Starting Over at 40: From Single Mom Scramble to eBay, Etsy & Author Success | Kira Hartley Klinger

Starting over at 40 is rarely a clean reset. Most of the time, it is a messy rebuild while life keeps moving.

In this episode of Women Like Me Stories & Business, Julie Fairhurst sits down with entrepreneur, author, and speaker Kira Hartley Klinger for a brutally honest conversation about rebuilding your life, your income, and your confidence without a perfect resume, a college degree, or a pile of startup money.

Kira shares how she went from single-mom scramble mode to generating real income through auctions, eBay reselling, Etsy, vintage fabric, and relentless reinvesting. What began as survival turned into business, and what began as trial and error became proof that women can start again with grit, instinct, and one brave next step.

We talk about impostor syndrome, confidence, debt-free living, reselling online, building an Etsy shop, free marketing, self-publishing, book marketing, and why Amazon will not sell your book unless you show up and do the work.

Kira also shares what it was like to publish her first book at 55 after writing for decades, and why it is never too late to become the woman you were quietly becoming all along.

This conversation is for women who are thinking about midlife entrepreneurship, starting a side hustle, selling on eBay, opening an Etsy shop, self-publishing a book, getting out of debt, or finally trusting themselves again.

If you have ever felt stuck, underestimated, unqualified, or too late, this episode is your reminder: you are not too late. You are in the rebuild.

Subscribe for more honest conversations with women entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, and everyday women turning their stories into strength.

Where you can find Kira:

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If this conversation stirred something in you… good. That’s where change begins.

Make sure you’re subscribed, share this with someone who needs it, and if you’re ready to tell your story, step into your voice, or build a life that actually feels like yours… You’re in the right place.

I’m Julie Fairhurst, and this is where stories turn into power.

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Transcript

Welcome And Big Theme

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Welcome everyone. I'm Julie Fairhurst, your host, and you are watching another episode of Women Like Me Histories and Business. I am joining today by Kira, Harley Clear. She's an entrepreneur, she's an author, and she's a public speaker of the five. That starting over is not the same access to the scene as starting again. There you go. That's what I wanted to say is that 40 answers that think about growth without facilitating for college education systems. So today we're going to be talking about starting over 40, building a business from the ground up, becoming an author later in life, overcoming topic relationships, learning to trust again and proving that it is never too late to create a life that you are proud of. This is going to be a bad task of conversation. So I hope you all hang in there for and I hope you all learn something as well. So, Kira, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me on, Julie. Oh, you're welcome. Okay, so what happened in your life when you had to start over at 40?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, a lot of pivoting. You know, I wasn't completely without job experience, so to speak. I

Starting Over At Forty

SPEAKER_00 1:53

didn't work in very many formal job environments. I was the mom that side hustled from the beginning, trying to be available for my kids. I didn't want my kids going to daycare, somebody else raising my kids. So I was always looking for different ways that I could make money. But I couldn't really put on an application. Yeah, I cleaned houses for, you know, 20 years, unless I wanted to go into housekeeping, which, yeah, no, I after 20 years, I was really kind of done with it. So yeah, I had to figure out what I was gonna do to make money, and I didn't really want to just jump out there and get a factory job or get the typical nine to five. For one, I really didn't think I was gonna make enough money to be sustainable. And two, I was gonna have to juggle my teenage daughter's life and schedule. She was the last of my three kids at home. She was 14, not exactly an ideal age to start leaving her home alone by herself. So yeah, I had a side hustle at the time. It was more a hobby than anything else. But I was buying things that people didn't want at sales and auctions and what have you, and selling it for more money. Ooh. Yeah. And I, you know, I didn't really know how to do it going into it. It like I said, it was a hobby. I would go out with friends and we would look to buy things for ourselves, for our homes, whatever. eBay was in its first decade. So the curiosity was always there. There'd be something there at auction, and nobody wanted it. And they're saying, you know, $2, $2, anybody, $2. How about a dollar? And you're just like, all right, fine, I'll give you a buck. You know, take it home and see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Yes. That's kind of how it started. Oh, that's exciting. So you were a single mom broke without job training or a college education. So what did those early days of rebuilding feel like?

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Yeah, scramble. I mean, I still worked at the elementary school part-time. I worked there four hours a day during the school year because I was on the playground. I heard that ding on my computer. Sorry about that. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

I didn't hear it.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

I did. I was okay. Anyway. So I had to keep that job. I just started to go to auctions more during those. It I lived in that house with my daughter for the last four years before she went to college. And so those four years, there were a lot of late nights. I did not watch TV. I did not really have much of a social life. I did end up getting a long-distance boyfriend at one point. But even that, I'd see him maybe on the weekends. You know, I was busy. I could not let up. I had I had just kept buying and selling and reinvesting that money and buying some more. I didn't really want to go into debt for this thing that I didn't know if I was going to be any good at. You know, there just wasn't enough money to pay the bills I had, let alone take on another, take on another debt.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

When did when did you realize that you have to figure it out?

SPEAKER_00 5:02

I think I realized it when I decided that I wasn't going to go get an everyday job. You know, I think I realized then that, okay, well, then you don't really have a choice. You're going to have to figure it out. Otherwise, this is your other your other option. And and I had people say to me, you know, well, should it shouldn't you be going back to school and getting a degree at this point? And I'm like, okay, school costs money, school takes time. When am I going to do those things and make money to pay the bills? And it just, I mean, it was a solid suggestion, I guess, but it wasn't very practical. Yeah. Yeah. I had to figure it out and I had to go all in.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah. Wow. So you have built two successful businesses with minimal investment. So that is interesting. So what was the first business and how did you get it off the ground?

SPEAKER_00 5:57

The first business was the store that I initially kicked off the ground on eBay with the buying and selling. And in that one, it

Building An eBay Reselling Business

SPEAKER_00 6:06

became sustainable at some point, but I still held that part-time job through that four years. What happened at that four-year mark? There was a lot of things that happened. My daughter graduated and left for college. I agreed reluctantly to get engaged, which meant moving away from my home. And that little house was the first thing that was mine. It was my security, my serenity, my where I found my peace. It's where it found me. So a lot of things had to happen. But another thing that I agreed to do, because we were combining incomes into a family again, I said, you know what? I'm I'm not gonna work another side job anymore. I'm gonna I'm gonna do just this and see if I can see if I can make enough money to be sustainable. So that was at the four-year mark. It really wasn't until the eight-year mark when I opened a second online store on Etsy that things started to really pick up and take take speed. So one of the things that I discovered at one point that had value that I didn't know was vintage and out of print fabric. And I was finding this at auctions. That's how I found out that it was worth money. I knew nothing about it. So yeah, I had started to sell fabric probably close to the four-year mark on eBay. But I didn't decide to open a Etsy store until four years later when I finally felt like I knew enough to stand a chance. But even with that, it was like starting over all over again because I had to find a whole new customer base and I had to find people that that believed in me. Because the people that that that was buying the fabric, they knew what they were buying. They knew what they were looking for. And you know, I felt like an imposter for a really, really, really long time.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Um why did you feel like it? Why did you feel like an imposter?

SPEAKER_00 8:10

I didn't grow up around fabric. I didn't grow up in a sewing family. I didn't know anything about it. I I could sew things by hand. I could get by. I've made at this point, I've made like three dozen memory quilts for people out of t-shirts and clothing and things like that. I can get away with that, but try to put me in front of these fancy sewing machines or do what these quilters do, that's not me. And I didn't, you know, I didn't even know how to tell the difference between cotton fabric or polyester blended fabric. I didn't know how to tell the difference between how old is this piece of fabric and you know, I didn't I didn't know any of it. I had to, I started with no knowledge whatsoever. So then to come into an environment, yeah, where everybody it felt like everybody knew more than I did, it was intimidating. I bet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you learned it. I did. I did. I I learned it in a hurry and I became good enough at it that the guest speaking that I started to do, I do guest speaking for quilting guilds. And we talk about fabric and we talk about dating fabric and you know, repurposing and burn testing. And you know, I I can talk for an hour and and I sound good, you know. So and I get paid, so I must be doing something right.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yeah, yeah. Well, it just goes to show that you know you felt that fear, you felt like an imposter, but you just pushed yourself through it and now look. And that's how and that's how we learn. That's you know, and we either push ourselves through and carry on, or we go, oh, I don't, oh, I can't possibly do that and never do it, or veer off and you know, do something else or never do anything. So good on good on you for for learning and and making it a career.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah. I mean, I mean, who knew? I still have both shops. I like to call eBay my heavy hitter because that's where I make the big dollars. Not to say that I don't do well on Etsy, but selling a fabric, a piece here and a piece there isn't like flipping something for a hundred bucks. You know what I mean? It's right, it's it's it's different. So I like to say that eBay earns the money so that I can go to these estate auctions for fabric and buy it all. But Etsy's Etsy's the slow trickle. Etsy pays me all the time. Yeah. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Well, can you explain how some women might feel stuck because they don't have startup money? And what do they do?

SPEAKER_00 10:44

And startup money is big. I mean, I think I got away with not needing startup money because I could, I mean, I can buy things at sales all day long for a couple of dollars. I just have to not look at the stuff that's that's that's more than that. I have to really, this is what I can do. This is what I can afford. Uh, and and maybe later I'll be able to afford more. Now I can go and I, you know, the sky's the limit. I can drop 500 bucks on an investment that I know is gonna triple, quadruple, whatever. I couldn't do that before. I had to, I had to hope that this thing I paid a dollar or two dollars was gonna make more money so that I could turn around and reinvest it. But yeah, you have to start with what you have sometimes. Sometimes the money's just just not there. And start start small. Envision where you want to go and just keep the constant push in that direction.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

I love that. Okay, so what were some of your biggest obstacles you had to overcome as a woman starting again in midlife?

SPEAKER_00 11:49

The arena that I went into, I'm not gonna say it's all male-dominated,

Handling Doubt And Old Boys Clubs

SPEAKER_00 11:55

but the ones who think they know more than everybody else are typically the men. It's it was an arena where there's a lot of retired men that are very active in this buying and selling. They've been doing it since before the internet was a thing. They go to flea markets, they have connections, whatever. Getting respect from them was a little bit of a challenge. Not that I really cared, but there's a big difference between going in there and kind of feeling shy about it and feeling like nobody's taking you serious, to being able to go into the ring, say today, and we'll find each other and start a conversation and tease each other about their, you know, oh, I saw what that sold for. You got a great deal. You know, it's like we're familiar now, you know, there's some respect in that. And I think gaining the respect in in any kind of business where you are is really instrumental in giving you the confidence to keep to keep pushing and to keep growing.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Yes, absolutely. It's like you were trying to chip away and get into that old boys' club.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Very much so. Very much so. Well, how did being a single mom shape the way you approach business, money, and survival?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

I certainly had to be careful where I spent the money. I mean, that that I think, I mean, I think it's true for anybody, but I I did not have somebody else's money per se to back up on. There wasn't a second income in the house to fall back on. So I I I had to be careful. And I had to teach, I had to teach my daughter to be careful. And I can remember going to the grocery store and saying, okay, I I know you need things. This is how much you have. And and she would have to go out and she'd have to find the things that she needed within that money. And if she didn't have enough money, well, she'd have to decide, well, what can I wait till next time? I mean, there just had to be boundaries across the board. You know, my gosh, my house was so cold those four years because I kept the heat turned way down. I wore so many layers and hats in the house. And, you know, my my boyfriend would come over and he'd have his footy up, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

But what a great going back to your daughter in the store, what a great lesson for her. Like, I mean, it's hard, of course, very hard thing. And as a mother, that's not the way you want to deal with things. I get it, but but really it's a great lesson that she learned.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah. I mean, sometimes, sometimes you have to say no. And, you know, sometimes the store doesn't even happen that week and you figure out what do we got left.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

It's just bad, because it's it's it's survival. And understanding that that and I think it's lovely the way you said, okay, well, you only have a certain amount of money. You get to these are the things that you need. If you can't afford them all, you have to come make a decision about what you're not going to have. And really, I think that that's a fabulous lesson that uh I I think a lot of a lot more kids, my kids can use that lesson. Like there's so many kids that they just have no concept whatsoever. My sister has five girls and she's a single month. And it's nasty. Those girls, they don't get the concept. Uh they're lovely, but they just sometimes don't get the concept of what stuff costs. And you know, we can eat or we can do this. Well, would you prefer? But of course, in that moment. So I do. I think that's uh I think that was uh it's a great lesson for your daughter for the rest of her life.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Well, you know, I hope so. She's 32 now. I don't know, I don't know the finances between her husband and herself. You know, they they they have a house, you know. I I think they're doing okay, shouldn't talk about it. I do know that when she was 16, sure, 16-year-old girls want an awful lot of things. She wanted expensive, expensive prom dresses. She also ended up at one point, she had three jobs. You know, so I was I was proud of her that she was figuring out how to get the things that she wanted. I mean, she had three jobs, plus she was cheerleading and running track. And, you know, so I don't know. I think I think as a busy single parent, as a busy mom in general, I think we set examples for our kids that you can juggle things. You you know, you can if you want to. Um like I said, she didn't come home to I I wasn't sitting on the couch watching TV, you know, we didn't go out to eat hardly ever. I mean, subway sometimes on the way home from practice or something, but yeah, you got to set boundaries if if you want to get anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Exactly. So, what practical strategies helped you move from being broke to completely debt-free by 56?

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Yeah, I never thought I'd hear those words because I I was I was so deep in debt my entire adult life.

Debt Free Choices And Priorities

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Even when I was married, we were always scraping. I was always a solid month behind on every single bill. It it was painful. It was so hard to climb out of that. When I divorced, luckily there was enough equity in the home that we both started off debt free. And because I at least knew how to take care of credit, even when you even when you're broke, you could still take care of your credit, you know. And so we we both left with good credit. We both left debt free. That isn't to say that four years later, when I got married again, that I was still debt-free. I I certainly, yeah, I produced debt again. My husband brought debt into the marriage. We had quite a bit of debt when we came together, and we both worked really hard to get that debt knocked down. I'd like to say that I married this very successful doctor, but he's just an everyday guy too. You know, he he works at a he works at a car plant. It, you know, I mean, it's just we're just everyday people, but it's all about making choices. We don't drive the newest cars, we don't have the newest phone as soon as it comes out. You know, we've prioritized our spending. I I've learned how to do free marketing and free advertising that supports the business because I don't want to put I I don't I don't want to put a bunch of money into it. I feel like it that can be overcome with a little bit of research. That can be done with a with with hard work, with dedication. Uh, you know, so yeah, it we finally we were lucky. We we bought this house again. We did not buy a perfectly brand new house and it needed work, but it's a beautiful house. It's an old farmhouse, it sits on five acres. We were we got it cheap. The interest rate at the time was two point something, two point three percent, something crazy. So we're like, well, yeah, yeah, we we can afford that for 15 years at that interest rate. Yes. Um, yes, but so yeah, we've been doing a lot of work, the work ourselves. It's just it's the attitude of being able to do things on your own. It's the attitude of what are my priorities? Are my priorities to constantly show up with the nicest of everything and to be in debt for the rest of my life? Or are my priorities to own everything that we have and be able to choose what we want to do one day and how we want to live our retirement and what we want to do with those retirement years? So it's either present yourself in a certain way or choose to live a certain way, is how I've always seen it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Were there were there mistakes when you made that you made in business that became some of your best teachers?

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Hmm, that's a good question. And I always hate when people say that to hosts, too. Well, that's a great question. Because I feel like we're buying time to answer, but no, that's a good question. And I'm sure we're gonna try to think on that one. Yeah, I can't really look back, and I mean, I can certainly say that I have made mistakes on things that I bought that were that I thought were worth money because I don't drive in a single lane of buying and selling one thing. I usually come home with a whole carload of things. And I don't often look at everything individually. Oh, well, you lost money on that one. Oh, well, you made money on that one. I look at it as a collective. I spent $500 today, and after everything has been sold, if I double that money, then I call it a win. Yes. So I I mean, I really I don't think that I ever tried to focus in on certain things though, because there's things that everybody thinks are are worth money and they decide to specialize. Well, I'm just gonna sell coins, I'm just gonna do jewelry, I'm just gonna do this, I'm just gonna do that. Right. And I stay away from the really popular niches. And it's not that I won't go into their lanes. I certainly will if nobody's bidding on something and I know it's worth money, but yeah, I don't get I don't get caught up in that either. I just I think it's kind of similar to just my my outlook on life. I don't get caught up in in the big the big dollar noise, whether it be what I drive or what I buy to resell, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Yeah, yeah. Well, let's shift our conversation a little bit because you have been writing for four decades, but you didn't pun publish anything until 55. So what finally pushed you to publish?

SPEAKER_00 21:38

I always

Publishing A First Book At 55

SPEAKER_00 21:39

thought I was a fiction writer forever. I loved writing stories since I was a kid, and I did a lot of writing in my 20s and in my 30s. The only thing I ever saw get published was a magazine article in my 30s. So when I hit 40, I couldn't really dicker around with the writing anymore because it wasn't making any money. You know, I had to put all my effort into the business. So I quit writing. What happened? I think storytellers are always storytellers. I think it's just, I think it's there. I think I think we're all people watchers. I think that we're always writing the next, the next great. Great story in our heads. Um some of these auctions were just producing really incredible tales. They're there is so much nuance and so much character. And I've met so many people over the years. And a lot of it, a lot of it was heartwarming, like some of the places where things came from. A lot of it was hysterical, the competition, the auctioneers, whatever. They're just just so so much color in what I was doing. And I found myself writing on my my Etsy pages in my fabric shop. I started writing just little tidbits about, oh, well, this fabric came from you know, such and such a state. And you know, maybe I would talk about Stevie and Thelma, who was there, or Krabby Patty, or you know, it's like everybody kind of had these little cute names. And they just started to gravitate towards it. My customers started to write to me and say, you know what, these are really great. I really want to read the full-length stories. You know, you need to write a book. And I I I didn't think I'd write nonfiction ever. Yeah. But it in a lot of ways it's still storytelling. It's just I'm I'd be I'm given the characters on a silver platter, you know.

unknown 23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Okay, well, why not? It's it's you've asked me to do this. Why why wouldn't I do that? And so I did. And I chose to publish it myself because I felt like the hard part happened before the easy part. The writing was easy. Figuring out who you your readers are was always the hard part, the thing that stood in the way of being published before. So decided to self-publish, which by the way, I didn't know anything on how to do that either. It's just a matter of determination. If if you're determined to get there, you can figure it out, especially with the internet these days. How can you not figure something out?

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Yes, so true. So true. There's so much, so much, so many resources.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

There really are. It's it's incredible. When I was writing in my 20s, I had books that gave me addresses for publishers. You know, I had to write letters and put them in the mail. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have the internet to say this is how you should write a letter to a publisher. Exactly. There's just we're so inundated with resources now.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yes, yeah. Well, what would you say to the woman who's been carrying a book dream for years but keeps telling herself it's too late?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah, right. I was 55 and I've published three more since then. The thing about the thing about self-publishing is that it is it is perfectly acceptable in this day and age to self-publish a book. When I was writing in in my 20s, sure, you could self-publish a book. You could pay another company lots and lots and lots of money, and they would gladly publish your book for you. And the case is still true now, you can pay somebody to publish your book. Yes. But back then, they called it in the trade, they called it vanity houses. It was it was shame, it was shameful. Nobody did that unless you were the only person that believed in in your work. You know, it's not that way anymore. No, it it just isn't. And one of the biggest myth behind publishing some people believe if you have a traditional publisher that they're gonna do all the work because writers like to write, you know, we don't want to do all the other junk. Okay, so Truth, yes, they do they do assist with marketing, but you're still expected, or at least if you wish to have really good sales, or even sometimes just sales, you still need to market it yourself. And you know, I have friends that are traditionally published and they're on Instagram pushing, pushing, pushing all the time. So when I publish this book, I guess one of the learning things that I had to figure out is that Amazon's not gonna sell your book either.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

No, no, they're not.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

They're not the only person that's gonna sell your book is you. Yeah. And once your family and friends are done buying your book, it's gonna sit there. And you're gonna have one here, maybe one there, but Amazon does not sell your book. So I had to figure out at that point, and and you know, this is another thing. People wonder, well, you know, who's gonna who's gonna read my book? Okay, well, who's your audience? I knew who my audience was, so I started guest speaking at the quilting guilds and started taking my book to my audience. I sell books like crazy when I do a meeting. You know, I get up there, I talk about my shop, talk about fabric, I listen to them talk about their projects. You know, we go back and forth, I read a chapter in the book, and I spend a half an hour selling and signing books. So it it all goes back to that level of determination and how you're gonna figure it out to see that end goal and figure out how you need to get there and to go.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Yeah. Wow. So you now have four books published? I do. Okay. So how has becoming an author changed the way you see yourself?

SPEAKER_00 27:13

I'm really glad. I'm really glad that I finally did it. And for anybody out there who's always thought that they had a book in them that doesn't know how to get to the finish line, if you're like me, all you think about is that book that's in your head. I never quit thinking about it. I haven't quit thinking about it my entire life. And I really think that if I never saw a book on my shelf, I would have been really sad. And my my my dad, I just lost my dad a month ago. He was 85. Oh, sorry. Thank you. He had a very long two-year battle with cancer, and we took a lot of walks together during his treatment days, things like that. And we talked. And when I was writing in my 20s and my 30s, he was like my biggest editor, and he would mark up those pages like crazy, and I would get the book back and be like, Oh dad, it's not that bad. Come on. So when I published the first book, I mean, he was like, I wanted him to have it so badly. You know, I just wanted him to be able to hold hold that book, you know. Yeah, and that was that was another reason I went to self-publishing too, is because both my parents were really big supporters of me when I was writing, and I really wanted them to hold it as much as I wanted to hold it, you know, myself. But he told me one time on one of our walks, he said, you know, I always wanted to write a book. And it made me instantly sad because I realized that that that could have been me. And I never really went into writing books because I felt like I was gonna be the next New York Times best bestseller. Sure, that's awesome. But I just I wanted to reach people that appreciated my stories, you know. I wanted to share my stories with like-minded people, or yeah, I mean, I don't yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Well, the statistic out there is that 86% of people want to write a book, but only three percent ever do.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

It's nuts. It's nuts. But once the beauty of it is that once you unleash the power and you dig into those resources and you feel find out that it can happen, that yeah, that's four books in in three years because it's like, wow, look what I just did. You know, it it and I can do what I can do whatever I want. I who cares? It used to be like, oh, we better stay in your lane, but no, you don't have to do that either. You know, my my third book is is a children's book that is hopefully my retirement plan, but we have camp for the eight grandchildren here on our farm every summer for a week. And we we've got this old transit bus that looks like the Scooby-Doo bus. And so these books are about camp stories and the bus is the storyteller, you know. So this is like, you know, well, this is just too much fun. My best friend paints the illustrations, so yeah, why wouldn't I do that? Absolutely. And the last book I did, I did for my dad. So it's just, it's like, I don't know, being able to suddenly be able to put anything out there that you want to put out there, yeah, it's incredible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

And a lot of times people don't think they're creative. Like I actually never thought that I was creative. And then next thing I knew is I'm actually pretty darn creative. And I love it. So and so many of the women in my in my community, my women like me community group, they they don't think that they're creative. And then they get their stories out and they start designing and marketing, and they're like, Oh, I just love being creative.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Yes. It it's a it's it's a curse and a blessing. Uh I I adore it too, you know, because I'm I I do woodworking, I do I paint, I do dry, I mean, I will do anything.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Very creative then.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

But it's like it's always pouring out of me though, and my list never goes away.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

So it's supposed I don't think our lists are ever gonna supposed to go away.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Well, I I I hope not. I mean, I guess I'd be pretty bored if I ran out of ideas. You know, I just kind of sometimes feel like I should finish the last five before I start the next 10, but it just doesn't work that way. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Well, I want everyone to know that we're gonna have uh information in the show notes if you're wanting to uh reach out to Kira or purchase one of her books. So we will have that information in there. So tell us about is it pronounced

Marketing Books Through Speaking

SPEAKER_01 31:36

doodity?

SPEAKER_00 31:37

It's Dodd.oddities named after my grandfather.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Oh so what do you do with this? You you create, sell, offer things through business. What exactly is that?

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Well, dot oddity is the name of my Etsy store.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Oh, that's the name of your store.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Okay. Yep. And the the motto on my store is recycle, reuse, repurpose because I'm dealing with people's sashes. It is all somebody else's fabric once upon a time. But I also repurpose old quilts and I I've learned how to make wool felt out of vintage wool clothing. So it's it's become a fabric and vintage textile destination for crafters, for artists, for people that enjoy recycling, that sort of thing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Interesting. Oh, that just I'm gonna have to look your store up because that sounds super interesting. And so, what about your public speaking? So, you did mention that you like to speak in front of the the fabric groups. Do you do any other kind of public speaking out there?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

You know, with pod match, it's kind of funny. Podcasting is another thing that that came about. I never used to like to speak in front of people at all. I would sweat and I would get, you know, dry mouth. This is horrible. Could not wait to sit back down.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

But in order to be successful, at some point you have to be able to set that aside as well. And you know, after I had published the first book and after I yeah, I'm like, okay, well, I need to figure out who's gonna read this book. So one of the things that I started to do, I would put notes inside all of my my orders that I would send out. You know, they asked me to write the book. It's like, okay, here it is. You know, come buy it, hurry up, whatever. But one of those notes actually went to a TV producer. I didn't know she was a customer. So I mean, this is completely free marketing. So again, it goes back to being creative. How can I get the word out without having to spend a bunch of money? Right? Yes, yes. So it also in a roundabout way, it it landed me my first podcast that the book did. I got invited to my first podcast, and I was like, oh, okay, maybe. So and that kind of ticked things off. But the the podcasting I've been doing for about a year now, I guess. The first one I did, and then it was a couple years before I really got into it. But I've submitted TEDx style conversations or whatever to Alex, the CEO over here at PodMatch. And the first one I sent to him ended up landing on his blog page. And the second one, I'm gonna be a future guest speaker for the virtual live event. And I'm like, oh, well, okay. And so going from being terrified of public speaking to be able to create a 17-minute solo video and present it. Yeah. So it just goes off in all these different directions, but at the end, it also all holds hands with the business. It like it comes full circle. I've also found new writing opportunities through podcasting. I've been to invited, like I'm to do four different writing projects through people that I've met. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

So you are so I uh the you know, the the lesson that we can all learn from you is you are definitely never too old, you're definitely never too broke, you're not too far behind, and just do what you want to do and quit friggin' worrying about it all the time.

unknown 35:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

I mean, you just and it's easier said than done now because I remember days bawling my eyes out when I was first starting out, you know. Yeah, yeah. But you have to start somewhere. Everybody starts somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Well, what's one small step a woman can take if she wants to start a business, but she feels overwhelmed to find something that she is passionate about, or something that she is curious about, or something that she feels that she's good at, or that she has potential, you know. I mean, yeah, I was I was really good at cleaning other people's toilets, but did I want to do that for the rest of my life? No. No. Find something that you get up in the morning and that you're excited about and interested, and not just because it's gonna pay the bills, but something's gonna keep you motivated to keep learning, to keep growing, to keep pushing. Because if you don't like what you're doing or like the direction that you're headed, your heart's not gonna be behind it.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Oh, and that's so important. And that and and why your why, right? Like, why are you doing this? Yeah, and if you don't have a strong why, then you know, I'm I don't want to ever ever step on anyone's dreams, but you may want to reevaluate because you have to have a strong why. Is business is not easy.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

No, and it's like writing a book. No writer out there will say, I want to write because I want to get rich. Not one. Because we all know it's a fallacy. It's we write because it's in our heart and because it's what we always wanted to do, and we're willing to make the sacrifices. That sometimes being, I'm not going to be rich, but I'm going to do what I love.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

So yeah, it's yeah, and a book can take you places.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

It can help. It can help. It can be your promotion. So, so it's uh there's lots of uses for a book, and I wish everybody makes lots of money, but you're absolutely right. It is, it's it's very rare that we're gonna make get rich off of books. But there's lots of other other ways that books can help us in the world. And we're leaving a legacy and you know, and we're being creative and we're having fun. It's fun to promote books and talk about what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

So yeah, it really is. Yeah, nobody has to, nobody has to convince the writer to be a writer. A storyteller doesn't, we already know what the reasons are, you know. Yeah. So and it does. It that that producer, I did sign a contract with her. Did I get a TV show? Well, no, because she's got to sell it to a a TV studio just like an agent had, you know, but it doesn't matter. That pushed me. That pushed me into like, you know what, what else can I do with this? So that that that pushed me that much further. And yeah, the book does all kinds of things for my business. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Well, Kira, thank you so much for sharing your life and your struggles and your wins and your wisdom. And I just know that there will be a lot of women that will gain some courage

Final Encouragement To Start Small

SPEAKER_01 38:31

from listening to you. And thank you so much for being brave to do these podcasts. I know they're not, I I'm I got it down pat now, but in the beginning, I was tongue-tied and dry mouth the same as you. It takes it takes practice and and courage to get on them. And and uh and I know it's funny because I joined that pod match, right? That's where we connected. And it's interesting because now I've got I'm going on other podcasts and I'm nervous.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Yeah, but it's it's so fun. I mean, I asked you where you were from at the beginning because I'm keeping a list. I want to get a map with push pins because I've been all over the world. Yes, yes. And and this doesn't have to cost. Now I know that I know that as a host, there's ways that you have to be able to make money. It's a little bit more creative. But as a guest, you don't have to invest money if you don't want to. There's plenty of podcasts that you can because they brand, they market, they whatever. Right. But if you have something to share that's helpful to their audience, then that ends up being a service too. So it's a win-win. It helps the host, it helps your business, um, it helps the listeners. You know, there's just so many different, yeah. If you have a creativity, there's so much fun out there. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Yes. And and you found it. And I found some myself. So yes, I did. Yeah. So, ladies, don't be shy. Get out there, find some fun, get creative, write a book, go sell something. There's all sorts of things that we can do in the world. Just find what you're passionate about and and know your why. And and and if you do can get those two things connected together, then you know, there's nothing that can stop you really.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Yeah. No, no, we're women. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

I almost want to think here before, but fine. Well, Kira, thank you so much. And as I said, everyone, we're gonna have all of the links that you can purchase our book or reach out to her store in the show notes. So don't hesitate to do that. Snoop around the talker a little bit and see if she's got something that might be helpful to you. So, Kira, thank you again for doing this. I appreciate you greatly. And I wish you all the best in all your creative endeavors kind of in the future.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Okay, everybody take care of you on another episode. Bye bye.