Wellbeing
Why Leanne Sheargold says the first step should be a small one
After burnout and years of ignored health warnings, Leanne Sheargold rebuilt a spiritual practice and a business, starting with five minutes of meditation a day.
Interview with Leanne about her Spirituality and the Sacred Contract Program
Video from Innate Wisdom with Leanne Sheargold.
Generated from the canonical interview transcript and validated against source data by Guests on Air.
How do you start a new path when fear keeps holding you back?
Leanne Sheargold's answer is to start smaller than feels useful and to start straight away. Leanne began with a promise to try five minutes of meditation a day, then grew a business from free healings for friends. The advice to nervous founders is to take one small step at once, because the longer a dream waits, the bigger the fear becomes.
Leanne Sheargold reached about 45 overwhelmed by work, close to mental burnout and caught in harsh self-talk. In a video interview about the spiritual business coaching work that followed, Leanne Sheargold traced the turnaround to one modest promise: to try meditating for five minutes every day, with the stress firmly on the word try.
That small habit reopened an intuitive side Leanne had known since childhood and had set aside while raising three young boys and holding down a demanding job. It also changed how Leanne read the health problems that kept returning over the years, each one bigger than the last, as signals that daily life had to change.
The interview moves from that private reckoning to practical advice for women who want to start a business but feel held back by fear. The core of it is simple: act on an idea quickly and in a small way, because waiting gives fear the time it needs to grow and take control.
Key takeaways
- Leanne Sheargold rebuilt a spiritual practice at about 45 by trying to meditate for just five minutes a day.
- Repeated health problems, each more serious than the last, came to be read as warnings to slow down and reflect.
- The business began informally, with free Reiki healings and Wednesday night meditations for friends, before any fees.
- The advice for nervous founders is to take one small step at once, because fear grows the longer a dream waits.
1. Five minutes was enough to begin
By about 45, Leanne Sheargold had gone from loving a nine-to-five job and giving it 150 percent to hating it and dragging through each day. Leanne described constant negative self-talk with hardly a kind thought in it, and a beach holiday that ended with a clear sense that going back to the same routine was no longer possible.
The response was deliberately small. Leanne set a challenge to try to meditate each day for five minutes, with no training and no idea of the right technique. Putting on music and letting the rhythm carry the mind became a way to reach a calm enough state to face work each morning, and the practice soon felt like a saving grace.
Regular practice made it easier. Five minutes became ten, then thirty, and Leanne still meditates for about thirty minutes on most days, occasionally sixty. Leanne was candid that some sessions last only two minutes before frustration wins, which is part of the point: the habit survived because it never had to be perfect to count.
2. Reading health problems as warnings
Looking back, Leanne Sheargold sees a repeated pattern. Each health issue felt like a signal of doing too much and a prompt to stop and reflect on what was and was not working. Each time the signal was ignored and the pushing went on, the next health problem arrived in a bigger form, until body and mind could no longer cope.
The clearest early warning came at 28, when Leanne had a first stroke while raising three boys under the age of five. A neurologist advised meditation to release the stress held in the body. At the time Leanne dismissed the idea as junk, though spiritual reading carried on and off for years, squeezed in around family life and work.
Another nudge came on a holiday in Queensland, where a psychic reader in a crystal and book shop asked why Leanne was paying for a reading when the ability was already there. Back in Broken Hill, Leanne completed Reiki levels one and two and a meditation certificate, and the intuition that had faded during the busy years grew stronger again.
3. Start small before fear grows
The business grew out of play rather than a plan. Leanne Sheargold first gave free Reiki healings to anyone willing, then invited a few friends over for meditation on Wednesday nights. As the work strengthened, Leanne began charging, and at the time of the interview was running a program, grown from 12 to 20 weeks, that helps women start a business or rediscover the passion for one.
That program starts with the inner work. The first five weeks look at fear of failure and fear of success, the money values inherited from parents, old beliefs and self-worth. The next five tackle negative self-talk and an intention statement, and the final ten turn the business idea into small sequential steps, an ideal client and a launch plan.
For anyone sitting on an idea, the advice is to act at once in a small way: research it, read a book about it or open a Facebook page, which is exactly how Leanne started. Each small step flexes willpower and shows fear that it is not in control. Waiting only gives that fear more room to grow until it stops any movement forward.
