I'm Not the Patient, I'm the Survivor: Sifu Edward & Sifu Julliana Armstrong Sit Down With Alicia Lyttle

Adapted from the recorded conversation; the guest's words are verbatim. The questions are reconstructed and voiced by Sifu Edward and Sifu Julliana Armstrong.

🎥 Video podcast coming soon. The complete interview will play here once published. The full conversation is transcribed below, and the audio edition will be available on sifuarmstrong.tv.

In a new Sifu Armstrong interview, the 21-year online entrepreneur describes beating ovarian cancer through multiple recurrences and rebuilding a business from her sister’s sofa after a betrayal cost her everything.

She beat ovarian cancer through multiple recurrences by refusing a single word: patient. Entrepreneur Alicia Lyttle joined Sifu Edward and Sifu Julliana Armstrong for the latest Warrior Intelligence Series conversation, describing how she rebuilt her life not once but twice, first from a cancer diagnosis, then from a business betrayal that cost her nearly everything she owned.

Lyttle, a 21-year online entrepreneur and founder of the Jamaica-based agency Pow Social, said the reframe began the moment doctors introduced her to hospital staff. “I’m not the cancer patient,” she’d correct them. “I’m the cancer survivor.” Diagnosed with stage 2C ovarian cancer, she underwent five surgeries and roughly six months of chemotherapy across multiple recurrences, all while running a business.

Years earlier, Lyttle had built a business with her then-husband that grew to 400,000 customers and $6 million in revenue. When the marriage ended after his affair, she said, he locked her out of the company, the bank accounts, and the home they’d shared. “I ended up sleeping on my sister’s sofa,” she said. At her lowest point, she got a call from motivational speaker Les Brown, who told her plainly: “You might’ve fallen on your back, but you can look up. So get up.”

She did. Lyttle and her sister took what they knew about online marketing and applied it to a local business, generating results that led to a course teaching others to do the same, one that brought in $1.8 million in its first year. “As long as you know how to be in business for yourself and you’re committed,” she said, “you have no excuse. You can do it.”

Lyttle also credited Les Brown with a lesson about the people surrounding her. He told her to notice how her body physically reacted around her then-husband. “People say 'that person makes me sick'. It’s a real thing,” she recalled him saying. Her answer, once she paid attention: “Get out.”

It’s a story that lines up with the warrior’s path the Armstrongs teach: they can take the building, the bank account, and the customer list, but never the knowledge and skill a person carries forward.

In This Conversation

“I’m not the patient, I’m the survivor,” reframing a cancer diagnosis
Building a $6 million business, then being locked out of everything
Les Brown’s call: “You might’ve fallen on your back, but you can look up”
Rebuilding from a sofa to a $1.8 million course in one year
The relationship-illness lesson: trusting what your body tells you
Where to find Alicia Lyttle and Pow Social

The Full Conversation

Sifu Julliana Armstrong: Some guests have simply refused to be defeated, and Alicia Lyttle is one of the most extraordinary we've had. She's beaten ovarian cancer through multiple recurrences (five surgeries and chemotherapy), and she did it in part by refusing the word "patient." She told her doctors, "I'm not the cancer patient, I'm the cancer survivor." That is the warrior's mind winning a war inside the body, and I needed to hear how she did it.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: And her story cuts close to the bone for me. She built a business with a partner for ten years (400,000 customers, six million dollars), and then, after a betrayal, she was locked out of all of it: the company, the bank accounts, the mansion. She rebuilt from scratch on her sister's sofa. I know that road personally, and I know the one thing they could never take from her, which is exactly what she'll tell you.

Our guest is Alicia Lyttle, 21-year online entrepreneur, sought-after speaker, and founder of the Jamaica-based agency Pow Social. Alicia, welcome.

Alicia Lyttle: Thank you. And I'm excited to be here.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: Take us to the start, because you began in a rather unexpected building.

Alicia Lyttle: This is my 21st year, and I've loved every minute. Twenty-one years ago I met a man I started dating who had knowledge he wanted to turn into an online course. At the time I was working in Washington, DC: at the White House, in the Clinton administration, in the environmental section, the Council on Environmental Quality. My path was to be an environmentalist; my bachelor's from Tulane was in earth sciences, and I had a master's in public health. I was ready to work on my PhD. But this entrepreneur said, "If you figured out how to work at the White House, you can help me figure this out." Back in 2000 there were very few courses on how to start an online business, so I found a teleseminar. This guy named Armand Morin would have you dial into his phone number and he'd teach you how to build a website over the phone. We developed a website that was very ugly, but in our first year we made half a million dollars online. We sold a book and a CD on commodity trading. It cost me about $7 or $8 to make, printing it in my basement on a huge laser printer with a CD duplicator, and we charged $297 plus shipping. About $290 profit a package. I was blown away. I said, "This is the highest profit margin ever."

Sifu Julliana Armstrong: You were raised to believe there were only two ways to be rich, and you proved your father wrong. Tell me about that.

Alicia Lyttle: What my dad always taught me was that to be rich, I had to either be a professor or a professional athlete. So growing up he took us to different lessons to see if we could be athletes: my sister took up golf and became a professional on the LPGA Tour, though there was no money in it, and she's an internet marketer now too. Me, I decided I was going to be a professor. I got a full scholarship to the University of Michigan for my PhD. But while I was there, I asked my professor how much money he made a year, and when he told me, I thought, "We made that much last month in our business." I asked him again, "That's a year?" And he said yes. And I thought, "My dad lied to me. Professors are not rich." So I dropped out of the PhD program and became a full-time online business owner. My dad was heartbroken. He wanted his daughter called Dr. Lyttle, wanted me to go back to Jamaica as an ambassador. But that year I traveled the world teaching people how to start online businesses (China, Japan, India, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand), and it changed so many lives. I sent the stories and testimonials to my dad, and both my parents became really proud of what I did.

Sifu Julliana Armstrong: "My dad lied to me, professors aren't rich." I love that moment, because it's the moment you refused the map someone else drew for your life. Your father meant well; he gave you the only two paths he knew. But you discovered a third that he couldn't have imagined, and you had the courage to walk off the marked road to take it. Every person who's told "there are only two ways" needs to hear that there's almost always a third, and it's usually the one nobody around you has walked yet.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: And it became a true family business, your sister especially transformed it.

Alicia Lyttle: My sister was working for General Electric as a Six Sigma Black Belt, which means she's very good at processes and systems. She looked at my business and said, "Why are you duplicating CDs in your basement? Why are you printing books in your basement? You need to outsource, you need a fulfillment company", things I hadn't been exposed to. She eventually quit GE and took our business to heights we'd never expected. We could move products, hire people, use fulfillment companies. And my mom ended up working with us too. It became a family business after some convincing. And back in 2000, people were curious and willing to try new things online, when you were one of the few teaching, it was pretty easy to make a sale. Building a brand and reputation through speaking really led the way, and it still does for me to this day.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: For our operators just starting. You teach four paths and three tips. Lay them out.

Alicia Lyttle: First, pick your path. There are four I lead students down. The first is freelancing. Taking the skills you already have and turning them into a service-based business, posting on social media or on sites like Fiverr and Upwork. The second is the info-products or courses business, taking your knowledge and turning it into a product you create once and sell over and over. The third is affiliate marketing. Selling other people's products and getting paid for it. And the fourth, really popular now, is e-commerce: eBay, Etsy, Amazon, Shopify, dropshipping, print on demand. So tip one is pick your path. Tip two: create your plan, how are you going to take that path and run with it. And tip three: your profits, remember we're in business to be profitable, so understand what you're charging and spending so you can scale.

For tools, you need a funnel/website builder, an email autoresponder (because the money is in the list, so collect names and emails at every opportunity), and traffic. My favorite traffic source is social media, and I look at it like a faucet: when you turn it on, the water gushes out toward wherever you're pushing people; turn it off, and nothing comes out. You don't have to be on every network, pick one that works and test it. And there's no excuse not to get started. Yes, there were fewer people doing this in 2000, so it was easier to make a sale, but there are also far more people online now than there were then. No excuse.

Sifu Julliana Armstrong: Now the part that takes my breath away. You built a six-million-dollar business over ten years, and then it was taken from you. Walk us through it, and Edward, I want you in this one.

Alicia Lyttle: The biggest lesson in 21 years is that knowledge is so powerful. I built a business with the man I told you about. We married, built it for ten years, an amazing business, 400,000 customers, $6 million in 2010. And in that tenth year, I left him; he was with another woman. I thought we could still work together and figure everything out, because for ten years that business was everything. I'd dropped out of my PhD for it. But I was so wrong. He locked me out of the business, the bank account, the credit cards, and the 12,000-square-foot mansion I left, which I never got back. I ended up sleeping on my sister's sofa. It took me six years and $300,000 to get divorced. But at my lowest ($0 in the bank, attorney fees, locked out of my own email, my contacts gone), Les Brown called me. I'd been friends with him for years, and he said, "Alicia, you might've fallen on your back, but you can look up. So get up." And he repeated it in that deep Les Brown voice, "Get up. Get up. Get up." So I got up off the sofa. I told my sister, "We know how to build online businesses. We can start over from scratch." We found a local business that needed marketing help, put them on LivingSocial and Groupon, and they crushed it. They referred us to a resort, and we generated $200,000 for them with one promotion and took 15%. Then we turned that knowledge into a course (How to Help Local Businesses Get on Daily Deal Sites), and it generated $1.8 million in a year. As long as you know how to be in business for yourself and you're committed, you have no excuse. You can do it.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: Alicia, I need you to know how personally I take your story, because I have lived a version of it: built something, was betrayed, and locked out of what I had helped create. And here is the truth we both learned on the floor: they can take the building, the accounts, the mansion, the customer list, every physical thing. They cannot take what you know. Your knowledge walked out of that mansion with you and rebuilt a $1.8 million business from a sofa. The master's real asset is never the thing they can seize. It's the skill in your hands and the knowledge in your head. That is why we make warriors, not dependents.

Sifu Julliana Armstrong: And through some of that, you were also fighting cancer, and you refused the language of a victim.

Alicia Lyttle: I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer about a year after my wedding, stage 2C. I was in surgery six days later, thought it was over, and a year later heard it had come back. I did six months of chemotherapy, lost all my hair, wore wigs, all while running a business and in my PhD program. It recurred again 18 months later, all in all, five surgeries and half a year of chemo. Doctors look at my medical records and say, "I've never met someone who's had so many recurrences and is still here today." What really helped me was understanding mindset. Before my first diagnosis I'd been exposed to Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy and the power of mindset. So when a doctor would introduce me to a nurse as "our cancer patient," I'd say, "No, no. I'm not the cancer patient, I'm the cancer survivor." They'd laugh and call me the survivor. I used what I knew about personal development to always see the end result, that I was a thriver, not just a survivor.

And Les Brown taught me something else, relationship illness. He said, "People say 'that person makes me sick'. It's a real thing." He didn't like the man I was married to, so he said, "Next time he walks toward you, tell me how your body feels inside." And the next time, my body on the inside was boiling. I'd never paid attention to that before. I called Les and he said, "Get out." A few months later I had the opportunity, and I left. So I'm always encouraging people to look at who's around you and how they make you feel, because our bodies react to that. And it's not just personal; if I'm in a professional partnership that's making me sick, I'm out of it. I don't put myself around people who make me feel sick.

Sifu Julliana Armstrong: "I'm not the cancer patient, I'm the cancer survivor." Alicia, that single act of renaming is one of the most powerful things a person can do, and it's the core of everything we teach about the mind. The word you accept becomes the identity you live. "Patient" is something done to you; "survivor" is something you are doing. You fought a war inside your own body and refused to let the enemy name you. And the relationship-illness lesson is just as fierce. Your body was telling you the truth your mind was rationalizing away. Protect your circle like your life depends on it, because sometimes it does. The people around you are either training you up or wearing you down.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: Alicia, this has been genuinely moving. Where can people find you?

Alicia Lyttle: You can find me all over social media (Alicia Lyttle), or on my website, alicialyttle.com. Fill out my contact form, and if there's anything I can do to help you in business, it's my honor.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: Alicia, thank you, for the tactics, and for the courage. It's been a real pleasure.

Alicia Lyttle: Thank you. My pleasure.

Sifu Julliana's closing word: Alicia won a war inside her own body by refusing one word ("patient"), and choosing another: survivor, then thriver. The name you accept becomes the life you live. And she taught us to trust the body's signal about the people around us, if they make you sick, they make you weak, and the warrior protects her circle fiercely. Five surgeries, a stolen empire, a sofa, and she's still here, still building. That is not luck. That is a mind that would not be beaten.

Sifu Edward's closing word: Alicia's story is my story, and maybe yours: you build, you're betrayed, you're locked out of everything physical you helped create. And then you discover the one asset no one can seize. They can take the building, the bank, the mansion, the list. They cannot take what you know. Her knowledge rebuilt a $1.8 million business from a sofa. Refuse the map others draw for you, find the third path, guard your circle, and build the one wealth they can never lock you out of: the skill in your hands and the knowledge in your head. We don't entertain warriors. We create them.

Alicia Lyttle, 21-year online entrepreneur, international speaker and coach, cancer survivor, and founder of the Jamaica-based digital agency Pow Social (clients include the National Commercial Bank and Hertz). alicialyttle.com.

ILLUSTRATIVE RESULTS. Any revenue, enrollment, margin or retention figure in this conversation is either a documented result from one of our own operations, a figure the guest reports about their own business, or an illustrative example, never a projection of your results.

Nothing here is financial, legal or tax advice.

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This conversation is part of the Sifu Armstrong Warrior Intelligence Series: interviews with world-class performers, builders, and thinkers, filtered through the lens of the warrior's path.

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