because of it because I work in around people of color all the time. So it feels super diverse out but you know that's within our little bubble and I I think that we also came when I moved to Denver, I wanted to make sure I found queer community and so kind of just did some research and was trying to figure out how do I, you know, find queer community, but that also overlaps with the activist desires that I have and found the LGBTQ commission, which is a volunteer body of community leaders under the mayor's office that works specifically for LGBTQ equity in the city. And so that's been another way that I, you know, just try to seek out the community that I know I need and that hopefully I can contribute to as well.

Mike Montoya: (00:28:34) Yeah. Well, that's kind of amazing. You just kind of intere into politics just a tiny bit. Like Denver is different than I grew up in Colorado, right? So, I remember having to leave Colorado because it was such a I call it oppressive experience as a child because of its very I call at the time very red and right right-sided Christian kind of value set that was like very present in the politics and the people that were there. It just was like always in the media. It was like constantly a blast of like negative kind of stuff and you know the culture wars have been going on forever and it was certainly in place then. (00:29:21) And now I go to Denver and I'm like this is not the same place. There's still people still dress like cowboys and wear lots of jeans and cowboy hats and stuff like that too but like like you know I think the the governor is identifies as gay maybe right and then and then the I don't know what else is going on local politics but it sounds like there's some institutions that are starting to emerge right that are possible in place right so. Yeah, definitely.

Kat Ling: (00:29:43) Yeah. And there's just a lot of interesting policies, a lot of progressive policies that have been put in place in the city that I think has been an interesting model for the rest of the state. And yeah, there's I mean it's an interesting because, you know, it's similar to a lot of places, liberal urban centers and then surrounded by like rural red areas. But I think that it's it was a a far cry from where the context I was coming from in Arkansas and Mississippi as well. Oh

Mike Montoya: (00:30:26) yeah, the little blue dots that have been emerging across the country have I call them you know oases right of sorts right where and I also feel like people obviously are attracted to that otherwise the cities wouldn't be emerging and growing right and people are looking for you know the middle road and the opportunity to be amongst you know again diverse experiences etc right and find out so

Kat Ling: (00:30:57) yeah.

Mike Montoya: (00:30:57) that's super interesting. (00:30:59) Well, I appreciate you sharing about that that piece and you know I was super curious like okay You ran into we had a common friend, right? You ran into CDL, Christine Deleon, who's who's out there probably will listen to this at some point. You know, she she's a powerhouse, right? And she's like a I call her, right? She puts her hands on things and it turns into to cool stuff. So, you ran into her in a cafe. Is that what you said? Just randomly.

Kat Ling: (00:31:30) Yeah. No, we got connected through a mutual friend and when she was looking for her chief of staff and I was in Denver at a conf a DEI conference for Teach for America and he was like, "You should go meet her." And I was like, Well, I'm not really looking for a job. I don't, you know, I'm not thinking about moving to Denver. And he was like, just go meet her. And so, I left the conference, met her at this coffee shop that was like so far from where the conference was, but it was really life-changing. And getting to hear her experiences and her passion and the idea of working under an Asian-American woman and being mentored was, you know, just too compelling to pass up. So,

Mike Montoya: (00:32:32) yeah, it's such an interesting time. And I think, you know, this is about 2014. or something like that when this was all happening in my head. Maybe it was around that area that you met her, but she and I worked at the Broad Center foundations together for a couple years. So, we knew each other there. But then we were in a Pahara experience together, which was the time when she was figuring out the Moonshot thing. And so, you know, like to for us to go through that and then so it literally emerges, right? And then a few years later, you and I met each other probably because we were working on something together. But that was like, you know, like these tiny little worlds, right, that keep coll And I think in some cases it's like really I feel super I call it blessed maybe is the word right to have like these people in my life that are just like super committed to the work very creative right and imaginative right and then also I call it collectors of super talented people right they're like almost like right for that stuff. So I'm glad that you guys each other.

Kat Ling: (00:34:00) Yeah me too. It was really Yeah. I feel like since then I I think it I felt a little bit more insulated in the education world. old working in Arkansas, Mississippi and working for Teach for America where it was a strong network, but it was within, you know, that very specific organization and meeting CDL and seeing like learning about Pahara and all these other organizations, Edlock was really eye opening of like look at this vast network of people of color, of women and queer folks that I, you know, and CDL is like so someone who just opens, you know, when she gets into a room, she'll open the door for somebody else. and bring somebody else into it. And I feel really I think blessed is a good good word for it. But yeah, just really lucky that I got to like make that connection in the first place.

Mike Montoya: (00:35:10) Yeah, that's that's again I'm a universe guy. Like the stuff just keeps showing up when you're on the right kind of frequency, right? And think about that. And I think the the valuable things that and we'll talk about Moonshot a little bit because I'm curious like Moonshot started out kind of starting kind of schools, right? In some cases, right? So but it's evolved, right? So now Oh, you guys are doing lots of things. You want to share a little bit about like kind of like the exciting components that are happening now?

Kat Ling: (00:35:46) Yeah. Yeah, definitely. (00:35:49) So, we started off as a school incubator kind of looking at at the time in the metro Denver area that, you know, students of color had disperate outcomes compared to white students. And leadership was really white, really male focused. And there were lots of it. It wasn't because there weren't people there who had visions, but just about access to power. and advancement. And so started off as a school incubator and then over time listening to our fellows really learned that folks were interested in creating environments for youth that wasn't just within the the building of a school but you know folks were interested in creating after school program, summer school, different nonprofits. So we originally went from schools to schools and nonprofits and then we started to learn and took a year pause with our fellowship redesign. and learned about just how much energy there was to redesign within organizations. Obviously, the you know tight funding landscape made it hard to always be constantly launching new organizations.

(00:37:05) And so we in our seventh cohort which just completed this May expanded so that our focus is kind of three-fold now. The first is recruit and develop a diverse pipeline of leaders and that includes folks who are trying to launch new schools, organizations or redes design within existing leadership roles. The second is to sustain those leaders and their visions and that's what we do with our alumni network. So we have 115 and growing alumni. We take in 15 to 20 new leaders every year in our fellowship program and then we support them through micro grants, different services to support their sustainability. And then the third which is our newest bucket is to create the conditions for those leaders to thrive. And we thought about that is we've been focused a lot on for seven six cohorts We'd been focused on supporting the leaders to actualize their visions, but we also saw people would go out into the system and still face the same barriers that they had in the beginning. And so we thought, how can we soften the ground better for those leaders to be to actually thrive?

(00:38:19) And so one of the ways we've done that is to open up community co-working space. We have a a funer who was really interested in kind of the boiler room support and they helped us launch a co-working space for youth serving nonprofits and with the idea of making it affordable and also creating physical space for people to come together and connect and collaborate and so we opened that last October and now have about eight tenant organizations and are starting to accept a few more.

Mike Montoya: (00:39:15) Awesome. So you're kind of making space in place for people to kind of I call it climb the ladder, fight the fight, be in the space, right? It's like I always felt like I would expand like my surroundings like in order to operate wherever I've been if I had to like make a balloon and they make it bigger and bigger and bigger so that there was a place for people to be a part of it right and that there was I call like a buffer between like the space that people needed to be to be creative and the and the place that that basically the world that surrounded us that like what I call it my view is you know people the world would love to just squish all that stuff down in some cases right not everybody right but that's the standard right like the the convention is to stay way it is, right? And you mentioned like, you know, like the white guy in Denver running schools and planning things and that's just that was a convention and that's like part of where it was. But now it's evolved and changed, right? There's more, I guess, like more diverse sets of needs and kids are showing up in different ways. (00:40:41) I was, as you were talking, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I wish that thing had existed when I was a, you know, young man, right, coming out of college that like I would have been all over that opportunity, right, to be a part of a community and to be part of a kind of a thing that creates space for kids. etc. like just more adaptive right to like the real that people are living, right? So

Kat Ling: (00:41:14) yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I think we saw that our fellowship was just this magic sacred space and we thought how can we bring this to more than 15 to 20 leaders a year and so actually having a physical office space now where but we also run programming for the broader youth serving sector. I think we're trying to think through how do we take this kind of magic that we have with our fellows and our alumni and expand it to the whole the whole sector.

Mike Montoya: (00:41:48) Yeah. Just expand. (00:41:50) Yeah. Because there I would say like keep going because like I my view is there's a huge need, right? And like almost all my clients feel isolated in some ways. And that's

Kat Ling: (00:42:01) Yeah. Particularly after the pandemic. Yeah.

Mike Montoya: (00:42:05) Yeah. We all had to go into our holes, right, and sort of sort of they call it survive and get through it. And then as we came out of that that the world felt different in some ways like disconnected from each other because you hadn't had the time. I hadn't had the time with people or for years, right? A couple of years.

Kat Ling: (00:42:31) Yeah.

Mike Montoya: Yeah. Like everybody came a Zoom call, but it didn't feel the same, right? My emotional centers were not being fed by the connections, right?

Kat Ling: (00:42:47) Yeah. Exactly.

Mike Montoya: (00:42:49) I think and you mentioned Edlock, right, which is like a common community that we have, which is education leaders of color, right? And that's I I found that that place also emerging out of Shironda and Laya's vision out of Pahara and Ed Lock that they were working on that stuff together was like a godsend for me in terms of like finding that there's literally hundreds now thousands, right, of people that are on board with this vision of like a better world that is more I guess more tuned up for us, right? Or for me, right? And I'm like, okay, this is great. It feels like I'm not all by myself trying to do this work, right? And that felt Yeah. exciting, right? So, I love that community and we spend a lot of time with them.

Kat Ling: (00:43:51) Thanks. Yeah, it's I found it to be really beneficial to be a part of organizations like that. that particularly working at a local community- based organization where you know coming from Teach for America I was used to having connections to a national network and sometimes at Moonshot it's been hard to feel like we're so grounded in our community but you know how can we learn also from places around the country and I feel like being a part of membership organizations like Edlock Bahara it's just been really helpful to still get that kind of access to inspiration and collaboration.

Mike Montoya: (00:44:50) Yeah for sure. Yeah you can't you don't get you don't get the normal inputs, right? And I mean, it's almost in some ways it's like it's a way that the world could be so fascinating if we were if we were like all a little bit more flexible, right, and willing to participate with each other, right, as opposed to being in our little boxes.

Kat Ling: (00:45:15) Yes.

Mike Montoya: (00:45:16) And it's I always find myself getting pushed mentally in around those communities because like people talk in a much more call I'm going to say progressive way, right, about some of the things that they're experiencing and the challenges and the opportunities that we can have as a society we can approach, right? Like none of this stuff ever has hit the policy thing yet, but in some cases it's making a difference with regards to like how people at least have language around it, right? And we don't feel like we're alone, right? And that's a big deal.

Kat Ling: (00:46:04) Yeah. Particularly now I feel like in this political climate for sure.

Mike Montoya: (00:46:11) been a special it's been a special couple. I mean it's been a special decade. Let's call it that. Right. So we special decade and it's like and this too I think will pass but it's like you know we're all living in it right this very second. So. (00:46:33) can we explore a little bit about like how if you're willing to talk about like how some of your identity markers show up in your leadership, right? And and if you're willing to talk about that and kind of give me a sense of like how I mean, do you feel like um you're able to be your full self in your work and and in some ways like does that shape how you lead other people?

Kat Ling: (00:47:11) Yeah, definitely. I think something around my identities is that I always feel like my identities put me outside of binaries and outside of boxes. I fit, you know, across a spectrum. And I think of that for both being queer, being non-binary, being multi-racial, being Asian-American, which is this like political identity within a huge spectrum of racial identities. And I think a lot about how those being someone who never it nothing is ever black and white really fits into my leadership of always thinking through what's a third way of how we can do something or you know, how do we gather as much input as possible to get a lot diverse perspectives. I think that's something that because I never felt like I fit into one box. I'm always thinking I like to think that expansive thinking is something that really drives my leadership.

Mike Montoya: (00:48:22) Yeah. So it's almost become your almost your mode of operating is what I'm going to say like this like like your natural state of is to include right or to bring in right and to create space for those voices to be there. That's like that's your default, right? If that makes sense.

Kat Ling: (00:48:47) Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, you know, coming from it's like such a a gift that comes from not feeling included growing up and not feeling a part of the conversation to now never wanting people to feel like that in the organization or in our broader community. That I think is something that's been really helpful and in how you know kind of the north star that guides me.

Mike Montoya: (00:49:25) Yeah, that's true. I you're making me think back to Maybe back to elementary school for me like those those times when I was feeling like isolated. And I remember like there was this like a teacher that said like never forget what it feels like to be left out is is kind of language that she used to maybe she was a third grade. We used to teach handwriting. Remember they used to teach you how to write cursive.

Kat Ling: (00:50:00) Yes.

Mike Montoya: (00:50:00) She was that teacher. But she was she was also just like very empathetic and like kind of you know trying to tune us up as kids and be like hey like treat each other with some kindness right and and include everybody. And I think that stuck with me. because I felt like she was almost like speaking directly to me even though she was probably speaking to the whole class, right? But like it felt like if a message was meant for me to hold on to or I captured it, right, as part of my my my practice myself for sure. So yeah.

(00:50:42) Do you do you feel like I mean it sounds like you have created a community at Moonshot that includes right more folks that are like like you in various ways and is that like an intentional thing or is it just kind of like the natural attraction that's been happening because of who you are and people know you and things like that? How's that how's that come about?

Kat Ling: (00:51:10) Well, I think it's exciting that every year in our fellowship, there are some people that I know who move into the fellowship and then some people who I've never met before, but who are doing really cool work in the community. And I think the power of Moonshot is really that it's such it's, you know, it's not one person or one team. It's really a broader community. And so each of our alumni, I feel like, holds the organization in the same way that I hold the organization. And so, you know, we have I think twothirds of our fellowship is comes from word of mouth referrals and people who've done the program or who work with us closely who then share it with their networks. And I think that's such a beautiful example of how, you know, it's not about one leader or one person, but really about a whole community that's constantly growing.

Mike Montoya: (00:52:16) You said 115 alumni roughly, right? Something like that. So like that's like that's a real number. That's not like a little Yeah, for sure. And so do you guys expect you will I mean this is your seventh cohort or you're maybe you're in it or headed towards it like are you finding that the redesign work has like brought you the the like are you on the right path? Is it feeling is it feeling good about that?

Kat Ling: (00:52:48) Yeah, I think we're seeing new solutions and new innovations that don't currently exist that our people are bringing to us. Our goal is to get to 200 leaders by 2030 and you know we have 20 fellows right now in cohort 8 and who are doing everything from solutions around housing for youth to transportation justice to after school programs to food services and so that's a big part of also the shift with Moonshot after our redesign was thinking about not just education as one system that youth are impacted by but what are all the systems that youth are impacted by and how can we ensure that we are working across systems to create a strong educ experience? And so we started looking more at the social determinance of health as a framework for what are all the solutions that youth need in order to really thrive.

Mike Montoya: (00:54:12) Yeah. No, that's great. Well, I'm super happy that that you kind of wandered into this like it's almost like you walked into my little web of like of like, oh, collective impact work, right, has been going on for a long time. I think it's not foreign to Colorado, but it sounds like you guys are headed in that similar direction where like you're parts of you sort of I mean my view and I when I was at Stanford, we have this I was part of this organization called the John Gardner Center for Youth in Their Communities. And John Gardner was this guy. He was like one of the architects of the Great Society during the Johnson administration. And so, you know, older white guy, right, but had a vision that like kids and families, right, grow up in spaces, right, in in physical spaces that include their schools and their churches and their community centers and their program things, all the stuff that's going on, right? They're not just sitting in classrooms, you know, that's like a discreet amount of time for their experience. Right. And schools are a huge piece of what we do in our ed space, right? Work. But it's also all these other things that kids are doing when they're not in school, right? That effort. And I've been like pushing on this my for a long time in my career, right? So I'm really excited that it's happening in Denver, right? And I'm like, huh, maybe I should be going back to Denver someday to be part of that.

Kat Ling: (00:55:54) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because it kind of brings me back to how I was first developed as a leader in the classroom in the deep rural South where like the school was one piece of the puzzle like you were saying, but you know, it was like a small town, all of these different things. Everyone knows the kids in school and are thinking about it not just within school, but it's, you know, a much more comprehensive community effort to educate a child.

Mike Montoya: (00:56:40) Yeah. The village the village experience, right? Because in some cases like people everybody knows the families and the kids, right? That's that's a different thing. Yeah.

Kat Ling: (00:56:52) Right.

Mike Montoya: (00:56:53) Urbanism has made that harder for sure, right? We all go to school and then we all scatter, right? Things like that. common thing, right, that's happening a lot. And so I wonder, of course, I always wonder what it's like to be a kid and you know, in that space, like you know, kids used to run around and ride their bikes and have a community of kids after maybe in your community when you were a kid that happened. But like that's how my little little neighborhood was like. But I don't think I had any sense of the broader world, right? Except for when I dropped into these youth programs. I was like a boy scout and things like that and like I met all these other kids from other neighborhoods, right? That that I didn't interact with except for those programs, etc. Yeah.

Kat Ling: (00:57:40) And that's it's interesting. I think what's really cool too about the Moonshot Network is that because we have so many programs that serve kids, different kids, different stages of life, and also their families. We have, you know, some families whose one of their kids goes to one program, another goes to another program, and then the parents can get access to services through a third program. And, you know, there's like it really is a a village effort. And the leaders of those organizations are all talking to each other. working together and helping to fix solutions so that they are looking at you know the challenge from all angles and not just you know what does this kid need in this onehour program.

Mike Montoya: (00:58:43) right right because it's a like the continuity of that thing over time right is what makes

Kat Ling: (00:58:50) exactly.

Mike Montoya: right? And if the parents aren't included in some ways right and getting supports right like oftentimes I know I'm I'm working a lot with organizations that are working with kids that are like I call on the edges right and that don't have like a kind of strong what we call a nuclear family and maybe that's not like an effective mechanism at all but like they're like kind of missing some places of those things like they're a single parent family or like they lost a parent or something like that or like they're they're living in some I call it lower income poverty kind of situation like that's like the common theme of the kids that we work with right so I'm thinking that that's still part of what you're doing too right?

Kat Ling: (01:00:03) Yeah definitely. and it it makes me think of my upbringing where so my mom was a special education teacher and is from small like small town Ohio and was very involved in our education growing up. I just remember we got, you know, my brothers and I all had speech impediments when we were growing up and we all got access to services from like 3 years old and we had our te my elementary school teachers would come over for dinner and I remember the difference of when she passed away and my dad who was educated, you know, mostly abroad and just the differences in seeing the connections to family and teachers reaching out and feeling a real gap in that of like teachers reaching out to my dad in the same way that my mom was super involved and realizing that, you know, there needs to be much more connection to the family throughout K12 education, too.

Mike Montoya: (01:01:31) Yeah. I feel like it's like become such a teachers have a hard time having space in their lives to do that now, right? We have a lot of rigid rigid agreements and contracts going on, right? And they I think sometimes we like took the humanness out of some of what we did by trying to achieve a lot of things in school environments and which is it's like it's for me it's a serious tension like how do you do a loving caring supportive connected experience with the kid in the middle and their family as the center of the work and also like achieve these like out outcomes right that you're trying to get in schools and like they're always like I call it testing and pushing and like that's a tension and like school operators right have a real big job, right, to like thread that needle carefully, right? And like like I think TFA the TFA, right, are like part of the vanguard of the individuals who like do whatever it takes, right? And then like as you get older, it gets harder, right? Especially when teachers come like that, right?

Kat Ling: (01:03:00) Yeah. Right. The only reason I feel like I could do home visits every day while teaching full-time was because I was, you know, 23 and single and Yeah. living with roommates who were doing the exact same thing. and our like lives kind of revolved around teaching and our social lives revolved around teaching too and yeah but it's not sustainable which is why I'm like I think there needs to be much more you know collaboration between schools and after school providers or push-in providers so that not one person is carrying the load alone.

Mike Montoya: (01:03:52) Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you can't expect that that's possible. I think you you said the magic words you were young and young and obsessed they call it quoteunquote my version young and obsessed with this thing that you were doing because you were young and passionate had time. There was no like your responsibility set was like like kind of focused on this particular thing, right? And as you get older, you have other things going on in your life and hopefully you you know if you choose to have a family and those kinds of things and other people like you just head down different roads, right? So,

(01:04:41) let's shift gears a little bit if you're willing to kind of jump into like I I always want to hear you know like I call evolution of leadership, right? Like basically like you know is there something in the last couple of years that like you changed your mind about that you like call it core belief before, right? And now it's starting to shift and maybe not, but I'm curious if you if you something like that.

Kat Ling: (01:05:22) Yes. So, I think when I first started off as CEO, I was really coming from my experience of being a leader who wasn't in the top leadership position, but who wanted to be a part of all the decisions. And I think when I moved into leadership, I thought, okay, everyone needs to be part of every decision. Everything should be consensus. Everything should make sure it gets the input of every single person involved. And I quickly learned that that was a path to burnout. But al for not just me, but for the other people, too. Because if everyone is involved in every decision, we're all doing the same amount of cognitive labor every single day about every decision, whether it was a small decision or a big decision. And I've gotten a lot of feedback from my team in like the past, you know, two years where me making a decision actually lifts the cognitive load for them and it's something that they really appreciate and not everyone wants to be a part of every decision particularly when people feel like I know that I have decision-m power over XYZ I don't need to be involved in this other strand of work and that's I think been a big shift that I'm still I still work through of making sure that okay I need to make a decision and move on it versus kind of proverate which can sometimes be my downfall All.

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(01:08:00) Well, at least you you recognize this about yourself. Well, you could and I almost want to say that that's a classic classic challenge, right, which is like, oh, I want to be inclusive, which is part of your we talked about like that's almost your default mode, right, to do that because of those pieces. And at the same time, it like can inhibit, right, the functionality of the organization sometimes. And I've gotten similar feedback where like, Mike, if you just give a direction, it's just we're we're all way easier. (01:08:44) Yeah, we're all in. Let's go. Like, we trust you. Like, and I'm like, I make all sorts of crazy, you know, off decisions that are not necessarily the right decisions. I'm like, I'm just going to decide. I'm just going to go down this road. And like, you know, 90 70% of the time I'm right and the other 30% I'm like not right. But it's, you know, that's just kind of how it goes, right? And yeah. So,

Kat Ling: (01:09:20) yeah. I think some of it probably also it was like both my desire to be inclusive and then my like perfectionist tendencies of being like, well, it can't be the wrong decision if everyone thinks if everyone is on board and instead, you know, trying to disrupt that in me and not hold so hard that if something doesn't go well, we can always change it or if the decision ends up being the wrong decision, we can change that later. It doesn't have to be, you know, the the final word.

Mike Montoya: (01:10:14) Yeah. Well, and I've always like found solace in like the fact that like in my work and and maybe this is similar to you is like like like the decisions I'm making are not life and death in the moment, right? They have an impact long term, right? And they can make a huge difference or not. in in someone's life over time, but they're not like, you know, emergency room physician decision- making, which is like I don't want that kind of level of pressure, you know? Yeah. I'm like, if I mess it up this week, we could probably repair it, right? In most cases, right? So,

Kat Ling: (01:10:57) yeah. It's like a friend often says to me when I'm getting too stressed out about decision that I do not need to be stressed out about, which is you're not running the White House, so I think you can just move on something and, you know, try something new.

Mike Montoya: (01:11:15) Well, and obviously, and you know, Craig and politics aside, like you know, anybody who's in leadership has this problem of like we don't you don't can't see the future. None of us can, right? And like that's you're doing hopefully like your best intentions, right? Is is helpful, right? You know, but you've been trained and practiced, right? I think that's why people get into leadership positions is because they have certain skills and capabilities, right, that have shown up as possible, right, to make choices and guide guide places towards something, right? And I don't think anybody ever taught us how to do all that stuff directly. We kind of assumed it if that makes sense. (01:12:00) Did you feel like you had like really formal leadership training at any point in your life or has it been like you learn along the way from mistakes as also by from coaching and you know leaders that are your friends and family things like that?

Kat Ling: (01:12:35) I feel like I actually have had a lot of opportunity for professional development. I think both formal and informal mentors, peer mentors, coaches and then I th throughout my life have always just tried to orient to like signing up for something, you know, and and saying, "Yeah, like let's I'll try it or you know, this is an opportunity to take on a little bit more responsibility. Let's try it even if I don't know if I, you know, even if I don't know how to do it yet." And that both at work and then in volunteer capacities, I think has been a really a big game changer. And probably is a little I feel like now the mainstream thought is like don't sign up for like unpaid work. And I Totally. You know, I do think there's been times where I've like burnt myself out because of this, but at the same time, I don't think I could have gotten here without saying yes to a ton of volunteer opportunities throughout my career, particularly when I was younger, and had more time and energy for it.

Mike Montoya: (01:14:04) Yeah. No, that's good. I appreciate that. And if our listeners are out there, like that the the the takeaway from my view is like make sure that you try things, right? One, try put yourself out there and try it. And two, volunteer, be a part of something that is is surrounded by other people that are further along in their career journeys than you and maybe have other skills than you like pictures from. Right. So, I agree. I I joined a bunch of boards when I was younger. Like I was just I was living in San Francisco. (01:15:02) I was probably doing three or four different boards. My husband's like, "You're always running around." I'm like, "Well, that's just like what I do." Whatever. It sounds like normal. Yeah. And so I've scaled back now as I've gotten older, right? To do less free work, but also I'm working on that. It was critical, right? And but sometimes you're like, "Oh, this is super interesting, right?" And so I do it because It's stimulating my brain. It also makes me think about like ah some of the work that I'm doing is less I don't know less pressure, right? It just changes orientation a little bit. So

Kat Ling: (01:15:58) yeah, it's an interesting balance of now where not every volunteer opportunity I'm necessarily learning a new skill. It's had to try to fine-tune. Okay, what are the opportunities then I say yes to? What are the ones I have to say no to? And you know I think I've been trying to regground in okay where where am I actually having joy in whatever I'm doing? doing outside of my full-time job.

Mike Montoya: (01:16:32) Yeah, that's interesting. Well, calling that like being more like slightly more intentional, right? I don't know. (01:16:40) And maybe I picked up a little bit of like, hey, you only have so much energy, but we all do, right? We all have limitations with regards to how much capacity we have and and I kind of reserve my most important energy for the most valuable things that I value, right? Which includes, you know, my family and my my, you know, my company and the career that we have. And that's it. That's a lot.

Kat Ling: (01:17:34) Yeah.

Mike Montoya: (01:17:35) You know, so I don't know. That's me. And and you know, somewhere in there, I'm sort of in there somewhere. I'm like, "Oh, yeah." And I still spend I still spend three hours a day taking care of myself, right? Or whatever that is, like going to the gym, doing all the all those things, right? That just kind of keep me sort of tuned up. But man, it takes as the older I've gotten, the less they call it, you know, I need more sleep basically is how I feel like. So,

Kat Ling: (01:18:13) you totally.

Mike Montoya: (01:18:14) So, I'm a big fan of naps. (01:18:16) Okay. Wrap-up question. I want to know like if you had advice, right, for your the cat of 20 years ago or the cat of 10 years ago even, right? Is there is there something that you you'd impart to yourself?

Kat Ling: (01:18:50) I think that this is probably advice for cat of 20 years ago and advice for cat now of like everything you need is already within yourself and so to trust yourself.

Mike Montoya: (01:19:10) You got it right. There's like the building blocks have already been collected, right? And you have them. (01:19:18) That makes me think about like how much we need to hear that as younger people and and even now, right? I I feel like as you said, time for now, like we we maybe I don't trust myself enough yet. So yeah, sometimes I think almost when I was young, I was a little more arrogant. So So I maybe even need it more now that I like know more and in knowing more I know more about what I don't know. And there's Yeah. So it's an interesting maybe mantra to consider both for my younger self and my current self.

Kat Ling: (01:20:13) Yeah, I think that's true. The older you get, the more you know how much you don't know. And then you're like, I'm not touching that thing that I don't.

Mike Montoya: (01:20:25) Yeah. Right.

Kat Ling: I'm not gonna walk into that. I'm not walking into that one. It's too many. It's too much. too complex.

Mike Montoya: (01:20:33) So, fair enough.

Kat Ling: (01:20:34) Yeah.

Mike Montoya: (01:20:36) Have an amazing trip to Mexico City and around the South. Thank you so much for taking time with me and for sharing yourself and your story with our community. And this will be out in October, late October, early November. So, it'll be out there. So, we'll share it with you and make sure it gets on there. Okay.

Kat Ling: (01:21:05) Awesome. Well, thank you so much for asking me.

Mike Montoya: (01:21:07) Thanks very much. All right.

(01:21:11) Here's what I'm taking away from my conversation with Kat. Build the village. Don't be the village. Include more voices, but don't make every call by committee. Design across systems, school, and after school family supports so that kids can feel and experience the net. And remember cat's mantra, everything you need is already inside of you, so trust it.

Thanks for joining us and tuning in today. To find out about other podcasts that matter, visit podcastsmatter.org. Thanks for listening to The Stronger Podcast. If this conversation inspired you, we invite you to follow the show. and share it with someone who's on a journey to become a happier and healthier version of themselves. Links and resources are in the show notes. See you next Thursday, 9:00 a.m. Eastern time. Have a great day and stay strong.