HER Extraordinary LIFE By Design

What happens when resilience stops being about simply getting through what happened and starts becoming a choice about what comes next? In this conversation, Leslie sits down with Maria Aponte to talk about strength, healing, agency, and the way difficult experiences can shape the life we go on to build. Maria shares the journey behind Against All Odds, the moment her perspective began to shift fr...

You can finish work early, have dinner with your family, take an afternoon for yourself—and still get to the end of the week thinking: “I didn’t get enough done.” What happens when your life starts changing, but the way you measure success doesn’t? In this conversation, I’m looking at the invisible scorecard we can keep using long after our priorities have changed—the one that counts what we finis...

Join Leslie Gaudet and Dr. Angela Zeng, medical scientist, TEDx speaker, author, and founder and CEO of Karviva Wellness Beverages, for a rich and deeply meaningful conversation about what resilience truly looks like when you stop confusing it with endurance — and start building it with intention, wisdom, and balance. Angela's story is extraordinary in every sense of the word. Raised in a family w...

The meeting gets canceled. Someone else handles dinner. The task you finally delegated is no longer yours. And before the relief has even settled, you’re already asking, “Okay, what else can I get done?” In this episode, I’m looking at what happens after support actually works. Because sometimes capacity comes back and productivity claims it before we’ve even noticed there was another possibility....

Join Leslie Gaudet and Lorraine Ansell, writer, speaker, advocate, and author of The Surrender Agenda, for a deeply honest and quietly powerful conversation about what it truly looks like to design a life that thrives — not in spite of chronic pain, but alongside it.  Lorraine came from a corporate marketing background before hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome entered her life and rewrote eve...

Have you ever noticed that the option asking more of your time, energy, or effort can still feel like the more responsible choice? In this episode, I explore why that happens, how some of the rules we use to make decisions can stay with us long after the season that created them has changed, and what it can cost when we keep making today’s choices by yesterday’s rules. I talk about the difference...

Join Leslie Gaudet and Randi Roberts, Executive and Career-Life Coach, for an honest and deeply relatable conversation about what it truly means to do the inner work — and why that work is the foundation of every bold, purposeful career pivot.  Randi spent decades building a successful career before reaching a moment that so many high-achieving women know all too well — everything looked righ...

If you’re going through a life transition, career change, personal reinvention, or season of uncertainty, you may be asking yourself what comes next. In this episode, I explore a different way of thinking about resilience: not simply bouncing back or returning to who you were, but deciding what you want to create after something has changed. We talk about outgrowing what once worked, sitting with...

Join Leslie Gaudet and Dr. Stacy Haynes, Licensed Professional Counselor, educator, five-time author, nonprofit founder, and ministry leader, for a warm, grounding, and genuinely eye-opening conversation about what it truly means to protect your mental and emotional peace while pouring into the lives of everyone around you. With over 25 years of experience in mental health, Dr. Stacy has spent her...

Why can you have space on your calendar and still feel completely drained? In this episode, I talk about the difference between having open time and actually experiencing that time as your own. I also share something I’ve been noticing in my own life: even when I’m not actively working, part of me can still be mentally and emotionally tethered to what "might" need me next. The laptop is open. Some...

Join Leslie Gaudet and Samantha Gibson, trauma-informed leadership consultant, Certified Trauma Recovery Specialist, author, and founder of Brave Strategy Co., for an honest and deeply moving conversation about what it truly takes to protect your mental and emotional peace when life has asked more of you than most people will ever understand. Samantha's story is extraordinary. As a survivor of coe...

When did “done” start automatically meaning “next”?  In this episode of HER Extraordinary LIFE By Design, Leslie Gaudet explores what can happen when high-performing women move so quickly from one task, decision, or responsibility to the next that they barely pause to register what they’ve completed, what it required from them, or whether what comes next still deserves their time, attention,...

Join Leslie Gaudet and Erin Mahoney, licensed mental health counselor and proud USAF veteran, for a warm, honest, and genuinely grounding conversation about what it truly takes to protect your peace, regulate your emotions, and build the kind of inner resilience that actually holds up under the weight of a full and demanding life. Erin brings a rare combination to this conversation — the disciplin...

In this solo episode of HER Extraordinary LIFE By Design, Leslie explores what happens when something small gets under your skin and stays with you longer than you expected. Maybe it was a short reply, a comment that hurt your feelings, a tone you weren’t expecting, or an interaction that left you wondering, Did they really mean it that way? This episode looks at taking things personally, overthin...

Join Leslie Gaudet and Denise Lynn Morrison, Doctor of Physical Therapy and Certified Integrative Health Practitioner, for an honest and refreshingly direct conversation about what it truly takes to heal your relationship with food and your body at the root, not just the surface. Denise is the creator of the Emotional Eating Rewire, a trauma-informed method built specifically for empathic, introve...

A meeting moves from 2:00 to 3:30. You say, “Sure.” But that one change may mean reworking the rest of your afternoon, moving something personal, shortening a break, or carrying unfinished work later into the day. In this solo episode of HER Extraordinary LIFE By Design, Leslie explores the invisible mental load that can come from constantly recalculating your day and the difference between having...

Join Leslie Gaudet and Heather Simco, transformation coach and founder of Complete Concierge Solutions and Sober Boss Babe, for a raw, honest, and deeply empowering conversation about what burnout is really telling you — and what becomes possible when you finally stop pushing through and start rebuilding from within.  Heather's journey is anything but ordinary. Growing up in a dysfunctional f...

You don’t have to burn your life down to create more of the life you actually want to experience. In this final solo episode of the August burnout series, Leslie explores burnout recovery, energy, work-life balance, and what intentional living can look like for high-performing women who are ready to stop postponing the life they actually want to experience. From sitting behind a desk in a beautifu...

In this special archival episode, Leslie Gaudet revisits a raw and unforgettable conversation she had with Amity Morales, transformational mentor, teacher, guide, and CEO — a woman who has been in business since she was 15 years old and who knows firsthand what it costs to keep going when everything inside you is asking you to stop. This is not a polished framework or a step-by-step guide. This is...

In this deeply personal solo episode, Leslie shares an experience from her legal career where the work wasn’t the problem. She knew how to do the job. What she didn’t fully understand at the time was the emotional toll of working with someone who repeatedly questioned, belittled, and undermined her. Even after she finally left, the experience followed her into her next position—showing up in somet...

Join Leslie Gaudet and Cass Uk, award-winning entrepreneur, former NHS Registered Nurse, author, speaker, and Founder and CEO of Tolicious, for a bold and deeply personal conversation about what it truly takes to build a purpose-driven life and business without burning yourself out in the process.  Cass's journey is anything but ordinary. After years working as a registered nurse across Niger...

Burnout doesn’t always arrive with a dramatic collapse. Sometimes it shows up in the ordinary things you keep explaining away. The sleep that hasn’t been great lately. The irritability you blame on a busy week. The work you normally enjoy that suddenly feels heavier. The Sunday afternoon feeling that starts before the weekend is even over. In this solo episode, Self-Care Strategist Leslie Gaudet e...

Join Leslie Gaudet and Lauren Golen, embodiment teacher, breath-based practitioner, and coach to founders and women leaders, for a deeply honest and powerful conversation about what is really running everything underneath decades of high performance, and what becomes possible when a woman finally learns to listen to her body before her mind catches up.  With thirty years of body and breath-ba...

Some weeks are genuinely busy. But what happens when “I just need to get through this week” becomes the sentence you keep repeating every week? In this solo episode, Leslie talks about burnout, chronic stress, energy management, capacity, and the hidden cost of constantly pushing through. She shares what she noticed during one particularly full week—the rearranging, the overworking, the instinct t...

Join Leslie Gaudet and Rena Duell, business coach at One TEAM Partners and 25-year entrepreneur, for a refreshingly honest conversation about what burnout really costs — and what becomes possible when a woman finally decides to build her business and her life differently. Rena knows this journey from the inside out. After years of juggling leadership, motherhood, and constant demands, she hit a br...