September 1, 2025 • 44 mins
If success is costing you your sanity, this is your sign to reset, without losing momentum.
Host Lisa Urbanski sits down with Beverly Cornell, brand strategist and founder of Wickedly Branded, to unpack her raw journey from corporate grinder to soul-led solopreneur.
Beverly shares how unresolved trauma fueled overwork, how she rebuilt boundaries and nervous-system safety, and the simple marketing shifts that turned burnout into a magnetic, values-driven brand.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to:
🔍 Spot trauma-driven “hustle” patterns and stop the spiral
📈 Replace overwhelm with a 4–6 pillar content rhythm that compounds
📖 Use storytelling to attract right-fit clients (without being everywhere)
✨ Apply Beverly’s Brand Magic Method for clarity, confidence, and simplicity
⚖️ Balance business growth with family, health, and real life, on your own terms
Hit PLAY and start building a simpler, soul-aligned brand today.
🔗 Explore more about Beverly's insightful approach to authentic branding and take Beverly’s 3-minute Clarity Quiz at wickedlybranded.com.
📱 Be sure to connect with Beverly Cornell on her social media platforms for more inspiring content and valuable insights! www.linkedin.com/in/beverlycornell
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/marketing-mastery-attract-convert-grow--6313705/support.
Host Lisa Urbanski sits down with Beverly Cornell, brand strategist and founder of Wickedly Branded, to unpack her raw journey from corporate grinder to soul-led solopreneur.
Beverly shares how unresolved trauma fueled overwork, how she rebuilt boundaries and nervous-system safety, and the simple marketing shifts that turned burnout into a magnetic, values-driven brand.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to:
🔍 Spot trauma-driven “hustle” patterns and stop the spiral
📈 Replace overwhelm with a 4–6 pillar content rhythm that compounds
📖 Use storytelling to attract right-fit clients (without being everywhere)
✨ Apply Beverly’s Brand Magic Method for clarity, confidence, and simplicity
⚖️ Balance business growth with family, health, and real life, on your own terms
Hit PLAY and start building a simpler, soul-aligned brand today.
🔗 Explore more about Beverly's insightful approach to authentic branding and take Beverly’s 3-minute Clarity Quiz at wickedlybranded.com.
📱 Be sure to connect with Beverly Cornell on her social media platforms for more inspiring content and valuable insights! www.linkedin.com/in/beverlycornell
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/marketing-mastery-attract-convert-grow--6313705/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You welcome back to the Advisor.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
If you have not yet done so, please hit that
like and subscribe button. Today we have Beverly Cornell and
you guys know her her marketing mastery.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
She is brilliant, she is all.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
She's the very godmother of brand clarity, wickedly branded. Today
we're going to be talking about something a little bit different.
We're going to be talking about her story, how she
got to where she is today. She serves thousands of
clients all over the world and gives herself to all
of them at her fullest potential. But she had to
(00:38):
get there somewhere, and today she has agreed to be
vulnerable and open up about her story.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And I am jacked. I cannot wait.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So stay tuned because Beverly is back and we're going
to learn about her journey becoming a high performing solopreneur.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's not easy.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Hey, absolutely, Matt Like your introduction is so kind, Lisa,
And it still is a little surreal when people talk
about me that way, because I feel like I've come
so far and had to feel like I had to
prove myself and I had to claim my space and
all these things that had to happen in the evolution
(01:18):
of even from a very young account executive for Chrysler's
an advertising agency, working with all men, by the way,
now my own company, and what that looks like and
spanning almost thirty years. That seems so unreal, but what
that looks like has been It's not a linear road,
(01:40):
it's not an easy road. Just before we started talking
on this podcast recording, we talked about how living this
life as a human can be very complicated, but also
running a business and kind of finding your purpose and
your place can be very complicated as well.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Totally totally man when you said working with a bunch
of men, you know, and I can only assume that
you had that deep bringing fire in your heart and
you weren't being seen because I can relate to that
as like working in the corporate world and like knowing
I was not necessarily above but had my own mind
and knew I was here for a bigger purpose. But
(02:21):
them in the situations knocking me down and then having
me doubt myself, and twenty year old me is like, no,
like I don't feel good, this doesn't feel right, but
forcing myself into it because society was telling me that
this is how to be successful. This is what success means.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Can you relate to that?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, I remember going home and telling my dad, I'm
working with a bunch of my dads's that and that
and that. Because I was this twenty three year old,
bright eyed young person having to kind of get their
approval for everything. It was really challenging. And I knew
I was meant for more. But what more was? Like
(03:02):
you said that burning kind of inside of you wasn't
really elusive. I didn't know what more was at the time.
I just knew that it wasn't. It wasn't that. I
learned a ton. And don't get me wrong, these guys
were great, Like I have no hate for men. I
loved working with them. I learned a ton, But it
also was a very challenging and different experience as a
(03:24):
young person with a bunch of established, seasoned men in
the space. It and be sad without trying to. They
often stomped on the young people on their ideas and
talked over them. There's a lot of things that happened
when you're a young person and also a woman in
(03:45):
the workplace. At that time it was the early nineties,
Like we haven't come super far. You know that by
that time, like my mom said, when she graduate from
high school in nineteen seventy, she could be a nurse,
a librarian, or a teacher. And and twenty years later,
here I am now a marketing executive working in the
marketing world. So we hadn't come super far, and we
(04:08):
were still kind of defining what that look like as
being a woman, as being an executive, and where we
fit in and all that, not as a secretary or
not as the wife or whatever that looked like for
people at the time. So I feel like I was
kind of at a place in history where I entered
the workplace that things were really starting to shift and change,
(04:30):
and we had to kind of figure it out, and
there weren't a lot of mentors or older women to
help us.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
To God, yeah, so what happened? I'm dying to know.
How did you get out of that?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well? Again, I learned so much so I would not
trade it for the world. I made some great, incredible friends.
I had a couple of wonderful male mentors who were
extremely giving with their advice and knowledge. It was a
very It was the perfect job for a young person
out of school at the time. I got to travel
(05:05):
the world. I mean I went all over the country.
I got to meet all kinds of people, from farmers
to motorcycle drivers too. I got to have this whole
expansive experience because I was in charge of the Dodge
truck line. So I would go and present the Dodge
truck at events and give away vehicles. Everybody wanted me
(05:26):
to come because I was given away a vehicle. So
it was a really fun. It was a really fun
job for a young person to be able to be
part of. And there's a lot of young people who
worked with me and we just we really bonded. And
some of those very friends that sat next to me
in the cube next to me are still my very
good friends. So we have all evolved and grown and
some of us have our own businesses now, and it's
(05:46):
been really fun to see that network of people that
I started off with and how we've all kind of
claimed our space in this space. But you know, I
started in Chrysler. I ended up leaving Chrysler actually went
after an now at nine to eleven. The currentustry kind
of took a tank because nobody was buying cars because
(06:07):
everyone was really scared, you know, after nine to eleven,
and so I went back and got my master's degree
in communications focusing on diversity and culture, and started I
got sortified as an l instructor, English the second language instructor.
I've lived in Spain, I've lived in Brazil's exchange students.
I've had exchange students in my home, and I really
wanted to do something more with this international side of things.
(06:31):
And so I worked for a language school for a while,
and then I became their marketing director. And then I
worked for a translation agency for a while and did
business translations really like for heavy machinery actually, like for
Caterpillar and some of those like. I was a marketing
director for that company. And then I worked for a
(06:51):
tech startup that was a language learning software company and
built it from a million to ten million with an
amazing group of people. There was about ten to twelve
of us that just dug in and built this amazing business.
I knew how hard it was to be an entrepreneur
because I had helped build a business before I started
my own business. But as life has it, you know,
once you get to a certain part in your VP
(07:13):
of marketing. We would talk about this before my title
there was the director of Awesome, and so I really
loved what I was doing. Super fun cultures, building these cultures,
creating magic, and these cultures that particular business we did
I built. We built a culture that was extremely magical,
and I learned that that's important internally as well as
(07:37):
externally from a marketing perspective. And I loved my job incredibly.
And when I met my now husband, and he is
an active duty Army soldier, he was stationed at Fort Bragg,
North Carolina, and I was in Detroit, Michigan. You can't
stay married. I mean, you guess you can. But I
couldn't stay in Detroit and I had to go to
(07:59):
North Carolina with him. And remote working wasn't really a thing,
so I started freelancing for myself. I had an old
friend from high school who had her own business and
I was a customer of hers, and she was like,
can you do some work with me? And that's really
how it started, and I did. I started working you know,
(08:20):
through it wasn't it was through Zoom and other things
at the time, for sure, but started working remotely before
it was even cool and had to kind of figure
it all out because I never intended to be an entrepreneur, Lisa.
I never intended. I knew how much work it was,
and so I was not in this false sense of like, oh,
(08:43):
I can start a business, it'll be easy, and do
those things. I actually probably over analyazacause I knew how
hard it was to build a business. And when I
started my business, I got married, but I didn't have
a plan because I hadn't been dreaming of starting my business,
so I just kind of waned it. And by winging
it is very dangerous because I was very good at
(09:05):
what I did and what I do, and my business
started to grow, but my clients started to define my business.
So someone would come to me, I need this, okay,
someone would come to me, I need this okay. And
those weren't necessarily the things that I was meant to do.
It was just what I was doing to say yes
to grow, and by all measures bottom line numbers, number
(09:30):
of clients, referrals, I was growing. I was doing really
really well, Lisa, but I was not happy and I
was completely burnt out. And I feel like this notion
of hustle culture of what success looks like for women
is extremely dangerous.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I can just feel your heart when you say that
you were outsourcing every single part of you, every single
part of you. That can be challenging because we're not
meant to wake up and hustle all day long.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
We're meant to be and be with ourselves and our family.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And yeah, there's a lot of pressure on women, especially
to be something they're not to be seen as almighty,
I guess you could say.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
For women right.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
For me, being the solopreneur has meant juggling multiple identities
at the same time, accidental entrepreneur, army wife, step mom, mom,
and of course just trying to figure out how to
have it all work together while living my midlife. It
was my late thirties and here I'm trying to figure
out what that looks like. And I think that's a
very definitive time in our lives too, of like evolution
(10:47):
of who we are as ourselves, not as what society
has told us to be. And what I learned one
of the way is that leading with soul instead of
hustle is the only way that I I can show
up in a meaningful way for both myself and my
family and my business. Like it's the only way that
I could do that. So when when I went from
(11:09):
freelancing to like an agency, we know we are a
boutique branding digital marketing agency. We have had some evolution
there as well, and we went from freelancing to agency
and then we actually rebranded as Wickedly Branded this year,
and we operate on three core values that I think
are really important for the soul for our business and
(11:32):
it's really shaped my life and my journey and the
work that we do. For sure. They are honor, dynamic,
infusion and this. These aren't like typical words you hear
in the corporate speak of core values, not integrity and
likes service, and like, I did not want the typical ones,
(11:52):
and I really pushed my team at the time to
discuss deeply what made us different. And they reflected on
a lot of things, and they really started to think
about the essentials of when I gave feedback to them,
what were the things that I always highlighted, What were
the things that always mattered to me? What were the
things that I like not harped on or nagged about,
(12:14):
but the things that I knew were so important to
the essence and soul of our business. And these really,
I mean these words have become the foundation of everything
and helped me stay strong and true to who we
are and make yes and no decisions based on these words.
So I kind of want to dive into them. Is
that okay? At least I can we dive in Easoner
(12:36):
is the belief that we honor ourselves, our team, our clients,
and the work that we do. We do what's right,
and we hold ourselves accountable, and we maintain high integrity
to every project and every relationship that we have. But
this does not mean me are perfect. We care and
(12:56):
we do our best. Always is the what honor means,
and that's the only way you can be as a human.
I feel like and at the end of the day,
no matter what happens in the world, if we have honor,
I'll be able to sleep at night and know we
did the right thing. Period. Dynamic is the belief that
one thing I know for sure, Lisa, this is it.
(13:18):
This is the one thing, this is the Oh.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
My god, I'm ready, I'm holding on.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I don't know everything. I don't know everything, and we're
always learning, whether that's from our mistakes, from our clients,
or from trends in the market. Marketing has changed so
much since the early nineteen nineties, and it is up
to us to stay curious always. And then fusion, I
(13:43):
almost call this gumbo. Fusion became the thing. It is
the belief that our marketing passion and expertise, coupled with
the client's knowledge and their vision, create an action, create momentum,
create results, and we get to witness their businesses grow.
(14:06):
It's an incredible honor for us to join forces, literally
join forces infusion. You have two forces that come together
and create this action right, and we get to walk
beside them as they overcome challenges such strong action happening there.
They get to grow beyond what they thought was even possible,
(14:27):
and they get to achieve something that they've always wanted.
They get to achieve a dream and that is magical.
That is future for us. So for me, these three
core values are the foundation of how I built my
framework for our business that really is all dedicated to
helping higher performing entrepreneurs, especially women who want to grow
(14:49):
and scale more authentically, more themselves and step out of
this We've talked about this in previous episodes Tornado of overwhelm.
That really can happen when you own a business, but
more into this like soulful alignment of what their purpose
is and the legacy they're supposed to leave on this planet.
So kind of big, lofty goals, I guess Lisa.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Those are you know what, I'm curious to know how
the shift happened.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
So I'm I'm imagining you.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, you're exhausted your energy source, your batteries like blinking
red and blinking fast, like plug me in, plug me in,
plug me in? How did you plug in?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
So what's ironic about my journey is in twenty twelve,
when I started my business, I wanted a job that
created freedom, right, I needed to move wherever. I wanted
to create something that worked for my family, especially you know,
being an army wife and having moved every two to
three years, it was essential. I could not find a
(15:55):
VP of marketing job every two to three years. You
have to network and know people and all those things
like that wasn't happen. And I really wanted to use
my education and my passion, but I needed this job
that I could do from anywhere, and at the time
I remember, it wasn't really a thing, so so it
was I had like no real role models of what
to do or how to show up in this space.
(16:16):
And I really wanted to teach my kids that anything
was possible if you really worked hard, right Like, I
really wanted to show them that this is something that
you could do for yourself and create for yourself. But
as I really do, you know, really got into the
nitty gritty of bringing a business, you know, the accounting,
the legal and the taxes and the HR stuff and
all the things that you have to do as an
(16:38):
entrepreneur to spend the plates and do all the things,
I realized that freedom was coming at a very high price.
Freedom wasn't really freedom. I became a workaholic. I thought
that being successful meant working more hours and juggling more
clients and doing all the things. This is such a
woman thing, all the things for everyone, because that's what
(16:59):
I performed looks like and what I have found.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Through Laticise society defined said.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yes to everything, and forty hour work weeks, which was
what my norm before, became eighty hour work weeks. I
simplely got lost in it all. I wasn't taking care
of myself, I wasn't enjoying the work I was doing.
I was completely and utterly burnt out. I love the
battery analogy, Lisa. I was overwhelmed, and I was so frustrated,
(17:28):
and I certainly wasn't fun to be around.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
So you were functioning like this with your kids growing
up and your husband, and what was that like? What
paint us the picture of what that looked like.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
So our life in the last thirteen fourteen years being
married has been very complicated. We've lived through deployments and trainings.
We've had infertility. I am a stepmother, which is a
complicated life experience in general. I am also a foster
mom who has adopted a child. Through this. I've had
(18:07):
my biological father come back into my life. I've had
my stepfather who adopted me, have cancer. I've experienced some
health challenges. I had a major hip injury for about
three and a half four years, had a year recovery
for that. It's it's messy, That's what it looks like.
That's and I don't think I'm alone, Lisa, Like I
(18:28):
don't think you can replace all those things with other
things for other people. But my particular journey was filled
with all of those things. And I remember I remember
when Zeke, we got Zeke he was here, one of
our foster children. They called us to day he was born,
and on that day they said, we have this little boy,
and we wanted to adopt a child so so very badly.
(18:51):
We'd had a failed adoption, which was heartbreaking. And I'm alone,
I'm home alone, and my husband is in the field,
unreachable by self, because this is what happens when you're
an army wife. You just can't ever get a hold
of your husband's And so I told the agency, yes,
we would take this child. But my husband has no
idea that we are getting this child right and we're
(19:13):
picking him. We're picking him up tomorrow. And I don't
have baby gear because I was not pregnant for nine
months to be able to establish this particular experience right.
And so I put out a call to my neighborhood.
Does anybody have anything. I'm going to go buy a
stroller and similar things today if you have something, That'd
(19:35):
be really grateful, literally cribs and diapers and clothes short
of my front door. Before my husband even knew we
were happy in a baby. And so this is the
kind of life that I was leaving. Was we wanted
a baby, wanted to build our family. So he's a
(19:55):
way at training. He does finally figure it out. He
does go to the hospital with me and picks up
the baby with me, and he is very happy that
we got our child. It wasn't a bad situation. We'd
already had this kind of agreement.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
But the thing I was thinking, and I'm like, how
did that turn out?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
The speed with which this happened was a little bit
different than we had anticipated, And so he was two
days old.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Beautiful story though, picked.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Him up from the hospital, and I, as an entrepreneur,
to do not have family leave that's paid and my
husband immediately goes to California for two months for training.
And remember we're Army family, so we've moved away from
all of our support system. I don't have my parents,
I don't have my best friends. I have no cousins
or aunts and uncles to help support this child. So
(20:39):
there were many a call where I had the baby
on my shoulder, burpened the baby as I'm doing a
high level meeting about marketing. And those first clients that
I had were extremely gracious people, obviously, but there's still
my clients thirteen years later, there's still my clients the
experience me not working nine to five but setting emails
(21:04):
at when I am because he was awake and I
was feeding him. They knew I was just trying to
live my life around what my life had become and
trying to figure it out. I was. It was a
little interesting because my child did not like to sleep.
I did not get a lot of sleep for a while,
but we figured it out and I ended up hiring
(21:25):
a mommy's helper to help during meetings, and most of
the time I was able to do meetings without him
on my shoulder. But if he was screaming, crying, the
only person can help his mom and you and I
know this, that this is like a thing that the
kids just know they need their mother. So for the
most part I was able to figure it out and
navigate it and all of that. When he was seven
months old is when I had my hip surgery, so
(21:47):
we literally learned how to walk together. So I remember
taking him and putting him up the stairs one at
a time as I crawled up the stairs. I was
crawling with my child because I could not walk. Very
humbling experiences in that, and so life is full of
of blessings and challenges, but I've always really figured it
(22:11):
out because I believe I meant for more. I believe
that this is something that I'm what I'm doing is
important work that that life is hard, but also this
work that I do is extremely integrative to who I am.
Something I'm actually working on now Lisa, with my therapist,
(22:34):
is what does my life look like without my work
because at some point I'm gonna have to retire. Well,
I don't know what that.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, that's challenging for a lot of people, especially when
they hold their own business.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
And yeah, yeah, I just want to say this.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I want to say that thank you so much for
telling everybody what you just did, because there is this
disillusion that is out there every time you open the
damn social media that shows that these people who are
high performing in this industry have it all figured out
(23:10):
and live these perfect lives and it's not messy. And
you just completely squashed that and gave everybody the truth
of what it's like to have a business in your world.
And so thank you for that because I'm just so
sick of it.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah, it's time to like just be real, like stap
all the perfection. I'm a recovering perfectionists as well, which
also kind of comes from some trauma. But you when
you look at in society also puts a lot on us.
But when you look at people's real stories, when you
look at the humanity of I'm just trying to build
(23:50):
something here. I'm just trying to make a family, trying
to live my life. I'm trying to support my husband
who's serving our country. I'm trying. You know, there's many
a time where I was upset at the Army and
for taking him away when I needed it most, like
when I had a six week old baby. But totally
we sacrifice a lot for that. And you know, I
(24:10):
come from a service family. My mother was a nurse,
my dad was a teacher. Like this is not new,
this level of service and probably one of the main
reasons I really respect my husband is his heart of service.
That informs how we do our business too. We have
a serving heart, and that is important to say too.
(24:31):
We we can do more things than we think we can.
Like I joke that I was an only child and
up until I got married, I thought I had control
of my life, thought I had control of my life.
And then I got married and the Army and the
universe and God and everybody else had other plans for
me because a baby couldn't have a baby again in fertility.
(24:52):
I wanted this. I want like it never was exactly
what I thought my life was going to look like,
but I would go through all of it again to
get my son. Like all the infertility and the failed
adoption and all the things it was meant to be,
and everything prepared me for the role that I have now.
But all these transitions, all these relationships that we've created,
all the resilience that I've done, has helped me really become,
(25:15):
I think, a leader that I needed to be, calm,
Like I wouldn't be who I am without all those
experiences and the empathy and understanding of humanness of people
and our clients to meet them where they are, like
never to judge, because I have been in the in
the thick of it, desperate and so I have deep
(25:37):
compassion for the human experience in this, and so I
know that this is this is why it's my purpose,
Like I've been preparing for this my whole life. So
it's incredibly important work. And it's not just marketing. My
husband's always said, you're not just a Marketer, and I
never had words for that, but now I know it's
about finding their magic and awakening in it and act
(26:00):
activating it and amplifying it and automating it so that
they can work in the place they're supposed to do
as well. So it's deeply different than just a marketing agency.
For sure.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I'm curious. I'd love for you to get a little
bit more into the work that you're doing. But how
did old Beverly, the one that was outsourcing all over
energy evolve and how did that? How does that affect
your relationship with your clients now, Like how can you
show up for them now? And how has that changed
(26:36):
the way you work with them?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
So there were two two key things that happened to
me that forced me to kind of shift my thinking.
I was I remember one night, and we've kind of
talked about this on previous episodes. It was like late,
like at midnight, and my husband's sleeping, my son is sleeping,
and I'm staring at the computer and like my eyes
are but my eyelids are almost as they can't even
(27:02):
close because it's like the cartoon where the toothpicks are
holding it open because I have to get that one
more thing done before I go to sleep, because if
I don't, I don't want to start my day, Like
I feel like I'm drowning already. Like I was trying
to like get myself situated the next day wouldn't be
as crazy. That was always the hope, always the hope.
I was just I was just trying to do all
(27:24):
the things right. And I remember being very lonely in
that moment. My here, my family is like living their
life and going to sleep and doing thing they're supposed to.
And I remember at that inflection point, at that point
in my business, I almost closed the business. I didn't
think that I had what it took to make it
at this pace like that, I and I actually had
a lot of moments of like I'm a failure, Like
(27:46):
despite all the signs of growing and thriving business, maybe
I just wasn't made to be an entrepreneur, Like maybe
that's just not what I'm part of, that's who I am.
But around that same time, I think within that week
or two of like having the serious doubt and maybe
closing the doors and like this isn't for me. I
was giving advice to a client and I had this
(28:09):
like out of body experience where I was looking down
on the conversation and watching it happen, asking myself, why
am I not taking the advice that I teach my clients.
Why would I not give myself the same magic, these
gifts of clarity and consistency and simplicity. And this was
(28:29):
really the moment that that changed everything. And I was
working on everyone else's magic and not on my own,
and I wasn't aligning my values with my work and
my purpose. And then the next big kicker, which was
like the two x four on all of it, was
I lost a couple of key clients, clients who I
had been dragging across the finish line. So I probably
(28:52):
should never have even taken out as clients because my
systems were not built for them and I didn't have
the expertise, and I had to figure it out all out.
Not that I couldn't figure it out, but it just
wasn't the men I did every day and was like
very comfortable for me. And all of a sudden, I
had time on my calendar, time to breathe, time to
mourn this phase of my business, but also time to
(29:16):
learn to ask myself the same questions. I asked my
clients to journal to create a vision, which was amazing.
That whole process was amazing because we rememberround next times entrepreneur.
I never had a vision for my business. Then I
created a plan, and all of a sudden, instead of
waking up at three am completely stressed, I was waking
(29:39):
up at three am with ideas and excitement and everything changed.
I really want to take a minute and invite the
listeners for a second and an exercise. I want you
to think about this right now. If you feel like
you're in the same boat like three am, wake up
stressing at twelve o'clock hour work weeks to eighty hour
(30:01):
work weeks, you're feeling extremely burned out, and maybe you're
not so fun to be around too. That's happening. I
want you to take a minute to pause and reflect
on your journey. Maybe a few minutes, maybe an hour.
Give yourself this gift. What are the things that are working,
what are the things that are not working, And what's
one thing that you can simplify today for yourself? Just
(30:22):
one little small step forward and honoring you is such
a gift, and it will also create some more clarity
and magic in your business in the process. So I
really would welcome you to do that. And if you
do that, like you don't leave me a comment or
review on this on this episode, share it with me
because I want to hear how you can give this
(30:43):
gift to yourself, because this was probably the biggest shift.
Instead of saying yes to everyone, it was the first
time I said yes to myself.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
What absolutely amazing. I love that so much. Giving yourself
what you need.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
And now everything just kind of fell into place, is
now what happened? Everything just fell into place once you
gave yourself permission to take care of you and you
weren't living in this crazy world of chaos.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yeah, how did that change?
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
So when we live in this hustle culture, when we
live in women bear the brunt of it. I feel
like I call it the should suitcase. You should be
like that. You should be a great mom, you should
be the boss barbie, and you should be happy doing
it all because that's what we're supposing and balance this
ever elusive thing, this ideal that is impossible when carrying
(31:44):
the should suitcase. It is impossible. The should suitcase is heavy.
The should suitcase weighs you down. The should suitcase slows
you down. I also realize something important. Being a high
performer doesn't mean doing everything. It means focusing on what
I love, doing what truly matters, and doing it really,
(32:08):
really well. And that goes far beyond my business. It
goes into my relationships with my family, my husband, my friends,
my team, my clients, and most importantly, with myself. This
is when I developed the brand Magic method was from
this journey. It's now what I use to help overachieving,
(32:31):
overwhelmed female founders, the ones I call those high achieving unicorns.
I love them so much, get unstuck, clarify their vision
and build a brand that feels much more soul aligned
to who they are. These women, and I'm one, so
I'm right there with them. They're on top of their game.
They're amazing, Lisa, I'm sure you're in the same spot
(32:52):
right super smart, brilliant and hardworking, incredibly hard working people.
But they're overwhelmed by the chaos of being an entrepreneur,
the noise that exists in the should suit case, and
they want to get bigger, but they don't want to
lose themselves completely in the process, and we shouldn't have
to sacrifice ourselves in the process, and I think that
(33:14):
kind of worked for men. I joke about this because
if I had a wife, I probably wouldn't have to
worry so much about this, But because I am the wife,
it's a total different thing. I realized that I could
help them and help other women tap into their own clarity,
(33:34):
and that we have to redefine what it means to
be a over an achieving, a high achieving woman today
without having a wife, really to do all the things
for us, to help us out so that they can
grow and feel deeply aligned. And I want them to
(33:56):
create the exact business that works for them. You and
I talked about this before, or you know. We live
in a time where you can create whatever business you want.
There are no limitations. You don't have to look at
anybody else. Don't get caught in the competition trap of
look at what everybody else is doing. Don't look at
the Instagram and all the perfection, all the do not
do this to yourself. Look at what makes you happy,
(34:18):
look at what you want to do, and create a
business from there. Because that's what I had to do.
I had to throw away the ship suitcase, and I
had to look at what worked for me, my army family,
my higher needs child. I'm adhd, I'm fifty years old,
(34:39):
I'm living through perimenopause, which is a lovely thing if
you have that started it. And what works for me
is what works for me, and what works for other
women works for other women. But I know that it
doesn't have to look like what other people are doing
out there. It can look exactly what it looks like
for me, and I just need to figure that out
for myself. And one of the ways that we do
that in the Brand Magic method is we spend ninety
(35:02):
minutes with our clients. We look at where they've been,
where they are, where they want to go. We look
at the challenges they're facing, and we give them four
to six next best opportunities to get them to where
they want to go. And they actually have a plan
for the first time that's aligned with who they are,
their vision, their core values, the sole essence of who
(35:24):
they are, and it might not be things that you
think of. For example, I worked with that accountant ones
and she would kind of joke with me, you know,
I am not an accountant. I'm a creative soul, and
accounting kills me in my very essence. If you want
to squash my energy, put a book, some books in
front of me, and I'm gonna I'm gonna be like, oh,
I don't work.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
That.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
My first hire was my bookkeeper, and my account my
tax my CPA. And she shere's a client of mine.
And when her tagline is I'm not your father's accountant,
which already gives you all kinds of wonderful thoughts in
your head. But she said to me when she did
the brand Spark experience with me, she said, you found
(36:06):
money on the table for me, and I didn't think
that a marketer would find money. Like that's kind of
like antithesis of what you do, because I see things
differently than they do. When you're in the weeds, when
you have all the things in your head, you can't
see these opportunities. And someone who's kind of above the trees,
(36:27):
who understands what makes a successful business, looking at opportunity
for service levels that could be reoccurring income for example,
or how the service levels can work with each other
and you can get repeat business by putting them through
like a funnel of sorts. These are things that I
do every day, and they don't do that. They just
(36:48):
they might be doing accounting, or they might be a therapist,
or they might be so that's not something that they
think about, you know, in this in this brand Spark experience,
and I call it an experience because it can be
a little emotional, it can be a little challenging, it
can be extremely relieving because everything in your head is
finally down on paper and when you free yourself from
(37:10):
all those things in your head, when you free up
that space, you're able to do more and in the
ways that matter to you. So it's it's very for
the first time, so many of my clients see what's
actually possible, and that is to me so incredibly exciting.
(37:36):
So we call that awakening the magic because now they
see what's possible and they see their magic written out
in a way that they've never seen it before. When
we are solopreneurs, when we work by ourselves, when we
are alone at our desks doing the thing every day,
working with clients doing all that, but we're alone every
day handling the problems that happen, it's very lonely at times,
(37:58):
and no one's there saying, hey, good Lisa, you did
that thing really great today. You have to give it
to yourself often. And when you see your mission and
your vision and your goals written out for the first
time in a very aspirational way, it's somebody of them
say I want to know her.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
But it's them.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yeah, it's them, and that I think reframing how they
even see themselves is very powerful, and you do you
need somebody to help you do that sometimes because you're
so stuck in the weeds with it. So that process,
and that's what I did for myself. I asked myself
all these questions, saw myself differently. It's exact process that
(38:37):
I put my clients through. I put myself through. And
you know, I was joke. I was always joked that
I was the Calber kids with no shoes, and then
I wanted the Louis Vatans because that was the best
for my marketing and for my vision and purpose. But
then when I realized is I didn't want somebody else's shoes,
I went in my own version. My IRID doesn't. I
talked about this before. My IRA doesn't. Sparkly ballet flats
(39:00):
work really well for me. I don't need high heels.
I don't need I want comfort, comfort, but I want
some parts, some sparkle and glitter. So I help them
find their version of home, their version of iridescent sparkly slippers.
And it may look completely different than mine, but the
process helps them find that for them.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Thank you so much for sharing all of your journey
and everything that you've been through. For the listeners out
there who are like, how do I get in touch
with this woman? She gets it, she gets me. I
need help, and I admit it. Oh my god, I
finally am admitting that I can't do this alone.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I need help. What can they do to get in
touch with you?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
And do you have like a clarity chat of some
sort that can help them?
Speaker 3 (39:56):
So I have a couple of different things that might
be helpful. If you're feeling overwhelmed right now, and you
know that it's okay to feel that way. First of all,
you're exactly where you're supposed to be on this journey.
I've been there. I know it's hard. But the key
to that next step to ke to waken the magic,
a key to that more clarity for yourself and what
really matters to you. You don't need to follow somebody
else's role map. I really want that to be clear.
(40:18):
So don't look I call it the man behind the curtain.
I have a whole Wizard of Oz thing. Don't go
looking for the thing that's going to fix it. Don't
look for a band aid, don't look for because really
the answer when you open the curtain is you. It
is you. And so what I have is I have
a quiz on my website called the Brand Magic Quiz,
(40:41):
and it goes it's like a three minute quiz. It's
maybe ten questions, Lisa like, it's not hard, but it
really asks questions about clarity, confidence, and simplicity. And what
it does is it helps you see where you might
need the most help. Is it clarity? Is it my
confidence because we all have a little bit of that too,
imposters around productionism, doubts, all those things happen the flying
(41:03):
monkeys that we've talked about in the past. And so
it's a great first step to figure out where you
are in your journey, like what do I need to
focus on and what your next aligned move is. So
I send some great actionable tips based on where you're at.
If it's clarity, simplicity or confidence, to get you started,
(41:24):
so just to start to create some momentum in that
process for you. But if you're ready to go deeper
and really, you know, transform the way you work, I
really strongly suggest booking a free fifteen minute clarity chat.
We'll chat about where you're feeling really stuck and how
you can move toward what that baby step could be
a business that truly lights you up. So the quiz
(41:46):
is Wickedly Branded dot com slash quiz, and you could
always connect with me on LinkedIn at Wickedly Branded or
at Beverly Cornell like Beverly Hills and Cornell University. I'm
all over that and I love to connect and share.
And if you are taking a step based on today's chat,
I want to hear about it. I want to hear
(42:08):
your successes. You are not alone, Like I'm here to
cheerlead for you. I know lisable cheerlead for you. You your
magic awakening that is super extraordinarily special and you full
the first time. Maybe giving to yourself is a big deal.
So I really hope that everyone listening remembers that you
(42:31):
don't need to have it all figured out today, because
good Lord knows, I did not have a figured out,
Nor do I still have a figured out? Remember the
one thing that I know. I don't know everything, but
every step forward creates momentum, even the small ones. So
just keep showing up, keep leading with your soul and
your heart, and keep trusting yourself and your magic.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Before we end the episode again, I just want to
thank you so much for sharing your journey and your
wisdom and for being vulnerable and for opening up.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Do you have the final words of wisdom?
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Just you don't need to hustle harder. Please don't do that.
You just need to grow a little deeper with yourself.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Thank you so much. It was so fun hearing your story.
I am just beyond elated. Thank you so much for
showing up today and for giving that part of you
is amazing.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Thank you so much, Lisa. I always enjoy our chats
and appreciate you so much. You're one of my cheerleaders too,
and I and I need that too, so thank you.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yes always, I'm always plicking those likes and commenting on
your stuff. I can feel your heart, I can feel it,
so of course happy to cheer you on into our listeners.
Wickedly Branded dot Com is where you're you will find
Beverly and you can set up that or you can
take her quiz, set up that clarity call. You guys,
(43:55):
don't let fears stand in the way. Take that next
step spoiler art. You're going to feel better.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
And that is magical. Until next time, take care everyone,
You welcome back to the Advisor.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
If you have not yet done so, please hit that
like and subscribe button. Today we have Beverly Cornell and
you guys know her her marketing mastery.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
She is brilliant, she is all.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
She's the very godmother of brand clarity, wickedly branded. Today
we're going to be talking about something a little bit different.
We're going to be talking about her story, how she
got to where she is today. She serves thousands of
clients all over the world and gives herself to all
of them at her fullest potential. But she had to
(00:38):
get there somewhere, and today she has agreed to be
vulnerable and open up about her story.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And I am jacked. I cannot wait.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So stay tuned because Beverly is back and we're going
to learn about her journey becoming a high performing solopreneur.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's not easy.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Hey, absolutely, Matt Like your introduction is so kind, Lisa,
And it still is a little surreal when people talk
about me that way, because I feel like I've come
so far and had to feel like I had to
prove myself and I had to claim my space and
all these things that had to happen in the evolution
(01:18):
of even from a very young account executive for Chrysler's
an advertising agency, working with all men, by the way,
now my own company, and what that looks like and
spanning almost thirty years. That seems so unreal, but what
that looks like has been It's not a linear road,
(01:40):
it's not an easy road. Just before we started talking
on this podcast recording, we talked about how living this
life as a human can be very complicated, but also
running a business and kind of finding your purpose and
your place can be very complicated as well.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Totally totally man when you said working with a bunch
of men, you know, and I can only assume that
you had that deep bringing fire in your heart and
you weren't being seen because I can relate to that
as like working in the corporate world and like knowing
I was not necessarily above but had my own mind
and knew I was here for a bigger purpose. But
(02:21):
them in the situations knocking me down and then having
me doubt myself, and twenty year old me is like, no,
like I don't feel good, this doesn't feel right, but
forcing myself into it because society was telling me that
this is how to be successful. This is what success means.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Can you relate to that?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, I remember going home and telling my dad, I'm
working with a bunch of my dads's that and that
and that. Because I was this twenty three year old,
bright eyed young person having to kind of get their
approval for everything. It was really challenging. And I knew
I was meant for more. But what more was? Like
(03:02):
you said that burning kind of inside of you wasn't
really elusive. I didn't know what more was at the time.
I just knew that it wasn't. It wasn't that. I
learned a ton. And don't get me wrong, these guys
were great, Like I have no hate for men. I
loved working with them. I learned a ton, But it
also was a very challenging and different experience as a
(03:24):
young person with a bunch of established, seasoned men in
the space. It and be sad without trying to. They
often stomped on the young people on their ideas and
talked over them. There's a lot of things that happened
when you're a young person and also a woman in
(03:45):
the workplace. At that time it was the early nineties,
Like we haven't come super far. You know that by
that time, like my mom said, when she graduate from
high school in nineteen seventy, she could be a nurse,
a librarian, or a teacher. And and twenty years later,
here I am now a marketing executive working in the
marketing world. So we hadn't come super far, and we
(04:08):
were still kind of defining what that look like as
being a woman, as being an executive, and where we
fit in and all that, not as a secretary or
not as the wife or whatever that looked like for
people at the time. So I feel like I was
kind of at a place in history where I entered
the workplace that things were really starting to shift and change,
(04:30):
and we had to kind of figure it out, and
there weren't a lot of mentors or older women to
help us.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
To God, yeah, so what happened? I'm dying to know.
How did you get out of that?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well? Again, I learned so much so I would not
trade it for the world. I made some great, incredible friends.
I had a couple of wonderful male mentors who were
extremely giving with their advice and knowledge. It was a
very It was the perfect job for a young person
out of school at the time. I got to travel
(05:05):
the world. I mean I went all over the country.
I got to meet all kinds of people, from farmers
to motorcycle drivers too. I got to have this whole
expansive experience because I was in charge of the Dodge
truck line. So I would go and present the Dodge
truck at events and give away vehicles. Everybody wanted me
(05:26):
to come because I was given away a vehicle. So
it was a really fun. It was a really fun
job for a young person to be able to be
part of. And there's a lot of young people who
worked with me and we just we really bonded. And
some of those very friends that sat next to me
in the cube next to me are still my very
good friends. So we have all evolved and grown and
some of us have our own businesses now, and it's
(05:46):
been really fun to see that network of people that
I started off with and how we've all kind of
claimed our space in this space. But you know, I
started in Chrysler. I ended up leaving Chrysler actually went
after an now at nine to eleven. The currentustry kind
of took a tank because nobody was buying cars because
(06:07):
everyone was really scared, you know, after nine to eleven,
and so I went back and got my master's degree
in communications focusing on diversity and culture, and started I
got sortified as an l instructor, English the second language instructor.
I've lived in Spain, I've lived in Brazil's exchange students.
I've had exchange students in my home, and I really
wanted to do something more with this international side of things.
(06:31):
And so I worked for a language school for a while,
and then I became their marketing director. And then I
worked for a translation agency for a while and did
business translations really like for heavy machinery actually, like for
Caterpillar and some of those like. I was a marketing
director for that company. And then I worked for a
(06:51):
tech startup that was a language learning software company and
built it from a million to ten million with an
amazing group of people. There was about ten to twelve
of us that just dug in and built this amazing business.
I knew how hard it was to be an entrepreneur
because I had helped build a business before I started
my own business. But as life has it, you know,
once you get to a certain part in your VP
(07:13):
of marketing. We would talk about this before my title
there was the director of Awesome, and so I really
loved what I was doing. Super fun cultures, building these cultures,
creating magic, and these cultures that particular business we did
I built. We built a culture that was extremely magical,
and I learned that that's important internally as well as
(07:37):
externally from a marketing perspective. And I loved my job incredibly.
And when I met my now husband, and he is
an active duty Army soldier, he was stationed at Fort Bragg,
North Carolina, and I was in Detroit, Michigan. You can't
stay married. I mean, you guess you can. But I
couldn't stay in Detroit and I had to go to
(07:59):
North Carolina with him. And remote working wasn't really a thing,
so I started freelancing for myself. I had an old
friend from high school who had her own business and
I was a customer of hers, and she was like,
can you do some work with me? And that's really
how it started, and I did. I started working you know,
(08:20):
through it wasn't it was through Zoom and other things
at the time, for sure, but started working remotely before
it was even cool and had to kind of figure
it all out because I never intended to be an entrepreneur, Lisa.
I never intended. I knew how much work it was,
and so I was not in this false sense of like, oh,
(08:43):
I can start a business, it'll be easy, and do
those things. I actually probably over analyazacause I knew how
hard it was to build a business. And when I
started my business, I got married, but I didn't have
a plan because I hadn't been dreaming of starting my business,
so I just kind of waned it. And by winging
it is very dangerous because I was very good at
(09:05):
what I did and what I do, and my business
started to grow, but my clients started to define my business.
So someone would come to me, I need this, okay,
someone would come to me, I need this okay. And
those weren't necessarily the things that I was meant to do.
It was just what I was doing to say yes
to grow, and by all measures bottom line numbers, number
(09:30):
of clients, referrals, I was growing. I was doing really
really well, Lisa, but I was not happy and I
was completely burnt out. And I feel like this notion
of hustle culture of what success looks like for women
is extremely dangerous.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I can just feel your heart when you say that
you were outsourcing every single part of you, every single
part of you. That can be challenging because we're not
meant to wake up and hustle all day long.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
We're meant to be and be with ourselves and our family.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And yeah, there's a lot of pressure on women, especially
to be something they're not to be seen as almighty,
I guess you could say.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
For women right.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
For me, being the solopreneur has meant juggling multiple identities
at the same time, accidental entrepreneur, army wife, step mom, mom,
and of course just trying to figure out how to
have it all work together while living my midlife. It
was my late thirties and here I'm trying to figure
out what that looks like. And I think that's a
very definitive time in our lives too, of like evolution
(10:47):
of who we are as ourselves, not as what society
has told us to be. And what I learned one
of the way is that leading with soul instead of
hustle is the only way that I I can show
up in a meaningful way for both myself and my
family and my business. Like it's the only way that
I could do that. So when when I went from
(11:09):
freelancing to like an agency, we know we are a
boutique branding digital marketing agency. We have had some evolution
there as well, and we went from freelancing to agency
and then we actually rebranded as Wickedly Branded this year,
and we operate on three core values that I think
are really important for the soul for our business and
(11:32):
it's really shaped my life and my journey and the
work that we do. For sure. They are honor, dynamic,
infusion and this. These aren't like typical words you hear
in the corporate speak of core values, not integrity and
likes service, and like, I did not want the typical ones,
(11:52):
and I really pushed my team at the time to
discuss deeply what made us different. And they reflected on
a lot of things, and they really started to think
about the essentials of when I gave feedback to them,
what were the things that I always highlighted, What were
the things that always mattered to me? What were the
things that I like not harped on or nagged about,
(12:14):
but the things that I knew were so important to
the essence and soul of our business. And these really,
I mean these words have become the foundation of everything
and helped me stay strong and true to who we
are and make yes and no decisions based on these words.
So I kind of want to dive into them. Is
that okay? At least I can we dive in Easoner
(12:36):
is the belief that we honor ourselves, our team, our clients,
and the work that we do. We do what's right,
and we hold ourselves accountable, and we maintain high integrity
to every project and every relationship that we have. But
this does not mean me are perfect. We care and
(12:56):
we do our best. Always is the what honor means,
and that's the only way you can be as a human.
I feel like and at the end of the day,
no matter what happens in the world, if we have honor,
I'll be able to sleep at night and know we
did the right thing. Period. Dynamic is the belief that
one thing I know for sure, Lisa, this is it.
(13:18):
This is the one thing, this is the Oh.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
My god, I'm ready, I'm holding on.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I don't know everything. I don't know everything, and we're
always learning, whether that's from our mistakes, from our clients,
or from trends in the market. Marketing has changed so
much since the early nineteen nineties, and it is up
to us to stay curious always. And then fusion, I
(13:43):
almost call this gumbo. Fusion became the thing. It is
the belief that our marketing passion and expertise, coupled with
the client's knowledge and their vision, create an action, create momentum,
create results, and we get to witness their businesses grow.
(14:06):
It's an incredible honor for us to join forces, literally
join forces infusion. You have two forces that come together
and create this action right, and we get to walk
beside them as they overcome challenges such strong action happening there.
They get to grow beyond what they thought was even possible,
(14:27):
and they get to achieve something that they've always wanted.
They get to achieve a dream and that is magical.
That is future for us. So for me, these three
core values are the foundation of how I built my
framework for our business that really is all dedicated to
helping higher performing entrepreneurs, especially women who want to grow
(14:49):
and scale more authentically, more themselves and step out of
this We've talked about this in previous episodes Tornado of overwhelm.
That really can happen when you own a business, but
more into this like soulful alignment of what their purpose
is and the legacy they're supposed to leave on this planet.
So kind of big, lofty goals, I guess Lisa.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Those are you know what, I'm curious to know how
the shift happened.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
So I'm I'm imagining you.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, you're exhausted your energy source, your batteries like blinking
red and blinking fast, like plug me in, plug me in,
plug me in? How did you plug in?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
So what's ironic about my journey is in twenty twelve,
when I started my business, I wanted a job that
created freedom, right, I needed to move wherever. I wanted
to create something that worked for my family, especially you know,
being an army wife and having moved every two to
three years, it was essential. I could not find a
(15:55):
VP of marketing job every two to three years. You
have to network and know people and all those things
like that wasn't happen. And I really wanted to use
my education and my passion, but I needed this job
that I could do from anywhere, and at the time
I remember, it wasn't really a thing, so so it
was I had like no real role models of what
to do or how to show up in this space.
(16:16):
And I really wanted to teach my kids that anything
was possible if you really worked hard, right Like, I
really wanted to show them that this is something that
you could do for yourself and create for yourself. But
as I really do, you know, really got into the
nitty gritty of bringing a business, you know, the accounting,
the legal and the taxes and the HR stuff and
all the things that you have to do as an
(16:38):
entrepreneur to spend the plates and do all the things,
I realized that freedom was coming at a very high price.
Freedom wasn't really freedom. I became a workaholic. I thought
that being successful meant working more hours and juggling more
clients and doing all the things. This is such a
woman thing, all the things for everyone, because that's what
(16:59):
I performed looks like and what I have found.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Through Laticise society defined said.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yes to everything, and forty hour work weeks, which was
what my norm before, became eighty hour work weeks. I
simplely got lost in it all. I wasn't taking care
of myself, I wasn't enjoying the work I was doing.
I was completely and utterly burnt out. I love the
battery analogy, Lisa. I was overwhelmed, and I was so frustrated,
(17:28):
and I certainly wasn't fun to be around.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
So you were functioning like this with your kids growing
up and your husband, and what was that like? What
paint us the picture of what that looked like.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
So our life in the last thirteen fourteen years being
married has been very complicated. We've lived through deployments and trainings.
We've had infertility. I am a stepmother, which is a
complicated life experience in general. I am also a foster
mom who has adopted a child. Through this. I've had
(18:07):
my biological father come back into my life. I've had
my stepfather who adopted me, have cancer. I've experienced some
health challenges. I had a major hip injury for about
three and a half four years, had a year recovery
for that. It's it's messy, That's what it looks like.
That's and I don't think I'm alone, Lisa, Like I
(18:28):
don't think you can replace all those things with other
things for other people. But my particular journey was filled
with all of those things. And I remember I remember
when Zeke, we got Zeke he was here, one of
our foster children. They called us to day he was born,
and on that day they said, we have this little boy,
and we wanted to adopt a child so so very badly.
(18:51):
We'd had a failed adoption, which was heartbreaking. And I'm alone,
I'm home alone, and my husband is in the field,
unreachable by self, because this is what happens when you're
an army wife. You just can't ever get a hold
of your husband's And so I told the agency, yes,
we would take this child. But my husband has no
idea that we are getting this child right and we're
(19:13):
picking him. We're picking him up tomorrow. And I don't
have baby gear because I was not pregnant for nine
months to be able to establish this particular experience right.
And so I put out a call to my neighborhood.
Does anybody have anything. I'm going to go buy a
stroller and similar things today if you have something, That'd
(19:35):
be really grateful, literally cribs and diapers and clothes short
of my front door. Before my husband even knew we
were happy in a baby. And so this is the
kind of life that I was leaving. Was we wanted
a baby, wanted to build our family. So he's a
(19:55):
way at training. He does finally figure it out. He
does go to the hospital with me and picks up
the baby with me, and he is very happy that
we got our child. It wasn't a bad situation. We'd
already had this kind of agreement.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
But the thing I was thinking, and I'm like, how
did that turn out?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
The speed with which this happened was a little bit
different than we had anticipated, And so he was two
days old.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Beautiful story though, picked.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Him up from the hospital, and I, as an entrepreneur,
to do not have family leave that's paid and my
husband immediately goes to California for two months for training.
And remember we're Army family, so we've moved away from
all of our support system. I don't have my parents,
I don't have my best friends. I have no cousins
or aunts and uncles to help support this child. So
(20:39):
there were many a call where I had the baby
on my shoulder, burpened the baby as I'm doing a
high level meeting about marketing. And those first clients that
I had were extremely gracious people, obviously, but there's still
my clients thirteen years later, there's still my clients the
experience me not working nine to five but setting emails
(21:04):
at when I am because he was awake and I
was feeding him. They knew I was just trying to
live my life around what my life had become and
trying to figure it out. I was. It was a
little interesting because my child did not like to sleep.
I did not get a lot of sleep for a while,
but we figured it out and I ended up hiring
(21:25):
a mommy's helper to help during meetings, and most of
the time I was able to do meetings without him
on my shoulder. But if he was screaming, crying, the
only person can help his mom and you and I
know this, that this is like a thing that the
kids just know they need their mother. So for the
most part I was able to figure it out and
navigate it and all of that. When he was seven
months old is when I had my hip surgery, so
(21:47):
we literally learned how to walk together. So I remember
taking him and putting him up the stairs one at
a time as I crawled up the stairs. I was
crawling with my child because I could not walk. Very
humbling experiences in that, and so life is full of
of blessings and challenges, but I've always really figured it
(22:11):
out because I believe I meant for more. I believe
that this is something that I'm what I'm doing is
important work that that life is hard, but also this
work that I do is extremely integrative to who I am.
Something I'm actually working on now Lisa, with my therapist,
(22:34):
is what does my life look like without my work
because at some point I'm gonna have to retire. Well,
I don't know what that.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, that's challenging for a lot of people, especially when
they hold their own business.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
And yeah, yeah, I just want to say this.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I want to say that thank you so much for
telling everybody what you just did, because there is this
disillusion that is out there every time you open the
damn social media that shows that these people who are
high performing in this industry have it all figured out
(23:10):
and live these perfect lives and it's not messy. And
you just completely squashed that and gave everybody the truth
of what it's like to have a business in your world.
And so thank you for that because I'm just so
sick of it.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah, it's time to like just be real, like stap
all the perfection. I'm a recovering perfectionists as well, which
also kind of comes from some trauma. But you when
you look at in society also puts a lot on us.
But when you look at people's real stories, when you
look at the humanity of I'm just trying to build
(23:50):
something here. I'm just trying to make a family, trying
to live my life. I'm trying to support my husband
who's serving our country. I'm trying. You know, there's many
a time where I was upset at the Army and
for taking him away when I needed it most, like
when I had a six week old baby. But totally
we sacrifice a lot for that. And you know, I
(24:10):
come from a service family. My mother was a nurse,
my dad was a teacher. Like this is not new,
this level of service and probably one of the main
reasons I really respect my husband is his heart of service.
That informs how we do our business too. We have
a serving heart, and that is important to say too.
(24:31):
We we can do more things than we think we can.
Like I joke that I was an only child and
up until I got married, I thought I had control
of my life, thought I had control of my life.
And then I got married and the Army and the
universe and God and everybody else had other plans for
me because a baby couldn't have a baby again in fertility.
(24:52):
I wanted this. I want like it never was exactly
what I thought my life was going to look like,
but I would go through all of it again to
get my son. Like all the infertility and the failed
adoption and all the things it was meant to be,
and everything prepared me for the role that I have now.
But all these transitions, all these relationships that we've created,
all the resilience that I've done, has helped me really become,
(25:15):
I think, a leader that I needed to be, calm,
Like I wouldn't be who I am without all those
experiences and the empathy and understanding of humanness of people
and our clients to meet them where they are, like
never to judge, because I have been in the in
the thick of it, desperate and so I have deep
(25:37):
compassion for the human experience in this, and so I
know that this is this is why it's my purpose,
Like I've been preparing for this my whole life. So
it's incredibly important work. And it's not just marketing. My
husband's always said, you're not just a Marketer, and I
never had words for that, but now I know it's
about finding their magic and awakening in it and act
(26:00):
activating it and amplifying it and automating it so that
they can work in the place they're supposed to do
as well. So it's deeply different than just a marketing agency.
For sure.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I'm curious. I'd love for you to get a little
bit more into the work that you're doing. But how
did old Beverly, the one that was outsourcing all over
energy evolve and how did that? How does that affect
your relationship with your clients now, Like how can you
show up for them now? And how has that changed
(26:36):
the way you work with them?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
So there were two two key things that happened to
me that forced me to kind of shift my thinking.
I was I remember one night, and we've kind of
talked about this on previous episodes. It was like late,
like at midnight, and my husband's sleeping, my son is sleeping,
and I'm staring at the computer and like my eyes
are but my eyelids are almost as they can't even
(27:02):
close because it's like the cartoon where the toothpicks are
holding it open because I have to get that one
more thing done before I go to sleep, because if
I don't, I don't want to start my day, Like
I feel like I'm drowning already. Like I was trying
to like get myself situated the next day wouldn't be
as crazy. That was always the hope, always the hope.
I was just I was just trying to do all
(27:24):
the things right. And I remember being very lonely in
that moment. My here, my family is like living their
life and going to sleep and doing thing they're supposed to.
And I remember at that inflection point, at that point
in my business, I almost closed the business. I didn't
think that I had what it took to make it
at this pace like that, I and I actually had
a lot of moments of like I'm a failure, Like
(27:46):
despite all the signs of growing and thriving business, maybe
I just wasn't made to be an entrepreneur, Like maybe
that's just not what I'm part of, that's who I am.
But around that same time, I think within that week
or two of like having the serious doubt and maybe
closing the doors and like this isn't for me. I
was giving advice to a client and I had this
(28:09):
like out of body experience where I was looking down
on the conversation and watching it happen, asking myself, why
am I not taking the advice that I teach my clients.
Why would I not give myself the same magic, these
gifts of clarity and consistency and simplicity. And this was
(28:29):
really the moment that that changed everything. And I was
working on everyone else's magic and not on my own,
and I wasn't aligning my values with my work and
my purpose. And then the next big kicker, which was
like the two x four on all of it, was
I lost a couple of key clients, clients who I
had been dragging across the finish line. So I probably
(28:52):
should never have even taken out as clients because my
systems were not built for them and I didn't have
the expertise, and I had to figure it out all out.
Not that I couldn't figure it out, but it just
wasn't the men I did every day and was like
very comfortable for me. And all of a sudden, I
had time on my calendar, time to breathe, time to
mourn this phase of my business, but also time to
(29:16):
learn to ask myself the same questions. I asked my
clients to journal to create a vision, which was amazing.
That whole process was amazing because we rememberround next times entrepreneur.
I never had a vision for my business. Then I
created a plan, and all of a sudden, instead of
waking up at three am completely stressed, I was waking
(29:39):
up at three am with ideas and excitement and everything changed.
I really want to take a minute and invite the
listeners for a second and an exercise. I want you
to think about this right now. If you feel like
you're in the same boat like three am, wake up
stressing at twelve o'clock hour work weeks to eighty hour
(30:01):
work weeks, you're feeling extremely burned out, and maybe you're
not so fun to be around too. That's happening. I
want you to take a minute to pause and reflect
on your journey. Maybe a few minutes, maybe an hour.
Give yourself this gift. What are the things that are working,
what are the things that are not working, And what's
one thing that you can simplify today for yourself? Just
(30:22):
one little small step forward and honoring you is such
a gift, and it will also create some more clarity
and magic in your business in the process. So I
really would welcome you to do that. And if you
do that, like you don't leave me a comment or
review on this on this episode, share it with me
because I want to hear how you can give this
(30:43):
gift to yourself, because this was probably the biggest shift.
Instead of saying yes to everyone, it was the first
time I said yes to myself.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
What absolutely amazing. I love that so much. Giving yourself
what you need.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
And now everything just kind of fell into place, is
now what happened? Everything just fell into place once you
gave yourself permission to take care of you and you
weren't living in this crazy world of chaos.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yeah, how did that change?
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
So when we live in this hustle culture, when we
live in women bear the brunt of it. I feel
like I call it the should suitcase. You should be
like that. You should be a great mom, you should
be the boss barbie, and you should be happy doing
it all because that's what we're supposing and balance this
ever elusive thing, this ideal that is impossible when carrying
(31:44):
the should suitcase. It is impossible. The should suitcase is heavy.
The should suitcase weighs you down. The should suitcase slows
you down. I also realize something important. Being a high
performer doesn't mean doing everything. It means focusing on what
I love, doing what truly matters, and doing it really,
(32:08):
really well. And that goes far beyond my business. It
goes into my relationships with my family, my husband, my friends,
my team, my clients, and most importantly, with myself. This
is when I developed the brand Magic method was from
this journey. It's now what I use to help overachieving,
(32:31):
overwhelmed female founders, the ones I call those high achieving unicorns.
I love them so much, get unstuck, clarify their vision
and build a brand that feels much more soul aligned
to who they are. These women, and I'm one, so
I'm right there with them. They're on top of their game.
They're amazing, Lisa, I'm sure you're in the same spot
(32:52):
right super smart, brilliant and hardworking, incredibly hard working people.
But they're overwhelmed by the chaos of being an entrepreneur,
the noise that exists in the should suit case, and
they want to get bigger, but they don't want to
lose themselves completely in the process, and we shouldn't have
to sacrifice ourselves in the process, and I think that
(33:14):
kind of worked for men. I joke about this because
if I had a wife, I probably wouldn't have to
worry so much about this, But because I am the wife,
it's a total different thing. I realized that I could
help them and help other women tap into their own clarity,
(33:34):
and that we have to redefine what it means to
be a over an achieving, a high achieving woman today
without having a wife, really to do all the things
for us, to help us out so that they can
grow and feel deeply aligned. And I want them to
(33:56):
create the exact business that works for them. You and
I talked about this before, or you know. We live
in a time where you can create whatever business you want.
There are no limitations. You don't have to look at
anybody else. Don't get caught in the competition trap of
look at what everybody else is doing. Don't look at
the Instagram and all the perfection, all the do not
do this to yourself. Look at what makes you happy,
(34:18):
look at what you want to do, and create a
business from there. Because that's what I had to do.
I had to throw away the ship suitcase, and I
had to look at what worked for me, my army family,
my higher needs child. I'm adhd, I'm fifty years old,
(34:39):
I'm living through perimenopause, which is a lovely thing if
you have that started it. And what works for me
is what works for me, and what works for other
women works for other women. But I know that it
doesn't have to look like what other people are doing
out there. It can look exactly what it looks like
for me, and I just need to figure that out
for myself. And one of the ways that we do
that in the Brand Magic method is we spend ninety
(35:02):
minutes with our clients. We look at where they've been,
where they are, where they want to go. We look
at the challenges they're facing, and we give them four
to six next best opportunities to get them to where
they want to go. And they actually have a plan
for the first time that's aligned with who they are,
their vision, their core values, the sole essence of who
(35:24):
they are, and it might not be things that you
think of. For example, I worked with that accountant ones
and she would kind of joke with me, you know,
I am not an accountant. I'm a creative soul, and
accounting kills me in my very essence. If you want
to squash my energy, put a book, some books in
front of me, and I'm gonna I'm gonna be like, oh,
I don't work.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
That.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
My first hire was my bookkeeper, and my account my
tax my CPA. And she shere's a client of mine.
And when her tagline is I'm not your father's accountant,
which already gives you all kinds of wonderful thoughts in
your head. But she said to me when she did
the brand Spark experience with me, she said, you found
(36:06):
money on the table for me, and I didn't think
that a marketer would find money. Like that's kind of
like antithesis of what you do, because I see things
differently than they do. When you're in the weeds, when
you have all the things in your head, you can't
see these opportunities. And someone who's kind of above the trees,
(36:27):
who understands what makes a successful business, looking at opportunity
for service levels that could be reoccurring income for example,
or how the service levels can work with each other
and you can get repeat business by putting them through
like a funnel of sorts. These are things that I
do every day, and they don't do that. They just
(36:48):
they might be doing accounting, or they might be a therapist,
or they might be so that's not something that they
think about, you know, in this in this brand Spark experience,
and I call it an experience because it can be
a little emotional, it can be a little challenging, it
can be extremely relieving because everything in your head is
finally down on paper and when you free yourself from
(37:10):
all those things in your head, when you free up
that space, you're able to do more and in the
ways that matter to you. So it's it's very for
the first time, so many of my clients see what's
actually possible, and that is to me so incredibly exciting.
(37:36):
So we call that awakening the magic because now they
see what's possible and they see their magic written out
in a way that they've never seen it before. When
we are solopreneurs, when we work by ourselves, when we
are alone at our desks doing the thing every day,
working with clients doing all that, but we're alone every
day handling the problems that happen, it's very lonely at times,
(37:58):
and no one's there saying, hey, good Lisa, you did
that thing really great today. You have to give it
to yourself often. And when you see your mission and
your vision and your goals written out for the first
time in a very aspirational way, it's somebody of them
say I want to know her.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
But it's them.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yeah, it's them, and that I think reframing how they
even see themselves is very powerful, and you do you
need somebody to help you do that sometimes because you're
so stuck in the weeds with it. So that process,
and that's what I did for myself. I asked myself
all these questions, saw myself differently. It's exact process that
(38:37):
I put my clients through. I put myself through. And
you know, I was joke. I was always joked that
I was the Calber kids with no shoes, and then
I wanted the Louis Vatans because that was the best
for my marketing and for my vision and purpose. But
then when I realized is I didn't want somebody else's shoes,
I went in my own version. My IRID doesn't. I
talked about this before. My IRA doesn't. Sparkly ballet flats
(39:00):
work really well for me. I don't need high heels.
I don't need I want comfort, comfort, but I want
some parts, some sparkle and glitter. So I help them
find their version of home, their version of iridescent sparkly slippers.
And it may look completely different than mine, but the
process helps them find that for them.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Thank you so much for sharing all of your journey
and everything that you've been through. For the listeners out
there who are like, how do I get in touch
with this woman? She gets it, she gets me. I
need help, and I admit it. Oh my god, I
finally am admitting that I can't do this alone.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I need help. What can they do to get in
touch with you?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
And do you have like a clarity chat of some
sort that can help them?
Speaker 3 (39:56):
So I have a couple of different things that might
be helpful. If you're feeling overwhelmed right now, and you
know that it's okay to feel that way. First of all,
you're exactly where you're supposed to be on this journey.
I've been there. I know it's hard. But the key
to that next step to ke to waken the magic,
a key to that more clarity for yourself and what
really matters to you. You don't need to follow somebody
else's role map. I really want that to be clear.
(40:18):
So don't look I call it the man behind the curtain.
I have a whole Wizard of Oz thing. Don't go
looking for the thing that's going to fix it. Don't
look for a band aid, don't look for because really
the answer when you open the curtain is you. It
is you. And so what I have is I have
a quiz on my website called the Brand Magic Quiz,
(40:41):
and it goes it's like a three minute quiz. It's
maybe ten questions, Lisa like, it's not hard, but it
really asks questions about clarity, confidence, and simplicity. And what
it does is it helps you see where you might
need the most help. Is it clarity? Is it my
confidence because we all have a little bit of that too,
imposters around productionism, doubts, all those things happen the flying
(41:03):
monkeys that we've talked about in the past. And so
it's a great first step to figure out where you
are in your journey, like what do I need to
focus on and what your next aligned move is. So
I send some great actionable tips based on where you're at.
If it's clarity, simplicity or confidence, to get you started,
(41:24):
so just to start to create some momentum in that
process for you. But if you're ready to go deeper
and really, you know, transform the way you work, I
really strongly suggest booking a free fifteen minute clarity chat.
We'll chat about where you're feeling really stuck and how
you can move toward what that baby step could be
a business that truly lights you up. So the quiz
(41:46):
is Wickedly Branded dot com slash quiz, and you could
always connect with me on LinkedIn at Wickedly Branded or
at Beverly Cornell like Beverly Hills and Cornell University. I'm
all over that and I love to connect and share.
And if you are taking a step based on today's chat,
I want to hear about it. I want to hear
(42:08):
your successes. You are not alone, Like I'm here to
cheerlead for you. I know lisable cheerlead for you. You your
magic awakening that is super extraordinarily special and you full
the first time. Maybe giving to yourself is a big deal.
So I really hope that everyone listening remembers that you
(42:31):
don't need to have it all figured out today, because
good Lord knows, I did not have a figured out,
Nor do I still have a figured out? Remember the
one thing that I know. I don't know everything, but
every step forward creates momentum, even the small ones. So
just keep showing up, keep leading with your soul and
your heart, and keep trusting yourself and your magic.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Before we end the episode again, I just want to
thank you so much for sharing your journey and your
wisdom and for being vulnerable and for opening up.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Do you have the final words of wisdom?
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Just you don't need to hustle harder. Please don't do that.
You just need to grow a little deeper with yourself.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Thank you so much. It was so fun hearing your story.
I am just beyond elated. Thank you so much for
showing up today and for giving that part of you
is amazing.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Thank you so much, Lisa. I always enjoy our chats
and appreciate you so much. You're one of my cheerleaders too,
and I and I need that too, so thank you.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yes always, I'm always plicking those likes and commenting on
your stuff. I can feel your heart, I can feel it,
so of course happy to cheer you on into our listeners.
Wickedly Branded dot Com is where you're you will find
Beverly and you can set up that or you can
take her quiz, set up that clarity call. You guys,
(43:55):
don't let fears stand in the way. Take that next
step spoiler art. You're going to feel better.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
And that is magical. Until next time, take care everyone,
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