Shit, I Didn't See That Coming

Today on Found-HER, I am fresh off of delivering my very first keynote to over a hundred female entrepreneurs and I’m taking you behind the scenes of that experience. From working with a speaking coach to navigating the anxiety of an unexpected challenge that happened just moments before my speech, I reflect on the power of how showing up authentically opens doors not just for you, but for others too.

If you’re a female founder who’s struggling with visibility and vulnerability, know that you’re not alone and there are people out there who could benefit from hearing your story. Remember that real growth happens in difficult moments. If this episode inspires you to take messy action, give it a like and review! I’ll see you next time. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Found Her, the podcast for women who build empires, break barriers, and blaze trails all while fighting themselves. These are bestie level conversations from behind the scenes, the real work, the messy middle, and the wins that last. I'm Kimberly Hebert, founder, franchise builder, wife, mom, and Grammy, and a woman who has done the inner work while building the outer winds. Here we talk business, identity, relationships, and the kind of growth that cracks you open, then puts you back together. Stronger, better. This is your space to rise as a founder and as your truest self. Let's dive in. Well, I have a lot to share. I've just gotten back, like I'm recording this really right on the tail end of a crazy, crazy 10-day experience where I started off delivering my first keynote, spent some time with some family, some downtime, worked a little bit, and then and then bookended it with the forum finale gala. For those of you that don't know, if you just hang 10, I'll explain it all. But oh, do I have lots to share about that? So this is my first day back in my office from being away for 10 days. And I just thought I would jump on the microphone and share with my besties this some of the takeaways, the impact, all that kind of stuff, insights of the last 10 days. And really, um, as you know, you know, my whole vision right now is in building Door Gurus. We're, you know, on the road to building a $100 million brand and bringing others along for the journey. We, you know, my personal lifelong motto mission has always been to help everybody or others build better lives. And I'm really just doubling down in that now. Things are really kind of coming together when it comes to being a franchisor and really digging deep into the door industry and the franchising industry in the door, the franchising industry, in the door industry. And then along with combining that and integrating that with just my own personal philosophies, life experience, all of those things and how all those doors, yes, I know, pun intended, have really started to come together in uh some spectacular ways. And not just for me, but also, you know, it's um what do you call a reflection back? So um I was invited to be the closing keynote speaker of a conference for 100 plus female entrepreneurs, and what a beautiful opportunity that was. It was really my first time having that much time, like 45 minutes to an hour, and really build a very intentional, powerful, impactful presentation, I guess, that would that people could take things away. Not I just didn't want to talk about, you know, me and my life. It's like how does how did those events that I chose to speak upon, how how can those translate to others? And I worked with a speaking coach. So I I do I prepped the speech, but then I worked specifically one-to-one with a speaking coach, uh, just a little extra couple hours just before we went, and we we created some structure around it to help walk people through their own, you know, doors, if you will, doorways uh of life, because that's really inevitably what my life has been all about, the different doorways. And and uh my keynote was around a gold doorway, a black one, and a green one. I'm not gonna give too much away in case you want me to come and speak at your event. Ha ha uh, but you know, the the whole day's event for that keynote, the room itself was so lovely and what do you I I think I want to call like like um well received. Like people were just so kind and and transparent, and you could feel that you could feel the energy and the safeness in the room. And it was interesting because there's some key parts to my story that involved, you know, key people. And two of those people actually were at the event. So I had invited my sister and she came, which was really odd because normally, you know, it's not really her kind of thing. And um, my acupuncturist that had a significant role in an aha moment that really opened a door that I did not see coming. And um, so she was there too. And so it was really special for me to be able to share how they have imprinted um my life. And so being able to share that with them in that way from that perspective was both impactful for them, but also honoring for me. But what was really interesting for me um personally is giving that because it is about my life, and so there are some definitely some heavier moments and some fun, exciting moments, and having other people receive that information and relate it to the doors in their life right now, they, you know, where they may be going through some things and their ability to just feel seen and witnessed from my own story. It is really the reminder that we do all have stories. And that we are really the more we speak and share on whatever platform that is, however you start or grow with it, it really there really is that whole like you're holding the secret, if you will, to somebody else's success, in the sense of like when you start sharing, other people identify and they'd be like, oh, it starts to normalize. People don't feel so weird or that they don't belong, or that things only happen to them, or you know, sometimes we also can romanticize what we see happening in people's lives, and we think, you know, only good shit ever happens, or they're the golden people, right? Like whatever they d want, they get, and they always seem to be the ones getting all the things they want. But there's always, excuse me, hang on. There's always the, you know, the reality is those highlights are usually just highlights, and they come off the ends of typically what what is a long, hard spell before that. And so having other people reflect that back to me, and for me as a woman and as a I want to say someone who tries to like not, I know it's gonna sound funny, who not be the center of attention sometimes at some point, um, at the beginning it felt awkward, you know. Throughout the day leading up to my keynote, the the leaders would say, like, you know, we're just really looking forward to all the goodness that Kim is gonna share, or whatever, all the nice things, all the edifying things they would say throughout the course of the weekend before I spoke. And when, and so I felt internally, I felt the mounting pressure. And I was like, oh God, this is, you know, this is too much pressure. They're gonna expect so much. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to deliver what they're expecting. And in fact, on the night before at this uh party that was a pre pre-event party, there were three speakers that got up like for like a five-minute little speak. And one of them literally shared what was my keynote, but on a much smaller, less polished way, but the same thing. And I in fact, I was like, what the fuck, man? Somebody just took my keynote. Oh my god, how how is that possible? Like her, her three things and blah, blah, blah. And I kind of spun out for a bit and I sent a message to my support crew to say, like, hey, I'm spinning out here because, you know, somebody just delivered some information that's kind of like mine. And uh, it started to make me feel like I didn't really have something special to say, or I didn't really have anything, not mind-blowing, but anything, yeah, to contribute, anything more, anything different. And uh, so I crashed out a little bit on the night before, and then throughout the next day, you know, the edifying continued. And at first it felt really awkward to the point where I got up on stage when they called my name to go up. And after I did my little fun little intro that I did have to change because everybody was doing the same intro as me, which I thought was hilarious. Anyway, I did say to the crowd, and I have this on video, and my friend actually asked me about it. I said, okay, first and foremost, you guys, I need us all to lower the expectations. And I was being kind of cheeky, right? And I was laughing and kind of cheeky. But also the fact that I needed to say that and say that in a way to blend it with humor was a way for me to offload some of that stress and pressure that I was feeling like the expectation was way too high and I wasn't going to be able to deliver. And those are the those are the small little parts that on the outside some people won't see. Other people will. Like my my best, one of my besties, she was like, uh, you know, days later on a phone call. She's like, hey, I noticed you said this. Uh and I was like, Oh, I know, I know. And and really that stuck out to me too, especially when I watched back the recording. I haven't watched the whole recording back because that is um that that's uh that's a little challenging. Uh so I have to be in a really good grounded space to watch it back so I don't like tear myself apart. But anyway, this whole like let's just reduce expectations thing was really an attempt for me to uh control the narrative so that I didn't have to uh live up to what I perceived was some kind of expectation. And so it's so funny how all that happened. And at first, for the first five or ten minutes, I was really quite nervous. And um, but then I got grounded. And I think that's the practice is learning how to get grounded sooner so that the presentation and the story can flow from a more grounded place. When anything comes from a more grounded place, that's where the execute you don't have to worry about how it's gonna land because when it comes from a completely grounded place, you it just it just has its own life then. It just does what it needs to do. And so, so that was an interesting interesting experience. But I have to say, I freaking loved it. Um, I loved it. I'm going to continue to polish up the the actual presentation. Um, there's just many ways that it can work and I can deliver it to different types of audiences. This audience was a group that was very open to, you know, the process of self-development and healing and trauma triggers and business and how all those things integrate. And so it was a beautiful, safe environment for me to deliver all that, but also the feedback on the way back, like I said, that was reflected or given back to me, was such a gift. And I had to what is it? I had to remind myself to be present when people are giving me that feedback and to receive it. And so I practiced just receiving it and really being in a attitude of grace and gratitude receiving it and allowing it to like enter my body, my heart, my mind, and receive it for what they're saying, instead of like, oh, it's no big deal, or oh, it's just this, or you know, I didn't do any of that. I or deflecting, I guess that's the word. Um, but I did, um, there was a my husband was there and listened again, as he had like 10 other times as I practiced it. But as we were there, um, as he was there watching uh me live deliver it, he said he was almost like um ugly crying. So funny. But he said, and I was like, You I said, you did not. He goes, I did. I had to kind of keep it together. And um then he said, it was crazy when people like gave you a standing ovation. I was like, what? He goes, yeah, like people stood up and were clapping. And I was like, I do not remember any of that. I pretty much detached towards the end, I think. So uh I think that's okay though, because it kept me a little bit more focused on the tone and the feeling and what is what about the energy. That's what I'm looking at, the energy of delivering it. But it was um, it was an exciting, exciting experience, but more more than that, it was honoring to the women that are just like you and just like me, that are out there living our dream, taking action, you know, we don't have it all figured out. Life life, things happen as we figure things out. We're like, we're gonna do ABC one, two, three, we're gonna go in this direction, and then shit happens. That was literally the title of my speech is shit. I didn't see that coming. And that those those things aren't they aren't because we're not supposed to do them. Uh, they are just they are part of the story and the embracing. Like, how do you keep doing those things when life life? And so that was the overall arch of the whole event as she leads. And I feel forever grateful to the to Kyla and Nicole at My Aligned Purpose for sharing their their clients and their community with me and with my platform of really helping open doors. And this is the same thing with this podcast, right? It really is about witnessing and giving testimony to the to the life life part as we are building epic dreams and visions and realizing a life that's bigger than ourselves. And so I was just it was great, I was excited. So that's kind of my initial takeaway from the She Leads, but I think I am actually gonna do a second podcast on the forum because that's gonna go deeper. Uh, because that was a whole six-month experience. So sorry, at the beginning of the podcast, I said it was gonna be on the both things. Um, but I think I'll leave it here for the she leads in my first keynote. And the takeaway for you guys, my besties, is to remember that life life and shit happens. So, as much as we try to plan and organize and predict, there are times when that stuff, you know, we get pushed around when different doors slam or open. Um, and we just have to be willing to walk through them and continue on. And so um that's your takeaway for today. And for the part two of this, you'll have to uh download the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Found Her podcast. If you've enjoyed it, please, please, please leave me a review, subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes, and more importantly, please share with your business bestie. You can join our newsletter, find me on Instagram, all the places I would love to hear your feedback and connect with you during your journey of building your legacy.