Kevin shares with me his journey to becoming hyperconscious and how he and Alan reconnected after a falling out in high school.

He also talks about leaving his miserable job, partnering with Alan, and starting the Hyperconscious Podcast.

After 450 episodes, they rebranded to Next Level University.

The name came about when they realised they both used the term "next level" to describe things they admired.

The conversation touches on lots of different topics, including self-improvement, depression, and finding one's purpose.

So, it’s safe to say, it’s my kinda conversation!

Prefer to listen?

Sticking with the transcript? You’ll read:

  • Making Conversations Count podcast reveal
  • How Wendy and Kevin ‘met’
  • Making impact not downloads
  • Taking experts on face value
  • Kevin’s two conversations that counted

Kevin

I tell people this all the time, especially podcasters. They say, "should I start with one episode, two episodes? How many episodes should I do a week?" And I say, what's sustainable for you? Right now? One? Cool. Start there. I don't want you to do seven. You will crash and burn if you do as many episodes as we do. You will crash and burn. Because we started with one and it was sustainable. Now two, now three, now seven. And I go on ten or 15 shows a week now that's stretching me and I'm burning to the ground. But it's not sustainable yet. But it's more sustainable than it's been.

Wendy

You're so right. And I'm going to make an announcement that I've not made publicly yet. Even for me, podcast around the day job and around the family and the wanting to have a life once a week after two years has kind of taken its toll, really. Every waking minute in between other tasks becomes a podcast activity. And you have to stop and go, well, what's serving who? And it's been my decision, and it's coming into play that the podcast will only be released every three weeks. I'm not going to do fortnightly, I'm not going to do monthly. I want to be different. I'm going to go tri-weekly because I like the sound of it sounds nice, and it's sustainable for me. It just has given me back room to breathe, to be able to let other ideas bubble to the surface so that even the podcast is going to get better. So if the quality over the quantity is there, that's got to be the way to go.

Kevin

And it has to make sure it aligns with your lifestyle. That's the other thing is, like, I'll be in the office from 07:00 A.m. Until 08:00 P.m. Tonight. That's 13 hours that I'll be sitting in this chair working. And that's not what everybody wants. I do not expect anybody to want that. So that's the other thing too.

Wendy

It's about what your goal is. And if your goal is that you know that that workload now in time, whatever that is, in two years, five years gives you the financial freedom to only work, say, 5 hours a day, and still retain the financial rewards that you expect and the lifestyle that you're accustomed to. That's why you do what you do today. It's got to have a longer term goal than just the end of the week, the end of the month, the end of this year.

Kevin

and you don't see the results. That's the interesting thing is you don't see the results for a long time. We had a day a couple of weeks ago or a month ago where we had almost four times the listens in one day than we had in the first year. So we had 1000 downloads our first year. We had 3800 downloads in one day. I don't know if it was a couple of weeks ago, last month. But that never would have happened if we stopped after the first year and said, well, we only had 1000 downloads. Or the second year, I think we had 28,000. Like, oh, we only got 29,000 in two years. That's the interesting thing, is the work you're doing today does not pay off for months, years, potentially decades, but it's paying off the whole time. It's this weird, weird, weird, complex thing to realise. But that's why you have to trust in what you're doing, and you have to make sure that you're measuring the right stuff that you're doing.

Wendy

The way that we met was not through podcasting. It was actually through your online site, Next Level University. And it intrigued me because it was very much it's two young guys. And I was like, what can these two young guys teach me? I'm an old broad. I've been around the block. But actually, you come at what you do in the service to others from a really humble place in helping people. So just to give people a bit of backstory about what it is that you do at Next Level with your combadre, tell us a little bit about how that all started. Where did the name come from? From a start? Because it just makes me think monsters, Inc.

Kevin

I started a podcast called The hyperconscious Podcast because I realized that for most of my life, I had been living unconsciously. I had just been going through the motions and not questioning why I was making the decisions I was making. And I said, what's the opposite of unconscious? It's hyperconscious. I want to be hyperconscious. I want to know why things are going the way they are. So I started a podcast. My first guest was Alan. So Alan the co host, the CEO, and the co founder of the podcast that we have today. He was mentoring me at the time. He was the guy who was into self improvement, way ahead of me. And we really hit it off because we had gone to middle school together, we had gone to high school together, and we had a falling out in high school because he was the kind of nerd, and I was the jock, and I thought he had an ego, and I was super insecure. So we didn't get along. But we ended up reconnecting after high school at a party, and we started talking about deep stuff. So when I had this podcast, I said, I have to have Alan on because he knows everything. Now, obviously, he doesn't know everything, but.

Wendy

It's interesting how you describe each other as the nerd and the jock and then the traits that you aligned yourself to each other. The jock being insecure. I mean, actually, you're talking an irony right there.

Kevin

If you look at any movie where there's a jock and there's a quote unquote nerd. And when I say nerd, I don't mean that with any negativity. I'm a nerd in a lot of ways, in the best ways, I think. But when you look at movies, the jock is usually the one who bullies because they're insecure. The nerd, quote unquote, is usually the person who gets bullied, but they're actually behind the scenes, very, very intelligent. They understand at a deep level that it's just a social dynamic. So, yeah, it's interesting, and I think that's really helped us lean into who we are. And I can go more into that. But I quit my job at one point because I was miserable at my job. I was making a lot of money. But it literally got to the point where I was debating suicide because I was so miserable. I was so out of alignment. I felt so stuck. I felt so trapped. I was depressed. I was anxious. I was insecure. When I left my job, I already had this podcast going. Alan and I partnered up. That's when we said, look, we both want to have a positive impact. We both believe so deeply in self improvement. We are both podcasters. Let's just do this together. If you fast forward to, I don't know, 450 episodes in, one of our mentors, Evan Carmichael, we were doing an Instagram live with him, and he said, you guys are amazing at interviewing. We'd already interviewed him twice, I think, but I can't remember the name of your podcast to save my life. Nobody knows what hyperconscious is. And I said, oh, no, we're not changing the name, Evan. That's not going to happen. This is my baby. But we took a step back and we tried to be humble and understand this man. He's one of the most successful people in our industry. He probably knows. So we said, okay, what could we name this new podcast? How do we rebrand? Something we were saying at the time? Wendy was next level. That pizza is next level. That movie was next level. That was a next level workout. All right, cool. What's that? Eventually, we want to have an online campus where you can go to a building for wealth, you can go to a building for health, you can go to a building for love, podcast, whatever business. That's a university. It's an online university. I said, what about next level university? And when we said that, it was like, boom, that's it. That's what we're going all in on. I messaged Evan, and I said, we're planting our flag with that. That's it. We're not having a discussion. That's the new name. And I think that was, like, 450 episodes in. So that was 800 episodes ago, almost.

Wendy

So you didn't even check that the domain was available at that point?

Kevin

We did, actually. And somebody, whoever owns it, they wanted to charge us, like, $5,000. They're like, I'll sell it to you for, like, $5,000. And we're like, all right, we're not going to do that right now because we didn't have the money. We didn't have $5,000 to spend on a domain. We got Next Leveluniverse.com, which in the grand scheme of things, is close enough for now. We'll buy it in the near future, but it just wasn't time yet.

Wendy

Oh, let's hope they're not listening, because otherwise they'll be putting the price up because they know you want it.

Kevin

I know that's. All right. It'll be worth it to have it.

Wendy

I always think it's really interesting what you do, because you do go into all of these different areas of life. And I always say to my husband, we go to work to live. We don't live to work. And sometimes he has to remind me of that now, after 20 odd years of me repeating it, he's like, work! Out of your office. Come on, what time is it? But it's interesting, isn't it, how what we do to earn a living, to put a roof over our heads, to provide for our families, spills out into that life. So you saying how you weren't enjoying what you're doing, you're passing that gift on and getting others to wake up to it. How many people would you say you've served over those? 800 and whatever? No, it's got to be about 1200 odd episodes that you've had now, isn't it?

Kevin

Yeah. 1125.

Wendy

Not that you're counting.

Kevin

Yeah, the only reason I count, honestly, is because when I do the intro, I say, welcome back to another very special episode. I hope you enjoyed the last one today for episode Blank. So that's the only reason I actually know how many episodes we have as of today. I think we have, like, 675,000 downloads, so that's 675,000 potential people. And then I think of it as two ways, really. There's breadth, that's the amount of people you can impact. And then there's depth. That's the level at which you can impact different people. So I think the one thing that we do really well is we do breadth seven days a week. So every single day there's a new episode that drops because we want to be there for our community. But then there's also, like, you can actually come see us behind the scenes with a live podcast or a live free virtual event where we do a lot of stuff free behind the scenes, because we want to impact it at depth as well. So I would say close to 700,000 people, but not everybody's the same amount of impact. And I think that's important to understand stand, that there are some people who have probably listened to one episode and said, okay, that's cool, maybe it's not for me. We have some people that listen to every episode, and then we also have some people who listen to every episode who have also joined the Facebook group, signed up to the mailing list, work with us one on one, come to the retreats. It depends on the person.

Wendy

Yeah. And that's what's important, isn't it, is that this approach to the breadth and depth of impacting with people and that's like with them, not for your benefit. It doesn't have to be a podcast. It can be through your content, it can be through the stuff that you do on your website. There's so many different ways of being able to have that conversation with people now, isn't there, for people to find you? It's really honestly about understanding where you need to be to start those conversations, isn't it?

Kevin

And it's understanding your audience. I think that two things I always say. Number one, I believe at a deep level that the reason many people fail is because they're thinking of themselves, not their audience. And obviously you can be a martyr and you can take that way too far, but you have to be thinking of your audience. And then the second thing I always say, and this is a really important breakthrough for me, especially in the podcast industry, but this goes for any business, I would say any business on the planet, number one. So if you think of it as like a three tiered system, number one, how well do you know your audience? Do you know what they're dealing with? Do you know their struggles? Do you know what words they like they don't like? What will they click on? What won't they click on? What problems you're going to help them solve? How well do you know your audience? The second part of the puzzle is how well do you nurture your audience? The third part of the puzzle is how aligned is your ultimate offer? And when I say ultimate, I don't mean like your special offer, I mean when you get to value, right? When somebody says, how do I work with you? And you say, this is my offer, how aligned is it? The problem, Wendy, is if you only know your audience at a level seven, your nurturing can only be at a level seven. It can't be any higher. You can't nurture to any higher of a level than your understanding. If you gave me a plant and you said, Take care of the plant, I don't know how unless I know what kind of plant it is, I can't nurture that plant to growth unless I understand it. And then if you don't nurture correctly, when you say, this is my offer, this is how much it costs, this is what it gives you. If it's not aligned, you're going to wonder why you can't grow your business. That's one of the biggest reasons. But one of the things I've seen is the nurture part. People start something and they say, cool, I started it and this is my offer. How come I'm not making any money? Because you're not nurturing your audience through adding value. That's one of the reasons we're quote unquote successful, is because we have 26 layers in our business model and half of them are free. You will literally get sick of us if you are part of the community, because we're always trying to add value. There will never be an opportunity or a lack of opportunity for growth in our community. It doesn't exist. But there's also plenty of opportunities if you want to exchange your funds for more value. So I think it's important to set it up that way.

Wendy

Foundations of anything, isn't it? It's so important. And I think this is where you really nailed it in your community. I know, because I've been fumbling around in there for quite a few months, actually, just going, oh, look at what these guys are doing. And I would probably be classed as a lurker, but it's because I don't necessarily need to have a conversation with you because what you're saying is enough for me. But that's my journey. But I also see all the other conversations that are going on where somebody's gone, oh, my God, that's really helped me. If you hadn't have talked about that today, I would have still been stuck. And I know what to do. So I know just how much you do lift people up through what it is that you do. I appreciate it and it's really refreshing, Kevin, because let's face it, we can spend quite a lot of time, dead time online looking for something to fill us up, because for some reason, we all think that we're missing something. And a lot of it is empty and it's repeated and people seem to repeat it because that's what they're seeing and they think that that's what's working and it's not. So I would really urge anybody who feels that they're missing something to take a look at what you guys are doing because it's working and there could be some elements and they just go, do you know what? That's what I need. That's exactly what I need. And then I know you'll be happy because you've reached that depth again.

Kevin

We set it up because we want to help people, and I know a lot of people say that, but I don't want to do seven episodes a week. I'm excited to because I love podcasting, but it's a lot it's not easy. It's a challenge to do seven episodes a week and the amount of other things we're doing, I get to the end of the week every week and it's like, oh, my goodness, I don't know if I can do that again next week. But it's not about the money that comes with it. Of course I enjoy money and the security and the certainty that money brings, but I did this for free for the first two years. If I was doing this for money, I would have switched and gone to something else. So we really, really want to have a giant impact on the world and that's why I try to lead by example. And that the other thing, is I am forced to get better every day. That is a non negotiable. If I do not get better, I do not accomplish the mission. So for me it's like Wendy, I don't know if there'll ever be a day where I only work 5 hours. I don't know, I mean Saturday and Sunday.

Wendy

I kind of get that because it's that other big debate isn't it about if you were to win the lottery or have a sudden windfall of money, would you pack up work? Genuinely? I think there is a certain type and I think you're one, I'm one where we would need to do something to serve others to feel that we're contributing and part of the societal fabric that is going on. So there would definitely be something more we could do. And it may not feel like work but it would be a contribution that would take up a lot of time.

Kevin

Yes, and with technology, obviously COVID was something that changed many people's lives in many people's lives in many different ways. But one of the things it did highlight is the fact that a lot of what we're going to be doing is virtual. So there was a part of me that was scared because I didn't want to be on the road all I didn't want to be on the road for my entire life because I didn't want to be away from my wife and potentially if we have children and family, I didn't want to do that. But now I understand. I mean imagine if we're at the point where we have a team, we already have a very big team. I think we have 16 or 17 people. We just brought a new member on recently. So if we get to the point where all I have to do is show up to an interview and do this. If I could do this from 10:00 AM till 04:00 PM, everyday so 10, 11, 12, 13 14, that's a huge amount of value every day. If I could do that, that's also.

Wendy

A huge amount of energy.

Kevin

It's a huge amount of energy. But all things considered I'm kind of already doing that and I'm working out. Well, I'm not right now because I've been on the struggle bus when it comes to getting to the gym but I will be working out six times a week, I will be doing seven episodes a week. For our other show I have another podcast about podcast called Podcast Growth You. So everything will get a little bit easier because I will be more capable and I will have resources to help alleviate some of the pressures that I'm dealing with today. But every hour of impact will actually be more valuable. It's this weird thing where at the end it's easier to do your mission because people actually want you to do your mission and they understand the value of your mission. So it's this interesting thing.

Wendy

It's around giving them responsibility then, isn't it? To allow you to be accountable for the things that you need to be accountable for, to let you get on with the things that you're good at. And that's a mistake that people make, isn't it? In business, it's not growing their team and having that reliance on other people.

Kevin

There is a lag. That's the problem is two things. One, it's very important that you understand that just because somebody can't do the job as well as you doesn't mean they're not a good fit. If somebody can do something 80% to your capabilities and you can go do something 100% of your capabilities, that's 180% of growth versus you doing 50% and 30%. It's not the same. So you have to have an understanding that it's not meant to replace you, it's meant to supplement you. That's part one. Part two is your leadership is a huge barrier to whether or not this person can actually become more productive and will fit well. When we're thinking of team members, I'm thinking of one thing humility. I do not care about your education, I don't care about your technical skills. I don't care about any of that. I care about your level of humility because we can coach you up. We've had people in the past who had very high egos. I'm not good at bringing people down. That's just not a strength of mine. I do not like it. It's just not the way I'm wired. I like lifting people up. So when I'm thinking of a team member, we had somebody we did an interview with and he said, honestly, I'm not good at a lot, but I'm willing to learn. Cool, welcome, you're on the team. Cool, but you're on the team. And that's the reason why he's on the team. But yes, I think that the problem. Wendy, is there's a lag? So oftentimes you're like, I don't have the money to bring somebody on the team, but I'm also not I don't have the time to go make more money. That's the interesting paradox where sometimes you got to trust in yourself and say, you know what? I'm going to bring this person on the team and I'm going to buy myself 6 hours a week. In those 6 hours a week, maybe I can go make $150 an hour, 15, 304-5659, $900. I'm going to give the team member 450 and I'm $450 more to pour into business. But it doesn't always work that way. So it's a very interesting challenge. But it is one of the reasons I think more people aren't successful because they're trying to do it all themselves.

Wendy

Well, they don't give it long enough to work out. If you don't give it long enough, then I would say that a lot of running a business, whether that be the money, the energy, the people in it really as a whole package. If you talk about it as an organism, it's like a heartbeat. And the heartbeat on the graph goes up and it goes down to the bottom and it comes up a little bit more and then down again and up and down, and then it goes flat a little. So there's never one of those arrows that goes up with growth continually. That's not a reality. So it's about having the right mindset, an attitude towards how that's going to affect you, and maybe just setting some boundaries as to how long you're going to give it. That's reasonable for everybody.

Kevin

I think one of the problems is our expectations. And what I mean by that is if I called up Wendy and I said, Wendy, what's happening? We're going to go for a run today. You're going to ask a couple of questions. You're going to say, what time, where and how long? How long is this run? Because I need to know whether how fast are you going to go? Right? That might be one too. What are we doing with those? What we're doing is we are creating accurate expectations. This is the problem I have with many social media platforms and channels. People are telling you it's going to happen quickly, it's not going to happen quickly. Those results are not typical. They should slap a sticker on there that says results not typical. I tell people when I work with them as podcasters, I just want to let you know, most likely you will never accomplish what we have in the podcast industry, because we are the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of the 1%. There's two of us. Alan's a genius. I work every single day and I burn myself to the ground. It's not sustainable for most people. But what I will tell you is if you do this, this and this over the next couple of years, you can expect this result. Our expectations determine our approach. So if somebody came to you and said, you're running a sprint, you're going to go all out in that sprint. What happens if that sprint is actually a marathon? Then you're at the end of mile one and you're burnt out and you say, I can't do another 25 miles, there's no way, then you quit and then you say, well, it wasn't for me. I think if we can get accurate expectations from people who are actually telling the truth, then you're way more likely to succeed. But you got to find those accurate expectations, you really do, because it determines everything.

Wendy

It's something that we've talked about on the show before. In as much as that, we're kind of taught not to trust our instincts, aren't we? That we take a lot on face value. It's like reading the newspaper, watching the news, it's written there, so it's got to be true. And that's not necessarily the case because there's hidden agendas, there's different motives behind the people running these things. Because at the end of the day, there are people and there's psychology going on behind everything that you do. So I think it's really important that if you're going to be running your own business and you need to trust in people, you've got to one, I think trust mainly in yourself first, because then you will be able to find that instinct to trust others.

Kevin

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Oh, it is. Right. And the other thing too, Wendy, is and I don't think people are intentionally doing well. I think some people are. I don't think everybody is. I don't want to take a trip to Negative Town, but there are people who have forgotten why they are successful. They're trying to teach 25 years of time in the compound effect and momentum by saying, well, this is what I do today. What you do today is not bringing you success. It's what you've done for the last 25 years. This interview most likely will not create fame and fortune for next level. You right. It's it that's not the way it works. It's it doesn't work like that. Most of us don't go viral. Most of us build something over the long, long term, and then they give advice based on, oh, this is what I do today. Is that what you did to get to where you are today? Or is that what you do now? Because those are two different things.

Wendy

Yeah, it's the hereditary and the expansionary, isn't it? Going by what has gone before and those judgments or something that's just extraordinarily out sort of stands out in that moment, I think. And something else that algorithms and going viral. If you were to ask the authors of those viral posts, they wouldn't have a clue why. They've just hit on something and it just happened to be them and it's touched somebody somewhere. It's a complicated business, isn't it?

Kevin

It is. And this is the other thing, too. I know people who have gone viral, they're not as successful as you think because they didn't have the infrastructure to handle the virality. That's the interesting thing, is it's almost like, all right, cool, here's a million people. What are you going to do? Do you have a product? Do you have a service? Do you coach all of that? Do you have a community? Where do you add value? People are far more worried about and obviously there's two sides of this, but most people are way too worried about supply and not worried enough about demand.

Wendy

Demand.

Kevin

But then there's the other side of when they create demand, they don't have supply to back it up. It's really this thing where I believe you have to I think of it like a taco truck. If you have a taco truck, ideally on the first day, you want to figure out how many people are coming and how much stuff do we need to order? Right? That's the idea. You don't. Want a million people to show up because most likely 999,000 of them are going to leave unsatisfied because you're not going to have enough food for all of them and you're going to lose 999,000 people. It's good to build up. It's very hard to go from zero to 100, because when you go from zero to 100, you don't learn any of the stuff you would have learned from level zero to 99. And we're talking about sustainability and long term, if you don't have the infrastructure, the systems, the character, especially, that's where things crash and burn. Overnight success usually leads to overnight failure too, but people don't talk about that. People don't talk about that side of it.

Wendy

It kind of stings, doesn't it? Because I can say from experience, a viral post for me was thousands and thousands of reactions on a post and hundreds of comments. And whilst that was great and made me feel fantastic, for about a week, I was just constantly engaged and responding to all of these messages and connections and one thing another. Did I get a sport, a jot of business out of it? No. So it was a quick and hard and fast lesson to go, oh, I've tapped into something here, but because of the speed that it hit me unexpectedly, I didn't know how to actually handle that in such a way that I could have been smarter with how that went. And I think if that's what you're looking for, what do you do once you get it? Have you covered that question?

Kevin

That's one of the things I talk to people about most often is they're like, yeah, and again, I know this isn't for everybody, but they're like, yeah, I don't want to do one on one coaching because I just know it's going to be wild and my calendar is going to be too full. And I say yes, I understand completely. That's not for a year, though. You're worried too much about the supply of your time. The demand isn't there yet. Let's just get you one client. It's not going to happen like that. It doesn't happen that way. It takes time and you can level up and you can decide, well, maybe group coaching, whatever it may be. Too many people are focused on the supply. They're focused on the supply and they don't understand the lack of demand yet.

Wendy

That's an interesting point, because it's been something that I've been using over myself on my own. It's not a very interesting conversation when you have it on your own. But there is a lot of people and I'm noticing this, that there's been conversations that have come to me where I'm being encouraged. I know I'm being sold to, and I kind of play along. And it's this oh, you don't really want to be doing one to one coaching, do you? Because you could earn so much more money in group coaching. And whilst that may be true. Do I want to do group group coaching if it's for the same company, in the same team, with the same alignment, that's different, but lots of different people from different varieties of business and backgrounds? No, because I don't think that they would get the value that they would get in a one to one coaching. So I also sort of see that this one to one, one to many, one to all model is fast, kind of burning itself out because everybody's doing it. And the tactics to encourage people to join my program, it's so transparent now that I think we need to find a better way of attracting people. What's the answer, Kevin?

Kevin

For us, as a business, we only make money from coaching. So we don't do sponsored ads, we don't do sponsorships, we don't do affiliates, not interested in any of that. For us, if we do not show up and coach or add value through one of our services, we're not making any money. I think this is the understanding that people have to have. Stop listening to the people who are telling you that you can make more money in less time. It's not like that in the beginning for most people. That's like me saying with 16 years of exercise and fitness experience that you can just do what I do and stay in good shape. That's wrong. It's not true. It doesn't work that way. My grooves of that are just deeper because I've been doing it for so long. From my perspective, for most people, depending on what your service is and what you're doing, one of the most valuable uses of your time is one on one coaching. And as long as your business is set up right here's, why? When you coach somebody one on one, they pour back into your business, not just financially. They listen to your podcast if you have one. They read your newsletter. They recommend people. They join your Facebook group, they come to your events. The long term return on investment of that 1 hour is far more than the $150 you might make. It's way more than that. Now, this is what people say to me all the time. Honestly, I don't want to do one on one coaching. I'm going to do group coaching. Cool. Just understand that it's ten times harder to fill because there's ten people. Also, it's ten times harder to maintain because you get a field ten times as many messages. Also understand that if you've never done one on one coaching, it's going to be very challenging for you to coach ten people at once. We're on our 8th group of ten people, so we have done seven groups of ten human beings group coaching. And it is a challenge. It's way different than one on one way. And there's two of us. Yeah, and there's two of us, and we have a team. So just understand that. I think the coaching model is based on something. We've lost sight a little bit. I was listening to a book the other day, and the question was, why do businesses get started? What is the ultimate result of a business? And a lot of people will say, Money wrong. The ultimate result of a business is impact. Impact. You get paid in proportion to the level of impact you have in the world. That is why Apple is such a valuable company, because most people have an iPhone, or at least 50% of people, whatever the number is, they added more value to more human beings. Thus they're a higher valued company. That's the way it works. Amazon, same thing, right? In the United States, everybody drive down the street, you see Amazon packages all over the place. They're adding value. I think we've lost sight of that when it comes to coaching, because we're saying, how do I get somebody to work with me? How do I get them to work with me? How do I get them to work with me? Once they're behind the scenes, we stop adding value.

Wendy

The problem in everything that you've just said there about what they're asking is the word me.

Kevin

Yes.

Wendy

Why would they want to work with me? I always say it's always about them and having a conversation a couple of days ago with a guy that I've worked with, and I just said to him, the biggest frustration I have in running my own business is the amount of time that I spend not delivering so that I can deliver, if that makes sense. And the irony is that I want to be spending more time delivering because that's what I'm good at. And it's, how do you tip that scale so that it's going in favor of you the right way? And I think this is what most people fall into a trap over, which is not going to be solved in the next couple of minutes, I don't think.

Kevin

Unfortunately not. Unfortunately not. It's hard. It's a challenge. Time balance is a challenge for everybody. But you just have to figure out, what's the ultimate goal? If you want five rounds of group coaching, you're probably going to have to do one on one coaching for a couple of years to build that up. Yeah, but you can have the progress towards the ultimate end goal, but it's going to take something unless you're the type of person, if you have a big social media following or something like that, it's different. But again, results aren't typical. Those results aren't typical for the vast majority of us.

Wendy

And even those sorts of numbers with followings and things like that, it doesn't always equate to cash Power Notes.

Kevin

No. I worked with a client who had 150,000 followers, very engaged followers, on one of the social media platforms and was doing a live event, like a behind the scenes event, and I believe it was $70 a ticket and 400 people came. So this person made $28,000 in an hour. Now, that's great. That's a great amount of money. But think of 150,000 to 400. That conversion rate is extremely low.

Wendy

And it's not just the hour, is it that you deliver?

Kevin

Correct.

Wendy

It's all the time that it takes to prepare. I know when I was doing like two day master classes, it would take weeks of getting the material together in our pockets here and there, and your brain never switches off. It's the follow up actions. It's the getting people there in the first place. So it takes way more than just that hour a week coaching slot for twelve weeks.

Kevin

And the deeper level of that is it's also the 15 years of work that person did before they actually made the offer. That's the interesting thing. But when people hear that, they're like, okay, I'm going to do that too. This person has a 15 year head start. 15 years is a long time.

Wendy

How long have you been doing this for you to be able to show me?

Kevin

Yeah. That's a great question. That's a great question. That's why a lot of people don't win, is because they don't ask that question. Or this is an understanding that I think is very important as a consumer. Creators are taking advantage of you based on your black of awareness. I see a lot of fitness products and I laugh at them. It's like, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. And then you look at how many people have bought it and it's millions and millions. Why? Because their awareness of fitness is just not that high yet. So they're getting taken advantage of based on low awareness. And that bothers me to my core. I cannot stand it.

Wendy

People are being duped every day online.

Kevin

I see it with weight loss.

Wendy

Because to lose weight you've got to have a hormone diet.

Kevin

There's always something.

Wendy

This is because of the awareness of perimenopause menopause, all of those sorts of things that women are sort of listening and they're going, oh yeah, that's me. Well, do you know what? It could be you in any situation, if you really look hard enough, you can make yourself be that person, of course. So, yeah, I'm with you, Kevin. That vulnerability. Taking advantage of vulnerability is brutal.

Kevin

It's brutal. That's how some companies do business. And again, I can't sleep at night if I do it that way. That's not the way I choose to do it. But there are people out there that are doing it and you just got to be very careful and you got to ask questions. To Wendy's point, I do that all the time of as a podcast coach, I tell people, like, I have the result that you want if you're a podcaster. Most likely that's why you came to me, right? I get to live through podcasting. I don't ever have to leave this house if I don't want to. We're doing really well with the podcast. Awesome. Great. And I don't mean that with any ego. Just listen to what I say. Stop listening to the people who are telling you the opposite of me. Do they have a successful podcast? No. Okay. They don't know what they're talking about. Most likely. They most likely don't know because they haven't practiced it. It's very easy to stand on the sidelines and say, you should do this, this, and this. But I've done it every day for the last five and a half years. I know what works and what doesn't to the level I do. Right. There are certain things I haven't tried. I don't know how that works.

Wendy

And hopefully that's a good reflection of you wanting to come and talk to me, really, because you wouldn't want to go and attach your name with somebody who's really doing a good job, right?

Kevin

Right. Yeah. 100%. That's it. I mean, that's it in a nutshell. That's it in a nutshell.

Wendy

I'm patting myself on my back now.

Wendy

There's only one question I have left to ask really, Kevin, that I ask everybody that comes on the show, and that is to share that one conversation that changed your life or career.

Kevin

Oh, man. Probably the biggest one was before I was a podcaster and I had any goals of doing this. Alan had a YouTube show, and it wasn't really a show. I don't know. He was kind of interviewing people all over the place, and he said, I want to interview you. And I said, all right, cool. We're going to talk about fitness. Awesome. I don't know what we're going to do, but whatever. I'll give it a try. At the end of that hour and a half, I said to one of my other buddies, andrew, who was there with us, I said, imagine if you could do that for a living. That hour and a half just went by in what seemed like 30 minutes. If I could do that every day, oh, my goodness, my life would be amazing. And he said, well, there's people who do that. And that started the train for me of, okay, is me being like, a full time podcast possible? I didn't believe that in the time. I didn't believe that was possible for me. But I started doing research. I started understanding podcasting at a deeper level. That conversation is one of the reasons I started the podcast. For sure.

Wendy

Set the ball in motion

Kevin

It set the ball in motion and I'll give another r1 quick alan and I so Alan's the co host and a mentor. He's really still mentoring me. We had a conversation in our studio one day, and this was one of the most painful conversations I've ever been a part of my entire life. Alan sat me down and said, I need to vulnerably share something with you. And I said, okay, we do a lot of that, so that's not out of the realm of normalcy. And he said, I have a fear that I'm going to outgrow you if you don't level up the way you're learning, because I know that you want to make sure you stay relatable. And he said, I understand that, and that's very important. But there's a difference between being relatable and not leveling up. And I'm afraid that I'm going to outgrow you because I've outgrown so many people in my life. And we were both crying, and it was terrible, it was brutal. But that was one of the most impactful conversations of my life because it helped me understand at a deeper level. It was a lot of truth, but it also set in motion me learning more and more. And I wouldn't be talking to you in the way that I'm talking to you today if that conversation didn't happen. So that was one of the most important conversations I've probably ever had. Yeah.

Wendy

He was challenging your hunger for it?

Kevin

Yeah.

Wendy

Are you just coasting like you've done before and enjoying it? Are you just going to coast or are you going to really do something with this?

Kevin

Yeah, that was it. It was a challenge. It was a challenge, for sure. But some of the most challenging conversations are the ones that create the most growth, and that's what we're here for.

Wendy

That's why I'm all about making those conversations count.

Kevin

Kevin, I can tell.

Wendy

Kevin, it's been an absolute delight to share this time with you. Always encourage listeners to carry on the conversation, so I'm guessing we're going to send them to next leveluniverse.com, but if they want to reach out personally, where's the best place for them to get you?

Kevin

I would say Instagram is probably the best place. I have a LinkedIn and all that, but I don't really like LinkedIn. I'm not a LinkedIn person. I have one because you're supposed to. Instagram is the best place. My handle is at neverquitkid. I try to send a video to all my new followers. That's one of my goals. I try to send some video. I'm way behind because I've gotten more followers recently, so I have to do that. But yes, if you follow me, I will send you a video at some point, for sure.

Wendy

That's great. And of course, you'll find lots more information in the show notes. Thanks a lot, Kevin.

Kevin

My pleasure. Oh, it's wonderful.

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