Today we’d like to introduce you to Brooke Hall.
Hi Brooke , please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’ve always been fascinated by how stories shape what people believe and how they behave. After studying Philosophy and Literature, I became curious about the invisible architecture of culture, the ideas and narratives that shape how we understand the world. Looking back, I can see that my early curiosity about meaning and consciousness was already shaping how I would later move through loss and reinvention. I had been photographing for years, but my first internship came with a small magazine in South Florida, where I began chasing moments that revealed something true about human nature.
When I moved to Baltimore in 2005, I worked in a record shop by day and freelanced for the City Paper at night. That opened the door to a staff writing job with an online publisher, where I got my first real taste of professional storytelling.
I later joined a small PR and marketing agency, where I learned the mechanics of the media industry from the inside, how stories are crafted, packaged, and placed. The experience was both disillusioning and clarifying. When I was laid off during the 2008–2009 financial crisis, I decided to start my own one-woman creative agency focused on branding, design, and digital storytelling, using skills I had largely taught myself.
Soon after, I joined forces with my then-boyfriend, now-husband, Justin Allen. We shared the same frustration with mainstream media’s negativity and its narrow definition of what deserved attention. Together, we launched a small online magazine in 2010 called What Weekly to “document the Baltimore renaissance.” Our only rule was simple: no crime, no politics, no clickbait. We wanted to tell stories that uplifted, inspired, and revealed what was worth believing in.
That little side project struck a nerve. A creative community formed around it, and momentum built quickly. The magazine became a cultural touchstone, winning awards, attracting national attention, and fueling the growth of our agency, What Works Studio. We opened an office, built a team, and continue to keep a presence in Baltimore today.
Beyond publishing, we loved bringing people together, hosting parties and events that blended art, storytelling, and community. That spirit led us to launch the Charles Street Social Club and host Open Editorials, live gatherings where conversation and connection became the story itself.
As our agency grew, so did the scale of our work. After rebranding the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, we created the Mr. Trash Wheel persona on their behalf, a playful yet powerful symbol for environmental change. He became Discovery Channel’s #1 Story of the Year, ranked first on the front page of Reddit during our initial AMA, appeared in the print edition of National Geographic, and was praised by The New Yorker as “the most beloved and sensible anti-plastic pollution mechanism in the country.” To date, the campaign has helped raise millions for ocean conservancy.
The success of What Weekly and our client work gave us the confidence to dream bigger. We wanted to create something that could reimagine the city itself, a project where art, innovation, and optimism could light up the skyline. With no safety net, only vision, persistence, and community belief, we built what became Light City Baltimore, America’s first international light, music, and innovation festival.
In its first year, Light City attracted more than 400,000 festival attendees and generated an economic impact of $33.8 million. For a moment, the city felt reimagined. It was magic.
And then came our collapse. While the festival went on, we lost almost everything in the aftermath, including clients, partners, and even our magazine. It was devastating, but it also cracked something open in me. That loss forced me to slow down and ask deeper questions about inner peace, resilience, and what really matters. It marked the beginning of a spiritual journey that continues to shape everything I do today.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It hasn’t been an easy path, but it’s been the right one. Because life doesn’t promise ease; it promises growth. Like many others, I’ve faced my share of challenges: childhood trauma, bullying, chronic physical illness, financial troubles, family hardships, job losses, experiences of violence, and the uncertainty of starting a business from the ground up. Each experience tested me, but together they built the resilience I would one day rely on most.
That resilience carried me into some of my proudest accomplishments, including co-creating Light City in Baltimore, a project that pushed the limits of what I thought was possible and illuminated the power of creativity to transform communities.
Light City became a citywide celebration that united Baltimore in a way the city had never experienced before. Over three years, it generated more than $111 million in economic impact and welcomed more than 1.3 million people to its light-filled waterfront.
After the first year, we were no longer part of the festival we had poured so much of ourselves into. Letting go of something we helped bring to life was one of the hardest experiences of my career. Leaving the city marked the start of a long season of rebuilding and survival.
In that space, I turned inward. I began meditating daily, at first just to find some relief and manage the pain that followed. Over time, that simple act became something deeper, a way to return to inner stillness and inquire into the nature of consciousness itself: who I am beneath the roles, the doing, and the noise of the world. I attended a series of Vipassana-style silent retreats, including a seven-day silent retreat in the Colorado Rockies that profoundly shifted me. Spending several days in complete silence, with no books, no phones, and nearly nine hours of meditation each day, strips away everything nonessential and reconnects you to something timeless within yourself. Through this period, I committed to releasing old emotional blockages and letting go of my personal self and ego attachments, clearing layers of stored tension and opening space for peace and clarity to emerge. I immersed myself in spiritual study, exploring wisdom traditions and modern science to understand how humans transform through challenge and change.
That path deepened over time. I completed a two-year mindfulness meditation teacher training program with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, became a certified meditation teacher, and completed Yale’s Science of Well-Being course. Those experiences offered both ancient and contemporary perspectives on resilience, awareness, and inner peace.
Out of that season came both the realization that everything that had happened with the festival, especially the loss, was ultimately a gift. This realization has been the inspiration for my upcoming book, The Pronoia Effect: How Trusting Life Changes Everything. A bold new lens on joy, peace, and the power of awareness, the book explores what it means to return to the seat of Self, where the natural states of peace and joy re-emerge and trust in life follows effortlessly. It is a journey through surrender as power, showing how letting go clears resistance and allows gratitude, optimism, and flow to arise naturally.
Blending raw personal story with timeless wisdom, The Pronoia Effect reveals that pronoia is not about seeing life through rose-colored glasses. It is what happens when you take them off and realize that life has been working for you all along.
Today, I have come full circle. In 2022, Justin and I moved with our two kids to San Diego to begin a new chapter. We expanded What Works Studio to the West Coast while continuing to serve our Baltimore clients and community. The move opened doors to new opportunities and allowed us to rebuild from a place of alignment and purpose.
My work now is still about serving people, but in a deeper, more spiritual way. By inspiring others to come home to themselves, learn to harness the power of awareness to use their mind differently, and allow their challenges to become catalysts for growth rather than limitations. Whether through storytelling, speaking, or creative pursuits, my work continues to be about transformation and upliftment.
With time, I came to see that everything that happened, every loss, setback, and detour, was ultimately leading me exactly where I was meant to be. What once felt like collapse revealed itself as redirection, reminding me that each challenge is an opportunity to return to who we truly are, and that every hardship carries the seed of self-realization.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about What Works Studio?
What Works Studio began as one woman in her dining room with a laptop and evolved into a full-scale marketing and strategic growth consultancy. Since 2009, we have guided clients through transformation, from brand-defining campaigns to digital reinvention. Over the past 16 years, we’ve helped organizations transform the way they tell their stories, connect with audiences, and grow in a fast-changing world.
Our work has reached millions, strengthened communities, and launched campaigns that create meaningful impact in the real world.
Over time, we’ve evolved from our creative roots in design and branding into a consultancy that helps organizations scale with clarity and precision. We focus on measurable outcomes, building sales pipelines, increasing engagement, and improving efficiency.
We were early to recognize the impact AI would have on marketing and business, and for years we’ve been integrating it into our work to help clients sharpen strategy, unlock efficiency, and accelerate growth.
Our track record includes guiding Kaiser Permanente’s social media strategy in the Mid-Atlantic region during COVID, reaching millions; producing the University of Maryland Medical Center’s 200th Anniversary drone show at Artscape 2023; raising $5.7 million in a single day for #GivingTuesday, now part of a Smithsonian exhibition; helping the Enoch Pratt Free Library achieve record attendance and circulation; and generating over 1,000 leads for the University of Maryland Medical Center’s diabetes prevention programs.
On the West Coast, we’ve expanded into renewable energy and clean tech, helping a client launch a renewable energy company and scale a nine-figure pipeline of business. Alongside this, we consult with organizations on marketing analysis and growth strategy, integrating AI and automation to drive profitability and intelligent decision-making.
Beyond agency work, I love sharing what I’ve learned about creativity, awareness, and mindset through speaking. I often talk about possibility and what I call radical optimism (which I believe is our natural state beneath the layers of trauma, emotional blockages, ego mind, and the disturbed psyche). My signature talk, The Pronoia Effect: How to Train Your Brain to See (and Seize) Hidden Opportunities, explores how to shift perception so you can recognize opportunities others overlook and transform challenges into catalysts for growth. I also deliver talks on entrepreneurship, creativity, and conscious leadership, all with the aim of helping people unlock their highest potential and bring their boldest visions to life.
Looking back, the throughline has always been clear: to spark transformation, build community, and help people and organizations grow by staying adaptable, evolving with curiosity, and meeting change with enthusiasm.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
I never really had a mentor in the traditional sense. Most of what I’ve learned has come from trial and error, curiosity, and surrounding myself with people who were also creating and experimenting. One of my greatest teachers has been my husband and business partner, Justin. Building companies, raising children, creating, and moving through loss side by side has shaped me in profound ways. He’s been both a mirror and a rock; an inspiration on my spiritual path and a steady force through seasons of growth and change. I’m incredibly grateful that we’re on this journey together.
For me, networking has never been about collecting business cards or forcing relationships. It’s about resonance: finding people who share a vision, and collaborating with authenticity. The most meaningful relationships in my life have come from spaces where I was fully engaged in the work itself, creating for a larger purpose.
When you are lit up by your work, enthusiastic, and open to possibility, the right people seem to find you at exactly the right time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://whatworksstudio.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookehallco/
- Other: https://www.brookehall.co/
Image Credits
Photography by Philip Laubner, Theresa Keil, Larry Cohen, Dan Bailey, Scotty Chop, Plaid Photo, and Brooke Hall.
