Episode Overview

In this deeply raw and powerful conversation, Priscilla Ann sits down with business coach and founder Lezly Kaye for an honest discussion about trauma, ambition, burnout, motherhood, and redefining success on your own terms.

Lezly shares her extraordinary journey from a chaotic and impoverished childhood to building a $20M recruitment business with a 40-person team — and the identity crisis and burnout that ultimately led her to walk away from it all. What followed was a courageous year of healing, unmasking, and coming home to herself.

This episode is a must-listen for founders who feel trapped by their own success, are questioning hustle culture, or are craving a more sustainable, soul-aligned way of building wealth and impact.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• How childhood trauma and scarcity shaped Lezly’s drive for success — and her workaholism

• Becoming a “cycle breaker” and the hidden pressure that comes with it

• Building a $20M business while working 12-hour days — and why it led to burnout

• The inflexibility around maternity leave that pushed Lezly to start her own company

• Sacrificing presence in motherhood in the name of financial security

• What it feels like to wake up as a “stranger” in a life that looks successful from the outside

• The courage it took to end her marriage, dismantle her business, and choose herself

• Why bigger is not always better — and how lean businesses create more freedom

• Redefining money as a tool for choice, not self-worth

• Building businesses that support your life, not consume it

Key Takeaways for Founders:

✨ Success built from fear and unhealed trauma is unsustainable
✨ Burnout is not a personal failure — it’s often a systems problem
✨ You can be both an ambitious entrepreneur and a present parent
✨ Lean, profitable businesses can outperform large, high-overhead ones
✨ Alignment sometimes requires burning down what no longer fits
✨ Money is not the goal — freedom, choice, and integrity are

Powerful Quotes from the Episode:

“My job, my capacity to earn money — that was my identity.”

“No one really understands what it feels like to wake up feeling like a fraud inside a life you built.”

“I had to unmask myself — strip away who I thought I should be to find who I actually am.”

“So many women have built prisons, not businesses.”

About Lezly Kaye

Lezly Kaye is a business coach and former recruitment founder who scaled her agency to a $20 million valuation before choosing to walk away in pursuit of alignment and sustainability.

Today, Lezly supports female founders to build lean, profitable businesses without sacrificing their health, relationships, or identity. She is also the founder of a not-for-profit initiative designed to support women recovering from burnout, with a bold mission to help 1,000 women become millionaires — consciously.

This Episode Is For You If:

• You feel successful on paper but unfulfilled inside

• You’re questioning hustle culture and burnout-normalisation

• You’re a mother navigating ambition and guilt

• You want to build wealth without losing yourself

• You’re ready to redefine success from the inside out

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