Helen - Case Study #3

How the Inner MBA Helped Helen Brazil Find Her Voice, Own Her Work, and Think Bigger About Her Business

Helen Brazil had already spent nearly twenty years on a healing path when she discovered the Inner MBA.

As an energy-psychology therapist and life-transforming coach, she had spent years working one-on-one with women, helping them release old experiences, beliefs, and patterns and reconnect with their own power. She knew the work deeply.

What she didn’t yet know was how to fully own herself as the person building the business around it.

When Helen first considered enrolling in the Inner MBA, even applying felt intimidating.

“I was convinced that I would not be part of it because of my lack of confidence and self-esteem,” she remembers. Clicking the application button became its own act of courage. Part of the challenge was that Helen simply didn’t see herself as a businesswoman or a leader. She grew up in France, where both of her parents were employees of the French government. Entrepreneurship hadn’t been modeled for her.

“I had no example of what that means to be a business entrepreneur.” Over the course of the Inner MBA, that perception began to change. “I’m a leader in my own business, in my own life.”

Learning to Speak While Her Heart Was Still Shaking

One of the clearest changes Helen noticed was her willingness to speak up. The program gave her repeated opportunities to contribute, express what mattered to her, and allow herself to be seen. But confidence didn’t arrive first. She learned to act while she was still nervous.

“I can feel the nervousness. I can feel that my heart is shaking and I decide that I’m going to do it because this is important.”

For Helen, that distinction mattered. She wasn’t waiting for fear or self-doubt to disappear before doing something meaningful. She was learning how to stay grounded in her body, reconnect with her intention, and take the step anyway.

That practice began changing how she approached her business, too. She became clearer about the values she wanted to bring into her work and more willing to express her intentions instead of assuming that other people already understood them.

She also found herself getting more comfortable with imperfection. Rather than believing she had to show up with everything figured out, Helen began experimenting with being more open about where she was, what she knew, and even where her limits were. That shift made her more effective.

“I feel that in the same time frame I am much more productive than I was before.”

The Part of Business She Didn’t Want to Look At

There was one area Helen had largely resisted before the Inner MBA: Marketing.

“Marketing was the piece I didn’t want to look at for my business and was the big missing piece for me.”

What changed wasn’t simply learning a new marketing strategy. Helen encountered the idea that marketing itself could be conscious. She could communicate about her work without abandoning the authenticity and integrity that mattered to her. Her reaction was immediate.

“Oh, my God, this is possible that I can stay authentic, real with my integrity and share from that.”

She says the teaching “completely changed my relationship with marketing.”

From there, the questions became more fundamental.

What was her business really about? Who did she want to serve? What were her values? What did she want to offer? What vision was she actually building toward?

Helen had entered the program with a strong feeling that she wanted to do something bigger, but without much clarity about what “bigger” meant.

“I had this very strong call… to do something different, to do something bigger. And I had no idea what it really was.”

As she worked through those questions, she began confronting some of the blind spots that had kept her from moving forward. For Helen, the process became one of “owning my work, owning my gift” and learning how to share from that place.

Twenty Years of Experience Became Something She Could Build On

One of the most tangible signs of that new relationship with her work came when Helen began preparing to register her first trademark. Six months earlier, she says, she hadn’t even known what that meant.

Now she was beginning to see that the knowledge she had accumulated over roughly twenty years wasn’t simply a collection of experiences. It could become a body of work she could name, develop, and protect.

“I feel ready to really take the step to… owning my own experiences, my own knowledge.”

Someone working with Helen had pointed out something that had already been sitting on her website for years. She simply hadn’t recognized its value. It was, as she described it, one of her “golden nuggets.” That discovery helped lead her toward the trademark. And her vision for the business began growing alongside that sense of ownership.

At the time of the graduation and certification, Helen was still the only person in her business. But she no longer imagined that had to remain true.

“My vision is to have a full team where we can all work together and… grow together.”

She imagined creating something where people could help others reconnect with what felt exciting and alive to them, and where the work could grow beyond what Helen herself could deliver one-on-one.

“Where I am now is not where I want to be, so my vision and my willingness to make a difference in the world expanded.”

The Teachers Expanded What She Believed Was Possible

Part of what helped Helen imagine that larger future was seeing how other people had built their own work. She was struck by the diversity of the teachers and speakers and by hearing about the different paths they had taken. More importantly, she didn’t experience them simply as distant experts. She saw people willing to show up authentically and talk about what the journey had actually looked like.

“The diversity of the speakers and teachers were really a great source of inspiration for me.”

Seeing people who had created meaningful work in different ways gave Helen evidence that her own vision didn’t have to remain an idea.

“They were the real example that this is possible.”

She Expected Teaching. She Didn’t Expect Belonging.

Helen was also surprised by the community. Her learning community met every two weeks, and she describes developing deep relationships with people who supported one another through the program.

“I was not expecting also to feel this sense of belonging.”

That mattered especially because so much of Helen’s transformation involved learning that her voice deserved to be in the room. Six months earlier, she said, she wouldn’t have imagined herself talking so openly about her work and her vision.

“I’m surprising myself to be able to speak up like that today.”

And later she explained why.

“For a long time, nobody asked me if I wanted to say something.”

Inside the Inner MBA, she had been given repeated opportunities “to speak up and to share and to be heard and seen.”

That practice, she said, helped her become more confident.

“A Turning Point to My Business”

Helen is also refreshingly honest that she didn’t consume every piece of the program. There was a lot of material. Some teachings resonated more deeply with her than others. Instead of treating that as a failure, she began seeing discernment itself as part of becoming a leader.

“I’m getting what I need in the moment and I’m using it as much as I can.”

She expected to return to other teachings later as they became relevant.

That freedom to choose what she needed was part of the experience. And it’s important to remember that all of this was being said only a little more than halfway through her Inner MBA experience.

Already, Helen considered the program a major turning point. “Doing the… IMBA program for me is clearly a turning point to my business and to how I want to show up in the world.” She had entered unsure whether she belonged. Halfway through, she was speaking publicly about her business, seeing herself as a leader, approaching marketing differently, preparing her first trademark, and imagining a team that could help carry twenty years of healing work into something larger.

The nervousness hadn’t entirely disappeared. Helen didn’t need it to. As she put it: “It’s really the time. It’s time to show up.”

And for Helen, that was exactly what she had begun to do.

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