From Red Carpet to White Coats: Alex Moresco talks pivoting with purpose, mastering executive presence, rewriting your identity, and the power of resilience

Discover the transformative power of resilience with Alex Moresco, a PR maverick who turned personal health challenges into a thriving healthcare communications career. How can adversity become your greatest asset? Tune in to find out!

Guest Bio:

Alex Moresco is the founder of Moresco Public Relations and Communications, specializing in healthcare PR. With a background in entertainment PR, Alex's personal health journey led her to pivot her career, leveraging her firsthand experiences with chronic disease to craft effective communication strategies for healthcare clients. She's also a dedicated philanthropist, having raised significant funds for tick-borne illness research and actively lobbied in Washington, DC.

Content Sample:

1. Uncover Alex's unconventional path from entertainment PR to healthcare advocacy, and how she turned a devastating diagnosis into a powerful career asset.

2. Learn the insider strategies Alex uses to command respect in male-dominated boardrooms and high-stakes meetings with venture capitalists.

3. Explore the mindset shifts and practical tools that helped Alex grow her business 3x while undergoing grueling medical treatments.

Key Takeaways:

1.   [02:00] The power of betting on yourself: "If you're going to bust your ass, do it for yourself because nobody can take it away."

2.   [05:30] Reframing your communication style for executive presence: Eliminate apologetic language and present ideas with confidence and data-backed reasoning.

3.   [08:30] The importance of self-care in business success: Taking time for meditation and journaling isn't selfish—it's essential for creativity and peak performance.

4.   [17:30] Embracing a slow-growth mindset: Building a sustainable business doesn't happen overnight; focus on creating a strong foundation and healthy habits.

5.   [19:30] Defining success on your own terms: Measure your goals by what feels rewarding, not just traditional business metrics.

Memorable Quotes:

1.   "No one is going to believe in you unless you believe in yourself. You have to step in your power, you have to know your worth."

2.   "We have so much time and it's never too late to restart. Just because you're doing one thing and maybe that's not calling to you anymore... deciding to make that pivot for me was very rewarding."

Call to Action:

Ready to transform your own challenges into career opportunities? Subscribe to the Career Wanderlust Podcast for more inspiring stories and actionable advice from professionals who've mastered the art of career evolution. Follow Alex Moresco on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandramoresco/ to stay updated on her latest insights in healthcare communications and personal growth.

Host and Platform Information:

This insightful session was hosted by Jolie Downs with Paradigm. For more on career evolution and growth you can connect with Jolie here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joliedowns/

If you enjoy learning from others, please give us a like, subscribe, and share with a friend. If you are looking to add talent to your public relations, marketing, communications, sales, or business development team with the best talent, and quickly, check us out at paradigmstaffing.com.

Ending Note:

How will you turn your next challenge into a career-defining moment?

Transcript

Alex Moresco Transcript 

Jolie Downs: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Career Wanderlust podcast, your compass for new career horizons. Today, we are talking with Alex Moresco. Alex is the founder of Moresco Public Relations and Communications, bringing a wealth of experience spanning entertainment, PR, talent relations, and healthcare PR. She has worked with renowned companies such as Nike, Magazine and Facebook Watch.

Four years ago, Alex's personal health journaling led her to specialize in healthcare PR, leveraging her lived first hand experiences with chronic disease and her expertise as a professional patient to craft effective communication strategies. Now, Alex has also raised significant funds for tick-borne illness research, actively lobbied in Washington, DC, and she sits on the executive board for national nonprofit Project LIME and the emerging leader board for Nashville based cancer nonprofit Nashville Wine Auction, [00:01:00] which is amazing.

I'm really excited to learn more. Alex, thank you for joining us on the Career Wanderlust Podcast. 

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. 

Me too. I'm really curious about your career path and the things that you've tackled along the way. \I love that you've done a little bit of everything falling into even starting your own company now.

I would love to know if there is a piece of career advice that has helped you along the way. Is there anything that you found that has brought the most to you throughout your career? 

Alex Moresco: I think that there's probably different pieces of advice at different periods in my career that have been the most impactful.

And I'm sure we'll get more into this in our conversation, but when I was graduating college. I was torn between going to staying and working at Nike corporate and starting my own entertainment PR firm, which I had the opportunity to do very young. [00:02:00] And I sat down with a trusted advisor to walk through it and, say what do I do?

Am I crazy? And I'll never forget he said to me, "If you're going to bust your ass, do it for yourself because nobody can take it away." And that's how I started what originally was my entertainment PR firm.

And it's something that I have always lived by is if I'm going to bust my butt and put a lot of time and energy into something I really want to do it for myself. I want to feel good about it. I think a second piece of advice for me that has been very powerful over the last year as a female in business, let alone, a younger female in business that owns my own company.

I started working with an executive coach last winter who has really nailed into me the fact that you, no one is going to believe in you unless you believe in yourself, you have to step in your power, you have to know your worth, you have to know that what you [00:03:00] bring to the table is just as good

as anybody else. And that's something that I think like we're probably all ever 

Jolie Downs: working on. Definitely. Have they given you any advice to help you do that? Is there anything that's helped you step into that power? 

Alex Moresco: Yeah. It sounds very simple. But I have adopted , a journaling practice and a meditation practice.

I think it's also been development and a lot of hard work around communications and how I interact either with counterparts or I'm in healthcare, it's very male driven industry, let alone a very for what I do, very senior executive based male driven industry. And how do you sit at the table with people in those positions and showcase yourself in the same way that they do.

Jolie Downs: Yes. 

Alex Moresco: And once again it's taken a lot of career work, with a coach, which I think in [00:04:00] itself ,it's a challenge to ask for help sometimes. It's a challenge that you need help in career development. And in reality, there's nothing wrong with it. We can't be experts and perfect at everything.

Jolie Downs: Finding a coach to help you up level your game is a big career move. It is one of those stepping stones that I've seen so many people take them from where they are to just that higher level that they just couldn't get there themselves. And we just we do. We need help and we struggle with asking for help. So I love this and there's so many different pieces that I love. And I love that you went back to the basics. I know you said this is the basic, but really so much of what helps us grow is going back to those basics, right? If you're not meditating, if you're not keeping a journal about the things that you feel gratitude for, or the things that you feel good about doing for yourself to help remind yourself of all the good things. These are things that make a big difference.

And the point being that, so often [00:05:00] for women, women will find themselves in a position where it might be a male dominant executive table and being comfortable with that seat and finding that power is a very big deal. I'm wondering if there's anything that you practice or anything that's helped you feel comfortable taking that seat that you could share with other women who might be feeling the same way. 

Alex Moresco: Yeah. I think and whether it's male or female, with these executive tables or with these company boards or now, I deal with a lot of boards that are mostly made up of like venture capitalists which is very different, very numbers driven. I think it has actually forced me to take a look at how I present things strategically and how I go into conversations with confidence and really reworking my vocabulary to say. Oh, I think this would do well or versus, we have looked at what has performed highly and based off of that, this is our [00:06:00] recommendation for Q1 or whatever it is that we're discussing.

 So I think looking at my vocabulary, which is something I have just become on my own, I think very cognizant of. Even in the way that I like email now and I refuse to say, Oh, I'm so sorry to bother you. It's just, Oh, here is x, y, z. And it's something that I reinforced to like my whole team. I'm like, I don't want you to make the same mistakes, that I did when you are coming into leadership.

And so I think that's the first piece of it is like having that confidence and adjusting, how I am speaking in these rooms. And I think the second thing for me, once again, going back into an internal step, like reset and stepping into my power of, I have this expertise. I belong here.

I believe that I belong here. I believe that I am the best person to be doing this work. In itself is a really powerful thing. And once again, it takes a lot of [00:07:00] internal work and also a lot of external work. I'm getting quiet before these meetings, you'll probably hear me through this conversation talk a lot about getting quiet, journaling, meditating, gut checks. What is my gut telling me? My gut is telling me that this is a great opportunity not that it's something, I should have anxiety over so on and so forth. Yeah, I think that's probably. So important. 

Jolie Downs: Just what you're saying, the gut check, and taking the time, slowing things down, paying attention.

All of these things are so important that in our society in this day and age, we're not always paying attention and we're moving so fast and doing so many things and just trying to react. That just taking it that moment to be with yourself and quiet it down and pay attention to how you're feeling and what you're thinking.

So important. And so much of what you're saying really goes back to the key that you mean that the key personal development, right? That the think as if, speak as if, act as if, and it's a resetting. And so I love [00:08:00] that this advice, that's what you're going in and you're visualizing, you're changing your beliefs.

You're thinking as if, you're looking at the way you're speaking and you're changing the way the words you're using. You're speaking as if, and then that's all translated into the way you're acting as you come to this table. I think this is wonderful advice for really any person and anything that they want to do.

Really wonderful. Visualization is incredibly powerful I found that's been a masterful thing in my own life as well. 

Alex Moresco: Yeah. I think when we look at anything like getting quiet visualization meditation, it's funny because I used to feel guilty almost for taking the time away from my work and from my business.

And then eventually you learn that you have to fill your cup first before you can help anyone else. And for me, being in PR in more of a yes, a very business driven field, but a very creative field. That quiet time is critical for me to do the best work for my clients. And there's nothing wrong with that.[00:09:00]

There's nothing you should feel guilty for. 

No, 

Jolie Downs: you are 100% right. That's actually a universal truth I would say is you do have to, you need to take that time. And by taking that time, it actually makes whatever you're doing in your career that much better. It's how you uplevel your career is by doing that for yourself.

I completely agree. And that's an important message that so many people need right now. Absolutely. Yes. Now, I love a story. Could you share a story, something that happened to you, something that was impactful that you learned a lesson from and other people might learn something by hearing you share it.

Absolutely. 

Alex Moresco: This may be a few stories woven in into one long history. So I know we mentioned it in my bio earlier. A number of years ago, my world was turned upside down by an undiagnosed illness. I was working in entertainment PR. I was on sets until 2 a.m. I was working Sundance Film Festival every year in a press tent for 14 straight days, like [00:10:00] amazing opportunities, a lot of rapid career expansion during those years.

And that's what I did. So your company went well. Yes. Yes. Thank God. Not good. Yes, it did. Yeah, it was an amazing few years. A lot of rapid career expansion grew exponentially in that time, both personally, professionally, business wise and then I started to get sick and it's the thing, that no one thinks will happen to them, right?

You read about it. You read the human interest stories and you never think that your own life will be touched by it. Fast forward, a year and I was so sick that I couldn't work anymore. I had to take a break. You didn't know what it was at this time? It was still undiagnosed?

It took two years to receive an accurate diagnosis. That's 

Jolie Downs: frustrating. 

Alex Moresco: Through that, I learned that unfortunately is not rare. That's very common. Found a doctor, [00:11:00] started my treatment. And that was my first challenge. And my first lesson was really reexamining my identity. My identity was so wrapped up in my career and what I was achieving.

And I think that goes without being said for a lot of people and women, especially in the U. S. You measure your worth based off of what you're achieving career wise. So I was forced to form a new identity based on my new experience as a patient. And I got really involved with philanthropy and fundraising for healthcare research and advocacy and legislative change.

And as I was going through treatment, spent two years really in that space that gave me a lot of purpose to what I was going through, which I think I needed and what I didn't know at the time was that while I was doing this work, while I was going through treatment myself, while I was meeting all of these patients, across the United States, I was really learning their [00:12:00] pain points in the healthcare system and their pain points and how they are spoken to by professionals, by healthcare brands. And that there was a big gap there. So this was my next challenge was, okay, I realized there's this gap. I've seen it myself. I've heard about it now hundreds, if not thousands of times, what professional skills do I have where I can help build this,

bridge this gap. And thankfully, when I started to emerge from being so sick and started to regain my health, I slowly but surely went into Healthcare PR. So learned how to navigate my career, with health limitations learned how to apply my lived patient experience to PR strategies really successfully, thankfully.

And now, in 2024. I'm [00:13:00] really lucky. Last year in 2023, I did, I embarked on a new treatment that was absolutely grueling but was thankfully very successful for me. But through that time, because of the word of mouth of my business client roster grew three X. Oh, wow.

That's amazing. 

Yeah. Which has been really exciting. And I also then had to hire basically three X. I went from one employee. Now I have six employees. Thank you. And was really forced to re examine, what am I giving my time and energy to versus what can my team do, really learning to trust my team, having to build an amazing team that understands the lived patient experience as much as I do.

So I would say that has probably been one of my greatest challenges was, number one, that health journey and reexamining what my career was going to look like. And then number two last year, dealing with this treatment and so on and so [00:14:00] forth while simultaneously having my business grow, which is a blessing, but there's a lot that comes along. 

Jolie Downs: A lot, especially if you're going through, like you said, this was a very difficult process.

How did you manage that? Is there anything that you found that helped you when you were struggling with these treatments and growing your business at the same time? A lot of people are dealing with a struggle and growth at the same time. How did you deal with it? What helped? 

Alex Moresco: Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me was number one, I always like to say that we're a mission driven PR firm.

We really only work with healthcare clients and wellness clients that in some way are making patient lives better, right? Whether it's a supplement brand, whether it's an international organization, whether it's a testing lab. But because of that they all understand what patients are going through, so they understood what I was going through and [00:15:00] it was not challenging to educate on that.

And I know that unfortunately is not most people's experiences with limitations, on the professional and personal side. So that was great for me. I would say that the second thing that really helped me with this was it once again, really forced me to lean on my team and say, Okay, I can't always touch everything.

I can't always be the one to take these meetings or to put these strategies together, but that's why you hire a great team. That's why you hire people that are better than yourself in other aspects of your business. And so ultimately it was a good thing for me.

Jolie Downs: Definitely. Now I'm curious. Was it your same business and then you changed direction with from entertainment to healthcare? Or did you shut down your business and start up with a new name? 

Alex Moresco: Yeah, it's essentially the same business just a completely [00:16:00] different shape of communications and type of client.

Jolie Downs: Yeah So how did you manage that shift going from entertainment PR where you had all of your connections? You had all this business to this new area, which your story is very compelling. So I would imagine that was that helped quite a bit. But is there anything else that you learned or anything else that you could talk about during that transition that might help other people who are thinking about something similar?

Alex Moresco: Absolutely. I think for me, the most instrumental piece of making that change was looking inward at my network. I don't think that people can discount networking. I think it's everything. Because I was so involved in the philanthropic community and became so known for like my philanthropy and advocacy efforts, I made a lot of connections.

And when I decided that I wanted to go back to work, it happened very organically. I just happened to know a very well known doctor that was starting her own practice in Chicago, Case Integrative Health and wanted media [00:17:00] help and wanted PR. And so I dipped my toe in with her and it's funny because I think the version one of me in entertainment PR was under the notion that we have to build and we have to build fast and move a million miles a minute, as if our time is limited on earth but in reality, we live very long lives, right?

Nothing needs to happen overnight. And version two of me, when I went back into healthcare PR, I really took my time and made sure that I was supporting myself, that I was building healthy habits around going back to work, around making sure that the foundation of my business was very strong.

And then I had all the right pieces in place. And, I think often we compare ourselves to others and we feel like something needs to happen immediately. And in reality, I know life is so short, but we have so much time. So much time and it's never too late to restart. 

Jolie Downs: No, it's not. 

Alex Moresco: Just because you're doing one thing [00:18:00] and maybe that's not calling to you anymore, which is what happened in my case.

I think entertainment media just felt trivial versus, what I could be doing. And deciding to make that pivot for me was very rewarding. And hopefully, it's a good example for other people that anybody can do it truly. 

Jolie Downs: I love that. More people need to hear that because we're not tied into any one thing.

And if something else is calling to our hearts, we really need to listen and make those changes. So thank you. And I loved what you talk about. You talked about how we tie our identities into our work. I was curious if there was anything that you've learned from that experience? Are you able to

hold your identity a little separate now from your career? How has that changed for you is what I'm curious about. 

Alex Moresco: Yeah, it's I think it's a constant ebb and flow. I view everything, whether I went from having my illness be my entire identity to having to really work on as I got better.

Oh, that's just a piece of me. That's not my [00:19:00] entire being. Same thing with my philanthropic work, right? When I went from work, career work and professionalism to philanthropy, I was, Oh, this is now my identity, is advocacy and philanthropy. And then when I went back to work, you're like, Oh, my identity now is that I am starting a healthcare PR firm.

And I think over time, I have realized that we have many different facets to ourselves. And everything is just a small piece of who I am. But that I should not view myself as I have a practice now that I like to do that. I really measure my success and my goals by that's probably fairly non traditional where instead of and I do business planning.

I do forecasting just like any other business owner. But I'd say the biggest thing for me is I sit and I just think to myself, Okay, what feels right? What feels like it's the most rewarding? And then how do I do more [00:20:00] of that? And I kind of work backwards then and say, Okay, now what actionable goals do I have to put in place to be able to do more of what's really lighting me up?

In my career, and I think that really helps me separate out what I feel like I should be doing in my career or my identity as a healthcare PR firm owner, not getting too stuck in just the pure like business metrics. 

Jolie Downs: Yes. No, so good. So good. I love that advice. Thank you. And I think that's just really important for people to hear.

We are the sum of all these little bits and pieces. It is not one thing. And it's really important to see big beautiful picture of ourselves and realize that is our identity. It's all the like we're a disco ball, right? All lit up in sparkles. Not just one. We've got, we got hundreds, thousands.

Alex Moresco: You are right. Yes. 

Jolie Downs: So thank you. So now [00:21:00] something I always love to ask people, because I'm really passionate about the fact that we are being fed information everyday. We're just without our permission. And I feel like we're constantly being bombarded with information that doesn't help us or serve us.

And we don't always notice it. So I am all about positively feeding my mind in some way, shape, or form. And I love to know how other people do that for themselves. Is there something that you've either read, watched, or listened to that impacted you in a positive way that could impact others in the same?

Alex Moresco: Yes. So I started basically a quest in January to better support my nervous system. In that quest I started, I replaced the time that I was spending on my phone with reading or listening to a podcast. And I'm sure you wouldn't be amazed, but you'd be amazed at the amount of books that you read in that time, right?

I think in the first like three to four months of this year, I read like 13 books or something. [00:22:00]So books and podcasts more specifically, one of the most impactful books I read was Think Like A Monk by Jay Shetty. Oh, I haven't read that. Okay. It was fantastic. And he spends a lot of time in Think Like A Monk talking about identity shift from basically going to college and in London and wanting to be in finance.

And I think he worked at possibly like Deloitte, but one of the big four consulting firms. And then one day he went and he heard a monk speak at school and he gave it all up to study with this monk and become a monk. And then eventually takes you through being a monk, didn't call for him, call to him anymore.

And how did he take that and shape it into what he is today, but he also gives you all of these really simple tools in his book, how to perform a life audit, how to perform a friendship audit, how to make actionable [00:23:00] like lists on what you want your life to look like on goal setting.

And I think that was probably one of the most impactful books I read. 

Jolie Downs: What's one of the tools that you used from that book that you've found has made a profound impact on you? 

Alex Moresco: I would say both the life audit and the friendship audit. How do you do that? How would you explain to the audience 

Jolie Downs: how they should do that?

Alex Moresco: Yeah, essentially what you do is you make a list and sometimes it's like a square with four buckets, depending on which one you're doing. And sometimes it's just a straight up list and you look at in my life like how am I spending my time? Who am I spending my time with? Do I feel good most of the time? Do I feel not so great most of the time? What am I eating? What am I nervous system habits look like? And it really, when you get it all down on paper, it does force you to look at like a majority of your time. How do you feel? What does that [00:24:00] look like? Am I supporting myself? Am I taking away from myself?

And same thing with that friendship audit. It's really very simple. But when you are forced to look at who you're spending time with and how you feel during that time and after that time and you look at that on a piece of paper it does force you to reevaluate, which can be a very challenging thing to do.

Very powerful. 

Jolie Downs: Very powerful. 

Alex Moresco: Yes. 

Jolie Downs: Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I think these are life changing practices that self awareness and bringing that home. When you do something like that, it does open up your eyes in so many different ways that you didn't realize. And that's how you make change. That's how you make positive change.

You have to become aware first in order to be able to move forward in the right direction. So fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. That's great. Now before you go, cause this has been wonderful. Yeah. Loved everything. But I would love to ask you about your personal superpower [00:25:00] because I believe that we are born with certain superpowers and then there's superpowers that we develop over time.

Is there a superpower that you developed over time that's benefited your life and how has it helped? 

Alex Moresco: I would say my superpower through my health journey that I have really taken into my career in my everyday life is resilience. I know it's not a fun superpower, like flying or like laser beams, which would be very cool, but I think that resilience is a quality both in your personal life and your professional life that can't be discounted.

And just always having the ability to get back up, when you have a challenge or you have an adversity. Yeah, so I think for me it would be resilience. 

Jolie Downs: I think it's one of our more underrated personal superpowers, to be honest with you. I think resilience is key. It's key to successful life in general.

It's that one of those dolls that you'd hit and they'd bounce right back up, that's what we want to [00:26:00] be in life, right? That's resilience is, it's being able to because the bad things are going to happen. You can't, there's no way around them, so being able to learn how to deal with them in the best way and come back is a gift.

So is there anything that's helped you with resilience? I'm curious.

Alex Moresco: I think once again, it's been different at different points in my life. I think for me around my health journey, it was finding a purpose to my pain and also finding out that I wasn't the only one that was having that experience, that it was a shared experience. I think now, in my life day to day, I really realized that no one's life is perfect.

We see everyone's highlight reel online. But in reality, that's not real life and everyone has their own things that they're dealing with their own set of challenges. And I'm no different yet. Often when I look at specifically things that have happened in [00:27:00] my work life or in my career that feel really disappointing at the time, because not, 100 percent of things do not go your way.

And they're not always meant to for reasons that you don't know, it has led to something better in the end, which I know sounds very cheesy. 

It's not cheesy at all. I call it universal 

Jolie Downs: law, to be honest with you. 

Alex Moresco: That's also what I think. So that's the mindset that I try to have now.

Jolie Downs: Yes. 

Alex Moresco: There's a reason for this and I just don't know what it is, but something better is coming. 

Jolie Downs: Yes, I completely agree. And a lot of people will struggle with the Oh, everything happens for a reason. And it's not necessarily that everything happens for a reason, but things happen.

And this is where you are. This happens. So this is where you're at. So now you get to choose. You can either let that take you down. You can go down the spiral, which look, we can go down spirals and you can take yourself out of the spiral. That's also, it's good to remember sometimes the spiral happens and then you just recognize it and take yourself out.

But [00:28:00] understanding that you can make a decision, you can choose to find a reason is a really important thing to understand and finding the, you look for the purpose, right? You find purpose and to help you move forward. And this is how we find resilience in life. So really thank you.

Such great advice. I could keep talking to you for quite a while, but I know we need to wrap up. So thank you so much for joining me, Alex. I appreciate you being on the Career Wanderlust Podcast. Thank you for having me. 

Thank you for joining us on the Career Wanderlust Podcast. If you find value in learning from others, give us a like and subscribe. If you're looking to grow your communications, marketing, public relations, or sales and biz dev team with the best talent and quickly, check us out at ParadigmStaffing.com and submit a request.

We are wishing you a most successful and fulfilling career. Until next [00:29:00] time.