From Venezuela to CEO: How Coming to America Alone at 13 Shaped Her Success | Marivi Bryant

In this episode of Unconventional Wisdom About Conventional Wisdom, Kim Miller-Hershon sits down with Mari V. Bryant, founder and president of HOME Agency, a people-first marketing and branding firm that partners with mission-driven organizations and national brands. With nearly 25 years of experience working with the likes of the Phoenix Suns, the NASCAR Foundation, State Farm, and Blue Cross Blue Shield, Mari is passionate about using marketing to create meaningful impact. She's also a dedicated community advocate and the founder of the Mission Meets Action Award, a $100,000 pro bono initiative supporting nonprofits through strategic marketing and storytelling, now in its second year. Her origin story starts long before any of that: she came to the US from Venezuela at thirteen, alone, to chase a tennis scholarship, living in a house with fifteen-plus other teenagers and calling her mom collect from payphones across two continents. In this conversation, Mari challenges a piece of conventional wisdom she absorbed straight from a lifetime of competition: that success means always chasing the next big thing. Fresh out of a D1 tennis career and into her working life, she treated every job as a stepping stone to the next one, obsessively hunting the following title before she'd fully lived in the one she had. It took years of maturity to see it as the wrong approach. The job you have right now is the right job for right now, and the better move is to be present in it, cultivate the relationships, and do the best work you can rather than always straining toward the horizon. She's clear it's a both/and: two things can be true, that she's never satisfied and that she's genuinely grateful for what's in front of her. Mari and Kim also dig into the nuance underneath outsourcing. You don't need to become a finance expert, but you do need enough knowledge to ask the right questions and keep real accountability in place. Kim sharpens it with a cautionary tale of a client who never asked and got stolen from by a trusted employee, and Mari's takeaway is that asking better questions is one of a founder's primary tools, not just for status updates but for prompts that make the whole team rethink its own approach. She's candid, too, that no one else will ever carry the business the way a founder does at 24/7, which is exactly why the right questions and reminders have to become a regular leadership routine. This episode explores: Why always chasing the next big thing is the wrong way to grow Being present in the job you have instead of straining toward the next one Holding ambition and gratitude as two things that can both be true Focusing on the "who," not the "what": resourcefulness over doing it all Building on your strengths instead of grinding to fix every weakness Why confidence comes from proof, and asking for help isn't failure Outsourcing finance while keeping enough knowledge to ask the right questions Why better questions are a founder's primary tool Protecting an intentional culture as a remote company grows Chasing relationships and the right engagements instead of the money The Mission Meets Action Award and matching nonprofits' exterior to their mission Naming imposter syndrome out loud to release it Wanting validation and the reminder to look at the proof, without dismissal "You always win the game you're playing in your head," so choose it Mari's perspective is a powerful reminder that the strongest founders aren't the ones doing everything themselves, they're the ones who know their strengths, surround themselves with the right people, and ask the questions that move everyone forward. Her journey from a thirteen-year-old calling home collect from a French payphone to the head of a mission-driven agency shows that being resourceful, present, and honest about your gaps isn't a weakness in leadership. It's the whole foundation. If you're a founder, marketer, or leader trying to grow something without losing what makes it yours, this conversation offers practical insight, honest talk about imposter syndrome, and a refreshing case that the right relationships are worth more than the next quick win. Connect with me here: Website: https://www.kimmillerhershon.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmillerhershon Newsletter: https://link.kimmillerhershon.com/widget/form/aEdmdA1W5MhoMCMfy5O8 Webinar: https://webinar.kimmillerhershon.com/?utm_source=Podcast Guest Details: Guest: Mari V. Bryant, Founder & President, HOME Agency Focus: People-first marketing and branding for mission-driven organizations and national brands; founder of the Mission Meets Action Award ($100,000 pro bono initiative, applications open August 17) Website: https://www.wearehomeagency.com Instagram: @wearehomeagency LinkedIn (personal): https://www.linkedin.com/in/marivibryant/ LinkedIn (company): https://www.linkedin.com/company/wearehomeagency/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.