Overcoming Self Doubt with Special Guest Simon Kelly
Simon Kelly wants to help you have your big “A-HA!” moment. And he knows how it feels to simultaneously buzz with excitement and tangle with self-doubt when the A-HA! hits and you’re moved to create something new. Already the owner of the successful digital agency Renegade Empire and top coach with Troy Dean’s WP Elevation, Simon’s in the throes of launching his own personal brand, building a new stage to impact more lives, and connecting with people on a personal level. I know Simon through my involvement with WP Elevation, and I’m sure he’ll inspire you as much as he’s inspired me as a business coach. In fact, I guarantee the conversation we have about slaying the dragons of self-doubt will inspire you to take massive action and make a bigger splash in YOUR world.
Transcription
Jennifer Sakowski:
Welcome to a brand new episode of Raney Day Talks podcast, I am your host Jennifer Sakowski, and today I have a special guest, actually was one of my coaches for over a year in the digital marketing community, I have Mr. Simon Kelly, welcome.
Simon Kelly:
What’s up. Hey, Jen.
Jennifer Sakowski:
I’m so excited to have you here, we finally had to hit record because we were so excited.
Simon Kelly:
Yeah.
Jennifer Sakowski:
So, tell me, Mr. Simon, for those that don’t know, can you tell me where in the world you are located right now, and who are you?
Simon Kelly:
So, I’m in St. Kilda in Melbourne, and Victoria in Australia at the moment, and I am one of the coaches at WP Elevation, and at Mavericks Club, I also have a small, digital marketing agency based here in Melbourne as well, and I’m a marketing consultant.
Jennifer Sakowski:
Awesome, awesome. Well, like I said, I met you, it’s been several years, I think, in the WPE, and then I took the big jump and was part of the Mastermind when it rolled out, and got to I guess, work on my craft, my business, I don’t know, grow. It was kind of a scary time during that time when I got to know you a little bit, and during that time, and since then, you’re kind of one of the big to-dos within the WPE community. I mean, it’s a huge community, so one, I feel honored to have you here, so thank you.
Simon Kelly:
Oh, thank you.
Jennifer Sakowski:
And two, you’ve been rocking your own business. How long have you had Renegade?
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, so I started Renegade Empire in 2009, so the first of the first 2009, I was working as an IT manager at an engineering company at the time, and before that, not sure why this is coming up, but before that, I was studying criminology and then I left that to … Because I was interested in psychology and what better thing to be interested in psychologically than criminals? I was just super fascinated with that, I remember sitting in the lecture theater, there was about 300 people there, and the lecturer gave a fantastic speech in which he said, “There will be only five of you who will probably become criminologists, the rest will probably join the police.” And I had no interest in doing that at all, so I started building website’s kind of on the side, and then I started working at this engineering company, and then the IT manager left. So there was no one else, so I started learning IT and managing servers and managing their websites and just learning a lot of stuff. There was over 50 staff that and a lot of them had IT degrees, so I didn’t really know what I was doing, which is a good way to learn stuff real fast, and then I saw that they had this wholesale account with this computer company and you could buy three laptops for the price of two or something, and that was my entrepreneurial seizure.
Simon Kelly:
Then I was like, “Oh, I can make some money doing this on the side.” I thankfully did not get into that in any way at all, but that was just the moment where I was like, “Hey, there’s a thing I can do separately, here’s an opportunity.” Kind of thing, and yeah, nothing came of that thankfully. So I just kept going down the path of building websites and people started requesting that. I then really badly broke my ankle just a couple weeks after starting my business. So I think it was the 12 of January 2009, I broke my ankle so I couldn’t go back to work anymore, so I had my business 11 days and I was just going to start it along the side while working and then I had to jump full-time into it because I couldn’t walk anymore for three months.
Jennifer Sakowski:
What better way to build a business when you’re sitting on the couch, you can’t move, you can’t get up?
Simon Kelly:
Well, I did that for one day, I sat on the couch and I was like, “Oh, I’ll play a bit if PlayStation, whatever.” Played a game for one day, I was like, “No, I’m not doing this, this is not what I want. I’m going to go into business, what can I do? I’m going to collect some gear and set up my office.” And that was way more exciting.
Jennifer Sakowski:
That’s awesome. Well, as you know, I asked you to come on this, and most in our community in the digital marketing realm, we’d probably be talking about funnels or E-commerce, or how are we handling the pandemic with our businesses? And I don’t want to talk about any of that. After our last conversation, you shared a little nugget with me that I thought how awesome it is, so you’ve been a part as a coach, of this awesome community, you have your business, you’re kind of killing it in those two areas, but in the midst of a global pandemic, you decided to go almost to the complete right, right?
Simon Kelly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jennifer Sakowski:
You’ve decided to take off in a different direction, and that’s what I want to talk about today, so we both agreed there would be no preparation for this, we don’t know where this is going to go, but I think that there’s-
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, always ready.
Jennifer Sakowski:
That’s true, that’s true. But I think that there’s something awesome about someone who’s living in the uncomfortableness of starting something new, but in the midst of a crazy time in our economy, and in the world. So can you talk to me a little bit about what you’re setting out to do right now?
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, well it is really, really fresh, and there isn’t much of a plan, so it’s kind of mention it there like, “Oh, I’ve got to start on this new venture, and I’ve got all these ideas.” It’s like, “Well, I don’t really …” I’m really, really passionate about coaching and I love working with WP Elevation and the Mavericks Club in those transformations. Coming to those live events and helping people over the phone and through Zoom calls and coaching people with their businesses, real people, real businesses, they’ve got families, they’re supporting the community. That stuff, I’m so passionate about, helping teach them, helping train them, helping coach them and I feel like where I’ve been stuck is that I could help more of them if I was to produce some more content, if I was to be helpful to a larger group and do some more public content, in addition to a lot of the one-on-one, a lot of the behind the scenes like group coaching, and group training and the different talks and different presentations and workshops that we put together. I want to put more of that stuff publicly, but to be honest I’m kind of hitting my own fear, edge of my comfort zone and just making up all these reasons why I can’t do it.
Simon Kelly:
So I’m, I don’t even want to say the word trying, but I’m trying to start building some momentum with posting more, videos, posting more content publicly, just sharing more things that could be helpful publicly, which I want to group into courses and digital products and things to sell, but also things to really help people. I want to add as much value as I can, and I’m kind of holding myself back, so that’s where we’re at.
Jennifer Sakowski:
Well, so tell me because in the marketing world we would start with, “Okay, who is your target audience? What are you selling? What solution are you solving?” Have you started working through what I think is the fundamentals when you’re launching a business? But you’re not really launching a business right now, you’re more or less just launching you, right?
Simon Kelly:
Yeah.
Jennifer Sakowski:
What did we say? The man behind?
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it’s a lot to do with self-expression, but not just in terms of, “I just want to say whatever I want.” It’s like I really have seen a lot of things that have helped people that I think just should be out there, connecting with people and helping people, and especially now the community to me is more important now than ever. I think I want to express my voice and help more people because I feel like I can do that one-on-one, and in small groups, but I’m not having the impact that I want to, and I’m closing off a lot of those resources to people by putting it all behind the scenes kind of thing.so yeah, I guess it is a bit of launching me, it’s a bit of expressing myself, trying to connect with people, just as often as I can, I think. So I’m not sure exactly what that looks like, so who stands to benefit the most from that will be whoever’s kind of drawn to that, and I’m totally fine with that.
Simon Kelly:
I think I want to hone my craft and my message and my skills by putting more things out there, getting feedback, sharing and just being braver, I think. So what comes from that, everyone from Mavericks, WP Elevation, my business, my team, people I interact with, people I coach, I think, hopefully, everyone will benefit from that because I can sharpen my skills more regularly if that makes sense.
Jennifer Sakowski:
What kind of skills
Simon Kelly:
In terms of teaching, training, presenting things in models or using metaphors to explain things, I’m really passionate about people have a-ha moments. I feel like there’s a lot of knowledge, and I don’t know, there’s a lot of mental suffering that a lot of people have that I feel like is quite unnecessary, and I’ve seen many instances where there’s just been this little shift, like one word, one experience, a tiny little thing has changed with someone, and their whole life is different from there. And I just want to get more effective at being able to find what that is and help more people with less words, to have those a-ha moments and drastically improve their life and their business.
Jennifer Sakowski:
Now, have you had that happen in your own personal life, that makes you so excited about that?
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, nothing’s coming to mind just yet, but I’m sure it would, there’s been quite a few of those moments where kind of like, “Everything’s different now.” The most recent one, I guess, that comes to mind, I always wanted to do a marathon, I always thought that would be awesome to do one, but I never really believed it as something I could do. It was like, “Yeah, cool run a marathon, yeah, cool, that would be awesome. Wow, what a great thing.” But there wasn’t really any emotional connection or anything like that, but I decided, “Yes, I want to do one.” And still, didn’t really get much emotional connection, just printed to plans, started working out the plan and started training and I was like, “Well, this is a bit more than what I expected it to be, it’s pretty intense.”
Jennifer Sakowski:
Was it the couch to marathon that was, the couch to 5K, I don’t know-
Simon Kelly:
Couch to marathon, yeah, it was just a 12-week marathon training plan. So I remember training, and I still remember this so clearly, I was running around Albert Park, which is a beautiful park just near here, there’s a lake and a view of the city and palm trees. I think I’ve got a picture of it, behind me, yeah, the picture in there is a view of running along the track with the palm trees, I don’t know if you can see that behind me if you zoom in. So that spot is amazing, it’s about 4.7 kilometers, which I don’t know, something in miles, three miles and a bit. So, I was running around that, and I was running and just thinking, “Yeah, I’m checking off things on the 12-week training plan.” And then I had this moment where I thought about running in the marathon and running into the MCG, which is where it finishes, which is Melbourne Cricket Ground, a big, I guess, stadium in the city.
Simon Kelly:
And I pictured running in there, and I felt amazing while I was picturing that, and going over the finish line and I had this thought that I was getting all the other people that ran with me, cheering them on and running back and running with them to bring them along the finish line, and just to go over that again and again, of just how amazing that would feel. And I felt absolutely incredible, and I kind of said to myself then like, “I am a marathon runner.” And this experience within me was incredible, and I truly believed that and from there, my training changed, my mindset changed, everything from there, it just felt so amazing. It was just that one shift changed so much, and now I can say I am a marathon runner because I’ve done one, but I had that shift at that point, from that point onwards, I was a marathon runner. The actual running of the marathon was grueling, and an experience in itself, which had many experiences within it. But it was that moment beforehand where everything changed.
Jennifer Sakowski:
So, how do you see that applying to you starting this? What are you having to overcome right now, or what’s the hurdles that you feel like you’re facing right now? Because I think that for someone who is probably way more self-aware than most, I’m just curious of how you get in your head and how you get unstuck?
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, yeah. Well, the last part I’m not so sure, but I could tell you a lot about how I get inside my head. So I think where I’m getting stuck, and things I’m having to overcome, the expectations I think I have on myself, and perhaps the vision of who I want to be, and where I want to be, and how I want to be presenting, and how I want to be helping people in the world. And the gap between where I feel like I am now, and where I feel like I want to be, I feel like that’s kind of not preventing me from taking action, in some ways, hinders me from taking action because of what I want it to be in the future. And it’s like, “Well, I want to run a marathon, so I don’t want to do that two-mile run now, I want to just be able to run the marathon straight away, I want things to be great.”
Simon Kelly:
It’s almost like I’m not sure what good practice would look like, so I want to teach and I want to train, but I do want it to be a particular type of quality. I want it to be useful, I don’t just want to create more noise, right?
Jennifer Sakowski:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Simon Kelly:
I want to create useful things, but you’ve also got to, it’s not get started because I’ve been doing this for a long time, but you’ve got to take action, I think, and I’m kind of coaching myself through this while talking. It’s not up to me what’s valuable and what’s not, I can decide what content I want to put out, and what I think might be useful but it’s really based on who sees that and the impact that has on them, and who that resonates with.
Jennifer Sakowski:
And you never know, you never know.
Simon Kelly:
You never know.
Jennifer Sakowski:
And I think the best part-
Simon Kelly:
Oh, that felt good, saying that.
Jennifer Sakowski:
I know, you never know. Gosh, I feel like you let that side in, so do you have any fears? I know that you said that that’s a hurdle, your expectations, is there any fears that you’re walking through?
Simon Kelly:
Definitely. I remember at the last MAVCON, which is the live event for Maverick’s Club that we had in San Diego, it was either the one in San Diego, or the one in Melbourne, and I did quite a bit when it came to putting together the workshops with Troy, but I did quite a lot of, over the two days, what experience do I want the Maverick’s to have? Where do we want our training to be, what journey do I want to take them through, not just, “Here’s some training, here’s some training.” But how does it all fit in and how do we want them to kind of evolve throughout it? Also, break down a little bit so they’re ready to learn, but then evolve and have a-ha moments and connect with each other, and I kind of really crafted that experience and was super proud of that, and I was … Oh no, it was the Melbourne one, I was talking to Troy about it and I was like, “My biggest fear here, and let’s just go there so we can get it over and done with mentally, let’s just go there with our biggest fears so then we can be like, ‘Okay, cool, then what would happen?'”
Simon Kelly:
And the biggest fear was that at any point, someone would say, “You guys have no idea what you’re talking about, this isn’t relevant to me at all.” And then everyone gets up and then they all go, “Yep, you’re all making this up, this is BS, we’re out of here, we’re all going, we never want to speak to either of you again, you are shunned in the internet world, in the world in general, and that’s it, we’re done.” And I was like, “Okay.” So I pictured that mentally, and I was like, “All right, that doesn’t feel very good.” But it didn’t happen, but I’m picturing it mentally, going there mentally, everyone leaves and then what happens? I always try to think like, “And then what? Okay, we pack up, I go home, feel sorry for myself for a bit, but I’m going to be okay. I’m going to be okay, that sucks, but the world keeps turning, there’s bigger things going on in the world, there’s plenty of people out there as well who could potentially get some value from something, hopefully, something different in the future.”
Simon Kelly:
You can try again, you’re still alive, and that’s an amazing thing, so it’s okay even if the worst-case scenario happens. So I think it’s when I don’t fully go there with the fear, when I kind of let it keep whispering to me and it’s just like, “Oh, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” And, “Oh, what if this goes wrong?” And you kind of push it … Well, you, me, kind of push it away in my mind like, “Oh, not now.” Like, “Leave me alone, I’m trying to do stuff.” But like, “Okay, all right.” Confront it, “All right, so then what? So then I put out a video on YouTube, and people disagree with it, or they think it’s not complete enough, or it’s not good enough, and then what?” You improve, you did the thing, you get some feedback, at least someone watched it, “Cool, now what? Am I still here? Can I still take action? Yes, so leave me alone, let’s get this done.” I’m going to replay this to myself.
Jennifer Sakowski:
I wish you would because there’s two things that I’m like, “I’m going to wait till he’s done talking, I’m going to wait, I’m going to be a good listener.” Is, that tactic, so Troy Dean used that on me when I was in the Mavericks because I was a facing a pretty tough decision on assisting with starting another business, and I felt like I was stuck in making that decision, and he got on the call and said, “I want you just to tackle, what’s the worst-case scenario? Just put it on paper, put it out there, what is the worst-case scenario?” So like you, I went there, way over the deep end into the dark and twisty, way over. And after being able to put a name to it, and be able to say it, one, it really wasn’t that bad because like you said, I would be okay afterwards. If it didn’t work out, that’s fine, there’s other options, this isn’t a life or death situation.
Jennifer Sakowski:
So I think for anyone who may be facing that or looking to step out or take this time being quarantined to make some of those massive decisions and not just stuck on the couch, but wanting to do something, is to be able to look at, what is the worst-case scenario? And knowing that it too shall pass, or it will get better, or it’s not the end of the world, and then facing it. I was always told you by one of my mentors way back when was that, “If you don’t face it, you can’t walk through it.” I messed that up, how’d he say it? He was like, “If you don’t face it, you can’t conquer it.” And that has stuck with me because how often do we want to either procrastinate, or put it off, or go around it, or maybe just like, “This isn’t the right time.”
Jennifer Sakowski:
But really it is, and if you can face that fear, you can face that uncomfortableness, that you can conquer it. So those are two things that I got really excited about when you were talking. But going back to, how do you think right now for you to walk through this, what does that do for you, why now?
Simon Kelly:
I think it’s been long overdue. So, now yeah, I’ve been wanting to do it for a while, I’ve just been wanting to be putting more content out, be helping more people, just to be refining what the message is. I think it’s an always thing, it’s a now thing, it’s an in the past thing, it’s a future thing, it’s an always thing. I really want to build this as part of what I do and who I am, and how I help people, I want it to be an always thing. I’m super passionate about teaching and coaching, and I love it, and I find that I am able to really connect with people, I’m not sure what it would be like from their perspective. But I really connect with them, and I really feel like I listen, and that seems to be able to just generate some pretty good results. So I’m learning more about coaching, and seeing if I can actually get some tools and resources to help with that, which I’ve been training for over a year now with some different programs to do with that.
Simon Kelly:
So, I think it’s like an evolution of, I think, my identity and what I’ve done in the world, I think, from service provider, and from a technical shifting to marketing, then shifting to business coaching, and now adding to that. So, I guess it’s not really shifting, it’s more just adding onto it all, adding onto the personal development and the personal coaching, and that mindset is something that’s important to everything we do, business, life, how we interact in the world. The business is just a piece of it, and if your mindset isn’t the way that, I don’t want to say it needs to be, but if your mindset isn’t going to allow you to create the type of business or life that you want, then you won’t, and I’m super passionate that, that I think is absolutely key.
Jennifer Sakowski:
So, how are you going to start?
Simon Kelly:
I don’t know. I think I’ll get a cup of tea, go for a walk, think about it, have a nap. How am I going to start? Jen, that is a great question, so, since we last talked I have actually produced a couple of videos that have been imperfect, but through WP Elevation and the team there have been amazing at helping through this as well. Which has been interesting, big shout out to Eva and Max for that because I remember I created a course on the 21-day challenge, which was actually just between you, me, and whoever’s listening that it was kind of a way of me procrastinating on doing things. You ever need to get something done and then you make a way of getting this thing done instead of getting it done? Like, “All right, I’m going to set all this stuff up, I’m going to set up my schedule, I’m going to set up all these things, and my spreadsheet, and the to-do list, and blah, blah, blah. All right, and I’ll go do something else before getting the thing don’t.”
Simon Kelly:
So I set up this 21-day challenge because I was definitely getting sick of taking lots of action but not really moving the needle the way I wanted it to. So, I focused on creating a course to help me move the needle and then I told Max about it, who’s a videographer at WP Elevation. I said, “Oh man, I made this course over the weekend, instead of doing the thing I needed to do, but now I’m set up to do this over the next 21-days.” And he goes like, “Oh, man, let’s film a course, how good would that be? Do you reckon you could just read part of that? Should we do a script?” And I was like, “Oh, I’ll write that tonight.” He was like, “No, no, you’ll be fine, you’re good on camera, let’s go.” So we just recorded it and in two days we had a course and I was like, “Oh man-“
Jennifer Sakowski:
I remember seeing that, I signed up for it and didn’t do it, but I remember that popped up and everybody jumped on it though, everybody and the outcomes was awesome.
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, there’s a lot of getting out of your procrastination built in there, so it’s like a course for me, but also it applies to lots of other people because-
Jennifer Sakowski:
It’s free, but you’re just going to share it, that’s all.
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. Yeah, then Eva and Max really wanting to produce things helps me who, I want to produce things but almost don’t have the confidence to just go, “Let’s just get it done.” I want it to really have a big impact, and I want to polish it to the point where it’s the diminishing returns point, like “Take action, take action, get it ready, get it ready. It’s ready, it’s not perfect, but it’s ready, but I still want to just keep going, just tweak that a little bit.” And then you don’t take action and actually release the thing, so no one gets the benefit. That doesn’t answer your question at all, does it?
Jennifer Sakowski:
It’s okay. I’ll just keep talking, it’s fine. But does it help you? That’s all that matters, is it helping you?
Simon Kelly:
Always, of course.
Jennifer Sakowski:
Well, where are you putting this, is it-
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, that’s a good question, this content is partially within Maverick’s Club, partially within WP Elevation for the members, but the most recent stuff has been publicly on YouTube, on the WP Elevation YouTube, which is awesome. One of the how-to videos I did a while ago, last time I looked it was over 150,000 views because Zoom has really grown. So it’s not just that I’ve created content and Max is an amazing editor, but it’s also because a lot of us are working from home and people are searching for things related to Zoom. So we’ve had some really good feedback and engagement there, which is good for the old ego to be like, “Okay, okay, okay, let’s do this.” So that’s one place, and that is kind of like, I think, low hanging fruit and I really want to engage with the audience there, especially now, to help them as much as possible.
Simon Kelly:
So the WP Elevation public YouTube channel, the next part are things that aren’t so related to freelancing and agency life, and just mindset and just whatever I want to teach, and just that expression of self, I think the place for that is going to be, if it’s going to be really, really short, it’s going to be on Instagram. If it’s going to be a bit longer, then it’s going to be on my personal blog which has one post, at the moment.
Jennifer Sakowski:
Well, that’s okay, at least you started.
Simon Kelly:
Well, thank you.
Jennifer Sakowski:
And I will be dropping those in the show notes, but that’s Instagram.com/simonlkelly, and if you want to check out his blog, which I’m going to go ahead and throw it out there, that content will be coming soon, is simonkelly.me, so definitely check that out because I want to talk more about the mindset because as you know, I’ve struggled for producing a consistent blog and platform for a long time, that was just me behind the business. So, once you started talking about launching this, or just stepping out and being more of your authentic self behind the scenes, and allowing you to step into that, I jumped on that because I’m walking through that and trying to figure that out myself. That’s one reason why I made a podcast because I figured what better way to rip the bandaid is to produce something that you have to stay consistent on. So I’m just curious to see how you come to it because I know someone who might be listening who is wanting to start that business, take their side hustle to be full-time or maybe they’re stuck with no financials coming in, that they need an outlet, they need something.
Jennifer Sakowski:
And I, you know me, I love anything that has to do with blogging or social media, or content because it’s free, why isn’t everybody talking about more of what they have to say? Because I think everybody has a story, everybody can learn from someone, right?
Simon Kelly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jennifer Sakowski:
I say all that to say let’s just talk about that mindset, that walking in the uncomfortableness of it’s just you and your computer screen and not knowing where it’s going to go, and how do you just hit publish? How do you just hit post on Instagram?
Simon Kelly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), that’s a question that I’d love to know the answer to. No, I think we’ve kind of had a little bit of a chat about this last time we talked and I think it’s a lot to do with compassion. I actually gave a talk recently for WP’s virtual summit, and I took the last part of the talk, which is just around mindset, and that will be released on the WP Elevation YouTube if it’s not already, and I watched it the other day and I was looking at my own talk going, “Wow, that really resonates with me right now.” Like, “Did I forgot that I did this? This is really helpful.” And it was about overcoming self-doubt with compassion, so we’re talking about how if you’re trying to create a blog post or post something on social media and you’re kind of coming up with, “Who is this even going to go to? Is this going to be useful?” Kind of thinking about yourself a bit, but focusing on compassion and maybe just the one person that may have had a question about this that you can help, and how can you help them and stop keeping this a secret from them?
Simon Kelly:
If someone’s like, “How can I get started with a business?” And you know this person, then write to them, write to that one person, except publicly, so help that one person publicly, focus on that compassion. There’s this book that I read called Get It Done, I can’t remember the author, but it inspired a lot of the 21-day challenge stuff, and he was talking about compassion as a way to overcome procrastination and the metaphor that he used was about like if you were on a boat with a bunch of your friends and one of your friends can’t swim very well and they fell into the water, so they’re in the water, they’re splashing around, they can’t swim well, you wouldn’t go, “Oh, great, I’ve got to do hair and makeup real quick, let me go into the pool and do a few laps, let me do some stretches or whatever, you would just jump in with your shoes, with your non-waterproof watch if Apple watched aren’t waterproof. You’d just get in there and try to help them like, “How can I help you now?” I don’t need to wait and research like, “What is the best way to help this person? Let me just figure this out.” Focus on compassion, get in there, help this person, they’re suffering right now, so don’t be selfish.
Jennifer Sakowski:
That’s an awesome analogy, that resonated because I’m … No, I don’t want to say horrible, if it weren’t for on the business side on Raney Day, if it wasn’t for the team who I’m really good about starting with, and they’re finishers. So they help drive it home, on my side, the stuff that I want to produce, when I put it out there or when I write it and before I hit send I’m like “Everybody’s going to think I’m such a big cheese ball.” Or I’ll start talking myself down even though I know somebody in the community asked for this, but I start just tearing it apart like, “Oh, this is dumb, no one’s going to read this, no one’s going to care.” Or, “They already know this, they already know, right? They already know this.” And I’ve come to the point to where it’s, “No, you’re wrong if you just jump in the deep end, and just be helpful,” Like you said, have compassion, “it’s amazing how people aren’t like you, they don’t know how to have those a-ha moments, they don’t know how to get to that point.”
Jennifer Sakowski:
In my world about working from home, that’s been the huge topic and friends are like, “Hey, how do you do this? I have little humans, how do I not tie them to a tree outside? How are you productive? How do you figure that out?” Because I think that’s one thing I fight through, I just put up that front, “No one cares.” Or, “I mean, people know this.” No, they don’t, and I think that’s another point that I want to drive through and I love what you said about compassion and jumping in is that if you have something in your life that’s helpful, or that it’s working for you, most likely it’s going to help someone else out. Or if you’ve worked through something, or right now you’re working through hard things, that walk, that testimony is sometimes not for you, it’s for someone else. And I think that if we could all just have that ability to lay our walls down, and just to be completely raw, I think …
Jennifer Sakowski:
See, like right now we’re in a podcast and my cat’s knocking at the door, that’s not a little human, it’s a cat, it’s fine, we’re just going to ignore it. But I do think that more people need to hear that, that you just have to do it, you just have to jump in. So I love that analogy.
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Sakowski:
I’m going to open the door.
Simon Kelly:
So there was a couple of things that came up then as well, and it’s like even if it is the same message, even if people have heard it before, there’s the book Own The Day, Own Your Life by Aubrey Marcus, have you read that one?
Jennifer Sakowski:
You’re dropping all the books, I feel like I should be writing this down.
Simon Kelly:
None of this is my stuff, I’m just taking other people’s things and just combining it together.
Jennifer Sakowski:
Tell it to me again?
Simon Kelly:
So it’s called Own The Day, Own Your Life by Aubrey Marcus, and there’s a quote in there, which is from someone else as well, so I’m not sure who the quote is actually from, but it’s, “A man never crosses the same river twice for he is not the same man, and it is not the same river.” Something along those lines, but if you get the same piece of information twice, you are not the same person as when you first encountered that information. Ever read a book and you’re like, “What is this chapter? I don’t remember this, this is gold, what was my brain doing at that time?” It could have been doing something else, or it just wasn’t the right time for that. Like in marketing, it’s right message, right person, right time, in learning I think it’s very similar as well, we don’t absorb all the information
Jennifer Sakowski:
Because you’re not ready for it.
Simon Kelly:
That’s right, so your brain is looking at all this stuff and it’s like well the Brain can only handle seven, plus or minus two chunks of attention at once, so you’re consuming all of this stuff, it’s like, “Do I need this? Can I use it now, can I ignore it? There’s calories being burnt here and I need to keep you alive, you’re processing a lot of stuff, what can I keep, what can we use? Oh, there’s an a-ha moment, great.” One per page maybe, or a couple per book that you can even remember, so by saying the same message repeatedly, the brain picks up on, “oh, this might actually be useful, oh, I remember that from before, I’m connecting the dots together a bit better now. This is actually something that is useful, let’s hold onto this and let’s use this.” So you never know at what point will the repeated information resonate at the right time with the right person to create that a-ha moment.
Jennifer Sakowski:
In doing so, do you find it hard to show up authentically, just because you worked so much as a coach and as this and as a business owner, do you have a hard time just being you? I know this is still fresh, or do you foresee yourself having a hard time?
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, I think that’s actually been a bit of a stumbling block, is because I actually really want to talk about the struggles, not just the, “Here’s how you do this with email marketing and here’s how you build the business of your dreams, and here’s some ways to overcome mindset issues.” But now talk about the issues themselves, and maybe there’s no resolution, maybe I put out some content where I’m like, “Wow, I really struggled with this thing and there is no tip, there is no, ‘This is what you get from this content.’ It’s just something that I am experiencing right now that I have no resolution for.” And that’s it, and I think that is really the raw authenticness that I actually want to put out, and I don’t know what value that’s going to give at all, other than to potentially inspire people to do something similar. I know that I’ve heard from other people when they tell their raw stories, that they kind of don’t know what the resolution is, that I connect with it and go, “Oh, that’s almost giving me permission to not be okay, or things aren’t perfect and that’s totally fine and let’s use that as a space to move forward from, not to suffer in.”
Simon Kelly:
So, I think that yes, I do struggle a bit with the being completely me and being completely authentic because I don’t think I’ve done it enough because I don’t know what value that gives to the world. So I want to be valuable, and I don’t know what that value is, so I think I hold it back.
Jennifer Sakowski:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). See, I resonate with that especially on a personal front, is when someone else will share their struggles, as a mom or as in relationships, to as just trying to make it work with their team and all that behind, I seek out that, especially growing those little humans, I was looking at, “Tell me your experience, tell me I’m not alone in feeling this way.” And I think that’s a big part of where we’re all at is like, “I just don’t want to feel like I’m alone, and I’m doing this, or there’s got to be a way to work through this.” So I agree, I think, and that’s the space that I’m obviously I’m in a different target, but I do think more people will resonate with that than you coming across just trying to teach, or just trying to just nail in that, “This is how you do it.” Just say, “This is how I’ve struggled with it.”
Jennifer Sakowski:
Because you have the capability to put out such great content through all these different sources, and for you to show up to say, “No, I really actually struggle for this.” Or, “I do have a hard time putting this together.” Or, “I have to make courses to bust through procrastination.” I’m queen bee of lists and worksheets over here to try to work through that, so I don’t know, I think that’s very awesome, is the best word I can come up with. But seriously because a lot of people don’t feel comfortable to walk through that right?
Simon Kelly:
Yeah.
Jennifer Sakowski:
Or they might feel drawn to it, and they might want to toy with the idea, but not very many people will actually step out into that light and be that vulnerable.
Simon Kelly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah, it’s like we want to be solved, and I’ve actually thought about this quite a lot recently, that I have wanted for so long to just go, “all right cool, I’m going to build this business and achieve this thing, whatever, this project, whatever, but I’m going to do it in private and then when I appear an emerging, amazing butterfly, ‘Here I am, look how incredible I am.’ But until then, no one is to speak to me, no one look at me, I’m doing my thing, I’m just grinding, I’m just working through.” But, when you get to the top of the mountain, there’s just more mountain, so let’s climb together, let’s experience the climb and the, I’m going to get deep into this metaphor, but the bloodiness on our fingers and attaching the carabiner or whatever, and who we’re belaying with, and the amazing view we’re experiencing. But the pain, the pleasure, the little plateaus we could get on and just have a look at the view, how good it is.
Simon Kelly:
That’s the story to share, not just, “Hey, I got to the top.”
Jennifer Sakowski:
Well, and that’s all fine and good, being at the top, but it’s like, how did you get there? Because obviously if you’re trying to get to the top, just saying that you’re up there, that’s how … And probably like you, I absorb a lot of content, whether it’s podcasts or books and whatnot, and it’s the ones that will show the flossiness behind their lifestyle and all, but they don’t get into that meat of, “Okay, did you write down your goals every day, did you envision yourself there? How did you overcome this?” That’s where that meat is, so I completely agree with that.
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, yeah, kind of another thing that’s coming up is, I’m just going to drop some more names up in here, but I don’t know if you’ve listened to the Life Coach School podcast by Brooke Castillo, have you listened to it?
Jennifer Sakowski:
I have not, I’ve heard of it.
Simon Kelly:
So [Jenny Leckenin 00:42:47], who’s in Maverick’s Club, got me onto that and, what were we up to? April, so June last year after the Maverick’s event, I took some time off because I wanted to drive up the coast of California and see sea otters and drive around in a Tesla into Yosemite, which was absolutely amazing. And while I was doing that, I wanted some listening material, and Jenny recommended this podcast, and it was absolutely amazing, went back to the first couple of episodes, one of them was like, “Why you aren’t taking action.” There’s lots of gold that which I won’t really get into. But there was a recent podcast and it was called, “Gifts to your future self.” And just that in itself, just that as a title is pretty awesome. So what could we be doing, and what could you be doing now to create a gift for your future self? And I think about that with the content that I’m wanting to put out, and courses putting together, and how I wan to structure my business, and how I want to kind of structure my life.
Simon Kelly:
What could I do now, what are the actions, what the maybe temporary pain that I could be in now, to create that future pleasure and that gift to my future self that I’ll say like, “Thank you, Simon, so much for doing that marathon, and running all those times when you had no idea what you were doing because I’m healthy now, I feel pretty amazing, and I can keep doing what I’m doing because of those choices you made back then that weren’t easy, so thank you, that’s awesome, what a great gift that you’ve presented to me at this point.” I just love that concept because it’s not necessarily, “We’re going to be in pain now.” But it’s just that, don’t get up to get a cup of coffee when you need to get some stuff done, just sit here, and if it’s a difficult email or whatever it is, just be here, just be with it, just notice it, notice the resistance and just sit there for a bit and just let it wash over you, go, “Okay, I want to get up, and I want to get the hell away from this, how interesting, let’s just do it anyway.”
Simon Kelly:
I want to create this content and I think I’m making these stories up about who’s going to even care and everyone knows this and whatever, I want to press record but I’m nervous, and I should get up and do something else, “Oh, I shouldn’t do this now.” And all these things your incredibly clever brain will make up to convince you because it knows you better than anyone else, it knows the things that are going to get you up and doing something else, and procrastinating because it can convince you, very wholeheartedly that, “This isn’t the best thing to do right now, how does this help you in the middle of a pandemic? How does this help you by creating content when you need to be doing client work? Why should you be working on the business, on those bigger goals, when you have urgent stuff to do now?” Very good at convincing you about the way to direct your attention.
Simon Kelly:
But it’s just notice that be with it and focus on compassion or creating gifts for your future self, I think.
Jennifer Sakowski:
That’s so good, that’s so good. So, I know we’re kind of coming to our time now, but can I put you on the spot for something?
Simon Kelly:
Please do.
Jennifer Sakowski:
Okay, so what is that one thing, can you give us a spoiler alert, that what’s that one thing that you really want to share, that you feel so pressed about right now that you haven’t shared? Is there anything, because I don’t know if you’re like me, but sometimes something will sit with me, and sit with me, and sit with me until I finally have to get it out, and it’s usually if I just get it out right when it hits me while I’m cleaning or doing something, that’s when I should have, but it will still stay with me. Is there anything that you feel pressed, that you’re like, “I want to talk about this from just me.”?
Simon Kelly:
Yeah, yeah, I think one of the biggest thing is all we really have is now, and all we really can work on is now because the future doesn’t exist, and the past is kind of just memories, so any action, any thinking, any behaviors, they can only happen in the present moment, so living in either future or past in our minds, it’s a bit of a shame because we’re missing out on those experiences, and family and friends, and even the struggles that we’re experiencing and people that are connecting with each other online right now to help each other out in really critical times, I think to be focused on what you don’t have, and how things should be better and, “Oh, I’m so upset that I’m not creating content, or I haven’t built that business, I’m not as fit as I want to be.” I think that it’s a bit of a shame, I don’t want to say a waste but it’s something that you have control over every moment because it’s the eternal now. To be upset about how you’ve been, or to be worried about the future, it’s at the expense of now, and it always exists.
Simon Kelly:
It’s always there, you can always change the now, you can always change that thought by coming back to your present experience, to your senses, to your breath, and knowing that you can shift things at any moment through just this presence, I think. And yeah, if there’s one thing that I think would be helpful from that is that believing in yourself, but knowing that now is the only time that we have to take action and to make those positive changes in our lives and in the lives of those around us.
Jennifer Sakowski:
Done, I cannot wait to see that blog post, that’s so good, and so relevant because I think of like, I have it right here, “Today I want to be better than I was yesterday.” I think that we miss out on opportunities because we’re so focused elsewhere, then instead of how we show up. So please put that out, I’ll be your one person, and then we’ll us just benefit from that, how about that?
Simon Kelly:
Sounds good to me, yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Sakowski:
All right. Well, Mr. Simon, thank you so much for joining me today, it has been so much fun.
Simon Kelly:
Absolutely, thank you so much, Jenny, this has been amazing.
Jennifer Sakowski:
You’re welcome, and thank you for playing along because I kind of threw it at you at the last minute, was like, “Hey, well let’s just do this, let’s just talk.”
Simon Kelly:
It’s great, anytime.
Jennifer Sakowski:
Well, I appreciate it, and if you would like to connect, I really encourage you because right at the launch of Simon Kelly, I encourage you to find Instagram.com/simonlkelly, or check out simonkelly.me, of course, you can also follow him on the WP Elevation, and shoot, just Google WP Elevation, and YouTube and social media and podcast will all pop up and you can find Simon Kelly there. So, if you’ve found this helpful, please #raneydaypodcast … I’m sorry, okay, I’m so excited, #raneydaytalkspodcast, ping me, let me know how you are, and please help a sister out and start subscribing. I know y’all are listening, I’m getting the comments, hit subscribe. Thank you so much, Simon, thank you.
Simon Kelly:
Thanks, Jen.
Jennifer Sakowski:
All right, I’m going to hit-
Connect with Simon Kelly:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonlkelly/
Blog: https://simonkelly.me/
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