We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelsey Wilson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kelsey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?

Full presentation/ this is the back story/ during story and thoughts:

Am I ready to let go? Let go of something I went to school for? Went to the academy for? Put my life out on the line for? … for the last 13 years. Criminal justice was my life, law enforcement being a cop was the end goal. It was the goal and I got the goal.

I tried. I dedicated. I gave ‘my life’ to policing to the community..all to just.. one person, a selfish person. I risked my life. To me, it was another day. It was a call where nothing should have gone wrong, but it did. It was a normal hot June day. It shouldn’t have went like that but it did. That life is now dead and she isn’t coming back. She is gone.

June 17 my life was taken from me. It was taken from me as if those last 13 years meant nothing. The job itself didn’t protect me like I protected it. The job isn’t there for you and I witnessed that first hand.

I’m allowing myself to grieve and I’m going to just write it all out. I’m sad. I’m sad because I no longer have the policing career. I’m sad because I feel like a part of me has died. I’m sad because I’m scared. I’m scared of change. I’m scared to see how things play out. I’m scared to actually do it. Im scared of letting myself go out into the world without a plan because I’m cared to fail.

With having the policing career I could always focus on another thing, where I made sure not to keep all my eggs In the same basket. I knew my income was ‘safe’ because I had a career, I had a 401k, I had a bi-weekly paycheck that I knew could cover the bills for my next 32 years of the career. But now, I’m sad that I have to figure it all out, all over again.

I feel as if I lost a part of me. I am now a normal person, a civilian if you will. I know I am special in my own way but who is going to need me? Who’s hero am I going to me now? Who else is going to believe them? I was that officer who took the time, who believed… I was an officer.

Now with this transition, I feel as if I am no one. Everyone else is moving on and my name will soon be forgotten. I think I was proud to be an officer mainly because I would be remembered in one way or another.

But now I am mad. I have integrity and I went out on injury. I feel as if this injury identifies me because it made me retire from a career I loved. But where do I go from here? I feel lost. I know not to compare myself to other people’s journeys because we all started somewhere differently at a different time.. .and I know If I compare, it will not be a good thing.

I think the truth is, I’m scared to live outside the ‘norm’. I want someone to tell me what to do. I want to be 5 years old again and have my parents give me direction,. But I’m now 33 years old trying to figure this out on my own.

Policing wasn’t really all that bad because it taught me a few different things:
Life is tough and you must figure it out, usually on the spot and alone
Life can change in a second & you must be prepared for it
Policing taught me the confidence that I have. You must be confident in every action that you do. Be fearless in every situation
Policing taught me to be strong, regardless of the ‘call’
Policing taught me proper structure
Policing taught me to have thick skin

But then the job failed me
It failed to save me
It failed to protect me
Failed to have my back
I felt betrayed by everyone .. I was slowly dying inside and no one was there for me. Even though everyone is ‘pro mental health’. You know the signs, we are taught all the signs… and I was dying slowly.

I’m scared to do it all but at the same time… who else can I rely onto get my business and life thriving? This is because I am doing it…

I’m having a hard time finding myself again but I am on a mission to find her. Right bow she is sad, she is lost, she is alone, she is sad. But I know I will be okay when I work through this and I will be her. She will be proud. She will be happy she will be alive. She will be proud.

During my ‘recovery’ with my injury
I wanted to leave the world. And I’m talking not just for a day I left like this… I felt like this for months. I wanted to end it all. I was in so much pain. I wanted to just go away and not come back. I felt so god damn alone it hurt. For you to tell me, ‘go back to work because that is your job,” “you can’t be out of work for this long Kelsey, it’s time to go back.” But yet, no one knew what was going on in my head and the amount of pain this injury has caused me.

Every time I thought to myself, do I NEED to prove how much pain I was in? Do I need to go into work with a gun to my head and say, “this is what you are doing to me?”

But I kept fighting. I kept advocating for myself, mentally and physically.

March came.. and this was when I could not stop crying. I was feeling extremely sorry for myself on my couch and couldn’t stop crying. I was confused. Who am I? Where am I going?

I opened the bottle of champagne and said, this is either going to be my last day ob earth so I will celebrate that or celebrate a new beginning. Was I going to allow myself fall victim?

My husband then texted me: I’m proud of you

If I didn’t think I was crying enough, well that text saved my life. Physically and mentally. I cried, I screamed. I cried in the kitchen, I fell to the ground, I was completely numb.

That day I knew I needed to come out alive. I survived that call for a reason. I’m not here on this earth for nothing. I couldn’t leave my husband, my animals and people needed me.

I sprung up an idea and decided to finally take action. Life isn’t getting any longer so I need to stop waiting for someone to save me. It was time to save myself.

I finally took the action step that I needed to take. I started to take accountability for how I was feeling and told myself, I do not want to live the victim lifestyle where I feel sorry for myself every damn day… it is time to make a difference.

I wanted to build a company that I knew I needed… something that I wanted in my home but something that also brought me peace and clarity. I loved candles. I would light candles every single day when I was doing my self care and yoga at night. There was something about it… that I said.. this. This is it. And I just believed in myself.

I reached out to my brother who works in the non toxic candle industry for help. His company is a wholesale company that I trust and who also pour candles for big names… like bigggggg names that you would drool over if you knew.

I wanted something that was safe for my animals because honestly they are the most important thing to me. One of our animals has sinus issues and again, I wanted something that would be the clean non toxic burn. Also, getting into this business I never realized how toxic EVERYTHING IS…. And I mean everything. So again, we already had toxic people in our lives and worked at toxic places.. so we need our homes to not be TOXIC.

So we got to work. This started with 36 candles, selling out within 5 days of just people to my ‘close friend list’ on instagram.

Each candle name is named after something I was feeling or needed to feel in the last 18-19 months from my injury. When people would ask ‘how are you?’ I would give them the dreaded look, and instead of saying, ‘i’m fine’ I started to say ‘surviving’ or ‘thriving’. I named a candle pure harmony because that is all I wanted to have in my head. The voices were so loud at times it was unbearable. I named a candle ‘feels like home’ because I never wanted to leave my house… workers comp, people from the department talking about you and PTSD will do that to you. No matter where my husband and I went, a grocery store, a family members house… I just wanted to be home.

Then I had a sign from one of my friends…side note, he took his own life by suicide 7-8 years prior and I kept telling him I was going to see him soon. I asked him the day that I was going to be ‘launching’ my company to the public.. I asked, am I doing the right thing? Give me a sign…anything that shows that I am going in the right direction… and I shit you not, I saw a large bird eating road kill while I was walking my dogs. I said ‘that’s a large bird and that road kill has been there for a few days..’ As I asked this question to my friend, the bird grabbed the roadkill, flew directly over my head…and it was a bald eagle. My friend come to be as bees or eagles (bald or not)… but this.. this was a powerful thing.

I knew that I had to keep going. I knew that this was what I meant to do. I knew that this was my new purpose. That day at 12 noon, I launched my company to the ‘outside world’.

Every single day when I get an order or multiple orders I still think to myself, ‘OH MY GOD I AM DOING IT!!!’. I know that I have to continue to put myself out there and I thought, what better way to connect with people and share my story by physically putting myself out there. Going to farmers markets, events, pop ups, stores, etc. Just anything to spread my story and spread the love of non toxic candles.

I continued to say yes to the events. I continued to put myself first. If there is anything you can learn from me and my story… believe in yourself. Believe that what you are going through right now, there is a reason you are going through it. It might not be present at the moment but the universe has a way of redirecting your own path as long as you believe in yourself and put one foot in front of the other. Know that it is going to get better. And if you are having one of those days – do not give up. Just try to be here for one more day… every damn day.

Thank you.

Kelsey, 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?

My name is Kelsey Wilson and I got injured in the line of duty as a police officer saving a life. During the 911 call, in which I responded to an unresponsive man in a grocery store parking lot, unconscious behind the wheel of his parked car, I used my baton to gain entry into the vehicle. As I did that, my wrist was cut on the glass from the window, a warm sensation and blood began to pool from my wrist, but I continued to preform life saving actions from what was a drug overdose. I saved the mans life but that was my last day I have ever worn the uniform.

(you can take tid bits from the response before hand since I went into a lot of detail for that…) BUT.. one this I want to provide my customers and observers is no matter how hard your situation is and how much you sustain the victim mentalilty, you cannot stay there for the long run. it is 100% okay to acknoledge how you feel, grieve your loss and feel everything, in fact I encourage people to feel everything, that is how I knew I had to handle my trauma. I allowed myself to feel, I allowed the dark thoughts to come into play, I knew that I would be healed from this trauma, I just never knew when or how long I would be in the dark…but the thing is I made it through because. I allowed myself the time I needed to.

I was playing in the victim mindset for as long as I mentally could be in… but then one day I didn’t want to be a victim to my trauma. I didn’t want to be known for my injury or have that be my identity. I needed to find my own identity and I needed to be the one to save myself. At the end of the day, you have your support system (if any) but your support system will only get you so far. It is up to YOU to change the outcome. It is up to YOU to take ownership back of your life and it is up to YOU to put in the work.

I put in the work every single day, even when I was stuck in the victim mentality. The work that I did was mental work along with some physical work, to keep my mind at ease. I slowly began to take my power back and then one day when I had my moment in the kitchen, opening that bottle of champagne (details from previous answer) I broke. I knew I couldn’t live like that anymore so that day I started bounding myself forward, full throttle if you will. I was ready to be ‘Kelsey Wilson’ again. I was ready to smile. I was ready to be happy…. but the most important lesson I want people to take it, you own your own life, no one is coming to save you and it is up to you to save yourself. You can pray, put out into the universe on what you want to change but if you aren’t willing to do the work… nothing is going to come from it and you will be forever stuck in the victim mentality.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think my general story is a pivot. I was once a police officer who was stripped of that job after an injury. No doctors were signing off for me to go back to work, let alone they were not even signing off on me to walk into the building of what was my ‘home’ for 40+ hours a week. If you know a police officer, there is no way one just works 40 hours… it’s usually 60-100 hours depending on overtime and road work. I was a dedicated officer, dedicated to the community, dedicated to my work and dedicated to road details. I now had to figure out how to pivot and what to do with my ’60 hours of free time’.

I didn’t know where or when my pivot was going to be… mainly because I didn’t want to come to the realization that I HAD to pivot. I didn’t want t accept it until I was forced to. Then the day came that I knew no doctor was going to sign off on me, during 7 months of PT/OT I nearly had 1% improvement.

…then candles happened. Being a business owner happened. I wanted to give people something tangible that they could hold, see and something that physically brings someone joy.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I would say refer to the first answer since I go into a lot of detail for that and cover all the basis.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.pearlncompany.com
• Instagram: @pearlandcompany_
• Facebook: Pearl and Company .. .and personal page Kelsey Wilson
• Linkedin: Kelsey Wilson

Image Credits

RE PHOTOGRAPHY & ALLY MONTEMAGNI PHOTOGRAPHY