Ep 99 Confidence Is Built the Slow Way — Kira Hartley Klinger on Visibility, Fear of Judgment & Showing Up Anyway

Welcome back to Morning Cup of Brand Spark, the Mirror Conversations. This is a space where we talk about the moments that quietly and sometimes uncomfortably change how we see ourselves. Today, I'm joined by Kira Hartley Klinger author, entrepreneur, lifetime internet reseller, and the creator of the Fabric Wars series. For years, Kira carried a deep fear of judgment and public speaking.

The kind that shows up physically, emotionally, and sometimes silently. And yet, through single parenthood, entrepreneurship, auctions, storytelling, and showing up anyway, something shifted in her. This conversation isn't about overnight confidence. It's about how confidence is built the slow way.

through survival, repetition, and deciding that you're done shrinking. So let's get started.

Why, hello, Kira. Thank you so much for joining me today on Morning Cup of Brand Spark. How are you?

Good morning, Gina. I'm great. It's bitterly cold and windy here, but I'm good otherwise.

Is it freezing?

Is it actually below freezing there?

Not technically, but we're having a cold front move in, so the wind is wicked today and it feels like below freezing when the wind hits you, for sure.

⁓

no, that windchill is horrible then. So then what's in your cup? You must have something warm today.

It's my second cup of tea today. don't usually indulge twice a day, but I do. have, I have chamomile in there. It is a Monday and it's been a busy Monday. So chamomile is awful good for unwinding the stress and anxiety and yeah, little reset.

Ha ha.

no stress

and anxiety. Let's reset that for 2026. We're almost there, right? Reset it. And where are you joining from, if you can tell our audience?

Let's reset it. I got the rest of the day.

I am in Jackson Center, Ohio, in very, rural, I'm in the literally surrounded by cornfields.

Cornfields. Okay, been there, been there, done that. It's different, but not bad. And you told me that you have a nice little farm area, so that's awesome.

Yeah.

I do, and they are all nicely tucked in barns today. It's too cold to be out.

in the warmth.

Well, if you had to name the version of yourself that you're currently living in right now. So before we get started on your mirror moment, what would you call the current version of you?

Right now I kind of feel like I'm coasting. ⁓ know, the hard, the hard stuff is behind me. There are a lot of potentials in my future if I decide to pursue them or push harder. But yeah, I'm almost 58. So I'm not the type of person that knows how to retire. I will probably always be doing something.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You'll be

doing something. Come on, you'll have multiple things going still. ⁓

I don't

I mean my husband's counting his days. He's counting his days, his hours, his minutes. He will literally recite to me how many days he has left on a random basis. So he he can't wait. Of course he understands that he's probably going to be working for me. You don't just get to do nothing around here so. But.

You know, I think he's I think he's okay with that. At least he says he is. He might decide at the last minute to get a very elaborate hobby that keeps him busy throughout the work day so he doesn't have to see what else I could give him to do. ⁓ Right, I'm busy. I'm going to go out right now. Be back for lunch or something or yeah, yeah, I can't retire.

You

I'm busy, right? And then if,

no, I get that. what would your word be for 2026 then?

What am I thinking for 2026?

Yeah,

yeah. If coasting was where you feel right now, this version of yourself, what's different about 2026 for you?

I am really super enjoying doing podcasting. I did my first podcast two years ago and then I set it aside for a while because I was doing a lot of public speaking. And then I got invited back to the same podcast that I had done before. know, she's invited me after she read my first book and she said, if you write the second book, you know, give me a holler. So I wrote the second book and I'm like, yeah, I should check back in with her. And I just, I don't know.

Come back on and talk about it. Yeah.

It was just something different to do. So I've kind of slowed down the public speaking and I'm doing more podcasting. The last two years, I've had an opportunity with a TV producer. It's taken a little bit to get it off the ground. And she recently has given me some suggestions that might help get it off the ground. I don't know how I feel about it yet, you know, but.

Mm-hmm.

Cool

Yeah, and this goes back to the AI that you and I talked about. She wants me to help write this incredible pitch using AI. so, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I mean, there's just possibilities.

that's a mixed feelings.

Then 2026 could be the year of possibility for you. That's awesome too.

It

could be the year of possibilities. have, and this is completely off subject, but that's my entire life because I can't do just one thing. I have to do 20 things. But I published my first children's book a year ago and there is another one that is written. I'm waiting for the illustrator. So that's a possibility for 2026 too.

It's okay, let's do it.

Hey, that's cool.

Coasting is a good word. Yeah. I mean, I'm okay if I stay on the same trajectory that I am right now. But you know, I'm curious if something new comes up too.

Yeah, the next thing. Yeah, for now.

And then let's talk about your mirror moment a bit. So first let's talk a little bit about before the mirror moment that you had. So when you think back to your earlier years, fear of judgment, how did that show up for you back then?

Gosh, my early years, I always wanted to be a writer. ⁓ Always, always, always, My whole life, it didn't matter how old I was. If you asked me, I'm gonna be a writer. There was never a backup plan. It was always, I'm gonna be a writer. So I spent a lot of time writing in my 20s and my 30s. I kind of like, I like solitude work. ⁓ You know, I like getting in my space and being in my head. So yeah, I did a lot of writing.

Mmm always like your whole life. That's awesome

Mmm.

Mm.

my 20s and my 30s, I was trying to publish the traditional route, which is very hard on a writer's ego. is extremely hard to get any kind of, yeah, it was tough. I collected a large amount of rejection letters and I had an agent. had some reads along the way with some really popular publishers.

Through a publisher, you mean? Yeah, the traditional way.

Yeah.

Wow.

Mm-hmm.

But I didn't sell any of my works of fiction. I didn't sell anything until I finally sold a magazine article, of all things, in my 30s. So yeah, rejection is really, really hard. And it's really hard to keep showing up and to send it to another person after the last person said, yeah, no, sorry. It's hard to hear that that many times. ⁓ Yes, it was.

Yeah, that has to be tough.

I ended up divorced at 40 and I was still raising the last of my three kids. was a teenager. And I always kind of worked for myself in some capacity. I was trying to be present for my kids. didn't want them getting into the trouble that I got into when I was a teenager. So I tried to be present. And again, it was a lot of solid two jobs. I worked for me, myself and I. So now I have to go into this workplace. have to figure out what am I going to do, you know, to help.

Mm.

Of course. Yeah.

Mm.

I'll

praise my daughter and I'm not writing at this point because that's a luxury. I need to do something that makes money. And that put me a course of unexpected events, I started dabbling with buying things that I picked up dirt cheap and finding out if they were worth any money. And so that put me into a whole new situation where I had to be very much in the public eye and very much around other people that had been doing this a really long time.

Yeah,

Yeah.

try to figure out if I could figure it out. There certainly wasn't gonna be anybody in that arena that was gonna give you any tips to help you out. No, it's either sink or swam.

and try it through that.

No? Really? ⁓ that's tough.

But was there a moment then where you realized that that sort of fear that you were holding onto wasn't gonna stop your life anymore?

When I started to make money and I got lucky, from the get-go, would buy things. There are auction houses, and I'm not a big fan of auction houses. You can read all about them in both my two books. There's so many reasons why I hate auction houses. But my early start in this was in an auction house. There were a few auction houses in my neighborhood, and it was something that a friend of mine and I used to do for fun.

Really?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Wasn't okay.

You know, yeah, we'd find stuff that maybe we could use or, and this is when I was dabbling as a hobby. You know, I had already kind of gotten my feet wet doing it before the divorce. So I already kind of knew that it wasn't terrible at finding things to buy and sell. I just didn't know whether or not I could do it full time and it could actually be a means to survive. It was a hobby. was something for fun, you know. But yeah, I was picking up a few things. I don't know.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

A money maker, yeah.

I bought an old movie projector for $2, this big, heavy boat anchor thing, but nobody else wanted it. So I like, oh, I'll buy it, whatever. And it sold for $150. And so they were just, it was. around the same time, I bought a box full of broken eyeglasses and they were, a lot of them were gold and gold filled. They were older, but it was pieces, parts. I...

Hey, that's a nice profit. Here.

I think they sold for $3. And I don't know why weird things speak to me. I have sold so many weird things in my lifetime, but I bought that box of $3 eyeglasses and that sold for a hundred. ⁓ But at the time I didn't really know what things were gonna be worth. And eBay was fun then because people liked to bid. So I could put something out there that I spent $3 on it, start the bid at $3 and watch and see what happens. So the buyers were dictating

Cool.

What they paid for it wasn't me. didn't have a clue what anything was worth. But it was a good.

and for you, as long as

it was selling over what you paid for it, you were also like, well, this is great. Yeah. Yeah, come on. It's awesome.

Right! Yeah, give me some more $2 crap. I have no shame. I'll put it out there. People don't bid on it. well, you know, I'll get rid of it.

but you know, it is, it's a hard, and we're all friends now, we really are. I've been buying and selling for so long, and when you first go out into that world, the others are not very accepting of you. It's very easy to get pushed towards the back, and it's very easy to be overpowered by somebody else's bidding and overpowered by somebody else's knowledge and their exuberance. Yeah, especially, there's a lot of men in this.

Mm.

field and I'm not necessarily intimidated by men but like retired grumpy men that know what they're doing and you just look like somebody that's in their way. You know it's hard to stand tall and and say well I'm gonna bet on that too you know and I don't know.

Yeah, like you were

mentioning also in our pre-discussion, it's also difficult when you're not necessarily the expert in the thing you're selling at that moment in time either.

No,

no, I'm winging it. And the thing about it is that if you decide to bid against somebody in this and you do happen to win it, there's a very strong possibility that you just overpaid because that person did know what it was worth and they quit bidding. So it's hard to feel victorious because you won it because you feel like they're smirking at you behind your back because they're like, she just paid too much. know, so yeah, I really, I...

Yeah.

And they stopped, yeah. ⁓

no.

I never really got too involved with chasing the things that were collectible, that everybody chased, that everybody knew about, the popular things to buy and sell. I really tried to get away from those and to look for the things that were under tables and buried in boxes and things that nobody wanted. And yeah, found, I mean, I made a living out of it and I still make a living out of it. I still like to buy the cheap stuff. But at least now I've gotten

Hmm.

to the point where I do know things about things and I can show up at an auction and know what something is worth. And I can be the first person to back out because the other person's bidding too much. So I'm at a much more comfortable level right now. And now these men, we joke with each other, we tease each other. Oh, well, you stole that from me and look what you got out of it, because we stalk each other. yeah, it's fun. It's fun. I adore it.

You're much stronger after your experience.

And

how does that feel for your visibility now that you are indeed the one that's more front and center because you have the experience, you have the confidence, you don't have as much of that fear of judgment, of course, but how does it feel now, the person that you are standing up there where this is, this is a living now?

Yeah,

yeah, I mean, it's empowering. It's nice to be able to walk into the room or walk on site to one of these auctions and to have other people you know, you can recognize each other, you know who each other. Yeah, we know each other. Sometimes we know each other by name. Sometimes we don't. But to have heads turn and to see eyes fall or to see the heavy sigh, because they know that even though they might not necessarily win.

Yeah.

or they might not necessarily lose the item, that they're not going to get it as cheap as they hope they would. And the same is true for me. My second shop on Etsy started randomly because one of the things that I started to buy and sell on eBay was vintage fabric. And I got such a huge following for it that it needed its own space. And so now when I show up, when there's going to be a fabric sale or I know the fabric is going to be there, there are people that I recognize, you know, and the sigh will come out of me, not because

Mm-hmm

you

I'm not

going to get it because I know I'm going to get it. don't quit on some things. ⁓ But just because, again, I know I'm not going to walk away with it for a couple of dollars. I know I'm going to have to fight for it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in this whole process where you've built your brand and you've built your visibility through the changes in your journey, is there anything that you've had to unlearn in that process as well?

Hmm. You know, I've had to unlearn a little bit of the competitive competitiveness. I've always been very competitive from the time I was a child. I never really wanted anybody to watch me what I was doing, but I still wanted to win. You know, I used to do, I used to do a fancy diving when I was a kid and my mom would sometimes come and watch me and she, I'd be like, Nope, you got to turn around. You are not going to watch me do this.

Bye.

You can't see me.

But there's something there though that your competitiveness is also, it would be natural that you end up in an auction house at some point because hey, you can win there. That's awesome.

You cannot see me. So there is still a

Right, right. And who knew? And there are some things that I am just so proud of myself that I knew about that nobody else did. And, you know, I can walk in and I can walk out and barely spend any money. And I am just like singing all the way home. can't wait to get to work. I can't wait to get these things listed. Yeah. So and I know that there's people out there that are that are my competition and they're looking on my site and they're like, well, where'd she find that? Because I do the same thing to other people, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I mentioned that I don't like to back down on fabric and I don't. And there have been days where I have filled my car to the ceiling, days where I had to pull all the fabric out of the boxes and roll it up and stuff it into every little corner of my SUV just so I could get it home, you know, and spent very little for it. But then there are days that I will go to an auction and somebody there is there that competes for it.

Wow.

I'm not dealing with just little old ladies and grandmothers that want to go home and make a quilt for the new grandchild in the family. You know, I'm dealing with... Right, there are a few out there. And there is one that makes an appearance in two chapters in my first book because she beat the living snot out of me in the auction ring. And I didn't want to... It was horrible. I had nightmares about this chick for years. And I've not seen her in a long time. So I like to think that she moved.

Yeah.

Yeah, you got other professionals there. Yeah.

Really?

or couldn't sell it or something. She's gone. But you know, yes, I still made money, but I had so much more money on the table and I know better than that. I know that my biggest profits lurk behind these things that I can sneak out from the other competition. But sometimes I feel like, you know, this is my territory. Back off, go home.

Yeah, I get it. She's just, she's not there. It's all good. And she won't come back in your dreams.

It's cool.

it's so funny though because you you talk about the auction stuff I mean I'm not going into auction houses, but we have the secondhand stores here and I can't tell you how many times I go to the secondhand stores here the the like the antique places and

Leave me alone!

I have competitions with my family, so speaking of competition, of who can go in and spend the least amount of money and get the coolest stuff and get like the most things or what can we buy that we can resell at the local websites here? Like how can we make anything out of it? It's such a game.

⁓ I-

I would

be all over that and my daughter-in-law, is thrifty like I am. Cause I'm thrifty in life, you know? And so we're always writing to each other, texting to each other, look what I found.

Look what I got.

Look what I got. Yeah.

We would be all over

that and we would both be so competitive. have no doubt. Yeah, it's so much fun. It's so much fun. My house is almost completely furnished in antiques and randomness and old things and cute things and fun things. And it's it's I love it. Yes, it's so eclectic.

that's awesome.

Eclectic, it's awesome, that's awesome. I love

that too, that's so cool. So if someone's listening right now and maybe they feel intimidated by visibility, where do you think they should start?

Gosh dang, it is hard. It is really hard to get up the gumption and a lot of times it takes a major shift or pivot in your life to really ignite the fire to where you're backed up against the wall and you're like, well now I gotta have to do something. And I think that was definitely the case for me. ⁓ But quite honestly, if the desire is there, I think that we're all kind of born with this innate need. I mean, I always knew that I wanted to write, you know, I.

Because you... Yeah.

Yeah.

I just think we're born with certain drives in us. And quite honestly, nobody's going to represent us better out there than ourselves. So it just comes down to how important is it to you? All those years that I was not writing, I thought about writing every day. And I still love what I do with the buying and selling. But now that the buying and selling is married to my two books and each needs the other to survive.

ourselves.

Hmm.

I'm kind of stuck. I like it.

Yeah, but

you have all the things that you wanted though, that's amazing, still.

I do, I do. Everything came full circle. Everything created this beautiful package and put a bow on it. But certainly nobody was gonna hand it to me. In fact, people in my past life certainly looked at me and wanted me to fail. And if that's not motivation in itself, I don't know what is. But yeah, I think, yeah.

Yep.

And speaking of that, how do

you keep that from turning into self doubt again?

I'm to the point. I mean, I think I think that writing is still is still a thing for that. It is, you know, you and I talked before before the show and you mentioned how hard it is to become successful on Etsy. And it really is. It is equally hard to grow a following for books. And I'm in.

Hmm.

Totally.

Yeah, totally

kind of a niche

true.

market, you know, of this buying and selling. Yes, there's American pickers out there and storage wars and pawn stars and all these other TV shows that really glorify it. And if you think about it, it's all men, right? Okay.

They do. Yeah, it is. All of it.

Every single one. I've seen every one of those shows. They are 100 % all men. Yes.

Right,

I think there's one woman in Storage Wars, which coincidentally some people say I look like her. But anyway.

Really? I don't remember

there being a woman. see that's how bad it is. ⁓

I

think her name is Mary. But that's what the TV producer kind of saw in me in my life. That's what she saw. She saw like a female version that's making it out there in this world and building this brand and having this package. And it all just, yeah, it was step by step, building block by building block. I don't really have. I know enough about buying and selling now. I've been doing it for 18 years that as long as there is still access

being able to buy things, I will always be able to make money. I know that about myself. But the books, and it doesn't matter if you're traditionally published or if you're self-published, you're still your own marketer. You're still your own promoter. You're still going to be the one that's responsible for whether or not books sell. And yes, if I get out there and if I push, like I do all this public speaking,

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. You will find your way with that now. Yeah. Yeah.

See ya.

for quilting guilds and things like that. I know my market. If I go to my people, I can sell books all day long. ⁓ But then on the other hand, I'm not, yeah, and I do do that. But at some point you have to come back to the work that is behind the books too. Like I said, they're married. So I have to figure out a way to share the time. So I can't really say I have a whole lot of self doubt, but it is.

Mm-hmm, but you physically have to be the one to do that. That's the difference.

Yeah.

Right.

It is depressing and frustrating sometimes because when you write a book, you just really want it to take off, you know, and there's so many books out there and there's so much just competition in general. We're not going to get started on AI, but now that people are writing books in AI, that's a whole nother nightmare for authors that actually write their own books. So yeah, I want my dream in writing to be bigger. And maybe that's why I'm spending so much time posting right now, because I think

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, no. Yep.

the books are what I see for myself in retirement.

Yeah, that's also your legacy in a way, right? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it really is. I

want to leave that behind, not just the written works, but I want to behind the written works is this attitude of empowerment. And, you you know, look what look what my grandmother did or look what my aunt did or, you know, just yeah, never needed to be famous. I don't care about being famous or rich. I just, you know, I feel like I have things to say. And if I have people that are reading it, listening to it, appreciating it, learning from it, benefiting from it.

Yeah, it's awesome.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

then that's what makes me sleep well at night.

That's what

makes it, yeah, yeah. And then it's all worth it. And speaking of, where can people find your stuff? where they can buy your book, your books I should say, because there's two, you have your Etsy shop, and yeah, where can everyone find you or where can they buy your stuff?

If you are a fabric junkie or an antique textile junkie, an Etsy junkie, any of the above, or if you know somebody in your life that is, go to my shop. It's Dod Oddity, D-O-D-O-D-D-I-T-Y. There is a story behind the name. I know it's strange. ⁓

I wanna know,

tell me the story, cause I'm in branding, come on, I wanna hear the story.

my grandfather, called him Dod. And my grandfather was the king of repurpose and thrift and make something different. And he just, I still remember one time we showed up at the airport and he greeted us with these cheap straw hats. He lived in Florida and he had taken one of those touristy shell necklaces and put it around the band of the hat and he attached it with bread ties.

Okay.

You

I know them. Yeah.

You know, so he just never knew what he was going to recreate, you know. He made this tray for my daughter years and years and years ago. Before we had laptops or computers, he made her this wooden tray with this green felt lining. I do not know where he found his pieces, parts. And she was like eight years old. And he wrote on the side, laptop. And we didn't have laptops. It's just, but he looked at it and said, this is a laptop.

Yeah.

really? What?

And it wasn't even close to a laptop, but that's anyway. you never know what I am going to find. You never knew what he was going to find. So dod oddity just happened. Yeah. So anyway, if you buy my books there, I can sign them for you. I also have cute little matching bookmarks that I can give to little freebies. Otherwise, the books are on Amazon.

That's awesome.

hehe

That makes sense. That's awesome. It's good story though.

Cool.

You can connect with me on Instagram. Instagram is also under dod oddity. You can connect with me under Keira Hartley-Klinger on LinkedIn. And I have a Facebook author page.

And your book on Amazon, is that available in all countries? Is that worldwide, shippable? Or is it US only? It's worldwide. ⁓ that's cool.

It is. is. I get so excited. Like I just sold one in Japan last week. And you know, maybe there's authors that sell

to Japan all the time, but every time something happens overseas, I'm like, Oh, somebody bought about it.

That's a new one for the list?

Yeah, that's awesome. Cool.

But the thing about it

is that I sell to people all over the world and everybody that buys something from me gets a note put in their package that is a quote of a review of my book or it's a little snippet about the book. I advertise the book in every single package that somebody buys. So today I think I shipped out a total of 17 or 18 packages that 17 or 18 people that I just advertise to for free.

Mm.

Mm.

that's cool. So you're also sending out a promotion for the book with that as well. That's cool. Smart. ⁓ hey, that's a good thing. Yeah. No.

Yes, and that's how the producer found me. The producer was a customer. How weird is that? Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, use your brain. Marketing doesn't have to be expensive. You know,

be creative.

Yeah, it's also where's the logical next step for making those connections? Because it is still, like you said before, we are living in this world of so much AI everywhere, but it's still about human beings. It's still about making the connection and buying from a human. You don't buy from the AI.

Great.

Exactly.

And even though these notes might have something on it that's pre printed, because I'm not going to write out a review every time I send a package, it takes me two seconds to write up there. Thank you. I appreciate you be well to address somebody by name, whatever it takes two seconds to make it a personal human connection. And that goes a really long way in business period.

No.

It does.

Yeah, totally. And that is a perfect tip also at the end for everybody listening because that is, we need to not lose that part of our humanity too, in taking time out for people like that. Kira, thank you so much for joining me. This was lovely. I appreciate it and I wish you an awesome rest of the day because it's early for you still. Thank you.

Right.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you. Yeah, you

too. Back to being busy Monday.

Well, that was Morning Cup of Brand Spark with Kira Hartley Klinger. It's a reminder that confidence isn't something you're born with. It's something you build when you keep showing up before you're actually ready. If this conversation resonated with you, share it with someone else who's learning how to take up more space in their own life. And until next time, keep your coffee warm and your mirror close.