[00:00:00] Kim Skermer: Get a make sure I got my phone number. All
[00:00:03] Michael Pacheco: right, ready? Hello everybody. Welcome once again to another episode of the remarkable coach podcast. As ever, I am your host, Michael Pacheco. And today with me, I have a Kim Skirmer. Kim has over 20 years of experience. She transitioned from senior executive management to found the approach coaching method.
Amassing over 25, 000 professional coaching hours and mentoring hundreds passionate about genuine conversations. She’s been pivotal in guiding financial professionals in business ownership, facilitating seminars and making notable speaking engagements. Her trademark beyond the product is grounded in timing preparation and personalized perspectives without alliteration, man.
That’s great. Um, And underpins her five division structure aimed at sharing wisdom, fostering community, and promoting a balanced work life vision. Kim, welcome to The Remarkable
[00:01:02] Kim Skermer: Coach. Thank you. Thank you. I would, that sounded really good. I’d hire me.
[00:01:07] Michael Pacheco: It’s the preparation and personalized perspectives.
[00:01:10] Kim Skermer: I love it.
I love playing with words. It makes me so happy.
[00:01:16] Michael Pacheco: Kim, as always, when I, you know, when we kick off this podcast, I always like to invite our guests. Um, we just, I just read your bio of course, to just tell us a little bit more about yourself kind of in your own words and tell us about what it is you do and why it is you do what you do.
[00:01:28] Kim Skermer: It was that transition from senior management to on my own. So I’ve been in the financial services world for 25, 24, a couple of decades I’ve been there and watching and always seeing and taking inventory of, you know, what’s missing and where does the approach belong? And it’s that whole part of what I saw that was missing in the gap in the industry was something I could not foster and grow from the boardroom.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s just, there’s certain places in time and scale, right? So when the opportunity came, I took it. And, and so that’s kind of that whole part of in so many businesses and practices and industries, when there is. a distributor, right? And a carry of a product. And then someone is out there selling in that product.
We failed to treat it as a business. And that’s what I saw is that we were doing a really good job of making people employees or having a practice, but there was this fail. Right? And this, this, this, uh, behind the times approach of making someone a business owner. And it is that true business development thing.
So that kind of led me into going out on my own and hanging my shingle up. Well, it was three years ago, but I’m practicing for two years and it’s been absolutely incredible.
[00:02:52] Michael Pacheco: Who are your, uh, who are your clients today? Who’s your, who’s your ideal client? Who do you work with?
[00:02:57] Kim Skermer: I love, there’s a couple of ways I explain it, but my favorite is it’s the high achievers.
So I strongly, and it’s my beliefs, but I believe that when someone comes into business in their first couple of years. I’m not the right coach. And I usually don’t think a coaching a business development coach is the right coach for them in the beginning. It is that, that incredible defiance that happens, right?
Cause we’re opening up a business and we’re imaginative or creative. We are so married and involved with our baby, our newborn that. Nobody could really, or you’re not ready to hear about the structures. So you need to go on this journey. And I’m the coach that stands at the path of you at the gate of your path.
So it’s that whole part of go screw up, go learn your lessons. Cause until you go do that, you’re not going to be able to listen and learn from anybody else. Be open to do that. So my ideal clients are the ones that. Appreciate good design, structure, understand flow, state of mind, understand it is that whole part of there will always be this ongoing noise around us.
And the best position of strategic intent and structure is from a place of calm, not from a place of hype and excitement. So those are my clients that will understand that it’s going to take years. That is, bite, bite, bite. The end of one goal is the beginning of another. It is that true high achiever niche market expert that I coach really well.
And are
[00:04:24] Michael Pacheco: these, so are you still, you know, in the bio you mentioned, you know, guiding financial professionals in business ownership, are you still working primarily with financial
[00:04:31] Kim Skermer: professionals? I am. I am. And it’s, it is very interesting. I get a lot of inquiries of, Hey, I work in XYZ industry. Can you coach?
And, and I did do some in the beauty industry and a little bit in the real estate and things like that. Cause a business is a business is a business is a structure. So it’s, it’s that whole part of understanding when you have a niche, you either coach from a place of expertise or you coach from a place of empathy.
So you’ve had the shared experience or you understand their emotions behind what they’re trying to build. So if you can do both of those, it’s great. You can coach in any realm, but we always need to define time. So, or define down. So it is that part of financial services. I’m booked. It’s whatever. We’re August.
I don’t even know what month we’re in and you can’t get in to get coached by me. Tell. Where am I sitting now? August, August, September of next year.
[00:05:22] Michael Pacheco: Okay. September 13.
[00:05:25] Kim Skermer: Yeah. 13 months away. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it is when you’re really good at what you do and you’re very clear of who your ideal client is and you are absolutely committed to saying yes to the right people and saying, no, I’m not the right coach for you, but go try this person or here’s all this stuff for you for free.
Go learn this first and then come back that honest, authentic conversation. That’s what we’re lacking in and we’re missing in the business world, my opinion.
[00:05:59] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. No, I, I agree completely. I think, um, you know, from my perspective, coming from a perspective of a marketing agency, you know, we’re, we’re all on LinkedIn.
So we’ve all gotten those, uh, those awful, awful outreach messages on LinkedIn saying, I will fill your calendar, you know, with leads. And what they’ll do is they’ll fill your calendar with garbage because they’re just trying to tell you. They’re trying to sell you anything, whether, you know, whether you need it or not.
Um, whether it’s right for you or not. They just want to, they just want to push their, their
[00:06:28] Kim Skermer: crap on you. Yeah. They’re, they’re crap on you or they make this assumption that you need leads. Right. I’m, I’m booked out 13 months ahead, right? I don’t need leads. So it’s even that whole part and they call it getting pitch slapped, right?
I’ve just been pitch slapped and I’ll tag you on the post next week as a marketing brain. You’d love it. And I’ve got this guy’s face and this chicken, rubber chicken slapping him across the face and it’s this pitch slap. And I purposely even on LinkedIn because people are getting so creative with their, with the pitches and all that kind of stuff that it would end with their AI that I actually had Kim.
And then in brackets, Kimberly. So I know automatically have I just been pitched or is it AI or, you know, are they, are they seagull hunting? Right? Like, it’s, it’s that whole part of being very mindful of people coming to you and even working with the PR agency I’m working with now. I almost said no to them because.
Especially women. It’s so sad, actually. I would hate to be, and I don’t mean to say it this way, but I’m going to. Being a middle aged man, you’re forgotten about right now, but the women in business and the exciting topics. Women are pitched all the time of, I’ll put you in a magazine cover, I’ll do this, I’ll do that, boss lady, and I’m going.
This is ridiculous. I get pitched two or three times a day, at least. Hashtag boss lady. Hashtag boss lady. I’m like, I’m not a boss, babe. I’m 50. Leave me alone. Right. That’s hilarious. Yeah.
[00:07:50] Michael Pacheco: Uh, that’s great. So, so where do you, where are you getting your clients these days? So you’re, you’re, you’re booked out 13 months.
That’s amazing, by the way. Congratulations. Awesome. You’re clearly doing something right. Where are you getting your clients? Where are you getting your leads? Is this all like word of mouth? Are you, are you crushing on, on the PR front? What are you, what are you doing to get clients?
[00:08:13] Kim Skermer: So I am working with a PR firm, but we haven’t even done anything together yet.
So I’m, I’m a little afraid when that happens. Cause I, I hesitated so much starting with them because I’m going, I don’t have time right now to dedicate to this. So we’re, we’re building things slowly and it is that, that you’re from the marketing world. It’s, it’s that one brand tagline that everything I do.
You know, kind of leads back to this, this, this nebulous, right? And so all of my, my leads, my business, everything is coming from me standing in my true authentic self and the incredible part of it was a podcast. That’s when everything rocketed. And there’s, there’s something that happens without knowing that when we do start a business, people are going to sit and watch for at least a year.
Are you going to make it? Right? There’s this, this subconscious thing that happens with people. So they know that you’ve had experience before, but it’s different when you’re hanging your own shingle. And so it was like, everybody waited for that one year, which I had that gut feeling because I’ve done so much business coaching on the corporate side.
I knew that was going to happen. So I made sure that I had enough capital for a year and a half to live on to put bread and butter on the table. So I wouldn’t make any stupid decisions, uh, from desperation. And then the podcast came on and I was so. Intentional with the podcast itself, how to market it, how is going to market it?
What I was going to say in that conversation, who the podcast was, it was incredible to do that. And from that podcast, I got 11 clients. It went almost viral. And that was the incredible. Learn from that is could have been a podcast. Could have been me doing a YouTube channel, whatever it may be. It’s showing up as your true authentic self and nothing beats that marketing.
I think.
[00:09:57] Michael Pacheco: And was this, was this a podcast that you were a guest on or is this a podcast that you hosted?
[00:10:02] Kim Skermer: I was a guest. You were a guest.
[00:10:04] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. What was the podcast, if you don’t mind my asking?
[00:10:06] Kim Skermer: So, it was the Proud Mouth podcast the first time I was on it. So, you and I reconnected when you heard the second one when they brought me back on of saying, holy crap, it’s been a year and a half and you’re killing it.
What’s going on? Right? Uh huh. So, that first one. I told about my experience of leaving corporate, um, the mental, the mental wellness and the struggles I had, um, all of that kind of stuff about living your first life and second life, right? There’s a totally different world in the beginning. We’re build, build, build, trying to get our identity.
Who are we? We’re doing all the stupid things. And then our second part of life, someone taps us on our shoulder saying, Hey, you’re being an idiot. Let’s get rid of that old ego because that’s not the true meaning of life for you. Right. So it’s that whole interesting part of whenever when he talks about the women in their 50s or what or they laugh and call it a midlife crisis.
No, it’s that part of going, I want to be this person. I’ve hit the effort button. And this is me, right? This is me like you don’t care anymore. And that’s an incredible piece, but you just don’t understand what’s happening. Right? So it’s, there’s there’s such incredible things with psychology in business and people don’t Accept or embrace behavioral economics or psychology in business, marketing, all of those pieces.
Huge, huge.
[00:11:25] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, I, um, when I first started doing marketing consulting, so I started doing marketing, I was playing in a band and, and, and DJing in Japan, you have to promote your shows and promote the tours and all that. So that’s kind of where, how I got into this. And then when I started doing it, Professionally, as, as a consultant, I spent a lot of time, uh, studying cognitive science and behavioral psychology, consumer psychology.
Um, because it, it is, it’s, it’s, it’s huge and it, and it can, it can. Inform so many things, not just as a marketer, right. But as a business owner, because as a business owner, you need to be doing marketing too, right? You’re you’re a marketer, you’re, you’re in sales, especially as a new entrepreneur in the first two years, you’re wearing 10 different hats on a good day,
[00:12:16] Kim Skermer: if you’re lucky.
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:19] Michael Pacheco: Um, and, and yeah, having that deep understanding. You know, or even, uh, you know, I don’t know about deep, but having, you know, a modest understanding of why people do what they do. Um, I mean, that’ll help you with everything from product design to product market fit, to marketing yourself, to connecting with people on a sales call, to connecting with people on a podcast.
Yeah, it’s,
[00:12:45] Kim Skermer: it’s, you know, it’s why I trademarked beyond the product, right? Financial service is 100 and someone years old, right? And everything’s about. You know, indexes and this and returns and, you know, term versus permanent insurance. The everyday consumer does not give a flying rat’s ass what the hell the difference is.
They don’t care. All they care about is, am I going to be okay? That’s all it is. And it’s that part of being okay is what is my legacy, my face of legacy? Because sometimes we want to carry on the Smith name. Or we want to completely change everything on the Smith name and not be part of that old world or, or whatever.
And it’s so, so individualized. And it’s why I named my company the Approach Coaching Method. Actually, my parent company’s name is RST Private Planning Group, which stands for Really Sucky Things, which is awesome. Because everything about financial services, and especially the life insurance side, it sucks.
Talking about it sucks. Buying it sucks. The outcome sucks. And it’s having some humor about life and death because how exciting is it to meet someone, talk about if you smoke or not and you’re hiding it from your spouse, you got to pee in a cup, you got to get some blood, you got to talk about all your fight, like there’s nothing fun about it.
So if you can’t connect on a human level, just another person talking to another person. Forget about it. Especially the way the world is going today. There’s, there’s a reason why the tick talks or the fin influencers and all that kind of stuff who are not educated or regulated are kicking ass on this stuff.
They’re selling courses on this is how I invested. I’m going, Oh my God, please don’t listen to this. This is horrible, but that’s a really cool dance. And that really makes a lot of sense. You’re not protected consumer. So advisors start having these conversations.
[00:14:36] Michael Pacheco: I love it. I love it. So for you, right, you’re, you’re booked out 13 months and you’re about to engage, or you have engaged with a PR firm, but nothing has gone public yet.
Yeah. You know, basic. Economics 101 Supply and Demand. There’s only one Kim Skrimmer, but the demand is theoretically going to continue to go up. What is your plan for that? Are you going to start developing courses and do one to many type coaching? Are you going to raise your prices? Like what’s your, what is the next, what does the next 18 months look like for
[00:15:08] Kim Skermer: you?
And it’s that whole part. I’m, I’m a weirdo. I’ve, I’ve made my big money already. I’ve, I’ve done that. And it’s not, I’m not attached to the dollar. I’m attached to the utility of what I can do with that. And so there’s one thing that we do right now already is, is we don’t donate 5 percent back to the community.
And I do a lot of work with, um, high risk youth. Okay. And so there’s some, some, some nice dollars going that way with the kids and, and indigenous kids, like just this people that. Don’t understand and have been forgotten about when it comes to basic budgeting, right, basic budgeting and I cry when I’m sitting there to youth, you know, retreat and we’re talking about life insurance and someone’s passed away and they say, well, we’re not allowed to get life insurance because we’re too high risk.
We’ll never get it. Right. It drives me insane. But the, the future Kim, it’s that part of I had three large companies wanting to buy my courses. I built them all. I have over 150 different PowerPoint presentations and courses on business development, which within financial services, which I could swap out the name and say real estate or market.
Like I could swap out the name for any of them. Sorry, excuse me. And I thought to myself again about practicality. of how many people is this actually going to reach? Because what I’m doing, it’s all about helping the industry as a greater whole. So number one, they have to buy the course. And then number two, they actually have to finish it.
And only 70 percent of people actually finish an online course. And that’s if there’s a degree in designation at the end, right? And then they got to finish it. And then they actually have to implement it and wait a year to see if they’ve had any results. And I’m going, okay, that’s like a three year span timeline before.
I even get any PR back because everything in business has to be mutually beneficial. And then the other companies that were looking to purchase it from me were down the, down the road and talking about the deal. And I’m going, again, it’s going to be only captive to that one business that I decide to sell it to.
That doesn’t make sense. So I’ve taken the month of August off and I am putting everything on YouTube. Everything’s going on YouTube. I’m giving it all away for free. All my workbooks, all my courses, all my tools, snippet bite by bite pieces, because that’s authentic to what I committed to do in the beginning and helping people with that baseline and foundation.
And then the part comes from the marketing approach of I’ve tested a whole bunch of marketing pieces and things like that. And one marketing piece, and you’d probably love it. It’s a shot of a laundry room, someone’s laundry room in their house. There’s laundry up to the roof. And all I captioned in there is.
Really? You think I have time to talk about life insurance? And it’s brilliant, like the advisor I tested it with because I had this test group that brought over 200, 000 worth of commission, 17 appointments, 16 stick, stuck. And that’s lifestyle marketing. That’s what people, I want to see myself, I want you to understand me, I don’t give a shit how many designations, alphabet soup you have behind your name, what’s going on in the marketplace.
Do you get me and care about me? Yeah,
[00:18:11] Michael Pacheco: that’s great. Yeah. That’s great. That’s good. That’s good. Creative. I like that. Uh, that, that, that image and that, that, that question there. That’s great. Yeah. Thank you. What, uh, Kim, what is a typical, what is a typical engagement with you look like?
[00:18:25] Kim Skermer: Hmm. When you start with me and you find me and we book a discovery chat, um, I believe number one of giving one hour away for free.
So one of my big beasts in any industry, especially with coaches, and sorry guys, if you’re listening to this, please don’t throw eggs. But we go out saying, we are important and you are important and we wanna help you. And then we give you a 15 minute discovery call. What the hell is that? Right? Nothing says you’re more important than 15 minutes of time.
Cause we know usually it’s not until your third or fourth appointment when you really start to get to know each other. So mine, it’s a one hour discovery call. We agree to move forward or not. And then after I finished that first discovery call, I said, by the time we book our next one, I want you to talk to at least two other coaches.
That’s very important. So I make them do that. Once they do that, we get back together. I put a proposal together and we look it over. And we agree or we edit or whatever we need to do. And then from that moment, we follow the playbook that I make directly for them. And I brand everything. It has their pictures.
It has their colors. It has their branding. So I really approach coaching from a marketing perspective because Coaching, marketing, leadership, marketing, everything is design, right? When I said good design, good design in and, and listening to what people want, not what you need, what do you want? And that’s incredible.
So in my, in my two years of fully operating, I’ve lost one proposal, two proposals. I think I haven’t lost very many. My batting average is extremely high because it’s number one, go check out other people. Come back to me if you want and the other part is I specialize and I, and I do everything and everyone says, Kim, you should be charging 35, 000 a year at least for your coaching.
I do a deep dive for 7, 000 and you get a master coach for that amount. I don’t believe I should be charging five times more than a therapist or a psychologist, right? Like I just think there’s, there’s some dirty things behind that in my opinion. It’s that part. Part of yes, pay for my money in that time and what it all looks like in affordable pieces, have your pricing applicable to your ideal client that you’re working with, right?
And, and along with your expertise that you associate with, so some are worth that amount of money, but that other piece is I have one, two, three, I have seven different incomes coming in. From different passive ways, right? Because I do advisory boards. I work with the big companies. I do all that kind of stuff.
That’s where my big bucks come from. Right.
[00:21:07] Michael Pacheco: And it kind of depends right on, on the, you know, what level of value are you, are you delivering? You know, if you’re, if you’re doing a kind of business coaching, that’s going to directly affect the bottom line. Maybe 7, 000 a year is too little.
[00:21:21] Kim Skermer: Oh, yeah. Depends.
Right. Exactly. Right. It’s like, who’s your client? What are you doing? I’m helping them with their framework. Right. And then we, if we start working on more, you know, then I’m, I’m on a retainer and then, then different dollars start coming though, and if we’re getting that baseline, right, that deep dive, it’s not thousands and thousands.
This is what it is. If we do something different. Go up there, right?
[00:21:42] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, I like that. It’s it’s always fun to chat about different pricing Strategies and pricing structures that different coaches and consultants have I enjoy it Anyway, it’s it’s interesting theory that what one of the more successful Um, groups that I have had the pleasure of working with is strategic advisor board.
Yeah. And they charge percentage of revenue increased, full stop. There’s, there’s no onboarding fee, there’s no setup fee, there’s no fee to get started. If they think it’s a good fit and they think they can help, they will charge you a percentage of revenue increased. And they are doing incredibly well.
It’s brilliant. It’s brilliant. And it’s great because it’s, it’s, it’s essentially risk free, right? And it’s going to be a win win for both parties or it’s not for both parties. Like, and nobody, or nobody loses anything except right there, the consult, they lose time. That’s about it. Yeah.
[00:22:51] Kim Skermer: Yeah. It helps you stick to your ideal client, right?
It helps you, it helps everybody stay authentic. It’s awesome. I love it. And, and what
[00:22:59] Michael Pacheco: a great, uh, you know, it’s, it’s not even, it’s, it’s beyond a guarantee. It’s just, it’s just zero risk. What a great way to approach a business relationship. My God.
[00:23:09] Kim Skermer: Yeah. No, I love it. I absolutely love it. There’s so many different, like you said, there’s so many different models out there.
It’s what makes sense to you and your ideal client and where can it grow to, right? Yeah. It’s got
[00:23:20] Michael Pacheco: to have room to grow. I think that’s that. And that’s a difficult one, right? As much as I do love that, that model, you can’t, you know, when you’re first starting out, it’d be, I think it’d be very difficult to start that way because you need some money.
You don’t have cashflow. You’re not in business. You’re not paying your mortgage. You got, you got mouths to feed, um, uh, and so on and so forth. But man, when you. So when you get to a certain level, I think, you know, I would, I would love to grow Boxer to the point where we’re able to make that offer and say, you know what, we’re just taking a percentage and that’s
[00:23:57] Kim Skermer: it.
My journal’s going in my head going exactly like that’s a couple of years when I have everything because I’m building the retreat and I’m saving every penny and dime to rebuild and I need full cash for that. So it’s like, okay. But it’s to that point of having it on that percentage growth that that’s.
I think it’s really cool. I think it’s a really cool concept.
[00:24:16] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, that’s a brilliant one. Tell me about, you know, you’ve been, you’ve been rocking this for about two years. What, what have you struggled with in the, in the past two years to, you know, what have you struggled with to overcome, to get to the level of success that you’re seeing today?
[00:24:34] Kim Skermer: First, thank you for asking that because so many people are afraid to talk about it. There’s days where I, you know, I’ve sat in my bed, sucking my thumb in full fetal position. Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. I mean, go eat some greasy, grimy worms. Right? These big mean people are saying things to me.
Why is nobody liking my posts? What like this crazy tape that goes through our heads. Oh, it’s, it’s, yeah, well, like I’ve named it, like I call her Becky when Becky shows up, like when Becky shows up, I’m in trouble, right? And so it’s, it’s that whole part of staying on your true path. And I think that’s where this next step of an evolution of my business of going kind of that beyond the product to find the calm.
We all have. This incredible storm around us, and it’s only going to get noisier. We live in a sensory overloaded world, and there’s even more to come. So how do we lessen the noise and act from a position of strategic intent and calm? Because nothing, nothing good comes from hype and overwhelm and overload and over sensory.
So it’s that whole part of the calmest place of a storm is the eye. So it’s that whole part about find the I and find the calm and that’s my next step of speaking to that because that’s my experience of overcoming and getting to speak with the confidence and the competence I speak to. And people say, Oh, wow, you’re so confident.
I’m like, I’ve gone through a shit storm and there are still some days I’m like, you know, where’s my mommy? I want her around to tell her I’m still pretty. Like there’s just stuff that you need once in a while, right? And the higher you get, it’s really funny too. When you’re first starting to grow and nobody really knows who you are yet.
Everybody’s your buddy and everybody’s cheering. And then there’s this weird thing that happens when you actually hit this really high upper echelons. They don’t share anymore, right? There’s this weird thing. The mean girl club comes or the whatever, like there’s some weird things that happen. So it’s that whole part of I’ve had to learn how to trust my gut.
I’ve had to really learn that the best lessons come from when I lean into attention. So someone or something has pissed me off. There’s a reason. And when I figure that out, and usually when I get pissed off, that’s when I do something really great afterwards. But it’s not because I got angry from a place of anger, it’s because I leaned into it, right?
I’ve learned maturity. But I think that is the biggest part of listen to your gut. Make every decision from a place of calm. Only 16 percent of our best ideas and decisions come from while we’re at work. So go for lots of walks, go splash in puddles, go enjoy environment in your family. Don’t be a workaholic.
It’s not about 10x in your income, it’s about 10x in your time. That’s what you should be striving for and it is you, there’s only one you, so stop reading all the damn books, stop trying to be everybody else, stop trying to be Dan Sullivan, stop trying to be James Clear, stop trying to be all these things, go be you and have your own voice because you can’t, nothing will stay in your brain, it won’t be authentic.
[00:27:55] Michael Pacheco: I love it. That’s great. Thank you. Um, let’s flip that around now. What about, uh, you know, some big wins, talk about some of your, some of your big wins in the last couple of years.
[00:28:07] Kim Skermer: Getting an email from a PR company saying, hi, we grew Mel Robbins, Grant Cardone, and we want to work with you. And I replied back saying, yeah, great, awesome.
And for 16, 000, you put my face on the front of tycoon magazine, you little 16 year old snot faced, acne faced kid. You know, you’re not even believing it, that this is true, that this can happen. Um, that was, that’s been really cool actually. And it’s, and it’s this funny thing where we’re planning and working to do a lot of things.
And, and it’s right from this agreement up from the beginning of trying to understand and where are we coming from? What does this look like? And me thinking I’m, I’m negotiating this amazing deal when they actually have plans for me for something else and us not understanding it and me getting into a big fight with one of the head guys, cause we didn’t understand each other and.
He saw something I didn’t see and, and it’s bigger than I ever thought it could be. And it is so interesting to see of sometimes you just, you don’t know what it’s going to feel like, where you’re going to be or who is going to be beside you when that big moment happens. And when that big moment happens, Oh, I’m going to cry when that big moment happens.
It’s this weird, what in WALL E world, where am I? And what have I done to deserve this? Like, is this true? Is this real? And how do I not let this go to my head? So it’s this whole part of, these are really cool people, and I tested them. Like, I, I went in full on, took me two, three months to make the decision.
And I asked them some really hard questions. And I said, I don’t pay to play. If you think I’m as awesome as you think I am, You’re coming to the table as much as I am. And it’s this whole bit of conversation of. What does it mean to be successful? And I, a lot of my mental health issues that I had before it’s because I’ve always had this thought and this wanton, this desire to bring forward this bigger, greater message than most people want to.
Like when I die. I want to know I’ve left this earth, that I’ve helped so many strangers that I don’t know their name, I don’t know where they lived, but I was that person there for them at that right pivotal time with that message they needed to hear. Like that’s, that’s what I know I’ve had a fulfilled life.
And the funny thing is I’ll never know. But everything I do and act towards. Kind of keeps me on path with that North Star of everybody’s listening. Your niece is listening, someone else’s niece is listening, nephew’s listening. So that’s that big, big part. So the, the big success is to finally be discovered in a part that I would never imagine.
But the best part about it all is no matter what the outcome is of all these plans we have, I’m going to learn so much incredible stuff in the next seven months. I don’t care if it doesn’t make to TV or whatever all these plans are, right? It’s like, Oh my God, I get to learn so many cool things. I was talking to the Bloomberg boys.
I was talking here. Like, it’s so cool when you get to hang around that higher end successful people because I kind of hit my top, my ceiling, and now I get to get bumped up again. It’s really cool. It’s really cool. That’s awesome. Thank you.
[00:31:33] Michael Pacheco: That’s awesome. I love it. Um, Kim, uh, what three books do you recommend all your clients read?
[00:31:41] Kim Skermer: Oh, so it’s funny when I say Dan Sullivan, who not how I’ve read who, who not how I’ve read seven times, eight times. Wow. And that is the incredible thing. Cause we always forget. And again, you kind of said in the beginning, right, we left employment. Because our boss is making us do everything, take care of everything.
He’s like, Oh my God, you’re gonna make me do another thing. It’s not my job. And then we go open up a business and we do everything. And we have a hard time letting go. So it is that, that, that biggest part of finding our who’s. So I think that one’s really, really big. I recommend. Um, the other one that I recommend my clients to read is the surrender experiment.
Which is really funny too. So Michael Stinger, uh, writes that one. And it’s just that it’s not wooey, but it is wooey. And it is that whole part of, again, just surrender. Just let go surrender. Sometimes we hold on to things too tight. And again, if we’re psychology, our bodies tell us when we’re not in a good place, and if we’re contracting and we’re holding on to things, we can’t think our parasympathetic nervous system’s not working, things like that.
So how do we relax? How do we let our shoulders drop? How do we work from a place of expansion? So I love that one. And it’s kind of repetitive, but it hits your brain. And I feel like
[00:32:54] Michael Pacheco: Surrender Experiment’s a good one for an
[00:32:55] Kim Skermer: audiobook. It is, yeah. Yeah, it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s an audio one. I tried, I tried really hard to read it, and it didn’t work very well.
Uh, I kept falling asleep, but it was a good drive. It was a good driver thinker, uh, audiobook was that one. And this one’s girly, but this is the one because There’s part of I, I spent a lot of time getting to know my clients and I’d like them to get to know me. So my mom died of pancreatic cancer and I took three months of my life.
I left my job, all that kind of stuff, and didn’t leave her side for three months. And her favorite book was Eat, Pray, Love. And so I read Eat, Pray, Love to her 5, 842 times. And when she passed away, um, I can’t pick up that book ever again. I just can’t. I try and I just can’t. But it sits on my shelf. But she came out with big magic afterwards.
And I liked big magic because it was about her writing for her and being her true authentic self. And there’s the one part in the book where she just talks about it. Do again, everything for you and when you do that, it’s not searching for people to like you or like your stuff or your content or your opinion or agree.
It’s that part of stand up in your true, amazing, authentic self and write for you. And if someone so happens to love your message. Amen. Thank you very much. And it’s like one of the Derek Shivers, uh, YouTube of, um, how to start a movement. And it’s, uh, it’s that one about, you know, he’s dancing around like a crazy person and someone comes join and you know, now you have a movement.
Now you have your first follower. It’s that same theory. So I like we’re suggesting that one because they understand kind of who I am. And it also kind of speaks to again, that find the, I find the calm, do it for you. Nobody else. Yeah,
[00:34:45] Michael Pacheco: yeah, I remember, uh, I forget, what’s the author’s name again?
[00:34:48] Kim Skermer: Um, from Big Magic?
Or, I forget her name too, I totally just lost her name.
[00:34:55] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, so anyways, I remember I was watching some interview with her, and her name is on the tip of my tongue, but at any rate, um, I’m watching an interview with her after she wrote Eat, Pray, Love, like years after, and she was working on her second book, and she’s just, or she had, Published a second book and she was talking about writing for herself.
And she said, just imagine like the first thing you do, you come out of the gate and it’s like the biggest hit. And like, it’s all downhill from there. All, all that’s left is to do it for yourself. Like you’re never, you know, you’re, you’re never going to do that for the, for your fans again. No. When, when you explode straight out of the gate like that and all that’s left is to just do it for yourself.
And that’s the most important thing. I thought it was, it was, I’m butchering the scenario,
[00:35:45] Kim Skermer: but you get the idea. Yeah. It’s that part. So I was, uh, I was an ex national athlete. Like I was, you know, fit, fit, fit at age 44. I had to have a double hip replacement, gain 50 pounds, all that. We all have this. Fear, and fear is a wonderful thing and it’s a horrible thing.
And so when success comes or our identity or our change, it is so interesting and I love it. Elizabeth Gilbert. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yay. And, and so it’s this part in this moment of It is so important of, you’ve hit this here, so I’ve, I’ve hit, she understands, this is my top of my success. I’m happy, right?
I’m happy. This is my, this is my defined success. Who gives a shit what everyone else thinks? This is my defined success. So now everything else I do for me, so it is that part of, I had to learn to where I could no longer paddle or compete and my old crew is going off to worlds and I am home about to go in OR, right, and get operated on.
It’s that whole part of, Okay, this is, this was my, this was my top. What’s next? In this new identity, in this new life of mine.
[00:36:56] Michael Pacheco: It’s cool stuff. I dig it. Awesome. Kim, um, is there anything else that you would like to chat about that we haven’t not yet had an opportunity to touch upon?
[00:37:05] Kim Skermer: No, no, I thank you so much.
I’ve I think I met you about a year and a half ago when I was a year, two years ago, maybe in a study group or something when I was first starting my journey. And you were the one I was looking around the zoom room, right? The COVID time in the zoom room. And you definitely were one of the ones. And I even said it to you.
I’m like, you’re cool. I want to get to know you. And I don’t know what we’re going to do together. Uh, I have no idea what it looks like, but, um, you’re not getting rid of me. And thank you very much for having me on your podcast. And I can’t wait to have you on mine. Yeah. Awesome.
[00:37:35] Michael Pacheco: Let’s definitely do that.
Thank you so much for. Making the time to chat with me today. Congratulations a million times on all your successes, uh, to date and, and hopefully, you know, many more, uh, in the years to come. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you as always to our listeners and viewers. You guys, this podcast is nothing without you.
So thank you so much for, for tuning in and listening. Um, if you know someone who you think would benefit from this podcast, please share this with them. Um, give it a like, give it a subscribe, do all the things that you’re supposed to do with podcasts. Appreciate it so much. And we will see you guys next time.
Take care.
