Business Innovators Radio - Alpha Queens Rising: Angel Cottrell knows how to build powerful things.

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

She Built a Million-Dollar Nonprofit at 27. Then She Lost Everything. What She Built Next Changed Her Forever.Angel Cottrell knows how to build powerful things.She also knows how to rebuild them when they collapse.By twenty-seven, she had already done what most people never dare to imagine. As a young, single mother in Santa Barbara, she founded and led a progressive, multi-million-dollar nonprofit that transformed the lives of people with severe developmental disabilities. She created supported-living homes, staffed twenty-four hours a day, where dignity replaced institutionalization. She launched a state and federally licensed day program. She recruited a team of fifty-five staff members and a full management structure.She did all of this without money, without a college education, without a roadmap. Only passion, grit, and an unshakable calling to change lives.Then her thirties came for her. And they did not come gently.The First FireAngel’s twenties were a testament to what is possible when a woman refuses to accept limitation as fact. She had learned early what determination could accomplish — and she ran toward the hardest problems with both hands open.She writes in her chapter of Alpha Queens Rising: Where Purpose Meets Power: “I didn’t have the age. I didn’t have the degree. I sure as hell didn’t have the advantage. But I had fire. And for a while, that fire carried everything.”Then her thirties arrived.The DemolitionPeople talk about transformation like it arrives as a single breakthrough moment. Angel’s was a demolition.In the space of a few years, every major area of her life collapsed simultaneously. She lost the nonprofit — the work she had dedicated her entire adult life to since she was nineteen. She experienced a heartbreak that cracked her open in ways she did not know love could hurt. She was raising her daughter alone with no financial support from her daughter’s father. Friends she thought were family abandoned her. Family members turned away.And the worst part, she says, was that she abandoned herself in the process.The achiever. The leader. The mother who always held it together. Every piece of that identity evaporated. Her confidence was gone. Her stability gone. She found herself financially drowning in a city where rent alone can break you, ashamed, overwhelmed, and terrified that she had peaked before she turned thirty-five.Bad Country Music“I despise country music,” she writes. “But suddenly, I was living a bad country music song.”To cope, she drank — two bottles of wine a night — just to numb the panic, the fear, the disbelief that this was her life. It was not about partying. It was survival. It was silence. It was shutting down the noise long enough to pass out, because sleep did not come easily in those long dark nights.Eventually, she entered intensive therapy and was on disability for two years.“My mind, body, and soul wove the white flag. I couldn’t work my way out of this situation. I had burned myself down to ash.”The Deepest AbandonmentThe collapse taught Angel something she had not known before: the deepest abandonment is not what other people do to you. It is what you do to yourself.She had disconnected from feeling. From hope. Even, at times, from her own daughter — not because she did not love her, but because she had nothing left to give.Being the strong one, she discovered, becomes a prison when you no longer have the strength.She did not understand that falling apart was the only path toward eventually rising. She thought breaking meant failing. She did not realize it was the beginning of something she had been praying for — even if she did not know what the prayer was asking her to sacrifice.The Tower MomentHer tower moment was not a single dramatic day. It was the slow, undeniable realization that she was the common thread in every area that had fallen apart.“That wasn’t blame,” she writes. “It was liberation. If my choices helped build the version of life that was collapsing, then my choices could build a better one.”No one was coming to save her. She had to save herself.Even in her darkest season, she kept finishing school. It was not glamorous or impressive. It was survival. Completing something she had once doubted she could do anchored her through the storm.The Birth of ApolloOut of the wreckage came clarity. And that clarity became Apollo Consultancy Group.Apollo symbolizes the journey from darkness into light — the courage to become the identity required by your calling. Angel’s philosophy is grounded in a truth she earned the hard way: to experience significant change, you must change significantly.Today, as the CEO and founder of Apollo Consultancy Group, she guides CEOs, founders, and executives through identity transformation and embodied leadership. Apollo is the bridge between strategy and soul, between ambition and embodiment, between business growth and identity evolution.She teaches embodiment — not performance. She teaches leaders to build businesses that are alive, dynamic, heart-driven, and aligned with a sacred mission.“To experience significant change, you must change significantly.”She is building again — and yes, it is messy and uncertain. But uncertainty no longer feels like danger. It feels like alignment. Every rise requires a fall. Every becoming requires a shedding.Angel Cottrell is an Alpha Queen who rose — not to prove anything, but to lead with integrity, purpose, and heart. Her chapter is dedicated to her daughter Alexandra, whose love reminded her that rebuilding always begins at home.To every woman who believed her fall was failure: it was never the end. It was the beginning of your rise.Alpha Queens Rising: Where Purpose Meets Power is available now. A portion of proceeds supports FITGirl, Inc.Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GCVDSRRBWomen Innovators with Tami Patzerhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/women-innovators-with-tami-patzer/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/alpha-queens-rising-angel-cottrell-knows-how-to-build-powerful-things

Women Innovators. Interviews with women with big messages and big missions, sharing their stories to inspire you to live your passion and step up to make the world a better place. Here's your host, Tammy Patzer. Hi, everyone. This is Dr. Tamara Patzer. And I'm really excited because today we're speaking with Angel Cottrell. and she is Chapter 11 in Alpha Queen's Rising, which is a new book that has just been recently released. And today we're going to be talking about Angel and a little bit about Alpha Queen's Rising,

but really more about Angel and who she helps, how she's helping them, and a little bit of her journey. So welcome, Angel. Dr. Tamara, thank you so much for having today. And I want to thank you one more time. Because when I opened my copy of the book, my first major surprise was that I was chapter 11, which happens to be my number.

I'm an 11 baby. And so through all of this process that we've been going through and everything we've been doing, it just feels like one more validation after the other, that not only am I in the right spot, but all of us coming together. And I just want to thank you for your thoughtfulness and your intentionality through this entire process. It's just an absolute dream, and I'm just so grateful to you. So thank you for having me here today and for everything that you've done to get me in this seat and in this moment. Well, I appreciate that, Angel. And everyone, just to let you know, I have the great privilege of giving each one of the authors in Elfa Queen's Rising Award.

And for Angel, I happen to choose the word Phoenix because her story was so inspiring to me. and it just said Phoenix, Phoenix rising, Alpha Queen rising. And Angel is a person and the way that I would describe her is she's a keeper of the flame, the flame of a legacy. And I just wanted you to know that, Angel, that that's the vision, how I view you as a Phoenix Rising and you have such great wisdom. You are also what I call a wise woman. So there's a lot of qualifications in all of those things. But let's get down to what I want to talk about with you today. And it's all about who are you. So tell us a little bit about your company,

who you are and mainly who do you help? Well, I'm Angel Cottrell and my organization is called Apollo Consultancy Group Incorporated. It's a strategic management and transformative coaching business that serves CEOs and founders and executives who are ready to recapture the power. and the commitment that they have to the business, understanding that the organization that they're with, that they potentially founded, or that they're extraordinarily committed to, that's at that executive level,

that this is something that's also an extension of themselves. And so as an organization, you know, every organization, a business is a living entity and acquires adaptation and change. And you can grow a business. But if you don't actually grow and evolve yourself along with that, if you are leading an organization, then we're going to get into collapse. And so what I do is I come from a little bit of a different angle because I'm a strategic consultant first. So I come from a background in business.

And then I pair that in with the coaching because we show up as our whole people. And so the objective is to meet the business where it's at, meet the executive where they're at, make a determination around what's not working anymore because that's why they call. And then let's see, you know, let's first of all take a look at the three most important questions of strategy. Where have you been? Where are you now and where do you want to go? And that gap between where you are now and where you want to be is where strategy lives. and that's where we start. And from there, we develop a working relationship with one another.

That's really cool because the structure reminds me a lot of how the Elpa Queen's Rising book chapters were put together. And this interview is a little bit different because obviously I want to talk about, you know, who you are and what's going on now. First, tell me your clients who come to you, what? are they typically struggling with by the time they raise their hand to you? Most often, they come to me seeing an aspect in the business that's not meeting the goals or going to the trajectory that they want to go. And so they're looking for a new set of eyes to take a look because we know consulting is taking a look at the assessment and sort of what needs to be done. what happens in the process of working with me is that they start to understand that fundamentally most often the changes or the disruption in the business or the bottlenecking in the business,

those are also reflections of what's going on within side them. And so what happens is that by most people come to a strategic consultant because they want to solve, the problem that they see happening in the organization. And I'm able to do that with you. But the bottom line is that the true solution comes from within. Because what's going on on the outside is what's going on in the inside. And there is a connectivity between an individual and how they're able to show up in that business as a leader and then therefore how they lead that business through whatever challenges are happening. And I think what becomes most important because that reflection, those reflection points that coaching offer of really truly seeing yourself and understanding how you actually play a part in the success of the business or what's happened to hinder the business that puts you back into a seat of your own empowerment, that you can take back charge of that and that you can make the change.

And the other piece that's super important is discretion. Because I work with people that are successful. And for the most part, people don't announce a whole lot that what are the problems that are going on in business or what are going on in themselves. It's just not something that we celebrate in the world. We celebrate the successes. And so what's also really, really important is discretion in this. because for most executives, they actually don't have anyone to talk to. You may be able to talk to your spouse.

You may be able to talk to a friend. You may be able to talk to another business person. You may be able to talk to someone on your team. But who actually is just there for you and for the organization? And that's what becomes very, very important. That sort of goes back to the old thing of lonely at the top. And so to me, that's one of the most fundamental aspects of what I, do is I help you keep your secret. Because if I help you keep your secret, then you're willing to

tell it to yourself. And when you're willing to see for yourself the things that you don't want to look at in your own secrets and you know that you can say that to someone that's not going to judge you, we're going to deal with it. We're going to look at it. But I'm not going to judge you for it. And as Tamara said, you know, the phoenix, I'll stand in that fire with you. And I'll help you rise again through that ash. But I believe that's fundamentally one of the most difficult, unspoken things for successful people. We carry a secret and that we're scared or that things aren't going exactly what we want. And it becomes very difficult at times and sometimes.

detrimental to share that. And so I take that very, very seriously. When you look at stuff that I promote a lot, I've been very cautious about putting a lot of my clients out into the world, not because I'm not proud of the work, because I want to help them actually be able to continue to do the work at the depth and the level that they need to be able to do and be safe in that. That makes a lot of sense. So you work with people sometimes in a little bit different way. And I have kind of a double, triple question here, but I think you can handle it. So you work with people and you obviously develop this specific transformation, not only for them as an individual, but again, I'm not. at that company wide level. And in your chapter, you say, to experience significant change,

you must change significantly. So let's expand on the transformation that you deliver for the individuals and their companies. And what exactly does that mean to experience significant change, you must change significantly. It's something that we push away because significant change usually means the way our world and how we operate in our world, that's going to change. And that doesn't necessarily always just affect us.

That can also affect other people. And if you are actually going to experience a significant change in life, And any of you that are listening that have gone through one knows this to be true. The change had to happen within you. And the change that had to happen within you had to be significant. And many of us don't look the same when we come out the other side of something like this. So, pardon me, I don't think there's anyone on this planet that does not have desire for change at one time or another. but I do feel that not everyone is willing to actually make the level of significant change and adjustment in their own life to actually create that experience outside of themselves because it requires operating with a level of uncertainty that most of us are not comfortable with. And so it actually, I mean, this is my own personal quote.

And this came out of me about 10, 15 years ago. And it was kind of funny because I was like, oh, that's pretty good. Let me go look that up real quick on Google and see who said that. I always want to give credit where credit to do and couldn't find something like that. And I realized that it was a quote for me because I had to acknowledge that. that I had to put myself through some significant changes in the way that I operate within myself, with the way I operate within others, the way I operate in relationships, in every aspect and pillar of my life, if I was actually going to experience that.

And now, to put that together with Apollo, oh, you know, sometimes that quotes the bane of my existence. because I don't believe that you get to teach it. I don't believe you get to coach it. I don't believe you get to consult it unless you're willing to live it, unless you're willing to go through it. You know, they like to talk about professors and that. Those who, you know, those who can't do teach. I'm the exact opposite of that.

I feel you must do in order to be able to teach. You must be able to be able to dig down within yourself and understand and, and pull forth some experience that then brings into knowledge that then hopefully at some point in time you do impart some wisdom or at least to start to act with with some in the world, right, that you make that. But what I found out was that that was how I had to decide to choose to live. And so when I sit down with a business owner, a CEO executive, I don't care who it is that wants to meet with me about stuff like this.

This is literally the core of the work. You know, you don't come and see Angel, you know, wanting to stay the same. The people that hire me understand that I'm not necessarily for the faint of heart. I am extremely loving. I'm extremely empathetic, but I'm extremely real. And we get into some deep stuff and that gets hard. And again, that's also why it's so important that I go through these types of experiences that I challenge. myself because how the hell am I going to stand in this with you if I play it safe all the time?

How am I supposed to do that with you and help you evolve if my safety stays rooted and staying the same? So it's a requirement now or I don't get to have my word the Phoenix. I don't get to go out and do that as far as I'm concerned. This is how I approach what I do and who I do it with and why I do that that that is really powerful angel and one of the things that i think is interesting is you just you just said it certainty the human humans want certainty yet in order to get certainty sometimes everything has to be shaken up there your whole world has to explode and that literally is when you find out who you are inside and it, you know, that's how the Phoenix ends up rising. Your approach is probably different than a lot of leadership coaches or even strategists,

but the term embodiment comes into play here. Can you talk about what that means the way that you live it and teach it. Yeah. Who do you choose to be in the face of this? That's it. Who do you choose to be? How do you choose to show up? Embodiment is your beingness.

It's not performative at all. It's why anyone that has to go out in the world and say, I'm authentic. First thing we do is, go, okay, all right. Because authenticity is something that's felt. When you are around someone that embodies, you feel their presence and they don't have to say a word. And that presence of standing in, and it's not just about strength, right? We can embody all types of things. What do you think about embodiment is all being strength, but no, we can embody depression. We can embody depression. We

embody anxiety. We can embody anything we want. How are you living in this moment? Who do you choose to be in the face of what's going on? I believe that every single one of us has the same divine given purpose. And that is to create experience to become the greatest versions of your grandest visions. And my friends, that becoming is the embodiment. And I believe that's the reason we're here. This is about soul experience. This is about aligning with our true selves of everything we are, everything we are not, and anything in between. So embodiment is staying rooted in who you are, how you choose to show up, and how you no longer abandon yourself in it. And that's hard. and you're not always going to be able to do it in every moment of every day.

It's not the point. But in those moments of that required part, can you, can you rise? Can you rise to your true nature? Can you rise and stand in your power and hold that space? So that makes me really wonder about like you're saying, you are what you embody and it could be positive, negative, whatever, and then we pull it back into this business, let's say the business. Yeah.

Because a lot of people, our business is a huge part of our identity. You know, it's part of the huge thing. So what happens when somebody grows a business without becoming the leader that they or the embodiment of who they need to be to hold that business. Everybody, you know, I want to have a seven-figure business and eight-figure business and nine-figure business. Everybody always talks about this big vision, but then they get stuck, you know, at just over what they made when, let's say they have a business and they were making $50,000 a year. And now they just created a job for themselves, but now they're responsible.

for it. But what happens to somebody when they try to grow their business in there and they don't have that identity part created that can hold it? Well, that's a whole different type of collapse. You know, whether you own a business or you're an executive or you're someone that's growing in your field, just because you get a promotion, a title, just because you've done, the business in six months and you brought in double amount of clients, you've got double amount of staff and you've done all this, doesn't necessarily mean that you have risen to the occasion to actually see it through successfully. So acting on something, employing that into you or getting a promotion or something like that because you were great at this one level,

doesn't necessarily mean that you automatically know how to behave, how to make proper decisions, what does evaluation look like, how do you need to show up, or other other relationships? relationships you need, but what does all that look like? And it's very unfortunate because not only in organizations, do people get sort of left to their own devices. And so just because you were good in one area, it doesn't necessarily mean they're able to show up as that without support. So for business owners, what happens is it's kind of like what we were talking about earlier. And in fact, the recent client that I've been working with off and on for more than a decade. And this particular organization, doubled their size in the last year. That doesn't necessarily mean that this person in the role was ready to supervise close to 50 people when they went from 23 to 50 people literally overnight. Making decisions around cash flow now are different. The weight and responsibility around payroll is different. All these different types of things. And please do not hear me say to you don't grow or that you have to be 100% ready to grow. That is not my memory. That is not my mess.

message. But I think we've all seen those folks that take a leap or make an advancement and suddenly they've decided that they've been enlightened with all the knowledge necessary to be successful in that role. And what I really encourage, you know, particularly around CEOs, executives, and founders, when you make a leap like that, having support that's there for you, that you will trust that will show you your gaps, being willing to operate from a place of a certain amount of humility, because you are a smarty pants. You just doubled your business, you're multimillion, you got all these people, you're creating jobs, there's been the press release, everybody's talking about how great you are, you are. But don't feel yourself and believe in all your

own height. Don't think that you ever get to stop learning and understand that you've taken on a different level of responsibility. So when you make bad decisions now, when you screw up now, the domino effect that you have on other lives is serious. And so I'm serious about this because I do believe that sometimes, again, if we get into a place of believing too much of our own hype, we stop learning. And when we stop learning in that, we fail to see the blind spots. And it can take you right out of your game. You know, everything that you were able to utilize to grow that into that, if you're not willing to say, I've got to grow with it, I've got to evolve with this. Just because I could buy the extra building, I could do this, does sincerely mean that I know exactly what all this is.

And so I truly encourage to be able to get some support with that and be open to it and really be open to somebody coming in and saying, here's your blind spots, here's where some development stuff needs to be. And understand that also is as awesome as it is, it's going to be terrifying. And it's okay to be terrified. That's the other part where you're going to need some support. Because if you don't acknowledge that and it keeps being that secret that's buried, that you're just, you got it all rocking and you're this and you're that and you're all this.

I mean, I love all that. It's not that I don't want everyone to experience all that. But if you are unfulfilled and not feeling supported inside of yourself, that's not going to last. It's not built on a solid foundation. And so when you grow like that, the foundation has got to be short up in a different way. Don't build that within a house of cards that you don't have the skill to be able to pick the cards back up and put it back up together. Does that make sense? Yeah.

And you've heard the quote often about what got you here won't get you there. That's what popped into my mind is that a lot of times people, you know, yeah, you made it to this point. but now it's a whole different game. And if you've never been there before, you need somebody who can help, you know, guide you guide you along the way so that you, like you said, fill in the gaps, build a solid foundation. If I see it every day, I tell people, before you do this, you have to build a solid foundation.

Nobody wants to hear that. They want to go straight to the, you know, building the penthouse, like you said, a house of cards. You have to build everything on a foundation and then it's solid all the way up. I want to take you back. Again, you have had an extraordinary career and the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, I guess, would be a good good way to do it. So let's take us back.

I want to go back a little bit because in your Alpha Queen Rising chapter, you do tell a lot of your story. And just for transparency, a lot of people don't like to

tell these types of stories about themselves because you know, it's it's messy, it's uncomfortable, but if you look at the reality of life, everybody has messy, uncomfortable, well, let's say 99%. There might be that 1% where they have no clue about what it's like to live and to survive and to come back and to become the phoenix like we're talking about. So take us back before Apollo. And I'd really like to.

to go back into your 20s because you were extremely successful in your 20s. And I'd like to kind of, again, I like foundations. Let's go back. All right. Yeah, all, Tammy was the person that got the story out of me that I didn't want to tell. Okay. I meant that as a compliment. Well, no, I took it as a problem.

You know what I mean? Like I was just, you know, I had to take a breath. In my 20s, I lived in Santa Barbara. I moved to Santa Barbara, California at 18. And within three years, I was a mother and married. And within four, I was a mother going through a divorce. And when I was 19 years old, I had started working. with persons with developmental disabilities, and I started as an on-call online staff.

I had never worked with anyone with a development disability, with, and I'm not going to get into a whole lot of diagnoses or anything like that. And I had no idea that a 19, that I would fall into my career. By the time I was 27 years old, I had opened a nonprofit that grew to a multimillion-dollar nonprofit that I had 55 staff. I grew a manager team of seven within two years. And I had an apartment building, three homes that did what was called supported living services. And this was in the 1990s. And in the state of California, there was a major lawsuit that went through the state that required people with developmental disabilities had been put in our state hospitals and they were being

required to be brought out. So the persons that I brought out still needed 24-hour staffing, but supported living meant that it was in their own home and it wasn't as rules-based as a group home. And I had a state and very licensed day program that served medically fragile alongside behaviorally challenged. And what made my program unique is that I took people out of our state hospitals and other institutions throughout the state of California that were very aggressive. Many of them were nonverbal, extremely aggressive on lots and lots of medication, lots of lots of stuff. And I call them that they were the throwaway people. No one wanted to believe that people like this existed. And the bottom line is that what I knew deep down in my soul was that if these folks could manipulate their environment this well by quote unquote negative behavior, okay?

Because that's the way it was looked at in the industry. Then what would happen? What would happen if we gave them the opportunity to be able to do that in a way that helped them have some semblance of quality of life? And I changed everything. I worked with psychopharmacologists. We went away from physical restraints. We went away from it was, it was phenomenal. We were ahead of our time.

It was absolutely phenomenal. It's one of the most, I'm very, very proud of it. But all things must come to an end. And the way that this ended for me was not good. And I was 33. I didn't know anything but this. I took care of my daughter. I was a single mom.

Her father did not offer any financial support her entire existence. She did see her dad. had a relationship with him and still does, and that's always important to me. And you'll see in the chapter that every major pillar of my life fell apart at the same time. I had started working when I was 13. I had 20 years of working at that point. I lost everything. Did not know how to cope.

I did not know how to ask for help. I spent my whole life pouring into others. And I had no idea. I take care of myself. and I started drinking too much. I was out of work for two years. I was back in school full-time because I may be a college professor now.

I was a college dropout. And I had to go back to school for eight years to get my undergraduate, my master's because I had to make up so many negative credits. When I fuck up, I fuck up large, people. I don't leave any mystery. I quit drinking over 19 years ago. Tammy helped me a lot

when she helped me talk about this and write about this. When I read it, it was to silence the sounds of failure. Tammy put that into words for me that even 20 years later I wasn't able to put it into words of why that happened. I was not emotionally available to my daughter or anyone else. And I had to remember that no one is responsible for me but me. And even then, I may not have had the quote,

that to change, to experience significant change, you must change significantly. But boy, did I. I finished my education. I quit drinking. I started to learn how to take care of myself. I went to therapy with my daughter so I could open back up to her emotionally and be there with her. To get her forgiveness. Because Alex worried about me too much.

and that's a reverse. Parents worry about kids. Kids should not be worrying about parents. I had a lot of work of healing that to do with my daughter with that. And I'm so grateful to her because Alex forgave me before I did. I rebeat myself and the investment in my education is what gave me certainty. I knew I could do school. I knew I could be smart again because how could I start a multi-million?

our business and lose it all. I looked around at all the people, places and things that abandoned me. And that was all true because it happened. People I poured into, poured. And I didn't do it to get something back, but I did believe that we were in it together. And I believed, of course they would do it for me. But they didn't. And that made it even harder.

But it also took me into my whole new life. And that's what got me into entrepreneurship. I had no idea at the time that I was an entrepreneur. That word wasn't around. I used to say, oh, I work with nonprofits. I started one. I couldn't even give myself credit for the actual action I did. Once I was able to take responsibility for the collapse,

I was able to rebuild it. And it's not the first time I've done this in my life. I'm in another leveling right now. Life does not look the same. Every day is uncertain. Every single day. And yet I'll tell you something right now. Not only can I not go back, not physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.

I don't have an option, but do continue to change significantly because I know that I'm meant for more. I know that I'm not done. and I know that I have another greatest version of my grandest vision. And I am literally knee deep in the muck, in the fog, in the pulling myself through it again right now. But I cope different now. I show up for myself different now. So I say this to you. When you think that you've got patterns happening, they are.

when you realize that you chose it to show up again because at 54, I'm not who I was at 33. And what I'm doing now is taking me to that next place. And I'm freaking terrified of myself of doing this again. I get frustrated with myself because I say, why can't you just be content? Because we're here to create experience and become the greatest version of of our grandest visions. And if you're really going to do that, we don't get to take everybody and everything with us.

And many of them don't even want to come. So when you get into that place of understanding that who's meant to be with you will stand with you, when you understand that when you stop abandoning yourself completely from within, accept the fact that you're scared, accept the fact that you've terrified yourself again, that you may have frustrated yourself again.

That's when you get the chance to dust yourself off, re-center in you, and take back responsibility to move yourself through the change and not be taken out because of it. So, Angel, now you know why I selected you as the symbol of Phoenix, because you claim responsibility for who you were, who you have become and where you're becoming. I mean, you really do exemplify exactly that image.

And even though you're living through all of this uncertainty, you are becoming, right? You're becoming whoever you're supposed to be because you know that you're meant for more. And everyone you touch, obviously you're bringing them along on the journey. And again, that's why the Alpa Queen's Rising is so powerful because every story in the book activates something in someone's soul inside of them. and your story, I think, is such a powerful one because it's like no matter where you've been, you can come up out of it to become more, that expansion. I always see everything as a spiral, you know, spiraling up and out and the universe

expanding into something bigger and better and more powerful. and I wanted to just ask you, as you look at what you're growing, your Apollo consultancy and the different people, your clients that you're reaching out, you are not the same woman. You were even when I met you, right? And you finally told your story. And now your story, you're still living here story, right? And you're growing. If you were to talk to someone today about where can they start in looking at their identity, their growth, their business, do you have something besides the fact about changing significantly?

what else would you tell them like a real tangible step that someone could take that could make a difference so that they can see that just because you're feeling very uncomfortable and you feel that chaos and that change and you want that certainty. What could you add to what you've already said that maybe would. sum it all up. Two things. Number one, tell yourself the truth. We don't like to tell ourselves the truth sometimes when we don't want to know that truth, right, when we're avoiding it.

Because we believe that the truth is we're not supposed to feel that. You know, I say we should all over ourselves, right? We should all over ourselves. I shouldn't feel that way. I shouldn't do this. I shouldn't that. Right. So if you're shitting all over yourself, you're not telling yourself your own truth.

And there's a freedom in that. and you don't have to tell anybody else. That's the first part. Eventually, you're going to have to deal with that part. The first part is because when you acknowledge your own truth inside of you, and those are things like, I'm not happy. I'm not, okay? I'm talking to deep stuff.

We've got all the distractions in the world to distract us from this evolutionary change. We have all the distractions in the world to distract us from uncertainty. I can hang up with you right now and go find out. uncertainty in something. It's the uncertainty that's within inside me. And yes, that shows up on the outside as well. But is that making sense that is like if I can acknowledge the truth within me, that there's an uncertainty within me, that's going to be your first place and where you can root. Because as long as you keep lying to yourself that everything's okay or I want this or this is what this should be or it has to be this or whatever that is. And it may not be that you can change

your circumstance in that moment. You know, you may be in a situation where you're raising kids right now. Like you don't have an option right now to quit everything and to be able to do all, be able to do everything that you want to do for the change that you want to be able to do. You may not be able to lean to 100%. But what happens is that I feel like we don't stay honest with our own selves and our own integrity within ourselves because we're trying to keep everything going on the outside because we have obligations to others and responsibilities. And that's not a negative thing. That's part of having integrity and good character and being part of community and connected and family and all that type of stuff. But it doesn't mean that you don't have a truth within you that

sometimes doesn't align with that. And I think the grief of that of not even acknowledging it within ourselves of basically deciding that's bad, that contributes to the angst and the unrest within. And that then can lead us to distractions that are not healthy or coping mechanisms that are not healthy because we're just not rooting on our truth. I knew for two years before the business went away, when everything went down bad, I knew for two years that I wasn't okay anymore at 31. I didn't know how to get out of it. It was the only thing I had done since I was 19. I didn't think I could do anything but working a nonprofit, working with people with development disabilities.

I was running the goddamn thing and I couldn't see outside of that. I had Alexandra. I can't go without a paycheck. I can't. I'm still paycheck to paycheck. I'm the boss on a paycheck to paycheck in Santa Barbara. It was, it was. And so I kept, I knew what my truth was.

I knew that I had to do this different, that there wasn't, I was depleting. I had no way of understanding how to make that change because I stayed. rooted in all the obligation. And I wouldn't be honest with myself. It was my secret. And then that secret turned into the drinking and turned in the other. It multiplies. So if there's anything, the most important part, I believe, is to be honest with you,

you don't have to act on it or tell anybody. But tell yourself the damn truth. And then leave that be in you. Then you can get to a place of deciding if it's a time to act. when you carry that weight and it becomes an energetic weight in you, it creates resentment. It creates toxicity. And it disconnects you from your own truth. And that is the first place of abandonment is I'm not staying true in my own truth.

I just tell myself the truth of like, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't see a way out. I don't know exactly. I know I've got to do these things, but I know I don't want to do this anymore. and then be careful and watch what happens because that's your call to change and many times things will start shifting and we end up into these scenarios of uncertainty where we feel like we want to go back because where it's safe but yet we were the ones that called in the change because we can no longer our soul can't our soul has to be able to experience

that truth. And one way or another, it's going to get there. Does that make, does that help? Did I answer that question at all? Exactly. Because what you really said is it starts within you and it doesn't matter if it's related to business or your personal life or anything. Everything starts with you and being truthful or honest with yourself about what's going on. And so with that, I want to go back and remind everyone, go look at Alpha Queen's Rising, Angel's book chapter is Chapter 11, and it's a good read as well as all the other chapters. and I wanted to remind people, again, that you lead Apollo consultancy. How can people reach out to you, Angel, and work with you?

I do have my website, which is www. Apollo Consultancy Group.com. Apollo A-P-O-L-L-O, Consultancy, C-O-N-S-U-L-L-T-A-N. N-C-Y group.com. I'm also on Facebook with my name, Angel Cottrell, and I'm in California. And I'm also on LinkedIn. I'm in the middle of refreshing all the LinkedIn. So it doesn't, hopefully by the time this airs, actually, by the time this airs, it will be done. That's my own. There's my deadline right there, and it's recorded, right? And making some updates to have some alignment with it. So I've been being a little bit invisible around that. But I would love

to hear from you. Please feel free to reach out. And I strongly encourage you to not only get a copy of the book, but to please read all of the women's chapters. Every single one of us is in a different

place and our journey and has something to share. And I'm just so grateful that I was given the opportunity to be a part of the group and to rise with all the queens. Great. Also everyone, just to let you know, Angel will be speaking at the Rise live event in Omaha, Nebraska, March 19th.

If you want more information about that, check the show notes. And again, Alpha Queen's Rising is available on Amazon. And it is a beautiful, full-color book. And again, Angel Cottrell's book chapter is beautiful number 11 and her word is Phoenix. Thank you, Angel. I really appreciate it. And we're going to have to continue our conversation another time and expand on some of

the things that you're bringing to light that people really need to start thinking about in 2026 and beyond. Thank you, Tammy. I'm so grateful to you. Keep helping make dreams come true. You've really helped with mine, your encouragement. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

This is Dr. Tamara Patser. So make it a beautiful day. You've been listening to Women Innovators with Tammy Patser. To learn more, please go to womeninnovatorsradio.com. And please do subscribe and share to spread the big messages and big missions. to change the world.