#28: Born to Shine with Ashley LeMieux, Founder & CEO of The Shine Project
Have you ever wondered what daily habits high-level entrepreneurs have that make them successful?
In today's interview, Ashley Lemieux, Founder and CEO of the Shine Project, shares her top tips for success!
Each day, Ashley:
-Meditates
-Uses an incredible visualization technique for letting go of past hurt
-Lives more intentionally, and shines through every day
Prepare to learn tips to design your ideal day while listening to my interview with Ashley!
Learn more about Ashley here: https://theshineproject.com or follow her on Instagram @ashleyklemieux.
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:00):
This is the Scale with Joy podcast, episode 28 with Born to Shine author, Ashley Lemieux.
(00:11):
Welcome to the scale with joy show, a podcast about scaling your company while living your most purposeful life. Because here's the thing: there are no rules to say you can't grow a massively profitable empire and have joy in the everyday. My name is Laura Meyer and let's get started.
(00:35):
Numerous publishers turned down Ashley LeMieux's book, Born to Shine before she was picked up. And those publishers are probably kicking themselves right now because it is an acclaimed book, a national bestseller. And today Ashley shares with us how she achieved the success of actually publishing her book, how she meditates every morning and how visualization helped her let go of past hurts and move on to bless others with what she went through. She is raw and vulnerable. And if you want to learn how to live more intentionally, you are going to love this interview. Up next secrets to living life more intentionally with Ashley LeMieux.
(01:19):
Hey everybody. And welcome back. I am here with Ashley LeMieux and she is so excited to share her message with you today. Ashley, thank you so much for coming here.
Ashley (01:32):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk with you and everybody else today.
Laura (01:38):
You have an incredible story and incredible message. If you wouldn't mind, just sharing with the viewers a little bit about your background and about your upcoming book that is so amazing.
Ashley (01:50):
So I'm Ashley and I'm a speaker and entrepreneur and author and my whole purpose and my whole mission is to help women shine, both in their daily lives and in their business. So, my online community, The Shine Project, we provide a lot of different resources for women to use to help you get out of stuck and to help you propel yourself forward. So you can get from where you are to where you want to be. Part of what we do too, is that we have a product line that goes hand in hand with The Shine Project, frustration, college students, and make jewelry to help them pay for college. My upcoming book, it comes out October 8th, which I'm so excited about, it's called Born to Shine. The message behind Born to Shine is that no matter how dark your life might feel is that you were truly born to shine. So let's help you make an action plan so that you can.
Laura (02:52):
So awesome. When people are growing and scaling a business, what are some of things that you think they kind of run into that makes them question their ability to shine?
Ashley (03:04):
Oh man. You know, so I've been an entrepreneur now for almost eight years and I always thought that there would be this one grand moment where I would feel like I've just arrived like that either we get one huge order or one huge celebrity or one huge, something that just reaches, that just like catapults our company into the cosmos and everyone knows who we are and we have all the money and everything, all the other problems just go away. Well, I've realized that that moment truly doesn't ever really come. that success. Isn't one moment, but it's constant movement without knowing that at first, I think, you know, for me, and for a lot of entrepreneurs, we can start second guessing. Am I really doing this right?
(04:03):
Or is there ever really going to be a point where anyone even cares about my company or am I really going to be able to scale the way that I thought, because things don't happen like this one time grand explosion, but really it's constant movement forward, just decision by decision day after day. But I think that kind of the wear and tear of what it takes to keep going day after day can start really clouding the truer message is that we're born to shine and that we just need to keep sticking with it. And rolling.
Laura (04:41):
What are some of the things that you might say to somebody who's sitting there being like, oh my gosh, that's me. Like, I thought that there was going to be this like magic button that shows up once I get to a certain point and I hit that button and the flood Gates open and the light from the sky shines down and like everything, everything gets easy, and that isn't happening for me, so I thought there was something wrong with me.
Ashley (05:03):
I tell you you're doing something right. You're probably doing a lot righter than you give yourself credit for. I think that we're the first ones to be really, really hard on ourselves. And we see other people and we think that well, they've made it or that they're not struggling with what I'm struggling with or I wish I could be in their shoes, but I just want you to feel so good about where you are, because look at everything that you've had to start and build and overcome and keep pressing through to get right where you are. And I believe that our greatest opportunity and our deepest power lies in our present moment. And so if we can take everything that we built in our past that has gotten us right here, then we can create a really strong and powerful game plan to move forward, to keep getting us to where we want to be. So don't be stressed about it. I feel like probably a hundred percent of the people watching this feels like you too. And so just instead of being upset about where you are, maybe, or overwhelmed think all the reasons that you're proud of where you are right now.
Laura (06:30):
And I love that you said like a hundred percent of the people watching are feeling the same way you do. Cause they may have gone into this video being like, well, I'm alone in this, you know, like I'm alone in feeling this way, I'm alone in this obstacle. And you went through trauma as you were growing your business. And I think some people feel like, whereas I've had a very similar experience in business and it's really easy to get down on yourself and stop taking care of yourself in the midst of that trauma. So how did you balance growing your business with really prioritizing that self-care?
Ashley (07:07):
At first, I didn't. At first I didn't and it costs me almost everything. And I got to a point where I was so depleted you guys, I can't even put into words. If you would have seen me then and interacted in person, you would have been like, are you okay? My family people would ask me all the time, are you okay? And I wasn't ok. I allowed everything to be totally drained from me. And I gave my energy to different parts of my life and my business that just sucked it out. And there was nothing refilling me. And so it was just like someone took a vacuum to my mouth and sucked out all the good things that were inside of me until just like a deflated little beach ball or something. Like there was just nothing. And so learning that came with a cost and now I know how important it is to protect my energy, to protect my space, to protect my time, to protect my own resources. And I've had to get really intentional about creating really strong boundaries so that I'm not being dry so that I can give my life and my company life instead of having my life drained from me in order for it to operate.
Laura (08:42):
I love what you're saying because so many people are probably like isn't working the way I want it to; I just throw more of myself at it. And I've definitely did that. Like, I'm like I have to fix this problem. I need to showing up. I need to keep showing up. And as I keep showing up, I'm losing weight. My hair's falling out and like, you know, my husband's like, oh my gosh, what's going on? So would you mind sharing anything specific that you do to like really to create those boundaries and that space that, you know, you need to be able to give to others?
Ashley (09:15):
So the first thing I do is every single morning I meditate and in my meditation, I ask myself five questions. But the very first question that I asked myself every single morning is what is my intention today? And being able to set up what that is right from the beginning means that now anyone or anything else that pulls away from that intention does not get any of my attention. And because it can't otherwise, if I want this, usually everybody else wants this for me. So I never reached what's mostly important. So I start there and the other thing that I asked myself every morning is who can I serve today? That also keeps me focused on who I can connect with that is needing me. And instead again, of serving all the other people that want all of the other things from me, but it comes from a place of truly wanting to be of service to somebody else. And when you, when you can serve from that place, it's not draining, it's actually fulfilling. And you're able to reciprocate with whoever you're serving.
(10:26):
The other thing that I asked myself is why am I worthy? Asking that question every single day, I think a lot of times, especially as entrepreneurs, we want the success and we want the reach. We want whatever. But at the end of the day, we don't necessarily believe that it will ever actually happen to us. And we don't really know what we'd even do with X amount of money or X amount of opportunities or whatever. So sometimes we almost self-sabotage ourselves because we stay in what is familiar to us with what we know how to control. And so asking myself, why am I worthy for this allows me to just expand on what mentally I feel like, is even possible and kind of get out of that realm.
(11:18):
And then one of the other things I ask myself in the morning is what do I need to let go of? And I will literally envision myself picking up a glass plates every morning and taking a black Sharpie and writing on those plates, the things that I need to let go of that day. So whether it's like a specific project or whether it's fear or whether it's a person, just whatever it is. And then I will picture this may sound so crazy, but I picture myself holding the plates in my hands and I go three, two, one, and I drop them and I watched them shatter on the ground. And it's something that I have to do every single day. And sometimes I'll write the same word a month in a row, but it's just the act of allowing myself to not carry around what I don't need to carry around so that I can keep moving forward. So right in the morning, those are some of those are the top questions that I asked myself to start my day, that that just really helped me get in a place where I'm leading my day and my company, instead of being led by everything that my company and life requires.
Laura (12:29):
Yes. When you're growing company, it just feels like sometimes people are just pulling on your shirt every day. But sometimes when you are pulling, you know, they're pulling on your shirt or they're like, Ashley, Laura, give me this answer, you know, tell me what to do, help us solve this problem. You end up becoming up in default intention, right? Love what you're sharing, love what you're sharing.
Laura (13:10):
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(14:00):
How do you protect that intention? Is there anything specific that you could think about?
Ashley (14:06):
Yeah. So one of the boundaries that I have tried to set up for myself is that I only check emails a certain amount of times throughout the day, because especially if you're checking them right in the morning, you have people that want things from you. So you start your day on somebody else's intention and somebody else's desire to get whatever they want from you. So I try to only check my emails a certain amount of times a day. When I'm working, if there's ever a time where I feel like there is a fire that needs to be put out, or I feel like something's happening because I'll start like just feeling intense anxiety and things inside of the storm, I go take a walk. Like sometimes the best thing for me to do is just leave everything as it is and not feel like my first knee jerk reaction is to fix it right away and to just go walk and to allow me to just connect and ground myself and allow my thoughts to just be as they are.
(15:15):
But I think a lot of times in entrepreneurship and running a business, like the second a problem arises, our first thing is to fix it or to get upset and then figure out how to fix it. But if we can just let it sit just, just for a little bit, then we're able to come up with a solution that actually has some thought behind it, instead of just that initial anxiety and frustration. So I don't know. I mean, it's nothing rocket science, but taking a walk, something that has helped me so much. Also I go boxing every day. I have to have a physical release. So any of the frustration and stuff like it has to, I have to feel like it's exiting my body so that it's not just snowballing every single day. So those are probably my top three things every day.
Laura (16:04):
That's awesome. Have you ever felt like, I know I felt this way, so I don't know if you have like this guilt of like, I have all these emails? I have all these people trying to get in touch with me and I'm like, I'm going to go boxing. I'm going to go do yoga.
Ashley (16:15):
I used to don't anymore because I mean, because I'm the boss of my own life and I mean, truly, I don't have to answer to anybody else for the decisions that I make, the decisions that I make in my day to go boxing and to do those things, allows me to better show up for the other people who do need me truly consider it just a part of my work, like doing that is a necessarily part of my work so that I can perform at the level that I need to. So I don't have any guilt around it.
Laura (16:53):
So anybody's feeling that way. Ashley and I are going to do this together. Okay. We're going to take back guilt going to write it on a plate and just drop it, right? Because we have to have our own backs. When you're growing company, it's really hard to ask other people to have your own back if you don't have your own. So today you are speaking, you are providing so much inspiration to people and I love how you just shared, like how you care for yourself and all of that. And then what are some of the things that you've been really sharing like onstage or something that you really would love listeners to know about in terms of being born to shine.
Ashley (17:34):
For me, you know, when you're little and you think of what you wanted to be, I wanted to be a princess for a while. Then I wanted to be a police officer for a while. And then what I've always wanted to be a writer like we've all always had these dreams, never in our plans for ourselves did we ever think of what I really want to do when I'm older is I want to get divorced or I want to get really sick and be in the hospital all the time, or I want to lose a child or I want to be in financial ruin, or I want to go through intense betrayal from somebody that I love. Like those real-life things were never a part of our original plan. So then when they happen, because we all have that thing, that happens that we never anticipated coming. It shatters everything else. When that thing came into my life, I felt so broken. And I remember this one, this woman called me out of the blue one day and she said, Ashley, I just feel like I need to tell you that the beautiful part of being in feeling broken is that you now get to choose what gets put back together to rebuild.
(18:58):
And I fully believe that. I believe that all the things that we go through can serve a greater purpose. And I know there's going to be some of you who are just like wanting to throw something at me right now, because if someone told me that a couple of years ago, I'd been like, there there's no service. There's, there's no greater purpose for me losing my kids. Like there's no, I don't want to hear that from you. But I do believe that we can choose to rebuild and pull things into our lives and let go of other things so that our broken can be rebuilt and it's not broken anymore. It's just, it's new. So I guess I just want to encourage you that I know that when those things come, that were never in your plans, that just feel like they're going to derail you, and they're never going to be over, that your life doesn't stop there and that your story isn't over yet. And then it can still be something bright and beautiful and serve you in a way that's beyond your wildest dreams.
Laura (20:13):
Beautiful. So beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I don't know if you've ever read the book Super Survivor, talks a little bit about posttraumatic growth at the end of the book and talks about, you know, when things get shattered, you can't, if you try to put them back the way they were, you'll just get really frustrated and upset. If you can think about it like a mosaic, like it, it goes back together and it's beautiful. It's just different. It's just different than what you were expecting, but it's still very beautiful. And I love that. You just summarize that in such an amazing way. And I think for some people they might be watching and they might not have had loss. They may not have been divorced while they were scaling, but it might be just like an employee that didn't work out what you were thinking, right.
Ashley (20:59):
Or the fear or lack of resources. I mean there's always something.
Laura (21:07):
And when we get started, sometimes we kind of set ourselves up, right? We have that expectation that it's going to be this trajectory. That's going to be the straight line up into the right, right. With like money being on this axis and time being on this axis. And I love what you're doing is you're giving people permission for that. Not to be the plan. So Ashley, thank you so much for being here, sharing your wisdom, just shining your light on us. Thank you so much again for being here.
Ashley (21:41):
Thank you.
Laura (21:46):
Make sure to visit our website, www.joybrand.com/podcast where you can subscribe to the show in iTunes, Stitcher, or RSS so that you'll never miss an episode. While you're at it, if you find a value in this show, we'd appreciate a rating on iTunes or if you just simply tell a friend about it, that would help us out a lot too. Thanks so much for listening.
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.