I was at Ideas Fest, in a tent full of happy people, listening to a self-professed “clown”, Niall MacMillan, make the audience laugh. His set later ended with him being comedically attacked by two blow-up dinosaurs. And in case you think you’ve missed anything, you haven’t. It really was the least threatening environment you could possibly imagine.

Then I took the mic to join a chat about business visibility with Mr-Inoffensive-Clown and the Queen Bee herself, Dani Wallace. Within moments, my heart was pounding out of my chest. I couldn’t catch my breath. My voice was shaking, I was holding back tears, and I felt like I was watching myself from the outside.

Meanwhile, nothing had changed for anyone else. So, naturally, I tried to play it cool.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t drop the mic and run. No one really noticed, the set ended, and we all moved on with our days like nothing had happened. I even found the conversation really valuable.

It wasn’t until the quiet drive home that I pieced it all together. I’d been moving through the day with one foot in Ideas Fest and the other in a Next car park ten years ago: an uneventful shopping trip and coffee with my sister, on my baby’s due date. The blissful ignorance of a normal day, in a reality where babies were born healthy. Where babies didn’t die.

It was Maggie-Mae’s due date.

So why am I telling you this?

Let’s be honest, no one noticed. I could have totally got away with it.

I’m telling you because I want you to know that you are not broken, and neither am I. You can be laughing and dancing one minute and holding back tears the next, and still be a whole and complete person.

Looked at through the lens of the nervous system, it all makes sense. The significance of the date had been quietly raising my sense of threat all day, while I carried on being busy. Picking up a microphone naturally increases activation a little; usually, that helps me perform. But on top of everything I was already carrying, it tipped me over my threshold.

As I reached for the mic, my nervous system basically said: “Finally! This is the sabre-toothed tiger we’ve been hiding from all day. Quick, let’s ruuuun!”

Except my sabre-toothed tiger was two inflatable dinosaurs, a clown and a queen bee.

On the drive home, my first thought was an old one: How can I dedicate my life to empowering women if I fall to pieces like that in public? Then I caught myself, and changed the question. Not “What is wrong with me?” but “What is happening for me?”

That one shift is at the heart of how I work, and it’s why I built my business the way I have.

Why I built my business around my healing

Grief doesn’t keep to a schedule. Neither does illness, a child who needs you, or a hard anniversary arriving in a busy week. Sometimes energy is taken from you without warning, and you don’t get to choose when.

But the business still needs to keep running. Bills still need paying. Clients still need supporting.

So I stopped building a business that only works when I’m at my best, and started building one that works with the life I actually have. Here’s what that means in practice, for me and for the women I mentor.

1. Build for capacity, not just output

Most business advice assumes you’ll have the same energy every day. You won’t. A sustainable business plans for your lower-energy days rather than pretending they won’t come. That’s why my own programmes run live during UK school term time, with recordings and community support for the weeks when life gets in the way.

2. Let your offer do more of the work

When your income depends on endless one-off sales, every hard week becomes a financial risk. A clear signature offer, priced properly, means fewer clients, more income and far less pressure to be “on” all the time.

3. Make visibility feel safe for your nervous system

So many of the brilliant women I work with know exactly what to post, who to message or how to describe their offer, and then freeze when it’s time to be seen. They tell themselves they’re not cut out for business. Usually, they’re not broken. Their nervous system is doing its job, at the wrong moment.

That’s why my mentoring combines practical strategy with somatic work. Knowing what to do and being able to do it are two different things.

A little self-enquiry for you (just in case)

• Are you ever too quick to judge yourself as “not good enough”, when actually you’re holding a lot and haven’t had time to process it?
• Have you ever had a reaction that seemed completely out of proportion to what was happening around you?
• What might change if, instead of asking “What is wrong with me?”, you became curious about “What is happening for me?”

And if you ever get caught out by the inflatable dinosaurs, remember: you can be holding a lot and still be a brilliant business owner.

Until next lunch break,
Leah

This story was first shared on LinkedIn: I was so scared, I just wanted to drop the mic and run. You can read more about why I do this work in my story.