BMP210 Kelly Covert ~ How to Use Your Authentic Voice to Be Truly Memorable Online

Today’s Guest

About Kelly

Listen to this episode

  

What You’ll Learn

• The daily practice Kelly uses to stay connected to her inner voice
• How connecting to your inner voice can help your business
• How to create meaningful content that gets you noticed
• What to do when you don’t know what to say, or you feel like you don’t have anything to talk about
• How to know if something’s right to post online

Thing We Discussed

• Kelly’s In Her Voice podcast
• Kelly’s Free 5 Day Journaling Program

Connect with Kelly

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Private Facebook Group

How to Subscribe

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Related episodes

• 246: Jo + Holly ~ How to Tell if You’re Out of Alignment or Deep in Fear With Your Business
• 239: Holly Worton ~ How to Quit the Comparison Game for Good
• BMP216 Jo + Holly ~ How to ACTUALLY Be Authentic & Speak Your Truth
• BMP208 Holly Worton ~ What to Do When You Have Nothing to Say
• BMP176 Lisa Lister ~ How to Get Published by Hay House or Other Traditional Publishers

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required). 

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Business Mindset Podcast, episode 210. This is your host Holly Worton and I am here with today’s special guest, Kelly Covert. Kelly is an inner voice coach, with a passion for helping women lay down their life long habits of perfectionism, and chronic over-achieving so they can listen to their inner voice and love themselves fully every single day. I love that! Welcome Kelly!

Kelly:   Thank you Holly, I am so excited to be here with you.

Holly: I am excited to have you on this show! So, why don’t you start out by telling us a little bit about your background and your business journey – how you got to where you are today, and how did you get into this whole inner voice thing?

Kelly:   Sure, I love that story. Actually, it is a winding road, as often our careers and lives are, right? But I started out my life as a professional musician and I have two degrees in flute performance and I still perform professionally with the symphony here in New York, so that’s something that I have always been very passionate about and people have always said to me: “well, how did you get to being an inner voice coach from that?”. And it is really interesting, because I do a lot of teaching flute as well, and what I have realised is that through all of the connections that I make with my students and with my clients, my through line is always about getting to this deeper place of knowing that we are enough right now; and, understanding that comes from inside of us. And, it took me a really long time to figure that out, much after I was already an adult and in fact because I was a perfectionist, I was a chronic high-achiever, over-achiever, always feeling like I had to go from one thing to the next thing to feel good enough and I was always searching for that external validation without allowing myself to give it to me. That’s what I really needed and it was in the transformation from being a woman to a mother that really taught me that process of fully loving myself, and fully accepting myself right where I am and the slow journey of understanding that I don’t have to do everything to be good enough. I don’t have to continuously achieve. I don’t have to do, do, do…in order to fee that worthiness. So, what I discovered in all of that is that my inner voice has been there all along, saying to me: “Kelly, you are enough; Kelly, you are worthy; Kelly, this is your next step.” And when I really tap into that, that’s when I am at my most powerful, and I really believe that that is true of everyone; and so, I love being able to teach and inspire and really help other women understand what tools they need to put it into place, what practices they need to be practising, on a daily basis, in order to live by their inner voice which will never steer them down the wrong path.

Holly: Mm I love that, so what practices do you use on a daily basis to help you stay connected to that inner voice?

Kelly:   Well, I love journaling that’s a huge part of my daily practice, even if it is just a couple of lines, I always have a notebook with me, I am always tapping into that really wonderful way for me to connect with my inner voice, and I have found, especially with having kids – I have two boys that are 11 and 14 – I must have quiet time to myself in the morning. And that’s me sitting on the couch with my coffee and usually my dog is on my lap and I had my journal by my side and I will sometimes do a little meditation or sometimes I will just close my eyes and breathe in the stillness and really getting still and getting quiet so that voice is really present. And I feel that when I start the day like that it is much easier for me in the mayhem of my day, and especially during the summer, that’s what it feels like… It is so much easier for me to go back to that place and connect, if I have done that work in the morning.

Holly: Mm and have you always been journaling? At what point did that start?

Kelly:   Oh that’s a really good question: I have always loved journaling, but it wasn’t until I would say the last probably eight or nine years that my journaling was very intentional, as a place for me to listen to my inner voice. Before I just loved the idea of writing things down and I think that, it is interesting just looking back because I think that is always what I was doing, I was always connecting with that deeper place, I think I just didn’t realise it. Now, it has become very intentional and I know that’s exactly what I am doing.

Holly: Mm, excellent, and do you have any other practices that you do every day or is journaling your main practice to connect to your inner voice?

Kelly:   Journaling is my main practice, I think. I always try to really set an intention for who I want to be, we get really caught up in all of the things that we have to do, especially as business owners, right? We have a never-ending to-do list. And I really try to think about: okay, how am I showing up today? Who do I want to be today? And setting that intention and focussing on the being rather than the doing has become a very powerful practice for me as well.

Holly: Mm and when you tap in and you connect with yourself in the morning, you start the journaling, do you just free-write whatever comes to mind, what is the process like?

Kelly:   That’s a really good question. I always start with a little bit of clearing space and what that is for me, it is just stream of consciousness writing and it will often make no sense. It is just all the stuff in my head I have to get all of that out first and then I usually come to a natural stopping point. That is when I can really start getting deep down into my heart’s wisdom, I don’t have all of the hot mess up there, right? You have to get all of that out because if you don’t that’s all I am going to be able to see so it is really, oftentimes that will be all I do honestly, sometimes I find that if I just clear the space then it’s there, I don’t even need to go deeper because my access is open. It is almost as if I can picture this door and there are all these boxes, and all this mess in front of the door and really what I need to do is clear some of the mess away, and open the door, and then I have the direct connection to what my heart is telling me all of the time.

Holly: Mm and how has journaling, and how has that direct connection with your inner voice, helped your business?

Kelly:   Oh wow, well I feel that almost every decision that I have made surrounding my business, surrounding what I am going to do next, what I am going to create, and any sort of blogging or social media, almost all of that comes out in my journaling, one way or the other; and oftentimes I don’t even realise… it is not that I sit down with the intention of thinking: “okay, I am going to journal on my next blog post”. I think, for me, what I do is I blog, I write my newsletters, I write my social media, based on what I am learning, what I am going through at that moment, what is coming up for me; because, I know that if it is powerful for me, if it changes me, and if it is causing me to stop and think, it will do that for other people too.

Holly: Mm and that is an excellent way into the topic of our podcast today.

Kelly:   Exactly.

Holly: [laughing] So the whole reason that I wanted to have this conversation with you is because not only myself but a lot of other people are getting increasingly frustrated with all of the noise that is out there online. So, we see people doing daily Facebook lives, just for the sake of getting out there and the sake of being visible. And, I am not really convinced that creating this type of content is necessarily the most beneficial type of content for our business. Yes, it gets you visible, but is it creating those deep connections that we need to make in order to have people connect with us at that level to sign up to work with us, or to want to learn more or that kind of thing? So, how would you recommend that an entrepreneur could use her authentic voice, her inner voice, to create meaningful, deep, content that really gets them noticed and gets their stuff shared.

Kelly:   Well, I really thought about this before coming on with you today, and I was thinking about in my own use of social media and connecting with people, always my goal is to feel like I am talking with someone face-to-face. So, I want to connect with them, even if I can’t connect with them by looking them in the eye, I want to hit them, nicely, gently, in that place of like: “oh, she sees me”. “She sees me”, and how can I do that? I have to be completely transparent about where I am, about what I am feeling; I have to be willing to be vulnerable; and I have to come at all that from a place of service, from a place of love, from a place of “I see you and I am here for you”. And that’s really what I try to do, because, I have not always done that and let’s be honest sometimes I have put a post up and then I am like: “that just doesn’t feel like me”. And then, I will take it down, or I will rethink it, or I will leave it up but I don’t feel great about it, and, I think it is really about being completely true to my authentic voice and knowing that what I am saying is something I would say if I was in the same room with you. So, for me, it has really been about taking off that hat of selling and just say: “this is where I am right now”. And, I bet that someone out there is there too, and so I can talk to them as though they are experiencing that and that has been really powerful and it has made it so much easier for me too. So, a lot of times, I would put stuff out there, trying to get people to sign up for a discovery call, or join my Facebook group, or whatever, and it always felt like an infomercial.

Holly: Yeah [laughing]

Kelly:   And, I realised, I don’t have to do that, I will just meet people where they are, and if they want it they will hear that and they will say: “yeah, this is what I need right now”. And if they don’t, then that message wasn’t for them anyway.

Holly: Yeah, it is interesting what you say about infomercials, because it is kind of like those stories that we have read so many times on Facebook, you know with the entrepreneur’s share about her journey and how she went from being homeless and living in her car, to creating six figures in six weeks…and now she is so grateful and everything is fabulous and that leads into an invitation to do her latest launch. And, it can feel so disingenuous, because it is like on the one hand, the person is being vulnerable, being open and sharing the story; but it seems like it is just an excuse to sell you something. That can feel really icky.

Kelly:   That’s exactly right. Also, why is always six-figures?

Holly: [Laughing]

Kelly:   Have you noticed that? Always six figures…

Holly: [Laughing] Because that’s the milestone that everyone wants to sell you. Then it is seven-figures, then it is eight-figures. Then it’s multiple eight-figures….

Kelly:   Oh right! Yeah, and I think that icky feeling is a really important feeling, because whenever you are putting something out online, on social media, on your Facebook page, on your blog, whatever you are doing…in a podcast like we are; I think that paying attention to how something feels in your body when you are putting it out there is a really helpful cue. Because, that’s tapping into our inner voice right there. Our inner voice knows when something doesn’t jive with who we really are. When it is not aligned with that true purpose, and we feel it. We feel it as an ‘err’ icky, like agh, and I think paying attention to when you feel that way when you read other people’s stuff too…helps remind your body, and remind your mind when it feels that in your body: “hey that’s what this is, that’s what that feeling is, that’s me not being me and I so I should really think twice before I put that out there”.

Holly: Mm, now there is a really fine line between that icky feeling of: “this isn’t me so maybe I shouldn’t put it out there”, and “this is me but I am terrified, because it is taking me out of my comfort zone”. How do you personally learn to distinguish between the two and how do you teach people to tell the difference, because it is really, really subtle.

Kelly:   I agree, and I have to be honest and say that I feel like this is something I am still learning.

Holly: Yeah.

Kelly:   And it is interesting because with the icky feeling usually stuff like that is pretty easy to write for me, right? It is easy for me to write you a commercial.

Holly: [Laughing]

Kelly:   Because the language is all out there, right?

Holly: Yeah.

Kelly:   I am just using someone else’s language, but when I am really putting my heart into it, that…it just feels like a different sort of resistance. I think getting really clear on the difference there is good. And again, I think a really good way to start to understand that, is when you are reading other people’s stuff, see how that feels in your body. If it feels icky, pay attention to that. If it feels scary, pay attention to that: Where is that showing up, where are you feeling that? Are you feeling it in the pit of your stomach or are you feeling it in your chest, and kind of start to keep track, like icky feels: in the back of my throat…and then scared feels nervous in the back of my stomach and understand the difference. And I think also it is about practising so put it out there and see what happens. And that’s the thing about social media, too, I feel like it is very forgiving in many ways, because it moves so quickly. If you put something out there and it wasn’t what you should have put out there or wasn’t hat your intention was, be gentle with yourself, forgive yourself and say “next time I am going to pay better attention to that feeling that I have, I am going to learn from that”. Instead of really beating yourself up about that.

Holly: And also, pay attention to the reactions, as you said, that you get from people. So, if I send out a newsletter and no-one writes back to me, I think: “okay, that was maybe too superficial or not interesting or whatever…” But, when I really dig deep and I write from the heart, and it just all pours out, that’s when I get people writing back to me saying “oh my God, me too, I have been experiencing this”. And that’s when I know that I have written something good, because people are actually hitting reply and responding to me.

Kelly:   Exactly and it will resonate with all different kinds of people. I think that’s what amazing when I speak from my true voice, people hear me, and they say: “that’s me too, I get that”. And I think that’s really where the power is, of that connecting with and using your inner voice and I think that it also has this way of inspiring other people to do the same.

Holly: Mm definitely. So, one thing that I hear a lot of people saying, and I am going to be honest, I have been feeling it a little bit lately myself, what do you recommend people do when they say: “I just don’t have anything to say, I don’t know what to say, I have run out of topics”; or like, what I have been experiencing lately, is that I have a whole list of topics and none of them feels right.

Kelly:   Yeah, that’s when the journaling comes in for me. So, I walk a fine line too of learning something, before I share it. So, let me go a little bit deeper than that: I feel like whatever I am sharing in the moment is usually something that is really relevant to something that’s going on for me, it’s really been coming up a lot or it’s been coming up a lot with the clients I work with; so, I am seeing it a lot, it is in my life a lot. But I also have to be really careful about sharing before I am done with the learning process, before everything has processed through and I am understanding everything. So, when I say that I am sharing things that I am journaling on maybe it is something that I journaled on a couple of weeks ago. That doesn’t really answer your question though, to get to that, I think it is really about: sometimes we just need to step back, sometimes we need to take a little break and I think also take a real from everything else that we are seeing too, because I find for me that’s when I start to doubt, that’s when a lot of doubts come up for me when I am paying a lot of attention to what everyone else is doing. I am like: “oh well, she is already doing that” or “my thing isn’t quite the same” or “it doesn’t feel good enough” and I start to maybe get into that comparison mode a little bit. Maybe giving yourself a diet of information, for a month or so, is helpful. That gives you a lot more space to really connect in with what’s coming up for you right in that moment and then being brave to say: “this is what it is, this is what it is for me”, and maybe it doesn’t make sense and maybe it is crazy, but I feel like my inner voice is kind of crazy sometimes.

Holly: [laughing]

Kelly: She doesn’t always do what I expect her to do.

Holly: Exactly! And I love what you said about the information diet, I know I go through phases where I just unsubscribe from everything I am subscribed to, because I just can’t…I really need to tap into myself at a deep level and I can’t take all this stuff, getting bombarded from other people. O,r I will go on Facebook to share my own stuff but I won’t read my timeline, it’s like I will put stuff out there but I just can’t take it in.

Kelly:   Yeah, and I think even with podcasts and books. I mean as a podcaster I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but sometimes I just need a break from people being in my ears all the time. And, knowing when is the right time for the right kind of information, because I am not always like that. I feel if I was always like that I would be so insulated that I wouldn’t be able to connect, outwardly; but I feel that there is definitely a time and place for that. I know some people build it into their week, so maybe they have one day a week where they take off and no social media or whatever. I don’t really do that, I just kind of go in ebbs and flows. So, when I am feeling overwhelmed and I am feeling blocked really, that’s when I am like: “oh I need to take a break from everyone else’s stuff so my own stuff can flow again”.

Holly: Exactly. Also, I find keeping my mind busy with non-business stuff helps. So, I used to only read non-fiction, business and marketing books, and then I got to the point where I was like: “too much information” so I started reading fiction again. And, I find that reading fiction, something that is totally unrelated to my business, can also help my mind relax and completely change channels from just feeding it more business information.

Kelly:   Oh my gosh, yes! I am huge reader. Anyone who follows me on Instagram will know, I adore smutty romance novels.

Holly: [laughing]

Kelly:   Seriously I love them, they are cheesy, but I think that is exactly it. It is just like a break from reality and that is not a bad thing, as long as it is not consuming you right? I usually have two or three books going at the same time and they are all a little bit…so I will have a smutty romance novel, and then some really good literature style fiction, and then some sort of business, or self-help, or book on abundance, or whatever it is that I am digging into at that time. And I kind of rotate between all of those. The same thing with podcasts too, I find that when I am listening, and I drive a lot with my kids in the car and things like that when I am listening to podcasts, I will often put it on storytelling. And it is interesting because I will be in the car, driving, and I am hearing these things and then I get ideas.

Holly: Yes.

Kelly:   And my mind starts flowing and I am not even listening to the podcast anymore but it is almost like I have to get to sort of a different realm of my brain in order to be able to open that channel again to my voice and to my creativity.

Holly: Mm excellent. And I think it is about, going back to what you said at the beginning with your journaling, it is about making the time and the space to do these things, whether it is journaling or reading a romance novel, or whatever, to let our brains the channel and allow this stuff to come in.

Kelly:   Oh my gosh, for sure. I think for me, and for most people that I have worked with, I think it is not just important, it is critical. Like, this is as important as food to me.

Holly: Yes.

Kelly:   And food is really important to me. So, I have to be honest and say; it is not like every single day of the year, 365, I am in my journal and on those times when I fall out, I will fall out for a couple of days and I realise it because my creativity is blocked, I am pissed off at my kids, I am not able to find any sort of peace inside of me. And so, that’s when I know, I need to get back to that. And I think sometimes it is good to take time away to be reminded of how important it really is for you.

Holly: And so, let me ask a question, I am sure that many of our listeners will be wondering, how much time do you actually spend on journaling a day?

Kelly:   Well, it really depends on the day. On the weekend, I give myself a huge chunk of time, I usually will lull around in bed, and maybe listen to some meditations while I am still lying in bed, and then I will get up and I will make my coffee and I will go out on my deck, especially in the summertime and I will read, journal, meditate, for 2 hours. And I kind of go between all of those things, it is not like I am aiming for 2 hours at a time, but I am really giving myself that space. On the week days, I like to have 30 minutes, but some days I only get five, and that’s enough. So, I try not to feel like it’s an all or nothing proposition. I am really, I allow what the day brings for me, while also trying to make an intentional time for that.

Holly: Mm excellent, so Kelly how can our listeners, how can they learn more about you? How can they work with you? Tell us a little bit more about how you help women connect to their inner voice.

Kelly:   Thank you, well you can find about my coaching services and 1:1 coaching and I have some group coaching programmes on my website: kellycovert.com. And, I also am the host of “In Her Voice” podcast, which Holly will be on coming up soon, if not already. And, you can find information too about that right on my website: kellycovert.com.

Holly: And tell us a little bit more about her podcast, so it is called: “In Her Voice”, as I know, but our listeners don’t know. It is about connecting about our inner voice, so tell us a little it more about what they can expect from your show?

Kelly:   I have two shows a week: I have an interview show, and a solo show. And, in the interview show I am connecting with women of all walks of life, who are really living by and connection with their inner voice on a daily basis. And it is really a place where we can sit and listen to the wisdom of women who have walked this journey before us, so it is a lot of story, it is a lot of emotion, it is a lot of understanding practices. Just like the questions that you were asking me: what is working for you? And, what didn’t work for you? And I feel like there is so much wisdom in listening to women speak. To use their voice, even just being in that same room, or “room”, having them in your ears I think inspires us to find that voice within us, and to use that voice. And so, that’s what my interview shows are like and then my solo shows I just…I will pick a topic that is coming up for me, for example, last week, I talked about abundance, because that’s what my theme of the month is for my own life. So, I really do a short, you know they are usually 15 or 20 minutes, episode of how that is coming up for me and what I am being inspired by and how we can all take those themes and apply them in our own lives.

Holly: Mm, so you mention this theme of the month for you own life, tell us a little bit more about that?

Kelly:   So, I don’t do this every month, but it was just really, really, coming up for me, this month, that I need to be focussing in on abundance. And when I say that it was coming up for me, my inner voice was telling me. Everything would lead back to that idea of abundance. And for me it has been about shifting my mindset to this place of being in abundance in the moment, in the present time instead of focussing on what I don’t have, focus on what I do have and what is coming to me. And so, for this month, what I am doing, I am really steeping myself in this idea. So, I am trying to make all of my intake be around that, so I am reading books about abundance, I am listening to YouTube shows about abundance, I am listening to podcasts about abundance and I am thinking about it, just really trying to embody that idea in my life. And it has been really, really, fun. I have been loving it. Last month, my theme was manifestation, which is similar to abundance, but a little bit different. And so, it is interesting to me how they are rolling along. So, it is not anything that I really plan out, it is just whatever happens to be coming up. I am really intentional about setting monthly goals for myself, each month. And the goals really have more to do with, like I said before, who I am being, not so much these are the things that I need to do; but, this is who I want to be this month, this is where I want my focus to be, this is where I want my heart and my thoughts to be. And I love having that direction in my life.

Holly: Mm I love that. So, getting back to the journaling, you have got a free five-day journaling programme. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Kelly:    Yeah, it is super fun: it is just five days, it will come straight to your email, you can sign up for it right on my website – there is a little banner on the main page. And in each day, I teach you sort of a different element of journaling and the beautiful thing about journaling is, it’s not the same for everyone. You need to figure out what works for you, so I give you different ideas, different prompts. We go over the process of cleaning space and what that feels that. So, throughout the five days you are experiment different kinds of journaling. With the hopes that: #1 you recognise how much of a difference it is bringing you in your life, so it really helps kickstart your journaling practice; and then also #2 in experiencing different kinds of journaling you can see what really works. If you need a prompt every day you can start to say: “yeah, that’s something that I need” and then you can create a support for yourself around that. Or if you realise that the hardest part about journaling for you is that you need some accountability then you can say: “well, I need to set myself up with a coach, or in a group programme so that I have that accountability”. So, it is all about figuring out what you need, in order to make journaling work for you.

Holly: Excellent, I love that. Thank you so much for joining us today, I really enjoyed talking with you about creating deeper connections online by using your authentic voice. So thank you.

Kelly:   Thank you, Holly.

Holly:   Thank you for listening and remember to visit hollyworton.com/210 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you.