Lynette has worked with individuals, privately held businesses and nationally recognized Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies. Whether the conversation is with an executive, a business owner, a retiree or someone simply asking what comes next, the starting point is remarkably similar. She asks what the person wants. It sounds like a simple question. Lynette has learned that it rarely is.
Her understanding of how success works was earned before it was taught. Born in Australia and raised in the American Midwest, Lynette began her career as an award-winning hairstylist before moving into cosmetics and, in 1972, into Mary Kay Cosmetics, where she started with a $50 kit and built an organization of more than 2,000 salespeople over eleven years, earning Pink Cadillac status every year and placing first in the nation in recruiting. She went on to design college-accredited sales courses, lead a regional sales force as a vice president, and, since 1987, coach executives and build leadership training programs for organizations of every size. What Lynette learned in those years about goals, training, motivation and the thinking that holds people back became the foundation of everything she has taught since.
Most of us want something in our lives to improve. We may want greater success, stronger relationships, better health, a new career, more financial freedom, a different lifestyle or a renewed sense of purpose. Wanting something to change and knowing how to change it are very different things.
Lynette believes each of us develops what she calls an already-always way of thinking. Over time, familiar thoughts and behaviors become patterns, those patterns become habits, and eventually we may stop noticing them at all. We decide we want something different, then continue approaching life in much the same way. That is where awareness becomes powerful.
Lynette’s work is centered on helping people recognize the patterns they may not see, clarify what they genuinely want and begin creating a future that feels tangible rather than theoretical. She does not believe a coach should dictate someone else’s answers. Her job, as she describes it, is to ask better questions: questions that stimulate thought, reveal possibilities and sometimes cause a person to realize that the destination they have been pursuing was never the destination they wanted.
You can read more about the thinking behind this in Lynette Robbins’ Approach to Coaching and Personal Growth.
Lynette’s team had broken company records, and Mary Kay wanted to understand why. She sent Pope McDonald, her longtime partner and confidant, to spend time with Lynette and her directors. He opened the meeting with a single question for each woman at the table: What do you want? When Lynette’s turn came, her answer surprised even her. She wanted a child.
Pope challenged her to become extraordinarily specific about the pieces she and her husband believed had to fall into place first, beginning with a particular kind of property on which to build their home. Write it all down, he told her, until it becomes a crystal clear picture. Lynette went home that night, opened a small notebook and started what she came to call her Dream Book. Within weeks a friend led her to land that matched what she had written, at the exact price recorded in the notebook. They bought the land, built the house and had their daughter, Jessica.
Years later, Lynette understood the larger lesson. The land had never been the goal, and neither had the house. Her daughter was the goal; everything else was part of the pathway. That experience began a lifelong exploration of clarity, possibility and what happens when we stop wandering and start defining where we actually want to go.
Lynette tells the full story in her own words in Get to Know Lynette M. Robbins: Questions & Answers.
That philosophy eventually became The Knowledge of U®, Lynette’s personal development system and workbook. Its premise is straightforward: the first step in getting where you are going is knowing what you want.
Lynette encourages readers to examine their future intentionally and put substance around their dreams. Rather than saying “someday I would like to,” she asks the questions that make the future concrete. How much? How many? By when? What will it look like? How will you know you have arrived? Clarity, as Lynette puts it, gives the mind somewhere to go.
One of the ideas Lynette writes and speaks about most often is the danger of letting curiosity disappear. She calls it Lazy Mind Syndrome. When routines replace discovery and yesterday begins looking exactly like today, our world gradually becomes smaller.
Lynette rejects the idea that retirement, age or a major life transition should mean retiring from growth. Learn something unfamiliar. Develop a new skill. Meet someone different. Travel somewhere new. Create another goal. In her view, growth begins whenever we are willing to become a beginner again.
Lynette’s work ultimately comes back to three ideas. Energize the desire to create something new. Elevate awareness, thinking and possibility. Empower people to make choices and take ownership of what comes next.
Her goal is to help people develop the awareness, competence and confidence to continue growing on their own, long after the coaching conversation ends. Success, in Lynette’s view, is less about arriving somewhere and more about continuing to discover what may still be possible.
Lynette’s Story, in Her Own Words: Read the History of Lynette M. Robbins, a personal account of the successes, setbacks and lessons that shaped her work.
Working With Lynette: Learn what to expect from a coaching session with Lynette M. Robbins, or explore her work as an author, speaker and consultant.
Insights for Success: Continue exploring Lynette M. Robbins’ articles on personal growth, relationships, leadership, learning and creating a meaningful future.
