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The podcast focuses on fiercely empowering women in business, as entrepreneurs and women in male-dominated industries, featuring guests who embody strength, resilience, competence, and a touch of sass as they navigate business and life.
Looking for guests who are willing to bring a wealth of experience and knowledge but also possess the strength, resilience, and sass that align with the tone of my podcast.
I want their stories and insights to provide immense value to my audience, helping me to establish a powerful podcast as a must-listen for women looking to empower themselves in business. The goal is to build competence and discover how brave women can be in business.
Welcome to Superheroes in Heels, the podcast where powerful women rise, lead, and own the room. I'm Kimberley Borgans, your host, fellow trailblazer, and unapologetic advocate for women in the world of business. With over thirty years of experience building success in a male dominant industry, I'm here to empower you to do the same. Each week, you'll hear bold conversations with inspiring guests who embody strength, resilience, a little dash of sass, and a little bit of grace. Together, we'll challenge the status quo, break through barriers, unlock your confidence, and unleash your inner superhero.
Kimberley Borgens:You ready? Let's go.
Kimberley Borgens:Welcome to Superheroes in Heels, where we fiercely empower women to own their authority, lead with confidence, and rise in business. I'm Kimberley Borgans, your host, and I'm committed to sharing thirty five plus years experience of being an entrepreneur from starting a company from scratch and building it into a multimillion dollar business. I'm gonna share some nuggets, some of what I call my wisdom highlights, because I have earned all of those gray hairs on my head. Like, what I'm doing is sharing, you know, the things that the superpowers of women in business. What are the things that women in business do differently than men?
Kimberley Borgens:How do women get past the challenges of being in business in a in a society where businesses were created for men. It's a a model that was created for men. And so how do women thrive in this and show off their superhero skills in business. So I'm glad you're joining me today here on our episode. Today's episode, I'm gonna talk really, I'm answering some questions.
Kimberley Borgens:I had some people who had put out some questions and asked me about those things. Like, what is it like to be an entrepreneur? What are the things that drive entrepreneurship? And why is that important, you know, for moving forward? And I have to say is, you know, I it's been crazy to think back here with this podcast, but to think back about the things that actually got me started as an entrepreneur.
Kimberley Borgens:Like, I never really thought about it until people ask questions. So the first question that we're gonna answer today comes from Danielle Brznick. If I said it wrong, Danielle, I apologize. Danielle Brznick. But her question was, how do you how did you make the leap to entrepreneurship?
Kimberley Borgens:So the reality in that question is kind of you know, it's been a minute. I had to really think about this. You know, just it's it's been a minute since I was not started out as an entrepreneur. I've been in business as an entrepreneur for thirty three plus years. And but my first entrepreneurial gig, I would say, was about thirty five years ago.
Kimberley Borgens:So it's it's been around, but, you know, I really you know, at that time, I just wanted more. You know, I was raised in a military household. Things that my parents used to say were, you know, if I wanted a candy bar or a new toy or anything else that, you know, any kid would want. Right? The comments that I heard in my household and probably many of you have heard this as well is we don't have that kind of money.
Kimberley Borgens:I know my mom used to say that quite a bit. Money doesn't grow on trees. Or what do you think? Money grows on trees or something? Like, come on, y'all.
Kimberley Borgens:The reality okay. I'm just gonna stop there for a quick second. Money is paper. Paper comes from trees. So, yes, money comes from trees.
Kimberley Borgens:I didn't know that as a kid, but as an adult, I have figured that one out. So, yes, money does grow on trees. Or the ones that I was you know, one that my dad used to say is, well, how does it feel to want? Okay. Look.
Kimberley Borgens:I like I said, I grew up in a military household. My father was in the military. And just so that you know, I just wanna put a plug out there to all my military veterans, all those who are in active military is I'm a huge supporter of our military, but US military members do not get paid very well. Right? They don't get paid very well to defend us.
Kimberley Borgens:Right? And they're raising families. They're uprooted a lot. I remember as a child, and I don't remember which base we were on, but I do remember this. It's like, I remember these big rig trucks delivering these big blocks of cheese.
Kimberley Borgens:Right? Big boxes of powdered milk and tubs of peanut butter. And my mom well, we'd go home and my mom would cut up the cheese, put it in smaller chunks in the freezer. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese sandwiches a lot. And And I just wanna say as a military brat, you know, the kids, we learn to do a lot on a little bit of income.
Kimberley Borgens:And I don't think people realize that the majority of the military members do not make a lot of money. So I know that when I was growing up, I just knew that there was a lot of lack, and I didn't want that as an adult. Like, who does? Right? Everybody aspires to be better.
Kimberley Borgens:So I just remember that, you know, that was a challenging time for me. And then my parents got divorced when I was 13, and my mom became a single mom. Yeah. She got some child support from my dad because the military automatically requires that. Right?
Kimberley Borgens:But it was nowhere enough to raise four teenage daughters at the time. And, you know, I know I remember in high school, I used to have to walk to school. No. It wasn't uphill both ways. It was flat land.
Kimberley Borgens:But at that time, buses, they had shifted it in California. And if you lived within a certain period, there was no bus to pick you up, so you had to walk. So I know that I had to walk to school every morning, and it took me about an hour to get to school every morning. So, I would walk to school, but along the way, there would be money on the ground, and I'd pick up that money and put it in my pocket. And, you know, other kids used to, like, laugh at me or joke at me or pick on me or whatever.
Kimberley Borgens:And I'm just like, hey. Whatever. Money is money. And I put it in my pocket, and I take it home. I put it in a jar, and I'd save it.
Kimberley Borgens:I know that I also because my mom didn't have money, I worked in the school cafeteria from ninth grade into my senior year. So I worked in the snack bar. You know, I don't know if they still have that now. I think they still do. Kinda aging myself, but I remember, you know, we had the snack bar in high school and in junior high.
Kimberley Borgens:And I know now they call it middle school. So but we would go to I'd work at leave class, like, ten minutes early to go set up, to help with the snack bar. And I got paid, like, $3.20 per hour. Okay? And on a on a great week, I got in, like, six hours of work.
Kimberley Borgens:You know? So, you know, and I got free lunches. Hey. There was bonuses. Right?
Kimberley Borgens:So think about the things that, you know, as a child, what were those things that kinda stimulated you? And, you know, Danielle, I know this is kind of the the long way around the question, but how did I leap to entrepreneurship is like I said, my my parents got divorced. My final year in high school, I worked I got out of school at noon every day, my final semester, and I went and worked a full time job. I worked Taco Express in the food court, then I moved over to Sears and worked in their catalog department. Okay.
Kimberley Borgens:Yeah. That's green screen computers, y'all, the green and the yellow. Right? Way back when some of you don't even know what I'm talking about. But then I got moved to customer service.
Kimberley Borgens:You know, I worked a forty hour a week job and still finished my senior year in high school. You see, I wanted to earn money. I wanted the money to be able to do the things that I wanted to do. For what a lot of people don't realize is, like, I used to dance and I used to sing. I sang in the school choir for nine years.
Kimberley Borgens:I did ballroom dance the last couple of years of of high school, and my mom could never afford the trips to sing at Disneyland, to the dresses for dancing. And so I had to work hard and find odd jobs and ask people if I could do x y z for them so that they would pay me a little bit of money so that I could save up. So I I guess I had some of that entrepreneurial ship in me as a child to try to find the things to get the things that I wanted. Right? Just like a job, just like anybody else.
Kimberley Borgens:But I was always working. And I know my mom, you know, she didn't make enough money from working. And for some reason, I just had this obligation that I needed to help her out with bills too. Every month, I paid the electricity bill. I bought groceries because my mom said she didn't have enough money.
Kimberley Borgens:Right? And sometimes my mom would just come to myself and my younger sister, and she would just ask us to hand over some money because she was short. And okay. I love my mom. She passed away last year, but my mom was kind of she didn't manage her money very well.
Kimberley Borgens:Let me just say that. And what she did is she made her young children kinda she made her children kind of, you know, pick up the pieces when she was not good at managing her money. Now I'm an adult now, and now I see this about her. When I was younger, I didn't see that. I didn't understand.
Kimberley Borgens:I didn't know it. So I know we've all been through some stuff with our family members, with our parents, or whatever, but this was just one of the things that I went through with my mom. So Danielle, I'm just saying, and like I said, I know it's kind of the long version, but, you know, there was just never any money. And so working and finding new things, get creative. You know, I I worked many jobs.
Kimberley Borgens:I worked in fast food. I worked customer service. I worked pizza delivery. K. I worked in retail and women's clothing department.
Kimberley Borgens:Right? I worked all kinds of jobs to create the income to not be broke like my mom. I got married, and I didn't have to work for, you know, first for the first, I don't know, year or so. I got married, and I got to be a stay at home mom, at least for the, you know, the first nine, ten months of my son's life. Right?
Kimberley Borgens:And then then it was time for me to go make some money because my husband wanted to buy a truck and he wanted to have a nice stereo system in that truck. And he wanted to go out on weekends and go off roading and he needed more money than what his job was paying. And babies cost a lot of money. And so then he left. He took what little money we had, emptied the bank account, and left.
Kimberley Borgens:He didn't want responsibility. He didn't wanna be responsible for paying for a baby. He wanted to go have fun. This was the prime of his life in his early twenties. We got married at I was 18, he was 19.
Kimberley Borgens:We had a son when I was 19 and he was 20. Right? We were young and dumb and naive. But, you know, like I said previously, I ended up, you know, on welfare, but I just couldn't sit there and collect the money like a lot of other people do on welfare. It's just not in my DNA.
Kimberley Borgens:I went to school. I took classes. I became a Tupperware consultant. I was, you know, the the first, you know, entrepreneurial job other than making things and selling them and, you know, going to the flea markets and, you know, trying to make some kind of income. That was my first entrepreneurial job.
Kimberley Borgens:And to be honest, you know, I wasn't very good at sales. I was not that great at the sales. Not only that, I didn't like to speak in public. I I was scared to death of that. You know, that's a whole another story and all that, but that's the reality.
Kimberley Borgens:And but I was really good at customer service, and I was really good at getting tasks done. So in response to your question, I wanna say, to be honest, the true reason that I'm an entrepreneur is because of my husband. When we met, I was in the police academy. He was working for a private investigator. You know?
Kimberley Borgens:And I know you're thinking that's how we met, but it's not true. We met at a bar. Okay? Can we just be real here for a second? I was out dancing with a girlfriend.
Kimberley Borgens:This guy asked me to dance a few times that night. And at the end of the night, he asked me for my phone number, and I said no. I was still in the middle of my divorce. I was just like, I just needed a break. My mom was watching my son.
Kimberley Borgens:A week later, my girlfriend and I were going out again, and we went to a different bar. It was the same band, and he happened to be there. By the end of the night, he asked for my number again, and I gave it to him in the parking lot. He jumped up and clicked his heels like Fred Flintstone. K.
Kimberley Borgens:That's my version. He calls it the lucky stars guy or the the lucky charms guy. So, you know, I I didn't I didn't grow up with entrepreneurial mindset, but he did. My husband grew up with an entrepreneurial mom. His dad dabbled in entrepreneurship.
Kimberley Borgens:His grandparents, his grandmother and grandfather owned their own businesses. You know, they they were entrepreneurs. For him, it was just a normal thing. That was the life. Right?
Kimberley Borgens:And I just went along for the ride. When he said, do you wanna start a business together? I was like, sure. Okay. Let's do this.
Kimberley Borgens:I'll have some freedom to take care of my son to you should, you know, have this relationship. Right? Oh, boy. That's a whole another story there. But it sure has been a ride for the past thirty three years of business.
Kimberley Borgens:So to answer your question, it wasn't born in me. It wasn't it wasn't something that came to me naturally. I actually had to learn how to be an entrepreneur. And that didn't happen until my husband said, hey. Do you wanna you wanna do this together?
Kimberley Borgens:So I think that's a great question because a lot of people think that I'm just a natural entrepreneur, and I'm not. I'm a entrepreneur by choice. I'm an entrepreneur by design because I worked hard to make that happen, and I have learned a lot along the way. So, Danielle, thank you so much for asking that question. I think that's a great question.
Kimberley Borgens:It's a great reminder for me too of where did that start? I had never really thought about it. So that one was a great question. Okay. Mhmm.
Kimberley Borgens:We have another question that I wanted to share also today, and that question is from Tina Whitwam. And Tina says this was her question. I noticed a lot of entrepreneurs think differently and especially at a young age, like my husband who used to sell lunch desserts to other students in elementary school because he wanted the money to do other things. When did your brain decide you wanted more than a paycheck or something else providing for you there is more available. When when did your mind think that?
Kimberley Borgens:And then she says, such an intriguing mindset because there are people that get stuck on the employee wheel, but it never dawns on them to succeed on their own with real action and risk and get up if it fails somewhere along the way and do it again. I think that's, like, that's a question, Tina. Thank you so much for that question, for that awareness. I think that we gotta pay attention to the reality of entrepreneurship. Right?
Kimberley Borgens:I wasn't the kid who came from the entrepreneur spirit. Like I said earlier, I just, you know, it was just a way to survive at first. And, you know, like I said, at the time, I got on the entrepreneur boat when my at the time, fiance asked if I would build a business with him. We got married after the business had already started. Right?
Kimberley Borgens:I could set my own hours to have that freedom to be with my son and then work with raising my kids. Like I said earlier, boy, was I naive on that one. I'll save that for another story. But it's been thirty three plus years that I've gotten to learn about entrepreneurship. So let me share a few statistics with you, Tina, in case you didn't know this.
Kimberley Borgens:And for those of you out there that don't know it, who are entrepreneurs, who are thinking about being entrepreneurs, who are hobbyists, and all of those things is there's about a 170,000,000 people in the workforce in The United States as of January 2025. Okay? A 170,000,000 people out there working, and about 28,000,000 of those are business owners. That means that they're entrepreneurs that have employees on payroll. K?
Kimberley Borgens:So if you have employees and you're paying them on payroll, you're called a business owner. K? There's a shift in dynamic from entrepreneur to business owner. K? Then there's about 9,500,000 entrepreneurs out there, meaning that they don't have employees.
Kimberley Borgens:They might pay independent contractors. They're paying vendors, but they don't have employees on payroll. Then there's about 80,000,000 people out there that are working a job for a company, one of those business owners. Right? They're working a job for a company, and they have a side hustle.
Kimberley Borgens:So imagine that. About 80,000,000 people out there working a job and having a side hustle. Now they could be working part time, or they could be working full time and have a side hustle. So that means that there's about a 83,000,000 people that are only employees for our company. They don't have a side hustle.
Kimberley Borgens:They're not looking at entrepreneurship, and they're not business owners. K? I call these people the worker bees. They are the people that get up and go to the job. They work their hours.
Kimberley Borgens:They go home. They leave all responsibilities to the leadership. K? They have they have their time off, and then they get back to the grind. These are the people that are the backbone of our country.
Kimberley Borgens:You will never hear me knock down an entre employee. That's not my goal set ever. They're the hard workers. Right? They're the ones who work for the business owners.
Kimberley Borgens:Right? And as Tina, you said they're on the employee wheel. Right? They choose to be on that employee wheel. Right?
Kimberley Borgens:They don't have to worry about when they go home, right, taking care of the job. They gotta worry about taking care of their family. They gotta worry about a whole bunch of other stuff. Right? But but they get to go home and leave the job.
Kimberley Borgens:At least that's the hope. Okay? As a business owner, I'm grateful for these employees. Right? I'm grateful for the loyal employees that show up.
Kimberley Borgens:They do their best. They do their job. They're reliable. I can count on them. These are great people in our society.
Kimberley Borgens:Most of them are just they're they're just people who just want to do a job. They choose it, and that's okay. I don't want anybody to ever think that that's a bad thing because it's not. Then there's, like I said, there's that overlap of the 83,000,000 who have a job, and then there's a 83,000,000 who have a job and have a side hustle. So what that means is there's about a 163,000,000 people overall in our workforce right now.
Kimberley Borgens:K? These are all the people that are getting the things done on a regular basis that we entrepreneurs and business owners rely on. K? Very few people truly become entrepreneurs. So if you're an entrepreneur and you are making a living at being an entrepreneur without employees, right, understand you're a small group of people.
Kimberley Borgens:Like, I think at 9,500,000 people. And there's a completely different mindset that entrepreneurs have to have. And look, I admit, it was not a natural thing for me. I knew that I could do a job. Right?
Kimberley Borgens:And I could work. Give me the instructions on what to do to keep my job. Right? The job description. I knew I could do that.
Kimberley Borgens:I didn't know about being an entrepreneur, let alone a business owner. I want you to know we started out as entrepreneurs. Then when it got to be too much for two people to handle, then we had to hire the first employee. And then we had to hire another employee. And as we grow, more and more employees.
Kimberley Borgens:I'm about 70 employees right now. Okay? But as a business owner and as an entrepreneur, there wasn't anyone who's gonna tell me what to do in business. At the time when I started in business, like I say, I'm way older than Google. Right?
Kimberley Borgens:We didn't even have email at the time when we started business. I know there were computers. We had a Mac five twelve k, you know, right before we started the business. This tiny little well, it was kind of a big box, and it had this tiny little screen, and it was a green screen. And, you know, that's the computer that we had.
Kimberley Borgens:So we didn't have email. We didn't have social media. We didn't have Instagram. We didn't have any LinkedIn, any of that stuff. We didn't have people teaching us.
Kimberley Borgens:There were very few mentors. And, you know, let alone, there were very few entrepreneurs, so the mentors weren't there either. But as an entrepreneur and a business owner, you have to figure out by trial and error. Right? You have to follow the rules of business even though you don't know them.
Kimberley Borgens:K? You have to follow the rules of, you know, the the laws and rules of the state and federal government. And just because you don't know them doesn't mean you get a free pass for not following them. K? Can I say that in order to be an entrepreneur and to be a business owner, you have to become a student every single day?
Kimberley Borgens:You have to be willing to learn, to make adjustments, right, to change with the society, change with the rules and regulations and the new laws that are coming about. You must adapt to what's next. You have to. Right? You have to do your best to anticipate the future.
Kimberley Borgens:Right? You gotta have your own little crystal ball. My mother-in-law, I remember the first time I saw this thing is I'm like I come over to her house and I hear her hollering out a window, And she's at her office window. She had an office in her home, and she's at her office window, and she's like, oh, mister Monty. And I look at my husband.
Kimberley Borgens:I'm like, your mom's crazy. And she's like, mister Monty. And I was just like, what is she doing? So I asked her about that, and she said, look, money's a little tight right now. So I gotta call out for mister money to bring some money in.
Kimberley Borgens:Right? And I thought that was crazy in the moment. Like, what? But the concept was really you have to call out for what you need in your business. You have to ask for help.
Kimberley Borgens:So we now, to this day, I still, like, will go in my mind even if I'm not saying out loud and looking crazy like her, I'll go, oh, mister money. We need you now. Right? Because some people just don't realize how, you know, how tight money can get for being an entrepreneur. You don't get that regular paycheck.
Kimberley Borgens:Look. For the first ten years as an entrepreneur, I didn't get paid. We didn't get paid as a family. I worked jobs alongside of being an entrepreneur. I was an entrepreneur full time, and I was working a job part time.
Kimberley Borgens:K? I needed to work jobs to be able to pay the bills to take care of my growing family. Right? In those first ten years of business, I ended up with four kids somehow. Not quite sure how that happened.
Kimberley Borgens:Okay. I I do know. Have you seen my husband? Alright. But you have to really think about it, Tina.
Kimberley Borgens:It's not everybody is going to be an entrepreneur. Not everybody is meant to be an entrepreneur. Based on statistics, a 163,000,000 people are employees. Right? And so if there's a 160,000,000 people, they all can't be entrepreneurs.
Kimberley Borgens:But I just wanna say, look. I know this might not everybody's gonna agree with me. It might be a little controversial, but I'm gonna say this. It takes more than a business name and working occasionally to be an entrepreneur. That's why so many people will say that some entrepreneurs are hobbyists.
Kimberley Borgens:If you're called a hobbyist, don't get mad. Just stop and take a deep breath and go, okay. Maybe I am if you understand what it is. It's not a put down. It's the reality that some people work on business on weekends.
Kimberley Borgens:They'll do freelance, or they'll do contracts or they will coach just to make extra money that the job does not cover. They're working their way to entrepreneurship. Right? It's not a put down, but it's just like having a hobby and and painting or doing pottery or gardening on weekends when you're off of your job. And so if you're called a hobbyist, don't be offended.
Kimberley Borgens:Own it. Say, okay. I'm working my way up. Right? There's nothing wrong with it.
Kimberley Borgens:But what I am gonna say is true entrepreneurship, it's hard work. It takes a level of commitment that most people are not willing to commit to. That's why there's so few entrepreneurs out there. Right? It's getting up in the middle of the night or very early in the morning to complete the necessary work that you have to do for your business before you go to your job.
Kimberley Borgens:It's missing out on some of the fun things in life. Right? Going boating on the weekends with your in laws or, you know, going skiing in the winter when you know that you have to create the income necessary to cover your your expenses in your life. It's covering shifts when employees don't show up for work or they quit without notice because they wanted to go have fun with their friends in the summer. Being an entrepreneur or business owner is taking on a level of responsibility that most people are not willing to take on.
Kimberley Borgens:It requires you to do things that you can't watch the clock to punch out for, and not everyone should be an entrepreneur. If everyone was an entrepreneur, then there would be no employees to work what you are building as an entrepreneur. Some people dream of being an entrepreneur because they see the positive outcomes that entrepreneurs have. Right? But they don't always see the other side.
Kimberley Borgens:The other side of that coin where the hard work is, where the missed school events and the meals missed with their kids, the stress and the sleepless nights, worrying about how you're gonna cover payroll when your clients haven't paid you and they're behind. Right? The chargebacks from people who purchased from you and then decided that they wanted a refund even after they got the work or the product that they that they've already used, but they say they didn't like it. Right? That right there is what keeps people in their jobs, Tina.
Kimberley Borgens:Not everyone is designed for it. Not everybody's designed to be an entrepreneur. And like I said, I wasn't a natural entrepreneur, but I embraced it. And I dug in, and I learned all that I could about it in order to be successful at it. Look.
Kimberley Borgens:I messed up along the way, and I learned from that too. If you're a hobbyist and you're working your way to becoming a full on entrepreneur, that's great. Then consider joining me over at the HIVE Society. That's my membership program where I help women entrepreneurs build solid foundation for success. You can go to be a legacy.com/community.
Kimberley Borgens:So bealegacy.com/community and check it out. If you're serious about getting out of the hobbyist lane, then come join me over there. But, you know, Tina, I just wanna remind you that not everybody's designed for it. And what happens sometimes is entrepreneurs kinda get into these communities of a whole bunch of other entrepreneurs. So we think that the majority of the people around us are everybody is an entrepreneur.
Kimberley Borgens:But the truth is that's not the case. It's a small percentage of people who are entrepreneurs. It's a small percentage of people who think through what being an entrepreneur really is. It's a small percentage of people that are willing to take on that responsibility, and that's okay. There's a much greater percentage of people who are working jobs, who are doing the things that are necessary to take care of their families, that are doing the things necessary for themselves.
Kimberley Borgens:Right? Not everybody is designed to be an entrepreneur, and it's okay. And I love that that was a great question to embrace. So whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're a business owner, entrepreneur, a hobbyist, an employee, every single piece of you matters. And we need to start giving some grace to those people that are not just like us.
Kimberley Borgens:Right? I wasn't naturally an entrepreneur, but I've embraced it. I stepped into that mindset. I have owned it and own that role of myself as an entrepreneur. So if you're thinking that's just not me, but you have a dream, I just want you to know you could probably do it if you really choose to do it.
Kimberley Borgens:So I hope to see you over at the hive society. Not check out Kimberley Borgans dot com if you're looking for a speaker, looking for somebody to talk to your group, answer some questions for you. So make sure that you subscribe to the podcast superheroes in heels. Ask questions because you too could have your question highlighted right here on my pipe podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Kimberley Borgens:Have a great and blessed day.
outro:Thanks for tuning in to superheroes in heels with Kimberley Borgans. If you're walking away feeling a little braver, a little bolder, and a whole lot more powerful, mission accomplished. Be sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review. It helps us to reach more women who are ready to unleash their power and lead with confidence. And if you do leave a review, you might just hear your name in an upcoming episode.
outro:If today's conversation lit a fire in you, share it with your network and join us inside the hive society at Kimberleyborgans.com, where powerful women gather to break barriers and rise together. Until next time, keep showing up, standing strong, and heels or not, keep embracing your inner superhero.