How To Maintain Motivation As An Entrepreneur

In this episode, Janice is joined by Lauren Kwedar Cockerell, founder and president of Kwedar & Co., for an honest conversation about resilience, motivation, and what it really takes to keep the motivation as an entrepreneur. 

Lauren shares how being laid off at eight months pregnant became the unexpected start of her entrepreneurial journey, and how she turned a difficult season into the foundation for a thriving business.

Lauren opens up about the power of starting over, the importance of having mentors and a strong support system, and what it looks like to keep going when things feel uncertain. She and Janice talk about the reality of entrepreneurship, the loneliness that can come with it, and why resilience is less about having it all figured out and more about continuing to get back up.

They also get into the emotional side of leadership, processing hard moments, journaling through challenges, and learning not to let difficult seasons define you. Lauren shares the mindset that has helped carry her through some of her biggest pivots: this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I just don’t know how yet. It’s a conversation full of real perspective for women leaders and entrepreneurs who are building something meaningful while navigating life in real time.

Guest:
Lauren Kwedar Cockerell
Founder and President, Kwedar & Co.
Website: https://www.kwedarco.com/

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-impatient-entrepreneur/id1697334800

 Instagram: @kwedarco
 Personal Instagram: @melindagale
 Podcast: The Impatient Entrepreneur
 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenkwedar/


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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Coming up on this episode of Media Rebel Unplugged.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

I started my own company eight years ago when I was laid off at eight months pregnant from my uh in-house corporate PR role.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

You've mentioned prior about years where you've seen growth in your revenue. And that's really good information for anybody who's looking to start this journey into entrepreneurship or just starting to understand it is not a cookie cutter experience when you're faced with a challenge.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

So you get laid off, you go through some other, you know, the resident pull documents you literally or metaphorically to say to yourself, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I don't know how yet, but it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

And you continue to build your business and pivot over time in this wonderful entrepreneurial life that we've gotten ourselves into.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Why are we doing this? Just kidding. Welcome back to Media Rebel Unplugged. I'm Janice. Today we're talking about what true resilience looks like and how you keep building when life knocks you down. Joining me is my guest, Lauren Queerdar Cockerel, founder and president of Queerdar Co., a boutique communications firm. Lauren, welcome to the show today. Thank you, Janice. I can't wait for our top couple. I know, same here. I would love for you to just start us off by giving us a little info on your background and how you started your PR firm.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yes. Well, the beginning is is fun and fiery. I've been in PR for over 20 years now. I started my own company eight years ago when I was laid off at eight months pregnant from my uh in-house corporate PR role. I'd always wanted to start my own business. The timing was not exactly what I would have chosen for myself, but today I uh have a team of seven and we are focused on business-to-business PR, working with purpose-driven leaders who are doing great work in their communities and taking care of their people.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

I love how you took something that could be so discouraging for people and decided that you were just gonna pull yourself up by your bootstraps, so to speak, and go ahead first and launch your own thing. But I can't imagine, like, what's the first thing that went through your mind as you're laid off at eight months pregnant?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Well, it was interesting because I'm just a natural empath. So a couple weeks prior to the layoff, I was conceiving shifting. We we were a local business, but we were remote. Eve was kind of feeling a little weird. I was like, something, something's up. And I went to my husband and I was like, I think, I think they're gonna let me go. Uh and you know, I don't know why or what's going on, but you know, how much runway do we have? I clearly can't go, I can't go interview right now. You know, he's like, it's fine, you're gonna be fine. Like we'd already been talking about what kind of business I would own one day. I thought, when I'm 40, I'll start my own company. And when I'm 40, I'll know everything. Spoiler alert, I'm 40 from almost 45, and I still don't know everything. Uh um, but no, I was in my 30s and I just thought, um, I've got months before I can even entertain a job, really. I've reached out to a coach. I was like, I need someone to build me back up because that the role wasn't the healthiest of environments. My confidence had really been dinged. And so one morning I commit to the coach, I sign the contract, I mail a$5,000 check. And as the mail truck is driving away, they call me up, then lay me off. So my first thought was like, Mail person, please come back. Um, my second thought was like, oh my God, what what am I gonna do? I call my husband sobbing and he's like, This sucks, but this is this is the best thing that has ever happened to you. It doesn't feel like it right now, but you are better than this. We've got this. I support you 100%. So I worked with a coach evaluating both paths as I'm like having this baby and recovering. And we were looking at, okay, what if I go in-house again, what does that look like? Or what what does a business look like? That's really important to me. What are my values as a meanwhile? I'd reached out to my first boss and mentor, just saying, if you want to collaborate on a project, uh, this was before I even got laid off. I'm available for freelance work if you want to team up. And she started funneling and leads my way. So all of a sudden I have these clients and I'm rocking and rolling. I'm like, okay, you know what? This is really fun. And I'm replacing my income immediately. I'm thanks, guys. I'm on my way.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Wow, that sounds like such a blessing. I think having mentors is so important, regardless if you're already successful or building your way there. I've had many conversations about you know, you can have a dedicated mentor, you can have somebody that in a single conversation has mentored you. It keeps you from having that the added stress, but also gives you the expertise exactly when you need it.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I I'm so blessed to have both formal and informal mentors. I have a coach. I have two therapists. Yes, I love it. I think um, I think as women, we're I I heard a long time ago that women are kinkeepers and you know, like it it we play that in like a familial role, but also I see that in in uh my business life as well. I'm part of um entrepreneurs organization, EO, and their accelerator program, and um all the other women in my group in our local chapter were really looking out for each other and creating these strong bonds. And and you know, we give each other advice or we lift each other up. But actually, part of my parents' marriage vows over 50 years ago were divide each other's sorrows and multiply each other's joys. And I think that's something that like I personally look for in all of my relationships and especially in business because it was so lonely doing this thing, and it can be so scary. And the I've had the rug pulled out from underneath me so many times, but it's like that resilience is uh it's a muscle. You realize that success isn't so much, well, I have this many dollars in the bank, or I drive this car, I have this watch, or I have these many homes. It's it's did you get up when you got knocked down? Did you keep getting up? Are you are you still standing at the end of the day?

SPEAKER_01 6:20

You make some really good points here. One, being an entrepreneur is an especially new one, is very lonely. So having that support system around you to lean on who can truly understand it, because not all of your friends and family are going to understand the entrepreneur life, uh, especially having a women's group around you as that support system, because we are the minority. So the fact that we're doing it is absolutely amazing. What would your advice be for somebody right now going through a challenging time?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Something that's been a mantra of mine for a few years now. I heard it at um the conference. When you're faced with a challenge, say to yourself, This is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I don't know how yet, but it is. And that has sustained me and helped me keep an abundance mindset when all I really want to do is just run for cover. I had a collaborative business partner. We weren't like formal business partners, but we we shared office space, we employees, clients. It was like everything. She came to me one day and said, I'm closing my business down in a week. I'm I've got a job. And it was a death of a relationship, was you know, somewhat traumatic from like a oh my gosh, I have all these things I need to like logistically figure out. And just so much, it was just so much upheaval and turmoil at the time. And I had just learned that mantra three months before that, and I just kept repeating it to myself over and over again. And you know what? It was right. That that partnership needed to end. It was time for me to do my own thing, and it was it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Getting laid off at eight months pregnant, it sucked, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Like over and over and over again. Um 24 was our biggest revenue yet. We experienced 70% revenue growth. I grew my team tremendously. It felt like being on a rocket ship, heading for the moon, but strapped to the outside with duct tape, like it was really an uncomfortable growth. And then 25, the beginning, felt like the descent, but I was still on the outside of the rocket. But that both rapid growth and some slight decline taught me that you know, the business I had built really what got us there wasn't gonna get us to the next level trajectory.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

That is a great phrase to live by because often when we're going through those really difficult seasons and we're in the mud, we can't see what's on the other side of the bad season. You know, the grass is going to grow through the mud uh eventually. And I know I can really, I'm sure others can that there have been so many difficult seasons where I want to just and I did scream and cry and do all the things that you should feel yourself through it. You should name that challenging time that you're going through. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Thank you for saying that because I know that have this handy mantra. I feel the temptation to just hurry up and get to it. Like, obviously, you don't want to be in pain, you want to just like jump on over to the other side, um, but sitting with it for a minute and really allowing yourself to feel how you feel and processing those emotions and allowing yourself to grieve.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, grieve's a tricky thing. I mean, sometimes you don't even realize that you're in it. Um, you'll think that you're over something, and then it just like peeks its ugly head again. I like to journal how I'm feeling, so then I can come address is there something that I'm looping, it's like a trauma loop in my head of I haven't really dealt with that yet. And then how can I move from that and grow from it?

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yeah, absolutely. I I definitely feel that way sometimes where I'm like, okay, I'm I'm stuck in this track now.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Right. And we came without even realizing it. And that's another reason why it helps to just write it out.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Yeah, I had something happen to me the other day where someone spoke to me in a way I really haven't been spoken to. It'd been a long time since someone had really treated me with that much disrespect. And it it shook me up. Like, you know, as you might imagine, since I was trying to go to bed, and it's like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be up, I'm gonna be having imaginary fights all night. And so, you know, I I journaled for a while, and I still just I was still looping big time. And I actually went to my I I have a chat GBT uh virtual board of directors. So like I was like, here's the situation, and it was really cathartic, and that helped me like finally set it down, and I could even like type out like the text message I would have loved to have sent, but wasn't obviously going to. So, like, you know, I had a place to put everything in addition to the physical journal, and that was that was uh that was a new experience for me, and and that that helped quite a bit too.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

It's so healing though when you can even if you're not gonna send it and by the way, I also use chat GPT for these certain things. Like there are some true benefits when we can't reach out to our therapist at times.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

I'm right. Well, it was funny because I'm used to chat, you know, other than my virtual board of directors, Chat GPT was like, oh my god, what an amazing idea. And I said, you know, I'm not gonna send this message, but I just need to get out of my head. And the whole board was like, do not send that message. Like, thanks for looking out. I'm not.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

I had nothing wrong with it at all. I love that you have that. Yeah. Um something you had mentioned prior about, you know, um, the years where you've seen like this this growth in your revenue. And I think that's a really good information for anybody who's looking to start this journey into entrepreneurship. You're going to struggle. You're not always gonna have that security, and it's okay that it can take sometimes to 45 years to build that book of business, give yourself that forgiveness to along that journey. Instead of, I think we can be very hypercritical of where we want to be. I'm such a failure right now. I'm not at XYZ.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Yeah, uh, comparison is the thief of joy.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yes, I say all the time too.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

I I realized a few years ago there's no true right way to do anything at all. Like how you want to run your business is how you want to run your business. Just make sure it's legal and ethical. After that, it's really up to you. And you know, there's certainly great operating systems like S or scaling up. You still just kind of create what you like and take it from there. But versus being, I am a rule follower and a recovering perfectionist. So it's just like, how can I do this the right way, quote unquote? Heavy on the quotes there. And there is no right way. Like, I get to decide how I want to, like what kind of culture I really want to have, you know, what kind of values we're gonna live by, the clients we're gonna work with, the business model that we feel like is gonna serve us best. So it's taken years and what it looks like today, I'm sure it won't look like this, you know, in three years' time. But all we can do is continue to follow, follow our heart and our mind and listen to the market uh without without chasing your tail too much. I think at some point you really, you know, it's like you gotta make the plan and then you gotta work the plan and then commit to that, you know, at least for a period of time to truly test it. I I think there's a temptation, especially for entrepreneurs, to be like, oh, squirrel, you know. And so it is helpful to have something like an AOS where, okay, these are our this is our focus for the year, here's what we're doing this quarter, and then there's only so much you can do without kind of breaking the contract with your team about what you're gonna be focused on. But that has been really transformative for for me in my business. Um, in, you know, like this is where we're going, this is the road we're following. We're gonna stick with this unless something just really powerful is pushing us in a new direction.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

That's good advice for anybody that's already running a business or starting off. We've already mentioned we use Chat GPT. What are some other tools that you feel like you would be totally lost without?

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Well, I mean, as far as just like software, we run on Slack and ClickUp. Um, uh, and then we also use Claude a bit. Our uh I would say we're a PR consultancy and storytelling studio. So what we do is a really unique blend of this advisory and strategy and really where are you going as a business and how are we gonna get there via communications, and then we're gonna tell your story in a way it's never been told before. So a lot of our expertise is in the questions we're asking in connecting with what your vision is. And then we do rely on things. I actually really like Claude for for messaging because it has more humanness to it, but it's still like, you know, we're taking the transcript of this really powerful consultation or strategy session, and then I'm asking it questions and we're working together and I'm telling it, you know, no, that's not right. Uh, but ultimately coming with up with something that is uh I don't know that it really is saving me all that much time, but it is like me times 10. So it's like, you know, I can I can make sure that I'm not missing something. I can make sure it's like, oh, okay, in this transcript, they mention this. Is this like is this a kind of a red herring or do I need to consider this? And just having a a thought partner as I'm I'm my team's thought partner or a client's thought partner.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

I like how you mentioned like with AI, I feel sometimes like is it costing me more time and energy? But as you pointed out, I mean it is you times 10. So I see it as a great tool. And there's so many AI tools these days that I feel like for entrepreneurs to get started, it can feel very overwhelming with well, which ones make the most sense for my business when you have so many that are either they have really great marketing budgets or they're just more commonly heard of and used, and and then they end up paying all that money just to find out that it doesn't necessarily work for them, you know, which is that's sad, but it's the real it's like where we live right now. Like when I was talking to uh my business partner about agentic AI, and I was like, How much is that gonna cost us? Because there's already so many AI tools that we're using.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

I mean, even just like, well, AI is now part of, I mean, it's part of my Google workspace, it's a part of our clickup. I mean, Slack is like, hey, let me get in here, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Listen to give me permit. I know. Uh, you know, we've we're on Riverside right now, you know, there's AI all up in this place. And so, yeah, it's definitely, you know, and we use, I guess I should say Fathom is the recording uh or the transcript service that we use for our Zoom calls that does really nice transcript and recaps and everything. And so we have we have loved that quite a bit. I know it's been coming and I've been you know I've been in it for a while, but I just felt this pressure to know everything and be on top of everything. And you just can't. Like that's not my expertise. My expertise is is being a great partner to my clients and helping, you know, and listening to them and guiding them. But I think I need to pay attention and not let it pass me by, but at the same time, I can't just, you know, be reading for 10 hours a day and trying to stay on the bleeding edge of it. Like I I need to know the tools and I need to know what's going to help make us successful. Beyond that, that's just not what we're in business for.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

It just goes to your resiliency too, is at the end of the day, it's the heart of everything that you do, it's in the decisions that you make, it's the people that you work with, and that's how you continue to build your business and pivot over time um in this wonderful entrepreneur life that we've gotten ourselves into. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Why are we doing this?

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Just kidding. I don't know, I know. I don't know. If anybody's listening, we're sorry, we're trying to encourage you.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Well, it's so funny because like years one through three uh out on my own and you know, going from solopreneur to a couple of contractors and so forth, you know, anyone who was like, I'm thinking about starting my business, a business, I'd be like, do it, do it. And I'm like, I don't know. Be buyer beware.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

You're so right. I hear this too, and people come to me and be like, you really want to start. I'm like, you know, man, my best advice is to start it while you're still at your dependent job. Be prepared to have no income coming in for the first year because every time you make a dollar, it ends up back into your business. You know, I'm just like you where I used to be like, yeah, yeah, you can do it. And I'm like, yeah, maybe think about it alone.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yes. Um, it is I I'm a parent. I have two young children, youngest children, they're um uh 11 and 8. It that is the hardest thing I've ever done. But but running a business is absolutely a close second. Uh, but at the same time, it has allowed me to become like a fully actualized version of myself. If I were working somewhere, I would have, you know, sliding doors moment. It would be a great life. I know I'd be a contributor and leader, but I wouldn't fully be the person I am today in the way that you know I've really come into my own and like bringing actually like a lot of maternal energy to my team and to my clients and to my community and becoming someone who's a safe space for the voices that need it, for helping my team become who they are going to be, whether that's with me or or not, helping these amazing companies that we get to work with, like helping them achieve what they're looking to accomplish in the world. Um, and all these challenges, you know, it's like you're forged in fire, but it's it's you know, what's what remains is to what I was put on earth to be.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah, being a mom definitely prepares you for for business ownership. Yeah. I'm a single mom. Yeah, so I've been there. I I know exactly what you're talking about. And a lot, and you know, and then I have male counterparts that I work with and business partners, and I often feel like the mom of the group, and I find myself having to scale it back a little bit sometimes because it's just naturally ingrained in you. But I mean it's it's a good thing at the same time. But um, again, I think it's to our resiliency as being women and mothers and leaders, and we use every difficult season to build us.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah, absolutely. I started to share that. Like I've I've I am like the I know if I you know everything's fine, I'm in charge person. I've just been that way my whole life, but like I have found myself in like, you know, uh group, like I'm in group settings, and you know, someone's always like, Well, are we meeting tomorrow? And I used to always be the one like, yes, here's where we're meeting, here's what time. Like, I will not respond now.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah. Well, yeah, I feel it. I same, I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna let them. I don't need to because I'm type A. I mean, I I just gonna sit back and let you guys screw this up.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Yeah. Uh it's you have a calendar invitation. I trust that you've been on this earth for many decades. You can open up your calendar and look at it.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yeah, yeah. I completely agree with that and can sympathize with your pain. Well, Lauren, it's been a pleasure having you on today and talking about your journey. You have some wonderful advice. Um, and I really appreciate your your insight and your input today. Thank you, Janice.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

It's been a joy.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

For those looking to learn more about you, where should they go?

SPEAKER_00 21:16

So online, we're everywhere at quidarco.com. So that's k wedo.com. We also have a podcast called the Impatient Entrepreneur. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. And then I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. If you want to come connect with me there, it's just Lauren Queedar.com.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

We will make sure we have all the links to your socials and to your website for our episode. And if you have liked what you have listened to today, we ask you to share it with a friend or subscribe, and we will see you next time.