We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lynn Lessell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lynn below.
Lynn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.
Thank you for asking. I’ve always been a caregiver, the kid that took care of her siblings, the one who was responsible for all the chores, and ultimately for everyone else’s happiness as I entered adulthood. That’s what I was taught. There were always expectations of me and denial to have any expectations of my own.
I got married and had children yet that added more responsibilities and expectations that denied me the option of being “me”, at least that’s what I believed, so I never learned what that could mean.
Taking care of others defined me. So, when life changed and there wasn’t anyone left to care for, life as I knew it was traumatically different. My kids no longer needed me because they were grown and independent. Then within five years, I lost my younger brother, then I lost my father prematurely, then I lost my dog due to the pet food poisoning fiasco, then I lost my marriage, and ultimately lost myself. Without someone to take care of, I was no one.
I was lost and believed I no longer had a purpose. How would I go forward? I didn’t know how to and felt utterly useless until a friend from years gone by called me. She heard my despair, got in her car, and hit the highway to come to see me and snap me out of it. When she arrived at my apartment, she banged harshly on my door until I finally answered. When I opened the door, she whacked me and said get your @$%# together because I’m not leaving here until you do!
I cried and complained to the point of exhaustion while she worked on helping me grasp the fact that it was time to take care of myself. Take care of myself? Was that allowed? Was that possible?
That was my defining moment. The moment I realized I’d been expecting someone else to take care of me all along. No one was taking care of me but I wasn’t alone or abandoned by anyone but myself.
I was the one, the only one who was responsible for me and it was time to accept that challenge!
Lynn, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m happy to, thank you. My life’s dream was to be a mom. I’ve raised two amazing sons that are successful in all areas of their lives and I couldn’t be prouder. I’ve lived in several places from New York City to Southern California, and now in Southern Florida.
I’m known as a super connecter with a never-ending reach who’s caring, honest, trustworthy, loyal, reliable, and consistent. Those who know me well have experienced what I refer to as my “Spidey-sense” because I can extract things that seem buried many layers beneath the surface. I’m always asked how I know things. My response to that is, “It’s who I am” and the training I’ve had as a coach has intensely magnified my existing abilities. I’m a great listener that pays attention to every detail. I’m an artist that’s become accustomed to paying attention to the smallest of visual details so I’ve expanded my attention to detail in conversation too. I love pencil sketching, making handcrafted handbags, cooking, and bowling. I’m also a passionate hockey fan! I love sunshine and palm trees so Florida is, without a doubt, my final move. I love the beach, great food, and living life as if I were a local tourist.
How did you get into your industry/business/discipline/craft, etc?
After many years of helping patients in the many healthcare specialty offices I’ve worked in, my last position was managing two wellness centers. It was then that I realized I could bring more value to others by getting certified as the health and life coach I am today. I’m incredibly proud to be named the Identity Coach by my clients because of the life transformations they’ve experienced. Through my life’s journey, I’ve learned how daily chronic stress, regardless of its origin, becomes so invisible and toxic that you can get very lost inside yourself. I felt alone and thought my destiny was “for worse” not for better, that I had no choices, and my only option was to simply exist through each day as best as possible. So, why do I do what I do today? I hit rock bottom and discovered that what I should have been doing all along was taking back control of my life and treating stress like an annoying bug buzzing in my ear. I won’t say it was easy but it changed my life and now I love both my life and myself. I’m passionate about spreading the word that if you feel alone…you’re not. If you think there are no other options…there are. If you don’t think it’s possible for you…let’s have a conversation so you can take back control instead of hitting rock bottom like I did. “Itz Why” I became a coach.
What type of products/services/creative works do you provide and what problems do you solve for your clients?
As the founder of Itz Why® LLC, “ME” Monday®, and IPP Inner Power Partners™ (IPP™), I’m passionate about having as many tools as possible to help my clients and colleagues. I’m a certified health coach, certified mastery life coach, certified facilitator of Compassionate Integrity Training (CIT), certified in Functional Body Systems, trained under the National Board of Health and Wellness Coaches (NBHWC), recently certified in Hypnotherapy, and have a degree in business management and marketing.
I work with individual clients who feel like they’re doing everything they can yet it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. As we work together, they discover what a quality lifestyle can look like in every area of their life whether they want to lose weight, eat better, feel better, figure out who they want to be, or find the success path that fits them best, for example. For each individual, it looks and feels different and it’s a one-step-at-a-time process.
Depending on what each client wants to achieve, the services I provide are customized to their needs. I provide health coaching, mastery life coaching, Hypnotherapy, and consulting for stress management. I’m a writer, and motivational speaker. In the future, I hope to bring the transformation that occurs in IPP™ amongst individuals to teams within companies. This would enable employees to have less stress so they can work more cohesively together so productivity levels for the entire company increase and everyone wins.
Individual clients who work with me as a personal coach focus on various topics and most often aren’t trying to look for a new identity. That’s just a consequence of the self-discovery they uncover and the choices they never realized they could make so the doors of opportunity open for them.
In addition, I launched “ME” Monday® four years ago to declare a special day on your calendar each week to schedule some time to celebrate yourself. It’s also a free email subscription that brings weekly motivation and tips around average daily occurrences direct to your inbox. Readers look forward to the once dreaded Monday each week and some have expanded their “ME” time routine to more days of the week. “ME” time is a necessity yet it’s often misconceived as a luxury.
What do you think sets you apart from others?
As the Identity Coach, one thing that sets me apart from other coaches, I believe, is what I like to refer to as my “Spidey sense” as I mentioned earlier. I’ve always had this innate ability to hear multiple layers below the surface of what someone says to help them. I’m not clairvoyant just a fine-tuned listener. I hear the things that are deeply buried within, the things they don’t hear themselves say out loud, and ask the right questions that provide the door that opens to a file that’s been stored long ago and possibly forgotten.
I use a customized technique within my coaching that creates a trusted bond with anyone I work with. That comfort level becomes a priceless tool that invites the client to explore inward and reveal what they didn’t know they didn’t know about themselves.
Clients thank me for changing their lives in remarkable ways. Our work together helps them simply experience the self-awareness that may have been ignored for a while.
As a coach, I’m known for transforming lives. As the founder of IPP™, I’ve been told I’m revolutionizing the networking industry so professionals can get back to basic relationship-building. Many of the IPP™ members openly share the great amount of personal growth and business advancement they’ve experienced from being part of this community.
All I know is I believe becoming who you want to be and connecting your most authentic self to the way you build relationships and conduct business can lead to infinite opportunities for less stress and more success.
You can’t do anything about what you don’t know, and I ask the right questions to help you figure it out and achieve your goals!
What are you most proud of?
What I’m most proud of is my story from beginning to end both personally and professionally- it’s all connected. One couldn’t exist without the other. It’s about connecting to who you are deep down with less stress despite anything you’ve experienced good, bad, or ugly.
It’s about not letting anything or anyone cause you to ignore any part of yourself because when you allow that you can get very lost.
Always be who you want to be in all areas of your life, that one person you love being and you’re setting yourself up for SUCCESS and less stress!
I couldn’t be prouder about being able to set an example for others who feel like I used to so they know they can choose themselves, unconditionally and guilt-free!
What are the main things you want potential clients/followers/fans to know about you/ your brand/your work/ etc?
I’m often asked about the Itz Why® logo. “Is that a helix or DNA?” YES! If you’re asking why- the answer is this. DNA is the foundation of our physical makeup, right? How you take care of that foundation determines how healthy you are as you get older.
We all get a fresh start when we’re born and as we grow up that foundation changes based on the choices we make.
I believe your personal why is the emotional DNA of who you are and the foundation of your potential success.
How you care for your heart and mind formulates your mental well-being as you get older; therefore, I believe that until you feel connected to your “WHY”, your emotional “DNA”, you may not feel clear about the foundation on which to build your best choices.
My journey was one of acceptance of the worst rather than believing it was possible to choose differently.
Being a mom and having a career while building a business made me realize how much the threat of daily stress was affecting me and holding me back from achieving goals.
Since I knew I couldn’t be the only one feeling this way, I set out on a mission to find others like me and build a trusted support system.
Itz Why® LLC introduced IPP™ as a small membership group at the end of 2021 by asking professionals of various industries one question… “What’s stress costing your business?”
IPP™ stands alone from other relationship-building groups because we unconventionally approach the process.
Building trust, learning about others as people, and liking others you do business with don’t just happen. It takes time and consistency. We share our expertise and experiences in different ways to support each other which results in lower stress levels and better business.
Our small group quickly expanded at the start of 2022 into two additional cities. Halfway through the year, a fourth location was launched.
It’s hard to believe we just hit a one-year milestone and we continue to grow at a consistent pace. We’re currently up to six locations!
We introduced a few new incredible member benefits this year, with a projected plan for training additional facilitators as we grow. Membership locations are expected to expand outside the local area in person and virtually as soon as next year.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
The main character of my story is stress. It’s invisible and it’s toxic.
The most important thing I’ve learned from my journey is how to neutralize the threat of daily stress to live a quality lifestyle.
Stress was continuously playing “whack-a-mole” with my life ( remember that carnival game?). I felt it at almost every age and every stage of my life. You may ask, “How do you neutralize THAT?”
Well, you have to stop wanting to control everything that happens.
You have to want to start looking for the person that got deeply buried under all the stress and bring that person back to the surface.
It can be different for everyone and I’ll define what it means for me. Simply said… I regularly ignored myself because of the belief that I was responsible to fulfill the expectations others had of me. I believed it was my job to ensure that everything was the best it could be for everyone else. The traumatic circumstances that continuously swirled around me didn’t have to define who I am and I had no idea! When you’re in the center of it, “you can’t see the forest through the trees”. I almost hit rock bottom more than once. The chronic stress I experienced from believing I had to ensure everyone else’s happiness was poisonous and it was unknowingly impairing my health. The very last time I hit the lowest I’ve ever been, the only way back up was to ask myself some really hard questions and do something I had never done in my life…put myself first!
The hardest questions I had to ask myself were who do I want to be and what do I want?
I had no idea. I never knew I had the option to ask myself those questions let alone consider that I had my own choices to make.
It doesn’t matter how anyone else sees the situation. What matters is it’s traumatic to you and you get to decide how you want to deal with it. So, when I realized I was the only one that had a right to have expectations of myself things began to change.
Because of my life journey, and it was a long journey, I had to dig deep to discover who I wanted to be and figure out how to love that person 100%. It may sound crazy but now I’m loving the “me” that’s a kooky, animated character who dares to be different; I’m living every day with laughter while presenting someone trustworthy, loyal, and reliable. Everything has gotten better with less stress.
You can’t change anything or anyone around you. You have to make the change from within and find your true identity. That change eventually can restore you to who you are deep down to allow you to learn how to defuse the anxiety.
It’s not about the awful things you deal with; it’s about who you want to be despite it.
What I didn’t realize then, was that I wasn’t alone. There are many people like me out there and I’m proof it can be different!
What I’ve learned along this journey is that it’s far from selfish to prioritize your wants and needs. You don’t need someone else’s permission to be happy. You must permit yourself to make the choices you think are best for you.
It felt like I was on a rollercoaster for a long time and when the ride finally stopped I was right where I was supposed to be because I made the choices necessary to get me there.
It wasn’t easy but it was worth it!
Both my physical and mental health has significantly improved and so did my rate of success.
If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?
Becoming a coach was never something I considered doing yet it’s where I am today. If I could go back, I would not change a thing.
Because I became a coach, I became a person I love. Because I became a coach, the people I work with become people who love themselves. Why would anyone want to go back and change that?
Contact Info:
- Website: www.innerpowerpartners.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itzwhycoach/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=itz%20why
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8ZMCGnq0pnpFvFZC9PHJP0GVKvW0Yu0G
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynn-lessell-chwc-clc-bba-speaker-author-consultant-05656b37/
- Other: www.itzwhy.com