Intentionality - Get on Your Path with Finnian Kelly: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, the only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we're breaking down intentionality. Get on your path. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Finian Kelly and the EO Fire Studios. Finian is a world-renowned speaker on intentionality, a philosophy and lifestyle that helps everyday people create extraordinary lives. Also dubbed as the business mythic, creator of intentionality.com, and an undercover angel. And today, we'll talk about how the universe is always expanding and giving.

0:38when we align ourselves to the universe, we will be expanding and receiving as well. And how it's all about desired feelings. We need to be less driven by goals and material outcomes and instead focus on the way we want to feel. And oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Finian and our sponsors. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Visit franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to book a free consultation and start your franchising journey with expert guidance.

1:16Finian, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up Fire Nation? It's awesome to be here, John. And I believe being successful doesn't have to take time or does it have to be hard? If you believe it will be, then it will be. I actually have a principle of intentionality, which is about gaining exponential results by leveraging energy instead of time. And something which I really think about a lot is this Zen proverb. I'm a big meditator. And there's a Zen proverb which says that if you don't have time to meditate for one hour, then you need to meditate for two.

1:54And I try to let that sink in with people because the idea that when you meditate, you effectively collapse time because your impact through the day is so much higher because you're so much clearer. You're responding rather than reacting. And I'm really seeing that right now. I'm working less than ever. However, I'm creating more than ever because I'm focused on only doing activities that bring me energy and staying in my lane, which I think you've been one of the greatest ambassadors of that for a long time. I appreciate that, brother. I really do. And Fire Nation, man, a lot of wisdom is coming at you today.

2:26You've already heard a value bomb or two. And as I mentioned in the introduction, We're talking about intentionality. We want to get you, Fire Nation, on your path. So Finian, what the heck is intentionality and why are you so passionate about it? I liked how you framed that because it's something which is a bit of a buzzword at the moment and people are talking about it, but I don't feel like most people really know what it is. And the way I've defined it is defining how you want to feel and then taking deliberate action towards it. So it's about becoming the driver of your life instead of a passenger.

2:57It's about finding your path rather than being on the path of social conditioning. And I'm super excited and passionate about it because it's really helped me feel these feelings which I've been searching for so long in my life, which is freedom, peace and joy. And it's also led me to one of the most creative and prosperous periods of my life. For those people who think, oh, this is just a spiritual element, this actually has been so powerful in my business as well. And the big thing to remember with intentionality is to understand that there's something called this universal field that is basically information and it governs all of us.

3:33And we can tap into this field in order to create anything we really desire. And the field is both a scientific and spiritual concept. And I like that because I'm a scientist first. I have a maths and physics degree and a master's in science as well. But I'm also I've got this big spiritual element. I think it's time that we combine the two. And if I'll sum up the field, because that's a bit of a term which is like, what is this field thing? I just believe it's energy waiting to be manifested into form. And ultimately, everything transmits and receives information through the field. And for a lot of entrepreneurs, this may sound very left field.

4:11I just said a stupid pun then, actually. But there have been numerous scientists that have supported this research and evidence. I even think Einstein once said that there's something like there's no new place in this new type of physics for both field and matter, for the field is the only reality. So it's real. And the universe is always expanding and always giving. So all we have to do is if we align ourselves to the field and the universe, then effectively we're always going to be expanding and receiving as well. And that's why intentionality matters, because it helps people find their path, get on the path and stay on their path.

4:47So speaking of intentionality, Finian, who specifically do you choose to work with? Why do you intentionally choose these individuals? It's a great question. So something I've learned over life is it's really important to identify who you like working with and who you can add most value to because then you just get this great leverage and it's also more enjoyable. I imagine that's why you've picked working with entrepreneurs. So I work with high-performing leaders and really people who have this desire to want more out of their life. And it's not more in materialism. They just want to live an extraordinary life.

5:23And they're focused on feeling better. My two main focus avatars are men who want to get more into integrity and accomplished women who are on the second or third stage of life who are really tired of being defined by their roles as a career woman or a mother and want to rebirth into a new way of being. And I'm also really, as you're probably seeing in Puerto Rico right now, I'm getting quite into the crypto industry and I'm really excited about the future here. So I'm exploring and working with some great companies there. And ultimately, why I love working with these people is because they're focused on changing the world and they really want to make an impact.

6:03However, I truly believe that we need to stop focusing on changing the world and just focus on changing ourselves first, because if you heal yourself, you heal the world. So I always focus on encouraging everyone to focus on their self-healing, then bring it to their leadership team, and then roll it across the company. And pretty soon, intentionality is organically spreading through your customer, supplier, and family and community. And when you combine this with a smart business strategy, you're really set for exponential impact, which I think is just super rad. Intentionality, Fire Nation. Are you using this in the same way that Finian is?

6:36I mean, you hear me end every single episode of Entrepreneurs on Fire with that. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And guess what? For a lot of us, that is our clients. That is our customers. That is people who are coaching and mentoring and doing all these things. That maybe is our coach. So make sure you are being intentional about those things and heal yourself, heal the world. I love that phrase. Start with within, Fire Nation. You believe love, Finian, is a core focus of your purpose, your vision, and your work. Explain why. This took me a while to really lean into because love, we've been sort of conditioned over time that love is a weak feeling.

7:15It's emotional. And fear is a really powerful motivator. And I can definitely tell you in the first sort of nine years of my entrepreneurial journey, there was a lot of fear built in and that was motivating me. And it was driving me to have a certain level of success until it wasn't. Often what got you there won't get you to the next place. And I can definitely tell you that fear enabled my sort of life to come crashing down for a period of time. So we think of fear as a great motivator, but if you actually look at, there's a guy called Dr. Hawkins, he has a great book about power versus force, and he looks at the different vibrational frequencies of different emotions.

7:53And fear is a very low vibrational frequency, where love is a high vibrational frequency. And if we make decisions from a place of fear, the outcomes will never fulfill us or bring us sustained positive emotions because that core negative belief that is driving the fear will still be there. And my core negative belief was that I'll be abandoned. So even though I created all this wealth, I created a perfect life, eventually I still didn't feel like I was safe and I ended up manifesting this sort of situation where I was abandoned in my life. So I want to give you a great example of this because I've been working with this amazing company.

8:31I work with this really great, fast scaling media company. I work with their leadership team. I first worked with their founder, then worked with their integrator and then worked with the leadership team. And one of our products is called this love path. And it's this path of how to have a really intentional and extraordinary relationship. So we've understood about these prenuptial financial agreements and relationships. That's almost a fear-based methodology. It's, well, if this goes wrong, what happens? And I'm okay about them, but what about actually planning how to have an extraordinary relationship?

9:05And let's look at what are all the things in a relationship that could end up affecting us? Well, we don't have shared values. We're not sure what we're working towards. How do we communicate? How do we handle conflict? So I've been doing this with individual partners, and this company was super – I just was so impressed with them. I was inspired with them. The founder, she said, look, I'm now bringing in my integrator to be a partner of the company. And this is effectively, I'm going to spend more time with her than my own intimate relationship. I want to have a love path for us as leaders of the company.

9:41So we spent a few days together in this awesome resort in Mexico, and we navigated this whole process for them to really design a relationship that would be built around love. And one of the awesome things that came out of it was that they wanted to share this love with their team. They didn't want to just keep it for themselves. How do we share this with the team? And they decided one way to do that would be to create a hugging culture. Now, they've already seen the benefits of this because oxytocin, that chemical, that love hormone that gets released is infectious and people get this oxytocin high and they start threading through their company.

10:15Now, that's pretty amazing when you think about it because right now in the modern day world, what's happening in the workplace, we're shying away from any touch or anything that could be considered crossing the boundaries. And I just love that they've leaned into love instead of fear. And because of that, really now they're getting this great peace and joy within the company, which aligns with intentionality number one, which is choose love instead of fear and you'll experience more peace and joy. So that's a really inspiring part of how we can just lean more into love. And a little thing that I often say to myself in relationships is, do I want to be right or do I want to be happy?

10:54And that just helps me back off my ego and fear and lean into this love place. And I can tell you, it's a lot easier in life when you do that. So much that I loved about that, Fire Nation. But I want to circle back to fear worked for me until it didn't. I love that phrase because I think it applies to so many of us. I mean, it can get you only so far. And then it's going to become destructive. and I love the fact that when you focus on love, that can just have impact on every aspect of your life. And we have so much more coming up on this topic and more Fire Nation when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

11:31Starting your own business can feel intimidating. Where do you start? How do you grow? When will you start generating revenue? All valid questions. If you love the idea of creating wealth and freedom, but you're not sure if starting from scratch is the way to go, then I'm excited to tell you about Frainocity. Frainocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Their clients come from all walks of life, executive veterans, first-time buyers, and multi-unit investors, and their mission is simple, to remove the guesswork, reduce the risk, and help everyday people become business owners through franchising.

12:05Don't know anything about franchising? That's the beauty of it. Franocity provides personalized one-on-one coaching at no cost to you, and they have access to over 600 franchise brands. And Franocity doesn't just help you pick a franchise, they help you understand the business model, investment risk, scalability, and operational reality. Ready to explore business ownership through franchising? Visit Franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to book a free consultation and start your journey with expert guidance. Finian, you've had a lot of experience in leadership as an Army officer. Thank you for your service.

12:39You founded three multi-million dollar companies and you were the chapter president in the entrepreneurs organization. So what is your number one takeaway from all of these wonderful experiences? When we think about it, companies are built by people and we are as leaders or owners of the company, we're trying to instill a vision, a strategy, and through that, then we try to empower people to get results. and ultimately it all depends on our communication ability if we don't communicate in a clear way that people can understand then we're going to have misalignments we're going to have confusion and we're also going to potentially be in a place where there's like there's hidden expectations rather than agreements and that's something I love to talk about is expectations are one way agreements are two way so we need to have a clear communication method which makes sure that we have alignment, safety, and no confusion.

13:37So something which I teach everyone I work with when I speak, when I work one-on-one coaching, when I do retreats is this really sweet communication method. I call it the five-step intentionality communication method. And when people start using that, it really transforms their lives. And I'd love to, if we have time, to just quickly go through that now, John. Would that be a value? Let's do it, brother. All right. Awesome. So the five-step communication method. So this is a process that you can use in any situation when an incident occurs that potentially causes some conflict. And rather than what do we normally do, we normally come at them and say, oh, you made me feel this or you did this.

14:20It doesn't feel very safe. So this just takes you through a process to actually communicate in a really great way. So first, if you've had some conflict, it's good to just leave a little bit of space, have a few breaths and just get clear up so you're not doing it in a fear-based or reactionary mindset. So the first step is to introduce the situation and it's got to be only facts. It can't be a story about what happened. It can't be interpretation. It's got to be in a way that the other person can't disagree. So it could be, for example, remember yesterday when you said you would come home for dinner at this time and you actually came home an hour later.

14:58There's no argument there. It's like, I can receive that. Yeah, I do remember that. What that does is it helps frame what we're about to talk to and also just lets the person in about what we're going to go into. The second step is your emotions. How did this make you feel or how are you feeling right now? It's really important to stick with I statements rather than you statements. So for example, I felt sad. I felt angry. I felt disappointment. Notice I didn't say you made me feel angry because no one else can make you feel angry. You're the only one who can make yourself feel angry. So it's very important to just do one word emotions.

15:40It's not, well, I was feeling like this and then I felt really tired about this. And that's a story. That's the next phase. So it's just emotions. There's a great wheel of emotions that we could potentially put in the show notes to be able to help you work that out. And what that does is just lets the person know what your state is in regard to that situation. Now, the third bit is the fun bit. It's the story. So about this situation. Now, it's really important here to start with. I'm telling the story I'm telling myself about this. And then you go into your own interpretation of what that means.

16:19So the story could be, well, when you didn't come home and you didn't call me, the story I'm telling myself is that you don't respect me and like the dinner I'm about to cook, or you don't value me in this particular way and that I'm not lovable. Whatever it is, whatever what's going up in your head, what you're effectively doing is letting the other person in to the craziness, potentially, what we do in our head, the stories. And the other person that might have no idea that that's what's happening. So you're letting them in, which is a real gift. Once again, this is your own personal interpretation.

16:54Step four is the needs. What do you need about this? This is got to be very clear. It can't be abstract because this is where you're setting up to get the agreement from the other person. So what might be is what I need is that in the future, if you're ever going to be late, you call me with 30 minutes notice. so I can just actually have a night to myself and use that time, whatever it is there. It's really clear so they can go, I can either do that or I can't. And then step five is the invitation. So here is you're asking, would you be willing to do that for me? Can you do that for me? Now, it's very important to ask without expectation because the other person might not be able to do that or might not be able to be clear.

17:38So if you go through these five steps, it's incredible what will happen. There won't be conflict. People won't get into this defensive nature and they'll actually be able to listen to what's been going on for you. And generally, they'll feel a lot of compassion because they're like, wow, I had no idea my actions resulted in those consequences. And I'd love to be able to do that for you. If you ever find that the other person's getting really defensive, it might be an indication that perhaps you skipped a step or you're doing a lot of you statements and a lot of blame. This is all about leading them into your experience.

18:10And I can tell you, you talk about trust. Stephen Covey talks about that trust is one of the most important currencies in a business and creates speed. This is an ability to create trust in an organization because you always know where you stand with everyone, which I define as trust for me. That was just a masterclass, Fire Nation. I hope you sat back, enjoyed, took notes. And for those of you that really got something out of it, hit the rewind button about 14 times and listen to this again. And I want to end with a bang, Finian. If we all are listening today and we want to embrace intentionality, what's one thing that we can do today?

18:49I love that you asked this because if you really change one behavior today, you're already on your path to intentionality. So one thing that anyone listening can do right now, no matter where they're at, no matter how old they are, is breath, is breathe. The breath is a superpower. It's a tool to slow everything down. They can check in how you feel, see if you're operating from a place of fear or love, and then you can respond in a way that will lead you towards the feeling you want. And that's where we can use that communication method to get really connected to the feelings. I always say you're one breath away from intentionality because a breath allows you to move from an automatic reaction driven by ego or fear to a response that comes from a state of love.

19:32And that will always lead to better outcomes. Finian, that was such a powerful way to end this episode. But I want to go even a little bit deeper just for Fire Nation because I know you have so much more to give. We only have you for such a limited amount of time today. What's the one key takeaway that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from everything that we talked about here today? Let us know how we can connect with you, any call to action you have, and then we'll say goodbye. Awesome. Thanks, John. So the one key takeaway is that it's all about desired feelings. We need to be less driven by goals and material outcomes and focus on the way we want to feel.

20:10That's Intentionality, it's how we want to feel and then taking deliberate action towards it. So a key takeaway I'm really excited to be sharing with your audience a Incredible product that we normally sell for a few hundred dollars and we're giving it free to you today It's called the intentionality compass and it will go you through this process to help you really get clear on what matters to you, what it is that you want for your life, and then get really connected to these desired feelings. And you can access that through finiankelly.com slash fire, and you'll get the login. And I look forward to hearing from you.

20:44And I really appreciate everything you've done here, John. You've been amazing. Finian, I appreciate it as well, brother. Fire Nation, you know that you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with FK and JLD today, so keep up the heat. head over to eofire.com type finian that's f-i-n-n-i-a-n in the search bar his show notes page will pop up with everything that we've talked about here today best show notes in the biz and of course finian kelly.com slash fire get over there take that call to action get that amazing gift finian thank you brother for sharing your truth knowledge value bombs with fire nation today for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side amazing thanks brother hey fire nation Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Finian and Fire Nation.

21:30Are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Well, check out our free podcasting course where I will teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free. Freepodcastcourse.com. I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession, resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Visit Franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to book a free consultation and start your franchising journey with expert guidance.