SAMIA: Salam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao and  Bonjour! It's so good to be with you again today and I'm really happy because I have a very very special guest Joanna Leis who is a brilliant business mindset coach and I'm so excited to be connecting with you today Joanna welcome…

JOANA: Hi Samia how are you... thank you…

SAMIA: Yes, thank you thank you so much…

JOANA: Thank you thank you for having me I'm excited to be here today…

SAMIA: Yes, and Joanna I'm going to have you jump right in and tell us more about who you are and what you do…

JOANA: Sure... sure so I am a business mindset coach and I dedicate my coach helping women in tech women that are entrepreneurs and they're in technology area to overcome their limiting beliefs… the way sometimes we see ourselves and the stories that we tell ourselves sometimes are big barriers for us to progress and have the success that we want to have in our lives so I help those women to overcome those insecurities those stories that we tell ourselves those thoughts that we're consistently having and create the life that they want to have… and I think it's important to empower women in this area because it's a male dominated area and opportunities are increasing for women but they're still lower than any other areas and so I dedicate my time empowering them  and make them feel they supported and guided through the process of being an entrepreneur and having their own companies…

SAMIA: Yay I love that it's so important I think what you are doing because first of all technology... the industry it's having such a huge impact on our world now and it's so important that we have a rich diversity of peoples involved in that industry because it's like shaping so many aspects of our world we definitely need women's presence and women's voices there so I'm so glad that you're there to support them…

JOANA: Yeah thank you absolutely it's very important and I think women and… from the market research that I've been doing with women in technology some of us have a difficulty to make space in that industry and to make ourselves being heard and to create some kind of credibility in the industry just because we've never been this close to reach positions of leadership or you know positions of more responsibility and now we are having that space but still not enough and so women have some kind of difficulty to enter and to make their voices up and raised you know…

SAMIA: Yes so when it comes to mindset what is like a big mindset challenge that you find the women dealing with and that you're able to help them with…

JOANA: Right so there's you as an entrepreneur you can have different limited beliefs right and there's current ones that happens very often with people that start their business and special especially with women and I think that this one is very common and it's believing that I'm not enough or I'm not capable to do this… I met some clients they were... they started in the industry of technology as self-develop... web developers for example and they have difficulty to believe that just because they taught themselves how to survive on that industry and how to actually become profitable they think that they're not enough because there's people... there's always people with better credentials or better experience… more of this or more of that and we have always this tendency of comparing ourselves in our industry and that is just a big barrier and a big limited belief for you to develop the reality that you want to develop right… so if you start to believe that the other person that has more experience or more of this or more of that it's better than you that's going to create a very… that's actually not going to help you develop actions for you to start your business or to develop you know marketing strategies or get more clients or whatever dreams you're trying to achieve really…

SAMIA: Yes that is so true and it's not just women in tech who have this limiting belief I think this is one that pretty much all of us can relate to no matter what industry or work that we do I know I have struggled with this particular limiting belief myself and it really stopped me in my tracks not in an absolute way but certainly in terms of it kept me playing very small it's like okay what can I do that I feel really confident in doing but you know when you're starting (oops) when you're starting to think like that you really limit yourself so it's a it can be a huge challenge so how do you begin to help women deal with it...

JOANA: Right so that's why I think in entrepreneurial path it's just so interesting because you cannot be an entrepreneur in my opinion or a successful entrepreneur if you didn't  make some work inside yourself… if you didn't work on yourself if you didn't work on your fears your beliefs and the things that you tell yourself over and over again… so I think one of the special things about having your own project is that you are  kind of obligated to face these things they're going to appear at some point and you're going to be like oh I didn't know that I would feel like this and I didn't know that I was so insecure or I didn't know that I had this difficulty to… for example show up in social media or talk with people or... whatever is the situation that you're going to feel uncomfortable… and the magic happens when you overcome those things and you transform yourself and that… in that transformation you're going to transform not just yourself but you're going to transform your business because you... I think you as an entrepreneur you are your business right I think if you really have a straight contact with… a straight contact with your project I think you are your business and your reflection of that so I really believe that it starts in your mind and it starts in the emotions that you're creating that only when you have a positive and a growth mindset you can also create a successful sustainable business…

SAMIA: Yeah that is so true I mean you just shared so much that I would love to touch upon but I suppose one of the things that you just finished on is this concept of the growth mindset… can you tell me a little bit more about that how do you define it for people who are not familiar with the idea…

JOANA: Yeah sure so I like to define that someone has a growth mindset when you are quickly to react in a situation seeing how... in seeing a situation as an opportunity… meaning that you can have your minutes of you know frustration sadness and difficulty to confront the problem or the situation that you're trying to do to deal with but then I think there's gotta be a point in that specific moment that you're like okay what can I do how is this serving me instead of being against me what is this and what's in this situation that's helping me that is trying to make me grow that is trying to make me see the other side maybe I need to confront this maybe I need to be in this difficult situation and maybe I cannot see the blessings right now maybe I cannot understand but I have the faith that there's an opportunity… I know that and I'm just gonna surrender the process and create the opportunity that I am sure that it's there for me so this kind of mindset it's what's going to sustain you and to grow in whatever… this is not applied only to business but applies to your life in general…

SAMIA: Yeah that is... thank you for sharing that understanding and that definition of a growth mindset I really love it it was making me think about how you know if I had this or have this limiting belief of I'm not good enough and I have a great mindset when I have the I'm not good enough thought I can sort of begin to shift that to oh I'm not good enough now maybe but I can learn and I can get better and this is so exciting because I can learn and I can get better and just being excited by that possibility of growth…

JOANA: Exactly Exactly and I don't think that the growth that I'm talking about it's an overnight thing… it's not… and I think you in the process of understanding that you are good enough  you need to create strategies to love yourself to understand how to connect with yourself… how do I look inside and understand who I am how do I navigate all these emotions and all these feelings and things that I'm thinking …like well you know you will find strategies to deal with that and that's why I think coaching is such a powerful method to do that because I believe that you can have this growth with somebody that can support you and I think coaching is that somebody that's guiding you and supporting you through the process of your own flourishment you know your own creation of a new identity or a new person and I'm... you don't have to do that alone and I think I work with coaches and I'm so grateful that I did that and for my personal life for my business it helped me so so much…. and yeah I just really want to say that it's a process it's not going to be overnight and you're not going to be confident or amazing or you know whatever definition that you have in your mind that you want to be you can be all of that… you just cannot turn to that person overnight because the magic it's in the process again not in the terminal goal…

SAMIA: Yeah that's right oh that's such a brilliant point and another thing that you made me think about actually you sort of referred to this earlier also is that no matter who you are no matter how successful you already may be… you know these kind of limiting beliefs can crop up for you when you try to grow beyond where you are now to the next stage of growth... for example when you're first starting out and you want to first hit your four figure or five figure income level and then you have hit your four or five figure income level and then you jump to one and jump to six figures and then even after you hit the six figures you know you want to make that jump to seven figures…

JOANA: Right…

SAMIA: You've seen so many people... even people who are making like seven figure incomes when they start to think about making that jump to eight figure incomes they can have these kinds of insecurities and limiting beliefs pop up in their mind at each stage when you're taking… trying to take your next big leap so...

JOANA: Absolutely yeah... yeah so our mind triggers all the time and it can be a very... how do I say... It can be an enemy kind of thing at some points of our life right when we're trying to advance and trying to progress and we… you have those thoughts and those stories that you're telling yourself they're not true but you just really with fear of what's coming and fear... and really if sometimes if... that's why I think meditation is very powerful because when you sit down to understand what's happening and you sit down to understand your feelings and your opening to be honest with yourself you can understand also what am I feeling really it's fear… I am… or I am having difficulty to believe that this is possible for me or I think I'm feeling insecure or I'm feel that you know whatever is the story that you're telling yourself at the moment... if you're aware of that if you can be aware of the negative things that you… we tell ourselves over and over again that's a very important step already for you to pass to the other side and have instead a positive affirmation for yourself and to the world right…

SAMIA: Yes that is so true and you know it makes me think again of what you mentioned a little bit earlier about loving yourself and how important that is and how critical that is in this process …like if you don't love yourself and give yourself that room that space that permission to love yourself no matter where you are right now in your life what challenges you might be dealing with but to just love yourself as you are where you are right now and then go deeper in that experience of loving yourself more…

JOANA: Yeah that is so important oh my God because we attach ourselves with so many things external to us and we validate ourselves through those external things… like positions like jobs like relationship status… I don't know… social status right we attach ourselves with all those things and suddenly because life happens and when those things are not there who you really are…

SAMIA: Yeah… 

JOANA: Right... and I like to think that we are humans of essence not substance I love to say that because I really believe in that I believe that there's more inside ourselves that it's not inherent or it's not created through external things I think we are more than that and I think it's only when we are able to see our true nature our true soul that we can navigate other things in our lives like business like relationships all of those things... it's so important…

SAMIA: So you can give a little hint about what you see as our essence... but can you tell us more about your perspective on what is our essence...

JOANA: What is our essence... I think we are all love I think we are all love… it's a personal perspective I think we are all love and we are here to share our love to… with others and to impact other people's lives whatever the job you have whatever your purpose right now I think we are here to serve others to impart to others and you can only do that when you know that you are already enough that you are loved already and that impact it's going to happen whether you like it or not… that's why you're here…

SAMIA: Yeah oh my gosh you just made me think of a couple of movies that have this theme of learning to love yourself I remember this one movie I watched it like I don't know maybe 20 years ago and if I'm remembering the name correctly it was Penelope is the name of the movie… and in this movie there's this girl and she's basically when she's born a witch like puts a curse on her and and deforms her face so she has some deformity on her face and the… according to the curse it's only when she finds true love that she will be able to free herself from the curse… and so you go through this whole movie where you know she's trying to find love the true love and her family is actually there's like this whole story about how the family is also affected by the curse and so everyone's trying to break free of the curse and match her up with like different men basically that they are hoping would… will be her true love and we cannot find anyone who's willing to love her or love her truly… and in the end here's the twist... I hope I'm not ruining this for anyone who wants to watch it... but in the end she just rejects this whole notion of she has to find someone else and she's like you know I'm just going to love myself and actually in that realization and in that practice of loving herself she breaks the curse and then you know there's this whole realization around oh my gosh we don't have to wait for someone else someone outside of us to give us true love we can give true love to ourselves…

JOANA: Yeah yeah that realization is very powerful yeah...

SAMIA: ..and there was this moment this scene where her mother was you know just so she was like oh my god I as your mother could have given you true love and that would have broken the course but I didn't either… you know you're just so stuck on sort of like the surface level of understanding of what love is and how to receive love that we don't connect with this deeper level understanding…

JOANA: For sure for sure yeah it's very important and you know I it... like I said I think we all had moments of difficulty in our lives because life it's not just good stuff and laughs and positive things there's also negative things and there's also times that you question yourself and you question and you navigate these doubts right... am I good enough am I worth this job this relationship this people that are in my life right now… and it's important to go through that process you know I don't think you can... I always always speak about the process because I think it's so important it's when you discover new things about yourself it's when you discover new things about others as well just through the process right and I know that some people want quick results and quick finances right they want their bank accounts to build quickly with their business and stuff like that… I believe that some things take time for a reason and I think it's important for us to understand and to be able to connect with the process to be able to be happy with the process to surrender to the process of becoming… if you don't love yourself and right now it's okay you know it's not the end you can learn and there's people out there that can teach you how to do it although you already have it inside you… you just didn't discover you don't know and that's fine you have... you can have help outside of you that will help you with the process…

SAMIA: That's so true because even as we're talking about you loving yourself sometimes it's like you're stuck in a place where it's really difficult for you to do that for yourself and sometimes you need someone else to just sort of support you through the process and you're so right Joana that oftentimes coaches are amazing in that way… I know definitely the first time actually wasn't in the context of coaching but more in the counseling… in the context of going to see a counselor a therapist the very first time in my life and I remember one of the things that she did was that I would say something to her and then she would just reaffirm for me what I had said and just validate what I was thinking and feeling and just that was so impactful just to... like I knew theoretically something but it was so helpful to just hear her say the same thing back to me and just validate and affirm… and it was just amazing it was like the first time I'd ever reached out for help in that way and I just so distinctly remembered this being one of the things… one of the things that my counselor did but it was so impactful like to this day you know it's like stays with me and... oh my gosh… so sometimes it's as simple as that…

JOANA: Of course yeah and the reason why I am talking about self-love in a context of business it's because if you have your own business you are leading… you have a leadership position right in terms of guiding others or connecting others or attracting others to your own project your own way of doing right and I think it's very important for you to be centered to know who you are… to know how to establish limits also in relationships in business relationships that's very important… how can I establish limits with my clients for example right in terms of time or in terms of respect knowing the conditions and how what's our terms what are you... what are we going to do and what we're going to accept or not accept in our relationship right and I think that comes from a self-love place…

SAMIA: Yes…

JOANA: And in business that's very important and to be resilient and to be connected to... to be able to face adversity because you're going to have adversity and you're going to have difficulties in your... in creating your business… It's not going to be easy… it's not… but I think if you are centered if you know who you are if you believe in yourself if you know that you are here for the reason it's so much easier to confront problems and difficulty when they come to you …we're like okay I'm ready I'm prepared I can do this I can face this adversity and I know that this is here to make me grow and to make me maybe... I have some lessons to learn…

SAMIA: Yeah I love the point that you just made about the importance of creating healthy boundaries that are coming from a place of self-love because especially since you work with women in the tech industry where they're facing like an extra layer of challenges because of how male dominated the industry is… it becomes even more important for them to be even more strongly grounded in self-love and figure out how they can establish those healthy strong boundaries for themselves…

JOANA: Absolutely yeah that is very important and if you are used to be in an area that you don't have a lot of support or you... when you talk nobody is going to listen or think that what you're saying it's not really... it doesn't matter or we don't really believe what you're trying to say… that can be challenging but that cannot be the reason for you to stop that cannot be the reason for you to put that product out there put that service out there and the… that your industry your audience needs you… you need to know that… you have something to offer and you need to do it you need to be out there and do it… and the fact that there's people out there or there's a sector in a society that has difficult to understand that you also can do it you can also be successful you can also create something extraordinary it that does not mean that you should not try and you should not be successful that's just the opposite it's just something that you can't show up to the world and say hey actually see I can also be in the industry be successful be a mother be a wife… whatever roles you have right and create all those wonderful things that you want for your life…

SAMIA: Yes and make the whole industry better and make the world better because oh my gosh you can think of so many examples of how once women came into different industries and really began to take more and more of a leadership role the industry is changed for the better you know...

JOANA: Yes yes that is so true… and sorry...

SAMIA: …I said that's just something really amazing about women…

JOANA: Yes it is and one of the things that I like to think is that when you have... when you're a woman creating your own project your own company I like to think that at least that's how I encourage women and through my programs and through coaching is that you learning how to be a leader and learn to create those skills for yourself and from the people that are going to be working with you… and from this growing inequality we're just making the world more equal as well right and I believe that work contexts are so important for us to feel good and feel more equally in the society right and if you are a woman already creating this kind of environment and helping other women coming to the… to your industry creating the same kind of philosophy we're just making the world better right...

SAMIA: Yes I absolutely love that and I think probably our last question... my last question for you for today is… can you give any tips on how we can make this process of learning to love ourselves developing a more empowered mindset… how can we make this process a little bit more fun…

JOANA: Yeah so I think that the first thing you need to remember yourself and if you even if you don't know how to love yourself right now and even if you don't… if you have challenge of you know creating that kind of mentality... one of the things that you should know is that you are here in this world to make the most of it… to make... to be happy to be your whole self right... that is one thing that you should know for sure… and then the second one if you're struggling and if you have... if you're sad if you're depressed... go ask for help really you don't have to do this alone and you don't have to create your business alone you don't have to face your difficulties right now alone there's people out there that can help you and there's also things that you can do by yourself… one of the things that I recommend 100% is that you create habits and one of the habits is meditating for example I think that's very... there's a lot of benefits of meditation one of them it's the relationship that you're creating with yourself and the understanding that you're getting from yourself I think it's very important… I love to do exercise I love to sweat and be in nature or do… I don't know… yoga… I think that's one of the ways to feel good to have other kind of energies flowing in your body you know and when you move everything moves even your thoughts you're moving its energy right and  I think that's very… that's one of the things that are… it's very important for you to start to create that magic to start to feel loved in this energetic…

SAMIA: Yeah…

JOANA: Yeah and yeah... there's other things that you can do but I would start there…

SAMIA: Awesome thank you so much Joanna for sharing your wisdom and sharing your love with us I really appreciate it and you know for all of our wonderful listeners we're going to make sure to add Joanna's links so you can connect with her so please do… you don't… just like Joana said… you don't have to go through this alone please reach out for help so you can reach out to her I'll also drop my links in the show notes you can also reach out to me and yeah until we connect next time I wish you lots and lots of peace and joy…

JOANA: Thank you thank you for having me see you next time bye bye…