Shining Your Light with April Adams Pertuis - EP 006

In this episode I’m thrilled to introduce you to a woman who has been pivotal in bringing this podcast to life— April Adams Pertuis, the CEO and Founder of LIGHTbeamers, where she helps mission-driven female entrepreneurs and business leaders use their story to amplify their impact and income by increasing their visibility on stages, in books, and digital media.

April shares her insights on why taking your place in the spotlight is so powerful and how she has been able to increase her own impact, income and satisfaction through her faith and by focusing on one thing.

Listen in as we discuss: 

• What holds many women back from stepping into the spotlight
• The power of storytelling & community in creating impact
• How to grow your business in a way that feels authentic & aligned to you 
• How she finally got clear on the one thing that would allow her grow her business in a satisfying & sustainable way
• What she does to keep herself aligned and grounded in moments of doubt

As a television journalist & producer turned storytelling and visibility expert, April shares her expertise and her philosophy that "everybody has a story"... and when you share your story, you shine a LIGHT.

Takeaways

• Use your story to amplify your impact and income.
• It's important for women to confidently occupy their space and not to shy away from opportunities.
• Focus on the strategies that not only resonate with your core values but also play to your unique strengths.
• Building strong friendships and a supportive community is essential for success.

I hope you enjoy our conversation!

You can connect with April and learn more about her work at:
http://lightbeamers.com
https://www.lightbeamers.com/podcast
https://www.instagram.com/lightbeamers
https://www.facebook.com/lightbeamers
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lightbeamers/

If you’re ready to have a deeper conversation about how to maximize impact, profit and pleasure in your business and life, you can schedule a time to connect with me right here >>>

Did this message resonate with you? If you are enjoying the show, it would mean so much to me if you would take a few minutes to leave a review. Reviews like yours help podcasters like me get my podcast into the ears of more people. Thank you in advance for taking a minute to share your kind words.  

Episode Transcript

Rachel (00:06.586)

Hello and welcome back to Pleasure and Profits. My guest today has been pivotal in bringing this podcast to life and I'm so excited to introduce you to her. April Adams-Pertuis is a television journalist and producer turned storytelling and visibility expert. She's the CEO and founder of LIGHTbeamers, where she helps mission-driven female entrepreneurs and business leaders use their story to amplify their impact and income by increasing their visibility on stages, in books and in digital media. She's the author of three number one Amazon bestselling books, host of top rated weekly podcast, The Inside Story, and is a highly sought after speaker and women's empowerment thought leader. April, I know you told me I didn't need to read the whole thing, but you're such a badass. I have to read this next thing.

April's expertise spans more than 30 years in the storytelling and media industry, and her work has appeared on CBS television, HGTV, The Food Network, Women's World Magazine, and Fox Television. April's helped hundreds of high-level women build their brand and authority through podcast appearances, speaking engagements, and book launches. She has a philosophy that everybody has a story, and when you share your story, you shine a light.

And I am fortunate enough to call April a friend. So welcome, April, to the podcast.

April Pertuis (01:31.198)

Well, thank you so much. I'm so honored to be one of your early guests of this brand new podcast. And I'm just so happy and celebrating and cheering you on as you get this podcast off the ground. So I'm really, really happy to be here with you today.

Rachel (01:46.542)

Thank you so much. And I maybe wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. So it feels appropriate that you're here for these one of these first episodes. April, I said to April back in July, I think kind of on a whim, “You know, I wanted to launch this podcast a few years ago and I didn't do it. I think I'm going to do it now.” And April said, “Great. I'm doing a training, you need to be on it." 

And then it was like, boom, boom. Just one thing after the other. And holy crap, a couple months later, here we are. So thank you, of course, for your support and your encouragement and for your experience and expertise that you shared with me in helping me bring this baby to life.

April Pertuis (02:29.326)

Absolutely. It's so fun to see women like you take action, you know, and do it and implement. I mean, we've all taken trainings, right? Like take a training. Yeah, that's great. That's good information, but it's really the implementation of said training that's going to make a difference and you've done that. So yeah, I'm glad that we could collaborate in that way.

Rachel (02:49.006)

Yeah, and well, I think we'll talk a little bit about kind of what was holding me back that I think you see sometimes holding people back. But at first, I would love for you to just share a little bit about LIGHTbeamers and how it came to be and what this work is that you're doing in the world right now.

April Pertuis (03:06.622)

Yes, well, LIGHTbeamers as it stands today, it's had its evolution over the years, but my passion really is around helping women just like you get your voice out into the world and to do that in much bigger ways than what you're probably already doing, right? 

So we love to help people get their story together, to build talks, to get out on stages, to write books, to launch podcasts, to really do the thing that allows them to get more visible so that they can reach more people so that you can have a bigger impact. You know, and of course, along the way, you probably will make a few more dollars in your business in doing those things. 

But primarily, I just have always found and felt myself as a woman that women are grossly underrepresented in most markets. And the reason isn't necessarily because  you know, everyone's still trying to keep us at bay. There was once upon a time that was true. I really feel that most of the time, women aren't represented in the marketplace because we ourselves are typically holding ourselves back, which might lead to some of the reasons why you delayed the podcast for a while. And a lot of that has to do with conditioning that we've been through over the years. Myself had to look at examples where I've done this in my life.

But through my experience of that 30 years of, you know, working in storytelling and I've interviewed just literally thousands and thousands of people, and a lot of them have been women, you know, over that time span, I began to notice patterns that were repeating and conversations that I kept having, and truly stories that were kind of the same story over and over and over again. 

Yet, I didn't see women using those stories to take their mark at the front of the room or inside their industry or entering the marketplace with their voice. There was just something inside of me that I guess inherently knew that I could at least play a role in changing that.

And I had a skill set and a set of knowledge around storytelling and media and visibility from my career and from the work that I'd already done that I felt that I could actually, like I said, play a part in helping more women do that. So eight years ago, I launched LIGHTbeamers, really not knowing exactly what it was going to be. 

I had a real strong vision and message that I wanted women to understand that their story didn't have to hold power over them, that their story could actually be used in a positive, powerful way, that they could harness the power of their story to truly shine a light in the world. A lot of women were getting stuck in their story, getting stuck in that whatever the failures or the missteps or the what ifs and the should'ves that we all have, you know, so that it was keeping a lot of women. quiet instead of saying, “Yeah, I've been through failure. Yeah, I've had made a lot of mistakes. And then guess what happened?” You know, we forget to get to the other side of that story and see how juicy that part of our story is. And instead a lot of women just get stuck in the pieces of their story that were a little less than glorious, if you will. And I just thought “Man, that's a space that we really need to fill that gap.” And so when I first started LIGHTbeamers, I didn't really know exactly how it was gonna pan out. I just knew those were the skillsets that I could bring to the table. And I am kind of a cheerleader type personality. I was never a cheerleader in my life. (Rachel: I can't believe that. You are fully a cheerleader.)  Like, I don't know, when I was five years old, I was a mascot. I was a mascot on a cheerleading team because my sister was a cheerleader. And so I was like free labor.

You know, so they had the little five-year-old sister be the mascot. And so I would literally stand there on the sidelines as the mascot of the cheerleading team. But I was never a cheerleader. So I think I did miss, I missed that opportunity. So I just bring that cheerleading spirit into what I do at LIGHTbeamers to encourage other women that they can use their voice, that they do have a story worth sharing, that they can make an impact in the world, that they can take up space.

You know that there is room for all of us that we don't have to fight each other to get there and that when we tell our stories we truly, truly do shine a light for other people.

Rachel (07:52.23)

That's beautiful. And I have seen that in, I mean, as I said, you are truly a cheerleader to me and to so many women that I know. And one of the things that I think you do really beautifully is bring women together who you just, you have this ability to identify, like you need to know this person, you need to know this person. And you've opened your home up and you've opened, you've created experiences to just bring women together to connect and through those relationships, I think a lot of pretty incredible things have happened.

April Pertuis (08:23.006)

Yeah, it's one of, you know, hospitality is one of my top core values. Um, and it's something that I live my life by, like literally last night, I was hosting 25 high school boys for Thanksgiving dinner, um, when my son asked me to do it, I was like, yeah, absolutely. Let's open our home and bring these boys in. Um, I, I grew up with, uh, parents who were extremely social and always had people over for dinner or for parties.

And I just grew up in that environment. And what I noticed about, even as a young kid, and I noticed this about my parents, I would literally like, my parents would be like, “April, go to bed while we go have this party.” They would have all these people over at their house and they just wanted me to go to bed so they could have their adult time. And I would sneak down after they thought I was asleep, I would sneak down and hide, you know, like in the hallway, they didn't know I was there. And I literally would just like listen to what they were doing. 

And I noticed there was just something that clicked, I think back in those days that this was how my parents were building community. This is how my parents were entrepreneurs. This is how my parents were getting business, right? This is how my parents were, um, finding friends that could help when like I needed to be picked up from school, right? Like they would call somebody and somebody would come pick me up. So those were things that I noticed early on. And if you really, really drill it down, all that they were doing around that dinner table or at that party was truly just sharing stories. That's all we do when we, when we socialize, we're just kind of, you know, shoot the shit if you will. And we're kind of telling things that are going on in our lives where, you know, telling experiences that we had, we're talking about the last vacation we had, we're talking about maybe a struggle we might be challenged with at that time. Those are the things that happen in those intimate containers that happen around a dinner table. They happen in a living room full of, you know, people that are associated with each other. 

And I've tried to just replicate that in my business and in building community, because number one, it comes natural to me, but also it feels the most authentic. I'm not a tech driven person or data driven person. I don't like to figure out how to run Facebook ads and all that kind of stuff. So I just figure if I can just talk to people and connect with each other and build relationships that it will build my business, but it makes it much more of an enriching experience for me and for those that are in my world. 

And why wouldn't I connect you with somebody if I knew there was somebody that you should know? You know, I love being that people connector. I think it is fun, you know, and to see those little matchmaker things happen, you know, like I connected you with somebody that's helping you, also helping you with your podcast. Why wouldn't I do that if I know somebody that's really good in that arena? Why wouldn't I tell you? So I make those referrals, you know, and by and large that gets reciprocated back to me, you know, people give me really amazing referrals. And so I just have always found that if you start with hospitality and you just open up and be real with people and host them and, you know, cater to them. That really amazing things can, can happen.

Rachel (12:04.134)

One of the things I love about what you just said is that you found this way that feels really authentic and aligned for you and that isn't maybe doing some of the things that people might typically recommend, like you have to go this way or you have to do these things in order to grow your business. You found the things that actually really feel good to you and feel nourishing. For you, that's building community in a really organic and authentic way.

And so, I'm curious over the years as you've been building your business, are there things that you tried that you were like, “Oh yeah, this isn't for me,” and you just pitched it? How did you get to this place of knowing what the things are that are really aligned for you and making the choice to go that route and not to just do the things that everybody's doing or the things everybody's saying you have to do?

April Pertuis (12:56.21)

Yeah, I mean, there are definitely some really complicated marketing strategies that are out there. At least they feel complicated to me, to some other people, they might come really easy, but, you know, building super fancy funnels and doing the whole like, you know, um, okay, start with a Facebook ad, get people on your email list and in, you know, get them to show up to some webinar and then build out this really complicated webinar with you know, fancy software like Webinar Jam or any of these things, and then give them a window of time where they have to enroll in your program. And it just all feels like really technical. It feels really cold to me. And it feels super complicated. Like those, that's a lot of steps. And that's a lot of stuff that I would have to go build. And I've just always said, well, all the time that I could spend doing that. And I have tried some of that. Like I have fallen prey to some of that. And I also find myself very quickly giving up on it. Like I have run Facebook ads, but then I'm like, oh, I don't wanna do that anymore. Because then it's time to run a new Facebook ad, you know? And then you had to run a new Facebook ad. You gotta go figure out Facebook manager all over again because they change that platform every other day. Right.

Rachel (14:14.054)

And Facebook changes every three days. Yes, they change it every couple days.

April Pertuis (14:17.51)

And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I have to learn this all over again. Whereas with me, I don't have to learn how to talk to people all over again. I already have that skill. So it's just like, well, I'd rather go. And to me, that's what Facebook ads is allowing you to do. It's allowing you to talk to people, right? It's just getting you in front of more people. It's leveraging and scaling at a very fast rate. And that's just not my goal.

It's just, it's not my personal goal. I, some people out there want to build an eight and nine figure business. I do not. I want to build a business that sure allows me to live comfortably and allows me to surpass any kind of income that I've ever had in my life. And I can do that while still building relationships and building a business authentically, maybe I get there slower. I'm okay with that.

But I get there in a way that feels comfortable to me. It allows me to regulate my nervous system. It doesn't send me into a tailspin. It doesn't make me question everything that I'm doing. It doesn't make me say things like, “Gosh, April, you're so stupid. Why can't you figure this out?” Right? Which is what happens when I get into Facebook manager because I can't figure it out. So then I'm like beating myself up. 

So I've just found the things that work for me. You have to figure out your value set, what does speak to your strengths. If you're a super technical person and that kind of stuff makes sense and you're a software geek, building those fancy funnels and doing this webinar jam and figuring out Facebook ads, that maybe becomes very easy for someone. They should go do that. They should, if they're an extreme introvert and they hate people and they don't want to be talking to them, then go build a business that way. 

I just saw a great analogy. There's so many ways to build a house, right? There's so many different floor plans. The basic structure is the same. You've got to build the foundation, then you've got to put up the walls, and then you put up the sheetrock. But in terms of the type of house that you're going to build, some houses are two bedrooms, some houses are seven bedrooms, some houses are 2,000 square feet, some are 8,000 square feet, right? Go build whatever you wanna build. There's more than one way is to do it, but you have to do the thing. (Rachel: And the right house isn't the same for everyone, right?) Right, like you have to live in the house you wanna live in, right? And so that's how I thought that was a really good analogy because that really speaks to me. I'm comfortable with a house that I'm building.

Rachel (16:57.434)

Yeah, I love that because I feel like so often in, especially the online business industry, there's this perspective that, you know, the whole goal is to scale, to build something really massive, to create, you know, automated income so that you're not having to touch things. There's sort of like, there has been this whole movement around that. And I agree, I found for myself, like I know how to do all those things and I've done them for people over the years and generated millions of dollars through launches iin those types of campaigns. 

And every time I would take a step forward in that direction for myself, every cell in my body would be like, this is not what you're meant to be doing. This does not feel good. It feels so disconnected from people. And I don't think, you know like, there could be a gazillion reasons why it works energetically for one person and not for another. And so I think for some people, it's like, really energizing to be like, “Wow, I can do this thing and I can have thousands of people or tens of thousands of people and build this really massive thing.” To me, and I think what I'm hearing you say is it actually feels better to be like, “I have these people who are close to me and I know them intimately and we're in communication, we're in community and it feels really supportive and nourishing that way. I can build the thing that is that I can build the house I want to build that way. And it doesn't have to look like this other thing that I see so many other people doing.”

April Pertuis (18:33.142)

Yeah, and I just don't think all of us in the entrepreneur space are destined to be the one type of entrepreneur. So if you look at additionally speaking before really, you know, the online game opened up entrepreneurship to so many people before.

You know, when I was growing up, it was like, do you want to be a nurse? Do you want to be a doctor? Do you want to be a teacher? Do you want to be an entrepreneur? Do you want to, you know, have your own business? Do you want to be a maid? Do you want to clean houses? Right. And we need all of those things. Right. We need nurses, we need doctors, we need firemen, we need teachers. We need the entrepreneurs. We need people to clean our house. So we're all meant like, if you're a teacher, you may not have the skillset to be a maid or to be a fireman. Right? 

So just why do we make the online space and online marketing and entrepreneurship be like, we should all be gunning for nine figure business and it should all be scalable and it should all be automated and it should be totally hands off. And you can go buy your Lamborghini and vacation in Bali for the rest of the year, you know, like I have two kids. I don't want to go to Bali.

I want to go to basketball games. I want to watch them get married and have family. I want to host the grandkids at dinner. We all have different goals. You have to build businesses that are authentic and fulfilling to you. I'm building the cheerleader business. That's what I am. I'm the cheerleader business. Some people can go and do the other thing, and it's all okay.

It's not right or wrong or indifferent. You just have to find the thing that works for you.

Rachel (20:22.618)

And so you've talked about in the last, I think like years, so really getting a level of clarity on what it is for you, like what that business looks like, what the offers are, how you wanna go about providing the services that you do and selling the services that you do. What do you feel like shifted for you that helped you to get that clarity from sort of where we all start, which is...kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall and trying to do all the things and figure out what works for us to where you are now, which feels from where I'm sitting as a friend and as a student in some of your communities, really clear and really focused.

April Pertuis (21:03.514)

Yeah. Well, I think there were two major things that evolved over the last two years that did help me really zone in and clarify that the way I want to help people, specifically women, is I want women to be in the front of the room leading the conversations. I want women to be speakers. I want to help the women who want to be speakers. I want to help them get out there sharing their story, you know, being the one that's holding the microphone in front of an audience. Why? Because again, women are very vastly underserved in the speaker market. There's not enough women speakers out there. And I also wanna help women write their stories in books. And you know, that's a massive way for you to leverage media, if you will, to get that story out there and to make a bigger impact.

And then, you know, definitely digital media, podcasting, exactly what I've helped you do over the last few months is like, get your podcast out there, get your voice out there. Podcasting is a storyteller's platform. So let's go tell those stories. And so I got really clear on that. 

Number one, I launched my own, this was three years ago, I launched my own podcast. So becoming a podcaster myself allowed me a platform to go deeper with my own storytelling. That was actually why I launched a podcast. I have been resisting it for a very long time because I thought I was late to the game. I thought everyone else already had a podcast. Why would I do it? And because I came from a media background, I came from a production background, I had this level of perfection in my head that if I can't, I don't wanna do it.

Unless I can do it at a very high level production value, because I had been a in production and video producing and, you know, I've been a part of some really amazing productions. I mean, HGTV, DIY, I've produced shows for those channels. Um, that's a very, that's a big game you're playing. So I had like, I thought I had to be like the HGTV version of like podcasting. (Rachel: Hahaha)

So it kept me from doing it for a long time because I am running, you know, I'm a small business, right? I didn't have the big budget to be able to launch a podcast to that scale or to that production value. And so once I finally got over that, I started, I said, “You know what, let me make this podcast about me.” I just want to start podcasting so that I can practice my stories and do better as a storyteller. I teach storytelling, I'm all about storytelling. I really want to always be walking my talk. 

And so I finally got rid of that big idea of what the podcast should be or could be because I know production. And I realized, I'm just gonna do this for me. And then if along the way, people wanna listen to me tell my stories, and then I can impart storytelling wisdom and teaching, then that's what we can make the podcast be. And that's what the podcast is. So that was the ground, kind of a foundational thing that happened.

And then about a year later, I had a woman come to me, a friend of mine in the online space who was really beginning to grow her publishing side of her business. She was a published author a couple of times over and she was really starting to grow a publishing business. And she came to me and suggested, that we work on a collaborative book together. And she thought I have the perfect community and the perfect group of women. And I had the perfect skill set of helping women tell their stories in a collaborative book. And she was right. And I was like, wow, why didn't I think of that? That's such a good idea. So over the last two years, we have produced and published three collaborative books in which we helped 34 women tell their story and become published authors. 

That opened a portal for me that I just hadn't thought of because I didn't come from a publishing background. I myself was not a published author. I had never really thought about feeling like I could offer that. But once we did, I realized I could totally offer this. It makes so much sense that I can help women write their stories to be published in books. And so that opened up my eyes. 

And then the third thing was I hired a coach who really took a look at my business and he was like, why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? He saw all my spaghetti on the wall. And he's like, “Some of this April just doesn't make sense.” And he's like, “You're really just spreading yourself too thin” and “Really, if you streamline some of these offers, and it just makes sense if you really think about it, right? If you stop doing everything and you only focus on a couple of things, you could probably do those couple of things a whole lot better.” And I was at the stage of my business where that, I could hear that. I could hear that advice. And I did, I've been very methodical over the last two years of delete, delete, delete, delete. People ask me all the time, do you still do that thing? Nope, don't do that anymore.

How can you help me? These are the two ways I can help you. These are the two programs that I have. You know, and it has just freed me up to just like literally laser in on the speaking elements and on the book writing elements. And then we still have our community, our membership community that helps with the visibility piece in general. And that's where we're doing our podcast program. And so it's just freed me up so much to get, to just get that clarity. 

I had clarity, but I didn't have the clarity around the offers. And so you're not the only one that's told me this. Like when my people in my audience saw me kind of really drill down and focus, I got such feedback, such positive feedback from, you know, clients or members of my community that said, “April, this is it. This is totally your lane. This is exactly where you need to be. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

Which again was just validation that I'm on the right path. And it's just been the last couple of years, the last year even, I've just had so much fun. You know, I've had, and I'm so looking, here we are, we're recording this and about to go into the very end of the year and 2024 is right around the corner. 

And I am so excited about 2024. Just feels like it's gonna be full of such ease and grace and… I'm just, I'm super excited about it. So, you know, I don't regret throwing a bunch of spaghetti on the wall. I think, you know, that's how you kind of have to figure things out as you go along. And I learned a lot. I fell down a lot. Um, but that's, that's part of the journey. And now I just feel like LIGHTbeamers is so well positioned. Um, we're getting a lot of good press right now. We're getting, people are talking about us. And it just feels good. It feels like we're in a really good position for growth.

Rachel (28:29.882)

Yeah, that focus I think is such a critical thing. And I love what you said. You said, the coach said this to me, and I was at the point where I was ready to hear it. I think that's so important because it does take some time to get to that place where you're willing to let go of the things that aren't working as well. Especially as entrepreneurs, so many of us are like multi-passionate. We can do a lot of things.

And so we end up doing a lot of things and we tend to look at where there are problems that we can help solve, right? And so you're like, I can do this and this and this and this and now I have 16 offers and I'm pulled in all these different directions trying to solve all these problems. And it just, it makes me think of two things. 

One, when I was working in the restaurant industry, I was managing a restaurant and my boss gave me a book called The One Thing. (April: Yes, I have that book. That's such a great book. So helpful.) It's been so long since I read it, but so incredible that here you are in a restaurant. There are five million things happening at any given moment. And I decided The One Thing was customer service. Like we were going to focus 100% on customer service. And I made sure everybody knew that in the entire restaurant. And what happened by focusing on that one thing was everything improved. Because everything became about, does this help the customer or doesn't it help the customer? And that helped employees feel better in their jobs. It helps training and retention. It helps profitability. It helps all those things by focusing on that one thing. 

And then somewhere along the years, I came across the book, Essentialism. And yeah, and that too, I think it's been, since I've read it, it was one of those things that it was like, yes, of course, right? Like this isn't groundbreaking information. It's just, I haven't heard anybody say it this way, or maybe just in that moment I was ready to hear it. (April: You were ready to hear it, yeah.) I was ready to hear it.

Working with entrepreneurs, like you said, it's so easy to be distracted and be in 100 different things. And when you can get to the place where you're like, this is the one thing I do, this is the one thing I'm good at, this is the one thing I'm going to focus on, and everything goes there, then all that effort and energy that's been dispersed all over the place gets all driving towards one goal. And the results can be astronomical. Incredible things can happen.

April Pertuis (31:18.358)

Yeah, yeah, I so agree. Just getting the focus and stop trying to pull yourself in so many different directions. And I think this is where women struggle with this is just being okay with saying no. Like, no, I don't do that or I don't wanna do that. It's really freeing.

So when you just focus on the one thing and you really drill it down to the thing that, again, brings you pleasure, right? Like it fits your personality, it fits your core values, it suits your skillset, you put all that together. And that's what I feel like I finally did. I was like, I'm gonna build this way. Like my speaker program, the Speak Easy, literally, the reason that came about, was because I put my, and you've heard this story, but I'm gonna tell it for your audience because I've shared with you, I wanna go build my business by being in relationship with people. I wanna go talk to people. 

Well, being a speaker is a great way to go talk to people, get into the rooms that you don't control, you're leveraging someone else's audience and then introduce them to your world and then I can start to build relationships with the people that were in the room that day.

And so I just, I knew that worked. I knew it was something I needed to do more of. It speaks to my skillset. It speaks to my core values. “April, just go put gasoline on that and let go of all the other marketing tools that everyone's telling you to go do.” So I did that and I started by creating a program that I wasn't selling. It was for me. I literally sat down and said, okay, I need to put myself as if I'm the I'm going to be the coach and the student at the same time. And I built a program that I put myself through, which became now the Speak Easy program and all I did was like, “Okay, these are the four things I need to go do when I make it really simple, cause I like to keep things simple” and I just went and did those four things and I, you know, had dramatic results, like I had, you know, an additional six figures of income come into my business as a result of that focus. 

And it made so much sense to me, because it's a platform for me to go tell my story, right? So then there became a program that I could help other people do the same thing. Be a speaker, get out in front of the audience, grow your audience by going and meeting new people, leveraging someone else's audience, bring them into your world and share your story. And so that very thing made so much sense to me. It spoke to every aspect of my skill set, what I'm passionate about, how I love to operate, that program is just growing by leaps and bounds because when you're in alignment and you know everything you're saying is true and authentic and real and you're excited about it, you will not be able to… nothing will happen except growth. Like people are gonna be magnetized to that. It's gonna make sense to so many other people. And that is because I got really, really focused on that's the one thing I'm gonna go do. So if I could drill my one thing down to something, it is I just go talk to people. I go talk to, I find any way I can to go talk to people and then the rest falls into place. And in that I'm building relationships, right? Like I'm gonna go talk to people. I'm going to meet people and I'm going to connect with people and I'm going to build a relationship with people. And tell my story. Yes.

Rachel (35:13.798)

I love that. And tell your story. So one of the things that I think we haven't explicitly said but is behind all of this is a level of trust that if I let go of these things that it will work out. If I don't do what everybody's telling me to do, that it'll work out. And so I know that you have a really strong level of trust and faith and you have practices that you do that help you keep you focused. So I'm just, I'm wondering if you would share with us, you know, A, do you have moments of doubt and fear? And B, what do you do when those moments creep up so that you don't then just go start, you know, grabbing at things like, oh, what if this doesn't work out? I guess I'll go, you know, do something that isn't necessarily in alignment.

April Pertuis (36:01.994)

Yeah, yeah, for sure. There were some scary moments, some big decisions that I began to make around streamlining my business and letting some things go that were actually working. One in particular, I had sort of an offshoot of Light Beamers, a program that I had built with another dear friend of mine that we had been running for five years together. It was called the Grow Circle.

And that it was extremely profitable. I mean, you talk about a lean machine. I mean, it was 98% pure profit. And we were generating over, our highest year just came in under $200,000 a year. And at 98% profit, we were doing okay. (Rachel: That's not bad.) And that's just one program, right? That was just one program that obviously she and I were splitting, but it was very, very, um, it produced a lot of revenue for our business and it, and it allowed us to connect with some really amazing women. 

But at the end of the day, it was a distraction and it wasn't allowing me to be all in on storytelling. We were doing some other things in that program besides just focusing on storytelling. And you know, when I get back to like, I got to do the one thing. That was something that I just knew inherently that it was pulling me in a direction that I didn't need to be pulled in. And luckily she was feeling the same thing. And so we were able to dissolve that partnership with a lot of easing and simplicity. And that was such a blessing. But at the end of the day, that meant I was walking away just overnight from about $100,000 worth of income that was coming into my business.

And that was a little scary, you know, if you just want to talk about it from a revenue standpoint, but I knew it was the right thing because again, it wasn't allowing me to stay focused on that one thing. And as I already shared with you, I quickly replaced that revenue with just focusing on the speaking, focusing on going and talking to people, focusing on what I was really good at and focusing on the storytelling piece. And so it was scary. 

There's been many other things like that along the way, but back to the second part of your question, how do I do that and how do I navigate that? I do have a strong faith. I have a lot of practices around prayer and truly asking God for guidance and listening and listening to that intuition. I believe that's how God's talking to me is by just giving me those nudges. And I journal a lot. I sit and journal. I really protect my mornings and I have quiet time where I'm really just trying to spend time with God, seeking prayer. I'm a Christian. I'll read the Bible. I'll read the scripture that will speak to me. And those things do allow you to build your trust. They are resources. They are intangible knowledge, you know, it's like, it is just trusting that there is a higher power that's here for your greater good, that is supporting you. 

I have my own cheerleader, you know, who wants to see me win and is going to feed me knowledge when I need it, is going to allow me to hear things when I need it, is going to send me those nudges. And I just need to follow that guidance. And it's just believing in something that's much, much, much bigger than I am.

And so that is something that truly does help me. Am I perfect at it? Absolutely not. There are days that I get myself in a complete panic and I forget everything. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I don't, you know, like I'm totally, um, I'm totally lost over here, but I can quickly recognize when I'm there and then I know to just stop, go back to the drawing board, go back to my journal and go back to my prayer time, just stop and get some silence. Maybe I take a 20-minute walk in nature. That's something that always grounds me. I just hit the reset button so that I don't stay in that panic. I don't stay in that spin cycle. I stop my voice and start listening to the higher voice that's there to guide me. That's how you have trust. You have to have some spiritual practices. 

I really believe that my business is guided by my spiritual connection to God. I mean, I have always felt God has asked me to build this business. I mean, I feel very, very connected to that. And, you know, I think that that's super important. And if people don't have that, I would encourage them to seek it out. I would whatever that means to them. But those are, those are things that this is a very intangible way that's hard to describe and explain unless you, unless you are in the practice of seeking and asking for that guidance and tapping into a higher power than us that you won't ever really find until you start doing that. 

So I, you know business you know they say business is business and you know like this whole idea of you know the separation of church and state I don't know that was wise I think we actually need to have you know, more of these spiritual conversations in our professional lives. It's why I always say our personal stories actually do have a place in our professional lives because I don't believe in separation of those two things.

Rachel (41:52.486)

It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. As we wrap up here, where can people learn more about what you're doing? What do you have coming up? How can people find and connect with you?

April Pertuis (42:07.934)

Well, because I've streamlined so much, there's pretty, I'm pretty easy. Um, the main hub for everything is LIGHTbeamers. So, you know, you can check out our website. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn and find me at LIGHTbeamers. Uh, we have a LIGHTbeamers community on Facebook. That's kind of like my little playground. Uh, and it's a free community that you can join. And begin to learn a little bit more about my philosophy on storytelling and how to start tapping into your story to share it. 

Our Speak Easy program is definitely, a next level step where, you have a story to share, you wanna get out there speaking to more people, reaching more people and using your story to do it. You can find information about our Speak Easy there on our website too.

Um, yeah, just reach out to me. Like I said, I'm a people person. I really actually do really love connecting with people like to meet new people. And so I'm just really a DM away. So it's, uh, it's something that I invite everyone to do. And then if you really just want to get my personal philosophy on storytelling by hearing me tell some of my own stories, as well as teach storytelling principles and, and offer up more of that teaching for free, my podcast, The Inside Story, is definitely the place to get that on a weekly basis. 

So I drop episodes every single week. We're entering our fourth year. We've completed three years of podcasting, so we're entering our fourth year and have no plans of slowing down. And I always have new ideas of how I can teach storytelling on that show. So I would love to have you as a podcast listener.

Rachel (43:51.846)

Awesome, thank you. I will share all of those links in the show notes so that people can find you really easily. Thank you so much for being here. This has been a beautiful conversation. I really appreciate and have enjoyed spending the time with you and thank you everyone for listening and go check out April's podcast, check out Light Beamers, check out Speak Easy. I will catch you on the next.