You cannot develop resilience if you never try anything. If there is no risk of failure, there is no possibility of developing resilience.
Work on your speed. It is okay to feel all the feelings after you fall but make it a goal to get quicker and picking yourself up and moving forward.
Get intentional about building resilience. If you are not focused on building this character trait, you will not. So, focus on it purposefully.
Surround yourself with other people taking risks and doing big things. Normalizing resilience only comes from surrounding yourself with resilient people who will inspire you.
Celebrate when you have shown resilience!
In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of resilience among successful business leaders. Resilience is one characteristic that many successful leaders share in common, and in many cases it is the most important trait necessary to survive and thrive in today’s complex market.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Kelly Roach.
Business strategist Kelly Roach transforms overworked entrepreneurs into seven-figure CEOs, by teaching them how to leverage timeless business principles, employed by billion-dollar corporations, with the speed and agility of the most powerful online marketing strategies of today. Prior to starting her own company, Kelly spent years in corporate America, rising through the ranks of a Fortune 500 to become the youngest VP in the company. Kelly is not only a best-selling author but is also an ongoing television business expert.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?
Growing up just above the poverty line, in a family of 5, I decided early on that things would be different for me and my children. I worked hard growing up, scrubbing toilets to pay for dance lessons, and working multiple jobs in college. After graduation, I got an entry level job in sales, for a Fortune 500 company. In eight years, I was promoted seven times to become the youngest VP in the company. I led my team through the recession of 08’-10’, without letting a single person go. In fact, we had record breaking sales that year. As I was climbing the corporate ladder, I realized that I was making millions of dollars, working 60+ hours a week, for OTHER people. When I thought about what I wanted in terms of lifestyle, that was not it. So, I started my business on the side, while continuing to work my corporate job, and built that company for two years before quitting. I relied on lots of hard work, my sales skills, and an unstoppable mindset to help me build what is now a multimillion-dollar business coaching company with over 500 clients, across the globe.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
So, this technically happened just before I started my career, but was a defining moment for me. At the time, I was a Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleader, and the year I joined, instead of doing their traditional swimsuit calendar, they decided to do a lingerie shoot instead. I knew that I wanted to build a career in business and that this shoot could do long-term damage to my career, so opted-out. The consequence? Missing out on an incredible trip to a tropical location, and all kinds of media and opportunities that came from the shoot (for the other girls). While I did not know exactly what my future career would look like, I knew that this was not a smart long-term play for me. That decision shaped how I made decisions for the rest of my career. I was able to handle the consequences and am now so thankful I made that choice, way back when!
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I think the thing that makes my company stand out is that we are obsessed with getting out clients’ results. A lot of coaches in the online space are more concerned with making things easier for themselves. Our company is willing to go above and beyond to make sure our clients have what they need for absolute success. We are not willing to let go of human interaction for the sake of ease and automation. We are there for our clients and constantly improving the program so they will never need to go anywhere else.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
My first mentor in the Fortune 500 world challenged me beyond belief. He was the toughest coach and hardest “boss” you could ever imagine. He saw the potential in me before I saw it in myself and pushed me to be my absolute best. He was the first person to encourage me to think big and begin to chart my own path to greatness. Many others who had the same opportunity to coach with him mistook the high bar he set for them as “unreasonable” and “too tough”, For me, he was a catalyst for achieving my highest potential and for that I will forever be grateful.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?
Resilience is the ability to pick yourself back up when you fall. It is bouncing back and moving forward after failure. Resilient people are the ones willing to take risks, willing to put themselves out there, willing to fall and scrape their knees, then get right back up again and try again. Resilient people are persistent, focused, and unstoppable.
When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?
When I think of resilience, I think of all the business owners who just experienced the pandemic and economic crisis who have had to pivot and get creative. It is exciting for me to see the innovation and tenacity as they adapt to thrive in a changing economy.
Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?
When I started out in my Fortune 500 career, there were several HUGE players in my area that the sales team in my company had gone after for years before I got there. I made it my goal to land those companies from day one, but a manager of mine told me to forget about it. People had been trying to sign those big dogs for years with no luck. So, I worked even harder to prove him wrong. Within a year, I had signed every single one of them.
Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?
Early on in my business I had to learn this entirely new online world. I had been incredibly successful in my career. I was smart, capable, and knew how to sell. I worked insanely hard. But, when I did my very first webinar to launch my first offer, it fell flat. I did not make a single sale. Now, looking back, I know that I did not have the audience or authority to make that work. But that taught me that even when you work incredibly hard for something, there are no guarantees it will work. I did not let that stop me though. Even though I had poured so much into that first attempt to no avail, I kept going. There were plenty of other failure after that, but today my company is near the 8-figure mark and we have created a launch strategy that works not only for us, but for our clients and followers as well.
Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share a story?
Growing up my family did not have a lot of money. I learned early on that if I wanted anything in life, I was going to have to get scrappy and work for it. So, I did. I cleaned the dance studio to pay for dance lessons. I went to a local college because it was inexpensive. I walked into a Philadelphia Eagles cheer tryout as a college freshman and made the team. I developed an enormous amount of grit and went after everything I wanted, because if I did not, it just was not going to happen for me.
Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.
- You cannot develop resilience if you never try anything. If there is no risk of failure, there is no possibility of developing resilience.
- Work on your speed. It is okay to feel all the feelings after you fall but make it a goal to get quicker and picking yourself up and moving forward.
- Get intentional about building resilience. If you are not focused on building this character trait, you will not. So, focus on it purposefully.
- Surround yourself with other people taking risks and doing big things. Normalizing resilience only comes from surrounding yourself with resilient people who will inspire you.
- Celebrate when you have shown resilience!
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would love to see more entrepreneurs leveraging their earnings to give back. Last year I moved my coaching company to a 1:1 giving model. For every new client we add to one of our coaching programs, we donate to the foundation I started, that has three core focuses for philanthropy. I believe that if people are equipped to find financial freedom for themselves, that they can leverage that freedom to make a huge impact on the world. So, as I coach entrepreneurs, my hope is that more of them will adopt this model and leave a legacy that goes far beyond making lots of money.
We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂
Oprah Winfrey is the most fascinating businessperson that is ever lived. There’s been almost no unpacking of how she became what she is. This is something that should be studied for generations because clearly, she has an understanding of business building and brand, and authenticity, and reinvention, and overcoming obstacles, and determination that the average person can’t begin to comprehend. I would love the opportunity to explore, and uncover and understand her perspective on business specifically, and learn from her and her success.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
You can connect with me inside my free Facebook group: The Tribe of Unstoppables where my team and I go live with highly valuable weekly trainings on everything from social selling to messaging, to packaging and pricing you online offers. You can also check out my podcast, The Unstoppable Entrepreneur Show, wherever you listen to podcasts! I have got 5 years of weekly episodes available for binging!
You can also follow me on:
Instagram — @kellyroachofficial
TikTok — @kellyroachofficial
Twitter — @kellyroachlive
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Author Kelly Roach: Rising Through Resilience; Five Things You Can Do To Become More Resilient was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
