E166: Beyond AI: Conscious Leadership and the Power of Proximity with Callan Faulkner

Welcome to Mintlein, a podcast for founders, visionaries, and leaders who are deeply aware that their life and work are meant to create a bigger impact. We're diving into real strategy, conscious leadership, and the internal identity work that allows you to create massive success. I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie Wigner, an author, speaker, and eight-figure entrepreneur who loves to take business strategy and combine it with the inner identity work that truly amongst the next level for you. If you know you have a big calling for your life and your work is meant to help more people, then you're in the right place. Hello, beautiful people. I'm so excited to bring today's episode to you. I sat down with my best friend, Kellen, and we talked about life. We talked about business. We talked about friendships. If you're new here, she has a phenomenal business called the Uncommon Business, where she is teaching people how to use AI inside of their business. But we didn't chat about AI at all. We talked about life, and that is one of my favorite conversations with her. And so, naturally, we went on for a really long time. And so, we're breaking up into two parts for you. Have a listen to part one. Welcome back, beautiful people. I'm so excited. I have my dear friend, my best friend, Kellen Faulkner, in the studio with us today. If you don't know her, you must be living under a rock. But she is known as the AI queen. She is helping thousands and thousands of small businesses scale with AI. And this is not the first time she's been on the podcast, but it is the first time she's in the studio. And I'm so excited. We are going to have a non-AI conversation today, even though everybody knows her for AI. I know her as an incredible human, incredible leader, incredible businesswoman. And that's the conversation we're going to talk about today. So, thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me. I know. We're in the studio. I was calling you when I was building this out. And I was like, "Oh my god, it's so annoying. I don't know why I'm building this." It's such a big project and you were like, "Think about the future. It's all going to be fine." It's going to work out. It's going to work out. It's going to be worth it. And here we are. It's so beautiful. And so much has changed since you're on the podcast last. A lot has changed. I know. In Nicole's, like, if you've been on, I think it was like really truly a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago. Yeah. When you were just starting to like coach on AI, which is crazy. A little baby girl. A little baby girl. I think I've taken some of our conversations and still threw them on the podcast, but not like us live recording. Oh, yes. You did quantum friendships. Yes. I did quantum friendships. And now that is a that is a thing. That is a thing. Everybody inside a TWP wants a quantum friendship. So we coined that. Yeah. Trade market. Trade market. Why do you think like everybody who is following you or is going to start following you after this can see the growth that you've had inside of your business. And just the growth you've had as a human. Even Amy Mining was like, how is it completely different than she was? I know two years ago. She was like, you look amazing. I was like, yeah, that means a glow up. Look a little different. Two years ago. We've all had a little bit of a glow up. That's good. Absolutely. Yes. Mid 30's has been good on me. Yeah. I mean, the last three years have felt like a lifetime. I don't know what we talked about last time. I would probably talked about AI last time. It's probably so boring. We're probably talking about like cloud projects. But I think in quantum friendships with me, I talked about I went through a divorce in 2022, 2023. And that was my only relationship really before I now have my love my life here. And yeah, it was the catapult to all of it. It was the moment of if you had asked me in 2022, like, are you going to end up with this person, my ex partner for the rest of your life? I would have said, yeah, 100%. Obviously that didn't happen. And that was really the moment of what beliefs am I holding that I believe so truly 100% that just aren't true? And so that led me on the journey of, I mean, obviously having to deal with emotions for the first time. I was actually going back to my journal during that time. And I was writing out like, Calon, you have to feel things. Like, you have to feel sadness and grief and anger. I had never in my my life like really been able to feel those things. And it sounds crazy, but that that is one of the reasons why we have scaled the way that we've scaled because I lead every time I lead, we're always it's tall, you know, how you lead. We're all talking personal development. We're talking about how we can become better human beings. I am surrounding myself with people that are smarter than me. Better than me in every single way. I don't have I have no ego. You know, obviously we all have a little bit more working on that. Yeah. But I really am trying to have zero ego in my business. And we're just attracting the most incredible clients. I'm attracting the most insane team. I've paid people before I was ready to pay them before when I couldn't afford them. I just brought them in anyways because I knew I needed them. And yeah, our growth has been insane. We were talking about that just yesterday too of like even in the rooms. Like we've paid to be in rooms that didn't make sense because we were like, we're ready to go to the next level. And the only way you do that is through proximity. Yeah, I say this all the time in the group that we met in. I at the time, I think I had like 15,000, I think I had 25k in my business checking account and we had to wire $15,000 to even get access to it. And then it was $1500 a month to be a part of this group. And I didn't if someone had asked me like, what's the ROI of this group going to be? I don't know. He's wearing it. It's meant to be. We swear a little bit. I don't fucking know. What the ROI of this is going to be because what I want is a group of incredible human beings. And that's how I've led a lot of my business too. Like the investments I'm making don't have logical returns on them. I just know there's going to be a return. And I trust myself so much to figure it out. I will make a return. In that group, I met you which has obviously been a can't even put the words on the return of that of this relationship. That it's about that. But obviously there has been my COO, my right hand Kinsey who's our best best friend as well. What's the return on meeting Kinsey? Infinite of my director operations. Lex met in that group. What's the roots? I mean unbelievable. My attorney. I see if I'm like, I mean for at the time again, this is where that masculine and feminine brain I talk about a lot. The masculine brain wants to see the spreadsheet show me the numbers. What's the return? And it's like there are times when there just isn't one you just feel it in your gut. And I mean that that that room itself has made me probably 20 million dollars. That mean over the over this year. Touching on the masculine and feminine as you were talking, I have realized the more I heal myself, the more I lead my business through feminine lens. I have the masculine structure. But I remember being so obsessed. And we still are obsessed with the data. Show me the numbers. Like what are the metrics because you have to have a pulse, especially when you have that's why it's called Yin Yang. We need both energies 100%. But I no longer make every single decision through that lens. It's like what do I want? What feels intuitively good? What is going to get me to step into the highest good of Stephanie and the biggest impact that I can make in that sort of thing. That usually doesn't come through a masculine logical analytical brain decision. No, no. I mean we talk about this all the time of when I originally shut down my land business, which I was about five minutes ago was like officially done. Congratulations. Thank you so much. That was a long grind. If you had I love Alex Formozzi. He's unbelievable. I just spent the day with him two weeks ago as you know. But he has more of a masculine vision on things. He always wants to see the numbers. And I think at the time if he had looked at my businesses, there's probably no way he would have recommended I shut down my consulting business for real estate investors. He probably would have saw the numbers on my land investing business and been like I mean you could probably have somebody run that and step out and do this. But I knew in my gut it felt like an elephant on my chest every time I thought about those businesses. I didn't want to go to the meetings. I didn't want to talk. I would avoid phone calls from my business partner at the time. I don't care how much money you're making. Yeah, that's a sign. That is a sign. And that feeling in your body is creating cortisol, which is creating inflammation, which is going to create disease. I don't want that. And so then I shut all of that down and started this new thing, which is making I don't know 20 X more dollars than anything I've ever done before. But I don't think that's the consequence. It's not. Yeah, especially so many business owners that we know and even that we look up to and we admire and there's something we can learn from everybody. But you know even three years ago when we were starting these companies pretty much at the same time we were like we're never going to make money that feels misaligned. Like we're going to step in to this new era of doing business that before anybody was like saying you know feminine business thing like we were just having the conversation between the two of us of like we have to build aligned with our highest good and our highest self. And what we know to be true for us so that we can live a happy life while we're building. This is the whole new game. I mean I actually think it's pretty easy to make money. Absolutely, absolutely. Anyone can do that. Now look at what happens to most people when they make a lot of money. They're misaligned in their life. They don't take care of themselves. They're not working out. They're never going in nature. They don't sleep. They don't eat well. They don't have a great real marriage. So what happens when money comes around? It just amplifies all of that. Versus the game now is how do I create abundance, financial abundance, sleeping eight hours a night, not working past 4 p.m. you know enjoying my life. Like that's the new game. And it's the constraint game. And that's what both of us have to play. And you have four-year-old. That's even more constraint of having to keep a real build a relationship with him and have more time for him. But it's not not possible. It's just you have to just make different moves that no people wouldn't have had to make. And it requires way more intentionality with how you spend your time the way you structure your day, the priorities, who has access to you. You know, I know you and I have really struggled with this and still learning it because we both are like kindhearted humans that want to help the world change the world. But it does the more you take on and the more people you want to help, you do have to protect your energy. Yeah, I mean, and now the hardest, well I think it started to get hard once you make a million dollars. Every there are the opportunities increase as you start to scale. New conversations, new people, new last a couple weeks ago, we had a call with a Fortune 500 company that wanted to pay us a million dollars to train their C-suite on AI. And if you had given me that opportunity two years ago, I would have been, oh my gosh, this is insane. One of the CRO was like, I either want to work with her or buy her. I would have been like, oh my god, do you hear what he said? I was on that call and had to pick my stomach. I was like, I don't want anything to do with this. I know what's gonna happen. They're gonna, they want me to be on every call. They want, they're gonna want the world. They're used to working with McKinsey and Accenture which will do anything for anyone at any time. I'm not like that. I don't want that in my life. So we said no, we sent an email yesterday. They were shocked. They're like, how does this even make sense? We'll pay you more. It's not about money. And they can't buy me. And I've learned that no, I don't even take one to one calls. You can't even really get a call with me. At this point, unless there's like, it's gonna better me as a human being. It's a high frequency conversation. I mean, now the parameters are crazy. And people might think that I'm rude or, you know, hard to reach or whatever. But that's just, that's the name of the game. Because I have constraints and I can't have a day filled with calls. Because I need to have a day filled with coaching my team, building vision, the things that are actually worth. Well, and that's what we've been discussing lately too. Even this next level of entrepreneurship and leadership, a lot of our energy has to go into coaching our team. A lot of our energy has to go into building up the team and like calling forward. Because as just we've discussed growing, it's like, hey, the reason I work for this company is actually because of you, the vision and the culture you've built. If they don't get any time or energy with us, they're like, I could just go work for another company that has a cool mission, a cool vision. And I think you and I both kind of came to that conclusion over the last, you know, nine to 12 months of like, wow, our energy is so well spent pouring into our people in this way. Yeah, I think we forget as business owners, the first thing that we think about especially when we're kind of in that survival build phase is my clients need to be happy. My clients need to be happy. And so you're just you wire yourself like, are the clients happy? And you forget like, is my team happy? Is my team am I pouring into my team? Am I giving my team the energy that they need? And you know, both of our teams come on our trainings and they kind of get it by the side. But one of my team members reached out and said, hey, you know, I work here because I want proximity to you. I could have started my own business and I did start my own business and I closed that business to proximity to you. And I feel like I only get you through the client costs. And that was a wake up call of, oh, right, like I need to be giving you guys the coaching that I don't even give to my clients because it's it's so vulnerable or it's the things I'm actively processing and the things I'm actively working on are the things that Hormosi is saying directly to me like I probably wouldn't give everything Hormosi is saying to my clients. But I should be giving that to your team. Yeah, and that's where my time needs to be spent. I love that you said like she shut down a business and came to work for you because we both hire like business owners on our team. And I think that they're such a lethal weapon because they already know how to think about business. Whereas like W2 corporate, they're just not thinking the same way that a business owner is. And I remember recently was before we did like a mini launch. I just took the whole team through a visualization and meditation and like protecting our energy and clearing anything that and they all were like, this is the best call we've had in six months. I was like, I didn't even do anything. I didn't even tell you guys anything. But I'm leading them the way that I lead myself. I'm like, Oh, I still forget that this isn't a normal practice for people. And the conversations that you and I are having every day on our 7 a.m. walk are not the conversations that you know other people are having if they don't have somebody like that in their life. And it was like, I think sometimes we're like, Oh, I have to have a perfectly curated PowerPoint. Like make sure that my team gets these takeaways just like we do with clients. And it's like, no, they just need us to share our lived experience with yeah. Well, and we have our mentors pouring into us totally. I mean, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars invested. So that's like again, you you create a new baseline. Like for us, the baseline is, yeah, we're having quantum conversations. We're talking about, you know, our the way our brains are wired, our triggers, how, you know, what beliefs. And it's like, that's a normal chat. Yes. That's a set that's a Tuesday chat. And yeah, just like anything that becomes normal for anyone. It's like, Oh, yes. Yeah. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. I will include you in that as well. Yeah. Yeah. And they want it. That's why we invest this money. You know, we invest this money so that we can rise. Yes. We can learn these new frameworks and these new ways of thinking and how Tom Brady thinks and and be bringing that information to to our people. For sure. I think too. This is why it's good. Even you saying you're investing in people that scare you that are better than you than smarter than you. I've been doing the same thing. We're like massively hiring right now. And having those people on your team that just challenge your perspective or challenge your belief, like you said at the beginning, I had all these beliefs. And when the one of the number one beliefs was broken, it was this wake up call to like, how many other beliefs am I so certain or true that are absolutely no? Yeah. I had the belief that no one could ever teach AI like me. And now Carter and Elliott both, I mean, and Lex and Kent. I mean, all of them and kids. I mean, they all have this incredible teaching ability. And my clients love them. I mean, we just had an event two weeks ago. And it was like, thanks, Callan. But I love talking with Carter and Lex and and Jody and Chantal. And like, they we did round tables. I didn't even have a round table. They didn't make me one. And they were poor. Like, they because ultimately, who's actually running the business right now? Yeah. Who knows the inner workings of our operations and what systems we're deciding on? Which ones we're not deciding on? Not me. Yeah. Don't ask me. I get the very end of like what we decided on and why and I get the report. But they are in the weeds. And that is the coolest part about what we're doing now is like, this is and it that's why you named it the wealthy practitioner. It's why I named it the young common business. It's not the staff of the Wigner total show. It's not the Calm Faulkner show. It is these these incredible humans that are building this thing and then they get to share what they're doing. And I think something that we both have done well is build a culture inside of those businesses that other people want to be a part of. And even just the fact that we've you know built up our team because we hire really high quality people. We pour so much love and energy into them. And then it's like our clients get that as a byproduct. So like any business owner listening to this that feels like it's all falling on you or that you can't remove yourself or you can't delegate or you just feel kind of trapped inside of the business. I truly believe the path out of that is to pour so heavily into your team that the people that you are serving, especially if you're in a service-based industry, get so excited about those interactions with your team. They get so excited. Like I say all the time, I don't even think I'm the favorite coach at the wealthy practitioner. Gabrielle Alejandro, Nikki, they are all at the top and they're in it. And I'm like, they're also better to coach you inside of a broken mortar because they're still in those two. I want to coach you on leadership and mindset and identity and the things that I'm spending my time in. Mentoring massive amounts of team like that's where I can help. And I think if you're listening to this, the easiest way to tell if your ego is still running the show or maybe some of your traumas are running the show is if you are involved in every aspect of your business. And you're not in a place where you think that this what we're talking about of having an incredible team that can run the whole thing for you is not a reality for you like you have to check yourself and be like yeah what is preventing that. So two weeks ago we had an exercise at my event and when we was limiting belief so one of the women came up and believed that employees are real good employees are really hard to find. They most employees are annoying whatever. So we went through this whole exercise and I was like okay who's like your dream person? So maybe for someone listening it's like oh my god I want an associate that is badass. They have had their own practice. They are upset like people are obsessed with them. They're so good at what they do. They're better than me. What if they're better than you? Oh man what a crop what a concept. So she was explaining this she wants this person they're better than me they're obsessed with the eye they do this blah blah. And I looked out to the room of a hundred you know AI architects and like does anyone have this person in their network and one of the women in the back shot up and was like I know exactly who that person is. And in this moment I saw goose bumps I'm like she's sitting there thinking and I said how hard do you think this person's gonna be? She's like I honestly don't think this person exists. Meanwhile across the effing room within five seconds it's in our network she just had and asked anyone, she hadn't put it out there, she hadn't written it down in detail what this person is like and who they are, and even believing that it's possible, if you don't even believe it's possible, how the hell are you gonna find that person? - Totally. - And it's like, it starts with that, and that is why you and I are so obsessed with limiting beliefs because it blocks you from growing. - It blocks you from growing. - It blocks money from coming in, it blocks your next level, it blocks everything, and you sit in this place of swarming around like, oh, no one's ever gonna crack a neck as good as me. - Oh my god. - What if, I'm sorry, the doctor that's in elite right now, or like, you wanna be adjusted by him, not me. - I'm like, where is he? I'm like Kyle and stuff, you guys are stupid. Where is that doctor? I don't know what your clinic it was in, you have so many of this point. Why don't you know where it was? They drove me, but I got adjusted. I was like, this is-- - This is incredible. - Whoa, wait, sorry, you guys are amazing. But he's in next level. - Yeah. - And all the doctors you guys have are next level. - Yeah. - And that is, but that took you a minute. - That wasn't totally, and even that belief definitely had to be broken, even beliefs, you know, online and scaling. It's like, oh my gosh, even replacing yourself in different aspects, it's all a belief. But also, we had to become the kind of leaders that could grow those people to kind of what I was saying this past week at the retreat. You know, one of the girls was like, oh, I wanna launch like, how? And I'm like, I actually don't think you do. 'Cause you don't know the work that went into it. You don't know what's required of you. You're saying you don't have time now. You don't wanna launch like that. If you ain't got time, you ain't gonna ever be able to pull off something like that. You know, and I was kind of explaining, do you wanna pay out crazy bonuses? Like, how's your money mindset? Are you willing to pay out bonuses for a launch like that? This is why you can't get obsessed with a metric or a milestone or an end goal. You have to get obsessed with the person that you're becoming because all of that stuff's gonna be there. And then once you receive it, you're able to handle it. Like, your launch did not disregulate you. Even though it was otherworldly, it did not disregulate you. It did not collapse. You did not fall back. It was just like, of course, because I have been getting my reps in. I have been preparing for this. - I already am a $100 million business owner. In my mind, whether or not I ever get to $100 million, it doesn't matter. I'm totally detached from that. But in my mind and in my body, I can run a $100 million business. I'm already doing it in my mind. And that's, you know, Joseph Penza says, be your future self now. So seeing, you know, $19 million come in. It's like, okay, great, we're fifth of the way there. (laughing) On our way, and there's no rush. - Yeah, there's no rush. - Maybe it's the next 20 years, maybe it's 10. Maybe it's 12 months. I have no detachment. But that is what David Guillem says, said to both of us so many times. You have to have this deep, deep understanding and visualization of where you're going and what it looks like. And Smell's like Ed does this too. Smell's like in taste likes and looks like and how it feels like in the beliefs that you have, it has to actually be in your body with a full detachment from that outcome. And it's okay if it never even happens in this lifetime. Maybe it's the next lifetime. But it's that so certain with no attachment that is the hardest. But I think again, everyone wants the outcome. - Yes. - But how uncomfortable have I been over the last three years? Every day. - Every day making the most uncomfortable decisions. The hiring, the investing. I mean, even Carter bringing Carter on. He was running-- - I remember we talked about it for a while. It was an idea that he wrestled with because it required him to become a different version to bring on that caliber of person. - Oh my gosh. Egotistically, what does that mean? Is he running it? Is he deciding? So I'm not doing curriculum anymore. Like what does that even mean for what I do every day? - That was really one of the hardest things was, I mean, obviously making the decision to make an investment like that was crazy because-- - You don't have the proof yet? - Who was hiring before? I mean, they were making like five or six K a month. - Yeah. - And even then, I'm like, oh God, she wants a raise to seven. Oh no. Oh my gosh. You're like every little dollar versus talking about paying someone 10K, 15K, 20K. I mean, even profit share. What does that look like? - Yeah. - No understanding. But yeah, I mean, it had to make that hard decision, but the hardest for me was waking up in the morning once I had these people. What do I do every day? What is my new day? I don't really have like tasks. I mean, yeah, I need to like sign my tax thing, you know, once a year. I need to review curriculum, but I'm not building curriculum. What do you mean I'm not building curriculum? Well, what if it's wrong? Should I rebuild it? That's the easy thing to do. The easy thing is take the wrong thing, rebuild it yourself. No, the harder thing is telling them, this isn't what I wanted, and training them, and AI, to know how to build it better the next time. I had to completely rewire my brain around what my responsibility is. And there are days where I wake up and like, I have maybe two or three hours of meetings and the rest of it's blank space. Does that mean I'm lazy? Or does that mean I have space to think about the vision and get creative and have space and time to think about 10Xing this business now, which would be going to 400 million. Every mentor that you and I have had have said we both need thinking time, but there's a guilt that comes with that. Absolutely. Because our team is like in the weeds of the doing, and we're over here walking in the woods, doing thinking time, which is what, and I had to have a meeting where they sat me down and they're like, we will not continue to work here if you don't take more space. 'Cause every time you go and take space, every time you go into a room of women that are all doing eight figures, you come back a completely different frequency. And we require it. - Yeah. - And I was like, got it. - Okay. - Under this is the power of having high quality people on your team is like, they're gonna call you on your shit too. - Yeah, oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. - And also we both follow EOS, both of the same business coach. And he, every single time that day rolls around where it's an eight hour day, we're all like, ah, let's skip it, let's skip it. And it has been the greatest experience every three months. You sit down with your crew and we have these really hard conversations. The annual one wasn't, maybe not an annual yet? - I haven't done an annual yet. - Oh my god, annual is amazing. There was an exercise. - Is it like two days? - Yeah. - Or he goes around and you say like, you compliment like what's something that you're great at. What's something that you want me to stop doing? - Mm-hmm. - And it was so awesome. Like, 'cause you do the compliment sandwich. - Yeah. - But just to have a moment to be like for them to all be like, you need to stop doing all these little things. - Yeah. - Please. - I feel like the coaches just did that to me. Like recently, like when they were in for the retreat, they were like, listen, we gotta talk to you about all of these things that are not working. And then I received that all and I was like, some of it I agree with, some of it I don't agree with, right? Like, totally. And then the next day, it was like, we all had to like pour into each other and be like, what do I love about you? What am I so grateful for? And I think it's like such a beautiful thing to do with your team in general because it's easy to get stressed when you're in big seasons of growth. It's easy to think about all the small details but to get people back on vision and back on purpose together. It's like, oh, we're all building this together and what an incredible gift that is. (upbeat music) If something in this episode resonated with you today, trust that it wasn't random, it wasn't an accident. Growth doesn't come from doing more, it comes from becoming more. If you know you're meant for a bigger life, a bigger impact and success that actually truly feels aligned with you, then you're being called forward. This is your opportunity. (upbeat music)