In this Business Blast podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Lara Jaye, an intuitive executive coach, bestselling author, and speaker. Lara shares a deeply personal story of a period when she was severely ill, battling depression, and ending a 25‑year marriage despite outward success. From that crisis she created her own support system, which sparked her holistic‑wellness philosophy. She emphasizes the need to care for mind, body, spirit, emotions, and energy, and to listen to intuition rather than over‑working. Lara offers practical business advice—trust your gut, notice red‑flags, and let intuition guide decisions. She advises her younger self to worry less, play more, and not let work dominate life. When asked about happiness, she says it is found by following one’s joy, which often requires trying new experiences to rediscover what truly excites you. Lara discusses her own book, More Than Enough: Discover Your Limitless Potential and Live Your Bravest Dream, describing it as a continual source of insight. She shares a favorite quote by George Bernard Shaw—“Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself”—and explains how it reframes her approach to personal growth. The episode concludes with Lara directing listeners to her website, LaraJaye.com, for more resources.
Chapters
Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite makes the process of becoming a published bestselling author as simple as sipping your morning cup of coffee. You can learn more about Authors Unite at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode. All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. And as a soul-inspiring thought leader, CEO, intuitive executive coach, international bestselling author, speaker, Laura J. works with clients worldwide who want to uplevel their life holistically while realizing deeper meaning. So welcome to the show, Laura.
Hi Tyler, how are you?
I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Awesome. Thanks for having me on.
Of course. Pumped to have you on the show. Another person from Florida on the podcast. So we'll dive right in, Laura. The first one I have for you is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
And I was thinking about that. Why are our stories from our life a lot of times sad, but then they come out with these amazing messages. But that was me a few years ago. Um, I was very, very sick, uh, but I had this picture-perfect life— wonderful husband, great kids, successful marketing company, fabulous vacations, beautiful home, pillar of the community. But on the inside, there was just a hurricane, a storm. I was struggling with deep depression, major health crisis, end of my 25-year marriage. So self-hatred, you know, just on and on and on. And as a leader in the community, I struggled to find somewhere that I could turn to help navigate this. And I ended up having to create that person, which was myself. And so often as leaders and pillars in the community, we don't have anywhere to turn. And so, you know, I took what, you know, I took lemons and made some lemonade out of it.
Thank you. Yeah, it is interesting how there's sometimes it's like the worst things in our life end up being like a reflector and turning into like the best things in our life. It is, that's right. So I appreciate you sharing that with us. The next one I have for you, and I'm really excited for your answer here as well, considering your track record. What is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Yeah, and again, that was from living life, in my opinion, the wrong way, for me anyway, and for a lot of people. And that was putting work, both myself and my husband, first, and not getting the sleep we needed, not taking care of ourselves holistically. So my piece of advice is we can work, you know, until the cows come home, but if we don't take care of ourselves holistically, mind, body, spirit, emotions, and energy, We need to, you know, not just use our head all the time. We need to really, you know, touch base with our hearts and also our intuition and look at our life in this holistic way. Don't ignore those parts that are screaming. Don't put— don't work all the time, forget you have kids, don't, you know, and just throw everything into one basket because you will lose. You'll lose your health, you'll lose your family. And that's my advice. Look at life holistically and it's meant to, meant to play and live and have fun.
Definitely. Yeah. And what is your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry specific.
Yeah, definitely listen to your own intuition. So when you're working with somebody in any, any business capacity or personal capacity, if things are showing up one way, but deep inside maybe you're feeling a red flag or you're seeing red flags, but but you tell yourself, you talk yourself out of it. You think, well, but things, but he's saying this, or she's saying that. Follow your gut. That is your intuition. That is your guidepost. Follow that no matter what.
It is very interesting how we can so, like, I feel like that feeling, like people are more aware of it than they seem, but like maybe a lot of times we are talking ourselves out of it is so overempowering.
We do.
Yes.
We talk ourselves out of it all the time because we don't want to, We don't want— we want to make that decision and do it and not look at the red flags. We want to ignore it, but our body knows. Our body knows.
Yeah, it really does. It's so, so true. So next one, Apria, is if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
My younger self, and that was even my younger self to this morning. I have to tell myself this all the time. Stop worrying so much. Have more fun and play. You know, again, life is not just work, work, work. So it's not It's not do, do, do all the time. It's don't worry, get out there.
And that perfectly leads into the next one. So in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
And I talk about happiness a lot and it is following your joy. And the tough part for a lot of people is they don't even know what brings them joy anymore. 'Cause they go do the same thing in and out, but it's follow your joy, find that, whatever that is. Find that, dig deep, and go do it.
And so if we could actually— I'm just curious to dive a little deeper there. Like, when people ask me, you know, how do you like do what you love and like turn it into a business? Like, for me, because I love podcasting and I run a couple companies that I really enjoy, and for me it was from just like pure experience. Like, your body tells you. Like, for instance, when I was in school and I was majoring in accounting, my body was like having huge red flags shoot up everywhere. Right.
I had that major and I ran.
Yeah, I ended up dropping out and everything. It was real. And so do you have any other— and it's fine if not, but I'm just curious. So even I can tell people, because when people ask me, I just say, go out, try things, and you'll realize what it is when it's there. You'll feel it. And you'll feel when it's not there. So, besides experience, do you have any shortcuts?
It is experience and it's following your— again, it's following your gut, following your guidance to, "Okay, let's try this today." And now, the problem is we are so prone to wanting things familiar, and so we go back to the same places, we take the same road to work, we go to the same restaurants, and we have to break out of that cycle. And that's key in ordering in order to find that joy for each of us is you gotta do something, you gotta do things a little different and to wake yourself up. And that's take a country road, drive a different way, go to a new restaurant. I went roller skating Saturday night, which I haven't done in, I'm not even sure how many years, and just to try something different. And now I decided, okay, that wasn't really my joy, but it was fun for a little while, you know, but it is about trying new things. Or things that maybe you used to do that made you happy. And you know what, if it wasn't what it is, just like roller skating is not my thing anymore at my age now, it's okay, move on to something else.
Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you, from living down here in Miami and living like right on South Beach for 2 years of it, I see a lot of rollerbladers and I am like, whoa, like I haven't done that in years. I think I would fall over many, many times.
Right. But it wakes up all the different parts of your body and your mind and your head that hasn't worked, used, you know, you haven't used in a while. And you'll see whether, okay, do I want to continue doing this? Does it make me happy? Our body knows. My body said no, we are not going to go roller skating again. Trust me.
Absolutely. And the next one I have for you, Laura, is what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
I, I, uh, I struggled with this question. I read all the time. I love so many different books, but I am going to say that it's my own book that I published in 2014, my first of my three. And because it was my story and I go back and read it and I learn something new all the time, like, oh, I wrote that, or I, yeah, I used to do that, or, um, it— I learned so much writing the book reading it and continually going back and reading it now and talking from it, I still learn from it. And it's, uh, the name of the book is, is More Than Enough: Discover Your Limitless Potential and Live Your Bravest Dream. And I'm trying, I still, you know, want to do this, do that every single day. And the book is my guidepost.
And what is your favorite quote and why?
About 15 years ago, I had this quote sitting on my, my desk. I was still married, kids were little. Life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself, by George Bernard Shaw. And I— the reason why I had it there is I was very deeply depressed, and I always thought that I had to be better, do something, you know, different, to find myself. But then I realized there wasn't anything I needed to find. It was about who do I want to be? What do I want to create today? What kind of fun do I want to bring in my life? What kind of people do I want in my life? It wasn't about beating myself up every day and going and trying to find, you know, the better Laura or better me. It was about, you know, what do I want to add in my life or take out? It's about creating that. Landscape. And, and I have this quote, uh, I still have this quote everywhere. It's on my Facebook page, I think it's on my website, it's on my desk, it's everywhere, just to remind me I get to create my day, my life, every single day by my choices. And, and you do too.
Yeah, I think that's a really important, uh, reminder as well. So thank you so much for sharing that with us and coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is, where's the best place for people to find you online?
Great. LaraJaye.com. It's L-A-R-A-J-A-Y-E.com. Thanks, Tyler. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.
Of course. It was awesome. Thanks again for jumping on.
The podcast you just heard was published with Anchor. Got something you want to say to the creator of this show? Send them a voice message using the Anchor app, free for iOS and Android.
