Leanne shares why she elected to quit her job, took time off and started a podcast. It may lend you inspiration to pursue your dream!

Transcript of the entire interview:

Joline: Well, thank you everybody for joining us today, and I am excited that we have Leanne Cooper Elliot in the house. Leanne is a podcaster extraordinaire, and I had the opportunity to meet with Leanne earlier via a friend of ours, Doug. So welcome, Leanne, to the podcast.

Leanne: Thank you. I’m so glad to be here.

Joline: I’d love to start, if you wouldn’t mind just sharing a bit about yourself with the listeners so we know a bit about your background and you.

Leanne: Thank you. Yes, I live here in California. I am a former wedding planner. I left my job in July to pursue some things that were on my heart. But I also started a podcast, and I have been blogging for about four years, so I decided to prioritize that in my daily life.
And, I don’t know if it’s gonna end up being a career, but I was formally a freelance writer. And so I do have some background in public relations and writing, and so I thought, what the heck? Podcasting and blogging sounds like fun, and I’ve got a lot to talk about. And so I’ve been doing that for the past six months and having a blast at it.
But I’m also a mom of three. Been married for 18 years, and, yeah, that’s where I’m at right now.

Joline: Well, what a story too, in terms of just starting a podcast and following your heart in July. What was the catalyst? Did you have one of those moments? Because it sounds like from when we spoke earlier, you quit your job, right? Your full-time career moved into this to follow your heart, you said. But was there anything in particular that led you that you want? This is, “I’m starting it now!” Any particular catalyst?

Leanne: Yes, actually a lot. There are quite a few things that happened and, like anything that looks sudden, typically it’s a long time coming, you know? Nothing typically happens overnight.
But I would say, it was probably about 2019 when I realized that I’d done all that I really felt I wanted to do as an event planner. I had had the pleasure of planning some gorgeous events, high-end, beautiful. I was specializing in winery events. I mean, there’s just, for me, nothing better than that organic setting and upsetting and adding that luxe touch of all the beautiful things on top of it.
But I found that I was losing my joy around it, and in fact had sunken into perhaps a more unhealthy version of myself by doing that job. I was self-sacrificing far too much. And when you’re raising three kids and wedding planning, you’re always needed by other people 24/7. And I found that I kept thinking if I gave and gave, eventually I’d get back to me.
And that’s not how that works. You know?
We think that if we give enough, we’ll eventually get it back. And I think it just became too painful for me to not pivot into something that allowed more breathing and space and freedom. Mentally, physically, spiritually, you know that I was able to get away in the summer with my kids, which I’d never been able to do as a planner, that I was able to let the weekend unravel the way that our family needed it to without me running off to produce an event, and then arriving Sunday morning completely exhausted and then missing the whole weekend with my family.
I think as my kids got older, I realized my family needed different things. But actually more importantly, I needed different things. I needed to be with my family more. I needed to be with myself more. I needed there to be more pause in my life where I could breathe and pace myself instead of being driven by clients.
And so I think it just became too painful not to make the shift. As much as I loved what I did, it was time for me to move on. And, um, I didn’t know what I was gonna do next. I moved before I knew what I was going to do next, which isn’t for everybody. But, being a bit of a risk taker, it was the only way I knew how to do it.
So I did. I just jumped and decided to let things unfold from there.

Joline: Well, I applaud you because that takes courage, and I love individuals who have the courage to pursue their dream. And it sounds like you just were at a point with the pain and knowing that you were tired, probably burnt out a bit, that you needed a break.
Yes. And when you started your podcast, and your podcast is called You’re Up First. Can you share with us how you came to create that and when you knew “I’m going to start a podcast.”

Leanne: Yes. It was also kind of, you know, over time that that revelation started to happen in the process of trying to figure out what to do next and how to pivot from my career.
Just to back up for a minute, I absolutely loved my career, my clients, the people that I worked with and for. When I ended up leaving my career, I was working at a winery developing their events program.
I absolutely loved the family and my coworkers, and so there was a lot of doubt around why on earth would you leave this job that brings you joy and is three minutes from your house and allows you to pick up your kids from school and has all of these things that we all aspire to, but yet you’re crying in the shower in the morning before going to work and you’re coming home at night feeling like nothing you do is ever enough.
And so I decided to get some outside help at that point. And I wanted to go beyond traditional therapy, which I have done and love, and my husband and I do ongoing couples therapy. But I needed a more spiritual, inward turning at that point. I was feeling a very, very deep calling to get quiet. And getting quiet is a terrifying state of being, and I needed support. So I started doing tapping – if anybody knows EFT tapping.
I was up in the middle of the night writing just to kind of release some of these things that were bubbling up in me, this doubt. And from that writing, I started composing poems just dropping out of me. And I started posting them on social media. And then I said, maybe I need some energetic work.
And somebody who I knew was offering reiki, which ended up being incredibly powerful, um, it’s kind of like an energetic alivening. I don’t know .. how would I describe it? I started doing reiki, that is like energy work where our bodies have a physical body, and our bodies also have an energetic body, and we need to pay attention to both to be actually optimally healthy.
And I was completely ignoring the energetic side of me. I was just pushing, pushing, pushing, physically pushing all the time. And so reiki really brought me back into my body in a different way and then allowed my energetic field to come alive. And I was feeling this healing happening. And, I began to do yoga from that because I had energy again. So I started doing yoga every morning, just 10 minutes, nothing big, no sweat.
And so this combination of these different modalities of healing between tapping, meditation, yoga, reiki, allowed this space that I was craving so much of. And the more space I got and the more space I allowed myself to take up, which as women we’re not always thinking we’re allowed to do, the more I was like, “I know I’m taking up space.” I’m claiming that I belong here. The less I was able to actually do the job that I was signing up for my career, cuz it just didn’t fit anymore.
So I got really quiet after I left. I had saved up money for a sabbatical and I took my kids on a one month road trip right in the middle of summer. Kind of like, “Take that summer, take that event planning. I’m gonna go have fun with my kids for the first time in their lives.” A full month away. And then I came home and got very quiet and that was very painful, quiet, long story short.
And about five and a half weeks into that quiet space of just not having anything on the calendar, no responsibilities other than feeding my children, I came up for air, and this podcast hit me over the head. And I just was like, “This is it!” It made no sense by the way. Absolutely no sense to do a podcast. You know, to monetize a podcast is a long game, but there was something that lit me up about that storytelling and about these conversations.
And so I said, well, “Who would I talk to?” And I was like, well, all the women you’ve been having these juicy, beautiful conversations with over the last year and a half of your healing. So let’s interview your reiki practitioner. Let’s interview a yoga teacher. Let’s interview all of these incredible women who are therapists and healers and entrepreneurs and just incredible women in their own right as professionals.
And so that’s what I did. I launched a podcast called You’re At First and I’m recording conversations about our healing and our small steps to getting back to ourselves.

Joline: You know, what a story. And I had my goosebumps again when you said that. So I just actually did a class, Leanne, a webinar recently on renewal.
And we talked about the importance of stillness and that, in order to connect to our intuition, if we really don’t get quiet enough to hear our inner voice and the calling, we don’t even hear the calling. So the fact that you took it sounds like quite a bit of time, and you mentioned it wasn’t easy.
So when we get quiet, we listen to that internal chatter and our mind. And then the healing that comes up. And from what I’m hearing you say, too, you went through some body-mind-soul healing and some revelations about yourself to get to a place to hear that inner voice speak to you again.
So I applaud you for doing that. I don’t think our culture really talks much about that. So to have you here as a guest talking about the importance of doing that and then taking the leap of faith to leave a job with a fixed income, you know? Yeah. When you’re giving up that income, and as a podcaster, I know I did the same thing myself and started a podcast without having a job.
It’s a long ride to get there and we don’t know where it leads. Can you talk a little bit about connecting to your intuition? It sounds like you really have had some revelations. Anything else you wanna share about that?

Leanne: Yes. One of the biggest things that’s coming up for me right now is that the idea of self-discovery and healing sounds amazing. There’s a lot of people out there selling courses and modalities and all kinds of ways for us to do what sounds good to do. It sounds like the one thing you want to do.
And the beginning of it does feel very powerful. It’s kinda like the first week of a diet. It’s rough, but you lose more than you expected to. Right? And then the second, third, and fourth week, it’s like a half a pound, right? And you go, why am I even doing this?
Same thing with healing. There is this huge momentum on the front end, and, in that middle part, the doldrums, the dark forest, the mucky muck, the stuff you’re dredging up is awful. It’s painful.
It’s old wounds. It’s new wounds. It’s current relationships. It’s old relationships. It is all the things that we actually don’t want to look at. But we can’t get to that place of feeling comfortable in our skin and having our shoulders drop and feeling a full breath of air and actually experiencing true joy in a moment without sloughing some of this stuff.
And that is hard, deep in between work. And there are moments of lightness, absolutely. But it is in those moments that you really find your higher self, that you have to dig deep and say, I’m staying here. I’m staying here even if it’s just for another minute before I tap out.
I think it’s Brene Brown that talks about when you’re faced with that moment, don’t tap out. Don’t pick up your phone, don’t eat the bag of cookies, don’t turn on Netflix. Just see if you can stay with it for one or two or five minutes and just sit with that.
Because an amazing thing happens when you do – where it’s allowed to be grieved and move through you. And we often get stuck in that moment before the moving through because it escalates. To use another example, if anybody out there has had childbirth, it’s like you don’t think you’re gonna make it through that contraction. Same with the healing. It can be so intense, it feels like it’s going to damage you.
But if you can stay with it or practice staying with it, it does move. It shifts and then you can let it go for real.
And it’s not like those things don’t come cropping up. But when they do, each time you have this resiliency and this skillset where you go, “Oh, yep, I recognize you. Here you are again. Okay, let’s get this over with. What do you need from me? I see you. I don’t need you anymore. You can go.”
And then you get in control of that stuff, instead of your emotions always rocking you and taking you under and dislodging you for hours, days, weeks. You say, “Ah-huh, I see you. I know what you’re trying to do here, but we’re not doing it this way anymore.”
So it becomes a relationship really with our logical brain, our amygdala, which is our survival brain and our higher self. And they become this like partnership where it’s like, “Oh, there’s the amygdala again trying to save us from ourselves.” And then our higher self can say, “We see you, we love you, but not the time and place. You can go for now or you can be quiet for now.”
So it’s one of the biggest skill sets that I’ve honed in on really is grace for myself when that stuff comes up, and that pause and that moment and that reconnection with myself.

Joline: And the amygdala, if I’m pronouncing that correctly, is what I would maybe call her ego at least, that comes in there and says, “Wait, you don’t need this time.”
Like you said, “Don’t, you’re taking up too much time. You’re not making money.” All that little voice that comes in and the fears that arise. And yes, to be able to listen to those, Leanne, and then feel it. Feel the pain. So I always share with everybody that in order to heal it, you have to feel it.

Leanne: Yep.

Joline: It sounds like you did a lot of that.

Leanne: It sounds so much easier, because that amygdala is our survival brain. It’s the part of the brain that says there’s a bear out here. You need to be aware. And when we tell that to be quiet, it goes, no, but you might die. Right? And then it creates all the scenarios where you could die.
And in our brain we go, “Right, right, right. That might kill us.” So financially is one of the biggest ways, since we don’t have to worry about bears typically, right? The finances are like our modern day bear, where it’s like, “You will ruin everything. You will lose your house. You won’t be able to feed your kids. You will lose your status in society.”
You know, it hits us right in that ego place, like you say, of “You’re not worth anything unless you’re earning something.” And it’s a really dangerous place for us to be because we buy into all kinds of things we shouldn’t. We sign up for things that don’t fit us because we think we need to maintain that safety.
And there are lots of ways to make money. There are lots of ways to meet our needs that are not through a job that doesn’t fit us. It doesn’t mean we don’t have to work. But there are lots of ways where we can work in a joyful soul-filling place too.
So that’s the work of getting into this and saying, “Well, what are my talents? What does light me up? What does bring me passion?” And then from there, how could I make that into a job? Or where could I go where that is the job I would be doing? So it’s really about getting curious and creative around this, healing. It makes all the difference, in my opinion.

Joline: So Leanne, to be able to take your intuition and make the move that you did too, the one thing I wanted to also talk to you about, we were talking about creativity and curiosity, is playtime. I don’t think our society really takes the time to even have that part of our brain get engaged again. And creativity is such an area that I believe brings more fulfillment.
And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those individuals that may be making a ton of money, uh, but they’re doing it more from, “Oh gosh, I have to do this. This is my career path.” And they may not, even though they have a ton of money – I’m sure we all know those folks – they’re not really fulfilled. and there’s an emptiness or a void.
But when we’re enacting this creativity from within, I really believe that’s also where fulfillment lies. Let’s talk a little bit about our culture and play. Have you taken some time, now that you’ve had some months off, to reflect on, we need more time, to really engage with ourselves and play.

Leanne: Yes. Wow. I love this because we are not encouraged to do this in our culture. And those who are able to do it are typically hardwired to do it. And also I would say, it depends on how we’re defining play.
So when we see play as adventure and breaking barriers and going and running on the beach and climbing a mountain, that is one version of play. That is a very fun, shareable way to play. But there’s a lot of quiet ways to play. And so I think the key with play is we don’t have to buy into the idea that play looks like cocktails on the beach and swimming in the ocean. Right?
It can be journaling, it can be pulling out pens and paper or paints, even if you’re not a painter, and playing. Like that’s the curiosity piece. We can be so hard on ourselves for not already knowing something. We can be so hard on ourselves for not already just trying something for the first time and already arriving to it being good or enough.
It’s okay to just try something and have it be a complete disaster and find the fun in that, or to find joy in that. And then therefore it is not a complete disaster, because that’s the whole point of it is to play. And so I think the key with play is to really find out what looks like play for each of us as individuals.
What is play to me?
And for me, play is primarily travel and adventure, which I’ve done a lot of in the last eight months since I left my job. Surprising amounts actually. And I’ve just gotten creative on how, so that it wasn’t really expensive or burdens us financially. It was like, well, could we just road trip to here and use those hotel nights I got for free three years ago? And all those coupons, those restaurants sitting in my desk. Maybe we cash those in. We never had time to do that before.
Could it be watching a little stream trickle? Could it be for me? A lot of it was sitting in a patch of sun watching the shadows trail across the patio for half an hour.
I also had a moment of like listening to a song and actually meditating on it. I think it was a Pink Floyd song, and they have such incredible basslines. And I was really, really into that song. Like I crawled inside that song in my headset and just listened.
That felt like a moment of play for me, because play really is about getting out of this thinking brain and into this fluid, creative flowing brain where we’re not judging what we’re doing. We’re not overthinking what we’re doing. We’re just purely in the moment.
And that really for me is the definition of play, is to be purely in the moment, not thinking, what do I need to do after this? What did I do before this? Who do I need to call? What is this? What does this imply? How much is this costing? That is not play.
Play is where we’re in the moment. And that I think is a lost art in our culture. To answer your question, it’s a lost art, and easier to get back to than I think we imagine if we just allow it.

Joline: Well .. play. I value it tremendously. And I love that you said being present in the moment.
That is where our power lies. That’s where healing lies. That’s really where everything lies. And so many of us are in our head thinking about what we have to do later. Yeah. In the day. So I love that, Leanne.
If anybody wanted to take a leap of faith and start something new, what advice have you learned from the lessons that you’ve gone through to impart with the audience, the listeners today? What would you share that are some of your key takeaways?

Leanne: I think, for me, I had felt this as a long time coming. So one of the things that I did that isn’t always possible, but I actually saved some money to take the time off. I actually created a sabbatical fund. And I’m about to record a full episode about what is a sabbatical and why you should take one. Because it doesn’t have to be for wealthy people, and it doesn’t have to be for only those certain people that have worked and earned enough for it.
It can be a week, a year that’s just for you. It could be a day a week, it could be an hour a week. But sabbaticals are key in getting and allowing that quiet. And I did mine at home. I dropped my kids off at school and I came home and I played and had my time alone during the day, and then I’d pick them up at 3:30, and we had our evening like normal.
I didn’t have to run away to do it. I was tempted to, but I didn’t. I would say that again, much like play, it’s about asking yourself what do you need? We have so much comparison culture with social media that we think what looks good for other people should look good for us.
And I think that is a big, big, big red flag in our culture right now. It’s okay if nothing other people are doing looks right for you. And it’s okay if what looks right for you doesn’t look right for anybody else.
I got mostly positive feedback, but a lot of interesting feedback. Like, well, what are you doing? Like, why would you leave your job? And it was such a great place. And all of those doubts and fears that other people have about doing the same thing, that wasn’t about me. So I think that’s maybe my second takeaway is you’re gonna get a lot of feedback from people – good and bad.
And that is an invitation to exercise your boundaries around what you’re doing and what’s right for you. And boundaries don’t have to be this big “put up a wall and don’t talk to me” kind of thing. They don’t have to be dramatic. You don’t have to have a conversation with anybody. Boundaries can be a very internal thing that you do just with yourself.
Somebody says something that triggers you. You have a moment of pause internally to say, “That isn’t really about me; that’s about them and whatever they’re going through.” So much harder to do than it sounds. But to find a fortitude in yourself around what’s right for you – and that can come with meditation, journaling, writing out little bullet points and sticking ’em on your bathroom mirror.
There’s so many ways to create that fortitude for yourself and that re-upping and that recommitment for yourself about what’s right for you, so that when somebody says something and it triggers you, you go, “Oh, but that’s not on my list. That’s right for them, but not me.” And you get to know yourself in a way that you go, “Oh yeah, well.” And then you let it go.
And then instead of fear of missing out, you have the joy of missing out because you’re not taking on things that don’t belong to you. You’re not signing up because you think you should. You’re signing up because it’s an actual yes for you, because you know it’s right for you. So this is really about walking back to ourselves in a way where, It’s not even becoming somebody new.
I’ve just returned to the real person I always was, the essence of who I am. And it’s a process. I haven’t arrived. We never arrive. But it really is about shedding the things that don’t fit us and allowing who we already are to just bloom and blossom and come forward. And so you don’t need to buy courses.
Maybe you do, but you don’t always, you know, and you don’t need to buy a product, and you don’t need to do anything dramatic. It can be small, it can be quiet, it can be private. But that’s really it for me, is finding yourself again and, understanding what it is that makes you tick.

Joline: Well, Leanne, we’re so glad you did because I’ve listened to a couple of your podcasts. They’re amazing, and I would encourage the listeners, please tune into You’re Up First. Leanne has interviewed some amazing guests, and I love that you’re sharing your story.
I think the world needs to hear courageous souls like you who come forward and let us know that it’s okay. It’s okay to be ourselves and fall down and not be perfect and take time without an agenda.
And not have to compete or compare. I’m gonna coin that. I love your saying about instead of missing out, the joy of missing out, instead of the fear of missing out, joy missing out. How many of us don’t frame it like that? I love that, Leanne. I’m gonna remember that one.

Leanne: FOMO is the fear of missing out, JOMO is the joy of missing out. And then you’re like, “No, I am staying home. Isn’t that wonderful!” Or “No, I’m not signing up. Isn’t that wonderful?” It’s a fantastic place to be because what you do say yes to lights you up and makes you so excited to do it, you can’t wait to do it.
So, yeah, I love it too. It’s like part of my mantra now is like, how is this making me feel?

Joline: It reminds me of Joseph Campbell: “Follow Your Bliss.” Life is so simple, really, but we make it so difficult. It’s just taking the time to get back to ourselves, which you’ve done and unraveling it all.
Who knows where we’ll both be in the future, but it’s great to be here with you today. Leanne, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on A View Beyond the Ordinary.

Leanne: Thank you, Jolene. It was a real pleasure to be here. Thanks so much.

To connect with Leanne or listen to one of her podcasts – https://www.museonthemountain.com/

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