What do a broken website button, a fear of being visible, and the urge to self-sabotage right after a successful launch have in common? They all trace back to the same place: the unconscious mind. In this episode, Raquel sits down with Leslie M. Thornton, founder of Hypnosis for Permanent Weight Loss, former ICU nurse, NLP and hypnosis trainer, and host of a top 1% globally ranked podcast with over a million downloads. Leslie has built a global movement helping career-driven, high-achieving women end the mental obsession with food, body, and weight for good and the tools she uses translate far beyond the dinner table. Together, Raquel and Leslie dig into the invisible barriers that keep brilliant, capable founders from showing up fully: why self-sabotage isn't a character flaw, what fight-flight-freeze (and flop) actually look like in an entrepreneurial context, and how the unconscious mind, which drives roughly 95% of our behavior and is either running the show or getting in the way of it. They also explore the fear of visibility that shows up for so many business owners, the surprising reason it's often rooted in something much older than your last launch, and what it actually takes to build a strong bounce-back rate when things go sideways. This one is equal parts psychology, strategy, and permission to stop being so hard on yourself.
If you've ever had a wildly successful launch followed by a complete freeze or found yourself hesitating to send an email, show up on camera, or talk about what you do, this episode is going to feel uncomfortably familiar. In the best way.
Raquel is joined by Leslie M. Thornton, founder of Hypnosis for Permanent Weight Loss (hpwl.co) and host of one of the top 1% most downloaded podcasts globally. Leslie is a former ICU nurse, certified NLP and hypnosis trainer, and someone who spent 20 years fighting her own battle with food and her body before discovering that the solution wasn't more willpower: it was working with the unconscious mind instead of against it.
While Leslie's work centers on food and body image, this conversation goes deep into the patterns that run every high achiever: the triggers that cause self-sabotage, the stories we write when we don't have data, and the mindset that either keeps you stuck or helps you bounce back.
In this episode:
Connect with Raquel:
Connect with Leslie: