“I live in the world as I want it to be, not as it actually is — because that’s where transformation begins.”
— Leah Johnson

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Hire Leah to Speak at Your Next Event

Leah’s dynamic personality, humor, and story draw an audience in.

Signature Talk
The Art of Reinvention: Creativity, Courage, Joy, and the Future of Leadership

What if the future of leadership isn’t found in doing more—but in becoming more of who you truly are?

In this powerful and soul-stirring keynote, Leah Johnson—former politician turned painter, speaker, and author—shares her transformational journey from public servant to creative guide, and the radical clarity she gained when she realigned her life around purpose, not pressure.

The Art of Reinvention is a call to courageous leaders who feel the quiet pull for something more. It’s for the high-achievers who’ve checked all the boxes but still feel disconnected. And it’s for anyone ready to reclaim their creativity, reconnect with joy, and reimagine leadership as an act of wholeness—not performance.

Leah weaves storytelling, reflection, and intentional creativity to help audiences release what no longer serves, reignite their inner spark, and lead from a place of authenticity, vitality, and vision.

Speaking Topics

  • The Courage to Quit: Reinvention and the Art of Letting Go

  • Burnout, Bravery & the Creative Cure

  • Intentional Creativity for Healing and Transformation

  • Women, Power & Redefining Success

  • From Hustle to Wholeness: Reclaiming Joy and Purpose

WHAT LEAH DELIVERS

  • TEDx-style keynote talks

  • Retreats & workshops on creativity and reinvention

  • Fireside chats and panels

  • Spiritual-based and women’s leadership and self-growth events

AUDIENCES SERVED

  • Women’s leadership & empowerment

  • Companies and Organizations looking to inspire creativity in their culture

  • Creative entrepreneurs

  • Former high-achievers reinventing themselves

  • Spiritual-based communities

About Leah

Leah Johnson is a former elected official who spent 25 years in politics, showing up with radical hope even in the most challenging rooms. Today, she’s a working artist, author, and sought-after speaker who uses storytelling, vulnerability, and vibrant visual art to help audiences reimagine their lives. Leah is passionate about joy, transformation, and helping others reconnect to their purpose through intentional creativity. She has delivered keynote talks that inspire people to quit what’s not working and courageously create what’s next.

Highlights & Credentials

  • 25-year career in public service

  • Author of Amazon #1 Best Seller, Finding Fantastic Joy

  • Intentional Creativity® Cura

  • Featured in leadership summits, women’s empowerment conferences, and inspiring stages

  • Praise for Finding Fantastic Joy:

    Finding Fantastic Joy tells the author's powerful journey of navigating from a place of internal darkness to both internal and external joy. Fantastic joy can be an elusive feeling and finding joy demands intentional, and sometimes painful, personal work. As you read this book, you will experience the author's journey and find parallels to challenges in your own life. Refreshingly, the author doesn't tell her story only to help in her own journey. She provides a roadmap for others who are ready to find their own fantastic joy.

    Kim Akeley Charron

    Exceptional Mom, Community Convener, Education Advocate

  • Praise for Finding Fantastic Joy:

    After 20 years of working in politics Leah has crafted the strongest campaign message of her life in this story of finding herself and getting her joy back. My heart was moved as she shared difficult early life experiences and the resulting trauma and addictions. She then lays out a roadmap to recovery that we can all learn from. This authentic and raw account of Leah’s journey to joy will be an encouragement to many.

    Paula Woodward

    Rockstar Mom, Conservative Thought Leader, Small Business Owner

  • Praise for Finding Fantastic Joy:

    As someone in recovery myself, I found this book so relatable. It is a quick read with huge impact and insight that is sure to bring value to many, but especially women who are navigating motherhood and career aspirations. Leah tells her story in a straightforward, energetic manner, weaving together her journey in both a spiritual and practical way. The “campaign” approach she takes is a fresh spin on steps to recovery, and as someone who also puts a huge (over) emphasis on achievement in my life, I found it to be a great tool in my approach to recovery. Leah’s story is brave and will surely inspire others.

    Jenna Doneen

    Mom Extraordinaire, Creative Director of Life

  • Praise for Finding Fantastic Joy:

    Leah’s journey and honesty had a profound impact on me as a driven professional who shared her addictions to success and winning at all costs. We could all benefit from a vision of ourselves through the development of a self-advocacy campaign as she so eloquently describes. The use of campaign techniques, and her reawakening of spirituality, to facilitate her journey to self-discovery that led to finding fantastic joy is something we can all emulate; which could facilitate a more vibrant dialogue between the tribes that currently exist in today's political landscape that as she states “are not the narratives of reality!"

    Billy Horton

    Democratic Strategist

  • Praise for Finding Fantastic Joy:

    Finding Fantastic Joy is an easy and fun read for how deep it goes. The author speaks so frankly about her experience that you might miss how extraordinary and deeply beautiful it is. It’s a story of triumph and forgiveness, without the saccharine play on emotions that’s common of the genre. If you’re in the dark woods, this book provides instructions on finding your way out.

    Christina G.

  • Praise for Finding Fantastic Joy:

    Finding Fantastic Joy is equal parts love, pain, redemption, family, journey, discovery, humor and rebirth. For those asking life's biggest questions, Leah's journey and plan for life can help you find direction.

    Tom Lucero

    Former CU Regent

  • Praise for Finding Fantastic Joy:

    Always fierce and never filtered, Leah Johnson’s Finding Fantastic Joy is a tour de force in speaking truth to power. The power of self-doubt, self-examination, and ultimately self-redemption. In these trying times that have left so many of us battered and broken, Finding Fantastic Joy is a book that shows us how to build new and stronger foundations that help guide us on a path to becoming our best selves. Read it, and you’ll be better off for doing so.

    Will Johnson

    Senior Vice President, Business Development, Daily Kos

Leah Johnson’s résumé includes the words Obama, Kay Hagen, and City Councilwoman, but what she has come to find out is that “mom” is the best title she’s ever added to her résumé. After a career that fueled her addiction to success and other things, life was dark, and something had to change. Forced to take a step back, she re-evaluated her priorities and started fresh in many ways. Now she lives with a freedom to be herself and know how far from perfect she is. As an imperfect mother of two, she sometimes says bad words, frequently forgets to pack snacks for preschool, and on occasion, her kids eat popsicles for breakfast. But she knows she is doing the best she can, and that is all people can do on their journey. She had a whole lot of traumas early in life that made the middle part tough. But through an intense spiritual awakening, a reevaluation of priorities, and kicking a few addictions, Leah has confronted her trauma, found a way to pull herself out of the depths of sadness, and finds herself on a lifelong journey to build a self-advocacy campaign to constantly find fantastic joy.

 

Leah grew up in Loveland, Colorado, and has an undergraduate degree from Boston University, and half of a master’s degree in Public Policy and Administration from Northwestern University (because, well, sometimes you just don’t finish things). She has had a 20-year career in campaign politics and public affairs. Her little family unit is everything to her and she spends every free moment she can with them traveling the world or having dance parties in their kitchen.

About Leah