Episode Transcript
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Hi, everybody. It's Ricky Chavez with Battle Ready. You know, everybody's life. You know, there's some downfalls, there's some high points. But in this show, we talk about the process of reinventing yourself. And today, we are privileged to have on our show Kimberly McEwen, who is the founder, the CEO, and president of Roughneck Chemical Consulting. Hey, Kimberly, how are you doing today?
[00:00:35] Speaker B: I'm fine, Ricky. How are you?
[00:00:36] Speaker A: I'm doing amazing. Thanks for asking. I appreciate you taking the time at your busy schedule because I know you travel a lot to spend some time with us. You know, we want to talk a little bit just about your journey. You know, everybody has their pluses and minuses.
Did you always know that you. And by the way, you're a doctor, right? You have a doctorate, right?
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: So did you always know you wanted to be a chemist?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Oh, hell, no.
No, no.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: All right, so tell me about the journey.
Tell me about the journey.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Okay.
You know, I look at things, Ricky, like the tombstone, right?
[00:01:18] Speaker A: So.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: So I love your show because you're talking about the dash.
You're born. DASH died, and all you get credit for is the day you were born and the day you died. But there's a whole lifetime contained within that dash.
And even though you may look at somebody's life and say, oh, my goodness, they're so uber successful, I assure you there's a path that they follow that has many forks in the road along the way.
So I'll start from the beginning, I guess.
I was born in the province called Nova Scotia in Canada on the east coast.
Sydney, Nova Scotia, to be exact, and was born in a political family.
So on the outside, the family looked wonderful, but on the inside, it was anything but.
So the inside was a horror story of physical and mental abuse.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: And the biggest thing I wanted was, you know, just to. It was mainly my. Myself and my little brother Eddie. My. My sister. Oldest sister and firstborn boy were always.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: They.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: They were not touched. We'll just leave it at that.
So myself and my little brother Eddie suffered at the hand of my biological father anyway, so I couldn't wait to get out of that house just because I felt my way to, you know, release myself from that trauma was just simply to get married and get out.
So I got myself pregnant at the age of 16 and was married by the time I was 17 years old.
I lost that child in a miscarriage and several other. There was eight or nine miscarriages before I had my first live birth, but I was married to him for I consider it my first life sentence for 20 years.
And what I thought was my way out, I actually just chose a different kind of abuse.
So with him it was sleeping around with other women and that was his thing to do. And one of the people that he slept with was my older sister.
And subsequently I come to find out that they had a child together.
So when I had two children with him at that time and when it came to me, you know, you have a fork in the road now. It's, you know, you want to get a divorce because you can't tolerate this anymore. But what do you do? You know, I have a grade 12 education. At that time I had two small children at home.
I'm 27 years old at this point in my life and what do I do?
So I could have gone on some kind of government assistance, but that just wasn't to me a long term solution.
I feel that that kind of a life, number one, just doesn't give you any outs or opportunities. So I chose to go back to school.
So I applied to a local university, but keep in mind I was older and I was rejected because I had been out of high school for too long. But what they did tell me was that, you know, if you choose to go back to high school and get your high school diploma again, maybe if you apply next year you can be accepted. So again you reach another fork in the road and do you give up? Hell no. You move on. Because for me, I wanted to drag my butt out of the situation that I was in.
So I went back and I got my grade 12 diploma again and I reapplied to that university and I was accepted.
So I had to get a student loan for my first year because I had no, there was no history to get scholarship or anything for me.
So I got a very small amount of money to attend the university just to pay tuition because I lived locally.
But then every year after that I was on scholarship and I didn't even know that I was that smart because my whole life being raised, and I know this is a religious program, but I'm going to say this anyway because my whole life I was called the blonde headed bitch by my parents. That was my name. And I was stupid. So I didn't believe that I could do this. University just wasn't for me because I wasn't intelligent.
So it was very surprising when I completed my first year of university to actually get scholarships because I was on the dean's list every year and, and I actually had a brain and chemistry was my choice.
I had a professor. I originally wanted to go to medical school just because for me, that was, you know, MD stands for money doctor And I just wanted money. I just wanted to pull my children out of the rut that we were in and.
But that first year, my freshman year, I got a job in a chemistry lab. A professor gave me a job for 10 bucks an hour, and I fell in love with chemistry, and that was it. Medical school was not the path for me to follow. It was chemistry. And that started me on a undergraduate from that local university. I went on to get an honors degree at another university.
I'm sorry. That squeaking is my dog. I apologize for that.
Anyway, I went on to get a master's in Central Canada and then a PhD from the University of Western Ontario.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Wow.
So during that time, you know, I'm sure there was some struggle with just the scheduling and watching the kids and everything else.
Did you ever want to give up?
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Every time I had a course. I'll tell you, Ricky, every time there was a course or I couldn't solve a problem, it was, that's it. I'm quitting.
Because that's the easy way out, right?
[00:07:54] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: But obviously by the end of my story today, you know, I never gave up. There were moments where I said, I can't do this. This just isn't for me. I. I don't want to go on. I.
I just want to quit and just sit home and do nothing and, you know, collect welfare. But that was not that. That's not me. That's not me.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: What about support? You were talking about this.
This teacher that gave you the job. I mean, was there any, like, bright spots, somebody that, hey, you can do this.
Tell me about that. Was that. Did that happen at all, or were you just all on your own?
[00:08:33] Speaker B: It was just this one professor that gave me a chance in a lab.
When I went back to university, my then. Which is now my first ex husband at the time, told me I was going back to university because I wanted to meet other people, other men. I wanted to cheat on him.
My biological parents said, you can't do this.
I'm telling you that that professor was mentor to me.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: He was your rock.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Subsequently gave me jobs for three more summers after that and encouraged me that you could actually do this. And.
No, this. This was a solo voyage. Other than that one professor, it was a challenge.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: I know, I know. And I've known you for a while, so I definitely know many of the challenges. I think the one thing that I want to get out of this is you never expected to have some mentor there because you had done everything on your own already.
So that was kind of a good thing. Right? Just that little bit of help.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: You know, I'm still in touch with that professor to this day.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: Really?
That's, that's. That's amazing. That's amazing. So now you got all your degrees and you've had your challenges, and so tell me about your first job out of college.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: So when I finished my PhD, I took a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maine.
So I crossed the international border and I started another voyage or another chapter of my life. By then I had met my then second husband, so I had divorced, and he came with me.
And that starts a whole other path. And anyway, and we'll get to that.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Actually. We're getting close to the commercial time, so we're gonna, we're gonna hit on that and the next thing, because, I mean, you've done some amazing things already. I mean, how many years of school was that at this point?
[00:10:36] Speaker B: 13. 13. 13 years after grade 12.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Oh, my good Lord.
That's a lot of schooling. And you stuck with it. Well, we'll get back to you in this next segment, talk to you about it. You know, thank you, everybody, for joining us. We're getting ready to go off to a commercial, and we'll be back with Kim to talk a little bit about her journey to her success now.
Hey, guys, welcome back again. Welcome to Battle Ready. We're here with Kimberly McEwen, the owner, president, CEO of Roughneck Chemical Consulting. Hey, Kim, how are you doing?
[00:11:15] Speaker B: I'm doing great, Ricky.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: All right, we had a pretty interesting first segment, and we, at this point, we. We took you through college 13 years, and now we're at your first job in Maine, right?
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: With your new.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: With your new guy, with this husband number two.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Right. All right, so tell me about the job.
Yeah, so, hey, I, I know. I get that.
I get that. So.
And your job interview process, okay, so you've been going to school. So you got the theory and everything. And how much application did you actually have? How much, you know, applied knowledge did you have? A lot. Some.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Not a lot.
I'll tell you, when you get a PhD. First of all, it stands for pile it higher and deeper.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: But what it does is it actually prepares you to learn. It's not necessarily that what you've learned, you are applying. Some people are lucky enough in that they can, you know, whatever they've studied, they can apply that. I was not lucky. I studied surfactant chemistry and it was challenging for me to get a job because I'm think about it, Remember I started school 10 years older than the average student. I was a mature student.
So here I am with no work experience, 10 years older than most people that are just starting out with no experience.
So it was very challenging for me to get a job in industry. So I had to take a postdoctoral fellowship. I could not get an industry job, so I took this postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maine and that eventually turned into a faculty position.
So I was running the OBER lab, doing research in hemicellulotic material and the bio conversion to bioethanol.
So it was interesting all on its own, but a path I wanted to follow for the rest of my life. Absolutely not.
One day I got a phone call from a gentleman who I believed was a headhunter, but it turns out that he was actually looking for a surfactant chemist, which is what I had studied all throughout my undergrad and graduate studies. And they wanted a surfactant formulation developed for foam sticks in the oil and gas industry.
And the difference at that point in time, you're going back close to 20, 25 years now, the difference in salary from academia to industry was more than twice for me at that point in my life. That was a no brainer.
But one of the interesting things was when I interviewed, went down for a personal interview with that company. I was seven months pregnant with my son, so this would be my third child.
And they, I figured I was scared to death to go down at an interview pregnant because I figured, you know, this is not gonna, they're not gonna hire somebody pregnant.
But I actually, on the way back in the plane when I landed, there was a telephone and not a cellular phone back then in those days, it was actually a phone in your home.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Okay, all right.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: There was a phone message that they were offering me the position. So as soon as my son was born, we packed up and moved from Maine to Texas and I started my stint in the oil and gas industry. And tell you, Ricky, another fork in the road. There's some, you know, you have to look at when somebody tells their story, their elevator story.
There are many, many major life changes that are occurring there. So for me, this again, a major life event. You quit your job and you move to somewhere that's very unfamiliar and you're starting a brand new job.
So when I started, you know, this was a brand new manufacturing facility. Facility. They had, they wanted chemistry developed and they had no chemistry in their vessels. So my job was to fill those vessels with chemistry. And here I sit and I know nothing about oil and gas. I really believed, and I don't know if any of your viewers watching this remember the Beverly Hillbillies, but I really believed, like Jed Clampett, oil was. You shoot a rifle at the ground and that black gold just bubbles up. Well, oil, is that ever a misunderstanding? Because that's not. That's so far from the truth.
Anyway, I had to teach myself oil and gas, Ricky, and all the chemistry that was used. And there at that company, I was the only PhD. There was nobody I could learn from. They really didn't have that much knowledge. They were buying chemistry from somebody else and just slowly slapping their label on it and reselling it.
So to put something in from the ground up into a, you know, full scale reaction was. It was challenging for me. So again, you know, what do you do? You can't quit. My husband's second husband at that time wasn't. He never worked. He never worked the whole time we were married. So I'm the sole support of our family. You can't quit your job. That's not an option. And it wasn't an option for me anyway. So what do you do?
Well, I start reading anything and everything I can get my hands on to learn about oil and gas, to learn chemistry. I read all kinds, go into the literature, go into patents, and I'll tell you one thing I became really, really good at was trying to get around somebody else's patent. And what I ended up doing was going from the, from my hood to the pilot plant out to full scale reactions every single day of my life in the world of production chemistry and developing chemistries and putting them in those vessels.
And that gave me a wealth of knowledge and experience. And I'm so glad I walked the path of not quitting, but walking the other fork in the road, which is, you know, the path is not so easy to follow, it's not so easy to climb. But I chose to do that. And it led me on a very different voyage and chapter in my life that has put me probably where I am today. So it's funny because when you hit that fork in that road, you just never know where it's going to lead you.
And that actual decision, which I questioned at the time because staying at the University of Maine was a very secure job, you had very good benefits. And then moving on into an industry I knew nothing about, which was oil and gas, was really stuck and intimidating, but, you know, I did it anyway.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: So, you know, I think about what you said earlier, and I want to look at that for a second.
So seven months pregnant, you get a call to come down, talk to me about what's going through your mind about did you have, you know, second guesses? Should I go? Should I not go? Was there anybody that. That pushed you, or was this just all solo, Kim? You know, no support?
I mean, I mean, there must have been a lot of motions going on in you as you went to the plane to go to this interview. So tell me about that.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: This was solo. This was a me thing.
This was. Again, I just wanted to always try and do the best that I could for my family.
And. And what was driving me at that time, it wasn't, you know, think about. You're younger.
Different things drive you than they do when you're. When you're old.
For me, it was. It was the money, Ricky. It was. That was like the carrot at the end of the stick. It was, I can double my income and help support my family better.
So even though I was afraid because was pregnant, it was a different time back then.
I think I just looked past how intimidated I was by the fact that I was big and pregnant, and the big carrot to me was the money that I could get for my family.
So I tried to look past that, even though it was there, believe me. And I, you know, the clothes I was wearing at the university, and I didn't have any clothes to wear to the interview, so I ended up going, buying this pair of stretchy pants that didn't fit very well, and I was pulling them up all the time in the interview. And I think that's the thing. I remember most of those pants, you.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: Know, honestly, I know, not as intimidating, but it kind of reminds me of, you know, when we first moved to Houston, I was in the military, and my wife, you know, she had. She was forced to move with me. And I remember that she.
She interviewed with Coca Cola, and. And they asked her, does she know how to. To work the program? Access.
You remember access back in the day, it's like Excel, access, whatever. Anyway, okay, you know, and she was like, yes, I know how to use it. And because we're personality, everything else, go get her attitude. They hired her, and she left the interview, went to the store, bought the program, and for the next, like three days, 24 hours, she had that program watching and learning and everything. And she's like, I don't know anything about this.
And that's like you with the oil and gas. You come down here, you got some idea of chemistry. But. But I don't know crap about oil and gas, Right.
It's just different levels. And sometimes. You know, I think the point that I'm trying to share with people is you have to believe in yourself, right?
[00:21:27] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness, Ricky. You know, one thing I did know, as I said, they hired me to develop soap formulations. I know surfactants.
And even though I knew nothing about the oil and gas world, I knew I could apply the knowledge that I had to develop something. I never told them that I know when they interview me. Oh, my God, I just remembered this.
So they wanted to do ethylene and propylene oxide. Those.
So to tell you how dangerous that ethylene oxide is, is when you have a reportable quantity, or rq, the small. If you have a spill, the smaller the RQ is, the more dangerous the chemical is. Okay, so ethylene oxide has a reportable quantity of £10.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Wow, that is bad.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: They asked me, have you ever worked with ethylene and propylene oxide? Because he wanted to open. The owner of that company wanted to open up a plant that did nothing but EO and po. You know what? I said?
Yes, yes, yes, I do.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: And they went and studied, huh? All night long.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Done anything with it.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: So we're getting ready to go into a commercial. Why don't you tell them? If anybody was to try to reach out to you, how could they get ahold of you?
[00:22:42] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. I'm so easy to get ahold of. So you can find me on LinkedIn, and I try to be as active as I can. You can find me on Twitter. I'm not so active because I'm not a good tweeter.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Right?
[00:22:56] Speaker B: My phone number, my website, what you're showing in front of me right now, that's my website if you want to get in touch with me. And I do all consulting for all aspects of oil and gas, and we'll talk about that probably in the coming chapters. But also my phone number's there, my email's there, and there's nobody that works for my company other than me. So when you call me, I answer the phone. There you go. 912-432-1001. That's all me. And by the way, I put that website together myself, too.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Had I ever done that?
No.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: And we'll talk about your journey to where you're at now. Hey, listen, we'll be right back in a few minutes after this commercial. Thanks a lot, guys.
Welcome back, everybody. It's Ricky Chavez with Battle Ready. You know, it's the process of reinventing yourself. And in today's show, we're having Kim McEwen, the president and CEO of Roughneck Chemical Consulting. You know, we've had a lot of conversation to this fort that got her to her first job in Houston, where she was a teacher. I'm in layman's terms, right? Something easy for me to talk about. A teacher that got offered an opportunity in oil and gas.
Didn't really know a lot about oil and gas, but knew enough about herself that she could learn what she needed to learn. Kim, welcome back.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Thanks, Ricky.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: All right, so we were talking. You were talking at the end about.
About that chemical that. With the. With the ten pounds, I guess. Is that right? And then.
Yeah, so. So now you're at this company in. In Houston and tell me what's going on now.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: So for me, once I realized how much I can learn on my own, I think I impressed myself.
So I started my education journey all over again. And now that I jumped into the oil patch with two feet, I wanted to learn anything and everything I could about all of the chemistries that are used throughout all aspects of oil and oil, oil and gas. And that includes drilling completions, production, enhanced oil recovery, and abandonment of a well.
So at this first company that I was at, I learned production chemistry. And I learned that not from somebody teaching me stuff, from learning that all on my own, from reading. And there's a lot of literature that's out there and available for you. You just got to find it and read. And I'm telling you, you can teach yourself anything that you want to know.
This abused kid that grew up in Sydney, Nova Scotia, got herself to the point that she is right now in her life, not just through sheer willpower of moving forward, but education. That's the key.
You teach yourself, you can learn anything. Never give up on yourself ever. Ever.
Nobody is. You can have people that will be there for you and help you, and that's well and good, but at the end of the day, the only person that you have is you.
So never give up on you. For me, there wasn't an option. Giving up was never an option. So when I plateaued in knowledge at that company, I said, okay, there's other aspects of oil and gas, and I'm going to learn it.
So I started applying for other positions. And I'll tell you something else. Never leave a job before you have another job.
Anyway, so I got a position in Charleston South Carolina. And that was a technical director for stimulation or completion and enhanced oil Recovery. Two different divisions within the oil and gas network.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: I worked there for a few years and plateaued in knowledge and said, what's the next thing I can learn?
So I moved to Savannah, Georgia, and I took a position with the world's largest manufacturer of polyacrylamide. So this opened my world to polymers and. And I became the director of the north and South American Energy division for this global entity.
And I learned every aspect of energy. I was in drilling, I was in completions, I was in production.
It was enhanced oil recovery. It was an opportunity like no other.
At that time, my son second marriage was failing, and he was very controlling and.
But that. It's not like that just happened. The problem is, God forgive me for this one. So when you grow up abused for whatever reason, we continue that path. I have no idea why I put up with my first husband cheating. I put up with the second trying to control who was involved in my life. He cut me off from a relationship with my first two children.
I wasn't allowed to have any friends. I wasn't allowed to travel. I wasn't allowed to have friends. So that isolation just.
I had to get out of that. And for me, the way out of that was to quit that job and move to Houston.
So I guess I came full circle. I started in Houston and I'll end in Houston.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: So I took a position as a vice president with a.
Another. So all of these jobs were manufacturers. This is all manufacturing in the oil and gas world. So I took a vice presidency of polymer technology and I was back in Houston again.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: Okay, now what?
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Go ahead. Sorry, Ricky.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: No, no. So now what? So you're back in Houston. And now I have to interject this. So you're published, right?
[00:29:27] Speaker B: Oh, yes. I have more than half a dozen patents and dozens of articles, journal articles. And now I present at. You know, I tried so many times throughout my career to present at the. In the oil and gas world, one of the big events, consortiums or meetings is. The word's gone out of my mind right now. It'll come back later. I'm old anyway.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: Is to do the hydraulic fracturing conference in the Woodlands. And I have tried for years and years and years to get into that. And I. Last year, or, sorry, this year, in 2025, I was actually invited to give a workshop. And it's just spiraled since then. So the Society of Petroleum Engineers, on July or June 8th, I'm giving another workshop at Urtech. And it's just snowballed for me giving workshops.
And I think the reason that that is is because slowly but surely over time I've made a name for myself in this industry.
And you know, to give these workshops like the one at the hydraulic fracturing conference. We were told that it was one of the highest ever attended workshops for the history of the hydraulic fracturing conference. So that's pretty cool.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: I know. I can remember when I got that call from you and you said you were coming down, you're doing that, how excited you were.
I remember that very. Like it was yesterday. That was yesterday.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: It was a big moment for me.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: For sure. No, I know for sure. So we got you. So you're. And I remember I met you somewhere in there and I remember looking, you were interviewed by somebody on some show.
What was that?
It was a show that you were on. So I googled you. You know, that's, you know, that's what everybody has a degree in Google right now.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Well, are you talking about.
See, I have to remember all this, Ricky. The mind isn't the way it used to be. If I don't have a post note stuck somewhere, I don't remember something.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: Hey, that's good. That's okay. It makes you human.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: The Journal of Petroleum Technology, I think it was.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: I think, you know, I. I know he was on there speaking some separate language that I didn't understand.
So I listened a little bit. I caught. And I just wanted to be able to say, hey, hey, I saw you there. No, when we first met. That was before I even met you.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: That was the last industry position that I held before I opened my own business.
And that was an interview where I was talking about the prevention of what they've termed in the oil patch as gummy bears.
And that was that interview.
I was so nervous. Oh my gosh. I think if you look up close, you can see the sweat dripping down my forehead.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: You seem to be doing this very well.
I remember when we talked about you coming on the show, it's like, I don't know. But yeah, man, you're killing it right now.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Listen, Ricky, I'm as nervous when every time I talk and I can't tell you how many times I've spoken in public, I've lost count. But every time I do it, I get the nervous pees. I always have to go pee and I don't know why that is, even though I don't have to. I have to.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: Right?
Well, hey, so there you go. So you Tell everybody before they go out, they go to the bathroom, they'll be ready to rock and roll. So, I mean, but you still did it, right? Every single time.
Does it get any better?
[00:33:00] Speaker B: I do.
I don't like it, and that's why I do it. Anything that I'm not comfortable with, I'll do anyway. And that's just, I think, part of just being a tough kid, that you have to survive.
You've always. Everybody's got choices in life, right? And the path that you walk in life depends on your choice.
For me, I chose not to be browbeaten and put down. And even though I took it, I mean, there's a reunion actually where I grew up and my now husband and I are heading up to Sydney, Nova Scotia this year.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: And all these kids that used to be, I mean, being abused at home, but then growing up in a political family in Canada, that's not exactly, you know, you're not exactly the cool kid. So all these kids used to make fun of me growing up. I was called stink bomb and spook and ghost. I think because I'm so white, I really have no idea the reason behind making fun of me.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: Kids are horrible.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: But you know, you know what, Ricky? I'm telling you something right now. I would never change one single thing. Not one. I would relive absolutely everything I've gone through in my life all over again. Do you know why?
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Why?
[00:34:21] Speaker B: Because it put me exactly where I am today.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: And that's that you definitely are survivor.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: And sometimes you have to go through a pile of crap to understand how lucky you are and how blessed you've been in your life by all the good, bad and the ugly that you've experienced, they make us what we are today.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: And if you were to just, if you were to talk to somebody straight out there that's going through struggles, I mean, and I know you're kind of a hard butt because I know this, because we talk, right? But what would you just nicely, okay, what would you tell somebody that's like struggling, think that they can't make it? What would you tell them?
[00:35:08] Speaker B: You have to pull from within yourself.
A lot of people around you, Ricky, can tell you a lot of things and, you know, for the most part, I think they really mean it.
But the only person that can change anything about you at the end of the day is you.
You have to find something within you. Whatever you focus on, whatever that is, whether it's I want to make more money or whether it's I want to be Thinner. Or whether whatever it is that I want more education, whatever it is in your life, the only person truly at the end of the day that can change that is you.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: That being said.
That being said, we're going to go into our last commercial before the end, and I know this last part is going to be a doctor.
This is the last chapter to get you where you're at, nice and happy. And I've known you for a while, and I'm just very happy for you and everything that you've done and gone through. And I can't wait to share this with everybody else. We're going into a commercial. Thanks.
Welcome back to Battle Ready.
The process of reinventing yourself. You. You know, when something gets to you, gets you down. Look at yourself. You don't know what you don't know. Get help. Hopefully through these shows, you'll be able to find somebody that has a journey that you've gone through and maybe or you're going through, and maybe you can find something that helps you. And back today, we have Kim, the final section. This is the part that I'm really looking forward to, you know, so I've known Kim for a while, and I was really excited when she accepted the invitation to appear on the show. Kim, welcome back.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Thanks, Ricky.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: All right, so we got you back to Houston.
Second divorce at the company, patents, all kinds of literature. Done.
And now what?
Tell me about where you're at.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: Okay, so I'm divorced now from the second husband. And this is where I met you, Ricky.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: So I had a house in Cypress, Texas, and I was going through the second divorce. No, actually, no, that's. That's true. I finished it. And I wanted to sell the house because it was too far away from where I was working in the Woodlands. And I wanted to get another place in the Woodlands. And that's where I met you. And for any of you out there that haven't seen Ricky in a suit and tie, he showed up to my house in a suit and tie.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Hey, so we have to talk about that. So, you know, this was. This was my biggest listing ever. I didn't know Kim.
I struggled because usually I'm in shorts and T shirt and tennis shoes. And a friend of hers referred. We had a mutual friend that said, hey, go meet Kim. I show up at this mansion. I knock on the door, and she comes out in shorts and a wife beater. I don't know.
And we get to talking, and it's, you know, like I said earlier, I did some homework. I saw the video online of her. And I was like, okay, man, I'm a little intimidated, you know? So I go in and we start talking about just everything.
And I'll tell you, I said, by the end of the conversation, I was like, I just put this jacket on for you. She starts laughing, and I take the jacket off, I put over the couch. And that was the end of jackets with her. Now I'm on. I have a jacket on today, though. But, yeah, that's how we met. For sure, for sure.
So then what? So let's not worry about the house now. Let's talk about you and your career.
[00:38:56] Speaker B: I want everybody to know where I met you, because there's a history there with you, old man.
[00:39:01] Speaker A: No, for sure.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: Anyway, so I moved to the Woodlands. But in the interim there between selling the house and moving to the Woodlands, my son, who was. I think he's 14 or 15 at the time, I don't remember. But anyway, he told me, said, mom, you got to meet somebody.
And I'll tell you, anybody out there that has not been in the dating world for close to a quarter of a century like myself, I.
Boy, is it ever different. Holy macaroni. Doing online dating, I'll tell you, I've learned images don't mean anything. Don't believe an image. They lie to you.
People present themselves out there as things that they're not.
But I wasn't on online dating for very long. It's not my game.
But I met.
So I got this little smiley face emoji, and I looked at his profile, and, oh, my God, there's an older guy. You're gonna laugh at me, Ricky. He's bald.
And I'm like, he's a nerd. No way. I don't think so.
But I didn't want to be rude, so I wrote him back, and I started telling chemistry jokes, and it just went on, and he was like, oh, my God, this is the pee in my pod.
This nerd. I was in nerd denial at the time. Ricky.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes. You were kind of cool when I met you, but I know the truth.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: Anyway, it rolled on and he. Of course, he's my third husband now. This is the best chapter of my whole life. This is the first time I've ever really had support. So I was not happy in the position that I was in. He was living in Illinois. I was traveling back and forth. So he's a medical doctor, He's a surgeon. And I was traveling back and forth from Illinois to Houston.
You know, the position I Was in, then gave me sort of an ultimatum that, you know, you can't travel anymore or work remotely from home. And I was like, I'm too old for this stuff.
And then my now husband Mark told me, you know, you've always wanted to open your own business, which I did.
But I'll tell you, it's challenging because you're a female.
And when you go out on the Savannah to hunt meat, it is not an easy chore.
And it scared the crackers out of me. I was gonna say a bad word.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: I know, we talked about this before the show, right?
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:41:49] Speaker A: I clean my stuff up too.
[00:41:50] Speaker B: My oil field trash, lingo to the side, right?
[00:41:53] Speaker A: There you go, 100%.
[00:41:56] Speaker B: But he encouraged me to open up my own business. So we decided I was going to give notice and I quit my. The vice president position that I had and I started with nothing. And I'll tell you, it was scary as hell, man.
You know, you have no health insurance, you have no income coming in and you have no customers and you're on the Savannah hunting meat and you got to feed your family.
And it was scary like nobody's business. Ricky. Oh, my goodness gracious. But I know the first conference that I went to was the hydraulic Fraction Conference. Interesting. The same thing I gave a workshop in this year and I called Mark and said, I'm not going to that conference. It costs $1,000 to go.
And he said, you are going to spend that money and you are going to go to that conference and you're going to get customer.
And I said, oh my God, that's a lot of money to spend. But I did it. I spent it. And I met with my very. At the time, I didn't know it, but my very first customer.
And oh my God, it was, I'll tell you anyway, it was wonderful to actually land a customer and that I could start supporting my family.
And it's just gone gangbusters since then.
And I owe that to the encouragement that I got from, from Mark. I've never had, you know, a best friend. And he is my everything. He's everything. And if you think that the road was so smooth, I'm going to tell you. And as you know, Ricky, it wasn't so smooth.
Mark and I were in the process of moving from to take our two households into one. He had left his practice in Illinois.
I was moving roughneck to Wyoming, and we were both taking the two households and moving to Wyoming.
Well, remember I had a 15, 16 year old son at the time. And if Anybody out there has a 15, 16 year old kid. You are, are an idiot. Your son or child daughter is brilliant. They know everything.
You know nothing.
And for Mark and I to removing him was.
He was having no part of it.
So I told him, I said, nope, you're moving.
And Mark flew into Houston and picked up a U haul and he was going to the house to pack up all of my son's things. And I called my son that morning. I was in Wyoming and I called my son that morning and I said he didn't answer the phone initially. I called back again, he answered the phone, he was really groggy.
And I said, is everything okay? Mark's on his way down there. And he said, yeah, I'm just really tired. I want to go to sleep. I love you, mom. Well, I started to cry. And I said to Mark as I was driving the airport, he never tells me that he loves me.
That's really weird. Something is wrong.
But he answered the phone. I said, okay. So Mark lands in Houston and he gets. He Ubers over to the, to the house in the Woodlands.
And he calls me on the phone, he says, I'm gonna go for a run. I said, no, no, just check on my son, make sure everything is okay. So Mark goes upstairs, he's on the phone with me, and he says, oh, my God. And I said, oh, no, what's going on?
He said, there's a note on the door. There's a dead body inside. Don't open the door.
So Mark kicked the door in and he opened the door and sure enough, my son had.
He had overdosed. He.
And thank God Mark is a physician. He, you know, and I'm on the other end of the phone and listening to all of this happening unless the police show up.
That's when I called you, Ricky, and you came over to help Mark.
Do you remember that?
[00:46:17] Speaker A: I do, I do.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: What a show.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:21] Speaker B: Anyway, he's. He's okay. He survived.
But if it was, you know, the thing is, is Ricky didn't even know Mark. He didn't know him at all. And he came over to give him assistance for the whole day.
I'm ever grateful for you for that, Ricky. You are one of my better friends. My God, Mark is my best friend.
You. You have been there for me and my family.
Anyway, thank you, Ricky.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: Well, I want to push it real fast because this is a sad part, but we, when we talked on the phone this morning. No, no, I understand the emotions. I remember when it was happening. I remember meeting with Mark but you know what I want to come to is our conversation this morning before the show. And I asked you, how is he? He's doing good now, right?
[00:47:14] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: Come on.
[00:47:16] Speaker B: He's.
Now, I got him a job with one of my customers in the oil patch, so he's working in a machine shop in Wyoming.
He loves his job.
He's living with a partner of his.
He's flourishing. He's a volunteer fireman.
He's doing so well. I am so very, very proud of him. It has been a very rough road, but again, he has choices in his life, too. And I think finally he's on a better path. And. And I've met my best friend in my whole life, which is my now husband Mark.
And I have support like I've never had in my life. My business is flourishing.
I couldn't be happier. And as I said earlier, I would change nothing of any part of my past, including the tragedies and the ups and downs with my son, because they've all put me to exactly where I am today. And I am happy as a pig in crap.
[00:48:26] Speaker A: There you go. But I will say this. You know, and about you and many parents have, probably they face this situation. The one thing I know about you since the day I met you is you've never given up on them. Regardless of the mess, you never, ever have given up on them. And that's a testament to you and everything. And I know Mark. Mark's marvelous and I'm glad how he supports you and I love how your business is doing. So, you know, everybody out there, if you think about it, we've went through, you know, from school troubles to being a parent in college to first jobs to careers that, oh, crap, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to try it anyway. And you know, the one thing about Kim, she's a survivor. And because of it, she's flourished. Kim, thank you so much for being on the show again. Tell me how to get ahold of.
[00:49:27] Speaker B: You real quick so it's. You can get me on my website. You can call me 912-432-1001 even if you just want to talk.
Yeah, I'm. Yeah, I'm here, Ricky. You know I love you.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: I love you, too.
Roughneckconsulting.com this lady's been through a lot. Guys, thanks so much for joining us. Kim, again, thank you for taking the time out of your busy, busy career. And I want to go up to Wyoming or no, you guys are moving again, right?
[00:50:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, we're always keeping the house in Wyoming. Always. I love Wyoming.
[00:50:05] Speaker A: All right, well, thanks a lot, everybody.
I appreciate you taking the time with us. We'll see you on our next battle. Ready?
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