Creating A Pleasure-Based Business

From managing multiple businesses to launching a podcast and writing a book, Dr. Lee Cordell seems to be the hustle queen, except for one tidbit: she’s not into the stereotypical hustle life.

She’s a trauma-informed pleasure focused business coach and mentors women who want to run successful businesses while still achieving fulfillment.

How Lee got started

Fun fact: Lee is actually a nurse doctor by trade! She was a professor for many years and loves teaching. This is where she realized she loved being a mentor and playing a part in helping others succeed. 

Like many of us, she also hopped around a bit to find her calling. She was involved in two network marketing companies and although she found that she was pretty successful, she didn’t really like the products. Again, it came back to the people. She loved coaching the team members that came along with her. She found support under her own coach and has started to take off with her new ventures. 

What is a pleasure-based business?

Lee stresses that we don’t have to be like Gary Vee. The hustle, the grind, the 16 hour work days - it’s a results-driven mindset. When she first started, she was definitely all about the hustle. Not only did she have the business, but she was also busy with her 3 kids and husband. “It just felt like there was never enough of me for anything,” she says.

It wasn’t until she met a woman who mentioned the term “pussy based business model” and who would mention the word pleasure when it came to running your business. Lee says, I remember thinking, ‘How weird is it, that I'm having a bad reaction to the word pleasure.’” Realizing her reaction to putting pleasure and business together, Lee got started.

“So for the next six months, I really worked on slowing down, on surrendering to the process, on not solving problems before they were even a real thing, on really focusing on what I loved about my business and where it felt really good to show up,” she says. Then, she started delegating anything that didn’t bring joy - or simply stopped doing those tasks. She’s now working less and killing it.

Launching her business during COVID19 and 2020

Around January, Lee had a conversation with her husband about not being a professor anymore. His main concern was on safety and security - even going so far as asking a question on a hypothetical massive event that would mess everybody up. Lee responded, “Okay, I don't think that's gonna happen…” 

Eight weeks later and Coronavirus hit but, interestingly, Lee thinks she was positioned perfectly. She says, “I had all of these women that were like, okay, I've been pretending everything's fine. I've been pretending I don't want to be an entrepreneur. I've been pretending this job is okay. Now the job’s gone. Now I need to make money for my family. Now, why not think about doing that thing that's always been in the back of my mind that I've just put off.” Lee dove in. She ended up with a $50,000 launch in May and a $40,000 month in sales. 

Lee’s business is based on launching every 3 to 4 months. She has one-on-one clients and only takes on 5 at a time, so she knew she needed recurring income. She created her group program and it’s been a hit. “I didn't realize I was growing that fast, because I was also just having a lot of fun with it,” says Lee. She did also detach herself from making a specific amount and focused on seeing how far she could take the launch. She asked herself, “How do I want to show up in this launch, regardless of how much money I make.” That’s pretty much been her mentality as she has flourished.

Creating The Write Planner

“I did not plan to create a planner, it just kind of happened,” says Lee when asked about her planner company. She built a tool to help herself stay focused while working full-time, juggling kids and starting a business. 

Lee considers herself a forced planner and not someone who just happens to have a structure in her life, so she created a system for herself called the 4d process then taught it to her clients. When they asked for a PDF, she’d send it. Finally, one of her clients that was a graphic designer offered to make it look amazing. Almost a year later they’ve sold over 500 of them.

It’s a product that really works for people - or it doesn’t and Lee thinks that’s cool, “...because our motto is I'm not for everyone.” 

Biggest obstacle for her clients

“I think for most women, it's that we're just taught to make things harder than they're supposed to be,” says Lee. She asks 2 questions of her clients that can get her cussed out, although they love her anyway.

The first one is, how are you making this hard? As entrepreneurial women, are we doing 20 steps instead of the 3 needed? Then, when it gets overwhelming, are we using that as a way to get out of doing the stuff?

The second she asks is, “Are you done suffering yet? Are you done allowing whatever painful things have happened or whatever is uncomfortable at the moment stop you from actually enjoying or feeling good, or like creating pleasure in your life and in your business?” We always think it has to be a certain way. 

Finally, stop playing the comparison game. From kids to business, we’re looking to our left, to our right and at social media while trying it all. “We allow society to place all these external expectations on us and I even fall prey to it all the time,” says Lee.

Writing a book

Lee actually wrote her half her book on the back of her planner. She loves the connection of pen to paper and putting her thoughts onto the page and is planning on an audio version of the book itself. Although the final touches are being worked on, Lee says, “It's all about how we as women are exhausted from playing this game of pretending we're okay, when we're not. And how, if we just own to the fact that we weren't okay, and we really allowed ourselves to look in the spaces that aren't good, we could have so much more of what we desired.” 

Creating a podcast

Called “I’m Not For Everyone,” the podcast is dropping each season Netflix style while using the alphabet to present the topics. The first 12 episodes will be covering topics like A is for Anxiety and B for Bragging. It’s for women entrepreneurs who want to own who they are, what they want and stop giving a fuck about what everyone else thinks.

Coaching Successfulfilled women

Lee runs masterminds every three months. Whether you're new or experienced in the entrepreneur space, she says the mastermind works for you. Most masterminds are separated into New and Advanced tiers, whereas Lee’s is mixed. She says, “This mindset stuff works for anyone, wherever they're in their business. And also, if you're not even sure what your business is yet, we'll work on that too.”

The Facebook group - a community of women

SuccessFulfilled Women Entrepreneurs: Pleasure-based Strategy & Mindset is Lee’s group for amazing women. One of the group’s best features is Brags and Vents. This is a space where you get to show up for yourself and either tell the world all the amazing things you’ve done or vent about what’s happening.

Lee says that “both of these things are used as a way to process what's happening in your business because so many of us women don't do that.” For example, a businesswoman can get a $20,000 month, think it’s great and an hour later is back to hustling. 

Or if something bad happens and our response to questions is simply that it’s all fine until you’re crying for no reason. In the group, you’re in a space where, although you can ask for advice, sometimes it’s not what you need. Lee helps her students simply Vent or Brag and then everyone can respond with something like “I see you, I witness you, I hear you. You're worthy, you're valuable,” says Lee. It's a place to really just go and be seen and heard.

Lee Cordell is a trauma-informed, pleasure-centered business coach, empowering business bada**es to create lives brimming with both success AND fulfillment. Lee uses her 15+ years of experience in healthcare, psychology, and education to help her clients own what they want and get out of their own way to get it! Lee’s motto in life is short and sweet: Give more. Get more. Repeat.