We were lucky to catch up with Lanna Brasure recently and have shared our conversation below.
Lanna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
The most meaningful project I’ve ever worked on is the Gratitude and Reflection Journal I created.
I had just gotten divorced and moved into my own apartment, this would be the first time in my entire life I would be living on my own. Every other time I had lived with family, boyfriends, friends, my sisters, or my husband at the time. I had always been independent, but this would be my first time really being alone. My apartment was in downtown Detroit, MI above a coffee shop. I would go into this coffee shop every day and work on this journal, work on my dreams. I treated it like my office and living room. I developed relationships with the baristas until they became friends I can talk to about anything. They knew my drink order and I knew their secrets. I haven’t always been this much of a positive person, I used to be a bit more negative and called it being a realist. I went through a spiral after my mom passed away and throughout my divorce, I was the most negative I had ever been. But I couldn’t escape myself. I wanted to rewire my brain to look for the positives instead of the negatives. I wanted my default to be a nice place to be. I wanted my brain to be a nice place to be. I have always been a researcher, teaching myself anything I need and want to know that I don’t learn in school or out in the world. I listened to podcasts, read books, asked friends, asked strangers, experimented with myself mentally and physically to determine what can make the brain a “happier”, more content place to be. I never had the plans of creating a gratitude and reflection journal. I have always been a writer though, writing poetry and short reflections and expressions about life, experiences, and feelings. When it came down to it, hating my mindset at the time so much and wanting to change that…I took everything I learned from everything I researched and experimented with, and I created Becoming. A gratitude and reflection journal to help you rewire your brain to look for the positives instead of the negatives. I had used other gratitude journals in the past but didn’t always like the questions they asked or didn’t ask. I wanted to create one custom to what I was going through internally and with all of the data I had collected. I had no idea I would create something that would work, and that would not only help me, but help my friends and loved ones. I practiced with my own journal while I will still editing it and making it “ready”, and I realized along the way, I no longer wanted to escape myself. I was rewiring my brain not just from practicing gratitude, being intentional about healthy habits, or doing everything the data says to do. But, it was because I was creating something meaningful. Something that would create impact for other people struggling with wanting to escape themselves. I worked on this journal at that coffee shop for almost 2 years, almost everyday, for several hours a day, closing the shop down (which usually closed at 9-10pm). I had committed to it, kept my word to myself, kept my word to the person out there crying on the floor who so badly needs another human to say “here, I made this for you”. I am self published, and honestly I have barely promoted it because that’s a whole nother job, but I’ve been working at it. The copies I’ve sold have mainly been to friends, family, friends of friends, people I met in coffee shops or restaurants while I was frolicking around Detroit. People have reached out to me or stopped me on the street to tell me how it has helped them. How they’ve cried over a certain part because they “never thought of it like that”, or they had never asked themselves these questions. As of last February (2025), I embarked on a year long road trip (spoiler, it has turned into longer than a year). I made business cards with information about the journal on them and a QR code that takes you to my website to purchase it. I have been putting those in coffee shops and on community boards all over America for over a year now. The other day, someone from Brooklyn purchased a journal from my website. It is only one sale from one stranger, but that was the whole point all along. To help one person. And that is meaningful. I have learned, that if you create something truly for yourself as a human, you will have created something for another person, and, potentially, the rest of the world.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’ve lived in Michigan my entire life up until last February 2025, I got rid of my apartment and embarked on a year long road trip around America by myself. I have had many different kinds of jobs throughout my life; line cook, flower shop maintenance, shot girl, build out director, property manager, technical coach, life coach. I’ve always been interested in many different things and currently have 22 passion projects (the list is growing) I’m working on. I am not tied to one industry or discipline. I am currently a Technical Coach for a company where I coach software engineers and technical teams. But my real work and passions are helping humans. I am a life coach on the side, although I stopped charging for that because I don’t want to make humans pay for help that we should all be freely giving to each other. I want to help humans endure the human experience in a more positive way, and that should be accessible to everyone. I offer mentorships for career and technical guidance, and just anyone trying to figure their professional lives out, this also includes helping people learn how to code (despite AI, this is still a great skill to learn as a human). I write poetry and have recently self published two collections, and have several others in the works. I have self published a gratitude and reflection journal to help you rewire your brain to look for the positives instead of the negatives. I have a list of other books I’m writing as well. I also teach pole fitness as a form of just that, fitness. I’ve found people are very intimidated by the gym and having a gym routine, but if you make exercise more fun it becomes quite easy to maintain your health. I like to help people with confidence and believing in themselves, whether that be through teaching them how to code, helping them apply for a job they don’t think they’re “good enough” for, helping someone in the gym, teaching pole fitness to someone who struggles with body image, or just giving people a pep talk as we humans often need. I am here for you, genuinely. That is what sets me apart. I’ve removed my price tag from almost everything except my books (because it costs money to print them). That may seem like a bad business move, but I’m not interested in the business side of things. I am interested in the human side of things, because all of the sides of this are human, the human experience. And I am a human who wants to help other humans in any way I can, with everything I’ve learned, from all of the experiences I’ve been through. Because I believe that’s what humans should do. Call it a friend if you will, or a helping hand. Whatever it is, I am here to be of service for those in need. And to help you believe in yourself to do whatever it is you long for, because the our biggest blocker is often our mindset and our own doubt. I have many other project I’m working on; starting a podcast, building some apps, and so many other ideas but they all revolve around the same thing…helping humanity. Helping, you.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
There are a few things that drive my creative journey. Self expression, to help others feel less alone, and the fact that I am going to die one day so I ought to do something worthwhile with my time. Most of what I do is around expressing myself and helping others. I have found that if I don’t write or move my body or sing or dance or cook, I feel suppressed. So, I must express myself in every way in order to feel like I won’t explode. It’s therapeutic for me, and with my writing when I express myself and others read it, it helps them to feel less alone if they can resonate with my words and experiences. Being able to help people drives me. I can’t imagine not helping others so freely in a world so difficult. To know the experiences I’ve been through and times when I needed people who weren’t there, people who could have helped but didn’t for whatever reason. I never want my name to be associated with that. I will help you. Let me help you. It’s awful to know there are so many people out there crying on their bathroom floors feeling so alone. I hope my words reach them and they can feel less alone at least for the day, at least for the moment. That’s what a lot of this is about, helping people through that one singular moment where they feel so utterly helpless, like giving up, like their brain and emotions are eating them alive. Sometimes all it takes is one kind, willing soul to get us on the other side of all that darkness. The final and most important thing that drives me is this one piece of information it seems most people have forgotten about or are so distracted by people things they forget they are mortal. It is that we are, in fact, without a single doubt, going to die one day. And, we have no idea which day. Or which time. Or if it’s the day before we have a ton of plans. Or if it’s the day after we saved someone else’s life. Or if it’s during a drive to a beautiful sunset. Or on a day when we wanted to take PTO but our job didn’t approve it. I think about this all too often, but it is a gift, and a motivator. To live a life worthwhile, to do anything and everything within my power, and even some things out of my power, to help as many people as I can while I am here, because I will not always be here. So, be creative with your life, you are not going to make it out alive.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding part of being an artist/creative is when someone is moved by something I’ve said or done. When you can shift a person’s emotions, psyche, and/or perspective. No amount of money could ever replace or replicate that. To know something mattered that much. And, if it helps someone….that might actually be more important. At the very base level, expressing myself is rewarding, so even if nobody is ever moved by it, or cares, or read or sees any of it…I have satisfied myself by releasing it from my being. And then, if it can reach others in a meaningful way, that is beautiful, that connects us, and that is so important to the human experience, for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bylanna.com
- Instagram: lanna.out.loud
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lanna-brasure/
- Youtube: LannaOutLoud
Image Credits
Billboard photo by Macomb Community College