MY JOURNEY

With every adventure, every goal, and every brand strategy project I take on, I am more and more convinced:

It’s not only what you do, it’s how you do it.

That’s true for legendary brands and inspiring leadership.

FROM SEA TO SUMMIT

and the C-Suite

It’s true for personal fulfillment, too.

Helping you lead.

Empowering forward-thinking leaders to create brand strategies that cut through the confusion, align with your values, and inspire people.

20 years experience

With 20 years of brand strategy experience, I’ve crafted a game-changing framework, trainings, and tools that you can use to build a business around your values and drive sustainable growth.

2,500 (and counting!)

The Brand Plan has impacted more than 2,500 people, all across the US, who left the status-quo behind in favor of powerful, purpose-filled business strategies that stand for something.

NICE TO MEET YOU

I’m Amelia Ellenstein

process. practice. connection.

As a leader in brand strategy, I served as the youngest vice president at a 50-year old company and helped lead that brand to double its sales, hitting $1 Billion. I designed more than 100 retail stores, launched and ran a $12.5 million eCommerce store, and developed a mattress brand that became a record breaking chain of stores because of its innovative design and sales process.

Today I’m a brand strategist and business coach to CEOs and entrepreneurs. I help leaders align what they believe, what they do and how they do it through private workshops and 1:1 coaching, consulting, and public speaking.

My proprietary brand strategy process, The Brand Plan, has been applied by solo entrepreneurs and by leaders serving thousands of employees. It’s been put to use in industries as wide and varied as financial start-ups, e-commerce companies, retail giants, and cultural non-profits.

Every time leaders use the The Brand Plan, people gain the clarity they need to build a company around their values. A company full of purpose.

No matter the business size, no matter the industry, the results are the same. When business values are clear, business value grows.

My Values

01

02

03

Process gets the work done.

Practice makes the work meaningful.

Connection makes our work together worthwhile.

My Vision

Our ambition is a sacred effort.

I empower entrepreneurs to live purpose-driven lives through brand strategy workshops, coaching, consulting, and public speaking.

When we reclaim our ambition as a sacred effort, we expand into our potential. We connect in the ways that matter. Live with more originality and more innovation. We do more than achieve, we fulfill a greater purpose and change the world.

MY STORY

Have you had a moment in your life that changed everything in an instant?

My world changed a few years ago, the first time I held a Hawaiian lei.

When she handed it to me, I felt the weight of the creator’s effort cupped in my hand. Made of kupeʻe, a salt water mollusk, each shell was the same color; every one the same size. They were granite-colored and polished to a shine, like Tahitian pearls.

The artist described hours spent crouched under the night sky harvesting the snails, who slowly slurp algae along rocky ocean-edges during the dark moon. As she talked, I imagined salty mist sprinkling a trace of mineral dust in her hair as she labored on the lava shore. At the end of the evening, she must have returned home glittering like quartz.

The next day, the same Hawaiian practitioner sat alongside me, and we settled crossed-legged on wheat-colored, woven mats. Sensing something in me, she’d offered to teach me her craft. At our center, baskets of ferns, trays of tropical flowers, bundles of leaves, and spools of raffia overflowed. The air was fragrant and green.

As the morning sun rose over our heads, I made my first lei. It was just the beginning…

As a student of the art of lei, I’ve learned soulful techniques to work with flowers. More profoundly, I’ve learned new ways to work.

When I make a lei, who I am matters most of all. It matters how I feel. It matters how I think. It matters how I do what I do.

After that first lesson, I began making lei every Friday. My weekly ritual. Wrapping lei wili wili-style was teaching me that a process generates results and a practice inspires meaning. My actions may produce a lei, but how I do the work makes the work matter.

As time passed and my skills improved. I learned to identify the tools of productivity—the things that I can do to get the job done. For example, when I walk the garden to see what flowers are in bloom or soak plumeria blossoms in water to extract the latex, I am being task-oriented, productive.

However, when I stand with the plumeria tree, whisper my intention, and ask permission to gather her flowers, something different is happening. At that moment, I am connecting inward.

In the art form of crafting lei, both forward process and inward practice are essential.

Making lei taught me new practices to connect my efforts to who I am, including: how to envision my goal, set intentions, create rituals, tap into the wisdom of my body, root any goal in a place, reflect on the purpose of my efforts, and reach out to a community.

After five years of study, my practice continues.

Today, those 7 Sacred Practices are woven into every significant goal that I pursue—not only each lei that I create.

For example:

When I hiked the Appalachian Trail a personal ritual helped me celebrate the milestones of the 2,193 mile trek.
In the desert of southern California, the practice of reflection helped me make a difficult choice about my goal to walk through it.
And, later, when I picked up a paddle at the Headwaters in Minnesota and canoed more than 2,000 miles down the Mississippi River, I called upon the river community for help to reach the bayous of Louisiana.

As a brand strategist, I guide clients to dig deeply into their practices and the practices of their company to build a business that aligns what they believe and what they do to accomplish their goals in meaningful ways.

Of all the lessons I’ve learned from making lei, this is the lesson that I value the most:

When we value what we do as much as how we do it, our goal becomes a sacred effort—we do more than achieve, we are transformed in the process.

Paddling 2,100 Miles down the Mississippi River, from Minnesota to the bayous of Lousiana.
At the summit of Mt. Elbert 14,439' while thru-hiking the Colorado Trail from Denver to Durango.
Kayaking alongside my husband for 40 hours, 57 minutes, and 11 seconds as he swam 65 Miles non-stop to set a Guinness World Record to benefit those with Parkinson's.
Mt Katahdin, after walking 2,193 Miles from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail.
My first long distance hike! Somewhere on the 225 mile John Muir Trail, 3 days from civilization (and a shower!).
Living in a mostly off-the-grid cabin, volunteering in service to the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.