Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Ashley Lemieux: How Entrepreneurs Can Overcome Loss, Heal, and Build a Thriving Business | Mental Health | E340
Mon, 03 Mar 2025
Ashley Lemieux’s journey is a masterclass in navigating grief as an entrepreneur. She became a mother overnight, only to lose the children she raised in a contested adoption. Years later, she was pregnant and hopeful, but a battle with sepsis led to the devastating loss of her baby boy. After years of running from grief, Ashley finally reached a breaking point. One day, she broke down, threw up her hands, and screamed, “I am here!” That mantra became a powerful reminder to stay mindful. In this episode, Ashley shares how the Clarity Mapping framework helped rebuild her life and teaches us how to shine, even through life’s darkest moments. In this episode, Hala and Ashley will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (01:11) Unexpected Parenthood and Loss (05:46) Clarity Mapping: A Guide for Self-Healing (07:56) Surviving a Health Crisis and Pregnancy Loss (11:01) The Power of Storytelling in Healing (16:33) Shutting Down a Successful Business (22:25) The Fear of Pivoting in Entrepreneurship (27:09) “I Am Here”: A Mindfulness Mantra (29:33) How Entrepreneurs Deal with Grief (36:54) Building a Sustainable Life and Business (38:57) Reframing Negative Thoughts and Habits (49:00) Distinguishing Grief from Trauma (52:08) Overcoming Fear in Entrepreneurship (56:58) The Five Daily Questions for a Growth Mindset (1:01:43) Why Mental Health and Inner Peace Matter Ashley Lemieux is a wellness coach, bestselling author, and founder and CEO of The Shine Project, an online community that provides women with support and motivation. Having overcome profound grief and loss, she developed Clarity Mapping, a tool for finding purpose, making mindset shifts, and gaining clarity. Through her podcast Healing Her, she helps others rebuild their lives after loss. Sponsored By: Shopify - youngandprofiting.co/shopify Airbnb - airbnb.com/host Rocket Money - rocketmoney.com/profiting Indeed - indeed.com/profiting RobinHood - robinhood.com/gold Factor - factormeals.com/factorpodcast Rakuten - rakuten.com OpenPhone - openphone.com/profiting Microsoft Teams - aka.ms/profiting Get the exclusive NordVPN deal now at → https://nordvpn.com/PROFITING. Try risk-free with the 30-day money-back guarantee Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Resources Mentioned: Ashley’s Book, Born to Shine: amzn.to/437SVEY Ashley’s Book, I Am Here: amzn.to/417DzNR Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, Psychology, Wellness, Biohacking, Manifestation, Productivity, Brain Health, Life Balance, Positivity, Happiness, Sleep, Diet.
Chapter 1: How did Ashley Lemieux's unexpected parenthood journey begin?
we experienced a very unexpected contested adoption. And we ended up losing the kids. The lack of purpose that I felt in my life is something that made it really hard for me to get out of bed in the morning. Until I got to the point where I was like, I have to figure out what my intention for my life is now. And so I started with one simple question every single morning.
Chapter 2: What is Clarity Mapping and how can it aid self-healing?
And that question was, so that's when the concept of clarity mapping really started.
How did you get over the shame of starting a company and shutting it down?
We get scared of this idea of starting over, but you're not starting over. You can't. You have so much knowledge now, and so you get to now apply all of that into the next thing.
Do you feel like entrepreneurs deal with grief and stress differently than other people?
Something that is very common among entrepreneurs is...
Yeah, fam, if you've ever struggled with grief, loss, trauma, feeling stuck, or just the occasional bout of seasonal depression, then today's episode is just what the doctor ordered. My guest today is Ashley Lemieux. She's the founder and CEO of The Shine Project, the author of books like Born to Shine and I Am Here, and the host of the Healing Her podcast.
Ashley is an expert on grief and trauma recovery and has devoted her life to helping others reignite the light within themselves. Today, she's going to teach us how we can all learn to shine even through some of life's darkest moments. Ashley, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.
Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
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Chapter 3: How did Ashley Lemieux cope with health crises and pregnancy loss?
Thanks for joining me today. So I'm gonna just jump right into it. For a lot of us entrepreneurs, our businesses grow out of something that we've struggled with in our own lives. And I feel like this has been especially the case for you. You've had a bunch of dark moments in your life. So why don't we start off with the first one that I learned about when I was researching your story.
It was in your 20s. You unexpectedly became the mother of two children. And then you had some traumatic experiences around that. Can you tell us what happened?
Yeah, so in our mid-20s, I was actually building my first company also. We were newly married and we didn't have kids at all in our radar at that time. And overnight, we became permanent guardians of two kids. And for the next four years, we were a family in every sense of the word.
And everything that we did revolved around raising the kids, giving them the opportunities that as a parent, you want them to have. And all of us were under the impression that we would be together forever, for always. And during the final steps of the adoption process, we experienced a very unexpected contested adoption. And during that time, we ended up being in court for two years.
I just remember the life inside of me. It felt like someone had taken a vacuum and just sucked it all out. We were in court all the time, depositions, high stress. No one knew what was going to happen. And we ended up losing the kids. I was actually on the other side of the country for work and it happened fast. I didn't even get to come home and say goodbye to them.
And that was almost eight years ago now. And it rocked our world in a way that I did not know how to come back from, or if I even wanted to figure out how to come back from it, to be honest.
Can you help us understand how you ended up with these kids in your 20s? And then are they now back in your family or the court took them away and you just never saw them again?
Yeah, so there's parts of our story that we just don't share all the full details of, but they were placed with us through someone we knew and we have not had contact with them since we lost them almost eight years ago. I'm so sorry to hear that.
And I know that you guys decided to move after this happened. What did that teach you about grief when you decided to move? Were you able to run away from your grief?
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Chapter 4: How does storytelling contribute to healing from trauma?
And so we found ourselves really having to dig deep of answering the questions. What is it that we want from our lives now and how do we rebuild so that we can participate in our life and not regret not living it because we were too sad?
We're gonna touch on this much deeper later, but you talk about this concept in your book called clarity mapping. So was this one of the first instances of you starting to get clarity around your life and what you wanted?
Yeah, so what was really hard for me, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, in whatever role you are in, let's say you identify with your role of motherhood or as a wife or a partner or your role at work or whatever that thing is that really shapes your identity.
If that is taken away from you and is no longer a part of your daily world, you don't have to base your decisions around it anymore. Your actions aren't based off of doing that thing because it is gone. The lack of purpose that I felt in my life, no longer being a physical mother, is something that made it really hard for me to get out of bed in the morning.
I didn't know how to focus my time and my energy anymore. It didn't matter at that point because my business was running well. It was okay for me to step away for a little bit. It did not matter if I got out of bed or not. There was no one I needed to feed breakfast to or to get to school or to bathe at night or to tuck in.
And I stayed in bed for a long time until I got to the point where I was like, I have to figure out what my intention for my life is now. And so I started with one simple question every single morning. And that question was, what is my intention today? Because today, right now in this moment, was all I could focus on. So that's when the concept of clarity mapping really started.
I became a series of five questions that I answered every single day to help give me purpose and direction and clarity on who I was and what it is that I wanted to be rebuilding and so that I could create tangible steps forward to start building that thing.
And one of those tangible steps was that you decided to have your own children. And so you and your husband started to try for a baby, and that led to another traumatic experience. Are you comfortable to share that with us?
Yeah. We waited, I think it was about four years after the loss of the older two kiddos. to feel like we were at a place where we were ready to continue to try to grow our family. I didn't want to go back into motherhood feeling as broken as I felt because I knew that that would impact the next child that we were to bring into our family.
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Chapter 5: Why did Ashley Lemieux shut down her successful business?
So after I was stable, a couple hours later, I had them give me another ultrasound. And that's when they found out that we had lost our baby boy. And I ended up delivering him alone the next morning. And... it sent me again into this part of life where you're like, well, I thought that we had gone through the hard thing, right?
Like I thought that this was our first step back of trusting life again. And now what am I supposed to do? And so that entered the next journey of really finding clarity again in my life for what does this look like now to move forward?
Well, thank you for sharing that with us. I know that's probably very difficult to relive. For other people who are in the moment feeling really stuck, that they've gone through a lot of pain, they had a lot of traumatic experience, maybe a loss. What advice do you have for them in terms of the steps to take next?
I think this is such a good question because when we are in those moments, it really feels like we are the only one in those moments. Grief and trauma can feel so isolating. And so the very first thing that I would say is that I'm so sorry. And I want you to be able to know that what you've been through, it can't be fixed. It's not supposed to be fixed.
There's not a band-aid that can be put on it. I think that there's platitudes that people like to say, everything happens for a reason or time heals all wounds. And I'm going to be the first one to say that none of those things are true. And so it's okay to feel exactly how you feel.
The one thing that we know about grief and trauma is that most people spend their entire lives avoiding the reality of the pain. And the one thing that if all of us did in this area of our life where we feel grief, that would change the trajectory of what we're able to do next is acknowledgement. We have to acknowledge what we've been through and also what it feels like inside of us.
And it might sound so simple to say that, But having it be simple doesn't mean it's easy, which is why the majority of people never get to this place where they're able to acknowledge it.
So if we can start there, then that allows us to have more freedom in acknowledging what has happened and the hurt it has caused us so that we can stop avoiding it and then create a plan that feels safe for us to heal and And to be able to experience the world again in a way that feels safe so that we can create forward steps.
And I know that for you, you've shared your story on podcasts like this, on your own podcast. You wrote a memoir. How did actually sharing, like you were just alluding to it now, how did actually sharing your story help you heal?
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Chapter 6: How can entrepreneurs overcome the fear of pivoting?
So I get so many stories sent to me by other women who have gone through really hard things who are like, I've seen your story and it's given me courage now to be able to share mine and walk through what that means for me. And what we know is that healing happens fastest in community.
And so when we can create communities that understand each other and have shared respect and validation for the pain that other people go through, we're able to heal faster.
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Chapter 7: What role does mindfulness play in dealing with grief as an entrepreneur?
No missed customers. You have created a whole business around helping people with their grief. And as entrepreneurs, one of the best ways that we can start businesses is by actually solving the pains that we once had and providing those solutions to people who are in the place that we once were.
So what steps did you take to become more qualified and become more prepared to take on the role to help other people with their trauma and grief?
I love this question because part of my journey is started even before I stepped into helping people more in their grief. I've had a personal brand online for, oh my gosh, it's probably been 14 years now before Instagram even existed. And I had a blogspot.com. I've always wanted... To be a writer, I've always wanted to help move people through their emotions.
So I was doing that even before these life experiences. But after these life experiences, you know, I wrote my first book and I was in the middle of my edits for my... most recent book, I Am Here, when we lost our son, Jace.
And after that, I really felt like my next steps in finding clarity for my life, I didn't know exactly what it was going to look like, but I knew that I needed to go back to school to get my master's degree, specifically in mental health and wellness with an emphasis in grief and bereavement. And that's probably the least sexy thing that you could tell someone that you are an expert in is like,
What do you study, Ashley? What do you teach on? Well, I teach on grief and bereavement. And everyone's like, there's nothing sexy about talking about that. But it is the one thing that every single person in this world is going to experience at some point in their life. And my life experiences, I felt very much qualified me to help others.
And I then wanted the paper, the education behind it so that I could take everything I had already learned and really just propel myself forward. So at the age of, what was I, 34, I went back to school. to get my master's degree. And what's funny about it is that about four weeks later, after starting this intensive program, we got pregnant again.
So I ended up graduating and finishing with a four-month-old. I was pumping. It was the first time I had left my baby for any amount of time. And it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But I knew that I needed that for myself and then to be able to help other people.
I love that for you. I love the fact that you were able to do that even with a young child and you've been able to grow your career so successfully. Your podcast is very popular now. You've got two books. So it's awesome. And you actually started as an entrepreneur even before you started teaching other people about grief and being an author.
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Chapter 8: How can entrepreneurs build a sustainable life and business?
You know what's interesting is that when you hit rock bottom in your life, which for me was losing the kids. There's nowhere else to go but up. And so I think that I was in a place in my life where I was at such rock bottom that I just freaking didn't care anymore. And I had to do things to get the life back inside of me. I had to. I describe it as feeling like I was dead, but I was alive.
I was just a zombie through my life. And so at that point, honestly, I don't know if it's a good thing, but for that moment it was. Because I don't know what else would have forced me to do this, but it was the only way for me. And I had nothing to lose. And I think a lot of times we get afraid of hitting rock bottom or what if it doesn't work out or... What will I do?
And honestly, sometimes it's the best thing because you finally make decisions off of what you actually want because you can't lose anything more than you already have. So that's what that looked like for me. And like I said, there was grief, there was sadness to it. And I also started to feel excited about something again for the first time in a long time.
And so I just kept following that feeling.
And I feel like for other people tuning in, what I want them to understand is that nobody really cares that much. We put all this pressure about what is everybody else gonna think? What are my friends gonna think? What is my family gonna think? Even people who are lawyers and doctors and who don't wanna be lawyers and doctors anymore, who are so afraid of making a change.
It's like, yes, it's gonna be hard in the moment, But as soon as you figure out the next thing and you've got the next thing to talk about and feel proud of, no one's even gonna remember or care if anything people are gonna be inspired from you. And it's just getting over that initial hump.
Absolutely. And I think we get scared of this idea of starting over. I've put in so much time. I've put in so much money, so much resources. I don't wanna start over. But that destroys our next step when we look at things like that. You're not starting over. You can't. You have so much knowledge now that has gotten you to this place. And so you get to now apply all of that into the next thing.
And I think the place where we fail the most as entrepreneurs is we stay in the wrong place for too long because our ego gets in the way of it. And we miss out on really what could take off for us and feel in just such alignment that would not only help us, but other people to be able to serve others more because we are on a path that actually is working.
And so that's something now I actually help women in their own clarity maps in high level entrepreneurs, because this is one of the things I love so much is how do we help you pivot when you are in this season of having no idea what to do next? How do you find that clarity and the confidence? and the strategy to support it so that you can move forward.
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