The Ridiculously Human Podcast RHP#106. Mandy Lehto, Business and Executive Coach, Writer, Speaker, Podcast Host and Recovering Overachiever
Business and Executive Coach. Writer. Speaker. ex-Investment Banker. PhD Historian. Podcast Host. Gentle Soul. Mother. Recovering Overachiever.
Life is pretty much one big experiment if you really think about it. Somehow, miraculously we are all plonked into this world when we are born and have to figure things out from day one. Sure, you are provided with parents and meet other people along the way who are going to influence and mentor you. However, for the most part, we are on this magical experimental journey taking each moment as it comes.
Our guest this week, Mandy Lehto, has at times in her life felt like a bit of a misfit and as though she was not living the life she intended, or was at least, meant to live.
Mandy grew up as a farm girl in rural northern Ontario, Canada. She enjoyed a truly enriching and a self-sustaining lifestyle, with many great lessons for a young girl to learn. However, it’s fair to say that not everything was hunky-dory. She had a father who pushed her way too much. She learned from a young age that being a super-achiever was the way to get love and validation. The 3 P’s were a huge part of her life growing up: Be pleasing, passive and perfect.
Everybody in her family, besides her, was musical. They could all sing or play musical instruments and she was just the smart one. It was like a clubhouse that she didn’t have the key to.
She did end up being the first woman in her family to ever to go to university. Her super achieving attitude earned a PhD from Cambridge University. She always had a massive passion for creative writing and in her twenties, she was obsessed with writing for a particular big-deal glossy magazine in the UK. She pitched ideas and wrote to the Editor again and again. When she finally heard back, commending her on her tenacity, she was encouraged to submit a piece. Mandy ended up chickening out and deleted the email.
It was while working as a maternity nurse that an unexpected opportunity came knocking on her door. It led to Mandy getting a job in an investment bank. She learned the ropes and climbed the ranks extremely quickly. She looked incredibly successful to the outside world. However, her overachieving habits ended up with some heavy consequences, because inside she was dying. Her relationships were falling apart, she crashed through two marriages, and her health started falling to pieces as she suffered from severe adrenal fatigue. Yet she clung onto her ‘winning life strategy’. Her journey to heal herself involved acupuncture, seeing a shaman, joining a top coaching mastermind, a spirit animal retrieval meditation, and a dialogue with her vagina.
In 2009, she resigned from investment banking and started her own coaching and corporate training business. For the past few years, she’s been having a love affair with herself, resting, nourishing, meditating, and slowing down. Letting go of old stories and ways of being that no longer serve her.
We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.
Let’s find out what it means for Mandy Lehto, to be Ridiculously Human.
Your fellow beings,
Craig and Gareth
SHOW NOTES
Background, Context & Reference
Other relevant points discussed and mentioned:
- Timber Wolf
- Zither Instrument
- National Youth Jazz Orchestra, UK
- Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man
- Adrenal Fatigue
- Five Rhythms Dancing - Gabrielle Roth
- Primal (Scream) Therapy
- Psychologies Magazine
- Benny Hill Music
People Discussed
Music By
- The Bambuseae Rhythm Section - Check them out here
- The Simon Van Gend Band - Check them out here
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