How to Grow a Business When Your Health Changes (Living with Type 1.5 Diabetes) | Jemi Crookes

Another big piece of that is then the risk mitigation. Like I said, I don't know what tomorrow is going to look like. So with my team, how have I set them up for success that if I need to step out for a bit of time, that doesn't mean that everything comes crumbling down, that everything grinds to a halt. Some things will have to because they're the parts that I do. My clients need to understand that, and that's part of our relationship. But there's other things that can continue. And not just completely stop because you just never, you never know. Chronic illness or otherwise, life is going to life. And so you have to be, you have to be ready for that.

Welcome to Business with Chronic Illness, the globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness who want to start and grow a business online. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and I went from living a normal life to all of a sudden being in constant pain with no answers to being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and trying to make a livable income. I faced the challenge of adapting traditional business advice to fit my unique circumstances with chronic illness, feeling frustrated and more burned out than I already was while managing my chronic illness, to becoming an award-winning coach with a flexible, sustainable online coaching business. I found the surprisingly simple steps to starting and growing a profitable business without compromising my health or my peace. Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same. If you're ready to create a business that aligns with your lifestyle and wellbeing, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for women with chronic illness and how we make a living. This is Business with Chronic Illness. I am so excited to have someone who came into my world. And I'm always very happy when a woman of color, a Black woman, shows up in my inbox who wants to talk about business with chronic illness. This is to me a rarity because it's really challenging to get women who are of color to talk about chronic illness, chronic pain, running a business, because we are— it doesn't matter what's going on with our lives, we just get it done. And Jimmie is just an amazing person from what I've learned. But I want you to first tell us a little bit about you, like how you would describe yourself as a businesswoman, as a mom. Like, give us a little bit about you before we hop in.

Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here and tell this story. So myself, as a— yes, I'm a mom. I'm the mom of a 6-year-old little boy who's got a lot of energy and a big personality. And that's a lot of fun. That's like my full-time job. My part-time full-time job is running my business, the Thinkfluencer Lab. It's a consultancy that focuses on women's leadership positioning and women's leadership development. So whether they are executive leaders or run their own businesses, we help them to position themselves as thought leaders in the market. And we do a lot of that with AI, with research, with data, with all the latest tools. And I'm at the center of that. So I run that. I work one-on-one with the women, and then I also run the business. As you know, right, there's a lot of business to run in the background.

Absolutely.

I did my Human Design. I don't know if you're into Human Design, but I did my Human Design. I found that I'm what's called a manifesting generator, which explained a lot because I just don't stop until I stop. Like, I go, go, go, go, go, 100%. Until I stop. And then I stop, and then I need a, I need a good break and a good recharge. Like an iPhone, you run it till it's done, and then you got to recharge it back to 100. That's kind of, that's how I operate as a leader and, and in my business. Yeah.

So you're a go-getter, you're a thinker, you're an innovator, and then you're like, I need some time to replenish.

Yes.

I love that. I love that.

Full recharge.

It makes sense too because of what you do, especially it takes so much to look at someone, their expertise, I can imagine, and who they are. And it's a big puzzle. The way I think about what you do is like this huge puzzle, collecting and creating the picture and then creating the puzzle and making sure all the pieces connect, right? And so what made you kind of go into that lane for your business?

Yeah, I've done this work for 15 years now. And I like how you describe it as a, as a puzzle. I love puzzles. I love challenges and fitting things together. So it's a lot of inputs and information and telling a story about them that makes sense. I started doing this work in consumer packaged goods, so I worked with all the big food and beverage and beauty companies on their new product innovation and their strategies to target new audiences. So it was the same thing. It was a lot of research. What's happening in the market? What's happening with the consumer? What new flavors are trending? What new food textures are trending? How do we bring all that together? And then I made a leap and I went into leadership advisory, and I worked in this world of executive recruiting and leadership consulting, which I didn't know existed before I went into that world. I wasn't from a place where you knew that leaders were chosen and brokered by, you know, 5 or 6 of these large companies that exist, um, and advise around that.

How did you find out then? Like, how did that happen?

They recruited me. So I had a friend who I interned with way back when I was 19 in New York City, and she worked there. And she said, we have this amazing role. We're looking to start an insight function within the business, and they're really interested in having you come and run that and do research here and bring all that expertise here. So I did. I jumped in. And I started doing the same types of research I did on food and drinks and markets, but I started doing that on different types of leadership roles and leadership positions and the future of leadership and how leaders are preparing for this wild, volatile present and future that we're, we're in. And in that world, though, I experienced a lot of not seeing a lot of people who looked like me. Sitting around the table, not being chosen for those roles. A lot of the excuse, they don't exist. There aren't enough women who look like me and just women in general. And so when I decided to leave and start my own business, I said, I'm going to take all this work that I do here and I'm going to go do it and focus 100% on helping women make themselves be more visible, authentically themselves, and not feel like they have to change who they are because they've already done the work. We just have to talk about it. And get that out into the world. And especially with, with the AI and what's happened with AI, I did a lot of that there, but bringing that to women and putting it in their hands so that they can actually have the time to do that work without it adding to our very, very busy plates. As you know, are already runneth over. We don't need to add more and actually save time in doing that.

Yeah. Wow. I think That's so cool to find like a lane that you enjoy that you didn't know existed and is like your wheelhouse in a different way. I'm sure it felt like really empowering at the same time of realizing, oh, all of these skill sets that I've learned or that I've been doing could be used in this way.

Yeah, super empowering.

What kind of things, lessons do you feel like you learned when you were working with those companies before that you bring into your business now and maybe even your personal life that's like really helpful in the way that you structure things? Mm-hmm.

I'd say the biggest lesson that I took away from working in the leadership advisory world— now, for perspective's sake, less than 2%, maybe even less than 1% of leadership advisors of that title are Black women. There's very, very few of us, very few of us. And it directly correlates to the percentage of Black women that are in those leadership CEO positions of the biggest companies in the world. But what I learned with working, meeting these leaders, you know, I was hosting dinners with them, I was interviewing them for research, I was bringing them in for search committees. And they were on the other side because they were being interviewed for roles that they were nervous about getting. And so you see this other side of some of these really powerful people in the world, and you realize that they are actually also just human beings, even though we've spent our whole lives putting them on a pedestal, that they are the greatest, they're the smartest. At the end of the day, they're just humans. There's a lot they don't know. There's a lot they're not prepared for. And what they do is they surround themselves with the smartest people possible that fill in all of their gaps. And so when I went to start this business, you know, I started as a solopreneur. I have a small team now, but I never started it with the intention of just doing everything myself because I learned from those leaders that's not possible.

It's—

you can't do everything. Your team, your business is only as strong as your weakest point. So you have to strengthen yourself with people around you who are actually better at what they do than you could be. And I think that's the biggest takeaway.

That's a powerful takeaway. I think especially when you're starting a business, I don't think, to your point, there was an intention of, I'm going to start this business and then as I grow, or as I am growing this business, I know I'm going to need support. And it It sounds like it wasn't based on like your dollar amount, but more like your growth amount. Like, how am I able to grow without putting these things in place? And I think a lot of entrepreneurs start off and they will grind it out, like till they are like bleeding, you know, nails before they have someone on their team. I have come from it from a different angle, which is I live with chronic illness. And so there is no way I can do this by myself. There's no, I don't, I don't have that, those spoons. I don't have that energy to try to fill all those buckets. Even in my great strengths area, I need support. So I think I'm curious for you because the show is Business with Chronic Illness. How has your health and wellbeing been affected by starting a business? What does that look like? Is that part of the reason why you started your business?

Yeah, absolutely. So it is, it was a big part of the reason I started my business. I think being a corporate executive is a real position of, of power, but to be honest, your time is not your own, right? You work in a huge organization, a lot of people need a lot from you all the time, and so I got really sick At the end of 2023, I started to experience chronic fatigue. I gained about 30 pounds in the span of 6 months, just completely unexplained. And then it got to a point where my feet and hands started to go numb. My, my, my toes started to go numb. My fingers would tingle when I would be at the keyboard too much. And, and really at the end point would push me over the edge was I was taking 3 naps a day by the end of 2023. I, I just had to keep resting, and I thought I was burnt out. And I was like, but you know what, like I said about my energy, I'm go, go, go, go, go. I've always been like that. So it was really confronting that all of a sudden I just, I didn't have this energy. I couldn't force myself to continue. I had to stop. And I went to the doctors and they did some tests and they diagnosed me with type 2 diabetes. They said, "Your A1C is really high. You're diabetic. So here's the course that we're going to take." And I said, "Okay, runs in my family." You know, I'm young, fit, and healthy. So the type 2 diagnosis didn't fully make sense with my lifestyle, but I said, "Okay, maybe it's genetic." But I continued to research. They put me on medications and the medications weren't working. And it was at that point I just decided I had to prepare my finances and my family. And there were decisions that had to be made that if this is going to continue like this, because these medications aren't working, I'm still experiencing this fatigue, right? I have a lot of brain fog when I eat the wrong things and those don't metabolize right. That was all affected. I couldn't eat lunch until 2 or 3 in the afternoon because it affected my thinking. But not eating lunch affected my blood sugar. Yeah. And so I couldn't win., and I couldn't operate in that space in the same way anymore. So in April of 2024, I actually left corporate and decided to take some time off before starting this business. But I left corporate and pursued understanding what was really going on with my health. I did tons and tons of research and found information about this type 1.5 diabetes.

Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You have to say that again because I don't think anybody heard that in the back. What was it again?

Type 1.5. It's also called— I've never heard of it. It's, yeah, well, and most doctors haven't either, so you're in good company. The official name of it is LADA, L-A-D-A, latent autoimmune diabetes in adults. And what it is, it looks like type 2, but it's actually type 1 and it comes from your pancreas. And it's the same as juvenile diabetes where the pancreas has antibodies those antibodies attack the cells and it stops producing insulin. So that's what's happening. But it shows up like Type 2. And of course, you go to doctors and they assume, okay, you're, you're a Black woman with a family history. So this is what it is. But the medications they had me on weren't working. Like, I wasn't, I wasn't getting better in leaps and bounds. I wasn't feeling like my normal self. So I sought out an endocrinologist. I found a woman of color who I really wanted to see. And the second she looked at those tests, she said, no, it's not type 2, it's this type 1.5, and we have to treat it completely differently. So it's a very— it's a very different type of treatment that's just managed as it develops. And within a couple of months, like, I was back to myself and I was good and I was managed. I was in a managed state, but it really did require that I walked away from that corporate world and looked at doing something completely differently, where my time could work around what I needed it to. And, you know, another big part of that was I have my son. My son is— he's, he's my world. And I decided, you know, in that corporate world, I just didn't have all the time with him that I wanted to spend. So I, I said, I have to find a way to build something with these skills that I have that honor my energy, my health, but also give me the time with him that I want and the flexibility to do that. And can still, you know, get me paid and comfortable. Like, I want it all. And I'm gonna figure out how to have it all. That's the goal.

I mean, there's so much like twists and turns in that story, that experience of like advocacy and just It sounds like you really trusted yourself that this isn't it. And you also went to do the digging, the research. I wonder if you've thought about it this way, like with your research for looking for brands and things like that and like how they work, did that help you in this journey of being like, this is not it, right?

Absolutely. Because I'm— I mean, I have that privilege of— I'm a— I have a master's degree in econometrics and statistics. So I know how to read a medical journal, and that's like, like 0% of people actually know, know how to do that or would be able to do that. There's not a lot of published information about this as a condition, but I dove right into these medical journals and I read all about different types of, of symptoms of diabetes. I knew where to search for them and I knew how to read them. I knew what the results of those meant. So by the time I, I went to that doctor and I said, I need this test for type 1, and she said, nah, that's not it. Nah, it's just type 2, but we'll do the test because you have insurance, right? Another privilege. You have insurance and we'll do the test and they'll pay for it. So why not? So they did this test. She was a good doctor, but she was not qualified in endocrinology, so she misread the results. So I actually had those test results telling me this is what I had sitting there for 6 months. Before a doctor actually read them properly, as well. And I could look at them, and I could look at the medical journal and say, this is what this says, this is what this means, and have a medical professional telling me, oh no, like, that's not how I interpret it until I took it to somebody else who looked at it and saw it the way that, that I did, as well.

So, I mean, it, it is something to be said with that around the idea of trusting your gut and trusting what you know. Don't second guess that what you've been— what you see with your own eyes is not true. I think it has a lot of levels of gaslighting that we experience in the medical community in general. And also, if you don't have the medical degree, somehow you are not able to figure something out that they aren't. It also sounds like We started this off talking about how you really help people with leadership and you help people find their zhush, the thing that makes them stand out amongst the crowd. And it sounds like in this journey of living with misdiagnosis for a little bit there, you still were determined to kind of lean in, be like, no, I need to find my person. So how did you find your doctor that, and why did you decide this doctor was the doctor for you? I'm always curious. What makes that for someone who is like, I got a diagnosis, that's not the one, I know this is not accurate, and now I'm getting a second opinion.

Yeah, I mean, the GP that I was going to, I had been with her for a couple years. I did really like her as a general doctor, but I think to what I was saying earlier, this comes from my leadership training and my working with, you know, Fortune 500, Fortune 10 CEOs. Just because you are the greatest CEO of the greatest healthcare company in the world does not mean that you know every illness and diagnosis that exists in medical history, right? And so even if the GP says, no, I don't think this is what it is, she wasn't 100% certain, which told me I need to go find somebody who is 100% certain because I need to be 100% certain because what you're giving me isn't working, it's not improving. So we need to try something different. I'm also just very tenacious and I'm like, I'm going to— I don't take no for an answer. And so we just, we kept pushing. But I— so I went online, I went on my insurance provider's site and I looked through all of the endocrinologists in the DMV area where I was living until I found a couple of practices that were run by women of color. And I contacted them. I needed a space where I felt like I was going to be heard and listened to. And so, you know, read their reviews on patient care and that was really important to me and ended up making an appointment for a consultation, which even that process was a nightmare because to get a new patient appointment at a specialist, 6 months, girl. So like I had to sit and wait for that appointment to become available for her to look at a test result for 3 minutes and tell me like I was absolutely right. And let's get you on the right course. And the amount of time that lapses and you lose in that time is really heartbreaking. But yeah, I just, I had to get online and take the resources I had in my hands to find who I was going to feel heard and comfortable with. Because at the end of the day, it's only my health, right? It's, it's inside my body. It's my health. I need to do what's going to be right for me, not what other people just tell me is, is what's right.

Yeah. And that piece that you just shared is absolutely true in business, right? Like in your leadership and what you decide to do for your business, that piece of it doesn't matter what all the experts say should be your thing. It may not be, you know, it may not be, that may not be the thing. You know what your thing is. So I'm curious, taking that experience. And I think, you know, we talked about in the green room or before we started recording that you're in a, you call it the honeymoon phase. I call it remission because in my head it's somewhat like a remission.

It's like pre-remission, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, so you're in that, yeah, that phase with the type 1.5 diabetes. It's such, it's so weird saying that. My dad has type 1. And so I, when I told him, he's like, I've never heard of this, but he had it when he was younger. So he's like, course, you know, it's a very different experience. But how are you navigating this time of your life in the honeymoon phase while you build and grow?

Yeah, so just a lot of vigilance. I think I don't take any day for granted because I know, like, tomorrow everything could be different. And that's just how type 1 works. Your pancreas is just going to get to a point where it's just going to be done. And that just comes upon you in a day. It's progressing, but you can't get blood tests every single day. So I can't be here like obsessing over it every single day. But I don't take a single day for granted, or I try not to. I have good days and I have bad days in this, you know, honeymoon phase. I have days where I am exhausted and I've learned to really reset and honor those days and just sit and be okay with just sitting. I find it very hard to actually turn my brain off, but I can turn the rest of my body off and just let it sit in one, one place and refilling, refilling my cup in the ways that, that really fulfill me. So spending time with friends, spending time with my husband, doing activities with my son, things like that are very important. You know, as you would know, with a, with a father with type 1, like there's a lot of apparatuses and machinery that goes with full-blown type 1, with the needing insulin pumps and constant tracking. And I'm in a phase right now where I'm not at that point. And so I'm just enjoying that. I'm like, going out, eating what I want, not having to think about metrics. We live here in Australia, so going to the beach, going to the pool, and being free to do that easily, like just enjoying those, making those memories right now while it's easy, knowing that there's— it's going to look different at some point.

Well, I am glad that you're enjoying the time and also keeping rest as a part of that. It sounds like it's not something you're like, I get to earn this. It's like you're embracing it right now. It's part of the process, is part of the self-advocacy that you're doing for yourself. For someone who's listening right now, who is potentially living with a diagnosis of some kind, it could be anything. And they are navigating the journey of rest and flexibility and growing a business that supports their family. What's some things that you have found that you hold to as values? That are boundaries in a way for the way you make decisions in your business for growth?

Yeah, really, really good question. So as much as I can— I mean, everyone's family situation is different, everyone's financial situation is different. But like I was saying earlier, I take on things that are just where I am right now, right? Like, I'm impatient and I'm in a hurry. I want to do everything yesterday. I want my— you know, business to be 7 figures last week. But there is a lot in growing sustainably and making sure that the phase I'm at right now is sustainable and really thinking about enjoying intentionally what I'm doing. So, you know, and I've done some pivots in my business. At one point I thought, well, I'm gonna do a membership because I really want to bring a lot of community into what I'm doing. I want to teach as many women as possible, you know, what I'm doing. And I just found that, that, that didn't honor my energy right now. It didn't honor the boundaries that I had set, because to manage 100 people in a membership was just— it was asking for so much all the time. So I pivoted away from that into more one-on-one, high-touch consulting where I'm working with 1 or 2 clients the same, much more depthful, but much more on my own time. I can do that research on my own time and connect with them once a week instead of having to be constantly on. So looking at different business models that really support and align with your boundaries, there's no one way to do anything to achieve the same goal, to have the same impact. You got to get creative with how you're going to serve the market and be willing to let some things go that are not going to align with the boundaries that you set or the very hardline health needs that you might have. And get good advice. Like, that was a big thing, was find great business coaches who would open their doors, people who were trustworthy, like kind of not the online business guru space that just feels like they're not telling you the truth about how any of this actually works. Get real advice from real people who have been there and can help you be creative around how you plan and navigate this. Another big piece of that is then the risk mitigation. Like I said, I don't know what tomorrow is going to look like. So with my team, how have I set them up for success that if I need to step out for a bit of time, that doesn't mean that everything comes crumbling down, that everything grinds to a halt. Some things will have to because they're the parts that I do. My clients need to understand that, and that's part of our relationship. But there's other things that can continue and not just completely stop, because you just never— you never know. Chronic illness or otherwise, life is gonna life.

Yeah.

And so you have to be ready for that.

Yeah, I say that all the time. I say life is gonna life, and I agree with you. I think I love what you're saying, like Could you go faster? Could you get it done? Could the manifestor of you just be like, we're going to get it done? Is it absolutely within you? Probably to do it. However, what I hear you saying is I'm building in a way that supports me for when things happen. And that just means I have to move a little slower and that's okay with you, right? Yeah. And it creates a safety net. I think having that type of approach to your business, to me, should be every— I don't like using the word should, but I feel like every business should start off with this reality of like, anything can happen. So you building as if nothing is ever going to happen to you or anything around you or anything around your family is just ludicrous in my brain. Like, it doesn't make any sense. However, it is the narrative we hear in even in the big corporate spaces that we hear, there's an expectation. There is a conditioning around We are not human in some kind of way. We are not operating like everyday humans who have everyday random things that happen, and we're expected to build and work in a way that we don't have those realities. And so, you talk a lot about leadership is a safety net for women. Can you share a little bit more about what that concept looks like for you when you're supporting clients?

Absolutely. So, I, I firmly believe, like, after you've been working, you've been working for 10 years, 15 years, you have enough experience to, whether or not you decide to do it, actually build your own business around that experience. And that can look like a number of different things. But there's a brilliant woman, Thasunda Duckett, and she is, I think, currently the only Black woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company. And she herself always says, your job title is rented. You don't own it, it's rented. And she's a Fortune 500 CEO, very vocally telling people, your title is rented, but your leadership is forever. And so building a brand that's publicly known around your leadership, the way you solve problems, the way people feel and experience you, how you bring people together, community together, partners together, even different departments together. Like, the way that you do that is all a part of your leadership brand. And whether you define it or not, you have a reputation, right? So take agency into your own hands to define what you really want to be known for around the way you lead, and you can use that as life career insurance in a way, right? The internet's changing, the world is changing. It's not as much about who knows you anymore, it's a lot about who can find you. And that's where all this personal branding and leadership branding comes from. You have to take yourself out from inside of that company and that title and really put yourself out there online and in person, in communities that you operate with, colleagues that you have. Acquaintances that you meet and be able to introduce yourself around those solutions so that they know you. Somebody might come to them and ask them, oh, I'm filling this position in my company, or I have this challenge in my business and I need this support. Well, that's your referral right there, because you've introduced yourself around your unique skills and you made that person feel a certain type of way that they would then pass you on and refer you to somebody else. So it's really important to establish and be known for who you are as a leader and not just a job title or even just a business brand name. Like you yourself need to have that transferability to keep yourself safe.

You know, that's an interesting, that is such a powerful and interesting thought. I'm listening to you talk about this. It's funny. Cause I had a massage earlier today and the woman came to me and she's like, she's like, I remember you said you had a podcast. And I kept telling my husband it was something chronic illness. And I was like, Yes, but you could have also searched my name. And so, I was telling her, I was like, yeah, you could have just searched my name and it would have popped up because there's not really anything, you know? And it's, it's to your point, you, it's not really about like who knows you, but who can find you. It's kind of like information at this point. It's not about what do you know? Because I mean, thanks to AI, we can all pretty much figure out a lot of different things, right? I think what I hear you saying, that leadership is more rooted in your values. Your story, who you are, how you show up in the world. Even though you have this information and this experience, your brand of leadership is more wrapped around who you in essence are. And how does someone in a business who has made their business really wrapped around— maybe I would say, say to clients, around a tool, around an audience, and then step out and build something around them who they are in an essence.

Yeah, well, I think now you hit the nail on the head, right? More than ever, because of AI, everyone can know everything. If they have a question, they can just get the full expert answer to it within 2.2 seconds, right? So yes, it's actually less about the information that you share. It's more about trust. And do you trust the source of the information that you're getting, right? That's paramount. And the only way to generate trust is in the way people experience you and feel about you. And so two people now can do exactly the same thing, but you can vibe and be attracted and kind of magnetized towards one person more than another because there's something about them that makes you trust them, makes you connect to them makes you gravitate towards them. And that all comes from how you present yourself as a leader and what your leadership means, how you present those values, how you live those values and show up living those, you know. So it's not always about the perfect LinkedIn post, and— but it's about how you make people feel when you meet them in person and how that sticks with them so that they do refer you on to the next person because you left a lasting impression. On their heart, not a whole bunch of information jammed into their mind.

Yeah. You know, while you were sharing that, I was thinking of a question because I didn't want to interrupt you because I think everything that you shared is so key and important about— it is about a vibe. You know, I joke around. I'm like, it's about a vibe. I'm like very— it's like music. You know, some vibrations hit you different. And some vibrations aren't for you. And that is OK. Nobody's over here upset with you because you'll— your vibrations are different. It's just, they're different. But in the context, because I think what I'm hearing from you and your, your experience, that's a huge change. That's a pivot from where businesses and even Fortune 500 companies have been focused on, which was more about, we have to build trust around what we know, not necessarily always about how we make them feel. Because let's be real. Most times it wasn't about how we, we really actually felt, but I think that is transitioning more so with AI. If you've been in a business, because there are folks who listen to this show who've been in business for a while, and you have not found that shift yet, that information is no longer the gatekeeper, the secretary at the, you know, holding up whatever. It's you. What is one piece of advice you would give to them to help them switch that flip and be like, there's no more gatekeeping, there's just you. How do we tap into that?

Yeah, there's lots of different ways to do that. And I, my, my history of this comes from where I started, right, with CPG brands. And like, I was working on like launches for Coca-Cola. I've worked with Shea Moisture. And a lot of those products, like, you don't need them. They have to make you want them. And so they make you want them by invoking feeling, right? That was the work that we did. And so that's what I now bring into people and leaders— invoking feeling. And I talked to a lot of women who are like, oh, I don't want to— I don't want to just get on video. I'm really uncomfortable just getting on video. And I said, that's, that's fine. You don't have to get on video if your ministry is writing. You can write, you can have a great reputation off of written content, LinkedIn, blogs, Substack, get yourself into articles, Substack, Threads. Like there's lots of written mediums. You can do audio only if that's your jam. People have prolific careers like yourself on audio only or audio primary platforms. And that's, that's all right. If you love video, get on video. But then it's also not just talking about yourself, right? It's talking about— you could tell stories about your customers and the transformation that they've had, and that's associated with, with you at the middle of that. Sit down, have a conversation with them and why they loved working with you, why they loved working with your business or your product. That in itself is a story that's more humanizing than selling just the product itself, right? Talk about the experience that people are having with the product and what's bringing them to it, or what's unique about their experience engaging with it, or engaging with your team, or engaging with your business. So it also doesn't always have to be just about you, although you should also be present as much as you're comfortable with, or comfortable working towards. There's lots of different ways to tell stories, even in the, the business and why you started it, right? What was that backstory? What, what did it look like 6 months before that business launch that got you to there? That is so interesting and differentiating for so many people. No two people's journeys are the same, and so being completely unique in who we are, how we show up, and what got us to where we are is just enough to establish a really strong brand for yourself?

So, when we hear the word brand, I don't know, since I've, I feel like since I've been online for a long time, that word has changed meaning. We have business brands, we have personal brands. Is it that we're building a brand or is it that we're building leadership? Because I think, I feel like in, in what I'm hearing you say and what you're sharing is like, we want to create a community or a group of people who trust you. And often when you trust someone, you're in some way leading them, in some way informing them of something, and they trust you about that information, whether it's how you feel, what you're thinking, what you're selling, what you like. And I don't— I think we get a little bit in the weeds when we start talking about influencers and content creators and things like that. There's so many different aspects of building a brand. What's the difference between building a brand and being a leader?

Yeah, great, great question. I think building a brand is the wrapper around everything that brings it all together, right? It's the full package. It's how people feel when they experience you and your business, the topics that you talk about. That's all consistent. But being a leader is the way people experience you within the bigger brand. So what I call leadership branding— I like to use the term leadership branding when I'm talking about the individual at the front. And I think the distinction with that is that it's about your solutions and your experiences and the lessons that you have learned and can teach and pass forward. It's what we used to call thought leadership. Which that got like a nasty corporatized word. And then everyone was like, I don't want to do that. That sounds boring. But it's essentially the same thing because now because of AI, everyone has all the information in the world. So the only thing that really makes us interesting and stand out is like the conversations that we have one-on-one where no one else was there, where you came up with something different or two perspectives together came up with a new way to think about something. Or those two experiences together kind of had an aha moment. And that is a potential solve for a problem that a lot of people are experiencing. That's now thought leadership. And it's so specific to who you are and where you've been and how you think and how you operate and the energy you give off and the way people experience you. So I think the brand being, you know, the entire ethos of the visual image, the mediums you use to show up, the channels that you're, you're on, how you package that, how you put that out into the world. But the leadership itself really just goes back to, to you uniquely, who you are, where you've been, how you vibe.

Yeah, right.

Like, yeah, that's your leadership. And like I said, it's, it's important that you sit down and really think about how you want people to experience you as a leader. Don't let other people In the same way, don't let them put a diagnosis on you that you know is wrong. Don't let them tell you and define what your leadership is or means, because only you should be able to do that.

Cosign. Yes.

Uh-huh.

Let's say that again. Like, it is, it's such a powerful thing. I think we are out of the, I think at some point in the online journey as a business owner, or even not even online, there was a lot of replication of the same thing over and over again. Right. And now, even though that's still the case, the thing that is so important is you, like the thing that is going to be the loudest in the room is acknowledging that you are the special sauce, like your stories. And it's, I think for a lot of us, it might be challenging to kind of strip away all those voices and all those other people, things that's been, you know, very helpful, you know, very helpful in getting to where you are. But my therapist says, what got you here or helped you here and helped you grow here may no longer serve you in that way anymore. And you have to find a different way, or you have to strip away what doesn't serve you anymore and move into another place. And I think this is the same thing with our businesses in this day and age. AI has been a huge piece of making our lives easier. We're thankful for that. Especially if you live with chronic illness. I'm like every day I'm saying thank you, AI, especially when it comes for my podcast. Like, thank you.

Yes.

Absolutely. So do you feel like that? Like when I noticed you nodding, when I said like, it's hard to kind of separate from everything that you've been maybe morphed into all of the advice and finding the essence of like your voice. Is there like something you've shared with someone that's helped them to like start digging or unpeeling that onion to be more about, okay, this is actually my voice and not someone else's?

Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, I'm a, I'm a leadership positioning strategist, so I think it's, it is critical that you find somebody to voice your stories to so they can reflect back to you what they're hearing.

I—

it's impossible for us to do that for ourselves. Like I always say, you can't see the label from the inside of the jar. You just cannot. If you are the sauce in the jar, like you said, you're the special sauce, but you cannot read the label from the outside— from the inside that's on the outside, right? So you need to find somebody qualified to sit down with and help you put together where you've been and where you want to go. And reflect that into a really authentic story that's about you. I don't do my own positioning strategy because I can't. Like, I'm too in the weeds. I second-guess things. I have voices in my head that are other people's voices, which is that trauma from the past, or it's that fear and self-protection that comes in. And it's really important to find somebody you trust who can help you really peel those layers back and get to the point where you can really see clearly, like, what are all of the different facets of you and how do they come together in the middle? How do they weave together nicely? Because we're also very dynamic. Like, I work with lots of women who are very multi-passionate, right? Have all the different passions. And I think that's great, the more the merrier, because there's a common thread at the middle of all of those that you just need to find, which is really your essence. And it's like, what what is the system that you're really seeking to change or impact or influence that's at the center of all of these different passions that you have? And once you find that, it just— it all makes sense. It's all connected because it all comes from you.

Yes, I love that you shared that. I think so many of us need to give ourselves a break around, why am I so good at doing this for other people, but I can't do this for myself? Because you maybe were never meant to do it for yourself. No, no. Like, maybe you were never meant to do it for yourself. It is a challenge. Like, it's a real thing. I think I can really relate to your story, like your point, because, you know, for a long time, a lot of folks used to say to me, Nikita, your podcast, your podcast. And that was just the chick in the background singer for me. I was just like, oh yeah, she's okay. It's cool. And then until recently, has it been like, oh wait, no, this is actually bigger than I thought it was.

Like, that's the thing.

That's the thing. Right. And I think, to your point, you do need someone to hold your hand. And it's a mirror in a way. And also not just a mirror, it sounds like you're kind of like dissecting all of these stories to find the— okay, here's actually where you are. And usually when you see it from somebody else's point of view, you're like shocked. You're like, oh, whoa, yeah, yeah, that's right, that is me.

That is, that is interesting. Yeah, I have a GPT that I've built that I'll share with you to share with with your listeners too. It's a mini version of getting started with that that I've built. It'll ask you a few different questions, you just putting in stories and what you feel and what you think, and it will help find that, that common thread at the middle for you to then be able to reflect back and introduce yourself with power for what that is. It doesn't replace the big work, but it's, it's a really nice way to get started and, you know, have a little pep in your step of the day because a lot of people go through it and they go, oh yeah, that is That is me. Like, I like, I like that me. I like what I do. And it starts with that confidence.

And that's the thing. You just want to know. You just want to know what's the thing so you can move, start moving differently. I think it allows you to move differently, see yourself differently, make different decisions, just like with getting an actual correct diagnosis that matches what you've been feeling and thinking and been like, oh, see, I was right all along, or I had that experience. And now I can do something about it and move on with your life and manage that piece. So thank you for sharing that. I would love to have that. We'll put that in the show notes for sure. I've been asking everybody this question towards the end of our show, which is, as a business owner and as a business owner living with chronic illness, what is something that you thought was true when you first started your business that you no longer believe is true?

When I first started my business, I mean, to be honest, I— because I came out of corporate, right? I don't have entrepreneurship in my background, in my, in my fam. We are, we are corporate as corporate as corporate gets. So I did really get swept up by the, the online guru space of this is how you do everything, like you just— it's just 8 steps, like, and it's fine. You just, you just follow these steps and you just launch and like the doors open and people fly in. And so I could tell I had a, I had a few good flops last year where I was like, I don't think, I don't think this is, this is, this is the way. So going, that's not how that works. So yeah, I think coming out of corporate, recognizing that entrepreneurship is hard, it looks glamorous. I think there's a lot that goes into making the social media look really shiny and making it look really glamorous, but that it is hard and you have to get really comfortable with being wrong. And I don't like to use the word failure, but some, you know, sometimes it— something doesn't go right, it does hurt. You got to be able to pick yourself back up and learn from it and really say, okay, I'm going to do things a little bit different, I'm going to get different advice, I'm going to ask ask for some help in a, in a different way and be able to move forward with that. And it's, you know, the same way that we approach our health. When things feel off, things are not always going to go our way. Every day is going to be a little bit different. You have to be able to pick yourself back up and do, you know, do what you need to do that day to move forward for the next day to keep it going.

So powerful. What I think I heard you say is that coming from a corporate background and that's all you know to an entrepreneur space isn't as the staircase as it is in corporate. There's rules, there's things you do, you get the thing, you go to work, you get the job, you get the— maybe not the promotion, but you do. There's like these steps. Entrepreneurship is not a step kind of thing. Like there are things you need to like set up, but it's not always 1 1 2.

No, it's not. It's, it's just, it's not. And, you know, with corporate, I like to say it's, it is, at the end of the day, it's a game. You got to learn how to play the game. And a lot of us don't come from a legacy where we were taught what the rules of that game were, so it takes us a long time to learn them. And that can feel like you're making a lot of missteps. And that's a whole other, a whole other discussion, episode in and of it, in and of itself. But Yeah, you know, with entrepreneurship, I think there's, there's a lot of people saying like, yeah, like, here's, just use this template and it'll be great. And it's not because there's so many different pieces to the puzzle in setting up a business and establishing a brand and a customer base and a product and how you transact in your business and how you market your business and how you actually deliver what it is that you deliver. There's so many different pieces and those are all going to look different for every single person. So, I think just getting good advice that's tailored to you is so, so, so, so important right from the beginning. A lot of us really get that wrong. We get swept up in the Instagram of it all and we get that wrong.

Yeah. We learn quickly, I think, by doing it that way, that it isn't a one-size-fits-all. However, I think I speak for my own personal experience, like with chronic illness, I learned because of my chronic illness that there is literally no one-size-fits-all, even with the same diagnosis, same symptoms from other people. What they experienced was not what I was experiencing and vice versa. There's a, there's some select things that we're experiencing the same, but in general, we're not all experiencing exactly the same scenario situation because we are all so uniquely different, even though we are so connected. And I think that's That's also something to bring into the conversation of business. Like, business isn't completely unfigureoutable, but it is very unique and very different. And the who you're talking to, and it really does to me, I think the thing that makes it easier to feel like you can do this is know that you have the tools and the skills, especially if you're living with chronic illness, especially if you've been in corporate, you've navigated much harder things, and this will just be another hard thing that you figure out.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just another thing to navigate and figure out. And you have that perspective on, you know, something doesn't work, try something, try something different. In the 1.5 diabetes world, no two cases are the same. And it's, I mean, it's so rare. I'm teaching my doctors what this is. My doctors have no idea what this is. So when I, You know, I have my specialists and my specialist, my GPs, I'm often teaching them, like my GYN, no idea, teaching them what it is, because that affects any future, you know, children I want to have or what that might look like. And they don't, they don't know. For some people, it shows up overnight, and it's full blown. For me, I'm going on into my, my second year of being in this phase of transition. And some people stay in that for the next 10 years. For me, it could change next week, like, I don't know. And I just have to be realistic with that. But running a business is the same, especially with the, the pace of technology, everything happening in the world, the markets up and down, you know, it changes every day. So, you know, we're all just in this together, figuring it out, figuring it out, figuring it out, and doing it together.

I was gonna say, doing it together makes It's so much easier and also more fun and more exciting and just a lot less stressful because now, you know, okay, this thought and these feelings that I have are not just yours. You're, you're not alone. So thank you so much. Like, how can people connect with you? What are the ways people work with you? Please share with us. We'll have everything in the show notes, but just let's give them a little bit here.

Of course. I love to connect with people directly, so you can find me on Instagram. Jemi Crooks_official. I'm on there a bit. I'm on LinkedIn a lot, so backslash J Crooks, or just look, look up Jemi Crooks with a little thunderbolt next to my name. You'll find me, so that helps it stand out. Or you can visit my website, thetflab.com. Subscribe to my email newsletter. I'm always sending different tips on AI and, and leadership and how to bring the two together and the latest and greatest of what's saving me time and what I'm using in my business and what tools are working, what prompts are flopping. A lot of fun stuff.

Oh, I love that. And that as well.

So yeah, I'm online. Come and find me. Look forward to talking to people and I'm very open to talking about the 1.5. So if anybody is navigating a situation where you're wondering, is this right or not? Obviously I can't give you medical advice, but I can tell you about my my experience and what I've experienced and what I had to ask for to get the correct diagnosis to the right treatments.

Yeah, that's important. So I'll definitely make sure that again in our show notes that we talk about that, because when we talked initially, 1.5, I was like, I've never heard of this before. It's kind of like when they told me I had endometriosis back in 2009, and I asked everybody and they're like, I don't know what that is. I've never heard that. The doctors were like, uh, I don't know. So like this is another diagnosis that we, we get to talk about and we have someone you could reach out to if you're thinking maybe this is you. So thank you so much for sharing your story and everything. Thank you for being on the show. I know we're in completely different time zones, so this was a special time for both of us. So I appreciate your time and I appreciate you sharing your, your wisdom with us today.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate, I appreciate this platform. So important.

Yeah. I just love having women like you on the show. It really is helpful. It's something I wanted, and now it's here.

I can help one woman find an actual treatment for what she's going through, then it's all, all worth it.

Love it. All right. Okay. Thank you again. That's a wrap for this episode of Business with Chronic Illness. If you would like to start and grow an online coaching business with me, head to the show notes to click a link to book a sales call and learn how to make money with chronic illness. You can also check out our website at www.craftedtothrive.com for this episode's show notes and join our email list to get exclusive content where I coach you on how to chronically grow a profitable business while living with chronic illness. Until next time, remember, yes, You are crafted to thrive.