Your Next Chapter Starts Here

Speaker 1: [Music] hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in Li Bruner is a best-selling author Emmy award-winning journalist executive Communications coach speaker and podcast host hi Liz so thrilled you are with us today what gave you the courage to launch Bruner Communications tell us about the pivotal moment when you decided to make the leap to launch and grow your business well first of all it takes tremendous amount of Courage for anyone to become an entrepreneur and launch their own business and my business Bruner Communications will be 9 years old in October what's funny about that is that if you had said to me 10 years ago Liz you're going to have a successful coaching business you're going to have a worldwide podcast you are going to have an online learning platform you're going to have published a book I would have said what there's no way I was a journalist for 28 years but actually being an entrepreneur is my fourth chapter I was first a high school music teacher I worked in retail for a couple of years then I became an award-winning journalist for 28 years and now I've been an entrepreneur for almost nine years and people will describe me as a Communications coach a transformational coach a consultant motivational speaker I answer to all of the above but finding the courage to make every single one of those leaps was huge you had to find the courage and there's a quote that I love by Robert Schuler which I think speaks to all of the career transition that I've made what would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail that does not mean that you're not going to be scared that does not mean that you're not going to have challenges it does not mean that you might fall down and have to pick yourself up again but it does take tremendous amount of Courage that's so true isn't it so great we can go through those changes as our lives flow because we go through different changes of Our Lives maybe want to move across the country maybe we decide to have a family and it's great that we can still continue to grow our career depending on what stages of life we are in right I consider them next chapters a lot of people will say well you've reinvented yourself I'm not going to say that that's a wrong term to use but I like using the word recreate my life because what I've done is I've taken all of the experiences that I've had and I've been able to take and think about what are the themes and patterns that run through my life what are the skills that I continue to evolve and use in every single one of these chapters and what has emerged is this theme of being able to help people in many different ways to use my voice and storytelling has been a big component of that when you think about the fact that I was a high school music teacher and I sang semi-professionally and toured Europe for a couple of years I was singing stories that was the way I used my voice and then when I became a journalist I was speaking stories and now as a Communications coach I'm helping people tell their stories there's a whole theme there and I love that kind of work to be able to help people figure out what are those themes and patterns that are running through their lives and it's just a matter of stepping back putting ourselves in that witness position and seeing what patterns emerge and what's really inspiring is that you didn't stop you kept going and you said how can I take my knowledge and what I've learned into your next chapter when I was getting ready to leave teaching I just felt organically that there was something more I was supposed to do Melanie I couldn't tell you what it was I had absolutely no clue what it was going to be I worked in retail I actually became a very good salesperson and I really enjoyed it taking that and I was reading a book that's called who's hiring who by Richard LR one of the things that he talked about was going on informational interviews I bravely and blindly called up two television stations in Champagne orbana Illinois which is where I was living at the time a CBS affiliate and an NBC affiliate and I wanted to find out what I thought I wanted to do did it even exist I really didn't know I thought maybe it was public relations wasn't sure I had done one television commercial when I was Miss Illinois in the Miss America Pageant scholarship competition and I thought well maybe I could do something in TV did I need to go back to school did I need to get another degree did what I thought I wanted to do even exist fast forward a position was ultimately created for me after about six months of conversation and I learned everything on the job everything they said Liz we want you to do this we want you to write these we want you to voice this we want you to have your own show and oh by the way we want you to do the weather I said yes and I'd go home and say am I crazy what am I doing but I'm such a firm believer that just because we've never done something doesn't mean we can't we just have to try and again you're getting out of your comfort zone and saying yes when you could have been too afraid and said no that's when we grow the most when we stretch ourselves when we get out of our comfort zone and a lot of the work that I do as a Communications coach is pulling people out of their comfort zone now you're not going to live out here 247 but now if this was your comfort zone and you've stretched yourself this becomes your comfort zone and it's amazing what you can accomplish when you're willing to stretch when you're willing to grow out of your comfort zone you are also the author of dare to own you share with us why you decided to write it and become an author oh I'm so proud of this because for years people were saying to me Liz you should write a book and I thought oh okay maybe someday and this would come from Friends of course people who were clients people who had heard me speak people who had heard me on television Liz you should write a book so it was a wish but it really wasn't something I thought was actually going to happen and I finally decided in 2019 I thought maybe I could consider writing a book I started reading books on how to write a book and after I felt I had read enough how to write a book books I decided okay let's give this a shot I began writing a book I felt like I was going off course after a couple of chapters so I stopped and life gets in the way things happen and I just put it aside now let's move forward to 2020 my business coach and I were talking about next steps on some things and I felt like I needed to create more online courses for people and so I'd started doing that in 2020 and then I decided you know what I need to do a course on how to be a rockstar public speaker and ironically that offcourse section of the book that I just mentioned that became the template for my Flagship course and from there it blossomed so we produced it we did all the videos and I told her I said I want you to to see this so I sent her the scripts and she wrote back to me after the holidays and she said Liz this is really really good but it reads like a course I said I wrote it as a course she said it would take a lot of work to become a book I said well there are a couple of other chapters that preceded this that I'd like to send you will you just take a look at them you tell me if it's crap you can tell me if there's nothing going on because she said well you know I co-own a publishing company and I said how did I not know that all this time I didn't know that so I sent her those early early chapters and she said Liz this is the makings of a great book and we have a program where we will provide you with a writing coach we will provide you with the artwork we will provide you with a cover and we'll get it everything ready up to the point of publishing it you can take it and Shop it or we can publish it for you I signed right then and there that was April of 2021 I was on a mission I was so compelled to write I was ready to write and I felt like there were just downloads coming from the universe and I would wake up in the middle of the night and had to go and write I'd be over doing my walks along the Charles River in Boston in the morning and I have to run home because I had to write from the middle of April to the end of July I finished the manuscript and it was published in November of 2021 that's how fast it happened good for you and I'm glad you said you know if not right now maybe later because you could have just left those two chapters and I probably would have and good for you for sharing all of your public speaking knowledge because it's one thing to be on social it's another to stand up in front of hundreds of thousands of people and speak to them it's interesting that when you think about it none of us are born knowing how to effectively speak in front of a group of people no matter one person or a thousands of people it is a learned skill and no matter where you are on that learning curve of loving it hating it doing it well or needing to grow everybody can learn something new to take them to the next level if they're willing again to come out of their comfort zone and so the course I I'm so proud of it because it really helps people with everything from every kind of a presentation you would have to give a pitch even up to giving a wedding toast what you can learn of how to put your content together how to deliver your content so you're communicating connecting and engaging with an audience I'm very proud of it and it's it's done really well and I just continue to keep adding to it and also on Bruner academy.com in connection with my book we created four courses that we call the Dare collection dare to go for your goals dare to rise above tough times dare to shift from procrastination to motivation and dare to find peace of mind which is a a very brief simple meditation Wellness course and those are very easy courses but they can help you jump start wherever you are stuck in your life I love it you live by your grandmother's words no knowledge is ever wasted how has this helped you in your life and in your business first of all that was actually the initial title of the book no knowledge is ever wasted that's what I was talking about when I was speaking earlier about the themes and patterns that run through your life no knowledge no experience you've had good or bad it's all good knowledge you learn from it and when you're able to take all of that through your life that's how you create next chapters that's how I went from being a high school music teacher to working in retail to being on television to now being an entrepreneur and a keynote speaker no knowledge is ever wasted you just have to be willing to tap into that and trust that you know more than you think you know it's so true and next chapters can be at any age or stage of life I was I was working in the corporate world and decided I wanted to work in sports I you for the dodgers for a I was grateful yes I went to work for the Los Angeles Dodgers but I was not working in sports at that time and I thought if I could do anything what would I want to do but when you think of next chapters sometimes you think of that as later in life but I was in my 20s it can happen at any period of time in your life it's just a matter of willing to look at your life from where you are you believe fear isn't a good enough reason to make changes in our lives tell us why when I was thinking about leaving television first of all I was petrified to launch my own business because I never wanted to and thought what am I doing but I thought if fear was the only thing standing in my way from making that leap that wasn't a good enough reason and I had to dig down deep to what we talked about earlier on find that courage to say I'm going to trust my gut on this I believe I'm doing the right thing and there was one night when I was in my office at the television station and it wasn't public knowledge yet that I was leaving and I was quietly and confidentially cleaning off the shelves of my office and I happened to come upon a reel of a young woman who was currently now at my television station as a reporter but she had sent that to me years earlier from Florida where she was currently working at that time saying I want to get to Boston I want to get back home that's where my family is and will you look at my reel and tell me what I need to do to get better I did not know I still had that feedback that I had sent her and included with that tape and I thought to myself it was an aha moment I thought I've been doing this I've been helping people learn and grow and get better at public speaking presentation skills being on camera leadership presence everything I've already been doing this she wasn't the first person that sent me a real but the fact that I happened to have that one and I found it on that particular night was like I can do this this is what I meant to do it showed you that your career was prepping you for your next chapter the entire time the entire time at times we can feel like an outsider in different phases of Our Lives you sh that our voices are worth finding how have you been able to overcome imposter syndrome and self-doubt in times like this impostor syndrome is when we feel like we're not enough and we doubt our abilities we doubt that oh my gosh I'm I got this promotion I don't know if I deserve it or somebody's going to find out that I don't deserve it it's that inner self-doubt that we have and I had my share of it many many times and I had to work very hard to learn how to overcome that and it is possible but sometimes these still play in our heads and we have to stop ourselves we have to catch ourselves when that happens and say wait a minute nope that's not the truth of the matter that's not truth that's fear that is not truth and sometimes there's no fact basis for these limiting beliefs that we have running through our head and it there's just no fact involved so how do you move through that you have to catch yourself and I think again sometimes therapy helps counseling helps too that goes a long way and I've had my share but it really does make a difference if we can step out of that and say wait a minute this is not true what what is truth here what is the real truth am I a perfectionist do I feel like I just need to cross every tea and Dot every eye and that's why I feel like I have impostor syndrome even when I became my second television station where I was in upper management and I was the only female in upper management talk about pushing through the glass ceiling I had major impostor syndrome I'm thinking they're going to find out that I don't know how to do this they're going to find out that I don't know how to be a manager they're going to find out that I have no idea what to do in this job because they created the position there's no one to fall back on I have to figure it all out on my own and I did thank you for being so honest because there's not anyone on the planet that has not had that experience at one point and to stop and tell yourself these are not facts right these are thoughts is a great way to look at it I'm not sure what the actual percentage is but around 75% or more of people feel impostor syndrome at some point in time in their lives that's a majority of people and in fact I quote one of my podcast guests former Navy SEAL Mark dine who talked about his own impostor syndrome hugely successful number one in his class in the seal cohort that he was in did programs for the government as a successful Seal program right now for civilians who want to learn he's written I think two or three different books that are bests Sellers and he still from time to time feels impostor syndrome I ask this question at the end of every episode because I believe it's so important to bring joy into our daily lives magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one way you make sure to find and live your joy each day the vision for my life is I want to teach motivate and inspire people to live their best life and when I'm able to help people do that whether it's through coaching workshops Bruner academy.com my book my podcast whatever it is that's why we're here to learn to grow to live our best life to be of service to bring joy and spread Joy thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing your knowledge with us please share with our listeners how and where we can find you the easiest place is at Liz Bruner decom that's Li ibru nn.com thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello she.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheil it on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave