EP 648: From Million-Dollar Engineer to Purpose-Driven Coach Jake Kennington

The purpose of this show, the purpose of this show is to guide you to realign, realign with habits that get you to live the life.

Welcome back to the Habit Based Lifestyle Podcast. I'm your host, Jesse Ewell. Today we got a very special guest, Jake Kennington. He's the founder of Actively Human. He's also a licensed structural engineer that spent over a decade building a multimillion dollar project before actually realizing that, you know, his life was successful on paper and then just wanted to get into coaching and kind of personal development. And that turning point kind of led Jake to redefine success, step away from just the traditional, you know, engineering that he's been doing and kind of open a new path. Jake actually has a really cool practical framework called the REDAC, which is Redefine, Realign, and Reconnect to your high Highest Achieving Goals and just kind of helps mid-career professionals rebuild their lives around purpose, health, and meaningful connections. So, want to welcome you on the show today, Jake.

Thanks, Jesse. I appreciate you having me on and I look forward to our conversation, man.

Yeah, man. So, tell me a little bit about your journey in structural engineering. Kind of what got you started in that, and then we'll kind of transition into what got you into kind of life coaching and, and, and that.

Yeah, perfect. Yeah, you covered a lot of highlights there. I'll add that I'm a father of 4. I've been married for almost 16 years now. A lot of different hats that I wear with engineer and coach and business owner, and the list goes on and on. Makes life a little exciting and interesting. But I got started in engineering back in college. I went to BYU here in Utah where I live now for a couple years where I switched majors and finally found my passion for engineering and then also met my wife at the same time. And we grew up in the same hometown back in California and we realized, what are we doing living in Utah? So we quickly moved back to California. I finished my degree in civil engineering at Fresno State. Loved my roots in college and engineering. A lot of people don't know much about structural engineering. You, you get a 4-year degree, but then you have several tests you have to take along the way. And people are familiar with the bar and they're familiar with some of these tests like the MCAT for doctors and whatnot, lawyers. But for structural engineering, you take these tests and the last test I took was 16 hours. It was 2 days long, 2, 2, 2 days, 8 hours each. And the pass rate is less than 20%. Wow. And so 1 in 5 people, you know, pass these exams. I had to take them a couple times and towards the end of that, which was just, I think I passed in just a couple years ago. My wife was kind of questioning the whole, you know, thing. She's like, what are we doing? You're spending all this extra time studying and this money is going into these programs that I was doing to study and learn. Luckily, I eventually passed and I've been a licensed structural engineer for a few years now. But yeah, that's my background in engineering. Love it. I leaned towards the maths and the sciences and a little more left-brain thinking, very analytical and logical. And so that path made sense to me. But eventually, like all of us do, life kind of changed a little bit. Like I said, I got married, I had kids, and my priorities started to shift a little bit. And although I love what I did as an engineer, and I still do that a couple days a week, I'm now kind of transitioning to building something of my own, being a business owner, working with people more directly one-on-one, and group settings with coaching. And so that's kind of my next chapter and my next phase of my life. And I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit more.

Sure. Uh, for sure, man. So obviously, you know, being an engineer, you kind of have, you know, more structure and, you know, specific way. I think a lot of the people I've met that are engineers, they're very logical. At what point in your career, or was there an experience you had where you started thinking about life coaching or as a possibility?

Yeah, it was kind of this gradual effect. So I got deeper and deeper into my career and I always tell people there's no villain in my story. Like corporate America isn't a bad thing. I never had like a toxic boss. I loved the people I worked with. I felt like I got paid decent amount of money and I enjoyed the work. And so for me, for a long time, those were like the 3 checkboxes, right? But what I found was even though those boxes were checked, I still was kind of like not super engaged in the work, a little bit disengaged, not as excited or fulfilled. I had these voids, these other boxes that weren't getting checked. I felt like engineering to me wasn't super creative. It wasn't like a creative outlet for me. There wasn't a lot of like interpersonal interactions. And so there was these things that were kind of missing. And what happened was that disengagement translated to me in my life into poor physical habits. Like, okay, I wasn't, I wasn't going to the gym. I wasn't taking care of myself physically. I was overweight. I was obese by doctor standards, right? And in my relationships, those started to suffer a little bit with my wife and my kids. By no means was I like an absentee father or had any huge vices or anything like that. I just wasn't as present as I wanted to be. And I wasn't as active in those relationships as I wanted to be. And so, those were kind of the warning signs for me that I needed to be more engaged in the work I was doing and that perhaps as life changed, I needed to play catch up and change what I was doing, right?

Okay. So, it sounds like maybe the first thing that you changed was your health. And maybe just recognizing that, hey, I've kind of let myself go in my physical health. Would you say that's kind of your first initial thing you changed?

Yeah, I think when anybody's in the situation that I was in where you're kind of, again, disengaged, kind of squandering your time, you're externally successful. Like I climbed the mountain of like college, and the promotions and passing these exams, but internally I wasn't really on fire, right?

Sure.

And you're exactly right. I listened to the podcast, I read the books, I did all these like personal development type things, but that's all up here and that's important. With my clients, we work on strategy and planning and all that, but at some point you got to get out and move, right? You got to get out and do. And I think most people find that the first step is like taking care of your physical health. And making sure that's in check because if you're not healthy, everything else kind of suffers from there.

Yeah. Well, you talk about having, you know, you have 4 kids, you've been married 16 years. I think the easy, I think the easy thing for, you know, guys to do is get comfortable and just kind of go on autopilot. It's not, you know, maybe your marriage is bad, but maybe there's a little bit of boredom involved to where, you know, hey, like we're kind of bored at work. We're not being challenged. And a result of that can kind of have that boredom at home, boredom, you know, in relationships and, and things like that. Um, and I think that's, I think that's pretty normal for, you know, people that have been married, had kids. And what, what would you say, you know, was maybe kind of like, okay, I know I need to change some things about myself. And maybe this is, you know, part of your message too is like, hey, if you're in this place, Maybe it's time, you know, you need to grow, but like, there's no handbook technically on being a father, you know, being a husband. But what were some of the signs that you saw?

Yeah, so there's a lot to dig in there. You mentioned the word bored, which I think is a great word because when we're bored, we kind of, you know, we disengage, we're not as, you know, intentional with our time and the things that we're doing. And that's because we're bored. I firmly believe that We all want to be challenged and we all want to be working on things that provide growth for us and the people that we love. And so the problem that I've noticed is that oftentimes we know what we need to do, but we struggle with doing it. Right. And so, I mean, if you want to take charge of your physical health, it's not rocket science. It's like eat healthy and move your body. Right. Those are the two key components. Right.

And so, right.

We can figure out how to do that, but oftentimes we don't do that. And what I've learned is that there's oftentimes a missing piece to that equation, which is identity. There's a book by a guy named James Clear, which everybody's read. It's like a super famous book. I think there's like 30 million copies have been sold. It's called Atomic Habits. And I think this is really pertinent to, to your show based on the name and what you guys talk about and habits. But there's a key element there. Obviously, he's trying to teach people how to adopt good habits and get rid of bad ones. But he talks about something in there that's key, which ties into this. He says true behavior change is identity, identity change. And so he says we often think about it in the wrong way. We think about the outcome. We go, well, I want to lose 10 pounds, so I'll go to the gym. And we never really adopt the identity of like, I'm going to be a healthy person, right?

Yeah.

And he says that we need to do it the other way around. So we need, we need to figure out who we want to become. How we perceive ourselves as that healthy person, and therefore that healthy person does what, and those are the habits, and then eventually we'll get the outcomes that we want. And so for me, it's not like I never went to the gym or I didn't run or work out or I didn't occasionally eat healthy. It's just that I didn't have these long-term habits, and to do anything long-term, you have to first view yourself in a different light and adopt a new identity.. And so, for me, it was like, enough is enough. I'm going to be a healthy person, right? And then through that lens and that filter, I made decisions based on, well, what would a healthy person do, right? They would move their body. They'd eat healthier. They'd go to the gym as much as they can. And so, that identity shift for me was a key component.

Now, let me ask you this. Would you say that book kind of made things really like line up for you? Because I mean, here's the thing is, you know, like you said, most people when they have a goal, they kind of like start with the goal or start with like the habit, right? And so it's like, hey, I'm gonna change all these habits. The problem is, is they haven't actually changed their identity. And so when they, when they change their habits first, The behavior sometimes doesn't line up with the goal where what you're saying and kind of like what I've gotten from Atomic Habits is you start with identity, then behavior, then your habits, and that lines up more in alignment with who you want to become. And if you do it the other way, it's just kind of like you're doing more things, but you're not actually, you know, changing the behavior long-term or changing or tapping into even your identity.

Yeah, if you start with the outcome first, it's not a winning strategy long-term is the problem. You can brute force it and use your willpower and all those kinds of things to do it in the short term, and that works occasionally. But long-term, we have to first adopt a new identity. And let me give you one more example, you know, that's different than, you know, our physical health because this applies in different areas of our lives. I worked with a guy, coaching one-on-one with him. He lives here in Utah. He owns— we'll just call him John for privacy reasons, but John owns a company here, not too far from where I live now. And he's got about 18, 19, 20 employees. He started his company about 4 years ago. And he came to me because he needed help. And what he told me was, I need help learning how to delegate and trust my employees. And what I learned with him, any entrepreneur out there has probably been through the same, these same feelings and emotions. But what I learned with him is that he didn't actually need help delegating and trusting because he hired these folks for a reason. They were high achievers. They're good at what they do. He can and does trust them and he knows how to delegate. So again, this problem comes up with like he knows what to do, but he struggles with actually doing it. The reason again is identity. So he had previously for the first 10 or 15 years of his career been the guy that did the work. Right? He was the guy that did all the work. He was the workhorse, the guy in the trenches, the individual contributor. And then he started this company and he never fully took off that hat and put on the leader hat, the president hat, the CEO hat, where his role is no longer to do the work, it's to lead the work and to work through other people. And so he didn't view himself that way. And because he didn't view himself that way, he couldn't do the things that a leader would do, right? And so he worked through those. One of the most basic things, which which you'll probably smile when I tell you this and kind of chuckle because I did too, is this is a guy that runs a company of 20 employees and the company's phone number is his cell phone number.

Wow.

So, anytime a new client or existing client or anybody calls, he gets interrupted and he's taking phone calls. He's acting like he's the secretary, right?

Wow.

And so, what we worked on, a very practical thing that he did was you got to stop that. And he knew he needed to stop that, but the reframe was, what would the leader do? What would the president of the company do? And not because you want to make other people do the dirty work, because he kind of felt bad about making people do things that he thought he should do, but really it's because you're empowering your employees to do their job, right? Right. And that you can free up your time to do your job, which is run the company and work through them. And so, he unlocked this new identity of like little by little delegating and trusting and doing the things that he knew he needed to do, but it's because he saw himself in a new role and he was able to empower his employees to take on their role.

Yeah, no, that's great, man. I think that's— I think it's very relevant. I think sometimes, you know, we don't want to let go of— of that part because then we let go of control or at least what we think is control. But it's like, you know, I see this a lot of times in the business owners I work with where, you know, you're, you're like, hey, you have these people working for you. Why aren't you actually telling them what you want them to do? And I find a lot of times is the system is in the business owner's head and they don't actually teach their people or implement the system. And so it's always in their heads. So they always have to kind of run around doing other people's work and then they get frustrated at their employees and then they just kind of complain about 'em that they don't do what they want 'em to do. And then it's like, well, what's the system? And they're like, well, you know, they should know. And it's like, well, they don't know. And that's why, you know, you're not getting them to do the things you want them to do. So, well, let's talk about this, man, because you've kind of brought this up a couple times is like, I think today there's more information available to us, but the application is kind of what people are missing. So it's not like they don't know what to do. It's typically like, okay, well, where do I actually get started? And then how do I filter through all this information and start to apply it? And that's where I think maybe now today, more than ever, it's more confusing. How do you feel about that?

Uh, there's, like I said, when, when I was kind of going through my own period of, of crisis and I knew things weren't headed in the right direction, but I didn't know what to do next. It's like we reach out to the self-improvement book, the podcast like this, and these are all good tools. They're great. I'm so glad we have all of them, but we kind of drown in information, right? In, in the planning and the strategy and the thinking. And at some point we have to get moving. My experience is that when we're younger, I think it's like in junior high or high school when we're in one of those math classes, maybe geometry or something, we're taught that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right? But my experience in life is that that never happens. Meaning the shortest distance between where you are and where you want to be is never a straight line. There's always a zig and a zag and a two-step forward, two steps forward, back, 2 steps forward, 1 step back kind of thing. And we know this inherently and subconsciously. And what we do is we end up freezing. Like paralysis by analysis, right? And we end up doing nothing. And so, I think the most important thing is just taking the next step, whatever that looks like. And for me, what I've done to help people in my coaching practice is you mentioned this at the beginning is I've come up with a really simple framework. Because I think simple is that makes things implementable, like they're usable. And so the framework I use is called REDAC, like you said, R-E-D-A-C, and it stands for Redefine, Realign, and Reconnect. And so I walk everybody through the same process. We have tools to implement these things in a very kind of actionable way, but the overall scope is redefine what success means for you right here in this phase of life. Because if you ask 10 people what their definition of success is, you'll get 10 drastically different answers, at least nuanced answers for each person. And then if you ask those 10 people what their definition of success is in a couple years from now, they might have a different version of that, a nuanced version of that. And so I think it's super clear that everybody is honest with themselves about what success means to them, not externally but internally. And so that's the first, that's the first part of the process. I call that the head or the strategy or the planning. So that is important that we do that, but then we transition into realignment, which is the action part. So now that we have this definition of what is success, how does that show up in my schedule? How does that show up in my week? How does that show up in my career and in my family? And we take actions on aligning those things. And the last one, which I think catches people by surprise because it caught me by surprise on my own journey, is reconnect. I think we all inherently understand that we want deep, meaningful connections. We want relationships, but we often treat relationships as like something that we'll get to tomorrow. Like, oh, I can, I can take my wife out on that date tomorrow, or I can spend more time with my kids tomorrow, or I can go to lunch with that, that coworker that you know, I don't know that well tomorrow. And it's the can that we keep kicking down the road. And so, I think it's really important that we spend time on our relationships with the people that matter most. And so, that's the framework. And I walk people through that. So, they create this definition, they take action towards that, and then they connect with the people that are most important to them. Yeah.

Maybe give me a practical example. Let's just do marriage because I think that's it's probably an easy one that people can kick down the road and be like, well, my wife's not going to leave me. We have 4 kids. You know, there is, you know, I think especially between year 10 and year 20, there's the tendency to be like, okay, you have kids. So I don't think my wife's going to leave me. And so a lot of times guys especially can, you know, kind of like have that marriage where they, they stop dating their wife and things like that. So maybe just walk through that.

Yeah, I think you're right. We get comfortable. And when we get comfortable, we get complacent sometimes with those relationships. And the same applies to any, any area of our life, right? Work or physical health. But we'll take marriage, like you said, as an example. One of the things that I do with my clients in the realignment phase of that framework, which is the middle, which is like the hardest part, because we could plan all day and write in our journals and talk about about how all these things that we're going to do, and then when that alarm clock goes off at 6 AM the next day and we got to get out of bed, like, that's the hard part. Put your feet in the shoes and go do the thing. And so one thing that I get really clear with on people, and I think this is helpful, is we walk through this exercise called the 4 Ps. And I learned this from a mentor of mine named Richie Norton. He wrote a wonderful book called Anti-Time Management, which I highly recommend to anybody listening. And in there he said it's really, really simple. What you need to do is write these 4 words down. Write down people, personal, and play. The 4 P's, right? And he said under each one of those categories, write out every priority that you have. So under people, you might write your spouse or your marriage, right? Or maybe it's your son or whoever it may be. We'll take your spouse and your marriage as an example. So under mine, I might write Katie because that's my wife's name. And what you do is you circle one of, one of those priorities from each category. So you're only left with your 4 top priorities. So Katie would be my personal one or my people one. Maybe my play is I want to get out on the golf course more or whatever it may be. Professionally, maybe I'm trying to get that credential or pass that exam or whatever it is. And so you pick one in each 4 and then you work daily on that thing on all 4 of those priorities and you build projects around those priorities so they have a budget and a deadline and milestones and things that you're working on and and you put effort into those things because you deemed that those things are important, right? Now, I'll be honest, my son is my— I do this exercise regularly for myself, and my son Nash is my second son. He is my people priority right now. And that might sound funny because most people are like, what, it's not your wife? Like, your wife's important. She is important. She's not taking a backseat per se, but every day right now, Nash is super important to me because he's at an age where he needs his dad and he's going through some things. And so in the short term, for maybe the next couple of weeks or months, he is my focus for my people priority. And I built a project around him. In fact, I'm writing a children's book for him right now and we're going to self-publish that on Amazon later this year. So he's involved in the writing and hiring the illustrator and that whole process. And he gets to have this kind of heirloom or this thing that he inherits that he hopefully can pass on to his kid. There's obviously going to be a moral to the story and something to pass on to him as far as message and life lesson. But for this period of life right now, I'm actively working on deepening that relationship with my son. Maybe in a couple weeks or months, my wife now becomes the number one priority and she's my focus. But the reason this works is because it's very actionable and very practical. But also, if you, if you go through this exercise and you write down all your priorities in all 4 of these categories, you're going to have like 80 to 100 things. And if you try to do all of those things, you know, you're smiling, you're going to make no meaningful progress on any of them. Right. And I think what we try to do, especially as fathers and family men and women, is we try to juggle all these things and do everything perfectly, and we shoot ourselves in our own foot because really we're doing nothing. We're just kind of treading water and not making any progress. And so I think that's a really practical takeaway for anybody listening, is like, do this exercise. Sit down, list out the 4 Ps, write down all your priorities, circle your top 4, one in each category, and build a project around that for the short term and put effort into that daily. It doesn't have to be this big thing. You don't have to spend hours on each one of these every day. If your wife is your priority, maybe daily you're just giving her a compliment, right? But it's something above and beyond that's intentional that you're really putting effort into.

Yeah, I think it's a— I think it's a good point of like, you know, it's— I think a lot of guys think, hey, I need to talk to my wife for an hour every day or it doesn't count. And then it's kind of like working out, right? It's like if I don't work out for an hour, it doesn't count as a workout, so then they just don't do it. So it's kind of the same thing with maybe our wife is like, hey, if I don't spend an hour with her, it doesn't count, so I'm just not gonna do it. And we get married almost to a religion of it versus a relationship, right? And when we make goals a religion versus a relationship, I think that's where we get disconnected away from them. But I think it's really cool that you— I think for a season, our wives, our kids, kids, they're gonna need us more in each kid. Like my daughter, my middle daughter is kind of going through her driving. She's getting her license and like I need to take her out driving more. And so I'm gonna be more intentional with her for a season where maybe last season I was more intentional with my son because he was playing high school football. He was a senior. And, and I think it's important for us as parents. To recognize that whether it's, you know, whether it's with our wives or our kids, you know, you know, having 4 kids, it's like if you try to have equal amount of attention or intention, you're probably not going to have any. And so then that's where we really beat ourselves up. And that's, you know, that's ultimately what we, you know, kind of what I hear from you is like, hey, let's be intentional about specific relationships in different seasons. Meanwhile, you know, it doesn't mean you drop all the other ones. It just means that you kind of have like that standard already set. Some of the other ones are going to require, you know, a little more effort to grow it. And that's what I think is, is really important. And that's kind of what you're, you know, it sounds like you're saying.

Yeah, I agree with you 100%. Having an all-or-nothing mentality is not helpful in the long term. So what I have people do that I work work with is they build these priorities, these 4 Ps. They build projects around these 4 priorities. And then we have a system in place for accountability where they report on a daily basis for 50 days how they're doing as far as the effort that they're putting in. It's not outcome-based and it's not a checkbox like, did I do it or didn't I do it? Because that's the like all or nothing. Did I go to the gym for an hour or did I not do it? And so the way we do that is we— I ask them one simple question. It's in a spreadsheet and they rate themselves on a scale from 0 to 10. And the question is, did I do my best to make progress in this area? So your personal, professional, play, and people goal or priority or project. And they rate themselves on a 0 to 10. And to be honest, I do this myself. Not every day is a 10, right? And not every category is a 10. But you keep track, you keep track of that to kind of measure the effort that you're putting in. Because inevitably, if you put in the effort, you'll get the results, right? And this is kind of the identity that we talked about. We're not aiming at a goal or an outcome, although those help us set the aim. Really, we're trying to become a better version of ourselves, right? And so if somebody did— this is what's so funny is when I have people go through this exercise and I say, what are the 4 most important things to you right now in these categories? And they outline it all and they're like, okay, I'm going to do— these are my projects. And they don't often say it, but I can see it in their eyes. They're like, I don't have the time for this.

Yeah.

And I'm like, you literally just told me these are the 4 most important things to you in your life right now. And now you're following up with, I don't have the time. And again, oftentimes they don't say it, but I can see that they're like, how does this fit into my life? And again, you said something pretty profound. It's like, they're not all equal either, these 4 priorities. Some might take up more of your time every day. Some might take up less. But the point is that you're putting effort into the things that you said were important to you. And over time, those small efforts compound.

Yeah, no, that's great, man. Yeah. Let me ask you this. What are some common indicators that you see where someone's life may be out of alignment? And I'm kind of talking about before they hit burnout or some of those things, right? Because we already kind of know what happens once that it's almost like too late, but what would you say are some common indicators?

Yeah, the most obvious ones are hard because they're not so obvious because it's kind of more internal. But if you're asking yourself questions like, is this it? Like, is this it? Or what's next? Or do I really want to do this forever? You know, and that could be professionally, but that could also be on a personal level with whatever you're doing in your life. What I've learned is that is this it for me? Because I was asking myself that question several years ago. Translated to me, what it translated to was if I keep doing what I'm doing now, I'm not going to become the person that I want to be.

Right.

And so I knew that something was off there. And again, there's no villain in the story. Corporate America isn't horrible. Engineering is like fantastic. I love it. But what serves us for a period of time in our lives doesn't always necessarily serve us now or in the future. And so I was explaining this to my son the other day, this concept of it's not good versus bad, it's good, better, best, right? And so as life progresses, sometimes we have to shed these old identities, these old versions of ourself, and we have to adopt a new identity, which is incredibly difficult but also engaging and challenging and fulfilling. Right? And so I think those kind of internal questions of like, is this it? Am I going to be doing this for 30 years? Do I want to do this, you know, for another decade or two? And then start asking yourself like, well, what's next? What does this look like? What do I want from life? What is the life I want to build? And it goes away from chasing a career into thinking about the life that you want to build. Um, and I think a lot of people can relate with that because is for the first half of life, probably up until mid to late 30s, most people, we go to college, we get the job, we put our head down and we work hard. And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's just a pattern that like most of humanity follows. But at some point we start asking those internal questions of like, is this it? And what's next?

Maybe, maybe the biggest villain in that place is mediocrity. And because like there's no way to really measure that, right? Um, I think it's different for everybody, but I think one of the key things is, is like, hey, am I growing or am I shrinking? You know what I mean? And when you're in the middle, it kind of is almost like you don't recognize it until something like breaks or, you know, um, and that's like, to me, that might be the biggest villain of them all because you don't really see it, right? And sometimes it takes. You know, someone like yourself, a coach that's like, hey, like, are you challenging yourself? Are you growing? And like, you know, I think we, that's where like that boredom sets in is, is just that mediocrity.

I love that word. I'm like smiling ear to ear. I'm actually writing like a personal development book that I hope to release hopefully this year, if not next year. And it's called Death by Mediocrity is kind of the working title. And so the underlying tone or theme there is that we're kind of all slowly— not all, but a lot of us are slowly dying on the inside because we're living a mediocre life. And I was on a walk the other day with a friend of mine. He's also a business owner, and we were just kind of chatting. We like to kind of air our dirty laundry and our thoughts and kind of just think through things. And it's super helpful to kind of process by, by talking. And I said something to him that I'd never said before out loud. And I don't feel like it was an original thought of mine. Like, it came to me and I was just a conduit to say it. And it has to do with this idea of mediocrity. I said the most selfish thing that we can do is live a life of mediocrity. And what I mean by that is there's an element of stewardship that we all have to what we do, that we've been blessed with, whatever it may be. Maybe it's good finances, maybe it's a wonderful family. Maybe it's, you know, good health. Whatever we've been blessed with and given, we need to be good stewards of. And so the false humility of like, I'm just going to protect this thing and stay comfortable and be super grateful for what I have, is actually not helpful. And when we're given something, what we have the responsibility to do is to grow that thing and to pay it forward and to help other people. And so when I say the most selfish thing we can do is live a life of mediocrity. It's not that we need to go live this lavish, extraordinary life because it's all about us. It's that we've been blessed with so much and we have the responsibility to help other people that need our help.

Yeah, I mean, I think of like mediocrity, like energy, energy follows, energy creates success, success follows energy. So like being mediocre, there's no energy in that, you know what I mean? So it's like, you know, if we want success in any area of life, there has to be some type of energy behind it. That energy comes from identity, that energy comes from passion. And being in a mediocre state isn't— it— there's no energy in that, right? It's just kind of like, like I said, boredom is the best definition of it, right? And That's the hardest thing for anybody to define. I think for business owners, you know, it's like I grew up as an athlete, so I was constantly looking at ways how I could improve my skillset as an athlete. I think being a business owner is the same thing. You have to constantly look at ways that you can improve, whether that's, you know, being a leader, whether that's being a marketer, you know, better at sales, better at, but you have to constantly grow. Otherwise you just get left behind. And I think being a business owner exposes all those things, which it's like you either grow or you die. And I don't mean like literally die. I mean figuratively die. But that's kind of what being a business owner is about. It's like if you're not growing, you're either going to, you're going to be dying or you're going to be stuck in the middle of mediocrity, which I think is actually worse. Than the other side of it because it's a big camouflage that things aren't good and you haven't defined them as bad, but you're kind of stuck in the middle.

Yeah, I love that. I think two of the biggest catalysts for personal development, like these incubators that kind of force us to face some of these things like you're talking about, are one, parenthood. Like becoming a parent is an incredible experience, but it's also incredibly challenging. And there's a lot of personal growth that happens in that relationship in a family, but then also business, like you're saying. And so, being a business owner isn't for everybody. I understand that. But if you're open to that idea, there's a lot of things going on that go much deeper than just the business of making money, right? And it's dealing with people and kind of your own self-limiting beliefs and how to be a better leader and all these things that go with business that I think line up with personal development. So, I think those two things, if anybody is a parent a father, a mother, or a business owner, they would be nodding their head going, yep, yep, I agree.

What? Okay, so talk to me about like somebody's listening to this and they're like, well, how do I change my identity? Like, what does that even mean? And what is the first step in doing that? Because I work with a lot of health professionals. I was a trainer for 21 years and then I sold my gyms And I'm like, that identity's gone. Like people coming up to me telling me how great I am at, at being a trainer and how much I changed their life. All of a sudden when I stepped out of that, I'm like, okay, well, what am I now? And I didn't actually know really what that meant. It was almost like, you know, shedding your skin, right? But like, how, how would, what, what's the first step somebody would take in doing that?

Yeah, this is a loaded question, and we deal a lot with this in, in my coaching, and so I'm glad you brought it up. Let me share a little bit of my personal experience, and hopefully I can answer your question in a short amount of time here, because it's difficult. It's, it's easy again on paper to be like, well, I, I am this way, but I want to be that way. And your question is like, well, how do you do that? The short answer is you decide who you want to be, and then you follow that up with action. And it's kind of this loop. It's this, it's this flywheel effect of one feeds the other. It's a little bit of like the chicken or the egg, right? And it just goes in a circle, right?

Yeah.

So you decide who you want to be and then you take action that reinforces the identity that you want to adopt. So that's the, that's the easy answer. But I'll share my experience with transitioning out of corporate America and working for myself. And so, 2 years ago, I adopted this new identity. For almost 40 years of my life, I told myself I was not an entrepreneur because I grew up around a father that worked for himself for my entire life. And I saw the stresses and the struggles of owning your own business. He was a jeweler for 40 years and he had a handful of employees. I grew up in the jewelry shop and I saw everything., right? And as a little kid, I thought that, that's not for me. Like, that's too stressful. I don't want that. And so in the back of my mind, I was like, I am not an entrepreneur. It's a story I told myself, but it stuck. And 2 years ago, I hired my own coach because I was going through some of these difficult times of like, what, what's next? And is this it? And is this really the life that I want? And I hired a coach and he helped me unlock this new identity of I am an entrepreneur. I can do this. I want to do this. But what you're asking is, how do you go from I'm not to I am, right? And what does that transition look like? And I was literally on a call right before we jumped on, on this call, Jesse Ewell, with a gal named Cassie Shea. And she did like a 3-hour workshop around identity work. And she has this really cool concept called a bridge identity. And what that means is You're showing up as one version of yourself and you know you want to be this other version and you have to use this bridge identity that's somewhat temporary to get to where you want to be. And a really good example of that is my own story because it's like I was an employee and now I want to be a business owner. And those are very different lifestyles and very different identities and they're hard to go from one to the other cold turkey. And so, if you use this idea of a bridge identity, it becomes, well, what kind of person do I need to be now? So that I can start to make progress towards full-time entrepreneur. And she has this really cool thing where she says, not only explain to yourself what that looks like, but give it a name, like name that identity. And what I came up with is my bridge identity, I named Young Phil. And it's based on the Nike owner and founder, Phil Knight. If you know anything about him, I believe he was an accountant before he started Nike. And he was pretty young when he started Nike. I think he was in his late 20s. But there was a transition period of him going from accounting, working a 9-to-5 job, being an employee, to owning and building Nike. And for several years, he sold shoes at track meets out of the back of his car, out of the trunk of his car. He would go to track meets and he would literally sell shoes. And so while he was doing that, so he could still fulfill his dream and lean into this new identity, He was still working as an accountant. Right. And so there's usually this transition period between who we are and who we want to be in the long term, in the future. And we can use this bridge identity and give it a name, which sounds kind of funny, but is very memorable and sticks and is very useful. And again, the bridge identity is not where you want to live permanently. It's temporary, but it helps bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to go.

That's awesome. Well, I got a funny story for you, so.

Yeah, let's hear it.

Uh, I had clients that were one of the like top 10 investors for Nike when they first started. And, uh, and like, that's so cool. They, they actually came to their sporting goods store and asked them if they wanted to invest into Nike and into like, you know, Phil Knight and they decided to do it. And I mean, it kind of like left them like a legacy. Type money. So, I mean, they were actually clients.

That's awesome.

Yeah, their family was clients of ours in my, one of my training facilities. So, yeah, so cool.

I love Phil Knight's story. I, I hope I can meet him someday.

Yeah, man, he's, uh, he's pretty incredible. So a couple quick questions, and then sure, I want to be respectful of your time. So number one, what is one habit that you do almost daily that you feel like really helps you, whether it's like mentally, physically, whatever? Like what's one go-to habit?

My go-to habit is probably journaling of some sort. And what I've learned over the years is that's very broad for people. Like that could be kind of meditating and writing. That could be a one-line journal. That could be free writing. I just have something on my phone that I keep track of every day. And for me, the reason it's so beneficial is because my brain goes a million miles an hour. I'm always thinking about all these different things. I probably have undiagnosed ADD or something, but I need time, even if it's 15 or 20 or 30 minutes a day to slow down. And I think everybody needs a little bit more of that. And so usually I walk every day. That's kind of my meditation, my form of prayer. And, and I write in a journal and those things have been hugely impactful on really just my peace and my happiness. I mean, I've been doing these things for a while, but recently my wife came to me and she said, you know those things you do in the morning when you like write and you journal and you read and you go on your walk? And I was like, yeah. And this was unsolicited. I didn't ask her this. She just kind of offered it up. She goes, you know when you do those things? And I said, yeah, why? She goes, you're a lot nicer of a person when you do those things. And I was like, that's good because sometimes you feel a little selfish working on yourself. Right?

Right.

What I've learned is that the more you, you put energy and time into yourself, you can show up better for the, the people that you love.

Yeah, no, that's great. I can, I agree 100%, man. If I don't get a workout in, in the morning and do some of my stuff, um, my wife's like, did you work out this morning? You know, my wife's Katie. My wife's name's Katie also.

So I love that. Yeah. Tell her I said hi.

Yeah, I will. So, hey man, like, I know we've kind of covered a lot today. If somebody wants to kind of find out more about you, I know you also have like a free resource for people. I'm going to put it in the show notes, but can you tell the listeners about that?

Yeah, that'd be great. I appreciate that. So my website is called activelyhuman.com and there is a free resource on there. If you go to that website again, activelyhuman.com, at the very top, there's going to be a button that you can click on to get a free resource called the Own Your Life Playbook. And really, it's 3 simple and actionable steps that people can take to kind of own their life, so to speak, is the terminology I use, but step into whatever next chapter that they're pursuing, design and not by default. And so again, free resource. Would love any listeners of yours to get that. It'll ask for a name and an email, but that's because I just want to stay connected with people that that want that stuff. And so if anything resonated today, Jesse, with your listeners, again, go to activelyhuman.com, click on that button, get the free resource. And then I'm on LinkedIn. If anybody wants to check me out, just look for Jake Kennington and you'll see Actively Human all over the place. So.

Okay, awesome. If you guys are, you know, listening to the podcast, you can go down into the show notes and there'll be a direct link to Jake's website. Also, you can obviously reach out to him on LinkedIn, you know, and Jake, we, I appreciate you being on the show today, man. Any last words?

I appreciate you having me on the show and it's been a phenomenal conversation and let's stay connected, Jesse. I appreciate it.

Okay. Awesome, man. You too. The feeling is mutual and love the work you're doing, man. So thank you so much. If you guys are looking to connect further with a group of like-minded health professionals, business owners, you can go down in the show notes. You can join the Habit-Based Lifestyle and Business Secrets group. On Facebook. You can jump into the group, interact. If you have any questions or want to be a guest on one of our next episodes, feel free to reach out to me, Jesse, at habitbasedlifestyle.com. Until next episode, have a great day.

Live the life you've always dreamed of. This is the Habit-Based Lifestyle Podcast with Jesse Ewell.