What if the life you’ve worked so hard to build is no longer the life you want to live? You’ve built the career, nurtured the relationships, raised a family, and checked the boxes society told you mattered. From the outside, everything looks right. Yet somewhere along the way, you find yourself going through the motions, wondering what comes next.

For Kelly Ehlers, this realization became the beginning of an entirely new chapter. After building two multimillion-dollar businesses, cultivating a beautiful family, and achieving the kind of professional success many aspire to, she found herself questioning what it all meant. She had accomplished so much, yet something was missing. Rather than dismissing that feeling or convincing herself to be satisfied with what she had, she began reconsidering the rules she had been living by.

Her answer became Nice Girls Win, a book that challenges conventional ideas about power, success, and what it means to be a woman who leads. Through her own experiences as an entrepreneur, mother, and woman navigating reinvention, Kelly makes a compelling case that kindness is not a weakness, that boundaries are essential to growth, and that women don’t have to become harder to create extraordinary lives.

In this conversation with Jules Schroeder on Unconventional Life, Kelly shares the experiences that shaped her philosophy, from being pushed out of corporate America while pregnant to building successful businesses, navigating failed acquisitions, and discovering a different relationship with success. More importantly, she offers a reminder that a new chapter doesn’t require abandoning everything you’ve already built.

When You’ve Checked Every Box but Still Feel There’s More to Life

Kelly’s philosophy of Nice Girls Win is something she has carried with her since childhood. She always believed that nice girls eventually win, even if they don’t necessarily get the victory the first time around.

But the inspiration for turning that belief into a book came from a more personal place.

At this point in her life, Kelly had seemingly accomplished everything she had once wanted. She had built two multimillion-dollar companies, assembled wonderful teams, created a beautiful family, and developed meaningful relationships. By conventional standards, she had every reason to feel successful.

Yet she found herself simply going through the motions.

When she began talking with other women about this experience, she discovered how many could relate. They had built their careers, raised their children, maintained their relationships, and fulfilled the responsibilities they had taken on. Now, as their children grew older and their lives entered different seasons, they were asking themselves what came next.

Kelly recalls the question that often surfaced among women around the age of 47: After everything I’ve accomplished, am I simply rolling down the hill now?

Her answer is an emphatic no.

Instead, she believes women should take everything those 47 years have taught them and put that experience to work. Their lives are not winding down. They have accumulated knowledge, resilience, relationships, and wisdom that can become the foundation for something entirely new.

This is also why Kelly wants Nice Girls Win to reach beyond career-driven women and entrepreneurs. She specifically recognizes stay-at-home mothers, community volunteers, and women whose contributions may not come with a salary or professional recognition.

Success, she argues, does not have to mean running a company or collecting accolades. It can mean being an incredible mother, serving a community, or building a life around the things that matter most.

The challenge is learning to define success for yourself rather than allowing external expectations to dictate what it should look like.

Kindness Is Not a Weakness. It’s a Competitive Advantage.

One of the central ideas behind Nice Girls Win is Kelly’s belief that women have been misled about what it means to be nice.

For too long, niceness has been associated with passivity, agreeableness, or being the person everyone can dismiss. Kelly experienced this firsthand when she entered the business world and began building her agency.

She founded The Evoke Agency in 2010, right as social media was emerging as a serious business opportunity. Facebook was still relatively new, Twitter had just launched, and many traditional business leaders were skeptical about the industry’s future.

Kelly remembers walking into rooms dominated by middle-aged men, particularly within the beauty industry, where she often had to establish her credibility before anyone was willing to take social media seriously.

Rather than adopting an aggressive personality to command attention, she approached those conversations differently.

She used niceness to disarm the room, then backed it up with strategy, data, analytics, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence.

That combination was powerful because it challenged people’s expectations.

As Kelly explains, high emotional intelligence, when combined with strong business acumen, can catch people off guard. She learned that she didn’t need to become harder to be taken seriously. She needed to understand her strengths and use them strategically.

Her philosophy challenges the familiar narrative that success requires women to abandon their natural warmth or compete by becoming more aggressive.

Being kind does not mean being incapable of making difficult decisions. It does not mean lacking ambition or allowing people to take advantage of you.

It means recognizing that you can be both compassionate and formidable.

For Kelly, niceness is not simply a personality trait. It is an advantage that, when paired with competence and confidence, can change the way you lead, build relationships, and do business.

Fired While Pregnant, She Built a Business From Absolutely Nothing

Kelly’s entrepreneurial journey began with a setback that could easily have derailed her plans.

Sixteen years ago, she was working in corporate America when she became pregnant. She waited five months before informing her employer, knowing the company was heavily male-driven.

When she finally shared the news, the company’s owner responded by telling her he would get together with the other men to figure out how to handle the situation.

Kelly understood what that meant.

She was pushed out of her position at a time when the country was experiencing a recession. Finding another employer willing to hire someone who was five months pregnant was hardly a realistic prospect.

Her husband had also lost his job. They had a new marriage, a growing family, and no clear financial safety net.

But rather than allowing those circumstances to determine her future, Kelly decided to start The Evoke Agency.

She was starting from zero, and the early days were far from glamorous.

One detail from that period captures just how difficult things became. Kelly recalls that she and her husband were so financially stretched that he took their large change jar to a Coinstar machine to exchange the coins for money to buy diapers.

It is a striking reminder that entrepreneurial success stories rarely begin with the resources or security people imagine.

Kelly didn’t have everything figured out. In fact, she admits that she never had a formal business plan or budget when starting either of her businesses. What she did have was an unwavering belief in her passion and her ability to find a way forward.

Looking back, she recognizes a recurring pattern in her life: the moments that felt like complete breakdowns eventually became turning points.

She doesn’t romanticize the process or suggest that everything immediately falls into place after taking a risk. Instead, she acknowledges the uncertainty and difficulty involved.

Her advice to anyone who feels a deep conviction about something they want to pursue is straightforward: jump.

That doesn’t necessarily mean quitting your job, abandoning your responsibilities, or burning everything down. It means getting started, even if you cannot yet see the entire path.

The Power of a Silent No: Why Boundaries Make Growth Possible

As Kelly’s businesses expanded, she discovered that passion alone wasn’t enough to sustain growth. She also needed boundaries.

Jules introduces the idea of holding the tension that comes with building a bigger life. Growth often brings new responsibilities, uncertainty, and pressure. The ability to navigate those experiences without losing yourself becomes essential.

Kelly relates this to what she calls the whitewater phase of entrepreneurship.

It’s the exciting but chaotic period when a business starts attracting clients and opportunities faster than its existing systems can handle. Suddenly, there is more work, more responsibility, and more demand for the founder’s attention.

The solution, she explains, is scalability. But scalability isn’t only about creating better processes. It’s also about learning when to step back and allow other people to take responsibility.

For example, instead of constantly correcting someone’s mistakes, Kelly believes in giving team members the opportunity to learn and do the work themselves. The next time, they can get it right without requiring her intervention.

This is where boundaries become essential.

Kelly observes that many women struggle with saying no. They accept invitations, commitments, and responsibilities even when they know those things are not aligned with their priorities.

Sometimes, they say yes and later find themselves at an event wondering why they agreed to be there when they could have spent that time doing something more meaningful.

Her solution is what she calls the silent no.

Rather than feeling obligated to provide a lengthy explanation or apologize repeatedly, she encourages people to practice simply saying no and allowing the silence that follows.

No elaborate justification. No unnecessary promises to make it up later. Just a clear boundary.

The idea may sound simple, but it can be surprisingly difficult for people who have spent years prioritizing everyone else’s expectations.

Kelly encourages listeners to try saying no to just one thing and notice how freeing the experience can be.

For her, boundaries are not about shutting people out. They are about protecting the time, energy, and resources needed to build a sustainable life and business.

When a Failed Acquisition Opened the Door to Something Bigger

The importance of trusting your instincts becomes even clearer when Kelly shares another major turning point in her entrepreneurial journey.

At one point, a media company approached her about acquiring The Evoke Agency and integrating its services into their business.

Kelly initially agreed. Selling a service-based business can be difficult, and she believed this might be her opportunity to exit.

However, as the negotiations progressed, she began feeling uncomfortable. The deal would require her to give up the company she had built and continue working for the acquiring organization for a period of time.

Despite those reservations, she continued moving forward.

Then, just two hours before the deal was supposed to be signed, the company backed out.

Kelly initially believed her opportunity had disappeared. She thought this might have been her one chance to sell the business.

But instead of accepting defeat, she responded with a declaration: she would take their market share.

Two months later, she launched TEAS Media.

Over the following years, the company successfully captured market share from the very organization that had walked away from the acquisition.

Looking back, Kelly realized that the failed deal had protected her from a potentially damaging outcome.

Much of the acquisition compensation was structured around an earn-out, meaning she would have needed to achieve specific results after the sale to receive the remaining payment.

Then COVID hit, severely affecting the beauty and salon professional industry.

Had the acquisition gone through, Kelly could have lost not only her company but also much of the compensation she expected to receive.

What initially felt like a devastating rejection turned out to be an opportunity to retain her independence and build something new.

It reinforced a lesson she had learned repeatedly throughout her career: when something doesn’t go according to plan, it may be worth considering what that unexpected turn is making possible.

Everything That’s Mine Is Already on Its Way to Me

Beyond entrepreneurship and business strategy, Kelly also discusses the role of spirituality, manifestation, and mindset in creating the life she wants.

Jules brings up his own relationship with divine intelligence, sharing how a near-death experience in 2015 deepened his connection to what he describes as God.

He asks Kelly how she approaches timing, particularly when deciding whether to pursue an opportunity or allow something to unfold naturally.

Kelly explains that she believes in divine power, manifestation, and neuroplasticity. For her, these ideas work together through the way she thinks, believes, and approaches her future.

One affirmation she repeats multiple times throughout the day is:

“Everything that’s mine is already on its way to me.”

What makes the practice meaningful to Kelly is that she genuinely believes what she is saying. She doesn’t simply repeat the words and wait for something to happen. She acts like the person who already knows what she deserves.

This leads to another important distinction she explores in the book: wanting something is not the same as knowing you deserve it.

She encourages people to move beyond asking what they want, hope for, or wish would happen and instead consider what they genuinely believe they deserve in life.

When you become clear about that, you develop a stronger sense of direction. Your mindset begins to reflect the possibilities you’re working toward, and you can approach timing with greater trust.

It’s a philosophy built around clarity rather than desperation, and intentional action rather than simply waiting for circumstances to change.

A Book That Started With a Personal Rebuilding Journey

Interestingly, Kelly never planned to become an author.

The book came together after a nine-month period she describes as a time of crashing and burning, followed by rebuilding herself.

During that season, she began embracing practices she hadn’t previously been interested in, including positivity, journaling, boundaries, and mindset work.

Kelly admits that she wasn’t naturally drawn to self-help. She wasn’t even a journal person. At one point, she thought she was too smart for that kind of thing.

But after experiencing the impact of those practices herself, she realized she might have something worth sharing, especially with other women who were equally skeptical of personal development.

She reached out to a woman she had long admired in business, who had written two New York Times bestsellers. Through that connection, she was introduced to ghostwriter Ria Frey, whom Kelly describes as a book doula.

The writing process was different from what many aspiring authors might imagine.

Rather than sitting down to write every chapter herself, Kelly received voice prompts asking her to share specific memories, experiences, and lessons. She responded through voice memos, and her ghostwriter used those recordings to develop the chapters.

The process allowed Kelly to speak naturally about her experiences and let the book take shape around her own voice and perspective.

Her ghostwriter even told her it was the fastest book she had ever written.

Why She Chose to Self-Publish

Kelly also shares some of the business considerations behind bringing Nice Girls Win into the world.

After exploring the traditional publishing process, she decided to self-publish.

She explains that traditional publishing requires authors to develop a manuscript and a strong proposal, pitch publishers, and negotiate a deal. While the arrangement can offer certain advantages, she found the economics less appealing compared with self-publishing.

She worked with IngramSpark, an independent printing and distribution platform that serves as a wholesaler to Amazon.

The decision gave her greater control over the publishing process and significantly higher margins.

The book reached the Amazon bestseller list in four categories on its first day, including internationally.

Still, Kelly is candid about the work involved in promoting it. Despite her extensive marketing experience, she admits that she had never marketed anything as hard as she had marketed this book.

It was a new challenge, but one that allowed her to bring a message she had carried for years to a much wider audience.

You Are Not Behind. Your Next Chapter Can Begin Now.

At the heart of Kelly’s philosophy is the belief that there is no universal timeline for success.

You don’t have to reach a particular milestone by a certain age. You don’t have to follow the same career path as someone else, and you don’t have to measure your life by how much money you’ve made or how many accomplishments you can list.

You also don’t have to become a different person to build something meaningful.

During the rapid-fire round, Jules asks Kelly what she would tell young women who are beginning to explore the ideas behind Nice Girls Win.

Her answer is a practical exercise.

She encourages women to find a quiet place, sit down in a park with a blank sheet of paper, and write down everything they deserve in life.

And she means everything.

Get specific about the details. Where are you? What are you drinking? What is the weather like? What does the life you deserve actually look and feel like?

For Kelly, getting granular helps create a path toward the things you want to experience.

She believes that once you become clear about what you deserve, timing will eventually meet you there.

When Jules asks what living an unconventional life means to her, Kelly describes it as being wild, taking risks, and paving your own path without being afraid to do so.

Her story is proof that unconventional living doesn’t always mean making dramatic exits or abandoning everything familiar. Sometimes, it means having the courage to trust yourself, establish boundaries, and make decisions that reflect who you are becoming.

You can be ambitious and kind. You can build successful businesses without sacrificing your authenticity. You can appreciate the life you’ve created while still allowing yourself to imagine something more.

And perhaps most importantly, you don’t have to be behind to begin again.

Win a Special Edition of Nice Girls Win!

Kelly is offering one Unconventional Life listener a special Nice Girls Win giveaway package!

The winner will receive:

• A signed special-edition copy of Nice Girls Win.

• Exclusive book-related swag.

• An optional 30-minute conversation with Kelly about the book, its 17 exercises, her personal story, or even a business idea.

Kelly designed Nice Girls Win to be more than a book that sits on a shelf. It includes exercises, prompts, and pages where readers can write directly into the book and actively work through its concepts.

Connect with Kelly:

• Website: Nice Girls Win

• Instagram: @KellyEhlers

• Instagram: Nice Girls Win Official

• Book: Nice Girls Win on Amazon