Darrah Brustein | On Her Insatiable Curiosity, Failures, And Unlikely Friendship With Deepak Chopra
“Insatiably curious,” is how Darrah Brustein described herself to me. But I would take it a step further. The two-time founder embodies an elegant and unlikely blend of business savvy and spirituality; of practical knowledge she has gained through boots-on-the-ground trial and error, and an internal drive to live on purpose and with intention in everything she does. She would argue that her multi-faceted approach to life and business is built from an upbringing under the tutelage of an entrepreneurial mother and a father in financial services. Sure, her pedigree may be partly to blame for her thirst to build and build again, despite the countless failures along the way, but when I spoke with Darrah, it was clear she was born to serve others—it is innate—in her newest obsession as a life and business coach. Either way, Darrah is the epitome of a multi-passionate entrepreneur, a combination that landed her a deep friendship with Deepak Chopra—a partnership that flourished into creating a 33-episode digital series together, and put her on the map.
Darrah and I connected several months ago, and I’ve been dying to interview her because I really wanted to know: how does she manage it all with such grace?
Here is my interview with Darrah Brustein (for a full bio, scroll to the bottom).
Lindsay: Not to put you in a box, but how would you describe yourself and what you do?
Darrah: At my core, I am a connector and that is currently embodied in my work as a hybrid life coach meets business strategist.
Lindsay: Can you tell us a bit more about your back story, and what in your past propelled you to become such an inspired, and repeat entrepreneur?
Darrah: My mom is a lifetime entrepreneur and my dad is a financial services executive. And the combination of those examples, and learnings in my household— between financial literacy and responsibility, and entrepreneurial know-how—definitely got into my blood stream very early on. I remember back in my childhood when my twin brother and I would be selling fundraising goods for our elementary school, like wrapping paper and chocolates—he was too afraid to go and sell and I loved it. It taught me early on that I was really good with people and good with sales and that sort of put a bug in my head.
Then, when I graduated [college], I felt very lost and I decided to go into the field I knew I loved which was fashion. I learned pretty quickly that sometimes you shouldn’t make your hobbies your career. It was not what I hoped it would be, and it sort of ruined by love of fashion on a day to day basis. Then, due to the 2007-2008 initial seas of the recession, every company I worked with went under, and I lost my job. So I had to take a hard look at myself and decide what it was that I really wanted. That's when I decided to start my first business, a credit card processing company, with my twin brother. That was 11 years ago and has grown into 38 states. It was quite an arduous journey with many ups and downs including two embezzlements, so it was not a linear, straightforward path.
Then, about 9 years ago was the genesis of Network Under 40 and, subsequently, Network Over 40, when I had a friend ask me how to network without being hit on or sold to. That fit squarely into my purpose to connect people to people, and people to resources, to better their outcomes.
The same thing happened when I saw the economy collapse, first in the U.S., then globally, and I considered how much my parents had taught me about financial responsibility. It became evident that not everybody had those lessons and guide posts. So I wrote a children’s book series on that called Finance Whiz Kids. Then, lastly, with coaching and consulting, the same thing happened where I saw needs, saw my abilities, and voila!
Lindsay: You have built several distinct businesses that are vastly different from each other (credit card processing, networking, business coaching), yet are also all successful. What motivates you to keep creating, and do you feel each business builds off of each other in some way?
Darrah: What motivates me to keep creating is being connected to what my highest values are, and making sure that they are my north stars for everything. So, for me, my three highest values are first, freedom. Freedom boils down to freedom of my time and how I spend it. Second is ongoing learning and growth. And third is connection. I am an insatiably curious person and each of these values were born out of some form of curiosity and my reaction to how I can help and serve in those spaces with the gifts, talents and resources that I have.
Lindsay: What advice would you give someone who is being pulled by several seemingly disparate passions?
Darrah: I definitely relate to this as a multi-passionate, multi-hyphenate, and multi-dimensional person which, frankly, I think all of us are. But society wants to put us in boxes. So I'd say, get something under your belt and get it to a place where it is somewhat automated and ritualized so you have the space and bandwidth to lean into something else. It is really worthwhile to consider that not everything you are passionate about, or like, is something you want to make a career out of, or monetize, or do every single day for work. So, consider, what are ways to bring those things into your life without necessarily being for some transactional or financial advantage. Also consider that there are seasons to everything in nature and in our lives. And in this sense, that might mean that there is a season where you are pouring deeply into one, two, or three areas of your life. Whereas other times those things may need to dim a bit so other things can emerge.
Lindsay: A key element of your business involves you gathering, or giving feedback and advice to people. But what is the best advice YOU'VE ever received that has transformed your habits, mindset or success?
Darrah: The irony of my answer is that the best advice that I’ve ever gotten is that the best place to start for any guidance is to look within.
Lindsay: That was sort of a mic drop moment. What would you describe as your distinguishing factor when it comes to coaching—what's your special sauce, and why does it work?
Darrah: The fact that I am naturally a bridge between a lot of things is helpful. I am equally left-brained and right-brained. I am equally practical as I am esoteric. And many other interesting hybrid dichotomies that put me in a really interesting position of being able to zoom out to a very high level with people where it’s first about asking, what is it that you want in your life? Then, how do we get clear on your values, your why, and your ideal life? Then we stay at that higher zoomed-out level and say, what are the mindset pieces that are going to trigger you or trip you up along the way before we then get into the practical and tactical, which are really important next steps. But the how and the what should never come before the why.
Lindsay: With each business you've started, what were the key turning points that you feel either accelerated or decelerated your trajectory? We’d love to hear about both epic failures, and jaw-dropping successes, so feel free to dish on both!
Darrah: Ok, this one is pretty easy because we had some really epic failures, especially in Equitable Payments, our credit card processing company, in the first handful of years. The two most obvious being embezzlements that took my twin brother and I (we own the company together), back to basically zero. Add on top of that having friends and family, specifically our mom, calling us and saying, “we don’t think you can do this. We think it's time to shut this business down and go get jobs.” And, for anyone who is an aspiring entrepreneur, you know this is often one of the fears—that the people in your life will doubt you because you’re probably having some amount of self doubt yourself. It was one of those moments where I had to dig into myself and do this self reflection to say, is this something I want to continue with? Do I have it in me? Do I think there is more life left in this? And the answer for me and my brother happened to be yes.
With Network Under 40 and Network Over 40, there were so many big and little successes, as well as fails. One of the things that did happen in those first couple of years, when I wasn’t thinking about it tremendously as a business, was that it got featured in Inc. Magazine, and it really catapulted our growth and awareness in other markets.
Through my coaching, one of the biggest wins was an opportunity to interview Deepak Chopra for a virtual event I put on. This spun into a friendship, which turned into a 33-episode digital series that he and I created together called Diving Deep with Deepak and Darrah. This, then, opened the door to dozens of interviews with high-profile people. I was then able to parlay those learnings and experiences with them into valuable work for the people I coached.
“We sometimes have to borrow the confidence others see in us until we can own it for ourselves.”
~Darrah Brustein
Lindsay: You have interviewed several high profile people in sports, business, television, podcasting, etc. What do you find is the most consistent character trait, quality, or output among these high performers/high achievers?
Darrah: I’d say the consistent traits that are similar to anyone who is successful are the unsexy things—they are persistent, and have a real sense of intention behind what they do that serves a greater purpose than themselves, or their pocket. They are really connected to their why, and their intention, and that inner knowing of who they are, and what they have to give. Because there are no overnight successes, and it takes persistence and consistency and everyday work to become successful at that level. Nobody gets by unscathed or untouched in life. So successful people often have a fire under them which helps them to achieve at high levels.
Lindsay: You have taught alongside Deepak Chopra. Tell us how that came about, and what the most profound aspect of this experience was for you.
Darrah: This came about the way so many things come about in life—through relationships and connections. I decided years ago that I was going to host a virtual summit and Deepak was my goal keynote speaker. But I was not connected to him. Through my network, I was connected to his publicist. His publicist was interested but wasn’t ready to say yes. So I reached out to my friend Rebecca who was Deepak’s former COO and said, “if this is something you think you could help with, please tell Deepak that I am credible—that would mean the world to me.” Twenty minutes later, I had a yes, and I was in New York the next week interviewing him in person. This kicked off a friendship that I didn’t anticipate. Through that, he and I decided to kick off our ongoing virtual series together. And for me, what was the most profound is that I was a person of such high self doubt; I had no idea why in the world this incredible person, who could choose one of the billions of people across the world, would choose me. And it really taught me this idea of borrowed confidence, which is the idea that we sometimes have to borrow the confidence others see in us until we can own it for ourselves.
Lindsay: Mindset is a focus of yours as you combine that with its impact on personal and professional fulfillment. What mindset shifts or exercises have you seen create significant change for you and/or clients?
Darrah: Everyone is different and it really depends on what the hang up is for them. One exercise is a guided visualization (available at darrah.co/freebies) that is 15 minutes. It will take you more into your subconscious and higher self to help you see a lot more clarity, what you really want, what legacy you want to leave. It asks, what do you want 10, 20, 30 years from now? What would the people who you admire most say about you? Other times it is writing a letter to your future self 10 or 20 years from now without pausing, because it lets you again break out and see what is holding you back. One of my favorite things is called 9 Questions To Ask Your Network To Help You Find Your Path. This one is really great for someone who has a stuckness, or lack of clarity, and is often underestimating themselves, or undervaluing the things they have to bring to the table.
Lindsay: People love stories because they can see themselves in the story emotionally, intellectually, spiritually or physically, and allows them to connect on a deeper level—be it an overcoming a monster story or an underdog story, or an epic failure-to-success story. For you, do you find that its your business successes or failures that people connect with more?
Darrah: Definitely the failures, in part because I’m so unafraid to share them because I think it is so important. I think we live in a culture that glamorizes success, glamorizes entrepreneurship—I call it the American idolization of entrepreneurship—where it makes people think that this person went from their garage to a billion dollar exit in a matter of moments, then they’re on the cover of every magazine. When really, that’s not the case—there is no such thing as overnight success. It took that person a lifetime of work, no matter how long or short that lifetime was, to get into a position to do that. I think it is essential that we talk about the behind-the-scenes truth about what it takes to be successful. And more so than anything, to define success for oneself so that we don’t find ourselves caught up in the hamster wheel of chasing after the idea of what success is—whether more is always more, or about money, or about accolades or status or titles or fame.
Lindsay: What's your favorite thing you like to tell people about yourself that is shocking, or surprising?
Darrah: It is shocking to most people that I have self doubt, and that my achilles heel has always been the ‘I’m not good enough’ narrative. I do think we are all human and when we push ourselves outside of our comfort zone, we naturally have insecurities. But that was always my scarlet letter, and I wore it very big. So something I’ve come to do to help me combat that is to look for data and evidence to prove or disprove whatever that limiting belief was in the first place. So if I say, you’re going to fail at that thing, then I look back and say, did you have a time where you failed at something before, or did you not? And that continues to support the movement forward.
On a lighter note, most people are surprised to find out I’m a twin! But not only am I a twin, but allegedly, I almost suffocated my twin in the womb and that has in so many ways, altered the dynamic of our relationship. The odd relationship we had in the womb made us very opposite and very different people which has made us exceptional business partners.
Lindsay: If you had to choose: meditation or yoga?
Darrah: Both, but what I do more often is meditation. I do it every day!
Lindsay: If you had to choose: lake or ocean?
Darrah: I love both! I like water where I can see more than I like murky water.
Lindsay: If you had to choose: wine with friends or a solo jog in the park?
Darrah: This is a trick question! I barely drink, but I love hanging out with friends. And, I hate running but I love parks, so neither and both. But if I had to pick, time with friends will always win for me.
Darrah’s Official Bio
Darrah is a 4x founder, author, and coach who used to cringe at the word 'coaching'. But she was called to do this and begged by her first clients to work with them. When they saw massive and transformational results in their lives and businesses, she stopped resisting and continued to serve.
After spending 10 years over-working and burning out while building a credit card processing company into 38 states and a networking events company for over 30,000 people, she learned the wrong way to do it, and then discovered that there was a better way.
A prolific writer and interviewer for outlets like Forbes, she's worked with Shaq, Deepak Chopra, Seth Godin, Bobbi Brown, Jillian Michaels, Adam Grant, Robert Herjavec, Nastia Liukin, Cam Newton, and the list goes on. She’s been featured in over 300 media outlets like Inc, Cosmopolitan, TIME, CNN, and The Huffington Post.
Her mission: to connect people to the resources they need to elevate what they do. Her motto: “Design your life, build a business to fund it, and a network to support it" has inspired millions to reach higher and dream bigger.
You can find out more at: darrah.co, and enjoy a bevy of freebies at: darrah.co/freebies
