Today we’d like to introduce you to Amber Lilyestrom.
Amber, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in Reading, Massachusetts and then moved to Southern New Hampshire when I was 9 years old. I am a New England kid and resonate deeply with the work ethic and spirit of what it means to be from the Northeast. I was the captain of the UNH Women’s Soccer team and began my life after college with a career in collegiate athletics marketing at my alma mater. I taught sports marketing at the University and managed and marketed the UNH Wildcats brand for a decade.
In 2013, I was just 2 years from becoming the president of the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators (NACMA). I was at the top of my field and now an Associate Athletic Director in my department. I was also pregnant with my husband’s and my first baby. On the day she was born, I stopped breathing on the operating room table and had a near death experience that totally transformed my life. I was met with the reality that I wasn’t doing what I knew I really wanted to be doing in my career and in the way I was showing up in the world. It was a spiritual awakening and quantum leap of consciousness and it lead me to a deep discovery period over the 3 1/2 months I had on maternity leave.
As a new mom, with a new view on the world and my life, I embarked on a journey to create massive change in the way in which I had been living. Eight months after our daughter’s birth, I gave my notice at my job, walked away from my 10-year career and launched my branding and business coaching company from the ground up.
It started with one client, which quickly became two and so on. I leaned on my experience in collegiate athletics marketing, corporate sales, brand building, live events and teaching to serve the fledgling community that I was building. What was most exciting to me in this process was that I got to include all aspects of myself in the build out of my own personal brand. I got to talk about the mindset work that was central in my life as a former Division One athlete. I got to weave in spirituality and what I had discovered sat at the foundation of the suffering so many of my clients were experiencing in their own lives.
The best part was that I got to create a life and a business that worked together. I was home raising our daughter and working during her nap times. I wasn’t missing the moments I could not get back, like her first steps and first words, and all of the little memories in between. I was also building something deeply meaningful to me that was making a massive impact on the lives of women just like me, mothers, future mothers, big dreamers and visionaries who realized that in order to change the world, we had to begin with ourselves.
We have now been in business for the last 4 years and have served thousands of clients and their families worldwide through private coaching, masterminds, programs, a podcast and live events. When we take radical personal responsibility for the trajectory of our own lives, it’s astounding to consider what’s possible. We have built a seven-figure business from the ground up that has been responsible for generating massive change, empowerment and life-altering clarity for our clients, all the while, experiencing our own personal transformations in the process.
We’ve donated thousands of dollars to charities like Haven NH and Arts in Reach NH that benefit the recovery and support of survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse and the creative expression of young girls in our community. By saying “yes” to my dreams, I have simultaneously inspired others permission to do the same and that, at its core, is what fires me up to keep going each and every day.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
In the early days of launching my business, there was a lot of second guessing and mental acrobatics as it related to how worthy I felt of my dream. I compared myself to those who had been at this thing a lot longer than me and let the gremlins in my mind run the show, at times.
What I learned from this was that the more time I spent putting myself down and telling myself all of the reasons why I couldn’t accomplish my goals was actually keeping me from helping others. I realized that, this, was essentially the definition of insanity and being gentle with myself, having a sense of humor and remembering to remember why I launched this thing in the first places helped me move through my own self-generated resistance.
The other massive challenge was creating a business with just 2-3 hours per day to work at it as a full-time work from home mama. Our daughter’s nap times got shorter and shorter over the first few 2 years of launching, which required me to get creative with client call times and when I was getting things done. I knew that my ultimate goal was to get to a place where the business could retire my husband from his police career. We both wanted this and we made it our goal in the background of the day to day. I am happy to share that in July 2017, we were ready for Ben to hand in his police badge and retire from his 11-year career in law enforcement to come home to work in the business and to join me in the day to day homeschooling and all hands on deck raising of our little one.
I’ve always looked at the challenges we’ve faced in growing this business as opportunities to get creative and serve even bigger and when I look at it from this perspective, there is always a solution to any problem that we face.
Amber Lilyestrom – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are all about transformation. Our programs focus, primarily, on serving entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs in creating their brands and businesses from the ground up. We have a heavy emphasis on mindset and retraining the way our clients think about themselves and what’s possible with what they are creating in the world. We have found that in leading our tribe back to themselves and to who they really are, as unique, creative and visionary souls, their work is transformed and suddenly begins to make a much deeper impact on the clients/audience they serve.
This work is about healing and also about service. We believe that when we see ourselves as whole and worthy, we show up differently in our relationships, our bodies and our world. This shift, inevitably, makes a huge impact on our capacity to earn a greater income and, of course, connect more deeply with our customers.
What sets us apart is that we’re not focused on a 7-step formula to six-figures or rapid success strategies. We are centrally focused on helping our clients do the deep work that creates life-long change and influences your business’ capacity to do the same. We care deeply about having the difficult conversations, releasing that which holds us back and taking radical personal responsibility for creating an abundant, fulfilling and joy-filled life.
We believe that if we can touch the life of just one person each and every day, it has the capacity to create a ripple effect that transforms our world. And the reorientation of living from the inside out versus the alternative is what the people, leaders and youth on this planet need most right now. We’re helping making consciousness sexy again, in life and business.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of my career so far has been each time I’ve stepped on stage at the Ignite Your Soul Summit, our annual live event. I had dreamed of being on stage as a little girl and bringing this dream to life and witnessing the transformations our audience have gone through as a result of this experience gives me wings. We’ve had countless mothers quit their day jobs to launch their dream businesses and come home to their kids. We’ve had cross country moves and live events launched. We’ve watched people release a lifetime of shame and pain over the course of a weekend.
This work is about changing the course of history for ourselves and the generations that come after us. We have such big work here to do and the Ignite Your Soul Summit live event experience is unparalleled in the industry. I could not be more proud to get to step on a NEW stage next April 2019, my dream venue, the historic Music Hall in Portsmouth, NH.
Contact Info:
- Website: amberlilyestrom.com
- Email: amber@amberlilyestrom.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/amberlilyestrom
- Facebook: facebook.com/brandlovecoach
- Twitter: twitter.com/amberlilyestrom
- Other: igniteyoursoulsummit.com
Image Credit:
Lauren Bodwell Photography
Nick Onken
Raya On Assignment
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