Leslie Gaudet is a Mindset and Emotional Awareness Coach for women. She helps her clients achieve self-awareness around their emotional triggers through shifting their mindset so that they can make better decisions when they respond, which allows them to bring more balance, peace, and harmony into their life.
Almost 4 decades working as a Legal Assistant and Paralegal in the corporate world left her feeling emotionally and physically drained and that’s when she decided that in order for her to live a life she loves, she had to make some changes and those changes involved learning to love herself (without judgment or criticism), and that mindset is the key to everything because our mindset influences our thoughts and in turn our thoughts dictate our words and actions. Thru her journey to self-love and self-acceptance, Leslie went on to become certified as a Life Coach and attained further certifications in Group Coaching, and Emotional Intelligence.
She works closely with her clients starting with mindset because that is the foundational piece to self-love and self-acceptance. She teaches her clients about triggers and how they affect us emotionally by helping her clients tune into, spot and understand their own so that they can become more self-aware of their trigger moments and emotional responses.
With proven tools and techniques, and with her guidance, her clients tap into and discover their true potential to living their life and loving the life they are living.
Leslie believes that when you Change Your Brain (the way you think), You will Transform Your Life.
Mindset and Emotional Awareness Coach, Leslie Gaudet
Who is Leslie?
Great question!
And the reason I say that is because I feel like I have gone through a transformation of sorts these past 3 years. I was born in Paterson, New Jersey and raised in Toronto, Canada by a single mom. I have two younger brothers and one older brother.
I finished high school at 18 and went straight out into the work world and after a few growing pains of finding my way, I became a Legal Assistant. When I turned 19 years old, I started working with my very first law firm run by a really great real estate attorney, and I was lucky to learn about and lean into something that soon became my career of choice. Over the years, I have worked for different law firms across Canada and the United States and as time went on, I moved up the ranks and became a Paralegal.
I’m a wife of almost 26 years, and until just recently, I was a fur baby mom to the sweetest little Papillon named Jackson who recently passed away after his 15th Birthday, which was a really sad moment for both my husband and I. No longer will we have our little traveling companion who had been everywhere we have traveled to.
One of the things that I am very grateful for is having dual citizenship with both Canada and the United States because this has allowed us to travel across and live in Canada, the United States and most recently Puerto Morelos, Mexico, where we intend to spend a few months every year. As a sidenote, my husband has permanent Green Card status with the US.
Living in 3 different countries at different times of the year has been challenging as I am living as a digital nomad and that means living tiny. It means that everything we own must fit into each of our two suitcases. Yes, we have some things stored in a little storage unit, and some things are left with our vehicle that we store when we travel, but for the most part, our belongings are minimal.
Although it has its challenges, living this lifestyle has provided great rewards with the people we meet and the places we get to experience. It has been an amazing journey and we are only at the beginning stages of living this lifestyle which is exciting because I am allowing myself to be open to new experiences which may also provide for new locations.
This lifestyle would not be possible if I hadn’t made changes to how I was living my life because my time really was not my own. I had been working in the corporate world for almost 4 decades and I knew that there was more for me to do but I was stuck and extremely miserable.
When I finally had had enough of sitting on the sidelines of my life and letting life happen to me, and being a slave to my time, I became resourceful and was able to take back control over my life and achieve more time freedom. I realized that in order for life to be more, I had to live in my life more, which meant me getting into my story.
This allowed me to look outwards to what was possible for me, and more time freedom meant freeing up valuable mental space allowing me to think more clearly and be open to new opportunities and ideas and to step into doing that which I love.
When you work in a structured corporate environment, your time is not your own because you have set hours and set responsibilities. On the other hand, working for yourself allows You to structure your time, or what I like to call designing your day, so that you can do the things that you love professionally as well as scheduling in important quality time with friends and loved ones.
Taking back my time has allowed me to become a Life Coach for women, a Speaker and an International Bestselling Author. I’ve also been featured on multiple podcasts, radio shows, and have spoken on larger global stages as part of women’s empowerment summits that have streamed to multiple countries.
I also co-founded a YouTube channel (CoachesCorner.Health) with a male coach and we go live the second and fourth Thursdays of every month. This channel has been designed to talk about the expectations of relationships (whether personal, professional, or societal) with what we hope is well-rounded with both a female and male perspective. And although we don’t have all the answers, we feel that we are opening up the dialogue in this space to start asking the hard questions as well as talk about real-life experiences.
What is it that you do for your clients?
I work with women who want more for their life but are finding that they have mental blocks that hold them back or that have them self-sabotaging what they are trying to achieve.
I work closely with my clients starting with mindset work first and leaning into taking a closer look at their belief systems that they have either created for themselves or that have been passed down to them (generationally, culturally, or both) that they have adopted as their own.
In this process, we look at these beliefs that they have in place and then get curious around them by asking deeper level questions to get to the root of the What (the Fear of) that has them stuck and the How to start moving from a limiting belief into a more empowering one by surrounding themselves with supporting evidence to support that new belief.
My clients learn that Fear is just another word for Curiosity allowing them to step outside of their comfort zone so that they can start asking deeper level questions which help them build a strong foundation for them to start living their life.
Really, it’s helping them build a solid emotional foundation so that they can then become more self-aware around their thoughts and feelings that are being influenced by their beliefs which in turn are dictating their words and actions that have been in control of them.
I show them that there is a way to take back that control and that by going deeper into the exploration of what that has them stuck than they probably have ever done before, will help reveal the answers to moving forward. This process works. I’ve done it myself and I’ve taken women through it, and it’s been life-changing.
Part of it is showing them that when they choose to Get Into Their Story and they start living their life by experiencing, and making decisions for themselves, stepping outside of their comfort zone, getting resourceful to find their answers, moving through their fears, and learning what has them stuck, and figuring out the lessons learned and the how to move through their fears, is such an important component to living a truly fulfilled life.
I like to say that when you live your life letting life happen to you, it’s like having a football team where the Quarterback decides to sit out the game and let all of the players on the offensive line make all of the decisions of how to run the ball, where to run the ball, where and when to throw the ball, and to whom, and all the while there is total chaos and nothing gets done because there’s no order.
When I realized that getting into my own story was the only way for me to truly make lifechanging decisions and achieve lifechanging goals and that by taking back control over the one thing that truly saved my life which was my time, that that is when I truly started not only living a life I love but I love the life I am living.
Ultimately, my Time Freedom led to adventure, growth, and a better relationship not only with myself but with my husband because I finally stopped blaming him for my lack of being happy.
I truly believe that Getting Into Your Story = Time Freedom and that Time Freedom = Better Relationships.
Who should hire/work with you?
Another great question. As a Life Coach for women, it comes down to being open and honest with how you feel about where you are at in your life and how you are living your life.
I work with women who want Time Freedom to have Better Relationships.
If you're stuck in the overwhelm of doing everything to achieve your life goals (whether personal, professional, financial or legacy) because “they” say that you have to have everything done now and all your time is spent in the doing, you could be stuck filling your time with “busy work” and filling your calendar with things that don’t align with your purpose just for the sake of having something to do.
If you feel guilty that you never have enough time in the day to do fun things with family and friends or to schedule in quality me time to re-energize or recharge your batteries, you could be working the FOMO guilt trip on yourself and feeling afraid that if you don’t do all of the things that you believe will eventually lead to you having all that you desire, that you will somehow miss out.
If you feel guilty when you are not working your business (as an example) because you’re spending “quality time” with loved ones, you may even feel resentful for that time spent with them because that time could be spent on your goals. (Whoosh. Gut punch!)
If you're stuck believing you have to do everything now and are close to burnout (and you've been here before, multiple times), you may even want to quit.
If you feel like you're stuck on a hamster wheel, and not moving forward, but you can't get off and you keep doing the “busy work” by saying yes to doing everything now and saying yes to doing things that don’t align with your soul purpose, this could mess with your clarity.
If you haven't been able to track your days and you’re not really sure what you've accomplished, if anything at all, you may feel defeated, and may even lose focus and find ways to procrastinate.
If you’re constantly down on yourself and the negative self-talk won't stop and it’s starting to escalate out of control, you may talk yourself out of something great.
If your emotions are managing your every response when triggered, you may end up having a meltdown whenever something goes wrong.
AND, if you are sitting on the sidelines and allowing life to call all of the shots for you and you just move through your day-to-day on autopilot hoping that the day will be okay and you’re on high alert for the what ifs that could go wrong, you may never move the needle because you’re not engaging and actively participating in your life.
If you resonate with any of the above and right now you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, then working with me could be exactly what you need. I say “could” because I won’t just sign on the dotted line with everyone that comes knocking at my door.
You truly have to be ready and willing to do the hard and the scary things because getting into your story means stepping outside of your comfort zone, pushing your limits, stretching your edges, and doing the things that scare you (not because you’re afraid of what you will find but because you know that if you let fear keep you stuck, you will never allow yourself to truly live your life).
When working with my clients, I want them to look back on their life with grace, gratitude, love and joy.
And as they sit in their rocking chair looking back over their life’s work, and reminisce about the good life they lived, I want them to be able to say – “Job well done! I truly lived a life worth living because I was in the doing, and the experiencing of my life.” And even though I may not have done everything that I wanted to do, I am truly grateful and extremely content because I didn’t just exist. I truly lived my life!”
What is your big goal? Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
Oh my gosh! 10 years is a long way away and I don’t like to put myself in a box in the planning and mapping everything out because I believe that when you are open to and accepting of change, and that pivoting might be part of the process, that’s when magic can happen for you because things get revealed that can light up your life in ways you never imagined. It’s allowing myself to have goals but to also embrace the mindset of “this or better”.
As for having life goals. I have so many HUGE goals and I know that I won’t be doing them alone. I love being in collaboration because we are so much better together, and some of my goals will include collaborating with other heart-centered and powerful women.
I want to be able to partner with some animal organizations around the world and help grow awareness to being compassionate and loving and kind to animals.
I want to have my own non-profit for animals and name it after my two dogs that I no longer have but I am excited to do this!
I am part of a global movement now (bauw – becoming an unstoppable woman) which is a movement recently started by a group of women that I am linked with through the collaboration of writing our book Becoming An Unstoppable Woman. The book is amazing as it shows true resilience, grace, gratitude, and love, and it shows how powerful we are as women when we band together. This movement is meant to inspire, uplift, encourage, and support women all over the world to step into their greatness, and to let them know that they are not alone, that their voices matter, and that they are unique, beautiful, and worthy and deserving.
I want to be able to work with kids and women and empower the younger generation to get into their story and be positive influencers for the generations coming up behind them.
I also want to continue expanding on speaking on stages and empowering women as I truly believe that as women we are better together in community, and we can do great things when we are arm-in-arm, hand-in-hand, heart-to-heart, and soul-to-soul.
One last thing. I have big goals and big dreams, but I also remain open to change, and pivoting when necessary.
I believe in allowing myself to be open to the unknown possibilities and being in my story has been my lifechanging transformation thus far.
The sky is not limit (as my friend Hanna likes to say). The possibilities for me are limitless and I am ready to touch the stars!
