Latest / Coffee Playdate Podcast with Dr. Olga Deengar / From Lawyer to Breathwork Coach Ep 33: Candice Lazar’s Honest Path to Entrepreneurship
Transcript
- Dr. Olga Deengar: Welcome to the Coffee Playdate Podcast. I have a very special guest with me today, Candice Lazar. Welcome! Candice Lazar: Dr. Olga glad to be here. Dr. Olga Deengar: I'm happy to have you. I like to start off by asking, do you drink coffee? Candice Lazar: I do. Dr. Olga Deengar: How do you like your coffee? Candice Lazar: I tend to just drink it black. Very simple. My father was in the Coast Guard and so he drank terrible coffee that they'd make one pot of coffee. would be the coffee that would last all day. So he would drink one cup of coffee that would, it might sit there for hours. It might get cold. It had nothing in it. ⁓ that's how I grew up. And I ⁓ the same. I have one coffee and I might not finish it until like three o'clock. Once in a while, like I like a nice, know, I like a fancy coffee like a Starbucks or something, but just at home, I'm drinking black coffee for sure. Dr. Olga Deengar: that's really interesting. Cool. going to play a couple of games. The first one is called a rapid fire questions game. So I'm going to ask you to choose between one answer or the other, but you need to give an explanation. Guided breathwork or pure silence? Okay. Next one, breathwork for stress or breathwork for focus. If you had to choose. Candice Lazar: Yeah, I know. I'm like, these are, these are tough questions. Stress. Dr. Olga Deengar: minutes of breathwork daily or one long weekly session, five minutes daily. marketing via email or through social media email. Great. The next game is called Take a Sip. So it's the same concept, but here we both answer. And if our answers match, we take a sip from our coffee cups. First one is predictable paycheck or scalable coaching. coaching. scalable coaching too. Cheers. How about this one, cold plunge or infrared sauna? Candice Lazar: don't know if I've done an infrared sauna. it feel just like a regular sauna? Cold plunge. ⁓ Dr. Olga Deengar: Pretty much, yep. Cold plunge, me too. Cheers. candlelight or natural sunlight. ⁓ I'd have to choose natural sunlight. Candice Lazar: It's certainly good for setting your circadian rhythm and all that good stuff. My husband lights a lot of candles around our house in the evening. I guess I see it kind of as part of my wind down routine. Dr. Olga Deengar: Yeah, ⁓ that's lovely. last question here, National Geographic Exhibition or the hustle and bustle of a ⁓ city? Candice Lazar: are tough questions. Can't have both on one trip? Gosh, I guess an expedition. Dr. Olga Deengar: Okay. Me too. I'd love to try one one day. All right, perfect. So Candice, I know a little bit about you, but can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and what it is that you do? Candice Lazar: Sure, I have a background as a marketer initially. worked with actually ⁓ often with car companies or with advertising agencies that worked with car companies. I'm initially from Metro Detroit. So I worked in production and post-production, really enjoyed that. But I ended up relocating. I moved to South Florida. And when I moved, I decided to go to law school, largely for the education. I thought of it kind of as a business degree. had a lot of members of my family went to law school later. And I thought, you know, this is a good idea. You'll figure out what you're doing while you're in law school. And then I thought, well, you're studying to be a lawyer, why don't you be a lawyer and see if you actually like doing that? And I did, but I did the work, but I didn't love it. And I was already starting to kind of look for maybe some sort of, know, side hustle, smaller business to start. I had found an idea that was legally adjacent and I was like, starting to research that. But then one day I was online and saw an ad for learning copywriting. And I didn't know that you could do this outside of university, having an advertising degree. So I saw that and I always considered myself a writer. had really loved my job before and so I just jumped right in and learned copywriting, learned about direct response marketing I did that for several years. I worked with a very well-known marketer on his team helping him plan launches for a good five years. I should say writing a lot of copy and helping plan his launches for a good five years and then I discovered and around the time I thought you know five years is a long time. I kind of want go and do something different anyway, like it seemed like a good period, then I thought I like breathwork and here's the thing that you can share with people. So when left, stopped working with that client, I still did marketing, I also started learning, learning breathwork, getting certified as a coach and working with people in that way as well. So I do both. Dr. Olga Deengar: Wow, what a journey. mean, you've put in all of this hard work to become a lawyer. You have the background in marketing. How did you, how do you think those skills transferred into becoming an entrepreneur for you? Candice Lazar: both really helpful, but almost a in a way. It's like I used to watch, and I can do it now, ⁓ but used to hate to have to sit through a credit roll. because I knew how it was made. knew all the production stuff. I felt like a lot of the magic and things just weren't there. now I don't feel that way. It's been long enough. ⁓ can watch a credit roll. I don't usually watch it anyway because you can stop the TV sooner. But I feel like in lot of ways, knowing the secret sauce removes in ways ⁓ the magic something. But it's very good for business It's for my business because they're going to treat me a little bit differently as a lawyer I think than they might otherwise. They're more ⁓ respectful of my and my contracts. ⁓ more just the party having that is ⁓ positive for my business well me having the knowledge itself. Marketing skills as a separate thing, everyone needs to be a marketer, right? I mean, your kid needs to be a marketer in order to promote what they want for dinner if they want their way. So no matter what, any business owner, I think, can benefit from having those skills. Dr. Olga Deengar: You Yeah. And it's such a unique of ⁓ or unique skills that you have. ⁓ ⁓ there been a mindset shift that you needed to make ⁓ you were starting your own business in breathwork coaching? Candice Lazar: Truthfully, I thought it would be a little bit easier than it was. so had to start to adjust my expectations a little bit ⁓ as far as time and ⁓ what things look like and ⁓ am I, I sat down a lot and thought about ⁓ Am I justifying this is this a rational explanation? kind of just really consciously making some shifts in how I view things. I will say, ⁓ know, a lot of the entrepreneurial dream like people who say, you you find what you do ⁓ and love it. You'll never work a day in your life. I don't that's true at all. I think that everyone works some days. ⁓ think whoever the world that you could possibly want to have, you think their life is just amazing. know, like, I don't know, my husband would say Tom Brady ⁓ or whomever like Tom definitely wakes up, wakes up some days ⁓ not wanting have the day he's going to have. and that's how life is and that's not going to be different just because you own your business. Dr. Olga Deengar: Yeah, that's true. But as long as overall you feel like you're following your passion and the work that you are doing is fulfilling, I think that's the most important thing. Candice Lazar: Absolutely, absolutely. Just being realistic about it and you know not thinking that every day is just going to be puppies and rainbows. Dr. Olga Deengar: Yeah, true. ⁓ ⁓ of ⁓ challenges, has there been a specific challenge that you had to overcome? Candice Lazar: mean most of them they're probably self-driven. ⁓ I spent a lot of early years as a copywriter really avoiding telling people that I was an attorney. I wanted very separate, I didn't want them to think I was doing any law work. self-driven. I really wanted to separate my having been a lawyer with being a copywriter. And I also don't want legal liability. I don't want people to think I'm working with them at all in a way where I'm giving legal advice. So I really tried to hide the fact that I was an attorney. I didn't promote it anywhere. And I think that, you know, in some ways that made my life a lot harder than it would have been if I was just more open about it. And telling your story really and how it all logically flows, period. It's always easier, I think, to tell your story than not and to be authentic So I think that, you know, throughout the years I've made stuff harder on myself than I need to be sometimes it is a thing that ⁓ constantly trying to overcome. know, having law school, mean, med school too, I'm sure, like it brainwashes you a bit, you know, it's sometimes hard to like pull yourself out of certain ways of thinking. And ⁓ it's always, it's always happening. Just always working on it. Dr. Olga Deengar: Yeah. it's hard to separate those two identities because they are part of your past, ⁓ know, and ⁓ you are to stay authentic and true to yourself, like you said, sharing your story is probably ⁓ best way to do it, but it is a tough thing to do. Candice Lazar: Yeah, think, It depends on the right? Some people are just natural, natural born performers and they love the audience. They love the attention and other people just want, to help people. ⁓ They want to have a business their own terms and a really good life, but don't necessarily want to be like that guru type of person. think a lot of people think that you can't be both. that if you're gonna have a business, you have to be that like flamboyant, you know, right. Like, well, yeah, of course you're gonna be the spokesperson that are gonna ruin this event. And sometimes you're just like, no, I just, I have this thing that I think is cool that I wanna share with people. Dr. Olga Deengar: personality. I mean, even in business, there are lots of different people. There are the extroverts, there are introverts, ⁓ both can be very successful in different ways. So it's all about finding kind of your I think. Candice Lazar: Yep. Yeah, you know, it's, remember reading an email recently from, someone that was saying how she had been at this event and, and watching the speaker on stage and she knows this person's business model pretty well. she makes like half her income for the year from this one event. It's over three days. She spends half the year planning it. And it's like all just a very concentrated thing. And she says, gosh, I just could never do that for my business. And the who she's talking to about it, she says, well, I know your business. know how you show up in your business. You're there every single week. You're published every week. You have a video, this, that." She goes, I could never do that. So it's a matter of exactly what works for you, what style, what media, what frequency, what format. It's going to be different for everybody. Dr. Olga Deengar: Yeah, absolutely. it's also like your belief system too. Like what is your vision for your ⁓ and what are the things that you want accomplished? What are your outcomes? ⁓ business model is different and they want different things. ⁓ if you're more of a visionary, then you should play more of that role. But if you're more ⁓ the operational person ⁓ your business, then maybe that is a role that suits you better. So it depends. Candice Lazar: Yeah, integrators, that more kind of operational type of role is, I think over the past decade, I it was like the EOS language that made that popular. But that's really, been good to see how that role has gotten recognized as being really important because businesses can't function without operations. when we plan things, sometimes we just forget that ⁓ making stuff and thinking about it and just assuming it will exist without thinking about how it will actually come to fruition. Dr. Olga Deengar: Exactly. that's very well said. love that. Now, I do want to ask you, there is this thing called the 95-5 rule by Guidara He's an author of the book, Unreasonable Hospitality. ⁓ And what describes there is if you are able to create this magical experience, this unforgettable moment for someone your life, whether it's a loved or whether it's professionally your your team, example, was there a moment like that in your life that you were able to create without kind of breaking the bank? So focusing on giving up that 5 % of the budget to create this really amazing experience while efficiently budgeting the other 95%. Candice Lazar: That is a great question and a tough call because two completely different things go through my mind that I don't, I think neither of them quite answers the question. Because I used to throw parties every week years ago in my first marketing job. And wasn't really a concern, but it was always just very, you know, the level of detail. Like every Friday we would have kind of a themed lunch about something as far as with a friend I haven't ever done something in my personal life that I'm like I'm just gonna take you for this thing and blow your mind I will say ⁓ impacted a friend of mine not too long ago in a way that ⁓ was surprised by and wouldn't have found and wouldn't have expected and so ⁓ Guess it kind of helps, you know reset your your thoughts on like what you know what's meaningful to people because I had a friend actually a business friend visiting here. She had a competition here in Miami a couple of years ago on Memorial Day weekend and she said I'm going to be in town. I don't know if you're around but I'm going to be there a little early and I don't have that much to do if you're available. And I said actually yeah. And went down to South Beach and I picked her up and took her to dinner and dropped her back off at her hotel and I came home. And to me aside from the fact that I got to see her. I don't really see her very often. She lives in a different part of the country. But aside from that, to me that was like a normal Friday night dinner. To her, she's like, it meant so much to me that you came down through traffic and I was so lonely that weekend and I didn't have anyone else to hang out with and you took me out and it was so great. So, you know, to me it was no big deal. To her it meant the world and that felt really good. But that also still doesn't quite answer your question. It's no big thing for me. But yeah, it's to feel so appreciated, right? Dr. Olga Deengar: Yeah, ⁓ that's really special. I love that because you had a completely different expectation and then she perceived the entire situation as like a appreciative, grateful, know, like a very special experience for her. So I think ⁓ really cool. It's, you know, it's a small moments like that that really count. It doesn't have to be like a big major event ⁓ experience. It's really those small connections that you make with your friends or keep up with your friends that can make a world of a difference to them. Candice Lazar: Is it was it Eleanor Roosevelt? I can't remember who it is that said, know people people won't remember what you said But they'll always remember how you them feel Dr. Olga Deengar: Yes, exactly. I wanted to ask another question here. ⁓ is a piece of advice that you would give to someone starting out in a field as you? Candice Lazar: patient. Give yourself, give yourself grace. It takes a lot of time to figure it out. Everyone has their own ⁓ I would say do as much learning doing in tandem. So do your, do your research because you don't want to be creating things that people don't want or don't need. But don't spend so much time researching, know, like research, create, research, iterate, keep that going because if not, then it's very easy to get stalled in just research mode, learning mode. one more thing mode before you end up really getting started. it ends up taking just a lot of energy out of you and not, it's not the way you want to feel starting your business. So I would say jump in and start learning and start doing with you learn right away. And just know that ⁓ it's hard It's a lot harder than it looks from marketing, from what you see people present out in the world. But it can also be very rewarding. Dr. Olga Deengar: Yeah. ⁓ I love that advice. That's great. And I'd like to ask for a book recommendation that you have for our listeners today. Candice Lazar: There are so many amazing books I'm just gonna tell you the one I'm reading right now because I'm very happy with it It's by Nir Eyal and it's called Beyond Belief and he also wrote a book a bit ago called Indistractable and Hooked so you may have heard of some of his other work But Beyond Belief is, a really interesting book about how beliefs ⁓ our brains and how changing what you believe can change things. There's actually some really interesting medical stuff in it. Like he explains why placebos work and the changes that occur in your brain due to placebos and things like that. ⁓ ⁓ Right now, towards the end of the book, he's talking about a guy that had an extremely rare medical condition that no one could resolve and how the guy ended up resolving it himself. And I'm not sure where the belief part comes into this particular story, but there's a lot of evidence in it. And I like his work. I've read those other books by him, and this one's very good too. So, Beyond Belief. It's probably about a month old. Dr. Olga Deengar: ⁓ so it's brand new. Wow. I have to read it then. Candice, if our listeners want to find out more about your work, where can they find you? Candice Lazar: my ⁓ ⁓ is easiest because if you go to CandiceLazar.com, then from there you can connect to some of my marketing work or you can connect to my breathwork. Dr. Olga Deengar: Okay, perfect. Thank you so much, Candice. It was a pleasure having you on the Coffee Playdate podcast, and I hope to have you on a future episode. Candice Lazar: I would love that. This was great.