Unbreakable Success Podcast, Episode 58
How to Live the Ultimate Bucket List Life with “The James Bond of Public Speaking” – Kenyon Salo.
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Discover how to live the ultimate bucket list lifestyle with the “James Bond” of the motivational public speaking world, our new friend Kenyon Salo.
The Bucket List Life is built off the three core principles that have helped Kenyon design a fulfilling life of travel, adventures, meaningful interactions, and achieving his dreams. Kenyon Salo is one of the top trainers, facilitators and keynote speakers in the fields of adventure, leadership, team building, sales, customer service and inspiration/motivation.
One of only five members on the Denver Broncos Thunderstorm Skydive Team, he is seen each week during game season flying into the Denver Broncos Stadium at 60+mph, ending with a soft tip-toe landing on the ten yard line. He brings to the stage over 20+ years of successful audience engagement through humor, awe-inspiring moments, prolific storytelling, and ‘edge-of-the seat’ content.
With over 6000 skydives under his belt and travels that have taken him all around the world, he’s determined to live life to the fullest and help others do the same. Through his passions for adventure, storytelling, and connecting with people, he found a simple process to guide others on a path to what most of us crave – living a more fulfilled life.
His goal through his engagements is to deliver a powerful and heart-touching message on the possibility of how amazing life can be through providing actionable steps that will help any audience, both personally and professionally, embark on a path to achieve anything they desire.
Fast Facts:
- Kenyon is a Master Trainer and Speaker of more than 100k+ people Trainer for a National Social Media Campaign for Fortune 500 Company
- Featured on NFL Films, ESPN, NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, MTV
- NFL Denver Broncos Thunderstorm Skydive Team
- Performed Stand-Up Comedy at Denver Comedy Works
- Travelled to 49/50 US States and 27+ Countries *Photographer, Adventure Video Creator
- 6000+ Skydives
- 450+ BASE Jumps
- 2 Amazing Kids
Kenyon's truly a motivational force of nature with the elements of a James Bond character; carrying confidence, paying close attention to detail, dominating technology, dressing to kill and always striving to connect deeply. He stays cool under pressure while bringing his listeners through an immersive experience of what it means to live a Bucket List Life. James Bond is one of those heroes that most people can believe in, relate to and truly connect with – He’s an ordinary person who uses his gadgets and creativity to do extraordinary things. Just like 007, Kenyon shares effective tools to empower attendees to walk away from the event feeling ready to take on the world. This is achieved while keeping the organizers in mind so that they can rest assured knowing that Kenyon will do everything in his power to make their lives as easy as possible, from the moment contact is initiated all the way through high-fiving after a successful event and beyond. I'm grateful to share this powerful conversation with Kenyon on this episode of the Unbreakable Success podcast.
Full Transcript:
Aaron: Everybody, welcome back to another episode of unbreakable success. I'm really stoked to have you here. A Kenyan Salo. Every once in a while you'll hear people that actually give themselves sort of a nickname and you are known as the, the James Bond of public speaking, which I love. And sometimes those things can go wrong. Like when you've self and I'm assuming that you, you came up with the theme or at least you and your team came up with the theme because sometimes it doesn't fit where you agree, but, uh, in your case, Kenyon, uh, the James Bond, public speaking, it's authentic. It kind of speaks to the kind of guy that you are, at least from what I've been able to get to know. Have you the adventurous spirit, the confidence, the having a job in wanting to get it done. And uh, you know, and doing it with some style and possess. And I've seen some of your keynotes, I've seen what you're about. And it's definitely been exciting too to get to know you and talk to you a little bit. And that definitely is great to have you on the show today. So for everybody that doesn't know you, tell me a little bit about, tell all of us a little bit about you and what you're up to these days please.
Kenyon Salo: Well Aaron, thank you so much for having me on the show. It's such a pleasure and it's really great to connect and that's the one thing that I love about this industry and the potential to be able to do podcasts is it's not just about the podcast itself, it's about meeting the people that are behind the podcast. You, you're, you're living the podcast. You're, you're leading the podcast. And then of course all of your audience members, all of your listeners, I celebrate them and I thank all of you guys for being on. And you mentioned earlier about being the James Bond of speaking and and for me it was one of those things where I wanted something that would catch somebody's eye, but again, at the same time being very authentic to who I am, which is that balance that you talk about where it's like it's important that you, you list yourself as something that you can actually back up, follow up, that type of thing.
Kenyon Salo: And so I did some studying on what James Bond is and who he is and, and the, the brand that he personifies. I said, okay, there's a lot of things that I fall into that place where it's like, you know, being onstage, well-dressed, being good with technology, having humor, but at the same time not being infallible, realizing that you can be bumbling, you can make mistakes at the same time and adventurous and succeed in that type of thing. So that was, that was really important to me and I love it and it's far better than a lot of times I see on linkedin where people are like so and so motivational speaker, like you're not going any further in terms of like who is this person? Right? But James Bond speaking, Hey, I'm going to check this out
Aaron: for sure. A brilliant, brilliant from a business aspect. And, and even more importantly, I love it because like you said, it's authentic. Um, if I can share a little bit about, with the audience, about you and I and how we want them connecting. It's funny, a couple months ago, uh, I told you when we talked on the phone the other day, the first time I heard you was, was on another podcast called world speakers, I think, uh, from speaker match.com. And you were doing a training on, on speaking because you, you've been doing this in a relatively short window and you've made some amazing progress. I mean for listening, we're going to hook up the links to his website and things like that. Obviously in the show notes for this episode. But your website is stunning. It's what, it's one of the most stunning sites I've seen visually.
Aaron: You have so much great content, a content, the people that you engage with, your audiences are just obviously like into it, like you have a great persona persona about you. Um, but what, what drew me to you was when you were given a training on speaker match, you were just giving so much great content to help people accomplish what it is they want to accomplish. Like it was so much authentic authenticity and it wasn't like you were trying to just spread a few bread crumbs so you can real somebody into a sales pitch or something like that. You were just really trying to help and it came through very authentically. And that theme kind of carried through when I see you, when I saw you on stage, uh, watching some of your keynote videos, as I told you, I was prepping for one of my keynotes I was doing last week.
Aaron: And I always loved to watch people that I admire along the way. And I think it was watching Mel Robbins and Brendon Burchard or somebody. And then you're, you're a keynote came up and which was cool because I just heard you recently before that. And then funny enough, you and I are connected with, um, Nicole Jansen and I saw that you were all in her pockets and it was, it was sort of a trifecta of, you know, this Guy Kenyan popping up on the radar. And uh, I'm glad that from there we were able to connect and get you on the show today. I definitely would love to have you share with everybody what you call the bucket list life, which is sort of a, one of the overarching themes of what you do. And, and, uh, I'd also love to get to, um, you helping some people out with, with connection.
Aaron: Because what I, what I noticed about you, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that it's really, it seems to be really important to you that you connect with people authentically when you, when you're doing your speaking and when you're engaging in conversation. And that's something that is essential for not just speakers but entrepreneurs. People in their daily life. If they're on a nine to five people at home with their family. So I'd love to get some of your thoughts on that as we go along today. But, uh, first and foremost, how did this journey start for you? How did you roll into wind up being this public speaker and especially when it has made so much progress from a business standpoint really fast and really authentically? How'd that play out for you?
Kenyon Salo: Well, it's been the one thing that has been throughout my whole life yet I wasn't paying attention to it completely. Yeah. So if I see where I'm at now, definitely we are all in amalgamation of our entire lives. This things that have happened to us, the successes, the failures, the highlights and the lowlights. All those things make us who we are. And for me the common theme that been running through yes, adventure and living that life where I want to experience the word, uh, the world. And that word experience is so very strong because it's deep and core of who I am. You want to experience it. I want to give people experiences. On the other side is the thing that I've been really good at is once I do experiences I want to teach others, I want to help others be able to do that same thing and whether it's back in the day when I was six years old jumping my bike off of a homemade ply wood ramp over a trashcan or then saying, hey, you can do this too, to my neighborhood friends, let me show you how to do it.
Kenyon Salo: And then being able to transfer that so later in life saying, hey, this is what I found about mindset and being able to accomplish goals and when you talk about what I shared on the speaker match call and I appreciate you getting and being able to capture that moment where it's that giving freely because our team, our team decided at the beginning of this year that we would give as much as we could give to speakers, give to event planners, give to podcast, give to anybody we can because we realized when we help others first, everything we desire will come back tenfold. Yeah. So we decided to put that out there. So anything I can do to be able to help others, I just give that information knowing that it will all come back and that's how it is. So that's how I got from the very beginning knowing that I was a speaker trainer, somebody that wants to help and that I was going to tie it in with adventure and stories and things like that and be able to bring that to the stage or bring that to a podcast or a training along the way.
Aaron: Nice. Nice. For those. Don't go know Kenyon has a. What do you over 6,000 skydive jumps now?
Kenyon Salo: Yeah. 6,000 skydives about 400 base jumps. I love to wing suit fly too. So I know a lot of people have seen that on youtube, but it's basically like flying around over houses and trees and it's magical.
Aaron: Yeah, it looks, it looks pretty amazing. It's, it's definitely A. Alright. I'm not going to push and say that's on my bucket list yet, but it is. It is out there. Sort of floating around and we'll see if I grab onto it or not. You're, you're still with the broncos. The Denver Broncos, the jump team, so you may see up. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Kenyon Salo: Schedule comes out every April and I've already got it. It's all on my calendar for the fall season and our preseason game started August and yeah, we get to skydive into every single home game that the Broncos have and that is so. Oh Man. 70,000 people scream landing on the field. Uh, it's, it's, it's, it's a pinnacle of my life. It's amazing.
Aaron: Yeah. That's got to be a lot of fun. How long have you been, have you been with the team now?
Kenyon Salo: Seven years. So really a 2011 is when it started for me and they started in 2009 and I, we're the only team that's associated with an NFL team that skydives always into every single game.
Aaron: That's pretty amazing, man. That's got to be so much fun. Now, again, this is one of those things that, one of the reasons I was really hoping to get you on the shows because you have this discrete mixture of living life to the fullest and you certainly by most people standards, you take it to the extreme. You're jumping out of airplanes, flying wing suit, doing base jumps and real and it's authentically you. You're not trying to show off. You just, it's obvious that you love doing this. It to the point where you even, you even bring them on guests, do some keynotes. Sometimes you bring a, you do that every keynote where you have somebody with a thing under the receipt to have them join you on a jump.
Kenyon Salo: Only if it naturally comes up in that moment. That's what it's supposed to be. So sometimes it's just, I say it, sometimes I do it, it just depends. So I've had about a half a dozen people from events decide to come to Colorado or do a skype with me, which it's magical to be able to help them check that off.
Aaron: Yeah, that's pretty cool. So will tell us this because uh, like I touched on earlier, one of the themes of your, of what you do when you're speaking is this thing that you call the bucket list life. Tell us what that's about and how it sort of evolved and became a thing for you.
Kenyon Salo: Yeah. The bucket list life is really what I've been living, but I didn't know it. And then once I started to dig into it and unpack it, it's what I realized that most people are doing anyways. Or the other side of it is if someone feels stuck and they're not doing one of these three things or they're not doing the three things in a continuum and there's no particular order that you have to do them in. But the way that I, I put them out there is irst create more experiences. Second, share more stories and third, live more fulfilled by helping others. When we do those three things, again, not in any particular order, but when we're consistently doing those three things, we feel the most APP happy. We feel the most alive. We feel like we're doing or being what we're supposed to be on the planet and that's, that's the brilliance in and around it. So yeah, I would love to share those three concepts with you. Oh
Aaron: yeah, yeah. Let's, let's talk to him as far as I love to make this relevant for, for you all that are listening right now. I'd love to make this relevant if we start with create more experiences because look, it's 2018. Everybody's hyper. Uh, I want to say hyper busy, but really most people are hyper distracted whether they're building a business or they're, they're running the kids to and from school when they got to get to work and then they got to get to or they got to get to work and work on the side business on top of that. So there's all these things that get us caught up. So, you know, you bring up this point of creating more experiences and a lot of people will immediately push back and say, well, you know, I don't have time to create more experiences. How can I build that into my everyday life? What is your answer the damn, because I think we can. We can sort of try to simplify what it means to create more experiences, but what does that mean to you when you share it with, because obviously you're sharing these speech, the speech with ceos and executives and salespeople. I'm corporate functions so you're not speaking to other adventurous all the time when you're sharing this, so how do you connect it and make it relevant to the people that you're speaking to, including our audience today?
Kenyon Salo: Well, absolutely. I believe that every one of us has a desire to create more experiences. Now creating more experiences is about self. It's about what I want to do, what do I want to see, what do I want to experience? Which is totally cool because we have to fill up our own cup, know in order to give to others, so when we want to create experiences, if we think back to times at any time we created a new experience, whether it's a new movie that we saw, we tried a new restaurant or we said, hey, let's try river rafting or jumping out of a plane. It doesn't matter what the experience is, it is, it doesn't have to be, uh, an extreme experience. It just has to be something new and that something new like say, Hey, I want to learn a new language before I traveled to Spain.
Kenyon Salo: And so you, you're, you, you learned Spanish and you say, okay, that's great. The thing is, new experiences challenged us. New experiences help us grow. They make us feel alive. Why? Well, there are a little scary. And that's when you say, Hey, we're hyper busy. Well that's really a hyper excuse. It's like, oh, I don't have time to do that open. I'm going to binge watch this on Netflix. Like you could have said yes to that experience and gone and done it. You are looking for irs at you that just people that are saying no to stuff because their fears come up for them.
Aaron: Sure, sure. Yeah. That's a, that's a, that is so true. And it's one of the things that, you know, and I brought that point up about being so busy because it's one of the common excuses I get when I'm coaching or if I'm speaking with people and you know, we're bringing up the concept of, of just living more and living authentically and immediately the excuses come up about time. But, uh, I think it was, I'm sure more than one person said this, but we all have, we all make time. We all have time for what were the things we must do. So when it becomes a Muslim becomes a priority for you and I, that we want to create these new experiences we'll make, we'll make room for it. We're fine, move room for it and we'll push the things that are nice to do but not necessarily mandatory to do out in a way. Um, so don't jump into a what's next on the list and what does it look like?
Kenyon Salo: Well, I'll add one more thing to the experience because it's sort of thing that you just talked about, which is why we're not doing it. I think that's a key because a lot of people think, well, I want to but I'm not and it's really the thing that we unpack is why are people not doing it? And again, one of the things that you talked about and I talk to audiences all across the country and it's the same four things every single time that keep people from doing a new experience, time, location, finances. You're like, oh, I don't have the money or I have to stay here because of my kids or you know, it's, it's odd, just busy. I got all this stuff and then of course fear, but really what is fear? And that's the environment, the environment that you live in, your friends, your family, your coworkers, the, the where you live is saying, hey, don't go do that new thing.
Kenyon Salo: Like don't get into that relationship. You'll break your heart or don't start that new business. You'll lose a lot of money or don't go skydiving. You definitely going to die. Those are the things that come up, like your environment telling you that and sometimes your environment is the environment that's between your two ears. It's your brain that's saying, no, you're going to fail, it's not going to be great, et Cetera, et Cetera, and your environment keeps you from those things. So I push my environment way and I say I am going to do this and it will be what it is. It might turn out amazing. It might not succeed the way I thought, but in the end I always get an experience of a out of it and that experience is always learning and it always helps me become better at what I'm doing. So that isn't a nutshell of what create more experiences is all about.
Aaron: Sure. I love it man. And I'm curious. I'd love to get your perspective on this because because doing what you do, um, when you started really pushing your, your speaking career as, as like your thing, like your jam, when you started a really pushing on it years ago, did you have, did you find it easier or did you find it harder based on who you were around at the time and how do, how do you, how do you balance that as far as having people in your circle that are, you know, are going to push you to do the things that are, that are on your own personal bucket list and you know, to do more speaking. How does that look for you? Because we've all got our own thing. I've certainly found that as I started building this platform and this podcast and doing the book I just wrote, if I didn't have certain people around me, including my family, but even outside of my family, if I didn't have the right people in place, it would be a lot, a heck of a lot harder to do this stuff because like you said, your environment really going to create what you consider acceptable.
Aaron: Right. You know, we are the five people we spend most time with, so to speak, as Jim Rome said, so how did that look? How does that look for you when it comes to making sure that you've got the right people around you and you've got the support you need to keep, keep grinding out the work that you do?
Kenyon Salo: Yeah. You know, public speaking and setting on stage and being in front of a group is one of the number one fears that people have. Sure. And so when you take that number one fear of being on stage, and I was actually talking to one of my coaching clients about this because she was saying that she freezes up before your the announcer name and she freezes up and inside and she's about to go on stage. And what we unpacked was what happened on stage when people walk onto stage and they have to give some sort of presentation and they have that feeling of they want maybe they want to be sick or they freeze up or they have all these fears. Well it comes from the fear of wanting to be perfect or the fear of judgment or on top of that, that the fears of in and around of like will I remember what I'm supposed to say.
Kenyon Salo: And what we realized that in that process is that it's those things first and foremost are coming from within our head. And those are the things that keep us from doing what we want to do. And ultimately when we step onto stage in any capacity. And what I mean is you can stay. You can use this stage as just kind of a. it's that thing, a metaphor for life where you're stepping onto the stage in life like I'm going to go step on a stage with this new thing. You need a group of people that are supporting you. First and foremost, need yourself to support you because if you believe you're not worthy of that next step and that again, that's a lot for like, why am I on stage? Why is my message more important than somebody else's? How is my message valuable to the stage and to the audience than than this other person?
Kenyon Salo: Well, first and foremost, every person has an inspirational story. Every person in the audience that I'm in front of, they have an inspirational story that can be turned into a two hour movie that somebody would watch the academy award winning. That has inspiration there. So as we align ourselves with really good people in our life, yes, some people are going to fall off that person that used to be there is not going to be there. It's okay. It's okay to me, that doesn't mean that you love them less. It doesn't mean that you like them less, it just means your. We're resonating on a different level and you're moving to a different level. So what I moved into speaking there was a lot of support and I would say the biggest challenges came from within my own head. That was the toughest. Once I moved through that shirt. Yeah. My friends joke about it. I've got this thing with the ladder. They're like, have you stood on any ladders lately? And I'm like, actually I did. And it was amazing and I impacted an audience that on top of it I got paid. So it's interesting how it's still there, like your environment. We'll still poke at you when you're successful.
Aaron: Yeah, yeah. That stuff doesn't go away. The fruit can, you know, I'll let you explain to the ladder how you incorporate that with your keynotes.
Kenyon Salo: Well, it's part of the experience is part that I talked about and I bring out a ladder and heights. It's one of the two things we're born with in terms of fears, born with fear of loud noises and we're born with fear of heights. Everything else is learned. Every other fear we have is learned. We saw, we heard someone told us so where we experienced and then now we have a fear and it around it, so ladder is that metaphor and I climb up the ladder and eventually I stand on the very top step, you know that step where they're like, do not stand on or above misstep could cause serious bodily injury or death. What I do that and it. It invokes a feeling within the audience as if they were on that step and they their palms sweat and they get nervous and they get uncomfortable, which is what I want, so I use that as a really good tool to unpack that exact feeling.
Aaron: Whose idea was it to do just as you were you? Were you just one day wake up and say, dude, I'm want to get a ladder to stand on it during my next keynote? Or was it something that you just incorporated before you even started doing this?
Kenyon Salo: Well, I think the keynote that you saw had a stepstool in it. That was the one I saw. It was just a story, one of my earlier ones, and I remember the steps was only two and a half feet tall and I remember practicing onstage backstage. I was like, I hope I don't fall off this step stool. Right? That was my thought process, but it was a spur of the moment and then a month later I was at another event and I was walking through the hallways of the convention center and I saw this ladder and I said, oh, it was an eight foot ladder, and I said, that's perfect. That's the next step. No Pun intended for me to take in this presentation and that I just. I brought it in. I used it, it, it. It brought up so much for the audience and there was actually, I was standing on the top step and this one woman yells out.
Kenyon Salo: She says, please get down from that. You're making us all feel uncomfortable. Now here's the key thing. The key thing is I started thinking in my own head, maybe I should take this out of my presentation. I don't want the audience to feel uncomfortable. I am a loving and compassionate human being. Oh No, what have I done? And then I realized and I unpacked it in the moment and I said, you are now my environment and your environment saying get down from that step you're making me feel uncomfortable is the exact reason why I have to be on that step to show you that the environment almost caused me to not do something in life. And they got it at that point. That's when it, it, it just drove it home.
Aaron: Yeah. That is brilliant. So. So let me get this straight. So you hadn't even practiced this for the first time you decided to do the eight foot ladder because letters big I saw. I think you hit on one of your photos on your site. It's, I mean he's a ladder that is totally the most humans will pretty much pretty much every human that I know. When you're standing up to eight foot tall ladder. So you were, it was before speech you saw in the hallway and you just decided, I'm just going to stay on the top of it. Yes.
Kenyon Salo: Yeah, exactly. That was in that moment, which again, here's the thing, all I said was yes, the idea popped in my head and I said yes to the idea and then I let the how figure itself out. Right. I didn't know how it was going to be setting it up. I didn't know how it was going to be, you know, making that move to the top step. I didn't know how the audience was going to respond. I just said this feels like something I should do. Yes, it's scary, but I'm going to do it and make it happen. And I've gotten as high as 12 foot ladders in the big convention centers with the huge stages. When the stage is three feet tall and you got a 12 foot ladder and I'm nearly six feet, you will let me be very clear. Five nine. So I'm not nearly six feet so. But, but, but again with that in mind, you start to get up to that top. My eyes are at 20 feet. That's a big deal. That is a big deal and it's a great place to make a lot of jokes. Sure. It, it is challenging every time, um, but again, it drives the point home for the audiences and you know, what, no other speakers doing that. So I have that uniqueness.
Aaron: You're safe, man. I love doing keynotes, but you're pretty much safe as far as that particular property owners. I'm not stealing their still something else from you, but it's not going to be the latter trick I promise. So we're talking about a bucket list life where we were all inexperienced or excuse and creating experiences. I love the concept and it's so important for so many reasons which, which we all touched on, but what's the, what is the next tier on that?
Kenyon Salo: Creating those experiences is the biggest part. And then it moves into sharing more stories, which is exactly what we're doing here. You see, we're more connected in life than ever, but we're also more disconnected than ever. Social media has really made us disconnected. Social media has made us, uh, where we see everything. We have a lot of Fomo or we're not hearing real stories or like, oh, I'm fully caught up with that person. I don't need to actually see them in person. I really believe that as we share stories and look, even social media is doing its very best to have that continue like instagram and the whole stories feature is amazing because it allows us to start to really deeply connect and when you get face to face with someone or at least pick up the phone and you have a conversation or even the ability through skype or facetime and you share those stories, you feel connected.
Kenyon Salo: It's an energy exchange. It's like when you sit next to somebody on an airplane and you say, hi, how are you? And then you go into conversation. Next thing you know, three hours goes by and you're still talking to that person. Pretty cool. You know them better than most people because you decided to have a deep conversation with them and I feel because of this energy exchange and the positivity around it, it's really so powerful. It makes us feel like great things have happened and are on top of it. Stories come from that, from the campfire days, from the, from way back in caveman days, and that's what they drew stories on the walls. They told stories over campfire. Eventually we told stories while you know, and we still do it, breaking bread and having meals together and those environments are also where wisdom is passed down or we share like let share something I know that may help you. And that's the power of stories. So stories is a key way to connect. And the stories, as I mentioned, a self is creating more experiences. Stories is about friends and family, creating friends and family relationships.
Aaron: Yeah. Um, can you ask such a brilliant point because I mean even if we look at, you mentioned social media these days and for, for anybody that store to it starts a business or even thinking about starting a business, one of the, one of the components of what they feel obligated to have to do is get on social media. You've got to be on facebook, on twitter, and even snapchat. Some people are starting to squeeze into it from a business front and instagram like you mentioned, but really if we pay attention to it just from. If we look at who's really doing well using these tools in their business, it's usually the ones that are engaging in just storytelling beyond, you know, putting up a motivational quote or and things like that, which I do myself and a lot of people connect with that. But really the most engagement happens is when you decide to have the video of.
Aaron: You look at a guy like a Gary Vaynerchuk from vayner media. He's. He's always cursing and he's real boisterous and stuff, but if you think about it, the reason people are willing to connect with him, even if it's someone who's not crazy about the language he uses or they think he's too loud, people will watch and connect and listen because he tends to. He allows people in two story like, oh, he'll film a whole interview that he's having with somebody that's engaged with him and his audience and they'll create a whole story about it. If there's a natural attraction to wanting to play out those things or think about, you brought a movies earlier and we love engaging in completely fictional story. My daughter, my daughter went to see, uh, the avengers movie Friday night, uh, with some friends and she came home, said she was crying. She's not even a big avengers fan, but she was crying because she was engaged with the storyline.
Aaron: And, and uh, I, I love that you bring that up as, as part of what we should be doing in our lives as, as like a permanent fixture sharing those stories. Uh, it's, it's extremely powerful on so many fronts because it does create a connection. It definitely creates a business connection for those that are, that like to listen to the show, to, to learn something, to help them engage in their business better. And certainly in our personal lives when we're willing, like you said, to share that conversation, even with somebody that's a total stranger on an airplane, a makes a huge, a huge difference. Was there, I got to ask this, was there a certain point when, or was there like a pivotal moment where you realize that storytelling or sharing stories with something that you really need to include as a pillar of what you teach from the stage? Uh, was there a moment that that happened? Or was it, or was it sort of a looking over your shoulder and seeing a collective, a pattern of things that had gone on in your life that made you realize how important that was?
Kenyon Salo: I would say both.
Aaron: I think what it comes down to is the fact that if you go to a coffee shop and you sit there and listen to the people that are connecting in a coffee shop, you will hear the different stories that they're sharing with their friend or their family member or even somebody if it's a business meeting. Stories are super, super key and it is that bond between two people. And then I definitely love the storyline of movies and to see this and the underdog and even Joseph Campbell talks about the hero's journey and that and how amazing that story line is of what makes that successful and to see how powerful stories are. What I realized is that audiences engage with stories. If you're being authentic and you're speaking from the heart and you can tell stories, and I was connecting with actually somebody is out to lunch yesterday with two individuals and we're having a great lunch and she asked how do you know what stories to tell an audience?
Aaron: And I said, first and foremost, it comes down to just being authentic in your storytelling and, and when you're authentic with your storytelling, then that's where it's super, super powerful. And on top of that it's like. It just depends on the moment. Sometimes the story needs to be super visual and exciting. Like I was in South Africa and a wild boar was chasing me and this didn't happen. But I was. And again, this is, this is the storyline and you're building that storyline and that Bubba and something super funny happened, or the storyline is that a more dramatic or more impactful. And again, if we think about the stories we're telling others and the stories we're telling ourselves, yeah, I often say to audiences, are the stories adventurous? Are they like a romantic comedy? Are they like a drama? Hopefully it's not like a horror movie. Right? What movie line is it? Is it a love story? What is the story you're sharing? And that's really how the audiences connect. And so I realized when I tell stories, the audience connects with me, they feel like I know him and if it's a story that's relatable to them, they think it's like he knows me. Yes. One of the coolest compliments to get after the speech.
Kenyon Salo: Yeah. I'm sure you've heard a million times. Yes. I love it every time. It's amazing.
Aaron: Yeah, it was pretty good. It's pretty great. It's pretty great experience to hear that. It's definitely in it. It's, it's proof itself, you know, to have somebody who was otherwise a total stranger come up to you and tell you how impactful it was when you told that story. So a, trust me, everyone, uh, take it from Kenya and he is a man who knows a live their lives include that storytelling into a regular part of your life. So what's, what is the, uh, let's get to this third of the bucket list life we went from creating experiences and sharing more stories. What's the third leg that we have?
Kenyon Salo: The third leg is living more fulfilled. It's the one thing and the main reason we're on this planet. We want to feel like we've lived a fulfilled life. And how does that happen? It happens by helping others. And you know, we had gone into a nursing home, a retirement home, a individuals 86 and above. So we had 86 to 96 years old. There were 10 of them in this house and we interviewed each of them and we ask them four questions. And the first question was, what is something you did when you were younger? And then what is something you're most proud of? And then the third was, what is something you wish you had done? And the fourth was, what is some advice you'd like to give to anybody younger than you? Now going into it, I thought that number three was going to be the powerful one.
Kenyon Salo: What is something you wish you had done? But that was different for each person. It was kind of across the board and powerful stuff, but it wasn't the common theme. Number two was the big one, which was what is something you're most proud of? And what it came down to was that every single person said the thing that they were most proud of in their life was not, oh, I saw this, I experienced this. I, I, you know, fell in love with this person, etc. Instead, it was when I gave back, whether it was when they volunteered, their time, their money, they shared something, they opened their house to somebody else. When they gave back, hey, remember that tIme, at the end of their years as the most important thing. And it was the same for every individual. So I started looking into this and I realized that the power is that when we help others first, and I said this earlier, that everything comes back tenfold, but it also is a physical thing that happens in the chemistry of our body, that the oxytocin is released, that cardio protective hormone is sent through our body, through the bloodstream, goes through the bloodstream, goes to the heart, makes you feel great and actually makes you feel healthy and more and you become more healthy because of this and that not only what you do something great for somebody or when you have somethIng that is done for you or if you watch or see something great being done for another individual.
Kenyon Salo: All three people feel the same way and have the same chemistry reaction. That's amazing to me.
Aaron: It is. It is. It really is. You have the power of giving is, is, is powerful. As you said, it doesn't even have to be you. I mean it goes back to having it right. Five people in your circle, man, you want to be around people that are, that have the same mindset and want to give and they want to contribute through their service or through a volunteer charitable thing that they're involved in whatever it is, because even having people around you that do that, um, you can reap the benefits of it even if it's in a moment that you're not actually engaged with it yourself. I was, when I, I mentioned early, I finished a book recently and one of those studies I talk about in here, I think it was at stanford and they did this study of coincidentally enough, a study of some elderly people and there was two groups.
Aaron: One group was volunteers. They are volunteering, volunteering their time and these charitable causes and the other group was not. They just know they're living their lives and enjoying themselves. Long story short, a five year extended lifespan amongst the group that we're givers compared to the non givers was the result of this study. People were actually, they were actually living longer or as the study said, less likely to reach mortality. A, and this is over course of years because they're engaged in giving, so your, your, your point to your point, man, it's at some research backed facts that you're talking about. There's the power of giving is, it's pretty amazing.
Kenyon Salo: It is, and you come from that place. You are authentic. I mean as I sit here on skype and I see and I see this background and for the listeners he's got this amazing, this huge canvas of him and his wife and his child and you could see that that that says love across it. Like in big red letters it says l o v e, and that's not just from the family side. My guess is that because you feel out that that word empathy, compassion, love, and that you're willing to put it on a big blown up canvas on your wall. You're, my guess is you live that way. True.
Aaron: It is. It is one of my core values, man. It definitely is. I, it is. I couldn't read. I couldn't not have it back there. It's funny because I thought about you don't have something more cool or no, nope. nope. That's the coolest thing you could have. the phasing was my 12 year old sophia and it's of course my wife kathy and a photo and I do. I love it. That was a, a happiest place on earth, man. It was disney dreams coming true. That's right. That's right. Uh, well listen man, I, I love it. Uh, just talk about giving. I gotta ask you this. What is the feedback that you get when you touch on these? Because these are the three main components. I'm sure he talked about many things in the long line of keynotes that you do, but these are the three main components of your presentation. Majority of the time. Is that true?
Kenyon Salo: So actually What's brilliant and maybe a little bit of luck that I stumbled upon it this way, the key, the key note was designed with these three things in mind as an inspiration, motivation, keynote. And then someone said, hey, can you do the same keynote and structure it towards customer service? And I was like, I can. And I realized that customer service, it's about experiences. It's about sharing stories with your customers and it's about helping customers first and then I realized I could do it for leadership, I can do it for sales, I can do it for team building, and we started looking into this and even recently someone challenged me. They said, look, there's a high suicide rate in my town, and they said, would your message work? And I said, look, I want to be very clear. I am not a suicide expert yet.
Kenyon Salo: At the same time, the people that are happiest are doing these three things. So what I realized, I said, look, I could be an addition to a type of presentation like that where I could explain how when we're creating experiences, we feel alive. We feel fired up when we're sharing stories, we feel connected. We have relationships with. When we're helping others, we feel more fulfilled and it's about community and when those three things are there, generally people start to see the light instead of the dark. And so it's amazing how much this presentation transcends across all forms, audiences, ages and demographics.
Aaron: Yeah, I love him, man. And that's one of the things I love about this, it is, so I love things that just work, but they don't just work in this corner of the world or in this particular situation. I love things that just work, which probably one of the biggest struggles I've had in business as a coach and as you know, when I, years ago when I started building this platform is what do I want to, you know, everybody was like, find your niche, you've got to niche it down and you've got to get just your little specialty and you can't talk about anything else because you got to get known as the expert in this thing. That was one of my biggest struggles because I'm a bit of a pragmatist. I mean, are you okay? I've been, I've been a police officer since 1995. I spent two decades just, you know, just the facts ma'am, so to speak.
Aaron: So I really, at my core, you know, even though I don't carry that identity around, which is kind of makes me the, you know, this, the things I do these days isn't exactly what everybody else in my industry is doing. So I Am. I've always been a bit of a, an outsider when it comes to that. But I am a bit of a pragmatist and then I like things that just make sense. Don't tell me it makes sense now, but it won't 10 minutes from here, it won't make sense if I drive around the corner for one, it won't make sense if I'm a salesman or won't make sense if I'm a ceo or leading a fortune 500 corporation. And I love this about what you do because these things, they are applicable regardless of where you are. And, and I think that speaks to authenticity because when you're really, when you're sharing a method, a message that's real and authentic, it's going to be real no matter who hears it.
Aaron: Assuming they're willing to listen. And I appreciate that about you and what it is you're doing and what you've, what you've built a quickly over these years. Um, I'd love to ask you this when it comes to obviously your got it knows communication very well and you've gotten a ton of feedback. I'm traveling all over the country and all over the world doing theSe key notes. If you had to give someone who is there working on their brand, whether that brand is in their nine to five and they're hoping to get promoted and move up the career ladder or whether that brand is there, a personal fitness trainer and a nutritionist, a nutritionist, and they just want to be able to connect with their people on a stronger, on, make stronger connections as they meet new potential clients and as they're serving their current clients. What are some of the things that you've learned about connectIng sincerely connecting with people that you can share with the people listening that they can get some tangible value out of it that you've seen consistently working for you?
Kenyon Salo: I would say think of a time in your life where you met someone and within 10 minutes you feel as if they're a brother from another mother, a sister from another mister. It's like, how have we not known each other like you are on believable. We're best friends now. Like add me on facebook. This is it I. And then you and then you realize that your lifelong friends. Yeah. My guess is the reason that happened is because both of you, not just one, but both of you were being authentic. You were being your true self. You didn't have walls up, you didn't have this idea of being perfect. You didn't have this, these, these preconceived notions that you have to act or be a certain way to fit into what you believed your environment is. You just said, this is who I am and if you think of a will, smith and the pursuit of happiness where he shows up in the meeting and he's wearing the paint tattered clothes.
Kenyon Salo: You know, and in that moment you realized he was authentically him and he got the job. So what does that say? You show up being you, and if they don't connect with you, they're not the people you need to be around because you need to be you and that's how you find your people and so what happens is you're in your environment and let's say you want to make a step up in your environment. Again, you authentically be you. Maybe some of those people come with you, maybe they don't, but you also fInd this next level of people and it's. There's a lot of power in that, so yeah, authenticity is the number one game and the one more thing I'll add is specially for speakers or if you're onstage, you must be speaking from a place of who you are when you're offstage. it's not about who you show up and how you show up on stage. It's how you show up offstage and when those two are mirror images of each other, people will connect with you because they say he lives what he speaks.
Aaron: Yeah, man, I could not have. If you gave me a week, I couldn't have said that better myself. Honestly, because it is so true. I've seen it happen over and over again, unfortunately I've seen it play out the other way when people don't, when they try to put on a, you know, a false persona or try to act a certain way and they get robotic about it and I get it, you know, a lot of times when it's new for people they're not used to being, they're not used to speaking or they're not used to having a sales conversation or they're not used to getting on stage or on a podcast or doing a show it can feel uncomfortable. So I'm not speaking to that when it feels awkward just because it's, you know, riding a bike for the first time, but, but when the intention is to just look, I'm just, I'm just going to be me and just have this conversation and offer what I have to share.
Aaron: And like you said, be the same guy or the same gal onstage and offstage. People noticed that and not only do they notice it, they appreciate it and it makes you stand out. it really does. When we started this conversation today, one of the things I told about you is, you know, I, I love the fact that you're actually, you're actually this dude that can put James Bond and the title of his thing and it's not bs, it's like it's, it's real, it's, it's the kind of life you live in it and it and it's what you're about and it fits. It's not like you're trying to put on this thing on or off and you know, I've been lucky enough to talk with you on the phone and here on this interview and I see you on stage and I can tell everyone listening. It's the same guy. I mean it's, it's, it's, you can hear it in the voice. You can see in the presentation the body language. It's the same dude every single time regardless of where you see a kenyan say though, and you know, I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful to know somebody as another person like that because it speaks highly of you.
Kenyon Salo: Thank you. thank you. I appreciate it. This has been super fun.
Aaron: Yeah, definitely. Well listen, I want to, I want to ask you this, um, before we wind it up today, I got to use this. There's got to be something I'm curious to know from a guy that is the James Bond of public speaking and enhance this, this amazing mission of, of helping people live their life to the fullest and create these experiences, tell more stories and, and, and be more giving in their own life. What do you, what's the next evolution evolution for you? I mean, you got a lot crossed off the list. What is your, what is your list look like now that has yet to be completed? I think people would love to hear that.
Kenyon Salo: The next evolution that is starting to show up for me is this transfer of experiences and teaching of knowledge and helping really into my kids and my kids are 12 and 14 now and I start to think of the, you know, like hey, they're about to learn how to scuba dive later in the fall and they have all these experiences and traveling in international travel and they've done that. But also some of the crazy international travel where it's like, hey, let's just go there and we have no plans. We'll just go let we feel like going left or we'll go right if we feel like going right and a lot of the experiences I've had in my life and being able to share that with them and additionally sharing the knowledge that I've gained through speaking the speaking industry, teaching others personal development and then passing that on to others.
Kenyon Salo: So that's from the business standpoint where that start to, that starting to show up now where I want to pass on that knowledge and be able to give that and create systems and models that will help others along the way. So when people reach out, they say, how do I become a better speaker? How do I grow my business? that's great. Or how do I get unstuck from this particular point in my life? I want to help others along the way. So I, I celebrate and anybody that's listening right now, if you want to reach out to me, I mean find me on facebook. Kenyan say low and connect with me. I want to help others so when people reach out and help them in some way, and that's how you and I connected you reached out and I was like, boom, here we are and we're impacting your audience members to.
Aaron: I love it, man. Nothing better than creating new experiences with your kids and, and creating new stories until traveling the world. And I love. I love to hear that. You know, you're getting involved in sharing more and wanting to coach other people and help them do more of what it is they want to do in their own, their own business, their life, their speaking career, whatever it is that, that is a, that's a pretty awesome thing. Definitely an awesome thing. So what I'd love to do is, is tell people what's the, what's the easiest way, the best way to get ahold of you? So many like, you know, I need to talk to this guy some more and maybe want to take him up on some, on a coaching offer and do more of what it is he teaches people to do. How can they connect with you? What's the best way to get to you
Kenyon Salo: at either facebook or linkedin? And I'm an easy guy to find a kenyan sailor. There's only two of us that I know. It's higher world and I'm the only one that, that you know, that you'll see it on, on social media. So just you can google my name. Kenyan, say low. Uh, you can find me on facebook. The link will be right there on the, on the front page of google. So connect with me there. Send me a message and uh, we'll just open it up. And, and really as I mentioned before, all you have to do is say yes and figure out the how. So I don't know how I'm going to help an individual or that person might not know how that I can help them. but if you're like, hey, something resonates with me here. If you feel that it resonates, reach out. We'll go from there and we'll see what it is.
Aaron: Beautiful man. I appreciate it. And to everybody listening, I really need to spell out how important this message is that kenny hands today. Because if honestly, if, if I were going to try to encapsulate what's the best business advice and connection and vice exactly what he's talking about, which is which is being authentic, one of the worst mistakes you can make is to be inauthentic about who you are. Don't apologize. Whatever your personalities, your what your values are, as long as you're living what's important to you. When you're sharing your message and you're and you're growing your business or you're trying to grow within your organization or your or your being who you are, even with your family relationships, you've got to be authentic and be willing to connect with people from, from your gut, from the person you really are. So thank you caitlin, for sharing your stories. I know about you. Have everybody listening. If you go to aaron, keith hawkins.com, type in the word a type in kenyan into the search bar. It's on the top of the screen. K e n y o n I'm one of the coolest names, if not the coolest name I've ever heard it. Where's it from kenyon?
Kenyon Salo: My dad's name was ken. Rick. They wanted something similar, but at junior, so it was a baby book, you know, it's, it's so simple. It's just the baby book name. But uh, yeah, it's, it's awesome. It works well.
Aaron: Yeah, definitely, definitely an advantage with that name. But yeah, typing Kenyon into a search bar, you get the link to this episode and I'll make sure I have every link I can find to make sure you can hook up with him, um, or just go to KenyonSalo.com and find him there. Please make sure you thank them for spending this time with us today. Kenyon. Before we run, I just got to say thank you for being one of those, one of those guys that I'm happy, one of the people that I'm happy to have in my circle of influence in this network. I love what you're doing. I really do, because if more people will take the lessons that you're teaching and actually adopt them and implement them, man, the world's a better place. So keep crushing it. Keep doing what you're doing and I can't wait to talk to you again soon. We'll definitely keep in touch, my friend. Thanks Aaron. Appreciate it. All right, buddy. We'll talk soon.