Welcome to the Power of Authority Spotlight. I'm your host, Michelle Prince, founder and CEO of Performance Publishing Group, making a difference one story at a time. We'll be shining the light on successful founders, entrepreneurs, business owners, and leaders that are getting results and making a difference. We'll talk about how they built their businesses, are creating movements, and leveraging the power of authority in their own right. Be sure to stick around to and we'll reveal how you Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Power of Authority Spotlight, where we shine the light on entrepreneurs, leaders and founders doing extraordinary things, making big things happen and sharing their stories. And I cannot wait to introduce you to my guests today. But First, this episode is brought to you by Performance Publishing. If you've ever thought about writing a book or if anyone has ever told you, you should write a book, go to performancepublishinggroup. com, grab a free strategy call so we can start exploring what your story is and how you can get it out there into the world. All right. Let me introduce you to my guest today, Kevin Wagaman. He is a business and life coach. He's a Christian, a loving husband, proud father, and founder of Momentors LLC. Kevin created Momentors with a mission of helping people maximize potential and remove obstacles to live out their dreams. He started his working career as a busboy at Sawgrass Marriott before going on to successful sales and operations roles in finance and real estate. He received numerous promotions over the years. Rising in the ranks to CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty before launching his current entrepreneurial venture. Born in the small town of Stewart, Florida, he grew up loving the outdoors and could often be found fishing, surfing, playing most sports, and simply swinging through the mangroves. As a young adult, he struggled with overdoing things, eating, drinking, partying, spending, working. Yes, you can overdo this among other self limiting behaviors. Can't wait to talk about that one, Kevin. He draws on many of these personal experiences and the challenges overcome as a mentor and coach. He's always driven to help people to remove the obstacles in their lives, to realize true potential and higher fulfillment. He has personally moved from sales struggles to success, large debt to financial freedom, poor and good health, aimlessness to purpose, excessiveness to moderation, bad habits to good habits, mentee to mentor, follower to successful leader, solo player to family man. Kevin and his wife, Jessica, son, Elliot, and daughter, Raelyn, currently live in Jacksonville, Florida. And Kevin, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Yeah, thanks, Michelle. I'm really excited to be here and thank you for for what you do and shining the light and entrepreneurs and people doing big things. I'm glad to be included in that in that group and to your team of performance publishing for helping get the book launched as crucial. And I'm so grateful. So thanks for having me. Of course. Well, I'm excited because, well, you're doing so many things. And by the way, I love your bio because you touch on so many things that I know for myself and other people listening can totally resonate with, right? We we've all been somewhere, but we want to be somewhere else. And so let's start with you. I just want to know a little bit more about you, about yourself, your family. So. Tell us about Kevin. Yeah, sure. So, born and raised pretty much, I call the east coast of Florida my hometown because as a child, my dad was a developer and so we moved around a lot. And so, I mean, I've lived everywhere from Miami to Jacksonville and every, just about everything in between. I love the state, love the east coast of Florida, and you know, didn't, didn't deal with, Disruptions in life until when I was 10 years old, my parents got a divorce. And so that was a little bit traumatic for my sister and I and and and so the moving around a lot continued. So I think I was at, like, maybe 7 or 8 schools before high school, even and so moving around, trying to adapt to different environments and and then, you know. Moving through, you know, childhood into, you know, teenage years, we kind of settled in the Jacksonville, Florida area. So started to put down some, some roots here, went to college up in North Carolina, Elon University. And then got into the working world back here in Jacksonville pretty quickly. and, after graduating from college, got right into a job with Merrill Lynch here in Jacksonville and started my, my corporate journey. I'll say it's kind of phase one of my, of my experience in the working world. And while doing that. You know, just like everybody else trying to figure out, navigate the real world really started having some, some, challenges. And I'll, I'll give a lot of credit to my, my parents. I learned tremendously valuable lessons from both of my parents. My dad was an excellent businessman, taught me a lot about how to navigate the business world, negotiations, great stuff. My mom was one of the most caring people that you'll ever meet in life. And so I kind of, And so I think that gave me a good foundation, but I was also a bit of a rebellious young man, I guess. So kind of, kind of went off and made quite a few mistakes. and you read some of it in the bio. Just, you know, health was not a priority for me. I was, I was partying too much. I was aimless. I was smoking packs of cigarettes a day. I mean, it was just, I was all over the place and experiencing some success, you know in what I was doing I was doing sell I was sale selling and I'm doing okay at that and and had a great group of friends and and that was all good, but it was a over a period of time that I realized that And through some mentors that kind of spoke into my life that you know I really need to get a bit more intentional About about where where I want to go over the long term, as opposed to just kind of blowing wherever the wind took me, and I think that's kind of the foundation. I mean, that's a real short. So, I mean, eventually got, you know, as far as the career went, got into real estate, left finance, got into real estate for a variety of reasons. We might, we might get into, you know, And then grew not only a sales career in real estate, but also, got into the leadership side of things first as a sales manager. Then as a vice president, eventually, as you mentioned, CEO of a large company in Jacksonville, so a lot of experience on the business side, a lot of experience on the personal development side going from. Aimlessness and purposelessness and terrible health to, you know, and gosh, I would nowhere near perfect what I say, but definitely in a different area and more intentional about where I'm taking things these days. And so that's where that's kind of the, the overview. My, I went, I met my wife in 2006. She's, I'm so fortunate. She's amazing. She was a big part. In addition to my faith, a big part of me kind of. Moving in the right direction. She's very helpful in that, over a period of time. We got married in 2013, and then our first child in 2017, Elliot, and then Raylan came along in 2022, and we're getting ready to celebrate her 3rd birthday in a couple days. We have 50 people descending on our household this weekend to do that. And so a lot of stuff going on right now, but just so thankful and blessed to have this, the family that I do. Having been able to navigate through some challenging times along the way. Well, and that's part of why I love your story, Kevin, because, you know, I know I can relate to this. I know most people can. I mean, you, your life is going in one direction. You think you have it figured out. And I was about to ask you, well, what was the catalyst? What was it that kind of nudged you? And you said your faith, your wife, and also a mentor. What? Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was, I was just going to give a quick shout out now. He's he passed away a few years ago. but David McWilliams was a very, very big presence in my life in that early 20s range. Now, I'm not going to say I met David and then snap my fingers and everything went awesome. That's not the way it happened. But. But I did see in him character how he lived his life and characteristics and his family life and his spiritual life and how he approached work and how he had this what I perceived as. Beautiful balance or harmony is probably the better word in, in how he lived in, in his integrity. It just, it just set a great example for me. So there were still some, you know, bumps along the road, but that was a really good initial mentor for me again, outside of my parents that, that helped me in the right direction. It just goes to show you don't know how you're impacting someone until it's right, you know, he, he, he may or may not have known the impact he, he had on you. And so I told him no. And that's, that's 1 message that I would, I would relay is because as I, as I learned along the way, to, to appreciate, you know, people that, you know, speak into you, every time I got a promotion, every time something went well, when I got married or whatever, he, he either got a call from me or a, or a note of gratitude for me. And I, and, and I, I, I let him know, I let him know. That is so good. Zig Ziglar had a wall of gratitude. So all the people throughout his life, starting with his mother, all. All the way on through, you know, bosses and other people who have spoken into him. And he never wanted to forget, you know, we're never, we, we are who we are and we get where we are not on our own. It's kind of like, he would tell a funny story about, you know, when you see a turtle on a fence post, you got to believe they didn't get there on their own. That's the case, right? So that's right. That's right. And he was the first of a handful. I mean, I think mentors in life are so important and learning lessons along the way are so important I had not heard that about Zig Ziglar, but 1 thing that I started doing, and it's a little morbid, but but it's important to me is I've had quite a few friends and family passed away over the years. And and so when I, when I started doing was. Make, keeping a list of who they were and then what's the most important lesson or character trait that they had, that if I can somehow carry that forward, would be a good reminder of that, of that person. So I, I, I don't like, I don't like that the list is growing, but I do feel like it is a way for me to remember and also think back to some of the great lessons that they taught. Oh, I love that idea, actually, that, that's such a, I mean, I may borrow that. Thank you. I'll feel free. Thank you. We all borrow. We all, we all borrow, right? We all share. Right. There's no original. Maybe I heard, maybe I read that somewhere. I don't know. No, it's all good. It's all good. Well, I want to make sure we talk about your book because One to Grow On is your new book. And I, let's, let's tell the audience more about what is this book about? Yeah. So the, the kind of the beginning of it was, you know, 2020, I think I, along with, You know, most people got really introspective. We have this new This new virus and and we really didn't know what was going on. I don't think anyone had any level of expertise for a long time And and about that time also a couple of my friends Passed away now not from covid for other reasons and and so and they all they both had some young kids and at the time I had a Three year old Elliot was three at the time. And so I just started thinking, you know, if something happened to me, then, you know, there are a lot of things that I'd like to pass along to him. A lot of lessons I learned along the way that I'd like him to be able to, you know, relate to or learn from. And so I just started writing them, writing lessons down about the same time. I was doing a training session for, a group of sales professionals. and, it was, I think it was before we actually really started leaving, you know, leaving the office offices, but somebody meant, you know, I told a few stories and gave the lesson and someone came up to me afterwards and said, Hey, you're consider writing a book. I thought, well, I kind of already am, but if there's a way for me to expand the scope of this thing. And, and then I started thinking, what if I were to write something to someone that was struggling the way I was in my mid 20s that maybe doesn't have that mentor that maybe doesn't have someone that that's that's speaking into them. and so it became kind of a convergence of those things and that's that was the birth of 1 to grow on. So it's really just for. For anybody that hasn't been intentional about personal development or thinks, geez, I'm not, you know, what am I doing or not sure where to begin? And that's kind of the initial concept. So it's it's lessons. I've I researched it a lot. I mean, the book, the thing took 3 years to write 4 years to write and and it also, it's not designed to be like, And end all be all. It's called one to grow on. The idea though is this is a good starting point, but then within the book, there are all kinds of resources of the different topics. So if you want to learn more about, you know, habit and skill development, well, here's, here's what I went through. Here's some action steps to take. And by the way, here's 3. if you're really, if this resonates with you, here's 3 really good books. That that were influential influential to me that you can go dive further into these things. And so that's really the concept is, you know, helping someone I, you know, that isn't really intentional about personal growth and development to just start somewhere. That's, that's the idea to say is the ideal reader for this. Is it somebody. Maybe in the younger years, like you were when you were transitioning kind of, or is it for those of us who have been through many seasons and maybe we're looking, for our next, but who would you say would benefit the most? Yeah, I think, I think the way you said it is perfect. The, the, it was written towards me at age 23 though. And so if somebody is coming, coming to that time, I mean, you got to be ready for it. Like I think there's a, you know, there, there's, there, I believe everybody's reachable, but at different periods of time. So I think if you're, if you're thinking. Yeah, you know, and it doesn't matter if you're, you know, 25 or 80, if you're thinking, geez, I could use a different outlook, I could use some different ideas, maybe a mindset thing, maybe a habits thing, then it could be for you, but really it's, it's, it's the, you know, coming out of college, you know, low twenties, mid twenties, that was the idea that the, the, the target market I had in mind when I, when I wrote it, because those were where I learned a lot of the lessons that I wanted to pass along to, you know, to Elliot in terms of how to overcome some of those challenges. I love that because I think you and I talked about this early on, but when I wrote my first book, that was exactly my motivation. I never intended that I would share it with anyone else. I wrote my first book winning in life now for my boys who at the time were seven and five second grade and kindergarten, and now they're your book. and shift it to both of them because now 25 and one is 20. He'll be 22 in March. And, and so it's almost like, those are the things that I probably was exposed to at that age, but maybe I wasn't listening. And so, and sometimes, especially for our own kids, sometimes they need to hear it through other people. Right? No question. Yeah. And by the way, thank you for that. I appreciate that. And and I would love to hear feedback. I love getting feedback from from all of it. And, you know, we also do have a mechanism for the feedback. We turn the book into a course and the course actually walks people through. There's a video. There's action plans. There's webinars. So, for someone that gets into the book and says, well, I really like this. This resonates and wants to kind of go a little bit further. and that, and that does have a feedback loop because then they could say, well, I tried this and this is what happened. And this is how I approached it. And this is what I tweak maybe and then we just share the, the, the wins inside of our LinkedIn community. So, I think we'll talk a little bit about where people can go in a few minutes, but, but, I, I, I love hearing back from, from people that have experienced the book and, you know, whether, whether they had a big win from it, or, you know, Hey, I tried this and this didn't work for me, but I did it this way instead. I love it. And I love that you have beyond the book too. So you do have all of these resources and sure. And, and then let's talk about those, your coaching, cause you know, your business, my mentors, you're an executive coach consultant, you do a lot of different things beyond just the book. But what challenges do you see or do you encounter when you're working with other leaders? People that are, and it could be sales people, but it could be also business leaders. Yep. What are you encountering out there? Yeah, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm so fortunate that the people I get to work with are, are amazing. And I, I love them all. And, and, and most of the time I find that I don't want it more for them than they want it for themselves. Because every once in a while in my leadership career, sometimes you do, you want something more for someone than they want it for themselves. Most of the people I get to work with right now are pretty, pretty well motivated and engaged in what they're doing, but, you know, I've been doing, I've been coaching people for a lot of years and I generally find areas, six areas where people get stuck and, and that is Sometimes a challenge to help people identify where that is. And so just to real quickly, foundational. So sometimes people will get stuck because they haven't really spent time to think about, you know, what is my purpose? What is my mission? And it's, it could change over time, but right now, what is it? That I'm really trying to accomplish. What's my vision for my life from, from, you know, family wise to occupation to recreation. What are some things that I can see myself doing over a period of time? And then the other thing I have my clients do is think about their principles. What are some of the values that are non negotiable for you as you go? Build this life for yourself. Because if you have a good set of principles or values, then you have your filter for decision making, right? And some people that, that have a hard time making decisions one path or the other, sometimes it's because I haven't, they haven't built that filter yet as to what's non negotiable for them. So that's, that's one thing that we kind of peel back the onion on the next thing is. That can be a challenge is mindset or another way is like your self worth. I work some people where it's like, you just have to get to the point where, you know, you deserve success. You're putting in the work, you kind of getting in your own way because there's something that we have to figure out that's block, whether it's a fear thing or whether it's a worthiness thing. Let's let's peel back the onion there and that can be challenging as well. Then we get into like now we're getting we're moving from kind of philosophical. Now we're getting into like planning and time and energy management. And for some people living a big life is a fear thing. Some people it's. I'm they're they're all over the place with time and energy management. So we get into focus and we get into minimizing drama and distractions and then we get into habit development and skills and what you know, if there's a gap between knowing what to do and actually what to do and actually doing it. What is getting in the way there? And then finally, it's, it's, it's being ready for challenges because it will get challenging. And so what's your resilience plan and then celebrate the journey. Not, not just the milestones, not just the accomplishments, but you know, what are we doing? What are we doing it for? If we can't figure out a way to find joy along the way, even through the challenges. And by the way, This is not, you know, this is not me preachy. This is me constantly going through all these and trying to improve in my own life and trying to help, you know, and trying to work as a family unit and in service to others and clients and, and try to do better with this stuff ourselves as well. So yeah. And, and, you know, the, the biggest challenge is self leadership. You know, a lot of these things that, that I, I sit down and look someone in the eye or look someone through the zoom and say, You know, hey, let's identify some things you ought to be doing and then make a prescription. I, I look at myself and say, all right, is this, am I living this out myself? And, and so, so that's a big challenge too, but we do it. So we do it in a, in kind of a unique way. So there's different coaching philosophies and I've kind of combined three. It's Socratic, it's mentorship and it's accountability. And we move, there's fluidity through those different areas because. Sometimes, often, the person I'm coaching knows the answer, and it's just a series of questions, and it's better if they come up with it. Sometimes they don't know the answer, though. I don't believe the student always knows the answer. Sometimes it's, I've been through it, they really need some advice, and so that's where the mentorship part comes in. And then once it's, we've identified what the thing is, what do I need to add, what do I need to reduce, whatever it is, then there's an accountability piece. And so it's just trying to figure out, customize to each individual where they are. And what they need and that and sometimes I can diagnose that pretty quickly and sometimes it takes me a while. Some people are hard to read. And so that we get into like, personality assessments and that type of stuff and when necessary, but it's it's so challenging in 1 respect because. I'm not in it just to, you know, for, for the revenue piece of it. I, I, I am serious about the outcomes for the people I work with. And so, so we, you know, we really, we really put together a plan that not only they understand why behind it, but they are, there's clarity on. The what and and what the expectations are each week was long. That was a long answer now. It's just about to say, though, I can feel your passion, though. I mean, yes, you are doing this. It is a business, but I can feel I can feel it that this is something more than that for you, you know, and to be able to there is nothing better than to see someone's life changed as a result of something that, you know, whether you asked a question to help them to figure it out on their own or whether you gave him direction. I like that. You have all 3 aspects of your coaching. Good. I've been a coach, and I've been in the, the coachee seat, and sometimes I don't want you to just ask me the question, sometimes I want you to tell me what to do, and sometimes you don't hold me accountable and say, guess what? You, you, you, you dropped the ball. You said you would do it, and you didn't. Let's, let's fix it. So I love your approach, but I can see it comes from passion more than anything. Yeah, it, it, it does. I, I care a lot. And, I really enjoy, I really enjoy the, the outcomes when, and, and by the way, at the same time, not taking credit for it. You know, it's, it's, you're the one, you know, it's, oh my gosh, thank you so much. Oh, this has been life changing. You're the one doing the work. You know, the, the real value in coaching is not the hour that we're together. It's everything in between until the next hour. That's where you're doing the amazing work. And so I try to make sure my people know that. I love that you said that because so many times I'll get that same thing, you know, thank you can do it with no, no, no, you did it. You broke the book. You did the hard work. You, you know, so it's a team effort there. 1 thing I have to just also point out before we move on is, helping them to celebrate the successes versus just the accomplishment. and, and, and the journey. And I learned that early in life. Somebody had suggested that to me. In fact, they had suggested keeping track of, doing, I had a success journal and success did not mean accomplishment. And it meant maybe I completed all my tasks in a day, or maybe I made someone smile or maybe, and you keep it in this journal. And if you're a high achiever, like most people who you're probably working with is when you're having those down days and you're feeling. I have, I'm just, I've failed. I'm so behind schedule. I haven't done anything is you go back and look, you're like, you know what it's, it's, it's all a journey and I am successful. It doesn't mean I'm, I'm just doing and doing and doing. And I know if people, I can fall in the trap of just accomplishment. And not stopping and realizing. So I like that you really help your, the people that you're working with to, to appreciate the journey. That's yeah. Thank you. And then that I love your idea. And, and it certainly is, that's a challenge for all of us, myself. Myself included. But I love that. And you know, if I get up and I exercise in the morning, one of the chapters in the book talks about starting and ending the day. Well, I believe if you start and end the day, well, then a lot of the stuff in between that may be causing friction or issues can starts to starts to wrap up. And if I get up in the morning and I exercise, it's the exercise that should be celebrated. Not whether or not I lost five pounds at the end of the month. It's the actual act of the exercise that should be implemented. And so that's where the wins happen. Same thing with anything else that you're doing to develop a business or to, to, you know, focus on your family life or whatever. It's the, I spent 30 meaningful minutes with my child today uninterrupted, no devices, no whatever. That's that's the stuff that I'm talking about. And so keeping a journal of it, I think, makes a lot of sense because, you know, the tough days will the dark clouds will form the tough days will come and to be able to have something to look back on and do that. One other journaling idea is. Is if this is a, this is personal to me because I used to do this and I broke the habit when something didn't go my way, I was in a presentation that didn't go great or I didn't get the sale or whatever it was, the employee left, they quit, I used to ruminate and I would just play it back over and over and over again in my mind. And eventually I realized that that's just feeding the non conscious brain with negativity. So I started journaling what happened. Yeah. What went wrong or what excuse me what I did that I don't think or what I did that was okay or good and then what would I do differently next time and doing that help me put it to bed and take the lesson from it and not continue to screw myself up about it just another you when you mentioned journaling I thought that I would share that as well because that's been helpful for me. Yeah. And, and I love, so you're a constant learner. It sounds like, like I, and I have a passion for this as well. So you and I, I think could talk forever about, but I do want to know. So you, the book has been out for a little while and you're, you're continuing to do new things on it. And so there's so much good content in the book already, but is there anything that's happened since you wrote the book? Any new thoughts or new, things that you've learned personally, since you're constantly learning? Yeah. You know, the, yeah. What I, I didn't spend a lot of time on in the book, I've spent more time researching recently and I'm not a doctor, but I've been reading, like, Daniel Amen comes to mind a lot about brain health. And so there's a lot of work on mindset and worthiness and that's all amazing. His, his thesis is if you don't have a healthy brain, a lot of that stuff. It's either more difficult or it doesn't work at all and so I've been really looking into, you know, and he's got a couple books, change your brain, change your life. And I think the other one's called bright minds. And so that's where I'm going now. And interestingly enough, recently, I found myself in the emergency room because I went blurry in my left eye. And and, and I know that's not good. And so that could be really bad. And I won't make it a dramatic story. Everything's everything's fine. It wasn't, you know, what goes off in your mind is like, oh, my gosh, I'm having a stroke. And and so, so I did all the things and, you know, go into the hospital and it's like, it's so visceral, but surreal at the same time, they look at me and they get on the microphone in the emergency room and they're like, we have a, we have a stroke alert and I'm like. Is this really happening? And, and so next thing I know, I'm, you know, in the CT machine and they're doing all these tests and the MRI and everything. And, and so the learning lesson is. Got to take care of your brain because there were a lot of years that I did not. And so if there is, if, if, if I am a stroke candidate, it's not for what I'm doing now, it's for what I did eight years ago, 10 years ago, smoking cigarettes, drinking too much, that type of stuff. So that's, that's 1 learning lesson. If I could go put that a little bit more in the book about, you know, trying to reach the 20 somethings or 30 somethings about earlier than later, start getting serious about that stuff, then then that's 1 thing. And who knows? Maybe there's a future. Future book, but, but that's 1 thing. And the other thing is, you know, the things I were praying for while I was in those machines did not have to do with making more money or anything other than, you know, family, I want more time with my family, my friends. I want to make a bigger difference. You know, I want to make sure I make a positive difference and leave a. Leave a decent mark here. that, that, that, that those would be lessons that, or stories that I would, I would convey in the, in the book. So, yeah, not, not the kind of the way that you want the wake up call to happen. But, you know, again, challenges happen all the time and how we respond to them is, is really where it's at. So. Well, I know for sure you are making an impact and a difference and with your clients, but also through this book. And so I want to make sure the listeners know how to get your book and get in touch with you because you have the community, you have courses, free resources. Tell us how to do that. Sure. I think the easiest thing is just to go to www. momentorsllc. com. And you have all the blogs, resources, the community there, all my socials, momentorsllc. Dot com and love to love to connect with you. Love to hear from you and join the community or just shoot me a note. My, my contact information's there. And, and again, thank you, Michelle for. asking me some questions and dealing with my long winded answers, as I mentioned, in the, in the pre show that, tends to happen. I'll get, I'll start going, but, thanks for tolerating it. And thanks for everything that you guys and your team do, and then shining your light, on, on the entrepreneurial world. Appreciate it. Oh, thank you. And I'm so excited about it. And I can't wait to see what else happens. as you continue to, help people to be their best self. So thanks so much, Kevin, appreciate you being on the show. Thank you, Michelle. Thanks. All right, everyone. That is it for the power of authority spotlight. I really want you to go to my mentors, LLC. com, get this book, but not just for yourself, self share with other people, especially those in that age range that Kevin and I were talking about. You know, I wish I had that kind of book at that age and I'm so grateful that my boys do and others will as well. So go to momentorsllc. com and we will see you next time on the Power of Authority Spotlight. Thanks so much for listening to the Power of Authority Spotlight. If you are a successful founder, entrepreneur, business owner, or leader that's getting results and making a difference, and you'd like to be on this program, please visit performancepublishinggroup. com forward slash to apply. That's performance publishing group. com forward slash podcast. Also, if you got something out of this interview, please share this episode. Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag the power of authority spotlight. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes. Episodes and content. So make sure you don't miss any episode by subscribing your thumbs up. Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Wanna know more? Go to our websites performance publishing group.com or michelle prince.com and follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.