Mom Owned and Operated
Candid conversations with and for moms about the real deal of raising a family, running a business, and remembering yourself.
Tired of the fluff and just want real talk about what it takes to succeed as a mompreneur? Then you've come to the right place.
Join your host, business growth strategist Rita Suzanne, as she dives into the nitty-gritty of building a business while raising a family. With over 10 years of experience helping women entrepreneurs thrive, Rita knows what it takes to make it all work.
In each episode, Rita sits down with inspiring mom business owners to uncover the strategies, mindsets, and tactics that are actually making a difference in their lives and businesses.
Tune in and discover the secrets to building a successful business without sacrificing your family or yourself.
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Mom Owned and Operated
Overcoming Limiting Beliefs and Achieving Success with Laoisha Holmes
In this episode of the Mom Owned and Operated podcast, Rita Suzanne and Laoisha Holmes discuss raising a family, running a business and remembering yourself.
Laoisha Holmes helps people who want to change their lives to go from feeling stuck to unleashing their potential and living the life they dream of.
You can connect with Laoisha on her podcast, Mind Yourself, on Instagram or by scheduling a free discovery call.
Send a text message! Email, if you want a reply though. ;)
P.S. You can find more interviews at momownedandoperated.com and learn about working with Rita at ritasuzanne.com/apply/
Hi, this is Mom Owned and Operated. I'm Rita, suzanne, and today I have my guest Leisha with me. Thank you so much for joining me. I am so excited to talk to you about all the things. Please tell everyone all about you, your family and your business.
Laoisha Holmes:Thank you, and thank you for having me on here, Leisha. I'm very excited. So my name is Leisha Leisha Holmes. I am a mum of two. I am lucky enough to have a daughter who's three and will be turning four next month, and a son who's two and will be turning three in July. Yeah, they came within 13 months of each other, and I am married and at the moment, I'm between two careers. So I'm still doing the full-time corporate job that I've done since I finished school and university, but I've started my own business as well, and they're both very different things, rita. The full-time job is in corporate finance and my own business that I've started is as a mindset coach. So, yeah, that's what I'm doing at the moment. I'm balancing being a mom, a corporate finance job and building my business.
Rita Suzanne:I love it, and you are in England right now. I'm in.
Laoisha Holmes:England yeah, irish living in England, yes, very important yeah, how did you decide that you know?
Rita Suzanne:how do you go from finance to mindset like how did that happen? Do you know?
Laoisha Holmes:what it's like. I have to go back a bit, because I've always just loved helping people. I've always felt like called to help people and called to serve. And when I was at school, because my favorite subject was math and I was good at math, I was always suggested by the teachers to go down into a job in that sector. And you know, I don't know about you, but when I was growing up I was very influential. I listened to people, especially people of authority. So they said it. So I was like, yeah, okay, and I did it.
Laoisha Holmes:And then I've got so many vivid memories of sitting at the desk in London, looking out the window, all these big buildings, and just thinking there has to be more, like I could be doing more, I should be doing more, and all I could get to then was I should be helping people. That's a little notion of being a psychotherapist or counsellor into my mind. But then I think, oh, no, I haven't trained for that and go back to a busy life. Then fast forward to 2019 and two big life experiences happened, one really good and one really bad, and that is when things changed then. That's when I decided to listen to the intuition, listen to this urge and voice to do more and I've always been fascinated with the power of the human mind and the law of attraction and I decided I'm going to research as much as I can about these two things and apply it to my life.
Laoisha Holmes:And it all just took off from there. It all just progressed lovely from there. It all just progressed lovely from there. The research turned to studying, turned to certificates, and then I just felt this is my calling. I've changed my life by changing my mindset and I want to help as many other people as I can to do the same. Long answer.
Rita Suzanne:Yeah, no, I love it because you know, those two things are so different and so often I think that mindset is so important.
Rita Suzanne:I remember and I've told this story before you know, I started my business in 2014 and my first coach she said to me we, we had our very first meeting and she said to me she said your mindset, you really need to work on your mindset. And I said I don't even know what that means and back then it wasn't so well known as it is now and um, and so I I love that it's become so well known. You know, obviously I was just living in, I guess, coming from corporate and having that mindset of being a worker and not really, I guess, believing in myself enough to realize that I could do it, or having that maybe a little bit of a negative mindset of, you know, not knowing that you know what was really possible. You know, and she helped me see all of those things and you know affirmations and journaling and all of those things just really helped to put me into a different mindset. And so what are some of the things that helps you create, or helps other people create, the priorities in their life?
Laoisha Holmes:Yeah, it's just going back to what you said there. It's funny you say that, risha, because I had a conversation with someone today about exactly this, and I love this. It's like the universe at play, isn't it? And when you are working for a big corporation, your mind gets even more saturated, doesn't it Like? If you dare to think outside the norm, if you're sitting there looking out the window, like I did, and you dare to think outside the norm, you're quickly pushed back in that box, aren't you Like? This is it? Stay here, you've got a good job, climb the ladder, take the next step, take the next step, take the next step. Anything else is nonsense, like you know. It's just. It just pulls, pulls you back into that way of thinking, doesn't it?
Rita Suzanne:well, I felt like I had lost myself and at that time I was living in Southern California and I remember, you know, to start my business I had moved back to Ohio, which is about 3000 miles, and I had moved back here and my family was, like you're, so different and in hindsight now, what I like I had changed as a person and I didn't even realize it and you know I was different and so they were seeing somebody different because I had assimilated to what they wanted me to be, while I was there.
Laoisha Holmes:That's scary, isn't it? And like you when I started this journey, rita, I like one of the first questions you ask yourself, like you with your coach, would be like who am I? I hadn't a clue how to answer that question. That question floored me. That first question who am I? Well, because it's always, I should be doing this. I'll try and be more that. I'll do this. You know, it's just, you're just saturated all the time with other people's thoughts, opinions, expectations, beliefs. Then you go into the corporate world, and it's more so. You're molded into being one of their employees and you just lose yourself, don't you? You lose your own self, your own thoughts, your own values, your own beliefs, your own goals, your own wants.
Rita Suzanne:Yeah, it's easy, it's very easy to do that because, you know, I guess it's like a herd mentality, you, you kind of you go with what they want you to be, and yeah, you know. And so it does become. It becomes so easy and anything out of the norm is frowned upon it is.
Laoisha Holmes:And then life today, it's, um, it's set up, isn't it, to be busy so we don't have time to think or have conversations like this, and like you, I would have said mindset. What's mindset, and scarier. You know, with your coach, the main thing that you would have worked on is transforming your limiting beliefs. I believed that all of my beliefs were true. I didn't like, I didn't even think to question my beliefs. That wasn't even something I considered. So, yeah, it is, um, it's quite scary how we can get sucked into society and corporations and embrace them more than ourselves, isn't it?
Rita Suzanne:yeah, it's, it is very scary and, um, I was so grateful to have met her so quickly, um, and I feel like she helped me so much and you know like, even still, I'm still talking about her and, yeah, okay, as being the best person you know to have helped me within my journey. She's been, she was amazing, yeah oh well, you're amazing.
Laoisha Holmes:I'm sure she would just say that she helped you to unleash your potential.
Rita Suzanne:Yeah, I'm sure you know, but she was pivotal in the entire journey, because without her I just don't know if I would have been able to push through. Because in the beginning of starting your business, that's the, that's one of people they give up right at the beginning because they don't really know what is the next step. And the next step and the next step Right, and I think because I had that help right away't deal with the problems that you have in your life personally, then it's going to be a real hard struggle for you in your business because you know you are the main force of your business, right? If you're not able to deal with your problems, then it's going to bring your business down and sometimes your business won't be able to succeed. And so, yeah, I I definitely attribute her help in in all of my success. So, yeah, it's been great.
Rita Suzanne:Like mindset is is super important to me and I still, you know, I've gotten out of some of the practices and when we talked about before, when I talk about, you know, some of the self-care practices that I kind of shied away from, that was some of the things were were those things. But you know, so that's why I was like okay, so what? Let's talk a little bit about what do you feel are, like the priorities that people need to be focusing on in their life?
Laoisha Holmes:For self-care, or mindset, mindset, mindset. Oh, absolutely, you just need to like. The first thing that I did before I even started studying, when I started doing my own research, was just start thinking about what I wanted. And I had no clue what I wanted, Rita. I had no clue. All wanted, rita. I had no clue. All I could think of was I want to help people and I just thought to myself okay, well, that's a base, that's a base, let's just work on that every day. I want to help people. And then I started saying I started.
Laoisha Holmes:I'm a big believer in the law of attraction, so I found this way of manifesting that really worked for me. So whatever I was manifesting, I would say it in the current tense, like, like it was happening or it was going to tense. So I would say I am grateful, I am going to help people for a living. That's how it started, and then I progressed from there. So the first thing was to try and get clear on what I wanted, and the second thing was to identify my beliefs that were blocking me, my, my limiting beliefs, what they're called in the industry. And my God, I had so many of them. I had so many of them.
Laoisha Holmes:One of the first ones, which we talked about a bit before we come on, was you have to work hard to make money, and the emphasis in my mind, risha, was on hard. It has to be difficult, it has to be dragged out, it has to be difficult, it has to be dragged out, it has to be daunting, it has to be all miserable and hard, hard, hard, hard, hard. You know, sacrifice, long hours, all those things we talked about. And then I thought but is that the truth? And I started looking around and at the time there was what's it called Reality. Tv was just getting really, really big and I started I'd never watched it and I thought I'm going to watch the series about this woman and just watch how she makes money. And the more I watched it, the more I realized that she just built this online persona or TV persona, who was good television and she made millions doing that.
Laoisha Holmes:So I kept watching it in order to smash that belief, like what I did is, I questioned the belief, pulled it apart and then transformed it with a new one. And then, when I started doing my mindset, studying to be a mindset coach, I realized that's what we need to do with all our beliefs. We have to identify them, transform them and make them work for us, and the scary thing that I did learn about beliefs is that the main ones that are limiting us were placed in our minds between zero and seven and we're not really even fully aware that they're there, which is one of the main things I love doing with my clients. When they come and we get clear on what they want, we find those beliefs that they didn't know they were there, and once you find them, then you can smash them apart and transform them, and that is when the magic happens.
Rita Suzanne:Yeah, that, and I think that's so important for other moms to hear too, because one thing that I did with my kids would I would call them the 10. I would say um, and, and. What it means is like I would tell them if they would say anything negative about themselves. I said give me 10 and and and. What I mean is I want you to tell me 10 good things about yourself and they cannot be the same thing.
Rita Suzanne:So you can't say I'm handsome, I'm cute. No, I want you to say something. You know they have to be different and it needs to be I am's right, like I would always have them do that and they couldn't stand that. I would make them do it because, one, I'm putting them on the spot and I'm making them do it. But I would do that because I was trying to build their self-esteem and their confidence up, and at an early age, you know. So I love hearing you say that, because I think that oftentimes we don't know what we don't know Right. And since I had started my business when my kids were younger, it was something that I was trying to break and um, and so it has helped because I find, especially my youngest one, he has the confidence of a king. It's worked right, you know so, um, so, so, yeah, so it's so important though, isn't it?
Laoisha Holmes:I just think about like I just always use this example with people you know, like we talked about exercise and working out. That's right. If you, if you say to yourself there's a new workout move to do and you say I can't do it, you know you, you won't do it. You won't because you said you can't. If you say I'm doing this, nothing's going to stop me, you will do it. And Henry Ford's quote I love it, it's one of my favorites. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. Yeah, and that sums it up.
Laoisha Holmes:It's the same like another, another one I always use um, it's like, you know, when you get up and something happens and you're like, oh, it's going to be a bad day, and then you're like, oh, how come, when the day starts bad it it continues bad. It's your mindset. You said it's going to be a bad day, so it's going to be a bad day. Yeah, yeah, it's just like what we said as well before the call. Life is as simple as complicated as you want to make it. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. Get them beliefs, transform them, because otherwise, like you said at the beginning, if you don't work on them. Beliefs no matter what you do, they're blocking you. They're blocking you from being your best and doing your best and unleashing all that potential that we all have within us.
Rita Suzanne:Yeah, you know, it's really hard, I think too, when you don't grow up with someone who's like kind of challenging or helping you challenge those beliefs.
Rita Suzanne:Challenge those beliefs and as a, as a child, you know, because I would always tell my kids, like, if someone would say something about, like they, let's say that they would say something about each other, and I would say, but is it true?
Rita Suzanne:And then, you know, that was my way of helping them to really think about the things and not be bothered by what other people would say about them, because that was something that, as a, an adult, that would bother me. Right, I had that fear, especially having a business like I think you get fearful of putting yourself out there, right, yeah, caring about the fear you have, the fear of judgment, of what other people say, and and so I was trying to put into them something that I didn't like in myself, right, yeah, and so it's still, I think that that's something to be said. But you know, it's like, the more you do it, the easier it becomes, and then that fear goes away, but it's still, you know, would have been easier if I would. It would have had that instilled in me as a younger person it would have been, wouldn't that how lovely that would have been yeah but then we wouldn't be who we are, would we without the lives that we lived?
Laoisha Holmes:that's what I always think right, I know, I know.
Rita Suzanne:That's why I say I was like. You know, we have to go through the things.
Laoisha Holmes:We have to go through to live the lesson, to learn the lessons that we have to learn, and yeah, we do, and the beauty of it is being a parent because we've gone through the hard lessons, we can pass them lessons on to our children, hopefully without them having to go through what we did to learn it yeah, hopefully, and that's why I say I try to instill like some of that stuff.
Rita Suzanne:Because I want them to not have to go through the same things or at least be a little bit more confident, because I would always feel like I would project confidence.
Laoisha Holmes:But inside, I wasn't really feeling that same confidence Because it's giving them the tools. Like when I work with clients, it's always like about like transforming the belief and then giving them the tools to empower them, you know, to unleash their potential and live their best lives and do what they want to do. And, unlike you, I just think with the children. Give them the tools now. Give our children the tools now and wow what future they will have when the bad times do come, because they will hopefully not too bad. They love all these tools and they love all these like beliefs like that.
Rita Suzanne:We've filmed into them. How amazing, yeah, so how are you like? What methods do you use in order to help your clients work through any mindset issues that they have?
Laoisha Holmes:Yeah, so it's good. So at the moment I do a 12 week program is my signature one. So when they come to me um, it's 50, 50, some will know what they want and some won't have a clue. They'll just know that they want change. They'll just know that they are stuck in the lies that's the word I hear a lot. They're stuck in the life they're in and they want to change it. And you know when you're stuck is the word.
Laoisha Holmes:Stuck is the word and, like you said, a lot of them don't know what they don't know. They don't know that actually they live in a life that's not in alignment with them and who they really are. They're not living a life in alignment with them and their purpose and their journey. That's meant for them. So once we drill down and get clear on what they want, then we start identifying the beliefs that are keeping them stuck.
Rita Suzanne:Yeah.
Laoisha Holmes:And then, like I said about my own beliefs, like we do the same with them, you identify them and then you pick them apart, understand where they came from and then transform them to ones that will help you. Yeah, I love that, yeah, and that's when the magic begins, then it's just beautiful to see what happens then.
Rita Suzanne:Yeah, and so the 12-week process is a group program.
Laoisha Holmes:One-to-one One-to-one. At the moment I'm doing all one-to-ones. At the moment, it is something I'm considering doing as a group, but for now I'm just doing the one-to-ones.
Rita Suzanne:Yeah, I like the concept of group programs because then they can support one another but, like, the one-to-one is really good because they get that support that's really customized and personalized that they really need oftentimes yeah, absolutely, because everyone's different, aren't they?
Laoisha Holmes:this is what, this is what I'm enjoying about the one-to-ones like but a lot of people, when they start this process as well, they they need to work on their confidence and their belief. You know, to be able to do that, I think I went like that because I remember at the beginning that's how you listen. Now you're like oh, you know, like, like, I always believe that the human mind is so powerful and that humans can do whatever they put their minds to right, I didn't believe.
Laoisha Holmes:I didn't believe that I could which is silly because I'm a human, you know but that's how I felt. But yeah, so that's something that we always work on and it's beautiful when you watch that unfold. It's like watching a butterfly emerge. And you know when you see, when you see people working on their beliefs and they come in alignment with their true selves and their life and they start believing they can make it happen. And all the tools that we put together and all the mindset, that mindset work that we do, it's there forever. They have that toolbox forever and they know that. And then, when you're finished working with them, it's just beautiful. It's just so beautiful to watch that happen.
Rita Suzanne:Yeah, I think that that's the important part is like you're empowering them to move forward with these tools that they're going to carry with them for a lifetime. Right, they're going-.
Laoisha Holmes:Yeah, it's like being a parent, isn't it, risha? Like you could do it for people or your children, but isn't it better to empower and?
Rita Suzanne:give the tools right. It's just like my first coach and she, you know, it's like I. I still credit her with so much and I've worked with other people but she's been the most amazing, you know, because I think she laid the foundation and she was so pivotal in all of the things and all the thought processes that I had, because I think that she helped me in so many different ways. Like, we would talk about mindset a lot. We talk about, you know, limiting beliefs, we talk about imposter syndrome. We would talk about all of the things. Um, because in addition to like coaching and stuff, we were, we were friends as well, so we would dive deep into and we would work on client projects and stuff together. So we had a long-standing relationship and, um, you know, so I, I've learned so much from her.
Laoisha Holmes:She was so amazing yeah, I bet it's stuff that you'll always have now, isn't it the stuff that you learned? You will always have that.
Rita Suzanne:How amazing is that still, I still say things that she would tell me. You know like I mean things that she was so smart she would. You know, like 80 of the thoughts that we have in our brain are negative and we are subconscious, we can't even control it, it's just there and that's why it's important for us to do affirmations and gratitude, because these are subconscious thoughts that we can't even control, and so we have to kind of counteract them by doing this, these positive things, and don't realize how important know it is to kind of, I guess, um, trick your mind right absolutely, and it's again you don't know what you don't know.
Laoisha Holmes:But once you learn how to do it you, you will have realized it's. It's actually quite simple. There's certain things you can do that make it quite simple. How to trick your mind and make it work for you, isn't there?
Rita Suzanne:yeah, because it's so powerful. Like, um, you know just the affirmations, like one simple thing. You know, um, I had the affirmations like up on the wall in front of me and it wasn't as if I was saying them. She wasn't saying like read them, but they were up on the wall and so while you're working and you would just look up there and then you would just read them, just because they're there, and then they would start to stick because they're just there, and it just became a second nature for me to just sit there and look at them and read them and then it just becomes ingrained in your mind. Yeah, you know, so it's a. It's a lot different than opening up a notebook and reading out of a list of affirmations, versus having something up on your wall and it just being there and you then start believing it. So there's, I think there's different ways and you have to, like figure out what works for you and what's best for you?
Laoisha Holmes:yeah, absolutely everyone's different, and that's the that's the important and interesting part, isn't it? Everyone's different yeah, because.
Rita Suzanne:I was really I I think you know I was um in a very negative mindset because I had grown up um, in a challenging uh, with a challenging life and so and then have been in relationships where I was kind of um pushed down and so I had lost my voice a lot, and so there were things that we had to do that kind of break me out of the cycles that I was in. So I feel like I needed extra, extra, extra help and you've done that.
Laoisha Holmes:You said I had lost my voice past tense.
Rita Suzanne:You've done it, yeah definitely, and it's it's crazy, because I will tell people that I'm an introvert and they're like no, you're not, and I'm like I am.
Laoisha Holmes:Yeah, that's my, it's not, and that's that's. That's one of my secrets as well. I'm actually a natural introvert and it shocks people, but it just shows you that any skill, any skill, can be learned, can't it?
Rita Suzanne:any skill, that's mindset again yeah. So I always love to like wrap up the show when talking about self care and I love to talk about, like what you do for self care. So can you tell us what you do, especially since you have two little ones running around?
Laoisha Holmes:yeah, they are so so little.
Laoisha Holmes:I know they are. Um, yeah, so my self-care? I love exercise, exercise and some people go. Oh god, how is that self-care? The days that I am stressed, if I go for a run, I come back feeling top of the world. I come back feeling like I can do anything. I come back like feeling, you know, like rocky. You go up and down the steps. That's how I come back. It's just the endorphins, isn't it? It's a mixture of the endorphins, the serotonin, all of nature's feel good stuff. That's that makes me feel good. And then I do workouts to make me feel good, and the reason I do exercise and workouts is mostly for my mental health, but then, physically, it makes you feel good too. I also do meditation and when I have time, I do journaling as well. They're my, they're my self-care things.
Rita Suzanne:So, um, a lot of people who I talk to get stuck on meditation. So what are your pointers on people who say, like I can't meditate because my brain starts to wander like what? What do you have any tips for that?
Laoisha Holmes:but I can tell them that I used to be one of those people. It's like everything, risa. There's so many preconceived ideas, notions, opinions and I. Just what I always say to people is clear your mind of anything you've heard or believed about meditation. It's simply a way for you to control your mind and you'll start doing it for 10 minutes a day, but then it will ripple into your life and you can control your mind at any given time and it's just a beautiful tool to have. It's such a powerful tool.
Laoisha Holmes:The way that I do it, the way that I started and the way that I do it mostly, is there's this app called headspace. Do you know that one? Yeah, there's a daily. There's a lot of noise on there as well. On the app, I just go straight into the daily 10 minute meditation. Sit there. It guides you through it. Some days now, when I don't have time to do the app, I could be in the queue in the supermarket, I could be driving, I could be trying to sleep. I'll just do what they say, because it's gone into your mind what to do and that's it. That's it Just. Keep it simple. It's just. It's nothing. You don't have to quieten your thoughts. If you could quieten your thoughts that easy, we wouldn't need to meditate. Your thoughts are supposed to pop in and out. It's just learning how to be aware and controller and once you get it you will reap the benefits. It's just a tool.
Rita Suzanne:It's a superpower that everyone needs in their lives. Yeah, and I remember when I was meditating regularly and I also would have you know, thoughts interrupt and I would say, you know, if that happens, just push it out of your mind and just and clear your mind. Just keep going, you know, and don't let it discourage you from trying to to meditate. And if you could just do it for a minute, then success. I'm going for two minutes and you will.
Laoisha Holmes:I bet you notice the difference the days that you meditate your camera, aren't you?
Rita Suzanne:you're more in control yeah, yeah, definitely, um, okay, so tell everyone where they can find you. Where are you online, right?
Laoisha Holmes:so I'm on Instagram under my name, Leisha underscore Holmes. I'm on TikTok under my name. I'm on Facebook under my name. My website is LeishaHolmescom and I've also got a podcast and that is on Spotify under Mind Yourself.
Rita Suzanne:Love you. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you. Yes, really. Thank you so much for being a guest thank you for having me.
Laoisha Holmes:I really enjoy this. Thank you very much.
