We have been crushing for a while now on this week’s guest, Keenya Kelly! You will soon understand why. From her infectious smile, high vibe positive energy and genuine authenticity in the way she shares her brand and business you will want to be BFF’s soon enough with this amazing woman!
Episode 62 on The Red Bra Project is all about literally getting and STAYING fired UP in your mind, body & soul, especially when the going gets tough. This is a story of resilience, faith and the rise, fall and rise back UP. Keenya shares so much wisdom during our short time with her covering a wide range of topics from discovering your God – given talents, listening, finances, love, marriage, divorce, being your own boss, making great money to losing it all, checking that ego at the front door and even the back story on the book she wrote in record time! Daily, Keenya shares powerful lessons about overcoming fear, self – doubt & divorce to creating successful six – figure businesses utilizing her gifts and corporate background. Told ya, mega treat this week with a sweet side of relatable inspo!
Redding, California is where Keenya calls home, population of five people she jokes ;-), born in Chicago, raised in Kentucky, lived in Richmond, VA & Houston, TX previously. Keenya is a Branding & Marketing Consultant, CEO of If You brand It, has become a TikTok Expert (no really!) during the craziness of COVID, is an author and motivational speaker.
From a little girl, Keenya has always had an entrepreneurial heart. She would buy candy at the corner store for .05 cents and sell it for .25 cents. Keenya’s dad was an entrepreneur as well. What really reinforced the feeling that Keenya had that she wanted to be her own boss was when she was recruited her second year in college for a network marketing company. She shares that her mentor was absolutely amazing and basically “forced” her to read books that are now, such an important part of Keeny’s journey – we will share more about this as her story unfolds. In just eight short months, Keenya hit the top of the company.
Keenya shared, “In addition to that in network marketing, you have to recruit people, you have to lead people. You have to become a good person, a good leader. I had to read all of the John C. Maxwell, Dale Carnegie, & Zig Ziglar books that caused me to learn more about entrepreneurship. The more I learned about it, I watched people make $200,000, $500,000 a month and it was insane!”
In the midst of all of the growth, Keenya authentically admits that she became very prideful. Where she had allll of the things, then lost allll of the things, including the money she made within her network marketing company.
She had to get a “normal” job again and after about two – three years of working in the corporate world Keenya said, “This is for the birds, this lady is telling me what to do and I can run circles around her and so I was dealing with pride there, too. I just kinda had this knowing I had this gift, talent and knowledge for entrepreneurship. I just needed to figure out what my road was and that’s what caused me to jump into something. So, my first actual business was a trade show teaching black women how to care for their curly hair,” Keenya reflects on.
Keenya outwardly shares that she has had her fair amount of the rise & fall, from one extreme to the other at times. We wanted to hear more about what helped Keenya through those downturns. She says that back when she worked with the network marketing company, she had to read all of the books, sometimes even three in a month at a time because she was both so eager and excited to learn. When the falls came, Keenya’s mind went back to the words on the pages of the books she read. Even though she was sad during the down times and felt like a failure, her mind could not delete what was now a part of her, ultimately helping to mold & shape her. “Failure is when you die. Failure is just an event, it is not the rest of your life,” Keenya said. She went on to explain that a person needs to rely on what they know. Just because one doesn’t have a position, house, car, or marriage any longer does not mean that one is a failure. It means that THING failed. Starting again is always an option. For Keenya, her deepest encouragement was found in the books she has read along the way and her unwavering faith.
“No matter what you are doing, you have to be pouring stuff into you. Everyone has up and down moments, it’s just seasons, that’s what life is. The thing that pulls you out of dark seasons is what you have done in the high seasons,” Keenya passionately shares.
Keenya wrote a book called, Before You Quit Your Job out of annoyance & frustration watching so many people quit their job in network marketing too soon. She realized no one was teaching how to be a succeful entrepreneur in the industry, instead it was more focused on how to make the money which resulted in prematurely quitting their jobs too quickly, then losing everything.
The funny and honest thing about this part of Keenya’s story, well, there’s two – but first she shares that she never thought she was a gifted writer. She felt one day she may speak it and someone else would write it, but here she is. ;-). The second thing is that one day after she moved to California, she felt like she heard God tell her it is time to write that book. Keenya posted on her IG story that she was going to write a book. That day for whatever reason, the amazing Chalene Johnson happened to see Keenya’s story and she not only shares it to her story, but tells her whole Facebook to go and support Keenya in her endeavor. This is where it gets crazy, Keenya just posted it, had not even started to write it just yet. So, Keenya watching all of this from behind the screen has a little freak out and said, “I gotta write a book, so I started. In three weeks, I wrote 25,000 words!”Every day, Keenya would post that she had to write 300 words and ask for daily encouragement from the social media world.
Relatable is what is so awesome about Keenya. Through parts of her genuine story that she shares throughout everything she does results in helping her clients, customers and followers feel like they too, can not only figure it out, but come back stronger than ever. Specifically when it comes to social media. Keenya shares such an interesting part of how she became involved with TikTok and a message she received from God. Hope, joy, entertainment and giving it back is where it started. Keenya always follows her faith, so she started her TikTok account, was a little lost at first, put up a few TikToks and nothing. Then, she saw a hilarious TikTok, posted a side – by side duet and it literally blew up. Went viral, 10,000 followers just like that. Keenya went on to watch Marketers entertaining & educating, Keenya calls it “edutainment” (love that), saw their videos go viral and thought to herself, she could DO THIS, she knew how to dance, entertain. So, she practiced, learned short & fun dances and kept posting & learning. Fast forward five months later from 0 followers to 75,000 and still holds the second top self – care trending video, above Tyra Banks!
To hear Keenya tell many parts of her story, it’s easy to think she is just SO fearless. The truth is, of course she feels fear just like all of us, but she does not allow fear to hold her back. Keenya reflects a little bit on an absolute awful time of in her marriage when she found out her husband cheated on her. What hurt even worse was that he was Keenya’s first intimate partner. When she found out he was unfaithful she just couldn’t wrap her mind around it. “I’ll never forget. Maybe after 30 days that I found out he cheated on me and I could just hear John C. Maxwell, Les Brown, Brian Tracey all screaming at me. You are better than this, you’re amazing…All the books I read, playing in my head,” she said. Keenya went on to explain that she had been fasting, praying and he wasn’t changing. She made her mind up to leave the relationship. She had to for herself. She left within 30 days, filed in 90 and within six months, her marriage was over.
Again, Keenya dug into her mental library and knew from all of the books she read she had to limit herself from people during her time of healing. She unfollowed everybody, still remained friends, but unfollowed so when she was on social media for her business, she could focus on that and without being triggered. Keenya got a new phone number, enrolled in counseling both in – person and on-line. She would wake up, cry, pray and allowed herself to feel all of the feelings and cry when she needed to. Write, pray, counsel was her routine. The reason she limited herself to people was so not to have to relive the trauma continuously over setting her back, which truly makes so much sense.
Keenya shares with us that she didn’t tell anyone for SIX years that her ex – husband cheated on her until five months ago when she jumped on TikTok (how she got the nickname, “Divorce Lady”) and shared openly. She realized by leaving that part of her story out she felt like she was protecting him in some way and she was ready to share her whole story, it wasn’t about protecting him or not. This was a part of her story.
See what we mean, there is just so much to Keenya’s story that we can learn and be inspired by! This is truly juuust the tip of the iceberg which is why you have to connect with her whether it be for Branding, Marketing or getting into the wild world of TikTok!
Speaking of which, Keenya’s ideal client is female, a new entrepreneur, 30 – 55 years of age who is willing & motivated to get going, but has no idea what to do with Branding & Marketing. Keenya loves to take things that are complicated and make them simple. Yasss, we love that sound of that language! The minute you look at some of her social media you will discover keeping it fun is essential, too!
Throughout all of Keenya’s shares, she humbly admits that her faith in God, her personal background and the foundation she built through the books that she read as a young woman is how she has been able to push through, process and come back from so much.
A technique that works for Keenya is in her words is to dump out all of the negative things on her heart. To write it out, get it off of her chest, then switch the script and write down what is all awesome. To remind herself that everything is going to be OK. From finding love again to self love, to the crisis our country is in and everything in- between.
It’s a practice where you can do this or you can do that and there’s always a choice that can be made to better yourself, your mind body & soul. Day #1 is where it starts, drink the coffee, not the vodka, day #5 back in the gym, etc. You have to listen in to hear Keenya share her fabulous perspective!
A few of Keenya’s role models, largely in part because of their stories and where they started from: Oprah & Ellen DeGeneres. They continue to rise given everything they have been through. In addition is Keenya’s networking mentor. He has been such a huge part of Keenya’s life. Keenya asked him to write the forward in her book, in which he did. “He has changed my life forever because he was patient enough to see I had something in me and was willing to work with me,” Keenya shared.
Keenya’s Red Bra Moment
I remember the day I launched Keenyakelly.com, it was January 1st, 2017. I did this whole 7 day campaign of 30 second videos and the last day was a powerful 15 second video of me, my face and my name at the end. I watched it over & over again. I knew this was my bounce back. I knew this was my moment. I remember when I hit “post” it was like screw everyone else, yes, this happened to me, I will not be shamed and I will not shame him. That moment I hit post on Facebook and watched all of the comments, likes & shares – even though I didn’t make any money from that brand, I knew I was back! I will never forget that moment.
Keenya, thank you so much for spending some time with us on The Red Bra Project! It was an absolute honor to celebrate and highlight you & your story. Keep on bringing the world joy through being your true self! We are always here, cheering you on!
Here’s where to connect with the brilliant, creative, fun & beautiful Keenya Kelly:
“Before You Quit Your Job” Author: Keenya Kelly
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The Red Bra Project
