Purpose Over Pressure: Sustainable Marketing with Quinn Tempest

In this episode, we explore how purpose, clarity, and sustainability can shape the way we show up as nonprofit storytellers and marketers. Our guest, Quinn Tempest, is a business and brand strategist and the founder of Create Your Purpose®, a movement that empowers women entrepreneurs to build meaningful, sustainable businesses without sacrificing what matters most.

Through Quinn’s lens of purpose-driven marketing and her concept of “gentle consistency,” we reflect on what it means to communicate with intention—especially in a culture that often rewards hustle and scarcity. Together, we dig into how to resist burnout, market without manipulation, and stay connected to your values in both message and method.

Whether you're navigating nonprofit communications, content strategy, or your own trauma-informed storytelling practice, this conversation is a powerful reminder that sustainability and integrity are not at odds—they're essential partners in storytelling for social impact.

About Quinn Tempest

Quinn Tempest is a business + brand strategist and the founder of Create Your Purpose®, a movement empowering women entrepreneurs to build meaningful, sustainable businesses without sacrificing what matters most. Through her community, strategic resources, and thought leadership, she helps women redefine success—trading burnout and busywork for businesses that fuel their purpose, well-being, and impact. At the heart of her work is a deep belief in reclaiming agency—not just in business, but in how we shape our time, our stories, and our lives.

Connect with Quinn Tempest

QuinnTempest.com | Instagram | Create Your Purpose Quiz

About Host Maria Bryan

Maria Bryan is a trauma-informed storytelling trainer. She helps nonprofit leaders tell powerful and impactful stories that resist harm. Maria has over fifteen years in marketing communications in the public sector. She has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration, a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, and is professionally certified in Trauma & Resilience, Trauma-Informed Space Holding, Trauma-Informed Coaching, and Somatic Embodiment & Regulation. Maria is a firm believer that storytellers make the world a healthier, safer, cleaner, and happier place.

Connect with Maria

Speaking & Training | LinkedIn | Email

Transcript

Maria Bryan:
I am so thrilled to have Quinn Tempest join us today. Quinn is a business and brand strategist and the founder of Create Your Purpose, a movement empowering women entrepreneurs to build meaningful, sustainable businesses without sacrificing what matters most. Quinn, welcome to the show.

Quinn Tempest:
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to connect with you and to have this conversation that I know will be wide-ranging.

Maria Bryan:
I want to know more about Create Your Purpose and your journey. Can you share a little bit about what brought you to the Create Your Purpose movement and community?

Quinn Tempest:
I would love to. I think with any good story, it usually starts many chapters before you open the book. There’s a prologue, and I had quite a long one—probably seven years before I ended up creating Create Your Purpose—where that journey really started.

For me, it started very personally. I took a job right out of college. I used to live in LA. I had dreams of becoming an actress—my husband would still say I am very dramatic—and I pretty quickly realized that wasn’t the lifestyle I wanted. I didn’t want to be waitressing and auditioning. It wasn’t really where I saw my life energy going.

So, I took the first job that came my way. It was an internship at a marketing agency, specifically within the event industry and promotional marketing, and I just got my feet wet. I learned a lot. And I also threw myself so much into that job that, frankly, I completely lost myself.

I hadn’t really stopped to ask myself, “Well, what do I want to do if it’s not the thing I went to school for? What do I care about? What do I love?” For such a foundational moment in my life, I had no purpose. I had no feeling that I was in control of my life—and especially not my career.

Create Your Purpose wasn’t born until probably about seven years later, but it was really that moment in time where I started to look at myself and realize that I was going to be making a big mistake if I didn’t slow down and be intentional about my decisions and what I wanted out of life.

Otherwise, I was just floating around like a bubble, being pushed around in the wind—just ready to pop.

And pop I did. Unfortunately, I landed in the hospital. The real medical diagnosis was mono—so I guess I was kissing too many boys at the time—but also overworking. There’s only, I think, 3% of people that land in the hospital with mono, so I know it was aggravated by the late nights I was working, the exhaustion, and everything that was baked into that moment in my life.

So that was where my first moment of exploring purpose started.

After that, I moved back to Phoenix. The only thing that interested me at the time was yoga, and thankfully I had saved up enough at that job to explore a yoga teacher training. During that training was the first time I had to literally sit with myself—like on a mat—and ask those big questions that I had frankly never been taught or provoked to ask.

So that was a formative moment. I didn’t necessarily answer those big questions, but I started to think about them and be curious: What lights me up? How do I want to build a career? What do I want to do? What are my skills, my talents, my passions?

And I started to get some ideas and some answers throughout that year. That was also the year I started my business.

So that was the formative moment of just: How can I personally live more purposefully and intentionally? Because we’re not taught that. And even now, in this moment in time, it’s an increasingly noisy, overwhelming world.

I think it’s very difficult, especially in a world that’s basically telling you not to be intentional—telling you to be caught up in the chaos and the overwhelm and the media and the news of the day.

Of course, that then ended up extending into my actual business, which is helping women entrepreneurs, marketers, consultants, and coaches be more purposeful in their business. Because after all, entrepreneurs are the ones who have the most agency over their day and their work.

So, I help give them the structure and accountability to really ask those big questions about themselves—not just find their purpose, waiting for it to bonk them on the head in a moment of meditation (which never happens), but to decide on it proactively and then extend it into their business strategy and create it.

It started off as a very personal journey, and then I extended it into my work to help other people do the same.

Maria Bryan:
Your story is so relatable. Unfortunately, so many of us have these moments of burnout that just level us. I’m thinking of when I also worked in-house for many years and how absolutely burnt out I was.

And then, sometimes we think when we transition to working for ourselves—especially since you work with entrepreneurs—that suddenly we’re going to have space.

Last week, I was having a really, really hard day. I had a very specific thing I wanted to get done in my business, and I was just staring at walls. For context, this was the last week of January—when the federal grant freeze was happening and everything was chaotic.

I was talking to my therapist and said, “I just feel so completely unproductive,” and she said, “I wonder what your boss thinks about that?”

And I kind of chuckled, because I forget—I am my own boss. I can give myself a day off to cope with difficult things.

There’s so much we can unpack, Quinn. So, thank you for sharing your story.

No matter where you’re working—in-house or for yourself—so many of us are combating busyness and noise. Because a lot of our listeners want to market on purpose and with purpose, I’d love to talk about marketing with integrity.

Marketing with integrity—while still fundraising and selling successfully—helps us feel balanced. It helps us feel like we have purpose as marketers and fundraisers.

Quinn Tempest:
Yeah. Well, I love this question. I’m not even sure you know this, but my background is in corporate marketing. I was Director of Marketing at a content digital agency for five years. I had the chance to travel around the country, host workshops, teach, and work with both medium-sized and large corporations on their messaging—some nonprofits included.

What I always go back to is: you have to remember the human perspective of marketing and go back to the basics. I know that sounds kind of lame, but it’s the thing that so many people start to gloss over when they have the mindset of “doing more means doing better.”

When we get caught in hustle mode—that feeling of “I have to do all the things”—we can really feel disconnected not only from the purpose behind our mission but from what the people on the receiving end actually need to hear right now.

People buy from people they like. And when I say “buy,” you can change that verb—people donate to organizations they like. People like people they feel they can trust. Trust is built by relationships.

When it comes to marketing—especially content marketing—when it’s done well, simply, and on purpose, that’s what builds relationships over time.

So, I really think getting back to the basics of what marketing is—pure relationship building—and being clear on your message, then creating a consistent delivery mechanism for that... even though that’s not a sexy phrase.

The other issue I see with clients and collective members is trying to be everywhere at once. Trying to do as much as possible because they think if they “flood the zone” or “spray and pray,” the message will land with the right person.

But I’ve found that you don’t have to do as much in your marketing if you’re doing the things that matter more.

Simplify the message so that the right people immediately feel seen and supported—then do that consistently.

Another thing that always comes up when I talk about marketing on purpose is the idea of consistency. For some people, that means five emails a week, or 20 posts on Instagram.

For me—especially in the past two years as a new mom—I’ve really tried to adopt the idea of gentle consistency.

I like to equate consistency less with pace and frequency, and instead with sustainability and longevity. Gentle consistency just feels lighter. You don’t have to show up in someone’s inbox every week if that’s not possible for your bandwidth.

Can you find a pace you can keep up for a year, instead of doing two intense months and then ghosting your audience for the rest of the year?

It makes me sad when people come to me saying, “I should be doing this, right?” No—you shouldn’t be doing anything except showing up with your message in a way that lights you up and impacts the people you want to support.

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Maria Bryan:
I love this idea of—what did you call it?

Quinn Tempest:
Gentle consistency.

Maria Bryan:
Gentle consistency! There’s so much in that. I started marketing right when social media exploded. It was already very noisy then, and I still struggle with giving myself permission. I get down on myself for not being on Instagram enough, or for not sending emails regularly.

Sometimes people will say, “I took a month off... but I’m back!” And I’ll think, “Oh, I didn’t even know they left!”

I think of that often when I take breaks. I don’t even have to make a big announcement.

When things get intense—whether in fundraising or just the world—we tend to put our own well-being on the back burner. I’m seeing that right now: folks working around the clock, having a hard time slowing down.

And I’m worried. For myself. For other marketers.

What advice would you give to marketers, consultants, or fundraisers who are burning at both ends during uncertain times?

Quinn Tempest:
One of the tactical things I mentioned earlier is limiting consumption. That’s been so helpful—not only in my own life but for my clients and collective members.

When things feel overwhelming, get back to yourself. That doesn’t have to be forever. You are needed. You do have purpose. But if you’re not taking care of yourself first, then you can’t do this work sustainably.

If you need to scale back, here’s your permission slip. You don’t have to be everywhere or comment on everything during hard times. It’s okay to simplify and focus on what truly moves the needle.

Also, don’t force your way back in when you’re ready to re-emerge. Do it with your full being.

I’m recalibrating myself right now, based on the season of life and business I’m in. That’s another thing to check in on: Where are you right now? Personally, or in your organization?

That changes over time. Sometimes we’re playing an old soundtrack that should’ve been turned off a while ago. I often find burnout comes from operating within a system you’ve outgrown.

Obviously, this is what I help my clients with—because it’s hard to do alone. You need conversations like this. You need community.

Especially as a solopreneur—you’re doing it solo, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.

Maria Bryan:
Quinn, thank you for the permission slips—and for the grace. Can you share how listeners can work with you?

Quinn Tempest:
Absolutely. If you’re curious about purpose and what yours could be, I have a quiz on my website. You can go to quinntempest.com or directly to quinntempest.com/quiz. It’ll help you answer: What is your entrepreneurial purpose?

Now, I won’t pretend the quiz will magically reveal your purpose—but it will give you one of eight “Purpose Profiles,” which are great tools for reflection.

For example, I’m “The Leader” profile. That emotional drive is about empowerment. The quiz helps you reflect on how that emotional drive shows up in your life and work.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @quinn.tempest.

I offer limited 1:1 strategic support and coaching. And I run a private membership called the Create Your Purpose Collective. We’ll be enrolling again in spring—maybe March or April. It’s a community of purpose-driven solopreneurs building internal structure that fuels their business strategy.

Maria Bryan:
That’s all linked in the show notes. Quinn, thank you so much for your wisdom and spending time with us today.

Quinn Tempest:
Thank you. This was lovely. I was so excited to chat with you.