Episode 347: Finding Your Fit — A Lesson in Self-Discovery, Strengths, and SEO, with Lindsey Busfield

What Finding Your Fit as an Entrepreneur Looks Like

My guest this week has had five jobs that don’t look like they belong on one resume. Barista. English teacher. Chicken barn auditor. SEO strategist. Now she’s the vice president of one of the country’s top legal marketing firms. None of it was planned, and for a long time, the pieces didn’t seem to fit. Then came a two-day aptitude test, and finding her fit stopped feeling like a mystery. It’s a good reminder that finding your fit as an entrepreneur rarely happens on the first try.

Lindsey Busfield is the vice president of Optimize My Firm, one of the nation’s leading legal marketing agencies. She leads the team behind some of the most powerful law firm websites around. Her path there ran through Starbucks, a classroom, and an audit of Amish chicken barns before it ever touched SEO. Finding your fit doesn’t usually happen on a straight line, and Lindsey’s story proves it.

If your own resume looks like it belongs to five different people, this episode is for you.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why a philosophy degree really only leads to two places, and how the less obvious one turned into a career
• What auditing chicken barns for her family’s egg company taught Lindsey about the career she’d eventually build
• What a two-day aptitude test revealed about the gap between who she assumed she’d become and who she actually is
• What SEO really is, explained simply, and why AI has changed what it takes to be found online
• Why Lindsey built her business, and her team’s schedule, around time freedom instead of a bigger bank account alone

Listen to the full episode

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https://youtu.be/aZaOnaaDfio

From Slinging Lattes to Auditing Chicken Barns

Lindsey studied philosophy in college. That degree, she jokes, leaves you two options: law school or Starbucks. She picked Starbucks first, and she loved it. In fact, slinging lattes taught her more about business operations than she realized at the time. She watched how a busy shift kept the line moving, and how a company builds a product that tastes the same everywhere.

From there, she went back to school for a teaching license and spent a few years in the classroom. Eventually, she circled back to her family’s business. She spent a season auditing the Amish chicken farms that supply her parents’ organic, pasture-raised egg company. Granted, it’s an unusual line for any resume. Still, it pointed her toward something she’d keep coming back to. Process. Project management—the satisfaction of turning something messy into something that works.

Soon after, a temp job in a law firm’s marketing department came next. Nobody in the office had time to manage the SEO agency the firm had hired. So Lindsey picked it up, even though she couldn’t spell SEO at the time. It fit right away.

“For me, SEO was strategy, organization, creativity, and project management — it all magically made sense for who I was and the background that I had.” — Lindsey Busfiel

The Aptitude Test That Helped Her Find Her Fit

Lindsey comes from a family of serial entrepreneurs. Her parents have run hospital administration, an aviation supply store, and a seminary path that turned into a professorship. They’ve also run a bed and breakfast, and eventually, one of the country’s largest organic, pasture-raised egg companies. With a background like that, Lindsey assumed she’d own a business too.

When she left the chicken barns behind, she signed up for a two-day aptitude testing program at Johnson O’Connor. Unlike a typical career quiz, this test doesn’t measure what you’ve studied. Instead, it measures what you’re naturally wired to do well: spatial awareness, organization, pattern recognition, sequencing.

Honestly, the results surprised her. She isn’t the entrepreneur her parents are, and she isn’t the creative type she once assumed she might become. Instead, she’s a subject matter expert who’s highly organized and genuinely enjoys process. She’s the kind of person people go to when they need to know how something works.

“I’m somebody who enjoys being a subject matter expert — someone who digs down really deeply into a topic and wants to be the go-to person for knowing how to do something.” — Lindsey Busfield

That clarity gave her permission to say yes to the next opportunity. It was a temp job in a law firm’s marketing department. She didn’t have to force herself into a role that would never fit.

What SEO Actually Is (And Why It Matters Even More Now)

Ask Lindsey to explain SEO in one sentence, and she keeps it simple. It’s what gets your business onto the first page of Google before your competition does. Basically, two things make that happen. 

First, there’s content: Google can only show your website for search terms that actually live on your site. The language has to match what people type in. 

Second, there’s credibility: other websites linking back to yours tell Google it can trust your information.

That second piece matters even more now that AI is part of how people search. AI doesn’t think for itself, Lindsey points out; it aggregates. It can only recommend a business, a lawyer, or a coach based on information that already exists online. That means your website, your reviews, your articles, your podcast appearances, your videos. No web presence and no recent reviews means no recommendation, no matter how good the work actually is.

So what should you do about it? Lindsey’s advice goes beyond the website itself. Go on podcasts, write articles on LinkedIn, keep your reviews current, and put out video content. Every piece feeds the same pool of information that traditional search and AI both pull from. Getting found today is as much about finding your fit as knowing your own strengths.

Time Freedom, Not Just a Bigger Bank Account

Right now, Lindsey has two little girls, ages four and seven. She’s honest about what sleep deprivation with two young kids actually looks like. That’s part of why time freedom matters so much to her, both for herself and for her team.

“We were raised in generations where your success was measured in dollars. Yes, it’s important to be able to make a living and be comfortable, but that … isn’t the only metric we should be defining our life’s success by.” — Lindsey Busfield

Profit still matters, of course, and Lindsey is clear that a sustainable business needs it. But she also built her agency with her team in mind. They can leave for a vet appointment without worrying about the time or the money. She built it so she can be present with her own kids instead of just providing for them. In the end, it’s less about escaping work. It’s more about building a business that doesn’t ask you to trade your whole life for it.

Finding Your Fit Doesn’t Happen All at Once

Lindsey’s path, from Starbucks to chicken barns to SEO for personal injury lawyers, isn’t a straight line. She’d be the first to say it wasn’t supposed to make sense in the moment. Still, her story isn’t a five-step plan. Instead, it’s permission to notice what you’re actually good at, even the unglamorous or oddly specific parts. Let that lead you to the next thing.

“Knowing that this was actually who I was gave me permission to pour myself into something else.” — Lindsey Busfield

Finding your fit usually isn’t obvious until you look back. If your own winding path has you wondering whether any of it adds up to something, here’s proof that it does. You just might not see how yet.

About Lindsey Busfield

Lindsey Busfield is the vice president of Optimize My Firm, one of the nation’s leading legal marketing firms. Having navigated a complex career path, she put the pieces of her own professional puzzle together. Today, she leads the team behind some of the most powerful law firm websites in the country. She’s also the host of the Personal Injury Marketing Minute podcast. She wrote the book How Personal Injury Lawyers Get Leads: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why. Beyond the legal space, Lindsey is a proud mom of two little girls and an avid pickleball player.

Connect with Lindsey Busfield

• Website: Optimize My Firm
• LinkedIn: @lindsey-busfield
• Optimize My Firm on LinkedIn
• Her book, How Personal Injury Lawyers Get Leads

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Related Episodes You’ll Love

Episode 299: From Corporate Layoffs to Creative Freedom — How Trinette Faint Built Her Multi-Hyphenate Career — Trinette’s path ran through a layoff and into a career built from more than one thing at once. It’s a good companion to Lindsey’s own resume of jobs that don’t look like they belong together. Listen here

Episode 316: How to Stop Being Invisible Online: The Real Work Behind Getting Found, with Carrolee Moore — Carrolee goes even deeper into what it actually takes to be found online. It’s the same conversation Lindsey and I have about SEO and AI search in this episode. Listen here

Episode 253: Ready to Reinvent Yourself? A Conversation With Anita Rombough — Anita’s conversation about reinvention pairs well with Lindsey’s aptitude test story. Both are about learning who you actually are underneath who you assumed you’d be. Listen here

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My Free Gift to You — Let’s Talk About Your Business

This episode might have you thinking about the parts of your own path that never seemed to add up. If so, let’s talk about it. As my gift to Girlfriends, I offer a 30-minute discovery call. We’ll talk about where you are right now and what might be getting in the way.

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Connect with Sarah

• Instagram: @thesarahwalton
• LinkedIn: Sarah Walton
• Free resources for you
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Love This Episode?

If you know a woman whose resume doesn’t look like anyone else’s, send this episode her way. She might be wondering whether that’s a problem. Sometimes the through-line you can’t see yet is the thing that ends up making the most sense.

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About Sarah Walton

Sarah Walton is a wealth consciousness coach, strategic advisor, and the host of the Game On Girlfriend® podcast. Her mission is simple: to put more money in the hands of more women. She helps women entrepreneurs build profitable, sustainable businesses without burnout — working through both the mindset and the strategy sides of growth. Because when women have more financial power, they don’t just keep it — they use it to take care of their families, support their communities, and build something bigger than themselves. Through her programs — including the Abundance Academy and The Art of Receiving — along with her online courses and one-on-one coaching, Sarah works with women who are ready to build profitable businesses and use that financial power to make a real difference in the world around them.