Leigh Jane Woodgate is a Business Growth Advisor, Leadership Mentor, Author of two #1 international bestselling books “Trailblazers” and “Awakening”, and the Founder of Inategy Business School, a Leadership Collective and Business School that enables Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurs, and Conscious Leaders, Coaches, Advisors, Consultants, Healers, and Therapists to build and grow profitable and sustainable 6 to Multi-6 and 7-Figure businesses so that they can achieve their wildest most soul-aligned dreams without compromising who they truly are.
For over 20 years Leigh has built and grown successful global businesses alongside influential entrepreneurs & CEO’s. Leigh understands the power of balancing masculine and feminine energy, integrating nature’s cycles, and aligning tailored business strategies to each individual to support profitable and sustainable business growth. The clients of Leigh work with her to learn how to do less and generate more, so that they can experience more pleasure, build substantial wealth, and create greater social impact with grace, dignity, simplicity & flow.
Leigh is born in Johannesburg and raised in South Africa by her Father. Leigh lives on the Central Coast in Australia with her 13-year old son.
Connect with Leigh on Instagram @leighjanewoodgate or visit her website here.
Q. Tell us a little more about your journey as an entrepreneur – how did you get started? What inspired you?
Leigh: The start of my entrepreneurial journey was catalysed by my son [he was nine years old at the time, now thirteen]. He came home one day after after-school care and said, “Mama, I don’t want to go to after-school care anymore” [the kid has always been clear on his desires:)]. At the time, I was working for a not-for-profit that felt very similar to corporate, and 3 years in, I began to contemplate ways on how to get out, on how to move from employee, to doing something on my own, as it just wasn’t working for me anymore.
So when my son’s request was put forward to me by him, I said, “Okay, I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to make that happen. But I will give it a crack”. And in that moment, something happened inside of me. It transported me back to when I was his age. I was brought up by my Father, a single dad from when I was two to ten years old [he remarried when I was 10 years old to an extraordinary Woman…I share more about their story and how they influenced me to do what I do today, in one of the #1 best selling books ”Trailblazers” that I contributed to]. He was an Entrepreneur, a busy man, and throughout my primary school years I have vivid memories of waiting outside of school for him, when all the other children had been picked up by their parents, and memories of being one of the last children to be collected from after-school care. And so when my nine-year-old son said, “I don’t want to go to aftercare anymore”, it catalysed this feeling inside of me, of my Father not being present for me after school, and in that moment I decided that I needed to break a cycle.
And so when I went back to work the following day, I put forward a proposal to my bosses, for me to work from home on a Wednesday, and work a half day on a Friday so that I could be present to pick my son up from school when the end of school bell rang at 3pm, at least two days a week. They suggested that we trial this arrangement for 3 weeks and then circle back to one another [keeping in mind that two years prior, I had worked from home on a Wednesday for a large junk of the year for some uninterrupted time to manage the insane workload that many not-for-profits contend with, and all flowed swimmingly without me in the office that day]. When the three weeks were up, I stepped into our scheduled meeting with my bosses [the Managing Director and CEO that I supported at the time].
Their response was this, “We’ve come up with a compromise. We’ve decided that you can come into the office at 9:30am everyday, and leave the office at 16:30 every afternoon”. I looked at them both, and said, “The last time I checked, school finishes at three o’clock in the afternoon, which means that your “compromise”, is not at all a compromise, as the outcome does not enable me to be present for my son not even one day of the week after school, let alone two. So your “compromise” is not going to work for me”. In that moment I could feel intense emotion boiling inside of me; a mix of anger, sadness, and disbelief that after supporting these men for almost three and a half years, with a high level of integrity, excellence, enthusiasm, drive, commitment, and beyond expectation outcomes, that it was too much of a stretch for them to give me one work from home day, and a one half day, when every other Female Senior Leader in the business, who was a Mother, had Friday’s off and worked from home whenever they requested to.
Their proposal for me was unethical.
Right there and then, I decided that my time was up. I did a quick calculation in my head of how many more weeks I would have to work in order to wake up without a job on my thirty sixth birthday – the greatest gift I could give to myself, gently moved my hand across the marble table at which we were sitting, and said “Please accept this as my resignation, you have 11 weeks to replace me. Do you have anything that you would like to add before we complete this meeting?”. The room fell silent. “Ok then” I said, stood up, and walked out of their office, feeling extremely tall, whilst thinking to myself “well, I guess I”ll be pulling a business out of thin air in the next 11 weeks then”. Sat back down at my desk in front of the white wall. And got back to it. I was a Single Mother. I had no plan. No back-up. No savings. No idea of what I was going to do. All I knew was that I was done working in a corporate-driven environment. And that’s how my Entrepreneurial journey to bridge the gap between power and leadership, and dissolve the Patriarchy through Divine Feminine Leadership began [you can learn more about this form of leadership on my Instagram page @leighjanewoodgate].
Q. What are your long-term goals in business? Paint a vision for the future.
Leigh: Mmmm, to do what I’m here to do. Which is to fully embody my mission to bridge the gap between power and leadership by supporting others to attune to the frequency of love, peace and joy on a daily basis in business and life. The long term goal? To normalise Divine Feminine Leadership. Which is driven by four key elements; intuition, trust, alignment, and structure, and supported by one core element; the cycles of nature, both internal and external. Divine Feminine Leadership is cultivated through being deeply connected to one’s intuition, living in alignment with one’s own natural flow, and as women in business it is about aligning to their own internal cycles and the moon, as well as the cycles of the seasons and planets, to bring harmony to the way in which we do business.
The Patriarchy runs on a 30 day 24/7 cycle. A cycle that requires individuals to be “on” constantly! In Divine Feminine Leadership at Inategy Business School, a business school that focuses on educating others on the power of balancing masculine and feminine energy, integrating nature’s cycles, and aligning tailored business strategies to each individual to support profitable and sustainable business growth, we are currently focussing on mastering the 14/14 Feminine Flow State © . A cycle that has women in business outputting at a high level for 14 days, and going inward for 14 days for moments of creativity, conceptualisation, and rest, in order to create greater results than the results created over a period of 30 days of output.
My long-term goal is for the feminine flow to be respected, honoured and revered in business and life, as it was time ago. For women to be supported to stop pushing themselves so hard in all aspects of their lives; their careers, home and social experiences. After being in business for 4 years, working at a much slower pace than I ever have done before, and supporting others to do the same, what I’ve noticed is that the more we respect our internal cycles, and the more we align with the cycles of nature, the less long term pain, and suffering we experience. The stats show that more women experience long term illnesses than men. And there are many women who experience PMS, which is actually not normal. It’s not normal for women to experience PMS. How we treat our bodies, and how we run our lives and businesses within the previous 21 days before our menstrual bleed, dictates how we experience our bleed. My long term focus is to normalise Divine Feminine Leadership; the guidance of our intuition in leadership, learning to feel safe to trust our internal compass, aligning with that which is true to us, building structures that support our unique nature, allowing ourselves to flow with the cycles of nature, and for young women to be educated that their menstrual cycle is their superpower – to use it in ways that support sustainable personal and business growth.
Q. What motivates you?
Leigh: What motivates me is the human experience, and the spaciousness that we get to enjoy when we respect ourselves, and the Planet on which we live. A Planet which has so much wisdom and magic to offer. So many things to learn about, and so many beautiful things to experience. In over 20 years in my career as an employee, supporting male CEOs, and Directors, to grow profitable and sustainable businesses, I witnessed how much unhealth was experienced by people in positions of leadership when the focus was not on creating spaciousness within the work environment. Witnessing people regularly experiencing anxiety, overwhelm, and depression throughout my career, is something that motivates me deeply to change the stats on. There is no need for people to do so much in order to create profitable, sustainable and impactful results. The opposite in fact. The less we do, the more we be, the greater the results. Slowly slowly the face of leadership is changing. And with this, hopefully my motivator for the work that I do with senior leaders, business owners, and CEO’s – which is currently the suffering and long term repercussions which are caused by human being’s pushing themselves too hard – will change too. There’s too much of a disparity between the people that are suffering and the people that are doing really well for them themselves. And it’s not necessary. There’s an abundance for all to live a prosperous life, and to have the time, space, energy, and finances to give to others. There is a better way of doing things. And my focus is to support as many leaders as possible to influence this change.
Q. What business-related book has inspired you the most, or, what is your favourite book?
Leigh: Two books that are not necessarily business-focused, yet rather more focussed on being human. I see them as business related books, because it is our humanness that enables us to become successful in business. The first one is “The Prophet” written by Kahlil Gibran. A book that was written with the intention of reading it in one sitting. It takes us through all of the most important things that exist in the human experience. A book that I travel with, and keep next to my bedside table. An absolute gem that you can open at any point and be gifted with something special. It’s one of those books that you can read over and over and over again, and every single time you do, you receive a new piece of wisdom. I believe that everyone should have this book on their bedside table.
The other one is a book that was recommended to me by Cait Scudder, one of my Business Coaches, called “Unbound, A Woman’s Guide to Power”, written by Kasia Urbaniak. I love this book so much, and with my mission being to bridge the gap between power and leadership, I recommend it to all my client’s to read. Kasia’s experiences are so diverse. She passed many years as a Dominatrix, and also many years immersed in Taoism, this combination of exploration is absolutely fascinating. So much of what she shares I relate to, and I see so much of myself in her because I am also a woman who likes to explore many different pathways that are quite unorthodox, far from mainstream, and influence how I do business in extraordinary ways.
Q. What strategies do you use to optimise your performance or mindset?
Leigh: I embody the work that my Business School, Inategy teaches. The three drivers being intuition, nature, and strategy. As a Leadership Mentor, my focus is to support individual’s, and their team’s to build and grow their purpose-driven businesses profitably and sustainably through the embodiment of the highest version of themselves, their true nature. I work with them to optimise their human operating systems, which includes their intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual, and energetic bodies. I use the same strategies to optimise my mindset and performance. One of the most foundational elements for optimisation is aligning with that which is true to us. It is very easy to lose our drive when we are doing things from a place of misalignment, out of obligation or with force. Aligning with our own personal ethical framework; our values, principles, mission, purpose, vision, and virtues, and our unique human nature, is the fastest way to feeling alive, and driven.
When we are not being true to ourselves, or when we are trying to box ourselves into somebody else’s way of being, we don’t feel good about ourselves, and when we don’t feel good, we don’t feel the desire to move forward. And other than always having someone in my corner in some shape or form to cheer my unorthodox ideas on, I work with various tools and profilers to remind myself of who I am. My top four profiling tools are Wealth Dynamics, Human Design, Gene Keys, and the 14/14 Feminine Flow State, a process that aligns feminine leaders to grow their businesses in alignment with their feminine cycle.
Q. What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?
Leigh: The most worthwhile investment that I ever made was one of the smaller investments that I’ve ever made [I’ve invested in over $150K in training, development, coaching and mentorship over the past 4 years]. $150 Australian dollars for a Women’s Day Retreat which was called something like “Wild Woman Rising”, I forget the exact name, held in an Industrial Park in Waterloo, Sydney. The first Women’s Circle that I ever attended, facilitated by one of my very first Mentors, Sarah-Jane Perman, a Womb Wisdom Keeper, and Feminine Embodiment Guide.
At the time I had no idea what a Women’s Circle even was. So when the invitation appeared before me. I said yes. It was a Sunday morning, my ex-husband had just returned from overseas, and he said to me “Leigh, why don’t you go and do something for yourself for the day”. I had been living the Single Mother life for close to a year, and I hadn’t been doing much for myself during the time that he was away, so when the invitation was made to do something for myself, I had no idea what that would even look like. So I lifted up my phone, and up popped this post from Tara Fisher, a Tantric Guide, with a link to Sarah-Jane Perman’s Women’s one day retreat. I clicked on the link, and I thought, what on earth is this? And when I did, my whole entire body said yes. So without much contemplation, I paid for my ticket, and off I went to pass eight hours with a group of women I had never met before. That day was also the first time that I was blessed with the experience of listening to Xavier Rudd’s voice, a well known Singer here in Australia, in the form of his song, “Spirit Bird”. That day, totally transformed my life.
It sent me on my current trajectory of Divine Feminine Leadership. After that day, I began three months of online Mentorship with Sarah to discover more about Womanhood, and Womb Wisdom. I then joined her and another eleven Women on my first ever retreat in Ibiza. A gift to myself after completing another 3 months of leadership development to understand the depths of what it means to be in leadership positions alongside men. On that retreat, for the first time in my life, I felt seen for who I truly am. So by the time I returned to Sydney, the wheels of change had been set in motion. From that moment on, I began to walk the path of Divine Feminine Leadership, with a focus to dissolve the Patriarchy. And it all began with an investment of $150 Australian Dollars.
Q. Where do you see the future in your niche/industry 3-5 years from now?
Leigh: Over the past four years in business, after supporting male CEO’s for over twenty years during my time as an employee, I have focused on supporting women to balance their masculine and feminine energies. I can count the men that I have supported to grow their businesses since launching my business 4 years ago, one one hand…they wear their hearts on their sleeves, and have a desire to slow down. They are present to the long term positive impact of bringing all parts of their human operating system on board; the intellect, emotions, physicality, energetics, and spirituality. And I hope that the desire for men to lead in this more fluid way will increase over time.
In the next three to five years, I would like for more men to come into the space of Divine Feminine Leadership, a space that supports leaders to drop out of their minds and more into their bodies, to enable sustainable personal and business growth. My intention is to normalise Divine Feminine Leadership across both masculine and feminine dominant industries.
Right now, the Patriarchy is driven by too many masculine forms of leadership, and not enough feminine forms of leadership. Divine Feminine Leadership is not only for the wild women who are deeply connected to the cycles of nature, determined to create radical change in the world. It is for all leaders who are seeking to drop their guard, feel safe to drop into their feminine energy, allow their hearts to lead, to trust their inner whispers, and to have more faith to flow with the rhythm and pulse of life, instead of being driven by the expectations of our incredibly unhealthy social construct. It is a way of leading that enables all individuals to do less, be more, and create more much needed purpose-driven impact in the world.
Q. What is your ‘one-sentence’ piece of advice you’d like to give to someone who wants to become an entrepreneur, coach, or business owner?
Leigh: A one liner of mine that I share often is “listen to your inner whispers, and take courageous action”. I use it as an anchor point for all leaders who cross my path, and choose to do the work to be able to hear their inner whispers.
The only time that we can listen to our inner whispers is when we’ve removed all of the noise. Many people are running their business and lives on adrenaline. Many start their day with a hit of caffeine, and most don’t even know what it feels like to be sustained by their own natural energy. And when things are “not working”, they mask their emotional and physical pain and discomfort, with pharmaceuticals.
Our intuition is second to none. It is the greatest guide that we have. When we remove all the noise, and stop feeding our systems with things, thoughts, and people that don’t serve us, when we allow ourselves to really tune in to our own human operating system, we can hear those inner whispers, we can tune into the wisdom of our bodies which always guide us to the point that the healing is required, and we can take courageous action to create meaningful change, not just for self, but for all sentient beings, and our Planet. And unless leaders choose to do the work that is required to enable them to heal themselves, so that they can hear their inner whispers, minimal courageous action can be taken.
To learn more about Leigh, Inategy Business School, and the path of Divine Feminine Leadership connect with her here on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
