Choosing to Love Yourself More and Stress Less

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Building a brand and business that aligns with your unique and talents is critical to bringing in consistent income in a way that feels empowering and joyful. Join us as April Lewis guides us through tuning in to yourself to create more self love and less overall stress.

April Lewis empowers individuals to be the highest versions of themselves so they can be healthy, happy, high-achievers. She is the CEO of the A. Lewis Academy, Inc., a learning and development consultancy based in Florida. As a keynote speaker, national trainer and Executive Coach she takes an “inside–out approach” to personal, professional, and organizational transformation.

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The episode:

Katrina Widener: Hello everyone. Today I am here with April Lewis and we're going to be talking about self-discovery, which I'm really excited about because anyone who is listening to this or has listened beforehand, knows that I am all about building a business that is aligned with you. And that's exactly what we're talking about today because April is just as much as an alignment person as I am. So thank you again for being here. Before we get started, April, would you mind introducing yourself, who you are, what you do? All of that goodness.

April Lewis: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me. I enjoy getting on badass women podcasts who are doing great things in the world. So it's absolutely an honor. As you say, my name is April Lewis. I'm the CEO of the A Lewis Academy, Inc. It's a consulting firm based out of Tampa, Florida. And what we do is we focus on resiliency and stress management for high-stress workplaces and employees. And so in my unique role I literally, well now virtually, but typically I would say travel the world. But now it's virtually traveling the world, speaking to organizations and executives on helping them just manage all the stress that's coming in the workplace and in life, so they truly can be resilient. So they can bounce back when, you know, air quote "life happens to them". So keynote speaking, executive coaching, and I do one-on-one coaching.

Katrina Widener: That's amazing. Also, thank you again for being here. I am so excited to have you as a guest because guys, April has so much amazing content and I'm just really, really jazzed. If you guys saw me, I just did like a little crazy dance.

April Lewis: I saw that, it was cute.

Katrina Widener: Yes! I think that this is going to be an amazing episode. So we're going to be talking a little bit about self discovery and alignment. And April actually has some worksheets and guides that you guys can get after the episode. But before any of that, I just kind of wanted to get an ask. How did you get started focusing more on this self-discovery aspect? And how did you really get focused in on that alignment part of running your business?

April Lewis: Oh. For me, it was once I realized that I am uniquely made. And when I am my most uncomfortable is when I am my least authentic. And I was finding myself, it really started like in corporate where I realized I have a heart for people. I know a lot of people say that, like they love people. And I think most of us do, you know, I think there are a few like buttholes in the world who just are angry and probably haven't healed from some trauma. But most of us love people. And for me, I truly enjoy connecting with people. Connecting with the different people, talking, sharing, all the things. Right? And when I was working I realized that most of my work, I was in healthcare, was to serve other people.

But I was working with people who weren't in love with people. Like that's a lot of people. Right. But it's basically, I got to see how people can take a beautiful mission and make it corrupt because they focus on the bureaucracy or they focused on the money or the fame, the popularity, and it just was not aligned with my truth. And I was really feeling disconnected and almost feeling like I was a fraud because I was connected to them, to jobs. And I'm like, "There's a better way to do this". Or "If we actually can be of service to more people, if we do this." And so being on a job helped me see, like "April you can't silence your true voice for the sake of just being heard." Right? "You have to be heard with your true, authentic, unapologetic voice."

That's not easily done. But for me I came to realize the more I sat with myself and got to know me and started to fall in love with me, the more I embraced me and I could show up as me. And so when I quit corporate last year, literally seconds before the world shut down because of COVID, I truly started to feel awakened. I have this like fearless energy inside of me that was saying, "It does not matter what's about to happen. As long as you walk in your truth, you will always be okay." And since then, I haven't done anything, been connected to anyone, been on any project that doesn't align with my truth. So in discovering who I am, a person who genuinely cares about people and their wellbeing, and helping them be energized about life, then endless doors have been opening for me. And so it really started with the job and it was able to come to fruition when I freed myself from the restraints of corporate America.

Katrina Widener: Thank you for sharing that because there's a couple things in there that I think are really important that I want to call out. And the first one is I know when I was listening to you tell your story, I was like, "Yes, yes." In my head I'm like, "These are so many of the similar steps that I've taken. So much of the similar experiences that I've had of just being in a place where one, you can't really be yourself. But also it's not really... we'll just say it's not really the environment where we're putting people first.

April Lewis: Yes.

Katrina Widener: I am sure that there are so many people listening who have either had this experience themselves or are possibly in that place right now. Who can say like, "Okay. I feel seen. I feel heard. This is exactly what I've been going through or experiencing myself." and then the second thing I want to call out is the fact that you were like, "Once I learned to truly love myself and get comfortable acting as my truest self, everything fell into place. Right? The steps that I needed to take just showed up. The people that I need to get connected to just arrived and came to meet me."

And I don't think that's something that people actually fully believe in necessarily. Maybe people are like, "Oh yeah, that sounds great. That sounds great." But in the back of their head they're like, "How could that possibly be true?"

April Lewis: Right.

Katrina Widener: It is so true. I see it in myself obviously. You've seen it in yourself. I've seen it in my clients and the people I've worked with. Where it is just this idea of once you get aligned and you fully embrace being aligned, right? You love that version of yourself? It all gets so much easier guys.

April Lewis: Yeah. As you were saying that I was getting these visions of things. Literally I saw like a magnet and then I saw food coming together for a recipe and it's basically, for something to truly function with something else, it has to be what it is. Like a magnet can not pull on another magnet if the magnet is trying to be like a freaking rubber band. Right? When you're cooking. Now I've never cooked from a recipe. I eat food, but I don't cook food. But what I do know is that that one thing gets off or one measurement is off, it throws off the final product. So it's the same for us. If you didn't show up as Katrina, someone who wants to connect strangers from all across the world to share this valuable insight, then how would it happen? How would the listeners hear the voice of April Lewis? How would you be happy and fulfilled in the work that you're doing and no longer in an environment that no longer serves you well?

So I get it. People have that little voice in the back like, "Oh it's not true." But just look around, try to plug in your ether net cable into a USB port. It's not going to happen. It's not, you know, it's not going to happen!

Katrina Widener: I love this so much because like also you probably don't know this and most of the listeners probably don't know this: I used to work at better homes and gardens as a food writer. And so when you're like talking about the recipe I'm like, "Yes. Imagine if you are making cookies and that sugar is pretending to be salt?"

April Lewis: Girl!

Katrina Widener: "That salty cookie is going to taste terrible." so I'm like, yes! Yes! I got you!

April Lewis: And emphasis on the word pretending. And I love that you just said that salt, it looks the same. It almost feels the same to a certain degree, to the naked finger, right? Yeah. And how often do we as women look one way, but we are not that thing. And it's not easy being a woman because we have all these mediums telling us, we should look like this. We should wear our hair like this. Our bodies should be like this. You should speak like this. When at the end of the day, you are who you are. But to really own that you have to get to know you. And it takes boldness. It takes courage. It takes being okay with being by yourself for a little while. Because you may be able to attest to this. I know a lot of other women in my network. When you go through an intense discovery phase, you got to retreat and you just have to spend some time with you. And everybody's faith is different, but I'm a believer of the father, son and the holy spirit.

And you got to just spend some time with Jesus and you got to spend some time with God and you gotta be like, "Okay. Let me be honest with me. Let me get real, real, real naked right now." And some things you may like about yourself and some things you may say, "You know what, that's kind of tacky. Or you're the reason you've been stopping you," but all of that's okay. It's necessary. Because when you come out of that moment of retreat, you are truly grounded and anchored. And like I said, you are awakened to you. And it is truly magical how that alignment happens. People. The opportunities. You find your voice. You find your creativity. Your passion is there, and then you just live and don't just exist.

Katrina Widener: It's one of those things too, where I feel like so often when you actually take the time to get to know yourself? I tell my clients this all the time, you are perfectly designed, there are no flaws. Even the parts of you that you might be like, "Well I wish that I had this capability like this person did." Even if we break it down to the simplest introverted versus extroverted. I am an extrovert. I am an extrovert.

April Lewis: Ex-tro-vert.

Katrina Widener: I can show up at four networking events in a week and be perfectly happy and be around other people all the time. And yet I still know those moments when it's time to come home and sit and like process and feel through and all of that kind of stuff. But I also host a podcast. I am the co-leader of the local entrepreneur community Tuesdays Together. I do group business coaching in a community format, right? If I were an introvert, those services and those extracurricular activities I'm a part of would not work out. That would not be aligned with me. And so also owning that I am an extrovert for a reason because I'm able to help people in a particular way, or I'm able to fulfill myself and be there for others and be a coach in a specific way.

I am perfectly designed. It's not an accident. And when we start to actually believe that and say even these parts of me that maybe I'm not as excited about will say. But I have them for a reason. I talk about it a lot in terms of maybe the thing that you think is a negative aspect of yourself is actually a profit potential. Like maybe the fact that you don't innately have as much self-confidence as someone means that you can see the worth of other people really clearly. Like what if we flip all of that on our heads? So I'm so glad that you talked about that. Cause I'm just like yes 100%.

April Lewis: Yes. I love profit potential. It's not even about just monetary profit. Like we are all here to get wealthy absolutely. But it is profitable to be happy. It is profitable to have your peace. It is profitable to wake up in the morning and not get sick at the sound of the alarm clock. I've been there before, where I literally could throw my phone out the window from the 10th floor of the high rise that I lived in. That on the outside looked amazing, but on the inside I was so miserable and so broken and so torn. And you said a word that is critical. You said designed. We are designed as we are. Each one of us is a beautiful, unique work of art. And not to sound like cheesy, but when you think about it. We do hear that no one else has our fingertips, our fingerprints. Right? So that's a telltale sign right there. Yes, you may have an identical twin, but there is a difference. It could be a height. It could be the coil of a hair, the color of the eyes or anything. So that design is unique to you and what you were designed to do.

Everything that we see around us was manufactured to do something. Everything was created. We are not creatures. We are creations of the creator, which means we are here to create. And you can only create from how you're designed. So when you think about it, it is absolutely necessary and a requirement of life to understand how you're designed. And be okay in the discovery of that design. Like you're listening to this right now and you realize you need to wipe everything clean and start over. Raise your hand if you've done that, I'm raising two hands. Like sometimes you have to break it down and build it back up. But when you build it back up from your true place from your discovered place. Oh my gosh, it is amazing. It is that true fulfillment that everybody wants.

Katrina Widener: And also the thing that I love to talk about when we get to this alignment aspect is if you think about it as "I am perfectly designed, there are no mistakes. I am who I am for a reason. I have a specific path in life." Competition kind of goes out the window. Comparing yourself to people kind of goes out the window cause you're not like.

April Lewis: Girl yes.

Katrina Widener: "I want to be like that person because I want their path and I want their wants." No, you want your path. You want your wants. We each have our own desires and we are designed for our desires and designed for our path in life. And when we start comparing ourselves to other people, we're actually going after their desires not our own.

April Lewis: I didn't realize she was going to be preaching today. Yes, yes. Yes.

Katrina Widener: But it's like. When we like not just like, know who we are but embrace who we are, then it's easier to be like "Good for you. Not for me. Or good for me, not for you."

April Lewis: Absolutely. I was sitting in St. Thomas all last week. Beautiful island. And I was talking to my best friend, 18 years best friends, and in St. Thomas is it's a lot of mountains and mountain homes. And I was with a film crew we were working on a project. And we were looking at the mountains and one of the producers asked me, he said, "Which one of those homes would you pick?" and so of course I picked like this gorgeous white home that's just sitting there. And as I was talking to my friend at night, I said, "You know, I am ready for the shift where I am not looking at someone else's beautiful mansion. I am ready to be in my beautiful mansion." I was like, "I don't want their mansion. I want my mansion. I want somebody behind me. A teenager or someone, or a 60 year old or someone to look at my mansion or my mountain home and say, 'I want that one.' But in the intent of, I want mine not what somebody else wants." And you just said a nugget that if no one takes anything else from this conversation, it is about what you desire. There is no competition in your lane of desirement. There is no one else. When you're walking your path, you don't see competition because you're just doing your jam.

One of the hardest things is where they like write out your competitors. Well, I don't have any. Because if I focus on these other women doing their thing, then I'm getting distracted. My competitor is procrastination. Imposter syndrome. Doubt. Laziness, right? Bad habits that I need to resist. Other people? I bless them. I wish them well, but I got to focus on April Lewis and April Lewis' calling.

Katrina Widener: 100%. And my desires are different from your desires, right? We probably would not have been standing there picking out the same house because the house that I want is probably going to be different from the house that you want. So why would I try to change myself to be more like someone else so I can get a house that doesn't fit me. Right? I mean, we're taking this analogy really far, but you guys are following.

April Lewis: But a house like look at it. I had a coach tell me "You got to deal with the house of April Lewis." I think it was Jim Rowan I believe, who said "Take care of your body because it's the one place you will always live," and I think a house is a good analogy because this is our house. Our bodies. Our mind. Everything inside of it is our interior design. So I think it's a good analogy. And then who doesn't like a luxurious home?

Katrina Widener: Okay. But one of the things that I wanted to talk about, is I know that you have a worksheet that's about discovering your authentic identity. And so I was hoping you could kind of tell people a little bit about that and how that can help them get more aligned.

April Lewis: Absolutely everything that I create for the academy or the other coaches create, we do it from a very intimate place. And so going through that moment in my life where it was like, "Literally April, who are you?" And that question, if you've never asked yourself that question, I think it's one of the most powerful questions you can ask. Who am I? And I said those three words, and I remember hearing one time the moment you asked yourself that question, you will know the answer. Because what you're really doing is giving your self permission to be who you are.

So this particular worksheet, I was trying to figure out; who I am is who I am. I don't have to become someone, I just have to be her. So I started asking these really specific questions, you know, "when was I the happiest, what role?" Now this was when I was working. So what role was I doing? What were the particular responsibilities that I had?

Cause I was peeling back the onion layers to see when you are operating in this flow state. When you did not have any mental confusion. When you were truly creating. Where were you in life? And so through a series, I think it's about 10 questions on there. You'll answer the questions and you'll essentially just say in your desired life, that ideal day, what is it that you would be doing? And then you would clearly write that out and you would affirm that to yourself. That's your authentic identity. I cannot run from being a speaker. That I'm like you. You can put me in four networking events today. I will leave with 37 best friends and 39 lunch dates on the calendar. Right? So. I can't be anything other than a speaker. In my speaking I'm able to serve and I'm able to coach. So the worksheet that I truly encourage everyone to complete it, print it out, take some time, burn a candle, give whatever beverage of choice and just get to know you. And then move forward accordingly on who you discover because he or she is waiting to be unleashed. And the world is waiting on you to show up.

Katrina Widener: 100%. Thank you so much for sharing that. Cause I think it is so important that people are like, "Cool, cool, cool. I want to be aligned. I want to be me, but how do I do that? How do I figure that out?" And this is really answering that question of how right? Honestly, this is a lifelong journey of getting to know yourself and then being like, "Ooh, here's a new layer to pull back. Cool. I get to know myself even more now." But this is an amazing place to start because so often it's like, which parts of quote unquote, I'm doing air quotes guys, "Which parts of me are me? And which parts of me are identities I've picked up?" I have a very visual mind. So I almost think of it as like, like who else's coat have I put on? I got this scarf from somebody else. I put on this hat from somebody else. And it's like, if we take off all of these layers that we've picked up from other people. These identities we've picked up from other people. This like way of moving through the world that we've kind of adapted and learned through just watching other people.

But like, how do you do it? How do you operate? One of the questions I love to ask my clients is "What are the things that you're doing when you love who you are while you're doing that? And what are the things that you're doing when you don't like who you are when you're doing them? I don't like it when I snap at people around me. Right? That's not a version of Katrina that I'm a fan of. When I'm sitting in stop and go traffic and I'm getting a little road ragey, that's not a version of me that I really enjoy. But when I am spending time with my niece and we're reading books and I'm able to connect with her, I love that version of me.

And so how do I bring those moments into my life more often? How do I bring the version of me that's "Auntie" in, as opposed to the version of me who's like, "Oh my gosh, why aren't you moving?" One of the ways I did that was I started my own business and I no longer have an hour and a half long commute every day. Right.

April Lewis: Boom.

Katrina Widener: Yeah! Like you can actually make big changes to take those things away, but also on a more subtle level I can interact with other human beings at a very base level. And that gets me to be the auntie version, even if it's not literally the equivalent of me sitting down with my niece every single day.

April Lewis: Yeah.

Katrina Widener: It's really just saying "I want more of that good feeling and I want less of the bad feelings. And how do I intentionally choose and take action that is aligned with that?"

April Lewis: You are so accurate. So right. So real. So honest. And I feel you, cause I'm an auntie. I have 13 nieces and nephews. But I love that you said that because even here recently I was coming to realize I love that question. But if I am just in my head and not creating or producing or serving, I do not like that version of April Lewis. She gets a little all over the place. She gets a little self judgy. She gets all these things that I do not like. But when I get out of my head, and just get in my heart and show up, I am the happiest. I am the literal happiest when I am just showing up, doing my thing and not doing, like you said, what somebody else's coat that I picked up along the way.

And even being on this podcast, I have had so many people ask me to do a podcast. I don't want to. I thought I did. Matter of fact, I didn't even think I did I was just doing it because they were like, "Put this coat on. You should be a podcaster." I am a speaker, but I'm not a podcaster. I got a podcast mic here. Probably when we first got on the headphones, I don't like the way they feel because they're big. That's not my calling. My calling is to show up and support other people's platforms. To be interviewed. But nothing in my design is saying host the podcast, deal with the editing, all of that. So understanding just what your truth is and when you are your happiest? Go down that path by any means necessary.

Katrina Widener: Yes. Yes. I think that is first of all, an amazing truth. It's just a beautiful place to land this podcast because everyone is going to feel that. Everyone's going to feel that place of "Yes. This is how I want to move forward. This is how I want to choose to move forward in my life." So thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been so fun and so amazing, and we are so aligned. And I really, really appreciate it.

April Lewis: Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I wish all your listeners, the absolute best in life and it's anything that I can do to support them. Just have a reach out.

Katrina Widener: Yes. Last question is really just where can they find you after this?

April Lewis: Absolutely. When my website is www.aprillewis.com, I invite you to go there. I just uploaded a guide: 41 ways to enjoy life more and stress less. So I feel everyone under the sound of my voice can benefit from there. And from there you can get on my calendar.

We can connect, we can schedule a talk. And just see how can I be of service to you and or your organization. So that's www.aprillewis.com.

Katrina Widener: Thank you so much for coming.

April Lewis: Bless you. Bless you. Thank you for having me.