Michelle Micalizzi, Artist
(All Rights Reserved)
My muse this week is Luke Kayyem. Luke owns The Fittest Tribe Alive. The FITTEST TRIBE ALIVE is an Empowerment Coaching Program that delivers the necessary tools to live a higher quality of life.
WHY LUKE QUALIFIES TO BE ONE OF THE 2017 FEARLESS THIRTEEN.
I have known Luke and Najla Kayyem for about eight years now. The Kayyem’s have been my clients as former owners of SICFIT and current owners of Kayyem Marketing and The Fittest Tribe Alive. I am a fan. At the tail end of this interview Luke calls he and Naj the power couple. There has never been a truer statement spoken. These two tenacious charismatic entrepreneurs are a force to be reckoned with no matter what business they are doing. Naj was featured in the Art of Fearlessly Dong Business II in 2016 because she is a one-of-kind truly fearless woman.
Luke and I share many similar stories both professionally and personally. We are both connectors and we definitely connected. We have both spent most of our lives working in one capacity or another as personal trainers and business owners. We have both made a decision to live a sober lifestyle and neither one of us is shy about our choice either. We both believe that our choice is a powerful one that when shared openly and with pride, empowers others.
The biggest reason that Luke qualifies in my mind is that he is literally on fire for his purpose. Every single thing that he does is absolutely connected to his why and he works his ass off every day to make his dreams come true, which are completely and unequivocally attached to his powerhouse wife and two amazing children who are also forces of nature and hysterically funny. Luke is the kind of man that I know will reach every single one of his goals. I know he will in fact achieve far more than he can even fathom at this stage of his life and his career because he has truly made a decision to become that man he was put on this planet to be. As far as I am concerned, the way he approaches life is not only fearless but downright refreshing.
The three biggest things that impress me the most about Luke are:
- His incredible firehose like work ethic. He approaches everything he works on with his whole being and he cares with all he has.
- His complete commitment to his mission, which centers around impacting everyone he comes in contact with, most importantly his wife and family.
- His charismatic, contagious over the top enthusiasm!
FEARLESS INTERVIEW
Luke took a few minutes out to answer the five Art of Fearlessly Doing Business Questions.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM LUKE ABOUT BEING FEARLESS?
1. Commit to Making a Deep Impact
Luke made the decision that the only kind of impact he was interested in making was a deep one in his life. I personally understand how he came to this place because I have been a trainer and a yoga teacher for thirty-two years myself. You see, when you train someone for YEARS you get to witness them go through some stuff. In fact, as a personal trainer you can literally be the closest person in your client’s life. You may actually be the only person who ever physically touches them and you hear all their true stories, no buffer. This fact when truly considered is both an honor and a HUGE responsibility. As trainers, we get to know a person’s every mood and move. Well, you do if you are a good trainer. There are plenty of trainers out there who do not even notice the key place they could have in their client’s life. They just clock time with people and take the money. These are the trainers you see texting behind their clients backs as they toss weights over their heads randomly. This is not the kind of trainer Luke is. He rightfully changed his title to Master Lifestyle Coach because when you are the kind of trainer who deeply impacts the human beings who literally put their lives in your hands – you do truly make a deep impact. Luke knows this and the fact that he wants to make a bigger wider deeper impact is truly unique and special in the world of fitness.
2. Disconnect to Reconnect
Luke’s decision to use technology to make a deeper impact is wise. However, he also understands that technology is only a tool. As a hands-on coach, he cannot forget the face to face piece, the power of a conversation on the phone or on Zoom/Skype and most importantly, one hand in another. We are humans and connecting only via text and social media is limiting. Too much technology distracts us from the real world and ultimately makes it difficult to think deeply, feel deeply, create deeply and love deeply. Luke knows that the real world is found when our feet are on the ground and our hearts are cracked open; when we are in motion on the beach, on the face of a mountain, in the depths of canyons, on the dance floor, or covered in mud on the obstacle course WITH people we resonate with. Social media is an awesome tool but there is no substitute for being physically and emotionally part of a tribe with kindred sprits. There is nothing like cracking the screen of your laptop and having no Wi-Fi atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa to remind you of these facts.
3. Kill the Learning Curve
Technology in our modern world is ever changing. When I was a kid, we had the same 1970’s yellow dial phone in our kitchen for the entire time we lived in the house that I grew up in. We could learn something one way and it stayed that way for the length of our lives. That is not how life is now. Technology is coming at us with at a machine gun pace. There are new tools and new ways of communicating every day. If you have made a commitment to the digital marketing world you could and sometimes do spend your entire day learning how a thing works and then poof the next day the tool changes. Change now happens in real time so you better be able to change quickly, toss out the crap that is not working fast enough and learn on the fly while you are running with your hair on fire to your next appointment while keeping a sense of humor. I have watched Luke kill the idea of the learning curve. There is no such thing as a learning curve any more, there is just constant patient tenacious learning all the time.
4. Timely Delegation
In the beginning, when we are in the creation part of our business there is a lot of thinking and making things happen. Then we start to get the ball rolling and if we are lucky, we begin to realize that we have freight train momentum and there are only twenty-four hours in the day. It is at this point that we realize that we have turned the corner and this little idea we had late one night now has traction. However, when we start a business, we still have to stay involved and pick and choose the work that we hand off carefully to qualified full or part-time team members. When you get to this point and you have the money in the bank to pay people – you are truly on your way! Atta boy Luke!
5. Relentless Purpose
Luke pursues his purpose with relentless persistence. I know this for a fact because I have been one of his witnesses. This kind of relentlessness is not all neat and tucked in either. There are some days you are trying so hard and something blows up and you have to just lay your head on your closed lap top and have a good cry, scream, sigh or all of the above. Knowing what your true purpose is also does not just pop into your head out of nowhere. Finding a life of deep meaning requires years of very deep introspective work. Luke has done this work and has come up with a higher use for his many gifts. His commitment and energy level is consistently strong and high. When he has a weak moment he allows it and then, as soon as possible, he moves on. When things are broken he finds a way to fix them. When he is on the wrong path he quickly reroutes. When he is wrong he admits it. Conversely, he knows what his strengths are and he is not afraid to shout them from the rooftops.
I believe it takes extreme confidence to be truly vulnerable, especially for men. One night Luke and I sat beside one another as he publicly said good-bye to a young husband and father like himself who had died suddenly from a heart attack just days before. As I sat beside Luke and listened, I could feel the heat come off his body. You know, that heat? It is the heat created when a heart is breaking. I heard the genuine tears in his voice as he honored a client and friend who he knew he deeply impacted. You see this is the thing about making a deep impact on another human being; it is not one-sided. When we choose to care that deeply about our clients, we are as deeply impacted by the experience as they are.
Luke is relentlessly an example of what true strength is and it has nothing to do with his good looks, his chiseled physique or his many tattoos. It has everything to do with his heart.
Thank you so much Luke for taking the time out to be one of the Fearless 13! I look forward to seeing you again at the Art of Fearlessly Doing Business Art Opening on May 5th from 6-9PM at the DeskHub in Scottsdale, AZ.
Note from the Artist
LUKE’S ILLUSTRATION STORY:
The big moment for Luke was disconnecting when he took a portion of his tribe to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania Africa. Every one has a Mount Kilamanjaro of their own. It is a place that you have always wanted to travel to. You look at the map of that place you have been longing to visit for years.
The brown area is a map of the routes leading to Uhuru Peak. Uhura Peak is represented in the back ground with its melting glaciers. The tribe in the middle is a outline of the actual tribe inspired by a photograph taken by Luke and his tribe at the top of Uhura Peak. I outline life like detective’s outline death. The reason most of my figures are metallic is because they are shining like stars. The bottom of the painting is a herd of elephants in the valley below. Elephants have come up in every series of the Art of Fearlessly Doing Business so far – which I find interesting. In this case they stand for being one of a loyal herd or tribe.
The sign behind them reads – “|Congratulations You Are Now at | Uhura Peak Tanzania 5895 M ASL | Africa’s Highest Point Worlds Highest Freestanding Mountain | The World’s largest Volcano’s Heritage and Wonder of Africa|” The reason I do not include the words is because everyone has their own highest mountain to climb the details of this sign are universal. The concept of climbing a mountain successfully as a tribe is the point. They are also holding a sign that reads FITTEST TRIBE ALIVE. Again – we all have a sign that we hold up when we reach the greatest heights.
What will your sign say?
THE ART OF FEARLESSLY DOING BUSINESS III – OPENING
Fearless Art Works at Spanish Village
7211 E Ho Rd, #17
Carefree, AZ
Friday, May 5th
6-9 PM
Optional RSVP: Facebook Event or EventBrite Event.
CHARITY: The Contemporary Forum, a support organization for the Phoenix Art Museum
FUTURE EVENTS: Fearless Art 2017 Schedule
SPREAD THE WORD: Event FLYER.
WHAT I AM READING THIS WEEK
Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Feel free to email me and suggest a book that you have found particularly helpful!
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Michelle Micalizzi is a creative entrepreneur. She balances her businesses mind and creative skills in all that she does not only professionally with her business Fearlessly Deliver as a Visual Journalist, Curator & a Business Executor but in her life. Her strong belief in community and collective engagement lead her to found the Art of Fearlessly Doing Business and Fearless Pop up Projects. Michelle’s latest exciting endeavor the Fearless Art Works is an art gallery and a space for good works of all kind that connects Art + Community + Business! You can work with Fearlessly Deliver by either accepting an invitation to participate in a Fearless Art Project or by applying to be a custom business project execution client.
michelle@fearlesslydeliver.com
480.526.2609
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