Kibi Anderson understands the cost of a high-octane life. The Seattle native and Los Angeles transplant is a Harvard alum, an accomplished corporate executive, a Hollywood producer and filmmaker, an executive performance coach and an author. She recently penned a chapter in the book “Point Taken: Brilliant Business Advice from Women at the Top.”
At her core, Anderson says she is a storyteller stemming from a love of people and their experiences. Raised in a thriving Black community in Seattle, with Mount Zion Baptist Church as a home base, she saw collective strength. An only child of a single mother, who worked hard for her daughter while also managing community activism, Anderson shares that she was held to high standards; the impact of people looking out for each other was felt.
“The power of community is integral to success,” Anderson said. “The thing that breaks my heart is that that has been forgotten. That is not what is being promoted right now. Individualism. Let me get mine. How do I (become) a single influencer? This idea of, like, one-to-many, as opposed to many-to-many has been deprioritized.
“So, a lot of the whole ethos of why I wrote my book and this idea of how we build a rested rebel community, (is) because part of the reason why this has happened is because we’ve been going too fast.”
Reaching the apex of career success, the most valuable experience may have come to her in the form of a health crisis; it forced Anderson to slow down. This pivot shifted her focus and the personal and professional collided into a new mission: healing. Her message is simple. Rest.
Anderson redefines what rest feels like and talks a lot about how taking necessary pauses in life can give us the clarity and peace we not only need but deserve. In a society that evokes competition, such a message seems counterculture. But Anderson believes that this is where real success lies.
“I’ve been really honing in on my work around pause and rest as I’ve become the master of the pivot,” Anderson said.
Understanding that there is often fear attached to change, Anderson says that fear is also an indicator that we are still alive. Her health crisis brought her to a crossroads. Enter the power of the pause. Anderson had to pause to find proper alignment.
“The only way that I was ultimately able to reconcile that fear is that it was a reminder that I was still alive. And then each day I had to thank God that my legs are still working, even though I can’t walk. It means that there’s still life,” Anderson said. “I always tell people, if you can sit in that fear and embrace it, and not stop though – once you feel it, everything you want is on the other side of it.”
She unpacks the idea behind the purpose of negative emotions and how we are taught that they are bad.
“So, to admit that we’re afraid is to admit that it’s a bad thing, when the truth is, fear is literally an indicator that something has to change,” Anderson said. “There is a positive purpose for a negative emotion.”
In the hot stove test, she continues, we take our hand off immediately because it burns. Negative emotions operate the same way.
So, what does rest look like? Even the way we have been taught to rest should be challenged; it wasn’t always modeled by our ancestors, she reflects. Anderson encourages us to find pockets of joy, sharing these four steps as integral in developing a rest routine: micro-inspiration, micro-action, micro-share and micro-reward.
“The minute I gave myself permission to do that (rest), the resilience started to matter,” she said.
She talks about how the journey back to healing is like swimming in the ocean.
“It takes faith to rest,” Anderson said. “It takes courage to decide that you are going to do something that has never been done before.”
The Rest Rebel Community is a paradigm shift, one where generations can learn from each other. Anderson is here to lead the charge.