Reinvent Yourself

“For fad diets you’re relying on discipline, motivation and willpower,” says award-winning uber fitness expert, trainer and author (“Healthy As F*ck” https://amzn.to/2VvndML) Oonagh Duncan. “But that eats your energy. So you fall of the rails and fall into a f*ck-it spiral. These binge/purge relationships are corrosive to your sense of self.” Oonagh, a former “passionate smoker” and anti-sweat-er, talks to CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour about how to disrupt your habit loop by identifying your triggers and using your guilty pleasures to create new reward cycles (watching the Jerry Springer show got her onto the treadmill the first time.)  It all begins with throwing out the clothes that don’t fit. “You think they inspire you,” she says, “but they make you feel like sh*t. You’ve gotta love yourself to get to where you want to be.” 

What do you do when you’re a beautiful, high-flying, financial reporter for the top networks in the country (MSNBC, CBS, CNBC) and suddenly your segments are dropped from the air because all anyone wants to watch is Trump and politics? You fight back by creating a daily newsletter called NonPoliticalNews.com which covers—you guessed it—everything but politics! Gibbons talks with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour about how she downsized her apartment to pay for her launch, how she’s gathered an audience of 25,000 and how she’d be the perfect guest at Thanksgiving to sit next to anyone! 

She’s so famous that she goes by a single name: Carolee.  And you probably knew her jewelry company of the same name because the designs were available in over 700 retail stores nationwide. She sold that business in 2001 and created AccessCircles.com, an invitation-only network for thought leaders that focuses on wellness, health, and life planning and funds major projects with American research centers in the areas of sleep and heart disease. Carolee Friedlander talks with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour about never taking no for an answer (without being “brash”), how being “off center” led to her success, and how her network of high-powered women bolstered her business and now her life. Her reinvention tips include: 1. Become a great list maker—of things you love to talk about, be involved with, and do. Keep refining that list until it leads to something to explore. 2. Ask for help: people want to offer help and wisdom. 3. Test things you’ve never thought of: move to a new city, take a course in film making, work in a nursery. She also give negotiation tips for getting to “yes” with naysayers. 

“Every narrative about the army is negative,” says romance novelist (the Coming Home series (https://amzn.to/2HnBANt)) and former officer in the army, Jessica Scott. “It’s about PTSD. For women it’s about sexual assault. I wanted to tell stories of how fun the army is, to tell our stories.” Scott details for CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, how she began writing romance novels because she was bored in officer-training school, wanted to change how women in the army were portrayed, and to find a way to work out the serious emotional issues (like life and death) presented by her previous profession. She talks about learning to edit and revise from Stephen King’s “On Writing” (https://amzn.to/2LiABPZ) and doing a “beta read” while deployed to Iraq. “[Novelist] Robyn Carr gave the best advice,” Scott says. “Write the story only you can tell.” 

“Control is a coping mechanism,” says author (Wait, It Gets Worse https://amzn.to/34rUTPM), cancer survivor, and total life reinventor, Lydia Slaby. “It works until it fails.” And it failed when Slaby was 33, a freshly minted JD/MBA with a new job in Chicago and was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma that featured a tumor the size of a grapefruit on her sternum and heart. Two years of emergency care—including open-heart surgery—left her clear that her high-powered, uber-stressful life had to change. “The old path fell away; it was a gift,” she tells CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour.  Now at age 40, the “process of dismantling and dismembering” has allowed Slaby to find her true voice and her ability to share her journey and story in writing. “Disease picks and chooses,” she says. “I think it does show up when there are lessons to be learned."

“A personal brand is how we sell ourselves. If you’re not clear about [what it is], you

“There are seven fear archetypes. One through three that are more prevalent. They are in your subconscious. You experience them as truth, not fear.” Ruth Soukup should know. She found herself at 24 divorced, abandoned by her family, having filed bankruptcy, and in so much despair that she couldn’t get out of bed. Her father (“who didn’t want me”) convinced her to start working out three times a week, and that “one step at a time, gave her a spark of hope.” Soukup called a new therapist, bought a dog, finished a law degree, became a blogger with 15 million fans and $5 million in revenue, and has been “med free for 17 years.” Today she is launching a book, “Do it Scared: Finding the Courage to Face Your Fears, Overcome Adversity, and Create a Life You Love” https://amzn.to/2Y25mOc.  “When you know it’s not right it’s ok to change paths,” she says.

“True communities deliver meaning. It’s why people are put on earth. Even the most busy or lazy people are about mastering something together.” Or so says Gina Bianchini, founder of Mighty Networks, the private social networking host for our CoveyConnect app [LINK to join].  The Stanford Business school graduate (and Cupertino native) speaks with CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, about growing up in the heart of Silicon Valley, as the descendant of Italian immigrants, living through the dot com bust, selling her first company (Ning), and launching Might Networks, "a platform that allows creators, coaches, brands to create their own communities, content, courses that bring people together.”  “It’s my passion and my mission,” says Bianchini. (Note: CoveyConnect, our app that lets you geolocate and talk to members is run by Mighty Networks.) 

“We have a lot to learn—especially about educating women about cannabinoids and how to access the medicine,” says Aliza Sherman, founder of Ellementa.com (https://ellementa.com/wellbeing/), a site that offers women education about the health and wellness benefits of cannabis—stories about cannabis as a sexual aid, reviews of edibles, or CBD bath salts. Sherman speaks with CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, about why the cannabis industry is a great place for female entrepreneur—it’s “like the internet in the ‘80s”--and points to sites such as Womengrow.com (https://womengrow.com/) for job listings in the legal industry and Tokeativity.com for groups centered on careers and business. Sherman says she got into cannabis when trying to solve personal “pain and sleep” issues: "cannabis offers special help for women going through peri-menopause and menopause." 

Though Susan Feldman had worked in retail eight times (creating, among other things, swimwear for Ralph Lauren and Polo Jeans), it wasn’t until she moved to L.A., bought a home and had to decorate it that she hit it big.  “We launched One Kings Lane in five months in March 2009. We sold it to Bed Bath & Beyond which just celebrated its 10th anniversary,” Feldman tells Lesley Jane Seymour, founder of CoveyClub.com. Feldman launched Get in The Groove (https://getinthegroove.com/) as a high-to-low “Lifestyle Destination for Age-Defying Women” selling cosmetics, clothing, accessories, vibrators, even a menopause registry. “Our demo has an incredible amount of wealth,” Feldman says. “This is information and products that will keep women in the groove.” Follow them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/getinthegroove1/).