We recently connected with Lesley Reece and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Lesley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My older brother and I were raised by my mother in a single-parent household and there are a few things that stand out for me that she did right in raising us:
1. She taught us how to be content with what we have, while working hard and saving towards what we wanted. As I said, she was a single parent, so we didn’t live lavishly, but all of our needs were met and I also never felt as though I was “missing out”. If there was something that I wanted, I either saved my allowance until I could afford it myself, or I came up with ways to make extra money; that could be washing cars in the neighbourhood, or helping my grandmother with the produce she used to grow and sell. I consider myself to be quite a determined and hardworking individual, my friends often joke that once I say I’m going to do something, I definitely will, and that spirit for sure came from the examples that my mother showed to me.

2. My mom also always reminded me that I could be anything that I wanted to be. I remember she would say to me, “Someone else’s opinion of you doesn’t have to be your reality.” That is something that I’ve held onto maybe from the first time she ever said it to me, and as I’ve gotten older, and especially in making the transition from full time medical practice to full time coaching and mentoring, it’s something that I’ve had to remind myself of time and time again. Very often others try to put us into a box that they have created in their heads for us, and those same people find it really hard to accept when we try to live outside of that very box. In my journey towards coaching, I’ve had many people ask me why I would even want to leave medicine, and the question was usually accompanied by some degree of incredulity, as though my decision was the most ridiculous thing they’d ever heard. I think that without hearing her voice in my head, and without feeling the unwavering support that she gives to me, I would seriously doubt myself and my decisions in the face of those types of reactions from others. One particularly heartfelt moment I’ve had on this journey occurred when I was telling my mom about a conversation I had with someone who said to me that “passion doesn’t pay the bills.” At the end of my telling her the story she said to me, “But you’re still going to go after your passion right?” With tears in my eyes I said, “Yes, of course.” And she smiled and said, “Good.” After that moment, if every single other person on Earth had told me I was making the wrong move, because of her support, I still would have continued on my chosen path.

3. My mother was also my first example of what it meant to have a side hustle, and to fully embrace your passions. She was a chemical engineer by profession, but she is also very creative, and did dress design and tailoring on the side. This for me also ties back into both of the points I made earlier: she did extra work and saved that income to pay for experiences that her main source of income may not have been able to cover, and she refused to stay in the lane of a ‘woman in STEM’, she also fully embraced her creative side and celebrated it. I’ve often been asked how I’m able to get so much done, they’ve even jokingly asked me if I have the same 24 hours in a day as they do, and the truth is that I am such a go-getter, and my ethos is “work smarter, not harder”, so you can bet that I will find a way to do it, do it well, and still get 7 hours of sleep at night, because self care is and always has been really important to me. This brings me to the next thing I want to mention insofar as what my mother did right.

4. She saw the importance of practicing balance in her life, and was the example of that for me. Her job sometimes entailed very irregular hours, but she always made sure to pour back into herself, and to pour into her two children as well. I’m sure that that’s why giving back to myself (and my son) after I’ve “taken away” is so important to me, and why it’s my mission to make sure that others understand the importance for themselves as well.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a palliative care physician, turned women’s empowerment coach, and I’m also a digital creator. I empower women over 30 to design a life that feels easy, with a major focus on overcoming and preventing burnout. A question I get asked a lot is why I would leave medicine to be a life coach, or to be anything other than a doctor, really, and the answer to that question is that when I graduated medical school in 2007, even though I loved medicine, I couldn’t see myself doing it for my entire career until retirement. I always felt that there were so many other facets to me that I knew I would want to explore, even though at the time I didn’t know exactly how that exploration would come about.

In 2013, my marriage ended due to domestic violence; in the several months following that I did some major introspection and finally admitted to myself that my self worth and self love were almost non-existent. My marriage wasn’t the first abusive relationship that I had ever been in, and I recognized that one reason for that was the way that I viewed myself. I decided that not only did I want to improve my relationship with my self, but that I also wanted to help other women and young girls who may also struggle with feelings of low self worth. Back then, I didn’t think I’d become a life coach, I intended to fulfill that mission through writing and motivational speaking, because I absolutely love doing both.

Life By Lesley, which is the name of my business, was born back then, but just as an Instagram page on which I shared inspirational posts. A few years later, I started a hugely successful mentorship program for the girls at my alma mater elementary school (it was an all-girls school), which I am extremely proud of. In 2020 during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, that’s when I started really exploring my creative side. I got into content creation and that took off, brands local to me were seeing my content and hiring me to do their content creation, and I became confident in my own creative abilities and started to combine that with the empowering messaging I wanted to share with women. At that time, I also started a Live series on Instagram, called Pink Megaphone, created to give women a voice to freely discuss issues affecting women which would otherwise have been considered taboo. Because of all of this, my personal brand grew in ways beyond my imagination. Strangers on the street would approach me to thank me for sharing something that really resonated with and inspired them, and I have to say there is no feeling in this world that can match that.

I decided in 2021 that I wanted to do a certification in life coaching, not necessarily to BE a coach, but because I saw it as a useful tool to better inform my writing and plans to do motivational speaking; little did I know that in going through the coaching education I would develop a yearning to actually coach women and guide them in creating positive transformations for themselves. And that’s exactly what I did!

All of the women that I’ve worked with so far have been female entrepreneurs, not by my design, but I guess those are the members of my audience who are most drawn to my services, so that niche has been practically created for me. From working with these women I’ve noticed that they all were experiencing major self doubt, impostor syndrome and people pleasing, a lot of it leading to overcommitting and burnout. So my focus most recently has been on helping women navigate and overcome these, which I do through self-paced, on-demand courses, group or one-on-one coaching offerings. I also firmly believe in the power of community, so I created an online community of women called the She FLOURISHES Society, where I provide journal prompts, mindfulness exercises, daily inspiration, pop-up group coaching sessions and other resources to guide the women in my community through the self-work needed to become the best, most empowered versions of themselves.

I think that the best coaches are the ones who can relate to their clients’ needs because they have walked the walk and have experienced and overcome the same struggles through which they are guiding their clients. I’ve struggled with burnout as a physician working at a COVID hospital during the pandemic. I also think that the empathy, compassion and grace that I’ve developed while working as a palliative care physician have also helped me in the ways that I support and encourage my coaching clients.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

My relatability. The feedback that I’ve always gotten is how relatable and authentic I am… in my content, in my delivery and in my work itself. Women I’ve never met, in our first interactions, would regularly say, “I feel as though I know you already!” I even have women who call me “bestie” just from consuming my content online.

Because all of the work that I do in my business, Life By Lesley, stems from my desire to help women avoid pitfalls that I experienced myself, I think the only way I know how to be is authentic and that translates into relatability. I am not here to judge, as a matter of a fact, I let every woman who enters my sphere know that she is entering a no-judgement zone, whether it be in one-on-one sessions or in my online community.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

I think that to be a great coach, you need to be able to relate to your clients in a way that can only come from having yourself experienced the struggles that you are guiding them through. There may be some nuanced aspects of our individual experiences that cannot be taught or communicated even with the best education or training. For instance, it would be really hard for me to guide another female entrepreneur on how to balance running her business with making sure that self care is priority, if I wasn’t myself a female entrepreneur. This is because I understand the real guilt and financial concern that can come with stepping away from your business for even two seconds, far less a two week vacation. Whereas, another woman who isn’t an entrepreneur and who is entitled to paid time off from her employer, is unlikely to be able to relate to the financial anxiety that comes with taking a vacation as an entrepreneur. That is not something that can necessarily be taught, but would make a huge difference to the way that I can relate to my client, as their coach.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lesleyreece.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifebylesleyreece
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/lifebylesleyreece
• Other: My Product Suite: http://stan.store/lifebylesleyreece