You can read all the books, you can watch all the webinars, you can listen to all the coaches saying all the things, but unless you’re actively DOING the thing, you’re stuck in what I call, “Productive Procrastination.” Ideas only come to life by doing the actions that scare the crap out of you.
Kimberly Spencer is a certified high performance coach, motivational speaker, author, and the founder of CrownYourself.com. She helps busy entrepreneurs triple their productivity (and their profits), and succeed holistically in their bodies, businesses, and relationships.
She first ventured into the world of entrepreneurship at the tender age of five split-testing the price points of five cents or fifty dollars, for bags of glitter water that she sold to her neighbors.
Multi-passionate from the beginning, Kimberly is also an award-winning screenwriter. She co-wrote her first feature film, Bro’ at twenty-two, which was distributed by Lionsgate and is available on Netflix. She’s also a six-time WEGO Health Activist Award nominee, certified Pilates instructor, Miss Congeniality, and the former executive of a product-based start-up, selling back stretching devices.
Kimberly is living proof that it’s better to make your own mold than to conform to someone else’s.
Her entrepreneurial journey to Crown Yourself was recently featured in the Amazon best selling book, The Start: Journey to Entrepreneurship, and her work has been featured on The CW, ESPN, and NPR, and in Heavy, Oxygen Magazine, Girls Life Magazine and in Chicken Soup for the Soul’s show Being Dad on Netflix.
Her first book, “Mindful Meals: How to Eat Like a Queen and Still Look Like a Princess” is coming out in December 2018.
Where did the idea for your company come from?
The idea came while I was on my 6-week honeymoon in Italy. Three weeks before my wedding I was bought out from my first online company. I’d just gone through the most challenging summer of my life, got married to the love of my life, and in an AirBnB in a tiny costal village on the Northern Italian riviera wondering “WTF am I going to do with my life?”
I’ve always been a multi-passionate – writing, fitness, health, business, start-ups, producing, pageants – I didn’t know how to combine them into one thing.
I remember the moment on was a stormy mid-morning in October 2014. I was on my second demitasse of espresso, and my husband and I were riffing ideas off of each other about what we wanted to create on this next level of our journey as husband and wife.
That’s when it hit. I jumped off the couch and said “Crown Yourself!” I wanted to help helping entrepreneurs claim their power, not just over their businesses, but also in their bodies and their relationships. I wanted entrepreneurs to run their businesses like a heart-centered sovereign rules a kingdom. Because we’re all walking kingdoms after all.
What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?
I’m one of those weirdos who actually enjoys waking up early. It’s the only time I get for just me.
I wake up at 5AM go for a 3-6 mile run. That run sets the tone for my day. It’s my moving meditation. I constantly am repeating incantation after incantation like, “I am unavailable for anything less than profit and prosperity!” Or even something as simple as “I am worth it. I am enough.”Every time I step off the treadmill I feel so freaking amazing! Then, I stretch for 10 minutes.
By the time I get home, around 7AM my husband and son are up. I cook the same breakfast for myself every weekday morning – half an avocado, 2 cups sautéed kale, and an egg. I nurse my son while reading and enjoying a cup of coffee. The workday starts with getting into a relationship with my money. I review the past day’s profits and expenses.
For the first few hours of my workday, I work on my main project that my team and I have driving our business forward. This is usually done while my son is playing in his playpen in the office. I also prep for my sessions with my clients in the afternoon, if it’s on a day when I coach – Tuesdays and Thursdays. I make sure to take a break every 60-90 minutes to play with my son. Dance breaks are a nonnegotiable.
Twice a week, I do have someone help us with Declan, usually it’s his grandma. Now that he’s thirteen months, he needs more attention and someone to play with him. This also gives me two days where I can hunker down and focus 100% so that the other days, I can spend more time with him.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Action. You can read all the books, you can watch all the webinars, you can listen to all the coaches saying all the things, but unless you’re actively DOING the thing, you’re stuck in what I call, “Productive Procrastination.”
Ideas only come to life by doing the actions that scare the crap out of you.
What’s one trend that excites you?
Right now, it’s Linked In and Pinterest. With Facebook and Google constantly changing their algorithm, Linked In and Pinterest are stepping up their game. My brand is highly visual, and I mostly coach women, so Pinterest is our ad-game jam.
And for clients and partnerships, we’re redirecting from Facebook and focusing more on Linked In now. It’s a social media platform where people are there to do business! It was a lightbulb “duh” moment, when I figured that out.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
Engaging in at least one physically strenuous marathon a year. Last year it was 24-hours of natural labor. This year, I’m running my fifth marathon. Training for marathons puts me in an entirely different mindset.
So often as entrepreneurs we get caught up thinking of the short term – monthly, rather than yearly. I’m in business for the long haul. Training for marathons is a physical reminder of length, strength, duration, and capability.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Probably the same advice my mom gave me as a kid, “Be kind to yourself.” I still remind myself of this when I get hard on myself. There is no greater weight like being on your own back.
Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.
I’m naturally an introvert. Launching our Youtube channel actually scared the crap out of me. Putting myself out there, scares me. Not as much anymore, but when I first started, it terrified me.
And I did it anyway. Because your dream has to be bigger than your fear.
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
Do something that scares you, every day. A lot of times it’s something that sounds as simple as asking for help. But, we make it this big deal in our heads.
Fear is a liar.
When you train your brain to give into fear, you enhance the lie in your mind. But, if you do something everyday that scares you like making an offer, or asking for a referral, or asking for an interview, you retrain your brain to see the truth, which is that fear is an illusion.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?
Get pregnant. Yes, really. Finding out I was pregnant raised my necessity to “turn pro” in my business.
You’ll do more for someone else than for yourself, after all. So, who needs you to succeed now? Who needs you to take your business to the next level?
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
The biggest failure was waiting to get started on “turning pro” in my business, and treating my business like a business. I was so scared of putting myself out there again, so scared of screwing up that I didn’t really get started.
For two years, I sat on the idea of Crown Yourself doing all the things…all the things…in my business – building an expensive custom website, designing a logo, posting stuff on social media, photoshoots. I was teaching Pilates as a side-hustle until Crown Yourself took off.
Then, I found out I was pregnant. Not being successful was no longer an option. Prosperity and profit was no longer negotiable.
People thought I was crazy quitting my job teaching Pilates to grow my coaching business. The month after I did, I doubled my monthly income. And it’s grown nearly every month after that.
In the year I gave birth to my son, I had my best year yet as an entrepreneur in 2017, even with taking time off for maternity from coaching clients. And, Crown Yourself Enterprises is on track to double in 2018. Not a bad late start.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
it does a huge disservice to the people who actually need coaching – everyone else.
Yet, coaching is one of the most rapidly expanding industries, and, for a highly skilled and trained coach, the return for the client can be a 3.44 times their initial investment!
If you have a specific skillset in a specific market, and have used a system to produce results for you and your clients, then teach it. Not just to coaches though. Teach it to the specific industry that you have massive skill in.
What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?
There was a time when I was working in my first virtual business, when I had a $9000 year. OUCH. I was teaching Pilates on the side to just make some income – I can’t even call $750 a month ends meat in Los Angeles. I was living with my fiancé and he paid for everything back then – our apartment, bills, groceries – and he did all the cooking. He believed in me so much because he knew I was working toward this great dream I had for my company.
Fast forward to my second virtual company, Crown Yourself having it’s best month yet in August, my husband took me out for my birthday dinner to celebrate at this fantastic steakhouse in Santa Barbara. When the bill came, I whipped out my card and paid. He was totally surprised. I was so excited to do it too!
Being able to to treat him, to take him out, felt so incredibly good. I ended up spoiling him my whole birthday weekend, just as a “thank you” for the years he supported me without even hesitating. That was the best money I’ve ever spent.
What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
I’m recently obsessed with Trello. I have my whole life and business organized into beautiful boards. It keeps me and my team on track.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
“As a Man Thinketh” by James Allen. It’s pithy and powerful. I read it out loud to my one-year old.There’s a reason Tony Robbins revisits this book regularly. You’ll understand why when you read it.
What is your favorite quote?
“Men do not attract what we want, but what we are.” ~ James Allen
Key learnings:
- Make success a non-negotiable. Make profit a non-negotiable.
- Fear is a liar. If it’s not actually chasing you, it is an illusion of the mind.
- By training your body for the long haul, you’re also training your brain to focus on the long haul in your business as well.
- Be kind to yourself. There is no greater weight like being on your own back.
- You get what you are.
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Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.