192 MINISODE Kathryn Kemp Guylay – Write Your Own Story

Kathryn Kemp Guylay is on a mission to make business fun – and everything else entrepreneurs should be doing like writing books. Entrepreneur, 6-Time Author, CEO of the learning platform MakeEverythingFun.com, and CEO of the Ketchum Innovation Center, Kathryn shares her insights on how to best leverage your unique strengths, passion and purpose.

Melinda Wittstock:         Welcome to Wings, Kathryn.

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be with you today.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, me too. I love these Friday minisodes because we get straight to the point, and what I really want to know from you today is what’s inspiring you.

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  Besides being able to talk to you and to share with the audience, that’s my number one point of inspiration, but I’m inspired by all of these folks that are getting their books out into the world. I’d been working with some wonderful students, and I make publishing fun course, and it’s just amazing, all these creatures of light with all of these messages to share, to make this world a better place. I always ask authors what their why is, and, very, very few times right here, “Oh, I want to make tons of money,” “I want to be famous.” People are really just generally trying to make this world a better place, and it gives me hope that things are going in the right direction, so I’m inspired by that.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s wonderful, and I love that you want to make everything fun.

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  Oh, it’s really funny because people do ask me about that. The way that I got to that brand is that I felt very much in a box because I was a management consultant in a former life, and then I went into wellness, and I was in a non-profit, and doing nutrition and wellness, and I actually had a site called Make Wellness Fun. Then I was doing this stuff with publishing, and podcasting, and entrepreneurship, and I was like, “Okay, I got to get outside of the box,” and my website designer said, “But Kathryn, it’s so difficult to market when you’re at a very, very high level. Marketing to a niche is so much easier.” I said, “Too bad. I’m still going to go and have this umbrella, make everything fun.”

I’m inspired by that because it allows me to be the multi-faceted person that I am, that I know you are, Melinda, and that the listeners of this podcast are. We need to embrace all the things that we’re interested in, and not be put into a box, and figure out, well … I have to say make everything fun. I’m not talking about picking up after your dog, or taking the garbage out. I’m talking about-

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s not fun.

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  That’s not fun, and I’m not trying to say that you should be this fake, smiley person that isn’t taking things seriously. I’m talking about those things, the things that I mentioned: Wellness, nutrition, entrepreneurship, podcasting, publishing. Those are major endeavors that we spend a lot of time on. As you know, from all of your work, and working with entrepreneurs, you need a lot of energy. You need this deep resource, this battery that never runs out, and, for me, it is a fun factor. I need to find the fun factor in anything that I’m going to spend a lot of time on. Sure, I will take out the garbage, and I will pick up after my dog, and I just get that over with, but if I’m going to go down a journey, talk about nutrition … I have kids. I make meals three times a day, sometimes five, you know, if we’re talking about snacks. I need to make it fun, otherwise, mama gets grumpy. That’s what I like to inspire in other people is to find the fun because it’s the everlasting battery.

Melinda Wittstock:         Exactly. Well, we’re only in this world for a short time, so it’s important to have fun, but of course, there’s always challenges along the way for entrepreneurs. Failure comes with the territory, all kinds of ups and downs. What are some of the challenges that you’re facing right now?

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  Well, it’s interesting because I was just talking about all these multi-facets. It actually leads right into my biggest frustration, or where I’m failing is when you try to do too many things too fast, or too many things at the same time, it’s like not putting enough wood behind an arrow, that arrow is not going to go very far, and so I’m really finding that I need to take my little projects and focus. Where I’m feeling is if I try to do too much too quickly in too unfocused a time period. Focus is the key.

Melinda Wittstock:         It is. That’s my problem too. I’m an idea person, so I get so excited about things. You want to do all of it all at once, but, yeah, you can’t. You really got to prioritize.

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  That’s so true. I just said I’m so excited about being multi-faceted, and then you said what’s my biggest frustration or failing point, and it’s the same thing because [crosstalk 00:04:53].

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s very funny because it’s often the case. What makes us really great always has the light, always has a shadow, so that’s so interesting. What are your top three go-to pieces of advice for women in business, entrepreneurs, whether they’re already on the journey, or that they’re thinking of taking the leap?

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  I’m going to follow up with that idea of focusing, and I think the top suggestion that I would have for people is to really understand their strengths. I took the StrengthsFinder, the Clifton StrengthsFinder, last year, and it was so great to know my top five strengths, and then you can get the whole spectrum of strengths, but then it allows you to really focus on those things that you’re great at, so that you can delegate the rest. That’s my number one piece of advice is [crosstalk 00:05:45].

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s a great thing because actually it’s a great way to build a team as well. What are your five?

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  Oh, off the top of my head, I know my first is learner, so I love learning.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, I’m a learner as well. I also have learner.

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  I’m maximizer, so I like to take things that are good and make them great. I have futuristic in my top five.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, I’ve got that too.

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  No way! That’s really only 10% of the population has futuristic in there.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, really. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I got that one.

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  Then, I can’t remember my last top fiver, my two.

Melinda Wittstock:         I know what one of my other ones is strategic, and I’m trying to remember my other two. Anyway, that’s really cool because you can definitely double down on your strengths this way, and hire your weaknesses. That’s awesome. What’s your number two piece of advice?

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  I’m going to try to build on that a little bit, and I’m going to throw in a little matrix because this comes from my management consulting background. You take your strengths, and then the second thing is you delegate not only what you’re not good at, but what you don’t love to do. It’s almost like you could put it in a matrix, and you could say on one side of it would be things that I love to do from high to low, and then on the other thing would be things that I’m good at high to low. If you find those things that you don’t like, and that you’re not good at, that’s the first quadrant where you just delegate. That’s a start right there. You don’t even wait another day or another week, and you start hiring people because you should not be doing things that you don’t love to do and that you’re not good at, so the second thing is delegate, but delegate strategically.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s very, very good advice, and number three.

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  I’ll tie it all together, and you got to invest in yourself, right? You got to invest in delegation, that costs money, investing time, listening to podcasts like this to make yourself, expand your horizons, and, Melinda, you and I have learner, so we’re always eager to get more information [crosstalk 00:07:52]. We can’t gobble up enough information, but I urge everybody to invest time, energy, and sometimes resources and just working smarter, not harder.

Melinda Wittstock:         Beautiful. You have this amazing platform for online education, and you’re making publishing fun, nutrition fun, wellness fun, entrepreneurship fun, how can people find you and work with you?

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  Makeeverythingfun.com is my main website, and that will take you to all different places, podcasts and blogs, and things like that, so that would be my number one place to direct people to.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s wonderful. Do you have a special offer for anybody today?

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  Oh, absolutely. Makeeverythingfun.com/wings. I’ll have some exciting master classes coming up, so I’ll put those all in there, and people can go to that link, and they’ll get an email with some free offers.

Melinda Wittstock:         Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Kathryn Kemp Guylay:  Thank you so much. You’re inspirational.

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