Today we’d like to introduce you to KC Sullivan.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
“What’s personal is universal.” It took me a while to truly understand this saying, yet it’s the simplest way to explain how my business and life’s passion came to be.
At the cusp of me coming out of some of my darkest personal struggles with lack of confidence and true self-loathing in the mirror I looked around and realized there are tens of thousands of others also struggling with this same plight. Our specific journeys might look very different, but my pain was the same as the pain of many others.
Some back story for context:
(The Personal Journey) In my early 20s, I had the opportunity to model for a couple of years. Although that might sound glamorous to many, I can assure you that for me, the glamorous perks did not outweigh the negatives.
At almost 6ft tall and 113 lbs when I started modeling, I was already riddled with body insecurities thus having my whole job be based on other people telling me I was or wasn’t worthy of a paycheck based on my looks just threw gasoline on the embers of body image struggles I hadn’t yet recognized.
After 2 years and countless crazy stories I’ll have to share in a book someday, I “resigned” from my modeling career and threw myself into my true passion, fashion design. Once again ignoring the internal trauma that had further been done to my self-confidence and body image.
Fashion design school was everything I wanted it to be. I knew that was exactly what I was supposed to be doing. After several fabulous internships with local designers and a short time at Versace working in visual merchandising, I found myself working freelance in wardrobe and styling for TV and Film. I loved it! I just knew in my soul that was my career path.
However, unknown to me that path would be shortlived, for my health quickly took a turn.
In less than a year I was suffering from chronic severe pain, inflammation, digestive issues, lung issues, and a 100-pound weight gain to name a few things. I went to every specialist and dr that would see me both in traditional western medicine, as well as other practitioners in natural medicine, acupuncture, and beyond.
Regardless of the physical pain, what affected me most I could have never expected nor prepared for. My mental and emotional well-being took a massive blow. Throughout my career and life experience, I’d unknowingly tied my entire self-worth to my reflection in the mirror.
When that changed drastically beyond my control, I quickly turned my body image insecurities into complete shame and self-loathing. I would look at myself in the mirror in utter disgust and”knew” that I no longer had any value to offer anyone because of the way I looked.
My friendships, my career, and my life as a whole suffered immensely from a total lack of self-confidence and worth. Yet I wasn’t yet able to see how my mental and emotional well-being had affected me just as much if not more than my true physical health problems.
After many failed attempts to gain control of my health, I moved from Los Angeles back to my childhood home in Texas to have family support while I continued to pursue medical answers.
For the sake of time here, I’ll spare you the details, but just know I had not yet hit rock bottom in my journey of shame and worthlessness due to poor body image.
Over the next several years, I pursued answers to my health to no avail. I resigned to the belief that regardless of my talent I could never go back into fashion work officially because I was too ugly and fat for the industry. I went back to school and got a BA in rehabilitation services where I organically began to understand the importance of mental and emotional health in conjunction with physical health.
Through my studies, I started to do the self-work it took to rebuild my body image from an internal perspective rather than from the silent screaming judgment of a scale. I started owning the fact that I knew fashion really well and I loved it; regardless of my size, I could create outfits that made me feel joy again. Utilizing wardrobe as a powerful tool to gain back confidence while I continued to heal my mental injuries around my body image and worth.
(The Universal Struggle) I was working in the non-profit sector finally feeling like I had my life back even though I was still struggling with chronic health issues. Randomly a friend asked if I could help another friend of hers find a dress for a special event… “Um no I don’t work in fashion anymore,” I thought, but I said yes for some reason anyway.
Turns out this wasn’t just dress shopping, this was an epiphany in the making.
I lovingly refer to her as my 1st accidental client because she was indeed looking for a dress for a special event, but she was struggling because her body image was sabotaged by cultural beauty standards. She was a breast cancer survivor and post double mastectomy her body was adorned with multiple scars and altered breasts. Something I considered a beautiful story of her strength and triumph, but she viewed as ugly flaws that stripped her of her femininity and beauty.
It hit me so hard. I knew the mental anguish she was in. I understood the war her confidence was having with her reflection in the mirror. Her story looked very different than mine, but her pain was the same.
That experience was the catalyst for my business now known as Curating Confidence. An experience designed to revolutionize an individual’s self-confidence and personal style in order to emerge as the leaders that they are capable of being in their career and life. Ultimately my goal is to literally curate confidence and change culture in which we approach beauty expectations for ourselves.
Over the past couple of years, I have developed and adapted my client offerings from just wardrobe styling to intentional body image and confidence coaching in conjunction with the wardrobe curation. The experiences are designed to help you self accept, to build sustainable confidence from the inside out no matter where your body currently is in your journey.
When you show up truly ready to invest in yourself at this level, powerful transformations begin. Allowing you to reframe the negative and amplify your influence, your impact, and even your income.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’ve always enjoyed rollercoasters at the amusement park but riding one daily definitely can seem more stressful than fun. Having this idea was one thing, but bringing it to fruition and creating a client-serving and sustainable business has truly been next level in terms of challenges.
First and foremost, the challenge was letting go of my ego enough to be vulnerable. To share my personal journey. To openly talk about the hard things, the things I’m not always proud of in order to meet my audience and clients in the places they most need. To own the potential embarrassment I may feel talking about some of these personal things and know that my mission and purpose with this work out weights my embarrassment at that moment.
Also, I stepped into this journey still working through my own confidence struggles; so while creating this business, I was still overcoming my own demons and knowing that I probably always will be working on bettering myself. And that’s ok because I have come to understand that living in the discomfort of personal growth only continues to make my ability to create a true impact for my clients even greater.
Oh and let’s not overlook the challenge of business ownership in general. I can say that the movie “Field Of Dreams” lied to me…it is not as simple as “Build it, they will come.” Everything from creating client experiences to proper pricing and definitely marketing to the right people takes practice, execution in the face of uncertainty, the willingness to be wrong, and the grit to keep trying regardless.
As a newbie to the business ownership world, I can say that is so important for you to be able to find lessons in the failures, silver linings in tough days, humor in the sheer absurdity of occasional circumstances, and success in things other than a paycheck. (particularly in the beginning)
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
From a 30,000 ft view, I do a multitude of things.
I am a style curator. This work is where I collaborate with my clients to curate an authentic, sustainable and confidence-inspiring wardrobe. Allowing them to show up visually powerful in any circumstance.
I am an educature; teaching my clients how to dress for their current body, how to buy pieces they actually love, how to save money when shopping, how to streamline their morning routine to save them time and energy, and how to let go of the unused excess that’s collecting dust in their closet in order to eradicate clutter both physically and mentaly.
I am a coach and all-around encourager. Guiding clients through some really tough areas of body image and lack of self-confidence. Providing them a supportive and safe place to do really vulnerable work, that emboldens them to win the mental war in the mirror and go after their next-level goals.
Mostly, I’m a disrupter of current cultural beauty standards.
I’m most proud of the hybrid client experiences that I offer. A combination of confidence coaching and style curation. Working to revolutionize my client’s internal self-confidence in conjunction with their personal style. Creating a 360*, from the inside out, Glow-up. Sheparding them to amplify their voice, their influence, their impact, and often their income and to finally become the confident leader in their own life.
What sets me apart?
I’ve walked through every step of this often painful journey. I have been in those dark mental places of self-discontent. I understand how they can dirupt and hold you back from your potential and life. I also know what it looks like to come out the other side. I know the steps it takes to get there. And because of this, I know how to love you where you’re at and how to share my confidence in you while we work on curating your own.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
“Without risk, there’s no reward.” I have no idea who to credit that coined phrase for, but I’m betting (as the risk taker I am) that most of us have heard it at some point. In a way, I think it’s very true, but I also believe there are other factors than just “risk = (potential) reward.”
I do consider myself a risk-taker. At certain points, they’re more calculated risks and other times they’re “screw it I’ll figure it out on the way down” type risks. It comes down to what I place value in more at that time.
For example, I went skydiving with some friends onto a beach in Australia. It was a calculated risk. I knew I’d have a parachute, I knew I’d be diving in tandem with someone that was incredibly experienced. But at the end of the day, I was still trusting all these factors to get me safely down from 15,000 ft in the air. I collected the data and took a calculated risk that made sense for my personal priorities.
I also at 20 years old went 1/2 way across the world to walk runways in Paris because an opportunity presented itself. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know anything about the industry and I didn’t know how to find out anything about it really before I left. I didn’t think I was pretty. I couldn’t really tell you why I said yes. Yet, I boarded a plane with no collected data but instead on the thought “what if? It could go great and I’m modeling in Paris. or… It could go bad and I’ll figure it out then.” This was not a calculated risk, but I took it anyway because at that time in my life I knew priorities and goals, I knew they weren’t happening where I was and regardless of the outcome I knew the risk was worth it to me at that time.
So my perspective on risk is, to know your goals, your priorities, your values, assess what you can, and depending on that decide if where you’re at vs where you’re wanting to go is worth the risk to you. People’s lives, circumstances, and priorities are so different there’s no one true answer for risk-taking.
But I will say if your attempts are always the same and always getting you the same lackluster results, maybe it’s time to try something else.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.curatingconfidence.com/
- Instagram: curating_confidence
- Facebook: Curating Confidence
- Other: https://allmylinks.com/curatingconfidence
Image Credits
Photo credits: Katie Johnson Ms. Red Udo Cody Perez
