Billy Keels  0:00  

If you've ever held back from hiring a high-level mentor because of your self-doubt or fear of the investment, you're leaving your best growth on the table. In this episode, I'm going to share how investing in one-on-one mentorship with writer Kieran Drew eliminated my limiting beliefs and transformed not just my writing but my executive thinking. So let's dive in and let's get you to optionality. Today's episode is sponsored by Billy Keels Advisory Services. If you want to learn more about how to make your 99 optional, just go to makeitoptional.com. Once again, that's makeitoptional.com.

Speaker 1  0:39  

Helping you build freedom without losing your edge. This is the Going Long podcast with Billy Keels.

Billy Keels  0:51  

There's a lot of times you could have a tug at your mind or your heart, and if you don't follow it, you're just going to live with regret, and that is the worst thing that you could possibly do. If you've ever been in that situation, something's calling you, something's pulling you. You're not alone. I'm going to share in this episode something that I've gone through recently, and I had this desire to explore a part of me in terms of a writer. I was feeling stuck. I was also feeling torn that I wanted to do it, and I came up with a solution in the name of a a mentor, someone that is actually helping me, someone that helped me through that moment in my life. But I want to take a step back because one of the things that I realized early on is like in in this world today, like to make connections with people, you're in front of a video, and I feel much much more comfortable in front of video or speaking things like that versus writing. I'm putting it out there. It's just not something that I feel completely comfortable with when it comes to writing. But I've always known that if I could write better, then I would also be able to make a connection because a lot of people are just reading things and they use email especially to filter what's going on. And I got to this point where I was following someone on the internet, and that person actually had an. I think I don't know what kind of. Maybe it was an affiliate, or they were connecting with other people. And I got into this particular person's world, a guy named Kieran Drew, and Kieran is someone who's been writing for a long time. and and one of the things that he wrote about, I I really resonated with me because he was a dentist, a high paid dentist who decided one day to stop writing or to stop being a dentist that he'd studied years for and start writing. Like I just thought it was amazing, but not just like writing big books. He was writing on the internet, writing on at the time Twitter, which is now X, but he was he was writing there, and over time, I started realizing like I actually like the way that this guy writes because I can feel the words come off of the page, and so I started reading more, following him more. He had opportunities to to make some investments and and small courses that were really, really well done for someone like me, and what I started realizing was like, oh my gosh, I'm I'm actually learning more about this craft that I wanted to start to be better at anyway, right? And so as I'm doing other things, advisory business and and dad and all of these things, there was this tug on me to actually improve my writing, and so I wanted to get to a point where I was writing more of my email, so that I could also see. This was just like what I wanted to do: see even more of my emails being open, right? On the the for those of you, and you're probably on my email list. If you're not, it's a really easy way to to do that. Um, but I write about the things that are on my mind, and and I wanted to see the number of people reading my newsletter increase, like the number of people that were opening, the number, and also the ways that I was expressing myself. Because I also, at the end of the day, like I wanted to feel more confident in my written word, and a lot of people are thinking to themselves like, "Yeah, Billy," but nowadays, so many people are just writing with like AI slop with Claude or ChatGPT or whatever your favorite LLM is, right? But what I realized is like I didn't want to do that. I actually wanted to be able not just to consume some of the courses that he put out. There was a moment in time where actually, literally, it went from my mind to a piece of paper, and as part of my yearly goals, I said, you know, I've followed this guy long enough.

Billy Keels  4:27  

If there's ever an opportunity to work with him one on one, because that's my preferred learning style, if that's available, if there's ever an opportunity, I want to really work with this guy because I've taken his courses, I've read the things that he has online, and I wanted to make that happen. I I literally went from my mind to a piece of paper. I wrote it. Well, a few months later, for the very first time he had ever done this, he opened up two slots to work with him one on one. Well, of course, I was like, "Whoa, hang on a second." So I applied, but at the same time, I. Applied and then I was like, do I really want to invest in this? So I was like torn emotionally. Like I really wanted to work with this guy, and at the same time, I'm like, am I gonna? Is that gonna be the best return on my time? Is that gonna be best return on the money that I have that I'm gonna invest? But I knew that I wanted to work with him one on one because, like, just he he like he was a high paid professional who went and is focused on his craft, which is writing, and he is amazing at it. Like he is absolutely fantastic at it, and he loves his craft. And so, of course, the opportunity presented itself. I applied to join his program, nervous, right? Go through it, go through interview process, go through the application, go through like an interview with him one on one, and so I was kind of like, "Wow, I'm actually meeting the guy." You know, I'd seen him in other like kind of cohort situations, and I knew that I wanted to learn from him and be able to ask my specific questions when I wanted around my context, not everybody else's context. And so, not long after that, I was accepted to the program, and was able to work one on one with them. Now, I have to tell you, I faced a lot of demons because I told myself I couldn't write. I told myself I wouldn't be able to do this. I told myself all of the things, all of the doubts in my mind. Oh my gosh, am I gonna like? Am I gonna get my money back on this? But I knew at a gut level that this was the guy that I wanted to be able to learn from at this moment in my life. So all of those demons I faced them. It wasn't easy. Like there were moments where I was like, "Oh my gosh!" And you know, one of the things that I like, I've had a a recent client come on board and he talks about the spinach in the teeth, which I think is great, you know. But it's really somebody who's not gonna, who is going to call you on your BS, if you will. And so what I found is I was able to work one on one with Kieran as he enjoyed his craft and he was helping me with frameworks. But more importantly, he was adapting to really specifically what it was that I needed to be able to become a more confident writer. And after working with him for over a year, one of the things that started to happen is people started reading my newsletters even more, started opening up my newsletters even more. So I got that kind of like instant gratification, like, oh my gosh, this hard work that I'm putting in with Kieran. Like I'm not the most prolific writer in the world, and I'm not making money off of the people opening the newsletter. But people are responding, like replying. Like when I would say, hey, listen, if you want to talk about this, reply. And so I started understanding, like hey, listen, I'm not the perfect writer, but my skills are improving. People are actually opening more, and it's even bringing more people here to the podcast, which is pretty phenomenal. But the most important thing that I started recognizing by working one-on-one with Kieran and having him be able to help me around what was the most difficult part in what we were doing, and of course, didn't get to every single framework. He's got a lot of different frameworks.

Billy Keels  8:02  

But the thing of it was, is he was understanding me, what was important to me, not just writing, feeling more confident, being able to connect with people, being able to be available, also to not just writing 24 hours a day because I wanted to be available for my sons as well. All of these things, you can get much better when you're in a one on One environment, and you know the thing that really, really happened aside from improving and being recognized as my writing is improving, I learned how to use a lot more tools that I wasn't thinking about. And the biggest payoff that I never anticipated was working one-on-one with Kieran. It helped not just my writing but my thinking. The clarity around the thinking about what I wanted to say, not getting stuck in my head, being able to move forward faster. That was the thing, because my thinking got clearer. And so I'm saying all this, and and there's also something. Hopefully, one of these days I can actually get Kieran to join me on the podcast as a guest because he's one of these guys that he's been in the multi-six figure world, and he decided I need to follow something else. There's something else that's going on in my mind, in my heart that I need to follow, that I need to figure out if it's the real thing. And and you know he's been able to generate well over a million and a half in three years' time, doing something that he absolutely loves, which is focusing on his craft, helping to serve other people get better at their writing, their thinking even clearer. Think about that, and it all started because I was willing to go outside of my comfort zone. I was willing to be able to say, "Hey, listen, I've got this, this, these, these fears, these, these limiting beliefs that I can't write, I can't do this, I can't do that." But I was wrote it down, said that I wanted to do it, and then I took action to it. I there was no guarantee. That I was going to be a better writer, that my thinking was going to get clear, but I knew that I wanted to do it, and so I did it. And it was fortunate to be to apply, to be accepted, and and now be able to be here to talk about the story and also see if we can get Kieran to join me one day on the podcast as well, because this guy's got over 250,000 people that follow what he does, that he's helping them. It's amazing. So, like I said, if if you've ever felt like this is the thing to do, but you're you're telling all yourself the reasons why not, well, reach out, reach out, figure out what is is the right thing? If if there's a process or someone you want to work with one on one, reach out to them. Don't just stand back. The worst thing that you can do is not even figure out if that's something that you want to do. Go through the process. Figure out if it's the right thing. But if you just sit back and you're just listening, you're standing in theory. You're not in the game. You have to get in the game. Kieran, help me do that. Kieran helped me get in the game. I took the step. I took the action. I moved towards him, and he's been someone who's helped me a lot. Which is why another reason I'm sharing my own story here, investing on the episode, and also seeing if maybe we can get Kieran to join me as a guest on the Go Along podcast at some point in time. I think it would be great. I know his story will be helpful for you, but if you've been struggling with some limiting beliefs at time, you can't do it. You feel like you can't listen to my story. I'm happy to talk to you about you know my experience and the the limiting beliefs that consistently are there and what you have to do to be able to move forward.

Billy Keels  11:36  

If it's not you, if it's somebody else that you know, share today's episode with them and then get on the get on the phone with them, meet up with them, get on a Zoom, get on a Skype, get on a Teams, whatever the case may be. So you don't stay stuck in the theory. Get into the game. Go from theory to practice. Because while you're doing that, guess what I'll be doing? I'll be right here preparing for the next episode. So until then, go out and make it a great day. And thank you

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