The Messy Success Podcast

Hosted by Elizabeth Henson

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Episodes

252

Latest episode

Sep 2026

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About the show

Welcome to the Messy Success Podcast. Our host, Elizabeth Henson, is an expert in community based marketing with a focus on leadership and self development. She helps entrepreneurs, artists, and creative leaders grow and scale communities so that marketing is easy. She used her experience helping seven figure business owners to build out her own unique methodology in community building and marketing. The Messy Success Podcast combines business tips and real life experiences in being a creative entrepreneur. This podcast will leave you feeling confident, and normalizes the day to day struggles we all experience as business owners. We can't wait to connect with you!

Listen to episodes

60 recent

September 9, 202621 min

253: Dealing with Rejection in Business: Moving Through It Instead of Around It

Welcome back to the Messy Success Podcast. Some weeks hand you all the rejection at once. This is one of those episodes. Elizabeth shares what it looked like to sit with a string of no's in her business, the old story it stirred up from childhood, and why she's chosen to see it as evidence she's playing a bigger game, not a smaller one. She also shares something lighter: a content hack she stumbled into the same day, built on the idea of document over create instead of constantly having to invent something new. It led her to try a simple day in the life content idea, and it ended up connecting her with a real person in a way she wasn't expecting. Two different stories, one honest episode. Come sit with her in the messy middle of both.

September 2, 202654 min

252: Doing the Big Scary Thing: What It Actually Takes to Go All In with Candice West

Welcome back to the Messy Success Podcast. Today's episode is all about doing the big scary thing, and Elizabeth sits down with her friend Candice West, an advanced practice nurse, somatic practitioner, and founder of The Soma Center, who is producing her first ever live performance, Permission Granted, at the Sandler Center in Virginia Beach. This conversation is for anyone who has an idea sitting on a shelf, the book, the event, the big leap you keep talking yourself out of. Candice opens up about what it actually feels like to commit to something this size with zero production experience, and how detachment from outcome became the thing that let her keep going even when a lead dancer broke her foot weeks before opening night. She and Elizabeth talk honestly about fear of failure, why financial risk isn't the risk people think it is, and what it means to stop shrinking and finally take up the whole stage instead of the smaller, safer room. If you've ever had a big scary thing you've been sitting on, this episode is your permission slip. Take a listen, and let it stir something loose.

August 26, 202623 min

251: When Your Systems Fail: A Behind-the-Scenes Summer Debrief

Welcome back to the Messy Success Podcast. This week's episode is a summer debrief, and it starts with a confession: Elizabeth's morning walk routine, the one she loved so much last year, lasted about a week this summer before it quietly fell apart. Instead of glossing over that, she uses it as a way into a bigger conversation about work-life balance for business owners, what actually worked this summer (a new studio, a consistent schedule, real support), and what she's still figuring out. She talks honestly about back-to-school emotions, about revenue stability not changing how much she wanted to work, and about the intentional choices behind the support system she has. There's no perfect takeaway here, just an honest look at what messy actually looks like in real life, and a reminder that you have more choice than you think you do.

August 19, 20261 hr 12 min

250: Live Group Coaching Call: A Real, Unfiltered Peek of Our Community

Welcome back to the Messy Success Podcast. This episode is a little different. Instead of a solo teaching episode, you're getting a real, unfiltered look inside a bonus group coaching call from Elizabeth's program, Elevate. It's an honest look at what it actually takes when you're growing your business on social media and the results aren't showing up the way you hoped. This episode is for you if you've ever wondered whether you're the only one whose Instagram isn't converting, whether you should be leaning into long form content vs short form content, or whether it's too late to name the next chapter of your business out loud. Elizabeth walks a group of her Elevate members through a handful of simple journal prompts, and what comes up is honest, funny, and deeply relatable. You'll hear real business owners talk through new offers, fear, imposter syndrome, and the discomfort of showing up when nobody's watching yet. Elizabeth also shares her own thirteen years of experimenting in real time, including a story about TikTok that proves persistence pays off even when the results feel invisible. If you've been waiting for permission to be new at something, to change direction, or to simply keep going, this episode is that permission. Press play, grab a journal, and let whatever comes up for you be enough.

August 12, 202630 min

249: Understanding Customer Pain Points: My exact method, and what not to do!

Welcome back to the Messy Success Podcast. In this episode, Elizabeth breaks down her personal framework for understanding customer pain points, the exact process she uses to connect with her audience and clients without ever making assumptions about what they're struggling with. She kicks things off with a real story from her DMs, a moment that perfectly illustrates how most people get pain points completely wrong, and why it feels so off putting when someone assumes they know what you need. This episode is for anyone building an audience, writing sales copy, sending emails, or having sales conversations who wants their marketing to feel human instead of transactional. Elizabeth walks through her four step process, starting with consent marketing, then moving into how to identify what someone actually wants, uncovering the real barrier standing in their way, and giving people the agency to self diagnose whether your solution is right for them. If you have ever felt like your marketing sounds like everyone else's, or like you are guessing at what your audience needs, this conversation offers a completely different way to think about connection. It is not about having the perfect script. It is about asking better questions and letting people lead. Take a listen, sit with the four steps, and see where you might be making assumptions instead of asking questions.

August 5, 202627 min

248: The Hardest Part about Being a Business Coach. What Most People Miss....

Welcome back to the Messy Success Podcast. This week Elizabeth is talking about the real difference between opportunity vs circumstance, and why so many people stay stuck one decision away from the life they say they want. After ten years of coaching entrepreneurs, Elizabeth has noticed a pattern: most people already know what they should be doing to grow their business. The real block isn't knowledge. It's the mindset shift for entrepreneurs that has to happen before any action feels possible. This episode is for anyone who has felt like making money is hard, who has caught themselves ranting about the economy or their circumstances, or who has been sitting on a decision that could change everything. Elizabeth breaks down her red car and blue car metaphor for spotting opportunity, talks through why hiring or raising your prices feels so scary at certain plateaus, and shares a personal story about the decision behind her new podcast studio. You'll walk away with a clearer way to separate circumstance from opportunity, plus a reminder that growth almost never feels like a golden opportunity. It usually just feels like discomfort. If you've been waiting for the moment to feel easier before you make your move, this episode is your permission to stop waiting and start paying attention. Take a listen, sit with it, and see what opportunity you might be overlooking.

July 29, 202623 min

247: When to Collaborate in Business (And When to Say No)

Welcome back to the Messy Success Podcast. If your calendar is filling up with collaboration requests and your revenue isn't following, this episode is for you. Elizabeth breaks down when to collaborate in business, when to say no, and why there's a specific growth phase where accepting every invitation actually works against you. This episode is for the business owner who has moved past the early "collaborate with everyone" stage and is starting to feel drained, overextended, or unsure why events with other business owners aren't filling the room. Elizabeth shares the marketing campaign mistake most people make with collaborations, why she now limits herself to one collaboration a month, and how to tell whether a collaboration is actually serving your business goals or just keeping you in a repetitive pattern. She also offers a completely different model for supporting other business owners without becoming a full partner, one that protects your time and energy while still showing up for your community. If you've been feeling guilty about setting business collaboration boundaries, this conversation will give you permission and a framework to do it well. Press play and start protecting your calendar like the CEO you're becoming.

July 22, 202625 min

246: The Competitive Advantage in Business: How to Give People the Experience of You

Welcome back to the Messy Success Podcast. This week Elizabeth is talking about the real competitive advantage in business, and it has nothing to do with a fancy funnel, strategy, or system. Inspired by the viral Yap Challenge and a coaching call inside her signature program, she breaks down why simply being willing to show up as yourself, on camera, live, unpolished, is the thing most business owners are too afraid to do, and exactly why that fear is your opportunity. This episode is for the entrepreneur who has been avoiding talking head content, going live, or starting a podcast because it feels exposing or uncomfortable. Elizabeth shares real numbers from a room of twelve business owners, only three of whom were actually creating this kind of authentic content marketing, and explains why criticism holds no more weight than someone calling you a color that isn't real. She talks about the difference between chasing validation and building ten out of ten certainty, and why giving people an actual experience of you, not a curated caption, is what grows trust and community. If fear has been quietly running your content strategy, this episode is the nudge to put in the reps anyway. Take a listen, and ask yourself what you have been too afraid to try.

July 15, 202627 min

245: Posting Every Day With No Sales: What You're Actually Missing

Welcome back to the Messy Success Podcast. If you've been posting content and getting no results, you are not alone, and today Elizabeth is challenging the whole way you're measuring "working." This episode is for the creative entrepreneur who is showing up online every day, hearing crickets, and starting to wonder if any of it matters. Elizabeth shares why likes and comments were never the real metric, how building trust on social media actually happens quietly over time, and why she has built what she calls an algorithm-proof business, one that doesn't depend on virality or a single platform to survive. She walks through how to diagnose what's actually going wrong in your content (is it a traffic problem, a messaging problem, an alignment problem) instead of just deciding your offer is bad and starting over. She also gets into why becoming the local authority in your area can feed your entire online presence, and why the entrepreneurs who make it are the ones who stay in the game long enough to build real trust. Plus, a behind the scenes update on Elizabeth's Hampton Roads Creative Network and the new site being built for it. If you've been feeling like you're talking to no one, press play and let this one recalibrate how you think about your content.

July 8, 202622 min

244: Business Built Around Your Life: A Personal Story About Friendship and Saying Yes

Welcome back to the Messy Success Podcast. This week's episode is a personal story about what it really means to have a business built around your life, one that lets you say yes to the people and moments that matter most, even when they show up without warning. Elizabeth shares the story of reconnecting with a childhood best friend during a hard season, dropping everything for a week to help her, and what that trip revealed about the freedom in entrepreneurship she has spent years building toward. This episode is for anyone who has ever felt torn between showing up for their business and showing up for their people, and anyone quietly wondering if entrepreneurship is actually giving them the freedom they were promised. Elizabeth talks through the guilt that can creep in before saying yes to something big, the difference between building a life around a business versus a business around a life, and why community, both personal and professional, is not optional. She also gets honest about what it felt like to unplug for an entire week and trust that her business would still be there when she got back. If you needed a reminder that the whole point of this was never just the business itself, this one is for you. Take a listen, and let yourself sit with the question: what is your business actually allowing you to do?