Written by:  Kimberly Henry Senior Staff Writer UNSUGARCOATED Media

June 2, 2021

After a season of tracing silver linings through the incredible lives of artists, advocates, filmmakers, and musicians, host, Aalia Lanius, brings on a special guest for the season finale of UNSUGARCOATED with Aalia. Lindsey Brooks is an entrepreneur who made her first million dollars at 19… just as she was diagnosed with cancer and her marriage fell apart. This is a woman who knows the value of a silver lining.

Co-founder of Instapreneur and Boardwalk Holdings, Brooks is the marketing mind behind some of TVs most recognizable products like the metal hair massager, the Slap Chop, and the ShamWow. She has sold billions of dollars’ worth of products throughout her career, but so often her greatest successes came hand-in-hand with her greatest challenges. Throughout their conversation, Brooks shares with Aalia and her listeners all the insights they’ll need to push through failure to the success that lies on the other side.

Aalia begins the conversation asking Brooks about her early years in business and the initial trauma and triumph that set her on the path she walks today. At the young age of 19 years old, Brooks had moved to Washington State to start a career in business, where she found early success with her first product design, a little body rake that would lead to her million dollar idea, the metal hair massager.

But her success caused tension in her marriage to her older husband, and that tension broke the couple apart when Brooks was diagnosed with cancer.

“You might go, ‘Wow, what a terrible person to leave you in that situation,’” Brooks says. “But I thank him for it, [otherwise] I would have never been the person I am today.”

Just as her business career was skyrocketing, divorce and cancer plummeted Brooks down to her lowest point. She was undergoing chemotherapy, down to her last $200, and $50 dollars short of the entrance fee to a local craft sales event. But Brooks tells Aalia the story of how, with a pair of leather pants, angel wings, and the uncanny ability to not vomit on stage, she finally found her path back up to success.

“That was the first time I saved my own life,” Brooks smiles. “Ever since that day, I’ve had no problem saving my own life.”

One success didn’t mean that everything was suddenly blue-skies, though, and Brooks will be the first to tell you that in the sales business, you hear “no” a lot more often than “yes.”

But how do you deal with so much rejection without losing hope?

Brooks tells Aalia about the power of rejection and how a “no” in the pitch world is rarely ever just a “no.” She dives into why “no” can be a question, a “not now,” or a “not like that,” and how to tell the difference. Brooks also reminds listeners that they can use “no” to empower themselves, and that “we only get sharper as we sharpen our swords.”

“When you’re in a battle… you are constantly being tested. Just like two people that are fencing, as they’re fighting those swords are getting sharper and sharper just from that clank, that constant going back and forth with each other.”

Brooks shares with Aalia a surprising “no” she received in the process of marketing one of her most successful sales campaigns, the ShamWow. She reveals the behind-the scenes trials of the early days of the ShamWow and the lessons those challenges taught her.

“If we would not have second guessed ourselves and though really about how it sold, we would never be where we are today,” says Brooks.

With all the confidence and savvy Brooks exudes, Aalia asks her what advice she would give listeners how to make the “Big Ask” and demand what they want.

Brooks shares that for a long time she had hoped someone would “choose” her, give her “permission” and they’d ride off into the sunset. She explains  how to get over waiting for your “knight in shining armor.”

“Once you kind of realize that that person is in you, I really think that that’s when the magic happens.”

Listen to the full conversation to hear just how Brooks overcame punishing odds to survive hardship and rise to the top of her field.

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Connect with Lindsey Brooks: Instagram @lindseybean77

To stay up to date with UNSUGARCOATED Media, visit UnsugarcoatedMedia.com and follow us on Instagram: @unsugarcoatedmedia. 

Stay connected with Aalia on Instagram: @aalia_unsugarcoated, as well as on Clubhouse and LinkedIn.