We were lucky to catch up with Britt Bravo recently and have shared our conversation below.
Appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
Way back in in the 00’s, I was in my 30’s and ready to make a change. I’d been working with an arts education nonprofit that I loved for 7 years and particularly enjoyed growing their volunteer program from a small group of devoted folks to a 100+ virtual and in person volunteer program. While working at the nonprofit, I’d also been teaching creative career workshops based on Carol Lloyd’s book, Creating a Life Worth Living and loved that work too.
Based on nothing more than a deep desire to do more creative career coaching with individuals and to build capacity for organizations through volunteerism, I left the nonprofit and started my own business. I built a brochure-ware looking website, asked a friend to design my logo, asked my husband to take a headshot with our digital camera, and printed my business cards with a now non-existent service called iPrint. I didn’t have a business plan, or a brand identity, or a mailing list. I just did it. I was so driven by my vision that I had faith it would work out and it did – although very differently than I imagined.
A month after I left the nonprofit, I was searching on Craigslist for gigs (that’s where people looked for work back then) and saw a listing for a nonprofit looking for a community builder to grow community around how nonprofits could use social media for social change. They wanted someone who had experience with creating online volunteer programs and what at the time was called Web 2.0. I wasn’t particularly tech savvy, but I was more familiar with Web 2.0 tools than most people at the time because I loved cupcakes and had a fabulous neighbor. Let me explain.
This was the beginning of the “blogosphere.” I love cupcakes, so one of the first blogs I subscribed to was a blog called “Cupcakes Take the Cake.” They encouraged readers to upload photos of cupcakes to their Flickr account in order to have them featured on their blog. So, I opened a Flickr account and uploaded my cupcake photos. Around the same time, I started to read my neighbor’s blog (Pause by Jory des Jardins, who went on to found BlogHer). I loved her blog so much that I started my own.
Even though I wasn’t a Web 2.0 expert and had never done any online community building, I was so passionate about creating volunteer programs that I applied for the gig, got it, and worked with the organization for three years. Instead of my work being about volunteerism, it became about how to use social media for social change. Because of those skills plus my time teaching creative career workshops, I became uniquely poised to help artists, writers, healers, creative entrepreneurs, ecopreneurs, nonprofits and other Big Visionaries to clarify and communicate their vision for their work in the world. That led to all kinds of exciting consulting, training, and writing opportunities including my local paper naming me the “Best Podcaster: Blogger Most Dedicated to Social Change,” and being included in the Fast Company article, “Women in Nonprofit Technology Who Rock.”
Fast forward almost 20 years later, as a coach and consultant in her 50’s, I know from my own experience and from my clients’ stories, that the older we get, the harder it becomes to take our curiosities, dreams, and visions seriously. Financial and family obligations, disappointments, failures, illness, and changing energy levels layer over our desires making them more difficult to access and trust. Especially during this tumultuous time in history, we long for stability and plans that flow flawlessly from A to Z. But that rarely happens, even in “normal” times. My self in my 30’s advice to you is to risk following what excites you and be open to unexpected paths.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that, can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
Sure! I’m a Big Vision coach and copywriter who helps artists, writers, healers, creative entrepreneurs, ecopreneurs, and changemakers clarify and communicate their Big Vision for the world. I excel at helping my clients bring their vision down to earth. As one client wrote, “You help me untangle whatever knots I’m dealing with and turn my angst into actionable lists.” Once a client’s vision is clear, I help them communicate that vision to their ideal audience. That can look like helping them with website copy, newsletter articles, blog posts, or book proposals. Another client said about our work together on her website copy, “She somehow managed to help me say what I was trying to say better than I ever could have myself!” I love mysteries. Helping people discover their Big Vision and how to communicate it is a fun mystery I love to solve.
In terms of background, I’ve always lived near water. I grew up in the small town of Mystic, CT, where the Mystic River runs through the middle of it and I have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years. I love ancestry research, solving family tree mysteries, and saying “Hello!” to distant relatives on social media. After a recent life-changing whale watching trip to the San Juan Islands where the naturalist sketched out a family tree of the orcas we saw, my newest passion is whales and ocean conservation. I’m interested to see what unexpected paths the whales take me on . . .
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
What has been most effective for me has been networking, but that isn’t really the best term to describe it. I would call it connecting because I care. I am genuinely interested in people and love asking them questions about their work and what they’re excited about. I’m a compulsive resource sharer, so when I meet someone new, by the time I get home, I’ve usually sent them a link to a resource related to their work. Even months later, I’ll see something, think of them, and send a related resource along. Sometimes those conversations lead to connecting on social media where they might see one of my posts. All of that can lead to their reaching out to work together, or referring someone to me. In a world full of “influencers,” appearance filters, and AI-generated-everything, I think people appreciate feeling truly seen and cared about.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Oh golly. Well, when I was in my forties a whole bunch of tough stuff happened all at once. I had surgery to have a huge kidney stone removed, some things went wrong, and I developed medical PTSD. Around the same time, a big vision for my work in the world that I thought would be the most awesome thing ever was a big flop. And then, a friend, who was like a sister, ghosted me. I’m pretty sure that’s when perimenopause started too, which, if you haven’t gone through it, turns your body and mind inside out. Fun times!
I made it through to the other side because of the deep caring of my husband, my friends, my therapist, and some wonderful healers. I am forever grateful to them. The whole thing definitely shook my idealism and belief in a big vision. Some things I learned from that experience are:
· When someone walks with you towards your vision, especially when you’ve hit a big challenge, it’s a huge gift.
· You have to practice dreaming and visioning, or that muscle will atrophy.
· Being deeply cared about is deeply healing.
Today, I continue my work as a Big Vision coach and copywriter by helping people to exercise their dreaming muscle, walking beside them as they move towards their vision, and caring about them through their successes and challenges. My hope is that the ripple effects that come from each person and organization I help to live their Big Vision will make the world a better place.
Contact Info
Website: https://brittbravo.com/
Instagram: @bbravo
Image Credit
Kierra Jenaé Johnson
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