Career Coaching Secrets

Honey Badger of Human Potential: Releasing Emotional Baggage for Success - Kevin Fink

• Davis Nguyen

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In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Rexhen interviews Kevin Fink, a transformational speaker and mindset coach known as the "Honey Badger of Human Potential." Kevin shares how he transitioned from a career as a certified financial planner to coaching after realizing that emotional baggage and shame, not a lack of strategy, caused people to self-sabotage.

He now helps high-income professionals and executives get unstuck. His marketing is primarily driven by speaking engagements, referrals, and LinkedIn outreach. Kevin advises coaches to do their own personal healing work first, find a clear niche, and focus on building genuine trust with their clients.

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Kevin Fink:

more educated, they still get to a place where they seem to be doing all the right things or they think they're doing all the right things, and yet they still find themselves making these common mistakes and they don't understand it. So if I had to pigeonhole it, I would say it's professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, business owners, those kind of folks that, you know, unfortunately, I think there's a lot of people that

Davis Nguyen:

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Nguyen, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven- and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, You'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Rexhen Doda:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Regan, and today's guest is Kevin Fink, a transformational speaker, mindset coach, and founder of Life Wizard Coaching and Speaking, known as Honey Badger of Human Potential for his no-fluff, deeply raw approach to personal growth. through his signature let that shit go install the real you framework kevin helps business leaders professionals and high performers release the emotional baggage shame fear self-sabotage that's keeping them stuck so that they can step into bold purpose-driven leadership. And it's a pleasure for me to have him on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Kevin.

Kevin Fink:

Thank you, Regin. It's great to be here. I really appreciate this opportunity.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you, Kevin. It's a pleasure for us to have you on. So I wanted to learn more about your beginnings when it comes to you starting your coaching business and then beginning as a coach. First of all, what inspired you to become a coach and then start your own coaching business?

Kevin Fink:

Yeah. You know, honestly, Regin, I got tired of watching people live half lives, including myself. I've been in the services actually for this is my 29th year and I've worked with thousands of families to help them with their personal financial wealth and what I was discovering is that it didn't matter how much information I gave them how much I was helping them that for the most part they would have the strategies but there would be something that would disrupt or come in to cause them to not complete the plan. Frankly, I went through this myself. Again, I've been a certified financial planner now. This is my 25th year as a certified financial planner. I personally blew through two life-changing inheritances, what most people would think is life-changing money. This wasn't when I was just a stupid kid that didn't know anything. This was when I was a grown-ass man. I was teaching people and helping people with their wealth and So I started to look at, well, if it's not the strategies, why do people stop following the strategies? And what I discovered was that, again, this applied to myself, that we all have some level of emotional baggage, unresolved emotional baggage around money, limiting beliefs, things that we learned when we were very, very young that have carried forward with us throughout our lives that run in our unconscious mind. And so we will self-sabotage even when we know that there's a better way, at some point that unresolved baggage, that trauma kicks in and brings us back to what our brain thinks is center. And so after my own rock bottom moment, which I'm happy to talk about, I literally almost stepped in front of a speeding freight train one night back in 2019 because of the shame and the guilt that I had about what I had done. Luckily, I didn't. But it got to that point that I was asking questions like, I wonder if the life insurance money will make up for all these mistakes I've made. And that was really the low point that made me say, you know what, there's something else going on here. And as I did my own self-growth, personal growth work and discovered, yeah, I've got these limiting beliefs. I've got this emotional baggage. I knew that other people had it too. And so I wanted to see if I could help in a different way, not just help them with their retirement accounts and growing their wealth, but really understanding why did Why do they make the decisions they make, not just around money, but in relationships, with their health, all the areas of their life. So that's kind of what got me into it.

Rexhen Doda:

And one more thing about the people that you work with generally, is there a certain ideal client profile that you typically find yourself working with? Like, is there a certain demographic industry or certain common goals that they have that you... typically see, how would you describe the ideal client profile?

Kevin Fink:

You know, that's a great question, Regan, because honestly, it's anyone who is kind of just feeling stuck. I'll say that just because of my background in personal finance, that the people that I was working with there typically are higher income earners. They tend to be more educated, they still get to a place where they seem to be doing all the right things or they think they're doing all the right things, and yet they still find themselves making these common mistakes and they don't understand it. So if I had to pigeonhole it, I would say it's professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, business owners, those kind of folks that, you know, unfortunately, I think there's a lot of people that would like to have coaching, but in their minds, they don't think they can afford it or they don't understand the value of it. And so when I'm dealing with that demographic, they have a little bit more disposable income that the cost of it doesn't necessarily factor in quite as great as it does with others that maybe don't make, you know, And when I say high income earners, I'm talking about people that typically are making anywhere combined family income of 100 plus.

Rexhen Doda:

And how is the engagement between you and them? Is there a certain program of a certain length? How do you describe the engagement? So

Kevin Fink:

there's really a couple of different ways that I work with clients. I recently started a group coaching program. You mentioned it in the intro. It's called Flush That Shit and Get Off the Pot, which is a little bit maybe not suitable for work, but it it creates the imagery that I want. And so that's for people that just kind of want to dip their toe in, do it in a group setting. It's a much more affordable entry point. So I do that. Actually, tomorrow night, I've got my fourth week. It's a six-week program. So I do some group coaching. I also do one-on-one coaching. I'll go month to month. I'll do six-month plans, year-long plans. Obviously, the longer they want the coaching, the more affordable it becomes. But that's really what I'm doing right now as it relates to one or the other. Do you want one-on-one coaching or do you want to start in the group? My intention in the group is to help those people get a taste of it. And for those that it makes sense to move on, that would be the step up. But a lot of them will get what they need out of it. and move on down the road.

Rexhen Doda:

And for all the coaches listening, when it comes to you finding your clients or them finding you, is there a specific marketing channel that you see working very well for you?

Kevin Fink:

So I really am focused right now on speaking from the stage. I actually have a talk that I'm doing tomorrow morning at the SciFair. I live in the Houston area in one of the suburbs of Houston. So I'm speaking to a networking group tomorrow. And while I love getting paid to speak on stage, I really see that kind of as the megaphone. It puts me in front of those clientele. Another thing that really... got me. So I've been doing this kind of coaching work off and on as sort of a side gig, if you will, probably for the last 10 to 12 years. It was really only last September, August, September, about this time last year that I made a decision to do this really full time. And the reason for that was I wanted to reach a bigger audience. My real outcome, my sort of big picture outcome, and I think this is one of the questions that maybe we'll get to in a little bit, is I would love to speak on stages of 10,000 people and get this information out in a substantial way because I think it's something that can benefit everyone. So speaking from the stage is the primary way. It comes from referrals from existing clients. I do some networking events, but I don't do a lot there. I've found that networking, unless you're networking with other coaches or you're networking with people who understand the value of coaching, it's kind of hard to get referrals from like a BNI group, something like that. But it's referrals. It's speaking from the stage. And then sometimes, frankly, LinkedIn. Actually, I'm finding people. I'm doing a lot of reaching out on LinkedIn, a lot of creating of relationships. And people seem to find me when they know that this is, you know, they feel stuck, but they don't know what else to do. They end up finding me sort of naturally.

Rexhen Doda:

Interesting. So LinkedIn, kind of outreach, also these live events. When it comes to the outreach, is there a certain strategy you're utilizing to like, let's say, break the ice and start that conversation with people? people?

Kevin Fink:

So through LinkedIn specifically or through social media or? LinkedIn outreach or are you doing outreach somewhere else? So I'm also using Facebook. Facebook and LinkedIn are the two primary places. And my whole thing is, you mentioned the honey badger of human potential. That's actually something as I was working with chat GPT and thinking about how I wanted to hold myself out there. I shared a story with my GPT about the This video that I saw, gosh, probably 15 years ago on YouTube, and it was called The Crazy Nasty-Ass Honey Badger. And if you haven't watched it, it's hilarious. You should watch it. But what it did for me was, you know, it was this feisty little animal that... And again, I don't know if this is NSFW or not, but, you know, we've already used the word shit, so I'm going to use it again. The tagline in the video was, the honey badger doesn't give a shit. It just takes what it wants. And at the time, I was struggling with being... people pleaser. I was saying yes to everything and really I was fighting wanting to be liked and needing to be liked and it wasn't healthy for me. So I literally took on the persona for a little while of the honey badger and so that's kind of how this whole thing sort of morphed into this persona, if you will. And the way I use it in this practice is to say, look, I'm not going to let you give me your excuses, right? I'm going to call bullshit when I feel like it's bullshit. And I'm going to make you really look at the reality of what you're doing. And I'm not going to accept no for an answer. It's not that I don't care about you. I don't care about your excuses. And so when I'm reaching out, it's a long way to get to your question, but when I reach out to people, I want to do it in a way that kind of grabs their attention and doesn't look or sound like anybody else, right? One of the things that I talked about in one of my newsletters recently was this idea of labels and how most people, we label ourselves in a way that it gives the person who we're talking to an opportunity to put their definition on our label. If I say I'm a life coach, whoever I'm saying that to, they get to put their perception of what that means to be a life coach. If I say I'm an insurance agent or a realtor, they get to put their interpretation on it. I don't like that. I want them to ask me the question, well, what do you mean by that? Or how do you do that? Because now I have an opportunity to truly engage. So when I'm reaching out on LinkedIn and connecting with people, I'll go look for something in their posts and their profile, and I'll ask them a question about it. But I'll do it in a way that I'm not looking to be antagonizing necessarily, but I'll do it in a way that creates some curiosity. And that's what I'm finding is actually creating some responses. Because again, if I just look and sound like everybody else, I'm going to get the same results that everybody else gets, which are not great.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. And so when it comes to Since you mentioned results, what about your coaching business? Looking to the future for the next one to three years, do you have any specific goals that you're working towards?

Kevin Fink:

Yeah, I do. As I mentioned, I'm really looking to be on many more bigger stages. I've got a gig coming up at the end of this month that'll be in front of about 500 business owners. And that's a great starting place where I certainly want to start. And In the next one to three years, I really want to be speaking on stages where there's a couple to several thousand people. Coaching will always be the heart of the work, but as I said earlier, I think that the speaking aspect is kind of the megaphone. It allows me to get that message out on a much broader scale. And from a business perspective, I'm looking to to get up to somewhere around half a million. I'd love to do more than that, but that's kind of the next step for me is to get up to around a half a million and not just for the money itself, but what it really allows me to build and support and give back. So that's kind of where

Rexhen Doda:

I'm

Kevin Fink:

at the next three years.

Rexhen Doda:

Well, amazing. And when thinking about these goals, so like speaking to more stages, maybe bigger stages, also thinking about growing the revenue, is there any challenge that you're facing right now? What is a challenge that you're trying to solve for now? to get closer to that goal.

Kevin Fink:

Sure. One of the things that was my first outcome this year, last year when I made the decision to pivot to this approach, I decided I was going to give a TED Talk. I've always kind of had a an idea of wanting to do a TED Talk in my head, but I never knew what or why. So that's something that I'm really working on. It is a challenge. The coach that I hired to help with that process says that the average person who ends up getting to speak on one of the TEDx stages typically goes through about 130 to 140 applications before they get their yes. That's the average, so clearly there's people that have to do more than that. So going and finding those those TEDx stages, answering their questions, putting it out there, finding the ones that I don't need a lot. I just need to find the right one. So that's probably my biggest challenge right now that I've been working on ever since December of last year. So I'm eight months in, still haven't gotten the yes. And I believe that that is going to be a good path for me to then say, look, yeah, I've been on the TEDx stage, get a sense of what I'm doing. And then, you know, just... Honestly, growing my awareness, growing the awareness of the population out there and really getting them to understand every area of life could benefit from dealing with stuff this way. I always believe the best investment is in myself. Over the course of the 30 years that I've been in this business or this financial services industry, coaching, personal growth, I have spent, I would have to imagine, it's well into the six figures of investing in myself through different courses and opportunities. I will say that the personal growth and leadership development stuff that I have done, that I've invested in, has easily been the biggest return. And not so much from a financial aspect, but just from a growth perspective. I've done NLP and hypnosis training. I recently became certified in hypnosis through a group called the Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy, which if you're doing any hypnosis work in your practice, it's fantastic and well worth the investment there. High Five Leadership is a personal growth leadership development company that I am affiliated with, have been for the last 10 years. And the work that we do there that, again, I got out of it personally when I went through it. and the stuff that we do. We do a three-day intensive training class that really transforms lives. That's been huge. As far as things that I invested in that maybe didn't work so well, last year I signed up for BNI Business Networking. it was you know it was like twelve hundred bucks or something for the year plus whatever the monthly dues were so I think all together is like fifteen hundred and I did not and I worked it you know I didn't just show up with my hand out hoping people would give me referrals I worked the process because as I mentioned a little while ago it's I think it's really hard for people in a business in a business networking group to refer to someone who is a coach because unfortunately It kind of goes back to what I talked about with the labeling. When you say coach, a lot of times people think, oh, you know, somebody's broken and they need to be fixed. No, nobody's broken, right? So how do you refer? Oh yeah, my buddy Regin, he's totally broken, man. He needs you for sure. No, that's not how those work. And so I found it really difficult to get those referrals. And I would say that that was not, at least for me, that was not an ideal investment of time.

Rexhen Doda:

Is there any advice you'd like to give to these coaches who are scaling or trying to scale their impact?

Kevin Fink:

Absolutely. always start with your own healing you can only take people as far as you've gone yourself so do the work on yourself you know that the toughest person to be honest with is the person that looks back at us in the mirror every day so really really get clear on who you are what you stand for nobody wants to pay for generic information so be very very clear on what niche you serve and Have the courage to show up real, raw, perfect, vulnerable. I mentioned the talk that I'm giving tomorrow at the Chamber of Commerce. The title of the talk is Networking Beyond the Elevator Pitch. I'm going completely opposite direction and talking about showing up. What if What if we showed up in business groups and we showed people who we really are and we really connected on a human basis and got vulnerable? I'm not saying you got to go out there and show all your dirty laundry the first time somebody says, hi, how you doing? Imagine just showing up authentically as you and seeing what kind of connections you can make with people. If you just share what's on your business card, you're gonna get typical results. And finally, dealing isn't just about building a funnel, it's about building trust. And people will do business with you when they trust you, when they know, like, and trust you. So that is something that I got from BNI, right? It's all about creating relationships where they know, like, and trust you, and trust is built when you come from a place of honesty, authenticity, and truth. And when you do that, you can create some significant real connections in your life. And I think that is far more important than just paying for another set of ads or any of the traditional things.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much, Kevin. And thank you so much for coming to our podcast today and listening to our questions and having this discussion. For anyone... wants to connect with you or find you, they can just go into LinkedIn, look up Kevin Fink. They'll be able to find your profile. They can also, I believe, go to lifewizardcoach.com. Thank you. Cool. Thank you. And we'll make sure to put that on the description as well. So the editor is going to put that in the description. But thank you so much, Kevin. It was lovely to have you on the show.

Kevin Fink:

All right. Thanks, Rajen,

Davis Nguyen:

so much. I appreciate it. That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit joinpurplecircle.com.