The Hidden System Inside You That’s Sabotaging Your Goals with Keala Kanae

I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is The ListBuilding Lifestyle. The podcast is for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures, travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my best selling book, The List Building Lifestyle Confessions of an Email Millionaire at www.igorsbook.com. Get the free book plus $3,000 bonus package that includes my best capture page templates, email swipe files and traffic blueprints, visit www.igorsbook.com for details, And now it’s time to claim your List Building Lifestyle

[0:52] Igor Kheifets:
Welcome back to The ListBuilding Lifestyle, and today I’m hosting Keala Kanae, a guest it took me a while to get even though we’ve been friends for a long time and you probably heard of him or seen him around in the online marketing space.

He’s also known as the, I believe it’s called a “Stacked Marketer” Was it? (Full stack marketer) The full stack marketer, that’s right. For years, Keala was running one of the biggest business opportunity funnels in the game.

He built a name for himself, helping everyday people get started online, massive numbers at huge scale and a ton of visibility, I mean, his YouTube ads got pretty, I mean, they were pretty much on me all the time. And everyone in the industry saw these. He was like, everywhere.

And at some point, Keala started noticing something interesting. He started noticing a pattern. The people who were actually succeeding inside his programs weren’t just following the marketing tactics, they were doing the inner work.

They were going through the personal development material he’d created, almost as a side note to the program that has become instrumental in the development of all of his successful students and went on beyond six figure mark.

So instead of trying to bolt mindset onto business, he flipped the script, and he shut down the business coaching entirely, and went all in on the transformation and the personal development side of his coaching business, because that’s where he felt the transformation actually occurs, and frankly, probably gave him much more satisfaction as well.

So today, Keala helps people identify what he calls their power code, a unique internal blueprint that once aligned with your goals, unlocks the kind of discipline, drive and focus most people are constantly chasing.

His core idea, which I very much agree with, is that procrastination isn’t the problem, it’s actually the clue, it’s leading you to the solution. And that’s inside every one of us, there is a power code, a value structure that or hierarchy of values, also known as the hierarchy of values that once identified unlocks things like discipline, courage, focus and drive without relying on willpower or the hustle culture.

So in this episode, we’ll talk about what led him to shut down a highly successful business that many people dream of building, not just some business, it was actually the sort of, an example business that most of us want, dream to build.

And what he had to unlearn to step into this work, the hard truth that he discovered while helping 1000s of people chase financial freedom and what actually creates lasting change. So with that said, Keala, finally, welcome to The ListBuilding Lifestyle.

[03:45] Keala Kanae:
Dude, Igor, thank you so much for having me man, I feel like this opportunity is long overdue. And before we dive in, I just want to take a moment to ask your audience, to encourage your audience to drop a review on whatever platform they’re on, whether it’s Apple or Spotify, or wherever they are.

It takes a lot of work, I don’t know if most people realize, like, how much work goes into a great podcast, and I think you’re doing an amazing one from the episodes that I listen to. So, if you’re listening, drop a review. I’m dropping a review right after this, to be in integrity with that message. So, thanks again for having me brother.

[4:23] Igor Kheifets:
I really appreciate it, man, you’re the first guest ever who’s like, actually encouraging people to go review the podcast. Most people listening to the podcast don’t even know you can review a podcast, they think you can read an Amazon purchase and things like that, but not a podcast. So, I really appreciate it, it really really helps to push it up in the charts, so to speak.

So, you’re a veteran in the business, right? You’ve seen it all, you’ve done it all, you’ve built huge organizations, you’ve done both the marketing stuff. You’ve also done team building stuff. You’ve done the low ticket thing, the high ticket. Saying you’ve done it all like, literally, there’s no corner of this game that you haven’t, placed a flag in.

So, all of a sudden you go 180 and you walk away from a business that’s producing probably well over 10 million a year. Can you walk us through that pivotal moment, maybe when the penny dropped and you were like, man, this is mind blowing.

[5:24] Keala Kanae:
Yeah, there’s a couple of things that really stand out, So, let me back up for a moment, to kind of give some context as I answer that. And I really appreciate the kind words.

For me, it really all started in 2010. I came home from a barbecue with some friends of mine, and sitting on my bed was a stack of photographs. And I picked up this stack of photographs and they were all ripped in half, right? And so, I started looking through this stack of photographs. I’m like, “What the heck is this?”

And at the bottom of it was a note that said, “picture me out of your life”. And that’s how my girlfriend of four and a half years broke up with me, which I thought was a pretty savage way to end a four and a half year relationship, no text message, no phone call, just a stack of torn photographs and a note.

And at the time I thought, like, we’ll probably figure it out. Like, obviously she’s upset, but we’ll probably chat and make things right? or whatever. But fast forward, about three weeks later, I moved out of the house.

At that time, I was living with some roommates. I moved out of the house with the roommates, moved back in with my mom because I couldn’t afford the rent. She’s not answering any of my text messages, any of my phone calls. Nothing. Like, I’m just totally left, in the void wondering what exactly happened.

And there’s this moment where I’m pacing up and down the hallway in my mom’s, like, 1000 square foot apartment, I can remember where I was standing, what I was wearing the moment that it hit me. And what hit me was this question, “what if it’s me?”

So, I was looking at every area of my life, right? Like, all the areas of my life where I wasn’t happy, wasn’t satisfied, wasn’t aligned, wasn’t fulfilled. And the only thing that all of those things had in common, whether it was failed business ventures, fallen careers, crappy jobs, family, torn and tattered relationships, a breakup with, obviously, somebody that I was in love with. The only thing that all of those things had in common was me.

And that’s kind of this moment where it’s a hard pill to swallow, but at the same time, it’s freeing. Because, what I realized in that moment as well, is while that, on the surface it might feel like that sucks, and I think that probably the average person has a hard time accepting that reality.

The thing is that, like, if I accepted that, then I could change myself, right? Like, I couldn’t change my upbringing, my family, the economy, the Democrats, the Republicans, the marketplace, the comp plan, my sponsor, my downline, like I couldn’t change all these different things that I complained about in my life. But I could change “ME”. And so, that set me on a path that really transformed my life.

[08:08]
I reached out to a friend of mine who had been telling me about this personal development class that he had done, and he was like, “man, I’ve met like, all these millionaires and really successful people, and they rave about this class, and, I took it, you should check it out”. . yada yada.

So, I reached out to him, and I was like, “well, here’s what I’m going through right now, man”. Like, “do you think that this would be something that would help me?” He’s like, man, you are in for one hell of a ride”.

And so, a few days later, about a week or so later, I was in a class that’s very similar to the Genesis class that we do now online. And I was sitting in this class, and by the second day of the class, I knew without a shadow of a doubt, my whole life is going to be different after this.

[08:45]
Now, zoom out from there, I got through some personal development work, I really start diving into, like, the psychology, the neurology, the axiology, teleology, ontology, epistemology, like all these different fields of study, really trying to decode and unwind some of the thinking that had me stuck for so long in my life.

And then, as I did that, the very next business that I got my hands on was in the affiliate marketing industry. I eventually started out as an affiliate marketer, went on to do over a million dollars as an affiliate marketer over the course of about three years.

That kind of just organically turned into people reaching out and asking me, like, “what are you, how are you generating traffic”, and “what’s your email strategy?” And, well, “what are you writing all this copy and all these sorts of things?”

And so, it started out as, kind of like me trickling, dripping out some courses here and there, and then those courses would go kind of surprisingly, like semi viral, where people would start sharing it to other people and referring people to the courses.

So, eventually it became a partnership between myself and a friend of mine. We launched a coaching business. And this is kind of before Igor, you’ll remember this. I mean, like you and I used to chat back then, but this was before, like, everybody and their brother and their dog’s neighbor had a freaking coaching business, (that’s right) And now it’s like, everywhere.

But, yeah, we launched our coaching business. We scaled that from zero to a million dollars a month in four months. That’s when you’re talking about, like us taking over YouTube with our ads. I had two ads on YouTube that got 250 million views collectively, over the course of the next two years. And yeah, we scaled that to 20 plus million dollars per year. I eventually split with that business partner, bottom out, and continued scaling up the company.

[10:42]
And what’s interesting is like, in 2020, during the pandemic, there were a lot of, the marketplace was just noisy. It was difficult to understand what was happening, we would have weeks where there was a massive spike in sales, and then we’d have weeks with massive drops in sales. And the market volatility was insane.

We’re trying to navigate through that, we’re going through a bunch of the data in the business.

And that’s when my business partner and I kind of, came across something interesting, which was the discovery that every single one of our customers who had made over a quarter million dollars a year or more, 100% of them were people who had done our mindset classes, which was something that, at the time, I just did it, like on an as needed basis, it wasn’t the core function of the business.

I understood that, and I’m sure you understand this too. I mean, you’re teaching people a specialized skill set, and that skill set can absolutely make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.

And the reason, like, we know that it works, we know that if people will do the work, it works, but it’s not, the challenge is the mental head trash, that’s wrapped up in the six inches between their ears that keeps them from executing on that like, if you eat right and exercise,you’re going to live longer, have more vitality.

And we know that if you save and invest your money, you can become financially independent. We know that if you need that, if you want to have a deep, intimate, loving relationship, it takes trust, it takes, never stop dating.

Like all of this advice exists out there, there’s no real secrets to success. The crazy thing is, like, why don’t we do it? Why don’t we do it? Like, why don’t we do those things that we know that we ought to do, need to do, have to do, must do, in order to get the life that we want?

And so, that’s why I had these mindset classes on the back end of our training. It was to help people have the breakthroughs, the mindset, breakthroughs that would allow them to capitalize on the skills that I was teaching them.

[12:50]
But when I saw those numbers in 2020, and then I started talking, I started looking around at all of our customers that had done all of those classes, and they were the happiest, the most fulfilled, they had the best family life, they had the best marriages, they were living the life of their dreams. And that was kind of this moment where I was like, “I really just want to spend the rest of my life helping people do that”.

Because while I’ve made some great money, I’ve never had a tear come to my eye based on a deposit in my bank account while I’ve helped other people make great money. I’ve never, it’s never brought a tear into my eye to see them make a quarter million dollars or half a million dollars, or a million dollars in a year.

But when I see somebody, like come through our classes and like connect deeply with themselves, be inspired about their life, repair their marriages, repair their relationships with their kids, like things like this, like those things have been deeply meaningful and moving for me, and so I want to spend the rest of my life doing that

And so in 2024, I basically decided that, we were going to transition anyway. I happened to be having a conversation with a buddy of mine that was like, “hey, I’d be open to taking full stack marketer off your hands”.

So, we negotiated a deal. He basically bought the business off of me, and on November 1st, 2024 I stepped into the role, full time CEO of what we now call “Inspirion”, driving our personal development, and ultimately was leadership training classes. That’s the, I can be a bit long winded, man, just let you know.

[14:32] Igor Kheifets:
No! That’s good. You’re an amazing storyteller, obviously. So, it’s great to listen to you. I can’t say that about every guest that I host. Sometimes I wish people would be like, but to you I can listen for hours, so good.

So, you discover that all your successful students go through your mindset training, which naturally makes me want to ask, What the hell is in that training? Because we know millions of people go through “The 20 Robbins training”, “The Jim Ron Training”, and through a million, gazillion different trainings!

They go, I went to this event in Ajax, Ontario, because I used to live in Toronto. So, Les Brown is attending, right? He’s like the keynote speaker. Les get on stage, he’s extremely charismatic, he tells funny stories. I mean, you’re like, super inspired by the guy.

But then you go home, you drive home on the 407 and you come back home and you’re deflated. All that motivation is gone, and you’re back to smoking and drinking, and your ass is not in the gym, it’s on the couch, and you’re eating whatever. So, what did you teach them? What’s in the power code?

[15:49] Keala Kanae:
Yeah so, we can, and I’m totally open to unwrapping as much of this as you would like. One of the key components of our material is something that we call “The Power Code”.

So, a simple question would be, what if I told you that procrastination, hesitation, self sabotage, impostor syndrome, what if those weren’t a problem? Like, what if those are actually the secret to helping you discover your life’s purpose, meaning and fulfillment?

Now, that sounds wild, right? Because it sounds like a contradiction to everything that we hear in the personal development space, and at the same time, it’s based on neuroscience.

So, what you describe Igor is the difference between inspiration and motivation, right? So, we’ve kind of all heard like, the online gurus, talk about, what you really need is to be more, what was it? Zig Ziglar, who had a quote that says, “motivation is like bathing, you gotta do it every day”.

We hear, there’s a lot of gurus that bang the discipline drum constantly on social media, “You have to be more disciplined”, “Be more disciplined”, “Be more disciplined”, this sort of thing.

But the reality is, every human being is disciplined. They’re just disciplined in direct relationship to, again, what I call “The Power Code”, so I’ll break this down: “Inside of every human being lies, and this is axiology, which is the study of values, teleology, the study of purpose, and neuroscience.

So, inside of every human being, we can observe that we all have an unconscious set of values that governs our life. Now when I say values, I’m not talking about honesty, integrity, justice, fairness, equality, these sorts of things, those are social ideals.

I’m not saying that those things are wrong. I’m just saying that those are more like social ideals. Those are ideas about how we should behave as a society. What I’m talking about is the fact that every day that you and I wake up, Igor, there’s the things that we value most in our life, down to the things that we potentially value so little that we don’t even think about it.

And one of the key components of our values is that our values will dictate how we utilize our resources. So, our primary resources as entrepreneurs and as human beings in general, are time, energy and money, so however we spend our time, energy and money will ultimately become our destiny. There’s really no way around that, right?

So, every day that you and I wake up, we’re going to invest our time, energy and money in proportion to our values, so the thing that we value most in our life is going to get the majority of our time, energy and money, and then the next thing, and then the next thing.

However, as the day goes on, we are depleting time, energy and money. So, everything on our hierarchy of values, so when I say hierarchy of values, think of it like a list of unconscious priorities that we have, right? What’s at the top of the list gets the majority of our resources and then the next and the next. But as we go down that list, each item gets less and less of our resources.

Now the challenge is that most of us have a long list of things that we want to do, ought to do, should do, need to do, have to do, and are supposed to do with our life. But we never have enough time, energy and money to invest enough of it for us to realize and manifest those goals that we tend to have.

So, I give you an example, let’s say that we take, Sally. When Sally wakes up every morning, the first thing on her mind is her children, her children’s education, her children’s after school programs, her children’s health, her children’s well being, like for her, it’s like the children, the children, the children. It feels like everything in her life revolves around those kids. She’s a full time mom, her husband is working full time, he’s taking care of the bills and whatnot.

Well, Sally has a goal set of building a business. She’s been saying for years that she wants to build a business. She joins network marketing company after network marketing company, buys coaching program after coaching program, but it’s been a handful of years, and she finds that she just gets no traction on those things whatsoever.

Well, every morning, when she wakes up, where does all her time, energy and money go? Yeah, it goes to the kids, right? She wakes up in the morning and she’s getting them out of bed, she’s dragging them out of bed, getting them ready for school, making their breakfast, preparing their lunch, taking them to school, walking them to their classrooms, probably meeting with the teachers, if that’s what it takes, these sorts of things.

She goes home from that, she works on some of her hobbies, like maybe she loves art or painting, or pottery, or something like this. She goes home, she works on those things, she takes a nap in the middle of the day, gets up, takes care of the dogs, takes care of things around the house.

At two o’clock in the afternoon, she’s going back, she’s picking up the kids, she’s taking them to their soccer practice, taking them to their after school programs, making sure they’re getting tutoring, making sure that they have the education, she’s doing their homework with them, she puts them down in front of the TV, six, seven o’clock at night, so they can hang out and watch some TV together. At eight, nine o’clock at night, she’s taking them upstairs, she’s tucking them in, she’s kissing them on the head, she’s telling them “good night”.

And every day goes by and she says, “I gotta go make that list of my friends and family members, and talk to them about this business opportunity, but I’ll do it again, I’ll do it tomorrow”, right?

So, her goals pay the price of her values. In other words, the things that she values most will get the majority of her resources, and her goals will get whatever’s left over, and there’s typically not much left over.

And here’s the sad part, it’s like, three months goes by, six months goes by, she has no traction in her sixth business that she’s started, she wonders what’s wrong with her, she logs into her platform and she cancels, she turns off her auto ship, she stands in the mirror, she wonders: “what’s wrong with me? Why won’t I take action? Why do I keep failing?”

And she judges herself for who she’s not, rather than love herself for who she is. She undermines herself, she devalues herself, she destroys her self esteem, she puts herself down. And that’s important, because here’s a simple question for your listeners: “can your net worth ever exceed your self worth?”

Like we don’t, I don’t know for sure exactly what the answer is, but we do see examples. We see people who win the lottery, who suddenly come into all of this money, but if you read the stories about people who win lotteries, more than 90% of those people eventually end up broke again (in five) in five years or less, and they wish that they didn’t win the lottery.

They actually resent having won the lottery, because the money, the money is a magnifier, right? So, if you pour, you take a business with some holes in it, and it’s making six figures a year, you pour eight figures a year into that business, and you’re going to magnify every hole in that business.

The same is true about ourselves and our character, whatever holes we have in our character, you add a ton of money into that, and you’re going to expand the magnitude of those holes in your character. If you have a small addiction, you’re going to have a massive addiction. If you’re kind of a narcissist, now you’re a total freaking narcissist, you know what I mean, if you’re somewhat selfish, now you’re a total arrogant asshole, right?

So, money is this magnifying component, and if we pour it into a container that can’t hold onto it, we’ll eventually leak it all back out to bring it back down to equilibrium or incongruence with our own self worth.

So, I say all that to say that poor Sally, there’s nothing wrong with her. It’s not that she’s broken, it’s not that she’s incompetent, it’s not that she’s incapable. It’s that she has an internal conflict between her goals which are conscious, the things that she says that she wants.

All of our goals are conscious, we choose them: I want to go here, I want to make this much money, I want to do this kind of work, I want this as my career, I want to have this many kids, I want to live in this kind of a house, those are all conscious choices.

But she has a battle between her conscious goals and her unconscious values, right? The way that she’s neurologically wired at the moment to manage her time, energy and money.

[24:52]
Now, when we operate according to our values, we have diligence, follow through, purpose, meaning, fulfillment, alignment, clarity, certainty, confidence. In other words, we have inspiration.

So, inspiration, the etymology of the word inspiration, it means from the spirit within. In other words, we’re driven by the spirit within to go do the thing, So, nobody has to tell Sally to wake up in the morning and take the kids to school.

She doesn’t need an accountability partner to get her to do that. She remembers their tutoring programs, their after school programs, their soccer practices, their games, their dance recitals. She remembers all of those things without even putting it in her calendar, right?

But, when our goals are in conflict with our values, and we start to pursue those goals, we’re going to create some symptoms that are an attempt to wake us up to the fact that we are deviating from what we find most purposeful and meaningful in life.

So, see? These symptoms will likely include procrastination, hesitation, frustration, self sabotage. We can work really hard and feel like we’re out of alignment, that, life is meaningless, that there’s no, instead of feeling effortless, it feels effortful, and we got to drag ourselves through it, use force and determination to kind of push our way towards our goals, and it never lasts.

So, when we are pursuing goals that are in conflict with our values, we require motivation to try to make up for our lack of inspiration. So, motivation means that we use something outside of ourselves to motivate us, some sort of accountability.

Like, oftentimes people starting a business or going to the gym or wanting to save and invest money, they think, “Well, what I really need is I need an accountability partner! If I just had an accountability partner, then I would do the thing”.

But if we need external accountability, that’s a sign that we are pursuing something that’s in conflict with our values, And when we adhere to our values, which is what we call our “power code”, we unlock power, rather than force.

We have purpose, meaning, fulfillment and alignment in our dedications, our actions every day, right? Like Jeff Bezos doesn’t need somebody to wake him up every day and tell him to go build the Amazon store, right? Steve Jobs didn’t need an accountability partner to build Apple.

Warren Buffet doesn’t need an accountability partner to build Berkshire Hathaway. They’re driven by a calling within to go do that thing. And so, when we adhere to our power code, nothing can stop us. But when we venture away from our power code, nothing can keep us moving!

[28:01]
And so, one of the things that we work with on our clients is discovering what their power code is, and then aligning, shifting their goals to match their power code, their values.

And when your goals and your values are aligned, you pursue your endeavors with dedication, purpose, meaning, fulfillment, alignment, discipline, fortitude, follow through, certainty, clarity, confidence, and you’re inspired about those things.

And so, that’s one of the big shifts that we make with our clients, is we want to take the procrastination, the hesitation, the frustration, self sabotage, take a deep look at that, and where do you experience it in your life? What are you doing when you experience those things, when they come up for you, what are you doing? What activities are you trying to execute on? Okay, great! Those are a clue as to what is in conflict with your values.

Now, let’s kind of rewire your unconscious mind to pursue those things with equal effort and dedication as it pursues its values. And then success becomes kind of natural, it becomes subconscious.

Now that’s obviously easier said than done, there’s a little bit of a process to that, but that’s basically “the 15 minute version” of it.

[29:27] Igor Kheifets:
Look, I really encourage everyone to go and figure out their power code and find the values and how to align the values to the goals. And I recommend going to thepowercode.com where I know you have that assessment that people can do. So, I really recommend everyone do that, even if you’re already successful in life, you still should do that.

The first time I’ve actually done it was after, way after I’ve made, a couple of million dollars. It was back in I want to say, definitely during the pandemic, so it’s like 2021 ish, like the first time I’ve done it.

But it was so eye-opening, not so much for the professional side of my life, but for the personal side of my life, to put things into perspective and actually to make sense as to why I was, for example I had this pattern where I would start a hobby and my wife would make so much fun of me about that, I would get into a hobby, and 30 days later I would drop it.

So, I was bored, apparently, and I would like, start playing the piano, 30 days later, and I would go full out, like, bring a tutor, an hour a day, five days a week, etc. And I would do that, and then 30 days later I would drop it. I would go to the gym, 30 days later I drop it.

I would start, like a fitness exercise, I would last for five weeks, and I would drop it. The only thing that stuck around is maybe playing football, because that’s just a big passion of mine, but pretty much everything else, any kind of hobby that I’ve done, and even not hobbies, even the things that, as you said, we know we should be doing, right? Things like investing. Like, I’m a terrible investor.

A lot of people, I talk about it quite openly in my coaching programs. But like, this skill that makes me a great marketer is also the skill that makes me a terrible investor, because it makes me very emotional, and I end up chasing fads and whatever.

So, I know I need to master investing because for the good of my bloodline, right? And yet, it’s still very difficult to get me to sit down to read an investing book or to examine a chart with a stock or whatever.

So, going through that exercise is so valuable and eye opening and it allowed me to understand myself better, and then to align some of the things that I wanted and needed to do with the values that are running my system.

Because, when they talk about how, there’s lots of books and lots of authors out there and lots of self development gurus say that you need to find something that you love doing, or something like that, and then you do that, you find a way to get paid to do that. Or there’s a saying that, “if you found something you love, then you’re very lucky, and if you also found a way to get paid for it, then you won the jackpot”, I don’t remember who said that.

So, that’s true, but it actually refers back to the power code, because apparently if you love doing something, it is probably somewhere really high up in your value code, right? In your hierarchy of values.

[32:46] Keala Kanae:
Right. Well, here’s an interesting thought, and if you don’t mind, man, I mean, in our pre-podcast conversation, you shared a short story about back pain, (yeah) and how you were eventually, inspired to figure out a solution to that, because you had something meaningful and powerful enough to pull you, (yeah) out of that. And I think that’s just a beautiful story of the power of your values.

[33:19] Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, sure. Would you like for me to talk? (Yeah, go! I would love to hear).

[33:23] Igor Kheifets:
So, I’ve struggled with back pain ever since I can remember. The first back pain episode I’ve had was back when I was 15, I think. I must have had an injury or something that got bad and unattended.

Eventually I grew up, and it was on and off. But, I pretty much had back pain, as far as I can remember. And, sometimes it would flare up. One time I had it bad around my mid 20s, I had it so bad I couldn’t walk for a few weeks.

I got into an exercise regimen, went to see chiropractors. All chiropractors in town knew me on a first name basis. I went to physiotherapists who told me about imbalances in my muscles, and I had to give more attention to the left side of my body because it was weaker than the right side. I was recommended to do yoga, which I’ve done for a little bit, again, 30 days, and I’m out

So, over the course of my life, I’ve tried different solutions, and I would only really take things seriously when things got really bad, and I would get to a point where it would be manageable again, and I would drop.

And so, one time however, several years ago, I had another episode, it flared up real bad, and it was on a Saturday morning. And on Saturday mornings, I take my son to football practice, and this was a time when I couldn’t, like I literally could not get out of bed, I couldn’t lean to help him tie his football boots, nothing!

And I asked my wife to take him instead. Not that she doesn’t like to do it or anything like that, it was just my thing. Like, I would always be the one watching the clock and be like, “Hey, Chris, it’s nine and 10 minutes, we need to get going, we’ll be late”. Like, you said, “I didn’t need a reminder, I didn’t need a calendar”. Like, I knew in the back of my mind, in my gut, I knew this is the thing!

Because otherwise, I do need a calendar, I am sometimes late to important meetings, I forget about things. If I go grocery shopping, even with the list of items that my wife would prepare for me, I would still come back with one or two items missing. Like whenever, when I don’t care about something, my attention to detail just doesn’t exist. But with this, I was very committed.

And so, when I couldn’t take him, I was basically stuck in bed, and it kind of hit me, like it was one of those moments when it hit me how if I don’t fix this problem, like for good, I might not be able to not only take him to football practice, but to play with him, which is equally as important for me.

And it got me so angry, that I would allow myself to slip all the way to that rock bottom, and I kind of recommitted in that moment, like you said, I got inspiration because it was internal, right? To go and figure this out.

So, I tried two more solutions, until I finally bumped into a third one, which I wasn’t aware of before, and it was a series of exercises to strengthen the glutes, and specifically the big glute muscle and the side glute muscle.

So, it turns out, a big source of my back pain was coming from the fact that I’m sitting down a lot, so a lot of my muscles got weak, and they were always contracting. But also, because I sit down a lot, my glutes become weak as well.

And glutes are responsible for balance, and therefore, it made pretty much everything that I would do, even if I wasn’t outside, just around the house, like cleaning, to pick something up, opening a cupboard, I mean, even sitting on the toilet became torture, because after sitting on the toilet, I would stand up and I would get a jolt of a really nasty pain, kind of up my lower back.

So, I started working on my glutes. And, I pretty much just committed to my glutes, like my life depended on it. And I would do three, four times a week, about an hour, hour and a 15 minutes exercise regimen.

And I would, at first, not really have a regimen, so I would try different exercises and watch what was causing more back pain, what was alleviating back pain. And eventually developed a regimen.

And what’s interesting is that I would find the time to do it no matter what. I noticed that even on days when I had my schedule packed, I would look at and be like, “oh, man1” I wouldn’t be able to do it during my lunch break, So, I have to wake up an hour early and do it.

Or some other days when I would have unexpected things come up, and I would have to deal with those things, I would do it late at night. Like, I was so committed. I would do it no matter what. It was non negotiable, which was never the case with me and exercise.

And as a result, this worked so well that now I play with my son on Sundays, we play on the same team. It’s kind of like fathers and sons football game that we get to play every Sunday, 11am, together.

And it’s beautiful, like, it’s beautiful to pass the ball to him, for him to score a goal or have an attempt on goal, it’s just great to be participating with him! Like, I don’t know why exactly this particular thing, because when he’s playing spider man two on the PlayStation, I’m okay not participating with that, even though I love playing the PlayStation myself.

But this particular experience, I’m like all in. It’s very satisfying. It’s filling me up with energy. It’s not draining me with energy. And, I would do whatever is necessary, I would do to be involved in that.

And so, I think this just shows, like, this is an example of how the value that would drive me is aligned with the goal, and when they are, you unlock the focus, the drive, the passion, the commitment, the pursuit, whatever you need basically, you kind of go from a guy who makes excuses and says, “Ah, I tried this, and I’m gonna try that, and chiropractors are charlatans, and” which, honestly, I kind of think that they are after all these years. I’m not really sure what I paid all that money for, to be honest!

So, you kind of go from that guy who’s just bitter and upset to somebody who says, “okay, chiropractors didn’t work, fine! Next, yoga, I don’t like yoga, next”, and you just kind of go into that mode of the mad scientist, or somebody who’s in this wild pursuit and you are locked in on your goal, and you will push through walls, you’ll smash through obstacles until you reach the goal. And I wish everyone finds something like that, because life is so much more exciting that way.

[40:41] Keala Kanae:
Yeah, there’s some deep, profound wisdom in what you’re sharing, like when you talk about the fact that when you discovered this, so we’ve all probably heard, right? That when the WHY is big enough, the How take care of themselves.

Like, all of these years that had gone by and you couldn’t seem to find a solution for this problem, but the moment that you saw that it was going to cost you, potentially, relationship or time or love, or connection with your son, it became, all of a sudden, the goal of fixing your back problem aligned with the thing, one of the something that you value very highly in Life.

And I can tell that you value it very much, because even prior to this podcast, you’re sharing with me about how you’ve really automated a lot of things in your business to give you time to be with your son and your daughter, right? So those are.

[41:34] Igor Kheifets:
And moving to a different country, too.

[41:39] Keala Kanae:
Oh yeah, yeah, that’s right! So, obviously those are things that are really important to you. And so, notice that once you’ve found something that you value enough, and those values and those goals align, you can’t be stopped.

You essentially said that even when you looked on your calendar and you saw that there wasn’t time for you to fit in that workout, you found a way to fit in the workout, even if it meant waking up an hour earlier, that’s discipline, right?

So, again, nobody lacks discipline, what they lack is inspiration about the goals that they’re pursuing in their life. And so, a lack of discipline shows up as a symptom to try to wake us up to the fact that we’ve ventured away from, what some of us might call, “our souls calling” right?

Like, we tend to live in a world where we think that making money, like a financial endeavor and a spiritual endeavor are two different things. But I’m willing to bet that though Igor, that if I were to take your family away, you could have all the money in the world, but you would still not be spiritual.

[42:50] Igor Kheifets:
That wouldn’t be worth it. Yeah, money would be nearly as fulfilling or important, yeah, yeah.

[42:55] Keala Kanae:
So, yeah, so you wouldn’t be spiritual. So, you’re spiritually fulfilled, taking care of your family, being a father, taking that time to play, like being on the football team with your son, that fills your soul. (yeah!)

And when our goals, when our financial goals are aligned with us, in the same way, it becomes, like building a business becomes a spiritual experience as an example, if the goal is to build a business, right?

Like, I mean, while we tend to create this false dichotomy between those things, the reality is like, somebody like Jeff Bezos, if you look at everything that he’s had to go through to build what is now The Everything Store, right? I mean, you freaking buy houses on Amazon now, right?

Like, if you to go through that, you have to, like, it has to be a spiritual calling, a spiritual experience, it has to fill your soul to go through the immense amount of pain and frustration and anguish, and challenges that are encountered along the way to building something that massive in your life, right?

So, yeah, I just, I think I find that story that you shared there like a perfect example. I had a similar story, during the pandemic, there was a point at which Tiani and I, which Tiani is the same girl that left me at that four and a half year mark, we eventually got back together, and we’ve been together for 20 years since then, or 20 years, collectively,

[44:39] Igor Kheifets:
Nice. But you can’t just drop that in, how did you get her back?

[44:46] Keala Kanae:
I mean, that’s a story of itself, but the short of it is that by going through those classes that I was sharing, that I was talking about, that my friend introduced me to, I became the person that she wanted to be with in her life.

Which is interesting, because it’s the person that she saw inside of me all along. But I didn’t necessarily see it inside of myself, right? She saw me bigger than I could see myself, but through doing the work of introspection and personal growth, I was able to see that person inside of myself as well, and, more importantly, become that person.

I think a lot of us know that we’re capable of more, but wonder why we’re not achieving it. Many entrepreneurs go to bed at night wondering if they’re going to work their whole life only to arrive at the end and never have become who they’re capable of becoming. Like, it’s a special kind of nightmare, you know?

[45:47] Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

[45:51] Keala Kanae:
And that’s ultimately what our classes are about, and our training is about, is about that person that’s deep down inside, like, about meeting that person and becoming that person in your everyday life.

That’s why, ultimately, we call it “Leadership Training”, and the way that we define leadership. So, there’s a couple of things I’ll share about the company. Number one, our core belief is that every human being has something remarkable to offer the world. Leadership is the key to unlocking it. We define leadership not like, society kind of defines leadership as like, “do you have followers?” “Do you have people that report to you?” Like it’s a managerial type thing.

But that’s not what leadership is by our definition. We define it fairly simply: “Every human being has a calling. Leaders are the ones who answer”. They’re the ones that stand, that answer the calling, they have the courage to dig deep and become the person that they know that they’re capable of becoming.

[46:51]
So, quick story for you during the pandemic, right? There’s like 76 days, I think, in a row that Tiani and I were stuck in the house, and being stuck in the house for that long, I naturally, just ate my way through the pandemic, essentially.

So, one day towards the end of the pandemic, I get on the scale, and I’m like, “Oh, my God! Did I eat a fourth grader?” Like, put on an extra human, I felt like, but I have this tool called the power code, right?

So, what happens is, I ask myself, “okay, so this must not be something like, health must not be something that I value”. When I say that it’s something that I value, if you were to ask me, I’d be like, “yeah, obviously I value my health, like, I want to live a long time and build, so I have the time to to accomplish my vision and my mission and whatnot”. But based on that scale, I did not have a high value on health, because I was clearly unhealthy and overweight.

And so, the first thing that I did, because I know that there’s a gap between my values, and my goals, so there’s a gap between my power code and this thing that I want to do now, which is “Be healthy, lose weight, get in shape”.

So, initially I hired a trainer, because I know that there’s that gap, I need somebody to hold me accountable to outside of myself to do the thing. So, initially I hire a trainer, and I start working with him for, I want to say, like four or five months or so.

But every morning, when I go workout with a trainer, when I come home from that workout, I would ask myself, “How is working out a benefit and service to my highest values?”

Now, if you were to take a look at my life, you would quickly identify what my values are, and our values, by the way, are organic, they can shift, they change their dynamic, they’re not static, it’s not like whatever your values are you’re stuck with for your life, not like that at all.

When I discovered all of this, I had to shift my values to match my goals. However, if you looked at my life today, you would see that my number one value is my business. That’s where I spend the majority of my time, energy and money, every day, right?

The very next thing after that, leadership, learning is what I call it. Like, it’s basically, if I’m not working on my business, I’m studying something, I’m going to a conference, I’m reading a book, I’m listening to a podcast, I’m learning how to be a better leader for my organization, whether that’s being a CEO, being a marketer, being a better manager, sometimes, these sorts of things.

And then, if I’m not doing one of those two things, sometimes I don’t like being a manager, but sometimes it’s necessary. And if I’m not doing one of those two things, then it’s typically leisure. Like the very next thing that you’ll find me doing is, Tiani and I are going for a walk in the evenings, walking the dog, taking us on some time to connect, sitting down together, having dinner, maybe watching some Netflix, and that’s how I’ll spend, like, the last two to three hours of my day.

So, what I would do is I would come home from the gym and I would ask myself, okay, so how is working out this morning a benefit and service to my highest values? So, how is it benefiting my business?

And I would look at it, well, obviously I have more energy, I have more cognitive function, with better cognitive function, I have better focus. With better focus I’am making better decisions. When I’m making better decisions, I’m making more money, I hire better people, I delegate better, we do better processes. The list will just go on and on.

How is working out every morning a benefit and service to being a better leader? Well, same, I like to spend my time learning. Well, I’m going to comprehend, because of brain derived neuro factor from working out. I’m going to have better cognition, better comprehension, better retention of the information that I’m taking in, I’m going to be a better leader, I’m going to make better decisions, all these things.

How does it help me with my leisure time? Well, I have more energy in the evenings, so I can spend more time with Tiani, that’s going to be of greater quality, we’re going to go for longer walks, instead of me being lazy and saying, like, “hey, why don’t we just order in?” I find myself in the evenings, I’m willing to cook and make something healthier for us, and these sorts of things.

And so, all I wanted to do was link the goal of getting in shape and being fit with the things that I already value in my life. And once those two things unlocked, four or five months in, I fired the personal trainer, and I went from working out three days a week to working out six days a week.

Even when I traveled. Like, one of my big things was, man, I travel so much for work like, it’s so difficult to eat healthy. That was a story I told myself for like, a decade. But I would find myself when traveling, a pre pack snacks for the airplane that were healthy, that fit my macros.

I would literally, and this is unconsciously, without even thinking about it, I would find myself selecting my hotel based on the quality of the gym in the hotel. And I was doing it one day, and I was like, “Oh, wow! Imagine that, like, that’s so different from what I used to do”.

And so, my point in sharing that is that, it becomes a subconscious way that you’re automatically wired to go do the thing. Like you probably Igor when you’re telling your story, you don’t have to drag yourself and force yourself to like, “I gotta squeeze in this workout”. It’s more like, “Oh no, those workouts are really important to me. How am I going to fit it into my calendar tomorrow? Right? So, when our Whys are big enough, the how take care of themselves, when the why is big enough, the how takes care of itself.

[52:43] Igor Kheifets:
I wish we had more time, to be honest, because I think this can be a three hour episode, and every minute is going to be super valuable. So, I think we will be doing part two. Unfortunately, we do have to wrap up because I have another call that I am very committed to

So, what I want to do is remind everybody that you can go to thepowercode.com and get your free assessment of how to go and find your power code. I also encourage you to sign up for the upcoming webinar that Kyle is doing, where he’s going to go deeper into this kind of work and how you can apply it for yourself.

You will get the invitation when you sign up for the power code, so the link is thepowercode.com. We’ll include it in the show notes. And again, I also encourage you to sign up for the free train that he’s doing.

Because if you find yourself procrastinating, licking the discipline, questioning yourself, really wondering, what the hell is wrong with me? Yada yada yada, chances are you just haven’t found your power code yet, and once you do, it’ll unlock a totally new version of you, the 2.0 you, if you will, and you won’t even recognize yourself, I swear.

So, Keala, thank you so much for doing this. We’re definitely going to part two, for sure, because we barely touched the surface on this. I really appreciate all your wisdom, I really appreciate the stories as well, and I can’t wait to do this again.

[54:21] Keala Kanae:
Thank you, brother. Same here. I’m looking forward to it, and appreciate you, my man.

[54:28]
Thank you for listening to The List Building Lifestyle, get access to the previous episodes, transcript of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at www.listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also remember to claim your free copy of my best selling book at www.igorsbook.com. It explains how I made millions with list buildings starting from scratch, plus I’ll give you $3,000 worth of free bonuses, including my best landing page templates, email swipe files and traffic blueprints. Go to www.igorsbook.com, now to claim your free package!