How I found myself and my passion after divorce. - Featuring Lisa McKenzie

Lisa McKenzie is the Founder and Executive Producer of You Night Empowering Events, a program whose mission is to help women embrace life beyond cancer.  Lisa's passion for exploring opportunities to empower women is what drives her daily ambitions.  Seeing how hard women can be on themselves, Lisa recognized the positive role she can play in the community, drawing from powerful tools she used to climb out of a dark place. Lisa founded You Night in 2013 to bring together caring members of the community to love on and empower women, and show them they possess everything they need to be strong and powerful.  That is achieved through faith, a positive outlook and the social support of the You Night sisterhood.  To date – because of sponsorship support and donations to You Night’s non-profit (the We Lift You Up fund) -- You Night has gifted 300 local women with the You Night experience, resulting in a very active sisterhood of survivors in our community.   There are many aspects to the You Night programs that extend to not only the participants, but to the family members, as well.  One of the programs Lisa created is ScART (which stands for Scar Art).  ScART gives participants the opportunity to paint their surgery scars on canvas, allowing them to see their scars from a new perspective. Lisa is hoping that someday, her programs will be available nationwide and that her program will be synonymous with mental and emotional healing after a cancer diagnosis. In 2013, Lisa was a finalist in the “BIG IDEA” – for New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. That same year she was a finalist in the Urban League’s “Women in Business Challenge” and a $10,000 grant winner for the Salesforce Challenge. In 2017, Lisa was awarded the InnovateHer Challenge winner for the state of Louisiana; You Night was named “Most Glamourous Event” by St. Charles Avenue Magazine,  was named “Best Charity Event” by the Edge of the Lake Magazine reader poll,  and was featured in a national Capital One commercial viewed by millions. Lisa is a member of the Delta Gamma sorority, and many of the programs she implements in the You Night curriculum draw on the positive sisterhood and leadership aspects learned from being a Delta Gamma. Lisa is a graduate of San Diego State University where she majored in Political Science and Journalism. Lisa currently lives in Covington, Louisiana and is the mother of two children (Ryan age 22 and Halle age 17).

http://www.younightevents.com
​http://www.scartevents.com 

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SINGLE MOM CEO
LISA McKENZIE
EPISODE 3 TRANSCRIBED

Shahara Wright:     Hi everyone. Welcome to Single Mom CEO. Um, I'm Shahara Wright and I am so excited to have for you, a good friend of mine, Lisa McKenzie. And one of the things that I really was excited about having her here is because not only does she have her own business, but she also has a nonprofit that she runs. She does so much stuff as a single mom helping others that she was like one of, I know I say this all the time, but when I really think of people, I think about, you know, the people that I interacted with, I think that are doing really great things. And Lisa is one of those people. So Lisa, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much, for sharing your story.

Lisa McKenzie:     Thank you for having me and thank you for those complements. It makes when I have a peer that I look up to, to, to compliment me, it means a lot to me.

Shahara Wright:      So why don't you give us a quick introduction of yourself and your business, what you do.

Lisa McKenzie:      We at all, I started a PR, a company called You Night Events in 2013 and the idea behind it was to take women who have suffered through adversity and in the case we, in this case it's cancer and put them through an empowerment program that's an alternative to traditional support groups where there's a finish line, um, something that they can work to together as a group to, to achieve a goal rather than just week after week or month after month, going to a support group and hearing everybody's struggles. Um, I was, I was in a divorce support group and after the second one I kind of ran to my car because I thought, Oh my gosh, like is this, what's going to be like every, every week? It felt so sad and I'm like, I don't want to feel sad. I want to, I want to find ways to feel happy.

Lisa McKenzie:      And even though you want to be in a supportive group with other people, it's like I'm my own problems. I don't know if I could sit around and take on all your problems. So anyhow, unite is a support group, but we do, we have been empowered group activities. And in our case, we're best known for training ladies who are survivors do walk a runway and then it's done over a six month period of time where when they first join, they're not feeling that they’re in the best position emotionally where emotional support initiative. And so they're, you know, a lot of them don't have hair eyelashes or they put on weight because of the treatments that they're in or their body parts are different. Their self-esteem has changed. So it's probably the worst time in your life to be approached to be in a runway show. But we take ladies and once they start saying, wow, we're also just human and so beautifully human, um, and they, they sort of let their walls come down and start discovering their inner beauty and together they can purge their bad self-talk that they've been teaching themselves and, and replace that with amazing truths. And by the time they walk the runway, they are just this beautiful, amazing sisterhood that long lasts long. Anyway, so that's in a nutshell.

Shahara Wright:     So why did you focus on cancer survivors as a part of this event?

Lisa McKenzie:     Yeah, it was, it was really kind of accidental because I'm not a cancer survivor myself. My mom is a breast cancer survivor and when I was younger and I saw her lose her hair and she had one breast forever, it was really damaging to me as a child to have to grow up with a mom that I was sort of embarrassed about when she'd come and pick us up at school and she never wore a bra. And I was hooked by that. So I didn't accept her the way she accepted herself, which is now as I'm older, I definitely have more compassion about that. Um, but then also I had two really good friends who got diagnosed and they were just not the same strong women that they were prior to the diagnosis and you just saw their worlds kind of come crashing down. So it just happened to be that I wanted to do an October event and I approached the hospital and I said, we'd like to give this to the participants and have it funded through donations. And sponsorship and, um, how would you like your hospital to be involved and to send women who've had cancer to get this experience? So it could have been any woman, honestly, who's gone through adversity. Um, the program really is, applies to anybody, but cancer has been our focus and we have watched miracles performed. Like it's beautiful thing. Beautiful. Beautiful.

Shahara Wright:      That's great. Yeah. And I, I really, um, love your story in that, you know, from what you experienced and saw the child, um, how you've grown into that and have a different viewpoint and now you want to assist others, um, from just to help them have better self-esteem. Um, you know, when they're going through something that's so, you know, emotionally, um, in addition to physically traumatic. Um, so that's, that's great. So did you terms of doing this business, um, why did you decide to turn it into a business? Why did you decide to make something that was your own?

Lisa McKenzie:      Yeah, it was, you know, I was writing, I've been a business person since 1997 when I was a wee young blasts. I thought, I've been an entrepreneur my entire life with the exception the first four years out of college, I worked as a in a public relations department and had them mean as us. Like she was just so, so rude and mean. And I'd sit in these, we'd get called into these mandatory board meeting or you know, committee meetings on Saturdays and they'd be just, it felt like a constant waste of time and a lot of politics in the office. And so from there I broke off and became my own business back in 1997. It's the best move I ever made. I, I think like an entrepreneur. I love being an entrepreneur. I love, my attitude has always been no ceiling. Um, I don't believe like when people say, what do you want to do?

Lisa McKenzie:     It's, I'm sure like other people, it always involves Oprah somehow and the Superdome, uh, you know, those kinds of thoughts and they don't scare me to think that big. And there's never like, Oh, I can't achieve that. It's always like account weight to get to that point. So when this came about, I was already running a successful jewelry business, which was also accidental. I kind of stumbled on things based on my crazy ideas and uh, and, and that, and it just, it just transitioned from me being at boutiques across the country with a jewelry line that I had you fill in a little frivolous with that cause it was an accidental sort of thing. I was doing that I wanted to make a difference in the world of women. And it's, it's, it's where I'm naturally meant to do that. I've been involved with my sorority forever and, um, I'm also very deep in my faith and I just believe that I have the ability to do my creative ideas and energy to make a difference in this world. So what I'm doing is really, I've, I believe it's for others, although it's super gratifying for myself.

Shahara Wright:      Yeah, no, that's great. Um, and I love that you have been doing this for such a long time in terms of owning your own business because I think that gives you sort of a bravery, um, when you're out or ready to, to do the next thing. So you mentioned earlier that you are divorced and so, you know, when you got divorced and you had, you were single mom, what was your mindset in terms of having a business and being able to raise your kids at the same time?

Lisa McKenzie:     Well, actually the way that You Night came about was because of my divorce. So my cancer was my divorce. I went into very, very dark place for two years and was super depressed. And the hardest part about the divorce for me was to have to go hide in my room when my, so my kids couldn't see me falling apart. I mean I just had two years of where I was like, how do I say, stay strong? Cause I come from, I'm a child of divorce and all I just remember growing up was my mom was always crying and she was so messed up and I felt like I don't think kids should see their parents in a part like that. And I really kind of with my ex, we, we vowed to make it a very happy environment and we have so that thankfully a, he and I were united on that front too to make our home drama free.

Lisa McKenzie:      But it didn't mean that my world was drama free. That was the face I presented to my kids. So I would go and client, you know, hide and you know, take cold showers and cry and cry myself at sleep. And then my kids would be like, are you crying mom? No, no, I just watched this movie because they were young. Now they're older. When my son is in his, um, final year at university of Alabama and my daughter's about to graduate high school. Um, you know, so this has been going on for like seven years. So when they were younger, I didn't know if they were ready to hear everything and, and there was a point not too long or let's say a couple within the last couple of years that we did have a really honest discussion about what was happening, um, with the breakup and why happened and you know, how it hurt my feelings. Um, and it was nice to actually; finally have that honesty and I feel like at that point they were mature enough to handle it. But, um, I don't know if I, did I answer your question? I kind of went off memory lane  in my head there.

Shahara Wright:      No, no, no. I get it because I, you know, my, my single mom journey is, you know, I was a single mom, then I got married, then I got divorced and I'm single mom again. So I have that in between and I totally understand what you're saying because for me, I definitely, I have two boys and I definitely didn't want, I didn't feel like I had the luxury of falling apart. Not even so much of letting them see me cry, but I didn't feel like I could, like I had to moving I think in that feeling of having, feeling like, Oh yeah, I have to keep moving. You know, the depression was setting in, but I didn't feel like I could even stop long enough to deal with it. So I was just wondering, did you feel that way too? Like for your kids? Like I just have to push through this regardless of how I feel.

Lisa McKenzie:     Well, I think I've always been that way. I've pushed through so many things in my life, but during that, the only thing that was different during that time of my life was that I really got depressed cause I've always been a very happy go lucky I've been president of everything I do. Like I'm, I'm always take charge, like, let's do this. But then all of a sudden I found myself in a position where I didn't recognize myself anymore. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm like actually depressed, you know? And, um, and I was wondering if that was going to be my forever, you know, like is this my new world? And I kind of found myself in unfamiliar territory. Cause when you're married all those years and you'd have family vacations and you know, you're doing everything as a couple and then all of a sudden you're, everything you thought was the reality comes to crushing halt.

Lisa McKenzie:     Cause these were things he was having an affair on me. So that was what was happening. But it's all of a sudden you're just like, Oh my gosh, this world is like horrible. It's bitter. It's, it's not, it's not the fantasy that you thought you were, you know, having grown up and, and so that was the hardest part was like what does my future look like? And that's what happened was in that place, in that dark place, I was able to, I had to go through that fire emotionally to, um, to figure out what I wanted out of life. It's kind of like, okay, now I have the second half of my life and I get to decide what's important to me because, you know, as women, we're such givers and we're taking care of the family and I still take care of my family.

Lisa McKenzie:       My goodness. Do I take care of them? But like I said, especially having a daughter who's a senior the senior year, we're so busy. But um, right; it was an exciting time. Once I can start seeing the light out of the tunnel, they started giving myself empowering tools to get out of that and my friends and my family, my faith really helped me through that. And that's what we give to the cancer group. That same sort of tools. But, um, it's exciting to say, now what do I want? Like if I had between now and whatever age I see myself, you know, at, as an older woman, what do I want that to look like? And so, um, so that's how that's eventually what got me into power through is I got to set more parameters as to do what I want to feel like, what do I look like, you know, so I started doing yoga and annotating and, um, just more self-care.

Shahara Wright:      No, I, I definitely, um, understand what you're saying and I think it's really an important, I think, the theme overall in terms of understanding what you want, um, as a woman to decide where you want to go forward to. And sometimes I think it takes us a little bit longer than it should because we're so focused on other people and when we have no choice but to focus on ourselves, we get the opportunity to say, okay, you know, what I really want for myself. And I think that's really good. So in terms of like managing your kids, their schedules, because you know, especially with teenagers, they have like their whole social life, um, that goes on, that you have to manage and navigate around. So how do you find that space in terms of navigating what they need versus, and not versus, but in addition to, um, your business and what you have going on?

Lisa McKenzie:     Yeah, I think that, you know, when my son was graduating high school,  I actually had a meltdown because all of a sudden I was, I was like, Oh my gosh, that period of my life is over. He's going on to college. And I blown it as a mom. Now I had, and I was a great mom, but I started having a lot of guilt about did I spend enough time with him because I'm such, I mean, my work really requires 17 hour days and it is insane what I do. So I started talking to myself about I did I spend enough time with him, his mom, um, was I too focused on the business? You know, I, I, that was a tiny bit of it fields. Um, but he didn't hold any grudge against me and we have a great relationship. So with my daughter, I had four more years with her. And so I've really been trying to make a conscientious effort of having some more mom daughter time, like taking, you know, going to the park and having picnics with her.

Lisa McKenzie:      And it's different, different than mom, daughter dynamic. Cause we do a lot of things. We really enjoy together. Shopping, going out to dinner and working out together and we cooked together. That's been really fun doing cooking. So I'm managing my time with them socially where I can, I mean sometimes my daughter has to really push like mom, you know, can you not take that phone call or you know, um, don't forget Saturday's our day. You're not supposed to be working on units. So it is really been, fortunately she prompts me and I have to sometimes, you know, turn off the, um, the brain, the, the work brain and really just be present in the moment. Um, that that's sometimes hard to do because I'm always, you know, work mode. But, um, thankfully I have, I think I've done a better job with her of having those special moments cause she'll, you know, in may when she goes off to college or this summer, um, you know, I, I can't look back and say, Oh my gosh, I blew it.

Shahara Wright:     Yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn't want to have those regrets. I totally understand that.

Lisa McKenzie:     Then when she goes to college, what, what are your goals and what are your thoughts about where the business is going to go when you are an empty nester? Um, so to speak. And you know, you don't have to manage the schedules in the same way that you have to now. Well, all the rooms are being converted. I always tease him. I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm gonna make a sewing room in a craft room. I'm just kidding. I wish I had talked for so many crafts, but no, I actually know a side benefit. You didn't ask this question, but I just want to say that this has happened in my life is that, you know, and I would, I would suggest this to single moms maybe who are looking, you know, for their next relationship as an example. What happened with me was that when I got really focused on just me and saying, well, if this is going to be me for the rest of my life by myself, what is, what's that gonna look like and feel like?

Lisa McKenzie:     And as soon as I did that, the right person came along dating someone for four years, who absolutely is, is completely surprised because it's given me everything emotionally and supportive that a woman would ever want. And, um, I don't know if some of your listeners I've ever felt this way, but when you're a woman who's strong, especially if you go through divorce, you have to wear the pants in the family, right? So you'd play the women role in the mommy role work role and, and what, what's been a nice surprise at my stage in my life was I have a very strong man who came along. He's allowing me to be quite feminine and not have to be like the man role, if that makes sense. You know? Perfect sense. Yes, absolutely. The second part of my life when you say what am I going to do once I'm an empty nester is that a lot of that will him, I there will be a different kind of dynamic with having that relationship.

Lisa McKenzie:     Um, cause right now we're kind of live in separate lives. Um, but I, I do think that, I mean I can't imagine my workload increasing. I already work 17 hours. I um, I don't see much of a change in my day to day workload. Actually, once my kids are gone, I think the only difference will be in my social life will improve. That was, that's the one area that I've had to set aside. If I have to balance everything, it's my social life with my boyfriend, my business life and my kids' life. So my first priority has been my kids and my business. And then one sort of is, you know, the, the smaller side of things that would be the only thing that's going to change for me is that my social life will improve. But in terms of working, I think that, I think I'm pretty, do a pretty good job right now. Keep working full steam ahead and I'll continue doing that. Yeah, I hear you,

Shahara Wright:    Especially about the social life and I think, you know, depending on the age of your kids, your ability to really truly have a social life, um, you know, mine is nonexistent.

Lisa McKenzie:      Right?

Shahara Wright:     Hey bro, you going? I'm like, no, I'm not going. I just . . .

Lisa McKenzie:      Saturday night, is that, what's a Friday or Saturday? It's another night and I'm working.

Shahara Wright:     Yeah. You know, and I mean, and my kid doesn't of course, he, he's, my youngest one doesn't do sports. Um, but he, you know, is in robotics and boy Scouts and this and that. So, you know, there's still a lot of running around. So I usually am just like, I'm tired and I don't want to go anywhere. And if I could just get a moment where I can just sit on the couch and watch TV for like 12 hours straight. That to me is like the best thing ever. Like I don't want to go anywhere. So I think that the fact that you are like, okay. Yeah and I feel like having a social life you're like, okay, it gives me something like, yeah, okay maybe one day I'll be like, okay, I'm ready to leave the house.

Lisa McKenzie:     Yeah. I don't know. I just feel like that's the area that will, cause I won't have to feel guilty. I mean my, I don't have to feel like, Oh my gosh, I should be spending more time. Like I'll have, I have that luxury, but if the house is going to be so quiet, I don't know that I'm ready for that. I'm very freaked out about not having my daughter around. I mean I've been a mom. I mean, my daughter, my son is 22 so what, 22 years of my life I've been a mom and I don't even know what you know, you know, every mom goes through this, what that next stage is gonna look like in terms of having quiet space. It's kind of odd honestly.

Shahara Wright:     Yes, a long period of time. It's like there's a period of time where you like, Oh God, I wish it was quiet. And then sometimes it becomes too quiet and you're like, Oh, I wish they were here. So I totally understand what you're saying. Absolutely. Yeah. So where do you see you not, um, event kind of going in terms of with your kids? Are they involved? Do they know what you do? How are they connected with your business at all?

Lisa McKenzie:     My daughter is so involved. My son will come to every event that I have. He'll drive home from college and it is so sweet to see my two kids hanging out, my son and his suit and you know, he's such a sweet guy. Um, I don't know that he'll play a role, although I think he would love to. He's an engineering major, so he just thinks differently. On the other hand, she is in, she, she, she is so involved in particularly, um, she helps me choose all the music. Um, the themes. Uh, I use her to bounce off ideas all the time and she's constantly saying, mom, what do you think about this? When you think about this, won't this be cool? What if the ladies wear this? So she, um, he has more of a creative desire because we are very similar with theatrical and music and sound and, um, but, uh, I don't know if in the future she will be a part of the organization. I would want her to want to do that on her own. But she's going into marketing and business. She'd be so good. Like she think she'd be perfect.

Lisa McKenzie:     We, I keep growing. Um, I, as you know, I'm working on this, um, national initiative, that painting program where ladies paint their scars on campus called scarred. And that is launching nationally, um, with a painting with a twist franchise in December. And it's, um, there's just so much going on with the growth of my business right now that I would love it if she is involved, but we'll just see, I want her to go and have an amazing college experience. I think she's, we're not sure where she's going. She's probably going to university of Alabama also, but, um, I want her to go and have a blast and then, and then I'll try to wrangle them back in. I said, my son has almost already promised me and he's going to pay off my mortgage. I like stating that public reason.

Shahara Wright:     She has to do it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I know we've talked about some, some advice that, especially around, you know, single moms and, um, entrepreneurship, but do you have any like, maybe do's and don'ts, um, in terms of, you know, balancing that mom's business, um, part of your life?

Lisa McKenzie:     You know, mine, I guess would be spiritual. I mean, there's probably a thousand things I could say, but, um, I have, I have, I guess because when you have those moments, like it's just every, every day, you don't know what's going to come. You could have these days where you're like, Oh, I'm on top of the world. Everything I touch is turning to gold. And then the next day you're totally like, what happened? You know, phone call, don't go awry, you have a drama situation. Um, you're putting out fires and then you're like, I don't know if I can handle this. Um, so I have, um, I have this chalkboard over my computer. It's my, I trust you, pod, chalkboard, chalkboard. And um, at the beginning of every year I take a, an eraser and I wipe it off. And I know I have, I trust you, God. And I have a Bible verse that I love, but I've put a Mark every morning and I say, I trust you about I trust you got.

Lisa McKenzie:     And then like if I'm having like a day where I'm like, Oh, I circled the number. Just like, okay, God, I trust you. I just need a tiny bit more, um, more like, not necessarily faith, but just help me through this day. It's a test case. And, um, so that's kind of like one little tip is just to start off every day knowing at least this is my, if, if your, if you have a strong faith, and this would be my advice, is that just to always give it to God every day before you start because he already has it worked down and, and, and if you're working in the zone, he's gonna open doors for you. And that's kind of the way I run my business. It's, it's exciting to let him be a driver. And I don't say that lightly, by the way. I really believe that.

Shahara Wright:     No, that's good advice. I think. And especially, um, when those dark days come and sometimes they'd come numerous, you know, and I know that for me this year, um, that's really been a process for me is to, to get my mindset in a better place. Um, and I think that that has made a big difference for me this year. Um, especially when you go through a lot of struggle and maybe it does come like one or the next day, but it may feel like it's constant, um, that, you know, you need to be able to keep your mindset and having, you know, to focus on God and know that you know, he's there for you makes a big difference in terms of how you approach your day. Um, and all the things that you have to deal with. For sure.

Lisa McKenzie:     I was gonna say one other thing too, and it's, it's hard cause I don't do this every day, but, and I didn't do it today. Probably when we hang up, I'm going to actually go do it. I try to wake up and do my 15 minute sun salutations in my house. Like I have this yoga video that I watch and there's thousands of them on YouTube, but I'll do this 15 minutes. My whole body just stretches out and feels so good. And then it ends with like a 10 minute meditation. And a lot of times I'm like, do I have 25 minutes to spare? But my day goes so much better and differently. If I take those 25 minutes out for myself just to stretch, wake up all of my cells and um, we get my blood flowing and just like get centered. So I, I try, I'm working on that. It's not a daily thing cause I like straight out of bed sometimes the wearing my pajamas and then in pajamas all day. But I do 'em I do suggest that too.

Shahara Wright:     That's great. So thank you so much Lisa, for being here and sharing your story. I really appreciate it. I love talking to you because I feel like we have so much synergy, you know, as women. Um, and also I also appreciate your perspective because I think, um, being a business owner for so long and then having, you know, ladies, children, two adults, there's just a different perspective. Um, from when you, I can say not completely finished raising your kids, but you've gotten them to 18, you know, it's like, yeah, you bet. 

Shahara Wright:     That first part is done and I think I have a 22 year old and 11 year old, but you know, those of us that are still going through it, um, you know, need that encouragement and say, you know, there is kind of a light so to speak at the end of the tunnel, you know that you know this too shall pass. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. I appreciate it.

Lisa McKenzie:      Well, we are super women. We're not trying to be, we are all the moms out there who are running a business and raising kids. It isn't easy, but what a privilege to do all.

Shahara Wright:      Absolutely. Absolutely. So tell us how we can get in touch with you. How can we support your business? You know, how can we support you?

Lisa McKenzie:     Well, I would love anybody to just check out my website. Um, I have two, two websites. So first is You Night Events,  http://www.Younightevents.com  Um, if anybody has women who are going through cancer diagnosis or recovery and they're looking for a network of support, um, we are talking to a couple of cities to grow the big sisterhood program that we offer, but we have an online support group so people can refer women to that. Um, the other thing is ScART Events is  http://www.scartevents.com ​ And that's the paint and sip I told you about or you know all about, cause you helped me with my attorney. Um, I, I that is a national program available to anybody who wants to schedule a private group class where women paint their scars on canvas as a way of, um, just exploring what is underneath the clothing and what scars means to them. A lot of times it's a negative, but we helped turn it into a positive through our org and through that group experience. So that would be it. Just checking me out and spreading the word to women who could benefit from what we offer.

Shahara Wright:                                             All right, great. Thank you so much. I'm, I'm so glad you're here. I hope everyone, um, got to learn something from Lisa. She definitely had a lot of nuggets, um, there for us to learn something. I knew I learned something. I'm just leaving this, this little bit of time, so I really appreciate, again, you being here. So you guys are wanting to hear more about single moms CEO. You can find us on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/shaharawright  You can also find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/singlemomceosuccessw  and we will be back with more beautiful women who are doing big things in business and in life. So thank you again and I will see you guys next time. Bye bye.