IAM1517 – Philanthropist Ensures That Every Child Discovers Their Worth, Potential and Abilities
Podcast Interview with Carlena Evans
A visionary with extraordinary purpose, Carlena is a vessel whose task is to ensure that every child and teen on the planet realizes their worth, potential, and abilities as early as possible. Enriched with an amazing scholastic and professional resume, Carlena graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in Communication, and a minor in English, from Cheyney University. Unrelenting in her work ethic, she continued her matriculation through post-secondary education and was awarded her Master of Education from the University of Pittsburgh in the spring of 2010. She accomplished this feat all while defying the odds of being a single parent.
Carlena J. Evans, M.Ed. possesses an incomparable desire for youth and adults alike to realize that nothing is impossible! Gifted with a heart of gold, her genuine efforts are unparalleled in her advocacy for children, students, women, and mothers everywhere. Despite Evans' infinite successes, she never fails to acknowledge, “Kidsplosion is GOD'S vision and I am honored to be used.” Founder of Kidsplosion.
- CEO Story: Carlena started Kidsplosion when she saw a vision where she was a minister speaking to a massive congregation of kids utilizing their gifts. With this vision, she very clearly that ‘you have to show them who they are’. And that was the birth of his company. Carlena was shown a vision and it's like she was given a mission to equip children with what they are called to be. Give them the opportunity to discover their gifts, then develop them, and then display them. Thirteen years strong and present in different countries.
- Business Service: Discover, develop, and display their talent. Youth programs – summer camp and after-school program. Providing a variety of creatives.
- Secret Sauce: Offer their programs in the privileged areas and give back to underprivileged countries. Creating a global society.
- CEO Hack: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Never forget that you are also a customer.
- CEO Nugget: Keep going, even when it seems hard and not worth it. But the fruit or reward is so big, not for money but because of the impact you have made.
- CEO Defined: The ultimate volunteers with badges and awards. In order to be successful, you need to have a certain amount of failures and lessons. A process you need to endure and keep getting up.
Website: kidsplosionusa.com
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Transcription
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00:18 – Intro
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 Harkness 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.
00:44 – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Tracy Kennedy of Kennedy Coaching and Consulting. Tracy, it's awesome to have you on the show.
00:53 – Tracy Kennedy
Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
00:56 – Gresham Harkless
I'm excited to have you as well. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Tracy so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. As a results-driven coaching consultant, Tracy partners with individuals to help them achieve greater levels of happiness, fulfillment, and success personally and professionally. More specifically, she's a performance coach with a background in leadership and team development, peak performance, personal and professional growth, and helping others discover what's next for them. Over the last 20 years, she's worked in many roles, executive coach, consultant, facilitator, trainer, product development, and leader.
She's had the opportunity to work with thousands of individuals, teams, and organizations across a wide variety of roles and industries from running educational centers for kids to defining and executing business strategy and small businesses to building content, products, and technology, which has been implemented and used in Fortune 500 companies. She's incorporated everything she's learned along the way into an approach that uses a range of technologies, methodologies, and wellness practices designed to help people figure out their next steps and fast-track them to where they wanna be.
Along with her individual coaching practice, she can also be found advising businesses on their next steps and writing blogs and articles. She's a life hack, a personal development expert, building courses and curricula. Her latest online courses, 5 Steps to Discover your Next, and running training events in the areas of personal and professional development. Tracy, are you ready to speak to the IMCO community?
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02:22 -Tracy Kennedy
I'm ready, thank you.
02:23 – Gresham Harkless
No problem, no problem. And what I wanted to do was just hear, I guess a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.
02:28 – Tracy Kennedy
Awesome, thank you. So, You know, I spent, as you can probably hear from my bio, I've spent the last 20 years working in a bunch of different industries for a bunch of different companies. And every role that I was in, I was really passionate about the mission of the company and the service we were providing. And in most cases, I really enjoyed what I was doing. But I always felt like I was growing somebody else's business. Well, in fact, I was growing somebody else's business in most cases. But the type of person I am, I worked really long hours, I worked really hard, and I lived with the stress as if it was my own business, but in most cases, it wasn't. And I think that hit me really hard at 1 point in my career when I was the co-founder of a company.
So the consulting company I was working for at the time, had spun off to build a technology business and I was the co-founder of that technology business. I remember sitting in a strategy meeting and there was a big discrepancy between how I thought we should move forward with the strategy of the business and the roles we would all play and how my partner thought we should move forward. At the time he was the majority shareholder and the CEO and of course, had more of an I guess say and how things were gonna move forward.
And I remember at the time thinking okay it's time for me to move on you know it's time for me to move on and move on to build something of my own. So I remember stepping back and I was standing at this crossroads going, what am I going to do next with my life? Am I going to work for another company? Am I going to a leadership position? Am I going to start my own thing? And I was sitting there trying to figure out what to do next. Now, at the same time, I'm also the full-time mom to 3 beautiful girls who are and will always be my number 1 priority.
So in terms of my life, my family, and my kids come first. And I realized at that point, okay, if that's the way I want to live my life, then I'm going to have to be building something for myself. So I still wanted to be part of a mission-driven company, but I wanted to be more in control of how I spent my time to take some of that pressure off. And when the pressure was on, I was reaping the benefits of that pressure. So about 2 years ago, I started my own coaching and consulting business, as you mentioned. So that's what I'm doing right now.
04:37 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Obviously sorry to hear how everything happened, but sometimes those things that happen kind of redirect you towards the path maybe you wanted to go anyways, and just kind of accelerate that path towards that.
04:49 – Tracy Kennedy
Absolutely, and we're still great friends. I'm still very close with the company. I'm still very close with the founder. So I'm very close with everyone. It was the right move for everyone at the time.
04:58 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. When you get those kind of win-win situations, it's always a great thing to happen. So now I wanted to ask you how exactly you serve the clients. Could you delve a little bit deeper into how you're supporting the clients you work with?
05:10 – Tracy Kennedy
Sure. So as you mentioned, I'm a coach consultant a trainer, and facilitator. My kind of mission is to help people be happier, more successful, and more fulfilled, personally and professionally. My mission's really about helping people live a life they love. So there's probably 3 ways I do that. So number 1, I have my private coaching practice where I work one-to-one with clients on everything from leadership development, executive coaching, health and wellness, and probably most commonly helping people figure out what they're doing next with their lives.
Just as I was at that crossroads, I've kind of created the system to help others figure out what they wanna do when they're at that crossroads trying to figure out what to do next. The second way is product and content development. So I'm a writer. I like to share the lessons I've learned, you know, words of wisdom, the positivity as best I can. So as you mentioned, I'm the personal development expert for the Lifehack website. So I write a lot of articles for them. I also post a lot of content and thoughts. I like Instagram because it's short, sniffy bites.
So I have a lot of content on Instagram on a daily basis where I'm posting thoughts and you know, what have you. And I build courses. So I've spent a lot of my career building courses, training, and development. And I kind of translated that over into my business where I've supported other people to build their courses, but I've also just, as you mentioned, launched my own course, which is about 5 steps to discover your next. And so I support people online through products and content development.
So that's the second way. And the third way is I do leadership and team development consulting work. So I go into organizations, help their leaders understand themselves better, help them understand the culture of the team, how to understand, work, communicate, and collaborate more effectively together. So that's kind of the 3 areas, my private coaching practice, my product and content development, and the leadership and team development consulting work.
06:52 – Gresham Harkless
I love that. I love it because it has the opportunity to kind of touch on and connect with people in a lot of different ways and resonate with them.
06:58 – Tracy Kennedy
Yeah, thank you. It's interesting because of the product and content I'm really excited about it because coaching is not cheap to get a private, you know, an executive coach or a life coach. And so I love this idea that those philosophies and processes and insights can be shared, you know, to everybody in a way that's very easily accessible.
07:17 – Gresham Harkless
Exactly. And you can reach a lot more people at the same time, which is of course definitely important. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be what you feel kind of distinguishes you or sets you apart.
07:28 – Tracy Kennedy
So it's interesting. I think my secret sauce is probably more about my motivation than it is about what I do, but I can share both. So the drive behind why I do what I do is deep, I don't know if you know the statistics, but it really saddens me. So the latest Gallup poll shows that 85% of people worldwide basically hate their jobs, right? 77% of people, Americans especially, experience regular physical and emotional symptoms of stress. And 40% experience persistent stress or excessive anxiety. So I am like, what the heck?
So many of us are stressed out, overwhelmed, and unhappy. And I think probably my USP is more about that drive and motivation to help people get out from under that state to find a better way, to learn more about themselves so that they can understand what they need to thrive and be at their best, regardless of what role or relationship they're in. And so it's probably more of my drive about why I do what I do and the fact that because of that, I always start with the individual person. I really believe that self-awareness and a little soul-searching are essential for our success and our happiness.
08:31 – Gresham Harkless
By finding out exactly what role you want to play, you are able to kind of reach back and also help out so many other people. So it kind of sounds like you had that exact same experience.
08:39 – Tracy Kennedy
Yeah, and I've been there. So maybe that's part of my, I've been there many times in my career when I've changed jobs or changed roles and gone, what am I going to do now? You know, where am I? Who am I? What do I want for this next stage in my life?
08:51 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. And now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app a book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.
09:02 – Tracy Kennedy
Okay, can I give you 2?
09:04 – Gresham Harkless
So we can go or it.
09:04 – Tracy Kennedy
Okay, I'm gonna give you two. So one, I would say is kind of my mastermind group. So when I went off on my own a couple of years ago, I hooked up with 3 other women, varying stages of running their businesses and building their own businesses. We meet weekly to discuss our challenges coach each other and provide support and encouragement. And I swear that has been such a huge blessing to me. I know my business wouldn't be where it is without the help of those women and without those times and those calls. And I know they would say likewise. So I just think this idea of having a support group around you, finding your group, and it doesn't have to be, you know, YPO or some established organization.
You can find 3 people who are at similar stages in their business but have different skills and really leverage their strengths and learn and grow and support each other. So I would say that's been a huge kind of hat for me that has changed the way I run my business and has really allowed me to move forward, especially as a sole entrepreneur, where it can get lonely sometimes. It's been really helpful. The second 1 is actually my favorite resource of all time. It's called the instinctive drive. It's a profiling tool. So if you've ever taken any assessment tool with your organization, I don't know, Gresh, if you've taken, you know, Myers-Briggs or disc or any of those ones at any point in your career.
10:16 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, I took some of those. I have not taken it, I have not heard of this 1 though. So I'm excited to hear about it.
10:20 – Tracy Kennedy
Yeah, it's probably like the, whenever I'm in front of groups, I'm like, it's the best-known secret and everybody needs to know about. Basically the instinctive drives, Instead of talking about your personality or behavior or your actions, help people understand what they need to be at their best. So this idea that we all have a natural way of operating, that when we operate in line with that, we're more successful and happy and fulfilled. So you hear athletes talk about being in the zone, or you hear people talking about being in the flow, and that really is what this tool identifies. So it's essentially your personal success code, your blueprint for success.
I use it for myself personally on a day-to-day basis when I'm feeling stressed out overwhelmed or frustrated. It's like, okay, what do I need here? What's missing? I use it to leverage my talents and to mitigate kind of my blind spots. Okay, who do I need to hire this out to because it's not my strength or it's really going to pull me off track or stress me out? I use it with all my clients because it accelerates our work together. You know, the minute I know their instinctive drives, which is short for ID or ID is short for instinctive drives, the minute I know that I know, okay, here's what they mean when they say that.
Here's what's going to accelerate their development. When there's somebody who really needs a plan here, or there's somebody who needs a crystal clear picture before they can move forward, or there's somebody who's gonna be really hard on themselves, how do I help them manage that? Or there's somebody who is gonna be averse to risk, how do we mitigate that? So I use it with all my clients, and It's the basis of all the work I do in my leadership and team development. So it's not as well known as it should be, but the insights and strategies it gives people are pretty incredible.
11:54 – Gresham Harkless
Well, definitely have a one for the person who's going to check that out. Cause I'm definitely going to make sure to check that out. Cause I'm like, you talked about self-awareness being able to understand like what your strengths are, what you do best, and being able to understand yourself first. So you understand like what person, like you said, the partner with or to bring onto your team, it kind of puts all that in motion, but you kind of have to understand thyself first.
12:12 – Tracy Kennedy
Yes, and that's the thing, isn't it? That's like ancient philosophers have all said, you know, know thyself to thyself be true. You have Shakespeare, you have Lao Tzu from long ago about knowing yourself as true wisdom. So I do believe that's a huge piece of our success.
12:28 – Gresham Harkless
Definitely. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you could hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?
12:38 – Tracy Kennedy
That's a great 1. It's probably exactly what we've been speaking to that ancient philosophers and, you know, have talked about throughout time is to know thyself, you know, and to be true to yourself, to follow your instinct, to trust your gut, to be authentic. So I think as you throughout our careers, you know, we go to training that says, oh, if you're going to be the best leader, here's the way you should lead. Or if you're going to be better at time management, here's what you should do, or if you're going to start your business, here's how you should do it. And there's a lot of shoulds.
And while the processes and systems I think are really helpful, there's a piece about knowing yourself and being true to that self that I find when we go off track from that, people aren't as successful. So I think for all entrepreneurs and business owners, it's really getting a clear sense of self. What are your strengths that you can leverage? What are your vulnerabilities and pitfalls? Where, as you said, the partner brings somebody else in. And being true to yourself within that, because what I've seen over working with so many clients in my career is that the more people get off track with who they are, the more stressed out they become and they're not more effective. The more they understand themselves and are in line with that, the more productive they are. I'd say be true to you, but also follow your instinct, and trust your gut.
You know, there's going to be times in your career where everyone's going to say, go left. And you are just like, Oh, I just know I should go right. And I can't explain it. But I think those are the times. I can't tell you how many people I've spoken to, including myself, that have said, I wish I had listened to my instincts on that. You know, I wish I had listened to my gut.
14:07 – Gresham Harkless
Exactly. The whole entire time. So just stay true to that. I definitely was a good reminder for myself as well. So 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. But I wanted to ask you, Tracy, what does being a CEO mean to you?
14:22 – Tracy Kennedy
Wow. So to me, it's about service. So it's about service, leadership, and people and making a difference in the world. So I think as a CEO, it's the responsibility to know your goals and your mission and your underlying values and purpose and philosophies and stay true to those to achieve the goals of both the organization and helping as many people along the way as possible. So it's really to me about leadership, but not just within an organization, but how that impacts, you know, further out the ripple effect.
14:49 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. Tracy, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I want to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know how they can find your latest course and then also how best they can get a hold of you.
15:03 – Tracy Kennedy
Awesome. So absolutely. So in terms of finding out anything else that we've talked about, whether it be the Instinctive Drives or my 5 Steps course, www.tracykennedy.com. So pretty simple. Just go to my website, and you'll be able to find all that information. You can also go to discoveryournext.com which has a free workbook that you can actually download with the 5 steps to discover your next. So if you're not sure you want to dive into a course, but you're at some crossroads in your life and you're kind of trying to figure out what's the next step personally or professionally.
This guide is awesome. It walks you through the 5 steps that I've learned. I've really helped people along the way to discover their next step. So you can get your free guide there. The instinctive drives are awesome. You can reach out to me personally. If you'd like to take that, I can actually get that out fresh. I'll get you one too. But yeah, tracykennedy.com or discoveryournext.com. I would love for people to check out my course. It's pretty fantastic. I'm excited about it.
15:55 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. We'll have those links in your show notes just so that anybody can follow up with you. But Tracy, thank you so much for all the awesome things that you're doing and staying true to yourself. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
16:05 – Tracy Kennedy
the day. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. And I hope this is helpful for people. Know that there's a better way. We can all, we don't all have to be so stressed and overwhelmed, you know, taking a step back and just figuring out where we want to go next can be really the first step forward for many of us.
16:21 – Outro
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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