This week I’m sharing with you the first interview episode of Stay at The Top and I couldn’t have chosen anyone else other than Shannah Kennedy.
As well as being my own personal coach Shannah Kennedy is one of Australia’s foremost strategic life coaches. Her proven expertise enables clients to gain control of their lives in order to achieve their visions and goals.
With an intuitively tactical yet caring approach, Shannah applies her knowledge, energy, drive and spirit to motivate and inspire others to shift their life, career and business dreams to reality.
She is an author of a stack of books, but has just released Elevate with Colleen Callandar and is joining us today to give an insight into how you can Elevate your life.
In this episode Shannah shares:
- Her journey into a high performance career with sports clients
- How her high career job cost her her health
- The realisation that made her get into studying coaching
- What she does to be able to manage everything with chronic fatigue
- The strategies and tools and practices she uses to maintain her health through every day
- The story behind her new book and how it can help you
- The things she does for fun and why fun ins important for health
Key Quotes
“Dancing with chronic fatigue for the last 20 years is about becoming friends with yourself.”
“We’re all athletes, we’re athletes of life, we’re athletes of business and we need to learn from high performing humans, some of the tools and tricks to bring in.”
“I think a lot of us have forgotten the importance of our PM routine. Our cool down routine. How we finish work, how we go to bed.”
Episode Resources
Find out about Shannah’s coaching services via her website: https://shannahkennedy.com/
You can check out her new book elevate here: https://shannahkennedy.com/books/
Or follow her on social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShannahKennedyCoaching/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shannahkennedy/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannah-kennedy-8a898b1/
Jessica Spendlove Website – www.jessicaspendlove.com
Jessica Spendlove Keynotes – JessicaspendloveKeynotes – Jessica Spendlove
The High-Performance Profile Quiz https://jessicaspendlove.com/quiz/
Jess Spendlove Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jess_spendlove_dietitian/?hl=en
Jess Spendlove LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-spendlove-64173bb8/
About Your Host
Jessica Spendlove | Wellbeing Speaker & High Performance Speaker
Jess Spendlove is an international wellbeing and high performance speaker, coach, and advisor. With over 15 years of experience across corporate leadership, elite sport and the military she is known for helping ambitious leaders and teams optimise energy, build resilience, and sustain peak performance.
As one of Australia’s leading performance dietitians and a trusted voice in executive wellbeing, Jess delivers science-backed strategies that empower individuals, teams and organisations to thrive under pressure and achieve long-term success.
Episode Transcript
The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy
Jess (00:03.894)
Shanna Kennedy, welcome to Stay at the Top. This is a full circle moment, and I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather have as my first guest.
Shannah Kennedy (00:15.128)
Oh, well, I feel honoured to be here and so excited to be a part of your journey.
Jess (00:20.97)
Yeah, I mean, you know, this journey today for the listeners, I know they’ll find super insightful, super invaluable, but you know, our journey together actually began close to two years ago when I interviewed you on my previous podcast, My Millennial Health, which has been rebranded into Stay at the Top. So, you know, then we were catching up talking about your individual book at the time, Plan B, and today you’re on the cusp of releasing your new.
book and new business venture which you’ve been a part of for the last 12 months and I’m excited to get stuck into that as well.
Shannah Kennedy (00:59.904)
super. What I mean life keeps evolving doesn’t it? You know nothing stays the same and there’s nothing more certain than change and it’s really great to be on the journey with people and getting repeat people back and seeing what they’ve done and where they’ve come from and how their lives have changed too. So yeah it’s awesome to be here.
Jess (01:20.266)
I love the idea of accepting change and evolution is one of the only certainties that we do have. Nothing will stay the same. People will change whether they’re forced to change or whether they want to change and they want to evolve. And you know, that’s probably a really great place to start for you in terms of this chapter, which I know in terms of the work you do as a life coach and one of the most prominent in the country, if not the world. Take me back.
take the listeners back to where that all began and what was the catalyst. And we can paint a picture as to, I guess the journey you’ve been on and the things you’ve worked through and the strategies that help you thrive today. But let’s start at the start.
Shannah Kennedy (02:04.332)
at the start which is which is always exciting for me because I get to relive it as well which is fun. So
you know, finishing year 12, I just didn’t want to study, you know, I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there and a lot of listeners that were in the same boat. And, you know, at the moment, a lot of young people, I really wanted to work and I wanted to make money and I just was so excited about having that freedom and independence to work. So, you know, I wanted to be a stockbroker. So that was my thing and my vision and got myself into stockbroking in the filing department. And within a couple of years was…
Probably the first girl to ever sit on the trading desk up there and that was a pretty exciting glass ceiling moment. But this is, you know, 25 years ago.
It’s a long, long time ago and there just were no women around. So I really had a good look around and thought, wow, this is like the woof of Wall Street. This actually is no place for a female. And then traveled the world for a couple of years as a backpacker and, you know, really found myself. It was really interesting. And I thought I’d be really lonely, but I was never alone. You know, those days, the hostels were full and you just met a lot of people and got some global knowledge.
just decided to change tack and got a job in sport and that was in corporate sport with sponsorships and PR and ended up being like a Jerry Maguire where you know I did a bit of a fake it till you make it and but my work ethic was always there it was the base of everything it was if you work really hard and you stay really focused you can achieve anything and I did that
Shannah Kennedy (03:48.758)
and my job was you know flying around and watching them play sport and negotiating contracts and I just saw high performance day in day out seven days a week and because sport is seven days a week I never took a day off. I would just watch sport all weekend and worked all weekend and I never saw it as a job I actually married the job and that’s a real trick for people. I was my
Shannah Kennedy (04:18.398)
all ended up in chronic fatigue and it cost me my health and my health really suffered and that was that was the big catalyst moment for me really big.
Jess (04:39.814)
I haven’t heard all of that. I didn’t actually know the stockbroker part. I knew the sports management part. And so many parallels. It is, I think it’s the type of people that it attracts to a profession like that. And to be successful, you do need to, I think, possess those characteristics because it does demand that of you. And…
Shannah Kennedy (04:58.232)
Mmm.
Jess (05:02.19)
for a period of time. It is amazing. It is your life. The relationships you build, the experiences that you are fortunate to have, which so many people are not, but it definitely becomes all consuming. It is your life. Your professional life thrives. Your personal life is hardly surviving and you know I really resonate with that so much. So tell me about the chronic fatigue setting in.
Jess (05:29.526)
How long you have to navigate that for and how that’s led you on this path, helping coach people to have life plans, to consider their health, consider their values, consider them as an asset and them as a person, not just their title and have that identity attached to their career or their business or their accolades.
Shannah Kennedy (05:47.228)
Well, yes, that’s where it all started because, you know, when I…
Jess (07:32.262)
And you know for me, knowing you now and knowing you personally and professionally and looking at the life that you have, it is, I know you’ve had to work for it, but it is so well rounded. You have a career you love, you have projects you dedicate significant time to, like you’re on your eighth book, that doesn’t just happen. You coach a multitude of different people, you speak, you have two businesses, but…
You are not just your job. You have a family, two children, you travel to Europe. You’ve got these amazing investments and holidays and to me, that is a life I want. And that’s why we’ve worked together. Ooh.
Jess (00:01.842)
Now, from the outside looking in and the reason I love working with you, I feel you’re such an inspiration and I aspire to have the life you have, which isn’t just the professional life. When you are motivated and driven, you’ve got certain goals and you don’t want to compromise on that. But I think the thing you learn is you can have it all. There is a way, but it does take boundaries and strategies. If you want to…
have the projects and write the books. You know, you’re on your eighth, which is just incredible. You wanna have the family life be present for your children, have fun, have the social life, have the holidays, which everything I’ve rattled off there is the life that you have. You coach clients, you give so much value and energy to them, but yet you’re here managing your chronic fatigue, which I know is something that is a constant. You have to be mindful of that.
Talk me through how you do all of that and the lessons you’ve learned across the years to be able to do all of that.
Shannah Kennedy (01:08.331)
Well, dancing with chronic fatigue for the last 20 years is really about becoming friends with yourself. You know, I think it all starts with self-awareness and coming back home to self. And you know, I went to a function last night. Within an hour, I said, well, I just have to go. There’s 75 people here. It’s all women. The pitch is too high.
there is too much energy being sucked out of me and that means I’ll have to recover. So it’s better for me just to do a lap of the room and leave than really stay for hours and destroy the beautiful work that I’ve done because it just, my body can’t handle it. And I think for a lot of people, they don’t want to accept.
you know, really understanding themselves, what makes them feel good, what takes their energy and really building a life around that. So where the boundaries are, what the non-negotiables are. So I do want it all. I want the marriage, I’ve been married for 20 years, I want the kids, I’ve raised the kids, I want the great business, I want the health, I want the travel, I wanna be incredibly fit at the same time in my 50s. And a lot of it comes down to having clarity as we know,
understanding what your plan is and how you want to feel and what are the activities that you need to be doing. I think it’s about being extremely kind to yourself because some days I just can’t do exactly what I want to do and also not being such a perfectionist you know maybe focusing on progress rather than perfection all the time and I think we get really worked up and we lose perspective so I think really knowing your values having a great perspective
and really just deciding to feel your life and feel fulfillment rather than being an achievement junkie I think has served me incredibly well where I don’t get too caught up in things or caught up in stress but actually just flow with life a lot and you know it’s not going to be perfect and I’m okay with that.
Jess (03:13.818)
And just with the event that you referenced last night, what is the telltale sign in your body? How do you gauge that? Because I imagine that’s something which has gotten a lot louder and clearer over the years.
Shannah Kennedy (03:26.915)
Like I can go to a concert like I went to Robbie Williams concert last week and I just loved being in the crowd The difference last night is it’s 75 school moms all chatting around me and my skin actually starts to hurt like I get a nerve reaction actually to There’s there’s too much energy in the room
but it’s not towards music. It’s actually just all of this interaction. And I actually have a physical reaction. My brain instantly goes, oh, this is exhausting. My body already says, oh, I can just feel my skin starting to get sore. So when I push really hard, my first telltale sign is the skin on my arms. I can hardly touch it. So when I went and wrote my book, the last book with Colleen, that was five days,
hour days I could not even hardly hold the steering wheel driving home. My skin was so sore and it just took me a week to recover. I just went home and straight to bed you know high-performance recovery but I knew that’s the only way I’d be able to write the book. So really understanding yourself and your signs the fatigue comes in and really honoring actually I’m not going to go to that dinner party tonight I’m actually going to stay on the
and look after myself and giving myself permission. Um my husband is a complete extrovert who can go out all night, wake up the next day feeling fabulous and that would destroy me. So I can’t compete with him. I just need to stay in my own lane and do what’s best for me and it serves me really well in the long term.
Jess (05:12.754)
And you know, what I’ve just heard there is you’re periodizing your life and your work and everything you do. And you know, I’d love to know how much of that is intentional. So you now know I’m doing this, say increased load, such as writing the book for five days with Colleen for massive hours. Therefore I’m going to deload the next week. So I guess that maybe is an intentional piece, but.
What happens maybe when things are going along as per normal and you notice a telltale sign, do you just automatically deload everything and then have a set period of time, you know, okay, within a few days I’ll be fine or is it really a matter of listening and learning and taking it day by day?
Shannah Kennedy (06:02.351)
It’s a little bit of both. So, you know, if I’m really busy with work, which I love, and I start to get my telltale signs, the tiredness is there, that I feel like a bit of mud in my body, my skin’s starting to hurt, I just bring in the big guns, you know? I double the supplements, I go and get like some serious acupuncture, like put 60 needles in my body.
They’re all fuel tanks, put the heat lamp on me, let me sleep for an hour with them all on. I just go extra into extreme recovery. And I love calling it extreme self care, where we really wrap ourself in cotton wool, because sometimes you just can’t cancel things. You know, you’re on a plane and you’re on stage and there’s 500 people, you just can’t cancel because your skin’s starting to hurt. So I also really love silence.
silence and I think that’s really been very supportive for me where I can sit still and I can sit very quietly and just really focus on being kind to the nervous system and the art of breath you know I think that’s a really as you know in high performance it’s a high performance skill learning how to breathe and making it a high performance skill for your life so every time we wash our hands we can take three deep grounding
Jess (08:15.87)
And you know, what I’ve just heard there is you’ve got a toolkit and I know that you’ve got daily practices and rituals that you do to keep that baseline level of health and wellbeing and being grounded and present. And then I’ve also heard that you also know what to dial up.
when you need to dial things up. And I think that’s a really important concept and I talk about it a lot with people. You nearly need plan A, B, C and D and you need tools and strategies you can call on.
daily because they fit into your life and you enjoy them but also at times of heightened stress and I also think the really important concept there is we don’t need to be robots and we don’t need to have something so unrealistic that it’s impossible.
to apply what we need is practical strategies, simple strategies that work that you can call on that are not expensive. Some may be that you know I also go to acupuncture and oh my gosh what’s happening.
Jess (00:02.774)
So the thing I’ve heard there, which I think is really important to call out and people really need to grasp this concept because it is the difference between them having stable energy, managing their health, being more self-aware. I personally believe that’s one of the greatest things people can do is be self-aware of what is happening to them and why. And what I’ve just heard there is you’ve got your daily rituals and practices that you do, but you’ve also got
more advanced strategies or extra strategies that you add in or dial up at times when you’re identifying that you need them. I know this is something you do when you talk to your clients about so can you just tell me a little bit more about some of those practices that you do when you work with people to embed into their lives?
Shannah Kennedy (00:53.568)
Well, I think part of it is, you know, how, you know, you start your day and you warm up for your day and I think that’s really important because we’re all athletes. So all of the listeners out there, we’re all athletes. We’re athletes of life. We’re athletes of business. You know, I’m definitely not a track athlete, but I’m definitely an athlete of life and we need to really learn from high performing humans and high performance athletes some of the tools and tricks to bring in.
easily set up for themselves. What are the basic fundamentals that I need to do each day and so we can have an AM ritual. So mine is make my bed, move my body, do some mindful breaths. So the three M’s every single day and it’s just simple and I can do that for the rest of my life. Then I open the world to the marathon of the day. That’s so I’ve been warmed up.
And that is, you know, all the Instagram comes in and the emails and the clients and the talks and the flights and everything. But my breath work throughout the day, every time I wash my hands, paces it. It’s like the Gatorade stop in the marathon. But then we do watch athletes do their cool down. And I think a lot of us have forgotten the importance of our PM routine, our cool down routine, how we finish work, how we go to bed, and really focusing on that. So,
Some of those things are really important to me, like shutting the computer. As soon as I’ve finished the last client, I actually shut everything down, close the door, protect myself, and say I’m leaving the track. I’m the athlete that’s leaving the track to go into their intensive recovery. And we know that they go and then eat well, they stretch their body, they ice their body. So for me personally, you know, I go out, I have a hot tub in my yard, I have a…
pool that I refuse to heat so I’ve got my permanent ice bath. So I have a swim and I wash off the day. I brush my teeth straight after dinner so I don’t eat on the couch. After I brush my teeth, I really love Netflix. So I wanna get to the couch because that’s my entertainment and that’s the way I shut my brain down. But I have to stretch first while I’m in front of the TV, really open up the body from sitting during the day. And…
Shannah Kennedy (03:09.996)
just some of the simple practices or writing down some gratitude or writing in my journal to finish the day. They’re the things that have really for 20 years, when you do them for that long, they’re not just for a week or a month, they actually become a part of you. And I think for a lot of listeners, when they wanna change their habits or put a new habit in, thinking about it for lifetime. If I wash my hands every time I…
take three breaths and wash my hands for the rest of my life. I’m going to have a very nicely paced grounded life. I’m going to be in control of my self-regulation. I’m going to be in control of my focus. So it’s all high performance, isn’t it? But it’s about mastering the basics and it’s mastering the basics with nutrition with you and really doing it well, but doing it forever. And I think that’s when people can think about, I just need to make a small change, but I need to make it forever.
and we’ll get unbelievable results.
Jess (04:09.598)
That’s exactly what it is. It’s layering it in to reap the benefits, the compounding benefits. And people get it when it comes to investments or shares or superannuation. We get that concept, but I don’t think it’s thought about as much when it comes to health and wellbeing. And for me, the goal with my clients is, which I know is the same for you, let’s make this easy. This is about easy and enjoyment and embedding it and focusing on it for a few weeks.
until it becomes something that automatically you just do because your brain has identified, well, when I do this thing, I actually feel better. And that’s why I think it’s so important we pace and we do one thing at a time to not only embed but see and feel the difference, but then leverage that momentum that comes from applying those strategies. I’d love to shift gears, which I think is the culmination of everything we’ve spoken about here, which is your latest.
project and latest book which is all about elevating human potential. So I’m fortunate enough to have a copy here in front of me. Oh sorry.
Shannah Kennedy (05:22.285)
Yes, we’re so excited about this.
Jess (07:07.723)
Now, Shana, I’d love to shift gears. I think it’s the culmination of A, everything we’ve spoken about here today, but B.
Shannah Kennedy (07:10.296)
Mm-hmm.
Jess (07:23.342)
all of your life’s work. And I know that in your partnership with Colleen, who was a long-term client of yours, you’re now on a mission, an elevated mission, a combined mission to elevate human potential, which is the brand new book that I have here in front of me. Congratulations, book number eight for you. Tell us all about Elevate and the venture with Colleen.
Shannah Kennedy (07:51.181)
Fantastic. Well, as you said, you know, I coached Colleen while she was the CEO of Sportsgirl for her whole tenure there to ensure that she didn’t burn out, that she was a high performing human. She not only got me to coach her, she got me to coach her entire leadership team for a period of around 10 years. So it was this well-oiled, incredible culture of care and high performance. So it was an incredible period in the time of our lives.
And when she actually left retail, she said, I think we should do something together. And for me personally, I work by myself, I have for 20 years as a high performance coach. And in the end we said, well, why not have fun? We’re in our 50s, it’s really time to share some of those skills. So I’ve got all of the life planning and the values and vision and goals and habits and everything. And she really specialises in the leadership and the culture and the brand. And we combined it together.
And when we combined it together we thought what is universal that everyone on the planet could do? It’s elevate. We can all finally tune ourselves and elevate our habits. And every chapter it’s got three big sections. Life, your life, your leadership style of leading yourself first and also your longevity which is you know that long-term health and well-being is all covered in the book.
And it’s all about asking yourself to stop on each topic and say, what can I stop doing that just doesn’t serve me anymore? What is a habit that I’m doing that doesn’t make me feel good, isn’t getting the result? And what do I need to start doing? So what are the new things I could introduce into myself as we age and stage and change in seasons of life? We’ve got to change things up all the time. So what do I want to start doing? And also not forgetting, what do I want to keep doing?
that’s already working for me. I already do three breaths when I wash my hands. I’m going to keep doing that and really focus on keeping doing that and not losing it. I’m going to stop doing you know the negative Nellie thought or whatever it might be and I’m going to really start by focusing on my strength next year. So you really get to own yourself throughout the book and create a plan for yourself that elevates you to the next level in life. So
Shannah Kennedy (10:12.437)
It’s a really exciting concept. It’s sort of taking all of the skills, but putting an athlete overlay over it, where we’re really asked to create our plan. We’re asked to put it on the wall. We’re asked to write it, because I believe in the written word like you. You know, we don’t really understand what we’re thinking and we don’t own things unless we write them down. And when we write them down, we emotionally connect. So it’s got all of the elements of the, you know, 50 years of combined high performance.
skills and experience and we’ve combined them all into that one book. And we think it can be a word of the year for 2024. Elevate.
Jess (10:50.254)
I love that everyone does love a word of the year and it’s perfect timing, end of the year, Christmas, great corporate gift, great gift for family and friends and exactly a great word, one word just to come back to and you know I think the thing I like so much about the concept and the book and the work you do it’s…
Here’s the information, here’s the education, but you reflect on where you’re at. You reflect on what you want to add and you reflect on what you want to keep, not here’s 10 things that I’m doing and you have to do them all. Which for me, I think really is the secret source to success with behavior change. It needs to come from the person, their lifestyle, where they’re starting from, what they like, what they want to work on, just with a little bit of guidance and some guard rails and some education, maybe on the way in which to do it.
Shannah Kennedy (11:24.227)
Yeah.
Shannah Kennedy (11:40.777)
100%. I mean we’ve got inspiration everywhere around us right? But unless you create your own personal plan nothing changes. Nothing changes until you emotionally get connected to what you want to do and how you want to feel and who you are and where do you want to go and how do you want to get there? We really need to get in the driver’s seat of life and stop being the passenger and you can’t do that unless you create your plan.
Jess (12:07.602)
I love that. I guess in saying all of that and reaching the end of the episode, I only have a few more questions. One, summarizing everything we’ve touched on and maybe things that we haven’t. If you had to reflect on the three most important aspects or factors or behaviours that help you stay at the top, what would they be for you?
Shannah Kennedy (12:32.289)
Well, the first would be write everything down because I think the brain needs a map. When I’ve got very clear lists, very clear vision, very clear goals, very clear mindset work, affirmation work that I want to do, everything seems easy. When it’s all stuck in my head and going around, everything is overwhelming and we get analysis paralysis. So getting everything out of the brain onto paper simplifies life, fantastic.
I think that’s my number one thing. My second thing would be pacing. I think it’s about really pacing your life and learning to breathe because it is a long journey. It’s short at the same time, but long, if that makes sense. And we really need to feel it and own it and pace it. And I just think breath is key. It’s key in high performance. It’s key in actually enjoying your life and being able to be mindful.
and the breath is the basis of meditation, it’s a basis of mindfulness. So why not go and master the breath? I think that’s really one of the most important things. And I think the other thing is to keep moving. I think what we’re doing is sitting way, way too much. And with chronic fatigue, it is so easy to say, I am too tired. You know, I went to yoga this morning and it felt like concrete to me.
Some days it feels good, some days concrete, but just keep showing up, just keep moving, just keep trying to open your body because sitting’s the new smoking as we know and we just sit far too long. And I absolutely love your brain breaks. They inspire me no end is, ah, I’m gonna take a brain break. So I really love what you’ve done there because it actually inspires me to go and take another breath and another brain break.
really thinking about not having to run the marathon flat out, but making sure you do stop at those stations and just take a little reflection. It’s very important for health and wellbeing and perspective.
Jess (14:38.418)
Oh, thank you. And yeah, the brain break, I have to say is probably one of the best things I’ve introduced him to my life this year, just not sitting at the computer for hours on end because I’m in the zone and I’m doing everything because that comes with a consequence taking time getting out in nature moving my body. If I’m not able to do that taking time to do a five or 10 minute meditation. It again, it’s that agility, but a little bit of structure and a little bit of non negotiables.
Shannah Kennedy (15:05.977)
Yes, absolutely.
Jess (15:07.434)
The last question, which I know you do so well, and it can be either fun things coming up or fun things that you do on the daily, but what fun things do you have or that you turn to in your life to, you know, be light, have joy and just, you know, not take yourself too seriously.
Shannah Kennedy (15:25.869)
Yeah, I don’t take myself seriously at all, I have to say. Fun things, I suppose a lot of people like fun things like, oh, you know, I go to parties or whatever, and that’s just not me. So for me, fun is going to yoga. For me, fun is, oh my gosh, I’m gonna book a massage this afternoon. So I don’t need a lot, but I do a lot, you know? Like it’s fun for me to go to a health retreat. It’s fun for me to.
things with my family and go and see musicals. I really love music. So putting music on just lights my soul. So I think I don’t do a lot of parties so to speak but I have my own little fun in my own world. Um just going for a walk you know. Maybe I’m a little bit strange but it’s actually not that glamorous.
Jess (16:16.218)
No, but it’s, that is your fun and it’s also fun I think for a lot of people can be self-harming and self-like detrimental to what they’re trying to achieve. So I think reshaping what we think of fun is exactly what you’ve just said. And the other thing you do really well is celebrate, you know. I see you and Colleen on Instagram having a cocktail celebrating a speaking gig or a busy week or a book completion. I think, I think that goes in there as well. That’s fun and, and that’s
celebrating the little things, little and big.
Shannah Kennedy (16:46.853)
Yeah, yeah and that’s part of the book, you know that’s the last chapter in the book is learning to celebrate life and learning to celebrate all of the small wins and I always talk about it in my talks like a football team and if you went and kicked a goal and nobody celebrated why would you go and want to do that again because it hurts a bit and what we do is we set goals they hurt a bit we achieve them but we forget to celebrate.
And we forget just to celebrate showing up. So really learning to do the mirror work, to high five yourself, to pass compliments out. They’re free, you know, celebrate other people. But really learning to celebrate yourself and just sitting in the smallest of wins. Like, oh, I sent off that proposal and it was a bit uncomfortable. Or I picked up the phone and instead of texting and emailing, you know, just celebrate all of the small things that you’re doing.
Because when we have a life of celebration and a life of gratitude, we feel life. There is a deep fulfilment in there. It’s not all about just ticking lists and being an achievement junkie. And celebration, I think for me, especially now in my 50s, is front and centre. And it doesn’t mean I need to celebrate and go out and spend a lot of money. It actually just means just fist pumping, you know, small things.
It’s really exciting and it becomes really addictive.
Jess (18:13.03)
I love that. I think that’s a great place to finish. Shanna, thank you for your time and patience today. We’ve had a bit going on here with the technical side of things, but I will link your website, your socials, the new book. I will link all of that in the show notes. Everyone, if you’re not following Shanna, get involved. Obviously I’ve mentioned, Shanna is a coach of mine and I just find invaluable. You keep me grounded.
I am the achievement junkie, I am, and I’m working on that. But these are learned behaviors, which take time and support to work through. But you’re amazing, and I’ve loved today’s chat. I’m sure a lot of people will get a lot of value and rush out, get the book when it’s available, elevate, it’s everyone’s word for 2024.
Shannah Kennedy (18:47.335)
I think you’re doing a great job.
Shannah Kennedy (19:04.441)
Thank you and thanks for having me. And you know, the most important thing is that you don’t know whose life you’re changing to because someone could be listening to this in the car or on a walk and they might take something that you said or I said, and they may elevate their life because of it. So thank you, really thank you for doing this and giving this gift to the world and sharing your expertise as well.
Jess (19:29.834)
What a way to finish up. Thanks, Shanna.