Kelley Tyan’s book and podcast, both titled, ‘Addicted to the Climb’, inspires, empowers, and encourages you to keep on climbing no matter what mountains you face. Her success as a faith-based entrepreneur, author, coach and mother have given Kelley a well-versed knowledge of the importance in setting intentional time alone, and with family and significant others.


Brett Gilliland:
Welcome to the Circuit of Success. I'm your host, Brett Gilland, and today I've got Kelly Tyan with me. Kelly, how you doing? 
Kelley Tyan:
I'm doing great. How are you, Brett? 
Brett Gilliland:
I am doing well. It's good to be with you. It's a little gloomy and rainy here. It feels like it's been foggy for like a month. It's, it's not really been, but it feels like it.
How's the weather out in Boston?
Kelley Tyan:
It's freezing. However, we have sunshine today, which is a plus. 
Brett Gilliland:
Oh, it's beautiful. We have not seen that for a while and it's supposed, are you guys gonna get the snow that's coming in? Supposedly? 
Kelley Tyan:
I'm not sure. 
Brett Gilliland:
Okay. 
Kelley Tyan:
We just got our first snow on Sunday, which is always fun. And until it turns, you know, brown and muddy . 
Brett Gilliland:
Exactly. You gotta run the car through it. 
Kelley Tyan:
Yes, yes, but I would love to have a white Christmas. That would be amazing.
Brett Gilliland:
That would be amazing. Well, some fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. So you are a leading faith-based entrepreneur, a coach, a speaker, an author. A, uh, podcaster, which is awesome.
You and I have something in common there. Um, and so, uh, and your book and your podcast is called 'Addicted to the Climb', uh, which is a faith fuel movement that, uh, that inspires, empowers and creates courage to keep on climbing no matter what mountains you face. I love hearing that. And that's when we were connected through LinkedIn.
Uh, I saw that. I'm like, we gotta get her on the podcast. And, and here we are. So, but if you can tell us a little bit about yourself, Kelly, kinda what's made you the woman you are today. 
Kelley Tyan:
Well, thank you so much for having me again, and what made me, what makes me the woman I am today is just everything that I've been through in life.
I'm a breast cancer survivor. I've been through grief. I lost my mom. I was an only child. Um, my dad had a rare blood cancer, so all the trials and hardships I've been through made me realize I am on the climb. I'm not going backwards. I [00:02:00] wanna keep moving forward and how can I help others and take them along with me?
If I can get through these things, you certainly can too. I'm no different than you. And um, so that's what really my messaging is all about. And that's really the woman I am today. It's really through everything we go through is, I say at first it might have broke me, but then it built me. 
Brett Gilliland:
Yeah.
Kelley Tyan:
If you believe that. And so, I believe that, and I wanna keep climbing no matter what I face. There's no giving up. 
Brett Gilliland:
Yeah. What, how old were you when your mom passed?
Kelley Tyan:
She passed five years ago. 
Brett Gilliland:
Okay. 
Kelley Tyan:
So I'm not telling you how old I was. 
Brett Gilliland:
Okay. That's a trick question, right? Uh, yeah, I, I was thinking maybe even as a child, which my gosh is an only child, and, uh, losing your mom, it's never easy.
But losing 'em early would be tough too. So, so breast cancer survivor. So a little side note, my wife and I started a foundation for cancer in 2007, so we're going back ways now. Uh, and it was started because of breast [00:03:00] cancer. Actually, my wife's mom, grandma, and two of her aunts were all diagnosed within breast, with breast cancer within like a seven month period.
Kelley Tyan:
Wow.
Brett Gilliland:
And, and so we started this charity and it's been amazing. Um, ever since 2007, the people, the community that come out and support it. And then you fast forward six weeks after we started our foundation, my dad had cancer. You know, he is gotten it a second time. Her dad's got cancer, you know, now we have aunt's, uncles, friends, loved ones.
It's just, you know, I always, when anytime I speak about cancer, I'll ask them, everybody in the room to stand up that's been impacted by this disease. And you know, the whole room stands up, right? Whether it's yourself or a loved one. It, it's just, it's incredible. It does not discriminate. Cancer sucks. And, uh, so awesome hats off to you for being a breast cancer survivor.
We love that. And, uh, it's a whole other podcast that we can have on that, I'm sure, but we'll leave that for another day. Um, so if you can, why don't we, I'd like to start with just kind of habits. You know, you coach, uh, men and women, but mostly women, I think all over the, you know, the world probably, and, and, you're [00:04:00] seeing some things that need to go on in the crazier world that we live in today.
But what, what do you see are those two or three no miss items, uh, that people really need to be focusing on every single day to live their best life? 
Kelley Tyan:
Well, the number one thing I think to live their best life is people need to always have a vision in, um, a future look into what they want. If there's no vision, then they cannot be successful, no matter what.
We can plan and have goals, but I believe in really believing and seeing ourselves as the success that we wanna be or whatever it is we're trying to achieve. I think it all comes down to having a vision. And that's where it starts. Because I know for me, I knew I wanted, I saw myself speaking on stages. I saw myself constantly having the vision of mentoring women, coaching women.
And I focused on that [00:05:00] all the time. Every single day I woke up, I thought about it. I, it was always on my mind and that's what I worked towards. And I think that's how I, you can make things happen for yourself. 
Brett Gilliland:
Yeah. Well, I know we talked about, you said, uh, or I said faith-based, entrepreneur, coach, speaker, all that stuff, but, you know, faith-based, let's go there.
The, the Bible even talks about right, without a vision, people perish. And, and our firm's name is called Visionary Wealth Advisors and what the future could and will be like. Uh, cuz I, I agree. I mean, I think without that vision, without the end in mind, who knows where we're going and on the, you know, no pun intended with the rainy day out there, but you know, when it rains in our personal lives or our professional lives, That vision for me over the last two decades has kept me going on what I'm trying to build, and I'm constantly working on that.
So when you hear that, let's, let's dive deeper into that. In a vision, how do people go out and find that, and what steps can we take to, to create that? 
Kelley Tyan:
Well, I wanna backtrack a minute because I believe there are two different kind of people out there. The ones who we can experience the same rainy day.
And that's what made me think about it. And one person is going to use the rain and say, I'm gonna go out for a run today in. Run in the rain and I'm gonna get my workout in even though it's rainy and cold, and the other person is going to say, ah, it's raining, it's cold. I don't wanna move. I'm, ah, they're gonna use rain as an excuse. So that's...
Brett Gilliland:
That's a great point.
Kelley Tyan:
That shows me, you know, there's what kind of person do you wanna be? Do you wanna have a vision of being, I can use healthy and fit for this example; Do you want, if you wanna be healthy and fit, then no matter rain or shine, you're out there doing your workout. The other person is just thinking about it, wishing for it, not taking action.
They don't have a vision of being healthy and fit, so they're staying home and they're in the same place they are they were four months ago, eight months ago, wondering why. So it really comes down to making a [00:07:00] choice. How do you wanna live your life? Am I gonna be an action taker in the rain or the shine? Am I gonna keep climbing no matter what, because we can make excuses all day long, right?
Brett Gilliland:
Yeah. 
Kelley Tyan:
All of us. But we have to make that decision that I see myself healthy and strong. How am I gonna get there? And to get there, you have to take action. Set up habit. And just move. Just go. 
Brett Gilliland:
Yeah. And I think it's, it's good. Especially this time of the year, I mean this, when this podcast airs, it'll be probably the end of December, beginning of January.
And I think about, it's always a great time to reflect on the year, what we've just learned from our past. And I talk about the three Ps, your past, your peers, and your potential. And so let's talk about the past. What did we just learn from 2022, right? How have we come out of this pandemic? How did we come out of a year with good economy, bad economy, depending on what type of business you're in. But let's look forward, and I think, you know, one question I would ask myself with a journal and a ink pen, if I'm somebody listening to this and struggles with this type of stuff, is, what does success mean to me? Right? What does success mean to me?
And I don't mean financial success, I just mean success, period. And so when I asked that to the people listening, I'll ask it to you as well, what does success mean to you?
Kelley Tyan:
I love that question because I take the finances right out of it. Always. 
Brett Gilliland:
Yep.
Kelley Tyan:
Because success to me is really about, am I fulfilled? Am I doing what I'm passionate about doing? Am I serving other people? Am I making an impact somewhere? Whether you are, you might not be a speaker or a leader, but yes, you're a leader in your family. Are you leading the right way? Are you feeling fulfilled in your life? So, I think that's really sums up what success is to me,

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