Episode 59: An Explanation Is Not An Excuse: Turn Negatives Into A Positive With Kim Barnes
Many entrepreneurs find it challenging when it comes to handling perfectionism since most of the time, they want things to go according to their plans. Although this mindset is admirable, it may cause problems in the long run, particularly in terms of growth for both the boss and the rest of the team. Amy Vetter interviews Kim Barnes, the Co-founder of Barnes Team Media, to share her journey from growing up with a perfectionist attitude to building the confidence to figure things out and learn what is good enough. She explains her parents' influence on her current self, how a perfectionist works in the world of media, and embracing all of the negativity in life to forge a path to a better life.
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An Explanation Is Not An Excuse: Turn Negatives Into A Positive With Kim Barnes
I interviewed Kim Barnes from Barnes Team Media. She has spent many years on the air and now works with executives, entrepreneurs, speakers, and small business owners who want to improve their on-camera presence for video, virtual presentations, and media interviews. Kim was an award-winning reporter and news anchor for many years. Since leaving the news, she is also seen in corporate videos, commercials, and doing voiceover work. She's also taught TV news reporting at the University of Texas and works with her former sportscaster husband at Barnes Team Media. During my interview with Kim, she shares her journey from growing up feeling she had to be perfect to learn to build confidence, to figure things out, and learn what is good enough along the way. If you enjoy this show, please share, review, and comment. Bring it to people so that they can also learn these lessons of how we break these belief systems to become better for the people around us. Enjoy this interview with Kim.
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I'm with Kim Barnes. Kim, do you want to give a little background on yourself before we begin?
I grew up in Houston. I moved there when I was four, so I've been a lifelong Texan, I would say. Although I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here pretty quickly. When I went off to college, I went to the University of Texas in Austin. I did my first job in Waco. I moved back to Austin when I got married and have lived here ever since. We've been in Austin for a long time.
You own a media company, correct?
I do. It's called Barnes Team Media. I started it several years ago and then my husband joined me a couple of years ago after interestingly he lost his job after 29 years as a sportscaster at the same station, which was a rough thing. It's allowed us to be able to work together because we train well together. We're an interesting combination because he's an extreme introvert, which you wouldn't necessarily ever imagine if you saw him on television and then I'm an extrovert. We feel like we can pretty much help anybody because whichever end of the spectrum, or if you're in the middle, we can help you. We love doing coaching and training together, and it's been fun for us to be able to work together and share all of our if you start adding together more than 60 years of experience, which is what makes us sound old.
We love to just share stories on here and learn your path to where you are and how you're helping people. A lot of the reason we become entrepreneurs or have businesses, purpose, and passion from things that we grew up with beliefs systems that we either hold onto or things we've served over time and have said, “That's not serving us and we need to do it a little bit different.” We'd love to start from your beginning. You said you started out in Houston, maybe you can give a little background on your family.
I grew up in Houston. We moved there when I was four and I have a younger brother who's a couple of years younger than I am. My mom and my dad divorced when I was in high school but we were a pretty traditional family growing up. Interestingly, I never would have said that I was an entrepreneur. If you asked me now that, “Has it always been your dream to own your own business,” I don't know that's necessarily something I've always been driven to do. It's funny when I look back and realize, I did run a snack bar at the neighborhood pool when I was in fifth grade with a friend, and our moms helped us because I wanted to buy a stereo. They said they would pay for half and I had to come up with the other half. I feel like I've always been a little bit scrappy in that way, where I knew that if I wanted something, I needed to work for it. While I said we were a pretty traditional family, my dad was an alcoholic, so there were challenges that came from that. He had high expectations. While that's been something that in many ways has been a challenge because when you have those expectations held that if you feel like you can never meet them. On the other hand, while looking back, I do see that a lot of that gave me drive and gave me the gumption to try things, to do things, and to make things happen.
Sometimes I didn't necessarily always go in it with the intention of not necessarily not knowing exactly what the end result was going to be but that comes to when I think about what I decided to major in college, and we can talk about that. That was a funny situation. That drive has made me think, “I can do things.” When I started working regularly in eighth grade at the neighborhood pharmacy to be able to make extra money, I remember them saying at the time, “You might want to start saving up, even in eighth grade for a car when you turn sixteen.” I remember thinking, “Okay, fair.”
I started saving up and then, but I still remember walking into my sixteenth birthday party, which ended up being a surprise party and opening our gift. I thought that maybe they were kidding and maybe I would get a car for my sixteenth birthday. Instead, when I opened that electric typewriter, that changed me a lot. I remember thinking, “I guess they weren't kidding. I do have to pay for the whole car.” Fortunately, because I had been saving up and my mom helped me finance it, if you will, but I was able to get a car, but I paid for it. There were lessons learned that if you want something, you got to make it happen.
Maybe you can give me a little background on your dad and your mom. Let's start with your mom because probably your dad has a little more story there. Was your mom a stay-at-home mom? Did she work? What was her background?
She had a degree in Physical Education and was a PE teacher. She was a fantastic tennis player all through high school and played tennis until she was in her 70s. That was before I was in the picture. When they first got married, she was a PE teacher that helped my dad, put him through law school as a PE teacher. She stayed at home with us when we were little but she started teaching tennis because that's what she was good at. She taught tennis lessons at the YMCA and I remember going with her. Somewhere in elementary school-ish, she started selling real estate.
I remember going into the office back in the day when you had to go to the office to look in the MLS book to go look at listings and all of that. I remember sitting in the car while she would have to go in and do a showing and that thing. I always saw her fitting in work alongside of other things. Looking back now, that was a lot of what I did when my kids were little as well is trying to figure out how do I still make a living but be able to not have it negatively impact them. She's always been my biggest cheerleader, “You can do anything,” and has always been encouraging.
She helped your dad become a lawyer by working during that time. He became an attorney, I guess?
He did. They were both at the University of Oklahoma, which was where they both went to undergrad. My dad went to OU Law School. His first job moved us to Colorado Springs. I was born, I was six weeks old when they when he moved. He worked in the District Attorney's Office in Colorado Springs for a little bit of time. We moved to Houston when I was four, and at that point, he went into the trust division of a bank. He worked in that for a long time and then switched careers and did some other things a little bit. He just got tired of being a trust officer.
When you said he was an alcoholic, when did you start noticing that in your life?
Probably he was very high functioning, so nobody else would have necessarily noticed it. It was frankly about the time when my mom said, “We need to go to Al-Anon.” I was like, “What?”
Handling Perfectionism: In any endeavor, all you have to do is work a little harder every day in order to succeed.
How old were you?
I think I was in high school. It was super embarrassing. Now, to some degree, people wear it as a badge of honor, and while it is so noble. When you can beat an addiction like that, it is something to be so proud of. Back then it was not something that people talked about very much. I remember going into a meeting, I think I went to 1 or 2, being horrified that I would see somebody that I knew. Sure enough, I saw one person that I knew from high school and we never talked about it but it was super embarrassing. You feel like from the outside looking in, everything looked amazing. My dad has passed away partly because of his challenges. If you looked at him, he was so gregarious, so friendly, so outgoing, a wonderful speaker, and not the life of a party meaning in a negative way, but very outgoing, friendly, and personable. He had such great qualities, and unfortunately, some of the other stuff was more probably behind closed doors.
Similar to you, I've had addiction in my family with a family member and when you talk about Al-Anon, that was always I feel like a sore point in our family of how it was used in different ways by the people that supported my family member. The one thing that doesn't get discussed enough when you've lived a life with people that have an addiction, it is a disease and it takes a while when you're a member of a family and realizing it's a disease. When you don't have it, you're like, “Why can't you just stop?” I know that took a while, the hardest part is when I look back at all of those things is the terror it creates in the family. The focus is on the person with the addiction, but not on supporting the people that are supporting the person with the addiction. You can feel embarrassed or everyone responds to it differently. Each person's responding to it differently, it causes strife between how each person dealing with the person or taking it in.
I only remember even going like once or twice, so I don't think we went back. I feel like now more there's the, “You can do it,” and there's that comradery and shared experience if you will. I think, and maybe too, it was just my age and because I was held to high expectations. You didn't want anybody to think there was anything wrong.
Most family things are private. There's an outside brand and then inside reality, which is hard. We went through the same thing, especially my mom being like, “I don't want people thinking of us like this.” I remember in my head, I was like, “This is what's happening.” I didn't want to hide it. It's an important distinction you're talking about. You can have someone that is causing that emotional pain that maybe not intentionally, but it's just who they are. At the same time, you're trying to please them. How did you correlate that in your head when you're frustrated at the same time?
It's hard. For me in many ways, distancing made it easier. When I went off to college, it’s that natural separation point anyway, where you're off doing your own thing. Thinking about back when I was in college, long-distance cost money. We didn't have cell phones. You didn't necessarily even interact and talk to your parents as much anyway, even with a great relationship, because it was much harder. We had answering machines, but it was so much harder to connect. You might talk to your parents once a week or whatever. It was rough because he had bigger challenges, frankly, after they divorced than we had experienced even while they were still married.
There was a person that was taking it on versus when he's alone to deal with it. The two things with that are what I've heard is, you've got these high expectations you're trying to please, and then at the same time you're having to bootstrap and say, “I'm responsible for myself.” How did you see that evolve once you got into college?
By that point, I wasn't as concerned about him being proud of me, if that makes sense. He frankly had distanced himself and wasn't part of my every day or regular life, partly by his choice and some other things as well. That created financial challenges because he wasn't as involved. It meant that I knew that if I wanted to be able to do some of the things that I wanted to do, that I would need to get scholarships. I would need to apply, and I would need to do the things that I could in my career. I worked every spring break and over summers, and things like that so that I could continue to be able to do the things that I wanted to do. I always had the attitude of, “I'll have to figure it out. I'll work a little harder. I'll work a few more hours.”
Balancing that along with having decided that I wanted to be a reporter and knowing the things that you had to do to want to go down that path. In some ways, at least at that time, it's one of the most competitive things that you can do because everybody and their dog wants to be a news reporter. On the one hand, I came in with, interestingly, a lot of confidence in the ability of being able to make things happen even though probably internally, I might not have had as much of that internal confidence as I exuded. I exuded a ton of confidence and let's make this happen and not ever thinking might not happen for me. For college, I knew that financially I needed to make things happen.
My mom was always as supportive and generous as she could be and I know she sacrificed a lot so that we could do some of the things that we wanted to do. I was thinking about a story when I started taking my very first television journalism, we had to audition to be able to get into the broadcast sequence at the University of Texas. You could be a Journalism major, but if you wanted to do broadcast journalism, you had to audition. Once you got through that audition and made it into the program, if you will, there were twelve of us in our first class because it's upper-division. It's very small and it's hands-on. It's funny because there were a lot of things that I don't remember, but I remember very specifically sitting in that class and our professor, Dr. Anderson. I still remember him saying, “I want you to look around the room because half of you will likely never get a job in television journalism.” What a harsh and bummer thing to tell people when you had to audition to get into this program, and obviously, that's what we think we want to do.
I remember having this thought of looking around the room and thinking, “I feel so bad for them.” In a weird way, it never occurred to me that it wouldn't be me because I knew that I would work hard enough to make it happen. What's funny about that is that while I had so much confidence, being able to get a job in television and I did. I did all the internships and did all the things that you need that help you along that path. It was funny because it was after I got my first job and started doing the work daily that you realize, “This is pretty tough and this is hard.” Probably, I had more confidence applying for my first job than I did potentially in my second job because I knew that on any given day, it is hard. There's a lot of expectations. There's a lot of deadlines, there's a lot of stress but fortunately, having that confidence going in made it so that I did all the things and followed the path that I thought would be the straightest to be able to get my first television job.
It's important to reflect on the things that give us confidence. If you can look back now, part of it might be our chemical makeup of who we are when we're born. What do you think are the things that drove that for you?
Some of it could have come from a place of trying to prove myself, which maybe isn't necessarily the most positive reason, if that makes sense, that feeling like I need to prove that I can do this.
Who did you need to prove that you could do it for, yourself or somebody else?
Probably my dad, and maybe it was a collective, “I can show them.” I think that mostly it would come from people that may be felt bullied. I don't feel that I ever had that in my life where I felt like, “People are discounting me and don't think I can do it.” I think it was that, but I remember doing the Birkman Test when I was in school, which was very insightful. A friend of mine's dad was a facilitator. I thought, “This would be interesting to see what I want to do.” I thought I wanted to be a doctor going into college, and we took the Birkman Test and he was a very sweet and lovely man.
He was one of my best friends’ dads, and he said, “I'm not telling that you can't be a doctor. All I'm going to tell you is that based on your results from this test, it's not necessarily the thing that's going to come most naturally to you.” I said, “That's what I want to do.” He said, “Again, I'm not saying that you can't do it but the things, the qualities that would make you a good doctor, probably like 4th or 5th on your list.” I still remember this persuasive was my number one, and they've changed what they call things because my daughter has done it now. It was persuasion, which was like teaching, sales, and things like that. I remember thinking, “I don't want to do that. I want to be a doctor.”
Handling Perfectionism: Learn to be contented in giving your best in everything.
I went to the University of Texas undecided but with the path of thinking, “I wanted to be a doctor.” I remember thinking after my first chemistry class, “I don't like science that much.” I did fine in it, but I remember thinking, “I don't think it's worth going to school for ten years after college just to prove that I could be a doctor. I don't think that's probably a great reason to become a doctor. I can show you that if I want to.” I could. It was then that I saw some older girls in my sorority with their tape recorders because they were in this radio class that is part of the broadcast journalism sequence. I remember thinking, “Now that's interesting.” You get to ask questions and be nosy. This is awesome. I love knowing things. It's funny looking back that in many ways, that persuasion on my Birkman is exactly what I did because as a reporter, you're gathering information and then you're teaching it to other people.
I think by luck for you to take that test because I know any personality tests they took, I did not rank anywhere. The only thing that came up for me was a tattoo artist, so that wasn't giving me much guidance. The good thing was that was in the back of your mind, so when you took those classes, you were observing yourself. I think a lot of people that age say like, for me, I was going to be a CPA and that's what I was to be. I didn't question that. To have someone put that in your head, whereas like, “Maybe I should see how I'm feeling about this as I'm going through it.” It's a stroke of luck while you're in college, so you don't have to make that change later.
It would have been so hard, especially when you're beating against something that isn't what you're either naturally good at or that you have such a desire or drive to do.
In your media career, you built this bootstrapping confidence. That's the way I'm looking at it. How do you think it helped you and your career as you moved through it?
It served me well because it's a very competitive industry. We know everybody and their dog would want to do that, and that's why the pay is so terrible. That's when I learned how to use triple coupons. It was in my first television news job because I made so little money. My husband in his first television job was part-time for 20 or 30 hours a week and minimum wage with a college degree. It’s crazy. Even though minimum wage was a lot less now then, but even if you had minimum wage now, it's still you can't survive that way.
He waited tables in between the time he graduated from college and was looking for a sports job because he wanted only sports. When he took his first job as a reporter, he took a huge pay cut from being a waiter. Just having that drive to, “This is what I want to do, and I can prove that I can do it,” definitely served well. It is such a competitive industry and you have to want it. You have to be willing to go to a small town, do grunt stuff, work terrible shifts. My first Thanksgiving out of college, I was at work in the little bureau office, eating chili cheese Fritos and a diet Dr. Pepper for Thanksgiving with my photographer. Having that drive, if I want it, you have to work hard to do it.
Where did it get in your way?
I think sometimes trying to force things and/or also that perfectionism that came from wanting to prove yourself also means that you want it to be perfect, or at least in my case. That has been, and continues to be, an ongoing struggle because when you're used to wanting things to be perfect and when there’s a lot of criticism potentially, I don't know some of it. I hate always to blame it on, “It's because of this.” Also, naturally, I have a very critical eye, which when you're a proofreader or a copywriter or something with details, if I was a brain surgeon, those details and that attention to detail matters. You need that critical eye. Now as a parent, having that critical eye is tough. Even as a business owner or even when you're doing stories and you're doing on-air work or you're a news anchor, and you're trying to pull together or producing shows, and you're maybe not always happy with the story that somebody else does, then that's tough. You can end up wasting a lot of your own energy on things that you can't control. It takes a lot of the joy out of doing and being.
Now that you've observed that as a habit in your life or something that naturally your brain goes toward when you notice that happening, what do you do?
The first thing is acknowledging it and realizing what's happening so that you can choose a different thought because sometimes that's all it takes. Knowing that if I'm doing the very best that I can, then that's enough. Easier said than done sometimes for sure. I have a super-strong faith in the fact that I am having a constant dialogue during the day of, “I don't want to take these thoughts away or help me focus on what I do want and not what I don't want.” Some of it is being conscious of it when it creeps in because a lot of times that's what happens is that you don't even notice you get down this rabbit hole. Especially as a parent, before I have a conversation, sometimes I pause and it’s like and, “Just give me the right words so that I can be supportive and yet share whatever it is that I need to share.”
I know a lot of leaders, this can be a big struggle is like, “They would've done it my way. It would have been perfect. They did it their way and it's not what I would've done.” How did you get okay when you're using the example, someone else does something, it's not perfect and you have to go with it? How have you moved through to be able not to micromanage?
That is an ongoing discussion. I hear those words you're micromanaging and I'm like, “Yes, I am.” Sometimes I have to remember that if it's something that I don't have time for or that I know I'm not good at, then I have to trust and be grateful that somebody else did it. I'm grateful that I didn't have to do it and that somebody else made it and/or somebody else made it happen. If I got stuck in my perfectionistic ways, it likely still wouldn't happen. My husband, he is so funny because he is a boom, get it done. He's such a great mixture of hard work and do a good job, but not get held up in it being perfect to get started.
There's a funny story. One time when we had done an addition and I wanted to paint the playroom blue, and I had this great color. I went to the fancy paint store, I got the primer and I got the paint. We had it all ready to go. It already had been weeks since we bought the paint. I hadn't had time to tape it all up, do all this stuff, and get it done. My husband kept saying, “When are we going to do it?” I said, “I don't have time right now.” I kept getting put off because I couldn't think of the time to get it all set up perfectly so that we'd have time to do it.
There was a day where I had a freelance assignment that I did for one of the TV stations that I used to work for. I've done a ton of sponsored content for them in the last couple of years. I had an all-day project. I come home and the room has been painted because he was like, “I'm tired of waiting on you to do it because it's never going to happen if I wait for you to do it.” The funny part was is that I noticed the two cans of paint. I had one that was the primer because it's a dark color, and then one was the paint. I looked at it and I picked them both up and the paint was still full, the primer was empty. I said, “Did you paint both coats with the primer?” He was like, “Yes.” I was like, “Okay.” There was a part of me that was like, “I paid so much money for the actual paint that it never saw the light of day. It never made it,” but I had to stop and go, “The room is blue. It's done.”
If you would've gone to redo it and all of those other things that would've made him feel, you have to be considerate of that other person's feelings, too.
That's hard. There was also the betta fish story, but that was a whole another one. The kids came home with party favors of betta fish, which is a terrible idea. Don't send live animals home as a party favor. I had to go to work because I was anchoring weekends then. I had to go to work after the party. I said, “Take them to the pet store and we don't have any stuff. Get the little bowls.” They called me and they are so excited. I did a little research while I was at work to see. I hadn't had a fish since I was a kid. They call me and kids were all excited they're like, “We got the bowls. We had to get the betta fish. We have to get two. We put them in the water.” I said, “Did you dechlorinate the water?” They said, “No.” I said, “I guess we'll see how hardy they are and they might be dead in the morning.” Sure enough, we wake up the next morning and one is dead and one is alive. One was super tough, so they had to go buy another beta fish because he's like, “Just get it done.”
Handling Perfectionism: It is impossible to create a perfect plan because something's always going to happen.
That's why we need our opposites a lot of times.
I helped slow him down sometimes, so we don't act too quickly, but he also pulls me along to where things happening.
With what you do, you now have your own business, helping people with video training and media training. A lot of people that read this have instances where they need to be on video or they need to speak to reporters and so forth, and articles. A lot of what you've talked about is this perfectionist thing that I feel when I talk to a lot of people in my industry. It can get in the way of doing it, like what you're talking about. You struggle with that personally. How do you bridge that gap when you're working with people that try to help them feel comfortable when they're trying to be perfect at the same time, and then it doesn't create the interview or video that they want?
The biggest thing to remember and the thing that we tell all of our students and our clients is that it's never going to be perfect because something's going to happen. The lighting's going to be off, the audio is bad one day, maybe you're off a little bit. Your brain is not thinking, it isn't firing all cylinders on that given day. It's never going to be perfect. However, one of the things now that we can do to set up is to set ourselves up for success as best as possible, whether it's practicing ahead of time. Especially in this virtual world knowing, “What does our environment looks like and how are we setting ourselves up. Are they going to be able to hear us well? Do I have a window behind me so that they can't even see me, I'm a silhouette? What are the things that we can do to set ourselves up for success?” We work a lot with that and also building the confidence. We believe that when you know what to expect, whether it's for a media interview or even creating your own videos, or frankly, showing up for virtual presentations in virtual meetings. When you know what to expect, that can build your confidence.
I feel like confidence building because by sharing tips and tricks from all of our years of experience, we're going to be able to help you anticipate and know what kinds of questions they might ask or what are the things that you need to be thinking about when you are interacting virtually. If you're an executive and you're having to present to your whole team. We worked with an executive who was having to do ribbon cuttings virtually. He was having to do videos that were then going to be used as the ribbon cutting. Much of what we can do by sharing all of this information and helping them practice, hone their skills, and give them feedback can help build that confidence so that it doesn't feel so intimidating because it is awkward to talk to the camera.
Thank you so much for sharing the stories that you have. I'd like to close out each show with some rapid-fire questions. You get to pick a category, so family and friends, money, spiritual or health.
I'll take family and friends.
Things or actions that I don't have that I want with my family and friends.
I'd say more time and more experiences, especially in the day that we're living now, where it's much more difficult to be able to spend time with friends. It’s hard. Fortunately, our family is close by. We're able to spend time with our immediate family, but having more experiences with them as well. We used to do these crazy family road trips when my kids were younger. My husband is Chevy Chase from Vacation. “Have you seen the largest peach in Ashburn, Georgia?” “Yes, we have.” Those were such great bonding experiences and so fun. One is the kids get older, it's harder and also, in this day and age, it makes it hard too.
Things or actions I do have that I want with my family and friends.
I would say, especially within our family, my husband and I have two kids, a boy and a girl, and they are extremely close. We are, as a family, close. I love that the family jokes and the family things like that, that I'm so grateful for.
Things or actions I don't have that I don't want to happen with my family and friends.
I would say with extended family, there's no crazy uncle. We don't have anybody in the family that we have challenges or issues with, just the fact that everybody gets along. Even our extended family is small but everybody gets along and no crazy things going on.
You want to protect that.
Yes, exactly.
Things are actions that I do have that I don't want with my family and friends.
Handling Perfectionism: Be grateful for the people who help you accomplish the things you don't have time to do.
I'd say that from my husband losing his job a couple of years ago and building a business that creates some stressors financially and other stressors as you're trying to build a business. It'd be nice not to have kind of that stress that goes along with it, although there are fun parts about building a business as well, but that's sometimes a challenge.
Before we close up, is there anything we didn't say that you wanted to say or any big takeaway you want to make sure people leave this conversation with?
In some ways, having this conversation was you brought a lot of things to light, even for me that I hadn't maybe thought of in certain ways before. Maybe it's sometimes thinking about even the things that have been negative in your life, how can those also be something that can have a positive? We all have those experiences. We all have been through hard things and the song, “What kills you makes you stronger,” what is it that we can take those? I always used to tell my kids and they got tired of hearing this, “Explanation, not an excuse.” Certainly, while I look back and think, “Yes, I can explain a few things of probably some of the perfectionism of where that comes from and all of that,” it's not something I can use as an excuse. It explains things, but that doesn't mean that I want to stay there and use it as an excuse for things.
A lot of people do. That's even the premise of this show. In my life, so many people have said, “It's because this happened to me or that happened to me.” There's a point in your life where it's like, “That happened to you and now you're going to work on yourself.” You don’t repeat the pattern. That's all of our responsibility not to harm others.
I love being able to hopefully help people because of the things that I've been through or that our family has been through that it helps somebody else see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Even when things don't end happily, but you can learn from that and grow from that, and use that as you move forward.
There are other gifts that come with the family that you have now because of it. Thank you so much for sharing your story, for being so honest with us and vulnerable as well. It helps all of us think about our own stories, and grow with you as well.
Thanks for having me.
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For our Mindful Moments with this interview with Kim Barnes, there were so many points in this interview that I related with Kim. Kim did share with me that she's never shared some of these stories with others and publicly. I appreciate the vulnerability that Kim had for not only sharing the story, but also being open to helping others understand how we all grow from hard things that happen in our lives, but not use it as an excuse for everything that might happen negatively going forward. We can look at these things that happen in our life, whether we've had some trauma such as having addiction in our families or for ourselves, and use that to blame when things go wrong in our lives, or we can look at the lessons we learned along the way and how they help us to improve ourselves and make us stronger for the future.
That was one of the big things that Kim talked about was even though she had these hard stories and experiences with her father, that there was another positive that she learned from these experiences was all about how to have the confidence to be able to create the life that you want. Also, to bootstrap when you need to, when the finances aren't there for the things that maybe you look at other people, and they're able to get help, that maybe you can't get the help with. There's always a way if we are innovative and figure out the hard work that we need to put in in order to accomplish it. Whether it was from her having the snacks stand when she was younger, or saving up for her car, what it taught her is as she had challenges going through college and her career, that she knew she was able to figure it out.
Those are the things when we can reflect on our past and see when we were able to realize that all that we needed was inside of us. When we can pull from those stories and recognize what are those things that taught us, that we can do it. We don't have to look for outside approval in order to have those accomplishments. I love that one story that she talked about when the professor had said, “Only 50% of you are going to make it into having real jobs in broadcasting.” Instead of getting beaten down by that comment, she sat back and said, "I feel sorry for half of this room that I will be able to accomplish that." That's an important thing when we talk about mindset and resilience, that a lot of times we can hear things that drive negativity in our mind or self-doubt.
Instead of stepping back and saying, "Why do I have to buy into that? Based on my prior record, I am an accomplished person, that I do work hard, and I know what it takes because I have the drive and the skills in order to accomplish what I want to accomplish. No one can do that for me." When we look to the outside for excuses, maybe of, "I didn't make it into a broadcasting job because that professor said that only 50% of us were going to make it and I believed it." I can use that as an excuse for why that didn't happen instead of looking internally and saying, "What did I need to do differently in order to achieve the goals that I do?"
When she talked about acknowledging some of the things that were maybe weaknesses for, but also a positive where we can look at perfectionism as both, it's a way of controlling your environment, but also how do I not let that affect others or create an energy that I don't want it to create? Where she talked about, “I have to acknowledge when I'm in that perfectionism mode, that I have to choose a different thought and know that I can do the best that I can, and that's enough. I don't have to be perfect or overdo,” because that gives us a diminishing return.
It's important to constantly recognize that in our day. If we feel like we have certain traits that we need to recognize or observe, it is important that we give ourselves space to do that. To pause in our day and understand when we have to observe when those types of habits or patterns are coming up for us and what we need to do. Whether it's mantras, whether it's shifting our energy through yoga or exercise or reading, or listening to music, to shift our energy away from that recurring thought or habit so that we can get back to our intention of what we want to do.
We're not thinking about negatives in our life, but instead turning these negatives into positives and getting back to making sure that we don't ever use our past stories as an explanation for why we behaved the way that we did and use it as an excuse. Instead, that we are owning up to who we are and being real about the things that we need to do in our lives so that we're better for the people around us.
I hope you enjoyed this episode with Kim. I, again, want to thank her for being so open and honest about her story. It always helps all of us to share and to reflect. Even when we go back through these stories, we always have an epiphany or some observation. If you think this episode would help someone else you know, please share it with them, subscribe to the show, and review it so more people can share in these stories and experiences that are also helping you.
Important Links:
@Barnes_Team_Media - Instagram
@KimZBarnes - Twitter
About Kim Barnes
Kim Barnes has spent 30 years on the air! Now, she works with executives, entrepreneurs, speakers and small business owners who want to improve their on-camera presence for video, virtual presentations and media interviews.
Kim was an award-winning reporter and news anchor for 15 years. Since leaving news, she is also seen in corporate videos, commercials and does voiceover work.
Kim also taught TV news reporting at The University of Texas.
She works with her former sportscaster husband as Barnes Team Media. They have a son who graduated from Texas A&M and a daughter who’s a current UT student!
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