Lauren Brown (@lobro443 on Instagram) is a Brooklyn-born, Duke grad with a passion for brand insights, digital strategies, and challenging the body and mind through exercise. She is a retired professional ballerina, who performed with The Pennsylvania Ballet and New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center before receiving her degree in Psychology at Duke. She was also a State and National Yoga Champion (#1 in MA-2015; #21 in USA-2015). In 2015, she and her team competed in the UBS & OpenIDEO Challenge and was a winner for their project called UnBroke. So what will you get out of this episode? Inevitably you'll learn a few things about Brand Planning and Marketing. More importantly, this is a story about change. What is it's like for someone to transition from professional ballet (or the performing arts) to a 9-5? Why did Lauren make this decision and how has her life changed since then? Show Notes: [05:20] With so many titles attached to yourself, how do you introduce yourself? [07:05] How old were you when you worked on the street asking marketing questions and surveys? [08:05] What made you decide to stop dancing and pursuing other aspects of life? How was the transition from being a professional dancer to figuring out what's out there? [10:00] How prone are you to injuries? How much recovery time did you have between shows? [14:50] How does your beauty and your training helped you in the professional world? [19:10] How was your transition from being a dancer with a very active lifestyle to a sedentary advertiser? What advice would you share with other people? [23:15] What are some of the things a dancer need to watch out for? I.e. setbacks, liabilities, etc. [25:15] How has your experience been as a strategist? [27:00] What is the IDEO project about  and how it started? [33:15] What was delivered to the IDEO project? [37:50] What's the current status of the project? [40:20] How did you get into Yoga and Yoga competition?