Louisa Jovanovich: 00:00

My dad used to say to me, Louisa, watch other people do it like them. And in my tiny little sweet, innocent brain, I thought he was telling me I wasn't good enough and that I needed to watch everybody else. And everybody else knew exactly what to do, and I didn't. And so I would watch them, and I learned how to behave. I knew what doing it right looked like.

And I was constantly processing and absorbing information about what it would look like to do it right. But even though I never felt like I was doing it right in my body, I was watching and being doing what I was I thought I was supposed to be doing. And funny enough, fast forward, NLP is the study of extraordinary people. So what we do now is we listen to these, these conversations, and we do listen and learn from other people. So merging the two together, I'm realizing I have value and I could learn from you, and it doesn't mean I'm not good enough.

Melanie Warner: 01:04

Welcome to the Defining Moments podcast, where leaders, innovators, and everyday heroes share the moments that changed everything. These are the stories behind resilience, purpose, and legacy. Now let's dive into today's defining moment.

Melanie Warner: 01:20

Hey everyone, welcome to the Defining Moments podcast. I'm Melanie Warner, the founder of Defining Moments Press. And today's guest is Louisa Jovanovich, a transformational hypnotherapist, author, and guide helping people break subconscious patterns and rewire their nervous system for clarity, confidence, and aligned action. She works at the identity level, not just the surface mindset shifts, but this, you know, endless processing that we have in our brain, but real embodied changes that show up in your relationships, your leadership, and yes, even your bank account. You're going to hear about Louisa's defining moments that happened to her when she was 44 years old.

And we're going to be talking about what happens when performance stops working, when survival strategies expire, and when clarity removes more than what it should be adding. So, Louisa, welcome to Defining Moments.

Louisa Jovanovich: 02:15

Thank you so much, Melanie. I'm so honored to be here.

Melanie Warner: 02:18

Oh, I'm so glad you're here. We met at an event not too long ago, and I just felt this immediate connection to you. You know, I just feel like sometimes you meet people in life, and, you know, you're not meant to have that soul connection with everybody, right? You couldn't. You'd be exhausted if you did.

But you just have this beautiful energy about yourself. And it's just, it's so wise and innocent at the same time. Does that make sense?

Louisa Jovanovich: 02:44

Thank you so much. Yes, actually that lands.

Melanie Warner: 02:47

Yeah. And I just thought, not only are you this incredibly professional, almost like a neuroscience when it comes to hypnosis and understanding thought patterns, but you just have this beautiful energy and a childlike sense of wonder about you that makes you curious. And I think that those two things are such a rare combo. And so I wanted to introduce you to our podcast audience here because I think you can add so much value to them and, and the patterns that people are stuck in. So I want to just jump in real quick here.

Now, you said in your interview that you perform the role perfectly, and you talk about the performance trap that so many people are stuck in, especially in a job or a career where they feel like they may shrink their dreams to fit their income and there's a little resentment underlying. So what did that performance actually look like day to day for you?

Louisa Jovanovich: 03:43

I always felt like I was outside of myself telling myself what I should be doing all day, and I even know exactly where that came from, which is why I believe mindset is so critical. My dad used to say to me, Louisa, watch other people do it like them. And in my tiny little sweet, innocent brain, I thought he was telling me I wasn't good enough and that I needed to watch everybody else. And everybody else knew exactly what to do, and I didn't. And so I would watch them, and I learned how to behave.

I knew what doing it right looked like. And I was constantly processing and absorbing information about what it would look like to do it right. But even though I never felt like I was doing it right in my body, I was watching and being doing what I was I thought I was supposed to be doing. And funny enough, fast forward, NLP is the study of extraordinary people. So what we do now is we listen to these, these conversations, and we do listen and learn from other people. 

So merging the two together, I Together, realizing I have value and I could learn from you. And it doesn't mean I'm not good enough. It means that it wakes something up within me that then allows me to be the greatest of me. And it's not coming from I'm broken or something's wrong with me or I'm not good enough.

Melanie Warner: 05:11

I think it's the American way to think that you have to learn from suffering, right? Like, it's just, I don't know what it is that maybe we're just really stubborn. I know I am. But I, I learned through all my trials and traumas and tribulations that you can learn from joy. You don't have to just learn from pain.

You can learn joy if you choose to. So go back to when you were feeling this way. When did you first realize something was off? Was it like this slow kind of awareness, or was it just a sharp, defining moment?

Louisa Jovanovich: 05:45

Both. I very clearly remember being the child who used to leave my house and go hang out at the little old lady's house down the street. Her name was Leonia, and she was a sweet lady. And I would just hang out with her and talk to her. And so I was always curious and trying to learn from people and share my feelings.

I was really happy about sharing. And that's still me. I remember being in school and I had just learned how to use a typewriter. And I typed a letter for Father's Day to my dad and I said, I love you and I think you're doing a great job. And I'm really grateful for being your daughter along those lines. 

And I said, but we need therapy. I have an eating disorder. I'm struggling and I feel I'm bulimic and I need help. And together as a family, we need therapy. So I took their health insurance card. 

And because my parents are foreigners, so they didn't really read or write in English, and I filled out all my old school paperwork and I did all the things that usual parents do, but I did. And so I took their insurance card and I called a therapist down the street from the house so they didn't have an excuse for why they can't go and.

Melanie Warner: 06:55

And how old were you? How old was.

Louisa Jovanovich: 06:57

16? Turning 17.

Melanie Warner: 06:59

Okay.

Louisa Jovanovich: 07:00

And I'm in high school, and I don't feel like I fit in and I'm just struggling and and I'm assuming now looking back, everybody was. But I felt like I was really struggling. So I called the number and we made an appointment and together as a family, we went. And then all of a sudden, halfway through, I realized I had somehow called the inpatient center and like an inpatient program. And this isn't the therapist.

Louisa Jovanovich: 07:32

And now my parents.

Louisa Jovanovich: 07:33

I am being asked to go home and grab my clothes and bring them back. And because I'm staying.

Melanie Warner: 07:40

Oh, no. So what do you mean you stayed in an inpatient? What does that mean?

Louisa Jovanovich: 07:44

It was a 30.

Louisa Jovanovich: 07:45

Day rehab with. But I came from a Catholic school. I had never seen drugs or alcohol. I've never been around anything. I was in a sheltered environment.

So I'm now in a center with what I like . It was interesting because while I was there, I felt like, wow, these kids need me. It didn't occur to me I was one of the kids.

Melanie Warner: 08:07

Yeah. So you think that you're going to therapy and you go meet with this therapist and you end up getting committed for a 30 day, like into like an.

Louisa Jovanovich: 08:18

Inpatient.

Louisa Jovanovich: 08:18

Center.

Melanie Warner: 08:19

Inpatient center for rehab. Oh my gosh, that that must scare the heck out of people. Like, that's why you don't go to therapy. I think that's what most men are terrified would happen if they went to marriage counseling.

Louisa Jovanovich: 08:32

Well, it really was.

Louisa Jovanovich: 08:33

Interesting because my parents are kind of like, oh, we gotta help her, we gotta help her. So even though they didn't believe in therapy, they were devastated to think that this therapist is like she's staying. And I actually fast forward a minute to give a What happened later because I knew I was meant to work there. It all came while I was in there, but now I do work in a rehab and I do hypnosis for recovering addicts because in my mind I'm like, I can't wait to graduate from here and come back and work in here. But I went through.

Louisa Jovanovich: 09:02

A lot while.

Louisa Jovanovich: 09:03

I was there.

Melanie Warner: 09:05

So what did your parents think? Like, we think we're going to therapy for our family, and now our daughter's getting basically put into this rehab center for 30 days. What? I mean, and you're in high school? I would assume so.

Like, what was that like for your family?

Louisa Jovanovich: 09:19

They were.

Louisa Jovanovich: 09:20

Traumatized. I mean, they were hurt. They were destroyed. I know my parents now and not seeing them as the adults they are versus me seeing them as children, my poor parents, what this put them through or like what was happening to their daughter. And while I was in there, parents had to come in and they did family therapy.

And I got to be around a lot of other kids, and they put you in vans and they take you to AA meetings and NA meetings. And now I'm around adults who are really struggling. And it was.

Melanie Warner: 09:57

You didn't have any. I think it's interesting. Why would the therapist say you need to go to an intake facility if you didn't have drug issues or alcohol issues? Like, was that just the only option at the time for people that were kids that were struggling or feeling a little lost?

Louisa Jovanovich: 10:13

No, I.

Louisa Jovanovich: 10:13

Hate to say this, I really hate to say this, but I think they just had really good insurance and I just looked like money. I mean, I, I.

Louisa Jovanovich: 10:20

Oh.

Louisa Jovanovich: 10:20

I hate to say that, but I honestly believe that that's the truth.

Melanie Warner: 10:24

I wonder how often that happens like that. That is obviously we know that the medical system is broken, but I, I have never heard this before. And I've been, I've been a journalist and I've been interviewing people a long time. I, honestly , am shocked. I did not expect that.

So.

Louisa Jovanovich: 10:42

So my gut, my unfortunate self, like I, I was a sweet little girl who really could have just been okay with. Nurturing and coaching and something that is not impatient, but I also truly believe things end up in your life because somehow it became the defining moment we're talking about. It created enough trauma in me, a friend of mine that I loved when I was there. Her name is Melissa. Love loved her.

I was like, wow, you were everything I wish I was. And she was beautiful. She was smart. She was courageous. She has a PhD. 

And when she came out, she overdosed and died. And I had gotten to know her family had gotten to know her siblings. I'd really like them to be a beautiful family. And I thought, wow, if this is truly what happens to you if I don't shift. What if what if I don't get this work? 

What if. I didn't know it. In other words, I understand it now, but her death shaped a lot of who I've become.

Melanie Warner: 12:02

Wow. Does her family know that she had that kind of impact on you today?

Louisa Jovanovich: 12:07

No.

Louisa Jovanovich: 12:07

No, I. We both left and we. I just heard afterwards that she had overdosed and died.

Melanie Warner: 12:15

Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. Well, and I think it's interesting to be at such a young age yourself and be the only sober person inside a rehab facility to see it through those eyes and then have this compassionate heart to say, I want to come back and help these people. And then here you are, full circle, going back again by choice, choosing to go into these places and work with people. So how did this experience as a teenager shift you into wanting to do this professionally?

Louisa Jovanovich: 12:49

I always was.

Louisa Jovanovich: 12:49

Curious about people, and I always made friends with really pretty people and really smart people, because at the time I didn't realize I was doing this, but well, maybe I did. I realized I felt like I fit in when or I was included in the cool stuff when everybody I was hanging out with was smart and pretty, and in my head I was like, you already win. There's no competition. So I didn't have the struggle that if I felt like if I was friends with people who I didn't already think were amazing, there might be a balance issue in my head. I was like, you already win.

You're beautiful, you're smart, you're wonderful, and I'm just grateful to be here. And what I didn't realize was they didn't see me that way. They saw me just alongside them and not less than them. And I ran into a friend who's become an attorney, and I was friends with her growing up, and she said everyone used to try to copy my homework and you just wanted to do hair and makeup like it didn't occur to you what we were all doing. And I remember being always being told, wow, you're really good at doing hair. 

And I was also incredibly responsible. I started working as a babysitter when I was 12, and I saved enough money. By the time I was 18, I had $11,000 from babysitting money. I remember charging more than everyone else because I knew I was worth it. Like, I was like, I have your child's car seat in my car. 

I'm willing to do what you need done. I'm willing to show up on time every time. I had regular jobs all week. And it was really kind of fun because I didn't have to hang out with people my own age. And I really enjoyed the responsibility of my job. 

And I also realized it gave me freedom because money equaled freedom to me. And I couldn't wait to, like, have my life the way I wanted it. So I had $11,000. My parents told me I'm not allowed to go to beauty school because I needed to. I needed to get a smart job.

Louisa Jovanovich: 14:50

To do something smart.

Louisa Jovanovich: 14:53

And. But I've never passed a class ever based on smart because I didn't do well in school and with my $11,000, I put myself in beauty school and I remember this moment when I'm in school and I was like, wow, this is the first time I'm in the right place. This is the first time I'm actually happy. And with that being said, during the RFP part where like, I'm sorry, not RFP, the theory part, the teacher says to me, Louisa, you're never going to make it in this industry. I'm like, because I couldn't sit still yet again, and then I thought, okay, we'll see.

And I graduated from beauty school two years ago in business. I started doing the publisher's hair on the Boulevard magazine. He writes every article about me every month. So I take it back to the school. Of course, I gave it to the teacher who said, I'm never going to make it in this industry. 

And now she's showing me off to the classroom going, look who graduated from our school.

Melanie Warner: 15:57

What? Okay, wait a second. Was this in Los Angeles? Yes, I know that guy. I was a magazine publisher at 22 years old, and I.

I did my first magazine. Based on that magazine.

Melanie Warner: 16:10

Yes, yes. That's so weird.

Melanie Warner: 16:13

That was like 100 years ago. That was literally 30 years ago.

Louisa Jovanovich: 16:16

Yeah, that's how long I've been doing hair.

Melanie Warner: 16:19

And that was. So we had our very first issue of the Hollywood Monthly magazine, and it was folded over content. Yeah. Because it was much cheaper and I was self-funding it. It was so funny.

Oh my gosh, that's so weird. I never knew that we had in common. I mean, I didn't do his hair, but I definitely saw his photos and I knew about that magazine for a long time.

Louisa Jovanovich: 16:40

My mom had saved them.

Louisa Jovanovich: 16:41

She gave them to me and I lost them. But I had all my articles and I remember saving them and taking them back to the school. And I was like, oh, look.

Melanie Warner: 16:51

It's so fun. Okay, so you were so you went, you became a hairstylist, a cosmetologist. Is that what it's called official? And you did that for years. You got your license and.

Louisa Jovanovich: 17:02

I still am.

Louisa Jovanovich: 17:03

Do it. I did it for 30 years.

Melanie Warner: 17:05

Amazing. Okay, so let me get this straight. So how did you go from being a therapist to becoming a therapist?

Louisa Jovanovich: 17:13

Because that's what I was doing.

Louisa Jovanovich: 17:14

So during my divorce, I got crushed. Like I really hit rock bottom. I had to figure out how to pedal myself out of the dirt I was in or the deep end. And I started taking a million classes. A ton of leadership classes.

And one of the ones I took was clarity, catalyst and clarity. Catalyst started 40 years ago in Stanford University, where people were coming back saying, I did everything I was supposed to do. I did it right and I'm not happy. So Doctor Michael Ray created this course on mindfulness and emotional intelligence. It's eight weeks and it builds on itself. 

And in that course I was like. I love this. This is where I realize all the belief systems I have created. And in that course, you identify who you are. And I was like, people aren't just saying, I love my hair. 

Every single message says, thank you for helping me have a breakthrough. 100% of them. Like nobody ever just said, I love my hair. They would say, when we were talking, you said this and this and this, and it opened up a gap in where I was not in those exact words is how they were saying it. But in the big picture, that's the message I was seeing and while I was living in Florida, I had moved for my marriage to Florida. 

I was flying to LA every month for four years to keep all my clients. So I would do my 30 days of clients in three days. And in those three days, I was like, wow, how do I and I'm in the course again? And I'm like, how do I find financial freedom, location freedom and time freedom? Because that's the three things that we're lacking. 

As I was trying to survive, I needed financial freedom, location freedom and time freedom. I want I'm a mom at the time. I have two kids and I want to be part of their life. Growing up and the way I was living was not conducive to anybody, especially to myself. I was walking around half dead. 

So I had nothing left to give, and this course was to give me life again by identifying who I am. And what I noticed was I wasn't just doing hair. I was healing from behind the chair. And when they would put their head in my hands, I would just like, bless them and allow the water to take away anything that they had been holding on to. Use the shampoo as an anchor to cleanse what needs to be cleansed. 

And I would just like the entire session for me to be a healing session. And so I'd hold this container of that. And, and also during Covid, I. And from doing these courses, I opened up a Zoom room and I was like, I need to meditate. And I like a, we, I don't like me meditating, I like we. 

And so I said, why don't you guys all join me in, in my Zoom room and I will stream the meditation. And then we could journal together. And at some point I started to do the grounding and they were like, forget the streaming of the meditation, you just continue with the grounding. And my body is how I receive information. And I was like, there's something here. 

They're all. Able to access something when I'm doing the grounding. So I still didn't understand any of this. All I knew is that from the time I was little, I wanted to speak on stages. I wanted my voice to matter. 

I wanted to make a difference. And yet I was terrified of the microphone and I was terrified of stages. So I thought, well, what if I do hypnotherapy? And what if I then could use hypnotherapy to get on the stage and get away, get away from my fear? So during Covid, you know, everybody was doing Facebook lives and all of these things, and lupus LA asked me to do a meditation with and they have 70,000 people in their audience. 

And they said, would you do Facebook Live? Like meditation for us? I said, I'd love to, but I'm terrified. So let me find a professional for you and they will do it and not me. And she goes, no, it's okay. 

We'll wait for you. Wow. And I was like, what?

Melanie Warner: 21:34

You know, you're good at something when other people ask you to do it, right? Isn't that some type of validation when a lot of people ask you to do something and you finally start to believe, hey, I might be good at this.

Louisa Jovanovich: 21:45

Yeah. And that's exactly how I identify patterns because I, again, I said I didn't pass school very well, I did graduate, but mostly because of my personality, my grades did not resemble that.

Melanie Warner: 22:04

So you, so you finished, you got your license and then you, they asked you to do this big meditation. And then what happened?

Louisa Jovanovich: 22:10

I actually didn't even have my license. I, I just, they just asked me and I said, I, I couldn't, I wanted to get them a professional. And so fast forward, I kept getting asked to do things and I was like, I think God's speaking to me. This is, you know, I helped my friend get on so many stages. I put him on national television.

I helped with a million things. And he said, let me get you on a stage. I was like, I'm scared. And so now I'm like, fine, I'm going to do hypnotherapy school and I'm going to get myself on a stage. So not only did I graduate with a 4.2 high honors, get myself on stages, realize I wasn't actually afraid at all. 

I had so much fun that a week later, while I was sweeping my floors, I was like, I forgot to be scared. It didn't occur to me I didn't even remember to be scared.

Melanie Warner: 23:06

And you just took imperfect action and you trusted the process, and you did it. Yeah.

Louisa Jovanovich: 23:14

And it actually wasn't scary. It was more fun. And I had decided to. Talk about the conversations everyone has. They all say speaking is scary, so I believed it.

Melanie Warner: 23:27

Well, most people have a fear of public speaking. And I know because we have a speaker bureau and we train speakers, you know, in our business as well in our industry. And I'm an international keynote speaker and I see it all the time. I mean, I go to a funeral and, you know, in our world, we kind of joke about, you know, if somebody has to speak on a stage at or at a funeral, they'd rather be the person in the coffin because they're so fearful of public speaking. And yet, you know, being a good communicator makes all the difference in your relationships, in your career and your job.

You know, being a business owner, like it really is one of the best skills I think you can invest in to really move the needle in your life or your business. And it's like you look at the people that earn the highest amount of money, and it's people that use their mouth for a living, like their communicators, whether it's salespeople, whether it's singers, actors, it could be anybody that's moving their mouth. I mean, I don't want to say politicians because we know that that is what that aligns with. If their lips are moving, they're lying. We've always heard that. 

But I think of the people that are in these professions that make more money simply because they're better communicators. And yet here you are, this really shy girl hiding your voice a little bit. You go through this experience as a teenager, you end up in this rehab facility. You see these kids that are suffering and you feel like this is something I could do to help people, right? But that comes years later, after you were the therapist, which I love to call it.

Louisa Jovanovich: 25:03

Exactly. Well, because I thought, you know, I thought if you were pretty and you were really smart, you wouldn't struggle. And now I'm doing everybody's hair who's pretty and smart, and they're telling me they're struggling. If anything, Melanie, the hardest part was like they were struggling more than most because they had this image and ego to keep up with. That the pain was greater and I was like, wow, it doesn't matter how pretty you are.

It doesn't matter how smart you are. It doesn't matter how successful you are. Their struggle. And so I didn't, I didn't feel like I was different anymore. I was like, wow, we're all kind of going through something. 

And when you get down to it.

Melanie Warner: 25:46

I've heard people say women especially, that are just really stunningly beautiful women, even supermodels. That they feel awkward when they walk in a room and everybody stops and stares at them and they feel like there's something wrong with them. And it's just this human behavior, like. Is my fly down? Why is everybody staring at you?

You know what I mean? And, and it just creates this insecurity because it's not normal, you know what I mean? And they don't see themselves as beautiful the way other people perceive them. Absolutely. And if they did, they may not carry that energy because it changes to ego, which is fear based, and then it doesn't have the same inner beauty of just being unaware of their beauty. 

And it's just this thing that people try to catch and bottle or prescribe or diagnose. And it's just the, it's the funniest thing. But the people that I find to be the most attractive are the ones that don't have anything to prove and don't realize they're that beautiful, right? They just, there's something inside of them that just glows and, and is this attractive quality, no matter what their physical appearance is. And that's something that's hard to manufacture.

Louisa Jovanovich: 26:54

Absolutely.

Melanie Warner: 26:55

Now you mentioned. Okay. You mentioned struggling in school. Was there a point where you're just kind of like, tell me about a time, a time where you just had this epic failure where you just felt like, this isn't for me or you wanted to quit. You know, being a therapist or being in hypnosis and doing all of these things, is there a point in your business where you ever just felt like I'm not meant for this or I want to give up.

Louisa Jovanovich: 27:21

It was. There's a fine line between over giving and over delivering. I didn't quite know it, so I over gave a lot. I am quite a fit person and. But while I was pregnant, I was put on bed rest within the first six months and I wasn't allowed to stand up and I was only allowed to take two minute showers and.

But my. I ended up in the hospital and my clients are calling and one of my clients that I loved so much called. And she had gone to another salon and she got her hair done and they totally ruined it. And I decided I was going to get up and go to the salon to fix her hair when I wasn't even allowed to stand up. And I sat behind her and I did her hair and, and I thought I was. 

And by the grace of God, I made it through that pregnancy. But looking back, risking the life of my child for hair and thinking I was awesome. Because look at what I would do for someone else. But that same unfortunate way that I handled that was how I handled everything. How you do something is how you do everything right. 

And I just basically said, I don't matter. My health doesn't matter. My child's unborn child's health doesn't matter. I clearly didn't realize, I didn't think I was good enough or I mattered that I came from such a lack. And so I would lose sleep at night like I did. 

Did they like their hair? Am I okay? And my entire existence was on shaky ground and I didn't know I was living from that space.

Melanie Warner: 29:20

To refine validation externally with the people. If they like their hair, it made you feel like they liked you and that was how you measured your success.

Louisa Jovanovich: 29:31

Is that good enough?

Melanie Warner: 29:34

Yeah. I think everybody, at some point, some of the most successful people ask, are they good enough? They like, I know there are times I don't feel good enough, and then there's other times I feel like I'm too much, you know what I mean?

Louisa Jovanovich: 29:46

Right? And it's this pendulum, right? Like, am I, am I either this or that? And I gave so much that I actually, I'm pretty damn good because I work that hard. You know, it has the pendulum.

You can't possibly not be amazing when you're willing to do it to the death. Right? I did, and, and yet there was this underlying feeling of not enoughness. As a matter of fact, this book right behind me with Tracy Cunningham, she is every star's hairdresser and I. Because I only went to the school that was $11,000. 

It wasn't Vidal Sassoon. I never actually thought I was good enough because I would assume she went to Rydell. I'm at her course and she's on stage and I get her book, and she went to the same beauty school I went to, except she didn't have that underlying layer. She is. She became unstoppable. 

And when I realized that, I was like, how interesting. All these years I have over given in a way, thinking I'm hoping to become good enough. And yeah, I became pretty damn good, but to the detriment of a lot of things at certain times. But then on the flip side, I went to the best hypnotherapy school because I thought that that's what mattered. And I did get a job right away. 

And I'm doing very well. And in my head, it was because I thought I went to the best school. And it's just who you are in school.

Melanie Warner: 31:24

By the way, where'd you go?

Louisa Jovanovich: 31:25

I went to HMI. It's the first accredited hypnotherapy school, and I.

Melanie Warner: 31:29

That's where I went.

Louisa Jovanovich: 31:31

I love this, I love it. Yes.

Melanie Warner: 31:34

I heard a commercial on Howard Stern when I lived in Los Angeles 30 years ago. And I was 22 years old, and I went and got my. I almost got my master's in clinical therapy because I loved it so much. And I learned so much from that about people and just the neuroscience behind it. And I want to get into that a little bit because for anybody that's curious about how hypnosis is different from therapy, why it's so effective, and it's not like some psychic power anti-religious kind of thing.

It's really science based and how your brain works. And so I want to really talk about that as somebody this is not my opinion. It's based on my experience. And I went to the same school. That is so weird. 

I feel like we were hanging out in the same places at the same time, and I'm sure our paths crossed somehow. Like, that's so weird.

Louisa Jovanovich: 32:23

Remember how I told you.

Louisa Jovanovich: 32:24

You when I heard you speaking? I didn't even know why, but my physical body got me up to walk over to where you were. I just followed my body on that one, and there it was. And that seems to be the thing, though. I let my body and I, I do a lot of somatic work and, and my body always knows where to lead me.

And it's, it's yet to be wrong.

Melanie Warner: 32:51

Wow, that is so wild. And we, and we're just discovering on this, this podcast, like the different layers of things that we have in common. So I think that subconscious part of your brain that feels a connection with people, that is the conscious brain doesn't even know how to explain yet, like how we met that day. And then now we're discovering these synergies on this call. That, to me, is so profound.

And that's something that you can't explain. That's when you know, you have an alignment with somebody. And to me, that's a soul connection that you gotta trust, right? And like, we'll get into that part a little later. I want to go back to a second just to close the loop on this. 

But you mentioned outsourcing your livelihood. Basically, you felt like you were outsourcing your life in an effort to get approval. So how does somebody know they're doing that? Like if we can, if we know we're doing it consciously, then we, we're aware. How do we become aware of that? 

We're doing that.

Louisa Jovanovich: 33:47

A lot of it is.

Louisa Jovanovich: 33:48

Really in hypnotherapy. So when I close my eyes, I really start to feel what my body is doing. And one of the things I have realized is agreements. I had agreements with my brain. My agreement was.

Watching my parents was my first education of what you're supposed to be doing and not doing. I thought if my mom would just be quiet and let my dad lead, they would be great, because then he would love her and respect her. And, and, and if it was done this way, they would be happy because my dad men. So in my head, I'm interpreting all this. Men need to lead. 

Women need to be quiet. Women need to support him in such a way that he gets to know who he is as the leader of the family. This is my childlike brain observing what I think I'm supposed to be doing. So I did exactly that. And there was who you are and what you need to be doing. 

And so all of a sudden, having done it, I was like, oh, that didn't turn out the way I anticipated. So I had to regroup because I was suffering in my life, telling myself not what I needed to say and what was going to come out of my mouth didn't matter. Not only did I say women need to be quiet, I chose to be quiet because I thought that's what my job was as a wife, as a mother, as a woman. Just like, just be quiet. And yet I'm put on this earth to share and to speak. 

And I'm for years thinking everyone else knows and I don't, and I need to be quiet. So if I had something powerful to say, what I would do is go find a powerful person and tell them. So then they could do it because I had all these insights, like I just knew things. I had answers to things and I knew I knew them. So I would go tell somebody smart and powerful whose voice mattered, and I would tell them, and then they would do it and I go, see, I knew it. 

I'm like, at what point do I trust that I had this information and it started to kill me. I would cry in the shower, I'd cry going to sleep, I'd cry in the car. I just kept being so sad for myself. And, you know, even as this, it was like you were talking about a defining moment. And I thought, well, the people who speak on stages, they're missing limbs, they've had brutal things happen. 

What makes me think it matters when I have all my limbs. I haven't broken my back. I like when do you matter? And because at one point I'm like, well, my crippling disease is comparisonitis and self-pity. I, I didn't share, I didn't give, I limited myself, I believed my own stories. 

I drank my own Kool-Aid. I told everybody how sad my life was and I believed it. How sad I believed it was. Until finally I was like. Based on evidence. 

Just based on evidence. Based on results. Instead of me looking for what's wrong with me, I started to look at all the things that were right with me and I was like, I'm pretty awesome, actually.

Melanie Warner: 37:37

So what were you afraid would happen if you chose yourself?

Louisa Jovanovich: 37:43

It wasn't an option. It wasn't the agreement I had made. I had an agreement that women needed to be quiet and that like.

Melanie Warner: 37:53

From that belief that women need to be quiet, you curated and created the life of being the quiet wife, the quiet daughter, the, you know, the person who didn't share their voice.

Louisa Jovanovich: 38:06

Funny enough, I really. On the outside, no one else saw that. I just believed that everyone else saw a really awesome person doing a lot of awesome things because I think my spirit was always, thank God, more powerful than my mindset. I still did a million amazing things because my spirit was so powerful. It overrode the belief system.

Melanie Warner: 38:33

It wasn't powerful that your spirit, like, I think there's a lot of people that are stuck in that, that feel that's going to resonate with people where they feel stuck in their own life, like they're living this imposter life on the outside of themselves, like you mentioned, and other people don't see them that way. So they're still projecting positivity in a healthy, happy life. But deep down inside, there's something going on. So take us back to the year that you asked for divorce, what was happening internally that nobody else could see?

Louisa Jovanovich: 39:02

I had been secretly, like planning the divorce in my head and not realizing, you know, if you plan it in your head, you're going to actually have it happen. I kept picturing us not together. I was like, okay, when the kids get older, when they go to college, when they do this and when they do that. And then I started doing hot yoga and, and I think yoga just aligns you. I don't know what it is about yoga, but all of a sudden it started to be almost like meditation, hypnosis, yoga.

You start to channel in what's meant for you all of a sudden. It was January. I was like, I need a divorce. And I, honest to God, actually believed he would have been fine with it. I did, I thought he would have been fine with it because we were unhappy for many years and he said, I don't believe in divorce. 

We're not going to get a divorce. And I was like, we are.

Melanie Warner: 40:05

So would it have been different if he said, I don't believe in divorce and I'm going to fight for marriage?

Louisa Jovanovich: 40:11

He did say that.

Melanie Warner: 40:12

Was he willing to do the work and you just weren't open to it? And you were like, I'm done.

Louisa Jovanovich: 40:17

I went to a therapist and I remember saying to the therapist, could he be done? Is it possible? Like, I was out there and I, like, cried my eyes out to the therapist. I said, could this be. Could he change?

And she said, no. And she said, people don't change. And I was like, okay. And then I thought in my head, if I, if I just accept this life the way it is. I'll just live.

Melanie Warner: 40:47

Well, first of all, I would fire that therapist because, you know, you have exemplified the fact that you can change. People can change. I think maybe on a large scale, for the most part, people inherently, you know, know who they are. I mean, we were doing an interview not too long ago and, and there was evidence that shows that 90% of a child's brain is formed by the age of six. So it really determines your character and who you become, but you can still experience growth as a human being.

I do believe people can change for the better or for worse, depending on their choices and beliefs. And you said that everyone around you was paying the price for your misalignment. So how did that show up in your marriage or in your family life too?

Louisa Jovanovich: 41:33

I was a terrible mother. Like, it's so sad to say. I just really was. I was hurting so much that I wasn't physically calm. It was like a knee jerk reaction to like, go straight to anger.

And especially, you know, my physical body was holding it together for work. My physical body was holding it together for the world. And when I was home, my physical body couldn't hold it together anymore. My family was paying the price I. It was just very quick at getting angry, very quick at losing my temper very quickly. 

It just would. I couldn't hold it together inside anymore. And when I was going through the divorce, I went back to leadership rooms and leadership classes, and I did a deep, deep dive. As a matter of fact, even that started in my 20s. I was doing someone's hair and standing behind her chair whining about my life, and she said, would you like to go to a course? 

And I said, sure. Because I was always open to growing and learning. And I don't know if you've heard of Landmark Forum, but I was 24 and I went to the Landmark Forum and I remember thinking, well, if I'm realizing then if I make my parents wrong, then I'm right, then I get to be the way I am. And I realized I had been torturing my parents for not wanting to take responsibility for myself. And I actually shifted my life beautifully from 24 to 27 because I followed a lot of the principles of the course. 

And there was a girl who wanted to move in with me. Her name was Stacey, and she said, I want to live with you. And I said, yeah, you, you really, you have to take this course and let's be on the same aligned page for you to move in with me, she said. And the course was only 400 at the time. I said, I'll pay for you to take it. 

If you take it and you align your life to a powerful way of living, you get to move in with me. So she did. And she was in $10,000 of debt, and she got out of her debt and she started her own makeup line. She actually did very well and we both did very well. I saved enough to buy a house and I'm at my at the now now became my ex husband, but the man I married and she did very, very, very well. 

So we both were on an amazing trajectory. And then my belief system of like I had done so well, I'm like, wait, I'm going to take this wonderful person that I had created about who I am. I'm going to give it to a man. I'm going to be worthy of his love. I'm going behind the scenes, keeping my mouth shut, but helping promote him. 

And we're going to buy a house. We're going to have children. We're going to. And I didn't realize that I had taken full control over how this man was going to live. I was like, we are going to do all these things. 

But he wasn't ready to buy a house then. He wasn't ready to do all of the things that I was gung ho to do. And then when he. Pulled back and felt whatever he felt, I got upset and I felt that I made up stories and belief systems around why this was not it. And I started to feel alone.

Melanie Warner: 45:06

So you got married? You had kids. How many kids? Two. Two kids.

And then at 44. Here you are, financially stable. Two children. What did fear sound like in your head at that time? Like what? 

What made you decide? I'm not going to. I'm not going to stay in this marriage, and I'm going to be okay if I go out on my own as a single mom in Los Angeles or you know what I mean? Like, I remember I went through that as well.

Louisa Jovanovich: 45:37

I was living in Florida.

Melanie Warner: 45:39

Oh, you were in Florida at the time. Okay.

Louisa Jovanovich: 45:40

I was in Florida. I got divorced before Covid and I was like, you know what? Even though I stepped back and I had actually stopped making the type of money I used to make because it was about supporting him, I was like, you know what? I put myself through beauty school. I know who I am as a kid.

I know my spirit. Even when I went to the attorneys and I wanted what I wanted in the divorce, they were like, you're too marketable and no one's going to give you that. And I thought, am I going to argue my limitations? If three attorneys, two, two women and a man told me I'm too marketable, am I going to argue my meaning?

Melanie Warner: 46:23

Just to clarify for the audience, what does that mean? You're too marketable in a divorce.

Louisa Jovanovich: 46:27

You're too capable of going out there and succeeding. So no one's going to just give you money.

Melanie Warner: 46:33

Oh, like, like spousal support or money in the divorce. Wow. So if you have a marketability factor where you can earn the income, then you actually that's a, that works against you in a divorce as opposed to a stay at home mom that may not have skills to do, a physical job that would pay or or a job that would require certain skills or degree. I guess I understand that I just haven't heard that term before.

Louisa Jovanovich: 46:59

Honestly, I don't even know if it made any sense at all, or even if it does now. Because again, I was like, my, my kids could have done it. And it's not that I got nothing. I got just enough to get back on my feet for just enough. It wasn't like it wasn't nothing and it wasn't everything.

It was just enough. And I said,

Melanie Warner: 47:22

Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Louisa Jovanovich: 47:23

No, go ahead.

Melanie Warner: 47:24

I was going to say, but do you feel. And because I felt like for me when I went through this, it was my fierce independence at putting myself through school and paying to, you know, launching my first business at 18. Like even after my divorce, I lost everything, like a lot millions of dollars. And I had to start all over. And it had taken me 20 years to build And I remember thinking like, even though I feel like my life has blown up.

I had to come back to that same place of realizing, hey, I did this at 21 years old. At 22, I did this. At 18, I did this. I, as a kid, instinctively figured out how to do this stuff even before I had a family. But then I was a single mom. I had three kids. 

I had to restart my entire life. And that was really scary. And I did it too. And the same thing, I dug in and said, you know what? This person can't take away any of that, right? 

No matter what, I felt like in divorce that you feel like people take both sides, feel like they took something, like they took this many 16 years of my life, you know, but they can't take this from me. Isn't that a, isn't that a song?

Melanie Warner: 48:31

They can't get away from me.

Melanie Warner: 48:33

Right? So it's and it just empowered me to stop feeling like a victim and blaming this person and finally realize and focus on what I did have.

Louisa Jovanovich: 48:43

Exactly.

Melanie Warner: 48:44

And that is what helps you move forward. That's so true.

Louisa Jovanovich: 48:48

Yeah. It was like I was that kid. I did this and part of this was we bought four houses. You know, I negotiated those deals myself. I'm the one who got on a plane, and I sold the house here and got on a plane with two kids and a dog and ended up in Florida.

I'm the one who sold that. You know, I did this. I could do it again, and I did, and I'm there now and I have beautiful children and I'm incredibly proud of and I live in LA. He lives in Florida. And really we're great friends now.

Melanie Warner: 49:31

So you became co-parents again, where there's a reconciliation that has to happen in divorce that people don't think about. And it's not a reconciliation of the marriage. It's a reconciliation of being co-parents. You know, where you realize fighting each other is just going to dwindle there. Your kid's college fund and it's not really going to serve your family.

And it's like trying to punish each other. And I find that that happens a lot when, you know, there's a lot of anger and hurt feelings and divorce. There's a lot of emotional stress that drives all the decisions. And I often say that fear robs you of any of fear robs you of more than any ex ever could. We have some control over that. 

So if we understand that we're instead of trying to punish the other person, we reconcile as co-parents to be, you know, to focus on being the best parents we can in spite of this divorced family. That's the healthiest thing for our kids. It took me a long time to get to that. There was a lot of hurt, and I'm in the same place where we are. We actually get along even better and we're good co-parents for our kids. And that's where I want to stay. 

I never want to go backwards in my life, right? So you talk about nervous system level change. What does that actually mean in practical terms and how do people apply that?

Louisa Jovanovich: 50:53

I learned this thing from a coach and I say it when my nervous system is on overload. I'm calming my mind and my body and I'm connecting to my higher self and source. I'm calming my mind and my body and I'm connecting to my higher self and source. I had a tendency to just get afraid quickly, and when I was afraid quickly, my nervous system would go on overload and I would go into panic mode and then my body would be in fight or flight.

Melanie Warner: 51:38

And you can feel that I remember. I mean, I don't know, my ex husband knew how to push my buttons, and I remember being just so angry with him. Angry, you know, and, and I could feel it. My whole body was just burning and on fire, like, so mad. And I'm not an angry person by nature.

I've always been a very positive type of person. And it just felt like this heaviness and I could literally feel the stress in my body and, and, and that freaked me out. I just remember thinking like, if I don't figure this out, I am going to die. Like I can feel it in my bones. This is not good. 

It's not toxic. It's not healthy. This isn't safe. This isn't good. And those big life changes can be very stressful for people.

Louisa Jovanovich: 52:24

Yeah. And I was comfortable living there because it had gotten so familiar. I was home, you know, like that feeling that what you just described was my, my regular life.

Melanie Warner: 52:38

So you said, you said that most people, they don't, they're not really stuck. They just regulated it. They're regulated for a life that they've outgrown. So explain that.

Louisa Jovanovich: 52:49

I believe that there's a spirit inside of us that is always calling us forward. It's taking a moment and just stopping and being like, what's consistently still trying to come through? I always wanted to make a difference. I always wanted to be the type of mom that my kids loved hanging out with. All of those ways of being were all going away very slowly because for some reason, I wasn't trusting myself as a human.

I didn't trust myself as a mother. I didn't trust myself as anything . I was living in a lot of, you know, when you take a shower and you have this like, and then I, I'll say this and he says this, and then we'll do this. A lot of this chatter I was I would drive and I'd have the chatter. I had an incredible amount of negative self-talk and negative conversations that seemed real. After doing this work, which hypnosis doesn't like, it's just shifting those conversations. 

It's having a different perspective on the conversation. And so when my body would react to him, it's because I was still needing to defend myself. And so when I stopped feeling the need to defend myself, then there was no more conflict because I had done the healing within me. So we always think it's like, well, it was the marriage. Well, maybe I could have actually stayed within the marriage and just healed me. 

Maybe the question wasn't if he can change? Maybe the question was, can I change? So I'm not responding with, why would you do that to me? I was still like, don't control me. You know, I grew up feeling controlled by my parents, so I was responding with don't control me. 

I felt I picked a partner, that I was still responding in the same way, having done all this work. I now don't get triggered when someone says something. I don't take it as they're trying to control me. So this work goes into the mindset in such a way. Where we come from, I know who I really am, I know what my spirit is here on this planet for. 

And so whether you like me or don't like me does not change why I'm here. It doesn't impact me in the way it used to. I can now have a lovely conversation with my subconscious mind and say, I love you and thank you for bringing that to my attention. How interesting you feel that way. And I have a very different dialogue with myself.

Melanie Warner: 55:37

I think that the key is changing the dialogue with yourself. So how does the subconscious pattern affect money and leadership decisions? Because if you're shifting into like that whole subconscious versus conscious in the hypnosis world, how does that subconscious pattern affect money and leadership decisions?

Louisa Jovanovich: 56:02

Incredibly so. So when I was a tiny little human, my grandfather said to me, I love giving you money because you're so responsible. You always give it back to me. So I have a belief system that I'm really responsible around money and I am because I believe it. And you know, you were saying earlier how we have this way of being that we think it has to be hard for us to.

If it's hard, then we do it. Well, if anyone knows me, they, they'll, they'll laugh and joke and they're like, Luisr lives on vacation. I truly am, I go to work out my schedule. When I start my week, the first thing I put into my calendar is everything I want to do, my workouts, my, this, my, that. Everything I want to do goes in first on my calendar, and then everybody else gets to go in. 

And in my head, it's this belief system that I'm already winning. And it's like, you know, they're really making your bed make a difference. Yes, it does, and so does me putting myself on the calendar. I do everything I want first, and that's why I make my bed. And so it's this belief system that I will always attract the money I need to do whatever on earth I want. 

It's just that we attract money based on our values. If this thing is important to you, you will find the money. Everyone always does. A drug addict finds their drugs. Every person, whatever on earth you decide your values are, you shall find it So just decide what you want. 

Because I wanted a house. I had enough for a house. I want whatever on earth I want. I know it's just deciding I want it. And then all of a sudden, the money follows.

Melanie Warner: 57:47

So changing. So it almost sounds like changing the belief and the relationship about money is so critical. And you stopped tolerating these dynamics that destroyed your parenting. So, you know, that was also a subconscious decision to change something. What does that look like in real life?

Louisa Jovanovich: 58:09

I remember when I was going through my divorce and my son had written me a birthday card and he said, mom, I love doing everything with you. I love you and I love doing everything with you. And I read that and I was like, how interesting, because I didn't think I had that much to offer. So I used to send my children off to go do really fun things with everybody else. And he was like, no matter what we're doing, I like hanging out with you.

And I was like, wow. And I'll go, I work out with my daughter all the time. Now we take yoga classes together, and sometimes I want to do this class versus that class, and she'll actually compromise what class she wants to do to take the class with me. And she, they both love hanging out with me and I love having this relationship. And I'm so grateful to the work that I was willing to do to have this opportunity to have a great relationship with my children. 

It really didn't look very promising. I'm so grateful that I was willing. As I live on vacation, I also do a lot of work when I. I also decide my mindset is. My workouts are incredibly important. 

My, my, both my children are very much into fitness and health.

Melanie Warner: 59:36

Yeah. Because they model you and I. And that was one thing I learned after my divorce that I was grateful for this lesson. Even though it was tough. I thought that my kids would learn to love themselves based on how much I love them.

Like, if I just love them, they'll love themselves. That was what we all think, right? What I learned from that divorce, that what I say, the gift I got from my ex-husband, was understanding that my kids learned to model my behavior right? If I took care of myself and worked out and ate healthy, then my kids would as well, right? It's like I couldn't just love them into loving themselves, right? 

They follow those patterns and behaviors of their parents, good, bad or ugly. They learn those behaviors. So the more that I, you know, took care of myself and practiced self-love. It wasn't being selfish. It was actually showing the example of my kids and what it looked like to love yourself as a person.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:00:32

Absolutely. And also watching them while having them watch me rebuild. They're so proud of me.

Melanie Warner: 1:00:40

And yeah, they know mom has what it takes. And then they realize that they have that in them as well. They have the ability to be resilient because you're in them like that. Others, like I thought I screwed up my kids' lives, but we taught, you know, they learned resilience by watching us, right?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:00:57

And there are times where if any of their friends are struggling, I always hear them. They're like, you should call my mom.

Melanie Warner: 1:01:02

And oh, that's so great, I love that.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:01:04

I know it's the sweetest. When I hear them, they'll be like, you should call my mom. I like it.

Melanie Warner: 1:01:12

So how, how did you teach your daughter? Like, how, how do women mistake compromise for insecurity?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:01:16

My daughter teaches me about my daughter's strong character. She has such a personality and she was a tough child to raise because it's almost like watching myself as that child, but without having to unlearn a lot of things I didn't like. I didn't bully her into breaking her, which is what I believe happened to me. To the degree it did. So even at her recent parent teacher conference, they wanted her to take a class that just wasn't right for her.

And I said she could take a class and you're going to bully her into it. But is it going? She's almost done with high school. Is it worth strongly arming her in this at the end where the odds are she's going to fail the class? Do we want her to be like, wow, I'm so glad they tortured me until I failed this class? 

Or do you want to believe in her in such a way that she succeeds? What do you think she's going to remember? The class she failed or the way that you. Everybody believed in her. She has a lot of leadership qualities. 

My daughter is just pure leadership quality. I bring her into a room and everyone's always like, here's the next CEO of something. She just is powerful. And I've had her teachers call me and say, your daughter hijacks my classroom and I tend to lose control and yada, yada, yada. And I'm like, okay, so give her some leadership and step out of the way a little bit. 

If your role here is to be the teacher, stop. Stop micromanaging the child. She will give her anything and she will succeed. So then he kicked her out of the classroom. Instead of listening to me, he kicked her out of the classroom. 

So the next teacher calls and says, what do I need to know about your daughter before she starts class? And I said, well, she'll either hijack your classroom or you could give her some leadership. And so the teacher listened to me, and at the end of the year she said, your daughter is my favorite student and she's going to grow up to be somebody very special one day. And she goes, maybe she'll be a teacher. I said, she might own the school. 

I don't know if she'll be a teacher. And she said I would work for her.

Melanie Warner: 1:03:37

Wow. That's really that. I mean, that's got to be as a parent, you love hearing people say good things about them, especially, you know, teachers.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:03:45

Yeah. She said, I'm going to cry at her graduation. She's a special child. I even had another teacher call me and say, I didn't know who she was until the last week of the year. I didn't see who was in my classroom until the very last week of the year, and I feel like I dropped the ball with your child.

Melanie Warner: 1:04:04

Wow. That's pretty. That's a big admission for a teacher. I mean, it's interesting how you have one teacher that kicks him out of the class and another teacher that says, this is my favorite student. It's the same student doing the same things.

It's all about perspective and again, leadership. You know, teachers have a tough job. Parents have a tough job because we have to lead by example. And when you think about, you know, the things, the lessons you learned as a kid from your parents and the chances, the choices that you make as an adult for your own parents, you know, what changed in how you make decisions now?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:04:41

I try not to. The mistakes I made were deciding on that. And now I look at both my children and they're very different children. And I recently, within the last year, was struggling. Being that my daughter is a tough cookie.

I was struggling with something and I had to get downloads of information and, and they came so clearly and it said, why are you taking what she's going through in her lifetime right now, a direct result of equaling your failure? So every time I would respond to her. It would be from me reacting to your telling me I'm failing as a mother and that my higher self was saying, let her go through whatever she needs to go through. So at that moment, I just started to pray. And because I've been to 12 step programs, I knew the Serenity Prayer and I kept repeating it in my head while looping it over and over again. 

And when, when a client sits in my chair, I can actually hear their internal conversation. And I was like, what if my daughter can hear my internal conversation and it's like ready to punch her because I'm so angry at whatever she's going through because I'm reacting. Like if she's saying I'm failing. And so my energy is that. I'm like, stop it. 

You're the one creating this situation. So I started to just pray and just calm my nervous system. And the minute my nervous system calmed down. She calmed down. And I was like, you know, in my body, I'm like, I'm her mom. 

I'm responsible. What if she dies? What if I don't protect her? What if this, what if that? So imagine the energy that's coming from. 

What if I accidentally kill my child, something happens to her. So my energy is so high.

Melanie Warner: 1:06:39

It's anxious.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:06:39

Yeah, yeah.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:06:40

So I'm like her. Her higher self.

Melanie Warner: 1:06:45

I am feeling that.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:06:46

Yeah.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:06:47

And so I was like, stop reacting like it equals your failing. Just let her be.

Melanie Warner: 1:06:53

Wow. That's powerful.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:06:56

And I use that for everything. Now I'm like, if I bring my because however we're raised, they say from ages 0 to 6 0 to 8, we receive all of the information in our life as 100% fact. It's downloaded into our subconscious, into our nervous system.

Melanie Warner: 1:07:13

Yeah.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:07:14

So my parents are incredibly anxious. Incredibly anxious. Calm is not in the vocabulary. So I had to rewire every aspect of that to calm myself down and be like. You know what?

People struggle. Then they get over it and I'm just going to be a loving, patient mother right here. I'm a loving patient partner right here. I'm going to be a loving patient friend right here. And because the second it gets to where I'm like, what if I can't help you? 

What if I can't protect you? I start to panic, and that's not helping anybody.

Melanie Warner: 1:07:57

Yeah. So shifting in for a second to how you can resolve this from the neuroscience letter, you know, level with hypnosis. You know, when people, they know they're stuck in these patterns. I think it helps to explain a little bit about the subconscious brain and the conscious brain, so people understand how hypnosis works and how it can shift from a negative to a positive or vice versa, like very quickly as opposed to years of therapy. Can you kind of explain that a little bit?

And so that people know how they could use that to stop these old patterns? And like you said, stop dragging your past into your future.

Melanie Warner: 1:08:38

Like, how.

Melanie Warner: 1:08:38

Do you practically do that using hypnosis?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:08:42

Once you can calm down, which is very easy to do. You calm your mind and body to be in this calm state. Now it's not in fight or flight. It's just open and willing to receive information, first of all. Like when you're in a calm state, you're not rejecting the information and your subconscious wants to believe it in the first place.

Hence why you're there. You want to actually not be anxious. You want to do whatever. You're there for you. It does require you wanting it, so long as you want it. 

The subconscious is like, yes, please give it to me. And the minute you give it the language, because we all speak in a certain way. So when someone's speaking to me, I'm listening for their words. So I have a conversation with their subconscious mind, with what they actually want. It's not what I want. 

I'm listening to the way that someone is saying, here's who I am, here's what I want, here's what's not working. So the subconscious mind, your conscious mind is having that conversation. And then during the quiet space where you're not in fight or flight, it's then downloading that information in and it, it holds on to it for dear life. I could have conversations during the session and then a week later, somebody is literally repeating what I said, acting like they didn't even know where they had heard it. I was like, do you not remember? 

We actually put that into the hypnosis session. And it's fascinating because it just becomes something natural. It's not like if I knew what I was doing, what would that be? You just become the person who's I'm speaking to on stage. I'm, you know, I've co-written books when I was, when I was 30, giving birth to my son and they told me my blood type wasn't positive. 

I was like, that's the first A+ of my life.

Melanie Warner: 1:10:40

And

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:10:43

So it's then and then I graduate with a 4.2, just shifting, shifting, shifting, becoming the person who says, yeah, you know, yes to writing a book, having no evidence that I've ever passed an English class.

Melanie Warner: 1:10:58

Yeah. I always tell our authors, you know, and because our company helps people write their books, it's like you have to become the person who wrote the best selling book and make decisions from that future self, from a place of success, and not the fear or the anxiety that you're in now. The unknown, the uncertainty. Because if you start making decisions from there, you're going to write a very different book and it's going to attract a totally different audience. And you know, what you produce from fear brings more fear, right? Like fear and faith cannot coexist.

And what you focus on expands. It's from Jack Canfield, who wrote Chicken Soup for the soul. And I love that because it gives you this power to make those decisions. But what happens is a lot of times when we make a decision subconsciously, like we'll say, hey, okay, I want to lose weight. Great. 

Just don't eat cheesecake. Right? And then you're like, I'm not going to eat the cheesecake. And then you're sitting there at lunch, you have a healthy salad, you drink water, no sugary drinks, no wine, you know, no two martini lunches. And all of a sudden that that tray walks by with the cheesecake on it and your subconscious is like, you've got to eat it and your conscience is like, no, don't eat it. 

And it's like that angel devil. And then you don't feel like you have control. Like you said, my body got up and brought me to the room to talk to you. And that's a subconscious thing that we can't always control. And we feel consciously, why are we such a loser? 

Why do we keep doing these things? We know it's not good. Why do we do it? And, and I think this will help people to understand science, right? So if you picture this is your brain, okay, some people are bigger, you know, this is your brain. 

And if you look at a chart, like 80% of your brain is subconscious, 80% like the decisions are already made. It's based on your belief system. And then there's 15%. That is subconscious. I mean, 80% is subconscious. 

There's 15% that's conscious and there's 5% that's primitive. So I want you to think about this for a second. And you guys, the only reason I'm talking about this more scientifically is because I did go to the same school and I did get. You know, I did study clinical therapy and get a master's in hypnosis. Which was really fun. 

And I learned a lot about this early on in my 20s. And I actually practiced this for a while, and it was amazing to watch how people responded to hypnosis, right? Like if, if you, you found people that had that were abuse victims or that they couldn't lose weight and it had nothing to do with the food they were eating. It came down to they were literally building a buffer of fat around their bodies to protect people, to keep people away from them.

Melanie Warner: 1:13:41

Right?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:13:42

Well, and to add to that, like, everything that's known is familiar and safe. Everything that's unknown is unfamiliar and unsafe. So being skinny is unfamiliar. So it doesn't equal safety. So if the nervous system is like as soon as you start to lose weight, it goes alert, alert.

This is scary.

Melanie Warner: 1:14:01

Yeah.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:14:01

And so it goes back to what's familiar. So during hypnosis, you put in and you make yourself familiar or like how many people say a really loving relationship is boring.

Melanie Warner: 1:14:12

Right?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:14:13

And that's a really nice guy.

Melanie Warner: 1:14:14

Yeah. Right. And, and.

Melanie Warner: 1:14:16

The same when you look at just that 5% primitive, this is how powerful the subconscious is. You know how just 5%, you know how powerful the primitive brain is. As an example, when you're driving down the freeway and there's a wreck, what do we all do? We all strain our neck to look right. We're looking for the blood and the body's right.

Like it's just a that's the very primitive side, the sexual side that that sexual energy that you feel that is so primal, that is so strong, like a magnet towards somebody that's only 5% of your brain. And that you can feel consciously is very, very powerful, right? So imagine 80% of your brain, which is subconscious and makes the decisions for you where you don't even think about it. So it's, it's kind of like what you're programming in, right? And the reason I love hypnosis so much for solutions is because it shuts down the brain to trigger this fight or flight mechanism that allows you to go in and change a negative association to a positive association, to where you can instantly say, I'm not going to do this anymore, and your brain will start supporting that on a subconscious level and start to match the conscious level based on what those goals are. 

And it would take you years and years of therapy to, to shift that powerful 80% subconscious part of your brain into a healthy habit that becomes conscious, right? So you want to talk more about that science part of it, because I think that's where there's a myth that people feel that hypnosis is bad and it's mind control. And, you know, they see these hypnotherapists on the stage that go to sleep now and people start barking like a dog and doing weird stuff. And so that kind of discredits the industry a little bit. So how do you respond to people that are skeptical about that process?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:16:09

Recently, I was thinking of something. Have you ever been? Have you ever volunteered to be hypnotized on stage? I have.

Melanie Warner: 1:16:16

Well, I will tell you one little tidbit. A little trivia about me. When I lived in Texas when I was 18, 19 years old, I worked for a master hypnotist and. And I would travel with him and he would do these kinds of shows. And it was fascinating to me how he could hypnotize people, like in seconds.

And they felt like they couldn't get off the floor like it was. So it just really left this impression on me. So I did have that experience, but I also was involved in that for a little bit, just a short time. It was just a job that I had for a while that I thought was kind of fun.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:16:51

Oh, fantastic. Well, I remember volunteering. It's. And one of the reasons I became a hypnotherapist was because I saw it on stage. I was like, well, if they could be hypnotised into doing this, I could comfortably think, I'm J-Lo on stage.

If she could do it, I could do it, was my motto. And they actually sent me off the stage because I was not in the space. So it was. And their suggestion is right.

Melanie Warner: 1:17:21

It's hyper suggestible.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:17:23

I was not suggestible enough. And that's one of the reasons I like HMI, because they go through the 36 questions and you learn that everybody's suggestible, but how they receive information, whether they're emotional or physical. So it really the language and how you hypnotize someone versus depending on how they listen is also very important. So they say, well, this person, if you touch them, they fall. Well, when I did get on stage, they go like this and your head goes like this, and then everybody else does too.

Well, it's not that I didn't know I was next. So they say they do this. I just know I'm next. And you're supposed to do this. So because we're humans and because we follow direction quite well, I just knew it wasn't that I had left my body. 

I was 1,000,000% in my body. I just knew I'm getting touched next and my head is supposed to touch the person next to me. Every single thing that was happening was, it's not that you're not doing anything out of what you would naturally do. Your body always knows. I go back to the body. 

Your body knows. If that was not going to be okay for me, I would not have done it. This is not doing anything to me. I was happy to do it.

Melanie Warner: 1:18:39

I think it's important to note that you can't force somebody to do something, and people go to extremes like, oh, if I get hypnotized and they tell me to go murder somebody and then block it out, and then I don't know, I did it. You know, like that, you can't do that. Like it's, you can't make somebody do something they don't really want to do. All it does is it, it changes that relationship with yourself where you stop arguing with yourself and it, it, it, it takes the conflict from the subject, the subconscious to the conscious, and it resolves that relationship so that you can just go in, change the message units to positive or negative, depending on what outcome you want. And it's just a faster way to kind of hack through and reprogram these thoughts instead of working so hard to subconsciously change those thoughts through repetition and years of, of, of change.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:19:29

Absolutely. And what I like to do sometimes I actually have people speaking during the hypnosis. So it's a little muffled because they're like in a trance state, but I, I like having them hear what they said because in that state you don't totally remember the sentences that come to you. But while you're in, it's very powerful what we share and there because it goes through this amazing space of clarity. When you're not in fight or flight, when you're in a trance state and then a lot.

Some of the answers don't come right away. They come while you're sleeping. You wake up and you remember a dream that had the answers within it.

Melanie Warner: 1:20:09

And it's your subconscious working out an issue. Absolutely.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:20:14

And I love even in the course they talk about. The third stage of our sleep is our venting dreams. And so we heal and process things. Whatever we go through in hypnosis. Now, later on, while someone's sleeping through their venting dreams, they are processing all of the things and it resolves.

And all of a sudden, again, it happens. So gradually, all of a sudden you're really capable of doing the thing that you had decided you wanted. It's just that I can no longer do this. You look back and you're like, I did it.

Melanie Warner: 1:20:49

Yeah, I mean, I love that. I just think I look back at and people look at me sometimes and go, how did you do all this at such a young age? And it was because I was able to go in. And even in our book programs in week one, module one, we have a self meditation, almost like a self-hypnosis process called removing that block of the fear of rejection. Because if we all get over the fear of rejection and we all have it from somebody in our childhood, okay, we all have it.

And if we get past that, we can create things in our world that most people don't think are possible. This is the block that people have when they say they want to write a book, and then they don't, because they sabotage themselves out of this fear of rejection. And it's the underlying fear that sabotages us self-sabotage because of this thing that we have. So if we can just go in and find the root of it, it's like when you're going to clear the garden, if you don't clear the weeds out, they're going to overtake the whole garden and you can't grow. And it's the same as going and pulling weeds inside your subconscious brain that are indirectly sabotaging you in your life that you can't. 

You're like, why did I say that to you? Why am I treating this person like this? And you feel like you don't have control, but it's triggering these old habits and beliefs. And so I just love this as a way to be able to for, for, especially for high performers, right? So where do you feel that entrepreneurs in particular, they stay stuck longer than they should because of some of these things?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:22:22

Because of the childhood belief systems? I work with a lot of high performers, and they first started off as their clients and then they ended up as hypnosis clients. And it's this belief system. On one level, it drives them because they didn't get to be as great as they are because of them, they succeed because nothing is good enough and they're so driven. But there's this underlying area where.

They lose their peace and they feel alone, and they feel like they have to be the only one doing it. And, and it's, it's a very small, hard world. So the minute they let go of something here, it's, it's so physical where. And that's the thing when I'm in hypnosis, I actually, for me, it's here for someone else. It might be another part of their body, right? 

Like I, I ask them to touch where they're holding whatever it is. And almost always it'll be here or here. Like they are somewhere in their body. And when you could physically allow yourself to let it go and witness it and put your whole own hand on it, you know, people always say to me, they think that like, the answers are everywhere else. All the answers are within us. 

We are our own like actual healers. So I'm only holding space for what's meant to come through me, to actually give someone else permission to access their own healing and allow someone to just be like, where are you holding it?

Melanie Warner: 1:24:03

To be able to release it? Like you have to know where it's living to be able to release it. Let it go. Yeah.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:24:12

Because it's never outside of us now.

Melanie Warner: 1:24:14

And that's the thing we always do, it's really easy to get stuck in a victim mentality when we can say, oh, I'm this way because of that person. That's what a victim says. My life gets better when this person does something different. When my husband stops acting this way, my life will be better, right? That's choosing to be a victim in that space.

And definitely there are people that have more extremes of that. But a victor says, my life is going to be amazing regardless of what that person does. And then we go in and, and change these, The relationship with ourselves first, which I think is the most important piece of personal development. It's, you know, you can help someone lose weight or make more money, but it's not going to affect their relationships more so than when you change the relationship with yourself. It automatically changes the relationship with everyone and everything. 

Your relationship with food, with money, with your boss, with your parents, with your kids, with generations of people that have affected who you've become. Right? I think it's the most important work that we can do as human beings, as entrepreneurs, as you know, people that are serving the planet and stewards of our world like this. That relationship with ourselves has to be that primary one that we're correcting in order to live harmoniously with other people.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:25:34

Absolutely. And it's also like we all have the I love that you call it defining moments, right? We all have a defining moment and we all have what we believe is the God honest truth about that defining moment. And it's somehow being willing to look at it and then see how much of it I made up? And what serves me about this and what doesn't serve me the way I tell the story?

Am I the victim or the warrior of it? Where in my story is it? Can I shift where I am in it? You know, my son said to me one day it was. I said, do you have any memories of growing up? 

Like, what are what's a memory? He goes, I remember being a kid and I remember having chickenpox, and I remember you gave me penicillin. And I thought, why would you give me penicillin? I told you I was allergic to it. I'm like, you've never had chickenpox. 

And he goes, what? I'm like you. When did you have chicken pox? And he goes, I. What were the red bumps on my body? 

I'm like, you always had a fever. And it broke into a rash. And the bumps, were you having a rash? And he said, well, I told you I was allergic to penicillin and you still gave it to me. I'm like, okay, put yourself into my place. 

If a doctor gives you penicillin, why don't I give you what the doctor gives you as opposed to letting a five year old tell me he's allergic. And he said, why are you trying to change my story? I was like, how interesting. Like, you're so attached to the way you remember it. This is your story. 

I had to let it go for a minute. So how do we tell our story?

Melanie Warner: 1:27:34

Yeah. And, and, and I think too, I've noticed that in my own life. I remember before I was a parent, by the way, before I had kids, I was the perfect parent. How many of you felt that way? Right?

Of everybody else's kids until I have parents, right? And I remember people saying, okay, they're going to go through the terrible twos. And there was this expectation that if they don't, there's something wrong with your kid, right? Like it's almost like, well, this is how you're going to feel, okay? It's winter time. 

You're just going to get sick and everybody gets a cold in the winter, everybody gets the flu. And then your body starts to prepare for this. And you're, you're literally willing these things into happening. Or oh, terrible twos. Oh, oh, I teenagers, they're a nightmare. 

And I just remember trying to say, you know what? I'm not going to receive that. I'm just. And I really don't get sick that much. And I do believe that there's a powerful place in, in the intentions that you set. 

We had an intention for this call that, you know, this podcast before we did the podcast, we're like, okay, what do we want the audience to do, feel or think when they hear this. Like what? And I learned that from Oprah. She used to do that before every show with her producers, and they would even go one step further and have a prayer, a group prayer about it. Right. 

And you could feel the difference when you watch her show versus obviously somebody like Jerry Springer, you know, or, or other talk shows. They just didn't have that connection the same. And I think when you work backwards from that intention, whether it's parenting, whether it's business, whether it's doing a podcast, like you just you create a stronger relational connection with the people that you are intending to speak to. And the same is your kids when you're parenting. And so if I want to kind of wrap up today with a few questions, like if you think of all these things that you've created and what you've built from your amazing life by being back, you know, having have these ups and downs and all these defining moments that kind of connected to where you are today. 

If you could have done it all differently, would you?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:29:39

No, no, I, I had some hard times. I did, but honestly, I would have still married the same man. I love my children. I love where I'm at in my life. I do feel like I got there because of my struggles and, and those became beautiful memories and not they're not what.

Yeah. Did I cry over them while they were happening? But I truly. Grateful it's such an over used word, but so grateful for who I am because of the way I listen, the way I care, the way I work, the way I am is all because of the life I've lived. And I'm grateful for that.

Melanie Warner: 1:30:43

Well, I'm grateful that you're here, and I am still amazed at all the synergies that we have that we had no idea when the first time we talked like, this is so this is so amazing. And again, you feel that alignment with people, that energy that, you know, people that are on the same path as you. And I think when you're in that space, you attract seekers. Like I love meeting seekers because they're looking for solutions. They're open to change and they're learning to trust themselves.

And that inner voice, instead of just waiting for everybody to give them outside approval. So as we wrap up this, I want to ask you a couple of quick questions. So in one sentence, what does Self-trust mean to you?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:31:27

You can't get it wrong.

Melanie Warner: 1:31:31

What's a sign of somebody living from Performance instead of alignment.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:31:36

Your body is misfiring and it's. It's screaming. Start listening.

Melanie Warner: 1:31:43

And what does nervous system regulation actually feel like? Like if you do a hypnosis session and you can feel this anxiety in your body, what does that nervous system regulation actually feel like? When you go through that peace.

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:32:02

Peace, calm. Again, it goes straight to I'm calming my mind and my body, connecting with my higher self and source. And that literally physically goes from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.

Melanie Warner: 1:32:14

So if somebody is interested, if they've never done hypnosis, then maybe they have different feelings or thoughts about it. What's the first move somebody listening should make today?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:32:27

Ask yourself, wouldn't it be great if we're like, I could give myself permission to live an extraordinary life. What would it feel like to give myself permission to live an extraordinary life? Because we all can. We're all worthy. Just allow yourself freedom.

I know that it's so beautiful. Even if you're totally fine, you could get better.

Melanie Warner: 1:32:57

Yeah, I love it. I remember saying to people going through divorce, you know, you can always say and do things to make it worse. You know what I mean? Just just just make sure you're doing things that are going to make things better. Don't do things that are going to create ammunition to make things worse, right?

Louisa Jovanovich: 1:33:16

Don't add fuel to the fire.

Melanie Warner: 1:33:18

Exactly. Well, thank you for being here today. I really appreciate you so much. And I also want to make sure you guys know that you can click on the show notes below and get all the information of how to find Louise, how to, you know, maybe book an appointment with her. If you want to learn more about how hypnosis could be a solution for you.

And I always like to wrap up our show with a very special mystery guest story. So I want to share a defining moment of a very special guest. And then we'll wrap it up. Now, this was a woman who was very good at failing that. Sound familiar? 

No, not casually failing. I mean, like an epic fails. Like professionally failing. In fact, by the time she was 30 years old, she had been rejected so many times she could practically recite the word no before it was even spoken. She could feel it in her body as a little girl, her father would sit at the dinner table and ask a really strange question, and he'd say, what did you fail at this week? 

And if she hadn't failed at anything, he actually looked disappointed. So in that house, failure meant you were stretching. It meant you were brave. So she stretched and failed. She wanted to be a lawyer, but she didn't score enough like the the LSAT score. 

She didn't score high enough twice. So then she just decided not to be an attorney. Maybe that was meant to be. So she sold fax machines door to door in the Florida heat. Now we know what the Florida heat and humidity looks like. 

It's like selling fax machines. Can you imagine carrying fax machines around? Cold calls, slam doors, people hanging up mid-sentence. More rejection. Rejection wasn't just occasional. 

It was daily. Then one night, she was getting ready for a party and she wanted to wear pantyhose because she didn't want her, you know, panty lines to show. So she cut off the feet of the pair of pantyhose. She just wanted something that kind of smoothed her shape under the white pants, but didn't want to wear panties, so she didn't want to show the lines and have these bulky seams. It was just a tiny idea. 

You know, the kind most people would just dismiss. By the next day. But she didn't because she believed in everything she wanted to create with zero evidence. She. She had no confirmation or proof of concept. 

She just had no background in the fashion industry, no investors, no connections, no business degree, no experience in retail. She had $5,000 in savings, but she had this gnawing idea that wouldn't go away. She couldn't ignore it. So she drove to North Carolina and pitched hosiery meals like these mills that create pantyhose over and over and over as a woman who wore pantyhose and they laughed and they said, no more rejection. They told her she didn't understand the industry. 

They patted her on the head and sent her out the door. Okay, little girl. One meeting ended with a factory owner dismissing her entirely, but something interesting happened. That man went home. He told his daughters about this strange lady who wanted to reinvent pantyhose. 

And his daughter said, dad, that's actually really brilliant. So after rejecting her very blatantly the next day, he called her back. And that one, yes, changed everything. But the rejections didn't stop there. She pitched retailers, department stores, past buyers, dismissed her, and one buyer at Neiman Marcus agreed to let her demonstrate the product in the bathroom. 

So she tried Tim on. She showed the difference. She explained it to herself. No marketing budget, no ad agency. Just belief. 

Then the product launched. Okay. And it was very slow at first. And what's funny is she actually went and bought bins at like Home Depot and she snuck into the store and she started putting her product up by the register in these bins. And it was such a big company at Neiman Marcus that nobody realized that they weren't supposed to be there. 

And they started selling like crazy. And then Oprah named it one of her favorite things, you guys. And the company exploded. But here's the part most people don't know. She kept 100% ownership. 

She wrote her own patent. She did her own packaging. She refused to give up equity when everybody told her she should, because she was trained for rejection her entire life. She wasn't afraid of it. No, she was afraid of not trying. 

And today, that little idea cut from pantyhose became $1 billion brand. And that woman, the girl who failed the sat twice. The fax machine sales rep. The woman laughed out of manufacturing offices. Became the youngest self-made female billionaire at the time. 

And now you know the defining moment of Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx. So Louisa and all of you, thank you for joining us here today. I appreciate you all being here. And I encourage you to focus on your own defining moment and know that your story doesn't have to be the end of your story. It could be the next chapter in your life. 

It comes down to whatever you decide you want it to be. So I hope that you learned something today and that you felt inspired today. I want to thank you all so much for joining us. And if you're on a channel that subscribes, remind you to subscribe so that we can continue to bring you content and amazing guests like Louisa. So thank you again, everyone for being here and Louisa as well. 

Take care everyone and we'll see you next time. Bye bye. 

Outro: 1:39:10

Thanks for listening to the Defining Moments podcast. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.