Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Deena C. Brown.
Dr. Brown, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Many women walk around wearing someone else’s vision of who they should be because of fear, doubt, and limited-beliefs. It is as if we were programmed to expect less and feel guilty for wanting more. That was my story for nearly 45 years. I realized that my dreams required a complete evolution and transformation of thought. I learned through excellent mentorship from the John Maxwell Team that if you want to change your life you must change your programming. The SHIFT begins inside of you and will radiate on the outside.
In 2016, I left a 20+ year career as an educator to embrace entrepreneurship and pursue my passion: to INSPIRE, EMPOWER, and TRANSFORM the lives of leaders around the world. My Purpose and Passion no longer aligned with my profession (as a DoDEA Educator), and I had to SHIFT. I started my first consulting business to train leaders on how to communicate and connect in order to build world-class teams. It was exciting, scary, and baffling all at the same time. Drawing on my 20+ as an educator and award-winning school principal, my initial streams of income were speaking, teaching, writing, providing professional services, and consulting. As a woman, diversifying my income stream was crucial to protecting myself and my family against the unavoidable and unexpected situations that could wreak havoc on our financial stability.
In 2017, I founded The Leadhershift Movement to unlock the courage and confidence of women like me to shift the way we embrace our roles as women (leaders, mothers, daughters, sisters, wives) and share our stories, our truths without shame, jealousy, envy, or guilt. During our darkest moments lies an opportunity to SHIFT and in the midst of our greatest uncertainty, we must make the SHIFT to see the beauty in our brokenness. We cannot love WHO we are today if we lament all the experiences that made us. I made the shift – The Leadhershift. Since founding The Leadhershift Movement, I have made it my life’s work to help other women tell their stories and live their truth.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I didn’t seek to become an entrepreneur I evolved into the business. I knew it was time to shift into my next greater and entrepreneurship didn’t come with boundaries. My greatest challenge as an entrepreneur was overcoming the mindset of a full-time employee and believing that what I had to offer was a valuable asset in the marketplace. I knew how to THINK and CREATE. Yet, I didn’t conceptualize how “thinking” would translate into a profit-generating entity. I spent extensive amounts of hours “playing entrepreneur” because the concept that I had to actually “hunt” in order to eat was foreign to me. I gave away exclusive high-quality services because I loved what I was doing and didn’t initially conceptualize that I should be paid for what I loved to do.
My biggest mistake was going after all of the shiny objects such as the professional website, elegant business cards, designer logos, and spending money on networking events that had zero Return on Investment (ROI). My business plan was simply to start a business. I did not access all of the free tools, resources and support systems that were available such as the Small Business Association (SBA), Urban League, SCORE, or lean-in to my mentors.
My advice for young women would be to embrace the journey. The key to successfully navigating entrepreneurship is to get Clear about HOW your business will serve people, be Confident about WHAT you offer in the marketplace, and stay consistent with what you DO daily. Branding is not about a logo but how you show up day-in, day-out. Your audio must match your video. Early in my journey, I “played” an entrepreneur but did not present like one across the balance sheets. I had the professional website, the elegant business cards, the super-fly logo and even a few high-ticket clients that seem to fall out of the sky right into my profit/loss statement; yet, I didn’t implement good business sense and often didn’t follow up or have a clear next step. Previously, I had my good six-figure government job to support me and my son. Although my business looked very polished on the outside, I didn’t have my backend systems set up for success. So, my golden nugget of advice is to cover your “BACKEND” systems.
Please tell us about The Leadhershift Movement.
The Leadhershift Movement was founded to unlock the courage and confidence of women like me to shift the way we embrace our roles as women (leaders, mothers, daughters, sisters, wives) and share our stories, our truths without shame, jealousy, envy, or guilt. My work entails helping women embrace their authentic truth and boldly walk in their gifts unapologetically to trail-blaze for the next generation of women. My speciality is shifting the way women Learn, Experience, Apply, and Develop (L.E.A.D). According to my clients, I employ the technique of guided self-discovery to “help women get to the heart of the matter and get behind the mask to reveal the essence of your truth.”
My trademark C3 Blueprint™️ sets me apart from others by guiding my clients through a radical personal growth and development program. My clients learn powerful new techniques, strategies and action steps — plus the LeadherS.H.I.F.T Method™️ personal growth process – drawing on the best thought leadership available to build a more rewarding and impactful relationship with self and others. My clients heal from past trauma, overcome imposter syndrome, quiet their inner critic, and learn the steps to take to love themselves, gain more power, increase influence and impact, and thrive in their next chapter of life and work.
My continued growth and expansion led me to start my own publishing company entitled Way With Words Publishing. Our company helps emerging writers, established authors, and those who have a book in their belly that is waiting to be birthed.
One of my proudest moments was publishing Destimony: The Journey of Me on the Road to I AM. The anthology made Amazon’s best-sellers list for Personal Transformation & Spirituality, Personal Success & Spirituality, and Spiritual Growth & Self-Help. I am extremely proud of the amazing authors who participated in Destimony: The Journey of Me on the Road to I AM. This anthology was a powerful assemblage of incredible authors that inspired, empowered, and encouraged women everywhere to see the power in their voice, journey, destiny and testimony. The next edition of Destimony: The Series is entitled “Truth Serum” and will be released in the fall of 2020.
I am most excited about my upcoming book “Walking Through Glass: The Ultimate Guide to Be Sane, Sexy, and Significant in a Male-Dominated World” and my ground-breaking podcast “Walking Through Glass: The Podcast”. My podcast is not about breaking through the “glass ceiling” it is about the struggle we face on our journey, which I describe as “walking through the glass”. Our conscious conversations all about real talk with real women that are doing their best to navigate fear, anxiety, depression, imposter syndrome, limited beliefs, negative self-talk and other impactful belief systems.
“Walking Through Glass: The Podcast” is available on iTunes, Podbean, Stitcher, Google Music Play, and Spotify.
Were there people and/or experiences you had in your childhood that you feel laid the foundation for your success?
My mother has always been instrumental in my authentic growth and development. My mother taught all of her nine children that obstacles were really opportunities to exercise our ingenuity. My mother emphasized that we have the power to create the lives we desire and we should be extra cautious about giving that power away. My mother would say, “as soon as you use the phrase ‘they made me’ you have given your power away.” On my personal growth journey, I was able to expand that thought process to include the fact that if I gave my power away also had the power to take it back.
I learned early in life that there is always a way to “get-to-yes”. My childhood wasn’t a bed of roses and there were several times that I had to THINK my way to the next level. Thinking and creating is a hallmark of my business and the secret sauce to helping my clients think outside the box, tell their stories, live their truth, and dream bigger.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.
leadhershiftmovement.com - Book Orders: http://bit.ly/
DestimonyAutographCopy - Phone: 9493298529
- Email: info@drdeenaspeaks.com
- Instagram: https://www.
instagram.com/drdeenaspeaks/ - Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/DrDeenaCBrown - Twitter: https://www.twitter.
com/drdeenaspeaks - Other: https://shor.by/DrDeena
Image Credit:
ZLWPhotography
Will Utley
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