Inspirational Resilience: Adriana Cowdin's Triumph Over Disability as a 4-Time Entrepreneur

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I'll send emails at 1, 2, 3 a.m.

Or, you know, this morning I was up at 4:30 a.m.

and, you know, working by 5:30.

And the last thing you want is to put pressure on someone else that they need to be working around your crazy schedule, right?

SPEAKER_01: What's up, my friend, and welcome to Grit Grace Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.

Twenty years ago, I awoke from a life-saving surgery only to find that I was left completely blind.

And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself.

And here on this podcast, I want to share this insights with you.

Because, friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why, or still left searching for that next right path to take, well, consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

What's up, my friend, and welcome back to the podcast.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and you are joining me today for what is episode number 240.

As we are closing in on the end of 2023, I want to hear from you.

If you listen to this podcast, I want to be sure that I'm giving you stuff that you want to hear, that I'm giving you stuff that brings value to your life.

And I am encouraging you to sign up for my mailing list.

That is gritgraceinspiration.com slash newsletter.

For one, because, well, I want you to be on the list, but also because I want you to have easy access to me.

Because I want to hear from you, my listener.

I want to know what kind of topics would you love to hear me talk about?

What guests would you love to hear me interview?

Let's make 2024 your year.

I want to make this podcast mean something to you.

So please sign up today at Graceinspiration.comslash newsletter to get on the list, and that way you can have easy access to me to let me know what you want to hear.

Inside of today's episode, I am joined by Audriana Cowden.

Now, Audriana is a highly accomplished entrepreneur.

Matter of fact, she's a four-time entrepreneur, highly decorated, highly achieved woman who has done amazing for herself.

But what separates Audriana from the rest is the fact that she's done all of this while being sick so much of the time.

What people don't realize is that this woman's been operating a business from a hospital with a laptop and she's been doing it all while sick.

Because Audriana, she lives with eight different chronic illnesses.

Yeah.

Eight.

And yet she still strives to do her best in life to be a well-accomplished entrepreneur.

So many times in life we feel like the world is against us.

We feel like our health is failing.

And I can't help but think to myself, wow, why did Adriana never give up?

Why did she never just throw in the towel?

Why has it she just fell victim to her circumstance?

Well, I don't know.

Maybe you'll get to discover that inside of our interview with Audriana today.

What is it that's inside of her that has kept her going, kept her striving for more, even in spite of all the odds stacked against her?

Today, I encourage you to get your inspiration, to get your motivation from this amazing woman, a four-time entrepreneur living with eight different chronic illnesses.

And yet she's here today inspiring us to be better in our own lives.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, thank you so much for asking.

You're correct.

I was a chief digital marketing officer for a household name company and had just relocated to a new city to be with them.

And unfortunately, about I would say six or eight months after I started in that role, like you said, I took a sip of water and I just doubled over in pain and fell to the ground.

And so I had my then boyfriend, now husband, come pick me up and of course take me to the hospital.

And they did what every emergency room does, you know, poke on your abdomen, run a bunch of tests, and said, you know, it looks like you need gallbladder surgery.

And so they scheduled me for admitted me, scheduled me for surgery and removed my gallbladder.

I went back to work four or five days later.

And this time I took a sip of coffee and the same thing happened.

I just doubled over in pain, excruciating on the floor.

And I have a pretty high tolerance for pain.

So this time when we called Eric, he was like, what is going on?

Went back to the same hospital and they ran different blood tests and diagnosed pancreatitis.

And that turned into what has become an ongoing battle, health, you know, professionally, personally, physically, for the last, I think, eight or nine years now.

I ended up spending between 2015 and 2016, I spent the greater part of six months fully hospitalized, going in and out for weeks or months at a time.

And the two most common things with chronic pancreatitis are extreme pain, which is clearly how it was identified in me originally, and nausea and vomiting.

And both of those are a result of elevated life levels, which is a pancreatic marker in your blood.

But yeah, I ended up leaving corporate America in the middle of 2016.

And because I'm stubborn, I started my own company, a digital marketing agency, and have been on that journey for the past seven and a half years or so, and was blessed enough to grow it rather well and uh sold it off this summer in 2023.

And to your point, it has definitely marked a moment of transition in my life from one simple sip of water and followed up by a sip of coffee.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Wow, wow, wow.

How quickly life can change direction.

SPEAKER_02: So true.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow, wow.

Now, what got you into corporate to begin with?

SPEAKER_02: You know, I I went to college my freshman year and I went pre-med.

And halfway through my freshman year, somewhere around February, I was like, you know, I'm bored.

I just, I don't, I don't love pre-med.

And so I left school.

Well, I transferred schools.

I didn't leave school.

I transferred schools to be closer to some family.

And I decided I wanted to work full-time and go to school full-time.

And that worked out really well for the remainder of my freshman year.

And then that summer I went and visited a girlfriend from my first school out in Denver.

And she happened to be interning at the university president's office.

And I walked in his office on his lunch break one day and said, Hey, can I get into a college night and weekend classes?

Because I would like to work full-time.

This was, I think, the middle of July.

And he said, Well, you're a little late to apply, but let's see what we can do.

And I got in and kind of the rest was history.

I lived in Denver for 10 years, worked full-time, went to school full-time, and just loved it.

And as I was working, I was falling more and more in love with business.

I started my career in human resources and have never really gotten away from the love I have for recruiting and helping people in their careers.

But in terms of profession, I was recruited away from a division I was in at a major telecom company by the senior vice president of marketing.

And that started my life as a marketer.

And that was about 25 years ago.

And, you know, other than doing coaching as well, since I do love that career component and executive component, I kind of never looked back.

I just I get so excited by marketing because it's to me, it's science and art, and it's kind of the perfect mix of left brain and right brain.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love that so much.

Now, no, something that I'm kind of curious about, and I I hope you don't mind me me asking this question, is I had read on your website, and and for anybody who visits Adriana's website, you will see like you are like highly decorated.

If you want to talk about like accolades, like you are insane.

And yet I read something that said that you left home when you were 17.

SPEAKER_02: Yes.

Unceremoniously kicked out of home at 17.

And, you know, not surprising.

Teens and their parents don't always get along.

I was having some friction with my mother, and she thought the best idea would be to like put my stuff outside the front door.

And I think this was just kind of her way of doing things because she had kind of done this with my older brother and sister.

The difference is they just kind of packed up everything and moved back in the house.

And I was like, okay, well, I'm gone.

And so I opened back then the newspaper and found someone who needed a roommate and agreed to like pay for groceries in exchange for her second bedroom with a woman in her 30s.

Went and found a job starting as a title clerk and working my way up as a finance analyst.

And I had just finished high school.

And so I knew I was on a path to go to college.

So I only had a couple of months to kind of connect there.

But yeah, I literally just went out on my own.

And I, you know, I actually credit my mom with that, which might sound weird, but for a personality like mine, it has given me the what I would say the chutzpah to really continue and go on every time something new has faced me that has been adversity, whether it's my health or my career or a relationship.

I'm just kind of like a get it done, take action, get it done, and move on.

And I always say someone has something in life.

Like I obviously have my health, my profession.

I've I've done very well professionally.

And I have an amazing husband, although that took up, you know, two times.

But, you know, everyone has something relationships, finance, health, whatever the case may be.

Mine happens to be health now.

And so those lessons from getting kicked out at 17 and just kind of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps have really helped me in the darkest times of my physical health, as well as when you're building a business.

I mean, you're an entrepreneur, you know this.

It's not all like, you know, bunnies and rainbows.

It's it's a lot of hard work and you have ups and downs, both financially and mentally, and with clients and with workload.

And you have to learn how to really ride those waves.

And thankfully, I'm able to do that because I was taught how to do it, good, bad, or indifferent in terms of the ways at a rather young age.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.

Now, have you, like even as a child growing up, always kind of had this feisty, fiery type disposition about you, or is this something that that you kind of grew into later in life?

SPEAKER_02: That is such a good question.

My grandfather, my mother's father, nicknamed me Pistol.

So that probably answers it.

Um and my former in-laws nicknamed me The Sergeant.

So I've kind of always had this fire in me.

I was never really like your typical kid.

I never understood, nor did I watch cartoons.

I don't watch animated movies.

Like I just didn't do that.

I started reading books at two and be and I still am a book junkie and proud to be an author.

And so I would have my nose in a book.

I would spend like every afternoon if my mom couldn't pick me up from school, which was most afternoons, because she was a single mom with three kids and worked five jobs.

I would just sit in the library and like peruse the books.

Like to me, the most amazing smells are like freshly sharpened pencils and library books.

So I've always been feisty and I've never kind of been a quote unquote kid, if you will.

I was like an adult, an old soul stuck in a small body.

And I still am.

I'm still very fatigued.

I'm like 5'2, 95 pounds.

SPEAKER_03: I'm not that big of a body now, but but still that older soul, if you will.

SPEAKER_01: Yes.

Oh my gosh, that is so funny.

Now, what do you credit to you finding such success in your career endeavor?

And even even even, I mean, if we want to talk about school in general, because I mean college, I mean, it's no easy feat.

What do you credit for that success?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I would say that it's hard to put just one thing, but honestly, it's the name of your podcast and business.

It is a combination of grit, grace, and inspiration.

And, you know, you have to be able to look at a no and flip it to the word on and just move on.

And so that's how I've looked at my profession.

If I ever got a no, I thought, okay, there is a reason that the universe and God do not want me going in this direction.

I need to move on.

So flip that no to O N and move on.

The same thing professionally, moving on.

I will tell you the biggest struggle has been health-wise, because I have a number of conditions that were not only hard to diagnose, but I have one even now that no one can seem to diagnose.

And that is when it becomes really the moment of grit, right?

Where you go back to it and go, okay, well, no one can figure out what's going on despite what I'm telling them, despite what they're testing.

And so I'm just gonna have to like grin and bear it and get through this with grit.

Everything else, I always say grace and ease, whether it's like trying to open a shower door or a pill bottle or trying to close a client or pitch a new client or speaking, use grace and ease.

You should never have to force things in life because if you're forcing them, it's not naturally meant to be.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

Now, kind of talking about the health issues, which is really kind of where we we started our conversation at.

Talk to me a little bit more about that, unpacking for me a little bit more of exactly what kind of led into like we we talked about that sip of water and where what that did.

But talk to me a little bit more in depth because I mean, your medical history is pretty insane.

SPEAKER_02: It's ridiculous.

That's all you can do is laugh at it at this point.

Actually, I'm gonna tell you all of the conditions I have, and if you can imagine how crazy this is, I actually have to go into my list to remember all of them.

So in the last since 2015, I've had 32 surgeries most recently, eight weeks ago.

And let me see.

I like I know I have a list of diseases in here.

Okay, I have 11 diseases.

So I have hypopituitary, which is in your brain.

It's a pituitary gland.

Mine functions as if it has a tumor, but you know, knock on wood, there is no tumor.

I have hypothyroid, I have Addison's disease, which is um an issue with the adrenal glands, and obviously chronic pancreatitis.

The way you treat Addison's disease is to take steroids every day, which is interesting.

It does not give you what some people get like roid rage or weight gain because in my body it's creating homeostasis.

But what it did give me is osteoporosis.

I have fatty liver disease.

In 2019, I had my pancreas fully removed and a total pancreatectomy, and then an add-on, an auto-yelet transplant.

And what that does is makes you an insulin-dependent diabetic.

Although you're what's called a type 3C, which is very rare because it has to be pancreatic or or other autoimmune related.

I have insanely chronic migraines, a blood disease that called ITP, gastropresis, which is literally paralyzed stomach, IBS and celiac.

So those are the 11 I have.

And honestly, up until I would say 2006, I was like, great.

All of a sudden I started like, you know, being unable to keep food down and losing an extreme amount of weight, and ended up at Mayo Clinic and they diagnosed gastroparesis.

And then as we talked about, that sip of water really started leading to a number of other things.

And that would be obviously gallbladder and chronic pancreatitis, which led to the diabetes.

So they all tend to snowball.

And like I'm currently dealing with a colon motility disease that no one can figure out what it is or how to how to treat it, right?

So what I would say is you get a world-class education in medicine without going to medical school.

And I am blessed that I have an engineer and rocket scientist husband that has become a part-time nurse doing everything from wound dressings and wound vac changes to administering IV antibiotics through a PIC line to like doing feeding tubes at home.

So it's quite the journey.

But what I would say is like anything, you have to see the beauty in it.

It allows me to connect with patients on a different level at all different types of ways and times.

It has given me more balance in my life.

And I'm not great at like work-life balance.

I'm pretty bad at it, but it forces me to have that balance.

And so, although they are not great, I would not even wish this my worst enemy.

I would say it has given me more perspective and strength than I ever thought possible.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.

Now, through all of this, you have continued to have your own business?

SPEAKER_02: Yes.

So I built Decaf Digital, which was the marketing agency from May 2016.

And I ironically, I sold it at the end of May in 2023.

However, for the last 25 years, I have continued to do executive and career coaching.

And I work primarily now with executives, whether it's just executive coaching in their in their current position or a founder or entrepreneur, or if it's to transition and career.

Because again, I've been a CEO for the last 10 years, a chief marketing officer, a chief digital marketing officer, a vice president of digital and social for like a$40 billion company.

So it's a little bit different of a perspective.

I come to the table with the perspective of having sat in the chair they're sitting in, whether they're an entrepreneur trying to grow to a seven-figure business or a woman-owned business or minority-owned business, both of which I am, and I was able to achieve the top 2% of income in all women of minority-owned businesses.

And so whether it's from that perspective and helping them strategize and grow their leadership team or their core team or even their strategy itself, or whether it's how do I motivate my team?

How do I increase retention?

How do I elevate our communications across the team?

How do I align us to a North Star mission together as an executive?

Again, I've sat in their chair, I've done that work, and I've also coached people through it.

And then from a career transition perspective, not only have I changed careers, but I've coached over 6,000 people in five continents on how to make career transitions.

And every market is a little bit different, but I will tell you, career transition is recession proof.

Regardless of what's going on in the recession or in the economy in general, if it's robust and buzzing along, people are still changing their careers for whatever reason they decide, right?

And so I think the most interesting thing is I don't have a formularic approach.

I really take a customized approach to every company, individual, or executive that I work with, because what I always say is we're all very unique individuals and we have unique goals.

And so I don't understand how a like a cookie cutter approach could apply to everyone.

So I take a very personalized approach.

But yes, I've I've been doing that for 25 years consistently through everything and then built Decaf Digital.

So, you know, and was very happy with how Decaf went.

And I'm blessed that I had some fantastic connections from my years in business that I reached out to initially and said, Hey, I'm watching this business.

Will you give us a minute to kind of, you know, bend your ear on what we can do?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

So you were the woman in the hospital with the laptop with the headset on, doing coaching calls while the nurses were in there?

SPEAKER_02: That is so literally, literally me.

And not only that, but like I was just in the hospital two weeks ago, and the only person that knew I was in the hospital was my assistant.

And she finally called me and she's like, I thought you were in the hospital.

I was like, I am.

She's like, Well, I mean, you're still on email, you're still attending these meetings.

Like, I try to do as much as I can.

And again, I don't recommend that.

I'm not very good at work life balance, but I find it it is a positive.

Positive distraction for me when I'm not feeling well to help others.

You know, as a coach, you're advancing their career, you're advancing their business, you're advancing their executive acumen.

And so I get energy from that.

And so for me, when I don't feel well, although I might need to be off camera, those are the times where I need that energy that I get from the work I do.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love it.

Now, one thing like I'm kind of wondering was there any point during this journey?

And I mean, you're you're still on this journey with health problems.

Was there ever a low moment when you thought, how can I do this?

How can I physically, mentally keep working, keep at this level of life?

Was there ever a low moment like that?

SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.

There's not just one, there's plenty of them.

In 2018, I was formally diagnosed with PTSD, which I was shocked by.

I I was of the time what I would consider to be an un unaware person that did not realize anyone other than a veteran could have PTSD and was diagnosed with it and have continued to be treated.

And it was entirely because my body had just been failing.

I it took about 18 months to recover from a surgery called the Whipple.

And six of those months, well, the first four months, I was not even mobile.

I I had to be carried like from bed to bathroom.

The next six months, six or eight, I was in a wheelchair.

And when you consider the fact that I've always been independent since 17, that was a lot of dependency.

And I didn't deal well with it.

I didn't understand why the universe and God was doing this to me.

Why couldn't I get myself out for a walk?

Why couldn't I, you know, go to the grocery store?

Why couldn't I do any of these things?

Why was that, why was it such a difficult recovery?

And I still have those days, honestly.

Those days don't go away.

You get better at dealing with them, Kevin, but but they don't go away, right?

So, like right now I'm dealing with this colon motility disorder that no or disease that no one can figure out.

And just this weekend, I had a really rough day on Saturday.

And I looked at my husband, I was like, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Like, I just want to feel better.

I just want to be able to go for like a nice long walk if I want.

And so those days do creep up.

I think it's important on those days to do some sort of fellowship with a support person.

And so for me, that could be a fellow patient that I'm very close with, like Kelly.

It could be a girlfriend like Melissa or Bethany.

It could even just be sitting down with my husband.

He tends to try and fix problems.

So for him, I have to be like, I just want to vent or I just want you to listen and love me.

SPEAKER_00: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: Because I appreciate that.

I mean, again, an engineer, you know, his mind is like, okay, if this, then that.

If this test, then that.

SPEAKER_00: Right.

SPEAKER_02: So he's like, if you do A and B, you will get C and I'm like, yeah, my body doesn't work that way.

If I do A and B, I get fish.

SPEAKER_03: Like, it does not work that way.

SPEAKER_02: Um, and so, so yes, those days come and thankfully they go.

But I also work regularly with a therapist.

I have a therapy session every week for an hour.

And I find that to be a critical component, along with a medication of my ongoing approach to the mental health component of it.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.

Do you feel as though, I mean, even though you're you're working with with people in business, career transitions, obviously they're still humans, they're still people.

And so do you feel as though what you've been through, what you go through on a daily basis makes you that much better of a coach?

SPEAKER_02: I do.

I absolutely think that.

I'm so glad you asked that question.

I do think it makes me that much better of a coach because I have different understandings, right?

So take out the career component for or my professional success, right?

Or being an entrepreneur and all of that.

I have the perspective of having been on my own since 17, which other people have as well.

I have the perspective of having a stepdaughter that is also on the autism spectrum.

You know, I'm a married woman, but I also am a divorced woman.

You know, I'm formerly divorced, not now.

Um, and so, you know, I have these other components.

And like you said, we all are holistic individuals, right?

There's so many different components to us.

And when you layer in everything I have learned from going through my medical challenges or, you know, relationship issues, it allows you to bring a perspective to being a coach for executives that not many have.

Because again, there are unique demands on executives that are not placed on, let's say, a manager or an individual contributor, not saying they're harder, better, they're just different and unique.

And so because I sit in this chair and have been through all of those, I have a different, I would say it's a more empathetic approach.

It is not like we get in and talk one, two, three, everything's just nitty-gritty.

Yes, I'm direct.

Yes, we go fast, yes, we get results.

But I also have a very empathetic approach because I want to understand my clients and I want to understand their goals and I want them to achieve those.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

I love that so much.

Now, you you referenced earlier, you made a quick mention of it, about a book.

What kind of book did you write?

SPEAKER_02: I wrote a book on career transition.

It's called Career Sudoku: Nine Ways to Win the Job Search Game.

I know I'm so I'm a again, there's my dorkiness.

I'm a Sudoku player.

It was like I never name anything all that creative.

I'm a Sudoku player, that's how I named the book.

I drank Decaf, I named the agency Decaf Digital.

These are all just woven within my life.

But it was published in 2010, and I'm looking at doing a new version more than anything because a lot of the information is still very valuable.

Like there's a whole section on your first 90 days, there's a you know, big section on interviewing, but resume styles have changed.

And more importantly, even back then, I did a whole chapter on social media.

And boy, has all that changed, right?

So it is still chock full of great ideas, and you can get it on Amazon, but it's what I would consider to be outdated in terms of resume and social media.

And so the way I do that now is I write a ton of blogs.

And so I keep the blogs as updated as possible.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.

I love that.

I love that.

Makes you kind of wonder how does she have time for it all?

SPEAKER_03: You would be amazed at what you can do in the middle of the night.

I do not sleep well.

SPEAKER_02: And I actually have a notice like on the bottom of my email that says, you may receive emails from me outside of normal business hours from time to time.

Please do not feel any pressure to respond outside of your own work schedule.

SPEAKER_00: I love it.

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I'll send emails at 1, 2, 3 a.m.

Or, you know, this morning I was up at 4:30 a.m.

and, you know, working by 5 30.

And the last thing you want is to put pressure on someone else that they need to be working around your crazy schedule, right?

So yeah.

So that's how I find time, middle of the night.

And I I do block out what I call balance hours every day on my calendar, which are non-meeting hours just for me to rebalance, rebalance a workload, rebalance my mental state, maybe go for a short walk or, you know, grab a cup of coffee in the afternoon, decap.

But yeah, I always use balance hours too.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

What about for for the woman who's listening today who doesn't have the nickname of pistol, who, who, but is going through stuff herself?

She she's dealing with her own life-altering, you know, medical conditions and and and just the challenges of life.

What would you say to her as any words of of wisdom, of, of words of encouragement?

What would you say to that woman?

SPEAKER_02: I would say lean in heavily to your support system and specifically your girlfriends.

Women understand each other in a way that that men simply can't, which, you know, just makes sense.

And we're able to have conversations in a supportive way while also being loving and empathetic.

And that's not to say that men can't do it.

It's simply to say that a woman-on-woman conversation is entirely different than a woman on man or man on man or binary and binary because we relate to different things, right?

So, I mean, honestly, a lot of my conversations lately are about menopause.

Like that's what everyone wants, because I'm in it.

Most of my friends are in it.

You know, no guy wants to talk about that or understands it.

You know, well, maybe if they have a wife in it.

But it's really about surrounding yourself with your champions and your support system.

And that can be your other female friends, it can be your siblings or your parents or grandparents.

It can also be your husband or life partner, but knowing how to ask for help.

And what I would also say to women who are listening that maybe aren't feeling that, like maybe are doing well, is regularly check in with your girlfriends because I can guarantee you at least one of them needs help right now and is not asking for it.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so true.

Sound advice for sure.

For that same woman or a different person or the man who thinks, I need some more Audriana in my life.

Where's the best place for them to go to to follow you, to learn more about your services?

Where should we direct them?

SPEAKER_02: I would like people to go to my website, which is audrianacowden.com.

It's A D R I A N A C O W D I N dot com.

Or you can find me on LinkedIn under Audriana L Cowden, and you can connect with me on either of those places.

SPEAKER_01: Amazing.

Amazing.

I will be sure that both of those are linked in the uh episode show notes for easy access.

Audriana, thank you so much for for being on the podcast today to share your story, kind of these two two different aspects of your story.

The the career woman who has found just amazing success, but then the story kind of behind the scenes of what you've been going through, your own struggles.

I uh I just really appreciate you opening up and and sharing all of it with us.

SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you so much for having me.

It's my pleasure.

And you know, if I can help one person find some motivation or find a new direction or even put a smile on their face, it's absolutely worth it.

And and I thank you for having this podcast so that it can reach people that need this information.

That's a wonderful thing you're doing.

And I really, it's my honor to be a guest on your podcast.

SPEAKER_01: Amazing, amazing.

Well, well, thank you.

And for you listening today, I hope that you, of course, have something that you heard today that made you laugh, that made you smile, and maybe made you think that, hey, I'm not the only one.

And so be sure to check out today's show notes for all of Adriana's links and information.

And as always, get out there and take on the day with great, great, and inspiration!