Kimberly Joy is the kind of woman who makes you believe again; believe in your calling, your voice, and the extraordinary life God designed for you.

She’s a seven-time Amazon best-selling author, an international speaker, and the founder of The Fellowship of Extraordinary Women (FEW), a growing movement of Spirit-led women living on mission in faith, family, and business.

Since launching FEW in 2014, Kimberly has helped thousands of women discover who they really are, what they’re called to do, and how to walk it out with boldness and joy. Through live events, transformational certification courses, a thriving publishing arm, and monthly community gatherings, FEW equips women to lead with both power and presence.

Her voice has reached audiences around the world, including in Africa and across the U.S., and her passion is contagious. Whether she’s training authors, equipping entrepreneurs, mentoring leaders, or praying over a room full of world-changers, Kimberly is known for igniting clarity, confidence, and Holy Spirit purpose.

At the heart of it all, Kimberly is a deeply devoted follower of Jesus, a proud mama of 11, a joyful Noni to 11, and a relentless champion of women who are ready to rise.

https://www.thefewwomen.com/

Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, Kimberly.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I live in southeastern Wisconsin in the United States.

Very cool.

So I'd love to know this concept of joy, it being part of your name.

Is it something you live daily?

There is an element of joy that kind of flows from me.

It's a name my mother gave me when she looked at me when I was an infant and just said she knew that I'd bring people joy.

So I think it is woven into my identity.

But I think there's seasons as you know, every believer goes through as a believer where you don't have as much joy as you do in other seasons.

And there's a lot to be learned about the fruit of the spirit that is joy.

So it's kind of a deeply layered topic.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

Tell me about some of those times or even one of those times though when it was challenging when joy wasn't the first go to in your mornings.

I think what happens for someone like me who typically generally is joyful, I've been through a lot of different hard seasons and didn't always have joy.

But I think I always found joy like I found joy in this, I this brings me joy.

You know, I always kind of gravitated toward finding joy even in the dark seasons.

But there was one particular season where I didn't feel joy and I didn't find joy in hardly anything anymore.

And I didn't really care to, which is pretty scary.

When it's dark enough that you're like, I don't even have the drive to find joy.

We could replace the word joy with anything in this life.

And I would say the solution would be the same.

You have to go to the source.

The source is Jesus, you got to go to the Lord.

If joy is the fruit of the Spirit, then you need more of the Spirit, right?

So maybe that word for some of your listeners is love, or maybe it's peace.

But if you find yourself in a season where you don't have that, you don't know how to get it and you don't even have the drive, like you're out of energy, you're out of motivation, you're just surviving.

And but yet, you know, the Bible promises you these things.

And it says, Jesus said, I came to give you life and life more abundantly, but you're not experiencing that abundance.

Then we have to go back to the source and say, I don't know how this works.

But I know this is what you said.

This is what you promised.

I'm not experiencing it.

Will you help me with that?

What does that sound like for the person that's listening who wants that remedy immediately?

Well, there is no promise of immediately.

There is a promise that if we seek, we will find.

If we ask, it will be given.

If we knock, the door will be opened.

That is a promise.

And that was what that season was like for me.

It wasn't one prayer and then I got my solution.

It was a season of seeking, asking and knocking.

If anyone is in a season like that, I think the thing that's the most dangerous to lose isn't joy, it's hope.

Hope is the thing that's most dangerous to lose.

And I would ask anybody who's feeling like I don't have joy, I don't have love, I don't have peace.

I would ask you, do you feel like you have any hope?

Because if you're hopeless, you're not going to feel love or peace or joy.

You're not going to experience the goodness of God because hopelessness is a level of despair and darkness that will take all of those things from you.

So your season might look like a season of joylessness or peacelessness, but really, it's probably a season of hopelessness.

And I think that's really where that road took me as I came back to the Lord and said, I don't really think this is about joy.

I think it's about hope.

Because you can be in tough times and still have joy because you have hope.

You can be in tough times and still have peace because you have hope.

But when you don't have hope, you don't have any of those things.

Let's paint a picture for people that are listening of who Kimberly is.

Are you married?

I'm not.

Do you have children?

I do.

I have 11.

Okay.

Maybe there was an error in recording.

I know everyone's rewinding.

No, I really said 11.

And you made these 11 children or were they adopted?

I did make them.

I love how you said that you made them.

I made them, all 11 of them.

Yes.

Single births, all 11.

Walk us through that.

What's that journey been like?

Oh, toughest thing of my life.

I always kind of jokingly, but it's true.

I say, whatever motherhood doesn't reveal in you as weakness, entrepreneurship will.

Well, after my journey as a mother, I decided to start a business.

So I'm just a glutton for punishment.

Kimberly, I think you have a book title right there.

So true.

It really is.

I'm laughing, but I love it.

I really, really do love that.

Yeah.

Please make that a title.

Oh my God.

Who can test you for that, right?

Because Hey, I'm the mother of 11.

Oh dear.

You can test what I'm saying, right?

How many children do you have?

Right.

Well, but at the same time, I never want to discredit any mothers or fathers.

You can be the mother or father of one, and it's still the hardest job you're ever going to do.

It just is.

We're entrusted with human lives and it's so heavy and so layered as well.

And there's so many beautiful things about it, challenging things about it.

It causes you to face all of your own limiting beliefs, all your old trauma, all your old family patterns, just everything.

And then you're like, wow.

Okay.

For me, I had 11 children and I did a lot of course correcting during that time and ended up parenting my second set of kids.

My last kids really differently than the first.

And I'm thinking, well, I've grown so much.

And then I go start a business.

And now I'm like, wow, I didn't realize I was this insecure.

I didn't realize I was this fearful.

I didn't realize I still had such a scarcity mindset, you know, and all these things that motherhood didn't trigger were now triggered by business.

What are their current ages?

Their ages now, my oldest is 37 and the youngest is 20.

So that's a 17 year gap.

And are they all with one father?

I had a child as a teen mom.

So I became a teen mom with a boyfriend in high school.

And when he was just about one, I got married to someone else.

I married at 18 and then had 10 children with my husband.

Wow.

All right.

So that ticks that box.

And then what business did you decide that you're going to start?

I started by starting a cleaning business and I started cleaning houses.

And I showed up for my, you know, my job's professional.

I put on makeup, I put on earrings and some of the women I cleaned houses for would say, why do you look better than me?

This is so embarrassing.

You're here to clean my house and you have makeup on.

And they're like, why are you doing that?

Why can't you just come in your yucky clothes and look disheveled while you clean my house?

And I remember one lady asked me repeatedly and I wasn't sure of the answer.

So I started to really ask myself, why am I, why am I getting ready to go clean a house?

Like, what am I doing?

And I had training in a small business as a teen and they just had a really high standard for excellence and everything.

They, they modeled so much to me that I didn't realize.

And all those years later, I looked at her and I said, because I'm a business owner and I'm showing up as a business owner, not a house cleaner.

And that's, that's what I said to her.

And I was like, wow, that's really the truth.

So I brought that with me into that business.

And then after a while, I had people telling me you should become a coach, a life coach.

And this is before anyone, particularly in the Midwestern region of the United States, even knew what that was.

It was popular on the East coast and West coast, but not in the Midwest.

And so I had to do homework on it.

I'm like, what is that?

And I started to research it and I realized, oh, I would really enjoy this.

I would really love this, but I'm certainly no expert on life and look at my life.

And you'll know right away, I probably shouldn't give you life advice.

I had that imposter syndrome immediately.

But then I discovered that a life coach isn't someone who has all the answers.

There's someone who asks great questions and help you cultivate your own answers.

And I thought, well, I can do that.

And so I began to do that.

I got certified and, and put, you know, open my business and struggled to fill it with clients.

This is where all my fears and insecurities came out about rejection.

And if I asked them if they wanted to be a client, what if they say no, I was terrified of the word, no, I had a horrible relationship with the word, no.

And I had to have quite a revolution in that area of my life.

And I did.

And I realized that no, it's just a brick on the road to destiny.

Just like, yes, is the, the way that you don't fulfill your destiny is by not having bricks.

And the only way to have bricks on the road are to ask the question and let somebody tell you yes or no, but every answer was a brick equal on the journey.

And so I, it like, no became diffused for me.

And by the way, I learned all that from two brilliant people who founded a business called go for no.

And I listened to some webinars and got some training and it just revolutionized my business life.

And so I was able to start filling my practice, stop cleaning houses and do what I was made to do.

A short time later, I kind of saw this model in a business for a woman's network of women entrepreneurs who were faith forward, whose faith was first in their life and their families were important to them, but they knew they were called a business.

And I really wanted to create that.

And I had this vision that we could help them.

We could help them tell their stories.

We could help them grow in business and faith and family.

And, um, you know, the short version of the story is that about one year later, I hosted the first meeting and invited women to be a part of few, the fellowship of extraordinary women.

And I've been doing that ever since.

Absolutely amazing.

Um, all smiles for your journey.

Absolutely amazing.

So there's that other thing.

Of course you can click the link in the show notes.

Yeah.

The few woman.com in closing five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

What's the message you'd leave for future you?

Well, right now we're in the process of a national expansion.

We just announced our fourth few chapter in East metro Atlanta.

So few is now in East Atlanta, West Atlanta, the twin cities and Milwaukee here where I'm from.

And it seems like a big mountain to climb to expand this thing that God has placed in my heart.

And, but yet the faith part of me knows in five years, what I would be saying to myself is see it wasn't that hard.

God told you you'd get there.

Yeah, definitely a champion.

Kimberly joy.

A pleasure.

I treasure.

Thank you for being on what is inspired by 12 minute converse.