Episode 133: How To Break Free From The 9-5 and Build a Life of Freedom | Leslie Levito | Entrepreneur & Business Coach
Leslie Levito has lived the “dream job” life , from running a skate shop to climbing the corporate ladder, but she realized the real dream was designing her own life. Today, she’s a business coach, entrepreneur, and co-founder of CutClass, helping people break free from traditional jobs and create businesses that align with their vision, values, and goals. We talk about her journey from action sports to the c-suite, the moment she knew it was time to leave, and the systems she’s built to support both business growth and personal freedom. Leslie shares the mindset shifts that made it possible to recover from bankruptcy, why she believes anyone can improve 1% every day, and how those small, consistent actions add up to massive change.
“Everyone can improve 1% everyday. That equals 3800% improvement in a year! The key is staying consistent with just that 1% improvement. Small actions everyday.”
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
00:00 Thank you for being a yes
01:20 From skate shop beginnings to corporate life
03:15 Riding the action sports wave
05:45 Lessons learned during the recession
08:10 Moving from employee to entrepreneur
10:30 The birth of CutClass and helping others launch
13:05 Recovering from bankruptcy and bouncing back
15:45 The 1% improvement philosophy
18:20 Building systems for freedom and flexibility
21:00 Balancing multiple businesses and life roles
23:15 Using creativity to solve business problems
26:40 Finding clarity in your vision and goals
29:10 How to know when it’s time to leave your job
31:25 Advice for new entrepreneurs starting out
We actually became one of the top five single door retailers in the United States. So I had this idea that we would continue to open up stores and managers would manage that store and become an owner of that stores. And it happened to be just the worst timing in the world because there was a small little thing coming up called The Recession.
That's Leslie Libido, and this is The Powerful Ladies podcast.
Hey guys, I'm your host, Kara Duffy, and in this episode I had the pleasure of sitting down with fellow badass entrepreneur and business coach Leslie Lido. She's a true soul sister in helping people break free from the life they have. To create the life they want through creating their own business. In this episode, she shares her wisdom, her journey from Skate Shop to C-Suite, and how she knew it was time to break free and build your own business around her dream life.
If you are intrigued by the thought of using your precious time to do more of what you love, with who you love and make more money than you ever have, I invite you to start your own business. Take your first step and book a call with me on my website, kara duffy.com. You can also check out additional resources@learn.karaduffy.com, where you can find my business Masterminds free downloads online classes, and my Thrive membership, which includes monthly business workshops and weekly group coaching.
All taught live. Don't wait until someday live your best life now.
Thank you for being a yes and coming on the Powerful Ladies Podcast.
I am so glad to be a guest. I'm thrilled to be here with you,
Cara. Well, let's begin. Please tell everybody who you are, what you're up to, and where you are in the world.
Sure. Uh, my name is Leslie Libido and I live on the east side of Los Angeles, and I currently have two businesses.
I'm actually. Discussing an equity partnership for a third, but I have two businesses and really, although they are different, they're after the same commitment. So what I do is I help people bring their vision to reality. So in one sense, with my one, I have a branding agency called Et Cetera. So we actually do the branding for companies.
So helping people think of their brand story or their brand strategy, their logos, their color palette, anything visual in nature. And we also execute like products that we make for them, or design uniforms, stuff like that. And then I also have another company called Cut Class, which is courses and resources for people who wanna start their own business.
But again, it's about helping people get their vision going in the world.
How fun is that to do? I mean, it's my favorite thing to do. It's probably your favorite thing to do. It is, you know, I
just was dropping off my sister and she was like, so when do you plan to retire? And I'm like, what's your retirement goal?
And I was like, what does that, what does that mean exactly? And she goes, well, you know, like, when do you plan to stop working? And I said, um, like never. And she was like, yeah, but don't you just wanna retire where you don't have to do anything? And I just looked at her and I said, well, I love doing what I do.
I love working with people, whether it's on the branding side or the business development side. I love watching their light bulb go off or they just suddenly see this is possible for me. I can make this happen. And you know, I discussed with her like, I don't see retirement as a thing because I have full freedom and flexibility now.
Mm-hmm. So if I want, I, you know, I said next year if I wanna reel it back and only do a couple of projects with my branding agency and take on only a handful of clients and travel the world. I can do that, and then if I wanna dial it up the next year I can. So I don't really, I think that word retirement is traditionally thought of.
I think I would just be bored.
Well, I think most people are bored when they retire as well. I mean, my, um, my father just retired last September and he's already like, okay, what do I do? Like he keeps applying for jobs and going to interviews and the idea that we should want to escape from our life, which is how I view retirement.
I, I don't get, it's like we need to start at the beginning and like, fix Yeah. Life. It's an old
system that doesn't work. It's not current, it's not modern. I don't even know if it really ever worked back then for people. But, you know, I was doing, um, some research for my podcast and I found that there's a Gallup poll that shows that 85% of people are not happy working as full-time employees.
Mm-hmm. And 85%, like that's the vast majority of people. And then. An average person will spend 90,000 hours in a career. So if you're gonna go spend 90,000 hours at at least one third, if not more of your like, prime years, it should be doing something that lights you up, brings you joy, you get to contribute.
Yeah. I, I'm always surprised at how many people don't even, well, everyone's always thinking too small for sure. So that's always a one thing. But then how many people don't even think to ask themselves those questions? Like, it's not, I don't like this job, but we find another one. Like, it's like, what's coming at you versus what you could just create.
What, how have you experienced that with your clients and what frustrates you slash um, gets you excited about how you can help people in that space?
Um, I think like the biggest thing that frustrates me is that. Everyone's just bought into this system. And because it's what we're all told to do and because everyone's doing it, we just don't even question it.
It's almost like water to the fish. So we're all told, unless you happen to be lucky enough to be born into one of those 3% are families that have success and wealth and they have that full-time freedom. But the majority of us are born into a circumstance where we're told to do really well in school, get good grades, get go to good college, get a good job, work real hard, keep getting promotions, and that's the key to success.
And you know, I did a lot of that and I was really fortunate. I made it to the executive suite. I became a chief of operations and had that six figure salary and the cool title and the cool company. But it wasn't, I mean, I got all the way there and I was lucky to even get there. And then I, I got there and was like.
What did I just do? Like I just spent so many years of my life just put myself in close to $200,000 of debt, getting my education and now I can't even spend time with my kids. And so I'm just, what frustrates me is that there is this system that is set up and people don't even realize it. It's like we are, so many of us are like literally in the matrix and we don't see it.
And it's crazy because I even look at like our school system, most of us, we go through a school system that preps us for this work employment system where you go to school Monday through Friday, eight to three, and then you trade that when you quote, grow up for a job Monday through Friday, nine to five if you're lucky, you stop, you trade your teacher.
For a boss, you trade your homework for a work deliverable. So we're indoctrinated from a very young age. To think a certain way. And then when I work with people and just even you just sit and listen, even at a restaurant, listen to the conversations around you. People are so unhappy and they're so stuck, but they see it as like it, that's just how it is because there's so many people doing the same thing.
So it just seems like it's normal and people are resigned. That could, it could even be another way. So that is the most frustrating thing. And then when people actually start to have those aha moments and see, wait, I just like hook line and sink went for the system because that's what I was told, and they start to unravel that whole story, that's when I start to get really excited.
It's like watching, I'm a mop. It's like watching your kids walk for the first time. Like it's, it's amazing. I get like, I have goosebumps right now just thinking about how people are when they get to that space.
Well, it's like they, they can see the other door, even if it's one other door to start and you're like, I almost feel like I start becoming full color to somebody versus black and white.
Because if you can see the world I'm in, like there's so many colors and so many options. So until you see it, you can't even see me completely as a human and like, yeah. Otherwise I'm talking like I'm a crazy person to most people. Like, okay, whatever that works for you. And I'm like, no, no, no. It could work for everybody.
Yeah. And then like when you see how like dumbfounded they are, that they were like, wait, what I could do what and how, like. One of my favorite conversations is when you start to peel back how, when you're an employee, you are living on post tax dollars.
Yes.
When you are in business for yourself, you get to take advantage of pre-tax dollars.
Like our country, the United States and many other western cultured countries are set up for business owners, but we're never taught it in school and people don't talk about it. And I almost feel like even business owners to business owners, like I kind of remember like chuckling, remember, like remember how we used to be so stupid and we didn't realize that there was this pretax advantage where, I guess to make it simple, it's like when you're taking advantage of pre-tax dollars, it's almost like getting a 20 or 30% discount on everything because you're able to spend money before a dollar is taxed.
But it's kind of like a in, it's kind of like an inside joke when you become a business owner. You're like, oh yeah, we figured it out. You would think that we'd be like writing it in the sky.
No, and it's true. 'cause um, you know, most the wealthiest people in the US in particular, they're not people, they're businesses.
Yeah. They might be a human, but like Jeff Bezos is not paying taxes like an employee. Mm-hmm. Right? So even regardless of political standings, when we talk about who's paying taxes and who's not. That should not be the conver the question we're really asking because no one in their right mind would pay themselves a salary over what, whatever the mark is.
$400,000 a year anyway. Because why? Like, everything should be in stock options or something else, or assets. Mm-hmm. And it's almost like a mute conversation. Like who, who are the people earning that money as employees, and why would anyone ever torture them in that capacity?
Yeah. And it's, it's really like understanding how to flip the script.
I was even thinking last year, um, it was a big move for me, but this actual space that you're seeing used to be this dusty, dirty, nasty garage that just crap was stored in. And we invested $20,000 into turning it into a home office. So it's like, it's a different strategy, right? Like where you get $20,000, you invest it, turn it into your home office, that $20,000 is completely.
A write off, and then I have also increased the value of my home.
Yes,
and given myself a place to work. And it's just like small things. You just have to shift how it's, it's like if you've been standing on one side of the room as an employee, to be a business owner, you have to figure out how to stay on the other side of the room and find those communities and those mentors, people like yourself, care who will help people actually.
Have the conversations and learn the tips and the tricks and the tools to get to the other side of the room. 'cause once you get there, you're like, wait, I'm never going to the other side of the room. What was I
doing over
there? So
before you were, well I should tell everybody that you and I first met when I was working at Super and you were one of, um, a handful of consultants that we had brought in specifically Yeah.
You and your partner to help us work on branding and the storytelling side of it. And um, you know, but before, 'cause you've had a couple of businesses on your own that you've had. But yeah, take us back to the beginning. So when you finished school and you were going up the corporate ladder, where were you at?
Where were you focusing on and how did you end up making the jump to the other side of the room? Yeah,
so this is interesting. So, um, my very, very first business, I was a freelancer in high school. I worked at children's birthday parties doing face painting and playing games with the kids and, and balloon sculpting, you know, little did I know that I was a freelancer.
It just was what I did. And then I also had some jobs working at the mall, you know, and I remember that feeling of like making $8 an hour and having someone dictate when and where I had to be somewhere.
Mm-hmm.
But my entire life, my whole upbringing was only one question. It was never, what do you wanna do when you grow up?
It was, what kind of doctor are you going to be? 'cause I come from a whole like generations and generations of doctors. And so I was on a pre-med track. I was a junior in undergrad and there was just this, I started snowboarding, which I loved. And I just started thinking about like, what do I really want?
And I realized that I wanted freedom and flexibility. And I realized that I don't wanna be a doctor. That's what my parents want me to do. So I dropped out of school when I was at the end of my junior year, which was, everyone was like, you're crazy, just finish out the next year. And I was like, why finish out a year of something that I know I don't want?
And I started a skate and snowboard shop. I actually joined one that was closing right outside of Philadelphia and they were closing it down. And I was like, Hey guys, can you let me play with this for a year? And it was really my first, you know, real business experience. And I remember that first year we made $10,000 and they were, and you know, at the end of that year, reevaluating the owner, uh, mark, he was like, this is not worth $10,000.
All this worked for 10 grand, you know? And I was like, well, but we made 10 grand. Can you give me one more year? Because I, there was something about it that I really loved. I loved skateboarding and snowboarding, the whole industry, the environment. Mm-hmm. I loved being in retail and having basically a retail boutique end of year two.
We did a, like a, a net profit of $40,000. And even then he was like, listen babe, it was my boyfriend. He was like, listen, $40,000 is not like you, you don't wanna be making 40 grand a year. And I was like, I know, but just gimme one more here. Right. So, you know, I go from 10 to 40 to 80 and then we're just blasting off like well into the six figures.
You know, we were making like quarter of 1,000,300 and we were traveling the world, snowboarding our brains out. Like we had that full freedom. We could do whatever we wanted. If it was dumping in Tahoe, we flew to Tahoe, you know, and I really loved in my twenties, just really living the life. And I guess I had some natural instincts from business.
I also was in the right place at the right time. We had a really incredible skateboard team. Chris Cole, Tommy Asta, Pete Elridge, like all these amazing skaters, happened to skate for our shop in my twenties. And I rode that whole action sports wave and we actually became one of the top five single door retailers in the United States.
Um, so I was really excited. I went back to school, completed my undergraduate degree, got my business degree 'cause I knew that I needed some real knowledge when it came to business. And I always have been about giving back to the people who build my companies. So I had this idea that we would continue to open up stores and managers would manage that store and become an owner of that store.
So we. Branched out and opened up door number two, and then a secondary, like consignment shop for resale. 'cause we were also really into just the whole upcycling idea. And it happened to be just the worst timing in the world because there was a small little thing coming up called the recession that I didn't, you know, I had no idea that it was coming.
So in 2009, um, that business closed and, um, it was definitely one of the hardest parts of my life. Then I look back at it very fondly. But in 2009 you have to get, I was 36 years old. Old, just closed a business that I had built for 13 years, filing for bankruptcy and getting a divorce. And I'm a single mom,
so, so just check in a few boxes at once.
Yeah. I was like, dang, I have completely face planted. Um. Yeah. And so that's when, you know, given everything that I was dealing with, that's when I went into corporate because I think I needed some time to like lick my wounds. I definitely was not in any place or space emotionally, financially, in any way to go out and start another business.
So that's when I went into corporate. I ended up moving out to Los Angeles and I reached out to Eric Ellington, who is a skateboarder that I had met, um, in my days as a shop owner, and they were looking for someone at his company, baker Boys. And I started there and worked there for almost four years. It was really incredible.
I got to see like a whole nother side of business. I really was able to train a lot of my executive knowledge, a lot about spreadsheets. I learned a lot about numbers. The CFO there was incredible. She really took me under her wing, Angela, and. She taught me about money and finances and business, which was the one piece I was always really weak at.
And I did that for almost four years, put myself back into school, got my MBA, 'cause I felt that I needed that graduate degree. And I got into the executive suite with those guys and it was having my second son and I just was really struggling. 'cause I also had a 7-year-old and he was like, you are never here.
I remember being at a red light and he's like, why do you have to go to work all the time? I hate that you're working. You're never around. I want you around more mom. And I said, well, do you like wanna have our home and our car and our lifestyle that we have? And he said, you know, I'd rather be homeless on the street with you if I could spend more time with you.
Which was like, ugh, heartbreaking. A knife to my heart. And that's kind of when I started really reevaluating like, okay. It feels like I've made it. I'm an executive and I have all this money, but I don't have time and I don't have freedom and I'm not being the mom that I wanna be, and I just had a baby.
Mm-hmm. And you know, having a 7-year-old and having a baby, you realize that those babies, they become seven very quickly. So, um, at that point I was remarried and we had a long, my husband and I had a long, hard talk about what's important to us.
Mm-hmm.
I was evaluated after getting my MBA with an HR company, and I was like, I could go and be an executive, I can make $300,000 a year.
Mm-hmm. And a nanny can raise our child. I might be around, like, I'll be flying around and, you know, and what do we want? Mm-hmm. And we decided that it was more important for me to earn proportionately the same amount of money, but not be chained to that 50, 60 hour work week. Yeah. And so I was convinced I could earn six figures.
Working 20 to 25 hours a week. Mm-hmm. I was like, I can do it. Um, and so I opened up, I started consulting and I started doing the brand agency thing and I ended up working with, um, my previous business partner, Leah Fast. And yeah, we had a great run together and I, and you know, we did it. Mm-hmm. We were both moms had a lot of priority with our kids and families and we built a small boutique branding agency in Los Angeles and we just rocked it and had Yeah.
A lot of everything that we were looking for.
Yeah. You guys were phenomenal. And, and to have two women working together who are um, equal independent forces, I thought was very cool to see because, um. It's not often that that like you both were very much equals when you showed up, at least with working with me.
Mm-hmm. And with Supra. And it was very cool to see that. Um, and also to see you around some of your other clients. Like I got had the pleasure of being invited to that restaurant round table you guys did, which was awesome. Um, yeah, as soon as I saw I met you guys, like the first day I am like, I'm keeping these girls because they are on I wave blank.
We felt the same around about you when we left. We were like, Kara is badass and we wanna keep in touch with her. And you know, I guess that's my one tip to anyone who's listening is when you're building your life, your business, whatever it is that you're doing, you know, that community aspect and having other people, collaborators, partners is really key for me.
You know, I had a business partner who, my strengths. Were her weaknesses and vice versa. And so, you know, I brought a real strategic lens to our branding agency and she brought a real creative lens and together we were able to do way more
mm-hmm.
Combined than we would have separately. But I, you know, I do notice a lot of founders in the beginning, they're kind of like, it's like maybe there's an area that's very hard for them and they don't wanna do it.
And sometimes I just think maybe you need to find someone. And sometimes when you find someone who's your partner or collaborator, they don't have to legally be your partner and collaborator even. So currently I have a company called et cetera. I've relaunched the branding agency with a brand new partner.
But it started off, um, Leah and I decided to go our different ways at the beginning of the pandemic. And so here I was a strategist and I didn't have my creative other side. Then someone who used to be on the faus libido team, her name is show. She was a creative who had no strategy and she didn't even understand how to start her freelancing business.
Mm-hmm. And so in the beginning, for the first four months, we just traded services. It was like, you help me with some of my visual looks and I'll help you like with your QuickBooks and getting your business going. I helped her figure out her budgets and just getting everything going. And it just happened to be that we clicked and then after six months of collaborating together, we were like, let's just make it legit.
So we became, so we became, et cetera. Um, January, 2021.
Congratulations. Yeah. I mean, one of my favorite statistics is that the average American business owner who is by themselves, one person business owner, they make around $45,000 a year in revenue. A four person team makes 450,000. Like, I know it's causation and not correlation, but come on.
Like if you wanna 10 x your business, get some friends,
like get some legit friends. Yeah. And, and, and I think a lot of what we've been talking about is conversations that we've heard and grown up with and then breaking those, those old whatever. And you hear never mixed friends with pleasure. I don't know, like I get that maybe, you know, some business deals can go south and it can have impact on relationships, but to me, if you can partner with people and create a shared horizon, you know, where are we going together?
And you really are in communication. You think things through, I mean, we take show and I, we stop every like two or three months and we make sure there is like no wrinkles between us. We are always very clear about any tiny thing because we're not gonna let a, a grain of sand turn into like this, you know, rock between us.
Um mm-hmm. But that don't mix that, you know, don't mix. Friendship and business is archaic.
It, it really is. I, I have had so many clients where we've built their teams for the first time and I would say half of them hired someone they knew and they were afraid. They're like, can I even interview them? I'm like, yeah, but make sure you interview them extra hard.
Yeah,
that
your
hardest interview.
And it's, that's the best part. Like when you work with people that you love. And then it was so funny, yesterday I was in a business meeting with show and it was long, it was like an hour and a half, and then we were like, oh my gosh, we're fried. We gotta go. So we hang up and I literally walked 10 steps and then I called her as my girlfriend and I was like, Hey man, I just got out of the longest business meeting with my business partner.
It was good, but it was long. And man, I just need to talk to a girlfriend. And she's laughing, you know? 'cause she's like, um, but I, you know, I guess even when I had. The shop back in my twenties, we were all friends, we were family.
Mm-hmm. Um, so, well it's so much more fun to build things that way. Mm-hmm. I mean, you know, the other thing people say is like, not to get emotional about business.
And I'm like, that is also a lie. Like, I want to work with people who, like, are so emotionally invested in their customer and what they're doing. Not in an ego way, not in a, let's be dramatic for fun way, but, you know, if you don't think you're saving the world in some capacity, doing what you're doing or adding to the, the goodness ripple going across the world.
I love that. That Yeah. Like, why are you doing it? And, and so people get, you know, the, going back to storytelling and branding. Um, I would say nine outta 10 businesses are not telling their real story. They're nervous to, 'cause they've heard all these silly things of like, what not to do. And then they're like, why isn't my email converting?
Why isn't anyone saying yes? Because you're not telling them the truth. You're not saying why you started it or why it matters to you, or all these underlying things that we're so afraid to be vulnerable and actually say, and then once you do, people are like, I wanna hang out with you.
Totally. I feel the big thing that people do when it comes to their brand or their story or any kind of marketing is their instinct is to broadcast wide.
'cause they wanna capture a lot of people and it, it, what it does is it creates a very vanilla experience for people. Although vanilla is my favorite ice cream. I think vanilla is great, but it's, you know, someone said that to me, and I really love this analogy. They were like, you could broadcast a wide message that people 80% relate with, which is pretty high.
80%. Mm-hmm. But in today's. Time where people are getting bombarded by social media, I mean, we are seeing so many brand messages and stories continuously. 80% make someone like, oh, that was great. 95%, a hundred percent has someone actually act. So it's about narrowing in on a niche that you, that can relate to you a hundred percent.
And while it feels like you're reducing your potential, you're actually increasing it. Um, and that level of authenticity I think is really important. I've even noticed for myself, I mean I don't have facts exactly, but I've just been noticing the difference between TikTok and Instagram and on INS and on TikTok.
People are very unpolished. It's just like, mm-hmm. Whatever flies. But you can see like the potency of things that are like growing on TikTok. And I think it's just because people let their freak flag fly. They let their weird out, and it's the weird that lets us all be so unique.
Mm-hmm. No, it's. And I think, I think narrowing a niche can be really overwhelming for a new business or someone who's like trying to still navigate, are they going like left all the way or slightly or like, you know, really trying to figure out the degrees of, of where they're headed.
And it's like, you know, we talk about target customers or dream customers, but it's like, who do you wanna hang out with? Like going back to the friend thing, like, I don't want customers that I don't wanna spend time with because even though I've broken free from the corporate cycle of work, I still give X number of hours to work.
So I wanna hang out with people who I am excited to hang out with. It doesn't mean that I would wanna go on vacation with all of my clients or who I work with, but do I respect them and care about them and wanna see them move forward? Otherwise it's just not worth taking the time. Like how it's really honoring.
Yeah. Because every time, like you're choosing, it's like your family, like your kids or someone else. So they better be pretty awesome if it's not your kids.
Yeah, I, that reminds me of this amazing, you know, sometimes you get messages and who knows who that messenger's gonna be. So my messenger was this random guy on an airplane, an older gentleman who had a successful business.
And as we were talking, I said, you know, what do you think? This was a time when our branding agency was doing well, but we were kind of struggling because it just seemed like everything was a lot of work and I mm-hmm. We didn't feel like we were truly getting compensated for what value we were bringing.
So I was asking him some questions about, you know, what he thought the keys to success was. And he said everything for his business changed when he stopped saying yes to just any contract because he was worried about cash flow. And he started only saying yes. To his dream clients or the kind of client that he really wanted to work with.
And he's like, it's, it's hard 'cause there's a moment of like free fall, right? Where mm-hmm. Your natural tendency is to say, yes, I want that contract, even though that's not a perfect fit, and I see some red flags because you want that income coming in. And he said, the moment he narrowed in and only said yes to the people who he wanted to work with, his whole entire business shifted and his margins really increased.
Yeah, and I liken it too. I mean, I definitely jumped on the whole Marie Kondo thing when she came out in, I don't remember what year it was, but I feel like it was maybe 2016 when I Marie k condoed my closet. And does this bring me joy as a filter or decision, a criteria of like, am I keeping it in my closet or not?
When I did that, I remember getting to the end of that pro process, cleaning up my closet and thinking, um, I'm not, I'm definitely going to be using this for everything because. If it doesn't bring me joy, what, why? Like, if this relationship doesn't bring me joy, no. If this activity doesn't bring me joy, and it, it really helped me train my muscles so that I got out of that space of obligation.
I used to be the yes woman who just said yes, because I did, I felt bad or I felt obligated or whatever. I had all these reasons, or maybe it was my upbringing or personality, and it really helped me kind of narrow in on what I really wanted to spend my time on and be very intentional.
Yes, I do feel that I attract a lot of overwhelmed business owners, and so I often joke like, we're gonna have to Marie Kondo your to-do list.
Like 80% of what is on there you do not need to do. Are you ready? Like, you know, it's, it's, I love her. I love the books. I've read the Spark Joy business one as well, and I think there's like, what's that next step of. How to actually build a business where only everything you're doing, you're like, I can say yes to this.
You know, it's like, what's the, the creative phrase of like, only do what's practical and necessary, but if it's practical and necessary, make it beautiful. Mm-hmm. I'm totally butchering that quote. So put the real one in the show notes. Yeah. But it, it's the idea of like, again, like we're doing investing so much, spending so much time, money, resources, attention, like it has to be awesome.
Yeah. You get this one life.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And even in the event there's secretly, multiples. We don't know that. And we've kick as now you can count on this one though. So make it count. Exactly. When, when you hear the words powerful and ladies, separately, what do they mean to you and when they're together, does the definition or how you view them change?
That's a really interesting question. Um. I think that I am a little bit of an outlier because, okay, so this is funny. I can't believe I'm talking about this. So my name is Leslie Diane, and I was named after Leslie Stall and Diane Sawyer. I love that distinctly because they were two of the first females who really broke through a male dominated field, and my dad was literally like, she's going to, my daughter is going to go do things that men do.
So I really grew up, I mean, yes, there's a whole environment and a system surrounding me, right? But when you look at my nuclear environment, I really grew up in an environment where my dad was like, anything boys can do, you can do better. And so he really brought me up to think. As an equal. And so I don't think in, if you were to be a fly on the wall watching me, have I been in circumstances where I was an equal?
No, I'm a woman and by the way, I'm a brown woman, but how I am experiencing it in that moment came from a place of power because I was taught that from the beginning. Yeah. So, you know, I think if I had other conversations surrounding me, it would be a little bit different. But, um, when I think of powerful, for me, it doesn't land as masculine or feminine.
And then obviously when I add ladies to it, I feel just empowered by that. It makes me really excited because there are, I, I never will favor women over men. Exactly. But I love women because I feel that. As a whole and a group. They haven't had as many opportunities and taken as many shots. And so as we start to see that turning and flipping, we're just gonna see more creativity and it's gonna happen anytime we're adding diversity.
Right? Yeah. Whether it's diversity because it's a female, or diversity because of race, or because of culture, or because of, you know, gender or any of that. Mm-hmm.
Um,
but yeah, that's a great question.
Well, and it's, it's always interesting to me because there's, so, what I notice around women, I consider powerful ladies, there is a heavy.
Uh, a heaviness to their power that, that has an underlying like calmness. Like do remember the weebles, like wee will wobble, like mm-hmm. Kids toys. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I feel like there's something about women I know who I really am like that is a powerful lady where it's not, there's this strength that's weighted that like it's not going to change no matter what happens to them.
It's just how are they going to move with it through space and time. And there are some men who I have felt that same energy around, but I, time and time again, I feel that more around women who I put into the powerful ladies bucket.
Yeah. I mean, I think if I just instinctively think of powerful man versus powerful lady, when I'm thinking of a powerful lady, I'm thinking of grace.
Yeah.
And ease. Generosity. When I think about a powerful man, I don't have quite, and, and not that they can't be. Mm-hmm. It's just a stereotype I suppose. But, um, there is a grace around powerful lady. Mm-hmm. And, you know, it's interesting, um. I grew up as a tomboy and I definitely went through this phase of no girlfriends.
Like I didn't like females that much because I felt they were gonna be manipulative or fact stabbing or had, I don't know. I had all these conversations about relationships with other women and I am so glad to have shifted into a completely new space. Faus Li Vito was an all female agency, not by design.
We didn't say we're gonna go be an all female agency. We just looked for people who had the same values and it happened that we were coincidentally all female, um, and even et cetera, is predominantly female. We do have a guy on our team, um, and we just look for people who share the same values. Mm-hmm.
And I'm really happy to see, you know, we work with people who are on the older side of Gen Z or the very young, um, millennials, and I am happy to see that there's more balance and evenness between. The guys and the ladies.
Yes. Yes. On the, a podcast that I recorded earlier, we were talking about how there's hope, you know, like seeing that even in the conversations about the 40 hour work week has to go, or like workplace flexibility needs to be upgraded.
Like whether it's from the environment or human rights or whatever it is, I, there's this sense of urgency where I would say our generation and younger is like, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, nope.
I have to admit, I was really excited, you know, 'cause I was looking for the silver lining, of course. Excited about the pandemic, this whole work from home situation.
'cause I was like, you know what? This is gonna be the thing that tip, that's the tipping point. Because if you send a whole bunch of people home and they understand what remote life could be like, and you're forcing companies that they have to do it. We'll see what happens when that whole wave mm-hmm.
Coming back to the office, like people will start to stand up for work-life balance and having, you know, uh, some more creative, more flexible situations
because it's the first time people actually have a breath to be like, oh wait, I can do this from home. Oh wait, I can do these things. I mean, it's, the shifts that have happened have been, and people waking up to that there is something else has been great for my business.
Yeah. Um, so thank you. But, um, it's also a whole level. I mean, there's the number one out of work a group are moms right now because so many moms were like the same conversation you were having of, this does not work. I'll quit and figure it out. And it's just, I work with men and women, but it's like I have a predominance of women being referred from other women and it's really interesting to see how they're thinking about it.
I remember years ago there was, I do not remember the organization's name, maybe, you know, but it was founded by a woman who left her job when she, she was a C-Suite person, left when she had her first or second kid and realized there's all these other women like her. Like why don't we split roles between two qualified women?
Like why can't two women be a COO or a CMO? Why does it have to be full-time one person? Um, and I'm brilliant. It's so brilliant and I'm really curious about, like, that was 10 years ago that I first found that company. I think. So now I'm wondering, have they gotten an uptick? Are they getting more things Because now seems like.
A perfect time for bringing that, not just for women, but for anybody back to mm-hmm. An opportunity.
Shared roles.
Yeah. That's smart. That's, I also don't understand just, you know, how much your office costs that you just had, that you've built for yourself, but like renting space is the dumbest thing most businesses spend money on, in my opinion.
Like, I would rather have great work from somebody and have them work from wherever they want to than force everybody to sit into a bunch of cubicles. And I, I know. Yeah. I
think the whole office situation, okay. I do believe that there are something special when you can come together and be together, obviously a hundred percent.
But I do think there's this, um, like foundation of mistrust, like mm-hmm. You gotta be here. We can watch you, but I don't know about you, but when I worked in an office, I just wasted a whole bunch of time. I find that now I'm really big into doing work blocks. So yes, I separate my day into levels of thinking.
So level four thinking is like I turn off my phone, I tell everybody I'm going in for three hours and I go into a state of flow. And when I go into level four flow thinking I can do what I would do at a normal office job an eight hour a day, I can kick it out in about two, three hours. Mm-hmm. And so it's just about working really smart and everyone has different bio rhythms, so I always tell my team, I say, listen, you know, work when it works for you.
Yes. You gotta be responsible. Mm-hmm. There's client meetings, there's things that we have to coordinate time-wise, but you know, our team is just, Hey, I touched this. The next time I'm gonna be available is this. Like, we just make sure that we're all working together and in communication it totally can work.
It can so work. I mean, I had, it's a side project almost my entire corporate career.
You did.
Of course you did. Yeah. But it's, it, it wasn't always like for profit, it wasn't always something, but I mean, powerful ladies started long before I left corporate life, but you know, it wasn't that I was making money on, but I had plenty of time in my day to be like, Hmm.
Because so much of it is like a question here at this there, or, Hey, let's connect on this later. It's, it's, I think it's really irresponsible how we set up expectations in, in a corporate environment. And so much of it is not based on. Efficient productivity or producing results. So like the number of dumb meetings I have sat in in my life, I know dumb meetings on, and then meetings about
the meetings, about the meetings where you're like, you know, this could have just been an email.
I've actually found this, my, this is here, this is my level meeting tip. I have started using a tool called Loom, LOOM. Mm-hmm. I love it. Instead of having meetings, I just do do a quick loom, which basically screen record, it's a screen recording of whatever you're looking at on your computer, and I just send it to people and mm-hmm.
When I send it to people for the first time, they're like, wow, this is so efficient. And then they can just loom you back. Yeah. And so you just kind of have a quickie whenever it works for you.
Yes. And I actually have friends who are currently making an app. Um, I called teak like critique mm-hmm. Where you can literally, it's like a, a space to pull all of them so you can even like circle things and comment and do it for.
Anything you want. Wow. So can't wait
till
that app comes out. Right. Um, but it's, it's part of having a small business is that we don't have to do anything stupid. Like Yeah. When, when somebody asks me like, how has my life changed? Like, I stopped doing all the stupid shit, worrying about that person's ego worrying about this.
Like these dumb reports. Like there's so much waste in
Yeah.
In corporate America. And there are people in there who are very smart and know these things. And I was part of the group fighting like, can we please stop doing all this stuff? And somebody would say no. And you're like, okay, you're spending a lot of money to pay me if that's really what you want me to do.
They, when a company starts getting really big, they will almost inevitably lose that sense of like being nimble. Mm-hmm. Where you're responsive, like you, you know, we all build systems and structures, whether we do it intentionally or we do it accidentally. And then. There's just in companies this, this idea of like, we just do it that way.
'cause that's how we've always done it.
Mm-hmm. And
that's not the smartest and most efficient way to get things done.
No, no. So going back to the list of things that either inspire you or frustrate you, when you see like clients coming to you, what is a common thing that's like, you see it instantly like, oh we're gonna have to fix that?
I think the biggest area pain point that I see that I'm like literally, um, I don't, I'm trying to think back right now. I don't wanna say I've never seen it. 'cause I'm sure there has been like maybe one, but project management is such a missing and a project, not only project management, but project managers.
Like someone who's dedicated. Yes. I mean, people literally say, I mean, people come up to me and say, we're starting a new restaurant, we're gonna open in three months. And they haven't found a location or they haven't even started building, and I'm like, what? Planet are you living on? Like people don't understand how to project an idea out into the future and then work back.
Mm-hmm. All the milestones and things that have to come in order for it to happen, whether it's starting a restaurant or starting a business or whatever project you're doing. Oh, what with that project management of understanding what there is to do mm-hmm. What it's gonna cost to do all that stuff, and what time it's gonna take.
Everyone's just very childlike and airy fairy. Like, it's almost like, you know, you and I are both in California, but it's like, Hey Kara. Why don't I come pick you up? We'll go have breakfast in New York City tomorrow in my Tesla. You know, we'll drive tonight. And it's like, no, you, you and I know that that's not possible when it comes to business and projects.
People just run on these fantasies and then everyone's stressed working on a fake deadline because it's, everything's always late. And it's like, well, yeah, of course it's late because you had very unrealistic expectations to begin with. That's definitely my big one.
Well, and my COO heart hears your CEO heart in that for sure.
Yeah.
COO to COO confessions
for real. No, it's because, 'cause right after that, you listed all the things. There's no project manager, there's no budget, there's no calendar, there's no roles and responsibilities. There's like. Everyone just having a party being like, it can happen. And you're like, what? Even, um, I had a, a woman who is currently an operations manager at a footwear company of an ex-colleague of mine was like, can you talk to her?
I've never done that role you have. And so we had a conversation and she's like, yeah, we're implementing all these new systems. And I'm like, okay. I'm like, who's in responsible for the system? She's like, what do you mean? I'm like, mm-hmm. Someone has to be there to train everyone on the system and hold them accountable to the system.
And it's a lot of work the first three months 'cause you're forcing everybody to go back in line and use the system, but after that you have to fix it and upgrade it and all the problems. And she's like, oh. I'm like, yeah. Most people in corporations totally miss that.
Yeah. And, and everywhere. You know, it's interesting, I, this is actually, I teach this in my course that what I notice is everyone loves to come up with ideas because ideating is so sexy and fun.
It's like you're a child and you're really in that space of possibility. Like what could be, everyone loves it. There are a few people who love what I think is even sexier, which is execution. Yeah. Getting those idea, yeah. I, I know that you're an, you're someone who like loves execution. Getting those ideas into fruition to me is where it's at and it's where the money's at.
But what I've noticed is people come up with an idea. Then they never have a game plan or some kind of strategy to execute it. Then everything starts to like wobble or fall apart or it never comes up. And then they start to reevaluate. Was that even a good idea? Mm-hmm. So then they just jump to the next idea because it's sexy and fun and easy to brainstorm.
And so I do notice that I work with a lot of people. I think a lot of reasons why people have imposter syndrome or so much fear and doubt. If you are a continuous ideator, ideate, ideate, ideate, but you never execute. Mm-hmm. You don't know yourself to be someone who can produce a result. Yes. So you kind of get stuck.
And that's what I really want people to start to realize is. All that's missing for most people is some kind of structure or framework, right? Yes. So that's what, like if I had an idea, and I work with you, Kara, you provide the structure and framework, you are someone who like has courses, you're a coach.
Mm-hmm. You are the structure. Just like, if I wanna get in shape, I'm gonna work with a personal trainer. They give me the structure and they tell me everything. But that structure and framework and accountability is what makes execution happen. But I don't know, people just like to, I'll just skip that part.
Well, it's, it's like when people ask you like, what's your superpower? I'm like, I can make shit happen from nothing. And they're like, really? I'm like, most people can't like, like, and, and I remember people, you know, being on a panel with some other people and they're like, I'm a musician. I'm in this. And you're like, cool.
Where's your body of work? Where's your book? And they're like, oh, I'm working on it. I'm like, in my head, jerky judging me was like, you can't declare that. You like, sure we're in possibility game. Yes, 100% manifested, but we're up here supposed to be being experts and you don't have any body of work to show anyone.
Like, it's not real. And then I get so frustrated, like, I love ideas, I love being in that space, but I really love, like it existing. Like we can touch it, we can talk about it. You can buy it. Yeah. Like, that's cool. Like that. That's like, I don't know. That's the, the Christmas morning. That's not like waiting for Santa.
Like, uh, no. I don't know. It is just, I, you know, somebody asked me once, how do I get more confident? I'm like, go do scary stuff.
Yes. What's, yeah.
And I feel like it's the same thing. It's like. Everyone. I've been using the phrase lately that we're two inches away. You are two inches away from your million dollar plan.
You are two inches away from having more than you could ever imagine you want. But like, you gotta work those two inches. Like yeah.
It's, um, one of my early mentors told me the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is so small, again, like two inches. It's about who are the people who aren't gonna just think about it.
Mm-hmm. Or talk about it. They're actually gonna get it out of their head or out of the domain of language into a plan.
Mm-hmm.
And then look at the plan and start taking actions. I'm gonna share something with you because this is like one of my favorite math things. Yes. I think everyone could improve 1% a day, 1% not a big deal.
Right? Did you know that 1% improvement a day? Compounds over a year to be 3800% improvement. So if you just do something small and consistent every day in the space of one year, you can be 38 times better. But the key is staying consistent. Mm-hmm. And keeping that structure and accountability that has you stay consistent because you'd be a, I mean, even for myself, I look back to where I was a year ago.
I was just reviewing yesterday and I was like, oh man, I cannot believe what has happened in the last year. I've always wanted to, sometimes I've met people and they're talking and I'm like, do you sleep? Like how do you run all those things and do all that stuff? And to just yesterday I was like, oh my gosh, I have two businesses.
I'm getting equity stake and a third business. I just got invited to potentially be in another business. I have two kids. And it's not like I'm not sacrificing my
mm-hmm.
Husband or me being a daughter, or me being a sister or a friend, because again, my community is around me. So like, I'm like doing it with the people that I know and love.
So, um, but it's really just heads down 1% a day. People ask me. Mm-hmm. You bounced back from bankruptcy, getting a divorce, losing your business like you were at rock bottom. How did you get out? And I said, it took about three years mm-hmm. Of completely rolling up my sleeves and just chipping away at it.
Small actions every day.
Well, and I, I bet as well, like when you go into that space where. You have a whole shift. There's also this like tunnel vision that happens. And I think this is aligned with like the car kaari process or even minimalism. Like when your, when your scope of you gets so narrowed, you're like, it like, I have to get this in.
I can only have this much time. There's only this much money, there's only this much, whatever. All of our energy gets pushed into that one place and it's amazing what happens. And it goes back to that niche story. You know, I once heard a guy tell me, we can debate later if this is, you know, patriarchal or not, but he said that, you know, women are like a river.
You know, the best thing a man can do is like be the banks of the river and direct them where they should go so they don't flood. A whole city. And I was like, okay. I don't think that only applies to women, but like with people's energy, it's like how if we focus it like we can literally achieve anything.
Like you look at people in the Olympics, you look at, you know, people going into outer space, whatever it is, like there is nothing that's impossible. But we, we choose to stay in this dizzy tornado of like, I don't know what to do. And it's such a lie. It's, it's a lie We tell ourselves of I'm too busy or
Yeah,
I don't have time.
'cause if you pick what it is that you're going to do, then you gotta put your money where your mouth is and you gotta actually do, versus being in the turmoil and the drama of like, I am so busy. 'cause it, you know, it sounds, and. You'll get so much agreement from people. Yeah. You are so busy. I'm busy too.
We're all so busy. Let's
just have a cocktail and a cake.
So what, what are you excited about? There's been so many changes, there's so much moving. You talked about all your business things like what else are you excited about, whether it's work or you know, the rest of your life.
Um, I am most excited about me personally. Have broken into a new space of self-expression and allowing people like access to that.
Because I noticed, like for me, I've always had myself as like, I'm such an introvert. I don't do things like that. That's not me. Oh, I would never, and I really started just playing the game of like, okay, where are my boundaries? What's out of bounds? Okay, let's go do all that stuff out of bounds and just l scaring the living crap outta myself.
Like, um, one of the things that I do for fun, so my 7-year-old is in this band with this company called Kid Row. They get four or five kids together. They have lessons once a week for three months, and the kids rotate on the instruments and they're just there to learn instruments and play songs. They have a performance.
So I told the owner. Oh, you should do this for adults. It'd be really cool. And so they do have an adult role and he invited me to do it and I conveniently forgot about it. It was too busy. And then the next session came up January, 2020 and instead of asking me like, when was a good day, he just, this guy Justin, just put me in a band.
So I was making dinner and I checked my email and I got this email and it was like, your band is starting in 20 minutes. And I was like, oh my God. And I didn't, I didn't have time to come up with an excuse or to get too stressed. I was more stressed about not showing up on time. 'cause I'm, I'm on time. So I showed up to this band and I fell in love with it.
You gotta, you gotta get, like I've, I don't eat karaoke and I don't play guitar or drums or bass or any of that stuff. So here I am. At the time, I guess I was like 46 in a band. And how to get through all those conversations of like, I'm too old. This is awkward. I can't do this, I can't perform. And I, I feel like I had actually so many business breakthroughs and personal breakthroughs joining an adult beginner band and just being willing to do it, even though parts of my brain were like, you don't do that.
This is gonna be horrible. You're gonna suck. Everyone's gonna make fun of you. You're gonna be judged. And just kind of like going through it has been really fun. So, yeah, our band, et cetera, et cetera. Which I do, by the way, with my business partner.
I
love
that. Well, I'm, I'm over your dine of laughter as you're sharing that story.
'cause about the same time you did that, I started training for Jiujitsu. Awesome. Like I, I, most of my life I've considered myself an athlete. Like I played sports in college, like I've always been doing something and, but I haven't done a new sports in decades. And so maybe yoga was like the newest sport 20 years ago.
I tried. Right? And so I go to Jiujitsu and they have this move that you kinda have to rock back and forth and zigzag up and down the mat. I would just burst into tears with laughter because I wouldn't move. Everyone else in class is like moving up and down the mat, like a normal human, and I'm just rocking back and forth.
Like I'm just stuck here like having a small seizure and then I really couldn't do it 'cause I'm laughing so hard 'cause I can't do it. And my instructor would just be like, just get up and go back in line. Like it's okay. But it was so fun to be in that space of you look like a fucking idiot. Like well done and it's great.
Mm-hmm.
I, I did something similar. I went and tried parkour, which was insane, and I felt really stupid. But I think that, you know, as kids we're willing to try new things and fail and brush it off, and we laugh about it and we continue. There's this thing about growing older. You become experts at things, and the more you're an expert, the more you experience learning anxiety because you are an expert at X, Y, Z.
So you don't wanna go do that thing over there because you don't wanna, you're, you're an expert. So it's, it's an interesting conundrum to be an expert and still be a lifetime learner and being willing to, you know, go out there and it, and it's actually a muscle that you can practice and build. So,
I love it.
Yes, I'm committed to feeling more like an idiot. Yeah, I think it'll be fun.
Yeah. So I've been doing that too. You know what I, my new idiot realm is TikTok. Oh, yep. Yeah. Which was like, it was really, really hard for me. My business, I have another business partner, Rochelle, and she's been trying to get me to do them for a long time, like maybe six months.
And I was like, I don't do that kind of stuff. That's not me. I can't. And I knew that it was something that I needed to do for business and for myself even. And I worked with a coach and he said, what is, what's the problem? You know? And I was like, well, um, I don't know that I can act, I don't know if I'd be any good.
I might really suck at it. People would judge me. You know, people, my older, my people my age would be wondering, why am I on TikTok? My son thinks it's cringey, that his mom's gonna do something on TikTok. And I had all these reasons why not? And he just said. What if you did a TikTok and it didn't go viral and it was like, no big deal, but one person saw it.
Mm-hmm. And
it impacted one person, how they saw the world, how they saw themselves, what they saw was possible. Like would you be willing to get past your ego and all this stuff that you're doing to help and contribute to one person? And I was like, damn, alright.
We have to, we have to get, like, it has to be about other people, otherwise we will never make things.
I will definitely do more out my commitment for others than I would for myself and mm-hmm. That's kind of what I always put at the forefront for me is can this help someone? Can it serve someone, can it impact someone even if it's tiny, small? Yeah. Even if I look like a total asshole, if they feel better about themselves.
Great. You
are welcome. Well, and you know, that brings up the other part, I think of being a modern, powerful lady. Like we, whether we have a business or we're in a other professional space, we care about so many things. You know, someone shared with me recently, like all the things that are happening in the world, and I was just like, fuck.
Like I mm-hmm. Get so frustrated watching news or whatever it is, because they never tell us at the end, if you don't like this, here's what you can do. And I really wanna petition them to start telling that they don't give you actions.
Yeah.
Right. There's nothing. It's just like, all right, here it is. Bye.
Have a good night. And you're like, no, no, no, no, no. You just opened up a can of worms. You cannot leave me in this capacity and. It's been so crazy to see so much going on and not know, like, I am a person of action. You are a person of action. If we don't like something, we change it. And so how do you balance seeing things, you know, in your local community, in broader communities, like how do you balance knowing all this stuff is going on and knowing that you're powerful and you can make a difference in deciding, how do you keep balance between moving where you need to forward and making the impact that you want to?
That's
a great question. Um, it, it goes back to what we've been talking about of focusing, being intentional and having your niche. So I wanna save the planet. I've done sea turtle conservation for three weeks with my son in Costa Rica. I wanna help the people in whatever's going on in the Middle East and over in Asia.
Like I wanna help the world. And what I have discovered and like come to for myself is I wanna help more people. Break out of being a full-time employee to find their full-time freedom so that they can pursue and follow their passion. So my thing is, how do I free you? Look, as long as people are at their desks working 40 to 50 hours a week in a rat race, barely making ends meet, they're never gonna be able to think about all the other things that they could be doing in the world.
But if I can help them be business owners, find freedom and flexibility, they will go out and also solve the problems of the world. So I'm just focused on one problem. Yeah. More entrepreneurs, more freelancers, more business owners. Then let them go, do all that and Yes. You know, of course. Well, I, I will continue to take volunteer trips in the summers with my kids because I think that that kind of perspective is very critical for my children.
Mm-hmm.
Because they are privileged and I don't, I want them to have a bigger perspective of the world. And yes, will I donate financially? Of course I'll participate, but I know that my main focus is people and entrepreneurship.
Yep.
And it's where my heart, I mean, it, it like. I literally think about my clients all the time 'cause I love them.
I'm like literally in love with them and I'm just thinking, okay, yeah, they have a lot to say about it, but I have a responsibility to help them turn their lives out. Mm-hmm. They're like my kids.
Yeah, I totally agree with you. And it makes me feel more emboldened to keep going knowing that like, um, I've listening to Peloton, right?
I do the workouts, uh, I don't have a bike but I do all the workouts and I love their running outdoor 'cause they coach you basically. You have a running coach and Robin, when she coaches you on the run. Beyonce 20 minute run, which is one of my favorite, I did not know about
this. I'm
like, what? You can do Peloton without a Peloton?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like cheaper than Netflix it, and they gamified it. So you are like, I need my dot. I don't care if it's five minute core, like you start getting very competitive with yourself and but our similarities that might work for you, like it does for me, but there's this thing at the end of this run, which is so great, and she's talking you through it.
And she's such a powerful lady. Like she's so badass anyway. And she's like, all right, I want you to stand where you are and like put your hands out because there are other women who are there with their hands out and you're holding hands right now. And together you can do anything. And you share like your why is my why of, of how I also handle it.
Because same thing. You, you literally spoke words from my heart in that, in that answer. And so it's just so em empowering to know that, you know, there's, there's you and I and there's other people on this same mission that we don't get to all connect and talk to each other and. That's why it's not about it.
It's not about the competition space. Right. It's like you and I are both business coaches. You and I both help people with their companies great. Like awesome. And there's so
many people who need to be awakened and need to have solutions.
There's so many, so many. There's so many. And like, and like I know it'd be fun to work together on a project.
It'll be fun to do this. And like, it just, it makes me feel better that there are people who are on the same mission. Mm-hmm. So that when I'm frustrated, like, I'm like, Nope, Leslie's doing it. Let's keep going, let's keep going. Like we have to do it for, for everybody else in that sense, because it, you don't need to be the next Steve Jobs or the next whatever, 10 xing, multi-billion dollar tech company.
Like, that's not what entrepreneurship means. It's, you know, there's a way to make all the money you want and put water in Africa.
I mean, I tell people straight away, if you're looking to start this big company that's gonna be this multi half billion dollar company that you're gonna sell, or you hope someone's gonna acquire it, I'm not your coach.
That's not the thing that I do. Mm-hmm. I wanna help the quote, average person who's stuck in a dead end job, who can't make their ends meet, who's unfulfilled and feel stuck. Learn how to find full-time freedom, work for themselves, and earn six figures. Yep. Like it's a big thing for someone to jump from 50, 60, 70 grand a year to a hundred, 120.
Yeah. It's a big shift. That's, I'm not that big business woman. I am all about small business.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So for everyone who's super excited about you, where can they find you? How can they follow you? What's next? Sure.
Um, our company is called Cut Class. Because we are basically shortening by giving people a shortcut.
The handles for us, our website is let's cut class and on Instagram it's let's underscore cut class. It's the same at TikTok. If anyone wants to find me personally, my handles are let go and discover. Um, because that at the end of the day is what I'm here to do, is help myself and others let go of whatever they think so that they can discover kind of like what's on the other side of whatever fear or doubt or barriers that they're experiencing.
I love it. Well, I could talk to you for hours. I hope that I get to have you on again. Um, but yeah, thank you for being, you know, a sister in changing the world through business 'cause it sure is a lot of fun.
I am 100% behind you. I will help you and support you and anyone who is connected with you. I am a resource.
I adore you. I am so excited we finally connect on this podcast and I know that we're gonna keep connecting and I love what you're out there doing. Um, I remember when you told me what you were doing when you left Super and you were starting this coaching agency. There was a tiny bit of like, I was so happy for you.
And I was definitely envious 'cause I was like, she's going to be out there like one-on-one, like helping people and like creating. And I, I knew that was like something for me, but at the time I was doing what I was doing and like had some commitments. And I've always been super inspired by you. You are definitely the embodiment of a powerful lady and I love that you are helping powerful ladies and powerful men discover themselves.
Um, I think with you, you know, people get to. Let go of who they think that they are and discover who they can be. So, thank
you, thank you, thank you for seeing me. Right. That somebody, I heard a quote the other day of like, who sees you when you're quiet? And I thought that was so powerful. And yeah, like my entrepreneur and my powerful lady and my COO, all my, all my people sees and honors those people in you.
So thank you. Thank you. We'll see you soon.
Thank you for listening to today's episode. All the links to connect with Leslie Cut Class and et cetera are in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com slash podcast. There you can also leave comments and ask questions about this episode. If you want more powerful ladies, be sure you're joining us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies.
You can also find some free downloads there to start being powerful today. Please subscribe to this podcast and help us connect with more listeners like you by leaving us a five star rating and review. If you're looking to connect directly with me, please visit kara duffy.com or on Instagram, Kara Duffy.
I'd like to thank our producer, composer, and audio engineer Jordan Duffy. Without her, this podcast wouldn't be possible. You can follow her on Instagram at Jordan K. Duffy. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope we're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Instagram: @letgoanddiscover
TikTok: @lets_cutclass
TikTok: @letgoanddiscover
Website: www.letscutclass.com
Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
