{"id":17944,"date":"2026-11-03T13:47:23","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T13:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/?p=17944"},"modified":"2026-11-03T13:48:33","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T13:48:33","slug":"leah-izadi-on-mental-health-and-why-your-worth-isnt-your-workload","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/leah-izadi-on-mental-health-and-why-your-worth-isnt-your-workload\/","title":{"rendered":"Leah Izadi on Mental Health and Why Your Worth Isn\u2019t Your Workload"},"content":{"rendered":"    <div class=\"zm-cta\">\n      <div class=\"zm-cta__head\">\n        <div>\n          <div class=\"zm-cta__eyebrow\">ZenMaid<\/div>\n          <h2 class=\"zm-cta__title\">Brought to you by <em>expert cleaning business owners<\/em><\/h2>\n        <\/div>\n        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zm-cta__mark\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/themes\/zm-theme\/assets\/images\/zenmaid-logo.png\" alt=\"ZenMaid logo\">\n      <\/div>\n\n      <div class=\"zm-cta__list\">\n        <div class=\"zm-cta__item\">\n          <svg viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"21\" height=\"21\" fill=\"none\" stroke=\"#01676c\" stroke-width=\"3\" stroke-linecap=\"round\" stroke-linejoin=\"round\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M20 6 9 17l-5-5\"><\/path><\/svg>\n          <p><strong>Tips and advice shared here have helped us grow our own maid services.<\/strong> The ZenMaid team currently has 5+ current and former cleaning business owners on our team, including our Founder and CEO, Amar. We&rsquo;ve been in the maid service industry for 10+ years and counting.<\/p>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"zm-cta__item\">\n          <svg viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"21\" height=\"21\" fill=\"none\" stroke=\"#01676c\" stroke-width=\"3\" stroke-linecap=\"round\" stroke-linejoin=\"round\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M20 6 9 17l-5-5\"><\/path><\/svg>\n          <p><strong>We partner with amazing leaders in the cleaning industry,<\/strong> including Debbie Sardone, Stephanie Pipkin, Angela Brown, Chris Schwab, and many more &mdash; all to provide you with the latest industry insights.<\/p>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"zm-cta__item\">\n          <svg viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"21\" height=\"21\" fill=\"none\" stroke=\"#01676c\" stroke-width=\"3\" stroke-linecap=\"round\" stroke-linejoin=\"round\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M20 6 9 17l-5-5\"><\/path><\/svg>\n          <p><strong>We&rsquo;ve built the easiest-to-use, comprehensive cleaning business software, built specifically for the industry!<\/strong><\/p>\n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n\n      <div class=\"zm-cta__actions\">\n        <a class=\"zm-cta__btn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/\">Check out ZenMaid<\/a>\n        <div class=\"zm-cta__chip\"><span><\/span>Easy 5 minute setup<\/div>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Listen on: <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/188-leah-izadi-on-mental-health-and-why-your-worth\/id1791590022?i=1000799598773\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/3EvkVa1uloSpqbhrJ75pFY?si=214026531a2e422f\">Spotify<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/lXHbwLMRGkg\">YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: #188: Leah Izadi on Mental Health and Why Your Worth Isn\u2019t Your Workload\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/3EvkVa1uloSpqbhrJ75pFY?si=214026531a2e422f&amp;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-1\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Hello, everyone. Welcome, or welcome back, to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today&#8217;s fabulous guest is one of my consulting clients, Leah Izadi, and she has quite the incredible story. And today, we&#8217;re going to focus a lot on the topic of mental health. October does have World Mental Health Day in it, and it is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, and I know to many of our listeners. And Leah has so many stories and lessons to be shared about this topic and just her life in general. And I am super appreciative of her joining me, being vulnerable, and sharing her life with us. So thank you so much, Leah, for joining us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Hi, thanks, Stephanie. I&#8217;m so excited to finally talk with you, and this podcast has helped me tons. I feel like it was a saving grace in my life, and everyone, all the guests, and everyone in it. So I just want to share my knowledge with everyone else in case it helps someone going through the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Thank you. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And especially, I think entrepreneurship and just the physicality of this work can really wear us down. There&#8217;s just a lot to balance. So I want to know: how did you get into cleaning? How did this all start for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-2\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">How Leah got into cleaning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So I was in college and about to get married and had a child on the way. So I ended up dropping out of school \u2014 I was wanting to be an interior designer probably since sixth grade \u2014 because my husband was in school as well, and so he continued. And his mother had a cleaning business. I think she had been in it, Bless This Mess, for 10 years, and they pretty much just said, &#8220;You&#8217;re doing this.&#8221; Yeah. And now that I think back to it, I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Did I sign up for this?&#8221; So they were like, &#8220;Yeah, how about this?&#8221; And my mother-in-law wanted to get out of the business because she worked heavily with the church and wanted to take another path. And so I was just like, &#8220;Okay, let&#8217;s get on it.&#8221; And I just built it. I had my son, I would say, end of July, and then end of September, I was almost fully in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow, with a brand new baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yeah, yes, I was. So that&#8217;s how the cleaning business started. But I&#8217;ve always loved cleaning. It was just like a proud thing that I did. Like, at every company that I worked for since I was 15, I was always the one cleaning. I couldn&#8217;t stand to just be sitting in between, so I would just clean all the time. Everyone was happy \u2014 even my babysitting. Since I was 12, I would clean the kitchens as the kids were sleeping. So I&#8217;m like, &#8220;No wonder they had me back for 10 years.&#8221; So when the kids would go to bed, I would clean, like, the \u2014 I don&#8217;t know \u2014 living room and kitchen, and it was just always very comforting for me. I felt like I was prided on it at home. It was just like my useful job. So I&#8217;ve always loved it, you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-3\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Self-worth and usefulness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> You know, it&#8217;s interesting, because on your intake form, you use that word &#8220;usefulness,&#8221; and that a lot of your identity and self-worth was coming from how useful you are to others. And then when you ran into health issues \u2014 which we can talk more about \u2014 that is an identity loss that has occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I feel like once I was with my new husband, and we share the money and we share everything \u2014 it&#8217;s just like an amazing relationship \u2014 even though it wasn&#8217;t about money, I just kept pushing myself for whatever reason. I thought that if I didn&#8217;t do this type of physical work, I wasn&#8217;t worthy of anything else. And actually, I just didn&#8217;t even know what else I was good at, because I had done it for, you know, 23 years. So I just didn&#8217;t even understand what my strengths were. I couldn&#8217;t see them clearly enough, which I&#8217;ve worked through pretty much all summer, and now I&#8217;m just like, &#8220;Okay, I get it.&#8221; So I can get out of the field, and now I&#8217;m super excited about everything and, like, back to how I was as a child. So I&#8217;ve learned so much about how I used to be, and it&#8217;s just all coming back. Like, &#8220;Oh, okay, maybe, yeah, I&#8217;m not supposed to be physically cleaning. I did my part.&#8221; And I just want to build a business that reflects all my other strengths as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I&#8217;d love to, if you&#8217;re comfortable sharing, talk me through that process, because you just said, &#8220;I&#8217;ve been working through this,&#8221; meaning getting out of the field, and that if I&#8217;m not doing that physical work, I&#8217;m still valuable. Discovering your strengths. What kind of tools did you use to figure these things out and to work through that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-4\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Nerve entrapments and pushing through pain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> The first step I took \u2014 so I have nerve entrapments. It took about four years to figure out. It was actually on the four-year anniversary I pretty much had a breakdown, because I had been pushing through pain for so long. I had had a surgery for infertility about four and a half years ago, and of course I wasn&#8217;t supposed to work for a whole month. And I had a \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> What did you do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I had a big account, one account. It was a PT place, and I went to it, but my husband did all the cleaning. But I was walking around, and I was plugging in, you know, the vacuum and things. And so I bent over a utility ladder. It had those spikes. It was like a 15-foot ladder. And I did this for eight years. I would, you know, maneuver my body through and plug in the plug there. And since it was after surgery, I kind of just fell on it because I didn&#8217;t have the strength, and it poked me. And I didn&#8217;t even think about it until much later that it poked, you know, my surgery area. And so it left nerve entrapments. And so when I would go to work, it was like I was trying to protect that area, and my whole stomach, from here to here, bundled up with nerve entrapments. So they just couldn&#8217;t figure it out. I kept going to the doctor for probably two years \u2014 different specialists and the surgeon \u2014 and they just couldn&#8217;t figure it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So at four years, I was building this cleaning company. I was very excited about building a medical and wellness cleaning company. So after listening to you for probably about a month, maybe three weeks, I was like, &#8220;I&#8217;m doing this. I could do this.&#8221; So I started doing all the research for maybe, I don&#8217;t know, six weeks. Went on a vacation. I was sitting on vacation for a whole week \u2014 super boring. I was dying. I was like, &#8220;Oh my gosh.&#8221; It was like a beach vacation. So I came home and started to do some more, you know, research, and my nerve was hurting just sitting. And so I just was like, &#8220;How am I supposed to run a business while I&#8217;m hurting, like, sitting even?&#8221; So that&#8217;s when I decided to look more into myself and healing. And that&#8217;s when I found the doctors that have been healing me. And I would say I&#8217;m 80% better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow. Yeah, that&#8217;s incredible. Yeah, because when we met at the end of last year, the last time, you were in a lot of pain. You were really struggling. And, you know, our conversation was around how to get out of the field, all of that. So I love to hear that you are feeling \u2014 I mean, 80% better from daily pain. I can&#8217;t imagine what that&#8217;s like now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-5\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Letting residential clients go<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yeah, so after that, I was just like, &#8220;Okay, I need to take a break.&#8221; I was in treatment probably three weeks, three times a week even, so I just couldn&#8217;t even fit residential work in. So I slowly let people go, which was the hardest part of everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, I bet it was. Especially as an, you know, overworker, people pleaser, as you&#8217;ve attested to. Like, that must have been absolutely brutal. So coming out the other side of that, what did you discover about yourself having to do that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I discovered that \u2014 well, for one thing, people will understand if they care about you. I would say I had, I think, 15 clients, and maybe only one gave me pushback, and I just had to finally, just flat out straight, be like, &#8220;Okay, I just can&#8217;t. I&#8217;m sorry.&#8221; Yeah, but everyone else understood. It got easier the more I would do it. So I kind of did it in batches, and I did it all in person \u2014 mostly all in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow, you&#8217;re brave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I wrote letters, and I would be crying on my way out, like, &#8220;Bye-bye, house. I love you.&#8221; So yes, it was just the most devastating thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-6\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Finding her strengths again<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So who helped me with this? After I started getting the physical help, I found someone online. It was a free event through Eventbrite, and it&#8217;s about aligning with your purpose. It&#8217;s called Empowering \u2014 yeah, Empowering Your Purpose. And I started meeting with her, and she just transformed me, I feel like, because she believed in me. She came from a corporate setting, and now she does more of healing work and working with individuals to align with their purpose. She does a lot of testing, like strength testing. So there was something called a Logos Report, and I took that, and it showed me all of my leadership strengths and how strong they were, and the weak parts that I need to work on. And it really aligned with another \u2014 I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve ever heard of the Clifton StrengthsFinder. A lot of churches and businesses use it to help their company build on their strengths and work together well. So I took that back when I was 23 through the church, and I did not understand what they were talking about, because it was all about \u2014 I was a good problem solver, I was this and that. And I&#8217;m like, &#8220;No, I hate problems,&#8221; you know, when I was that young. And now it was like, &#8220;Oh my gosh, it just aligned perfectly.&#8221; Like, &#8220;Okay, I see what I&#8217;m supposed to do, what I&#8217;m good at.&#8221; So she really, yeah, changed everything for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> That&#8217;s amazing that you, one, took the steps to do something, and also to recognize that you need to do something. Were you aware at the time how much your lack of self-belief was holding you back? Did you realize that consciously? Or now, looking back, you just see very clearly, like, &#8220;Holy crap, this was affecting me&#8221;?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-7\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Loneliness and a toxic first marriage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yes, I feel like I did. When I first started cleaning when I was young, I felt very \u2014 now that I look back, I guess I was very lonely. Because, I mean, I came from school. I was very social, you know. I did tons of sports, individual sports. And then I just jumped into, you know, motherhood, family life, and a business. And I mean, you can&#8217;t really do physical things after, you know, nine hours of working five days a week. So that&#8217;s kind of how that became my identity, because I didn&#8217;t have any extra time to do the things I loved before. So back then, I remember, in my head, I would think a lot about, &#8220;Oh, I wish I could do other things,&#8221; even though I was loving, you know, cleaning. I just felt like it was maybe not right for me, or I wasn&#8217;t smart enough to do something else, you know. Just as the years went on, it just built up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Like it started to feel like a prison, from the sounds of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yes. And I think it had a lot to do with my family life, too. Like, my husband would say, &#8220;You know, are you putting the money in every day?&#8221; And would think that was \u2014 like, &#8220;No, I have ADD. I did not put the cash in the bank.&#8221; And he would feel like it was about him, like I didn&#8217;t do it because, you know, I didn&#8217;t love him or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Woo. Thank God you&#8217;re out of that fucking relationship. Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So when I met my now husband, he&#8217;s just very, like, &#8220;Oh, you can do anything.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I feel like we&#8217;ve had such a similar path with that. Obviously, you were in a longer marriage, but, like, yes. Without going into too much detail when it comes to what a really toxic relationship can do to how you see yourself, compared to when you get in a good one. Like, I&#8217;m in my first healthy relationship of my entire life, and it&#8217;s almost like I don&#8217;t know how to be treated well. I&#8217;m like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what to do with this.&#8221; I&#8217;m so happy for you, though, that you found your husband, and really what that can do for you, of letting you feel safe and be able to breathe and start to work through these things, because you&#8217;re not in this constant battle and trying to make this, you know, adult child be appeased when they do not want to be appeased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yes. No, yes, yeah. So then when I met my husband, I felt like I got super confident, and I was like, you know \u2014 I found a house that I was at two days a week. I was in a lot of debt. So we had a bunch of debt racked up, which I did not really know of. So about \u2014 I think it was $45,000. And I just was like, &#8220;Okay, I&#8217;m figuring this out.&#8221; So I got some more weekly clients, and I started doing meal prep for them, things like that. They were probably four minutes away from my house. So I just really tackled the debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-8\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Financial control and financial literacy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> You&#8217;ve mentioned now twice, like, &#8220;I didn&#8217;t know about this,&#8221; in the money side of things. And so I&#8217;m curious about, in your previous marriage, was that very much intentional, do you think, on his part, of like, &#8220;I control the money&#8221;?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yes. So I actually remember the moment. When we first got married, we got into our apartment, and he said that he will be handling the finances. And I just remember swallowing really hard. Like, I felt like life just escaped me. And so I just didn&#8217;t trust my intuition, which I&#8217;ve learned, you know, tons about. So I just kind of ignored everything, because whenever, you know, I asked, there wasn&#8217;t much to tell. So I just pretty much kept making the money, not knowing where \u2014 like, putting it in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> And then he \u2014 yeah. First off, I&#8217;m so sorry. And let this be the, you know, 10,000th example for every single person listening that financial literacy, especially as a woman \u2014 I cannot say how important. Because when you need to get out of a situation, sometimes you simply can&#8217;t, because he has all of the control of the money \u2014 or she, you know, they do. But obviously, we&#8217;re both women, and, you know, talking about what our experience is \u2014 having money allows you to get out of bad situations, you know. And, like, what these businesses can do for us \u2014 any job, of course \u2014 but what it can do for us of having that autonomy, and taking our life and running if we need to, you know, whatever that means, and having the ability to support that and getting out. So what has your relationship with money been since? Since I know you&#8217;re like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to get rich or anything,&#8221; but coming from a very \u2014 I would argue \u2014 financially abusive marriage, in that example of keeping you away from the money, you not knowing, you just put it into the bank and you don&#8217;t know. How do you feel now related to money?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I love it. Not \u2014 I don&#8217;t love the money. I just love having control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I love money. Hey, girl, I love money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I love having control of the money. It&#8217;s so fun. So at first, when I first met my husband, he was a bartender for like 15 years, and so he&#8217;d bring home cash and I would bring home cash. And we had a little area in the bedroom, and then we have, you know, meetings every month since I&#8217;ve met him. So then we talk about our goals and, you know, our dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh my gosh, you met a wonderful man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> It&#8217;s just so fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> A true partner, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So we do have separate accounts, but we, you know, have rules, and then we have where we split certain things. So I know what he&#8217;s taking care of. You know, if there&#8217;s something funny that comes up, you know, we talk to each other. It&#8217;s not that hard. I feel like \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> And then you just feel like, yeah, you&#8217;re both \u2014 it&#8217;s just part of your dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> You&#8217;re building together. So I&#8217;m curious, if we have anybody who&#8217;s listening who&#8217;s 18, 19, 20 years old, young, they&#8217;re just starting their life \u2014 based on your experience with the financial things that occurred in your former relationship, what advice would you give a young woman to not do, to do, when it comes to what you&#8217;ve experienced with the, you know, shithole situation with money? That&#8217;s what it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Well, just first, yeah, just trust your intuition, I would say. Just know that you&#8217;re an equal being and that you can have a say in everything, pretty much, I would say. And if, you know, your partner doesn&#8217;t agree, I just feel like either go to therapy \u2014 which they usually don&#8217;t want to \u2014 or, you know, if they want to learn, you can teach them, if you have a better upbringing than they did. I think that was the main part of my first marriage. You know, my family is very frugal with money. They&#8217;re actually on the extreme end \u2014 kind of, like, disgusted by money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, that&#8217;s interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yeah, so my mom, my brother, my sister are all just like, yeah. So it&#8217;s kind of funny, because I run a business, or, you know, I like nicer things than them, and it&#8217;s like, &#8220;Oh, am I going to be judged, you know, if I have something?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow, those are some hard walls to overcome, because they so much affect how we view making money and being successful, if we grew up in a place that said, &#8220;This is bad, it&#8217;s disgusting, you&#8217;re greedy if you blah, blah, blah,&#8221; you know, all of these things. So I&#8217;m assuming you&#8217;ve worked through some of this, because, you know, you&#8217;re running a business now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yes, yes, I have, big time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-9\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Infertility, COVID, and pushing through<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So what else? And now \u2014 so I guess in 2020, me and my husband were planning to have a baby. I have a 23-year-old son, and we had been talking for many years about, you know, having another one, because he hadn&#8217;t had a child. So then we came upon infertility. So that was an area \u2014 I think that&#8217;s the time that totally broke me with cleaning, because I was pushing and pushing, and everything was so expensive to figure out. So I ended up taking on tons of work during COVID, because a lot of clients left, you know, the first few months. And so I was just freaking out after a week of not working, like, &#8220;What am I going to do? I can&#8217;t just be sitting here.&#8221; So I just went out and got all new clients. And so then when everyone came back, I was, you know, triple or double booked, and I just kept pushing through that \u2014 which I guess that was more for money, because we wanted to have a child. So, yeah. So then our daughter was born \u2014 she&#8217;s almost two and a half \u2014 and my sister carried her after trying to figure all of that out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, that&#8217;s beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So after four years, she&#8217;s like, &#8220;Just let me do it. I know I can do this.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, wow. What a wonderful system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So, yeah, she did, and it just worked on the first try. So she carried our baby girl, and I went back to work after a month. And I remember looking through the blinds. It was just like nothing had ever happened. Like, I had this beautiful child that we wanted. I went to dust the blinds, and they&#8217;re very tall in this condo \u2014 condo halls that I do. I did like seven places in there, and my arm always would hurt, because I have nerve entrapment here too. And I just thought, &#8220;This again? Am I ever going to be happy?&#8221; That&#8217;s what I thought. Like, &#8220;Am I ever going to be happy?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-10\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Cleaning in silence for 21 years<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> That&#8217;s when I was like, &#8220;I can&#8217;t be in my head anymore.&#8221; So it was like, &#8220;Oh, podcasts. What are those?&#8221; Because I had never listened to anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> You just cleaned in silence for years and years. Wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yeah, for 21 years. I was just like, &#8220;I can&#8217;t do this anymore.&#8221; I was afraid that I would just go back to thinking in my head, which \u2014 I always had a big problem to solve at some points, because my son was sick for four years. He had intestinal issues. He had his colon taken out. So for four years, I was thinking about that at work, trying to figure everything out. But it&#8217;s like you can&#8217;t actually do anything as you&#8217;re physically working, you know. You can just think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah. It&#8217;s like, again, it&#8217;s like a prison. It&#8217;s like you&#8217;re doing something, but you&#8217;re not solving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yes. You&#8217;re solving it in your head, and you have to keep it all in your head, which I&#8217;m actually really good at. So all these things are in my head all the time, and I couldn&#8217;t get them out. And so I went through that. My father died right before that, which was a very traumatic death. So six months after that, I wasn&#8217;t done grieving, and then my son got sick for the four years. I was thinking about that constantly. And he&#8217;s great now. And then once the infertility thing happened, I was thinking about that for four years. So I just feel like I was always problem solving in my head at work, so it kept me busy. But then, once there, I was like, &#8220;What do I do?&#8221; When I had my daughter, I just felt like, &#8220;What do I think about? I don&#8217;t even know what to do.&#8221; And I was like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to go back to how I used to be, thinking negatively or things about me.&#8221; So I just chose to look up a podcast. And then I was like, &#8220;What do I even like?&#8221; I remember thinking, &#8220;What do I like anymore?&#8221; And I was like, forensics \u2014 I love some true crime. I got that on. I listened to American Greed, I think, forever. And then it got really depressing after, like, three months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I had to stop listening to any true crime or watching any of it, because it&#8217;s just, yeah, it&#8217;s very depressing. It also makes me more paranoid and scared, frankly, of just going out in the world. Like, &#8220;Oh, this woman got murdered walking her dog.&#8221; Well, therefore, you know \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> My husband just said I had to stop listening the other day, because \u2014 I forget what I said, but I always think people are going to jump out of the trash cans at the commercial company. So I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Well, what if someone was in there, hiding behind?&#8221; And I&#8217;m always checking, and he&#8217;s like, &#8220;You need to just stop, please.&#8221; So then I was like, &#8220;Well, what&#8217;s the opposite of depressing? Oh, it&#8217;s happy.&#8221; So I literally typed &#8220;happy&#8221; into Spotify, and then this podcast called The Happiness Lab came up, and the first one I listened to was about creativity. And all of a sudden, everything started flooding back to me from when I was a child. I was very creative, and I loved projects. And I wasn&#8217;t crazy about school \u2014 I would not pay attention throughout all of school, and then I would go home, and I would be so excited. I would just do my little dishwasher routine, and then I would go and lock myself in my room and learn everything by myself. And I would just get good grades that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, well, you&#8217;re definitely ADHD, good lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yeah, so that started bringing back memories of how I used to be, and the creativity parts, and what I was good at. And then I started kind of listening to Jay Shetty, some inspirational \u2014 I didn&#8217;t even know who he was, but he just popped up. I didn&#8217;t even pick him. So I kind of started self-talking to myself at work instead, and saying, you know, &#8220;Yeah, you can do this. You&#8217;re a good person.&#8221; It always felt like someone was watching over me, and I still don&#8217;t really know what that is \u2014 seeing if my intentions are bad. But no one&#8217;s around, so I&#8217;ve just been telling myself, &#8220;If I know my intentions, know I&#8217;m a good person, and I mean well, that&#8217;s okay.&#8221; I&#8217;ve been doing that a lot lately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-11\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Finding Filthy Rich Cleaners<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So then I found your podcast. It was last October, I remember, and I remember looking at the picture, like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to be filthy rich.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s not what I want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I was annoyed, because I was like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to be rich.&#8221; But I just clicked on it when I was cleaning a law office, and I was like, &#8220;Oh my gosh, I love this.&#8221; I loved it from the start. So I kept listening to it every day at work, and I feel like it just took my mind off the pain, and it was just really fun. And so ever since then, I&#8217;m like, I love learning, I love everything. And I love \u2014 yeah, I just love people. I feel like I was alone for so long. And I feel like as I clean a house, I&#8217;m pouring out love into the house and the people. But there was, again, nowhere for it to go, or they don&#8217;t know that you&#8217;re feeling that way, you know. So it&#8217;s just \u2014 yeah, it&#8217;s messed up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-12\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Breaking the cycle for her daughter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> And the way I kind of got myself to get out of the field was \u2014 I remember my mom giving me a hug when I was hurting, which I don&#8217;t think anyone really understood, because I don&#8217;t talk about it much. And she did it in front of my daughter, and she said, like, &#8220;I&#8217;m her mommy,&#8221; and she&#8217;s trying to explain. And then I thought, &#8220;Do I want my children to feel like this when they get older? Do I want them to feel like I do at 40 or 44?&#8221; You know, so that&#8217;s kind of what changed everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Meaning you wanted to be an example of, like, &#8220;You don&#8217;t have to just do this physical labor,&#8221; you know, for the rest of your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yes. And, you know, my whole family \u2014 my aunts and my uncles \u2014 they&#8217;re all like that. They just keep going until they pretty much break. We all have ADD too. But so that was one thing I told myself: &#8220;Yeah, I just need to break the cycle. Just break the cycle.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Do you think \u2014 I mean, I don&#8217;t know what all of your family&#8217;s jobs are, but are they more, quote unquote, blue collar? Like the physical labor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So my great-grandma raised my mom. Her parents died when she was very young, and her grandparents raised five of them, which they were not happy about. So they had a catering business. My great-great-grandma was a caterer. My aunt was a painter \u2014 she painted. She does catering as well. There&#8217;s a plumber. My mom was in corporate all her life. She would come home, and even in my teenage years, I remember her talking to us at the table about how dumb she was. Even though she had, like, a $90,000 \u2014 she always made, like, $24,000 all her life, and then she got this, you know, job where she was making $90-something in the &#8217;90s, and she still just didn&#8217;t believe it. It was like imposter syndrome nowadays. So I feel like that was an example I had. And then, after she was let go from AB, she started a company mowing lawns. She mows lawns, and she just retired. She&#8217;s like 68, and she just couldn&#8217;t stop. But she loves physical work too \u2014 physical labor. And we have chefs, and, yeah, a lot of entrepreneurs. My dad was a car salesman \u2014 or, engineer. Yeah, engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Okay, interesting. Yeah, because it&#8217;s like this dichotomy, right? Of money&#8217;s bad, but work really hard, obviously, to make a living. It&#8217;s interesting. And it&#8217;s funny \u2014 I actually get quite triggered when people say that about themselves, for a variety of reasons. But actually, this just happened the other day, where my partner said it multiple times. I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Please stop saying that.&#8221; Because it just makes me so sad, because my mom would do it too, you know \u2014 be moments of, like, she was the person to clown on, you know, type of thing. And so for you, seeing your mom and really thinking about her saying that about this great job that clearly she earned, and just did not believe in herself \u2014 and looking at, you know, what kind of example you&#8217;re making for your daughter. Because I think it&#8217;s really interesting, and I can also relate to this: you&#8217;re thinking, &#8220;I need to break the cycle. I need to be a different example for my children, for my daughter.&#8221; And, you know, she&#8217;s still so young now, so it&#8217;s like you&#8217;re doing this work right now. I mean, what do you want your daughter to see her mother do differently than maybe you saw?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I want her to see not to just cater to everyone and think that that&#8217;s her worth, and just that she has tons of abilities, not just a single one. And, yeah, I actually really want to have her connected to the community, because she&#8217;s kind of like an only child, you know, because they&#8217;re so separated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Big age gap, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So I think about that, because we all may be gone. So I feel like she&#8217;ll need \u2014 half of my family is all in Iran, so all of her cousins are in Iran. She has, like, seven littles the same age as her, but she probably will never be with them. So I really want to show her that if you don&#8217;t have the family that believes in you, you can have the community and everyone else \u2014 all the networking, all the people \u2014 for her, and she doesn&#8217;t have to rely on just herself or, you know, family, if they don&#8217;t believe in her vision even. Which I&#8217;m finding very helpful right now, because my family \u2014 I get very excitable, so I talk about my plans all the time, which my husband&#8217;s good at listening to, but it&#8217;s just kind of deer in the headlights sometimes with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-13\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Talk to everyone: the dust gun story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I&#8217;ve just found it very helpful to go out. Every time I go out, I just talk to someone. I always have to talk to at least one person. I don&#8217;t use my phone in public. I just feel like that&#8217;s very helpful, to just look up and speak with other people. And I just want her to have that same experience. I have a funny story about that, actually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So I have a medical account, and it&#8217;s three times a week. So I had just sold a quarterly refresh for it, and so I performed it on Sunday. And I went to a technology store called Micro Center here, and I got a dust gun to do all the intricate pieces, and I was really excited about it. So I was trying to talk to the cashier about it, and he was trying to get me out. He&#8217;s like, &#8220;Who cares about your dust gun?&#8221; And so I was like, &#8220;Okay.&#8221; So I checked out, and I started leaving, and I saw two microfiber cloths, which I&#8217;ve wanted \u2014 one just specifically for the screens at this chiropractic place. So I again bought those, and I checked out with another guy, and he was like, &#8220;Oh my gosh, that dust gun.&#8221; And so I told him my plans and everything, and he said, &#8220;I&#8217;m obsessed with dusting.&#8221; He&#8217;s like, &#8220;Since I was a child.&#8221; He&#8217;s like, &#8220;Oh my gosh.&#8221; And he went and grabbed his dust cloth, and he&#8217;s like, &#8220;Every time I&#8217;m not doing the register, I dust everything. My mom thought I was crazy as a child.&#8221; And I was like, &#8220;Oh my gosh.&#8221; So I actually got his information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I was gonna say, hire that man. Hire him now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> He messaged me that night. So I had a dream about him too, that he came to my house and tried to \u2014 yeah. And I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Okay, that&#8217;s a little too much.&#8221; But, yeah, so the next morning \u2014 I had just got on LinkedIn. I just joined LinkedIn yesterday with my new cleaning company name, and he had messaged me. You know, he said, &#8220;I&#8217;m really interested in what you&#8217;re doing.&#8221; And, yeah, so I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Oh, well, yeah.&#8221; When you talk about, you know, things like that, I just feel like things, you know, come along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> It&#8217;s so true. I think it&#8217;s one of the best pieces of advice out there, especially if somebody&#8217;s, you know, starting out or you&#8217;re trying to turn a new chapter, perhaps offer a new service. But just never stop yapping to everybody around you. And I know the introverts listening are like, &#8220;Fuck you, Stephanie.&#8221; I understand. I totally \u2014 like, I really don&#8217;t, because I&#8217;m an extrovert through and through, as everybody knows. I don&#8217;t comprehend, but I can sympathize. But I cannot empathize. I want to talk to everybody. But I will say, if that is a skill that you can, you know, use judiciously, just start talking to people about what you do and that excitement, because you don&#8217;t know who that person is, who they know, what the opportunities are. And that just natural excitement \u2014 it&#8217;s to the right person. The first one wasn&#8217;t, the second one was. Look at that. That was an incredible interaction. So great. Great point to make there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-14\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Pivoting through the summer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Number two is, you know, you&#8217;re evolving the business. So I want to talk about where it was six months ago to where you&#8217;re at now, and what the vision is, because you&#8217;ve alluded to what you want and your strengths and your vision. Talk us through: what does that look like for you now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I told myself that in the fall \u2014 so I would heal over the summer, because I had to really do a lot of mental and physical work in the summer. And so, you know, fall is coming now. So first things first, I kind of pivoted in the summer, you know, because I didn&#8217;t want to let too much income go all at once. So I was like, &#8220;Well, what could I do in the summer?&#8221; So I cleaned my event space and the pools, toilet areas, and they pay really well. They kind of just gave me a price at mine, so I was like, &#8220;Well, I&#8217;ll just, you know, set that price for others around.&#8221; So I contacted the lifeguard management company that they use, and then I introduced myself and, you know, made flyers for that. And so he asked me, &#8220;You know, what zip codes would you like?&#8221; And he sent that out for me. And so I got some of those over the summer to kind of hold me over. So that&#8217;s over now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-15\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Setting up systems and rebranding<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> But now I&#8217;m setting up the systems of everything, I would say, just in the last three weeks. So I&#8217;m just getting all the technical stuff done, which I&#8217;m not good at. It&#8217;s taking me forever \u2014 like, you know, Canva. I just did a one-pager for drop-offs at the doctors&#8217; offices, which took forever, too long. Which my husband&#8217;s like, &#8220;Yeah, that was just ridiculous.&#8221; But I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Well, if I don&#8217;t learn \u2014&#8221; I feel like I need to learn everything first, and then, if I have the time and money \u2014 I feel like we&#8217;re okay financially \u2014 so I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Yeah, might as well learn these and then hand them off.&#8221; And then I do, like you said, the vines or whatever, to show them how to do certain things. So I&#8217;m just setting up account folders, and then all the automated systems that you had an episode on, I think, like, three episodes ago. So I wrote all of those down, and then I&#8217;m just implementing the ones that I think will be useful for my first hires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So I did that. I just rebranded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> What&#8217;s the new business name, if you don&#8217;t mind me asking?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> And it was hard, because every time I say, &#8220;Oh, Bless This Mess,&#8221; even to the doctors, they&#8217;re like, &#8220;Oh, I love that name.&#8221; And then I get discouraged, like, &#8220;Oh, should I not?&#8221; And then eventually I was like, &#8220;You know what? Just trust your feelings. You&#8217;re the one that knows your business. That&#8217;s not going to work. There&#8217;s, like, five Messes.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, for commercial. And it is \u2014 some iteration of that is quite common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> And it wasn&#8217;t my name to begin with. It was my mother-in-law who handed off the three accounts when I first started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> It&#8217;s time, especially \u2014 this is yours, you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So it&#8217;s going to be called \u2014 or it is called \u2014 Innate Cleaning Co., and then Medical &amp; Wellness. Just because I feel like it ties into, yeah, my innate nature, and just, cleaning is natural to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, that makes perfect sense. It&#8217;s so natural to you. I love that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s the name. And then I plan on eventually \u2014 I want to do fundraising and things to go along with each office, because that&#8217;s always been a dream of mine, like, in retirement. So I&#8217;ve been trying to connect with the nonprofits and things around here that I&#8217;ve always liked and kind of donated small amounts to, and I want to keep up with those. And also, eventually, maybe tell doctor-patient stories too. But that&#8217;s \u2014 yeah, that&#8217;s getting a little crazy. So, yeah, get the cleaning systems down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-16\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Production rates for a medical office<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So this past month, I&#8217;ve been really tracking my production rate and things, so I have all of those written out, and it&#8217;s very steady, I feel like. Again, I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;m slower than most people. Am I faster? I don&#8217;t know. Anything to really compare it to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Throw them at me. I&#8217;ll tell you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I have \u2014 it&#8217;s like a 3,500-square-foot, I think, chiropractic office, and I&#8217;m there three times a week. And twice it&#8217;s just a short clean, you know, just sanitizing and vacuuming and things, and it&#8217;s like an hour and 15 minutes. And then the longer clean is two and a half hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> That sounds on the money for a limited scope versus full clean. Yeah, I think you&#8217;re golden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So the hardest part of switching, I feel, is just not getting too detailed, because I&#8217;m so \u2014 I feel like it&#8217;s a double-edged sword, because I can see things that, you know, the doctors would like \u2014 just having the chairs perfectly aligned, you know, and like that. But then also, not getting too crazy, because you&#8217;re not supposed to be dusting everything every time. So that&#8217;s been the hardest thing for me. But I feel like once I hire, if I just say what to do, then they will, you know, know what to do, if they&#8217;re not coming from residential cleaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, no, for real. Taking somebody who&#8217;s house cleaning and putting them in businesses can be very hard, because it&#8217;s different. You&#8217;ve got to move a lot faster. But, you know, the checklist is your best friend, hon, and quality control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yes, I have the checklists. And then we did a feedback survey with the doctors after a few months, on the communication style \u2014 like, is that working out? Just anything else, like, would it be okay to leave, you know, our supplies here? Things like that that I didn&#8217;t think about in the beginning. Is there anything else that, you know, you would like done? All that. And it went really well. And so, you know, they said they would recommend me if I needed, and so that was a big win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Absolutely, because you want to focus \u2014 that&#8217;s what your focus is going to be on, right? Medical offices?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yes. So all of my other accounts, I will be finished with at the end of December, and plan to hire in January. And then I handed out my drop-offs for the first time this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> And how&#8217;d it go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> It was fun. I love doing \u2014 I&#8217;ve been waiting. I&#8217;m just trying to not get ahead of myself, because that seems fun, you know. Because I feel like I know where to go and what I want to do, but then I don&#8217;t want to get too much work and not have enough employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Well, the nice thing is with commercial, they&#8217;re all spread out of when they&#8217;re ready to make a decision. So, you know, especially when you&#8217;re approaching them, they may be in a contract, they may not be interested. You know what I mean? The decision-making cycle is a lot longer, for not having too much come at you. So that&#8217;s exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-17\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why commercial cleaning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> So I&#8217;m curious, just for the audience&#8217;s sake, so they hear going away from residential and making that decision \u2014 was that hard? Obviously, you had to drop all those clients. And so what is drawing you to commercial? Why does it make sense for you and what you want?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Commercial makes sense because, for one thing, I guess I feel more fulfilled, because a few of my clients are doctors or business owners that I really connect with. And the things that I&#8217;ve noticed that they say is, &#8220;Oh, I can just really trust you. It feels so good just to have it all done and have someone that you trust in your home.&#8221; And then that kind of made me think, &#8220;Well, oh, I want to do that for other business owners and people that are caring for other people.&#8221; So that&#8217;s my why. And I feel like it&#8217;s almost a disservice if I don&#8217;t do it here, because when I&#8217;ve seen these offices from going to the doctor so much \u2014 I mean, it goes back to when my son was young, in the hospital. I was just like, &#8220;What is happening?&#8221; And then I feel bad for the doctors, because their hallways are represented when you walk in. They hire their own people, but the hallways look, you know, disgusting when all these people walk in. So that is why I switched. And just more \u2014 I feel like it&#8217;ll be more of a balance for me, anyway, with family and business being separate. Because I don&#8217;t know \u2014 I feel like maybe the residential takes up more emotional for me. But that may be just how I ran my business, because, you know, they depended on me. I was kind of like a therapist as well for some people, even though they were therapists for me. All of that. So, and then just the training for residential, I feel like, would be too hard on my body at this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-18\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The doctor who sparked the pivot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> So that was a big \u2014 so at first I was like, &#8220;Oh, I&#8217;ll just run a residential business.&#8221; But I just really wasn&#8217;t feeling it when I met with you. I just really wasn&#8217;t feeling it. And so I actually had gone to the doctors after \u2014 I had to get a steroid shot, which \u2014 I don&#8217;t like to take meds. I hadn&#8217;t taken a single med for years, and finally I was like, &#8220;I just have to.&#8221; And it helped tons. I was like, &#8220;Oh my gosh, why didn&#8217;t I do this sooner?&#8221; So the doctor is the one that actually inspired me, because he was like, &#8220;Oh, you&#8217;re a cleaner. You know, what do you think about this place?&#8221; And I was like, &#8220;Oh my gosh,&#8221; because I had seen it like five times. And I remember my daughter was crawling up their stairs in the back, and I was like, &#8220;Oh my gosh.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, don&#8217;t touch it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I remember his face so well. He was so animated. He was like, &#8220;Oh my gosh.&#8221; He&#8217;s like, &#8220;When I walk up those stairs every morning, I&#8217;m so disgusted.&#8221; And I just thought, gosh, he has to walk into work every day seeing this, and it probably puts him, you know, in a mood. And so then I told him \u2014 because he asked, a couple of them have asked, &#8220;What do you see here?&#8221; So then I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Okay, as long as there&#8217;s permission.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah, you asked. Let me tell you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> &#8220;This was here,&#8221; because I \u2014 you know, &#8220;This is \u2014 that hair was hanging off of here, and the fingerprint was on here.&#8221; And then he was like, &#8220;Gosh, I love how passionate you are about cleaning.&#8221; And so my mood just flipped a switch when he said that. I was just like, &#8220;That&#8217;s what I&#8217;m doing.&#8221; As I walked out, I saw a little rainbow on the stairs on the way out, and that&#8217;s my little signs. I always picture myself walking over the rainbow to the next step. So I was like, &#8220;I&#8217;m doing that.&#8221; So I always say, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know how \u2014&#8221; you know, even with the baby, I&#8217;m like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know how we&#8217;re getting at it, but we&#8217;re getting it.&#8221; Or, &#8220;I&#8217;m doing this. I don&#8217;t know the steps yet, but we&#8217;re doing this. I&#8217;m doing this.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Well, I mean, to me, that very much feels like this is the path you&#8217;re supposed to be on, and also the impact that you can have. And I think that this is a perfect example of \u2014 one, our work has such an impact, but it has such an impact regardless of whether it&#8217;s commercial or residential. Obviously, a lot of times we get that face-to-face with residential, but being in a clean space \u2014 I mean, we all can attest to what that does for us, regardless if it is a, you know, business that we&#8217;re walking into, our office, whatever. Even, like you said, all of the patients walking in \u2014 if you&#8217;re going to the doctor regularly, you&#8217;re probably having a shittastic time, and it&#8217;s dirty too? Damn. And so if we can make it even a millimeter better on the shitty scale, that&#8217;s what our work does, and that feels really good. Even if it doesn&#8217;t even get acknowledged, that pride of, like, we are making the world a better place in the spaces that we affect, for the people who are in those every day. So I just love that. I love that it just hit you like a lightning bolt, like, &#8220;This is what I&#8217;m going to do.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-19\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The cleaner who can&#8217;t clean her own house<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I&#8217;ve never had that happen. I&#8217;m always like, &#8220;What do you mean by that?&#8221; And then it was just like, &#8220;Oh my gosh, I know.&#8221; Yeah, so no one&#8217;s ever cleaned my house. I&#8217;ve always been against it \u2014 like, no one would ever touch my house, you know. But I got so \u2014 I mean, I couldn&#8217;t clean. That&#8217;s another thing. I&#8217;m like, I couldn&#8217;t clean my own house, and I was on the floor scrubbing other people&#8217;s stuff. And I&#8217;m like, &#8220;What is wrong?&#8221; That&#8217;s why I was like, &#8220;I&#8217;m mental. I&#8217;m just mental.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> You know, the shoemaker&#8217;s shoes, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Like, I can&#8217;t even clean my floor. And so anyway, the other day \u2014 so we&#8217;re actually going on a trip. One of my clients has been asking us for four years if we want to use their place in Monterey Bay, California, and I finally was like, &#8220;We&#8217;re doing it.&#8221; So she told me that she had the place cleaned for us before we come, which \u2014 I just felt like that was so, like, oh my gosh. Like, someone spent the money to have a place cleaned for me. And then I come home, and my mom is watching my daughter, and I was trying to vacuum before she comes. I always vacuum before she comes, and she said, &#8220;Don&#8217;t do that.&#8221; And when I got home, she vacuumed part of my house, and I was about to cry, because she&#8217;s never done that before. And she&#8217;s like, &#8220;I can just tell that it would make you feel better.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> It&#8217;s so true. And I thank you so much for being vulnerable, sharing, because what you&#8217;re saying right now \u2014 this is what we do, right? Like, we feel it. Anybody who looks down on this work, like, fuck them, because we literally make people&#8217;s lives better every single day, and we should be very proud of that, you know? Like, everybody is happy to see us, because \u2014 that&#8217;s a great feeling. We&#8217;re like an ice cream truck or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> I love service workers. Every time I see one, I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Oh, I feel for you. But, yeah, keep it up.&#8221; I mean, I loved my job. That&#8217;s kind of why I just couldn&#8217;t let it go, and I didn&#8217;t want to do anything else, because I love cleaning, and I love the whole industry, and I just still want to be in it. I just didn&#8217;t know how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-20\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Mental health tools that helped<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> To evolve past that. And I think that really believing that you can do this \u2014 and it&#8217;s not just cleaning, you know what I mean? Especially when your body is screaming at you, your mind can take you places, Leah. You do not have to be cleaning, and that is a belief of, like, &#8220;This is all I&#8217;m good for.&#8221; And I&#8217;m just so glad to hear that you&#8217;ve done all of this work, and you have just evolved so much, and how you see yourself has changed so much. Because, you know, the world is your oyster, and this is the path you&#8217;re supposed to be on. So I&#8217;m just so happy to hear that \u2014 one, you&#8217;re feeling physically better, but mentally, the shift. So, you know, to all of our listeners who know that their mindset is really holding them back in whatever area, do you have any recommendations of ways to work on ourselves? I believe you said in your intake form that you have been in therapy. If that has helped \u2014 care to share anything else?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yes, the therapy, I feel like. Also, I hired an ADD coach, actually, just recently, because I just felt like that part of it was holding me back \u2014 organizing my life \u2014 because I&#8217;m at home, you know, during the day now. It&#8217;s just a whole different thing, and then I go to work in the evening, so I was really struggling with the shift. So she&#8217;s helping me with systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I love that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yeah. Breathwork \u2014 I went on a little women&#8217;s retreat for wellness, so breathwork and just health. I would say healthy eating. I&#8217;m a freak about eating, actually, a little too much, but I like to eat super clean and things. I used to skip meals, you know, with my ex-husband and stuff. I just wouldn&#8217;t eat all day. And now \u2014 I&#8217;m sorry \u2014 and then I just went to eating just a handful of raw nuts, you know, first thing when I start to get hungry. It made the world of difference. I had so much more energy. So healthy eating. Just talking to yourself almost like you&#8217;re a child, I would say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I totally agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Like, &#8220;It&#8217;s okay. You&#8217;re safe,&#8221; kind of, you know. And then those strength assessments, I would say, are very helpful. What else? Let&#8217;s see \u2014 I did write it down. Oh, yeah, just keeping your body strong. I would say strength training is huge. The more I do strength training, the further along I get with not having the pain. What else? I think that&#8217;s about it that I&#8217;ve done for my mental well-being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I love it. I mean, all of it \u2014 I can, again, attest to so many things of what you&#8217;re saying. The strength training, the therapy, the self-talk, thinking about, you know, little Leah, little Stephanie. Like, I literally \u2014 that&#8217;s this tattoo. This is me as a child. There&#8217;s a lot of meaning behind all of that for me. I feel like I resonate so much with you, and just what that can do for your life, and transform you, and just make you a stronger person. So I&#8217;m just so proud of you. Yeah, and boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> And boundaries \u2014 boundaries are a big, big one I had to work on. And it&#8217;s just, the more you do it, it just gets so much easier, very quickly, I would say. When you put things into practice, I&#8217;m just shocked at how your mind can change that quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-21\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Where to find Leah<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Absolutely. No, I totally agree. Wow. Wow, you give it \u2014 you know, I&#8217;m going to walk away from this feeling really just \u2014 I feel a lot of gratitude to have this conversation with you, hon. And I&#8217;m so appreciative that you were willing to share your story. I mean, you&#8217;ve been through some immense challenges in your life, and you&#8217;re coming out the end of it just so much stronger. Not because of it, but because of the work that you have done to just keep moving forward, keep evolving. So that&#8217;s very impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank everyone, all your guests. They&#8217;re just amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> They are, and that&#8217;s what I love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> And this all propelled me forward. I just don&#8217;t think I could have done it without any of the ZenMaid and all of this podcast. I just think it was the last step I needed to break through. So thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> You know, I&#8217;m gonna go cry, because that means so much to me. Especially in the past two years, I&#8217;ve had immense struggles, and days that I just couldn&#8217;t even get out of bed. And so to hear that this has had that impact on you \u2014 I&#8217;m literally getting emotional. It makes me feel really, really happy. So thank you for sharing that. Leah, if anybody wants to follow along, if you&#8217;re comfortable, you know, do you have any socials? I think you&#8217;re still working on the new business ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yes. I think I&#8217;m just Leah Izadi on Instagram, which I don&#8217;t post on there, but I follow tons of health, I would say, interior design, ADD things on there. And then LinkedIn \u2014 I just joined yesterday, and it is still under Leah Izadi, but I have my Innate Cleaning Co. and Bless This Mess information there if you want to see that. I&#8217;m on Facebook too, but all Leah Izadi for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> We&#8217;ll definitely link that. Thank you so much, Leah. This has been amazing, and I would love to connect again in, you know, six months to a year, have a follow-up and see where things are at. See how many medical offices you&#8217;ve got and how many cashiers are working for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Leah:<\/strong> Yeah, thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> And everybody, please hit that like, hit that subscribe, give Leah some love down in the comments. It takes a lot of guts to come and speak like this, so give her that love, guys. And we will see you in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Introduction Stephanie: Hello, everyone. Welcome, or welcome back, to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today&#8217;s fabulous guest is one of my consulting clients, Leah Izadi, and she has quite the incredible story. And today, we&#8217;re going to focus a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":17945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-podcast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17944"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17948,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17944\/revisions\/17948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}