Kimberly Spencer (00:03)
High achievers often ask the wrong question. They ask, what's next? How can I scale my next Everest? What's the next goal? Instead of, is this path actually aligned? You've had success, but are you actually happy? That's what we're diving into in this episode.
Hello and welcome back to the Crown Yourself podcast. I am your host, Kimberly Spencer. I am so excited to be here with you. I can't tell you every time I pop on and I'm on Riverside.fm right now recording this, and I know that this is going to YouTube and I'm like, this was a piece that I was missing. This was a piece that is so fulfilling for me to not just be hidden behind the mic, which I loved in my like softness in my birthing portal, but now I'm like, yes, bring on the video.
bring on showing up fully, not just through the sound of my voice, but through fully and full presence. And that's part of looking at this alignment piece, because as high achievers, it is so easy. It is so easy for us to go for that next Everest. It is so easy to get to the top of our Everest, to achieve the thing, to get the book launch, to get the best seller status, to win the awards, to...
launch the big programs, to make the sale, to do all the things. But do we ever stop to question, is this actually aligned? This was a big lesson for me back in Q4 of last year, right after the success of my book, Make Every Podcast Want You, I had to ask myself this very serious question, is the business model that I was operating in with our sister business, Communication Queens,
We were a full end-to-end done for you podcast casting agency where we got our clients booked on top podcasts and we were having great success, but we were having other issues and the model was no longer aligned for where I needed to go as a leader and also as the co-leader, queen of my family, leading with my king, Spike Spencer. I was no longer able to lead while going into this next season of
being a mother to an infant child now. And that changed everything. And when we changed the model and we got realigned with what actually is in alignment with me and as a leader, which is more coaching, more consulting, more teaching, more guidance, leaning into that projector, the 5/1 projector that I have in human design, leaning into that rather than into all the shoulds of what could make money. And that is the worst place to come from.
because just because you can make money in a certain model doesn't mean you should. And I had a client who had a similar experience who was crushing it in her real estate business, crushing it technically by all outside measures, having massive outside success, tripling her income, millions of dollars. And yet her relationship and her business model were
completely out of alignment and out of integrity with the true things that called on her heart to do and to create in this world. And what happened was, was over the course, after coaching together and achieving massive results in her business, she had no problem with the achievement, but she had problem with the alignment. And the problem was, was that she felt unfulfilled, numb, unseen by her partner, who was not only her partner in life, but her partner in business.
And once she started shifting her priorities and recognizing that the success that she was having externally by all other measures was no longer filling her soul, she started to make some changes in her business, which included closing her business, closing two of her businesses and leaving that jerk. So, but the power was, I just got a message from her the other day and it was,
So beautiful that even though she said, I do not have all the massive success that I used to have by all external measures, but I have fulfillment. am the happiest that I have ever been in my entire life. my gosh. That, that is everything. So when you can see the misalignments and we address the misalignments during our coaching time together, she just didn't want to lean into those.
because those required some courageous conversations and some bold decisions that she wasn't yet ready to make. But over the course of a couple of years, she started to make those bold decisions because sometimes, as Steve Jobs said, life will hit you in the head with a brick. First, it kind of throws a stone. First, it's like, here's a pedal. Like, you might want to go the other way. Here's another thing. you might want to, then you may listen and be like, ow, that kind of bothered me, but
you know, what's a pebble? And then it throws a brick. And then you're like, okay, universe, got the message. All right, out of alignment. Success without sovereignty will create suffering regardless of how much success on paper you have. And I have seen this time and time again, and you may think, especially if you're just starting out in business and you're idealizing and putting on pedestals the people who have technically made it, who are making multi-millions of dollars,
who have all the awards and all the accolades and I've coached them just as much as I've coached the beginner business owners. And here's the thing, everyone, as long as you're alive, still has problems. And many of those business owners who have achieved massive success are actually way out of alignment with their purpose. They feel unfulfilled. They feel like they've climbed the wrong ladder. In fact, we had a wonderful guest, my dear friend, Tirzah Shirai on this podcast about a year ago.
She was on this podcast twice. And in the first episode, it was a phenomenal episode, one of our most downloaded in Crown Yourself history. It came from, that was back in 2019, 2020. And we did, I think it was 2019. And we did the episode and it was from zero to 30 million in a blink. And she was a CEO of Blink Bar. And she shared a story of how she scaled her business in just, I think it was like three to five years to $30 million.
Holy moly, that technically for most entrepreneurs, for many entrepreneurs who choose to go on this journey, that's what's broadcast all over the interwebs as success, right? That's the, here's the success in the pillar and the things that you want to, all the things that you say that you want to hit. Now in her followup episode, she shared her crazy COVID story that she experienced as a business owner in Los Angeles with multiple in-person locations and how she had just gotten funding.
So I'm not going to share the whole episode. She was just about to get funding for a series A and how she was just about to get funding and then COVID hit. It was a tough one. It was a challenge and initiation. And I'm not going to share so much on the episodes. I want you to go back and listen to that episode because it's so good. I will link to it down below. But that episode we chose to title from 30 million to freedom.
And one of the things she said in it has always stuck with me. It's like, did I climb the wrong ladder? And so often as high achievers, as entrepreneurs, as business owners, we want to like, there's all the things that are broadcast all over the interwebs of scaling and hitting those major milestones with money. But is it actually the right ladder you need to be climbing? And I've had this two times in my career, once with our sister business, Communication Queens, which I shared about earlier.
So success without sovereignty, it creates suffering. And you will get those little nudges, you will get those little hints, and then the universe is gonna throw you a brick. And it's gonna be like, is this actually the aligned path that is your soul's path?
is the purpose thing that you were placed on this planet, but it's the only thing that you can do. Is this the right thing? So with your achievements, with everything that you desire to achieve, first ask yourself, is this aligned? This is an alignment audit. Is this aligned still to who I am called to be? What am I doing out of obligation? But I've outgrown.
What are the things that I have outgrown, but I'm still doing out of obligation? Because obligation builds resentment. There is a difference in the energy when you approach something as an obligation, devotion. So when you approach your business from a place of obligation, it can feel like all the have-tos that you have to experience versus
when you approach your business from a place of devotion because you know you are so aligned with what you are doing and who you were meant to be in this world in this lifetime, that is a game changer for quantum leaps and speed. And to give you an example personally, when we pivoted from having the done for you agency to pivoting into coaching and consulting, which was what most of our clients wanted more from me anyways.
Suddenly I started to see so much more results and success from that rather than beating my head against sales leads, client satisfaction, and all that, that we had in our model that was a done for you model. And it was a hard ego hit because it came right after a massive success with our book. And I'm so glad that we did it because now I feel more aligned. Then.
Once you ask yourself, have I outgrown this? I want you to also ask yourself, who taught me, who taught me that this is important?
Was it society? Was it your caregivers? Was it your partner, your husband, your wife, your spouse who said, this is supposed to be important? Who taught you that that is supposed to be important? And there's no right or wrong answer and approach these questions with no judgment. But who taught you that that goal was supposed to be important?
Once you've audited and asked yourself those questions of what if I have grown out of obligation, but I'm still doing, and who taught me that that was important? Maybe, I mean, maybe you were taught as a child, like you gotta stick with it. You just gotta, you gotta keep going at it even though you're like, this is not for me. That was me with soccer. That was me 100 % with soccer. I, I.
My mom signed me up for soccer when I was six years old and I was not a fan. was very much. No, I was the outlier in the soccer picture. I am the only one wearing pink shorts because I was the outlier. Everyone else had their uniforms on. I had my uniform top on, but I had pink shorts on and I was a really good defender. I was really good and I went up against the, now, obviously not playing professional soccer.
this is six year old Peewee soccer. But I was really good. I went up against the best guy on the team and we were going toe to toe and I kept that kept getting him from getting the ball into the goal. And it was, I was like, and my coach was like, you could keep going with this. And I was like, yeah, that's not gonna happen. Because I knew soccer was completely out of alignment. It was just not my thing. But just because you're good at something doesn't mean that you have to keep going with it.
Like there are certain things that you may find that especially if you go back to my video on zone of genius versus zone of excellence, when you operate in that zone of excellence, which is the zone that you were typically praised for, that may not be your actual zone of genius. And sometimes when you operate too much in that zone of excellence and you're getting all that praise, you're not actually living fully into that soul's purpose.
because your genius zone is that soul's purpose of the things that you do so well that you could do for free, that you could keep doing for the rest of your life, no matter whether you made a dollar or a $10 million, because it's so in alignment with who you are and what you came to this planet to do at this moment in time. So once you ask yourself those questions, then look at your life and rate it in your health.
And we're not going to rate it just for performance. We're not going to rate it for productivity because you can be doing all the things. You can be doing the exercise and like going to the gym. But is it actually bringing you joy? Like, do you actually enjoy it? This was a huge piece to step into. Like, do you really enjoy lifting weights or would you actually prefer to take a really cool exotic dance class? Like pole dancing or something like that. Do you really enjoy doing
Acro, because it's supposed to, do you really enjoy doing yoga or would you actually prefer to do something that's a little bit more intense like Pilates? So look at, are these things actually in alignment with what you actually enjoy? And so rate them health, wealth, business, your family, your primary personal relationship. So with your partner or your spouse or your lover, whoever that person is for you.
your relationship with your parents. Look at those every single relationship that you have because all of life is relationships. Whether it's money, your business, your kids, your spouse, your dog, rate them for joy. Are they actually bringing you joy or are they another thing to do?
a lot of times we can start treating things like another thing to do. So rate them for joy. And then once you look at that list and you look at what is actually bringing me joy. Now the hard part is if you're noticing as a parent that your kids are not bringing you joy because they are, you know, destroying the house or just going through a really challenging time, you can't drop your kids. And I'm not a big fan of this model on the internet of if they're toxic and if they, you know, are
disruptive than just, you know, eliminate them from your life. I'm like, no, this, this is actually as your opportunity to see how do I change the relationship with my kids? What am I trying to control about my kids? how can I change the relationship with how I am relating to my kids versus how can I just change them? Because we can only change ourselves. So I just want to put that caveat here because you can drop the things that no longer fit.
And this can be really hard in your relationships. However,
You cannot drop your kids. It is very frowned upon. And we have to look at what are our earthly responsibilities that we have actually chosen in this lifetime to do and to lean into and look at, is this something that is still bringing me joy? And if it's not bringing you joy, it's not completely dropping the thing. It's looking at dropping what your current relationship is with the thing. So how are you
currently relating to the thing. So for example, as a parent, you're struggling with something with your kids and they're not bringing you joy. Well, you're also their parent. So in that space of like, I'm not enjoying being a parent. Okay. How am I currently relating? Well, I'm currently doing this like hardcore discipline by the books, like do your homework, do all the things, but you're missing playfulness.
And if you just related to them, maybe in a more playful way, and you change the relationship of how you are relating to the other person, that can change how you show up for the entirety of the relationship. So it's not nixing them out of your life because you can't because they're your kids and they are your responsibility. And it is saying, I'm going to change how I'm relating to them. Same with your partner. If you're thinking with your partner, my gosh.
He's so lazy. He doesn't do what I ask him. And you start telling yourself this story. Your relationship to your partner could actually be the story that you have in your mind. Because the relationship isn't bringing you joy because you're not asking for what you want. So I'll give you an example.
I had my first child and I started to tell myself this regurgitated story that I had picked up from my caregivers, my parents, my mom and dad. And I started to tell myself this story because I was making more money than my husband at that point. had just started my business and just started to take off as a coaching business and I was super excited. And I was also mom. was a full like stay at home mom, working my business as well. was, I'm doing both.
And the problem was I wasn't asking for support from my husband. So what I was doing was I was relating to him like he was lazy. And I was relating to him like he didn't help me. And I was telling myself the story. Now, if you know my husband, he is the most helpful, most supportive, most loving man. And he cooks for me all the time. Like he does all the cooking in our household. In fact, I highly recommend you subscribe to his show. I will leave a link down below. It's called Chow Time.
And it gives all the recipes of all the things that he cooks for our family. And they're amazing. He is my personal chef and our gardener and like all the things for our beautiful homestead. So, but in that space, in that tiny one bedroom apartment, it was actually a pretty good sized apartment in Koreatown. But in that space of being a new mom with a new baby, I was regurgitating an old story of what I thought I saw my mom, of how I thought my mom related to my dad.
So was regurgitating an old story from my caregivers and then projecting that onto my husband. And so my relationship with my husband was not bringing me joy. Did I kick him to the curb? No. I changed how I related to him and how I needed to change in relating to him was I changed my perspective and I started to ask for support. I started to say, hey, I need a little bit more help with the baby. I need you to take him a little bit more so I can get a few things done in my business.
instead of doing this like multitasking thing that I talk about in my habit stacking video. So in the habit stacking podcast, if you listen to that one, which I highly recommend you do, link below. So with that being said, notice those things that maybe you either have to change the model of how you are approaching it, like I did with our sister business, Communication Queens You may have to change how you relate to it. It doesn't mean drop it completely. It doesn't mean mix things out of your life. Be very careful with that sort of like,
chunked up advice around like just drop them, just cut out that relationship from your life because sometimes those relationships are where you get the most amount of growth and the most amount of progress
when you change how you relate to the thing that is causing you to not feel as much joy. Because ultimately joy is an inside job. And the reason why you're not experiencing that joy and fulfillment is because something is broken with the inside job of how you're relating to that thing. So it's not nixing that relationship out of your life. It is saying, am going to, it's not completely dropping the business. It could be dropping your role in the business.
Maybe you're looking at your business and it's not that you actually have to drop your business completely and like, you know, put the closed sign on it. Maybe it's like, I just need to do a different offer. I need to be, or I need to hire a COO because I'm in there doing all the operations. And you actually aren't, it's not the business that you're having a problem with. It's the role that you're playing inside the business.
look at the roles and responsibilities that are no longer bringing you joy and look at how can I relate to this problem? How can I relate to this role? How can I relate to this thing so that I do get joy, so that I get that fulfillment? Because success, when success, success is not success in my book when it comes without fulfillment.
Success is success when it marries with fulfillment, where you feel that joy. So if your success is feeling empty and you're like, I need a new mission, I need to change how I relate to these problems, my secret podcast, The Queen's Voice will help you below. This is all the things that we dive into in my membership group, The Collective. So when you jump on that, on getting into the secret podcast, you will be automatically added to the wait list for The Collective.
So if your success is feeling empty and you're like, I know that I can have something that is deeper, richer, and a more fulfilling form of success, then jump into my secret podcast, The Queen's Voice, to learn how to tap into that internal fulfillment and understand that internal voice that is saying, pivot, or get back into alignment, or shift your perspective, or shift the relationship.
with the thing that is no longer bringing forth that joy and allowing for those external circumstances to shift because you shifted internally. As always, my fellow sovereigns, own your throne, mind your business, because your reign is now.
