015: The Benefits of Values-Based Business – Karla Amanda Brown

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Karla Amanda Brown 0:00
Quite astonished actually it how seamless almost. The process has been once I was able to find the message to stay on.

Tony Maree Torrey 0:13
Welcome to the Legacy in the Making Show. I’m your host LA’s foremost Success Coach Tony Maree Torrey, I interview leaders and influencers who have gone beyond the superficial markers of success and claimed true fulfillment by leveraging their positions to create positive and profitable changes in their businesses and beyond. They share their stories and offer real-world boots on the ground experience. That translates into practical advice to apply to your own journey. I invite you to this injection of wisdom and inspiration so you can prevail and leave your own lasting legacy. Hello, and welcome to the Legacy in the Making Show. I’m really pleased to be talking with the fabulous Karla Amanda Brown today, Karla and I are going to be talking to you about business values, how to identify them, how you can use them in your business, and in particular to make sure that you’re building a culture of healthy functional teams, and also to help you attract the right resources in the first place. So Karla is the CEO of soul centric counseling and of the soul centric collective. And her counseling organization specializes in helping people get to the other side of personal traumas and betrayals. And Karla welcome. It’s so great to talk with you today. And you have done some amazing work in the world and grown and progressed so much as a practitioner over the years that I have known you. So tell us a little bit about yourself and why it is that you’ve started soul centric counseling and the collective.

Karla Amanda Brown 2:01
Well, first, thank you so much for inviting me on the show. I’m happy to be here with you and your watchers and listeners, I started soul centered counseling, really wanting to invite people into a comfy space where they could come and really discover themselves in a new way where they could also discover what counseling can be. I have the experience of watching TV just like anyone else. And I think there’s kind of one narrative around what that’s like. And so I’ve stepped out and have invited other clinicians, counselors to come along with me to help people change their lives and to find freedom.

Tony Maree Torrey 2:49
So I love the work that you’re doing in the world because it’s so important. What got you started kind of down the road of helping people address the traumas and the betrayals?

Karla Amanda Brown 3:00
Well, I think if most wellness folks are honest with you, they will tell you that the journey started with themselves. And so a byproduct, a delightful byproduct of my own wellness journey has been being able to have a business where I get to support others on their wellness journey as well.

Tony Maree Torrey 3:23
I love that and and it’s definitely the same for me. I certainly when I started all my various trainings and certifications that was all around initially working through my own crap, I’m just gonna say crap, because that’s the word that it’s like working through my own stuff, and looking for tools to empower myself. And then that eventually transitioned into wanting to empower others as I was able to heal and resolve some of my past issues, concerns and traumas. And then I’m like, people need to be free. People need to be free of this stuff so they can bring their gifts to the world. And I know that that’s why

Karla Amanda Brown 4:00
you jack such a key piece of when I think when we find ourselves on the other side of some pain and sure there’s more to go the journey continues as long as we’re here to to live. I think there becomes maybe a natural inclination to want to bring others along.

Tony Maree Torrey 4:19
Yeah, absolutely. You and I met actually originally doing when we were becoming certified hypnotherapist, which was that the beginning of both our journeys as practitioners as clinicians. And it was an amazing thing to just kind of walk into the room and you were just she was just so lit up like just Karla just stood out in the room as someone that was just holding a lot of light. And so we eventually got to know each other and we’ve worked together and Carlos be my clients and we’ve been friends and we’ve got a long standing relationship now. And so when you came to me and you started saying look, I want to take my practice for me just Being a sole practitioner, and I have a bigger vision, it was like such an honor to be able to work with you and help you make that transition into CEO of your company and into launching the, you know, the two initiatives that you have, tell us a little bit more about the soul centric collective, because this is like the second phase of your ability to contribute to the world.

Karla Amanda Brown 5:23
So century collective is my contribution to, to the world, really, part of it is to wellness practitioners who also have this desire in them to step out into the world and to serve more people, primarily through groups, whether that’s yoga through group or group therapy, or some other form of sacred circle, gathering for people that traditionally, these sorts of offerings haven’t been so easy to advertise. And, and I found in my own journey, and in helping my clients that I’m having to ask this person or ask that professional, if they know of a gathering of like, people who are wanting to heal and move beyond their pain together. And as I’ve continued to come up short, in finding a one stop shop, I decided, well, heck, why don’t I create something? Let’s, let’s set out and do this.

Tony Maree Torrey 6:34
That’s fantastic. So, so you, in your professional experience came across a problem, a limitation that you were seeing that you were coming up against yourself, and eventually, and I love this, because it’s so much about I think, as we go on our personal journey, we start really learning how to take responsibility. And when we see a problem, we don’t necessarily just go Oh, leave it to someone else to resolve, I love that you, you stepped up to the ownership of solving that problem yourself. And I know that it’s so funny, really, isn’t it? Because I have known you for a long time. I know that part of your journey. At one point you kind of seguayed for a while into learning how to code and and kind of considering the possibility of stepping into the high tech world. And at the time, I know that it was kind of like, well, should I shouldn’t I I don’t know, I’m going to explore this. I don’t really know what it means or what it’s about or why. But eventually, like that little segue for you has ended up being a really powerful component of your ability to be able to create the collective.

Karla Amanda Brown 7:41
Absolutely, absolutely. It’s, it’s helped me to not be afraid of computers, to know my way around to be able to create an amazing team to launch soul centric collective, and just have some knowledge around what’s happening and why and, and what are people experiencing out in the world? And, and I think especially in the area where I live in the Silicon Valley, it’s given me a flavor of, of what some of my clients lives are like, Hmm, yeah, that’s fantastic. And so, you know, no

Tony Maree Torrey 8:16
effort is ever really wasted. So long as you’re doing something that’s in alignment. And I know that for you, you knew it was in alignment, you just didn’t know what the end goal or you weren’t totally clear on what the end game was. Is that am I remembering that correctly?

Karla Amanda Brown 8:32
Oh, for sure. This soul centric collective has been named various things along the journey. As I’ve pivoted to find the Nishe to figure out who do I want to serve? How do I want to serve these people? And part of what happened to really catapult things is building I wouldn’t even say building I, I feel like these people were divinely placed into my life, to have a team to launch soul centric collective and to make it what it is.

Tony Maree Torrey 9:05
That’s fantastic. And that brings this kind of to the conversation that we talked about having today which is really and I love that what you’re saying like it just really feels like that they came in they came to you and I think that that is what happens when you get really clear on what your purpose is, what your mission is, what your business values are. It is so much easier to attract the right talent. We did the work together to define your business values, your purpose, your mission, all those things. Tell us a little bit about that experience. Like once those pieces of the puzzle were in place. How did things unfold?

Karla Amanda Brown 9:42
Well, what so centric counseling specifically, hi has made a name for myself as a solo practitioner and was doing fine and knew that I wanted to expand. I talked to a few clinician friends about joining, and had been doing the work behind the scenes to set the business up to make that happen, and wasn’t feeling ready to open up the business to others, there was something missing. And so when you and I connected to figure out the values and the mission statement, it was nerve wracking, really bringing from me words, to express to people, it was really vulnerable. To tell people, these are the things that I value. And if you value these things to come join me. And as you know, I kind of set on things for a little while. But once I finally did send out the job listings, I found that I got exactly the people I want. And they’re excited as well

Tony Maree Torrey 10:59
to have

Karla Amanda Brown 11:01
their values mirrored by what I’ve been able to share.

Tony Maree Torrey 11:06
That’s amazing. And so and I seem to remember you telling me that one of the things that happened was, as you went through the interview process, almost everyone bought that part up, right, they were extremely enthusiastic. I mean, obviously people want jobs like but but there was a different level of enthusiasm that came with your candidates. Is that right?

Karla Amanda Brown 11:27
Absolutely. Absolutely. It was. So our conversations were so personal. And part of the thing is, my written application is pretty lengthy. And I asked some, some pretty personal questions. And some things about their knowledge, what are what are they bringing as, as counselors. And so with that, and with the values piece, it really allowed the interviews, to be an opportunity for me to get to know them and them to get to know me, in the same way that when someone is looking for a counselor to work with personally, fits important. And that’s the same with employee employer relationship fit is really important. So being able to put my cards out and say, Hey, here’s part of who I am part of the way that I think, and my vision as to what I’m wanting to create it, it brought those people right in.

Tony Maree Torrey 12:22
That’s fantastic. And now that you’re you know, you’re really up and running in your business. And I just want to mention that we’ve been going through the whole pandemic experience and the looting and the protesting and all those things going on yet. Soul centric counseling has been growing significantly in this period of time. And you were actually able to put these people that you hired right to work and get them busy really quickly. So Karla, how has been able to hire people who have self professed being in alignment with your values allowed you to grow and scale your business?

Karla Amanda Brown 13:01
I would say it’s helped us to form trust, and to bond more quickly. And on a personal level, as I’ve been able to be courageous and vulnerable with them, it’s helping them to be more courageous and vulnerable with me. And the more that we team up together to really form Seoul centric counseling, the easier it is for us to step into the room and to do our work for me to trust the counselors to show up do their work to come to me, or the other supervisor when something’s amiss and to get the help that they need to serve people as well as they deserve to be served.

Tony Maree Torrey 13:46
Sounds like as a result of you creating this culture of trust and to some extent vulnerability that has allowed you to, to lead but not have to be so hands on because you’ve got people that you know, that you can trust. And you’ve got people who feel like they’re safe to put their hand up and say, Hey, I need some help and support right now without feeling like they’re going to be shot down or judged or anything like that, is that kind of encapsulate part of what you’ve been experiencing? Absolutely.

Karla Amanda Brown 14:21
I was really nervous about my own level of control that I think I need and having really my name and my brand, being represented by others. And because of what you helped me with, because of the values, mission, statement vision, and the trust that we are building with each other, I’m not nervous, I’m not overwhelmed. I’m excited by having a team of people that I get to learn from that I get to teach and that I get to learn with What

Tony Maree Torrey 15:00
a different kind of experience in growing a business. And, and because we’ve been in this incredibly unique environment recently with COVID-19. And with protests and looting and all these crazy things going on in the world, it’s truly remarkable that you have still been able to grow and scale a business and find the right people to be with you to grow and scale that business. And I think that’s one of the really big testaments to the value of having done this work, and build a team in this way.

Karla Amanda Brown 15:35
For sure, for sure. It’s been it’s been amazing. I’m quite astonished actually, at how, how seamless almost, with the process has been, once I was able to find the message to stay on.

Tony Maree Torrey 15:53
That’s all amazing, Karla, and I’m sure people are like super curious to know what your values are. So I’m going to ask you to share those with us. And then once you’ve shared them with us, we’re actually going to go into a little bit of a teaching moment to talk about how it is that you can create your values list for your business, which may draw on your personal values, but it could also be different. Yeah. So tell us about

Karla Amanda Brown 16:16
your values. So that’s all centered counseling, our values, our present moment, awareness, dynamic and engaging collaboration, whole brain whole body healing, shame, transformation, encouraged restoration, compassionate and creative connection, celebration of playfulness, and innocence, and all wrapped up in developmentally appropriate intervention.

Tony Maree Torrey 16:47
And of course, for you, that all makes total sense because of the nature of your business. So you may have a completely different business to Karla’s. There’s such a powerful sense of values. And obviously, you’re not doing a lot of brick and mortar business at the moment. But I know that you’ve got those posters on your website, and you have the posted in your clinic. And how did you find your your clients responds to knowing and understanding those values?

Karla Amanda Brown 17:14
Well, similarly to the response I would get from counselors applying to work with soul centered counseling, clients will quote things from the website and quote, values that really spoke to them. And they’ll say, oh, when you said, this piece about present moment, awareness, or the whole body healing really resonated with me, because I’ve been experiencing this pain or ailments, similarly brings in the clients who are a good fit.

Tony Maree Torrey 17:49
Mm hmm. That’s great. And I’m sure that makes life a whole lot easier having clients that that are a good fit, because I know, there are times when we have people that come to us for help as practitioners, myself being a success coach, and sometimes they just don’t end up feeling like they’re the right fit. And then that’s hard work. And it’s part of kind of like the maturation of becoming a more successful entrepreneur is actually learning how to recognize the clients, the customers that actually aren’t a good fit and being willing to say no, and, and the good news is that once you’ve got that kind of message in that sort of information out there, then you don’t have to be saying no, because you’re pre screening people.

So it might feel a little bit vulnerable. But coming up with a list of business values, what you stand for, actually is an incredibly powerful way to put your legacy the legacy that you want to create out there in the world and attract people. So let’s talk a little bit about how it is that you can create your own list of business values. And I recommend that you have between four and five business values, I kind of like five just because there’s a momentum with odd numbers. So I personally have five on my website. And you can actually go to that I’ll share this with you.

And then you can also go to Tony murray.com, forward slash business hyphen values, where I have an article that also reiterates what I’m teaching and add some more to it in the interest of time, we won’t go super deep into it, but and on that you will find a list of values to choose from. So the best thing to do is to find a broad list of values, and you literally just sit down and you circle, the ones that speak to you. And then you go through the list again, and you see if you can organize them under themes because you may find that you’ve got like some values that all ultimately fit together and there will be one word that represents that group of values the most powerfully for you. And so then now that you’ve got that list of values, I don’t want you to stop there.

I want you to Dan in one very, very short succinct sentence. Like really only No more than about seven or eight words, say what that value means to you, we’re going to do a quick share to my website. So we can, so I can show you an example of what that is like. And I have my values here on my website, as I scroll down, and here they are here. And I’m just going to move my camera got the list of the values, innovation, integrity, profound power, innate wisdom and legacy. So let’s take profound power as an example, just because that’s something that’s really pretty personal to me. And it’s the sort of thing that people might know what it means, but not really. And so for me, profound power was really talking about the energy that you access through transcending internal limitations.

So it’s the power that and the energy that comes to you, when you’re when your body releases some kind of emotional trauma or some kind of limiting belief, some stuck place within yourself, and it opens up space for you to be more powerful to someone else profound, profound, how it could mean something completely different. So that’s why I like like my clients to come up with something that explains the words. And you heard from Karla like, she actually has these kind of short sentences that encapsulate her values, so people really understand what it is that she’s referring to. And so that makes it very specific to you. So I encourage you to go look at the articles. So you can get a little bit more information for how it is that you can identify, and I’ve got like a list of steps that you can go through to help you really understand yourself better, and what’s really important to you, and then how that plays out in your business life. Because personal values and business values can be a little bit different. So like, for me, for example, one of my personal values is beauty.

Like I love to have things that look pretty, that’s why my website looks super pretty, I think anyway, in my opinion, because beauty is something that’s really important to me, but it’s not one of my business values. And so there is a distinction between the two, and it’s well and truly worth doing the work. Okay, so I’ll stop sharing. Let’s hold on, and we’ll get back to you, Karla. So Karla, if you were standing in a room of people that are in business, who it really is important to them to make their mark on the world to build a healthy culture within their business environment, and really implement some changes either, you know, locally, in their own corner of the world almost globally, what would you say to them,

Karla Amanda Brown 22:39
I would tell them to find the fun in the fear, and to bring someone else along a coach, and accountability buddy, and others to support them along the way. And to have fun of doing it, setting out to create a legacy or finding that we’ve been on this journey of legacy building and have something big to offer into the world. It’s nerve racking, it’s not something that the majority of people in this world do. So you’re in an elite bunch, we are in this together, beyond. And it’s our opportunity, it’s our opportunity to create. So let’s do that.

Tony Maree Torrey 23:28
I love it. You saying it’s our opportunity to create brings me full circle, to thinking about the empowerment dynamic, which is the solution to the drama triangle. And we won’t go super deeply into that right now, other than to say that the the solution to victimization, which of course, is a lot of what you help your people with is actually to step into creating, and to step into taking responsibility for what it is that you’re that you’re building in the world. So anytime you’re ever feeling disempowered, just focus on what it is that you want to create for yourself and the difference that you want to make for yourself and the people that you are destined to serve. And it’s a great way of just stepping out of the muck and into the light and late as legacy makers. It’s our responsibility to do that as quickly as we possibly can. So we can keep on going, how to do you have any great tips and tools for our audience around something that they could do maybe something that you teach your clients that they can do for the times when they are feeling disempowered that would help them shift?

Karla Amanda Brown 24:42
Absolutely. One thing that really shifts things for me quickly and my clients is to hum and it could be to hum a tune. It could be like a monotone sort of long draw and this is similar I’m in meditation and yoga, which lots of people are familiar with. And what it does is it just gets throughout the entire body, that reverberation, that resonance, to help come into the moment. Another thing is to feel your feet on the floor, and maybe play the floor like a piano with your toes, and just really settle into the ground beneath you. And from that place, of course, take a few nice breaths, and see what’s new. See what gets to emerge from that place.

Tony Maree Torrey 25:39
Oh my gosh, I love that as you were talking, I started wiggling my toes on the floor. And I just felt this like big smile come to my face. And I also just felt like a lot more grounded and a little silly, you know, like, life got lighter. One last thing, where can we find you?

Karla Amanda Brown 25:58
So my website, soulcentriccounseling.com. And similarly for me and clinicians and practitioners around the world soon, soulcentriccollective.com, to find groups in your community.

Tony Maree Torrey 26:15
Having run groups and having participated in groups, I can tell you that there is a different kind of healing and empowerment that can happen in a group. That does not happen one on one as much as I love one on one and I have one on one clients. But it’s also the reason why I created the innate wisdom Business Council because there is some synergy and power that happens in groups. I love that you have the soul centric collective, Karla because that allows us to make that shift into new realizations and group empowerment as well. Thank you so much for being here today. And with that, we will bid you adieu.

Tony Maree Torrey 32:50
I’m glad you tuned in to the Legacy in the Making Show. If you’re genuinely interested in creating positive change in your business or your life or on a more global scale, I invite you to connect with me at Tonymaree.com. That’s Tony with a Y Maree with two E’s. When you get there you’ll find the Path to Purpose Master Plan, the truly brilliant method to make sure you’re clear on why you’re here. This is the absolute critical foundation to honing your instincts and leaving a legacy you’ll be proud of. You can also find out about the Innate Wisdom Business Council which is an opportunity to evolve your vision in the company of like-minded leaders and much much more. Thanks for listening. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and we’ll see you next time.