Welcome back to the show, my fellow extraordinary Americans. Today’s guest is Kim Adele Rando, a renowned business consultant and best-selling author who uses over 25 years of expertise and specialized skills, including body language analysis, to empower CEOs to navigate complexities, drive innovation, and achieve sustainable success. 

She’s the CEO of Authentic Achievements, where her clientele consists of visionaries ready to break free from the time-sacrifice cycle without compromising financial success. She specializes in orchestrating six- and seven-figure top-line revenue through strategic customer listening. Her approach involves implementing cutting-edge systems to optimize profit margins and foster sustainable growth. As an experienced fractional CEO/CEO and coach, she championed sustainable success for individuals and organizations. 

She has delivered exceptional results for renowned organizations such as Capital One, Sage, and Barclays and has been seen on TEDx, Zondra, Roku, IMDb, Amazon, Fire TV, and Apple TV. 

She’s extraordinary, and I’m glad she’s on this show. Kim, are you there?

I am Cosmos. Thank you so much for having me on and allowing me to share some time with you and your audience. I appreciate it.

Kim, thank you so much for taking the time to do this podcast with me. Can you tell the audience more about yourself, your background, and how you started?

Yeah. So, how I started is very different from how I ended up. So, I left school to be a hairdresser when I was 15, which would be my career. I set up my first business at 18, and then I had to make a career change at 24 because I had a severe allergy to perfection. Would you believe so? I ended up having to give up. I sold the salon to somebody who worked for me, and they still run it today. I spent the next 25 years mainly in financial services and IT software, making it up to the board level, then started doing transformational roles. 

So, going into organizations that had broken areas and needed fixing often meant a combination of the technical side. But a big piece on the people’s sides simultaneously. So, how do you prepare the mindset for significant change, and how do you take businesses from underperforming to thriving? You know, growth. 

I’ve worked for some fascinating organizations. I’ve been involved in some amazing transformations, which have been great, and then six years ago, I decided to set up on my own. So, we qualified as an executive coach. Qualified in body language and facial expression to help harness what’s going on in the room to enable you to make successful inroads into where you want to head. 

At that point, I was also allowed to participate in some books and was fortunate to be an Amazon bestseller for three books. 

Then, I got the opportunity to do my TEDx on the power of belief and how we can use belief for ourselves and our people to make significant change. I guess that kind of brought me to where I am today.

Well, so, Kim? Can you tell me more about your strategic vision, from when you first started to where you are now and how it evolved over the years to where you’re now an executive coach and helping people transform?

Of course, when I started, I dreamed of having a host of hairdressing salons to be the next big thing in the brand. 

And so I worked hard to ensure I got all my qualifications. I went and did everything that I could. I understood my market and set up my business. As I said, at 18, that was going well until, unfortunately, my health said you can’t do that anymore. Because of this severe allergy, the next part wasn’t very strategic. For most Cosmos, it was tactical. So, I got a temporary job as a cashier in a bank while I worked out. What do I do now? My vision has been taken away, and I need a new vision. 

So, it was supposed to tie me over, but I loved it and got engrossed with it. Just the art of the possible, and I was like, OK, well, I couldn’t get to the top of where I wanted to be in hairdressing, but my ambition hasn’t changed. So now, how do I get to the top of where I want to be in financial services? And I had, I guess, on paper what you would class as being. Something that would hold me back. 

So, you know, most people and seniors in financial services have great degrees; they’ve got fabulous levels. My NVQ and hairdressing weren’t there as a substantial benefit when you were going for future jobs. 

So, I decided I just had to learn everything, so I became passionately curious about anything I could learn, and that’s probably been my number one skill throughout all of it, which is, well, I’ll just learn how to do it. I’ll learn how that technology works. I’ll learn how to get better at people and build my plan: I want to be back. I felt like I’d been set back at 24 to have now gone back in an entry. Level. 

So, I set my first goal to return to management within 18 months and then worked hard. OK, if I hit that goal, what’s my next one? And as I grew and developed more, what am I? This is what I have. What I have always had is my five-year vision. 

So, in five years, I want to be here, and then if I want to be there in five years, where do I need to be in three years to know that I’m on track for that trajectory, and then if I want to be there in three years, what do I have to do in the next 12 months? And that five-year plan would probably be a bit more high-level; the three-year plan brings in a little more detail, and the 12-month plan is very detailed. These are all the things you need. To ensure that I’m keeping myself on track and also holding myself accountable because I think that’s one of the big skills to get, is how do we become our accountability buddies? And part of that is learning how we set the direction we want to go. 

So, our brain Is Kind of like a satellite NAV. Wherever we go, whatever we say is where it will go. 

So, for me, one of the most important things is making sure that I’m clear about where I’m going because if I’m clear about where I’m going, my subconscious brain will start to filter into view opportunities that will help me. Get there faster, and that was probably my big lesson. Halfway through my career, I wasn’t looking far enough ahead, and I was looking at, OK, the plan says I’ve hit this one. What’s the next level in the organization right now? I want to do that one. And that worked, but it was quite slow compared to when I started setting my vision. I was able to, therefore, make a couple of leaps, but I didn’t go to the next step. I went around it. I went to the one above it. Because I could set my sights a bit higher and develop the skills that I had made Many more unique, and people wanted you in that role because it’s unusual to have people who can do the technology, the finance, and the people piece, which is usually where you excel in one or the other.

So, Kim, you brought up a very interesting point: the concept of the five-year plan, the three-year plan, and the 12-month plan. Most people who are doing jobs tend to, for lack of a better word, not have a plan. They’re just going day by day and all that. But to be successful, like most people, they have all these three-month plans, six-month plans, 12-month plans, three-year plans, and five-year plans. 

So, for the audience’s sake, how do you plan so many years? And how would you go about advising somebody to plan that many years ahead when there are so many changes that can happen? There’s a life that there. So many curveballs could happen because, as you know, you know how life is as well as I do. Like, just things happen, right? So how would you?

How would they create a plan like that and consider all the different life changes?

Great question. And I think that’s why the plan’s details are a little bit, you know, on a different level. When looking five years out, you don’t know how many plot twists life will throw at you to get there. So, it’s thinking about those big things. 

So, for me, for example, when I set up my business, it was. In five years, I want a team that works for me. I want to be able to work around my little girl. And be able to get that real work-life balance. I didn’t know I would do that, but that was where I set up my five-year planner. But if I wanted to be there in three years, I needed to have started recruiting my team; therefore, in my 12 months, it was OK. What do I need to do? 

Well, I need to bring in enough business to cover my outgoings. And extra so that I’m then able to start finding them. I need to start to identify what tasks I can do and what tasks I need to do because they’re the things that bring me. Joy or I must do them because I’m the best at them. 

And then you’ve got to go through. What do you delegate, even if you can’t delegate them today? What are the things that you’d like to delegate? And because that starts to happen, get you a plan for how you get ready to hand those over. And for me, this is the one. I didn’t learn. Until probably the last ten years, what are the things I need?  To. Dump, because they had no value to me, and they had no value to Clients, but I’ve just become a habit. They’ve just become things that I do all the time.

 So, when I’m working with clients, we kind of start with that. The question I would ask is, if you could do magic, where would you be in five years? And I say that you could do magic when they come back with all the reasons you couldn’t get that money because you can do magic. We’re not talking about the obstacles at the moment. We’re talking about where you want to go because that will allow us to pull them up, and you want places where you can have regular reviews. You know, what risks? If so, in my 12-month Plan, I’ll have – what risks are there that this could go that won’t go how I wanted it to? But what opportunities are there that could make it any better? It could go even better than I thought. I could get further ahead than I wanted to. 

And then every three months, I have a look at it and go. How many of the risks came into play? How many opportunities do Payments play? Do I need to tweak anything in my 12-month outlook to ensure I’m still on track for success? But it is starting to do that thinking, and there was a study, and forgive me, I can never remember if it was Harvard or Stanford that did the study, but they did a study and were in it. 100% of the people talked about Have you got A Goal, and only Sorry, 87% didn’t have a defined goal. 

They didn’t know where it was. They were going 13% had the goal, but only 3% of them had written it down and started to come up with an action plan; even if it were a terrible, terrible, terrible action plan, they’d at least started 3%, and when they came back at the end of the study, that 3% had—outperformed the next slot by 13% by tenfold. And the only different thing was that they had a plan, and they’d started thinking about how they could move on it. And for me, that hit home. Wow, this is this. It’s like a vital thing, not a nice thing to do. 

And so, when you start to come up with that and I, you know, I did those things with things like I wanted to before I turned 50. I wanted to do my Ted X, and I was lucky at 50 last year. I did the TEDx—the year before that.

So, it was setting yourself those pieces that said, give yourself a deadline, and then start working back from that. So, it’s like, I want to do it by age 50. That means I need to start applying much earlier than that because if not, my chances of success will be much shorter. And I think having those regular reviews allows you to look at what bits need tweaking because we often get held back. After all, something went wrong. It didn’t go right. So. So we throw the whole thing out. But looking at what happened, you’ll see some bits went well. The overall thing didn’t go away. You wanted it to, but some bits went well. 

So, how do you keep doing things that went well and look at new ways of doing things that didn’t go so well? That can be a game-changer. It’s often a really small thing that needs to be different.

So, Kim, there are so many questions I have to ask you based on this one thing that comes to mind: when you were advising your clientele, what is one of the greatest limiting beliefs that you see as a parent when people trying to start their businesses, and what can they do to overcome it?

I think this is another great question. One of the biggest obstacles I see with many of my clients is. They believe they have to have all of the answers. So, they make their lives hard. And because I’ve now got to know everything you know, I’m worried I’m not doing enough if I don’t know everything. And I was guilty of that for a lot of years. But once you get them to realize they don’t need to know all the answers, they do. What are the best questions? Because if they know the best question,

They empower their people to give them the answers. You suddenly multiply the power of the brain. This was first discussed in Napoleon’s Hill Hills book, where he coined the mastermind group. It discussed that when you get together with another group, you allow yourself not to have to own the answer.

If you ask yourself the question, then it’s amazing what some of those breakthroughs have been and some of the impact that that has because you’ve got the collective power of the brain, and that, for me, is probably the biggest breakthrough that I see with the leaders that I talk to, which is. You’ve got to get it. You’ve got to get comfortable with the discomfort. You’ve got to be able to be in the room and go. I don’t know. I don’t know. But actually, I know who does know. And I know what question to ask, and I know enough questions to know if they’re telling me something valid or will make me ask more questions.

So, Kim, I think people have that thing where they have to know all the answers because it’s more like an ego thing where they need to feel like they are the most intelligent person in the room. But ironically, when we have that humility to know that we don’t have all the answers, that’s where. But it’s one of them; it’s simple, but it’s also hard at the same time. 

Because our identity and egos are based on accomplishments, and many of us are businesspeople. For them, it’s an achievement-based thing connected to their ego. So, do you notice that when dealing with other businesspeople, or is it just something relative? Rare.

Now, is it? I do see. I do see that, and it is. You know, we’re in a society that judges us on our success, and success looks like being the person who knows the most. Being the person who looks the most successful, and that’s getting worse, isn’t it? With social media, it. One of the things that you know I’m working on now is. If we embrace the power of curiosity, what changes it makes in our lives is amazing. 

So, as human beings, our brains are designed to take our judgments seriously. We’ll be going quickly because our brains were still designed as they were when we were cavemen and had to judge. To die or not?

We live in a very judgmental society, but I don’t know if it’s because of evolutionary biology.

Yeah, but that’s kind of where we’re stuck. So, what I now try to do with myself and teach this to the people is just to get curious. 

So, where your brain will immediately decide whether somebody says something, your brain will decide whether you agree or disagree. Because that’s what we’re designed to do, I now go, that’s interesting. I wonder why I think that. I wonder why they think that. Well, I wonder if I ask a few more questions, whether or not I’ll ever change my point of view, but actually, I’ll learn something on the journey. And the other thing that I’ve. Over the years, our emotional brain has responded 24 times faster than our thinking brain. 

So, we think we’re rational, logical human beings who make all of our decisions based on the fact that reality exists even when we’re given a fact. Our emotional brain makes it mean something, and it does that first, so we’re now making our thoughts based on whatever we’ve made that fact mean. And so, when we kind of get into that, which is OK, what’s happening and what I’m making it mean, we often find the root of real opportunity to do something different because often nobody’s taught us that.

So we don’t recognize that we’re not making the decision based on the facts, but we’re making it—our emotional reading of those facts.

So, Kim, as you continue to show this, let’s say you’re a businessperson dealing with your clientele or customers. Are you dealing with a business deal with another businessperson? Do you appeal to rational logic, or do you appeal to their emotions more from your perspective, and why?

I think both, so I’ve always. I’ve always found that You both need to work together in perfect harmony. It’s almost an augmentation of the two because if you just appeal to their emotions, they’ll pass you off as right for you. You’re fluffy. I did have somebody say three once, and I’m sorry for you. Can you do the fluffy people stuff? And as I do, I do that. Fifty people put £600,000 on your bottom line using your statistics in the last four months. Would you like me to share with you how he was? So, I guess I went through his statistics, but how could I prove I’d put £600,000 on his bottom line? And he went. You’re not that fluffy, are you? And it’s like, No, I’m not. Because I can’t do what I do unless I can do both sides.

What does fluffy mean? What does fluffy mean?

I’m sorry. I always forget that my American English doesn’t come across so — What’s a good description of fluffy? It’s somebody who’s not detail-oriented, probably isn’t very technical, and just likes to do nice creative things. Things I want to do. Yeah. I just want to do anything hard. 

So, because people’s skills are classified as soft skills, which always makes me smile if they are soft, why do people find them so hard? But actually, you’ve got to know both sides of that. 

For me, it’s about being commercially astute, making decisions, and then being able to take people on the journey to implement those and get to that success. You can’t do it just with people’s skills because you wouldn’t know where you’re taking them, and you can’t do it just with technical skills because people won’t follow you. 

So, it would be best to combine both to appeal to both. Because again, when we look at these facts and what we’ve made, everybody in the room is faced with the same fact. But they’ll all have made it mean something different because what they’ve made it mean will be based on them, their experience, their ego, and how they’re invested in the answer. 

And that’s why you end up often with disagreements and conflict. And it’s like you’re talking about the same thing. In fact, sometimes people violently agree; they just use different words. You’re like, OK, we can pull back from that. But for me, when I talk to the clients that I work with, it’s very much a combination of both. It’s like, let’s go through all the technical stuff. Let’s go all through your finances and ensure we’re being robust. Visions that have appropriate risk because if you take no risk, you won’t get the growth you want. 

But we also understand the emotional implication of this. And I guess I was one of the big ones. When I was young, I went with a lot of family businesses or businesses that, you know, the owners have now passed on to you. 10s of millions want to get it to the next level but are struggling to get there, and the question I asked them at the start was, What’s your exit plan? And they’ll let. Probably in at least 95% of cases, when I asked that question, the guy. I don’t have one. And you’re fundamentally flawed because you’re not immortal. 

The one true thing is that you will exit at some point, whether in control of that exit or not. But if you don’t plan for what that looks like, your business will die when you do, and that’s not what you’re working toward. 

So, I guess that plays to the emotion, but it also plays to the financials of why you have done this and how we now look at it and say, where are your exits? You could float it, you could sell it, or you could pass it on to somebody. You could keep all three of those options open. But wouldn’t you know where you’re working again? You’ll make it. Better business decisions will keep you scalable and saleable, and it just changes the outlook for people.

So, Kim, one of the questions that I wanted to ask you connected to this is that, you know, let’s say you have somebody who wants to start a business and, you know, they want to get it to a six- or seven-figure business eventually. 

But they have this idea that they’re passionate about, and they want to monetize it. The problem is that they can’t get it to a six- or seven-figure figure. It’s their first time doing it because they’ve never done it before. How would you advise such a person on the step-by-step process to get to that level, and what is it? What is? Any of that?

Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean, what we believe is what we’ll achieve. So, if we don’t believe we can do it, we won’t. One of the things that I try to help people with is that belief piece: The only thing stronger than fear is hope. And yet, both of them are imagined. They haven’t happened, neither one of them. They’re created in the same brain. 

So, I’m hopeful that I will build a seven-figure company; even though I’ve never done it before, I’m hoping that’s what I can achieve. That’s why I’m setting up my business. And then, on the opposite side, I fear I can’t do it because. I’ve never done it yet. Both haven’t happened. Neither one happened, Jeff. Both of them were imagined in the same brain. The same person is imagining what they hope for, just as they imagine what they fear. So why choose to give what you’re fearful of more credibility and likelihood than what you’re hopeful for? Because both of them are equally credible, whichever one we choose to focus on is the one that will happen. 

So, the first piece nails into where you are. Where are you? Which one are you choosing? And then start to look at it. OK, what are the steps? And if I want to be a seven-figure business in five years, I probably won’t be. I will need a minimum of a six-figure business in three years. So, what do I want to get to in the first year? Well, maybe in that first year. What I want to get to is a five-figure. And then once I can see that it’s all incremental of what bits go well, how can I scale it? 

For me, often, it’s getting people to see the market size. That’s a great way of changing your beliefs. Look at it. I want to do seven figures, but can I do seven? And you’re like, OK, so the industry is projected to be worth £62 billion in three years. So, when we look at the size of the opportunity, your seven figures are a little small. But it’s not quite; it’s not quite Unrealistic, right? 

So, I think sometimes you’ve got to change that landscape for people so that you give them more facts that allow them to build that belief. It’s the stepping stone to that belief. OK. Yeah. You know, even if I got to seven figures, I wouldn’t even be. 1% of the market share now feels more achievable. It wouldn’t even be half a percent of the market share. 

OK, that’s all; it’s all about what you can do. Break down your fear, give yourself the positive option the other way, and give yourself those stepping stones. So yeah, again. That’s why I say it’s really important. You’ve got your plans because then you can keep one. You can keep revising them if things don’t go as planned. 

But it’s also really important to take those moments. Do recognize your successes and take a moment to sell. The break and I often use the analogy that if you want to climb Everest, there are camps along the way for several reasons. One, you need to take a rest, but two, you need to be able to acknowledge how far you’ve come to give you the motivation to keep going. 

So for me, they’re the really important things in it, which is, yeah, start with the end in mind. And. And look at it and say, OK, I’ve now got my 7th. So, at the start of day one, I’ve got a seven-figure business. What’s it doing? Who’s it helping? What’s it achieving? What are they saying? The. More color to you. I can put into what that’s going to look and feel like, the easier it is to walk back from that and say, OK, 

So, what steps do I take to get here? Because again, it’s a trick of the brain, and our subconscious brain doesn’t understand help and harm, so if we tell it we can’t do something, it’ll give us many reasons why we can’t and examples of why we’re right. You can’t do that. That’s pretty hopeless. But where do we want to go if we focus on what we want? It starts to try and filter in ways to help us get that. 

So suddenly, we’ll start to see some opportunities come up, or will we just have you ever had one of those? It feels like an Eureka moment. That’s the problem you’ve been dealing with for forever, and all of a sudden, the answer pops in. You’re like, wow, that was, that was lucky. That’s just our subconscious brain now, knowing it’s something we’re focused on. And so, it starts to look for. And things that it can bring into view to help us achieve it. 

So, I think having that plan, mindset, and peace. Sometimes, it’s about getting the people around you. So, one of the things I talk about is when people’s suffering, for example, is imposed. That. Build your thrive hive. 

So, find four or five people that you know have your back. You know they’ll be honest with you. You don’t just want them all to be nice. Yes. Some people tell you that everything’s perfect, but you want them to be people who will be there for you, and I have in mind that they’ve all got slightly different roles. I’ve got the person in mind that’s going to. 

Please give me the tough love when I’m wallowing in moments of self-doubt and can’t do this. And it’s too hard, and lifers throw so much at me that they will tell me to get on with it, pull myself together, and just keep going.

But then I’ve got the other person who’s going to sugar the pill a little bit. You know, they’re going. Perhaps give me some tea and sympathy before they tell me to get over it when I’m not quite ready for the tough love. 

But having those people around you so that you’ve got an outward voice is important because one of the biggest challenges I see for leaders everywhere is that they spend too much time listening to their inner voice. And their inner voice is often not as positive as they’d like it to be, and all that does is diminish that belief.

So, Kim, what she just showed me got me thinking about this parable of the two wolves. As this father told his son, they’re like two wolves in our minds, and then basically, one is made out of love or hope. The other is fear. And then the son asked the father, which wolf? Wins. And he’s like the one that you feed the most. 

And that’s basically what we have to do with our subconscious mind. But one of the two greatest things that at least I found amongst all the people that I interviewed and the people I’ve interacted with right during my time interacting with entrepreneurs is that number one, you have the environment, which is the external environment where you have a bunch of people like family or those friends who give you that negative feedback—and they’re not doing it out of tough love— They just don’t want you to succeed, and then. The other is like your own self thinking that you’re delusional for trying to get to the A7 figure for something you’ve never done. 

So, from your perspective, how can you combat this twin threat, one of which is the external environment of family and friends and the other of which is your own? It’s like your own understanding of what is achievable. And what is delusional? Because that’s that. I’ve found out that many people struggle with this when trying to start their own business.

It is, and, you know, we can be our own worst enemies. And then we follow that with people. We surround ourselves with. 

So, our family and friends. We could think They don’t want us to succeed. I think it’s more because they don’t want us to fail, and they’re afraid to take the risk, and they’re afraid for us to take the risk. But it doesn’t help because you’ve then got those parts. That’s why, for me, thriving is so important. It’s got to be people who believe it can be done. You want to surround yourself with people who’ve done it. They are also, so it’s great to have people already where you want to be because they know it can be done. They will also have had everybody tell them it couldn’t be done, themselves included. But they’ll have powered on through that. 

So, I think it’s making sure you’re surrounding yourself with people who are—either heading where you’re heading or as well as that. Sorry, not all, as well as some people who are where you want to be, will have a different perspective. It’s going to be. Yeah. I felt like that, too. But what I found was, and I think that’s helpful because. If we, as human beings, tend to be one of three things in our style, we’re either auditory, visual, or kinesthetic. 

So, it’s about how we hear things, and that’s how we create ours. Our vision will be what we hear, what it’s going to sound like, how if it’s, if we’re visual, it’s going to be we see it we can. See what’s going to go on. And that’s where we get. To our constituency, if Bill felt fans, they got there based on somebody else feeling that way; somebody else found out that it worked; somebody else went and did that. 

So, getting those people into that group that you spend your time with, and you know, for me, I choose where I share. And what I’m doing, so most of my friends and family don’t know much about what I do for a living. That’s not what we want. That’s not what we need from that relationship. It will not be our relationships; it’s much more about us than who we are. And the memories we can create and share, and therefore, because I don’t share my plans for the business, I get very little of them saying you can’t do that. And they know what it is, and then it does. 

So, I tell them after I’ve done it. So, I’ve done it. I’ve like, oh. I just got such and such, and I didn’t know. That’s amazing. They wouldn’t have wanted me to get my hopes up if I’d told them I was planning to get it. 

So, I learned for myself. I just classify where I’m going for and what type of support I need, such as my friends and family, whom I adore and who are amazing. All my friends and family support me as a human being and give me love, care, and attention, and I do the same for them, but they’re not part of my life. Business, tribe, or where I’m taking my business, and that’s another thing that I often see with a lot of leaders is that they’ve not made that distinction, and therefore they do get sucked in. 

So certainly, for you know, for people in particular, they’re starting to Reach out to people that are a little bit further ahead than you and ask them, you know, if they wouldn’t mind just jumping on and having a quick coffee, you’d be. You’d be amazed at how many people and who it is that will help you because they all had somebody help them. They all know what it was like to be in that place where they’re from. I’m good. I wish you could just chat for half an hour and see what I can learn.

So I think the best way around it is to balance being in your head and the naysaying often. To close people around you, you need to build a network that believes it can be done and will support you together.

No, I mean, you’re right. Two of the keys are what you surround yourself with and allow into your mind. It’s all about the narrative you put in your mind, especially your subconscious. Many people don’t; they don’t take care of what’s being filtered into their subconscious mind, or they don’t like it. Getting input from all different places does affect it. 

Still, you have to be very careful and be able to say what you can, like alter it in a positive reinforcement way, because you’re not going to get it many times from your environment, like the world. The society that we live in, as we are talking about, is pretty judgmental. Society only sees your successes. It does not see your failures or how often you fail to get to where you are. So, you have to be the greatest cheerleader for yourself. So yeah.

It’s so true, but that’s been true of all the successful people. If you look at them and look into their history, many of them didn’t become successful until much later on, or so I think it was Thomas Edison who said I didn’t find a way to create the light bulb. I found 10,000 ways that nobody remembers. These 10,000 failures, they remember the fact that actually. He kept going, I mean. That seems real. But he did because the belief was there. That’s it. It could be done, and it was important enough that he wouldn’t give. And I think for me, that’s, you know, that’s the part: making sure you know why you’re doing it. And once you know why it is, you’re doing it, and for me, adding to the why is the who. 

So, why am I doing this? Why am I building my business, and who am I doing it for? Well, I’m doing it for me and my little girl so that we can have a better life and that she can be set up for her future. And therefore, when things get tough and a bit more challenging, I look back at why, who, and where. If I were, is that still really important to me? Well, funny enough, I can dig deeper and find a way over whatever obstacle is because that’s so important to me.

And that’s back so that, you know, making sure you’ve got that driver and picking up the phone too. To something, whether I. Gotta go. I just. Yeah. I just need 5 minutes of your time because sometimes that’s all you need. Is that an energy boost? Similarly, looking at it and saying no, you could do it. Have you thought about this? If we consider something else, So I think it’s. It is important to surround yourself with the right people and give yourself time for introspection, positive and negative. 

So, look at those things and say when your brain tells you can’t do something. You can’t ignore it because it will keep telling you, so you must go. OK, I can get this wrong. Then you’ve got to ask yourself the question. Is there any evidence I could use to prove this? It will run back into the library of your brain and find all the times when you achieved something you didn’t think you would be able to achieve or where you’ve done something similar and been. Successful. And then, for me, what I started to do when changing my mindset. Scarlett’s my North Star. She’s my little girl. As an openly biased mother, I believe that as long as she’s kind and tries hard, there’s nothing in the world that a little girl can’t do. 

So, I will tell myself I can get it wrong in those moments of doubt. Then I asked if I could get it right. Get the new evidence. 

So, with this evidence, I know I can get it wrong. I know I can get it right. If this were Scarlet, what advice would I give her? Well, my advice would be just to try. What’s the worst that can happen? Just try because either you’ll succeed or you’ll be one step closer to getting there because you’ll know a way that doesn’t work. And so that’s what I tell her. That’s the advice I have to take. Because of you, you became my best friend. I am not becoming my own worst critic. 

I’ve spent many years in the worst critic camp, and now this experience allows me to reframe it and regain control in those moments of self-doubt.

Well, Kim, that is awesome. I like your reframing it and asking, what would you advise your younger daughter? And it’s playing a critical role. I wanted to ask you because you did a Ted X on the power of belief. Could you tell the audience a bit more about that? You and I both know that belief is important for success.

Yeah, it is. And yeah, I wanted to share with the audience that belief is probably the greatest gift we can receive. It’s the greatest gift we can give. If we don’t always think that we can give it, back to the piece I said earlier, you know what we believe is what we’re going to get, what we’re hopeful for, and what we’re fearful of. They are equally credible because the same brain created them. 

But actually, belief is the difference. What we believe is going to happen is the crucial piece. It’s the key. I was struggling with my self-doubt at one point, and it didn’t matter what external validation I got or what awards they were not having. I’d be there. Going if any, they knew only they. I knew I was. Hopeless. 

Then, this will be taken away from it. And then I realized. In a moment, I inadvertently made my opinion more valid and important than those I aspired to be like. That’s not true. I value their opinions far more than mine. So, the change I made was that when they said something and demonstrated a belief in me, they asked me to do something and do well. They believe I can do it. 

So, I will borrow their belief and then do my own. Level best not to let them down, but I’m already ahead of the game because. I’m borrowing their beliefs. And then I realized you could share the belief. So, when we ask somebody to do something, we ask them to do it because we believe they’re going. To be successful. Because if we didn’t think they would be successful, we would look stupid, but trusting them with it as much as they look stupid for not getting there.

So, for every task and piece of work anybody gives you, they believe you will be successful. But the piece I want to share is kind of. With the audience, and that is. Imagine if, when you were given that thing to do that task—that piece of work—the person took just a few seconds longer to tell you why they believed you would be successful. Imagine the impact that would have. 

And it’s just a few extra seconds, and I’ve seen it work. I stood up in one organization once, and we had. And we’re going well, going great guns. So, well, my boss said, can you sew us down like you’re going to make it extra hard for us if you run at this rate? Does the sales team have the car to take everybody off for the CSR event in September? Never. It happened, and that was all. It was all great because we’ve been going so well, and then we hit, and that was July. August wasn’t a great month. It was not. 

It was so bad that we merged it with September and called it October. We desperately tried to pull ourselves back to the end of the year, and our financial year ended in September. And I remember the boss coming over: You’ve got to cancel the CSR event. I can’t cancel it because I’ve told these people that revenue is not king, and doing the right thing is king, ensuring we put the customers first. Is that doing the right thing?

And if I turn around now, just because it’s a bit uncomfortable and start driving revenue, I’m no use to you. I can no longer lead in this environment. They won’t trust me. And he said, Yeah, but it will be your job if you don’t hit that number. When I get that, I understand. If I don’t hit the number, I have no job. But if I hit the number your way, I still have no job, so I’d rather go out the way I, you know, believe it’s the right way to go. 

And so do we. We went ahead with the event, and on the very last day of September, we went into the day and needed £250,000. We’ve never done more than 180 on a Friday, so it was a big ***, and they were tired. But I remember standing up at the start of the day, and I genuinely believed what I said. I asked if there was any calmer in the world. This is the team that’s going to achieve it because you’ve done the right thing. 

You’ve carried on doing the right thing, but you’ve not changed your behavior. And if you don’t believe me, do me a favor. Borrow my belief. I genuinely believe we will do this because it is great—all are, and I probably did that. Shout out two or three times throughout the day. We didn’t just hit the number; we eradicated it. 

We delivered 320,000 on that day, and it went down as being one of the best decisions. But you saw the moment midway through the day when they didn’t need your belief anymore because they’d built their own. They’d already gotten it. 

And I think, you know, if we bring it back to simplicity, Of when we’re. When we were children, I watched my little girl and her friends learn to walk, and I thought, Imagine that for a second. Imagine if you needed to learn how tomorrow when you got up. To walk or talk. Or run or jumper skip. You’d be overwhelmed. We’d all be overwhelmed. And yet, at our most vulnerable, we did it. 

And as I wonder why, I wonder why that is, and it comes down, in my opinion, to belief. The first thing is that kids believe they’re just like you. You know they believe. You can do it. They can do it. They just want to be like the people around them. And the second thing, this was the game changer for me. I’ve yet to see any child learning to walk without a parent or a parent nearby. Come on, you’ve got this. You’re so close. So, we give them our beliefs to add to their own, which catapults them to the next part. And if that can get us at our most vulnerable to do something that we’d find overwhelming in our adult lives, imagine what it could do if we implemented it every day in every conversation.

For sure, I couldn’t. I couldn’t agree more. And yeah, I could. I could ask more and more about this, but the time of the hour is coming to a close. So, I wanted to ask a little bit more about the premise of how authentic achievements started. Could you tell the audience a little bit more about it?

Yeah, of course. So, I spent many years trying to fit in and be like everybody else. And that was it. It was really hard because it’s not really who I thought I was, and then once I realized that it was OK to be me, flaws and all, that doesn’t mean I don’t need to work on my floors. But it was OK to have them because that would allow me to. Be a better version of myself. I decided. To be brave. To be my authentic self. 

So, I worked in big corporations, where I tried desperately to look like the corporate leader I was supposed to be. But I’m like a hyperactive puppy dog most of the time, so that was never going quite to work because that’s just not my style. 

And so, what I wanted to do with authentic achievements was to help people find their authentic achievements too many times. We’re out there trying to achieve what somebody else is achieving without knowing. Is that going to be? What makes us happy? Is that our measure of success? 

How do we start to own our measure of success and lead? For me, lead with authenticity. That means getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, being vulnerable to create that vulnerability and space for people, and being curious. Curiousness is a leadership superpower. How do we do it?

So I kind of set up authentic achievements; if it was going to be that, then my next book. But that’s changing slightly. And then it became my podcast. I want to share the people’s stories because I hope to share the stories of people who have done this. I have achieved it. Have you gone where you want to go back to what we were saying earlier, which is that you want to surround yourself with people who have been there and done it? 

I wanted to be able to help people who might not have access to these people. To access their stories and hear how they overcame it, understand that it wasn’t an overnight success. There were millions of failures along the way. They learned lots of lessons. The podcast and the business started a few years ago and became a show on USA Global TV and Radio. 

I’ve been so privileged to meet some amazing people and be able to share their stories with a wider audience while I’m learning. You can learn as well—an awesome gift to be able to. Yeah, I just pinch myself most days when going. How did I get to meet these people? I’m so very grateful. But it was my way of hopefully being able to Give back and help other people who are starting to get access to some of this when they need it. You know, we need to learn some of these hints and tips. We must also learn some of these strategies to help us overcome the challenge. 

When you suddenly hear that, that’s what you’re facing. It isn’t unique. Many other people are facing it, too, because we only share our best selves. We live in, as I always call it, a compare-and-despair society. So, we compare ourselves to the seemingly perfect image of everybody else’s life. And then. We despair against the messy reality of our own lives and how big a gap there is between the two. But we’re not sharing when we get things wrong. We’re only sharing our best, perfect version, so we’re not viewing what’s happening. 

So, that’s why I wanted to bring it in there, where people will be honest and say, it’s great now, but it wasn’t lovely along the way. You know I do. I just didn’t think I could go on, or this happened, and I just didn’t know because I’m hoping that that will motivate, inspire, or, in some cases, give people some knowledge that will allow them to get out of whatever’s holding them back and achieve what they want too authentically.

That is amazing. Kim, your life has been very exciting. I can already tell because you’ve gone through so many adventures in terms of business and self-improvement, and it’s just amazing. And Kim, how can our audience connect with you and learn more about you, your work, and everything you do?

Of course, I love it when people get in touch. You can either find out what we’re doing or Authentic Achievements.com. You can find me on social media, either as Kimmel Randall or, if that’s LinkedIn or Kimmel 10, on the likes of Instagram and Twitter, etcetera. And please do reach out. I love to hear people’s stories and see if there’s any way I can help people because once you get that belief, it’s a game changer.

Kim, thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this podcast with me, inspiring people, and making them understand that belief is everything, and it’s our mindset and strategies. It’s our vision setting and our goal setting that make all the difference in the world. I want my audience to know that, yes, they can start a business, but they can’t succeed. They can make six to seven figures out if they have a process. If they have this certain belief in the mindset, and you have helped with that, and I appreciate that, Kim and I, I hope you come back later.

I would love to, and I’m so grateful you’ve trusted me with your time and your audience’s time. I hope it’s been helpful, and I would love to. Come back.

Kim and I want to conclude this podcast by letting my fellow Extraordinary Americans know that, hey, look, there’s an extraordinary within every one of us, and we must awaken it and unleash it until next time. Bye for now.