IAM444- Personal Development Blogger Provides Guidance on Learning Opportunities

Kyndall Bennett is a Personal Development Blogger and Multimedia Designer who strives to provide guidance towards affordable and accessible learning opportunities. She strongly believes that anyone has the capability to learn anything as long as the passion and the resources are available at their disposal.

• CEO Hack: Audible
• CEO Nugget: Don't fear to fail
• CEO Defined: Keeping your ideal and passion alive

Website: https://kyrabestories.com/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/KyrabeStories/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/KyrabeStories
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/KyrabeStories/
Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/kyrabestories/
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/kyrabe-stories/
YouTube – http://kyrabestories.com/YouTube

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today, I've Kyndall Bennett of Kyrabe Stories, Kyndall it's awesome to have you on the show.

Kyndall Bennett 0:38

Thank you for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:40

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do is just read a little bit more about Kyndall so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Kyndall is a personal development blogger, and multimedia designer who strives to provide guidance towards affordable and accessible learning opportunities.

She strongly believes that anyone has the capacity to learn anything as long as the passion and the resources are available at their disposal. Kyndall, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Kyndall Bennett 1:06

Yes, I'm excited.

Gresham Harkless 1:07

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to get started your business.

Kyndall Bennett 1:14

I actually have two reasons that helped, motivate me to start the blog, whatever like more positive, the other was more like the negative torch under my behind to actually make me get this started. So it's like back in high school I really wanted to go to college. But it seemed like I had limited choices like it was mostly me and my mom, who would have been the one paying for my education. We didn't make the cut for financial aid.

So I thought that my only route was to either change the degree that I wanted, which was animation or join the military. So I ended up taking option B and going into a military route. And it's like, as time passed, once I graduated, that's when I started to realize that there actually were a lot of resources that I could have used and blessed it. But once I actually saw how pricey getting more of an education was there has to be a better way to actually go about this.

So that's what motivated me to focus more on learning opportunities and personal and professional development. I just didn't know how I was going to go about it. And it was kind of more of that, I'll get to it when I get to it okay. Well, after graduation, that's when I learned the importance of networking because it was hard as heck trying to get a job as a new graduate.

So I ended up going into sales, I ended up going into technical support, and from the technical support job, I ended up getting fired for putting in a two-week notice. It was a high turnover place, but it did put me into a panic, where it's like, oh my god, if my job is just suddenly taken away, I'm gonna be in trouble.

And down here in Orlando, Florida, it's not cheap. It's not cheap to live down here. So that was more of the fire under my behind to be like, Okay, what is something that I'm actually passionate about doing that I can turn more into a business that I can use to help others and that's kind of how Kyrabe Stories was born.

The blog itself, allows me to share these stories to share my own experiences and other people's experiences to help guide others who may want to get an education and actually pursue a specific career but are not exactly sure what they can do. And to keep them from feeling trapped that they don't have another option to get to this point.

Gresham Harkless 4:08

Yeah, that's huge. I truly appreciate you for sharing both of those sides and reasons for one to start your business. Because I think, just like you said, I think that awareness about whether it is going to college or even starting a business and what resources might be available to you or not available to you, there's just like so much information that's sometimes out there.

And there are ways but if you don't know them, or you're not, you know, have that awareness, then it's just as much just as good as not even having so I appreciate you for one, of course sharing your story, letting us know that but then too also like leading the charge as well to of getting that information out there because there are definitely usually always options. But for one, you have to have the mindset for that too. There actually has to be a way for you to find that and an overall level.

Kyndall Bennett 4:54

Thank you.

Gresham Harkless 4:55

Yeah, you're you're definitely welcome. And so I wanted to hear a little bit more about Kyrabe Stories, could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Kyndall Bennett 5:03

So the name itself actually came from back when I was in college. So I went to Savannah College of Art and Design. And we touched on trying to figure out branding and everything back at that bar. Like, I just want to make cartoons, I don't really care much about a brand name. But as time went on, I realized how important it was to actually form something for myself.

So trying to figure out like, what do I want. How do I share my story, even though I had a portfolio website, that was kyndallbennett.com, that suckers probably like death, now. I wanted to form my own character that could share her own story. So I ended up playing around with a couple of words.

And I took my name, my full name, Kyndall Rochelle Bennett, and just put the first three two letters count correctly girl, first two letters of the first middle, and last name, and put it together. And that's how you get karate. So it was almost like, and it startled a character that actually knows what she's doing. Whereas the background character is more like okay, I'll do the trial and error, and then Kyrabe can share the story.

Gresham Harkless 6:16

Okay. Kind of like, would you call it similar to probably not that but for whatever reason, ASAP stories kind of pops in my mind, where you kind of have that. This is what you should get out of everything.

Kyndall Bennett 6:30

Yeah, pretty much. Because the one thing about Kyrabe Stories is that anyone can list out things you should do, and things you shouldn't do Kyrabe Storie. Whatever lesson that I'm trying to share, I will put it with a story that taught me this lesson as well. Like I shared my social anxiety breakdown from my sales job, I've shared pretty much having a stage fright in the middle, my whole student body for over a song that I knew front and back.

And it's like, just from seeing all those people, it terrified me. But it also led me down more of a path to try to pursue public speaking more, because my music teacher, told me that she was proud of me afterward. I'm like you lying to my face, like just. And she told me that she was proud of me.

Because I actually tried. It's like, everyone up there knew that I was that shy girl who was terrified who the same, but was terrified of anything public. And it was like, we knew that you would be uncomfortable but you still tried. And even though I didn't realize how impactful that lesson was, at that time, I was just embarrassed out of my skin.

As years went on, it was like, okay, it was bad then, but it's not as bad now, let me try again. Okay, I messed up but not as badly. Let me try again. So that was like, one of those important lessons that I didn't realize at the time was so important, but I needed to learn. Yeah, I share with Kyrabe Stories.

Gresham Harkless 8:25

Nice. I definitely appreciate that just because so many times, we all have our things that we're scared of whether it be you know, saying up in front of a stage or whether it be maybe starting a business, maybe it could be anything riding a bike, if you're a kid, it's a bunch of things that kind of scares, give us fear. But I think that for one, we all can kind of get behind somebody who goes and faces their fears.

And maybe it doesn't go exactly how they wanted to go the first time but rather than stopping to do it, they do it over and over and over again. And I think that just by for one having that story, but two also like kind of hearing it in a story that helps out so much because you can get behind it. And it's not somebody saying, Oh, you need to do better, but it's just like, hey, that person sounds just like what I struggled with.

Kyndall Bennett 9:11

Yeah, I remember. I wish I could figure out who made the call. But paraphrasing, they stated that the most discouraging character, the character that never makes mistakes, I'm like, yeah, I can perhaps you can clap to you for that because that is pretty accurate.

Gresham Harkless 9:32

Yeah, absolutely. Because I think that no one really, as I say walks on water. So a lot of times you know, the person that doesn't make mistakes is the person and probably didn't try anything outside the box and you're trying anything new so I appreciate that a lot. So um, you might have already touched on this, but I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce and it could be for you or your company. Well, what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Kyndall Bennett 9:56

Oh, I really had to learn to embrace mistakes. Also as learning opportunities. It's like, I will seek out different resources, like, lately and learning are probably my favorite Udemy, Coursera, things like this. But I also had to learn, like hey look no matter how much you study, if you don't actively use this information, it's useless.

As they say, knowledge is power. But in reality, knowledge is only potential power, it's like, if you don't use what you learn, isn't going to be useless. So I will say that my secret sauce is pretty much just, a quote from Nike, just do it. Like, you're, you're not going to be ready. You're not it's like, part of the journey is making mistakes, you have to embrace it. And that secret sauce is pretty much try, like you try you messed up, try again, mess up, try again, that's pretty much my secret sauce.

Gresham Harkless 11:10

Nice. I definitely appreciate that as well, because again, so many times, we're discouraged from even trying from even going out there. Or we will, kind of read how to do whatever it is that we're trying to do, or read, take the e-course, do the webinar, go to the conference, and then never ever do anything.

And just like you said, just like Nike says, just do it, you have to jump out there to do it. And I'm always kind of reminded of like this story of our heard somebody say that you never see a kind of a kid, that's learning how to walk, they fall down the first time and you say, just stay down there, walking is not for you, maybe this isn't your thing, to encourage them to keep doing it.

So it's kind of weird that we don't do that for ourselves. As we get older and start to learn more, I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be an app, a book, or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Kyndall Bennett 12:07

I will say that my biggest hack has been audible. It's like, I'm a humongous book fan I'm even on the blog, there's a specific page for book recommendations. But maybe we have Pat scheduled and here in Orlando, Florida, I deal with traffic a lot. So a lot of the books that I really want to read. Audible has been my access to those books.

Gresham Harkless 12:41

Now when it asked you for what I call a CEO, nugget. So that's a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you could happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Kyndall Bennett 12:50

Going back, I would tell myself not fear to failing as much.

Gresham Harkless 12:58

I appreciate that. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Kyndall, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Kyndall Bennett 13:09

Let's see. I will say that one thing important, or one thing that represents being a CEO, is keeping your ideal and your passion alive is like whatever you've created, your baby is like it is not going to grow without you, you are the heart and soul of it all. No matter how many people you bring on to help out how many people say that it's a stupid idea? Like it doesn't matter. It's the only way it's going to grow.

If you are the life source of it, like whatever solution you have found for people, you can't depend on everyone else to make it grow. You can depend on others to help make it grow. But you are the life source for it. So I will say that's what it means to be a CEO you are the sole source of your solution to whatever problem you're solving in the world.

Gresham Harkless 14:04

Exactly. So Kyndall thank you so much for your time. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic so to speak just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and then of course how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Kyndall Bennett 14:19

Pretty much know that whatever you decide that you want to do, you have the power to do it. Like, don't wait around for someone else to determine if you are a business person. If you are a writer if you are a photographer whatever it is. It's like only you can determine who you are like people can give a recommendation.

People can give you advice but only you can determine who you are only you can determine what your passion is going to be, I can give my recommendations but even with me it's like don't let me try to force you into doing one or the other, it's like that is your gut is going to know what is meant for you. My biggest advice is that listen to you, like, take advice where you can, but listen to where your heart is tugging you towards.

And I can be found at Kyrabe Stories. I'm on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and you also have KyrabeStories.com where I will be posting resources. if you're interested in certain books, you can see a whole list of book recommendations that I have that I will be adding more books throughout the year, courses, LinkedIn learning anything like that. If it's like if I've gone through the course with like, hey, look, this is really good. I will provide those resources as well.

Gresham Harkless 15:54

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And we will have those links and that information in the show notes. But you know, I definitely appreciate that appreciate the reminder, the motivating reminder of you know, just going out and doing things because I think a lot of times we get stuck on the sidelines but we can actually get in the game and make whatever we want our vision actually happen and we have to a lot of times roll up our sleeves to do that so, Kyndall appreciate you so much. And hope you have a great rest of the day.

Outro 16:20

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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