Beyond the Narrative: Reclaiming Your Leadership Identity & Living with Purpose

This is the leadership story that almost didn't happen. In this episode, host Lemon Price shares why her success was never built on someone else's support, and why women in leadership need to stop letting other people write their narratives.

A vulnerable deep-dive into building credibility on your own terms, reclaiming your voice, and why living with purpose means refusing to shrink. This is Well Lived Society's origin story.

We're talking about women's leadership, reputation, and intentional living. Not as aesthetic goals, but as a standard you build from the inside out. Because how you steward your home, your time, and your relationships is the same skill set that gets you a seat at a city council meeting, a board room, or a dinner with congressmen.

In this episode:

• Why the podcast went silent — and the outside narrative that caused it
• The shift from thinking in content to thinking in systems
• Why personal standards are a leadership skill
• What Well Lived Society is here to do

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This podcast is for the woman who is done consuming and ready to build — her influence, her reputation, and a life that reflects her own vision and standards.

Topics: women's leadership development, intentional living, personal growth, reputation building, community impact, nonprofit leadership, women's empowerment, purpose-driven living

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

But my friend, it has been a long time, hasn't it? And I'm really excited because this podcast is not what it used to be. And honestly, it couldn't be. But over the last year, I've changed how I think, how I live, and what I actually care about building. So this won't be a relaunch at all. It is more of me just being honest about what has transpired lately and how we kind of got here. So some of you listen to this podcast for years. I'm talking this podcast has existed now for three years as Milk and Honey. Some of you found me when it became the Supported Wife Society. And I really want to talk about that because I think that it matters a ton. The last name came from a place of outside influence. It was not my own conviction. Last summer I hired a coach who told me the primary reason I was successful was because of my husband's support. And I had to sit with that for a little bit because yes, I have support and I am grateful for that. And I built a whole coaching program around it. It still exists. I mean, I don't actively coach in it anymore. It just the modules exist. If you ever want them, just shoot me a message. I don't know. You can have them for like 50 bucks, 100 bucks, something like that. Um there's a lot of training in there and it's good training. But I felt like I had to dissect my marriage. And I also had to sit with the fact that they said the only reason that I was successful, the only reason I could volunteer and show up to these events and do the things that I'm doing is because I had a supported husband. And again, I'm so grateful for Glenn and and everything, but support is not the source, right? It's not the reason I have vision or standards or the drive to build something. And so I let someone else's narrative shape how I showed up. And I frankly am not interested. And that's why there were no episodes for months because it wasn't good. It didn't feel like me. It didn't feel like what I had started doing. Milk and honey started as a place to talk about leadership for women. And it was really interesting to sit in this place where I mean, it was not just like one, it was like a panel of coaches who told me that my success was based upon my husband. Um, and these were all very successful women in their own right. It felt like I was downplaying who I am a little bit. And it was, it just didn't feel good to me. It didn't feel right. And so really, I had to take a step back out of integrity, out of just out of alignment. I couldn't build something that didn't feel good to me. And so I really just stopped letting other people define the frame. And I started really dissecting my own and really thinking about my own and thinking about this vision that God gave me February of 2025. I was not feeling aligned with a company I was a part of. I felt like I had lost myself, I had lost my voice, I had I had lost who I truly was. And God gave me this vision. And when I took that vision to a coach, told me it was the dumbest thing ever. And last, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting on a call with my podcast coach and um my friend who helps Pinterest. And I was just like venting about this sort of situation and how frustrating it was. And you know, here I'm doing really cool things. So if you guys don't follow me on social media yet, you should. I'm a really fun time. Um, but I'm in graduate school right now, getting my master's in public administration and a graduate certificate in nonprofit leadership and management, all those kind of fun things. And this the college offered me a job as a research assistant, so which is really cool. I just want to say, like, I'm not paying to go to school, and they're paying me actually to go to school. So I'm literally getting a degree for free, and it is, I'm actually making money to get a degree, which is wild. Um, but my advisor and I are doing research right now. We're looking at publishing multiple papers in in a matter of one semester on subjects that don't exist yet, like on research that hasn't been done yet. There's solutions to the problem already happening, but nobody's quantified and done their research on it. And we are. So I say all that to say, like, none of that came from my husband. Okay. And so I stopped sort of thinking in content and started thinking in systems, right? I started paying attention to how people are building influence and how they're perceived and what creates long-term impact. And I've always been told that my number one skill set is networking. They're like, I don't understand how you're so good at just meeting very influential people and building relationships with them like instantaneously. They're like, that is a skill that you seem to have. And it's afforded me a lot of opportunity. But the thing is, it wasn't just, it's not just the conversations. I have to back up the work that I say I'm capable of doing. And so I realized when I looked at what's actually happening in the world and the world outside of social media, because I've really been kind of off of it. Right. This is, it's not about posting more. It's about building something that means something on my own terms. So, welcome to the Well Lived Society. What we're going to talk about is leadership and reputation and intentional living, and not as ideas, but as something you actually live out in your day-to-day life. Because my thought and feeling is how you steward your home is how you're going to steward everything else, right? So, how you manage your time, how you take care of your space, how you host, how you show up, how you communicate. That is not separate from leadership. I think it is leadership. And that standard, it comes from inside of you, not necessarily who's next to you. Now, I do think that being in the room with certain people helps, but I'm just gonna be really honest. Like I host a pretty fancy Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm breaking out the real silver, we're using the fancy china. I have all of the napkin rings and you know, the fancy tablecloths, and we're doing place settings, and it's I've got apps out. I've got, you know, like I'm I'm hosting. I'm like truly hosting. Guess what? Nobody in my immediate family should like that's not their normal. So I could and that's not like a dig at them. It's just not, it's just out there, and they're not formal, like fancy people. I am more formal and I used to feel bad about that, but I don't anymore. And so it's really interesting because the first time I like really hosted in our home, everybody was like, Oh, like I didn't realize it was so like fancy, you know. But now they come to expect it, right? Their standards raised because my standards were fine. I did not change who I am, I did not change what matters to me. Hosting to me is a leadership skill. Knowing which fork to use at a dinner, I had dinner in January with a bunch of congressmen. Guess what? You better know how to use the play setting. You better know some proper etiquette. And etiquette's something I've always been passionate about. I just found a book the other couple of weeks ago. We were like cleaning out the garage, and I have Tiffany's table manners. And I think I got that book like 15 years ago, maybe. Etiquette matters to me. And to me, that's leadership. And again, that's how you show up in your home, even when nobody's around. It's how you're leading yourself, how you're leading the people around you. And then what are you doing with the influence, with the connections you're making, with the work you're doing? So I'm not gonna give you surface level routines or aesthetic advice. I care about why you're doing what you're doing. I care about whether you actually understand the systems you're participating in, and then what you're choosing to do about them. Because I have seen fair sand what happens when you outsource your vision to somebody else's opinion. And I'm not interested in that for myself or for you. And so every week we're gonna take an idea. I'm gonna break down the problem. I'm gonna talk about what's actually going on underneath of it, and then look at what it means to live differently. So this is for the woman who knows she's capable and she's not interested in just consuming information. You're not gonna, you know, favorite a podcast or a TikTok video and say, I'll do that later. Right. You want to do something with what you've learned to build something, to lead, to create a life that reflects your standards and not someone else's version of you. You want to make an impact in your community. You're seeing things in your community that probably irritate you right now and you want to do something about it. But you don't know what it's like to go to a city council meeting or to have sit-down conversations with councilmen or congressmen or your school board. I mean, this is stuff I I have experience in in all of it. What is it like to work with a nonprofit? How do you get involved in a nonprofit? How do you get a board seat on a nonprofit? All things that I can teach you and show you. And then also, how do you have a life that feels meaningful and impactful to you? What sort of legacy are you creating? That's what I want to do here. And so if you're someone who wants to think more deeply and live more intentionally and build something that lasts, then you're in the right place. I want to welcome you to the well-lived society. And if you're not already following me on social media, go follow me, go be friends. I'm on Instagram at the Lemon Price. Um, my Substack is linked below for you. So you guys can grab the Substack or the yeah, go check out Substack. I put out a free article every week. And then I also put out a paid one every week. Um, if you were to do the paid one, it comes with like monthly coaching calls and like networking and all kinds of fun stuff um for cheap. It's like 25 bucks. So, anyway, I'm so excited that you're here. Thank you for just giving me grace and space. It's really been interesting to watch people continually coming back to this podcast to learn about leadership development and just to have these conversations. And so I truly, truly want to thank you for allowing me to show up in this capacity. And I will see you next week.

unknown 10:32

Bye.