Amanda Northcutt (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Level Up Creators podcast. I'm Amanda Northcutt, our founder and CEO. We help digital thought leaders like you turn your knowledge and experience into rock solid recurring revenue. Today's episode is part of our special series featuring our MRR accelerator participants, giving you an inside look at who they are, what they bring to the table, and how we're teaming up to transform their businesses. I'm so excited today to introduce Kristina Flynn.

Kristina helps high performing entrepreneurs, executives and creatives own their story, confidently explain their unique value and get paid for their expertise without playing small. After learning how to manage crippling anxiety that kept her silent and insecure until her late teens, Kristina built a business helping others to share their stories with confidence. With experience in sports, tech startups, web three, NFTs and personal branding.

She developed a storytelling and personal branding system that transforms how people connect with their audiences without hiding their authentic self. Through the MRR Accelerator, she is scaling her work to reach even more individuals who want the clarity and confidence to own their story and turn it into their most valuable asset. Welcome, Kristina.

Kristina Flynn (01:06)
Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

Amanda Northcutt (01:08)
I'm so excited to unpack this conversation. Obviously we have to dip right into crippling anxiety, mental health at a young age and the transformation that you've gone through. mean, from going to that level of anxiety and barely speaking to now you have such an incredible storytelling ability and the

product and service that you have brought to life to help others like bring out the best in themselves and show up authentically online on the stage, in business and meetings everywhere. How in the world did that happen?

Kristina Flynn (01:43)
gosh, how much time do we have Amanda? Well, I was just an incredibly shy child. And to me that meant scared of everything, scared of the world. I am blessed to have an older sister who was very chatty. And so everyone in my family, I come from a very big Irish family, know, almost 30 first cousins on my dad's side. Everyone in my family knew.

Amanda Northcutt (01:46)
You

Kristina Flynn (02:11)
Don't talk to Tina, which is what I go by in my real life. Don't talk to Tina, talk to Nat. She's the one that you can get answers from. And as far as I can remember, you know, for my first memories, I was always very, very nervous. I've since learned a lot about myself, but of course I would get comfortable once I spent more time with certain groups of people, but just always living in my head, worried about what will be. And as I got older, that became a lot.

easier to understand as I got more diagnoses. So also blessed to have two parents who at a time when mental illness and mental health were not a thing and definitely not a thing of conversation among anyone. They sought help when they saw me as a 12 year old kid, really struggling, depressed, anxious, not able to really make it through the day without just breaking down and not knowing and having a reason why. So I'm blessed to have had one.

I grew up in Canada, I've got so much privilege because I have access that so many other people don't. Two, I have these parents who were able to seek help for their kid who wasn't able to articulate the help that she needed herself. And then three, I have had access to various tools in the toolbox to support me with my mental health all along, one of which was a clinical psychiatrist as I was 12. Medication, therapy, I've had a cognitive mindfulness therapy.

Amanda Northcutt (03:35)
there.

Kristina Flynn (03:39)
cognitive mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapist. If that's not privilege, I don't know what is. Obviously I'm not great with acronyms. So I'm very fortunate. And even with all of that access, even with all of that privilege and all of that opportunity, I won the lotto in terms of having the brain that I have and the environment that I was born into. I still, until my 40th year, really wasn't sure of who I am. And that's why I came up with

this methodology because I had a problem myself that I didn't know how to solve. I didn't know why I was different. I didn't know why I wasn't able to show up the way that I wanted to and felt so deeply down inside of me that I could, I didn't know how to get there. And so I used AI, which we'll talk about in order to be able to support me in understanding myself a whole lot better.

Amanda Northcutt (04:32)
Amazing. And yeah, we need to fully unpack this for us because I mean, your background, like I said earlier, includes professional sports. You've worked with Olympians, NBA all stars. You have a background in philanthropy, tech startups, Web3, NFTs, and now personal branding. This seems like a kind of meandering path, but you've taken, I think, very unique and interesting elements from each and every one of those experiences to put them all together into this storytelling methodology. So.

from your side of the table, how have those seemingly pretty disparate experiences shaped your approach to storytelling and how Story Engine ultimately came to be?

Kristina Flynn (05:12)
Well, needless to say, HR professionals were not really into my resume. I did not fit a mold. was not, nobody, I don't think I've ever been, had an inbound request on LinkedIn from a recruiting professional. Because if you look at my LinkedIn, you looked at my business experience, my career experience, it's winding.

It's sort of disparate, as you said, there's not really an understanding as to why. And if you were to look at that with a traditional lens of the way that we look at most people's career and the expectation of this linear path that we have, I am absolutely not somebody that they would want to bring onto a team because it looks unfocused. It looks like I have no direction. It looks like I'm a flight risk, which I've been called in business environments previously.

And so for me, was really, it was catapulted by the fact that once again, I had switched careers. Once again, I had switched industries and I found Web3 and NFTs and I was incredibly excited about the space because it did seem like it was a coming together of a lot of my different experiences in terms of tech, in terms of community, in terms of art and artistry, which I love creativity behind it. So I got really excited and really invested in that space.

Anyone with ADHD knows what hyper focus is. And I went all in deep, deep dark. And I started building what I had done for many people before, which was my own personal brand largely on X. Cause that's what the community was. And I had done everything that I thought I needed to do. I had built a decent size following. had gained some reputation.

and some respect among the industry as to somebody who knew what they were talking about. And really I was just talking about the things that I cared about online. Twitter at the time worked really well for me because it was a short character limit and I could give hot takes whenever I felt like it. So it worked for me and I kind of felt like I had figured it all out, that infamous line that we all talk about. And then you can't write the story the way that it unfolded. Web3 was a massive...

bull market immediately overnight. It goes bare and it goes away in terms of the revenue, in terms of the community. So many of the members of my community, the audience I had built, they went back to work. They weren't selling their art anymore. They weren't able to make a living online anymore. So they went back to work. The agency that I built and developed all of a sudden, my clients had no budget for me. And so everything that I had worked for like two and a half years to build

sort of fell apart to pieces and you you learn so many lessons in that moment. But for me, when I reflected on, what happened? And if I wanted to do this again, because I enjoyed it, what would I do differently? When I did that, I said, I would build it around me. I built it around the industry. I built it around the platform. I built it around my company and a profile picture that was of an NFT. It wasn't even me.

So my thesis was that had I been me, had people gotten to know and understand me, if all of those market changes happened the exact same way, they would have kept with me. They would have stayed with me. I wouldn't have had to start again at zero. So I was posed with this idea of, okay, next time, this next time, I'm going to be more me. And then you face the question of, who the fuck am I? I don't know who I am. You've talked about my experience like,

How do I turn me into a brand? How do I begin to articulate what I've done? And it just so happened that AI from a market availability perspective, AI has been around forever, but from a market availability perspective, mass market access, I was able to access AI. And I went back to the work that I did with NBA players, which was when they came to town, they would sit with me for an hour. And I would say, tell me everything you possibly can about yourself.

your family, your kids, where did you grow up? Where have you played? What are the cities that you liked? Why have you liked them? What are the things that you care about? What's your charitable work? Everything I could and feverishly taking notes for an hour of just like, okay, how do I take all this information in? And my job was to come back, synthesize it, turn it into a bit of a translate it into something that I could then pass to the various business units, whether that was

merchandising, whether that was ticketing or executive suites, whether that was global partnerships and say, this is this player's brand. This is how you would articulate them in the community. This is how they're going to be able to show up as their most most authentic selves when you put them in the right situations. And so I went back to that. I said, OK, GPT, ask me a bunch of questions. Ask me about my life. Ask me about all of these things. And it was one of those moments that you'll never forget.

the responses that I got back blew my mind. I was like, it's in my head. Like how does it know these parts of me and how is it helping me in this way? And that sent me on another hyper focus of if this is able to help me, by the way, I wasn't able to tell you this story 18 months ago before I started this. If you asked me how I got to the moment that I was at in that moment.

I could not tell you why and I could not tell you how. I could not articulate that I've actually been building personal brands for my entire career and yet I never had it in my title. It was never something I put on my resume. And so I, to me, that wasn't career experience. That wasn't something I did. And yet I see all of these constants, these themes, these patterns, these through lines that all of a sudden make so much sense in the world.

And that's what I've been really hell-bent on helping other people do. I felt that this could be helpful for me. It can be helpful for anyone in any context who is trying to sell themselves, who just wants a clear message, who maybe has a winding path like I do to be able to come to the table and say, this is who I am. This is what I'm about. And be more confident in who they are. Because when you see it with irrefutable proof from a machine that this is who you are and these are the things that make you unique.

pretty hard to argue it.

Amanda Northcutt (11:44)
It's incredible. And I love that this is kind of how your story has evolved because it is so unique and now it makes sense. Do you look back and you're like, I see how all of those weird random things sort of like led up to this really amazing, powerful thing.

Kristina Flynn (12:02)
Yeah, and I think that's part I get really excited about for myself, but also for my clients, because when you put a transcript, me conversing with my clients, asking them the same questions that AI asked me, asking them the same questions that I asked players at the beginning of my career, 17 plus years ago, you take that raw data, that transcript, and you put it into AI with some guidance, of course.

It is able to show you a perspective on your life that no other thing can. And certainly therapy, I've been in it a long time. I've spent a lot of time in the chair, never lying down. These beds don't exist in Canada where you just sit there with a therapist and lie down, never lying down. But I spent all this time and yet it was able to still with me, who's somebody who had had a clinical psychiatrist since they were 12, give me an understanding of myself that no other thing had been able to.

20 plus years of therapy had been able to give me because ultimately it was taking data that I served it in my voice, in my words, summarizing that, finding connections, finding themes, finding constants. And what I discovered and what I've discovered ever since, we all think we're very unique and we are incredibly unique, but there are some binding things that happen across each one of our journeys, especially in the North American context.

You have an upbringing. You had a personality when you were a kid. How is that different now? Early late education, early late career, your career focus now, this moment that you're in, and then if you're a fan of Spider-Man, canon events, or catalytic moments that change the trajectory of your life. If you put all of those in, they look disparate in these dots on the timeline, but when you look at them collectively,

There's so many really critical things that pop up for each individual that when you're putting that story together, no one can compete with you on because no one can have that exact same experience that you've had. No one, you might've been able to go to the same schools, study the same things, but when you bring in these different elements of your life, no one can compete with that, which is why I get so geeked out. Obviously you can tell I'm excited of.

the potential of this because that's an asset and that's the world that we're living in right now. There's a lot of noise and how do you become that clearest, most authentic version of yourself but then communicate it in a way that one, feels really good to you and authentic to you, doesn't feel icky and two, is able to connect you with your audience and resonate with them in a way that lets them know you're the person to help.

Amanda Northcutt (14:53)
Yeah. And okay, I'm going to say something spicy here. I think you're probably giving too much credit to AI. mean, the magic is from your brain, from your experience. mean, I've been through Story Engine and it was transformative for the way that our organization and my like personal brand shows up online. And I mean, I've told you before Kristina that we built a multimillion dollar company in 18 months. And I think we could have done it in nine if we had had Story Engine. It is such a powerful

I mean, you sat with me for about 90 minutes and you very skillfully extracted my life story. And I know that you were on your side of the table, you know exactly what you're looking for and you want to kind of deep dive into one thing and then ask a question because you're able to see the through lines and the themes that make each person who they are. And that is a really, really unique gift. And it's a skill that you have most certainly honed in your interviewing skills. I mean, really on point. That's a rare.

skill to do that as skillfully as you. And then you're just, it's all in your head. You're just skillfully leveraging AI to help you organize information. At least that's what it seems like from my side. But I mean, at this point, I'm a huge advocate of Story Engine because I've always been, I have two decades of major, major chronic health struggles. I've turned down multiple CEO positions in the past. And so I've always been kind of the background person coaching.

the board and the C-suite or being a fractional executive, things like that, but always like one step back from the limelight. And so to have this organization where my personal brand is the face of the business and this is, know, Level Up Creators is my and my, you know, founding teams like Brainchild. And it is a reflection of who I am and who we are. And we had a lot of trouble putting our finger on that. And I mean, we spent...

I'm not sure how much, but solidly six figures trying to figure out the brand, right? And figure out who we are, how we show up, what our key differentiators are, who we should be working with, the type of people that are going to be most attracted to us. And I mean, you had that drawn out of me in 90 minutes and spit out this deliverable that is incredibly helpful, well-organized and actionable. And...

Kristina Flynn (16:57)
Mm.

Amanda Northcutt (17:20)
Again, like really, really transformative for any founder led brand, for any individual with a personal brand, whether you're a realtor or an athlete or a founder or an executive and you don't have any necessarily intention of like leaving, but the founder led brand thing is here and the executive led brand thing is here. mean, like how many CEOs were on?

Super Bowl commercials and stuff. That was really weird. I feel like this past year and some of them maybe shouldn't have been. Maybe they needed story engine. They could have done it better. you've got a really, really cool thing going here that has so many applications and your market timing is truly phenomenal. You have laid so much groundwork over the last 18 months to be able to deliver this incredible personal branding tool in a way that is scalable and

Kristina Flynn (17:58)
Hmm.

Amanda Northcutt (18:12)
the impact will scale with it. It's not like you're setting yourself up to be spread too thin because the system and the methodology behind it is so sound.

Kristina Flynn (18:21)
think that's the fun part of it when I reflect on the journey. I started doing this work before I started doing this work. so I know what it's like to do it manually. I know that I did it with players. I know that I did it working with some mentors and some VCs and some startup founders. I didn't know what I was doing at the time. To me, it was just natural. There's some things that are innate to us and there's some things that are more learned. I grew up in an environment where my dad,

in the way that he worked, my mom and the way that she worked, they always made it a point to tell us the importance of every single person on the team, whether that's somebody that's cleaning the bathrooms or somebody who is actually in the front office staff. It did not matter. My parents always showed us the importance of every single member of the team. And so I think I developed this one, you become really good at observing and listening when you don't talk for a large portion of your life and you're very insecure.

you become this active listener, you see points that other people aren't seeing, which is I think I get that a lot of my clients have, but these are just skills that I developed over time without really knowing it. And I think most people have those skills that make them incredibly unique. The challenge is that we're so close to it. And I geek out about the neuroscience of this because I always want to know the why we're so close to it. And there's a variety of reasons we cannot see it, whether that's

looking at cognitive bias, whether that's looking at habituation of our brains cannot take the same stimuli over and over and over again and continue to receive it in the same way. Whether that's the fact that the reality we see every day is not in fact reality, but rather reality that our brain is serving us based on our lived experiences. All of these things ladder up to why we can't see ourselves. So yes, the introduction of a machine into this.

helps to strip away all of that. And I will give myself credit because I have been practicing this for a very long time. What it helps with is the scalability because I know what it's like to do this manually. Even when I first started with AI, was still testing and playing around with it. I was doing this process manually with my clients. And I was writing out every single word in their story to try to bring it together and hone it into something that I knew.

would do it justice. People are serving up really sensitive information to me. They are giving me a privilege for a window into their lives that most people don't ever get with somebody else. So I don't take that lightly. I don't take it for granted. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity people give me. So I am obsessed with delivering back something that does it justice. And in the past, it took me four to six weeks.

Amanda Northcutt (20:52)
you

Kristina Flynn (21:14)
to deliver somebody's story back and not give them the other elements of it. Be able to say like, this is your story, this is how it comes together, but not be able to show them the depth that I'm able to show them now. Not be able to give them the examples, the direct quotes. I work with a lot of folks that are neurodiverse, whether ASD or ADHD or a combination of both. And one thing that really helps those folks' brain, myself included, is the understanding of the why.

So you can tell me something, but I wanna know where you got that from. The dopest part of AI is if you wanna dig further into something, you're like, I don't believe this, I can show you a direct link from what you said and why it made the inferences it made based in the context of the conversation. You can't argue that. And because you can't argue it, you start to look at yourself the way that other people look at you. And I argue there's not many things that are more powerful than that.

for a personal brand, also just for an individual's confidence.

Amanda Northcutt (22:15)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the output of a story engine brings so much clarity to who you are and why people should care. And that's the number one question that we have to answer in all of our marketing, whether it's a hook or an H1 on a website or an interview or anything, people want to know who are you and why should I care? Like, what are you going to do for me? Kristina, you do a lot.

Kristina Flynn (22:26)
always.

Yeah, and we have this idea that it's

Yeah, and I think we have this idea of like it's it's not it's what you've done versus who you are and and that's the way that traditionally we have looked at the careers that we have in the selling of ourselves and when you look at the neuroscience of storytelling that is not the way that people receive information when you are sharing

These are my credentials. This is the school I've gone to. This is the multi-million dollar deal that I've closed. You are presenting facts and figures which are being perceived by the brain in two separate areas. There's processing and there's comprehension. When you tell a story to somebody, you go from two areas lighting up in the brain to more than six areas lighting up in the brain because all of a sudden you are creating this mirror effect, this doubling of emotion.

and resonance and human connection where maybe you don't play basketball and I talk about basketball, but your brother does or your ex boyfriend does or you love going to games, but you never played before. man, I had this opportunity to play when I was a kid, but I never did. Just saying basketball evokes a different feeling and emotion in all people, whether that's I've never been into that. I never understood that before. I don't really care. All of these things are an opportunity to get people in a different state.

where they're able to listen to you in a way that is emotional and that evokes more connection because of our brains. This isn't my opinion, this is neuroscience.

Amanda Northcutt (24:09)
Yeah. And I love how deeply into science you go and how you've combined your personal experience, expertise, your interviewing skills with all the neuroscience and packaged it up in this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing that is story engine. So you have this amazing thing. You and I met in Q4 of 2024 recording this at the tail end of February in 25. How did you hear about the accelerator and what made you think that it might be right for you?

Kristina Flynn (24:39)
Well, this part is great because it actually proves my thesis and your thesis, which is I heard about it because I follow Amanda Getz and I followed Amanda Getz for years because Amanda Getz is an incredible brand online. I first came across her when I was a tech founder. She was somebody that I looked up to and I was really, really drawn in by the fact that she was in this tech space, which we know is predominantly male. She was a single mom. She was going through life.

and she was talking about what that looked like in the context of her business. She was not separating the personal from the professional and that really drew me into her. So when she started working up with Level Up Creatives, when she started getting more active on LinkedIn, I started following her. And of course I came across all of the things that she would share and one of which was interviews with you of this journey. I love the build in public.

concept that you did with her because, and you talk about this now, I'm not trying to hide it. I'm not trying to develop this thing in the background and then hide it and then say, this is what we do and this is how we do it. It's very much collaborative. It's very much based on a thesis. We will experiment together. We will make adjustments and we will keep moving. And that's what you did with Amanda. So I was able to see very clearly that she went from X to Y.

and I was able to very clearly see a connection between you and her going X to Y. So yes, she told us and you told us the data surrounding it. I got her from 10K to 50K MRR in six months. But that alone wasn't what connected me to it. That would have been the facts and the figures. It was how you did it, the differences in how she was showing up, the ways in which she was showing up. was seeing this.

Amanda Northcutt (26:12)
Thank

Kristina Flynn (26:29)
representation of what I now know is going on in the background of operationally, but I was able to see sort of that transformation that she was able to go through. And so I reached out and I was like, I don't know what this is. She said that you're going to be doing it again with other people. Fuck. Well, I might as well try. I might as well at least have the conversation, which is not the opinion I've always had in my career. It's previously been very much like, wow.

If they do anyone man gets, I don't have that kind of following. I mean, like probably not the self selection out of the process, but very much so. Okay. Let's try. Let's have the conversation and here we are. Yeah.

Amanda Northcutt (27:10)
Here we are.

Yeah. And it's a great story. And speaking of great storytellers, yeah, Amanda gets tells a really good story. She's very, she's compelling. I mean, it compelled you. So that's, that's also speaks to the power of her personal brand, my fledgling personal brand, the power of narrative, partner marketing, like kind of all of these things that are heavily enmeshed. They're so important to business and like also how we think about and build businesses. I mean, I believe that like partner marketing and that warm introduction is.

Kristina Flynn (27:19)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Northcutt (27:40)
the absolute best way to get a new client. So, okay, that's an aside. I'm very passionate about partner marketing.

Kristina Flynn (27:43)
Mm-hmm.

I know you are and I love it because I love working with people. How do you actually operationalize that as an entirely different thing, which is what I get excited about.

Amanda Northcutt (27:56)
Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, we are like five weeks in here of the accelerator relaunched on January 22nd. It is February 27th today. So acknowledging that it's only been five weeks. Has your vision for what is truly possible in your business evolved since starting the accelerator?

Kristina Flynn (28:16)
Yeah, I mean, one of the nice features of the accelerator is that we get to meet once a week with everyone who's doing it. And we've talked about very openly as a group that we know how you taught brought us through the process to see if we would be a fit for the cohort. So we know how you did that with everyone else. And it was intense. You were trying to find people that would work together. And I said this joke,

in the background a number of times because I got to do the opportunity of going through story engine with every single one of us. And the more that I did it with more people, I was like, my God, Amanda is like the not so evil, evil genius because I'm seeing the connections now between all of us and our independent businesses alone and our brands are incredible. And each one of us has said like, I don't

There's a lot of imposter syndrome thinking about how do I fit into this thing? But I have the privilege of being able to see it on mass of how does it work together? I'm like, shit, she's just puppeteering. She's just like, yo, let's go. I know exactly who needs to be in the room. And you talk about partner marketing. So there was a level of intentionality behind it that always struck me. And now I'm getting to see it.

I'm getting to experience it. You go through, you know, that first couple of weeks is always like really, really high. You're super excited with anything new. And then, you know, the neuroscience of it all, you're going to go through a dip. You're going to go and start questioning everything. Those moments are going to happen and those moments have happened and they will continue to happen. I think the difference between now and five months or five weeks previous was that one, I'm not doing those things alone. So I have

in the moments where I'm spiraling, which every single founder does all the time, sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes multiple times an hour. You have a team to reach out to that knows your business. I've never really wanted to build a very big team around me. And so to me, this feels like a very reciprocal relationship in which I don't have to build the big team behind me because that's not where I love to be.

I love to be out and doing the work. So now I have this team that has the expertise that I need, but doesn't force me into relationships that I don't know how to manage or I don't have the capacity yet to manage. And I feel supported both from your team, but also from the other people in the accelerator. So that helps me feel more hopeful about what's possible. And then it's, listen, I know we're not supposed to care about what people think. I get it.

I talk about no fucks-era all the time. We're supposed to be like, fuck it, I don't care what anyone thinks. No fucks-era is not about not caring what anyone thinks. We all care a lot what people think. It's do you allow that to dictate how you live your life? And for me, I'm so more self-assured in what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. And then to get the validation from you and your team that...

I am onto something, it's not just me, because if you've ever founded a company before, you know that you've had the moments where, talked about it, this is it, this is the thing, this is the one thing, I figured it out, I did it, I did it, I did it, and then you don't. So to have somebody validate that you are on the right path, there is no one thing, by the way, it's multiple things, and that's a lesson I've learned, but you're on the right path, you may not have all the skills that you need to get there.

but in combination with my brain and the way that I think about things and the ways that my skills come to the table aligned with you and your team that have a lot of skills that I don't come by naturally for somebody who is neurodiverse, who doesn't fit in a typical career market, who doesn't ever want to work for anyone else because I don't want anyone else dictating my life. And I quite frankly, I've built a lot of people's brands.

I want to build what I've built for other people, for myself and for others. To have that opportunity to stick to where I know and where I'm good. That's where I get excited because then it's not just about me. It's also about how do my clients fit into this and how do I allow them because they are very much like me. How do I allow them to get opportunity and access that I've been so grateful to be able to get with you and your team.

Amanda Northcutt (33:02)
Thank you for saying that. I do have an incredible team. I could brag on them all day. And we talk a lot about like the episodic need for a team at my level. It's not necessarily something you need ongoing for the type of business that you're building. is, we've defined it as a seven month, very intense period where my expert team, like every single member on my team has at least 10 years of experience and are an expert in their own right in their own field.

Kristina Flynn (33:14)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Northcutt (33:30)
And it is such a pleasure to be able to put those together and sort of lend them to each of the accelerator participants because, you know, frankly, like no one else can have my team. My team is inimitable. And I picked like all of my favorite people from all of the teams that I've built as an executive at past companies over the last decade. And it is really, really, really special. And so like you're saying, it's cool that you want

to enjoy sort of the success and personal as a result of having a killer personal brand that you have enabled for other people. It's like this virtuous cycle of you are enabling others and as a result, it is enabling you to elevate your personal brand in your business. And for us at Level Up, it's like we are helping build other people's MRR based business as we build. that as result of that, that builds our MRR based business. And so it's this really beautiful virtuous cycle of

everybody wins. I think that's really, really cool. And also that you are, you're such a student of your product and of AI and of neuroscience. And so it's not like you're being stagnant either. I see you continuously like digging, digging, digging, digging to level up your own product and service and delivery. And it's really incredible to be a part of. it's, it's the pleasure is ours. I'll say that.

Kristina Flynn (34:29)
Mm-hmm.

Well, and one more thing I'll say on that too is that I, the more work I do in this area, the more I realized that there are so many people like me that I think would be amazing creators and like yourself that have been a very comfortable number two to a lot of people and have made a lot of other people wealthy. And there's a disconnect between how do they go from number two to the risk?

quite frankly, some of it perceived and some of it real of taking the step forward and saying, no, this is me and I'm gonna be number one here. What I think we're both trying to do in different ways is bridge that gap for folks that are similar to ourselves, quite frankly, that we believe have potential and that without access to these kinds of opportunities, we know maybe it will happen.

I'm not in the business of projecting whether or not somebody's gonna be successful. But what I do know, just like you said earlier on, there's a scalability and there's a speed at which this allows people to do it so much more quickly and reduces the risk of what we know is very feasible of people saying, fuck this, I'm not doing this. This is way too hard. There's too much going on in our minds that are going to tell us not to do it.

that are going to say, just give up, and we've all done it. What we're trying to do is bridge the gap and have less people give up because my thesis is that those people can lend a lot to the world if given the right stages, the right platforms, what they need is access to information, resources, capital to be able to do that and an understanding of who they are and who they're not, because that's really important too.

Amanda Northcutt (36:47)
Yes, yes, just like in business, it's almost more important to know what not to do than what to do. So yeah, that's absolutely.

Kristina Flynn (36:53)
It's like dating. You're like,

I don't know what I'm looking for in a partner, but I know from the last five dates what the fuck I'm not looking for. Because those people know thank you.

Amanda Northcutt (37:01)
Yeah.

Love it. Okay, this is a two part question here as we're kind of start to land the plane. At the end of the seven month accelerator, so this would be August 21st of 2025, other than hit your multi five figure MRR guarantee, what are your biggest goals for the program and what do believe you'll be able to do then that you can't do now?

Kristina Flynn (37:30)
I think from my perspective, when I thought about this, as you know, it's very difficult to balance the now versus the future and thinking too far into the future of what could be. But you talked about it yesterday in group, which is very much related to the more you're executing against something, and the more you're increasing your capability and your competency.

confidence is a by factor, a byproduct of that. So I know absolutely.

no chance there isn't an opportunity for me to be 10x more confident because by virtue of engaging in this relationship, I have committed to doing X amount of execution, which in the past, anyone who's ever worked with me, that's been a real struggle for me. It's much easier to sit and to think and to process to the point where you're overthinking everything. And I think overthinking can be a really beautiful thing.

As we know, that's where I'm shifting the trajectory of my newsletter to overthinking in public. I love thinking. I love diving in and getting into it. But there's a point at which it becomes detrimental to your progress, both from a confidence perspective and just an ability to see momentum. So I'm excited about that. I know I'm going to be more confident because I'm going to be more competent because I've engaged in this relationship and I made commitments. So that's one.

to 100 % I'm gonna be at that MRR guarantee. And I actually believe there's a great opportunity for me to be over that. That in and of itself shows a difference in confidence. And then to me, it's not about necessarily the money. The money is incredibly important, but it's about what the money facilitates and allows for me to do. I have been on the entrepreneurial journey for seven plus years.

I had been married for 10. My wife did not sign up for this. I had a job at a corporation. She had a job at a corporation. She thought we were gonna live this life, you know? She didn't know. I didn't even know at the time that I was ADHD. I didn't know that much about my brain. And so she didn't know what she was getting into. And for the last seven years, I have to give her all the credit of...

Holy shit, I wouldn't have wanted to be married to me. If you've been a founder, you know how hard, like, it is a journey and it is up and down. And I don't care what anyone says, like, whether you're solo or not, if you have a partner, they are a member of your team because they're key support, cog in that wheel of support that you need to be able to make the decisions that you're able to make, to be able to.

have somebody to talk to when you're feeling like your entire world is crumbling down around you. And so she's had to go through this and to her credit, she has endured a lot of promises and a lot of this is the thing, the thing, because I thought it was one thing. This is the big risk that I'm going to take and it feels right, but it wasn't calculated. This is the money.

Amanda Northcutt (40:38)
Mm.

Kristina Flynn (40:51)
I'm going to blow. These are the partnerships that I'm going to engage in and then lose lifetime long relationships with friends over. She has been there for all of it. And so what I get most excited about and I'll say it out loud here is to it's not going to be at the seven month line, but it won't be that much further out from going to her and saying quit your job for the next year.

take a sabbatical, spend time. We had a lot of personal things happen during both of her mat leaves and she didn't get mat leaves the way that she envisioned them and the way we're also blessed to have in Canada. And I wanna go and say, take it. Go take the year, take your mat leave the way that you wanted it to work. I got it. I got it for this next year.

Amanda Northcutt (41:33)
Mm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kristina Flynn (41:50)
Find out, it's your turn. Find out what you care about. Find out how you wanna spend your time. Find out what you get excited about and go and do that. And that is my number one goal.

Amanda Northcutt (42:02)
I love that so much.

Yeah, I could go on and on about that. Erin sounds like an absolutely incredible woman and no doubt she is. And like, what a gift to be able to give your partner or your spouse when you are successful. It's like, okay, it's my turn. So take a beat, enjoy your life.

Kristina Flynn (42:22)
How much have you given up? much

have, how many times have you, you know, taken, we have two young kids, I have a five year old and a two year old. And you know this, when shit needs to be delivered, shit needs to be delivered. And when you have over committed, which I have done many times, it goes into your life. It seeps in, which is why I also get so excited about the work that I do because I don't believe in work-life balance.

Amanda Northcutt (42:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Kristina Flynn (42:52)
And I don't believe in it's business, not personal. This is my life. I care deeply about this. So how do we combine the both? How do we blend the both to say personal story can be a professional asset and can also enable you to live out your life as your most authentic self. And those two things don't need to live independently of one another. And that's.

I don't even know where the fuck I was going with that, but that's where I get excited.

Amanda Northcutt (43:22)
Well, I think that's a topic that, you know, we're going to have everybody, all the accelerator participants back at the end of the accelerator to talk about it. And I think I would love to not I think I would love to dive into that topic. And I know you have really, really strong and well considered opinions on, you know, work life, not work life balance, but how the work life blend and how that works for entrepreneurs, because I mean, you're privy to.

Kristina Flynn (43:47)
Yeah.

Amanda Northcutt (43:51)
such a wealth of information from individuals like we saying earlier, you create such a safe space when you do these 90 minute interviews and you are relentless in protecting people's privacy, which everyone certainly appreciates. But from that knowledge and experience and wealth of wisdom, you have so much to bring to the table and offer to think all entrepreneurials and humanity in general. So we'll unpack that next time for sure.

Kristina Flynn (44:17)
See you.

Amanda Northcutt (44:20)
All right, so last question. What advice would you give to someone who is considering the accelerator but is a little bit on the fence about reaching out and starting a conversation?

Kristina Flynn (44:29)
Well, reach out and start the conversation. You don't have to be set on whether or not you're going to participate to have a conversation with somebody. regardless, you're gonna end up with the opportunity to meet with you, the opportunity to learn more about it. And quite frankly, if it's not gonna work for their business, I can say pretty confidently, they're not gonna be able to participate in it because you know what it takes for somebody to be in this business. You know the stage that they need to be at and you know where

it's going to make sense and you are doing a great job at curating the participation and who needs to be in that group so that everyone can benefit versus just five individual silos. So the first is do not hesitate. Just have the conversation. What's the worst that could happen? If you looked at, know, I don't have a ton of followers on LinkedIn. I am active with content, but certainly wasn't at the time I reached out.

all that consistent. All of these things that your brain is telling you are excuses related to fear as to why you won't engage in a conversation. So spend some time thinking about that. But in the meantime, reach out and engage. And then it's just a conversation. It's just to see if it's for you. And if it's not for you, you are entitled to make that decision. And if it is for you,

Amanda is still also entitled to make the decision of whether it works for the whole versus just the individual. But I think there's never been a better time right now.

We all know where this is going for Level Up creators and I think we all get very excited about it. This won't be necessarily an opportunity that will be at the price point that it's at with the level of concentrated effort on behalf of the team because you've bet your business on this too. And you need to deliver just as much as all of us want to deliver. And oftentimes when we're engaging in partnerships with other organizations, those two things don't align.

And there's no guarantees ever. But if you want to talk about setting people up for success, having both parties equally invested in the outcomes of both parties really sets things up for some pretty magical outcomes. So fuck it. Just go talk.

Amanda Northcutt (46:59)
Well said, Kristina, would you like a job in sales at Level Up Creators? Thank you. Thank you so much, Kristina. I'm excited for part two of our conversation and obviously our continued work together in the accelerator. But before we sign off, where can people connect with you and learn more about Story Engine?

Kristina Flynn (47:02)
Yes, I believe I indirectly have one anyway, so we're

Mm-hmm.

LinkedIn is the best place and I'm still lucky to be at a stage in a phase where DM me, have a conversation with me. love, obviously I love talking to people. That's my entire life is meeting new people and having conversations. So if you're interested in learning more about one, what it does for you as an individual, but two, how can we bring this into your organization to help scale things like onboarding processes, things like if you're.

having any or spending any period of time getting to know a client and bringing information about them. This helps you to scale that in a way and gives you the opportunity to learn so much more about them and apply that of course to your work in your business much differently than anything else. So if you're interested as an organization back to yeah, I'm doing licensing deals as well.

Amanda Northcutt (48:13)
Yes, I emphatically second what everything that Kristina is saying and mean Level Up Creators has entered into a licensing agreement to use Story Engine for our client work moving forward and it has been a complete and total game changer. So this is also a commercial for Story Engine. You should definitely buy it.

Kristina Flynn (48:30)
I've always wanted

to be on an infomercial, so it's great. Here it is. Are you frustrated? Do your clients not understand what you need from them? Do they never get back to your emails? Story engine. We'll spice that up and make your onboarding process so much quicker. You can bet on it. And then someone like, my clients won't get back to me.

Amanda Northcutt (48:33)
Here it is. We're doing it.

my God.

that's gonna be a juicy

clip. Thank you so much for that nugget.

Kristina Flynn (49:00)
Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. You're

welcome. This is what being your authentic self and comfortable in it looks like. Yeah.

Amanda Northcutt (49:05)
That's right,

that's right. Thank you again, Kristina, and thank you listeners. We know that your time is valuable and we appreciate you sharing yours with us. If you're a subject matter expert looking to build a scalable, high impact business with recurring revenue, visit MRR Accelerator to learn more and follow me, Amanda Northcutt on LinkedIn for daily consulting insights. We'll see you next time on the Level Up Creators podcast.