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choice Magazine
choice Magazine
Episode #32 ~ Call to Leadership - The audacity to lead in times of uncertainty with guest Kristie Kennedy
In this interview, we talk with Kristie Kennedy about her article, Call to Leadership ~ The audacity to lead in times of uncertainty.
The willingness to answer the call of leadership is one of the greatest paths to self-discovery, self-discipline and self-denial up which we will ever embark. The moment you say "Yes" to leadership, the necessity of remaining in a state of readiness is unyielding. Infectious energy is one of your greatest internal resources, and it will be difficult to transfer that which you do not innately possess.
Leading powerfully begins with living purposefully. True visionary leadership requires that your progress form simply noticing, to clearly seeing, to deeply looking in a specific direction by employing your sense of sight to behold the future while anchored in the perplexities of the present.
Kristie Kennedy, The Image Confidence Expert is a TEDx Audacious Leadership Keynote Speaker and Authentic Lifestyle Author. As the owner of Queenfidence Global Image Consulting her electrifying inspirational gift empowers visionaries with confidence and clarity keys to find their voice, free their voice and look fabulous using their voice. She specializes in four areas of peak performance: mindset mastery, massive momentum, magnetic messaging and potential maximization. She is a Certified Radical Resilience Coach who builds powerhouse mindsets, equipped for success.
Join us as we learn more from Kristie about how impactful leadership presence is displayed through speech, poise under pressure, prudent decision making skills, persistence in the face of challenges and peak performance in various phases of organizational transition.
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/btp-Kennedy
Learn more about Kristie here.
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with Kristie about her article published in our September 2022 issue.
Hi, I'm Garry Schleifer, and this is an episode of Beyond the Page, brought to you by choice, the magazine of professional coaching. choice is more than a magazine. It's a community of people who use and share coaching tools, tips, and techniques to add value to their businesses and impact their clients. It's an institution of learning built over the course of 20 years, so for those watching 20th anniversary. Wahoo. And I've been with it every single day, where we're dedicated improving the lives of coaches and obviously their clients. In today's episode, I'm speaking with author Kristie Kennedy, who wrote an article for our latest issue entitled Call to Leadership~ The audacity to lead in times of uncertainty. Kristie Kennedy, is the Image Confidence Expert. She's a TEDx audacious leadership keynote speaker. I think hence why we have audacity in the title and authentic lifestyle author. Lots to talk about around that. As the owner of Queenfidence Global Image consulting her electrifying inspirational gift, and she is electrifying, let me tell you, empowers visionary with confidence and clarity keys to find their voice, free their voice, and look fabulous using their voice. Just like she does. She specializes in four areas of peak performance, mindset mastery, massive momentum, she loves the M's, by the way, just lots of M's, magnetic messaging and potential maximization. And I hope you tell us more about that. She's a certified radical resilience coach who builds powerful mindsets equipped for success. Kristie's evocative teaching style elevates your self perception from stuck to unstoppable, invisible to invincible, I want my sword,and timid to tenacious. To learn more about Kristie, you're going to visit her website, queenfidence.com, and we'll recap that at the end. Welcome Kristie. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm making you laugh about your own bio, right?
Speaker 2:I put much thought into. Thank you, Garry. You are an absolute joy.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. Okay, so first of all, how, how did Queenfidence evolve?
Speaker 2:Evolve, oh my gosh. It's been my life work literally over three decades. You know, I first started out in professional development through model education. I was teaching models before I was even wearing makeup, and it just morphed. And then I find myself in the beauty industry getting my aesthetician's license. And then I'd sit there and have conversations with ladies and they're on the table, Garry, and they're telling me all the things that are happening beneath the surface and we're beautifying their face, but we really need to do some deep inner work, which landed me into the coaching space to really make some transformations. And that's the most fulfilling aspect of what I do. And so I recognize that these women, they looked the part, but they were not confident. They were lacking the esteem needed to ask for what they wanted, whether it was a promotion or raise, a new man or whatever the thing was. To have the audacity to go after it and hence, putting the crown on their head and reminding them that they do hold the power.
Speaker 1:Women do hold the power. Sorry guys, but they really do. I read a report once early on when I was starting coaching, and I don't know how it came up, but it said that 95% of purchases were influenced by women and one of the top purchases was riding lawn mowers.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 1:Right. Like, one would think that's the guy's realm, right? But apparently not so. Anyway, that was a while ago, but yes, long live the Queen or God rest our queen. I know this is gonna seem like a silly question, but I think I already know the answer based on your background and the title, but I'm gonna ask it a little differently.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Why did you decide at this time to submit this article?
Speaker 2:Well, we were in the midst of a pandemic, and the number one thing that kept coming up in conversations with leaders was the ambiguity they were experiencing. They really want to know what to do in all of this uncertainty. Now we're dealing with hiring freezes, their family dynamics are changing. I know for me personally, Garry, I've gone through so much uncertainty it's become the norm, right? Riding the waves of change. Especially as coaches, this is what we do, lean into the discomfort. And so I really felt my voice needed to be heard on this subject matter as one, not only who's lived through it, but coaches through it every single day, five days a week. I wanted leaders to be encouraged and be empowered that they can still show up powerfully. They can still show up in their core strengths, their core values, but they're going to have to do a lot of anchoring. They may have to change their perspective to some degree. Sometimes it's hiring a coach. It's changing your environment. Start doing some wellness, but it is definitely possible to lead with strength and courage and tenacity even in the midst of these changing times.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. Well, speaking of changing times, I was listening to a friend of mine have a conversation with the president of the International Coaching Federation. And did you know that the rate of knowledge used to double every 25 years in 1945? Do you know that it's now doubling every 12 hours? Wow. Yeah. So when you talk about leaders, you wrote in your article, we stand courageously at the podium of life with accompanying insecurities, inhibitions, and idiosyncrasies and you also spoke about the imposter syndrome. Well, it's no wonder like the rate of change, the growth of knowledge is going faster than any one person can accept. That's just crazy making. Crazy making. So what led you down the path of this, I love it, audacity.
Speaker 2:Well, let me go into my inner world then because I am a dominant introvert, and oftentimes introverts are misunderstood. They think that we are shy. Now, I was a shy and timid introvert, hence why I do the work that I do to this day cause I had to get out of my own head because I was living in that inner world and not sharing externally what was happening. I could not offer my opinions, you know, at any table for that matter. I would be the one that was sitting in the back of the room from college on up, Garry. So what I recognize is it was going to take some audacity for me to reprogram my own mind that I didn't have to play it small. I didn't have to hide. I could live in the front. So that was a lot of internal work. And even to this day, I still have high performance anxiety. I just did an all day speech yesterday and all day I was facilitating a training so I opened with a motivational message. closed with a motivational message, I'm facilitating the training, all of this conversation that I'm responsible for directing as an introvert who would rather be in a corner somewhere. I'm in opposite action all day long and I go through all of the things. I'm using my essential oil peppermint to have clarity of thought. And the nerves are all over the place but once I open my mouth, it subsides like the butterflies just landing on a flower. But many people never get beyond the fear. Right? Get beyond who they think they are, who they've been trained to think they are, who they've told themselves that they are. That's the work that we do that i s priceless. But I have to do it on myself every single time I have a conversation. Before this conversation, I g ot my oil o ut because I have made a decision that I am going to live out l oud. And that's the audacity that I have to go t hrough.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Wow. And obviously you invite everyone else to do so. Let's just match the word leader now on leading and I'm sure you've heard that it's getting more and more difficult to be an expert in anything, anything. I mean, look at the rapid change of knowledge, right? You just learn something and 12 hours later it's changed possibly, right? Is it audacity to lead? We're all leaders so how does the audacity part fit in?
Speaker 2:Yes. I think that's a great question because the audacity comes in the face of the fear, in the face of the apprehension, right? In the face of the hesitancy to even trust that. And I love the fact that you're talking about there's new information coming in so that brings in a value of humility. Because things can change, I can humble myself and I can course correct and I can let you know that I was in error because based on the new data, this is now my position. But I think too, a lot of times, ego gets in the way and hence if we're looking at ourselves as a leader, the old paradigm was we can't make mistakes and yes, you can. It's absolutely okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's considered vulnerable. Honest, transparent to say. And I think the other thing is, is that we hold the word leader as a singular identity to revere and uphold. I don't know if we forget or we just don't remember all the time that we're all leaders, that we're leading collectively and that there's, what is it? The power is more than the sum of its parts, if you will, paraphrasing, right? So I'm sure you're not just talking about like a leader, you're talking about all of us as leaders, right?
Speaker 2:Yes. In whatever capacity you serve in, you are the leader of that role, leader of that responsibility.
Speaker 1:Parents and even children and groups at work or in your church or in your community and doing all that sort of thing. Now I wanna go back. You touched on one word, humble or humility. Humility, right? Humility. What other struggles do you hear leaders asking for support and success strategies for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, even as you talk about the rate in which we get information, often hear overwhelm in what they have to process and the deadlines. It seems like it's all consuming. It takes over their lives is what I'm hearing on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay, I don't know why this is coming up, but maybe you can help me figure it out. Everything I heard in your bio, I'm now stuck with a dominant introvert who talks about audacity and radical and all this sort of stuff. What do you train people? Do you train people to bring this up in themselves regardless? Tell me more about that because that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I want be able to model what change can look like because I think about one of my favorite quotes of many quotes. She who holds the pen and he who holds the pen, holds the power. We get to change these stories. So I learned from a young age that I was introverted and many people misunderstood, but now I had to redefine. And I'm surrounded by 22 vision boards, six vision books to reframe and change how I look at myself. So I bring that same tool to clients based on how they're showing up in their lives. They're saying, the way I'm showing up currently is not working for me. Where do we learn this one? What's going to be more supportive? If we were to create this new version of you, how is he or she showing up in the workplace, in the home? And we start with a vision first, because I often say you can't see that if you don't see it. And so when we look at the power of choice, and if we seize the power of choice, Garry, then what happens? We don't have to surrender our plans to the winds of chance. There's choice and there is chance and this is us being deliberate. You know, I come from an impoverished background. I made a choice that I am not going to be poor, right? So then I had to do a lot of work around what does a rich and lavish lifestyle look like? What does wealth mean? I had the opportunity to create a whole new world for myself with one thought at a time.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that one thought at a time. I also love the power of choice, because I say that all the time. Remember you have the power of choice. It's a magazine too and I kind of named it because that's exactly how I felt about coaching. It gave people the power of choice. I think I came up with the name when we gathered to start the magazine 20 plus years ago now. So, yeah, just amazing. I'm terrible. It's like herding cats with me, okay? I'll get off on a topic. Let's come back to.
Speaker 2:I love it
Speaker 1:You talked about leaders, and you've talked about overwhelm.
Speaker 2:I also hear, and I guess this is in the same realm, that time constraints are often a big challenge for leaders. What kind of creative ways would you have to work with their wellness and to help prevent burnout? Because that's where they're going, right? They're just like exhausted. Yeah. We can live depleted or we can live energized. They're really going back to choice. I often start with the energy space. What energizes them from the inside out? Because I often hear, soon as I get out of bed, I don't wanna get behind on my assignment so I go right to the computer. Okay, well that's an easy do, but how do you feel by 12 o'clock? They're usually really tapped out by then. So what if we started with something that already fills you up? Have you ever heard someone call rituals rituals? They spell it with the R I C H U A L S.
Speaker 1:Oh,
Speaker 2:The thing that makes you rich inside so now you can work with a sense of joy, right? You are open. It doesn't feel as stressful. So I personally, I love outdoors that openness, right? You get in the space of openness and then bring in gratitude even if you're just walking around your neighborhood for 10 minutes and research shows that it boosts our mood just a 10 to 15 minute walk. So getting outdoors, because especially those that are remote, we're in these small boxes here. This is my own office.
Speaker 1:Here, it is.
Speaker 2:Outdoors. I personally love the bicycle. Just riding that is exhilarating. Any type of movement, depending on where you are physically, and some people think, Well, I can't do a gym workout. There is a way you can do gentle movement. That mindful movement, just stretching. Sometimes we don't even get out of our chairs to stretch in between meetings. I hear clients say, I have back to back to back to back meetings all day long and I don't even get out to drink some water. Time out, right? And so we can work with wellness in mind.
Speaker 1:Awesome. That's great to know. And you know, when you say that, I think, Oh, what could I do? I'm doing it. I go to the gym first thing, but I take my time. I do Wordle, so I do a brain exercise, I have my cereal, I have a cup of coffee. And I know that's probably not the best physical, but a bit of zip and then I head off to the gym and I'm like, Oh, do I really want to go and then once I get there, and to your point, it energizes it and riches, let's keep the word rich in here. Running theme. I just feel like it's such a difference. Like when I walk in and you feel like you're dragging, you know? And then when I'm leaving I'm like, I'm pumped up and ready.
Speaker 2:I love that. Pumped up and ready. That's how we want to go into our days, pumped up and ready rather than, oh gosh, it's another day. We don't have to live that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh my goodness. This is wonderful. What else? Here we go. I highlighted a bunch of things in here, but it started to look all yellow because everything I want to talk about. I can't talk about everything. I want to go back to one piece that you said both in this conversation, Kristie, a nd in the article was about the imposter syndrome. To quote what you said, we facilitate expansive conversations as a leader while secretly battling our own self-doubts, which invite us to play small. We smile through unspoken personal calamities and continuously rise to the occasion day after day. That sounds like overwhelm and exhaustion to me for leaders to have to do that. I know you give an answer on that, but how do you feel as someone that's doing this and what do you offer as a solution or you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I keep on my desk, Garry, and I love this question because I have a real tender spot for leaders who feel like they can't have their own time out. That they can't be human one, but I keep on my desk a jar of erasers and there's a little space. It's not all the way filled to the top. And I often remind myself there's space for mistakes and there's space for grace. And this is what I tell them every single day. I want to bring in the value of self-compassion because oftentimes they forget to be compassionate with themselves if they drop the ball. It's absolutely okay to be vulnerable because you're going to be more relatable. A lot of times they struggle with perfectionism as you know. They fear making the mistake. That's the number one thing I hear in session. But that is going to require them practicing being compassionate with themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that true? Something else came up when you were saying that. Go back to the transparency and the vulnerability. Oh, that's what it was. If you really are that, the people you're leading, they want you to succeed. Yeah. If you are transparent and vulnerable and honest and authentic, it's like when you talk about the teaching and all that sort of stuff, and you had the butterflies and the anxiety and then it's like, we forget that if we are an authentic human being, people want to help us make it, to be successful. Right? I'm one of those ones that sits at the back of the room and when I hear a little snippet about somebody I start the clapping. I was at a conference recently and that same thing happened because it's acknowledging that person's up there leading and they've overcome all of those things that we're talking about. And it's no different than us sitting in the audience. Right? I have to tell you, I love this article. I've been kind of paraphrasing it. Because I coach a lot of clients as well, right? So you really gave me some insight into what they're going through as leaders and I have to say it was mirroring what's going on for me. I run the magazine so I have a group of people. I'm also in charge of most of the sales and the strategy and the vision and that sort of thing. I'm not an introvert but I'm kind of like that borderline where it's like, I went to the conference last week and I'm like on and then I go back home and I'm like, leave me alone. I want to hide and then I will kind of work back to my happy medium. Right? So I want to say thank you so much for writing this and for bringing it up and helping us. I always say it's like when we talk about leaders, it's about helping us help our clients who are leaders and we always get something out of it.
Speaker 2:I love this.
Speaker 1:We're wrapping up the conversation here. I always like to ask, what would you like our audience to do as a result of the article and this conversation? What's an actual item for them?
Speaker 2:Wherever there is fear, I want you to challenge yourself to do one bold thing that you would normally not do and bring in an accountability partner. You're going to have your date set. I'm going to do it by three days from now, five days from now. I often say it's massive momentum, you want to it create as fast of a time as you can because you will talk yourself out of it. And so see if you can give yourself a 12 to 24 hour frame for those that are ready for that challenge. But if you need a little grace, there is space for it. But bring in an accountability partner because you do need support. And support is sexy I often say.
Speaker 1:It is, it's great. I love doing it. I love being accountable with somebody and yeah, thank you for that. Definitely. And I love your sayings space and grace. Space for grace in the eraser jar. I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode. What's the best way to reach you?
Speaker 2:Yes, go to the hub, queenfidence. c om and remember, no one is you and that is your power.
Speaker 1:Ooh. Well said. And I also thought you take the con out of confidence.
Speaker 2:Ah,
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:I know that's right. No con.
Speaker 1:It helps with the spelling too. Thank you very much, Kristie. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. My team has us on Apple and Spotify, and well, you won't know that until you actually listen to this. So let's hope you find us, and don't forget to sign up for your free digital issue of choice Magazine by going to choice-online.com and clicking the signup now button. I'm Garry Schleifer, enjoy your journey to mastery. And remember, you always have the power of choice. Thanks, Kristie. I had to have that one in there today.
Speaker 2:Yes.