We recently connected with Valerie Lynn and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Valerie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?
Upon the beginning of the pandemic, I was one of the many that suffered the demise of a relationship. I share that because it was the catalyst that caused me to re-think how, and where, I did my work. I decided to make a huge life change (for me), and sold everything I owned, except what fit in the trunk of my very compact car. I started out by relocating for 8 months to California from Washington… and then proceeded to realize I wanted to keep going. And so I did. Just me, a few bags of clothes, my laptop and microphone… and a heart full of desire to really LIVE… and I began my journey Airbnb’ing my way across America. Still currently on this journey, my personal take-away is that choosing to be homeless and own very little, has actually made me more rich than I ever have been, and has also made me a much better leader and coach. During my journey, I researched everything possible related to leadership–and talked to almost anyone who would engage me in conversation about what they thought positive leadership was. Becoming a homeless digital nomad has been the most abundant, wild, sometimes terrible, and enlightening journey that I have ever had. Stepping into a life that was authentically aligned has helped me become not only a better version of myself, but also helped me become a better leader.
Valerie, 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 feel so incredibly grateful and privileged to be able to work in the area that I do. My name is Valerie Lynn and my company is called Valerie Lynn Consulting. I also work in the corporate space as a leadership consultant, which has given me a unique insight to the inter-workings of large organizations and their leadership structures. In my own business, I love speaking and hosting a podcast all about leadership – but in a no-BS, no corporate “fluff” kind of way. My focus is on the next generation of leaders, and I also emphasize personal growth and self-development in literally every part of my work. While road tripping across the US for the last year, the research I have done showed me what I had been suspect of – which is that our leadership definition needs to change. We need HUMAN-centered leaders, which means that the “soft” skills of the past, are actually the PRIMARY skills we should be looking for in good leadership (both in our careers and personal lives). So my keynotes, podcast, consulting and coaching all revolve around these concepts. The other amazing component to all of this, is that the current workforce crisis and “Great Resignation” all plays a part – meaning that, if companies and leaders are looking for a solution to engaging and retaining their workforce, they all HAVE to start incorporating these principles into what they do, and how they do it. In addition to speaking and podcasting, I love mentoring and coaching our current leaders and aspiring leaders. This could be anything from someone who is just starting out on their entrepreneur journey, to someone who is a seasoned leaders but wants to grow. I am co-hosting my first leadership event in Las Vegas in August and am so excited to begin getting into the event space much more.
My style is energetic, fun, vibrant and engaging. I speak in a conversational style, with the occasional colorful word thrown in, and in a very authentic way. I have found that if I speak as authentically as possible, I can engage with the right people, and also relate to the millennials and Gen Z generations. After having spent lots of time in very buttoned-up, conservative organizations where the old beliefs of “this is how we have always done it” are no longer serving them, I can confidently say, we need to start showing up differently – which is why I approach my work in the casual way that I do. It also is much more fun that way!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Resilience is such an interesting word. I never would have considered myself strong or resilient, but when I tell my story out loud, often times it reminds me of the inner strength and resilience that I came to embody. As 2020 came to unfold, it seems as though it either made personal relationships stronger, or it sometimes was the cause of their demise. Unfortunately the life with the partner that I was currently living with would fall into the latter category. Something I wasn’t quite sure how I was ever going to navigate through. As with any heartbreak, there are certain breaks that seem to really break us down differently than others. This one left me spiraling and in a whirlwind of upset and unknown. Being someone that fears abandonment, is an empath at heart, and has had her fair share of abusive relationships in the past, having this one end (not because I wanted it to), was something I was unprepared for emotionally. Little did I know, it was the very thing that I really needed in order to set a fire in my soul to make a big change for me and my life.
I’ve never been well-traveled or much of a risk-taker. I had always dreamed of just “up and leaving town” and traveling the US… but it never was on the radar. A small town girl, connected to her family, with the “good” job and home, staying where I was could’ve been the much more predictable past. But given that my past had just ripped my heart out, I decided to do something out of the “norm” for me.
I am a believer in all things “woo-woo”, and I stumbled across a previous manifesto I had written a few years prior. “I will be living on a beach” it said. “I will be living in ease, adventure and enjoying the warm weather”. Man… that sounded like a dream. I decided that now was the time to rethink things. As it turned out, my condo was more than easy to rent out in the current market. My job didn’t mind me going to California. Everyone assumed I’d go for a little bit and be back, including me. I didn’t know what I was doing whatsoever but I went with where the universe seemed to be guiding me. I decided to first rent out my condo-which required me to sell everything inside of it. This turned out to be relatively easy, as the guy who left me also took several things from the condo, so I didn’t have that much left to figure out. Sell, sell sell… it started to feel SO good. Almost too good. Turns out getting rid of everything you own is completely freeing in a way you don’t realize until you actually do it.
Next, I figured out my route down to California. No place lined up to live. No real plan. The only plan was, to just try to figure out how the heck to drive my little car down there without having a massive emotional breakdown or panic attack. If you’ve ever driven for several days on your own… you know that sometimes facing your own SELF becomes the biggest challenge of all. Like anything we deal with in life or careers, our answers are always within ourselves. The journey was everything it could have possibly been. It was loud music and singing, it was tears and gratitude, it was lonely driving in the wind and rain, it was stress after gripping the wheel too tightly. It was magical, full of beauty, terrible and full of sadness, and also… peaceful. It was losing cell service going through the windiest road I have EVER driven on and freaking out that if I broke down no one would ever know where I was, it was praying to find a gas station when I didn’t fill up when I should’ve and was in the middle of nowhere, it was feeling nauseas from so much time behind the wheel. And it was full of so much love for the people who were there with me all along- my family, my friends, my spirit guides… it reminded me of everything important in life that we so easily forget. It reminded me that no matter what challenge happened, no matter what scary scenario might be in my mind, that I can always turn inward. I can always rely on something bigger that’s leading me.
The resilience of selling everything, actively choosing to have no home and not many belongings, experiencing a heartbreak bigger than I expected, making the journey alone (especially when people questioned me and wondered if I was still sane), all while doing this in the heigh of the pandemic, reminds me of the resilience that actually exists in all of us. We all have more inside of us. We all have a strength so big and powerful that we might not ever really be aware of what we are capable of.
And what I can say is, I am CERTAIN beyond a shadow of a doubt, that these experiences contributed to what has become the absolute MOST abundant, rich, wild, amazing and incredible life that I only once thought was a dream. I thought this life that I am leading now was one that was meant “for other people”, and yet I’m sitting here in a coffee shop trying to fight back the misty eyes that come from sheer love and gratitude from this feeling.
Resilience might actually just be a different word for love. Because isn’t that love itself? Inner strength, choosing to be brave in the face of adversity, stepping into fear because your dreams are bigger than the fear, healing by yourself and FOR yourself… it all sounds like love to me.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
It seems to me that when we talk about “becoming ourselves”, we are always also talking about the “unbecoming” of the old stories we have told ourselves. I have a feeling that I will be unlearning lessons and stories for my entire life, and I’m happy about that. The unlearning is almost more challenging that the learning. There have been so many lessons I have “unlearned”, most especially in the last few years. If you read the story above about resilience, a few lessons come to mind that were “old stories” that required some new programming.
Old Lesson: In order to be successful in life or leadership, you must stick with what you know. You need a good job, a house, and nice “things”. Fun is earned, and magic is just a term that you hear of in a Disney movie.
New Lesson: In order to be successful in life, I get to choose that definition for myself. And in whatever I do, it can always be fun, easy and SO magical.
It’s so interesting to me now to look back on all of the lessons that I had told myself growing up that I am now reprogramming into new stories. And it’s wild to look at how amazing things can start to shape up for your life when you unlearn certain lessons that aren’t serving the life which you crave.
In growing up, many of us were taught that things have to be hard and stressful before we get to relax and have things be fun. The problem with that is that if we put happiness on the other side of the goalpost of “success”, then we will always be chasing after something external. Sadly, this is the case for so many clients and leaders I have met, and it was the case for myself too for many years.
I slowly realized that when I felt the most joy, expansion and freedom was when I also was the best at leading not only my OWN life, but the lives of others. The challenge for most of us is that societal “norm” or old story that we have had playing in our minds for so long. The un-learning is really digging into figuring out that the old story doesn’t serve us at the highest level, and then beginning to peel back the layers on what the root if the story is. Normally there is a deep fear at the core of any old story about what will happen to our identity if we decide to change it.
Being a leader, both personally and professionally, we truly owe it to ourselves to begin to take a closer look at the lives we really desire to lead, and then to look at the things that are holding us back from doing so.
By re-writing these narratives, we become the most authentic and genuine versions of ourselves, which coincidentally ends up being a key element to what our workforce is seeking in leadership.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.valerielynnconsulting.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valerielynnconsulting/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valerie-lynn-5aa73b1b/