Brandi Copeland writes The Corporate Unspiral, workplace conversations for staying human inside corporate absurdity without spiraling.
She spent two decades inside Fortune 100 HR and employee experience, most recently Disney and NBCUniversal.
Seven months ago, she chose a new path.
In that time, she’s attracted 500+ deeply engaged subscribers by trading corporate polish for her unguarded point of view. Her throughline:
work doesn’t have to suck
nobody’s coming to save you
the employment relationship is a value exchange (you gotta show up too).
And, she’s just recently launched WTF Corporate, her new podcast.
With that, I give you Brandi!
Who is in your creative family tree? Name the writers, comics, or truth-tellers whose fingerprints show up in your sentences, whether or not they ever knew you existed.
WTF Corporate is two episodes old, and you have already covered manufactured Glassdoor reviews and mandatory team building during a heat advisory. What makes a story a WTF Corporate story, and when do you leave one alone?
In So Much For Your Network you wrote, “The absence of advocacy isn’t evidence that you are unworthy of it.” Where did you first live the gap between a warm relationship and a real advocate?
You handed back the Fortune 100 badge seven months ago. What do you miss less than you expected, and what left without warning?
Your one-sentence Notes reach the masses and make them feel something. Your essays hold a reader for twenty minutes. Which is harder to write, and why?
You told me you would take your 500 friends on Substack over 100,000 subscribers who scroll past. When did you know the small room was the right room?
One of the things I hear most people miss most when they leave corporate is the collaboration, camaraderie and feedback. All of those are opportunities for validation. Seven months into working for yourself, where does the “I see you” come from now?
You grew up on a peninsula and write from a landlocked lake in Dallas. What does distance from the water do to your thinking?
What is on your bench right now, half-built? Not the polished launch. The thing you keep circling when nobody is watching.
What do you know about work now, from the outside, you never let yourself say out loud on the inside?
I love her last answer.
In a world where too many rage against the machine, Brandi reminds us that a) it’s really about agency and b) your ideal will always have some baggage.
An enormous “thank you” to Brandi for being so thoughtful - and real- in her answers. It’s how I’ve come to know her as a person and it carries through in her work here on Substack.
Thanks for reading,
Kevin
Below is the text version of my questions and Brandi’s answers:
Who is in your creative family tree? Name the writers, comics, or truth-tellers whose fingerprints show up in your sentences, whether or not they ever knew you existed.
Just as I stepped away from my corporate life, I listened to a podcast and the guest was Garry Ridge. That name probably doesn’t mean anything to most people. Garry is the former CEO of WD-40. Listening to how he speaks about leadership philosophy, the workplace, employee buy-in…it was everything I ever felt in my heart without the ability to fully articulate it. When I tell you that podcast episode has stayed with me, it’s burned into me. There are little things I catch myself saying like “It’s simple, it’s not easy.” That’s Garry. I would love to meet him IRL one day.
WTF Corporate is two episodes old, and you have already covered manufactured Glassdoor reviews and mandatory team building during a heat advisory. What makes a story a WTF Corporate story, and when do you leave one alone?
I have grand plans for the podcast, but what they don’t tell you is it’s A LOT of work to stay consistent with it. I have a few episodes ready to record, so hopefully I’ll be getting back to it soon. The podcast is focused on specific moments where someone has the opportunity to drive change within their own environment by exercising courage, empathy, and accountability. So we do talk about very specific instances of weird WTF moments that happen in the corporate workplace everyday. What I’ll stay away from for the podcast are the systemic issues plaguing the workplace, but I’ll still be writing about those issues in depth.
In So Much For Your Network you wrote, “The absence of advocacy isn’t evidence that you are unworthy of it.” Where did you first live the gap between a warm relationship and a real advocate?
This goes all the way back to my MetLife days as a Regulatory Reporting Accounting. It was my first “big girl” job and I had no idea how to operate within a Fortune 100 corporate environment. I thought getting along with my boss automatically meant he would go to battle for me. I’ve always loved to work and pick things up quickly, so I was good at my job and thought that was enough to get promoted. When a senior analyst role opened, I thought it was mine because I worked hard and got along with my boss. I didn’t understand at the time that I lacked corporate manners or what it took to make someone want to say my name in a room I wasn’t in. That’s when I started to understand that having good relationships and working hard by themselves were never going to be enough if I wanted to grow my career. A lesson I’m glad I learned early.
You handed back the Fortune 100 badge seven months ago. What do you miss less than you expected, and what left without warning?
This is going to be unpopular, but there is a lot I miss about the corporate environment. I miss my colleagues, the structure, the prestige that comes along with saying the company name I worked for. I miss being needed by my team, and I miss being a leader. There’s also something to be said for steady income and benefits that doesn’t get talked about enough when people leave to become entrepreneurs. On the flip side, I don’t miss having other people completely own my time. At the executive level, I was always “on” and I was exhausted.
Your one-sentence Notes reach the masses and make them feel something. Your essays hold a reader for twenty minutes. Which is harder to write, and why?
As of late, the essays have been harder to write. Notes are just thoughts that I think others might be thinking about too. Some hit harder than others. They are also fun to play with and see what resonates. Essays are special because they are invited into people’s emails. That’s a privilege that I want to handle with care. I never want to write an essay just because it’s my chosen publish day. In fact, I just missed last week for the first time in 6 months because I just didn’t have anything that felt worth sharing.
You told me you would take your 500 friends on Substack over 100,000 subscribers who scroll past. When did you know the small room was the right room?
On Substack specifically, it’s interesting because there is a lot of growth content out there. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really fun when I see a new subscriber email come through. But it also means, for me, I am trusted with their engagement. I’m grateful for my quick growth, but I want to be mindful that I am engaging with those who have chosen to subscribe because they are human beings first. I also noticed a lot of big creators that don’t respond to comments or barely have any engagement on their content. That doesn’t feel right to me. If you have open dialogue with people, you start to build a community. That’s what I prefer. I don’t need an audience, I’m here for connection.
One of the things I hear most people miss most when they leave corporate is the collaboration, camaraderie and feedback. All of those are opportunities for validation. Seven months into working for yourself, where does the “I see you” come from now?
One of the best things I did for myself was start to build a new network when I left the corporate world. I surrounded myself with other entrepreneurs. I wanted to learn, see how I could add value, and get inspired by others who are making it happen for themselves. I’ve become great friends with a handful of these people. We talk regularly, give feedback to each other, bounce ideas, and encourage one another along the way.
You grew up on a peninsula and write from a landlocked lake in Dallas. What does distance from the water do to your thinking?
Luckily I live on a giant lake in Dallas and I have a water view from my office. That helps. But, there is something about the vastness of the ocean and fresh, salty air that clears your mind and brings a sense of calm. This is my first time living in a landlocked state, and I don’t prefer it. I like the idea of knowing I’m always less than an hour away from seeing a beautiful sunset over the water.
What is on your bench right now, half-built? Not the polished launch. The thing you keep circling when nobody is watching.
This is hard to say out loud, but the thing I really want to do failed when I tried to do it the first time. I’m afraid to try again. I would love to host a cohort experience for emerging leaders. Many companies are cutting learning & development budgets or hosting outdated training programs. I love the idea of having a more intimate and psychologically safe place for managers to connect, learn from each other, and get tactical skills so we can start breaking the cycle of bad managers producing bad managers.
What do you know about work now, from the outside, you never let yourself say out loud on the inside?
You can absolutely love everything about the work you do, your team, the structure, the pay, the benefits…and still think corporate norms are completely absurd.
Thank you, Kevin, for sharing a peek into my life. This was a fun collaboration and I’m so grateful for our connection!
love the concept of hand written notes amazing work