We recently connected with Kirsten Mayes and have shared our conversation below.

Kirsten, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Success is a standard set amongst yourself to strive to be better every day. A lot of times many people would deem the number of roles and titles you possess as success. However, for me, it is about the influences you make within those positions that you carry. Success is showing up as your best self each day. Showing up with authenticity and dedication will allow you to cultivate the world. Success is not perfect; however, it is raw and uncut, and it does not paint a picture of flawlessness. My definition of success derives from the standards I have set for my life. Growing up I was surrounded by many individuals who I believed at the time “set the standard” for my life until I got older and realized that no one can define your standards. Many of us attempt to live up to the standards of our family as the standards created by them were those that were most beneficial to their life stemming from their dreams, desires, and fears. However, their standard was not wrong, but it was the standard that best-suited application for their life and not my own. As their standards were created from their experiences, their trauma,  and their fears and it did not allow for risk, uncomfortableness, mistakes, and experiences of my own. The standard created by them was a standard of perfection, a standard to not do what they did, which meant confining me to a box of safety and a place of comfort. However, to grow you must get uncomfortable, you must experience trial and error. Setting the standard within my life is understanding that the standard is the baseline, not the finish line. The standards created are developmental stepping stools to the next level, they are not meant for stagnates. Furthermore, these standards are authentically and productively reflected by my willingness to show up as I am and give my best shot every day. To be successful and become the best version of myself I must see myself therefore I must allow myself the opportunity to be successful. Which means showing up when I am tired, scared, confused, and unfulfilled. I set my standard of success by understanding that whatever I do not do perfectly does not take away from my gift. As I walk in my success, I stress productivity with the understanding that being productive is knowing when to rest, and my productivity is not measured by how much I work but by how well I can balance what I need to stay healthy and that is what it takes to be successful.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi, my name is Kirsten Mayes, the owner of Cakin’ With K Custom & Dessert Style Cakes located in Memphis, Tennessee. Since 2020, Cakin’ with K has strived to leave a unique and pleasant impression on every customer by offering the best of the best: quality, freshly baked, premier services, and unique design desserts. Cakin’ with K is an experience as the desserts speak for themselves. Cakin’ With K desserts not only look good but also taste good. Not only does Cakin’ With K offer a selection of caliber desserts, but we focus on details, consistency, and presentation. We keep our customer’s vision and preferences in mind while creating an innovative dessert experience to enjoy. The presentation and consistency of Cakin with K are what sets it apart from others. We eat with our eyes so the visual presentation of our work creates a desire and sets the atmosphere we would like to create for all customers and potential customers. Once customers take that first bite their desires are fulfilled by the combination of flavors and time spent with love creating their orders. As a first-generation college student, I had no idea what direction to take because there is no rule book on how to navigate college and what career path to choose. Growing up you are told to graduate, go to college, and secure a good-paying job to sustain a quality of life. But what about us people that have imaginations and creativity down inside us that does not just limit us to the standards of the world’s “American Dream.” I have never had a passion for any simplistic job because every day I have a new idea with a desire to try something new. For a long time, I saw my indecisiveness to just choose one thing and stick to it as a curse, however as time goes on, I see that God blessed me with a creativity down on the inside of me that whatever I shall touch will be blessed. Therefore, I did not just choose to make cakes, but cakes chose me. It allowed me to pour myself into each design with no limitations. Each design is different and unique allowing me to always try something new while reaching back to that inner child in me that believed she could do anything she put her mind to. I recently shared how my love for cakes saved my life because Cakin’ with K saved me from myself. It saved me from the idea that to be successful, I must conform to the ideas of this world when I was bigger than the crowds, I was trying to minimize myself and my abilities to fit into. A lot of times we pray for the cake, but we are never prepared when God presents us with the ingredients and directions to make the cake. Cakin’ with K has taught me more about myself than it has about just curating beautiful desserts. It taught me the importance of falling in love with the process and the true understanding of everything develops momentum over time. Because as you are in the process God is providing you with the strength, the strategy, the ingredients, and the direction to conquer this beautiful thing called life.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The most beautiful but toughest part about growing up is all the lessons we must unlearn. One of the greatest lessons I have learned is “if you rush it, you’ll ruin it” which required me to unlearn the habits of multitasking, hyper-independence & rushing the process, expecting immediate results. We often find ourselves overwhelmed because we take on more tasks than we can bear, with the mindset that multitasking is more efficient than simply focusing on the task at hand. Often, we will try to force God’s hand and get to our promises before its time. Furthermore, we find ourselves despising the season of waiting that God has us in, the season that is preparing and molding us for that promise. Well, when kick-starting Cakin With K I expected instant without first allowing God to move in my waiting. After rushing several times, attempting to push the product, and failing I finally realized the key to getting where I was trying to go was in my waiting. When leaning on our own understanding and not pursuing God’s will for our life, we continue to undo and redo because oftentimes we will rush the process just to have to start all over again and do it the correct way. Many of the lessons or habits we learn are those we experienced within our environments growing up. Our parents are our first teachers and as for me growing up I watched my parents work to get things done with no complaints, and I never saw them ask for help even if they may have needed it. Growing up my parents were my only village; it was just us. I watched them make it happen, and I never had to want for anything, which set the tone for my life. The level of independence they illustrated was empowering to me because they made it look easy. Therefore, I saw this level of independence as an embodiment of strength, and I adopted the narrative of working hard to get what I wanted without ever asking for help. However, they never displayed the negative implications that this level of independence had on them as a person in their minds or their spirits. When adopting this narrative, it begins to plant seeds in your mind that if you do not do it yourself, no one else will be capable and that you do not need help. Although I am forever grateful for the strength and sacrifices of my parents, I had to realize that yes, it’s okay to be independent, but it is nothing more rewarding and powerful than building relationships with like-minded people and creating an atmosphere to make mistakes but also ask for help. I had to be honest with myself and realize that Kirsten was the only person holding Kirsten back due to her fear of stepping outside of herself. I am continuing to learn that I do not have to walk this journey alone and that I must put myself in a position to receive the resources I need to eat at the level of where I am trying to go. Which means taking my hands off and allowing God to lead me, and he continues to lead me to the right people and organizations that continue to push me into purpose.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Pivoting can be scary because, in the age that we live in, we have grown accustomed to instant gratification. We plan, we write it out, and we expect it to happen exactly how we envisioned it. Well, often, we forget who has the ultimate control and that God has already authored our stories. And although we may have written the vision and made it plain, our visions do not leave room for the obstacles that we may face. When searching and expecting instant results, we leave no room for the beautiful process of waiting and trusting the season we are in. We misunderstand that waiting is not a denial, but it is simply developing us for the things we wish and pray for. If I had to put a title on this year of 2023, it would be the year of pivoting. This year has been a year of development and trusting the process. Most people would be ecstatic to graduate early with honors from college. However, I was anything but excited, I was terrified because for the first time in my life, I did not have the answer, I did not have a plan, and I did not have directions. From kindergarten up to your senior year of college, there is already a road map written out for you. In that road map, there are directions that tell you every course you will take and how long it will take you to achieve it. This map becomes a crutch because your decisions are made for you, but it is up to you to follow the directions. There is a syllabus and an expectation for each course you take that explains everything you need to do to complete the course. The directions allow you to measure the credit hours of how far you have come and how much you have left to get to the end goal. So, what do you do once you have completed all the courses, and you now have no sense of direction of your own? I had become so dependent on this road map defining every course I needed to take, that I had no idea how to trust my own decisions to take the next course of my life. The career path I had chosen was not one that I enjoyed, as it confined me to a box of fixation. For the last three years, my life has been centered around getting to the finish line to get a degree. I left no room to stop & take the scenic route and learn who Kirsten was outside of what she believed she had to be in her academics, career, and business. I had developed a fixed mindset that did not allow me to pivot until I realized that my desire to perform was diminishing my opportunity to spend time in the process of learning something new. So, I took a leap of faith and changed career paths working in an opposite field from which I received my degree. It was one of the most liberating decisions I have ever made because it allowed me to remove the limitations and silence the background noise. The pivot has allowed me to truly face myself, look in the mirror, and see that I am the only person getting in the way of me becoming who I want to be. I knew that there was more, and that I wanted to be more than what I was limiting myself to become. You can be whoever you want to be, but you must take the course and trust yourself and the process in which God has you. The scariest part of pivoting is giving up the pieces of yourself that you are most familiar with for the unknown. However, give yourself the chance to fall in love with the unknown because you never know, you just may love the new story that comes on the other side of trusting and believing God to blow your mind.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cakinwithk.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cakinwithk/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kreamykonfection/
• Other: https://linktr.ee/cakinwithk?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=2fe895d4-2806-41ef-ab81-85a4a94e997a&fbclid=IwAR2w7mkI0DkLprXMkcallohq1m7dpScHmPbsr-E9bU_b4eHfGrlca7ilhDY