Strategies to Make More Money and Position Yourself as an Industry Leader With Kimberly Brown
Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube
Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube
“No one is ever going to share your skills and experience better than you. They can try, but it’s your experience. You have to get comfortable talking about your skills, your interests, your passions, and your goals, because that’s the only way you’re able to create opportunities for yourself.”
Kimberly Brown is a career and leadership expert whose mission is to help professionals navigate the world of work, make more money, and position themselves as industry leaders.
With over a decade of experience in career services within higher education, Kimberly built her company, Brown Leadership, to help individuals and organizations alike unlock their full potential. She works with professionals to develop winning strategies for career advancement and collaborates with companies to bridge skills gaps, cultivate leadership excellence, and foster cultures that inspire long-term growth and success.
Kimberly credits her 10 years of experience working in career services in higher education for defining the mission behind her company, Brown Leadership. I love when you share the work you do today – you’ve done for yourself and hundreds of professionals for over 10 years. Kimberly works with leaders and individuals to craft winning strategies for career advancement and she also partners with organizations to bridge skill gaps, unlock the hidden potential within their teams, and create a culture of leadership excellence. WHICH significantly impacts their employees’ leadership development for years to come.
In June 2021, Kimberly debuted her transformative book, “Next Move, Best Move: Transitioning into a Career You’ll Love”—a practical guide praised for its actionable insights and empowering strategies.
A sought-after speaker and workshop facilitator, Kimberly has inspired audiences at organizations like Salesforce, Princeton University, Urban League, and the National Sales Network. Her insights and expertise have also been featured in prominent outlets such as Forbes, Teen Vogue, Glassdoor, Blavity, and MONEY Magazine.
Through her work, Kimberly has empowered countless professionals to take control of their careers, positioning themselves for success while building paths that align with their purpose and aspirations.
This episode is for you if:
You’re ready to take charge of your career and create opportunities with intention
You want to balance a thriving 9-to-5 with a growing side hustle
You want to build a personal brand that attracts the right opportunities
You’re focused on making strategic moves that align with your vision
Looking for a specific gem?
[02:14] Kimberly’s upbringing in Connecticut; Childhood dreams, love for music, and early influences
[07:35] From internships to personal banking and finding purpose
[13:08] Passion for talent development and helping people overcome career barriers
[18:49] Kimberly’s frameworks for navigating different career stages
[24:02] Transitioning to higher education to find alignment and purpose
[31:15] Balancing a corporate job and entrepreneurship–Launching Brown Leadership
[33:00] Sharing your experiences and talking about your gifts is not bragging
[38:05] Taking control of your career and creating opportunities
[44:20] Why self-promotion is essential and how to do it authentically
[49:12] Avoiding burnout while managing multiple commitments
[54:40] Microlearning, AI, and the value of traditional workshops
[59:15] Guiding clients with corporate and entrepreneurial goals
[01:04:30] Designing intentional career strategies and leaving room for growth
🎬 This interview was edited by Chara Ho, Co-Founder of Zesty Nobody
Conversation Transcript
Naomi Haile: Tell me more about your origin story, kind of you know, what were some of your favorite activities and things to do growing up?
Kimberly Brown: Oh, gosh. So I’m a small-town girl from Connecticut. I think most folks who interact with me these days assume I’m from Atlanta, because I’m there a lot—all the time. When I first started doing news segments, it was only in Atlanta, so I was flying down to be on the news there but hadn’t done anything up here. But I’m a northeast girl through and through, raised in Connecticut. I claim Harlem because I had the time of my life there in 2014, 2015, and 2016, but I lived in Long Island. I live in Queens. Harlem was my favorite. Then I moved to Jersey in 2016, and I’ve been here ever since. I don’t say I’m a Jersey girl—I won’t do that—but I will say that I can see myself living here for the foreseeable future, and I really enjoy it.
As a kid, I wanted to be Whitney Houston. That was the career path I was most excited about. I was obsessed with Whitney Houston, anything Motown, and Luther Vandross. I studied vocal jazz for about 10 years, so I was very much into music. Growing up, if it wasn’t about music—and I loved gymnastics and cheerleading—it wasn’t really about anything else for me. Until high school, I think I started to realize, okay, maybe I don’t want to sing sing. I like to do it for fun.
What did I want to be? I wrote a report on it when I was a senior in high school. I think I said I wanted to be a psychiatric social worker. Hindsight is 20/20, right? Bringing all the pieces together—social work, wanting to talk and help people—I just didn’t know the category of conversations I wanted to have. Now I know that’s career development. I listen to it like it came out yesterday.
Naomi Haile: I love Luther Vandross—such a phenomenal singer. His music changes the entire ambiance in your home. I’ll play his records and just enjoy his sound. Thank you for that deep dive.
Curious question—why were you being invited for news segments specifically in Atlanta? Or were you seeking out that market to share your message?
Kimberly Brown: I wasn’t actively seeking out Atlanta specifically. I think when that first started, it was around 2018, 2019, or 2020—before my book came out in 2021. At that time, I had a brand manager, and we would pitch—either I was pitching myself, or she was pitching for me—and Atlanta was just where we got the most traction.
Naomi Haile: The ways in which you’ve shared your story online and on your podcast—oh, I didn’t mention it in your bio, but you have a really great podcast! You share so much valuable feedback, and all of the work you do is so relevant and timely.
I’m curious—you’ve dedicated so much of your brilliance and energy to leading and designing experiences for people. At the heart of your work, and as you share in your book, nothing has brought you more joy than talent development and helping people unlock their potential.
What is it about talent management that you love so much and that brings you so much joy?
Kimberly Brown: I think there are a lot of things in life that we don’t get taught how to do. We have to learn through trial by fire and experience. In talent development, especially when I started, I was very, very focused on women and people of color. Now, we kind of work with everyone, but there’s always going to be a special place in my heart for women and people of color.
I think there are a lot of things in life that we don’t get taught how to do. We have to learn through trial by fire and experience.
I think there wasn’t a lot of preparation. I found, especially in career services, that women and people of color often wanted to be prepared before they sought out help. They wouldn’t come to career services until they felt like they had achieved some level of readiness, a milestone, or something on their own. This ended up putting them further behind because they didn’t participate in on-campus recruiting. That meant they didn’t necessarily get the internship, which made it harder to find a job. Then they graduated and generally ended up underemployed, and they had to try and catch up.
I think that also speaks to my own story. I always wish I had talked to someone or that someone had pulled me aside.
I’m not someone who likes to learn the hard way—I’ll tell you that right now. If you’ve experienced something and you say to me, “Kimberly, if you go left, there are lions, tigers, and bears, and you’re going to have to fight your way through to the end, but maybe you’ll make it,” or you say, “If you go right, there’s the yellow brick road, honey. There’s sunshine and flowers, water and good food. You can just breeze your way to the same goal,” I’m going to say, I’m going to the right.
When I think about talent development, I think about it as, how can I help people avoid the lions, tigers, and bears as much as possible? I also like to teach in a way that people can continuously use. The biggest piece of feedback I receive from my clients that makes me the most proud is when someone says, “I read the book, or I worked with you, and oh my gosh, I worked with you in 2019, and then I got a new job in 2021 and used the same things you taught me. Then, when I was ready for a promotion in 2023, I used that same tactic again.”
Over the span of five or six years, they tell me they’ve increased their salary by a significant amount or been able to advance in their career. That is the biggest piece of feedback that makes me so happy. Talent development, for me, is about how we give professionals tools they can rinse and repeat and continuously use at each level. You may encounter new challenges—what you face at entry level isn’t the same as what you’ll face at mid-level or more senior positions—but these tools build upon each other. The goal is to create those building blocks for you.
Naomi Haile: Solid, solid. What did you have to learn the hard way, and how did you circumvent that? How did you figure out the best people to reach out to, to know when to turn right instead of left?
Kimberly Brown: So I think I fumbled, just like so many people did, and I just got tired of fumbling. When I graduated from school, I think it started back in undergrad. I had an amazing internship, and it was paid. This was back in the day, before the internship laws that required you to get paid. Back then, we were doing free ones all the time, but I had found a paid local internship. I stayed there too long. I had my sights on other things—other companies I wanted to work at, other things I wanted to break into—but I thought, “Oh my gosh, I have something paid that’s good, it’s easy to get to, it’s super easy.” So I stayed there too long.
By the time I graduated, I realized I didn’t want to stay at that internship. They offered me a full-time job, but I was like, “This is boring; I don’t want to stay here anymore.” I had to figure out what I was going to do next. The first job I had outside of college, I got from a contact of mine. Again, it wasn’t necessarily aligned, but I was able to negotiate a title that matched my major. My undergrad was in marketing, but the job was much more like data entry for marketing and sales folks—not marketing at all. I was miserable.
I moved on to become a personal banker at JP Morgan Chase. At the time, I just wanted more money. That first job I had paid $25,000 per year with no insurance, and that was $25,000 before taxes. I lived in New York, so things were tight—tight, tight, tight. I still waitressed at TGI Fridays on the weekends, and at one point, I got another job working at Victoria’s Secret Pink during the week, doing a shift or two. Because $25,000 after taxes was like $18,000. My rent was almost $1,000, plus utilities, plus food, plus train and commuting. I was not okay. Things were tight.
When I moved into personal banking, it was okay, but the sales part has never been something I really thrived at. I can do sales, but it was hard for me to always be in a position where you “eat what you kill.” You need to meet your quota, and if you don’t, you’re on a PIP—a lot of pressure. That was my turning point because I was so miserable in my job.
I’ll never forget this one client who came in irate about something. I worked in a very high-net-worth area. My largest client had $14 million in their checking account, but I also had clients who overdrafted every day. I saw the whole gamut. This person came in with a sizable amount of money in their account, but I don’t even remember what they were upset about. I just said, “Sir, do you want check or cash?”
I remember that story from my book—I was hollering. I should have gotten fired on the spot. But my boss at the time knew. He knew I was over it, and he just had pity on me. I told the client, “We can close this account right now. It’s fine. Go over to Bank of America, go to Wachovia, go to Wells Fargo, go anywhere else. You don’t need to be here.”
That was when I realized I wanted happiness. It was my first time deciding, “Okay, if I’m going to be working 40-plus hours a week, I need to have some sense of joy.” When I talk about core values in my book and really understanding where you’re coming from, the first thing I thought about was, where was I happy? I realized I was happiest in higher ed.
That was the first switch I made. I worked in admissions for a short time and then moved into career services. That’s when I really started making intentional moves. Before that, my decisions were based on money, location, or needs, which are still important, right? But if you’re going to spend 40-plus hours a week doing something, you need to feel connected to it. You need to feel excited about it or like it because there will be bad days.
I tell all my clients, if you actually like what you do—if you like the industry and have a base level of respect, honor, and interest in it—you can handle the bad days. When I moved to higher ed, I knew I could sink my teeth in there. Then I went through the process I talk about in my book. I started interviewing people and doing informational interviews to determine, “What does it look like to grow here?”
That’s when I began taking insights from others so I could avoid the lions, tigers, and bears, and lean into what made me happy. I found a way to move with more ease.
Naomi Haile: And this process that you started building for yourself—was it something that you also read in a book, or was it something you developed on your own? You spoke about fumbling, but you really sought out mentors. In the book, you talk a lot about relationship building, going to events, meeting people, and hosting informational interviews. So, did you have any references or tools to really help you through that season?
Kimberly Brown: Interestingly enough, I wasn’t aware of the type of books on career and leadership development back then the way I am now. Now, there are so many—I could recommend a million different books to help folks navigate the world of work. But at the time, I wasn’t into personal development the way I am now.
I’ve always been someone who wants to learn. I’ve always appreciated trainings. The one thing I will say about being a personal banker—I loved the training program. I loved when they sent us into the city, taught us about a new product, and taught us how to sell something. I thrive in environments like that. But in my young mind, I didn’t understand that training and development could also translate to books. Podcasts weren’t really as big back then, and I didn’t know about other mediums I could turn to for that kind of learning.
When I got into Career Services, I learned about professional associations, and that’s where I got a lot of my information—meeting other people, sitting in on workshops and trainings. Now that I’m connecting the dots, I realize that the trainings you get at a conference are very similar to the training I got as a banker, and I loved that. I was like, send me to the conference, let me learn the thing. Professionals would teach me, and I’d have one-on-one conversations instead of reading a book.
But I probably could have expedited my success much faster. It’s similar to how people talk about TikTok now. I had someone tell me, “Oh my god, I learned how to negotiate my salary on TikTok; I did this on TikTok.” For me, conferences were my version of TikTok, though they were much more expensive than TikTok is today.
Naomi Haile: Yeah, in your book, you wrote a chapter about relationships called Relationships Are Still Everything. Frankly, I believe career development books are incomplete without discussing relationships.
Early in your career, you talked about professional development events, conferences, and being in geographic areas where you wanted to work. What does that look like for you today as a business owner? I know you’re speaking more and maybe going on podcasts for people to learn about you and your work, which is how you get referrals and such. So how do you approach that now that you’ve entered this new, different season of your life?
Kimberly Brown: Oh gosh, that’s such a phenomenal question, because I think in a pre-COVID world—way, way pre-COVID—this was circa 2010 when I moved into higher ed. So, oh gosh, like 15 years ago. Fifteen! Gosh, it’s very different now.
As a business owner, even now, I’m learning which professional associations will actually serve me well. I think when you first decide to launch a business, you try to find associations, groups, and conferences that teach you how to run a business. And I over-indexed. I’ve been full-time in my company for three years. I founded my company in 2017, but I always joke that I’ve been fooling around on the internet probably since 2011 or 2012 when I was blogging. So, yes, I’ve been around wellness for a good amount of time.
All of that early development was focused on how to run a business—whether it was learning how to improve my blog, how to do SEO, how to build a coaching program, or how to go after B2B clients. It was about figuring out what I needed to do to make an income. Now that I have all that knowledge, I’m trying to cultivate relationships and join associations where I can meet my buyers, which is a little bit different.
It was a mindset shift for me to realize, “Oh gosh, I need to be in different departments.” I don’t necessarily need to learn how to run Facebook ads—I already know how to do that. I know how to attract a B2B client and write a proposal. Now, I need to focus on getting in front of and building relationships with people who would need my services.
This is a switch I’ve been making over the last six to 12 months. It’s also one of the reasons why I’ve pulled back a bit. Earlier, we were chatting about conferences and whatnot—I was the girl who was at everybody’s event for the past few years. People in my circle know that if there’s an event, Kimberly’s going to show up. I’ll buy the ticket, and I’ll probably buy VIP because I like nice things and sitting up front.
But now, I realize that, as much as I love a lot of people in my community, I’ve outgrown some of the teaching in that space. For a long time, the people whose events I attended were 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 steps ahead of me. But now, my business has evolved and matured. I don’t necessarily need to learn from these folks anymore. I can support them as friends—and I love that—but now it’s about asking, “Okay, where can I go to meet my people?”
For me, because we work with corporations, we’re generally looking to connect with learning and development leaders, human resources, talent development, talent management, and sometimes talent acquisition. We’re also interested in HR or business leaders who are very passionate about learning and development. These connections help us get brought in for company-wide projects, or to start working with a team or an ERG group. So, I’m actively seeking opportunities to connect in those ways.
Naomi Haile: Beautiful. I’m so curious—when you first started transitioning, because I know you said you were fooling around on the internet, and I’m sure helping people in your full-time role, as well as people who would come to you on the side—when you started developing your company, what was the thesis you began to build around the problem and how your company would fill the gaps?
Kimberly Brown: In the early days, when I finally decided I was building a company that would merge my interests in wellness, lifestyle, and work-life balance with career and leadership, it was really about answering the question: How can you create a career that you love? I felt that if we’re spending 40-plus hours a week someplace and we don’t like it, our lives are going to suck. So how can we spend our time—our 40-plus hours—better? Most of us have to work; we’re not trust fund babies, right? So if we have to do this thing, how can we find some joy so that our lives can be better?
I remember doing this assessment called the Wheel of Life. I used to have a workshop called Stop Dreaming and Start Planning that I taught in person way back, starting in 2017. One of the first exercises we did was the Wheel of Life. Imagine a wheel, and each spoke in the wheel represents a category like finances, career, relationships, health—all the things. You give each category a rating. Toward the center of the wheel, the rating is pretty crummy; toward the outside, it’s pretty good.
The methodology is that, when all these different points in your life are jagged—like, you’ve got a one, a three, a seven, and then a one again—you can’t really roll on that wheel at all. It’s bumpy. But as you start to work on one area, it slowly starts to improve everything else. For many folks, career was one of the areas where they were like, “It’s a two, it’s a three, it’s a one—it’s not that great.” If you work on that, everything else starts to get a little better.
So that was my thesis: How can we improve this area that takes up 35 to 40-plus hours a week? Because if we can make it better, it will make everything else better too.
Naomi Haile: That’s interesting. I started doing that with my health. Now I’m on a consistent routine in terms of waking up early, going to the gym, spending an hour outside with my dog, and focusing on getting that right. Starting my mornings earlier—where I can actually meet the sun as it rises—helped me get everything else in order.
I hear you. I’m so curious about both the excitements and the hesitations you had about taking your skills directly to the marketplace. I know you were helping individuals through Career Services and higher education. Once you decided, “Oh, what would this look like to actually start my own company and position myself as the expert under Brown Leadership?”—was it a scary moment, or were you driven by the need to get your message out there and reach more people?
Kimberly Brown: Oh, no, I was scared out of my mind—figured out of my mind the entire time. After spending time in higher education, I think my last role there ended in January 2019. That’s when I resigned from Princeton and moved to American Express in corporate. I’d probably say that since 2018 or 2019, I was really thinking, “I need to do this full time.” I needed to do it full time because things from my business would occasionally overlap with my nine-to-five work.
I had great boundaries—so anyone listening, if you worked with me, please know I was doing my job—but every single time I had time off, my sick days, or my vacation time, I was working on my company. It was rare that I was actually on vacation. Instead, I was with a client or doing something else. Sometimes, during lunch, I was doing coaching calls. I was definitely that side hustler, using every free moment—getting up early before work, working during lunch, and then after work—just like they tell you to do. It was a lot.
I prayed this prayer, and I tell everyone, don’t pray this mess. It’s terrible. Don’t do it. I don’t believe in it. Ten out of ten, don’t recommend. But I said, “I’m never going to leave my full-time job unless I get to a point where I can’t do both.”
At the same time, I was building my career in higher ed. By 2019, I reached that point and moved to corporate, which was an amazing move for my development. I served as the Director of Global Diversity, Talent Acquisition Strategy. I got to work on the side of counseling but also on the side of organizations, learning what this looks like for the companies I now work with all the time. It was an amazing career move for me, but my business was still growing. By that point, I was referral-only—not intentionally, but just through public speaking and being active in professional associations. I always had a steady roster that kept building.
I had a coach who sat me down one time and said, “You have these goals for when you’ll resign, but did you ever think you might not be able to hit those goals because of your time? You’re expecting to make full-time income from your business while you already have a real job.” And they were right. I had a global team—I was up early in the morning to talk to India and late at night to talk to Australia. I managed eight people. At Amex, I didn’t even have the type of job where I could use my lunch for other things. I was always with my team or doing something else. I also traveled a lot in that role.
Things got really crazy. Even after I resigned in May 2021, I remember waking up every day for the first six months and thinking, “Oh my God, I have no job. I’m unemployed. I’m unemployed.” I’d have a moment of panic.
But I had amazing coaches. For every challenge I faced and every mindset hurdle I encountered, I didn’t have different coaches, but I had a network—a community of professionals and coaches who knew me intimately and could talk me off the ledge and support me. It was tough.
Thankfully, the brand I’d been building slowly over time allowed me to have a strong client base. Once I had more time—since 40-plus hours a week were no longer going to another company—I was able to scale up.
Naomi Haile: Yeah, so you spoke a little bit about the mindset shifts, and in your book, you talk about how one of the most critical shifts people need to make when advancing their careers is a mindset shift. You also mentioned how different it is depending on what stage of their career they’re in.
What is the mindset shift you’ve seen as necessary for someone to transition—whether it’s a new career path, feeling positioned and ready to negotiate a pay raise, or making any kind of positive career transformation? How do you guide clients through this transformation?
Kimberly Brown:
I think the mindset shift itself is that you have control over your career. I think we are taught—it’s ingrained—that things happen to you in the world of work.
Like, your job is to do the work, and if the company sees you or your boss sees you, then maybe you’ll get asked to have a promotion. And you just have to wait for folks to see you do great work.
I feel like it’s a very baby boomer mentality. I had baby boomer parents, and I remember my dad hammering it down, like, “Just do good work, stay on the horse, and good things will happen.” But we know now that’s not necessarily the case. You have to be an active participant.
I tell all my clients that I don’t care what type of career planning your company does. If they do it, great. If they don’t, it’s okay. You need to have your own career strategy independent of whatever the company has going on. The reality is that most companies’ career strategies—unless they’re one of the very few that really focus on this—are designed to keep you. They’re not going to acknowledge that there may come a time when you can’t or won’t work there anymore.
When I worked in higher ed, it wasn’t uncommon for directors of career services to stay 15, 20, even 30 years. These folks were often in their 40s or early 50s, and they weren’t leaving—they were going to stay and retire there. This trickled down to the associate directors, senior associates, and assistant directors. If you wanted to move up, you either had to wait in line and be happy staying exactly where you were, or you had to move. And in a lot of organizations, the culture is such that you may have to move to advance. But you can always come back if you love it that much.
Your career strategy needs to be for you, by you, and aligned with your career goals. Whether those goals are financial, status-based, about a specific role, or about an industry, your career strategy needs to reflect that.
That’s the process I really bring my clients through: how to build a career strategy that aligns with who you are and what you want to do at this time. But I also say to leave some room for magic, because you can set all the amazing goals in the world, be ready for them, and then something magical can happen.
For me, that magic happened when I moved to American Express. I was set on being a Director of Career Services, but those searches weren’t going well. When I was at the point of interviewing to be a director, I was top two, but I was number two. I was not number one, like Beyoncé, and I was getting frustrated. It wasn’t okay. And then some magic happened, and that’s how I made the transition.
I had to ask myself, “Can I do this? Am I qualified? Do I want to do this? Am I interested?” I made the move, and it changed the trajectory of my business and my work. It was probably one of the best moves I ever made. To this day, I loved that job. I wouldn’t have left if my business hadn’t gotten to the point where I could no longer do both.
For me, I knew I didn’t want to make my business smaller to accommodate a larger corporate life. I’d rather give myself the chance to succeed in my business.
If I failed, I had great mentors, coaches, and bosses who I’ve worked with, and if I needed a job, I was pretty sure I could get one. It might take time to figure out what I wanted to do, but I could go back and get a job.
But I’d be more upset if I didn’t try my business. That fear and regret would have eaten me alive if I had decided in that moment to make it smaller and do less to accommodate building another company.
Naomi Haile: That needs a moment to just let it sink in. That’s powerful. Kimberly, thanks for sharing that and where you were as you were thinking through your decision.
I just delivered a talk last week at Columbia University, and one of my main points was about expanding how you use your gifts—whether that’s through your business or whatever. Your purpose is not limited by a job. I love how you emphasize that even if your organization doesn’t have a career development plan for you, you need to be thinking beyond a specific role, right?
One thing you shared was that speaking about your skill set is not bragging, and you talked about the boomer advice you got from your dad. I love how, in the book, you bring that up over and over again strategically. Talk to me about why it’s important to get comfortable with unapologetically sharing the gifts you’ve acquired from your experiences.
Kimberly Brown:
No one is ever going to share your skills and experience better than you. They can try, but it’s your experience. You have to get comfortable talking about your skills, your interests, your passions, and your goals, because that’s the only way you’re able to create opportunities for yourself.
One of the things I always say is I want you to create a career that creates opportunities for itself. That means you’re always actively making connections with people, organizations, and companies to create those opportunities for yourself. And to do that, you have to be the one—the catalyst, the person behind it—and they have to know what you want, what you do, and what you’re capable of.
I don’t know where, back in the day, we turned personal branding or promoting yourself into this nasty thing. It makes us think about back in the day, like if you knew someone who sold Cutco knives, or Mary Kay, or Avon, knocking at the door. I don’t know where we turned it into feeling like that. But I tell folks, it’s not bragging if it’s a fact. You can share your skills, your expertise, and your experience in a meaningful way, and it’s not bragging—it’s simply educating someone on who you are.
One of the examples I always give, especially to younger students—but I think most people who’ve gone to college can understand this metaphor—is when I was an RA, a resident assistant, in college. They made us work for that free room and board! We had to do three sets of door tags with names on theme, and we had to do three or four different types of programming, like social, cultural, and emotional wellness. I forget all the categories now, but at Long Island University, they had such a rigor of things you had to do every single semester to maintain your status as an RA.
So when I see RAs, I always assume they did the most—like me. I assume they did the most. But when you talk to people at different schools, it’s completely different. At some schools, it was just, like, “Please, I don’t want to hear it, see it, smell it, or get a complaint about it.” If those things didn’t happen, that was all they had to do. Maybe write a little report if something happened, but they didn’t have to do all the things we had to do.
I always share that example because when I see someone who was an RA, especially when I’m hiring for entry-level roles, I think, “Ooh, you were doing the most. You at least had to manage multiple things and juggle a lot.” But not everyone thinks that way. Most people think the worst. Most people assume you didn’t do as much or to the same level they did.
That’s why you have to be comfortable speaking about yourself. So no one is assuming what you did—you’re educating them on what your experience was. And that’s how they should be thinking about you, supporting you, mentoring you, and so on.
Naomi Haile: That’s a great frame, yeah, to approach it. At what stage of your life did this truly click for you—that it was an education piece, as opposed to feeling weird or shameful about promoting yourself and your gifts.
Kimberly Brown: So probably when I made the transition from higher ed into corporate America, it became the most apparent. In higher ed, I had built an established brand. I spoke at conferences, and I’d worked at two Ivy League schools, so I had, like, a “pedigree.” When you work at the Ivies in higher ed, people just assume that you’re doing amazing things, period. If you work at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn—any of them—it’s like, “Oh no, you clearly do great work,” even if you haven’t done anything significant in five years. People assume that whatever you’re doing is better than working at another school.
From a hiring standpoint, people in higher ed always assume the best. Plus, I was always speaking at conferences, so I had a really strong brand. But when I transitioned into corporate America, there was this notion that if you’ve worked in nonprofit or higher ed, it’s “soft.” People naturally assume you don’t work at a certain speed or with a certain rigor.
I don’t know why that is because, honestly, in higher ed, we probably worked harder. We had less money, less funding, fewer resources, and had to do so much more with less. Yet, I got so many questions about whether I could get up to speed and work in a fast-paced environment. I really had to break it down and say, “No, no. Based on my experience doing A, B, C, and D, I can absolutely do X, Y, and Z, and here’s what that would look like if I were hired.”
I even got asked to come back for another final interview just to reiterate that I’d be able to make the transition because it was so different from where I’d been. I used to joke, “Did y’all think I was just baking brownies and celebrating birthdays every day?” And to be fair, in higher ed, the birthday celebrations were top-notch. They’re great at passing the card around for birthdays, condolences, or congratulations. That doesn’t always happen in every corporate environment, but in every higher ed office I’ve been in, it’s a thing.
But I think they assumed that’s all we were doing, not necessarily working toward KPIs and other measurable outcomes. That’s when I really learned to speak up more authoritatively about my experience.
As a business owner, you also have to learn to speak differently about the work you do because entrepreneurship is sexy, and a lot of people have a business. A lot of people are doing things.
But the question my girlfriends and I always talk about is, “Who’s actually done things?” A lot of people can be building, doing, or ideating, and I see this a lot in startup communities. But it’s like, okay, who’s actually raised funding? Who actually has an MVP? Who’s had paying clients? Who has paid taxes on their business because they’ve reached a certain revenue level? That’s a very different answer from someone who’s doing business for fun.
And there’s no shade either way—it’s just the reality. The same thing applies to the RA example. We both got free tuition, whether you had to make door tags or not, and we were happy.
It’s about learning how to tell your story in a way that provides the receipts for yourself, rather than expecting someone else to find them. In both corporate and entrepreneurship, people aren’t necessarily going to look for your receipts. They’ll look for them if you mess up—so they can cancel you—but they won’t look at the beginning when they’re deciding to hire or work with you.
So, you have to make sure you’re sharing your story.
Naomi Haile: Brilliant. I’m so curious, with the range of clients you work with and serve—for those who potentially have a full-time job and are also doing the things you mentioned in your previous answer, like side-hustling or balancing other commitments—does the way you consult with them look different?
Does your approach differ for people who have more of a portfolio career—doing a bunch of things—versus someone looking to stay in corporate, climb the corporate ladder, or transition into more lateral roles? How would you advise them differently?
Kimberly Brown: I’m not sure if it necessarily looks different, but I like to clarify: What are your goals in general? What are your goals in your nine-to-five? What are your goals in your side hustle or your business? What does it look like in five years or ten years? Where do you want to be, and how can we build that vision and then reverse engineer it?
I think there are people who have a nine-to-five and absolutely love it, and we need people who love a nine-to-five. Let’s just be very honest there. We need folks who want to work in a corporate environment and kill it. But do you want to continue to build in that career? And even in that, do you want to climb the corporate ladder? Do you want to move from a manager to a senior manager to a director to a VP? Do you want to do that? Or are you really good where you are right now because you like the work-life balance?
A lot of times, when I’m coaching women and we’re talking about family planning, it’s like, okay, when does it make the most sense? I teach people to think: Is it your hustle season, or is it your rest season? And there are some folks out there who can do both—trust, I’ve tried—but I always end up burning out. I like to be intentional. Is this the time when we are gunning for a promotion, or are there other life things happening? Are you trying to have a baby? Are you recently married and want to enjoy your life? Do you want to take all your PTO this year? Do you have a sick parent? Do you want to build this business, so you need more of a rest season, where you keep your job at status quo so that you have more time mentally and physically to work on this outside venture?
And then when we’re thinking about your business—if you have a business or a side hustle—I ask folks: Is this something that you want to be full-time, or is it something that you want to be less than full-time? And if less than full-time, what does that look like?
For me, it’s all about how do we get clear on what the goals are so we can decide what the ideal picture looks like. I have an exercise called the ideal day that I love doing with folks, and we can do ideal day, ideal week, and it really helps you envision what does your ideal day feel like when you’ve achieved your goals. And once we know that and feel that, then how can we reverse engineer to make that happen?
And for a lot of folks, it’s hard. And I don’t think it’s about, like, “Oh, I have to not do this dream or not do this dream,” but it’s about building that career strategy, building that timeline, that roadmap of what this looks like for you, and also being okay with what the consequences are if you try and do both.
And as someone who, you know, is a little crazy and has definitely tried to do both, you have to know what that looks like. When I was doing both at its fullest capacity, I burned out. I woke up every day, and I remember giving myself time to cry because I was so overwhelmed. So, if I had a call at 9, I knew, get to your desk and check your email, go through things by 8:15 to 8:30, so that you can panic before 9 o’clock. Because I had no life. I was always on a call, always working, always traveling.
So, everybody’s capacity is different, but I hit what my capacity was at that time, and I started leaking. I got sick. I was tired. So sure, like, if you want to have it all—your definition of all—and you want to hustle on both sides, go ahead. I will help you build that plan to hustle. But hustling has consequences.
And I love that, like, the new generation and I think the conversations over the past few years, there’s been a lot about work-life balance, a lot about capacity. I love that that’s more present now than I think it used to be, where it just used to be, like, of course, you’re at work till 9 o’clock at night. You need to work on a Saturday? Go ahead and work on a Saturday. Like how people used to treat interns back in the day? Yeah, it was egregious. Like, really, like, work all the time for no money. That was the standard.
I like that we talk about that now, so I try and educate my clients on, let’s figure out what your goals are and what does it look like to build that. And then, before we start building, what actually is going to feel good to you? Because everybody is a little different. Yeah.
Naomi Haile: And to that point, like, also having the language for communicating your boundaries, I feel like that’s expanded so much over the years.
This has been great. Thank you, Kimberly. I think your storytelling and the way that you communicate ideas is so beautiful, and I can see how I can immediately apply it. I hope for those listening, you grab a copy of the book and, through this interview, have found different ways of, like, integrating it into your decision-making.
The final question I have is about what you’re keeping your eye on in your industry. How do you see things, because there are so many shifts—labor market shifts, changes in the economy, politically—and how do you see these things impacting, in a positive and negative way, the work that you do?
Kimberly Brown: So I’ll just give the caveat that I pay attention, but don’t pay too much attention. I like to be a little aware, but not so aware that I’m always shifting what I want to do or what I know to be true. I think it’s very easy to get influenced and very easy to overhaul something that maybe doesn’t need overhauling. You can enhance what you know to be true, but when you’re over-influenced or there’s too much noise coming toward you, it can be distracting.
So I’ll just say that for me, when I think about my industry and talent development, a lot of companies are talking about microlearning and AI. How can we embrace AI in the workplace, and what does it look like to use AI in a technology-approved way for your organization? Because the reality is employees are going to start using it anyway. Even if you try to block tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or others, they’re going to find ways to use them. So the question is: how are we using AI in a meaningful way and teaching employees through microlearning?
How can we teach people things in little snippets? How can we break a concept down and give people these teachings in a way that’s meaningful, exciting, and drives action? Because we know attention spans are shorter. But I would say, personally, even knowing that, I feel like Brown Leadership is going a little more old school because we’re seeing better results.
I’m actually in the process of revamping our curriculums for a lot of the work we’ve done. I created a whole Excel file, and it turns out there are 40-something workshops and trainings we’ve done. We have a library that we augment, change, and tweak for our clients. But now I’m going back through and determining: what are the core workshops we get booked for the most, the ones that are the most engaging, and the ones that are the most needed?
We’re creating workbooks, worksheets, and doing things a little differently. We’re pushing to do more in-person sessions, more off-sites. My favorite clients right now are the ones where we’re doing one- or two-day workshops, at minimum three hours, where we’re forcing employees to get out of their regular environments and come learn something in a different way.
So, as much as I know microlearning is a thing—and yes, we do microlearning too, I totally get it—we’re also looking at how we can create behavior change as fast as possible. We’re seeing that companies who create dedicated time for their employees and go a little more old school versus relying on digital learning are seeing better results and more behavior change.
So we’re doing more of that. It’s counterintuitive to what the industry is doing, but it’s working, and I love it. So while I know what’s happening and can do that, I’m probably going to lean toward doing what I like better.
Naomi Haile: Yeah, and I love how you’re collecting the data on the back end to see, “Okay, this is how we can optimize. This is where we should lean in.” And you, as an expert, can advise these leaders on what they should do. That’s great.
What’s the best way for people to support your work?
Kimberly Brown: I’m everywhere! You can go to www.KimberlyBOnline.com or find me at KimberlyBOnline on all social platforms. The company website is www.BrownLeadership.com.
I’m always available if you have a question or follow-up. I always say, send me a voice note on LinkedIn—I love that the mobile feature has that! So if you go on mobile and look me up, send me a voice note. If you have a follow-up question, I’d love to answer. You’ll hear back from me within probably 24 to 72 business hours.
Naomi Haile:I love it. I love it. Thank you! Thank you to everyone who tuned into this episode of The Power of Why podcast. Thank you to Kimberly Brown for being here today. I absolutely loved this episode, and we will catch you in the next episode of The Power of Why podcast.
Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube
Connect with Kimberly
Personal Website: www.kimberlybonline.com
Company Website: www.brownleadership.com/
Book: Next Move, Best Move: Transitioning into a Career You’ll Love
LinkedIn: Kimberly Brown
Podcast: Your Next Move
Connect with Naomi
Website: naomihaile.com
LinkedIn: Naomi Haile
Instagram: @naomiahaile
Twitter: @naomiathaile