Meet Lindsay: Vulnerable AF

Lindsay is a firecracker soul- her positively is contagious, and she stays loyal to who she is as an individual, and she only partners with brands that align to her mission to change the way we talk about and display our bodies! Her brand combines her body positivity philosophy with being confident in you you are across social media platforms- check out her new IG course here! Face your shame and put it to rest with the lifestyle that Lindsay leads by example! Her interview is one that will help you question the mindset changes you need to make!

1.Can you tell us about who you are and your journey to where you are now?

My name is Lindsay Tompkins! I started out as a social media trainer in the direct sales and network marketing industry. When I went to school I actually went for marketing communications. I also grew up dancing as a competitive dancer and professionally during university. I put those two things together and decided I wanted to start my own dance studio.

So, I met up with a bunch of the other studio owners, and the biggest piece of advice that I got was pretty consistent. They said to me, “You're going to need a full time job for your first two years. While you're starting the dance studio, it's not super lucrative, it's really more of a passion project than something that is going to bring a lot of money, but it's where your heart is.” So I decided to get a job doing bookkeeping that would still allow me to start up my dance studio.

I ended up helping out that same company with their social media plan! This really set me up to go out on my own to start my business as a speaker and trainer for social media in the direct sales industry.

I started realizing that a lot of women weren't successful online, not because they didn't have the right tools, but because they carried too much shame. They were afraid to put themselves out there and that resonated with me because I was struggling with a lot of it myself. So, about six or seven months ago, I started working with a life coach. It was really interesting because a lot of the things that I was struggling with in my day to day life went back to memories of my childhood. While I was processing through all of this, I’d still been teaching dance, and I began to want to start changing mindsets in young girls who would become women. I speak with women who carry so much shame around from their childhood, and I want to change that.

When I started to realize that I had more of a responsibility in that area- that it wasn't just my job to create really great dancers- it was my job to build really confident girls that would grow into women. So, I started to look at a lot of the language that we use in the dance studio. We would say things like, “Okay, here's what you did wrong,” or, “Okay, you're going to be judged.” I can't imagine, as an adult, sitting down with an employer during a performance evaluation and they say, “Here, here's what you did all wrong, and you’re going to be judged for it.” That would be traumatic, but yet, that's how we talk to our tiny little people, and they're overwhelmed by that. Even when it comes to teaching them, for example a dance move or something technical, there's 101 steps involved, and they're tiny little brain and heart can't handle that amount of corrections over and over again. I can't imagine working in a position where my boss separated themselves from me, and then screamed at me. But I thought, this is what we're doing! I’ve interviewed many dancers now and many of them carry a large amount of shame. This leaves us to strive for unrealistic expectations. We tend to judge other people harshly because we have been conditioned to point out flaws in each other along with all it’s terminology.

We really don't give kids enough credit. One of the things that I did with my little ones (my youngest group of six)- I took a whiteboard and wrote up a bunch of negative emotion words and positive emotional words. We went through them and explained to them what they meant. I said, “I want you to start using this language to identify your feeling. During dance class, it's just good for you to know more vocabulary and be able to identify your feelings. It will also help me as your teacher understand more what you're going through.” A week later, during the middle of class, I had a girl stop and say, “Miss Lindsay, when we get to this part of the dance, I really feel emotionally shut down.” Another example was that I had a girl that was really stressing about a part in the dance before we went on stage. She was getting really upset and it was making the other girls stressed out. So, I talked to that one student one on one to help her calm down, but the other girls were struggling too, because they were picking up her feelings. I said to them, “Repeat after me: “It is not my responsibility to manage people's emotions.” They are 11. As I heard them throughout the entire competition, one girl said, “My mom is so mad at me. She's really stressed.” Then I overheard one of my 11 year old girls say in response, “It's not your job to manage your mom's emotions.” I thought: Wow, holy cow! When we provide our youth with the tools they need, nothing is too deep for them. It’s up to me to ensure when they leave my studio that they are more emotionally healthy than when they started at my studio.

2. What is the mission of your brand? How does it empower women?

The mission of my brand is to be as vulnerable as possible. My podcast is called Vulnerable AF for a reason (LOL). Whether I’m dancing in the studio with the girls or teaching social media strategies with women, it all comes down to showing who you are- vulnerability. Shame instantly dissipates when we realize we're not alone. The mission of my brand is whether you are 5 or 55- you are not alone in the struggles that you go through and the issues that you're dealing with. I want them to learn that we can really overcome our trauma and turn it into our strengths because we each have value to bring to the table.

3. What is the biggest challenge you had to press through as a female entrepreneur? And what is the steps that you've taken to overcome that challenge?

I think the biggest is the concept of femininity. I see that a lot of times when it comes to women in business. We feel that in order to be successful, we have to emulate men, and we need to be more masculine, you know? It’s not good to cry in the office and we think we just have to be really quick and to the point. I remember early on in my career constantly being praised by other male executives saying “We love working with you, because it' feels like working with a dude.” I felt like I was being taken seriously because they recognized me as a strong leader. However, the more that I've grown into my womanhood I realized that my femininity, regardless of what that is, (because that's a total different definition for everybody) ...that my definition of femininity was my strength; that I actually didn't have to be anything other than myself. I had to really learn to be a very sensitive person. I really learned to separate myself from trying to be more masculine in order to be taken seriously and instead to do the right thing for me. I stay true to myself!

4. What sets your brand apart from others?

I am my own brand really, and I am set apart because I am relatable. People that speak to me feel that I’m someone who opens up and is always honest. My brand isn't a Chanel belt with a Gucci purse and Starbucks. I'm not trying to show off a lifestyle that's inauthentic. Some people laugh because I show a lot in my Instagram stories about what really goes on! For the longest time, everywhere that I filmed for my courses and for all my webinars, I had a really cute backdrop and everything was professional. I started flipping the camera around and just showed people that I was in my unfinished basement with boxes and laundry everywhere. Because I started sharing that, I resonated with others a lot more. People also know that I share bloopers a lot! I really look up to people like Sara Blakely, the CEO of SPANX, because she's hilarious on Instagram! She's so real, so authentic. That's really what I've tried to emulate over time. The more that I've been open about anything that I do, whether it's Botox, or gaining weight, or my house, or whatever it is, I gain new traction with people because they want to be a part of something relatable.

I was talking with a friend the other day, and she read an article that she shared with me. It was the definition of passion. The true definition of passion, is believe it or not, the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. That is where the idea of passion comes from. It's the idea that you need to love something so much that you are willing to suffer for it. So, if you want to feel so connected to your business, so connected to what you’re doing and so passionate about it, you do kind of have to go back to that place of trauma. People that make it the biggest are the people that had a traumatic experience and said, “I don't want you to feel the same shame that I did.” If you're not feeling passionate about your business, you need to look back at the fear you might be hiding from yourself!

5. How do you collaborate with others working towards a better world?

I think being open to collaboration is something that is really, really important! I think the best way to go about it is to always place your ego aside. I think that so many times people only look at the amount of followers someone has but they don’t look at whether or not their mission aligns to their brand. I get companies that want to partner with me to pay me for a post or send me a bunch of products. This happened just the other week- a company wanted to send me their product but it was all weight loss related. I said, “Weight loss is actually a term I don't use with my audience. A lot of my audience has dealt with eating disorders, and body dysmorphia and body shame. It's not something that I feel comfortable opening my audience up to.” Even though they were willing to pay me a lot of money, and it could’ve been a great opportunity, it would have hurt me in the long run. It didn't align with my brand and it didn't align with my mission. My audience members would have felt like they couldn’t trust me anymore because they wouldn't know who I am.

As long as I feel aligned, I think there's always something to gain from it. Always focus on quality over quantity. I’d rather connect with five like-minded people, than five thousand that I can't be myself in front of. So; anyone who's open to collaborations or looking to do more is: don't just focus on the followers- read their content and really get to know them. If you're going to reach out to somebody, make sure that you do the research on them. Do the research before you initially reach out, and make sure that on both parts it makes sense to do that collaboration!

6. What advice would you give to a female entrepreneur during the beginning stages of launching her brand or business?

I would say my biggest piece of advice is to dig deep. So many of us want to get started in a business because we have this dream of a better life. Or maybe sometimes it's the lifestyle that appears to us. Maybe we want more flexibility. But if you just play in the shallow end of the pool, you're going to get shallow results. You're not going to find that passion. That is the definition of passion- to suffer for what you love. If you don't feel that strong connection to it, you haven't chosen something scary enough. So whatever it is that you want to get into, really dig deep into why is it important to you and allow yourself to go through that trauma.

I also don't think that you should have to go to work for eight hours a day, come home, shove food down your throat and have a quick dinner with your family, and then spend the next six hours in your office till three in the morning. I think that you can find balance! It's really about that connection. It's depending on what your goals are for your business. But don't play shallow! Dive into the deep end, find what your inner shame is, and be so vulnerable to share it. Realize that it's going to be scary, and there are going to be people who turn their back on you. But there's so many women that are waiting for you to say what you have to say because they're going through the exact same thing. No matter what the reason is- why you want to do what you do - come from something you've experienced in your life that has changed who you are. If you can uncover what that is, you’ll always be successful. Even people right now may be looking to start a business that are on the totally wrong path. It doesn't mean you're failing as an entrepreneur. It's because you're trying to build the wrong business for you. So go back into your childhood and find something that changed who you are today, because that is truly your calling!