January 10, 2024 • 7 mins
After a lifetime of feeling overlooked, Kiran Kumar decided to make a dramatic change. Faced with personal challenges and the loss of her mother, Kiran reached a turning point that propelled her from feeling invisible to becoming a beacon of strength and empowerment. Kiran bravely shares her struggles and self-discovery to her eventual triumph in creating a platform that amplifies the voices of those who feel unseen. Kiran turned her life around, founding her media and coaching company, Roaring Ahead, and now she's helping others to do the same. Discover the power of reinvention and the importance of surviving and thriving, regardless of age or circumstance, on Search and Replace.
To view full transcript and expanded show notes: https://bit.ly/48uYCfD
To view full transcript and expanded show notes: https://bit.ly/48uYCfD
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Support for the following podcast is providedby the user experience specialists at Johns and
Taylor. More information follows this episode. What if you worked hard at your
job and started a family, onlyto feel like nobody can see you.
I'm Joe Taylor, Jeri. Thisis Search and Replace thespital Lifetime of Accomplishments.
(00:30):
Karen Kumar felt invisible. I havefelt invisible all my life because of
my family, my in laws,people that I've associated with. I've been
married for twenty five years. Wasn'thappy in that relationship, was very very
unhappy. My kids were affected bythat as well. Obviously, also in
(00:52):
my business world when I was workingas a you know, a woman of
color, of a woman of acertain age because I went back into the
workforce at forty because and my husbandmy ex husband now obviously, and that
was kind of like okay. SoI've been feeling invisible and then something happened
that caused Karen to take stock ofher life and to start thinking about what
she might do next. I thinkwhat really came to a head was that
(01:15):
my mother's death that made me lookat life in a different way. There
are events that come into your lifewhere you just have to look at where
you are, what you're doing,and where you need to be. I
had to do something different, butI hadn't really thought about it much.
It still took me another six years. So I'd actually hit bottom after my
(01:36):
mother's death, to the point thatI almost lost everything. Family had betrayed
me. There was a lot oftoxicity around me, and I just thought
I can't deal with this any longer. And then, of course, unfortunately
we had COVID, which stuffered myplans, and I felt, okay,
once this is kind of over,hoping like everybody else'll be open like in
(01:57):
no time. That didn't how ithappened. Two years later, I decided
that I had to move away fromthe area and the location that I was
living in, and I felt thatI had to just pack up everything move
away. I just felt I hadto get away and start life afresh.
Kieran knew she needed to change upher physical environment, and she also recognized
(02:20):
a desire to adjust how she spenther time. I came to this point
in my life where I had todecide, well, what am I going
to do with my life? Howam I do to move forward? I
mean, when you hit rock bottom. The only way to go is either
further down, which you don't reallywant to do, or go up right.
So I made the decision. Mymother used to call me share in
Hindi, which is lyon, andI just had to respect her wishes.
(02:45):
I had to honor her, youknow what she thought of me. I
just had to make a comeback.And I've always been strong, She's always
she always saw my strength and Ididn't see my strength at that point.
And I knew how to come back. And I don't know what happened.
And I felt that I had todo something that would empower women. And
that's where I kind of made thechange. Drawing on her life experience,
(03:10):
led care into a new chapter inher career, leveraging her professional and creative
expertise into a platform she can useto spread her message. What fell into
my head was you are not invisibleafter fifty and I thought okay, And
in fact, the day I thoughtof it, I trademarked it. My
son said to me, Mom,why don't you trademark it well? Because
(03:32):
I believe in this idea and youstart beginning to build up something, then
you can see where this is going. But it's getting to that point,
and that's quite exhausting and tiring andemotional. Is all of those things.
The fact is that there's no endto what I can produce, so I
can take it in any direction thatI wish to take. Is The podcast
(03:53):
is one, the courses are another. Products are another, a book is
another. What's exciting because I alreadyforethought that. But also it's not just
me. I have my children whoback me up. They're part of the
business. Now. I've said tothem that once I'm no longer on the
planet, this is still continues becauseI haven't done this for nothing. But
(04:14):
the idea was, Okay, letme start something that really reflects on what
where I am in my life,but also reflects where people are in their
lives as well. Kieran's got somethingto say to anyone else who's ever felt
invisible to the people around them.It's about where do you see yourself?
Where do you want to see yourself? Are you happy in the situation that
you're in? The answer, probablynine times out of ten will be no,
(04:38):
who I'm not? So what areyou going to do about it?
And of course you have to startlife afresh, and you think oh my
god, I'm doing this at thisage. But it doesn't really matter because
at the end of the day,you can always restart, and so the
narrative is changing. We're not invisible, you know, whatever world may say.
I mean, we are in amale dominated world, but it's changing,
(04:59):
you know, women coming forward andsaying Okay, we are here,
this is us and we have along way to go, obviously, but
there are lots and lots of changemakers out there. What I would say
is look for your role model,look for who looks like you. They're
there, They're out there, andit's just seeking them out. You know,
there's lots and lots of things thatyou can be doing and seeing and
(05:23):
going on to not have that perspectiveof we're invisible or we're over this age.
This is my mission that I sharemy journey with people because I've been
on this journey which is very painfulat times, but you realize that you
can come out and recreate yourself.That's Kieran Kumar, founder of media and
(05:46):
coaching company Roaring Ahead. We've gotlinks to Karen's projects in our show notes
and on our website at Search andReplace. That show also on our show
notes, Karen's not the only onewho felt herself becoming invisible after turning fifty.
A popular website for parents in theUK surveyed their readers and discovered that
more than two thirds of women agreethat they felt themselves becoming increasingly invisible as
(06:11):
they got older, although men inthe survey said they felt the same way
at times. The average age forsocial invisibility among men was sixty four,
the women's average age was fifty two. It's not a new feeling. Award
winning writer Hillary Mantole described the samesensation in a Guardian op ed back in
two thousand and nine. Aisha Wallawalkeris the chief strategy officer of mull and
(06:33):
Low, and she's written an opinioncolumn for campaign all about how this impacts
our culture and our approach to business. We've got a link to that on
our show notes as well. Searchand Replace was produced by Nicole Hubbard with
support from Connie Evans, Amelia Lohman, April Smith and Podcast Taxi executive producer
(06:54):
Mariy Taylor. Our theme music wascomposed by Alex Rufeier. I'm Joe Taylor
Junior. This has been a PodcastTaxi Radio production support for surge and replaces
provided by Johnson Taylor User experience specialistsserving media and technology companies that want their
(07:16):
websites to work. Learn more abouthow top performing businesses eliminate barriers between customers
and their goals at www. DotMake the website work for me dot com
Support for the following podcast is providedby the user experience specialists at Johns and
Taylor. More information follows this episode. What if you worked hard at your
job and started a family, onlyto feel like nobody can see you.
I'm Joe Taylor, Jeri. Thisis Search and Replace thespital Lifetime of Accomplishments.
(00:30):
Karen Kumar felt invisible. I havefelt invisible all my life because of
my family, my in laws,people that I've associated with. I've been
married for twenty five years. Wasn'thappy in that relationship, was very very
unhappy. My kids were affected bythat as well. Obviously, also in
(00:52):
my business world when I was workingas a you know, a woman of
color, of a woman of acertain age because I went back into the
workforce at forty because and my husbandmy ex husband now obviously, and that
was kind of like okay. SoI've been feeling invisible and then something happened
that caused Karen to take stock ofher life and to start thinking about what
she might do next. I thinkwhat really came to a head was that
(01:15):
my mother's death that made me lookat life in a different way. There
are events that come into your lifewhere you just have to look at where
you are, what you're doing,and where you need to be. I
had to do something different, butI hadn't really thought about it much.
It still took me another six years. So I'd actually hit bottom after my
(01:36):
mother's death, to the point thatI almost lost everything. Family had betrayed
me. There was a lot oftoxicity around me, and I just thought
I can't deal with this any longer. And then, of course, unfortunately
we had COVID, which stuffered myplans, and I felt, okay,
once this is kind of over,hoping like everybody else'll be open like in
(01:57):
no time. That didn't how ithappened. Two years later, I decided
that I had to move away fromthe area and the location that I was
living in, and I felt thatI had to just pack up everything move
away. I just felt I hadto get away and start life afresh.
Kieran knew she needed to change upher physical environment, and she also recognized
(02:20):
a desire to adjust how she spenther time. I came to this point
in my life where I had todecide, well, what am I going
to do with my life? Howam I do to move forward? I
mean, when you hit rock bottom. The only way to go is either
further down, which you don't reallywant to do, or go up right.
So I made the decision. Mymother used to call me share in
Hindi, which is lyon, andI just had to respect her wishes.
(02:45):
I had to honor her, youknow what she thought of me. I
just had to make a comeback.And I've always been strong, She's always
she always saw my strength and Ididn't see my strength at that point.
And I knew how to come back. And I don't know what happened.
And I felt that I had todo something that would empower women. And
that's where I kind of made thechange. Drawing on her life experience,
(03:10):
led care into a new chapter inher career, leveraging her professional and creative
expertise into a platform she can useto spread her message. What fell into
my head was you are not invisibleafter fifty and I thought okay, And
in fact, the day I thoughtof it, I trademarked it. My
son said to me, Mom,why don't you trademark it well? Because
(03:32):
I believe in this idea and youstart beginning to build up something, then
you can see where this is going. But it's getting to that point,
and that's quite exhausting and tiring andemotional. Is all of those things.
The fact is that there's no endto what I can produce, so I
can take it in any direction thatI wish to take. Is The podcast
(03:53):
is one, the courses are another. Products are another, a book is
another. What's exciting because I alreadyforethought that. But also it's not just
me. I have my children whoback me up. They're part of the
business. Now. I've said tothem that once I'm no longer on the
planet, this is still continues becauseI haven't done this for nothing. But
(04:14):
the idea was, Okay, letme start something that really reflects on what
where I am in my life,but also reflects where people are in their
lives as well. Kieran's got somethingto say to anyone else who's ever felt
invisible to the people around them.It's about where do you see yourself?
Where do you want to see yourself? Are you happy in the situation that
you're in? The answer, probablynine times out of ten will be no,
(04:38):
who I'm not? So what areyou going to do about it?
And of course you have to startlife afresh, and you think oh my
god, I'm doing this at thisage. But it doesn't really matter because
at the end of the day,you can always restart, and so the
narrative is changing. We're not invisible, you know, whatever world may say.
I mean, we are in amale dominated world, but it's changing,
(04:59):
you know, women coming forward andsaying Okay, we are here,
this is us and we have along way to go, obviously, but
there are lots and lots of changemakers out there. What I would say
is look for your role model,look for who looks like you. They're
there, They're out there, andit's just seeking them out. You know,
there's lots and lots of things thatyou can be doing and seeing and
(05:23):
going on to not have that perspectiveof we're invisible or we're over this age.
This is my mission that I sharemy journey with people because I've been
on this journey which is very painfulat times, but you realize that you
can come out and recreate yourself.That's Kieran Kumar, founder of media and
(05:46):
coaching company Roaring Ahead. We've gotlinks to Karen's projects in our show notes
and on our website at Search andReplace. That show also on our show
notes, Karen's not the only onewho felt herself becoming invisible after turning fifty.
A popular website for parents in theUK surveyed their readers and discovered that
more than two thirds of women agreethat they felt themselves becoming increasingly invisible as
(06:11):
they got older, although men inthe survey said they felt the same way
at times. The average age forsocial invisibility among men was sixty four,
the women's average age was fifty two. It's not a new feeling. Award
winning writer Hillary Mantole described the samesensation in a Guardian op ed back in
two thousand and nine. Aisha Wallawalkeris the chief strategy officer of mull and
(06:33):
Low, and she's written an opinioncolumn for campaign all about how this impacts
our culture and our approach to business. We've got a link to that on
our show notes as well. Searchand Replace was produced by Nicole Hubbard with
support from Connie Evans, Amelia Lohman, April Smith and Podcast Taxi executive producer
(06:54):
Mariy Taylor. Our theme music wascomposed by Alex Rufeier. I'm Joe Taylor
Junior. This has been a PodcastTaxi Radio production support for surge and replaces
provided by Johnson Taylor User experience specialistsserving media and technology companies that want their
(07:16):
websites to work. Learn more abouthow top performing businesses eliminate barriers between customers
and their goals at www. DotMake the website work for me dot com
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com