Lynn Lessell is a certified health and life coach. Her journey through multiple traumas felt like a rollercoaster of anxiety, exhaustion, and guilt, which caused her to feel a loss of self. When she finally hit rock bottom, she realized something had to change so she could balance personal and business to love her life again. She’s known to her clients as the Identity Coach for helping them discover the secret identity that’s been buried deep within. She is CEO of Itz Why LLC where she helps career moms, like herself, that feel frustrated, exhausted, & guilty from being pulled in multiple directions, to take back control quickly, regain energy & time, and love their life again the way they want to. She is the author of the upcoming book Merging ME, creator of the Level It Up Program, “ME” Monday® and leader of a support group for professionals called Inner Power Partners currently in three cities.
Lynn Lessell, Itz Why LLC
Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.
Who am I? Great question. I could give you a list like I’m a mom, a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a partner, etc., but that doesn’t tell you about Lynn Lessell. So, who am I?
Today, I’m a health and life coach and an unconventional, creative kind of entrepreneur at heart who worked while raising two wonderful sons that are now successful business professionals themselves.
I’m someone that wants others to know that when you feel alone, you aren’t. When it feels like there aren't any options, there are.
So, I’m a woman with a mission to help others like me learn how they can neutralize daily stress and take back control of the quality of life they desire.
Please don’t misunderstand, who I am now is someone I had to reveal after a long, traumatic journey and I’ve proven it can be done.
Stress was continuously playing “whack-a-mole” with my life ( remember that carnival game?). It felt like that at almost every age and every stage of my life.
You may ask, “how do you win the game and stop getting whacked?”
Well, you have to stop wanting to control everything that happens.
You have to want to start looking for the person that got deeply buried under all the stress and bring that person back to the surface.
What does that look like?
It can be different for everyone and I’ll define what it means for me. I regularly ignored myself because of the belief that I was responsible to fulfill the expectations others had of me. When I realized I was the only one that had a right to have expectations of myself things began to change. Everything has gotten better with less stress.
It's not about the awful things we deal with; it’s about who we want to be in spite of it.
Many of my clients have expressed the excitement of rediscovering that hidden identity and how it’s changed their life. That’s how I became The Identity Coach.
Aside from loving to help others the way I wish someone was there for me, I love living in Florida and living my life like a local tourist. There’s no shortage of fabulous restaurants to dine in and my favorites are the ones by the ocean. I also enjoy writing. Every week my readers get an edition of “ME” Monday® in their inbox and I’m writing a self-help book that includes my story.
My creative side keeps me designing one-of-a-kind handcrafted handbags that I make myself while also using my artistic skills for digital imagery. I’ll escape to the beach now and again to clear my mind and relax. Lastly, I’m a big hockey fan!
What is your business name and how do you help your clients?
Thanks for asking. Itz Why® LLC got its name because I believe your personal 'why’ should be the foundation of everything you do. It sounds simple but it’s more complex than most of us realize and I want to get this message out there.
As the Identity Coach, what sets me apart from other coaches, I believe, is what I like to refer to as my "Spidey sense". I've always had this innate ability to hear layers below the surface of what someone says to help them.
The multiple certifications and training I've gone through have heightened this ability even more enabling me to determine the best questions to ask my clients; questions they would never think to ask themselves. The discoveries they experience are often about what they didn't know they didn't know about themselves because it was so deeply buried within.
Individual clients who work with me as a personal coach focus on a variety of topics and most often aren’t trying to look for a new identity. That’s just a consequence of self-discovery as they uncover choices they never realized they could make and the doors of opportunity that could open for them.
Being a mom and having a career while building a business made me realize how much the threat of daily stress was affecting me and holding me back from achieving goals. Since I knew I couldn’t be the only one feeling this way, I set out on a mission to find others like me and build a trusted support system.
Itz Why® LLC introduced (IPP™) Inner Power Partners™ as a small membership group at the end of last year by asking professionals of various industries one question… “what’s stress costing your business?”
IPP™ stands alone from other relationship-building groups because we unconventionally approach the process.
Building trust, learning about others as people, and liking those you do business with doesn’t just happen. It takes time and consistency. We share our expertise and experiences in different ways to support each other which results in lower stress levels and better business.
Our small group quickly expanded at the start of 2022 into two additional cities and halfway through the year, a fourth location was launched and we’re still growing.
What would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future?
That’s an interesting question. Most of all, I want to continue helping others transform their lives so they have the quality of life they want while reaching their goals.
Whether it’s working with individual clients or the professionals I work with in IPP™ the goal is to ensure the message continues to spread. What message, you may ask? That you can neutralize the daily stress and take back control of your life!
It’s hard to believe IPP™ hasn’t hit a one-year milestone yet and we continue to grow at a consistent pace. It’s an incredible community.
In 2023, we’re introducing a few new incredible member benefits while membership locations are expected to expand outside the local area both in person and virtually over the next few years.
When I risked taking this unconventional approach to networking, I never imagined I could spread the message so quickly. So, at this point, my goal is to do what it takes to keep this community strong with continued growth. It’s about our future, not just mine.
What is your work inspired by?
That’s an easy answer. It’s inspired by my life journey. I had to dig deep to discover who I wanted to be and how to love that person 100%. Now I choose to love the “ME” that’s a kooky, animated character who dares to be different which was the “ME” that was forbidden by others for decades. Today, I’m living every day with laughter while presenting someone trustworthy, loyal, and reliable. I’ve taken back control of my life and love every minute of it.
Though it’s easy for me to share my answer, was it easy to accomplish?-NO. Was it worth it?-ABSOLUTELY!
We can’t change anything or anyone around us. You have to make the change from within and find your true identity, the person inside that you want to love 100%. That change eventually can restore you to who you want to be with less stress. After their self-discoveries, clients gave me the name the Identity Coach which is what I go by today.
So, now I’m most inspired by the transformations that my clients and community members experience and share with me due to the work we do together.
Tell us about your greatest career achievement so far.
Today, I’m most proud of the extraordinary success that’s occurred with IPP™ in such a short time. It took courage to create something no one else was doing the way I believe it had to be done and risk that the message wouldn’t get out.
The IPP™ community has revealed that many of us have struggled in silence and that coming together makes us stronger individually and as a group. The power of the IPP™ community enables each member to blossom like a newly planted flower both personally and professionally and witnessing this is the fuel that pushes me forward.
I’m told that I’ve turned the networking industry upside-down. Maybe I have. Maybe I haven’t. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. What matters is that our community provides each other the sustenance we all need to take back control of our lives and our businesses and put quality, as we want it, back into everything.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
Simply said...I hit rock bottom ‒ more than once. The chronic stress I experienced from believing I had to ensure everyone else's happiness was toxic and it was unknowingly impairing my health. The very last time I hit the lowest I've ever been, the only way back up was to ask myself some really hard questions and do something I had never done in my life ‒ put myself first!
The hardest questions I had to ask myself were who do I want to be and what do I want?
I had no idea. I never knew I had the option to ask myself those questions let alone consider that I had my own choices to make.
What I didn't realize then, was that I wasn't alone. There are many people like me out there and I'm proof it can be different!
What I've learned along this journey is that it is far from selfish to prioritize your wants and needs. We don't need someone else's permission to be happy. We must permit ourselves to make the choices we think are best for us. Both my physical and mental health have significantly improved. It’s the reason I felt becoming both a health and life coach was important. You have to approach a whole person not just a part of them. I believe mental wellness is the foundation of everything so I’ve joined the Mental Wellness Networking Alliance as a member of the board, as well as, co-coordinator and director of recruiting for the business network division of the Alliance.
In addition, having a degree in business management and marketing, along with years of experience, enables me to take my work one step further to help the professionals I work with today in IPP™.
What do I want the world to know about me, my brand, and my story ‒ it's all connected. One couldn't exist without the other. It's about connecting to who you are deep down with less stress which leads to success.
Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Lynn!
