We’re looking forward to introducing you to Kellee Halford. Check out our conversation below.
Kellee, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
What is more important to me intelligence, energy, or integrity? Such an interesting question but integrity is far more important than energy and intelligence. I find integrity to be foundational. It is a governing principle. It helps to guide the ethic of how I use and access energy and intelligence in various spaces, places and communities. The simple definition for integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness. Conceptually, integrity speaks to the wholeness or the completeness of a person. I believe it is quite difficult to truly operate in authentic quality intelligence and good energy without being or working toward being whole/complete. Whole/complete is the alignment/integration of the internal and external self some have called it being fully realized or actualized.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am Kellee Halford a professional consultant and strategists to creative professionals. I’m a mother, a sister, a daughter and a musician/vocalist. In 2020, I founded L’Erin Greenfield Consultants a firm specializing in strategy development, plans implementation and operations management for creatives. There are a myriad of ways that work can look and what makes my firm special is adaptability. We are as creative as our clients and we partner with them to make their vision reality.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
This is such an interesting question for me. The world has often attempted to tell me who I had to be but I have never been that person. We all have to grow into the fullness of ourselves and that is a journey of self discovery, but the only ones who have ever been able to identify me are those who named me, my parents. I have not been molded or chiseled but polished. Society, like it tells most black girls, has told me that I have to be strong and resilient and gracious and quiet and demure. All of those things are considered feminine and honestly, I am everything but that generally and I’m always exactly what/who I need to be based on a situation because I believe individuals have the ability to be more than one way.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Decades ago when I was in my 20s I almost gave up because I felt like I had failed at being the person I wanted to become. It was due to thinking, in my youthful immaturity, that I could only be one thing and that thing was “the smart girl.” You wouldn’t believe what kind of pressure that creates in a chronic over achiever.. That personal failure pushed me to the bring of wanted to “dropout’ of life but my family let me know that my intellect was never who they saw me as. They loved me beyond my intelligence and talent. The love me because I am their Kellee. Being loved and accepted simply because I exist was enough to encourage me to keep going.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Is the public version of you the real you?
Yes, the public version of me is the real me. However, the public version of me is the version that I permit to be available to the public. It is me with a generic, invulnerable accessibility. To know the private me is an earned intimacy that the public is not freely welcomed to access or “consume.”
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
Yes, I was born to bring order to chaos and that is what I do. I bring order to the chaos of the creative process.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kelleehalford.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelleehalford
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelleeekel
