Fired for Being Pregnant. She Got Even.

During her first year in business, Kelly Ehlers went to Goodwill, bought fishbowls, filled them with live goldfish, and hand-delivered them to prospects all over town — water sloshing in her car — with a pitch: are you a fish out of water with your social media? She was pregnant, recently fired, and her husband was cashing in a change jar at Coinstar to buy diapers. Sixteen years later, that desperation-fueled agency has made the Inc. 5000 list five times.

Here’s what I didn’t expect from this conversation: the woman whose entire brand is niceness is also one of the most productively vengeful people I’ve ever interviewed. Kelly told her boss she was pregnant on a Monday and was fired by Friday. She sued the $300 million company and won — it took six years. When a publisher backed out of buying her agency two hours before signing, she told them “buckle up” and launched a media company to take their market share. She has, in her words, many chips on her shoulder, and she loves them. Niceness, it turns out, is not the absence of a spine. It might be the sharpest edge of one.

We talk about all of it — the glass conference room, the change jar, why she stopped chasing money, and the blank-page exercise that cracked her open at 47.

About Kelly Ehlers: Kelly is the founder of The Evoke Agency, a social media and PR agency that has landed on the Inc. 500 and 5000 lists five times, and The Tease Media, a beauty media platform reaching over 500,000 salon professionals. She won a six-year pregnancy discrimination case against her former employer while building both companies. Her book, Nice Girls Win, is on presale now. She lives in the Midwest with her husband and two teenagers. Find her at nicegirlswin.com.

When Kelly was fired for being pregnant, her husband had just been laid off, they had about $10,000 in savings, and their first baby was due in months. Her mom came to visit and asked how she wasn’t having a nervous breakdown. Kelly’s answer: “What is that gonna prove?” She doesn’t believe resilience is a personality trait you’re born with — she believes it accrues, decision by decision, every time you face a setback and choose not to fold. Which means if you don’t feel resilient right now, you’re not disqualified. You’re just early.

“Resilience grows inch by inch, mile by mile, with every single setback you have — and your choice to say, no, I’m not doing that.”

Kelly spent years being the “nice girl” who walked into rooms of beauty industry executives and got the pat on the head. She never dropped the niceness — she weaponized it. Her argument is that kindness disarms a room, and once the room is disarmed, data and strategy do the rest. This is the opposite of what most of us were taught, which is that you have to choose: be liked or be taken seriously. Kelly’s whole career is evidence that the choice is fake.

“Niceness disarms a room. And that combined with data, strategy, brilliance, and a high level of emotional intelligence — it’s absolutely lethal. I will die on that sword.”

When Kelly loses a pitch, she doesn’t get bitter — she says “great” and waits. Most of the time, the client comes back. And when they do, the rate has gone up. She also runs something called Project Orchid: anytime someone refers her, signs with her, or simply meets with her team, an orchid lands on their desk the next day. No pitch attached. It sits there for months, quietly reminding them she exists. It’s why her business has been almost entirely referral-based for sixteen years. Graciousness, it turns out, compounds.

“I say to myself, they’ll be back. And they most of the time are. And guess what? It costs them twice as much now.”

In the early years, clients would ask “can you do this?” and Kelly would say yes — then hang up the phone and admit to her team she had no idea how. After one project with Procter & Gamble, she introduced herself as “an agency at Procter & Gamble,” which was, in her words, not really true. This is exactly what I see so many women refuse to do: they want to prove to themselves they can do something perfectly before they’ll let anyone know they’re doing it at all. Kelly built two companies — neither with a business plan — by doing the reverse.

“We’d hang up the phone and we’re like, do you know how to do that? I don’t know how to do that.”

Kelly has chased money exactly twice: once into a corporate job she hated (the one that fired her), and once into an acquisition deal she wanted purely for the cash-out. Both blew up. She’s not anti-money — she wants financial abundance and says so plainly — but she’s learned that when money is the only reason for a decision, the decision is usually wrong. The distinction she draws now is between money as the goal and money as the byproduct of work she actually believes in.

“I was like, hell yeah, I’m gonna cash out. I chased the money — which is not good. I don’t do that anymore.”

Last year, at 47, Kelly hit a wall. The businesses were thriving, the family was healthy, and she felt completely unfulfilled. What pulled her out wasn’t a new goal — it was a blank piece of paper and one question: what do I deserve? Not want. Not hope for. Not “would be lucky to get.” Deserve. She wrote in sensory detail — the sound of her footsteps crossing a stage, the sweat beads on a cold glass of rosé at the end of a dock. She says some of her friends can’t do this exercise because it’s too painful. That’s how you know it matters. Most of us have never once asked ourselves the question.

“Not want, not have, not wish for, not hope you’re lucky to get — but the word deserve. Because nobody ever sat me down and said, no, you’re not gonna be a bestselling author. My head said that. Until it didn’t.”

When I asked Kelly how she makes room for two companies, a book, and two teenagers, her answer was one word: delete. She audits her life for what she calls the obligatory yes — the happy hour that drains her, the carpool small talk, the friendship where she’s always the one texting first. Then she stops. Not with a dramatic confrontation; she just quietly withdraws her energy and watches what happens. It sounds cold until you hear the other half: she leaned into hustle culture so hard she self-combusted, and deleting is how she got herself back.

“Think about the things that you have this obligatory yes to, or the resentful yes. I delete. And it takes a while to be okay with deleting.”

Kelly didn’t have a business plan, a budget, or any idea how to run a media company. What she had was a gut conviction and the willingness to start before she was ready. The through-line of this whole conversation is that waiting — for permission, for perfect conditions, for someone to tell you that you deserve it — is the most expensive thing you can do. Here’s where to start:

1. Do the deserve exercise. Sit down with a blank piece of paper and write what you deserve — not what you want or hope for. Go into sensory detail: what do you hear, see, feel in that life? Kelly warns that tears will flow. Do it anyway. This is the single exercise she credits with reorienting her life at 47.

2. Fill a page with gratitude first. If the deserve question feels impossible, start where Kelly did: write down everything you’re grateful for, down to the smallest detail, until there’s no white space left on the page. She did this daily at her lowest point. It’s what made the bigger question askable.

3. Audit your invisible contract. Kelly asks: what’s the contract you execute every day that you never signed? Why are you the one who books the flights, does the doctor’s appointments, organizes every happy hour? List the assumed tasks in your life this week. Then question one of them out loud.

4. Delete one resentful yes. Find the commitment you dread, the one that brings you no energy and exists purely out of obligation. Cancel it, or just stop volunteering for it, and pay attention to what actually happens. (Usually: nothing.)

5. Send your version of the orchid. Think of one person who referred you, vouched for you, or opened a door this year. Thank them in a way that lands on their desk — memorably, generously, with nothing asked in return. Kelly built a sixteen-year referral business on this.

6. Say yes to one thing before you know how. Not recklessly — strategically. The next time an opportunity shows up that you’re 70% qualified for, say yes first and figure it out second. That’s how a fired, pregnant woman with a change jar ended up presenting to 500 people for Procter & Gamble.

7. Connect with Kelly. Preorder Nice Girls Win and find her at nicegirlswin.com. Tell her you found her through Ladies Get Paid :)