Her Story
About Lena
My journey has been anything but conventional. Born in Vietnam and raised on a Missouri farm, I grew up in a unique world where my Marine and CIA father taught us to work like tomboys on the farm, then would doll us up like princesses to fly to Hong Kong for dinner on a long weekend. My Vietnamese mother introduced me to holistic remedies and natural healing, while my father's work as an international entrepreneur fixing private jets exposed me to global business. When my parents struggled with alcoholism and depression, I became the oldest daughter raising my siblings, which shaped me into an overachiever who earned four degrees: Fine Arts, Business Administration, Internet Technology, and Sports and Wellness Kinesiology. I started my content marketing career before dial-up internet even existed, learning binary code from Army guys and sending my writings, photos, and videos through military computers. This led to publications in Reader's Digest and eventually becoming a travel writer, taking free trips around the world in exchange for my content. I worked my way up from cleaning toilets and childcare at the YMCA to becoming fitness director and managing the entire Kansas City YMCA, all while building my writing and content career. I've always been 10 years too early for the prom - pioneering SMS text messaging and QR codes with my companies Celebritize You Marketing and Celebritize You Mobile Marketing when everyone said mobile would go nowhere, doing UGC videos before the term existed, and promoting holistic health and essential oils before they became mainstream. After being hit by three cars in three and a half years and unable to walk for a year, I had to rebuild myself physically while continuing to help others through personal training, holistic health coaching, and fitness adventure editing. Now, after moving back to Florida from Hawaii where I was given five homes for helping with legal work, I focus on UGC video marketing for Gen X and older generations, and holistic health coaching, helping people move away from Western medicine's side effects. My two main businesses continue to be content marketing and holistic health and fitness, both fields where I've been working since 2001.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Lena
01What do you attribute your success to?
It was a combination of everything I went through - the eating disorders, my hair and fingernails falling out, being hit by three cars in three and a half years and not being able to walk for a year when I was teaching fitness and doing triathlons. I worked my way up bit by bit, from cleaning toilets and childcare at the YMCA to fitness director managing the whole Kansas City YMCA, always taking action and learning new things like rock climbing and scuba diving. I realized it was always me, always us women, always us goddesses - we just give our power away because of culture, society, and overthinking. I was doing everything, raising kids alone, raising other people's kids, being a rock star, but I had to stop attaching dead weight around my neck and jumping in the ocean with toxic relationships and ex-husbands who were the same man-child I was trying to fix like my mom and dad. Through my personal training and holistic health coaching, giving people advice and consulting them, I realized I really had to practice what I was preaching. It was just taking action, always doing it, but learning to stop the overthinking and replaying the same broken record program in my head. The toxic relationships were mirrors showing me why I kept attracting the same type of men and mothering them, and once I understood that, everything changed.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I see UGC video ads as just barely the tip of the iceberg right now, like before social media even existed. I see everybody going to be using that and turning especially to the older generations, Gen X and up, because we are the boomers and all that - we're the clients, we're the customers, we're the ones with money, and I'm already seeing a huge demand on what I deliver and my team delivers. The challenge is not being 10 years too early for the prom where I exhaust my resources like I have before. I'd like to get some funding and investments and not see myself wear out my own resources to chase something that will be a reality. For a year and a half I've been dipping into my savings and investments to keep my bills and my holistic health business going, because people are getting tired of all the side effects of Western medicine alone. Both opportunities are coming together, but it's been almost two years where I'm just dipping into my money and resources. What I'd like to see is some serious sponsorship and funding so I can keep this thing rolling for humanity, because we're all ready for something new.
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