Brandy East was born and raised in Carlyle.
She grew up on a dairy farm north of the town and now still resides in the area with her husband Dave and their two children Kirsten and Terran. East spent 14 1/2 years in the oil and gas industry as the superintendent of Operations East.
She has a degree from Brandon University in education and the passion for teaching flowing through her blood, but she was unsure of how she wanted to use this degree to help others.
“I just wasn’t sure what I would offer. What would be authentic? What do companies and individuals need? There is so much information out there to address goals, results, dreams, performance, personality types, leadership, resilience, mental health, employee engagement, etc. Where does one start?” East explains.
After thinking all of this through, East enrolled in a program called Thinking Into Results.
“I enrolled myself because I have always loved learning and growing. I knew in my role as superintendent that, even though I was succeeding, there still had to be an easier way. There had to be ideas and ways for me to do the job better,” she said.
“Some struggles and challenges kept popping up. I wanted to balance my life a bit more, work demands and family demands. I wanted to be a stronger decision maker, become a better strategic thinker, and be more consistent at responding to circumstances, rather than reacting,” East explains.
Because of her enrolment into the program Thinking Into Results, East found what she was looking for and how she wanted to move forward down her career path. She started her own business in 2020 with her company Empower You Development Services. Her business offers other companies and individuals, programs that help teach success.
“Every business would not exist without the people,” she said. “You would just have a building, or a computer, or products sitting, if you didn’t have the people to make things operate. People are the greatest asset,” East states.
“Empower You, has a personal meaning behind the name. Essentially, every individual has a desire to serve others, to feel really valued, productive and to become their best self. Ignite the flame inside. So, I am passionately committed to bringing organized material and learning to effectively empower individuals to take action. A team is merely a group of individuals. All teams are groups, but not all groups are teams,” East explains.
The goal East has as a corporate culture enthusiast, is to help teach new ways to grow your businesses and to build strong teams from the bottom up.
“Effective individuals, lead to effective teams, which drives performance and growth,” East explains.
