Reinvent Yourself

Bonnie Levison was a tall, "very shy," suburban mom. Then, after 18 years of marriage, her husband came home one day and said he wanted a divorce. After wallowing in self pity, Levison sat down at the computer and asked herself what she really needed more of in her life. The answer: humor. She typed “comedy classes” into Google and launched a career of writing and producing and performing  stand-up comedy.  Levison started the Nantucket Comedy Festival (still going today) and now travels the word for The Moth, teaching veterans, the elderly, prisoners, public school students and company executives how to tell their stories so they can connect better. Levison talks to CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, about her secrets to success. “In a world of perfection, lower your expectations.  If you just try something, you’re a success,” she says.  “It’s about the experience.” 

Rachel Lightfoot was flying high at Google and YouTube where she learned digital marketing from the ground up and taught it to Nike and Coca-Cola, even to celebrities like Will Smith. “I was living this fantastic life. I was on the fast track. I had a beautiful home, a husband. Before I had kids I thought, ‘My God, I’ve done it!’”  Once her children turned one and three, however, the feeling wasn’t joy and excitement, but “deep sorrow” because Lightfoot says her mind was "always on the job and the company’s clients.” Lightfoot , the family breadwinner, "decided what I needed was a reset.” Lightfoot speaks with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour about how she prepared (by saving six months of living expenses and putting a moratorium on shopping) and took the leap into Catchfoot + Run (https://www.catchfootandrun.com/) , a brand-building consulting company.  One year later she is “100% more present in my life” and has "almost replaced my corporate salary.”   Episode notes: Lightfoot’s top inspirational tips: 1) Start before you’re ready. 2) Create a mailing list—even if you have nothing to sell. 3) Read. Her most inspirational book: Playing Big by Tara Moore (https://amzn.to/2tdVOl8)  “which discusses two types of fear. One is true fear but another is excitement or awe when you go outside your comfort zone. I was excited and scared."

She was a single mom at 14 and became the caregiver to her younger brother shortly after that when her mother passed away.  Yet Tashyra Ayers managed to create a career in the health care industry and start in a radio show on the side.

At 38, she is about to be an empty nester (Davon is off to college in the fall) and so will be reinventing again. Join CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, in an incredibly honest discussion with an amazing lifelong learner who says “Reinvention takes shape over a period of time at different points in our lives.” When times are tough, sometimes you have to go through “subconscious surviving” to get to the other side. Says Tashyra: “You can’t evolve if you’re not real with yourself.”  

Gretchen Rubin didn’t become The Happiness Lady by accident. She was clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor when she realized that she was not really interested in the law, but in “power, money and sex.”  She went to the library and took a book on how to sell your book proposal, followed it, and never looked back.

Today Rubin is the author of “The Happiness Project” (https://amzn.to/2Us6uJe) and now, “Outer Order, Inner Calm: Declutter and Organize to Make More Room for Happiness” (https://amzn.to/2Tpvvs5)  and the founder of the podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin. In a high octane chat with CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, Rubin reveals the steps she took to transition from one lucrative profession to another.  How to find that “thing” for yourself? “Start by asking yourself who do you envy? Envy is ‘I want that’ but in a painful way."

“What if you spent all that time on growing your life instead of shrinking your body?” So asks Susan Hyatt, author of the new book Bare: A 7-week Program to Transform Your Body, Get More Energy, Feel Amazing, and Become the Bravest, Most Unstoppable Version of You (https://amzn.to/2TVSx5U).

In an energetic discussion with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour, the Indiana native reveals how she ditched real estate (which made her miserable) to follow her heart into life coaching where she now runs a multi-million dollar business. Along the way she discovered the phrase that became the secret to her life-time weight loss and her 7 step program.

Program notes: Hyatt says reading Dr. Martha Beck’s “Finding Your Own North Star” (https://amzn.to/2U3GGTd) started her on her path and that “women need to drop the transactional relationship with their body, i.e. saying things like, 'I’m only going to workout if brings certain results.’ "

She’d worked in corporate consumer strategy at banks. But after giving birth, she noticed how unsupportive her company became when she was looking for flexibility, how suddenly she was seen as less committed and less likely to be promoted.  This “millennial feminist” created LiveWorkLead.com to instruct both companies and individuals on how to bring working mothers back into the workforce in a logical, supportive manner that will make them productive.  

She was the daughter of pharmacists and a busy copywriter in the beauty business.  She was also raising kids. But she loved making organic body scrubs and selling them at local fairs. Then she got in front of the buyer from Whole Foods and her weekend gig, Gilly’s Organics, took off.