Chief Change Officer
#206 Athena Brownson vs. Lyme Disease: A Story of Grit and Comebacks — Part One
Sat, 1 Mar 2025
Athena Brownson was at the top of her real estate game when life handed her a challenge she never saw coming—Lyme disease. What followed was an eight-year rollercoaster of chronic pain, exhausting treatments, and redefining everything she thought she knew about success. In this episode, she takes us through the raw, unfiltered truth of navigating an illness that most people don’t understand. And in Part Two? We’ll see how she turned this battle into a comeback story.Key Highlights of Our Interview:The Hidden Threat of Lyme Disease“I had no idea what Lyme disease was before I was diagnosed with it. It’s the fastest growing epidemic in the United States, and it can turn life upside down.”From Athlete to Survivor“My life has made a complete 180 from being a professional athlete to just trying to get through each day. It’s a nightmare I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”When Life Becomes a Series of Challenges“It’s hard not to get stuck in the mud when you’re dealing with something so challenging and constant… chronic pain, chronic fatigue, enough to make anyone want to stay in bed and not do anything.”Creating a Toolkit for Every Day“How do we pivot our mentality? How do we create our toolkit of things to get us through each day, even when we don’t want to? Sometimes it’s as simple as blasting favorite music or making a great cup of coffee.”Becoming Your Own Biggest Advocate“With Lyme, I’ve learned that you have to be your own biggest advocate. It’s about mental resilience, surrounding yourself with the right people, and finding those anchors to push forward.”______________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Athena Brownson______________________--**Chief Change Officer**--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Deep Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives, Visionary Underdogs,Transformation Gurus & Bold Hearts.6 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.100,000+ subscribers are outgrowing. Act Today. --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.14 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>140,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: Who is Athena Brownson and what is her story?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, I'm talking to Athena Bronson, a real estate agent from Denver, Colorado. No, we are not talking about real estate.
Instead, we dive into her extraordinary journey of resilience. At the peak of her real estate career, Feeling invincible and unstoppable, Athena's life took unexpected turn. Strange health issues appeared, and she was eventually diagnosed with Lyme disease, a condition that would change everything. For the past seven years,
Athena has lived in chronic pain, relying on plasma transfusions four days each month just to keep going. Her life has revolved around battling this disease, something she never imagined facing. As she says, if life didn't give us adversity and challenges. This story is too powerful and real for just one episode.
Today, in part one, Asena shares her experience with Lyme disease, a condition that remains poorly understood but has profoundly impacted her health. She'll talk about how she caught it, what she's endured, and the fight to survive. Tomorrow in part two, Asina will share how she not only survived, but found ways to thrive, rebuild her support system, and grow her career once again.
Athena, welcome to our show. Welcome to Chief Change Officer. I know you're in Denver. Good afternoon to you.
Good afternoon, or good morning to you, I should say. Thank you so much for having me. It is a cold, snowy night. So Asena, let's start with your story. As you mentioned, I am in Denver, Colorado. I was born and raised here in Colorado. I was actually raised in a small mountain town called Breckenridge.
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Chapter 2: How did Athena's early life and career lead to her success in real estate?
For those of you who are skiers or snowboarders, you've probably heard of Breckenridge at some point. Knowing this piece of information, it will set you up for how really my life unfolded because I learned I could walk. So I believe I was two years old. My dad was a professional skier and I like to say I didn't even have a chance.
He had me on skis from the time I could walk and at age 15, I ended up going professional at skiing. So at a very young age, I was basically traveling the world skiing about 300 days a year with some of the top coaches in the entire world. And
I always say that skiing is the best business school that I ever could have asked for or could have gone to because skiing truly set the stage for my success in business, which I'll get into a little bit later. And after becoming a professional skier, after I think nine knee surgeries, I decided it was time for me to hang up the skis and go into another field. And
I ended up going into the field that I never in a million years thought I would end up in, and that is real estate. Now, I say I never thought I would end up in real estate because A, I don't think anyone grows up saying, oh, I'm going to be a real estate agent when I grow up. That's just not something you hear very often. But more in the small town that I was raised in, Breckenridge,
There were more real estate offices than t-shirt shops. I grew up thinking real estate was, I had the preconceived notion that it was a little bit corny and there were the kind of used car salesman mentality, even though my dad is a home builder. So I grew up on job sites. I Followed him.
I have very fond but funny memories of going to job sites with him in the freezing cold, watching his projects unfold and develop, and watching the impact that he had on this town. And it was pretty incredible, but it was something that my dad did. Because of that, as a young person, I wanted to make my own path.
I went into interior design after graduating from college, and I was working in the interior design industry, both in Denver and Breckenridge, designing hotels, high-end residences, but I didn't feel that I was being fulfilled. To me, it was a nine-to-five job that I was counting down the hours to get through. I had a dear girlfriend at the time, still one of my best friends.
And she is one of the most successful real estate agents in the country. She is top 1%. Thank you, Charlotte. And I was having dinner with her one evening and she said, Athena, you love people. You love homes. You love design. Why are you not a real estate agent? And I scratched my head. And to be honest, I had never even thought about it. This was 10 years ago that this conversation happened.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Athena face after being diagnosed with Lyme disease?
And she said, just meet with the owner of my company. I really think that you two would hit it off. You have very similar, like how you do business and how you view people. You're very relational. I really think that you two would hit it off. So I met with the owner of her company actually two days later. And this was a small real estate brokerage in Denver.
And I was so impressed with his approach to business being relationship based business and not transactional. I was so blown away with this. He's like sunshine in human form. Still a dear mentor, friend of mine that I quit my job the next day, signed up for real estate school and got my real estate license about two months later. And that was 10 years ago. And here we are.
The path since I got my real estate license has been one that I never in a million years could have predicted. I say that as you will learn more of my story throughout this episode. I think we go into life and all things with an idea of what life is going to look like for us. And for me, the beginning of my real estate career, I was Studying under one of the most amazing agents. He was my mentor.
I had an amazing coach. I had really incredible people around me and I was succeeding pretty early on. And in real estate, you generally say it takes time. A year to really get going and three years to really start being successful. After a year, I found myself having great success, really building amazing relationships. By year three, I like to say I thought I was at the top of the world.
I had grand visions of what my real estate future was going to look like. Life never goes to plan. And I learned that the hard way. And I think we all learned that the hard way. I was diagnosed with Lyme disease, which I will also explain more of about seven and a half years ago. So in my three and a half years into real estate, I was like at the top of my game, thought I was invincible.
All of a sudden I started getting very strange illnesses for a young, healthy person. And I was diagnosed with Lyme disease and Lyme disease, unfortunately, for me, took out my immune system and caused multiple autoimmune diseases. So the last seven years of my life have been, first of all, I don't even remember what it's like to feel okay. I live in constant chronic pain.
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Chapter 4: How does Athena manage her life and career while battling Lyme disease?
I get plasma transfusions four days every month. My world pretty much revolves around trying to stay alive and trying to fight this really horrific disease that never in a million years I thought I would get. And I like to say that if life did not give us adversity and challenges, we would never have the opportunity for growth. But man, I would not wish this way of growing on anyone.
But that's where I am. I run a successful team at Compass here in Denver. I still love real estate as much as I did on day one, if not more. Love the people I work with. And through this journey, I have learned so many incredible things that I'm excited to share with you. But it has come through adversity and through fighting every single day to keep going because
There are most days I don't want to. And to be able to have a career for me, real estate, that is something I'm so passionate about and is my why. I work with people that I love, that I built lifelong relationships with and helping them to really buy and sell a home is the biggest transaction you do in your life. And to be a part of people's lives in that way and a part of
each chapter through home, that's my why. And it keeps me getting out of bed even when I don't want to. So it's really been an evolution of understanding what my why is and building my toolkit for continuing forward even when I don't want to.
That's so much. We can dive into here. Athena, can you share with us how old were you when you were first diagnosed?
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Chapter 5: When and how was Athena diagnosed with Lyme disease?
So I was 25 years old and that's when I was diagnosed with Lyme disease. I am not actually sure when I was bit. So the way you get Lyme disease is a tick bite. I personally have never even seen a tick. We don't have a ton of ticks in Colorado, but as a professional skier, I was traveling globally, and I was in heavily wooded areas. So at some point, I was bit by a tick.
That tick was carrying Lyme disease along with two other co-infections that I am also fighting. And... Lyme is interesting as it lays dormant in your system until something weakens your immune system and it can come out and take over. For me, I ended up having neck surgery. I broke my neck skiing and my immune system took a hit from having neck surgery.
It was weekend, and that's when all of my symptoms started to act up with Lyme disease. And I was really fortunate that a doctor knew a lot about Lyme disease. It's something that is a little bit new in the medical field. There's not a ton of doctors that are very Lyme literate, I like to say. And I was very fortunate to be diagnosed immediately.
It's been seven and a half years, almost eight now of fighting Lyme disease.
You mentioned that this disease is rare and you were fortunate to find a doctor who understood it well. But for most of my listeners in the U.S. as well as internationally, this condition isn't widely known, meaning there's a lack of awareness, which could be risky. Could you enlighten us a bit more? What exactly is this disease and what should people know about it?
I would love nothing more. And I was in the same boat. I had no idea what Lyme disease was before I was diagnosed with it. In fact, when my doctor suggested that we do testing for it, I laughed because I was so unaware of Lyme disease. And I also was very naive to how significant it is. So Lyme disease is interesting because it affects everyone differently.
So depending on what you're genetically predisposed to, whatever your genetic weaknesses are, Lyme... attacks that so for some people that can be myalgia or rheumatoid arthritis a multitude of autoimmune diseases like i have i have an autoimmune disease where my body attacks my nerves so that's why i'm in pain all the time because my own body is attacking my nerves
It can look like psychiatric issues for some people. It can range from such a variety of symptoms that that's what makes it difficult to diagnose. However, Lyme is the fastest growing epidemic in the United States right now. So the number of people that are contracting Lyme from a tick, like I said, You get it from being bit by a tick.
And if you are aware that you're bit by a tick immediately, you should go to the doctor. You'll usually see a red ring around the bite if it is carrying a disease. But I would say if you get bit by a tick, just go to the doctor because they can give you a short cycle of antibiotics and you'll never deal with it again.
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