Lyndsey Clutteur DePalma had no idea her mashed up dandelion perfumery would foretell her future of essential oil foot baths and teas (including dandelion good for the liver) 23 years later.  She had no idea the seeds her great grandmother Agnes was planting on an appreciation for herbs would become a calling to bring back more natural remedies to common ailments. She never knew the desire to create was deeply rooted inside her. She never would have guessed the respect she had for her mom and grandmother who were breaking the mold of women in her small town by doing their own businesses would imprint so profoundly on her… but they did. 

 

Lyndsey grew up in a small town with then two stop lights (now has three) where she fell hard for the built in thesaurus of word processing tools of 1994. She had fun typing plunking keys since cable TV or video games were out of the question. She created short stories and learned about bigger words simply by right clicking on a thesaurus of six options (back when menus were simple). Her vernacular expanded and thus was born a love for writing… because it was either that or cow tipping on the weekends. 

 

She followed her sister’s footsteps because, well, she was the coolest person around, and went to school to study Biology. Lyndsey’s association with pipettes and molecules ended with her degree, or so she thought, while her sister carried on a career in the pharmaceutical industry (turned yoga studio owner - read the book to learn more there!). 

 

She started her first business, a tea and reflexology shop, after receiving her MBA at night while working a career she liked but didn’t feel attached to. She didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur when going to graduate school but she did know that after pouring over business plans and successful strategies, her destiny was not going to be tied to a performance review. Rather, it was hinged in seeing a direct correlation to creating something and then standing back to regard it’s beauty. One of the many lessons she learned in her business adventure was how little other entrepreneurs were talking about the surprises and the scary stuff.  Like just how difficult it would be to earn the respect of professionals that held the keys to your success (like bankers and brokers) and how much calling deep on your strength would be required to continue on this path (which, notably, was also punctuated with pleasant rewards as well.) She was surprised at how little her education prepared her for the journey but how meaningful every dollar earned doing something you love could be.   

 

Lyndsey loves asking the question ‘what makes you tick?’ (rather than ‘what do you do?’). She loves closing her eyes and letting her nose guide her around a room.  She loves pretending she was a dog in a former life. She loves listening to her intuition and she really loves her two boys who bring her more openness and joy than she could have imagined. 

 

A good day for Lyndsey are days when she finds reminders that every single moment of her history were baby steps for this very moment. Her circuitous path from Bachelors degree in Biology to stumbling upon a career as an HR Manager to her MBA comes full circle regularly. Another good day is when she remembers her gratitude and meditation practice and gets to watch how it affects her responses and overall enjoyment of life. 

And the best day of all is when a reader finds any part of her story helpful to lighting up their own path.