Episode 22: Kim Rogne | Unlock Potential With High Achiever Habits

Wow, everybody. We just had this incredible conversation with Kim Rovni. She is a high energy keynote speaker. She's a business coach and a number one best selling author who helps high achieving women and leadership teams thrive without burnout, because who needs burnout?

After twenty five years of leading a top producing real estate brokerage, Kim founded the, For the Love Of, FLO, a personal and professional development company that hit 6 figures in its very first year. She's now spoken on over 30 plus podcasts, led trainings for leadership teams, and developed keynotes for audiences of over 350 people.

Through her signature coaching frameworks, relatable style, and action packed resources, Kim inspires ambitious professionals to lead boldly, live intentionally, and grow with joy. Who doesn't want that? Flow's mission is simple, to inspire, empower, and promote action. So let's dig into this conversation with Kim.

Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Power Up Your Life podcast. I am Mandy McAllister, and I am flying solo because our girl Kelly Resendez is eat, pray, loving. She's currently in Italy, and, we're excited to to keep this ball rolling and get really great, thought leaders out here.

So today, I have with me Kim Ragney. Hi, Kim. Hello. How are you? I'm so excited. Thank you, Mandy, for having me. Oh, I'm super excited too. Well, why don't we kick this off? Tell us a little bit about what it is that you do and who you are, your journey in your own words.

Oh, in my own words. Well, first of all, I always like to start personally. I've been married to my groom for over twenty seven years. That could be a whole another podcast episode in itself. I have two semi adulting children, 21 and 23, and I decided to sit down with my husband a little over three years ago and shake our world up and said, hey, honey. I'm looking at retiring from I know this position I've been in for the last ten years as a CEO of real estate brokerages where I have a salary and benefits, but I wanna go start my own show, my own business.

And from there, here I am entering year three and just really honestly trying to figure it out as I am a keynote speaker and author. Didn't expect that to happen along the way. That wasn't really on my business plan as well as a high performance coach.

I love that. I have this idea of feeling forward and taking a bet on yourself resonates so much. And, you know, at GoBund and Swim, and most of us are if we are a w two employee, we we are looking to, you know, lean into the entrepreneurial stuff that we do on the side. So what you're going through is exactly what so many of our members and I personally went through.

So, you know, one thing on that, the identity of having been in your w two, the identity that you hold on to this I was a medical device rep for the bulk of my career, and it's like, that's a thing people want to do, you know, and people want to be in the role that you were in.

Talk to me a little bit about, you know, the letting go of that branch so that you could see if you could fly and that identity shift in the meantime.

Oof. I think I'm still working on it, to be honest. So I do come from being in in in the background. My background is for twenty five years, I was in the real estate space. So the first fifteen years I was in sales, I knew what it felt like to be $10.99, a 100 percent commission. But the last ten years, probably the most formative years of our children's lives as we were getting ready for them to go off of to college, I was on a salary. And so you do get used to that.

So when we talk about identity, really what I had to do was take a step back and choose. Well, I didn't choose. What had happened is I had a traumatic skiing accident, which forced me to slow down and really think about what I wanted to do with the second half of my best life. I mean, I believe I'll be on this earth till I'm a 100 and healthy and vibrant. And, during that, you know, forced slowdown is when I just really did some self reflection and wanted you know, took time to get to know myself a little bit better to decide what I wanted to do.

And so that's where I started the identity shift and the identity change. I'm still working on it because as much as I knew, I didn't know. So

100%. They were all works in progress. Yeah. Right? It's I I really think that that's if if you don't have time for a pause on a regular basis for yourself, the universe she gonna give you a pause that you're not anticipating. So it sounds like, you know, you got one that you didn't anticipate, but it like, there's always a lesson in it. Like, that's that's fantastic to hear.

I do feel like, you know, no matter what version of yourself you become, there's times that you felt stuck. Right? And the you you know, I love this picture behind if you're listening on podcast, you don't see this don't quit, but it actually has everything blacked out, so all you see is do it. Yeah. I absolutely love that.

But feeling stuck, what are some things you know, maybe two vantage points here. What are things that you do to get yourself unstuck? And being a high performing coach, What are some patterns that you see that is the biggest mistake when people feel stuck?

Yes. I love that question so much. So first of all, for myself, if we just go back to when I had the forced slowdown and I did really feel stuck. I remember saying to my coach, I feel trapped. I actually use the words trapped because I, you know, I've been in that industry for so long, and I was like, what else am I what else am I going to do in my household? My lifestyle depends on my income, so I use the word trapped.

One of the things that I did, this is a great tactical for anybody, is we've all taken assessments. We're all growth minded. Right? So whether it's disc or anneagram or strength finders, and I 10 x everything. Like, I take everything. Like, what's your animal? What's this? But interesting enough, even all of the times that I did that with my leadership team, I really kinda scanned my own. Right? If you look at a disc, and I know I'm a very high d and I, I'd be like, yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. It was like the d would come out and be like, yep. No. I know I'm that. Moving on. Whatever.

But a great thing to do is to actually read all of the words and process it and think about it. And now that we have AI, I would even attempt to upload all of those to AI and ask AI based on this. What would you say based on this, my natural strengths would be maybe a great position for me or a great easy additional income? Talk about additional income all the time, but it doesn't have to be that hard if it's something in your natural. So that's what I did personally that helped me rediscover who I am and be okay with it without trying to compare to somebody else and just process it and think through it. And I actually printed it. I put it in a binder. I read it like a book. I got out a highlighter. I did all this weird thing stuff that I normally wouldn't have. So that could be something people could do.

And then when my clients are getting stuck, it's really they know they want something more, but they don't know what the more is. That's the whole clarity. Like, how do we get clarity? Because here's the thing. What we wanted our in our twenties, in our thirties, in our forties, and I'm now in my fifties, is very different. And it's also understanding that it's okay to want something different. I mean, I can't do the same things I do now that I did when my kids were two and four, but we cannot discover that or get out of our get out of being stuck unless we actually take the time to think and turn our brains brains off and maybe write and maybe journal and maybe read some great prompts that help us think through it. And so those are some of the tacticals that I'll have my coaching clients do when they're feeling that way and giving themself enough time. It's not like this is one and done over a weekend. Sometimes we need to sit and marinate in those thoughts for a little bit.

Oh, I I love it. These these high d, high I, high performers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fine. I'm done. Right? But it's it's, right. The most stressful thing is the quiet in some ways. Like, I used to say that I would way rather run 10 miles than take an hour yoga class because it was way more stressful to to be in the quiet, but that is where the the real truth, the inner knowing comes from.

So you mentioned, in order to find clarity, the things that you tell your coaching clients to do, it's it's getting quiet, backing up, spending the time looking at prompts. Are there any other actionable things that someone's looking for clarity that you would have them do? Mhmm. Mhmm. I would say dream,

like, 10 x the dream. Right? You know, if we think about the economics. Right? And, you know, if you had an extra $10,000 every month, what would you do with it? But what if you had a 100,000? Right? What do you love to do? And what would that look like?

Like, I really love experiences. I love right now, I'm I'm a little obsessed even, you know, with my kids. Like, we don't technically need more stuff. Yeah. I'd like more stuff. Don't get me wrong. But, you know, can we go to a concert? Right? So we like to do those things or do a yoga class together or make candles or whatever. But if I had 10 times more money, I don't know. We could hop on a plane and go to the Red Rocks in Colorado and go to a concert there. And, oh, by the way, maybe sit in the front row to see Adele, which I know those are probably $25,000 a ticket or whatever it might be. But sometimes that can help. Really thinking about what what do you enjoy.

I was I was listening to an older podcast. It was a couple years ago, and it was Mel Robbins, and I don't remember who she was interviewing. But she talked about ordering dessert at dinner. I loved this example. She loves to order all the desserts because people never can decide what dessert. And it's like, who cares if we only have one bite? It's it's decadent. And so that example was given, and she's like, oh my gosh. Wouldn't that be amazing if I could order dessert for everybody in the in the restaurant? Right?

And so that's just an example. Right? And so sometimes we haven't dreamt for a while or we're just too busy to or we're too busy to slow down. And so sometimes that can help, and then we can break it down on, okay, how can we step by step, little by little, get a piece of that?

Oh, I love that. The the open up your brain and let yourself go further than you ever dreamed of going. Yeah. You know? And I I there was a Tony Robbins exercise that I did once that you just put a price to it. You know? This idea of I wanna belong to a JET membership. What does that actually cost? And then, you know, it starts to feel a lot more achievable once you can put a price tag to it.

Tell me a little bit about some unconventional strategies and things that you really firmly believe that other people might not agree with.

Well, I don't know if this one is unconventional. It's just something that I've I've been testing. And so one of the commitments that I made when I started my business for the love of, which by the way is is interesting because whenever I go to a convention or I go to a networking event, they'll print out a name tag and they'll be apologetic and they'll be like, we're so sorry. We missed a word. What is it for the love of? And I'm like, actually, there is no word there. You get to fill in the blank for the love of peace, for the love of joy, for the love of running a profitable business.

But, anyway, when I started my business back in January 2023, one of the things that I committed to and this isn't unconventional, but it might be for some that are listening. I decided I was going to every morning do some daily mindset journaling. We've all heard this before, whether you've read Hal Elrod's miracle morning and done the savers or whatever it might be, or maybe you get new notebooks every time you go to a convention and you try it. I had been a very inconsistent, consistent journaler. In I mean, piles of them. Right? I would do it a week, then I wouldn't then I would do it, you know, two weeks, and then I wouldn't. Whatever. And I also wanted to do something quick. Right? This is it. We're gonna do this real quick to get my mindset right.

And throughout that journey, what had happened is I was about three weeks into it, and I had a girlfriend who had texted me. And she had said, hey, Kim. I'm looking to be held accountable to my belief and my mindset, and I would like to create a new habit. I said, well, I don't know, girlfriend. I'm doing this journaling thing that they, right, meaning they that are already, like, 10 steps ahead of me say works. And I'm like, I don't think it does because I'm a doer, and I just like to do, but they're saying it works. I said, why don't we do this together and then we'll send each other a picture and how they hold each other accountable?

My friend Cindy was diagnosed with ALS in 2020. It is 2025. By all accounts, she should not be alive. That journaling started the journey of her getting her mindset right. And the way that she would send me the pictures of her journal entries, she would look at an iPad, and she would she no longer can speak, but she can point with her eyes, and then she would text me.

And so I started sharing her story, and I'm like, okay. It's not necessarily unconventional, but it kind of is because I didn't believe that this really worked because I have always been a high achiever. I didn't really think that I needed to work on my mindset. I'm naturally very energetic and naturally very positive, and I exude all of this confidence, but really deep down in my core inside, I wasn't always. It was kind of like behind closed doors. Like, I you know, I hate to use the word imposter syndrome because we're all, you know, whatever, but that's kinda what was really happening.

And I started sharing our story, and unsolicited people would send me their journal entries. And I'm talking I mean, and I know we're all here, women power, go abundance women, but men in their sixties. Right? And just like I was like, oh my gosh. I cannot believe I didn't start doing this twenty five years ago. So I do coach my clients to that. Now I have my own journal now and all this kind of stuff, but I do coach them to start with a five minute something, whatever works for them so that they don't just go do. Because as as high achievers, that's what we naturally do. We just go to work.

Wow. That resonates with me so much. Don't just go do. I and I I giggle because I have about a 142 half used journals back here that my husband just teases me about all the time.

I that is beautiful. And I I feel like you have a TED talk in there too about about journaling. So, that is phenomenal.

It sounds like that is a a primary ritual that you have that helps you find success. Are there any other recipes that you see your clients go through or you go through when you're looking to find success in something new?

Yes. For sure. We can talk about time. Right? We all have the same amount of time, And especially the industry and and the majority of the people I coach are in the real estate space because that's where I came from. But they are most of the people that I coach are either that or they are a 100% commission, you know, whether it be the financial you know, they're in finances or mortgage or maybe they own their own small business where they're a 100% accountable to their income. And, you know, we can work twenty four seven. I mean, we just can. Right? And even now with technology.

So some of the tactics that we'll coach around when we're talking about time is just simple tiny, tiny little things, like turning your phone on gray scale. I don't know if you've ever done that before, but it is ugly. Like, it is no longer gonna look like Disney World. Setting timers. We do lots of timer setting. When we go in into our calendar and we actually time block for our big rocks, we'll actually set timers. And we'll set timers for forty five minutes no more than ninety minutes and make sure to take a ten minute break without your phone to do kind of these deep breathing activities, but they're tiny. So what I'm talking about is really tiny.

Right now, we're concentrating on, taking our lunch away from the desk. So I did not okay. I didn't realize I ate my lunch at my desk as much as I did, but I'm currently working with a nutritional coach. Something happens, ladies, when your body is over 50. K? We'll save that one for another episode too. But, anyway, so I I've been logging my meals on this app. And I was looking at my pictures for the last six weeks, and I'm like, my computer is in almost every picture. Oh my gosh. And so twenty minutes Taking your lunch twenty minutes away from your desk. That is something very simple, easy you can do. That's not again, that twenty minutes will make a huge difference in your production, in your energy, in your your soul. Right? Mhmm. And taking that break. So those are some of the tinies right now that we're talking about as a group and time.

And then my last one will be, this came from, I have a marketing director, social media marketing director, and she said, you wanna know what, Kim? Do you know what your tagline really should be? It should be, I am the only coach that will make you take time off. So we talk a lot about time, and we talk a lot about how, you know, we don't need to wear our badge of honor of chaos. And really deep down in my core, I'm working really, really, really hard with my entrepreneurs to make them take off. And we're just talking one day a week, not every day of the week, and it is hard.

And busyness just becomes this smokescreen. It becomes this badge of honor that, you know, I worked however many hours, and I'm always doing something. And it's a thing to bond over and complain with friends about, but that's it's it's not good. It's it's learning to relax is something that I'm I'm actively working on.

I I love this idea of, you know, your productivity does increase. If you are, if you force yourself, if you need to be achieving something at all times, if you reframe it, that this is going to help my productivity by eating your your lunch somewhere else as I hide my almonds that are next to my desk. You know? Oh, I already ate mine, girl, in my little fourth cup. Look at. I mean, I got the massive bag in the yeah.

But, yeah, it's it's all if if I reframe it, if anybody reframes it, just that this will help me get more done when I am doing, then it's it's maybe an easy way to con yourself or, you know, ninja trick yourself into to making that change.

In this big process of making this big change and, again, with all your clients that you work with, you know, maybe for you personally, what is the biggest mistake that you made in your transition from w two to self employed?

Well, I know exactly what it is. So it's doing too much. So when I was working with my publisher on For the Love of Self, it just so I'm very blessed. It was my sister is a publisher, so that's also why I was able to put this together. But she's also a creative like me and a visionary like me, and I don't know if we were necessarily the most healthiest to work together because we were constantly creating more. I have a library of probably 25, I am not exaggerating, 25 models, systems, and things that could turn into many publications.

So I would I would like I would do a free webinar, and I would coach. I did one called giving thanks, and I had I love acronyms. And so t h a n k s was an acronym, you know, time whatever it was. And she took that, and she was like, oh, give me that recording and took that. We created this big PDF. Right? And I was like, oh my gosh. We're gonna make a mini book out of that.

And it probably was about eighteen months in ish, and my marketing director had said to me, she's like, what are we what what are we talking about? Like, what what what what what is the thing? And it reminded me of something that I read about Steve Jobs when he went back to Apple. That was, like, in the late nineteen nineties. And he said to everybody, I am so confused about this catalog back in the day when it was, like, a printed catalog. I am so confused about this catalog. I don't even know what we're talking about. And he, like, slashed it by thousands. Like, the catalog was just full and cut employees and all of this, and he's like, we need to talk about one thing.

So that was the biggest mistake, and I still struggle with it. And I also believe entrepreneurs also struggle with it Because, I mean, either a, we don't finish and then we start something newer, we see a new shiny, and we're all intelligent enough that we know there is no magic bullet, but we sometimes think there could be. Right? Or we sometimes think if we if we even think about go abundance women, and I know there's also men, but that's narrowed. And sometimes we think when we get narrowed, we're also gonna miss out on something else.

I feel that way. I primarily do speak to and coach women. That is who I attract. That is who, I am a woman. I have daughters. I don't know. I was denying it for so long. But, you know so I would say that. Like, find your thing that brings you joy, gives you energy, and, like, how about if you were to just work on that for a year? Yeah.

My friend Erin Bradley says, addition by subtraction. It seems very aligned with what it is that you're saying, and I did the exact same thing when I left my w two. My my joke was that I was starving for opportunity, and I went to the Chinese food buffet. And I just took everything that I could see, and I ended up loaded with opportunity in MSG. You know? And I just I couldn't I couldn't do anymore. So I I you gotta put guardrails on yourself. That's where real creativity starts. I I love that you said that.

Well, I'm gonna tell you. You dropped some bombs on me today, Kim. I'm gonna tell you a couple that I took notes on here. One that hit me the hardest was don't go just do. I I feel like any high achiever that is action based and being action oriented and actionable is so important for moving the needle, but it's doing the right thing. You can't climb a ladder if it's up against the the wrong wall. You know, it's not worth climbing that ladder.

I also love the forced slowdown that you talked about because if you're not taking those breaks, if you're not, you know, doing the connective things and designing your life in the direction you wanna design it, the universe is gonna create a reason for you to slow down and I love also the accountability around habits. The habit that you want because the things that are easy to do are also easy not to do and you're much more willing to let yourself down than you would be willing to let someone else down.

So you give so much. You've given so much to us, all of these bombs and I know that I'm going to, you know, go to AI as soon as we're done here and put all of my, Enneagram and all of that jazz into it, but I'm curious for you, you know, we always talk about you got to be prepared with your ask. If you believe well, we know that if men earn a dollar, women earn 70¢ and one thing that I think that causes that is that women don't ask. So if we're ready with our ask, then we can support each other in a bigger way. So Kim, can you tell me and everybody listening today, what is an introduction or a resource that just changes the ball game for you? The

resource. I I I mean, it it really is my for the love of self journal. I mean and I hate to even say that, you know, I'd love to say it was something else, but it it has been life changing for me and a lot of my coaching clients.

And in the journal itself, it has three parts to it which piggyback a lot on what we were talking about here today. The first part of it of it is very tactical. Like, I built it I built the first part for you to really identify your big rocks and then teach you how to time block for them as well as your personal, your professional, your for your life. And that that section is really to set up your week for success.

The second section are the mindset journal pieces, which we made sure that it would only take less it would take less than five minutes and give you those for five days. And we did some research on, okay, what can we do here? Because I'm all about habit stacking. I'm like, how can I maximize the prompt so that it's helping me do whatever it need you know, I need to do?

And then the third part is this the, we titled it the slow down to speed up, which this is then our end of the week reflection. But it it truly gives you all the pieces before you're opening your computer, before you're starting your week so that you have your week with intention, before you're starting your day so that you're you're igniting your reticular activator and you're wiring in our in our brain that's not always our girlfriend when we wake up. I don't know. She's just always talking. Homegirl. Yeah.

And then this the slow down to speed up. That that one's a little bit harder for me. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah. I don't do that every week. I see. We're gonna be besties. I'm sure of this.

Well, tell me, how do our listeners get in touch with you if they'd like to learn more? Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. So, you can go get your free download of For the Love of Self at flow,flo,forloveof. So floself.com. And, all the journal prompts are there. So, Kelly, you can go grab or Mandy. I know Kelly's not here today. You can go grab one of your journals you haven't written, and you could just do your own journal entry.

And I challenge people to do this for, you know, sixty six days or as long as they can to just see if you show up differently and not be perfect about it. You decide. If you do it in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, okay, who cares? You're making progress.

And then just kimrogene.com, rogne.com. And then my favorite handle ish, I say ish, is Instagram. It is my favorite. It's just sometimes the algorithms may be crazy,

but I'm out there. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, not always liking it, but I'm doing it. Time for a live. I love it.

Kim, thank you so much for joining us today on the Power of Your Life podcast brought to you by GoBun and Swim, and don't forget to to subscribe, subscribe, like, and share. If you have a friend who needs to journal, that you want accountability with, share this episode because your girl needs it. We will see you next time on Power Up Your Life. Have a great day.