Life is Everything You Never Thought But Always Wanted: Sneak Preview of Collecting Confidence

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Opening Introduction: Let's just go on and spill the tea. This is The Kim Gravel Show. This is one of the realest persons I've ever met in my darn life. You gotta watch this. My mission is to encourage every single woman, we're here to lift y'all up. There's no one more effective than moms. You mess with the bull. You going to get the horns. I need coffee. I need Jesus and I need therapy. If you can bring a smile to people's faces, why would you not? We love our kids. We love our husbands. What a blessing. We're gonna dedicate this to you in finding your superpower. Okay girl. True confidence is knowing who you are and why you're here.

Kim Gravel: Hey y'all, Kim Gravel here and this season on The Kim Gravel Show, we are talking about how we're going to level up our lives and we're going to step into our purpose and our calling and we're going to do that to gather. Okay, in this episode, I'm so thrilled, honored, excited, nervous, everything wrapped up into one because we're going to be sharing with you the first chapter, the first audio chapter of my new book, Collecting Confidence.

And in this chapter, I want to tell you it is or can be, let me say a game changer for you. Because if you feel like in your life. You have been robbed of your purpose, of your confidence, of your strength. I'm here to tell you, Collecting Confidence, my brand new book, that has just launched, is going to be a game changer for you.

If you are ready to step into That new level in your life and find a new fresh wind, a new fire, a new reason for getting up out of bed. This is the book for you. And I can say that with full confidence because y'all, I have lived a life that has been up and down and every way around hardships.

Disappointments, births, death, a near death experience myself. And it has really grown me and giving me strength of purpose and confidence. And I want the same for you. So, you know, sit back, get your favorite cup of coffee, get you a little snack and enjoy. And this first chapter is called life is everything you never thought.

Life is everything you never thought, but always wanted to succeed in life. You need two things, ignorance, and confidence. Mark Twain. It was a rainy Saturday night in Columbus, Georgia, and the auditorium was filled with more than 3, 000 people waiting to see their high heeled, hair sprayed daughters, sisters, and friends compete in the Miss Georgia Pageant.

It had been an incredibly long week, the full of rehearsals, press interviews, and workouts. We'd competed in every category. On stage questions, swimsuit, evening gown, talent, and the grueling five minute interview. When five judges ask you everything from What is your major in college? Mine was Theology.

Two, what are your thoughts on climate change? And what do you think about the START Treaty and do you think it will be effective in limiting nuclear weapons? Y'all, that was my actual question in an interview. Think about it. I was 19 years old and with my razzle dazzle personality, I acted much more confident than my immature mentality could back up.

I certainly was not ready to pontificate about the START Treaty and how it would be effective at limiting nuclear weapons. It was the final night when the competition of 70 women was narrowed down to 10 and in about 10 minutes, there would be just one, one winner, the new Miss Georgia, 1991. I had been working for a solid two years for this night and it all boiled down to this moment.

I had so much confidence at 19, y'all. I was full of hope and passion for what I wanted. The dream was literally within my reach. And my preparation and path had led me to this moment. I looked at that crown, the thing I wanted and believed I could have, but it was so much deeper. I had a clear reason for being there.

It was my determined faith and belief that I could win that got me there. It was a time when I was created for a life of success, excitement, achievement, and even beauty. Fast forward decades later when the passion and the calling I once had was sucked out of me. Life happened, a lot of life, and the belief in myself had dimmed.

Where was that confident and hopeful girl now? Can you relate? Has there been a time in your life when you felt super excited to wake up every day? You hit the ground running with direction, excitement, and when you looked in the mirror, you liked what was staring back at you. Then the rug was yanked out from beneath you, and you found yourself in a heap on the floor wondering, Where did I go wrong?

All my life, I've been collecting confidence through my experiences, which ultimately helped me walk in my true purpose and calling in life. I come from a place where a handshake is as binding as a contract, sweet tea is the house wine, and y'all is a plural pronoun. And if you really want to be inclusive, all y'all would work just fine.

One of my grandfathers was a South Carolina farmer and the other was a preacher who could quote Genesis to Revelations and would if you got him going. I grew up with deep roots of family, love, community, strength, strong faith, and tobacco farming. This turned out to be fertile ground for collecting confidence.

Now, y'all, this isn't some harrowing rags to riches story. My dad was a banker, and I had a tight knit, loving family as I grew up in Lilburn, Georgia. Since fifth grade, I lived in that village, which has a railroad that runs straight through it with trains every hour on the hour. And I was a bit of an ugly duckling as a kid.

My nose and my mouth were bigger than most. But that didn't slow me down and my dad and I walked or jogged around nearby Stone Mountain every single day. I was a junior in high school when I got the idea of participating in some local beauty pageants. So, one day between classes, I called my mom with my last quarter from a pay phone outside my high school cafeteria to run the idea buyer.

Mom noted my short hair and said I was out there. I think she meant out there as a compliment, but I thought I might as well try. Dad wasn't too sure. Life isn't fair, he told me. So who knows? My family wasn't sure I would win, but I come from good old pageant stock. My mom won many pageants and participated in Miss South Carolina.

It was logical that I would follow in her high heeled footsteps since she was my confidence coach at the time. I wasn't the textbook pageant girl. I had short hair, a big mouth and a healthy dose of delusion. more confidence. But I entered several pageants and promptly lost. However, when I was 19 years old, I entered Miss Stone Mountain.

This was a big one because winning it would qualify me for the Miss Georgia pageant. And to the surprise of my family audience, And myself, I won and I was honored when I was crowned the stone mountain for years. I'd worked for this moment, a week of rehearsals, press interviews and workouts, but my emotional preparation really happened way before that.

I was taught by strong women how to live a life of confidence. My mother was a straight shooter who told the unvarnished truth about men, motherhood and marriage. She was the OG, original gangster of an empowered woman. Mom and dad fought and complained about each other, but they were the kind of parents who, after all their fussing, would be buried in the same grave.

They love well, fight well, and raised me well. Mom's always been her own person, and taught me to be too. I was always drawn to strong women like Mom. One of these strong women was named Nancy, a painter who was somehow kin to Norman Rockwell. She knew I was interested in painting, so she let me into her life.

I remember the details of one afternoon vividly. I was eight years old, and she served me fresh chocolate chip cookies in her sunroom, which was the bright color of Van Gogh's sunflowers. As I licked the chocolate off my fingers, I watched her paint. Condensation beaded on my glass of cold milk, and perspiration formed on her forehead as the afternoon sun poured in through the glass.

Her big golden retriever slept lazily at her feet, and the sun was so intense, I heard the heat sizzling. She was focused on two things. Her canvas and me for hours. We talked about everything and nothing spending time with her helped me excavate my talents, watching her in the fullness of her calling was what made me want to discover my own calling and develop my own gifts and talents.

She painted like she was creating the Mona Lisa, but she was making something just for me. She was my own Michelangelo, and sculpting me in ways that would become clear as I grew older. I was mesmerized by her excellence. Which was more blinding than the golden light beaming into the windows in that yellow sunroom.

And the things she painted, y'all. Once, she got out a canvas and began to paint with a long handled sable bristle brush. Her strokes seemed random at first, but I was amazed as the image gradually emerged from her mind and heart and onto the canvas. It was a female mountain lion. I'll never forget it, and I'd never seen her create something like that before.

Southern women are more apt to paint forest scenes. Subs Still life vases with flowers pouring out of them, sunsets. It's for you, she said. This touched me because it was so beautifully done and was painted with such love. In fact, I still have that painting to this day. And as I was writing this book, I thought about that painting and wished Nancy was alive so I could ask her one lingering question.

Why the female lion? On a whim, I googled mountain lions, hoping to find some clue, and then I found it. Would you believe that a female mountain lion is called the queen? Talk about foreshadowing. Later, another Nancy helped shape me. She was a 70 something year old widow who taught me how to sew. A huge help for my pageant outfits.

After high school, in the preparation for the Miss Georgia Pageant, I moved in with Miss Nancy. She was my mentor and pageant director for Miss Stone Mountain. I lived in a tiny apartment above her garage. When she talked, I listened. I hung on every word. We'd sit and sew, me eating her amazing pimento cheese, chatting as we worked, and once I made a jinky jank stitch, but kept going, because I just wanted to get it done.

Skimp on that stitch, she said, without looking up from her fabric, and skimp on yourself. I looked at the stitch and lamented how much time would it take to get it right. But before I could start pulling the thread, she added, shortcuts only cut yourself short. And I believed her. She had character under pressure and was unflappable in her confidence.

She was kind and loved people as they were, not as they should be. She saw beauty in the scraps, the remnants. And she could turn them into things of beauty. Plus, she helped me in practical ways. She and I would sit at the sewing machine and make the talent costume and swimsuit I'd wear in the competition.

One perfect loving stitch at a time. I don't think these two Nancys ever thought they did anything out of the ordinary for me. But they did. They allowed me to observe them being authentically and confidently. Operational in their gifts, pageants are about beauty, but they're about connecting and confidence as well.

This book is about realizing who you are, embracing your gifts and talents, the things you like to do and do well, and learning to operate and walk in confidence. When the Miss Georgia competition finally arrived, I was swaddled in love and support from the two Nancys, my family, and my community. Stories like this can't come true, I've been told, but I knew different.

This was my moment. I was ready for my fairytale ending, but I didn't try to be someone I wasn't. If I was happy, I showed that joy on stage. I patted my legs in excitement, I smiled, I waved. I was so raw, real, naive. I didn't have any other choice but just to be me. I stood in my white evening gown I designed in Miss Nancy's house.

Y'all, it had shoulder pads as wide as a lineman for the Atlanta Falcons. And I looked good, and I felt good. If I won at 19 years old, I'd be one of the youngest winners in Miss Georgia history. As I was standing on that big white staircase, waiting to walk out on stage for the last time, I glanced to the right.

There it was. The Miss Georgia crown and sash. And for a fleeting moment, I thought about grabbing it and running. But I figured out real quick my klutzy self would tumble right down those majestic stairs. So instead, I leaned over and I touched the crown, the thing I'd wanted and believed I could have.

Yeah. If I won, it would mean I'd earned it, but it represented something so much deeper than winning. It was my clear purpose for being there. For the past few years, I woke up every day ready to hit the ground running. I had direction and excitement, not to mention passion and calling. And when I looked in the mirror, I liked what was staring back at me.

It was a time of possibility, everywhere and in everything. Tonight, I whispered to myself, This crown will be mine. The dream was literally within my reach. But I resisted the temptation to grab it. I didn't need to steal that crown. I was going to earn it. When they began to call out the names of the runners up, I listened so carefully for my name and I didn't hear it until they announced the winner of this year's Miss Georgia, Kim Hardy, Miss Stone Mountain!

Elated, I came down from the risers, thank God, waved to the audience, and fought back the tears. As they awarded me the crown, I tried to make myself shorter than my 5'8 self so they could pin the crown into my hair. Immediately, a song played over the loudspeakers, not the one you can probably hum, There she is, Miss America, but the state version, which says, Will she be Miss America?

I enjoyed the moment, y'all, but internally, I was already feeling pushed to the next thing, the next competition, the largest, most prestigious pageant in the nation, Miss America, and I'd go representing my beautiful home state of Georgia. In addition to the bragging rights, Miss America's awarded scholarships, opportunities, and a national speaking tour.

I wanted that crown too. To prepare for the Miss America pageant, I left home and went to Columbus, Georgia where I lived with a board of advisors who were going to make sure I did everything I could to win the national title. Georgia was sweltering hot that summer, and y'all, this is going to be a recurring theme in this book, written by a Southerner, so get ready for some sweat.

Or, as Julia Sugarbaker on the television show Designing Women would call it, glistening. The air was so thick, you could take a bite out of it. And come to think of it, air had just about the number of calories I was allowed to eat between then and the pageant. In just a few short months, I'd be strutting my stuff in a swimsuit in front of judges, and they'd look at every single inch of me.

Now, I was already taller and curvier than my predecessor, which my new advisors noticed after looking me up and down. After a few minutes of casual chit chat with these two strangers, with whom I'd live for the next few months, One made a suggestion, don't say ain't. We need to clean up your language if you want to compete on a national scale.

Like most Southern people, I grew up with language that might not be grammatically correct, but it gets the point across. My conversation was frequently enhanced with such sayings as, she's nicer than a buttered biscuit, or she's nuttier than a squirrel turd. I mean, that's just the way we talked.

Colloquialisms might not be considered charming back home, she said, but they won't work at Miss America. We want you to appear as educated as the others. As the others? I was barely 20 years old, so I had attained as much education as anyone needs at that age. But the idea that I was less than took hold of me.

In the past, I competed against myself, always trying to do better than my previous performances. I wanted to be the best me I could be, but now I was pitted against other women, looking at them, assessing them, feeling that I was simply less than what they had achieved. Comparison, the ultimate confidence killer, was a bad habit that stuck with me for decades.

And at this pageant level, it was all about presenting yourself in a certain way. Not so much in an authentic way, but in a fake as all get out way. Everything in my gut rebelled against this, but I wanted to please them, so I nodded. These were experts who knew more than I did, right? Has this happened to you?

I'm sure you can remember a moment when you compromised who you are, knowing it was wrong, but you did it anyway, assuming experts knew better. I thought so. Also, we're going to change your clothes, the other advisor said. We're going to hire designers and professionals to make your competition wardrobe. I thought about Miss Nancy with her thread needles and the love that had been sewn into every inch of my outfits back home.

I felt a pang, but again, I went along with it. Who am I supposed to be? I tried to keep the tremble out of my voice. For one thing, be quieter, the pageant advisor said. For the Miss America pageant, you're going to present yourself in a different way than you presented yourself at Miss Georgia. From now on, don't slap your leg.

Don't smile like you just heard a joke. Just tone it down a bit. Now look, my advisors were educators. They were good hearted people. Really intelligent. And if I saw them today, I'd want to kiss them right on the face. But the advice they were giving me was not for me. They'd never dealt with a contestant like me.

Mom was right when she called me out there for a pageant contestant. I needed to be me. I needed to express myself in a way that was most natural to me, the way God made me. My advisors weren't the enemy. In fact, they were right in so many ways. I was fighting against myself. But at the time, I was perfectly willing to listen to their advice and take it, even though it felt off.

Every day for about three months, it was the same. I'd get up, work out, read the paper, catch up on current events, do mock interviews, rehearse and go to bed. I was doing all the right things outwardly, but inside I was having a crisis of confidence. I didn't know how to fix that. So I spent a lot of time wishing I could recreate that loving atmosphere back in my painter friend Nancy's sunroom with her freshly baked cookies on a plate next to a glass of milk.

I didn't have a Nancy, so piggly wiggly cupcakes had to do. And during the days, I'd secretly buy a package of six cupcakes, chocolate with white icing. Ooh, y'all, I can taste them now. And keep them under my bed. I'd take out a cupcake, take a bite. And let it's sweet goodness wash over me before hiding it under my bed.

It tasted like home. I've had a lot of good friends over the years, but I'm not sure if I've ever had a BFF as comforting as those cupcakes were back then. Then one day my pageant advisors discovered my cupcake stash and tossed them unceremoniously into the garbage can. My heart sank as I watched them disappear into the trash.

I want to come home, I said to my mom over the phone, fighting back tears. And we both knew I couldn't give up this opportunity. So I continued to live with the advisors, allowing them to take the chimp out of me. I felt so alone. That fall, when I traveled from Columbus, Georgia to Atlantic City to participate in the Miss America pageant, I felt ill prepared, confused, exhausted, and mentally weak.

I'd worked out so much, my body was perfect, especially since my cupcakes had been confiscated. But I questioned my own being. The competition began, whether I was ready for it or not. Preliminary competitions lasted four days, as the women were judged and measured against each other. One evening, after a day of hard competition, I was in my hotel room in Atlantic City.

I was feeling listless, not myself. That's when the phone rang in my room and I jumped. We weren't supposed to have any contact with the outside world. I wasn't supposed to call my mom, but I snuck in a call because I had to speak to her. So, when I picked up the receiver, the caller identified herself as Lauren Green.

She was the first African American winner of the Miss Minnesota pageant in 1984, and was third runner up in the Miss America pageant of 1985, and had judged me at the Miss Georgia pageant. I didn't know her, but she had been a judge at the statewide pageant. She had seen the real me. And she was calling to ask why I wasn't being myself.

The same Kim she picked to be Miss Georgia. Kim, where are you? She asked. What's happened? I was stunned. I had just turned 20 a little over a month before and I was simply trying to live up to the Miss America standards. But looking back, I'd been handled, managed, and coached right out of myself to the extent that I didn't know how to respond to what she was asking.

Finally, the last night of the competition arrived. Broadcast on NBC with host Regis Philman and Kathie Lee Gifford. Donald Trump and Marla Maples sat on the front row, watching along with millions of Americans, including the Nancys and my family back home. We contestants had a chance to introduce ourselves to the nation, and my big moment had arrived, but it felt empty and false.

Then we did a group performance dressed all in white, but I felt awkward, self conscious, not myself. I just wasn't feeling it. To save time, the rest of the broadcast would focus on the top ten contestants. Regis announced the names with his typical dramatic flair, and just as I'd done at the Miss Georgia contestant, I waited to hear my name, but this time it wasn't called.

Y'all, I probably wouldn't have recognized it anyway. There I stood on that stage, defeated. You see, I'd lost pageants before, but I'd never lost myself. That was one of my life's turning points. And I'm sure you've had yours, perhaps less public, but perhaps just as painful. I gave it everything, I mean everything I knew to give.

And it still felt as I'd just gotten a mammogram while everybody was watching. I did everything I was told to do. I gave all my time, focus, energy, sweat, and tears. I even gave up my cupcakes, y'all! And I worked out like a fiend. I gave it everything I had to give at that time, and came up wanting. I felt as if I'd lost the permission to be my true self.

I'd lost my confidence, or doubted whether I ever really had any. I know pageant angst is probably not on your top ten list of things to be worried about. Me either. But I wrote this book because I believe many of you might feel the same way. Your heart has been broken by a million of life's disappointments, just as mine was, and you're trying to put it back together again.

My heart was broken, at least for a time, but I'm here to tell you, if someone had given me some warning about the things that have happened in my life, I would have bought stock in Amazon, skipped the down and outs, the failures, and even near death experience. But each one has guided me to where I am now.

This life is everything I never thought, but always wanted. And I've never met a strong person with an easy past. Now you might be asking, Kim, what makes your book so different? Or you may be asking, where are my car keys? Did you check the fridge? True story. This book is different because I'm going to give you the answer right here in the first chapter.

Usually, you have to read the whole book to find out what it's all about. Like, there are many paths to purpose, and it's all in your head, and you've had the power all along, blah, blah, blah. But actually, you know, that part is right. Not the blah, blah, blah part, title of my next book. Um, the part that says, you've had the power all along.

That part, that's right. And here's the truth. Every story, every memory of your life plays a part in fashioning the design that is your calling. And what you're fashioned for is greatness. God knitted you together in your mother's womb. It says so right in Psalms. Along with the revelation that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. Psalms.

Sometimes that verse is printed on birth announcements in a frilly font, but you don't outgrow God's plan for your life. And y'all, I want you to hear that in all caps. You're the same person you were before the doctor slapped you on your behind. The substance of who you are and who you're going to be now was designed before the first moment you entered the earth.

God sat there and lovingly created you, just like Nancy and I fashioned my shoulder pad evening gown. Except you're better than that gown, which might go in and out of style. And just, like a little hot take, shoulder pads? They should make a comeback, y'all, along with the wooden heels. Those candies, look, y'all, I know what it's like to make fashion.

I struggle to create 40 new styles every single month, let alone make billions of people on the planet. It's so hard to come up with something creative and unique, but God pulled it off with you. You have characteristics, insights, and experiences that no one else on the planet has or ever had. Some of those experiences have been good and some of them have been bad.

But y'all, let's get away from the shame, stereotypes, and labels. I'm not even talking about that stuff. I'm talking about the deep, real, mysterious components of you that never existed before the history of the Earth until now. And yet, here you are, reading this book, acting like you're not much to brag about.

The mold was broken. Heck, there wasn't even a mold to begin with when God fashioned you and knitted you together.

It took me a while to understand the implications of this mystery, and y'all, I have to remind myself every single day, and if you're like me, you need a little gentle and sometimes not so gentle pep talk about who you were designed to be, and that's where this book comes in. And let's face it, when the doctor slapped our backsides when we were born, it wasn't the last slap life gave us.

So y'all pour some coffee or go grab some cupcakes from the Piggly Wiggly in the honor of the good things that life has taken away from us. And turn the page if you want to get them back.

Ooh, I hope you enjoyed chapter one of my new book, Collecting Confidence. Pick it up, read it, and be encouraged because you know what? The substance of who you are has been In existence since the beginning of time. So I just want you to know that you are special. You are loved and you are confident, baby.

Bye y'all.

Just anywhere. Let me do this again. That you are, let me do one more time. Collecting confidence can be bought anywhere books are sold. So go, no, that's that you are. Let me do one more time. One more time. I got it. Yeah. Give me a little music. Gives me a little pep in my step.

The Kim Gravel Show is produced and edited by Zac Miller at Uncommon Audio. Our associate producer is Kathleen Grant, the Brunette Exec. Production help from Emily Bredin and Sara Noto.

Our cover art is designed by Sanaz Huber at Memarian Creative and Mike Kligerman Edits the show and a special thanks to the team at QVC. Head over to kimgravelshow.com and sign up for our mailing list. Again, we can't do this without you, so thank you for listening, and we love you.