September 2, 2025 • 32 mins
Welcome to Spark & Ignite Your Marketing, the podcast where real conversations meet real strategies. I'm your host, Beverly Cornell, founder and fairy godmother of brand clarity at Wickedly Branded. With over 25 years of experience, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs awaken their brand magic, attract the right people, and build businesses that light them up.
What happens when the hustle becomes a trap instead of a path to freedom? In this episode, we welcome Leila Lahbabi, founder of Mindful Academy and author of The Billion Dollar Purpose. Leeila shares her journey from burnout in a consulting career to finding clarity in her brand after experiencing profound grief. We discuss how burnout and societal expectations can cloud our vision and what it means to build a business with intention and alignment. If you feel you're doing all the "right" things but still feel lost, this episode is your invitation to pause, realign, and rediscover your true spark.
Three Key Marketing Topics Discussed:
- Burnout and Misalignment in Business: Leila discusses how passion can lead to burnout if not aligned with personal values, warning against societal expectations that thicken the disconnect and threaten sustainability.
- Brand Clarity Through Personal Transformation: Authentic brand clarity arises from understanding ourselves, as Leila and Beverly highlight the role of personal growth in building a meaningful business.
- Mindfulness as a Business Strategy: The episode connects mindfulness with marketing, emphasizing that true effectiveness stems from focused, intentional leadership rather than doing more. Learn more about how to elevate your Marketing Strategy here!
Follow Leila:
Leila Lahbabi | LinkedIn
Leila Lahbabi | Instagram
Mindful Academy | Website
P.S. Take the first step (will only take you 3 minutes) to awaken your brand magic with our personalized Brand Clarity Quiz
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Beverly (00:00):
Did you know that most business failures aren't about
bad strategy but really aboutburnout, misalignment, and
leadership blind spots.
Scaling with purpose requiresmore than ambition.
It takes conscious leadership.
I'm your host, Beverly Cornell,founder and fairy godmother of
brand Clarity at Wickedlybranded, and we have helped
hundreds of overwhelmedoverachieving consultants,
(00:22):
creatives, and coaches awakentheir brand magic and boldly
bring their marketing to life sothey feel more confident and
attract their absolute favoriteand most profitable clients.
Today's guest is Layla Lahbabi.
She is the founder of MindfulAcademy and author of the
upcoming book.
The billion dollar purpose.
After burning out in her ownconsulting career and
(00:43):
experiencing profound personalloss, she now helps other
founders scale with alignment,purpose, and people first
leadership.
Layla, welcome to the podcast.
Leila (00:54):
Thank you so much, Beverly.
I'm happy to be here with you.
Beverly (00:57):
Oh my gosh.
The story of burnout and likeactual life happening in the
background is so real for me,and I think so many of our
listeners.
So talk about how you got tothis entrepreneurial journey.
We call it the Spark, but whatled you to start to Mindful
Academy and what did those earlydays look like for you?
Leila (01:16):
Okay, so Mindful Academy was first a personal journey
before becoming anentrepreneurial journey.
As you know that I pronou now toa career in strategic consulting
that is, a place where we workreally hard because we are
working with 1400 CEOs onstrategic and very important
(01:36):
subjects.
It needs to go fast, it needs tobe clear, it needs to be
documented, it needs to bestructured.
So there is a lot of pressure inthis career and I love it and I
still love it today.
I love it because it's brings somuch, interest into oh my God,
I'm in room with someone who hasbuilt a billion dollar business,
(01:57):
or that is running a billiondollar business with thousand
and thousand of employees andhow this all run.
So it's intellectually verystimulated.
And this is actually also therisks.
And for me, like the burnoutthat you just talk about, it's
not because I was not doingsomething that I love.
It's like I loved so much.
Yeah.
What I was doing.
I wanted so much to help, somuch to offer.
(02:19):
Then I lose myself in theprocess.
Beverly (02:20):
Yes.
Leila (02:21):
So that was the starting point.
And then I was like, okay, sohow can I get out of it?
And I was beating myself.
I was like, okay, so there issomething wrong with me.
I need to fix myself.
And this is how I went tomindfulness training.
I was there to fix myself,right?
And then mindfulness, looked atme and laughed ha, you don't
know anything about this.
And because, my background is inengineering and mathematics and
(02:44):
all that.
I was very far from anythingthat is spiritual or grounded or
breathing.
All those subjects were unknown.
And what led me to mindfulnesswas a scientific study that
proved that it changed yourminds.
So it has linked withneuroscience.
There's so many documents, studythat explains that it helps with
(03:06):
focus, it helps with gettingclarity, it helps with managing
the emotions, it helps with,understanding the flow of
thoughts and dealing with that.
So I use it for myself at firstand then at work people start
seeing that I changed that it'snot the work that changed, but I
changed internally and I was notinteracting with the work
(03:29):
similarly as I was before.
I was a bit more grounded.
I had more listening skillsthan, when someone is speaking
and not thinking about what I'mgoing to say, but actually
listening.
I'm more present.
I'm less multitasking, but I'mmore efficient.
I'm working less, but I'machieving more.
Wow.
And then people like, oh, what'sgoing on?
(03:51):
What did you do?
And then COVID hit.
And in my career, I used to workwith international teams, so
people in us, people in uk,people in France.
I used to work remotely, butthen when COVID hits, some
people discovered remote work.
And it was really stressful forthem.
They were like, oh, you areworking from home?
It sounds like something great.
(04:12):
And then they discover thatworking from home is not as
beautiful as the image that wepaint.
And people started spending moretimes with themselves.
When you spend more time withyourself and then you not used
to spend time with yourself.
You can be afraid of your ownthoughts and your own emotional,
what's happening.
Beverly (04:29):
That is such a powerful statement, Leila.
You can be afraid of your ownthoughts.
Yeah.
Spending time with yourself.
We live in a very quote unquotebusy world, right?
Between social media, our work,the checklist you talk about all
the things that we have to do.
And I know like we're runningkids places, like the messy
(04:49):
middle of life is very real.
And it's this never ending driveto get more done, right?
And so when you have a minute tostop, it can get real
uncomfortable really quick.
I'm an only child, so I spent alot of time by myself growing
up.
And I'm not afraid to be bymyself, but I know like my
husband who had six brothers andsisters, he never was alone.
(05:13):
So for him, being alone is awhole different experience than
for me.
I actually crave being bymyself, and he doesn't know what
to do with himself in the quiet.
So this is a very real thing ofpeople having to be alone in
your thoughts.
So you found that this washappening and your response to
(05:34):
it was what then?
What happened next?
Leila (05:37):
Eh, saying, okay, actually, I'm not being
productive, being busy.
Beverly (05:41):
Oh yeah.
I feel attacked.
Layla why are you talking to melike that?
Leila (05:44):
And that changed the whole approach that I had to
work.
I started doing less, but thenfocusing on the right thing.
I started doing the hard workinstead of working hard.
Beverly (05:55):
Oh my gosh.
This is such a mindset shiftthough, because I was raised,
you work hard to make money,right?
This is like a financial moneymind shift for people.
I've worked really hard to notthink I have to work hard.
That's ironic in some ways, butI've really tried to reframe
this part of my mindset that youdon't necessarily have to work
hard all the time to get whatyou want.
(06:17):
You can work hard maybe a day ortwo and get what you want.
You don't necessarily have toquote unquote work hard not to
the point of burnout.
Nobody needs to be burnt out inthe society.
That's not healthy in any way,shape or form.
We don't have to work to thepoint of mental and physical
burnout.
But our society says we shouldLayla.
So how do we combat that?
Leila (06:39):
Yes.
Because you start to listen moreto yourself rather than what
society says.
Because what's led me to burnoutis following what others says or
wanted for me, other seeing melike my career.
Everything that I've done atthat point was following what my
brothers had done, what my dadhas done, like engineering, this
(07:01):
is what she should do.
And then it's prestigious to beat a strategic consulting firm
and all that.
And then when you lose yourhealth, nothing else matters.
Nothing else matters becausewhen you don't have your health,
you cannot do anything.
Beverly (07:16):
Yeah.
Leila (07:17):
I experienced the burnout and then I started with
mindfulness and I thought, oh,okay, now I know.
And then I started teaching, andby teaching, I learned even more
because I met people fromdifferent backgrounds and from
engineer, I met doctors, I metpeople in hr.
I met moms of differentbackgrounds and dads.
And everyone is pushing throughand I was like, oh, okay.
(07:40):
I think I know what I'm doing.
And then a second event hit meis I lost my child at birth.
Then I was like, okay, so thisis not it, because I was during
the week doing strategy work andin the weekend teaching
mindfulness.
It was a person in the weekend,and I was another person in my
daily job, right?
(08:00):
And then with the second event,it was like a strike.
The burnout was like, oh, it'snot worth it, but I need to
learn.
And then the second event was,it's not worth it and I need to
change.
It's different than learning.
Transformational.
So I need to transform this.
And then I was pregnant again,and then I had my first Lilia
and then Sarah, the second onethat came in.
(08:22):
And when I started having thatand being a mom and following
the nine to five job.
And starting to juggle there.
I was living in Paris and myfamily is in Morocco.
So with COVID, with all thosethings, I was like, woo.
Why am I doing all this?
So I started transforming mylife first.
And I started to say, okay, so Ineed to have my financial
(08:43):
stability.
I need to have a place where Ifeel good.
I need to be surrounded with theright people that will support
me when I'm going through stuff.
So it starts by being a personaltransformation, why I was
teaching.
Yeah.
And then like Mindful Academystarted and started like that.
I was teaching around me and itwas word of month and people
coming to me and transformingtheir own lives.
(09:05):
This is how it started.
And then it scaled.
Then I moved back to Morocco.
Now I had a business that runsmostly remotely With people
around the world.
I wrote the book, which isBillion Dollar Purpose, which
was actually moving fromtransforming personal
transformation that MindfulAcademy was based on.
To organizational transformationbecause one of the thing that
(09:29):
hit me is, I used to work withpeople on stress reduction and
mindfulness and so on, most oftheir stress come with their
work and their relationship totheir work.
So my idea like, if I transformone person at a time, I don't
know how long I will live, but Iwant to impact as many people as
I can with my skills.
And my skills are not justmindfulness, but also strategy.
(09:53):
So how I can bridge those?
So I merged the mindfulness workwith the strategy work.
Beverly (09:58):
Okay.
Leila (09:59):
To make it an organizational way.
of working differently, how wecan achieve more, by being more
focused, by being more grounded,by being more aware, by being
more conscious.
In my own business.
So now that I'm passionate aboutwhat I'm doing, and also for
others and for organizations atdifferent scales.
Beverly (10:20):
So all these different evolutions though, it sounds
like you first started, you weretypical corporate Barbie.
Yeah.
Realizing that's not necessarilythe life you wanna lead.
Dipping your toe into themindfulness space, then
realizing that you're living twodifferent kind of worlds.
That's a real interesting thinglike a lot of women do that.
They live in two differentspaces.
(10:41):
We are like very chameleon-likeat home, we're very nurturing.
And then at work we have to be acertain way, right?
We have to be hungry for theladder, hungry for the next
level.
I call it the should suitcase.
It's the suitcase filled ofshoulds that we should be doing.
And I think our generation, mymom's generation too, but my
mom, when she got outta school,she could be a librarian, a
(11:02):
teacher, or a nurse.
That was the options she had.
Or secretary, right?
And my generation had so manychoices.
It was actually overwhelming ofwhat we could do and what we
could be.
I remember looking at theoptions and being like, I wanna
be a diplomat and I wanna be amarine biologist, I wanna be a
marketer.
I had all these options ahead ofme that were.
So diverse that I was like, whatam I gonna do with myself?
(11:25):
And this grind of keeping to gowith the titles and get to the
place that you're talking aboutand the pressure from your
family even I think isinteresting too.
I'm an only child, so I thinkthe pressure for me was I'm the
only one that can succeed.
So all the hopes and dreams werebuilt inside of me to have a
better life, to be better, to dothe things that I was supposed
(11:45):
to do.
So there's this whole notion ofgrowth in that way.
I just feel like between societyshoulds, corporate shoulds,
familiar shoulds plus your owninternal struggles of needing
affirmation and things like thatof your work and your life and
your purpose and all that kindof happens inherently is a lot
to handle for us.
(12:06):
And this generation is saying, Idon't think that needs to be
that way.
Who decided this?
This doesn't feel right.
I tell a lot of my clients thatyou get to design the exact
business you want.
With the exact goals, the exactwork-life balance, the
everything.
And that's like revolutionary.
It's literally a revolution ofgoing against everything that
(12:28):
we've been told.
So I see you, I see yourjourney, and I see this really
profound loss in the middle ofit, which is so hard.
I have not lost a child atbirth, but I have had a failed
adoption and some other thingsthat have happened.
And when you lose a child, itspins your world in a way you
can't possibly imagine.
(12:48):
But you have to go to work everyday and pretend like everything
is fine.
Because women specificallycannot be emotional in this
space.
They cannot, quote unquote, doall these things.
So I can only imagine what'shappening in your world and how
you're trying to be mindful andyou're trying to do the
corporate ladder, and you'retrying to grieve and you're
trying, this is the messy middleof life, like real life.
(13:11):
This is what happens.
And I know so many of ourlisteners are struggling with
all the things and all theplates and all the stuff they
have to do.
So creating this business andhelping people transform and
wanting to impact organizationsso that you can help more
organizations is a bigchallenge.
Leila, you didn't start out witha little goal here.
(13:31):
This is like a big goal to dothis.
Talk about the moment when youknew this exactly where you were
supposed to be.
Leila (13:38):
This is really interesting when I hear you
speaking and you talked aboutlike having the pressure of
society, having the pressure ofyour parents.
And you know what I'm thinkingat the same time and telling to
myself I never had that, to behonest.
Yes.
And I will explain.
So all the pressure I have twobig brothers Okay.
(13:58):
And I'm the little one and allthe pressure was on my brothers.
They got to get the job, theygot to work.
And in my culture it was, oh, ifyou don't wanna work, nevermind,
you'll find a husband.
So I was the one who put thepressure on myself.
Nobody pressured me, nobodyasked me to go on a career or
(14:19):
anything.
Nobody asked me to copy whatthey were doing.
I was copying what they weredoing just to say hello.
I exist.
Hello.
I can, hello?
is anyone seeing me?
Yeah.
Beverly (14:31):
I'm just as good as them.
Why wouldn't you want me to dothe thing?
Leila (14:34):
why not?
Why cannot achieve that?
And for me, performance was justa way to be seen and to be
loved.
Beverly (14:43):
Oh, it's so deep Layla.
To be seen and to be loved.
I think all of us want to beseen and to be loved.
Leila (14:49):
Yeah.
But then what I didn't see islike by waiting for people to
love me, I was.
Creating something that was notme.
That was not mine.
Also, I always wanted to buildsomething to be an entrepreneur.
And then before mindfulness, Ihad many ideas.
I had a school coding idea.
I had an idea of doctors onlinemaking links.
(15:10):
I had always a lot of ideas, butno idea stayed with me.
The more I was forced to try tofind an idea The less I was able
to do it.
Yeah.
And then mindfulness come to methrough my own experience.
So when you say, for example, ohmy God, it sounds hard or it
sounds ambitious.
I really don't see it like thisbecause the way I'm building
(15:32):
this, I have no expectations.
I have no expectations.
It doesn't mean that I don'twant to succeed.
It just means that I'm in a roadwhere if I fail, I will learn.
That's the only thing.
And when I'm doing it, I'm doingit first for me, because this is
the way I want to live my life.
This is the way I want to raisemy kids.
This is something that I want toshow also to my kids.
(15:54):
That you can build somethingfrom your own, that is for you
and that can serve other peoplethat are like you.
And I'm not building it anymorefor the others I'm building it
for me.
Beverly (16:03):
That's beautiful.
To the listener who's listeningright now I was in a space where
I let my customers build mybusiness.
And I got to burnout and Idecided one day that I wasn't
gonna build it for my customers.
I was gonna build it for me.
I made a conscious decision andI actually let go of a couple
customers, and I gave myselfsome space to really think about
what it is I wanted out of mybusiness, what it is that made
(16:27):
me have joy, what it is thatmade me and the work I did
meaningful.
What was it for my business thatchanged that could change to
make me not feel overwhelmed andburnt out.
I remember, 3:00 AM One night myhusband sleeping, my son is
sleeping, and I'm like literallythere.
You remember the cartoons whenwe were little that had the
toothpicks with the red eyes?
Do you remember those?
(16:47):
That was me staring at thecomputer trying to get that next
thing done, whatever it was.
'cause I had the whole list ofthings to do and thinking, how
is this freedom?
This is like a trap.
This is not the quote unquoteAmerican dream.
This is not it.
And I had to change my wholethinking to that of like, how do
I build what I want?
But you have to get really clearwith that and spend some time
(17:09):
with your thoughts, journaling.
And one of the things that we doin our brand Spark experience is
we spend 90 minutes to two hourswith you interviewing you and
seeing what it is that lightsyou up, seeing what it is that
creates that light bulb moment.
Seeing the golden thread in themessiness of all the ideas that
says, this is the thing, this iswhat I keep hearing from you.
(17:31):
Because sometimes when you're init, you don't realize it and
need somebody from the kind ofthe outside to come in and say,
this is what I'm seeing, this iswhat I'm hearing.
And helping them really find.
Their voice in that messiness.
We have so many ideas in ourbrains as entrepreneurs.
Like you said, you had all theseideas of, I'm gonna build this,
I'm gonna build that, I'm gonnado this.
(17:51):
We are builders and sometimesit's so busy that it's hard to
do that.
So we spend a lot of time in thebeginning really looking for
their soul before we go tostrategy.
That's something that's reallypowerful.
We know it works way better andit's a differentiator from day
one.
For them, in the market, whenthey're really themselves, their
personal journey, their passion,their core values, the things
(18:13):
that drives them.
And we say marketing becomesmore joyful because you're
coming from a place of realauthenticity.
It speaks to your soul asopposed to just anything to
check off your list.
And it's emotional for them togo through the process.
I joke, I'm a marketingtherapist because it's emotional
for them.
So I imagine when you work withclients.
It can get emotional.
(18:33):
What is that like for you as aconsultant in this quote unquote
business?
Because emotion and businessdoesn't typically go together.
Leila (18:41):
Yeah, it's a really interesting question and I
needed to go through it myselfto be able to guide people
through it.
Because one of the things thatcame to me when I started
working on the field ofmindfulness is the impatience,
right?
Growth is not linear.
It has never been linear.
It's linear when we streamlineit into a process, but then
(19:03):
you're not following your heart.
When people say, okay, I'm doingthe work, I'm doing the shadow
work, I'm doing the soul stuff.
And again, she's asking mequestion about things.
Where are you going with that?
Why are you leading with that?
And then it's just resistance.
It's just resistance to change.
You have a mountain here, youhave a mountain here, and then
you want to cross.
And then when you cross, whenyou get far from the mountains,
(19:27):
you have more air pushing you,right?
More wind.
And when there's a lot of wind,you're in the middle and it's
like the desert land.
You just wanna go back becauseyou were secure.
And actually that's what keepspeople coming back.
So they start and the windstarts to push them, and then
they try to go back.
But the idea is having faith, sohaving clarity in the
(19:48):
destination, having faith.
And when start having faithlike.
Oh my God, I'm going to gothrough it anyway.
It's going to be hard.
And everything on the internetaround the easy success that it
doesn't have to be hard is nothelping us.
I didn't help me, I felt stupidto be honest.
I was like, why people aresucceeding in six months.
I'm not succeeding in sixmonths.
(20:08):
But actually what we don't seeis that yes, it took six months
to skyrocket the thing, butbefore the six months, nothing
happened for year, for twoyears.
And when I work with my clients,when they say, at an
organizational level is the costof not acting, if you don't act,
then it's going to be linear.
Or not because the world ischanging so much.
The market is changing.
(20:29):
So if you're not transforming,you're not doing yourself a
service.
And this is why I call thisscaling yourself to scale your
business.
If you don't scale yourself,then you act on fear.
You want to shrink back.
You want to go back to thisfirst mountain.
But when you start scalingyourself is scaling.
Your resilience is scaling, yourability to handle is scaling.
(20:49):
Your ability to manage youremotions, and you build that
with your strategy and goesalong.
Then you say that you're moving,you're business and moving and
you're moving with it.
Now with AI and with a lot oftechnical skills that are more
and more automated, if you don'tgrow as human beings, then
something is left on the tablebecause going fast is something
(21:13):
that everyone can do right now.
Everyone can go fast, but goingprecise, focus, the human
connection that would enable youto sell is first being connected
to yourself, and then people whoare like you, recognize themself
in who you are, in your values,in the way of your doing things.
And then it's yes, I want towork with you.
Beverly (21:34):
Your humanness becomes your differentiator.
Leila (21:37):
It's your differentiator.
And it is also what wake you upin the morning, right?
Beverly (21:42):
I remember at 3:00 AM being stressed out and going,
what the heck have I been doing?
And now at 3:00 AM I'm like,Ooh, I wanna go do that thing.
And I'm so excited.
It just changes everything aboutyou.
The thing I think you're talkingabout is intentionality.
Once you're aware of what, andyou have that focus, everything
becomes much more intentional.
I use this analogy with myhusband all the time.
(22:03):
I feel like he has very deeproots, and when life hits him,
he doesn't sway because he's sorooted in his family and his
friends and who he is.
He is deeply rooted.
I have a lot of trauma in myhistory.
My father left when I was three.
We've moved 28 times.
My mother was adopted.
(22:23):
I was adopted.
My son is adopted.
The roots for me are not asdeep.
And so when life hits me, ithits differently that it hits
him.
Because I don't have such deeproots and I have had to be
really intentional with buildingmy roots, being okay with
myself, being okay with wherethings are because of the lack
of roots.
(22:44):
And because of that, I'm muchmore focused and in intentional
because with intention now it'seasier yeses and nos, it's
easier failures.
'cause I'm like, oh, I'm tryingthis new thing and it may not
work out and it's okay'causeI'll learn and I'll fix it.
It's so much more intentional inthat than if I just let things
happen.
I do the work because I don'twanna live in a life that is not
(23:06):
okay.
I don't wanna carry around thebackpack of trauma.
I want to do the work.
It's hard work though, and itmakes you very raw and it makes
it harder, but it's definitelythe thing that I know 100%.
I am present, I am human.
I know myself so much betterbecause of it, and that's what
gives me more roots so that thewind doesn't blow me over.
(23:28):
That life doesn't blow throughme in a way that makes me
crumble on the floor.
Not to say that I've not hadthose moments in my past, but I
feel so much more fortified whenI'm intentional.
Leila (23:40):
Yes.
Everything that you just saidresonates a lot.
And one of the reason why I cameback to Morocco is like I call
it, and a lot of people thatcome here say it, it's a healing
land.
So when you talk about the rootshere, oh my God, the energy here
is so amazing.
Each time I do leadershipretreat here.
(24:01):
People it's like they're rooted,they feel like rooted somehow.
And I work with scale-ups, sobusinesses that wants to scale
through talent.
And the businesses that areimpact driven businesses or
people that start working withpurpose, okay?
And then, when your businessscales, of course you scale
yourself to scale your business.
(24:22):
But then if you carry a missionthat is really big, when you
attract people that are like youand that have the same mission
and they carry it also with you,you don't have to carry
everything yourself.
And this is beauty of it.
This is the beauty ofintentionality and purpose.
Like when you talk to someone,especially businesses that are
quite small, right?
(24:42):
It's difficult to have anattractive package like a big
business, okay?
But the attractive package isyou, your attractive package is
your mission, is your project,is you want to build.
And then you share this withpeople and they say, oh my God,
yes, I want to work on that.
And then you build the scale.
And it's less heavy and you'rehaving more fun.
(25:04):
You are having more fun doingit.
Beverly (25:05):
You're having more fun.
I say all the time, likemarketing and business can be
fun when you're doing that.
Exactly that.
Oh my gosh, Layla, you're likemy soul sister in Morocco.
I love you.
So this whole season's beenabout confidence and the way you
speak there is something verymindful about you, but this
season's question's all aboutconfidence and what does
(25:26):
confidence look like for you asa business owner, and can you
share a moment when you realizedyou were truly showing up with
confidence?
Leila (25:33):
I will tell you something.
I have no confidence whatsoever.
I don't have any.
But I'm keep on moving andbuilding, I had a coach when I
was on my corporate career, andhe was like, you need to work on
your confidence.
You need to be confident, andthen you need to work like a
queen.
And then imagine that you havesomething on your head and then
work.
And then I never had this, and Idon't know if I'm going to have
(25:53):
this one day.
But what I know is I havebravery.
And bravery is very differentfrom confidence.
Bravery is shaken, is having thefear is oh my God, I don't know
if I'm going to do this anddoing it anyway.
This is bravery.
I'm not confident at all.
I don't know where my businesswill go to be honest.
I know now it's working well.
(26:14):
I know that compared to lastyear, like it's crazy what's
happening, but it could fail atany moment.
And I have no confidence thatI'm going to be successful all
my life.
The only thing that I know isare we brave enough to go
through whatever life throw atme with fear, with sadness, with
emotions, with everything?
It just bravery.
You know why I'm brave?
(26:35):
Because when I'm breathing, I'malive.
I still can do something aboutit.
That's all I know.
Beverly (26:41):
So I think confidence is built.
It's not something that you'reborn with and every time you're
brave, you are creating andbuilding the confidence
foundation, because the more youput yourself in those situations
where you're shaking and you'renervous and you're not sure, the
more you're doing that, you arecreating a practice of expanding
your comfort zone, and you beginto trust yourself.
(27:03):
That no matter what happensyou'll be okay.
And there's some confidence inthat.
Yeah.
I love the coach said like thequeen, I actually use the
analogy of the unicorn.
The unicorn has lovelyconfidence because it's not
egotistical, it just knows it'sspecial.
I'm unique, I'm beautiful, andthis is it.
And it's just this quiet butloud confidence at the same
(27:25):
time.
And so I say unicorn likeconfidence.
And so to me, a unicorn, likeconfidence is built and it's
built through bravery.
It's built through messing up,it's built through trusting
yourself.
I just had this whole thingwhere my therapist said I think
your anxiety comes from nottrusting yourself.
And I was like whoa.
I trust myself.
What are you talking about?
She goes I don't think yourealize how much you've been
through and how much you'vegotten through, and that there's
(27:47):
really not a whole lot thatcould come at you at this point
in your life that you haven'talready figured out.
And you have to trust yourselfin that.
And she was totally right.
And I was like, I hadn'tnormally viewed it that way.
I viewed confidence for workdifferently.
And I was like, oh yeah, I hearyou.
I hear you on this.
This is right.
But confidence is trustingyourself that no matter what
happens, even I flop on my facein a talk, whatever, then I'll
(28:09):
be okay.
Leila (28:09):
Oh my God.
I love this definition and nowI'm starting to think that I'm
confident.
Thank you
Beverly (28:18):
for that.
This is the moment people, shegot her confidence right here on
the Spark Ignite your marketingpodcast.
This is brilliant.
I love this so much.
If you're a listener strugglingwith confidence, this is so
important.
I would love for you to drop areview and let us know this is a
moment for you too.
Or if there's somebody you knowwho's struggling and trusting
themselves, send this to them.
Share it with the world becauseit is, it's about building it.
(28:39):
It's not something you're bornwith, and it's about trusting
yourself that you'll be okay andtaking the next step despite
your fear, despite being scared,despite wondering if they're
gonna get it or love you or not,but trusting that you'll be okay
at the end of it.
I love this.
Layla.
So what part of your journey hasrequired the most bravery and
(29:01):
courage?
Beverly (2) (29:01):
Hey there, you've just finished part one of the
Spark Ignite, your marketingepisode.
How are you feeling?
Excited, inspired, but we'rejust getting started.
Next Thursday we're droppingpart two, and you won't wanna
miss it.
Be sure to subscribe to ournewsletter, so you'll be the
first to know when it goes live.
Until then, take a breather, letthose ideas simmer, and we'll
see you next week.
Did you know that most business failures aren't about
bad strategy but really aboutburnout, misalignment, and
leadership blind spots.
Scaling with purpose requiresmore than ambition.
It takes conscious leadership.
I'm your host, Beverly Cornell,founder and fairy godmother of
brand Clarity at Wickedlybranded, and we have helped
hundreds of overwhelmedoverachieving consultants,
(00:22):
creatives, and coaches awakentheir brand magic and boldly
bring their marketing to life sothey feel more confident and
attract their absolute favoriteand most profitable clients.
Today's guest is Layla Lahbabi.
She is the founder of MindfulAcademy and author of the
upcoming book.
The billion dollar purpose.
After burning out in her ownconsulting career and
(00:43):
experiencing profound personalloss, she now helps other
founders scale with alignment,purpose, and people first
leadership.
Layla, welcome to the podcast.
Leila (00:54):
Thank you so much, Beverly.
I'm happy to be here with you.
Beverly (00:57):
Oh my gosh.
The story of burnout and likeactual life happening in the
background is so real for me,and I think so many of our
listeners.
So talk about how you got tothis entrepreneurial journey.
We call it the Spark, but whatled you to start to Mindful
Academy and what did those earlydays look like for you?
Leila (01:16):
Okay, so Mindful Academy was first a personal journey
before becoming anentrepreneurial journey.
As you know that I pronou now toa career in strategic consulting
that is, a place where we workreally hard because we are
working with 1400 CEOs onstrategic and very important
(01:36):
subjects.
It needs to go fast, it needs tobe clear, it needs to be
documented, it needs to bestructured.
So there is a lot of pressure inthis career and I love it and I
still love it today.
I love it because it's brings somuch, interest into oh my God,
I'm in room with someone who hasbuilt a billion dollar business,
(01:57):
or that is running a billiondollar business with thousand
and thousand of employees andhow this all run.
So it's intellectually verystimulated.
And this is actually also therisks.
And for me, like the burnoutthat you just talk about, it's
not because I was not doingsomething that I love.
It's like I loved so much.
Yeah.
What I was doing.
I wanted so much to help, somuch to offer.
(02:19):
Then I lose myself in theprocess.
Beverly (02:20):
Yes.
Leila (02:21):
So that was the starting point.
And then I was like, okay, sohow can I get out of it?
And I was beating myself.
I was like, okay, so there issomething wrong with me.
I need to fix myself.
And this is how I went tomindfulness training.
I was there to fix myself,right?
And then mindfulness, looked atme and laughed ha, you don't
know anything about this.
And because, my background is inengineering and mathematics and
(02:44):
all that.
I was very far from anythingthat is spiritual or grounded or
breathing.
All those subjects were unknown.
And what led me to mindfulnesswas a scientific study that
proved that it changed yourminds.
So it has linked withneuroscience.
There's so many documents, studythat explains that it helps with
(03:06):
focus, it helps with gettingclarity, it helps with managing
the emotions, it helps with,understanding the flow of
thoughts and dealing with that.
So I use it for myself at firstand then at work people start
seeing that I changed that it'snot the work that changed, but I
changed internally and I was notinteracting with the work
(03:29):
similarly as I was before.
I was a bit more grounded.
I had more listening skillsthan, when someone is speaking
and not thinking about what I'mgoing to say, but actually
listening.
I'm more present.
I'm less multitasking, but I'mmore efficient.
I'm working less, but I'machieving more.
Wow.
And then people like, oh, what'sgoing on?
(03:51):
What did you do?
And then COVID hit.
And in my career, I used to workwith international teams, so
people in us, people in uk,people in France.
I used to work remotely, butthen when COVID hits, some
people discovered remote work.
And it was really stressful forthem.
They were like, oh, you areworking from home?
It sounds like something great.
(04:12):
And then they discover thatworking from home is not as
beautiful as the image that wepaint.
And people started spending moretimes with themselves.
When you spend more time withyourself and then you not used
to spend time with yourself.
You can be afraid of your ownthoughts and your own emotional,
what's happening.
Beverly (04:29):
That is such a powerful statement, Leila.
You can be afraid of your ownthoughts.
Yeah.
Spending time with yourself.
We live in a very quote unquotebusy world, right?
Between social media, our work,the checklist you talk about all
the things that we have to do.
And I know like we're runningkids places, like the messy
(04:49):
middle of life is very real.
And it's this never ending driveto get more done, right?
And so when you have a minute tostop, it can get real
uncomfortable really quick.
I'm an only child, so I spent alot of time by myself growing
up.
And I'm not afraid to be bymyself, but I know like my
husband who had six brothers andsisters, he never was alone.
(05:13):
So for him, being alone is awhole different experience than
for me.
I actually crave being bymyself, and he doesn't know what
to do with himself in the quiet.
So this is a very real thing ofpeople having to be alone in
your thoughts.
So you found that this washappening and your response to
(05:34):
it was what then?
What happened next?
Leila (05:37):
Eh, saying, okay, actually, I'm not being
productive, being busy.
Beverly (05:41):
Oh yeah.
I feel attacked.
Layla why are you talking to melike that?
Leila (05:44):
And that changed the whole approach that I had to
work.
I started doing less, but thenfocusing on the right thing.
I started doing the hard workinstead of working hard.
Beverly (05:55):
Oh my gosh.
This is such a mindset shiftthough, because I was raised,
you work hard to make money,right?
This is like a financial moneymind shift for people.
I've worked really hard to notthink I have to work hard.
That's ironic in some ways, butI've really tried to reframe
this part of my mindset that youdon't necessarily have to work
hard all the time to get whatyou want.
(06:17):
You can work hard maybe a day ortwo and get what you want.
You don't necessarily have toquote unquote work hard not to
the point of burnout.
Nobody needs to be burnt out inthe society.
That's not healthy in any way,shape or form.
We don't have to work to thepoint of mental and physical
burnout.
But our society says we shouldLayla.
So how do we combat that?
Leila (06:39):
Yes.
Because you start to listen moreto yourself rather than what
society says.
Because what's led me to burnoutis following what others says or
wanted for me, other seeing melike my career.
Everything that I've done atthat point was following what my
brothers had done, what my dadhas done, like engineering, this
(07:01):
is what she should do.
And then it's prestigious to beat a strategic consulting firm
and all that.
And then when you lose yourhealth, nothing else matters.
Nothing else matters becausewhen you don't have your health,
you cannot do anything.
Beverly (07:16):
Yeah.
Leila (07:17):
I experienced the burnout and then I started with
mindfulness and I thought, oh,okay, now I know.
And then I started teaching, andby teaching, I learned even more
because I met people fromdifferent backgrounds and from
engineer, I met doctors, I metpeople in hr.
I met moms of differentbackgrounds and dads.
And everyone is pushing throughand I was like, oh, okay.
(07:40):
I think I know what I'm doing.
And then a second event hit meis I lost my child at birth.
Then I was like, okay, so thisis not it, because I was during
the week doing strategy work andin the weekend teaching
mindfulness.
It was a person in the weekend,and I was another person in my
daily job, right?
(08:00):
And then with the second event,it was like a strike.
The burnout was like, oh, it'snot worth it, but I need to
learn.
And then the second event was,it's not worth it and I need to
change.
It's different than learning.
Transformational.
So I need to transform this.
And then I was pregnant again,and then I had my first Lilia
and then Sarah, the second onethat came in.
(08:22):
And when I started having thatand being a mom and following
the nine to five job.
And starting to juggle there.
I was living in Paris and myfamily is in Morocco.
So with COVID, with all thosethings, I was like, woo.
Why am I doing all this?
So I started transforming mylife first.
And I started to say, okay, so Ineed to have my financial
(08:43):
stability.
I need to have a place where Ifeel good.
I need to be surrounded with theright people that will support
me when I'm going through stuff.
So it starts by being a personaltransformation, why I was
teaching.
Yeah.
And then like Mindful Academystarted and started like that.
I was teaching around me and itwas word of month and people
coming to me and transformingtheir own lives.
(09:05):
This is how it started.
And then it scaled.
Then I moved back to Morocco.
Now I had a business that runsmostly remotely With people
around the world.
I wrote the book, which isBillion Dollar Purpose, which
was actually moving fromtransforming personal
transformation that MindfulAcademy was based on.
To organizational transformationbecause one of the thing that
(09:29):
hit me is, I used to work withpeople on stress reduction and
mindfulness and so on, most oftheir stress come with their
work and their relationship totheir work.
So my idea like, if I transformone person at a time, I don't
know how long I will live, but Iwant to impact as many people as
I can with my skills.
And my skills are not justmindfulness, but also strategy.
(09:53):
So how I can bridge those?
So I merged the mindfulness workwith the strategy work.
Beverly (09:58):
Okay.
Leila (09:59):
To make it an organizational way.
of working differently, how wecan achieve more, by being more
focused, by being more grounded,by being more aware, by being
more conscious.
In my own business.
So now that I'm passionate aboutwhat I'm doing, and also for
others and for organizations atdifferent scales.
Beverly (10:20):
So all these different evolutions though, it sounds
like you first started, you weretypical corporate Barbie.
Yeah.
Realizing that's not necessarilythe life you wanna lead.
Dipping your toe into themindfulness space, then
realizing that you're living twodifferent kind of worlds.
That's a real interesting thinglike a lot of women do that.
They live in two differentspaces.
(10:41):
We are like very chameleon-likeat home, we're very nurturing.
And then at work we have to be acertain way, right?
We have to be hungry for theladder, hungry for the next
level.
I call it the should suitcase.
It's the suitcase filled ofshoulds that we should be doing.
And I think our generation, mymom's generation too, but my
mom, when she got outta school,she could be a librarian, a
(11:02):
teacher, or a nurse.
That was the options she had.
Or secretary, right?
And my generation had so manychoices.
It was actually overwhelming ofwhat we could do and what we
could be.
I remember looking at theoptions and being like, I wanna
be a diplomat and I wanna be amarine biologist, I wanna be a
marketer.
I had all these options ahead ofme that were.
So diverse that I was like, whatam I gonna do with myself?
(11:25):
And this grind of keeping to gowith the titles and get to the
place that you're talking aboutand the pressure from your
family even I think isinteresting too.
I'm an only child, so I thinkthe pressure for me was I'm the
only one that can succeed.
So all the hopes and dreams werebuilt inside of me to have a
better life, to be better, to dothe things that I was supposed
(11:45):
to do.
So there's this whole notion ofgrowth in that way.
I just feel like between societyshoulds, corporate shoulds,
familiar shoulds plus your owninternal struggles of needing
affirmation and things like thatof your work and your life and
your purpose and all that kindof happens inherently is a lot
to handle for us.
(12:06):
And this generation is saying, Idon't think that needs to be
that way.
Who decided this?
This doesn't feel right.
I tell a lot of my clients thatyou get to design the exact
business you want.
With the exact goals, the exactwork-life balance, the
everything.
And that's like revolutionary.
It's literally a revolution ofgoing against everything that
(12:28):
we've been told.
So I see you, I see yourjourney, and I see this really
profound loss in the middle ofit, which is so hard.
I have not lost a child atbirth, but I have had a failed
adoption and some other thingsthat have happened.
And when you lose a child, itspins your world in a way you
can't possibly imagine.
(12:48):
But you have to go to work everyday and pretend like everything
is fine.
Because women specificallycannot be emotional in this
space.
They cannot, quote unquote, doall these things.
So I can only imagine what'shappening in your world and how
you're trying to be mindful andyou're trying to do the
corporate ladder, and you'retrying to grieve and you're
trying, this is the messy middleof life, like real life.
(13:11):
This is what happens.
And I know so many of ourlisteners are struggling with
all the things and all theplates and all the stuff they
have to do.
So creating this business andhelping people transform and
wanting to impact organizationsso that you can help more
organizations is a bigchallenge.
Leila, you didn't start out witha little goal here.
(13:31):
This is like a big goal to dothis.
Talk about the moment when youknew this exactly where you were
supposed to be.
Leila (13:38):
This is really interesting when I hear you
speaking and you talked aboutlike having the pressure of
society, having the pressure ofyour parents.
And you know what I'm thinkingat the same time and telling to
myself I never had that, to behonest.
Yes.
And I will explain.
So all the pressure I have twobig brothers Okay.
(13:58):
And I'm the little one and allthe pressure was on my brothers.
They got to get the job, theygot to work.
And in my culture it was, oh, ifyou don't wanna work, nevermind,
you'll find a husband.
So I was the one who put thepressure on myself.
Nobody pressured me, nobodyasked me to go on a career or
(14:19):
anything.
Nobody asked me to copy whatthey were doing.
I was copying what they weredoing just to say hello.
I exist.
Hello.
I can, hello?
is anyone seeing me?
Yeah.
Beverly (14:31):
I'm just as good as them.
Why wouldn't you want me to dothe thing?
Leila (14:34):
why not?
Why cannot achieve that?
And for me, performance was justa way to be seen and to be
loved.
Beverly (14:43):
Oh, it's so deep Layla.
To be seen and to be loved.
I think all of us want to beseen and to be loved.
Leila (14:49):
Yeah.
But then what I didn't see islike by waiting for people to
love me, I was.
Creating something that was notme.
That was not mine.
Also, I always wanted to buildsomething to be an entrepreneur.
And then before mindfulness, Ihad many ideas.
I had a school coding idea.
I had an idea of doctors onlinemaking links.
(15:10):
I had always a lot of ideas, butno idea stayed with me.
The more I was forced to try tofind an idea The less I was able
to do it.
Yeah.
And then mindfulness come to methrough my own experience.
So when you say, for example, ohmy God, it sounds hard or it
sounds ambitious.
I really don't see it like thisbecause the way I'm building
(15:32):
this, I have no expectations.
I have no expectations.
It doesn't mean that I don'twant to succeed.
It just means that I'm in a roadwhere if I fail, I will learn.
That's the only thing.
And when I'm doing it, I'm doingit first for me, because this is
the way I want to live my life.
This is the way I want to raisemy kids.
This is something that I want toshow also to my kids.
(15:54):
That you can build somethingfrom your own, that is for you
and that can serve other peoplethat are like you.
And I'm not building it anymorefor the others I'm building it
for me.
Beverly (16:03):
That's beautiful.
To the listener who's listeningright now I was in a space where
I let my customers build mybusiness.
And I got to burnout and Idecided one day that I wasn't
gonna build it for my customers.
I was gonna build it for me.
I made a conscious decision andI actually let go of a couple
customers, and I gave myselfsome space to really think about
what it is I wanted out of mybusiness, what it is that made
(16:27):
me have joy, what it is thatmade me and the work I did
meaningful.
What was it for my business thatchanged that could change to
make me not feel overwhelmed andburnt out.
I remember, 3:00 AM One night myhusband sleeping, my son is
sleeping, and I'm like literallythere.
You remember the cartoons whenwe were little that had the
toothpicks with the red eyes?
Do you remember those?
(16:47):
That was me staring at thecomputer trying to get that next
thing done, whatever it was.
'cause I had the whole list ofthings to do and thinking, how
is this freedom?
This is like a trap.
This is not the quote unquoteAmerican dream.
This is not it.
And I had to change my wholethinking to that of like, how do
I build what I want?
But you have to get really clearwith that and spend some time
(17:09):
with your thoughts, journaling.
And one of the things that we doin our brand Spark experience is
we spend 90 minutes to two hourswith you interviewing you and
seeing what it is that lightsyou up, seeing what it is that
creates that light bulb moment.
Seeing the golden thread in themessiness of all the ideas that
says, this is the thing, this iswhat I keep hearing from you.
(17:31):
Because sometimes when you're init, you don't realize it and
need somebody from the kind ofthe outside to come in and say,
this is what I'm seeing, this iswhat I'm hearing.
And helping them really find.
Their voice in that messiness.
We have so many ideas in ourbrains as entrepreneurs.
Like you said, you had all theseideas of, I'm gonna build this,
I'm gonna build that, I'm gonnado this.
(17:51):
We are builders and sometimesit's so busy that it's hard to
do that.
So we spend a lot of time in thebeginning really looking for
their soul before we go tostrategy.
That's something that's reallypowerful.
We know it works way better andit's a differentiator from day
one.
For them, in the market, whenthey're really themselves, their
personal journey, their passion,their core values, the things
(18:13):
that drives them.
And we say marketing becomesmore joyful because you're
coming from a place of realauthenticity.
It speaks to your soul asopposed to just anything to
check off your list.
And it's emotional for them togo through the process.
I joke, I'm a marketingtherapist because it's emotional
for them.
So I imagine when you work withclients.
It can get emotional.
(18:33):
What is that like for you as aconsultant in this quote unquote
business?
Because emotion and businessdoesn't typically go together.
Leila (18:41):
Yeah, it's a really interesting question and I
needed to go through it myselfto be able to guide people
through it.
Because one of the things thatcame to me when I started
working on the field ofmindfulness is the impatience,
right?
Growth is not linear.
It has never been linear.
It's linear when we streamlineit into a process, but then
(19:03):
you're not following your heart.
When people say, okay, I'm doingthe work, I'm doing the shadow
work, I'm doing the soul stuff.
And again, she's asking mequestion about things.
Where are you going with that?
Why are you leading with that?
And then it's just resistance.
It's just resistance to change.
You have a mountain here, youhave a mountain here, and then
you want to cross.
And then when you cross, whenyou get far from the mountains,
(19:27):
you have more air pushing you,right?
More wind.
And when there's a lot of wind,you're in the middle and it's
like the desert land.
You just wanna go back becauseyou were secure.
And actually that's what keepspeople coming back.
So they start and the windstarts to push them, and then
they try to go back.
But the idea is having faith, sohaving clarity in the
(19:48):
destination, having faith.
And when start having faithlike.
Oh my God, I'm going to gothrough it anyway.
It's going to be hard.
And everything on the internetaround the easy success that it
doesn't have to be hard is nothelping us.
I didn't help me, I felt stupidto be honest.
I was like, why people aresucceeding in six months.
I'm not succeeding in sixmonths.
(20:08):
But actually what we don't seeis that yes, it took six months
to skyrocket the thing, butbefore the six months, nothing
happened for year, for twoyears.
And when I work with my clients,when they say, at an
organizational level is the costof not acting, if you don't act,
then it's going to be linear.
Or not because the world ischanging so much.
The market is changing.
(20:29):
So if you're not transforming,you're not doing yourself a
service.
And this is why I call thisscaling yourself to scale your
business.
If you don't scale yourself,then you act on fear.
You want to shrink back.
You want to go back to thisfirst mountain.
But when you start scalingyourself is scaling.
Your resilience is scaling, yourability to handle is scaling.
(20:49):
Your ability to manage youremotions, and you build that
with your strategy and goesalong.
Then you say that you're moving,you're business and moving and
you're moving with it.
Now with AI and with a lot oftechnical skills that are more
and more automated, if you don'tgrow as human beings, then
something is left on the tablebecause going fast is something
(21:13):
that everyone can do right now.
Everyone can go fast, but goingprecise, focus, the human
connection that would enable youto sell is first being connected
to yourself, and then people whoare like you, recognize themself
in who you are, in your values,in the way of your doing things.
And then it's yes, I want towork with you.
Beverly (21:34):
Your humanness becomes your differentiator.
Leila (21:37):
It's your differentiator.
And it is also what wake you upin the morning, right?
Beverly (21:42):
I remember at 3:00 AM being stressed out and going,
what the heck have I been doing?
And now at 3:00 AM I'm like,Ooh, I wanna go do that thing.
And I'm so excited.
It just changes everything aboutyou.
The thing I think you're talkingabout is intentionality.
Once you're aware of what, andyou have that focus, everything
becomes much more intentional.
I use this analogy with myhusband all the time.
(22:03):
I feel like he has very deeproots, and when life hits him,
he doesn't sway because he's sorooted in his family and his
friends and who he is.
He is deeply rooted.
I have a lot of trauma in myhistory.
My father left when I was three.
We've moved 28 times.
My mother was adopted.
(22:23):
I was adopted.
My son is adopted.
The roots for me are not asdeep.
And so when life hits me, ithits differently that it hits
him.
Because I don't have such deeproots and I have had to be
really intentional with buildingmy roots, being okay with
myself, being okay with wherethings are because of the lack
of roots.
(22:44):
And because of that, I'm muchmore focused and in intentional
because with intention now it'seasier yeses and nos, it's
easier failures.
'cause I'm like, oh, I'm tryingthis new thing and it may not
work out and it's okay'causeI'll learn and I'll fix it.
It's so much more intentional inthat than if I just let things
happen.
I do the work because I don'twanna live in a life that is not
(23:06):
okay.
I don't wanna carry around thebackpack of trauma.
I want to do the work.
It's hard work though, and itmakes you very raw and it makes
it harder, but it's definitelythe thing that I know 100%.
I am present, I am human.
I know myself so much betterbecause of it, and that's what
gives me more roots so that thewind doesn't blow me over.
(23:28):
That life doesn't blow throughme in a way that makes me
crumble on the floor.
Not to say that I've not hadthose moments in my past, but I
feel so much more fortified whenI'm intentional.
Leila (23:40):
Yes.
Everything that you just saidresonates a lot.
And one of the reason why I cameback to Morocco is like I call
it, and a lot of people thatcome here say it, it's a healing
land.
So when you talk about the rootshere, oh my God, the energy here
is so amazing.
Each time I do leadershipretreat here.
(24:01):
People it's like they're rooted,they feel like rooted somehow.
And I work with scale-ups, sobusinesses that wants to scale
through talent.
And the businesses that areimpact driven businesses or
people that start working withpurpose, okay?
And then, when your businessscales, of course you scale
yourself to scale your business.
(24:22):
But then if you carry a missionthat is really big, when you
attract people that are like youand that have the same mission
and they carry it also with you,you don't have to carry
everything yourself.
And this is beauty of it.
This is the beauty ofintentionality and purpose.
Like when you talk to someone,especially businesses that are
quite small, right?
(24:42):
It's difficult to have anattractive package like a big
business, okay?
But the attractive package isyou, your attractive package is
your mission, is your project,is you want to build.
And then you share this withpeople and they say, oh my God,
yes, I want to work on that.
And then you build the scale.
And it's less heavy and you'rehaving more fun.
(25:04):
You are having more fun doingit.
Beverly (25:05):
You're having more fun.
I say all the time, likemarketing and business can be
fun when you're doing that.
Exactly that.
Oh my gosh, Layla, you're likemy soul sister in Morocco.
I love you.
So this whole season's beenabout confidence and the way you
speak there is something verymindful about you, but this
season's question's all aboutconfidence and what does
(25:26):
confidence look like for you asa business owner, and can you
share a moment when you realizedyou were truly showing up with
confidence?
Leila (25:33):
I will tell you something.
I have no confidence whatsoever.
I don't have any.
But I'm keep on moving andbuilding, I had a coach when I
was on my corporate career, andhe was like, you need to work on
your confidence.
You need to be confident, andthen you need to work like a
queen.
And then imagine that you havesomething on your head and then
work.
And then I never had this, and Idon't know if I'm going to have
(25:53):
this one day.
But what I know is I havebravery.
And bravery is very differentfrom confidence.
Bravery is shaken, is having thefear is oh my God, I don't know
if I'm going to do this anddoing it anyway.
This is bravery.
I'm not confident at all.
I don't know where my businesswill go to be honest.
I know now it's working well.
(26:14):
I know that compared to lastyear, like it's crazy what's
happening, but it could fail atany moment.
And I have no confidence thatI'm going to be successful all
my life.
The only thing that I know isare we brave enough to go
through whatever life throw atme with fear, with sadness, with
emotions, with everything?
It just bravery.
You know why I'm brave?
(26:35):
Because when I'm breathing, I'malive.
I still can do something aboutit.
That's all I know.
Beverly (26:41):
So I think confidence is built.
It's not something that you'reborn with and every time you're
brave, you are creating andbuilding the confidence
foundation, because the more youput yourself in those situations
where you're shaking and you'renervous and you're not sure, the
more you're doing that, you arecreating a practice of expanding
your comfort zone, and you beginto trust yourself.
(27:03):
That no matter what happensyou'll be okay.
And there's some confidence inthat.
Yeah.
I love the coach said like thequeen, I actually use the
analogy of the unicorn.
The unicorn has lovelyconfidence because it's not
egotistical, it just knows it'sspecial.
I'm unique, I'm beautiful, andthis is it.
And it's just this quiet butloud confidence at the same
(27:25):
time.
And so I say unicorn likeconfidence.
And so to me, a unicorn, likeconfidence is built and it's
built through bravery.
It's built through messing up,it's built through trusting
yourself.
I just had this whole thingwhere my therapist said I think
your anxiety comes from nottrusting yourself.
And I was like whoa.
I trust myself.
What are you talking about?
She goes I don't think yourealize how much you've been
through and how much you'vegotten through, and that there's
(27:47):
really not a whole lot thatcould come at you at this point
in your life that you haven'talready figured out.
And you have to trust yourselfin that.
And she was totally right.
And I was like, I hadn'tnormally viewed it that way.
I viewed confidence for workdifferently.
And I was like, oh yeah, I hearyou.
I hear you on this.
This is right.
But confidence is trustingyourself that no matter what
happens, even I flop on my facein a talk, whatever, then I'll
(28:09):
be okay.
Leila (28:09):
Oh my God.
I love this definition and nowI'm starting to think that I'm
confident.
Thank you
Beverly (28:18):
for that.
This is the moment people, shegot her confidence right here on
the Spark Ignite your marketingpodcast.
This is brilliant.
I love this so much.
If you're a listener strugglingwith confidence, this is so
important.
I would love for you to drop areview and let us know this is a
moment for you too.
Or if there's somebody you knowwho's struggling and trusting
themselves, send this to them.
Share it with the world becauseit is, it's about building it.
(28:39):
It's not something you're bornwith, and it's about trusting
yourself that you'll be okay andtaking the next step despite
your fear, despite being scared,despite wondering if they're
gonna get it or love you or not,but trusting that you'll be okay
at the end of it.
I love this.
Layla.
So what part of your journey hasrequired the most bravery and
(29:01):
courage?
Beverly (2) (29:01):
Hey there, you've just finished part one of the
Spark Ignite, your marketingepisode.
How are you feeling?
Excited, inspired, but we'rejust getting started.
Next Thursday we're droppingpart two, and you won't wanna
miss it.
Be sure to subscribe to ournewsletter, so you'll be the
first to know when it goes live.
Until then, take a breather, letthose ideas simmer, and we'll
see you next week.
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