“I’m Unapologetically Multi-Passionate”—Anika Jackson on Owning Who You Are in Business

Cut The Tie Podcast with Anika Jackson
What happens when you realize you don’t fit into a box—and you’re not supposed to? In this episode of Cut The Tie, Thomas Helfrich sits down with Anika Jackson, founder of Your Brand Amplified®, professor at USC Annenberg, single mom, podcaster, and executive director at the ICL Foundation. From PR to AI, curriculum development to podcast consulting, Anika has cut ties with traditional definitions of success and leaned fully into her multi-passionate path. The result? A thriving business, a top 1.5% global podcast, and a mission to merge technology with humanity.

About Anika Jackson

Anika Jackson is the founder of Your Brand Amplified®, a branding, marketing, PR, AI for business, and podcast consulting agency that helps entrepreneurs and organizations find their authentic voice. Her podcast of the same name ranks in the top 1.5% globally. In addition, Anika teaches graduate courses at USC Annenberg in digital media management and social media, where she has pioneered AI-first curriculum. She also serves as Executive Director of the ICL Foundation and ICL Academy, developing innovative curriculum and weaving AI into education and business practices. As a single mom and MBA candidate at Villanova specializing in AI/ML, Anika lives at the intersection of technology, education, and philanthropy—unapologetically multi-passionate.

In this episode, Thomas and Anika discuss:

• Cutting ties with “traditional” career paths
  Why Anika walked away from agencies and roles that didn’t align with her values or purpose.
• Living unapologetically multi-passionate
  How embracing her wide range of passions led to synergy across teaching, PR, AI, podcasting, and philanthropy.
• Building a business through faith and persistence
  The moment she “gave it up to the universe” and landed a PR contract that grew into a 20-person firm during the pandemic.
• Using AI without losing humanity
  Why she’s passionate about creating AI tools that enhance authenticity, efficiency, and connection rather than replace it.

Key Takeaways:

• Success is passion + purpose
  Don’t chase other people’s definitions—design your own.
• It’s okay to be multi-passionate
  Your unique intersections may be your biggest advantage.
• Volunteering builds real leadership
  Free training in EQ, delegation, and public speaking pays lifelong dividends.
• AI is a tool, not a replacement
  Use technology to amplify your humanity—not erase it.

Connect with Anika Jackson:

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anikajackson/
🌐 Website: https://yourbrandamplified.com/

Connect with Thomas Helfrich:

📣 Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelfrich
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cutthetie/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfrich/
🌐 Website: http://www.cutthetie.com
📧 Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com
🚀 http://instantlyrelevant.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Cut the Tide podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Thomas Helfrick, and I'm on a mission to help you cut the tide or whatever it is hold you back from success. And that success is defined by you and no one else. So if you haven't done that, start with that. But today's guest is Anica Jackson. Annika, how are you?

SPEAKER_01: 0:15

I am good. As always, doing a million and one things and always something new. Every time we speak, I'm you and I both have something new going on.

SPEAKER_00: 0:24

And that's why we're here. We're going to hear about what that means. Take a moment, introduce yourself and what it is. Oh, what are the things that you do?

SPEAKER_01: 0:32

Well, thank you. I am the founder of your brand Amplified, which uh started out as my business podcast for my PR firm and now is a full branding marketing PR, AI for business and podcast consulting agency and consultancy. I love helping entrepreneurs and organizations really figure out who they are, how best to present their message and feel really authentic in sharing it so that they can reach the right people at the right time. And my podcast ranks in the top 1.5% globally. I also teach grad school at USC Annenberg across digital media management and digital social media. I've also taught in the PR and branding side. And I am executive director at the ICL Foundation, which has now morphed into working on the foundation and the online private school for middle school and high school kids. We have ICL Academy, and I'm helping develop curriculum. Weave AI into a lot of the business practices on both sides, handling the PR. And also the founder just started podcasts. So I'm helping produce this podcast. So that's that's a small sample.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40

And you have kids and uh single mom.

SPEAKER_01: 1:44

I'm getting finishing my MBA. Yeah, I'm finishing my MBA at Villanova right now with a specialty in AIML. And I'm really leaning into that convergence of who I am.

unknown: 1:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:58

And if you Google her name, it'll it'll actually just say overachiever right next to your name. And it'll give the it'll give a couple examples of why. Um Liz, I usually ask the question of kind of why people pick you, but uh I want to take a slightly different just path on it and just kind of dive into how you're gonna because because you have a lot of things you're doing really well um around the media space. Uh, but specifically, just start with how you're defining success today, given all the things you're doing.

SPEAKER_01: 2:24

Oh yeah. So uh how I define success is living in my passion and purpose. And I think that takes time for people to realize we we follow little paths, and then we have to figure out what part of them serve us and when we need to move on. And so one thing I've had to really look at myself and say is I'm multi-passionate, and I have to say I'm unapologetically multi-passionate. I'm not the person who you're gonna fit into one box and one role. As you can see from starting out as the executive director of a foundation and now moving into curriculum development, helping leave AI into the tools, creating different work streams and workflows with AI for the business practices, PR podcast producing, all of that stuff, right? So it I love places where and spaces where I can really carve a role for myself. Even at USC, start out teaching on the PR side, moved into the digital media communication side, turned a speaker series into a podcast there. Now I've created AI curriculum that I'm using for my classes, and now I'm helping restructure the entire digital media management program to be AI first. And then now I've created courses for other programs so that I can take everything I've learned and help students do the very best that they can and be their full authentic selves. So it's really technology, education, and philanthropy is my intersection. And I I love figuring out how to blend the human side of things with technology to achieve the best results we can. So I can't, I'm not a specialist at any one thing, but I can kind of see where things are needed for different people.

SPEAKER_00: 4:04

Well, so you find the success uh and you know, you don't, you know, there's a journey to get there. So tell me a little bit about that journey and specifically what the metaphoric big tie was you had to cut to get to that success.

SPEAKER_01: 4:17

Oof. Well, um, one of the big cut ties I had to cut is I is really uh the fact that I realized traditional approaches weren't my jam and that I needed to lean into that and my weirdness, right? Or my love of continuing to learn and be multi-passionate. And that was okay. And that would be more meaningful to me and also it would help more people around me. So I was choosing between profit, between and purpose. I was going to work for multiple agencies, making really good money where I thought we had the same intentionality. And then I'd get into the agency and realize that what I'd been sold on was not exactly what I was getting. And I'm not really good at staying places. I'm kind of like, I look, like you said, like an overachiever, people pleaser, probably in some ways. I toe the line, but I'm actually a lot of a rebel. So if you tell me to do something, probably not gonna do it. Um, and that goes for anything from trying to do an exercise challenge to working in an environment where I'm realizing that what they're telling me and who they are or what they're saying about who they are isn't gelling with the actions that they're taking, the clients they're bringing in, other parts of the business, how they're treating me and other people. So I had it, I've had to do this multiple times. So I'm still, it's one of those recurring life lessons, right? I've had to cut the tie and go, I need to walk away from this. This is not for me. And then get into my own business again and then have another opportunity that looked like a golden goose. Go back and go, oh, I'm doing the same thing again. Right. So this is a repeating pattern and something I'm still learning. But I I really feel now I've learned that lesson and I've been able, I'm cutting that tie and leaning fully into what makes me unique and what I can bring to the table that is in service to other people.

SPEAKER_00: 6:04

It it's it's hard too, because underneath that, right, the layers of that are people's expectations of you, uh, you know, things you've paid money for, training, whatever. You know, and like these investments in time and then the social circles that look at you go, they don't well, they're not you, and they're not in your skin, and they just look at you and not you, but one in a way of you're all over the place, and and you're just searching, and and and no one there has a clue what you're searching for because you're trying to figure it out. But they they but they know what they know in their lens, and it just looks like you're and yeah, and you have to manage that somehow, and you're like, at some point you're like, I just don't give a shit anymore. I'm just you know, I'm just gonna do what I need to do right now because of it. And it are you struggling with that at times as well? So those become a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01: 6:47

But you know, I have struggled with it, but I'm not struggling with it anymore. One thing I've realized, even for uh exactly what you said, people have their own constructs. So if you're around people who are not entrepreneurs, they're not gonna understand that journey and how we iterate and ideate and try different things before we get to like, ah, this is my sweet spot. I do a lot of volunteer work as well. And there are people who don't understand that. I mean, just in the past two, three weeks alone for Junior League of Los Angeles, I have led an emotional intelligence training. I've done a conflict resolution between two members. I have done a leadership assessment training. I am about to lead a listening session on Monday about all the things that are going on with immigration and curfews and what's happening to our city and all of that stuff so that people can come together. Uh, I'm also creating AI workflows or like AI policies. So I'm doing a lot of things that are is a lot of me giving my time for free. And some people don't understand that, right? They say you should only be doing things that are putting money in your pocket. But all of the leadership skills, I didn't get them from the work. I didn't get them because when I was in the world of work early on, I was doing a lot of things where I was just getting thrown in situations and people just assumed I knew how to do them. And I did them. Some of them later I'm like cringing at the work I did, right? Or I didn't have to do a lot of public speaking. So junior league, I was thinking about this this morning. I had to learn how to public speak, how to lead a group of volunteers, how to be a good mentor, a good team member, and a good leader, how to delegate and not try to do everything myself. I had to learn about emotional intelligence, budgeting. I had to learn all of these different things. And so really I learned that stuff from the world of volunteering, not from the world of work. But those are all skills I use every single day in any, whether I'm teaching, podcasting, working for the foundation, whatever it is I'm doing. And so to me, that's more valuable. It was like free training, right? I had to give my time, but I got all of these invaluable skills that have lived with me all these years. I was president of Junior League 15 years ago. Uh, so you know, I've been a member of that organization for gosh, 20 years, 21 years maybe now. Um, and I've I just it keeps paying off in spades. So things like that, where I do get people who judge me on those things or like, oh, you're trying a new thing. Why are you doing that? Why are you investing all your time? Why do you pour all this money when it, you know, into your podcast before it started paying off, right? Uh and and I think we have to take those risks and take that initiative because we have to trust ourselves and not just focus on people's judgments. I mean, you know this very well with everything that you do.

SPEAKER_00: 9:37

Right. It's uh I'm a man, so I just don't just don't even recognize half the time I'm being judged. So I'm just gonna be that's that's very sexy, right? Do you have do you have a moment do you have a moment when you'd like you just you're just like hell no more kind of idea, like or an aha moment?

SPEAKER_01: 9:55

Um I think it really was when you know I've been doing all these things that people look at, like you said, as very disparate. I've been I went back to grad school. I'm teaching. I'm, you know, I'm teaching grad school and going to grad school at the same time. I have a full-time job, but then I have two podcasts, then I have consultant work, and that's growing again a lot. And um I've realized that they all connect really well. There's this intersectionality. Each one bleeds into the other, each one helps me do better in the other work and gives me more recognition to do more of that work. And so the aha moment, I mean, there's been many, but I would say realizing that that there is this synergistic opportunity that I have in front of me and that people respond to it really, really well in ways that I wouldn't have even because I didn't do it for other people, I did it for myself. But I would say backing up, moving back to LA and, you know, starting over being a single mom who came into a situation that was vastly different than I thought it was going to be when I moved back to LA from Houston. I had to go on food stamps. I had to get rid of my ego and the notions that I had of myself because before in Houston, I'd been this person who was in the papers, the magazines literally all the time. There were fashion spreads about me. I emceed events, I chaired galas, I chaired probably every fundraiser in town almost. Um, and was able to donate a lot of money, sometimes up to six figures, to charities every year. Going from that, getting divorced, starting my own business, moving back to LA where I hadn't lived for a long time, where I had to really, you know, I still had friends here, but I had to figure out work because people were trying to fit me into boxes and I didn't fit into any of them, so I wouldn't get hired. That was probably the biggest aha moment when I just realized I need to be okay with asking for help and accepting help. And it's hard to do that when you're like us and you're just go, go, go, and you are ready to achieve it all the all the time. And I think humbling myself and stepping back and really taking a moment to reflect and figure out what do I really want to do in this moment? What do I want to do now? Was the biggest moment of change I've had in um, you know, even bigger than getting divorced or a lot of other things that happened in my life.

SPEAKER_00: 12:13

What's been the impact since?

SPEAKER_01: 12:16

The impact since is about six months after I moved to LA. I was still just doing freelance work here and there. I went out and looked at the full moon, December 2019, right after my birthday. And I said, I've done everything I can. I've applied every job, I've gone through as many interviews. If um I'm going on holiday to my boyfriend's family's in Pennsylvania, if I don't have something, I will go to Walmart, Trader Joe's, wherever, and I'll just get any job I can. I'm willing to put my ego completely aside because I need to have income. I need to have steady income. And so it was God, the universe, whatever you choose to believe. But I just looked up and I said, it's in your hands. Right. You have to just completely give up, like or let go. You do what you can. You have to take the action to get there, but then you have to have belief and faith that somebody or something or some energy is gonna take you the rest of the way. And that moment was the moment things changed even more. So I was in the car on the way to the airport to go visit my boyfriend and his family. And I got a call with somebody who wanted to hire me to do PR for all of their clients. That was the tooling moment that turned into having a full PR firm during the pandemic with uh 20 employees. Um, we, you know, increased our revenue by 1,500% in the first six months. Um, that led to opportunity after opportunity things. I I would never have thought today, at age 50, right? I'm like about six months into being 50. And I am just starting my life. Six years, six years ago, I never would have thought that I'd be a professor at a really good institution, that I would have a top podcast, that I would have a wealth of amazing people that I surround myself with who I've met through with podcasting community, a lot of them. Um, that I'd be getting, you know, really into AI and being looked at as uh a thought leader by institutions from Intuit to a lot of the AI founders in the AI space. I never would have thought any of that stuff would happen. And now you're gonna make me emotional asking these questions because if you get crying more airtime, no, but it's uh it just tells me, and this is what I try to instill in people, is that you can achieve and you can do what you want. And it might not look like what you thought it was going to be, but it's going to be even more beautiful.

SPEAKER_00: 14:46

I would argue if it does look like what you thought, you're gonna be disappointed in it. Yeah. And accept that it won't be what you think, but that just gives you a general direction of where to go or run from. Like, you know, sometimes the best things in life are what you say no to. You're like, oh, I never want to do that again. And like that actually, it's great. You're like, cool, I just made my map smaller. I'm gonna have to go over there anymore.

SPEAKER_01: 15:06

And that's what you see, like when we have these conversations all the time with people, right? They're in corporate, they're doing everything they thought they wanted to achieve. And then they have that moment where they're aha moment, where like, this is not it. I've gotten as far as I want to get at this company. I've given all my time to somebody else's dream. I've yes, I'm earning a good living, but it's not fulfilling me and it's causing me illness or stress or time away from my family. And that's when people make a shift. I didn't have to go through that to make a shift. I mean, although, you know, I had to learn the lessons of like, yeah, don't go to work for somebody else. If it's a full-time thing where I'm having to live under the way that they think things should be done versus me just getting things done. Um, yeah, but that's it's really you can build those bridges between all the things that you want to do, even if they don't look like they belong together.

SPEAKER_00: 15:55

I've actually landed uh is one of the big ties I've cut this year is around ADHD and taking medicine and stuff. And it's really made me incredibly effective in business. Like I've gotten more done by the last six weeks than I have and congratulations for year. That was my tie to cut. I had started at uh earlier in the year, and and so thank you, by the way. Uh I will tell you, I actually realized I could actually work for somebody again if it was the right situation, which is a weird feeling. Doesn't mean I'm running back to go do it anytime soon. I'm just saying, but it it's a weird feeling to understand then on the reflection of life where you're like, oh, I screwed that up. I know I see why. Um and and and that makes me grateful. And it's kind of my question to you. Uh you know, I'm grateful for the opportunities and the lessons I've learned, even though some of them have been hard. What are you most grateful for at this moment?

SPEAKER_01: 16:41

Oh, there's so much. Um, I don't know how to answer. Oh man. Um what I'm most grateful for is the ability to do all of the work. I didn't, I didn't realize until after I was divorced, I was talking to speaking about ADHD and kind of going off track a little bit. Um, I was talking to a friend of mine about my brother's ADHD. And she's like, you know that you also have it. And I was like, What? I had no idea. And I was like, Oh, that's making more sense. I've always been an achiever. I've always been really driven. I've always done a million and one different things. And but hey, they're all focused together, right?

SPEAKER_00: 17:24

So to you, to everyone else, it looks like madness.

SPEAKER_01: 17:27

I I yeah, I I I understand that. I understand that. To everybody else, it looks like madness too.

SPEAKER_00: 17:32

I mean, I get it because it I understand what's going right, but it does look like madness now that I'm on the other side with a little medicine. I'm like, oh, whoa, that person has people in my life that that I clearly and they were specifically like, oh, I I don't need that. I'm like, like we'd be in a room where everyone would stop talking and just look over and go, you're right. Okay. So you know, you'll see it. Um grateful that you can manage all of it and you're being success in it. I think you felt safe while you're working through all this.

SPEAKER_01: 18:02

But but I will say, like, the biggest source of my inspiration and probably the person I'm most grateful for is my daughter. She um keeps it real, right? We are here to I realized very early on, like I had this is gonna sound a little woo-woo, but I had dreams about her before she was born. She was exactly who she showed me in my dreams. And uh she has continued to be that person and celebrating who she is and her divergent mind, our neurodivergent mind, and how she moved through the world and is so highly intelligent and doesn't really care what people think. She beats, she's always had beats her own drum and lived by her own interests and engagements and group of friends. And she's found the perfect group of friends for that. And she's known what she wants to do since she was 12. She knows where she wants to go to university. Um, and she's, you know, junior in high school. And she's known this stuff since really early on. So I think as parents, our path, we are here just to guide our children a little bit. Make sure I don't, I'm not gonna swear on the show, but just when they're little and you do you do have you're married to somebody or you're in a situation where you have a lot of assets and they have a lot of opportunities, then it can make it really hard to um make them stay centered in reality and grounded and what what's going on around them. So she, but she is that person. And we we have the most amazing conversations.

SPEAKER_00: 19:30

Now, if you had to start over today, what port and your timeline do you go to and what do you do differently?

SPEAKER_01: 19:36

Yeah. I would from a very early age stop thinking people were judging me when they weren't for things, thinking back even to the days of being a club promoter and uh in Chicago and in Kansas City and St. Louis and trying to fit into a certain box or working for cool magazines and thinking that couldn't meant I couldn't hang out with people who dressed a certain way or who were different from me because they were more straight or preppy or whatever you want to say. Um, and putting those barriers on myself and those, you know, I was judging myself. Other people weren't judging me. So I wish I could get rid of that. I also um wish that when I'd gone through my divorce, I'd kept my real estate business that I had with my ex because then I would have been able to move to LA in a very different situation. Now I do think I need to learn those lessons. Would have been good to have a little bit of a starter, you know, a little bit of money, a little bit of cash in the bank.

SPEAKER_00: 20:30

I thought I get that. Oh, there's a question I should have asked you today, though, I didn't. Yeah. What's that question and how you answer it?

SPEAKER_01: 20:36

Uh well, this is we don't have enough time on this show, but um I am really passionate about working with AI, but keeping the humanity. Right. And so I've been able to figure out a lot of ways to use tools for small business as a small business owner, as a teacher, a professor in my podcast that don't take away but enhance the work that I'm doing. I mean, I you saw I had a LinkedIn post about creating agentic AI tools to better pick podcast guests because you get we we are both overwhelmed with a number of people who want to be guests on our shows. And they can look really good on paper, but that doesn't mean that they're gonna be a perfect guest for our show. They, you know, we have to really do a lot of evaluation. So I've cut down the research time by using agentic AI. And I that doesn't just have to be used for that instance, right? There are many other ways. So I'm right now reverse engineering some things, engineering more. By the end of uh the next couple, probably in eight weeks, I'll probably build out at least eight to ten more agentic AI tools that anybody could use. And so I I'm really strongly believe in using AI for efficiency, but also remembering that we have the unique voice. And as humans, we have to stay centered in that humanity.

unknown: 21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:54

Once you get it up and going because it's up and going.

SPEAKER_01: 21:56

And actually, I actually have a better tool that I'm using now.

SPEAKER_00: 21:59

So when you're ready, let me try it. You know, we do 12 on Thursdays, and our next guest is in there. Yep. Hey. You're right, he's coming on next, guys. And people like, well, who's that guy? See, I'm teasing the next show. All right, who should get a hold of you? How do they do it really quickly?

SPEAKER_01: 22:13

Yeah, uh, the best way, LinkedIn, A-N-I-K-A, J A C K S O N, follow me. There is a link to my calendarly 30-minute free strategy session on branding, PR, AI, communications, crisis, whatever, you know, any topic, happy to help people. I'll give you, I'm not just gonna try to get you into a calendar to pay me. I'm actually gonna give you a lot of free resources and introductions in that 30 minutes. So please schedule time with me, connect with me via um LinkedIn newsletter. I have a newsletter that I put out that talks and walks through exactly how I'm using different tools. Um, also, you know, we'll talk about a lot of other things, volunteering, why that's important for leadership. Other areas I've just started with AI stuff because that's what I'm like really ingrained and excited about right now. Um, so anybody who wants to explore, figure out how to get your message out more authentically, uh, figure out who you are and what that message is, I'm here for you and would love to support you.

SPEAKER_00: 23:09

Awesome. Thank you. Um thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01: 23:13

It was really a pleasure and an honor.

SPEAKER_00: 23:15

Well, I always like I said, once you're on, you come back. So we'll see you in six months again. And for everyone who who's made it this part in the show, thank you so much for watching, listening. If this is your first time, hope it's the first of many. If you've been here before, come back. I really appreciate it. Get out there, go cut a tie to whatever's holding you back from success, but be sure to uh to define that success to yourself first.