Meet Kesi Felton

We recently connected with Kesi Felton and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kesi, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

My senior quote in high school was “Positive belief in yourself will give you the energy needed to conquer the world,” and is still in my personal email signature to this day. I believe that my confidence and self-esteem are something that I will have to continue to work on, but I believe that giving myself permission to overcome fear by acting on my convictions has been the greatest tool to grow in that area.

I feel very strongly about the fact that the world sends pervasive messages to young people, neurodivergent folks, and/or dark-skinned Black girls like myself about what our confidence and self-esteem levels should be (ie. extremely low or nonexistent), and I believe this is the strongest factor in why I operate the way I do as a young woman today. I’m much better at offering myself kindness, grace, compassion, and empathy as I continue that journey to overcome insecurity, fear, and self-doubt, but the importance of sticking to that work comes back to the bigger picture of demonstrating that confidence and self-esteem – in my opinion – are not things that one either has or doesn’t have, they are often things that are cultivated within us, by us, and by forces around us that we have to grow in our ability to identify and overcome or lean into.

For example, I believe that my ego can be very self-victimizing and I notice that my confidence shrinks when I feel that circumstances or factors beyond me are out of my control. Sometimes this helps with acceptance because it is a fact of life in some regards and, other times, it invites me to reclaim my locus of control to see what I do have control over to take action or reframe my mindset around a certain experience.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

In this season of life, I’m focused on being a recent self-published author – my book is called ‘The Morning Always Comes – reflections on being and becoming.’

It is a collection of personal essays on identity and coming of age through the lens of my experiences as a young Black, neurodivergent woman from the South. I started writing the book during the end of my gap year from college, and it has definitely been a labor of love and personal growth over the past nearly four years.

Since I just got the book over the finish line and published, I’m giving myself permission to rest in the accomplishment and celebrate myself – and also to make sure all my people get a copy lol! – before shifting to broader promotion. At that point, I want to be intentional about sharing the book with primarily other young Black women who may resonate with the experience of feeling “lost” in life or disconnected from yourself and your purpose and forward movement along your journey. I hope to share the book through events, partnerships with book clubs, and other activations that center on community expression and gatherings beyond just myself individually.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

One of the biggest themes I’m gleaning from ‘The Morning Always Comes’ while re-reading it in hindsight is the impact of career pressure, but then more importantly from how that can often supersede the journey to discover personal purpose and meaning, especially for younger folks/Gen Z and millennials. Getting to the other side of writing this book, I think it’s setting itself up to be a bridge for opportunities for me both personally and professionally that I’m looking forward to exploring. I hope that others can take from it the power of hope, commitment, and self-belief as a practice, which I believe was paramount in executing this book in a way that I’m really proud of.

People who write books often say it’s about playing the long game, which I definitely see now – when I first started writing in 2019, I would see people share advice on how to write 200+ pages in 90 days. Looking back, I think it was a fear of sitting in the uncertainty of how the book would come to life versus what I imagined it could be and giving it space to actually come to life by getting out of my own way.

I care deeply about creating meaningful things and an overarching body of work that is timeless or that can last beyond the very short cycles of content and media that we are forced to consume, but more importantly that people who create often feel forced to contribute to. Since this book was about me, myself, and my life – it was something I not only wanted to but had to give space and time to sit with personally, let alone to make sense of to write (somewhat) cohesively.

To anyone looking to do similar work – creative work or life work – I would say if and when you feel that pressure to rush through your process, let it breathe just a little bit more. Really, cultivate a practice of really listening to and trusting yourself and your inner voice to know when it feels right to lean in, let things breathe, and when you and your work need more time and space versus when it’s time to just put it out into the world and move forward despite your fears.

If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?

Coming to the other side of writing this book has been very surreal for me – it definitely has been a long journey over the past four years to stay committed to writing and finishing the book. Now that it’s out and people have it in hand, it feels obvious and expected that I’d now shift into promotion and marketing mode to actually sell it, but I feel a lot of hesitation – with just needing some rest in general, but really with the idea of having to be “salesy” about something that I quite literally put so much of myself into.

I don’t know that I care so much about sales, moreso than for people who would or might resonate with the perspectives and experiences I share to be the main ones to get it, and for the book to just be in the right places for other young Black women and girls specifically to find it, have the space to internalize the content and be positively impacted by it. I care about people engaging with it – and really, me – thoughtfully and with curiosity and care.

It’s weird because I’ve been sharing my writing for years, but being seen and known in this way has seemed very scary for me throughout my life – I think it’s a feeling of a loss of control over how I am engaged with and perceived by way of my book, which I guess has always been the case, but I’m feeling it much more acutely. I look forward to overcoming that challenge in the coming months, though!

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Image Credits
Studio-setting photos by Daniella Almona

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