The CX 024: Unlocking Exceptional Engagement through Self Inquiry with Phil and Krista Franks of Owl and Key

The CX 024: Unlocking Exceptional Engagement through Self Inquiry with Phil and Krista Franks of Owl and Key

Tony Bacigalupo: Have you ever found that you are living your life in a certain way as you've been for a while and then at some point you start to feel like maybe this isn't how I want to be living my life? I want to be living it differently, but I'm not maybe necessarily sure how. Well our guests today, Phil and Krista Franks run an organization called Owl and Key that is all about helping you find your authentic self. They do that in a few different ways, but they most recently have launched a community for folks who are learning how to claim who they really want to be and they're going to tell us how we can learn a little bit about how to do that for ourselves and our communities as well. So stay tuned and let's learn a little bit about who we are, who we want to become with Phil and Krista Franks of Owl and Key on this episode of The Community Experience.

Hello. Hello. Welcome everybody. Welcome everybody. I'm Tony Bacigalupo and I got Jill in here as well.

Jillian Benbow: Oh hello!

Tony: You’re listening to the community experience podcast, where we talk to people about stuff relating to community, fostering belonging, building better connection. And our guests today are definitely in the realm of that deeper connection. Getting to know yourself better, getting to know each other better and convening community around that exploration and pursuit.

Jillian: You know, I think we talk a lot about just making a community unique and creating a place where people feel comfortable and can share. And this episode, I feel like we're just going to take that to such a next level of having really in-depth, quality conversations within a community that is all there for the same reason and I'm stoked. I'm very stoked. This is the stuff I love.

Tony: One of the things Priya Parker talks about is the fact that so many existing communities and gatherings don't really elicit meaningful connection between the people showing up in the room. And as a result, people don't really get their needs met, so even if they're going out and they're meeting people and they're going to events, they might still come home at the end of the day, feeling lonely or feeling not connected. And so, Phil and Krista are the types where you're never going to meet them and they're going to ask you, "What the weather is," or "What is going on with the local sports team?" They're going to give you a provocation that's going to elicit a better chance at forging some meaningful connection or at least a meaningful conversation. I feel like that's so important. We need more of that.

Jillian: Yeah. And the other part of that is they do an excellent job of helping their community members, but also it's just like their ethos of how they live with. And it's checking in with yourself. So the connection with yourself and do the people you spend time with, the activities that you do, do they align with your true self and how to determine that?

Tony: And the more that you can unpack that and investigate it in a context where there's other people around to help you, the better life is going to be and you're probably going to come over with some better connections along the way as well.

Jillian: Absolutely. I say we just get right into it. It's such a great conversation.

Tony: I was thinking the same thing, Jill. Everybody let's get into the conversation with Phil and Krista of Owl and Key on this episode of The Community Experience.

Okay. Hello. Welcome to Phil and Krista Franks. Thanks for joining us on the program today.

Phil Franks: Gosh, thank you guys for having us.

Krista Franks: Thank you for having us.

Tony: Jill, how are you feeling? You feeling excited to catch up with Phil and Krista?

Jillian: I am.

Tony: And I say catch up like we're best friends.

Phil: We just became best friends.

Jillian: Yes. Yeah. I am super excited. So Phil and Krista are the founders of OwlandKey.co and they help people have really amazing conversations, have depth in conversations, something that's super important to a lot of us out there and yeah, looking forward to just diving right in. So why don't we start with, what is Owl and Key? What does that mean?

Phil: Take it away, Krista.

Krista: Okay. Owl and Key is what... To get everyone set up because a lot of our work is founded in awareness and knowing of self, and then sharing that with each other, which is such a core component of relationship building and community. I am the owl, Phil is the key. We didn't know that when we created the company and the brand, but really we're a lifestyle design company. So we use a lot of deep diving on self-awareness. We call that critical self-inquiry. And then we apply that to life, much like, if you're redesigning a home, you really think about what do I want this home to be like, what do I want this room to be like? We do that, but for your lifestyle. And so we do that through a core product called Strategic Planning for Life, where we take individuals, couples, and even teams through this eight week experience where we go through the first phase of awareness and then really put all that into bring it into life through integration.

So that experience really connects people and brings people together. And Jillian, to your point, creates those conversations in that shared experience.

Tony: What kind of folks do you work with? Is there any commonality amongst the people that find you or where have you found your first or main set of folks?

Phil: Yeah, it's interesting. Krista mentioned those three audiences, the individuals, the partners and couples or the businesses and teams, and believe it or not, this work really started inside of organizations. We had a really good opportunity to work with organizations here in the Midwest. We're located in Columbus, Ohio, and we've had a lot of agencies growing teams, startup, venture backed companies come to us as they're starting to install culture or redefine culture. And that's really where it began. A lot of those founders tend to have that growth mindset approach to things already. And then maybe applying that to their lives, whether it be in their relationships or with their children, with their parents, and they want to extend that to their teams. And that's not always a one to one thing. If I do it at home, how does it work also with this mass group of people inside my organization?

So we started there, but really how this was cultivated and born was for coupleship. Kristen and I were going through a really big transition in our lives prior to our first son being born. We were leaving an established career. We were getting ready to become parents and both of us were going to be venturing out on our own together. And we had to rebuild everything from scratch and we needed a North Star, something that really codified our steps and our movements in what we knew we could do. And that's when we created this. It was more of like a guidance mechanism for us to get through these really transitional times in our lives. And so that's what we see a lot of people thematically when they come into the work, they're really looking for something in times of transition, whether it's a forced transition, like they are having a career change or having a child, so on and so forth. Or they're intuitively coming to it.

We've had a lot of individuals who have come to us and say, "I've checked all the boxes. I have a house I'm married. I have two healthy children. I have a high paying career, but I'm really feeling empty. I don't know what's next." And there's a lot of individuals that come to us with that as the gateway to starting this work with us.

Krista: Or I would say, even with couples in alignment, we see that so many couples are like, "All right, we've done so much where we've created this beautiful life together and now we just want to be more aligned and intentional for this next phase." And like Phil said, it might be a very practical, real life next phase, or it might just be more intuitive. And that's when people come to us to start to get that vision.

Jillian: It's so funny because it's we all have this map we're given. It's like well, you go to school and then you find a nice person and you settle down, you get the house and the kid and the dog, and then you do it all. And you're like, "This doesn't feel like I thought. I thought I was going to be like, 'Okay, you've unlocked this life.'"

Phil: There's the closet door to Narnia. Let's go. There it is.

Jillian: It's like, well, what now? It doesn't feel the way I thought it would. And all of that. And so I love that you all identified that and are working with people to reassess what's what's important and what is it that you want in life? And let's, one, figure out what that actually is beyond these weird check boxes that were put in front of us as we were growing up, right and see the strategy to get there. And it's funny because businesses are great at it, hypothetically. They have their strap planning sessions and the forecasting, and let's achieve XYZ by this time. But we very rarely actually bother to prioritize our own life and do that for ourselves. So I love that you both figured out a way to bring that to people and let people realize like, "Hey, what about you?"

Phil: Jillian, that was so well said. I mean, in fact, that was actually one of the core pieces of this work was that we were going through that work at the organization we were in, and it just happened to be happening at the same time we were going through this transitional time in our lives. And we both looked at each other and said, "Why are we not spending this much energy and detail on our life?" Because if you look at the one to ones, your lifestyle is a business, right? You have partners, whether you're with your significant other or with your dog, whatever it might be, you have resources, capital expenditures, you have a budget and a P&L and expenses. All these things are the same, but we never look at our lives like that in the way that a business would.

And that was really a huge piece of it. And the other parts, the part that I wanted to call out too that you said that really resonates with me every time when we talk to people is that I think it's discovered at some point, but I think at some point we realize that we're living through assumptions rather than creations. And that the assumptions of your life are like things that you've been given through upbringing and culture and society and all these teachers you've had in your life. And so you're mid-twenties or beyond, and then you're out there on your own and you're operating off these things that you thought were "true," and you've actually never gone into the creative state and done it for yourself. What does it mean to have kids? What does it mean to have a house? What does it mean to have this job and this career? Do I like these things? And it's really what we've called, you're unraveling, you're unlearning, right? You're unlearning from all these constructs that you've been given and some of them might stick and some of them might not. And that's cool.

Krista: Well, and I want to take it one step deeper than that too, because in the sense of community building, when you are building relationships and partnerships, we're all in partnerships, especially in a business. You want to align your values with the business' values. You want to align your vision and mission with the businesses mission and vision. They don't have to be the same. They just have to collaborate. They have to start to align and work together. And so when we're in partnership and community, when we're operating with those layers on, then how deep and true are the relationships, how deep and true is the community that we're building? But when we're coming from our truth, from our authentic self, from that deep sense of self-awareness, and we're aligning on these things that really matter to us, then those types of friendships and relationships in that community, oh, they're like life giving, energy giving, they're safe, they can be healing, they can be transformative.

And so that's why this... Phil, thanks for teeing that up because I think that partnership mentality and that relationship that we can build and mold over time from that place is really powerful.

Tony: Can you give us an example of exactly that contrast and maybe I'll just game this out for a second. Maybe I started out in the first phase of my life doing what I think I'm supposed to be doing. And I'm in a social circle where I'm among people that I think I'm supposed to be around and I'm not connecting as well with those folks as I really feel like I need to. Then I go through maybe a transition or some experience. Now I'm maybe entering into a new room with a different social dynamic with people who are seeking something different, who are aligning with me in a different way. Do you have specific examples of that or am I on the right track?

Krista: You're so on the right track, Tony, I have a great example. Okay. So let's say that we're young, we're in our twenties, we're either in college or coming out of college and it's that work hard, play hard mentality. And so everyone's going out to the bars and doing the long hours of work. And you may be constantly giving this really big energy in these environments. Well, let's say that you do this work and that's how you build your community. Let's say that you are really focused on those types of relationships. And I think we can all get that sense of what those relationships are like. The shared experience might be focused on those nights out or those really long hours or something like that. But when you have this transformative experience and this transitional experience where you do the deep dive of awareness and you really define who am I, what do I value and what do I truly want in life, you might realize I'm introverted. I actually value deep conversation in relationships and nature. And what I truly want are relationships that are spent and shared experiences.

Maybe I really want to connect over a hike and I really want to connect with people who are creators or doing different type of work that isn't just like the run of the mill push, push, push, hustle, grind, mentality. And so that once you start to become conscious of that, you can see your community transform in that way. And I mean, I also say that because that's what Phil and I experienced. That's what we've experienced in our own lives. We use this process called the drives and drains exercise. And so you write down the things that energize you and then you write down the things that drain you. And in that we always recommend for the people that we get to work with, "Hey, make sure you are really thinking about the relationships in this. Make sure you're putting people in those drives and drains list also." So how do the people align with the things that you want to do? Some relationships are really driving you, are really giving you energy. Some are really draining you.

So as you're starting to think about, "Okay, well in the next year, how do I want to transition these relationships?" Then you start to put some conscious thought into that. What kind of community do I want to build? How do I want to transition it? And then over time, it's like a compounding interest where when you're in your thirties, you're looking back at that time in your twenties and you're like, "Oh, I'm in a completely different spot with a whole different kind of community. And it feels good."

Jillian: Thank goodness, right? You just described my exact twenties to thirties experience. Like, "I'm really unhappy, but I have a ton of friends, why? "And it's like, "Hmm, because going to the bars is a nightmare."

Krista: Yes, same Jillian.

Phil: Same. We all feel that. Tony, and I want to say something else about what you asked too, because I think what happens is that the way that you experience that transition maybe, or whether you're experiencing dissonance in the friend groups or your workplace or whatever it is, a lot of those things are because you're walking into them, dare I say, circumstantially, where it's like, that's the opportunity that's there, that's what you think you need to do all these things. But what happens when you start to do this work for yourself and you do radical self inquiry, and then integrate that into your daily life, what happens is you're no longer a circumstance of things that you don't want to do. You become the creator of those groups and the job and everything from dynamics, as broad as the people you work with to as close as your significant other. This community is then cultivated from the place you want it to be cultivated.

So you're not reacting to the situation anymore. You're creating the situation and that's a totally different place to be because then you can walk in there knowing I'm with Jillian and Tony, and we can have deep conversations and I'm not going to the bar and saying like, "Hey, the weather today sucked," all that stuff.

Tony: I don't imagine that when you meet somebody new that your initial opening is like, "So how about that weather?"

Phil: No, we tend to shock people with those intro questions. I had people that knew people that I meet. I like to ask a question. I rotate them, but I ask a question of like, "What's inspiring you?" And I get people like, "Whoa, I'm not asked that question a lot." And then they have to actually think about it. And it's so on brand, because to make someone stop and think for a second and pause the mental chatter or the things they're doing is core to what we're doing. Just stop and pause and take some stock on what you're doing in your life every day.

Tony: Sure, yeah, absolutely. And I think there's … in community one of the things that we're looking at, and we've seen some common threads is this notion that people are needing to make meaningful connection. And that meaningful connection oftentimes will come in a place where there is a stigma, where there's a point of growth, where there's a difficulty people are trying to push through. And it might just be that it's just an interest, that it's just something, a hobby that we're both really into or something like that. But in a lot of cases, there's this notion of there's this thing that I'm trying to get ahold of, this change that I'm looking to make. And it sounds like you all are really zeroed in on where and when that happens, which is when somebody is potentially ready to face or trying to understand how to face a transition from this supposed-to life to the life that they actually want, or the person that they really want to be. Am I tracking on that?

Krista: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Phil: You nailed it.

Krista: I think, and it's an ever evolving, so it may not always be coming from a place of like, "Oh, I really need to transition my life." It might just be... Phil and I, we do this process, strategic planning for life is an annual experience. So right now we're in the middle of ours. In fact, we just did our drives and drains last night. We just talked about people and relationships and community, and last year was a big one. Also, I can give myself as an example, and I think so many other people experienced this also. We were all dealing with COVID. And so how do you have really quality relationships outside of geographical bounds? How do you as an adult build quality relationships out of thin air sometimes when you're not really getting to see people in person?

And so even in 2020 when we were going into 2021, Phil and I weren't in a big transitional time, but a focus, one of our intentions, we're all about designing a life with intentions. So, instead of coming from a place of this is a really big problem, it was a desire. It was a desire to say, "I want to build a really thriving community based in reciprocity, with aspirational people and without geographical bounds." Okay, now I just have to go figure out how to do that to Phil's point about creating. And so that started to come to life in multiple ways for me, looking back on the year that we've just gone through. Now, having these amazing thriving, relationships and community that are happening in so many different areas that have blossomed because of that intentionality.

So sometimes it can come from, Tony to your point, I really need to make this change, or I'm coming from a place of pain and discomfort, and really want to focus on this problem. Or it can come from that place of just, I really desire this in my life. Now, how do I start to evolve that into being?

Tony: Love that, love that. And in terms of how you engage folks, I know you have different ways of working with different people. Can you tell us a little bit about how that's evolved over time and the word community is obviously an important part of what we like talking about here and that's a direction you all are headed. So yeah. Tell us how you work with folks and how that's changed.

Krista: We do. So we, over the years we started, like Phil said with community that exists within the workplace. And so, culture... We so often as adults find friends and we have lifelong friends that we found in the workplace. We have a shared friend that we've all met in the workplace. Matt who brought us together. And so, we started in the workplace, not from the sense of we're coming in here to help you build a community, but we were coming in from a sense of let's help each individual understand themselves so that they can be a part of the culture and be a partner in the business and a partner in the culture that exists here. And so that built a much stronger, more accountable, more supportive culture environment. Once we started to come out of that, then the transition into individuals and then the transition into couples and partners.

What we've realized is that it is good and fun to go through this work with one on one, right, go through it initially with just one person, but the power and community of going through it with a group is really amazing. That shared experience. So now we have quarterly groups that are set up where we have couples classes that go through the full eight weeks together. So we're going through the awareness function, where they're understanding who they are, and they're defining, personality wise, who am I? And they're sharing that together because as partners, we're also in community. And now there's Phil and I are our first community and our families our community, and our close friends. And then we have this extended community. And so really defining who we are and then understanding those values and sharing those.

And these couples are starting to share these really big topics, these very personal things with these people that they don't know, but it feels so comfortable because they're going through it together. And these vulnerabilities almost become common. And so it's really good because then that next phase after values is deathbed. And so once we actually get to that point, that everyone's a lot more comfortable and we're having really good quality conversations about what is your life experience? So we try to build in community immediately because what we find is that through this work, people really want to align with other people who are living with the same mentality, the same holistic approach, they want to learn from each other. They don't want to just learn from Phil and I. They want to share together. And so we start to see all of these different overlaps and commonalities that people have. In one of the most recent conversations we had was everyone came to the deathbed conversation and everyone, every couple realized how important friendship is in their lives and how to define it and how to get it.

And so we all talked about what does it mean to have good quality friendships for life? And so we just try to instill it immediately and then long term, by just connecting people who are living this holistic mindset.

Jillian: Let's contextualize deathbed for the audience so they know what that meant or what that means—

Krista: Absolutely. So in the last part of our awareness function is all about knowing what you truly want. And so we use the death bed. Imagine yourself, you're 150 or older because technology lets us live longer. Now look back on your life and what makes you say, "I'm so proud I did it that way." What makes it an inspiring view back? What makes you really proud of the way you live? Because Phil and I's big question is, if I died tomorrow, would I be proud of the way that I lived today? So it's that always that keeping what that perspective is in mind. And it just really helps people shift their minds on what's really important by looking back at their life from a really old age. Everybody does it differently, but the point is to be inspired, not morbid.

Phil: And of empathy, and to have empathy for the fact that all these things are going to happen. The biggest thing that we want to break people out of, or give people an accelerated way to discover is that you don't have to wait to thrive. Right? One of the constructs that we are breaking down is the idea that I can't actually live the life I want until I'm done working, right. I can't do that until I'm 60 years old, right. And I think the younger generations are starting to really change that in general in the collective. But I think there's a lot of us that still say like, "Well, I'm going to focus on my job forever and then I'm going to have meaningful relationships. Then I'm going to do this. Then I'm going to go skydiving." All these things and to have empathy for yourself, looking forward to then make decisions in your now state, because you don't know. We don't know when it's going to end.

And that's just inevitable for all of us and developing empathy for yourself across your lifespan is one of the big things that we do. And that exercise is smack in the middle, because the way that we've put this together is it is thinking about your life as a design project, right? We both have backgrounds in design and design productizing and I think thinking of your life like that, where you're looking at it like an evolutionary thing every year, where you have a 12 month cycle, some people do it more frequently, but a 12 month cycle is what we recommend and you're looking at these things almost as enhancements but enhancements from the fact of like, I want to go here and I saw that at the end, and now I'm going to make the decision today that leads to that thing at the end. And it's just very, very much a design project.

So the death bed is one of many activities that you go through, but it's a funnel. You start really conceptually large and wide and then you get really deep down into these things that you can actually take a step on tomorrow. So it's really cool to see people go through that process and deathbed is one of the ones that I call out because a lot of big realizations come out of that one.

Jillian: I can only imagine. Even just thinking about it now, right, it's easy to forget like, yep, death and taxes. It's the two truths of life. I wanted to talk a little bit about... You have this course that's eight weeks and just sleuthing around your website it seems like you have a very intentional onboarding process for people who are interested. It's not a like, "Here's the checkout link," and purchase the course. It's a lot of questions and you're... I guess my question is, is this to make sure the person is aligned with what you're doing, is it to capture information so you can hit the ground running? Is it all of the above? Because I love an intentional onboarding. So I'd love to hear how it became.

Phil: I love that question, Jillian. And think what we've found in our exploration of this, because it's a lot different than selling a teeshirt or a pair of shoes, right? To build a community where you're asking someone to completely look at their life and potentially change some very comfortable settings that they have in their life, is a very hard sell. And so there has to be alignment, right? And like Krista said, some people are all used to air quotes "ready for it." And we try to align ourselves and them with that work as much as possible prior to that. We've iterated our onboarding process over the years to try to figure out how to get people the right information, but also, allow people to get in there and get started. So it's not this huge thing that they get hit with a wall. I think there's a psychology and they're also that we're dealing with.

But alignment is key across the board. We want people to really understand what they're getting into and the work that's required and potentially some of the outcomes that they may see happen after they do this work with us.

Krista: I think too, Jillian, thank you for noticing that. And I just wanted to add in alignment, but Phil and I are such relationship people. I swear, even our whatever roles we're working with anybody who comes into our team or supports us, we're always like, "How do we build a relationship with these people?" And so we're always thinking even on that level, how we create an opportunity to build and deepen a relationship, even before we get into the work.

Jillian: That's so important. I think too, just the exercise.

Tony: So how do you do that? I feel like that's a really... It's a valuable thing to do before you dig in, break the ice a little bit. Obviously everybody has icebreakers and some people I imagine come to you and they're very ready to just dive super deep. And then I imagine there are some other folks who are maybe not quite so ready to dive this... They're not used to having conversations at this level. So how do you warm people up?

Phil: Yeah. I mean, I think, that's why Krista mentioned that one-on-one approach is really interesting because it allows you to get hyper personalized. So you can really give somebody the right runway they need, if they're not as used to this, so they haven't built the muscles for going deeper into themselves and reflecting on themselves like that. And with the community, I think there's some of that social permission that exists, which is why group dynamics are so fun is because in any group there's typically somebody that is going to be more of that leader. And I think you may have talked about that in your communities and things like that.

There's always going to be the captain or the trailblazer that's ready to raise their hand. And we do a good job at it too. But when the social and the group norms are like, "Hey, let's permission to go here," the group allows and creates, I call it like this bubble, the psychological safety bubble that allows somebody to come into it because others are raising their hand and saying these very, very deep things about themselves, which we typically start because we believe that we want to humanize the experience.

We are not saying that we found this secret treasure in some mythological place. We just experience life and we've found a way to productize this experience and have people share knowledge and wisdom through that experience. And that, I think, that gives people space to really come into it at their leisure. And the good thing about this too, is Tony that to answer it in a different way is that, Kristen and I always say this is not a how to. I think a lot of the personal development space and the betterment space has a stigma about you're going to be taught how to do this thing in eight weeks and all of a sudden your life's going to change. We're not proposing that at all.

In fact, none of these things are actually us telling you anything. It's really just creating space through a structured product in a structured community to these group courses, to be able to go through and have time, accountability, community, and space to be able to take stock, like I mentioned earlier. And so it is a do it at your own pace in a sense where you can go into that and if something turns you off and you're just like, "Whoa, that hit me in a deeper way than I thought it would." You can step away. You can say, "I'm going to come back to this question later," or do it at your own pace. Even Krista mentioned this group. We have a call tonight with this couples group and people were like, "I couldn't come up with a mission. I couldn't come up with a shared mission statement." And Krista's response was like, "That's okay. To do that in a week is tough. Come back to it when you're ready and you can do it at your pace and your leisure."

So I think there's a lot of that too in both the individual settings and the group settings. It really gives people opportunity to step in when they're ready to take up that space.

Tony: That's amazing. It's really important, I think, to be able to give people permission to just be okay with wherever they're at, in that given context and moment. And we talked with Kelly Roberts who runs a running group for women specifically, who aren't really runners. And it's like, there is a group of people that want to get together and they want to run, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're a super athletic, enthusiastic, super runner yet. Maybe you just need to get a warmup. And it helps to find where you're at and be okay with wherever that is even if you're around other people who are in different places.

Phil: I think it's interesting because when it comes to this stuff, then this stuff being this work and this type of work, what we've seen is that it's actually like a great equalizer in a lot of ways, because of the minority of people who have actually had the opportunity and the privilege maybe to go into themselves in this way and so when people come into it, there is a lot of that even playing field where people might be at different points of life in the quote unquote "form," like where they have different jobs or titles or responsibilities, or they have families, or they have kids, but this is really cool because it is something that really bonds us in a way. We're talking about things that we're all experiencing and things that we're all dealing with. And it gives people a chance to really come to the table evenly. So hierarchy is really taken away from the start, which I think in essence is going to build a stronger community right there.

Krista: Tony, one of the things I wanted to add on with what you're saying about Kelly was that, I think that in today's world, we can very easily become burnt out by community because everyone's building a community, everyone's building a collective and it's awesome. Thank goodness we are building all of these things and creating these opportunities to connect, but we can very easily feel like we need to do all of them, or we need to be all of them, or we need to join all of them, especially if our friends are joining and all of that stuff. And what I love about the reflection about Kelly's community that she's building, it's very specific. So what I love about our work is we now get to say, "Hey, there's this writing group. If you find that you are that person, then you can identify that's the community I want to engage in and be a part of and I'm going to give all myself," because we all know that the more you put into it, the more you're going to get out of it.

So really intentionally thoughtfully choosing the right communities to be a part of and self-selecting and saying like, "Yes, I am that person. I need to be in a running club, but I'm not necessarily a runner." That sounds like a perfect club for me, a perfect community for me. And it may not be for Phil and that's okay. We don't have to be in the same, but at least we can be thoughtful about not over selecting, but being in the right communities that give us the most energy and the most return for what we put into it.

Tony: Yeah. Well, it sounds like, one of the things we do in SPI Pro is that we've gone to a quarterly cohort driven model where everybody in the community is invited to reengage why they are in the community on a quarterly seasonal basis. And the reason we do that is because your reason for being in our community is going to change. You joined for one reason, maybe because you wanted to start your business or a new business, and now your business is up and running and you have new challenges and new opportunities. So we need to be able to give people the ability to evolve their relationship with our community if we want them to stick around. Maybe that all happens within the same community in certain contexts.

Krista: I love that. And I love how you are hitting on life is an iteration. And as the owners of those communities you are, or that community you're taking ownership and awareness of like, just because you said yes five years ago, doesn't mean that you're going to still stay engaged and feel the value from it now or five years from now. So let's actually all accept this iterative process that we're on in this constant evolution. So I love how you're creating that question of does this still add value and why are you here? And if not, it's okay. Partnerships end, we go different ways. Phil and I always either this hand motion, like no one can see us, but one hand's going up while the other one's down. Then the other one goes up or this ebb and flow where sometimes you're flowing together and then sometimes you have to flow apart. And I think that's what friendships and community and people we just do through that natural iteration.

Jillian: Growth is a good thing. It's okay. Talking about Kelly's badass lady gang, and to what you were saying, Krista I mean, that's an excellent example of drives and drains, that exercise, because maybe I'm looking for a fitness community, but CrossFit is hell, intimidating. And I don't want to do that for whatever reason, but then and being able to realize that. Be like, "Okay, well, those people are really into extreme fitness and I just want to find people to hang out with and do a little running here and there, but really it's more about the friendship. And so if I go to CrossFit I might get the friendship, but I might also be miserable because the actual activity is... The wads are a lot versus finding this group of people running that they talk for 30 minutes, go on a little run and then talk some more and like that's my thing.

And so by being aware and being really in tune with what brings you joy and what stresses you out? It just helps you find that community versus all of the communities that maybe are quite-

Krista: Yes. People used to think I was funny when I would talk about that, where understanding who you are is so important to even your workout routine because, I'll use my mom as an example. She is incredible with her fitness every single day where I got a little nervous for her when then COVID started to start. She is a high extrovert. So for her going to those classes and being around people was really giving to her. It was energizing. She got so much out of it, both her physical fitness, but also her social experience. And she just was always so filled up by it. And so we talked a lot about how you transition to a home experience and still get that sense of people through your fitness. And I think, Jillian, you bring up such a good point that we all have to be aware of what works best from us in every area of life from that mentality.

Jillian: Audit, you got to audit yourself.

Krista: I agree, Jill.

Phil: I was just going to say fitness is such an easy one, but if you actually take that process to everything you do, at first, it feels a little daunting, but then you're like, "Wow, I should take agency over all that stuff." I should say, 'Wow, fitness is this, my work is this, my family is this, all these things matter because if you're measuring yourself of a currency, which we use of time and energy, time and energy is our utmost currency." And so if you're looking at a situation like the [inaudible] and you're like, "God, that sucked, I never want to do that again," that's energy. You're getting feedback like, "Oh, I didn't enjoy that," right. And harmonizing your energy and what you put into it is all part of that audit experience of your life across the board.

Jillian: It sounds like in the program that you both facilitate, that you do lead people to that. You do the work together in the eight weeks, but then, and correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like they have a community experience after that. But also the lesson of some of these things are an annual check-in. Is that-

Krista: Yeah. I mean, we start with, if you think about it like the circles, if you're at the core and then you have this concentric circle outside to that and the... So you're at the center of all of your life. And so you develop the strategic plan for yourself. Then if you're in a partnership and in the couples class, you're developing that strategic plan together. You're not really aligning with any of the other people or couples even on teams, unless they need to create alignment. They really just developing individual plans that they establish. And like Phil said, we get really down to tactical because yes, you have to audit all of these areas of your life, but you're not going to be able to do all of it at once. You're saying this year... Our process takes you into this year, what are you going to focus your time and energy and resources on because you're limited? So let's be really intentional about where you focus.

And so we get into this very tactical, just like any other strategic plan that anyone listening has ever implemented on a business level, you then go and you base your action plans off of that strategic plan. So even every single week, I'm looking at my strategic plan. "Okay. Where do I really want to focus my time and energy? What's most important this week?" So then I can create a to-do list that is in alignment with what's most important to me in my life. And then we always recommend that you're checking in with it on a weekly basis. You're checking in, you're doing a full quarterly review and then you're coming back annually and iterating on your plan. So we recommend at least an annual iteration of that. And again, that's for yourself first because you are who you are and then every element is part of that system and not... I think a lot of times we're, "Well, this is how I am in my professional life. And this is how I am in my friendships. And this is who I am in my relationships," and that's not true.

It's just one. You're just you with all of this life around you. And so you're just iterating on an annual basis and then you have the community to support you. And where it becomes really valuable is when you hit those moments throughout the year, when you have no clarity and you're just like, "Oh, what do I do? What decision do I make?" We're in the process of building a house and the lumber costs skyrocketed. And we're like, "Now what do we do? We need a home for our family. How do we make this decision?" We come back to what are our shared values? What's our shared vision? What's our shared mission statement. How do we get the clarity in that so it helps us make a quick decision without a lot of angst and then being able to share that even, and have collaboration about that with our community. Who's not just focused on, "Okay, what's the extra cost?" But they're also thinking about what's most important to you?

Tony: So real quick, just to close the loop on that, how would you address a problem like that that seems super challenging. What's the graceful way of approaching that exact situation?

Phil: So a great question, Tony, and I think this is actually where we have found the tremendous value in this process, in this work is that whenever something like that happens, you can anticipate that will happen for eternity, right? And the lumber cost for the house is like one example of millions and millions that are possible, right? Whether it's a car wreck or you sprain an ankle, or somebody gets sick, or God forbid, somebody dies in your circle around you, right? All these things are going to hit you and they're circumstances of life. They're just living. And so for us, it's about knowing this core. Krista mentioned the first half of what you do in the plan is this awareness module. And that becomes what we call your tether. So anytime you're hit with one of these stimulus from the outside, we say, "Go back and look at your core. Look at your awareness module, look at your values, your mission, your deathbed, the reflections you had about how you were living in alignment with that. How you were not."

All these things that you put on paper in the season that you're dealing with, you can say things like, "Wow, I do want to build this home," in our example, "I want to build this home because I really value the idea of hosting my family and being the central hub for holidays and bringing my family even closer together, relationally, because our family happens to live like hours away from us.

So having a central hub for us to do that and albeit there are some very practical things you have to do and leverages, you have to pull when it comes to things like financials or anything like that. You can look at that and say, "I'm going to make that decision from a peaceful place because I want this." This is true and then other levers in life can then move around what you actually want to do. And so it's not to say that you're not going to get hit with things like that are of crisis. In fact, I would say this is the process that allows you to deal with crisis and a lot more peaceful and calm of a way that allows you to get through those things a little bit more objectively, pragmatically and authentically. So for us, I mean, for us, the lumber thing was, I mean, it's a fairly large amount of capital that we had to sink into the house out of pocket.

But we looked at our life and instead of being crippled by the fear, the financial scarcity that might come from it, we said, "Let's make a decision from truth and power." And that almost mitigated all of that stress and anxiety right away, because then it just becomes a design project. It's like because then once you get over the hump of the emotion, when you get over the hump of the emotion you feel and accept the emotion, like this is scary. I'm fearful of this, but I know this is my truth, that I want this to happen. You can then look at it very, very clearly and say, "We're going to do this and here's how we can do that. Let's figure it out together."

Tony: Yeah. Sure. And that's the beauty of entrepreneurship, right, is that as business owners, you're not on a static paycheck. You understand in a somatic way that you're capable of generating value and if you need something, you can make that happen. Not just financial, but other forms of value as well. And so, yeah, I love the idea of being able to just take anything that comes your way with an attitude of grace and empowerment. And that's something that takes some practice. Not a lot of us grew up with that kind of attitude right out the gate. So being able to learn that and practice that with others is probably super valuable for a lot of people.

Krista: Tony, it comes back to what you said earlier, knowing your why. Being so clear on why am I doing this? One of the things with the house was we want Phil to be able to experience creation in the physical world because he's always been a designer on a digital level. And so he's always been able to see websites and brands and all of that stuff, but never in a 3D form. And so this has been a passion project of his, but we also wanted our two boys to experience that. We wanted them to see that their home being built, the process of creation. We wanted them to see, "Oh, this is something that my dad designed out of his head and put it out into the world." That has such a powerful... We always talk about ripple effect.

And so that why is so strong that then those logistics just become figureoutable. Okay. I can figure all of that out. And what we started to do was go source our community. Okay. What are all of the different solutions? We're looking into steel, we're looking into literally everything else that we could do. But I will say that we always also pair our work with a deep sense of responsibility also. So we have a strong financial engine, system that we use to track everything. So we're making informed decisions. So yes, having data on this awareness end, but also having the real practical life data to support every single decision. That's been super valuable also.

Tony: That's so helpful. Perspective, obviously. I mean, I've had situations where I've gotten really bothered by expenses that have come up unexpectedly, situations, whatever they are, but sometimes I've been able to step back and say, "You know what, actually, I'm in a pretty great position. It sucks that this happened, but it's awesome that I can get through it and that I can handle it.

Krista: And it's also helpful to say "No," Tony to your point that sometimes you might look at the situation and the piece and release comes from saying, "No, I don't want to sink all of it." And if I do that, it's not a strong enough why and that the resources I sink in aren't going to be as meaningful.

Phil: It is a skill though. I loved what you said about the skill, but when you said it's not something that we're taught, I think that's so true. And the mindset that you're examining and highlighting right here is so powerful where it's like, it really becomes a mindset game, like a perspective that you choose to take on these situations that hit you. And if you know more about yourself and you know more about what matters to you in this experience of life, you have so much more awareness to be able to make these decisions and make them from a place of power and authenticity and grace, and give yourself a chance toå step through life without feeling like the circumstance, but it's a skill.

And so when you said that, it really gave me goosebumps because I was like, you do have to learn this. You have to learn how to cultivate that way of thinking for yourself. And this is one of many ways to do that. But it's one of those things that I think everybody should be installing in their, what I'll call, wellness practices is that you need to look at yourself at this as a wellness angle, where this is just a preventative mechanism for you to say, "When I get hit with expenses, whatever it might be, I have a way in which to think about them. I have a way in which to respond to them. And that's really what we found of value for this. As I mentioned, when we started this work was born from a very, very [inaudible] time in our relationship in our life, leaving careers and high paying comfortable careers and having a child at the same time where we are feeling pressures from family and everybody's saying, "You guys are crazy. You're unsafe. What are you doing?"

We had to cultivate this way of thinking and then this process to hold us accountable to living a life that was like more true to us.

Tony: All right. We are having such a great conversation and I appreciate that. And we're going to keep that conversation rolling into our closing segment, which is the rapid fire.

They're personal questions and there's two of you, so what did you want to be when you grew up?

Krista: When I was leaving high school, I wanted to write and talk. So I have been designing my life around writing and talking ever since.

Phil: When I was a child, I had two things and I said I was going to do art. And I didn't know what form that was going to come to fruition with or play professional baseball.

Tony: Amazing.

Phil: I'm a Hall of Famer already. Right.

Tony: All right. How do you define community?

Krista: I define community around the idea of really intentional partnership and shared experience. And that is grounded in reciprocity and the giving and the receiving of just all parts of life.

Phil: Yeah. I love that too. Reciprocity is such a big word for me to like it. I would define it as a space in which humans, people, can cultivate a shared experience where they can build shared experiences and experiences are shared and there's giving and receiving. There's a symbiotic exchange for whomever is part of that space and sharing that space.

Tony: Love it. Let's move over to the bucket list. What is something that was on your bucket list, but you have done it?

Phil: Let me think. Bucket list item that I have done. I think a big one for me is fatherhood. That was a big one for me. I always knew that I was going to be a dad at some point in my life. And to now have two healthy children, be blessed with two healthy children with a wonderful partner in life that I can raise them with, certainly feels like I've hit the jackpot.

Krista: I would say that mine is just traveling the world. I've been able to do that now multiple times. And Phil and I have built that into our shared experience now with our kids and being out on the road with them is like the most challenging and profoundly rewarding experiences of my life.

Tony: Oh my goodness. Traveling with fam. That's a whole other podcast.

Krista: The lesson in patience.

Phil: Oh my gosh. Totally.

Krista: Legit. It's such a good teacher. Oh, such a good teacher.

Tony: There's the framing right there. This is teaching us how much we are capable of handling without exploding. Okay. Let's talk about bucket list still on what's still on it?

Krista: Seeing my grandkids.

Tony: Ooh.

Phil: That was a good one.

Tony: I fill in Krista's kids if you're ever listened to this.

Phil: For me, it's since having these big revelations, it's a newer bucket list item since leaving what I'll call the matrix and building something that just has tremendous impact with people. I had a very outdated way of thinking about how to apply the way that I think and what I enjoy brick and design. And now when I look at my life and in the next 25, 30, 40 years, however long we're around, being able to build something through Owl and Key as our train an engine right now, that really has impact whether it's one person having an unlock, which we've seen hundreds of times now. And it's every time it happens, I just get goosebumps and a new fuel to continue to do this work. And I just want it to be as spread as far and wide as it can.

Tony: That's beautiful. Appreciate that. Let's turn to books. What is a book that either lately or just all time you've been loving and you can't wait to tell everybody about?

Krista: I have so many Tony and I have to narrow it down, but I'm going to say the Soul of Money. I think everybody needs to read it and it changes your thoughts from abundance and more and more to sufficiency and what does sufficiency look like? And it's really powerful.

Tony: Awesome.

Phil: Tony, I would say that the book that literally was at the forefront of my transition with Krista was a book called Mindset by Carol Dweck and it really, [inaudible] to use the word framing and things like that, it really changed my perspective from a fixed mind to a growth mindset and gave me a new foundation, which I could think. So it's actually my number one and hasn't changed since then.

Tony: I have had every confidence that you all were going to have some really great book recs.

Krista: Yep. Wrote those down.

Tony: You came through.

Krista: Thanks guys.

Tony: Okay. So I'm sure you love where you live but if you could live somewhere else, where would you live?

Krista: Mm, Sedona, Arizona. Just somewhere down Southwest. I think that's my energy center.

Phil: And we share that, which is why we make a good partnership. I would say either Arizona or Utah.

Tony: Yeah. Utah is beautiful. Very cool. And there's a big one. Getting philosophical, now. How do you want to be remembered?

Phil: My two core words in life... I have a bracelet on, they are love and wisdom. They always have been guiding words for me. And so I've always imagined when I talk about grandkids that they just feel that I was such a loving person and that even when I share in social media or on this podcast, it's always coming from this place of love, compassion, empathy, vulnerability. Every word that you can associate with love. But then also wisdom is just like, I want to be sitting around as an old, old woman with these grandkids sitting around me and just like telling amazing stories or giving them advice and for fun, not just... Cool grandma, [crosstalk] cool grandma. But through this place of I've lived it and I've really embodied what I learned and experienced.

Jillian: Those are some of my favorite people.

Krista: I'm so glad we-

Jillian: And it's so perfect that you're the owl in the Owl and Key. With the wisdom.

Phil: The wise old owl.

Krista: True.

Phil: She is our owl. The words that are coming up to me, very visceral right now are presence. I think this really was driven home when children entered our life where I always want my children, which is really a cornerstone of remembrance and from my vantage point that I always want them to know that dad was there, that I was not a circumstance to anywhere that took me away, that I was always around, that I was making meals, that we were doing fun things. And that not only were we doing things physically, but that I was there for them emotionally in that way too and so presence. The other two that come up are curiosity and growth where I want... I've told Kris this before. One of my cornerstones of parenting and even just in life is to install curiosity in everything that I do.

And so when I meet new people or our children will go through new seasons of life for us to just be always curious about what their experience is like, and really diving into them and saying, "How you feeling about this? What did you do? Who did you meet? Did you learn anything new?" And we've already started to install that in our day to day at dinner. Every night we ask them what their favorite part of the day was and what they learned.

Tony: That's beautiful.

Phil: And so they're one and a half and three and a half. So it's very elementary right now, but we're already starting. I was going [crosstalk] these kids. The three and a half year old is really getting into it. But curiosity is definitely one I want them to always know that I'm growing, that dad was always not stuck. He didn't have his feet in the mud and that everyone that I'm around always saw me as changing and evolving.

Tony: Beautiful. One last final question. Where do we find you on the internet? Tell us all about everything. All your links.

Krista: Owl and Key is Owl and, spelled out A-N-D Key.co. So you can find us mostly there, which then has all of the links to all of the other places. I am Krista.Franks on Instagram, which is where I spend most of my time and I'll check in other places, but that's the best one.

Phil: We also have a podcast which you can describe across platforms called Unlocked. Krista and I sit down with awesome people like yourselves on every Monday, and then get those out. And then we also have a conversation where we talk about just our lifestyle and things that we're experiencing. We release those later in the week. We're also on Instagram as a brand, Owl_And_Key and I'm Phil_Frank on almost every platform.

Tony: Very cool. Awesome. You all thanks so much for this amazing conversation. It's been an absolute pleasure, excited to share in your journey. Keep up the amazing work you're doing, and we'll be cheering you on.

Jillian: Thanks so much.

Phil: Thank you guys for the space and giving us a chance to have great conversation with you too. We value it.

Tony: All right. That was our conversation with Phil and Krista of Owl and Key. Jill, how are you feeling?

Jillian: I love everything they're doing. I mean, wow, their program just sounds so cool. And even just the critical self inquiry, just even that concept, yes, we should all be doing this.

Tony: Yeah. I feel like so many of us. It will help us so much.

Jillian: And what an opportunity when you're doing these exercises, like the drives and drains exercise, hello, ah, yes. But to discover those niche interests or places like we talked about, Kelly's bad ass lady gang, right? It's like, "Well, I want to join a running group, but I don't want it to just be about running and training and races and going fast."

I mean, that's the kind of community-building, the community work I really want to see takeoff in this next iteration of community.

Tony: Well, I guess it starts with having the awareness and then the interest to go in this direction, which I feel like is probably going to be the case for most anyone who isn't completely happy with everything in their lives. But going into the drives and drains, doing a little bit of a thought exercise and I'm sure they have a more structured approach to it, but even just asking yourself, "Well, if I made a list with a piece of paper right now and said, 'Well, what drives me? What gets me juiced? What gets me excited and what drains me,' and then use that as a bit of a perspective roadmap on what changes might I need to make? Is there something I'm dedicating a lot of my time to that I put in the drains column? Is there something that I love doing that energizes me that I probably am not doing enough of?"

Jillian: I mean, I think there's just so much room to really curate everything, to just really suit who you are and your goals. And then let's talk about death-bedding. A little deathbed time.

Tony: Yeah. Death.

Jillian: I'm all about it.

Tony: Always fine.

Jillian: I'm fine with it being morbid. I appreciate that the exercise for them is not morbid, but I'm like, let's do it. Let's lie in a coffin and really method, think about this.

Tony: What is it about the lying in a coff... I have a friend who is really excited about this activity that some people do at the whole lying in a coffin thing. That's wow. That's intense.

Jillian: Is that an actual thing? You can do that?

Tony: Yeah. Jill, I've talked to a lot of community people and I haven't encountered those people, but so I did have another community friend who told me about a program that was all about exactly what we're talking about, about getting in touch with your death and all of that. And they actually part of the activity is to actually lie in a coffin.

Jillian: I dig it. I feel like that could be a whole side business for a mortuary or a funeral home. My head's spinning. Maybe I'm going to launch coffins and cocktails and everyone's in their coffin. You spend five minutes in contemplation and then you have an old fashioned.

Tony: You know what? I'll bet that would be a hit in New York. You could charge at least $20 a drink. It'd be great.

Jillian: I hope so.

Tony: So, okay. Death, for real though. We are all going to die. And what a lot of people have said over the years, a lot of writing has addressed this is that the more that you face that and get in touch with that and come to terms with the implications of it, the happier life you can lead now, the more that you can lead a life with intention, knowing that it's all going in one direction and you want to be able to have a strong connection to where you're going to be at the other end of it. And I think it's really healthy to face.

Jillian: Yeah, I agree. And I'm sure we've all seen the articles and whatnot where someone has asked a bunch of people that are either at end stage life and they're dying, for lack of a better word, physically dying. And it's like, "What regrets do you have in your life?" And nobody says, "I wish I worked more." It's a beautiful exercise because you're trying to ensure that you're living the life that's unregrettable and fulfilling.

Tony: And I imagine — and in a group setting, especially once you do this, that some people are going to come out of that and say, "Oh my God, I don't want to die without having done some of these things that are in there," and that's a beautiful starting point for, "Okay, now how do we get you in that direction and what people can help you move in that direction?"

Jillian: Yeah. And I mean, it sounds like that's exactly what Krista and Phil did. Right? They were in the quote unquote, "cush corporate work" and doing all the right things and it wasn't right for them.

Tony: Indeed. So here's what I'm wondering, Jill. So if I am a community leader and I am wanting to create better connection amongst the members of my community, I can, first of all, be thinking about what kind of life change or transition or deepening are the people in my world seeking or what could we unearth with the right kind of prompts? How can I be asking the members of my community provocative questions that elicit that and then how can I be giving them the chance to talk more about that?

Jillian: Absolutely. And I think what Krista was talking about with doing self-improvement work that isn't a how to. So it's not, "Let me tell you how to do this," but more, "Let's create space around a topic and create structure around it and let everybody share their experiences as a group."

Tony: Yeah. I think it's important for organizers to understand just how easy it can be to make small adjustments that really, really deepen connection amongst your members. There are lots of ways you can make your community better that are very labor intensive and very complicated. And we'll talk about those, but there's probably also some very simple ways that just creating the right kinds of provocations, the right kinds of circumstances to really dig into what's important for people is going to just make your community that much more meaningful and deep and helpful to people.

So let us know what you might be inspired to do differently in your community, what kinds of prompts or provocation you think would be most useful to your members? We're on Twitter @TeamSPI and we'd love to hear from you. So let us know what you're up to, ask those deeper questions and we'd love to hear from you. And in the meantime, keep doing your thing. Thanks for tuning in, and we will catch you at the next episode.

Jillian: We will see you next Tuesday.

Tony: This has been The Community Experience. For more information on this episode, including links and show notes, head over to SmartPassiveIncome.com/listen.

Jillian: Find Krista and Phil Franks at OwlandKey.co that's all spelled out. You can find their podcast, Unlocked, anywhere you listen to podcasts. They are @Owl_and_Key on Insta, Krista.Franks on Insta and Phil_Franks on all the things.

Tony: Our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Our series producers are David Grabowski and senior producer Sara Jane Hess. Editing and sound design by Duncan Brown. Music by David Grabowski.

Jillian: See you next time.