" Most people believe vulnerability is weakness . But really , vulnerability is courage . We must ask ourselves ... are we willing to show up and be seen ?" — Brene Brown
I GUESS you could say from the outside looking in , I had it all . The career , the house , a loving husband , beautiful and healthy kids , the M Sport BMW , the spa membership , and the audience ( including you ) that gave me affirmation of my “ perfect ” and envious lifestyle on a daily basis .
The problem was that it was all a facade . I was actually in a deep , dark depression that was progressively getting worse , and I didn ’ t know it until I was committed to a mental hospital on December 14 , 2016 .
The start of 2016 looked incredibly promising : I became obsessed with going on LinkedIn , seeing that I was in the “ Top 1 % viewed profiles ” ( what does that even mean ?) and my posts were receiving hundreds of thousands of views . The fame of being recognized as having the “ Highest SSI Score ” at LinkedIn ’ s annual conference and shooting those infamous free throws with Shaquille O ’ Neal took me far — further than I ever expected . I capitalized on that fame on a daily basis to grow my newfound consulting business , Lindsey Boggs Consulting .
The work poured in . I was on a plane every week , traveling across the world to speak on social selling , lead generation , and how to grow a pipeline . Occasionally , I was hired for giving motivational speeches concerning career growth and how I went from opera to sales . It was a high . I loved being on stage and I was in my element .
My Snapchats and Instagram posts were consistently showing me with mimosas in first class , Ritz-Carlton suites , and expensive wine at glamorous restaurants . What they didn ’ t show was me missing my daughter ’ s birthday , layovers of doom , an addiction to sleeping pills ( due to time-zone issues ), growing friction with my husband , and missing every single extracurricular activity with my daughter and son .
My life was presented to the outside world like this : bliss .
But it came with a price .
That summer brought an incredible opportunity to be a keynote speaker with leading marketing expert Gary Vaynerchuk at the Cisco / Avnet conference in San Francisco . That same week , my husband and I were to celebrate nine
10 SUMMER 2017