Her Carry Spotlight: Kelly

I am thrilled to share this interview with Kelly of The Diamond Arrow Group! Kelly is a fitness enthusiast, business owner, public speaker, and advocate for situational awareness for women. During our interview, she introduced The Diamond Arrow Group and the Sharp Women program, gave some valuable advice for women, and teased us with some information on International Women’s Day 2027!

Sarah: Hi Kelly! How are you today?

Kelly: It’s a great day!

S: Thank you for coming on here and chatting with us today, and being our third Her Carry spotlight interview! We are trying to interview women who have great stories and who are in the business of helping women succeed in whatever avenue. And you’ve got a really unique perspective on that so I’m really excited to talk to you about it, and about your Sharp Women Collective!

K: Yes!

S: So can you tell us a little bit about Sharp Women, what the collective is, and what it means to you?

K: Sure. So I’ll back up just a little bit to give a little bit more context of sharp women. I first came across situational awareness as a thing back ten years ago. I took a women’s physical self-defense class. We spent the whole class hitting, kicking, all the stuff that I love, that’s fun. But at the very end of class, the instructor was like “ladies, predators don’t pick prey they think is gonna kick their butt. So the last thing you actually want to do is get into a physical fight. You need to be more situationally aware.” And then he sent us on our way. That’s when my brain did the full stop – what do you mean? What am I looking for? How do I know I’m looking for the right things? And if I see something, then what do I do? And the more I went out looking for answers to those questions, the less information I found. I could find instructors, I could find trainers, and they all understood what I was asking for. All of them were male. Because they have women in their life they care about, wives, daughters, sisters, moms, whatever it may be. And so I said “Great, you know what I’m asking for – where do I go to get that training?” And they went “There’s nothing out there.” And so really it became this thing of “How could this not be out there? If this is what women are supposed to be working on and sharpening, how could this not be a thing already?”

So I started taking what information I could find in books, in interviews, in studies, and piecing it together and making it relatable to me in my everyday life. I have a hospitality and tourism background! I don’t have martial arts, I don’t have law enforcement, so I was coming from a very curious place of “how do I actually implement this as an everyday woman, to keep myself, my kids, my loved ones safe?” And as I was learning I was going “well, this is common sense.” Women do this all the time but just don’t use the same terms, or they use it in different areas of their life. So this is more about education around “hey, what you do here in your life, you can actually sharpen and use towards keeping yourself safe in that personal safety realm.” So that has just evolved and grown, and then COVID hit, and you know, speaking and training really hit the breaks. And that’s when I decided to write my book.

Because again, when I was out there looking for information, there was only one book that was recommended. That was “Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Decker which many people recommend. But it was written in the late 90s and still from a male perspective. Great book, but I was like “where is the updated version? Where is today’s version, written from a female perspective?” And that’s why during COVID I wrote my book. We were trying to figure out what to call it, and Sharp Women came up as the title because I believe all women are born with this incredible intuition, incredible instincts, but over time cutting through life’s bullcrap, it dulls your edge. You’re not broken, you just need sharpening. So the Sharp Women came from a place of strength. And in the book I share typical scenarios that women face a lot of the time. Over 90% of our attackers are known to us: coworkers, friends of friends, an intimate partner, family members, so really the early threat signs look a little different. There’s so much nuance and gray area because it’s really easy for someone to brush off “oh you’re taking it too seriously, you’re being over emotional, you’re reading too much into it,” and dismissing your intuition. So how do we get back to “No, you need to trust your intuition,” and giving women the language and giving women the knowledge so that they feel confident in themselves. Because as you know, we can’t outsource our personal safety. We have to take responsibility for our own personal safety. And then from the book, it really started to snowball. Now we have the sharp women method, we broke it into an acronym because you know how this world loves the acronyms too. And from there it was “okay, now how can we get women together in a place so that they are supporting each other?” We can bring in resources, products, whether that’s non-profits with resources, whatever it may be, and that’s where the sharp women collective came in. And then the next step that we just launched this year was the Sharp Women subscription kits. Because again women are like “great, so now we have some knowledge, now what tools should I use? How do I keep myself safe?” And because there’s so many different places that you can start to make little changes that’ll have a great impact, we launched a quarterly kit subscription service so that each kit has a theme. Our first one was general foundational skills/situational awareness, our next one coming in November is the home safety kit, then there’ll be the travel kit, then the college kit, and looking further down the road we’re thinking about vehicle kits, more of that senior aged population kit, because women tend to out-live their spouses and find themselves alone when they’re older, and all of the sudden they’re again in charge of their safety. So it really has snowballed into more of a lifestyle. It’s not just a book. It’s not just an online community. Now we’re trying to bring in everything and give women all the resources and tools and access to information that they need when they need it.

S: I love that. And I really like how you commented on how women are born with intuition and it’s so often just kind of shrugged off as being sensitive or anything like that. But so often I’ve done interviews with women and they say “I had this weird feeling that something was off” or “the hairs were standing up on the back of my neck” or something. And I think that culture has taught women to not listen to that feeling and I like that so much of your book, because that was the first introduction I had to you and to the Sharp Women program as a whole, talks on that so much. So much of your book is not focused on “oh you have to be super strong, you have to be a black belt, you have to have all this fancy thousands of dollars of gear;” the first thing that you tell women is just “listen to yourself” basically.

K: It’s hard because we’re used to wanting confirmation that our intuition was correct. But if we trust our intuition when either we don’t feel right around a person, we don’t feel right in a space, something feels off, and we trust it and then we walk away or whatever we need to do, and nothing happens, you can’t prove that something would have happened had you stayed. So that’s another thing too, is letting go of needing proof that you made the right decision. The proof is that you got to go home at the end of the night. The proof is you didn’t get assaulted. The proof is that you protected and enforced your boundaries. And you’re safe. You’re mentally safe, you’re emotionally safe, you’re physically safe.

S: That takes a lot of confidence too that I think people, culture, tries to train out of women. “Be nice, be quiet, be easy to be around,” and you have to really have confidence to say “No, I’m leaving, I’m taking myself out of the situation.” I think there was a particular scenario you went over in your book about what do you do in an uncomfortable situation when you don’t wanna get on an elevator with somebody who’s giving you bad vibes, but you don’t necessarily feel comfortable saying “I’m not taking it, go.” What are different options you have? And you walk through some of those options whether people are just not feeling confident yet, or they don’t want to start a confrontation, you give people options to be able to follow their instinct without going against their cultural training to be nice and to be friendly.

K: I just did a presentation last night and asked a room full of ladies that exact scenario. What would you do? And so often everyone laughs, and I’m like “no really, what would you do?” And they stop and they’re like “Well I don’t know what I would do.” And that’s that mental scenario building. We think we know what we’re gonna do if the situation presents itself, and then suddenly if we find ourselves in that situation, we go right to our reactionary fight flight freeze or fawn. And having a rough mental strategy in your head before you find yourself in a situation is going to help you react quicker and take action sooner. Because as you and I know, when an incident happens, it happens very fast. There’s not a lot of time to go “hm, what are my options?” So the sooner you start to recognize behaviors, or something’s making you uncomfortable and you listen, the more space and time you give yourself to keep yourself safe.

S: It sounds silly, it sounds obvious, but this is something that my field training agent used to tell me way back in the day, and it’s something that I still stand by today, in law enforcement or not, “your body can’t go where your brain has never been.” So it just takes just sitting there and going over in your head before going out the door, “what do I do if the taxi driver is acting weird? What do I do if the drink is out of my sight for a couple minutes, what do I do if somebody seems like they’re following me into the bathroom?” Just sit there and think about it, then you’re at least one step closer to reacting that way.

K: I’ve heard that as well. Your body can’t go where your mind hasn’t.

S: It’s tricky and it’s awkward when you first start doing it, but just playing that out is really helpful.

K: One of my stories that I use in my presentations, is “ladies, do you get up in the morning and think mentally about what you need to get done in the day?” You go through your task list, I need to do this, this, and this. Wait, I need to do that first. We mentally strategize our day all the time. So it’s not a new skill. All you’re doing it applying that skill to a new problem. A new scenario. So ladies, you do this all the time. You just think about it from a task perspective of what you need to get done for the day. I’m asking you “What would you do if someone is breaking into your house?” And suddenly it’s like oh, okay, what would I do? Where would I go? What room? Where are the kids and animals?” That’s the mental scenarios that we want women, and men, too, this isn’t just for women, but that’s what we want to start reminding women to go through.

S: Absolutely.

Now I know from your Instagram page that fitness is a big part of your life. Has that impacted or been influenced by or influenced your journey in situational awareness or in Sharp Women at all? Has that played a part in this aspect of your career?

K: Nobody’s ever asked me that question! Done a lot of podcast interviews and nobody has brought that up. Ironically, I started working out with the trainer that I still work out with today almost the exact same time that I took that first class. So it really ran parallel. The weight training that I do was more because I’m like “I wanna be in shape, I wanna be healthy, I have two little boys, they’re rambunctious, I wanna be able to keep up,” more of the functional fitness. But what’s interesting, is over the last ten years, it’s also helped me realize how much not only the physical aspect of strength training is important, but the mental aspect. Because I’ve had a lot of unfortunate things that I’ve gone through in that same time period in my life, and realizing how much mental help that gave me by having that outlet. By being able to go to the gym, shut everything off for an hour, and literally just wanna die every workout, and then feel good afterwards. In that though, I also realized “now that I feel confident in my ability to move, that actually does change or impact how I carry myself when I walk through the day.” It does give me confidence in myself, which then impacts that perception that people have of me as I’m walking through the day so yeah, I don’t look like an easy target to many predators. And so it does tie in.

And when I share it on my page, it’s not so much of “oh, everyone should be doing one particular thing” it’s more about taking care of your physical health and the mental piece of it. Showing women you don’t have to become a gym rat. You don’t have to become someone you’re not. It’s okay to have all of these aspects of you. Live life on your terms. This is something that I love to do and I’m going to show up. I’m not going to hide parts of me. This is all of me. I also love cars, I also love being outside and doing things, so it’s also modeling the behavior that we want sharp women to aspire to of “it’s okay to live your life the way you want to live it.” And we want to help you have confidence to live that life.

S: And when you live your life that way, just living your life the way you want to and the way that feel authentic to you, that confidence also helps you carry yourself differently too. Fitness does obviously help improve that but just being comfortable in who you are and what you do have a huge impact on how you carry yourself. I agree that anything that builds your confidence is a great thing to pursue.

K: Especially when you enjoy doing it. We learn best through play. We learn best when we’re enjoying what we’re learning. So if we can make healthy choices enjoyable or learning how to improve yourself enjoyable, people are gonna stick with it. You think about NYE resolutions. I get it, I've been there too, where you set this big resolution because you want the end result but if you hate the process, you’re less likely to stick with it. But if you’re enjoying it like I enjoy working out, I don’t mind getting up early twice a week to go workout with my trainer. I look forward to it. And if I have to cancel or if we have to reschedule, it feels like it throws off my mojo for the week.

S: I know you’ve got a hard stop at 4:30, so I’ll get into these last couple things. So… International Women’s Day 2027. What hints can you give me about what maybe we can expect to see?

K: Well, one thing that we’re so excited to do is be partnering with you and Lily and other fantastic organizations to bring the first ever Sharp Women event in person! It will be in Milwaukee on March 6. That’s the detail I can confirm for right now. But our vision for this event is to have the physical aspect of self-defense, to have my situational training and the Sharp Women method, to have self-defense tools so to speak, and other gear that women don’t often get the opportunity to see, touch, try on, test out, and have primarily women there answering questions. A lot of times too when we go to somewhere that has gear, there’s not always a lot of women that work there. So it’s really hard to ask a more female centered question. You know, how do I conceal carry in a sports bra? How do I conceal carry when I’m wearing leggings or a dress. Guys don’t typically have those issues. So to have all of this information and resources, vendors available to women, that they can come check it out and have fun. I’m super excited about some of the ideas that we have, and cannot wait to start really putting it out there for women to make a plan, come for the weekend, make it a girls trip. Get a bunch of girlfriends and let’s go hang out. We’ll spend a weekend, we can go to this event, check it out, have fun, go wine tasting, shopping, do whatever you want, and enjoy and walk away feeling like “oh I go this.” Giving you a little bit of confidence.

S: And also just meet some really cool ladies while you’re at it. I’m so excited, it’s going to be a great weekend. I cannot wait to start narrowing down our plans a little bit more.

Now I have two questions that I ask everybody so I’ll ask you those real quick. First of all, Her Carry is obviously creating clothes for women to carry concealed, but I also know that carrying a firearm is not the only way that you can feel confident and comfortable. So what makes you feel confident and powerful as you go throughout your day and your week?

K: That’s a great question. For me it is all of the work that I’m doing on myself every day to be a little bit sharper. But specifically when it comes to tools, I love that you talked about not everyone is gonna want to carry a firearm, that’s not always the answer for every person. I always giggle because my handbag has a plethora of options that I just always have. So depending on what the scenario is, when I’m in a transition area or about to step into a transition area, I have options. What fits the environment I’m in. So to me, knowing that I always have something on me, or knowing that I have some plan that I’ve thought out that if something happens in this environment, this is what I’m gonna do. And it’s not that I sit there for any lengthy amount of time contemplating all the what-ifs, but it’s simple things like “okay, where are the exits? What door? Where am I sitting?” Making sure that I have as much visual as possible, and then knowing “okay, if something happens and suddenly there’s a threat present, what’s my plan. What am I gonna do?” And that might just take me a minute to just think through quick, if that. And that’s what helps me have confidence going throughout the day.

S: Love that and as a side note, I love that you mentioned transitional areas because we know that those are some of the most dangerous areas for women and that’s one of the most important things is to be aware of your surroundings and to know who’s around and what’s around and what options you have.

And the second question that I like to ask is: if you could give one piece of advice to a young girl who is just learning who she is and learning her place in the world and figuring life out, what would that be?

K: Stay curious. Stay curious about how your intuition tries to communicate with you when it sends you a signal that something’s off. Stay curious about why. Whatever that may be; is it from a past experience, where is that intuition signal coming from. Curiosity for the world around you. And then curiosity in the sense of: situational awareness is not about paranoia. It’s not supposed to make you feel more scared. Situational awareness is being present. Being mindful. So the more you’re just curious around the world around you, you’re gonna start to notice when the buds start coming in on the trees in spring. You might notice the leaves are changing colors. Or you might notice “hey, your neighbor, I never really noticed that they have this type of car” or whatever it may be. So the more that you can stay curious, the more you’ll notice things. And honestly for me, I look for random acts of kindness. Seeing somebody do something kind when nobody is watching. And that gives me the warm fuzzy feeling, gives me hope for humanity. We can focus so much on social media on negatives, and the media can just give us all the terrible headlines. So when you’re getting curious about the world around you, you start to notice really beautiful things too.

S: Absolutely. What’s the quote? Look for the helpers.

Well, Kelly thank you so much. I know you’ve gotta run. Real quick before you go, do you wanna share your website and Instagram handle?

K: Yes! Thank you. Our website is TheDiamondArrowGroup.com, and all of our social media handles are “@TheDiamondArrowGroup.”

Our previous Spotlight was Hannah, a Master’s student at the University of Indiana, a huge football fan, dog mom, self-described hobby maniac, and two years into continued remission from leukemia. You can read her interview here: https://www.hercarryapparel.com/blog/her-carry-spotlight-hannah

We will be back soon with another Her Carry Spotlight interview! We will be hearing from women of all walks of life who protect, serve, build, lead, overcome, create, and make their communities stronger.

Please reach out to me at hello@hercarryapparel.com, 414-433-7679 or at https://www.hercarryapparel.com/contact if you or any ladies you know would like to be featured!