Meet Kennedy Mathis

We recently connected with Kennedy Mathis and have shared our conversation below.

Kennedy, so good to have you with us today. We’ve got so much planned, so let’s jump right into it. We live in such a diverse world, and in many ways the world is getting better and more understanding but it’s far from perfect. There are so many times where folks find themselves in rooms or situations where they are the only ones that look like them – that might mean being the only woman of color in the room or the only person who grew up in a certain environment etc. Can you talk to us about how you’ve managed to thrive even in situations where you were the only one in the room?

Early on, I realized that excellence alone wouldn’t always speak loud enough. I had to master presence. I had to become fluent in translating my authenticity into authority. I had to teach people how to value what they had never seen before.

I stopped entering rooms trying to prove I belonged and started entering rooms knowing I was the answer to a perspective they didn’t even know they were missing. I led with clarity, preparation, and a deep understanding of how to read energy and communicate across differences (being an empath made this fairly easy for me). I learned how to assert myself without shrinking my softness, how to influence without needing to assimilate, and how to hold the tension of being different without letting it chip away at my confidence.

I became effective by making sure that when I speak, I don’t just contribute, but that I shift the conversation. I learned to position my uniqueness as my edge, not my obstacle. I built a brand that doesn’t just represent me, it amplifies me. And I bring that with me into every room I step into — whether it’s digital, corporate, or creative. I understand how to shape narratives, lead with vision, and build relationships rooted in real connection, not performance.

Success for me wasn’t just about making noise. It was about making impact, and over time, I stopped being the only one in the room who looked like me—because I started opening doors behind me.

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

I started this journey with nothing but a vision, a laptop, and the kind of creative drive you can’t get from ChatGPT. I didn’t have a blueprint or any connections (well, technically I had a few), but nothing that could truly prepare me for the experience of becoming an entrepreneur.

In the beginning, I just wanted to create. I was drawn to storytelling, branding, culture, design, digital influence — all of it. I didn’t have the exact title or job description, but I knew I had something to say, and I was willing to figure it out in real time. Every client I worked with, every mistake I made, all of it shaped how I think, how I lead, and how I move now.

What no one tells you about being a founder is how spiritual the work really is.

Online, entrepreneurship easily gets packaged into quick wins, aesthetic routines, and luxury branding. But behind the scenes, this path will break you open. You’re not just building a brand. You’re confronting your self-worth. You’re shedding the watered-down version of you that fit into other people’s containers. You’re learning how to lead before you fully believe you’re ready.

Being a founder has been the most expansive, most confronting, and most clarifying thing I’ve ever done. It requires so much more than skill — it asks for soul, for purpose, for something egoless. You have to know who you are when nobody’s clapping. You have to show up when the algorithm doesn’t reward you. You have to believe in your vision when the results don’t reflect it yet.

Now, everything I create comes from that version of me — the one who had to fight to be seen. The one who had ideas dismissed, and watched them get recycled without credit. The one who chose to stay original, even when it would’ve been easier to just blend in, just like everybody else.

That clarity is what led me to build Sociale — a full service creative and talent agency rooted in originality, alignment, and culture. Sociale is the embodiment of everything I had to learn the hard way. It’s where strategy meets identity, intentionality, and alchemy. Where creative work holds weight. Where I help other brands (and creators) lead and stand out, without the stress, and mis-alignment.

This journey taught me that you don’t need validation to be valuable. You just need vision. You just need self-trust. And once you have that, the rest starts to fall into place.

That’s what this chapter is about for me: building with clarity, leading with integrity, and showing up for the work that actually means something.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Looking back, the three most important things that shaped my journey were self-trust, discernment, and storytelling.

Self-trust is everything. When you’re building something from scratch, especially as a creative, you’re going to hear a lot of opinions. Some will be helpful. Most will be noise. If you don’t have a deep relationship with your own voice, you’ll start building things that look good on the outside but feel empty on the inside. My best advice is to stop waiting for someone to tell you you’re ready. Move before you’re fully confident, and trust that clarity comes after the leap.

Discernment is the skill that will protect your energy, your vision, and your standards. Especially in creative industries, not every opportunity is aligned, and not everyone clapping, is clapping FOR you. Learn to recognize the difference between exposure and exploitation. Protect your creativity by protecting your peace.

Storytelling changed everything for me. Not just as a strategy, but as a way of leading. When you know how to communicate who you are, what you do, and why it matters, you move differently. You attract differently. You lead differently. My advice for anyone new to this: don’t just talk about your work. Talk about your process, your perspective, your why. That’s what people connect with…. not perfection, but truth.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

The Mountain Is You was the first book that forced me to take accountability for how I was getting in my own way — not just in life, but in business. I wasn’t afraid of failing. I was afraid of actually succeeding and not being able to hold it.

That book called out the subtle ways I’d self-sabotage: overthinking launches, over-delivering in silence, second-guessing my ideas the minute they started to gain traction. It made me realize I wasn’t overwhelmed… I was afraid of being fully visible. Afraid of becoming someone people expected things from. Afraid that success would make me more responsible, more exposed, and ultimately more alone.

If I’m being honest, that fear was showing up everywhere in how I was building Sociale. I was being messy behind the scenes, delaying offers, tweaking things that didn’t need fixing, convincing myself I needed more time, or more proof. That book made it very clear: the reason I wasn’t scaling wasn’t strategy, but was self-protection dressed up as perfectionism.

Once I saw that, I stopped playing small out of habit. I stopped romanticizing struggle, and I started treating my business like it was already thriving, and not something I needed to earn my way into. You can have the branding, the vision, the talent, the systems, the everything – but if your nervous system still thinks success is a threat, you’ll find ways to fumble what’s inevitably yours.

That one book changed LITERALLY everything for me (and if you know me, you know i’m a serial reader). Now, I can happily say that Sociale is better than I could’ve imagined it would be. And we’re only growing, elevating and scaling even more. The 2023 version of me who created Sociale would be so proud of where we are today.

Contact Info:

• Website: socialehq.com
• Instagram: @socialehq
• Linkedin: @socialehq
• Other: email: [email protected]

Image Credits

Image credits: Zyon Tillmon & Kennedy Mathis