The Female Founder Show
Are you ready to be inspired! Join Bridget Fitzpatrick, the co-founder of ASBN, CBT News and ASBN Coworks, as she brings you the inspiring stories of America's trailblazing female entrepreneurs. Each week, dive into dynamic interviews packed with game-changing business strategies and expert advice. For more great content be sure to check out ASBN.com – your ultimate destination for everything small business. Get ready to be motivated and empowered!
The Female Founder Show
Ep. 2: Balancing Motherhood and Entrepreneurship: Former NBC News Anchor Lynn Smith
How did this highly successful news anchor navigate the shift to entrepreneurship? Join us for a behind-the-scenes conversation with Lynn Smith, former anchor at NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and HLN, as she shares her inspiring journey of leaving the news industry to launch Rylan Media. Lynn's candid discussion about intentional planning, balancing motherhood with business, and setting boundaries will resonate with anyone juggling multiple roles. Her reflections on overcoming challenges as a young woman in a male-dominated field and the invaluable guidance of her mentors offer insightful lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs.
In this episode, we also tackle the ever-present issue of managing overwhelm. Lynn provides actionable strategies for prioritizing tasks and maintaining productivity without losing sanity. Listen as she emphasizes the importance of saying no and creating specific buckets for tasks to keep your schedule clear and focused. With a positive outlook on the unpredictable road of entrepreneurship, Lynn encourages you to see setbacks as setups for future success. This episode offers a wealth of practical advice and motivation for female entrepreneurs at any stage of their journey.
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This is the Female Founder Show with host and entrepreneur Bridget Fitzpatrick, exclusively on ASBN.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of the Female Founder Show, where you'll hear inspiring stories and advice from female entrepreneurs to help you build and grow your business.
Speaker 2:You may recognize today's guest, former news anchor Lynn Smith, since she has worked in the biggest newsrooms across the country. Lynn has worked for NBC News, msnbc, cnn and HLN, both behind and in front of the camera. During her long career in journalism, lynn has interviewed some of the biggest names in news and entertainment and hosted shows like Weekend Express and On the Story. She recently took a huge leap and said goodbye to the TV world to help others with her company Rylan Media, serving as a media consultant, advising CEOs and business leaders on how to get their message out clearly and concisely on camera. She recently said in an interview with Us Weekly I've watched clients go from fearful and unsure of themselves on camera to crushing an appearance on the biggest news outlets in the world. I'm excited to talk with Lynn today about her recent change, her company Rylan Media and how she does it all. Lynn, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3:We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:It's so good to be here, Bridget, Thanks for having me. Yes, Now I would love to jump right into it. Now you left the TV world to become an entrepreneur. Talk to us about that change and how you came up with that or how you do it.
Speaker 3:Well, everyone who's an entrepreneur knows it's the scariest thing that you'll ever do, but it's the most fulfilling thing of growth for myself, separate from the business just learning how to overcome failures and how to fight for your successes, how to earn your yeses rather than taking no's for an answer, and I've been able to be the mom that I want to be in the process, and I think a lot of women in the pandemic realized if they weren't doing what really made an impact in their work. They wanted to make a change, and that's what I decided to do Great.
Speaker 2:Now, when you were telling your friends and family about your change, did they think you were crazy, crazy, or how did they take that?
Speaker 3:Are you sure you want to do that? Have you planned for that? And I will say, becoming an entrepreneur is not something that one day you wake up I'm going to start my own company. It's about as hard work that you're ever going to put in in your career, and I've worked hard as an anchor. I worked an overnight shift, I've worked holidays. I go into work at 4 o'clock in the morning. But becoming an entrepreneur, you have to really intentionally plan your business to set it up for success, and so I spent a lot of time developing Ryland Media and practicing this new life for myself before I even made the change, and that's something that I think is really important for a lot of female founders out there. Don't just jump in headfirst. Really make a plan.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that advice, great advice. Now let's talk about you. Have two beautiful boys. How do you balance the juggle of entrepreneurship and business life?
Speaker 3:And they were the reason I wanted to make the switch. I wanted to be able to be the mom I wanted to be and then also still have a career, and so I really set limits in my business. I made sure that no one could schedule anything on my calendar before 10 am and no one can schedule anything after 3 pm. Now, do I make exceptions? Of course I do. Do I travel for work? Of course I do. But I set limits and I try and really stick to them so I can give them what they need. Now, does that mean I work a 20 hour week?
Speaker 1:Absolutely not.
Speaker 3:That means that I work when they're going to sleep, I work after you know, in the middle of the night, or I work before they wake up, and therefore I'm able to have the business and the motherhood experience that I wanted. That's great, great way to balance that Now.
Speaker 2:do you have a mentor or somebody that you look up to, and, if so, how have they encouraged you?
Speaker 3:I've had many. I've been lucky enough to have many mentors over my career. One in particular I have called upon throughout my career to say you know, can I just ping this off of you and just get some feedback? And so when I was making this change, I got a lot of. Are you sure you've thought this through? Because you can't walk away from television and say, oops, let me switch that decision back. And you know, now that I have gone through with it and that the company has thankfully been successful, I get a lot of way to go. Way to take that leap of faith, you have to be able to bet on yourself, and when you do and believe in yourself, you really can do anything Absolutely. That's the thing that I really took away from becoming an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:I love that. Now let's go back to the news days. Once again, it was heavily dominated by men. Do you recall any times that you feel like you may have been treated unfairly because you're a woman?
Speaker 3:I think just not taken seriously, especially when I was younger. So I started, you know, when I was 26, and I always was just never old enough. And you know it's funny about being a woman in the news business you're never old enough and then you're too old.
Speaker 3:There's never that sweet spot in between of oh okay, now I'm just right. I had people put glasses on me for a broadcast because they thought that it made me look older and more respected, and so the way I handled that, just watch. You know, just watch, I'll just do what I do. I don't care what anybody thinks, just watch. And if I fail, I'll pick myself back up and I'll dust myself off and I'll keep going. Good for you.
Speaker 2:That is great. Now there are challenging days being an entrepreneur, of course. How do you manage those challenging days?
Speaker 3:Sometimes I say I have this conversation with friends a lot. Sometimes it's day by day and sometimes it's hour by hour and sometimes it's minute by minute, and I've had days where it's complete chaos with the children. I don't have full-time child care, I'm juggling a million different things and then I'm in my car trying to upload a client appearance to pitch them somewhere else and I'm just thinking minute to minute, minute to minute, and that gives me a bit of an inner peace when it comes to it and, I think, also a lifestyle change that I made. I moved out of a big city, I moved into a small town to live this quieter life, so when work and motherhood is really chaotic, I'm able to say I have a little bit of peace in my surroundings. That is great.
Speaker 2:Now you coach people every day on overcoming their fears. What is your biggest fear and how do you overcome?
Speaker 3:it. I talk all the time about what my biggest fear was. It was public speaking, which everybody assumed I would be good at, and I was terrible at it because the camera is my crutch.
Speaker 3:I look into a camera like here and I'm like, hey, this is so much more comfortable for me. But then when I'm standing in front of a group of a thousand people, it's completely different. You're staring into people's faces. So how I overcame it is I said it out loud and I have all of my clients do this what do you think your perceived weakness is? What are your fears? And let's talk them through, because you'll find that once you actually say it out loud, it gives it so much less power. I worked on my public speaking. It's turned into a superpower that I'm able to use in my business now by being a keynote speaker, but not without overcoming the fact that I wasn't good at it, but admitting it helped change that. Well, thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 2:What characteristics do you think it takes to be an entrepreneur?
Speaker 3:I think it's grit and tenacity and resiliency. I have a motto that I try and live by, that's just keep going, and a friend of mine sent it to me in a text message during a really hard time in my life in my 30s, and it just clicked Just keep going when things seem challenging and it's not going to turn around. What's this month going to be? Is this month going to be like last month? Is this going to work out the way that I'm expecting it to work out? Just keep going, just keep going, and I use this in my media training as well. Somebody asks you a question that you don't know. Just keep going.
Speaker 2:It's okay to pivot Pivot to something else.
Speaker 3:But that has carried me through.
Speaker 2:Now let's talk about your training. Can you talk to us about Ryland Media and how you're helping small business owners, entrepreneurs and CEOs?
Speaker 3:It's really been so much fun, as you said, it's so exciting for me to see a client who wasn't sure about what to say, what to do, and then all of a sudden they're appearing. I had a client this morning on CNBC and I was watching and I was just like, yes, yes. And then I picked up the phone to call him and he's like, was that okay? I was like, was that okay? That was amazing, you just killed it on Squawk Box.
Speaker 3:So I work with experts, entrepreneurs, ceos, to help them to really talk in soundbites, say something that matters, have valuable takeaways, and then know how to do that through a lens of a camera. It's not comfortable, right? And so we live in a time where, yes, this is for media appearances, but it's turned into. Many of my clients are using this to sell to potential customers, because right now we're doing a Zoom call and they have to pitch their client or their potential client on why they should buy this. But you have to do it into that tiny lens. It's just not natural. It's a skill set that needs to be learned. So we work on pillars of confidence how to grow that confidence and how to connect to the lens. That's the key.
Speaker 2:So much of our life is geared towards the camera.
Speaker 3:Now, everything, everything I mean we're even job interviews or when you have to present to your managers. We're not going into the boardroom, right, and I say, video is the new boardroom. And then, on top of that, it's content. We need to be able, as business owners, to create content to give people value. You have to have people really trust you before they invest in you, and we're doing that socially.
Speaker 2:Now, you were recently featured in Us Weekly, which is so exciting. Congratulations, Thank you. Now you mentioned the Green Room, a new project you're working on. Can you talk to us about that?
Speaker 3:So I started the Green Room newsletter on LinkedIn and it was kind of my insider tips on media training and what makes someone a great guest and I do. Linkedin Lives and my one-on-one clients just wanted to continue to work together and continue to do more growth opportunities. So the green room was born from the idea of if I can train 15 to 20 people at once and then get them to a place where they have a pitch in hand that has their expertise is applicable, and then we can put them in front of bookers, then we would look to get them a national media appearance by the end of what the green room is going to be 12 weeks, so they get all of my media training and then also the opportunity to potentially be booked.
Speaker 2:So exciting. Yeah, yes, congrats on that.
Speaker 3:Thank you, we're so excited.
Speaker 2:Now you're doing so much, you have the kids, the businesses. How do you keep from becoming overwhelmed? Or, if you do, how do you manage?
Speaker 3:that that is something that I was warned about in becoming an entrepreneur If you do too much, then everything will fail. You focus on what is important, and I have a podcast with Munchkin. I have to be able to deliver with them. I have to be able to deliver with my clients, and I also and I know a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with this we need to be able to say no. So I set up this needs, wants and can'ts bucket. I have the needs. I need to deliver for my family and my clients. I need to be able to get my work done, and here's what the work is.
Speaker 3:I am a list person. Then I have my wants. I want to be able to go out to dinner with girlfriends, or I want to be able to take on a new client. I might not be able to until fall or winter. We will work that out. I want to do that. And then there are my can'ts, and that's where I say a hard no. I can't be room mom. I wish I could be room mom. It's not the stage in my career yet I am able to say no because I've set up that can'ts bucket, and so that's given me sort of the framework for how I can try and get it all done even though it doesn't all get done.
Speaker 2:Now, if there was one piece of advice you could give yourself five years ago, looking to now, what would that be?
Speaker 3:I think it would be that you are believing in yourself the way others believe in you, and I say this because my husband I always used to say to him I mean, I don't have any other skill set. You know, I'm an anchor I don't have. And he's like, are you kidding me? You can take this and do this. And I started to believe in myself the way he believed in me and that helped me to gain the confidence myself. And I talk about this in my book. I have a book Confidence Potion that I'm a confident person in progress. Like I'm struggling with everything, like everybody else is. I go onto stage and I have to talk myself out of my own head, like everybody does. But if you use these strategies, it is possible to overcome that and increase your self-confidence and so being able to have those people around you that do believe in you. Listen to them Great advice.
Speaker 2:Great advice. I need to do that myself. I need to do it myself too. I need to them. Great advice, great advice. I need to do that myself. I need to do it myself too.
Speaker 3:I need to take my own advice on those days.
Speaker 2:Now let's look ahead five years. Where do you see Lynn Smith and all that you're doing?
Speaker 3:I wish that I had a good answer for that, because I would have never, even in a million years, predicted that I'd be doing what I'm doing right now. Had it not been for COVID and really reassessing everything, I would not be sitting here today. I'd be sitting on a set, likely, and so I almost am more excited about not knowing what's going to happen in five years, even in the last year. So I launched Rylan Media a year ago in June. I had no idea of what was going to transpire. I didn't even know that I was going to be doing a podcast with Munchkin, which is my favorite. You, I didn't even know that I was going to be doing a podcast with Munchkin, which is my favorite. You know I use their sippy cups and now I get to work with them.
Speaker 3:I would have never imagined the relationship that I have with the client that just appeared on CNBC. That came on a year ago. It was just this month, a year ago, that we started working together, and so I'm excited to not know, because everything in every single year, I can't wait to see what the ups and the downs are. We know as entrepreneurs, there are downs. They're almost as important as the ups, because when you come through that down, the up is so much better and it's so much more well-informed. Yeah, they're not a setback, they're a setup, that's right, I'm stealing that.
Speaker 2:Can I steal that? I stole it from somebody so why not? Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I loved talking with you and I hope I can have you on again for an update, maybe sooner than five years. I would love it.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:This is the Female Founder Show with host and entrepreneur Bridget Fitzpatrick, exclusively on ASBN. If you're a female founder in the Atlanta market and would like to help other female founders with your inspiring story, we would love to hear from you.
Speaker 2:This has been a JBF Business Media production.