This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Kelly Falardeau. Kelly is one of the most sought-after speakers out there today. Rated as a Top 10 Most Powerful and influential Speaker, she has graced international stages all over the world and is a 5x Best-Selling author.
At age 2, Kelly was in a tragic accident that severely burned 75% of her body. She endured numerous surgeries but was left with scars on most of her body. Growing up, she as bullied, made fun of, and ostracized for looking different leading her to feeling unwanted, un-ashamed, and unloved. She endured once again discovering true self-love and as she says, turned her scars into stars, and is now widely successful.
Kelly has proven that no matter where you come from or what happens to you – you can succeed and thrive and I’m excited for her to share all her wisdom with you in this episode.
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Kelly was burned over most of her body when she was 2 years old when a spark from a fire caught her dress on fire. She was in the hospital for 4 months being in the operating room every two days. Every two years after that until she was 20, she had to go back for more surgeries. Because of this, she never thought she’d have a good life and that she would be the “ugly, scar-face, girl.”
When she was 16, she would pray to God asking for him not to let her wake up in the morning, but if she did could she be scarless and pretty like the other girls. Of course, she would wake up and they would still be there. She thought that if her doctor could not take them away or God could not, she was destined to be ugly forever and would not get married or have kids, etc.
Despite all of this, she did end up getting married and having a daughter. She was so excited to have a daughter without scars. She had a miscarriage and then got pregnant again and had twin boys.
She had a home-based scrapbooking business that wasn’t very successful when a friend told her to go to an event. Her friend told her to get rid of the business and be a speaker and the event would help her.
During this time, she was almost bankrupt, her husband was laid off and her marriage wasn’t doing well. She saw her life as a failure. Her friend got her to event and got her on stage to speak and people had a great reaction to her story. She went home and told her husband that she was going to be a speaker. He husband, “Who is going to listen to you?” She didn’t know but knew it could happen. Her husband basically told her it was a waste of time and that it wouldn’t work.
The next day everything changed. She met a lady that was speaking and at the end of her speech, she offered a coaching program to teach people to become keynote speakers. Kelly knew this was her opportunity but had no money to pay for the coaching. The lady told her could pay over time and that normally, people came to her to get coached, but if Kelly could 10 people locally to sign up for coaching, she would come there. Kelly worked with others to get the 10. This was the start of her speaking and best-selling authoring career.
Was there a catalyst for you? What there a moment when you found your voice or flipped the switch?
Everyone had scars in some way, shape or form. How do we turn our “scars into starts” isolating these things and use them as fuel to succeed?
7 ways to embrace the real you? Can you share those?
No risk, no reward – what that mean to you and what it should it mean to us?
At the 33 min mark, Kelly talks about how her experience has made her a better entrepreneur…
Advice for entrepreneurs just starting out?
Best Quote: We all have either internal and external scars, or both in some way. It is totally up to us to decide what we are going to do with them. You can take your scars and use them for something great.
Kelly's Misfit 3:
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