Meet Lillian Brummet

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lillian Brummet. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lillian below.

Lillian , we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
Sometimes tragedy can lead to great strengths, at least that is what I have found. Early in my childhood I learned to survive an unstable home that involved multiple marriages, dozens of homes, and sometimes – abuse. I was on my own at just under 14 years of age… survival kicked in and since I was already working a few hours here or there doing odd jobs, sitting children, weeding gardens and the like – cash under the table – I just doubled down on that. I found it really easy to get work and farmers always appreciate a good worker. Because of that I was able to pay rent, feed myself and those that crashed at my place… and of course, party. Now, as I grew up I realized that most of the people I knew were stuck in a depressing rut and clung to their experiences as reasons why they could not grow forward. I was determined to not be one of them. So I went back to school, got some formal hospitality management education and a few years later I found myself running a small business. 6 years of busily running from one client to another and managing a few employees, I was involved in a 3-car smash up – I was in the middle. The repercussions of which caused the loss of my business. I think that the past experience built in me a determined, tenacious, proacative nature that helped me grow into the person I am today and to treasure this 34 year marriage (so far) with my husband and business partner, Dave.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Having just turned 54 this month, I look at our “to-do” list with determination – this goal of completing it, before time runs out. I look at time as a much more precious thing, I take more time for me these days but I’m very passionate about our goals too. I entered the world of writing professionally back in 1999, when I wrote my first article. That article was picked up as a column that ran for 6 years. Later, it became the basis for the green living series.I continued my journey as a staff writer for a popular print newsletter & a small magazine. Eventually I branched out into freelance & assignment work. About 7 years later, Dave & I published the first book based on the column. Since then we have worn many hats: blogger (20 years), podcast host (Authors Read; 2 years), a talk radio show (Conscious Discussions Talk Radio; 12 years), professional book reviewer, then a product reviewer & host of the Brummet Media Channel on YouTube.

Balancing a business run with a spouse, a busy dog-friendly house and trying to find time to write, is at times overwhelming. I’ve been an entrepreneur since the age of 25 when I started my first business that ran successfully for 6 years before a car accident forced me to let that go. After a couple years of healing, my husband (Dave) and I merged our skills and talents under one business roof in 1999. We had to balance that with more than a decade of caregiving for various parents, relocating to different cities twice, dealing with implications of the injuries and a resulting anxiety disorder. Surviving two economic downturns followed by the effects and aftereffects of COVID… we have survived all this and more.

Brummet Media Group is our business, which involves: 2 blogs, 7 books , a drum studio, and a YouTube channel. We released a poetry book in January, updated the Purple Snowflake Marketing book & released it in both hardcover and ebook formats. We have a family memoir coming out in late March/early April and 3 more books are currently in the publication schedule taking us into mid 2025.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Having run a business prior to Brummet Media Group, I was already familiar with the operations, scheduling and finance side of business management. We have 2 basic business operations philosophies: Start Out How You Mean To Continue and Do It Right The First Time. Because of this belief system, we spend a lot of time asking questions, studying peers in the industry, watching what successful people are doing, listening to interviews, taking courses and studying books prior to taking on the next step in our annual action plan. Plans are very important because they bring every aspect out to the front and help entrepreneurs refine their actions and become more efficient at what they do. We reevaluate our business plan every 5 years looking at operations, suppliers, contingencies… everything.

We start each new year with a meeting focusing on the previous year’s action plan… we will look at what worked, what succeeded beyond our expectations and what didn’t pan out so well. We try to determine the various catalysts that affected last year’s action plan, what obstacles caused delays. From that we take a look at current goals. By the end of that hour Dave and I have a basic action plan that tells us what we are doing first. Knowing why we are taking those steps is very helpful for keeping a positive mindset.

Around the 2nd quarter we will pause for another business meeting and here we will take a look at that annual plan to see how things are going, changes we may need to make, obstacles we have to plan for or where we need to pivot our attention for now.

I also keep a file of “opportunities”. This is a list of things we don’t have time to do, sites or resources to check out, tasks to consider, query opportunities and so forth. I call them “opportunities” because it takes the mindset to a positive one rather than focusing on all the things we don’t have time to do. When my schedule opens up I have this great big file filled with opportunities just sitting there waiting for me to check out. It feels better when you change the mindset.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
We are always open to networking and collaboration projects. The Brummet’s Conscious Blog and our other blog, Drum It With Brummet, both accept queries for poems, articles, product reviews and a wide array of interview opportunities. The Brummet Media Channel on YouTube welcomes questions submitted by curious viewers that we create 6-10 min video responses to. Occasionally I’ll be asked to be a featured guest in a writer’s group, usually via Zoom. I also love being invited to be a blog, newsletter, e-zine, radio show or podcast guest. That is always fun! At least a dozen times per year we are donating books, gift certificates or instruments to fundraisers, local charity and community events and silent auction events. We’d love for people to subscribe to our channel, follow us on Amazon and visit our blogs. 🙂

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Dave Brummet

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