November 7, 2025 • 57 mins
What do you do when your health changes and the business you've built can't keep up?
In this episode of Business with Chronic Illness, I sit down with Jemi Crookes, founder of The Think Lab, to talk about what happens when a diagnosis forces you to redefine leadership, business, and success itself.
After a misdiagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, Jemi discovered she was actually living with Type 1.5 (LADA)—a rare form of autoimmune diabetes that upended everything she knew about her body, her energy, and the way she worked. She left her corporate executive role and rebuilt her business from the ground up, using AI, authentic leadership positioning, and personal branding to create more freedom and less burnout.
In This Episode You'll Learn:
✅ How Jemi turned a life-changing diagnosis into a business that supports her health
✅ The difference between corporate leadership and capacity-honoring leadership
✅ Why "your job title is rented, but your leadership is forever"
✅ How to use AI as a tool (not a replacement) for your positioning and time
✅ What it really takes to build a brand rooted in your values and lived experience
✅ The mindset shifts that allow you to keep growing—even when your energy fluctuates
✅ Why you can't position yourself (even if you're a strategist) and who can help
✅ How advocating for your health teaches you to advocate in business
You'll hear how Jemi learned to trust her intuition when doctors got it wrong, design business models that flex with her energy, and help other women leaders build brands that can thrive, no matter what life brings next.
A gift from Jemi, our guest - Custom GPT tool: SO FUN!!!! https://chatgpt.com/g/g-67d37e2edbf48191b062e108c6bb1994-tf-leadership-intro-ida
🎧 Want to learn more about today’s guest?
Visit CraftedToThrive.com for guest details, key takeaways, and extra links mentioned in this episode.
🌿 If you’re navigating entrepreneurship and chronic illness, or simply craving a more sustainable way to grow your business without sacrificing your health, energy, or self-care priorities, explore Chronically You & Profitable (CYAP).
CYAP is my voice-first business system designed for women entrepreneurs, creatives, and women with chronic illness who want sustainable growth and burnout support while keeping life and wellness first.
It helps you use your voice and story to build a business with systems and strategies that run smoothly, so your work supports your life, not the other way around.
⭐ Enjoyed this conversation? Leave a review and share it with another CEO woman or creative entrepreneur growing a health-first, sustainable business.
📱 Stay connected: Follow me on Instagram.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Another big piece of that isthen the risk mitigation. Like I
said, I don't know whattomorrow is going to look like. So
with my team, how have I setthem up for success? That if I need
to step out for a bit of time,that doesn't mean that everything
comes crumbling down, thateverything grinds to a halt. Some
things will have to becausethey're the parts that I do. My clients
(00:20):
need to understand that, andthat's part of our relationship.
But there's other things thatcan continue and not just completely
stop because you just never,you never know. Chronic illness or
otherwise, life is going tolife. And so you have to be, you
have to be ready for that.
Welcome to Business withChronic Illness, the globally ranked
(00:41):
podcast for women living withchronic illness who want to start
and grow a business online.I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and
I went from living a normallife to all of a sudden being in
constant pain with no answersto being diagnosed with multiple
chronic illnesses and tryingto make livable income, I faced the
challenge of adaptingtraditional business advice to fit
(01:02):
my unique circumstances withchronic illness. Feeling frustrated
and more burned out than Ialready was while managing my chronic
illness to becoming an awardwinning coach with a flexible, sustainable
online coaching business, Ifound the surprisingly simple steps
to starting and growing aprofitable business without compromising
my health or my peace. Sincethen, I've helped dozens of women
(01:25):
just like you learn how to dothe same. If you're ready to create
a thriving business thataligns with your lifestyle and well
being, you're in the rightplace. Together, we're shifting the
narrative of what's possiblefor women with chronic illness and
how we make a living. This isBusiness with Chronic Illness. I
(01:50):
am so excited to have someonewho came into my world and I am always
very happy when a woman ofcolor, a black woman, shows up in
my inbox who wants to talkabout business with chronic illness.
This is to me a rarity becauseit's really challenging to get women
(02:11):
who are of color to talk aboutchronic illness, chronic pain, running
a business, because we are. Itdoesn't matter what's going on with
our lives, we just get itdone. And Jimmy is just an amazing
person from what I've learned.But I want you to first tell us a
little bit about you, like howyou would describe yourself as a
(02:32):
businesswoman, as a mom, like,give us a little bit about you before
we hop in. Yeah.
Thank you for having me. I'mexcited to be here and tell this
story. So myself as a yes, I'Ma mom. I'm a mom of a six year old
little boy who's got a lot ofenergy and a big personality and
(02:52):
that's a lot of fun. That'slike my full time job, my part time,
full time job is running mybusiness, the thinkfluencer Lab.
It's a consultancy thatfocuses on women's leadership positioning
and women's leadershipdevelopment. So whether they are
executive leaders or run theirown businesses, we help them to position
themselves as thought leadersin the market. And we do a lot of
(03:15):
that with AI, with research,with data, with all the latest tools.
And I'm at the center of that.So I run that. I work one on one
with the women and then I alsorun the business. As you know.
Right.
There's a lot of business torun in the background.
Absolutely.
I did my human design. I don'tknow if you're into human design,
(03:36):
but I did my human design. Ifound that I'm what's called a manifesting
generator, which explained alot because I just don't stop until
I stop. Like I go, go, go, go,go 100% until I stop and then I stop
and then I need a, I need agood break and a good recharge. Like
an iPhone. You run it tillit's done and then you gotta recharge
it back to a hundred. That'skind of, that's how I operate as
(03:58):
a leader and in my business.
Yeah, so you're a go getter,you're a thinker, you're an innovator.
And then you're like, I needsome time to refinish. Yes, I love
that.
I love that full recharge.
It makes sense too because ofwhat you do. Especially it takes
so much to look at someone,their expertise I can imagine and
(04:21):
who they are. And it's a bigpuzzle. The way I think about what
you do is like this hugepuzzle. Collecting and creating the
picture and then creating thepuzzle and making sure all the pieces
connect. Right. And so whatmade you kind of go into that lane
for your business?
Yeah, I've done this work for15 years now. And I like how you
(04:44):
describe it as a puzzle. Ilove puzzles. I love challenges and
fitting things together. Soit's a lot of inputs and information
and telling a story about themthat makes sense. I started doing
this work in consumer packagedgoods. So I worked with all the big
food and beverage and beautycompanies on their new product innovation
(05:04):
and their strategies to targetnew audiences. So it was the same
thing. It was a lot ofresearch, what's happening in the
market, what's happening withthe consumer? What new flavors are
trending, what new foodtextures are trending? How do we
bring all that together? Andthen I made a leap and I went into
leadership advisory and Iworked in this world of executive
(05:24):
recruiting and leadershipconsulting, which I didn't know existed
before I went into that world.I wasn't from a place where you knew
that leaders were chosen andbrokered by, you know, five or six
of these large companies thatexist and advise around that.
How did you find out then?Like, how did that happen?
(05:46):
They recruited me. So I had afriend who I interned with way back
when I was 19 in New YorkCity, and she worked there, and she
said, we have this amazingrole. We're looking to start an insight
function within the business.And they're really interested in
having you come and run thatand do research here and bring all
that expertise here. So I did.I jumped in and I started doing the
(06:09):
same types of research I didon food and drinks and markets, But
I started doing that ondifferent types of leadership roles
and leadership positions andthe future of leadership and how
leaders are preparing for thiswild, volatile present and future
that we're in. And in thatworld, though, I experienced a lot
(06:30):
of not seeing a lot of peoplewho looked like me sitting around
the table not being chosen forthose roles. A lot of the excuse
they don't exist. There aren'tenough women who look like me and
just women in general. And sowhen I decided to leave and start
my own business, I said, I'mgoing to take all this work that
I do here and I'm going to godo it and focus 100% on helping women
(06:54):
make themselves be morevisible, authentically themselves,
and not feel like they have tochange who they are because they've
already done the work. We justhave to talk about it and get that
out into the world. Andespecially with the AI and what's
happened with AI, I did a lotof that there. But bringing that
to women and putting it intheir hands so that they can actually
(07:14):
have the time to do that workwithout it adding to our very, very
busy plates, as you know, arealready runneth over. We don't need
to add more and actually savetime in doing that.
Yeah. Wow. I think that's socool to find, like a lane that you
enjoy that you didn't knowexisted and is like your wheelhouse
(07:38):
in a different way. I'm sureit felt like really empowering at
the same time of realizing oh,all of these skill sets that I've
learned or that I've beendoing could be used in this way.
Yeah. Super empowering.
What kind of things, lessonsdo you feel like you learned when
you were working with thosecompanies before that you bring into
(08:01):
your business now and maybeeven your personal life that's like,
really helpful in the way thatyou structure things.
I'd say the biggest lessonthat I took away from working in
the leadership advisory worldnow, for perspective sake, less than
2%, maybe even less than 1% ofleadership advisors of that title
(08:25):
are black women. There's very,very few of us. Very few of us. And
it directly correlates to thepercentage of black women that are
in those leadership CEOpositions of the biggest companies
in the world. But what Ilearned with working, meeting these
leaders, I was hosting dinnerswith them, I was interviewing them
for research, I was bringingthem in for search committees, and.
(08:48):
And they were on the otherside because they were being interviewed
for roles that they werenervous about getting. And so you
see this other side of some ofthese really powerful people in the
world, and you realize thatthey are actually also just human
beings. Even though we'vespent our whole lives putting them
on a pedestal, that they arethe greatest, they're the smartest,
(09:08):
at the end of the day, they'rejust humans. There's a lot they don't
know. There's a lot they'renot prepared for. And what they do
is they surround themselveswith the smartest people possible
that fill in all of theirgaps. And so when I went to start
this business, you know, Istarted as a solopreneur. I have
a small team now, but I neverstarted it with the intention of
(09:30):
just doing everything myselfbecause I learned from those leaders
that's not possible. It's. Youcan't do everything. Your team, your
business is only as strong asyour weakest point. So you have to
strengthen yourself withpeople around you who are actually
better at what they do thanyou could be. And I think that's
(09:51):
the biggest takeaway.
That's a powerful takeaway, Ithink, especially when you're starting
a business. I don't think toyour point, there was an intention
of, I'm going to start thisbusiness, and then as I grow, or
as I am growing this business,I know I'm going to need support.
And it's. It sounds like itwasn't based on, like, your dollar
amount, but more like yourgrowth amount. Like, how am I able
(10:13):
to grow without putting thesethings in place? And I think a Lot
of entrepreneurs start off andthey will grind it out like, till
they are, like, bleeding, youknow, nails before they have someone
on their team. I have comefrom it from a different angle, which
is I live with chronicillness, and so there is no way I
(10:35):
can do this by myself. There'sno, I don't. I don't have that. Those
spoons. I don't have thatenergy to try to fill all those buckets.
Even in my great strengthsarea, I need support. So I think
I'm curious for you becausethe show is Business with Chronic
Illness. How has your healthand, you know, well, being been affected
(10:55):
by starting a business? Whatdoes that look like? Is that part
of the reason why you startedyour business?
Yeah, absolutely. So it is. Itwas a big part of the reason I started
my business. I think being acorporate executive is a real position
of power. But to be honest,your time is not your own.
(11:18):
Right?
You work in a hugeorganization. A lot of people need
a lot from you all the time.And so I got really sick at the end
of 2023. I started toexperience chronic fatigue. I gained
about 30 pounds in the span ofsix months. Just completely unexplained.
(11:40):
And then it got to a pointwhere my feet and hands started to
go numb, my toes started to gonumb, my fingers would tingle when
I would be at the keyboard toomuch. And really, at the end point,
what pushed me over the edgewas I was taking three naps a day.
By the end of 2023, I just hadto keep resting. And I thought I
was burnt out. And I was like.But you know what, like I said about
(12:03):
my energy, I'm go, go, go, go,go. I've always been like that. So
it was really confrontingthat. All of a sudden I just. I didn't
have this energy. I couldn'tforce myself to continue. I had to
stop. And I went to thedoctors and they did some tests and
they diagnosed me with type 2diabetes. They said, your A1C is
(12:24):
really high. You're diabetic.So here's the course that we're going
to take. And I said, okay.Runs in my family. You know, I'm
young, fit and healthy. So thetype 2 diagnosis didn't fully make
sense with my lifestyle, but Isaid, okay, maybe it's. It's genetic.
But I continued to research.They put me on medications, and the
(12:46):
medications weren't working.And it was at that point I just decided
I had to prepare, like, myfinances and my family. And, you
know, there were decisionsthat had to be made that if this
is going to continue like thisbecause these medications aren't
working, I'm stillexperiencing this fatigue. Right.
Like my. I have a lot of brainfog when I eat the wrong things and
(13:06):
those don't metabolize. Right.Like, that was all affected. I couldn't.
Like, I couldn't eat lunchuntil, you know, two or three in
the afternoon because itaffected my thinking. But not eating
lunch affected my blood sugar.
Yeah.
And so I just. I couldn't winand I couldn't operate in that space
in the same way anymore. So InApril of 2024, I actually left corporate
(13:29):
and decided to take some timeoff before starting this business.
But I left corporate andpursued understanding what was really
going on with my health. I didtons and tons of research and found
information about this typeone and a half diabetes.
Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait,wait. You have to say that again
because I don't think anybodyheard that in the back. What was
(13:50):
it?
Type 1 and a half, 1.5. It'salso called. It's. Yeah, well. And
most doctors haven't either,so you're in good company. The official
name of it is Lada L A D aLatent autoimmune diabetes in Adults.
And what it is, it looks liketype two, but it's actually type
(14:14):
one. And it comes from yourpancreas. And it's the same as juvenile
diabetes where the pancreashas antibodies, those antibodies
attack the cells and it stopsproducing insulin. So that's what's
happening. But it shows uplike type 2. And of course, you go
to doctors and they assume,okay, you're. You're a black woman
with a family history, so thisis what it is. But the medications
(14:36):
they had me on weren'tworking. Like, I wasn't. I wasn't
getting better in leaps andbounds. I wasn't feeling like my
normal self. So I sought outan endocrinologist. I found a woman
of color who I really wantedto see. And the second she looked
at those tests, she said, no,it's not type two. It's this type
one and a half. And we have totreat it completely differently.
(14:58):
So it's a very. It's a. It's avery different type of treatment
that's just managed as itdevelops. And within a couple of
months, like, I was back tomyself and I was good and I. I was
managed. I was in a managedstate. But it really did require
that I walked away from thatcorporate world and looked at doing
(15:18):
something completelydifferently where my time could Work
around what I needed it to.And, you know, another big part of
that was I have my son. My sonis. He's. He's my world. And I decided,
you know, in that corporateworld, I just didn't have all the
time with him that I wanted tospend. So I said, I have to find
(15:40):
a way to build something withthese skills that I have that honor
my energy, my health, but alsogive me the time with him that I
want and the flexibility to dothat and can still, you know, get
me paid and comfortable like,I want it all. And I'm gonna figure
out how to. How. How to haveit all. That's the goal.
I mean, there's so much, like,twists and turns in that story, that
(16:05):
experience of, like, advocacyand just. It sounds like you really
trusted yourself that thisisn't it. And you also went to do
the digging, the research. Iwonder if you've thought about it
this way, like, with yourresearch for looking for brands and
things like that and, like,how they work, did that help you
(16:26):
in this journey of being like,this is not it. Right.
Absolutely. Because I'm. Imean, I have that privilege of. I'm
a. I have a master's degree ineconometrics and statistics, so I
know how to read a medicaljournal. And that's like. Like, zero
percent of people actuallyknow. Know how to do that or would
(16:47):
be able to do that. There'snot a lot of published information
about this as a condition, butI dove right into these medical journals,
and I read all about differenttypes of. Of symptoms of diabetes.
I knew where to search forthem, and I knew how to read them.
I knew what the results ofthose meant. So by the time I went
to that doctor and I said, Ineed this test for type one, and
(17:11):
she said, no, that's not it.Now it's just type two. But we'll
do the test because you haveinsurance, right? Another privilege.
You have insurance, and we'lldo the test and they'll pay for it.
So why not? So they did thistest. She was a good doctor, but
she was not qualified inendocrinology, so she misread the
results. So I actually hadthose test results telling me, this
is what I had sitting therefor six months, but before a doctor
(17:33):
actually read them properly aswell. And I could look at them, and
I could look at the medicaljournal and say, this is what this
says. This is what this means.And have a medical professional telling
me, oh, no, like, that's nothow I interpret it. Until I took
it to somebody else who lookedat it and saw it the way that I did
as well.
(17:53):
I mean, it is something to besaid with that around the idea of
trusting your gut and trustingwhat you know. Don't second guess
that what you've been, whatyou see with your own eyes is not
true. I think it has a lot oflevels of gaslighting that we experience
in the medical community ingeneral. And also if you don't have
(18:15):
the medical degree, somehowyou are not able to figure something
out that they aren't. It alsosounds like we started this off talking
about how you really helppeople with leadership and you help
people find their. The thingthat makes them stand out amongst
the crowd. And it sounds likein this journey of living with misdiagnosis
(18:38):
for a little bit there, youstill were determined to kind of
lean in, be like, no, I needto find my person. So how did you
find your doctor that. And whydid you decide this doctor was the
doctor for you? I'm alwayscurious why, what makes that for
someone who is like, I got adiagnosis that's not the one. I know
this is not accurate and nowI'm getting a second opinion.
(19:00):
Yeah, I mean, the GP that Iwas going to, I had been with her
for a couple years. I didreally like her as a general doctor.
But I think to what I wassaying earlier, this comes from my
leadership training. Am Iworking with, you know, Fortune 500,
Fortune 10 CEOs? Just becauseyou are the greatest CEO of the greatest
(19:21):
health care company in theworld does not mean that, you know,
every illness and diagnosisthat exists in medical history. Right.
And so even if the GP says no,I don't think this is what it is.
She wasn't 100% certain, whichtold me I need to go find somebody
who is 100% certain, because Ineed to be 100% certain. Because
(19:42):
what you're giving me isn'tworking, it's not improving. So we
need to try somethingdifferent. I'm also just very tenacious
and I'm like, I'm going to. Idon't take no for an answer. And
so we just, we kept pushing.But I. So I went online, I went on
my insurance provider's siteand I looked through all of the endocrinologists
in the DMV area where I wasliving until I found a couple of
(20:08):
practices that were run bywomen of color and I contacted them.
I needed a space where I feltlike I was going to be heard and
listened to and so, you know,read their reviews on patient care
and like, that was reallyimportant to me. And ended up making
an appointment for aconsultation, which even that process
(20:29):
was a nightmare because to geta new patient appointment at a specialist,
six months girl. So, like, Ihad to sit and wait for that appointment
to become available for her tolook at a test result for three minutes
and tell me, like, I wasabsolutely right and let's get you
on the right course. And theamount of time that lapses and you
(20:50):
lose in that time is reallyheartbreaking. But, yeah, I just,
I had to get online and takethe resources I had in my hands to
find who I was going to feelheard and comfortable with. Because
at the end of the day, it'sonly my health, right. It's. It's
inside my body, it's myhealth. I need to do what's going
to be right for me, not whatother people just tell me is. Is
(21:11):
what's right.
Yeah. And that piece that youjust shared is absolutely true. In
business, right? Like in yourleadership and what you decide to
do for your business, thatpiece of it doesn't matter what all
the experts say should be yourthing. It may not be, you know, it
may not be. That may not bethe thing. You know what your thing
(21:34):
is. So I'm curious, takingthat experience and I think, you
know, we talked about in thegreen room or before we started recording
that you're in a. In a. Youcall it the honeymoon phase. I call
it remission, because in myhead, it's somewhat like a remission.
It's like pre remission, right?
Yeah, yeah. It's like, youknow, so you're in that. Yeah, that
(21:55):
phase with the type 1 1/2diabetes. It's such. It's so weird
saying that. My dad has typeone and so I, when I told him, he's
like, I've never heard ofthis, but he had it when he was younger,
so he's like, of course, youknow, it's a very different experience.
But how are you navigatingthis time of your life in the honeymoon
(22:16):
phase while you build and grow?
Yeah. So just a lot ofvigilance, I think. I don't take
any day for granted because Iknow, like, tomorrow everything could
be different. And that's justhow type one works. Your pancreas
is just going to get to apoint where it's just going to be
done and that just comes uponyou in a day. It's progressing, but
(22:39):
you can't get blood testsevery single day. So I can't be here,
like Obsessing over it everysingle day. But I don't take a single
day for granted or I try notto. I have good days and I have bad
days in this, you know,honeymoon phase. I have days where
I am exhausted. And I'velearned to really reset and honor
(23:01):
those days and just sit and beokay with just sitting. I find it
very hard to actually turn mybrain off, but I can turn the rest
of my body off and just let itsit in one, one place and refilling,
refilling my cup in the waysthat, that really fulfill me. So
spending time with friends,spending time with my husband, doing
activities with my son, thingslike that are very important. You
(23:24):
know, as you would know witha, with a father with Type one, like
there's a lot of apparatusesand machinery that goes with full
blown type 1 with the needing,you know, insulin pumps and constant
tracking. And I'm in a phaseright now where I'm not at that point.
And so I'm just enjoying that.I'm like, you know, going out, eating
(23:47):
what I want, not having tothink about metrics. We live here
in Australia, so going to thebeach, going to the pool and being
free to do that easily, likejust enjoying those, making those
memories right now while it'seasy knowing that there's, it's gonna
look different at some point.
Well, I am glad that you'reenjoying the time and also keeping
(24:10):
rest as a part of that. Itsounds like it's not something you're
like, I get to earn this. It'slike you're embracing it right now.
It's part of the process, it'spart of the self advocacy that you're
doing for yourself. Forsomeone who's listening right now,
who is potentially living witha diagnosis of some kind, it could
(24:33):
be anything. And they arenavigating the journey of rest and
flexibility and growing abusiness that supports their family.
What's some things that youhave found that you hold to as values
that are boundaries in a wayfor the way you make decisions in
(24:54):
your business for growth?
Yeah, really, really goodquestion. So as much as I can, I
mean, everyone's familysituation is different, everyone's
financial situation isdifferent. But like I was saying
earlier, I take on things thatare just where I am right now. Right.
(25:14):
Like I'm impatient and I'm ina hurry. I want to do everything
yesterday. I want my, youknow, business to be seven figures
last week. But there is a lotin growing sustainably and making
sure that the phase I'm atright now is sustainable and really
(25:35):
thinking about enjoyingintentionally what I'm doing. So,
you know, and I've done somepivots in my business. At one point
I thought, well, I'm going todo a membership because I really
want to bring a lot ofcommunity into what I'm doing. I
want to teach as many women aspossible, you know, what I'm doing.
And I just found that that,that didn't honor my energy right
(25:57):
now. It didn't honor theboundaries that I had set. Because
to manage a hundred people ina membership was just, it was asking
for so much all the time. So Ipivoted away from that into more
one on one high touchconsulting where I'm working with
one or two clients the same,much more depthful, but much more
(26:19):
on my own time. I can do thatresearch on my own time and connect
with them once a week insteadof having to be constantly on. So
looking at different businessmodels that really support and align
with your boundaries, there'sno one way to do anything to achieve
the same goal, to have thesame impact. You gotta get creative
(26:40):
with how you're gonna servethe market and be willing to let
some things go that are, thatare not gonna align with the boundaries
that you set or the very hardline health needs that you might
have. And get good advice.Like that was a big thing was was
find great business coacheswho would open their doors, people
who were trustworthy. Likekind of not the online business guru
(27:05):
space that just feels likethey're not telling you the truth
about how any of this actuallyget real advice from real people
who have been there and canhelp you be creative around how you
plan and navigate this.Another big piece of that is then
the risk mitigation. Like Isaid, I don't know what tomorrow
is going to look like. So withmy team, how have I set them up for
(27:30):
success, that if I need tostep out for a bit of time, that
doesn't mean that everythingcomes crumbling down, that everything
grinds to a halt. Some thingswill have to because they're the
parts that I do. My clientsneed to understand that that's part
of our relationship. Butthere's other things that can continue
and not just completely stopbecause you just never, you never
(27:51):
know. Chronic illness orotherwise. Life is gonna life.
Yeah.
And so you have to be readyfor that.
Yeah, I say that all the time.I say life is gonna life. And I agree
with you. I think, I love whatyou're saying. Like could you go
faster? Could you get it done?Could the Manifester of you just
be like, we're going to get itdone. Is it absolutely within you
probably to do it? However,what I hear you saying is I'm building
(28:15):
in a way that supports me forwhen things happen, and that just
means I have to move a littleslower. And that's okay with you.
Right? And it creates a safetynet. I think having that type of
approach to your business, tome, should be every. I don't like
using the word should, but Ifeel like every business should start
off with this reality of,like, anything can happen. So you
(28:38):
building as if nothing is evergoing to happen to you or anything
around you or anything aroundyour family is just ludicrous in
my brain. Like, it doesn'tmake any sense. However, it is the
narrative we hear. And even inthe big corporate spaces that we
hear, there's an expectation,there is a conditioning around. We
are not human in some kind ofway. We are not operating like everyday
(29:01):
humans who have everydayrandom things that happen. And we're
expected to build and work ina way that we don't have those realities.
And so you talk a lot aboutleadership is a safety net for women.
Can you share a little bitmore about what that concept looks
like for you when you'resupporting clients?
(29:21):
Absolutely. So I firmlybelieve, like, after you've been
working, you've been workingfor 10 years, 15 years, you have
enough experience to, whetheror not you decide to do it, actually
build your own business aroundthat experience. And that can look
like a number of differentthings. But there's a brilliant woman,
(29:42):
Thashonda Duckett, and she is,I think, currently the only black
woman CEO of a Fortune 500company. And she herself always says,
your job title is rented. Youdon't own it, it's rented. And she's
a Fortune 500 CEO, veryvocally telling people your title
(30:03):
is rented, but your leadershipis forever. And so building a brand
that's publicly known aroundyour leadership, the way you solve
problems, the way people feeland experience you, how you bring
people together, communitytogether, partners together, even
(30:23):
different departmentstogether, like, the way that you
do that is all a part of yourleadership brand. And whether you
define it or not, you have areputation, right? So take agency
into your own hands to definewhat you really want to be known
for around the way you lead.And you can use that as life career
(30:45):
insurance in a way, right? TheInternet's changing, the world is
changing. It's not as muchabout who knows you anymore. It's
a lot about who can find you.And that's where all this personal
branding and leadershipbranding comes from. You have to
take yourself out from insideof that company and that title and
really put yourself out thereonline and in person, in communities
(31:09):
that you operate within, withcolleagues that you have acquaintances
that you meet and be able tointroduce yourself around those solutions
so that they know you.Somebody might come to them and ask
them, oh, I'm. I'm fillingthis position in my company, or I
have this challenge in mybusiness and I need this support.
Well, that's your referralright there, because you've introduced
yourself around, your uniqueskills, and you made that person
(31:32):
feel a certain type of waythat they would then pass you on
and refer you to somebodyelse. So it's really important to
establish and be known for whoyou are as a leader and not just
a job title or even just abusiness brand name. Like you yourself
need to have thattransferability to keep yourself
(31:52):
safe.
You know, that's aninteresting. That is such a powerful
and interesting thought. I'mlistening to you talk about this.
It's funny because I had amassage earlier today and the woman
came to me and she's like.She's like, I remember you said you
had a podcast. And I kepttelling my husband it was something
chronic illness. And I waslike, yes, but you could have also
(32:13):
searched my name. And so I wastelling her, I was like, yeah, you
could have just searched myname and it would have popped up.
Because there's not reallyanything, you know, and it's. It's.
To your point, you. It's notreally about, like, who knows you,
but who can find you. It'skind of like information at this
point, it's not about what doyou know? Because, I mean, thanks
to AI, we can all pretty muchfigure out a lot of different things.
(32:36):
Everything.
Right. I think what I hear yousaying, that leadership is more rooted
in your values and your story,who you are, how you show up in the
world. Even though you havethis information, in this experience,
your brand of leadership ismore wrapped around who you, in essence
are. And how does someone in abusiness who has made their business
(32:57):
really wrapped around, maybe Iwould say to clients around a tool,
around an audience, and thenstep out and build something around
them, who they are in an essence.
Yeah. Well, I think now youhit the nail on the head, right?
More than ever, because of AI,everyone can know everything. If
(33:19):
they have a question, they canjust get the full expert answer to
it within 2.2 seconds. Right.So it's actually less about the Information
that you share, it's moreabout trust. And do you trust the
source of the information thatyou're getting? Right. That's paramount.
(33:41):
And the only way to generatetrust is in the way people experience
you and feel about you. And sotwo people now can do exactly the
same thing, but you can vibeand be attracted and kind of magnetized
towards one person more thananother because there's something
about them that makes youtrust them, makes you connect to
(34:01):
them, makes you gravitatetowards them. And that all comes
from how you present yourselfas a leader and what your leadership
means, how you present thosevalues, how you live those values
and show up living those, youknow, so it's not always about the
perfect LinkedIn post and. Butit's about how you make people feel
(34:23):
when you meet them in personand how that sticks with them so
that they do refer you on tothe next person because you left
a lasting impression on theirheart, not a whole bunch of information
jammed into their. Into their mind.
Yeah. You know, while you weresharing that, I was. I was thinking
of a question because I didn'twant to interrupt you, because I
(34:43):
think everything that youshared is so key and important about.
It is about a vibe. You know,I joke around. I'm like, it's about
a vibe. I'm like, very. It'slike music. You know, some vibrations
hit you different, and somevibrations aren't for you. And that
is. Okay. Nobody's, you know,over here upset with you because
your. Your vibrations aredifferent. It's just. They're different.
(35:04):
But in the context, because Ithink what I'm hearing from you and
your. Your experience, that'sa huge change. That's a pivot from
where businesses and evenFortune 500 companies have been focused
on, which was more about. Wehave to build trust around what we
know. Not necessarily alwaysabout how we make them feel, because,
(35:26):
let's be real, most times itwasn't about how we really actually
felt. But I think that istransitioning more so with AI. If
you've been in a business,because there are folks who listen
to the show who've been inbusiness for a while and you have
not found that shift yet. Thatinformation is no longer the gatekeeper,
(35:49):
the secretary at the. Youknow, holding up whatever, it's you.
What is one piece of adviceyou would give to them to help them
switch that flip and be like,there's no more gatekeeping. There's
just you. How do we tap into that?
Yeah, there's lots ofdifferent ways to do that. And I,
my, my history of this comesfrom where I started, right, with
(36:13):
CPG brands. And like, I wasworking on like launches for Coca
Cola. I've worked with SheaMoisture and a lot of those products,
like, you don't need them.They have to make you want them.
And so they make you want themby invoking feeling, right? That
was the work that we did. Andso that's what I now bring into to
(36:33):
people and leaders. Invokingfeeling. And I talked to a lot of
women who are like, oh, Idon't want to, I don't want to just
get on video. I'm reallyuncomfortable just getting on video.
And I say, that's, that'sfine. You don't have to get on video.
If your ministry is writing,you can write. You can have a great
reputation off of writtencontent. LinkedIn, blogs, get yourself
(36:58):
into articles, substackthreads, like, there's lots of written
mediums. You can do audio onlyif that's your jam. People have prolific
careers like yourself on audioonly or audio primary platforms.
And that's all right. If youlove video, get on video. But then
it's also not just talkingabout yourself, right? It's talking
(37:20):
about, you could tell storiesabout your customers and the transformation
that they've had and that'sassociated with you. At the middle
of that, sit down, have aconversation with them and why they
loved working with you, whythey loved working with your business
or your product. That initself is a story that's more humanizing
than selling just the productitself, right? Talk about the experience
(37:46):
that people are having withthe product, what's bringing them
to it, or what's unique abouttheir experience, engaging with it
or engaging with your team orengaging with your business. So it
also doesn't always have to bejust about you, although you should
also be present as much asyou're comfortable with or comfortable
(38:06):
working towards. There's lotsof different ways to tell stories,
even in the business and whyyou started it, right? What was that
backstory? What, what did itlook like six months before that
business launched that got youto there. That is so interesting
and differentiating for somany people. No two people's journeys
are the same. And so beingcompletely unique in who we are,
(38:29):
how we show up, and what gotus to where we are is just enough
to establish a really strongbrand for yourself.
So when we hear the wordbrand, I don't know, since I've,
I feel like since I've beenonline for a long time, that word
has changed, meaning we havebusiness Brands, we have personal
brands. Is it that we'rebuilding a brand or is it that we're
(38:53):
building leadership? Because Ithink, I feel like in, in what I'm
hearing you say and whatyou're sharing is like, we want to
create a community or a groupof people who trust you. And often
when you trust someone, you'rein some way leading them, in some
way informing them ofsomething, and they trust you about
that information, whether it'show you feel, what you're thinking,
(39:17):
what you're selling, what youlike. And I don't. I think we get
a little bit in the weeds whenwe start talking about influencers
and content creators andthings like that. There's so many
different aspects of buildinga brand. What's the difference between
building a brand and being a leader?
Yeah, great, great question. Ithink building a brand is the wrapper
(39:39):
around everything that bringsit all together, right? It's the
full package. It's how peoplefeel when they experience you and
your business, the topics thatyou talk about, that's all consistent,
but being a leader is the waypeople experience you within the
bigger brand. So what I callleadership branding, I like to use
(40:01):
the term leadership brandingwhen I'm talking about the individual
at the front. And I think thedistinction with that is that it's
about your solutions and yourexperiences and the lessons that
you have learned and can teachand pass forward. It's what we used
to call thought leadership,which, that got like a nasty corporatized
(40:25):
word and everyone was like, I.
Don'T want to do that.
That sounds boring. But it'sessentially the same thing. Because
now because of AI, everyonehas all the information in the world.
So the only thing that reallymakes us interesting and stand out
is like the conversations thatwe have one on one, where no one
else was there, where you cameup with something different or two
(40:45):
perspectives together, came upwith a new way to think about something,
or those two experiencestogether kind of had an aha moment.
And that is a potential solvefor a problem that a lot of people
are experiencing that's nowthought leadership. And it's so specific
to who you are and whereyou've been and how you think and
(41:07):
how you operate and the energyyou give off and the way people experience
you. So I think the brandbeing, you know, the entire ethos
of the visual image, themediums you use to show up, the channels
that you're, you're on, howyou package that, how you put that
out into the world, but theleadership itself really just goes
Back to you, uniquely, who youare, where you've been, how you vibe.
(41:31):
Right?
Like, that's your leadership.And like I said, it's. It's important
that you sit down and reallythink about how you want people to
experience you as a leader.Don't let other people in the same
way, don't let them put adiagnosis on you that you know is
wrong. Don't let them tell youand define what your leadership is
or means, because only youshould be able to do that.
(41:54):
Cosine. Yes. Huh? Let's saythat again. Like, it is. It's. It's
such a powerful thing. I thinkwe are out of the. I think at some
point in the online journey asa business owner or even not even
online, there was a lot ofreplication of the same thing over
and over again. Right? Andnow, even though that's still the
(42:18):
case, the thing that is soimportant is your. You. Like, the
thing that is going to be theloudest in the room is acknowledging
that you are the specialsauce. Like, your stories. And it's.
I think for a lot of us, itmight be challenging to kind of strip
away all those voices and allthose other people, things that's
(42:39):
been, you know, very helpful,you know, very helpful in getting
to where you are. But mytherapist says what got you here
or help you here and helpedyou grow here may no longer serve
you in that way anymore, andyou have to find a different way,
or you have to strip away whatdoesn't serve you anymore and move
into another place. And Ithink this is the same thing with
(43:00):
our businesses in this day andage. AI has been a huge piece of
making our lives easier. We'rethankful for that, especially if
you live with chronic illness.I'm, like, every day I'm saying,
thank you, AI. Especially whenit comes for my podcast. Like, thank
you. Yes, right, Absolutely.So do you feel like that, like, when
I noticed you nodding when Isaid, like, it's hard to kind of
(43:22):
separate from everything thatyou've been maybe morphed into. All
of the advice and finding theessence of, like, your voice, is
there, like, something you'veshared with someone that's helped
them to, like, start diggingor unpeeling that onion to be more
about. Okay, this is actuallymy voice and not someone else's.
(43:45):
Yeah. Well, I mean, first ofall, I'm a. I'm a leadership positioning
strategist, so I think it's.It is critical that you find somebody
to voice your stories to sothey can reflect back to you what
they're hearing I. It'simpossible for us to do that for
ourselves. Like I always say,you can't see the label from the
(44:08):
inside of the jar. You justcannot. If you are the sauce in the
jar, like you said, you're thespecial sauce, but you cannot read
the label from the outside.From the inside. That's on the outside.
Right. So you need to findsomebody qualified to sit down with
and help you put togetherwhere you've been and where you want
to go and reflect that into areally authentic story that's about
(44:30):
you. I don't do my ownpositioning strategy because I can't.
Like I'm too in the weeds. Isecond guess things. I have voices
in my head that are otherpeople's voices, which is that trauma
from the past or it's thatfear and self protection that comes
in. And it's really importantto find somebody you trust who can
help you really peel thoselayers back and get to the point
(44:54):
where you can really seeclearly, like what are all of the
different facets of you andhow do they come together in the
middle? How do they weavetogether nicely? Because we're also
very dynamic. Like I work withlots of women who are very multi
passionate. Right. Have allthe different passions. And I think
that's great. The more themerrier because there's a common
thread at the middle of all ofthose that you just need to find,
(45:18):
which is really your essence.And it's like, what, what is, what
is the system that you'rereally seeking to change or impact
or influence that's at thecenter of all of these different
passions that you have. Andonce you find that, it just, it all
makes sense. It's allconnected because it all comes.
Yes. I love that you sharedthat. I think so many of us need
(45:40):
to give ourselves a breakaround why am I so good at doing
this for other people, but Ican't do this for myself because
you maybe were never meant todo it for yourself. Maybe you were
never meant to do it foryourself. It is a challenge. It's
a real thing. I think I canreally relate to your story, like
your point, because for a longtime a lot of folks used to say to
(46:01):
me, Nikita, your podcast, yourpodcast. And that was just the chick
in the. That background singerfor me. I was just like, oh, yeah,
she's okay, it's cool. Andthen until recently, has it been
like, oh, wait, no, this isactually bigger than I thought it
was.
That's the thing.
That's the thing, right? And Ithink to Your point, you do need
someone to hold your hand. Andit's a mirror in a way. And also
(46:22):
not just a mirror. It soundslike you're kind of like dissecting
all of these stories to findthe. Okay, here's actually where
you are. And usually when yousee it from somebody else's point
of view, you're like shocked.
You're like, oh, whoa.
Yeah, that's right.
That is me.
That is.
That is interesting. Yeah, Ihave a GPT that I've built that I've.
(46:44):
I'll share with you to sharewith, with your listeners too. It's
a mini version of GettingStarted with that that I've built.
It'll ask you a few differentquestions, you just putting in stories
and what you feel and what youthink. And it will help find that
common thread at the middlefor you to then be able to reflect
back and introduce yourselfwith power for what that is. It doesn't
(47:04):
replace the big work, but it'sa really nice way to get started
and have a little pep in yourstep of the day. Because a lot of
people go through it and theygo, oh, yeah, that is me. I like
that me. I like what I do. Andit starts with that confidence.
And that's the thing. You justwant to know. You just want to know
(47:26):
what's the, the thing. So youcan move, start moving differently.
I think it allows you to movedifferently, see yourself differently,
make different decisions. Justlike with getting an actual correct
diagnosis that matches whatyou've been feeling and thinking
and been like, oh, see, I wasright all along. Or I had that experience
and now I can do somethingabout it and move on with your life
(47:48):
and manage that piece. Sothank you for sharing that. I would
love to have that. We'll putthat in the show notes for sure.
I've been asking abouteverybody this question towards the
end of our show, which is as abusiness owner and as a business
owner living with chronicillness, what is something that you
thought was true when youfirst started your business that
you no longer believe is true?
(48:10):
When I first started mybusiness, I mean, to be honest, because
I came out of corporate,right? I don't have entrepreneurship
in my background. In my familywhere we are corporatist, corporate
is corporate. So I did reallyget swept up by the, the online guru
space of this is how you doeverything. Like, you just, it's
(48:34):
just eight steps, like, andit's fine. You just, you just follow
these steps and you justlaunch and like the doors open and
people fly in and so I couldtell you I had a, I had a few good
flops last year where I waslike, I don't think, I don't think
this is, this is, this is theway so going. That's not how that
works. So, yeah, I thinkcoming out of corporate, recognizing
(48:55):
that entrepreneurship is hard,it looks glamorous. I think there's
a lot that goes into makingthe social media look really shiny
and making it look reallyglamorous, but that it is hard and
you have to get reallycomfortable with being wrong. And
I don't like to use the wordfailure, but sometimes something
(49:17):
doesn't go right, it doeshurt. You gotta be able to pick yourself
back up and learn from it andreally say, okay, I'm going to do
things a little bit different.I'm going to get different advice.
I'm going to ask, ask for somehelp in a, in a different way and
be able to move forward withthat. And it's, you know, the same
way that we approach ourhealth. When things feel off, things
are not always going to go ourway. Every day is going to be a little
(49:40):
bit different. You have to beable to pick yourself back up and
do, you know, do what you needto do that day to move forward for
the next day to keep it going.
So powerful. What I think Iheard you say is that coming from
a corporate background andthat's all, you know, to an entrepreneur,
space isn't as the staircaseas it is in corporate. There's rules.
(50:04):
There's things you do. You getthe thing go to work, you get the
job, you get the, maybe notthe promotion, but you do. There's
like these steps.Entrepreneurship is not a step kind
of thing. Like, there arethings you need to, like, start,
set up, but it's not alwaysone plus one equals two.
No, it's not. It's just, it'snot. And you know, with corporate,
(50:26):
I like to say it's. It is. Atthe end of the day, it's a game.
You gotta learn how to playthe game. And a lot of us don't come
from a legacy where we weretaught what the rules of that game
were. So it takes us a longtime to learn them. And that can
feel like you're making a lotof missteps. And that's a whole other,
a whole.
Other discussion episode inand of it.
In and of itself. But yeah,you know, with entrepreneurship,
(50:49):
I think there's, there's a lotof people saying like, yeah, like,
here's just use this templateand it'll be Great. And it's not
because there's so manydifferent pieces to the puzzle. In
setting up a business andestablishing a brand and a customer
base and a product and how youtransact in your business and how
you market your business andhow you actually deliver what it
(51:11):
is that you deliver, there'sso many different pieces and those
are all going to lookdifferent for every single person,
person. So yeah, I think justgetting good advice that's tailored
to you is so, so, so, soimportant. Right from the beginning.
A lot of us really get that,get that wrong. We get swept up in
the Instagram of it all and weget, we get that wrong.
(51:32):
So we learn quickly. I thinkby doing it that way that it isn't
a one size fits all. However,I think I speak from my own personal
experience. Like with chronicillness, I learned because of my
chronic illness that there isliterally no one size fits all. Even
with the same diagnosis, samesymptoms from other people, what
(51:53):
they experienced was not whatI was experiencing and vice versa.
There's a, there's some selectthings that we're experiencing the
same, but in general, we'renow all experiencing exactly the
same scenario situationbecause we are all so uniquely different,
even though we are soconnected. And I think that's also
something to bring into theconversation of business. Like business
(52:13):
isn't completelyunfigureoutable, but it is very unique
and very different. And thewho you're talking to, and it really
does. To me, I think the thingthat makes it easier to feel like
you can do this is know thatyou have the tools and the skills.
Especially if you're livingwith chronic illness, especially
if you've been in corporate,you've navigated much harder things
(52:37):
and this will just be anotherhard thing that you figure out.
Yeah, yeah. It's just anotherthing to navigate and figure out
and you have that perspectiveon, you know, something doesn't work.
Try something. Try somethingdifferent. In the one point, the
1 1/2, 1.5 diabetes world, notwo cases are the same. And it's,
I mean, it's so rare. I'mteaching my doctors what this is.
(53:00):
My doctors have no idea whatthis is. So when I, you know, I have
my specialists and my special,my gps, I'm often teaching them,
like my gyn, no idea teachingthem what it is because that affects
any future, you know, childrenI want to have or what that might
look like. And they don't,they don't know. For some people
it shows up overnight and it'sfull blown. For me I'm going on into
(53:21):
my, my second year of being inthis phase of transition. And some
people stay in that for thenext 10 years. For me, it could change
next week. Like, I don't know.And I just have to be realistic with
that. But running a businessis the same, especially the pace
of technology. Everythinghappening in the world, the market's
(53:43):
up and down. You know, itchanges every day. So, you know,
we're all just in this together.
Figuring it out.
Figuring it out.
Figuring it out.
And doing together.
I was going to say doing ittogether makes it so much easier
and also more fun and moreexciting and just a lot less stressful
because now you know, okay,this thought and these feelings that
(54:06):
I have are not just yours.You're. You're not alone. So thank
you so much. Like, how canpeople connect with you? What are
the ways people work with you?Please share with us. We'll have
everything in the show notes,but just let's give them a little
bit here.
Of course, I love to connectwith people directly. So you can
find me on Instagram,jemmycrooksofficial. I'm on there
(54:30):
a bit. I'm on LinkedIn a lot.So backslash J. Crooks or just look,
look up Jimmy Crooks with alittle thunderbolt next to my name.
You'll find me. So that helpsit stand out. Or you can Visit my
website, thetflab.comsubscribe to my email newsletter.
I'm always sending differenttips on AI and leadership and how
to bring the two together andthe latest and greatest of what's
(54:52):
saving me time and what I'musing in my business and, you know,
what tools are working, whatprompts are flopping. A lot of fun,
A lot of fun stuff.
Oh, I love that.
And that as well. So, yeah,I'm online. Come and find me. Look
forward to talking to people.And I'm very open to talking about
the 1.5. So if anybody isnavigating a situation where you're
(55:16):
wondering, like, is this rightor not, like, obviously I can't give
you medical advice, but I cantell you about my experience, my
experience and what I'veexperienced and what I had to ask
for to get the correct.
Diagnosis to the righttreatments, yeah, that's important.
So I'll definitely make surethat again in our show notes that
we talk about that, becausewhen we talked initially 1.5, I was
(55:38):
like, I've never heard of thisbefore. It's kind of like when they
told me I had endometriosisback in 2009. And I asked everybody
and they're like, I don't knowwhat that is. I've never heard that.
The doctors were like, I don'tknow. So, like, this is another diagnosis
that we get to talk about. Andwe have someone you could reach out
to if you were thinking maybethis is you. So thank you so much
(55:58):
for sharing your story andeverything. Thank you for being on
the show. I know we're incompletely different time zones,
so this was a special time forboth of us. So I appreciate your
time and I appreciate yousharing your wisdom with us today.
Thank you for having me. Iappreciate it. I appreciate this
platform. So important.
Yeah, I just love having womenlike you on the show. It really is
(56:21):
helpful. It's something Iwanted, and now it's here.
I can help one woman find anactual treatment for what she's going
through. Then it's all allworth it. Love it.
All right. Okay. Thank you.That's a wrap for this episode of
(56:45):
Business with Chronic Illness.If you would like to start and grow
an online coaching businesswith me, head to the show Notes to
click a link to book a salescall and learn how to make money
with chronic illness. You canalso check out our website@ww.CraftedToThrive.com
for this episode's show notesand join our email list to get exclusive
content where I coach you onhow to chronically grow a profitable
(57:07):
business while living withchronic illness. Until next time,
remember, yes, you are craftedto thrive.
Another big piece of that isthen the risk mitigation. Like I
said, I don't know whattomorrow is going to look like. So
with my team, how have I setthem up for success? That if I need
to step out for a bit of time,that doesn't mean that everything
comes crumbling down, thateverything grinds to a halt. Some
things will have to becausethey're the parts that I do. My clients
(00:20):
need to understand that, andthat's part of our relationship.
But there's other things thatcan continue and not just completely
stop because you just never,you never know. Chronic illness or
otherwise, life is going tolife. And so you have to be, you
have to be ready for that.
Welcome to Business withChronic Illness, the globally ranked
(00:41):
podcast for women living withchronic illness who want to start
and grow a business online.I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and
I went from living a normallife to all of a sudden being in
constant pain with no answersto being diagnosed with multiple
chronic illnesses and tryingto make livable income, I faced the
challenge of adaptingtraditional business advice to fit
(01:02):
my unique circumstances withchronic illness. Feeling frustrated
and more burned out than Ialready was while managing my chronic
illness to becoming an awardwinning coach with a flexible, sustainable
online coaching business, Ifound the surprisingly simple steps
to starting and growing aprofitable business without compromising
my health or my peace. Sincethen, I've helped dozens of women
(01:25):
just like you learn how to dothe same. If you're ready to create
a thriving business thataligns with your lifestyle and well
being, you're in the rightplace. Together, we're shifting the
narrative of what's possiblefor women with chronic illness and
how we make a living. This isBusiness with Chronic Illness. I
(01:50):
am so excited to have someonewho came into my world and I am always
very happy when a woman ofcolor, a black woman, shows up in
my inbox who wants to talkabout business with chronic illness.
This is to me a rarity becauseit's really challenging to get women
(02:11):
who are of color to talk aboutchronic illness, chronic pain, running
a business, because we are. Itdoesn't matter what's going on with
our lives, we just get itdone. And Jimmy is just an amazing
person from what I've learned.But I want you to first tell us a
little bit about you, like howyou would describe yourself as a
(02:32):
businesswoman, as a mom, like,give us a little bit about you before
we hop in. Yeah.
Thank you for having me. I'mexcited to be here and tell this
story. So myself as a yes, I'Ma mom. I'm a mom of a six year old
little boy who's got a lot ofenergy and a big personality and
(02:52):
that's a lot of fun. That'slike my full time job, my part time,
full time job is running mybusiness, the thinkfluencer Lab.
It's a consultancy thatfocuses on women's leadership positioning
and women's leadershipdevelopment. So whether they are
executive leaders or run theirown businesses, we help them to position
themselves as thought leadersin the market. And we do a lot of
(03:15):
that with AI, with research,with data, with all the latest tools.
And I'm at the center of that.So I run that. I work one on one
with the women and then I alsorun the business. As you know.
Right.
There's a lot of business torun in the background.
Absolutely.
I did my human design. I don'tknow if you're into human design,
(03:36):
but I did my human design. Ifound that I'm what's called a manifesting
generator, which explained alot because I just don't stop until
I stop. Like I go, go, go, go,go 100% until I stop and then I stop
and then I need a, I need agood break and a good recharge. Like
an iPhone. You run it tillit's done and then you gotta recharge
it back to a hundred. That'skind of, that's how I operate as
(03:58):
a leader and in my business.
Yeah, so you're a go getter,you're a thinker, you're an innovator.
And then you're like, I needsome time to refinish. Yes, I love
that.
I love that full recharge.
It makes sense too because ofwhat you do. Especially it takes
so much to look at someone,their expertise I can imagine and
(04:21):
who they are. And it's a bigpuzzle. The way I think about what
you do is like this hugepuzzle. Collecting and creating the
picture and then creating thepuzzle and making sure all the pieces
connect. Right. And so whatmade you kind of go into that lane
for your business?
Yeah, I've done this work for15 years now. And I like how you
(04:44):
describe it as a puzzle. Ilove puzzles. I love challenges and
fitting things together. Soit's a lot of inputs and information
and telling a story about themthat makes sense. I started doing
this work in consumer packagedgoods. So I worked with all the big
food and beverage and beautycompanies on their new product innovation
(05:04):
and their strategies to targetnew audiences. So it was the same
thing. It was a lot ofresearch, what's happening in the
market, what's happening withthe consumer? What new flavors are
trending, what new foodtextures are trending? How do we
bring all that together? Andthen I made a leap and I went into
leadership advisory and Iworked in this world of executive
(05:24):
recruiting and leadershipconsulting, which I didn't know existed
before I went into that world.I wasn't from a place where you knew
that leaders were chosen andbrokered by, you know, five or six
of these large companies thatexist and advise around that.
How did you find out then?Like, how did that happen?
(05:46):
They recruited me. So I had afriend who I interned with way back
when I was 19 in New YorkCity, and she worked there, and she
said, we have this amazingrole. We're looking to start an insight
function within the business.And they're really interested in
having you come and run thatand do research here and bring all
that expertise here. So I did.I jumped in and I started doing the
(06:09):
same types of research I didon food and drinks and markets, But
I started doing that ondifferent types of leadership roles
and leadership positions andthe future of leadership and how
leaders are preparing for thiswild, volatile present and future
that we're in. And in thatworld, though, I experienced a lot
(06:30):
of not seeing a lot of peoplewho looked like me sitting around
the table not being chosen forthose roles. A lot of the excuse
they don't exist. There aren'tenough women who look like me and
just women in general. And sowhen I decided to leave and start
my own business, I said, I'mgoing to take all this work that
I do here and I'm going to godo it and focus 100% on helping women
(06:54):
make themselves be morevisible, authentically themselves,
and not feel like they have tochange who they are because they've
already done the work. We justhave to talk about it and get that
out into the world. Andespecially with the AI and what's
happened with AI, I did a lotof that there. But bringing that
to women and putting it intheir hands so that they can actually
(07:14):
have the time to do that workwithout it adding to our very, very
busy plates, as you know, arealready runneth over. We don't need
to add more and actually savetime in doing that.
Yeah. Wow. I think that's socool to find, like a lane that you
enjoy that you didn't knowexisted and is like your wheelhouse
(07:38):
in a different way. I'm sureit felt like really empowering at
the same time of realizing oh,all of these skill sets that I've
learned or that I've beendoing could be used in this way.
Yeah. Super empowering.
What kind of things, lessonsdo you feel like you learned when
you were working with thosecompanies before that you bring into
(08:01):
your business now and maybeeven your personal life that's like,
really helpful in the way thatyou structure things.
I'd say the biggest lessonthat I took away from working in
the leadership advisory worldnow, for perspective sake, less than
2%, maybe even less than 1% ofleadership advisors of that title
(08:25):
are black women. There's very,very few of us. Very few of us. And
it directly correlates to thepercentage of black women that are
in those leadership CEOpositions of the biggest companies
in the world. But what Ilearned with working, meeting these
leaders, I was hosting dinnerswith them, I was interviewing them
for research, I was bringingthem in for search committees, and.
(08:48):
And they were on the otherside because they were being interviewed
for roles that they werenervous about getting. And so you
see this other side of some ofthese really powerful people in the
world, and you realize thatthey are actually also just human
beings. Even though we'vespent our whole lives putting them
on a pedestal, that they arethe greatest, they're the smartest,
(09:08):
at the end of the day, they'rejust humans. There's a lot they don't
know. There's a lot they'renot prepared for. And what they do
is they surround themselveswith the smartest people possible
that fill in all of theirgaps. And so when I went to start
this business, you know, Istarted as a solopreneur. I have
a small team now, but I neverstarted it with the intention of
(09:30):
just doing everything myselfbecause I learned from those leaders
that's not possible. It's. Youcan't do everything. Your team, your
business is only as strong asyour weakest point. So you have to
strengthen yourself withpeople around you who are actually
better at what they do thanyou could be. And I think that's
(09:51):
the biggest takeaway.
That's a powerful takeaway, Ithink, especially when you're starting
a business. I don't think toyour point, there was an intention
of, I'm going to start thisbusiness, and then as I grow, or
as I am growing this business,I know I'm going to need support.
And it's. It sounds like itwasn't based on, like, your dollar
amount, but more like yourgrowth amount. Like, how am I able
(10:13):
to grow without putting thesethings in place? And I think a Lot
of entrepreneurs start off andthey will grind it out like, till
they are, like, bleeding, youknow, nails before they have someone
on their team. I have comefrom it from a different angle, which
is I live with chronicillness, and so there is no way I
(10:35):
can do this by myself. There'sno, I don't. I don't have that. Those
spoons. I don't have thatenergy to try to fill all those buckets.
Even in my great strengthsarea, I need support. So I think
I'm curious for you becausethe show is Business with Chronic
Illness. How has your healthand, you know, well, being been affected
(10:55):
by starting a business? Whatdoes that look like? Is that part
of the reason why you startedyour business?
Yeah, absolutely. So it is. Itwas a big part of the reason I started
my business. I think being acorporate executive is a real position
of power. But to be honest,your time is not your own.
(11:18):
Right?
You work in a hugeorganization. A lot of people need
a lot from you all the time.And so I got really sick at the end
of 2023. I started toexperience chronic fatigue. I gained
about 30 pounds in the span ofsix months. Just completely unexplained.
(11:40):
And then it got to a pointwhere my feet and hands started to
go numb, my toes started to gonumb, my fingers would tingle when
I would be at the keyboard toomuch. And really, at the end point,
what pushed me over the edgewas I was taking three naps a day.
By the end of 2023, I just hadto keep resting. And I thought I
was burnt out. And I was like.But you know what, like I said about
(12:03):
my energy, I'm go, go, go, go,go. I've always been like that. So
it was really confrontingthat. All of a sudden I just. I didn't
have this energy. I couldn'tforce myself to continue. I had to
stop. And I went to thedoctors and they did some tests and
they diagnosed me with type 2diabetes. They said, your A1C is
(12:24):
really high. You're diabetic.So here's the course that we're going
to take. And I said, okay.Runs in my family. You know, I'm
young, fit and healthy. So thetype 2 diagnosis didn't fully make
sense with my lifestyle, but Isaid, okay, maybe it's. It's genetic.
But I continued to research.They put me on medications, and the
(12:46):
medications weren't working.And it was at that point I just decided
I had to prepare, like, myfinances and my family. And, you
know, there were decisionsthat had to be made that if this
is going to continue like thisbecause these medications aren't
working, I'm stillexperiencing this fatigue. Right.
Like my. I have a lot of brainfog when I eat the wrong things and
(13:06):
those don't metabolize. Right.Like, that was all affected. I couldn't.
Like, I couldn't eat lunchuntil, you know, two or three in
the afternoon because itaffected my thinking. But not eating
lunch affected my blood sugar.
Yeah.
And so I just. I couldn't winand I couldn't operate in that space
in the same way anymore. So InApril of 2024, I actually left corporate
(13:29):
and decided to take some timeoff before starting this business.
But I left corporate andpursued understanding what was really
going on with my health. I didtons and tons of research and found
information about this typeone and a half diabetes.
Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait,wait. You have to say that again
because I don't think anybodyheard that in the back. What was
(13:50):
it?
Type 1 and a half, 1.5. It'salso called. It's. Yeah, well. And
most doctors haven't either,so you're in good company. The official
name of it is Lada L A D aLatent autoimmune diabetes in Adults.
And what it is, it looks liketype two, but it's actually type
(14:14):
one. And it comes from yourpancreas. And it's the same as juvenile
diabetes where the pancreashas antibodies, those antibodies
attack the cells and it stopsproducing insulin. So that's what's
happening. But it shows uplike type 2. And of course, you go
to doctors and they assume,okay, you're. You're a black woman
with a family history, so thisis what it is. But the medications
(14:36):
they had me on weren'tworking. Like, I wasn't. I wasn't
getting better in leaps andbounds. I wasn't feeling like my
normal self. So I sought outan endocrinologist. I found a woman
of color who I really wantedto see. And the second she looked
at those tests, she said, no,it's not type two. It's this type
one and a half. And we have totreat it completely differently.
(14:58):
So it's a very. It's a. It's avery different type of treatment
that's just managed as itdevelops. And within a couple of
months, like, I was back tomyself and I was good and I. I was
managed. I was in a managedstate. But it really did require
that I walked away from thatcorporate world and looked at doing
(15:18):
something completelydifferently where my time could Work
around what I needed it to.And, you know, another big part of
that was I have my son. My sonis. He's. He's my world. And I decided,
you know, in that corporateworld, I just didn't have all the
time with him that I wanted tospend. So I said, I have to find
(15:40):
a way to build something withthese skills that I have that honor
my energy, my health, but alsogive me the time with him that I
want and the flexibility to dothat and can still, you know, get
me paid and comfortable like,I want it all. And I'm gonna figure
out how to. How. How to haveit all. That's the goal.
I mean, there's so much, like,twists and turns in that story, that
(16:05):
experience of, like, advocacyand just. It sounds like you really
trusted yourself that thisisn't it. And you also went to do
the digging, the research. Iwonder if you've thought about it
this way, like, with yourresearch for looking for brands and
things like that and, like,how they work, did that help you
(16:26):
in this journey of being like,this is not it. Right.
Absolutely. Because I'm. Imean, I have that privilege of. I'm
a. I have a master's degree ineconometrics and statistics, so I
know how to read a medicaljournal. And that's like. Like, zero
percent of people actuallyknow. Know how to do that or would
(16:47):
be able to do that. There'snot a lot of published information
about this as a condition, butI dove right into these medical journals,
and I read all about differenttypes of. Of symptoms of diabetes.
I knew where to search forthem, and I knew how to read them.
I knew what the results ofthose meant. So by the time I went
to that doctor and I said, Ineed this test for type one, and
(17:11):
she said, no, that's not it.Now it's just type two. But we'll
do the test because you haveinsurance, right? Another privilege.
You have insurance, and we'lldo the test and they'll pay for it.
So why not? So they did thistest. She was a good doctor, but
she was not qualified inendocrinology, so she misread the
results. So I actually hadthose test results telling me, this
is what I had sitting therefor six months, but before a doctor
(17:33):
actually read them properly aswell. And I could look at them, and
I could look at the medicaljournal and say, this is what this
says. This is what this means.And have a medical professional telling
me, oh, no, like, that's nothow I interpret it. Until I took
it to somebody else who lookedat it and saw it the way that I did
as well.
(17:53):
I mean, it is something to besaid with that around the idea of
trusting your gut and trustingwhat you know. Don't second guess
that what you've been, whatyou see with your own eyes is not
true. I think it has a lot oflevels of gaslighting that we experience
in the medical community ingeneral. And also if you don't have
(18:15):
the medical degree, somehowyou are not able to figure something
out that they aren't. It alsosounds like we started this off talking
about how you really helppeople with leadership and you help
people find their. The thingthat makes them stand out amongst
the crowd. And it sounds likein this journey of living with misdiagnosis
(18:38):
for a little bit there, youstill were determined to kind of
lean in, be like, no, I needto find my person. So how did you
find your doctor that. And whydid you decide this doctor was the
doctor for you? I'm alwayscurious why, what makes that for
someone who is like, I got adiagnosis that's not the one. I know
this is not accurate and nowI'm getting a second opinion.
(19:00):
Yeah, I mean, the GP that Iwas going to, I had been with her
for a couple years. I didreally like her as a general doctor.
But I think to what I wassaying earlier, this comes from my
leadership training. Am Iworking with, you know, Fortune 500,
Fortune 10 CEOs? Just becauseyou are the greatest CEO of the greatest
(19:21):
health care company in theworld does not mean that, you know,
every illness and diagnosisthat exists in medical history. Right.
And so even if the GP says no,I don't think this is what it is.
She wasn't 100% certain, whichtold me I need to go find somebody
who is 100% certain, because Ineed to be 100% certain. Because
(19:42):
what you're giving me isn'tworking, it's not improving. So we
need to try somethingdifferent. I'm also just very tenacious
and I'm like, I'm going to. Idon't take no for an answer. And
so we just, we kept pushing.But I. So I went online, I went on
my insurance provider's siteand I looked through all of the endocrinologists
in the DMV area where I wasliving until I found a couple of
(20:08):
practices that were run bywomen of color and I contacted them.
I needed a space where I feltlike I was going to be heard and
listened to and so, you know,read their reviews on patient care
and like, that was reallyimportant to me. And ended up making
an appointment for aconsultation, which even that process
(20:29):
was a nightmare because to geta new patient appointment at a specialist,
six months girl. So, like, Ihad to sit and wait for that appointment
to become available for her tolook at a test result for three minutes
and tell me, like, I wasabsolutely right and let's get you
on the right course. And theamount of time that lapses and you
(20:50):
lose in that time is reallyheartbreaking. But, yeah, I just,
I had to get online and takethe resources I had in my hands to
find who I was going to feelheard and comfortable with. Because
at the end of the day, it'sonly my health, right. It's. It's
inside my body, it's myhealth. I need to do what's going
to be right for me, not whatother people just tell me is. Is
(21:11):
what's right.
Yeah. And that piece that youjust shared is absolutely true. In
business, right? Like in yourleadership and what you decide to
do for your business, thatpiece of it doesn't matter what all
the experts say should be yourthing. It may not be, you know, it
may not be. That may not bethe thing. You know what your thing
(21:34):
is. So I'm curious, takingthat experience and I think, you
know, we talked about in thegreen room or before we started recording
that you're in a. In a. Youcall it the honeymoon phase. I call
it remission, because in myhead, it's somewhat like a remission.
It's like pre remission, right?
Yeah, yeah. It's like, youknow, so you're in that. Yeah, that
(21:55):
phase with the type 1 1/2diabetes. It's such. It's so weird
saying that. My dad has typeone and so I, when I told him, he's
like, I've never heard ofthis, but he had it when he was younger,
so he's like, of course, youknow, it's a very different experience.
But how are you navigatingthis time of your life in the honeymoon
(22:16):
phase while you build and grow?
Yeah. So just a lot ofvigilance, I think. I don't take
any day for granted because Iknow, like, tomorrow everything could
be different. And that's justhow type one works. Your pancreas
is just going to get to apoint where it's just going to be
done and that just comes uponyou in a day. It's progressing, but
(22:39):
you can't get blood testsevery single day. So I can't be here,
like Obsessing over it everysingle day. But I don't take a single
day for granted or I try notto. I have good days and I have bad
days in this, you know,honeymoon phase. I have days where
I am exhausted. And I'velearned to really reset and honor
(23:01):
those days and just sit and beokay with just sitting. I find it
very hard to actually turn mybrain off, but I can turn the rest
of my body off and just let itsit in one, one place and refilling,
refilling my cup in the waysthat, that really fulfill me. So
spending time with friends,spending time with my husband, doing
activities with my son, thingslike that are very important. You
(23:24):
know, as you would know witha, with a father with Type one, like
there's a lot of apparatusesand machinery that goes with full
blown type 1 with the needing,you know, insulin pumps and constant
tracking. And I'm in a phaseright now where I'm not at that point.
And so I'm just enjoying that.I'm like, you know, going out, eating
(23:47):
what I want, not having tothink about metrics. We live here
in Australia, so going to thebeach, going to the pool and being
free to do that easily, likejust enjoying those, making those
memories right now while it'seasy knowing that there's, it's gonna
look different at some point.
Well, I am glad that you'reenjoying the time and also keeping
(24:10):
rest as a part of that. Itsounds like it's not something you're
like, I get to earn this. It'slike you're embracing it right now.
It's part of the process, it'spart of the self advocacy that you're
doing for yourself. Forsomeone who's listening right now,
who is potentially living witha diagnosis of some kind, it could
(24:33):
be anything. And they arenavigating the journey of rest and
flexibility and growing abusiness that supports their family.
What's some things that youhave found that you hold to as values
that are boundaries in a wayfor the way you make decisions in
(24:54):
your business for growth?
Yeah, really, really goodquestion. So as much as I can, I
mean, everyone's familysituation is different, everyone's
financial situation isdifferent. But like I was saying
earlier, I take on things thatare just where I am right now. Right.
(25:14):
Like I'm impatient and I'm ina hurry. I want to do everything
yesterday. I want my, youknow, business to be seven figures
last week. But there is a lotin growing sustainably and making
sure that the phase I'm atright now is sustainable and really
(25:35):
thinking about enjoyingintentionally what I'm doing. So,
you know, and I've done somepivots in my business. At one point
I thought, well, I'm going todo a membership because I really
want to bring a lot ofcommunity into what I'm doing. I
want to teach as many women aspossible, you know, what I'm doing.
And I just found that that,that didn't honor my energy right
(25:57):
now. It didn't honor theboundaries that I had set. Because
to manage a hundred people ina membership was just, it was asking
for so much all the time. So Ipivoted away from that into more
one on one high touchconsulting where I'm working with
one or two clients the same,much more depthful, but much more
(26:19):
on my own time. I can do thatresearch on my own time and connect
with them once a week insteadof having to be constantly on. So
looking at different businessmodels that really support and align
with your boundaries, there'sno one way to do anything to achieve
the same goal, to have thesame impact. You gotta get creative
(26:40):
with how you're gonna servethe market and be willing to let
some things go that are, thatare not gonna align with the boundaries
that you set or the very hardline health needs that you might
have. And get good advice.Like that was a big thing was was
find great business coacheswho would open their doors, people
who were trustworthy. Likekind of not the online business guru
(27:05):
space that just feels likethey're not telling you the truth
about how any of this actuallyget real advice from real people
who have been there and canhelp you be creative around how you
plan and navigate this.Another big piece of that is then
the risk mitigation. Like Isaid, I don't know what tomorrow
is going to look like. So withmy team, how have I set them up for
(27:30):
success, that if I need tostep out for a bit of time, that
doesn't mean that everythingcomes crumbling down, that everything
grinds to a halt. Some thingswill have to because they're the
parts that I do. My clientsneed to understand that that's part
of our relationship. Butthere's other things that can continue
and not just completely stopbecause you just never, you never
(27:51):
know. Chronic illness orotherwise. Life is gonna life.
Yeah.
And so you have to be readyfor that.
Yeah, I say that all the time.I say life is gonna life. And I agree
with you. I think, I love whatyou're saying. Like could you go
faster? Could you get it done?Could the Manifester of you just
be like, we're going to get itdone. Is it absolutely within you
probably to do it? However,what I hear you saying is I'm building
(28:15):
in a way that supports me forwhen things happen, and that just
means I have to move a littleslower. And that's okay with you.
Right? And it creates a safetynet. I think having that type of
approach to your business, tome, should be every. I don't like
using the word should, but Ifeel like every business should start
off with this reality of,like, anything can happen. So you
(28:38):
building as if nothing is evergoing to happen to you or anything
around you or anything aroundyour family is just ludicrous in
my brain. Like, it doesn'tmake any sense. However, it is the
narrative we hear. And even inthe big corporate spaces that we
hear, there's an expectation,there is a conditioning around. We
are not human in some kind ofway. We are not operating like everyday
(29:01):
humans who have everydayrandom things that happen. And we're
expected to build and work ina way that we don't have those realities.
And so you talk a lot aboutleadership is a safety net for women.
Can you share a little bitmore about what that concept looks
like for you when you'resupporting clients?
(29:21):
Absolutely. So I firmlybelieve, like, after you've been
working, you've been workingfor 10 years, 15 years, you have
enough experience to, whetheror not you decide to do it, actually
build your own business aroundthat experience. And that can look
like a number of differentthings. But there's a brilliant woman,
(29:42):
Thashonda Duckett, and she is,I think, currently the only black
woman CEO of a Fortune 500company. And she herself always says,
your job title is rented. Youdon't own it, it's rented. And she's
a Fortune 500 CEO, veryvocally telling people your title
(30:03):
is rented, but your leadershipis forever. And so building a brand
that's publicly known aroundyour leadership, the way you solve
problems, the way people feeland experience you, how you bring
people together, communitytogether, partners together, even
(30:23):
different departmentstogether, like, the way that you
do that is all a part of yourleadership brand. And whether you
define it or not, you have areputation, right? So take agency
into your own hands to definewhat you really want to be known
for around the way you lead.And you can use that as life career
(30:45):
insurance in a way, right? TheInternet's changing, the world is
changing. It's not as muchabout who knows you anymore. It's
a lot about who can find you.And that's where all this personal
branding and leadershipbranding comes from. You have to
take yourself out from insideof that company and that title and
really put yourself out thereonline and in person, in communities
(31:09):
that you operate within, withcolleagues that you have acquaintances
that you meet and be able tointroduce yourself around those solutions
so that they know you.Somebody might come to them and ask
them, oh, I'm. I'm fillingthis position in my company, or I
have this challenge in mybusiness and I need this support.
Well, that's your referralright there, because you've introduced
yourself around, your uniqueskills, and you made that person
(31:32):
feel a certain type of waythat they would then pass you on
and refer you to somebodyelse. So it's really important to
establish and be known for whoyou are as a leader and not just
a job title or even just abusiness brand name. Like you yourself
need to have thattransferability to keep yourself
(31:52):
safe.
You know, that's aninteresting. That is such a powerful
and interesting thought. I'mlistening to you talk about this.
It's funny because I had amassage earlier today and the woman
came to me and she's like.She's like, I remember you said you
had a podcast. And I kepttelling my husband it was something
chronic illness. And I waslike, yes, but you could have also
(32:13):
searched my name. And so I wastelling her, I was like, yeah, you
could have just searched myname and it would have popped up.
Because there's not reallyanything, you know, and it's. It's.
To your point, you. It's notreally about, like, who knows you,
but who can find you. It'skind of like information at this
point, it's not about what doyou know? Because, I mean, thanks
to AI, we can all pretty muchfigure out a lot of different things.
(32:36):
Everything.
Right. I think what I hear yousaying, that leadership is more rooted
in your values and your story,who you are, how you show up in the
world. Even though you havethis information, in this experience,
your brand of leadership ismore wrapped around who you, in essence
are. And how does someone in abusiness who has made their business
(32:57):
really wrapped around, maybe Iwould say to clients around a tool,
around an audience, and thenstep out and build something around
them, who they are in an essence.
Yeah. Well, I think now youhit the nail on the head, right?
More than ever, because of AI,everyone can know everything. If
(33:19):
they have a question, they canjust get the full expert answer to
it within 2.2 seconds. Right.So it's actually less about the Information
that you share, it's moreabout trust. And do you trust the
source of the information thatyou're getting? Right. That's paramount.
(33:41):
And the only way to generatetrust is in the way people experience
you and feel about you. And sotwo people now can do exactly the
same thing, but you can vibeand be attracted and kind of magnetized
towards one person more thananother because there's something
about them that makes youtrust them, makes you connect to
(34:01):
them, makes you gravitatetowards them. And that all comes
from how you present yourselfas a leader and what your leadership
means, how you present thosevalues, how you live those values
and show up living those, youknow, so it's not always about the
perfect LinkedIn post and. Butit's about how you make people feel
(34:23):
when you meet them in personand how that sticks with them so
that they do refer you on tothe next person because you left
a lasting impression on theirheart, not a whole bunch of information
jammed into their. Into their mind.
Yeah. You know, while you weresharing that, I was. I was thinking
of a question because I didn'twant to interrupt you, because I
(34:43):
think everything that youshared is so key and important about.
It is about a vibe. You know,I joke around. I'm like, it's about
a vibe. I'm like, very. It'slike music. You know, some vibrations
hit you different, and somevibrations aren't for you. And that
is. Okay. Nobody's, you know,over here upset with you because
your. Your vibrations aredifferent. It's just. They're different.
(35:04):
But in the context, because Ithink what I'm hearing from you and
your. Your experience, that'sa huge change. That's a pivot from
where businesses and evenFortune 500 companies have been focused
on, which was more about. Wehave to build trust around what we
know. Not necessarily alwaysabout how we make them feel, because,
(35:26):
let's be real, most times itwasn't about how we really actually
felt. But I think that istransitioning more so with AI. If
you've been in a business,because there are folks who listen
to the show who've been inbusiness for a while and you have
not found that shift yet. Thatinformation is no longer the gatekeeper,
(35:49):
the secretary at the. Youknow, holding up whatever, it's you.
What is one piece of adviceyou would give to them to help them
switch that flip and be like,there's no more gatekeeping. There's
just you. How do we tap into that?
Yeah, there's lots ofdifferent ways to do that. And I,
my, my history of this comesfrom where I started, right, with
(36:13):
CPG brands. And like, I wasworking on like launches for Coca
Cola. I've worked with SheaMoisture and a lot of those products,
like, you don't need them.They have to make you want them.
And so they make you want themby invoking feeling, right? That
was the work that we did. Andso that's what I now bring into to
(36:33):
people and leaders. Invokingfeeling. And I talked to a lot of
women who are like, oh, Idon't want to, I don't want to just
get on video. I'm reallyuncomfortable just getting on video.
And I say, that's, that'sfine. You don't have to get on video.
If your ministry is writing,you can write. You can have a great
reputation off of writtencontent. LinkedIn, blogs, get yourself
(36:58):
into articles, substackthreads, like, there's lots of written
mediums. You can do audio onlyif that's your jam. People have prolific
careers like yourself on audioonly or audio primary platforms.
And that's all right. If youlove video, get on video. But then
it's also not just talkingabout yourself, right? It's talking
(37:20):
about, you could tell storiesabout your customers and the transformation
that they've had and that'sassociated with you. At the middle
of that, sit down, have aconversation with them and why they
loved working with you, whythey loved working with your business
or your product. That initself is a story that's more humanizing
than selling just the productitself, right? Talk about the experience
(37:46):
that people are having withthe product, what's bringing them
to it, or what's unique abouttheir experience, engaging with it
or engaging with your team orengaging with your business. So it
also doesn't always have to bejust about you, although you should
also be present as much asyou're comfortable with or comfortable
(38:06):
working towards. There's lotsof different ways to tell stories,
even in the business and whyyou started it, right? What was that
backstory? What, what did itlook like six months before that
business launched that got youto there. That is so interesting
and differentiating for somany people. No two people's journeys
are the same. And so beingcompletely unique in who we are,
(38:29):
how we show up, and what gotus to where we are is just enough
to establish a really strongbrand for yourself.
So when we hear the wordbrand, I don't know, since I've,
I feel like since I've beenonline for a long time, that word
has changed, meaning we havebusiness Brands, we have personal
brands. Is it that we'rebuilding a brand or is it that we're
(38:53):
building leadership? Because Ithink, I feel like in, in what I'm
hearing you say and whatyou're sharing is like, we want to
create a community or a groupof people who trust you. And often
when you trust someone, you'rein some way leading them, in some
way informing them ofsomething, and they trust you about
that information, whether it'show you feel, what you're thinking,
(39:17):
what you're selling, what youlike. And I don't. I think we get
a little bit in the weeds whenwe start talking about influencers
and content creators andthings like that. There's so many
different aspects of buildinga brand. What's the difference between
building a brand and being a leader?
Yeah, great, great question. Ithink building a brand is the wrapper
(39:39):
around everything that bringsit all together, right? It's the
full package. It's how peoplefeel when they experience you and
your business, the topics thatyou talk about, that's all consistent,
but being a leader is the waypeople experience you within the
bigger brand. So what I callleadership branding, I like to use
(40:01):
the term leadership brandingwhen I'm talking about the individual
at the front. And I think thedistinction with that is that it's
about your solutions and yourexperiences and the lessons that
you have learned and can teachand pass forward. It's what we used
to call thought leadership,which, that got like a nasty corporatized
(40:25):
word and everyone was like, I.
Don'T want to do that.
That sounds boring. But it'sessentially the same thing. Because
now because of AI, everyonehas all the information in the world.
So the only thing that reallymakes us interesting and stand out
is like the conversations thatwe have one on one, where no one
else was there, where you cameup with something different or two
(40:45):
perspectives together, came upwith a new way to think about something,
or those two experiencestogether kind of had an aha moment.
And that is a potential solvefor a problem that a lot of people
are experiencing that's nowthought leadership. And it's so specific
to who you are and whereyou've been and how you think and
(41:07):
how you operate and the energyyou give off and the way people experience
you. So I think the brandbeing, you know, the entire ethos
of the visual image, themediums you use to show up, the channels
that you're, you're on, howyou package that, how you put that
out into the world, but theleadership itself really just goes
Back to you, uniquely, who youare, where you've been, how you vibe.
(41:31):
Right?
Like, that's your leadership.And like I said, it's. It's important
that you sit down and reallythink about how you want people to
experience you as a leader.Don't let other people in the same
way, don't let them put adiagnosis on you that you know is
wrong. Don't let them tell youand define what your leadership is
or means, because only youshould be able to do that.
(41:54):
Cosine. Yes. Huh? Let's saythat again. Like, it is. It's. It's
such a powerful thing. I thinkwe are out of the. I think at some
point in the online journey asa business owner or even not even
online, there was a lot ofreplication of the same thing over
and over again. Right? Andnow, even though that's still the
(42:18):
case, the thing that is soimportant is your. You. Like, the
thing that is going to be theloudest in the room is acknowledging
that you are the specialsauce. Like, your stories. And it's.
I think for a lot of us, itmight be challenging to kind of strip
away all those voices and allthose other people, things that's
(42:39):
been, you know, very helpful,you know, very helpful in getting
to where you are. But mytherapist says what got you here
or help you here and helpedyou grow here may no longer serve
you in that way anymore, andyou have to find a different way,
or you have to strip away whatdoesn't serve you anymore and move
into another place. And Ithink this is the same thing with
(43:00):
our businesses in this day andage. AI has been a huge piece of
making our lives easier. We'rethankful for that, especially if
you live with chronic illness.I'm, like, every day I'm saying,
thank you, AI. Especially whenit comes for my podcast. Like, thank
you. Yes, right, Absolutely.So do you feel like that, like, when
I noticed you nodding when Isaid, like, it's hard to kind of
(43:22):
separate from everything thatyou've been maybe morphed into. All
of the advice and finding theessence of, like, your voice, is
there, like, something you'veshared with someone that's helped
them to, like, start diggingor unpeeling that onion to be more
about. Okay, this is actuallymy voice and not someone else's.
(43:45):
Yeah. Well, I mean, first ofall, I'm a. I'm a leadership positioning
strategist, so I think it's.It is critical that you find somebody
to voice your stories to sothey can reflect back to you what
they're hearing I. It'simpossible for us to do that for
ourselves. Like I always say,you can't see the label from the
(44:08):
inside of the jar. You justcannot. If you are the sauce in the
jar, like you said, you're thespecial sauce, but you cannot read
the label from the outside.From the inside. That's on the outside.
Right. So you need to findsomebody qualified to sit down with
and help you put togetherwhere you've been and where you want
to go and reflect that into areally authentic story that's about
(44:30):
you. I don't do my ownpositioning strategy because I can't.
Like I'm too in the weeds. Isecond guess things. I have voices
in my head that are otherpeople's voices, which is that trauma
from the past or it's thatfear and self protection that comes
in. And it's really importantto find somebody you trust who can
help you really peel thoselayers back and get to the point
(44:54):
where you can really seeclearly, like what are all of the
different facets of you andhow do they come together in the
middle? How do they weavetogether nicely? Because we're also
very dynamic. Like I work withlots of women who are very multi
passionate. Right. Have allthe different passions. And I think
that's great. The more themerrier because there's a common
thread at the middle of all ofthose that you just need to find,
(45:18):
which is really your essence.And it's like, what, what is, what
is the system that you'rereally seeking to change or impact
or influence that's at thecenter of all of these different
passions that you have. Andonce you find that, it just, it all
makes sense. It's allconnected because it all comes.
Yes. I love that you sharedthat. I think so many of us need
(45:40):
to give ourselves a breakaround why am I so good at doing
this for other people, but Ican't do this for myself because
you maybe were never meant todo it for yourself. Maybe you were
never meant to do it foryourself. It is a challenge. It's
a real thing. I think I canreally relate to your story, like
your point, because for a longtime a lot of folks used to say to
(46:01):
me, Nikita, your podcast, yourpodcast. And that was just the chick
in the. That background singerfor me. I was just like, oh, yeah,
she's okay, it's cool. Andthen until recently, has it been
like, oh, wait, no, this isactually bigger than I thought it
was.
That's the thing.
That's the thing, right? And Ithink to Your point, you do need
someone to hold your hand. Andit's a mirror in a way. And also
(46:22):
not just a mirror. It soundslike you're kind of like dissecting
all of these stories to findthe. Okay, here's actually where
you are. And usually when yousee it from somebody else's point
of view, you're like shocked.
You're like, oh, whoa.
Yeah, that's right.
That is me.
That is.
That is interesting. Yeah, Ihave a GPT that I've built that I've.
(46:44):
I'll share with you to sharewith, with your listeners too. It's
a mini version of GettingStarted with that that I've built.
It'll ask you a few differentquestions, you just putting in stories
and what you feel and what youthink. And it will help find that
common thread at the middlefor you to then be able to reflect
back and introduce yourselfwith power for what that is. It doesn't
(47:04):
replace the big work, but it'sa really nice way to get started
and have a little pep in yourstep of the day. Because a lot of
people go through it and theygo, oh, yeah, that is me. I like
that me. I like what I do. Andit starts with that confidence.
And that's the thing. You justwant to know. You just want to know
(47:26):
what's the, the thing. So youcan move, start moving differently.
I think it allows you to movedifferently, see yourself differently,
make different decisions. Justlike with getting an actual correct
diagnosis that matches whatyou've been feeling and thinking
and been like, oh, see, I wasright all along. Or I had that experience
and now I can do somethingabout it and move on with your life
(47:48):
and manage that piece. Sothank you for sharing that. I would
love to have that. We'll putthat in the show notes for sure.
I've been asking abouteverybody this question towards the
end of our show, which is as abusiness owner and as a business
owner living with chronicillness, what is something that you
thought was true when youfirst started your business that
you no longer believe is true?
(48:10):
When I first started mybusiness, I mean, to be honest, because
I came out of corporate,right? I don't have entrepreneurship
in my background. In my familywhere we are corporatist, corporate
is corporate. So I did reallyget swept up by the, the online guru
space of this is how you doeverything. Like, you just, it's
(48:34):
just eight steps, like, andit's fine. You just, you just follow
these steps and you justlaunch and like the doors open and
people fly in and so I couldtell you I had a, I had a few good
flops last year where I waslike, I don't think, I don't think
this is, this is, this is theway so going. That's not how that
works. So, yeah, I thinkcoming out of corporate, recognizing
(48:55):
that entrepreneurship is hard,it looks glamorous. I think there's
a lot that goes into makingthe social media look really shiny
and making it look reallyglamorous, but that it is hard and
you have to get reallycomfortable with being wrong. And
I don't like to use the wordfailure, but sometimes something
(49:17):
doesn't go right, it doeshurt. You gotta be able to pick yourself
back up and learn from it andreally say, okay, I'm going to do
things a little bit different.I'm going to get different advice.
I'm going to ask, ask for somehelp in a, in a different way and
be able to move forward withthat. And it's, you know, the same
way that we approach ourhealth. When things feel off, things
are not always going to go ourway. Every day is going to be a little
(49:40):
bit different. You have to beable to pick yourself back up and
do, you know, do what you needto do that day to move forward for
the next day to keep it going.
So powerful. What I think Iheard you say is that coming from
a corporate background andthat's all, you know, to an entrepreneur,
space isn't as the staircaseas it is in corporate. There's rules.
(50:04):
There's things you do. You getthe thing go to work, you get the
job, you get the, maybe notthe promotion, but you do. There's
like these steps.Entrepreneurship is not a step kind
of thing. Like, there arethings you need to, like, start,
set up, but it's not alwaysone plus one equals two.
No, it's not. It's just, it'snot. And you know, with corporate,
(50:26):
I like to say it's. It is. Atthe end of the day, it's a game.
You gotta learn how to playthe game. And a lot of us don't come
from a legacy where we weretaught what the rules of that game
were. So it takes us a longtime to learn them. And that can
feel like you're making a lotof missteps. And that's a whole other,
a whole.
Other discussion episode inand of it.
In and of itself. But yeah,you know, with entrepreneurship,
(50:49):
I think there's, there's a lotof people saying like, yeah, like,
here's just use this templateand it'll be Great. And it's not
because there's so manydifferent pieces to the puzzle. In
setting up a business andestablishing a brand and a customer
base and a product and how youtransact in your business and how
you market your business andhow you actually deliver what it
(51:11):
is that you deliver, there'sso many different pieces and those
are all going to lookdifferent for every single person,
person. So yeah, I think justgetting good advice that's tailored
to you is so, so, so, soimportant. Right from the beginning.
A lot of us really get that,get that wrong. We get swept up in
the Instagram of it all and weget, we get that wrong.
(51:32):
So we learn quickly. I thinkby doing it that way that it isn't
a one size fits all. However,I think I speak from my own personal
experience. Like with chronicillness, I learned because of my
chronic illness that there isliterally no one size fits all. Even
with the same diagnosis, samesymptoms from other people, what
(51:53):
they experienced was not whatI was experiencing and vice versa.
There's a, there's some selectthings that we're experiencing the
same, but in general, we'renow all experiencing exactly the
same scenario situationbecause we are all so uniquely different,
even though we are soconnected. And I think that's also
something to bring into theconversation of business. Like business
(52:13):
isn't completelyunfigureoutable, but it is very unique
and very different. And thewho you're talking to, and it really
does. To me, I think the thingthat makes it easier to feel like
you can do this is know thatyou have the tools and the skills.
Especially if you're livingwith chronic illness, especially
if you've been in corporate,you've navigated much harder things
(52:37):
and this will just be anotherhard thing that you figure out.
Yeah, yeah. It's just anotherthing to navigate and figure out
and you have that perspectiveon, you know, something doesn't work.
Try something. Try somethingdifferent. In the one point, the
1 1/2, 1.5 diabetes world, notwo cases are the same. And it's,
I mean, it's so rare. I'mteaching my doctors what this is.
(53:00):
My doctors have no idea whatthis is. So when I, you know, I have
my specialists and my special,my gps, I'm often teaching them,
like my gyn, no idea teachingthem what it is because that affects
any future, you know, childrenI want to have or what that might
look like. And they don't,they don't know. For some people
it shows up overnight and it'sfull blown. For me I'm going on into
(53:21):
my, my second year of being inthis phase of transition. And some
people stay in that for thenext 10 years. For me, it could change
next week. Like, I don't know.And I just have to be realistic with
that. But running a businessis the same, especially the pace
of technology. Everythinghappening in the world, the market's
(53:43):
up and down. You know, itchanges every day. So, you know,
we're all just in this together.
Figuring it out.
Figuring it out.
Figuring it out.
And doing together.
I was going to say doing ittogether makes it so much easier
and also more fun and moreexciting and just a lot less stressful
because now you know, okay,this thought and these feelings that
(54:06):
I have are not just yours.You're. You're not alone. So thank
you so much. Like, how canpeople connect with you? What are
the ways people work with you?Please share with us. We'll have
everything in the show notes,but just let's give them a little
bit here.
Of course, I love to connectwith people directly. So you can
find me on Instagram,jemmycrooksofficial. I'm on there
(54:30):
a bit. I'm on LinkedIn a lot.So backslash J. Crooks or just look,
look up Jimmy Crooks with alittle thunderbolt next to my name.
You'll find me. So that helpsit stand out. Or you can Visit my
website, thetflab.comsubscribe to my email newsletter.
I'm always sending differenttips on AI and leadership and how
to bring the two together andthe latest and greatest of what's
(54:52):
saving me time and what I'musing in my business and, you know,
what tools are working, whatprompts are flopping. A lot of fun,
A lot of fun stuff.
Oh, I love that.
And that as well. So, yeah,I'm online. Come and find me. Look
forward to talking to people.And I'm very open to talking about
the 1.5. So if anybody isnavigating a situation where you're
(55:16):
wondering, like, is this rightor not, like, obviously I can't give
you medical advice, but I cantell you about my experience, my
experience and what I'veexperienced and what I had to ask
for to get the correct.
Diagnosis to the righttreatments, yeah, that's important.
So I'll definitely make surethat again in our show notes that
we talk about that, becausewhen we talked initially 1.5, I was
(55:38):
like, I've never heard of thisbefore. It's kind of like when they
told me I had endometriosisback in 2009. And I asked everybody
and they're like, I don't knowwhat that is. I've never heard that.
The doctors were like, I don'tknow. So, like, this is another diagnosis
that we get to talk about. Andwe have someone you could reach out
to if you were thinking maybethis is you. So thank you so much
(55:58):
for sharing your story andeverything. Thank you for being on
the show. I know we're incompletely different time zones,
so this was a special time forboth of us. So I appreciate your
time and I appreciate yousharing your wisdom with us today.
Thank you for having me. Iappreciate it. I appreciate this
platform. So important.
Yeah, I just love having womenlike you on the show. It really is
(56:21):
helpful. It's something Iwanted, and now it's here.
I can help one woman find anactual treatment for what she's going
through. Then it's all allworth it. Love it.
All right. Okay. Thank you.That's a wrap for this episode of
(56:45):
Business with Chronic Illness.If you would like to start and grow
an online coaching businesswith me, head to the show Notes to
click a link to book a salescall and learn how to make money
with chronic illness. You canalso check out our website@ww.CraftedToThrive.com
for this episode's show notesand join our email list to get exclusive
content where I coach you onhow to chronically grow a profitable
(57:07):
business while living withchronic illness. Until next time,
remember, yes, you are craftedto thrive.
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