Jolie Shapiro00:01.036
All right, y 'all. Welcome to Revenue Mind, a podcast where revenue leaders talk about all things mental health. A big welcome to our guest Lashay. Welcome, Lashay.
Lashay Lewis00:09.478
Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here and talk to you all about some mental health stuff.
Jolie Shapiro00:16.054
Yeah, super excited to have you on the show. So before we get started, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself that you've been up to.
Lashay Lewis00:23.164
Sure, so my name is Lashay and I run a B2B content strategy consultancy. I've been doing content strategy for over a decade now, but I just decided to take the leap as a solo consultant in March of 2023. And things have been great from there. It's definitely been some high highs and some low lows for sure. But overall, things have been really well. Things are growing, and it's been great.
Jolie Shapiro01:00.322
That's awesome and I think I saw that you had a new position like your fractional head of content or something like that. I think I saw that.
Lashay Lewis01:07.01
Yes, yes. So I've been working with one of my clients for over a year and we started with, you know, exhausting bottom of funnel across multiple different products that they've had. And after a year, you know, they offered me the opportunity to be fractional head of content. And I said, well, yeah, sure. We can spread this bottom of funnel thing across multiple departments and, you know, helping the team form that connective tissue to align their messaging and their positioning. So, yeah.
Jolie Shapiro01:34.176
That's awesome. actually where I first heard of you was I was I think I was listening to an executive I forget exactly what it's called. It was like an executive podcast and it was like all about bottom of funnel content. I was like this girl knows what she's talking about. So that was awesome.
Lashay Lewis01:51.609
I've been on so many, can't even remember which one you might be talking about. I've been on so many over the past year. And then side note for anybody that cares about knowing, like it's been one of the key levers to growing the consultancy is guest podcasting. It helps you be able to use other people's audiences and talk about, maybe extract some of their value and. things like that to kind of help you propel your audience. So just side note for anybody that was wondering about that.
Jolie Shapiro02:22.154
Yeah, yeah, it's funny, we're talking about growth levers for our agency and that's one of the levers that we're thinking about is having your ex -sp on guest podcasts. So that's awesome. Cool, so we're gonna dive into the questions, super excited. So first up, can you delve into your journey with entrepreneurial depression in your 20s and the pivotal moments that helped you overcome it?
Lashay Lewis02:33.916
Totally. Yes. Yeah, so I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur at a very young age, probably like 14 or 15. So really from there, I was just submerged into what it took to be an entrepreneur. I grew up in hustle culture. So a lot of the things I was taught about was, you know, You don't sleep until it gets done. You need to plant yourself in front of the computer until you figure it out. You need to do these things and do these things. And I carried that hustle culture mentality with me from 15 all the way up until probably about 26 or 27. And the reason it even stopped at 26 or 27 was because after 10 years of doing the same thing, at some point you start to break out of the delusion and you start to realize, okay, these things are not working for me. So specifically what wasn't working for me is first of all trying a ton of different businesses. I would, and I was kind of stuck in this mental loop. So it was like, find a business that makes good money, i .e. somebody else saying that it worked for them. Attempt to go very deep on that business for a short period of time and I'm not saying this is the right thing to do. This is the wrong thing to do Attempt to go deep on that business for a short period of time Try to find another business opportunity to give you the money to do the business opportunity that you're currently trying to do and Then I kept repeating that cycle over and over and over so when I say everything from MLM to day trading to Amazon, FBA, to affiliate marketing, all these different things that I was trying to do in order to find success, which at the time I had no real definition of what success meant to me. And I wouldn't find that definition out until I started solo consulting probably like last year. And even then I didn't know right away what success looked like for me. I didn't find that out until a couple of months down the line, but. I was stuck in this mental loop of just doing these things over and over. And you know how they say, like, the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. It's like, I was expecting different results. I kept trying to shortcut my way through the process. doing that actually made it take probably a lot longer than it would have, right? So. From 15 to like 26, I just stayed stuck in this bubble of just like despair and depression. And I call it entrepreneurial depression because I don't know how to, if you can necessarily categorize different types of depression. But for me, I call it entrepreneurial depression because I knew that I deserved better. I knew I was smart enough to get better, but I just didn't know what avenue to take to get there. And it would make me depressed. And my depression was always directly related to what I was doing in business. It was almost like I was tying my self -worth into what I did business -wise. Like if the business wasn't succeeding, I felt terrible. Like I wasn't a good mom. wasn't everything tied into business. And that's a very important point that I want people to understand is like, don't tie your self -worth into what the business is doing. Never do that. Business is always gonna be up and it's gonna be down, but you need to, I'm not like, it's not like I study stoicism or anything like that, but it's good to remain, it's good to just delineate between the two. Your business is not you and you are not your business. So after years of struggling and trying to figure this out, at maybe like 27, I was like, okay, something isn't working. How can I put my skills together in a condensed and consolidated way where I can go deep versus wide? So everybody knows about Justin Welsh and how he did the solo founder thing and all that stuff. And I'm like, OK, once I learned about how I could start a one -person business, I became literally obsessed with how to do that. I'm like, that's the life I want right there. Because before, I thought I wanted an agency. And I was like, OK, I'm going to start this agency. when throughout my whole 20s I had worked for a different SEO and content marketing agencies and absolutely hated it. So I'm like, okay, well maybe, well I know how to do it because I've been in -house and I've seen operationally how it works and I've got the skills to be able to pull it off so maybe I can do it. But clients calling me at five, and I only had one at the time, I only had one, but taking calls at 5 .30 when I'm supposed to be with the kids and all these other things, like that's not the direction I wanted to go. So what I learned about a one person business, I became infatuated with it. And then from there I said, okay, I've been trying the same thing for 10 years that has not worked. So what has those things been? Trying the businesses where, I don't wanna call them like fad businesses, but some of them are. It's like the MLM thing and then the Amazon, FBA. There was a period where everybody was doing that. I think the only thing that I did not do, that everybody was doing at the time was drop shipping. I was like, I'm not doing that shit. I don't understand it. But outside of that, I've done almost wholesale, estate, like everything. And so this time I was like, you know what? I'm going to dive deep on the one thing that I like to do, which is content marketing. Because throughout this 10 year period, I was doing affiliate marketing that entire time in the midst of all these other businesses. And I had came up with a way. to be able to create content, not have to put any backlinks on it, it ranks, it gives me commission. The problem was, and for any of my ex -affiliate marketers out there, people that are doing affiliate marketing, Amazon commissions don't pay the best, right? It's like 3 % commission, something crazy like that. But I knew that I had had some sort of formula, but it just wasn't in the right category. So around that 27, 26, age, I started diving into B2B SaaS. Now, I had came from an e -commerce background, so I absolutely hated B2B SaaS. I thought it was boring. I'm like, how do people do this all day? It's confusing. I don't get it. But I started to take some of those affiliate marketing skills and combine them with the B2B SaaS and created these frameworks and things like that. Just me doing stuff alone and, know, and really from there, When I think about it now, it really puts all that struggle into perspective because in the midst of all that struggle, I was building all of these skills up. So the way I look at it now is that all the depression and all the things that I had went through wasn't for nothing. It was building me up over an extended period of time. And it was almost like a dam. It was like I had built up all these skills and all this knowledge over the past 10 plus years. And the moment I started to publicly talk about that, it was like somebody just broke through the dam and all the water just came rushing at one time. So I know that was like a very long drawn out answer of my journey with entrepreneurial depression, but that's literally how it was. It was like the moment, the moment I stopped feeling sorry for myself and stopped letting the imposter syndrome overtake me and all these other psychological things that we and trap ourselves into was the moment everything had changed.
Jolie Shapiro10:53.944
That's amazing. Thank you so much for that. So for me, I think once I stopped defending myself by XYZ diagnosis, I think is when I became free. Like it became, this is just a part of who I am. It's how my brain works and it makes me see the world differently. it can sometimes be your superpower.
Lashay Lewis11:08.358
Yes.
Jolie Shapiro11:24.266
So it's that's it. And I love how you how you came to that realization and you're you're like, this isn't working. I'm going to I'm going to do something else that definition of insanity. I use that literally all the time.
Lashay Lewis11:25.148
Yes. Yeah. Because you have to, and it's hard to see it when you're in the moment, because it's like, again, with the whole hustle culture thing, like you see it working for other people. You see the YouTube ads. I mean, they're corny as hell now. And they were corny back then. But it's like, when you're in the midst of struggle, you don't see that. You're just like, I need to find a way out of this struggle. If I could relate it to anything, it would be like a tunnel, right? So when you're in the light, you first enter the tunnel, and you kind of still see the light. As you get deeper into the tunnel, the light starts to diminish. And a lot of people are in the middle of this tunnel. They don't see where they came in, and they don't even see how they're going to get out. It's just pure darkness in this tunnel. And just getting into a little bit deeper, some people don't make it out of this tunnel. They stay in this dark area. But at a certain point, you've got to find You gotta find that will within you to say, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I'm tired of feeling sorry for myself. I'm tired of being depressed. I'm tired of all these things I'm tired of. What have I done previously? You need to audit your life. Like, what have I done previously that has not worked? Okay, how can I change that to make this work? Right, what can I do? What? And I'm like relating it to marketing, but it's like A -B testing, that's right. Okay, I've tried this thing. Okay, so now I'm gonna try this thing. Let's see what works when I do this. In the moment you break out of these habits of doing the same thing over and over that did not work and you try something different, even if it's scary, right? Because it was scary for me. I was like, God, like people aren't gonna see me as an expert. Do I even know what I'm talking about? But what happened was, The fear of staying the same outweighed the fear of change. And the moment that I figured that out, again, you just get sick and tired of being sick and tired. And it's like, OK, so what if I did this thing over here? Would it work? And the moment I broke out of that matrix of the feeling sorry for yourself, the over and over, that's when it started to come together.
Jolie Shapiro13:57.324
Yeah, the second part of being sick and tired is the AA saying. It's a classic program saying, you're just like, I can't do this anymore. And it becomes, and then it sounds like you broke out of that circle, like that cyclical kind of doom spiraling.
Lashay Lewis14:03.216
Yes. And yeah, and I think one of the ways that I had broke out of it was because first of all, I didn't even realize, because I hadn't had no therapy up until that point. I didn't realize I was depressed until I got on TikTok, honestly. And I started seeing what depression looked like in other people. And I was like, I'm dealing with that right now. But again, I always tied it back to entrepreneurship because I'm not just like a depressed person in general. Every time I was sad, it was always something relating to business. I'm not making enough money. I'm not doing the things I want to do. I'm really smart. But am I really smart? Because I'm not making the money. Like, don't, I want to support my husband and my kids better. And I don't. And it's just this ending self -sabotage that it's very difficult to break out of. But you don't know what you don't know at the time. I didn't know I was depressed at the time, but that's exactly what it was. And so what I started doing was I started vlogging my days and it was almost to be able to see myself in third person and realize, you know what, you don't have it as bad as you think you have it. Like you have a home, your kids are healthy, your husband is healthy, like you don't have it. So. Me being able to see myself externally in third person was one of the key catalysts that helped break me out of that depressive period. And for a long time I thought that I had to be successful in order to not be depressed. But it was almost the other way around. I had to not be depressed in order to be successful.
Jolie Shapiro16:11.704
That's really powerful. I think that will hit home with not just entrepreneurs, but just kind of everyone that deal with mental illness. So something that we talked about when we first met was that you realize that freedom, not money was your true goal. Can you share specific examples of how this newfound freedom has enriched your life?
Lashay Lewis16:21.776
Yeah, totally. Hmm. So I chased money for a very long time because I thought that's what I wanted. And don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be one of those people that's like, money doesn't make you happy, and this, that, and the third. But the thing is, money is a gateway to time freedom, which I think really makes people happy, especially if you're coming from being an in -house content marketer and you're trying to be a solo founder or a solo consultant. It's really that autonomy. So the things that I thought I would value once I made it, once I got the money and all this other stuff, the stature, whatever, was totally opposite of what I actually value. So what I value is slow mornings, again, my autonomy, working with the clients I want to work with, just. mental health, like, and again, didn't, at the time I'm like, I don't care about mental health, whatever, like, I just wanna make the money, like, I'll be happy once I make the money, right? Make the money, make the money. But you are happy once you make the money, but it's not necessarily the money itself, it's what the money can do. The money can afford you financial stability, so you don't have to worry about what you're gonna eat tomorrow, how I'm gonna pay the bills this month, how I'm gonna take care of my kids, like. The money is just a gateway, but once you start to get enough of it to at least be able to fulfill basic level needs, you start to really understand because at some point you're like, okay, the money is good, but it's like, what do I really want? And sometimes not being in the struggle opens up your brain to be able to say, okay, I'm not in survival mode right now. What is it that I really, really want? Because from 15 to 26, 27, I was in pure survival mode. Like not having a lot of money, being broke most of the time, like, you know what I mean? So it's like, once you step out of survival mode, you start to really grasp what it is that you want out of life. And again, I didn't know this until I got the money and I started consulting and doing these things. I'm like, okay, the money is good, but at a certain point you lose, well, at least for me, I lose the motivation. Money isn't the only thing that motivates me. It's what the money can do. It's the deeper meaning behind it. So maybe sometimes if I don't feel like, I'm like, I got a sales call. I don't feel like doing this. But maybe taking that sales call and closing that client is going to be able to afford me an extra trip with the kids that I want to take with them. I've never been to Disney World or Disneyland, but I want to take them. Like, my parents never took me. want to, you know what I mean? So it's like thinking. deeper than the money. Because at first, again, when you're in survival mode, you're just like, money, money, money, money. But then once you get that money, it's like, OK, what does things really mean to me? And people use the example all the time. It's like, if somebody said, I'll give you some outrageous amount of money, $50 million, but you couldn't see your family anymore. Obviously, you're not going to take the money. Well, hopefully not. Hope not, right? So it's like just understanding what really fuels you. And some people, maybe that is money, typically probably people without kids. Maybe the money itself does fuel you, but there's usually a deeper reason. So one of my fuels in the beginning, so if I could relate this to weight loss. One of my fuels for weight loss, first of all, my husband had took an off guard picture of me and I was like, who the hell is that? And that just triggered something in my brain. But if I could relate this to weight loss specifically, one of the motivations for my weight loss was from being teased. I was a chubby kid, right? And this might sound, but I'm just being all the way real. This might sound a little bit like, you need to do it for yourself and not do it for them. But sometimes how people have made you feel can be motivation to do the things that you need to get done. So when people, when ex -classmates look at my stories and things and stuff like that, now I'm like, now imagine making fun of her. Look how she looks now and imagine that. Sometimes, ugh. And I can't believe I'm saying this publicly, but sometimes it is redemption that fuels you. You know what I mean? It just all depends. Now, there's a healthy amount of that and an unhealthy amount of that, right? You need to be doing it for yourself, but in the midst of doing it for yourself, yeah, you get a couple of gut punches on the way. You get to say, -hmm. You know what I mean? And just smirk at those people that didn't believe in you. you get some little jabs in between. A lot of full circle moments that you get when you start to come out of that depression and things like that. And those full circle moments to me makes the struggle of the journey so worth it. Like full circle moments are everything to me. So just to give you an example of a full circle moment, I was working for an agency last year. I was working. with an agency in conjunction to my in -house job, because that was the only way I could hit over six figures a year after doing the same thing for 10 years. I'm like, God, like I... So I got an agency position and I started in March of 23. No, I'm sorry, January of 23. And in March of 23, they gave me a sheet with all the things that I had did that they didn't like. One thing that specifically stood out to me on this sheet was training on company time. And it pissed me off so bad to the point where I couldn't cry about it. Like I probably, you know, normally would have. But I just got so angry, I said, I'm done with this. Nobody's gonna tell me what to do. Nobody's gonna audit my time. I'm done. And here goes the full circle part. The training that I was doing on Company Time was a podcast training to learn how to be able to be a guest on other people's podcasts. Two weeks after I got let go, I got booked on Exit Five. And then from there, my whole life changed after that podcast. So in the midst of... In the midst of finding yourself, in the midst of chasing your goals and chasing your dreams, you will have these full circle moments. And that's when you become present and you just breathe and you say, it was all worth it. And to me, that's been one of the most fulfilling parts of success. To me, that's what success looks like. It's doing what you want to do, how you want to do it, and having those full circle moments. in between in those full soccer moments, it might be a jab at somebody. But I live for those moments. It's what I live for.
Jolie Shapiro24:12.718
There were so many things that I was just nodding like a bobblehead. There were just so many things that stuck out. Yeah, I think Full Circle, I really appreciate that. For me, Full Circle has been healing my relationship with food and body image. It's been a lifelong struggle and it's been hard. It's been hard. And I think at the end...
Lashay Lewis24:28.452
Yes. Yes, yes.
Jolie Shapiro24:41.934
There were a lot of family members that criticized me when I was growing up and I was sin. I was sin and it wasn't enough. And I think the full circle moment is for me is I'm going to be happy. I'm going to be fulfilled. I'm going to love who I am. I'm not going to tie my body to my self -worth. Like all those let go of the past. Like that's going to be like in my heart is going to be full and I'm not going to
Lashay Lewis24:59.953
Yes.
Jolie Shapiro25:08.586
really digest everyone's, you know, fat phobia. Not everyone, but a lot of people.
Lashay Lewis25:15.536
Yes, and you know what, that has been a very, that was one of the biggest reasons I was afraid to step out publicly about my knowledge and things like that, because I'm very non -confrontational. I didn't want people disagreeing with me. didn't, it was, and this is crazy, I haven't said this publicly either, you're getting a lot of first timers on this show, but I haven't even listened. As of today, I have not even listened to the first two podcasts I did on exit five, because during the time that I didn't even like the sound of my voice. Like that's how bad the insecurity was as it relates to like stepping out and self image and all these other things. Cause I was used to being behind a computer for the past 10 to 12 years, right? I'm just in the lab, just working behind the scenes. And now I have to do this really, really uncomfortable thing. and step out in front of people and talk about my knowledge and be seen as the expert. you know, people want you on their podcast. People want you to speak in front of people. People want all these things. And it's like. But one thing that has helped me so I I I find that anything that I'm afraid about exposure therapy helps me tremendously. So I didn't like the sound of my voice. I didn't want to see myself on camera. There was a lot of things I didn't want to do. So because of that, I purposely made guest podcasting my growth lever because I did not like my voice. I purposely made guest podcasting my growth lever because I didn't want to see myself on camera. I'm like, you know what? Let me just put myself in this uncomfortable spot. What I'm going to do is I'm going to see myself on camera so much. I'm going to hear my own voice so much that at some point I'm going to get used to it. And maybe like five, six months and I started to get used to it. I'm like, this person's like, can you come on my podcast? I'm like, yeah, let's do it, right? So you start to, exposure therapy helps with those insecurities that you deal with. If you're afraid to start posting on LinkedIn, start posting on LinkedIn, right? Like I had a lot of anxiety about posting. I'm like, God, like what do I post about? And are they gonna see me as an expert? If you're afraid to be on camera, get on camera. Whatever you're afraid to do, do that thing over and over and over and over. And what happens is you start to develop a harder shell. Because when I first came on LinkedIn, I could definitively tell you, like, I would get so afraid about people disagreeing with me. Now, I give a shit if you disagree with me. You know what mean? Like, I have my heels that I'll die on. You have your heels that you'll die on. We can agree to disagree. That's totally OK. But. The best way to get over something is to continue to do that thing over and over and over because you'll condition yourself to whatever it is, hearing your own voice, seeing yourself on camera, things like that. So that's been huge for me, exposure therapy.
Jolie Shapiro28:21.986
Yeah, that's awesome. A couple things came to mind there. For exposure therapy, I'm actually currently doing intuitive eating as part of my healing process. And there's something called fear of food hierarchy. So you have zeros and one to twos, which are more like the safe foods, like foods that you're like diet foods. And then as you go up, it's like foods that you're the most afraid to eat.
Lashay Lewis28:30.7
Mmm. Yes. Mmm.
Jolie Shapiro28:49.578
And so it's really cool with, so it teaches you food neutrality. So you have fives and sixes, or for me it's carbs, fives and sixes. I'm like, okay with it, but I'll, you know, eat maybe, I'll maybe eat a little bit too much. And then you mix that, like so for example, you'll have a slice of pizza with a piece of fruit and a slice of cheese. And it neutralizes that food.
Lashay Lewis29:09.884
Okay.
Jolie Shapiro29:15.084
which is really cool. So that's my version of exposure therapy, which is awesome.
Lashay Lewis29:15.441
Mm. No, totally. I've had a very similar relationship with food. Like food was, again, during that 10 year depressive period, like food was the comfort. It was like, I'm struggling, my life is falling apart, blah, blah, blah. But food, for the 15 minutes that you get to enjoy it, I wasn't worried about anything else. I was just worried about indulging in this meal, how good it was. But again, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. like, then I stand and look in the mirror like, damn, I don't like how I look today. And I don't like how my stomach is sitting today. And I don't like this. And I don't like that. But it's a result of, and it's weird. It's weird. At the moment, it's comfort. But you pay for it later on. So even going back to the podcasting thing, how I didn't want to be seen on camera, I could have not been on camera, right? Like that was my comfort zone to be behind the scenes. And, but if I never would have gotten on camera, I don't know how well I would have been able to grow this business. It's been my number one growth lever. It's like people want to see me on camera. They want to see me talk. And I'm like, and it's like the moment I decided to change that, that's when, that's when it all came together.
Jolie Shapiro30:40.302
Yeah, definitely. there's a quote and I can't remember what it is. It's I think it's like the Thomas Edison quote where you try 10 ,000 times and it only takes once to succeed something like that. Yeah. And I think to your point, like practice makes perfect and it builds your confidence. Like there are so many, there are so many posts on LinkedIn that I really relate to. It's like you can educate yourself all you want.
Lashay Lewis30:54.316
One time. Yep. Yep.
Jolie Shapiro31:10.092
But until you do it, like that's where really learn when you start actually putting it into practice. So like you took your course, which is amazing, but until you really started doing it, that's where you really got, I think it sounds like that's where you really got comfortable.
Lashay Lewis31:27.908
a thousand percent. So I wholeheartedly believe in you cannot fail if you don't give up because I'm a living case study of failing so many different times until I had no choice but to get it right at some point. When people come to work with me, they don't ask me, well, how many websites did you fail? how many, you know, how long have you been doing this? And, you know, I just naturally say how long I've been doing it, but those 10 years, I've been 10 years of failures, like back to back, over and over and over over and over. Same thing with going to college. Like when you get the degree and you get the job, they don't say, well, how many times did you fail the test to get the degree? You have the degree. You know what I mean? It's like, they don't... You cannot fail if you do not give up. Now, the hard part is not giving up, because it's like you do this thing, I fail. God, OK, I do this thing, I failed again, I failed again, I failed again. But all you got to do is get it right one time. Out of my 10 plus years of failures, all I did was get it right one time. And the crazy part about that one time is that one time was behind all my fears, all my anxieties. Even when it came, like even if I could relate it back to guest podcasting, Dave Gearhart wasn't the first person I reached out to. I reached out to maybe like five or six other popular podcasts. Dave's was the most popular, but I had reached out to five or six other people. All of them told me no, come back this time, because I was a nobody at the time. All it took was for one person to say yes to me. And it changed my whole life. Sometimes all it takes is one. And like I said before, like the only no that matters is the one you tell yourself. Like, I don't care who tells you no, because sometimes rejection isn't rejection, it's redirection, you know? So even though all those other podcast hosts told me no, the one guy that did tell me yes had the biggest audience, the most engaged audience. And again, being on that podcast changed my entire business. It changed the trajectory of my life. It changed everything because I decided that I don't care who tells me no, I'm not going to tell myself no.
Jolie Shapiro34:02.03
I love that. We're getting so much gold here. Just so many golden nuggets. To your point, in terms of never stop fighting, I actually got let go twice in the past years before this job, just with the tech recession and everything. And I think when...
Lashay Lewis34:20.401
Yes.
Jolie Shapiro34:24.426
one door closes and another one opens, another cliche thing, but like you had all the no's and then you had X at five and it completely transformed your life. So I think it just kinda, things tend to fall into place as much as we think that, not we, but people think that maybe it's a setback, but maybe it's not. Maybe, I mean.
Lashay Lewis34:26.811
Yes. Yes. Totally.
Jolie Shapiro34:51.734
It's a way to push and the more you push forward, the more you succeed. So that's amazing that you, you know, believed in yourself and didn't stop.
Lashay Lewis35:00.156
So, and then right before this period, Jolie, like I was dealing with a season of what I call a season of nos. So everybody was telling me no to everything. Can I be on your podcast? No. Did I apply to get this job? Did you get it? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I'm like, it's too many nos for something good not to happen after this. Like I was just, and maybe I was delusional to a certain degree. Right? Like, because in all honesty, you do have to be a little bit delusional to do this stuff. But is it, but then you start to think after everything works out, was it really delusion? And that's something that I've been thinking about as well. Cause again, right before Dave told me, yes, I was in a hard season of no's like, and then I'm human, right? Like, so at a certain point I start to question my own self -worth about, well, Am I even worth these opportunities if everybody's telling me no, maybe everybody sees the same thing. But again. You've got to do your best to maintain that confidence even in the season of no's because somebody is going to tell you yes. And that one yes that you get, you want to make sure that you are absolutely prepared to dominate whatever it is that has given you the chance, whether it's a job, whether it's a podcast, whether it's some sort of other opportunity. Because as scared as I was, that was my first ever podcast. I've never been on a podcast. And I dominated. that opportunity because I promised myself the moment somebody told me yes, I was going to take full advantage of that moment. I wasn't going to hold anything back. And of course I was still nervous. Like, of course I, you know, I still didn't want to be seen on camera and things like that. honestly, to just be totally frank, I was like, fuck that. Like I'm going full force head on and I don't care what anybody thinks. And the result of that. was just overwhelming. So many people in my inbox, like, loved your episode and I've been trying to tell this to my execs for years and they don't listen. And this is just so many things. I it's it's almost even crazy to sit here and think about because I don't I'm usually on the go so much. I don't sit down and take the time to like really be present about that. But it was amazing. And if I could keep telling people anything, it would be, and I know it's so cliche, but like, please don't give up. Like, you cannot, you will fail yourself into success. That was me. Like, I completely failed myself into success. Like, I just kept getting things wrong until I got it right. And that's okay. Like, the only thing that guarantees your failure and guarantees your demise is you completely giving up. That's it.
Jolie Shapiro38:07.416
Definitely something my partner says a lot is all I ask of you is to try. That's all I ask.
Lashay Lewis38:15.022
My husband would tell, during some of my most down days, he would say, he'd be like, as long as you don't stop trying, I'm proud of you. You know what I mean? Because I felt like, because when you keep trying to do things and they don't work, you feel like you're letting your partner down. You feel like you're letting your kids down. You just, again, that self -sabotage circle. But he would always tell me, like, as long as you keep trying, like, we're going to be fine. We're going to be OK. And one of the most fulfilling things about all of this stuff is to be able to look at him and say, you were right. Like, you kept believing in me. And that was another thing, too, that fueled me. I'm like, he's believed in me all this time. We've struggled together so much. I'm not going to let all this struggle be for nothing. Like, I'm getting something out of this deal. You know what I mean? And that's how you have to carry it. You just have to. If you've come all this way, if you've been depressed all this time, like don't give up now. You know what mean? Make it, at least make it worth something.
Jolie Shapiro39:21.048
completely agree with that. It's never give up never surrender. I forget where that is from. I think it's a movie. I'll put in the show notes. So anything that you want to leave the listeners with before we see where to find you?
Lashay Lewis39:27.214
Never. Never. Again, with the cliche sayings, just if you've been through a lot, you've probably been through a lot, but again, you cannot fail if you don't stop trying. Don't be afraid. First of all, don't be afraid to be afraid. It's okay to be afraid, right? But do it anyway. Do it afraid. Because again, what happens is once you start doing that thing over and over, you become a little less afraid each time. Somebody says something mean about you, okay, so what? You know what mean? Because that was huge for me. I don't want people talking about me and I don't wanna... You start to develop everything that you feel like is out of reach right now is totally... within your reach. You just have to. You have to match, and I'm trying to figure out how to say this, but it's a lot coming to me right now. You need to match. who you wanna be with where you are right now. What I mean when I say that is maybe you don't have the house you want, maybe you don't have the money that you want, but damn it, that doesn't mean you can't act like you don't have it. You know I mean? Like you need to submerge yourself in who you want to be. And I don't mean like, know, I know it's the whole thing, like the fake it till you make it thing, but I mean like if you are depressed, you need to not, like you're not depressed, but take the steps in order to be able to manage that depression. So again, for me, it was seeing myself in third person. started vlogging on TikTok. And then that was the thing. So you need to try to find that thing that jumpstarts and rolls to everything else because all it, and again, even going back to the, only takes one, it only takes you to do one thing to jumpstart you out of that depression that turns your entire life around. But if you keep doing the same things that you've been doing up until this point, you're gonna remain depressed. And depressed is not how you build a business. You build a business from having a level mind, from moving your body, from getting out in nature, to taking the walks. It's really just the little things. But those little things can sprout into something that you would have never imagined. All it takes is for you to take that first step and say, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Jolie Shapiro42:26.498
That's, that's amazing. And thank you so much. For me, I'm going to be three years sober in December. And it's the absolute best thing that has ever happened to me. It completely changed my life. And this is actually the first time I've talked about on this podcast. So you inspire me to be real. Yeah, it's a it's been
Lashay Lewis42:35.622
Yes. I love it. Yes.
Jolie Shapiro42:55.946
incredible journey. Noah, your story was just awesome. Where can people find you? And that's going to be in the show notes and everything, but we'd love to hear from you.
Lashay Lewis43:08.614
Sure, so I'm on LinkedIn almost every day. I'm a chronic LinkedIn user, so I've been able to grow my whole business. So if you want to find me on LinkedIn, just type in Lashay Lewis. I'll pop right up. From there, I have a newsletter if you want to get on. We can throw that in the show notes, too. But I share methods on content strategy. I build in public so people could see how I'm building my business that I don't just talk the talk, but I walk the walk, too. And yeah, if people want to follow me, just hit me up on LinkedIn. More than happy to talk to you guys.
Jolie Shapiro43:44.162
Awesome. Well, I think our audience is going to really enjoy this. Thank you so much again, Lashay.
Lashay Lewis43:49.67
Thank you so much, Toli.