We’re back with our latest Member To Meet introduction. Throughout the year we are taking you behind the scenes of our featured members, sharing their story, how they overcome fear and persevere. Our next feature is with Marlais Brand, The Director Of Partnership with Voyager Outward Bound School.
Marlais has shared a candid update regarding the recent COVID19 events that have drastically changed her business, please read below.
Marlais Brand, photo by Ana Taylor Photography
Hello BWC friends. I hope today finds you well, or as well as you can be given the current circumstances.
The COVID pandemic has really shifted our landscape dramatically since I typed up this profile for BWC more than a month ago. I think it would be remiss to overlook the giant new “normal” of our lives. This new normal isn’t just no school for my kids and working from home for my husband and me, it’s waking up and making really hard and necessary decisions every day without the ability to forecast very well. This means getting up every morning and choosing courage over fear, which is no small thing. And my decisions pale in comparison to those on the frontlines of healthcare, service and education. Here are examples of daily decisions I’ve been working on with my colleagues: contract cancelations, staff safety, salary reductions, reduced hiring, spending cuts, pursuit of liquidity and loans, what to communicate and when.
And here are examples of decisions at home: Should my daughter take a hike with her boyfriend? Who should go into the grocery store today? I have a headache, my eyes hurt...am I sick? What’s the plan if my parents get sick? How do I get my kids to talk about their anger and anxiety? Can we renegotiate the girls’ financial aid package? Should the kids file for unemployment? Will my brother be able to get insulin? How do we celebrate high school graduation if there is no “graduation?” Why do I look so horrible on Zoom? Where the heck can we find toilet paper?
My guess is that the decisions I am struggling to make are similar to those you are trying to make. Maybe yours are harder. So much is uncertain, but I am certain about one thing: we should try like hell to choose courage over fear.
It wasn’t easy to tell Lani and the BWC team that I had to postpone our business collaboration. And it was even harder to let her know that my nonprofit had to slash our professional development budget to zero, so no BWC. But Lani said, “Hang on. We’ll collaborate in the future, no doubt. And as for BWC, you clearly need your Circle now more than ever, so just keep coming.”
It’s terrifying to be so vulnerable. It’s scary to need help. But if you choose courage, and honesty, and vulnerability over fear, odds are you’ll give someone else the heart, hope and strength to be heard, to be helped and to help someone else. The purpose of the org I work for, Outward Bound, is to help people choose courage over fear, compassion over indifference and belonging over isolation. Outward Bound has a lot in common with BWC!
BWC is a rock in my life, and I express my deepest thanks to Lani, her team and my Circle for their support, encouragement and grace. If you need to connect or need help making a decision, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your Circle, or to me!
Marlais
.. and now for our earlier interview with Marlais.
Marlais Brand | Voyager Outward Bound School
How long have you been in business and please explain to our audience what you do. I've been advocating for nature-based human development, adventure and lifelong learning for more than 2 decades. I enjoy catalyzing potential and connecting people to resources they need for success.
Here at Outward Bound, I build partnerships and specialize in business development to change lives and communities through challenge and discovery. I thrive on collaboration and work with educational, non-profit and for-profit leaders to create belonging, strength and purpose for their students and employees. Everyone has a right to build skills for success in life, school and career. Outward Bound knows that compassionate and resilient people lead to a compassionate and resilient world.
I love to learn, and I'm always on the lookout for opportunities to think on my feet and innovate. I want to keep growing, broadening and deepening my knowledge on this bold journey, accruing experience and honing my skills. I work hard. I meet deadlines. I pay attention to detail. I like people, but I love cheese.
How long have you been a member of the BWC and how has this helped you with your business growth and development? It's official! I've been here at BWC, for more than a year and it shows. BWC and the women who share their skills and insight here have had a profound impact on my personal development. Talk about belonging, strength and purpose! Thanks to my Circle, I've seen others take risks, be vulnerable, ask for help and speak truth to each other, and to power. Peer examples of leadership and experience have given me the courage to shift my mindset and take action. Thanks to BWC, this year, I stepped out of the long shadow of a family illness to navigate professional challenges with new strength. I rode out workplace transition, negociated a leadership position and secured increased compensation. Credit is due to my BWC "sisters" who are some of the most fearless and frank women I've ever known. You should know that BWC invites women to set aside the bs and find wisdom through honest and authentic feedback and problem-solving. And, thanks to Lani and our facilitator, Heather, together we particpate in a year-long, peer-curated series of in-Circle workshops and topics-- everything from maximixing a P & L sheet, to traction planning and personal branding. This is the best kind of self-determined learning!
What are 1-2 goals you have for 2020?
Maximize my new role and my voice
Focus on physcial & emothional health
Help my kids get into/start college!
What motivates you to reach these goals, also, what holds you back? My twin daughters motivate me to grow, and to be strong. I want the world for them. I want them to have the savvy and security to take calculated risks and lead the lives they want, on their terms. I'm a late business bloomer, and it is important to me to become the model of savvy and strength that I want them to see in their female mentors. My goal is to be the best me for me, and for them. So far I've lived a mission-driven life. I've been an academic, an educator, a writer. And until recently, I didn't appreciate my potential to lead, and to be compensated for my considerable skills. That's all changed; there's no going back. I expect more of myself and the world, and it's not an option to let that flame gutter or die.
Can you describe a time you were faced with fear as it pertains to your business and how did you persevere? If you’re currently facing fear, what is causing this? Oh boy. In my personal experience, fear of how I might be percieved is my boogey-man (oh yes, he's a man!). Speaking truth, sticking to my guns, acting on sound knowledge and being persistent in problem-solving can all me derailed by the concern about how I, as a woman might be percieved. It's not just about being the squeaky wheel or the "whiner," it's about the concern for other people's feelings and the energy it takes to navigate difficult conversations instead of just speaking my mind plainly. I often feel like society expects women to be more understanding than our male counterparts, and to prioritize other people's feelings and perceptions over our own. So I guess it's the constant fear of undermining myself with a too-powerful voice.
Do you have any best practices to share on how to overcome fear?: BWC! My recipe for courage:
1) share dilemmas or doubts honestly with women you trust
2) ask for feedback or help problem-solving
3) listen and be curious
4) expect to take action
5) ask for accountablility
Who is a current role model for you, and why? I have 4 big role models currently, two are in my Circle, 2 are national figures, they all have something 2 things in common: they are women and they act with courage, despite fear.
Bre (Circle)
Bre teaches me how to listen with compassion and ask questions effectively. She leads, literally, with interest and curiosity. Her leadership is listening and supporting. She listens to others, and to herself, and then she makes large, tactical, strategic decisions, takes really bold risks when she is sure she has most of the intel she needs. Experience has taught her that she succeeds by taking calculated risk with compassion and honesty.
Traci (Circle)
As far as I can tell, Traci works hard to overcome self doubt or second-guessing and ultimately chooses the path she believes is right, even if it's scary as hell and risky to walk down that road. She's worked hard to build one success on another, building others up as she goes. Her leadership is defined by those she leads-- she measures her success by the success of her team. In Traci, you see compassion welded to determination. She won't do the wrong thing, just because it's scary to do the right thing. She is a shining example of savvy and strength, and Traci can afford to be true to herself because she's built a professional track record, complete with a legacy of well-deserved compensation.
Madeleine Baran
Madeleine is courage incarnate. She is what the 4th estate is all about. She's gonna go down in history for some of the best investigative reporting we've ever known. You must listen to "In the Dark." Because of Baran, the world is a better place-- Curtiss Flowers is going to be free, victims of clergy sex abuse have a voice and countless children won't be abused in a screwed up juvenile justice system. If you've heard her chase down a story, asking the hardest questions over and over again, you've heard courage. She's the OG squeaky wheel! Baran's subjects might see a blond, young midwestern woman, little do they know they are talking to one of the most intrepid journalists on the planet.
Mary Louise Kelly
Kelly's recent reporting from Iran is a game-changer. She is this amazing combination of friendly, earnest, almost geeky, seemingly unassuming and total badass. She puts herself out on the street or in interviews, telling the stories that we don't know we need until she nails them. She is often the only in a situation--only woman, only westerner--and she just gets in there and starts asking questions. Her interview with Zarif and her subsequent reporting from a Tehran salon are equally compelling and courageous. What I love about her is that she seems to succeed by being herself, no apologies. She's willing to be smart, and silly and somehow that authenticity totally disarms her subjects and yeilds amazing truths.
What are 2-3 things you always take with you when you leave the house?
If I'm lucky:
Keys
Phone
Chapstick
Favorite book, podcast or THING from 2019? My girls' college acceptance letters.
Those official letters represent a lot of determination, hard work, and relief!
Most of all they represent a new era of possibility.
Anything else you’d like to share?: So happy to be part of BWC!
Thanks for bringing us together.
How can we stay in touch with you?
Email: marlais.brand@vobs.org
Marlais, this is certainly an unprecedented time of fear. Your insight is more valuable now than ever, and we hope to have sparked hope and inspiration with our readers through your story. We just love that two of your role models are circle members, this truly speaks to the impact of our circle meetings and connection we are thriving to create.
The BWC Team