We were lucky to catch up with Mishae Khan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Mishae, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Bold&Kind is personal. My mission with it even more so.

I want women to know it’s okay to stand up for yourself, say no and take a break without overthinking it. Somehow our autopilots are set to “must take care of everything & everyone except ourselves.” Our expectations of ourselves are loud. Our inner critics are louder. I say – nope, f*** that! We don’t have to carry the entire load. We definitely, absofuckingloutely don’t need to feel guilty for resting. With meaningful jewelry & little moments of self awareness, I want women to get out of their heads & into their lives. This is a jewelry line for the overthinker, the high-achiever, the woman who holds it together for everyone else & feels guilty for putting herself first. My hope is for us to wear a beautiful promise to ourselves, to check our inner dialogue. I want women to silence their inner critics. To offer themselves the same kindness they offer everyone else. I want women to confidently walk the path we know we need.

Here’s how that mission came to be.

Growing up there was a list of milestones presented to us kids – get through school, find a job, get married and maybe have kids of our own. Sometimes the list masqueraded as “How to be a good kid,” or “How to appease your strict immigrant parents.” Whatever the list was named, I bet you were given one.

In immigrant households like the one I was raised in, it even came with an addendum of “How we expect you to conduct yourself” as you make your way through the list. Behaviors & priorities like: always take care of your family, respect your elders, behave in public, get only As never Bs etc. It was especially demanding if you were the first born.

What I’ve found, as a verifiable grown up now, is the importance of so many things that were never mentioned. Never found on those lists. Never on the addendums.

Let me tell you a quick story.

Once upon a time a few years ago, pre-pandemic, I found myself a young member of a quickly growing team at Google. I knew I had earned my way there but actually doing this epic, amazing, giant job was a shock. My old school list was starting to end, but that addendum of how I was expected to conduct myself still stood.

Somehow, even as a 30-something married woman with a mortgage, I still held myself to the standards that I’d inhaled as a kid. They were heavy. In a few months, every part of my life that could have exploded, did; I was newly married when my in-laws started going through a loud & messy divorce, my husband vanished under a wave of depression so dark I barely recognized him and all the while, my shiny job kept getting bigger and more complex.

Anywhere that I would’ve retreated to refuel myself now expected me to be “on”, to be handling things, to be strong for everyone else – because that’s what you do. I was the eldest and so was my husband. We were expected to keep it together for everyone.

It felt like being taken underwater without a warning. Without an idea of when you were allowed to resurface.

Some days at work I’d feel as if an elephant was sitting on my chest, making it hard to breathe. But I had a team looking at me for leadership, while we hired and set up a new program. Then my boss changed. All in the first twelve months while my home life no longer belonged to me.

I started crumbling.

I expected myself to be able to navigate everything, to keep smiling and moving work forward and not have it wear me down. I expected myself to be able to handle it. Afterall, my parents changed countries for me, navigated so many, many things. Why couldn’t I handle this? I hated that I was struggling.

I hadn’t had a panic attack before. Then one day I had one while driving and ran a redlight.

This is why this is my mission. Nobody else can tell you how much you can handle, or when you need a break. It’s a sense of awareness you need to work on, cultivate and guard. Because sometimes your life depends on it.

In my case, after I asked for help, got in therapy and started distancing myself from anything that was depleting me – it started to get better. But I still needed to remember to ward off the guilt, look my inner critic in the eye and hold the sense of belief that I could say no. That I was allowed.

My rings helped. They became a self-care ritual, a not so small promise to myself. Something I would see and stop overthinking what I needed. They helped create little moments of self awareness. Those moments gave me the space to make more room.

That’s how it all started.

Mishae, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I did not start as a designer.

I worked my way up in the tech world, through multiple roles finally ending up at Google leading teams in Canada and Latin America.

Bold&Kind started as a side hustle entirely driven by my own experience of panic attacks. Wearing a ring to manage my self-talk became a powerful self care ritual for me. I believed it could help others. But I wasn’t a designer by trade at all.

In fact my entire first line had to be scrapped because I did not know what I was doing. So I taught myself, learned how to source vendors and how to design. Funny story: I actually pressure tested my second line by running it through a washing machine. And then a dryer. What I put out into the world has to be high quality. My customers trust me with this very personal thing. I cannot let them down.

Now we are a small Canadian company. Every piece I design starts with an affirmation that’s made a difference in my life. So I know it’ll make a difference for other overthinkers. The design elements across the line are clean, symbolic shapes that signify a commitment to yourself. A promise to not overthink taking care of yourself, not apologize for saying no and standing by your boundaries. A promise plated in 18k gold is hard to miss!

This year this really cool thing happened: we were invited to participate in British Vogue’s Jewelry Designer Profile! In print for their Nov, Dec and Jan issues! I still can’t believe that’s happening – not going to lie, I spent a good amount of time googling recent known fraud/spam activities because I did not believe the invitation was real!

But the most meaningful moments are when a customer tells me the words, the ritual of promising to be good to yourself moves them. When a piece of jewelry becomes meaningful because of the practice behind it.

That’s what I want for the future of Bold&Kind. We are too hard on ourselves. I want that to stop.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

I set everything up with Shopify because they make it so easy! I want to ensure my customers are offered a simple & secure path to purchase and I know with Shopify that’s a home run.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Absolutely! I don’t think you need to have your life all the way figured out – I think that’s a lie we’re told too often.

What E.L. Doctorow said about writing I’ve found to be true about life, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” There are always going to be risks you can either manage or mitigate. Aside from that, all any of us are doing is staying brave enough to put one foot in front of the other. That’s all.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://boldandkind.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boldandkindjewelry/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mishae/

Image Credits
https://amandashearphoto.com/
https://www.honeyhoneymedia.com/ https://www.instagram.com/honeyhoneymedia/