Ep 93 Leading with Clarity — The Mirror Moment That Launched Lauren Cockerell’s People-First PR Firm

Welcome back to Morning Cup of Brand Spark, the short human conversations where we explore the mirror moments that change how we see ourselves and how we lead. Today's guest is Lauren Cockerell PR strategist, founder of Kwedar & Co., podcast host, mother, and a woman who rebuilt her life in the middle of a moment that would quite literally break many of us. She was eight months pregnant when she was laid off.

And instead of collapsing, she created a business and a leadership philosophy built on values, people, presence, and a profound clarity. This is a story about forced reinvention, values under pressure, and the truth that emerges when everything else falls away. So let's get started.

Alright, welcome back to Morning Cup of Brand Spark. This season is all about the mirror conversations. Today I'm sitting with someone who basically rebuilt everything in the middle of one of the hardest moments imaginable. Lauren didn't choose her pivot, it chose her. So we're going to talk about what happens when that happens and how you rebuild with clarity, with courage and

a people first heart. Lauren, thank you so, so much for joining me today.

Gina, I'm so happy to be here. can't wait for our conversation. Try not to just chuckle through the whole intro.

I loved our warmup energy already, so I'm already like, this is gonna be so much fun.

So before

we dive in, what's in your cup this morning and can you tell everyone where you're joining from?

Yes, well, I'm in Fort Worth, Texas, and we are recording at almost noon local time. So the cold brew has come and gone, the electrolytes have come and gone. Now I'm just, I'm onto my, you know, giant 40 ounce water.

I was really inspired by your story. But first, it's Monday. These always launch on Friday, but it is Monday. My day is ending, yours is halfway through. If you could describe how your week has started off in one word.

Yes.

A little frenetic. Yeah. Yes. It's okay. It just is. is. We're fine. We're good.

Already half of the day in. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. It is what it is. All right. Well,

let's jump in. So take us back to the moment you were eight months pregnant. You got laid off. Everything felt, I'm sure, like it was up in the air. What did that moment actually show you about yourself? How did you feel? What happened?

Yes.

Yes, that was.

Such a tender, vulnerable, emotional moment, which is of course heightened by some extra hormones coursing through your body. And so I was working in house for an IT company at the time. to be honest, I was already looking for the exit door. It was not, as you might have guessed from the ending, it wasn't the...

You

⁓

the best culture, let's to put it mildly. Yeah, a on the toxic side. So I'd already been through the wringer there. so my husband and I got my start at a PR agency. And I really missed that environment. I really missed helping people. I missed solving problems. And when I started, when I transitioned into this corporate role,

couldn't have been. Yeah.

my role evolved really quickly into selling commodities for them, like selling hosting and things like that. So that is not a problem solving. People are just like, stop talking and tell me which is the cheapest package, which I was not personally put on this art to do.

yuck.

No.

let's talk about your needs and goals. They're like, no, which one's 9.99? I'm like, get me out of here.

Can

I have 30 days free No.

Yeah, like, oh, boy, oh, boy.

So, you know, the my time was coming to an end regardless. And I had really thought, okay, I don't know if I'm ready to start my own company. That is something I want in my life. Maybe when I'm 40, when I'm 40, I'll know everything, then all will become clear. So I'm at 30. I'm probably 36 at that. Yeah, spoiler alert. Four years ago, when I turned 40, I did not all become clear.

Is it all clear now?

Awesome.

this was you know, it's in the it was in the tea leaves to a degree but it's you know, but then that day dawns and and what's not in my bio that you've read is that morning I had mailed a $5,000 check to a coach who I thought okay, I don't know what's next for me. I don't know if I go

in house again, it was now the right time, like I need some help just kind of putting myself back together, I've been broken by this company. And so they call me up and lay me off. And I watched the mail truck drive away with my check, I'm yeah, it was a local company, but yeah, they called me on the phone. But I had a sense that something was coming because I'm just an empath by nature, like things felt different, know, the, probably about the month prior.

Yeah.

Oof. Think

Okay.

you know, every week on the phone, just things just felt different. Like things felt a little cagey. Like they, you know, they were struggling to commit to the, a little colder, a little more, a little more, you know, even more aloof than normal. Like, you know, like, well, what are we gonna do about this? Oh, I don't know. You know, it was like, oh, shoot. So, I mean, I went to my husband. I thought, I said, babe,

where they are cold. Ew.

Yeah.

I think they're gonna let me go. I can't believe it, but you I think this is gonna happen. Like, are we okay? How much time do we have? And he was like, you know, you've got, you got about this, we've got this, don't worry. Like the, our son is, you know, the birth of our son is first and foremost, like just take care of yourself. We'll be fine. We're gonna figure it out. We're smart. Like we were good for X many months. I was like, okay. And then they laid me off. I'm like, oh, fiddle. So.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

So my maternity leave started that day basically. They gave me a nice, severance package. They gave me all of my equipment because I was working from home. So I basically had like startup capital. I had already reached out to a mentor of mine who I used to work for. It's like, hey, if there's any projects that you're not interested in or if you want to work together on something, I have capacity.

a severance.

And so she became like an outside salesperson, all of a sudden. And then I told my network what was going on. So I had old clients coming up to me being like, hey, can we go on retainer right there? I'm like, sure. So it just kind of like happened. You know, I'm like packing a hospital bag and you know, like spinning up a Queer Iron Co. And so it was like a very interesting time. And about a couple months in, I've had my son, you know, I'm still meeting with my coach and.

Yeah.

awesome.

I have clients and it's going well and it feels really good. And I think, wow, okay. And my coach said, you know, Lauren, I just want you to know, like, this is not how new businesses start. You are very lucky. And I said, no, well, hold on a second. Yeah, well, yeah, and also, you know, at that point, I'd been in the biz for 15 years or so. And I said, I've been doing this for 15 years. Like I have.

Yeah, it didn't feel very good when that happened back then. Hello?

Yeah!

an okay reputation and I have a body of work that is, yeah, yeah, it's like I didn't just like spring from Zeus's head and just start doing. And that was a moment of clarity for me. was like, I'm on the right path. This is finally after years of feeling so beaten down and kind of used and abused to a degree that I was like, oh, this is why I'm here. I'm here to.

You're like, I am not a newbie, hello?

to help people and these are my special skills and talents. I'm finally getting to use all of them. was like, hell yeah, this is awesome.

Yeah,

that's awesome. And did that, I read in your bio also about your people first philosophy. Did it come from this mirror moment of your own?

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah,

very, very much so. mean, I watched, you know, I think a lot of times as we go through life and experience things, we learn what we like, and then almost as importantly, we learn what we don't like and what doesn't resonate. And I thought if when I started, I'm not hiring anybody, I was burned and burned out. And I just thought, I'm not, I can't.

I can't do this, that has changed. at the time it was like, it'll be me, myself and I. And I hated the idea of making choices based on payroll or anything like that. I was at that point not fully trusting myself to run the business with people relying on me. I thought I could take care of clients.

can trust myself.

Yeah.

But then, I got hired to do a statewide political campaign, the media for it. And I was like, well, I need some help. So, know, I started pulling in contractors and stuff. say, no, no, no, especially, you know, with a baby. But yeah, I learned really quickly after I was like, I'm not doing this again until my kids are out of the house. That was insane.

There's not enough time in the day. Yeah, my gosh.

and I bet you must have learned about boundaries quite quickly in the beginning phase of your business, didn't you?

Whew.

yeah, the hard way for sure. Only the hard way, but yes. And so it's nice, know, it's fun to kind of use those and use those muscles and to show my team now like, no, we don't have to do that. I appreciate the client first mentality. We do want to take care of them, but no, you can say no to that.

You can go to

sleep now.

yeah great graciously may you may graciously decline that opportunity

that is not in the scope of work

Yeah, totally, totally.

But if you look back, if you could speak to that version of yourself standing in that moment when they called you the layoff moment, what would you tell that person now?

my gosh, I was so upset. mean, I really, I'd never been really fired before. mean, unless you count some, you know, babysitting gigs, which was just absolutely not at all my forte growing up. So it was a brand new experience for me. And I remember I called my husband, he was out of town and he was, you know, I won't say what he said.

But he totally, I'd probably say what he said, because he just pulled me up, I mean, I was a puddle on the floor, like, can't believe that happened. And he was like, you have got this, we don't need those guys. He's like, mark my words, this is gonna be the best thing that's ever happened to you. And he was 100 % right in that moment, because I needed, I'm so loyal, and I really couldn't.

awesome.

it was really hard to fathom leaving someone and I needed to and so, know, they crowbarred me out of a really difficult situation and set me on the path I needed to be on. So it was a blessing, it was painful and you know, nobody likes to be like, like, was like, what the hell, I was gonna fire you first. You don't get to tell me, I'm telling you I'm leaving.

No, seriously, I was leaving. Hello? You're not allowed to do it first?

Yeah, can

we go back five minutes and then I'm quitting. Yeah.

Yes, yes. Right. So my ego for sure took a hit. ⁓

But yeah, no, I would tell her like this, you have no idea what is in store for you. Like you should call them back and tell them thank you right now.

Awesome.

I still, I can't imagine, I mean, I'm American, but I've been here in Europe for 22 years and it's illegal pretty much to do that most everywhere here. it's, I've been gone long enough that it's unfathomable that I could have been eight months pregnant and that could happen. Like, holy crap.

Mm. Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It definitely shook me up. I mean, you know, now being an employer, you know, do have, have contractors and W-2s and I can't imagine ever doing that to somebody. I have let people go, I have laid people off and it's tough because, you do.

Yeah.

Mm-mm.

if you, if you're a nice person, you kind of know what's going on in people's lives. And you just think, Oh my gosh, like I hate to put you in this position, but also you're screwing up. gotta go. Um, or, yeah, yeah. But, but you know, my good, and, and, um, one of my first hires, uh, became pregnant or learned she was pregnant actually after we hired her. And so as a, I mean, we're a micro

Business is business also.

We provided her maternity leave her first year on the job and I didn't have to we didn't like fight her on or anything I mean when I was working at this other company, I was their very first employee to take maternity leave I didn't know what the package was gonna be until like a couple weeks before I had my first kid I was like what please tell I Mean if it's nothing fine, but you know, just tell me like and so it just

Like, what am I even getting here? Hello? Do you help anything? my gosh. Yeah.

Treating people like human beings and understanding that they've got lives. We spend a lot of time at work together, but we're not operating on brains or hearts or anything. If family comes first, you've got a life. I want them to be whole people. If you look at it somewhat Machiavellianly, that then brings their best selves to work, but it's more than that. I genuinely care.

about who they are and if they're happy and if they're not like I want them to be somewhere where they are happy.

I always bring up the ripples that it makes as well, right? When you do that with other people, you leave a legacy that helps them to grow in a way or to treat somebody else the same way. And that people first mentality that you have for this, it's such a beautiful thing that's come out of it as well.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

it's, I mean, for such a tiny company, like I know we have an impact. I know we have an impact on our clients and they have an impact on the people they serve. And it's just like, goes, you know, it's pebble in the pond and you're just watching it go and go and go. And actually I had a team member resign the other day and I'm thrilled for her. You know, we're gonna miss her, but at same time, like, you yeah, go stretch your wings. Go see what's out there. And...

It's just kind of part of it, you know, want her to go be her full self somewhere.

So your firm, your company, PR, right? And visibility, I have a question about visibility for you. So what's one myth about visibility that you'd actually love women to stop believing or stop thinking?

Yes. All right, let's do it.

Hmm, okay. I don't know if it's a myth so much, I do think folks think like, if I just want it to happen, it's gonna happen first of all. We do, yes, it is not by osmosis. And then also that, I just do LinkedIn or I just do podcasting or things like that, mean, it is a, you know.

Magic?

as omni-channel as you can stand, the more you feed the machine, especially with the proliferation of AI, you've gotta be consistent, you've gotta be clear, and you've gotta be kinda omni-present so that when folks are looking for you, the people and the machines can find you, and they're finding you for what you wanna be known for. I actually had a really, I have a great anecdote for this. So the other day,

I get a phone call from this man Donnie who I have not spoken to in 10 years. And he tells me, he's putting on a conference and he would like a female podcaster to round out his panel. And I was like, yeah, I've got a podcast. goes, I know we've known each other for like a really long time but I totally forgot about you until I looked.

looked up female podcasters in Fort Worth, Texas in perplexity and there you were. I was like, yes, I did it. Like he's like, yeah, he's like, he's like, looked on LinkedIn. I didn't see anybody in my network. And so he goes to the machine and there I was. And I was like, okay, I mean, we just, cannot rely on people remembering everything about you. Like, I, know, I'll trigger a two factor authentication to log into my kids pediatricians account. And then I get a text message and I think, I've got a text. Who's that from?

Hey, that's when it's working.

I just triggered the text message myself. We are frazzled, we're fractured. To ask me to remember everything about everyone I know is an impossible feat. So you've got to do your work to make sure that the bots know who you are and who you serve, your network knows. I mean, it's a lot of work.

That's awesome.

Hello?

I'm sorry to tell you, there are some shortcuts, but you've gotta be consistent, you gotta be clear. If you change something somewhere, and I'm guilty of this too, I changed everything on my LinkedIn except for the about page on my resume about Kwedar & Co. That was kinda older. I changed every other about everywhere else. And I was like, my God, I haven't touched that in like a year. Whoops. So I'm guilty of it too. But you know.

Oops

If there's information out there about you, you want to make sure that it's all singing from the same choir sheet. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. So.

Consistency, consistency, consistency for visibility. It's so important, so important. And you're

completely right. Everything you said about making sure the machines can find you, because the machines are looking at credibility across the board and the machines can understand context better than SEO, which is dying or, okay, I won't be so dramatic. It's traffic is going down, AI is going up.

Mm-hmm.

evolving certainly. Right.

Everything you said,

I stand 100 % fully behind that.

Right in my little industry is having a moment. I'm not sure how long it's gonna last because everything's changing. But right now in November of 2025, AI is is is ranking earned media higher than owned media. So if you're in an article that someone else has written about you, that will surface with ⁓ with greater prejudice than you know, if you wrote a blog post about yourself. So

higher.

If you can afford to do PR, whether with a firm like mine or on your own, that will also really help your visibility.

That's true. have so many questions about PR. I want to have you again, because now you triggered triggering all these questions, but you, you, also triggered something with me. AI. So we just spoke about AI and how things are changing. We're also inundated with noise. There is a ton of AI or sludge sometimes as I call it, or just noise in general.

Let's do it. ⁓

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

You're in the middle of the PR world, which you're either seeing

it or you're being asked about it. But do you have anything that you do that's to ground you at this moment when everything around you is so loud? Do you have any advice for anyone else who can't see through the noise?

Yeah, it's, I mean, first of all, if you feel like this, I, I understand, you know, you're certainly not alone in the overwhelm and it some days it's just like, whoa, I actually, you know, there was a minute there where was just

all I was consuming was information about this. And it made me feel terribly despondent because there's just like, my gosh, I'm not smart enough to stay on top of this. I don't have the capacity, the wherewithal, the brain power. And then I'm also still doing work I've already been hired to do and now I need to evolve and my gosh. I finally thought I...

I need to keep my finger on a pulse of this, but it is not my job to consume everything out there. So I really just kind of put myself on an information diet. You know, like I get a couple of AI specific newsletters. I'll look at those just once a week rather than every single day. There are some people I follow on LinkedIn, for instance, particularly in the AI plus PR space.

And I do look at their information, but I kind of like save it for later. It's the same thing with like news headlines. You know, I'm paying attention to local news every day. But as far as, you know, national or international news, really I cannot, I had to turn off status alerts on my phone, because every time I picked up my phone, I felt like I was being assaulted by news. And so I love

It's true though, you're really right.

I love the picture it paints me, but it's really true. That is the world that we live in now. I have notifications turned off entirely on my phone. I only see important things on my watch now. Otherwise, I can't, I just can't.

Yeah.

yeah. I,

I gave up my Apple watch because it was too much. just, you know, I was like, I need to tell time.

And also, if you're only consuming, how can you create? And so we're turning into this consumption society rather than creation society. And, you know, like as I've really learned how to use different prompts in ChatGPT and and and Claude and so on and so forth. You know, I found myself.

outsourcing my thinking, was like, whoop, nope, gotta stop there. So now, I will only come to it until I'm like really, I've got fully formed thoughts and experience and all that if I'm doing content creation or if I'm to look something up, I need to kind of be down the road before I'm just like, what is, whatever. I woke up after a bad night of sleep the other day and I could not remember the word for vending machine. And it was like really bothering me, was like, uh-oh.

And for a couple hours, I don't know, was like, I had like a dream and then I was like, what was it? And then it was like, this device that you buy things from and I was like, dispensing machine? No, that's not it. I mean, I was like, you are not allowed to look this up. You have to get there on your own. I mean, I'm making my coffee and I'm like, vending machine.

Forget the word vending machine. Also, why were you thinking about in the morning the vending machine anyway?

That's awesome.

You gotta figure it out.

That felt awesome, right? See, I don't need bots anymore. I don't need AI. I don't need Google.

Yeah, I did it. Yes. I like looking around. I'm like,

Yeah, I know. It was distressing, but I thought I have I've given away so much of my thinking. It's so seductive. But then, you know, I mean, I'm using I'm just like way off track here. But I was I'm using Claude for something right now. And I'm like, you know, here's where I am. And we're having a dialogue. I'm like that, you know, I need to be able like that makes no sense, dude. Like, we would never say that.

It's okay.

You know, actually the way you say that is sort of demeaning. No, you need to be in the driver's seat, for sure.

Yeah.

And it's tough because I talk about this a lot It's, it's, using AI in a, let's say in a way that removes the human element of the thinking is the fear of what's happening for, me at least, right? It's also the cycle that we see AI is learning for what people write online. And if people are writing online, what AI is writing this regurgitation cycle is continuing. And now people are starting to write sloppy.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

to be able to pass as human. So what happened to literary anything? It's tough as marketeers, right?

yeah, yeah. It is

and it's a couple of thoughts. One, and kind of what you just said, but to say it more pointedly, if you do not, if you're using it for content creation, like, yeah, so same. But if you're not coming to the table with your own thoughts, your own experiences, your own expertise, like, you know, basically writing almost the whole thing on your own and asking it to, you know, put a polish on it, whatever, it's gonna plagiarize because that's all it knows how to do.

I, you know, I almost create, I create my content almost exclusively, like 100 % me. But one day I was like, ah, what should I chat, talk about today, chat? I'm all burned out, I need to create something. And it was like, what about this? I'm like, sure, what the hell? Then I ran it through a plagiarism checker. I mean, it was just like lit up like a Christmas tree. was like, oh, okay.

it's insane, isn't it?

we can teach our systems human AI collaboration, but it's not a set it and forget it. people can't open chat GPT and create a prompt for it. I'm talking like a complete AI system. That is possible, but that is a ton of work. It's a ton of work to create something that can actually mirror you or can.

Right.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Mm-hmm.

help you to brainstorm in a different way. But that's not

Right.

what 90 % of people are using it for. That's the issue.

Yeah, yeah. mean, I made a comment a couple months ago where like, just because I was getting a couple, you know, from sort of past clients were like, I wrote this news release. Can you just send it out for me? Like, well, first of all, you did not write that. Like, and second of all, just because it's better than anything you've ever written does not make it good.

Look, first sentence, every word has a capital letter. We know exactly who wrote that.

Couldn't agree with you more. I love it, I love it. I'm right there with you. I'm standing directly beside you. I'm all over that. Love it. So where can people find you online? Give a shout out to all the stuff that you want to shout out. Your podcast, everything.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sorry. Yeah, obviously I climbed up on a soapbox there. Yeah.

Yep.

All the things.

Okay, so the business is Kwedar and Co. So we're everywhere at QueedarCo. That's K-W-E-D-A-R-C-O.com. Kwedar is my maiden name. And so, yes, it's kind of hard to spell, sorry. ⁓ We're everywhere, everywhere there. The podcast is The Impatient Entrepreneur Pod Everywhere. And then I'm very active on LinkedIn. So Lauren Kwedar Cockrell, if you wanna come say hi, you're welcome to slide into my DMs and we can chat.

You

I'm gonna slide into your DMs directly after this, right before I go have dinner. But I wanna thank you so, so much for joining me, Lauren. You are, you're a rock star, you kick ass.

Please.

thank you. I could do this for 12 more hours. Yes. Looking forward to it. Sign me up.

Yay! Okay, so we have to book a second one and we have to book a chill, a chill moment. So definitely would love this. I look forward

to more on the mic and off the mic. So thank you so,

Likewise, thank you.

that was today's morning cup of brand spark with Lauren Cockerell A reminder that clarity doesn't always arrive gently. Sometimes it shows up in the fall and it's meant to be. If this reflection gave you something to exhale into, share it with someone navigating their own rebuild. Until next time, keep your coffee warm and your mirror close.