From Grief to Growth: The Mindset That Changed Everything | Part 2

What happens when you stop ignoring your gut… and actually listen to it? In this episode of The Lipstick Alchemist, we sit down with Kelly Kussman to talk about the real journey behind building a business—from corporate life to creating a fast-growing brand rooted in purpose. 

But this isn’t just a “success story.” 

This conversation is raw, honest, and packed with moments that will hit you whether you’re building a business… or just trying to figure out your next move. If you’ve ever felt stuck, out of alignment, or like you’re meant for more—this one’s for you. 

🎁 GIVEAWAY: Share this episode or leave a review and send us a screenshot to be entered to win products featured in this episode. Details on our Instagram! 

#Entrepreneurship #MindsetShift #WomenInBusiness #FollowYourGut #SelfGrowth #StartupLife #BusinessPodcast #HealingJourney #PersonalDevelopment #WomenEmpowerment

© The Lipstick Alchemists. This material may be protected by copyright and is used for reference and attribution purposes only.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to The Lipstick Alchemist, the podcast for ambitious women ready to stop playing safe and start living in alignment. We'll explore the mindset shifts, the soul nudges, and awaken the version of you you were always meant to be. Alright, well, we are back with Kelly Kußman. We are so excited to have her here. Um, we just felt like we had so much to talk about with her, exploring all of the limiting beliefs, the mindset beliefs, the journey from corporate world to building our business. Um, and so in our last episode, episode, it was all about um kind of your journey of what got you to building the business. Uh and the oh, oh my goodness, am I shitting my pants and really doing the dang thing? Um, and so in today's episode, we're really gonna be talking more about um actually doing the damn thing and all that you uh came came to become and the things that you're doing now.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

You know what I noticed among the of the three of us that's very common is the way that we speak about vision, manifestation, belief. And I wonder how you develop that over time because you have you have a very old soul where you can, you know, you're in very in tune with what something's right or wrong. I think trusting that gut, yeah, even though it's not financial-based or a balance sheet, it's truly you know in your heart and gut what you're supposed to be doing at a certain point. How did you connect to that and develop it?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

It wasn't until after I lost the babies that I even realized. So, in business, in like corporate business, I was the person people would go to for hires, for fires, for to make like big decisions. I can very clearly see clarity through chaos. It's my gift. I know that. I never related that to like personal life though and gut feeling. But when I took a step back and looked at all the decisions I've made in my life, I knew a lot of those decisions were not right, and I made them anyway. And I feel like us as women, we have our gut feelings, and it's a it's a deep knowing within us that is so special that men don't have. Women have these gut feelings, and I think it's so beautiful. But I think a lot of times life layers things on top of those gut feelings. And I feel like unless you're doing the self-work, unless you're really diving into the patterns, unless you there's a trigger that just like something just keeps driving you crazy or like pissing you off or like making you mad. Unless you're diving in to understand the root of that, you're never gonna be able to peel off those layers to actually listen to what your gut is telling you. And so for me, it was therapy. And it wasn't until I lost the babies and almost lost my life that I was like, wait, I I my gut's been telling me this all along, and I just haven't been listening to it. And it just gets stronger, it just gets louder and louder, and the things just get harder and harder to do. And at some point you have to stop and be like, Why is this so hard?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Why do I continue to do this thing? Yes, why is it? If I wrote a book, it would be titled that. I would try it one more time, and then for sure this time one more time. Stop talking about dis I think that is the hardest lesson is when you dishonor that, you start to weaken your instinct. And I think learning to go with it, and the number of times you you're around somebody where you're like, Yeah. But you continue on, and sure enough, it's just not for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Women do know, you know, and like every we only we have limited energy in a day, and every time you're allowing that energy to escape to these things that don't matter, that aren't improving, or you know, it they don't not everything needs to improve your life, not every relationship or every situation needs to improve your life, but some are there to teach you a lesson. But it's like you have to kind of see those things and you have to kind of understand where the energy leaks are in your life in order to allow you to focus on things like maybe starting a new business is is something I want to do, or maybe this corporate career is not. I don't want to be doing this anymore. It's driving me crazy, but it's comfortable, so I'm just gonna settle for it.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Can we talk about dreaming big, big ass dreams? Because you, I mean, what you've done with your business is insane. We do stalk you on Instagram, and I am so, I mean, just blown away by what you've accomplished. And I feel like for such a new business, seeing you um in New York and in Sephora and all that you've done, I just can't. How did you build such a giant vision? And was it what player by player when you closed your eyes, did you already how did you dream so big and get there?

SPEAKER_01 4:14

I knew that I wanted to build something that had meaning um that could leave a legacy. You know, me, I don't have children of my own, and so this was kind of my baby that I could bring into the world and and leave my mark on the world with. And I wanted to use this company as a way to teach women about their layers and to show them that fragrance can be a representation of something you want to shed or something you want to step into. Um, and so I wanted to leave my mark and and and leave a legacy, and so that's that's what I was kind of setting out to do. Um, and I it just I don't know. I when I think about that, was the biggest mark that I wanted to make financially. Like I want this business to be acquired someday, and I want this business to be acquired in 10 to 15 years, and I had certain revenue goals I wanted to hit. I wanted to hit six figures in year one, I wanted to hit seven figures in year five. And we've hit those so far. And so I just want to keep going and keep achieving. But there's going to be a point where I'm basically putting myself right back into my corporate job. Um, and those are when the conversations will start to be had about, you know, is this an acquisition time? Is this something that, you know, I want to now take a step back and pour into other small businesses, um, you know, and then be be on more boards and be an advisor to other people. Um, there will be a point in time where I step into that in that part of my life and and this business can can close the chapter and continue on without me. And so I'm excited to kind of see what those those chapters look like in the next 10 years or so.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

You know what I love about my arm here was standing up when you said something there, which is just you led with the purpose and what you're leaving behind, which I think is about your gift to the world. And so few businesses lead with what they want to leave behind. I think they make it financial based, which always follows purpose and joy. Yeah. But I love how you articulated that, what you're what you're giving to the world. And then that, of course, leaves you know, financial and many gifts for you. But I I just love how you said that.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Yeah, I think I don't know, I think a lot of people start businesses without an exit in mind. Um, and you know, it this is something that I'm open to see what you know, what God brings me. But maybe my nieces and nephews will want to take this over. That would be incredible. Like that'd be incredible. I would love to do that. A legacy. Yeah. So for me, acquisition could be many things. It could be a larger corporation bringing, you know, coming into the company and purchasing it. It could be me leaving it to my family members, you know, as like a legacy. But I just know that at the end of the day, 10 years from now, like I want the freedom to spend all of that time with my friends and family. Um, and so I'm excited to to kind of see how this chapter unfolds. But me making a mark um on women with fragrance is something that is my main priority and something that I just I want to continue doing for as long as I can.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

And turning that a that pain and tragedy into such a gift to the world. What a gorgeous story. Thank you. Can we talk about the products? Where are they nearby? I don't think we brought it. It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Oh, can you guys talk about well as she's getting the product? I I think you said something interesting about a lot of businesses don't maybe start with the acquisition in mind, and I would agree with that. And I wonder if some of it is like yours really came from purpose and alignment. And you know, I mean, the story you told in the very beginning was so powerful about how this really all goes back to what brought you joy when you were younger, and now you've carried it into something. And so I just I don't know, I wonder if there's something to it, like when you had that feeling, you followed it, you knew this was like your purpose. And it is so amazing to see how when it all comes together, you have so much more belief around it because you know you're living out what you're supposed to do.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah, I think what's kind of cool is I didn't start the business to get it acquired someday. You know, I started the business, like you said, from a passion that I just kind of followed, honestly, to help me grieve. I didn't even think this was going to be a big business, honestly, when I started. Um, but then I realized, wait, this actually can be something. You know, we launched an Alta in December, and you know, we're it we're growing very quickly. And for me, the quicker I can grow, the more women that I can impact and kind of you know tell my story to and and start to allow them to see the layers of themselves through a very a very different angle. And that is so beautiful to me. So the bigger I can make this brand, the more people I can get in front of.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Okay, but hold up, you literally just dropped we're an Ulta, like that was like no big deal. I mean, that was like an Ulta. So and I know I've seen on Instagram when you were in New York City and your prop your friend was on the cue.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Time's quick.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Oh my gosh. I'm gonna hear. So, yes, can we like maybe not just like hop over that little thing and like tell tell us about that? How how did that all come to be?

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Yeah, this last year was. I'm sure it was a dream. It was huge. I what's so interesting is that last year was probably the hardest year for me personally after the losses of my babies, because I actually lost my mom last year. Oh my gosh. And the duality of my personal life being so hard and my heart breaking, like every single day she passed away from lung cancer. Um, and it was a year-long um process for her, uh, versus my business was exploding. It was a lesson in compartmentalizing like I have never experienced before. So it was such a every time like one of those big moments would happen. Like we got into anthropology last year, we got into Scentbird, we got into the Fab Fit Fun boxes, we got into Alta online, we had a billboard in Times Square, all happened in the same year. And I think that's something that I talk so much about when it comes to layers. Like there's so, there's so many things happening at once in all of our lives. And for me, scent was such a way to represent that. You know, there were days I was just pissed and angry and in all the stages of grief, and I was just like, so I would wear a different scent to represent like the deep, dark, kind of dirty fragrance versus like the days that I felt softened in my feminine and just like needed my husband to hold me. I would wear like a lighter fragrance to kind of represent that. I just loved the way that fragrance was able to represent all those moments. And so yeah, last year was it was our hand, we five X'd our revenue last year. Um, at the same time, it was almost, I feel like I poured all of my energy into the business um to allow myself to be soft on the personal side. And I think as women, we juggle so many different things and we're really good at it. We're really, really good at it. And that was an example of last year, like we exploded at the same time as you know, personal stuff getting. Thank you. It was a massive year. I was I was very proud of I'd bootstrapped until that point. I hadn't spent a dollar on marketing or ads or anything, uh, no influencers, like we didn't do any of that. It was really me just going to New York, going to events, like getting out there and hustling and just meeting a bunch of other beautiful women that connected to the story and were willing to help get me out and get some visibility for the brand. That's really how I built this business.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

How how do you create your um like what inspires your scents?

SPEAKER_01 11:11

It's a moment, a feeling. Um, the four that we have I started with four core scents and then we added one, so we really have five core scents now. Um, the first scent I ever created was called Petals, and Petals was created after I got a divorce. And I was starting to take these alone trips by myself twice a year. And one of the alone trips um I took was to La Jolla, and I remember walking down this beautiful street uh in La Jolla with like the ocean in the background and just like such a beautiful blue sky. And as I walked past this hotel, there was this big jasmine bush that was blooming next to me. And I as I walked past the hotel, there was this smell of wafting laundry that came out, and the mixture of the jasmine and the laundry was something that I was like, I need to mark this moment with that scent. And so that was the first scent I ever created. I just bought those different individual scent notes and just started playing around at my lab at home and just came up with petals. And so every scent that I had was based off of a moment in time that I wanted to mark with scent so that every time you smelled that, you brought you were brought back to that moment that moment in time. Yeah. So every scent has kind of a memory connected to it.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Well, and what I love about I think I had your probably very first everything candles. I was probably your an early very early client and addicted very very soon. Yeah. But what I love so much about how everything is packaged, you can tell the care and like the specialness in opening the brand. And I know this one, maybe you could take us through some of your best things, but we are obsessed with the scents, and we want to give some of them to our we want to do a little contest for our drawing. How do you say giveaway? Giveaway. Giveaway, giveaway. What would we do with that?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

So this is the nighttime. Yes. So we are launching a bedtime perfume this year, which I'm so excited about. I there's something really cool about marking the transition from day to night, you know, from the hustle to kind of the slowness. And so we created a bedtime perfume that's really a bunch of lavender, jasmine, uh, a little bit of soft vanilla, some musk, and we're launching it in the middle of April, and we would love uh for your audience to have and you guys look how sexy this is.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

You spray on, look how beautifully packaged, and you're crawling in bed with your man to accept that the cup of ride. Or if you're me, you wear your granny panties and you prepare them. Everything is so so beautiful. That I think is the biggest, even giving them as gifts. Yeah, I remember giving them to my clients, and it's just like the most amazing experience. Everything's so thoughtful and beautiful. Thank you, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:39

And I'm wearing your special edition Rose Summer. Um and then I have your some of the samples because I want it, and I have to tell you, um, when I like I didn't know something like this existed until I came across you. So I would just go, you know, do the traditional, you like go into Macy's or whatever, and you're immediately like blown away by all the things. It's hard to find something, yeah. And um, when I got your samples, it was so amazing to see how like light and refreshing and like not overwhelming they were.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah, I wanted it's gonna sound crazy. I wanted to create a perfume that didn't smell like perfume. I wanted, I feel like perfume can be so cloying and overpowering and just heavy. And so I didn't some of it can be so complicated. Um, I just wanted to quite frankly simplify and create really beautiful, easy-to-wear, easy-to-layer fragrances. And so that's why we created the Discovery kit because I also find that a lot of times you don't know what you like. And so why not give you a little kit of five different, completely different scents to try and kind of discover? Wait, I actually like a deeper, sexier scent than the light, you know, ocean scent that I thought I liked. I think it's just fun to explore and kind of get to know yourself a little bit more with your fragrance.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

And it is such a part of self-care to really thoughtfully choose, which I don't think I understood before I started um buying your scents. I just flash on whatever little old spiced yarn and I'm off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Um but I think I just And mine's all natural stuff totally steep. Such a hippie. So I also love that this is like clean, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

It is, and it just is such a way to like honor your your mood, yeah, and really connect to um, I just love the specialness of it. I think it's for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Choosing, like like you said, picking a fragrance in the morning to me, it just marks a moment of pause. Connection with yourself. Connection with yourself. And I think we're so busy and we're just so like there's a thousand you wake up and there's a million things on your mind and a million things to do, and it's like just take 10 seconds and pause and like put a pretty perfume on and then go back to the phone.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

I'm gonna take I'm gonna think of fragrance in like a whole new light.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah, and it is a little way to you're right, those moments of like loving yourself, especially when you're starting a business or struggling through um you know the death of a family member, taking one moment to just sit and honor that. I think it's those tiny little moments add up over time, and I think they give you that intuition and strength. Okay, keep going, take a breath and how are you feeling today?

SPEAKER_01 16:05

That's kind of how I do it every morning. How am I feeling today?

SPEAKER_02 16:07

I love that. One of the things Andrea and I um have gone through recently, so I'm super curious as you how you've evolved, but we've taught we've realized like as we are stepping into that next level, like every time you're it's like new levels, new devil. And so um, I mean, just hearing you talk about Times Square and being an Ulta and all these things and knowing your vision is so strong, I feel like you are clearly taking huge steps into becoming like a new version of yourself. So, what are some of the challenges you're you're kind of facing now or thinking through or fake, you know? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Yeah, I think for this last year, like we were very profitable, and so I have money now. And it's like, what is all this doing in my child? What do I do with this? How do I not screw this up? So I mean that to me was like it was another level of money mindset work, and like now I have money to spend and I'm scared to spend it, you know, I'm scared to spend it and lose it, and so that's another thing that I'm kind of working through is okay, I thought I worked through this already and it's back and we're doing it all over again. Um, also, like as you grow your team, you know, as you're growing a business, you need people, you need to really uncover your strengths and weaknesses and start to hire people that uh can help with your weaknesses. And so for me to scale a business, like you most of the time the founders are the bottleneck of the business of the scaling. Um, and so that's something I'm kind of diving into as well as, you know, I don't need to approve everything. I don't need to be the one with final say on everything. I need to start giving more autonomy to my team members in order to keep the business moving because there's only me and I can only have so many hours in the day. And so there's a lot of things as I scale the business that are kind of happening. It's money mindsets hitting me again, going back to my corporate leadership days and kind of remembering I need to build structure around the teams and around my time, being wildly protective of my time. If it's not something that is gonna grow me personally or grow my business or grow a connection that I have with friends or family, I kind of it's just not, it's not happening right now. Um, and the people that know you well will understand that and you know, will be okay with that. So I could give you a billion different things that I'm working on constantly. Like you said, every time you hit that next level, you're smacked in the face with 10 different things that you need to learn and discover and uncover about yourself in order to really hold the next level of success. It's it's a lot, it's a lot of work. Entrepreneurship is like, what do they say, like the ultimate lesson in self-discovery and like like dipping yourself in hot oil over again constantly? It's the biggest roller coaster you will ever have in your life. And but it's also the biggest teacher, you know, if you're willing to accept it as that and like actually make moves. Otherwise, you'll stay stuck.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Do you feel like you get pulled, like get pulled back into that? Like behaviors like your old self is trying to for sure all the time, especially the money stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Cause like now I said, like now we have money and I don't want to spend it. I just want it to sit in an account and look pretty. Like 10 years for the morning, give it a little spray perfume. I love you. Exactly. I'll spend, you know, five thousand dollars on an ads this year. Like, I can't, I can't do that anymore. I need to like put my big girl panties on and like step into being a multi-million dollar business and actually put money behind it. It just gave me two, or it's never gonna grow, or I'm just gonna, which is fine. I mean, not everybody needs to grow these gigantic billion-dollar businesses, but um, if I if that's something I want to do, then I I need to put money behind it. I need to have faith and confidence in my decision making um that it will it will multiply and I'll get an ROI on it. But yeah, oh yeah, I just went right back to being a 20-year-old student that had to move back home because I wanted to Martin. Yes, yes, yes. I'm like, I'm you know, I'm in my 40s and I'm gonna have to move back in with my parents because my business is gonna bump. You know, yes. I get very dramatic sometimes. So it's like being in Times Square and hitting your bunk bed. Times square is a thing of the past and going back home. Yeah. So yeah, it's it it hits you constantly. And I think, and a lot of things always will. I mean, there's some things that you can work through and really move on from, but there's some deep stuff in there that you know it just takes repetition and catching it quicker. I feel like every time you go through these loops, you catch it quicker, and then at some point they kind of fade and are non-existent. But no, I still that loop still smacks me in the face fairly often. Yeah, or oh, sorry, please. I I was curious um how your circle has evolved. Oh, it's very it's wildly different. Um you know, I think it what was I was really, really interesting to me is that I had corporate friends and I'm like, you know, your coworkers like I'm gonna be, these are gonna be like my besties for life. Yes. And then you leave and you don't have anything to talk about anymore, right? So then that kind of evolved. Um, another thing with me is that I didn't have babies of my own, and all of my friends had babies. So I had like eight girlfriends, every single one of them had babies within the year that I had lost, with the two years that I had lost my babies. And so again, we just kind of didn't have much to talk about. Again, same thing. Um, and then now I'm stepping into being an entrepreneur, and I don't there's I can't talk to my old friends or even my family about like ad Facebook ad spend or like you know, paying an influencer money to like promote the product or like affiliate codes, you know, like nobody understands what I'm talking about. And so I really like my entire friend group has changed and evolved. Um, and it took a lot of putting myself out there, getting, going to networking events, just reaching out asking people to connect and go for coffee and just kind of learning to find the people that really get it. Um, but also building a very tiny circle because, like I said, you only have so much energy and so much time in a day. And so every connection that I make met that I make and spend time with has to be like a deep one that is, you know, helping me grow. Personally and professionally. It's important to me. So it's completely changed. My friend group has completely changed. I still love and honor and talk to all of my old friends, but it's just it's very it's a very different relationship. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

Were you gonna ask something? I don't know what I was gonna say. Sorry. That's fine. I'm one I have one other question that maybe we can talk about the giveaway. Um, but I'm just curious what's your what's a big dream or goal that you have next? Like what are you going after?

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Oh, next is really expanding retail partnerships. Um it's one thing to, and I always tell people this um from my corporate days, like it's one thing to get into a retailer. It's a whole nother ball game to stay into a retailer. Um, you know, there's a ton of money that you have to put behind supporting and getting people to those stores to buy your product in order to warrant staying on their shelf. And so for me, my next level of success is staying in the retailers that we're in and growing and expanding uh other retail doors and other retail footprints.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Amazing. Kit girl.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Yeah, we're trying. We're going. You are an absolute inspiration. I feel like I want to go light myself on fire and build something big. I just love what you're doing for the world and how you are growing. What is next? Yeah, what's next?

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Launching. We have a lot of launches this year. I'm wildly excited about we've got our bedtime perfume launching, and we have a new innovation launching this fall that's all around kind of the way that you speak to yourself and show up in the morning and you sent in a different way that has ever been used before. And so I can't wait for people to see our new innovation launching. So those are those are the big things that are up this year.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

And how can our listeners find you?

SPEAKER_01 23:35

You guys can find me at uh kayla gray.com, which is c-a-y-l-a-g-r-a-y.com. We're also all on so all of our socials are Kayla Gray Co. And then my social, um, Kelly Ward Koosman. And yeah, I would love to see what you guys think.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

You have a Substack too, right? I do.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I just started a Substack a couple months ago. Substack is like my place to go into, I always talk about women and their layers, and I talk about my layers and like all of the different layers that actually helped build this business and the layers that I'm uncovering as I continue to grow and scale this business, everything that we've talked about today. Like, holy cow, this layer came up, and I'm like, okay, I don't know that I want to keep this one. So um talking about shedding and then figuring out like what layers am I stepping into next? Um, it's all about my substack. So we go very deep on the substack.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

So cool. Yeah, I need to get on there.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Yeah, it's fun.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Let's give away some of these. I think we want to give away a f three or four.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Yeah, we're gonna order some goods from you. So, how can we so specifics? Um, we would love you to share this episode um because we hope that this is inspiring more and more women. So please go and um share this episode and then send us a screenshot when you've shared it um to the lipstick alchemist Instagram. Um, or your other option is uh to leave us a review. So obviously, the more um we can have reviews that highlight what we do, the more people can hear. And just like you said, with your purpose, like we're all about just helping women step into the next level. Um, and so you can help us by uh leaving a nice review and that we can share with Kelly too.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

And we'll send you some good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

We'll provide some more details on our on our Insta with you know the tactical stuff.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

So thank you so much for being here. We loved our time together, and we'll see you on the next episode. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

One of the best funnest podcasts in the memory. You say that to everybody, but we'll take it.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

No, you can't have my document.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

I know. All right. Okay.

unknown 25:41

Okay, there we go.