Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kahla Brubaker. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Kahla, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

For years I have balanced my blog and social media hustle with my corporate job. As time went on I was able to balance it, but as things picked up in my corporate job, they were also picking up on my influencing journey. I was overwhelmed, stressed and my mental health was taking a hit. I decided it was time to change. That change was taking a personal leave of absence from my corporate job so that I could take a chance on myself to. see what I could do with my influencing journey being my 100% focus. I actually wrote a blog post about it here: https://keepingupwithkahla.com/life-update-im-taking-a-leave-of-absence-from-the-corporate-world/

I’m currently living this journey and I’m excited to see what’s to come! The opportunities have already picked up even in the short time that I have been on my personal LOA. It’s true what they say – if you close one door, another will open.

Kahla, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Writing has always been a love of mine. Even within the pages of one too many diaries that my mom always seemed to find. When a sudden spark of inspiration hits or I have a story to share – it’s like the words immediately type themselves out in my mind. I can see the sentences tack onto one another. Memories connect, puns intend themselves, and I reach for the Notes app on my iPhone to type away.

My intention as a blogger is to harness an audience that believes in living their best life now. I want people to read these stories and know that someone is going through or thinking the same exact thing that they are. The only difference is that one of us decided to publish it on the internet.

I started Keeping Up with Kahla as a creative outlet for myself. As I mentioned above, I’ve always loved writing. Oversharing and connecting with others fall right into suit with that passion. Blogging allows me to do all of those things on a larger scale than my diaries ever did. My blog has grown into a place where I can share my stories, work with brands that I love, and ultimately connect with an audience of people that are keeping up.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

One that comes to mind is the year I was invited out to speak on an influencer panel in New Jersey. A website I worked with for campaigns invited me out as a speaker and right before the trip out I was incredibly ill. I think I tested positive for the flu around that time.

At any rate, while I was on the mend I chose to still travel for the panel. I had to – the opportunity was incredible and I couldn’t pass it up. I was about 70% capacity of myself (seriously the flu knocks you out and I was still majorly recovering), but I powered through.

During the trip I got minimal sleep, my husband came with me and was checking my temperature throughout the night at the hotel we stayed at, but I made it through. There were a lot of personal pep talks haha. I spoke on the panel that next day and crashed immediately after when I knew I could since my job was done. Wasn’t the best for my body or post-flu recovery, but I didn’t care. Nothing was going to stop me from that opportunity.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I’ve built my audience truly by sharing my life in an authentic way. I’m an oversharer by nature, so having the platform to do that has really just made me feel like I’m talking to my friends online all the time. I never want to come off as salesy or too polished – I don’t think that’s relatable.

The key to me is being relatable. That’s the content that has done best for me and the content that engages my audience the most. I think that’s why I value how far social media has come. Being real is the best thing you can do on the internet right now.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://keepingupwithkahla.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keepingupwithkahla/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/keepingupwithkahla
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/kahlabru
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@keepingupwithkahla