Episode 072 Part 2 – Kimberly Spencer

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Richard Matthews
And so that’s what entrepreneurship is. It’s not talking about, how do I, everyone can contribute and make their difference. But entrepreneurship is about making the big differences. How do you change, solve the big problems and really move the needle? And I think that, that’s why I built this show, right? It’s because I want to feature those people who are looking, like how do I move the needle in a big way?

Kimberly Spencer
I totally agree. I grew up with it. Very similarly, going to church all the time. And I remember they would pass the offering plate, and I would have my $5 or my $10 or my part of portion of my allowance, and I would just throw the cash in. And I remember my dad saying, “No, you have to put in the envelope and put your name on it.” I was like, it just didn’t make sense to me. I was like, “Why?” If I want to donate, then I will donate and if I don’t feel like donating, if I feel like putting that towards like building a business or like one of my street productions that brought a lot of people a lot of joy on the street I grew up on, then that’s fine too. But for me growing up, it was more from the perspective like people need to know that you’re being a good Christian or donating and I was like, that sounds like, No! My donations are between me and God, we’re good. And I do believe that when you really step into your purpose, and like those things that your superpowers and you’re doing those things that really only you can do in the way that only you can do them, and in the way that every single experience that you have had in your life has built you and created you to be in that position to serve in that way. Then that’ alone is doing God’s work. That alone is doing what you were put on this planet to do. And by not doing it, you’re doing a massive disservice to society. Because that is your mission to be doing that. No one could be more passionate about it.

Richard Matthews
So quick religious detour here, I went to Bible College, I’m a trained preacher, that’s one of the degrees that I have. One of the things that really, really struck me learning because I actually learned, I went to college, I could learn to read Greek and Hebrew, like the original text, which was fun. So I’ve gotten to go through most of the Scripture that way. And one of the things that has always bothered me about Christianity today is this idea that we are searching for some sort of, we’re listening for waiting for some sort of, whatever God’s calling in our life is like. And we’re waiting for God to come. Come down and paint a picture for us. But like here, “This is the thing I want you to do.” And people are like, “Oh, I’ve got a calling for God for this.” And I’m like, I think you don’t need to wait for some mystical moment where you’ve finally, the angels have sung and you know, the picture has been drawn in your head. And now you know what God’s calling is. I think the reality is when you find the things that make you come alive, that’s what that is. That’s saying, “Here, I’ve given you the things like the skills that you have, and the stuff that really makes you who you are.” Like you were saying the things that you can do better than no one else that you can bring your skill sets to and show the world your value. That’s your calling. Go out and do that. more of that.

Kimberly Spencer
I love that. Because I mean, I had a very similar, I think the calling is spoken to in the realm of it can be translated into following your curiosity. So you followed your curiosity into Greek and Hebrew. For me, I followed my curiosity into screenwriting. And I thought that would allow me to have the impact and influence that I wanted to have. And when I wrote my first movie, and it got distributed and we had the premiere and all that, and I was surprisingly, like I was 95% fulfilled, but I wasn’t 100%. And I was wondering like, okay, I thought that this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I thought that this is like my calling to be a screenwriter because for like a decade all I’d said is I want to be working in Hollywood on the actor, a screenwriter, and that’s all I wanted. And I got that. And then, I was actually a little underwhelmed. And what happened though, was two weeks after my film premiered. When you write a movie, you get extra tickets, and I had some extra tickets that I had invited like a friend of a friend of a friend to come and her son came, and I got a text from my friend who invited her friend and who brought her son. She said, I want to let you know your film changed this kid’s life, like he was following the same story that the main character was following. The whole story is about a young kid who tries to fit in with the cool crowd. He starts dealing and doing drugs and he gets caught up in some bad stuff. He was following that story. And because he saw your film, and because he listened to the fact that one of the actors from the film, like his testimony, in essence, mirrored the story, and he was like, after the film, I got arrested, I was in the same prison went to the same place. He said, it changed his life. He stopped hanging out with that crowd. It totally transformed him. And I was like, that’s what I want to do. I want to do transformation. And I want to transform and challenge people’s stories for what they think that they need to be doing to be accepted, loved, liked, and gain significance, when really, they need to be doing more of what what really makes you come alive. And exactly like what you said, and it was through, I wouldn’t have found that if I hadn’t followed my curiosity, or had the courage to speak up when the opportunity was presented to me. So when I had the opportunity to jump on board this film, like I wasn’t originally meant to write it. But I recognize that the director didn’t have a script. And I was like, “Well, why don’t I give it a shot?” And I’m like, I just had the audacity to just ask for it. And I think that that’s also a piece of it. You have to follow your curiosity, but then you also got to have the courage to go for it. And when your curiosity says, “Okay, I want to go in this direction. I’m not sure why, I’m not sure how I’m going to do this, but I’m going to do this.” You follow it and then you have the courage to step up, and step up to the plate and swing away.

Richard Matthews
I refer to that a lot as being a parachute builder. And the idea is that sometimes your opportunity is standing on the precipice, and you have to jump off and realize, jump off and you have to build a parachute on the way down. And, so being a parachute builder, it’s like you just realized that you have the skills you need already. And the thing that holds a lot of people back from taking action is that they’re waiting until they’re ready. They’re waiting. They’re waiting until they’ve got their parachute built. They wait until the safety nets, they’re there. They’re waiting for everything to be, all the planets to align, and they just need to jump. You just need to jump, you need to take action and do the thing. Because the process of getting ready. Like the process of doing a thing is what makes you ready. It’s one of the best pieces of advice my dad ever gave me. I was 19 at the time, I think. And I was asking him I was like, I think I’m gonna ask this girl to marry me. And and I was like, but I don’t think I’m ready for that. And he looked at me like, that’s a dumb question. Like, that’s a dumb thing to say to yourself. And I was like, “Why?” And was like, “Because if you wait until you’re ready, you’ll never do anything.” Right. And he was like, “It’s action that makes you ready.” And so, that’s always been sort of something that I’ve lived through my life, is like realizing that like, when you get to the precipice you can stand there and like you’ve ever done cliff diving – I took my son cliff diving this last year. And and it was super cool. Because I know, the process for me, when the first time I went cliff diving, you stand up there and you think about it, and you’re like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m standing like 40 feet above the water, I’m gonna jump off,” and like there’s all these things that go wrong. and like I could literally die if I do this wrong. But you know, you’re watching all these people out there, jump out there and you psych yourself out, and then you don’t take action. And you see people who are going, who will climb up to the top look up and then climb back down. And metaphorically in life. You see people do that all the time. They step up to the plate, they don’t swing. And so when I took my son cliff diving, and we sat down at the back end of the cliff, like where he couldn’t see the edge and I was like, “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to walk up to the edge and we’re going to just, we’re going to stand up and we’re going to jump off, we’re not going to think about it, we’re not going to do anything, we’re just going to stand up and act.” And I was like, because if you stand up there and look at it and think about it, you’re never going to do anything. You’re it’ll freak you out. The action will freak you out. And he’s young. He’s 10. So he just took my word and just did it. So like, we’re 40 feet up and jumping into a big pool on the thing and we stand up. He takes two steps forward to the edge of the cliff, and then he just jumps off. Right into the thing and like, I knew he was scared to do the whole thing. But he did it. He gets down to the bottom. He was like, “It was the coolest thing I’ve ever done in the whole world, dad.” And like we did six or seven more times over the course of the day and we went back the next day and did a few more times. But like, it was really cool to see him make that connection that the fear is overcome by action.

Kimberly Spencer
Yes. I have the same lesson when I went bungee jumping the first time.

Five like literally the guy at the festival who was just like leaning back in the back of the cage, and I like walk up to the edge and then I walked back and I’m like, I don’t know what I was thinking, I think this was dumb move like and he goes, “You’re good. I’m gonna count to three and each number that I count, you’re gonna step forward and then on three, I just want you to let go.” And it was the biggest lesson and surrender because when you’re seeing ground coming at your face, you’re just I was like, all right, Lord.

Richard Matthews
I’m ready to come home.

Kimberly Spencer
I’m good. Things flashed before my eyes. I was like, “Well, all right.” But then the bungee snapped and I was liberated. And that’s what action does is it liberates you. I mean, I can only imagine how your 10 year old son felt just having that freedom from the fear.

Richard Matthews
It was such a cool object lesson for him because it’s something that we can go back to. Because like, you feel those emotions are very, very visceral to stand up and jump off of a cliff that’s 40 feet in the air. And to go back there and realize, every time it comes into something now it’s like, we can go back to that and like, remember, you stand up and you jump. You take the action, because the action is what makes you ready. That’s what you know. So this, I don’t know. Ready, is an ethereal thing that people think they have to achieve before they do anything? No one’s ever ready. You’re not ready to be a parent, you’re not ready to get married, you’re not ready to start a business. Like, nobody’s ready. That’s not a thing. And the reality is, you just have to do it. You just have to take the actions and move forward.

Kimberly Spencer
And play with it. I mean, I think that’s also allowing for the play, and for the fun of discovery, rather than it having to be this like me ready, and us I’m going to like launch and things are going to perfect and work out exactly as that they should. No, they won’t.

Richard Matthews
One of our concepts that we talked about on the show all the time is giving yourself permission to play.

Kimberly Spencer
Yes.

Richard Matthews
And people, and it’s something that I struggled with for a long time. So that’s why it’s a recurring theme on the show is because I want other people to not struggle with it. Is this idea that play is something that you earn from hard work. And most people think that because that’s what society tells you. You earn a vacation, you earn your retirement, you earn play, and you don’t realize it like play is what energizes really good activity. It makes you a better actor in your space, whatever you’re doing. So you have to give yourself that permission to, like you said, go for a run, jump off the cliff, when you’re doing your work to actually enjoy it right to explore it and have fun with your creativity. And things like that realize that it’s the play is an essential part of success, no matter what you’re doing.

Kimberly Spencer
Hundred and fifty percent, I mean, you look at when a toddler is learning the most like, we learn the most as humans for the most part when we’re going from like birth to five.

Why? Because we’re learning predominantly through play, for one. And so we’re always exploring and discovering, and following our curiosity. And two, because we’re modeling people who make it seem normal. And I think that’s another thing especially as a principal for success, and especially with business is modeling people that make having money seem normal, or make having travel seem normal, or make having this feel normal because when you’re a toddler, you’re not questioning if it’s normal to poop on the toilet. Like you see adults just go to the bathroom and then I mean, my toddler is just like, “What’s going on?”

Goose is just very curious about it.

Richard Matthews
Whatelse can I put in the toilet and flush down there?

Kimberly Spencer
Yes, I think he put a rock down today. So we’ll see how that works out.

Shower was flooded and I was like, “I don’t know what’s going on with that.”

But it’s allowing it to be normal because they see us walking on two feet and that’s normal. Like, it’s absolutely normal. It’s common, they see it. They’re not questioning if it’s possible because everybody else around them is doing it. And that’s why masterminds are so essential. And surrounding yourself with people who are doing and being and living the way that you desire and aspire to do being live is that automatically makes it seem normal. So it makes it, like obviously of course you’re going to have your hundred million dollar business. So obviously, of course you’re going to hit your first 10 k month. Obviously, you’re going to be making it income while you sleep because that’s normal, because those are people you’re surrounding yourself with.

Richard Matthews
My youngest one just started walking the last 10 days or so. And it’s such a cool thing to watch. Baby learns to walk, because they fall down constantly, just all the time. And one of the things that they never do when they fall down, is cry about it.

Kimberly Spencer
Or beat themselves up.

Richard Matthews
My daughter will fall flat on her face and she stands up smiling, right because she is excited to learn to walk. And she’s got like, in the last 10 days, she went from like, crawling, bat out of hell kind of thing to like, I need to be able to walk chase my older siblings, and I think secondarily, she wants to be able to carry things. You can’t carry things when you’re crawling, but you know if she can walk, she can carry things and that just, she is super excited about that. But she really, she picked up how to walk and every like everything that she’s doing, she’s got a huge grin on her face. Just like you can tell she is really, really enjoying the process of learning to walk. And I was like, I want to capture that mentality for people. Where every two seconds, you’re falling on your butt or falling on your face and you just stand up and you smile and you try it again. Because it’s such a – I don’t know, I wish you could give that to people.

Kimberly Spencer
One of the people that I see who has that I haven’t met him personally, but Richard Branson and everything that I’ve read in every interview that I have seen, is just this like, devotion to play of like, let’s give it a go. Let’s see if this works.

Richard Matthews
You know it works.

Kimberly Spencer
Give it a go. Why not? Like it’s just so exciting to just give it a go. Like just yeah.

Richard Matthews
That is the theme of my life. Let’s just see what happens. Let’s have four kids, let’s move on to the road, let’s run a business from the road, let’s hit $10,000 a month in revenue. Like all those things, they’re just there, they’re play, right? And you realize that the life that we get to live, you get to write your own rules. You get to play your own game. You get to play like, you don’t have to play the game by the set of rules that other people tell you, you have to play by. And so when you sort of look at your life, right, you look at and so like for us, my wife and I, we looked at parenting, like a game and we look at business growth, like a game and we look at travel like a game. And so it’s always like, how do we make this more fun and more exciting and like cool things. And like in every area of our life, we’ve been able to grow and have we have a tremendous amount of joy and all the things that we do. And what’s interesting is like, other people will see us and see the things that we do. into your point of hanging around cool people. So like, I have the masterminds I’m in where I’ve got people that are significantly better and stronger and faster at me in every area. But you realize that once you start doing that, in other circles, you’re that, you are that person. The people who are like, “Man, I wish my kids could be like yours.” “I wish we could travel like you do.” “I can’t believe all the adventures you have.” Like, I had a friend of ours who told me, when we first met, she was like, we had our first kid and she was like, “We’re never gonna have kids.” Like, because kids keep you from having adventures, and they keep you from letting you live the life that you want to live and stuff like that. And then, she’s watched me grow. He’s watched me grow over the last 10 years. And and looks back and she’s like, she wants to have kids now and her significant other and she was like, “You’re a major reason for that. Because I realized that your kids have never held you back from anything.” You have more fun and more adventures and live more life than anyone I know. You got four kids that you towed with you everywhere.”

Kimberly Spencer
That’s how it’s the best. Like, they learned so much. And one of my coaches early on said, “Your children can either be your greatest asset or your greatest excuse.” And for me, mine has always been my asset. Like when I found out I was pregnant –

Richard Matthews
-It was choose your own rules.

Kimberly Spencer
There was no other option to not grow my business and be a mother because I knew that the woman that I would become by growing my business would be the mother that I wanted for my child. The woman that I was when I found out I was pregnant, was not the mother that I wanted. She was so fearful, so doubtful of herself. She didn’t really believe in herself even though she was like trying to empower others to believe in herself. No, she was a scaredy chicken. And I had to allow her to grow and go through all the growing pains. That she went through and then evolves that I could be the mom that I wanted for my son, and I’m very proud of the person that I’ve created.

Richard Matthews
That’s awesome. So hopefully my audience will forgive me. We’ve had some really interesting conversations here. I’m going to skip a couple of my normal questions that go down to something else. I think that’s really interesting. I want to talk to you a little bit about your own personal heroes. So just like Frodo had Gandalf or Luke had Obi Wan or Robert Kiyosaki had his Rich Dad. Who were some of your heroes growing up, were they real life mentors? Were they speakers or authors, peers who are maybe just a few years ahead of you, and how important have they been on your journey to becoming the woman you are today?

Kimberly Spencer
So my heroes, I have a few.

My heroes, one of them is definitely my mom. One of them is also my dad, and even though we grew up and there were some difficult things, that I went through growing up with an addict. My dad taught me the three most important rules that I’ve learned that started my business. Because even though he was an addict, he and my mom both successfully grew a multimillion dollar business, much to the surprise of many people, including me. But he taught me, he said, when I first started my Pilates business, she’s like “Kim, find a way to replace herself.” He said, “I waited years too long to replace myself.” And he broke a lot of bones because of it, because of his job. But he and so that was the thing is that’s what I looked at it. “Okay, what processes can I replace? What How can I replace myself so that the things that I’m not good at, I’m not focusing on.” The other thing he said, “If you want to get something done, give it to a busy person.” That was a big lesson for me, of looking at the people that I hire of looking at the people that I team up with and that I partner with, when I see someone who is really on it with being busy in the way that they are productive and efficient, not like busy is just like spinning their wheels because they are using business as an excuse for purpose, which a lot of people do. That was an awareness that I have. It’s really served me and the other one. The last one was probably my favorite. He said, “Kim, so I learned the hard way that it takes the same amount of time, money and effort to go after a $1,000 client as it does a $10,000 clients you might as well just go for the done.” So that was a lesson for me. I was like, “Okay.” And those three lessons were some of my big influences. growing a business. My mom has also been she’s been forever a cheerleader for me. Just sewing you know 20 Pocahontas costumes or whatever I needed. She was always there. She showed up to every school play for the most part like, she’s just having a cheerleader in your corner. And the thing is that both my parents have always believed in me. And that’s one of the things that I think is a true influence is when you have people and you surround yourself with people who are like, “Absolutely, I have no question that you’re going to be successful. I have no question that you’re going to achieve great things in this life because that’s just who you are.” And then they don’t see you as weak or mediocre, or average or normal or like, “Oh, you should do things this way.” They’re like, “We support you in being extraordinary and now go off and conquer being extraordinary.” And that’s something that’s awesome. And then I would say also like for for people growing up as well, it wasn’t so much people. It was more fictional characters. So movies had a massive influence on me. And the one character that there were two characters who really influenced me one was Bell when I was five years old. Seeing her, she’s my favorite Disney Princess to this day. She was intelligent.

Richard Matthews
She’s my wife’s favorite too.

Kimberly Spencer
Intelligent, well read. And she transforms people. That’s what she does. She transforms a beast into a beautiful human. And that’s, I was like, holy crap. That’s it. That’s what I do. I transform people’s crappy, beastly beliefs into like beautiful, amazing beliefs so that they’re operating and firing on all cylinders. Like that’s okay, cool.

Richard Matthews
My only problem is the prince, his nose is too big.

Kimberly Spencer
I thought that the prince is very handsome. I thought he was very lovely. I loved his long locks and then not surprisingly, of course, when I met my husband, he had long hair. I was like, okay, and I like to say I tamed the beast. But then, the other big one growing up was Elle Woods. Seeing a smart pretty confident girl, be both. Because when I grew up, it was very much an either or. Like I would see the popular girls at my Christian prep school who pretended to be dumb and who pretended to like not know the answer when they did. And I would see and I was like, Well, why can’t you both be pretty and smart and wear high heels and – I was a big supporter of and, not like either or scarcity mentality. And Elle Woods was one of the ones that I just said I was like, that’s who I am going to model and so in high school my nickname was actually Elle for my freshman year because even though I was in uniform, I always wore my heels. I had my little scarf on my shoulder bag. I didn’t have a backpack, I had a purse. I had my color coded binder, I had my cargo and I was like, I had my system and I rocked it. And that was, that was one of the many ways that I chose to change my identity into somebody that I wanted to emulate more of someone who was outgoing and friendly, who really cared about other people and who wanted to transform and make the world a better place.

Richard Matthews
So I think there’s two really important things in both of those set actions that I wanted to sort of pull out for our listeners, one of them, the first one comes from your parents, right, and the rules that your parents gave you, that your dad gave you, I think they’re excellent. The third one totally love that my, some of my entrepreneurs, entrepreneur heroes sort of gave that to me, it was in the real estate space, and they were like, you can buy a home for $100,000 or you can buy one for a million dollars and like the process to do $100,000 deal and a million dollar deal is exactly the same, like nothing changes. It’s just the you know, you have more zeros. So we go for the bigger deal. But the point there is more – One of the things that really struck me is this idea of you know, because it’s something we talked about all the time in our culture currently is privilege. And we talk a lot about privilege. And people, for whatever reason, think privilege is a bad thing. And like, we want to fight to be the least privilege, I guess, I don’t know, that doesn’t make any sense to me. And one of the things that I’ve realized is that, like, my dad, fought tooth and nail, to build a life where he was lifting me up and putting me on a level that I would never have had the opportunity to start from. He gave me a lot of privileges like my dad, when he was growing up, his dad died when he was eight, and his mom raised four kids in the 60s by herself. And my dad had to go to work at 12 to help support the family. He helped one of his brothers to college, like, worked really, really hard to get to a point like I never noticed any of those things. I never knew any of that stuff until I was older, and you can’t really appreciate any of those things and realize that like, the sacrifices and the work that my dad put into giving me a better starting place than he had. That’s a privilege. And it’s a privilege that I wouldn’t be remiss to squander.

Kimberly Spencer
I totally agree.

Richard Matthews
And you realize that like, that’s what we fight for as parents is how can I give my child as much privilege as possible. So they can start further down the path and we are like standing on the shoulders of giants. That’s the whole the whole point. And that’s why I actually talked about the hero question, who are your heroes? Because you realize, there’s the people that came before that really lift you up and put you in a better starting position. So you can go on and do things that you’re going to do. I’m gonna do them really well. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is something that I think is I wish more people would see fiction this way. But for whatever reason, in the entrepreneurial space, we tend to separate fiction and nonfiction and like an entrepreneur, you should spend your time in nonfiction and self growth and self development and things like that. Nothing wrong with that. Those are all good things you should do that. But for whatever reason, we like to disparage the idea of spending time in fictional worlds and following fictional characters and learning from fictional characters. And one of the things that really struck me if you get a chance pick up the book. It’s called the Ant and the Elephant by Vince Poscente. It’s like 100 pages. It’s a little thing you could read it in, you know, sitting on the toilet an afternoon. And it’s a little..

Kimberly Spencer
You’re a man. I’ve noticed dudes take a lot more time on the toilet than us ladies do

Richard Matthews
That’s true. That’s true. It’s because we’re just trying to escape the children.

Kimberly Spencer
I’m like, “Honey, what are you doing in there?” I’m in and out. I’m like, we got efficiency.

Richard Matthews
He’s hiding.

But one of the things he talks about in there is that your brain actually doesn’t have the ability to distinguish the difference between fiction and reality. So, you don’t possess that skill in your head. So when you dive into a fictional character into a book, you follow their stories, you can learn from their experiences and learn from their characters and learn from the things that they’ve done. And you know, for me growing up, one of my the book series that I was just absolutely in love with, and I read it to my children. It’s called the animorphs. There is 64 books that came out. And all sorts of things that happened in those stories over the course of five years that they were released. And reading them again as adult I realized how much of my character that I have developed came from fictional characters that I really aligned myself with as a child. And realizing that you can learn decision making abilities and you can learn, like because you’re presented with situations and taken through thought processes that you would never get the opportunity to be in front of if it wasn’t for fictional worlds. So anyways, I just wanted to point that out because it’s such a cool thing. And I don’t think we give it enough credence

Kimberly Spencer
I totally agree.

Richard Matthews
… Back down to, talking about playing. Giving yourself permision to play.

Kimberly Spencer
That’s why my next book is actually going to be a fiction book. Like, I started writing it before I got pregnant. And it’s, it was exactly what the movie that I wrote did for this other boy, it transformed a life. And so I’m hoping to do with this next book. That’s my fiction, my first fiction book that will be. It will be to transform those women who feel very stuck in their marriages or in their relationships after they have children because many women can or do, and that’s my goal, but it’s to transform through fiction and through story because, like you said, your unconscious mind does not know the difference between what’s real and what’s vividly imagined. That’s why I don’t watch horror movies anymore. I used to already dislike horror movies, and they weren’t my jam. But now know it like I’m super protective of my subconscious mind and what I’m absorbing that I want to I want to watch I love the Marvel movies give me a hero movie every day or the day right every day. Like I love them. I love The Greatest Showman. It’s my favorite movie, bar none. That is my favorite movie. It is extraordinary. Wonder Woman, my second favorite movie. And all of those they’re of empowering characters that are creating. And I used to watch movies on repeat, especially princess ones. But I would watch and I wouldn’t, I never was a fan of the weak princesses like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty that just needed to be kissed and woke it up but I was actually a big fan of the recent remake of Cinderella with Kate Blanchett. I thought that one did an extraordinary job of highlighting the identity transformation that you can have. And that’s a story that I love because I love identity transformation when it’s just a guy looking for a shoe and like wants to kiss the girl then that’s so much.

Richard Matthews
Kind of boring.

Kimberly Spencer
Kind of boring. But the ones where people really come out transformed, the ones where people really step in, and you feel that story. And you experience that movie and your mind is absorbing it as if it were your own. And so when I work sometimes with clients and we’re doing some deep subconscious work, I say, there are like, if you don’t believe in, what’s it called? Not regeneration. But like, live multiple lives. I say past lives is in like, past lives is like you watched a movie and it was really impactful. And so your subconscious mind took it as it being your own story. And so that when we do some deep subconscious work, the releasing of like, there’s a story. I’m like that could have been a movie that you watch, that could have been an actual experience that could, I don’t know, it’s not my place to judge their experience, but when we’re doing some of that work, we can get into some things that they like horrors and I’m like, that didn’t happen in this lifetime. They’re like, I don’t know where that happened, no one knows. It could have been a movie that they experienced. There was

Richard Matthews
A movie or a book –

Kimberly Spencer
… That had a strong emotional impact. Your unconscious mind is the domain of the emotions.

Richard Matthews
And being aware, that’s important, right? Because I’ve put down books and walked out of movies for things where I’m like, I just don’t –

Kimberly Spencer
I don’t need that junk in my mind.

Richard Matthews
So I’m with you, it’s superhero movies all the way

Kimberly Spencer
All the way. Give me a Marvel movie like Iron Man.

Richard Matthews
The Greatest Showman. If you’re listening to this and you haven’t watched The Greatest Showman yet, like just put down what you’re doing and watch that movie tonight, buy it on whatever highest definition thing you can put it on the biggest screen you got. Turn your sound system up all the way. It’ll change your life. It’s one of those those, probably one of the more important movies that’s come out in the last two decades. And and it’s because it actually, it shows so much. It shows an entrepreneur and it shows the work that goes into becoming an entrepreneur and the dreaming and the scheming that sort of goes into becoming the kind of person who changes the world. And shows the magic and it shows him struggle and still make good choices. And it shows so much and like every character. And the thing, the I don’t know, it’s just it’s one of those things like we’ve listened to the soundtrack on repeat my kids have the whole –

Kimberly Spencer
I was literally just listening to it right before this interview.

Richard Matthews
It’s one of the like. The soundtrack is one of those things like you could, if you ever, if you’re going to go into like, you know what is it Grey’s Anatomy and do like a heart surgery that’s never been done before you’re going to do the superhero pose. So you might as well have The Greatest Showman track playing in the background. Because it’ll turn you into a Superhero. So anyways, that’s my, like we watched that movie and I was like, it immediately rocketed into like, top five best movies I’ve ever watched in my whole life.

Kimberly Spencer
Watched it. And then suddenly, within a weekend we’d watch it five times. My husband’s not a musical guy. And he was like, I walked in. I had a client that was back when I did like, in person sessions, and I walked in from one of my clients and I hear it on and I’m like, and he’s just sitting there on his computer. And he’s like, I can’t turn it off. It’s like an addiction. That it’s so good. We ended up what like he watched it four times, or he watched it five times. I watched it 4 times it actually, like straight away we want to watch that again.

Richard Matthews
I feel like we- It’s definitely awesome. It’s definitely addictive. And the soundtrack is addictive and like we play it all the time. And I’m like, and it’ll never get old. It just it can’t get old. So I always tell people like the your canon. The canon by which you measure movies. It’s how many times can you watch it on repeat without it getting old. So like, for me, it’s a Knight’s Tale and The Matrix and The Greatest Showman, like I can watch those movies over and over and over and over again, and they would never bother me. It’s those kind of stories. When you find the heroes and those characters and you see the struggle and you see the life that they’re living and see the things that they’re going through and the decisions they have to make. And you know, to be faced with things like their whole business burning to the ground and getting back up and rebuilding from the ashes. That kind of stuff. Like when you’re facing your situations. You realize like, I’ve got my heroes here that I’ve got in my head. You know what they did in those situations? They stood up and they made it happen. And I think that’s one of the things that really strikes me about fiction is that it can do that for you. Where you see, like in The Greatest Showman, he stands up and they rebuild. And I think one of the reasons is so powerful is because like, you know who PT Barnum is, everyone does. And to realize that, like, they like that was a catalyst for their business is they burn their building down, they moved into the tents, and then they started, they moved to the location where they had the circus, the reason why the circus moves, is because they have that problem with people wanting to burn them down and not liking them.They moved this became part of their business model. And it’s so powerful.

Kimberly Spencer
These challenges. I watched the whole circus documentary on PBS after watching The Greatest Showman because I get nerdy like that. I totally, the story of The Greatest Showman was very much part of it was dramatize and romanticized. But it’s nonetheless a fantastic movie. I mean, PT Barnum did some things that were a little bit more questionable of choices in his business, but at the time back then it was kind of normal to exploit certain types of people. But at the same time, it’s like, he provided them with jobs and opportunities. And so I mean, you can make your own judgments. But it was interesting watching the documentary and seeing this love affair that people had for the circus, like they were interviewing some amazing people who had been a part of the circus, and who were in tears at the fact that’s no longer a lifestyle. That’s a long past thing that people aren’t going to run out and go see the circus, rarely.

Not so much anymore.

Richard Matthews
So my last question for you is the guiding principles. So, sort of bring it back and bring it home for our listeners. What are the top one or two principles or actions that you use regularly, sort of everyday that you think contribute to the success and influence that you enjoy today. Maybe something that you wish you had known when you first started out on this whole entrepreneurial journey.

Kimberly Spencer
One is that you can own your emotions. That was the biggest lesson when I was 17 years old. And it was the first personal development book that I was referred to by my acting teacher who said that this is the most important book you’ll ever read and I was like, okay. I was a straight A student, so I wanted to be, I wanted to do things right and perfectly. And so I went out and got all the books in the reading list and most of them were like, had to do with like Sandy Meisner, they had ipsum plays and all these different types of plays and about the – I’m forgetting the name of the theater, but there was a big theater in New York, and it was, most of them were about that. But there was this one book. And it was circled in big page that said, Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I was like, What is this book? I picked it up.

Richard Matthews
This isn’t about acting.

Kimberly Spencer
This isn’t about acting. This has nothing to do with Hollywood. What the heck, but I started reading it and I was like, Okay, my acting teacher says it’s the most important book, so I’m going to read it. And so I started reading it. And I popped it over to this one point. And it said, you can basically you can choose your state, you can choose your emotions, and I was like, “Oh!”

What the heck, you can choose your emotions. And it’s like what Viktor Frankl says in Man’s Search for Meaning between stimulus and response. There is a choice. And that was something I was never taught as a child. I grew up thinking I was a product of my emotions. I watched how my mom did not allow for emotions. They were like, they’re not logical. She’s very logical. She didn’t want to deal with emotions, my dad didn’t want to deal with them. And he dealt with them in a different way by suppressing them and numbing them. But like for the first time having permission that you can feel your feelings because you’re human was extraordinary and it’s provided me with a really fantastic process for letting go of negative emotions for allowing me to just, okay I sense that I’m experiencing this I can choose my reaction. Now I can choose to release this feeling because scientifically studied, a feeling lasts for about 90 seconds. But what happens is when you feel, like when you have beliefs attached to a feeling. I shouldn’t be sad, or a boys don’t cry, or I shouldn’t be mad or I should have like, then suddenly you attach guilt and shame on top of the feeling and so you’re stacking that onto the feeling and thus it gets stuck as a trapped emotion and then it stays with you for longer. Whereas if you can just allow for the feeling to release and let it go, it changes the game. And that’s something that was super powerful for me. And that’s a practice that I still put into into practice to this day. And the second biggest thing, it ties in with the first. Where it’s just ownership, period. Own how you show up in a room. It is a choice how you show up in a room. It is a choice to bring your presence. And if you don’t like where you currently are at own the fact without guilt, without judgment, without shame. Own the fact that you are where you are, and that you also have the possibility of changing it. You can change your circumstances when you start telling yourself a new story. So I catch myself, when I’m not owning, or when I’m owning a disempowering story, and I catch myself in like, Oh, I’m telling myself this story. I need to own where I am. Take responsibility for the fact that I have told myself this story repeatedly. Because, like Hitler said, you say something long enough, loud enough, people will believe it.

Richard Matthews
And there’s so much power in that.

Kimberly Spencer
Now when we stop telling ourselves those crappy stories that are no longer serving us, take ownership, take an assessment of where we’re at, and then move forward. Following curiosity and play, changes the game.

Richard Matthews
Have you ever watched the TV show Once Upon a Time?

Kimberly Spencer
I have not.

Richard Matthews
One of the characters in there as a kid. His name is Henry. And his superpower that he gets imbued with at some point is you know fairy tale superpowers. He’s the author. He’s the one who writes the fairy tales. And, he’s got the blank pages and things that he write become reality. And it’s cool little mental exercise for this sort of discussion that has lead that you’re the author of your life and to your point, like one of the things that I’ve always sort of grown up believing, you know, since college sort of on is that we’re a story born people. And we judge and build our relationships on stories. It’s one of the things I tell my kids all the time, it’s like the difference between at an acquaintance is someone whose name you know, but whose story you don’t. A stranger or someone who you don’t know their name or their story. A friend is someone who you know their name and you know a lot of their story. A best friend is someone who you know, all of their stories. And the only way to continue to grow your relationship is to go out and have more experiences together and write more stories. That’s the way we judge relationships and the way we build relationships is with this true story and you don’t realize that like your life – You’re the author of your own story. And the story you tell yourself is the story that you grow into. It’s what you, become. And you get to own that. You get to own your story. And a really amazing thing happens to you. When you stand up and you own your story and you own who you are. And you start writing your own story, you become the kind of person that other people wish they can be, you become the kind of person that other people want to be around, you become the kind of person that changes the world, because that is the most powerful thing you can do is to own your story.

Kimberly Spencer
I completely agree. Because and then that gives you the power to change other people’s stories because your life can either be a story that’s an example, like a really awesome Harry Potter or it can be a warning like Voldermort.

Every day you are influencing somebody, you may not know it, but especially if you’re a parent, influencing your children. You may be influencing your spouse too. And everyday people are watching your story and interacting with your story. And they see, is this something that I want to pursue? Or is it something that I want to stay away from?

Richard Matthews
Awesome, so many good things we’ve got to talk about on this podcast, probably one of the more enjoyable interviews I’ve gotten to do. So thank you so much for coming on. I got a couple of things I want to do with you before we finish up. One of them is called the Hero’s Challenge. Hero challenge is really simple. I do this on every show. Hopefully it doesn’t catch you off guard. It’s basically this; do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? First names are fine and why do you think they should come share their story with our audience?

Kimberly Spencer
Who has a cool entrepreneurial story? I work with some extraordinary badasses, so –

Richard Matthews
– Favorite things about asking this question.

Unknown Speaker
I love this.

Kimberly Spencer
So one of my clients, he, one of his businesses literally changed a country. And literally changed the country of Moldova. And he’s just a serial entrepreneur. And I think he, I met him through podcasting. He had me on his podcast called The Great Escape Podcast. And we were talking a lot about blame about really assessing the story of blame and how what’s the difference between taking responsibility for your life and blame? And I think that he’s in such a fantastic space of growth right now. With his own story transforming. That’s why I would think that Stuart Morris would be an extraordinary guest for your show. I also have like 1000 other referrals he is the first that crossed my mind.

Richard Matthews
Awesome. So we’ll connect afterwards and see if we can connect with him and get him on the show. Last question. Thank you so much for being on the show where can people find you if they’re interested in learning from you or working with you? So where can they find you and more importantly, who are the right kind of people for you to reach out if they’re, need the kind of help you provide

Kimberly Spencer
You got it. I am best found on my website at https://crownyourself.com/. You go there, I have a hypnosis. You are worthy hypnosis that is available for you that you can immediately download love on and you know, kick any crappy subconscious programming to the curb that would say that you’re not worthy of those dreams, those desires that gift that you have in your heart. You can also find me on Instagram @kimberly.spencer or my company’s Instagram if you are a big fan of quotes with a bit of challenge and creativity and like Disney memes, @crownyourselfnow is our company’s Instagram. And you can also go join our Crown Yourself Facebook group, which is our community where we have just extraordinary leaders that I’m very blessed to know and people who are stepping into their power on a daily basis. And you can just search on Facebook, it’s facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash Crown Yourself. And then for those of you who love this episode, and you have listened to this whole and extraordinary conversation with Holy moly, this is the longest podcast episode I’ve ever been on. It’s awesome. I love it. I have to pee so bad. But I didn’t want to get off. If you want to work with me. Then, if you are a visionary leader, if you’ve got a side hustle that you want to turn into your main jam, if you are looking to overcome fear and doubt and really take charge of your life and stand out and step into your own power and stop being a mediocre version of – that you can be. And if you know that you want to really tap into your full potential and you’re a high achiever and you’re creative and you are a visionary, then you’re my people. Come talk to me. Shoot an email to my team at Info@crownyourself.com and I look forward to working with you.

Richard Matthews
Awesome thank you so much. So if you were listening and you want to work with Kimberly, definitely check out CrownYourself.com. Obviously, we’ve target like 45 minutes for these episodes. So if you’re a regular listener, we apologize but hopefully you got really enjoyed this hour and a half long episode instead. And again, Kimberly, thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. It’s been a fantastic conversation. I can’t wait to catch up with you and meet you again in the future.

Kimberly Spencer
Absolutely. I would love to chat again in the future. This has been extraordinary. I’ve learned so much about myself too.

Richard Matthews
Okay, any final thoughts for our audience before we hit the stop record button here.

Kimberly Spencer
Just I am so grateful for each and every one of you who power through like a badass on this episode. And just please shoot hit me up on on the Instagram, on a DM or shoot an email to info@crownyourself.com I love hearing what your takeaways are. I love hearing your breakthroughs. You’re a-has. That’s what I eat, live and breathe is for stories of breakthrough and transformation. And so if this episode transformed you in any way, please let me know.

Richard Matthews
Awesome. Thank you very much Kimberly.

Kimberly Spencer
Thank you so much.