Stacked Keys Podcast

Episode 251 -- Breeanna Kay -- Rebuilding A Business With Soul

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What if the business you built stops matching the person you’re becoming? That haunting friction sits at the heart of our conversation with Breeanna Kay, who walked away from an accounting career, scaled a six-figure wedding photography brand, and then chose a bolder path: weaving spirituality into business as the creator of Rebel CEO.

We trace the early climb—long drives, relentless learning, and a thriving creative practice—then step into the moment everything tilted. After losing her sister to violence, Breeanna began noticing signs, asking deeper questions, and embracing spirituality as a practical guide. That awakening reshaped how she saw her industry and her life. She shares a candid take on wedding culture’s obsession with content over presence, why burnout can be a symptom of misalignment, and how she now uses soul contracts—her blend of astrology, numerology, and human design—to help entrepreneurs build companies that honor who they are.

You’ll hear how an introvert terrified of public speaking started a podcast, why she treats “failure” as neutral feedback, and how intuition can replace the urge to crowdsource every decision. We dig into think weeks, setting boundaries without losing momentum, and designing work for freedom, not just revenue. The throughline is clear: aligned action beats hollow hustle, and success feels different when your values lead.

If you’re craving a business that fits your soul—and a life that values presence as much as progress—this conversation offers tools, language, and courage to pivot with purpose. Listen, reflect, and share it with someone who needs permission to choose a truer path. If this resonated, tap follow, send it to a friend, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find the show.

Music "STOMP" used by permission of artist Donica Knight Holdman and Jim Huff

Welcome And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to Stacked Keys Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Stackhouse. This is a podcast to feature women who are impressive in the art world, or in raising a family, or who have hobbies that make us all feel encouraged. Wanna hear what makes these women passionate to get up in the morning, or what maybe they wish they'd known a little bit earlier in their lives? Grab your keys and stomp to your own drum.

SPEAKER_01

It's a great big world that I wanna see, and a whole lot of things that I won't be. All I gotta do is count one, two, three. Whatever you do, it ain't nothing on me.

SPEAKER_02

I am super excited today to get to know this guest. Cannot wait to introduce her and kind of discover her together with you. Brianna, welcome to the show today.

SPEAKER_00

Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to talk with you.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I'm thrilled and right out

Who Is Brianna Today

SPEAKER_02

of the gate. Let's start out with how do people know Brianna, both professionally and personally?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Okay, so professionally, I am mid-business pivot from the world development, photography, and videography into business coaching. And I have a podcast Rebel CEO, and that is probably where the majority of people are going to know me from. Um, I am a sole purpose and a business alignment coach.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, wow. Okay. And then professional, I mean, personally.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, personally. Okay, you did ask that, and I totally forgot to answer that portion. So personally, I am a stepmom, a wife. I have three babies, which are my pets, that I'm like absolutely obsessed with. One is Jade, she's a two-year-old Pit Mix. The other is Stormy. She's actually half chow chow. We didn't know what they were when we adopted them. And she's like a floppy, dopey, fuzzy little thing. And then a cat Willow, who is 13 and she's the calico. She's so pretty.

SPEAKER_02

Oh. So you're a you're busy and you're making a transition in your business from what sounds like exciting. I mean, photographer, but then you have a special niche in that. So tell me about how you got into photography. Is that something you've always loved? And then making a switch to the coaching. How did you take that leap?

Leaving Accounting For Photography

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I got into photography because I was working in accounting, which is what I was in college for at the time. So technically I'm a college dropout because I never finished my degree, but I was working in an office out in Portland, Oregon, which is across the country from where I grew up. I grew up in Wisconsin and that's where I am now in Wisconsin again. So when I was working in accounting, I just had this realization one day that I was like, I'm waking up going to work, going to the gym, going home, eating dinner, and going to sleep. Like I don't, I don't have a life outside of working pretty much. And then on the weekends, I was bartending to try to pay for school. So it was like I wasn't even living this life that I had tried so hard to get so that I could be seen as successful because I don't come from a family, an immediate family that has college grads or at the time that really had college grads. So I wanted this office job. I wanted this cubicle so badly. But then when I got it, it was the work was fine, but I realized I wasn't truly living my life. And if I wanted to travel, I could only take two weeks of PTO per year. So that meant I could go home and visit one week per year, and I could go on essentially like one vacation or two small trips per year. And that just didn't sit right with me. So it was kind of like I woke up from the Matrix and I was like, you know what? If this isn't what life is, then I'm going to choose what I want life to be. And I already knew that I loved photography as a hobby. So I never wanted to turn it into a business. I never wanted to run my own business. But when I realized that what I was doing wasn't making me happy, it was time to take matters into my own hands and just take a leap of faith, which meant that I quit my accounting job, moved back across the country because I thought I'd have a better chance building my wedding portfolio where I actually knew people. And then I started my business. Um, I bartended to pay the bills when I first got there. And then after a year, I was able to stop bartending and um go full-time in my business. And I scaled that business to six figures. I loved it. It was like so aligned for me for so long until I worked so hard and just burnt myself out. And then I my passions kind of shifted somewhere in there. It was like a slow process because I'm still shooting weddings, but I'm phasing out right now just because we booked so far in advance. Um, so what photography was kind of lacking for me that I didn't build into my business to be able to carry it through for longer than a decade, which is still a long time to be in business, um, was that it doesn't have any spirituality tied into it. And it doesn't necessarily have a teaching aspect, which I could have taught specifically in photography. But when I got to know myself more and kind of step into my power more, I realized that those are some things that I need to feel fulfilled long term. And there's something that is even more in alignment for me to have in business than just the photography. So that led over time to my pivot into um education, business coaching, and rebel CEO. Um, so if if you want, if it's interesting to you, I can kind of okay. I was like, I can share like okay, so the big shift for

Burnout And The Pull To Pivot

SPEAKER_00

when I started to like realize that there's there was more to life than weddings and like building this service level business, which don't get me wrong, like I did love photography, and I do think that it was very aligned for me for that portion of life, just not for long term, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, some evolving there, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So um in 2019, I lost my sister. She was killed by her ex-boyfriend. So obviously very traumatic. And she was really into spirituality. And at that time, I was very much in like the 3D world of like what like we have to do this and get this degree and build this business. Like, we just we have to do all these things and not really connected to anything on the other side so much. So then after that loss, I started to obviously like get signs from heaven and start thinking more about what happens after death and all of that stuff versus just like what you're told your whole life and you kind of just ignore because you hope that you'll never have to deal with it, which is silly because we all have to deal with it at some point. So I then through like my own grieving process had to confront a lot of those deeper truths of like what do I actually believe in and how do I cope with this? And that sent me down a path where I dove kind of head first into spirituality, and then after diving into that so much, then it was hard to want to focus on things that seemed really surface level. So that that made me want like a deeper purpose in my life, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's kind of interesting when your world gets rocked. Um, you kind of go back and look at, okay, what's the foundation I have? And even though you're a part in photography, you're a part of people's life moments. And you can get pretty deep into that, but I guess there's a separation from your own heart to what they're experiencing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I still feel very lucky to be shooting the weddings that I am, but I just I feel like there's a disconnect in the sense that I honestly sometimes feel like in the wedding photography industry, we end up taking people away from what matters on their day because everyone now wants all of these pictures for social media, which they they should have. But there are different ways to approach the taking of photos. Some of them are more candid, some of them are more hands-on. And a lot of people want these moments that take time to set up, but it takes them away from the things that actually are important on a wedding day. So I feel like it's kind of like a a double-edged sword or like a like a grass, the grass is always greener because you want something, but you also want to be able to just experience your day. So I've been feeling like there's a lot of beauty in um, so obviously now we get all of the photos, we could we get everything captured. We have digital photos, which like we can make so gorgeous because we get like the previews on our camera versus um film, like you didn't get all of these shots, so you didn't have as much to choose from. But now it's like the day is scheduled around what photos you're taking during certain times of the day. And to me, I think that we we should almost like in a sense go back to looking at the day as like how back in the day they used to have weddings, and the photographer would show up maybe for like a couple hours,

Loss, Signs, And Spiritual Awakening

SPEAKER_00

shoot however many roles of film, and then the people would actually focus on their day. So I think there should be like a blend of the two that's more common in the industry than it is. So that's one of my um my disconnects there. And then just also feeling pulled a different direction. So I deal a lot with soul contracts in my business lately, which is a mixture of astrology, numerology, and human design. And in the soul contracts, I have a section that's um like core mission and soul purpose. And my soul purpose is literally to like bridge spirituality with tangible. So if you look at it that way, then like in and of itself, my photography business was probably never going to like fully meet some sort of spiritual side. Like I could have, I could have done whatever I wanted with my brand, I could have somehow built it in, but it just naturally doesn't flow super well there. Um, so if you look at it that way, if that's like my big sole mission in this lifetime, then the pivot was going to be necessary at some point anyway.

SPEAKER_02

No, it's really interesting that you say that because from day one of being in business and I worked in corporate before I stepped out on my own, we always talked about mission statement. You know, here's your mission statement. And um, and sometimes um, you know, that covers it in depth, but it sounds like this could go deeper. It's not just the mission statement of the business, it's your deep down what you're even here for. So talk to me about rebel CEO. How did that where the name come from? And did you um did you really have to wrestle with with what that soul mission would be?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I started Rebel CEO. Actually, the podcast was called Manifesting Photographer because at first I was thinking maybe I'll talk to photographers. So I reached my or released my first digital program. I want to say it was the end of, hold on, let me think, 2023. Yeah, the end of 2023. And um, in that, that was for people who wanted to go full-time in photography to go full-time. So I gave them like the ins and outs of like business and specifically photography, specifically wedding photography. So when I was building that program, I realized that what actually lit me up to build was the business portion. It wasn't the technicalities of photography and shooting a wedding day, which I'm like, I'm really good at all of that stuff. I'm like expert level at this point because I've shot so many over so many years. But that wasn't what lit me up to teach. So then I pivoted and changed my podcast name to Rebel CEO because I realized that what fulfilled me wasn't going to be teaching specifically photography, but teaching business in general to female service-based entrepreneurs. Because anytime I would get together with like a friend who was building a business or somebody who was talking about their business, I feel like I always had this business sense without having that much experience in the business world because I I was a waitress for years before I worked in the accounting job or a bartender. So, like the two years in the accounting office was really the only office experience that I had. And I'd I'd never, like I said, wanted to run a business or been exposed to that for the most part. So I um chose Rebel CEO because I believe that there are ways that we're doing things in entrepreneurship that are not necessarily, not necessarily the way that things should be run. Like I think that we're so focused on meeting these goals that we don't necessarily even care if we meet just for the public validation or um just to like look like we're doing well on paper,

Rethinking Weddings And Presence

SPEAKER_00

or in the photography industry, like booking these weddings just to show that we booked them when maybe we're not even passionate about shooting that type of work. So I feel like the rebel portion came from like wanting people to do things and like operate in a way that's true to them instead of in a way that they're just told that they have to operate because as business owners we can do whatever we want. And then um the CEO portion is just CEOs, business owners.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Well, I I like that because you're so right. I mean, here you are. Um entrepreneurs start out mainly because they have a passion about something, not because they have business, and so that business sense sometimes can get them in trouble. So how have you figured out those ins and outs of the business? Because you know, you have to make money to pay the I mean your equipment alone can cost you a job if you don't have the right equipment. So did you just have the school of hard knocks on that, or did you have mentors along the way?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I was in an industry, obviously, that has a lot of artists. And you would think that going into photography, I would have considered myself an artist, but I think that I have that deep down because I always loved like, like I said, I loved photography as a hobby. I always loved interior design. I would like binge watch the shows on TLC when I was in middle school. And I think that it was something that like I saw art as what we learned in art class, like drawing and painting, which wasn't my jam. So I always thought that I wasn't artistic. But in the industry, a lot of people get into it because they feel really artistic. And I thought that my photography talent was learned, which I do still think that it partially is, but I still had that side like deep down inside of me. So a lot of artists are known for not being great at business, like there's the starving artist mentality, right? So I I think that naturally I just am more, more analytical and just like lean more towards that side than a lot of the people who were in the industry. And then going from starting a business to like growing it and making it thrive, a lot of that I feel like I owe to listening to podcasts because I drove a lot for shoots. So I would constantly be in the car and I would always just be like consuming podcasts. And the big one at the time for me was Jenna Kutcher's The Gold Digger podcast. Um, so I learned a lot from there. And then um I also invested in like digital programs and whatnot. The photography industry is really good at education. So digital programs and podcasts were definitely like my quote unquote business mentors who helped me grow and like see the things that I wasn't already able to see on my own.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, wow. So as you were doing this, you you seem so confident. Have you always been a confident person?

SPEAKER_00

Uh no, I'm I feel like I'm not a confident person at all. Like naturally, well, I shouldn't say that because naturally I feel like everyone probably is, but then we get the societal conditioning and whatnot that suppresses that. Um, so I believe in my ability to like build a business, which I will say right now, like I said, I'm mid-pivot. So I'm not even there with my second business yet. Like I'm still kind of one foot in the door of both, or I guess I'm two feet in the door of the new one and one foot. So I have three feet in this analogy, one foot in the old one still. Um, but I just

Soul Contracts And Alignment

SPEAKER_00

I believe that if you want to start something and you want to make it work, then you will make it work. But the reason people don't is because they don't want it bad enough to keep trying. So if you know that you're going to do it and you're going to make it happen and you keep doing the things, then you will get there. So I just I didn't have another option when I switched to photography because I just quit my my big girl job. So I was going to make it work.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I think sometimes not having an option, you just you you keep showing up. You keep so well, where do you go when you have a problem? Do you are you know you you talked about the spirituality aspect of life coming in, and um, and you've definitely had some some life boulders. I mean, I know you've had to work through quite a bit just just in relation to your your sister, but but where do you go when you need to solve a problem? Do you have kind of your tribe?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I've been really big on intuition lately. I feel like you know more than anybody will ever be able to tell you. And when you ask everybody, should I do this or should I do this, you're kind of outsourcing your power. So for me, my intuition is like my biggest asset right now. And then before before I was on this little intuition kick, I'm trying to think. I feel like I've always kind of liked answering my own questions in business. And I actually found that I was in this state building Rebel CEO where my friend was doing something really similar, and we were going back and forth about like everything that we were doing. And then I realized that I feel like when I built my photography business, I just I followed what I thought that I should be doing and trusted myself, and it worked out for me, and that I almost needed to like separate from sharing everything with each other so that I could focus on like what was actually going on inside of me instead of where she was going. And then I was like, oh my gosh, no, I need to do that too, and vice versa. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. I love that statement of not to outsource your power. I mean, that that is I think we do that so often. And I I just love that concept of wait a minute, I've got this. And um, so you also make me want to ask um, are you a head listener, a heart listener? And I just came across somebody the other day that said there are different body systems that you actually function from. And one of them is you know, gut listening or you know, your nervous system, or so what what do you listen to with?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. So uh I think maybe what you're talking about it might be related to human design. Okay. And human design, yeah, we have different authorities that we're meant to listen to. So I'm a generator and I might be butchering this, but I think that all generators do have like the gut response, but I still have an emotional authority, which means that I have actually two different emotional waves in human. Human design that I follow. So I'm meant, even though I have that gut response, not to necessarily listen to the gut response, but to listen to my emotional response after I ride my emotional waves. So if like if you were to say something to me right now and I was to get like an emotional response from it, like let's say you were like, oh hey, do you do you want to do a class together? And I was like, oh, that sounds really exciting or something. I'm meant to actually ride out that wave of excitement because on the other side of the excitement, I might find that my emotions are telling me, oh, I actually don't want to do this because it one doesn't seem fun. I don't have the time to, or I might find that my emotions are still like, yeah, this is still really exciting to me. So then I can commit to it. So I try to listen to my emotions after the initial like up or down or whatever it may be. Um, but I am just like very big on gut feeling still, even though I'm meant to listen to my emotions. So kind of like my intuition and then my my heart. Um, I feel like I'm not that logical of a thinker. Like I can think about it logically, but the decision I guess is going to be made emotionally.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, I don't know if I've just been under

Naming And Building Rebel CEO

SPEAKER_02

a rock or what, but I really had not heard all of it makes sense to me, but I had not heard of the human design. And it's like, goodness, if we all understood that, then we would have more permission to think through a problem or a situation. Yeah. And then have multiple reactions.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, a lot of people, when they use human design, they use it to figure out how their body actually is meant to work and respond to life because everybody is different, which is part of the beauty of life.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. Okay, so you said you kind of jumped in spirituality at at one point in your life. Um, what do you mean by that? Um did you have to kind of dig back and educate yourself or just pull from things you were raised with or whatnot?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so it was almost like things just start coming to you. So, like obviously, I was in this state where my sister had just passed, and it was a very public passing. Um, like it was in the news, everybody knew about it, everyone was like well aware. So then you have people coming to you and trying to share things. Um, like I said, I got signs from her right away, which like she would play a lot of her funeral songs for me every time I shot a wedding, because I was still very passionate about that at the time. I'd get a funeral song and every time I traveled. And um I other than that, I didn't hear them anywhere. So for me, that was her way of saying, like, I'm proud of you, I see what you're doing, like I'm still with you. And um then, like the day, the night before my wedding, my mom had a dream that my sister came to her and said, I'm so happy B left me a piece of her blankie when she left. So um I had every time one of my pets died, I have this like baby blankie that nobody likes but me. It's like so ratty, so old. I think it's blue. Everyone else thinks it's gray. Um, they actually threw it away at a hotel once because I forgot it there, and I like ugly cried all day and they found it. I like paid them $100 to look through the garbages and it it made its way back to me. So it's still here. But I would take a piece of my baby blanket, and when a pet would pass away, I would bury it with them just as like a I love you so much. Like, here's a piece of me. And I could not remember for the life of me if I left my sister a piece of my blanky because I did put a letter in her hand folded up when I said goodbye to her body. And I think that I did leave a piece of my blanketie there, but then that dream that my mom had the night before my wedding kind of confirmed that. And then I also had dreams of her. So when you start to like see these things, then it really makes you question like, how like what's actually happening on the other side? How how are we still connected? Like, where is she versus like where am I? And then I think your social media algorithm, like TikTok algorithm, probably was a big thing. It knows what you're into and it's really good at showing you things that are relevant. So then you start seeing all of these spiritual topics and um like different podcasts and whatever it may be that kind of come into your radar. So I just kind of went on like not intentionally a deep dive, it developed over over years, but I wanted to know more about what happened, and it was almost like it was part of the the grieving process for me and like coping with everything because in my mind it was a lot easier to understand that like she is, and it honestly feels better in my body, like it feels more truthful to understand that she's still here in some in some capacity versus she's just like gone forever.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, a little less empty and I don't know, not wasted, not you know, it's like okay, here's the finality, and you either talk about them or or have it's it's kind of the systems that that allow

Business Sense Without The MBA

SPEAKER_02

for you to notice. Maybe it's slowing down, maybe it's just paying attention.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um, when you hear the word unfair, because I mean you've had some things that maybe would be considered very unfair if depending on how you define it, but when you hear the word unfair, what do you think of?

SPEAKER_00

Um, so I don't I assume that, well, I don't know. I feel like my immediate reaction might be this anyway. I was going to say I assume that it's because we're talking about it, but I when I think of unfair, I think that it was unfair that somebody chose to end my sister's life and that it was just done. But I also am not somebody who believes in staying in a victim mentality. And I I very much believe that what happened was something that her soul chose and that it was her time to go, as crappy as it is. Um, so it's not like it's not okay, it'll never just be like okay, but it is something that happened in life. And when we get to the other side, it will make sense why it happened.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Well, and you know, just both in that personal aspect and then in your professional, there's so many choices, and the choices are in front of you, and there's you know, some of them are equal, some of them are not great, but they're still choices. So, do you find yourself weighing choices really heavily, or can you decide pretty quickly?

SPEAKER_00

I think I'm a pretty quick decider.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, is there a subject that just makes your brain ache though?

SPEAKER_00

Um not that I can think of offhand. I'm sure there is, but I'm not always like the quickest to think on my feet. So I'm like, I don't know. Not that I can think of, but I bet there is one.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I have those situations where it's like when you're in business and when you're uh uh by yourself most of the time, or you have a couple of partners, you have to embrace it all. And uh, you know, the your scheduling, your day, your uh education. I mean, everything that you're doing requires a constant education and staying up to date. So can that be overwhelming?

SPEAKER_00

Um yeah, I mean, it can be overwhelming to have like all of the things because obviously if you want less things but you want to keep doing them, that means you have to outsource. And I'm I'm a one-woman show right now for the most part. There are a couple of things that on occasion I will outsource to get a little bit of help, but for the most part, I'm doing everything right now. So it can be overwhelming to be like, okay, well, I have to edit and show up on social media and do this and do this. But I'm really big on like first of all, I'm pretty efficient when I come into the office. So I'm a good worker. I don't usually struggle with like a lack of motivation because I feel so deeply connected to like what I am building that I I just am really passionate

Confidence, Intuition, And Self-Trust

SPEAKER_00

about it and genuinely love what I'm doing. Um, but then when it when the calendar is really busy, I feel like it can be overwhelming to look at or to like think too far and like too strategically ahead of how it all fits together. So sometimes I would operate more from like uh, I know that I need to do this right now, and it might not be the most strategic post, but it's what I feel called to do right now, and it's better than like freezing and not doing anything.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Are you afraid to fail?

SPEAKER_00

Um, nope, I used to be, but now I'm not because I feel like if you're getting out and you're doing something that you genuinely feel called to do, then like you're if you if you quote unquote fail. So like let's say I started this business and I quote unquote like failed. It didn't work, the worst case scenario for me would be that I go back to doing what I was already doing before, which is photography, um, which really isn't that bad of a worst case scenario, or to like reach out to somebody and be like, hey, do you want to be on my podcast? Who's has a much bigger audience than me? If they say, no, some people look at that as a failure, so it will stop them from reaching out or trying. But for me, it's not, it doesn't mean anything about you. It just means that they don't want to right now or possibly ever, and that's fine. And if you didn't ask, then you would have never known. So if you're not failing, you're probably not growing enough either, or like failing. I'll say in quotes, because I just I don't know that I fully believe in the concept of failing if you're following your dreams. And everything's meant to happen for a reason, too.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, well, and you're putting one foot in front of the other, and it's like, okay, if you have to sidestep, then that's learning. But um, but uh I don't know. I the the idea of failure has been discussed so much, and people are like, embrace failure. And I'm like, I don't like the word failure. I just don't, it's like, I don't know, I don't know if that comes from school of like you know, below this grade is not acceptable. And so, you know, maybe maybe there's some of that of in business, it can be uh associated with dollars, and you know, you you can't afford to fail but so long, so you you have to pivot, you know, quickly. Um well talk to me about your podcast. So who who do you interview? What was your reason to start a podcast? I mean, I know you were listening, and that's part of where your mentorship was, but um, what does it mean to you to to have a podcast?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I feel like I had this little nudge every once in a while when I used to be listening to podcasts. Um, and it was like, oh, you should do this. And I was like, no, like never seriously thought of it because I'm actually like very, you probably don't know it from this conversation, but I'm very introverted. I'm like 95% introvert, and I am terrified of public speaking. So I literally would cry when I had to public speak, like in high school or middle school, I don't remember which one. I gave a speech and started crying in the middle, and I had to go sit down and finish later. And then again in college, I was taking a public speaking course. Mind you, this was an online public speaking course. So we had to pan the room, show that we had however many people there, which were my immediate family members, my best friend and her boyfriend at the time, and then turn the camera to us and then give our speech and then pan the crowd

Human Design And Decision Making

SPEAKER_00

again afterwards just to show they were still there. So I did that. I cried during that also. And it's like people that I know really well and love. So just like this huge fear of public speaking, but um I decided to, it would have been in well, I started my podcast at the beginning of last year. So it would have been fall of 2023. I um went on what's called a think week, which is like a solo retreat where you disconnect. So you turn off your phone, you turn off your socials, and you just go somewhere by yourself for, I didn't go for a full week, but I went for like a mini think week technically. And I was planning my business. So I was like deciding where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do, and like be the visionary instead of just the employee in my business. And it just kept coming up like I want to get into education and the best way to connect with people and provide free value before being like, hey, buy something from me. Like the best way to form that connection and get to know people is through a podcast. And I've been listening to podcasts for years, like an obscene amount, and I love them. And I just feel like it's something that I want to do and it's terrifying, but like I just kept feeling the pull, and that's when I committed to myself that I was going to start um Rebel CEO. So I think did you also ask like kind of what the show is about or who I talked to on it? Okay. Um, so on the show, I talk to a lot of it's mostly females. I've had a couple of shows where there have been men on, but mostly females who run their own businesses typically. Um, all of the shows are going to either have a business aspect to it, like it'll teach you something about business, or there's a lot of personal growth and spirituality rolled into that too. So it's kind of like a melting pot between all of them. So I have some people that listen who don't own a business and they just like to apply the topics to their own lives because there is that personal growth side. Um, and then if you own a business, you're still a human. So even if the show episode isn't directly related to business that week, you're still by growing as a human and bettering yourself and learning more about yourself and figuring out more about like your. I've done some shows that have like a health topic lately with some holistic practitioners. That is still going to serve you in business, taking care of those types of things.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. So you step out of your comfort zone.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, you've always done that. No, no, God, no. I would like to hide so bad for so long, and I just decided to like own what I want to do, and I knew that I was the only one who was going to make my dreams work, obviously. And the only thing that hiding and playing small is helping me accomplish is staying small.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, yeah. So, what are you most proud of? I mean, you've you've accomplished quite a bit and you're you're pretty young. So what do you look back on and go, yeah, I'm this is it. This I'm not through, but this is what I'm most proud of today.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um, so I'm gonna do two different things. So for business, what I'm the most proud of, it's a very like tangible analytical metric. It's that I built my my business in photography to six figures without having the experience to like back it up, that I just kind of figured it out and did it. And there are a lot of people in the industry who don't even get to full time. So that's my business related one. Um, as like my life in general, the thing that I'm the most proud of is actually the way that I've chosen to grow through such a huge, like traumatic loss instead of letting it ruin me because I genuinely feel like I've taken that. Obviously, I gave myself time to just like wallow in self-pity and be very negative for a little while because it felt like my life was falling apart. But after I gave myself that permission and time to feel whatever I was feeling, I didn't let it like bring me down. I genuinely took that and decided to fully live life and like start a freaking podcast, even though I was scared of speaking and just like fully embrace the time that I am here and what I meant to do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Do you think that there's a difference between wishing and realizing your dreams?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think the difference is gonna be aligned action because if you're wishing, you're just waiting for it to come to you. And that goes back to like manifesting. Um, but without the aligned action, sure, you you might get lucky and it might fall into your lap. But when you're taking that aligned action, you're telling the universe, like, I'm ready for this and I'm a safe space for this thing to come in.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So it sounds like you've done a lot of research and reading and studying on the um the aspects of

Grief, Meaning, And Coping

SPEAKER_02

the spirituality and the the feeling and the manifesting. So have you have you had to go down an education road?

SPEAKER_00

Um, so right now I'm in a mastermind with Samantha Daly. So I do have some like formal training in that sense. Um, I've also done Amy Porterfield's course on building courses. Um, that was a long time ago. But then just like podcasting, I've listened to so many podcasts, and I feel like that's such a good way to get education. But I do believe that when you're actually trading your money and like investing in yourself, there's just a different level of an energetic upgrade. Um, so I do make sure that like every once in a while when I feel called to and have enough time to feel like I can dedicate to focusing on something, or I just have the ambition to that I do still invest in myself and my business.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So this think week that you were talking about that's fascinating. I want one. So it's not, it's it's kind of like you know, you want everything to turn off so that you can think for a minute. So, did you just go off to an island or to somewhere that wasn't interesting or difficult or what what did you do?

SPEAKER_00

So, this actually is um a topic I can't take credit for it. It is another photographer. Her um she has a podcast. I don't know if she's still like putting out episodes on it, but she did at one point. It was called Level the Beep Up. I'm not gonna say it because I don't want you to get censored, but um she came on my show and talked about Think Week because I went to her photography retreat in Iceland and she did a presentation and that was part of her presentation, and that was like my big takeaway from the Iceland retreat because I went and applied that, and obviously that got me to commit to doing something outside of my comfort zone and like moving forward. Um, so her name's Cassidy Hargrove, and she talked about Think Week as like you can do whatever you want during your Think Week. Like if you want to stay home and just like isolate yourself, go for it. That's probably not necessarily what would be recommended. But for me, I didn't go somewhere like far away. But my next one I want to be in Washington State because that's my soul state. Um, this one I went to, it was like, I don't know if you have getaway cabins where you are. They're little, yeah, they're like little um mini houses kind of that are cabins, and they have a whole bunch of them in the same plot of land or woods or wherever it may be with pretty scenery around and a campfire. And I go into one of those. I actually don't recommend that because it hurt my eyes because there wasn't enough lighting. So I had like a little bit of eye issues after working there for a few days. Um, so go somewhere with good lighting if you're working on your computer. But it was somewhere that was in the state that I'm from and like close enough that I drove there after a wedding and just stayed however many days and then um left and could drive a few hours home.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I think that's wonderful. I I'm friends with a guy who owns. um a mechanic shop and he they uh we got to know him when he had one and now they have like six and he goes away one time a year for like a week and

Failure, Risk, And Asking Anyway

SPEAKER_02

works on his marketing plan his budget his people and and he's by himself and so if you want the the way I know about it is if you want to be on his marketing calendar he better have that in front of him that during that time because he will come out of that week with his annual plan and I thought wow I mean that that's a guy with greasy fingernails that's going away and checking in somewhere and really being intentional. So do you surround yourself with intentional people?

SPEAKER_00

Um I feel like I've always had a pretty good support system and I've always kept my circle fairly small. So like I'll usually know right away if I would be friends with somebody or not. And I have a lot of people who are acquaintances but like it takes a lot. If you're my friend you're my best friend. So if you're not my best friend you're more of an acquaintance or like a work friend maybe and there's there's nothing wrong with that but like my family and my best friends get my energy and they're also there when I need them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah yeah so there's an equal give and take there um so you also you said you're you're a stepmom and so you're balancing your own family with all of these dreams and hopes and desires and hard work. And I mean the hard work cannot go unnoticed.

SPEAKER_00

There are hours that you put in how do you balance okay so I'm not the best person to speak on this full disclosure this is like the area of my life that I probably struggle the most with um so I try to take weekends off now and like I haven't always I'm much more intentional with my work life balance now um than I used to be but I try to take weekends off with the exception of weddings which are obviously weekend things. And then in my perfect world on my perfect schedule when I'm able to stick to it I want to try to take Fridays off every week because if I'm working a Saturday shooting every now and then this year and next year, then I want to have still Friday and Sundays off regularly. But I also really like what I'm doing. So I get antsy to go back to work. So I feel like on Fridays I want to make it like a romanticized life day and go do something cute and get like cute content when I'm doing it, but also just use it to like nourish myself. Like maybe I go get a fancy coffee and go, I don't know get like a facial or whatever it may be. And then when I'm able to kind of create those like firm boundaries between work time and not work time and when I'm able to stick to them then I feel like it frees me up more to be able to focus on family because I know that this is like time to focus on family and we have my stepson every weekend. So um every Friday through Monday I bring him back to school. So during the week I usually don't have to worry too much about boundaries while my husband is working because he goes to work early and comes back late also. So I'm usually just here alone. So it's like a fine mix between I'm trying real hard to get good at my work life balance and also still like in the thick of I know that right now I might be in a phase where I do have to work a little harder to build something that will give me time back in return.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Oh that's interesting the time back in return.

Starting A Podcast As An Introvert

SPEAKER_02

But it's hard to have a balance and it's and it's kind of it's interesting that you say because if you have a spouse who um is working too then you kind of respect those work schedules and then if somebody comes in the middle it's like oh well we we're fine with this we're fine with you know my husband won't get home sometimes till seven or eight and then it's like oh that gives me permission to finish this or do that. So it's kind of we like it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah and I will say I also will like if I'm just not feeling like working one day I will take off and like go to the store or go do something else. So I have I have office hours but I also trust like if I know that I just need a little break because I do tend to be a natural overworker. So like I will give myself that grace when I really do feel the pull to step away.

SPEAKER_02

Well that's good. So do you think our daily actions really do become who we who we truly are um give me examples because I don't I don't know. I guess our work ethic and our you know how we function on the day to day of um the decisions we make every day and that that just kind of equal out at the end who who we are who people know you as and and I mean you talk about spirituality and how that mixes in so how does everything you if you're practicing something does that kind of equate who Brianna might be I'm gonna say it's probably like a yes and no answer.

SPEAKER_00

I'm gonna go with no because I think that if I'm if I'm let's say that I'm I stay in my accounting job I never pivot out and every day I'm working in this job because I haven't quite like seen that there's something else that I meant to do. It's not necessarily any fault of mine aside from not asking more questions or not digging deeper. I think I'm doing what's right and just like trying to do my best. I think everyone's just doing their their best with the information that they have um I don't think that that necessarily means that like doing the accounting work all day defines who I am as a human because we're so much more than just our jobs. Even if you are very very like passionate about and very intertwined with your job we're we're way more than our jobs.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah wow I like that and and that's encouraging.

SPEAKER_00

So when you're in your coaching aspect do you kind of pull in some of those thoughts and you know you're you're able to kind of go wait you know this might be part of who you are but there's so much more when you introduce the spirituality to it yeah I feel like with my coaching I really try to tie in like I touched on earlier I do soul contracts for people in my program rooted which is the the mixture that I said between astrology, numerology and human design, which really helps like give you a blueprint of who you are on a soul level and kind of what your mission in this lifetime is. So I try to encourage people to build their business based around who they are and not to define who they are by the business that they own.

SPEAKER_02

Oh wow that's interesting um because one of the first things people ask you is well your name is Amy what do you do?

SPEAKER_00

And I mean it it just is so automatic you know of like I have to know what you do so I know how to talk to you yeah yep I've been asking people on my podcast as like the first question lately who I was saying who are you as a human and then I had a couple of people that um like beyond business and then I had a couple of people who were like well this is who I am as a soul and I was like well maybe that's better. So I've been trying to trying to like draw more attention to just that fact that we're more than our businesses. But it is hard because like even if you asked me who who are you as like the same question I ask people it's like it takes a minute because you do just rely on on what you do and those like I answered when you asked me um wife or wife stepmom and like mom of animals but I didn't get like deeper than that because it's just

Audience, Themes, And Growth

SPEAKER_00

not what we usually do or think about.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

See I'm tempted to come right back and say okay who's Brianna in her soul yeah so I knew that you would say that when I when I right after that yeah um I was kind of hoping you wouldn't but I knew you would so I feel like I'm somebody who's I'm like I'm sensitive but I'm not at the same time I feel like I have two different sides to me. Okay so I'm like very very analytical and organized and on top of things but I'm also like my driving force in everything I do for my business is like reaching this like freedom and this adventure and having that. So you can trace that back to my and then these are things that I knew about me before like letting the astrology and whatever define them. So you can trace that back to my Virgo sun and Sagittarius moon. So Virgos are really organized really analytical like perfectionists and then the moon sign is known for like adventure and freedom. So then when you put those together it's like I have these two like very different sides of me but they both are part of me. And then I feel like I always want to like do the the thing that's like right to me. Like I'm not just going to if somebody's being a bully to somebody else I'm not just gonna be like oh let's all bully them like I always want to do the right thing um and I have a strong moral compass and I do just like really love my animals like I have so much love for them I do feel like that's like a part of a part of me and I want to do like genuinely want to do work like building businesses and stuff. I feel like that is like partially me on a soul level to like have that urge to like build something that matters that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02

I wonder how many people who are listening have kind of dug into their soul to see um who they are and I guess when you're looking at soul that's maybe what's there when everything else falls away yeah kind of so if you think of like our soul is what is up in heaven or the afterlife or whatever you believe in um our soul's like the pure version of us like the version of us without all of the stuff that weighs us down.

SPEAKER_00

And we also have the human of us which is like your human responses, your um your emotions are probably more so going to be like a human level thing that don't necessarily get carried over in the same way. And then that's also like the I have to do this because that's what society tells us or I have this limiting belief that I'm not good enough or that I'll never make a million dollars or whatever it may be. Like those are all very human things and some of those can be negative things that get get taught to us and kind of ingrained in us. And some of them are just like natural instincts like to keep yourself safe or whatever that may be. And then um some I'm trying to think if some could be like positive to or if that would just purely be like your you being in alignment with your soul. I almost feel like the positive things are probably just genuine soul.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah yeah well it's interesting because as you said that I I have been jotton down this little list and then I'm looking at it going well that's human that's human that's human. And so I wonder if that's just the surface that we probably most approach.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah I don't think that we're necessarily taught to dig deeper and even to like look at ourselves as a higher being I think that we're just taught that we are supposed to follow the rules and there's

Owning Visibility And Pride Points

SPEAKER_00

even a level of fear that's placed on us if we don't follow the rules that there are consequences or like we talked about earlier that you might be a failure or whatever it may be. Yeah yeah can you tell when you need an adventure when you need to just step away and go do something outside your norm yeah so um like I said earlier I was my niche and photography was elopement photography. So I loved traveling to like national parks and just traveling in general is something that's important to me. But the older I get the less important it is to me. So I still love it but yeah I still love it but I feel like I need time to just like be home and just like chill. So um I I could go on like two big trips a year I feel like and that would be the perfect mix. But before I feel like I could have like gone on a trip every month and that would have been great. Um so in like the bigger concept like traveling the world and stuff like that that's kind of how traveling would tie into my photography business or like adventure would tie into my photography business because I would literally be in national parks like running around with these couples at sunrise and sunset. And then in this side of my business for me it looks more like the freedom to operate on my own schedule and the financial freedom eventually to make that passive income that can allow me to take time away so that if I did want to I could go to another country for a couple of weeks or like a month and just totally disconnect and still be making money while I'm gone. And just the freedom to say I want to work today or I don't want to work today instead of having rigid structures that are like you have to do this and you have to do this. It's like I get to choose to work when I want to and choose to do what I want to do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah yeah some options for finding your fulfillment if this is your platform and you could just talk about anything really loudly you could just shout about something loudly what would it be what would what would you say like in general or like my if you've got like wisdom yeah some words of wisdom some things you know if you've just got kind of a flag you hold yeah so um I guess mine would maybe be that that I don't think that we're meant to work 247 in jobs that we hate like I think they genuinely should be an extension of our soul and something that we feel so passionately about.

SPEAKER_00

And if you're working and you're like waiting for the weekend or waiting for the end of the workday because that's when your life can start then I think that you you're doing things a little bit backwards and you should reevaluate because you are in control of your life and your destiny and if you don't make the choice to change that then nobody's going to make it for you I like that and right as you were talking I was thinking you know in my growing up our lives could begin when we finished college.

SPEAKER_02

You know you want to do something get through with school and then you can and I can remember I mean I I did my undergrad in three years and it was insane. But I wanted to do what I wanted to do and so I missed some of those kind of learning experiences because I was just you know get done get done get done so I like the idea of like if if that's how you're living your day to day of I'll I'll get to my life when then it's time for a a reevaluation. So we've talked about so many different aspects is there anything that we've missed that you want to make sure that you you

Action vs Wishing And Education

SPEAKER_02

cover um I don't think so I think you did a really good job covering multiple different areas well thank you you it's it's easy to talk to somebody that's got um just these open pathways to how they live life and how they take it on and um and you know you've had some boulders that you've had to kind of work through and around and and keep in your life and I just think that's really encouraging.

SPEAKER_00

What would you tell yourself uh your younger you or you know what what would you say um that's coming or how would you encourage your yourself as an adult yeah I think that I used to place a lot of um weight in what other people thought of me and whether I seemed like like I was cool or not and I feel like I never fully reached like the level of cool that I wanted to reach um but I just like I wanted to be I don't know if you know Tumblr at all. It used to be a photo blogging platform which is actually like why I got my first camera because I wanted to be Tumblr famous and I never was nobody ever cared. But I used to place so much weight in like how I looked online and like how how many this sounds so stupid how many boys liked me or like whatever it may be and really like all that I should have been focusing on was myself and making myself happy and like growing as a human instead of place like placing all of the value of myself in what other people thought.

SPEAKER_02

Oh wow yeah it's easy to get caught up in that and the social media just gets even more and more intense and you know you talked about algorithms and how they kind of sense what you're thinking and what you're seeing and you get these things put more in front of you.

SPEAKER_00

So it's easy to get caught up in that so um Brianna how do people follow you getting as we talk about you know what people think of you um how do people follow you how they get in touch um what kind of services do you offer yeah so yeah if they want to follow me online they can follow me on Instagram or TikTok my handle's the same on both it's at rebel.ceo.podcast um I have as far as like services you heard me talk a little bit about my program rooted which um we can chat more about in my DMs if anybody's interested it's for female service-based business owners it does have that spiritual component and that's where I do my full soul contract readings. Um and then if you want like a glimpse into your own soul contract I do free soul strategy mini readings that you can find at Brianna K dot com forward slash soul strategy and that's like a little a little glimpse into your full soul contract reading and there's like no strings attached if you want to move forward from there you can you don't have to you can just purely get the free mini reading um and I do spell my name funny so there are two e's and two ends and k is k a y so make sure make sure you're spelling it right because nobody ever does yeah well that's unique right there right so this has been fabulous.

SPEAKER_02

I thank you so very much for your time I've got one more question.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah if you had a superpower you get it for 24 hours you can use it especially personally however you want to what would you choose how would you use it and I'm always more curious of why would oh yeah for sure I knew as soon as you said if you had a superpower I was like oh I've got this I would totally teleport and I would travel and see the whole world okay and why would that be your choice? Because I want to see and experience other cultures and granted it would be nice to have it for more than 24 hours but like I have no interest in knowing What other people think of me,

Think Week And Vision Work

SPEAKER_00

like reading minds and stuff. Like, I don't care to do that. Um, but I would just I would want literally want to just like travel the world because how many people can say that they traveled the world? Like, not actually that many. And I think that it would be really cool to be able to just like see all of those different things, and you'd save a lot of money on flights.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, definitely. Well, I'm not sitting in an airport waiting. Well, thank you very much. This has been outstanding, and I wish you all the best.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. You are an amazing interviewer, and I really liked getting to know you.

SPEAKER_02

Find Stat Keys Podcast on Spotify, SoundCloud, and iTunes, or anywhere you get your favorite podcast, listen. You'll laugh out loud, you'll cry a little, you'll find yourself encouraged. Join us for casual conversation that leads itself based on where we take it, from family to philosophy to work to meal prep to beautifully surviving life. And hey, if I could ask a big favor of you, go to iTunes and give us a five rating. The more people who rate us, the more we get this podcast out there. Thanks, I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01

Nobody's gonna step on my cloud, cause I don't start to the feed of my big drone. I got a big drone, whatever you do, ain't nothing on me. Cause I'm doing my thing, and I got the keys to all my walls and all my dreams.