Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Crown Yourself. Kimberly Spencer, how are you?

Kimberly Spencer: I’m doing great. Stone How are you?

Stone Payton: I am doing well. It’s an absolute delight having you on the program today, and I’ve got a ton of questions. I know we won’t get to them all, but I think a good place to start would be if you could articulate for me and our listeners mission purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Kimberly Spencer: I am in the business of transforming people’s stories, and then we also leverage other people’s stories like yours and other people out there who have a big heart and a big mission to really see entrepreneurship change, the dynamics of how we do business and how we operate in the world. To use those stories from poverty to profit, from victim to victor, to show those stories to others and to give those stories a platform so other people can really see that you can lean into your own sovereignty and build your own empire and stand out as you were, in my belief system, divinely created to live into a greater purpose on this planet.

Stone Payton: Well, I got to tell you, I am just very enamored with this whole idea that is encapsulated with those two words Crown yourself. I just love that. One of the things that leapt off the page for me when I was reading through my notes is this this idea of discovering your zone of genius. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Kimberly Spencer: So each one of us has a particular area of I’m not going to say it’s not expertise. It’s an intrinsic natural gift. That is, when we operate in that zone. It is a game changer. But so often we fear or have been taught to fear that zone of genius because it doesn’t fit in to the traditional mold in some ways. So, for example, one of my zones of genius is being an epic quickstart. I want to get something done. When I set my mind to doing something, it can be done very fast. But that’s something that for people who think, Oh, you know, there’s a system that you need to go through and you need to. Who are you like the qualifications and maybe do you need to get a degree? Like, of course, if you’re going to be a doctor, like you need to go to school for that. But for certain things, like launching a business not necessarily necessary to go to four years of business school and go through that rigamarole in order to get to that outcome and result that you want. Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to build a business from scratch with just a Google search part. If you just ask the right questions and seek out the right support. So that’s one of my zones of genius is getting a fire ignited in both myself and and others and literally lighting that fire, sparking their imagination, sparking their creativity and then leveraging their zone of genius. So the zone of genius is typically an area where we’re afraid of leaning into maybe it’s an area where you’ve been told you’re too much or too bold or you have too much motivation.

Kimberly Spencer: Many of my clients have been told that like and this this the audacity of having these big dreams, you want too much luxury. So I went when those are the things, the the natural gifts that you generally leaned into, but maybe society or sometimes our parents said, no, that’s not quote unquote realistic. So, for example, my son’s zone of genius, he’s five years old and he is already showing exceptional interest and acceleration in math and science. He loves math and science. He says he wants to be a rocket scientist and an astronaut. And maybe if it was a he was being raised by a different parent, they might say, Oh, that’s nice, that’s cute. But, you know, wait until you get a real job versus me. I’m like, I see him operating in this zone of genius where he’s shining and standing out in these specific areas. Now, certain other areas he’s not as advanced in, and that’s okay. But I see his own genius and I want to foster that rather than cripple that in this name of balance. So a lot of times we can find and lean into what our zone of genius was when we look at who and what did we want to be when we were about four or five six years old. And when we look, because that is the age when we are untainted by the jaded ness of society, by plagiarized programing, by anybody saying, oh, that’s not quote unquote realistic.

Kimberly Spencer: Like they’ve done studies with the creativity of children compared to people who were graduates in university. And the creativity of four or five and six year olds was far beyond being able to solve a problem faster than those who are literally studying to learn how to solve problems better. So when you can look at that area about four or five, six years old and strip away the plagiarized programing that said, you’re too much, you’re not supposed to be that. That’s not realistic and all of that crap, for lack of a better word, then you’re able to actually lean into that area. And I have seen a direct correlation stone between those the income of a business owner and the amount of time they spend in their zone of genius. So, for example, I hire for other people’s zones of geniuses that are not mine. My operations manager is incredible with spreadsheets. I love a good organized spreadsheet, but if I were to sit and input data all day, I would lose my mind. I can, but it wouldn’t be an efficient use of my time operating in my zone of genius. And when a business owner can spend 60 to 80% of their time in their zone of genius, and then the rest of the time can be in those other zones of either excellence or competence, that’s when you can really see a business grow very fast.

Stone Payton: Well, you bring up a very important point that hits very close to home for me, because I know one of my challenges I have a I have a tendency to hire in my own image.

Kimberly Spencer: Yeah.

Stone Payton: And what I think what I think I hear you saying, one, we need to fill those voids, those gaps with other people with different zones of genius. Now, you just described another term plagiarized programing. Say more about that.

Kimberly Spencer: So plagiarized programing is if you think of what plagiarism is. And first and foremost, I’ve always been a writer. When I was six, four or five, six years old, I was creating stories and we learned in school that plagiarize plagiarism is when you steal someone else’s work and don’t give them credit. That’s what we do every dang day with belief systems where if someone says, Oh, you know you’re not enough, or that’s not you didn’t work hard enough, and you’re like, I worked my fricking butt off. But if we adopt that belief system, if we think, Oh, I’m not good enough, then you literally just plagiarize that belief system. So it’s okay to have some belief systems, like all of our belief systems are plagiarized and created by those around us or consciously created by ourselves by saying, Oh, I really like that person’s belief system. I’m going to lean into that. Like, for example, I have a mentor who whose belief system says her success is inevitable. And so I was like, I really liked that. And I thought about it and I ruminated on it. I was like, You know, that belief system really makes sense. I’m going to plagiarize that and use that as my own. Now, I don’t I, of course, cite her and credit her for the terminology and phraseology of that, the ability to adopt that and say, this is mine, this is what I’m leaning into and how this is me. So often, though, we adopt things unconsciously, especially as children, the belief systems of, Oh, I have to tone it down, Oh, I’m not supposed to stand out, Oh, I’m too loud or I’m too, oh, I create distractions.

Kimberly Spencer: You know, these belief systems. Maybe a teacher like a teacher once said to my son, like, oh, he’s he’s just too loud. And I’m like, yes, he can be loud at times. And what how could we foster that in a good way? How can we foster that into a leadership skill so that he’s not unafraid to have a voice? Like that’s a huge thing. So being able to to look at what are those belief systems that you may be unconsciously adopted or plagiarized from somebody else without even knowing that you were stealing their work, without even knowing that you were stealing their belief system. Because that is the programing that we we are operating our lives through. And when we can change that programing and conscious instead of like just unconsciously plagiarizing our belief systems, consciously saying I’m going to choose the belief system that my success is inevitable, or I’m going to choose the belief that my gifts were given to me by the divine and that I have a great purpose in life compared to a belief system that maybe somebody else has adopted, or maybe you had for a while that was like, Oh, I feel I’m purposeless. What’s my point? Like, why am I here? All of those questions. Instead, you can consciously lean into and choose your own programing rather than unconsciously borrowing somebody else’s. That’s not even working for you in the first place.

Stone Payton: So who are you helping with this work? Who are the the clients?

Kimberly Spencer: So I work with the leaders and founders and CEOs and entrepreneurs who are they’ve gotten themselves to a certain level and maybe they’ve had success in another business or in another industry. And they’re looking for that alignment because they’re they’re the high achievers like Stone. I have a feeling that you and I both being high achievers like achievement is not always the problem. Like we can set our if we set our minds to something, we can do it. But is it aligned? And so I work with my leaders on finding how they can be their most aligned, fully authentic selves in their business and in their leadership strategy, where they’re shining in their zone of genius. They are supported by a team that doesn’t just look like them. They’re or or sound like them or have the same values as them. But that makes up for those areas where we’re not as strong. And that’s okay. And it’s okay as long as we support ourselves in the entity of what we’re creating with those who have their their different zone of geniuses. And that’s what creates a beautiful, diverse culture and ecosystem in your empire.

Stone Payton: I got to know what is the back story? How in the world did you find yourself in this line of work?

Kimberly Spencer: So I started out wanting to work in Hollywood. That was my dream. I had a dream fulfilled. I co-wrote a film, a feature film that got picked up by Lionsgate on Netflix. And at the premiere I realized I was only about 90% fulfilled. And I got curious. I said, Why? Like what? That’s very interesting to me that I wasn’t like, fully over the moon fulfilled. And I looked at what else did I want? And I said I wanted to direct, I wanted to produce. And in that way entrepreneurship filled that need because as an entrepreneur, I get to be the director of the direction of my company. I get to be the producer. And if you’re a startup or self-funded entrepreneur, you’re the executive producer managing the finances. If you are like, I write most of my content and I write from a place of heart and soul and calling in my ideal clients, and so that I get to be the writer and I get to be the performer too, like I get to fulfill all the desires that I had and it starts. So I had my screenwriting career. I pivoted into an e commerce company for two years and saw I got to pitch our product to the first round of Shark Tank auditions. Got it seen on the big billboards in Times Square, like saw success, and then also saw how if you don’t work on the subconscious structure of a business, meaning values alignment, leadership alignment and decision making alignment, that the business can really run into struggles and problems.

Kimberly Spencer: And that’s what I ran into with my business partner and that company. And then I also had a private Pilates studio for ten years. That was my first career. And I started doing that to support myself as a screenwriter. Because in Hollywood, with your first screenplays, it’s not that it’s not a moneymaking thing, it’s a passion thing. And even though it did get picked up by some big names and being able to then support myself was a huge endeavor. I grew up with two entrepreneur parents, which is a big blessing because I saw the value of the hustle and I saw what happens if you’re not making sales. Like if you’re not making sales, you’re not going out to a restaurant that that weekend. So being able to really. See that growth of a company. I mean, I saw my parents build a multi million dollar company that my mom is just now selling after the death of my dad this past year. And they built it from nothing with my dad simultaneously being an addict for a majority of my lifetime. And I thought if he could build that while being an addict and an alcoholic for the pat for 30 years, what could I build in the next ten that could surpass that? And that’s it was just that fire that got stoked in me.

Kimberly Spencer: And I’m very grateful for that experience. And then also so I went from having my own private Pilates studio. But when I was bought out of my e commerce company, it wasn’t the kind of buyout that you cheer for. It was the buyout where my business partner wanted to buy me out. We were right in the middle of seeking venture capital. Angel investors were interested in us, and he wanted to take the company in a different direction. And it didn’t involve me and it was soul crushing. And that was when I learned the very valuable lesson from the school of hard knocks of when to let go business and values alignment. And when I was bought out of my e commerce company three weeks before I got married, I had jetted off on my honeymoon and I knew six weeks in Italy allowed for a lot of reflection at an inn, a beautiful Airbnb off the coast of the northern Italian Riviera. And I was sitting there with my husband and I was like, What do I do when I get back? I’ve had all of these varying careers from Pilates instructor to screenwriter to to e commerce business owner.

Kimberly Spencer: And I saw this holistic. Connection because I saw what the lack of values alignment did for my own leadership style and my e commerce company. Because I was not treating my body kindly, I was losing my hair. I was so stressed out waking up at 3 a.m. to write customer emails. I was having panic attacks like it was not a pretty picture. And my my relationship with my then fiance, now husband was suffering because your partner doesn’t want to see you suffer. And so it was a blessing being bought out of that company. It was also a learning lesson because prior to that experience I had never had doubt about my career. I hadn’t like in other areas around my body or around relationships, I’d had to go through my own varying forms of self-doubt and self sabotage, but never in my career or various businesses because I just grew up with this level of audacity and courage to just ask for what I wanted. And if I didn’t get it next, next. That was that was always my philosophy. But then when I was bought out and after three months of dealing with lawyers who don’t send you the kindest emails when they’re not on your side and having every fear and every self doubt that I’d ever had in myself between my two muchness and my femininity and my age and my youth and my lack of degrees.

Kimberly Spencer: And all of that was brought up. Of course, now I see the strategy, but at the same time it actually really hit deeply at at my deepest insecurities. And so for a year and a half and my business with Crown herself, I didn’t make any money. And because I was so paranoid and scared of rejection and every value that I was promoting in Crown Yourself as well. And this is from a leadership standpoint, I was not actually embodying. So I was talking about owning your throne, claiming your power. And there I was being a victim of circumstance of of blaming my business partner for my for my loss of that business. And that’s not a very empowering place to be. And because I wasn’t aligned with the values that I was preaching, I also that’s part of the reason why I wasn’t making any money. And then I found out a year and a half in that I was pregnant with my first son, and that was when success became non-negotiable, because I knew that it wasn’t just success, it was the alignment with the values in which I wanted to embody in Crown your self ownership, authenticity, service, service, leadership, growth mindedness.

Kimberly Spencer: And yet there I was so stuck for a year and a half in my own pity party of self doubt. And it was from that that I said, No, this is this. I may have had the title of CEO or president before, but the title of mom meant so much more to me. And that was when I said I’m going to step up my game. I immediately went and got certified in timeline therapy, NLP Hypnosis, because I knew it was a mindset problem that I was having. It wasn’t like a sales problem. I knew how to make sales. I just wasn’t making them. It was a mindset piece of self-doubt, self sabotage and blockage. And I had to really shift my mindset first before I could move forward because my identity of who I had been was complaining and blaming and a victim and I had to shift. And my son was the catalyst for that shift. And I’m so grateful for him every day because he’s so phenomenal in in allowing myself to see a mirror of the things that I didn’t want to see within myself. But for my kids, there’s no way I’m not going to face those parts of me because I have to be the best mom possible.

Stone Payton: So now that you’ve been at it a while, you’ve kind of cracked the code on this pursuit. What’s the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about the work for you?

Kimberly Spencer: For me, it’s the transformations. It’s the realization of childhood dreams. I mean, one of my clients was able to fulfill his childhood dream and buy himself a plane. And it wasn’t just, you know, to have a fancy jet or or plane. It was so that he could take his grandkids to France on a fun little lunch in vacation just because he could, because he’d set up his business in that way. Being able to see one another, one of my clients align with becoming the CEO of a company and reconnect with her estranged daughter like and by bringing her into the work that she was doing that was huge. Like you can’t put a price on those things. One of my other clients was really struggling with her son, who was, you know, she’d had business success. She was getting reaching multi millions of dollars, hitting her goals in a third of the time that she thought that she was going to take. But then, of course, you know, as as a as a parent, when something happens to your kid or something’s going on with your kid, that that sucks the life out of you. And through just some basic perception shifts, she was able to see her kid and what he was doing as everyone else was labeling him as a problem, as a disruptor. And I said, Well, those are the people like the the Steve Jobs of the world who go out and change the world. I said, So it sounds to me like he’s actually got entrepreneurship ability and sales skills. So what if you leaned into that and looked into a different approach and she just it totally changed her perspective on how to work with and and navigate dealing with a teenager that was being disobedient and breaking some rules and being able to see that and help her with that.

Kimberly Spencer: She I mean, those the messages that I get from my clients have like it goes beyond just career success because I’ve met so many people and I’m sure you have too, who have had that career success. They’ve made the money and they’re miserable. And I see life as being this beautiful, aligned dance where you are in love with the body and in this form and you take care of yourself and you have healthy, thriving, amazing relationships that just light your soul on fire and then you get to go do work. And that that work brings in income and money and that money that you’re then being able to make or then recycling some of it back into your community to serve. And those are the people that I work with. I work with the mission minded, the purpose driven, the good hearted leaders who want to make an impact and they want to make an income. Because as my mentor Brandon Bouchard says, you cannot sustain the mission without the money and you can have a bigger mission when you make more money. And when people see that and are able to leverage that and then build teams that, then they’re able to support other people and their families and allow those teams to work in their zone of business. It only enhances and raises the consciousness of the planet. And that’s what I’m here for.

Stone Payton: So in your work, do you see some patterns over and over? A pathologies might be a little bit strong for a word, but like, I don’t know, lack of confidence or procrastination or decision making. Do you see some of the same challenges over and over?

Kimberly Spencer: Yeah. So I mean, I obviously I can’t diagnose pathologies, nor can I diagnose because I’m not a therapist, but I definitely see and recognize and patterns. And that’s one of my specialties as a coach is when I like a common one that I see is making decisions from fear rather than from faith. So a lot of times when someone is leaving, maybe their corporate job and they’re starting out on their company, they have the whole list of all the things that they don’t want to do, don’t want to be, don’t want to experience because of their past experience in a past job or in a past entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial endeavor. And so they’re driving the car, looking in the rearview mirror at all the things that they don’t want. And I mean, driving the car metaphorically, of course. And so if you think about driving a car, there’s only so far and so fast that you can drive while looking at the in the rearview mirror of all the things that you don’t want. And inevitably you crash and then you burn out. And then the problem is, is that eventually if you crash enough times, then it becomes an identification of I’m a bad driver or I’m a bad leader. And when it becomes as a personal identification, that’s when you run into the deeper subconscious issues of.

Kimberly Spencer: If if you identify with that belief system or that plagiarized programing because of the past experience, then it inhibits you from from growth. So what I see is when I see my leaders and my my founders making decisions from fear of all the things that they don’t want, we look at what’s the vision of how they do want? How do you get to create the rules instead of not do the rules that you didn’t like? There’s a there’s a big difference. I also see with entrepreneurs are a huge difference between playing not to lose and planning to win. So when you play the game of business or the game of life not to lose, you’re timid with your decision making. You are you try. There’s a lot of trying, but trying, like Yoda says, and Star Wars do or do not. There is no try. And when you are timid in your decision making skill set and you vacillate and then you make a decision, but then you go back on it, like when you’re in that space that creates uncertainty, It it creates uncertainty in you as a leader as far as how you make decisions. It creates uncertainty with your customers and it creates a whole ethos, an underlying subconscious ethos of uncertainty, where you may even see possibly and I’ve seen this happen with customers not feeling uncertain.

Kimberly Spencer: They don’t know why, but uncertain about making a purchase with you. And so instead looking at how can you be decisive, how can you make a decision and trust that it’s the right decision? Because a huge belief that I see so often with leaders is that they struggle and fear that they’re going to make the wrong decision and when. And it comes from a really good place. Stone Like they really care about the people and they see how their decisions impact the, you know, not only people but people’s lives, their families, the people that they serve. And so they’re scared of making the wrong decision. But that fear of making the wrong decision paralyzes people from making any decision, and thus they don’t make progress and progress forward. Whereas if they maybe switched their belief to one that your your audience is free to adopt, is that I personally believe and this doesn’t come from a place of ego, that I always make the right decision, even if it was a mistake, even if it was a big flopping failure. Because when I make a decision that wasn’t, even if it was a mistake, I learn something and typically I learn it faster than I would have had I not made that mistake in the first place.

Kimberly Spencer: But the fear of making mistakes is what cripples leaders from ever taking a decisive, bold action. And so if you can eliminate that, and especially as leaders get more and more success and entrepreneurs get more and more success, and there’s a perception that there’s more and more at stake of making a mistake. Now, obviously, you don’t want to do a full FTC’s mistake there, but if you’re conscious about the decisions that you make and you trust your team and you trust your input and you trust that you can make a decision, then making a decision is better than not making a decision or waiting to make a decision. Because typically when you make a decision, you’ll press further forward faster. But when you delay, delay creates more doubt, not only doubt in the minds of your team, but doubt in your own unconscious mind with your own ability to make a decision. And thus it trains your brain to create doubt Every time you’re making a decision versus you make a decision, you go with it if it if it flops or fails. Okay, great. What did we learn from this next?

Stone Payton: So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a practitioner like you, a business like yours? How do you get the new clients?

Kimberly Spencer: So I have various ways of getting clients. But really getting clients comes from I like to to flip the language of that because getting clients, it’s like imagine like getting dates right? If you go out there to get dates, like there’s an icky kind of feeling when you when you are like feeling like a piece of meat being chased after like versus being the person attracting clients because of who you be and how you show up in the world. And so showing up on podcasts, showing up in social media, showing up on to respond to people’s emails and their inquiries, showing up when someone posts that they have a problem and they love to have something solved or they’re looking for a solution, and then maybe giving them a few questions that could help them guide them on their journey. Being of service will get you so much farther, faster. And it sounds completely counter counter to our own egos to think that we have to go out there and close, close, close and get get clients. But most of my clients have been through referrals, referrals and podcast interviews because I just show up, I share open heartedly, I share my story, I serve as best as I can, and then I, I, I follow up. And that follow up piece is key as well.

Kimberly Spencer: So many people drop the ball on the follow up and I’ve been completely guilty of that as well in the past. So that whole fortune is in the follow up. It is it’s it’s it isn’t dating as it is in life. And I think that like when we take away these the principles of form and because dating and sales have so much in common because both our conversation of influence and if you look at if you’re married especially and happily married ideally and you look at how you connected and attracted your significant other, if you look at that subconscious strategy, you probably weren’t out there looking to get a client, looking to get get some, for lack of a better word. So you weren’t like probably it was there was an attraction and then there was communication and then there was active responding. I mean, I remember my husband, he did not wait. Those like he did not follow those quote unquote rules of like, oh, you should wait three days until you text her like he was. He texted me the next day. He’s like, she’s a beautiful woman. I’m like, Well, there are probably other guys who are interested, and I would like her to to focus more on me. So he followed up quickly. He also was proactive and inspiring.

Kimberly Spencer: And so when I looked at that strategy of what won me over was his influence. Now, of course, he wasn’t operating like on like a strategy to consciously, but when I looked at what worked for me, I just looked at how could I apply that to my business actually. So being of service, showing up, responding, caring about the other person. A lot will come from just the simple acts of kindness and care and showing that you care for someone and are interested in what they have to say and want to help them. And maybe if it’s not them, then maybe they have a friend or a referral or somebody. And one of my favorite questions, but quotes is from Oprah. And she says, In life you get what you have the courage to ask for. I would not have my marriage today if I didn’t ask to be in a committed relationship with my husband, nor would I have the clients that I have today if I didn’t ask them for the commitment of working together. You got to you got to make the ask after you have the offer and the courting phase of getting to know someone, seeing if they have a problem that you can solve. Being of value and of service. And then asking and making the offer.

Stone Payton: Well, I so sincerely appreciate and respect the reframe of my question, because I guess when I look back on it, something as simple as language really can change the entire dynamic and the way you perceive everything you’re trying to do for people. Can it?

Kimberly Spencer: Yeah, I mean, our language gauges, our experience of our reality, and so I’m very discerning about the words that I choose to use, especially around client attraction and retention. Because like, I don’t like the word leads, even because that just feels very it’s like I like leaders, I love leaders, I love working with leaders, but leads that it just sounds like something that you’re chasing down versus and it may not for somebody else, they may not have the same connotation. So I invite you and your audience to really look at what is the language in which you’re framing sales. I mean, are you are you chasing clients? Are you struggling with the follow up? Are you are there some limiting beliefs in yourself talk of like, oh, gosh, now I have to respond to these clients, like have to respond to these clients. Like, well, they’re paying you like that. That’s like, what if you get to do that? What if it’s something that’s exciting to you? Like just look at the language of how you’re speaking to yourself about your own business and you’ll you’ll see how you’re gauging your own construction of reality. And if you can change your language around that consciously, because once you’re aware of your language, then you’re like, oh, just like, just like you said. Stone Like from getting to attract thing, it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a minute language shift, but it literally opens the door for a whole new experience in bringing clients into your world and into your empire.

Stone Payton: So this is a very tactical question, probably admittedly, but I want the help personally. But by the way, gang, if you want to get some really good consulting and you want to engage in conversation with some really smart people, get yourself a radio show because you get in relation to with some great people. But my observation has been I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing a lot of folks who have accomplished a great deal. And one of the patterns that I see is a great deal of what I’ll call personal accountability, taking individual responsibility for for corporate results. But then I have also from time to time seen it bleed over into kind of beating themselves up. Can you speak to that topic at all? How do you draw that line and keep that contained and direct it in the right fashion?

Kimberly Spencer: I love this question. Stone So I see ownership, which I consider personal responsibility and accountability as a pendulum. So on the one side, you have the victim side where everything is somebody else’s faults, everything. It’s the economy’s fault, it’s the government’s fault, it’s your team’s fault, it’s the client’s fault. You know, And so many people, they choose not to, especially high achievers, they choose not to lean into that. So they swing the pendulum to the opposite side where everything is their fault, and thus all the responsibility for all the results lands on their shoulders. For example, I had one client who was struggling with the actions of his ex wife in his present, her present actions, and he was blaming himself. Now, he’d been divorced for about eight years and I said, You can only take 100% responsibility for your actions. She can only take 100% responsibility for her actions. And she’s had eight years to take 100% responsibility. However, he was trying to take on 10%, 20%, 30% of her responsibility for her actions and how her life was turning out. And unfortunately, even with our kids, we can’t take they are 100% responsible for their own actions. And so ownership and personal responsibility, if there is guilt and shame attached, then that’s not actual ownership. Ownership and personal responsibility is neutral. It is emotionally neutral. It is a state of acceptance, of emotional acceptance. And in and that is an actual physiological vibration that once you can accept it changes the vibration of how you be as a leader versus if you are operating in an emotional vibration of shame and guilt.

Kimberly Spencer: There is a lot slower action taking because when you’re blaming yourself and putting your self at fault, self blame is not ownership and most high achievers get that misconstrued because and I’ve been completely guilty of that myself as someone who was very skilled at taking all the blame for all the things, for all the people, and that that form of ownership, it will only lead you into a very dark spiral of what I’ve seen. It leads to depression and hyper anxiety and hypervigilance versus trusting and surrounding yourself with the right people to move you forward from the present moment because guilt and shame will keep you stuck in decision making from the past. Fear will keep you trapped in, paralyzed from making decisions in the future. So if you want to activate your decision making power as a leader, then ditching the guilt and shame and you can do that from a various different ways. I do that with my clients through timeline therapy and hypnosis and releasing the guilt and shame. And then. Also taking full ownership for what is present. What are you actually what do you actually need to take ownership for? So you can, for example, if you need if you’re in a relationship, you can take ownership for your communication, how you communicate, how your experience of the you can take ownership over your experience personally of how you’re experiencing the other person in a relationship, whether it’s personal or business, and they are 100% responsible for their own interpretation, for their own, for their for their emotions, for their triggers.

Kimberly Spencer: Those are their things that they need to work on. So that’s where you get to draw, do the dance of ownership. And the beautiful thing is that I’ve seen that when you start taking more personal responsibility and accountability for how you show up and and looking at it less from a identification of like, Oh, I screwed up in this communication. I’m a horrible communicator and rather as a strategy and then adapting the strategy, it plays into the law of requisite variety, which basically is a universal law that says the person with the most behavioral flexibility will win the day. So if you’re in a fight, for example, or if you’re struggling with somebody on your team not performing, let’s just give that as an example and they’re not performing. You can take responsibility for how you hired them for the interview. Questions you may have asked that may have not shown this person’s poor performance. You can’t take responsibility that they’re struggling with some stuff at home, but you can take responsibility of how they show up in your company and if they’re a fit for. What for? For this time in your company of of wherever you’re at. So, for example, my assistant, all of a virtual assistant that I had a while ago, was going through a struggle with her marriage. And she she said, I need some time.

Kimberly Spencer: And I said, absolutely, take some time like that was she took ownership over her, communication over her struggles. I took over my ownership of like I know that when I’m in an emotionally challenging place, going through emotionally challenging things, I don’t tend to make the best decisions. And that’s pretty universal. So giving somebody the space and grace, knowing that they’re there will be a position for them to come back to. But to take a few weeks off maybe, and just sort some things and have some time to maybe work on their own personal affairs and then be able to come back. But that required me to take ownership of, okay, if I have this happen, then this is going to happen. And that allowed me to take instead of being like, Oh, I shouldn’t have hired her. Oh, she’s all the struggles and oh, I must be really bad at hiring because I’ve hired this person who’s making these choices. No. Rather than saying, Oh, I’m going to choose, I accept where I am. Okay. The universe, the circumstances of my world have given me new data. How do I deal with this new data? This person is dealing with this. How do I adapt? How do I be flexible? How am I agile around this new piece of information about this person or this circumstance? And it is with flexibility and adaptability and operating from the present instead of from the past, guilt and shame that then you can actually move forward faster.

Stone Payton: I am so glad that I asked. I think that is marvelous. You asked you. All right. Let’s let’s leave our listeners with a couple of pro tips, if we could. Whether it’s someone with an idea on a cocktail napkin, getting a business off the ground, or whether it’s an established leader trying to open up the next opportunity. Just a couple of actionable tips, something to be thinking about, reading, doing, not doing that can kind of get them on this path of of crowning yourself.

Kimberly Spencer: So for the leaders who are looking for their next big opportunity, I can definitely say never put your success that you’ve had in the past up on a pedestal. Pedestals are very shaky surfaces that can get knocked down. And when you put your success up on a pedestal, it is very easy to forget the strategies that allowed you to get up on that pedestal. And generally those strategies involve taking risks and taking bold actions that required courage. So look at what are those decisions that you’re looking at and opportunities that you’re looking to lean into and then making decisions from there. For the person who’s got the idea of on a napkin and that they want to go and start their own business and move forward, just get started. Put one foot in front of the other. Craft a plan and focus on the most important thing in business, which is not your logo, it’s not your branding, It’s not your color scheme. It’s not a website domain. It’s not the name of your business. It is What problem do you solve? What problem do you solve that is on your napkin and how do you solve it differently than anybody else is solving it. And if you can find that, then you can then find the people who have that problem and let their cash meet, meet your products and services. Because all you need to prove that a business has a viable solution and can provide a valuable service is their cash to meet your products and services and that payment and that transaction. All other things are lovely, beautiful, necessary down the road. But when you first have that idea on a napkin, get the validation. Whether that’s getting investors to buy into the idea or getting actual customers to buy in to the to the products and services that you’re offering, because that is that is the only way to prove a business’s viability in the physical world is receiving payment, whether that’s investment seed capital or actual payment for your products and services.

Stone Payton: Marvelous counsel on both fronts. Okay. What’s the best way for our listeners to connect with you? Tap into your work, whatever you think is appropriate. I just want to make it real easy for them to to get connected with you.

Kimberly Spencer: If you love this conversation and you’d like to have a private one on one conversation with me, I’d love to invite you to head on over to crown yourself and just click the button that says Work with me and we can book a call.

Stone Payton: Well, Kimberly, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon. Thank you for sharing your insight, your perspective, your energy and your enthusiasm. This is what a marvelous way to invest a monday afternoon. You’re doing such important work and we sure appreciate you.

Kimberly Spencer: Thank you so much for having me. Stone And I forgot to mention that if your listeners love podcasts like this and want to dive more into their subconscious belief systems, then head on over to wherever you listen to this podcast and subscribe to the Princess and the Bee podcast, where I tackle all the beliefs in every area of life that can allow you to become the king or queen of your domain.

Stone Payton: Fantastic. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Kimberly Spencer with Crown yourself and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.