Going Back to the Future| Reclaiming Who You Were Always Meant to Be with Kimberly Mitchell

Kimberly has served her country, broken barriers in corporate America, and built businesses — but the most courageous thing she's ever done might be going all the way back to find herself. After years of functional depression and what she describes as leaving little pieces of herself behind with every inauthentic choice, she built a framework to help women do what she had to do the hard way: go back, gather themselves up, and come home to who they actually are.

In this conversation, Kimberly and I talk about what it really looks like to lose yourself slowly — not all at once, but choice by choice — and what it takes to find your way back. We dig into limiting beliefs (the kind you don't even know you have), why joy is a baseline and not a destination, and what it means to take "terrified action" anyway. She also shares her four-column belief exercise that will have you stopping mid-conversation to grab a notebook — trust me.

If you're in that season of life where you have responsibilities and resources, and you're wondering if it's too late to become who you always wanted to be — this episode is for you. Spoiler: it's not.

🔗 Find Kimberly at https://kimm.co/ and on all socials @kimmdotco 📚 Check out her book Hey Beautiful: The Mirror Method, her course True, and her flagship program Journey to Joy

And if you're craving a community of women doing the same kind of brave work — come find your people at wearewomenconnect.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Real conversations that build powerful business relationships. Here we uncover the motivations, challenges, wins, and wisdom of today's leaders that you can learn from their journey. I'm Lucy Miller, founder and CEO of Women Connect. Let's go Beyond the Handshake. All right, Kimberly, I am so excited to have you on the Beyond the Handshake podcast today. So I'm coming from the perspective that I am a wife and a mother and a business owner and a community leader. I can relate deeply to the themes of resilience, joy, and transformation that are woven throughout your journey. Really excited to talk to you. You've served our country, broken barriers, built businesses, and now you're pouring into individuals and communities in such a meaningful way. So I know our listeners are going to be really inspired by your journey and your mission and how you are helping women live their best lives.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

That's the goal.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yes, so excited that you're here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

So let's talk about your background from your military experience in service, leadership, entrepreneurship, and now mental health advocacy. Let's it's very broad. So I want you to tell me. Tell me about you.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

All right. So I actually left the military and had no idea quite what I wanted to do. Got into corporate, and 25 years later, I was struggling to get out of the bed, struggling to do basic hygiene, struggling to keep the house clean, struggling with weights, finances, like everywhere I looked, there was a struggle. So through the VA, I was able to get assessed, and they labeled it as functional depression. Okay. So once that had a name, I said, you know, it's not the debilitating, I can't make a move. I can still do things. So let's fix this. And I realized that over the years and tens of thousands of dollars of programs, potions and gurus.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Potions and gurus.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Uh, I had really discovered there were some things that worked a little bit. So I decided to put a framework around how to really dig in there and find who I am and what works for me. And then I realized that it was a repeatable process, that framework. And that's what I just created the system from.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

So I love that getting back to you. What in your framework is there one? Um, I guess there's probably multiple things that make that important. Tell me about your framework.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

The framework is really taking all the pieces of all the systems and all the things because as women, we're always trying. You know, we're always seeking, we find these things, and some of them are 10 steps to better time management or the first three things you need to do every morning. Yeah, all the things we need to do to improve all the time, right? Exactly. But those things kind of come from a space of we're broken and we need to be fixed.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

What really is happening is we're essentially separated. When we make choices that are inauthentic to who we really are, it's almost like leaving a piece of ourselves behind. And over time, we become depleted because we just can't figure out who we are anymore, how we got to where we are. And this framework really helps us go back and pull it all together. All those little pieces of ourselves that we've left here and there through choices we've made, and we now get to make better choices. And that the power of it really lies in the fact that we can make those choices.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

And that's really the the the butt the benefit that I've seen over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

What do you think looking back, if there's a piece of your childhood, of you as a child, that you feel like you were able to then bring forward or you know, bring her out of you more?

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Oh, absolutely. The the protection of who I am. Okay. You know, as a kid, I had challenges where I was put into a light of this is who you are. And even though I didn't believe that was me, I knew inside it wasn't me. These were people that should have known me well, family, good friends that were saying, This is who you are. So being able to go back and say who I became was who you decided I was. It wasn't who I ever really was. And now I can go back and be her.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Wow, that's really powerful.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Because she knew all the things. She was true to herself. You know, as kids, we don't have all the trappings and you know, we don't have responsibilities, we don't have families, we don't have jobs. Responsibilities. Exactly. So we can be the truest version of ourselves. Once we get on that track, we tend to lose our way and start to listen to other people tell us who we are. We adopt identities based on our circumstances. I go to college, I get out of college, I get this job, and even though I really didn't want to go to college for that, now I have a job, now I have a bills. You're stuck. And you're stuck. And you just tell yourself that story that you can't do anything different. But you can. You can. And the framework takes you all the way back to say, before you even took your first day of class, what did you want to be? Who did you want to be? And get in touch with that, and then say, starting from that point, now let's look. And you know, at this age, 40 to 60, we have we have responsibilities, but we also have resources. And my motto is we are our own greatest resource. And when we can tap into that, that's when the magic happens.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

I love that. So, what did you, as a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

SPEAKER_01 6:24

I wanted to be a lot of things. You know, I believed in the Renaissance people. You know, they were physicists and sociologists and psychologists, and that's everything that I wanted to be. I wanted to do a lot of things. So I can remember my first corporate job when I got out of the military. They I'd reached a point where I went in as a secretary and I'd reached a point where I wasn't gonna do that anymore, but they didn't know where to put me. So my boss says, Write up a job description and we'll create a position just for you. And I everybody thought, wow, what an opportunity. You're like, what do I do? Exactly. And my problem was I I looked around and I looked around, I said, I don't see anything that I could sit down and say that's what I want to be. Because there were so many different things that I wanted to do. And I was told back then, you gotta pick one. No, you don't. Yeah, you can be a lot of things, you can be a lot of things, yes, and if something doesn't exist, you create it. And it took me decades to get to that point.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

I love that. I know it's interest, it's always interesting to see what people wanted to be when they grew up and then what they're doing now. Is it anywhere in the realm of what you know that childlike spirit was leading them to do?

SPEAKER_01 7:45

But you the problem is when you're that age, you gotta you listen to other people, and those sometimes those other people speak from their fears. Right. And you say, Oh, this is what I want to be, I want to be a big singer, and they're like, Yeah, you don't want to do that. Yeah, you can't do that. That's right. Exactly. And so you have all of these voices, and that's part of the framework, is going when that message plays in your head, whose voice is it? Is it really yours, or is it your aunt's who wanted to be this thing and she didn't, and she's projected that onto you, or had a bad experience with a friend who tried this and then put that onto you, and now you're you've taken that on, and this just helps clear all that away and get down to who do you wanna, who do you want to be? Yeah, and I think that's the question is not what do you want to be, but who do you want to be?

SPEAKER_00 8:45

I love that. I think that's a great um probably exercise for many of us and like in that 40 to 60 range, you know, where I I feel like I'm in a time of my life. I'm for the record, I'm 42 for future when we're listening to this. But I feel like I'm living my best life now, you know, and I'm 10 years older than when I would say I wasn't living my best life. And how amazing is that that it's it's a different perspective, it's different lived experiences, it's opportunities and resources and the people in my life. And you know, you the saying 40 is the new 30. I feel like that. So I I love that, and I think it can you can't, if you can tap into who um, you know, you really are truly meant to be.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yeah, you can live that. It is also being able to believe you can be that person. Uh so often, part of the framework is crafting what does that ideal life look like? What do you look like living your ideal life and watching those images every day so that you start to see yourself in scenarios that you might not have even imagined two, three, five years perfor before? And now you're gonna see this every day and start feeling like that can be me.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

So are you you are doing this now, I'm sure, with your life. So this is what you were envisioned, speaking with authority, um, having a great impact on women, I'm assuming, is what you've been envisioning yourself to do.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Now it's like what going back in time and saying, you know, when I was a kid, I think I always was that that spokesperson. And it's tapping into those innate things that kind of are strengths you didn't even know you had. You just because they came natural to you, um, that really was a little bit eye-opening for me to going back and seeing that.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, I bet. So when I was researching you, the word joy kept coming up in a lot of things written about you and and your bio, and I feel that from you. You kind of like exude joy. And so talk to me about the word joy, what that means to you, and how important that is for change in personal and professional lives.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Oh, yeah, because I'll tell you, I can remember seeing Oprah's magazine, and you know, Oprah was a big joy fanatic, and I used to say, Well, sure, if I had all of that money, I'd have joy too. Yeah. You know, you can buy joy when you have that much money. But what I realized is that joy is in the journey, and when when you set joy as a destination, that's when you put all the conditions on it. When you recognize that the process is the joy, and it becomes your baseline, then everything changes. And I example that I use is let's say you were headed to work, you didn't have insurance on your car, you didn't have a whole lot of money in the bank, you get into this accident. You know, you're just all kinds of angst and turmoil, and you just can't get out of your own head about it. But flip that around and say you're on your way to cash in your winning lottery ticket, and you still don't have the money in the bank, you still don't have insurance. Someone hits your car, you're like, I'll buy 10 cars, you know. I'm gonna start hiring cars to follow me just in case I get in an accident. But it's really a mindset to say, why can't you have that same perspective when you just don't have that money in the bank and you don't have that insurance? Why can't you, from a joy perspective, as your baseline, say, I'm so glad I didn't die in this car accident. Um, I'll figure out how to get the money. It's gonna be a struggle for a minute, but I'll figure it out. Maybe I'll get a different car because maybe this car was giving me so many problems. There's so many other perspectives when you make joy the baseline.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

You are one of those people that has a positive attitude about everything, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

It's really about solving the problem. It's this this you you won't have a life without problems. Oh, for sure. Things are gonna happen, but it's how you react to those things that make the difference in how you live your life. And if as long as you have a choice, yeah, let's choose joy.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Choose joy. Yes. I love that. I love that. I've I probably put myself in that camp too of positive thinking and class half full, and there are going to be struggles and and problems. That's right. But it's how we handle it. So let's see. Thinking through my questions here. Many of our listeners are women balancing family and business and leadership roles. So, your journey, what advice, or thinking about your journey, what advice would you give them about recognizing, recognizing and breaking free from limiting beliefs?

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Ooh, limiting beliefs are probably one of the biggest challenges and one of the biggest tasks in getting inside and figuring out who you want to be, because things that you don't even realize you believe are driving you every single day. We have an exercise where we have a chart that says, okay, this is what I want. The second column is this is what I have to believe in order to do that. The third is are there anything you're is there anything you're doing that's contrary to what you want? And then that last column says, what do you believe in order to be doing those things? And that's where you're discovering, my gosh. I say that I want to make an impact in the community by joining these boards, but I've packed my schedule so tight that I can't possibly do any of those things. So what am I believing in order for me to do that? So when we look at leadership, when we look at our homes, when we look at the state of our lives, understanding that those limiting beliefs are driving it and how we rewire that, because that is one of the beautiful things about our brains, that even though they are powerfully pulling the strings in the background, we can rewire it at any age. At any age, and it's really just capturing, making it a point of capturing what we believe and testing it. Is it true? I believe this, but is it true? And then once you've done that, then you can rewire it to say, this is what's really true based on what it is I want. And that's really what I built into the system and my life.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Wow, I love that. Are there any if you don't want to share, that's okay too, but are there limiting beliefs that you believed at one time that you've been able to overcome believing those about yourself? Oh my yes. That you're willing to share with Ara, with me.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Well, one is that I would not could not succeed in business because I didn't have the standard credentials, being female, being black, being a person who didn't have connections, everything about my life on paper said, yeah, you're not the girl that's gonna build a big business that's gonna help a lot of people. So understanding that there are things, there are strengths, there are skills and abilities that we all have. And as long as we're using those and building on those, we can do anything.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Literally anything. I I literally learned how to roller skate. I was petrified. But I learned how to take some terrified action and lace those skates up and get out there and learn how to roller skate at 56. How many times did you fall? Oh my gosh. And I'll tell you, but the first one let me on roller skate. The first fall is the scariest.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

But once you get that out of the way, oh, but I mean it was it was serious because I had been telling myself for years, it's too late. You didn't do it as a kid, you can't learn how to roller skate. Yeah, you gotta take the I can't out of the vocabulary. Exactly. That's exactly right. And putting a dotted line around your comfort zone because once you get into that and you build those dark, bold lines and saying, This is who I am, then it becomes very difficult to grow. Once you can make that almost elastic, yeah. This is who I am today, but tomorrow I want to do something different.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, and that's okay. I was talking with Tracy Litt recently and about fear. And you know, fear from danger is you know a good kind of fear, but the fear of not trying something new or making that phone call or asking for that big opportunity, that's the fear that we need to lean into. And I feel like I learned a lot from her on that, but that that's that uncomfortable zone where that fear is, that's where your success lies, that's the path. And it's it's so interesting to think about that and the limiting beliefs too that then impact taking that step into the fear.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Absolutely, because the fear supports the limiting belief. You know, we talk all the time in the in the groups about you have this belief that you don't even realize you have, and then you reinforce it with fear using you know things like our reticular activating system, where our brains will filter information based on what we already believe. It's it's so crazy. I think of it like social media and the algorithms, how once you click on something, then it just feeds you more of that. Yeah, and that's your brain does the exact same thing. Once you believe that, your brain seeks out other instances where this becomes true and reinforces those beliefs, which is why it's so critical to get in there and figure out what it is that you believe so that you can unwind that and sometimes take some terrified action that says, even though I'm afraid, I gotta do this to see. Because guess what? I might find out that it's true. I can't possibly roller skate without breaking a bone.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

But I've what if it's not? Right. But what if? That's cool. Ah super cool. So tell me about the programs that you offer and how women can work with you. What does that look like? Oh, yes. To get more of this Kimberly effort.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Well, the first thing is a book. It's called Hey Beautiful The Mirror Method. That is a 30-day program that you really learn how to speak to yourself. We have such an innate and automatic, terrible uh practice of tearing ourselves down in the mirror. Even when we look our best, we will stand there and go, oh, this suit looks great, but look at my hair. It's getting gray. Oh my gosh, where'd the zit come from? You know, and we just start doing that. Right. We are. And our voice should be the most loving voice we ever hear. And yet we walk out covered in self-inflicted wounds all day long. And that's what the book really kind of helps you unwind. The second thing is the course called True. And that's a force, that program of really digging in and listening to those stories. What are the stories we're telling ourselves? What are they based on? Are they true? Reframe all of that, really dismantle some of the things that we've built up around ourselves. And then the Journey to Joy is the flagship program. That's a year, but it's built around all kinds of supports. We have a personal accountability system for your daily actions. We have a sister circle of no more than four women who are going through the journey with you so they understand what it's like when you have to detach from identities you've held forever and all of the things that come up around the people that love you and want to support you, but they just don't know how with this new identity. We have a platform that's specifically for the women that are going through the program. We have a roadmap where you're picking two goals, no more than two and no more than a year. Because through the course of building through this program, you're gonna be a different person. The goals that you might have in three years will be changed in a year based on who you are today. So it's a really comprehensive program that kind of supports you all the way around the process.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

That sounds amazing. So, how can our listeners, I'm gonna put things in our show notes, but tell us how they can find out more about this. So your website, how they can follow you.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

The website is k-imm.co. And the socials are all K-I-M-M-D-O-T-C-O. You got creative with that one.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

That's super cute. Y'all go follow her. This is gonna be great. I'm I know so many women that um that I interact with and have gotten to know through my company Women Connect. We all struggle with so many of these things, and it's it's centered around goals, it's centered around fear, it's those limiting beliefs, and you know tapping into our true selves is so important. And just showing up authentically as yourself, which I know we were talking about that earlier, it's so important, but you've got to know who that is.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

You do, you do, and it's hard at our age when we get to this point when we have created identities that match our life, but they may not match who we really are and who we've always wanted to be. And it's it takes some courage to take that step to say, I'm going to withdraw from all of that and really go back in time. I say going back to the future and really understanding who we want to be from this day forward.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah, I love that. Well, one last question. I love to ask all of my guests this, but uh I yeah, surprise here on this question. Um, so the name of this podcast is Beyond the Handshake. So I would love to know what that means to you. What does Beyond the Handshake mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Beyond the Handshake is especially someone who's out and networking and meeting a bunch of people. It's so easy to stop there. It's so easy to shake a hand, take a card, say, Oh yeah, I'm gonna contact you, and maybe make a like on a post or something, but never really get to know who she is. I love getting to know who she is. So when I hear beyond the handshake, that is sitting down and saying, Who are you and how are you? Really, how are you? Not making that that, oh I'm good. Really, are you good? And if you are, that's great. Is there anything I can do to support you? And if not, then let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yeah, I love that. Thank you. Yeah, I always love everybody's really um individualized thought about what that means to them. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Thank you for asking. That's good. I love the name.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yeah, well, thank you for coming on. I um just so excited to continue to get to know you and dive in deeper even more with all that you offer and how you support women. So thanks for all that you do, and this was really great chat.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's been such a treat to get to know you more.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

So fun. Well, I'll make sure that all the details about following you and connecting with you are on the show notes, and we'll get some more women getting back to their true self.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Remember, your next breakthrough might come from the connection that goes beyond the handshake. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, share with a friend, and keep the conversation going.