November 20, 2025 • 33 mins
I am thrilled to welcome Elizabeth DeMaso to the Warrior Community. She is an entrepreneurial leader that thrives in collaborative environments, with a growth mindset and a proven ability to build businesses. Elizabeth excels at taking ideas from inception and develop them into thriving, revenue-generating operations.
Elizabeth has experience across multiple sectors (retail, professional services, technology, luxury, health and wellness, financial services and more) and her work has been recognized by Adweek, Advertising Age, Forbes and Fast Company. She is also an active member of Chief, the private network for female executives. Most recently, she created, hosts and produces the ‘More Everything’ podcast, as a platform for content that shares perspectives from expert guests and personal experience, creating a supportive community experience.
(3:34) Elizabeth shares her journey and why she chose the work she does in building brands.
(5:39) Elizabeth excels at taking ideas from inception to thriving. How has that helped her to navigate her own career?
(8:34) What has she learned about transitions, as she has reinvented herself over the years?
(12:21) What was Elizabeth’s scariest pivot in her career and what did she learn on the other side?
(14:34) Elizabeth shares her experience of how to “know when it is time to change/leave”.
(16:31) We talk about Elizabeth’s podcast, More Everything. Why she created it and what gap is she trying to fill with her authentic conversations.
(18:55)) We talk about Elizabeth’s style, how her conversations are authentic and intuitive that move people forward.
(20:40) Elizabeth shares with us her advice on how to start personal re-branding or changing careers.
(23:52) What does Elizabeth want more + less of in the next chapter of her career?
(25:22) What is a part of Elizabeth’s career that she rarely talks about, that was a unique experience in her life.
(30:31) What is the practice that keeps Elizabeth on track and willing to ‘play with the edges”?
Connect with Elizabeth DeMaso
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethdemaso/
Subscribe: Warriors At Work Podcasts
Website: https://jeaniecoomber.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/986666321719033/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeanie_coomber/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeanie_coomber
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanie-coomber-90973b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbMZ2HyNNyPoeCSqKClBC_w
Elizabeth has experience across multiple sectors (retail, professional services, technology, luxury, health and wellness, financial services and more) and her work has been recognized by Adweek, Advertising Age, Forbes and Fast Company. She is also an active member of Chief, the private network for female executives. Most recently, she created, hosts and produces the ‘More Everything’ podcast, as a platform for content that shares perspectives from expert guests and personal experience, creating a supportive community experience.
(3:34) Elizabeth shares her journey and why she chose the work she does in building brands.
(5:39) Elizabeth excels at taking ideas from inception to thriving. How has that helped her to navigate her own career?
(8:34) What has she learned about transitions, as she has reinvented herself over the years?
(12:21) What was Elizabeth’s scariest pivot in her career and what did she learn on the other side?
(14:34) Elizabeth shares her experience of how to “know when it is time to change/leave”.
(16:31) We talk about Elizabeth’s podcast, More Everything. Why she created it and what gap is she trying to fill with her authentic conversations.
(18:55)) We talk about Elizabeth’s style, how her conversations are authentic and intuitive that move people forward.
(20:40) Elizabeth shares with us her advice on how to start personal re-branding or changing careers.
(23:52) What does Elizabeth want more + less of in the next chapter of her career?
(25:22) What is a part of Elizabeth’s career that she rarely talks about, that was a unique experience in her life.
(30:31) What is the practice that keeps Elizabeth on track and willing to ‘play with the edges”?
Connect with Elizabeth DeMaso
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethdemaso/
Subscribe: Warriors At Work Podcasts
Website: https://jeaniecoomber.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/986666321719033/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeanie_coomber/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeanie_coomber
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanie-coomber-90973b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbMZ2HyNNyPoeCSqKClBC_w
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
First sign. I tell people, if you have Sunday scaries,
you're done, and I don't care if it's your own
business that you're running. If you have Sunday scaries and
you were waking up with a pit in your stomach,
you are misaligned. And that word's getting used a lot,
the alignment word, but I think it's because it's so accurate.
If you don't wake up excited for what the day
holds for you or the opportunities, and you listen, we
(00:22):
all have a small period a day, a week where
things don't feel great, but I'm talking about consistently. If
you are not feeling excited, that is a very clear
sign that it is time to re examine what you're doing.
So I would ask the question if you feel like
maybe you're in that spot. I tell people, ask yourself
the question, how could my day be happier today? And
(00:43):
if you can start to find answers to that, whatever
they may be, I would be outside more, I'd be
working remotely, I would have a better boss or a
bigger team. That's the time to start to see can
I change those things or is it time for me
to make the change.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Welcome to the Warriors. At Work show.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
This is Genie Coomber, your guide and host. This is
a show for men and women in the workplace who
want to move from the predictable to the potent. This
is your weekly dose of inspiration with an edge. I
talk with CEOs and Shaman's, sports, marketing, executives and therapists.
(01:20):
All of us are like minded thinkers and doers who
tell stories, share wisdom, and challenge each other to have
the best life possible inside and outside the office.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Welcome to your Warrior Conversation. Hey everybody, it's Genie. Thank
you so much for joining me here at Warriors at
Work Today. I am bringing to you a conversation with
Elizabeth Demasso, a strategic advisor, brand guru, and the host
of More Everything podcast. Her purpose is helping brands and
(01:54):
individuals get clear, get heard, and move forward. She has
experience across multiple sectors retails, professional services, technology, luxury, just.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
To name a few.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Her work has been recognized by Adweek, Advertising Age, Forbes,
and Fast Company. She's an active member of Chief, which
is where she and I met, which is the private
network for female executives, and I was delighted to bring
her into this conversation to get her to share a
little bit with us about her work about helping people
(02:28):
really get heard and position themselves for whatever it is
they're trying to advance. So enjoy this really enlightening conversation.
Elizabeth de Massel, thank you so much for joining me
here at Warriors at Work. I'm really excited to get
into this conversation me.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Too, Thank you for having me. And I love that
you call it Warriors at Work because I often refer
to the teams that I work with as warriors, like
we're out there doing it every day. So I'm so
excited to be here with you. I love the podcast
and I'm happy to be a guest. Well.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
You you really embody a lot of the attributes that
I talk about. You know, when people think of warrior,
they think of like it's battle and it's war.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
It's no.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I think of it in terms of optimism and courage
and strength and fortitude and generosity of spirit. And how
you and I connected was our mutual connection to Chief
and both of us participated in a networking event and
I just loved your energy. I loved your background and
your story. So it's really really happy to bring you
onto this platform. To share a little bit more about you,
(03:28):
and where I thought we could start is I'm all
about like the journey. I love to hear people's story
and your work in the world is your purpose is
helping brands and individuals get clear, get heard, and move forward.
So I'd love for you to tell us your journey
and why this work.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, it happened organically for me. I grew up in
the world of advertising and a big part of my
job always the primary focus of my job was to
help brands get clarity about who they are competitively out
in the marketplace looking at you know, why do customers
raise their hand and choose a particular brand? Why don't
they and how do we make sure that people understand
(04:08):
what the brand stands for? I think back. I don't
know if you'll remember. There used to be the Pepsi
challenge when we were kids, at least when I was
a kid, and it was a blind taste test, and
Pepsi won over and over again in the taste test.
But ultimately Coke won the brand war, and it's because
I think it had such a foundation and it was
unwavering in terms of who it was and how it
showed up and to this day in the world of cola,
(04:30):
coke still dominates, and so the idea of being able
to bring branding to any kind of a product is
really exciting. And along the way, while I was doing that,
I was also mentoring people, and what I realized is
that we are all branded, we are all personal brands,
and the way that we show up is authentic to
who we are. It should be anyway. I think a
lot of times people try to wedge themselves into jobs
(04:51):
that don't feel natural, and you wind up not feeling
great about yourself. And so if I can help eliminate that,
that's what I want to be able to do. And
so I recently left my job i'd been at for
eleven years, running a small advertising, independent advertising agency, and
the idea of taking all of those skill sets and
working two sides with brands and clients who want to
(05:14):
understand where their place is in the world, and then
to work with individuals who were like I need to
show up for myself in a better way and understand
that kind of brought me here. And the reality is
I've never felt more excited about the work that I'm doing.
The ability to sort of take the things that I
loved most out of my job and put them out
in the world in a different way is super exciting.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I love so much about what you said, so I
can't wait to unpack some of these things. Because the
other thing that you talk a lot about in your
work in the world is you can take ideas from
inception to thriving operations. And I'm curious how having that
same mindset has helped you to navigate your own career changes.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Always easier to do it for others then for yourself, right.
I think I was brought up to understand that the
job at hand was to figure out a way to
monetize ideas and to grow ideas, and so I had
business practice in doing that when it came to my
personal self and looking again, I was leaving this job
that i'd been at where I just knew what to do.
(06:20):
I woke up every morning I knew exactly what I
needed to do, and now suddenly it's like, Okay, what
does tomorrow look like? In the day after, in the
month after. I put that same discipline to work, and
that means going through a process, a disciplined process for me,
where you sit down every single day and there's a
series of written exercises to really focus where you want
to be. And what happens is if you ask yourself
(06:41):
the same question every day for thirty days, the journey
from day one to day thirty is it's a complete
and total journey, and you actually land. You get deeper
and deeper because you don't want to just write the
same six words every day. And what happens is you
really start to get to the core of it. And
so I did. I applied that same discipline that I
would do with clients as we would create a brief
or really look to do a competitive map, I applied
(07:03):
it to myself and I've been doing it for other
people and that's how I got to where I am
to say, what is it that you really want to do?
And guess what, Being the president of an ad agency
is really exciting and it feels kind of prestigious, but
it is not where the joy was coming for me.
That title meant less than the work that I was doing,
that I was enjoying, and I was able to get
to the core of that using the discipline that I'd
(07:25):
used for the brands that I worked on.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
And so was that the question what is it you
really want to do.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah. I was talking with someone who wanted to help me.
She's an executive coach, and she was like, let me
help you figure this out. And my first conversation with her,
I said, you know, she said, what do you want
in your next job? And I said, I want a
job that I love and she was like, that's good,
that's where we start. And I said, I need a week.
I don't know. I don't know what that means yet,
and I walked away and by the time I got
back to her, I said, I don't want a job
(07:52):
that I love. I want a life that I love,
and I want a job that fits into a life
that I love. And that was it. That was the
moment where I was like, I know what that looks
like I do, and it might change and shift as
I go, but I think we all deserve to wake
up in the morning and say, like, this is our beautiful, perfect,
wild and precious as Mary Oliver would have said, our wild, one,
(08:12):
wild and precious life. Let's really live it to the max.
And so yeah, that was it. That was the moment
of like shifting from working to live to living, or
living to work to working to live right. I wanted.
I want to I want life to come first and
for work to be a really important and big part
of it, but in a way that really feels right
inside of me.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
And you've taken that philosophy. I mean, you've reinvented yourself
across retail, tech, luxury, finance, and wellness. Yeah, so what
have you learned about transitions as you were reinventing yourself?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
For me, I was brought up that way. I started
in the business development part of advertising, and so we
were constantly pitching new pieces of business, which means that
every time we had an assignment that would come to us,
I had to get really smart and dig deep into
that company, that industry. My job was to be able
to converse with the client as we were moving through
(09:10):
this pitch process, which included creating strategy and creative ideas.
And so one week it was fast food, the next
week it was tires, the next week it was banking
ice cream Like it was something different, and it taught
me to get up to speed very quickly, to really
look for what does the underbelly of this particular you know,
business look like, where are the opportunities? What do I
(09:31):
know from other industries that can be applied over here
and when you're trained to think like that. And it
was fifteen years that I did that kind of work.
I've applied it to every part of my life. So
at the last agency I was with, we had retail
clients like Cohle's and Pandora Jewelry, but we also had KPMG,
which this is this heady B to B you know,
tech and thought leadership and auditing and finance company and
(09:54):
the ability to go back and forth between all of those.
There were lessons to be learned for each of them
from the other clients, even though their industries were wildly different.
And so yeah, I have definitely applied that business development
background to all these different industries in terms of what
is it that I need to know and what do
I already know that could be helpful that they've not
been exposed to yet.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Such a great example of how a mindset can frame everything.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, I think that's a good point, and we need
it's a growth mind It's a growth mindset, right, It
is a what don't I know yet? And what can
I pull from that I already know?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I feel like that's such an important thing to remember,
because the economic and workplace environment is so wild and
so unpredictable, and I think we cling to what we
think we see in front of us, rather than what's
around the corner, what's underneath the rock, what do I
know to be true? What do I know not to
(10:53):
be true? We freeze and look only what's in front
of us, rather than having that braw a perspective. So
I love how you said that because you could apply
it to all these different industries and ways of being.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Well, and especially I think that's so you Actually you
hit the nail on the head. It's so true. But
also when you were dealing with client services, clients don't
like to be challenged. Not all clients, but many clients
don't like to be challenged in the way that they're
thinking or the approach they're taking. But it would be
irresponsible for me to not challenge some of their thinking.
(11:28):
So the trick always is what do we think they
need to know that they don't already know, and how
do we get them comfortable, how do we get them
to take a risk. I think it's really difficult to
be a CMO, right. A chief marketing officer basically signs
up for a job and there is like a ticking
time bomb over their head from day one. They have
a limited amount of time to turn things around and
make changes, and they are only one part of the
(11:49):
equation of what makes a successful brand. So for asking
a CMO to take a chance with you and pivot
in terms of the strategy your approach they're taking is
a big ask and I think you really have to
have very trusting relationship with between the two sides, and
I try to do that. I try to make sure
that I'm really listening to what's scaring them and what's
keeping them up at night and what the challenge is internally,
(12:10):
like who are they going to have to push this,
you know, this new thinking through in order to get
buy in and be able to do it. And so
it is, it is a it is it's a It's
a tricky wicket for sure.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Well, I'm going to pick up on the word scary
having gone through a lot of changes yourself, like what
was your scariest pivot and what did you learn when
you got on the other side of it.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
I think I'm in it right now. I am in
it simply because I did this. I have worked full
time my entire life. There was a short period of
time where I had my kids, where I was consulting,
but I was married at the time, and so there
was the security underneath, you know, the sort of security
net underneath me. And right now I'm single, I've got kids,
(12:54):
I've got one in college that i'm like, you know,
paying for, and I need health insurance and I need
steady income. So deciding to do something completely on my
own and waking up every morning and being like it's
on me, this, this whole idea, this business lives or
dies on me, is the scariest but also the most
rewarding thing. What I hope that I learn on the
(13:14):
other side is that in other times of my life
where I took chances and risks in terms of jobs
that I took or things that I did in those jobs,
they always paid off. So I'm hoping that what I
learned in this is like this is the scariest, that
it has the biggest payoff. So fingers crossed, we're going
to hope that that's that. I feel very optimistic. I write
down every day, You've got this, you know, I just
keep telling myself, you've got this, You've got this. And
(13:34):
there are days where it feels more more assured than others,
but is exciting, and I think life is meant to
be exciting. I love the expression.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
You've got this. One of the things that I often
will add to that is what's here for me? So
it's leaning into the weirdness, the discomfort, the fear. It's
often fear, yeah, sometimes it's even fear of expansion or success,
But I will ask what tier for me? And it
changes the perspective where it's like, because we want to
(14:06):
get out of it, we want to know the certainty,
We want to be able to have that predictable life.
But sometimes just hanging in there, hanging in the discomfort
just a little bit longer, will reveal something to you.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I also love it because I feel like you've just
turned the table in the conversation, like you're not at
the whim of the universe. You like you were saying, like,
what are you showing up for me? Right? I might
adopt that. I think that that's a really good way
to think about it.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Feel right. So one of the things that I think
would be really helpful for people to hear from your
perspective is how do you know when it's time to shift, change, leave.
What Do you feel like it's a calling? Do you
feel like it's a knowing?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
What? What?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
What? What? What's been your experience?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
The first sign I tell people, if you have Sunday scaries,
you're done. And I don't care if it's your own
business that you're running. If you have Sunday scaries and
you were waking up with a pit in your stomach,
you are misaligned. And that word's getting used a lot,
the alignment word, but I think it's because it's so accurate.
If you don't wake up excited for what the day
holds for you or the opportunities, and you listen, we
(15:16):
all have a small period a day a week where
things don't feel great, but I'm talking about consistently. If
you are not feeling excited, that is a very clear
sign that it is time to re examine what you're doing.
Or if you just feel like you're going through the
motions and you're if you're sitting safely, it feels good
for a little bit, but it's not growth, and I
think we're really all meant to grow. So I would
(15:38):
ask the question, if you feel like maybe you're in
that spot, I tell people ask yourself the question, how
could my day be happier today? And if you can
start to find answers to that, whatever they may be,
I would be outside more, I'd be working remotely. I
would have a better you know, a better boss or
a bigger team. That's the time to start to see
can I change those things or is it time for
(16:00):
me to make the change?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I love that Sunday scaries.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
The Sunday scaries are real. They're real, and they're terrible.
It's a terrible way to live. Right Sunday is meant
to be a day of relaxation and reset. My Mondays
are really happy right now, and it's such a it's
such a strange thing because they haven't been in so long.
And I love getting up on Monday and like, all right,
we're tackling the week. I've got my list, I've got
my you know, I've got my checklist and my calendar
(16:25):
and I'm off to the faces.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Oh gosh, that's fabulous. I love that. And you decided
to launch a podcast called More Everything. Yeah, tell us
about that? What gap were you trying to fill here?
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Such a good question I got. I got sort of
not pushed into it. I have my creative partner, my
ex creative partner, my agency was the one who had
the idea, and he was like, you just shoot it
straight and you tell people things without being you know,
luxury about it. You just point things out, and I
think you should share that. There's a lot of people
on podcasts with toxic positivity telling people how to fix
their lives. And I'm like, oh, yeah, there are some
(17:03):
of those, and I feel right like, it's terrible when
people are like, all you have to do is this
and everything will be better. And he was like, you
don't do that. You just point out things that people
can figure it out. And so we played with it
a little bit and I started to think about what
kind of guests, what I want to have, what I
want to talk about. And the idea of more everything
was that rather than taking things out of our lives
(17:24):
or thinking that we have to make changes, how about
we just add in more of the things we love
and eventually the things that are not fitting us will
start to just sort of, you know, go by the wayside.
Excuse me. So yeah, it was it was really that.
And I love talking to people and hearing their stories
and it's interesting Everybody has a story. Everybody has a
(17:44):
moment where they've faced adversity and had to get past
it and have come out better on the other side.
And I love hearing those stories. I just I think
it's really special when people expose that, because then we
realize the world is so divisive right now. We are
like a you know, especially in our country, we're just
everyone's like so tense. But when you hear that there
are other people who are going through what you're doing,
You're like, Okay, I can relax a little. I'm not
(18:06):
the only one. Sometimes we feel very much like the
only one. And the podcast is really meant to shine
light on the fact that we are in this community
of figuring it out and figuring out what next looks like.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Right when you think about all the guests that you've
had on all the subjects you've tackled, like, what have
you learned so much?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I mean so much? People have been so generous with
sharing their stories. I think one of the things I've
learned is that there are so many different ways to
go at the same issue. There are so many different ways,
and if you can find out what works for you
and have good supportive people around you while you do that,
that's the winning formula. I've definitely learned to be braver.
(18:46):
I have learned to be more honest, you know. I've
learned to just be more comfortable in who I am.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
There's something so freeing about this might be one of
the big upsides of getting older is that you start
to speak more authentically, more from the heart less prescription,
more intuitive, more instinctual, rather than Okay, what's the program?
What should I be saying or not saying, like getting
(19:17):
away from the speaking points, but talking more in like
a natural sense. And it's very much what I pick
up from your style and obviously what I've heard on
your podcast. It's real conversations in a way to truly
and authentically move people forward.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Well, thank you for that. The person is high energy
and up here I can get there. If they're quieter
and they're a little more you know, calm, I can
match that as well, and what happens. And I do
think that's an important skill because you want to be
able to communicate and exchange ideas, but you have to
be able to sit at your like I need to
be able to walk into room and know what my
energy is before I'm meeting somebody else, and so I've
(19:56):
worked I think that's one of the things I've been
working really hard on over the last few years is
where am I in terms of who I am? Sort
of that again, that word authentically right, that real sense
of who I am, and it's somewhere in the middle.
I can go very high, I can get very quiet
and in perspective, but ultimately I want people to know
(20:18):
that this is a safe space when they're meeting with me,
that there's a safe space to sit and share, and
that we can be vulnerable and still come out of it, like,
not just unharmed, but like in a celebratory manner.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
If we can really be honest about the exchange of
ideas and thoughts, then then we all win, whether we're
creating a brand or you know, whatever it may be.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, I want to lean into the personal brand piece
for a moment. So for anybody listening watching that's considering
rebranding themselves, changing careers, like, tell us where you think
they should begin, what should they be thinking about?
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah, And I want to be careful because sometimes I
think people hear that and it feels kind of phony,
Like I know a lot of college students as they're
applying to college, there's counselors telling them, like, you have
to brand yourself. And I'm like, God's sakes, they're seventeen,
eighteen years old, Like how about their discovery? They're going
to college to discover who they are? Right? But the
reality is what the reason they're saying that is that
(21:15):
colleges are looking for students to come in with a
particular like this is the kind of learner that I am.
And so if we look at that in the adult world,
if you're looking for yourself, at yourself as a personal brand.
In the simplest terms, what I'm looking for is for
you to be able to say one sentence about who
you are that makes somebody understand what makes you special
(21:36):
and different. Right, So I was the president of an
independent advertising agency. Guess what, there are hundreds of us
out there, and each of us approaches that differently. So
you know, my special sauce in that world would have
been I'm the president of an independent advertising agency who
enjoys mentoring, you know, talent, empowering their team and finding
(21:57):
connections and solving problems. You know what, that's not articulate,
But like I would be able to sort of put
that together. And I want people to be able to
do that, because if you're opening line on your LinkedIn
or your resume is I am a professional CPA with
twenty five years of experience. You're not the only one.
What kind of CPA are you? What kind of talents
(22:19):
do you have? And so if you want to think
about what your personal brand is, I think the first
thing I would tell people, if you're not working with
somebody else, find somebody you trust to work alongside you,
a coworker, a good friend who shoots it straight, and
start to write down all of the things that you
are really good at. And I'm not talking about just
simple job description things, but like the way that you
(22:41):
think or the way that you show up for people.
Write those things down. And then this is the part
that people are as like, oh, cross out the things
that you're good at that you don't ever want to
do again. Like I love that, right. There are so
many things that I'm good at and I hate doing them.
They should not be part of the job description or
they should be very low on the tote, like yeah,
I'll do it because I need to, but it should
(23:02):
not be the primary and you know, if you can
do that, if you can gather those things and cross
them out and then look at what's left, you will
start to really get a sense of how to present
yourself to the world. And you know there's more steps
than just that, but that's the best way to start.
And again, get somebody to work alongside. You get two three.
People get perspective from other people to understand what they see.
(23:24):
Sometimes you don't even know what your value is to people.
Right when when my creative partner said you're going to
start a podcast and I was like, hell no, I
mean I literally was like, no, I'm not. But he
explained why, and he saw parts of me that I
didn't see, which was it was like such a gift
to me, whether I did the podcast or not, to
just know how I was being perceived by the people
around me was really wonderful. So give yourself that gift.
(23:45):
Go ask people to tell you what they think you're
good at and what they value out of you. I
love that.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I love that, and I'm going to turn the question
on you. So now, at this next chapter of your career,
what do you want more of them? Less of.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Two sides of the same coin. Right, I do want
more alignment. Again, I know people are talking about it,
but it is true. I want I want more personal
freedom to do the things that I'm good at that
I enjoy. That's really the idea of being able to
build this concept that I have into a company that
(24:22):
has people. You know, I'm working with a staff of
freelancers right now, like I've got an army of freelancers
that are incredible that I pull in for different projects.
But to build it out and really have it running
day to day as its own company would be the
most exciting thing. So I would love I would love
more assignments that are the kinds that really feed into
this idea that I have, so I can have more
(24:43):
proof of concept. And I just want I just want
more real life. I am working really hard. My youngest,
as I said, my youngest just went to college, and
so I've got this extra time of my hands that
is such a gift. And people, I think people more
empty nesting, like that this chapter of their lives with
their children in their house is gone. I say it's
(25:03):
the best time to go reclaim yourself, to go do
more of the things that make you happy and to
know that you did a good job. That you got
a kid out the door is a wonderful feeling.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yes, a senior in college and a senior in high school.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So I know that you are there. You are right there.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I am there. I am there. Another question I'm kind
of curious about is what's a part of your career
that you rarely talk about, but you know is a
key part of your experience.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
That is such a good question. I talk about everything, Genie.
I'm an open book. I'm a talker. As you might
have guessed, you know, maybe the thing I don't talk
about it, but it had a huge impact on me.
When I was at one of my jobs, I worked
at a place called Deutsch Advertising run by a guy
named Donnie Deutsch who he's on MSNBC. He's a real talker.
(25:57):
I learned so much from him. He was a wonderful boss.
And we were opening a Deutsch office in LA. It
was headquartered in New York. We were opening in LA
and it was growing very quickly. We were running business
development was I was the SVP of business development. We
were running it out of New York and helping them
get the office built, and all of a sudden we
had a president of the agency and a creative chief
(26:18):
creative officer of the agency and a head of Media Digital.
But they were all people coming in from the LA
market who had never worked in our office, and so
I was asked to go to LA to help transplant
the culture and teach them how we do things, like
here's how this is what deuts, this is how Deutsche operates,
this is how we go after BISDEV and I did that.
I left everything behind, like I didn't have a friend
(26:40):
out there. I didn't have I didn't have anybody to
rely on, and not even like my team. My team
was back in New York, and I quickly was thrown
into not just transferring culture, but all of the little
like loose ends because we were growing so quickly. We
were in temporary space and we had to build it out.
We had to go search for permanent space. I was
(27:00):
like I was doing construction oversight, I was doing real
estate searches and at the same time training people, hiring people,
going to new business pitches and really sort of teaching.
And it did change me because it was really was.
It was flying without any of the security that I
normally have, and it was doing it very much alone.
Three hours doesn't seem like a lot, but it really is.
(27:23):
When you're working, you know, starting at eight in the
morning and you're going till eight at night. That meant
with my day was done, it was eleven pm. I
lost touch with friends and family for I was there
for about eight months, I think, but it was so
exhilarating and it succeeded. That office is now bigger than
the New York office. It overcame and took over as
the lead office. And so you know, I had some
(27:45):
small hand and that many many years ago. What's happened
since then was not mine to own, but being part
of that and doing something that was so out of
my comfort zone. And I was in my twenties. I mean,
I was a kid doing that. But it was really exciting.
And I don't talk about it a lot, but it
did have big impact on me, and I do recall
how it felt to be out there and like, Okay,
wake up in the morning, we're going to figure it today.
(28:06):
We're going to figure this this thing out. And it's
not in my area of comfort or experience, but we'll
figure it out. I'll ask the questions and we'll figure
it out.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
It's like self starter, self management, all of your critical
thinking skills, how you manage the ambiguity, how to live
in an abstract world. It reminds me similar in my
early twenties. I went and lived and worked in London
for almost two years, and it was the wild wild West.
It was held together with bubble gum and Scotch tape
(28:36):
and it was wild. And so many times I'm like,
what is happening? And you would just go back to
what do I know? What can I control? I'm going
to be okay? And something about being in your in
your twenties too, there's a there's a there's a freedom
and a fierceness.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
I was just going to say that you're not tied
to anything. I mean, wouldn't it be great if we
could bring back some of that at some of that
excitement from the twenties into our in my fifties, into
our fifties, you know, into our next chapter. I saw
it when I dropped my daughter off for college. She
had thought she wanted to be on the East Coast
so she could drive home for weekends or get home
(29:15):
for a weekend, and ultimately decided to go to Chicago.
Chicago's not that far away, but it's not driving distance.
And I dropped her the agency she had over herself
as she was moving through this new city and I
was watching her, I was like, I remember what that
feels like, and like I want to bottle some of
that and take it with me. Like it was fearless.
It was like she was just going in like this
(29:37):
is where I this is my decision. I'm standing by it.
I'm going to figure it out. And I was like,
we all need a little bit more that, we need
a little bit of that younger bit of ourselves without all,
I think we get held back by the things we
know to be scary, and we can let go of
some of those fears and just trust, as you said,
the things we know, the you know, the skills we
can depend on. It is okay to still take risks and.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
To remind yourself you have the coping skills to handle
when things don't go well. There's so many examples that
we forget to point to in our lives where we
have taken risks didn't work out, we survived it, we
learned something from it, and we took it to the
next step forward. And I think that's something out I
mean It's definitely something that I have to work on
(30:20):
on a personal journey. When I'm in that state of
fear or constriction.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Hey, I've got this.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
I've been through harder things. It's okay. Where we're going
to be okay. My last question for you is more
of a personal question. It's just more fueling for the future.
What's the practice that keeps you both bold but willing
to reinvent and willing to play with the edges.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I mean, I think I really had to learn to
trust myself, and I do. I take time every day.
I start each morning with a very long walk. I
walk up to Central Park. I don't live close to
Central Park. It winds up being like a six mile walk.
I walk up to Central Park and I really try
to take in nature and I don't think about work
during that time. I just let my brain do what
it does. I just let it float where it floats.
(31:12):
Sometimes it does go to work, but often it's just
thinking about life in general. And when I do that,
I start my day in a really grounded place so
that I can show up and not be terrified of
what might happen. I also I write a little post
it note to myself every day with whatever's in my head,
like a little like it's like an affirmation, I guess.
(31:32):
But the one that I wrote one day that I like,
I was like, this is really what it's all about
is I will always have myself to depend on and
I know that I'm dependable. I show up for people.
And if you can think about that, think about the
fact that you will always be able to depend on yourself,
that you will always be there for yourself. I think
that's a really big part of what makes it okay
to make these big, these big changes, these big decisions,
(31:56):
this bold thinking is that you have yourself, You've got
your back, and you don't have to worry about whether
or not you're going to shop for yourself. You know that
you will.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
What a great way to end the conversation. Thank you
so much, Elizabeth, thank your time, your story, your heart,
just your whole energy and ways of being grateful that
you're doing this work in the world and really helping others.
Just use branding as a skill for life, not just
your career. So thank you again.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Thank you so nice to be here with you.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Thank you for joining me for another episode of the
Warriors at Work Show. If you are interested in learning
more about what we do at the Warriors at Work
show and platform. Be sure to go over to my website,
Jeanie Koomber and subscribe to my monthly Warrior Playbook newsletter.
I share everything that I'm up to month by month,
(32:51):
as well as some lessons and insights that I've learned.
I'm also interested in hearing any feedback you have about
this conversation or future topics, so reach out to me
directly on JC at Geniecomber dot com or on LinkedIn.
Be sure to tell your friends and your colleagues about
this Warriors at Work conversation. Subscribe, review and rate us.
(33:14):
It's the best way to get this message out into
the world.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Be well,
First sign. I tell people, if you have Sunday scaries,
you're done, and I don't care if it's your own
business that you're running. If you have Sunday scaries and
you were waking up with a pit in your stomach,
you are misaligned. And that word's getting used a lot,
the alignment word, but I think it's because it's so accurate.
If you don't wake up excited for what the day
holds for you or the opportunities, and you listen, we
(00:22):
all have a small period a day, a week where
things don't feel great, but I'm talking about consistently. If
you are not feeling excited, that is a very clear
sign that it is time to re examine what you're doing.
So I would ask the question if you feel like
maybe you're in that spot. I tell people, ask yourself
the question, how could my day be happier today? And
(00:43):
if you can start to find answers to that, whatever
they may be, I would be outside more, I'd be
working remotely, I would have a better boss or a
bigger team. That's the time to start to see can
I change those things or is it time for me
to make the change.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Welcome to the Warriors. At Work show.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
This is Genie Coomber, your guide and host. This is
a show for men and women in the workplace who
want to move from the predictable to the potent. This
is your weekly dose of inspiration with an edge. I
talk with CEOs and Shaman's, sports, marketing, executives and therapists.
(01:20):
All of us are like minded thinkers and doers who
tell stories, share wisdom, and challenge each other to have
the best life possible inside and outside the office.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Welcome to your Warrior Conversation. Hey everybody, it's Genie. Thank
you so much for joining me here at Warriors at
Work Today. I am bringing to you a conversation with
Elizabeth Demasso, a strategic advisor, brand guru, and the host
of More Everything podcast. Her purpose is helping brands and
(01:54):
individuals get clear, get heard, and move forward. She has
experience across multiple sectors retails, professional services, technology, luxury, just.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
To name a few.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Her work has been recognized by Adweek, Advertising Age, Forbes,
and Fast Company. She's an active member of Chief, which
is where she and I met, which is the private
network for female executives, and I was delighted to bring
her into this conversation to get her to share a
little bit with us about her work about helping people
(02:28):
really get heard and position themselves for whatever it is
they're trying to advance. So enjoy this really enlightening conversation.
Elizabeth de Massel, thank you so much for joining me
here at Warriors at Work. I'm really excited to get
into this conversation me.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Too, Thank you for having me. And I love that
you call it Warriors at Work because I often refer
to the teams that I work with as warriors, like
we're out there doing it every day. So I'm so
excited to be here with you. I love the podcast
and I'm happy to be a guest. Well.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
You you really embody a lot of the attributes that
I talk about. You know, when people think of warrior,
they think of like it's battle and it's war.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
It's no.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I think of it in terms of optimism and courage
and strength and fortitude and generosity of spirit. And how
you and I connected was our mutual connection to Chief
and both of us participated in a networking event and
I just loved your energy. I loved your background and
your story. So it's really really happy to bring you
onto this platform. To share a little bit more about you,
(03:28):
and where I thought we could start is I'm all
about like the journey. I love to hear people's story
and your work in the world is your purpose is
helping brands and individuals get clear, get heard, and move forward.
So I'd love for you to tell us your journey
and why this work.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, it happened organically for me. I grew up in
the world of advertising and a big part of my
job always the primary focus of my job was to
help brands get clarity about who they are competitively out
in the marketplace looking at you know, why do customers
raise their hand and choose a particular brand? Why don't
they and how do we make sure that people understand
(04:08):
what the brand stands for? I think back. I don't
know if you'll remember. There used to be the Pepsi
challenge when we were kids, at least when I was
a kid, and it was a blind taste test, and
Pepsi won over and over again in the taste test.
But ultimately Coke won the brand war, and it's because
I think it had such a foundation and it was
unwavering in terms of who it was and how it
showed up and to this day in the world of cola,
(04:30):
coke still dominates, and so the idea of being able
to bring branding to any kind of a product is
really exciting. And along the way, while I was doing that,
I was also mentoring people, and what I realized is
that we are all branded, we are all personal brands,
and the way that we show up is authentic to
who we are. It should be anyway. I think a
lot of times people try to wedge themselves into jobs
(04:51):
that don't feel natural, and you wind up not feeling
great about yourself. And so if I can help eliminate that,
that's what I want to be able to do. And
so I recently left my job i'd been at for
eleven years, running a small advertising, independent advertising agency, and
the idea of taking all of those skill sets and
working two sides with brands and clients who want to
(05:14):
understand where their place is in the world, and then
to work with individuals who were like I need to
show up for myself in a better way and understand
that kind of brought me here. And the reality is
I've never felt more excited about the work that I'm doing.
The ability to sort of take the things that I
loved most out of my job and put them out
in the world in a different way is super exciting.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I love so much about what you said, so I
can't wait to unpack some of these things. Because the
other thing that you talk a lot about in your
work in the world is you can take ideas from
inception to thriving operations. And I'm curious how having that
same mindset has helped you to navigate your own career changes.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Always easier to do it for others then for yourself, right.
I think I was brought up to understand that the
job at hand was to figure out a way to
monetize ideas and to grow ideas, and so I had
business practice in doing that when it came to my
personal self and looking again, I was leaving this job
that i'd been at where I just knew what to do.
(06:20):
I woke up every morning I knew exactly what I
needed to do, and now suddenly it's like, Okay, what
does tomorrow look like? In the day after, in the
month after. I put that same discipline to work, and
that means going through a process, a disciplined process for me,
where you sit down every single day and there's a
series of written exercises to really focus where you want
to be. And what happens is if you ask yourself
(06:41):
the same question every day for thirty days, the journey
from day one to day thirty is it's a complete
and total journey, and you actually land. You get deeper
and deeper because you don't want to just write the
same six words every day. And what happens is you
really start to get to the core of it. And
so I did. I applied that same discipline that I
would do with clients as we would create a brief
or really look to do a competitive map, I applied
(07:03):
it to myself and I've been doing it for other
people and that's how I got to where I am
to say, what is it that you really want to do?
And guess what, Being the president of an ad agency
is really exciting and it feels kind of prestigious, but
it is not where the joy was coming for me.
That title meant less than the work that I was doing,
that I was enjoying, and I was able to get
to the core of that using the discipline that I'd
(07:25):
used for the brands that I worked on.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
And so was that the question what is it you
really want to do.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah. I was talking with someone who wanted to help me.
She's an executive coach, and she was like, let me
help you figure this out. And my first conversation with her,
I said, you know, she said, what do you want
in your next job? And I said, I want a
job that I love and she was like, that's good,
that's where we start. And I said, I need a week.
I don't know. I don't know what that means yet,
and I walked away and by the time I got
back to her, I said, I don't want a job
(07:52):
that I love. I want a life that I love,
and I want a job that fits into a life
that I love. And that was it. That was the
moment where I was like, I know what that looks
like I do, and it might change and shift as
I go, but I think we all deserve to wake
up in the morning and say, like, this is our beautiful, perfect,
wild and precious as Mary Oliver would have said, our wild, one,
(08:12):
wild and precious life. Let's really live it to the max.
And so yeah, that was it. That was the moment
of like shifting from working to live to living, or
living to work to working to live right. I wanted.
I want to I want life to come first and
for work to be a really important and big part
of it, but in a way that really feels right
inside of me.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
And you've taken that philosophy. I mean, you've reinvented yourself
across retail, tech, luxury, finance, and wellness. Yeah, so what
have you learned about transitions as you were reinventing yourself?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
For me, I was brought up that way. I started
in the business development part of advertising, and so we
were constantly pitching new pieces of business, which means that
every time we had an assignment that would come to us,
I had to get really smart and dig deep into
that company, that industry. My job was to be able
to converse with the client as we were moving through
(09:10):
this pitch process, which included creating strategy and creative ideas.
And so one week it was fast food, the next
week it was tires, the next week it was banking
ice cream Like it was something different, and it taught
me to get up to speed very quickly, to really
look for what does the underbelly of this particular you know,
business look like, where are the opportunities? What do I
(09:31):
know from other industries that can be applied over here
and when you're trained to think like that. And it
was fifteen years that I did that kind of work.
I've applied it to every part of my life. So
at the last agency I was with, we had retail
clients like Cohle's and Pandora Jewelry, but we also had KPMG,
which this is this heady B to B you know,
tech and thought leadership and auditing and finance company and
(09:54):
the ability to go back and forth between all of those.
There were lessons to be learned for each of them
from the other clients, even though their industries were wildly different.
And so yeah, I have definitely applied that business development
background to all these different industries in terms of what
is it that I need to know and what do
I already know that could be helpful that they've not
been exposed to yet.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Such a great example of how a mindset can frame everything.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, I think that's a good point, and we need
it's a growth mind It's a growth mindset, right, It
is a what don't I know yet? And what can
I pull from that I already know?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I feel like that's such an important thing to remember,
because the economic and workplace environment is so wild and
so unpredictable, and I think we cling to what we
think we see in front of us, rather than what's
around the corner, what's underneath the rock, what do I
know to be true? What do I know not to
(10:53):
be true? We freeze and look only what's in front
of us, rather than having that braw a perspective. So
I love how you said that because you could apply
it to all these different industries and ways of being.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Well, and especially I think that's so you Actually you
hit the nail on the head. It's so true. But
also when you were dealing with client services, clients don't
like to be challenged. Not all clients, but many clients
don't like to be challenged in the way that they're
thinking or the approach they're taking. But it would be
irresponsible for me to not challenge some of their thinking.
(11:28):
So the trick always is what do we think they
need to know that they don't already know, and how
do we get them comfortable, how do we get them
to take a risk. I think it's really difficult to
be a CMO, right. A chief marketing officer basically signs
up for a job and there is like a ticking
time bomb over their head from day one. They have
a limited amount of time to turn things around and
make changes, and they are only one part of the
(11:49):
equation of what makes a successful brand. So for asking
a CMO to take a chance with you and pivot
in terms of the strategy your approach they're taking is
a big ask and I think you really have to
have very trusting relationship with between the two sides, and
I try to do that. I try to make sure
that I'm really listening to what's scaring them and what's
keeping them up at night and what the challenge is internally,
(12:10):
like who are they going to have to push this,
you know, this new thinking through in order to get
buy in and be able to do it. And so
it is, it is a it is it's a It's
a tricky wicket for sure.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Well, I'm going to pick up on the word scary
having gone through a lot of changes yourself, like what
was your scariest pivot and what did you learn when
you got on the other side of it.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
I think I'm in it right now. I am in
it simply because I did this. I have worked full
time my entire life. There was a short period of
time where I had my kids, where I was consulting,
but I was married at the time, and so there
was the security underneath, you know, the sort of security
net underneath me. And right now I'm single, I've got kids,
(12:54):
I've got one in college that i'm like, you know,
paying for, and I need health insurance and I need
steady income. So deciding to do something completely on my
own and waking up every morning and being like it's
on me, this, this whole idea, this business lives or
dies on me, is the scariest but also the most
rewarding thing. What I hope that I learn on the
(13:14):
other side is that in other times of my life
where I took chances and risks in terms of jobs
that I took or things that I did in those jobs,
they always paid off. So I'm hoping that what I
learned in this is like this is the scariest, that
it has the biggest payoff. So fingers crossed, we're going
to hope that that's that. I feel very optimistic. I write
down every day, You've got this, you know, I just
keep telling myself, you've got this, You've got this. And
(13:34):
there are days where it feels more more assured than others,
but is exciting, and I think life is meant to
be exciting. I love the expression.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
You've got this. One of the things that I often
will add to that is what's here for me? So
it's leaning into the weirdness, the discomfort, the fear. It's
often fear, yeah, sometimes it's even fear of expansion or success,
But I will ask what tier for me? And it
changes the perspective where it's like, because we want to
(14:06):
get out of it, we want to know the certainty,
We want to be able to have that predictable life.
But sometimes just hanging in there, hanging in the discomfort
just a little bit longer, will reveal something to you.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I also love it because I feel like you've just
turned the table in the conversation, like you're not at
the whim of the universe. You like you were saying, like,
what are you showing up for me? Right? I might
adopt that. I think that that's a really good way
to think about it.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Feel right. So one of the things that I think
would be really helpful for people to hear from your
perspective is how do you know when it's time to shift, change, leave.
What Do you feel like it's a calling? Do you
feel like it's a knowing?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
What? What?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
What? What? What's been your experience?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
The first sign I tell people, if you have Sunday scaries,
you're done. And I don't care if it's your own
business that you're running. If you have Sunday scaries and
you were waking up with a pit in your stomach,
you are misaligned. And that word's getting used a lot,
the alignment word, but I think it's because it's so accurate.
If you don't wake up excited for what the day
holds for you or the opportunities, and you listen, we
(15:16):
all have a small period a day a week where
things don't feel great, but I'm talking about consistently. If
you are not feeling excited, that is a very clear
sign that it is time to re examine what you're doing.
Or if you just feel like you're going through the
motions and you're if you're sitting safely, it feels good
for a little bit, but it's not growth, and I
think we're really all meant to grow. So I would
(15:38):
ask the question, if you feel like maybe you're in
that spot, I tell people ask yourself the question, how
could my day be happier today? And if you can
start to find answers to that, whatever they may be,
I would be outside more, I'd be working remotely. I
would have a better you know, a better boss or
a bigger team. That's the time to start to see
can I change those things or is it time for
(16:00):
me to make the change?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I love that Sunday scaries.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
The Sunday scaries are real. They're real, and they're terrible.
It's a terrible way to live. Right Sunday is meant
to be a day of relaxation and reset. My Mondays
are really happy right now, and it's such a it's
such a strange thing because they haven't been in so long.
And I love getting up on Monday and like, all right,
we're tackling the week. I've got my list, I've got
my you know, I've got my checklist and my calendar
(16:25):
and I'm off to the faces.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Oh gosh, that's fabulous. I love that. And you decided
to launch a podcast called More Everything. Yeah, tell us
about that? What gap were you trying to fill here?
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Such a good question I got. I got sort of
not pushed into it. I have my creative partner, my
ex creative partner, my agency was the one who had
the idea, and he was like, you just shoot it
straight and you tell people things without being you know,
luxury about it. You just point things out, and I
think you should share that. There's a lot of people
on podcasts with toxic positivity telling people how to fix
their lives. And I'm like, oh, yeah, there are some
(17:03):
of those, and I feel right like, it's terrible when
people are like, all you have to do is this
and everything will be better. And he was like, you
don't do that. You just point out things that people
can figure it out. And so we played with it
a little bit and I started to think about what
kind of guests, what I want to have, what I
want to talk about. And the idea of more everything
was that rather than taking things out of our lives
(17:24):
or thinking that we have to make changes, how about
we just add in more of the things we love
and eventually the things that are not fitting us will
start to just sort of, you know, go by the wayside.
Excuse me. So yeah, it was it was really that.
And I love talking to people and hearing their stories
and it's interesting Everybody has a story. Everybody has a
(17:44):
moment where they've faced adversity and had to get past
it and have come out better on the other side.
And I love hearing those stories. I just I think
it's really special when people expose that, because then we
realize the world is so divisive right now. We are
like a you know, especially in our country, we're just
everyone's like so tense. But when you hear that there
are other people who are going through what you're doing,
You're like, Okay, I can relax a little. I'm not
(18:06):
the only one. Sometimes we feel very much like the
only one. And the podcast is really meant to shine
light on the fact that we are in this community
of figuring it out and figuring out what next looks like.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Right when you think about all the guests that you've
had on all the subjects you've tackled, like, what have
you learned so much?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I mean so much? People have been so generous with
sharing their stories. I think one of the things I've
learned is that there are so many different ways to
go at the same issue. There are so many different ways,
and if you can find out what works for you
and have good supportive people around you while you do that,
that's the winning formula. I've definitely learned to be braver.
(18:46):
I have learned to be more honest, you know. I've
learned to just be more comfortable in who I am.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
There's something so freeing about this might be one of
the big upsides of getting older is that you start
to speak more authentically, more from the heart less prescription,
more intuitive, more instinctual, rather than Okay, what's the program?
What should I be saying or not saying, like getting
(19:17):
away from the speaking points, but talking more in like
a natural sense. And it's very much what I pick
up from your style and obviously what I've heard on
your podcast. It's real conversations in a way to truly
and authentically move people forward.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Well, thank you for that. The person is high energy
and up here I can get there. If they're quieter
and they're a little more you know, calm, I can
match that as well, and what happens. And I do
think that's an important skill because you want to be
able to communicate and exchange ideas, but you have to
be able to sit at your like I need to
be able to walk into room and know what my
energy is before I'm meeting somebody else, and so I've
(19:56):
worked I think that's one of the things I've been
working really hard on over the last few years is
where am I in terms of who I am? Sort
of that again, that word authentically right, that real sense
of who I am, and it's somewhere in the middle.
I can go very high, I can get very quiet
and in perspective, but ultimately I want people to know
(20:18):
that this is a safe space when they're meeting with me,
that there's a safe space to sit and share, and
that we can be vulnerable and still come out of it, like,
not just unharmed, but like in a celebratory manner.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
If we can really be honest about the exchange of
ideas and thoughts, then then we all win, whether we're
creating a brand or you know, whatever it may be.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, I want to lean into the personal brand piece
for a moment. So for anybody listening watching that's considering
rebranding themselves, changing careers, like, tell us where you think
they should begin, what should they be thinking about?
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah, And I want to be careful because sometimes I
think people hear that and it feels kind of phony,
Like I know a lot of college students as they're
applying to college, there's counselors telling them, like, you have
to brand yourself. And I'm like, God's sakes, they're seventeen,
eighteen years old, Like how about their discovery? They're going
to college to discover who they are? Right? But the
reality is what the reason they're saying that is that
(21:15):
colleges are looking for students to come in with a
particular like this is the kind of learner that I am.
And so if we look at that in the adult world,
if you're looking for yourself, at yourself as a personal brand.
In the simplest terms, what I'm looking for is for
you to be able to say one sentence about who
you are that makes somebody understand what makes you special
(21:36):
and different. Right, So I was the president of an
independent advertising agency. Guess what, there are hundreds of us
out there, and each of us approaches that differently. So
you know, my special sauce in that world would have
been I'm the president of an independent advertising agency who
enjoys mentoring, you know, talent, empowering their team and finding
(21:57):
connections and solving problems. You know what, that's not articulate,
But like I would be able to sort of put
that together. And I want people to be able to
do that, because if you're opening line on your LinkedIn
or your resume is I am a professional CPA with
twenty five years of experience. You're not the only one.
What kind of CPA are you? What kind of talents
(22:19):
do you have? And so if you want to think
about what your personal brand is, I think the first
thing I would tell people, if you're not working with
somebody else, find somebody you trust to work alongside you,
a coworker, a good friend who shoots it straight, and
start to write down all of the things that you
are really good at. And I'm not talking about just
simple job description things, but like the way that you
(22:41):
think or the way that you show up for people.
Write those things down. And then this is the part
that people are as like, oh, cross out the things
that you're good at that you don't ever want to
do again. Like I love that, right. There are so
many things that I'm good at and I hate doing them.
They should not be part of the job description or
they should be very low on the tote, like yeah,
I'll do it because I need to, but it should
(23:02):
not be the primary and you know, if you can
do that, if you can gather those things and cross
them out and then look at what's left, you will
start to really get a sense of how to present
yourself to the world. And you know there's more steps
than just that, but that's the best way to start.
And again, get somebody to work alongside. You get two three.
People get perspective from other people to understand what they see.
(23:24):
Sometimes you don't even know what your value is to people.
Right when when my creative partner said you're going to
start a podcast and I was like, hell no, I
mean I literally was like, no, I'm not. But he
explained why, and he saw parts of me that I
didn't see, which was it was like such a gift
to me, whether I did the podcast or not, to
just know how I was being perceived by the people
around me was really wonderful. So give yourself that gift.
(23:45):
Go ask people to tell you what they think you're
good at and what they value out of you. I
love that.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I love that, and I'm going to turn the question
on you. So now, at this next chapter of your career,
what do you want more of them? Less of.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Two sides of the same coin. Right, I do want
more alignment. Again, I know people are talking about it,
but it is true. I want I want more personal
freedom to do the things that I'm good at that
I enjoy. That's really the idea of being able to
build this concept that I have into a company that
(24:22):
has people. You know, I'm working with a staff of
freelancers right now, like I've got an army of freelancers
that are incredible that I pull in for different projects.
But to build it out and really have it running
day to day as its own company would be the
most exciting thing. So I would love I would love
more assignments that are the kinds that really feed into
this idea that I have, so I can have more
(24:43):
proof of concept. And I just want I just want
more real life. I am working really hard. My youngest,
as I said, my youngest just went to college, and
so I've got this extra time of my hands that
is such a gift. And people, I think people more
empty nesting, like that this chapter of their lives with
their children in their house is gone. I say it's
(25:03):
the best time to go reclaim yourself, to go do
more of the things that make you happy and to
know that you did a good job. That you got
a kid out the door is a wonderful feeling.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yes, a senior in college and a senior in high school.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So I know that you are there. You are right there.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I am there. I am there. Another question I'm kind
of curious about is what's a part of your career
that you rarely talk about, but you know is a
key part of your experience.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
That is such a good question. I talk about everything, Genie.
I'm an open book. I'm a talker. As you might
have guessed, you know, maybe the thing I don't talk
about it, but it had a huge impact on me.
When I was at one of my jobs, I worked
at a place called Deutsch Advertising run by a guy
named Donnie Deutsch who he's on MSNBC. He's a real talker.
(25:57):
I learned so much from him. He was a wonderful boss.
And we were opening a Deutsch office in LA. It
was headquartered in New York. We were opening in LA
and it was growing very quickly. We were running business
development was I was the SVP of business development. We
were running it out of New York and helping them
get the office built, and all of a sudden we
had a president of the agency and a creative chief
(26:18):
creative officer of the agency and a head of Media Digital.
But they were all people coming in from the LA
market who had never worked in our office, and so
I was asked to go to LA to help transplant
the culture and teach them how we do things, like
here's how this is what deuts, this is how Deutsche operates,
this is how we go after BISDEV and I did that.
I left everything behind, like I didn't have a friend
(26:40):
out there. I didn't have I didn't have anybody to
rely on, and not even like my team. My team
was back in New York, and I quickly was thrown
into not just transferring culture, but all of the little
like loose ends because we were growing so quickly. We
were in temporary space and we had to build it out.
We had to go search for permanent space. I was
(27:00):
like I was doing construction oversight, I was doing real
estate searches and at the same time training people, hiring people,
going to new business pitches and really sort of teaching.
And it did change me because it was really was.
It was flying without any of the security that I
normally have, and it was doing it very much alone.
Three hours doesn't seem like a lot, but it really is.
(27:23):
When you're working, you know, starting at eight in the
morning and you're going till eight at night. That meant
with my day was done, it was eleven pm. I
lost touch with friends and family for I was there
for about eight months, I think, but it was so
exhilarating and it succeeded. That office is now bigger than
the New York office. It overcame and took over as
the lead office. And so you know, I had some
(27:45):
small hand and that many many years ago. What's happened
since then was not mine to own, but being part
of that and doing something that was so out of
my comfort zone. And I was in my twenties. I mean,
I was a kid doing that. But it was really exciting.
And I don't talk about it a lot, but it
did have big impact on me, and I do recall
how it felt to be out there and like, Okay,
wake up in the morning, we're going to figure it today.
(28:06):
We're going to figure this this thing out. And it's
not in my area of comfort or experience, but we'll
figure it out. I'll ask the questions and we'll figure
it out.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
It's like self starter, self management, all of your critical
thinking skills, how you manage the ambiguity, how to live
in an abstract world. It reminds me similar in my
early twenties. I went and lived and worked in London
for almost two years, and it was the wild wild West.
It was held together with bubble gum and Scotch tape
(28:36):
and it was wild. And so many times I'm like,
what is happening? And you would just go back to
what do I know? What can I control? I'm going
to be okay? And something about being in your in
your twenties too, there's a there's a there's a freedom
and a fierceness.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
I was just going to say that you're not tied
to anything. I mean, wouldn't it be great if we
could bring back some of that at some of that
excitement from the twenties into our in my fifties, into
our fifties, you know, into our next chapter. I saw
it when I dropped my daughter off for college. She
had thought she wanted to be on the East Coast
so she could drive home for weekends or get home
(29:15):
for a weekend, and ultimately decided to go to Chicago.
Chicago's not that far away, but it's not driving distance.
And I dropped her the agency she had over herself
as she was moving through this new city and I
was watching her, I was like, I remember what that
feels like, and like I want to bottle some of
that and take it with me. Like it was fearless.
It was like she was just going in like this
(29:37):
is where I this is my decision. I'm standing by it.
I'm going to figure it out. And I was like,
we all need a little bit more that, we need
a little bit of that younger bit of ourselves without all,
I think we get held back by the things we
know to be scary, and we can let go of
some of those fears and just trust, as you said,
the things we know, the you know, the skills we
can depend on. It is okay to still take risks and.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
To remind yourself you have the coping skills to handle
when things don't go well. There's so many examples that
we forget to point to in our lives where we
have taken risks didn't work out, we survived it, we
learned something from it, and we took it to the
next step forward. And I think that's something out I
mean It's definitely something that I have to work on
(30:20):
on a personal journey. When I'm in that state of
fear or constriction.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Hey, I've got this.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
I've been through harder things. It's okay. Where we're going
to be okay. My last question for you is more
of a personal question. It's just more fueling for the future.
What's the practice that keeps you both bold but willing
to reinvent and willing to play with the edges.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I mean, I think I really had to learn to
trust myself, and I do. I take time every day.
I start each morning with a very long walk. I
walk up to Central Park. I don't live close to
Central Park. It winds up being like a six mile walk.
I walk up to Central Park and I really try
to take in nature and I don't think about work
during that time. I just let my brain do what
it does. I just let it float where it floats.
(31:12):
Sometimes it does go to work, but often it's just
thinking about life in general. And when I do that,
I start my day in a really grounded place so
that I can show up and not be terrified of
what might happen. I also I write a little post
it note to myself every day with whatever's in my head,
like a little like it's like an affirmation, I guess.
(31:32):
But the one that I wrote one day that I like,
I was like, this is really what it's all about
is I will always have myself to depend on and
I know that I'm dependable. I show up for people.
And if you can think about that, think about the
fact that you will always be able to depend on yourself,
that you will always be there for yourself. I think
that's a really big part of what makes it okay
to make these big, these big changes, these big decisions,
(31:56):
this bold thinking is that you have yourself, You've got
your back, and you don't have to worry about whether
or not you're going to shop for yourself. You know that
you will.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
What a great way to end the conversation. Thank you
so much, Elizabeth, thank your time, your story, your heart,
just your whole energy and ways of being grateful that
you're doing this work in the world and really helping others.
Just use branding as a skill for life, not just
your career. So thank you again.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Thank you so nice to be here with you.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Thank you for joining me for another episode of the
Warriors at Work Show. If you are interested in learning
more about what we do at the Warriors at Work
show and platform. Be sure to go over to my website,
Jeanie Koomber and subscribe to my monthly Warrior Playbook newsletter.
I share everything that I'm up to month by month,
(32:51):
as well as some lessons and insights that I've learned.
I'm also interested in hearing any feedback you have about
this conversation or future topics, so reach out to me
directly on JC at Geniecomber dot com or on LinkedIn.
Be sure to tell your friends and your colleagues about
this Warriors at Work conversation. Subscribe, review and rate us.
(33:14):
It's the best way to get this message out into
the world.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Be well,
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