Emily Seagren

I attribute my success to resilience. I've faced difficult times, brain surgery, depression, moments where starting over felt impossible, but I've always chosen to get back up stronger, learn from what those experiences taught me, and keep moving forward. Resilience isn't about pretending the hard parts didn't happen. It's about letting them shape you without letting them define you. Every setback I've faced has ultimately become part of what I teach: that you can rebuild, that you can trust yourself again, and that strength isn't the absence of struggle, it's what you choose to do after.

The best career advice I've ever received came from a business coach during one of the hardest seasons of my life. I was a new mom, drowning in overwhelm, and I could barely make a decision, let alone tell you who I was anymore. Every comment, every ounce of criticism, every unsolicited opinion just soaked in and stuck. My coach told me to visualize a shield, so I created one: a pink, glittery shield in my mind, something that felt like me even when I couldn't recognize myself in anything else. I pictured hurtful words bouncing off it instead of sinking in. It sounds simple, but it changed everything. I learned to stand up for myself, set healthy boundaries, and stop taking everything personally. That shield didn't mean I stopped caring. It meant I finally got to choose what got through.

The advice I'd give women entering this industry: focus on yourself first. It's easy to get caught up comparing your pace to someone else's, but your path doesn't have to look like anyone else's to be valid. Support and celebrate other women, genuinely. This industry has room for all of us, and there's nothing more powerful than a woman who lifts other women up instead of competing with them.

Pursue your dreams, not just profit. Numbers matter, but they were never supposed to be the whole point. If you build a business chasing only sales, you'll burn out chasing a version of success that was never really yours to begin with.

And build your confidence as you go. You don't need to have it all figured out before you start. Find the balance between happiness, purpose, and success, because a business that costs you your well-being isn't actually success. It just looks like it from the outside.

One of the biggest challenges I'm navigating right now is competing online with larger brands that have significant marketing budgets. They can dominate ad space and reach far more people, far faster, than I ever could on my own. It makes attracting new customers and team members genuinely harder in a crowded market. My response has been to stop trying to out-spend and start focusing on out-connecting. I can't compete with their budget, but I can compete with authenticity, consistency, and actually showing up for the people I'm trying to reach. That's a harder game to win quickly, but it's the one that builds something lasting.

The values most important to me are ethics, compassion, and authenticity. I believe in caring for people over profits, treating others with kindness, and always staying true to who I am, even when it would be easier not to. In an industry that can sometimes reward hype over honesty, I've chosen to build my business the slower, more genuine way. That means telling the truth even when a bigger promise would sell better. It means checking in on someone because I care, not because it's good for business. And it means never asking anyone, myself included, to perform a version of confidence or success that isn't real. People can tell the difference, and in the end, that's what builds trust that actually lasts.