Rewrite Your Rules: Profitable Business Without Hustle | Leslie Hassler

Welcome to Wickedly Branded: Marketing, Magic, and The Messy Middle, the podcast where real conversations meet real strategies. I'm your host, Beverly Cornell, founder and fairy godmother of brand clarity at Wickedly Branded. With over 25 years of experience, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs awaken their brand magic, attract the right people, and build businesses that light them up.

What if overwhelm isn’t a badge of honor… but a choice?

In this powerful conversation, Beverly sits down with Leslie Hassler, founder of Your Biz Rules, to unpack what it really takes to scale a business without sacrificing your life. From rewriting your own rules to detaching from hustle culture, this episode challenges the belief that success requires exhaustion.

Leslie shares how she rebuilt her business after it “sucked her soul dry,” how identity drives sustainable growth, and why profitable scaling starts with mindset, not marketing tactics. Together, they explore the difference between chasing the vanishing finish line and building a business that actually feels like home.

If you’ve ever felt successful on paper but misaligned in your soul, this episode will feel like a deep exhale.

This is growth that supports your life. Not the other way around.

Three Key Marketing Topics

1. Scaling Without Burnout

Growth does not require hustle. Leslie explains how structure, systems, and empowered teams create predictable profits without draining the founder.

2. Identity-Driven Business Alignment

Before you fix your marketing, you must understand who you are. True brand clarity comes when your business aligns with your personal vision, values, and definition of success.

3. Overwhelm Is a Choice

Overwhelm is not a business strategy. By shifting mindset, protecting boundaries, and redefining freedom, entrepreneurs can move from reaction to intentional leadership.

Growth without structure quietly transfers weight onto the founder. Scaling without burnout begins when identity, systems, and ambition expand together, creating steadiness that can sustain success over time.

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Transcript

Beverly: 0:11

What if scaling your business didn't require more hustle, but smarter structure and real? And I say this with a lot of emphasis and excitement. Leslie Freedom. Welcome back to the Wickedly Branded podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Cornell, and I'm the founder and fairy godmother of brand Clarity at Wickedly Branded. And today we're talking all about growth that actually supports your life. I am so excited to introduce Leslie Hessler. She's the founder of Your Biz Rules. Leslie helps establish service-based business owners, create predictable profits build empowered teams and scale without burnout. She doesn't preach hustle. She builds systems that last. Today we're learning more about her journey and what it really looks like to amplify your authority without sacrificing your life. Leslie, I'm so excited to Welcome, welcome you to the show today.

Leslie: 0:57

Howdy. I'm excited to be here. We're gonna have a great time.

Beverly: 0:59

Okay, so talk about how you actually started your business. Like what sparked it and did you always wanna be an entrepreneur?

Leslie: 1:07

I think I always was an entrepreneur. I don't know that I had that concept as a child, but I do remember in elementary school, when jelly bracelets and teddy bear pins and all these things were like the fad. I would actually go buy some and resell them at the school to make some money We needed money in my family, so I was willing to do whatever I could do to contribute and to have a little pocket change, so I think in that way I probably always was an entrepreneur. Sought entrepreneurship, and there's a reason for that. I didn't seek it out. It sought me out in some ways. And so I actually have been an entrepreneur for 17 years. I've had two businesses. Your Biz Rules, obviously's, that second business. So my first one started in oh seven, ran that to 14. But really the journey for entrepreneur, your biz role started in like 11 and 12 for me. When I realized that the business that I had built sucked my soul dry. And I could no longer tolerate that. But I knew I wanted to stay in business. So it was a two year conversations of God of if it's not this, then what is it that I really enjoy about being in business? Is it the thing that I'm doing? And it wound up being, no, it's not. What is it? And I was like, I love business. I'm like, my brain is business models on steroids. I can dissect and all of these things. I'm like, great, what am I gonna do with that? And so it took a while to get to where we are, but I really think, and believe, know that your BS rules is our playground. And what's super cool to me is that's exactly what every single one of our team members will say as well. And in that way, I know that we're in the right place, right time with the right people.

Beverly: 2:52

Playground. Describe what a playground is. As it relates to your B rules.

Leslie: 2:56

So a playground is, somewhere where we choose to come to. If you look at our values, we talk a lot about collaboration. Play is better with people, in my opinion. Like you can definitely have play with yourself, but for me it is that collaboration. And that idea, that value set really is an underpinning into almost everything we do. How we've been able to scale, how we work together as a team, how we back each other up. It is, it's, what's a, it's infused into everything. It's not an element. Of the business that doesn't rely on collaboration in some way, shape, or form, and that is play. But I also think, one of the things my team would share is that they get to come and be their best selves. Like we have designed this company to allow people to be their best selves and support them in that journey. If they're interested in something, we're like, sure have that. We believe in ownership. We believe in empowerment, and we believe in accountability. Don't get me wrong, but it's done in such a way that everybody knows that the work that they're doing for our clients is having an impact. It's changing a life, it's changing a business. It has a legacy element to it. And for that reason, they're willing to go through the really challenging conversations to get to that impact and legacy. And I think that's what we find to be fun. It's not mechanical, it's human, if you will. And when you can see the change that can happen for one of our business centers, when they're able to put a kid through college, when they're able to pay off debt that's been like an albatross around their neck. When they're able to hire that phenomenal employee, they're like, oh my gosh, how did I live without this person?

Beverly: 4:42

Absolutely.

Leslie: 4:43

That's a payday in our world. That's what we're doing this for, is to change lives and to change it through better business.

Beverly: 4:50

So we call ours magic and you call us yours, the playground, it's just a different word, but essentially the same thing of living in your magic and really fully, understanding the power that you have and being empowered. There's so much to that and I think that culture can speak volumes about the founder and the people you hire. That is really, can define so much about even the clients that you're drawn to you. So that is amazing. So you talked about, I'm curious about the transition from the first business to the second business. Because so many of our listeners are overwhelmed, overworked. And almost over it. Talk about how you had to lean into your faith, it sounds to realize is this the right course of action? Maybe give a little bit of advice or maybe a little bit of your thoughts of what, how you navigated that and how you knew for sure it was time to change.

Leslie: 5:37

Oh, how did I navigate that? I think ultimately. It was about curiosity. One of my skill sets is the ability to see multiple options. I can see all the doorways and then be able to whittle away Nope, not that door. Not that door. But that takes a certain ability to be curious, to wonder about things, and to be able to find solutions that are based in what I will say the, and not the or. For instance, an or in our world is called a competing commitment. It is where this is a priority and B is a priority, and all you think is I can have A or I can have b. You never ever ask the question, how can I have A and B? right? And I really was searching for the, and how can I have impact? How can I be fulfilled as a person where I need to know that I can use my intellect and my skill and challenge and variety, like all of these things that I knew I loved about being in the world. How can I also build a business that wasn't going to suck my soul dry? Like, how can I do? And I think that was always the questions, right? How can I help? Can I, I think so many more people, when they get into curiosity, when they get into wonder, what they do is they shut it down. They're like, I can't because I haven't, I can't because

Beverly: 6:59

not yet. That's my phrase.

Leslie: 7:01

Is still such an, a belief in the lack, if you will, this scarcity of things. Where I am have always been like, but how can and that is, a pervasive question in my soul that every single problem I come up against, I always believe I'm gonna find the solution. Yeah. And I'm always gonna believe that I can do it in a way, we call it the triple win. It's a win for me. It's a win for the other person. And there's another win in there, like I am looking for the triple win and I'm not satisfied if somebody loses. That is a different mindset to attack a problem. A change. Did I come in was it magical? No, I didn't at all. One of the very first things I wound up doing was Strength finders 2.0 and I did my strength finders. And they are strategic, futurist, individualistic, achieving, activating. I remember looking at those going,

Beverly: 7:51

exactly

Leslie: 7:52

what am I gonna do with this?

Beverly: 7:53

Exactly.

Leslie: 7:54

and I was just willing to try a lot of things. You'll always see us experimenting in our business. We're always trying things, we're always like trying to prove or disprove something, an assumption, because you never know actually what's going to work. We cannot assume just because it didn't work in the past that it's not going to work now. Absolutely. We can't assume that just because it worked in the past that it's going to work now.

Beverly: 8:18

We

Leslie: 8:18

have to always be this a bit of a mad scientist in our exploration and in our journey. So I, it took me three years to come into this and even then I didn't. I totally had the imposter syndrome of who am I? But I still leaned in. I still played with it. And I am super proud that the journey and the vision that we had and that I had in 14 and where we are today in 25, 26, is nothing more than a beautiful evolution of the same visionary journey.

Beverly: 8:49

Yeah.

Leslie: 8:49

That I've been willing to go on the journey. And We're never done. We're always evolving.

Beverly: 8:53

So one phrase that I use, I love the way you reframe that, but the one phrase I use is working with your business or with it not on it or in it, but with it. And this concept that you can be.

Leslie: 9:02

yeah.

Beverly: 9:02

In some opposite thing.

Leslie: 9:04

Yeah.

Beverly: 9:04

So I feel like this, that was a reframe for me. It was working with my business, working with my energy, my passion, my purpose, my seasons, my cycles, my femininity, my fully embracing myself and how does it work with my business. So my life with my business. And I know that one of the things that I read in your bio was this idea of scaling without this like hard hustle, which is something that I truly believe in. I am writing a book right now. One of the key ident, the key things though is that business was really built in the post-industrial area, era for men. And, how women do business differently. And one thing that I have said in the book is that branding and business is identity work for women. We build businesses based on our passions and like how making an impact in this collaborative sense that you're talking about and all these things that we're really helping people like the wins. It's helping other people. It's impacting relationally to others. Yeah. Where men don't just typically do a business that way. That's not necessarily their mo And not that they don't ever, but from a generalization perspective, they're they define business very differently than we do. So what has been like something that you've struggled with or that you've overcome or that you've embraced even as a female founder? Finding yourself outside of the hustle or in collaboration with the hustle or however you want to frame it. I'm okay with Yeah, because I feel like that is exactly what my book is about, is like finding the thing that works for you as a female founder related to your life, your responsibilities, the mental load you carry, all the all the shoulds, I call it the should suitcase that we carry from society.

Leslie: 10:42

The cows,

Beverly: 10:42

So share that journey a little bit with us and how that, how you've come into your own that way.

Leslie: 10:46

So much in there.

Beverly: 10:47

Yeah.

Leslie: 10:47

I do agree with you. I do think there's post industrialization in our definition of business and the success that we're chasing. I don't think it's exclusively women anymore. We see men and women equally,

Beverly: 12:08

definitely

Leslie: 12:08

equally wanting the same things, and, which is amazing because you can rewrite your own rules.

Beverly: 12:13

Hold on.

Leslie: 12:13

Yeah.

Beverly: 12:14

You can write your own rules.

Leslie: 12:16

Yeah.

Beverly: 12:16

That is the most powerful statement listeners. You can write your own rules.

Leslie: 12:21

Yeah.

Beverly: 12:22

So yes, if this is an opportunity for you to create the exact business that you've been looking for, that you want, that you believe with your business, create the playground, do all the things, you can create it. You can create it. It's exactly what you need. One of the most important statements I think anyone can make is that you are empowered. You have the ability to create Exactly. What works for you.

Leslie: 12:44

And I also think you shared a little bit of this secret and is identity is we need to recognize that our identity has been wrapped up. And for a lot of entrepreneurs in our ability to do the work, but to be a successful business center, it's not about always doing the work in as much as ensuring the work gets done.

Beverly: 13:04

Yes.

Leslie: 13:05

My number one job is to ensure that our team has the freedom and the flexibility to get the job done. And is that training, is that support, is it that I come alongside? It is that to a t is that ability. So your identity has a lot to do with your experience. And I'm gonna say something that is going to set everybody off in just about a minute. do it. Hold with me. I want you to stay with us, okay. And listen to the rest of this. Being overwhelmed is a choice. Period. Isn't this interesting? When you ask me how did I get off the hustle and grind train? I stopped making it acceptable to be there in the first place.

Beverly: 13:45

Yeah.

Leslie: 13:46

Number two, I have to work as equally hard on my mind, my mindset and my beliefs in order to change my behaviors. If I, and I'm gonna be really transparent this week that we're in, we call it the end of the year, everything intense and my COOO and I are we're gonna crack under pressure'cause there's just no more ability to get things done. That could be overwhelming. But what we do is we sit here and we're like, on one hand we chose this on another hand, this is all doable. And on the third hand is, how can we reprioritize to get back into the flow and the go of things and not allow the weight to take us down? Because when you're changing your mindset, when you're changing how you relate to the hustling grind, it's challenging because the rest of the world is still addicted to it.

Beverly: 14:38

You're condition we're conditioned. This hustle is so powerful. Yes.

Leslie: 14:42

I'll say, here's the really interesting thing,'cause I love that you're writing a book. We're on our second one called Scaling Rich, and it really is about this hustle and grind and how to detach

Beverly: 14:51

Oh, awesome. Yes.

Leslie: 14:52

So if you think about it though, Give something weight. You can have one task, right? That one person is just heavy as all day. You can have the next person. Man, this lights me up. Where do you get your energy from? Like where do you derive value from? If we can find a way to reposition even the most mundane tasks, there are stuff that only I can do in my company and I don't like to do it.

Beverly: 15:16

Yeah. Amen, sister. Preach it.

Leslie: 15:18

But I also don't focus on the fact that it's not fun with me i's like I'm completely capable of getting this done and because I focus on it, I can get it done quickly and move on to the next thing that I'm going to do. If everything feels heavy, then it's either you're trying to do too much, you're trying to work outside of your zone of genius. You're not letting go. You're probably like, we sing the frozen song all the time to our clients. We're like, letting

Beverly: 15:40

Go. Letting go.

Leslie: 15:40

Let it go. And we know with humor, right? Yeah. Because when you it, at seven o'clock at night when you won't get off your computer, you're gonna hear me in the back of your head going, let it go.

Beverly: 15:49

I love it.

Leslie: 15:49

It's these choices that we're making, and if you think of freedom is the ability to make a choice, period.

Beverly: 15:56

I love that.

Leslie: 15:57

What are the things that enable us to have choice? It's typically being in your power, owning your. Environment your world and protecting your boundaries. it's about typically money. Money is freedom of choice.

Beverly: 16:10

Yes.

Leslie: 16:10

Time is free of freedom of choice.

Beverly: 16:12

Time is so important.

Leslie: 16:14

And most people equate freedom to time. But I think there's something broader and you're gonna have a freedom, love, language. Maybe it's time, maybe it's money, maybe it's impact, whatever it is. Get in tune with that real fast and then protect it as day as the day is long, you cannot bend. It has to be your non-negotiable or you will be forever sacrificing it upon the alt alter of success. And I think that's one of those other things we have to think about is we've been taught like the payoff to the hustle and grind is if you work hard enough, if you're good enough, then someday you'll fill in the blank. Pay yourself, take that vacation. Be recognized for your efforts, whatever we're, we've all got this reward we're chasing. But what if you could realize some things Now, what if you did not have to sacrifice? Because that sacrifice is actually the big lie.

Beverly: 17:04

Yeah. You

Leslie: 17:05

as a business owner, if you can write your own rules, you can have what you want today. If you don't love your business today, you can change it tomorrow. You are really not locked in by any other shackles than that which you put on yourself.

Beverly: 17:17

Absolutely. 100%.

Leslie: 17:19

And it's mind.

Beverly: 17:20

I will say this being, maybe three or four years ago. I was successful by all standard measures, the money was coming in. I had clients, I had referrals. The work was good. Yeah. I had a team, I had all those things, but I was completely dissatisfied with what success was looking like. So just because success looks like something to the world doesn't mean that's success for you, and really understanding what success looks like for you and how you balance that. I don't even think balance is the right word. How you create that is your, is really the thing that is gonna be the hardest thing for you. I feel like for your job, for your work, because, and like you said, the word protect. So there's many things that I put into my systems, my day, like how I intentionally use my time. Yeah. I chunk and stack things like operationally as Monday, like I know my seasons, my cycles, when I do my best work, when I need to be most creative. I understand who I am, my of my flow, and that took a little bit of work to figure out, but that investment in that understanding has reaped rewards beyond anything I could possibly have ever imagined.

Leslie: 18:21

Yep.

Beverly: 18:21

So this idea of creation, and I don't know about for you, but for me it didn't happen overnight. Like you said, this business you have today, it's not the business you have to have tomorrow. It took me a little bit of time. It took me probably a year and a half to really get to a business that I feel like is in my flow versus me being in some kind of constructive flow, some other person's container of flow, but. There is something so incredibly powerful. I call it my iridescent ballet flats. This, when I put on this set of shoes for this particular business, it feels like home. It's a sigh of relief and it's a different feeling entirely than three or four years ago when I was like, is this what success is? Is this what everyone's chasing? And why does it look different? Why do people on Instagram look so happy in this? Because this doesn't feel happy to me. It feels ugly and sad and frankly, I don't know about you Leslie, but I wasn't even fun to be around. When you're stressed out and you're all those things you're not even like a like that, that nice of a person. So I felt like this was freeing on so many levels. For me to be able to say, I could do it however I chose to do it. Whatever looks good for me, feels good for me, is what I need to do.

Leslie: 19:27

And that is often where we have to start. When people are coming in and they're at that moment of I'm just gonna burn it all down. I don't care how good it is exactly successful, but this stinks. We have to reconnect to the vision. We have to reconnect to the dream. We have to reconnect to the payoff. And usually when I start that and people are like my business, I'm like, I don't care about your business right now. I care about you. And that is, sometimes, this moment that a lot of our clients will come to, they're like, oh, you care about me, not just about the business. So it's yes, my job is to get your business in alignment with who you say you want to be and what you say your life. Is.

Beverly: 20:03

Yep.

Leslie: 20:03

And then that way I will hold you accountable to your vision. You are always welcome to change it, but I will hold you accountable to the truth of that vision

Beverly: 20:11

Absolutely. So that's why identity work.'cause it's about you.

Leslie: 20:15

Yep.

Beverly: 20:15

That's where the identity work comes in, Leslie. And I think so many people did this checklist of oh, we have to have a logo. And that to me is just like a piece of art. If it doesn't connect to the me in the business, like there's all this connection that happens. And all these different levels from higher systems are run. How the clients that you have, the people on your team, the way your co your, like your core value, everything needs to circle around. The me the

Leslie: 20:40

core.

Beverly: 20:41

Beautiful. It's as if you, and I love this when I meet people and I, what's happened more and more, which is so beautiful you guys, listeners listen, is that when I got clear on who I am, people like Leslie have entered my orbit, and that is

Leslie: 20:53

Destiny

Beverly: 20:54

When you meet people who understand the importance of it. And so while she's more focused on scaling and systems and CFO type things, and I'm more focused on the marketing side of it, the goal is the same to fully embrace who you are and create the system and the business. And the brand and the visibility for yourself, that is actually like you, that's where the true authenticity that everyone's been talking about for the last five years. Be authentic, comes from is.

Leslie: 21:18

But no, it's really hard to be authentic if you don't understand who you are

Beverly: 21:22

Okay, so let me ask a question. Sure. When, was there a moment or was it a series of moments where you fully felt at home in your business? Where you felt that alignment, where you felt that shift for you?

Leslie: 21:34

What I will feel in contrast is when I am shifting and I need the business to shift. Because this, like I said earlier, it's a journey. We're running a marathon, we're not in a race per yeah. You mean it's

Beverly: 21:47

you mean it's not one and done,

Leslie: 21:48

like No, it's not one and done. Come on. I, I looked successful. I did all this stuff, but I didn't, I wasn't in love with any of this. That was definitely where we were, and I was just thinking about the journey that has gone on and now it's, people are like, oh, what are you chasing? I was like I'm having fun now. I'm chasing my potential. And I was like, and I'm only chasing my potential because I believe I can do it. And so many parts, so many days of my journey, I limited my potential because I could not see how I could align it with my identity, my vision, and those types of things. And so as we learn in business,'cause that is what small business ownership is, it's on the job training every single day. Every day, And now people are like what are you trying to do? It's I'm trying to do 10 million and I want the next nine to be built in a totally different way than the first one, and now I'm playing with the forces of. Exponential growth. I'm playing with technology. I'm playing with solutions, I do believe that the businesses in that we have in three years won't look anything like the businesses we have this year. The work of businesses is changing. I'm on the ride, I wanna see how well I can take this magic carpet and fly. That is the next adventure for me, So I'm seeing it such as that. But it is this constant, awareness. And constantly being present in asking and paying attention to the moments where I'm like, this does not feel good. Like, why?

Beverly: 23:17

Yes,

Leslie: 23:17

why does this not feel good? And then I'm like, okay, is it me who has changed?'cause that's likely, is it an area that I just didn't know we needed to give attention to? Not likely was I not clear, did I not have clarity? Because if you're not clear, you're not, you're gonna not have clarity in your business. And then I'm like. Whoa. Pause. Rewrite this, redo this. My COO has a has saying, she's new day, new rules. And we're like, new day, new rules. We're fixing that. That did not feel good. Now let's get into alignment. So we're almost always a mechanic, if you think about it. We're always paying attention to the engine of the business and how it's running and the direction that it's going so that we just, we make tweaks along the way. I have not needed to do a major overhaul. We always are refining, we're refining our marketing message because marketing and consumers are shifting in what is important to'em. So you always have to be refining. But I guess that's when I said like earlier, if you can detach from trying to be done

Beverly: 24:14

Yeah.

Leslie: 24:14

Then you understand that this is a journey so that when things need to evolve. It's not a big drama, it just is. It's a signal that you should go left instead of and it's, we don't get this emotional baggage, which leads to weight, which feels heavy, overwhelmed, blah, da. I'm trying to tie all of our conversational points together for you and Nice. Love it. Nice big

Beverly: 24:36

bow, golden thread. I love it.

Leslie: 24:37

Yeah. There you go. But you just have a different approach to what is happening. We've had a lot of uncertainty. I know. We feel it. We know our clients feel it, but I expect it. It's not a surprise to me because actually I feel like we've always had uncertainty.

Beverly: 24:55

Absolutely.

Leslie: 24:56

We're just becoming more aware of it. But a lot of people this year have been locked into the emotion. Around the fact that it has occurred and that becomes trauma, and then that trauma keeps you from being the best version of you that you could possibly be because you're not reconciling it.

Beverly: 25:13

Yeah.

Leslie: 25:13

So going back into the mindset, whether you believe you can or can't, Henry Ford, you're right. We had a phrase, as soon as you argue for your limitations. Surely will be yours.

Beverly: 25:23

Oh yes. I love that.

Leslie: 25:24

be careful of how you're defining yourself today because the, if you have a belief repeated over time it becomes truth. If you repeat that truth over time it becomes reality. And when you're down in reality and it is not the reality that you want You have to go back and change your truth. And that means you have to change your words and you have to change your beliefs. But that is the biggest gift we have, is how strong our minds are. If you can capitalize on it, if you can tame it and use it for good, use it for your own benefit.

Beverly: 25:55

Yeah.

Leslie: 25:55

Not always the benefit of others.

Beverly: 25:57

Yeah. I love this so much, but I really wanna go back to the question'cause I don't know if you've really answered it.

Leslie: 26:01

Okay.

Beverly: 26:02

is there a moment or a series of moments when you fully felt like home in your business?

Leslie: 26:07

It's every day.

Beverly: 26:08

Was there a moment, like when it first started, did something have to shift? I understand the fixed mindset like you're talking about. Yeah. Like I get that, was there something where it went from fixed to a more open to so for me, I

Leslie: 26:19

don't, it's a sparkly moment of

Beverly: 26:21

no

Leslie: 26:21

angel singing, not high and heralding trumpets.

Beverly: 26:24

I don't mean it like that. Like it could be a series of moments. I love the visual though. I love the magic wand analogy you used earlier too. But having out of body experience at one point, talking to a client, giving him advice, right? Yeah. And it was the exact advice I needed. Like I wasn't following my own magic. Like I was allowing other people's magic to flourish, but I wasn't doing that. And I was like, why am I not taking my own advice? It was as if like I needed to have. And that was one of the moments. And then there was one moment where I was, late at night, my family is asleep, I'm still working, and I'm like, what is this? Why am I doing this like that? That was it was like this series of wake up calls, but they weren't like these super loud two by fours. It was just like these little questions that kind of came to me in these moments, and finally I listened to them.

Leslie: 27:04

I ultimately, that's brought me into this business, I think it goes back to this personal journey part of, recognizing that I had to be present in the success that we achieve every day. after my first son, I probably had postpartum and I was struggling with why wasn't I happy if I had everything I dreamt of as a little girl. And I did, and there were good things. There was nothing to be upset about, but there was something I had to reconcile there. And in that moment, what I found is I was chasing the future so much. I never recognized when it was here in the present. And so it was that what I started going what were my childhood joys? And I was like a butterfly bubbles and swings. These are not hard things, right? So it's even like right now when a butterfly will fly by, I pause. I just take a moment to appreciate the butterfly and that is what presence is for me. And. The whole like work life balance. I agree. It's not balance. It's about being present, being wherever you need to be, 110% and being there. And I think because that's been such a practice for me for so long, you can call it gratitude. We talk about one of the things we'll do with our clients when you're working through the visioning exercise, we call it the sixth sense of success. What is the thing you will hear? What is the thing you will see? What would you taste? What would you feel? Both texturally, but also emotionally do we know what success really is? Back to our earlier conversation and those things, when people put it together, they talk about laughter, they talk about friendship and hugs and high fives and one for me for taste is champagne. Bubbles in my tongue, and in that way, when you're asking for these big moments, what I have learned to do is see success in the smallest moments, and therefore it's always consistent. It just is. It's the contrast more that I would say I've had those moments of high contrast because it pulls me out of feeling in alignment. That is the difference, in experiences.

Beverly: 29:06

One of the chapters in the, my book is called the Vanishing Fi finish Line. That you've never reach a finish line. There's this like that's part of the hospital culture. And it's just out of reach. Like you think you're gonna get there and then it's just out of reach. Yeah. Like it just keeps moving away from you. Yeah. As if it's this vanishing finish line and it's an impossible chase. Yeah. And so what you say is so important because it is about being present in the successes now, but women t historically, have not been taught to celebrate their successes. In general,

Leslie: 29:33

people haven't been a, haven't

Beverly: 29:35

But, they're not afraid to go on the golf course and celebrate with their friends. They're not, they're just not as. They do the high fives all the time and they, it is just a different mindset. Women are taught to, be grateful and not ask for help, but it's a very different construct in many ways. But it's interesting as I've been exploring the vanishing finish line of what. What does success? I love the six senses. That's so good. That's the way you think about it. And one of the things that I've talked about with success for myself is travel and some of those kinds of things with my friends and like you talk about some of those things. So it's on par. It's just different terminology, which I think is lovely and brilliant and wonderful and I'm so glad that so many people are talking about these things now because they haven't been talked about this way. And there was for so long was this just constant chase of the next big thing. And not that, that you can't still do big things, it's just this chasing to exhaustion that needs to be reframed, I feel So I do have a magic wand because when I was little, the things that made me happy were magic wands and unicorns. There you go. And sparkles. Yeah. One thing I ask every single guest, is there a marketing challenge you are experiencing right now that maybe I could wave my magic wand and help you with today? Is there one question or issue that you've been challenged with lately?

Leslie: 30:47

Not really.

Beverly: 30:48

Okay.

Leslie: 30:49

Not currently.

Beverly: 30:50

Okay.

Leslie: 30:51

and I don't even see that as a challenge'cause I'm working on it. We are stepping into a new stage, a new, amplification if you will. And that takes time to build the pieces. We've been building them pretty dedicatedly and so now it's just a, about the money catching up to the pieces and being able to fund the next elements. But like I said, I'm already working on those, so I don't even consider that to be a challenge. It is just part of the process.

Beverly: 31:18

So there's no area which you would rather would wanna grow or grow faster from a marketing perspective Right now?

Leslie: 31:24

Everything is about growth for me. And growing back, like of$10 million dream here that we're funding. However, it's not a challenge in that way. Okay. I actually have a strong marketing background. So I actually grew up in

Beverly: 31:36

Awesome.

Leslie: 31:37

My first degree journalism grew up in agency world done that we're, in partnership to acquire a marketing agency ourselves. So there's a lot of that fundamental stuff that I truly understand and will do. So it's not, I'm not searching for answers at the moment. I am in implementation. Okay. And then, the biggest thing I have to manage is, the allowing things to unfold at the pace that they're gonna unfold, because I think fast, I work fast, I do fast,

Beverly: 32:05

right?

Leslie: 32:05

However, I'm not in control of the world, so I have to allow some things to pop into place and to settle and to be able to do. But everything that we're doing right now, there's nothing that we're not able to either plan for. Strategize about or put into play. I just need the time to be able to allow for that to happen.

Beverly: 32:24

it's a great way to talk about something though, the idea of time that marketing is not an overnight success. That very rarely happens. Just a singer doesn't typically become an overnight success. They put in the work to get to the moment. That allows them to be a success.

Leslie: 32:40

Yeah.

Beverly: 32:40

It is about consistent work. It is about showing up and then looking at what's working and what's not working. And then, tweaking and growing and changing as you grow and change. But also as the industry and the world is changing, especially like with AI and technology and all this stuff right now, there is. The idea of time, and most high performers want it all and want it now, which is what most of my female founders are. So this idea of being patient and consistent is a really great lesson for so many people that it will come. You just need to put it out there in the way that it needs to be implemented so that the results can come. It's just being patients and having it. So that's a great topic to talk about anyway.

Leslie: 33:19

I feel like we're, I'm in a stage that not everybody will understand, but I am no longer being bound by time. And so therefore when I, that's not the thing I'm chasing or pushing. It is, almost a higher level of control and, confidence and calm So the, it will take the time that it needs to take. And like you were saying, dedication. Put in the reps.

Beverly: 33:41

Yeah.

Leslie: 33:42

Put

Beverly: 33:42

in the reps.

Leslie: 33:43

I don't let things sit on my desk for too long. If they sit on my desk for two weeks, I get a little anxious and I'm like, all right, high priority, get'em off, move'em on. It is my job to allow the flow to happen.

Beverly: 33:53

Yeah.

Leslie: 33:53

And that way it will happen in the time that it needs to, but I have utmost confidence.

Beverly: 33:58

The flow to happen though, you have to show up. You have to do the work to allow the flow. To open the opportunity, you have to do the work and show up. So showing up is half the battle. Sometimes showing up can be the most challenging part of it. So it's a great, and I will say this from a marketer to another marketer, marketers still need help.

Leslie: 34:15

I understand. I have a team. I have all the pieces. I don't allow a problem to become a challenge. We take action on it, so super fast.

Beverly: 34:24

That's awesome.

Leslie: 34:25

i've got a team of nine, there's no way I could do what I do.

Beverly: 34:28

I just feel like when I was going through the evolution of finding my magic, of waking up, awakening, and activating, amplifying my brand, those kind of steps is that sometimes we do, even as a founder period, sometimes you need someone from the outside to tell you and show you Oh, What you are, what is possible, and what you are made of because you don't believe enough in yourself yet that's. Be incredibly powerful. I was just talking to a client yesterday and we do a thing called the Brand Spark Experience. It's like a 90 minute deep dive, probably very similar to what you do about their, who they are, how they show up in the world so that we can build a brand around them. And we provide a blueprint after the call, and we reflect so much of what we see in them in the blueprint. It's aspirational. It's very, there's four to six next best steps. So it's very activating the sense of what you can do to make this happen. But she was telling me, Beverly, oh my gosh. Like seeing it written and seeing it in your words, like sometimes we get in our own head we don't even see how the world sees us anymore. And so I love helping people who like, are doing the thing and then need maybe an outside person just to push them, maybe that extra oomph to get them, oh. Did I just dramatically, yes, I did. Can this does this? It's so dramatic. You guys, when you're listening, like the it, goes forward when it, with some hand gestures that the video will it go screen in real quick. But, it is so exciting to see people see themselves in a new light. So It's beautiful. But you have a team. Not everybody that listens has a team, so they can struggle with that sometimes. And I understand your whole point is scaling and that is about having a team and doing all those things. So that's beautiful in so many ways. So one of the things that, we talk about always is the idea of what it means to be wickedly branded. So what does it mean to you to be quote unquote wickedly branded? How do you show up? How does your business show up that way? And if you could give the listeners a piece of advice to show up that way, what would you share?

Leslie: 36:20

For our journey, what it means is that no matter who people work with in our company, they have the same experience. They would say the same thing. You could edit the name out and it would apply to anybody in the company. So that to me is a living brand where it's been extended past just me into something more, into something that has its own identity.

Beverly: 36:41

My,

Leslie: 36:41

they say my BIS rules.

Beverly: 36:42

I love that so much. Like they say things to me like magic and I love it when they use the, I just, it's beautiful when they do that.

Leslie: 36:49

It's

Beverly: 36:49

That is awesome.

Leslie: 36:50

Yeah. So those are probably, the two things I would say, to do the work to find out your uniqueness. Because a strong brand in your company is, it positions your business to be without competition. And I will talk. Everybody will like, who are your major competitors? I can say, I will tell you the people that work in our space. But I don't personally consider them competitors. Because nobody can do the voodoo that we do so much.

Beverly: 37:15

See Magic guys, magic

Leslie: 37:16

copy. Even if you r and d Rob and duplicate, you still can't beat us because we are. That brand has been built in such a way and everything about it is so distinctive. So marketing typically is where we start to think about that brand. You have to allow it to seep into every single pore. And with that it becomes your guiding light.

Beverly: 37:39

It eventually just oozes out of you everywhere you show up.

Leslie: 37:42

Yeah,

Beverly: 37:42

I really, I went to your website earlier today and I love your brand. I love the colors, I love the book.

Leslie: 37:48

First this, then that. It's the first book.

Beverly: 37:50

I loved it so much. I was like, that's so clean and beautiful. It's just nice. it just fits your brand. So talk a little bit about how listeners can find you, work with you, read your book, like where can we hang out with you, Leslie?

Leslie: 38:01

Sure. So easy peasy. Our website is probably the easiest place to go and we actually have a page just for your listeners. You'd go to, your biz rules.com/sparkle. To see the page that we've set up for you. So we've got, if you'd like, a link to our book that's there. We have some great resources on our blog, if you just need to find some DIY type stuff. But also if you heard something and you wanna see if we can help in your business, then there's a way to reach out and get in contact with me and we'll just have a quick and easy chat. No pressure just to find out how and if we can help you.

Beverly: 38:39

What, social channel is your favorite?

Leslie: 38:41

LinkedIn.

Beverly: 38:42

Yeah,

Leslie: 38:42

we have a great, LinkedIn newsletter out there. It's called Profitable Growth for Business. we publish once a week, we've been doing about once a week out there for the last two, two or three years.

Beverly: 38:53

Thank you so much, Leslie. You're welcome. I hope that my listeners really, that today inspired you a little bit like that you have options to create the exact business that you want, that you can scale that and grow that in ways you never even thought possible. Yeah. If you do some mindset work and you think of, and you actually are open to what is possible, and maybe it's a matter of getting that right person to be with you on that path, whether it's myself or Leslie, depending on what you need, you don't have to do it alone. But the most important thing I want you to know is that your message matters and your work matters, and the world needs to hear what you have to say. They know that you have the medicine. We need to know that you have the medicine. People need to fix problems that they have. So marketing isn't just about visibility, it's about identity, and it's about the impact that you're making. And it's about connecting with the right people in a way that feels absolutely 100% true to you. So just please keep showing up, keep doing the work, keep sharing your brilliance, and keep making magic in the world. And until next time, I dare you to be wickedly branded.