LeeAnne Ruff
LeeAnne Ruff built an 80,000-person sales team at Beachbody, then spent the back half of her career building something almost opposite: rooms where nobody has to perform to belong. She’s the founder of ADK Woman, Authentic, Dynamic, Kind, and the creator of The Room, The Exhale, and Friend Working. Her own story starts before she was ready for it: born premature, abandoned, in foster care, then adopted. Everything she does now traces back to that beginning.
LeeAnne Ruff has walked onto a stage at the MGM Grand and spoken to 25,000 people without blinking. She built one of the most successful direct-sales teams in the country before social media existed, helped grow a company's coach network into the hundreds of thousands, and later ran events and training for a sales force of 80,000 people across 17 countries. From the outside, she’d figured it out a long time ago.
None of that started with a plan. It started in a hospital, in the first days of her life. She weighed under five pounds and was abandoned. Foster care came next, then adoption. The drive that came out of it, to perform, to never give anyone a reason to leave again, ran her whole life before she had language for it. She just worked harder than everyone else in the room.
On June 12, 2017, she was offered the head-of-sales role at the height of her career. That same day, she found out her mother had stage four lung cancer. Something gave way. Not all at once. It was the kind of moment where you realize you’ve been running so long you forgot what you were running from, and now you have to stop.
Today, what she builds, she calls scaffolding: ADK Woman, The Room, The Exhale, Friend Working. All of it built on one idea, that most of us have gotten very good at being around people without ever being known by them.
If you’ve been high-functioning and quietly lonely for a while now, and haven’t said that part out loud, this one’s for you. It’s also for anyone who wants to get better at making other people feel known and isn’t sure where to start. Watch the full conversation to hear how LeeAnne gets there.
“It doesn’t matter how you enter the world. It matters how you leave it.”
Key Takeaways
The proof that you're resilient already exists. Most people just haven't credited it yet. Every hard thing you already got through counts, whether you called it resilience at the time or not.
What looks like ambition can actually be an old survival pattern running the show. LeeAnne traces her own drive back to infancy: if she was valuable enough, produced enough, nobody would leave again. She didn't see the pattern until after she'd already built an 80,000-person team on it. Worth asking the same question about your own drive.
There's a real gap between being known for what you do and being known for who you are. Most professional settings reward the first and rarely touch the second.
Being interested in someone lowers the exact anxiety that trying to be interesting creates
You are not the failure, you failed doing something. One is an event. The other is a story people tell about themselves.
This one's for anyone who's walked into a room and walked back out just as alone as when they got there. It's also for anyone who wants to get better at making sure other people don't. Watch the full conversation to hear LeeAnne explain how she built her way out of a start nobody would have bet on.
Chapter Summaries
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LeeAnne’s answer: you already have it. Not as a platitude. As a literal read of your own history, every hard thing you got through, every day you didn't know how you'd get through, is proof sitting there unused.
LeeAnne opens the conversation by pointing at what people already survived and asking why they never counted it. Most people wait until they feel resilient before they'll claim the word. She does the opposite: claim it first, from what already happened, the same way you'd list a credential on a resume.
Getting through something once is the evidence. It doesn't need repeating to count.
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LeeAnne was born premature, under five pounds, and abandoned. Foster care came before the adoption, and what came out the other side was someone who worked harder than anyone in the room, always.
She didn't connect that drive to the beginning until much later in life. The math ran quietly: if she was valuable enough, if she produced enough, nobody would leave again. It's how she built an 80,000-person team at Beachbody without knowing what was really powering it. She's direct about the cost: exhaustion mistaken for drive, years spent proving something nobody was asking her to prove.
It's the part of her story she rarely tells in full, and everything she has built since starts here.
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LeeAnne separates two kinds of attention people mix up constantly: being known for what you do, and being known for who you are.
Most professional settings reward the first and barely touch the second. She talks about isolation versus loneliness in her own life. Isolation she values, she can refuel there alone.
Loneliness is different. She says it plainly: this is the loneliest stretch she's ever watched people move through, not despite being more connected than ever, but because of it. Social media adds a performance layer, a curated version of a life, that makes it harder to find each other underneath the highlight reel.
Thirty years of building communities and running teams gave her the same view, over and over: people who look connected in a photo and feel invisible in the room.
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LeeAnne has walked onto a stage at the MGM Grand in front of 25,000 people without a problem. Put her in a room of twenty strangers making small talk, and she says she's terrified. The difference, she explains, is that isolation and loneliness aren't the same feeling. She loves isolation and recharges in it. Loneliness is something else, a different emotion from a different place.
Her workaround for the terrifying rooms: she stopped trying to be interesting and started working at being interested instead, asking one small question, how far away do you live from here, anything to get someone else talking. It trades the pressure of performing for just paying attention to whoever's in front of her.
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On June 12, LeeAnne got a call offering her the head-of-sales role for a company about to launch.
Two hours later, her mother called to say she had stage four lung cancer.
LeeAnne launched the company that August, watched her mother go into hospice that September, and lost her at the end of December. By April she was done, she'd developed PTSD from the loss, not the job, and asked out.
Her employer offered her a leave instead of letting her go. She came back in May and knew by 11 a.m. she wasn't ready, so she stopped for good.
ADK Woman didn't come from a business plan. It came from a women's networking event afterward, 200 women in a room, LeeAnne in the back seat looking at the backs of everyone's heads, thinking someone needs to tell them they'll survive whatever's coming, because nobody told her.
Not long after, she ended up on an Oprah Winfrey program after responding to a question they'd put out.
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SEEN is LeeAnne's framework:
S is seeing yourself first: knowing why you show up the way you do before you try to see anyone else.
E is engaging like a human, using someone's actual name instead of defaulting to small talk.
The second E is establishing rituals, something as small as a Tuesday text rotation to two friends, so noticing people becomes a habit instead of an accident.
N is noticing who's missed, the person standing alone at an event, the cousin nobody's checked on in six months.
LeeAnne grounds it in a Walmart story: a cashier noticed her Rensselaer baseball cap and mentioned she used to live in Troy, in recovery. Weeks later, LeeAnne came back, cap-less, found the same cashier, and brought it up again. The woman lit up. "She was seen," LeeAnne says.
Spread the Word
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About the Guest in this Episode
LeeAnne Ruff is an accomplished speaker, leadership expert, and entrepreneur who has dedicated over 30 years to helping both individuals and organizations achieve excellence. Throughout her career, she has developed innovative frameworks and environments, such as "The Room," "The Exhale," and "Friend Working," specifically designed to foster authentic connection, validation, and inclusion.
She is the founder of ADK Woman, a networking organization that has evolved into a broader philosophy of authentic, dynamic, and kind leadership. Her work centers on moving past performance and creating "scaffolding" for people to be truly seen in their authentic selves.
Connect with LeeAnne:
Website: https://www.adkwoman.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leeanneruff
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Welcome and the power of being seen
0:00
I'm going to you're going to build resilience and you're going to how to build confidence. I believe we already
0:05
are resilient. It's in there and it's like claiming it. It's saying I've
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survived that. I survived my kids being toddlers. I mean, you may think it's nothing, but it's everything. It's
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everything. I survived a nasty breakup. Yeah. While you were working 40 hours a
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week. That's everything.
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What if you are already more capable than you believe? Not someday, not once
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I figure it out, but right now, exactly as you are. That's the power of feeling
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fully seen. And today, we're going to talk about it. I'm so excited for our
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guest today. She's a keynote speaker, a leadership expert, creator of multiple frameworks and environments that pair
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the power of being truly seen with real human connection. And I'm very grateful
1:00
to have experienced it as well. She's brought 30 years of experience helping people and organizations achieve
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excellence and has created events like the room which is what I've been a part of and other ones like the exhale and
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other spaces that help people realize that we can just exist as we are and
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that's okay and there's that inclusion that is real, right? We're not
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performing anything. I'm so excited to announce Leanne Ruff. Welcome.
1:32
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. Listening to you rattle off all those things. It It's kind of I feel like I
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was not intentionally doing this in the beginning. I was just trying to be seen
Meet LeeAnne Ruff
1:44
myself, right? I was trying to feel find my role in the world, you know, with
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humanity. and it's just kind of evolved this all these little things that I have
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created because of a deep need that I have. So, it's interesting to hear you put it all out there like like you did.
2:04
But I'm I'm thrilled to be here and connect with not only you, Jen, but also all your listeners.
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Yes. And I'm excited because we have so many values that align in many different areas. A lot of the things that I hear
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you speak about or even create, right? your actions speak louder
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than words, too. I resonate very heavily with that. And I'm sure my listeners
2:27
here, everyone listening can take something meaningful out of different parts of a conversation, no matter where
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they're at right now. That's what I hope, right? I anytime I set out to do a keynote or a workshop or even my
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networking events like the room or friend working it's I I go in thinking I
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it doesn't matter how many people show up it matters the one person that I can impact today if I if I impact more than
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one then that that's amazing but I am focused on who needs me to speak truth
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to them today. Yeah. And today we're going to be talking a lot about that, feeling seen and what is it like to see someone else?
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Like how can we take action to help other people feel seen? And we'll definitely dive into that, the tangible
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ways, the very the more simple ways we might not think about as well as the real stories of what it might feel like
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not to feel seen. And and maybe anyone listening can resonate with that of if
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you're think back to a time where you didn't feel seen or heard and how did you feel about that? Now, if you think
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about the opposite, how how much alive you felt and willing to help others and able to have the capacity to help
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yourself and others like it's it's like a whole switch. So, how can we have more of those moments in life?
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Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Ready to dive in? Yes. All right, Leanne. So, first we'll
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start at a high level of where you are right now. So, I know you have a lot of passion. So maybe there's something in
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specific or one angle of what's most alive for you in this season. Now
4:02
it's so interesting because I was I was somewhere at an event and someone that
4:09
was introducing me to other people and r was rattling off. Well, she does this and she's got this going on and she's
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doing this and she's doing that and she's got this. It was like five different things. I'm like, "Wow, I do have a lot of different balls in the
Building ADK Woman
4:23
air." And they all actually really make me feel alive just in different ways. I
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think primarily people know me right now for being the founder of ADK Woman, which started out
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as a regional networking organization for women in the aderondex. And you
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know, I happen to live in an area where there's a lot of seclusion and isolation
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be just because of the geography. You know, it's hard to go anywhere around here sometimes because you're weaving
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through mountain roads and, you know, you plop yourself in one little community and then you go to another
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little community and it's just really hard for the professional and amazing
5:03
women that do exist up here in this rural area to connect and find each other. So it was a need that I saw to
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try to build some connection that led me to launch ADK woman which has kind of
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evolved and moved out of ADK standing for aderandac to authentic dynamic and
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kind because so many women are reaching out to me outside of the aderandac park
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saying well can you come here we need some of that what you're creating. So, I'm like, you know, this isn't just for
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a region. This has some legs to actually grow because women are are really
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looking for connection with others. We're looking for that me too moment where you feel
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validated and you feel seen because you're sitting around the the room of with other women. And when I built 80K
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Woman, I I knew going in, you know, I've got 37 years of professional experience,
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12 of which was entrepreneurial. I built a business. Then I moved over onto the
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corporate side and had some very large executive roles on the corporate side,
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primarily in sales. And what I realized was there's such a need for I didn't I
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didn't have it and I wanted to provide it for other women to to to be the scaffolding. I can't can't come into
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your world and fix things for you and and I shouldn't do that. But but women
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can stand around each other and be the scaffolding so that you can continue to build. But if you things start to fall,
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there's women there that are going to be like, "Oh, here here's what I did. I felt that way too, right? It's the
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scaffolding that I think is the is the analogy to what I'm building with ADKwoman.
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So through that umbrella of ADKwoman, there is a signature event that kind of
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grew out of it because I was frustrated. I was like, "All right, I am talking to
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all these women. They're joining ADKwoman, but the connection isn't happening." And what I found was I
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thought I thought, "Oh, women will want to connect online. I mean, I have this whole platform. You can read blogs. You
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can chat back and forth. You know, it's this great little website. But what I realized was people wanted to be seen.
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They wanted to be in a room together. So, I thought, well, you know, as I was building this, I was going to
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networking event after networking event after networking event, and it was so challenging. I thought, well, if I'm
Friend Working: no business cards, just human ones
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going to build a room for for people to come into and feel connection,
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then I'm going to do it differently. So, I created an event called friend working.
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And I I position it that it is not a potluck. You don't bring a thing. And it
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is not an escape room. You can come and go as you please. No battling your way out.
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There are some rules of play where you don't bring a business card unless
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someone asks you for a business card. You are there with your human card,
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you know, and that's kind of how I how the room kind of evolved as well. But the room is absolutely for professional
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women. This the friend working is for purely any woman can come and people
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find me all over social media and Facebook and all that and they just they come. There's women who don't work.
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There's women who are retired. There's women who have part-time jobs. They're not there for business advancement,
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although it does happen. They're there for connection, for friendships, because
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over and over and over I have heard women say it's so hard to become
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friends, to find friends. And although we are the most connected society ever
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with our phones and and internet and all of that, we are the most we are the the
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loneliness. Yeah. Loneliest society ever. And women really feel that. We are highly social
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beings. We used to go to the well in the mornings and gather our water with the other women and you could connect and
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you could talk and you can talk about your family. uh the things going on in your family and the things going on in
9:30
your your society or whatever at the well. Well, we don't we don't have the well anymore. So, that's kind of where
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friendwork came to be. And so, you come into friend working with a a clean slate
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and you everyone belongs. And what we ask is share what what it is you need.
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What do you need today? And that's a hard question for some people and I get it. But the more you
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ask, you start to realize more normalized, too. Yes.
10:01
And it's okay to need something. It's okay. And what's really amazing is there
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will be people who say, "I need a dog sitter. I'm going away for a week. I need a dog sitter." There's people who
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say, "I need someone to clean my house. I need someone to help me navigate the
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emotions of my kids going off to college. I need a therapist. I need
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someone who can help me because I suffer from PTSD. Yeah. You know, like people are very
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vulnerable. It can be going from I need a dog sitter to Yeah. I'm really
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struggling right now. You know, we live in an area where the winters can be very long and very dark. And I have women a
10:44
friend working who they don't do well when they don't have sunshine. Yeah. And then they connect with someone else
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who's there. And then what I see happening is they're setting up a coffee date. They're I I'll be out around town
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and I'll see some of my members having lunch together. And that makes me so joyful because that is the point. The
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whole point of friendwork is to find friends. And it's not, you know, you
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don't need to be my friend, you need to find friends there. Yeah. And so friend working has really
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kind of been the signature event because people invite their friends
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come back and it's no pressure. It's not meant to be an event. I do it every
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month. I'm in four locations and it's like it's not meant to be a stressor like oh my gosh I have to go to front.
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It's meant to be oh I can go tonight. Let's go. Right. Yeah. It's no pressure.
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No pressure. You don't have to perform. I've had women say, "Is it I want to
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just show up in my pajamas someday? Is that okay?" You know, because I I do an evening one at uh 5:30 in the evening
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and some women they come right from work and you know someone like I is that all right if I just come in sweats? I'm like
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you come as you are. That is the point. We're we're not performing here. We're
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just showing up. Right. And so so that's 80Kwoman and we've had we have about 240
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members now. Yeah. You have a couple sponsors. Thanks. Um,
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and it's it's growing. I have my first event down in Glenn's Falls uh tomorrow night.
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There you go. That's so exciting. Yeah, we're doing a friend working down there and it's just kind of creeping
12:28
down into that that area down into the capital district. So, but I have I have
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a someone out in Las Vegas who's like, can I start a chapter? I'm like, "Hang on, let me build the system and then
12:40
I'll pass it along the next phase." Right. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, that's taken a lot of my my time and
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energy in the last It's what 18 months old now that we're building that. And I
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because I have been going to every kind of women in business chamber event that I could get to. I've met some women who
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have then reached out to me and because I have a I have ADK woman but I'm also I also have Bright Side Leadership Group
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which is my consulting business and I had someone reach out and say well that friendworking is great but I want you to
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do something that's speed networking could you do speed networking and I was like I will do speed networking but it's
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going to be my version of it and that's how the room was born and the
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room is just real open organic meaningful full connection in one hour,
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20 people maximum, five five minute rounds with very intentional questions.
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I set it all up with in a number system so everyone comes in and gets a number and then they know who what number
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they're going to find for the five rounds. You know, you participated. Yeah, that's the one I participated in. And I appreciated that because it's
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funny because I I knew of some people in the room, but I've never talked to them. I think I connected with them on
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LinkedIn via their podcast, my podcast, whatever. And I'm like, our our values
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align, like let's chat. And then, you know, life happens and we figure it out. And then we appear in the same room and
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then I happen to be matched with them. So, it's just funny how that worked out cuz like we met, but we met organically
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through the room. Well, and here's the thing. When you participate in the room, you're not saying, "Oh, so what what do
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you do?" Right? It is a much deeper question. You know, what is something you wish other
The Room: strangers into real conversations
14:28
people knew about your industry? Right? There's like the questions are very thoughtful and I do that on purpose
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because you can go anywhere and say, "What is it that you do?" And as soon as you walk in the room with that
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knowledge, people start to think of you as a utility. Yeah. Automated response. Yeah. Oh, she's she's an accountant. I
14:48
don't need an accountant. I you know, Right. You start you make a judgment call. But then when you find out what is
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all about that person, what's behind that career, that profession, you then
15:01
start to think, oh, there are things that I can help with. There are ways that we can contribute to the betterment of our lives, right?
15:08
You mentioned connection many times in the description, too, and your eyes lit up, right? So, it's the human
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connection, but it's also the conversations we're either afraid to have or we don't we're not comfortable
15:20
having like those questions, right? We need help. We're one, we don't like to ask for help. A lot of people don't. And
15:26
let alone talk about the topics that we're struggling with. I mean, I was talking with someone today who who has a
15:33
podcast. He's does a lot of leadership and he talks about menopause in the workplace. A couple of his episodes.
15:38
It's like we don't talk about this. And he has another platform. He's like, I'll never experience this as a man, but I
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say I want to get it out there so other leaders can see it. Like how that's so cool. It's taboo to talk about, but it's
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so powerful. Yeah. I We need to be in rooms that give us permission to be authentic and
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honest. Yes. And I want to get into that in a little bit of why like being honest and
16:06
being seen matters. Like why does it even matter? First of all, I besides the you know it feels good to feel seen. But
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before we do that, I want to do I do want to ask you what's something that
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people might not either know about you or guess about you, especially with your
16:23
career or anything you put out so much, but maybe there's something people might not know.
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Well, what I didn't mention is in, you know, prior to launching ADKwoman is I
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am a professional speaker. I have been speaking on stages all over the country
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talking about transformational leadership and motivational systems and things like that. So I am known more for
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that in in speaking on confidence and all of that than ADK woman. ADK woman is new a
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new passion. But what people don't understand is about me is or what's
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really shocking to them is now I have walked out on a stage at MGM Grand in
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front of 25,000 people without a problem. But I am very shy and I am an
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introvert. Put me in a room of 20 and I don't know anyone and they're already
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talking or you know with each other. I am crazy in my head. I am terrified.
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It takes so much energy because I am I am really truly an introvert. I would prefer to be at home. I love being at
17:32
home because here's the thing. Isolation and loneliness are two different things. And I see this all the time. People talk
17:38
about them interchangeably, but I like to be isolated. I love that. But loneliness is different. It is a
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different emotion. It comes from a different place. So people think, "Oh,
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Leanne is so she's an extrovert. She's on this stage and that stage. She's going to all these events." Yeah. Inside
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I truly am an introvert and I work at it. I work at being more interested than interesting and finding out more about
18:06
people because when you put the pressure on, oh, I've got to be interesting. I've got to be this dynamic person that
18:11
people are attracted to. There's a lot of pressure there. And I just focus on I'm going to be more interested in what
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someone else is doing. So, I'm going to go and ask a question of somebody. Oh, so how far away do you live from here?
The introvert who speaks to 25,000 people
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Right. Like just anything to get the question out there. And it's just because I am terrified. Absolutely
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terrified. And that's really great perspective. And it's it's interesting
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because everyone has these mindsets part of their own mind that we assume they
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don't, right? Especially 25,000. That's amazing. And you, like you mentioned
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earlier, okay, you might assume like they love the spotlight. They they thrive in the spotlight. It gives them
18:53
energy all the time, but maybe their message is so strong. They feel they it's it just comes through them in that
18:59
spotlight, but at the same time, they have to negotiate to themselves of, okay, we're doing this like find those
19:06
happy moments, be interested. I love that because you're not trying to prove anything and it's more natural. You're
19:12
not by being by trying to be interesting. A lot of times we build that barrier up where I'm trying to be
19:18
interesting and I'm not even listening to what they're saying. So, how can I help them truly if I don't actually see
19:24
them or hear them? Right? When you are chasing people, you're when you're trying to prove
19:30
something, you're you're you're chasing them and that takes a lot of energy. Whereas, if you're if you're trying to
19:37
just be more interested in what's going on with with people, you you're not you're not chasing after them. You are
19:44
simply being and that is very freeing and it it is you are making the effort
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to have to make someone else feel seen and when you do that it comes back at
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you in so many ways and so I try to focus on that. And I try to to coach
20:04
people on that. And this is Jen. This isn't just in our networking circles and the women we were connected with on
20:10
LinkedIn. This has to be be addressed in office settings. This has to be
20:16
addressed with teams. All kinds of teams, whether they're professional or sports teams or whatever. Like this is a
20:23
real important concept that I'm trying to educate people on. But but yeah, I
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guess it's circling back to that whole thing like what what people don't know about me is is Yeah, I am I am a student
20:36
of my own self. Yes. And trying to to build and grow like I'm
20:42
helping other people build and grow. And you mentioned earlier too, I mean building I mean if there's that balance
20:49
too building and growing versus you know where you are now but being seen and
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that that is so important and it's so meaningful too like in everything you do
21:01
you know you're living with values and that's very important. You mentioned earlier you you were who you needed,
21:08
right? You wanted you're offering that. I feel like a lot of people gravitate to that. That's how true icon was born. So,
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let's take a moment. Let's take a step back like where before the speaking and
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the events. Where who were you before all of this took shape or where were you at then?
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So, let's go all the way back. All the way back and you'll understand how and
21:30
why I do what I do. So, I was abandoned as a baby. I my birth mother was
21:36
desperate. She did not want to have me. She was hoping to miscarry me. So she
21:43
went without ever going to a doctor and told no one about me. Hid her pregnancy
21:49
from everyone. And she was 26, highly intelligent person. But whatever happened to her impacted the way she
21:56
responded to getting pregnant with me. And so at I was born prematurely and
22:03
less than 5 lbs. She gave birth to me alone in her apartment and after 3 days
22:09
I did not succumb to to neglect and she wrapped me up and brought me to the
22:15
hospital with a rubber band around my umbilical cord and said I don't I don't want her. I don't want her. I never
22:21
wanted her. She's now yours. So state of Massachusetts then became my quote
22:28
unquote parent. And so that's how I entered the world. I And I go back to
22:34
that not with like in despair. I go back to that like, damn, I'm a survivor, man.
22:40
I made it 3 days by myself alone. No one holding on to me. No one whispering I
22:46
love you in my ears. No one feeding me. Nothing. I survived. Yes. Less than 5
22:52
lbs. A premature baby. And so at the hospital, I spent 3 weeks. Then I got placed in foster care for the state of
22:59
Massachusetts. I was neglected in foster care. And when my parents were introduced to
23:06
me through the social worker um and my mom and dad took me home, my mom was a
Abandoned at birth: LeeAnne's origin story
23:12
nurse and she called and reported the foster care family because I had soarses
23:18
on my body. A five-month old baby with soores from
23:23
not being clean, from neglect. So the first 6 months of my life,
23:29
yeah, I never had connection. And I could share all the science behind that, but
23:34
neurologically that impacts a person that you can't
23:40
ever repair. So for me, I've I have a great life. My parents were amazing. I,
23:45
you know, I had an amazing childhood, the whole thing. But I have never ever
23:51
been able to feel that personal connection. If someone, you know, my
23:56
husband, I've been married for 38 years, okay? I love the man. I know he loves me, but I don't know how to feel that
24:04
love. So, when you I share this because I want people to understand that it does not
24:11
matter how you come into the world. Doesn't matter. It matters how you leave it. And so, I have been blessed with
24:19
that gift in my spirit to be like, I'm a survivor, damn it. and I'm going to help
24:24
other people survive it because no person's trauma is any better or worse
24:30
than anyone else's. Right? If you have trauma in your life, it is yours. It is real. And mine isn't worse than yours.
24:38
Yours isn't worse than mine. It just is. It is. But but how you you manifest joy and
24:46
fulfillment and happiness matters. And so from there, like I said, had a great
24:53
life. I was someone I was that kid in high school who I need to be number one
24:59
in everything. I need to be number one there. I I'll get thrown away again. Like it was just a subconscious thing. My parents loved me tremendously, right?
25:06
But I always felt that pressure of like, oh, you got to be number one cuz this person didn't want you. You know,
25:12
you were Yeah. You were never good enough. You were you were garbage. And that always sat in
25:19
the back of my my subconscious. So I always pushed pushed pushed pushed to be
25:25
number one. I went to college, went to a very competitive college and I was no
25:30
longer number one. I did not did not know how to do that. Did not know how to to not be one of the smartest in the
25:36
room. Luckily for me though, because I almost failed out my first semester. Uh
25:42
I met my husband and that was a a gift to me. But at 20
25:48
years old, he my husband's older. My husband's four years older. He was a senior when I was a freshman. So anyway,
25:53
he graduated and guess what? Leanne got pregnant. So Leanne left college, did
25:59
not get a degree. I thought I was a complete failure. I thought, "Oh my god, I have totally ruined my life. I've
26:07
become my birth mother. I will never ever become anything." And luckily,
26:12
although my father was really disappointed because he thought I was going to be this corporate lawyer, my
26:17
mother was like, she championed me. She's like, "So what?" You know, she's this feisty I feisty little Irish woman.
26:25
So what? So what? You're not the first person that's gotten pregnant, you know? Yeah.
26:31
So my husband and I, we got married. We had our son Jordan. And I realized like I was on I was in
26:38
the hamster wheel. I was in the hamster wheel. fighting to be a corporate lawyer. I went to RPI, so all my friends
26:44
were engineers and scientists and all that. And I'm like, I never wanted that.
26:50
I never wanted that. But becoming a mom showed me that I
26:55
didn't need it to feel gift value. And it was that my whole
27:02
life is a gift. And so I we went on and had another a baby girl two years after
27:08
that. Then three years after that we had a baby boy and then five years after that we had our fourth. So I was a mom.
27:13
I was a mom and I really loved that role and I stopped feeling like a failure and
27:21
started feeling like my life had value beyond what the parameters were that I
27:27
thought they had to be. And when I was home with my little
27:33
babies before I had all four of them, I was introduced to direct sales and it
27:39
was a company called the Pampered Chef and it's still around today and they were one of my clients with my
27:44
consulting business and for 12 years I built one of the most successful Pampered Chef teams in the US. I had and
27:52
this was before social media. So I had a team that spanned five states. I was
27:58
speaking at national conference. I was just I was just really successful because I knew early on that the secret
28:06
to my success was not my success. It was helping other people be successful. And when that is your energy, when you are
28:13
in sales or in anything in life, if you are focused on the person across from
28:18
you and helping them be successful in their life, then you attract the right
28:24
people. Yes. And I mean I had a waiting list for doing kitchen shows because I wasn't
28:30
about me. It was like how can I help you, right? And it really transformed my life. So I became very successful and no
28:38
college degree. Um although I did go back to Merist for accounting and but
28:44
then my husband's career had us move all the way up here to to the where I live now in the Platsburg, New York area. And
28:51
so I was like once again like okay maybe I'm not gonna get this degree and I didn't like no nothing against the
28:57
accountants but I went into accounting because my adviser was like you're so good at math you should do accounting
29:03
like okay but then I was like I don't want to do accounting. No. And so anyway, we moved up here. Um,
29:09
and I launched this Pamper Chef business and and then it was like I was I was making a full-time income doing the
29:17
business where I was at home all day going off doing kitchen shows at night
29:22
so I could be put my kids on the bus, get my kids off the bus, you know, and it was fulfilling to me. So, I built a
29:29
career in direct sales. And then I ended up I'm gonna really make this story
29:34
really short because our youngest child is a performing artist. And so she and I moved to Los Angeles
29:41
for 5 years. Only thought we'd go for a year, check it out, see if we liked it,
29:47
and stayed. And when that decision transformed my career because I was no longer an entrepreneur, I took a job at
29:55
a company called Beachbody. Okay, we just launched team Beachbody which
30:01
was they was their direct sales arm, their their network marketing arm and so
30:07
I had I knew the two most important things I believe in business success are systems and relationships.
30:14
I knew the importance of that. So I built the training for all of the the team Beachbody coaches.
30:21
And so that helped that company grow from 70,000 coaches to 390,000 coaches when I left.
30:29
Wow. And this the the program I created won awards and was just it was just a
30:35
because I came from the field. I knew what what it takes to be successful. And so from there I just kept getting
30:41
recruited by other companies to do the same thing. And it just grew and grew until I've had this really amazing
30:48
career in direct sales. And then we moved back. My daughter graduated from
30:54
high school, went to college in Boston. I moved back here with my husband and just continued to work in the corporate
31:01
setting remotely. And you know dur I had I had a moment in my life June 12th,
31:07
2017 that kind of switched the trajectory of my purpose. And it was the
31:15
day I got a call from the founder of a company I had been working with in
31:21
asking me if I would take on the role of head of sales for a company that they were launching.
31:27
Yeah. And I was like, "Oh, I am on top of my game. This is amazing. Look what I've achieved." Two hours later, my mom
31:34
called with stage 4 lung cancer. And it was in that moment I took on what most
31:40
I'm gonna say just women here, but women are primarily the caregivers and the kinkeepers.
31:47
So that was a mental load that I wasn't prepared for, didn't anticipate and
31:53
didn't even realize what it was going to do for me emotionally, physically, the
31:59
whole thing. And I did it. I launched that company. the company that was June 12th. The company went live in August.
32:06
My mom went into hospice in September um and passed away the end of December and
32:12
then by April I was like I I'm done. I had PTSD. I was like sign me out. I'm done.
32:20
And but the the woman I was working for was like we love you. We want you to stay. I mean because my company had been
32:26
great. Yeah. The PTSD was from the loss. It wasn't my the work. And um she said, "Take a take
32:33
a month off. Take a leave of absence." I'm like, "Okay." I did. I came back in
32:38
May and realized by 11:00 that morning, I'm like, "Nope, not ready. Don't want to do this." And
32:44
so I stopped. And then I just built a consulting business from there and and took on other roles and all that and and
32:52
had a my last role because cuz consulting almost every
32:58
company I consulted with ended up hiring me and I ended up saying yes and I I'm
33:04
not doing that anymore. I just consult. But the the last company that I was
33:09
with, I was I oversaw we had a field of 80,000 sales consultants in 17 countries
33:16
and I was responsible for events recognition and training and it was a
33:21
great job. It was a big job and I'm grateful for it because it just elevated
33:26
my career in many many aspects. And uh but now I share all that because the one
33:34
of the reasons why I started ADK woman was when I moved back here. I attended a
33:39
women in business event, 200 women in the room and I was sitting in the back and I remember looking out distinctly. I
33:46
remember this day like it was yesterday and I looked I was looking at the backs of everyone's heads and I was thinking I
33:52
had just come through losing my mom and I was like is anyone going to tell them is anyone going to tell these women this
33:58
what this is what you're going to deal with this is what you're going to be faced with we all face struggles in our
The call that changed everything: losing her mom
34:05
life challenges in our life whether it is someone a family member with addiction or divorce or sickness
34:12
whatever you're trying to build a professional career and you are definitely going to get that call that
34:18
says, "Yes, uh-oh, you need to take care of this." And so, who's going to tell them that
34:25
you're going to get through it? You're going to be okay. You're going to survive it. Because no one told me that.
34:32
And I felt like I was all alone in the fog of the mental load I was carrying.
34:39
And it was at that moment I said, "Well, if no one's going to do it, then I will do it. I will figure out how I'm going
34:46
to do it, but I'm going to do it. And that's how that was the seed for ADK Woman. Like someone has to be the
34:53
scaffolding. Yes. You know, and have those conversations and we're we're dealing with stuff all the time
34:59
and and we assume stories and and we don't understand and and we have to deal
35:05
with it ourselves if we can even hold it. I mean, we even can process it because how do we process it too without
35:11
some type of community? And if you go online, that's the opposite community of what you want. Yeah. It's the face to face community.
35:17
It's a person you can call and say, "Hey, I need you for a minute. Can we just go get grab a coffee or go for a
Rock bottom, PTSD, and rebuilding a career
35:23
walk or whatever?" And what's happened over the years, we don't we've lost that one-on-one face to face connection. So,
35:29
I want to build it back. And because of my passion around this and my I'm very
35:34
vocal about it, it landed me on an Oprah Winfrey program because I responded to a
35:40
a question that they were asking. And so that that too like every all these doors
35:46
opened up for me in ways that I could never have imagined. And it all goes back to doesn't matter how you start
35:52
your life. Doesn't matter how you came into the world. Does not matter. And and you know, there's lots of amazing
35:59
coaches who talk about resilience and I'm going to you're going to build resilience and you're gonna how to build confidence. I believe we already are
36:07
resilient. It's in there and it's like claiming it. It's saying I've survived
36:12
that. I survived my kids being toddlers. I mean, you may think it's nothing, but it's everything. It's everything. I
36:20
survived a nasty breakup. Yeah. But while you were working 40 hours a week,
36:26
that's everything, right? And when you can claim how resilient you
36:31
are, you are building a foundation of confidence because that's being self-aware and that's building your
36:38
confidence. Like, well, hey, I did that. If I got through that, I can get through this. Right? That's it's already in us.
36:46
It's just you need someone to say that it's there and clap for you for the
36:52
little things. One of the things I do in one of my keynotes is I tell to tell people, "Pull out your phone. Pull out
36:58
your phone, set an alarm, go in for 8:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m., whatever time you want,
37:04
and I want you to type in there that to go off every morning that I am confident or I am badass or I am the best there
37:12
is, right? I am a gift to the world." Whatever you want, but I have them do it right then. put it on your phone and
37:19
then every morning that comes up as your reminder and reminds you you are amazing
37:26
at all you do. And I started doing that back in 2017 at my keynotes. And to this
37:33
day, Jen, I have people who will reach out to me, send me a message. I still get that reminder. Wow.
37:39
Nine years later, still get that reminder. Right. and all the people they've impacted from knowing that and
37:45
feeling more secure or feeling good enough or feeling seen and heard and powerful and they could Yeah. the ripple
37:52
effect. I truly believe in that. I've seen it. I've seen it with family. I've seen it in in speaking and in high
37:59
schools and in conferences. It's and you don't you don't you don't see it all the
38:05
time until all of a sudden someone says something of like, "Yeah, I really enjoyed that. It allowed me to do all of
38:11
this other stuff because it's one sentence that I don't remember saying or or a conversation in person of of just
38:18
talking just asking how someone's day was or seeing them and coming back
38:24
around of saying oh wow Jen like I was really having a bad day when you talked to me about this and I'm so thankful and
38:31
in my head I'm just I'm curious how it is. I'm curious for the conversation and
38:36
it's powerful. I don't think as much about the woman in front of me. I think
38:43
about who sits across the table from her at breakfast and dinner because I know
38:48
that if I can help her stand and be confident that that is the lesson for
38:54
her child, for her family, for her best friend, sister, right? To me, that's how I know I'm winning at this because that
The Oprah moment
39:01
is the effect I want to bring. It is is not just the person. It's not just you.
39:07
It's you're going to take away from this conversation and show up differently now
39:13
in your relationships. That to me is the win. That's the legacy I want to leave
39:19
this world with. And I and I I like to share my origin story not for sympathy
39:25
but for proof. For proof that if I can do this with the biggest most profound
39:34
rejection that a human being ever deals with. If I can do it then you can do it too. I know
Resilience is already in you
39:42
it's inside each and every one of us. And sometimes we just need to shake off
39:47
the dust and the grime and the words that other people have labeled us with.
39:53
Find our true authentic self that is badass. We all have it, right? So, you
40:00
know, that's how I got to here where I'm at. That was a very long story to where I am now
40:06
and why I do what I do. I, you know, I'm I'm writing my second book is is about
40:13
ready to go to an editor. I'm like, I believe that all these things have have
40:19
manifested and given me a life and an audience of people who need to hear what
40:24
I what I like to to share and talk. And that story is powerful. And I want wanted the audience to hear it because
40:32
first of all, there's so many layers to that, right? You could have, you didn't give up even without knowing you were
The phone alarm trick, nine years later
40:38
fighting, right? And let alone every moment in between, even the call, right? The call with your
40:44
mother for anyone going through something like that who who might not even pro have processed it yet, right?
40:51
All of these moments, the conversations we don't talk about, the conversations we're afraid to, or the conversations
40:56
we're not even ready to hear yet, we have to deal with anyways. I mean those
41:02
are the reasons that even just knowing the power in someone's self right the
The ripple effect of feeling seen
41:08
power that you don't need someone else's approval you don't even need to do the path like you mentioned you're on this
41:15
journey this path to do what you think you should have done and like get even the degrees and life was like no you
41:20
don't need a degree you got all this right here you got a platform you your your actions are getting
41:27
the validation in return of people are wanting to hire you It's it's showing you and you're like, "Okay, I'm going to
41:33
go into accounting." And life's like, "No, you're already doing it. You're making an impact." I find the greatest I
41:38
say this sometimes, the greatest my greatest why, my greatest reasons come from my greatest challenges. And I think
41:46
it is a gift. I mean, the I've done gone through a lot of hard times, but when you see it that way, it's so hard to get
41:52
to that point. But when you do it, my my passions come from my challenges. It
41:57
comes from the part where I didn't feel seen or heard or I felt abandoned or I felt all of these things not good
42:03
enough. Once I realized that it's gamechanging, absolutely gamechanging. And now you could tell me how you feel.
42:09
And and yes, I have challenges still. I mean, social media, I'm working through that now because that's a I I just block
42:16
off everything, but now I'm posting more. We're always going to have I mean, we're always going to be faced with
42:22
challenges. That's just humanity, right? And so it's just knowing that I got
42:28
through everything else in my life so far. I'm gonna get through this. Yes. Right. And that's that's a key, right?
42:34
And what's interesting is something you just said. What the name of my Substack is what nobody says out loud.
42:42
Just you just said that. So funny. But it's it's been an amazing journey and I
42:50
appreciate every every step that I take in that journey. And I want to ask you a
42:56
piece of that of from feeling it. So talking the real real talk here of
43:02
having feeling not good enough or even feeling abandoned. Was there a point when you were feeling that but then you
43:09
found your voice in helping others? I know you mentioned you helped others so much but like was there any shift to
43:16
that or was it ingrained in you? I would like to learn more. So I always I have a
43:22
deepseated emotion of not being worthy, not being good enough, right? And it's
43:27
and it's even though I am doing amazing things, there are days where I'm like
43:33
gosh, I just why can't I get there from here kind of thing and like well maybe
43:39
I'm not meant to. And it's like one of the things I do to overcome that and what I recommend other people do is all
43:45
right, who do I need to help then? Because I know that when I and it could be someone at the grocery store like
43:52
today. I was at Walmart and I was there a few weeks ago and I was wearing a Renelier baseball cap and when I was
43:59
checking out the woman said to me, "Are you from Troy?" I said, "Oh, no. I went
44:06
to school there for 4 years." And she said, "Oh, well, I lived there for a short time." I said, "Oh, what were you
44:11
there for?" She said, "I was in recovery." Wow. Okay. So, we we chatted a little bit
44:19
about that and she's like, "Yeah, I just I never go back and you know, we had
44:25
exchanged pleasantries." Well, I was there today. I saw her in as a cashier.
44:31
So, I went over to her line and I made a point to say hi to her and say, "Hey,
44:37
you remember me?" I I wasn't wearing a baseball cap today. You know, look at the hair, right? And I said, "We talked
44:43
about Renelier and that you're from Troy." And she goes, "Yes, that's right." And she just lit up. Whoa. She
44:49
lit up because you know what I did? She was seen. Yes.
44:54
She was seen. I saw her not as the person who in that time of her life was going through something really horrible,
45:01
but as that person who we had a shared connection with, we lived in the same area years ago.
45:07
Yeah. Different reasons, right? But I remembered her and she was seen. Now
45:13
it's those moments. If you seek out those moments when you're not feeling all that great about yourself, what does
45:19
it do? It elevates you. Moments where you extend kindness, bring kindness to
45:25
yourself. Help you be much kinder to yourself. So that's what I I do when I am like
45:33
because there are you ask my success partner last week, she was like, you're like you got to get over all this. And
45:39
like I know I do, but I got to process it. I got to go find somebody who needs me. Wow. I always tried to do the things
45:46
that everyone said I should do as I could be. But also, why am I so competitive, right? Why am I so
45:52
competitive mostly in sports? I wanted to be number one. I wanted to get good grades. I wanted to get not just good
45:57
grades, I wanted to get hundreds on everything, be the best, right? I think in the last week I was
46:03
processing a lot of that of okay at what point you know what point did I start
46:08
that or was it the whole time and also with my voice what I realized is there
46:13
was a point maybe around five or six that I I used to sing at the school things I just stopped I stopped singing
46:20
and now it's like I'm figuring that out for the first time I'm learning I'm playing the drums but I'm like trying to
46:27
figure out the voice side of things and I'm like oh my gosh My voice not only is mentally subdued
46:34
because of shy or I mean I'm I have my shy moments but is the fear of rejection. So it's like I love people
46:40
and I do get energy out of people. So, I'm a little bit on the line between introvert and extrovert, but I I was
46:46
always afraid of the rejection of people. Even though I love people, but that voice, I only process it a few
46:54
weeks ago or a few days ago that wow, I stopped singing. I stopped speaking. I I
47:00
just went along with things. And then everything else was, oh yes, oh, I like this because of this. Oh, I like this
47:06
because of that. And it was only a few to five years ago when I realized this isn't what I wanted. This is what I was
47:13
told to want. This is what as you know most people society, friendship, family, right? It's not a death against anyone
47:19
in your life. It's it's just a fact of like this is what we do. We listen to other people's stories and
47:25
we don't live in our own story. We let other people write write the the chapters for us. And who's going to tell
47:30
the 5-year-old that you could be you're a great singer, you can sing, right? Like I believe like my granddaughter was
47:37
infatuated with bunnies and when she was like three going on four, you'd say, "What do you want to be when you grow
47:43
up?" And she'd say, "I want to be a bunny." Well, I could have said to her, "Yeah, honey, you there. You can't be a
47:49
bunny." Yeah. But I didn't. I'm like, "Oh, great." Like, I will never be the wall to
47:54
someone's dream. You know, life is hard enough and people
47:59
are going to tell her absolutely you're not going to be a bunny. But, you know,
48:04
I believe in in letting people find that out on their own and figure it out on on
48:12
their own and and you know, I want to go back to something you said about, you know, having to do well on on your test
48:18
and get the hundreds and all of that. I have no problem with that. I am very driven. I like do when I do something, I
48:24
has to be exceptional. Yeah. Or I want I have standards. I have personal standards for everything that I
48:30
do. That's not a problem unless it changes how you feel about yourself.
48:36
Oh yeah. Right. I Yeah. No, that's the thing. If it is if you're doing it for yourself to
48:42
be better and bring better and do better every every day or learn and to grow from it, then go for it. But the moment
48:49
it starts to impact how you feel about yourself as a person, that's when you know the pendulum has gone too far. And
48:55
you want to ask yourself why. Why am I doing this? Why do I need to have a hundred? Is it for me? Is it for someone
49:02
else? Is it for the story I've been told that I won't get a good job or I won't get the next gig if I can't do this,
49:08
that, or the other thing? Cuz that is not true. That is not true. I do not
49:14
have a college degree. Yet, I was an executive at a company doing amazing things there. I wrote my own story. If I
49:21
can do it, anyone can do it. Yeah. You know what it was? It was it was wanting to be seen, right? in any
49:28
way. And and I think now I still have high standards, but it's different. It's
49:34
like, okay, am I just doing this because I have to do this for whatever reason, but if I'm not align and if I'm not in
49:40
alignment with the reason, then I'm just making myself have more work. It's understanding that when you fail at
49:49
something, you are not the failure. You failed doing something, but that's not
49:54
you. You are not the failure. You can't be a failure, right? I mean, you can
49:59
fail at anything, but that doesn't make you a failure. You are an amazing person. You know, you are a gift to the
50:07
world. You are an amazing person. So what? You failed. Get back up. Try it again. Do it again. And where I like to
50:14
to take people on the journey is, would you tell your best friend, your sister, your daughter, you sucked at that. You,
50:22
you know, you can never do that again. That's not you. Don't even try, you know, or or like the other example I
50:27
give people is I I love analogies like you your kids playing soccer, you're on
50:32
the soccer team, you're at a game and they're down, you know, 3 to one and there's five minutes left. If the coach
50:39
said, "Yeah, that's it. We're done. We're not going to win this game. Everybody off the field." You would be
50:44
so mad. You'd be so mad. What do you mean you're pulling them off the field? Yeah, I didn't get to try it.
50:50
But we do that to ourselves. We when we say I I'm a failure. That's it. I can't
50:56
sing. I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to try anymore. You're taking yourself out of the game instead
51:01
of going all the way across the line. And that's not You'd never coach someone
51:08
that way. You'd never live a life that way. But we do it to ourselves all the time. And you'd be mad at someone who
51:15
told you you got to quit, right? But we tell ourselves that all the time. And you know, one of the
51:22
things I hear people say all the time to me, "Oh, but you're fearless. You're fearless. That's how you can get up on
51:27
stage." Like, I am not fearless. I am terrified. But I have chosen to let fear walk
51:33
alongside me because I know in that is part of the journey. We all that's the human condition. Fear comes along with
51:40
us. You can't get rid of it. Why are you trying? It's acknowledging it. It's
51:46
acknowledged that okay, fear is lying to me right now. That's what fear does is it lies, but it's going to be here and
51:53
it kept me safe then. Right. Right. You know, it's just, you know, my goal in life is just to help
51:59
other people see the things that I've learned about being a good human and being a successful human. And I just
52:05
hope that with the different parts of my life and the things that I've going on that I I can do that.
52:11
Yeah. And when I mean, fear is a whole separate podcast, right? I mean that's
52:17
like I've I've had a very healthy recent balance with fear. I just do things afraid. I mean people told me all the
52:23
time you're fearless. I'm like no no I'm actually not like I'm terrified. Exactly. But I I I believe in it so
52:31
strongly that I'm just willing to go through now for being seen and
52:37
where for people listening who are at that point either let's start with people who
52:43
are trying to be seen right now what what are they feeling or what are what's going on right now and is there a way
52:49
for them to get past that or is it a community? I'd like to know your thoughts. Yes. So, so the title of my or the
52:56
tenative title I guess until someone tells me I not to use it is u my book is called the scene standard and what I
53:02
have created is okay I walk people through the issues around you know not
53:08
being seen and loneliness and isolation the difference and all of that but I'm a like okay then give me the solution kind
53:15
of person. Yeah. And so I have created what I call the scene standard and it's first thing
53:21
is you have to see yourself first and that S right see yourself first because acknowledge why you show up the way you
53:28
do why you've written the story the way you have and acknowledging well how can I rewrite that story so see yourself
53:35
first in the equation of of the things that you participate in how do you show
53:40
up at the office meeting how do you show up at a networking event how do do show
53:46
up at the family reunion, the high school reunion. You know, it's we have
53:51
these these times in our lives where one where we're where it's the time we're at work and we have our relationships there
53:57
and there's the time where we're we're at home. It's the time between those two things, the in between time that it's
54:05
critical to know how do I how do I show up there? What can I put in there in
54:10
that time so that I'm not just at work and at home? And it's that's the beauty
54:15
of like friendwork or the room. Like it gives you a space to go to. And so seeing yourself first is really key. And
54:22
then the E is engage like a human. Show up the way you'd like to to be treated.
54:29
You know, it's saying hi to the the woman in the grocery store. It's using her name or his name. Like I do that as
54:36
a practice all the time. If their name tag has their name on it, then I always use their name
54:42
because it is that's humans love to hear the sound of their name.
54:47
Yeah. And so I know when I use it that I'm engaging like a good human.
54:54
So there's there's that piece. And then the the other E is establish rituals
54:59
that give you consistency in your life. And that means I'm going to show up every day at at work with a coffee to
55:07
share with someone else. I'm going to say every Tuesday I'm going to send a text message to two of my friends and
55:15
each Tuesday I'm going to change that to two other people. It's practicing seeing other people. So you know you create
55:24
those rituals and you are consistent with them. And then the last one, and I
55:29
think this is one of the most important pieces, and it's the N. And it is notice
55:34
who is missed. And that could be someone in your family. That could be your cousin you
55:40
haven't seen in 6 months where you say, "Hey, we were all at this the reunion
Fear as a companion, not something to eliminate
55:45
and you weren't there. How are you? Wanted to reach out to you." It could be when you leave a a meeting in in your
55:53
office setting and someone who who is sitting there by themselves is going
55:58
over and saying, "Hey, how is your how is your day today? How's your day going? What's new in your life?" You know, it's
56:05
noticing those people. I I go to events all the time and I see people walk in
56:11
alone and they walk out alone and I'm like, damn, I don't want that for people. No. If you're if you're going to walk in
56:17
alone, I want to be that person that goes over and says hi and walks out with
56:23
you. Especially when the theme is connection. You know, you're going to find connection and then you're walking
56:28
out alone. Oh my gosh. And and that's why you will never go to an event that I have created, whether it's friend working or
56:35
the room, where you are going to walk out by yourself because to me, that is
56:41
the easiest thing you can do. I go to all these women events and I'm not trying to diss any of these events but
56:47
if you use the scene standard it could be so much better. It's like set the room up so you're in circles so that you
56:54
know so it encourages conversation naturally. Yes. You know the other thing that I find
57:00
really interesting is you go to events and a business will buy a table. So it's
57:05
just their their network, the people that work in at that place all sitting at the same like how is that networking
57:12
if you're with people that you see every day, right? You should if you want to buy a table, give the seats to other
57:20
people or or if you're organizing it, mix people up. It's okay. Come the first
57:26
half hour, you're all sitting at the same table, but then mix people up. Yeah. Right. I mean, I've gone to event. I'm a
57:33
soloreneur. I go in by myself and you will not believe 90% of the time and if
57:39
I'm not initiating a conversation then no one is talking to me and I'm not
57:44
exaggerating. Yeah, I've been there too where you want to have a conversation and then you try so you're all at the
57:51
same table and then I normally I'm the one speaking like hey I'm Jan trying to see people but then like just talking to
57:57
each other and it's like I understand you know I'm not going to interrupt a very personal conversation but like it's
58:03
it's like this inclusive exclusive feeling where it's like being trying to
The SEEN Standard
58:09
be inclusive in an area and speaking it yet being exclusive to being open to
58:15
other conversations and that needs to be talked and here's a good example. I might have shared with you with this
58:21
before. I went to an event that was a multi-chamber event and there were little tables set
58:29
all around and I, you know, like I said, I'm an introvert. I show up to these things and I don't know anyone and I am
58:34
like, "Oh my gosh, what can I do to distract myself from this feeling?" I'm like, "All right, I'm going to go over and I'm going to get some little
58:40
ordurves from the table." So, I get them and then I'm like scanning like, "I don't know anyone. Where am I going to
58:45
sit? Should I sit? Should I just stand off to the side? I see a table and these were just little tables for four. And
58:51
there two women sitting at the table. And so I'm like, "All right, I'm going to go over and see if I can sit there." So I walk over to the table and I say,
58:57
"Hey, can I can I join you?" And they looked at me and said, "Oh, no. These seats are taken." And I turned around. I
59:03
was like, "Okay." And I w and immediately felt like anyone would feel in that moment.
59:09
Totally rejected. And I thought, gosh, I will never be that person. I would, even
59:15
if I was waiting for two people, I would have said, hey, we got two people coming, but let's go grab another chair.
59:20
We'll fit you in. Yeah. Right. It's being something, right? It's being inclusive, not saying
59:27
holding up your hand like, "Nah, nope. Sorry." And then they turned to each other and started talking again. I was
59:33
like, "Wow, this is a reason why I do what I do." Yeah. Right. Everyone feels that feeling of
59:41
Right. Right. And you know then I went over and I went over and I found there was a table with just one person sitting at
59:47
it. Some a young a young woman and I was like is anyone sitting with you? She's like no no would you sit here
59:52
cuz she's feeling like she's my so I stay here and then more people started joining us and I have made great
59:59
connections from those people. Yeah. Right. We are like I one of them's coming to the room the next Right.
1:00:05
Amazing. I mean it's really like and one of them actually now they say is going to be a friend working tomorrow night in
1:00:11
Glenn's Falls. There you go. So it's it is all together. See this is the power of being
1:00:18
inclusive and and being the one that notices who is missing, who is unseen.
1:00:25
So that's I hope that that your listeners if they've stayed this long will take that away and just remember
1:00:32
see yourself first. Engage like a human. Establish rituals for yourself and
1:00:37
notice the unseen. Those are key things that you can do. And Leanne, I'm I'm
1:00:43
curious too of what you see is the true
1:00:48
benefit of being seen or having people other people feel seen and the cost of
1:00:54
not have having people feel seen. When you feel seen, you have an energy of
1:00:59
authenticity and there is no power energy. If you believe a powerful energy as as authenticity, if you believe in
1:01:05
the energies and and forces in the world, then you know this to be true. Authenticity is the most powerful
1:01:12
energy. And so when when you are practicing
1:01:18
uh how to see people and to be seen and you are feel seen, then you are
1:01:24
authentic. You feel that someone sees you for who you are and that changes the dynamic of your life. I do a a workshop
1:01:31
on mojo and when you have mojo, it's it's like you're firing on all
1:01:37
cylinders. You're hitting every shot because the the the key factors in your life are all aligned. Motivation,
1:01:44
knowledge, ability, confidence, all those things are aligned when you are feeling seen and it puts you at the top
1:01:51
of your game. And and I think that's really important.
1:01:56
And when you don't have it, you are just going through life. You're not living life. And joy and authenticity are I
1:02:04
don't care whether you are what you do for a living, whether you're you are the garbage collector or you're the CEO.
1:02:11
There's to me there's no rank or role. It's all about human leadership.
1:02:16
It's funny how much we talk about as we're humans. And the I feel like as I act as a human as I be a human like when
1:02:23
you address the things that we don't talk about in a room or you address the conversations in a group of circle of
1:02:28
people all of a sudden people's human elements start coming out again and it's like oh like the performing just goes
1:02:34
away which is really really cool. So allowing people to have more moments of those, more moments of being themselves
1:02:39
and being their authentic and not so worried and a lot of brain power and
1:02:44
energy on feeling rejected or feeling other ways of not either feeling seen or
1:02:51
feeling those moments of oh my gosh, I'm so ruminating on these feelings versus
1:02:56
allowing someone to live as they are and then grow as they wish. But seeing them
1:03:03
in that moment, it just it's so light and like you said earlier, freeing. And as we get to the close of this podcast,
1:03:11
I would love to know how based on everything we talked about and any theme that resonates most, the
1:03:18
the whole point of the True Icon podcast is to stay true to yourself and boldly grow. How can a listener today really be
1:03:27
true to themselves and have that authenticity forward? It goes right back to see yourself first. Acknowledge when
1:03:34
you're not feeling seen and claim it and own it and then adjust the dial. You don't have to do a complete pivot in
1:03:40
your life. We always hear pivot, pivot, pivot. You know, uh yeah, there are times in your life where you need to
1:03:45
adjust the sales. But it's, you know, if you think that you have to do a complete switch in your life, then it's
1:03:51
intimidating. But if you realize, I just need to adjust the dial. I need to see myself first. I need to see understand
1:03:57
why I don't want to go to this networking event and it's not because you know it's it's
1:04:04
the timing is bad. It's because gosh I don't like that feeling of not being seen. Acknowledging it right. I think that is
1:04:11
is the key. I believe self-awareness unlocks so much in our lives. Like I wouldn't be who I am now if I didn't
1:04:18
understand the fact that I don't know how to receive someone's love. I don't
1:04:23
know. And I wasn't until I understood that about myself that I was able to to kind of laugh at myself and not judge
1:04:29
myself for it. Like this is why I don't like to be hugged because I don't know what that feels like. I don't understand
1:04:35
what that's supposed to feel like, right? Like it is to me it unlocks so many things. So if I were to give
1:04:42
someone one one real important piece of advice from from listening to me, it's like see yourself first and love
1:04:49
yourself for all the parts that make you who you are. And if there are parts that
1:04:54
you don't like, then adjust the dial to the parts that you do like. You know, I
1:05:00
think we spend so much time trying to get better at things that are not our
1:05:06
true skill set. Because we've been taught, well, you're really good at this. What are your weaknesses are? Work
1:05:12
on your weaknesses. I'm like, I'm not working on my weaknesses. I'm working on where I shine. Because if I'm in that
1:05:18
space of where I shine and things I'm good at, then I'm feeling really good. I'm bringing my most authentic self, you
1:05:25
know, like I I am not good at videos. I This is a funny example, but I'm like
1:05:30
everything tells me you should do doing TikTok, you should be doing videos all the time to build your brand, do video,
1:05:35
video, video. I'm like I don't like doing video. I'm not good at it. I write. I am a writer.
1:05:42
So now I'm like, all right, I'm I launch a Substack. I write, right? Like I'm going to move into the things that I
1:05:48
really feel good about, you know? Will I start to learn more about video? Yeah, I will. But I'm not
1:05:56
going to let it I'm not going to beat myself up about it cuz I'm not passionate about it. Lean into the
1:06:01
things you're passionate about. And don't listen to the audience that's telling you to go do be a certain way
1:06:10
when they're not living your life. Right? I only listen to people truly who
1:06:16
have walked a walk that I admire. But people in my life who have said, "You're doing what?" who have never done what I
1:06:24
do. I'm like, "Your opinion doesn't matter to me." No.
1:06:29
They're not living where where you want to be. And I've I've had to come to terms with that, too, of why am I
1:06:34
listening to this person who who isn't I don't I don't want to live their life. I I want to live this life. And
1:06:40
the the power of feeling seen and allowing other people's to feel seen can
1:06:46
change the world. I do believe that absolutely we would we would eliminate
1:06:51
so many social issues if we acknowledged the power of seeing people for who they
1:06:59
are and and seek out ways where we feel seen. Yes. And for anyone listening here, I'll
1:07:08
say what Leanne says a lot. It doesn't matter how you enter the world. It matters how you leave it. And we'll
1:07:13
leave this episode with that in mind because you can make so much of a difference just as you are right now.
1:07:20
And you could use the scene framework if you want to do something today. You know, reflect back and take action
1:07:27
because you got this. Absolutely. All right. Till next time.
