Embody Your Energy

62. Life's A Game: Gamifying Strategies with Kimba Cooper-Martin

• Charlotte Carter

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Turning life's challenges into a game can completely change how you look at everything!

In this episode of Becoming Fearless, we're diving deep with Kimba Cooper-Martin - a gamification guru who turned a career curveball into an incredible journey of reinvention!

After losing her job, Kimba discovered something magical: you can literally gamify your way through fear, business challenges, and personal growth. She'll take us behind the scenes of how game-like strategies can make seemingly scary tasks not just bearable, but actually fun.

We're tackling some juicy topics:

  • How you can turn public speaking anxiety into an exciting personal challenge
  • The secret motivational techniques that can make business engagement skyrocket
  • Why understanding different "player types" could be your superpower in communication

Kimba pulls back the curtain on her own experiences, sharing raw, real stories about building confidence and her digital marketing agency, Kimba Digital.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, a professional looking to get to the next stage, or someone who wants to transform fear into fuel, this episode is your strategic game plan for success. Press play and get ready to level up! 🚀

CONNECT WITH KIMBA

Website: https://kimbadigital.com
Take A Quiz: https://thegameplanquiz.com
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebusinessgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kimbaDigital
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimbadigital

Kimba's book recommendation: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

CONNECT WITH CHARLOTTE

Website: https://www.idaretoleap.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamcharlottecarter
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idaretoleap

7 Day Experience (starting 6th January 2025): https://idaretoleap.com/lp/activate-and-claim-your-path-to-success-for-2025

ULTRA (Charlotte's signature programme): https://idaretoleap.com/services/ultra

Interested in working with Charlotte? Schedule your free no-obligation call here:
https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/charlottescalendar

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Becoming Fearless, the personal growth podcast for you if you are ready to overcome fear and step into your greatness. Our purpose is to help you overcome your limits, have loads of fun along the way, unlocking your fullest potential in life, business, health and relationships every single day. I'm your host, charlotte Carter, a high performance coach and entrepreneur with over 20 years experience. I'm your host, charlotte Carter, a high-performance coach and entrepreneur with over 20 years experience. I've supported many highly driven, talented people like you who dream big and are ready to take action to overcome what's holding them back. Each week, my guests and I will be sharing hacks and habits on how to build self-belief, courage and confidence, to master your mindset and navigate your emotions so that you can reach your human potential in a way that feels light, fun and easeful and helps you become fearless. Let's go.

Speaker 1:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Becoming Fearless. This is a guest episode and I am excited to bring this guest onto the podcast. She is somebody who I've admired for the past five years. I've really been inspired by her journey and we were just catching up before we started recording and saying it's been far too long since we spoke with each other, so I'm excited to get going on this conversation. So let me introduce you to Kimber. Kimber, let the world know a little bit more about who you are and what you do.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, charlotte. So I am Kimber Cooper Martin, I run Kimber Digital and I'm a gamification consultant. I think it's probably helpful at this point to give a summary of what gamification is, because I know not everyone knows what it is, but once I explain it, all of a sudden people start realising. Actually, I see it everywhere. So, throughout games we have throughout games we have throughout games, throughout time, throughout forever, we have played games. So we have played hopscotch, shindlewinks, chess, fortnite, you know.

Speaker 2:

Online games, board games, sports all of these things have tools and techniques built in to encourage you to keep playing, even when you are bored or frustrated, because you want to get to the next level or you want to beat your opponent or you want to help someone else to achieve something, and so what a gamification expert will do is take those tools and techniques from the game world and put them into non-game settings.

Speaker 2:

Now, my expertise come from the marketing world. I have a background in online courses, online launches, memberships, things like that, so it made sense for me to use gamification in these areas. So I help businesses to get better results from their online courses, online launches, online memberships, marketing, but also and this is an area that seems to have started to expand in my world is people who want to achieve things in their business but they can't motivate themselves to do the boring things, the things that they find frustrating. But they know they have to do so gamifying themselves, gaming themselves to achieve those things. So that's what I do from a business sense. I'm sure we'll get into non-businessy things as well whilst we're chatting.

Speaker 1:

This is so juicy, isn't it so, juicy? I love a game. So this isn't what you always did, because when we met, we were just talking. We met, we were on a mastermind. That's about five years ago now, and this isn't what you were doing then, is it? So? Just let the listeners know a little bit.

Speaker 2:

A whistle, stop about what you were doing before the gamification world whistle, stop about what you were doing before the gamification world, okay, so, um, I think actually we might come back to this because it ties into the the theme of your podcast, really. But I ended up losing my job and this was a revelation to me. I've always been a high achiever like. The fact that I lost my job was, you know, horrendous at the time, but in hindsight, probably a good thing. And I ended up working for a VA agency because I'd never heard of it and I couldn't get a job in the new city that I'd moved to and I was like, what am I going to do? So I ended up working for this VA agency promoting them, and very quickly realized that actually I could do this for myself. So I started running a digital marketing agency, which we niched down into a social media agency when we realized that was what we were good at and I did the whole you know typical successful things in air quotes we got an office, I got staff, you know we ran quite a successful agency. And then I started running Instagram training online, teaching people how to get leads from Instagram, because it's something that I'd started to do successfully and realised I could help others that side of the business really took off very quickly and it meant that I could close the social media agency element of the business down and we focused just on Instagram. And that actually happened at a really fortuitous time. Like people said to me that I predicted the pandemic because in March 2020, I just let go of any staff I'm not let go. They'd moved on to other things of any staff that happened to work in-house and everyone that still worked with me remotely was still on board. We'd let go of the offices and we'd moved into, you know, purely online training and I did Instagram training for a while and Instagram started to change quicker and quicker and people were getting updates on their phone quicker than I was and they were saying to me you know, I've paid you all this money. You need to teach me how to use this new feature, which I'd never even seen yet.

Speaker 2:

It was changing really rapidly and it was all spiraling quite quickly and, although all the techniques I was teaching them would still work, regardless of, you know, the new feature that somebody brought in, it was becoming increasingly stressful and I just thought you know, running my own business, one of the advantages of it is being able to do something that I enjoy and to not be hugely stressed out all the time. And that's when I ended up moving into gamification, which seems like a huge, massive segue, but it's not so. Anyone who knows me pre the gamification stuff will know that this is something that I was doing anyway. I was already putting loads of gamification into my launches, into my business and personally.

Speaker 2:

In fact, the reason I knew that it was something I was doing was because my husband said to me you only ever exercise if you set yourself a challenge. And I was like no, I don't, what are you talking about? And then I thought about it and I was like, yeah, he's right. I like I'll only ever do, I'll only ever train running if I've got a half marathon that I'm signed up to. I'll only ever do press-ups if I'm doing a 30-day challenge. And that's where I started to see, you know, I was like actually I'm doing this in every area of my business and I think this is something I could help other people with too. So I did a lot of research, I did some studying and uh, and then realized I didn't need to do any of that because all of those things I was already implementing anyway, so now I help other people to do it for themselves.

Speaker 1:

I love this. Let's dive deeper into well, let's dive deeper into fear, because gamification I want to talk about that. I definitely want to talk about gamification yourself because it goes hand in hand with high performance. It goes hand in hand with how you can achieve at your greatest level without burning yourself out, without all of the things, and to create this level of fun, happiness, joy, bliss and all of those things. So let's talk about fear, and you know the fear that you've touched on when you lost your job, where you're like how does this happen? To somebody who's a high achiever like me, that's just something that is brand new and how overwhelming that is.

Speaker 1:

And then any other elements of fear that have come into either your personal or professional life that you want to share and how they've showed up for you. So the listeners can get an idea, because I truly believe fear shows up in different ways and it's always a lesson, it's always a learning and it's always something to lean, and it's always something to lean into. At the time it's so frightening. It doesn't feel like that, it feels like the rug's being taken underneath you, but there's always learning. So is there an area or something that you want to share with the audience. That will help them understand a little bit about your fear management journey. Let's call it that.

Speaker 2:

So when I was thinking about talking about this earlier, I remembered when somebody that I know quite well said to me can you come and talk about confidence? And I said to this person I'm not confident, I am brave. I can't tell people how to be confident. I am brave. I can't tell people how to be confident, because I'm a very like, if you perceive me from the outside, most people say when they first meet me oh I was quite scared to meet you. You're intimidating, because you always look like X, y and Z, you have it all together, or you look very polished or any whatever these things. You're super confident. And the truth is I am petrified of everything, like I am a very scared person. Um, but there's that phrase, isn't there? Feel the fear and do it anyway. And I think that there is a difference between being confident and being brave, and I'm definitely in the brave camp. It looks to the out from the outside like I am confident, but I think I'm just more bloody minded than anything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you know. I think I'm just more bloody minded than anything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you know.

Speaker 2:

I think that's a different thing and I think you know, for example, when I lost that job, it's really hard at the time because it was a shock, firstly, didn't expect it, but also it kind of rips apart who you think you are as a person. Like there was all these things that you think you know. I am x, y and z, like you said. Like you know we've already covered, I am a high achiever. A big personality trait of mine is achieving things. So like any form of failure back then was a much bigger deal than it is now. And you know, with hindsight I could say if I hadn't have lost that job, I wouldn't have been looking for new things and I wouldn't have become self-employed, I wouldn't have had all these opportunities that I've had. But at the time it doesn't feel like that. At the time it's completely soul-destroying, um, it's soul-consuming and it you have no self-worth, you're like I don't have a job, nobody will employ me, what is the point of me Like, which is I would never say that to anyone else, right? Not in a million years. But you do say these things to yourself and it's tough. It is tough, I think, as well as like with losing my job, also with changing business. So I've never been so questioned.

Speaker 2:

With all of the other changes in my business so changing from a general VA to digital marketing agency and then social media agency and then Instagram everyone could see the linear progression. Nobody questioned it. But there was a lot of backlash. When I decided to go into gamification, there was a lot of support and I you know if anyone's listening to this and you're around at that time I want to thank you hugely for your support, because there was a lot of support, including from yourself. So thank you, charlotte, of that change. But there were people who didn't like it and you know I ended up in some really awkward conversations and there was a lot of doubt. Yeah, but then sometimes you just have to put yourself first and I just thought if I keep doing the Instagram stuff, yeah, I can keep making money. I was making a lot of money, don't get me wrong. It was very successful business I was doing very well. I can keep making that money, but I will be miserable, and if I want to be miserable, I can just go and get a job.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to talk with you about this, um, inner grit. So in positive psychology, there is a whole piece around how people motivate themselves, how people make change, how people do the thing ultimately, and it's about inner grit and I think that is so closely linked to bravery and courage, and I think you're spot on when people perceive this as somebody feeling confident because of how they could portray what they were, what they look like, how they carry themselves, however it is, or however the person saying that receives that information. But actually, in a grit, in a wisdom, in a knowing, however you want to say, it is something that fuels people's change. So you have that in abundance, you have that in shed loads. I saw that the first moment I met you. I was like this woman is one powerhouse, she has got 10 ton of inner grit, but I would never have known that you were so scared about things.

Speaker 1:

I want to talk about something else that you've touched on that I can't bear not talking about, because it's going to be really important for people listening, because I talk quite a lot about fear of visibility, fear of speaking, fear of putting yourself out there on stages, on podcasts Some people come on and their fear of being on the podcast. I get it. I really do get it, because you're out there and it's so unknown. Let's talk about an opportunity that's coming up for you, that is phenomenal, and what's coming up for you so that, when you nail it, you can go. Oh yeah, I remember when I felt like that and then I used my grit, used my determination, used my focus and nailed it okay.

Speaker 2:

So, uh, might be helpful for people to to get a bit of an understanding of where I'm coming from with this to start with. So I have delivered workshops in person, I have spoken in person at lots of different things and I've spoken online a lot. In fact, if you follow me anywhere, you'll be sick of seeing my face online, but I don't care, I'm still going to do it. So there's a difference for me and I don't know why. A it's a silly brain thing that my brain does where. Talking to you online, talking to a thousand people online, absolutely fine. Standing up in a group of people, even if I know them, still gives me horrendous butterflies and like, uh, um, I don't know how else to put this but like a ghost pee, like where you feel like you need to go for a week, but you don't actually need to go for a week, um, like I don't know, it's just, it's that's the way my body responds to this particular thing and I've done, you know, with a lot of different fears that I've had over the years. More exposure, it does help. So, like learning to drive was a massive fear for me, learning to swim, and these are both things that have come in my 30s and increased exposure has definitely helped with both of those, but with this particular one it hasn't really helped.

Speaker 2:

So, you know, in the past couple of years, I've been increasingly asked to speak on bigger stages and being paid to speak on bigger stages about gamification in front of bigger brands, and I still, like it is getting easier in terms of I now know that the likelihood that anything is going to go wrong is quite small and that you know, the last big stage appearance that I did went really well and I messed up and it still went really well. Okay, um, but yeah, I still have this feeling. So, anyway, so, uh, next year, next September, I've been asked to speak um at the Membership Geeks Retain, live 2025, which is a conference for successful membership owners, um, specifically successful membership owners, the idea being to help them kind of level up, and it's like a perfect fit for me because their membership geek branding is all around gaming and stuff anyway, and I work a lot with membership owners to improve their membership results through gamification. And, again, I generally work with people who already have successful memberships because if it's not already successful, there could be something else that isn't quite right before they get to the marginal games of gamification, and this is going to be the biggest stage I've ever spoken on. I am very excited and I'm delighted that they've asked me. It's a big milestone for me that this organisation has said you know what we want you on our stage.

Speaker 2:

But at the same time, I've seen some of the people who've spoken there before and I've seen the promo video of what the stage looks like, and I'm still, of course, I'm still like, oh my god, like I still have that fear. Of course I do, um, so that's where I'm at with it at the moment. Um, and yeah, I like I'm talking with myself, so like there's things like just toing and froing with them, not just in this instance, but with somebody who's running an event about, like, the speaker fee and you know how much they need me to promote and all of that kind of stuff. It brings up all of this equal amounts of excitement and nervousness. That doesn't seem to change for me, no matter how many times I do it. It's so weird, isn't it? Our?

Speaker 1:

brains are interesting things.

Speaker 1:

It is really interesting. But I always believe and more so now that I've done so much deeper energetic work is that when you get closer and closer to your purpose, the stuff that really lights you up fear is stronger, it feels more potent, the whole experience feels more potent. There's more sensory stuff going on and you're somebody who feels everything so sensory when you're in that experience Because, like you say, when you're doing things online and there's millions of people, you're still in your own comfort space with your own environment. Step onto a room, even if there's two people, 200 people, 2 million people in front of you there, it's a different feeling. You're picking up on people's energy. You're picking up on your own energy. You've got this like ghost way. I love that going on and all of these other things going on, and it's it's important to know. I've got so many questions. What I want to ask you now is how could you gamify yourself around this whole contact or this whole, you know, feeling of speaking in public?

Speaker 2:

so this is really interesting. So I actually did gamify myself in terms of um speaking online and on podcasts. A couple of years ago, I set myself the challenge of doing 52 guest experts. Oh, I remember, yeah, and I did it in seven months. So I doing 52 guest experts in a year and I did it in seven months. So I did 52 of these in seven months, which is quite a lot in a short amount of time. But it means that I showed up today and we had a quick chat and we just got on with it Like I wasn't like thinking about it for hours and worrying about it or anything.

Speaker 2:

So I think maybe there is something to do with exposure on that, because actually it's infrequent at the minute, like I'm doing a lot more than I was before, but it's not happening regularly, if you see what I mean. So maybe there's something I can do around that and I think maybe there's something I should be doing to gamify myself to prep the content. It's hard to prep content properly in advance because unless you know, you know all the places you're going to be speaking, but there's bound to be bits that I'm going to do over and over again. So in the last conference, for example, we played a game at the end where because otherwise they're just listening to you talk the whole time and like I can't, like there's, there's nothing wrong with them just listening to me talk, right, but I want to be standing out as somebody gamifying my talk. So I'm gamifying it. So I got, I've got this big dice. In fact, have I got it here?

Speaker 2:

yeah, so I've got a big dice and I just I give it to somebody I know in the audience and I say you roll the dice.

Speaker 2:

And then they roll the dice and it picks a number and I use that number to pick an envelope which gives a frequently asked question that I can then answer to the audience. So it mixes it up a little bit. So I think gamifying the talk has actually made it a bit more interesting for me as well, because I think one of the fears is around forgetting what I'm saying or saying things in the wrong order. And if it's interactive, if it's just a conversation with people, then it's easy, isn't it like? Standing on stage is the scary part, but if you just you know that that thing they say about imagine everyone's naked, I think for me, asking people questions and getting them involved in some way, making it more fun, making it more interactive, is my version of seeing them naked because all of a sudden they're just people chatting with me yeah yeah, and I think that can be scaled up to a big stage.

Speaker 2:

So I think that's what I've got to do. Next is figure out how that would work on a bigger stage and I think so much of this.

Speaker 1:

This is where everybody is so unique, because I can stand on stage, you can put me in front of loads of people. It doesn't faze me one bit. I can do it. You know, it's something that's so easy to me. But, you know, put me in a different situation and I would be absolutely riddled with fear. And this is why, why, why becoming fearless is so, so potent, in that you, everybody, has their unique ways of living life and their unique ways of conquering fear. Let's talk about the whole gamification and game how you help people in business and how you you've you've alluded a bit to how you gamify yourself, because you know, I'm sitting here with all my medals behind me. I'm like a big achiever. I I'm like how can I gamify what I want to do? How can I gamify some of the programs? What are the things I can bring in? Um and and? Is everybody like me? Does everybody like a game? Because I just love it. I know I love a personal growth game. That's what I love.

Speaker 2:

So that's I'm keen to hear so, uh, I think the best way to answer this is to talk about player types. So, um, a guy called Bartle came up with some player types for the kinds of personalities that you would get playing a video game in the 80s and, uh, I use it in gamification, although he would argue you should just apply it to games. So, the player types that they there are more of them, but I focus on the, the main four, um, which are achiever, which we both are. Yeah, these are people who are motivated by simply achieving things. So, you know, in this instance, I'm doing these talks even though they scare the living crap out of me, because I want to achieve. I am good at doing these. In this instance, I'm doing these talks even though they scare the living crap out of me, because I want to achieve. I am good at doing these talks right. That's why I'm doing it. That's my motivation. I don't need external validation. I don't need a sticker. I'm going to take it off just so I can be like look at me, I did this thing right To myself. I don't need to do that to anyone else. Even Socializers are the next one. So these are people who are motivated by helping other people, interacting with other people, connecting with other people. They don't care if they win. They don't. They don't at all. For them, winning is cooking a meal for their neighbor, is networking with people in your membership group is being helpful.

Speaker 2:

Explorers are the next type. They are people who, in a game scenario, they are the people that would find the Easter eggs, the hidden things that are just put in there for fun. In a non-game setting, they might be your grammar Nazis. They might be the people who will investigate every area of your course or membership to find all of the things. They will have read every single post. They are interested to look around the world and see what is there, what is there to be discovered. And then the final one. And now these sound evil, but I promise you they're not. It's just a name because of, like the thing, the world that they're in killers. So these are in a game scenario. These are the people that will happily kill people, even people on their own team, just because they want to be at the top of the leaderboard. Yeah, these are the smallest part. Generally, when I'm working with people on their memberships or their courses, whatever, we'll survey their audience and find out what percentage of each type of player they have, and killers is always the smallest type.

Speaker 2:

In a non-game setting, they're very similar to achievers. They want to achieve, but they don't want to achieve for the sake of achieving. They want to achieve because they don't want other people to achieve. They want to win and, yeah, they. They want to win because they want to be at the top of the leaderboard rather than because they want to achieve the thing. Yeah, yeah, they want to be seen as the best. And again, nothing wrong with that. Um, as long as you're not hurting anyone, it's absolutely fine.

Speaker 2:

But, and you know, when you are designing any sort of gamification for yourself or for others, you should take your player types in into consideration, because it's it's the most natural thing in the world is to create a course, a membership marketing that you would like. I do it, I have done it myself, everyone does it. You know you'll create a video course because you like videos. You won't write long blogs because you don't like reading long blogs. You know you'll. You've heard of learning types. It's something we've talked about, although I think it's been discredited now the whole learning types thing. You're either visual or audio or whatever, but this and this isn't one of those things where you're just necessarily one or the other. Like in different scenarios, you might be a bit of one or a bit of another and you might be, but for the sake of ease, I ask people to say which ones you align with the most. I know you're not going to be 100% any of them and so, yeah, when you're designing your membership, designing your course, whatever think, am I just designing it for me because I'm an achiever? Am I just designing it for me because I'm a socialiser? What are the other reasons people could be here? So let's say, you've got a course and you're teaching I don't know how to make teapots.

Speaker 2:

Some people will be there because they want to learn how to make a teapot. They will Most people, in fact will be there because they want to make a teapot. Some people will be there because they want to network with other people who can afford your teapot course. Some people will be there because they want to learn about how you teach people how to make teapots. Some people will be there because they want to learn about how you teach people full stop, because they've seen, they've, they know you've been successful and they've seen how you market this stuff and now they want to know a bit more. Some people will be in that course because they want to get closer to you. Some people will be in that course because it sounded interesting and they fancied it on the day and actually they're not that bothered.

Speaker 2:

So, like I think as well, when you're looking at metrics and metrics is a big, big gamification thing you know you need to consider what 100 completion is for you. Some people, like I want to get 100 of the people to get through my course. Okay, so let's say, 30 of your audience are socializers and they don't. They're not there to learn. That means your actual completion rate is 77, not 100, and like that would be, that would be, your 100 is getting 70 of the 77 of the people through, and let's say that, like a couple of those people, actually they don't care about teapots, they were just there for whatever. Do you see what I mean? So like, yeah, yeah, the point of this is that your 100 course completion rate is not the same as everyone else's and it's very easy to think, oh god, only 20 of the people finished my course. But if those 20 of of the people finished my course? But if those 20% of the people that finished your course made an amazing teapot and are telling all their friends about it, you'll get more, and what I would say at that point is like that for me, that shows that you do have some success, and that is the point at which you can start adding gamification for the other personality types to ensure that they're getting what they want out of it as well, and simply by surveying people, you can find out why they're actually there.

Speaker 2:

Not everyone's going to be honest, like not everyone's going to say I want to copy your course, but you know you will get some examples of people saying things that you hadn't anticipated, and you can build for that, so that, so that you know if more people come in with the same aims in the future, you can build for that too, and I think it's very easy. Like quite often, people will say to me you know, if I'm going to gamify something, what's the best app to use? Or what's the best software to use? Or you know who's the best software designer? Am I going to have to spend six figures to gamify? Well, not necessarily. You know, if you've got a lot of socializers in your group, you could just add a networking event and that that is, on its own, gamification. It doesn't sound like gamification, it doesn't look like badges and leaderboards, but simply planning things according to player types could be enough to motivate people to show up to a few more things.

Speaker 1:

I love this. I want to talk about one of my experiences, because I know that I've had clients that have had the same experience and I'm sure other people will, and I just wonder what you would say with this. So I had a whole program called High Performance Activator. It was very successful. People came in. They came from a different program. I had a great conversion. People really enjoyed it, and not many of them I taught it live. Not many of them I taught it live.

Speaker 1:

Not many of them went into the portal to watch the information, but they kept showing up live. That happens in every program that I do. People show up live. They might not necessarily go back into the portal to learn all of the stuff that I've put in there, because all of the values in there as well. They might not go in there. This particular one of this particular coh I had. They then continued in a group. They then now support each other. They meet up every quarter. There's about seven or eight women that all meet up from this cohort and is it that that particular cohort? I had a lot of socializers.

Speaker 2:

It's possible.

Speaker 2:

It is possible and it's possible that you had a lot of socializers, but that you had a lot of socializers and a lot of achievers, because they tend to work quite well together and they can see that by working together, they're going to get more out of it.

Speaker 2:

They can see that the value in working with you was bringing those people together in the end, which is perhaps not what you'd anticipated in the initial instance, but, yeah, that is a common experience that I find, um, that it's so funny because people say oh, kimber, I want to gamify x, y and z. I'm going to add a competition and I'm like, not everyone likes competition and actually, if you've got a lot of explorers and socializers, they're going to hate that. Like, if you can facilitate them working together and building a relationship, they're going to appreciate it so much more. So, yeah, it is possible that in that that instance, you had that. What I find as well is that you will attract people that are like you. So you are an achiever, but you are also definitely a socializer, like it is within you to. You're really good at building relationships and I think that that's probably come out in that as well the kind of people that you attract into your programs.

Speaker 1:

I'm probably demonstrating things that are like you I, I totally agree, but I'm really keen to get more of these explorers. I'm gonna put an sos out for more explorers and more killers, please. I feel like they're the ones that I've got to bring in to get the whole holistic, you know feel no, you'll have them.

Speaker 2:

You'll have them and actually it's easier to design a gamified project if you have only a couple of the player types, because you're only having to build for those kinds of people. But you'll have them, like 10 to 15 percent of your. Everything will be explorers like it's almost definitely, although I've worked with a couple of memberships recently where they're predominantly socializers and explorers, which for me is great fun because I get to plan different ways of motivating those kinds of people. I think the other thing as well is that people think okay, if I add some gamification in, everyone will definitely be motivated and everything will be fun for them. Not everything in the gamification world is fun necessarily, so things like I've already said, putting people into competition with each other, could be a negative experience for some people. Um, scarcity, fomo these are directly stolen from games, and what I find fun and what you find fun are different things, like your medals. Some of them are probably for things that I would never do. Have you got any swimming medals?

Speaker 2:

I have got swimming medals, yeah yeah, not in a million years would you get me doing that. So I mean, I've learned how to swim now, but I'm still pretty scared of open waters, like anything to do with that is petrifying. But um, but yeah, what everyone finds fun is different is the point. And so you might implement something and try it and you think, well, I've designed it for socializers. Why isn't it working? It might just be the. The tactic that you've implemented isn't quite right for the people that you've got in your course, your audience, your launch, whatever it is and yeah, it could be, you know, as basic as carrot versus stick. Some people might be like, well, I don't care, I don't want to win a prize. Like I don't care about any of that, I'm only going to work if you give me a deadline. Like, yeah, yeah, different people, horses and courses and all that well, that is just a whistle-stop tour of gamification.

Speaker 1:

I feel like I'm gonna have, I'm gonna call, I'm gonna bring you back on after you've done this talk next year and we can talk about what, why you navigated that.

Speaker 1:

But that is really, really interesting for me as a high performer, for me as somebody who, you know, looks at achievement in a very different guise. Now this is a great one, a really great way to explore different ways of how people function, how they show up for themselves, which is a big part of the work that I do, and I know a lot of people who listen. They do work for other people where they want to show up for themselves, which is a big part of the work that I do, and I know a lot of people who listen. They do work for other people where they want to show up for themselves. So this is a massive thing. I think it's going to be a super popular episode. So the question that I always ask everybody is is there a book that you have read that has really impacted your life, your way of being, helped you navigate any kind of fear or something that you just keep reading that has allowed you to make strides in an area of your life or business.

Speaker 2:

I think I'm going to have to say Profit First, because it's the book I recommend the most. I recommend it a lot and I keep going back to it. It's for anyone who runs a business, really, or anything financial. And it's an interesting book because it's basically what it says in the title, so making sure you put profit first and then how to organize your finances after that. And it's fascinating for me because everything he teaches in the book is something I was already doing personally with my personal finances. I was already completely all over it with my personal finances, but with my business, for some reason, it was like it was in a completely different world and I was like, why am I not? Why was I not already doing these things? Like I know I should be doing these things with my business, um, and it's it made me re-evaluate how I was doing, what I was doing with my business finances and creating spreadsheets to make sure that I was following that, and I I recommend it to anyone who'll listen.

Speaker 2:

Really, it's not a big read, it's not a difficult read and it's one of those that once you've read it, once you can dip in and out of it when you need to, um, which I have done often. I think if you do run a business and you don't have a handle on making sure you have some sort of profit, it's a great read. And even if you do have some sort of profit, it's a great read because it'll help you to reprioritize everything. It's not, you know, the be all and end all of all finances. I know plenty of accountants who haven't read it or don't follow that structure. I'm sure there will be other books for you, but if you're like I'm not sure what I'm doing with my finances or maybe I need to reconsider it, definitely give it a look.

Speaker 1:

And I think it's a great book to share on this podcast, because a lot of my listeners, one of the things that they have in common really is that they haven't put themselves first. So if they then translate that into their business, they probably haven't put profit first in their business. You know everything that they that's probably last or not even on their radar, um. So I definitely think that that is a book. I'm gonna get it, um, and I know I've got a client at the moment who's training in it. So, yeah, so this all keeps being shown to me at the moment, so maybe I need to get myself sorted with all of that.

Speaker 1:

So thank you so so much for coming on. We could have chatted for ages, and I really would like you to come on later on, especially when you've done this big talk in the gamification world, and talk more about what you learned from that, what you experienced, as well as how you navigate your fear, how you didn't, you know, got rid of your um, what did you call it? Your ghost week, all of those things. I would love all of those um. So thank you so so much. Is there anything else you want to share with the listeners before we round up this one?

Speaker 2:

um, I think for me really. You know you said about that internal grit thing. I think I know, because I'm an achiever, I want to achieve things anyway. But what I tend to do is, if I'm going to be facing something that I know I'm going to struggle with, I will try and put things in place to make it uh, to give myself a bit of control back, because that removes some of the anxiety.

Speaker 2:

But also I like to do things in secret. There is nothing to say that you have to tell people about the things that you're doing that you're scared about. If you are doing it to face the fear for yourself, you can tell them about it later if you want to or not. There is no rule out there that says that you have to tell things. I've you know it's become a bit of a running joke now that I like to keep secrets. But I keep secrets to protect myself and then I share my successes afterwards if I want to. And I think if you are going to be facing fears, that is something that you can try to implement. If you want to, it might help.

Speaker 1:

I love that and that is definitely something that's happened in my family. It's definitely something that happens with people that I'm close to and that is definitely something that's happened in my family. It's definitely something that happens with people that I'm close to, and it's definitely something that I do on a slightly different level in terms of sometimes it's taking people on the journey with you, like the world knows about you speaking next year. That's one, and then there are sometimes other pieces where it's like I'm going to celebrate this once I've completed this and then I can share the journey from a different place. So it is and I love the way that that you've connected that with protect protection, because there's definitely people listening where that piece will resonate for certain. So, once again, thank you so so much for being such an epic guest on today's episode. I have really loved it. And, um, how can people get hold of you? What's the best way of getting people getting in touch if they're like, hey, do you know what I want to?

Speaker 2:

I want to gamify my life so my business name is Kimber Digital, so K-I-M-B-A Digital. We are on pretty much every social and my website is kimberdigitalcom, and I have a free Facebook group called the Business Game where you can come and chat with us about gamification and business if you are interested. But anywhere you are on the socials, I would love to have a chat with you. So, yeah, thank you, charlotte, and thank you all for listening.

Speaker 1:

You are so welcome. All of the details to get hold of Kimber will be underneath the episode, so just go down, click there, go in a Facebook group, go, follow on Instagram all of the things and definitely reach out if you want a conversation. She is one of the most loveliest open book type of person I've ever met. So thank you so much and have a great day or great night or whatever. You listen to this episode and I will see you on the next episode. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode. I hope that you're feeling energized, fearless and inspired to take action today to stand in your greatness. I share even more tools and resources on my I Dare to Leap email newsletter. By signing up, you not only get early access to the I Dare to Leap products and services, but you also get brand new podcast episodes delivered straight to your inbox every Monday, meaning you'll never miss your weekly dose of Becoming Fearless energy. Sign up now at wwwidaretoleapcom. Forward slash newsletter or click the link in the show notes below.

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Charlotte Carter

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