So many women entrepreneurs feel invisible, not just online, but in their lives, their work, and their stories.

For anyone who has ever wondered why their business isn’t getting the attention it deserves, why their voice feels muted, or why their presence seems overlooked, this episode offers clarity, resonance, and relief.

In this intimate conversation, Nikisha opens up about the invisible seasons of her life, the childhood experiences that shaped her identity, the pressure of being the “good immigrant daughter,” and the silent expectation to shrink. These early narratives often follow women into adulthood, into entrepreneurship, and into how boldly they allow themselves to be seen.

Listeners will hear the truth behind why visibility feels so uncomfortable for so many women and why staying small can feel safer than stepping forward.

More importantly, the episode explores how to shift that narrative. Visibility is not about ego, it is about alignment, confidence, and claiming the space each woman deserves to occupy.

For those wrestling with the fear of being misunderstood, judged, or not enough, this episode illuminates where those feelings come from and how to rise beyond them.

• This conversation serves as a bridge, from who women have been told to be, to the powerful, visible leaders they are finally ready to become.

What You’ll Take Away From This Episode:

• Why am I not getting more leads in my business?
• Why does showing my face online feel uncomfortable?
• How do I get comfortable being visible?
• Why do I feel overlooked compared to other entrepreneurs?
• How do I build confidence in my identity and message?
• What does “visibility” actually mean in business, and where do I start?

If this episode opened something inside you, don’t sit with the awareness alone. Step into aligned action.

Join The Disruptive Chronicles, where each week we shift you from fear into movement, from invisibility into identity, from hesitation into aligned action.

🖋️ Sign up here: https://nikishaking.com/disruptive-chronicles

Welcome with your host and business guru, Nakisha King. This podcast is the ultimate destination for women creative entrepreneurs who want to break free from burnout.

If you are overwhelmed by client demands and feel like you're doing this all alone, you, my friend, are in the right place. Now, let's dive in for steps to take back your time and see simplify your workflow.

All right, Nikisha, take it away. Hello and welcome to Iconic CEO Podcast, where I'm your host, Nikisha. And this is where free spirits come to fall in love with systems.

Now, as a systems and sales coach, I specialize in helping people create systems in their business. And I know what you're thinking. Well, Nikisha, systems are rigid.

And when you're thinking systems are rigid, you're honestly thinking about structural systems and not systems that we use in everyday life. And this month, I want to introduce you to that.

And it's something that is dear to my heart because I struggle with it when I see other people go through it. And deep down, I don't know if they're aware of it, but it breaks my heart when people hide in the shadows.

It breaks my heart when they want to be invisible, but they don't know that they're doing it. But they have a lot of moments. And I kind of want to speak about it today because I want to express how I felt.

I want to express what that looked like. Because sometimes when we're in. In our own storm, we're not able to know we're in our own storm.

And there are moments I possibly had when people expressed what that looked like that I could relate. And once I related, the awareness came. And what. That's where everything shifted for me.

So what I'm going to talk about today is a little bit about my story about being invisible, my story about not knowing who I was. And in my whole history of my life, if you spoke to my friends from college, especially to now, they would have never considered me invisible.

But I think when I was in elementary school, my invisibility started then.

So as I matured, it was always there, and slowly it came where I became visible, but not visible in the way I wanted to, but in the way that I believed society wanted to see me. So first and foremost, I have a company. I've been a entrepreneur for 17 plus years. Before that I was in the health care field.

I wanted to become a physician, a doctor. So my whole background is health and science related. Everything I did was health and science. And elementary school is kind of where it started.

My mom always wanted me to be a doctor. And that's normal for your immigrant parent. And as you may know.

So when I stepped into this world and had that put upon me to become a physician, I'm the kid who never objected. I'm the kid who said, all right, let's make it happen. What made me that way? That's a whole nother story. I still don't know.

But I was very much focused on what is I was going to do and I created that story. Elementary school, I was very quiet. I was an A plus student.

And it was because as an immigrant child, if I didn't get an A, I would get in trouble, which meant, you know, physically beatings or whatever the case is. And being a child who's very disciplined and very like, listen, like listen, it doesn't take a lot. Like I didn't like show myself.

I didn't do things to get attention. That's the last thing I ever wanted. So I did what I was supposed to do and I think that's a part of my conditioning.

So in those moments, being invisible just meant not speaking up, not having disrespectful thoughts or words, being very respectful, being what everyone thought I should be when they thought of the word nice. Right. So it started there and it started with observing more rather than speaking more.

So I would observe people's behaviors, the things they say, the things they do, who are they? And there will be thoughts in my mind, just like one of my oldest daughters.

But as I matured high school, I started to find myself, even though I was all I was, the girl wearing baggy clothes, because yes, I had a shape. I love my shape today.

Didn't know I had a shape because I didn't live in that world of magazines and shows and I seen them but never related to them as me having a shape like them. People pointed it out and when they did, I would shrink, I would become invisible.

So what that meant wearing baggy clothes, covering it up at all costs, being very much on the boy side than the feminine side because I didn't want to draw that attention to myself. Once again, invisible. As I got into my senior year in high school and College, the beginning. I started modeling.

So therefore, my physical being made its debut. And I started to show up in a world as modeling. And the way I did that, I did a class, right? Always had coaches in my life.

I did a class and got it comfortable with that and started to do shows and Runway shows and magazines and things of that nature. And people who are looking at me would think I was visible, but anytime I did a show, anytime I did anything of that nature, it wasn't me.

I can easily put on Sasha Fierce, just like Beyonce spoke about her. That. That Persona a lot of stars put on to mask who they are. So that's that.

And I had a lot of fun doing my Runway shows because they allowed me to tap into something I didn't know exists. My feminine side, my beauty. And having a lot of fun doing it. I've done.

I did a lot of Runway shows, and no matter where I showed up, I showed up, and I had so much fun with it. So after that, I went to my pre med program, and after that, I stopped modeling. I started to do my work heavily. And even then, I disappeared.

I went away for school. I left my friends, my family. I disappeared. So as you can see, this invisibility trend is like a thing of my past. It was part of my conditioning.

So when I became a business owner, remember 17 years, the first 10 years, no one knew I existed. No one knew I was out in the world doing wedding invitations. They knew like my family. But people who were interested into me had no clue I existed.

And being a new mom, being a new wife, I didn't feel like I could exist because I was living for other people. I weren't. I wasn't living for myself.

And in those moments, it felt like the transition from being Nikisha, this person who modeled and partied and who got really good grades in school and educated, moving into this world of being a wife, caring for someone else, and having kids, caring for them, that transition was really hard. And that transition was hard for me because no one prepared me for that transition.

It was like seeing things, knowing things, but not realizing that was my world. So in regards to that, I had to disappear. In order for me to make everyone else happy, I had to disappear. That's what I thought.

That's what made me invisible. I didn't know what it was to be visible. I didn't know what it was to socialize.

I didn't know what it was to be out in the world to tell people about my business. And all of those things was frightful were scary. I didn't know how to be seen. I didn't even know who I was to be seen. I didn't.

I didn't know what my identity was.

My identity shifted from this independent human being who was a worker and loved working to feeling less valued at the job she was at not seeing as value, always having some form of confrontation. This person who didn't know where her place was in the world.

Because when you're certain about one thing and you leave that thing, there's uncertainty. And in that uncertainty, I didn't believe I had a voice. I didn't believe I had value to give. I didn't know I had value to give.

I didn't know what that was. So I started to hide in the shadows.

And it was hard because I felt like I was just consumed with little people who did not know how to speak to me, but only cried and complained and absorbed so much from me. It took so much. And I didn't know anything else but to give. Because that's all I know as a mom. Being young, they just constantly give, give. Right.

I've never seen my mom do something for herself. She was always giving to her husband, to us, always giving, always working hard, just giving, giving, giving. She didn't do anything for her.

So that became my norm. And it was really hard. It was part of the story of what my invisibility looked like. And when I was invisible, I couldn't show up.

I couldn't show up in my business. I couldn't really show up for clients. I couldn't really show up online. I didn't know.

We had so many things that we have now that didn't exist back then. And with that, it was just a thing where. When these things didn't exist, you didn't know. You didn't know what was what. Right.

So being invisible sometimes is just getting lost in a shadow where no voice can be heard, where no one sees you, no one knows that you're even there. You know, no one understands where you're coming from. And there is something that is happening for women as entrepreneurs. They're invisible.

And a lot of you who are in business that no one knows about, you're experiencing life in a certain way that makes you feel invisible. Your identity is gone. Your life has shifted. There's some form of a transition happening.

And this transition has made you like fall off a little bit, to the point where being invisible is not intentional or purposeful, but it's happening because you're not sure of your identity anymore. And in uncertainty of your identity, you still have people who rely on you, depend on you. So you're just in survival mode like I was.

I was very much in survival mode. That's why when people talk about the young ages of my kids, those are not my best memories.

Those are the memories that I wish I. I don't know if I wish I can go back to and redo, because I don't want to go back there. I just love where I'm at today with my babies, with my kids. But in that moment, I think isolation was more of a pain point than a help.

And a lot of you right now who are listening to this might be hiding in the shadows for whatever reason. It might not be kids and family transition, but there is some form of an identity transition happening. And it's scary.

And I want you to know your invisibility is not your weakness, but it's your strength. It can be a place where things happen because it's that place where when I was invisible, I took action because I got tired of being invisible.

I didn't want to be there anymore. I wanted out. Hiding, for me, was all about being lost. It wasn't intentional. I did not hide on purpose. It was unintentional. It was a struggle.

And it wasn't about the avoidance of judgment, but it was just about not knowing what I was supposed to do, my purpose. And that, my friend, is the most silent, invisible thing we see. When people are not sure who they are anymore.

Their purpose, their identity, they can become invisible unintentionally. So in this moment, after 10 years of my business, I started to shift. Not for visibility, but I had to shift something else in me. Scarcity.

Because in my mind, if I was living in scarcity, I wouldn't grow, I wouldn't desire, I wouldn't do more or achieve more. I was always achiever. Don't get me wrong. I always achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve, right?

But I wouldn't have been able to grow the way I have been growing because I would have been still stuck in. There is not enough. There is not this, there is not that, that. There would be a lot of knots in my life, right?

But when I went through that transition, something happened. I noticed that in business, in order for me to do well, I have to be present and visible.

I remember my last project, I would do the work, but nothing about it felt good. Nothing about it felt like I was contributing to the people I was working with, which was phenomenal.

It was one of a designer and a planner, actually. That came back to me after years where I remember when I was transitioning into higher prices, they were like nowhere next to me.

Something happened in their family, they changed their model in their business. And then we were finally able to work together.

And she brought a great client to me who was a client willing to pay for wedding stationery and branding and signing everything. So we worked together. And in that time of working together, it was great, A lot of like, great synergy. But it didn't fire me up.

It didn't feel like me. That was the first moment where I think my identity was starting to come back. My purpose, my joy, my love.

And I honestly believe that came from me working on my scarcity and abundance. Because in that transition, I learned a lot about what I was capable of.

And in those moments I learned that I was a being with purpose that was beyond who I was.

I said yes to the assignment this physical body from my spiritual being has been given. And yes, I'm a spiritual being first. And I have. I live a human experience.

Therefore, when I said yes, it was to my spiritual purpose on this earth in this form. And in saying yes to that, it changed everything for me.

And graphic designs is a beautiful, never will regret it, a beautiful transition to where I am today. And it taught me how to create a lot of the frameworks in my company that I teach a lot of my clients today. The frameworks, I love them.

They got me from making $1,000 to $15,000 per job. They've built my confidence where I can do coaching over five figures and I can build an empire that six and seven figures in my brand.

That's what my, what 16 years of doing design has done for me. But it wasn't my heart, it wasn't my joy, it wasn't my love.

Because remember, when you're invisible and you're becoming visible, it's something new. Anything new that we do is never going to be comfortable. The first time we do it. It will always be uncomfortable.

So if you have this idea that it should be comfortable, I'm going to let you know right now you're setting yourself up for failure. And for me, that's what happened. I signed up with this coach, I jumped on in, I did the work and I did that more profitless chaos three times.

I started to take up space. Other than that, I started to network. I started to get out into the world and find what communities I wanted to be a part of.

And in testing out communities, I learned ones I wanted to be a part of, ones I really didn't care too much for. And I started to understand who were my people and where my people are.

And I started to go in those worlds, and I started to give and I started to receive and I started to become visible. Then, as we're progressing in this visibility, it clicks for me. Every birthday of mine is a new year. So that's when I celebrate my new year.

The new year that society celebrates on is just a year for me to plan what I want to do with that year. But my birthday in September is my new year.

So like a Rosh Hashanah year, I am on the beautiful Judaism calendar in a way when it comes to my birthday and my new year. And I was able to decide in that moment that I will love. I love being who I'm meant to be. I love aligning with the identity and my spiritual being.

We're going to find out on that journey.

But what I love about what I do, when I accepted my assignment, when I said yes to my identity, when I said yes to taking up more space, I learned that giving and pouring into others so they can see their visibility was important to me. So that's why the end of this year, in December, the first week, I actually launched something called Invisible to Visible.

And it is an actual program that I'm helping so many of my creatives, my artists, my musicians, my wedding and event pros, my coaches, my women entrepreneurs, this opportunity, when they're hiding, to become visible. And it's weird because a lot of people hide unintentionally and they desire so much in their business.

But I always question, how can you make that extra 10,000, 20,000 on top of the hundred? Or how can you make the 500,000 if there's no one?

Or the type of clients you want to work with don't know you exist, or you're not creating a business that speaks to that type of client because you're scared of being seen. You're scared of your success. Because if people start seeing you and using your services, your family will lose you.

But in reality, they won't lose you. They never had you because you were never fully who you were meant to be. Every time I played invisible was small.

My daughters were being robbed of their possibilities. Every time I got lost in my identity and was unsure of who I am, my husband was being robbed of a partner who can love him in the best way possible.

Anytime I didn't know who I was, the people who loved me were being robbed of something because they couldn't get the best of me. That is what it is to be invisible. To be invisible is to be selfish. People consider words selfish as a negative word.

And it can be for you, it doesn't matter. It's just a word. For me, it's not negative. I use it to measure how I show up in life.

When I'm selfish and I'm thinking only about me, no one around me will get to enjoy me. When I'm only thinking about me, which is my selfish. Selfish. To think about oneself.

I deprive everyone of what this path or this connection is meant to be. And being invisible was one of them. My daughters. I have two beautiful daughters.

When I'm invisible, they don't know how to identify me, or they don't know how to see me. And they don't know how to become who they're meant to be. Because we all, as parents, condition our kids with who we are.

So when I am invisible and I am not who I'm meant to be, they don't get to see the best versions of what's possible for them. They look outside for that. But remember, outside is just a glimpse. If I'm with them 24 7, I'm their life. They will osmosis me.

They will absorb everything about me. So when I'm invisible, guess what? They'll become invisible. And when I'm visible, they'll find their visibility and what that means to them.

No, they will not be like me. And no, they do not need to be like me. What I do is for me, what they do is for them.

But when I'm visible in the way I show up for them is the important factor.

When I can love on them, when I can spend time with them, when I can laugh with them, when we can joke around, when I can be like, I'm not in the mood because I'm feeling down and my energy's low, they can Understand, that's acceptable and that's okay. They have access to that as well.

When I am visible, I give them the strength and the power to be who they're meant to be without no apology for the world to accept them as is. When I am visible, I allow them to have a voice in whatever they choose to do and be and accept in their purpose journey.

Because I am the example of their visibility. And this is what I'm choosing, and this is what I hope the women in my world choose. As a mom, not a mom, it doesn't matter.

But here's what I want you to know. The people who surround you every day, who love you unconditionally when you're invisible, they're being robbed of who you're truly, truly are.

I wanted to share this with you because as we head into a new year, you're in a point where you're making a decision, and your decision has to do with your visibility. Why I say that because you're still here listening.

And if you're still here listening, that means there's something about this recording that's hitting home. And I am tremendously happy that you're still here with me as we speak about this topic.

I created the Invisible to Visible program because there's two parts to it. One, how to become visible in your brand, your business, how to make people know you exist.

But two, doing the deep work, doing the work of value, doing the work of loving on you, doing the work of being honest with yourself and truly understanding what you're meant for. Truly discovering what that is for you. I don't know what that will look like.

The more you work with me, the more you work on who you are, but we'll discover it together. And the fun part is I'm discovering it with you. I might be a little bit ahead of the game, but.

But I'm always, always, always working on my visibility in different ways. I test things out. How do I want to show up in the world? But I don't get stuck with the one thing.

Today I have red hair, tomorrow I have black hair, tomorrow I have white hair. That's a guarantee. My visibility is not my physical appearance. My visibility is my joy from within.

And every day I get to choose to show up in the world. Very visible, very vibrant, but not because I'm performing, because it's who I am.

Because when I accepted who I am, my visibility became clear, open, present, intentional, joyous. And tired of us as women going around being invisible with all the power that we have. I truly know that.

So I decided to do something because I want you to become visible. I want you to have the opportunity to shine, to shine in a way that is who you are.

It's a real challenge sometimes to be in the position of a coach because we always want our clients to win. But the question is, what is winning? And in this program, invisible to Visible. The. The.

The winning is just showing up and saying yes to who you are and discovering who you are and going through that process. I know that in this world where there's so many changes and shifts, it's possible for you because, hello, I did it. It's possible for me.

And even when it feels really hard, there's an answer for you, and it's waiting right there in front of you. You just have to choose. You just have to decide. Decisions are the most powerful thing you can do in your visibility journey.

It is the one that I took so many times to become who I am and become visible in the world that I serve. So today's podcast was for all of my amazing human being, amazing women who were struggling with unintentional invisible situations or life.

Unintentional means you don't know you're invisible, but you can feel it because your identity has been shifted, your transition ning into something and very unclear. It could be after a divorce. It could be after the death of someone you truly loved. It could be after having children.

It could be after going from being independent to dependent. There's so many transitional stages in our life, and in that moment, we can feel very invisible.

But there's a moment that's asking you to choose and make a decision. And once you do, that's where the work and journey begins. And that's what I'm here for.

So I just brought this beautiful iconic CEO podcast to you because in order for you to become an iconic CEO, your identity, who you are, your visibility, it is important. It is what we have in order for us to serve on a higher level. Being invisible, you can still serve, but not to your excellent standards.

Becoming visible allows you to be seen, but not seen in from the outside, but seen within. And that's the most important way to be seen, to be worried about what they think about us and how they see us.

This is a program where I get to work with you for 12 beautiful months, helping you say yes, transition into who you're meant to be and also learn how to make you visible from within so everyone who experience you can be fed by you. How everyone who's seen by you and experience you can enjoy you. How everyone who sees you can understand true visibility.

Not performance, but true intentional visibility. It's a program where you and I get to be together and have a great time becoming visible, even in the moments of discomfort.

So with that, I thank you guys for joining me on today's Iconic CEO and we'll be coming back and talking to you about what it is to be visible and have a fear of being judged. I will see you soon.

Thank you for joining us today. We loved having you with us. Remember, each action you take, no matter how small, adds up to big results.

If today's episode fired you up, hit subscribe for more insights and visit our Resource hub, which is linked in the show Notes. There you'll find tools to streamline, organize and grow your business. Keep moving forward and we'll be right here to cheer you on next week.