“Make Decisions Based In Love” Words of Wisdom With Lindsay Smith, Founder of “I Am LVC”
“Every decision is motivated by either love or fear. Are you choosing to expand because you are worried if you don’t you won’t make enough money or are you choosing to expand because you are excited by what that will mean for your customers and your team members? When we make decisions motivated by love, everyone wins. When we make decisions motivated by fear, they may work out, but it is more likely that the decision will ultimately be harmful to the company. Choose to make your decisions from this place of love — love for your company, for your customers, for your team members, for yourself — and your company will continue to grow and thrive.”
I had the pleasure of interviewing Lindsay Smith. Lindsay Smith is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and entrepreneur who has spent over a decade focused on enhancing teens’ mental health and fostering positive family dynamics. After years of working with teenagers in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, Lindsay founded Teen Therapy Center in 2010 and its sister center, Family Therapy Center in 2015. Most recently, Lindsay has expanded her reach with the development of her newest company I Am LVC, whose mission is to empower people to know they are lovable, valuable, and capable, and to treat themselves and others in this way.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! What is your “backstory”?
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted people to feel included. In seventh grade, I befriended a new student who lived near me. I wanted her to feel welcomed, to know she had a friend, and to feel like she belonged. I did the same with another new student the following year, and in high school, I joined the new student committee, striving to make each person coming into our environment feel cared for and important. It wasn’t until recently that I realized why I was so invested in people feeling included.
In sixth grade, I had two best friends, and the three of us spent every moment outside of class together. We would walk the halls together, eat lunch together, and hang out together after school and on the weekends. We were inseparable. I felt so full of love and life when I was with them. One day during break in between second and third period, I went to the lawn to hang out with them, as we did every day. Only that day, they told me that they didn’t want me to be in their group anymore. I was crushed. It felt like my world was crumbling. I had belonged. I was part of something. I had felt loved and included and worthy. All of that came crashing down in an instant. I was sobbing and absolutely overwhelmed with feelings I didn’t understand. I had never felt so unloved and so unworthy.
Although I was not conscious of it until I was an adult, this one moment from 6th grade affected everything in my life from that point forward. I carried these feelings of being unlovable and unworthy into every friendship, every relationship, every action, and every choice from that day forward — I just didn’t know it. These feelings were locked so deep within me that I was unconsciously living from a place of unworthiness. It seems crazy to me that this one moment impacted my life so deeply, but the truth is that many of us have single (or multiple) incidents that greatly affect how we feel about ourselves and thereby how we treat ourselves, how we treat others, and how we live our lives. Once I came to really understand this, then I was able to focus on learning how to love myself, to know my value, and to know that I am capable.
I created I Am LVC to empower others to know they are lovable, valuable, and capable and to treat ourselves and others as lovable, valuable, and capable. I believe that when we treat ourselves and others in this way, we will be happier, more confident, and more successful in both relationships and business. I also believe that it will create a ripple effect of love, joy, and peace throughout the world.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
When I started my first company, it grew quickly — more quickly than I was expecting. I decided to hire team members so we wouldn’t have to turn clients away. I had never wanted to be a boss; I just wanted to help people feel better. I had no training in how to manage people or what it would be like once I began hiring. And I didn’t think through what it would look like with the team members I brought on. I assumed they would just do things the way I did them. Knowing what I know now, that is absolutely crazy. No two people do things exactly the same. And I didn’t even really train them — I honestly just believed they would naturally just do it like I did. What I learned from this is that people will not automatically do things like me — or you — and that it is important to provide in-depth training for those things that are important to be done in a specific way. Even more importantly, I learned that each person has their own unique strengths and talents. And people thrive when they get to use these strengths and talents to lift up, improve, or grow the company.
What do you think makes your company stand out?
My therapy centers stand out for two reasons. One is that we provide extraordinary customer care. We go above and beyond to help every person who calls us or walks through our doors. Our clinicians care so deeply about their clients and are amazing at making connections with their clients and empowering their clients to make the changes they are wanting in their lives. The second is that we have created an incredible culture, where our team is excited to come to work and where each team member is supportive of the other team members and our centers as a whole.
I Am LVC stands out because of the personalized course we have created to empower people to know they are lovable, valuable, and capable and to treat themselves and others in this way. There are other courses out there, but we really wanted to make sure that each exercise a user participated in felt pertinent to them. We wanted to make sure that each user felt like they were making progress each time they jumped onto the course to do an exercise. And we wanted the exercises to make a difference not only in the user’s life, but also in the lives of those around them. We believe this course has accomplished that object. We are still in the beta testing phase, but if you would like to join the waitlist for the course, or find out more about it, visit www.iamlvc.org.
What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?
I like to view my employees as team members. We are a team, a family — all working together for the greatest good. It is so important to see each team member as a whole person — to know and understand who they are both at work and outside of work and to value all parts of them. We want every team member to feel valued not just for their contribution at work, but also for who they are as a person. Their happiness in their personal lives is just as important to me as their success at work because one contributes to the other. Every team member matters and it’s important to ensure that each team member knows they matter to us.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?
I am extremely grateful towards my family. Each family member has encouraged and supported me in their own way. Even during the times that they didn’t fully understand why I was adding in another project or starting another company, they were always very supportive. They are more risk-adverse than I am in many ways, so even when they didn’t necessarily agree with the risks I took, I knew they would support me through the process. It gave me a feeling of safety, especially during the times I was risking the most.
I am also exceedingly grateful to the coaches I have worked with on this journey. Casey Truffo helped me learn how to grow my therapy practices and create such a positive culture. Michelle Rose Gilman encouraged me to think big and go all out. Kate Butler empowers me keep a positive mindset and continually helps me think of new ways to grow and get my message out to bigger audiences.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I used the knowledge and skills that I acquired from years as a psychotherapist to create the I Am LVC personalized online course to empower people to know they are lovable, valuable, and capable.
It is my mission that every single person comes to know they are lovable, valuable, and capable and then really, truly internalize this knowing and live from this place. We when know this about ourselves, it is easier for us to see it in others. So, not only are we happier, more confident, and more successful, but we see the best in others and help them to see it in themselves.
My vision is that that every person comes to know they are lovable, valuable, and capable and treat themselves and others as such. There is a ripple effect — and this love for self and others will spread throughout the world.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became CEO” and why.
- Dream big and know that you are worth your biggest dreams and you are capable of achieving them. When you love yourself, when you know you are valuable, and when you believe you are capable, then you can do anything. Allow yourself to dream big. Believe in your ability to achieve your dreams. Take one or more steps (little or big!) towards your dream every day and you will not be able to help but achieve it. Do not put time limits around it, just keep taking a least one step towards it every single day. You can absolutely do it.
- Choose to embrace failure. Failure is how we learn. Seek to fail as fast as you can and learn from every failure. Put the knowledge from each failure into your next try. Try again and again until you succeed. 100 failures in a row means you are that much closer to your success. Never give up on your dreams. Your failures are what will ultimately make you a success.
- Remember that everyone is doing the best they can with the knowledge they have at the time. We all have different strengths and different skill sets. We all do that best we can in each moment. When you are not getting the result you want from a team member, remember that your team member is doing the best he/she can with the knowledge he/has at the time. This helps us lean away from frustration and towards problem solving. Does your team member need more training? Does your team member need support around something else going on in his/her life before he/she can focus on this? Does your team member care about this particular task and if not, is there someone else who does? Sometimes it is helpful to shift tasks around so that each team member is working in their zone of genius.
- Ask for feedback regularly. Feedback is important because it tells us if we are on- or off-course. Sometimes it can be hard to hear and hard to give, but feedback is always valuable. When you learn to not only accept feedback, but to truly be grateful for it, you will thrive. Feedback from our customers allows us to continually improve our product or service. Feedback from our team members allows us to continually improve our company culture.
- Make decisions based in love. Every decision is motivated by either love or fear. Are you choosing to expand because you are worried if you don’t you won’t make enough money or are you choosing to expand because you are excited by what that will mean for your customers and your team members? When we make decisions motivated by love, everyone wins. When we make decisions motivated by fear, they may work out, but it is more likely that the decision will ultimately be harmful to the company. Choose to make your decisions from this place of love — love for your company, for your customers, for your team members, for yourself — and your company will continue to grow and thrive.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”?
Live life as though everything is rigged in your favor. — Rumi
When we do this, we notice so many things going well in our lives. We will find evidence for whatever we believe. If we believe the world is against us, we will find ample evidence. But if we believe the life is rigged in our favor, we will find evidence of this everywhere. When our focus is on everything that is going well, that is in our favor, we are happier, more joyful, and we notice more great things continuing to happen in our lives.
Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this 🙂
I am so motivated, encouraged, and inspired by people like Oprah, Lisa Nichols, Tony Robbins, Brendon Burchard, and Jack Canfield. If you are encouraging and inspiring and have big dreams around creating more love, more joy, and more peace in the world, I would love to have lunch with you! Please reach out to me at lindsay@iamlvc.org.