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"A LOT with Audra" is the podcast for women juggling big dreams and full lives. Each episode, host, Audra Dinell, Midwestern wife, mom and neurodivergent multi-six figure entrepreneur encourages women to embrace their many roles holistically by living a values-based life with confidence and joy. Through candid discussions, practical strategies and inspiring stories, this podcast is your guide to designing and achieving success without losing yourself in the process.
Ep76
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[00:00:00]
[00:01:00]
Meet Alex Kuhn
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Audra Dinell: Today I'm talking with Alex Kuhn, founder of Born Leaders, about a very specific kind of second act, the moment when the person you thought you wanted to become starts to shift because life gives you something different. For Alex, that shift came a couple of times in his life, one being fatherhood.
Today we're talking about ambition, identity, legacy, and what happens when success stops being about proving yourself and starts becoming about something more. Alex is the founder of Born Leaders, currently rebranding to All In Worldwide. A former college swim coach, Alex is known for helping entrepreneurs, experts, and leaders build powerful personal brands, partnerships, and businesses that create greater freedom, influence, and growth.
He has worked with hundreds [00:02:00] of clients to generate millions of dollars in revenue, spoken on stages around the world to audiences of over 10,000 people, and reached more than 150,000 people weekly through his social media, live events, and email channels. Alex's mission is simple: help good people go all in on themselves and build a brand and a life that is aligned, impactful, and impossible to ignore.
Even if you're not a father or a mother, I know you're gonna get so much from this episode. Thank you for listening, and enjoy the conversation. okay. Well, welcome to the podcast, Alex. I'm so excited to have you
Alex Kuhn: Audra, I'm really excited to be here. So I just, I think you know this, I adore you. I adore what you're doing. I adore where you're going. So just I appreciate you sh- letting me share this world with you
Audra Dinell: Well, same.
Fatherhood And Second Acts
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Audra Dinell: It's been a joy and much fun and creativity to work with you the last handful of months, and to get to hear this part of [00:03:00] your story, I'm really honored, especially because as this podcast is going to be released, it's gonna be Father's Day week, and I know a lot of dads are really gonna resonate with what you have to say.
All In with Alex: I'm glad you gave me a chance to talk to dads. I know there's more conversations happening, but I do think that there is this underlying need to hear that you don't have to have everything figured out as a dad or before being a dad to be a great dad, and
I do think that a lot of men struggle with that,
before they become dads and after they become dads.
So hopefully I can share some light that even though
on the surface my life looks great or things look wonderful, I'm telling you deep inside I have a lot of the same fears, vulnerabilities, and doubts like so many dads out there. So I hope it serves that one dad who's hearing this or even hopefully more than that
Audra Dinell: I know it well. I really know it well.
Early Ambition And Swimming
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Audra Dinell: we're talking about second acts in this season of the podcast. When you look back at your earlier life journey, what did you think you wanted to become [00:04:00] in the world, and what did success look like in your mind?
All In with Alex: Yeah. When I think about my life's journey and kinda looking back, when I was a six-year-old, I was that kid that, unlike a lot of people where they were listening to audio tapes, by the way, audio tapes, not CDs, of like MC Hammer, I was listening to audio tapes of Les Brown and Tony Robbins, and going to Amway events with my parents and listening to these speakers on stage just commanding a room.
And as a six-year-old or a seven-year-old, I didn't know what that meant, I just knew that that person was powerful. That person was somebody people respected and admired. And so I said, "That's what I wanna do."
Had no idea what it was, I just knew that's what I wanted to do.
And as I kind of fast-forward through like my youth, like athletics was always a big thing for me, swimming became my passion,
to make the Olympics became my drive,
I left home early at 12 and like just really pursued it tremendously, to the point where my last swim meet, I always tell people my [00:05:00] last swim meet
with the hope of making Olympic trials and nationals and stuff like that, I had my worst swim meet ever.
Ever. Like, like the most depressing moment, spiraled me for months and months. And I always tell people that was an inflection point in my life where I had opportunities to work with Nike and some other bigger organizations in their management training company, making a good salary.
But instead I followed the pursuit of a $20,000 per year assistant swim coaching position in Iowa, which I had never visited, never been to. But I always tell people that was an inflection point for many things. Number one, it's where obviously I grew a lot of my coaching chops and my ability to lead people, especially the type of athletes I was working with, where they weren't on scholarship, so I had to drive them by motivation and love and passion and joy, as opposed to I'm paying you so you have to swim for me.
And the second thing, it kinda taught me how to build programs and stuff.
Chasing Legacy And Empire
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All In with Alex: I always tell people like as I [00:06:00] kind of went through that coaching world, as I even went, gone into the entrepreneur at 30, the thing that I wanna tell dads is is that I was so driven by success. I was so driven by winning. I was so driven by whether it was a dollar in the business or winning a championship as a swim coach or whatever it was,
I worked my butt off.
I
worked
dang hard
I couldn't imagine literally having a family. I couldn't imagine being a dad, because
the best dad
And growing up,
best mom. Like, I did not come from a broken family. When I say I left home, I left home because my parents said, "You want this and you have a dream, you go for it, and we will do everything we can, and you do everything you can," which is what I hope I teach my kids as well, as I have a seven and four-year-old today.
But what I was doing is like, how am I gonna be a great dad? money-wise, I didn't have a lot of money at the time.
Time-wise, I didn't have the time. How was I even gonna be [00:07:00] able to show up?
so there was this moment as I kind of moved forward there where I was like, "You know what? I am gonna be a legacy builder."
I think a lot of men can relate to this. A lot of the idea is, like, I wanna leave something better behind me. I wanna build an empire. I wanna do these things.
I was building it, I just
never thought that,
one, truthfully, a woman could actually
wanna be with a guy who was working at that level there, 'cause most of the dating I was going through at that point were like,
"Alex, I need time with you.
Alex, I need time with you." They're like, "I'm building something. I'm building something. i'm building something there." And I thought I had to change me. So the... Fast-forward, and we can go
more into depth, Audra, if this is where you wanna be, but, you know, today I obviously have a seven and four-year-old.
I'm able to show up for them in a way that my dad showed up for me. I'm building my empire. I have a tremendously, very successful business.
a wife who actually understands the crazy
I am, the crazy person [00:08:00] I am.
and so I think that, like, the second act of life was understanding that it's not the question of or,
should I have this or that,
but how do I fit the word and?
How can I have this and that? Because I wouldn't give it up for anything, wouldn't give it up for a single thing in the entire world.
anybody out there who says you can't have it all, I just kinda call BS,
and that's kind of where I stand. And so I hope people kinda take this and I can tell you where a lot of the shifts happened, but it was hard
to get there, for sure
From Or To And
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Audra Dinell: You know, what I wanna pin for a minute is that movement from the or to the and because I think we often get caught in this binary way of thinking, included. I can be this or that. I can have this or that. The answer is one or the other, in this season of life, for me, I'm finding the and lane is lane where I'm finding [00:09:00] my answers. It's that middle lane. It's that third choice. So I think that's a really important point is to help us be aware of when we're thinking in that binary way. When did that change for you? was that shift for you when you started to, like, even just open the lid on considering my life as this driven, ambitious human being can have more than just this type of success, career success, financial success
All In with Alex: It was the moment, and I think it's the most important moment, when you are not your title but your name. And what I mean by that, is that a lot of times when somebody says, "Tell me about yourself," almost everybody says, "Well, I am a senior marketing director at so-and-so company," or, "I am such and such."
We describe it [00:10:00] with the association, and typically the association of our professional work And the, every time we do that, every time I did it, I am a college swim coach of this, I am a entrepreneur of that, what I think we do is we instill this value that we are only something with the title. We are only this with that.
And that's one of the reasons why I think we go, "It's either this or that." When we actually decide to own our name, whether it's Audra, whether it's Alex, whether it's the guy behind the screen Brian there, what we end up doing is we have to actually decide what we are. And when we start we, you'll notice you'll start to use the word and.
Well, I am a dad,
and I'm a business owner, and I am a husband, and I am an athlete. Like, these are the things I describe myself as. When I kinda look back, and
kinda can see this from [00:11:00] behind
world now as, like, that's kinda, like, the new thing,
Fired And Identity Collapse
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All In with Alex: but it wasn't the moment until I actually got fired.
I took the swim coaching job.
I left it 'cause I was like, "I'm not gonna get to where I want to build this empire," et cetera.
I moved back to Pittsburgh because it's a lot cheaper than California. For those of you that live in California, like, bless you for dealing with all those taxes.
I took this job to kind of bide my time, and I built this department.
We were making more money than ever. I put a lot of work into it, the team, and all this type of stuff.
And truthfully be told, one day the CEO
into a meeting with me. He said, "Hey, you're making our department too much money. Your commission's too high. We're gonna cut it."
And instead of,
you probably know this about me, instead of me being like, "That's fine, I'm understanding," I just literally laid into the CEO and said that is just,
like, what's my motivation now?
What's my why? What are all these types of things?
And then strangely, a month later I got fired and let go because something was wrong with how I was running the department. Always the [00:12:00] same thing. But it was in that moment that a lot of things happened,
Audra. The person who I thought I was going to marry,
the person who I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with,
left me two months later because I couldn't figure out my life.
The thing where I had moved away from a career, that in college I was, one of the fastest rising coaches in the country there, I was now an unemployed, fired territory manager of an aquatic company. I was nothing.
I would literally sit on the sofa of my sister's apartment, and I would eat bananas and popsicles because I was so depressed.
She always even tells my wife, like, "If he's eating bananas and popsicles, go see what's wrong with him."
What's the, the vibe?
are the flags,
like, you know, saying what's wrong. So I think that a lot of times you kind of have to hit a little bit of a rock bottom or despair to kind of figure out you.
And I wish I didn't have to do that, but for some of us, we have to. Some of us, it's like we're just moving and we just don't see it there.[00:13:00]
So I wish I had the introspect to go, "Oh my gosh, I have to figure this on my own," but no, like tragedy kind of hit me there. And not in any awful tragedy, but the tragedy of identity.
And the tragedy of identity made me say, "Okay, I've only am Alex.
What is Alex?
know who he is.
What is he about?
What's his vibe? What's his goals? What's his stuff?"
That was the moment I had to make all these decisions there. So obviously looking back, it's a wonderful story, and obviously on this side of it, but,
you know, I do think that all of us have to go through that identity tragedy or some sort of identity resurrection, if you will, to figure out
why we are our name only,
and that's okay
Audra Dinell: Yeah.
Climbing Out Of Rock Bottom
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Audra Dinell: Oh, I think that's so powerful and relatable, and I'm curious, what was your first shift out of that moment when you'd lost the person and the identity that you thought you were gonna have, and had, you know, your time where you were at rock bottom, you were feeling [00:14:00] depressed. What was the first step of the climb out of that?
Was it throwing all the bananas away?
All In with Alex: I wish. I still love bananas, so I would just buy a bunch of popsicles for our kids. But no, I... And I... It kind of is truth, though. I think the first thing for everybody is you have to act before you believe.
Audra Dinell: Yeah.
All In with Alex: I believe...
Audra Dinell: believe in that
All In with Alex: I'm a behavior guy. I'm a behavior modification person, and I mean the sense of you have to do before you see.
Faith to me is not just about talking about God. It's the faith in yourself to know that the more I do good for myself, no matter what I can't see, the better things will come, even if I don't know what that ultimately looks like. Because there's no way, Audra, I could have told you I'm gonna be here today at that moment.
There was no freaking way. So I went back to the thing that made me feel good. I worked out. I just said, "I am going to commit to waking [00:15:00] up at 5:00 AM, and I'm gonna do 90 minutes of exercise that's going to make me lying on my back exhausted, sweaty, and probably is gonna kill the next hour of any sort of ability for me to do anything else."
And I said, "I'm just gonna get great at one thing and own one behavior." I just can't... It's so often that... And, and I think this happens especially in the business world, Audra, where somebody looks like they have it all figured out.
All they have figured out is a bunch of past experiences that they believe will help you in the future,
but that's not a guarantee of anything.
What I believe the guarantee of anything is simply is, like, can you show up for yourself and do something
so well
just continue to do it well,
and trust that something good will happen from it?
I... Business,
I'm a
fan of just changing your physicality in any way, whether... And I do think it changes your mind, I think it changes your emotion, I think it changes your heart.
And what I [00:16:00] think the most important thing to do, and this is a shout-out to Gwen 'cause I was just talking to her yesterday, as a client,
it makes you realize that the trust isn't in others, the trust is in yourself and the reliance in yourself. So when you face shit down the road,
you're gonna be able to handle it and be much stronger for that.
So to me, the first step for anybody, it's how do you take care of your body? That's the first thing that you do.
Self Trust And The Messy Middle
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Audra Dinell: I just did a talk yesterday and talked about self-trust and the way that I think we misunderstand it sometimes as if I trust myself, I have all the right answers, I know it's gonna work out, I am confident that I am right. That I think is a misunderstanding.
Self trust is the ability to stay with yourself and not abandon yourself in the highs and the lows, but especially the lows, especially when you're taking some sort of risk to say, right, I am at a low point. I don't know what my [00:17:00] life is gonna look like in one year, but I'm gonna trust that this is the next right step for me for reasons that I cannot necessarily even explain.
But I just, I trust myself that I know what I'm doing with myself."
All In with Alex: Yeah. Because we all hear sometimes you have to go get help. And Audra, even as I know of you, right, I mean, I think a lot, I mean, isn't it fair? I know for you, and I know you're questioning me, but I feel like you're the person I want you to hear from, is, like, the steps I know you're taking, and it's a lot of it's trusting yourself.
Like, you're kind of going through that. I know that. So, how do you know to trust yourself even in this moment? I'm, curious, 'cause I would love to hear it
Audra Dinell: Yeah. I think Brian and I were talking about this right before we started recording. There's always gonna be a little bit of a mess. So for me, when I get clarity and conviction, body feels it, and I'm excited, and I'm unstoppable. [00:18:00] And then there's gonna be a mess down the road where I'm not feeling that same way. And to be able to sit in that mess and have patience, and for me, it's becoming really grounded in who I am in my body, in my mind, and trusting that the answers will come, and man, I wanna force it. I want to be on my timeline. I don't wanna be on an unknown timeline. But I think knowing that there's always gonna be that messy middle, whether it be a project or a relationship or a goal, all gonna hit that point where it's not fully clear, and we do still have to take steps forward, and sometimes they are gonna be steps that are fruitful, and sometimes they're gonna be steps that don't lead anywhere, and maybe we even need to backtrack a little bit.
But it's like we have to be patient in that mess and still move [00:19:00] forward and still try and ask ourselves better and better questions
Redefining Ambition Today
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Audra Dinell: Okay, so tell me what, what does ambition look like for you now?
All In with Alex: Yeah. The first word, and it's probably the word most people don't use, is selfish before vision.
I And Andre, you probably know this better than anybody, but I actually think as we get older and older and older, and especially this is for, you know, I know this is coming out on Father's Day, so the dads out there, this is the scary part.
So there's a scary part, right? Like, before you become a dad or before you meet the love of your life and talk about families and stuff, I think there's this part that you feel like we have to be all ready to be a dad. Like, we have to have everything figured out, the time, the job, the career,
The family, all that stuff, the values.
Like, and, and truthfully, it's not an excuse. It's just
what I think we've been trained to do
a lot of times from our dads. It's that you're the provider. You're a lot of these areas [00:20:00] there, and when you feel like you're struggling to provide for yourself, else, like you go to yourself, "How could I actually be a dad?
How could I actually serve others?" I do think one of the things that is a misnomer is that when you start to have a family, that you can't be selfish.
the truth is, is for most people is, is that when you're selfish, a lot of times your vision is not about just simply what I want only for myself, but what I want for myself and the people that I love the most in my world.
Family Vision Weekly Rituals
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All In with Alex: So for me, when I actually sit down... So we do this as a family every week. So downstairs in our dining room, I'm not sure my wife loves it, but we've got one of those big sticky, and every one of our family members actually has one.
have their own sticky pad, and they have their own tracking system.
And so when we talk about selfish vision, we don't talk about it as, like, where we wanna be at 65 or 95 or everything. We have four main boxes that I think are really important.
is,
[00:21:00] for me, obviously, it's income impact. That's my business side.
Another box is the reputation. What do I wanna be known for professionally?
But the bottom two are
I think, more lifestyle oriented, more boundaries oriented. The third one is transition. Like, what do I want
my days to days to look like?
Family Vision Sync
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All In with Alex: And last is lifestyle.
you start to realize is that as I'm filling out my selfish vision, I wanna ask my wife, "Hey, how does this fit with your selfish vision?"
And my son and my daughter, right? So my daughter's selfish vision is she wants to eat her dinners. My son's selfish vision, he wants to be a great wrestler. So my wife's selfish vision right now is she wants to go to see her best friend's,
come to life, right? So
it's just like
we start, you start to realize it's like you can put all this together because when you start to be selfish and you share it with people you love and what their selfish is, you realize you're not the only one trying to get your vision to come to life.
You have this great group of people around you that are doing just the same [00:22:00] because people that help you serve your dreams, you're more likely to help serve their dreams. So that's how I always think about it, is that vision is not truly selfish at its core, but it's got there because it'll make you realize who you need to have help from and where you want to help others, especially for those that you love.
Team Family Mindset
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Audra Dinell: Well, and I love this thought of family as a team. My husband and I have come across that concept in the past handful of years and started to reference that. You know, we're a team, Team Danell, if we're able to be really vulnerable and honest with ourselves and talk about what, like, we want if we were the only people, on the team, that's the start of helping one another to be those people.
All In with Alex: Yeah
Audra Dinell: they don't work together, but oftentimes you can find a way for them to work together.
All In with Alex: Yeah
Audra Dinell: just talking about this the other night as my oldest is getting into a competitive sport, and you and [00:23:00] I have talked about this. It's so fun as parents to have the dreams that we're actively pursuing for ourselves, and then to watch our kids start doing the same.
All In with Alex: And
Audra Dinell: sort of like the rising tides mentality of like, oh man, this is so fun to out here in the arena doing our thing and allowing our kids to watch it, right? The highs, the lows, the sacrifices, the rewards, but then to have them start doing it, too, it just creates this beautiful momentum.
So I love that as a dad, your ambition has moved to that sounds like is stronger than ever and includes the whole family and their own visions for themselves
All In with Alex: Yeah.
Kids Follow Actions
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All In with Alex: I mean, you know, one of those, I don't know who said this to me, so I don't wanna take credit for it. Somebody... I was in a room with a bunch of, incredible business owners, [00:24:00] and, you know, a lot of the conversation, it's so funny, is that people think, oh, you go to these business mentorships, these big masterminds, and you think you're talking about business.
Like, very little business is talking about. It's, like, how to be a better dad, how to be a better husband, how to be a better wife, how to, not stress out about everything. Like, there's a lot of this. It's like this kind of internal wound-healing moment for a lot of us. And I remember one of the dads said to me he came from a broken home.
He, I just remember this. He... I can't think of his name now, but he came from a broken home. Like, dad was an alcoholic. His mother was, on drugs. It just was not a good environment. And so his whole thing was that whoever I follow is what I will do.
So when he decided to be a dad, and of course when he became a dad, he would say,
"It's not just what I say to them, it's what I do.
That's what they're gonna follow." So as a kid, I didn't follow my parents. I didn't wanna follow them. But my kids, most kids follow their parents. It's like, what are they like?
What are they doing? So if I am,
to me, in some [00:25:00] ways, if I'm a dad and my wife is a,
their mom and we're not doing anything but just constantly sacrificing and constantly sacrificing and constantly sacrificing, we are teaching them to simply,
a parent, you're done.
Like, forget what you want.
It's all about your kids.
And I think Your kids want you to succeed. My son's favorite memory he says, is still watching his mom finish the half-marathon, him running up and giving her a hug because she was so fast. Like, those are the things that your kids will remember.
And so I think it's important that you said it's like we're gonna go celebrate my son's wrestling tournament, my daughter's softball. We will be there. We also want the kids to be at my wife's running races and my crazy OCR races because we want them to see, like, it's a supportive group. So I kinda love Team Danelle.
Like, I'm on Team Danelle. I love that, by the way, so
Audra Dinell: thank you. You can be our coach
All In with Alex: Done. Done. Happy to do so
Selfish Parenting Reframe
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Audra Dinell: I think you just offered a really valuable reframe or perspective shift for the listeners. we have been modeled or [00:26:00] culture has sold us this idea that to be a parent is the ultimate sacrifice, and our children's desires or needs or wants come first no matter what, like needs, yes, for sure, but the reframe you offered is that parenthood does not have to be all sacrifice. It can be selfish and sacrifice, and the gift of that is we're modeling what it takes to go after our own dreams.
All In with Alex: Hmm
Audra Dinell: And I know every parent wants their kids to wildly chase their own dreams, but when we're sacrificing, when we're only sacrificing for them to do that and not being a role model in doing that, it's gonna be harder for them to go for it
All In with Alex: Isn't it? I mean, [00:27:00] it's hard for us as adults. I mean, there's so many people I talk to, and I'm sure you talk to every day, Audra. It's like, "Oh, running your own business is risky. Oh, I can't leave my job. Oh, I can't do this because of this." I mean, every time you say no to something like that and you go to your kids, say, "Follow your dream.
Go after what you want."
these kids, and Anjali, I'm sure, I know your kids are, I know my kids are, they are smart.
They are intuitive. They see it. And so what am I gonna follow? Am I gonna follow his words? Am I gonna follow his actions? And I think we all know the leaders we love and admire, right?
Whether you even, if you look on social media, whether you see those leaders on stages or they're doing these crazy athletic adventures or whatever they're speaking of, it's their actions, right? Their actions are what we admire. It's what they do that we appreciate. That to me is that part where this is not about quitting your job.
It's about, hey, if you wanna build a business, and that's your goal and dream, that's all [00:28:00] you want,
why not take that hour every night and show your kids you're working on your dream? work on it there? Because I do think at the end of the day, I mean, our happiness is such a paramount piece and core p- value that the kids want to instill, and I think there's no greater
fulfillment than chasing something that's important to you
Audra Dinell: I'm so excited about that reframe.
Juggling Without Perfection
---
Audra Dinell: I'm gonna ask you a question that all women get asked. Being an entrepreneur and a father, how do you juggle it all? How do you show up for your business and focus on its growth and stay grounded and present and available to your at home?
All In with Alex: The first permission is to understand that you are not going to be able to do it every day
I have so many women in my world from a coaching and working perspective. And the thing that, you know, for whatever reason, there are so many moms, they feel like they have to do it [00:29:00] all perfectly every single day, and some days that's just not possible.
You can't be a juggler and perfectly juggle because at some point you're going to just drop it for whatever reason, one of the balls, and that's okay.
Mistakes are okay.
So when I think about the world I have right now and where it's working great and where it's working well,
there's a lot of pieces, and I'm saying this vulnerably.
There's a lot of pieces are working amazing in my life.
the brand and business is growing like I want it to.
I'm, I feel like I'm showing up for my kids every single day, showing up for my wife.
showing up for their sporting events.
a hunk of meat over here. I'm on a great eating nutrition plan.
saying I have my 64-ounce green shake. So
there's a lot of pieces that go well.
then I also tell everybody there, like full transparency, I'm having these lonely moments. Like, I don't really have the type of social life I want,
if you [00:30:00] really ask me. I have not been able to do s- like usually in the summers I'm golfing a little bit more and joining a league.
I just not had the ability to do that as much as I would like.
Boundaries And Seasons
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All In with Alex: So I do think that there are these points where sometimes you have to just understand, like there is a limit to you and there is a focus to you,
but you can't do everything all at once.
And so what I always try to tell everybody is that there is a time where something has to be more of the lean, but it doesn't mean that you can't come back to the other thing.
So right now, my lean is really the three core pieces for me, which is my athletic career, being healthy and fit,
kids and showing up for their sporting events, Those are my three pillars. So every day those things happen. It means that I'm very regimented,
color-coded, but also very diligent about boundaries.
And I know we've heard that word boundaries a lot.
So I wanna say something for every single... It could be women,
when [00:31:00] we hear boundaries,
boundaries is giving yourself permission to dump what doesn't serve you. The greatest thing I tell everybody is you should never be adding to your life. You should be dumping from your life.
Get rid of the meetings that don't matter.
Get rid of the people that are not serving you. Move the things that are not giving you what you need
for you, your loved ones, your kids, yourself, because we do need that space.
But we are so trained that time is the most valuable asset,
That we are trained to fill that time up to be busy.
And if you're saying, "I'm busy",
but not living the life you want-
Then it's doesn't matter how busy you are. So
that kind of hopefully was a long answer, but my biggest thing, and I know
Audra, we probably talked about this behind the scenes,
but I really hope somebody understands that, like, you can change a lot very quickly,
but you also have to understand this might not be a season for certain things either [00:32:00]
Audra Dinell: I think you said the word that I lean towards when I'm thinking about this, is season. Everything is a season, and seasons look different. We can look at nature. in the Midwest is very different than summer.
All In with Alex: Right
Audra Dinell: So embracing the season you're in, if it's a season where there's momentum in your business and your foot's on the gas, then you get to go. Embracing just that agency of, like, you get to go. You're gonna put boundaries up with hobbies that fill you up but are not supporting your goal in this season.
All In with Alex: Mm-hmm.
Audra Dinell: So I think that framework really works for me when I think about, what season
All In with Alex: Yeah
Audra Dinell: in? Last summer we did this whole podcast. I got to stay home with my kids most of the summer. really lightened my workload.
It was a beautiful summer, and man, I kinda wish I was back there. But this summer's different because I'm getting traction in different areas of my business, and that lights me up and makes me so excited. The [00:33:00] first couple weeks of summer I've been head down working on a project, and my kids have been right there alongside me.
They have celebrated me, and I just honestly feel like we're more connected than ever because they saw me working on something with my all and working hard, and then when I had breaks, I was focused and present with them.
All In with Alex: Mm-hmm.
Audra Dinell: it's just really been a beautiful season, even though it was very different last summer when we were at the pool a lot, and my tan was better
All In with Alex: Uh, Yeah.
Seasonal Business Shutdowns
---
All In with Alex: I, I think seasons are so vital, and I also think for the business owners that are listening to this is, I will tell you some... a couple things I've done, and this is just something where we talk about, what's selfish visions for you and what seasons there are. But maybe this will serve some people that are in the business owner space who are thinking about it there.
So a couple things that we've done from a seasonal perspective, right, is number one,
shut the business down four weeks a year.
I shut it down for myself, I shut it [00:34:00] down for my team,
and that's usually a time I also get to give my clients permission to shut their businesses down, right? So we do it around the 4th of July,
so we'll take off a couple times,
around that time,
we shut it down for Christmas.
Because those are, like, one of my favorite moments with my kids,
like watching them watch the fireworks, watching them open up Santa's presents. Those are, like, my greatest moments as a dad.
what we think a lot of times is, like, you can't shut things down, and the question is is, like, why?
can't you do something?
going back to even that and knowing what season you're in, I actually think one of the most fascinating things is that when you actually tell people you're doing something that's so outside the box of what most people do, they almost give themselves permission to do the exact same thing,
not the person who has the idea, it's the person who acts on the idea.
And I think when you said that, Audra, is that it's a season of being with my kids more, it's a season of this. It's that we are not just giving ourselves permission. People around [00:35:00] us are going, "Well, why can't I do that?" And I think that truly is the part of impact I think most of us tend to not see as much as we should
Audra Dinell: I agree, and I've seen that play out truly in my own life with what we've talked about on the podcast.
I've had listeners come up and share how that has shifted their perspectives of what's available to them. So I do just think there is power in not only about an idea, but seeing someone practice it messily in real life. Alex, thank you so much for this conversation today. What final parting words would you wanna share with our listeners?
Fight For Yourself
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All In with Alex: I'm gonna keep it simple and straightforward, but one of the things that I... And honestly, this is not just for the men, this is for everybody, women and men children. You know, if we have an eight-year-old listening to this episode my dad, when we were little at a swim meet, they were struggling to finish this swim meet.
struggling to finish this swim meet.
And they said we needed a timer for a [00:36:00] lane, and no adults were
hand to come take this timing slot. And I asked my dad, "Can I do this? Can I go in and time?" I thought it'd be cool as an eight-year-old, and he said sure. So I ran up there to take the timer, and they're like, "Sure."
So there's me, eight-year-old, timing these races so we can keep this meet going, 'cause I know probably all the parents are like, "Let's get out of it."
And then eventually an official came over and they pulled me, said like, "Hey, you can't time anymore," because some parents in the stand thought I was clearly a kid, I clearly couldn't do it, and clearly I was probably cheating for my team, et cetera there.
And I remember crying to my dad. Like, I was like, "I don't understand it,
it's not." And I remember my dad, my dad is a gentle giant.
knows this. He's the guy who's the farmer. He shakes your hand, and then you feel like you're gonna break it, but he's too kind.
He walked up there, and I've never seen him make a man look as fearful as that ref did, and he says,
"Why would you ever [00:37:00] dare take somebody who's doing a great job off of the timing thing?"
the official said something, and my dad said, "I don't care. Then tell those effing parents to do it themselves."
I remember my dad looked at me and He says,
life, somebody's gonna tell you you can't do something,
shouldn't do something, or tell you to freaking run away. Instead of you crying, you've got to fight.
got to fight for who you are,
where you wanna be, and where you wanna go."
And I know so many of you
are gonna hear this and think, "Well, that's a nice story,"
telling you it still holds true as much today as it did to me as that six or eight-year-old back then. Fight for yourself.
Do it through the tears.
it through the moments where people say they doubt you,
and truly, truly go all in. And Audra,
you know I love you. It's just a pleasure to be here.
Where To Find Alex
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All In with Alex: Everyone go to allinwithalex.com. [00:38:00] If you are the face of your business, I am your man. I am obsessed with the person who says, "I'm willing to put my name out there
make an impact, to make a difference, and to prove that what
have
just as myself
reason I can succeed in building an incredible brand,
an impact."
tell everybody to this day and age, it's the only person I work with. It's why I'm honored to get to meet people like Audra.
because I know that when they own their own name and own what they do,
they will actually make more of a difference over the rest of their life than somebody who simply stays behind the scenes or behind a company name.
Bold, yes,
But if that's you, I would be honored to sit down and talk with you
Audra Dinell: Oh, thank you so much, Alex. We're gonna link that website in the show notes, and I'm just really grateful for all the wisdom you've shared today with me and our listeners. So
All In with Alex: And you as well, of course
[00:39:00]