Building a Legacy Through Community

Lauren L'Heureux: Everyone thinks and everyone is told that you have, you know, five prongs of your identity or whatever it is. I'm here to tell you, you are one person. And that's what the community is about. It's about creating this holistic identity that inspires you to be intentional and powering and building your ambition.

Welcome to the ReLaunch podcast. And there are moments in time where you hear relaunch stories that you just want to like, reach through the airwaves and give the person the biggest hug the biggest high five, and realize that you are actually talking to someone who is going to end up being a hero in your mind. So I am really excited to be introducing you if you don't know her already, to this woman today who has literally gone through so much. So many we talk about the relaunches in our lives, and the impact and sometimes we feel like they just keep coming at us, but they don't sink the ships. And I am here today with Lauren L'Heureux. She is the force behind do the damn thing, podcast, and also a luxury brand coach designer and the visionary behind that La.Rue Community. She has a passion for empowering women. Aha, you know, I'm already like smiling right now. I love that. And her mission really revolves around intentionality. And having coached top female leaders for years, she founded the La.Rue Community to actually revolutionize the intersection of business and lifestyle. And so through these programming and authentic networking and just being Lauren, she is breaking barriers and paving the way for ambitious women everywhere. So tune in right now because we are going to be talking about Lauren's impactful, resilient relaunch, and how she has become one of the industry's changemakers. Lauren, so great to have you here. Thank

Lauren L'Heureux: you so much. I was trying to hold back tears. That was such a beautiful introduction and such kind words. Thank you so much, Hillary, I am so excited to be here.

It really is. I feel like I have you know, my soul sister sitting here with me. We're about to have, you know, I wish I had my cup of tea. We could sit back, and we'll just pretend I got my water. We're gonna we always start on show with what is the most significant relaunch and how it's impacted your journey and who you are. But I know that yours has so many twists and turns. So let's let's start.

Lauren L'Heureux: Yeah, absolutely. Let's do it. Well, thank you again, for having me here. I'm let's do the damn thing. I'm so excited. I'm so excited to be here with you today and just really honored to be sharing my story in the hopes always that, you know, it empowers others to find that resilience within themselves. So my story is long arduous, like you said, lots of twists and turns. But it starts really back when I was 18. And in college, I just moved to New York City, following my dreams to go to school in Manhattan. And I was in school for about eight or so months, when I got a phone call at 230 in the morning that my brother was in a car accident and he passed away. And that was you know, a pinnacle moment that shifted the rest of my life. So I went home sort of, you know, kind of quotes around it dealt with the situation. My parents were in a position where, you know, they just lost a child so they they couldn't really function. So at 18 I dealt with everything I planned his funeral, I got him, you know, home to us, and handled How old was he? He was 22. So he was about three and a half years older than me. And I planned all of that and then three and a half weeks later, I went back to school and I decided to be you know, forward facing, pretending everything was okay not going within at all. And I just went back to my life and pretended like everything was okay. Then about around like four to six months later, I was physically assaulted in my apartment and went through a trial where this person was convicted. And that of course is just incredibly taxing going through. A sexual assault trial is a lot on a young 18 to 19 year old girl. And it really took a toll on my confidence and my ability to believe in myself and believe in my words, you know, being questioned in a trial and try it and hearing someone tell you, it's your fault was really, really a just a lot to handle at that age. And then the final kind of bookend to those traumas, I guess, would be about a year and two months after my brother had passed away, I went home to Florida, where my parents are just ending my spring semester. So I was going on summer break, and I went home. And my dad was in a really, really bad place. He was trying to be strong for my mom and I, and he had never, none of us had really ever dealt with my brother's loss. But he specifically had really put it to the backburner. And a lot of things were happening in his life that kind of just piled up. So when I got home that day, a bunch of things happened, and my dad tried to commit suicide in front of me, he swallowed a bunch of pills, and locked himself in his room, I had to break down his door on the phone with nine on one, to make sure my dad was alive. And then at 19, I had to make a very conscious decision to have him committed for a week to know that he wants to do it again. And life went on from there, I again, went back to school, I spent the next two and a half years in school getting my undergrad. And I graduated from college, a shell of a human being. And now after having graduated, I had no more day to day distraction, I had nothing to focus my energy on, I had nothing that was consuming me. And that's when the consuming of you know, college and being in New York City and having fun, turned to consuming my grief. And that summer after I graduated is when things really shifted for me. And my grief just started to become me and take over my life and my body and my mind and my emotions.

This was how long ago, I'm

Lauren L'Heureux: 26, I'll be 27. And soon. So my brother passed away eight years ago, so eight to six years ago with all of this.

I mean, again, I just feel like I just want to reach out and give you the biggest hug and heartfelt just, it's one of those things would be so much for somebody to handle. And having lost my mom, you know, over three years ago, I'm still kind of literally like dealing with it. And it affects me so much the grief. And I think all of what you've been through the you put up walls and you and I've had longer conversations around this, just to get through, as you said, you know, three weeks after your brother passed, you just you know, went back and just gonna go Just do what you need to get done. Yep. But eventually, as you said, when school ended it what what came up for you that you were like, I can't ignore this?

Lauren L'Heureux: Yeah, yeah, it was a lot that summer. Honestly, that summer was probably harder than those previous four years, it was probably the most difficult six to eight months of my life. So I graduated from college, I was supposed to have a job lined up that fell through. So I was stuck at home, applying for jobs, not making any money, watching my friends move on with their lives, and dealing with all this grief and all of this trauma. And leading up to that summer, early on after a fall. Sorry, following that summer was my 22nd birthday. And my like I said my brother passed away when right after his 22nd birthday. So I was now coming to the conclusion like I'm about to be older than my older brother, I'm about to have lived longer on this earth than he did. And it was really, the guilt was just really taking over my body. So after a bunch of other series of things that happened, I decided to move home to Florida, just to be with my family and also for a logistical reason because I needed knee surgery, and I needed to do it there or my parents could help me. So I moved home, I had the knee surgery, and following my six month recovery, bumped right up to that March where COVID Just hit the world. And that month, and those about two to three following months is where I was probably struggling the most I had ever struggled in my life. I was so uncomfortable in my body and in my emotions. And I was reaching my own fight or flight moment where I was also you know, potentially making the decision that my dad wants made of not wanting to be on this earth anymore and I didn't know how to fight anymore. And one day I got a call about another job that I didn't want but was overqualified for but knew I could get that I did not in fact get that job. And it was just like the day where everything just decided to hit And after I had that phone call, I was home alone at my mom's house, I called my parents and I said, you need to get in your cars, you need to come home right now I want to die. I don't want to live anymore. We need to talk about this, we need to figure something out, or else I'm not going to be able to get through my life. And that was the conversation that changed my whole life.

And what was what was about at that moment where you're like, I gotta, I gotta do something different here.

Lauren L'Heureux: Well, one of the biggest parts of my grief was the guilt of outliving my brother and feeling like I had stolen time from him that he didn't get, I feel like I was gifted this time that I didn't deserve, because I was wasting it. And, and it was talking to my parents about this, and how that guilt was really consuming me and how I wanted to do something with my life that would honor my brother. And I always had this entrepreneurial drive, I always had this the spirit about me of learning new things, being really creative. I always loved the idea of you know, being in charge, and not necessarily being my own boss, but also climbing the corporate ladder didn't always appeal to me. So when we had this conversation, I told them, You know, I just need to start doing something I need to take care of me. And since COVID, had just hit, and no one knew what was going on. My parents said to me, you know, with so much love and kindness and compassion in their heart, they said, Don't worry about a job, stop worrying about money, just get your feet back underneath you. So we decided to kind of hire a team around me that would help me do that. So I got back into trauma counseling. I started working with an EFT practitioner, and a life coach. And all three of these women helped me change my life changed my mindset and helped me start healing my grief.

So let's talk about this. The team that surrounded you, first off, the initial team was your mom and dad. Yeah, right. They were saying, Stop worrying about right now. Trying to get a job trying to go out there deal on the hustle. Just focus on you. Yeah. And that gift, as you've said, you know, just the ability to be able to do that saved your life. Yeah, truly. And trauma, as you have known it. It's deep. And triggers are plentiful. What was the process when you worked with the trauma? Therapist? Dr. What what did you find that was really the most useful part of that that point? Because you said it's a three three prong. Here we go. We've got the life coach, EFT and trauma specialist. So what was it about the trauma part? How did you you know, if you could be guiding people, because there's so many people that are experiencing trauma right now, in one way or another? And everyone's trauma is different? What What would you say was the most impactful part of that for you?

Lauren L'Heureux: Yeah, I think there there's a lot of interesting facets and ways that that I could answer that question. But I think it was really the fact that I did build a team that wasn't just one person. Because all of each of these women, each of these three incredible, extraordinary women. Were people that understood that the moment I made the choice to work with them was the moment I was just surrendering to that grief, I was okay with it. Now, it was time for me to deal with it. It was time for me to come to terms with it. And I think the hardest part about my grief in those four years before I decided to make that decision was how deeply, deeply hard I was working to ignore it, and pretend it wasn't there. And act like I was okay. And I was, Oh good. Oh, boy, was I good at acting. I was good at pretending I was perfectly fine. I was fighting for my life every day and pretending that everything was grand and lovely and perfect. And when I made the choice to work with these three women, all three of them in different ways and different contexts. allowed me to make that surrender in the moment I did was the moment my grief overwhelmed me in a very different way. It was time to acknowledge all the different parts of it. It was time to be okay with all of that and it was time to talk about it out loud and pretend it wasn't there and it urns and stop pretending it wasn't there. So each of these women, the trauma conversations in particular specifically talking about the grief with my brother was so revolutionary for me because I had never up until that point allowed myself to acknowledge what it meant what it felt like and that's that's really what really opened that next set of floodgates for me and open to that next chapter.

You know, you talk about the surrender you talk about you know, the outside you were you know put everything that people would want to see you know beautiful intelligent your Hey, I got it I'm okay I'm good. All right, that hole that I'm good thing. And inside your crumbling. And finally, you're able to with your, you know, this three pronged approach, able to actually say I'm really not four years of pain, four years of ignoring it. I'm now ready to surrender. The EFT part of it. Can you help people who don't know about EFT to understand a little bit more about what that did for you and this true relaunch that you went through?

Lauren L'Heureux: Yeah, absolutely. I would absolutely love to share more about EFT. So EFT is actually something that we practice in our community as well. But EFT has truly been the biggest game changer. For me. It's very different from traditional talk therapy. And while working with that, grief, and trauma counselor was so so incredible. Her and I talked about what was happening with me in the present. Whereas with EFT, it's all about going back to the original memories that I created with my brother that helped me feel that amount of grief, that amount of trauma. So when I say that is I'll also preface this by saying my brother and I had a very difficult childhood in the sense of, we were given all the opportunities, we had everything available to us. We were very, very privileged. But my brother had bipolar disorder, which very much affected our childhood and our relationship. My brother and I were never close. We're never friends, we're never considered siblings. And it wasn't until my parents actually separated when I was in high school. And Josh was older than me. And you know, he was 18 at that time, and I was 15. And we had that physical separation of no longer living in the same household did we just finally start to get to know each other. And I was very resentful of my brother growing up, I was very resentful of him and telling myself that he was the problem he was the reason our family wasn't perfect. And obviously, that was, you know, wildly selfish of me. And that's something that I addressed in EFT is the guilt of blaming him and also blaming him for his death, you know, he died in a motorcycle accident, it wasn't someone else's fault. So the guilt and meet the pure unadulterated anger I felt towards him I had to deal with. So with EFT, EFT is rooted in Chinese medicine practice. It utilizes the same acupuncture points in your body, so they're called meridian points. They're typically the most popular being like on top of your eyebrow, the side of your eye, underneath your eye and your collarbone, those are the four that I primarily utilize in my own practice. And by tapping on these points, what you essentially do is bring up the traumatic memory, whether it's that childhood memory of thinking I'm blaming my brother, or the memory of getting that phone call, which was of course incredibly traumatizing. Picking a memory to tap on identifying the triggering emotions, identifying what's there very, very clearly. And then tapping on it, replacing it with any sort of affirmation or acknowledgement of those memories, and telling your subconscious and conscious mind. It's okay to heal this. It's okay to move on. We are humans and when you're doing grief work, EFT, especially with someone who is now no longer with us. The work is very one sided. So you have to go in it with an approach and an understanding and a very comfortable belief in knowing that this person wants this for you. I had to practice my EFT knowing that my brother only wanted me to heal and only wanted me to move forward.

Wow. I gotta tell you, you know many people have heard of tapping and the way you just described it is the best I've ever heard it describe so you so much. Yeah, that was that was really, really interesting. Everyone. Now life coach. Your life coach was incredibly impactful for you. How first off Did you find your life coach? And what the process was because did you go with the first one did you interview others? Like how did that how did that work out and then what did you do? We have that what you were doing with the trauma and there was a lot of you know, the calm rotations around as you said the present and and then you've got EFT which is dealing with the past and the memories and taking you through it. But now life coach comes in. Yeah. So how did you how did you leverage that part of it? Yeah,

Lauren L'Heureux: she was also, again, all three of these women just such an integral part of my healing journey. So this woman is just one of the most extraordinary people I've ever met in my entire life. Her name is Hayley Hoffmann Smith. She's also an influencer, and has primarily moved into actually just practicing EFT tapping. And she also has a wonderful community. I found her on Instagram during the pandemic. And I saw one video and just totally felt that deep, amazing connection to this woman and just thought, This is who I should be following. These are the type of people I should be following. These are the messages I need to be consuming as someone who is going through this journey right now. So I followed her, and then started consuming her podcast and all of the content I possibly could that she got out there. And that was the first person who had made me feel inspired in a very, very long time. So she had started offering coaching, it was very non traditional, it was just like, hey, I'm offering coaching, you know, there wasn't a website, there wasn't like a sales funnel page for it. It was just like, hey, you know what I'm offering this, if anyone's interested, we'd love to work with you. So Haley is the person I worked with. Now all three of these women all say also had contributing factors in like the past the present and moving forward. Right. So Haley was the one that I primarily worked with on what's next, what am I doing moving forward. And she's the one who I brainstorm all of these incredible ideas with about building the room and building out of business. So she's the one who helped me. eradicate those fears really address the fears of like, can I be an entrepreneur? What does that success look like for me? Can I be my own boss? How do I feel about people judging me about being my own boss and doing that, and she's the one I worked with so deeply on what the future looks like. And I, my grief had caused a lot of deep future fears. And what that would look like for me and not, and just in general, that unknowing, everyone was going through that at that time, with COVID, and layoffs, and now working from home, like everyone had that same fear. So I knew I wasn't the only one in that, in that aspect. But Hayley was really the one who was able to help me get a grasp on on a future that didn't feel absolutely and utterly terrifying. So that's how I worked with her.

That is it. And you know what, it's interesting, because I have right now two coaches. And I immediately knew when I started to talk to people, who I really connected with who resonated you know, that that level of energetic of where I wanted to go, right, and as you said, started to consume, like, I, I wanted somebody that I could literally, like, you know, how you meet people in life, that it just you feel like you've known each other forever? Yeah. Yeah. Just you I have a neighbor right now, that is like that actually got a couple that are just like, wow, how did I get so lucky? Right? Yeah. And I loved when we talked last time that you said, you know, it really was this, when you talk to her, you just knew you really got involved in you. You were willing to be open to the new ideas, even though there was fear, even though you were, you know, scared to death. You didn't know what you were doing. But out of this came what you're currently doing right now. And I would love to hear more about the LaRue community, what your purpose is there, and what the what the true program really looks like. Yeah,

Lauren L'Heureux: yeah. I want to share if it's okay, a little bit just about the backstory to because I think as anyone who's listening, who is an entrepreneur or thinking about going that route, there truly is so much development in what you do. And so when I was working with Hayley, the original idea we had was, let's just start a blog. Why don't I start a blog and I'll just go from there. So my business only three and a half years ago was a blog that turns into a podcast that turned into a course that turned into a coaching program, all within about the first year. Then I took a leap of faith. I left Florida, I moved back up to New York City, and I decided to launch my creative studio, which is where I do my luxury branding and my business coaching. And within a year, you know, the creative studio took way off. It was more than I could ever imagine I was I have partnerships with amazing women who refer incredible clients To me, I'm working with women who are seven, eight figure entrepreneurs in all different, you know, vast arrays of industries. And each one of them has just been so incredibly inspiring to work with. But I was on the branding side, and I love it. I'm so creative, it comes so naturally to me, it's so much fun. But I was sitting at my desk one day, right here, where I'm talking to you. And I was doing my design work and thinking, you know, this is great, and I love it. And it's super, it's easy. For me, it comes so naturally. But I was thinking about, essentially what we're talking about right now in this conversation. And my original goal with creating La.Rue was to create something that was truly just at its core, intentional. And that's what I've learned in my healing journey is to be intentional, with my time, my space, my energy, who I spend my time with, who's in my circle, what I do with my business. And while I love the creative studio, I just didn't think it was impactful enough. And it just wasn't having that that wide berth impact that I really, really wanted. So I started brainstorming ideas of okay, well, how can I possibly expand this business? And you know, for those whole first two and a half years, before I got to this idea of the community, I had always felt this awful feeling of like, I still don't know where this business is going. I still don't know what I want to do. Then one day, I'm brainstorming ideas. And I think, okay, a community like what if I created a community for women? So the idea wasn't in throttling. At first I was like, maybe that's it, maybe let's do some research. So I started doing some market research. And everything I wanted my business to be was about combining the career. And the lifestyle, combining the professional and the personal. Every community that I looked at that was successful was one or the other. It was a wellness community, or as an entrepreneurship space. It was a career development community and a networking community. Or it was a lifestyle space. I could not find a single community that was doing this successfully and doing both. And I thought, You know what, this is it. This is the bread and the butter, as is what I'm meant

to do. When we first started talking, and I said, Okay, I've got this thing called Three HQ, right? The headquarters of you, your head, your heart, your highest self, we can't just operate from the head. And when you hear, you know, Mind, Body Soul. And yeah, you know, this is so cliche. It's so not, we're not one on the, you know, in the prongs, we're not just Yeah, hey, let me just focus on my business. And I'll focus on my relationships later, or I'll focus me later. Because what happened to you? And four years later, you're like, wait a second, like, came in? It was no longer. You couldn't you couldn't keep building up those those false premises, you had to finally say, it's not going to happen. And that's when success started to happen for you. Yeah, absolutely. So the community. What do you do within

Lauren L'Heureux: the community? Absolutely. So I decided on the community, I spent six months building it out six to seven months, and the community launched at the very end of January. So we're about three months in. And it is already the ideas of it have grown so exponentially. So right now, over the next year, my goal is to grow as big of an online community as possible. This community is for ambitious women, you can be an entrepreneur, you can be a corporate nine to five, you can be in a I don't know phase, and you know, really

such a thing. Is there really such a thing as a corporate nine to five? No,

Lauren L'Heureux: let's call it 10 years. No, no matter what entrepreneur, corporate, whatever your job is, as your main. Yep. Yeah, it is. And so long as you are on the road to loving what you do, you can have an identity that is one, it is holistic it is I am, you know, insert your title here, but I'm also a person, I'm also practicing healing. I'm also intentional. I'm also into exercise, like everyone thinks, and everyone is told that you have, you know, five prongs of your identity or whatever it is, I'm here to tell you, you are one person. And that's what the community is about. It's about creating this holistic identity that inspires you to be intentional, and powering and building your ambition. So like I said, communities for ambitious women, all ages, all realms of job and career and whatever. So as of right now, we have three different paid programming tiers and one free tier where essentially, in that tier, you just get access to community. And the other three are options for all of this different monthly programming and sessions. So we have six different ones, which is a lot It's so it's super full and super lively. But we have four sessions that are essentially workshop type sessions, one of which is EFT. And then we have two monthly sort of brainstorming roundtable sessions where it's community led, you show up with a either lifestyle or career topic. And that's just what we dive into for the day. So you can show up, raise your hand, say, Hey, I'm struggling with a conversation, I need to have my boss, let's talk about it. It's

so great. And you know, what did you see what you just did as you started to talk about it? You can really and that's where I call it the highest self where you're really in your genius zone, your great zone, your gratitude zone. You know, this is this is where you need to be, which is so awesome. Yep. What does La.Rue community do for you? Yeah. So it's so I'm telling you that for you, for you. Okay, as an Oh, my God, you're, you talk about Simon Sinek. And the why behind it? Yeah. The why. What does that actually do for Lauren?

Lauren L'Heureux: I have obviously, so much passion about this. The moment I started working on this project months ago, before I told anyone before anyone knew about it. I have never felt so deeply. Such a deep knowing that this is it. This is it. This is what I'm meant to do. This is my purpose here. I am meant to connect women. I am meant to empower women. I am meant to be someone who tells someone, you can freakin do this. Just go out and do it. Believe in yourself. No matter what you face, no matter how much adversity and trauma life has thrown out you. And of course, I'll acknowledge and say like, there's so many different levels of trauma. But I believe everyone can do it. I just I do. And when I started creating this community, under this belief, I just felt this calling and knowing. Like I said, for the first time since I had launched my business, I had a clearer picture of what was next not even what was next what the next 10 years looked like. I knew that this is going to be the base of my business. And this is where everything is going to build up from. There's no There's no other route. Everything starts with this community and blossoms from

there. The passion, Laura, my soul sister, how do they find it?

Lauren L'Heureux: Absolutely. So you can find it at l a r u e community.com. You can also find it through my obviously personal socials and my personal website where I offer all my services, which is Lauren l au renlarue.com. And everything is there everything you need to know about the community. And just to say where it's going is going to be incredible. My goal is to open this into a brick and mortar space for women. It's not even a coworking. I'm calling it a destination for women to come and be empowered. So those are the goals with it. It's only up from here and it's so exciting. You

know what everybody take a little my mom used to say you know bottle this up Hilary, this is like golden right here, bottle it up. spritz it on your neck a little later. Bottle this up, everybody. Lauren, thank you so much for being here. And everyone. If you enjoyed this episode, go listen to the other incredible people that I've had an opportunity to talk to, to hear their relaunch journeys to hear how it literally has launched them into like Lauren, this best version of her. So everyone, please go check out more of the episodes if you like them, give us a five star review. And we do read those. I read those and it lights me up. It keeps me going. So love having you on Lauren, and everyone. We will see you again next week. Ready Set ReLaunch. Let's hear how you are going to leverage all of this incredible information that you just heard. inspiration that you just heard, and how are you going to bottle it up and use it? Take care everyone we'll see you next week.