Today’s guest, Keisha Greaves, knows a thing or several about overcoming obstacles. Keisha is a motivational speaker, the founder of Girls Chronically Rock, and the Massachusetts State Ambassador for the MDA. Keisha started GCR to provide inspired fashion celebrating MD and other chronic illnesses. Keisha has been featured on GMA, The Today Show, ABC News, and several other notable news outlets. 

When she was in graduate school, Keshia started noticing symptoms that something was wrong. She would randomly fall on the floor, unable to get up. After many tests, she was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and it changed her life forever. It took a while to come to terms with her diagnosis, but when she did, she started her blog Living With Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy to share her story and found a lot of support from people who read it. 

She was always a lover of fashion and decided to incorporate her knowledge and expertise with her condition in 2017 to create her business Girls Chronically Rock. With her business, she sells inspirational t-shirts, home decor, masks, and more that inspire and motivate people with chronic diseases like herself. Her goal is to create an adaptive clothing collection to make her clothes more accessible to people with disabilities and make it widely available. 

Here’s where you can find more from Keisha: 

Website: Girlschronicallyrock.com

Facebook: @GirlsChronicallyRock

Instagram: @GirlsChronically_Rock

Podcast: Girls Chronically Rock Podcast

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Today we are joined by Lisa Pongrass, the Founder and CEO of Canvas & Hyde, a luxury handbag company based in Brooklyn, NY.  She shares the tactical steps she took to learn how to grow her business, build a brand from scratch, and established herself as a luxury designer all while being a newly single mom. 

Raised by her dad, Lisa faced some hardships growing up. As an adult, she moved to France with a fashion photographer and fell in love with the elegance of France. She did a lot of work in the fashion industry before she got married, started a family, and then moved to the United States. 

Her company Canvas & Hyde was born out of the necessity to start her own business. Her husband wanted to move home to Australia and she wanted to stay in the US. Because she was on a spousal visa, she knew she  couldn’t stay here without her husband or a business. She wrote a 56 page business plan and started Canvas & Hyde. The name of her business came from the blank canvas of her new life and the jackal and hyde duality of human nature.  

Lisa is an acclaimed interior designer and fashion stylist in her Australian homeland, Lisa has over 20 years of experience that has propelled her to the forefront of the international stage of fashion and beauty. Lisa currently lives in Brooklyn, just miles away from her showroom. Through Canvas & Hyde, she’s successfully brought American-made quality craftsmanship to life. 

Here’s where you can find more from Lisa: 

Website: canvasandhyde.com

Facebook: @canvasandhyde

Instagram: @canvasandhyde

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If you have ever felt like you are spending way too much time doing things in your business that aren’t in your wheelhouse, it might be time for you to hire out. In this episode, we sat down with Erin Longmoon, the owner of Zephyr Recruiting. Her mission is to eradicate toxic workplace, believing that everyone deserves to love their job while contributing to a greater purpose. She accomplishes this mission by matching great small businesses with the RIGHT FIT employees. Erin has more than two decades helping small businesses, she has owned five businesses herself! The passion to eradicate the toxic workplace comes from a place we can all resonate with. 

Growing up, Erin was always very creative. She grew up in a rural area near San Diego and she was used to figuring things out as she went. At the age of 16, her family relocated to New York, where she learned to see new starts as adventures. Her creative and adventurous spirit led her to her passion helping small businesses find the perfect fit for their team.

Erin talks with us about how to know if it is the right time to start hiring or outsourcing the things that you don’t enjoy or the non-revenue generating tasks in your business and how to find the right future employee. She explains that to do this, you need a good understanding of who you are as a company because you can’t build a house without a foundation. You want to build a team that not only gets along, but who compliment each other and fulfill the needs of your business in all aspects. 

For our listeners, Erin is offering an interactive workbook to help you hone in on who that RIGHT FIT employee is for you. You can get it by going to zephyrrecruiting.com/cultureworkbook.

Here’s where you can find more from Erin:

Website: Zephyrrecruiting.com

Linkedin: Erin Longmoon  

Facebook: @zephyrrecruiting

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Today we are joined by Deborrah Ashley. Deborrah is a marketing strategist, consultant, and LinkedIn trainer who works with clients to develop B2B and B2C LinkedIn strategies to grow and develop not only their businesses, but their personal brands too. Deborrah has a background including two decades in brand management, marketing communications and business development where she used her unique style and launch strategies to generate over 300 million for companies and startups. She has been featured in a variety of media including Oprah Magazine, Black Entertainment Magazine, and the New York Times for her innovative strategies. 

Deborrah was born in England and grew up in New York. She graduated early at the young age of 16 and studied public relations at Mansfield University and received her MBA from Temple University. On a trip to London with her family, she loved the hosiery there but found that it wasn’t available in New York. This led her to start her own successful hosiery business, Luxe Legwear. She later started a social media management business on Instagram and then shifted to LinkedIn marketing.

Today, she shares with us how she now helps businesses work marketing into their LinkedIn strategies using content, engagement, and visibility strategy to win more business and speaking opportunities. If you are just getting started on LinkedIn or if you haven’t been on LinkedIn in a while, Deborrah has a quiz that you can take to find out if your profile is attracting or deterring clients. By taking her quiz, you’ll be entered her giveaway. Take the quiz here.

Deborrah has a new book titled “InSIDER-How To Leverage LinkedIn To Stand Out As The Industry Leader” that you can find by going to bit.ly/INSIDERTHEBOOK

Here’s where you can find more from Deborah: 

Website: thrivoo.com

Hosiery Business: Luxe Legwear

Facebook: Deborrah Ashley

LinkedIn Account: AskDeborrah

Instagram: @Thelinkedinblackbelt

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Today we are joined by Aubree Nichols. A Texas native, her intention is to illuminate the darkness so that others may live in the light. Writing for The Week, Elite Daily and Observer helped her to become a resonant voice in the self-love movement, which she believes is the ultimate love story.

Her proprietary workshop, Stoked! helps teams get unstuck and ignites breakthrough thinking. As a brand strategist, her approach is founded in the belief that creativity and effectiveness can co-exist. She earned an Effie for her work on the SAAB “Born From Jets” campaign that increased sales 37% within 1 year. As a researcher, she uncovers insights by asking good questions, listening for the unspoken and talking to respondents as dear friends.

After spending 10 years in NYC ad agencies, she knew it wasn’t the right path for her. She got her Masters Degree in Organizational Change and started her own business to help do a lot of internal work within organizations. In this episode, Aubree shares her journey of how she came to really love herself, be authentic, take up space, and speak her truth. She is working on a book titled Enough, about how she stopped searching, starving, and striving and became the woman of her dreams. Aubree truly believes that self love heals all and that is the message she feels she is here to spread. 

Here’s where you can find more from Aubree: 

Website: aubreenichols.com

Instagram: @aubree.nichols

If you need business guidance: Contact Dr. Cortney here

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Have you ever felt like you could achieve so much but you just struggle to believe in yourself? In today’s episode, we chat with Margaret Cogswell. Margaret and her husband Blake run her business, MCD Business and Marketing. 

Margaret Cogswell grew up in Charleston, South Carolina and loved art from a very early age. She wrote her first book at the age of 4. She went to a prestigious art college and majored in interactive design and game development. Her education taught her to never fear learning something new and the value of working together with others to build amazing things. Her first job was as a project manager at a book publishing company where she was quickly promoted to managing book layouts. While she loved what she did, she knew she was capable of more and left in 2013 to start her own design business. 

She learned the hard way what it takes to believe in yourself and find success. After a rocky road, she learned to build her confidence in herself and grow her business to six figures. In this episode, Margaret tells us about her incredible journey to turn off her own inner critic and become the woman she needed to be in order to achieve all of her business dreams and even retire her husband while helping other women creatively build their businesses. 

Here's where you can find more from Margaret.

Website: margaretcogswell.com

Facebook: @margaretcogswelldesigns

Instagram: @margaretanncogswell

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Today’s guest is Darnyelle Jervey Harmon. She has an MBA and is an award winning CEO of Incredible One Enterprises, a business growth consultancy in Newark, Delaware. She is best known for helping six-figure service-based entrepreneurs and small business owners transform their life by connecting mindset, messaging, and marketing to sales and systems so they can scale and leverage their businesses to the seven-figure mark sooner while deepening their connection with God, increasing faith, and becoming better leaders who shake the planet. 

In this episode Darnyel shares how, at birth, doctors thought she would not make it because her mother was addicted to drugs while carrying her, but then went on to accomplish extraordinary feats despite her start in life. After graduating, she left her full time corporate job for do-it-yourself entrepreneurship. She went from filing bankruptcy to having her first million dollar year within just four years. She taught herself money management and how to recognize her own self-worth and not seek validation in outside sources. She made it her mission to show people what is possible, how to become the best version of themselves, and how build a business around that. 

Darnyelle is a spiritual business growth strategist. She combines spiritual principles with business growth strategy. She helps her clients grow their business faster than they could on their own and helps them create an infrastructure that supports them both financially and spiritually. Her goal: to help entrepreneurs make the most money that God will allow with the least amount of effort. 

Here’s Where You Can Find More From Darnyelle:

Podcast: Incrediblefactorpodcast.com

Website: Incredibleoneenterprises.com 

If you need business guidance: Email here

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Feel like you have been burning the candle at both ends? This is a common sentiment among female entrepreneurs. We are nurturers by nature, so we often find ourselves putting the needs of others ahead of our own, even when our own tanks are running on empty. Whether it is the lack of boundaries with your team or clients, it can lead to more issues than you may realize. It can even take a toll on your health. In today's episode, Dr. Cortney talks about the importance of taking time for yourself and setting boundaries in your business. You’ll learn some important steps you can take to improve your self care when you are balancing family obligations and business. These tips will help you feel liberated and empowered in your personal life and business life. 

If you need business guidance: Email here

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Dr. Alisha “Ali” Griffith is an autism parenting strategist, transformational speaker and certified professional coach. As a mom of a child living with autism, speech language pathologist and audiologist, this inspired her to become a #1 best-selling author of Au-mazing Gift: A Journey to Autism Acceptance.  

In this episode, Dr. Ali tells us about how she got started as an audiologist and speech pathologist. She worked with kids with different needs and loved what she did. When she received the diagnosis that her son had autism, it rocked her world. This created an even greater passion in her to help others in a similar position. She made it her mission to learn as much as she can and simplify it to help other parents of children with special needs. Dr. Ali shares with us how she deals with overwhelm in her business, the kind of  people that align with her values, and how she copes as a mom of a child with autism. She also shares her number one key to business success: never giving up. 

 Dr. Ali has helped many to SHIFT their negative self-talk towards positive energy power by believing  in their unique strengths, differences and gifts. In April 2019, she proudly released her podcast The Dr. Ali Griffith Show: Mindset, Meditation and Motivation with over 6000 downloads. As seen on media outlets such as NBC, CBS, CW and more, the show’s topics have included, Unsubscribe from Negativity, From Fear to Freedom and Au Meditation Moments. 

Here’s Where You Can Find Dr. Ali:

Website: www.draligriffith.com

Podcast: The Dr. Ali Griffith Show: Mindset, Meditation, and Motivation

Instagram: @Draligriffith

Facebook: @Draligriffith

Book: Au-Mazing Gift: A Journey To Autism Acceptance

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Jessica Zimmerman's story started when she tragically lost her sister in a car accident at the young age of 3. It changed her life forever and she knew that tomorrow is not promised. She decided early on that she was going to live life on her own terms and run her own business so she could spend every second of her day with the people she loves. 

When she was 28 she bought a wedding rental business. To save money and try and turn a profit, she was doing all of the work herself and working 16 hour days. However, when she realized that her daughter didn’t want to come to her at the end of the day because she wasn’t ever around, she knew that something had to change. One of the main reasons she went into business was so that she could be a present mom. Frustrated, she pivoted her business to floral design only and started living her life the way she really wanted to. After this change, she started making 7 figures while working 6 hours a day. She had so much success, in fact, that she created a course to teach others how to do it called The Business Behind The Blooms. 

When Jessica's husband fell very ill, they both went on a journey of self discovery that changed their whole perspective on life. She wrote her book Sleeping With A Stranger to share her story in a vulnerable way. She shares what she went through and how she created a life that gives her purpose while sharing her story and strategies with others. 

Here's where you can get more from Jessica

Website: Jessicazimmerman.com

Book: Sleeping With A Stranger  

Business Courses: jessicazimmerman.com/courses

Podcast: zimmermanpodcast.com

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