Leslie Ehm is an author, speaker, coach, advertising creative director, and former UK TV host who helps people to discover, embrace, and release their unique ‘swagger’. With Combustion Training, the award-winning company that she founded, Leslie has been fortunate enough to work with global organizations like Google, TD Bank, Uber, HBO, Brown Foreman, Pepsico, Wilson, and Honda, and helped professionals at all levels, from CEOs down. Leslie lives to unleash the authentic human potential in everyone she encounters. Leslie helps her clients to develop the unshakable confidence and self-belief they need to fearlessly go after and achieve their goals – just by being themselves!
Leslie’s book SWAGGER: Unleash Everything You Are and Become Everything You Want was published in May 2021. As a speaker, she bring the ‘swagger’ message to vibrant life and helps organizations and individuals understand how unleashing authenticity in the corporate world can be transformational to not only performance, productivity, employee satisfaction and retention – but can significantly up the human factor we all so desire. And she most definitely brings her own swagger to that party!!
Join the Swagger revolution by subscribing at www.LeslieEhm.com
Transcript:
Bryan Wish:
Leslie, welcome to The One Away Show.
Leslie Ehm:
Oh, I’m so happy to be here. We are going to get juicy, down and dirty.
Bryan Wish:
Yes, apparently so. The first Leslie I thought I’d interview was my mom. Her name’s Leslie.
Leslie Ehm:
Oh, cool.
Bryan Wish:
But it happened to be you, so I think that’s a great way to start this out.
Leslie Ehm:
I got some mom energy, some tough love mom thing going on.
Bryan Wish:
Great. Yeah, I can tell. You got something-
Leslie Ehm:
But a cool mom. Like a super cool mom.
Bryan Wish:
I can read it across the screen, no doubt. So Leslie, let’s dive in. What’s the One Away moment that you want to share with us today?
Leslie Ehm:
I was about 23 years old, I think, which is quite a while ago. I was living in the UK. I had moved to the UK from Montreal, Canada to pursue my dreams of being a singer. It was all happening. I had a music partner. We were writing, we were getting interest from record companies. It was very intense. But I had a very particular mindset about it. I’d been passionate about being a singer since I was about 16, moved out of my house when I was 17 to start my first band. I was a wild child and I was obsessed with all things British, so I’d moved to the UK to pursue my dreams.
Leslie Ehm:
I also was passionate about film, and it was the Edinburgh Film Festival, and my mom had come all the way from Canada to come and hang out with me at the Edinburgh Film Festival. We were watching movies back to back to back to back. It’s a really immersive experience where literally, from 8:00 in the morning til midnight, you’re just watching film after film after film. And there was a particular film that we were watching called Shirley Valentine. It’s a movie from … again, this is back in the 80s. It’s the story of this British housewife who really is not living her life, and she has this dream of going to Greece and having this wild time. But the truth is, she’s too afraid to really start living her life, so it’s the same routine every day. She makes her husband the same food. Her husband kind of ignores her. She talks to a poster of Greece on the wall and all of that stuff.
Leslie Ehm:
I’m watching this movie and I’m feeling all of these things, and I am watching this woman waiting for her life to start, and how much time she’s wasted waiting for her life to start. Because she keeps saying, “If only I can go to Greece. If only I can do this, my life will begin.” And it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. I started to cry, cry, cry, cry, cry to the point that my mom said, “Let’s get out of the cinema.”
Leslie Ehm:
We went for a walk in Edinburgh and she was like, “What is making you so upset?” I said, “I realize that I’m waiting for my own life to start, that I keep saying, ‘If only I get a record deal, if only I find this success, if only, if only, if only,’ that’s when my life is going to start.” And the truth was, my life had started a long time ago, but I just couldn’t see it because I was putting all of these sort of conditions and expectations on myself and was defining my life starting with success. At that moment, I went, “Ah, ah, ah. This is not a rehearsal, this life we have. You get one go around the carousel and you got to make every second count.” And that moment changed the way that I lived my life.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Well, what a triggering experience in a beautiful and maybe really hard and painful way. And also, how neat that your mom was maybe right there with you to kind of hold you in that moment and be there with you.
Leslie Ehm:
Oh, she was always that. She was always that for me. My mom was my hero, my catalyst, my cheerleader, my mentor, my everything, so it was super cool that she was there.
Bryan Wish:
Wow. Well, that is cool. And also, I’ve always dreamed of going to a film festival. It sounds … what an incredible experience. It’s funny how movies or books can really hit that nerve inside that tell you, “Maybe there’s something more, deeper for me out there.” So I’m just curious, as you’re kind of talking about … You say your life had started. You couldn’t see that your life had started and you were waiting for your life to start by external success. What do you think was blinding you from maybe being able to see? Growing up, was it you always visioned X? I’m curious kind of what the blocker was for you then when so much, it seems like, had already unfolded and you could not see it.
Leslie Ehm:
I was always someone who had enormous personal power, and I knew that about myself. I made bold choices. Nothing ever held me back. I was a badass kind of from day one. I lived my own unique life. It was very difficult at times because I was not following anybody’s rules, thus I didn’t get a lot of the validation that people get by doing conventional things. I had to go and create my own life. I wanted to do that, and I was very hard on myself. I really set incredibly high standards for myself, and I was … I call it a goalpost mover, you know?
Bryan Wish:
Yeah.
Leslie Ehm:
I would set a goal, and then I would achieve the goal and go, “Well, if I could achieve it, it can’t be that spesh. It can’t be that amazing.” I would then move the goalpost, and then I would accomplish that, and then I would move the goalpost. And I really didn’t experience a lot of internal validation. It was a real struggle for me when I was younger. And so that, I think, was the biggest thing, is I hadn’t yet learned what my own measurements were, what kind of damage they came from, and how to change that for myself, how to create an internal validation system so that I didn’t feel the need to move the goalpost because I was getting filled up every step of the way. I was learning how to sustain myself as opposed to, say, only when the world approves of me am I deemed good enough. I let go of that.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Well, I love what you’re saying. It sounds like before you maybe figured out your personal sense of value, you were looking for that validation from a world who clearly kind of did not have the capacity to see you or understand you, because you were just different. I think we often go to people for that sense of being seen when they’re just not at our level. You clearly were operating on a different playing field and had to define that for yourself. So let’s go there. Actually, before we do go there and how you kind of did that, I’m just curious, when you think about why did you feel that … Did you feel the need to be validated because you’re just different? Or did you feel the need to be validated because you tried out for things or did things and weren’t good enough? Validation is such an interesting concept. I’m just like … Is there a deeper root, or am I [crosstalk 00:07:42]
Leslie Ehm:
Well, I think because I was a rebel from day one, I was constantly being put in my place, or at least people tried to put me in my place. “Leslie, you’re too much, you’re too loud, you’re too this, you’re too that.” I was always too much, too much, too much, and I refused to accept that. I refused to listen. And it was interesting because I could have acquiesced my stuff, my power, to get approval, but I couldn’t. I absolutely could not. Everything in my system screamed against that and said, “No. Leslie, you have to do you. You are built for greater things. You are built for something magical. You’re going to just keep pushing and keep pushing.” But it was very, very painful because I didn’t get the approval that all humans want and need. I was not being told that I was loved the way that I was.
Leslie Ehm:
And even inadvertently, even by the people who loved me, it was always, “Oh, Les, if you would only do this, things would be better,” or, “If you could only do that,” or, “If you could only behave this way,” or, “If you could only …” And a lot of that stuff was said for my benefit. But when you have that damage, you hear it through a particular kind of oral lens. You hear the stuff that is going into the painful parts of you, and so I felt like I was kind of a caveat. “Leslie, you’re so great. If only you would …” And I stopped hearing the, “Leslie, you’re so great.” I only heard the, “If only you would or you could.”
Leslie Ehm:
And so that was the thing that stayed with me for years. That’s why I set such incredibly high expectations for myself. But everybody wants to be seen and loved and accepted for being exactly who they are. That is the greatest gift that we can give and it’s the greatest gift that we can receive, to say, “I am perfectly imperfect and I’m seen and acknowledged and loved and respected for that.” And I didn’t get that for a very long time, for a very long time.
Leslie Ehm:
And ironically, when I look back at my life, I look at all these crazy things that I accomplished and how people felt about me then. I didn’t even recognize how much influence I had on other people, how inspirational I was. I just thought I was a hot mess and people would have appreciated me more if I had lived my life a different kind of way. But I was not prepared to give away my power to get that. It’s a very hard road. That’s kind of why I wrote the book that I wrote, was to help people with that very thing. Because I know how freaking hard it is to say, “I don’t care what you think of me. I have to do me. You do you. I have to do me.” And I’ll tell you an interesting little full circle moment from this whole experience.
Leslie Ehm:
When I published my book … It’s every author’s dream to make the bestseller lists and to do all that cool stuff, right?
Bryan Wish:
Say the name of it for us, just so we hear it.
Leslie Ehm:
The book is called Swagger: Unleash Everything You Are and Become Everything You Want.
Bryan Wish:
Love it.
Leslie Ehm:
Which, of course, ties into this beautifully, right? And so the book was newly released. This was just this past May. I get the call to tell me that my book has hit The Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller lists, and I was waiting for this huge rush of validation, this huge rush of, like, “Yes, you.” It’s like hearing that you got an Emmy or an Oscar or something like that, right? And I did get hit with this huge emotion, but it wasn’t joy. It wasn’t elation, but it was intense. So I do what I always do, which is to take a step back and go, “What the hell is that? What is going on with me internally?” Because I’m someone who really checks in with themselves all the time. I’m like, “What is going on here? This is not lining up with what I thought.”
Leslie Ehm:
And so I sifted through it and sifted through it and sifted through it, and I realized that I was actually angry. When I realized I was angry, I was like, “Okay. Where is that coming from? This just doesn’t make sense.” And I realized that I was angry at how hard I had to fight to maintain my own swagger. To maintain it, not to regain it, because I wouldn’t let anyone take it from me, but to maintain it. And all those people and all those times that others tried to change me, and I had to fight against it and fight against it and fight against it. And I was mad at all of those people. I was mad at them, and I was very much like, “See, if you had changed me, if you had been successful in changing me, I could never have accomplished this.”
Bryan Wish:
Wow.
Leslie Ehm:
It would never have happened. So I was mad at them for a hot second, and then I got over it, and then I got happy. I got excited and happy.
Bryan Wish:
Right. I mean, that was not what I was expecting you to say, that you experienced this emotion that you were mad at the people who, in a sense, it sounds like, made you who you are because you had the chutzpah to stand strong in your own self and not conform.
Leslie Ehm:
Well, it’s like a muscle, right?
Bryan Wish:
Right.
Leslie Ehm:
It’s a muscle. You’ve got to work it. That’s why it’s so hard for people who have never done that, who have never held on to, discovered, unleashed, held on to their personal power. When you tell them that that’s the way to live, they go, “I don’t even know where to begin.” It’s like if someone has never worked out or someone who has never whatever, and you say, “Here, go to the gym. It’s going to be great. You’re going to be strong and it’s going to be …” They’ll go, “I don’t even know what the hell to do. It’s going to hurt. I’m going to be embarrassed. I’m going to be uncomfortable. I’m going to be sore.” All of those same things happen, except it’s your emotional system that is going to take a beating. And it’s going to be tough, but when you’re in it and when you get better at it, you go, “Yes. Look at me. Check me out. I’m changing. I’m growing. I’m stronger. And I’m happier for it.”
Bryan Wish:
Yeah, totally. And more full and complete and whole. Leslie, you said you were searching for … Were you searching for validation from specific people, or just generally to be seen? Or was it from deeper individuals who didn’t … you wanted them to see you so bad, but they just couldn’t?
Leslie Ehm:
I don’t think it was about particular individuals. I wasn’t trying to impress any one person in general. But when you’re very aware of your own personal power, you want to do something with it. You want to kind of justify this power that you have and use it in a big way, because everybody is telling you that you have the bigness in you. So you’re like, “Well, I better be big, then. I better do something huge.” So I never went for little goals. I was like, “I’m going to be a singer. I want to be a TV host. I want to be a …” All of these things I accomplished. Everything that I set out to accomplish, I accomplished to one degree or another.
Leslie Ehm:
It was that awareness that because I had that level of … I don’t know, call it, what? Chutzpah, charisma, energy, personality. That got me really far. But you still have to do the work. You still have to deal with the challenges that life throws you. It’s not a free ride, just because you got some personality. And also, you can’t be for everyone. So sometimes having a big, bold personality is going to put as many people off as it’s going to draw them towards you. That was also a challenge, was I knew that I could not be for everyone. And there were moments in my life that I tried to be for everybody, but it didn’t last very long. Because you could see how vanilla it would make everything that you did, and then you were just meh. And I didn’t want to be meh. I wanted to be for who I wanted to be.
Leslie Ehm:
Another very brief story is I was pitching a TV idea to a production company. I was a script editor at the time and I was pitching ideas, and I would always go in and do my big pitch and have a really good time. The guy who owned the production company said, “You should be on camera.” I was like, “Yeah, of course I should.” And they actually hired me and gave me a talk show. The problem was, they wanted me to be Jerry Springer, I wanted to be white Oprah. I wanted a platform to do good. I did five episodes and then said to him, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Bryan Wish:
Good for you.
Leslie Ehm:
“This is not for me. I can’t.” So I was always willing to walk away from things that were trying to make me do what I wanted to do. I never let ambition get in the way of my purpose in life, which has always been to love on people and help them and support them and grow them and help them to be the best that they could be. So whenever something got in the way of that, I was not for it.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. I love it. I mean, you had such a strong sense of internal alignment to guide you. But you also said something really interesting as well. It’s like you did this emotional work and you came into the sense of being that you are, and of course, the work never ends. But you said it became almost harder because you … at least what I picked up … it was almost harder for you because you knew so much about yourself that if you followed the script of life, it would be quite a vanilla journey, as you said. Whereas you had to stand in who you are and not conform to what 95% of the world was doing, to kind of stand in your own arena, which is not easy. Because every day, I think what you said is you recognized just how different you are, and then to stand in that power, it brings up a lot of discomfort.
Leslie Ehm:
Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the reasons that people don’t like to hold a mirror up to themselves is that they’re afraid that what they’re going to see is all the bad stuff, that they’re not going to see the good stuff. We’re all a hot mess. We’re all perfectly imperfect, and we have to be okay to hold up a mirror to the stuff that’s messy and imperfect and flawed, because that’s what makes us unique. The good stuff often is the less interesting stuff. The complex stuff is the interesting stuff. The emotional journey, the challenges, where our hearts lie, what we’ve been through, what challenges we’ve overcome, our hurt, our pain, all of that stuff is actually what forms the 100% unique individual that we are. And unless we hold a mirror up to it, we can’t use it.
Leslie Ehm:
We can’t just compartmentalize and say, “I only want to tap into the good stuff,” or, “I only want to show people the good stuff.” Because we are so complex and messy, first of all, to sift through it all is like … forget it. That’s like a whole life journey in and of itself. But it ends up being us determining what is the good stuff and the bad stuff, and we can’t determine that for the world. We got to show the world and let them decide what they determine is good or bad. Because if you expose yourself, so to speak, to 10 different people, they’re going to have 10 different opinions about you. So none of those opinions or things are truth. They’re based on their judgment, their bias, their damage, their crap.
Leslie Ehm:
So we can’t see ourselves clearly through the lens of other people. We have to get comfortable seeing ourselves through the lens of ourselves and ask, “What is my intention? What do I believe in? What do I want to accomplish in this world? Why do I want to accomplish it? What’s holding me back?” All of those things. And then use everything we have to understand it and to transcend it and to use it. You got to do all those things at the same time. It’s a life journey, but that’s it. That’s what life is all about.
Bryan Wish:
Totally.
Leslie Ehm:
Because only when you do that can you truly use everything you are to leave a legacy in this world. And we’re all in our place of legacy work every single day. We just don’t recognize it. We don’t want to wait til we’re 75 to go, “Oh, damn, girl. I forgot about the legacy. Better get on that,” you know?
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Well, I love what you said about … a little bit earlier to connect back to everything you just said about going to the gym. It’s not like you just know what to do. Yeah, it’s going to be painful and you’re going to have to eat well and all the things to have a healthy physical health. But going to the emotional gym is a painful, messy process, and I think why so many people are scared to go there, to your point, is I think a lot of people are carrying a lot of the weight or the armor, so to speak. So then it’s like to get to the truth, it takes a lot of consistent peeling to then finally be able to say, “What is the intention? What is this? What is that?” Because you really do have to strip away so much fat, and I think that’s a really painful process, and you’re speaking exactly to that. And so yeah, I find it fascinating, maybe the language you’re using around this, because I think a lot of people really do struggle with this.
Leslie Ehm:
Yeah. And I think you have to start really small. I mean, yeah, listen, therapy is great. Go to therapy. I’m all about therapy. My whole life, I’ve been to therapy of one kind or another. But one of the things that I recommend to people when I coach them is a really simple technique. It’s just when you find yourself feeling something big all of a sudden, or you’re triggered, or you have this big … emotional response in a situation, whatever, instead of getting lost in it, just take a second and take a second. Stand back, just for a second, and look at what’s going on and just notice it. I always say to them, say out loud, “Ha, isn’t that interesting? Ha, isn’t that interesting?” With no judgment, no design to fix it, no anything. Just, “Ha, I just noticed something about myself. Hmm. Cool.” And the more you do that, the more the patterns are going to present themselves, so you start going, “Ha, isn’t that interesting?” And you’re able to finish the sentence, how, “Every time X happens, I do Y. Ha. Isn’t that interesting?”
Leslie Ehm:
And then, a little bit later, you’ll go, “Ha, isn’t that interesting that every time X happens, I do Y, and then I feel this? Ha.” Those are patterns. And by doing that, just by doing that, you create … It’s like the matrix is peeled back and you start to understand, “Oh, that’s how I operate. Oh, that’s what happens.” Then you start feeling comfortable asking yourself why. Just why. “So why is that? Why do I do that?” And you have those conversations with yourself. You don’t necessarily have to go to therapy to have those conversations. You can do it with yourself, as long as you’re honest with yourself. No one’s listening, right?
Bryan Wish:
Right.
Leslie Ehm:
And before long, you start to see them. Then once you see the patterns and you understand the why, you can start to try and change them. Because most people don’t realize they have absolute, 100% power to make choices.
Bryan Wish:
Sure.
Leslie Ehm:
100%. No one can stop you from making the choice. It’s not possible. Not possible. And that’s something about power that I want people to understand, is that no one can take your power. It’s not possible. You can choose to give your power away, but nobody can take it. So if you decide that you’re never going to allow someone to take your power, it can’t be taken. You think about that in the extreme situation. Look at Nelson Mandela. It’s like, they did whatever they could to him to silence him, to take away his purpose and his intention, but they could not take away his power. They put him in a locked room and he went, “Okay. Can’t take my power, though.” And then as soon as they gave up on trying to take his power, he took his badass power and look what he did with it.
Leslie Ehm:
It is not possible. People can do terrible, terrible things to one another in pursuit of their power, because they’re afraid of the other person, because they’re trying to diminish them to make themselves feel bigger. They’re power leaches. They want somebody else’s power to fill themselves up because they feel powerless. But you can choose to never, ever, ever, ever give it to them. You close that power buffet. You say, “You are not coming snacking at me today. It’s not happening.” And most people don’t realize that.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. No, I think you’re right. I think a lot of people show up in this passenger state until they maybe realize that sense of value or worth that you alluded to at the beginning. So let’s go back, actually, to that. For you, you’ve talked about … you said something really, really intriguing. You said you didn’t realize how much influence or impact you were having on those around you. And obviously, you had the scene in the movie with your mom about not living your life on your terms. What made you flip the switch to start to realize that you were valuable, you did have a whole lot of weight and influence and impact on the world? What led to that transition and how did things change for you? I know that’s a bit of a loaded question, so answer it in whatever form you need.
Leslie Ehm:
Well, I always thought that I was the mistress of my own destiny, that it had to be about setting a particular goal and then achieving that particular goal, and then that would define that I had value and worth and stuff. And when I realized that I was putting way too much onus on that, it was like, if I wasn’t a singer on Top of the Pops and number one hit artist that I wasn’t good enough. And I went, “Okay, wait. No. No. I’ve already done incredible things. I’ve already made choices that are amazing. I’ve already had courage. I’m going to be open to what life has in store for me. I’m going to start saying yes to things that I wouldn’t have considered before, because they would have so called taken me off my path.”
Leslie Ehm:
I realized that I could only be in control of aspects of my destiny, which is how I would operate in the world, not what I would do in the world. I realized that life was going to give me all of these gifts and all these opportunities, and it was my choice whether to lean into them or not. So I started to say yes to things, and as a result, my life went in directions I could never have foreseen. I mean, I’ve had eight or nine different careers in my life based on that philosophy. Each one, I’ve had a degree of success. I did it until I didn’t want to do it anymore. I did it for as long as it served me or it taught me or it took me to the next place or whatever, and then I would go and do the next thing. That is not something most people are comfortable with or are taught to do.
Leslie Ehm:
But I have had the most fun life. I cannot tell you how much fun I’ve had pursuing the opportunities that have been given to me or that I decided to go after. I’ve learned so much from each one of them, and I started to recognize my path. “Oh, what’s my path? What’s my path?” And then I would look for things along the path and I never cared whether I was uniquely unqualified for the opportunity, which happened most of the time. I would go, “Oh yeah, that sounds exciting. I’ll try it. Sure. What the hell.” And as a result, it’s crazy what I’ve been able to do in my life.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Wow. Well, it sounds like you got comfortable living off the script, or maybe this predetermined GPS that you thought your life should be down, and being okay with maneuvering to the signals of what was thrown in front of you and what was going to serve you in those moments and then make the most out of the learnings within those chapters and turn the page on your terms.
Leslie Ehm:
Well, I also realized that it’s an illusion. This path that we try and set for ourselves, it’s an illusion. We don’t really have control over that, and it’s when we believe that we have some kind of real control, we hold on so, so, so tight. Then we’re 10 years into something and we’re miserable, but we feel trapped because we feel like, “Oh, I’ve invested 10 years now. What else am I going to do? How can I make a change now?” Then you feel like you’re in trouble. By the way, I’ve invested 10 years in something and then gone and done something completely different, so that’s not true either. But I’ve worked with so many people, especially in the corporate world, who’ve said, “Well, I’ve worked here for 12 years. My 401(k), my investments, my this, my that, how could I possibly make a change now?” And I go, “Are you kidding me? If you’re unhappy, how could you possibly do one more day like this?”
Leslie Ehm:
You have to look at it from the … Not, “How could I possibly leave?” It’s, “How could I possibly stay? The world has so much more in store for me.” And again, back to that this is not a rehearsal mentality. You’re only punishing yourself for something. What, are you punishing yourself for making a decision that is only serving you for 10 years? That’s a pretty good decision, that it served you for 10 years. But it’s no longer serving you, so go make a different decision and find something else. That’s within your power.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. No, absolutely. And it takes courage and bravery to do that. I’m just curious for you, what was that 10-year change that you made?
Leslie Ehm:
Well, I was a singer for many, many years, and I started to work in the film industry kind of at the same time, because I could. I thought I was always going to be a singer, but I ended up working as a script analyst and a script editor and a script doctor for a good five or six years within that, and then I got the opportunity to work on TV, which I pursued on my own terms. I was on camera for about five or six years. Then I moved back to Canada, and then I talked my way into an advertising agency because I wanted to do something different. I did that for, I don’t know, five, six years. And then I went, “You know what? I could probably help people more from the outside than I could from the inside,” so I quit my job and started a training company, for which I had zero experience, zero credibility, zero anything. I knew nothing about learning. I just knew that I had the power to help people and I was going to do that. And that was 15 years ago.
Bryan Wish:
Wow.
Leslie Ehm:
You know?
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. I mean, similar to you, it takes a lot of courage to, I think, really follow that inner voice and be brave and do things in all aspects of your life that you know are the hard and right things at the time without holding on to things for a super long time when they aren’t serving you anymore. And so I just-
Leslie Ehm:
Well, and do not think … I just don’t want anyone who’s listening to think that it was easy or that I didn’t cry, I didn’t agonize, I didn’t go, “Oh my God, am I making the wrong decision? Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” But I’ll tell you, one thing that I never did … and this is key, one thing I never did. I never allowed regret to seep in. Never. Never. I would say, “I made the decision, let’s go for it. I made the decision, let’s get on that. I made the decision, let’s have as much fun as we can with that decision because I can always make another decision later.” And I never allowed … Regret is the most terrible feeling because it makes you want to turn back time and you can’t. It’s useless. It’s completely useless. It’s a backward-focused emotion and it’s a way to kind of beat yourself up for absolutely no reason. You go, “I did it. Yay me for being brave and making a decision. The world has opened. There’s a door in front of me. This is amazing.” You never regret when there’s a door in front of you.
Bryan Wish:
Totally. Yeah, and it’s a liberating feeling to not hang on to the past and know you did everything you could in that period and you can move to the next thing without the regret you’re talking about. What I want to ask you is, for you, as you started to make these shifts and kind of see yourself in a valuable light, of course you made, it sounds like, brave decisions, but what else maybe changed, or patterns you recognized as you started standing in your own personal power?
Leslie Ehm:
I think it was more that I would get to these places where the world was telling me that I had to be more of a certain kind of way. If I’m going to go work in the hardcore business world, that I would have to have a more corporate sensibility, or my business would have to speak in a certain tone of voice, or I was going to have to … “People don’t like that. People are looking for this. You have to dress a certain way and act and walk and talk a certain way.” There were moments where I got sucked in, because I was like, “Oh, shit. I don’t want to fail. I want to be successful in this, so maybe I should follow some of these rules, just a few little rules here and there. Maybe I should.” And then I would try them out and it would feel like I was wearing somebody else’s clothes, which is …
Leslie Ehm:
And I would go back to doing things the way that I was doing them and I would trust my instincts, and inevitably, it would go well. It would go well, because again, it’s back to that you cannot be for everyone. And I think that that’s one of the things that holds entrepreneurs back, it holds leaders back. It’s that thing. It’s the social media curse. It’s, “Everybody has to like me. Everybody follow me. Everybody approve of me. Everybody, everybody.” And if you just think about it mathematically, it is not possible. Do we all like the same movies? Do we all like the same food? Do we all like the same ice cream flavor? Do we all like the same clothes? Do we all like the same music? No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Leslie Ehm:
We as individuals are just as representative of those flavors, of those sounds, of those things. And I don’t want to be elevator Muzak. And not everybody likes that, either. It’s like the must unoffensive form of music. But instead of worrying about the fact that you’re going to be offending someone, think about it as that you’re going to be shining this beacon for the people that are going to get something from you, the people who are going to go, “Yes, I’ve been looking for someone to work with or to be mentored by or to be inspired by or to emulate or to be friends with or to feel safe with,” or whatever it is that you’re going to give to them.
Leslie Ehm:
And you’ve got to earn that. You’ve got to earn that through that stance of saying, “Well, I want y’all to know what I stand for. I want you to know what is important to me and the thoughts that are in my head. I’m going to be unfiltered and uncensored in that so that you can see me. You can recognize me.” If I hide in the shadows, I’m good for nobody. I’m good for nobody.
Bryan Wish:
Right. Yeah, absolutely. And it goes to that part in Brené Brown’s book where she talks about the man in the arena quote, and basically that stand. You’re going to take the punches from the people who … like everything you’re saying, the people who don’t want to be part of your world. Great. There’ll always be people like that. But like you said, you’re going to be a beacon for those that are going to follow along.
Leslie Ehm:
Yeah. I learned to … I don’t accept criticism. I don’t. I just don’t.
Bryan Wish:
What about constructive criticism?
Leslie Ehm:
But there’s no such thing as constructive criticism. That’s called feedback. If somebody is invested in our collective success, or in my success, whatever … our shared success or my success … and they want to give me advice or information to help to that end, I will listen to them all day long. All day long. My grandmother used to say … my brilliant, wise, entrepreneurial grandmother said to me when I was young, she said, “Leslie, from whom it comes.” That you censor everything based on who’s dishing it out. And if it’s someone that you don’t have respect for, someone who’s not earned the right, someone who’s sitting on the sidelines, someone who really has no right to an opinion, someone whose intention is to make you smaller or make you feel badly or whatever it is, I just don’t listen to it. I don’t take it on board. I just delete it. I put my fingers in my ears and sing. It serves me no purpose whatsoever. That’s about them. It’s not about me at all.
Leslie Ehm:
But if someone is invested and they … Oh my God, all day long I will listen to feedback and I will say, “Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. That’s a good point.” Even if I don’t choose to take it on board, still, it’s the intention that it’s given with and I am so in love with. The fact that another human being would take the time to share something with me, articulate it in a way that they believe that it’s going to be helpful for me, that’s a gift. You don’t pee on that. But when someone keeps who’s slinging arrows or … they’re like monkeys who throw their own crap at people. I don’t need that in my life. That is whatever. So I’m amazed at how many people choose to listen to critics. I just go, “Why? Why are you listening to them? They got no place here. They got no power. Why? Why would you want that crap in your head?” It’s why I don’t watch horror movies. I don’t want that shit in my head. I don’t. You know what I mean? I don’t need it in my head. Why would I go looking for it?
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. No, your grandma’s wise. I think you’re right. It’s like, why take advice or criticism or thoughts from people who we don’t even respect ourselves, or we look at their life and why do they have the right to say something?
Leslie Ehm:
I don’t even want to judge their lives either, because that makes me as bad as them. I just go, “I can see the intention that this is coming from and I just don’t accept it.” I go, “No.” Again, my go-to thing is, “Hey, you do you, boo, and I’m going to do me.” It’s all good. It’s all good. You go do you, and I’m going to do me. You don’t get your crap on me and I’m not going to get my crap on you. That’s the way we all should be living our lives, not getting our crap on each other, right?
Bryan Wish:
Yeah, absolutely. No, this is great. I love the things you stand for, and as I shared with you at the beginning, it’s such important work. What I’m curious about is you’ve been living this bold, courageous life for years now. Why just recently did you say, “Okay, it’s time to really put my message out and out this book out”?
Leslie Ehm:
I didn’t know for years … It’s funny, because I didn’t really know what to write a book about. I didn’t really recognize that that was the through line to everything that I’d been doing, really. I mean, I knew that helping people was a big thing and so on, but these were big, overarching concepts. And when you write a book, you have to get very specific about, “What is this book really about? Who is it for? How am I going to formulate it?” All of those things. I was actually approached by a publisher to write a book and I didn’t want to write a book about my areas of expertise, creativity or presentation skills or leadership. I was like, “Eh, those books have been written.” I have to say, those moments where people would say to me, “Yeah, but Leslie, it’s not your book. It’s not in your voice. It’s not with your perspective.” And it took me a little while to go, “You know what? You’re right.”
Leslie Ehm:
That’s the whole message that I had been sharing. So I asked myself, “What’s the thing that I want to tell the world the most?” And that was this message, this idea that we have the power to be everything that we want and it’s already within us. We don’t have to look to the external world in order to fill us up, to make us better or worthy, that we can tap into everything that we have, and that’s what makes us so powerful. And when I focused on that, I was like, “Yes, that is the book that I want to write, and I want to make it practical.” I didn’t want it to just be inspirational, because that’s kind of torture when you read a book that’s all inspiration and you get so jacked. You’re like, “Wow, yes, now I got to do all the things,” and then it doesn’t tell you how to do it. I wanted the book to be a how because I come from the training background.
Leslie Ehm:
So I was very focused on that, about giving people visual models for what’s going on inside of us, what blocks our swagger, what are the drivers of the swagger, what can help us bring it out into the world. I have hundreds of examples and stories for people that I’ve trained and worked with and coached over the last 15 years. And then it’s all exercises, exercises, exercises. It’s, “Here’s a thing to do in this situation. Here’s something you can do. Here’s a daily practice. Here’s whatever.” And it’s not fluffy wuffy. It’s not a gratitude journal. It’s hardcore. It’s, “Here’s a hardcore exercise. Here’s something to do that is going to be hard and it’s practical and it’s going to help move you through this, and you’re going to have to do it over and over again.” There’s all kinds of stuff like that in the book, because it’s a journey, and I wanted to be the Sherpa for the journey, the hand holder, the tough mother love, the ass kicker for the journey to swagger.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. And it’s like you’ve mixed the functional aspects of how to help people do this daily with the emotional aspects of the though, messy stuff. Because I agree with you. There’s a couple books I’ve read that it’s just like, I think, a lot of the fluff, and you’ve got to pull the practicality out of it.
Leslie Ehm:
Yeah. It’s, “Rah, rah, go.”
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. And it’s good, right? People’s journeys-
Leslie Ehm:
Yeah. No shame. I just didn’t want to write a book like that. I wanted it to be more doable and more pragmatic.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah, no, and I think that’s great. Now, tell me, tell us this. Since you’ve written it and put it out and seen it impact thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands, what has been the most rewarding part of the journey, and let’s just say what’s been the most maybe challenging part for you?
Leslie Ehm:
Well, I feel like up until the point of the book being released, I understood that I had helped a lot of people. I had worked with people, I’d trained them, I’d had beautiful feedback from them. It was really lovely. But it only went as far as them and the people that they knew. I hoped that I made them better and feel better and do better, so that they could then go be better in their lives, which has a big knock on effect. So I knew that I was creating change in the world, but I wanted it to go wider. I wanted for this to be accessible to as many people as possible, because I believe that a world full of swagger is the best world possible.
Leslie Ehm:
And by the way, we haven’t defined what I call swagger, which I think is important. Because I don’t want people to think it’s that arrogant, show off, fronty, peacocky thing that you assume when you hear “swagger.” I’ve redefined swagger as the ability to manifest who you really are and hold onto it in the face of all of that psychological crap that’s going to come for it, regardless of the situation or environment.
Leslie Ehm:
So the book goes out there into the world and then, good old social media, I start getting people reaching out to me to tell me how the book has impacted them. And I don’t want to talk about it too much because I’m going to cry, because I cry every time. People tell me the most incredible things. I had a woman who reached out to me on social media who said that she had lost her child to SIDS in 2007 and she’s been in this deep, dark place ever since and she’s tried to pull herself out and nothing has helped her, and that she read my book and it felt like it was the lock in the key. And now she’s starting to be able to have the courage to change her life. What? Oh my God.
Bryan Wish:
Wow.
Leslie Ehm:
I had another guy who reached out to me who said that he’d been working a corporate job and his side hustle was sort of a disability accessibility company that makes accessibility more far reaching for those people with so-called disabilities. And his business partner is a person with nonverbal cerebral palsy, and I was like, “You’re badass. That’s amazing.” And he said that he read my book and the book gave him the courage to quit his day job and go all in on this company, which is now growing and becoming successful. Just things like that you go, “Oh my God, the book is a catalyst.” It’s a catalyst for people. It’s the thing that helps them have the courage to make those big choices and those big decisions, whether it’s to see their lives differently, or whether it’s to change their lives, or whether it’s to fall back in love with themselves fully, or whatever it is. I mean, I cannot tell you the number of people who have reached out to me to say how the book has impacted them. That is everything. That’s everything. That’s all I wanted. That was it. Done.
Bryan Wish:
Wow.
Leslie Ehm:
I don’t care about money. I don’t care about recognition. I don’t care about fame. I don’t care about anything other than the human being saying to me, “This made a difference for me.” That’s it. I’m cooked. I’m done.
Bryan Wish:
Well, I mean, it’s funny. You said you wrote the book in a way to be a Sherpa for others, and that woman from 2007 who hasn’t found her way out, obviously terrible life event, but the fact that you could maybe give her a little peace and-
Leslie Ehm:
A little light. A little light.
Bryan Wish:
A little lightness, a little way to navigate is huge. Because you took the decision to put this out there, and that’s really special.
Leslie Ehm:
Yeah. I remember writing the last page of the book with that, “What’s the last thing that I want to say to people?” and crying while I … I get emotional thinking about it. I was crying while I was writing it because it was like I wanted to take the world by the shoulders and shake them and say, “Listen to me.” Look how I’m getting emotional. “Listen to me. This is possible for you. This is possible for you right now. You don’t have to wait for permission. You don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. This is possible for you right now and your life is going to be so much better. You have all of the stuff that you need inside you. Just fall in love with it again and learn how to use it.”
Leslie Ehm:
That to me was everything, and I wanted … You can’t do that by just saying to people, “You go girl,” or, “You go person,” or, “You go whatever.” People need more than that, and I just hoped that what I chose to include in the book was going to be enough …
Bryan Wish:
Totally.
Leslie Ehm:
… to make that change in people’s mindsets and stuff. And for the right people, it has. It really has.
Bryan Wish:
And that’s amazing. You feel it and you put so much effort into the body of work that you did. I heard someone on my writing team … We had a town hall yesterday and it really stopped me in my tracks. We were sharing these insights, and he goes … He’s a writer, and he goes, “I think it’s our job as writers to write from the scar and not the wound.” And I found that just … It just … never forget. And just the way we’re talking, it’s like you wrote from personal history in a way to make a huge dent, but not from the wound of maybe what you didn’t do. And because of that, you can look at that scar objectively but still bring that emotion into it to then go help someone else.
Bryan Wish:
Just to go back to that woman, it’s not like she was … you were looking from therapy support from her to say, “Oh, I get that, too,” but it’s like she could take your own learnings and apply them to her own life because you wrote it in a powerful way with conviction. And clearly, the book’s a testament to your message in the dent it’s having. Leslie, tell us this as we’re wrapping up here. Your work is beyond the book. What are you doing out there in the world right now to help people, whether it’s speaking or consulting, all the different elements of what make you you these days.
Leslie Ehm:
Well, I still have my training company, which is called Combustion, so that operates with a team of trainers and when I can, I’ll deliver training for that. It’s harder for me these days, but I still do it. The coaching is a big thing for me. I love coaching. It’s very intimate. It’s one on one, but I still love that aspect of it. I do a lot of speaking. I’m doing virtual and trying to get back to in person. It’s driving me crazy that I can’t do in person because I loves the people. I love being on stage and I love people, so I do speaking. But I’ve become incredibly comfortable with the virtual speaking and that’s going really well as well. That’s kind of my jam. That’s what I spend my time doing, between those three things. That’s enough. That’s enough, you know?
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. That keeps your hands full, I totally get it. Well, you have a very special message path, the way you’re impacting lives, and it’s definitely seen and valued on this end. And heard, I guess. Where can people find you, reach out to you, buy your stuff, get in touch, all the things?
Leslie Ehm:
You can get the book on all platforms at all good booksellers, bookstores, whatever, because it’s available everywhere. And you can get in touch with me at leslieehm.com, L-E-S-L-I-E-E-H-M.com. Come play with me on social. It’s @leslieehmspeaks on Instagram, at Leslie Ehm on LinkedIn, @leslieehm I think on Twitter, Facebook at Leslie Ehm Speaks. I try and share inspirational stuff all the time. I speak my truth. I am uncensored, unfiltered. I’m not afraid to act a fool because it’s fun, but I try and bring some wisdom to the foolishness and walk the talk. You can take what you do very seriously, but you shouldn’t take yourself that seriously.
Bryan Wish:
Right. For sure. Well, thanks for the stimulating, engaging, and important, heartfelt conversation. This was a lot of fun.
Leslie Ehm:
Oh, babe, I think you’re a badass. Thank you for sharing your platform with me, sharing your audience with me. I hope this is valuable to them. And just to everybody who’s listening, just remember, you already have everything that you need. You just have to make the decision to tap into it.
Bryan Wish:
Awesome. Great parting words. Thank you.