Intentional Living with Finnian Kelly

george grombacher 0:12
one Leffler This is George G. And the time is right. Look, today’s guest strong power finian Kelly finian. Are you ready to do this? Sure, I’m George. Let’s go. finian is known as the business mystic, transformational intentional coach and speaker. He’s helping to awaken consciousness and inspire leaders, entrepreneurs. And he is a fresh face to ancient wisdom. Finnian excited to have you on tell us a little about your personal life’s more about your work and why you do what you do.

Finnian Kelly 0:44
So one of the things I’m most proud about in my life right now is my personal life is is very connected to my work. For a number of years, I felt like I played a number of different roles, and I had to separate myself. And it never felt that great, no one wants to feel separated, we want to feel whole beings. So I’d be a financial expert on that to show up one particular way, then I’d be in another arena speaking and have to show up another different area. And then I embodied this word intentionality. And I basically made it my own, I actually own the word intentionality now, and that’s how I live my life. I live my life, ski, I work out a lot, I socialize a lot. But the whole time, I’m representing the brand intentionality. And that’s the work I do, which is all about defining how you want to feel and then taking deliberate action towards it. So you’d look from the outside and you’d be like, Wow, that person lives a very intentional life. And that’s ultimately what I want other people to do as well.

george grombacher 0:00
Come on

Like, that guy seems like he’s really intentional about stuff. You’re like, Yes, I am.

Finnian Kelly 1:50
Exactly. And whether it’s, people will stay over my house, and they’ll see that I’ll wake up and have a very intentional morning, I meditate and I breathe and do movement. And then I’ll ski and then I do some work. And then they’ll also see me if I’m partying, it’s also an intentional way. Like it’s not just a just a haphazard relationship, everything I do I really think about when a guy is adding to my life, or is it subtracting? And I want it to be adding and often I add, add through subtracting actually take things out of my life to to add value to my life as well.

george grombacher 2:26
Is this adding? Or is this subtracting? I was just thinking about that this morning, and probably the last couple of days. And I also spent a good amount of time thinking about living intentionally. How did that happen for you? Do you just wake up and say, You know what, I’m sick of having these different buckets or sort of these different identities? How, how can I change.

Finnian Kelly 2:50
So in some regards, I was always living with intention. And I was had a structured vision. But I definitely found myself playing different personas in different areas. And then when I had a I had sort of my, my moment my my crisis where I had a marriage breakdown. So business failures, and I just looked at everything and I went, This isn’t sustainable. This doesn’t fulfill me, a lot of it was based on fear, rather than love. And I just went well, this is where I have to transform everything. And it was really great actually look through back through a lot of testimonials that people were given me. And there was a consistent message, saying that finian was the intentionality guy. And I was like, as a really nice ring to it. I’ve always wanted to be known for one word, it’s a lot easier when you stay in your lane, and people just can remember you for one word, and I just want to write that’s how I’m going to operate now. And I got very clear on my, my personal legend as Paulo Coelho says in the alchemist, the your, your purpose in your vision, I set really great valleys, I got really connected to how I want to feel in life. And then I just evaluated everything in my life and just said, Is this in line with this? Is it am I staying in my lane or not? And if it wasn’t, I had just had to say no to it. And it’s made life a lot easier, because we get a lot of opportunities in life. And we need to be able to filter them out and and make sure that we’re we’re really integrated and, and consistent, I think.

george grombacher 4:20
So that’s a that’s thank you for sharing that. So that’s a lot of really good stuff. There is an unlimited amount of outside stimulus that can flow and does flow our way every day. And if we’re not careful, then that’ll be it’ll, it’ll consume all of all of our available attention. Does your ability your desire to accept more or less does that fluctuate? How is it static? How do you think about that?

Finnian Kelly 4:53
It’s interesting. I think what happens is at the start, it needs to be less, but then actually As you get more focused in your area, your capacity builds, and you start being able to go whoa, as long as this aligns with intentionality, whatever your, your key messages, you end up being able to do a large breadth of work. So for example, I speak, I do a guide breath journeys. I’m a coach, I am a facilitator, I’m an advisor, I do a number of different things in this intentionality where it’s, I get the diversity, which I always craved, because that was the one thing which I always argued with when people said, we’ll stay in your lane. I was like, but I like variety. And now I’ve realized you can have variety, as long as it’s got something over arching and consistent pillar. So I definitely feel like you can do a lot. And then there’s certain times where you’re like, Okay, I’ve, I’ve been distracted again, or I’ve allowed other things in. And that’s where you have to go through that process of, which is the 48 verse of the doubt he talks about, it’s all about adding through subtracting, so what can I take out of my life to actually add to my life? Because the space and the emptiness is where the magic is?

george grombacher 6:05
Nice. Okay. So is what, what is the first step? How do you help people to figure this out, and then it’s okay, let’s just start there.

Finnian Kelly 6:19
So the first step is to really just take it, take a evaluation of where you’re currently at. And until you have the awareness of how your life is going, and how your decisions are affecting really how you feel, you’re not actually going to be able to go through a process where you can accept change, because I always believe the first two steps of change, are awareness, then acceptance. So you accept, I’m not living a life with intentionality, no blame, complain, you just go to accept it. And then you start seeing how does this play into your life? How is this affecting, perhaps your love relationships, or your well being or your prosperity? And then you can really go well, now I want to change it, and then you actually get into the process of doing it. But there’s no point me trying to just force you to change until you go through those first three steps.

george grombacher 7:11
So it’s becoming aware, it’s accepting my current reality? And what’s the third,

Finnian Kelly 7:16
then go through a direct experience? How is this actually playing out into your life, like actually looking at it, and looking back at your previous years and saying, Well, my subconscious programming, or my beliefs, or the way I’m acting is really having an effect in the different pathways. And then once you see that, often, there’s enough of an impetus to change and then you can go, Okay, I want to have that transformation. That fourth step is, let’s go, Okay, Let’s surrender, let’s hand it over, and let’s start taking that action to make the change.

george grombacher 7:50
We’re who, what, who are we surrendering to?

Finnian Kelly 7:55
In some regards, we’re surrendering to a higher self a higher, a higher being, we can actually get support, like change and transformation can be quite challenging. And if we actually realize that we are supported in this life, we’re not alone. And we can surrender and go, Okay, this is part that I want to hand off, I’m, I’m letting it go. I’m letting go of this emotion, this, this feeling this state of being and I’m going to transcend into another being under the guidance of my higher self or some angels or just the universal sources in itself.

george grombacher 8:29
And what is the hardest part? Well, that’s probably difficult for each individual, or each of us individually has difficulty at one stage or another. But obviously, the first step is, is becoming aware of it. And if I never start asking myself these questions, then I’m just unaware.

Finnian Kelly 8:53
Yeah, it is. I actually think acceptance might be the hardest step. It’s the a lot of people are aware that they’re not in a great place, or they’re doing sabotaging behavior. But it’s this acceptance bit, because the acceptance bit, they either go into a few places, they start blaming themselves, they start complaining, they start defending they shame themselves. And whenever you do that, you put yourself into a low vibrational state. So the key with acceptance is to actually be neutral with it. It’s not saying you’ve done anything wrong. It’s just it’s like, for example, I feel angry, like I have feelings of angry. Yes, you might have done something wrong. But don’t blame yourself and just go, that’s where I’m at. And then once you can do that, then you can actually start going into the next stage of change. So often, the ego grabs hold of us and starts going Originally, the ego is what put us into that place. And then it starts grabbing holdings going we’ll look at you how silly you are. You’re been so stupid. I can’t believe you did this. And whenever we’re doing that, what are we doing? We’re just getting into a circle of thoughts again, which is trapping us To the current state, and you ended up just repeating the same behavior. And you would have seen this, perhaps when you’ve partied too much one night, and then you just have so much shame and guilt the next day, and you end up just having a horrible day, rather than just going, Yeah, I did something I didn’t want to do last night. I’m not perfect. However, perhaps I’ll have a better chance tomorrow, or I’m just going to show up a little bit different today. And then you start the process out of it.

george grombacher 10:26
I’ve never done anything like that. And then Oh, my goodness, I did something that I shouldn’t have done last night. No, I did exactly what I wanted to do last night. And then the price for today. Ego, the blame, it’s not my fault. This is because other people are doing this to me, or forces beyond my control, or it’s a shame that we all carry is everybody carry shame.

Finnian Kelly 10:55
Unfortunately, I believe most people do. And it’s interesting. So there’s a difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is an okay, emotion, it’s the act of Wow, I did something that wasn’t in line with my values. I don’t really want to do that again. And I acknowledge it, it’s not the right thing. I know how to do it differently tomorrow. It’s, it’s it’s low vibrational, in some regard, it’s a brings awareness to yourself. And it often creates you to go into a state of action, where it challenge changes, those guilt turns into shame, where it becomes all consuming, and you’re in that place, and you’re actually not willing to take any more action, you’re actually caught in your own negative belief loop. And you’re either blaming yourself, you’re, you’re feeling really defensive, or you’re just in such a height spiral of yourself, that nothing actually happens. And in a weird way, shame is very selfish, it’s self consuming. Guilt is often where I’m taking responsibility of this, I need to acknowledge it, I need to move forward. But as soon as it transfers into a period of a longer time, you’re stuck in a shame spiral. And it doesn’t serve you at all. So I really encourage everyone to observe, observe themselves like, am I is this guilt actually healthy. And it’s only healthy if you decide to take an action, which, which either acknowledges what happened, or perhaps you say, sorry, or perhaps you just go right, I’m going to change my life right now. We’re ashamed, nothing’s happening. It’s self consuming. It’s very similar of how like, worry, like stress, and anxiety works as well, like stress, sometimes it’s okay to be stressed. Think about when we, when we work our muscles, we stress them, we put them into a place where we’re testing them, but we’re not breaking them. And then they can heal, and then repair very similar how we do sometimes we work in a focus when we get a little bit stressed. But anxiety, it’s transitions, we’re in a place where you’re in a loop, and you’re consumed by your thoughts doesn’t serve us at all. And the way to do it is sometimes we’re going to break that pattern up. So we could use breath, for example, you’re finding yourself, you’re in a guilt, starting to build a lot of guilt, or you’re in a lot of stress. We could use breath or meditation to calm down our nervous system, to give us a bit of a pause between our thoughts, and then start connecting with well, what is it that we want to change out of here? Like why are we actually feeling guilty right now? Why are we feeling stress before it gets into that place where it’s all consuming? Because that gets very challenging to get out of?

george grombacher 13:33
Yeah, yeah, I could definitely see that. Fascinating. And what an important distinction, guilt and shame are and guilt can be healthy. If it leads to a positive action. Shame is is not that because nothing often happens. We’re just kind of stuck in it. So it’s not a value.

Finnian Kelly 13:54
And it is a choice. That’s this is the challenging thing with this is that a lot of people don’t realize that you are choosing to go into that moment, at some point. You chose not to breathe, or meditate or release, and you transitioned into that state. And that feels very hard, because you’re like, Well, no, it’s because of these events. I’m like, No, that was actually you in that moment choosing to let this happen. It’s it’s that idea that you can be a lot of people have trauma from their childhood. And yes, perhaps their parents or a sibling or someone external did that to themselves. But then for the last 20 years, they’ve been choosing to relive that and redo it themselves. That person has not been in their life since that person has been participating in the trauma ever since. And only once that’s that acceptance, be it only once you can take responsibility that you’re actually participating in the continuation of this cycle. Can you actually then realize, well, if I’m doing this to myself, wow. I also might have the self agency to get myself out of that. That’s the power of acceptance. And it’s very hard because sometimes you’re like, wow, my, that my partner was so cruel to me. They had an affair with me and everything. Yeah, but that was done. And you participated in it since then. So now let’s release it and move forward. And that’s part of that forgiveness and acceptance. But

george grombacher 15:17
it’s an amazing, amazing thing, how we keep ourselves stuck like that. Something happened 2030 10 years ago, and we remain trapped by it. It’s, it’s extraordinary.

Finnian Kelly 15:34
It is. And we see that with a lot of adults, a lot of times when you’re interacting with someone, you start going, like, why are they acting this way? Like, why are they being that way. And then you realize, you got to realize you’re not speaking to an adult, you’re speaking to a little child, who is just trapped in this loop this part of themselves. So their behavior is like a child because they actually are a child in that moment.

george grombacher 16:00
How is there a typical length of time that you’re working with people.

Finnian Kelly 16:07
So this is an another example I like to, I like to see myself as a light activator. And the reason why I say that is everyone has the light within them. And you can see the light is whatever you want to see it as whether it’s source God, energy, there’s, there’s, we know that some people you they walk into a room, and they just have this big light field and you feel great with it. In them. A lot of people have really covered their light, they’ve sort of blocked it out. And and it’s not going very well. So if I can come in, in some regard, whether it’s a 10 minute interaction just out out on a ski slope on a chairlift, or it’s a four hour session where I’m guiding people through a breath journey, and then a subconscious program, workshop, or it’s a three month intentionality transformational program, I’m focused on just how to activate that light. And I truly believe you can do it in short amounts of time. But obviously, like anything, the more in depth you go, the greater transformation you have, as well. So I’m, I’m very selective of not very selective, I make sure I have a breadth of experiences to make sure that we can meet everyone. That’s why I do podcasts. So perhaps one person just happens to listen to me and and they go, Well, that’s something resonates me and I can change. And it can be that simple. It can be from one little podcast, your whole life can change. If you’re willing to be open to that you just have to be willing to be open to it.

george grombacher 17:31
Love it. finian people are ready for your difference making tip even though you’ve given us a lot, what do you have for them?

Finnian Kelly 17:39
Well, all my work comes down to feelings. Ultimately, that is what we are, we’re a bunch of feelings, our state of think of fulfillment, love, overall state of well being is determined by how do we actually feel. So this needs to be the focus of how we live our life. So often we focus on goals, which are often materialistic objects or a destination or a certain achievement. And we wonder when we get there or on the journey, we’re not that happy. And then we get there. And we realize actually, it’s not bringing that the feelings that we wanted. So we need to switch it around. instead focusing on goals, we need to focus on intentions and intentions or feelings. So for example, you might look at, we have four different pathways, the grounding path, the love path, the prosperity path and the wellbeing path for the prosperity path. I want to feel unencumbered, I want to feel creative, and I want to feel grateful. So as I’m making decisions throughout the day, I’m looking is this going to make me feel unencumbered? No investing in this property business is going to trap me in. And it’s going to be really hard for me even though it’s a great opportunity, it’s not going to make you feel unencumbered. So suddenly, I can just quickly just go that decision, that opportunity doesn’t work for me, I get super connected to my feelings. And then I’m not sure my actions line up to drive those feelings. Because the one thing we do have free will over is our behaviors. We can’t control our thoughts. It’s very hard. Our beliefs are hardwired into us, we can we can reprogram through this way, our feelings are a byproduct of behaviors. So the one thing we have free will of is our behavior. So we look at, okay, this is the feeling I want, what behavior is going to lead to that that’s when you take a breath, and you pause. And instead of reacting to whatever’s just happened, you go, how do I want to respond? Which is going to lead to me getting that feeling. And if you can just think of that every moment of every day, your life is going to transform and before you know it, you’re going to be a different person, your life is going to look completely different. And you’re going to feel like you’re flourishing in life, which is ultimately what we all want to be feeling.

george grombacher 19:49
Well, I think that that is great stuff that definitely gets caught. Again, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? How

Finnian Kelly 19:56
can they engage with you? So the best place is my work website finian kelly.com. And if you actually just go finian Kelly slash podcast, there’s a number of free resources which will start you on this journey. I just, it’s amazing what you can get on the internet now everything I share I give away for free so you can access it there. And then on social media that finian Kelly,

george grombacher 20:19
excellent. If you enjoyed this as much as I did so funny in your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to finian kelly.com and then go to finian Kelly comm slash podcasts and take advantage of all the great resources that he makes available. That’s f phi n n is ank e ll y.com. And then find them on social media at the Finnian Kelly. Thanks, good finian Thanks so much. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai