Meet Erica Kafka | Physician Assistant, Yoga Therapist, Social Impact Entrepreneur, Mom

We had the good fortune of connecting with Erica Kafka and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Erica, what is the most important factor behind your success?
We have spent formative years and our adult lives learning about ourselves; principles to live by, values we prioritize…who we want to be. The Brave and Kind Collective is the spirit of our personal and professional compass, and the success is built being true to ourselves. Authenticity is how we succeed. We have committed to a life focusing on causes larger than ourselves and building a community of like-minded people to make a significant social impact. Making business decisions as our authentic selves helps us live the life we intend to live.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
We spent our professional lives in human services. We still work in that space while getting our business running. Having worked with stigmatized, marginalized people in large, bureaucratic systems, we have learned that while we love working to support people, we need to do so on our own terms. We found the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals serve as a map to pursue our dreams, and have used our experience in ground level human service work to conceptualize reaching for global impact goals. Building Brave and Kind is our way to transcend our past experience and create something new, fun, and impactful.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
The first thing to do in the Springs is go outside. We would get up early and hike, maybe drive to Divide to take on Raspberry Mountain. Heading back to town, it’s only right to take a ride through Garden of the Gods. Lunch at Sherpa Garden, which is one of our favorite meals in the city. We have to take friends shopping downtown, walking Nevada and Tejon to check out our friends’ shops and experience the city. Perhaps a beer at one of the local breweries, maybe FH Beerworks or Nano 108 before naptime. Dinner at Burrowing Owl, and maybe a lounge at Kinship Landing after. If we have a couple of days, we like to drive to Canon City to poke around the Royal Gorge. Or head to Boulder to meet our dear friends Court and Britt and their two Frenchies for endless fun. Ali isn’t far away in Fort Collins, so that’s another option! We like to keep our schedules spontaneous, knowing there are friends and chosen family all over.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We have the love and support of our families, Without them, the people who turned into the professionals don’t exist. We owe our spirit and foundation to them. The family we chose has helped craft this passion project; they are the social impact and small business community we are proud to represent. Stacey Burns at NI4SI, Courtney Caldwell at Houndstooth design, Ali Quinn, our social media guru; these are some of the headliners in a vast network of do-gooding.

Website: https://www.braveandkindco.com/

Instagram: @braveandkindco

Linkedin: Brian Coonan, Erica Kafka

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChgc_1_mN98hNmYOcAZ6ZlA

Image Credits
four.oh photo collective