Leah Elizabeth
Transformational speaker, artist, and author helping people reconnect with creativity and joy.
Seen on these stages and more:
Leah’s dynamic personality, humor, and story draw an audience in.
Signature Talk
The Permission Economy: What Is Waiting for Permission Costing You?
The opportunity you didn’t pursue. The idea you didn’t share. The raise you didn’t ask for. The moment you knew something needed to change, but waited for someone else to validate what you already knew.
For generations, women have been taught to wait—to be noticed, invited, promoted, qualified, confident, or chosen. But all that waiting comes at a cost.
In this deeply personal and engaging keynote, TEDx speaker, best-selling author, and former political leader Leah Elizabeth explores what she calls the permission economy—the invisible expectations and internalized rules that keep capable women waiting for external validation before making the decisions they are already qualified to make.
Drawing from more than twenty-five years in politics and public leadership, and her own decision to walk away from the career she thought would define her forever, Leah combines storytelling, humor, research, and practical tools to explore why we wait for permission and what becomes possible when we stop.
Audiences leave ready to trust their own judgment, use their voice, take meaningful risks, and stop waiting to be chosen.
Because at some point, leadership requires choosing yourself
WHAT LEAH DELIVERS
TEDx-style keynote talks
Retreats & workshops on creativity and reinvention
Fireside chats and panels
Spiritually-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 Elizabeth is a TEDx speaker, best-selling author, artist, former political leader, and founder of Finding Fantastic Joy. For more than twenty-five years, she built a career in politics and public leadership, becoming very good at achieving, producing, leading, and carrying a whole lot of responsibility along the way.
Until she started asking a question that changed everything: What is all of this success actually costing me?
Walking away from the career she thought would define her forever began a much bigger exploration of how we define success, why so many women wait to feel qualified or chosen before making a move, and what happens when we finally trust ourselves enough to stop asking for permission.
Today, Leah brings that work to audiences through storytelling, humor, research, and creativity, exploring the invisible expectations that shape how we lead, use our voices, make decisions, and navigate change.
She is the author of the best-selling memoir Finding Fantastic Joy and founder of Her Voice Rising, a women's leadership experience dedicated to activating women's voices and leadership.
Leah's work is vulnerable, practical, sometimes irreverent, and deeply human. She leaves audiences with a different way of thinking about success, self-trust, and leadership—and the courage to stop waiting to be chosen and start choosing themselves.
Highlights & Credentials
TEDx Speaker
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
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.
