Episode #6 – From Leadership to Issues Plaguing Mid-Career Women to Red Light Therapy: A Talk w Brynn Scarborough

welcome to the society pod a podcast for entrepreneurs marketers and leaders here’s your host Jessica yarmy hey everybody and welcome to episode six of the society pod my guest today has a background in retail in marketing in manufacturing in Fitness and in entrepreneurship and we’re going to go into all of those topics she is a girl boss in the fitness space which obviously we love she’s currently CEO and president of JK products and services which is a manufacturer of light Technologies and wellness equipment so this is going to be an interesting one today welcome to the show Bren Scarboro thank you so much I’m so excited to be here so happy to support this awesome new podcast um I just give a brief introduction of you and your bio but why don’t you fill in some of the some of the blanks I’ve had a long development path here at JK I’m actually celebrating my th anniversary with them next month came in as the development director years ago and as you mentioned worked my way through marketing became executive director of sales then became managing director and then finally CEO most importantly I think especially to this conversation is that I’ve really gotten to lead the charge and our really strong pivot into our a more holistic approach to Wellness longevity recovery you know we have a history in sunlight and really taking that and incorporating that in a much more holistic way of balanced lifestyle well-being and the equipment that helps us support that from a lifestyle integration so as a company today we look very very different than we did five six years ago and we are completely changed from who we were a decade ago so just really working with a lot of the interesting new trends and consumer demands that are happening now in the space before we dive into the fitness space I’m just curious about this career jump between to start in Business Development and then jump to marketing and then manufacturing and then you know all of a sudden you’re like climbing up the ladder and president CEO across your years there you’ve had four different or five different roles talk to me about how you how you did that and how you kind of climbed the ladder within within your current organization yeah so you know my leadership story is what I like to call unlikely I am an unlikely leader I love to invest in unlikely leaders um I love to watch them you know grow into their potential and honestly it also comes with a good bit of uh naive I didn’t know what I couldn’t do so I tried H and I took a lot of responsibility for things that I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to know how to do did fine with it uh I have been a human my whole life who has been willing to kind of I say walk into a room with white walls and put color on the walls and kind of be able to build the structure and see the vision in my background honestly I was homeschooled from the time I was second grade and then got a scholarship to college at got a GED some of that Sheltering served me a little bit because while I have zero traditional pedigree I just didn’t know what I wasn’t supposed to be able to do I definitely wasn’t supposed to ever be able to run a company wasn’t born and bred for that there’s no doubt as it came to like opportunities would present themselves whether that’s through company transition or or growth or pivoting or acquisition and I not just put my hand in the air and say hey I’ll do this I had the ability to see it coming put a plan together present the plan and say like let’s run and you know as a leader when you hear that from somebody in your group you’re really willing to say let’s go and especially if it’s a plan you didn’t have to put together yourself that has served me through multiple different areas of development at this point that’s just a fascinating Journey because I think a lot of the headlines these days almost are advis ing people to jump at a certain point like two years jump three years jump and and make your career progress through the jumps but you really pushed your career forward within your own organization and it sounds like you really did so proactively and and strategically so yeah I’m number one strength finder strategic so that plays out in all areas of my life uh if you saw the checklist that I put together to get through like my daily personal life you’d see that there’s no area free from that but you I have seen you know we’ve all seen the career Trends change like average executive lifespan at a single company at this point is years and it keeps going down I’ve essentially done the same thing but within the company um every two to three years making sure that I knew various different segments of the business making sure that I I know how the marketing team runs I know how the sales team runs have been able to lead through you know m transition things like that know our processes down to the core have been able to like lead through acquisition and all of those areas and so no while I haven’t moved around to various different companies I have still gotten multiple industry experience multiple division level experience so I I think it really depends honestly um and at the same time I’ve also gotten to grow a leadership team from scratch that I would never have been able to get to do you know and kind of multiply the impact over time that would have never been available had I been moving every two to three years it it all depends on how you measure impact it seems like you maybe along the way kind of lived by that Mantra of like lead without the title or you know act as if you are the next level that you want to be because whenever you jump internally you kind of need people to follow along and trust that that jump so and now and now you’re their their boss so was that something you did in intentionally or did you really just kind of fall into that that leadership team that you’re that you’re building I don’t think anyone’s ever fallen into a leadership team uh fallen into a Synergy or a group of people that work together to lead a company that do that with good culture and you know and good connections and those that that is sheer force of will and commitment and discipline to bring that together there is no luck involved in that situation now I am a huge prop component of leading with your influence long before you have the title or the authority um and that is advice that I give probably on a every other week basis to upand comers in our organization be like listen nothing’s going to change when you get a title the only thing that’s going to change is the name on your business card it’s not going to change your ability to positively influence to affect culture change to improve process orientation that all comes from an internal locus of being able to win people over and to to get people people on onto your side years ago as a younger leader I was a very Napoleon esque Commander right it was Command and Conquer you know it didn’t really matter if you were on my side or not I’m I’m happy to say that Myers Briggs now says I’m a protagonist and so now I know how to take the people with me like the most important thing to me is that I can lock arms with the people around me and we are leading forward as a unified front that has been an evolution of experience and maturity and learning how not to be such an insecure passive aggressive leader that that I was at years old well and it takes it takes authenticity and and it seems like if you’ve been in a in one company for years and you’ve made four moves and they’ve all been increase in responsibility and your team has followed you through those moves that says to me that whatever Evolution happened in your leadership style you took your team through that Evolution with you and you showed up authentically through that transition and now of a sudden as you’re the the biggest boss they’re still right there like locked arms with you it really is true but I will say you know it came from a a personal need to develop my ability to show up authentically and I mean we could have a whole podcast conversation about the psychological safety that’s needed especially for women to be able to show up as their whol selves like being able to drop the compartmentalization and and show up as I am right the unlikely human that’s not overly formal and isn’t necessarily going to kiss the ring and has a rebel heart and all of these things that I probably would have shoved to the side are not really let shine bright in the past but now then being able to create the platform in the space for other people to show up in their authenticity as well I had to do the work first as we know right you lead thyself um before you can create that space for other people but as I came into my own over the last years then yeah I could absolutely make space for other people to do the same thing the team that I mean like gets me out of bed every morning and gets me excited to go to work that I’m so proud of now I get to watch kind of the the barriers break away from their authenticity and they get to show up in their in their full lightness um which is so exciting to see yeah so exciting and and so rewarding um we’re gonna we’re gonna come back to some of those themes in a moment but I want to kind of dive into the the fitness side because you and I were just a few weeks ago together at Ursa so you were at that conference it’s a big Fitness conference and what were the things that stood out to you as themes that were found throughout the conference Ursa was exciting this year you know there was a big buzz it seemed like leading up to it there was a big buzz buzz for us as a company you know because this was the first year in the fitness space that we had debuted our full Wellness portfolio we teased a little bit of it last year and the interest was just huge this year we were able to debut our entire like portfolio line of dry water massage and red light and other types of modalities what I’m seeing in the fitness space and what I keep hearing over and over again is just the convergence of multiple different Industries there whether that’s Fitness Wellness longevity recovery no longer are we viewing these from a segmented lens everyone’s looking to the to the fitness operators to wear multiple hats and to serve multiple purposes I’m not sure that the industry has totally figured it out yet right they’re having to fully reimagine what we mean when we say recovery we’re having to fully reimagine what we mean when we say longevity no longer does it mean Elder Care it means Health span and lifespan and quality of life today in this moment for active gym goers and so to me there’s a bit of a Renaissance going on from that perspective the other two things that that stood out to me were the just integration of customizable and highlevel Technology there’s a few companies out there that are either a automating in a really smart way or beginning to to pull AI into their development and I know everybody either you’re either super excited about AI or you’re exhausted with the conversation either way it’s here and you got to figure out how to deal with it the other thing I saw is that you know whether it’s weight loss drugs or gps last year every Everybody in the fitness industry was like absolutely not these are horrible worst thing that’s ever happened to the gym and now a year later as we see traffic getting pushed into the into the gym from a lot of these protocols and now we’re even hearing that the updated protocol is going to include a a prescriptive weight training regimen gyms have got to be ready for this I think it’s a a huge Improvement I’m not here to comment about whether or not was weight loss drugs are good or bad but the effect of that in in getting foot traffic back in the gyms even for personal training recovery all that stuff is going to go up so I would say those are kind of the three most interesting conversations happening interested to see how the industry starts adjusting to it um it’s going to take some really changed thinking in my opinion about how we’ve imagined kind of hlp and even Boutique Fitness in the past yeah and I think you have a front row seat to those conversations and and I see recovery taking off I see longevity taking off and I see it taking off in the studio space and I also see it taking off in the big box space and big box is backing into recovery centers or recovery pods within their bigger box and then I also see it happening in home so you have a front row seat to like all three of those places and how recovery equipment is impacting those three places so where do you see the biggest momentum happening where where are you seeing the opportunities in those three environments yeah I think across all segments whether it’s home Boutique or HVLP the awareness of recovery as a lifestyle integration has changed completely since covid in the past when we thought Fitness we thought hit intervals and no pain no gain and go hard and go home and it’s up regulation up regulation up regulation cortisol break down to build up well when we realize that kind of coming out of Co everybody’s got enough cortisol everybody’s got enough stress hormone and now consumers are looking to Fitness operators to downregulate reduce this fight ORF flight hormone reaction to help them regulate a central nervous system to come back into a state of relaxation and homeostasis that’s a conversation the fitness industry isn’t ready to address that’s a whole point of conversation it’s kind of the yin and yang of fitness and Recovery we’ve been all on one side of the scale for the last years now consumers are saying listen we want both from a habit stacking perspective big box and HVLP is perfectly positioned to meet that need right to just be able to go straight from one to the other what they’re trying to f figure out is you know what is the mix what makes sense what will get people through the doors what is the equipment that will essentially run itself without operational complexity you know the the recipe is still being formulated we’ve heard of dry January this year we heard of flat January um and everyone’s trying to address the the issue of flat January like whatever we’re offering isn’t enough to get people through the doors of our location it’s going to take a real change of mindset but it’s happening across all segments we’re seeing more Wellness going into home hes whether that’s sauna or cold plunge things like that we’re seeing more integrative things going into Boutique kind of the whole Wellness space getting built out um or recovery spaces or amenity spaces getting built out in HVLP it’s an evolution and I think we’re going to see a lot of trial and error over the next couple of years and see where it goes but yeah we really are we really get to be at the Forefront of that kind of autonomous Wellness space buildable circuit habit stacking protocol that seems to be in front of what consumers are wanting I come from a big box background I started in Fitness at Gold Gym and I always thought of Golds as like your One-Stop shop for everything you need to live a healthy life so you have your group exercise in some locations you had a pool you had your selectorized equipment your free weights and you had your your protein and your smoothies at the front and and I think you’re right that now that that balance between offerings is different and yeah if I were running a big box right now what I would be looking at is how do I adjust my usage of space in my box to accommodate for that recovery or the the d-stress that you’re talking about because I think consumers are looking for both and to be that One-Stop shop of here’s everything that that people need to live healthy that looks different than it did even years ago in the wearable space you you started out with we’re just going to look at calorie burn and we’re going to look at yeah you know calories per workout and now it’s starting to get into heart rate variability and it’s starting to get into Sleep Quality and recovery time you’re adjusting or you’re evolving on the the technology side or the wearable side and our facilities have been been slow to adjust which is an opportunity in the space I think you you know whoever kind of figures out that that pivot fast enough um is going to really be positioned to to be a leader in in the recovery world I totally agree with you I mean if people are looking for efficiency at the end of the day I just had this conversation earlier this week that there’s no you know if you have to make two different appointments make two different stops you’re choosing between one you’re dropping one thing to make it stick from a consumer perspective it’s got to be easily integrated into lifestyle we don’t want recovery to be something that you do on your birthday with a -month appointment time with a massage or something like that we want it to be something that becomes part of your three to four day a week routine that can be easily integrated with an extra minutes at a time um you know kind of those those micro shifts in lifestyle that are actually you know moving the needle five years ago we didn’t even know what HRV was and now we’re all tracking it every day to see where we’re at with relative stress levels and that type of thing and so I’m with you I think the fitness industry traditional Fitness industry has been slow to adjust to that the resources are there um now I would say in in a way that they weren’t even three or four years ago if you went to Ursa three or four years ago there was one or two pieces of legitimate recovery equipment that wasn’t a foam roller or a massage gun and I’ve got nothing against those things I own both um and every other Gadget out there people expect more than that um um at this point especially if they’re going to a brick-and mortar location because they have all that stuff at home now you mentioned massage and I think that’s a great comparison because in a way Mage industry has trailblazed this for us kind of educating consumers on this is not just a a luxury item that you should do once a year but it’s really like let’s get on a recurring membership let’s do this once a month you know have you booked your next appointment yet and kind of made it um made it an important part of people’s Health um routine that’s right as as I’m thinking about my own health routine I do I do all of the things I’m I love the sauna because I I just like love the warmth of the sauna and I do the cold plunge I kind of hate the cold plunge because I I don’t I don’t like the cold but I do it because I I know it’s important to do the things you don’t want to do I really haven’t gotten into red light therapy and I know you’re big into red light therapy so what is the deal with red light therapy why should we do it what is it good for and how often do you do it I love Redlight and of course right we make it of course I love it but we were one of the first people in the world to come out with a total body red light system that was almost years ago no one even knew what to say about red light at that point nobody knew what it was no idea right totally off in space out in Fringe whatever now everybody knows about red light and they they want it at the end of the day what red light does is it’s like an ignition switch for your mitochondria it it creates fuel for ATP to enhance cell turnover that’s as sciency as I’ll get because I’m not a doctor I’m getting a doctor in business not in biological chemistry but that’s what it does at the end of the day so the effects of that are numerous right more energy in the cell means higher cell turnover it means faster recovery better blood flow it has lots of implications for the skin um to be able to improve skin elasticity and those types of things and and it really depends on how often you use it anyone who’s known me for more than five minutes knows I’m kind of building out my little recovery suite at home right now that I’m so excited about um and our total body red light unit is going into it and to me that fits directly into my habit stack of Sonic cold plunge red light and you know mixing those around but ideally you’d be in it two to three times a week especially if you want to see the skin care benefits you know the skin unfortunately responds a little bit more slowly than other areas of the body do biologically if you’re acutely sore after a workout you’ve run a half marathon you’ve lifted heavy one minute session in quality red light and when I say quality red light I’m not talking about panels hung on a wall that you’re kind of roasting around or some smaller application I’m talking about like efficacy delivered to the body vital organs essentially exposed that type of thing you should see a difference in acute soreness within a single session meaning you go in kind of sore uncomfortable inflammation in the joints when you wake up the next morning you will feel to % less soreness um and it varies by individual right it’s like saying what’s a treadmill going to do for me varies by individual but on the skinc care level obviously you want probably to days before you start seeing changes um in skin it’s even great for hair growth things like that right any any thing that is improved by improved cell turnover and energy in the cell is is what you’ll see from Red Light it has a lot of different uses and benefits so then what you’re saying is having the light turned on the red setting in the sauna does not count for my red light therapy for the week I’m ready for the heat that I’m gonna take over this um it does have a neurological effect it has a positive neurological effect as far as efficacy for build building up ATP you need to be close to that light it’s been proven in multiple medical studies further you are away from the light the stronger the light’s got to be to deliver effective lights so let’s say it’s in the ceiling the one that’s going in my house has red light in the ceiling but that’s going to be like a positive energizing neurological effect it’s not going to have the same effect as actually delivering high quality dosages um on the body level now okay I don’t I don’t have any haters yet I’m not that popular but I know that could get some hate but it comes down to the quality of light and the and the quality of of delivery of the energy to the skin itself and that requires close proximity all right you learned something every day here on the society pod you I know and you know there’s a lot of aru but that’s what the science is telling us over multiple years now red light’s been studied a lot at this point um that wasn’t true years ago and so we’ve really been able to bifurcate what it is that’s kind of it’s not snake oil most of most of the equipment that you see is IM getting the right light spectrum the question is how the body is receiving it anything that you’re putting in between that light spectrum like plastic or acrylic or space that would cut down what the effective received dose is on the body are you ready to level up your business if you under promoting your business you’re underachieving in your business start driving real demand today make it Sizzle all right we’re going to switch gears entirely we’re going to go from from red light to to girl power in in the business world not just even in the Fitness World so you and I are LinkedIn mutuals of course and um you posted recently the the new Barbie Matel spot that’s it closed the dream Gap and some of the statistics that are in that spot and I’ll try to link it in the show notes but one of the statistics is that girls by age of five Stop Believing they could be president they’re girls are onethird less likely to receive a science based gift and parents are twice as likely to Google search is my son gifted then is my daughter gifted and give me your thoughts on that on that spot because you you were the one who shared it and I just thought it was so impactful like how did you how did it impact you it’s funny when you bring up that post like I I get butterflies in my stomach because it has so much personal impact um for me the way I was raised in my background from a very young age it and I love my brother he is a savant smartest person I’ve ever met um but he was the one that was good at math he was the one who was pegged to be the smart one I was the one who was groomed to be married and a homemaker and and all of that stuff is great but clearly not the path that I chose to follow and so really identified with this idea that you know women Dream Within the parameters that are established for them by conditioning and through belief systems and the people around them and I lived through that and had to then also break a lot of those barriers by myself to be able to to do what I’m doing now what’s really missing and what’s always been missing for me and I I remember hearing about this I think it was Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote about this a few years ago that about how how in a patriarchal society and I don’t mean like you know burn the patriarchy patriarchal society but I mean like in a in a patrilineal society where power usually passes from man to man to man over over hundreds of years of History thousands of years of History men have this hero’s journey to be able to point to you know men have these aspirational figures that they have had throughout time whether that was Greek gods all the way through Kings and monarchy all the way through presidents today and world leaders and Fortune CEOs there’s always somebody’s journey to point to to say I’m G to be like that I can see myself in that journey and I’m going to be like that and even today I think women are really missing their heroin Journey they are really missing being able to see themselves as the CEO as the successful entrepreneur and being able to point to someone that looks enough like them seems enough like them to make that feel like they can identify with it I know I I was missing that and and I’m sometimes still missing that and the only thing I can figure out to solve the problem is to be so much more vocal about our stories um is to tell our stories like to tell my humble beginning story where no one would have suspected any of this and be real about it so that somebody else can say if she can do it maybe there’s a chance for me think about it all the time of of how do we fix it um and I feel an obligation to fix it because I think so I’m and early in my career I was like the pants suit generation of like in order to be a successful woman I need to follow what are the men doing and and kind of grew up in that and reported into men and I have a lot of work tendencies that are that are more masculine than they are feminine now as I’m at a point in my career can I can look to Sarah Blakeley I could look to Ali web and I can see all of these female Founders who are now out of their organizations and and I think the piece that I feel obligated to fill is like who are the women who are in the trenches still and building still and growing still and and what are they doing and what do they what do they look like like how do they show up how do they talk what are the things that they they do and I don’t I don’t have a solve I don’t have a daughter um but if I did I think I would feel even more called to be vocal and to share and and and and share without answers necessarily it’s just sharing progress It’s just sharing here’s where I am today here are the things that here’s what I’m trying um here’s what didn’t work here because we that feedback wasn’t available right it’s this it’s this peer-to-peer feedback that quite frankly has only become available as I’ve gotten to the very top level it everything underneath was a vacuum of feedback of sounding board of you know anybody else who looked like me who we could say like did this work for you what was going on and you know you know how women are let’s say you know how women have been painted to be I am committed to and investing in changing the stereotype about how women support each other in the workpl um because when we are psychologically not put in a place to be pitted against each other for the one seat at the table then suddenly we don’t have to compete but that’s all about making sure that no we’re not competing for the one seat available for the one woman at the table that’s not the world that we’re trying to live in anymore it’s a nuanced topic I think we’re we’re trying to be let’s say I’m trying to be what I didn’t have I have I can’t say that I have ever had strong I have had some mentorship I’ve definitely had people who were willing to see something in me even from a young age like that was as as early as college professor an undergrad who saw something in me from an intelligence perspective saw potential encouraged me to take the hard classes encouraged me to do the independent studies encouraged me to travel I’d never been anywhere didn’t know anything about travel but just reflected back to me what they saw in me and someone asked me the other day like what do you think the most important piece of mentorship or how do you coach people and I’m like well coaching is too much about the individual but there’s no one hard set best practice to say this is how you coach but when it comes to investing in other people this the thing that is the continue and continual and repeated theme for me is being a mirror for that person’s potential because that might be the especially for women especially for minorities especially for people who don’t see others that look like themselves in the leadership space you might be the only thing reflecting their potential back to them and in my opinion it is incredible the impact that one mirror can have that says this is what I see in you this is what I see you doing I am observing this this is evidence-based it’s not just because all women are great and everybody should do this but man that takes hold um and I’ve watched it over and over again I I have gotten to experience it and I’ve watched it over and over again as I said you know what I’m not backing down from what I see and I’m going to keep telling you what I see until you start to believe it over time and it’s transformational of the mentors that that you’ve had in your life are they is there someone specific that you would shout out and like are they mainly male are they mainly female like have you seen any kind of like theme in that regard I would say the one that always comes to mind first was I went to work full-time at right after I got my GED to start saving for college I knew there was one way to go and it was going to be me figuring out how to do it on my own and I went to work for an eye doctor in an incredibly small town in Arkansas uh people in this town but this is a woman who definitely stood out spoke another language was a female doctor was running a business with her family there were not many people like her years ago years ago ago in a small town in Arkansas she reflected my potential back to me for the first time um as a very young human she had expectations of me that I thought were unreasonable at the time and I Rose to meet them um every time she told me something that I’ll never forget she said Bren whatever you do whatever you PS pursue be a lifelong learner like never stop learning I didn’t know what that meant I didn’t know what it meant to develop myself as an individual I didn’t I didn’t know any of those things but I just look back at you know she held me to account she saw a potential I was running their front office for him at years old um and they let me go and of course you know it was just another of those times where I’m like yep I I’ll figure it out I’ll take this responsibility don’t know what you don’t know but I would say that was the earliest time that was the first time that I would say somebody really spoke to my potential they spoke to who they saw that I could be um and not just where I was not just you know who I was was or how I showed up in that moment and I wrose meet the expectation which I think people do right when you don’t expect much people will meet your expectations and when you do expect a lot and speak to that potential people will also rise to your expectations and I think it’s great that you are a mentor to others now and you’re and you’re paying it forward in the conversations you have with people are you seeing themes across some of the issues that the people that you Mentor are facing you know either gender themes or um generational themes with Gen X and gen Alpha coming up like what are what are some of the the concerns that that kind of are hitting your conversations yeah I would say from a recurring perspective when and I coach a lot of mid-career women both internally and now growing externally and I love it nothing gets me more excited than being able to like speak truth to someone who’s just like a rocket ship waiting to take off like it is a special special privilege to get get to experience the com common themes I see are recurring and and prevalent impostor syndrome of course right this is not new information it’s not even almost relevant to talk about at this point but I will tell you that my attitudes towards impostor Syndrome have really changed in the last two years or so you know I used to really feel a sense of insecurity about it now I want to push to that place till I feel like I don’t belong at the table and then I’m going to in six months belong at that table T and then I’m going to push to that next place and that next place now I feel like if I’m not constantly hitting that upper limit of what I feel like I’m able to do I’m not growing so now I use it as a growth indicator as opposed to like an obstacle to opportunity and and I think that’s an interesting change in perspective um and so really trying to lead others through that change in perspective you feel like an impostor great let’s work with that let’s you know absolve that issue because then I can’t wait to see the next time because it’s going to be a bigger room and a bigger challenge where you feel like an impostor I love that and I think the other thing that I see continually is just the amount of pressure that women put on themselves to perform in all areas as wives mothers caretakers Executives we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be perfect there’s no doubt and and that comes with a lot of insecurity and like do we deserve to be here kind of finally laying some of those things to rest but I’m consistently FAS ated by just the strength of like the sheer grit and strength of women from midcareer and above to challenge the status quo and to do something different and to balance spinning plates at a time because there’s not a woman that you can point to in any midcareer leadership level or above who is not spinning plates whether that’s home whether that’s at work whether that’s personal whatever that is and it that honestly looks very different for women than it does for men doesn’t matter how PC we want to make that conversation for the foreseeable future that continues to look different for women than it does for men and so it’s it’s a recurring theme in figuring out how to deal with some of those things and also absolve ourselves of some of the perfectionistic expectations that everything’s going to be perfectly balanced all the time and all of these buckets are going to be equally filled at all times they won’t I love the fact that you’re focusing midcareer because I do think when I hit sea Lev you’re not not that you’re there because you’re always going to continue to grow and and want to get better and want to connect with better people but the connections are easier because you have that title to lean on and people inherently want to connect with you and I do think maybe this is generational but women supporting women in midcareer you made the comment earlier that it’s territorial or it’s combative and and I have experienced that even recently I I don’t like asking for help and I’ve really started to try to just force myself to do it to lean into get better at asking for help and and yes and make connections that that can unlock things that you’re fighting through and in reaching out to women for help within the past months I have been told like no go listen to my podcast I have been told no but by this this course and I never get that kind of answer when I ask ask for help from men and it’s so uh alarming that there is still that um competitiveness or there’s still that like unwillingness to open your calendar open your even minutes of time to like pull the next person up and that’s one thing I’m just super passionate about and and I’m trying to create structures for pulling the next person up that that can be done at scale so like doing it via being via the podcast via sharing aggressively online but I love that you’re taking a a one-onone on oneon-one kind of approach and providing that hand to to bring the next person through it’s a matter of hearing one thing that unlocks a reframing of impostor syndrome okay all of a sudden that impacts the rest of their career instead of I’m going to fight and try to not feel like an impostor I’m to you know but you’ve you’ve given them no it’s there do it anyway reframe and and keep going and that’s right and you’re not just impacting their month but you you’ve just given them an unlock that is going to stay with them over the next year and year and year and I mean it’s something that that will carry them through the upcoming years of their career yeah I mean th this is a subject we could riff and I would love to do that a whole other podcast on is like mid-career impact for women because I’m doing my doctorate um right now you know another plate in the air because I’m a little sick and heavily looking into this space of leadership resilience regardless of how you study leadership resilience you’re getting pointed towards mid-career women because that’s where we’re seeing the dropout rate and when I think of where can the most impact be made where can the most life-changing impact be made it is mid-career women because there’s a vacuum postco of women who like who were on the rise who left the workforce right there’s this really pivotal point that comes probably a few years after women have kids that they’re either going to Flatline in career development they’re leaving the workforce or they’re going to take off past that point if you stagnate out or you stale out because either you’ve had kids and you don’t feel like you have options you don’t feel like you can continue to climb like you did there’s a whole list of reasons that we could go into but I love diving into that space because whether that’s whether that’s a choice to do something more autonomously or to you know rise through that um kind of midlevel shift in the future while we say we’re making progress in SE Suite today if the pipeline’s empty that’s temporary um and we know the pipeline was seriously damaged as a result of covid and so for me it’s about kind of making that individual I connect better on an individual basis anyway I am no master networker my soul kind of leaks out of my body when somebody mentions the word networking to me but I’m trying I’m doing my best but trying to do that in a real and intentional way but I’m with you women don’t we don’t ask for help we don’t create actionable networks the way that men do I can tell you it’s been a really recent shift even for me that I have gone from Fe I have always been a resource I have always been the human who will help you do for you sometimes way too much go in and save you all the things it has only been very recently that I have begun to feel resourced um that I have begun to feel like I’ve got a question and two or three people come to mind that I could call as a sounding board I’m talking the last months and I don’t have kids I never went through the kind of that isolating process of cool work is great but there is zero opportunity to socialize outside because we’re going to soccer and then we’re going to ballet and then we’re going to you know it’s so isolating and then when we do come out of isolation we’re kind of met with some barriers especially in the mid-levels space that aren’t so inviting so I I keep talking about the term like taking the ick out of the ask I am really interested in this space of forming connections where I can call you up and say I need this and when you think of me you can say I can commit her and then call her later and tell her what I need and she’s gonna do it um and enthusiastically right I I want to I want to be that person who offers myself first that says whatever comes to your mind that I can Advocate support be a platform for you assume the answer is yes and I will show up because I just I’m like I want that kind of resource for myself and the best way to make that happen is to be that for somebody else in my opinion I love that idea of taking the ick out of the ask one of the ways that I’ve tried to reframe that for people and just getting better at asking for help is is when you ask for help you’re not only involving the person in your journey and kind of making them a a co-pilot along the way but you’re also honoring them and their experience in saying Hey Bren I know you’ve done a ton in this space can you give me a cheat code for XYZ that I’m that I’m working through so reframing it from a standpoint of you know you’re kind of flattering the person you’re asking by reaching out and asking for help and nine times out of people will respond and and will try to be helpful that being said is there anything you’re working on at the moment that you need with you know I have a little passion project that is in has been in development for some time now kind of a little platform where I experiment and things like that it’s called Alchemy leadership lab it is also a space that really kind of serves my doctoral research as well as I’m looking at you know leadership resilience and growth and you know leadership resilience through everything from cold plunge and sauna to spiritual and Community work to breath work and meditation and fasting all of those types of things right I really believe we need a more Tactical toolkit to make our lives as leaders and Executives and high output individuals better on a day-to-day base like improving quality of life and quantity of Life at the same time um so yeah I would say you know be on the lookout you know jump jump on the website sign up to receive updates and I would I’d love to share more as more becomes available there’s going to be some exciting things you know especially for mid-career women coming up over the next few months or so where it’s just a passion to give back um in that space and say like listen here’s here’s the School of Hard Knocks and let’s see what we can learn from each other and also just you know building up that actionable Network um of people who are are really willing to come together especially women and make the ask I need the recommendation I need the reference I need the review I need the sounding board those things move the needle and I think we can just be a little shy uh when it comes to make those asks yeah I think we we feel like it’s a sign of weakness and asking for help is more a sign of strength it’s a sign that you’re building it’s a sign that you’re on the move and it’s a sign that you understand your own skill set and knowledge base and you understand what a cheat code it can be to tap into someone who has been in the space for years as opposed to you know trying to plow through and figure it out yourself just just ask and it can save so much time and and energy and effort as you are thinking back on your career on your life are there moments or is there a moment that you can reflect on as a comeback season maybe maybe a point where you were on a low and you really had to dig in and uh self-reflect and maybe reposition and reconnect to your why um in order to kind of dig out yeah boy I think my life in trajectory is a um continual iteration of transformation right I’m a Scorpio I really identify with this whole Phoenix mentality and thank God you know there’s been a lot in my personal life and also in my professional life that has really required me to be able to transmute pain trauma obstacle difficulty into something better and different that’s why Alchemy as a concept is so important to me right the idea that you can take kind of Bas level elements and transmute them and transform them into to something better and and something for your good kind of take what was meant from for harm and make it into good so I would say two major things stick out to me one personally one professionally which is you know my father passed away very suddenly about eight years ago which was I was right in the middle of my NBA program I was right in the middle of kind of a transition between kind of marketing director executive director of sales like my first major career transition um and that really set in motion a a series of a few quite trauma a atic events that went on in my family that lasted for a few years and I was really at the center of that storm being able to transform a lot of that trauma and things that happened during that time um into now what has become a platform for good and a platform for positive growth and healing and transformation um is a huge piece of who I am today um and then on the professional side honestly I I have battled through the deepest darkest burnout um you can imagine over multiple points in my career development and learning learning new habits which is part of this leadership resilience thing to me learning new habits that avoid kind of that plunge into burnout that takes it’s not a vacation that gets you over that it’s not a and you know postco a lot of us were in this space we had been at this high level high stress high anxiety output for sometimes three years at a time um with no real mental break no idea what’s happening next and that took a toll um and it took a toll on a lot of us and so really kind of going back to the drawing board to say you know mindfulness isn’t enough and that vacation that I love to take everybody knows I love Adventure travel that wasn’t enough either to make me come back to my why like how do I protect the asset how do I feed myself on a daily basis whether that’s spiritually physically emotionally and mental Mally to know that I I’m not just battling back from burnout but then I’m raising my Baseline of of existence and quality of life as a leader every day um and that’s really changed my perspective on on how I operate and also then trying to feed that to the people that I work with as well to say like listen this is not about you working hours a day it’s not sustainable we need you in Peak Performance mode which means you got to sleep eight hours and you need to go do something for yourself and take a walk and and that needs to be a daily habit not a I took a walk today and it was the first time in two weeks that’s got to be like daily feeding the system yeah those two periods I really had to come back a in my personal life who am I at the core when my entire Foundation has been kind of ripped down who am I still and that made me realize like you know I am a human who who does transmute things and who can take chaos and turn it into a whole new and different and positive thing and on the professional side that challenged my values through burnout as well like who am I at the core of my being and honestly what made me keep coming back during those days is my team uh had nothing to do with the product had nothing to do with the industry had nothing to do with you know sales numbers it was my team to say that I have this incredibly privileged position to be able to invest in and have the trust of the people around me and they rely on me and I rely on them and we and I’ve gotten to see them explode into growth and at the end of the day that is my why as simple as that I love that and and I’m a big believer in in the need for daily recovery as opposed to periodic bursts of of vacation or you know celebration it really has to be something that’s part of your routine it’s baked into your daytoday I’m going to wrap things up by giving you a shout out because as strong as my merch game is your merch game is phenomenal and I don’t know if that’s from your marketing background or from your team but I would I’m going to go on the record and say that you have the best merch in the business right now I am so excited about this because there might be two or three much cooler people in my marketing department who will hear this and get excited about that as well but I agree with you I think our merch and swag is the best that’s out there and I try to leave that to the people who are far more in touch with the tips and Trends than I am I walk in my new balance and I’m like am I cool and then I get a nod or like no but yeah I’m with you we’ve got some of the coolest coolest swag out there we’ve got new stuff coming our belt bags are like the the hottest most coveted giveaway out there in the industry so yeah uh we love it it’s it’s fun uh to see what’s going to be you know next and interesting if you’ve seen me recently you’ve seen me rocking the JK products belt bag like that is part of my daily you know uniform at this point so yeah if you have made it to this point in the episode and you’re on YouTube and you like and you comment on this episode you’re going to be entered to win not just some Sizzle Society merch but you’re also going to be entered to win some JK products and services merch so like comment and on the following Monday we’ll be picking two winners so get you know get in this game it’s definitely a bribe to get more engagement on my podcast but that is me asking for help I not only ask for but then I then I reward when you do actually help so please help me out engage on the podcast and then we’ll throw some some giveaways into the mix at you guys but Bren thank you so much for being here today for sharing your story I think we could do another three episodes down the road I enjoy talking to you so much and I’m just going to close out with a quote that I think was in the Mattel spot that you shared or the Barbie spot that you shared earlier we need to see brilliant women being brilliant and see how they got to where they are thank you for showing up and sharing how you got to where you are and if you guys are not connected to Bren connect with Bren follow her journey because she is someone who’s out there doing all of the things thank you so much Jessica love talking with you I love supporting your podcast and I promise you we will make these giveaway VIP swag experiences worth it so you will want to sign up and comment I promise you all right you heard it here guys thank you so much for tuning in to this episode episode of the society pod we hope you enjoyed this episode of the society pod