Changeology
The Changeology podcast explores the art, science, psychology, and philosophy behind making big, bold, badass life changes.
Inspiring. Empowering. A little weird.
Changeology
Dream Job, Dying Inside: From Designing for Dior to Truly Living
What happens when you've achieved everything you thought you wanted—only to realize you still feel dangerously empty? Lesley Calvo’s story is a masterclass in radical reinvention. After building a career at the top of the fashion world, designing for names like Hugo Boss, Dior, and Cartier, Lesley found herself deeply unfulfilled, burned out, and quietly suicidal. What came next was a full-body pivot, fueled by intuition, deep healing, and an unwavering commitment to finding out what real success feels like.
Lesley Calvo is a Mindset and Energy Coach who helps people break free from internal limitations and reconnect with their joy, peace, and power. Formerly a world-renowned jewelry designer, Lesley left her career at its peak to begin a new chapter—one rooted in healing, spirituality, and self-trust. Today, she works with clients around the globe and is leading a powerful research project on happiness.
Why This Episode Matters:
If you’ve ever wondered why “having it all” still doesn’t feel like enough—or you’re craving a life that feels more aligned, soulful, and free—this episode is for you. Lesley offers both spiritual insight and grounded, practical tools for finding your way back to yourself.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
🌟 The truth about success: what no one tells you when you’re at the top
🌟 How Lesley moved from suicidal burnout to self-love and deep peace
🌟 Why the nervous system resists change—and how to work with it
🌟 A body-based tool to distinguish intuition from fear
🌟 How to move through identity death when letting go of “who you were”
🌟 The overlooked power of micro-movements (and how 1° shifts change everything)
🎙 Tune in to the full episode via the link in the comments below!
Connect with Lesley:
The REAL Change Kickstart is a 45-day 1:1 coaching intensive designed to help you:
- Identify the behaviors keeping you stuck
- Unlearn what is no longer serving you
- Create new patterns that align with what you truly want
Interested in longer-term support for making a significant change? Send me a message at meg@megtrucano.com to get started.
Want to learn more about the art, science, philosophy, and psychology of making significant life changes? Sign up HERE for my weekly newsletter and have the Changeology podcast delivered straight into your inbox!
Connect with Meg:
So welcome to the Changeology Podcast, Lesley Calvo.
@0:09 - Lesley Calvo
It's so great to have you here. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much for inviting me.
@0:14 - Meg Trucano
It's real honor to be here. I'm delighted to have you on because your story of change, two massive changes, is so inspiring and so deeply just inspiring.
This meeting is being recorded. Will you share with us your story of change?
@0:40 - Lesley Calvo
Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to. Because yeah, you're right. It was a massive change in my life. And right now, where I am now, I've got a wonderfully successful, gorgeous career where I'm helping, you know, thousands of people around the world.
To change their life, to transform their own lives. I'm doing that through really helping them as a therapist and as a coach and as a mentor.
You know, I'm living in Switzerland, I have a gorgeous husband, you know, I have a wonderful daughter, you know, so I really have created an amazing life for myself, but it wasn't always that way.
You know, I first, I started my journey knowing that I wanted to, I think, follow my dream and my dream then was a very different dream than it is now, which I think many people go through this process in life where they, you know, they start their life in one way and then at some point that life needs to change.
And it's often, there's a big fear involved that stops them doing that. And I can completely relate to that because I started, as I left university, I loved...
... ... ... ... I was doing jewellery. I was a jewellery designer. At the time, I was a jewellery designer.
And I decided that when I left university, I was going to start my own company. And I worked, you know, super hard.
I had two jobs, like as a cleaner to create it at the beginning. I, you know, I was really, really dedicated and very passionate about it.
And so I, you know, built my company. I built it very fast. I was 27, I think, by the time I was already selling in, you know, all the best Best stores worldwide, like Harrods, Saks Fifth Avenue.
was selling, you know, basically in like, I think, 50 different shops, you know, in different countries. You know, and it was massively, I think, more than fulfilling.
It was like a dream I was chasing all the time. I was always chasing this idea of when I get to this point of success, I'll be happy.
Because they were, you know, I was driven, you know, by the idea. And that success was going to make me happy.
So, you know, I was in that process of achieving, right? So I'd achieved that. So I'd got everything I wanted to do within my own company.
And then I was like, okay, well, who else would I like to work for? I would like to work for a fashion, you know, fashion.
So I started working for like Christian Dior, Vivian Westwood, Swarovski. I was working for all these amazing names. And that was amazing.
You know, at the time, it was incredible. I worked on, you know, fashion shows all around the world. It was amazing.
I then was like, okay, there's something else I need to achieve, you know, because I still felt there was something missing.
And I couldn't put my finger on it. There was a hole inside of me that I couldn't quite feel all the time.
So I was like, okay, now it must be fine jewelry. That's the thing. You know, it's got to be fine jewelry.
Then I'm a real jeweler. Then, you know, then I will be enough. Then I will. So then I worked for Cartier, you know.
I ended up working for them as a consultant. So I was kind of achieving all of these amazing dreams and amazing hopes.
And then there was still something, I think after like 15 years of working, was still, I felt at that moment that I realized there was nothing else I could reach for.
All the success measures that I wanted, I'd achieved. And then when I first started doing it, because I was really into sculpture at the beginning when I first started and body art.
And I remember saying I was never going to make a pair of earrings. I said, I'm never going to make earrings.
I love jewelry, but I love big. And then I found myself making earrings for a living, hundreds and hundreds of pairs of earrings.
And it was a really, there was a moment where I just realized that I'd achieved everything I wanted to do in that, in that field, but I felt empty and I felt lost and I felt, yeah, unhappy and like, like.
More than unhappy, was experiencing many panic attacks. was having extreme imposter syndrome. was extremely depressed. was very suicidal at the time.
There was so many things happening. But from the outside, I had the shiny life, right? I'd bought the house.
I'd got the car. done all the things that people expect. But underneath it, I was just felt empty. And I knew that I had something had to change.
And we were talking before when we first met that often the universe comes with like a whisper, then it comes with a shout, and then it comes with a slap.
And I was at that moment was like, something has to change. And it was at that moment, my life pivoted massively.
@5:41 - Meg Trucano
Mm hmm. So tell us a little bit about that, that moment. It sort of sounds like you, you, in the pursuit of next and bigger and better and more, you kind of had this whisper from the universe that like, oh, I mean, this isn't.
Exactly. And you kind of pushed through and you persevered against that, right? So was there a moment where you were just like, oh, my God, and had this kind of watershed moment?
Or was it more of these incremental periods of reckoning along the way?
@6:23 - Lesley Calvo
Great question. I think because I didn't know any other way other than to achieve, it was the only thing that I thought, because, you know, we're sold the idea that success and wealth is going to make you happy.
You know, we're marketed that all the time, right? You know, that somehow when you've done that, that you will feel fulfilled.
And so I think there were signs of it all the way, because I remember when I first, you know, when I first sold to Harrods, I sold my entire first collection to Harrods, right?
Everything, they bought everything. And I was amazingly... Amazingly... Happy for probably a day. And then suddenly I was like, okay, next, now what?
So I think that, and then I set another goal, and then I set another goal, and a goal, and I think many people can relate to this, is you push the goalposts, you reach that goal, and then suddenly you set yourself another one, slightly further away, and then you reach that, and it's like, and then the next.
So I think there was that sign that it wasn't going to fulfill me, but there was definitely, was an amazing moment actually, because I knew something had to change, and that whisper had become a shout, become like, I'm unhappy in doing what I was doing, even though from the outside it looked amazing, right?
I just felt like I lost love in what I was doing, and I was doing it for money, you know, at the point I was just doing it for the money, and it wasn't, it no longer fulfilled me.
Even like, creatively, there wasn't even that, I just felt like, know, like I said, I was making hundreds of people.
And I was just like, what am I even doing here? And it was actually a friend of mine who was an NLP trainer at the time.
And she was doing a practitioner course in Scotland. I was speaking to her and she said, what are you doing this week?
And I was like, oh, nothing. Nothing's happening. And then she said, oh, I'm doing this course, you know, in Scotland.
Do you want to come? You know, you can come on it. can stay at my house. You can come for free.
I'll just let you come on it as a guest. And I didn't have any excuse because she already knew, you know, all my excuses were gone.
So I was like, okay, I'm going to do it. And it was when I was on that course, I started to feel the shift in me.
And then I was like, oh, my God, this is something that people can change people's lives, not just my life.
And it was like seven days of my life that, you know, it's a bit of a cliche, but it changed my life that that week changed my life because I suddenly realized that I could do something not just for myself.
don't I could do something to help others, and then I started to become quite obsessed with how I could change my own inner world, my own happiness, what I need, and I went on a journey where I then became a hypnotherapist, I started to really study the brain and the energy and how you act and how you can make a shift, and it was at that moment I was, right, I'm just going to stop being a jeweler, like, when I look back on it, I think it was nuts, actually.
I'm to sell my company, I'm just going to do this, and literally from one day to the next, I think it took about four months, between me having a hugely successful jewelry company, to suddenly deciding I was going to help people, and help myself through that journey, so I took like a time, about a year, where I just learnt and learnt and learnt and studied and helped myself, and healed myself, I got a therapist myself, I got, you know, I just
I decided that I was going to really be happy, be fulfilled, and that was the journey that I went on, and that's something that since then, I think my journey, I've been able to turn into like a way of being able to help others, and as they saw me change, they started to ask for my help, and then it grew into a business, right, and then it grew and grew and grew, but it was really, there was a moment where I felt like, this is it, and I trusted that.
Even though I, when I look back on it, it was kind of crazy to do, I trusted that moment of like, this is it, this is what I need to do.
@10:38 - Meg Trucano
That's fascinating, and I think people, people listening can probably very much relate to the kind of success on the outside, and, and kind of suffering on the inside, right, and you had, you had a lot of mental health challenges during that time, where you were.
Kind of. Keeping up appearances on the outside, but then on the inside, you're, you're miserable, right? Yeah. So how did you navigate that duality?
How did you navigate being kind of so high functioning on the outside and struggling so deeply? Were there people you could connect with?
Or was this something that you literally were on your own dealing with?
@11:23 - Lesley Calvo
Yeah, thank you for asking that. And I don't think I've really reflected at it for ever from that perspective, because it's amazing how high functioning you can be whilst crippled inside.
You know, often you hear about people burning out, and then they stop being able to function. But what was happening with me is I was, I was running everything, you know, so from the outside, it looked like nothing was happening, you know, and I was crippled inside.
And, and it was really, I felt incredibly alone, because I felt like everyone else was doing life really well.
And I couldn't. I was broken in some way because I couldn't even enjoy the success and the happiness and all the stuff that I should be having, right?
I couldn't enjoy what I'd achieved. So I felt like, well, there must be something wrong with me because to everyone else, this is what they want.
And I've got this and I can't cope with myself in it. I couldn't cope. I could cope with the work and I could cope with, you know, the business and everything.
And all of that, that was fine. I couldn't handle myself. I couldn't handle my own. The time when I was on my own was when I couldn't, yeah, I literally couldn't live with myself.
And that was the suicidal part was when I just couldn't live with my own thoughts of how much I was failing, which was ridiculous because on the outside I looked like I had success, but from the inside it was, I was failing as a human because I couldn't enjoy and have peace.
And have. When I had got all the things that we're told, give us that. And then I would look at everyone else and think, well, they're all being able to do it.
Everyone else can do it except for me. What's wrong with me? I'm broken. You know, and that was, I think, the hardest thing was feeling that nobody else felt like me and everyone else was coping.
And I think many people feel like that. And it's something that we don't really, we don't often share. That's why I'm so open about this story is because I think it's very helpful for people to see that, you know, they're not alone if they can't cope, you know, that, you know, and I'm now in a business where I help people who can't cope find, find themselves, find themselves again, the true happiness and joy that that actually is our birthright.
And I see so many people, there's so many people struggling now, you know, burnout, suicide, depression, it's rife, right?
It's, it's, it's ever, we all know someone who has suffered with one of those.
@13:59 - Meg Trucano
someone story, little but So that's its own epidemic, right?
@14:02 - Lesley Calvo
And I think at the time, the moment that my life changed is when I reached out for help. I actually was like, I cannot do this on my own.
Because I'd always managed to do everything else on my own. From when I was really young, I was super independent, you know, through, you know, situations needing to be when I was young.
was, you know, when in my childhood, I had to kind of grow up very fast. And so I'd been super independent.
So I'd always done everything. I could rely on that I could rely on I was almost like a machine.
Yeah, in that moment, I suddenly realized that I was my own worst enemy. And there's no way I could save myself.
And I didn't even think that anyone else was going to be able to I really it's a miracle that I'm here to be honest, because I was so close to not being here many times.
And but it was fortunate enough to have the most incredible therapist. And mental. And Or who then saved me and my life.
And then the decision that I was so determined to find ways to release myself out of my own prison, my own suffering, and it was that journey that I went on that has been the most incredible journey.
And now I can, I love myself so deeply and I'm so happy with life. I'm so grateful that I didn't do it.
I'm so grateful that I am here because there is so much, life is a miracle, right? We get to live in this most amazing way.
And it was really from reaching out and getting help from others that was the key for me.
@15:51 - Meg Trucano
Yeah. And I think in my work with clients, this is kind of a theme as Well, which is, you know, you have the trappings of this very successful life or people looking in don't really see the pain and the disconnect.
And, you know, a lot of times there's this narrative of like, oh, you should just be grateful for what you have and like you should shut up.
And there's a lot of stuffing that down. Right. And this refusal to acknowledge that something doesn't fit and something isn't right and something isn't working.
Right. And you you interpreted that as there's something wrong with me, there's something broken about me, because look at what's going on outside and then look at look at how different I am feeling on the inside.
Right. The happiness, where is it? The joy, where is it? So looking back at that time in your life and when we get really granular about what was going on, what do you think it was that was contributing so much?
Was it a mismatch between what you expected and what you had on the internal part of things? Or what was the thing or the multiple things that were creating such a massive difference between those two states?
@17:15 - Lesley Calvo
Yeah, absolutely. Really, you've got some beautiful questions. I think, and this is something I've realized from many people, is that we fragment.
We start from a very young age to create an identity of who we are. And we do it when we're at school in a way of protection and survival.
So we create the identity of ourselves. So we create a mask of how we know we should react in certain ways and with certain people.
We start to create a mask and illusion of who we should be. And we can never be that because it doesn't exist.
So we create an idea of ourselves, you know, the past. The one, the fast one, the pretty one, you know, the one who can achieve and we also create at the same time the slow one, the one who is not good enough, the one who isn't as fast as others.
So we create all of these illusions about ourselves, these beliefs of who we are and they get further and further away from the truth because your true nature is that you're whole, perfect and complete as you are.
You're whole, perfect and complete as you are. There is nothing, yes, you're a human, you have shadow, we have good and bad sides, you know, we have sides that we're proud of and sides that we're not proud of.
But I think what happened to me was that I got more and more distant from my true self. And I became more and more, like, pressured into this, the idea of the me that performed, the me that, you know, I had to be a certain person when I was with people, which side of me do I show?
You know, I remember even saying this, I'm different. Different people. I remember saying that, you know, which in a way we have different facets of ourselves that we are.
But I became more and more disconnected from my true nature, from my true happiness and joy, which is you are whole.
Your soul is whole. There is no, there's nothing needed. There is no lack. There is no, there's nothing needed in your true nature.
And we become more and more distant from that by creating this identity, this idea of, we are that we can never live up to because we're, we're human.
We're, we've got flaws. And then at the same time as that though, every time I wasn't that perfect person, I would then judge myself so harshly and beat myself up for not being that, which we can't be perfect because we're human.
You know, we've all got all of it. And so that became more and more fragmented because I became less and less.
And then I, and I, I started to hate myself for not being able to be perfect. hate myself. Thank you.
Not being able to be, you know, this idea of what I had to be, and then what actually happened is through the process of me, I suppose, discovering myself again, my real truth, is that I realized that there is no such thing as perfection, and that you cannot possibly be a perfect human being because you're a human being in duality.
We have cold and hot, we have light and dark, that's what we are existing in. We are at the moment, we're three-dimensional, and we're in duality, so we have to have shadow, we have to have the parts of ourselves that we're not proud of, and when we start to love those parts, when we start to truly accept all of us, then the mask drops, and you start to realize that you're enough as you are.
And that's an amazing point to be in, because suddenly you don't have to perform, and there's nothing to prove to anyone, because you know you're good enough, and you're the only person's opinion that matters.
@20:58 - Meg Trucano
Oh, that is so beautiful, and so... On point. So when you, you said you found a wonderful therapist and the, the week that changed your life was an NLP practitioner, right?
@21:11 - Lesley Calvo
Yeah.
@21:12 - Meg Trucano
So was that kind of the seed that started this whole self-discovery journey? Was that like the majority of it?
Have you just been kind of, as someone who enjoys working on myself as well, you, you just got to keep going.
Right. But when did you feel like, Oh, I am actually a different person than I was when I was in my heyday as the jewelry designer?
Like, when did you feel like you came home?
@21:44 - Lesley Calvo
I'd say, you know, I, I love the, the kind of the awareness that there's always more beauty to untap.
Right. So I think, but I would say the real, I think I found true inner peace. Like now, the real thing that people talk about, I would say over the last five years, though I would say that I've felt like that whole time was a different person many times during this process, you know, so I felt like I've, it's almost like you rebirth and you rebirth and you rebirth all the time.
So you're kind of let go of like identities all the time, but I would say I really, when would I say, when I was working, I think, like, it's been a process, definitely, and I would say it took a few years, really, before I started to even begin to like myself, you know, to be, you know, it was, you know, I went from really pretty much the depths of what you can be as.
You know, and still be alive. And then I'd say it took a few years for me to really like myself.
And then to truly be where I am now, where I love myself deeply and feel whole, that's been a journey.
Yeah, I would say that's got to have been over the last 15 years. But I'd say the last five years have been really a place where I feel home, and whole, and complete, and enough, and peaceful, and that's, you know, it's been, and I still know there's more, right, there's more love that you can untapped, there's more layers of self-love and joy, you know, that we can, you know, it's like the unfolding rose, right, it keeps getting better.
And, and it really does. It's, it's amazing. It's, it's really amazing.
@23:50 - Meg Trucano
Yeah, yeah. So, I know, I, I know we both work with people who kind of struggle to find. And, well, struggle to find, then struggle to accept, and then struggle to kind of release the inner voice that kind of, you called it your authentic self, and kind of that inner voice that really is kind of the universe telling us like, okay, over here, over here.
You called it the whisper, and then the slap, and then the, the punch, I forgot what it was like.
@24:28 - Lesley Calvo
Yeah, I think a whisper, shout, and then a slap. Okay. Yeah.
@24:33 - Meg Trucano
So, you know, in working with clients over the last several years, I've noticed that there's this real distrust in oneself that arises from that state of not being in conversation with your inner authentic.
Yeah. Authentic self. Yeah. So how, if someone listening is like, oh, man, I think that might be me. What, what do you think would help them get.
@25:00 - Lesley Calvo
Yeah, yeah, and it is, you know, I think you know yourself when you're in the work, it is still a journey, there's still days that I have, you know, that are still for me challenging, right, in the way that I need to overcome that voice, because that voice, which is the most amazing thing about our nervous system, is that voice is there to, to guide us, you know, to actually lead us where we want, where we need to go.
But what happens often is our nervous system is triggered by something that reminds us of a trauma that we had when we were young.
And in that moment, the nervous system goes into hyper alert. And then we tend to, you know, you know, we've got left and the right brain, your right brain then goes offline.
And your right brain is the creative logic, no, the creative, the intuitive, you know, place of magic. So we tend to go into that place of logic, which is very narrow vision.
@25:59 - Meg Trucano
to to one. you then.
@26:00 - Lesley Calvo
. And survivor. So that's what happens when that other voice comes online, right? The one that's kind of very noisy.
And your intuition is very quiet. And we are full of noise, right? We are so bombarded by information constantly.
So I would say the biggest thing that people can do in those moments when they want to listen to their voices, it's there with every single human being.
We have a GPS system of intuition is within us, though it's a quiet voice. It doesn't, you know, it gets louder with, you know, when I say a shout and a slap, that tends to be the universe shoving you by situation.
You know, it was like that day when I did the NLP practitioner course, that felt like it was a slap.
It was like, what are you doing? Because you could be doing this, right? Uh-huh.
@27:00 - Meg Trucano
Uh So it's more like you get louder messages.
@27:03 - Lesley Calvo
And if you keep ignoring them, you get louder and louder messages. But if you want to just start to begin to listen to your intuition and begin to listen and trust yourself, if you feel like there is a change needed in your life, that feeling has come from something.
If you're feeling like something needs to change, it's because something needs to change. Often we don't want to listen to that quiet voice because it's complicated and it's not easy.
And making that decision to change from being a jeweller to helping people and being a therapist and a coach was not an easy decision.
And there was a lot of change that had to happen. And our nervous system doesn't like change because it doesn't like the unknown.
And anything outside of unknown is almost it resists it because . If you think our nervous system is designed to be in a tribe, right, it was designed two million years ago, and it hasn't had an upgrade to your nervous system, right, so we're such a different world, but it was designed in a way that, you know, the known was safe, so if you knew where the water was, you knew where the food was, you knew there wasn't any tigers there, the known was safe.
Unknown, you don't know what's there, you don't know if there's any predators, you don't know where the water, you know, so we're designed to not like the unknown.
And change is normally on the unknown, but change is also where you grow, and your intuition is also leading you towards your vision, your goal, where you want to go, and so I would say the first thing is to start to listen to yourself, and there's a really simple practice you can do with just close your eyes, and you just literally listen to your heart, and you just say, you put everything to the side, just say, okay, if I was listening to my heart right now, what would I need to do?
you. What would it be telling me I need to do? And quite often, because I do this with lots of people, quite often it's rest.
We go at such a fast pace and we have such high expectations for ourself that we forget how important that is.
And often we say, I can't, I haven't got time, you know, I've got so much to do. But actually, it's the fundamental thing we need to do.
So I would say just to do that exercise, you know, very simple, just close your eyes for a moment.
Just let everything kind of go to the side and just say, what, what is there if I listen to my heart?
And know that any, you know, the voice that comes from inside of you is leading you the right way.
Often your brain comes in, because the voice that comes inside of you is often your heart. You know, your heart has a brain.
We have three brains. The gut has a brain, the heart has a brain, and we have the brain itself.
So there is, there's an intelligence within your heart. You know, they've measured it, they've seen it. It has its own neural pathway of brain action that happens within the heart, you know, it's amazing when they actually see this, it has its own set of decisions that it can make.
When you trust this, and you put your mind to the side, it can show you an incredible pathway for you to actually really receive all that you want.
It's just your brain often gets in the way. So that's the part where you start to need to know how to change the way you think, and how to understand what part is your nervous system being triggered, and what part are you actually reacting from a place of survivor, and what part is actually honoring your true voice within you.
And that's training. And it gets to be wonderful doing that training, you know, often we think these things have to be really like an uphill slog.
So, great sir. Sometimes they are, you know, some they've got to be real about it. Sometimes making change, creating change is not easy.
But other times when you follow your heart, the other side of that unknown is where the gifts are, right?
That's where the growth is. And that's where true happiness is.
@31:19 - Meg Trucano
Yeah, yeah. And I think to add on to what you were saying about the, you know, the safety, right?
And our nervous system is designed to keep us safe. And our brains, that is its job, is to keep us alive and safe.
And very often, especially as modern human beings, we conflate comfort and safety. And our brains and nervous systems are not really that great at distinguishing between those two.
Because as you say, if we admit that we need to change, well, that's hard. And that's inconvenient.
@31:57 - Lesley Calvo
And it's gonna, gonna...
@32:00 - Meg Trucano
Mess up my system, you know, and I think that can be a real reckoning for people.
@32:07 - Lesley Calvo
Absolutely, because your nervous system doesn't care about your well-being. Sorry to cut in there, but it doesn't care about your well-being.
When I learned that, because I'm continuing to study and continuing to learn. I love the brain. I love neuroscience.
I love the nervous system. I'm working out how our machine works. It literally doesn't care about your well-being. It just wants to keep you alive.
And it creates systems and neural pathways, so it is not easy to change, because it doesn't want you to, right?
It's saying, no, no, stay here. Even that's why people stay in jobs they don't like and relationships they're not happy in, right?
Because it's not easy.
@32:49 - Meg Trucano
Yeah, and I think as we were, you know, to connect back with what we were talking about before and getting back in touch with a real
The discovery of our authentic self and what we actually want and, and believing that that is possible for us.
He said something really beautiful, that we can get to a place where we are able to receive the good things.
And before we hit record, we had a, a conversation about how in some clients we, that you've worked with, that I've worked with, they get to a certain point and they're, they look around and they're so used to fighting and they're so used to hustle and they're so used to like working on a problem and all of that.
And they kind of look around and they're like, things are good right now. And, and I don't know, like I'm uncomfortable with that because my whole life has been this just struggle and, and, and striving.
So recharacterizing it as change so that you can actually receive good things and sit in the happiness and joy and, and trust that that, as you mentioned before.
That's your birthright.
@34:01 - Lesley Calvo
That's, you get that. You get to have that.
@34:05 - Meg Trucano
So I really love that, that notion and that, that conception. So there was a second major life transition that you went through, a major life change.
And this one sounds like it was, you were actually tuning into your intuition.
@34:22 - Lesley Calvo
Can you share a little bit about that one? Yeah, absolutely. That was, it's interesting because I've moved country, right?
That was a, that was my next big life challenge was to move country. And there was something I just knew.
And this was interesting when we, we, we made the decision. And then this is how, when you're in your truth, you're in the truth for everyone else around you, which is quite amazing when you, the more you trust into this.
Because often it's because of someone else that we make decisions. We don't want to upset someone. We don't want to hurt someone.
We don't want to be in a, um, We don't want to, I think, rock their boat, right, so we often, we dumb ourselves down in those moments, though, you know, we could, when we're in our own truth and we stay in our own, we listen to ourselves and our intuition, it's amazing how, you know, you can unfold incredible things for other people.
I'll tell you the story of what happened when I, I knew I wanted to, my husband is Swiss, he'd been living in England for five years, and then he was like, I'm not so happy here, and I was like, okay, let's see if we can move to Switzerland, let's do that, and it was a real kind of pull, and we had a place in London at the time, and it would have made most sense to keep it and rent it out, and I was living with my sister, she was living with us at the time, and, and she was like, you know, don't sell it, I want to stay here, you know, don't, how can you do this to me?
see let's How can you sell it? And everything logically made sense. But I just knew in my heart that we had to sell it.
I had to sell it. And it was it was even though I kind of knew I was being a bit crazy.
And I was like, how can I do how can I do this? How can I do this to my sister?
It doesn't make any sense financially, it's so much. But I just knew, I knew, knew, knew that I had to do it.
It was like something inside of me, that voice that I trained, you know, by then I trained years of listening.
And I was like, okay, I trust this. And it was at that point when, when I actually sold the house.
And then my sister, she ended up moving in with someone that she knew from a course she'd been on.
And she was just a lodger there. And, and then they ended up being together. And now they've been together.
Yeah, they've been together for I think 15. Yeah, like 14 years, super duper happy traveled around the world. They've got the made they're both like they're both healers.
do amazing things. amazing things. So, well, they do incredible things, they've got so many interests the same, and none of that would have happened if I hadn't have done that, right, if I hadn't have listened to my truth.
And then what happened to me is that I, from when I was a really little girl, and this is, you know, Einstein talks about your imagination is the preview of your coming life, which is a great, I love that quote.
And when I was a little girl, I always imagined living abroad, and I always imagined living somewhere that was beautiful in nature.
My mum is Norwegian, and I thought it would be Norway. And then just following this instinctiveness inside of me, following that voice, I've ended up living somewhere that is so beautiful in nature.
And it was purely from making that decision, it was a tough decision, you know, because you have to up your life, up everything, up my business, up everything that was happening, my husband, his business, you know, we can.
We've completely reinvented our lives, but what's come from it was the original vision I had when I was a little girl, right, that I didn't even think of that until after being here for a few years, and I was like, oh my God, this is what I saw when I was a little girl, so that inner voice that you have, it doesn't forget these visions, if you listen to it, doesn't forget your dreams, it doesn't forget your hopes, it doesn't forget all those things that you imagined that were possible for you.
When you listen to yourself and you follow that, even though it's hard, and it's, you know, there's many, many times I've cried on my kitchen floor, you know, soft on my kitchen floor, you know, though when you go through and you overcome yourself, you overcome the fear of the unknown, you overcome the fear of change, then there gets to be miraculous, like literally miraculous things can happen to you.
Thank you. That is so beautiful.
@39:26 - Meg Trucano
I love everything that you just. Encapsulated the imagination is a preview of your life I love that I had not I had not heard that quote before amazing quote right yes so but I'm wondering if so we've talked a lot about overcoming and transition and change and listening learning to listen.
So what do you. So. So. So. So. Now see as your definition of happiness and success. You've recently taken on a project that has a lot of personal significance for you.
Do you want to share a little bit about that?
@40:14 - Lesley Calvo
Yeah, absolutely. I think because of the journey that I went through of the real realisation that, you know, achievement and success and wealth isn't really going to give you the deep happiness, the true happiness.
And at the moment, I'm really doing this wonderful research project that is all about happiness and what makes people happy and what it is for them.
So it's something, and yeah, and if anyone who is listening would like to be part of this market research, this research that we're doing, that I'm doing at the moment about happiness, then I would love to interview you about what.
What happiness is for you and what you see in your life that means to you and yeah I'm doing like half an hour interviews with people I've had some amazing interviews and what keeps coming back over and over again is like peace and inner peace that's what people want that's what people they're they're actually looking for underneath everything and so for me I think I've built up now a practice a daily practice and and I've really built up over the last five years and it's interesting I said five years right that's that's the time where I really feel at home is I build up a daily practice of meditation that I do every day I started with three minutes a day that was my and now I'm an hour and a half at every second one right that was the journey you know and I at the beginning I started with even five minutes seemed too long you know I couldn't commit to five minutes because I was like I don't have time I'm
and what we're in, and feel the power of the present moment. Often we're in the future or the past, you know, that's where I was all the time.
I used to be in the future and the past all the time, worried about what was coming, regretting what I'd done.
You know, I was just in this flip-flop. And I think for me, true happiness is being able to be truly content with what I'm in right now.
Even the challenging things that come, there's still an element of, I want to say, freedom when we're present because given the resources to deal with it in that moment, even if something's hard, what we haven't got the resources is to deal with something that's happening in three months because we're not there.
The only moment we have, the only thing that is real is this moment, the moment that we're in. Five minutes time doesn't exist.
Five minutes ago doesn't exist in the way that the only place we can ever live is in the present moment moment.
And I think that's That for me is happiness is being able to be with friends and with my family and my beautiful daughter and, you know, have those connections, but really be there, truly be there, not half there and half somewhere else.
And that's come from me training my own ability to be in my own stillness and my own peace and knowing that I have a strong trunk of self-love and self-worth, that I allow myself to receive the most amazing, we're living in the most amazing world.
And I do commit every day to my own inner mental health journey of self-love, right, because that self-love, think, yeah, happiness for me is self-love, friends, family, present moment, joy, freedom, and freedom.
The state of mind, you know, it's completely a state of mind. And yeah, just, I think gratitude, being so grateful that I get, you know, every moment we get is a blessing, right?
Every, every second that we are healthy and alive is a gift. And I think that, to me, is happiness.
@45:23 - Meg Trucano
I love that. So beautiful. And I want to, one final thing that you mentioned right at the end, that gratitude.
What a difference between that authentic gratitude and that forced gratitude of, oh, I should be grateful about my situation, right?
@45:40 - Lesley Calvo
I, and, and you know what the trap I think often is people think that they have to be happy all the time, right?
We're so, you know, this kind of positive, there's, there's, there's, almost this concept of like, you know, if you tell yourself positive mantras enough, it's gonna, you know, you're going to be happy all the time.
@46:00 - Meg Trucano
Have a And if you're not happy, something's wrong, right?
@46:03 - Lesley Calvo
But like I said earlier on, we're in duality. We have cold and hot. We have light and dark. All emotions are welcome.
Some are more comfortable than others, right? But having them is okay. You know, we're sold an idea. We've got to be happy all the time.
Though there's peace and contentedness. And there's actually even within sadness, even within anger, there's gold. You know, there's amazing gems for us of learning.
And we can, you know, so I work very much with the principle of 80-20, right? 80% of the time, happy, joyful, know, free.
And then 20% of the time, we have some bad days. And the idea that you can even be grateful for those, you can even be grateful for the times that are challenging, because that shifts everything.
The judging of yourself in that moment is like, I should be this.
@47:03 - Meg Trucano
I should be more grateful.
@47:05 - Lesley Calvo
You know, that was the thing. I should be grateful. And the resistance is often the problem in that moment.
It's like, why am I not? Actually, it's like, you know, I'm here as a human being living in duality.
I'm allowed to have all feelings and all emotions. I choose to focus on the ones that, for me, like happiness, freedom, gratitude, joy, they make me feel better.
So I choose to focus on them because whatever you focus on grows. So I choose to live in that life more.
Though I accept that sometimes I'm going to be sad. And sometimes I'm going to have other feelings. And that's okay.
And when you accept him, they move through you much quicker. And then you become, you know, what we talked about before, instead of being fragmented, you become whole, because there's nothing that is not okay.
There's nothing here. It's okay to be in. And there is an awareness that there is beauty in all of it, right?
Even the bits that are uncomfortable, there's something, you know, we've learned, I know, if I ask anyone, when did you grow, they didn't say the day that I, you the time I was on the beach drinking a margarita, that wasn't the moment, right?
That's true. Yeah, right. You know, it was through the challenging parts, though, what we tend to do is when we have challenges is like, I don't want to feel this.
Why am I feeling this? What's wrong with me? You know, you know, we want to always be in that kind of hyper hype of yay, amazing.
But, you know, stillness and peace and contentedness and enoughness is a very different frequency. So, yeah, I think the gratitude, the deep gratitude comes from the acceptance, you know, that, yeah, everything is okay.
And the more that you focus Focus on the things that you want and the things that make you feel good and you receive, you allow yourself to read.
What you said earlier was really brilliant, Meg, you know, that it's like, oh, everything's going so well. I'm waiting for something to go wrong.
@49:14 - Meg Trucano
People say that, right?
@49:16 - Lesley Calvo
They actually say it. the other shoe to drop. Yep. They say it. And why? Why? You know, it's actually, why don't we get to just live amazing lives where we actually, can fully receive.
@49:32 - Meg Trucano
And claim it, yeah.
@49:33 - Lesley Calvo
Yeah, and claim it and know it's okay, you know, because even in that amazing life, there might be some moments of sadness.
There might be some moments of challenge, though it still gets to be amazing, right?
@49:47 - Meg Trucano
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think Brene Brown calls that foreboding joy, and I love it because it's like.
@49:53 - Lesley Calvo
Oh, wow.
@49:53 - Meg Trucano
I love that, yeah. It is so on the nose. And so you have. We've had such an incredible journey, and I hope that our listeners can take away much from this wonderful conversation.
But if our listeners had to take one thing away from you sharing your message and your story, what would you hope that would be?
@50:19 - Lesley Calvo
Yeah, I think it would be hope that they are enough, as they are, that they can, it's okay if it's scary, the thing that you want to do, it's okay if it feels uncomfortable, and that they can trust that inner voice if there is something there, inviting them for something different in their life, that they can trust that because on the other side of that uncomfortableness, there are so many wealths that you can pick up and so many riches.
So many areas, and that if we let our fear stop us, then we are closing a door to not only an opportunity for our own happiness, but also an opportunity for our dreams and our desires, and our full expression of ourselves, because fear, and I remember someone told me this, and it was such a beautiful thing, that courage is not the absence of fear.
Courage is having fear and doing it anyway, and when we do that, we open up a whole different world to ourselves, and I think the main thing I would like them to know is that they can do anything, anything that they set their mind to, it's possible for them, because if it's possible for somebody, somewhere in the world to do it, if someone is doing it in the world, they can do it.
@51:58 - Meg Trucano
And they
@52:02 - Lesley Calvo
And do you know what? I think the thing is that they deserve their own love. They deserve their own kindness and that they deserve the gentleness that they give to their friends.
Because once you become your own best friend, then you have your own inner support system. So that's the invitation is that they deserve it and that they're enough and that they are amazing.
Because if you look at any flower, you look at that flower and you see its beauty. If you have a bunch of flowers, you don't look at one flower and think, oh, well, that hasn't quite bloomed yet.
Or looking at trees in the spring. Oh, God, those leaves haven't come out. Jesus, you know, we don't think of anything like that.
We don't think to ourselves in that way. But we tend to we tend to judge ourselves very harshly. So it would be tonight.
So that you are nature, and that your time is here, and that you can do it.
@53:07 - Meg Trucano
That's such a beautiful message. Okay, so final couple questions here for you. And these are kind of rapid fire questions, just off the cuff, whatever your intuition says.
So if you could go back in time and share a message with pre-change Leslie. Let's maybe go back to the Leslie that was wheeling and dealing in all the inherits.
What would you tell her?
@53:35 - Lesley Calvo
Oh, wow. Oh, gosh. That she's going to get through it.
@53:42 - Meg Trucano
That it won't always be like this.
@53:45 - Lesley Calvo
And that there's a life for her where she is really happy. And that she, that she's wonderful as she is.
@53:59 - Meg Trucano
you.
@54:00 - Lesley Calvo
That she doesn't need to compare herself to anyone else, and that her journey is the right journey, and her steps are the right steps, just to know that she's just wonderful and lovely, and just to keep going, I think that's one thing, is really to keep going, and it's all going to get better.
@54:32 - Meg Trucano
So, if someone listening knows that they need change, and you've talked a little bit about this, but if you could summarize, they know they need change, but they're terrified, what would you say to them?
@54:44 - Lesley Calvo
Get help, get help, get someone to help you, because often we can't see what we can't see, we can't see, and that help can come in many different ways, you know, we are in this incredible age where we have technology, help.
We have, you know, the internet where we can connect. speaking to you, you're in America, right? I'm in Switzerland.
Just so amazing. There's so many different support groups and, you know, people to help you. There's people around you who can help you that I would say really know that fear is okay.
The fear is okay. The fear is actually quite a brilliant thing. Which I never realized, but fear can be very dynamic because what fear is telling you is something's got to change.
@55:36 - Meg Trucano
Either you've got to run or you've got to hide, but it's telling you to do something, right?
@55:42 - Lesley Calvo
It's telling you to do something, that fear in your body. So you can harness that. So I would say move one small, tiny step towards your goal, just a tiny, tiny step.
It doesn't need to be a massive thing. Just move every day, do one scary thing, whether that's writing an email, whether that's not.
Connect to a person, whether that's start a course, whether that's, you know, whatever it is, what you want to do, you know, have a conversation with somebody, whatever it is, just one step every day, because if you think you're going in one direction, and if you move by one degree, just one degree, you will end up with a completely different destination.
So if you keep just moving by one degree, and then be proud of yourself, be so proud of yourself for doing that, and then move another degree, and then be so proud of yourself for doing that next degree, and then the next degree, and the next degree, these micro changes have massive impact, it doesn't need to be you throwing yourself in somewhere, you can just begin the process of change, because then it starts the momentum all of its own.
And then the universe starts to create amazing things around you, and then the other thing I would say is hold the vision of what you want.
See yourself as that. Hold yourself as the person who already has it and then feel how that feels because that small, even if you did that for five minutes a day, something in your frequency changes because something, a door opens up in the quantum field.
This is where possibility and potential happens, but just even whether you believe it or not, whether you believe in manifestation, whether you believe in physics, whether you, it doesn't matter.
If you just, it just makes you feel good. It just makes you feel good. Imagining yourself already having that, just thinking, how would you feel?
Would you be grateful? Would you be joyous? Would you feel free? It just makes you feel good. It gives you a moment of good feeling in your day.
So even, you know, I know that it attracts and I know that it will bring it to you. Though even if you just do it to feel good.
So that would be it. Tiny movements and a lot of celebration for every time you've done it. It's like, Oh my gosh, I've done it.
Okay. Okay, I've done it. And, and to hold the vision of where you want to go. And then you will get there.
@58:06 - Meg Trucano
Ah, so beautifully said. So beautifully said. Thank you so much for sharing your story and so inspiring. I'm just amazed at how transformed you, you have, you have completely transformed your entire life and all because you reached out and you, you listened.
And, and, and kind of led, let yourself be led.
@58:35 - Lesley Calvo
Yeah. Yeah. At the beginning, it was crawling, right? It was crawling, it was stumbling, it was fumbling, but I just kept doing that one degree.
Right. And then it became a walk, and then became a run. And now it's like, you know, there's a, there's a flying freedom here.
So every, every step along the way is, is valid. great job. See
@59:04 - Meg Trucano
So for those who are enraptured by you and your magnetic personality, is there a place that they can find you and connect with you?
@59:14 - Lesley Calvo
Absolutely. Oh, that's such a lovely thing to say. Yes, so on Instagram, Lesley Calvo Coaching. I have a YouTube channel, which is Lesley Calvo.
So you can search me on that. Facebook. Also, if anyone would love to be part of my research project, it would be amazing to get to know you and speak with you.
So that would be wonderful. Yeah, a website as well, you know, where you can connect with me. I love hearing from people.
And, you know, I do a lot of give out a lot of free tips and techniques and stuff like that on my YouTube channel and on Instagram as well.
So, yeah, you know, it would be great, you know, tell. Helmy, you've heard me on this podcast with the wonderful Meg.
Yeah, and it will be really wonderful to connect to you.
@1:00:07 - Meg Trucano
And if you were, if you would like to be part of my research project to interview you on happiness, which will be an amazing honor to speak with you.
Oh, I can't wait. I'm, I'm going to go ahead and sign up after this. I can't wait to speak to you about it.
Yeah. Yeah.
@1:00:23 - Lesley Calvo
I, I really encourage, um, first of all, researcher at heart here.
@1:00:27 - Meg Trucano
And also the topic is just so, um, pure and beautiful. So I really encourage anybody in the audience listening, go ahead, reach out to Leslie.
She's awesome. So thank you again for, for meeting with me today and, and sharing your story and, uh, for all listeners of Changeology, thank you for tuning in and we'll see you on the next one.
@1:00:49 - Lesley Calvo
Yeah. Thank you so, so, so much for having me. And, uh, thank you for providing this amazing platform to help all these people with change and creating something better in their lives.
@1:00:59 - Meg Trucano
So thank you so much. That's Meg.
@1:01:00 - Lesley Calvo
Oh, thank you.
@1:01:02 - Meg Trucano
All right, we'll see you in the next one.