Episode 072 Part 1 – Kimberly Spencer

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Richard Matthews  0:34  

Hello and welcome back to The HERO Show. My name is Richard Matthews and I am live on the line today with Kimberly Spencer. Are you on the line with us here?

 

Kimberly Spencer  1:17  

Here I am on the line on the wire. 

 

Richard Matthews  1:20  

Glad to have you here today. quick introduction for those of my guests who don’t know who you are. Kimberly Spencer is an award winning high performance coach and trainer, Amazon best-selling co-author, international motivational speaker and founder of CrownYourself.com and you help high achievers build their empire and sparkle with holistic fulfillment in their bodies, businesses and relationships. That sounds like it’s a really big topic. What I want to start with is what is it that you’re known for now? Why do people call up Kimberly and ask you to come speak or read your books? What is it that Kimberly is known for? 

 

Kimberly Spencer  1:55  

A lot of my clients are successful in one area of their life. They’re doing well in their career but they have their passion projects. They have their side hustle, they have something that they really want to get off the ground. And that’s where high performance comes in. When you think that you’re already busy and you’re like, “How do I continue doing this thing that really fulfills me? I really would love to turn this into my main thing.” Maybe that’s where I come in because I help them bridge that gap. And then we scale that side hustle and make it so that they’re creating on all cylinders. Sometimes they stay in their career path. Sometimes they have both and sometimes they switch over. That’s my jam.

 

Richard Matthews  2:47  

That’s actually what I’m currently doing with my business right now. For anyone who’s been listening to our podcast in the last couple of episodes, we’re starting to spin up a business called Push Button Podcasts. It was side business for me and working on turning that into our main income driver. We’re hiring team members and really scaling outside of the business. I get it. I’ve got a whole other business I have to run and keep going and make sure that all my clients are satisfied there while we’re putting effort and building with other things. I could definitely see how bring someone in to help you manage that if you don’t have experience doing it. That would be valuable.

 

Kimberly Spencer  3:26  

It’s super fun and I love doing it because I work with a lot of creatives. I don’t have a specific. I don’t believe in marketing to demographics. I know in marketing, sometimes I talk about, “Who’s your niche?” I have a psychological niche for sure. I can break them down psychologically. But if I were to say like it’s female entrepreneurs, I would eliminate half of my clients.

 

Richard Matthews  3:53  

Check one: crazy people.

 

Kimberly Spencer  3:55  

Check one: Revolutionary Visionary Leader! 

 

Richard Matthews  3:59  

Yeah.

 

Kimberly Spencer  4:00  

Cool once you do that, once you’re crazy enough to then say, I’m gonna follow my passion and follow my bliss. That’s when you work with me.

 

Richard Matthews  4:08  

I get it, I get it. Yeah, almost my entire family either thinks I’m crazy. I have just gotten to the point where they’re like, “You’re obviously successful doing what you’re doing and I really don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

 

Kimberly Spencer  4:25  

My dad just found out how much money I made last month and he was like, “Oh, okay.”

 

Yeah, you can do it.

 

Richard Matthews  4:38  

I got my birthday card for my dad this last year, it said something really nice on it. It was something along the lines of, “I still don’t really understand what you do, but your success is really obvious.” 

 

He’s like, “I couldn’t be more proud.” and I was like, “Oh, it only took me 10 years to get there.” From ‘Why are you ruining your life?’ to I’m ‘really proud of you’.

 

Kimberly Spencer  5:05  

Oh parents. Yeah, it’s fun. It’s fun. Are you a parent? 

 

Richard Matthews  5:10  

I am I have four children. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  5:12  

Holy Moly.

 

Richard Matthews  5:13  

Yeah. I live in a 40-foot RV and we travel the country full-time. So I’ll break the illusion for you. This is our backdrop hanging up in our RV.

 

Kimberly Spencer  5:32  

I love it.

 

Richard Matthews  5:33  

Back there. And there’s the RV bathroom. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  5:36  

That’s the coolest.

 

Richard Matthews  5:38  

I’ve got a miniature studio setup in the RV right now. We are in Central Missouri and I ruined my focus on my camera. It’s gonna focus on the backdrop. Now give me half a second. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  5:50  

We’ll figure it out. 

 

Richard Matthews  5:52  

There we go. Now it’ll focus on me.

 

Kimberly Spencer  5:59  

I love the fact that you are so transparent about that. When you can bust that bubble of the illusion of what people have… of the paradigm of how you live your life and how you do your business and how you do you and people are like “Oh, okay, cool.”

 

Richard Matthews  6:17  

No, I’m literally sitting at a dresser that I chopped off in half and turned it into a desk so I could do this while traveling.

 

Kimberly Spencer  6:29  

That’s extraordinary. That’s so much fun, I love it. One of our goals is to do a road trip around the country and convert a school bus because my son is just obsessed with school buses and convert that school bus and do like totally Captain Fantastic style parenting and just climb up rock walls… 

 

Richard Matthews  6:50  

We’ve done all of it. We’ve been to 26 states – a little over 20,000 miles traveling in two and a half years. Made baby number four on the road. We had her In Texas.

 

Kimberly Spencer  7:01  

Wow. Wow, that’s awesome. 

 

Richard Matthews  7:04  

It’s super cool. But yeah, it’s part of the whole parents thinking we’re crazy. But to answer your question if I am a parent, yes. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  7:14  

Yeah, obviously, four kids. Holy Moly. You obviously have some sort of system down so that they do their thing and they’re thriving and getting to experience the world. When my husband and I first set out to have kids, we decided early on that we wanted them to learn from experience. So we were already known as the crazy people who want to homeschool – or online school. I was like, “Well, I’d much rather take him to Argentina for six months to be able to experience tango learn Spanish and come back completely fluent. Than do what I did and spend four years in high school – in a school – and totally forget my French. 

 

Yeah, I have enough to French to get by and if I’m in, like France or Switzerland, I’m able to adapt and kinda understand. But that was four years of school that just *poof*.

 

Richard Matthews  8:16  

Yeah, I can say “dónde está el baño” in Spanish from my four years of Spanish. So I know I can get to the bathroom which is an important skill.

 

Kimberly Spencer  8:23  

I can say, “Où sont les toilettes” as well.

 

Richard Matthews  8:25  

Yeah.

 

So you can find toilet and the library. We’ve been homeschooling them – or road schooling them, I guess. mM wife handles all of that because if I handle it, they wouldn’t come out smart. But they’ve gotten to do all sorts things. Everything from my son cliff-diving this last year. We took them all sliding off the waterfalls in Yosemite, which was super cool. And we got to see orcas up in the Puget Sound and we’re going over the East Coast this summer and we’re going to travel the whole coast.

 

Kimberly Spencer  9:00  

That’s so cool. And I mean, look at what you’re teaching them. I know you just disparage yourself and saying you’re not smart, but I think it takes a very smart and wise and apt man to grow two businesses raise four children do it on the road. So kudos to you. And the fact that you’re letting them learn from experience is such a wonderful, rich life that they’re getting. They’re not reading about it from a textbook and wondering. Why wonder if they could do it. They’re like, “Oh, I did it. I wasn’t the biggest fan of rock climbing or but I did it.”

 

Richard Matthews  9:31  

One of our one of our favorite things so far for homeschooling was like my son was studying – I can’t remember which part of history it is. The Alamo. Remembering the Alamo. We got to go to the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. You got to watch the movie. Every day they have volunteers that come to the Alamo and do live reenactments of wars and they had medical doctors there and they stayed in character. You got to learn from them and see them. I learned more about the Alamo with my kids than I ever did in school. We’re educating ourselves and our kids just get the benefit from it. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  10:11  

Amen. Amen. I always say that my son is my greatest coach. I mean, I’ve had some amazing coaches but my son like giving birth to him and raising him. He’s only two and a half, but he’s such a mirror for me. And when I saw when he was like six or seven months old, I saw how I process shame. And I was watching him. I was like, holy crap, that’s how I experienced shame when I’m told not to do something and I feel bad about doing it. 

 

Richard Matthews  10:37  

Yeah. Wait until they get to the age where they can really communicate with you. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  10:44  

Yeah. 

 

Richard Matthews  10:45  

Ages 6 to 10.

 

Kimberly Spencer  10:46  

Yeah, 

 

Richard Matthews  10:47  

They just blow you away because you’ve given them everything. They come out a blank slate. So everything they have, you’ve given them. You could sort of see all of your stuff. It comes back and see how it like actually works for another person. That’s really, really interesting. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  11:01  

So cool. 

 

Richard Matthews  11:02  

Yeah, it’s super fun. I’m gonna move on a little bit with the interview and talk about your origin story. We talked on the show all the time every hero has an origin story it’s where you started to realize that you were different that maybe you had superpowers and maybe you could use them to help people. It’s where you started to discover and develop the value you can really bring to this world. How did that happen for you?

 

Kimberly Spencer  11:24  

Well, it took me a while to recognize my superpowers, but I’m pretty adapted. I grew up with awesome parents. They just have their issues because my dad was an alcoholic up until about three years ago when I staged his intervention. And that was one of the best training grounds for me as a child – to be a coach. I learned how to calibrate behavior before engaging. I learned how to read people and I also learned how to read when they’re bullshitting and that was a fantastic training ground. The other thing that is one of the common questions I actually asked my clients is when you were about four or five years old, who were you? Who did you want to be? How did you operate? What did you get in trouble for? And what did you get?

 

 

 

Richard Matthews  12:16  

That’s an interesting question. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  12:18  

What did you want to be? So what I got in trouble for was challenging. I got in trouble for challenging my dad on his behavior, because I would see him sober and be like, Oh my gosh, he’s so cool. I want to hang out with him. I want to go to the park with him. But then when he would come home drunk, he was just a complete Jeckyll and Hyde. 

 

Richard Matthews  12:37  

Yeah. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  12:38  

And that was such a wonderful experience for me because I saw that I have this superpower where I see people in their highest magnificence. I see people achieving their goals sometimes even before my clients do. One of my clients I was working with for two years started growing a million-dollar company as the director of operations. When we first started, she was a hot mess. Like, totally hot mess. She was fresh off divorce, she didn’t know what she was doing with her life. Suddenly, she was growing this company. 

 

I remember we were just concluding like two years. She’s right. She was like ready to spread her wings. And she’s like, Did you think that this is possible for me and I without missing meter? Like, of course I did. Of course I did. 100% I’ve always seen not not the how of like growing the company, but the the who she could become the confident, outspoken courageous leader that she could be. I saw that and I was like, let’s, let’s bring that girl out more. And so that’s that’s one of my skill sets. But when you’re five, and you’re challenging your parent on holding them to a higher standard of behavior doesn’t quite work out that way.

 

Richard Matthews  13:51  

You’d get in trouble for that.

 

Kimberly Spencer  13:52  

Yes, I got in trouble for that a lot. And the other thing that I wanted to be was one of my superpowers was organizing people So it organize and corral all the neighborhood children into productions. And yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome and I would have these big birthday party productions my mom one time made like 20 Pocahontas costumes for every single girl that came to my birthday party I would put on a show there would be music the parents would like be required to stay I would sell products and on the side of bags of glitter water and I didn’t realize now but I realized I was split testing price points because I was selling them for either five cents or $50. And you go Yeah, yeah, I only sold the five cents one for some strange reason nobody bought the 50

 

Richard Matthews  14:41  

You got outside of the range for price elasticity.

 

Kimberly Spencer  14:44  

Yeah, but you know what? I gave it a shot. And that’s what I used to do. I look back and I also wanted to be a princess. I look at what I’ve created and what I built with my company. Now, I am in live streams, I have my podcasts, I’m on other podcasts and I’m performing in essence, even though it’s all authentically me. I’m directing the show as an entrepreneur. You’re kind of the director of the show. You’re the producer of it. Sometimes when you start a business, or the financial backers, you’re the executive producer of it. You are responsible for creating the products and services. That’s exactly what I did. And I called my company Crown Yourself. So now, I’m a princess or as I call it a queen.

 

Richard Matthews  15:30  

There you go. Yeah, my two year-old was just telling me yesterday that she was the queen of the world. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  15:35  

Good for her. 

 

Richard Matthews  15:36  

Yeah, she was like, “I’m a queen.” And I’m like, “I agree. You’re the queen.” And she was like, “Now you need to bow down to me.” I’m like, “It’s not gonna happen. I’m sorry.”

 

Kimberly Spencer  15:44  

Queen in training. 

 

Richard Matthews  15:46  

Yeah.

 

Kimberly Spencer  15:46  

Yeah

 

My son sees crowns and he’s like “Mama, cwown.” He points to my head. He also points to his Wonder Woman shirt and he’s like “Mama, Mama.” Yeah,

 

Richard Matthews  15:59  

That’s right. I’m Wonder Woman. It’s awesome. My three year-old daughter has, what do you call it–depending on the day? 

 

She tells me in the morning whether or not she likes me that day. She’d say, “Daddy, today’s not your day. I don’t like you today. Mom can only help me with everything.” If I try to help her put her shoes on or go to the bathroom or anything. She flips the lid. And then, the next day, she’ll be like, “Daddy, I love you today. You’re the best Daddy in the whole world.”

 

Kimberly Spencer  16:35  

It’s your day today Dad. You have all the responsibility now.

 

Richard Matthews  16:39  

Because as far as she’s concerned, she’s the queen. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  16:42  

Oh, yeah. 

 

Richard Matthews  16:42  

So, you know, she has to decide.

 

Kimberly Spencer  16:45  

She’s a leader. I see leadership skills in my son. It’s funny now because my dad sees my son a lot. If he had been drinking, he would not have a relationship but It’s really nice that he’s sober and has been sober for the past three years. He gets to have a really full relationship with my child. And he’s like, “Kim, he’s a challenger. Get ready.” And I was like, “Guess who raises him?” I’m fully prepared for the challenge. Fully prepared for that behaviour to pop out.

 

Richard Matthews  17:21  

I am kind of a little bit worried for the teenage years, not for the normal reasons, but because I’ve realized early on that I’m pretty sure all my kids are smarter than me. They haven’t realized it yet, which I’m hoping will last a long time. But I got some bright, very stubborn children on my hands, which is my fault.

 

Kimberly Spencer  17:46  

The great thing is that you have experience. Like, there’s smart and then there’s wisdom learned from experience.

 

Richard Matthews  17:54  

That’s one of the things I actually tell my kids all the time. We have rules posted at the house.

 

Kimberly Spencer  17:58  

Yeah

 

Richard Matthews  17:59  

There are seven rules and they have to follow them. They’re pretty simple, wide reaching, but one of them is obey the first time. And so we have it up there.

 

Kimberly Spencer  18:07  

I have to write that down.

 

Richard Matthews  18:08  

Yeah, I could send you a picture of our whole rules if you want.

 

Kimberly Spencer  18:11  

Yes, please I would love that.

 

Richard Matthews  18:13  

The obey the first time is like, we tell them all the time we expect immediate obedience. And the reason why we expect immediate obedience is because I have perspectives you don’t have. If I yell, stop, it’s because you’re gonna get run over by a car. But you can’t see because you’re small. You are always welcome to question my authority. After you obey.

 

Kimberly Spencer  18:39  

I love that!

 

Richard Matthews  18:40  

And so you will obey first and then you can question later because I’m more than happy to give you my reasons and what we’re doing. I don’t just expect you to obey blindly. I don’t expect you to obey blindly when you become an adult either. But I have perspectives you don’t have for this point in your life. You obey first then you can question later.

 

Kimberly Spencer  18:57  

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  18:59  

Hopefully that’ll help me when they become teenagers.

 

Kimberly Spencer  19:02  

I love that rule though. We kind of have that but I like how you’ve really made it quite formulaic and repeatable. We’ve been teaching our son to stop when we say “Stop.” We actually don’t say “No” because your unconscious mind does not process negatives. 

 

So, we don’t tell him “Don’t do this.” We tell him to stop or we say “That’s a stop.” Because that way, he actually does stop. It was so funny when he was having a playdate with another kid. The other kid’s mom has been a longtime friend of mine. All she said was “don’t do that… don’t hit” and meanwhile her son is just rolling swings. I’m like, it’s because all he is hearing is “hit, hit, hit.” His unconscious mind does not process negatives. Our unconscious mind still don’t process negatives. If I said “Don’t think about chocolate.” What do you think about” 

 

Richard Matthews  19:56  

chocolate

 

Kimberly Spencer  19:56  

Exactly. When you recognize that between the ages zero and six, they’re just like little sponges and basically giant walking unconscious minds. It exemplifies it. We just say “That’s a stop.” That’s been pretty solid though sometimes with my husband, I have to watch our language because it’s still so ingrained in us too. Sometimes you say “Don’t do that.”

 

Richard Matthews  20:27  

It’s interesting because thinking through our rules, I didn’t realize this, but ours are all phrased in the positive. Obey the first time is a positive command. One of my other favorite rule is ask before touching because it has wide-reaching effects onto later life. I didn’t realize that they’re all phrased in the positive. I didn’t consciously think that when we were putting the rules together. So that’s interesting.

 

Kimberly Spencer  20:52  

You’re smarter than you think you are. 

 

Richard Matthews  20:55  

Probably. It’s about that wisdom we were talking about earlier. But yeah, having that setup really has helped our children and like you said, they are sponges in their first six years. My son is 10 now and I can’t actually tell you the last time he’s been disciplined because he just understands. He knows what the process is and also the rules. He follows them. But I mean, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t challenge us and do all the things that go along with being a 10 year-old boy. But he’s just a fantastic kid. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  21:31  

Yeah

 

Richard Matthews  21:31  

All of our kids are so which is super cool.

 

Kimberly Spencer  21:34  

And I think that really comes with having integrity with your children and having integrity with your word. I was working with a client just last week. And her kids just walked all over her. And I said, “Well, how often are you telling them that you’re going to take away something and then you don’t do it?” I call it street cred. So, you have to have street cred. If you’re a gangster and you say that you’re going to pop someone for not paying you. And you don’t do it. You lose your street cred and you might die. 

 

Richard Matthews  22:10  

Yeah,Kids are like gangsters, so…

 

Kimberly Spencer  22:12  

Kids are definitely like gangsters. And so you gotta build up that street cred so that they know that when you say, “That’s a stop.” Like my son, I just put him in a timeout yesterday. Because I asked him a question and he lied to me. And I said, “Did you lie?” And he said, “No.” I said, “Okay, so you just lied twice because I asked you this.” And I walked him through the steps. I said, “You know what the consequence for lying is. You go into a two-minute timeout.” And so he sat in his two-minute timeout, and then he literally came out of his two-minute timeout, and he goes, “Dad. Dad. I lied two times.” I said, “We need to be honest. You need to be honest with Mommy and Daddy about everything.” If you can just be honest, like, you won’t be in trouble if you’re honest. 

 

Richard Matthews  23:01  

Yeah. You know, we’re getting to that stage in life with my oldest one that we’re starting to smell a little bit. Right? You can’t You can’t go a whole week without showering anymore.

 

Kimberly Spencer  23:12  

The odor is a fun thing.

 

Richard Matthews  23:13  

It’s a good thing. And you know, he got his first pimple the other week and we’re teasing him for being grown up because that’s what parents do. But, you know, we tell him to go take a shower, and he comes out of the shower with his hair is dry. Like, hasn’t been touched by water kind of dry. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  23:27  

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  23:28  

Not like it was dried off dry, but no water at all. And I looked at him. I’m like, “So did you wash your hair in the shower?” He looks at me. “He goes, Yeah, of course I did Dad.” And I ran my hand through his hair. And I was like, “You want to rethink your answer?” And he’s like, trying to figure out what my angle is here. Because I’m giving him an opportunity to not lie to me. Like, if you forgot to wash your hair, that’s not a big deal. You can go back and wash your hair. If you’re gonna lie to me about it, we’re gonna have an issue.

 

Kimberly Spencer  23:55  

Yes. Yeah, yeah. 100% Yeah, my son. He already does not like washing his hair. I’m like, ooh, we’re gonna start that reprogramming of training you to like washing your hair because stinky boy hair is the worst.

 

Richard Matthews  24:12  

Yeah, we got we got the stinky boy hair and the stinky boy feet right now.

 

We have one boy though the rest of them are girls. I don’t know how that’s going to go down as they get older. But they’re all into the smelly goods.The the street cred thing is really big. We have a five-step process we follow with the rules. If they break the rule, they get a warning. Like, “Hey, here’s the rule that you just broke and if you choose to break it again, we have consequences.” If they break the rule again, They sit in timeout. Same kind of thing. For the two year-old, she gets a two-minute timeout, and the timeout process essentially is, they have to sit there and it starts when they stop crying. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  24:54  

Oh, 

 

Richard Matthews  24:56  

If they’re going to have an hour-long freak out over it, then it’s an hour and two minutes. Because they actually need to sit and think about what they did. Most of the time, that only happens a couple of times, and then they’re done. They’re like, Oh, this is not fun. So they sit for their couple-minute timeout, and then at the end, we walk through them with like, “Hey, here’s what you did. And here’s what rule you broke and if you’re in that situation, again…” We help them with their decision making. How can you make a better decision in the future? And then we ask them to apologize. If they don’t apologize, it starts over. And then at the end of it, we’ll get up and we have hugs and do a party dance and other things. We move on with our life. So it goes, warning, timeout one, if they break it again they get a second timeout. If they do it again, they get a timeout and a spanking. And if they go a fifth time, which only happens a few times, the day is over for them and they just go to bed. Speaking of street cred, we’ve had a couple of times where a child has gone to bed breakfast time and they just miss out on the whole day. And we’re terrible about it. We’ll make sure we have their favorite food for lunch and everything. And they miss out on their day. Yeah, we’re terrible about it. But it also means that it’s been five or six years since I’ve had to discipline my son, because we got hardcore street cred.

 

Kimberly Spencer  26:20  

Yeah, yeah. When you build that street credit, you’re not waiting when they’re a teenager and being like, “Why aren’t you paying for your own cell phone bill?”

 

Richard Matthews  26:31  

My son has three younger sisters. He’ll tell them. He’d be like, “You already broke that rule again. Do you want to go through…” Like he knows what the process is. He’ll look out for his little sisters and be like, “You should probably make better decisions.”

 

Kimberly Spencer  26:45  

Well done. I love that. And I love that you teach them how to make decisions. You’re not teaching them what to think. But you’re teaching and allowing them to have that reason. You’re teaching them how to make decisions, which I think is so much better than teaching them what to think.

 

Richard Matthews  27:00  

The the goal, I think for us, is I don’t particularly want them to be me. I want them to be them and have the skills to make their own choices. And just realize that your choices have consequences. Good or bad. And at this point in time, I get to control your consequences. But when you get out in the world, you don’t get to control those anymore. So you have to be willing to man up and take them. So, anyways, it works really well.

 

Kimberly Spencer  27:27  

I love it. I love your process. I love the process.

 

It’s a wealth of information for me.

 

Richard Matthews  27:36  

My next question has to do with superpowers. My superpower has always been systems and processes. It is building systems and processes. My question for you is what is it that you do or build or offer this world that really helps solve problems for people?

 

What is your superpower and the way I want you to think about it is: What’s the one skill that you have that really enables all of your other skills? The one that you can sort of see the thread of that skill through all of your other skills. For me, it has always been systems and processes. A little while ago, someone asked me “What’s your one thing?” I was like, I’ve got all these things I’m really good at. And she was like, “You’ve got to think harder.” I started thinking about it and realized that I’m good at a lot of these other things because I’m really good at understanding and breaking down the systems and processes. And, you know, learning a new skill is really easy when you can see the processes that other people don’t see. So I found what that underlyings superpower was. So I’m curious, what do you think your superpower is in light of that framing?

 

Kimberly Spencer  27:56  

I love that you call it that because I call it something a little different. I call it the genius zone. And when you look at all those things because I was very good at a lot of things as well. I was like, I had a career as a screenwriter. I had a career as a plot instructor I had I owned an e-commerce company. I have my business now Crown Yourself and coaching. What made me really good at all of them? When I looked at all of them, I saw a commonality between a few which was creativity, connection, connecting, and coaching. 

 

Now, the one that supersedes through that trifecta is challenging. In every area. Coaching requires me to challenge my clients and their limiting beliefs. Creativity requires me to challenge myself on whatever thing I’m releasing or working on. Connecting requires me to challenge my own internal introversion or introverted self – to put myself out there and it also challenges me to supersede the ego or the limiting beliefs that I used to have. A scarcity mindset – if I connect this person with this one, then what would it do for me? And I’m like, “No, no.” Now I’m all about karmic connections. If I’m like, “Oh, you want to be on more podcasts and you want this thing? Okay, I know this person, and I’ll connect you with this person.” And I expect nothing from it whatsoever. It also allows me to put myself out there more to connect with more humans, which challenges my inner introverted self that wants to crawl up in a corner and just hide from the world and just sit in my bubble of lonely creativity. So, that is challenging my superpower and looking back, that’s also what I got in trouble for as a kid. I challenge people. I challenged my dad and I challenged myself to rise into my highest and best version of myself. As much as I have the introverted side and as much as there are parts of me that still want to play small and as much as there are parts of me that still get fearful and doubtful. That challenger side – that challenge being my superpower supersedes everything. I immediately know what to do when I catch myself slipping into old negative habits or playing small or not really playing full out. I immediately either challenge myself physically in some way, like I’ll sign up for a marathon or I’ll like give birth to a baby in 24 hours and do it all natural. That only happened once but…

 

Richard Matthews  31:27  

We’ve done that four times now. Well, I didn’t do it.

 

Kimberly Spencer  31:32  

Did your wife do all natural? Midwife and all?

 

Richard Matthews  31:36  

We had three of them at home. Our first one was in a hospital. We tried to have them at home but she had preeclampsia animals died. So he had to go to hospital. And thank God for, for the medical system for when you have emergencies.

 

Kimberly Spencer  31:50  

I agree. It’s very good for emergencies,

 

Richard Matthews  31:54  

yeah, it was. It was still all natural. There was Pitocin to induce labor but other than that, she had an all natural labor with a very itty bitty baby. He was only five pounds.

 

Kimberly Spencer  32:04  

Oh, wow, that’s awesome.

 

Richard Matthews  32:06  

But yeah, there’s so much that you just said that I want to dive in and break down a little bit. Things that really stuck out to me. One of them was the whole karmic thing. One of the things I talk about all the time is that the  rule of the universe, like whether you abide by it or not. The way it works for me, it came from from Scripture. Jesus says, “Give first and you will receive.” That wasn’t an encouragement like, “You should do this.” He was telling us, this is the way that the universe works. You can live that way or not. But if you live that way, that’s the way the world works.

 

Kimberly Spencer  32:07  

Yeah, you can break your back against the laws of the universe. You can break yourself against the laws of the universe, or you can just go with them and things work out in your favor. 

 

Richard Matthews  32:59  

I always reframe His sermon on the mount for people. It’s not Jesus up there telling you what you shouldn’t do. If you don’t do these things, you’re bad. No. He was saying, He wrote the universe laws. So here’s what they are. And if you want to follow them, your life will be better. That was the first thing that stuck out. Second, and I think probably one of the more interesting things is you said, “The challenging is your superpower. It reminded me a lot of my own skills and passions. 

 

After talking with you for a little while, I feel like we’re cut from the same cloth. I want to share something with you that was a really big breakthrough for me. My wife taught me about myself that I think ties really directly to being the kind of person who is a challenger. 

 

She has her degree in education. In the education space – in teaching children and teaching young adults to grow into a human beings, they have breakdowns for IQ levels. It is a measurable thing. And then, they have breakdowns for how you teach people in different IQ sets. 

 

One of the things that really blew me away was once you get over the 130 IQ level, you get into the zone of what they call smart kids. So you have these smart kids. With smart kids, you have to deal with them differently than pretty much everyone else because they’ll challenge you. They’re smarter. They’ll challenge you or not pay attention in class because they’re bored. You either help them and you challenge them. Or you end up with with kids who are bored or kids who aren’t thriving or you end up with kids who are destructive. 

 

There’s a whole stuff on how you deal with smart kids and one of the things that really blew me away, they actually break down smart kids into two sections. There’s what they call bright kids and gifted kids. The difference is not IQ level. It’s how they look at the world. The overwhelming majority of smart kids fall into the bright camp. Like, 90% of kids who are smart are bright. And what bright means is if I ask you a question, “What’s two plus two?” A bright kids says four. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  35:33  

Yeah

 

Richard Matthews  35:34  

Because you ask a question and they give you an answer. A gifted kid. If you say, “What’s two plus two?” They’re going to ask you “Why?.” They’re gonna look at you and be like, “What is the two plus two? Is it two eggs in the stove and we’re going to get an omelet?” They want context. They want to look at the reasons behind the questions and they want to challenge everything that comes through.

 

Kimberly Spencer  36:01  

You’re speaking my language pal.

 

Richard Matthews  36:05  

So the gifted subset of people, it’s about 10% of the of the bright kids. And inside your gifted subset is where you find the savants. So if you’re familiar with people like Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory, he would be in the savant section of the gifted kids. But you could have a lower IQ than someone who’s one of the bright kids. It’s just a matter of how you look at the world. It was a big breakthrough for me because I realized that in my group of friends in high school, my friends were the valedictorian and salutatorian and the top-five GPAs in a school of four and a half thousand people. Then there was me and I had to be average. But I was just as smart as all of them. I just figured out what the school system was.

 

My dad told me I had to at least get B’s. So, I got B’s and everything because we were at a college prep school. They gave us a syllabus at the beginning of the year and had all the stuff that was graded. And I was like, so if I do that project, I’ve got an A. 

 

So, I was the kid who was working on businesses on the side, while still maintaining my GPA average. And my friends, like I understand that they don’t work at all. And yet you get grades that are almost as good as ours. But it’s because of that mentality. I would I’m always challenging and asking why. I’m looking for the reasons behind things. And it was just a big breakthrough for me. 

 

A couple of years ago, my wife brought me on to that because my wife’s on the bright side, and I’m on the gifted side for that. We realized that it really impacts the way you look at the world. It impacts the way that you look at problems. It impacts the way that you you solve things because you’re never really going to be the person who’s interested in the answer. 

 

When it comes to building and developing your business, one of the things that I’ve noticed is I can’t be the person who does the thing. I need to hire people like my wife who to do the things because they’re really interested in getting the answer and getting the outcome and checking off the things on the list and doing it well and doing it right. I’m more interested in how I can figure out the system and as soon as I figured out the thing, I don’t care anymore.

 

Kimberly Spencer  38:21  

Oh my gosh, you and I are very much cut from the same cloth in that regard. Growing up, I would have a project driving I would have something that was fascinating. And then, once my fascination is sated, once I’d figured it out, I was like, “I’m good. No, you’re done.”

 

Richard Matthews  38:37  

You don’t care anymore.

 

Kimberly Spencer  38:38  

“I’m good.” So it’s interesting to me because I studied kinesiology in high school and it was a college prep school as well. I couldn’t care less. I really couldn’t care less. However, at the time, I was deeply struggling with an eating disorder and had massive body dysmorphia. Fast forward a few years later on, I had found Pilates and I was obsessed. I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is the first time I actually felt good with my body and learning kinesiology from that standpoint of purpose of like, okay, now I know how to apply it. Now I know how to movee these muscles. When I engage these muscles, then it makes my posture look better. It makes you look fitter which makes it look more tone. It makes me feel happier. It makes for more confidence, that helped me figure it out. I love this difference. Thank you so much Richard for this. I’m so thrilled to share this with my husband. I feel like I’m gifted!

 

Richard Matthews  39:38  

You just said a few things that triggered me and I feel like you think the way I do and we’re not a common breed on that side. So you probably have not had anyone ever frame it that way for you. That you’re not actually crazy, right? Because that’s one of the things that I’ve always thought. I was like, I don’t think like a normal person. 

 

One of the things that you’ll find is other people who are very bright, will find you intimidating, because they don’t think about questions the way that you do. They don’t think through answers the way that you do. So, if you get in a mastermind full of people who are all very, very bright and very good at what they do, you’ll find that they’ll look at you, and they’ll be like, “You’re an alien in this room.” Like, “What planet are you from?”

 

Kimberly Spencer  40:24  

Yeah. 

 

Richard Matthews  40:24  

Because when you ask the questions that you ask, they’re going to think to themselves, “I never would have thought of that.” And then you run into this problem where people are like, “I feel like that person is smarter than me, but I don’t understand why.” It impacts relationships. So for your own understanding, it’s really useful to know where that is. You can help frame it for other people. You can frame it for yourself and then also in business. You can actually understand like, :Hey, the thing that I’m really interested in is the challenging and the figuring out.” 

 

I realized that once I’ve got it figured out, I have to have systems in place to take over for me when my passion dies. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  40:59  

Yeah. 

 

Richard Matthews  41:00  

Because I know where the line is, right? Once it hits this point, I’m done. I don’t give a damn anymore. Yeah, it’s never going to get accomplished. So I have to have people on the other side of that spectrum who are going to pick up and take off with it.

 

Kimberly Spencer  41:13  

150% that was exactly what happened when I launched my podcast. On The Princess and The B, I was dead set on figuring it out. I took me a month or so. And I got everything set up. I was like, “Hey, this is the system and I broke it down. And then, I was losing my joy for it. I was like, “I love podcasting, but like, why am I losing my train?” I’m not upgrading my genius zone which is creating and connecting or challenging people’s beliefs by speaking and through what I say. So I just passed it off to my assistant. And she says, she’s been so happy about that choice because she loves it.

 

I make sure that I hire everybody who’s very systematic. I have a personality test that I use for hiring my team. And I make sure that they think differently than I do. I want people whose thinking processes are very nurturing with customer relationship. They think in the process of “How can we nurture the customer? How can we nurture our clients and serve them better?” And then they build a process for that. And I’m like, Yes!!!

 

Richard Matthews  41:57  

Other tidbit. I heard you mentioned that you are introverted. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  42:28  

Yes. 

 

Richard Matthews  42:29  

I’m also introverted. And, and so one of the things that like I did as a kid was I started paying really close attention to people I knew who were extroverted and starting doing the whole mirroring and matching and like figuring out what they were doing that was different than me. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  42:44  

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  42:45  

My mom is one of those people. She is really extroverted like a butterfly in the room kind of thing. And I always–as embarrassing as it is–I would take notes on her social interactions. I taught myself how to be an extroverted person. Part of that comes from being on that gift inside. The bright versus gifted in the smart kid section. So anyways, I feel like we’re cut from the same cloth.

 

Kimberly Spencer  43:11  

Very much. So yeah, I taught myself how to be extroverted. Well, my mom also helped me because I had this one friend who was so cool. I kind of modeled her, but I wasn’t quite sure how to do it. My mom just said, “Kim, just go up to 10 people every day and say hi with their name.” And later on in life, I told her I was like, “Mom, that worked.” I told her in my adult life that I still do it. That’s what’s made me successful in business. And she was like, “Oh really? That worked? I was just throwing something out there. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I just wanted you to have some friends.” But it did. I did that and I started to see the positive reaction and it automatically I’m like, “Okay, this is getting the response I’m looking for.” So I just kept doing that.

 

Richard Matthews  44:00  

Yeah, the analytical nature that you’ve got. That’s all part of that other side.

 

Kimberly Spencer  44:08  

Thank you so much for sharing. I’m gonna brag on my husband about it.

 

Richard Matthews  44:13  

There you go! So that’s really sort of a deeper discussion on superpowers than we normally get into on this show. But the flip side of that.

 

I have that effect on people. 

 

Yeah that happens. The flip side of that is the fatal flaw. Just like Superman has his kryptonite, or you know, Batman i’s not actually a superhero. I don’t actually know what Wonder Woman’s fatal flaw is. I have not followed her comics enough to know what she’s weak to. 

 

Maybe I should bring that up for my female guests who like Wonder Woman. But the fatal flaw – what I like to think of that is the thing that you’ve struggled with in growing your business. The thing that stops you and you realize like, I’ve had to work on this in order to break my own barriers and get farther forward. What do you think that is for you?

 

Kimberly Spencer  45:00  

My arch nemesis is fear. Like, it really is basically fear and doubt. It’s my arch nemesis. It manifests itself in very different forms. Sometimes it manifests as habits, like negative coping habits. Sometimes it manifests as procrastination. Sometimes it manifests as self sabotage. So it’s very much a shape shifter.

 

Almost like a duality to my challenger. And so it likes to change forms, because my challenger would challenge the form, and then it will shift.

 

Richard Matthews  45:48  

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I know mine has always been things like perfectionism. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  45:59  

Yeah. 

 

Richard Matthews  45:59  

It pops up a lot. And what’s interesting is perfectionism is really a type of fear. It’s a fear of shipping to the market. Because you realize that perfection is not a thing that you can achieve. It’s the lowest standard you can hold yourself to. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  46:15  

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  46:22  

So I guess the more important question is, how have you been dealing with that? for people who have similar flaws?

 

Kimberly Spencer  46:30  

Well, I think fear as a shape shifter, whether it shifts into perfectionism or self sabotage or some other form of coping or delay, or procrastination. The biggest thing is recognizing it when it’s there. As soon as you recognize that, you step into the arena and you go immediately into taking an action that you can’t back down from. 

 

Sometimes, maybe that’s posting something on social media. Maybe that is immediately just saying, “Okay, I’m going all in on this, like, Don’t distract me.” Maybe it’s making a decision to say, “Okay, I’m recognizing that I’m feeling fear, it’s caused me to procrastinate or it’s causing me to do this productive procrastination avoidance thing.” I’m going to go for a run, I’m going to come back. I’m going to have my state shifted because the quickest way to shift yourself out of that shape-shifty fear-based state is to change your physiology. 

 

So turn on the music. Go for a run. Do something that literally puts you into physical action. For me, going on stage, I have challenged myself to do a lot more live in-person events this year simply because I know that it’s something like a muscle that I want to strengthen. It’s still scary for me. 

 

So when I spoke at a Power-Con at the Los Angeles Convention Center last year, I was backstage and I had my earbuds. I had certain music. I had my triggers – my positive triggers set up so that I knew what I was doing. I have moves that make me feel really powerful. I have songs that make me feel really powerful. Having those physical, emotional, audiological triggers. Can snap me into it.

 

Richard Matthews  48:41  

I always call those your psychological triggers for putting yourself into what you want. These are for people who are listening. Like if you want to make sure that you’re brushing your teeth every day. Maybe you’re not setting yourself a reminder to brush your teeth – probably not the right way to go. How do you shift your environment? So the brushing your teeth is an inevitable inevitability, right? For me, if I keep my toothbrush outside the shower, I’ll forget to brush my teeth. But I never forget to take a shower. If I move my toothbrush into the shower, I don’t forget anymore.

 

Setting up your environment. You set up your environment for success. So that’s sort of what you’re talking about. How do you set your environment up so that you have success in the thing that you’re doing? You build those psychological triggers and overcome the fear and overcome the procrastination.

 

Kimberly Spencer  49:34  

I literally have two labels on my computer. One is in my top left. Because my top left is my visual recall. So I’m able to easily recall that fear is boring. That’s what it says. It says fear is boring. So any form of self sabotage or coping or perfectionism is boring. It’s so mediocre because everyone experiences it and I’m working a bust out of that. As soon as I connect it with being boring, average, and mediocre like that, I prefer to be anything but average. And at the bottom of my screen, which really was a powerful reminder for me today because we’re dealing with some issues going on with social media. I looked at the bottom of my screen and it says, “I am a warrior for possibility.” I did not want to step into that arena. I saw that and I was like, “Game on. Okay, let’s do this. Let’s figure this out.” It just it hit me in the gut and I was like, “Okay, I have that visual trigger.” Setting yourself up with triggers like what you said about the toothbrush, I have little post-it notes in certain places to remind me of what I’m working on becoming.

 

Richard Matthews  51:04  

Yeah, that’s really interesting. I love that skill set. It is a really powerful skill set for entrepreneurs to pick up. Because most of the world relies on outside influences to change their action. We entrepreneurs have to create that for ourselves. Learning how to set up your own triggers for your work, right? Like I love the whole idea. is like, I’m a warrior for possibilities for you, it’s a trigger to step into the arena and take charge. And it’s something that you have to do for yourself. And that’s what allows entrepreneurs to do what they do and to push further. As a younger entrepreneur, I used to think that anyone could be an entrepreneur and I’ve realized now that I’ve grown up that it’s not really that anyone can be an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur can come from anywhere. And you realize that it takes a skill set and a certain willingness to push yourself beyond the way normal people would push themselves.

 

Kimberly Spencer  52:02  

Entrepreneurship is very much personal development on steroids. And I do believe that when entrepreneurs set out on the journey, on the quest to build a business around something that they care deeply about, I believe that it’s like a spiritual calling. And I believe that it is super powerful. Whether you’re selling washing machines or you’re selling transformative coaching or you’re selling podcast services. If you are on a mission to make something better because you know that you can, you can make it better. You can do it better and you are using your superpower – your genius zone. It very much feels like a calling and to back down from it is…

 

Richard Matthews  52:55  

doing the world a disservice. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  52:57  

You’re doing the world a massive disservice. And I was blessed to be at business mastery with Tony Robbins recently. Sitting in a room, it was definitely one of the top five most powerful experiences that I’ve had. I was in a room with 2000 people and business leaders and entrepreneurs alike. And Tony was talking about this charity called Operation Underground Railroad. And he shared some of the proceeds from that event would go to that charity and if you’d like to donate more… Immediately I saw the Red Seas parted. And suddenly there were two lines completely. Like, pretty much 95% of the audience emptied out of their seats to donate money to this cause that actually goes in and rescues children from child slavery and sex slavery. And it was was so powerful and it was just being in that room. And then learning within the span of 30 minutes, we raised a million dollars collectively, and I was like, “That is a force of good that business can be.” That is what happens when good hearted, mission-minded soul-lead entrepreneurs step up into their calling and make a difference.

 

Richard Matthews  54:20  

Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting to me too that one of the things I’ve noticed over the years is that it doesn’t take as much as people think to be the best in the world…

 

Kimberly Spencer  54:33  

Yeah. 

 

Richard Matthews  54:33  

…at what it is that you do with the perspective that you bring. What’s interesting is it doesn’t necessarily – people think best in the world equals Tony Robbins, for example, is the best in the world at what he does. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  54:48  

Yes, right. 

 

Richard Matthews  54:49  

But what he does happens to be very public. Not everything is like that. One of my clients, his Dad ran a company. They were immigrants. He became the guy in the US that put the tiles in for underwater fixtures for hotels. If you go to like the Bellagio and all the tiles that are under the water for their underground water show? His company did that and they do that for hotels and water fountains all over the country. They’ve been doing it for 20 to 30 years. And he’s the guy that like – if you’re building a thing and you have a water feature and you need to have tiles that are put underwater, they are the company you call. And it’s one of those things that you never really think about because everything in your life is touched by an entrepreneur. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  55:41  

Yeah. 

 

Richard Matthews  55:42  

And you realize that there’s someone out there. This is just the way I think all the time. I was in the shower the other day my wife and –this is a very common occurrence when you have a lot of ladies in the house. There’s hair in the thing and she had popped the drain off. I was just holding a little drain plug for a while as she was pulling hair out and I was looking at it and it had the stamp of the company name on the bottom side. And I was like “This little metal drain plug. There’s a company behind it. This is what they do. They make the little drain plug things for showers.” I’ve never even thought about it before. But there’s an entrepreneur out there that was like, you know what? we need to uplevel our game for making shower drains.

 

Kimberly Spencer  56:20  

Like we need to have an effective drain plug that looks quite nice. It’s quality. I mean, that’s why I love the example on the show Modern Family. One of the characters, he owns a closet business. That’s what he does. He puts in like closets and thinking about it, I was like, “Oh, yeah, I mean, I guess people could use like a refresh on some closet space.” And you know, because they’re not very used to color coding or having a process of clothing that fits their lifestyle. I love that you said everything you do and everything you have is literally touched by an entrepreneur. Whether at some point directly or indirectly. Yeah, at some point, it absolutely is.

 

Richard Matthews  56:43  

Yeah. And so my encouragement for entrepreneurs is to not fall into the trap of thinking that you’re going for fame and fall more into the realm that you are bringing your best self to whatever problem it is you’re solving. That’s a really useful framework for thinking about whatever it is that you do.

 

Kimberly Spencer  57:40  

A lot of times, people think like with the show Shark Tank, that entrepreneurship is this about fame, big, sexy thing. It’s not always that sexy for one and for two, if you gave me either fame or money, I would take money. Why? Because you can do much more of a difference. You can change the world and I do believe that entrepreneurs really do step into the arena and they decide. I’ve worked with a lot of people who are kind of in that vast living space. I was thinking, “Am I worthy? Do I deserve to be making this much?” I think there’s always that internal money battle that goes on. Initially, at least and I truly believe that when you feel called to fulfill this calling. Whether it’s making drain plugs or becoming, you know, your own version of Tony Robbins and doing large events and transforming lives–whatever it is. That is a soul-based mission and it is your job to be making more money and it’s actually your spiritual calling to be making more money so you can serve more people. 

 

Richard Matthews  58:55  

You’re making more people do it. 

 

Kimberly Spencer  58:57  

Exactly, exactly. And by you making more money, you are being an inspiration and an example for what is possible. Like, that’s why I love it when people who come from marginalized communities step into the realm of entrepreneurship and are crushing it. They are showing those communities what is possible for them, and how you can shift, and how you can grow.

 

Richard Matthews  59:26  

It’s amazing to me what kind of force for good business can be. One of the things that has always driven me crazy as the kind of person I am. I’ve already mentioned I grew up in the Christian realm. So I went to church all the time with my family. They always pass the offering plate. And, everyone comes by and they put their $5 in or their $20. And it always bothered me, not because those people shouldn’t do that. It’s just that for me, I knew that was not what I needed to be doing. I knew I needed to be taking my $20 and putting it into business because I would get to a point in my business where I could buy the church building. Where I could start nonprofit organizations that have massive impacts. Because I have a plan laid out from this business to the next business that will probably put us into the hundred million dollar a month cash flow in the next 10 years, right? I would like to get to that point. Because that’s where you can start making massive differences. And so, that’s what entrepreneurship is. It’s not talking about how everyone can contribute and make their difference. Entrepreneurship is about making the big differences. How do you change and solve the big problems and really move the needle? And I think that is why I built this show. It’s because I want to feature those people who are looking at how to move the needle in a big way.

 

Kimberly Spencer  1:01:02  

I totally agree.