Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's be diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stouch. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who have supported me through this journey. One of the things that I think is super important, personally and professionally, is believing in yourself. And the thing I've been kind of thinking about a lot lately is self love. So today's topic that I am so excited to talk about today is self love. And our guest today is Lindsey Meza. Now, Lindsey is a certified self love coach, leadership coach, and Reiki master with a mission to bring compassion, empathy, and trust back into the workplace, one human at a time, starting with ourselves. After spending 14 years as a leader in the fashion industry, she became burnt out and disconnected with herself and eventually became a toxic leader.
After healing from years spent in toxic workplaces, she saw a gap in a workplace for self love. So now she helps professional women become impactful, effective leaders without sacrificing their well being using fundamental self love practices. Lindsey is just one of those amazing individuals, super compassionate, super friendly. And when I asked her to come on, I was super pumped to have her on. So today's the day. Welcome to the show, lindsey, and thanks so much. I'm super happy and stoked to have you coming on today.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: You're very welcome. It's a pleasure to have you. How are things with you? What's new? What's going on? Give us the deets. What's going on? Tell us what's happening.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. There's always new things happening. My brain never stops. It's always going and going. But right now, I am working on, I just released my one on one coaching program, so working on that, I did a challenge during Valentine's day, so that was amazing. And it led into this one on one program. So we did a leading with self love challenge where we did a self love topic every day.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: And.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's really. It's up live on my website now. It's free. So that's really what I've been working on and, you know, starting to work one on one with people.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Wonderful. Wonderful. And that sounds like people seem to kind of been attracted to it and have been reaching out to you for it.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, it's definitely, you know, we had such a fun time in that challenge. I think it's really important to educate people on what self love is and what it's not because I think it's a very confusing word to people. And so it's really about educating people that it's not just, you know, bubble baths and massages. It's so much deeper than that. So, so I think that was the fun of the challenge.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Wonderful. We're going to get into that, which I'm excited for. We're going to get into that and deeply into that for sure. But thanks very much for telling us how things are going. I appreciate to hear that things are going so well. Before we begin, though, I always have a fun question to ask my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours?
[00:03:29] Speaker A: So ready.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Okay. So your question today, Lindsay, is if you could pick a day to relive again and again, which day would it be and why?
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. A day to relive again and again.
The first thing that popped in my head and probably because I just watched it, was me and my best friend went to the Taylor Swift eras tour last summer and, you know, it just got put on Disney. So I was, like, re watching it and reliving it and I was just, it was such a fun day because we didn't even think we were going. Like, we bought tickets. Like an hour before we went. Like, we bought tickets and went. So, like, I didn't wake up thinking I was going to do that that day. And just, you know, I love Taylor and, like, her music means so much to me and so I just was actually thinking about that. I was like, that was such an amazing day. Like, I love it so much. And just being there with my best friend since we were eight and, you know, she flew into LA for that. So, you know, that's what I will say.
There's so many days, but that's, you know, really what came to mind first.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: That is a great story. And that's usually those days that it's not planned. Those end up being the best days. So I could see how that wasn't planned, but it ended up being that way. So that's super cool that you, you got to experience that and got to experience that with somebody very close to you. So that's pretty cool.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I manifested it. I, like, envisioned for like, maybe a month before, like, visioned maybe and my best friend, like, dancing at the concert and it came true. So that was magical.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: That's, that's super awesome. Well, thanks so much for having fun with me, Lindsay. I appreciate you sharing that great story and coming up with such a great answer. I love that. So, why don't we start off with you telling us a little bit about you, your story, and, of course, your why.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So.
Oh, my gosh, it's like, a decades long story, but I'll just start with.
So, I grew up in Iowa, and I ended up majoring in fashion. And this was kind of the days of, like, devil wears Prada and, like, the hills, and I was like, oh, I want to, you know, be in the fashion world. And I ended up majoring in fashion. And once I graduated, I just decided one day that I'm going to move out to LA. And I had no friends, no family, like, no job lined up like, me. And my mom just packed up a u haul, and she was so supportive, and we just moved out here. I moved into a house with a bunch of rando roommates on Craigslist and found a job within a month. And I worked in the fashion industry for eight years. And, I mean, it was like, my dream life. I lived, like, my hills dream life, everything that I envisioned it to be. But unfortunately, and I probably should have saw that watching, like, the devil wears that. It was pretty toxic, and I had a lot of toxic leaders in my life, and that eventually led me to become a toxic person, too, unfortunately. So, yeah. And then the pandemic happened. I got laid off, and I kind of realized I was like, do I want to work in that industry anymore? It wasn't how I wasn't showing up as my best self. It wasn't leading to a fun life. I was burnt out constantly, and especially in the fashion industry, just never stops. You know, there's, like, always new seasons, there's a new trade show, there's new launches. Like, it's kind of like this hamster wheel you just can't get off of. So I was like, I need to heal from this. And I found self love, and it was so impactful for my life and decided, you know, this is what's missing in leadership development in the workplace. It's just not ever taught or talked about. And the way it transformed my life, I was like, everyone needs this. It's so magical. And, yeah. So now I'm a certified self love coach, and I just help people love themselves.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: I love that story, Lindsey. So there's so many things I want to pack into. So, first off, I love when you talk about burnt out and self love. I think that so many people, so many of us are burnt out. And I know sometimes we. It hits us fast and we realize it, and sometimes it's a, what I call a slow burn, where it kind of, you feel like something's not right, but you don't know what it is. So I think it's super important that we all take the time to step back and realize, you know, what's going on and take ownership to what we need to do to. In order to fix it. So I love that, the toxic leader part. I think that I agree with you. I feel like leaders today don't have a lot of training. It's kind of like the game when, you know, when I was a kid, I'm going to probably date myself here, but it's, you know, we're a kid. We play follow the leader, so we're following what the leader is doing. And I feel like in this case, you're going to follow what you've been taught. So if you've been. And it's not necessarily training, it's what you, you know, see what type of leader you've been under. So if you're under specific type of leader, well, then you're gonna follow that how that leader was exactly. And it may or may not be the best way to learn it. But I think we have to kind of figure out what kind of leader that we want to be. And I always say that if, you know, I myself would lead people the way that I would be wanting to be led and how I would want to be treated, so that's how I would lead. And I feel like there needs to be more people like that, and unfortunately, there's not. So we still have a lot of work to do on that, so. But lovely story. Amazing thoughts. And it's amazing that you decided that you were gonna make a change, and. And you did it. So kudos to you.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Thank you. Yeah, definitely wasn't easy, and I totally agree with you on that. I think we have this model of leadership, and it's up to us. And you know what? I really work with my clients, even if they have a toxic leader, is, like, breaking that cycle. You know, it's like, how can we show up differently? So it's so important.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: So you did talk about self love a little bit in. In the beginning.
So why don't we dig into this a little bit now? Tell us, what does self love mean to you?
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah, self love to me just means, you know, prioritizing and honoring my needs and my well being. And it means, you know, loving and accepting all parts of myself, even the parts I might not like so much. And it means, you know, just always showing up and talking kind to myself and being compassionate to myself no matter what.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: So you say prioritizing your needs. So you're meaning, like, you know, making sure that you're figuring out what works for you, what doesn't, when you need time out. We just talked about a few seconds ago, making sure that, you know, if you need a little bit of a break or you need to take a time out, that you know when to do it and what to do in order to get yourself back on track, that's kind of what you're looking at.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Exactly. And it's, you know, like, nourishing not just your mind, but your body and your soul. So, like, nourishing yourself through what you're eating, through your movement, you know, doing things that your soul loves, showing up in your purpose and your values, and, you know, doing things that you love, not, like, what society is telling you to do, not what you think you should do. Like, what do you inherently need? And I think that's the big part of self love. Work is kind of removing all these stories and knowing what you need.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: So how do we go about doing that? How. How do we reach our point of self love? Lindsey?
[00:11:19] Speaker A: I wouldn't say there's a point that you reach, because self love is one. It's not, like, a linear thing, and it's up and down. It's round and round. Like, the point is to show up every day in self love and practice it in small moments throughout the day. And it's a practice, not a destination.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: Oh, I like that. Practice, not a destination. I like that. So, when you're working with your clients, how do you. How do you help them to get going in that direction?
[00:11:48] Speaker A: So I do have a system, you know, a framework that we go through, because I think it's important to go and layer by layer, and I call it layers to leadership. So it is. We peel back a layer each month and just really work on discovering ourselves. And I can go through those if you want, just so you can kind of. Yeah. So the first layer is self forgiveness, and this is where we really, you know, release the past. And I'll use myself as an example. Being a toxic leader, I felt this sense, such a sense of, like, guilt and shame that I just disconnected from myself and my values. So I had to do a lot of self forgiveness work that I showed up like that for years and years. So self forgiveness releasing, and then we go into self acceptance. And this is really, you know, where we work on accepting your full self and honoring your worth. And just, like, just redefining who you are. And then we go into self gratitude, which just reignites, you know, like, that spark and that passion that you may have lost. So we go into self gratitude, and then we do self care, which is reconnecting with your mind, body, soul that we kind of just talked about. And then the last one is self trust. And that's one of my favorite layers. And that's really learning to trust yourself again and, you know, using your intuition and just knowing who you are and honoring yourself through trusting yourself. So that's a framework that I take people through. And I think that's how you can really start practicing self love every single day is practicing each one of those in the moments that you need to.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: I love that Lindsay, and I love when he said, show up every day. I feel like it's very hard to show up every day, but I think it's super important to do your best to do that. And I read a book years and years and years ago, and I know sometimes it's hard to do that, but I think the book was called happiness as a choice. And I do believe that, you know, you can choose to be happy and, you know, depending on how things go during there, what's happening, obviously, there's certain circumstances that can affect that and, you know, in my thoughts. But, you know, you can choose what direction that you're going or what direction you want to go in. And, for example, one thing I notice, a lot of people I notice is today, I don't know if you notice it, too, but a lot of people don't smile. So I find that we know when you, even if you're walking by a stranger and you smile at them like, they don't smile. And I don't know. I mean, we never know what's going on with them, so I never assume what's happening or try to figure out because you just never know. I know myself when I smile and when I'm talking to somebody and even on the phone, I can hear them, like, their inner voice and they're smiling. It makes such a big difference to, you know, not just to me, but to the other person that they can sense that you're, you're passionate about where you're talking about and you're smiling. It makes such a big difference.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: I totally agree. And I think that's, you know, the energy of self love. As you can tell when someone's really, like, standing in their self love, like, their energy is just so much different. So it's just these little practices even if you. You know, it might be hard that day to show up. Like, how can you. Even if you have, like, 10% of the energy that you normally do, how can you still show up and love yourself today? And I think, you know, it doesn't always have to be 100%. Like, I love myself so much today. Oh, my gosh. It's like, you know, I love myself. Even though it's a bad day. How can I show up today with this kind of energy? It's just being kind to yourself no matter what.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: So you said two things that were interesting to me. It kind of goes into what I want to talk about next. You said you were guilty and you lost your self trust. So why do people find it so difficult to navigate self love? Like, how do you lose your guilt? And how do you lose your. Your self trust?
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Well, I lost my self trust. I'll just use myself again as an example because I was going against my values and who I actually am as a person. And, you know, I didn't know that at the time. And that's something I really help people understand, is, like, are you standing in your values? And are you standing in who you truly are as a person? But I think there's a few myths about self love, and I think one of the biggest things is that people don't really understand what it is. Right. They're just like, oh, yeah, that's okay. Yeah, I guess I'll just get, like, some face mask and put that on, take a bubble bath. And, like, they think that's what self love is. And the framework is, like, it's so much deeper than that, and you need to peel back these layers, and I think that's a huge thing. And then, you know, the other thing that I hear all the time is, you know, self love, people think that it's selfish to practice self love. And self love isn't like, putting yourself first above everyone else. It's just honoring yourself and your needs so you can be better for everyone else. And so it actually is an act for everyone around you. And, you know, since I've been practicing self love, I think I've been such a better, you know, wife. I've been such a better friend, such a better daughter, you know, just everything so such a better business owner, better leader. Like, it just has changed my entire world, and it has this kind of, like, snowball effect where it just, you know, impacts everyone around you. So. And then I think, yeah, it just. People don't understand the impact that it has when, like, one person loves themselves, they're, you know, giving people the permission to love themselves, too. And it's just kind of this, you know, the next person, the next person, and then everyone around you is starting to love themselves. And I think that's kind of the difficulty in explaining why self love is so important, for sure.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: And when you said that earlier, you said, I, you know, I felt guilty and I lost my self trust. It made me think right away that, you know, a good leader has to have trust in their team. And people that are working under that leader, they have to have trust in that leader. That team, that leader is going to do everything that's necessary or what they feel for the greater good of the team and for them as an individual is going to be the best for them. So when you said you lost that a little bit, that was very interesting to me because, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that lose it at some point, but they may not realize that they did.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: And the big thing about self love in general is that everything starts with you, and especially leadership starts with you. So if you lose that trust within yourself, like you were just saying, that energy kind of shows up. Like, you're very hesitant, you not using your intuition, you don't know how to make decisions, and then your team is going to pick up on that. So it's so important to just learn that trust within yourself.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: I love that. And yes, trust is super, super important for everything. I think it makes the. Makes everything go smooth and it makes everything go round and round for sure. Do you think that more and more people are realizing the importance of self love, or do you think that it's got a lot of ways to go?
[00:19:10] Speaker A: It definitely has a way to go. I have a lot of conversations with people, and people are still very confused at the impact that self love has. And I kind of just touched on it.
We were talking about that with self trust. It just has such an effect on everyone around you. I think people just don't really understand what it is. They don't understand why it's important. And then I think, you know, to get very honest and deep, some people are just scared to face that for themselves. Like, what does self loving myself really look like? I don't want to change my life, but it is so important. Like, I can't stress it enough. And coming from someone who literally loathe themselves, like, I hated myself. And it sucks to say that now to someone who now loves, trusts, honors, accepts myself. It's just such a different vibe and such a different energy. But I think some people are just really scared to take that leap, but it just changes your whole life.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: One of the things that's important for me as a leader, there's many things, but one of the things I think is important is humble. And being humble. And your story is very humble for me, because, you know, there's some people who would probably act like that, but they're not humble because they're, like, into themselves, and they, like, this is what's best for me. And I don't care how anybody else feels. This is best for, you know, this is what's best for me. And for you to take time to sit back and go, oh, my God, like, why am I acting like this? And I. This is not me. And I think a lot of us have been there. I know I have been there. Not maybe not the extent of what you went through, but I have been there, too. Where I've been, like, this is not me. Like, why is this happening? This is totally not me. And I don't like this because this is not me as a person. So I could see that. But there's some people who just don't see it. There are some people out there who simply don't want to see it because they really. They don't have any care. So that just tells me you as a person, that you were so humble that you wanted to make sure that you were being the true person that you wanted to be and how others saw you and the way that people were seeing you, you were not liking it.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: Exactly, and I wasn't liking myself. And I think, you know, it's just, you can keep living your life not liking who you are, or you can make the change, and it's really up to them. And, you know, people like us are here when you're ready to make that change. But, you know, until you have that awareness, then it's just gonna keep going the way that it was, and that's okay for those people. But we're here when people are ready to make the change.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: If you could choose one word, Lindsey, to describe yourself, what word would that be?
[00:22:14] Speaker A: I would say resilient.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: Resilient. Yeah.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Because after basically being in psychologically abusive workplaces and having someone else tell me who I am and how I'm supposed to be for, you know, about six years, I had to, like, fight like hell to come back to myself, and it was a tough fight. And then, you know, obviously, owning a business, it's just, you have to wake up every single day and, you know, just keep going no matter what's going on. And I think I'm just going to keep going always.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: I love that. I definitely think that's a perfect word for you from your story, what you've felt, what you've gone through, and here you are now. I think that's definitely a great word for you. I would also say, I would repeat the word humble, but also caring. I feel like you're a caring individual to, again, to go back and say, I don't like how I am and I don't like how I'm treating people, that's a caring individual for me, and that's super important. And I wish that there was more caring people out there. There is a lot out there, but I wish there was even more caring people out there. And I think the world would be so much better if it was that case. But, yes, I would definitely say humble and resilient for you and caring. Those would be words for you.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: That's so kind.
I really appreciate that.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: You're welcome. You're welcome. Any final thoughts today, Lindsay?
[00:23:52] Speaker A: You know, we covered a lot, and I am just like a self love warrior out here, so I'm just kidding. Going to keep putting the word out. And, you know, that was such a good question. And hopefully, you know, as the years go by, people start realizing how important self love is and how important it is to your organization and as a leader. And, you know, it just has such a huge impact. It's not just about you. It's, you know, I always say, you know, skill sets determine how you do something, but self love determines who. Who you are while you're doing them. So I think self love is a skill. It's the skill behind the skills, and it should be your number one soft skill that you have.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. I love that. Lindsay, that is super awesome. Lindsey, I want to take the time to thank you for coming on today. I knew right from the first time that we spoke that this was going to be such a great conversation, and it actually exceeded my expectations, went even better than I thought it was going to go, which just goes to show the type of individual that you are. I believe that you're super powerful in what you're doing and who you are, and I truly respect the individual that you are. And I'm super honored that you were willing to take the time to have this conversation with me, and I look forward to many more conversations with you in the future.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: Well, thank you. And thank you for all the work that you're doing and all the conversations that you're having, and they're, you know, so important. And I just want to say thank you to, to you for, you know, everything that you're bringing to light on this podcast and through all your work.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: Wonderful. Well, well, thanks so much, Lindsay. I totally appreciate that. So on behalf of myself and my guests, Lindsay, I'd like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe, everyone. And remember, remember that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: You.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Have been listening to.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Let's be diverse with Andrew Stout. To stay up to date with future content, hit subscribe.
