What Happens When You Can't Work Any Harder? | Featuring Amy Kemp

When hard work and fierce independence have been your ultimate survival tools, what happens when you hit a wall and physically can’t work any more hours?  

In this episode of the Ask Faleskini Podcast, host Peter Faleskini speaks with Amy Kemp—author, speaker, and founder of Amy Kemp Inc. Amy shares her journey from high school English teacher to building a direct sales team of over 1,000 people, and eventually founding her coaching firm focused on rewiring subconscious thought habits.  

Amy reveals why relentless hard work will eventually stop producing results, how subconscious "grooves" in our brain lead to burnout, and how to transition away from survival mechanisms that no longer serve your growth.  

Connect & Resources:
Amy Kemp's Website & Free Habit Finder Assessment: https://amykemp.com/
Amy's Book: Available directly on her website  

👉 Subscribe to Ask Faleskini for more insights on overcoming burnout, leadership, and personal growth!  

#AskFaleskini #AmyKemp #YouCantOutworkYourThoughtHabits #Burnout #SubconsciousMind #ExecutiveCoaching #Mindset #Leadership

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Ask for a Skinny Podcast with a guest. I'm proud to present Amy Kemp. Amy, welcome to the show. Please tell us more about yourself. What is your story?

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I love it. Thank you for having me. I live near Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. I grew up in a small town west of the city. I thought I would grow up to be a teacher. I originally went to college to be a high school English teacher. I love to read and write and I love books. When I got done with college and I was teaching for, I had I taught for maybe five years, I realized that I had this ambitious fire inside of me to become an entrepreneur. And so actually started a business in sales and then grew that business over the next 18 to 20 years until I was leading a team of around a thousand people who lived across the country who were also in sales. And I loved that work. But I came to a place where, and actually, I'll tell it as a story because it's the opening story of my book. My husband and I had our annual meeting with our financial advisor to talk about our investments and our plans for retirement and all of that. And I had filled out all of these forms for her, um, just about our goals and where we were uh currently. And we walked into her office and I remember so vividly what I was wearing. I remember that the chairs were sort of like a maroon burlap material. Um I remember the sound of the air conditioner in her office kind of whirring in the background. And I it was such a vivid, life-altering moment that it was like a turning point in my journey. And so she has these forms that I've filled out in front of her on her desk. And she says, You're doing a great job managing your money. You aren't overspending, you know, you've got really only the debt from your home. She's going through all of this stuff, and she said, There's just one problem if you want to achieve the goals you've set for yourself. And she leaned forward on her desk on top of those papers and she said, You're not making enough money. And I remember um after that in the meeting, not really no, I don't really know what else she said. I I don't even know what else happened in the meeting because after that one sentence, it became evident to me. One, my husband is in education. He's a principal at our local, one of our local schools. And the only way he is going to make more money is by getting older. He, you know, he can't really multiply his income. Um, two, there was no one else in the room except for me. Uh, and and three, with the ages of our children at that time, which was maybe they were like six, eleven, and thirteen, maybe in those ranges where everyone was in things, nobody drove, everybody. I had to, I call it the Uber era of parenting, where I was driving kids everywhere. Um, I didn't, I couldn't work any more hours. That there, I couldn't outwork this problem. There were, there was no way that I could give anymore. And I was feeling the strain of all those years of business building, anyhow. I mean, I was kind of at the end of my rope. And so I knew right then, like this was on me. I wasn't going to give up on the goals, but also it wasn't going to change by me working harder or working more. And so that became the real turning point where uh over the next probably two years, I went through a huge professional transition and actually ended up accidentally starting the company that I work in full-time now, which is just my name, Amy Kemp Inc., um, where I work with people in one-on-one and small group engagements to help them rewire their brains, their subconscious habits of thinking, um, to teach them how to think differently when encountering a challenge in their work or in their life. So, this has been my full-time work for about nine years in this new iteration, coaching people uh on their subconscious habits of thinking. So, long stories.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

I have so many questions.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

So I I would like to start at the beginning. How hard it was for you to transition from a teacher that is uh let's say fixed role, you just have to fight with your principal for the best schedule, and that's it, uh, to to to business and uh starting a business. How how hard was that? Let's call it the first transition.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Yeah. There probably the biggest transition in that for me was the learning how to manage the entrepreneurial pressure of providing. There's um a lot of times I think we can sort of be fantastical about our views of entrepreneurship or owning your own business. You have all this freedom, you have all these perks, you know, and you do, you do. That being said, you also don't know what you're gonna get paid every two weeks. And the amount of that pay is solely dependent on you, and that brings a lot to the surface, you know, especially internally. I think I will often say to people, if you want to know your most unhealthy habits of thinking at a subconscious level, make the transition between a traditional job and entrepreneurship. It'll take you out. That pressure of providing. Um, now, thankfully, I at that time was married to my husband, so I wasn't alone in that pressure. It wasn't all on me, but I definitely um have always been the higher earner, and so there was a pressure to provide that income, and I and it was just on me. So I think learning to manage that was a huge challenge at the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Okay. Um amazing. My biggest frustration uh was because um one week I could earn like a million, and then three weeks you don't earn anything. That was the biggest frustration for me. So why can't I repeat what I did the week one? Uh that was the biggest uh challenge for myself. And then I wanted also, as you mentioned, to just um outwork the problem and just do more, put more pressure in instead of just stepping aside and let things happen and uh just be okay with uh the the average that is much lower than the peak. And not being uh not not not being uh miserable because I don't not every week is a big week.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah, I write about this actually in my book. I write about this very thing you're describing, which what I how I describe it, the image in my head is that when I was a new entrepreneur, and and to be clear, being an entrepreneur is signing up to ride on a roller coaster, not a merry-go-round, right? You're you're signing up for the peaks and the valleys. I don't know a business owner who hasn't experienced that, right? But um when I was new, it was like I was on a surfboard in the in the middle of the ocean. And when the when I was riding high on top of the wave, you know, I was so confident and so self-assured and so uh I felt so good about myself. But when that would take a dip, when the revenue would dip, uh I I would go under, you know, just my self-worth feeling less than what's wrong with me? Why does this keep happening? And what I learned through the years is that rather than being on the surfboard in the ocean, I swam to the shore and got myself a little beach chair and just learned to watch the waves go up and down from the shore, sort of knowing that that's what it's supposed to do. You know, that that's how businesses are, and that there's no shortage of money when you see it from the shoreline, right? There's no shortage of water, it's going up and down all the time, but there's no shortage, and that also it's meant to go in and out, like there's a tide and it comes in and out. But I had to, I had to get myself outside of that in terms of my own feelings about myself. So yeah, it's a it's such a it's such a difficult journey.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah, some say uh if you can't afford a therapy, become an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Oh, that's so true. That is so true, yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Uh you mentioned uh subconscious uh a lot. Um and uh I I will give you a nerdy question, and you can uh completely avoid it if you don't like it. Um so when I was studying my subconscious, I was studying Freud, Jung, and Lacan. Um who is your favorite author regarding the subconscious?

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Sure. It's someone you've never heard of, so I'll tell you that. Um but there are a few different people. One of them, this man named Dr. Hartman, he uh studied the science of axiology, which is the study of values. And so the assessment tool that I use uses this, his work, like all of his research to reveal where you have risk in your subconscious habits of thinking. So, not to get too deep into it, because I always say, like, I know enough to be dangerous, but really I just want to drive the car. I don't really know how the car works totally. But the assessment tool, when I look at it and someone takes it, I can see where they have deep grooves in their brain and they're at risk of falling into certain subconscious habits of thinking. So we are hardwired to survive. When we do something and it requires or it saves energy for our bodies, right? Then we repeat that and we create a groove in our brain over and over. The problem is some of these subconscious habits of thinking that served us in one area of life or for a season of life, when you continue to use them past the point of needing it, they become detrimental and damaging. So let me give you an example to bring it like to life because it's a little bit dense or academic. I'm not sure. Um, I'm thinking of one even like from this week and conversations I had with people this week. Um, okay, here's one. I have a client who worked her way up in a corporate business setting to sort of like a director level role where she manages a team of people. And the way she did that was by solving every problem, by being always available for her team, by really working harder than everyone else around her. But now she's stuck at this sort of director level, and someone on her team actually even just got promoted over her. And it really bothered her. I mean, she's it was really painful because she felt like I developed that person, and then you're passing by. So her survival mechanism in this case would be hard work, doing everything for everyone, always being available. But at a certain point in her structure of her company, that's not what gets you to the next level. What gets you to the next level is visibility, relationships, connections, um, volunteering to speak in front of the leadership team, you know, really taking on initiatives, but she doesn't have the capacity because she's doing all of these survival behaviors, right? And so what we're working on is like, how do you let go of that when letting go of that feels so dangerous? But at the same time, if she keeps doing what she's doing right now, not only will she not get promoted, but she's completely, completely depleted. She has no passion for her work, she's exhausted, she can't work any more hours, she's already overworking. And so that's the work I'm doing is like that survival mechanism is no longer serving you. So, how do we ease you out of that and into a different way of being so that you can actually have more impact and income without more work?

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Amazing. Uh, do you serve more uh uh women or uh men clients?

SPEAKER_00 14:21

I work with a really specific kind of woman.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Um yeah, she's um typically has an advanced degree, a big title, a large organization or business that she runs. Um, she's gets more done in four hours than most people do in eight. Uh, she really has never fit into other groups of women. She kind of struggles to socially belong because she's different and she's a leader and she kind of thinks differently. Um, and then also throughout her life, she's always been told she's too much. You know, just calm down. What's why, you know. She's gotten a lot of feedback and even so much like when she meets people, she'll really hide who she really is. Um, she also has earns a lot of money or has the capacity to. So it's a very like narrow, it's a really particular group of people that I work with most. Um, they're really special to me. I I really like serving them, feels like my life's work.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Amazing. Uh, before we wrap up, what would be your number one advice for our listeners? Where to start, where to check for um the hiccups that their subconscious is responsible for.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Well, you can take the habit finder assessment for free on my website. So that's always a very easy, tiny step. So you can go to Amy Kemp, my name, A-M-Y-K-E-M-P.com, and take the habit finder, you get your results right away. It gives you a full sort of chart of the six different areas of thinking and then where you have risk. I do want to be really clear when you take the tool that you remember this is not about strengths or personality. This is about risk. So when you see a measurement that's red, a lot of times overachievers get really nervous about that. They feel like they're failing. It doesn't mean you're failing, it means your brain has a deep groove there and it's not serving you anymore. And so that's a high risk area. But that's a really great place to start because until you have language for what's happening, uh, you can't change it. And and I remember the first time I took it being so irritated and almost like, well, how did you know that? But then the more I thought it through, I it was so true, but I couldn't even articulate it myself. And so I do think it's important you have language. The only other the other piece of advice that I would give to people always is to never apologize for investing an amount of money in yourself. And it and it can be if it's a book, that's great. If it's a podcast, that's great. It doesn't have to be huge to start. Um, but the bigger the investment you make in growing you, the bigger the return, also. I mean, I've invested more money in coaching and personal development than really everyone I know, except for two people. You know, it's just always been a top priority, even when it didn't feel like I had the money for it. And it's the thing that I got the greatest return on my investment from.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Amy, thank you for being my guest. Thank you for all these beautiful insights. I will include your web uh page in the description. Um and uh as uh you're really amazing. Thank thank you for explaining this to our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Thank you, Peter. It's great to be here.