New Hustle-Free Plans After a Much Needed Break
[00:00:00] Made Remarkable Intro: Welcome back. And thanks for tuning into the made remarkable podcast, hosted by Kelly Winn. Kelly is kicking off the return of the podcast with a solo episode in which she will be sharing some of the lessons. Life has thrown at her in the past few months. From challenging moments of loss and health scares. To the relief and calmness she has gotten from stepping back from social media. And taking time for self care throughout the summer. As always check out the show notes and transcripts for exclusive promotional offers and any special links mentioned during the episode. Kelly loves connecting with listeners.
[00:00:34] So don't be shy. Reach out on social media or just tap reply in Kelly's latest newsletter. And together let's build a community that celebrates the remarkable. If you want to be notified every time a new episode hits the airwaves. Just hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for joining us today and always remember. You are made remarkable destined to achieve the unimaginable.
[00:00:59] Now let's get to the good part. Introducing Kelly Winn.
[00:01:03] Kellee Wynne: Well, hello. Hello. I'm Kelly Wynn, artist, author, mentor, fiercely independent mother and wife, and the founder of a multiple six figure creative business. And I love my life, but I've been where you're at. I was slogging away at this art business thing for more than a decade. Once I finally connected with my true calling, unlock the magic of marketing and built a system that could scale, while I realize I can make an impact and make a substantial income, I'm finally running a business that I love and it makes all the.
[00:01:37] Difference in the world. My biggest dream is to help you do the same. Let this podcast be the catalyst to your biggest success. You already have it in you because you are made remarkable./
[00:01:51] Well, hello, hello, my friends. Can you believe it? I'm back. The hiatus is over, the podcast is back on the air. We have some amazing interviews coming up and I have some stories to share. When was the last time I was on here? June? June. It's been a while. It's now September. I took the whole summer off. I needed time.
[00:02:16] And I encourage you to do the same when life just hits you like a ton of bricks. If you've Read my emails or checked in on social media, you'll know that this has not been an easy year for me. It started off rough, kept going rough, and it still continues to be quite a challenge. I lost my father, and I almost lost my son.
[00:02:40] He was in the hospital for a month with Crohn's complications. When your bowels don't work, you don't get nutrition, and you start starving to death. Thank goodness for Johns Hopkins and the medical miracles that we have in modern day. And he is thriving and well and healthy, and I can't feel his ribs anymore when I hug him, and it's nice.
[00:03:06] He's still living at home. Yes, he's 25, but he's amazing. I've helped my dad's widow pack up her stuff and move out this summer back to her home in Wyoming. I think that's what you do when you feel all alone. I've been helping siblings through divorces and cancer diagnoses and, Huh, how do we just keep going when it gets so hard?
[00:03:32] And then you see this bigger picture of what life really is, and you realize that the people that are close to you are so important. There's so much love and even in losing my father. I've don't know that I've ever felt so much love and so I'm here to just talk to you about it today where I'm at and what I'm doing and why I totally burnt out see the first several months of the year.
[00:04:00] We're focused on building. A really cool, in person experience with Alice Sheridan, if you remember, way back, SoulMade. And it was a brainchild of the two of us and we put a lot of time and effort into it. And I got the news about my father the night before I was supposed to fly. So, she carried that show, Solo, on her shoulders.
[00:04:23] She did an amazing job, I heard. Everyone had a great time. Got so much out of it. It was a huge shift to see. I had been putting so much time and energy into it, and then my life just cracked open. And the confession I have is the whole time I was planning it, as much as I was excited about the people that I'd get to serve and the time I'd get to spend with Alice and the travel, everything in my intuition said, no, you're not supposed to be doing this right now.
[00:04:57] What are you doing? This is the wrong path, the wrong plan. You've got other things that are coming up in your life and you are not meant to do this. I just knew it in my bones. There were times where I even talked about it with some of my friends. It's like, should I even be doing this? I feel like it's not right.
[00:05:14] Not right now. It was getting in the way of other work that I needed to do. It was getting away in the way of time with my family. It was completely going against my principles of simplicity and doing the one thing and I can tell you that
[00:05:31] I don't regret ever spending time with a good friend, planning up and dreaming up amazing things, but I do regret that I have not yet learned how to listen to my intuition. And that's the most important part is listening to our intuition and knowing when the answer comes, you trust yourself and that's still a lesson I'm learning.
[00:05:52] There were. Many other times where I needed to just listen and trust myself. And one of the things I did was trust that I needed a break. So I finished my commitments with a podcast and launching my offer for Build It Remarkable. And then I shut things down and I just stayed present for the people that I was helping build their remarkable business.
[00:06:17] And I allowed myself the space to let go of everything else. I don't know if you saw, but I made a big announcement. I have deleted social media off my phone. I am taking a step back from doing all the things and I am putting all my energy in alignment with my bigger vision of being able to serve people and get results for them so that they can grow, uh, a business that's light and with ease and impactful.
[00:06:49] If I can do that, then I feel like I'm on the path of integrity and listening to what my heart is telling me I need to be doing right now. But yeah, letting go of social media. That was one of the most important things that I decided to do this summer. I just hit a breaking point of frustration, of tiredness, of exhaustion, of sadness, of comparison, of anxiety.
[00:07:19] I don't know how else to explain it, but after 10 years of spending all my time on Instagram, literally, probably opening up my phone and clicking on that app to open it, at least, I don't know, 50 to 100 times a day, It became so ingrained, that's just what I did first thing, pick up the phone, turn it on, check and see where that dopamine hit was.
[00:07:48] Did I get a message? Do I need to respond? Did I get enough comments? And I kept trying to say it didn't matter to me, and maybe it wasn't even so much the, the results of each post, because I, over the years, have learned that I don't have a whole lot of control whether something will go viral or not, or hit the algorithm just right, or You know, tickle your funny bone, whatever it is that I'm trying to do, but it was still a constant scroll.
[00:08:17] And more and more comparison was coming up, because I've been in business for a pretty long time. 2012 was the first time I had an art show. My very first art course was in 2018, and I have been non stop. Since day one, because I am ambitious. I do want to see results. I want, I want to be able to stamp that like ultra wildly abundant tag to the business that I've created.
[00:08:48] And yet what I've done is exactly what I teach other people not to do, which is complicate the business, add too many things, reinvent the wheel over and over again. And so this year, as I was. Working on launching Build It Remarkable, I was comparing myself to everyone and everything. Well, they've only been doing this business for two years, and look at how super successful they are already.
[00:09:15] Oh my goodness, this person over here, she's building a brand new house with the money she made from her business, and I love that! Good for her! But I was comparing myself, and I was feeling terrible. And this was an ongoing Problem of addiction, of dopamine, of comparison, of anxiety, of deeply unsatisfied, unfulfilling hustle work on the deepest level where I just couldn't let go and be present in my life.
[00:09:45] And I've talked about this on the podcast many times. I've talked about how important it is for me to transform what I'm doing and, you know, I can say it, I can think it, I can make a couple steps towards it, but I needed something dramatic, a blocker, a time blocker wasn't going to do, an app blocker wasn't going to do.
[00:10:05] When I saw all of these really cool ideas, like some sort of magnetic thing you can put on your fridge and it'll lock certain apps, and until you're back at it, it won't unlock them again, and I'm like, okay, This is ridiculous because what I really need to do is take them off my phone. Just complete immediate detox.
[00:10:27] And I did that in early July. I didn't know what the result was going to be. It's not like I'm never using social media again. But I'm not using it on my phone. So I check in from time to time on my laptop. I can access social media from my laptop, but I don't always have access to my laptop. See how that works?
[00:10:51] Right? So it's more intentional. It means I'm going in to actually have a relationship with somebody and make a comment and build trust. It means that I'm not interested in scrolling anymore. There's no pleasure in scrolling on a screen, but your laptop, I promise you, it's really hard. I am posting occasionally.
[00:11:11] You'll see me post maybe once a week from my laptop. And if it hits, right, great. If I grow, wonderful. If I don't, I just honestly don't care. All I care is about making sure that the work I do, Is fulfilling and makes an impact on other people. That's where I'm growing right now. That means I've got the podcast.
[00:11:34] I have my new newsletter that's coming out. I'm revamping it completely. So I can put more time into the long form content. That's meaningful. That's connecting. That's reaching out. That's having conversations with other people. It's really, honestly, my favorite thing that I'm doing right now are these Deep dives, these long reads, just ways of creating long form content that's more meaningful.
[00:12:03] And maybe it's not for you. Maybe what you need is some quick tips on Instagram. And if that's the case, there are some really amazing people creating content right now and more power to them. I'm not anti social media. I'm just anti for myself. I just can't do it anymore. I need healthy boundaries, and the only way I could do it was to quit cold turkey.
[00:12:25] And so I did, and it's opened up space for me to do other things, to heal, to feel better, to spend time mourning my father, to spend time loving my family, to spend time cleaning my house. I kid you not, like, the piles of stuff that have accumulated with uh, all of the hustle hustle work, it was time to create balance.
[00:12:49] This mythical beast of balance that everybody says is impossible. But the truth of the matter is, is it is possible. And I'm just, I'm calling baloney on this. I'm calling bullshit on it to be honest. Because what balance means is that we create space for the things that are meaningful in our life and we create space for ambition.
[00:13:13] And the two sing in harmony. Where I may have a few days of working really intensely on a project, and then I purposefully take time off to play, to read, to hike, to go play Pokemon Go. I have no idea. My kids got me hooked on it, and now we go play Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go. And I want to remind you, dear listeners, my kids aren't babies.
[00:13:39] They are in their 20s and they're taking me out to go play Pokemon. It's fun. You have to do it outside in the fresh air. And the more you walk, the more you can catch Pokemon. Look, there's some sort of dopamine hit in that. Yes, but it feels good. What it feels like is I'm Doing something delightful. I can put on a podcast, listen to an audiobook, go walk around the park, throw a few pokeballs.
[00:14:10] I feel revived because it is a complete disconnect from regular life. It is amazing to be reading books and to be having conversations with people and making more time to call family members to, you know, go out with my husband or go hiking. I'm not saying I have it perfectly figured out. I really don't.
[00:14:34] Because there are still plenty of days where I get up in the morning. Have my coffee, and I don't find myself off my couch until one in the afternoon, because I am just typing away, doing all my little work. But, can I say there's more balance? Can I say that there's more healing? Can I say that there's more of me coming back to life?
[00:14:53] Absolutely. More so now than I have in the last five or six years. I burnt out in 2020 running my membership, my art membership, and all of the activities I was doing around pandemic lockdown, work, a summit. Eight days straight of live painting. There were just so many things that I kept myself so busy with and I was not in alignment with my vision of where I wanted my business to go.
[00:15:24] And I just had this breaking point where I needed to shut down the membership and move forward. But what happened after that was. More piled on top of it. I kept making decisions for the now and not for the longterm. And I kept kicking that can down the road. And I'm sure many of you can relate to that, that idea that I'm trying to make a solution to my problem, but all I'm doing is pushing it off until it's going to hit me in the head much harder later on.
[00:15:59] Meaning I,
[00:16:01] I burnt out. But I never healed that burnout until it came back, and life became challenging enough to force me to face it. And that's what 2024 is doing, and I'm grateful for it. I didn't want to say goodbye to my father. To me, it was too young to go. You know, in my mind, his father lived till he was in his nineties.
[00:16:27] My dad was healthy. He was active. The day that he had a massive heart attack, he was mowing the lawn. He had been working around the house. He was just a very loving person. Not without his flaws, as parents are. Highly flawed, as I am. Highly flawed. But he was such a good person. He loved me. He knew how to forgive people and he knew how to find joy, even when life was hard and to lose him suddenly was not what I was, you know, And anywhere he prepared to face, but to feel his love unconditionally is probably the payoff, if you will, of losing a loved one. I just don't want to take anyone for granted because it shouldn't be in their passing that you realize how much you were loved. But I am grateful for that and I am, I have given, been giving myself time to heal. In fact, an upcoming podcast, we talked to a grief counselor and she was really insightful.
[00:17:31] Still have a lot to process around it, but I want to keep moving forward and understanding what this new experience is, being human. New experience for me, not new for most humans. It is a fact of life. But I'm interweaving it into how I move forward with my life now, and I love that. I love that, there is a little bit more sense of presence, there's a bit more sense of preciousness.
[00:18:02] If that makes sense, of course. If you've lost someone, you know that. I guess I'm speaking slow and thoughtfully today because it's just been quite a summer of adjustment and figuring out what I want to do next and where I want to go. And I'll be honest, I almost was going to just ditch it all. I was almost ready to let go of the podcast, not just shut down social media, but shut down everything.
[00:18:31] But what's keeping me here is working with clients that I just adore. And it's in those moments where I see them light up and doing amazing work that I'm like, I still have so much more I want to give. There's just so much more I want to be able to do in the public world, on the internet, if you will.
[00:18:55] Being part of this industry. And bringing integrity to it and bringing ease to it and teaching other people that it can be done. You can have wild abundance. Without hustle, without the grind, it shouldn't have to be that way. It shouldn't be a dredge. It shouldn't be something where you wake up in the morning and you are dreading the work you created for yourself.
[00:19:21] If you are in that place, come reach out to me because I want to just give you a little bit of a encouragement and I want to hear your voice. Like, where is it that you're stuck? Why did you build a business that you now dread having to run? Operate where did it become so heavy? Was it all of the comparison?
[00:19:42] Was it the shoulds and the shouldn'ts? Is it? not knowing what next move you need to make so that all the time and work and effort is worthwhile. I get it. I really do. I have so many things to tell you and share with you over the course of the next few months for the, Wrap up of season three of Made Remarkable Podcast.
[00:20:05] We have so many things to discuss. We really do. I want to give you a lot of tools and a lot of ideas to help you move forward. But I'm going to tell you this right now. The one thing is. My motto, and I'm pretty sure that we put this on the podcast a couple times, but the more you can simplify and focus on the one thing, meaning pick a person to serve, solve one problem for them.
[00:20:35] Do it on one platform with one solution. It's just that simple when you start adding all the other layers, all the other things you need to do. You don't need to do Instagram and a podcast and YouTube and TikTok and create an elaborate funnel of, you know, 15 different steps of products that people need to buy and all these different things, create your one thing, make it the most amazing thing, whatever kind of course, coaching program, a collaboration, do that one thing, master it until it becomes easy.
[00:21:14] Until all the little pieces are put in place and it can be repeated over and over again. And you're making the kind of income that starts to feel expansive and abundant. And then add on the next little piece to it. But only after you've started building something that's sustainable. That's the mistake I made.
[00:21:37] I had a membership. I had courses. I was trying to do in person retreats. I was doing local workshops. It was never ending. There were so many different pieces to my puzzle and not any one of them were complete. And so that's where the frustration and the burnout started to happen. And yes, three years ago, I began to transition from art courses into coaching, mentorship, whatever you want to call it.
[00:22:05] And I tested the waters slowly. And last year I fully committed to it and I have pretty much let the art courses sit there pretty on the shelf, looking all nice and. and shiny, but not really touching them or doing anything. They just kind of sit there because I am not focusing on them. They sell as an evergreen model, but it is not my business model anymore.
[00:22:30] Like, honestly, I don't really identify with them like I used to. I really identify with the role of serving and helping other people build their business so that they don't struggle with the grind. They don't feel like they're always throwing spaghetti at the wall and it's not working. I want people to build a business that feels joyful, that's in their zone of genius.
[00:22:56] What they're Meant to do their big audacious dreams, whatever it is that you feel you're called to, I want to get to the core of who you are and help bring that out. You have a voice, you have a purpose, you are made remarkable. It is my joy helping artists, makers, and creatives build. Their business, and that's what's keeping me here.
[00:23:21] It's in that experience that I realized this is what I'm supposed to do. So I picked up the pieces, I put my big girl pants on, and I'm back. I'm here. I'm recording podcast episodes. I want to connect with you deeply. I want to be able to help you. I'm going to provide a lot of information up front and of no charge, no gimmicks, and I'm also going to make offers to you to come and join Build It Remarkable.
[00:23:53] We'll open up the doors again at the end of the year. For registration, and if you feel like the time is now for you to be part of something incredibly special, check with the people who are in the program and see if it's right with you. I'm happy to make referrals. I'm happy to answer any questions and I just want to make sure that I stay true.
[00:24:18] To myself as I'm building this, I listen to my intuition and I continue to serve the way that I've always imagined it's supposed to be and so far it is in that kind of bond that I've made that has kept me here and kept me passionate about what I'm doing. And that's the honest truth.
[00:24:39] So in all of the ups and downs of this year and all the struggles and the low points and the frustrations I've had with overwork and hustle and grind and letting it go and getting back to center and realizing my purpose, I want to do the same for you because it's been a challenge, but it's been worth it.
[00:25:02] Turned out to be something very beautiful. I hope that's making sense to you. It's, in, in challenging times, in dark times, we get to put whatever meaning we want on the experience. And the meaning I'm making out of it is that I'm meant to be here. And I'm really looking forward to continuing to bring you the very best in podcast, newsletter, support, in any which way that I can, because I want you to succeed.
[00:25:33] I want you to do things that make you feel excited to be here too. Alright, I have an announcement. You can find me at Kelly Wynne on Instagram. On YouTube, on Pinterest, on whatever platform, I dropped Studios for my name. That's one of the things that I've been thinking about for a couple of years. In fact, if you were to go back two years ago, you might remember me talking about creating a second Instagram account, Kelly Wynne, and keeping the Kelly Wynne Studios.
[00:26:06] And that wasn't a very sensible choice, because that meant running more than one Instagram account, and as you know, I have too many of them that probably helped lead to me needing to burn it all down. So It was a long time coming that I let the studios part of Kelly Wynn Studios go. It does not mean that I am not an artist, but I am not making much art right now.
[00:26:32] My creativity is coming out in other ways, in writing, in dreaming, in helping.
[00:26:38] And so, allowing for more space to be myself and not a brand. And I drop Studios and I am just Kelly Wynne on all my platforms, even if my business is called Kelly Wynne Studios, I am just me. And so when I do show up, which I will occasionally, you'll see K E L L E E W Y N N E and I'm there. And I would love for you to jump on and say hi.
[00:27:07] From your computer, maybe, because maybe you're deleting it off of your phone. Who knows? I hope I'm inspiring everybody to find a new path forward. It's doable, you know? We used to have, lives without phones in our face all the time, so, I have a feeling this could work for you as well. But what I do want, without a doubt, is if you could do me a favor, could you rate the podcast?
[00:27:35] Could you leave a review? This makes a difference in being able to be founded. I know I say it with every podcast episode, but I really haven't seen the kind of growth that I want for this podcast. I want to be able to serve and help more people. I need more People of color. I need more minorities. I need the LGBTQ community, the differently abled and differently thinking.
[00:28:05] Right I want to hear more voices of success against all odds of building it your own way I want to be able to bring on some really remarkable guests some of them that I have already got book that I'm so Excited about you're gonna love we're having some deep conversations this season, but in order to keep growing I need your support.
[00:28:27] I need you to share it on social media. I need you to Leave a review of the podcast and if you have any You Ideas or suggestions come pop in on my DMs and let me know because I don't have my phone in my pocket with my app, but I do check in at least once a day on my laptop. How's that for you? It's so good to be back.
[00:28:51] /Thank you so much for listening to my heartfelt plea to you today. Taking the summer off and coming back feeling much better and hopeful love to you all. Thank you so much.
If you'd like to listen to or learn more about the podcast visit https://www.maderemarkable.com/blog for our show notes and links to the main players.