We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kanna Laird. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kanna below.
Kanna, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
Growing up in Japan, these were the two areas in which I suffered so much that I developed 20+ years of eating disorders (I am happy to report that I have a happy food relationship and appreciate what my body can do). Lack of confidence and self-esteem made me a person who was always seeking others’ approval, meaning people-pleasing all the time. Yet, I felt empty and worthless more than ever, believing I needed to be chopstick skinny to gain confidence and boost my self-esteem. I was always looking for answers from appearances. When I had an opportunity to visit Canada, I was shocked and excited to find out the non-chopstick skinny people seemed very confident and truly happy for themselves. That’s when I realized I’ve been focusing on the wrong things (outer world) and started working within.
Something I did and helped was reading Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection, The Success Principle by Jack Canfield, and The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz to face my past mistakes and shift fears into courage, enrolling in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and becoming a certified health coach, practicing daily yoga and walking while welcoming my thoughts without judgment. Adding The 5 Minute Journal was helpful to acknowledge that I already had enough and am in an abundant space of life.
Being able to ditch food rules and appreciating my body for what it is (releasing comparisons to unrealistic body shapes) was also very helpful in gaining confidence and self-esteem.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m a holistic business mentor helping mompreneurs heal internally so they can show up and dominate in their business externally. What’s most exciting for this role is to see them reframe their limiting beliefs/past traumas to gain confidence and trust that they’re ready to tackle the tasks to create successful businesses. I’ve met hundreds of entrepreneurs with ideas and lessons they’ve learned from their business coaches/schools, but the main reason why they weren’t seeing the results they were hoping to see was the lack of execution due to the internal “scars” from the past, usually going back to childhood. They could look like; she was told by her parents/adults she was never enough, she needed to please others, she shouldn’t speak up, she wasn’t skinny/pretty enough, and/or she needed to be perfect before doing something.
My background includes being a personal trainer, holistic nutritionist and integrative health coach with a completed emotional eating psychology course. I help people build a healthier food-body relationship, as this could stop many from showing up for their businesses because of insecurity about how they feel about their eating habits or body shapes. In the last few years, I had a privilege helping hundreds of health and life coaches start their own business from their cozy homes.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Radical acceptance, gratitude, and a smile.
Judging ourselves only takes us to somewhere we feel miserable. Understand that all humans are imperfect, and that’s the beauty of it. We can focus on looking at the good parts of people instead of trying to find flaws all the time. Also, looking at those imperfections as unique characters of individuals helps to release judgments.
Practice looking at the positive side of things and be grateful for it. For example, if you’re stuck in traffic, you can be thankful that your car can still take you to where you want to go or use the time to listen to something that helps you smile or educate.
Smile instead of frown. I love seeing a big smile with all the teeth shining at me, lol. I used to hate it when people did that as I thought it was a sign of not being serious enough about life, or perhaps they looked too confident when I had no self-esteem. Now, I feel smiling is so welcoming, and it’s like giving virtual unconditional love. I appreciated it so much on many occasions, and you never know what that smile could mean to someone else at that moment.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I’d love to collaborate with business coaches with students having challenges executing the course materials. I’ve had opportunities to see hundreds of entrepreneurs in business programs/mentorships who are great at learning but need to improve at executing. Because of that, they didn’t see results, though the business coaches taught valuable information.
I help the students stop self-sabotaging by reframing their limiting beliefs about themselves and helping them feel ready to get the tasks done to move the needles for their businesses.
They can email me at kanna@kannalaird.com or my new IG account @Kanna_Laird.
https://www.instagram.com/kanna_laird
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanna_laird/
Image Credits
Photos by Tara Dunn
