BONUS - Podcast Takeover With C. Lee Cawley

Description: 

Behind the scenes with Katie and her friend C.Lee Cawley, a certified professional home organizer and organizing educator.  This is your behind the scenes bonus experience where I introduce you to my friend C.Lee and you get a little more candid insight into my life and who I tend to hang out with. We also chat about why she’s perfect to take over the podcast this week.    

 

Transcript

Katie: Welcome to Everyday Happiness, where we create lasting happiness in about 2 minutes a day. But today is a very, very special bonus episode.

I am here with one of my dearest, closest amazingest friends, C.Lee Cawley and I can not wait for you to meet her because she is taking over the whole next week of the podcast. This is going to be so much fun. Welcome, C.Lee! We're so excited you're here.

C.Lee:Thank you, Katie, so much. I love the idea of a podcast takeover.

Katie: We're going to totally crush it. I can not wait to dive into all the things, but first, tell my audience a little bit about you. What are you all about?

C.Lee: Absolutely. I am a Certified Professional Organizer. There are actually fewer than 400 of us worldwide, something I'm very proud of. And I've been organizing for 20 years now. I started my business in 2003 and we're coming up on 2023. 

I originally started doing residential organizing in people's homes. And now I've transitioned to being an online expert and educator in all things organizing. And I'm teaching students around the world, so it's a super exciting time.

Katie: This is so fascinating. You know, I love organizing. Part of my Intentional Margins® is order. Like making sure things are in order, like the squirrels that are running around like they have ADD in my head, making sure they're in order, making sure my papers are in order.

I love a clean kitchen in the morning. We talked about that during my family meeting. Somebody's always doing the dishes, so when the children go to school, the kitchen is clean. 

So I, of course, have always been picking your brain about all things order and organizing, which I love. But also you're a really happy person.

C.Lee: Yes, I am an optimist, for sure. I think it came from my father. My dad, Pete Cawley, never met somebody who didn't become a friend, never had a bad day in his life.

And I do think there is and you've talked about this on the podcast, some of it's nature and some of it's nurture, and I am a naturally optimistic person, so it served me very well in life, I have to say. I can't imagine being any other way.

Katie: I love it so much. Very similar. Again, which I don't know if we mentioned this to the listeners before, maybe in a previous episode, because I have talked about my friend before, but we're basically neighbors. We live just a couple of miles apart from one another, so we get to see each other in real life, which is so much fun.

And I want to talk about something that I haven't brought up yet, but you and I became part of a little happy hour group right before COVID started, and I would like you to tell our listeners about that. And then I will, like, pipe in with my perception and see how it is and how it changes. So do you remember what we did in February of 2020?

C.Lee: Yes, and I was so excited. So you invited me to join our friends, Ellice and Lyndsey, both of whom I knew. I knew Ellice fairly well. Lyndsey, not so much, but I knew, and I knew you. But we weren't close friends by any stretch of the imagination, and you invited us to a happy hour at a local wine bar. And I remember being so excited, thinking, “Oh, my God, the cool kids invited me out to play!”. And I was thrilled!

And I think to myself, Katie, what kind of divine intervention was for us all to meet in person and have such a bonding experience? We laughed, we ate, we drank, we talked and talked and talked, and I feel like we were there for hours because we all were connecting on so many levels, and we were able to do that in person just before the pandemic.

Katie: Yes. It really was crazy. And you know what I was thinking to myself, how lucky I am to be surrounded by these three amazing individuals and be invited to the same happy hour. So I was feeling all the feels, too.

Do you remember what we decided to call it that night in February? We decided we needed a group name.

C.Lee: Yeah, it was the “Happiest People Happy Hour” because we were all happy, optimists, and people were going “what?” because you know, I had just lost my sister. One of our friends was going through a divorce. One had gone through a divorce. We had some obstacles, but yet we knew in our heart of hearts that we were the happiest people, and together we were unstoppable.

Katie: I think it's so fascinating because you look back at those times, I wasn't even diving into the happiness science like I am now, and yet we were attracted to people. They always say behavioral contagion, birds of the same feather flock together, you emulate what you're around, like, all of these scientific principles, and yet we were just doing it because we thought it felt good.

C.Lee: Right. And then once pandemic hit, because we had made plans to get together again in March, and of course, that physically didn't happen, but we made it a priority.

We met  every other week on a Zoom Happy Hour and really cemented our relationship very solidly through those times. I'm so very thankful for that connection.

Yes, and it's true. It's amazing how we all were able to bring our different perspectives - from young children to how  we lliterally span two decades in ages, the four of us, and yet we had so much in common.

Katie:  Yeah, I don't know if it's kismet, the universe, all the things, but coming up with “Happiest People Happy Hour” and then following through during the isolation, we were all in lockdown and really prioritizing being on Zoom, like cameras on, focused, being able to nurture  one another and have connections I think we're almost like a testament to how you can really do that online. There's so many things where people are like, you could never do that online.

But we weren't that close yet. We really became like an unstoppable force.Like, we got this and then we started text group chains and like all those.

C.Lee: Yes. And I think one of the very first time that all of us got together in person again was in your backyard where we could be safely distant and how excited we were to see each other in person. We didn't hug because it was too early on, but yeah, I agree.

It was a wonderful thing that we are still keeping up and probably will for the rest of our lives. I hope so!

Katie:  Definitely, 100%. I love it so much. So this just goes to show you how relationships evolve and how happiness comes into your life and how you just grab onto that, how strong it can be.

So, C.Lee, you're probably a born optimist to some extent, right? Like me, glasses are always half full and you are a professional organizer. You help individuals find that calm and find that peace.

And especially now through your course, The Paper Cleanse, which I got to tell you, is magic. I've always been pretty organized and this took it to the next level. So I'm like, I listen to every single module. I did all of the homework and I am 100% in love.

I will show you my before and after pictures later, but just know it's legit. Amazing. And so what we're going to do for the next few days is I'm going to pop off and then C.Lee is going to takeover this podcast episode.

So, friends, stay tuned. You get an entire week of C.Lee Cawley where you get to learn so much more about what she's up to, what she thinks, how she creates this positive, happy experience in her life and all the magic.

So with that, remember, kindness is contagious and you will hear from C.Lee tomorrow.

C.Lee: Thanks so much, Katie. I can't wait to take over!

 

About C.Lee: 

As an award-winning Certified Professional Organizer – of which there are fewer than 400 worldwide - C.Lee is an “agent of change” for her thousands of clients, students, and followers - transforming their lives and homes with her adroit advice and insightful instruction.

Her current mission is to clear desks and minds around the world with her signature course “The Paper Cleanse”. In it, she teaches people how to declutter their paper piles and curate frustrating files for a lifetime of paper organization. 

C.Lee lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband of over 30 years and considers herself "indoorsy".  She delights in having friends over for decadent drinks and deep discussions.  And it appears that she adores alliteration! 

You can connect with C.Lee: 

On Instagram = https://www.instagram.com/c.leecawley_simplifyyou/

On Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/DMVOrganizing

And at her website which offers tips, tools and a resourceful blog = https://www.cleecawley.com/

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