Latest / The Heart-Led Business Show / Layoff Launchpad: PR Empire Rise with Heather Adams

Transcript

Layoff Launchpad: PR Empire Rise with Heather Adams · The Heart-Led Business Show

• 0:01
  Speaker: Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love.
• 0:09
  Speaker: Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second.
• 0:20
  Speaker: From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism.
• 0:29
  Speaker: So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.
• 0:36
  Tom Jackobs: Get ready dear listeners because today we're diving deep into the dazzling world of brand strategy with the remarkable, Heather Adams as the CEO of Choice Media and Communication.
• 0:48
  Tom Jackobs: Heather leads her powerhouse all female team with a heart full of passion and a mind brimming with brilliance.
• 0:55
  Tom Jackobs: We'll explore her journey in cultivating soul stirring stories and launching over 100 New York Times bestsellers.
• 1:03
  Tom Jackobs: So get ready for a conversation about leading a heart-led business that truly makes a difference.
• 1:09
  Tom Jackobs: Heather, welcome to the show.
• 1:10
  Heather Adams: Thank you, Tom.
• 1:11
  Heather Adams: I'm so delighted to be here.
• 1:13
  Tom Jackobs: I'm really excited for you to be on the show as well because I think my listeners really want to hear your story, especially about how to get a hundred New York Times bestsellers out there.
• 1:25
  Tom Jackobs: That is, that's amazing.
• 1:28
  Tom Jackobs: But of course, before we get into all of that.
• 1:29
  Tom Jackobs: My first question to all the guests is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?
• 1:35
  Heather Adams: Thank you Tom.
• 1:35
  Heather Adams: I'm so honored to be here and thrilled to be with your community.
• 1:39
  Heather Adams: When I think about this question, what does it mean to have a heart-led business?
• 1:44
  Heather Adams: I really feel when we lead with humanity and soul as our north star.
• 1:51
  Tom Jackobs: Now, what does that mean in terms of our humanity and soul to you?
• 1:55
  Heather Adams: When we were developing our core values as a business and we were trying to think of, why are we here, what's the mission of choice and the core values, what do we believe?
• 2:07
  Heather Adams: What is that foundational DNA that everyone that we interact with, whether it's internally as a team or externally with our clients and industry peers.
• 2:16
  Heather Adams: What do we want people to know about us?
• 2:19
  Heather Adams: I kept going back to the experience I wanted them to have as a human being first.
• 2:25
  Heather Adams: And I think that leading with kindness, considering offering grace and extending grace regularly asking how people are first before we jump into brass tacks, right?
• 2:38
  Heather Adams: Like even the way we lead our meetings, like where just every foundational element of the business points to that, it's like our compass, if you will.
• 2:47
  Heather Adams: And so I think leading with heart to me means going back to how do we treat each other as human beings first and foremost.
• 2:55
  Tom Jackobs: I love that.
• 2:56
  Tom Jackobs: It covers all aspects of client relationships, employee relationships, and even shareholder or stakeholder relationships as well.
• 3:04
  Tom Jackobs: Because those are the three only relationships that you have as a business owner.
• 3:08
  Heather Adams: Yeah.
• 3:09
  Heather Adams: At the end of the day, when someone works with choice whether they work for me in the business or we serve them in some capacity as a client our reputation and the way we make them feel is interwoven.
• 3:23
  Heather Adams: How the perception about our business has so much to do with how we made them feel during their experience interacting with us and some that of course is performance and KPIs and all of those, business strategies and execution and all of that.
• 3:43
  Heather Adams: But down to the relationship that you formed and the way that you connected with them and how they are leaving feeling.
• 3:50
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah and that whole idea of how people feel in reacting and inter I should say interacting with a company in your company specifically.
• 4:01
  Tom Jackobs: I think that's a really great concept that most people, most business owners don't really tap into in terms of thinking about their business.
• 4:10
  Tom Jackobs: I think most people, and I'm guilty of this too, when I first started in business is like I am worried about my product and this is what my product is, and I want my product to be the best and I love my product.
• 4:24
  Heather Adams: I'll give you an example.
• 4:25
  Heather Adams: When we were in the pandemic, okay?
• 4:28
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 4:29
  Heather Adams: I think February, 2020.
• 4:32
  Heather Adams: I'm in New York City, with one of our clients who has a book releasing in April and meeting to meeting with Time Magazine and the Today Show and the New York Time, I mean, we are going from one meeting to the next, the View all these places, and they're calling and saying, Hey, can we meet at a coffee shop?
• 4:49
  Heather Adams: Because we're not sure that you're gonna be led in the building.
• 4:53
  Heather Adams: The NBA end their season.
• 4:56
  Heather Adams: Broadway shuts down all while I'm in New York City, okay?
• 4:59
  Heather Adams: And I'm with a client.
• 5:01
  Heather Adams: I'm like, what's going on?
• 5:02
  Heather Adams: This is crazy.
• 5:04
  Heather Adams: I get home and fast forward, a couple of weeks, we're all locked down in our houses.
• 5:11
  Heather Adams: This pandemic has absolutely taken over our lives, right?
• 5:16
  Heather Adams: And on a global scale.
• 5:18
  Heather Adams: It is the first time in my entire career where every single one of my clients is in crisis simultaneously.
• 5:27
  Heather Adams: I have this client that I had been in New York with, whose book is coming out April 20th, 2020.
• 5:34
  Heather Adams: I have Profits who have fundraising events that all of a sudden are canceled now because nobody's gathering in person.
• 5:41
  Heather Adams: I have clients that are speakers that now every single in-person speaking event has been canceled and they haven't pivoted yet to virtual speaking, and so they've lost all of their revenue.
• 5:54
  Heather Adams: This is just, that's just three examples, but every single one of my clients is in crisis simultaneously.
• 6:00
  Heather Adams: First time in my entire career.
• 6:02
  Tom Jackobs: Wow.
• 6:03
  Heather Adams: I sat down with our team to determine how we were going to serve during that pandemic.
• 6:11
  Heather Adams: And I remember looking at them and we were all on Zoom'cause we're all locked down in our houses.
• 6:16
  Heather Adams: And I remember saying to them, I don't care if we make one dime.
• 6:21
  Heather Adams: I want on the other side of this, for our reputation to be that we cared for people.
• 6:27
  Heather Adams: During this situation when they were hurting, than abandoning them or panicking, as my therapist says, anxiety travels down the leash.
• 6:37
  Heather Adams: And so when you're the publicist, when you're the one in charge of crisis communications, if you're anxious, the client's gonna be anxious, right?
• 6:44
  Heather Adams: And so what I was doing was I was putting the human beings that we were serving over whether I was gonna make any profit or not.
• 6:55
  Heather Adams: I doubled my revenue that year.
• 6:57
  Heather Adams: And I look back at how we pivoted and how we addressed and how we served, and I think so much of it points back to that conversation where we were like, we are gonna treat them human beings first, and figure out how to serve them and care for them well in this season.
• 7:15
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 7:15
  Tom Jackobs: Wow.
• 7:16
  Tom Jackobs: What a great turnaround story too.
• 7:19
  Tom Jackobs: Boy, that everything that I was traveling back to the US for meetings and I had a couple speaking engagements as well, and that all got canceled before I even got on my, I had a two day layover in, in Taipei, and basically I just stayed here and I've been here ever since.
• 7:38
  Tom Jackobs: And just never got on that return flight.
• 7:40
  Tom Jackobs: So yeah, what a crazy time, be able to recognize what your clients need and all that.
• 7:46
  Tom Jackobs: And then to also, stay true to the heart because I think crisis like that, people start to panic and a lot of, if you don't have that firm solid foundation of the heart-led business, then you're gonna go, you're gonna, you're gonna look at the profit and I need to make profit soon and probably gonna make some bad decisions.
• 8:07
  Heather Adams: And you have that scarcity mentality and you're in panic mode and you're not operating from a thoughtful, intentional frame of mind, right?
• 8:16
  Heather Adams: You're operating from adrenaline and fear.
• 8:20
  Heather Adams: And that's not the mindset that we want when we're in a crisis, right?
• 8:24
  Heather Adams: But I will just say, Tom, in my, almost 30 year career leading from my heart has never ever served me wrong.
• 8:34
  Heather Adams: It's never led me astray.
• 8:36
  Heather Adams: You know.
• 8:37
  Heather Adams: It's never been something that backfired because I treated someone like a human being and cared for them well, and and prioritized that first.
• 8:49
  Tom Jackobs: That's a really great lesson too, to just and I wanna solidify that too on a previous comment that you made about how you make people feel.
• 8:56
  Tom Jackobs: I just, I pulled up this quote, which I quote quite a bit, and it's Maya Angelou I've learned that people will forget what you said.
• 9:04
  Tom Jackobs: People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
• 9:09
  Heather Adams: That's right.
• 9:10
  Heather Adams: That's exactly right.
• 9:11
  Heather Adams: I own a PR and marketing firm, so I'm responsible for people's reputation.
• 9:17
  Heather Adams: About them, their business, their brand.
• 9:19
  Heather Adams: And so that can get really wonky at times, and and so when you lead with that, Hey, let's sit down across this table.
• 9:29
  Heather Adams: Let's be thoughtful about your brand identity as we're building the strategy for how to scale and grow your business.
• 9:36
  Heather Adams: What is true to you?
• 9:37
  Heather Adams: What is at the heart of your business?
• 9:39
  Heather Adams: And that's gonna be different depending on the client, but it just is absolutely like the North Star that directs choice and has has really served me so well as a business owner and CEO.
• 9:55
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:56
  Tom Jackobs: When you put people first, that will always come back to you in multiples for sure.
• 10:02
  Heather Adams: That's exactly right.
• 10:03
  Tom Jackobs: So I apologize to you and to my listeners here.
• 10:08
  Tom Jackobs: We didn't even introduce your business.
• 10:10
  Tom Jackobs: Tell us a little bit about Choice Media and what you do and what makes it a heart-led business.
• 10:17
  Heather Adams: Sure.
• 10:19
  Heather Adams: So Choice is, like you said, at the top of our conversation, an all female team where we serve predominantly females, although every now and then we let a male in here.
• 10:30
  Tom Jackobs: Thank you.
• 10:31
  Heather Adams: And we take care of them as clients too.
• 10:33
  Heather Adams: But predominantly our job is to, build, launch, and amplify female voices.
• 10:41
  Heather Adams: We do that from a handful of different vantage points.
• 10:45
  Heather Adams: One and what put my name on the map and our hallmark is PR.
• 10:51
  Heather Adams: I have been a publicist for nearly 30 years.
• 10:53
  Heather Adams: I've seen a lot in that 30 years as you can imagine, Tom.
• 10:57
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 10:58
  Heather Adams: But so public relations, and that's everything from media relations, pitching and landing someone in People magazine or on ESPN to crisis communications, to brand strategy.
• 11:11
  Heather Adams: That all of that is, is encompassed there.
• 11:14
  Heather Adams: We do marketing.
• 11:15
  Heather Adams: And that might be email sequences or lead generators or social media or ads or website development, but overall digital marketing and then we do a ton of brand identity development and scaling and strategy for businesses and brands.
• 11:35
  Heather Adams: The vast majority of our clients at Choice are personality driven brands.
• 11:41
  Heather Adams: So the face of the company is usually who you're doing business with, and they might be selling a product, a service, or a message, but you're doing business with that personality at the end of the day.
• 11:53
  Heather Adams: Though we do have a handful of more product driven businesses.
• 11:57
  Heather Adams: We have a whiskey distillery in Nashville, for example.
• 12:01
  Heather Adams: But, people come come to us for three reasons.
• 12:04
  Heather Adams: They wanna build a platform and identify the right audience that they're going after and sell to that ideal customer.
• 12:13
  Heather Adams: They wanna launch something.
• 12:14
  Heather Adams: They're launching a book, they're opening a restaurant, they're launching an online course, whatever that launch season might be, or they're amplifying their message.
• 12:24
  Heather Adams: They've built their business up to a certain level.
• 12:27
  Heather Adams: They need it to be introduced to a wider audience or a new consumer, or they need it to be elevated on a national scale.
• 12:36
  Heather Adams: And so those are the really, the three reasons that people come to us.
• 12:41
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 12:41
  Tom Jackobs: And I love that cycle too,'cause that mimics every business cycle as well.
• 12:48
  Tom Jackobs: That's great.
• 12:49
  Tom Jackobs: Great branding.
• 12:50
  Heather Adams: Thank.
• 12:50
  Tom Jackobs: Clearly you're a really good PR person.
• 12:52
  Heather Adams: I'm a wordsmith at the end of the day, right?
• 12:55
  Tom Jackobs: Right.
• 12:56
  Tom Jackobs: That's awesome.
• 12:58
  Tom Jackobs: So I always like to ask as well, how did you get into PR and owning your own business and what that translate transition was like for you?
• 13:10
  Heather Adams: PR came really like when I was in college, I was studying magazine journalism.
• 13:15
  Heather Adams: I thought I would be in New York City laying out and writing magazines after graduation.
• 13:21
  Heather Adams: But I did an internship and I grew up in Atlanta.
• 13:25
  Heather Adams: I went to the University of Georgia and my internship was at the Capitol downtown Atlanta for the Secretary of State in his press office.
• 13:34
  Tom Jackobs: Oh wow.
• 13:35
  Heather Adams: I worked for the press secretary and the deputy press secretary, and it was the first time I saw like really.
• 13:45
  Heather Adams: Physically saw the person in the middle between the client and the media.
• 13:51
  Heather Adams: And so this was the press secretary and he was serving in between his client, the Secretary of State, and the media that was covering, news in the state of Georgia.
• 14:02
  Heather Adams: And it was that juxtaposition and I realized, oh my gosh.
• 14:06
  Heather Adams: I love that.
• 14:07
  Heather Adams: I wanna be in that seat.
• 14:09
  Heather Adams: I wanna be,'cause so much of it is so relationally driven and then there's so much communication, whether it's written or verbal communication.
• 14:17
  Heather Adams: And I was like, those are things that I'm really good at.
• 14:19
  Heather Adams: And I loved like seeing that position that he was in between the client and the media.
• 14:26
  Heather Adams: So it was, if you think of Olivia Pope from Scandal, this was long before Olivia Pope even was a thought never exist as a show yet, but it was, that was what I was watching.
• 14:38
  Heather Adams: And so when I graduated, that's why I went into PRS because of that internship and what I saw you know, as something that I could do for a living that put things that I loved and were good at, combined those things together.
• 14:53
  Heather Adams: So that's how I got into PR.
• 14:55
  Tom Jackobs: Nice.
• 14:55
  Heather Adams: But how I became an entrepreneur and a CEO is, if you remember, 2008, 9, 10.
• 15:02
  Heather Adams: A lot people listening, probably remember that season and it was a very tumultuous season, and I had been at one of the big five publishing houses for nearly a decade.
• 15:15
  Heather Adams: I was running the publicity department.
• 15:17
  Heather Adams: I was working with marquee.
• 15:19
  Heather Adams: Thought leaders and change agents who were releasing books that, that was my, job.
• 15:25
  Heather Adams: And my job was to get them on Good Morning America, to get them in the New York Times to to get that media coverage for them and their book when their book was releasing.
• 15:35
  Heather Adams: And I was really good at it Tom and I had made a name for myself and in 08, 09, 10.
• 15:44
  Heather Adams: Our CEO started having to lay off people, and it was like a little at a time, like you'd go in and 25 people would be laid off and then you go in six months later and 125 people would be laid off.
• 15:56
  Heather Adams: The CEO, who is a dear mentor and friend of mine, Michael Hyatt.
• 16:00
  Heather Adams: He, at the time, he has since told me during that season, he laid off more than 25% of the workforce at Thomas Nelson, where I was the head of publicity.
• 16:10
  Heather Adams: And so I got laid off as one of those things.
• 16:14
  Heather Adams: I was in one of those rounds.
• 16:15
  Heather Adams: It was like a sharpshooter, taking people out a little bit at a time.
• 16:19
  Heather Adams: And so it was really hard, but.
• 16:21
  Heather Adams: I remember thinking that.
• 16:24
  Heather Adams: It was gonna be hard for them to lay me off because of my job and what I did for them and how visible it was and how much it contributed to the bottom line.
• 16:35
  Heather Adams: But what I learned was at the end of the day, it was a business decision.
• 16:38
  Heather Adams: It really hurt my feelings.
• 16:40
  Heather Adams: I had been New York City that whole week pitching our newest catalog and I had landed a people cover story and a six week appearance on the Today Show.
• 16:48
  Heather Adams: It was like COVID did gets.
• 16:51
  Heather Adams: I came home on a Thursday.
• 16:52
  Heather Adams: I walked in on the office on Friday morning and I was let go.
• 16:57
  Heather Adams: That's what started this entrepreneurial journey, Tom was, I got laid off.
• 17:02
  Heather Adams: It was not something I chose for myself.
• 17:06
  Heather Adams: And on Sunday I got laid off on a Friday.
• 17:08
  Heather Adams: On Sunday, our number one competitor's, CEO called me and she said, we've heard what's happened.
• 17:15
  Heather Adams: We need someone to come in and overhaul our publicity department, and we think you're the woman for the job and we wanna fly you to Michigan and we wanna get to know you and we wanna see if you're interested.
• 17:27
  Heather Adams: And so before I got on the plane.
• 17:30
  Heather Adams: To go to Michigan, my husband said to me, don't take your next step out of fear.
• 17:34
  Heather Adams: Fear, we can't pay our mortgage fear, we can't feed our children.
• 17:38
  Heather Adams: And our boys at that time, were one and three years old
• 17:41
  Tom Jackobs: Oh my gosh.
• 17:42
  Heather Adams: And were very much a two income household.
• 17:44
  Heather Adams: Like we needed me to work and I wanted to work.
• 17:48
  Heather Adams: It wasn't a question, but.
• 17:52
  Heather Adams: Matt saying that to me, Tom gave me permission to really advocate for myself my worth.
• 17:59
  Heather Adams: I was very seasoned at that point.
• 18:01
  Heather Adams: I had built a really beautiful career and a name for myself in the industry.
• 18:06
  Heather Adams: And so what I did was I went and I met with them and I said.
• 18:10
  Heather Adams: I love these authors that you represent.
• 18:13
  Heather Adams: I really am impressed by your team.
• 18:16
  Heather Adams: I will come in and overhaul this department.
• 18:18
  Heather Adams: I will build you a world class publicity team.
• 18:20
  Heather Adams: I will help, you transform this aspect of the business, but I'm not gonna move from Nashville.
• 18:26
  Heather Adams: I wanna stay in Nashville and I don't wanna work for you full time.
• 18:30
  Heather Adams: And it was the first time in my career where I really advocated for what I wanted and all of a sudden I had a new job on my own terms, making twice as much money as what I was making before I got laid off.
• 18:48
  Heather Adams: And not working full time.
• 18:49
  Heather Adams: That is what started this whole entrepreneurial journey that led to choice later.
• 18:54
  Heather Adams: I did that kind of as a contractor consultant for a few years, just by myself to figure out, Am I gonna keep doing this?
• 19:03
  Heather Adams: Am I gonna go back in house somewhere?
• 19:05
  Heather Adams: And I missed leading a team, particularly of women I missed like pouring into and handing the baton backwards to the women coming behind me.
• 19:13
  Heather Adams: And so in 2014 is when I launched Choice.
• 19:16
  Tom Jackobs: Oh that's what a great story.
• 19:18
  Tom Jackobs: And I wanna
• 19:18
  Heather Adams: Thank you
• 19:19
  Tom Jackobs: just unpack one thing for the listeners and what a great advice your husband gave you about don't do this out of fear.
• 19:30
  Tom Jackobs: And this comes up quite a bit, and especially when I'm coaching clients.
• 19:35
  Tom Jackobs: That they make choices out of fear, not out of just confidence because of time and situation, but if we look back and look open, then it's, oh wait, I could have done something different.
• 19:50
  Tom Jackobs: So why didn't we do it in the moment?
• 19:52
  Tom Jackobs: Why do you think people make choices that don't serve them well when they're, when it's under fear?
• 19:57
  Heather Adams: I think it's a narrative we're sold.
• 20:00
  Heather Adams: It's this mindset of that scarcity mentality.
• 20:04
  Heather Adams: Instead of having an abundance mentality, it's that, oh, this opportunity's not gonna come again.
• 20:09
  Heather Adams: So you better take it while you have it.
• 20:10
  Heather Adams: It much like when I started my business, Tom and a girlfriend of mine who was in the industry who owned her own business, took me to lunch and she said, don't be cheap.
• 20:22
  Heather Adams: Don't be the one that your reputation is, oh, we'll just call Heather because I can afford Heather, and Heather is cheap.
• 20:29
  Heather Adams: And she was like, there's enough business to go around.
• 20:31
  Heather Adams: And she was like, don't take a client that you know you're not gonna serve well.
• 20:36
  Heather Adams: You don't get along with, you don't believe in just because you think you need the revenue.
• 20:41
  Heather Adams: And that's scary when you start a business and you don't have any income coming in.
• 20:47
  Heather Adams: It's scary to turn down and say no to someone.
• 20:50
  Heather Adams: But again, going back to that heart-led business, if I'm listening to my heart and I'm saying, you know what?
• 20:56
  Heather Adams: I don't share the same values with this client, or I'm not really enthusiastic about this client, so how good am I gonna be at pitching this client and convincing Tom to have him on his podcast if I don't believe it?
• 21:08
  Heather Adams: I think that has always served me so well, but I think it's a mindset shift that we have to make because that's a bill of goods we've been sold.
• 21:18
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, definitely a big mindset.
• 21:21
  Tom Jackobs: And I think because I think as humans we automatically go to the negative anyway, that we just have negative bias, right?
• 21:28
  Tom Jackobs: Because a saber tooth tiger might come up at behind us at any moment, right?
• 21:33
  Heather Adams: You have 10 really positive complimentary things and there's one negative thing, and what do you focus on?
• 21:38
  Heather Adams: You focus on the one negative comment instead of the 10 really kind, wonderful, gracious things that people have said.
• 21:45
  Tom Jackobs: Exactly.
• 21:47
  Tom Jackobs: But when we take it out of here and bring it down in, for those listening, I was pointing to my head.
• 21:52
  Tom Jackobs: But you bring it down into your heart.
• 21:54
  Tom Jackobs: So you take it outta your head, bring it into your heart.
• 21:57
  Tom Jackobs: It gets so much easier in terms of not sacrificing your soul, but just feeding your heart with goodness and abundance that's gonna come around.
• 22:09
  Tom Jackobs: But when those times happen, where that fear pops in, you really have to go back into the heart.
• 22:16
  Heather Adams: Yeah.
• 22:16
  Heather Adams: And what I have learned over the years, and of course I have not done this perfectly in the 11 years I've had my business, but what I have learned is, we have to notice the, notice it first, right?
• 22:30
  Heather Adams: Notice the behavior, notice the fear, notice the anxiousness.
• 22:35
  Heather Adams: And then we have to say to ourself in that moment, okay, what do I know to be true in this situation?
• 22:42
  Heather Adams: And then, it through with someone else as opposed to really making an isolating decision on your own.
• 22:51
  Heather Adams: But at the end of the day, whether you call it your heart, your gut, the Holy Spirit, whatever it is for you particularly, it doesn't steer you wrong.
• 23:01
  Heather Adams: Your body knows, and and whenever I have gone against it, it has proven itself out.
• 23:08
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 23:09
  Tom Jackobs: Absolutely.
• 23:10
  Tom Jackobs: And it's so funny because you get that.
• 23:14
  Tom Jackobs: I dunno about you, but I get that feeling like where that anxious comes up and you're like, oh, something's going on.
• 23:20
  Tom Jackobs: And then the brain takes over and I'm like,
• 23:23
  Heather Adams: That's exactly right.
• 23:24
  Tom Jackobs: I need to stop that.
• 23:25
  Tom Jackobs: Stop that right now.
• 23:26
  Tom Jackobs: And then you can actually feel that, like if you're in tune with your body.
• 23:30
  Tom Jackobs: And I think that's what we're saying here is you need to be in tune with your body, in tune with your brain and realize when that's happening and go, wait, why is this happening?
• 23:39
  Tom Jackobs: Why am I feeling this way right now?
• 23:41
  Tom Jackobs: There's no tigers or dinosaurs around me.
• 23:44
  Tom Jackobs: What?
• 23:44
  Heather Adams: Why is adrenaline rising?
• 23:45
  Heather Adams: What's going on getting into fight or flight?
• 23:47
  Heather Adams: Why is that happening?
• 23:49
  Tom Jackobs: I was like, darn it, somebody gave me a bad review on YouTube.
• 23:52
  Tom Jackobs: Ah.
• 23:54
  Tom Jackobs: I was like, oh, I'm just gonna stop posting videos now.
• 23:58
  Heather Adams: Yeah, I'm gonna quit.
• 23:59
  Heather Adams: I'm gonna quit producing my podcast.
• 24:01
  Heather Adams: 'cause one person said, they gave me a one star.
• 24:04
  Tom Jackobs: Right.
• 24:05
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 24:06
  Tom Jackobs: So we have to divorce ourselves from the brain sometimes and from that fear.
• 24:11
  Tom Jackobs: Go back into the heart.
• 24:12
  Tom Jackobs: Do you feel like what techniques do you use to combat that, getting into that fear mode?
• 24:21
  Heather Adams: I have a couple of things that I do personally.
• 24:24
  Heather Adams: One is I have an executive coach and a therapist that I meet with every single month, multiple times.
• 24:36
  Tom Jackobs: Same person or two different people.
• 24:38
  Heather Adams: Two different people.
• 24:39
  Tom Jackobs: Okay.
• 24:39
  Heather Adams: I have an executive coach for the business, and I have a therapist and spiritual mentor for Heather, holistically.
• 24:46
  Tom Jackobs: Okay, awesome.
• 24:47
  Heather Adams: And I think for me, for Heather, it is so helpful to verbally process what I am dealing with across my whole life, not just within my business with those people to help me remember what my priorities, my values, goals, all of those things are, so I don't lose focus.
• 25:11
  Heather Adams: I don't get into a fear-based mindset.
• 25:14
  Heather Adams: I don't make decisions, out of that, narrative, right?
• 25:19
  Tom Jackobs: Yep.
• 25:20
  Heather Adams: So to me, having somebody who is an ally in partnership with me, and I pay those people, so it's not like you know it, it's not like I'm doing this for free with someone, but I pay those people.
• 25:35
  Heather Adams: It has proven to be so beneficial to my business and bottom line as well as to my own mental health and wellness.
• 25:43
  Heather Adams: That's the first thing.
• 25:45
  Heather Adams: I think the second thing is just system structure, scaffolding, if you will, that I have built into choice to keep the culture that I intend for the business and the environment that I intend for the business as a part of the business with the entire team.
• 26:07
  Heather Adams: So it's not just lip service that you see on our website or on our social media.
• 26:13
  Heather Adams: It's actually lived out in practice.
• 26:16
  Heather Adams: One of core values is choice accountability, sustains partnerships like we believe holding each other accountable is going to sustain a really holistic, healthy partnership.
• 26:28
  Heather Adams: When you tell people in the team on the team, Hey, this is what we want for the environment here.
• 26:37
  Heather Adams: This is what we want in the culture here, this is what we want to live out in practice when we're executing in the day to day.
• 26:44
  Heather Adams: You don't just say it, but you have everybody live it out.
• 26:50
  Heather Adams: Those systems and structures really help hold accountable to that so that we don't lose sight of it.
• 26:57
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 26:58
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 26:58
  Tom Jackobs: No, that's, it's so true.
• 27:00
  Tom Jackobs: And what a great way of coping with all that
• 27:03
  Heather Adams: Yeah.
• 27:03
  Tom Jackobs: As well.
• 27:04
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 27:05
  Tom Jackobs: Heather, this has been just a great conversation, and I hate to cut it short here, but we are at that time.
• 27:11
  Tom Jackobs: How can people learn more about you and Choice Media?
• 27:15
  Heather Adams: Thank you for even asking that question, Tom.
• 27:19
  Heather Adams: So you can find us, our website is choicemediacommunications.com.
• 27:25
  Heather Adams: There's lots of information on our website.
• 27:28
  Heather Adams: Also, that is our, handle on all of the socials.
• 27:32
  Heather Adams: So if you go to Facebook or if you go to TikTok, or if you go to Instagram, it's Choice Media Communications, and my personal is Heather Dixon Adams, and it's D-I-X-O-N, Heather Dixon Adams.
• 27:44
  Heather Adams: And it's that at all of our all of my handles, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all the things.
• 27:50
  Heather Adams: I'd love to connect with people there.
• 27:52
  Heather Adams: We have a really beautiful community that we have built around the business and around, my own personal social media.
• 27:59
  Heather Adams: But one thing I'd love Tom, if it's okay to offer.
• 28:04
  Heather Adams: If somebody is in business or in that build, launch, amplify stage of their business and brand, I'd love to offer a free brand strategy consult with one of our team members.
• 28:17
  Heather Adams: We'll give you a link that you can offer to your listeners and that's something we normally charge for, but we can offer it to your listeners as something where if they are trying to figure out how to elevate scale, grow their visibility, their brand they're building their brand identity, or they wanna amplify it to a new audience, we'd love to be a part of that.
• 28:40
  Heather Adams: So we can offer a link for that consult.
• 28:43
  Tom Jackobs: Oh that's very generous.
• 28:44
  Tom Jackobs: Thank you so much for doing that, Heather.
• 28:46
  Tom Jackobs: That's amazing.
• 28:47
  Tom Jackobs: Awesome.
• 28:48
  Tom Jackobs: Thank you again for spending your time with us and sharing your stories and your knowledge with the audience here and with me.
• 28:54
  Tom Jackobs: And I certainly appreciate you.
• 28:56
  Heather Adams: It's my pleasure, Tom.
• 28:57
  Heather Adams: What a delight to with you, and thank you so much for having me with your community.
• 29:02
  Tom Jackobs: You're very welcome and thank you listeners for watching the show or listening to the show today, depending on what platform you're on.
• 29:09
  Tom Jackobs: Make sure you're checking out everything that Heather is doing, and we're gonna post all of those links down in the show notes and make sure you take advantage of that offer of getting a strategy call.
• 29:18
  Tom Jackobs: I think that's, that would be very valuable for anybody that's feeling like they're at the cusp, but not quite sure where to take it and how to get there.
• 29:25
  Tom Jackobs: I'm sure Heather and her team would be able to give you some really great advice on that, especially with over a hundred bestselling authors.
• 29:32
  Tom Jackobs: So if you're an author especially, I think you should be talking to Heather.
• 29:38
  Tom Jackobs: So until next time, lead with your heart.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.