47. Celebrating branding & visibility wins with Erica Courdae
SUMMARY
As social media followers, newsletter subscribers, and podcast listeners, you spend a lot of time observing the front-facing branding and visibility strategies of others. You rarely get the chance to witness a behind-the-scenes assessment of those efforts - until now.
India is joined by her client, best friend, and occasional co-host Erica Courdae for a revealing look at their branding and visibility efforts over the last 18 months. They’re celebrating wins, tracking their evolution, and plotting the future.
In this discussion:
Exploring how your personal and professional personas intersect
Defining ease and facilitating flow
Fostering reciprocal growth within your communities
Amplifying your authentic identity
Highlighting your accomplishments
QUOTED
India Jackson
“Ease doesn't mean that things will be easy. Ease to me is fluidity.”
“If we only focus on what we're selling and we don't look at who the human is, then the roadmap that we're building might be to a place that the human is not going to feel good about going to.”
Erica Courdae
“I've spent all of my life having to be strong and resilient and, while sometimes I pushed back against those words, I have learned that I am capable of so much more than I give myself credit for.”
“You don't show up when you're done. Be in process and be transparent and be open because there's no done; you'll never show up.”
ARTICLE
Whew! These last 18 months! Our Flaunt Your Fire conversations have gone through quite the evolutionary process since India started sharing them with you all back in December 2019.
What a perfect opportunity, then, for our fearless leader to reflect on some of the many developments? And who better to co-pilot the discussion than India’s best friend, occasional co-host, and co-founder of Pause On The Play, Erica Courdae?
(No one; that’s who.)
Meet Erica Courdae
“My name is Erica. I am a diversity, equity, and inclusion coach and consultant.” Anyone who knows of Erica knows that elevator pitch doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Her superpower is taking care of the whole human, not just their professional persona. “I support you in figuring out how to bring your values into your brand, but also how to just be better, how to be more of an imperfect ally, how to be active in your imperfect allyship, and how to be a part of the change that you want to see in the world.”
One of India’s favorite things about Erica’s coaching style is that she supports people without changing who they are. She allows them to remain authentic to themselves.
“If you can't show up as you, well, then that's a problem,” Erica says. “I don't want you to be somebody else. If you can’t be you, how can anybody else be themselves?”
Ease: It’s Not Easy, It’s Fluid
In a nod to the power of authenticity, neither India nor Erica prepped their answers in advance. Sure, India came with questions at the ready, but the organic responses contain a treasure of unscripted gems.
This Q & A gets deep right off the bat.
Question #1: What do you feel is one of the biggest things that you have learned about yourself since the beginning of 2020 until now?
“I've spent all of my life having to be strong and resilient,” Erica says. “And, while sometimes I pushed back against those words, I have learned that I am capable of so much more than I give myself credit for.”
Friends don’t let friends move on to the next questions without getting them to answer the same question in return. Just saying.
India owns it. “The more that I am fully showing up and being myself and being present in the moment, not thinking too much about the past and not thinking too far into the future in the moment of what I'm doing,” she says, “the more impact that I have and the more excited I am about what I'm doing, and, also, the further my message goes.”
Hard to believe now, but the confident leader at the helm of FYF was super nervous back in December 2019 when she sat down to record her first podcast. “I have a bit of stage fright and so to make the decision to start a podcast and to rebrand my business were big decisions.” But the power of authenticity prompted more ease around her choices. “I just found that giving myself permission to be more and more and more and more and more of me [ ], and leading with my values and not wavering from that, the more ease I've had.”
Ease. We lean into that word a lot. What exactly does it mean?
India answers first. “Ease means doing more of what I'm really good at and delegating what I'm not to my team. Ease means having the freedom to be able to literally take the laptop with me and work from anywhere,” she says. “I'm so grateful that the business that I've built allows me to pick up my entire operation and go somewhere else if I need to, if I want to, if I feel so inspired to.”
Erica piggybacks off that answer. “Ease is reminding myself that I did not take my time, effort, energy, and talent to create a business that I have to run in a way that somebody else told me I had to. Ease reminding myself that being a mother doesn't come with a prescription on how I have to play that out. Ease looks like being more of who I am out loud and even more of what some people may bump up against, and fully being able to say, ‘That's not my shit.’
India also describes ease as the reward for showing up. “Sometimes I feel like I have nothing to say, and yet, if I just sit down and plug in the mic and be present, there's always something to say.”
Ease is intentionally surrounding yourself with people also working towards living in complete integrity while also supporting and loving you. “And, also, are willing to give tough love instead of being ‘yes’ people,” India adds. “I'm so grateful for the network that we built, the friends that we have both in common and separately, and also our amazing community members; they've definitely created more inspiration and joy and ease.”
From her own experience, Erica has observed taking time to build those personal and professional networks; the transformative growth happens when people don't agree with you on everything. Likewise, you’re in a position to offer the same support to those who haven’t quite hit their stride yet. “You remind them that [they] have access to this too because most of us have been on both sides of that at some point,” she says, existing in both the space of giving and receiving support.
As a reminder, “Ease doesn't mean that things will be easy,” India says. “Ease to me is fluidity.” In this past year, she’s witnessed firsthand that you can have that fluid kind of energy about things and yet still have someone in your life who’s willing to direct you to where your intention and flow are not aligned.
Call them pot-stirrers if you like but, those are the folks who’ll help you level up.
Branding, Visibility, and Future Flaunting
Most marketing and branding, visibility, or public relations agencies begin their client relationships by asking what are you selling?
“I like to really look at who are you?” India says. If we only focus on what you’re selling and we don't look at who the human is, “then the roadmap that we're building might be to a place that the human is not going to feel good about going to.”
Question #3: What do you feel has changed - or amplified - about who you are?
It's a big question.
“I need some help from my best friend,” Erica laughs. “There's a lot of value in having people around that you trust their input to be able to reflect some of those things back when you're having a hard time actually being able to see the abundance of what's there. I think for me, a lot of what's come up is living more unapologetically out loud.” She’s reclaimed moments of play for herself and shifted her approach regarding interactions with others. “When I don't have to segment and keep parts of myself literally and figuratively in the drawer, I can show up more fully, which then, in turn, can hold space for others to be reminded that they can do the same and it's safe to do so.”
Now is a great time to remind folks that shifts like the one Erica is describing don’t happen overnight.
“It took time for me to get there, and I still have pieces that I'm working through. But I have moved much farther forward than what I was,” Erica says. In modeling that behavior for others, she’s inviting people to continue learning how to live unapologetically alongside her. “I think people lose that, sometimes, out of fear of ‘I can’t talk to you; you know everything.’ I damn sure do not,” she says. “I think that there's a lot of power in learning and being willing to be in-process. And, I think that this is one of the things that, from my perspective, I actually think FYF has consistently tried to remind people you don't show up when you're done. Be in process and be transparent and be open because there's no “done”; [or] you'll never show up.”
In living out loud and sharing those pieces of herself, India notes that Erica has created new connection points, opportunities where conversations are more likely to begin. Crystals, kimchi, and tarot are hella less scary for folks to talk about than diving straight into anti-racism.
Erica agrees. “It’s like, I'm a human, you're a human. Let's be human together.”
Question #4: Have you had any interviews or speaking engagements that were really exciting for you and completely lit your fire in the last year?
“Hiring a publicist!” Erica says, acknowledging that, while not an interview or speaking engagement as such, Cher Hale of Ginkgo Public Relations, has guided and supported her evolution. “I almost just didn't stop and really reflect on this [question] enough prior to this, which is my own wake-up call that I should be doing of how much I've done, how many places she's pushed me to do things that I may not have done on my own, and the connections that have been made because of it and how this particular type of visibility has supported where I am now and where I want to continue to go.”
India echoes Erica’s admiration for Cher’s expertise. “Anytime that you're working with multiple companies to support your brand or your business, if you can get them to be talking to each other and be on the same page and support each other, you're always going to get better results.”
“This is also to me a testament of how we have built a network that all plays well together in the same pool; it's not disjointed,” Erica says, reiterating the value of purposeful reflection. “Before you start to think, ‘Oh! Let me worry about where I need to go.’ It's like, wait! Let's really integrate and reconcile what you've already done and where you've already been because that place you think you want to go, you might have already been there.”
As for what lit her fire over the last 18 months, India cites her appearance on Racheal Cook's podcast, Promote Yourself to CEO as a highlight, as well as the Libsyn webinar she participated in, and her guest spot on In Her Voice with Kelly Covert.
Question #5: What are you excited about going forward as you evolve your brand? What are you looking forward to?
“I am looking forward to an increased level of visibility that supports where I want me and my business and the impact that both, combined, can make to grow and having more and more of an opportunity too, really, broaden the reach of what I know I can do,” says Erica. “I'm here for it. We own this ride. We got this!”
“I'm excited to really flaunt what's already happened,” India says. “We've achieved so much. We've worked with some incredible, amazing humans from just getting started to really big household names. And we haven't been talking about it; we haven't been sharing our wins!”
Get ready for us to flaunt more of these wins and support you in doing the same.
GUEST CONTACT & BIO
www.pauseontheplay.com/community
Erica Courdae has dedicated her life to expanding how others interact with the world through powerful conversations. As an entrepreneur and certified coach, her work is focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), imperfect allyship, and imposter syndrome. This work has taken her into communities and onto national stages as a speaker and educator at noteworthy industry events like AltSummit, ShePodcasts Live, and Being Boss.
Erica is also the owner of an inclusive beauty salon, Silver Immersion, and the host of Pause on the Play, a podcast that features open dialogue on topics like company culture, visibility, and mindset. She lives in Maryland with her two children.
YOUR ACTIONS FOR THIS EPISODE
Give yourself permission to evolve! Become a member of Pause On The Play The Community. Benefit from branding and visibility expertise from India Jackson and skilled DEI guidance from Erica Courdae. The Community provides an incubator where members can test ideas, ask for support, and build trusting relationships that expand the ethical marketplace. There’s even an app for that!