Booking It Through Life and Business: Feature Interview With Business Coach Kim Brady
A few years ago while seated at the bar at The Kitchen restaurant in downtown Denver, I began a conversation with a woman by the name of Kim Brady who was seated next to me.
Thoughtfully opinionated, erudite, and authentic in her conversation style, Kim and I chatted like old friends over eats and fine drinks at this eatery. At the time, Kim was the CEO of Little Bit Cleaning LLC®, a residential housekeeping company that she sold in March 2020, setting the stage for a new beginning in her life.
Today, she is happily engaged in building Kim Brady Business Coaching, empowering business leaders and individuals with performance mindset training and business development processes. Her motto:
“Grow your mind and you will grow yourself and your business.”
Through her work, Kim envisions a world where human connection is used to promote diversity and equal rights, empowering others to come together to reduce the gender pay gap and to eliminate gender, racial and LGBTQ discrimination in the workforce and in society.
Recently I had the chance to interview Kim about the trajectory of her life and her aims amid the rapidly changing world we live in.
Can you share a little about you and your life evolution?
Wow—a “little bit about me.” Well, depending on who you ask, they all might have a different answer as to how my life and career have evolved, but they might all come to the same conclusion: it just makes the most sense. In short, my life is the culmination of several different career paths that integrate my core values. I always share that I have “people degrees” and that my core values are to “be of service” and to “help others.”
And your route to becoming a business coach, tell us about that.
I have a few main journeys within my life and becoming a Business Coach is the most aligned I have ever felt about who I am and my impact on the world. My education is in counseling and psychology and I spent several years as a Master’s level in-home family therapist for severely abused and neglected children.
What was that experience like?
Anyone can imagine the toll that can take on a person to see the harm we can do to our most vulnerable. So it was not unusual for me to leave the field. I think what was unusual from other people’s perspective was watching me leave my 7 years of education and 7 years of work “behind” to move across the country (a second time) and get into a sales career.
And then there was your soccer career. Can you share a little about that?
While in graduate school, I was asked by a dear friend and mentor to help coach his daughter’s soccer team because of my prior experience competing and being a collegiate soccer player. While I was a full-time grad student, I worked multiple jobs to make ends meet and one of them was coaching soccer. I spent 14 years coaching part-time as a way to give back to the sport that gave me so much. I had to leave coaching when my sales career took off as the schedule didn’t allow me to continue.
You also worked in the sales world.
One thing that we don’t tell students pursuing careers is about the long-term financial impacts of student loans and the ROI of particular career paths long after you finish school. Everyone knows that there is not a lot of money in being a mental health worker, and since I had “people degrees” as I call them, sales became a way to learn about making more money and helping others while somehow paying back my graduate school loans.
While I was always a relationship-based salesperson, the corporate grind of meeting and exceeding quotas left me feeling hollow no matter how “successful” I became. I was feeling lost and stuck in the grind of just making enough money to pay off my debt of graduate school and basic living.
What did you discover from that experience?
In short, I was miserable even though I had “achieved” all of the goals that I had set out to do since I was a teenager. I felt lost. And sometimes we need a mirror placed in front of our face in order to change our paths and my eldest nephew became that mirror for me. After spending some time with him, I quit my corporate job without a safety net and my nephew came to live with me. That’s also when I started my own company after several discussions with people and some soul-searching.
Take us through what it was like to become a business owner.
Becoming a business owner completely changed my life. I could finally incorporate counseling, coaching, and sales into one area by focusing on teamwork, leadership, personal development, mentoring others, etc. And financially I found a way to finally move back to California. Over the course of business ownership, I had several other business owners ask me to mentor them and coach them in their own businesses and careers so I have been doing the business coaching on the side for a few years.
Fast forward to what you are up to today, tell us about that.
Now that I have sold my first company after 10 years of ownership, I can devote my time and energy to being a full-time business/life coach, helping others pursue their dreams. Business ownership was the closest I have ever felt to the feeling of love and passion I have for the game of soccer.
Can you share a little more about this point?
Using soccer principles and concepts of teamwork, mindset and leadership helped me to build and grow my company. And now I can use those same principles to help more people build their businesses and change lives. It’s coming “home” in every sense of the word: I am back in CA, I am an entrepreneur, and I am coaching soccer part-time again. In other words, being a Business Coach allows me to “be of service” and to “help others” using my “people degrees” every single day.
What sort of significance has books and reading held in your life?
I have always been an avid reader. I grew up with both of my parents being avid readers also. All of us read every single day. I typically have a few books going at a time depending on what I am wanting to do. I read leadership and business books during the day for continual education and I enjoy murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and CIA/military novels at night when going to sleep.
Are there any books or authors that have had a particular significance?
So many books have impacted my life, it’s so hard to pick only two or three. I would say Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and Tim Ferris’s “4-Hour Work Week” were profoundly impactful on learning about money principles, leverage, and getting out of the corporate grind.
What about on the fiction side?
One of my favorite fiction authors is Patricia Cromwell. I have read all of her books and enjoy the character development of strong females in leadership positions and the strength and softness she is able to bring to heavy stories. I grew up reading Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy novels as my parents read those, so I tend to read that genre quite a bit also.
How has the recent pandemic and racial justice movement impacted your reading habits and choices?
If you are not impacted by the pandemic and racial justice movement, I don’t think you are paying attention to the systemic injustices of the haves/have nots and how these experiences fall along racial and gender lines alike. Taking the time to listen and learn from BIPOC people is nothing new to me since I minored in African American studies in college. I love learning about histories and cultures different from my own. But what resonates with me right now is how much I have yet to learn! And how much more listening and understanding I need to do in order to find ways to help bridge the gap and to help end the bigotry and discriminatory practices which continue to take Black lives at an astonishing rate.
What sorts of new discoveries are you unearthing about life during these times?
I think unearthing ourselves is what is happening during this time in history. We are experiencing a reckoning of sorts. We are forced to look INSIDE ourselves at our own prejudices, our own abilities to positively or negatively affect others, and what changes we MUST make in order to become better people and a better society. We are learning that our gluttony and greed are destroying ourselves and one another. We are learning that courage and strength are everywhere and I am hopeful that we can overcome what is an extremely scary, horrific, and painful period of our lives on our own soil.
In your opinion how can we begin to get our arms around all of this?
It begins with recognizing that change is a constant. We have to embrace that change happens faster than we can adapt. So we have to be as flexible as possible and take steps toward progress vs. trying to fight against the inevitable. Growing pains are never easy. But growth is a must. And letting go of old beliefs and ways of being takes courage. There is power in courage. And there is strength in embracing change and being vulnerable.
I’m curious as to your preferred method of taking in a book? Hardcover/Paperback, Digital E-Book, Audiobook, or a combination of these?
Hands down, I am a hardcover/paperback book reader. I don’t like listening to books nor do I want to be in front of a screen to read one. I write in the margins and earmark pages. I take handwritten copious notes while reading or learning. I love the smell and feel of a book in my hand and I want a large library in my house. I have several bookshelves and love giving and receiving books as gifts.
What do you see on the horizon over the next 6-12 months and what should people be thinking about in terms of their own personal and professional development?
Like I mentioned before, we are in an unearthing of our own lives and personal histories as well as the collective history of our country. We are in a painful growth cycle currently that will continue for the next 6-12 if not 18 months. With that in mind, I am challenging my clients (and myself) to become INTERNAL. Look inside and figure out, here and now, if you are living your life the way you want to. If you are not, what do you have control over? What small steps can you take RIGHT now that will improve your current situation? We can use fear to paralyze us or propel us forward. Fear has done both to me at times. But we have to listen to that fear and then use it for the better.
Would you say that all of this boils down to a matter of choice?
Exactly. We always have a choice to change or not to change. Life is a culmination of millions of choices. But in order to change, you have to make different choices. And sometimes you have to strip things down to the most basic of needs. I built my company 10 years ago in the middle of a recession and with no financial help from anyone else. I had no safety net. No other choice but to succeed. When you strip away all of the bullshit, all of the outside noise, you are left with YOU.
Lots of people of course have been thrust into an uncomfortable spot due to the pandemic? What do you say to those who are struggling right now?
I would say this, if you don’t like your situation, you have to change it. In other words, it’s no one else’s fault or responsibility. It’s yours. You get to decide. How awesome is that? You can literally change your life right NOW by how you address your thoughts and choices. “Failure is never final” comes to mind. You have to be willing to make mistakes in order to get better. So getting clear and what you need and want and then TAKING ACTION will set your changes in motion.
What do you see on the horizon in the days ahead?
Personally, I am excited for the next 6-12 months because I look at it as how many people can I help in order to propel them toward their dreams? How many people can I work with to make a positive impact on this world? How can I get better at what I do in order to meet more people and create the changes I want to see in the world? How can I be a better Kim to help create joy and beauty and hope that this world provides us? I am no longer as fearful as I was when this pandemic started and I am being challenged to be better. To get better at what I do and to be a better person because of all of it.
Sounds optimistic
It is a time for optimism. And I am just getting started. I think I am just beginning to find my groove in this world. I feel like a little kid again in many ways. I am home. Now I want to help others do the same. It’s a hell of a lot more fun doing this thing called life in connection with others no matter what that looks like.