Lynda Williams has made two leaps, and she is the first to tell you the difference between jumping without a plan and jumping with one. She spent 15 years in luxury hospitality, moving to Singapore in her late twenties and working her way up to head of marketing and head of PR for hotel groups that sent her around the world. Then she spotted a gap. Nobody in the Asian market was servicing brands the way an in-house team would. So she spent six to eight months on competitor analysis, financial projections and one blunt question, which was how long she could actually live with no money coming in. Then she resigned. With 18 months of PR experience to her name. People had opinions. One told her she had only been doing PR for 18 months, and Lynda later found out that woman was envious. Another said there were too many agencies in Asia for her to carve out a niche, and then started her own agency eight years later. She also fielded straightforwardly racist comments about being a white woman selling into an Asian market. She went anyway. She talked her last employer into becoming her first client, and the floodgates opened. Then six months into year one, she left her marriage. That meant no spousal income, in one of the most expensive cities in the world, in the first year of a business. She started on just under half her old corporate salary and lived frugally. Within three years she was earning considerably more than she ever had in corporate. What she credits is not hustle. It is the thing she built before she needed it. Lynda had already come through hard years by the time she resigned, and she treats resilience as something you bank in advance: proof to yourself that you have survived difficult things before, so you trust you will survive the next one. Her line for it is that failure is feedback, feedback is knowledge, and knowledge is power. She also protected her health while she built, with therapy, exercise, walking, yoga and sleep. As she puts it, if you don't work, the dream doesn't work. She ran that agency for more than 10 years across Singapore and Hong Kong, launching Michelin-starred restaurants, representing conservation brands in Africa, and travelling on safaris and superyachts. She was the go-to name in her market. Then burnout arrived, because the money was there and the purpose was not. An unsolicited offer to buy the business came in, and she turned it down because the terms would have made her an employee for three years and her gut said the buyer was wrong. Then COVID hit and she was representing hotels and restaurants. So she wound it down, moved back to the UK after nearly two decades abroad, and rebuilt. Six years into coaching, she helps single female entrepreneurs and high achievers build the relationship they have with themselves first. The second half of this conversation is the part Sarah didn't expect. Lynda explains why high-achieving women can have towering self-esteem and low self-worth at the same time, and why that same gap shows up when a woman sits down to set her prices. If you have ever undercharged, over-given, or failed to set a boundary you knew you needed, this is the mechanism underneath it. Connect with Lynda Williams Website: https://www.lyndawilliamscoaching.com/evolved-woman-program Instagram: @lyndawilliamscoach
