The power of personal education to create fulfillment with Kylee Leota and Jackson Calame.

The power of personal education to create fulfillment with Kylee Leota and Jackson Calame.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I don't know, because I actually ended up doing two.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  Let's see here. You uh, you got to meet with, remind me.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Harry?

• 0:11Speaker 00

  Harry, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, there it is. Okay, I thought so. Uh, so you got to meet with him in August and then we met with him again?

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I had two meetings with him. I can't remember if the first one was August or the second one was August, but yeah, we met, uh. We had two chats, we, he, we came away after the first one. He's like, oh, I've got to catch up with you again. So that was really great. And then here we are, December. It's seventy five degrees Fahrenheit here at six AM in Brisbane. Um, so you know, welcome, welcome to the universe. So, yeah, it's been great.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And, uh, and I love Harry. He has learned so much in the last six months as a leader. Um, and, uh, just so you know, he actually gave you a four point five out of five star review. And that's a very, very rare rating, um, to be rated that high. So it says a lot about how much he thinks of you. I'm, that's why I'm also excited to dive into this idea of education that we, we all overlook and I'm underappreciate. Like even those of us who are educators, I think it's so hard to grasp the value of all that's there. And then you align that with purpose and fulfillment. Do you mind talking about that a little bit?

• 1:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I guess the thing is, you know, there's a, there's. Tony Robbins many years ago talked about the fact that, you know, we talk about knowledge as power, but knowledge is only potential power. So first of it is really getting the information that we need. But then my bit, piece of my work that I love talking about is really how to take that education piece and put it into action. Because without that, you know, we can't claim that we don't, don't have access to information any day. But we have a really hard time trying to figure out what is going on for us and what information and education we specifically need to advance our goals. And meet our potential and meet our purpose. And I think so much gets lost in the white noise.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  That we really, really struggle that. So my model of infinite leadership, which is this ongoing evolution around continuous, uh, learning. Helps people create this idea. Of figuring out, moving out the white noise, having a really good structure of figuring out what do I need right now? And what information do I need right now and being able to apply that? Because I think for so long, you know, what I've experienced in my life is people get resentment. Like they get to the next level in their job or their advancement or their career, or they're doing some piece of learning. And then they get to the next phase and then if they want to get further, they actually have to continue that learning journey. And then they get kind of resentful, oh my gosh, when does it stop? When can I just breathe? When can I just do this? But if you kind of just adopt the mindset that it's continuous improvement always.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  A continuous learning journey, then it actually takes the resentment piece out of it. Because it's just the next natural step for you to get to that next phase in your journey. And I think we're not learning, we're kind of dying, right? So how do we continue? And a lot of it's our mindset piece around that.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Choice.

• 3:01Speaker 00

  What do we need to do? And we give away, yeah, we forget that we actually have choice so often. How often do we sit there and go, well, I had no choice? Well, yeah, you did, you know, it not always great choices. You might have a, you know, I talk about the the least crappy of the crappy choices sometimes, but you still have a choice. And so, and I I like to walk my talk really. Um, I left a government job after twenty years in the middle of COVID. Because for a long time, you know, I loved what I did. I was very, very passionate about empowering others and building capacity in others, both young people and the people that I led. But it no longer aligned to my true north.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  And I had all the excuses in the world to not take the next step in the world. And and Wusik and Bakuayo said, excuses are valid, but they're not going to get you where you want to go, right? So I was I was a single parent. That would absolutely be a valid reason to not step out of that comfort zone and leave a secure job. I, you know, have been through a lot of life experiences that make it hard to, that would would be very valid for me to go, you know what? I'm going to play small, but I didn't let those excuses get in the way. I've learned how to work around them and that was part of that continuous education and learning journey for myself. And I'm much more aligned with my own purpose. And I hope by doing that, I'm modeling the way for others to do the same.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  I was about to ask if you also breathe. Uh.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  I get very excited. I get very excited about what I.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  I love it. I love your passion. So I love that quote. Um, who was it that said the excuses are valid, but they don't get you where you want to go?

• 4:37Speaker 00

  Uh, his name's Wusi Wusi Tembaquio. He's an African guy. He also has an, he has a quote that I use in my book. He said, identity. He said, identity is man-made, so thereby it can be man-changed. So it's really about taking back that choice and control, that if you don't like your circumstances, you have the power to change it.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  I love that you talked about that from the perspective of education as well, that choice, um, right? And then ultimately boiling it down to the mindset. Um, you know, it's, I'm so grateful. One of my favorite quotes, I learned this when I was pretty young is, uh, the more you learn, the more you can learn. Right? And then years later, I read this study that the Harvard Business Review did on the curse of knowledge. And that is so eye-opening to realize. So it sounds like you're familiar with it. And I just want to validate that, that, you know, once you make the choice, that we love to learn, right? That it's a continual opportunity, right? Not something you have to do, but something you get to do.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  It's just so empowering. And I'm, I'm also blessed. This, this little book right here. Played a number on me. Um, this really changed my perspective on my self-esteem. It's called StrengthsFinder 2.0.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  My number one, uh,

• 5:53Speaker 00

  Got that in my bookshelf.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  trait was learner. And it was the first time I was ever validated for my knowledge and like what I did, because I was a 0.33 GPA kid. I did not do well at school. I did not like the, the organizational infrastructure that was provided as, as much as other people do. But, uh, that thing finally validated how I learn and, and how important that is to my life and it helped me center around it. So I'm, I'm so grateful for what you're talking about. I think there's young people and old people, right? And of all generations that can benefit from just taking a step back and saying, you know what? I can enjoy this from here on out. So that's cool.

• 6:32Speaker 00

  And and I think there's that saying that says you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Well, you can't teach a dog, an old dog that doesn't want to learn anything new tricks, I think.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Right, or a new dog.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, so any anyone that is resistant and has that blocker. And again, that's a personal thing to yourself. If you've decided, and I knew somebody who's like, oh, I just, I don't want to do this anymore. And I'm like, well, well, then what does that look like for you? Right? So and that's a choice that you make. But then you can't complain when you don't get the things that you want. Because you haven't made the choice to keep, you know, I talk about reflect, review and recalibrate as many times as you need. To get to the next level in your journey.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Speaking of reflection, uh recalibrating, you've had a lifetime of of opportunities to search through resources and find things that have helped you along your way. What are three resources? That you recommend to other visionary leaders on their on their way?

• 7:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, so shameless plug here. I did some of it. I've put my own book, Infinite Leadership, which is a great resource because it is about.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Infinite Leadership, right?

• 7:39Speaker 00

  In Infinite Leadership, drive a continuous improvement culture and create excellence for everyone. So whether you're doing this as a self leader, like for yourself, for your family, whether you're doing it for your team and whether you're doing it for your organization, uh it's that ongoing evolution that we were just talking about that around leadership and each of the letters of infinite is its own pillar. So and it starts with you. It starts with I for identity. Who are you? Where are you now? So you know, going back to your story, you could have, you could have claimed that identity as the point three three kid, right? But you didn't. You, you know, and probably at some point you did.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  I claim it, but I claim it with the type of of confidence and like appreciation for my story.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  But it doesn't define who you are. It's part of who you were, but it doesn't define you. Like my experience of going through domestic violence, I I was a victim of domestic violence. That was an identity that I had, but it's not something that I want to sit with and, you know, bathe in and stuff like that. I want to move forward from that. And so, you know, that that but identity holds us back so often, because if I sat with that and just sit there and go, well, this is the only identity that I attach myself to. Will that ever get me the outcomes that I seek to gain in this world, right? Of course. So, all of these different pillars within that book. Um, the second one, I think, is when I was first starting out, um, there's, uh,

• 9:07Speaker 00

  I didn't have a lot of people around me in my inner ecosystem, so the E in Infinite Leadership is ecosystem. But I didn't have an ecosystem around me that really understood where I wanted to go. And so I was starting to look up stuff online that I could find and resonate with. And my very first, um, my very first thing that I consistently, I guess, watched was a, a Canadian guy called Evan Carmichael. And he has a thing called Top Ten Rules for Success. And some really key learnings he came out with, he just finds these snippets of information about key different people. Um, and you can take it and he talks about what's the lesson that you're taking away that you can apply into your own life today. So every time I'm going to something, every time I'm reading something, every time I'm listening to something, I'm like,

• 9:51Speaker 00

  what lesson am I gonna take away today from this today? And I like to bespoke, I don't like to have one particular modality, so I'm like, oh, I like a little bit of this. I like a little bit of this, I'm gonna take a little bit of this and put it all together to create my own model versus having a one size fits all model. Um, and the other thing that you were talking about is that book that hurts your feelings, then you know you've got a really good book, right? So if you're reading it a little bit and it's challenging your thinking and it's, it's, it's kind of making you feel a bit if inside because you've, you know, done that. There's two books, um, outside of my own book, um, that have done that for me is, um, The The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.

• 10:32Speaker 00

  I remember I was listening to it, I was driving on a holiday and I was driving up and I was kind of yelling at the radio to stop talking because I was like so offended by what he was saying because it was so true. I'm like, you're hurting my feelings. Um, I felt very called out, um, on my travels. Um, and the other one is a lady by the name of Tasha Yurik and she has a book called Insight. Um, and it's around our self-awareness and, and to your point earlier, the more self-aware we are, the risk of what I call the, the false positive. Is thinking that we will not be blind to ourselves at times. And so who, who are our people that can be our loving critics to us? That want what's best for us in our own journey, that help us when we are feeling blind to ourselves,

• 11:17Speaker 00

  help us bring us back into that track with compassion and care, but are also going to call us out on our stuff in a safe, supportive way. So who are those people in your, in your ecosystem? So there are a few diff- I could go on all day. That could be a whole podcast episode in itself. Resources, resources that Kylie's nerded out on, but they're three that I particularly love.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  You say three, I've got a list of 10 out of those already. So that's fantastic. And I think it's great. It's, thank you for being willing to dive deep into your well. Um, right. That's, that's what you're doing for us. And, um, you know, it's, it's not always about the, what's covered in the actual discussion as much as, and it's usually more about the depth of the leader themselves, right? And what can we do long-term? When we have the opportunity to engage with leaders like Kylie Leota. So we're going to come back, we're going to talk about personal education even further, Kylie's vision for that, uh, creating fulfillment and purpose and how to maximize these opportunities in your lives as visionary leaders. And we'll see you guys on the other side. All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum. I'm your show host.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  What's up, Vision Pros? Welcome into another episode of Vision Pros Live. I'm your show host, Jackson Callum, founder and CEO of First Class Business. And I'm excited to have Kylie Leota on. You may have heard her from past episodes. She did a couple of interviews with Harry Vaschist as well. And her depth is one that we just want to keep drawing from the well of. So we just went through some of the resources that she has. Before we bring her back on stage, of course, we're always going to give you certain resources from our repertoire as well. We got Dave Morrow of HardToKill.org. Uh, Dave has been building Hard To Kill.org to help 100,000 veterans lose 2 million pounds collectively. And he's now opened his community for fitness and health up to civilians like myself.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Um, so go and check out HardToKill.org. If you know anybody in the veteran community, uh, consider sending them our way, especially because they, um,

• 13:30Speaker 01

  How do I put this in a way that's light but doesn't um doesn't tear down the feelings, right? Too many of our veterans are overlooked. Too many of them have, you know, end up suffering from depression and the suicide rate is absolutely insane right now. And a big part of that is the same thing that would happen to all of us if somebody took away all of our routines, our life direction, if our life is based on our role and put us in a position to where you had to kind of start from scratch again. So my empathy and heart goes out to those soldiers who live and live to protect us. And I love what Dave's up to, to help them get back on track with looking good, feeling good, and going about and doing good.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Sorry, guys, I don't know why I got emotional about that today, but it matters. Then there's opportunities, opportunities for work for Latinos specifically. I've got Cynthia here helping me out on the podcast today. And with opportunities, we're helping bridge the economic gap from North America to South America and rest of the world. And they've got their own podcast show for opportunities as well. If you're a Latino and you want to go on and inspire the rest of Latino world on what's possible, then definitely join us. We hosted Kike Anglais a few months back, 900,000 subscribers on YouTube as a English teacher. And we've got other Latinos who have been involved in that show as well. The point is not necessarily the accolades of like, how cool is this getting? It's actually the exact opposite.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  How many Latinos can we find who've never heard of LinkedIn, who've never heard of Canva, Upwork, who have no idea what digital marketing is, or that podcasting exists, just like Luisa, who did the interview with Kike after having never done a podcast interview in her life or hearing about it. It's amazing what's possible and we all come together and see how do we create win-win-win solutions. So it is a virtual assistant program, and more importantly, we're looking for more Latinos to get involved and help us carry that torch forward so we can bless more lives. Then there's the water project. The water project is not my resource. Um, we, we, uh, I just really like it. Um, so what we, uh, I have this little water bottle right here, right? I've never been thirsty in my life. Never had to worry about it. So when I came across the water project and I saw it,

• 15:42Speaker 01

  I specifically chose to meditate on it, think through what would it be like if my kids didn't have water? Or what would it be like if I had to be thirsty? And these individuals, they, uh, they don't have water sources within several miles of their homes. The water project comes in, builds a bore hole well or a sand dam. And, uh, they get to, they document the process. You can see the results of what you contribute towards. And I love their transparency related to that. And, uh, my hope again is maybe you'll turn this into a dinner conversation and you'll talk to your friends and family about what you can do to help out, uh, causes like this. And if you have a cause of your own that you'd like to support, or you'd like us to support, drop the comment, let us know what that cause is. Um, we might be able to dive in and help. We've got eight billion people to help in this world.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  And as long as I'm going to rock the microphone, I'm going to do it with that as a focal point. So, without further ado, Kylie, welcome back to Vision Pros Live and thank you so much for joining me.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  No, thank you so much. And I love that missions that you were just sharing about. And, uh, you know, it's just, it's always so powerful when we can collectively come together to bring that to the fore. So, um, thank you for your work in all of those different spaces to being that voice when people don't have a voice. Um, I'm super passionate about that kind of work as well. I'm a very strong advocate, um, for a few different causes myself. And so thank you for your work because without that, we don't get the airtime of different stories that need to be heard and voices matter.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  I love that. Thanks for doubling down on me. I really appreciate it. Um, with that said, we got visionary leaders listening in. Uh, some of them are probably just starting out with, some of them might not even call themselves visionary leaders yet. Others are well along the way. Maybe Elon Musk is listening today. Um, right? I'm curious though, what's your vision? What's your vision for those that you serve?

• 17:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, so the name of my company is called Elements for Success. So quite simply put, how that came about was Earl Nightingale, his definition of success was success is the progressive moralization of a worthy goal or ideal. And for you, Jackson, your vision of what success looks like for you might be different from what it looks like for me, different from your audience, different from those leaders that are just starting out to those leaders that are further ahead in the journey. But at the end of the day, it's helping people create that what success looks like for them, and then helping them backward map that steps along the way. And the elements part of Elements for Success is, we've all got skill gaps in our journey that are going to stop us from achieving that success that we define for

• 18:13Speaker 00

  ourselves. And my job is to help people close the gap and find those different elements that are going to help them in their journey to what success looks like for them, whether it be an individual personal level, or whether it be at a high level corporate organizational level, at the key and the foundation of it, that's what it's about, serving others to do that.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Okay, so your programs, um, what, I, I, I don't know how to ask this without it being a convoluted question, but what level of scale are they at? Because you're able to help both realms of that perspective, and you've been, you know, you've been making a life out of this. It's not like something that you dove into yesterday, um, right? And no, no, nothing wrong, people were just starting out again, but how, um, you know, help me, help us see that. I would love to know, like, is this open for everybody and anybody, Tony Robbins level, or, or yeah?

• 19:05Speaker 00

  Uh, so there's, yeah, so there's both arms of that. So I've got people that come to me that have never had access to coaching before, and they're like, I, I know I need something different. And, you know, with all due respect, there is amazing, um, therapeutic supports out there, but some people, for a whole variety of reasons, can't or won't access those particular supports. Whereas coaching is a little bit more accessible because most of us grew up a sport coach, or even music, or somewhere in school, or somewhere along the line. And coaching is about how to capture your best self and get it on the field, or get, capture your best self and get it out there. Right, so I do do individual uh work.

• 19:45Speaker 00

  But the other part of it, so I have this idea and when I started always have been helping people as individuals build their capacity to get to where they wanna go. But what I found was people were hitting ceilings and barriers all along the way because systems are broken. As we well know, it doesn't matter if it's America, it doesn't matter if it's Australia. There are many, many, many, many systems that are broken. So I'm I'm doing this work, helping people level themselves up into this space and they were hitting all these ceilings and I'm like, well, this is rubbish. Um, so I'm like, how do I remove some of those barriers for them so they continue on their trajectory to where they wanna go? So the other part of that is going into corporates, going into high level, high scale organizations.

• 20:26Speaker 00

  And we know that from here, the the difference between a great organization and a brilliant organization is the leadership. And we've got to get that right because the the flow on effect, the R I Y for everybody else in that organization is more than ten X. It's, you know, can't, I don't even know if you can put a price value on it. If we can remove some of those barriers. So I do both ends of that for that reason that I can build somebody's capacity and they can be brilliant. But they can still hit a ceiling. We've got to get rid of those ceilings. So being able to get into organizations, support them to be infinite leaders. And then this is ideas about sustainable practices, right? So how do we help them then support everybody else in there to create that exponential growth?

• 21:10Speaker 00

  And that continuous evolution of growth, which is actually what creates the innovation and the success and the excellence in whatever we do, both personally and professionally.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Love that. Love that you see you uh you said something about the word right and leadership. So I went ahead and combined the two because um there's different forms of leadership that exist out there and I'm with you as far as, you know, personal education and fulfillment can be extremely limited by our surroundings, by our environment, by the leaders who often control what that looks like, but they can also be amplified, right? They can be cultivated thanks to great leadership. So what is right leadership? How would you define that?

• 21:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, for me personally, I think right leadership is one that's really crafted a very solid foundation in psychological safety. And I say authentically, not tokenistically. I think it's become the new buzzword that becomes a workshop that you go to to tick a box to say that you do. But right leadership, you know, is first of all, understanding that as a leader, you're not always right. There's a really good principle in right leadership is being open to the fact that as a leader, you're not going to get it right all of the time. But if you have a solid foundation in psychological safety that is authentically embedded into your organization, then you're going to surround yourself with people that are going to help you get it right. And I think that's really, really important. And, and what does right mean?

• 22:40Speaker 00

  It's around creating that collective vision to get the best outcome for everyone. And it's the win win, not the I'm winning, you're losing model. It's, it's about creating the win win for everybody.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love, I'm going to interrupt what you said because I think a lot of people are going to miss what you said. Um, not because of you, because of us, right? As listeners, our blind spots. Psychological safety, psychological safety, psychological safety, right? So, uh, so many people out there building based on quarterly expectations, uh, based on grinding it out, moving it forward, uh, squeezing every drop out of the lemon, et cetera. Like, that's the, that's the typical process. Um, that is, uh, highlighted and pushed as the means for growth. Yet 96% of businesses lose within 10 years. Like, go figure, you all go to the same education class as everybody else does. You're going to end up with the same results that everybody else is, which we don't want.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  So you're going against the barrier with that and going back to the basics, I would say. Um, back to the fundamental reality of what we feel as human beings. Let's talk about that. What is psychological safety? And how do we help entrepreneurs catch the vision clear faster and be inspired to move towards it? So that they can adopt it and say like, oh, gosh, like, duh, let's, let's do this.

• 23:58Speaker 00

  I and I think a lot of entrepreneurs have grown up in a space where it wasn't safe to be themselves. That's why they're entrepreneurs in the first place. They didn't fit into a mold. That says in corporate, we work or we do this, right? Because our our brains are wired differently. And one of the things that I said a couple of years ago is I'm so tired of apologizing for the way that my brain works. So how do we create?

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Love that.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  How do we create a space that is psychologically safe for me and going back to that ecosystem model, right? But at at its foundational principles, whether you're talking about corporate, whether you're talking about entrepreneurship, or whether you're talking about your own family, like I'm a mum of three kids, right? So at the premise level, the very first level of psychological safety is inclusion. I feel like I belong here. And that could be in a conversation, it could be in a meeting, it could be in the organization, it could be within the team. What does that look like for me? And the part for yourself as right leaders for yourself is not that the organization should do this for me. But self identifying, what does it feel like to belong? How do I know?

• 25:04Speaker 00

  That I belong in this space or how do I feel like I belong in this space? And so as an entrepreneur, you're constantly on the hustle. And trying sometimes trying to put yourself square pegged around hole. But how do you know if it's a good fit for you? Uh, instead of wasting your energy on things that aren't a good fit. So that sense of belonging and at its basic level, I feel like I belong here. I feel like I'm welcome here. And sometimes that's with ourselves, right? What does it feel like to be okay to belong to myself as this entrepreneurial mindset? Um, and be kind and compassionate to myself in this journey.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Huge.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  The second, the second part is that learner phase. I'm learning along this journey. And there's sometimes I'm going to get it right and sometimes I'm not. But the only time it's a failure is if I don't take something away from it. The true failure is if I continue to re re um. I guess reject the learnings, you know, and it's about finding the wisdom in those wounds, not that we won't have wounds on that journey. And I think one of the most, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty hard on myself. I've got a pretty high aspirations for myself. So being a former educator. I am the most compassionate person and my, my young people that I worked with were kids on roofs, kids with knives, kids with, had horrific.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Horrific uh stories and everyone would go, oh my gosh, you are so compassionate and so caring, but I haven't always been that to myself. Right. And so, you know, what does that look like and sound like and feel like for me in this journey? When I'm not getting where I think I should be, or you know, how do I give myself grace in that moment? But how do I surround myself with people that are going to give me grace with the fact that I'm not always going to be perfect? Because whilst I do a lot of things well, there are some things not so great at. Ask my kids, they'll tell you, right? So um finding grace and compassion in that moment. The next part of psychological safety is contribution.

• 27:05Speaker 00

  If I walk into this conversation, I walk into this meeting, I walk into this team or the organisation. My contribution is valued regardless of whether they take it on board or not. I feel like I have the right to speak up and share my thoughts and ideas and I walk away feeling heard. How often does that not happen for us? And I even go back to one of the big pieces I talk about is feedback, because I think we do it so poorly. Hmm. When, when did anyone that you led, uh sorry, anyone that led you ever come up to you and say, hey, Jackson? When I've got some feedback to give you, how would you like me to give it to you in a way that you can receive it?

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Not very often.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't recall anyone ever saying that to me. They've all got their, Kylie, I've got some feedback for you. Or catch me when it's a really bad time, or they'll say it in a way and I'm like.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  The, the hard part from, I, I understand the wisdom, what you're saying, cause there's like 99.9% of people don't have that, right? But you, you highlighted a truth that resonates super well with me, right? And that's, I've built a team of belonging, all right? And I've been raised with people who, you know, like I've, I've got other leaders who did that for me because I dedicated my life to trying to figure out how to find leaders like that. So I know I'm the exception to the rule on that. If you don't have that in your life, know that there are lots of great leaders out there. There's lots of great environments to belong within. And if you're not in that, then you have an opportunity to choose to find one, uh, to move towards.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  And, and you don't have to accept less than because you feel like you, you know, this is what it is. And I often say to people that haven't had that very blessed experience that you've got of having leaders that created that around you. I, I often start with, no, the, I, I learned more lessons about leadership from the bad leadership about what I didn't want to be. That was actually how I started my model. It was like, nope, I'm not doing that. Mm-mm. I will never do that. Mm-mm. Not do that. And so from that, I crafted what I felt it looked like to be that set, create that sense of belonging. And I have staff that worked with me 15 years ago that will still reach out to me and go, Kylie, you are the first and only leader that had ever actually made me feel seen, heard and accepted.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  And she goes, I've, I've been missing that for the last 15 years in my leadership journey. Can we catch up? And in one conversation, they're like, I've had more support from you in one conversation than I've had in the last 15 years.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Cause the thing is, those of you who are listening in, um, you have an extreme opportunity. The wisest of those listening in are hearing and valuing both sides of this equation. And why does that matter? Cause as a leader, you have to, you, we have the opportunity to help people learn what to escape, right? And to have, you have to have empathy and compassion in order to do that. And then the flip side, you're, you know, now how to guide them, like what you're guiding them to, where are you going to take them? And so I, I do appreciate. Being able to hear both sides of this and be able to dynamically dive into both sides at once, because it's very rare that a leader has that depth to be able to dive into both

• 30:16Speaker 01

  simultaneously. So I've got, real quick, a recap. I've got, one, the sense of belonging, two, facilitating a place where I'm learning and where others can learn, three, the contribution aspect, right? And facilitating an opportunity for people to contribute.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  And the last one of psychological safety is that challenger safety around the fact that is, if I should hope that anyone on my team can actually come up to me and go, hey Kylie, I know you said this thing that we're gonna do, I'm not sure it's right, can I, can I help, can I get you to help me unpack that? Or I can actually go, hey, can you help me understand why you made that decision, Jackson, the other day, when you said this thing in the meeting, because I'm struggling with that right now, without fear of losing their job, without fear of that person not liking them, without fear that we're not going to be okay at the end of this conversation, right?

• 31:10Speaker 01

  So is this, is this the fourth point? Do you define that the way Patrick Lencioni does as healthy conflict? Or is there a different term that you use for it?

• 31:18Speaker 00

  I, I use considered conflict. Um, so I actually run, yeah, I use, I, yeah, I create, and I run workshops on it, actually. I'm heading off, I'm jumping on a plane after this, um, podcast to go down to Melbourne in Australia and, uh, run a workshop on it. Because the idea is that we grew up, most of us grew up the narrative that conflict is bad. And if you ask people what they think of conflict, they've got a negative definition to it. But there's, when we do it in a considered manner, we can have a constructive and positive outcome where we're still intact at the end of it. And I think that's the most important piece of it, is the fact that, you know, it's about being, I always talk about being proactive

• 32:00Speaker 00

  versus reactive. And considered conflict is a proactive approach to challenger safety in making sure that we do it in the right way. So, you know, the Gottmans talk about how to fight well. They've got this concept about how to fight well.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Let's talk through that. That's a big one.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I love it. So the Gottmans talk about the four horsemen of the apocalypse. They talk about criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. And the Gottmans are famous for their work in personal relationships about, you know, I think they talk about the fact that, you know, within seven minutes of observing a couple, they can kind of assess whether they're going to stay together or not. Uh, but in organizations, it's true. How do we create, how do we fight well in organizations?

• 32:43Speaker 01

  For those of you who don't know, real quick, the Gottmans are like the Michael Jordan of psychology. Like that's just what they're known as. It's one of my psychologists said and was invalidated by a lot of other psychologists. So, yeah, the Gottman Institute, we can all learn from. Go ahead, sir.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and I love, what I love about what I do is I'll learn something personally and I'm like, oh, that's, but how do I then create a lens into the organizational space where that can relate? And my life journey was I got opportunities to learn leadership skills in my work life. I didn't know how to apply them to my personal life. So I love to blend them both together and, and, you know, go back and forth. So Gottmans are known for their personal, I guess, side of things, but they also do the org side of things are just less known for it. So how do we have a good, healthy, robust, fight well conversation and go away feeling like I'm okay at the end of it because we're focused on the issue at hand and I haven't walked away feeling like you're personally attacking me.

• 33:40Speaker 00

  Um, and so four things that they talk about, yeah, is removing the criticism, removing the contempt, moving the defensiveness and the stonewalling. But it's about having those healthy, healthy mechanisms in that space, right? Um, you know, and being able to use, and, and like anything in life, it's like a practice. How did you get good as a baseball player? Or how did you get good as a musician? You practiced. You don't get, you don't wake up one day and come off this podcast and go, oh my gosh, I'm going to nail psych safety now. It's, it's a practice.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  I mean, y'all might, but I spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars and hours on therapy and counseling and watching videos and reading books like this, boundaries in marriage, five love languages, et cetera, like child whisper, like there's all sorts of resources and. It, you know, it comes down to what type of life do we want to carve out for ourselves? Do we want to accept the status quo or what's just given to us? Or do we see an opportunity and optimization and and positive changes? And that's a, so yes, I love these concepts. I'm glad you're.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, and even the love language concepts in an organization, what does that look like? Is how do we validate people?

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  Some people need the words of affirmation, some people do not. Some people need, hey, I'll take that off your caseload today. I'll help you out by helping you with this thing, you know, so by understanding.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  There's one more level of this, there's one more level of this too. There's a book that almost nobody reads called Tribal Leadership. Tribal Leadership takes this all to a level that I've never seen.

• 35:14Speaker 00

  Sorry, I just missed, oh tribal, yes.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Tribal Leadership.

• 35:18Speaker 00

  Yes, I've also in my bookcase at my office, yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  Incredible concept that takes that all of that to the next level. For those of you visionaries who are looking to build at scale, super valuable. Now, I want to, I want to pull this into my favorite question. Um, because you got a depth that this is going to be a lot of fun. Kylie, this is the last opportunity you ever had to share. Words of wisdom with an audience. What powerful lesson can other visionaries learn from your experience?

• 35:49Speaker 00

  Um, so I would say that we are this, we have to be aware that we are the sum of our experiences. But we don't allow ourselves to be defined by those experiences.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  Tell me about that.

• 36:01Speaker 00

  So I, I guess going back to those experiences, so I. My most, I actually didn't hilariously aspire to be a leader in the traditional sense. I didn't wake up one morning and go, oh, my gosh, I want to be a visionary or I want to be a leader. And my life was one of where safety and security was, I guess, the paramount thing. And so I could have left level, uh, lived a very. Middle of the line life around that due to the sum of my experiences. Uh, and that would have been okay. But I didn't want to be defined by that. And so what happened is every time something happened to me. So I I mentioned earlier, I went through domestic violence.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  It was a pretty horrific experience. And I could have allowed myself very validly to have been consumed by that. And lived a very, very small life as a basis of that. But, you know, uh, Elizabeth Gilbert says, my children do not mean. My children don't need me to save them. They need to watch me save myself.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  And that was a knife through the heart going, what am I modeling right now? And whether you're a leadership in your home life or whether you're a leadership in your professional life. Is I always go back to what am I modeling right now? And so am I modeling that I'm going to allow that experience to shrink me? Or am I going to take the wisdoms from that wound and I'm going to apply it and not be defined by that thing? Cause at the end of the day, I don't want my children being defined by the fact that they were raised by a single mom. I want them to take the lessons of the fact that they've had to dig deeper. And had to overcome a few things that maybe some other people haven't had to navigate. But don't use it as an excuse and don't use it as a defined define you as to why you can't. And I think as if we're a true visionary leader.

• 37:50Speaker 00

  It's that whole, you know, fall down seven, get up eight, fall down seventy seven, get up eighty eight, fall down seven hundred. Get up seven hundred and one times, right? Is that it's okay to feel it in the moment. And I think it's really important that we don't dismiss our experiences.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  We have to acknowledge them. But don't allow yourself to be defined by them. Both good and bad.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  We had, uh, I had a great discussion with John Whaley on the podcast and we were talking about adversities. And how most people refer to them as the silver, like you can learn to refer to that as the silver lining. You know, uh, that exists in life. And he called it the silver road. And I was like, oh, that's awesome. Like that's owning fully that if we didn't have. The experiences that we've had in our past, we wouldn't be experiencing the good that we're experiencing now and that we can get to experience. And that can feel very overwhelming if we can't feel the benefit of the silver. Right? If we feel like we're stuck in the mud and it can take a daily process, but I will go back to what you said.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  The sense of belonging, right? Having a community, many people uplift you. Most of you who are listening to this show, you're here because you do have a sense of healthy community. You've already put yourself in a space or been blessed to be in a space where your vision is something that you can consider valuing. There's so many people who don't have that ability in the world to even fathom or think through or listen to five minutes of this, not being like, oh, my gosh, this is too frou frou. Um, you know, let's move on for it. But I want to validate what you said because your concept of we're not like, yes, the sum of our experiences are valid, they're there and we're not defined by it. Um, you know, I learned that at a very young age where you start to hear things as a kid, you know, if you're paying attention in school.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Well, I was from a divorced background. Right? I wasn't supposed to be successful based on stats, right? Yeah, exactly. And I, uh, I was somebody who, uh, grew up with abuse, um, you know, spiritual, mental, physical, sexual abuse. I was not supposed to be successful according to statistics. And I knew I was, I was a good, I was good at math. I could see like, oh crap, that means that my percent chance of being able to succeed is going from here down here. And my mom was a single mom of six. Um, and so multiply the fact now you don't have the individual time with your parent. Um, you know, that they say that one child needs to have, et cetera.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Well, I had to make conscious choices and decisions in my life to say, you know what? I'm not a statistic. I'm going to find the variables, right, that help me, give me my edge to be able to do what I need to do. There's been positives, there's been negatives, right, consequences all around in that, but I'm not defined by those past experiences, neither any of you. I'm a single father of four. I'm twice divorced. They're experiences. I've learned phenomenal lessons from each one of those experiences and been able to see the, the opportunities, not that what I have to go through. I don't have to go through anything. I choose to go through it. I've never been a prisoner of war.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  So I can't speak to that, but good news, there's books out there on people who went through that and still found a way towards abundance in their life. So we, we've, we've just been blessed with such a great opportunity to live in an age where all these resources are available to us and we have virtual communication possibilities where somebody as awesome as Kylie is willing to get up at six in the morning. Um, or ready at six in the morning in order to bring us abundance. And I just want to honor you and thank you for that because you don't have to do what you do, yet you don't only do it because of duty, you do it because you love to and you want to help others and that's just, that's the way to live.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  Oh, I, it, there was a, um, a big lotto. We don't have big, um, amounts like you do in America, but we had a very big lotto here the other day and, and I, you know, I was talking to a friend of mine. I said, so, you know, if I won this huge lotto that we had here, do you know what I'd do, do tomorrow? I'd get up and I would go serve my clients. I, you know, because I get, I get to do that. That's something I have a privilege to do.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Now you have a vehicle, of, of even greater, greater resources to do it too. Go ahead, continue on that because this is you.

• 42:21Speaker 00

  And what it would do.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Your vision's real, it can feel like that. Go ahead.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it would give me a mechanism to serve more people more powerfully. That's what that conduit would give me. But going back to that ecosystem that you were talking about earlier is, one of the things that I have learnt the very hard way in my life is, there's people in your life, and often we don't actually audit our ecosystem. There are people that are in our existence, and we actually, how often do we take the time to audit whether or not they are going to be a huge supporter of you to get to the next phase of your journey? And that's not to say that people are bad. I want to really caveat that I'm not saying-

• 43:05Speaker 01

  I do it in every relationship, every day, Kylie. And I've learned that people who are successful do the same thing. It's healthy boundaries, and most people don't know it, so I'm with you, doubling down, like, go Kylie, go.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that was a hard, and so one of the things that I had an experience was, I had somebody in my life who I thought was a huge supporter of me. And when I started doing things with the US, I'm heading to, I'm coming over to the US in March, I'm doing all of these things. Anyway, as I started to expand, because as Marianne Williamson says, you're playing small does not serve the world. As I started to expand, I was getting a different vibe. And what I realised was, they were supportive of me to the level of their comfort.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:48Speaker 00

  And when I started to play outside of their comfort level, I don't think they were even consciously aware of it. They're not a bad person. They're one of my most favourite people in the whole entire world. But they were stifling because all of a sudden, I wasn't in line with their comfort level. So, doing an energy audit of the people, places and things that you surround yourself with, is really constant. And that's not to say that you don't have these people in your life, but it's around how you allow that engagement in your life, so that you can continue and not continue to shrink yourself for the comfort of others.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  The best of you, Viv, very good listening in. The best of you. Almost all of you have a coach that is that limiting person. I'm calling the industry out. It is so sad to me, the amount of people who say, I already have a coach. And where does that come from? A coach who has put you in a position to where you feel like they're the best thing since God. LeBron James, how many coaches does that man have in his life? Like a hundred. Same thing with Jeff Bezos, same thing with Elon Musk. So there are levels to this and it doesn't mean we have to eliminate. Doesn't mean we have to crucify, doesn't mean we have to burn people at the stake, et cetera. We can sell the relationships. I had to shut down one of my closest core essential relationships a few weeks ago.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna say who it is, but all of y'all know what that close core looks like from a familial standpoint, right? And I said, look, I said, I don't feel like I can share who I am with you anymore. Because every time I do, you bring me down. And so I'm going to stop. Like I'm done and my boundary in line is now here. And you know, it is what it is. I'm not sorry, right? And, and, but I love you, right? And I walked out. Um, and we went through several weeks where that, like, that was it. Like, that's where it was and that's where it was left. But because that person loves me and because I love that person, we ended up having a new opportunity to explore. Is it safe? Right?

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Is there hope? Um, you know, is this going to go well? And as we did, um, you know, it gave me the time, the opportunity to reopen that gate and say, you know what? We're all right. Um, you know, we can figure this out. That's not always the case with our relationships. Sometimes we need a big old break or we need a permanent break and say like, I can love you from a distance, but not in my life. Um, right? That does happen. So I love that you talk about the auditing of our ecosystems, the. Taking our social apps, right, and unfollowing a bunch of people. You don't have to unfriend them. Unfollow. I did it the other day. I unfollowed like 3,000 people in a matter of two weeks because I've got all these wonderful coaches and professionals who love to promote and yap their butts off about

• 46:36Speaker 01

  all the things that they're trying to show off and do. I don't need that in my feed. I mean, it just distracts me and just noise. It ruined my ability to see my closest relationships and what was going on in their lives. So, these are lessons, visionaries, that you will learn as you go. And I hope that you teach us in the comments too. What do you do in your lives to audit and make sure that your ecosystems are safe and sound because I'm always trying to optimize that. So Kylie, you've really, really helped us out a lot today. Vision Pros, we will have below this episode, the links for the action steps that you can take with Kylie. We'll also have below those links, all of the resources that we talked about. I mean, I have my work

• 47:17Speaker 01

  going out for me today. Me and you have to work on that list, but we'll get those on the resource notes as well. That way, it's easy for you to go and click and see how to explore those depths of relationships, those opportunities. Reach out to the authors, take some bold moves. Like I said, get in touch with Kylie too. And if you felt inspired enough to want more, then go directly to the source. Reach out to her and build a relationship. And Vision Pros, we'll see you all in the next episode. Before I close out though, Kylie, I've been inspired. I'm gonna let you close today. Any final thoughts you want to share with the audience?

• 47:53Speaker 00

  I just go back to that idea as, you know, that Marianne Williamson talks about, you're playing small doesn't serve the world. So where in your life are you playing small? And what can you do to be an infinite leader and remove those barriers for yourself so that you continue that evolution to your own success and to create the life that you want?

• 48:14Speaker 01

  That's fantastic. We'll see you all in the next episode. And if you'd like to share your vision, apply. Top right corner, it says be our guest. We'd love to have you. Bye bye, everybody. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is gonna get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision.