David Kibbe - David Kibbe's Power of Style

For more than four decades, David Kibbe has challenged the fashion world to see beauty not as a rigid set of rules or flaws to be corrected, but as a powerful expression of identity. In this episode, Terry Shepherd sits down with the creator of the celebrated Image Identity System to discuss his joyful new book, David Kibbe's Power of Style.

David introduces listeners to his revolutionary program of "love-based beauty," built on the liberating idea that true beauty comes directly from individuality. He argues that personal style is simply how we physicalize our unique energy, and he pushes back against a multi-billion dollar industry that profits by selling imperfections and planned obsolescence. 

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Redefining Style: Why your appearance is an energy transference rather than a binary set of fashion rules.
• The Myth of Perfection: How to escape the trap of external ideals and move from self-acceptance to self-celebration.
• David’s Origin Story: Tracing his journey from a child piano prodigy in California, Missouri, to a globally recognized style innovator.
• The "Dream Board" Process: Why connecting with your soul's deepest, unlimited aspirations is the key to unlocking your physical style.
• Sharing the Sidewalk: How elevating your wardrobe—and dressing a little better than the room—acts as a superpower that spreads joy and community awareness.

Through a blend of art, beauty, and metaphysics, David explains how to silence the internal critic and view yourself through kinder eyes.

Resources Mentioned:

• Explore more of David's work and pick up the new book at davidkibbe.co.

We all inevitably become the brand. And that's why I wrote, "How to Become a Dynamic Podcast Guest and Sell Stuff." It's a sweet and short primer that teaches you about the gear, the appearance and the messaging that can grab and hold today's micro-attention spans and motivate your listeners to take action. It's Just a dollar ninety nine at Amazon. Grab your copy today and sell mo

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:35

In conversation with Terry Shepard, award-winning broadcaster, narrator, and author. A deep dive into the writer's craft with the artists and support systems who create the stories we love.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

For more than four decades, David Kibby has challenged the fashion world to see beauty differently, not as a rigid set of rules, impossible standards, or flaws to be corrected, but as a powerful expression of identity. As the creator of the celebrated image identity system, first introduced in his best-selling book, David Kibbe's Metamorphosis, he has helped people around the world transform not only how they dress, but how they see themselves. His work has been featured on Oprah, Today, Good Morning America, CNN, BBS, and in the pages of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other major publications. Decades after its debut, his approach has found an enthusiastic new generation on social media, proving that authentic style never goes out of fashion. Now, in his new book, David Kibby's Power of Style, he invites readers into a revolutionary program of love-based beauty. It's a joyful, deeply personal journey built around one liberating idea. Beauty comes from individuality. David Kibbe, it's great to have you with us. Thanks for joining the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Thank you so much for having me. I am so happy to be here. And you just said everything so I can go home.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Style is not black and white. It's not binary, it is in the eye of the beholder. How do you define it?

SPEAKER_02 2:19

I define style as how we physicalize our energy. Every single person on this planet is a unique soul, a unique human being. And we all have our own energy, and that's really what we're talking about. So style is how you put that out into the world. So appearance is one part of it, for sure. And it is the part that we as human beings notice first. We react to that first. But really, maybe not, because we really feel the person. So it's all translated through our feelings of what we see and experience. But it's an energy transference. So my idea of style is how we focus that. And I believe that every single person, like you said, beauty comes from individuality, or you said I say, but that's I truly believe that. And what that means is if that's the truth, then who you are is who you're supposed to be. And part of who we are is what we look like. So instead of like the old standards always have been, that there's this ideal outside the self, whether we're talking about style, beauty, whether we're talking about men in this gym idea of perfection, whether we're talking about whatever we're talking about, that anyway, outside the self. So all the rules that we've been given, and when we're talking about clothes, it's things like you're supposed to look symmetrical, or your face shape is supposed to be this or that, and they you're supposed to look like a fruit, so we need to balance you, which seems ridiculous to me. But the idea is there's perfection outside of you, and you're not it. So let me give you all the rules to be closer to that. But the thing is you'll never be that because you're something else. And if they're saying that, that's the underlying message. That always gave me a headache, number one. And number two, it makes me feel kind of icky, like you want to have to grow up when you hear that, because it says there's something wrong with you if you're less than ideal. But what? That's nonsense. Only human beings think this. You don't see dogs walking down the street going, Oh, I wish that I were a German shepherd, not a Pomeranian. You don't get that doesn't that's not the way it works. Nature, and we are part of nature, is not set up that way. Nature is about a garden of all this individuality. And that's what I feel is so important. So I just created this system to work in harmony with nature. That's basically it. You are who you're supposed to be, so part of who you are is what you look like. So let's put that out into the world. And then when you do that, you're aligned with your energy.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

When there are billions of dollars made every year based on selling our imperfections.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Oh my God, are you right? Oh, and that's the social media is completely that. That's the algorithm. That's what that is. Because it's see, you got it right there, billions of dollars. It's all based on money, always. Underneath trend, underneath everything that we're sold today. All you have to do is watch television for a while and you realize, oh, I have all these new illnesses that I didn't have, so I better get this drug. And then there's another drug for the side effect for that. And like Susan and I, my wife, Susan and I were talking. It's like, these are ill, they keep saying these illnesses. What is that? I never heard of that. I think they just created that one. It's crazy. But in style, it's the same thing. That's what trend is based on. It's based on making you buy something with planned obsolescence. That phrase is so important. Planned obsolescence, because things are created to not last. But look at all look at all our equipment. Look at all our computers and our cell phones and things. They don't even try to repair them. It's just throw it away and buy a new one, or they're going to come up with a new version, which isn't really all that different, but still it's the new thing. Yeah, that's the world we live in, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 6:13

How do we build a personal style in such a judgmental world?

SPEAKER_02 6:18

First of all, you have to realize that it is a judgmental world and realize that's coming outside of you. You have to go in. And that's the most important thing. That's what love-based beauty is the whole premise of my work. And I've changed the description of it over time to evolve with the times. But to really, first of all, you have to start from a feeling of self-acceptance, and you have to get to that. In my book, I tried, okay, so when I wrote the new book, I had to think of a way to take the things that have changed in the four decades that I've done this, that are different now, and put this into a process that could really reach people and help them. And the first thing you have to do is put people in touch with a different paradigm of looking at themselves. So, how do you do that? I learned a lot from my great mentor and friend, the late Barbara Cher, who said, you do not go directly. Or one of Susan's, my wife, Susan Slavin, her great therapist was Clinton Q, who said, You have to meet someone at their resistance. You can't go at them and say, Well, you're wrong, do this. All people do is dig in. So Barbara used to play these games with people, and they had a built-in goal, and they were miraculous. And I thought, wow, let's borrow that idea a bit and build on it and give me a new way of helping people turn around these ideas that have become so ingrained in our brain. And the best way to do that is to play, is to have fun. And like Carl Jung said, change is I'm gonna paraphrase this, change is never a does never occur through the intellect, but only through the play instinct. Okay, that's brilliant. And that was like Barbara's approach. So I thought, I know what I want people to end up with, so let me create a series of fun things that will help them bit by bit change the way they see themselves. Instead of just, see, the old rules are you're not right, this will be the right thing, so do this and that'll be okay. Everybody tries to do that, it doesn't ever work. It's if you tell somebody that they're if somebody's tall and they say we've got to minimize that, so they have all these rules about try to minimize your height, you're tall, you're not gonna be less tall. That's not gonna happen. Or they'll tell short people, dress to be more tall. You're you can't be tall. But what's great about being short? You're and let's not even call it that. Let's just call it compact. Let's think of a better word, number one, if you can. And what's great about that? If you're smaller, you have a lot more energy. It's like little dogs that are closer to the ground, how fast they move. A big dog can't move that fast. That's very exciting. And when you translate that into style, that's sparkle. That's like somebody who has an animated kind of quality about them. Like I think today of somebody like Octavia Spencer, or in the old days it would be like Spitfire Betty Davis or Leslie Coron, they're small, but look how fiery and feisty they were. And somebody like Catherine Hepburn or Tilda Swinton could never be like that, but they're gorgeous in their own way. So I just trying to get people to see, first of all, to love themselves, to start from a place of self-love, and then learn about the prejudices that they bring to the table, and then give them some new standards to look at. So that's where you start, but it's a process, like anything else, because style is not something that you just you have it or you don't. They there are the fashion worlds like to let you think that there are a few people that are like that, and you should just listen to them and buy what they say. But that doesn't, that's not style. That's fashion and trend and things like that. Style is a style is about identity. That's why I call it image identity. It's the image of your identity. It really is how you physicalize what I call the gestalt of the person, the whole person, inside, outside, integrated your dreams, your hopes, your aspirations. That's what you want to get to to have somebody with their style, but you do start with the physical because when we're talking about what I'm dealing with people in terms of their appearance, the clothes, hair, makeup, whatever, we really have to work in harmony with nature. So I like to tell people, once we go through sort of this idea that we're going to do something very different, you're a painting and you're a sculpture. Mother Nature created you. I'm not creating you, and don't let anybody tell you that. You've been created. And frankly, I believe it's your choice how you were created, but that's a little bit different story. So you're a painting, your coloring is your painting. So work with, let's give you a palette of colors that is complementary, but that you can go out and create fabulous things with. And your sculpture is your body, and clothes drape around the body. So the clothes, the silhouette, the lines, let's work with complementary lines. So if you happen to be very straight and angular, like someone like a Catherine Hepburn in the old days, or today, Anna Taylor Joy, very straight. Let's emphasize that. And then you end up like in the old Hollywood days, you end up with an immortalized vision of someone like a Catherine Hepburn. Or maybe you're more flesh-oriented, clothes hang from the shoulders, they drape around the flesh. So maybe you're very curvy. So let's emphasize that. Don't try to slim yourself down and be like a Catherine Hepburn. You're Elizabeth Taylor, you're Marilyn Monroe, you're Kinta Brunson, the star of Abbott Elementary. You're curvy. So let's emphasize that. Then you end up with a Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor. But if you take Elizabeth Taylor and try to turn into Catherine Hepburn, it doesn't work to begin with. So that's what, but see, those movie stars had a whole studio system to do that with them. Today, all you have are these old-fashioned rules. So that's I give people a whole new way of working like that.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Our special guest is David Kibbe. We're talking about his new book, David Kibby's Power of Style. The website is David Kibbe, K-I-B-B-E, David Kibby.co. What were the seeds that created David Kibby's style?

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Wow. Okay. So you want me to go back to the very beginning? Okay. I believe there's a preamble that comes up there that has a whole other origin. But down here, when I was writing the book, I had to go back and think about this because I felt like if I'm going to ask people to trust me to take them on this journey of a whole new way of looking at themselves, and it's very personal. We're talking about people's feelings about themselves, their self-image, then I need to give them a reason to trust me. So I thought I've got to tell them about myself. So I had to really go back and think about this. And it reminded me, okay, I had three basic things in my life that I've always been fascinated by or connected to, or just been my sense of the world. Beauty, art, and metaphysics. And I just go back to all of those things. I'm from a very small town in Missouri, California, Missouri. That's the name of the town. Not named after the state. It was named after a man, California Wilson. It used to be a Boone's borough because Daniel Boone traveled through that area. There's a lot of them there in that area. But this man, California Wilson, offered the town elders 10 jugs of whiskey if they'd renamed the town after him. So that's how my little town got its name. And they're always everyone there is proud to tell you that story. I don't know what that says about the town. We're very connected to whiskey. I tell people we had like when I grew up, 2,500 people there. We had 16 beauty shops and 12 gas stations in my little town on stoplight. We also had an uptown and a downtown. As my wife, when she first visited, said uptown is one side of the railroad traction, downtown is the other. But there were businesses on both sides. What can I say? But we were the county seat, so we're known for being like the sophisticated version of the area. Anyway, so growing up, the beauty was really important. I just thought everywhere I went. And I grew up in a very beautiful natural setting. And uh I was fascinated with all the women that would come over to my mother's house for coffee. And I guess I was precocious. I had glasses, and uh I always felt like my opinion was really important, and I'm not sure why that is. I'm not even sure what I had to say, but I always had something to say, and I think they all felt that I was really cute because they would let me sit on their lap, and I loved that so much, and then I would ask them to marry me. And but I was I they were all so beautiful to me. So that's in my head, okay? And I've always been been like I I have two sisters, one older, one younger. I was not my older, I would never tell her what to do, she'd kill me. But my little sister, I was always telling her what to do, what to wear, this and that, in a loving way, I would like to think. I don't you'd have to ask her a response to that. But I've always been interested in that. And clothes, I've always loved clothes. So that's one of them. Art, I've just been an artist my whole life. I don't know. I think when you're born an artist, things in a different way. I drew, I was a classical pianist, I sing, acting. My first training was really piano. I was a child prodigy. I tell this in the book, but I guess I'll repeat a little bit of it. I started when I was three. I could read music before I could actually read because my Aunt Mary was my first piano teacher, and we loved our Aunt Mary so much. And my older sister got to take piano lessons with her. We were supposed to wait till we were five, but that meant she got to spend more time with her. So I squealed until they let me start working at three. And I was so little I had to sit on her lap. I couldn't reach the keys. But I started that and I was really talented, really gifted. And it ended up through a long series of things when I, by the time I was a teenager, I found one of the greatest teachers in the world. And I was really gifted. I won all these awards as a classical pianist. People expected me to go into that world and become a concert pianist, but I didn't like that isolation. I didn't want that life. I like to be around a lot of people. It's like I just really do. Like I said, I like to talk. If you like to talk, you need to have people to talk to, right? I wanted an audience. I just didn't want that. And I disappointed a lot of people musically because of that. And then metaphysics, I just view the world in a different way. I think I know I see things I think are very obvious to me because I don't look at what's presented in front of me. I look at where it comes from. I always have, and I know there is a greater truth, and I know that we come from somewhere beyond what we think we come from. And I know that there is harmony in the universe, and I know that there is a purpose. And I know that's true. I just do. And I always have. And I've always been fascinated by all that stuff. I started reading those books like Ruth Montgomery and all these people right away. But the one that really got me, and this came through my piano teacher, who was also an old soul, and we oh, she was a mentor in the greatest sense of the word. She gave me this book, There Is a River by Thomas Shagreo, which is Edgar Casey's story. And it's the story really of how who he was and how he became through the through who he was as a human being and what was just bestowed upon him and the miracle that it is, and it's quite astonishing. And my wife and I work to this day. We're very connected to Abraham Hicks, Esther Hicks, and Abraham, Abraham, and we had an amazing mentor in this area, Pat Rodegast, the late Pat Rodegast, who's channeled Emmanuel. And they're just it's love, it's pure love, which to me is the engine that powers the universe. So that's why I feel love-based beauty connects with that. So I'm all about alignment. Alignment, inner, outer, spiritual, down and dirty, whatever it is. I think all the things that make us human, but we have a soul, and that's where we come from. And so I've always been interested in that. And that's just been my background. So that's the seeds of me. That's really it.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

David Kibby is our special guest. We're talking about David Kibbe's power of style. We have an epidemic of low self-esteem in this world. How do you find your way to self-acceptance?

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Boy, that is a million-dollar question, and I wish I had a quick answer to that because I would bottle it and I would be a billion I'd be richer than Elon Elon Musk. I think finding a deeper purpose is the best way. Finding your passion and then finding where it comes from. For me, it's very spiritual. I bel I walk around n looking for the higher truth, the purpose in everything. But I think there are things you can do, I think to practice it. And it's like anything else. You have to practice. Here I'll go back to my piano. You have to practice. The practicing is the key. If you can reach outside yourself, one one of the things I loved about writing this new book was I put all these quotes at the beginning of each chapter from somebody that usually people knew that sort of set the tone for the chapter. And at the end, the last chapter of the book, I believe, it's the last one, is called, oh I don't know what it's called. It's relationships are the core of elevated style. And it starts with this quote by Deepak. And I don't know if he originated it, but he said, When you think about the golden rule, it's really not about what you think others deserve. But rather, it's about it's a directive of how to live in a state of grace. And I thought, wow, first of all, it gives me chills, and I thought, well, what does that mean? Because I the golden rule is very important to me. I learned it really early, and it's like everything I do, I try anyway, we're humans. I try to treat other people the way I would like to be treated. But what that really means is it's the change in us that happens when we do that. It makes us a better person, spread some love, and of course, that's going to just go out like the pebble in the pond that creates the ripples, but the change in you when you do that, because it's all about our personal energy. So that's what we have to change. And I think if you can, first of all, identify the places that you criticize yourself and understand that those are coming from someone else. We're not born wishing we were something else. Little babies do not come into this world wishing they were a different baby. And you look at little babies in their earliest state, they just exist and they're like bundles of love. And if we remember that, then bit by bit we can change. But oh my God, you're so right when you say we have an epidemic of low self-esteem. That's everything. That's why our politics are the way they are, that's why we have wars, that's why we have famine. Everything about that is that we don't all come from love. If we came from love, we would not just be our brother's keeper, but we would be better people and we would look for this. So looking for it in others is a really good thing. Catch yourself when you're criticizing somebody. Do you blame? Do you judge? Are you doing that? Where does that come from? You're not born as Judge Judy. She didn't come out of the womb going, now you did this, and I'm gonna find you and shut up. That became her shit. And that's okay. She's great. But what I'm saying is that doesn't help you in life with like every person walking down the street, you're going, no, you go, find something good. There is good everywhere, even when you are at your worst. If you're breathing, that's a good thing. As long as you're on this earth, there are possibilities. And possibilities are what I'm all about.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

One of the things that I always say when I speak to others about marketing authors is that when you're in front of a crowd, you always try and dress a little bit better than the room. You always try and if everybody's wearing jeans, you make sure that you're not you're wearing jeans.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

That's a great idea. I think you should try to dress, I think you try to dress a lot. Lot better than the room today, with the way we have today. The thing today that's the worst is sloppiness. It really is. And I'm not talking about, yes, we live in a much more casual time, and that's great, we have choice. But sloppy is not the same as casual. You don't need to run around in sweatpants and house shoes. This idea that people think that they can go out on the street in their pajamas and house slippers, no, you don't need to do that. But see, I think if you think of dressing, first of all, it's fun. If you have a little technique, it's so much fun. What gets me up in the morning sometimes when I have a new outfit that gets me up? Or Susan, my wife, who is so beautiful, has the most gorgeous clothes, and I think of what she's gonna wear today. And it's the most amazing thing because it lifts her spirit. Beauty makes people smile deep inside. So, yes, dress better, dress better than everybody else. Sometimes people are just afraid. I hear people say sometimes when they work with me, because we try to give everybody the heightened version of who they are, what they can be, which one of the things we do, Susan works with me. My wife is Susan Slavin. For those of you who are listening who don't know, when she's this brilliant actress and author and everything in her own right, but she's gorgeous. And when she walks down the street, I love walking down the street with her. And first of all, people smile, come up to us all the time. But the little girls that are around six, they always stop and they give her a look. And usually it's like they give her what I call the once over. They really are looking at her because a lot of little girls have this, I call it the style gene, because they love to put things together in a crazy way, and it's so much fun to see. But I said to Susan, I say, Oh, she's like in your hat there. Look at that. Or, but what I really say is, you just put an image in that child's head that even if she's not conscious of it, it just changed her brain. And probably she's gonna remember you in the future. That just changed her life. That's what we do. And so if you can think that dressing is really like it's your superpower, it's how you just send your style out into the universe at light speed. Wow, that really helps a lot. Instead of just thinking, I want to be comfortable, let me just throw on some old clothes. There's another thing I have in the book that I call sharing the sidewalk, which a lot of people think, I I should wear what I want. It's me, mine. But that's like saying that, yeah, you want to take up space, but you want to remember that you share that space. The sidewalk belongs to all of us. We are a world of we're a communal world. It's a community, and we live in a community. And when you think of that, awareness of other people makes you want to make them feel better. So if you know a few things about clothes, just a few, just a little bit. Mainly that you're beautiful, and that let's put that out there, you're spreading love and joy to the world. It's such a powerful thing that we all have at our fingertips. We have the power to change the world with how we put ourselves out there. And there are ways to do it that some people like better than others. When I look at people, everybody says to me, Oh, don't you judge people and say, Oh, look how bad that person is or they should do this. No, I never do. I always look at what the person's trying to do. And I will make it I will make it my mission. It's not always easy for me to do. If someone's trying and I can see, to give them a compliment, I'll try and say, I love those shoes. Wow, and then we'll start talking. In New York, you have to be careful about that because there are some people joke you down the street that will give you a smack in the face. But almost everybody just loves that. And I love it when it's someone that didn't expect that, encouraging whatever their impulse was to do that. But also I gave them a a smile in the heart. And that's a wonderful thing. That makes me feel better. Maybe that's selfish in a way, but I think that's love-based beauty.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

When the greatest gift always comes back to the giver.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

It's so true. That's what they mean when they say it is more blessed to give than receive. That is so true. Because a lot of times, sometimes you're giving your gifts out and people don't understand what they're receiving. And maybe they'll understand later, or maybe they never will. But if you put that energy out, that energy lands somewhere. See, remember, everything in life is energy. I have to give my friend Adriana Trajini, the great author and wonderful person. She's the one who gave me this, because I did an interview with her before I even knew her. And she said, Okay, David, your book, everything is energy. Talk about that. And I'm I didn't really think of that concept until she said it, but I'm like, okay, this is what I believe. And this is, and then of course, this is what I've actually done. Everything we are, it boils down to energy, our energy, which in a metaphysical term is our vibration. And you want to vibrate higher. But when you are when you're coming from love, you do that. You don't have to think about that. Just be nice. Be nice to people. Niceness is really a commodity that I think is doesn't get enough attention and maybe has gotten downplayed too much. Just be nice, genuinely nice, not fake nice, genuinely nice. That goes a long way.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

It doesn't cost anything to be nice.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

That's right. I you would think with some people, it's costing them their whole sense of I'm the superior, crappy person. But that's those are just crossed. So that's like armor that we wear. I want to get to the soft stuff that's inside.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

One of the big takeaways for me from David Kibby's power of style is the old maxim: if we act as the person we hope to become, someday we can become that person. How can we become a person who really does exude love-based beauty?

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Connect with your dreams. Your dreams will always tell you what your soul is craving. What we work with people privately, Susan and I, and she joined Forces with me about 15 years ago. She had her own amazing acting school and an acting career in Hollywood and things like that. But what we do, the first thing we do when somebody signs up before we meet them, we have them send us information and we have them make what we call a dream board. Not a vision board, not a mood board, a dream board. And the instruction is give us about, I don't know, 20 images, something like that, of anything, not just clothes, it can include clothes, but architecture, nature, anything that tickles your fancy. If it gives you goosebumps, that's what I want. That tells you this person's aspirations. So we take that into consideration before we've even met the person. And that is so important. Like one of the games in the book is called Dream It, Feel It, Be It, I think, something like that. And I make people do their dream boards and write down what it is that give one word that encapsulates that dream. But then where in your body did you feel it? Because that's really important. You've got to ground it in. Because remember, we're human beings. We have bodies. We're not like some people like to do what Susan calls a spiritual bypass. They like to go to that and it's, oh, you just go to like the elevation. But we're human beings. We have all these feelings: good, bad, dark, light. That's very important. That the contrast that exists on earth is what where we live. But you've got to ground things in your body because that's how we move through life. And once you feel something, once you get it in your body, it will never change, it will never go away because it becomes connected to you, plugged in. And it's a plug that doesn't get unplugged. It's really always there. So that's how you do it. Connect to your dreams. What are your aspirations? Or like I will have like exercises for people. I started doing this online, which gave me sort of, I wondered when I was going to write the new book. I had to think, what's really changed since my old book? Technically, fabric. Fabric changed in the 90s when they added stretch to fabric. It changed everything. Clothes are completely different than they were before, and people are still going online and even just using my work in the wrong way, as if clothes are made the way they were in the 80s and the 90s. They're not. But I have a dream job, dream event. So I have them after they do their dream board. Give me like an example of your dream job and an event at that. And totally the sky is the limit. Don't be real. Like I gave some, I gave I've tried to give examples in the book that people wouldn't get too literal, so they would say, I could never do that. So I did one called the Bird Veterinarian. There really are bird veterinarians. I thought, okay, your dream job is the bird veterinarian. So that means in your daily life, you're probably in scrubs and things. But let's say your event is you're raising money for your bird hospital. So you're going to a cocktail party with all these mega millionaires, and you've got to present yourself in a you want to let them know that you are this bird expert, but you've got to be credible to raise money at this ritzy cocktail party. I give them, this is just fantasy. So I say your budget is one dress, $5,000 is the minimum. You have to spend at least that. And so go all over the internet and find your ideal thing for this event. And so it's connected to this dream job, dream event. So they have to go beyond what they're used to. And that some people call it imagination, but I call it your soul's longings because your dreams connect you to those things. And it this is why I say it's a dream board. Not people like to do a mood board or a vision board. That's too intellectual. And there's those are good, I don't mean to say that in a disparaging way. There's a place for that, absolutely. But this is about something else. This is to unlock the unlimited because our souls are unlimited. See, this is the thing. Inside, we're unlimited. Our outside is finite. So how do we connect those two? Technically, my work is colors and shape. You're a painting, you're a sculpture. This is what Susan and I do with people. And when I write the books, I try to give them a do-it-yourself version of that. So that's the outside. That's finite. But the inside, it's not your feeling, it's not your emotion. It is your feeling in terms of your state of being, and that's different. But your dreams elicit that. But you've got to think out of the box. You can't be thinking, where's my vision for what I want in five years? That's great, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about if no holds bars, there's no budget, and there's no limitations. What would be the thing that would lift your heart if you could be whatever you want to be? And I don't care if that's the Queen of England or a chimney sweep or the Secretary of State or a plumber. And I also tell everybody, please be a plumber, because we really need plumbers more than anything today. Let's not put any limitations. Because in our building, we have this great guy, and he's a wonderful guy. And he's they have dogs and they're just great. And I never knew what he was, and he's very literary, and he said, I'm a plumber. And we're like, oh, thank God we have one in the building.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

He's probably the richest guy in the building.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Exactly. And now he dresses really well too.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

What do you hope that people will take away ultimately from their encounter with David Kibby's power of style?

SPEAKER_02 33:51

I hope they buy the book or they can come see us. But no, what I really hope is they learn to love themselves. I tell people what I want you to do is fall in love with yourself. Well, every single person I work with, and Susan II, I open my heart to them as complete, just completely, because I have to come from that place and I have to reach them. I want them to take that. I want them to learn to look at themselves through loving eyes. Or at least kinder eyes to start. If loving is uh self-love is a hard thing when you've been brought up to think about what's wrong with you. So start with kindness to yourself, but work to self-love. Self-love, self-acceptance, and then self-celebration. And that's what you have to share with the world.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

The book is David Kibbe's Power of Style. We've been talking with our special guest, its author, David Kibby. The website, David Kibbe, K-I-B-B-E.co. A life-changing book that goes well beyond what you look like on the outside to how you feel on the inside. David, this has been great. Thanks a million.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Thank you so much. It's been delightful, and I so appreciate what you're doing. Anyway, anyway, it's just been a total joy.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

You're the best. In Conversation with Terry Shepherd is a copyrighted presentation. All rights reserved. I'm Lisa Davis. Join Terry Shepherd next time in Conversation.