69 - Building a Speaker Brand in 2020 w/ Alexa Carlin, Founder of Women EmpowerX

Today on the Instant Impact podcast, Elyse is sitting down with Alexa Carlin. Alexa is a nationally-renowned public speaker and Founder & CEO of Women Empower X. Inspired by her own entrepreneurial pursuits, Alexa founded WEX with the mission to help more women pursue their passions and get to the next level in their career and life. She’s here to discuss how she overcame incredible odds to achieve so much success in such a short period of time, how we can get into the public speaking space, and how to tackle self-doubt.

Alexa has always had the mission to make a difference in at least one person’s day, every day. At 17, she had already started two businesses and had her sights on the horizon when a bacteria got into her bloodstream. It started shutting her body down, and so she was put into a medically-induced coma and given a 1% chance to live. Her experience showed her the power of the mind and what is really possible. Even after she recovered and got her dream job, she was diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune disease, something she still deals with today. During the time she was recovering, she wrote a cookbook to help her heal through mindset and food. There are two ways to look at something, Alexa says. You can look at something that happened to you or something that happened for you. Alexa’s mindset was driven by curiosity. What would happen if she overcame this challenge? What’s next? That lead her to find the courage to turn an obstacle into an opportunity. Don’t wait for your life to change. You must change your own life. If you’re always trying to overcome something, you always feel short of where you want to be. But if you shift that mindset into an opportunistic perspective, you can live in joy. Alexa learned many things years later from her experience. One was to focus on the things you do have control over. There are so many things we can’t control that we concern ourselves with. You can’t control if someone else is going to fire you, you can’t control a pandemic. You can control how you show up. There is evidence that your mindset is correlated to your health. Through happiness and mindset, you are able to internalize and visualize growth and healing. Alexa is an expert at leading and guiding leaders who are looking to become speakers and how we can build a speaking career. Right now, the world is in a complicated state. Of course, public speaking is often an in-person event. However, speaking is never going away. In a virtual climate, speakers still can book gigs and conferences. Regardless of the climate, speaking is a skill that will help you in all aspects of your life. There are different types of speakers: platform speakers and keynote speakers. Platform speakers often speak with the intention of selling something. Les Brown is a good example of a platform speaker. A keynote speaker is one who was paid to arrive at a conference, a university, or any sort of gig without trying to sell. Both can inspire, entertain, and motivate! Use this time to grow those skills and business for when the economy and world (as we knew it) comes back. Alexa talks a bit about overcoming self-doubt. It’s important to realize that confidence is necessary for growth. If you look at any role model, two things that helped them achieve success is having confidence and having energy. Networking is closely intertwined with confidence as well. You have to learn what makes you feel confident and hack the system. It’s okay to have fear but don’t let it hinder action. Finally, Alexa touches on her “It Only Takes One” philosophy. There is a pattern where one person or one experience leads to the next thing. It really only takes one decision to completely change your life. Allow that to pique your curiosity and keep wondering what would happen if you did just one more thing.