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Introduction to the Play Big Queen Podcast...
Welcome to the Play Big Queen podcast.
This is for the woman ready to lead with power, move with confidence, and own your Play Big self.
For my newly minted or late blooming, neurospicy visionary babes who are waking up to your power and unmasking your brilliance.
For the sovereign leader building success on your own terms.
I am your host, Kate Bailey.
I am the Play Big Queen.
My name is my title and a command for all women, Play Big Queen.
I invite you to claim this title for yourself and coronate your Play Big Self too, so it can serve you.
This is a space for bold embodiment, radical reclamation, unapologetic leadership, and a business that works with your wiring, not against it.
Your voice is meant to be bold and heard and your brilliance is here to be claimed.
You are already powerful.
I am in service of everyone fucking tired of the people pleasing grind.
We go deep, we get real, and we play big.
It's a new era for women on the Play Big path.
Long may we reign.
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Welcome to the final episode of the Play Big Queen podcast. This is our last episode together. And this episode is being recorded under the full wolf supermoon. It is the first full moon of the new year in 2026. And the wolf moon is on January 3rd. This moon is bright. It is
illuminating, is unrelenting, and myself and so many other people are feeling its power this week. Traditionally, the Wolf Moon has been associated with winter survival, instinct, and territory. It is a moon connected deeply to boundaries, to knowing what belongs with you and what doesn't.
as you move forward into a new cycle. It is also a moon that invites reflection. Not the kind of reflection that has nostalgia tied to it, but deep discernment around what you have carried for long enough and what you are ready to put down or release with intention. When I was younger, I used to write poetry all the time.
form, spoken word, at the Nuyo rican Poets Cafe. And I really am deeply into owning the fact that everything I do is poetry. There's so much complexity and layered meaning and references and full circles that permeate my entire existence. Everything I do is poetry.
And so it is so beautiful that under this full wolf supermoon that I am completing the cycle of the Play Big Queen podcast and that you are here with me listening. And in addition to our sublime wolfy supermoon, I have also learned that many people are talking about 2026.
as the year of the fire horse in the Chinese zodiac. Now I just want to name that obviously this is not my culture and I'm also not an astrologer but when you go through your day to day life
It's almost like the world talks to you and guides you and no, we don't have to search for meaning in everything. But again, poetry. Poetry can be written for any reason. It could be to describe beauty. It could be to process emotions or it could be to teach us things about cultures or experiences that we've never had ourselves.
And I truly view life as one big classroom. And I'm always asking myself the question, like, what is here for me to know? What is here for me to learn? What is the lesson? How do I leave it better than I found it? And a lot of people have been talking about, like, the year of the fire horse. And so I listen, and I listen with respect, and I listen.
that little voice within me that tells me what information is for me and what information is not for me. And through just kind of like listening and seeing what people are sharing about this year, people are saying that the horse years are often associated with a lot of intensity, a lot of independence and movement and decisive energy, and they're described as years
where momentum builds quickly and where clarity matters because things begin to move very fast. And I let this information land in my body and I don't hold onto it too tightly and it is something where I'm kind of like, ⁓ that's interesting. I orientate toward the energy of the moment and also ask myself, like, is this true for me?
instead of instantly claiming ownership over it or letting it direct my life. But this concept of orientating towards clarity and boundaries and momentum feels very true for me. Over the past few weeks, I have been setting new digital boundaries. I have been migrating off of my old Facebook profile. If you haven't heard yet, I have been telling
a select group of people, my core group of people that I am migrating over to a more intimate Facebook profile. And of course, if you are listening to the Play Big Queen podcast, whether it's like your first episode or you listen religiously, I would love to continue to be in each other's orbit. But I started going back to school for digital audiences at Arizona State University and within
couple of semesters of going back to school, I started really getting information where I understood how to grow my Facebook. And I started playing with that. And I went from something like 2.2 or 2.4K followers. And then two and a half months later, I had like 6.2 or something like that. And what happened in the process is my algorithm got really commercial.
It didn't matter if I tapped on the friends feed. I wasn't seeing like any of my friends stuff. And then also, you know, these social media platforms are just ableist by design. Like Zuckerberg, any of these people running these platforms didn't really go in deep to like, how do we include people with reading challenges or visual impairments or hearing impairments or things like that, right?
or physical disabilities. It really is ableist by design and the algorithm itself favors people who can put out a certain amount of content, can operate in a certain capacity. And whether you can or you just choose to or choose not to, these platforms favor a very specific type of behavior. And although
Logistically, I know how to make it grow and I could do all the metrics and do all the data and do all the conversions and all the things. It's not actually what I want or how I want to socialize. I am getting a lot of like bro stuff just like put into my feeds on my old profile. It has become like supremely commercial and I can't even imagine what it's at. Like with all the spam and scam type of content when
you have a larger following. But I realized like my intentions, my goals for social media actually aren't to go viral. They're not to grow exponentially. It's to be intentional and connect with people and stay in contact that way until I can find a better way. And if I do want to use social media for marketing, I'll hire someone and outsource it because it's something I can do. It's something I can make pleasurable.
but it's not actually my zone of genius. There are many things in life that we can do that doesn't mean that we should do them. And if I'm really coming into alignment around my creative process, the work I wanna do in the world, how I want to take my pleasure from it all, then I am not a social media manager, I am not advising people on social media, I am probably not even sharing.
on social media all the time. fact, podcasting is even more native to how I operate. I do very well in intimate conversations in one-to-one or like large group audiences. have no problem public speaking. But groups over like six people and social media spaces and spaces that are not designed with accessibility in mind, I completely get lost in the sauce and I don't even want
to try to keep up with it. It's just, it doesn't work with how I work. So I've been migrating over to the new profile and this episode is going to release on Monday, January 5th and then exactly one week after that, my old profile at PlayBigQueen on Facebook and Instagram will be deactivated. And my new place, my new handle that I'm gonna be playing at is I am Kate.
Bailey, just like it sounds I am K a T E B a I L E Y and that's going to be at all the places. If you would like to connect with me on there, send me a friend request, send me a follow. You want me to friend or follow you back. It would be my pleasure. But if we haven't met before, just do me a favor and send me a DM that says podcast. So I know that you are migrating over into my new world from the podcast.
This is going to be a longer process, but I am going to be shutting down a lot of my online branding around PlayBigQueen and all those offerings and things that fall under that branding. And like I said, I also am still honoring all contracts from coaching clients in the past, and I'm saving all of my programs. I'm just moving into a different era, and I will be coaching again. I may even do consulting if somebody approached me
with a juicy partnership idea, I would probably love to work with them. But if you want to find me on all the channels, you will have to go to I am Kate Bailey and send me a message through there. In case I want to start showcasing some of my design and fashion and art explorations, I also got the dot com I am Kate Bailey dot com. But who knows, I might not even use it. You know, like
You don't actually have to like rebrand yourself every time you shift. For me, this has always been a tool, not just a tool for clarification around my intentions for the seasons of my life, but it has been a tool for like what I have shared many times branding is really about, which is being crystal clear on the community that you serve and the change that you want to create.
in that community. think right now communities need us to be our authentic selves. I think intimacy and art and using your voice in circles with people where you are just so set on your values and people can see you in those values and you do the work of changing the way things are in
action in a way that actually works with how you work in a way that honors your process and your capacity and where you're at in life. And you know, this idea of how I orientate to things lately has been like really present in my body. I have been thinking about some of the major lessons that have always held me through seasons of change in my life.
I've shared before my grandfather's advice where he's like, you get anywhere faster in a straight line. And he was like an engineer and he thought in terms of geometry and he was looking at his ADHD granddaughter and he's like, yeah, you get anywhere faster in a straight line if you just go towards it. And sometimes that's a mantra for myself. A lesson that I've been returning to a lot lately is a lesson that I learned when I was trying to get better while I was running and doing training.
at the FDNY EMS Academy when I was going into becoming an EMT and going into that program. I was really trying to learn how to like shave time off of my run time because I had to get better, I had to improve. And at the time I did a lot of like research on like, I don't know, medical journals and I came across an article, I don't remember the exact article so I'm gonna take artistic.
liberty here and just like not reference the article directly and just tell you what I learned. But I read somewhere that essentially when you look at the ground in front of you while you're running or even just a few feet ahead of you, your pace is much slower. But if you look at the horizon and orientate and aim towards your horizon,
There is research that shows that directing visual attention toward a distant point actually improves performance, improves endurance, and it also has you get to the point you're orientating towards 30 % faster. And information like this is so critical to how I respond to life as someone with ADHD, as someone who
has learned out of necessity many lessons about attention and focus and how the ability to focus on many things at once can be both a gift and a curse. But this was a major lesson that I learned about how if I place my focus on the horizon line where I want to go to that deeply affects how my body
organizes itself, it affects the actions, behaviors, and choices that I take. Looking ahead changes how I move. And of course, I do so much work to enjoy the journey and be present. if I'm not actually running a race, I'm not looking to rush anything or orientate towards a big goal at all, right? And there are many moments where it's just all about pleasure and being present and.
soaking up the love of being with people that you care about. But the looking ahead and momentum and looking at the horizon and the lessons learned from that, that insight applies far beyond running. When I zoomed out and looked at the horizon of my creative work and where I am actually going with this all, when I
look at the desire beyond the desire and like see where I am going when I have completed the very first few crucial segments of what people call the hero journey where you overcome what is yours to overcome and learn what is yours to learn. When I started to look at the horizon of my creative work and where I'm going now it became really clear to me that this podcast
had completely completed its arc. 52 episodes. I am like so proud of myself. I'm so proud of you all that you're like here listening to me, talking in your ear, trying to give you any kind of like juice or lessons or guidance or information or coaching that I can give while still reminding you that like you are the one who is sovereign. You have full choice and voice and control over your life.
But it's been a full year of weekly transmissions and conversations about embodiment and leadership and nervous system regulation, power, money, authority, pleasure. And this container has done exactly what it was supposed to do. And also again, my life is poetry. Everything I do is poetry, right? Like there are so many layers here because this is happening.
podcast is ending and this moment is landing in a very specific cultural and geographic context for me. It's in a very special time, right? New York City is a city that has profoundly shaped me. I was born in Long Island. I lived in Brooklyn. My uncles and grandparents and ancestors who all immigrated, many from Italy.
all came through Ellis Island and lived in Brooklyn over the years from the Rockaways into Little Italy, Manhattan, Long Island, and all the way out into Jersey and Connecticut. But my time at the New York City Fire Department was really special, especially since my great grandfather on my dad's side was also at FDNY. And I have like his letter of when he got into the FDNY. They gifted it to me at my graduation.
but I spent years in EMS and served as an instructor at the FDNY EMS Academy. And during that time, I got a front row seat to some incredible leadership. The chief of training when I was an instructor was Lillian Bonsignore, the first openly gay female to become a chief. She is the first woman to achieve a four star rank in FDNY history.
She oversaw 70 % of all FDNY responses and she was someone who was actually at 9-11. She led the department through the COVID-19 pandemic. And when I was there and they would call a meeting for all of the instructors, Chief Bonsignore would walk in and she talked with this grounded reality while at the same time she was always orientating
towards change and doing what she could do to meet the system with where it's at and go beyond it. And on top of that, a lot of her leadership also involved coaching. She talked about the Crucial Conversations book in a meeting with the instructors, and it was really interesting because I had read that book prior to her coming into the meeting. It was part of like my first wave of like really going deep into
audio books and just like at the time I was in my Kia Soul and I was like commuting back and forth from Long Island to Brooklyn and sometimes Long Island to Queens to go to Fort Totten to teach at the Academy and I would listen to all these books and one of the books that I listened to was Crucial Conversations and I'll never forget she came in one day and it was an instructor's meeting and she started teaching a concept from the book about how we tell ourselves stories.
If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. Essentially, if you work in the coaching industry or in leadership, you probably heard this concept before. Just like your heart's job is to pump blood out to all of your organs so all your organs can be oxygenated. Your brain's job is to constantly look for meaning. And it does that so it can keep your body safe. It constantly scans the environments for anything that could be a threat. And because it has to keep you safe,
the brain defaults a lot of the time to like worst case scenario. So it scans the environment and it makes meaning of it. It's a meaning making machine. And then when it does make the meaning, it's gonna err on the side of caution to keep you safe. And so what happens is, like everybody takes action in their life. in the book, Crucial Conversations, they talk about the path to action.
and everybody takes action throughout their daily lives and whether they realize it or not, there's a series of events that come before you take any action. And sometimes that series of events that happens is so fast, we don't even notice it. We're not even conscious that this process is taking place, right? But just like a process happens in your body before you feel hungry or like your sugar drops, there is a process that everybody goes through.
before they take an action. And that process is they're gonna see or hear something, there's gonna be like some sort of stimulus. And then from that stimulus, they're gonna tell themselves a story. And from that story, there is going to be feelings and emotions that come from whatever story you tell yourself. And then from that story,
and the emotions, you are gonna take an action. So think about it like this. You walk into your house and you see your partner on the couch and they're scrolling through their phone and they're texting back and forth and they're smiling and they're laughing and their cheeks are all red and flushed and they're happy. When you see that, what are you gonna think? Well, some people will be like,
jealous and think that they're flirting with someone else. Some people will be like, they're probably just talking to their mom. Another person might get so mad that they snatch the phone out of their hand. But the truth is, no matter what you think it is, you tell yourself a story. Sometimes that story is right. Sometimes it's not right. A lot of the times it's not right. But based on how you feel from that story and the emotions that you get,
you're gonna take an action, right? Because emotion equals emotion, energy in motion. So if you have angry energy, you're gonna move really fast and you're gonna take action that maybe is not from the best place. It's gonna be quick, it's gonna be emotional, it's gonna be without thinking. Sometimes we need that type of action. But if you take a moment to pause and notice your emotions and ask yourself,
What am I telling myself here? What story am I telling myself? And then ask yourself, is that really true? That is where the real mindset work begins. And that's where the real potential to have crucial conversations and have a meeting of the minds takes place, right? And when Chief Bonsignore shared this story, I remember watching the other instructors in the group.
And some of them were getting it and they were like kind of computing and processing. Some of them had questions. And then there was a group of people who just were so reactive. They were like, this is bullshit. Why am I even here? I don't tell myself stories. Like they were just appalled at the idea that they could be telling themselves a story. They had no curiosity about it and they didn't inquire any deeper.
They weren't open to learning about any new lessons or how they could have areas where they might still be unconscious. And something I watched Chief Bonsignore do with so much grace is just kind of smile and nod and be available to educate people who were ready and open to hear and be educated.
And for those who were not, I never heard her bend the truth and be like, no, like maybe you don't tell yourself stories. She would say no, like we all tell ourselves stories, we all do it. And then she would just keep it moving. And it was this very, I wouldn't say unbothered attitude, but like deeply compassionate, grounded, and anchored into her truth, her purpose, her mission.
and always with respect. You know, at some point in my journey of like discovering who I am with my neurodivergence, without my neurodivergence, with the trauma I've experienced, without the trauma I've experienced in survival mode in my thriving years, I've had to own a couple of things about me. And some of those things are that I am a very passionate speaker.
and there's a fire that I have inside of me that will never be contained. Maybe you can call it manifest or energy. You can call it just what I'm destined to do. But there is a way that I speak that wakes people up. And in the process, there are some people who wake up and there are some people who get deeply offended either by my tone, how it was delivered. And to be honest,
You know, there are few people I follow online. Amanda Seals has a lot of delivery where she's just like, this is just how it is. I definitely do not share at the level of Miss Seals online, but there are ways where I am unapologetic in my approach and unwilling to tone it down, reframe it, clean it up so more people can hear it.
There are certain styles of leadership that I think are really important for the masses and that chief Bonsignore's leadership is truly that style of leadership that is needed for her newly appointed position as fire commissioner and for building a lot of bridges between people, between organizations, between communities.
And that work is so very important. And there are times where I inhabited that role of being the bridge. But if I'm speaking to my process, who I am authentically, I am an activator. And it is really uncomfortable to wake up and become activated.
when you have been unconscious about certain things, either in your life, your relationships, your leadership, your goals, your work. And I think no matter what style of leadership you have, if you've been someone who's worked in EMS, you have learned to develop a situational confidence where you can develop your style of leadership in any situation. And a big part of that is not just because you've worked in EMS, but also
because you have the kind of leadership that is deeply rooted in lived experience and that matters, in my opinion, so much more than simply anything you can learn in a book because that's where rubber meets the road, that's where integration happens, that's where practical skills for the application live. But I...
I am not binary. I may be true to myself in any room, but I can also meet an audience and meet a moment to transfer whatever I need to transfer wisdom, guidance, skills, lessons, transformation, spirit, energy. And something that I've really come to terms with about myself over the past year is that
I'm so grateful for leaders like Chief Bonsignore but that's also just not me. I will be like that when I need to be, but I have recognized that being able to speak directly to the heart of something, unpack complex ideas, and sometimes even do it a little sharply, is how in the moment I have been able to help
certain clients or people literally cut things off or out that they haven't been able to see, that they have been trying to get at for years, some people decades, and things that have kept either individuals or communities stuck. My style is very much rip the bandaid off and then let the person lead and show me.
if they're actually ready to follow through with what comes next. But there are just places that I need to be in in order to fully own that on a different level and own my brilliance and my gifts and talents in a way that feels really true to me. But further also really start to acknowledge where that type of leadership and ownership is going to serve which types of communities the best.
And I know that a big part of that is serving creative communities. And speaking of which, on the creative side, I also want to share the update that the Tarantate trademark is still officially pending. Hopefully that will go through this year. The application has been filed. It is in process and it's this quiet milestone and moment of recognition that comes with a lot of responsibility in
wanting to trademark that name, but it is formalizing. My creative work is starting to formalize. It's starting to coagulate in new ways. And my authorship around sharing Italian culture through the global cultural context and through the path of particularly women who have immigrated to the U.S. through New York.
from Italy, my authorship and crafting those stories and my point of view is really becoming super cohesive. And it's been fun too. I've been talking to family members. I've really considered how I want to use AI for modeling. And I've kind of like looked at environment and sustainability.
differences between doing like live photo shoots versus using AI and I had some family members agree to give me the rights to use their likeness for AI model photography and I'm getting more into really using like heritage and lineage as part of brand DNA that can be told in a story visually. Yes, in person because ultimately shoes and boots and clothes are going to go on people and women and it's all about
women and literally how they move through their bodies on a daily basis. But visually I am getting the rights to use some of my family members as models, which is just such like a beautiful way to preserve history, especially for my family members who can't travel, who don't feel like they ever want to be in front of a camera. We just get to break down so many barriers and
deliver visuals that might be artificially intelligent, but they are authentically intelligent in how they are being leveraged and intentionally used sustainably and to preserve history. People used to tell stories about their ancestors by drawing pictures and cave paintings, and those weren't accurate representations 100 % either.
So there's always going to be some sort of artistic interpretation when you're doing storytelling, when you're doing visual storytelling, or essentially when you are trying to pass anything on from person to person or generation to generation. But this is something that has been particularly top of mind for me because on January 11th, my mother is turning 70 years old and she was born
on the same day as my grandfather Felix, who I feel deeply connected to. And it's also interesting because I was born on the same day as my parents wedding anniversary. So there's like a lot of people stacked in different occasions in my family and lineage. But again, everything I do is poetry. And so in honor of my mother's 70th birthday, Taran tate is going to be releasing the cutest, most
beautiful super versatile red pointed kitten heel called the Anne-Marie after my mother. It's really beautiful because when I first designed these heels and I thought about the story of the shoe that would be my mother, I thought about a woman who was walking around all day as the owner of her own bridal shop tending to women in beautiful dresses and
what it must have been like for her when she came home from work and was still tired and her daughter was running around the house and needed a pair of shoes to go out in. And I said, Ma, can I borrow these red pointed flats that you have? They are gorgeous. She said, yeah, you can keep them. And my mom gave me my, not just my first pair of red shoes, but my first pair of pointed shoes. And then I put a little kitten heel on them when I designed them to like,
just elevate it a little bit, because I do remember seeing her in kitten heels in the bridal shop sometimes. But releasing this prototype in honor of her in her 70th year, it's a way of making a life, making a milestone and a presence that matters in a way that gets celebrated. And so there's lots of Tarantate that's going to be about
the expression of pleasure and joy and power and the erotic. And there's also going to be a lot of storytelling in it. And yeah, maybe shoes shouldn't have to tell stories, but this is my process and how I want to do it and how I'm having fun with it. And this is the way that is meaningful and poetic for me.
Getting to translate that into things that people actually wear or adorn themselves with is such a privilege and a pleasure and a gift and I'm really excited to start doing this more and more. And you know, I would have never have gotten to this point if it weren't for the journey of the Play Big Queen. And yes, that person is me, but I don't know if you recall when I shared in an episode how the name actually came to be, I was...
thinking of what I wanted to do for branding. And I was like, am I really going to do this? Am I really going to do coaching with neurodivergent people and ⁓ you know, going through the whole thing. So am I even qualified and like what qualifies me and taking a moment to look at like my skills and like how they can benefit others and be used for the greater good. And I don't get nervous often, but I had a moment where I was like, like I actually needed some courage for it.
And I heard a voice in the back of my head and it was like really clear. And it was the voice of my great uncle, Big Ed Reulbach It was a man's voice just saying, play big queen. And there were so many poetic interweavings with that too, because he played baseball. He was like, ⁓
for the Chicago Cubs and the Brooklyn Dodgers. He won the 1908 World Series. They all called him Big Ed. And he fought for better labor conditions and to unionize. And he had a disability. His vision was so poor that he had to have his pitchers paint their glove white so he could see where he was throwing the ball. And eventually he got
blacklisted by the higher ups who did not like that he was trying to get more for the players. And the players got pissed at him because he wanted more from the players too. didn't want them to drink. He wanted them to take care of themselves. And it was a moment that I will never forget to be sitting in at the time. was like, I called it the glistening vag. My friend Brooke had painted her room like bright pink.
And I liked the coral pink color. And so I painted my office that color and she called her bedroom the glistening vag. So I called my office the glistening vag. And when I went to go paint it, I accidentally dropped like paint drip on white molding. It was like this bright pink coral drip on white molding. And it dripped in the perfect shape of a pussy. ⁓
It was like this beautiful vulva paint drip that just happened by accident. was almost like the goddess herself was like blessing my office. because at the time I was like deep into studying pleasure and I was in Mama Gena's world and pussy and all that stuff. And so I was sitting inside the glistening vag office of mine thinking about what is my three word revolution? What is my message? What is the change that I want to see in my community?
And it's that I wanted brilliant neurodivergent women to recognize that there is nothing wrong with your process. Your process is brilliant. And if you can care for yourself and make space to honor your process and not make yourself wrong and really learn how you work and how your brain works, that that could be used to create a beautiful impact, not just in yourself,
and in your relationships, but in the world at large. At the moment, you decide to stop shrinking or that there's anything wrong with you and own your neurodivergent aspects and really understand that part of yourself and how you have to navigate systems that weren't designed for you and how that really adds to your level.
of credibility and lived experience and situational confidence. When you really acknowledge yourself in the magnitude of that journey that you go through and let your process be right and recognize your brilliance, you get out of your smallness and you become unstoppable. And at the same time, you become present to what is really a beautiful, beautiful gift.
I would not have been able to fully own my creative process and who I am and what I'm here to do in the world and how I want to do it if it were not for the Play Big Queen mission, message, and archetype. I am so grateful that this came to me and I really think it came through my uncle. Like I said, like I have intuitive nudges. I have Claire audience where
I don't hear voices, but I all of a sudden hear words and they're always in my own voice. But this one time it came over in a man's voice and I had this deep knowing in my whole body that this was my uncle. And it's so poetic because when he passed away, the fact that he wasn't in the baseball hall of fame and should have been.
was one of the greatest debates in all of baseball history. You could look it up. His last name is R-E-U-L-B-A-C-H. That's my maiden name. Ed Reulabch Big Ed Reulabch.
And in the process of like listening to this and following it and throwing myself into it fully, I have also completed and closed all contracts that my lineage had with being truly great and not being fully recognized for it. And the most beautiful part about all of that is that I got to share it with all of you. Remember at any time,
You can coronate your Play Big Self too. I hope you come along for the rest of the ride at I Am Kate Bailey. And from here on out together, we walk forward into our futures fully integrated and always in every moment for the rest of our lives, we will refuse to shrink and we will Play Big Queen.
