A Founder’s Request to the Universe - Ladybugz

Company: Ladybugz

Guest: Lysa Miller

Year Started: 2002

Employees: 11-25

What happens when a founder stops chasing growth and starts building with intention?

In this episode, Lysa Miller, Founder of Ladybugz, shares how she rebuilt her agency around simplicity, empathy, and clarity. From sprint-based web design to a mindset shift that changed everything, this conversation explores the invisible work behind building an agency you actually want to run.

Key Takeaways

• You’re not just selling services, you’re selling belief.
• Make the client’s job easy first, yours second.
• Simplicity scales better than complexity.
• Take care of clients and your team. The rest follows.
• Build it in your mind first.

Transcript

Ladybugz

Russel 0:01

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and experts share the real journey, the early struggles, the breakthrough moments, and everything in between. I'm your host Russel Dubree former eight figure agency owner, turned Business coach. Sold my agency and now helps agency leaders create their ideal business. Every agency has a story, and this is your front row seat. This is an agency story. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Lisa Miller with Ladybugs Agency with us here today. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Lysa.

Lysa 0:39

Hi. Thanks for having me today.

Russel 0:41

Absolutely. Well start us off right off the bat. Tell us what Ladybugs agency does and who you do it for.

Lysa 0:47

Yeah, so, um, we're a digital agency. We started in 2020 coming out of another agency. What we do is we do agile web design, and we have a sprint based process that we have like weekly sprints, and we have sort of a guaranteed timeline and budget. And so mostly we do that for biotechs and nonprofits, some education and some B2B and healthcare. So mostly early stage companies who really need to get out there fast and tell a story, and really need an agency to help them tell that story. And then on top of that we do digital marketing. So we do, you know, marketing and SEO for, you know, all different types of clients. So we serve all areas on that side.

Russel 1:32

Well, I know a lot of experience has to be baked into being able to pull all of that off, so we're gonna certainly get to that. But more curiosity, just to start out, where does the name ladybugs come from?

Lysa 1:43

Uh, so it dates back to me being very young and a friend of mine and myself. We both worked at another agency and we started a side gig and we called it ladybugs'cause we were two girls. And so that's where it started and I just. Kept that moniker,

Russel 2:00

And it makes me think, have you ever seen the movie Lady Bucks?

Lysa 2:03

Is that the one with the soccer kids?

Russel 2:05

Yes. Yes.

Lysa 2:06

Yeah. I think I may have seen it at one point, but I don't really recall it. Okay. I know has Rodney Dangerfield, right?

Russel 2:12

It does, it does. It was just one of those just quirky early nineties movies that they'll probably never make stuff like that again, but.

Lysa 2:19

Well, now I need to watch it.

Russel 2:21

Yeah.

Lysa 2:21

But it is funny because when I was starting over, I thought about not using the name again. And so I just, when I started my agency, I wasn't planning to start an agency, so that was a thing I just wanted to freelance and get back to doing work for clients on my own again. And it just sort of like evolved and I thought like maybe I would call it something else, but people resonated to the name, believe it or not, and we just decided not to change it.'cause it was sort of my. I don't know what people thought when they thought of me, or that was kind of my brand a little bit. So I mean, I did think about changing it and the universe was like, no, you're not changing it. Sorry. You get to be ladybugs.

Russel 3:00

Yes, yes. Yeah. Well, that is the benefit of being in the agency space is that I think companies even maybe want or expect a little bit of a quirky creativeness that mm-hmm. They feel like maybe they don't have the luxury to live, so they can do that vicariously through us. Well, you're sharing, uh, some of the journey that as really wanna dive into, but before we even get to that, I want to hear about young Lisa. Who was she and who did she wanna be when she grew up?

Lysa 3:26

Well, believe it or not, I've always been like a freelance person, so I've always been a writer, a designer, and that sort of stuff. And so I never really fell into a traditional job model before. So even when I was in college, I was designing newsletters and writing for people and stuff like that. So I think that just kind of carried on as I got older. But I did have one real job. Um, and that was sort of what really. Got me into web because you know, I had some intern jobs and stuff like that before, but mostly I was freelancing and I was making enough money to live when I was freelancing. So I ended up going to work for this company in Canada called the Ontario Medical Association. So I went into work as a design editor on their communications department and. I became friends with the design director and he just really liked me. And I guess he thought I was smart and he is like, we need a webmaster, and would you like that job? And I was like, sure. So that's how I got into that job. And then I ended up getting recruited to work at an agency in the US to work on healthcare clients. So that's kind of how I ended up from Canada College to here. And I've been doing agency work ever since. Okay. So, yeah. And freelance work.

Russel 4:38

Well you pulled out the webmaster term, which is always fun to hear. Like everything goes in cycles, right?'cause it's like nineties clothing I guess I hear is in style again. You know, these old web terms need to be brought back to life. Reinvigorated. Maybe we'll do that with this show.

Lysa 4:53

The webmaster. Yeah, it's pretty funny.

Russel 4:56

So, you know, at a high level, it sounds like you had a pretty interesting career from freelance to working at agencies and it was probably some interesting accounts and at some point it sounds like you got to the point where you decided that was not enough. Or that you just needed something more. How did you come to that realization?

Lysa 5:16

I think for me, the big change in my life with working was having kids. And so, you know, my first job when I moved to Boston from when I was with the agency in Portland, I ended up moving to Boston'cause they got bought. And so I ended up working for CBS Interactive. It was a full-time freelance gig. So I worked there for a couple years and they decided they weren't gonna let people freelance anymore or be 10 99. Interesting.'cause I had other clients that I brought over from my previous agency when they got bought, they gave us some clients to still work with. They said like, you either have to work full-time or. Not work here. And so they gave me like a couple years, so I stayed on there for a couple more years, but eventually they were like, you need to decide. Oh, the other thing was they always let us work remotely and they started making us go to the office.

Russel 6:05

Okay,

Lysa 6:06

so the whole remote thing like this is like, you know, 25 years ago we were doing remote work and yeah, it just kind of ended up, I'm all set and I just grew my freelance book of business from there and was able to raise kids and not worry about having to drive into the city every day and daycare and all that stuff. I feel like I was pretty blessed, like the whole. Freelance gig thing gave me a gift'cause I wasn't able to not work. I had to work. I just feel like it is such a great gift for so many people and self-employment is a great gift if you can make it work. So that's sort of how I ended up where I am now. Um, and I've enjoyed every minute of it. It's all been a growth journey. It's all been learning, it's all been lessons.

Building a Better Product

Russel 6:52

Well, I'm writing what was probably helpful for to you too is that this freelancer kind of being off on your own, clearly wasn't unknown territory, but maybe coming back around to it again for the first time, what did you know to do differently or what made you more successful, would you say? At least at the start of the second time around a, a freelance career.

Lysa 7:11

Um, I mean, I think I did already have a pretty successful freelance career, and then I merged with another agency. It just took longer to build it because, I mean, technology isn't where it is today. That was probably the biggest reason. But now, like in this day and age, like you can grow your business so fast if you know anything about marketing on the internet. Um, so I think the thing that was really different was that. I did say to myself that I needed sort of like the traditional marketing with the four Ps, like the product, the price, the positioning. So I came up with this idea to have this agile sprint based package for. Specifically early growth biotech companies where they could come in and just, you know, be part of the process from start to finish. And the site at the end. And the story at the end is their vision. And that's where like, I feel like some agencies fail because they're either too big and they don't get to know the client enough, they don't understand the science, they don't understand like what the client's trying to do. And they also, you know, wanna save money because they can't have like four experts on sprint calls every week. Don't have the money and then it might be junior people. So we're a group of experts. We come in, we give them our full attention for those three months. And you know, that's worked really, really well for us. You know? So you're not just selling someone a website sometimes when they're calling you or they're emailing you, you're selling them. The idea of actually doing it.'cause a lot of people will inquire and they'll realize it's a lot of work and then they're like, yeah, I'm not gonna do it right now. So not only are you selling the product, you're selling the idea of them doing it, you're trying to like be excited and encourage them and make the process really fun for them. So I feel like that's where we've been really successful. Mind you, it's not every time been perfect, but every time it's not perfect. You learn. So I think that's what makes us stand out a bit too in, in the industry that we're in, is that sprinted process and that sort of guaranteed timeline and budget.

Russel 9:07

Yeah. Well. I'm gonna put a pin in this idea of, you're saying merged with another agency.'cause I imagine that's a, a unique experience unto itself. Mm-hmm. So we'll come back to that. But, you know, I think clearly just right, your career led up to this point of, you know, you building up the confidence to walk your path, be more confident in, who you are, how you wanna show up. Was there anything specific when you think back, beyond just the experience itself to give you that confidence to air, quote, flag your own flag?

Lysa 9:36

Um, so I think my first client when I started over was this woman who had wanted to work with me at my previous agency, but for whatever reason, they couldn't hire us. Maybe we were too expensive at the time, so she said, will you come work for me? And she was my client the whole time. And then people started reaching out to me also that just knew me and knew that I was starting over, like just random people I had met over the years. And that was like, wow. Like people trust me, people respect me. And these were not just like small companies. Like some of these were big companies and one was a big nonprofit. And so, you know, the fact that people didn't even work with me and they trusted me. Really made me feel like confident about it. But the biggest thing was actually watching my clients grow and watching what I was doing for them and how I was helping them. And I think that that was the biggest thing. I was like, wow, I really am good at this when I'm working. Like,'cause before at my previous agency, that wasn't my job. My job was. Business development and that sort of stuff, pr. But here I really built the products and the processes and the pricing and also, you know, the way we sell it along with, you know, being highly involved in the digital marketing side of things. So that's kind of how I got to where I am. And I always listen to my clients. So the minute you see a client. Just kind of have a sad face or looks a little shocked or like anything like one bad experience for a client, it could be a three second experience, is still an experience they remember. They're gonna probably remember a bad one over a good one. So it's just very important to me to make sure the client always feels good about what we're doing and feels listened to, and that's how you really keep clients for a long time.

Russel 11:20

Yeah. Well, I mean, one, I think to the first part, like the notion of, you know, what makes the work successful. Leaning further into where you're gonna be successful, and the more you do that, the more you don't wanna do anything else besides that. And just sounds like building the confidence of that, but I love what you shared there, kind of towards the end of really listening and paying attention to clients for what is the opportunity. To improve, I guess, how do you go about that process in such a way that you're being iterative and actually making improvements versus making, you know, sometimes I'll hear someone encounter, you know, maybe scope problems and so they wanna add more to the contract. How do you make right good decisions when you're innovating that way?

Lysa 12:03

Yeah. It's a test, but in terms of improving processes, I do what I see. Like if I see my team going back and forth with a client about something, I'm like, this is not a good client experience. Like, what is the problem? We wanna make their job easy. Like, we don't want them to make our job easy. That's not fair. You know, so I'm always like, how can we improve how we communicate with the client? How can we improve how the client gets us assets? How can we improve? Sometimes it's just little small things like getting a password and you're going back 10 times. It's like, no, we don't wanna do that. So how do we do this without. You know, taking a lot of the client's time, so you know, just even our onboarding process, we've simplified that a lot. And then also, you know, some of our SEO onboarding stuff, we've improved that a lot and just made it a lot easier for clients to onboard with us.'cause onboarding is always one of the scariest things for clients and trying to make it easy for them. Just other things like, you know, website launches, like those need to be seamless, you know, and you see those

Russel 13:09

might be the most stressful activity in all the agency world is a website launch.

Lysa 13:15

Um, so ours run very seamlessly. We do all of the QA during the process. So by the time we get to launch, everything's pretty much perfect. QA Happens during the process and because we're doing sprints and we're doing like agile design, like we can do that. So that helps a lot. And again, we have processes for when we're doing it, what the expectations are. The only time it's a little harder to launch is when the client has control of like their own DNS and you're coordinating like two factor and stuff like that. But other than that, it's pretty seamless and. You know, I think my team sleeps at night. I don't really have anything to do with the website launches, but you know, just from what I see from a high level, I think they do a great job.

The Value of the Easy Button

Russel 14:01

I'm sure they do well and right. Just a key theme tagline there, if you wanna, well, of just how do you make it easy not for you, although that can be something too, but you certainly wanna make it easy for the clients. And anything you make easy for you, not at disservice for the clients? Yeah. If we can just go around and just make everything easier, life gets easier. Is that too cliche to say?

Lysa 14:25

I think that concept I live by too. You know, you wanna make life easier for everybody that's around you, everybody in your life, whether it's your team members, your family, you know, and create processes in your life that just make life easier. And that kind of spills over into your work life, you know, because when everybody's happy and everybody's. Able to get done what they wanna get done. There's like no frustration. There's no like unknown expectations. People know what they're supposed to be doing. And I think that is really important because when people don't know what they're supposed to do, that's when the mistakes happen and that's when they're scared to ask. People are always scared to ask for help because they don't want you to know they don't know something. But you know, I think here we have that team. Mentality is like, you know, we were all here to help each other. My agency's set up very differently from other agencies, so the way that people are compensated and different stuff like that really all depends how we work together for the most part. So, you know, because we do like profit sharing and stuff like that. So if we're having a good year, everybody does well. You know, not just me, the owner, but everybody. And I think that's an important part of just. Could I make more money? Probably. But I think in the end it's like, well, how am I gonna make other people's lives better? Like, what is my real legacy gonna be? Is it gonna be that I made lots of money and everybody didn't that worked for me? Or am I gonna try to be fair and share? Because I wouldn't be here without my team either. So it's kind of a two way street.

Russel 15:53

I would just say, I mean, yeah, maybe in a short term sense you could probably squeeze out more money here and there, but that it's actually that process of how do I make everything easier? That's value creation and that form of value creation ensures that it's gonna continue far longer than, yeah, if I can squeeze a few dollars here, there.

Lysa 16:12

Try to be generous.

Russel 16:14

Yeah, and, and I think that's, you know, when I think of just listening to some of the words you're using about empathy and listening and paying attention, I don't know, maybe I'm going back to your young, but why do you think those are important values for you, and how have you honed or changed those over the years?

Lysa 16:31

I mean, I think a lot of it just comes from a little bit my upbringing, you know, because my parents were that way. But I also think from being a mom and the things I needed as a young mother from work like that, I could never get from a job and why I had to go out on my own, understanding people's problems because, raising a family is a very difficult. Road, even though it's joyful and wonderful, it comes with a lot of challenges. And so I think people really need to be supported when they're raising a family. And I have people that are on their way out to retirement and they have goals. So I think if everybody's happy in the company, then. The company does well, it's like, it's not like a goal oriented company. It's like, let's hit our numbers this year. That's not what it's like here. It's like, let's have a great year. Let's have fun, let's have more clients. I just think that sales mentality too is not here, but yet we don't really worry. We're not like, oh, we have to hit our goals. I just feel like if you do a really good job with the clients and you do a really good job with your team, you're gonna be successful no matter what. Yeah, because when you're doing amazing work and people love you, they refer you like, I've gotten five referrals for websites like just in December, in January from other clients. You can't replace that?

Changing Lives

Russel 17:42

Absolutely makes total sense. And I think agency space lends itself, and this is one of the things I think we have the power of agencies, is other businesses might lend themselves to a little bit more industrial age mindset of, you know, money can command and control type. Mm-hmm. But what's interesting, I think a lot of times agencies and held a lot of similar beliefs in my own agency is that we had the power to influence other businesses and how they operate. I have to imagine somewhere you have a similar use cases where you have changed a client's approach to business just by being you

Lysa 18:16

maybe. I'm not really sure. I like to think so, but you know, a lot of our marketing clients are. Privately owned businesses. Some are larger businesses, some are smaller businesses. So sometimes just knowing that you're helping, you know, a family or you're helping a local small business versus some larger business, Massachusetts based businesses, like just putting that effort and helping that way. Even though we work nationally, we still wanna contribute to our local economy. So a lot of our clients are right here in Massachusetts. So that's a nice thing to have when your clients tell you, just for example, like yesterday, um, I have a company that's a pest control company, which again, you wouldn't think we did that, but we do. And you know, he says like he's tripled his business. He worked full-time as a fireman and was able to quit his job, and now he says he's just killing it. And so he brings a little girl on his knee and he is like, this is my daughter. Like, I'm sorry, you can't replace. That kind of client relationship and being accountable for helping somebody like have a life like that, like that just brings me joy every day that I know that I'm helping people. I have another client, she is a marine veteran and she wanted to start like an IV therapy company, and so she was doing it on the side and then she hired us and like a year later she's got three employees. She quit her job as a nurse. And she's doing really well, and she has a son that has autism. So you know, that helps her with her life. So I have those clients too, and those clients almost help me with the clients that, you know, they're more business oriented. It's like, okay, I'm doing some really cool business stuff here, but I'm also really helping small businesses too. So it's kind of like brings that like I'm helping people. Even though a lot of the biotechs, obviously they're helping with science and drug discovery and different stuff like that, but it's just kind of a different vibe. So it is nice to have both types of clients, but I end up working mostly with the smaller ones.

Russel 20:13

Well, your answer that sort of started out with, I don't know, you gave a number of use cases that said, uh, I think you do know and Right. That might not always be evidence seen, but I bet even those larger organizations. There's an impact more than you might realize, and it, and it makes sense as a marketing company, if we are successful, we do get a few keys to the kingdom to be listened to, to be heard to even if subliminally sometimes share those similar philosophies. So maybe your subliminal conscious can work tonight, and I bet it'll come up with some examples there to on the bigger business side. I wanna come back to this merge agency. I don't know exactly where this fell in your timeline, but I know this was a, a formative experience for you. And so tell us a little bit more about when this happened, how this came to be, and we'll get to some of the takeaways from it.

Lysa 21:03

So, um, my agency really started to grow around 2012 when I started to kind of like have more help in my house and my kids were getting like a little older, like past three. And I built the agency like more on social media and I did a lot of web design. But I met someone who also had an agency, and his agency was a little bit bigger than mine and we became really good friends and we decided to merch. And so we grew the agency and we had a great time doing it. We had sometimes really great times. We had sometimes like really hard times when you're trying to grow, you know? And then I think just in the end, you know, I didn't wanna be at a big agency and I didn't wanna be bound by processes and different stuff like that that you need in place when you're working with bigger clients. So that just wasn't for me anymore. And um, so I ended up leaving and starting on my own. And like some of my first clients too, our clients that. They were leads that came into that agency and my business partner was like, oh, Lisa's on her own. You should go work with her.'cause they were, too small for them. So that's kind of how it all happened. And that agency's still around, we're still friends, all that stuff. But I just had to do me. You know, and I didn't really know that I had to do me until COVID hit. And I just had a different vision for how I wanted to work and how I wanted to do projects.

Russel 22:23

Okay.

Lysa 22:24

And so, yeah, and that's kind of how it came to be. And I did learn a lot there because we started at under seven figures and we ended up, you know, um, triple, quadruple that when I left. And so I think I wanted a simplicity. I wanted a simpler business. I wanted to run it in a more simple way. So when I started over, I adopted like more profit first. Um, I adopted that model. I do lean accounting, so I wanted to take away from some of that stuff that was taking a long time and. Slowing us down at that agency and I was smaller so I could do it. You can't do it when you're big. It's hard to go back. And the other thing was like accounts, uh, receivable. We always had tons of accounts receivable hanging over us there. You know, collecting money is really important to me to make sure that, you know, you're not funding the client's project. That's not really fair. So, you know, we are very strict about how we're paid, and that is definitely one of the reasons that we've been successful is that we're not. Waiting around for money for months and stuff like that. So those were just problems I wanted to solve. And you know, again, we're smaller, we're more agile, so we can do that, and we've been able to kind of grow with those models. So that's sort of how I changed my business is just to make it simpler.

Russel 23:41

Okay, look, you won't have to get me on the bandwagon. Less can be more simple. What it comes back to, I think, is even how we started this conversation, is it building and leading towards the life you want? Uh, that is what matters most. And it sounds like that, going back to this idea that values and quality of life are really important to you. Did you have those values as strongly then and just didn't realize how, I don't wanna to say growth at all, costs would affect that, or you just had to go through that experience to reinforce that idea?

Lysa 24:10

Um, no, I think I always had the values and I think so did my business partner, but I think that when we started growing, we had to work more and like, again, it wasn't a negative experience or anything like that. It was just in the beginning it was great. I thought it was great. I loved being, the smaller, I loved being in touch with the clients, but as we grew, it just wasn't for me anymore. As we got. Bigger. So that's part of it too, is that I just didn't wanna work in a company that I didn't feel like I was making a huge difference or I just wanted to have more interaction with the clients and different stuff like that. Yeah, so I mean, it was just in the end diff, we just had different visions and you know, you can't go backwards, so it only made sense for me to go out on my own. And it's been great. Like I said, I've been very successful doing it. I didn't know I was gonna be sure. Um, but having somebody else that you built a business with, like sometimes I have someone to call when I have an issue or he has someone to call when he has an issue. Or sometimes we just meet and talk about our businesses. That part of it is good. You know, you worked with somebody, you. They know you intimately how you work. They know your strengths and your weaknesses. So sometimes they're a great sounding board. And I think that's also how we ended up together.'cause we just all had very similar ideas about what we like doing and we just thought it would be great. And it was really great for, you know, a long time. So,

Its Not Weird if It Works

Russel 25:32

well, I mean, one, just to have a situation, to have a separate and hear a good split is always a good story looking and always comes back to what we want. But this idea that. Growth can happen to us, which can feel more outta control and probably sometimes that need to pull back. And you know, I think certainly companies that handle growth, like you have to put the brakes on at certain periods to make sure that you can keep up with that and that it doesn't go off the rails for you But then that it is okay sometimes to either scale back. Put the brakes on, do what it's need to. Mm-hmm. And sometimes it's okay to reset too, which, you end up deciding to do. Going back to this idea of just, you know, if it's not apparent at this point, quality of life being important to you, given all the lessons you've learned in business, like how do you take care of you? What do you do for you to stay grounded and healthy?

Lysa 26:20

Um, so I'm really into meditation and manifestation. So, um, you know, what does that entail When I go through hard times, I go and I do inner work, a lot of meditating, a lot of like journaling, like thinking about what you wanna do. I've had a lot of incidences in my life over the last five or 10 years where I had to, pick myself up off the ground. And so. I think that I really got into this whole thing about writing and journaling and thinking about what I wanted my life to be picturing it to be that way. And like things would just come to me and I have another friend when we get together, she says, I was like, I'm having a bad week. Like, I need you time.'cause whenever we get together, something magic happens. So, I dunno, she helped me realize that, I had magic and I could make it happen. And I've been making it happen ever since. But you know, I do take care of myself. I like to walk a lot alone with my dog. I do like to meditate and I do like to do manifestation exercises, stuff like that. So that's pretty much what I do for myself mentally. Um, but for fun, I like to go to a lot of concerts.

Russel 27:31

What was the last concert you went to?

Lysa 27:33

Um, the last big concert I went to was Mumford and Sons in Copenhagen.

Russel 27:37

Oh, okay. Well, that's exciting.

Lysa 27:39

Yeah. I went to visit my daughter when she was overseas, so we went to see Mumford and Sons. That was fun.

Russel 27:45

That would be fun.

Lysa 27:46

Yeah.

Russel 27:46

Well, I'm sure I've done meditative like exercises before, but as someone that maybe is not ingrained in the practice, where does someone start or what does that look like?

Lysa 27:56

So when I was going through a really tough time,'cause I worked with this friend, she's an astrologer, but she does like a lot of meditation and stuff like that. I don't really do the astrology side, but she gave me exercises to do every day to help me change my mindset because you can get into a negative mindset and your negative mindset just feeds off your negative mindset. So when you're going through something difficult and you're focusing on that, then you're like making it happen because you're not. Rising above it. So she had some really great exercises that I did, and the hardest one I did, she said, every day in the morning before you wake up, take 10 minutes, go sit in a chair or lay in bed, whatever, and picture what your perfect day looks like. Like, what does your perfect day look like today? It was the hardest exercise really to do because like I didn't even know what my perfect day looked like. You know? I really had to think about it. And she was very detailed about it. Like what does it feel like when you get out of bed? Is the sun shining on your face or your feet touching the floor? How does it feel? And I had this'cause I was going through a tough time with. One of my kids and you know, I was really worried about her and it was a long journey. And so I would get up every day and I would do my little meditation and part of it was coming downstairs and she would be downstairs with me. This is in my thinking of my perfect day. And we would be having coffee together and having breakfast together, and then we'd go off and do our day. So like I did that for I wanna say a couple of years, you know? And finally that happened and like, you know, so just little things and then you change what you're manifesting. That's not the exercise everybody has to do. But that was one of the ones that I had to do to get my mind to think more in reality. Yeah. Um, and then, you know, most of it is more short meditation. And then if I do long meditation, just like clearing my mind, thinking about ideas and different stuff like that. And just, it's not even talking about it a lot, but you just start to see things happen and you start to see the universe answer your kind of like where you are and what you need. We have mantras, we do, like sometimes when I'm meditating at night, I'll be like, dear universe, show me a surprise tomorrow, or give me a sign. And like, I don't know if it's real or not, but it definitely helps me. Get to where I need to go and it's definitely made a big change in my life. Like I feel like I'm such a positive person now. The negative side of me is like gone. Oh. And so I don't know if it's like brain training or like what it is, but um, I follow Dr. Joe Dispenza if anybody's ever interested in some brain healing or a brain changing. And it also helps with your creative process'cause it kind of clears your brain and you can start off the day with a clear head. So. That's that practice. Well, and if I could do it full time, I would,

Russel 30:48

well, you never know. Maybe you can, maybe that needs to be your perfect day. Um, but I, I always say it's not weird if it works. And I'm actually a big believer as well. It just made me think as you were describing that. I mean, they talk about all the times and, it was a decently high level athlete at one point. And, you know, they talk about visualization and everything to perform at an immaculately high level. And I always ask myself sometimes, how do I, I bring more of that. Approach that I was taking to athletic performance, to business performance and, and that reminds me and reinforces I should do that. And I couldn't agree more as well of just the idea that, you know, when I think of times in the business when I was burnt out or you know, all around negative mindset, I can look back now. No, I was making bad decisions on top of bad decisions because of just my framing and perspective.

Lysa 31:38

And you need to be around people that can bring that positive side of you out too. So, you know, I also was surrounded by some negative people that, you know, you don't realize that that energy has an effect on you. And so like my friends are so funny'cause ever since I was like in college or high school, I've always been lucky. I hate to say it, but I've always been lucky and like I would always win these contests and my mother would be bringing me to these. Places. I won a shopping spree one time in another province and we had to go there and go shopping. So my friends always say, I have a horseshoe up my ass. I mean, I haven't always had good luck, but it is kind of funny that people do see it. Like, you know, things will just happen or we'll be talking about something and then the next day that will happen. So it is so important, you know, what you say, what you talk about, what you think about, because I don't know what the power is, but it hears you.

Russel 32:35

Yeah. Yeah. Well I think it always just proves the brain is far more powerful and it's got accessibility beyond our conscious thoughts. And you know, if you just go back as the simples, right? The red car theory, if you buy a red car, you see red cars. And if anyone's questioning any level of mystique about it, it's all makes perfect sense. And I appreciate you reinforcing that and, and giving us a little more technique about. How we can manifest that. So next time the Mega Millions gets up above a billion, I'm gonna come find you and I'm gonna go with you to get my ticket. Is what I'm, the

Lysa 33:07

secret is I don't manifest money.

Russel 33:10

Also a big believer of that too, that, um,

Lysa 33:13

you can, lots of people do, but, um, but the book by Joe Dispenza is called Becoming Supernatural. That was the one. I really liked and I really resonated with.

Russel 33:21

Yeah.

Lysa 33:22

cause it is about that you are superpower, you know, you have these superpowers and you don't know. So if anybody's like looking for a book that's like a great book. Yeah, I love it. I listened to it over and over.

Born or Made?

Russel 33:31

Well I would reinforce that as well. I mean, I think, you know, the time period where in my own business journey wasn't doing so well was when was worried about money. And the time it was doing as well when I was worried about the value that we were creating or not creating. And so yes, for the folks who'll manifest the value you will create and the money will follow. Great add on to all of that. So thank you for sharing that. Well been a fascinating conversation. So I've got one last big question for you that I'm just curious your answer to. Are entrepreneurs born or are they made?

Lysa 34:03

I think they're born

Russel 34:04

do tell.

Lysa 34:05

I don't know. You just know, like even people I know, like you can just tell who the entrepreneurs are and who aren't. So I do think it's a little bit of a born thing when they also do say people who have like neurodiverse qualities end up being entrepreneurs. So it could be that. But I definitely think it's a natural instinct to wanna, be your own boss and be independent and all that stuff.

Russel 34:30

Fascinating. Well love a good born answer. Thank you for sharing that. If people wanna know more about ladybug's agency, where can they go?

Lysa 34:38

Ladybugs with a z.com. Don't go to s

Russel 34:42

What is s What is ladybugs with an s

Lysa 34:45

com? You, you don't wanna know. Oh,

Russel 34:46

okay. You

Lysa 34:46

can look it up.

Russel 34:47

Oh, we're there. You, you can tell

Lysa 34:47

me.

Russel 34:48

No.

Lysa 34:48

I dunno if it's what it used to be, but uh, yeah, no, it's ladybugs with a z.com and we're in Boston,

Russel 34:55

awesome. Well, thank you so much, Lisa, for taking the time today to talk about the power of being empathy driven and human driven and iteration and innovation within your business. And then just a really great lesson on the power of meditation and manifestation, and really appreciate you taking the time to share that with us.

Lysa 35:14

Yeah. I appreciate you listening to me

Russel 35:17

gladly all any day. Thank you for listening to an agency story podcast where every story helps you write your own, subscribe, share, and join us again for more real stories, lessons learned, and breakthroughs ahead. What's next? You'll want to visit an agency story.com/podcast and follow us on Instagram at an agency story for the latest updates.

Lysa 35:42

Um, well, yeah, I kind of have a weird story, but, um, one time I was just kind of questioning my value, like when I was leaving my other agency, I was still there. This was like probably maybe eight months before I left, and I was just like, universe, I just wanna be recognized for like, all my work. Like, it doesn't have to be money, just like some kind of recognition. Like this is just, I don't know, I didn't really know, but I was just feel like I made my mark, you know, and I'm ready to. Be recognized and just that was kind of like,'cause I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know if I wanted to start over. I didn't know if I wanted to get a job, but I was like, I just want some recognition bro. And like a couple days later I got the most random call from the Boston Business Journal. And they asked me to be on the cover and to feature my business, uh, in their annual copy of Book of Lists. So like this goes out to all the business leaders in Boston and you have to buy it. It's like$20. So I was in that with a bunch of other entrepreneurs and it was immigrants, so it was all people from other countries and they did like a three page spread. Like, I'm not even kidding. It's beautiful. And so that is like. A manifestation story. And that's even before I even started practicing it. Um, a lot. But that's kind of a crazy thing that happened to me.

Russel 36:53

Proof, proof is now in

Lysa 36:54

the pudding outta nowhere. Like just outta nowhere.

Russel 36:57

Yeah, that's, wow.

Lysa 36:59

I, it's me.

Russel 37:02

It's funny, just even thinking about, talking about negative mindset, if you not manifested that and that call would came, would you might have just been like, ah, no, that's not something I'm gonna pursue or be interested in. But since you've thought about it, that you're far more willing to say yes. Interesting.

Lysa 37:15

That was great.