The Leonie Dawson Show

Ever been told the only way to "fly at the pointy end of the plane" is to hustle 24/7, live away from home 340 days a year, and barely see your kids? Leonie's response: are you fu**ing stupid?
This week she pulls back the red velvet curtain on her quarterly planning retreat — the rituals, the lake ceremonies, the non-alcoholic botanical wine, and the exact process she runs to help women plan a whole quarter in a single day. And Tam shares what it was like for her to be in the receiving seat for it... and what changed for her business from doing it.
Who this is for: If you're a creative, healer, or coach who's so deep in the to-do list you can't see your own business clearly anymore — and you're craving strategy that doesn't smell like bro-marketing — this one's for you. Especially if you're neurodivergent, sensitive, and done with hustle culture telling you to JUST DO MORE! WORK MORE HOURS! HUSTLE HUSTLE!
Topics covered:
How Leonie structures a full-day quarterly planning retreat
Why reviewing last quarter matters more than vision-setting
Letting-go rituals, lake ceremonies, and celebration circles
Hot-seating: why other people see your business clearer than you do
The anti-patriarchal case against hustle culture
Choosing a venue by energy, nature, and grounding (not corporate boardrooms)
Introducing Content Blast — a month of content done in one day
Key insights:
There's gold to mine in what just happened — review before you plan, every time
Celebration shifts your identity: you plan the next quarter as someone who's already made miracles
Brainstorming for OTHER people's businesses builds the muscle to see your own clearly
Hustle's only answer is "more" — but we live in a finite world, and the "more" gets stolen from your kids, your body, your relationships
Most hustle bros have someone (usually a woman) holding everything else together
You can fly business class without burning your life to the ground
You don't have to use everything in the Academy — one thing makes your money back
The easiest business model on earth: serve, over-deliver, and people stay for decades
Notable quotes:
"I can fly at the pointy end of the plane, and I am away from my children zero days of the year." — Leonie
"Does he think that's a flex? Let me show you a fuc*ing flex." — Tam
"I just serve and over-deliver and make it so exceptional that people stay for years, decades. It's the easiest business model on earth." — Leonie
Links & resources:
Content Blast (free inside the Academy, sign up in the next week): leoniedawson.com/blast
Unicorn Biz & Life Academy — 150+ programs, under $100/year
Grow Mastermind — next quarterly retreat is in September
New member? Email support@leoniedawson.com for your handmade "start here" list
Subscribe and review: If this episode lit you up, hit subscribe and leave a quick review — it helps more glorious humans find their way here. And if you want to actually get your content DONE with us in the room together, come to Content Blast!
#WomenInBusiness #NeurodivergentEntrepreneur #AntiHustle #CreativeBusiness #SpiritualBusiness #ADHDinBusiness #SmallBusinessOwner #ContentCreation #WomenSupportingWomen #ConsciousBusiness

Leonie took 12 of her biz besties on retreat, had a full-blown past-life vision in the winter ocean (stone cold sober), hired an actual horse off Facebook for a unicorn photoshoot, got her t*ts out to make someone feel less vulnerable, and discovered that every single woman in the room had lost her phone at least three times that day.
Tam gets the full debrief — plus how Leonie built this peer mastermind from scratch, why she removed a $100M business owner for lurking, and what happened when she cold-DM'd 50 strangers to find entrepreneur friends in Canberra.

Topics Covered:
How Leonie built her peer mastermind from scratch starting in 2012
Setting boundaries and removing members who don't fit (even famous ones)
What the retreat week actually looks like — structure, food, spa days, midnight chats
The power of post-it note round-table brainstorming vs rigid hot seats
Denise Duffield-Thomas leading a money mistakes ritual
Leonie's full-blown Atlantis/Lemuria vision on the beach (100% sober)
Hiring a real horse for unicorn brand photos — and the chaos of coordinating horse people on Facebook
The Grow Mastermind quarterly planning retreat in Canberra (16 June)
Key Insights:
Don't wait for someone to invite you — create the mastermind, the circle, the dinner. Leonie cold-DM'd 50 strangers on Instagram to build her Canberra entrepreneur network.
Curating a mastermind is gardening work: you plant, you tend, you weed. If you don't weed, the space becomes something it was never supposed to be.
Selection isn't about finding the biggest business — it's about ethics, values, spirit, and alignment. Vibes over revenue.
Having hard conversations (like removing someone) is part of leading leaders. It's painful, but it protects the group's safety and energy.
Normalise the mess. Every woman at this retreat forgot things, booked wrong dates, lost their phones. Multi-six and seven-figure businesses, run by ADHD humans who eat car biscuits. You don't need to have it together to be successful.
Retreats don't need rigid schedules. The best conversations happen when you let things flow — dinners in hotel rooms, post-it note walls, and spontaneous rituals.
Jealousy is a signpost, not a stop sign. If you feel envious of someone's mastermind, that's your sign to create your own.
When your kids get older and need less of your physical-plane energy, spiritual gifts can come flooding back.
Notable Quotes:
"We're not fucking wallflowers, we're the fucking belles of the ball. And if we're not the belles of the ball, we'll make our own fucking ball." — Leonie
"You can eat car biscuits and have an amazing multi-six, seven figure business. It's fine. You don't have to have it all together." — Tam
"I am not a damsel that just sits around waiting for something to come find her." — Leonie
"You are the fucking knight in shining armour. You can literally hire your own white horse and be your own goddess." — Leonie
If you're a creative business owner who's been craving real connection with other women who get it — the ADHD chaos, the spiritual side, the six-figure goals alongside the sensory overwhelm — this one's for you. Whether you've got a thriving business or you're still finding your people, this episode is your permission slip to stop waiting and start building your own circle.
If this episode lit a fire under you, go grab Leonie's free Mastermind Planner at leoniedawson.com/mastermind and start dreaming up your own circle. And if you want to be IN the room with Leonie and Tam, the Grow Mastermind quarterly planning retreat is happening 16 June in Canberra — join the Grow Mastermind to get your spot.
#WomenInBusiness #Mastermind #NeurodivergentEntrepreneur #ADHDBusiness #BusinessRetreat #WomenSupportingWomen #SpiritualBusiness #CreativeEntrepreneur #PeerMastermind #MakeYourOwnBall

Tam and I got WILDLY into it this week. We're talking energy hygiene — how to clear your energy, protect your space, shield your biz, and yes, even your bloody phone. Because that thing is an actual energy portal that can zap ya!
We share the actual daily rituals we use (salt scrubs! crystal grids! hands in the dirt at 6am!), Tam debuts her new favourite concept — Resting Bitch Energy (RBE) — and I tell the story of the enormous black obsidian dildo I placed on my property boundary to deal with a dic*head neighbour. As you do.
If you're a sensitive, spiritual creative who absorbs everyone's feelings like a human sponge, feels fuzzy and anxious for no good reason, or suspects your phone might be energetically fuc*ing with your sleep… this one's for you, possum.
What we get into:
How to call your soul back into your body (and the signs it's wandered off — hello clumsiness, brain fog + random anxiety)
Why you literally cannot process another person's feelings for them, and how to return their energy to sender
Salt scrubs, salt bowls, black salt, and keeping salt next to your bed
Tam's RBE — Resting Bitch Energy — aka the BEST protection upgrade
Working with angels, guides + well ancestors (and why you do NOT want to call in your batshit crazy recent ancestors)
Crystal gridding your property with black tourmaline, obsidian, rose quartz + more
Sigils for protection (ancient practice, dead easy to do)
Smoking herbs, resins, essential oils + DIY mist sprays
Your phone as an energy portal — why it doesn't belong in your bedroom
Using your ancestry DNA to find YOUR ancestral spiritual traditions (I took mine to Claude and it was FASCINATING)
Outsourcing to energy healers + body workers when the DIY isn't enough
Boundaries as energy protection. Full stop.
Nurturing your energy through joy, creativity, nature + community
Gems from this episode:
Your soul can drift just a couple of inches out of your body — and it shows up as anxiety, clumsiness, feeling not-quite-yourself. A 30-second practice of calling it home can shift everything.
You can't heal someone else's energy for them. That's their job. When you're holding their stuff, your body gets confused because it can't DO anything with it. Give it to the earth. Even shit turns into gold in the ecosystem.
Kids under seven will naturally show up in your energy field. That's normal + healthy — they're building their systems off yours.
The strongest protection isn't an elaborate ritual that makes you late for everything. It's being SO full of your own energy there's no room for anyone else's.
Your phone is an energy portal to the world. Remove it from the bedroom. Place crystals near your computer. Write a prayer in your notes app. It sounds woo and it WORKS.
Quotes we loved:
"I actually think I have RBE — Resting Bitch Energy. Stuff doesn't stick to that." — Tam
"You can't process another person's feelings for them. You can't heal their energy for them. That is their job and theirs alone." — Leonie
"Your imagination is for seeing what's really there." — Tam
Links + resources mentioned:
Midas Touch — 11-day meditation program inside the Academy. People keep telling us there was a before Midas Touch and an after. It's some of the biggest soul lessons I've ever learned, turned into minutes. leoniedawson.com/midas
Creative Goddess Embodied 2.0 — inside the Academy leoniedawson.com/creative
Protective Magic by Stacey DiMarco — gorgeous book on protection techniques
Andrea Rae — Crystal Academy
Hiro Boga — intuitive healer
Kerry Rowett — kinesiologist + intuitive
Renee Longworth — energy clearing for properties
If this episode gave you something good, we would love a five-star review. It genuinely helps people find us — especially when we talk about topics that ruffle a few feathers.
Big love,Leonie + Tam ✨
#EnergyProtection #ClearYourEnergy #SpiritualBusiness #WomenEntrepreneurs #CrystalGrid #NeurodivergentLife #WooAndBusiness #EnergyHygiene #SpiritualPractice

Darlingheart,
You know that feeling where your brain is on fire, your to-do list has become sentient, and somebody wants to know what's for dinner AGAIN?
Yeah. Tam and I get it. We get it in our BONES.
So we sat down and talked about the two levers you've actually got for overwhelm. (Two! That's double the levers! Exponential growth, baby!) One of them you probably already know. The other one? Freaking life-changing. I didn't discover it until about a year ago and it's been WILD the difference it has made in reducing overwhelm.
If you're a neurodivergent creative drowning in business + parenting + caring roles + all the fekking things, and you've been white-knuckling your way through wondering why "just try harder" hasn't worked... this one's for you.
In this episode we get into:
Why your capacity is completely different from that extrovert with plans out the butthole (and why comparing is pointless)
Traffic light colour-coding your calendar so you can SEE the burnout coming
Golden weeks (my secret weapon — one week a month with NO calls)
The broom-path housework standard that saved my marriage and my sanity
Getting your kids to do their own washing from primary school
Robot vacuums with names (mine's Melissa, Tam's is the Scutter, because of course)
The primitive reflex thing that tripled my nervous system capacity (I KNOW)
Breathwork, sleep, nature + the supplements that actually help ADHD brains
Tam's husband discovering that sunshine is... far infrared. We dieeeeeeeeee.
Quotes that hit:
"I really need you to reduce your standards. I really need you to stop trying to be the perfect mum here because it's wrecking your mental health." — My husband Chris, being very wise over lunch
"I centered myself so I became the main character of my own life." — Tam
"We're just complicated houseplants. We need food, we need sunlight, we need fresh air and water." — Tam, being a poet
"I can do two, three times the amount of work that I used to. And it does not cost in the way that it used to cost me." — Me, still stunned about the primitive reflex resolution thing
Stuff we mentioned:
Laundry Lady (laundry pickup service — Australia)
HelloFresh + Marley Spoon (meal kits)
You Foodz (pre-made meals delivered)
Roborock (the fancy robot vacuum/mop — yes it detects poo)
David Elliott — breathwork meditation
Get Dopa (combined ADHD supplement, UK)
Primal Energy (beef organ supplement, Australia)
Dr Sharon Williams (chiropractor — primitive reflex resolution)
Free meditations from me: leoniedawson.com/shit ✨
If this helped you see a lever you hadn't tried, send it to a friend who needs it. And if you've got a sec, a five-star review means more overwhelmed humans can find us.
Big love,Leonie + Tam
#ReduceOverwhelm #NeurodivergentLife #AUDHDBusiness #NervousSystemRegulation #WorkLessEarnMore #ADHDEntrepreneur #MumBurnout #PrimitiveReflexes #BreathworkHealing #LeonieDawson

Ever spent $30,000 on a business coach that turned out to be a cult? Leonie has. In this episode, she's sharing the full story of how she got sucked into a business coaching program that used textbook cult dynamics — and what it took to get herself back out.
Vague spiritual word salad. Moving goalposts. A Facebook group full of people having "breakthroughs" you can't quite seem to unlock. A coach who purports to have special "codes" or "divine downloads" that you can only access through her. Sound familiar? This episode pulls apart the cult dynamics hiding inside online business coaching — starting with Leonie's own $30K painful lesson.
If you've felt that magnetic pull toward a coach or program that promises to unlock everything, or if you've already gone down that rabbit hole and you're sitting in the shame of it — this one's for you.
Topics Covered
Where cult dynamics show up beyond actual cults (families, schools, business coaching, politics)
Leonie's full story of joining a $30,000 coaching program that was run like a cult
How word salad, vague spiritual language, and repetition create belief over time
Why sunk cost keeps people stuck long after the red flags appear
Robert Lifton's criteria for thought reform and how they map to coaching environments
Why neurodivergent people are particularly vulnerable to cult-like dynamics
The energetic and emotional cleanup process after leaving
How Leonie runs her own coaching differently because of this experience
Key Insights
Cult dynamics aren't limited to cults — they show up in families, schools, spiritual groups, political movements, and business coaching containers.
If a coach positions themselves as the ONLY source of a particular knowledge or "divine download," that's a massive red flag.
Neurodivergent brains are especially vulnerable: the puzzle-solving drive, the dopamine hit of "getting closer," the tendency to take people at face value, and the lifelong conditioning of "maybe I'm the problem."
Vague, poetic, non-concrete teaching is a feature, not a bug — it keeps you coming back because you can never confirm whether you "got it."
If the solution to not getting results is always to invest more, go deeper, or become a better student, you're in a cult dynamic.
The shame belongs to the person creating the manipulative environment, not the person who got caught in it.
Sunk cost fallacy is powerful — Leonie could only face leaving by framing it as a "three-month break" rather than quitting outright.
Intelligent, successful people are consistently shown by research to be susceptible to cult dynamics. It's not about being naive.
Creating proprietary language creates insiders and outsiders, and strips people of vocabulary to describe their experience once they leave.
Non-disparagement clauses in coaching contracts don't hold up under the US Federal Trade Commission.
Notable Quotes
"You wanted the dopamine hit of figuring it out. Each step along the way gave you another little dopamine hit of I'm getting closer, I'm getting closer. Pattern-seeking brains plus the deliberate hiding of the pattern is really addictive — it's just crack." — Tam
Links & Resources Mentioned
Previous episode: Ep #220: Coaching Myths Busted!
Previous episode: Ep #219: Narcissists at Work, Home & In Families
Knitting Cult Lady on TikTok — author of The Culting of America
Robert Lifton's thought reform criteria (1960s research)
If this episode hit home for you, share it with a friend who might need to hear it.
#CultDynamics #BusinessCoaching #NeurodivergentEntrepreneur #AuDHD #OnlineBusiness #CoachingRedFlags #WomenInBusiness #CultRecovery