The Aspirant Podcast
Hello, incredible entrepreneurs, and welcome to 'The Aspirant Podcast!' I’m your host, Natasha Clawson, a Digital Marketing Educator and Strategist, and I’m here to help you build a business that doesn’t just work but thrives—and feels good while doing it.
🌟 Every week, we explore actionable business wisdom designed to help you create a business that aligns with your values, generates the income you desire, and operates like a well-oiled machine with the right systems, processes, and automation in place.
Imagine a business where taking consistent action is purposeful and attracts the clients you actually want to work with. So doing the work you love is more than just a goal—it’s your everyday reality.
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The Aspirant Podcast
Lindsay Hurty - Unlocking Midlife Fulfillment and Business Success Through Mentorship and Intentionality
Ever wondered how mentorship and accountability can transform your life and business? Join us as we uncover the secrets of midlife fulfillment and entrepreneurial success with self-development specialist Lindsay Hurty. Discover how long-standing accountability groups can create powerful self-led "mini masterminds," offering a robust support system that fuels growth. Lindsay shares the concept of "mutual mentors," where balanced relationships drive mutual development, and recounts how peer encouragement played a pivotal role in her professional milestones.
Unpack the power of "sparkatypes" to design a fulfilling work life and explore the transformative potential of "forever letters" in personal life and business planning. Lindsay discusses the importance of managing energy-draining tasks so you can focus on your most meaningful work. Tune in and be inspired to lead your business and life with intention and a growth mindset.
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Get In Touch:
Hello and welcome to the Aspirant Podcast. Today we're going to be chatting with my guest, lindsay Hurdy, who's a self-development specialist, helping people find midlife fulfillment. To me she's a friend, a mentor and a genuinely amazing human and life teacher.
Lindsay Hurty:Welcome, Lindsay. Oh, thank you, Natasha. I'm so happy to be here with you on your podcast. This is exciting.
Natasha Clawson:Yes, we've known each other for a few years now. We met actually in a course about making courses and I know I reached out in a Facebook group looking for some fellow pod members to check in and do the work with me.
Lindsay Hurty:Yes, that accountability group was everything and now it's kind of whittled down to a few of us who are going long and strong on this. We meet every month over Zoom and we're spread out over the country, but we've become such a loyal accountability group in all things entrepreneurship. It's the best.
Natasha Clawson:I know I call it my mini mastermind and I always know if I need a gut check and if I need some encouragement or if I need someone to read something, and you know, make sure that it looks great. You're my go-to, you and Jen. What does that group do for you? And I know you have several mentors in your life. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Lindsay Hurty:Yes. So you know, for all of us who are doing our own gig, or our need to rely on self-motivation to get our work done, having accountability check-ins or mentors or what I like to call mutual mentors, which is essentially a mentorship where both people are the mentor and the mentee to each other in a really balanced way or, in our case, three people I find that to be, or, in our case, three people I find that to be it's essential actually for me to do my work well. And just when you say things out loud, it's really different than just thinking it through in your own mind and it helps with validation, it helps to go deeper with the idea, and what you also said was that it also helps to just kind of encouragement, but put a little more bluntly, like kind of kick you into gear. I just say, yeah, no, I, I last month you talked about that I really want you to. How is it going?
Lindsay Hurty:I remember maybe two meetings ago, you said, okay, so this new offering you're creating, you're going to have five clients in the next month, right, does that sound good? And I was like, oh my gosh, yes, okay, I guess that sounds good. Okay, I like that and you did it.
Lindsay Hurty:You did it, I did it, but I don't think I would have gone so fast if I hadn't been like well, natasha cares. So I'm going to make sure I do this. And then I came back and it was I was able to just kind of report that but also get my momentum going and so much. You know a lot of us, I know you and I relate on this, I'm sure a lot of people listening do is that we're filled with so many good ideas, and a good idea is a good thing, but that's just a little part of the of the full thing. So to actually get moving and have this somebody else who's invested with you but they're not doing it with you, they just care on the follow up is invaluable to me as an entrepreneur.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, that accountability is beautiful and I know one of the things we talked about is a lot of people have questions how do you find a mentor? Do you have any advice on that? Talked about is a lot of people have questions how do you find a mentor?
Lindsay Hurty:Do you have any advice on that? I do, because it's a question I get asked a lot because I talk about my mentors often and you know like in the situation with us, we were in a shared learning experience and it was encouraged to find accountability partners. And you put it out there. I liked the way you talked about it. I raised my hand, we had a conversation, we felt sort of a chemistry click and it seemed like it would be a good fit and you really kind of were the leader of that group. You made that group happen. And so that's one way is you take the risk to put your hand up when you see that someone who you think you might mesh with or connect with, or you just like the way they're talking. If you're in a situation you know, take a risk, it might not be a good fit, but you'll be OK, you'll survive. If it's not a good fit, you'll find another one. But then if you're really looking for that person who's maybe 15, 20 years older than you in your field, you're looking for like a genuine mentor.
Lindsay Hurty:The way I went about it and I don't know if this there might be other ways to go about it. But I'll tell you my story because it's become one of the most important relationships in my life. So my mentor her name is Karen and I met her because through work, we were doing a DEI workshop, my colleagues and I, and she was the assigned leader of this group and she has a big job in a totally different field than mine. But I loved this woman. I thought she was down to earth and wise and smart and thoughtful and so connected to the human experience and she lives a few states away from me.
Lindsay Hurty:I mean, when our workshop ended, there was no way I was ever going to run into this person. Like we don't even work in the same field. You know she's a high up in a nonprofit. She runs a nonprofit actually in Vermont, and you know we just do different things. And so in my mind I was like I'm really going to miss her presence in my life and even though the context of our relationship was a group thing, we didn't really have a one-on-one relationship I wanted one with her and I just thought there was so much to learn from her about being a woman and a professional and a thoughtful leader. And so after we finished our workshop together. I just wrote her an email and I basically said it felt a little nervous. I felt nervous about it because I was kind of asking will you be? You be my friend?
Lindsay Hurty:You know that's like it's a very vulnerable question, you know. You know it's like you're asking someone to commit to you. And so I wrote to her and I said I thanked her first of all for actually okay, go back. I first sent her a thank you note over email, Like that was the first thing knowing in my mind I'm going to ask her to be my mentor. First thing was just a no strings attached Thank you note. I described what it was that I valued about her and liked about her. She wrote me back and I felt like the feeling was mutual enough that she had respect for me that I was like okay, maybe she would entertain another kind of relationship with me.
Lindsay Hurty:So about three weeks later I wrote her again. I said hi, karen, I've been thinking about you. I don't know if this is a thing, but I wonder if you'd be willing to be my mentor and I could imagine it being like a Zoom call once every season or once a quarter, depending on how you see it and I would love to just be able to talk about what we're working on and setting some goals and I'd love to just get your input on how I pursue my goals in this life as an entrepreneur and as a woman, as a leader and as an educator, and if you could see me being of any value to you, I would love to support you and your growth too. Let me know. And I pressed send and I was so nervous because of the vulnerability. She wrote me back within 10 minutes and she said yes, yes, yes, I'm baking cookies right now, but I'll write you back later. Anyway, she ended up writing me back when she had more time and she said I would love to do this and I would mostly love it if we really could be back and forth. I don't necessarily just want to be your mentor, I'd love to have a relationship where we can both hold each other accountable in our professional goals and our personal growth. In those ways and I said absolutely.
Lindsay Hurty:So we set a date for about a month later and we had our first call, which was amazing. And then we had our second call, which was okay. It was not amazing because I felt like we were going with the flow of however it was going to be, and from there I thought I want to make sure that these calls for her are really, really great, or else what's in it for her. So I then wrote her an email and I said I have an idea of how we could structure our time to get the most out of it. What do you think?
Lindsay Hurty:And essentially what that looks like is we both come a little bit prepared, versus just showing up cold, like we have a bit of a plan and what that is for the first, with three parts to every call. The first part is how are you showing up today? Let's just get it out there, because sometimes you've had a really big thing happen in your life that day and it can take over, but that doesn't really reflect your whole season, the whole quarter of your growth. So how are you today? We spend about 10 minutes on that and then we do a seasonal wrap-up and that's what we've prepared in advance. We each sort of go through the big things that have happened to us in the season, with any open ends of where we might like some feedback, and then we each we do feedback. So if I go first, let's say she'll then offer feedback and then she does her seasonal roundup and I offer her feedback, and then we close it out with looking forward in the next season. What goals am I setting for myself? What intentions do I have?
Lindsay Hurty:And so then that has become now we've been doing this for two and a half years now that those intentions then become the starting point of the next session's seasonal roundup and we can sort of hold each other accountable for those things, like you had said last time that you really wanted to start working on this. How are you with that? And we both take a lot of notes on it, so we really kind of read those notes before we go into the next meeting or session together, of read those notes before we go into the next meeting or session together, and then it just becomes this amazing fueled machine of support and love and encouragement and we don't talk at all in between. I mean, we have each other's cell phone numbers if something were to come up, but we really don't. We just meet on our, we set the date at the end of our session and we meet the next time. So we essentially talk four times a year and each meeting is two to three hours, usually on a Friday. We block out the time and it is the best. I love it. And we call each other mutual mentors for each other.
Lindsay Hurty:Even though she's 15 years older than I am. She's got things on her mind that are different than the things on my mind. We have different lives in a lot of ways. Our personal lives are very different from each other, but we have this hindered spirit of growth and we really care about each other and it's become this really important relationship in my life. And then I have a few other people in my life who have either asked me to be in their life that way, or I've asked them, and I count you as one of them, with Jen and our group, and I just have those peppered throughout every season strategically. So I'm being, you know, fed in this way, which is so important to me, at least you know, every two weeks.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, it's so important for inspiration and I love that you approached it in this way, where you were vulnerable. It's almost like dating in a sense, because, like, let's face it, there are going to be people who are too busy. It's not the right space or alignment and if you ask, they might say no and that's totally okay. It's just like dating right, we go out, we ask a few people, the right person is going to feel, I think, just like yours, lindsay, where it's like, oh my gosh, I'm baking cookies, I want to hang out, and it's going to, you're going to vibe, and there's going to be this mutual relationship. And even if you are a younger person, mentoring with an old, you know, an older person, there's cross pollination of accountability, but it also could be even just sharing the success you've had because of something they've told you could be all the reward that a mentor needs to just like how exciting to see your life work being, you know, realized in someone else. That could be reward enough.
Lindsay Hurty:So I think, it's so beautiful.
Lindsay Hurty:And the other thing, thank you. And the other thing I will say is that from the very beginning I did say to her why don't we give it a go for four seasons one year and then make a decision together and if we realize it's not feeding us both like it was a year, and it'll be amazing for me at least. Hopefully it'll be amazing for you too, but you know I will be so grateful to have had that time. And so we do check in annually. Do we want to keep going with this? And we've already expressed to each other that if one of us decides that, you know what like this was a wonderful thing, but I think it's time to end these sessions, that we will respect the other person's decision in that and know that all the time we spent together was 100% wanted by both of us.
Natasha Clawson:How long has this been going on for you? How many years?
Lindsay Hurty:have you Two and a half and we actually just we just met for the first time in person this summer Our July meeting. We decided to meet in person halfway. We both drove like two hours and we met each other and we stayed at a cafe for about six hours. We just sat there, we had breakfast, coffee and lunch and then dessert. Like we spent the whole day there. It was amazing.
Natasha Clawson:I know I can get lost in conversations. I just love this conversation about mentorship, but I would love to learn a little bit more about your self-development work and you know how you do that, how you came to it. Let's hear it Okay.
Lindsay Hurty:Well, so I started my career as a high school English teacher and I loved that, mostly because when you are teaching literature and writing, you get to talk about being a person, and I found myself wanting to do a lot more of that than talking about the literature, but the literature was always the jumping off point to be able to talk about who you are, who you're becoming, how you're growing, and so I didn't really know it at the time that that was happening. I just recognized oh, I love this part when we get into discussions. So then, eight years into my teaching career, I became a mom, and that is sort of what I consider that to be, a real defining moment in my career. That was like before and after, because everything changed when I became a mom. First and foremost, I ended up taking six years off from working and I was full-time home with my kids. I have three and they were all born within three years, so I was all in and I loved it. It's what I wanted to do.
Lindsay Hurty:And then, when I was pregnant with my third, I was starting to feel like I wanted to get back into my professional mindset and everything again, and teaching was what I knew and what I loved and what I was good at. But I didn't want to go back to grading papers about literature that I realized I was like that's more than 50 percent of the job. I want to be in conversations with people about being a person and becoming a person. And how do I do that? So I started to just on my own, develop kind of a curriculum for myself to figure out how I was going to translate what I was good at with who I am now and what I actually want for myself into a job for myself, into a new role within the realities of what my life is, which is a mom of three kids. I have a partner and he has a job where he is out of the home most of the day, and so there were decisions to be made in there and I really wanted to be. I wanted to be home with my kids, like I love being a mom.
Lindsay Hurty:I also wanted to figure out a career where I could sort of do both somehow. So I created a curriculum for myself, I went through and I figured out I wanted to lead workshops for women, for moms, for other people in this life space, because this concept of who you're becoming and figuring out what's next because of who you are now is something that a lot of moms in particular go through. But a lot of people just in midlife go through when you want to make a career transition or you make a big move or your life is just changing somehow. Suddenly you're the caretaker for your parents and you're like whoa, like I didn't plan this transition. But here we are. You know life changes we are.
Lindsay Hurty:You know life changes, and I realized that I can help people through these transitions that are predictable transitions but unfamiliar to you in your life space, by helping people really hone in on who am I now, what do I really want for myself and why and how can I plan a life that's in line with what I value, with who I am? And so I have this fulfillment with my career Because personally I mean, you and I are so much alike like this. We love to work Like I love my work, like it's meaningful to me, and I think a lot of people feel that way. But sometimes we can't always get on that career path that does that for us because of our life circumstances. So I started workshops out of my home when my kids were in school, when my youngest started going to preschool and I focused on moms, and that was the seed that turned into my business, turned into my business, which is called Everwell.
Lindsay Hurty:I call it an online life learning platform and an inspiration network, and there was a time when we had a brick and mortar location, but now it is fully an online space and I have an online course there called Self School, where I really help people who are like yes, I want to get through this transition with intention and meaning and figure out what's next for me.
Lindsay Hurty:That's what my course is about. I also help people with midlife reboot coaching, I call it, and I also help people using a body of work that I'm a huge fan of called Sparkotype, which I think we're probably going to talk a little bit about, because I know you love that, and I do help professional teams with that, but I also use that in my one-on-one coaching. And then the other thing that's new to what I do is I help people with legacy work and thinking through end of life and actually, with great intention, leaving love letters for your kids that go alongside your will. So I do a lot of. There are a lot of parts to what I do, but it's all in the spirit of finding fulfillment and living with intention and authenticity.
Natasha Clawson:I love how you just beautifully make these frameworks to help guide people through, and I even saw in your mentorship which my mentorships are much more casual. I don't have a framework for it, but I love that you added that because it's so intentional. I can see that you just naturally do that for things, and I would love to dive a little bit deeper on the sparkotype, because I think you know, as we're talking, we have all these entrepreneurs who are so multi-passionate but can get really stuck when you feel like you don't know, like what's my thing, what's my spark? Right, what is it? And that can definitely be paralyzing. So I'd love to hear how you use that in a tool to have maybe guided your business and where you're at now.
Lindsay Hurty:Yeah, absolutely so. I don't know about you, but I've always been so interested in like any kind of personality test or anything like that right Like.
Lindsay Hurty:Enneagram. Bring it on, like Myers-Briggs, like I've always loved that, because I just think it's one more way to have more language about yourself and know yourself better. And, being someone who cares so much about self-development, the more information we have about who we are, I think the better off we are. And so in the back of my mind I'd always thought like it'd be cool to be certified in one of these, but none of them really felt like, spoke to me in a way that I was like, well, I want to get certified in that, you know. But they were all interesting to me. But then I came across Jonathan Field's book called Sparked and I read it at this point it must have been three years, about three years ago, when it was published. I think I'm I think that's right Three years ago and I read his book and I was like he's nailed it, like this body of work speaks to me on all the levels, because what it actually taught it's different than a personality test. It helps you identify what that core thing is that makes you come alive in your work. Specifically, it's not an assessment that's meant for people with no work experience, because you wouldn't know unless you've had work experience. It's meant for adults who have become the audience I really care most about, probably because midlife is where I am and I just find this transition so interesting, especially through parenthood and navigating your career with it. So I really like that. The Sparkotype is focused on that on people and their work specifically and what it does. This assessment helps you identify what is the primary thing that makes you come alive in your work, what the secondary thing is, that kind of tends to support that primary impulse, and then what your anti-sparkotype is, which is the thing that actually drains the most energy. It doesn't mean you're not good at it, it just means it drains you the most. And the sparkotype there are 10 different sparkotypes. It's like the word is like it's an archetype, like a framework essentially, but each one is an archetype of something that sparks you. So all 10 of them are amazing, like there's no hierarchy, they're all just different things.
Lindsay Hurty:And when I took, well, I read the book and I well I think I first listened to a podcast and then I was like I got to get my hands on this book. I listened to the whole book and then I took my assessment, which is free online If you just go to sparkotypecom. You can take your assessment. And I learned about myself, for instance, is that the primary thing that drives me is that I'm what's called a maven and that means I live to learn. Like that is why I wake up in the morning. That gives me purpose, that gives me energy, that gives me meaning, it makes me get into flow. I feel engaged when I'm learning Now, not what I'm learning about, just anything Like.
Lindsay Hurty:For me, part of it is, like you know, my husband also is a Maven and I thought I found that so interesting because I'm like his interests are so different from mine. But that's the point. You can't judge a Maven just because you know they're a Maven. Your interests are your own. So what I'm particularly interested in is people and their stories. Like I could listen to people's stories. I mean, I'm constantly reading memoirs because I'm like that's someone's story, I love it and I'm like that makes sense why I always gravitate towards memoir, because I get I never get tired of hearing someone's story. I love learning about people and why they make the choices they do, or why they communicate the way they do, or what it is that from your background, that's like helped you know, guided you into being a certain way or steered you away from something Like I just I don't tire of it.
Lindsay Hurty:My husband, on the other hand, his the other hand. He could learn forever and ever about the right way to mow a lawn or different techniques, and I'm like whoa, that's not what I'm interested in. But he can just watch YouTube video after YouTube video because he's so into learning about that. But the impulse there is that we live to learn right. So I learned that about myself and I learned a little bit about what like for me as a maven.
Lindsay Hurty:You know you can't. A maven doesn't thrive when you just have one focus, because if you get to sort of the end of learning about something, you could really get bored. So that's part of why my business I've designed it to have a couple of things that I do so that I can keep it mixed up and interesting for myself that I'm not just only doing one thing all the time, because as a maven, someone who needs to keep learning, that could get too redundant for me. So that's just like you learn this about yourself and all the 10 sparketypes have have different things about them. And then my secondary one is I'm an advisor and this is someone. This is the teacher in me.
Lindsay Hurty:You know a lot of people. Their secondary one is the thing they gravitate towards in work. And then, but really, they're doing that to fulfill their primary. And that's what's so fascinating, because when you take your own assessment, you learn. Well, this is the work I've always done, but so why is advisor not my primary? Well, the truth is, teaching isn't the thing that gets me into flow, it's the learning. And now that I know that about myself, I can design my work life accordingly and I can align myself with colleagues so that we match up in a healthy way, based on what our sparkotypes are. And then my anti-sparkotype, which is a pretty popular anti, is the essentialist. And the essentialist is someone who makes chaos, makes order out of chaos and loves it. So this is someone who like sees an Excel spreadsheet and is like that's beautiful, who thrives on cleaning out the closet.
Natasha Clawson:Thank goodness for these people. I am serious Thank goodness.
Lindsay Hurty:You know, and in fact Jonathan Fields has spoken about how they can be the most sort of abused in work environments. Because everyone needs an essentialist in their life and essentialists have to be really good about putting up boundaries. Or because you can, you can get you know if you're overused in too much of anything is too much, right, like we all have to create boundaries, but. But I am organized, I'm able to do it. It just exhausts me. So for me, on the days that I've got to do my books for my business, which is such tiring work to me, I'm really thoughtful about what else I plan on those days, because I need to give myself a break. I can't just do that for hours and hours. It doesn't feel good for me, but I can do it well. So that's where it gets confusing, because I think some people think, well, I'm good at this, so I should do that. Well, if it's energetically draining for you, that's a problem, right.
Lindsay Hurty:But the thing that's so fascinating, I find, about the sparkotype body of work is that most of the time we can shift. If we already have a job and a role that you know, maybe we're leaning into something that's energetically draining for us. The idea is to not go quit your job and blow it up. The idea is like, how can you make little shifts into leaning into what makes you feel most alive and energized in your work? Because a lot of the times the people you work with or work for will be very open to those little shifts if they know that that's going to help you grow and thrive and be more committed to the business help you grow and thrive and be more committed to the business.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, and in a business, what a great metric to, like you said, set up your day right. If I'm, if you're doing books, you're doing it on a day where you know you can afford to be drained. But if you were showing up for a podcast that morning, it wouldn't be a great idea to be doing your books in the morning. So just that little shift of okay, this is its own day, and you know a day where I'm doing a podcast, I'm going to go learn before I go and do that, and how those little shifts could maximize, because if you're in flow, it's so much easier if you're running a business to make money. If you're in drain, you're going to be able to do the work, you're going to be good at it, but you're not going to see the returns with the same level of ease so well said exactly.
Lindsay Hurty:and the thing about when you are in your sparkotype zone. I guess you could say that's not how they say it, but I think of it that way is like, you know, hours can go by and you're doing the work and you are just because it jazzes you so much. It just it doesn't feel like work, and that's the beauty of it, it feels like joy, and so it's helping you sort of reframe the way you go about your work so that you can get into this, you know this place where you just feel so alive because of the work you do and you're not being dragged around having to check boxes.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, and.
Lindsay Hurty:I just say there aren't there aren't the every every role. There are things that are box checking, like you know, doing my books. If I could just never do that again I'd be fine. Like in my life, if I never had to cook again I'd be fine. But we have to do some of these things that aren't our favorite. But again, like you just said, I can think now through the lens of my sparkotype and design my days and my whole week really around what's going to get me into flow or make me feel alive and what's going to be draining, and be smart about it.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, and when I put on my marketing hat too, I think about you know, selling and marketing yourself is hard if it is not something that makes you come alive, if it's something that has you so fired up and passionate, you almost can't not help but talk about it. So that's what I love about that. So I know the Sparkotype work. You know we talked about how it led you to learning, but it's created this offering right, this forever letters that you're doing. So talk to me about that. I know you did it for yourself. I'd love to learn what you learned from this process.
Lindsay Hurty:Yes, okay. So part of it is that through my work, I write these weekly essays and I publish them on my sub stack and they are about midlife and life learning and motherhood, and writing for me is something that has always sort of been in a secondary role to what my primary gig has been, role to what my primary gig has been. And through the Sparkotype and a few other things, I kind of realized that I really love to write. Like that is one way that I learn best is by writing it out, and so I started writing in a committed way and putting it out there. And someone in my audience, who's also a friend, said to me once she's a bit older than I am, she has grown kids. And she said have you ever thought about helping people write a personal statement to go alongside their will to their children? And I was like no, I've never thought of that, like never. And she was like she was in a life space where her mom had passed away a year ago and her kids are 20 into 30s and she's just thinking about end of life and wants to have all her ducks in a row when she's completely of sound mind, and so she wants to include this personal statement and that took me down. That opened up for me something that you know it's like you never know when the thing is going to spark you wide open and that took me down. That opened up for me something that you know it's like you never know when the thing is going to spark you wide open and I was like I would love to help people write those letters because and this is through the lens of Sparkotype here's what that means If you're going to help someone write a love letter to their child, that's going to go alongside your will. That means you're going to have a really deep conversation with that person about their relationship with their child. So that check fulfills the learning in me about somebody else.
Lindsay Hurty:I love going right into the marrow of anything Like go deep right away. I'm game right and so when that's the context like with clients I've had for this so far we just dig right in and it's so meaningful, I mean, for me hearing them talk about their relationship with their child. I get into total flow and I'm just taking notes. But I'm like I love this, I'm learning about this. And then some people they write a first draft of their letter and then I help polish, and then other people choose to have me write the whole letter, and so that's my greatest skill set is writing, and so I'm using my skill set with my, what I'm driven to do, which is learn people's stories, and I now have a product that is a really meaningful one, like it just checks all these boxes and again it might seem like at first you might see, wait a minute.
Lindsay Hurty:Like how is writing a letter to go with the will have anything to do with your business? And I believe that part of living with intention is thinking about the end of life. I mean it's coming for all of us. I mean it doesn't have to be morbid, it doesn't have to be a downer, it's going to happen. I would rather be thoughtful about my end of life than ignore it and have it just be in the hands of the people who are left behind me to figure it all out. So I'd rather them have some support and guidance from me, and I'd like to put my care into it. And so when I first got this idea, I thought well, I got to start by writing my own. I call them forever letters. You actually helped me come up with that name and it plays off the name of my business is Everwell. So this, ever, ever. I love that so forever.
Lindsay Hurty:Letters, and I started by writing my own to my kids. And my kids are young, they're 13, 12 and 10. And I sat down to write this last love letter and it was a very moving, beautiful, powerful experience, knowing that my hope is that my kids won't read these letters for 50 years. But to actually articulate in this letter what being their mom has meant to me, who they are in my eyes, what I hope for them in their lives beyond my time with them, and how I plan to continue to show up in their lives even when I'm gone. You know, all of these things that to articulate that has strengthened my relationship with them. I mean, I don't know if they would say that, but I feel it because I feel a deeper connection to them in the way that I know them and I think about them. And from writing them I came up with, like you said, a framework, like I'm a teacher at heart.
Natasha Clawson:Like.
Lindsay Hurty:I, you know, I always come up with a framework, and so that's how I help coach people through. It is I have this loose framework that will work and flow for you to put it together after we've had a two-hour call and I've asked you a bunch of questions and gotten information for you, then I give you this framework so that you can write your first draft. Or you can say, actually I'd love for you to write the first draft and then you'll have a say in the revision, of course. But yeah, that's how it started and it's this new part of my work that I am really loving.
Natasha Clawson:I imagine it brings a sense of peace, Like if you have this forever letter written.
Natasha Clawson:It's like something is tied up and like some of these worries that we have when our mind runs away as it does into scenarios that may never happen, but they're there nonetheless.
Natasha Clawson:There's kind of a resting piece in this offering that you're developing and it is so impactful and I immediately actually thought of it in a business sense of so many of us, we're looking towards where we want to go with our business. But what if we looked at from, like the forever letter perspective, like, what do I want this business to have meant or have done in the world when I die? And I think it's a powerful way to look at it, because most people I know, especially the women in my life, they have a business that they want to help change people's lives and they want to make a meaningful impact. You know it's it's at the end of the day, yes, we are paying bills, but they want it to be so much more. And so if you sat down and really looked like, how would you show up differently in your business? So I just think it has so many beautiful applications, for you know what the center of this topic has been today is intentional living.
Lindsay Hurty:Totally. I. That is such a creative idea, I think, to take it that way, because I hear you, you know, like a lot of people don't understand. What we understand and a lot of your listeners understand is how important their business is to them and so. But then we're also advised on how to structure that business through the lens of business and I it's sort of like what I'm learning in writing the Forever Lawyer is.
Lindsay Hurty:I'm spending a lot of time talking with trust and estate lawyers because they are the keeper of the will and I want to understand the relationship to the will and I have learned very much that this is a separate thing from the will, because it's emotional. Right Wills are not emotional, it is much more cut and dry and it needs to kind of stay that way. But this goes alongside your will, because we are emotional beings and to just act like that isn't there is unrealistic and that's not tending to your personhood, like I mean we can't take that out of us, right? And so to think about your idea of and I haven't done it yet, but now that you've said that, I really want to do that I want to write a love letter to Everwell and because at some point? Would Everwell continue to exist if I'm not here? I don't know, like I don't know, like I don't know if it will ever get bought. I'm not sure, like I hope.
Lindsay Hurty:This is the work I'm always doing, but I would like to think about what my relationship is to it, what it means to me, what I value most and why and why I've put so much effort into this. Why and why I've put so much effort into this? I mean, we all know how much sweat and tears and energy goes into the building of these very bespoke, important businesses, and I'm sure we all come up with, you know, our mission statement and our big goals and all those things. But to give ourselves permission to get emotional and actually allow ourselves to be able to express why I'm doing this and why it matters to me so much, it's just helpful to have in the framework then of being able to present it in all the ways you need to marketing and so forth and so forth, to just have that in the back of your mind and know it.
Natasha Clawson:Yeah, and one of the things I wanted to highlight, through our conversation too, is you started these Everwell essays and you started, you know, posting those and then reading them on YouTube in a fireside chat, and you started doing it consistently. You had no idea that this would be the outcome and all of a sudden, it's this thing that I mean really seems like it could be the future of your business, and it just came from showing up, sharing your message, and someone saw that and said you know, this is what I see you doing, and it just highlights to me the importance of putting your message out there, being vulnerable, just showing up, because it invites in these opportunities that you could never have dreamed of. Just trying to scribble behind a desk, you know, trying to make it, make it happen.
Lindsay Hurty:Yes, you're so right. I hadn't really thought of it quite like that, but you're absolutely right. I mean, you know, I love I've always loved strategy meetings, you know, like coming up with the plan and dreaming big and having all the ideas.
Lindsay Hurty:Like I love that stuff, I love writing a business plan, like that's fun to me, but like you can't think of everything necessarily, even when you're dreaming, that is the right fit. So, because I started, I took the risk of being like, I love to write, I think I'm decent at it. I'm going to put these things out there because I'm getting enough feedback from my audience that they like reading them and so far they haven't earned me any money directly. What I'm writing. You know my sub stack and my YouTube. Like I'm growing them, like that. I'm not making money off of them yet.
Lindsay Hurty:However, what just happened was someone read my writing and she put those things together because of her life space which is not the life space I'm in, but a lot of my audience members are and she said have you ever thought about this? And that couldn't have come to my head. I'm in a fortunate position Both of my parents are still living. I have not gone through that process, so I don't think about I don't think about the process of the will, but now that I have and I've started asking a ton of people about it, there is a space for this. People want it.
Natasha Clawson:On the lawyer side and you have made money off of that. So you're yes For my business folks. She started writing. You know it wasn't. She didn't know it was going to lead here and she did make money off of this offering, so it has led to something fruitful.
Lindsay Hurty:It has, and I really I think you might be right. I mean, the way I'm kind of thinking forward about the financials on this, I'm like this could end up being my bread and butter more than my online course, which I love, my online course. But I seem to have more people who are gravitating to this because they're like, oh yeah, I really do want to do that. Or especially if they've been through the loss of a parent, and how much they would have loved to have a letter like that. That was just something tangible to hold on to, that like constantly they could return to, of this validation, of the power of this relationship, because when you don't have it anymore, it's sometimes you just need that you're gonna make me cry, lindsey.
Natasha Clawson:All right, I'm gonna pull it together over here. All right, we're gonna start to wind this down. I would love for you to tell people where they can find you online, where they can read um your essays and hear about them on YouTube.
Lindsay Hurty:Yes, so my website is lindsayhurtycom. It's I spell it A-Y-L-I-N-D-S-A-Y-H-U-R-T-Ycom, so that's the best place to go. And on Substack, which, if you haven't tried, if you haven't gone to Substack yet, it's sort of like it's a hub, it's like your podcast app, but for writers, like if you're interested in essay writing, there are so many good writers in there who are publishing things all the time, so I highly recommend going in there and sort of scouting around. But mine is called Becoming Everwell with Lindsay Herney. And then I also have a YouTube channel where I read aloud my essays fireside with my dog sitting there most of the time, just kind of lounging there listening, and that's called Becoming Everwell with Linz on YouTube.
Natasha Clawson:I have a note to check out Substack, because I keep hearing about it and I haven't engaged on it. So that's on my tech list to check out. So I would love to end I love it. Yeah, I haven't engaged on it.
Lindsay Hurty:So that's on my tech list to check out. So I would love to end.
Natasha Clawson:I love it. Yeah, I'm definitely gonna check it out. I would love to end today just with one piece of advice you would give your younger self.
Lindsay Hurty:Okay, I would say don't forget, you are young and what that means is there's a lot you can say yes to and to do the thing, to not feel like you have to have the whole thing figured out. Because the regrets I have which I do have some, but it's mostly like in my 20s and even 30s that I didn't go do that adventurous thing because I felt like it didn't make sense on the path I couldn't see that yet, like why didn't I go to India? Like why didn't I do that thing? Like you know, it felt too scary or it felt too random or I couldn't make sense of it.
Lindsay Hurty:But I guess, like I'm speaking from the perspective of being 47 and I'm realizing now I'm still young. You know, it's like I have very close friends in their 60s and I think they're realizing they're still young, 60s and I think they're realizing they're still young. So I guess I just that would be my biggest thing Like you have a lot of life that you get to live, god willing, and to allow yourself to say yes. If there is a part of you that just gets warm inside at the idea of it, Allow yourself to say yes.
Natasha Clawson:I think there's no better place to end. Thank you so much for joining me, Lindsay.
Lindsay Hurty:Thank you, natasha. I just adore you and I'm so happy that you're bringing this conversation, your conversations, out into the podcast sphere.
