A Personal Note from Orion

For us women, leadership often comes naturally as we manage our households, our careers, our kids, even our interpersonal relationships. We coordinate bake sales and plan our best friend’s bridal shower. But one thing that we often seem to forget? Taking time for ourselves. Whether it’s 5 minutes or an hour a day, that time dedicated to self-love and reflection is so critical in resetting your mindset. Once you are refreshed, you’ll have the ability to handle the challenges leaders face so you can lead your business, your team, your family – whatever it is – with positivity and grace. 
  
My guest today, Kelly Lynn Adams, is a certified coach who has helped thousands of woman launch their businesses by teaching them to develop their self-confidence and become the leaders they need to succeed. Tune in to learn how to develop your leadership skills while juggling a work-life balance, and still find that “reset” time for yourself.

In this Episode

• [03:58] – Kelly introduces herself and talks about her history in the coaching industry.
• [04:45] – What is the biggest obstacle for women who want to start their own business while working a 9-5 job?
• [07:50] – Kelly talks about the gap that she bridges between what women say they want and what they actually do.
• [12:14] – Orion talks about Dr. Demartini’s value determination, which you can take on his website.
• [14:05] – What does Kelly see as success? In her answer, she talks about a specific goal she set, and how she felt when she achieved it.
• [19:04] – Orion responds to Kelly’s answer about what success means for her, and explains the value of taking time to relax.
• [23:12] – Kelly talks about a point in her career when she was working too hard and ended up in the hospital.
• [27:18] – What does Kelly see that women are lacking in when it comes to understanding how powerful, smart, wise, and wonderful they are?
• [33:39] – We hear more about Kelly’s and Orion’s experiences with horses.
• [37:07] – Orion shares more extraordinary experiences that she has had with animals.
• [39:11] – How does Kelly help her clients achieve life-work balance?
• [43:12] – Kelly tackles the question of how making money is a spiritual thing, pointing out that it’s a way of honoring your worth.
• [46:23] – What are Kelly’s three top tips for living a stellar life? #1. Manage your mindset and what you’re consuming on all levels. #2. When you think you have surrendered, surrender some more. #3. Slow down to speed up.
• [49:58] – Kelly lists some places where people can find her online to learn more about what she does or work with her.

About Today’s Show

‏‏The other day, I watched a show where they did this scientific experiment with kids—groups of kids, boys and girls and they wanted to see who can remember more words or something like that but what was really interesting to me is that the guide pointed at one of the kids and told that kid, “Okay. Now you’re the captain,” and most kids were so excited but there was one kid that was really, really scared of being the captain. He was tiny, I don’t know, they were maybe five or four, something like that. They asked him, “Why are you scared?” And he said seriously, “You know… because if I cannot remember all the items, I’m going to let everybody down.” He was really stressed out because he was the captain but they kept him the captain. What was really beautiful is that his group won. He was so smart, he was extraordinary. What shifted in his little mind was the idea that he can lead. Woah. he can be a leader. He said, “Okay, next time, I want to be a captain. I like being a captain.” Leadership is something scary. Taking leadership… it’s not that you are natural-born leaders, it’s mostly not that natural. It’s usually something happened or they grow up in an environment that supports them or they make a decision and they saw that they are able to lead others. In order to lead others, you don’t have to be the smartest. You don’t have to know everything that they need to do. You just need to be a good leader. This is a learned skill. Woohoo! Today, we talk a bit about leadership in your own life and in general. We talk about how to find your true power, how to show up powerfully in life. My guest is Kelly Lynn Adams, she is a certified leadership and life coach, writer, speaker, and founder of The After Five Club–which is a movement that helps 9-5ers grow their side hustles while juggling it all. Kelly Lynn has helped thousands of women build smart and sustainable businesses. She has helped women to redefine success through shifting their mindset, increasing their confidence, and stepping into their divine power. Now, without further ado, onto the show. Hi, Kelly. Welcome to Stellar Life podcast.

‏‏Hello. Thank you so much for having me.

‏‏Yes, thank you so much for being here. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

‏‏Yes. I started a coaching business, it may have been seven or eight years. I actually help women who are in 9 to 5s, really kind of have a side hustle done, and they want to elevate it and grow their businesses. I started a movement called The After Five Club. We really just focus on topics such as; managing their mindset, creating time in their life, and monetizing in their business. That’s kind of who I help from a coaching perspective. I also speak as well and facilitate workshops, and on social media a lot. That’s kind of in a nutshell of who I am and what I’m about.

‏‏That’s awesome. What do you think women that want to start doing business after their 9 to 5, what is their biggest obstacle?

‏‏I think there’s a couple of things. I think it’s one, it’s finding the time. Finding the time to, yet again, do another thing, or another thing they want to create. Who has the time to do it all? Because their schedule is so full right now with a full time job or even if they’re a mom—they’re taking care of the family. Honestly, it’s just woman in general. You don’t even have to have a 9 to 5. A lot of my clients are not in 9 to 5s. Some of them actually have full time jobs but I think for women, especially today, we’ve taken on so much, we’re doing more than our mothers and grandmothers I think have done in the past—not saying that they have not done a lot—but I think society is just moving on a faster pace, especially with social media. It’s so easy to connect and so quick now that it’s just natural that we’re doing more than ever. We’re wearing all these hats. We have a lot more opportunities than our mothers and grandmothers did. That’s one thing I see that women struggle with is creating the time. A lot of them are just like, “Go, go, go, go, going,” myself included. I was definitely a Type A like, “Gotta get it done right from New York.” Just always going. Then I think also, women, they struggle with confidence, like really believing in themselves. Like, “Can I actually do this? Who am I to do this? Deep down, can I really create this? Are people going to really want to be around me, or buy from me, or going to be interested in what I’m creating or selling?” I think the third is like, “How the heck do I make money? How do I charge my worth? Are people really going to buy it?” Honestly, it’s kind of linked to with worth. It’s like, “How do I step aside and really commit to my dreams and desires? How do I not self-sabotage?” Because self-sabotage can look like you can say you want change and you can really be like, “I’m committed, I’m committed.” But when the rubber hits the road, and when either you have to lay down an investment to hire a coach, or invest in a program, or if say, you want to lose weight, and you know you have to move your body everyday, it’s hard. It’s simple but hard. But I think a lot of times, we self-sabotage ourselves saying that we want one thing but not truly committing or being scared of change. Change is really hard for some people to change. You have to have the willingness. You have to be ready for it or maybe not ready for it but know that you’re willing to take on the challenge. Those are the main areas that I help my clients with. I’ve just basically seen women within my community, in my sphere… that’s what they’re currently dealing with.

‏‏When people are on this see-saw like, “Oh my god, I really want to succeed and this is what I want.” But in reality they do the opposite. What’s the gap there that you help bridge? What’s the reason that people desire something but they really hold themselves back?

‏‏It’s not funny but a lot of it is we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Sometimes what we want we think we may want but sometimes it’s like societal pressures, or a parent’s pressure, or what we think, where we think where we should be at a certain age, or making a certain amount of money, or having a certain amount of followers. It’s kind of asking yourself, “What do you want? Where are you currently right now? What is your current situation?” And then the next questions is, “What do you really, really want?” Like your ideal life. Don’t listen to your parents, don’t listen to society, “What would truly make you happy?” Then the third question is like, “What are the obstacles?” One of my clients wanted to leave her corporate job in six months and wanted to be in a romantic relationship in six months. She was just fed up with both of those areas of her life. But that’s a lot of pressure–to leave your full time job in six months and to meet the man of your dreams in six months. Listen, that’s her ideal vision that she wants to leave her job and she wants to be in a romantic relationship, close to marriage but that’s a lot of pressure to out on yourself. What we learned is some of those wants, she wanted what she wanted, of course it’s going to feel good to quit your job, and of course it’s going to feel good to meet your husband. But some of the pressures of why she was putting pressure on herself was because society had said, “Okay, she’s 35. She has to have a husband by now. She wants to be an entrepreneur. She’s getting older. She should have a successful business by now.” It’s a lot of pressures from society but also a lot of pressures too with family and friends. Like asking her, “When are you getting married?” Or, “How is the dating going?” That’s what I mean about kind of what you really want, taking aside society, family, and friends–external circumstances and pressures that you feel. What would truly make you happy and then kind of seeing what are the obstacles in the way?Sometimes it’s saying that, for example, if she want a relationship then what would be the obstacle? Well, she wasn’t getting out there. She wasn’t meeting people. She wasn’t online. She wasn’t doing this certain things that could help her to attract a partner to her. She was just working all the time in her job and not even having fun with even her friends. It’s kind of like we create our own lives. It’s our thoughts, it’s our words, and our actions. If you wanna create a life that you want, you have to speak it, you have to be committed to taking aligned action towards getting it, but then also realizing, “Okay, what am I doing that maybe me creating my own obstacles towards it?” It’s just being, I think, self-sabotaging yourself, putting a lot of pressure on yourself, and then also being like what truly makes you happy? If I were to ask everyone listening, “What is your definition of success?” Everyone will have a different definition of success. What would make you feel happy because as an entrepreneur, even if you said, “Oh, what I think success is, is having $1 million business.” Okay, well after you get that $1 million business, you’re going to want something else. Because we’re always evolving, we’re always growing, we’re always learning. Whenever we set goals for our self, yes, that could be one part of feeling successful, but then you’re always going to want another goal. It’s kind of like you’re running a rat race, of chasing these goals, and then attaining them, and then chasing more goals but then not feeling like you’re ever truly successful, or ever feeling that you’re truly fulfilled. I think that question, what is success mean to you—that’s from an author, his name is Robert Holton, he’s written a couple of books on success—of just saying what does success look like to you? Like I said, every single person has a different version of what that looks like for them.

Sometimes what we want we think we may want but sometimes it’s like societal pressures, or a parent’s pressure, or what we think, where we think where we should be at a certain age, or making a certain amount of money, or having a certain amount of followers.

‏‏Right. Have you heard of the Value Determination from Dr. Demartini?

‏‏No.

‏‏Dr. Demartini, he was featured on the movie The Secret back in the day. I studied with him, and interviewed him, and wrote an article about him. There’s a lot of things with him. He has this Value Determination and people can go onto the Dr. Demartini website and do it for themselves. It’s a series of questions that determine your highest values. Let’s say, your highest value is family, travel, resting, and whatever it is, and you really want to make money, you’re really like, “I wanna be a billionaire.” But it’s not a part of your four highest values, it will never happen, and then the way to surpass it is to connect the desire to have a lot of money for example to your top three or four values. For example, if you want to be a billionaire then you want to relate it to your family, to your legacy, to what you’re going to give your family or your kids, and then the values will align. There won’t be that gap between, “These are my four values that are determined by the books I read, the actions I take, the people I surround myself with, the things I focus on,” but then there is like you said, the social expectation or some kind of a fantasy of, “I wanna be rich.” When you align your highest values with where you wanna go then it’s easier to gap it as well. I love what you said about what is success for you. I want to ask you this question, what do you see as success?

‏‏By the way, I love that you shared that. I have to look them up now because that sounds…

‏‏… really amazing.

‏‏Yeah. Fascinating. My coach actually asked me the same question when I first started coaching with her. I’ll tell you what my definition of success was before I started coaching with her and then now. When I first was asked that question, what is success to me, I was like, “It’s $1 million business. It’s being married to the man of my dreams. It’s leaving a legacy for the next generation to come. Having three houses. Having amazing cars, amazing clothes.” A lot of it was all external. A lot of, “Having the best bags, having a housekeeper, having a personal trainer.” I just wanted all the things that I thought would make me happy. Listen, it’s great. Whenever I can buy a new handbag it makes you feel good for a second, right? It was all of that external, “I want a million dollar business so I don’t have to worry about money anymore. I want to employ people so they feel the freedom.” It kind of shifted because like I said, I had this real aha moments throughout these past couple of months, even with myself being like, “What is success for me?” I had made a goal a couple of years ago that if I were just to get myself on TV to be as seen and known as an expert. If I could just get on TV, get onto three news stations, just to become an expert, that would be amazing, that would be success and I did it. I worked really hard and I literally like cold called news stations all over United States. I was willing to fly wherever. I literally was like, “I’m getting on TV. I don’t care. I’m going to be an expert.” And I did it. I got myself on TV. I worked with a media coach and it was crazy. I did it and I got on TV. I did this all with him in three months. I would wake up at [5:30] in the morning and start calling…

‏‏The producers?

‏‏Yeah. I call the producers, their morning show anchors, who do I send a pitch to.

‏‏ Yeah I’ve done that too.

‏‏Yeah. But then when I did it, I was like, “Man,” I already have it mind that I did and I achieved it but did I feel more successful? Yeah, maybe for the first five minutes or maybe for the next two weeks when I rewatch the replay of the show. But after that, I was like, “Now what?” I had felt successful in the moment but I don’t truly feel like, “Oh my god, I’m this big hit.” That’s what I mean, your definition of success, what is true success mean? Now, today, I would say my definition of success is—over the past couple of months I’ve been working on this concept of slowing down to speed up—so really giving myself space to have fun, to slow down, to really enjoy the moments, and not future trip on like, “Oh my god, if I got this I would feel this.” I actually just travelled, I came back from Key West, Florida, which is like the big beach–it’s all beach, it’s an island. This woman had a shirt on and it says, “The only moment we have is now.” It was on her t-shirt. I was like, “Oh my gosh,” I went up to her and I’m like, “I love your t-shirt.” That’s what we have is the present moment. For me, success… like there’s a couple of definitions I think of when I think of success, it’s like just being in the present moment at every point in time. It’s really hard to do but really start living my life now. I was waiting to live my life until I hit a million-dollar mark in my business or I would wait until I found a husband. I waiting to actually live my life and I wasn’t living my life. I was working, I was working, I was working just to obtain all these goals and then I was going to start living. Right now in this moment, I could say success means really living in the moment for me, and I wanna feel when I have achieved that external circumstance. How do I feel wanna feel now? I wanna feel more free. I wanna feel more grounded. I wanna feel like I’m living each and every moment to its fullest because life is short and who knows what can happen tomorrow. Success means making an impact in other’s lives whether that be on a bigger scale on one person at a time. It’s just knowing that I’m here to make a difference and then just living my life how I would want it to be lived, if this was my last week on earth. I think it’s that, it’s more inner. I’ve become more from external to inner, and really experiencing what I want right now because that’s all we have. Of course, I have goals and huge visions but it’s not getting myself so caught up in that that I lose perspective in the here and now. I would say that is like a shorter version of my what is success look like for me right now.

‏‏I love everything you said. I really like the concept of slowing down to speeding up because before we started this interview, I told you that I’m now in Israel, and I came here to spend some time with my family. Things did not go my way when I came here–there were so many obstacles. Things that happened personally and in my family that were unexpected and quite hard—trying to find a place in the car and all that—nothing went smoothly. I’ve been stressing out and really looking, and running errands everyday, and doing a lot of work. Then I had a planned weekend with my girlfriends, we went to Budapest—which is super easy from here, it’s just three-hour flight, so going to Europe is easy. I just took the weekend to not worry, to just relax and have fun, and we did. We had so much fun, we were laughing together, and it brought me back to my highschool days–we just had a blast. I came back and the next day, I achieved in a day what I did not achieve in the previous 2 ½ weeks–in a day.

‏‏Wow.

‏‏I’m like, “How did this happen? What just happened?” Also, it’s almost something like there was this like a bottle with a cork that stuck really hard, and the Monday when I came back, it was like, the cork was off. Like, “Oh, things are now smoother.” The energy is more flowing. All of a sudden that slowing down, like you said, that taking the time to just release the stress, the anxiety, the expectations, and replace it with just living in the moment and having fun, was so good.

‏‏Yeah. You pointed something out, you got more accomplished in that one day than the last two weeks, that’s so important because you’re aligned. That’s why we always use to think like, “Oh, I can’t stop. I’m going to miss something.” But it’s when we actually truly just stop and allow, it just all flows–you’re free flowing. I’m not here to say, “Oh, don’t take aligned action.” Yes, there’s action required but sometimes you just have to cork off the bottle and it just has to be released because there’s an equal amount of giving and receiving. As much as we give, especially as entrepreneurs and women in general, we have to equally receive. For women—I’m not speaking for every woman that’s listening—but for a lot of women out there it’s hard. It’s hard to receive because we’re so used to serving other people, or taking care of other people, taking care of others at our own expense. It’s that whole receiving piece is huge. I think women really have to receive more too.

Sometimes, you just have to cork off the bottle and it just has to be released because there’s an equal amount of giving and receiving.

‏‏Yeah. In those weeks, I was not receiving, I was taking care of everybody around me. The moment I landed, taking care of everybody and everything. I felt like there were such heavy load on my shoulder. It was quite depressing but it’s over. What you said, even speaking to my mom, it was like, “Stop it. Stop taking care of everybody.” My hair started falling. Girl, I got so stressed out. I coach women on how to destress and love themselves, it’s kind of funny to see this polar opposite happen to me when life gets too hard but I’m also very grateful to know everything I know. As coaches, we usually teach what we have to learn ourselves, so it was just another way to learn the same thing that I share with everybody.

‏‏Absolutely. A similar thing happened to me at one point in my career. I was in corporate America working for one of the largest retail luxury, billion dollar brands. Everyone would know the name if I said it but I was working really, really, really hard, and I was climbing the corporate ladder. I had to work some crazy amount of work because it’s a really busy time in the year in the fashion industry, and for a month I had to work 80 hours a week. It was insane and I did it but at the expense of my own health. I actually landed in the hospital because my body was completely shutting down because all I was doing was working, eating, and sleeping. You know what they said, the doctors were just like, “Yeah, you’re just totally burnt out, totally exhausted,” and I was coaching women at the time too. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I teach women self-love, and confidence, and how to manage your time better.” And my butt is in the hospital like, “What the heck happened?” It’s like, the universe was, “Nope, you’re going to master this so you can even teach it at a higher level,” because you went through it so you’d become a master teacher at it–like how to take care of yourself. I like to say that everything is working out for us. We may not think it is at the moment of these deep, dark points in our life. I remember I had a really horrible job too–another horrible job where I was getting mentally abused from my boss. He was just not a nice guy whatsoever. I would come home and I would like to sit on my bathroom floor and I would cry. I just couldn’t take it. I would literally call an 800 number—a toll free number, you could call people to pray with you—I would call this number everyday after work. I was like, “What is going on?” I just couldn’t do it. Looking back, landing in the hospital, and then also working for this guy who was mentally abusive, it was all happening for me, it wasn’t happening to me. Yes, it was happening to me but for the higher good. The universe always has your back. It’s all happening for you for some reason even if you can’t see it within the moment right now or you could see it years later, weeks later, or what have you, but just trusting and knowing like, “Okay, this is happening for me, and for the highest good, and for the highest good of everyone involved.” It’s more of like a mindset technique of like, “Okay, looking at each situation as a happening for you for the highest good of you and all concerned.”

‏‏Yeah, I love it. I always look at my greatest struggles as my greatest gifts. It’s just that sometimes, we receive the gift and it’s a beautiful gift but the bow’s on the bottom, you don’t know how to open it. Years down the road, or weeks, or days, or hours, you look back and you’re like, “Oh, that’s why it happened.” Unfortunately, sometimes you can only see the gift in retrospect but it’s always a gift because you never know why. We have this idea of how life should be like this. For me as an example, we’re going to find the house of our dreams, the car of our dreams, it’s going to be super easy. Everybody’s going to get along, everybody’s going to be healthy, everything’s just going to be amazing. Then I come here and like, “Woah, what just happened?” Things that were so unforeseen. Right now, I’m still in it in a way, I still don’t understand why it happened the way it is, but I can see that there is always a purpose in the greatest gift to everything that happens in our lives. Let’s talk about confidence and the mindset of worthiness in women. What do you see that women are lacking in when it comes to understanding how powerful, smart, wise, and wonderful they are?

‏‏This is so good. This is such a juicy topic too because I think a lot of women, myself included, have this kind of like, “Am I worthy? Who am I to do this? Can I really make a difference?” I think it all comes from confidence. I’ll share a story. Recently I was out in California. I was telling you before we talked and we started the interview. I actually went on an experience with my mastermind group—because I’m in this coaching mastermind group—and we had to work with horses. If anyone knows, working with horses, they basically mirror your energy. They can pick up on your energy. It was about nine of us and we went to this horse range and they had said like, “This is the game of life. How you step into this ranch is how you play life and how you show up.” We had to meet the animals, we had to meet all the horses, and then we got to choose which horse we wanted to work with. Basically, what we had to do is we had to move the horse. That was kind of a mindset where we want to move the horse but it also is your confidence, your presence, your energy, they can read it. They don’t lie, they can read your energy. If you are energetically feeling something, or if you’re not confident, they will attune to it in two seconds. Each one of us had to go out onto the ranch, by ourselves, pick the horse we wanted to work with, and move it. Not move it with our hands but move it with our mind and our arms direct it to where we want it to go. I basically picked the biggest horse, it was the stallion. It was the aggressive, stubborn, male horse that was huge. He was very scary and he was huge.

‏‏You’re very much an alpha type. You have to have this huge one.

‏‏Yeah. I wanted the hardest horse, like the biggest and hardest horse to see if I can move it—the biggest challenge. I went up to the horse and I stood there and it’s funny he didn’t move. I’m like, “What’s going on?” I was pretending that I was confident but I was like, “Oh my gosh, he’s not moving. There’s something in the way. I’m not standing in my power.” Even when we think we’re standing in our power, we may not be. It’s being like, aggressive. Even though I am Type A and I just wasn’t fully–and they can see, they can read a lie, they can sense your energy. Then the coach was helping us, “What were you really thinking? Where do you want the horse to go?” So we had to point out a place and I just wanted to basically walk across this other gate. Finally—I basically adjusted myself—I was like, “No.” I really sunk in. I was like, “This is who I am. I want him to move here.” But I did it in a lovingly way and I connected with him. But it was all confidence in my ability to direct him to where I wanted him to go. After a few times being coached and really just standing in my presence, he moved. I was like, “Oh my god.” He moved to where I wanted him to go. I was like, “Okay,” and I felt the shift in me because I was more confident, I stood in my presence, and even the mindset, and I connected with him. I think as women, we second guess ourselves, “What should I be doing?” We don’t have that confidence where it’s like, “You know what, who cares.” If you fail, you fail, we’re all going to fail. But I see this a lot women are like, “I don’t know where I should charge.” It’s just like, “You just have to go with your gut.” I think it’s listening to our gut but I think also, confidence comes with just doing it. It goes down with daily right actions–the more daily right actions you do and you commit to, the easier it gets. Think about something like riding a bike or exercising. The hardest part is starting but if you continue to practice on the bike or you continue to workout even if it’s every other day or what have you, you become more confident. You’re like, “Oh, okay. I fall, I get up again.” Even doing videos on social media. The first time I did videos on social media, I was like, “Oh, my gosh. I look so bad. My voice sounds terrible. I don’t like the back wall behind me looks.” But then, more and more as you get to do it, you’re like,. “I don’t care what I look like.” I mean you do to a certain extent but, “I don’t care what I sound like.” You get this confidence. I think confidence is it’s two-fold. It’s doing things over and over and over again and then also be willing to take that risk of getting out there, not being afraid of failure, and just owning it. Owning what you think is right–it may be right for this moment, it may not be but at least you’ll get feedback of what direction to go in. But I think women just need to, not need to but, we’re so powerful and we don’t even realize it. I think that’s the thing is women are so powerful. They even said, from a horse perspective, the male and the female horse, who’s really in-charge is the female. While the male can seem more dominating and aggressive in the playing field, you can get him to turn around in two seconds, if you command the respect that they are present because the female horse is really the one in-charge, is the one in the herd of the horses, she will be the quiet one. She’s quiet but she’s the most powerful. I think women just have to honor that. They have to recognize their power. It’s all your energy. It’s how you present yourself, how you stand, how you believe yourself to be.

‏‏Have you seen My Greek Wedding?

‏‏Yes.

‏‏I think the mom was the one who said that where, “Yes, your father thinks he’s the head of the house. Yes, he is the head of the house but I’m the neck.”

‏‏Right.

‏‏“I am turning him wherever he wants to go.” Where did you have your horse experience?

‏‏It was out in California somewhere. I don’t know, it was at some ranch. I think it was 45 minutes from LA area.

‏‏That’s cool because I had a very similar experience in a retreat in Jamaica. I think the horses were chose accidentally, like whatever horse. I first came to the horse they assigned me, and it was a young horse–completely ignored me. I was like really young and stand-offish. The way that we did it, we had flags and just with our body language and energy, and just with the flag directing the horse. The ladies were doing it and it took, I think approximately 15 minutes for women to move the horse, or something like that. They got in the ring and the moment they got there, I kind of sensed the horse’s energy, and started laughing because he was testing me. I can totally feel it and I was like, “Oh, okay. This is how you play.” I got him to walk really quickly like, super fast. I left the experience feeling depressed. I was like, “What? Where is the freaking aha? It was too easy. I really wanted it to be hard.” Really, I felt disappointed. Disappointed that I didn’t have this, “Woah.” I understand that but I didn’t understand that my lesson was really big. My lesson that I took from it was, it’s easy to control if it’s an animal, and I’m good with animals. I can claim my power with animals but then with people, maybe I was afraid to claim my power and then the connection was like, “Well, people are animals.” Just the way I was with the horse, it’s okay for me to be with people, because sometimes I tend to dim myself a little bit to empathize because I feel like, “Oh my god, if people know how much power I have, I’m going to scare people away.” I kind of sometimes try to control that fire. It was just a wonderful experience and I love what you got out of that–where for you it was the more of the love, the compassion, and just the beingness, and owning it because we can’t move sh*t when we swim upstream. We can’t move anything where we just push like, “Argh.” We’re not strong enough but when we move with the current, when we move with the love, compassion, and motion, tuning in, being in the moment, this is where things are shifting for us.

‏‏It’s so powerful. Sometimes that’s like maybe things just move very quickly and easy and effortless and sometimes we think that we have to work so hard in order to feel…

‏‏So disappointed. It’s like, Excuse me, what?”

‏‏Yeah, that’s amazing, right? Because that means you had it. Things can come easy but you might think, “Oh no. Things have to be hard in order for that…” There’s so much meaning that is behind these horses. It’s just an amazing experience that I think everyone should try. You could just take away so many lessons from it.

‏‏I had two extraordinary experiences with animals. One was with this horse. Well, I guess I had many experiences with animals. This horse and also I went to India a little more over six months ago. My husband and I spent three hours with a female elephant, her name is Tara which means “star.” Now that I remember, I went and I did 40 Years of Zen which is a biohacking program where you’re connected to neurofeedback and do all kinds of processes to release trauma and all, and it was in a ranch. The whole point of it was to be in alpha waves. In that ranch, they had horses. We took a break to see the horses. The moment I saw the horses, I was like, “Okay.” I kind of like rented the horses and I called them. Then all of a sudden, three horses were running to me—towards me. I was like, “Woah. That was such an amazing experience.” When I went and I sat in my chair and did the neurofeedback process, I was thinking about the horses, and then on the monitor—when I was thinking about the horses—it brought my alpha waves up like I was in alpha when I was thinking about the horses because their heart field–their magnetic field is huge. I feel that animals can be so healing and amazing. I love it. Sorry we got distracted but this is a great way to find whatever—if you’re stressed, if you cannot find your vibe or if you’re workaholic and you need a break, go to nature because nature is nurturing. When you work with your clients, how do you help them to achieve life-work balance?

‏‏I think some of them have it down. There’s other obstacles that they work on. We work with basically the same kind of methodology like, “Where are you right now? Where, ultimately, do you want to be and what’s getting in the way?” For a lot of, especially the clients that I’m working with, the obstacles are that are getting in the way, they’re just working too much. They’re not having fun because they’re working a day job or they’re working a freelance job but then they’re also building a business. Then they have other commitments like family, friends, and romantic partners. It’s a lot of giving, kind of similar to what we were talking about the giving and receiving earlier. They’re just giving so much of themselves that they don’t take time for themselves. A lot of my work is kind of that slowing down the speed up. It’s like, “Okay, maybe you need to do what I call a self-love power hour.” Some days, listen, I get it, you can’t find an hour for yourself but you can definitely find 5 minutes or 10 minutes for yourself. I call it the self-love power hour. If you can find an hour for yourself, that’s awesome. Wherever that could be, you can break it up 15 minutes throughout the day—15 minutes in the morning, half hour at lunch, 15 minutes at an evening. Whatever it looks like for you, even if it is one time. Even if the morning works for you or maybe the evening works for you. Whatever it is, finding that time for yourself to do whatever you need to do. Some people like to meditate, some people like to take a walk or exercise, some people like to journal. Just filling your cup up for full. My own personal story, I’ll share, I was working all the time–that’s why I have such experience and knowledge of this because I’ve been through all phases is for me I wasn’t playing enough. On the weekends I would work, after my full-time job, I would work. I had no play. I had no fun in my life. At one point, my coach is like, “You know what? I think you really need to have a day of fun–like a play day.” I would literally have to mark it in my calendar to have a play day for the whole day of doing whatever I wanted to do. That could be literally reading a book the whole day–it doesn’t matter. But I had a lot of anxiety, a lot of fighting for my limitations, meaning, “No, I can’t take a day.” A whole day means I’m trying to grow this business on the side and work a full-time job. If I take a day, it’s going to throw me off. I’m not going to get to my goals. We talked about earlier, actually when you have fun and you play, and you create that space in your life, things start to align. Things start to come faster even though it sounds counterintuitive. For me personally, it was like, “Okay.” I was doing the self-love power hour each day. I find that very powerful and I use it on my clients. But then for the people that really are workaholics and on the cusp of burnout or stressed out, it’s like having a play day, maybe it’s a Saturday, maybe it’s a Sunday. Literally taking a day off for mental health, from your business, and from your day job–if you have one. For me, it caused a lot of anxiety in the beginning but when I start to ease into it, I’m like, “Nope, that’s a non-negotiable.” Even if you have family, friends, and kids, including them if you want to in your play day. I think those are two tangible tips that I know for a lot of people doing a lot to create space, ease, and balance–it just kind of recalibrates you. It breaks up the achieve in mind, the doing-ness of your life.

‏‏You help entrepreneurs make money and make more money. You’re very spiritually connected to, I guess the vibration, and spirituality and all that. How does making money a spiritual thing?

‏‏That’s a good question. Making money is very spiritual because making money means that you honor your worth. You know how to make money. It’s also very spiritual because I know for me, the way I think about it, the more money I make the more I can help the world. Whatever capacity I choose to do with that money, whether I donate to a certain cause, whether I impact a foundation, for me it’s very spiritual because money is just energy. Money to me equals freedom, ease, and it just allows you the freedom to do and create more of what you’re good at. Everyone has a zone of genius–whether you know that or not. What a zone of genius is is you’re really good at something. For example, I’m really good at growing a business, coaching, and speaking–those are kind of my zone of geniuses. My zone of genius is not cleaning my house so I hire a cleaning lady and people think I’m nuts but that’s not my zone of genius. I don’t like it, I don’t want to be doing it. I’d rather pay someone, I’d rather outsource that to someone that loves it. Some people are in a meditative state when they clean and that’s great. I want to hire those people that absolutely get their joy from cleaning houses.

‏‏I didn’t believed that until one of my girl friends in the weekend just told us that she just love cleaning. “This really relaxes me.” Before we left, she woke up at [3:00] AM and she couldn’t get back to sleep so she started cleaning. I was like, “What?”

‏‏“What is going on?” Yeah, you’re like, “You’re crazy.” But that’s the thing, that’s her zone of genius. Whether she makes money or not, everyone has their zone of genius that make money or don’t—it doesn’t matter. Based on your zone of genius, you could do it without time stops basically. You could do it all day. Money to me, when you make money in your zone of genius, that is pure bliss. Because then you can outsource things that is not on your own genius. Why would you want to clean houses if that’s not your zone of genius? You could be doing other things. I think money is very spiritual. I think it shows how much you value yourself, how much you charge. But it also like the more money you make, the more—if you’re spiritual, pretty much you’re going to do good with the money. It’s what your intentions are behind the money. For me, it’s really improving the world and improving others’ lives in the world. It’s very spiritual. I think people, sometimes they have the belief, “Oh, money’s bad. Money’s greedy. You can’t make too much money.” Abundance is everywhere. It’s not because you’re rich you’re taking money from other people–absolutely not. There’s more than enough to go around in the world. I think it’s a mindset too. It’s very mindset-based as well. If you want money, you can create it. Everyone has a relationship with money and everyone grew up differently with money so everyone has all these different stories around money. It’s just either unlearning or relearning new stories about money, your relationship to money, and how you want that to be.

‏‏Yeah. What are your three top tips to live in a stellar life?

‏‏One, I would say, manage your mindset. Watch what you consume. When I say consume I mean all levels. Watch what you pay attention to. Watch what you’re feeding your mind, what you’re looking at, what you’re viewing, what you’re listening to. Also, what you’re eating. Consuming in all levels; what you’re thinking, what you’re watching, what you’re experiencing, what circumstances and environment you’re putting yourself in, what you’re eating, how you’re being—that’s tip number one. I think that’s really important. A lot of us, we have the choice to choose where we put our mind, our attention, our focus, and our body. Tip number two, I get this from my mentor, Gabrielle Bernstein, I just love it, “When you think you have surrendered, surrender some more.” If you feel like you’re controlling a situation or you have anxiety around something, just surrender. I was out in California like I said last week. What came to me, I was dealing with a situation. I just surrendered. I sat in the bed and I was just laying down moment of surrender. What came to me was three words; surrender, allow, let go. I just repeated it. I was like, “Surrender, allow, let go.” If things aren’t working your way or you’re expecting a certain outcome, it’s like, “Nope. You just have to surrender and know that everything is working out for you. The universe has your back. Everything’s working out for your highest good and all concerned.” I would just say, “If you think you surrendered some more—like my mentor said—just surrender, just keep surrendering. Surrender more.” Third tip is the whole slowing down the speed up. Just create even if it’s this week, if you can create literally 10 minutes for yourself, do that. I had a client that, really quick story, she was working a full-time job, she was building two businesses on the side, she had a family, she had two kids, she was taking care of her elderly mother. She was working her day job up until [10:30] at night and then she would switch gears and woke up [12:30] AM–2 hours for her business. She was going insane and she was getting the feeling at the point of burnout, worn out, and stressed out. I worked with her and she basically came up with a plan of her totally shutting down, computer, everything. Every Monday night at [8:30] PM so she can work up until [8:30] PM. She did this every week, once a week, and on Tuesday mornings, she would literally bounce out of bed at [4:00] AM. She did not need an alarm clock because she shut down earlier that night, she bounced out of bed at [4:00] AM. She had her sacred time, prayer time, in the morning. She worked on her business in the morning and she even made her family breakfast in the morning, and she was productive. Her most productive days are Tuesdays because she made that one little shift of shutting down at [8:30] PM the night before on a Monday. I’m not telling you that you need the self-love power everyday or need even a play day every week. If you can carve out a little time for yourself, whether that’s a full day, whether that’s some time in the morning or at night, you should do that for yourself. I think it all definitely shift your world in a good way.

If things aren’t working your way or you’re expecting a certain outcome, it’s like, “Nope. You just have to surrender and know that everything is working out for you. The universe has your back. Everything’s working out for your highest good and all concerned.”

‏‏That’s wonderful. If somebody want to contact you and find more about you, where can they go?

‏‏I would say the best place to go is my website. It’s kellylynadams.com. It’s the same kellylynadams on all my social media feeds. I’m mostly on Instagram and Facebook but you can find me on Twitter and YouTube as well, and Pinterest. I’m under all those handles–on kellylynadams.

‏‏Awesome. Kelly, that was wonderful. Thank you so much for being here.

‏‏Oh my god, thank you so much for having me.

✓ Define your own true meaning of success. Ask yourself what you really want in life and start working to achieve it.

✓ Have confidence in whatever you’re doing or working on. With the right mindset, focus and support, anything can be achieved.

✓ Spare some time for play and fun. Do things that make you feel young and alive to keep you inspired and motivated.

✓ Stop sabotaging your potential with negative thoughts. Be kind to yourself and don’t listen to negativity. Just keep going until you’re where you want to be.

✓ Start creating the life that you want by speaking about it, envisioning it and committing to it 100%.

✓ Take a couple of days to gain a different perspective. Go on a retreat, attend a mastermind group or take a vacation.

✓ Spend time in nature with animals. They have unexplainable healing powers that go above and beyond other methods.

✓ Make money in your zone of genius. Find and pursue what you love and what gives you fulfillment.

✓ Manage your mindset and pay attention to what you consume at all levels – what you’re thinking, watching, experiencing, and eating.

✓ Surrender. Allow. Let go. If things aren’t going your way, surrender and know that the Universe has your back.

Links and Resources:

About Kelly Lynn Adams

As a certified business, leadership and life coach, writer, motivational speaker and founder of KellyLynnAdams.com, Kelly Lynn has helped thousands of women build smart and sustainable businesses. She has helped women to redefine success through shifting their mindsets, increasing their confidence, and stepping into their divine power.