Lindsay Mitrosilis on Balancing Business, Parenthood, and Perfectionism

Audrey Saccone: Lindsay Mitrosilisis a LinkedIn mentor and business strategist for impact-driven entrepreneurs looking to leave a legacy that inspires others. She helps business owners add LinkedIn to their marketing and lead generation toolbox so that they can win more business that allows them to create the life they desire. Lindsay, welcome to the show.

Lindsay Mitrosilis: Thank you for having me.

Audrey Saccone: I'm so glad to have you here. We met last year through our mutual friend Shannon Matson. I feel like you're just in my bestie tier right now. We feel like we just talk all the time.

Lindsay Mitrosilis: The feeling is mutual, sister. Oh, it's so great. I love when meetings like that so people know on the show we did a mastermind, we spent a few days together. It is so awesome when the right group of people come together and then you just instantly click and it's like you have besties for life.

Audrey Saccone: Yes.

Lindsay Mitrosilis: Great.

Audrey Saccone: I totally agree. Here on Tough Stuff, we talk about all the things we don't usually hear about on regular podcasts. And today we're going to talk about something that happens very often with entrepreneurs, but I don't think is talked about very much, which is building a business that you don't like and living in a business that was supposed to create freedom and happiness and all these things for you, and then it's kind of doing the opposite. And that's a place you found yourself not too long ago. So how did we get there? How did we get out? What's the story?

Lindsay Mitrosilis: Yeah, so back. Gosh. In 2020, the whole story of how I came to be or how my business came to be. I was asked by a group of female entrepreneurs and they said, hey, can you show us how to use LinkedIn for sales? And I was like, yeah, I mean, I've been doing this in my corporate job for the last like ten years. So I decided to make a LinkedIn bootcamp course and started selling it on Instagram. And, you know, trying to convince my husband for like six months, I'm like, come on, I can get out of my corporate job. Listen, I can do this. And six months in, end up leaving my full-time job. And about three months into starting that going full time, Jesse Itzler reached out on Instagram and was like, hey, can you help me with my LinkedIn? And I was like, oh, my God, yes, of course. And so we started working together, was managing and running his LinkedIn. We started really building up his following there. And then he invited me to his and Sarah's house later that summer, which was so cool, and met all these amazing people, and they were like, oh, you're Jesse's LinkedIn girl. Can you run my LinkedIn? And I'm like, sure. And our agency was born, and it just became this really cool thing where I'm like, wow, I work with some amazing people. And I would have never been able to write my job description looking back. But then I also realized I left one boss in my corporate job to just have ten bosses because all my clients became bosses to me. And it was just like a hot and cold, right. I feel like the first two and a half years of having my business, I tried to figure out how to get out of it, and I just didn't love it. And there were great moments. But most times you're just struggling. You're trying to figure out, how do I do this on my own? People want to work with me, not like a company. So how do I stay at the forefront of the brand? And then you realize that's not scalable. So you're just going through all the motions, and you're going through great hiring and building processes and back end stuff. And I think most entrepreneurs, they get into their business by leveraging a skill that they're really good at. So it doesn't mean that they shouldn't have the business. But if they're a visionary, they're going to really struggle, like putting operations in place and sops and hiring and working with people to get them all motivated, going in the right direction. That's a generalization. Not for everybody. Or if somebody's really good at sales, you'll crush sales all day, and then you'll overload your team or your systems that don't support all of that. So it's just figuring out and managing that and sticking with it. And then we had a big move. So that was kind of this whole mess that I was in constantly figuring out if I should get in and out of this business. And then we moved. We moved last year, which was 2023, in the middle of the year, across the country, away from both of our families, with our two little kids. And it was very eye-opening in the best way. And at the end of the year, right before you and I met, I just had, like, a big God moment and truly was like, okay, I'm going to go all in. I'm going to commit to this. There's a way that I can make this work and make it work for me and be this great business that I actually love. And I have an amazing team with me right now, and I don't want to stop working with them. Like, they're great. So I just committed. I just committed. And then all this stuff has started to happen and flourish and blossom for us in these amazing ways I could have never imagined. And I love my business, and it's only been, gosh, a month since all of that happened. So that's the messy story and journey that we were on.

Audrey Saccone: I think it's funny, too, because I've had similar feelings in my business. And, I mean, I was talking to a very, very close friend who's not an entrepreneur a couple of weeks ago, and he said, you seem like sometimes you really hate this. Why do you do it? And I said, well, I don't hate where we're going. Where we're in right now just happens to be really hard. And in the grand scheme of the 20 year lifespan of my business, this is one year of it. It's really not that bad. And that's the perspective you have to have if you want to stick it out for the long haul.

Lindsay Mitrosilis: Yes, it's so true. You have to have kind of the long game. And I like to also think, like, sometimes it's just going to suck. It's just not going to be fun. It's not always going to be what you hoped and dreamed it would be. Just like your dream job isn't always going to be what you dreamed it would be. There's just going to be times that it's not going to be fun, and it's going to be really hard. I mean, I always tell people this because we deal with authors and leaders and speakers that want to be known as a thought leader. And I've said time and time again, the fastest way to being seen as a thought leader is time. It's just time. And you have to be in it long enough and do the thing over and over and over. That enough people start to recognize that you are the last person standing doing this thing and that you're good at it, obviously. But when you look at any successful entrepreneur that you really admire, they're usually doing this for a while and they're sticking through the things that suck and the things that are hard. Absolutely.

Audrey Saccone: I know perfectionism has also been a challenge, and I can imagine was a factor in some of the frustrations you had in the last couple of years. I'd love to hear more about how you've managed your own perfectionism and how being a parent has changed your relationship to that.

Lindsay Mitrosilis: Yeah, I think I'm kind of more of like a ready, fire, aim type of person. I don't usually think that things have to be so good and perfect before I can launch something, but I think the perfectionism didn't show up necessarily in business, but more so in other areas of my life, like being a mom and just feeling like you had to have it all together all the time and realizing that's just not reasonable, it's not doable, and it's not realistic. Before babies, I would get up at 04:00 a.m. And I would do bible study, reading, praying, et cetera, et cetera, and then go knock out a 05:00 a.m. Work out and crush the day and then go crush my sales job and travel. And I had all this energy. I loved it, right? And then babies came along and all of that got flipped upside down and I felt like I wasn't doing a good job, I wasn't being me. Like, I couldn't do that anymore. I just was so tired. Right? All the things. And life started to change and I realized I really had to let go of some of that stuff for the season that I was in and not hold on so tightly to those things. Yes, they are awesome. And yes, they helped me get my day on the right path, and I missed them. But I also had to realize it's just not realistic for me to do that right now. And so I have to let that go and figure out what is something else that fills my soul and helps my mind so that I can be like a great business partner or client services person or a great mom or a great spouse, because I needed that. But I had to find it somewhere else. And that took a long time for me to really find it and realize it at the same time. And it was just kind of this, again, same as my entrepreneurial journey. It was just like this meandering, wandering, figuring out what worked when and, yeah, life, man.

Audrey Saccone: I mean, I think we've all had some sort of something that has forced us to change our schedule.

Lindsay Mitrosilis: Change… I don't want to say change our standards, but change our yardstick of what we're measuring against and what our standard is. And I can imagine that's something you also have to manage with your clients, dealing with clients who have a certain level of visibility. And they probably, I'm assuming, because my clients who've had that similar level of visibility have had a bit of baggage when it comes to their perfectionism and how much they're keeping their hands in those baskets. And how do you manage that relationship with them to say, you got to let go a little bit, or do you? Yes, we deal with that with clients, too, where they want to be on LinkedIn. They want to start really elevating their brand and their voice, but they shrink back when it's like, okay, it's time to post. It's time to start talking about what you want to talk about. And they get so stuck in that perfectionism spot, and I'm like, listen, it comes down to whether you really want to do this or not. And they're so convicted, right? They're like, I know I've got something to share, and I want to be able to help people. And I'm like, then that's what you do. And you've got to move through this feeling of it's not good enough and just do it anyway because you'll never do it. If that's the case, it will never be good enough. When in actuality, the most real you, the most raw you, is what's going to resonate so much with your audience and the people that you're trying to help. When we get stuck in perfectionism, we make it about us and we don't make it about serving others. So that's what I try to remind them. And usually all goes well. We haven't had any issues where someone's like, I just can't do this because it's not perfect enough. No one gets stuck in their perfectionism that much. But it is something we do have to remind folks of, even ourselves, right? That like, hey, ready. Fire. Aim. Just do it anyway. Do it. Scared. It's all good.

Audrey Saccone: Something I often share with my team and sometimes my clients when I find that they're paralyzed by perfection, like they don't want to put out the draft because they don't feel it's good enough, is I always say we have to start somewhere we can't edit nothing, we can't improve nothing. So let's at least get it out there. Let's get feedback. Let's just start, because we can refine and tweak as we go, but if we're not willing to start, we're never going to know if it's even working.

Audrey Saccone: We just got to go.

Lindsay Mitrosilis: Yes. That is so good. That's so true.

Audrey Saccone: So as you've navigated some of these life transitions that you've had, these business transitions, how have you approached these new versions of your routine, or how do you even go about that? How have you said, okay, I just have to make this change and I just have to try this, or is it just that simple?

Lindsay Mitrosilis: It's a good question. I have found myself, because you and I have talked about macros or walking being consistent. Those are small little habits that I have tried to just get back to. I mean, for the longest time over the last six months, as we've moved, we've had to really create our new normal. And with that comes all these new habits and routines, et cetera. And so I have actually caught myself thinking, like, okay, you could follow your macros. Like, right now you're at a crossroads. Like, you could follow your macros and have the healthy salad and the chicken and the stuff that you already planned. You would have just spend five extra minutes making it. Or you could go grab something that's probably not as healthy. And while it may be easy to eat right now, you're going to throw off your macros, you're not going to feel good. It's not going to be great for you. What are you going to do? And I feel like I will find myself at this crossroads in my mind often. Like, you literally have a choice, which one are you going to make? And it's like that with a nighttime routine. You can sit and watch a show, or you could read the book that you said you were committed to reading. You could jump in the sauna, or you could scroll on social media. Which one are you going to do? And to me, it's always like life is literally the sum of your decisions, good or bad. That's it. So what decision are you going to make right now that either helps you get towards your goals, personal, professional, or keeps you from them, or makes it harder for you to get to them?

Audrey Saccone: It's short-term hard for long-term gains or short-term gratification for long-term pain, really is what the difference is. And I feel like that can be such a big struggle for entrepreneurs myself, included. And I think especially when you're starting to scale, sometimes it's just like, what can I do in the next day to just get by or survive or like, I need some sort of win. I need to feel good in some way. But you're not necessarily thinking of the long-term goal, like, where are you going? And it's just really in service of that.

Lindsay Mitrosilis: Yes. It's funny you say that because I remember in my first two years of business, I had this whole brand of kind of this Rocky vibe. Like, we got to go out there and fight. We're in the ring, I look back and I'm like, jeez, this is a little. Not very encouraging to people to start a business. Maybe that was the most real thing. But I always felt like entrepreneurs live to die another day. I mean, it's literally like you are up every day. Like, you eat what you kill. I hate to use this such masculine verbiage, but, right. It's just you live to die another day and you have to keep going and you have to keep putting 1ft in front of the other and to the name of your podcast. Tough Stuff. It's tough. It's really hard to just keep going. Some days you just want to crawl in bed and you're like, I just don't want to do this right now. But then there's, like, your high highs where you're like, this is freaking awesome. Everything is doing well, and praise, it's all going swimmingly.

Audrey Saccone: Oh, absolutely. So as you look to the future and your life as a parent and what you're modeling for your very adorable kids, I'm curious how you think about driving them to succeed and do well and be happy while also not getting caught in their own perfectionist trap. And is that something you thought of?

Lindsay Mitrosilis: Man, that is a great question. And, no, I haven't.

Audrey Saccone: Honestly, I don't know how anybody does it, honestly.

Lindsay Mitrosilis: Well, so I had a conversation with somebody last night at that dinner that you saw I was at, and this woman, she's about 50 years old, she had her daughter a little later in life, and she said when her daughter was seven, her daughter was like, you know, mom, sometimes I feel like you, like, work more than me. And I was like, ooh, how did you respond? And she's like, this is what I told her. She said, but know, your dad came along, I was Megan, and then once he came along, I became Meg's because that's what her husband called her. And she said, so then I was Megan and Meg's and then you came along and now I'm mom. So I'm mom, Megs and Megan. And so sometimes after 2 hours of playing Candyland with, yeah, like mom needs to go be Megan now because Megan needs her cup filled with the work that she had been working on before we started playing Candyland. So yes, sometimes I do want to go get back to my work, but it's not that I don't love you less. And I thought that was so good.

Lindsay Mitrosilis: And she said, she uses it now. Her daughter's twelve now. And she said, now when my daughter's calling for me and she's like, I'm in the middle of something that's work related, she's like, mom's being Megan for a minute. You're going to need five minutes. I was like, that's great. And so that doesn't really address the perfectionism thing. But I think what's really hard for moms, or even like as you get into a new relationship or whatever, you take on this new identity. And that's what gets so challenging, is you don't want to lose who you are to the first person that you were, which is Audrey. And that is something I think a lot of, especially women, I think struggle navigating is because you take on all these identities in different aspects of your life. And so you do have to figure out how do we stay true to ourselves while going through our life taking on these different perspectives. So not so much to answer your question about perfectionism, but I think staying true to who you are and showing your kids that I love you and I'm your mom and I'm also who I am. And these are other buckets of my life that fill like, you know, you're my everything, but you're not everything. You know what I mean?

Audrey Saccone: Absolutely. Well, on that note, and before we sign off, where can people find you?

Lindsay Mitrosilis: Oh, they can absolutely find me on LinkedIn. I'm sure we'll drop the link in the notes. Also my website, lindsaymitrosilis.com. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram as well, and YouTube.

Audrey Saccone: Lindsay, thank you so much for your time and sharing your invaluable insights here on Tough Stuff. Listeners, don't forget to share your thoughts on this episode on our latest posts @toughstuffpod and hit that subscribe button to always get the latest episodes in your favorite podcast app. I'll see you next time. Tough Stuff is powered by iced vanilla lattes and the team at Fast Forward Productions Thank you to our guests for joining us for today's episode. Everything we talked about today can be found in our show notes and on toughstuffpod.com. And a very special thanks to you for tuning in. See you next time.