Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brandi Fleck. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Brandi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
Success can mean so many different things to different people. But my definition of success is living a fulfilled life full of meaning and love. Of course, you can get to varying degrees of “success” by people pleasing and using pain, control, and force as a motivator, but to truly live a fulfilling and meaningful life — the ultimate success — you must acknowledge and heal your traumas, integrate what you learn along the way, as long as it’s aligned with who you truly are, and embrace and love who you truly are, including all parts of you. That enables you to get to the next level of success in your life in a gentler way. When you’re successful and fulfilled, that positively impacts those around you. It makes society and the world more successful too.
Brandi, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
As a human, I’m a house of contradictions. I’m Earthy but spacey, artsy but sciency, spiritual but not religious. I can be super practical, but believe with all my heart we can manifest anything we can think or dream. I love the natural world, but geek out over the supernatural. I’m all for holistic health but know there’s a time and place for western medicine. I rely on logic and intellect, but also trust my gut and follow my heart. I like to know the rules so I can choose which ones to break. I love tattoos but don’t have one. I don’t mind surface-level chit chat, if it’s genuine without ulterior motives, but prefer to dig deep.
You could say I like balance, flexibility, and open-mindedness.
At the heart of it all is a love for humanity in all of its diverse glory, a deep curiosity and need to keep learning, and a creative old soul.
I’m a super excited mom to a lot of boys and one cat, a wife to the hottest musician and software engineer husband (a second marriage for us both), and I have a big blended, complex family.
I’ve excelled at healing my own trauma that started with childhood abandonment and emotional abuse that then rippled out into my adulthood, as it does.
Perhaps most importantly, I no longer give my power away.
As a professional, I’m a trauma-informed certified life coach specializing in trauma recovery coaching, offering virtual one-on-one coaching sessions to clients. I’m a member of the Global International Coaching Federation (ICF) and its Tennessee chapter.
I work with trauma survivors who, like my past self, experience repeating negative patterns in relationships, career, spirituality, health, and other life areas due to family of origin wounds stemming from emotional and mental abuse. In a safe and confidential space, my clients and I partner to co-create self awareness and emotional regulation to self heal and move forward in new and exciting ways that are in alignment with the client’s own, authentic humanity.
My clients know me for my gentle coaching presence, kindness, compassion, and non-judgmental approach.
As a trauma survivor who’s excelled at healing trauma myself, combined with over 20 years of experience as a multi-passionate creative, I bring a unique perspective to coaching trauma survivors.
For example, before becoming a coach, I have worked and continue to work as a commissioned fine artist. I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications from Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). I then became a highly-regarded professional writer and graphic designer in the software industry.
My bent for creativity helps me be curious for my clients.
I most recently completed a four-year stint as an independent producer and host of the top-rated Human Amplified® podcast, where amazing guests shared their personal stories of adversity and triumph, philosophies and tactics — really, their messy and beautiful life stories. This is what inspired me into my next steps of helping heal trauma as a coach.
As an interviewer, I have a reputation for handing people and sensitive topics with care, so it made sense that I could feasibly start helping people change their stories rather than just tell them.
Always driven to help people heal by making meaning of their experiences, whether through art, storytelling, or coaching, I hold space for people as they are, so they can feel empowered to break trauma cycles, embrace themselves, and live a fulfilling life.
I became certified from an ICF-accredited program and began my coaching practice in July 2022 and opened Brandi Fleck Coaching in February 2023.
Honestly, I am most proud of being able to learn the lessons I needed to learn in order to heal. I was able to get unstuck from those negative repeating patterns in my relationships. It takes patience and time, but because I was able to do that, I’ve been able to create a life I love so much, which I didn’t think was possible at one point. Of course, there are still things I have to deal with as they come up, but I feel equipped and capable when they do.
The thing I want people to know the most is trauma is not a life sentence — you can heal, and it really is possible to create your dreams out of what seems like thin air, even if you’ve experienced trauma and it’s imprint is deep. (Even if you don’t believe it). Start by taking the next best step. Taking action helps move stuck trauma out, it reveals the next step after that if you can’t see the big picture yet, and it provides hope. Faith and trust play an important role in being able to keep taking steps in a new or different direction, but you can build faith and trust by taking that next best step, one after another. As cliche as it might sound, you either win or you learn. Either way, you’re closer to your dream. So you can’t lose!
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
At some point, after we keep going through the same trial over and over (but perhaps with different people, jobs, money, or situations) we hopefully realize that there’s a repeating pattern being caused by something internally. Many times, it’s the beliefs we’ve carried with us from childhood that aren’t necessarily truth, even though we’ve accepted them as such. If you had a rough childhood for one reason or another, you might think you’re not enough or not worthy of fulfillment, joy, or success. That’s definitely been true for me, too.
I’ve had to unlearn many lessons in life, but if I had to name the biggest one, it would be that my worth is not determined by what other people think. This belief that I had to be what other people wanted in order for them to stick around and love me fueled some regretful behavior at times. I did things that didn’t fulfill me or honor who I am because I wanted other people to be happy — it was more important to me to please others rather than stand up for my needs because it was more important that I not be alone. The importance placed on not being alone was based in a fear of rejection, judgement, and loss rather than based on what I value and what’s aligned with my own wellbeing. Once I realized that, and then realized the reach it had in my life and throughout my life, I was able to start processing where it came from and how I could change it. Changing it came with freedom and grief, but that was okay.
After doing years of work with my own spirituality, coaches, and social support system to build awareness, forgiveness, gratitude, grace, and change in my life, I now respect myself regardless if other people do.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Yes, and it was a very personal choice. What’s interesting about being a creative entrepreneur and also a trauma survivor is that doing your life’s work can naturally make you face deep rooted triggers in order to grow and succeed. That’s because if you’re truly passionate about what you’re doing, your heart is on display. It makes you vulnerable.
The personal journey of healing and growth oftentimes goes hand in hand with what you’re working on, even if it doesn’t come through directly as a product or service, but it’s part of who you are and what you’re doing.
As you grow and change, your business or life’s work grows and changes. And there may come a time when it looks completely different than you ever imagined and you have to decide whether to keep going, pivot, or let it go. Knowing what to choose and when can be incredibly difficult.
In my specific situation as a people pleaser, but also as I was recovering from a difficult divorce, custody battle, being gaslit in the aftermath of a marriage ripped apart by not only our own personal trauma responses from childhood but also the opioid epidemic, I had become so insecure in using my voice that I basically had no voice at all.
With no voice, it’s hard to change the world for the better, right? That’s my mission, in a nutshell. So in 2018, a couple years into my trauma recovery, I decided to start a podcast where I highlighted other people’s voices. To humanize different experiences and a diversity of thoughts and people is to help others be more compassionate and understanding of others. My thought was that humanization, even if it was just in my own little corner of the world, was a good starting point for having a better world. As I interviewed others and published their stories and voices, I got braver and braver and started sharing parts of my own story too.
It was glorious and I felt like the work I was doing meant something and was helping people. The sky was the limit and when I wasn’t working my day job, I lived and breathed working on the podcast. It was life. Fast forward to when the pandemic hit in 2020, the show was at its height. My now husband and I decided that we were fortunately secure enough that I could quit my day job. While I was homeschooling the kids during lock down, I’d also figure out how to take the podcast full-time.
After a year of full-time podcasting and trying to monetize (the kids had gone back to school at some point), I decided that to take Human Amplified to the next level, I should become a life coach focusing on trauma recovery. But how would I combine coaching and the podcast? Something wasn’t lining up for me, even if it seemed doable.
Working on the podcast while being immersed in my trauma-informed coach certification program, shot my anxiety through the roof. So I started paying attention to it. I didn’t know at first what it meant, but the passing thought of “maybe it’s time to let it go,” crossed my mind. “No, that can’t be right,” I thought.
How could it be? I had finally gotten to where I wanted to be. Guests were coming out of the woodwork. I was pleased with the amount of subscribers I had. I even had several sponsors.
So, I decided for the next season, I’d find ways to be even more efficient. I’d cut the length of show notes and have shorter interviews, but I’d still try to whip out another season while coaching. With this plan, my anxiety grew worse and worse, spiking each time I scheduled a guest interview.
The work required to keep the podcast going became more stressful than fun. The work was increasing significantly to produce the quality of show I wanted, yet the needed financial return wasn’t there after four years. My self esteem was shot around it because of that. And the authenticity of what my coaching brand was becoming didn’t match the podcast. Ultimately, I felt like my coaching practice would be on an entirely different level and evolving the podcast to that level would hinder me from growing my coaching practice.
After agonizing over it for months, finally I prioritized the coaching practice and decided to end the podcast. I updated the Human Amplified website to let listeners and readers know. I alerted my email list. And I reached out to each guest who had been scheduled to let them know of the change of plans. That was the hardest part because I formed real relationships with most guests and I didn’t want to let them down. They all understood though. Many of those relationships still exist now, too. When I was finished with those closing tasks, a heavy weight was lifted.
The space to pursue being a trauma-informed life coach was now available.
The Human Amplified podcast, which I’m leaving up as long as I’m able, is a very personal body of work that is so important — it was important for the people who wanted to be heard and also for helping me find my voice again. It definitely was a bridge to where I am now. But I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t need it anymore.
Sometimes, that’s all that matters when deciding if it’s time to let go.
Remember, letting go is not the same thing as giving up.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.brandifleckcoaching.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandifleckcoaching
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandifleckcoaching
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandifleck
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@brandifleckcoaching
- Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtbyBrandiFleck https://www.facebook.com/brandi.fleck https://humanamplified.com
Image Credits
Keturah Bishop