Latesha Lynch shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Latesha, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
My mornings always start with being a mom first. I’m usually up around 6:20 or 6:50, depending on whether my son is riding the bus or I’m driving him to school. If he’s taking the bus, we snuggle for a few minutes because he loves to lay in bed with me, chit chat, and play with whatever his favorite toy is that week. If I’m taking him, we do our little morning routine together — brushing teeth, washing our faces, lotion, sunscreen, all the things he needs before school.
Once I’m back home, I move straight into breakfast because I need protein first thing. I’m definitely that woman who will make a full plate at 7 a.m. — crispy prosciutto, eggs, a hash brown, fruit, whatever protein I’m feeling that day. I always drink water first, then I make my “healthy girl” drinks… Metamucil mixed with Iris (a hormonal support drink) like clockwork. And yes, I drink coffee and matcha, but coffee usually wins. I make it at home most days, but if I leave the house, I go to my local favorite, Scooters.
I love a good vibe in the morning, so I’ll play music, dance around a little, and sometimes journal while listening to certain sound frequencies (manifestation, abundance, all the things). I don’t pretend to be someone who avoids social media first thing — I absolutely check Threads or TikTok for a laugh once I’m moving around.
Before I start work, I always get myself together. Light makeup, perfume, my daily scent (either Forever Mood’s I Am Her or Phlur’s amber body mist), and a cute outfit. I feel better and create better when I already look like myself for the day. I have sisterlocks, so my hair is easy — a quick fluff and I’m done.
The official start of my workday is simple: once I sit at my desk, I’m in work mode. Everything before that is about grounding myself, taking care of my body, and easing into the day with a mix of routine, connection, and a little bit of joy.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Latesha Lynch, the founder of Banked & Balanced, a lifestyle brand and mail club that helps ambitious women reconnect with themselves and rediscover joy in their everyday lives.
Before creating this brand, I built a wildly successful business called Her Marketing Coach (HMC), where I helped hundreds of women grow profitable service-based companies. I hit the milestones, scaled the revenue, coached the clients, built the marketing strategies — all the things we’re taught will make us feel fulfilled. But somewhere along the way, I realized I didn’t feel like me anymore. Even with all the achievements, I was disconnected from my own joy, battling stress-related gut issues, and constantly taking care of everyone except myself.
That awakening sent me into a season of profound self-reconnection — leaning into nostalgia, taking solo trips, slowing down, healing my body, rediscovering my creativity, and relearning who I was outside of my roles as a mom, wife, CEO, and strategist.
Banked & Balanced grew directly from that transformation. The monthly, solo date direct mail club and my upcoming podcast are built on one belief: women are their most powerful when they feel safe, centered, and connected to themselves. I create tangible rituals, sensory experiences, and fresh perspectives that help women come back home to themselves in the middle of real life — not after burnout forces it.
My work now is about helping women feel alive again, not just accomplished. And I’m building a brand that makes joy, presence, and self-connection something we practice daily, not something we postpone for “when life finally slows down.”
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I was a wildly imaginative, creative little girl who talked to the family camcorder like it was my best friend. I was the kid who sang in choir, danced in college, acted in plays, made home movies, and believed anything was possible. I was curious, expressive, intuitive, and unafraid to take up space.
Before the titles and expectations, I was someone who trusted herself. I followed joy instinctively — not strategically. I knew how to play. I knew how to rest. I knew how to create just because it felt good.
And honestly, that version of me never went away. She just got quiet under all the roles I learned to carry: daughter, straight-A student, corporate woman, wife, mother, CEO. Reconnecting with her — the imaginative, soft, creative one — is the entire heartbeat of who I am now and the foundation of Banked & Balanced.
She’s the one I’m honoring every time I choose presence over pressure, joy over performance, and who I am over who I was told to be.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
One of my earliest wounds came from growing up with a father who was incredibly present, brilliant, and deeply invested in teaching me everything he knew… but not very affectionate. He loved me through discipline, structure, and quality time, not hugs or “I love you’s.” I didn’t recognize how deeply that shaped me until I became an adult and found myself in a marriage with someone who expresses love in a similar way — less through affection or words, but more through being a strong provider, just like my dad.
For years I told myself I simply “wasn’t an affectionate person,” but becoming a mother softened something in me. My son is extremely affectionate and asks for connection so boldly that I had no choice but to stretch into that version of myself. I hug him constantly, tell him I love him constantly, and the surprising part is that loving him out loud has been healing me.
The other layer of healing has been watching my dad with my son. My son calls him his best friend. They play video games, joke around, and hug freely. My dad is softer with him than he ever was with me, and seeing that brings a kind of healing I didn’t expect. It’s like the affection was always inside him — it just finally had a safe place to land.
A second defining wound came from being a straight-A student my entire life, only to get to UGA and fall apart academically. I lost my HOPE scholarship, switched majors several times, and felt like something inside me was broken. For years, I blamed it on being flaky or inconsistent. But at 38, after getting my son evaluated for ADHD, I was evaluated too — and finally diagnosed.
That diagnosis healed something I didn’t even realize was open. Suddenly the burnout cycles, procrastination, exhaustion, and shame all made sense. I stopped calling myself lazy and started giving myself grace. Now I understand my brain, advocate for my needs, and design my work around my real energy instead of punishing myself for not being who I thought I “should” be.
And then there’s the wound of building a life that looked successful from the outside but didn’t feel like mine on the inside. I hit every milestone, built a thriving business, owned the beautiful home, became the wife and the mom — but I was disconnected from myself. My body literally started failing under the weight of stress. My gut issues, chronic fatigue, and weight fluctuations were my body begging me to stop performing and start listening.
Healing came through reconnection: slowing down, spending mornings on my balcony, rediscovering things I loved as a child, taking solo trips, leaving spaces that drained me, and rebuilding my life in alignment with my nervous system instead of my résumé.
Every version of me before this was trying her best. Healing has been giving each of those versions compassion, clarity, and a way back home to myself.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
Yes — the version of me online is genuinely who I am. I’ve never been good at pretending or faking it. I’m a very transparent person by nature, and I’ve always been someone who just says what’s on my mind (with tact, of course). What you see online is truly who I am: someone who loves music, nostalgia, solo dates, journaling, and soft mornings. And honestly, there’s even more of me that doesn’t always make it onto camera — the dancing around, the random bursts of energy, the little ADHD “zoomies,” the playful parts of me that are harder to capture in a 15-second reel.
There are two areas of my life I keep intentionally private: my marriage and my son. My marriage hasn’t been what I imagined, and I don’t believe in pretending things are perfect and learned my lesson on sharing what I don’t want critiqued. And I don’t share my child much because he deserves a childhood that isn’t shaped by the internet.
People often say they feel like they know me because of how openly I talk about growth and healing — and honestly, they’re right. I am the same person online and offline. If you met me in person, you’d meet the same woman you see on camera, just a little sillier and even more animated.
The biggest misconception people have about me is that I don’t need help. Because I’m articulate, independent, and transparent, people assume I’ve “got it” all the time. But I’m human. I have needs. I get overwhelmed. I need support too.
And that’s probably the realest part of me: I’m figuring life out just like everyone else, I’m just willing to tell the truth about it out loud.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
I would stop pretending that things don’t bother me when they do. I’ve spent so many years being the strong one, the high-functioning one, the one who can carry it all. If I only had 10 years left, I would stop shrinking my needs, my disappointment, or my desires just to keep the peace.
I would stop overfunctioning in relationships where I’m the only one putting in the emotional labor. I would stop giving people the benefit of the doubt when the reality is right in front of me. I would stop delaying joy until “things calm down,” because life has already shown me that calm is something you create, not something you wait for.
And I would absolutely stop ignoring my intuition. Every time I’ve listened to my gut, it has protected me. Every time I ignored it, I paid for it. If I had 10 years left, I would choose myself faster, more boldly, and without guilt.
Because what I know for sure is that time spent pleasing others is time taken away from becoming the woman I was always meant to be.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://bankedandbalanced.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bankedandbalancedclub/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lateshalynch
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BankedBalanced
