Adrienne Richardson on Navigating Divorce and Rediscovering Her Identity

Audrey Saccone:

Adrienne Richardson, founder of Powerplay Media, is a seasoned Facebook ad strategist with over a decade of experience managing over $20 million in ad spend, she has generated over 750,000 leads and $90 million in sales for her clients. Adrienne has assisted more than 6500 high level business owners in crafting impactful marketing strategies, and her notable clients include digital marketer Pete Vargas, BossBabe, Michael Hyatt, Russ Rufino, Selena Soo, among others. Adrienne, welcome to the show.

Adrienne Richardson:

Hey, Audrey. Thank you for having me.

Audrey Saccone:

So we first worked together a couple of years ago just as a one off situation, and then reconnected a few months ago. We were both at our friend Veronica Romney's house for a mastermind.

Adrienne Richardson:

Yeah, that was cool. You gave us some feedback on some of our launch copy and strategy. It was great.

Audrey Saccone:

Thanks. Well, I'm really glad to be back in your orbit and to be having you here on tough stuff today, where we talk about lots of sorts of things that we don't hear about on some other podcasts. And today that includes divorce and starting over. So, Adrienne, tell us your story.

Adrienne Richardson:

Yeah, well, I told you before we started, I have not really publicly shared my story before. So your listeners, hopefully, are very gracious. I was married for 17 years. I got married, I was 27, I think-ish. And our marriage was always difficult. It was always a lot of work. We separated a couple of times, but I think both of us, at least for the majority of the time, were determined to make it work and figure it out. And so we just kept trying at different times.

Adrienne Richardson:

But eventually it got to the point where we weren't both trying anymore. And it just got worse and worse and worse. And so it was probably one of the hardest decisions I've ever made in my life because I felt like I had two really sucky options. I could stay or I could leave, and both of them were not good options. And so I had to choose the one that I felt like offered the most amount of hope on the other side of it, and that was to get divorced. And so I've now been divorced for 13 months, and I have two teenagers, and I run a business, and it was very challenging.

Audrey Saccone:

I think that perspective is really beautiful, though, like, which option offers the most hope on the other side? I think that's such a beautiful way of looking at it, because you're right. Either option in the moment is highly unpleasant. So it's what's going to get you where you want to go.

Adrienne Richardson:

Yeah, exactly. And it was a hard choice to make for many reasons. But my children are 16 and 17 years old. Having to split up our home at that point in time in their life, it's difficult, no matter how old they are, honestly. And so that decision to leave was only made because of the fact that I felt like there was no hope in the other choice, and I didn't want to be stuck in that place for the rest of my life.

Audrey Saccone:

I know you're a pretty private person, so I'm curious, how or what did you share with your team and your clients as you're going through this very time and energy consuming transition. It's not like you can ignore it.

Adrienne Richardson:

The two years before we got separated were the worst of my marriage. We were not sleeping in the same room for two years. We were not vacationing together, living life together at all for the last two years of our marriage. And nobody on my team or clients knew that at all. I am a very private person, to be super honest, I like to be seen as someone who has their act together and sharing with my team that my personal life was completely falling apart... It didn't ever feel at any time like that was something I wanted to open up about. And only my probably two closest friends in my life had any idea. And that was really probably towards the last six months.

Adrienne Richardson:

Well, no, probably those two years. I shared some stuff with them. And so when the time came that I was going to be asking, when I asked my husband to leave and move out and we were going to be separating was in May of 2022. So in January 2022 is when I told them I wanted a divorce. But we were going to wait until the kids got out of school in May to tell them because I did not want to interrupt their school year at all. And so I said, we'll wait until school gets out. And then the day after school gets out, we're telling them that we're getting divorced, and then you're moving out, like, the next day. And so that five months leading up from January to May was torture for me.

Adrienne Richardson:

I had developed severe anxiety. I had to even be medicated for it. It was torture because I knew what was coming and I couldn't say anything, and I had to keep acting like everything was fine in front of my children. And so at that time is when I started to share a little bit with my team that probably, I don't remember exactly when it was, but maybe a month or two before he was going to be moving out is finally when I told my team, and I was like, I don't know what's going to happen and how it's going to be, but here's what's happening. So I shared with them, I opened up with them at that point, and I have a fantastic team that we all just love each other dearly. And so everybody was super supportive. But what surprised me was when he moved out in May, 2 things happened. One, I never had another anxiety attack ever, from the day he moved out and never had to take another Valium.

Adrienne Richardson:

So clearly that was causing a huge amount of stress for me. But I thought that I would feel happy, like, great, right? The tension within me and all the stress and worry and anxiety that I was carrying and caring because I had to tell my kids and all of that stuff. Once that was done, there was this huge relief from that, but then this major sadness kicked in, and that was there. All the way from May to September, I was not doing well. And then I was doing a little bit better. And then when my divorce is final in January, I thought I'd be doing great. Right. Cool.

Adrienne Richardson:

This is over for the next six months. After that, it was brutal as well.

Audrey Saccone:

What did your team do that surprised you, if anything, to support you during this period?

Adrienne Richardson:

Well, what happened during the times when, like I said, that May to September time period and then the next January to June ish, when I was not doing well? When I say not doing well, I was very sad. I was grieving. They say that divorce is like grieving the death of a loved one. So I experienced this tremendous grief that I was not prepared for, that literally all I could do some of those days was show up to take care of my clients, and some days I couldn't do anything more than that. And so what I did was I just decided I'm going to have to be super open and honest and vulnerable with my team, and I have to be realistic. And so each day I would check in with my team and I would basically give them a status of how I was doing that day. And some days it would be like, “Hey, I'm not doing well today.”

Adrienne Richardson:

“What are the most important priorities that have to be done that only I can do?” And I would do those, and that would be literally the only thing I could accomplish for the day. And then other days I'd be like, “Hey, guys, I woke up feeling energized today. I'm doing great. What are some projects that you guys have been holding on to that weren't a priority that I could tackle today?” And so we had to pull back a little bit on how aggressive we were with launches and offers and promotions and different things that we were doing and things that I was committing to and stuff like that. And there were literally some days I was like, I'm out. Like, I'm not showing up today. And the beautiful thing is that my team really, they were incredibly supportive.

Adrienne Richardson:

They stepped up in ways that they never had before, not because they weren't capable, but because they didn't need to, because I was doing those things. It was a really beautiful thing that happened during a very sad time was the way that they just showed up and showed a lot of grace.

Audrey Saccone:

I think there's a lot to get from that. I was just having the thought the other day that since starting my own business, I haven't really taken a sick day. I mean, I have when I've been literally ill and cannot work. But when I worked a job, if I was just, I don't know if I was having, like, a down day or feeling a little under the weather, I got a lot of sick days in my first job, so I would take them just all the time. And as the leader of the business, you usually have to put those feelings aside and just push through whether it's something emotional, something physical, whatever that you have going on. But I think having that level of transparency and being able to say, this is the level that I can give to you today. And with that, what do you need from me so that I can step in and then step out.

Adrienne Richardson:

I mean, it was really hard for me because I'm the kind of person that I've been a hustler my whole life, right? Like, I've always worked two, three jobs. Even when I was in the military, I worked a second job. I just have always gone hard. So much so that for many years I didn't watch TV. And then if I would, like, let's say I was sick or whatever was happening that day and I would watch a movie. I would literally, the whole time I'm watching a movie, be sitting there beating myself up like you're just sitting around doing nothing. You're just wasting time. Like, you're just wasting your life away watching a movie.

Adrienne Richardson:

How is this productive? You should be working. I was so hard on myself about the level of productivity and efficiency I expected from myself that when this hit me, it hit me so hard that I couldn't even show up if I wanted to. It wasn't like I was taking the easy way out and being like, oh, guys, I need a chill day today. I didn't have an option. I couldn't even show up. And so there were moments that I was so hard on myself in the beginning of that. And then finally I had to just be like, okay, I can beat myself up over this and be miserable through all of it, more miserable than I am right now, or I can treat myself with love and kindness and grace, and I had to just keep reminding myself of that every time I started to beat myself up or taking time off and just saying, I need to be kind to myself right now. So it was a huge lesson for my team, but it was a huge lesson for me on what it looks like to take good care of yourself.

Audrey Saccone:

Absolutely. So you've entered this act two of your life. What does that mean?

Adrienne Richardson:

You know, during the… let's just call it a year and a half ish, a good year between the separation and the divorce and then me getting to the other side of it. I did a lot of work in that year to heal. And when I got to the other side of it, I had lost a huge part of my identity in my marriage. And so it was almost like I didn't feel like I knew who I was anymore once I got divorced. And so that year of healing also was spent rediscovering who I was. And so on the other side of that, after that, rediscovering that and healing from that, I kind of felt like I had this do over. I strongly felt within me….

Adrienne Richardson:

I'm 45 years old. I'll be 46 in May, depending on when people are listening to this. And I felt like, this is act two. We had, like, act one, and then we had this intermission that was awful. And then act two came, and it almost feels like I have this new book that has all blank pages, and we're starting over, and it is the most beautiful, freeing, joyful place I have been probably in 20 years of my life. And so I get to start over.

Audrey Saccone:

Does that act to apply to your personal life or to the business or both.

Adrienne Richardson:

It applies to my personal life for sure. Like, mainly my personal life just because I lost so much of who I was. The way that it's impacting my business is that I'm looking and saying, what do I want my business to look like? My son's going to graduate high school in May. My daughter will graduate two years after that. So I'm going to be an empty nester in less than three years. And so it has me looking at my life between now and the next three years and saying, what do I want my business to look like between now and then? What are the changes that I need to make? What are the things that we need to do so that when I am an empty nester, I have the freedom to make my life look like whatever I want it to look like. Whether that's how many clients I want to work with or how many days a week I want to work or how much I want to travel, who knows? Right? And so act two is a very personal thing, but it is showing up by way of me saying, how do I build the most amazing business that I can in these next three years so that I have the freedom to do whatever I want when that time comes.

Audrey Saccone:

I think that's so interesting, and that's something I've never thought of as, you know, I'm not a parent, but the business that you build when you have dependents of your children, well, I'm sure always technically, like, be dependent, never there. But when they're living in your home, when you're paying for school and all these things where your money is allocated and the purpose of your earning is very different versus for me and for where you'll sort of be in a few years, where it's just for you and what you want to do with it.

Adrienne Richardson:

I mean, obviously we do the type of work that we do either because we have a passion for it or we're good at it or we enjoy it. We all have a different reason why. But like you said, my why is going to kind of change a little bit in three years. Because a huge part of my why was simply to be able to take care of my family and to be able to afford to send my kids to private school or to be able to pay for them to go to college and have nice vacations together. Whatever it was that we had as goals, part of the business was providing that life for us. And once they're no longer dependent on me or living in my home, and they're more independent, it does. It's like the big why of kind of why I do what I do for my clients won't necessarily change, but the personal side of it will change.

Adrienne Richardson:

And what I do could also change. That's something I'm even considering. I really feel like I'm being pulled in a new direction. And I don't think that that's for right now. I think that it's for later. But I can feel it stirring in me, and so I'm just open to whatever that might be.

Audrey Saccone:

Speaking of new directions, I know one of your newer directions has been your podcast, The Resilience Factor. And I'm curious how this has affected your relationship with the definition of what resilience means to you.

Adrienne Richardson:

You know, I did. So I started this podcast called The Resilience Factor. It has nothing to do with marketing or Facebook ads or business or what I've been spent the last 17 years of my life doing. But it really felt like a calling, something that I was supposed to do. And I still, right now, don't know where it's going to lead. There's, I feel like been three things that have come from it. Number one, I'm bringing on people who have amazing stories, who've been through really hard things in life and have turned that pain into something beautiful. So I'm getting to tell their stories, and therefore, it's giving other people hope for the hard things they've been through.

Adrienne Richardson:

The second thing is, well, that would be two, someone sharing their stories and then having an impact on others. But the third thing, interestingly, is it's, again, I hate to keep using this word so much, but it's like awakening a side of me that I think I had hardened and become hard hearted in some ways, just because I was dealing with so much pain in my own personal life in order to be able to show up every day, I had kind of become a little bit hardened. And this has softened me so much as I'm having these very intimate conversations with people about really, really unbelievably hard things they've been through in their life. And having these vulnerable. Vulnerable is not a word anybody would ever use to describe me. And having very vulnerable, raw, open, intimate conversations. And that side of me being able to come alive and be part of the conversation and speak into that, it's been very impactful on me, on the people who've shared their stories and on the people that are listening. And it's been really beautiful.

Audrey Saccone:

Before we sign off, where can people connect with you?

Adrienne Richardson:

Facebook or Instagram. You can just search my name. I am more active on Instagram in terms of sharing my personal life in stories and such. I don't share too much there because my kids follow me there and so do all of their friends. So I have to be careful what I post over there. So yeah, I mean, you can just look me up on Facebook or Instagram, connect with me there. My website is wearepowerplay.com, so any of those work.

Audrey Saccone:

Well, Adrienne, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your invaluable insights here on the tough stuff listeners. Don't forget to share your thoughts on this episode on our latest posts @toughstuffpod, and hit that subscribe button to always get the latest episode in your favorite podcast app. I'll see you next time.