S3, Ep. 11: Overcoming Self-Doubt & Building Extreme Clarity, feat. Laura Aura of The Gutsy Podcast

Layci (00:01.016)
Hello listeners, welcome back to Confessions of a Terrible Leader. I'm your host and let us never forget former terrible leader, Lacey Nelson. And today I have another former terrible leader excited to join us and step into the confessional here in a little bit. But first we want to get to know Laura Ora. Love that by the way. Laura Ora, speaker and mindset coach. Tell us about yourself.

LauraAura (00:28.873)
Hey, Lacey, thanks for having me. Listen, so much to go into, but I've been an entrepreneur for 17 years. I started my journey as a graphic designer. I started and ran a branding agency for 16 of those years until I recently sold it just a couple of months ago. And thank you, that's where all my great stories are gonna come from today.

Layci (00:46.306)
Congratulations.

LauraAura (00:51.933)
But as I was branding people, I realized that I was really, really intrigued by the side conversations that I was having with the entrepreneurs, the things that made everybody excited and the stuff that kept them up at night and the worries that they were having. And I just felt like my soul drawn to that. And so I started to interview entrepreneurs on something at the time was called the Green Couch Project. And we just had these very raw, vulnerable conversations about all the stuff that we were all thinking and feeling.

Layci (01:09.495)
Yeah.

LauraAura (01:19.945)
but didn't feel like we had a space to be able to safely do that. And that love just grew tenfold. It turned into what is now the Gutsy Podcast, which is a global top 100 podcast under entrepreneurship, and ultimately led me to become a full -time speaker and coach. And here we are today.

Layci (01:38.976)
And here we are and you sold your business. What a path. And thank you for making time for us today to join us in this conversation around leadership. I have so many questions because A, I really long for community like that as an entrepreneur, knowing that it is a wild ride. I'm nine years in and it is a wild ride. I want

LauraAura (01:42.064)
I did.

LauraAura (02:03.975)
Yeah.

Layci (02:08.568)
to ask like stepping back when you said you were really drawn into those conversations with entrepreneurs on the green couch project, that the green couch project? Thematically, what did you see coming up like over and over again that you're like, man, there's something

LauraAura (02:28.421)
my gosh, you know, the number one thing that stops everyone from moving forward, if you don't catch it and do something about it is themselves. And so over and over and over and over again, was not like it was nothing external. Sometimes it appeared to be finances. Sometimes it appeared to be time. Sometimes it appeared to be responsibilities. And I'm not saying that those are never the case, but more often than not,

Layci (02:56.365)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (02:58.683)
It's the self doubt. It's the overthinking. It's the over complicating stuff. It's the can I actually do this? And what are people going to think? And what if this fails? And it's it's all of the internal I call it mindfuckery. It's the mindfuckery, the conversations that we have silently with ourselves. And so thematically, across the board, every single time I talk to somebody still to this day, it's themselves.

Layci (03:00.947)
Mmm. Mm -hmm.

Layci (03:13.134)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Layci (03:17.976)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (03:27.311)
absolutely themselves and when we can learn how to get out of our own way and honor the things that we truly want and give ourselves the option to lean into those discomforting moments and do the thing, then we open up so many opportunities for ourselves.

Layci (03:37.612)
Yeah. Yeah.

Layci (03:42.538)
a million percent. And those of us in the entrepreneurial space, live in our heads a lot. I mean, it

LauraAura (03:49.871)
yeah. Yeah, I got I have cots up there. Like, we're literally living up there. You know, it's, I always tell people that, you know, when you become an entrepreneur, your personal human stuff does not go away, it gets amplified. And so whatever personal shit you have not dealt with, guess what's coming to the front of the line? Guess what shows up in your leadership? Guess what shows up in your sales abilities? Guess what shows up in your willingness to put yourself out there? Whatever those

Layci (04:04.852)
Amen. Yes, a million

LauraAura (04:19.901)
things are that's running in the background, can absolutely assume that it's gonna show up in your business.

Layci (04:22.168)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (04:27.008)
I could not agree with that more. And I will go so far as to say I am a parent of a middle schooler and a teenager that not even parenting has forced me to deal with my own shit as much as owning a business has forced me to deal with it. Or there wouldn't still be a business, right? Like, so in you...

LauraAura (04:44.263)
Yep. Yeah, you either lean into it and start to really work with it and understand yourself more, or it will be the thing that it continues, it'll continue to stop you.

Layci (04:50.689)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (04:58.572)
Yeah, absolutely. And would you agree like there's themes and ways people go, but we're also dynamic and different. Like what might be my block might not be your block. So following like a templated prescription of this is how you get over it and get through and succeed in business. Like there's not one right way, but there's probably some, go ahead.

LauraAura (05:23.141)
No. in fact, yeah, I was going say, in fact, there shouldn't be, right? Like, there isn't two journeys at all that are identical. And I think that sometimes why it feels so hard to overcome those things is because you're trying to do it in a way that works for somebody else.

Layci (05:34.936)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Layci (05:45.046)
Hmm.

LauraAura (05:46.023)
And so when you can lean into like, what do I need? What works best for me? Give yourself the opportunity to like play with it, right? I know that seems weird when you're talking about overcoming shit, but like experimenting with what actually works for me, what resonates with me and what doesn't, and then giving yourself permission to actually do that. Like do it your way. I think everything, right? Do it your way, because that's where the success is gonna be.

Layci (06:10.87)
yeah, a million percent. And I don't think I really understood that as a business owner until probably six years ago. And I'm not like, and I don't think I fully even grasped it until maybe three and a half, four. And I'll probably in five years from now say, well, I didn't really fully grasp it until.

because we just keep evolving, right? And getting to these, hopefully leveling up and seeing more, being more attuned to different areas. We've been our own bottleneck to success. When people hear the term mindset coach, I think they often like go to this woo woo place of like, what the heck is that? Is it, does it involve crystals? What is a mindset coach? I think there's

a lot of misconceptions out there. If I was your client and I was working with you and I'm saying, man, I got all these pieces going on. Like, what is a peek behind the curtain, a behind the scenes of like, no, no, no, no, this is what it's actually like. Like, what is it like to work with a mindset coach to work with you? So people can get a conceptualization beyond just the idea of

LauraAura (07:28.263)
Yeah, no, I love this question. And I will say that I don't even like the term mindset coach. I'm gonna be real straight with you. Because I think that it comes with stigmas and it has, means something different to everybody. But I haven't come up yet with the right, what, with a better alternative. So this is what I'm rolling with, right? Because it does clearly state it. And I'll also say that the other,

Layci (07:35.277)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (07:49.92)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

LauraAura (07:55.805)
However many mindset coaches that you might come across online are probably all going to do it a different way. So my way is not the only way, but it works for the people that work for me. And so my approach is I am incredibly intuitive. I can see, think, feel, what you're experiencing before you even say a word. And so that is a huge part of my approach. But the other tangible aspect is

Layci (08:03.97)
Right. Yep.

Layci (08:19.041)
Mmm.

LauraAura (08:25.737)
hat? What is the how? What are we going to do with this? Right? So mindset coaching is like, uncovering the blocks uncovering. What do you keep running into? What are you actually afraid of? What keeps reoccurring in your world that keeps stopping you? What are what's the shit? What is that crap that's going on in your head? What are those things like, let's actually vocalize it. Because people think that they can think their way out of a funk, or think their way through.

Layci (08:30.498)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (08:41.431)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (08:52.44)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (08:54.083)
stuff. And can you maybe it's going to be a long bumpy ride. But if you have the space to vocalize it and actually be in a space where you can say all the things that you've been thinking and feeling, but you're afraid that somebody is going to think that you're bad shit crazy, or like, how are you how are you going to do this, right? They start immediately questioning you or doubting you or putting, you know, putting projecting all their crap onto you, right? Like, most people don't have a space where they can be like, I don't want to run this business anymore.

Layci (09:04.95)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (09:17.431)
Okay.

LauraAura (09:23.469)
Or I know, or, or, you know, I had this, I have this idea, and I want to do it, but I'm terrified, right. And so we we talk about we have very real conversations about what's actually going on in your head. And then we look at things like, who are you actually? What do you act? What do you actually want in this scenario? It's learning how to reprioritize yourself, learning how to put your own needs first, learning how to not be a people pleaser.

Layci (09:23.574)
Right, you're not gonna say that to your employees.

Layci (09:33.698)
Right.

Layci (09:39.714)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (09:47.288)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (09:53.545)
that you can really love and support people without expending yourself, right? And so we're going through all the crap that's going on inside and then let's get a plan. Okay, what are we gonna do about it? And so I love giving tools, I love giving ways that you can implement things. Most, I would say 90 % of the women that I work with, they just, A, they need someone to hear them to kind of validate what they already know, but they're questioning. And two,

Layci (10:02.862)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Layci (10:17.976)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (10:23.197)
to spot the things that they can't see because they're too close to it, and three, three, get a plan so we know how to actually fucking move beyond this. Because I can woo -woo all day with you, right? Like I'm into magic and crystals and energy and repeating numbers and all that stuff, but how are we going to actually tangibly do something about this, right? We can feel it all day long, but if we don't do anything, it doesn't move. And if we're only doing, we're never tapping into the feeling of the bigger next thing.

Layci (10:26.818)
Yes.

Layci (10:32.343)
Right.

Layci (10:44.876)
Right.

Layci (10:51.394)
Right, right.

LauraAura (10:52.615)
So that's a little bit of my methodology.

Layci (10:55.88)
I love that. I think woo -woo gets lot less woo -woo for me when it's attached to the understanding of like, no, this is why. Like I am a huge fan of ritual because of the power of ritual. Like what it does in our brain when we enter into a ritual we've created for ourselves, whether that's a spiritual practice, whether that's what you do on a Sunday night to prepare yourself

the coming week, which we might be able to argue is a spiritual practice in and of itself. So I really appreciate the moving forward part. And I also, of course I do, because my default is not to feel. I don't want to deal with the feels. I want to just move and get shit done, like go. So anytime.

there's been a crisis or a really stressful point in my life, I can look back and see in the business how that's been reflected, has been creating another part of the business, which sometimes has worked out and sometimes really hasn't. But boy, boy, have I grown in the area of slow down. Don't actually for me, don't go do.

Sit with the feelings that you're avoiding and feel those before you decide you're gonna make some sort of commitment that you have to carry through on that you don't wanna carry through on three days later when your nervous system's regulated again.

LauraAura (12:33.595)
Exactly. Yeah, the I like to call it the power of the pause. If you give your if you give yourself the opportunity to pause, and you can do this for a couple seconds, you can do it for the day, you can do it for a couple days, it doesn't matter pause gets to be whatever you need it to be. But if you give yourself the option to do it, you will get so much clarity, you will come back into your body.

Layci (12:37.475)
Yes.

LauraAura (12:56.047)
you will know what to do or what not to do, right? Like, it all just starts to gel in that moment. And where we end up really kind of upsetting the cart is when we're in that kind of frantic mode, or based out of fear or worry or that emotions coming up and you're like, not today, I'm going to go do my shit instead. I mean, we come in like a tornado, right? And then we end up unintentionally creating bigger problems that we have

Layci (12:56.141)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (13:24.359)
later than deal with, whereas the real power is sitting in your discomfort. mean, plowing through it is not healing it, it's masking it. And if you give yourself the opportunity to sit in the temporary discomfort, you can feel what you need to feel, look what you're not feeling you're storing. That shit gets heavy. And the more

Layci (13:31.202)
Yes.

Layci (13:35.874)
Yes.

Layci (13:48.248)
So heavy.

LauraAura (13:49.159)
the more that you store, the more you pack it in, right? It's like picking up a sack of potatoes every single day and just lopping it on you. And what happens eventually? You get too tired and you freaking lose it. And then that triggers a whole nother thing, right? And so the key is giving yourself the opportunity to feel. Our mind and our body are directly connected, not just because we're strapped to one another here, right? But literally what is happening in our minds, if it's

Layci (14:09.048)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (14:18.953)
properly dealt with and processed, it goes into our body and it shows up as ailments or anxiety or depression or that weird thing that you keep getting tested for and everyone's everything's fine, right? And you're like, it's actually not fine, right? It's we store shit. So giving yourself the opportunity to feel I know it's super uncomfortable, but not dealing with it is perpetually uncomfortable.

Layci (14:26.413)
Mm -hmm.

Yep. Yep.

Layci (14:34.851)
Yes.

Layci (14:44.606)
from experience, a million percent. Yes. for our listeners that might be relating to the, don't like to feel portion of today. yeah, no, you are not alone. That is my factory setting. what, what flags, like what, what can you, pieces of information, things people can look for,

LauraAura (14:56.276)
You're not alone.

Layci (15:13.728)
If they're like, you know what, know I need to sit in my emotions, but I don't even know what that means. Like I'm so out of touch that I don't even know what it means to sit in my emotion. Does that mean I'm just sitting here and I'm feeling like maybe I'm having massive anxiety? Am I just supposed to sit with this anxiety and like go into a panic attack? Like functionally, what does it mean to slow down enough to feel the emotion?

LauraAura (15:40.969)
So I think the first thing that you can do is to acknowledge it. Like, if you're, you got to get to know yourself, okay? On a deeper level, on a surface, not just the surface stuff, on a deeper level. And what I mean by that is get curious. Okay, I'm starting to feel anxious. Notice that instead of plowing through it and like, my chest is tight and it's hard to breathe and I'm sweaty. Like,

Layci (15:46.328)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (15:59.992)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (16:09.787)
I can feel that my chest is tight. I wonder what this is trying to tell me. When you introduce curiosity, it's such a softer approach versus like, there I go being anxious again. I have so much shit to do. We immediately want to go into bashing ourselves. Whereas if it's like, let me pause. There it is again. What is this trying to tell me? What do I need to feel into right now? And sometimes that involves getting up and moving.

Layci (16:12.398)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Layci (16:22.411)
Right.

Layci (16:39.726)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (16:39.997)
going for a walk, putting on some music and dancing, right? Like movement will help you express and whatever movement that looks like for you is totally fine. For me, I like going on a walk. Like last night, for instance, I was like salty, right? I was just feeling kind of like angry and that's not my normal stance. And I was like, okay, I'm not gonna make this mean anything. I'm gonna go for my

Layci (16:56.376)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (17:07.453)
And so I started walking and I found myself irritated at the motivational music that I typically listen to. I was like, fuck you and your sunshine music, right? So I'm like, walking it out and about halfway through, I'm like, okay, I feel a little bit lighter, right? The anxiety's not there. I don't feel as like ready to punch some things kind of emotion. And then a song came on and I just started to cry.

Layci (17:12.802)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

LauraAura (17:35.761)
Right? I was like, I just I just had pent up stuff. I got a little bit triggered yesterday afternoon. And that immediately put me in a zone. And the natural tendency would be to plow through it, except I've done this work long enough to know like, I have to acknowledge it. So by the time I got home, I felt so much better. I wasn't angry anymore. My my emotions were settled down. I wasn't anxious anymore. So

Layci (17:35.778)
Mmm.

Layci (17:41.558)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Layci (17:50.104)
Yep. Yep.

Layci (17:56.596)
Mm. Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (18:02.001)
I say all that to say, you have to get used to acknowledging it instead of plowing through it. And let that guide you. Let that be something, right? Moving your body, putting on music, changing atmospheres, meditation, whatever you feel called to, give yourself the chance to do it. This is breaking the old system to get something new.

Layci (18:07.006)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Layci (18:17.304)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (18:26.7)
That is such, such priceless insight. Everyone listening, this is legitimately was a game changer for me. It sounds like Laura, it was a game changer for you in learning yourself. If they're brand new to this, what's the first step? Is it just going, I feel gross. I can't even name it. I just don't feel

LauraAura (18:50.737)
Yeah, acknowledge it. Like, what is your natural stance? Okay, let's even acknowledge what what how do you feel your best? What feels good to you? Right? What is your personality? Like, how do you move? How do you work? Right? Because like, I know when I'm when I'm in me, right? When I'm like fully locked in, I'm aligned with myself. Like, I can pop through tasks, and it feels light. I the ideas come in faster than I can get them down on paper. Like,

Layci (19:00.696)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (19:19.789)
I'm enjoying the conversations that I'm having. I'm enjoying the people that I'm around, right? Like I'm just, I'm in a very flowy type of state. understand what your like ideal aligned self looks and feels like, okay? If you can acknowledge that, then you can see, okay, yesterday that was, that is not my normal self. That's my body saying, you need to deal with something right now. So if you know what your neutral state is, you can then acknowledge.

Layci (19:33.376)
Great.

Layci (19:41.324)
Right.

LauraAura (19:49.661)
when you're out of that. And that can be sadness, that can be anger, that can be anxiety, that can be numbness, right? It can be all different types of things, but that gives you something to kind of anchor into to say, hey, my body's trying to communicate with me. I'm gonna listen to it this time.

Layci (19:51.512)
I love

Layci (19:55.946)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Layci (20:06.35)
Mm. Beautiful. I needed this 25 years ago, but I am glad it, I am glad I am building these skills now and that there are people like you that help us to tap into that. Welcoming you into the confessional. I am sure we are about to learn perhaps some of the catalysts for getting you where you are today.

LauraAura (20:11.689)
You and me both.

LauraAura (20:26.608)
yes.

LauraAura (20:33.466)
Yeah.

Layci (20:33.772)
So I'm opening the confessional booth, welcoming you inside, Laura. What is the confession you have come to share with us today of your previous life in a terrible leadership moment?

LauraAura (20:50.861)
I sucked at creating boundaries. And I was so afraid of people abandoning me that I abandoned myself. And my business suffered. My life suffered. My finances suffered. My health suffered because I was in such a reactive mode to

Layci (20:57.599)
Mmm.

Layci (21:03.391)
Mm -hmm. Mm.

LauraAura (21:16.713)
save everything and everyone around me that I completely forgot that I'm a whole ass person that that I was really holding on to the while I was supposed to be holding on to the wheel of the ship. I was letting everything and everyone grab ahold of it and steer it wherever they wanted to. And it took us down some really nasty roads. And I also learned I also learned that I don't like being a boss. And that is that is a confession to make.

Layci (21:22.52)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (21:39.148)
Yeah. Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (21:46.279)
because turns out I actually hate that shit. So there you go.

Layci (21:50.99)
A lot of people do and it is not something that most people enjoy and come to the realization later. So when you built your branding agency and as you brought people onto the team, was it like the classic E -Myth progression, the book, the E -Myth of like you were really good technically at what you did. And I am imagining you because you're so intuitive, you could probably help people build.

really killer brands, because that's such an amazing skill set to be able to pull out of people. Was it that you just got more and more work than you could handle, so you're like, hey, I'm just going to pull on more people to help me do the work. But you didn't in tandem develop the skill set of how do I make sure I'm still steering the

LauraAura (22:37.565)
Yeah. Yeah, we added folks, wonderful people, by the way. And I was just so worried that I was going to upset them, that I was going to disappoint them, that if I came down too hard on them, that they would leave and go find another job. And then how would I handle things, right? Like there was, I'm going to be real straight with you. I built.

Layci (22:43.116)
Yeah.

Layci (22:55.214)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (23:07.653)
my first business off of the backbone of my insecurities.

Layci (23:11.662)
Mm -hmm. Ooh, that is some real straight. You're not playing today. You're just coming right in with it. I love

LauraAura (23:15.219)
There's your there. There. There's your there's there's your fucking social clip. So I did not realize it though, right. But I can look back and doing the inner work right doing the mindset work healing myself. I can now look back and realize holy crap, my my abandonment wound from childhood came through my financial wound from the home that I grew up in came through.

Layci (23:30.914)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (23:39.15)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (23:44.557)
my need to like, validate myself came through. All of it showed up. And that's why I started this episode with whatever you don't deal with on the inside is going to get amplified in your business. And

Layci (23:56.994)
God, it's so true. Yes. Okay, functionally, what did that look like? What does it mean when you say that your financial wound came through? What does that mean in your business in the day to day?

LauraAura (24:10.937)
Yeah, so undercharging. Not holding people accountable when they owed us money. Giving raises because I wanted to make people happy, but not really fully knowing how I was going to handle it. Just holding on to dear life, hoping that the right things would come through. And I will say that many times it did. So there was a bit of a saving piece behind the scenes, but a lot of times it

Layci (24:15.213)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (24:19.8)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (24:28.236)
Yup, yup.

Layci (24:36.268)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (24:40.279)
Yeah.

LauraAura (24:40.353)
And I stopped paying myself towards the towards the end of of being a boss. I stopped paying myself. I had about four months of my own paychecks laying on my desk at my house. And it is a domino effect. You know, I mean, there's a million more stories, but those are the kind of the high notes.

Layci (24:43.47)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Layci (24:51.672)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Layci (24:59.8)
Those are the things that were the big red flags that took you out, essentially.

LauraAura (25:05.531)
Yeah, well, I was taught that, you know, money is the root of all evil. As soon as money comes in the door, it has to come out the door. If you have money, then you think that you're better than everybody else. Who does she think she is? Right? Like, I mean, I got stories for days with that. And so I carried those beliefs with me. It's like, as soon as it came in the door, it went out the door. Right? I didn't want to make too much because I didn't want to appear like, like I was some big head CEO somewhere, right?

Layci (25:10.502)
Mm.

Layci (25:16.012)
Oof, yeah.

Layci (25:26.252)
Yeah, yeah.

LauraAura (25:33.095)
So I pushed it all away and I didn't even cash my own paychecks because then my abandonment wound came in and that looked like people pleasing to the max and that meant paying them before I paid myself and my family suffered because of

Layci (25:39.598)
Mmm.

Layci (25:47.042)
Yeah. Right. That is a lot to... When did you realize like, whoa, I have to deal with my shit because it is not sustainable? Was there a moment or was it like a slow build? Because I know it can happen either way.

LauraAura (25:53.212)
Yeah.

LauraAura (26:07.433)
think it was a combination of the two. There was definitely a jolt of it at the height of COVID. So that was the turning point for us. As a creative agency and being in this industry for 20 years, I know that when budgets get tight, our industry is the first to get cut. And so I knew what was coming. I saw it plain as day. I was driving to work. I got this intuitive download, and it was

Layci (26:22.094)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (26:35.913)
you know what's about to happen, you gotta let everybody go today. And so I called everybody into the office and I laid everybody off simultaneously. And it was one of the worst things in the world I've ever had to do and it sucks ass, but it was the right thing to do at that time because within two weeks we lost 60 % of our business.

Layci (26:52.568)
Right.

Layci (26:56.983)
Ugh.

LauraAura (26:58.375)
So at that point, I was forced to choose me over them. And that sucks when you're a leader, when you're a boss, because like, of course you want to take care of these people. I felt awful, right? I don't sit here like pridefully saying this. I say this like I had to choose me. Because at this point, it's my livelihood and my family and my house versus everybody else. And I had to choose that. And so when I packed up all my stuff and I went home, I started this.

Layci (27:01.922)
Yep. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Layci (27:09.172)
yeah!

Layci (27:18.328)
Yep. Right.

LauraAura (27:27.081)
kind of long unwinding process of getting back to who I really was and what I really wanted. And I started to recognize how these wounds were coming out. And I went on a deep path to heal that shit.

Layci (27:30.424)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (27:37.677)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (27:41.746)
Gosh, congratulations for going on the journey, because it would have been a lot easier to stuff and run, and you didn't do that. yes. what, was there like a moment when you went, I don't actually like being a boss. In fact, I hate this.

LauraAura (27:48.455)
Yep. Yeah.

LauraAura (28:02.471)
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it was an interesting revelation because I guess it was probably maybe six months into the lockdown COVID ish timeframe. The dust had started to kind of settle just a tiny bit right like because the first three months were just everything was on fire. It was saving mode. It was working around the clock. It was helping clients I had reabsorbed every role in the company. So it was very stressful.

Layci (28:31.831)
Yes.

LauraAura (28:32.347)
So about six months, I'd say, I started to really ask myself, like, what does Laura actually want? And I was like, I haven't asked myself that in a really long time. And I'm like, OK, let me kind of go through an exercise. And this is great for listeners to do themselves. I want you to get really honest with yourself. Get a pen and paper, post it notes, fucking whiteboard, whatever tickles your fancy, right? Get something. And I want you to write down what makes you feel alive and excited.

Layci (28:39.288)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (28:52.994)
Mm Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Layci (29:02.424)
Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (29:02.715)
and what drains you. And when I did this exercise, I realized that being a boss landed on the side of what drains me. I was a very good leader. Okay, I will give myself that credit because I'm I have a lot of empathy. I always had people's best interest. We we did development, like it was people first, it was inclusion, right? Like I I'm very good at leading. But that's very different than being a boss. There

Layci (29:12.302)
Mmm.

Mm -hmm.

Layci (29:26.784)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

million percent. Yep.

LauraAura (29:32.233)
There are different roles and responsibilities that come along with being a boss. And I was like, I love being a leader. I hate being a boss. And so when whenever I restructure whatever this is, I will not have employees. Now I have a fantastic team of female owned small business owners, they are contractors, they come in and work their magic and do their thing, I get to do the thing that I'm best at, which is to lead and to guide, and everybody's happy.

Layci (29:40.813)
Yeah.

Layci (29:44.43)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (29:52.696)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (30:01.361)
It's like, I didn't realize that there was another way to build a business. I thought you had to do it this way. And I got trapped up. I got trapped up in the should of

Layci (30:01.667)
I love

Layci (30:07.148)
Right?

Yes, is that not the truth? I often will tell my clients, stop shoulding all over yourself. Like, stop it. You're following some kind of prescribed something that came from somewhere. You've got a script that's telling you about what should, you should and shouldn't be doing. Such... Was there a lightness, like a freedom that came when you finally just gave yourself permission to... Yeah, it's like a, it's

LauraAura (30:17.309)
Yep.

LauraAura (30:35.609)
yeah.

Layci (30:39.04)
rocks are just taken off your back, right? The potatoes, you've dropped the potatoes.

LauraAura (30:42.161)
And the you know, I have I've dropped some potatoes. have I've dropped kicked some potatoes. I have I have cooked some potatoes like I think the last four years of my life has been undoing all of those shoulds and getting back to who I really am. And, you know, an interesting realization was after. You know, I saved the business, I was able

Layci (30:49.063)
-huh. Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (31:11.111)
you know, pay off our all the debt that we had had at the time, like I got us back to a good place where I didn't feel like the world in our home was ending. And, and then my my intuition kicks in is like, I don't think I want to do this anymore. And I'm like, Are you fucking kidding me? Are you kidding me after we just went through all that? But you know, I think we had to get it back. I had to get it back to a healthy place. It was just the right thing for me to do, right?

Layci (31:19.597)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (31:29.743)
after I just went through all of this.

LauraAura (31:41.425)
And it's what I wanted to do. That's very important as well. But once it got all situated and we started having new clients and stuff come in and things have changed, I was like, I'm not very excited about doing this anymore. I think I'm done. And I think being done and quitting are two very different things. And I'm like, again, back to that list, what drains my energy? What lights me up? And I'm like, I don't have time to speak. I don't have time to do this.

Layci (31:57.634)
Yeah.

Layci (32:01.741)
LauraAura (32:10.855)
And I'm like having a fucking boohoo fest. Meanwhile, all the things that I really want to do, I'm not giving it time. I'm not allowing it to have time. I don't have the capacity to write a keynote speech when I'm managing four or five clients on my own with a handful of fantastic freelancers. It was way too divided. Also, let me also mention in that mix that I bought a commercial building with the intent to build it out to be a co -working space. So let's just put that little ditty in there.

Okay.

Layci (32:42.636)
to the ingredient, the stress ingredients, yes.

LauraAura (32:45.029)
Seriously, so I get to this point, right? We had a client that was transitioning out. I'm looking at these gorgeous renderings that I had created with a partner for the building.

I was sitting at my desk, and I got this wave. And you're talking about noticing I'm like, Whoa, something is happening right now. Like, my chest was tight, I can feel the tears welling up behind my eyes. And I'm like, what is what am I trying to say to myself? And I call my husband, I'm like, you got to get down here, because I'm about to fucking lose it. So he's like, I'll be there. You know, the building was only seven minutes from our house. He got there and he walked in. And I looked at him and it just

Layci (33:12.066)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (33:15.819)
Yep. Yep.

LauraAura (33:25.265)
exploded out of my face and I, Lacey, I wailed away that I have never wailed before in my life. And I screamed out loud, I don't want the branding agency anymore. And he was like, yeah, yeah, I got I got I got little, little wins of it little ideas of it. But it was always like, that's ridiculous.

Layci (33:26.825)
Mmm.

Layci (33:41.527)
Mmm. Did you know it before it came out of your mouth? Okay.

LauraAura (33:53.321)
you've spent 20 years doing this. This is what your reputation is in. This is what people know you for. This is what you have degrees in and this and that. It would be silly to do that. I'm like, it was like a pot waiting to boil over and it exploded. And he was like, OK, what do we do next? That was in July of last year. August, I made a phone call about selling it. By December, it was sold. In the mix of that.

Layci (33:53.676)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

LauraAura (34:24.017)
I also decided that I didn't want the building anymore, which was a whole separate meltdown. I'm like, no, did the whole thing twice. I, again, called my husband and I'm like, you're not going to believe this. And he's like, okay, here we go. I'm like, building out the building would have been another distraction pulling me away from what I really wanted to do. What I really want to do is I want to, I want to impact people by speaking and consulting.

Layci (34:26.798)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (34:30.632)
It wasn't a twofer. You had to go through the whole thing twice.

Layci (34:41.388)
Yeah. Yeah.

Layci (34:52.779)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

LauraAura (34:53.681)
and helping people actually get to the shit that they really want. And we decided in November, within a week we got an offer and by February it sold. And I've been full time in doing what I actually want since then. And so I tell you all that because it's getting to the thing that you really want is rarely beautiful and perfectly in line and like goes the way that you want it to in the timeframe that you want it to go in. Like,

Layci (35:17.74)
right.

LauraAura (35:23.067)
spoiler alert, it rarely does any of those things. But if you follow those, those cues of your body, if you listen to what you're saying, your intuition, those little like drop ins that you get, or the hunch that you get, it doesn't have to be loud for it to be valid. You just have to just have to acknowledge it. And so if you pay attention to your how you're feeling, pay attention to what you're you're thinking, and pay attention to what you're drawn to. And that trio, it will always guide you to the thing that you really want.

Layci (35:38.412)
Yes. Pay attention. Yes.

Layci (35:48.28)
Mm -hmm.

Layci (35:53.502)
Listeners, I hope you wrote that down. So true. One of the, mean, I'm just biting back on my own stories right now because this is Laura's interview, not Lacey's, but it is, I'm just resonating so deeply with the things that you're sharing and the echoes of my own journey to where we're at right now. And I mean, I couldn't confirm more that everything you're saying is just so dead on. it's...

In my experience and I'm hearing in yours too, it sounds like once you get some alignment and you like say and are brave enough to really say this is what I want and this is what I don't want and you start saying it out loud, doors open that you didn't even know were there. The universe is like, okay, it took you long enough. Let's move

LauraAura (36:39.377)
Yes, truly. I found kind of the magic little recipe is to get very, clear on what you want. That does not mean that you have to it all figured out. It just means that you have a direction, okay? You get very clear on what you want. You decide that you're going to do it, right? Because we can waver back and forth and think about it and hem haw around it. Decide is it yes or no? And then you take action towards it. Over.

Layci (36:53.698)
Right.

Layci (37:03.672)
Yep. Yep.

LauraAura (37:08.049)
and over and over again. And those doors start opening, the opportunities start happening, you start to physically and mentally feel better. Like, it's like, I could have had this all along. Turns out, turns out I did not need to go around the merry round, but here we are, so.

Layci (37:10.146)
Yes.

Layci (37:19.598)
It's right.

Layci (37:24.5)
Yes. that's awesome. Some questions that I will ask myself and I have my clients ask themselves when we're exploring their leadership. There's some definite parallels in what we do when they're exploring their their leadership capacities and when they're having to make a hard decision on usually it comes around like firing or like is this person right for the team or not? Because that's gut wrenching for most of us. It's it's asking yourself

Am I getting a whole body? Yes. That everything feels good and aligned. So learning how to pay attention to what is that, know, is my spirit, my heart, my guts, is it all aligned? My brain. Am I getting the full body? Yes on it or not? The second is, what am I pretending that I don't know? And then the third is, what am I pretending that I don't see? And...

LauraAura (38:18.357)
That's a good one. The pretending aspect because it's like, wow, damn it, Lacey.

Layci (38:25.102)
Yes, exactly. Right. Like I get mad at myself. I hurt my own feelings when I ask those questions. So it is when I ask them of me, it's it. Yeah, there's some powerful, definitely some powerful work that can be done when we're willing to stop pretending. And I mean, that that's a lot of what I see reflected in your story is like you had to get to the point where you were ready to stop pretending.

and play the role and like gave yourself permission to say even what was right then isn't right now. And that's okay. Like we change, we should change. I hope we're all evolving. I hope I'm not the same person a year from

LauraAura (39:13.08)
I sure as hope so, right? Because I mean, that's where we're even in the even most especially through the tough times, I think is where we grow the most, right? Like, I know some things to do and not to do very clearly because of some screw ups, right? And, you you mentioned firing people, and I just feel really called to say this, a mentor once told me that if firing ever gets easy, you're doing something wrong.

Layci (39:28.127)
Mm -hmm

Layci (39:37.589)
yeah.

LauraAura (39:38.099)
There's a humanistic part of ourselves where from an empathetic standpoint, you can see that it is a person and it sucks. It sucks to let people go. I'll never forget the very first person that I had to fire. I was physically sick for days until I did it. so if anybody's listening and you're in that boat, if it ever gets easier, you're doing something wrong.

Layci (39:44.194)
Mm -hm. Yeah. Yep.

Layci (40:05.048)
Beautiful advice. With that, Laura, you've been so generous with your time. Is there anything you would like to leave with our listeners that they really take home with them? Anything that you want to make sure, hey, if you take something away today, take this.

LauraAura (40:22.729)
I want to encourage you and remind you that you are allowed to change your mind. That you don't have to continue doing something because somebody told you that you should, because the world is doing something a certain way, because you've been doing it for three, five, 10, 20 years. You know when something is no longer a right fit for you.

And if you give yourself permission to not only accept that, but have the gutsy to take steps towards changing it, you're going to change your life for a whole lot better.

Layci (41:00.238)
Laura, thank you so much. Laura Ora, where can people find you? We will include all of your links, but what is the best way to get ahold of you if they want more of what you so clearly bring to the table today?

LauraAura (41:11.813)
Yeah, my website, lauraora .com is the hub for all things me. All my social links are on there. All my programs are on there. The Gutsy podcast is on there. So lauraora .com it'll take you where you need to

Layci (41:25.72)
Love it. We'll have it fully linked. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. This was such a great conversation. I feel like I could keep talking to you for hours, but I will wrap it up and I'm sure there's so many things we could keep going on. You know, love to have you back at some point and listeners until next time, go manage like a leader.

LauraAura (41:40.464)
absolutely.