Women Who Disrupt
Rock Bottoms To Success with Veronika Abrams
What’s your backstory?
I’ve been an entrepreneur for the last 10 years. 3 years ago I hit my personal rock bottom. I was struggling with depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug addiction in addition to a broken heart. It was a pivotal point in my life where I had the choice to either give up on my dreams or take radical responsibility and demand the best from myself and pursue my highest potential. I had to become my own Hero. I realized how I needed to curate my life in every way so that it was in alignment with my values rather than my feelings. I rebuilt my confidence and identity from the ground up again.
What made you decide to choose this career path?
I decided to get into confidence and transformation coaching because I wanted to help others through their own rock bottom times too. I want them to understand that they can become the hero in their own story. That’s also the focus of my podcast – to highlight the hero stories of industry experts and the most successful entrepreneurs you see on social media. At one time, some of them had the water shut off, or their car repossessed. Your rock bottoms can be a launching pad to create a new identity, rather than it becoming a death sentence.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Everything about starting something new is clumsy and ridiculous. The first coaching videos I created for IGTV on instagram, I was using a kitchen blender to prop up my laptop that I used to prop up my iphone because that camera was better – and that’s how I recorded my videos. The phone kept falling over and I’d have to start again. Thank goodness my laptop didn’t fall – I would have been really screwed! I’d have to record only at a certain time of the day, because that was the best lighting. I didn’t have a ring light or anything fancy. I’m really glad though that I took messy action like that though, because I can tell others that their imperfect yet consistent execution is worth 1000x more than waiting for that “perfect time” or doing it “the perfect way”, which never ends up happening. So just fucking do it – even if you suck. You’ll get better.
What do you think makes your company/personal brand stand out?
I’ve very much leaned into that hero story narrative. That means telling the good, the bad, and the ugly. Things are not always great. Sometimes I even struggle with depression and I’m a coach. I truly believe that although people might aspire to is your highlight reel, what they actually connect with are your mask-off moments. The struggles. The pain. You’re doing your audience a disservice if you don’t tell them to the bad with the good. Heroes have weaknesses. Heroes fall. Heroes feel pain. And Heroes get back up again.
What’s a quote that you live by?
Do it afraid – Joyce Meyers. I was such a shy kid growing up. I heard this quote when I was maybe 7 years old. I’ve done so many things I’m afraid of. Funny things happen though when you get in the habit of doing things that scare you – you become more resilient and less afraid of the unknown over time.
