SHOWNOTES
Lyndsay Morris has been a guest on my podcast before, but since the last time she was here, she’s experienced more challenges in one year than most people face in a lifetime.
Lyndsay shares that story on this episode along with:
How she was able to pivot quickly and effectively
How her team saved her business when she got sick
How she was able to build her trust with her VAs from the Philippines
Why Lyndsay believes in focusing on one thing at a time
What Lyndsay considers to be THE KEY that keeps her outstanding VAs
Why bonuses and appreciation go a long way
Why little things makes the difference
Why Lyndsay recommends taking on a team
What happens when you surrender and let go
RESOURCES
I always love hearing from you. Let me know your thoughts after you listen in the comments below.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:04.980] - Gary Vee Hey, guys, it's Gary Vaynerchuk, and you're listening to The Front Row Entrepreneur Podcast with our girl, Jen.
[00:13.710] - Jen Lehner Our next guest has a pretty amazing story that she's going to share with us today. She is a recovering Type A perfectionist who learned the hard way about burnout and not prioritizing self care. She shares this powerful lesson in simple wellness practices in classrooms, companies, and communities, all around the world. She is the creator of the first wellbeing app for schools and has positively impacted twenty thousand plus educators, entrepreneurs and world changers.
[00:41.430] - Jen Lehner She believes that every human being has a gift to share with the world. But in order to share that gift long term, we must first gift ourselves grace, love and the permission to pause. Hey, Lyndsay, welcome to the show.
[00:56.780] - Lyndsay Morris Hi, Jen. I am so happy to be here. It's been almost a year, I think, since last time.
Read more...
[01:02.870] - Jen Lehner I know you are a repeat guest because you are just that awesome. Last year when you were here, we talked about hiring a virtual assistant. And I'm curious what your business in your life looks like one year later.
[01:18.620] - Lyndsay Morris Well, my goodness, things have changed. I think we all agree that 2020 was a year of massive change and it really created the space for us to pivot, reflect on our lives and our businesses and then integrate a new way of being. And last time on your podcast, I remember talking about how life changing it was for me to experience a Virtual Assistant because I had been a solopreneur for so long and I've done everything myself and it was refreshing to have help.
[01:51.890] - Lyndsay Morris But never in my wildest dreams or maybe my wildest nightmares did I think I would be pivoting to no more speaking events. I was speaking around the world and in March everything got canceled and then I actually got COVID and was extremely sick. And so my virtual assistants and my team of trainers saved my business. And this is why I've waited to do a podcast. I told everyone the first person who I'm talking to when I am well is Jen, because she saved my life and my business.
[02:31.550] - Jen Lehner Wow, I think that you have a special sort of X factor, though, Lyndsay, because, like, you really were hit hard like I remember when you first broke the news to me, you were on top of the world with your business and you had explained that you know 99% of your revenue came in from these speaking gigs all around the world. And then, bam, like that was all taken away. Plus you got really sick. But I've never seen anybody pivot as quickly as you were able to do that. Can you talk us through, like how you were able to do that so quickly and what you learned in the process and what the pivot was exactly?
[03:12.280] - Lyndsay Morris Yeah. So luckily before COVID hit, I had talked with local government and they wanted a course on workplace wellness. So I already had the script. I was working on it pre-covid and then COVID hit and we were able to launch what I had. I just recorded it all and we were able to launch it in April. So March 7th, I came home. I was getting off the airplane from a huge event. Our president had declared it was safe.
[03:43.670] - Lyndsay Morris It was just like the flu, don't worry. And I was around four thousand people hugging high fiving and no mask. And I remember getting off the plane and looking at my emails and all of my events, most of them had been canceled. And within a few weeks I was experiencing symptoms of COVID. So we had to quickly edit the course, get it out to that government agency.
[04:09.920] - Lyndsay Morris And then soon enough, a lot of organizations who had worked with for live events, they were calling me saying, "Lyndsay, do you have anything for staff wellness? Our staff are so stressed, there's so much uncertainty." And I'm like, well, yes, I do. I have this course. And then it just took off like wildfire. And organizations were purchasing it left and right. We ended up creating four other virtual products in 2020s. And again, that comes down to my virtual assistant.
[04:41.120] - Lyndsay Morris It's not like I was the one doing all the editing. There is no way I could have done all the graphics, the editing, the website pages, the sales pages. There's so much to do on the back end. The VA is really held it together in 2020.
[04:57.810] - Jen Lehner Yeah, and I know that you had mentioned your COVID is as young as you are, you're unfortunately one of the long haulers that people talk about. And can you speak to that a little bit and like how your team supported you during that time?
[05:13.070] - Lyndsay Morris Yes. So April 17th is when I went to the hospital and I had a stroke like symptoms. So I wasn't able to talk. I wasn't able to walk, wheeled in and within two hours the symptoms would subside. And then I was able to talk. I can walk. I had all these very odd neurological symptoms with fatigue, ear ringing. I could list like 20 different symptoms, but I'll spare the listeners of all of them.
[05:40.410] - Lyndsay Morris And then we thought, you know, it was just a few weeks and then a few weeks went by and it still wasn't clearing up. It cleared up somewhat in May and then, boom, it hit hard again in June. And about 10% of people who experienced covid have what they call COVID long hauler. And they're still trying to figure out why this is, but it acts as if it's still in your body and then it flares up. So June was pretty tough.
[06:11.010] - Lyndsay Morris August was horrible. August is my busiest month of the year because that's when teachers are going back to school. And I crammed in like so many different live virtual trainings. I was training with my face and my left side completely numb. I had brain fog. I had other trainers on to help in case I couldn't even remember what I was talking about. But hopefully nobody noticed. And then the neurologist, she stopped me and she looked into my eyes and she said, Lyndsay, this is really serious.
[06:42.480] - Lyndsay Morris This is like a traumatic brain injury. And they actually found some lesions on my brain. And she said, I need you to stop working for a few months. And my heart just sank because this has been my baby for eight years. And I never thought I was thirty five years old. And I teach about wellness and I'm healthy.
[07:03.900] - Lyndsay Morris And I never thought that not only was I lose it, I felt like I was losing my passion, and my purpose. But I also was feeling like I might die and I didn't. It was all uncertain. So I took off some work. I slept ten to 12 hours a night. I wasn't able to drive because I was having some seizures. November, I had emergency gallbladder surgery. I mean, I could just go on and on and on.
[07:30.720] - Lyndsay Morris But finally, in January 2021, I really started to turn a corner and I'm feeling about 95%better. I'm still working about ten to twenty hours a week though, so it's been a ride.
[07:46.680] - Jen Lehner I forgot about the gallbladder surgery. I remember like we had, you had mentioned it to me. You message me. I don't know if I knew about it. And I remember thinking, how is this possible? How is this one poor girl like going through all of this in just one short year? It's really mind blowing, but you sort of skip pass. I don't think it came through just how much your business boomed once you got these government contracts in place.
[08:17.910] - Jen Lehner So we have a lot, of course, creators who listen to this podcast, a lot of people who sell information products. And what I need them to understand is the scale of this, because on the one hand, you have tens of thousands of people enrolled in your courses and then on the other hand, you're in bed with blurry vision and lesions on your brain and you are having to answer customer service questions, I'm sure. Keep content out there. Keeping a business afloat that employs other people. Right. Like I mean, aside from your virtual assistant staff, you have coaches who are also a part of your business who need your business to succeed, right?
[08:59.880] - Lyndsay Morris Yes. Yes. But what I realized and the question that I wanted to ask everyone just to reflect on is will your business work if you're not able to work? And the reason why we were able to scale so much is because organizations wanted to share the course with their staffs. We had contracts where they were emailing ten thousand to fifty thousand to one hundred thousand staff members and then organizations would purchase it for their entire staff. So I didn't do any of the backend work.
[09:32.430] - Lyndsay Morris And if you're a course creator, you know that to grant the offers in Kajabi, if you use Kajabi that takes some work. So my VAs,we had a system where they would just email us their spreadsheets, they would upload their names, and then they were entered into the course. They would email them. And my VAs did the whole process, the course enrollment, the follow up emails, the customer service we set up help scout, which is what we use for our customer service emails.
[10:04.980] - Lyndsay Morris And we just created all these save replies for questions. And it took some time and I had to figure out the program and figure out the protocols. But then my VA is just create the systems and the save replies and they're the ones replying to everyone while I was in bed and the course was on wellness, but I was in bed so sick. And there is an article that came out like Lyndsay Morris is supporting schools during a pandemic. And I'm just thinking, oh my gosh, I felt a bit of shame because I wasn't well.
[10:39.120] - Lyndsay Morris But this just goes to show you that with courses you don't have to show up to make an impact. And that's always the biggest thing is I want to make a huge impact.
[10:50.850] - Jen Lehner Yeah. And, you know, the other thing is, Lyndsay, is that there is this horrible irony in the fact that you are a person that teaches wellness and here you are so unwell at the time. But you know what? Like, you really were walking the talk, though, because it's OK that you were teaching teachers how to be well while you were unwell, because first of all, the kind of unwellness you had had nothing to do with any sort of lifestyle choices that you made.
[11:15.300] - Jen Lehner It was just an unlucky bout with this virus. And you were taking care of yourself in the same way that you would prescribe to any of the people who follow you. Right. Because you would say, hey, you know, get yourself a team, let them do some stuff so you can sleep 12 hours a day. I mean. Right.
[11:31.470] - Lyndsay Morris Yes, exactly.
[11:33.240] - Jen Lehner So you're actually being you were leading by example in every possible way. And going forward, you know, this is a story that you will always be able to share that is, is such a good lesson, because if you had not had that in place, if you had not taken the time out to rest your brain, who knows what would have happened. So, wow, it's so powerful.
[11:55.380] - Lyndsay Morris It was a great experience to practice the practice. And although I teach about it, it was hard to let go of some things. But if I'm going to teach about resilience, I now have a perfect story, another story of resilience in about 10 months. And we often hear about the resilience story and celebrate the end product. But what about the messy middle? And that's what I really enjoy sharing with people because I want them to know that it's OK not to be OK.
[12:27.420] - Lyndsay Morris And we're all going to have some type of breakdown in life, which then hopefully turns into a breakthrough. And what a moment. I think we all had some of these moments this year whether people lost their job or something happened with their business. So it was a great experience to practice the practice.
[12:48.870] - Jen Lehner Hmm. Boy, those were those a whole bunch of wise words in there. I'm going to have to hit pause and listen to that again. So let me ask you this, Lyndsay. Is your whole team, are they all Phillipine based, your support team, your VAs?
[13:02.730] - Lyndsay Morris Yes, my mom still does the online shopping for our apparel and our tools for our store and some admin, but most of my team is in the Philippines.
[13:14.080] - Jen Lehner OK, so here we are and the kind of things that you were listing off of the things that they do to support you, I don't know if I feel like you have to have a high level of trust in someone to offload those sorts of things. I think a lot of people are under the impression either from bad experiences they've had or just what maybe what they've heard, that hiring from the Philippines, you just don't get the quality. OK, let's speak to that first. What would you say to that like to someone who thinks that you're going to get sort of lesser quality by working with people from the Philippines?
[13:53.150] - Lyndsay Morris Well, first, I would say, me too. I thought that in the beginning. And I also was really scared about the trust because I had experienced other team members and some things had happened. And I was thinking, oh, my gosh, all the way in the Philippines, how can this work? But going through your course, step by step, I learned these strategies and these tools that make it so for instance, like sharing passwords, I used to share all my emails and my passwords with my team.
[14:23.150] - Lyndsay Morris And now I don't do that. And you talk about how to do that in the course where they can still log into your programs. So that's one good thing is learning about that program. And then it just was a matter of I think trust is built with time and consistency. So at first I would give my team a few things to focus on.
[14:45.710] - Lyndsay Morris I really believe in focusing on one thing at a time. And then once they mastered that, then I was like, OK, now you can do headliner videos or now you can edit and upload the videos into Kajabi and now you can take over my social media. We use Planoly for our social media scheduling. And so it was just a step by step process. And that is why your course is amazing, because I've always been that way. Just give me a system, tell me how to do it, and I will replicate it.
[15:17.600] - Lyndsay Morris And your system is so easy and it makes it like the interview process and screening. You really get to screen out who is not a good fit. And by the end, especially with that test week, you know exactly who your team is going to be.
[15:35.690] - Jen Lehner Yeah, I mean, that it really does come down to like the screening process is so important if you don't start off with the right person from the beginning, it's really hard to make the right person the right person. Speaking of like, I think you were in the first round of Front Row CEO, as I recall. So how long have your VAs been with you?
[15:55.790] - Lyndsay Morris They have been with Generation Wellness for almost a year and a half now and I have a lead VA, who now is taking on the responsibility of training other VAs. So that's also nice because I never in my wildest dreams thought that this would be possible. I always thought I would have to be the one to do the training. And now I'm just in this letting go phase because I have so much trust in my VAs and they do an amazing job.
[16:24.370] - Jen Lehner OK, so this speaks to the other complaint I hear often when it relates as it relates to hiring a VA from the Philippines, and that is that they've been ghosted in the past that, you know, that they get someone and they're kind of good and then all of a sudden they just disappear. So what I know listeners want to know is how have you been able to keep these outstanding team members for a year and a half?
[16:49.550] - Lyndsay Morris Well, first is communication, I think communication is key, so we have a doc, just a Google doc, and we write to each other every day, whether it's task, at the end of the day, they answer some questions like, is there anything you need help with? Do you have any questions? Do you have any suggestions?
[17:08.090] - Lyndsay Morris And we also communicate on Voxer. So if they ever need anything, I'm available on Voxer and we keep the communication very consistent. Also, I provide bonuses for amazing work, like when we're doing a launch for some organizations. I don't do Facebook ads, but we do ambassador programs. So anyone out there listening who has a course, this may be something that you might want to try to is partnering up with organizations to share about your course with other organizations.
[17:42.350] - Lyndsay Morris So when we have those ambassador programs, for instance, one is coming up March 15 to June 15th, they're going to be doing all the backend work on that. And so we set up a bonus structure so they get bonuses throughout the entire year and then also in December. So I talk with them. I do a year review and make sure that they're happy. And so far it's going well.
[18:07.640] - Jen Lehner OK, so those are really important things, and I want to break it down, it really clearly for people who are listening, because if you want a virtual assistant who is going to be with you for years, who it's very important that they feel like they really are part of the team.
[18:21.830] - Jen Lehner And it's one thing to say, oh, you're a part of the team and we have a team culture and we're all family. And, you know, you can work at a million different ways. But the bottom line is like there has to be something there that really that is meaningful, that proves that. And giving a bonus based on performance is a wonderful way to do that, which also works out really well for even the smallest companies. So you might not have a great cash flow at the moment, for example, and you're headed into a launch.
[18:49.520] - Jen Lehner Well, it might be that, you know, you tell the team. All right, guys, so we're all in this. Let's do let's huddle up. And, you know, this is our stretch goal. This is our good goal, our best goal, our stretch goal. And, you know, depending on where we come in, if we come in at our good goal, everybody's going to get this much. If we come in at our better goal, everybody's going to get this much.
[19:10.520] - Jen Lehner And if we hit that stretch goal, hallelujah, we're all going to get this, you know, and you would just be amazed at how people now have a vested interest in making sure that your company does well because they truly feel like a part of the company. And it's really not hard for that very small business owner who's maybe in the early stages of their business or struggling with cash flow because it's based on the cash that you're going to make that you do make.
[19:35.270] - Jen Lehner And then, then from that point, I see entrepreneurs grow exponentially after that because now they've had a successful launch. They've built this baby team and now the team can grow. The launch can be relaunched even better. And so it begins, you know.
[19:53.240] - Lyndsay Morris Exactly. Yeah. And I think of my virtual assistants as family now. I know it might sound weird for people who have a virtual assistant, but they really are a part of the team. And I think I know that bonuses help. But I also think it's about simple things like changing I to we and I think the five love languages with any relationship and one is gifts, one is words of affirmation, one is quality time. So I'm very mindful to always be appreciative and make sure I'm expressing my thanks. At the end of the year, I write my VAs heartfelt like one page letter of everything that I appreciate about them.
[20:37.820] - Lyndsay Morris But at the same time I'm also providing them feedback. So if something didn't work right, I provide that immediately and I'm not afraid to say I don't say it in a mean way, but I think words of affirmation and appreciation go a long way, along with gifts.
[20:54.080] - Lyndsay Morris For instance, in August when I was wondering if I was going to die or not, and having all these neurological issues we had in the maze, it was the end of an amazing launch and we did those virtual trainings and it was just wow for my business. I've never experienced something so great. And so I ended up buying one of my virtual assistants a computer. And I'll never forget when she sent me a picture of her and her little boy in front of her computer and she was so happy and so thankful. So I think it's the little things that make a big difference.
[21:29.130] - Jen Lehner Oh, so true. So true. And and I also love that you said that, you know, that you have that shared Google document. You know, look, people use I've seen people do all sorts of different things, whether it's a Google document or Slack or staying in touch via Voxer or a combination of all things, weekly team meetings. All those things are really important to give the feedback and ask for their suggestions. And a lot of times you uncover hidden talents that you didn't know that your team had.
[21:58.700] - Jen Lehner I mean, sometimes I learned, I don't know, years later that Neeca had certain talents that I never knew about. And then we for sure employed those right away once I learned about it. But yeah, such good stuff. OK, Lyndsay, before we wrap things up, are there any final thoughts you'd like to share?
[22:19.860] - Lyndsay Morris I guess to sum it up for anyone who's listening, I would hope that you would take on a team now and surrender a little bit and let go a little bit before you're forced to, because that's what I experienced this year.
[22:37.110] - Lyndsay Morris Luckily, I had already started the process of letting go, and that was really hard. It was November 2019, when I started your course and this illness, I didn't have a choice. I had to surrender and I had to just go with the flow.
[22:52.920] - Lyndsay Morris I had to live in uncertainty. And I would really recommend going there now because it will create more balance in your life. And if you're feeling like you're working way too much or you're missing that time with your family, now is the time and it'll be good. And you're going to learn no matter what, even if it doesn't work out the first time. It's a learning process. And soon enough you'll have a team that will support you.
[23:20.190] - Jen Lehner Oh, thank you so much, Lyndsay. I'm so glad that you're doing well now. I am for sure rooting for you, as I know all the listeners are as well. And I really appreciate you sharing this gift of a story with us, because we do need to be reminded that, like, you don't know what's around the corner. So, yeah, thank you for that. Listen, where's the best place to send people who want to learn more about you?
[23:42.670] - Lyndsay Morris Yes. If you'd like to learn more about our courses or our virtual trainings or app, you can go to GenerationWellness, com. And then on social media, it's @GenerationWellness.
[23:54.360] - Jen Lehner Lyndsay, thank you so much. Take care. And I can't wait to talk to you again real soon.
[23:58.500] - Lyndsay Morris Thank you.
[24:01.220] - Jen Lehner Wow, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Lyndsay as much as I did, so inspiring. And if you're interested in the program that Lyndsay referred to, where she learned how to build her team and hire her team is called Front Row CEO. And if you're listening to this before March the 4th, you can go over to frontrowceo.com and get on the waiting list and we'll notify you when doors open. If you check it out after March 4th, you can go ahead and click the button to sign up.
[24:27.290] - Jen Lehner If you have any questions, feel free to email us at support@jenlehner.Com, and I'll see you next time on the next episode of The Front Row Entrepreneur.
[24:40.660] This episode is brought to you by the front row VIP, a private membership hub for entrepreneurs looking to grow their businesses with smart marketing strategies, productivity hacks and solutions for systemizing. This high value membership includes twice monthly strategy calls, monthly content planners, special events, monthly guest experts and a networking community of the smartest entrepreneurs on the planet. Get started today at frontrowvip.com.
