Kristen Faith Sharp joins us for an inspiring journey through personal growth, community involvement, and entrepreneurial spirit. It's a tale of creativity and resilience, from the vibrant backdrop of Colorado Springs to the rhythmic beats of "Boss Babe" by Urban Classic. Kristen's story isn't just about moving to a new city; it's about becoming a part of its heartbeat, all while crafting an anthem celebrating the complexities of womanhood. Her engaging narrative paints a picture of a household buzzing with creativity, where even an engagement party can become a canvas for live art, reminding us of the beauty in sharing our unique selves with the world.
Embracing our past isn't easy, but it's a journey we explore together in this episode. Personal stories of overcoming domestic violence and the haunting memories of youth give way to a discussion on self-acceptance. We dive into the lighter moments too, like Jason's humorous disdain for diesel buses, offering balance to the heavier topics. Through candid reflections, we uncover the importance of loving all parts of ourselves, recognizing that our flaws and quirks are integral to our identity. It's a reminder that growth often comes with laughter and a touch of vulnerability.
The conversation evolves into a powerful discussion about the impact of storytelling and self-discovery. From the inception of Boss Babe Networking to building meaningful relationships, Kristen's journey exemplifies the transformative power of authentic connections. Her shift from running a nonprofit to aiming for financial empowerment underscores a dedication to amplifying silenced voices. As we unravel these narratives, the emphasis on inner work and self-awareness shines through. Listeners are left with a compelling message: understanding and addressing our past can lead to profound personal and professional success, fostering communities where everyone feels seen and valued.
welcome to Show Me Yours i am your co-host Rihanna Werner along with my my dear friend and colleague Jason
Sheffield hey everyone welcome welcome today we have a special treat for you
good friend and slightly my therapist is
here Kristen Sharp um Kristen Faith Sharp she and I go way back not just in
business but insanity as well we have clung on to each other through building
both of our businesses and have experienced the roller coaster of
emotion and uh I have found sanity and crying side by side with her um I hope
that I've given you a safe place too but now we're actually gonna get a little
transparent and share some of the the craziness that we've lived through together yeah so Kristen Faith this
woman is an awardwinning entrepreneur public speaker marketer and just general
badass um not only is she beautiful on the outside I mean look at the woman but
gosh she's even more beautiful on the inside and it's because of her loving giving generous spirit i mean you and
your husband Terry Josiah moved to Colorado Springs right around pandemic time before the uh right before the
pandemic at the end of 2017 yeah okay okay and what they did is enter the city
and just gave and gave and gave and gave um and just loved on our community and
have become actually beacons of Colorado Springs i mean oh my gosh I swear I
didn't pay her to say this oh my gosh no cuz we've lived through it i've seen
it i mean heck you guys wrote our city anthem my husband did yes yes that's a
fact i know it's so cool huh it's like I know them
anyways so we get to enjoy a little time with Kristen and I am not just talking
her up you are about to experience her amazingness and Jason you are too you're going to have a chance to really get to
know her today um well we have a little thing as we get started we really like
to get to know our guests in a different angle and so we ask a couple questions in a couple different ways so we have
one that we've kind of primed and prepped you for um so I'm going to go
ahead and ask we give usually a choice of three but I think this one's really applicable to you um especially with
your artistic family and especially ingrained into music if you could choose
one song that represents your entrepreneurial journey what song would
that be i'm biased we made an anthem for Boss Babe get out did you really we did
if you haven't heard it I'll have to send it to you so um last year we released it on
International Women's Day and it's called Boss Bay by the Urban Classic and something that we do at Anthem Music
Enterprises is called a lock-in and so we bring together artists who may have never worked together some of which have
never recorded in a professional studio before and so typically it's you know a
creative session they create the beat at the same day they songwrite the same day
no takehomes and so the guys uh put together this experience for artists in
our community and so I was like "Hey guys could we do one for International Women's Day for Women's Month?" Um
because at that time we had never created a all women lockin and we did um
and so it's called Boss Babe and there are several different artists here locally um and some in Denver as well uh
they came down recorded at Anthem and it was it's it was a song that I wanted to
be an empowering uplifting song not about you know just getting money um but
all facets of being a woman and so check it out boss Babe Urban Classic it's streaming on all platforms um it talks
about being a leader it talks about being strong it talks about um what it's like to be a woman and I feel like that
is truly what embodies me um and I was able to get it recorded so I can't wait
to answer this why didn't I know about this i hacked the the answer and I didn't I didn't even realize that that was coming so
And I think you're also the only one that's actually written their own theme song for their entrepreneurial journey so unless my husband comes on and then
he's going to say you know it could be Olympic City for him um yeah we've had
the pleasure of creating a lot of great music i am not a musician i just get the pleasure of witnessing their um
creativity in real life form so yeah check us out Anthem Music Enterprises
couldn't imagine living in such an incredible household of creativity i could just imagine the buzz that's felt
like upon entry to your home i'm I'd be like "Oh my god." Yeah we have a giant
mural in our home too that says "Our actions create constant prosperity." And
um that was painted during our engagement party so it was a live mural on our wall while people were enjoying
our housewarming and our engagement party all at the same time it was great
oh my gosh so lots of creativity happens in our home that's amazing i love that
okay now we have our random question i'm going to have you pull a card okay all
right we don't know what it's going to be we're going to take a stab at answering have a little fun with this
what's your personal hell whoa oh that's deep
honestly if we're going to go there we're going to go there right um I honestly think it's our
conversation that we had before we turned the on button for today's episode um prior to me wearing this hat and me
becoming the woman that I am today uh I didn't realize that we were even going to go down this road so this is where
I'm taking us um one of us did yeah here we are uh thanks thanks God thanks um he
was like I'm just going to push this button a little further prior to even getting married moving out here uh I
used to call myself KP that was my initials um and the girl that I used to
be is not the woman that I identify with now um and so I realized over these last
couple months and even years that I have a really hard time embracing that old girl um which is interesting because the
work that I do is very much embrace who you are love who you are just because your past happened doesn't mean that that defines you um but I sometimes
struggle with that so this is my vulnerability moment is it's hard to embrace the flaws in yourself it's so
easy to say "Oh embrace your flaws." But let's be honest it's really hard to do that um especially when you you are that
person that you're talking about it's easy to tell hey don't embra embrace your flaws embrace your flaws it's okay
but when you're looking in the mirror and looking at yourself oh that's so ugly um so I I would say my personal
hell is not accepting the girl who I used to be and uh being ashamed of who I
used to be um I worked hard to become this person um and I'm very open with sharing my story and going through
domestic violence and and going through um what I have but that person was a
part of that story and that's just one like shade of me that I just haven't
fully embraced so I would say my personal hell is hey love her because she loved you and she wanted to love who
you were going to become and that person helped you become this um so this is me
just talking out loud of hey she needs work and I'm going to do the work to do it so this is my personal testimony this
is so beautiful and I'm I'm not going to let you you hang out on that cliff alone because this conversation you were
talking about before we started recording here actually spun from me being vulnerable with the group here and
sharing my high school life um and sharing a disciplinary letter that was
threatening to either suspend or expel me and stating that I was disrupting
what was it the morals values and safeties of the well and the well-being of others and um you know I I I resonate
with that because I think it's hard to live in the skin of who that young girl
was and who this woman is and looking back I have a lot of shame attached to
who I was and the actions that I did unknowingly resulting in consequences um
but also unknowingly I didn't know what to do with all the gloppy gloop on the
inside and so it came out in really bad explosive ways um and I look back at
that and think gosh if I could go back and have a talk with that girl but that girl probably would have punched me in
the face and given me a couple black eyes but she wanted love and I think when we
when we look at the deeper layer to that both of those girls wanted love and they didn't know how to receive it or give it
oh gosh yeah yeah that's so true that part um so yeah like it's Gosh if I
would have sat down with that girl KP Oh god
yeah that'll be a whole another conversation for a whole another day but yeah that's it's it's deep like embracing who you are and embracing who
this person is um because a lot of times if we look at it these versions of women
are well respected they work hard they you know work hard for everything that they have and usually these women don't
live in that world they never they don't know that world they've never touched that world or seen that world or walked
in those shoes um but we did we did but if you look at us you would think that
we probably lived the traditional all very privileged life and we had it all
furthest from the truth here we are i don't know now changing
subjects all right Jason what's your personal hell my goodness well I don't um I've been in my own personal life
hell i know those experiences of of what I've walked through um and I think in a
lot of ways how we create a hell for ourselves when we're not being able to receive that love and what that is and
so I for sure can resonate with that although I have to be fully honest my first thought was sitting on a diesel
bus i hate the smell of diesel it makes me
sick to my stomach i hate uh sitting on a bus is something that I just so if you
were to force me and just be like you're going to that my personal hell would be stuck on a bus with a bunch of people
that I don't know and it be a diesel bus so that'd be a very like surassy answer you took us real deep so uh but that was
the first thing that came I have to be honest that was the first thought that came to my mind i keep thinking of those buses that you see in the movies that
people take in like you know South America or something on the ledge of the cliff you know it's stuffed to the gills
with people and a few chickens and a few goats and it's hot and the windows don't go down exactly like that sounds like
Yes no air conditioning and we will not send you on that adventure let's not let's not do any bus
travel that doesn't sound good i am such a princess i'm like you know I want my own
a private car and yeah one day I'll get a a charter jet and we can all avoid the
bus fabby level done deal all right sounds good all right Jason what's your question so I want to know what is
something that's either like extremely unique or really unusual that you love
about me yeah not it could be about you it could just be in life but what's just something that you love that's out of
the ordinary or unique or unusual um I it's not I mean to me it's not
unusual but I love culture i love embracing other people's culture probably because I am very mixed uh my
parents are mixed their parents are mixed so I come from a generation of mixed people um which makes me super
mixed and I feel bad for my youngest nephew who is extremely mixed and like the most that he is of one ethnicity is
like 20% wow because both of his parents are mixed um amazing though it is have
all of that he did um Ancestry and it came out that he like had Egyptian somewhere somewhere so it's it's a whole
thing it's hilarious um but for me you know growing up with so many different backgrounds and and cultures I got to
try different food i got to have the pleasure of going back to Hawaii to see my family and like that's a whole
different although it's a part of the US it's a whole different world over there
um and I grew up as a hoola dancer and so I grew up always with long hair and
always dancing um and just being able to embrace the different parts of me and I
met a a really incredible woman here her name is Janette um and I'm Puerto Rican she's Puerto Rican and so I had a hard
time like identifying with being Puerto Rican but also being Filipino but also being Portuguese um and I was like well
I no one wants to fully claim me because I'm all of these things and she said
something that really resonated with me that I just hold dear to my heart she's like well you have the ability to have
the beauty of all of these cultures within you and I was like that's that's really special and so I think that's
unique um that I get to embrace all of these different sides i can be my Puerto Rican self i can be my Austrian self i
can be my Filipino self um and all of those are me so yeah love that re what's
something unusual or unique that you love you guys are going to think I'm so weird are you ready go for it yes go for
it oh my gosh so growing up my family owned um some property up in the
mountains near Terrell Reservoir but we had it was like a community but there was a private lake that the community could use i grew up fishing me too did
you i did yeah I did see all the things so my job and I loved it i insisted that
it was my job when we would go fishing is I was a family fish gutter so someone I did not do that
i loved it so when someone would catch a fish they knew my nickname growing up
was Nanie so they knew give Nanie that fish or she'll slice you with that knife
so I wouldn't really but it was kind of a joke with our family so yeah I was in charge of the family fish cutting but my
favorite thing was to and I think this was the purpose is when I would open up the fish the first thing I would do is
go to the stomach and I'd see what it was eating and then I'd be able to tell everybody okay the fish has been eating
flies or it's been eating this and so go and fish with your worms or go and fish with this and I would help my family
catch more fish and I felt Look at that yeah uh so I felt more productive and
useful and I have too much ADHD to sit there and like you know just fish so it
kept me entertained too i love that that is That's a That's a new one i'm learning something new about Reek do you
like cutting fish open i promise you guys I'm not a weird murderer
i don't know how to cut a human or any other animal i could never do anything bigger than a fish but Yeah wow that's
great yeah told you it was weird yeah that's a good one for me i was I again I was trying to I
asked the question I was like what's the weird or unusual thing that I love um and I would say something that's more
unique about me is I really love deeper conversations most people like don't always know how to hang with that but
it's like I'm not always super good with like the surfacy level type of just connecting it's like if we're going to
talk we're going to talk and we're going to go deep and we're going to like really go into the stuff and share about
life and talk about the real things that are going on so I feel like that's definitely something that's more unique
that I love is getting into the deeper waters with people if it's surfacy I don't really have much patience for it i
don't either i think that's why you and I work together so well um you both know
this i hate networking i am not the networking person i can't stand it because I think it is a lot of surfacy
stuff and I'm just like okay I'm out like I want to go deep i want to grow a friendship based on really cool
exploration of each other not just hi here's my business card right because you get a whole bunch of business cards
and how do you how are you going to remember me if I'm going into those networking rooms
building relationships is how you do it but you don't really get to do that when you go into a room of like 400 people no
you don't you don't yeah and you've built your career on this idea of storytelling so I feel like on some
levels this is kind of a nice nice dovetail to give us a little bit more of context of like this is what you do you
tell stories you figured out this way so kind of dive in a little bit there let's kind of start to peel back some of the
layers of starting with a little bit of your story and kind of what started you on your entrepreneurial journey let's do
it so over a decade ago now I created a nonprofit for domestic violence and it
was inspired by you guessed it my own story um I was affected by domestic violence and shared my restraining order
on Facebook let the world read it it begun to create this global network of
people across the globe who were writing in sharing stories i remember still
working in corporate at the time but I was so drawn to this work and so drawn
to helping people find resources and helping them get out of these situations i understood I grew up uh witnessing
domestic violence but I also fell into that cycle as well um and so when I
shared my story I saw the power of vulnerability i saw that when I shared my story it inspired other people to
share theirs and so there were men and women and all different ethnicities from
uh India to Witchah Kansas to New York City to the UK to uh South Africa people
were writing in and saying "Hey can I share my story?" And so I created this global platform where people felt safe
and seen and heard um to share these stories these some some of them were
really graphic stories that of the pain that these people went through but they felt heard as soon as I posted their
story people were writing in saying "Oh my gosh that's me too." Um and so in
2020 I I just felt this calling to do more than just that um I remember
hearing God's voice saying "There's more to this story." But I just didn't know what and so for the last few years I've
been on this journey of like "Well all right will put me where I'm supposed to go and where am I supposed to go and so
I realized that there were stories in the making to lead me to creating BBN um creative boss babe networking during the
pandemic I remember creating our first event um it was at Kauaii and it was all
things women empowerment we did a networking event and it was amazing did another event for international women's
day filled out packed out Kauaii um and I kept doing that as my signature event
uh this year we did women of the world fashion show at the Olympic and parolympic training center where we got to showcase culture and um women from
all different backgrounds and ages it was beautiful um so for me creating BBN
was about creating community and sharing stories i created BBN in 2020 but was
you know just going through the motions as as a business owner i need to make money i need to make sure my bills are paid um but I knew deep inside of me
that there was something missing i knew that the the piece of intentionality of
meaningfulness I just didn't want to create something that was just there i that's not me i'm not surface level at
all i can't even answer questions without telling you a whole novel about it um and so when I created BBN wrote
the mission statement we've had so many conversations um about my other business that I created and end up putting it
together with BBN um writing on the whiteboard you know upstairs of hey what is this i don't know let's figure this
out let's talk about this how about this um and just you know go I'm a creative i throw in ideas what sticks what doesn't
stick um and then really landed on this idea of okay at my deepest
core beyond anything else I'm a storyteller and I love telling people
stories and so BBN is a social impact driven business that focuses on sharing
stories for women impactdriven businesses and nonprofits i feel like when we share stories we build community
and we can change the world and that's exactly what I'm here to do it's so beautiful it is wow but
along that journey there's speed bumps there's trips
there's falls there's scrapes there's bruises mhm like you're a really good
storyteller you made it sound very easy to to go through all of this but as we
we've built both of our businesses well I don't want to talk about all the black guys but you know
looking back what is that one mistake that you made where you tripped and fell
and you've got those scars to show it but probably made you better for it you
said one one speed bump i know right i don't I have more than one speed bump folks biggest
um there was just so many along along this road um I've been for the most part
a entrepreneur for more than a decade i think this year's like 14th year maybe
um God I've learned so much i have fall trip stumbled that's taking it very
lightly i think I've rolled down hills i think I like fell at the bottom of the
ocean um and I think that I couldn't even tell you one honestly i think it's
um I mean maybe one that comes to mind right now is not being my authentic self
trying to find this um when I transitioned out of my nonprofit in 2020 I thought I knew what I was doing i I
leaned on my own understanding number one that's as an entrepreneur don't lean
on your own understanding there are so many people that know much more than you do who have been doing this who have
trip stumbled f fallen for the possibility to be like "Hey you should
probably go this way." Um but I think that finding where I was supposed to be
at least right now for BBN is being just open to be my a most
authentic self when I created my nonprof Oh there's another one too it just came up um comparing myself to myself
to myself folks to myself um and that was difficult sorry I just I just licked
the microphone um we always say eat the mic so yeah you know my husband is great like when he does shows he's like all up
in there um but I I think that was my one of my biggest challenges along this
journey um at least this phase of my career is comparing Kristen in year one
year two of my business to Kristen who raised a million dollars why are we comparing to her this is a completely
different game i mean not even a game i mean I guess in my mind it was um but
and being like bitter towards myself of not giving myself grace of like hey I'm
doing something completely different girl and you're comparing yourself to something that you used to do over here that was a different flavor maybe a
different store um of ice cream you know what I mean um and I think maybe those two things I
can give you a whole list of things if we have time um but yeah I I think comparing myself is number one um and
then not being my authentic self to be like hey who are you at your deepest core but I had to do the work to even
get to that point so so can you can you tell us a story of like where you feel like that
comparison led to a a mistake or led to some failure that then you were like ooh
yeah that was and I had to kind of pivot this way like give do you have an example of kind of how that showed up
yeah i mean one when you're comparing yourself to yourself which I don't think
we talk about enough i don't and I honestly don't know if other people do that or not but I realized that the
frustration that was bottling inside of me the disappointment that I had towards
myself the impostor syndrome um trying to tell myself that "Oh you don't know
what you're doing and you don't know this and you don't know that." But then the other voice in my head saying "Oh
but you did that and how come you didn't do it sooner and you already know how to do it." So I'm putting myself down and
that shows up as how I treat other people i'm upset internally but I'm going to be upset at you because of
whatever reason um or just feeling like I don't have the confidence to show up
or not feeling like I deserve to be in rooms like this to share my story or to
have conversations with the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce i'm not worthy to talk to you or talk have have any sort
of business with you because I'm not worthy of that and so I ultimately sabotaged myself and
that you know affected the these last five years of of transition from going
from my nonprofit to building what I'm building now that was a fiveyear hiccup
wow that sabotage did that transition into you not being your authentic self do you
think there's a correlation there absolutely yeah um because looking back
at it the last five years I always say that oh my at the when
someone asks me a question I always respond just kind of a knee-jerk reaction oh my god I can't answer that
without telling you a story like it's been in there yeah but I I don't know maybe I ignored her and maybe that's
going back to the first question of like okay P I'm just ignoring her maybe I have a thing with and I didn't think
that I did that um let me just put that behind or that's not important um when
in reality I am KP and I am a storyteller and so building
this business or even I remember another situation and I was driving from fountain up to the studio picking up
something down there and I was just having a conversation with God like what am I supposed to be doing because I am
lost and I'm frustrated and I'm angry and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing and I I'm struggling financially
and this is for the birds um and I just remember clearly I mean my name is my
name is Christian Faith so I have a really big faith um hearing God's voice saying I didn't tell you to stop sharing
your story you did and I was like I'm I'm now I'm even more disappointed now
I'm more upset because now I'm sabotaging myself and the two things that I don't like the most is don't
waste my time and don't waste my money and I did both right and so that pisses me off even more is that I am my cause
it's kind of a default of like I can blame you for my reasons of being upset i can blame you for the reason I'm upset
but then when I have to look in the mirror and say You're the reason why you're where you
are what did they say when you point the finger you got three i got the whole damn hands right back up
it's true yeah absolutely and so you know in that process I'm curious because
I think you're not alone a lot of people a lot of myself and my own story have been through this in many ways um did
did you notice a shift in your dreams of like what you were going for so like if
you kind of look back to the old self and say "Oh I was going after this thing and now you're in this new version of
yourself and you're kind of like holding on to that old dream or that old expectation of self versus now awakening
to like really what the dream is or really what it is that you want have you noticed kind of the comparison being
held back to the the old way of thinking and yet you're in this new paradigm and that's the comparison?" I don't know i'm
curious what that's like for you yeah I'm going to interpret that in the way that my brain is interpreting it um I
couldn't tell you then what my dream my overall arching dream was i just knew
that I wanted it this was like the the thing that I would say is I want to make it cool to talk about domestic violence
and I'm going to do it in any way that I can if that means getting porn stars to
join my social media campaigns I'm going to do it and I did it um if that means being on national and international
media outlets to talk about this issue I'm going to do it and I did it everything that I wanted to ever do with
my nonprofit I did it and maybe that was the sign of like hey girl you did it now
next chapter but the girl then who was still which I didn't you know identify
with of she was still broken and I thought she was good i thought she was great she was at the height of her career um I realized that there was so
much more growing to do and that girl was stubborn but I didn't know it and God if you would have told her that she
would have not believed you um but now like my ultimate dream is I want
to be so wealthy that I can give so much money away to make an impact in the world i don't care how I do it legally
of course um but I feel like the work that I'm doing now to build BBN and to
build this agency um when I created my nonprofit I saw the vision and I saw where I needed to go um
and I think that was another frustrating thing as a business owner is that when I came into BBN I didn't see the vision so
I was just kind of like I'm going through the motions um and then slowly
but surely like the pieces of the bigger picture started coming in i don't have the full picture yet but I just know
that however I decide to build wealth I 1,000% want to be that person that could
donate millions of dollars to help kids get the education they need to donate here to provide kids a recording studio
to find a safe space or to donate here to to organizations like Thrive that are
doing incredible work for entrepreneurs i want to be the vessel to be able to do that um that is my goal and I'm sticking to
that yeah do you think that there was a level perhaps not settled but a level of
authenticity combining KP the nonprofit Kristen um in that aspect I we've talked
a little bit about KP and who KP was strong defiant you know take the world
on on her own terms right but then you talk about like the nonprofit time of
your life and strong defiant do this on
our own terms i mean who in the world brings in porn stars to talk about
domestic violence like there's there's a level of boldness there that I think
those two Christian personas probably meshed and
and melted together i think it goes back to like the underdog the person and I
think that absolutely relates to the core of who I am is giving people a voice that other people say "Your voice
doesn't matter here." I remember getting connected with Christy Mack um she's the
adult film star and her story came out publicly that she was I'm not sure if y'all follow that
story or remember that story um it was all over the news she was the adult film star who was severely abused by an MMA
fighter um significantly abused and her story
was terrible and in very Kristen fashion I reached out like a normal person um
and was like "Hey would you like to come share your story?" Again here's a story thing right um hey want to come down to
our conference we're doing she had lived in Vegas at the time and uh would love for you to be our speaker and she goes
"Oh my gosh that would be amazing." Keep in mind she had shared her story and other people shared her story on every
media outlet there was um and that was the first time that she shared her story
publicly and we had a standing room only room of college kids community leaders
all the things and she was like "Hey you you gave me an opportunity to share my story when I never had before like
this." Um and we kept working together and sharing stories and so I think that going back to the whole overarching
thing is I want to give people a voice that said your voice doesn't matter here you don't get a seat at the table and maybe that goes back to KP the little
girl who felt like her voice didn't matter and then she created a nonprofit to tell the stories of victims of
domestic violence and and even families that lost loved ones to domestic violence um where I have had family
members reach out to me and tell me that people told them to stop sharing their story of their dead loved one because
they have other kids um and I said "Hell no we're sharing your story because that story needs to be told." And I would
fight for those stories to be told on major platforms and I was I would fight to tell those stories because other
people needed to hear them and so going back to you know the work that I do now
it's about sharing those stories of underserved people it's sharing the stories of people who may have been told
"You're who cares about Rihanna who used to be that person i don't want to hear her i want to hear her because I know
how much of an impact that the kids um that I work with need to hear that story." And I've always been the
connector of stories like hey your experience really resonates with this other person that I know y'all need to
connect um and maybe that goes back to the connecting piece of BBN i'm unraveling this live and direct here on
on our podcast um see you guys don't need therapy you just got to sit on grandma's grandma's couch here yes and
storytelling is very much therapy cuz when you feel like oh my god I had this bottled up inside but you care and like
that is like a gentle touch that I don't think everyone has and some I don't know
God gave me this gift to to hear these stories and hold space for these stories um and give them out to the world
because that's what that's what I want to do so I have a quick question just yeah I'm I'm curious to hear your
experience here so most people are hesitant to tell their story because of shame or fear of judgment or there's all
kind all kinds of internal vernacular that's happening inside you're telling yourself you're not worthy or you know
whatever it is um when you see all of these people's stories that you collect
and you narrate and you help you know bring out to the community have you ever seen any of these people receive
backlash or Absolutely absolutely um in what way does that show up oh my gosh um
all right so I mean even my own story when I shared my story publicly I
remember there were women that reached out to me on social media saying "He would never do that did I am I making
this up why would I make this stuff up i'm I'm sharing my restraining order on social media and you're telling me that
this didn't happen to me." Yeah okay um there's another story the literal
example that I just used her name is Tammy Willlet and her daughter Brandy was killed when she was 22 years old and
um Tammy had reached out to me and said "I want to share her story." And I said "Let's do it." So I shared her
daughter's story publicly for the first time on our social media platform and the killer's family was writing in the
comments saying "This he didn't kill her did then how did this happen how did how
do you think this happened to Brandy?" And so what I told Tammy and what I continued to tell her I mean this was
over a decade ago keep sharing her story because someone needs to hear it and
what I found is that I found personally so much healing although the tragedy was
absolutely horrific I was 22 years old when I left that abusive relationship
and Brandy was 22 when she was killed and God kept putting people and families
in my path that were also 22 whe whether they were survivors or there were plenty
too many to count uh families that had reached out to me that say my daughter was 22 my daughter was 22 my daughter
was 22 and I was like what is happening um to the point where I got the number 22 with angel wings tattooed on my back
um to remember those angels and to remember the girl who was so broken at
22 but had the courage to leave um there have been so many stories of
people like "Oh well she deserved it." Or so many people said "Oh my god yeah I
I grew up with domestic violence and I got into an abusive relationship and my parents told me well you shouldn't talk
like that maybe you wouldn't have gotten treated like that and so for me when I hear those stories it fires me up tell
me that I can't tell someone's story tell me that that person's story doesn't deserve to be heard tell me i wish you
would and that fire led me to creating the biggest domestic violence nonprofit
on the internet we were ranked uh top 125 nonprofits on Facebook i was raising
over a quarter million dollars during the height of the pandemic when we couldn't have events it wasn't grants it
wasn't Facebook ads it was community that came together to build this nonprofit to help people get out of
abusive relationships um and so I saw that power um and being able to share
stories like the Nunes Partners um and Leo's testimony of of experiencing
cancer and and that being the vessel to say "Hey I've experienced this and I want to help you by giving you the right
coverage that you need." that that story that story that lives with all of us of
why we do what we do why we walk the way that we walk why we talk the way that we talk um is all rooted in our story um
and for people if you don't know your story you won't know why you act the way that you act or stories like Janna Reer
Claymier who is one of the most influential women in our city but if you don't know her story you don't know why
she is the way that she is um but to me it gives grace it gives connection it gives power to building that
relationship um and that goes back to networking that it's hard to hey I'm Chris and this is my story and I was a survivor and I'm giving you my card at a
networking event and I'll see you later i'm not going to do that you're not going to know who I am unless you sit down and have a conversation with me
exactly absolutely so those people who tell their story and experience the adversity what makes it worth it
for Tammy in particular um it's that there are there are other
people out there that need to hear it i think that even for me it was absolutely scary sharing my restraining order on
Facebook it's still on there um it's for me sharing my story whether
it was in a book or whether it was on a stage or whether it was in conversation
every time that I share in my story over the last since 2011 um someone somewhere
said "Me too." And if I can help someone else feel like they're not alone that
makes it all worth it and when I help people share their story and they start becoming a public speaker um the fear
stops us from being our authentic self oh what if they judge me what if they shame me what if they don't like me
anymore it really goes back down to the little child in us of like I'm not going
to be accepted by you because you're going to know who I am um but I mean even how I met my husband I literally we
were in the recording studio and I showed my story to him and he read it
and go and this is keep in mind I met him the day before that um and he was like "This is your story." And I'm like
"Yep." And I shared it out of if you want to love me know me be my friend I
need you to know who I am um and that was a giant vulnerable moment and that
led me to my husband and he had looked at my story read it and text himself
while he had my phone in his hand and said "This is your future wifey." And here we are uh it'll be 13 years this
year yeah he really said this is your future wedding yeah he texted himself and I was like "Dude I just met you."
Like literally I just met you the day before and you text yourself i It has to be somewhere in the archives of like as
a screenshot of that um but he text himself it was like this is your future wife and here we are when you know you
know when you know you know right right so I'm curious in you know taking your
own personal story and taking your own personal experience experiences how has that then led you as a business leader
right now as you've started nonprofits and now that you've started the business like how did that stuff translate to now
how you exist as a business leader as an entrepreneur i think once I started
embracing that I had like a gift for sharing stories I was like I I can do
this oh wait i have been doing this my imposttor syndrome over these last few years told me that I wasn't good enough
to be a content creator when I've been doing it professionally um but I had the title and I had the role and I had the
followers and I had the platform um and then starting from scratch it's like well who's going to want to do this with me telling myself that I wasn't good
enough um when I was the person that had the gifts not the entity i built the
entity um so I think now when I work with businesses and nonprofits and and women um I think what draws people to
the work that I do goes back to being authentic i feel like when you know my
heart you know that I have your best interest um also when you build trust with the people that you serve why would
they want to work with anyone else because you have that again relationship with someone everyone that I work with
for the most part it took time to cultivate that relationship and it's an ongoing business relationship i don't
want to just one and done one and done here we go that's not who I am i want to be able to walk this journey with you
share your story and tell the world about you because I truly I'm not going to accept a client who I don't believe
in um to be able to share the story in the in the right way um and so I I think
that would be the answer or or the opportunities that I get to to work to do um I recently worked with
Crimestoppers of Houston um they saw my content and they said hey do you want to
make content for us and I'm like absolutely Crimestoppers that's cool um
and so getting out of that negative mindset of oh you're not good enough you can't do this crimestoppers called me
and wanted to make content i done I've done content with companies like Sephora Target a whole bunch of major brands um
and just ex I have to be like accepting of of the things that I've done and not
kind of be in awe of the things that I I've done to the point of sabotaging myself yeah yeah so on this road to
authenticity where are you now
i'm good today um you know I think it's a constant journey honestly like sometimes I wake
up and like h I don't feel great i mean the I told you the last few weeks I've been off i've been like mentally off and
I hosted a really big show and it was amazing loved it 1,000% fantastic um but
I was just emotionally exhausted after that and for someone who thrives on being
productive and making sure that I'm not wasting my time my own time um I had to see it as an opportunity to
rest and not as oh you're a failure oh here comes the failure voice um but
accepting that there are good days and there are bad days i am not perfect by any means way shape or form um but you
know listening to my body and and being you know authentic and hey you need rest
or hey you need this my body's been telling me that I need vacation um so need to do that let's go girl i'm with
you i'm serious i I need to go I need to go on vacation right now um but yeah I
think just listening to that voice and being kind to that voice i'm still learning i c couldn't tell you that I'm
like right where I need to be i'm still learning how to be all versions of me and KP is one of those versions that I
need I someone told me they need to write a letter to myself and I almost I almost cried and I'm like I and which is
crazy I tell people to do this for themsel you should do that and then you burn it i've done that and I've done
that and I'm not joking about like oh I don't walk the talk and all the things um but I haven't thought of that and I
don't know why probably because again put her in a box buried her um but that'll be my next thing and we'll talk
about that next time we do lunch let's do that maybe we can do it together and we'll cry and then we'll burn it on the
rooftop yeah not on the rooftop i might get in trouble for burning down the building
yeah don't do it we won't do it we won't do it we're not going to burn it on the roof
we'll find a special place though yeah that's a great idea um what advice would
you give to an individual who's who this conversation is resonating with um as
far as on the journey of
authenticity what would you tell them to explore or discover about themselves and
perhaps embrace in order to be their authentic selves well I it that question
actually reminded me of what you said Jason about um I don't like having surface level conversations and it's
really hard to tell someone find your authentic self if you are not willing to do the work to do the layers um
because I can only get so far to somebody if you're not willing to peel back the layers of who you truly are um
it reminds me of the Moana song know you who you are
i love that movie i cry every single time um but I think it goes back down to that like you have to be willing to do
the work you can't reach the quote unquote proverbial finish line if you
are not willing to peel back the layers of who you truly are and I can't tell you who you are cuz I don't know who you
are unless you tell me who you are but if you don't even know who you are that's a first starting point and for me
that was a lot of therapy that was a lot of talking out loud that was a lot of um
resolving the feelings and emotions that I had from my childhood trauma having conversations with my parents about it
that was hard um embracing the you know
I haven't done that KP thing yet um but just doing the work and
um with that because you know people see this version of me and they don't get to see the broken they didn't get to see
the broken girl they didn't even get to see the broken girl who was so deep in depression in 2018 moving here not
knowing anyone my grandma died the person who abused me abused someone else I was asked to go back to San Diego to
testify my nonprofit was going through some stuff and my life was a [ __ ] show
in 2018 18 my husband was doing incredible things i was empty i couldn't support my husband who was then my
boyfriend um moved out here never lived with anyone outside of the state before
so my life completely was upside down um but I had to do the work to get through
that um I had to do the work to process all those things still processing those things um but they see this they see the
success the glitz the glam the things and all the fun stuff um but she fought to get here um and people don't get to
see that and so for me anyone watching who's like "Well I want to get to where you are." Number one this is not a
comparison this there is no comparison to me to you to anyone here in this room
um and people often do that and they tell me that like "Oh my god but you're so much better than me." Number one do
not compare yourself to me please don't this is a never- ending road of
disappointment um number two is find out who you are if you feel like there is
something inside of you from your childhood that you need to work on people don't like talking about that talking about childhood trauma i love
talking about it i can't be your therapist i am not a therapist um I I just happen to have the skills of
therapists um but I'm not a therapist um do you know how much I say that in my career i'm not a therapist
um but I had to learn who I was to unravel well why did I even get into an abusive relationship why did I do all
those things and I had to do the work to unravel those things myself um and then
making sure that those things didn't show up in my marriage um and really just doing a lot of unraveling and
willing to do the work and so if you're watching and you're like "Hey I'm missing something in my life." Um which
ultimately if you're an entrepreneur if you're a boss babe and you're feeling like something's missing in your life there's a high probability that you need
to work on something um and so for me being able to work with clients and and
unravel those things and share stories that they might think ah this is not important it's important it's your story
is important so it is i think that at the core you know you I think you nailed it is getting comfortable with all the
parts of yourself that you're not comfortable with it doesn't necessarily even have to mean acceptance of it but
just accepting that it's there and that it's a part of you acknowledging it u
because I think all of us have a a tendency just to put that part of us into a box and then set it in the
furthest darkest corner and just leave it there and with that people think that
I mean going back to the work that I used to do people think that if they don't acknowledge it it doesn't exist
yeah um I'm sorry that's not true at all you're going to wonder why your relationships are bad your marriage is
bad how you parent your kids are bad how you respond to life is bad if you wonder
why all of these things aren't where you want it to be probably because you have something inside of you that's ready to
burst at the seams and you don't know how to to handle it you just got to put
tools in your toolbox to learn how to handle it well and I I feel like often a story that a lot of entrepreneurs have
is that they get into the business to avoid and escape that story and right so
they think oh this will be my path out or I'm not going to have to deal with I'm just going to go make a [ __ ] ton of
money i'm going to like all these other things that kind of ends up either bypassing or escaping or creating
escapism from the thing that's still who you are and that will inevitably show up
in your business y always shows up% as a leader it shows up in the relationships
with your your staff and so sometimes the hard reality is the reason your business is failing is you yep and until
you go deal with that you're going to keep seeing this and you could be super successful and all the right business
metrics but the reality is for yourself you're dying you hate it 100% i can
relate to that 100% it if you don't do the work it will absolutely show up and
I saw that in this new chapter of my life um when I transitioned out of my
nonprofit I thought I was at the height of my career and I thought I got it why do I need to do anything else and I was
bitter that I had to start over and I remember my husband telling me you're
you're telling yourself that you can't build again and you don't want to build again and if there was a visual
representation of how I felt when he said that it was a little girl pouting in the corner no I don't want to do it
because I built that and I saw how much work it took to build that um instead of embracing that was a chapter it was
great wonderful here we go all the things and then I realized that I still
had more work to do because the girl who created that nonprofit was broken as
[ __ ] yes um and I was working 20 hours a day 7
days a week hungry for uh acceptance hungry for making an impact hungry to
run away from the pain not realizing I was running away from my own pain and so when I transitioned out of the nonprofit
the uh rosecoled glasses came off and I was like "Holy [ __ ] I still got work to
do." I wrapped my identity in that nonprofit so much i got a tattoo um and
thousands of people around the world got the same tattoo also it symbolizes a lot more than like I branded myself um but
it says I found peace in in breaking the silence and that was this was really meaningful
for me and it's a con when I transitioned out of the nonprofit I was so bitter that I wanted to cover it up
and I don't want I'm going to erase it and that goes back to trying to erase the things that make me uncomfortable
when I've been doing the work to be uncomfortable and I'm okay with being uncomfortable it's not fun um but what I
realized in this new chapter in order for me to become the person that I was designed to be
I had to continue peeling back the layers and I thought I did and so there will be times in your journey as an
entrepreneur that you're like "Oh something comes up and I gota I got to do the work." um how I how I vi I'm a
visual person too that for example like if you see the trauma for a lot of people who didn't do
the work they'll hold on to the trauma like this is me and like you can't rip
it out of my hands and I understand cuz I was there but where I learn to get to
is this is my trauma that's my trauma and that that this is what it was uh
great and I'm not attached to it it's a part of who I am um but I had to It's
your plate it's my plate it's my plate but instead of like my plate doesn't exist i don't have a plate mhm you're
like I I see the plate though no you don't yeah but on that plate it's not just that spoon you picked up right it's
it's the other it's also the jar of milk and it's also the coffee and it's all all these different parts and pieces but
why why do we always hold on to that damn spoon stupid spoon and I think it really speaks to like how so often in in
this idea of storytelling and and it's definitely a theme that's in in the ethers right now around the the value of
telling story and the value of brand and the value of building your business based off the ability to storytell but
if you are confused about the identity you're going to be confused about the story that you're telling and I think
that's such a lynch pin for so many entrepreneurs that get stuck because they're like "Oh yeah I know I should be telling a story but I don't know what
story to tell." So they Oh I love that i love that a lot yeah so they tell someone else's story because it's the
should this is the story I should be telling and tapping into that true real
identity and telling that story that's infinitely more challenging because of the work that it was required the amount
of vulnerability letting go of the shame these themes that we've been talking about but the but the secret sauce is that when you can tell that story that's
when it lands and that's going to be the thing that community network all of this
stuff as human beings we're looking for because at the end of the day we can kind of all smell it when it's a a false
story right you can smell the [ __ ] and and we all kind of know it you see it in the in the business networking
world and you can kind of see that but then you look in the mirror you're like "Well [ __ ] I'm doing it too so we're
just not going to pay attention to it." And right and just keep going forward but then people pop up and they're like "Oh that feels real that person feels
different what's going on there and at the end of the day the theme I see consistent is that person is comfortable with who they are it's always comes down
to that they're they're happy with their identity they're happy with who they are and they found out who that person was
and it's okay to not know who you are but be willing and hungry to find out
who that person is oh yeah i think that there is a big difference between the person who I don't know who I am and
this is what it is first of all don't get stuck there number two if you are
well I mean for me I'll be vulnerable i don't know if I've fully arrived yet i know that um who is Kristen Faith i
remember watching a video from I think it would have been 2020 1 Million Cups and I the version of Kristen that was
talking was very different than this version of Kristen that version that version of Kristen was sad and um and
that's okay but embracing that she was sad but that pain propelled me into my
purpose and that has continually done that over the course of my entire life
um just be hungry to to know who you are i feel like so many times we find
ourselves in relationships where you're so hungry to know who this person is or that person is but are you hungry to
know who this person is i don't want to well if you don't want to know who this person is they don't want to know who
that person is either point blank if you're wondering why your relationship's not working it starts with you yeah amen
drop the mic right there wow i I think you know that pretty much sums it up i'd
be hungry to know who you are do the work peel back those layers and that's the thing i remember I think it was my
grandma or my aunt when I was little we were talking about peeling back the layers and they always said it stinks
and it's going to make you cry but that's okay because eventually when you get into the frying pan it's going to
smell so sweet and taste so delicious and it does and it's gorgeous in that
respect so thank you thank you for today and this incredibly beautiful deep
reflective conversation this is this is gorgeous but do me a favor tell
everybody out there watching how they can get a hold of you how they can do business with you and um
all the things yes so to get connected with my business all platforms um all
platforms meaning Facebook and Instagram um official Boss Babe Networking or just type in Boss Babe Networking um if you
want to connect with me on a personal level I am that's I am Christristen
Faith um and that's who I am is Kristen Faith um and embracing all those flaws
anyways um I am Kristen Faith on Facebook and Instagram my website is boss
babbetworking.com and if you're watching and you're like "Hey I would love for you to share my story let's do it let's
do it there are so many stories that we need to tell." And I'm on a mission to tell them
love it the end the end perfect well thank you for joining us today for
today's episode Show Me Yours tune in next time when actually you didn't even
know it but you seated our next guests Brandy and Leo Nunes amazing love that
that wasn't planned our blue-haired buddies yes yes love them they're the best so
thank you and we will see you next time on our next episode [Music]