From Pressure to Presence: Kiana Webb on Leading Beyond the Ego

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My, my internal compass says that those things that are hard and challenging are not defining me, and they're not going to be something that stops me from being great. It just helps shape and mold me like they did when I was a kid. They're still doing it as an adult. They're shaping and molding me for the next stage and iteration of whatever is to come. Those challenges For me are a gift. The hard days are a gift just as much as the easy ones.

Step into the world of success with Your Brand Amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I'm your host, Anika Jackson, and I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies, and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. Before we even jumped on for this interview, my interview with Kiana Webb, I had a sense of peace and fulfillment, and that is what I think our conversation today will bring to you, everybody who's listening or watching this episode. Kiana, I'm thrilled to have you here. You have Glorious Arisings, but before that, you were CEO of Webb Family Enterprises, running 17 McDonald's franchises?

Uh-huh. At the height, yes.

Wow. Operational. People-first business scale. And now you lead a company around personal transformation, human flourishing, and you also had an app launch in April.

I did.

So what an interesting arc. But yet one thing I'm seeing more people in business go to is feeling like they need to be connected and connect with humanity and connect with who they are inside, not just the trappings that we have of the outside world. So I'm really excited to dig into everything about you, but I know there's one question that you like to be asked, and I thought this was such an amazing question to start with. How is your heart doing today?

Okay. Well, first of all, my heart is doing extraordinarily well. It's like singing. I'm so happy to be here. I too felt really good when we first met. It was like I, I knew you. I was like, oh, this is comfortable. And it goes so present and loving. So I just wanted to honor that part.

Thank you.

Thank you. But it's interesting because my heart isn't like it always has to be full of joy and love. It's just the energy that brings that and peace. So before I came on, I had a really loving but challenging conversation, and I said, okay, I'm going to take this moment to settle in and be really present with that, but also be full love. in all of it. So I feel more connected to love than normal actually right now. I love that.

And I have to say, when you came on, I saw your background, it was a big yes. And you can see a little bit, I don't, not always in this spot, but I love being surrounded by art and my art all has some movement in it. And what I see behind you is also movement and energy and I can see some of your crystals. You have some really big pieces and that brings me so much joy as well. So, you know, this isn't a normal way I would open this particular podcast, but I did think that was important because it honors the work that you do now. So before we get to that, let's talk about even earlier than the franchises, your dad, corporate executive to entrepreneur.

Yes.

When you were young, what did that teach you?

It taught me that your circumstances don't define you. Like my dad grew up very poor. He didn't have a college degree, and he rapidly transcended in McDonald's. And it was who he was as a human being in a time where African American men or women were not in the corporate world hardly at all. So it was wonderful for me to experience it from that lane. But also he was someone who really wanted to nurture you in your own career. So my whole life, from the time I was 3 or 4, I remember attending meetings and being present. So he was nurturing me for the role that I had. Running the family business since I was young, all the way until this transition and having started my own.

What a beautiful model that was for you. I think that's so much of what we hear is we need to see people who look like us modeling things that we can then aspire to be and do. Yeah. And you got both of them, that caring side, the whole person side, but then also the business acumen.

All of it. He was really good when we would leave meetings saying, what did you think? What did you hear? He would ask me questions and tell me what he wanted before we walked into a meeting, and then we would have a recap about it. So it was, it wasn't so much for me to think like him, it was teaching me how to think critically and come to my own answers and not be afraid to speak them out loud. So that was very helpful.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yes. I'm just, I mean, it's funny because I'm, we literally just are meeting, but I'm so proud of that experience that you had. Is that weird to have pride in somebody else's experience and growth?

I think it lives in you. So whatever lives in you is perfect. Like, it's like it's meant to be. So thank you. I received that with love.

And you then went on to build your own credibility running Web Family Enterprises.

Yes.

Franchises, people, systems, developing talent. And you didn't just take people who were in that prime on paper perfect for those positions. You worked with people from all backgrounds. So can you talk a little bit about that and how you deliberately used your model and perhaps the model that you also saw to create that success in that business?

Okay. Well, let me go back to, I grew up pretty affluent. Like, I didn't realize that, but I did. And so I would walk into rooms with sometimes billionaires and multi-multi-millionaires, and then I would come home and be in my restaurants, and I was with people who were homeless and employees who didn't have much. And no matter what, I was staring in the face of humanity and people's insecurities and upsets and Love and desire to have more. So it really helped me develop into a person that didn't wanna see people based upon what they did or what they had. It was who they are. And McDonald's is great at systems, and I'm a systems thinker. So the systems really help shape how I can create new things systematically that can be in the benefit of humans, right? So while we were in the last say 5 to 10 years of my time at McDonald's, it was important to me that we created upward mobility for people. So we started a program that said, okay, in alignment with what McDonald's was offering at that time, we are going to encourage every high school student to go to JC and then graduate and go on to a 4-year institution.

Mm-hmm.

Using the scholarship application and then our additional support to everyone. So in the 17, and then we reduced one, so 16 stores that we were operating, that was our program. And by the time that we finished, we never had a clear understanding, but over 1,000 people went to college.

Oh my gosh.

And that was big for us. Our goal was to keep people no more than 26, that we would help usher them through their scholastics so that they can go on and build the next stage of their life. And I feel really proud about that. Yeah, it's so great.

It's a direct impact, not just on your bottom line, of course, by being business owners, and not just on your customers, but really your employees as a different kind of customer.

Well, definitely, but it's really the community, right?

Yes.

It's all of every— I'm living in the community where we have restaurants in, where we had them, and they're living in the community. And I'd be in a Target and we'd be saying hi to someone or in a grocery store and, What food are you getting today? So I think that sometimes we wanna like leave or not be immersed into the experience that our community is in. And it might not be where I have my social group as friends, but it is a huge part of my life that the community that I'm in is thriving as well as all of the other places that I, I exist in.

So talk about that moment of Feeling unfulfilled even at the height of success. What did that feel like? And then what was the shift that came after?

So I always felt like I was operating, which I was, in someone else's system, and not everything was aligned with what I wanted to create. So I did what I could in McDonald's, and at some point I said, you know, if I'm going to be everything I'm meant to be, I have to let go of this financial security and take a step back and decide what is true for me. And it wasn't against McDonald's or the system. It wasn't even against the people I worked with. It was really a calling that I had to say, okay, I needed to do what I was here to do, supporting and honoring what I was able to build with my family, but taking those things and say, okay, Kiana, it's time to go out on your own. And mind you, I tell people I was a very highly functioning depressed person. And the reality is I, I was sick and tired of being depressed because I wasn't in my creative light and the truth of myself. So leaving gave me love and autonomy and sovereignty, but also this magical experience to be in life, in the life that I was meant to live.

So many times people feel that inside. They're not living that exact life they're meant to live, but they might not do anything about it until they're forced to. Maybe they have an accident, an illness, something else happens. But you had the foresight to say, let me do this before.

Well, I didn't wanna have an accident or an illness.

Exactly. Like you were already feeling that, that you said the depression, you were highly functioning, you had all the success, but you could still, you could feel things creeping in. So you had the presence of mind. So what did that next step look like? How did you figure out exactly what you wanted to bring into the world?

It was an evolutionary process. I started with wanting to continue running my family business, but being the person that was transitioning it, and that was not the path I was meant to take. But I started building things while I was still there, and the first thing I built was In a Perfect World. So if we started from creating a perfect world, And then aligning every action to doing that, what would we be able to create? And it didn't make sense to them then. So I took it and I use it as a system to start anything.

Hmm.

I use it to start my day. I use it to start a business. I'm building an ecosystem of agents. I use that to build all my agents. It's like if you can start envisioning and really imagining what the totality is, then you can Parse it and create a system that can build it. And then after that, because I had so much freedom to be creative, 'cause I wasn't trying to fix everything and solve everything, this whole ecosystem came about. And what we're building is extraordinary and huge. Partners have come along that I never would've known were even in the world because I had freedom and the ability to actually receive help and support in partnering. And every time I turn around, it always comes back to this one thing, which was my truth in McDonald's. I'm not here to build things at the expense of humans. I'm here to create things where humans are flourishing. So my whole business is based upon how do we help us flourish.

And what does that look like today? Because I think part of your work, right, is Moving people from just performance to authenticity, from pressure to presence, and from success to that fulfillment that you're talking about?

So human flourishing for me says that we are operating in alignment of our truth. We are coherent internally. We are moving in a direction that brings resources towards you. You're not like fighting for it. You're not striving for it. It's not that you're not doing actions, but you're able to receive the help and the support that's available to you. And then in all of the areas of financial wealth, vitality, your mental wealth, your physical health, all of those things are aligned to you. Like, what is right for me is not what's right for you. So the alignment to who you are is so important because it lives in you. And the more of us That get to a place where you're creatively expressed in your way, you feel the wealth, the full spectrum of wealth in your life, not because of what you have or your circumstances, but because of who you are and what you can bring based upon that. Then all of a sudden you feel good and people notice and they say you are radiating and everything that you been struggling to receive and get is now open and available to you. So when we think about human flourishing, we think if you were flourishing in your life, there's an ease to it. There's an ease to your life. You're still doing excellent work, but there's an ease to it and it is extraordinary.

What does that look like in practice? When, you know, you mentioned this creating the perfect day, this system. So How does that start? Because I know in my own life and in many people I've spoken to, when you are on the right path, things do open up. Yeah. But you still have to walk through that door. You still have to take action.

I mean, works without action, you know, a perfect world imagined when you're not doing anything doesn't actually get anything done. So I'll give you an example. After I had that conversation before we started the podcast, I came and I sat and I said, okay, I'm, I'm creating this mini perfect world. 30 seconds in. Said, I'm, I'm gonna have a joyful conversation. I'm gonna live in beauty and creativity and truth and light and love, and I'm going to let it be free and I'm gonna be myself here. I'm not gonna hold back. And then now we're in action, right? And so it's not complicated. Like, people wanna make things complicated, but it's really simple. It's a choice. Of how I wanna feel, of what I want to experience. And all of that comes from how I choose to behave.

This is a big note for everybody listening. The action doesn't have to be complex. 'Cause I do think when we get to that point, we then we start stressing and get anxiety again and start thinking about, oh, but now I have to take this action. We make it so much bigger in our minds that it can sometimes make us delay doing it, right?

I always say I'm not actually afraid of the action. I'm afraid of the thought before the action. Because once you're doing it, you're just doing it. Like, I used to hate roller coasters, and so I would never get on them because I was too afraid. And finally one day I said, okay, I'm just gonna get on it. And I had the best time. But if I didn't get on it, I would still be living in the thought of the fear as opposed to the actual fear. I'm not Like being chased by a bear. It's just, let's act on the thing that we actually want for ourselves, because the fear that's stopping you is only in your imagination. Unless there's like a bus, get out the way really quickly. Like real tangible things as opposed to the thought of something. Don't let the thought stop you.

So are there other misconceptions that you find yourself correcting In personal transformation or even how it applies to people building businesses and brands?

So the biggest thing for me, I don't have great language for it, but I don't separate my spiritual life from my material life. And I really believe that both are extraordinarily important because I'm in this vessel. It's a material vessel and there's something operating beyond the vessel, cuz otherwise we would live forever. So that alone is, I think, a misconception. You have to be really spiritual or really materially wealthy, right? And for me, one doesn't exist without the other. And then the other thing is that I think that my spirituality isn't a religion, right? Religion plays a role in it, but my spirituality is the ability to be love and light and creativity, but that's also my material reality.

Mm-hmm.

And then finally, I would say that this doesn't mean that I don't have things that are hard or challenging. My internal compass says that those things that are hard and challenging are not defining me, and they're not gonna be something that stops me from being great. It just helps shape and mold me like they did when I was a kid. They're still doing it as an adult. They're shaping and molding me for the next stage and iteration of whatever's to come. Those challenges for me are a gift. The hard days are a gift just as much as the easy ones.

It takes a special person to recognize that and to say it in that way. And I do think it is somebody who, cuz I have one other person that as you were saying this, I'm thinking of who is on the spiritual side, also in the business side. And right now he has, he's going through cancer, but he's looking at it as a blessing. It's one more thing He can be grateful for the family he has surrounding him, for the support he receives, for the community he's built. This is just one more thing he has to deal with. And that's such a beautiful outlook. Did you always have this outlook? Did you always have this knowing, or did you have to find it, develop it?

It's like a dance. It was there and then it went away. And then I was like really mad at God. It's like this whole Jesus thing was not working for me. And then I recognized that how people talk about things is through their lens, and I needed to stop making everyone else's voice bigger than my truth. And like, I see it all the time in social media or what we see on the news, and we let those truths become bigger than our truth. So I would say if you can just get connected to what your truth is, what it is for you and forge the path that is yours amongst all of the stuff, then you're literally walking in peace in the chaos.

So talk about the work that you are doing with people, those entrepreneurs who perhaps find you who, you know, are, they're running on pressure. They just feel like they have to do more and more and more instead of thinking about who they really are being connected to that person.

So the first thing is I just wanna celebrate them. Let's stop and honor you. Like, tell me your story, tell me everything. Because every part of your story, the parts you like, the way you treat people, what you do and do not like, everything that happened in the past, everything that's happening right now, all of it is who you are. Like, there's no part of it that is not able to be loved and accepted. So we celebrate your life, and then we say, okay, well, what do you want it to be? And we start moving in alignment with your loving yourself as you are right now and how you want to move and create and create tangible activities so that you can see your progress, but also experience how it makes you feel and experience the truth within yourself. And we do it with people and the coaching that I do, and we also do it with, um, the products that we build. It emanates for me through everything. And that's the beauty of being a systems builder. If I'm gonna build it for one thing, almost inevitably it works for everything.

Wow.

You mentioned agents earlier and you just talked about build, you know, working with coaching and then also building other systems. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like? How is it different than your work with individuals on a one-to-one basis?

Well, with humans, they talk back and, and We're telling you everything. And when you're in technology, you have to literally think about every little nuance. So it doesn't, it's not so much that it gets more complicated. It's like, I, I thought I was deep, but in technology there's just level to deepness that I haven't reached yet. And then there's, especially with AI, so I'm, I'm a big proponent of AI and I use AI quite a bit in my work. Um, but I use it not to diminish humanity, to be in service of humanity. And it's one of the things as I'm building out an agent ecosystem is to say, how can this system always be in the service of the human that is serving? If that's not the case, then I, I'm not gonna build it. If you are not interested in your own flourishing and your own success, I'm, I'm probably not the coach for you because I'm always gonna come back to, you're the key to your life. Everything in your life revolves around you, whether it's technology, family, any relationship. You are in a relationship with yourself and everyone else and everything else. So if your relationship with yourself isn't healthy, then that's the first place that I recommend you start.

I also love AI, and I also love it in the same way that you do. I want it to advance us and to Fill in the gaps, right? So that we can be more human, we can be more flourishing. And I, I think that's a really important distinction that you're making there. So let's talk about the app and translating your philosophy into the app. Was this so that you could reach and help more people?

I can only be so many places at once. And so my first thought was, I really wanna help more people. I wanna make it a Affordable enough that regular people who don't have a ton of money can afford enough of the program. And I wanted it to be useful. I wanted it to be smarter than me. Like, I, I don't have the capacity to hold all of the knowledge all of the time that AI does. And I wanted it to be something that helps people learn to love themselves as they are and continue that journey as they grow.

Tell us about the name.

Okay. So it started off as Arise, like we're arising into the truth of who we are, right? And then Luxorius came about because everyone was using Arise. And so instead of it just being a rename, I put in a naming convention. So Luxorius always is about the light within. So it's the illumination of self. I have other ones like Yulentya, which is around family or group systems. So it's, it represents that. And then there's a name that follows it. And the design and desire is based upon my 4 pillars. I think about the relationship I have with myself and all the things, and then the relationship I have with my family and close friends, my loved ones, the relationship with my career, my professional life. And the relationship with my community. So those are the 4 experiences that we focus on within Glorious Arisings, mainly because it's how I see my world.

So when somebody downloads the app, what's the first question or prompt or first thing that they're going to be able to do and choose?

So it's gonna ask you like 3 brief questions. You could answer 'em or not. It's gonna ask for your name, if you're willing to share your birth date and time. And then 3 questions that help guide knowing you a little bit better. From there, it's gonna give you what we call a soul profile. The name might change, but right now it's called a soul profile, and it just gives you a truth about yourself. It tells you the meaning of your name. If you share your birth date and time, it gives you a lovely summary of who you are based upon that birth date and time. And then it talks about What was most meaningful for you? Like if it is beauty and truth or my family, or I really love my work, you know? So it, it shares an affirming poetic conversation about who you are. And just like I said, I'm, I'm gonna start with celebrating you. It, it's gonna start with celebrating you. From there, you have the option to explore the app, create a perfect world vision. You can reflect on some of the things that are happening currently right now in your life. And the biggest component is it actually measures your human flourishing.

Interesting.

Yeah. It takes you on a journey using the Perfect World Standard, 8 questions to get you to a baseline of what is your flourishing. And then it starts to communicate back to you based upon all of those components, who you are, How you wanna envision your life, what you wanna create for yourself, how you're reflecting in that, and you're flourishing. And all of a sudden you'll see patterns, you'll be able to recognize things. But mostly my hope is that you really love yourself. Like you see the truth of all of you, not denying any part of it, but you can like gently and lovingly just be present with How amazing each of us are in our own experience.

What do you see in people? Is it that loving themselves in the difference between leaders and founders who are aligned with their inner truth and outer impact?

Yes, I do see that big time, but that's not the only thing because you can be very aligned with your inner truth and outer impact, and still not be coherent. And the coherence piece says that you're doing it because you recognize that humanity and everything in existence is sharing it. You're not extracting it. So I think a lot of things in my experience becomes transactional or extractive, and that's a fear-based, survival-based experience, right?

Yeah.

So I can't let you have abundance Or wealth or access to this thing, because if you have it, I won't have it. Well, we are trying to say the world is actually quite abundant. You're meant to have what you're meant to have, and if you allow yourself the freedom to do it, it's gonna flow towards you. But if you are operating in an environment, and a lot of leaders do, it's like, okay, I have to protect the assets. I have to protect these resources. And the resources are generally tied to a financial economic outcome. Then it starts to diminish the humans inside because now we're just doing for a result or a gain, and we're not allowing the gain of the human to flourish.

Mm-hmm.

My experience, the more you have a business where humans are flourishing, the less turnover you have, the less resource deprivation and waste you have, the more opportunities start to come towards you, the more relationships are being built. There's trust there and the whole community starts to thrive. So my flourishing is really, you could say it's selfish, but for me, my flourishing is guaranteeing that those who are surrounding me, we're all gonna thrive, right? I'm not gonna thrive with someone who's not flourishing. So that's, I hope I answered the question.

Yeah, you brought home some really important points. I'm thinking about, you know, this is one of my goals as well. I want people to see that light inside of them and to use it and to shine it and to feel comfortable shining it. But I also realize that I have to take care of myself in order to help that. So I wonder sometimes when you're working with people, do you see that moment where they're going, they're going, you're helping them, and then they realize they're on the completely wrong path or They do need to take that step back, do a reset or redirect to really live fully in their power.

Both. But we don't talk about it like it's a wrong thing or a bad thing. We're saying, okay, well, what, where did that start? And if you don't know, like, what is it you actually want? Because this behavior isn't driving the thing that you said that you want. But if the behavior is driving the thing that you say you want, I say, okay, I am so happy for you. I'm not the person that's gonna help you though. We should help you find someone who's gonna help you because that's important to you, but that's not the way that I operate. So I'm really clear now about the boundaries that I have. I think it's very important because not everybody actually wants their light to shine, and that's okay.

And not everybody is for us or for us to work with. Did it take you a while to, because Like, you're such a confident person. You have this really, really peaceful, joyful, loving aura, and you've had all of these great experiences leading. But did it take you time to also be willing to say, no, I'm not the right person to work with you?

Absolutely. I mean, in my experience, your entire childhood is teaching you how to protect yourself so that you're not loving. And now you get into adulthood and it's saying, okay, you've learned these lessons. Now let's unravel that. I'm at an age where unraveling it is not only necessary, it's imperative to my health and my journey, right? So even in the moments though, like if I have something I wanna say and I'm like, oh, I don't wanna hurt that person's feeling. It's not that I don't have that thought. I just say, okay, let's see. You're not wanting to hurt the person's feeling, but you're hurting yourself. So let's see if you could say it in a way.

Mm-hmm.

That honors both truths, not hurting someone else intentionally with your language, but still stating your truth. And if someone gets hurt, just be present in the hurt.

Be present in hurt. Not advice I think most people would hear.

I mean, I don't get to control if you're hurt by what I say. If I'm not kind, you should be like, that's not kind, Kiana. Like, I apologize. What can I say differently? Because I will try. Because I don't always say things— I'm very direct and It can be harsh sometimes for some people. So it's not my intention to hurt people cuz I don't wanna be hurt, but people get hurt. I don't know all of the triggers.

Well, and I think sometimes we aren't willing to say the hard things to ourselves, so it might hurt, but it's better to hear it from somebody else because it gives us permission or it gives us confirmation.

That part too. I, I would say it gives me freedom. It gives me and the other person the freedom to evolve into the thing that they say that they want. Even if they're unwilling to say it out loud, there's something that's driving it because you're talking about it in a complaint all the time, right?

Yeah.

So if you're talking about it in a complaint all the time, that complaint is a message. So yeah, I don't mind. If what I say hurts people, what I mind is what I do with it after.

Yeah, that distinction. Where do you see personal growth and human flourishing heading, especially as it intersects with business and leadership? Because we see people who say they're really connected to that side of themselves, but visibly aren't in the media, right? And then, but I, I am seeing a lot more people saying, I am a whole person. And I am going to show up as my whole self in every area of my life, like you said.

Yeah. So we are all whole. Like there's a whole thing in, in gospel music around I'm broken. I'm like, and in the Bible, I'm not broken. Look, my body parts are still working. My mother has had MS for over 45 years. Oh, wow. She still walks. She's still alive. Like, she's in her late 70s and people consider her broken. I'm like, my mom is not broken. She's a whole human being. But we are hurting, we're protecting, we're sad, we're afraid. And all of those are important emotions that live within us. They're all designed to help motivate us to something else. It's when we get stuck in them that it creates that disconnect, right? So I just say, I can be my harshest critic, but I should also be my softest one. I should be and can be my harshest conversation with myself, but I can also be my most loving one. And when we're both, then we're never asking ourselves not to be exactly who we are.

Mm-hmm.

If I could teach everybody one thing about human flourishing, It says that you love and accept every aspect of your life, and you give grace to loving and accepting everyone else's aspect of their life. It doesn't mean I condone it. It doesn't mean I agree with it, but I can love and accept that it's present.

Yeah.

Yeah. Are there any commonalities that you're seeing or trends at this moment in time when it comes to how people are relating to work, purpose, burnout, things that you think people are maybe not paying enough attention to?

Yeah, I think that this age that we're moving into next year is saying we're no longer in this hierarchical model, right? Where we have to get stuff done and we have to achieve stuff over being who we are. So I'm always looking to see if people are honoring both the being and the doing. And even if you're doing more doing, This is, this is great. We, we've been trained to be a doer. Like, not many people are trained to be with themselves, right? But we're trained to be a doer. But everything that you're doing, you're trying to make it about you. So I see this trend a lot, right? Whether we say we're spiritual, we're still needing to prove our worth. We're still needing to validate our work. I'm still hearing like all of the letters behind your name. Like, Right. And it's been earned. It's great. But if the identity is more important than the being, then I just have to take a step back and say, okay, but let me honor what the being that person is. So without the identity, without the labels, without the money, without the status, would I still wanna be with that person? If you could say yes, then that's a right kind of relationship. If not, then I would ask what relationship you have with yourself and the person you're following, or the relationship you're having with yourself and the experiencing you're witnessing. All of it is connected and all of it is important, but it really points back to the relationship of you. So in business, I always say, if we don't honor humans, if we are not in the honoring of humanity, Your future will not be like your past. Mm.

Okay.

Yeah.

Amazing. I wanted to also mention your book because you have Glorious Arisings, the company, and you have A Glorious Arising, and it goes to really personal places in your own story without asking you to relive it and rehash it. What do you want people to take away from your book?

That your story shapes resiliency. It shapes so much of the things that gave and continues to give you strength. But your story is not really your defining aspect because otherwise your past is the everything that's defining you. But you're right here and the future that you envision is what you live into, and yet you're still right here. So from my book, I hope that you've experienced that, that from the outside looking in, it may have looked like perfect, but only half. It's only the good stuff. But there are some really challenging things that happened in my life, all of which I'm extraordinarily grateful for, some of which I'm still in the process of healing. But it brings more compassion, it brings more clarity. It also makes me a better leader. It makes me a better parent. It makes me a better human being because of what I've been through. And I no longer have to survive it. I am thriving in my life. So if people can see that and see that the life is its greatest teacher, then I feel like everyone will no longer be afraid to come out of their need to survive life. And move into a life of flourishing.

And I wanna note, we're talking about things and we're having a really gentle conversation around this.

Oh, I could be, I could do blunt.

No, I know. But where there's a lot of, there's a lot of love in the room and there's a lot of, I feel like compassion, but we are at the same time saying that you do have to go through hard things, but you can't, like you said, you can't let them define you. They're part of the journey. So it isn't about glossing over and everything's gonna be kumbaya and perfect as you're going through this process. It's gonna be messy and it's going to, you know, you're probably gonna have to go against ego and a whole bunch of other things to get there.

I have gone through like, okay, I probably 100 ego patterns that I didn't even know existed one by one over the course of the last few years. I was physically and emotionally exhausted because I was fighting him. I was holding on so tight to things like staying at the helm of my family and the family business, not knowing who I was without being at the helm of my family business. Like, I didn't even realize how much of my identity was being Kiana Webb, the woman in the background that was making everyone else be successful.

Yeah.

And then having to come into the foreground. That was just this crazy pattern of I wasn't worthy enough, or I wasn't good enough, or all of the other enoughs that you're continuously overcoming, right? And my past, my youth, I, I was, had a lot of sexual trauma, right? So even now I'm on this journey in these weeks I'm sitting in around anger and upset and just Wanting that full energy to come back into myself. And what I learned is the only way to do that is to set myself free. I was like, oh, now I have an identity about holding onto me, like literally just squeezing that part of me, even in the midst of people saying you're so peaceful, but there's always something more until it's completely excavated. That you get to learn to be with. I'm not really loving the word surrender, but that's the only one that I have right now. But it's really honoring that part, but setting it free so that you can be all that you know inside that you are. And these aren't things that we don't know. When I say I was a clinically depressed person, my therapist wanted to put me on medicine and I just refused cuz I didn't wanna live in a void. Um, but it was a wake-up call. Like having him tell me that says, okay, if I don't do something, this impacts my kids, it impacts me and impacts work. So my life wasn't always like rainbows and puppy dogs. I, I would really be a crappy person, I think, if it was.

You wouldn't have had to go through and figure out how to transform your own life to where you wanted to be, to then be able to help others.

Yeah, but I was always helping others. I was just doing it at the expense of myself. So this work has taught me to help others and include myself. And then it taught me to help others and put myself not just in the center, but before help, because if I'm always giving from an empty cup, The giving isn't actually honoring my service. It's honoring my ego.

Yeah.

Which I was really good at that too.

I think that a lot of people are, particularly women. Yeah.

And it's not wrong. It's just the way we were taught.

Yeah. So we're gonna unlearn some things. Everybody's gonna think about some things that they can change perhaps in their lives.

I hope so.

And, uh, Kiana, of course we're gonna have your website, kianaweb.com, in the show notes so everybody can learn more about you, can find their way to the book, to your teachings, to the app, and everything in between. But I'd love to see, is there any last thought you want to leave with the audience? And do you have a favorite quote, mantra, verse, poem, family motto?

Every human on this planet is inherently deserving of love. You're deserving of love. That's my final thought. You don't have to do anything to be deserving of love. You're just deserving because you're here. And we're all here, like all of us, we're all sharing this existence right now. So I would say if you can love and accept yourself, love and acceptance for all of it, then it eases your path. I have a lot and I have one that I shared with you before, but those are the two that was very prevalent that wanted to be witnessed right now. So. Fantastic.

And for, you know, it's funny because I do have people say, oh, you're— every conversation you have is so different than the one before. Sometimes you'll talk to this kind of person and then you'll get into like something really technical. But I think every conversation is one that needs to be had that we need to think about. Because we do wanna bring our whole selves to everything we do, our personal, our professional. We wanna show up so that people know who we are, that we are being authentic, transparent, and loving ourselves, and then able to love others as, you know, we, we put our gifts out into the world. Uh, so I think it's really important for everybody listening to think about that and to make sure that we are giving ourselves that love. And that, you know, that we are being— that, that is the root. That is the start.

And even if you're not there yet, hopefully this planted some seeds to help you align when it's your time.

That's really beautiful. Thank you so much, Kiana. This has been so fun. And thank you to everybody who is watching this episode, who's listening to it. Another thing for you to think about as you go through your day, your weekend, your journey here. Please give us a rating, a review. Make sure to share this episode if it resonated with you to somebody that you think needs to hear this message. And let me know, please reach out. Let me know what you wanna hear more of, how something can change your life, because that makes this worth it for me. And with that, I'll see you again very soon. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Your Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out at yourbrandamplified.com.

Thank you.