Meet Sean Keller

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sean Keller. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sean, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

My resilience and purpose come from unraveling and wrestling with my pain. Who am I beneath the layers of hurt, betrayal, regret, failure, and loss? What is my truest identity at the core of my being, and where do I go to discover that?

At 12 years old, I was introduced to pornography through friends at school, and I was diagnosed with autoimmune conditions. Those two things — the combination of sin and suffering — changed the trajectory of my life and put me into a massive dark hole. I thought I was permanently trapped, and there were many days I wanted to hide or delete myself.

Since those early days, I’ve done good work on myself, but the greater glory belongs to God. He rescued me and invited me to adventure with Him. It’s a process of stumbling and learning every day, but He’s shown me that it’s okay to unravel my heart and fail forward.

Even though many of us will go through very difficult experiences, I’m convinced that true healing will not come from trying harder or doing more. While those are good attributes for business and life success, they don’t fully satisfy the needs of our souls. Our hurting hearts need more than “how-tos” and “to-do lists.”

Sometimes, pushing yourself as hard as possible, hitting the edge of despair, and then recognizing life isn’t entirely in your hands is the best way to grow. It becomes a resilience of letting go and finding the freedom to re-anchor and rebirth, rather than a resilience of trying harder and harder, attempting to strong-arm your way through life.

My 29 years of living have taught me that the resilience of vulnerability is the most courageous path: “Are we willing to push past our pain?” is a good question, but a better question is, “Will we face our pain and allow it to reveal our truest sense of self?”

To this day, I’ve continued to experience chronic suffering with my health, where I can end up sick in the bathroom for 2-8 hours a day. However, the illness does not define who I am, what I do, how I serve, or my mission in life. In fact, the very pain that afflicts me has become rocket fuel for knowing myself so that I can be the best coach, storyteller, and leader for others.

Resilience isn’t primarily about fighting for who we could be; it’s about being a student of our current condition so that we can be fully free and boldly grow into who we’re becoming. It’s more about letting go and failing forward than fighting through.

But here’s the cliff notes version: I’m not resilient because of a perfect 5-step process that made me warrior-like but because I’ve seen the tangible power of hope, restoration, and love. I don’t have it all figured out, but I know there’s a stronger counterforce to pain that makes us smile from a place of joy, not just grit. God loves rewriting our tragedies into triumphs, so will you ask Him to show you who you really are? And then be ready if He says, “yes, but I’m going to use your pain to do it.”

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My superpower is uncovering the vulnerable stories of people around me so they can experience lasting peace and live with boldness. We all want to experience life’s adventure, truth, and wonder, and that’s a big part of what helped me thrive in the filmmaking industry for 12+ years. I’ve told some really redemptive and powerful stories, and I’ve been blessed to serve people across so many industries: CEOs, politicians, sexual abuse survivors, recovering felons, national sales leaders, lawyers, missionaries, and everyone in between. It’s been a whirlwind journey, but the seed of curiosity started when I was young.

My Mom has stories of me as a 5-year-old asking introspective questions to cashiers, waiters, and store clerks. I was deeply interested in the inner workings of people’s minds and how they understood the world. Over the years, I’ve developed great joy in studying people’s hearts and helping them adventure into the unconquered places of their soul.

While I still produce films, my primary work is executive coaching for high-level Christian leaders. Many of my clients have successful businesses, manage teams, or have high marketplace authority. They look outwardly successful, but they can get obsessed or trapped in the business, lose sense of their highest purpose, and want help ensuring that the entire garden of their life is healthy and thriving.

I partner with them for 6-12+ months to (1) rekindle their joy of God, (2) navigate complex life and business decisions, and (3) assess every domain so they love the life and leadership they’re building.

My business is called Wilderstory, inspired by the idea that wilderness seasons transform us into the best versions of ourselves. We must face the elements of our life, soul, and business to be transformed, fulfill our purpose, and live with peace in every domain.

If you’re ready to Enter The Wilderness and want to win in every arena, check out my LinkedIn or Wilderstory.com

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

OWNING YOUR STORY
Our minds teeter-totter between oblivion and applause, and we forget the significance of who we are. Sometimes we get overwhelmed by our fragility and brokenness, or we forget how strong, joyful, and successful we’ve already been. Life hits us hard, and we get swayed by the ups and downs.

That’s why owning our story must go beyond acknowledging pain or celebrating accomplishments. We need something deeper that transcends outward experiences or good memories. We need to be reminded that life is a mosaic of history, heartache, adventure, and hope, and that our lives are part of a bigger, expanding reality, where no one is fully isolated or stagnant. We’re all becoming more of ourselves each day, side-by-side with one another.

But what is that “self” we are becoming? In large part, the answer lies in the story we believe to be fundamentally true about ourselves and the world around us. In the furthest reaches of our minds, we either believe “we’re free, loved, empowered, and made for a purpose,” or we believe, “we’re stuck, lonely, shameful, and useless.” We can only make sense of our story in light of the deepest identity, truth, and belief that most define us.

This is why it’s quite difficult to cultivate a rich, vibrant life when we can’t make sense of who we are. We must search God’s heart to know the deepest parts of what we’re doing, why we exist, and what we’re made to do. That process isn’t easy or straightforward, but it will reveal a wildly unique story that equips you to become a remarkable, beautiful, and uplifting person who lives an abundant life.

PRIORITIZE REST AND ADVENTURE
Some of the greatest daily challenges are about preventing our minds from turning to mush, becoming apathetic with how we live, or losing our sense of wonder as we mature. We are very quick to exhaust ourselves and compromise our joy, stillness, and fun. But it’s possible for life to feel rich, purposeful, and rewarding even as we advance in our careers and dreams.

Our mind and body crave peace, creativity, stillness, and fun, but those are outcomes of our contentment and rest. There are many flavors to what rest can look like, but the deepest, most transformative form of rest lies in our relationship and enjoyment of God. He gives us physical sleep, peace, safety, provision, and wisdom. The problem is that many of us don’t know how to adventure with Him. God has become a list of “to-do’s” and “how-to’s”. We’ve turned our creator into a curriculum even though He’s invited us to adventure and dine with Him throughout our lives. He wants to bring us into more of His rest, but we’re either too busy, too bored, or too fatigued.

I would encourage you to sincerely ask, “God, how can I adventure with you today?” Then, see where that takes you. It may be the most rest and adventure you’ve ever experienced.

STUDY YOUR PAIN
As an entrepreneur and executive coach, I’m incentivized to be one of the healthiest people on the planet. Even though I’m not where I’d like to be yet, I’m constantly progressing toward that goal because my whole career is based on helping other people become healthier versions of themselves.

The same principle applies to you: the deeper you go into your own journey of thriving, the more beautifully you can bloom in your life and help others do the same.

One of the best places to begin is with the painful pieces of your story. What are you anxious to talk about? What memories are painful to share with others? Where do you feel the most fear, doubt, and shame? Go to those places. Invite God into the unconquered places of your heart.

Just as your “wins” can turn into worship, so can your “wounds.” The unaddressed pain in your life can rob you of your identity, mindset, work ethic, compassion, and impact.

You will always operate at your lowest level of healing and brokenness, and we all need the Gospel to keep reshaping and renewing us as we grow. It’s not a one-time event.

But I promise you won’t regret conquering the fears that have haunted you for months and years. You’ll know that your deepest wounds have been truly transformed when they become some of the most powerful stories you share.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

Gratitude, rest, and adventure are the greatest antidotes to stress and worry. They are just shy of being superpowers, but they’re not sexy or very visible to others. If anything, they are daily, soulful disciplines that we feel we’re supposed to do—and maybe even want to do—but don’t often make time and effort for.

But I’ve found that when I’m most stressed, I’m often in my least rested state, and I probably haven’t written down the aspects of my life that are going really well.

Regarding advice or strategies to prevent this, the simple answer is not to let yourself drift into an accidental way of being. Always be intentional with your thoughts, behaviors, desires, reactions, and directions. That’s certainly easier said than done, and many of us regularly experience some form of angst or pain that drags us down.

So, what do we do if we notice ourselves drifting and becoming overwhelmed?

1. Forgive yourself and recognize that stress is a normal part of being human. It sucks, but it’s not taboo to feel incapable, trapped, discouraged, or overwhelmed. Our ideals of perfect health, success, and harmony rob us of so much joy. Remind yourself that pain isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can be a beautiful tool that reveals dysfunction, distrust, and distance from God. Don’t be afraid to wrestle with the aspects of life that pain reveals.

2. Get rest and do something that restores your heart, mind, body, and soul. Don’t let yourself idly stay in a stressful environment. Take steps to heal and restore yourself.

3. After you’ve felt temporarily rested and boosted, get out and adventure. It doesn’t mean you have to go to the mountains or be on a hiking trail. Just be creative, serendipitous, and childlike again. If you’re having fun and feel safe, see where the moment takes you.

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Kyle Re

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