SUCCESS4MEETS JOHN KENNY Interpersonal Relationship Coach

Hi guys, and welcome to Successful Meets. I'm here with John Kenny from John Kenny Coaching. We are in our new offices here, and this is our first podcast we've done here. We met John at the Best You. Expo last month. We had an incredible time, met some great coaches, and we're really, really privileged and honored to have John Kenny on, one of our trusted coaches on one of our pages. So we try and work with people that we know that can offer you true and honest value when you're looking for a self-developer, a coach, anyone working in the well-being sector. So John, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Rich. Thank you. Nice to be here.

Nice to see you. And you're, um, so the title that you've given yourself is interpersonal relationship coach, am I right?

Yeah, that's right. Yes.

That's it, Kenny.

Yes, it's a title that I had to kind of come up with because of the approach that I use to coaching. It's a fusion of all my experience, but when I called myself a relationship coach, people were kind of contacting me for couples work and things like that. And although when I was a counselor, I did work with couples. It's not what I do as a coach. Um, so I had to kind of think about how, um, I was going to— what I was going to call myself based on the actual coaching that I do.

And, um, so this is quite a new unique way of doing things, but what we wanted to do on this show is just introduce you to our audience. Um, so tell us, let's go back to when you were younger. Um, why do you think you got into this line of work? Um, I spoke with the— a guy called Evan Carmichael, and he said you're usually trying to fix something that you— or you— sorry, you found a fix for something that you had yourself, and you're trying to pass it on to others so they don't have to go through the same things that you went through. Is that true in your case? And if so, how?

Yeah, I wish I'd met me, uh, or someone like me, uh, several, several years ago, and it would have changed my life around exponentially if I'd been able able to meet them a long time ago. But saying that, I may not have been in the right headspace to listen to what I had to say anyway, because it's all about being in the right space as well to be able to take on board what, what the message is, and for you to be able to sort of overcome your own issues in order to move your life forward. So yes, it would have been great to have met me, I don't know if I'd have listened to me though.

But you come across as such a calm, softly spoken person. Is that all? Has that always been the case?

Yeah, I've always been pretty good in a crisis. I used to be a firefighter and people used to say to me that, you know, you really need to kind of go for a promotion to take control of like fire ground situations because You never seem flustered. And I've always been able to kind of be in the moment, as it were, and be able to kind of think about what I need to do, what needs to happen, rather than run around like a headless chicken panicking and worrying about everything that's going on and try and sort of take in the bigger picture. So yeah, obviously I have my moments when things do become slightly out of my emotional control. But most of the time, I'm, uh, I have a clear head and are able to think on the spot, which I think keeps me calm.

So being a relationship coach, um, one of the things you said— I know there's a thing called the Grant Study, um, and the key to happiness is, um, healthy relationships. Now tell me about some of the relationships when you were younger and how you How that, that affected you later in life and you started to realize that the relationships with people is where a lot of our issues come from.

Yeah, so I didn't have a particularly healthy upbringing as far as relationships were concerned. Um, I spent a lot of my time, uh, on my own. Um, my— briefly, um, my— both of my parents were very insecure. And had a lot of their own issues, and weren't able to be there emotionally. And in well, actually both of their cases physically even to to kind of give me the love support encouragement and kind of access to healthy relationships that I needed as a child growing up. So. At that early age, I developed a sense of what relationships were all about and also how I fitted into those relationships. And then conversely to that, I then decided how I felt about myself because of the way that those relationships were.

And so growing up in that sort of environment, did you feel isolated? Did you feel as if there wasn't So there wasn't much connection there?

Yeah, a lot of my connection was brief. I had a very unhealthy connection with my father because of his own insecurities. He's very much— everything was about him. So I had to learn to fit into what he wanted. So in that aspect, I became a bit of a people pleaser. With my mother, she was very in and out. So, again, because she was unable to focus her attention on me, when I did get her attention, it would be removed very quickly.

Okay.

So, that to me, I learned that kind of connection doesn't last. So, I then, as a child, learned that people weren't really there for me, and when they were there for me, it was very fleeting, and therefore I couldn't trust it to last. So that led me to believe that connection wasn't something I could rely on. And then I never learned how to connect at a deeper level. I tried to run away from it.

Yeah, now that was the other thing is that I know you used to be an international athlete and I'm wondering if there's some correlation there. What were you an international athlete at?

That could be anything. Yeah, so I was a sprinter.

Thought you weren't me.

So I ran for Great Britain sort of from the age— I ran sort of the junior level from the age of 17. So I won the English Schools Championships way back when I was 17, and then I got my first GB vest call-up for schools.

Wow.

So I ran for GB when I was 17, and then I was the top junior in the country over 200 meters. the following year in 1989. So that's giving my age away a bit there. And then I ran for the seniors a few times before I kind of got a succession of injuries that meant I couldn't sustain any kind of athletics career. But yeah, I like the connection that you made about running away because I ran away a lot when I was a kid.

And I wonder when When you got those injuries, did it sort of confirm inside you that nothing really lasts?

Yeah, and I was self-sabotaging, right? You know, I didn't really believe in myself, and although I was really good, um, I didn't quite believe— I wasn't— I didn't allow myself success. So I think that some of the injuries I got were manifested by my lack of self-belief. And whenever I got to a certain stage, I would then, you know, maybe go clubbing or start dating a woman or something like that, which would distract me from my training. And therefore, I wasn't able to really kind of push myself to see how good I could have been.

I can understand that. It's funny how things sort of creep in, doesn't it, into your sort of psyche and you end up sort of self-sabotaging. And I think I always thought self-sabotaging was a sort of key that we're trying to sort of bring it down before it's taken from us.

Yeah, I mean, it's what— so I think my personal, uh, take on it is it's all about what you believe about yourself. Okay. Um, so my core belief was negative, how I saw myself was negative, and, uh, I can tell you a little bit about that. If you want to kind of understand how I came to that conclusion. Sure, yeah, of course. So when I did my psychotherapy and hypnotherapy diploma, and on that course I did this exercise about limiting beliefs. It enables you to kind of unravel what you really believe about yourself, so what your core belief was. So my core belief was that I would never amount to anything. So when I was becoming successful in whatever areas of life it might be, my core belief was then, you're never going to amount to anything. So then everything that I did would then go back to that belief and then I would self-sabotage myself so that I could then reinforce what I really believed, which was I'm never going to amount to anything.

Yeah.

So I never did. I never got as far as I could because I didn't believe that I was ever going to. So I had to make that belief true within myself so I would revert back to it every time.

And it's, um, so you've done a lot of thought processes over this. So there's, there was a point where I know that you, um, there was an end of a particularly hard end of a relationship, um, and obviously that's going to dig home back to the nothing ever lasts. Was that a long relationship?

That was every relationship. Yeah, it was, it was more or less every relationship I chose to be in.

Yeah.

And if it was friendships, and also if it was like, uh, girlfriends and things like that, that's, uh, nearly, nearly every relationship I, uh, chose was something that I knew would cause me a certain amount of pain, that it wouldn't last. And I would choose those relationships subconsciously Because I knew they wouldn't last, and then I would end up in the same position of feeling like I'd given everything to somebody and got nothing in return, and I was never good enough. So then I'd be back on my own again, which again reflects back to where I was as a child, that to get away from the difficult relationships that I was having with my parents, I would either go outside to play with my friends, so I'd look for a new relationship to be around which was more sustainable or made me feel better, I would just hide away in my bedroom or I would run away from home. But I was always left in the same position, feeling like I wasn't good enough and nobody really wanted me around.

So that's obviously what you want to help your clients with today. That seems to be with the interpersonal relationship, you're trying to heal that within other people. Would that be fair? Fair to say?

Yeah, very much so. Because if you can understand yourself, then you can make decisions about your life. If you can understand why you're not making certain decisions about your life, then you can change that. It kind of empowers you. It gives you that sense of freedom to be able to live the life that you want to live and help you to understand why you're not doing that at the moment. So I work with a lot of people that have pattern-forming relationships, so they have kind of similar relationships over again, or they have issues at work where maybe they work for themselves or they work within a company and they can only go so far. They might have had a succession of kind of failed businesses or never get the promotions that they want because they're not able to succeed. to sustain their success.

And that's really, really good to sort of understand and find. It's hard in the coaching world, self-development world, to pinpoint the problem that you're trying to solve. I think a lot of self-developers, a lot of coaches try and solve all of them, or a lot of them, and they don't end up finding— hang on a minute, you're trying to solve something that was apparent to you. Like, our thing about it is about protecting people. So I was in an abusive relationship But I think I was in a lot of abusive relationships looking backwards. Not that I'm the victim, I put myself in these situations, and I think, as you say, on purpose half the time. Um, and I like— so what we try and do is try and protect people from being taken advantage of, really.

Yeah.

And I can tell that that's the whole point of what we do at Success 4, is keep safe self-development. We don't want people to go into something and being ripped off when they're vulnerable. Um, so you've obviously found your thing to fix and help people with. Um, so you, you, you were a counselor before you, you did a, um, sorry, you're international athlete, obviously you've got some injuries and then you went into counseling, is that right?

I actually joined the fire service first.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

So I was a firefighter, um, more by, uh, more by, um, I wouldn't say luck, um, I just didn't know what to do really, my life. Once I gave up athletics, that sort of was about 27, 28, and, uh, didn't really know what I wanted to do. So then I, uh, became a personal trainer actually after that, and then joined the fire service, saw it as a career, obviously something you have to keep fit in. And I think also that sense of kudos as well, because I was still struggling with who I was as a person and I wanted to be accepted and I wanted to be looked at in a certain way. So I thought being a firefighter would also make me feel better about myself.

Yeah.

But realized actually it wasn't really my— the career that I wanted to do, um, quite quickly after I joined actually. That's why I never went for promotion. Because I didn't really see it as a long-lasting thing for me. And then trained as a counselor while I was, um, training, while I was in the fire service, because I had time to, to study.

Yeah. And then you said there, the key point you just said there, I didn't see it as a long-lasting something for me. And that seems to be a recurring pattern that you were— you didn't see this as being forever anyway.

Yeah, I didn't see anything as being— nothing ever felt like it was lasting Uh, for most of my life, mostly just everything in my mind would come to an end.

So you went in— sorry, so you went into counseling, um, at the end of several relationships, and, and then after that you, um, felt that there was still something missing, um, and that's when you turned into a— turned to a coach, I believe?

Yeah, so I had, uh, uh, so I was, uh, so I had counseling for 2 years and trained as a counselor, and then I was a counselor for probably about 4 years after that, um, when I had a conversation with a coach and she sort of said, just come along for a free session.

Yep.

And through that time, I had obviously understood where I came from. I knew what my story was, and I knew what my upbringing was all about, and I knew the kind of difficult relationships I'd had and was still having. And she just said to me, well, you know how you feel, but your life's not changing. So I said, yeah, but this is like my story, right? I can't change what's happened. And she said, no, but you can change how you see it and you can change what you do with it. I thought, oh, that's interesting. And that kind of was a light bulb moment for me that I had a choice of how I lived my life rather than feeling like I was stuck to just keep doing the same things over and over again because of where I'd come from. And that's when I sort of embarked on my own coaching journey at that point, kind of changed my life and trained to be a coach myself because I realized that a lot of my counseling clients were in the same position that I was. that I'd be sitting with them for like, you know, sometimes months, maybe even over a year or so.

Mm-hmm.

It was all well and good them coming to talk to me about how they felt and understanding where they came from and what the issues were, um, but it wasn't enough for them either. They needed to be able to move on, and so I started to integrate my ideas that if the counseling clients wanted to, that actually, okay, we can only go so far with counseling. Because some people want to go to counseling and they just want the space. Because they don't have any other space in their lives.

The purge.

Yeah, but because they've got no one else to talk to. Because their life's never about them at any other time. So use counseling to come along and just have that space, and maybe their life doesn't very much, but to them that's enough. They just need 1 hour a week where they can come and talk to someone and it's just about them. They can talk about how they feel. But then I started to suggest that maybe their life didn't need to continue like this, and if they were interested in moving on to the next step, then we could look at doing some coaching together to help them to move forward.

I really like that. I really like the understanding understanding that you have, that the counseling almost brings you down to ground level to the point where you feel ready to move on, and then the coaching moves you on. And I think there's a lot of people in the self-development world who get in there and they just tell their story round and round in a loop, and the progression isn't always there. Or the motivation skills are there and they get motivated, but they don't progress after that, which is one of the things that we're trying to tackle.

So yeah, I'm sorry, I'll just say I've been so I've been tried— people have tried to sell me that.

Yeah.

Since I've become sort of really involved in the personal development and coaching world over the last few years, I get so many people saying, well, this is my story, therefore I know how this works, therefore I can help you to do this. And then I'm like, but what's your qualifications?

Yeah.

What are your techniques, and how did you learn this, and how do you know that would work for me? And they're like, well, we don't, but I just know it works for me. And to a certain degree, that's where I come from, because it's my experience that tells me that I know that this works. But, you know, I've done a lot of, uh, you know, I've done 14 years worth of study to run alongside that, to understand how people work. I've worked in mental health in the NHS, um, so I have a Personally, I think that I come from a much more grounded position of being able to understand where people come from and have the experience, the life skills, the life story, and also the kind of qualifications to be able to supply a very creditable and backed-up service.

So anyone who wants to contact you or speak to you, um, how do they get in touch with you? And, and how would they know when you know that you're the sort of coach that they need? What problems would they need sort of help with? How would they sort of get in touch and go, oh, you— I feel like you could be the person that could help me?

Well, the first thing I would say is that, um, something that you mentioned earlier on, which is really interesting, when I first started going into I thought, well, to get as many clients as possible, I'll train as a weight management coach, I'll train as a confidence coach, I'll train as a something else coach, a business coach, whatever it was. And although that was quite, well, you know, I'll be a jack of all trades maybe. But then my belief is that actually I can help everybody because the way that I coach people is very personal, but it affects every area of your life. Now, I can't tell you a lot about your business, and I can't tell you how to make money in your business, and I can't do that kind of thing, but I can help you if you're holding yourself back. I can help you if you're not actually in the right line of work, because the coaching that we do will help you to realize what you really want from your life. So my approach can help anybody that feels stuck, Anybody that recognizes that they're not living the best possible life that they could live. They don't have the right kind of relationships in their lives that they want. They don't have the right kind of relationship with themselves. So maybe they don't care enough about themselves, don't put themselves first. So there's lots of different things that we cover in the coaching, but also I can help you to understand other people as well. So if you can talk to me about how someone else is, We could have a discussion about why they might be doing what they're doing. And then you have a really open way then of being with them, because if you can understand also where someone else comes from, you can decide how you want to be around them.

Yep.

So that could be really helpful as well. And so there's— I've got quite a lot of videos on my YouTube channel, and there's a few on my website, which is johnkennecoaching.com. So people can have a look to see a little bit about who I am and what I do. But I also offer a complimentary consultation because I know that you might, you know, when you meet somebody, it's all well and good sort of saying, you know, let's sign up and work together. But until you've really maybe had some time to spend with someone, maybe sort of half an hour, 45 minutes or so of a conversation, then I know if I can help you. I know if you want help, and you know if I— if you want to work with me.

Yeah.

Because there are going to be some people which I have tried to work with in the past, but they've been more like my counseling clients who have got to that stage and change is too difficult. Because change is difficult, and again, that's where resistance and stuff comes in. So I tackle that a lot with my clients as well, because we can get They'll get so far and then their self-sabotaging thoughts will come in, their procrastination will come in, and it's all about them stopping themselves moving forward. So then I help people to kind of get over those hurdles in a way that kind of helps them and suits them.

Okay, so anyone who's listening now and wants to get in contact with you, how— what's the best way to contact you?

Yeah, so just visit the website. As I said, it's www.johnkennecoaching.com. There's a contact form on there. There's a phone number on there, so you can just give us a call if you don't want to send us a send us an email, and we'll get back to you as soon as we can to book in the consultation if you want it, or if you just want some more information about how we can help, then just leave us your email and we can do that again. Like I said, just give us a call if you just want to talk about where you are in life and what you want, and then we can move things forward from there.

Fantastic. And I know just briefly before we wrap up, a couple of other things I want to cover. Can you tell us about the PEOPLE program?

Yeah, so the PEOPLE program is the program that I wrote, which I'm actually writing a book about that at the moment as well, which I'm hoping to get out by autumn of this year. So it's, it's all of my experience knowledge about how people work in one program. So it's a 6-part program, and each initial of the people is a different part of the program.

Okay.

So we look at different areas of relationships, how you relate to others, how they relate to you, and the whys behind that. And it helps you to have a huge awareness and then mastery of relationships, the relationships within yourself and also the relationships around you. So I wrote that because that's been one of the most useful things for me over my time of working with people that I've noticed. And you mentioned the Grant Study earlier on.

Yeah.

So that's a 75-year study that, you know, University carried out in the US, and it was basically to find out what makes people happy. And the conclusion through the 75 years of study, that actually the quality of your relationships is the most important thing to lead a happy life. And you can improve the quality of your relationships by the relationships that you choose and also how you choose to be in those relationships. And that all comes really down to how you are within yourself, because how you are within yourself will reflect in everything that you do. And again, that's where the kind of basis of the People Program came from, to help to have the best relationship possible with themselves and then have the best relationships with everybody else.

I really, really like that. And I think I like your approach to coaching, your approach and your soft, gentle nature. I think it's refreshing and it's It's really, really comforting. You can tell you come from a counseling background and you— and the psychology is there and you know what you're talking about. So guys, if you want to get in touch with John, johnkennicoaching.com, I believe.

That's it.

Yep. And head over there. There's a form on there you can fill out to contact John Kenny Coaching. And also he's got social media pages. If you put John Kenny Coaching into Facebook, you'll find him, and on Twitter as well. Please like and subscribe to this podcast and also check out our Mindshift magazine. So if you go over to successful.com and you can subscribe to the magazine there, we're going to be featuring John in the magazine at some point. It's been incredible to get to know you. You're a very kind and gentle man, and we're really, really proud to have you on our Trusted Coaches page.

I thank you very much for inviting me to speak, and, and it's been my pleasure. I feel very privileged to do what I do, and I'm so looking forward to being able to help as many people as possible.

Thank you. Okay guys, so head over to johnkennicoaching.com, connect with John there, and we'll speak to you soon. You take care.

Bye-bye.