Against All Odds | Her Journey to Motherhood | Success Redefined Podcast

In this episode of Success Redefined, Ms Bella St John speaks with Amy Lennius, who discusses the complexities of women's emotional states and shares her personal motherhood journey. This conversation offers insights into her healing journey and how she experienced a significant identity shift. It's a powerful example of self improvement and personal development through a major mindset shift.

Amy Lenius is the Director of Group Coaching at Next Level University, Professional Speaker, and Next Level Certified Personal Development & Success Coach.
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MS BELLA ST JOHN
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Women need so much permission to crush it one week and feel like a potato the next, you know?

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Imagine being told as a teenager that you'd likely never have children. Only to go on and have two amazing children and rebuild an entire new self-identity in the process. My guest today is Amy Lennius, Director of Group Coaching at Next Level University. So let's go join the conversation. Okay, so for you though, when you were growing up, what did you think success was going to be like?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Oh, when I was growing up, I don't, I actually didn't have much thoughts of career and finances. To me, success was going to be okay, how what is my home going to look like? How many kids am I going to have? What's my husband going to be like? I was very family driven and very family-oriented. And that was a part of my dialogue until two major things happened in my teenage years in high school. One, on career day, they said, okay, Amy, what do you want to be when you grow up? We want to write this whole project on it. We're going to do interviews. It's going to be amazing. I was like, oh, I want to be a mom. And they're like, no, you can't, you can't write that down. That's not, that's not a career. That's not how you're going to be successful in life. I was like, ugh. Well, I don't know then, because that's the only thing I had ever really thought about was motherhood and being a mom. And so I wrote down teacher. That was the next thing I could think of working with kids and being an educator. And went around my high school and interviewed a lot of the teachers that I enjoyed and that I liked. And they all said, Don't do it. Don't become a teacher. It's terrible. I was like, oh. Okay, then I got the project done, made something up, whatever. And didn't even then still feel tied to any kind of dream, career, or that kind of version of success. And then I also, in my teenage years, I got really sick. I got really sick. I got diagnosed with endometriosis, which is a female-driven hormonal condition. And a huge part of that that a lot of women deal with is infertility. And I was told really early on that I would struggle to have children. So I went into adulthood being so confused about what it is that I really wanted to do in life to feel successful. And success to me was never tied to career and monetary. Now I have more of that lens now because I deeply believe in holistic success. I've been able to find my version of success, meaning health, wealth, quality of life, and love. And mixing all of those together into an abundant holistic version of success. But back then it was devastating for me because being told I couldn't have kids and me taking that in as the only kind of future thing I had pictured as far as goals. That was really devastating. But through my early 20s and things, I was able to go to school. I went to school for anatomy and physiology and massage therapy and started with that and worked with women's health and pelvic balancing and pre- and postnatal care. And I really loved what I was doing at the time. But I was also working on healing myself. I went from being really sick to going through that decade of my 20s healing more and more each time, being able to have two beautiful children. And now so I feel like the evolution of success for me has been just that quite the evolution. But initially it was very simplistic, and I did reach that goal through a lot of emotional turmoil and physical care. But yeah, it's Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

I was going to that's what I was about to say. It did actually come full circle for you. A couple of uh recollections from mine on that when you're talking about the careers day. I remember on mine and we had to fill out these forms, you know, to be aptitude tests basically. And I seriously, I remember going back into that meeting with the careers advisor and thinking whatever she told me that I should could do, that's what I would do and be. Because I, you know, I was like, okay, well, what what? And so I went into the meeting and she said, well, based on this, you can pretty much turn your hand to anything. And I walked out and went, well, now what do I do? And for me as well, I for me, I'd always thought that I would have a child. The the whole multiple children think that never no, I wasn't no, but I always thought that I would have one. And when I was a teenager, I was told that because of some uh physical conditions that I have more spinal related that I wouldn't be able to have children, or if I did, um it may either kill me or make me a paraplegic. So it was like, hmm, okay, all right, new direction. So I really resonate with you on both of those. So it's yeah, it's an interesting journey. But for me, I had decided though just you know, success for me growing up was I was going to be a princess. That was just, yeah, absolutely. That was yeah, that one I've not quite yet achieved, but you know, you never know. There's there's still time. There's still time. So I mean, yeah, not there is a title, but we can bring an energy out of it, we can embody that. And I I I do, but believe me, and I won't even share some of the the things that my friends go. Oh, you're such a princess. So tell me a little bit more about your journey then. So you have your two beautiful children. Pick me up from there about what life looks like.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

So in my 20s, building a massage therapy career, I had my children, my two beautiful boys. They're 13 and 11 now. And I started to shift into what it is I was doing. So during that decade, I learned a lot about the internal environment and how it all works together and how we don't need to just put our physical symptoms into a box of just this one piece. For me, it was a bunk uterus, basically. But it was about so much more than that. It was about liver health, gut function, stress reduction. And I was really doing a lot for my internal environment. And it got introduced to me that your external environment is also just as important. So that was my next layer of healing was okay, well, let's assess my external environment. What is causing me stress? What's causing me physical stress as far as the products I'm using, the places I'm going, the difference, and all of that. And I fell into this wonderful space of natural wellness. And I got to go and be a part of some incredible rooms where I ended up speaking into women's lives about natural wellness and holistic healing for their hormones and what that can look like. And then it went from rooms to stages, stages to these big amazing rooms, and and and to creating my own program called the Peaceful Period Project, where I was teaching women about their cyclical nature and stress reduction and all of these really beautiful things, basically empowering women with information and what they can do with it. And I had a podcast for a little while with a wonderful co-host, and then and then on my own, and I just kept falling into these just this next align step, this next align step and building upon it and being offered these incredible opportunities. And one of them was with Next Level University, which is where I have found my home now, which feels like a jump, but it connects. So this is a company that was created by two really incredible men, actually. And I had fallen in love with their podcast and their mission. So as I had fallen in love with the word holistic based on my healing journey. So holistic meaning everything affects everything else. Here's these two guys talking about it from a sense of self-improvement and success. Holistic self-improvement and success, not just money, not just it was amazing. And so I fell in love with listening to their podcast. I did all of their free things that they offered in their community, growth-oriented book club. It was amazing. And ended up being a client. They produced my podcast and things for a while. And I was coaching with Alan. He's our CEO, computer engineer, business major, genius, and he was helping me with my stuff. And I sent him a keynote that I had done one day because he's a fellow public speaker as well. And I wanted some just really genuine, authentic feedback. He loved it. And he said, you know what? Why would you feel about coming down to the States? I'm in Canada. Come down to the States and MC our live event. We're doing a full day dedicated to personal development. We would love to have you come down. You're such a you know aligned member of our community. We love everything that you do in the world. Come down, come join us. I was like, oh okay. I don't know how to do that. Let me think about that. Yes. And I'll figure it out. Exactly. I'm gonna MC something. So I went and I I spent the day with them. I emceed, got to speak a little bit in the morning and and just connect with these two guys and their team and what they were doing and building. And I just fell in love with everything that they were doing. And and I just kind of kept becoming more integrated into the company and into the business and into what they were doing, and felt so supported and celebrated and bringing in everything I was already doing because these men had created a community of really heart-driven women. And so everything I still do, everything we do now is through the lens of personal development and your version of success. And I get to coach on that. I get to co-facilitate group coaching with the guys. We do a lot of really incredible things behind the scenes here, but it's been so supportive for me to bring all of my work into that as well. I can't help but talk to my female clients about their cyclical nature when we're talking about habit tracking and staying consistent and all of these things because they are such cyclical beings and women need so much permission to crush it one week and feel like a potato the next, you know? It's very, very natural. And so it's that. So now I've found what I deeply know is my forever home with next level university. And we are dedicated to helping people find their version of success through personal development, through things like habit tracking, consistency, but also really diving into that very foundational internal work. I do a lot of work with self-belief, self-worth, core wounds. It's it's a lot of fun. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

So give us a, for instance, of one of the people that you've worked with, not naming or you know, any uh any identifiers, but so that something somebody who's watching or listening to this has an idea of what does that journey look like? Because I think for a lot of people, when particularly with this podcast, we're talking about success redefined, you know, that it's not just what we used to think that success was in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, even the early 2000s. You know, success now, most people really do consider it to be something completely different from what it was. And so even that mind shift is a real journey. And so take us through the journey that some of your clients go through.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Sure, yeah, and it is a mind shift. It's a completely it's like what an evolution of success, even. Yeah. Before it used to be back in the day, it used to be the white picket fence and the very manicured lawn and the career, and then it turned into double careers in your household. And there's just been so many things. And so that actually is the beginning of the foundational worth. Is what do you work? Is what do you want your life to look like? What do you want it to feel like? What does success mean to you in these categories? Like, yes, let's look at finances and your monetary goals and things because that is so important. But what about your quality of life? What does that look like for you? What about your health? What about your relationships with yourself and others, your children, your family, your spouse, anything like that? And how can we bring that all together into one big clear vision? And here's the key point that is specifically yours. Because so many of us have those older views or have those projected onto us, or we grew up in it, or all of the above, really. And especially as women, we still get so much projected onto us as far as this is what makes a successful woman, this is what makes a valuable woman. And it's typically very based in what we can do and who we are for others. And so with my female clients, it's really a beautiful work to help them go inward. Yeah and let them design that for themselves. And it is, it's a very unique journey, it's a very individual journey. I deeply believe in not coaching people all the same. Because everyone is very different. I always use the example. If you talk to someone who has high self-belief, they really believe in their ability to create external outcome. They believe they're valuable, they have a lot of just self-belief, that external efficacy. And when you're talking to them, it's a different language than you're talking to someone who has really low self-belief. They actually deeply struggle to believe that they can create results in the life that they want. They struggle to believe that they're of value and things. And so those are two different languages right there. And so it is very much based on the individual, but it is it's that discovery of the individual. What beliefs are yours? What aren't? Which ones do we want to bring into this vision? What is your level of self-belief? What is your level of self-worth? How can we bring those up in a way that makes sense to you? And your ability to be consistent is huge. We work in with that. And so, I mean, right now I'm working with this wonderful woman. She's got two really young kids at home, and her goal right now basically is self-worth. It's how can I take care of myself better and represent myself better? So I am modeling for my children, especially her daughter, what that looks like. And so we started, it was funny, she came in with monetary goals, and now it's all personal. It's all personal. So I think there's something really special to be said, and we say this all the time in Exileville University. You come in with what you think you want, and we help you discover what you need.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah. And also a lot of people they they have a bit of a challenge, even with that first part. What do I really want? And then you have the issue of, well, and then what if you actually get it? Because I I remember that moment. I was actually just earlier today uh talking, talking about this with somebody when I, you know that that scene in the movie where the woman gets off the private plane and the the chauffeur's on the tarmac and there's the Louis luggage, and I lived that moment a whole bunch of years ago. And I remember I sat in that limo and I basically swore under my breath because I had this moment of now what? Because I hadn't done the internal work at that point. I mean, I'd done a lot of it, don't get, don't get me wrong. I I remember being being young and my very the very first book that I came across that was self-development um by Irene Kastorla. I don't remember what it was called, but at the end of each chapter, she had a winner's column and a loser's column. Now, today we go, uh really, but then it was, yeah, we're talking the 80s. And and but I I started out where I actually had to put a piece of paper over the winner's column because I felt nauseous even looking at it. It I could not relate to that at all. And so to go from that to this movie moment and then going, okay, well, I've done all of this other work, but I obviously have missed so much in that journey. I need to do some more, I need to do some more self-reflection, I need to really look, look and redefine what true success means to me, because it's not the dollars. I've, you know, lost it all a couple of times due to illness and and very not so great choice in a business partner, but that's a whole other story. But it it really does come down to that. It's that journey that you mentioned. So for somebody who's for us to wrap up, for somebody who's watching this or listening to this podcast, and they've really resonated with what you've said and the journey that you've been on and the journey that you take people through, and they're looking to redefine success for themselves. Maybe they haven't even yet come up with a definition of success, but they're looking for that. What are some suggestions that you can give to them?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Yeah, categorize it. I love that story you just shared, by the way. That was amazing. It's such a such a great example of you you got something that maybe wasn't fully aligned for you, or maybe wasn't fully in what makes you fulfilled. And it was very external versus the internal game because it's such a beautiful example. Thank you for sharing that. I loved that so much. So I I think it's really important to put it into categories. I really do. And some simple categories that are very macro are your health. What do you want that to look like? How do you want to feel? It is definitely monetary. Your wealth, what does that look like now? What do you want to look like in one, two, five, ten years? And your quality of life. We want to make sure you're still doing the things that feel good along the way, right? Now it depends. Some people are very results driven, and some people are very journey emotionally driven. They're experience driven. That's the word I'm looking for. And so I'm actually in that second bucket. I'm very extreme experience driven. So the journey along the way needs to make sense to me. I'm not just mindlessly going to the result. And vice versa, when we work with someone who's just going for the result, we need to remind them, okay, but there's things that need to happen every day for you to be able to sustainably get there. You don't necessarily need everyone says, oh, value the journey. You need to fall in love with the journey. The people who are results driven, they hate hearing that. You're not speaking their language anymore. You don't accept that about yourself, right? There's so many self-awareness pieces along the way that you can just learn to accept about yourself instead of not trying to be pushed into this other bucket. If you're results driven, that's amazing. Push for the result. But we do need to make sure that it's sustainable in your day-to-day to actually get the result. Yeah. Now I need the quality of life along the way. Knowing that about myself has allowed me to live in my version of success and can keep continuing to get it. And I have help with the results part. I like being coached and mentored into okay, how do we visualize the result? How do we decide what this is going to be? I'm like, yeah, but like, what are we doing today? So what bucket are you? Right. It's self-awareness. So categorize what those things look like. Health, wealth, your quality of life. What do you want to experience, feel, and do every day? And love. It's really, really important. It's we like to think that all of these things are separate, and that's just such a mistake. Your your career is not separate from your home life. Your home life is not separate from your relationships and the things that you do. And so it's that. Categorize it. What do you want that to look like? And as you come up with these things, say, is this mine? Does this feel good? Is this mine? Or am I, you know, projecting what my parents would have said or wanted for me, or what society wants for me or would project onto me right now. And then a really great place to start is uncovering your core values. So even the success that you had created that might have been in conflict with a true core value of yours. You're sitting there like, why doesn't this feel right? Why doesn't this feel amazing? It's like a person who creates this whole brick and mortar business, and then they discover that their core value is freedom of movement. Well now you're stuck in this one place. This is why it doesn't feel right. And so understanding your core values is such a great place to start. And you can do this, you can Google core value lists, you can look up Brene Brown has a great one. Brene Brown core value list. Go through, highlight a bunch. Which ones really resonate with you? Now, if you're like me, you're gonna have 30 at least. I find women we love to love a lot of things, and we're very capable of doing and being a lot of things. And so, you know, take your 30 and start grouping them together into groups that make sense because you'll see a lot of them have a through line of oh, this this all makes sense in this category, these all go together here, and then break those groups down into one word. So when I did this exercise, I had a lot that would fall under the word freedom to me. So I categorized them in freedom, right? Freedom, next one was love. It was all about leading with love and and being in love and family-oriented and these kind of things, and then then the next one was growth, just growing myself, growing others, leading a life of growth. They all categorized into that. So I was able to title them myself in a word that makes sense to me because it is for me, about me. Freedom, love, and growth. And if I had to pick a fourth, but I like people to have three, it is integrity. There were a few little stragglers that I would put under the word integrity. But now that you have that, you have this filter. You have this filter now for everything in your life, and you can look back even and say, Okay, here's an example of something that I thought would make a lot of sense and feel really good and didn't. Why? Oh, but it wasn't a part of my core values. It should have made sense, but it didn't because that's not who I am. And you can now live your life through that lens. Is this going to be with, for, optimized for my core value or not? And try and let those other things go. And you start to see how fulfilled and more passionate, purposeful you become. It's really, really amazing. And again, I think self-awareness really is a superpower, and that's just a small piece of that is your core values.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

I love that. And the work that I do with clients is very similar to that and comes back to you know, my statement around success, because success isn't now doing more, being more, and having more and more and more. It's doing what makes your heart sing. And the values work that you're talking about is so identified with working out what makes your heart sing, but then doing it in a way that makes your bank account happy as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Yeah, we call that passion, purpose, and profit. Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

I love it. All right, my deling, we need to leave it there. All of Amy's details are in the description. So please reach out to her for some additional support. And thank you so much for being with me today.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Ah, thank you so much for this just invigorating conversation. I feel so energized. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Back at your delling and talks in