Halley Gray: An Entrepreneurial Mad Scientist-Trickster Heroine
“So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.” –Victor Frankenstein.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley is hailed as one of the first works of Science Fiction and filled with all of the sturm und drang of Victorian Romanticism.
I see parallels of this 1818 novel to the passion-filled rhetoric of modern solopreneurs.
Without passion and enthusiasm it is not possible to pave our unique path in this oversaturated world of marketing and media.
And, it also takes tremendous courage and chutzpah to be yourself and “pioneer a new way.”
Halley Gray of Evolve & Succeed has her own storm brewing and is creating quite a stir in the online marketing realm as the strategist who can get entrepreneurs booked out for months at a time.
Truth:
Michelle Ward, When I Grow Up Coach, worked with Halley in 2012 and as a result was booked out 8 months in advance.
Angelique Mrocza, eBook Aviatrix, worked with Halley this year and tripled her income.
Kat McBride, Kat Can Paint, went from $0 to $4,000 revenue after she worked with Halley.
Sas Petherick, Amplify Your Life, is booked out until July.
I’ve known Halley since 2012 and have always loved her independent spirit and deep desire to help other entrepreneurs.
And the fact that she swears, dons fun turquoise eyeglasses, creates new marketing terms like “salesnado” and compares the ubiquitous big red “buy now” buttons to Patch Adams’ nose … makes me truly and madly love this woman.
Promethean Dreams
The archetypes that Halley is articulating and amplifying through her brand are the Mad Scientist and Trickster Heroine.
She recently professed to me that her favorite characters and real people include Indiana Jones, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Victor Frankenstein (she adores the Mel Brooks film version, Young Frankenstein), a ground breaking female marine biologist who studied sharks (y’all remember my etheric friend Meg the Megalodon), pirates and ship captains.
Halley’s fascination with Dr. Frankenstein developed because instead of following the universal laws of nature, he goes ahead and does what everyone says can’t be done. She adores science and is inspired by others who find ways to go beyond the limits of convention and the tried and true.
Her love of Anti-Heroes such as Indiana Jones points to her courageous and adventurous Trickster Heroine connection.
Trickster represents the what if energy of all possibilities, seen and unseen, that can break through at any time. Mythologist Joseph Campbell describes the trickster figure as one who demolishes external/social and internal/personal structures, opening up paths that were once forbidden or unheard of. “The mind structures a lifestyle, and the fool or trickster represents another whole range of possibilities. He doesn’t respect the values that you’ve set up for yourself, and smashes them” (An Open Life 39).
According to Campbell, a trickster figure can also be a creator “in that he is the unrecognized, yet pressing energies that are threatening to break through” (An Open Life 29).
The Greek hero Prometheus, who created humans out of clay, and then later disobeys the gods and gives fire to humankind, suffers the penalty for breaking the divine laws: each day Prometheus is chained to a boulder as an eagle devours his liver.
Ew.
Symbolically, the liver was the seat of the emotions to the Greeks and his eternal punishment was to be internally dismembered. The next morning, though, his liver would heal and be completely restored.
Typically solopreneurs often feel like lone, cray-cray, innovative, mad scientists as they pave the way for all the other entrepreneurs coming up behind them. The Prometheus myth clues us into the fact that breaking new ground is dis-membering just as it is re-membering.
To create something new we have to first destroy the world and then put it back together again. The Trickster, possibly more than any other archetype, has the ability to heal the splits we suffer so often in post-modern life.
Like Dr. Frankenstein who turns death into life, Halley resuscitates the dead heart of a business so it can beat again.
Captain Halley is sailing her ship of innovators and heroes through stormy seas and delivering them to dry land–where there is plenty of bacon and endless episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. And lots of “You received a payment” messages in your inbox.
