It’s my pen name.

And some shit that went down last week has proven that adopting a pen name was a damn good idea.

👉 No matter what they say about you, just keep your head up and lean on your values.

👉 Protect yourself from creeps. Use a pen name. Don’t allude to the specifics of where you live, or places you visit frequently. Unapologetically block people who give you a bad feeling.

And now — the story behind why this advice matters. 👇

Since I began publishing Drunk Business Advice, I’ve had a few, well, “stalkers”. No true threats to my safety — just weirdos who have demonstrated what my Secret Service husband calls “undue interest”.

The M.O. among these guys has been consistent — obsessive emailing / messaging, and irritation when I don’t reply.

And so far, the only action I’ve needed to take is removing them from my email list, and then blocking them on any platform they’ve used to contact me. And then just moving on with my life. No biggie.

But last Sunday, I had a really strange one…

I was chilling on the couch, cheekily bantering with folks on LinkedIn about the demonic nerds-candy-corn-hybrid I had come across while ordering my groceries for the week, when I noticed a comment from a 3rd+ profile which had literally nothing to do with that topic—

Then my notifications started popping off. This guy was commenting on dozens of my old posts — some going back years.

And every comment was getting more and more aggressive, accusing me of faking my education because he couldn’t find “Kristin Kenzy” in the Harvard alumni directory.

He was determined to “expose me”.

But here’s the thing — of course he couldn’t find Kristin Kenzy in the Harvard alumni directory. Thank f*cking god. 

I’m in the directory under my legal name, not my pen name.

I peeked at the profile that was harassing me…

So I reported the profile for harassment, and blocked it.

Time to just move on with my life, right?

Well, here’s what really freaks me out about this— 

The general public doesn’t have access to the Harvard alumni database. To access it, I have to login through my “Harvard Key” — a special authentication system.

So it’s quite possible that this stalker is, in fact, part of the close-knit Harvard community. A community where (up until now) I haven’t felt the need to set the kind of boundaries I do with my “public” profile.

Honestly, that breaks my heart a little. 😔

I was 22 when a group of spiteful figure skating coaches tried to destroy my reputation and get me deported from Australia.

Seriously. This happened.

It all started when I was hired to develop the sports programming business for the largest ice sports center in the Southern Hemisphere — an $85 million venture.

Was I qualified to do this? Probably not. But I was sure-as-hell going to try.

Up until that point, competitive figure skating in Australia had been ruled by a gang of money-sucking coaches whose egos couldn’t fit in a Range Rover. And despite Australia gaining strength internationally in winter sports such as skiing and speed skating, figure skating was still an embarrassment.

The reason for this became utterly clear to me in my first week, when I visited a rural ice rink to watch one of Australia’s “top” skaters train. 

This kid had raw, natural talent, an ideal body type, and a hugely supportive family — three ingredients for an Olympic-caliber athlete.

But she also had countless technique flaws (purely the result of poor coaching) that would be nearly impossible to fix. 

Her entire career had been hoarded by a husband-and-wife coaching team who refused to let her be trained by anyone else. Their own egos and personal financial gain kept this poor kid from ever having a chance to compete on the world’s stage.

It was infuriating. This inspiring young athlete had her dreams ripped from her… and her parents had been duped for tens of thousands of dollars.

I clearly had a daunting task ahead of me.

The first step was to hire coaches and administrators across all four ice sports to deliver programming at our gorgeous new facility.

It was time to go mining for diamonds.

Hockey, speed skating, and curling were a breeze. Australia offered some absolutely stellar talent in those sports, and they were eager to be a part of what we were building.

But the figure skating coaches had no enthusiasm for us. You see, we were making a pretty insane demand of them—

They needed to join our team.

That was preposterous. They wanted to rock up to the rink like gods, run their own little businesses (squeezing families for as much cash as possible), and be held accountable by no one.

Many “leaders” in Australian figure skating were early fans of our project, but quickly changed their tune once they learned that we planned to adopt a teamwork approach.

In protest, one such leader even marched into my office, dropped an envelope on my desk in front of me, and stormed out without saying a word to anyone. 

The envelope contained a letter withdrawing his name from consideration as a coach (he had never even applied), and calling me a “dictator”. 

Wow. That’s a little… um… dramatic.

But I needed to hire figure skating coaches. We couldn’t function without them. And you catch more flies with honey, so I scheduled a friendly meeting with the leaders of the local Figure Skating Coaches Association. I thought if I could sit down face-to-face with these folks, I could explain the reasoning behind our programming decisions.

And I could clarify that these decisions were all being made in partnership with…

…wait for it…

I had only been in this country a short time, and had quickly observed the deeply-rooted problems in their figure skating culture.

The Olympic Winter Institute had been observing these problems for years. They viewed the launch of our new facility (which would also serve as their new HQ) as a fresh start for figure skating in Australia.

They knew it would take time to make an impact at the highest level of competition, but they were 100% behind my efforts to build a better foundation.

The co-heads of the Coaches Association agreed to meet with me at a quaint little cafe. They were pleasant enough. 

I walked them through the plans for the first year of operations, and asked them to pass on these details to any coaches who may want to be a part of it.

I opened up to them about my own experience as a competitive figure skater, which included training with several Russian coaches, who I loved. 

And when they asked if I planned to try to attract coaches from Russia, I replied that I hadn’t seen Russian training methods perform well at the grassroots level in the U.S., and wouldn’t be going to Russia to recruit talent at this stage.

What a stupid thing for me to say. 🤦

These conniving little shits shook my hand, smiled, and walked away.

Then they immediately turned around and bombarded every news outlet they could find, claiming that the person in control of the future of figure skating in Australia… was a “racist”.

Me. I was racist. Against Russians. Their words, not mine.

Oh, and they also sent a letter to Parliament, requesting my visa be revoked.

Journalists began calling my office by the dozens, looking for a comment. After two or three minutes of speaking with me, my boss, or our PR team, they realized there was no story, and that the claims they were investigating were completely unfounded. So they gave up and moved on.

The journalist from this newspaper quickly knew I wasn’t a racist, but why on earth would a group of professionals make these claims? There was a story here — just not the story they had been told.

So they interviewed a bunch of the coaches (including the drama queen who had stormed into my office and called me a dictator), and learned their true grievances.

They felt victimized. Some of them were passed over for my job. And now, if they wanted to coach at our beautiful new facility, they were being told they had to –gasp– have a boss, and work as a team.

The journalist was confused. Isn’t that how all jobs work? 

So the coaches explained how figure skating operated in the rest of the country. They were permitted to coach and operate their own businesses out of the other rinks, usually in exchange for a small monthly fee as rent.

They were their own bosses.

And the idea of having a boss, or being forced to “share” skaters with other coaches was intolerable to them.

So the journalist went right to the top — they contacted the CEO of the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia. His name is Geoff Lipshut, and to this day, that man retains legend status in my book. 🙏

Geoff’s response to the coaches’ grievances on how our facility would be operating its figure skating program was (paraphrased from memory):

While training Olympic figure skaters was not my job, that comment killed the story, and thwarted most of the other attempts this group of unduly agitated coaches made to “cancel” me.

And through this process, the cream rose to the top.

Our first three figure skating hires, Dorothy, Mark, and Amber, personified teamwork and led a collaborative culture that put the skaters at the center of every decision.

Together, we grew the program to nearly 20 diverse and talented figure skating coaches…

…including Svetlana. Take a wild guess where she was from. 🤷

-Kristin

P.S. — Protect yourself from creeps. Use a pen name. Don’t allude to the specifics of where you live, or places you visit frequently. Unapologetically block people who give you a bad feeling. Stay safe out there, friends. ♥️