We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Casey Harrison a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Casey, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Polished Strategic Communications was born years before it had a name. As a single mother at 17, I was driven by a desire to provide for my son, and hopefully show him through my example that hard work could be both personally fulfilling and make a positive impact in our community. Fast-forward through a 12-year corporate career leading marketing, communications, and public relations teams, I unexpectedly lost my job… two days after my honeymoon. It was then that Polished was truly born out of a circumstance where I had to dig myself out of the mud.

Within 24 hours of unemployment, while fighting against fear, I signed my first client—a local nonprofit that saw value in my ability to increase its visibility in Central Indiana—PATTERN Indy. Mere days later, Polished Strategic Communications launched on social media and online with a variety of services that blend marketing, communications, and public relations strategies to elevate brand awareness, drive digital engagement, and produce key outcomes.

Since then, Polished has signed nearly 15 clients—some we strategically partner with—to help drive equity, access, and education in our community and beyond. In full transparency, it’s only been three months, so I’ve still got so much to learn. But to date, this was the best decision I’ve ever made, and in many ways, I didn’t make it. The evolution of Polished was so natural, with one client signing after another in locations across the country. The formation of this business has validated my education and experiences at a time when I was left questioning everything about my value in the workforce. Furthermore, this experience has helped me remember that work is simply one aspect of who I am as a whole human. Entrepreneurship has given me control over my life in a way that corporate America simply couldn’t accommodate. I’m learning that this chapter is filled with soul work and it has positively impacted everything about my life in the last three months.

The Polished approach, while poised and proven, is focused on the underdogs. We know that even the most beautiful gemstone has to be dug up and repeatedly cleaned off before it can shine at its brightest potential, and we bring that approach to our clients. We help them find and take ownership of their stories. We empower them to acknowledge and take control of the impact of their work, and we do that while connecting the impact of their work back to industry and community because we believe that we all can make a difference, and we all should.

We may not be solving a new problem, as marketing and communication have been around since Socrates in 465 B.C., but we believe that our approach uniquely sparkles against other firms.

Casey, 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?

Though I was born in Mission Viejo, California, I’ve been an Indiana Hoosier nearly my entire life, and that Midwest upbringing taught me values of community, family, and service to others. However, when I unexpectedly found myself pregnant at 16 years old, I was forced to grow up quickly. I delivered my son 15 weeks prematurely in the summer between my junior and senior years. By the true grace of God, he defied every odd, and today is a healthy, albeit legally blind, 18-year-old with a 4.2 GPA. He’s an incredible young man, and I love being a mother, but this moment marked just the beginning of learning to navigate adversity.

As a single mother, I viewed education as a tool to provide for myself and my son. So, after I graduated high school with an honors diploma, I started college at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, today known at Indiana Univeristy Indianapolis. The only problem? I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up. The only thing I did know? I wanted to make a difference.

While in college, I embraced every opportunity to try something new. While working on-campus alongside two part-time jobs, I participated in four internships and various clubs attempting to discover that the *it* career would be for me. And then, through an elective course, communication found me.

Through communication studies, I was exposed to family dynamics, health communication, rhetorical studies, and organizational communication. After the completion of my Bachelor’s, I became fascinated by the evolution of the digital space, and through my Master’s experience, I leaned into public relations, marketing, and digital strategy courses. After 17 continuous years, I earned my Master’s in Applied Communication specializing in Business Media in 2014. And it was through my graduate program that I was exposed to community development.

Through community development, I discovered my fascination with equity, accessibility, and the importance of communication—and those interests have helped fuel my career. I’ve had some incredible moments, like hosting my son’s first field trip to City Hall when I worked for the City of Fishers. In Fishers, I also had the opportunity to help secure the City’s first destination as the 2017 MONEY Magazine Best Place to Live. With a desire to get more experience in the public relations industry, I then transitioned to a small agency in Indianapolis. During that time, which happened to overlap with a global pandemic, I served nonprofits, healthcare clients, and a variety of community organizations. These experiences were incredibly formative as they all demonstrated the power of spaces where everyone felt welcome and could access the resources they needed. From domestic and sexual violence to civil legal aid, to youth workforce development programs—I gained so many experiences with a variety of industries and projects which eventually led me to the Indy Chamber.

While there, I was responsible for creating and implementing the organization’s first-ever communications strategy as well as building the department. Over the 2.5 years I held my role, the organization achieved incredible success, including the creation of a first-ever, dedicated member portal, national designation as the 2019 Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) 2021 Chamber of the Year, and a 140% increase over earned media coverage year-over-year—achieved with no budget. In addition, I brokered the organization’s first-ever partnership with the Indianapolis Recorder, Indy’s oldest Black newspaper, supporting our minority members and loan clients. My time there was so impactful because it made a direct impact on our members, the businesses we sought to support, our key stakeholders, and the entire nine-county, Indy region.

When I reflect on this journey, I’m most proud of my commitment to service. I’m bold in everything I do, and I often unapologetically work to advance the people and causes that I’m passionate about. I believe that’s what enables me to be so effective in the work that I do, but this work goes beyond a paycheck. My father has always demonstrated servant leadership, and I learned from his expample, constantly volunteering my time in various spaces and capacities. For nearly five years, on the third Thursday of every month, I delivered Meals on Wheels. I’ve served on boards and committees where I could meaningfully make a difference. I mentor young women just entering the workforce, and I’m always working on pitching someone about an XBE that has an incredible story they need to hear!

And I’m proud of all of that, specially the incredible stories that I get entrusted to tell! But in this season, I’m equally proud that I’m finally striving to have more balance. I’m recently married, a new business owner, and preparing for my son to transition to college, and it’s never been more important for me to recognize that I can only be innovative, creative, and think critically when I intentionally carve out the space to do so. I hope that my commitment to my values shines through my company and through who I am, and I believe that the more that I lean into those spaces the closer I’m going to come to achieving my purpose as a person.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Resilience, a word that’s followed me my entire life, and rightfully so! Nothing prepares you to unexpectedly lose your job. Even in the best-case scenario, it’s an emotional, draining, and very uncertain process to navigate—and it perfectly illustrates my resilience.

I was notified of my termination at 4 p.m. on a Wednesday, two days after my honeymoon, after successfully launching the biggest project of my career. Within those first 24 hours, my parents and husband recommended that I take the rest of the week to sit. But I knew that if I sat in that space, I was going to replay everything about that final conversation while sulking in a space of fear, uncertainty, and self-doubt. Instead of doing that, I quickly went into execution mode.

I am a people person. I don’t just like people—I deeply care about people. My New Girl fans understand what it feels like to constantly have so many feelings and desires for those around you to succeed, but hey, we are who we are—Team Jess! So in the first 24 hours after this event, I activated my people. I individually spoke to 54 people as I sought to orient around what was next in a way that invited opportunity and focused on the future.

That innate drive led me down a path to Polished. While opportunities didn’t come overnight, in many ways they came every two nights. Colleagues I had previously worked with were interested in exploring opportunities because they trusted my work ethic and the quality of my outputs—which only intensified my fire to connect with more people and lean deep into establishing my own company.

It wasn’t easy, it still isn’t easy, and this is the very beginning of my journey. But I’m grateful for that resiliency because it’s created an opportunity for me to chart a path I never seriously considered existed.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Learning boundaries has been a crucial and long journey for me. Over the years, I’ve tended to overcommit and consistently seek out opportunities to help others, and while I love how quickly I lean in to help others, I’ve learned that I can exhaust myself by taking on too much.

I’ve come to realize that in order to be the best version of myself and effectively support those I care about, I must prioritize self-care and well-being.

Just like on an airplane, where you’re instructed to put on your oxygen mask before assisting others, I’ve learned that I must ensure my own emotional and physical health first. Setting and maintaining boundaries has allowed me to carve out precious time for self-care, reflection, and personal growth, enabling me to bring more to my roles while also nurturing my own identity and happiness. It’s a lesson that continues to challenge me in the best way!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.polishedcomms.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caseyncawthon/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/casey.nicole1/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cncawthon/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/caseyncawthon