From Baby Loss to Vision Board Queen: How One Woman Built a Thriving Business and Took Over the UK's Most Inspiring Festival

What happens when life's darkest moments become the catalyst for your greatest transformation? In this deeply moving and inspiring episode, I sit down with Lisa Williams, the Vision Board Queen and new co-founder of Womanifest - the UK's premier festival for women in business.

Lisa's journey is nothing short of extraordinary. After experiencing recurrent miscarriages and reaching a point where she "physically hated herself," she discovered the power of vision boards and the law of attraction through network marketing. Fast-forward 11 years, and she's not only built a thriving business but has just taken over one of the most impactful women's events in the country.

We dive deep into Lisa's transformation from someone with zero confidence who couldn't even look at herself in the mirror, to becoming a successful entrepreneur who's now inspiring thousands of women across the UK. She shares the raw truth about her struggles with baby loss, how it led to her spiritual awakening, and the practical steps she took to rebuild her life and business.

But this isn't just Lisa's story - it's about the power of women coming together. We explore the ancient wisdom of the Red Tent, why collaboration over competition is essential for female entrepreneurs, and how attending events like Womanifest can be the game-changer your business needs.

Lisa gives us an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to run a festival expecting over 1,000 attendees, with 110+ speakers across multiple stages and workshop areas. From ice baths to fire walking, silent discos to transformation zones - this isn't your average business event.

If you're a female founder looking to expand both your life and business, this episode will leave you feeling inspired, empowered, and ready to take on the world. Plus, find out how you can join us at Womanifest this July for what promises to be the most transformational weekend of your year.

Connect with me your host: Laura Beddoe-Collins.

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Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast for soulful Women in business, and today we have the incredible guest, Lisa Williams, the Vision Board Queen. And as always, before I invite a guest onto the podcast, I do my research and I was blown away by the similarities between myself and Lisa. Lisa started with vision boards in 2013, so we're coming up for 11 years, using this powerful tool similarly to me. She has also worked in network marketing and she has also, sadly been through several baby losses, which has spurred her to create the absolutely thriving business that she has today. And then she's gone on to create this [00:01:00] incredible event called Womany First, which has been going for the last five years,

to share that, I'm going to be speaking on the TP stage on the Saturday at 1130, and I'm gonna be talking about how to use five D to manifest, to read energy and to absolutely magnetize your life and your business. Welcome to the podcast, Lisa. Well, thank you for having me. That was a very, thorough introduction,

yeah, so let's dive into a bit more about you. If you could just share with the audience, you started this all those years ago. If you could take us right back to what it was like for you then. What was your business like back all those years ago? So I began my business journey, like you said, in 2013.

And at that point I ran a gifting business and worked at the same [00:02:00] time. Then I went through my, reoccurring miscarriage, years. It was at that point that I had the opportunity to reflect that I wasn't living my life's purpose.

I wasn't living my soul's purpose and I wasn't happy in myself. I actually physically hated myself as a person. I didn't like who I looked in the mirror. I didn't like me and I hated my body for letting me down. For failing to carry my unborn children. So this was when I, stepped into that network marketing world because I was watching a friend online at the time and she oos this confidence and I was just like, I need some of that confidence.

You know, I wanted to borrow her confidence just to get me through, to the next day. I didn't have the confidence to do anything, nevermind show up online or do a live video. I didn't believe in myself at all. So I joined this, direct selling company and that was when I was introduced [00:03:00] to the world of law of attraction, the world of personal development.

I didn't even know a self-help book existed and now I've written my own. It just absolutely blows my mind. And I, through that, it was introduced to a vision board and I created my first vision board and I absolutely fell in love with it. I. Loved everything about it. I loved the whole law of attraction concept and I started to change my life to live in alignment with that concept.

I then fell pregnant with, my rainbow baby. She is gonna be five next week, I was then at a place in life that I was like, more people need to know this. More people need to do this. So that was when I decided to bring my skills to my business. And that was when the Vision Board Queen was birthed.

So I birthed a business and a baby in the same year. I did a lot in 2020. The similarities are uncanny. I had my first [00:04:00] baby loss in 2018. I wasn't planning to get pregnant at the time. I'd just met my husband. Obviously, he wasn't my husband at that stage.

We'd been together for just over a year and were really enjoying our lives together. My son was 14 at the time, that was a catalyst for me to wake up. I believe the universe gave me a big wake up call I wasn't listening to my body.

I was very much in my masculine. I would do hip training workouts when I was your period. I was, I didn't know anything about the menstrual cycle and the seasons of womanhood, any of that stuff. And through me. Me, my brother and my family, we went on a excursion where it's called Vertigo, where you jump off of a building and literally just fall.

And, the strap at the time [00:05:00] smacked me in the eye. If that strap didn't. Smack me in the eye. I would never have gone to the doctors because I avoid doctors like the plague. I only go if there's something seriously wrong. Whilst I was in the doctors, I mentioned to her that I was having serious cramps and she asked me if I was pregnant and then.

She said to me to do a test when I got home and I was pregnant, but sadly that was ectopic pregnancy. If I wasn't at that doctor's appointment, I would've died that day because my fallopian tube actually burst that day whilst I went up to the hospital for a check and they said to me in the hospital, if you wasn't here, you wouldn't be.

You were internally bleeding essentially. And that was the biggest wake up call of my life. That was when I got into healing, started to go to women's circles, started to explore what my body was telling to me. I went on a whole journey around [00:06:00] teaching women about the menstrual cycle.

It's something that I still do today, but in a different setting in corporate. It's the thing that's really transformed my life and my business as well, although it's a horrific experience that, we go through as women. You can let it change you.

You can let it, be a positive rather than, focusing on the negative of that. And I do think being able to speak out and, share your own journeys and experiences around that, can help other people. 'cause there's so many women that sit in silence with things like this.

And the statistics around it. Until it happens to you, you don't realize the statistics and it is one in four. I dunno if that's even risen now. But yeah, it was a real catalyst for me for sure. And it's definitely been something that has helped a lot of women through talking about it.

Now I am definitely one of those people that I like to talk about the things that are taboo and that [00:07:00] people feel that shame around and I really think that it's good to talk. So I'd love to know. What was it that drew you to Woman E Fest? Where was that created? What was the inspiration and spark there?

So, woman Fest started in 2020. It was founded by a lovely lady called Jody Soul. I attended the festival at a crossroads in my own life. I was pregnant with my rainbow baby and I've just walked away from the, the direct selling industry and I didn't really have a. Direction. I'd already, got my ticket prior to walking away from direct sign.

I thought, you know what? I'm gonna go and I'm just gonna be open. And that was all I went with. I went on the train on my own, and I just thought I'm gonna be open and see what it's all about. And from that. I walked away feeling so inspired [00:08:00] and I'd learned so much about different things that we then went into lockdown literally like a couple of days later.

I had this opportunity window to really sit back and go, do you know what, this is what I'm gonna do. So that's what I did. That's what drew me to it originally how inspiring it seemed. When W Manifest came back, it came back as a festival style when we were allowed to have outdoor events and I applied to be a speaker at the festival.

So I did my first workshop, at Manifest in 2022. And then I was hooked. I loved the whole, festival, the whole experience. I loved everything. What it represents and how it represents. You're a mum of two girls, so the fact that it helps teen girls as well really speaks to me.

So every year I've gone back, supported the festival in whatever ways I can. At the end of the last festival, at the end of [00:09:00] 2024, Jody, who's the founder of the festival, said. It's time for her to hang up her festival shoes and she was gonna pass the bat over. If it didn't get passed over, it would basically stop.

And I was like. Oh my God. It can't stop because I have experienced it from an attendee's perspective, so I know just how powerful it is. So I applied to take it over and obviously as I've been a part of the behind the scenes of quite some times, I did know Jody quite well. And she knew we had the same vision of where we wanted it to go and what the future of the festival was.

So yeah, that's kind of my story with how I've come to run the festival I just want to keep inspiring more women and teen girls because it's such an important thing to not only look at today's generation of women and support them with the education around things like,

our womb [00:10:00] healing and, menopause and all these things that are now so important to us that 20, 30 years ago you would never have even heard of a conversation in a group of women about things like that. So I want that to keep going, but I also want that for our future generations as well.

Having that conversations around, you know, being a woman and what it entails. 'cause it's not an easy role, it's not an easy rodeo, is it? Being a woman, it really isn't. And especially when you've got really big ambitions and you know that you wanna make a really big impact, it's, it's challenging, it's tricky.

And, you know, finding that balance between being a fantastic mom, wife, business owner, keeping fit. Listening to your cycle. Me, I've got two pets as well. And then it's like, where am I on this list? And actually recently I've had quite a public breakdown and you know, had, had, I've had struggles recently with we've.

Putting myself first. So [00:11:00] I am coming to Women E Fest as a speaker, but I'm absolutely coming as well to fill up my own cup. Yeah. Because as a leader, a trailblazer, I. It's really, really important that I am filling up my own cup all of the time because I have got so much that I give and I give and I give.

So yeah, it's, it's important for every woman to fill up their own cup, and I think one of the biggest things about what manifest is, no matter what you are, what you do. There is something everyone can fill their cup up with. It doesn't, it doesn't have to just be, you know, a yoga session. If you don't like yoga, there's gonna be a meditation.

If you don't like meditation, there's gonna be a talk that you can listen to. There is just something for everybody to fill that cup up with. I'm really excited to be at the festival and I'm just gonna talk a little bit, uh, more about [00:12:00] my talk. So if you are thinking, yep, I'm, I'm, I'm ready. This sounds amazing.

Sounds right up my street. Then the event is on the fifth and the sip of. July and July. It's at the Cherry Orchard Farm in d um, Cheshire. So it's right by de Mir Forest. If anyone knows the area quite well, it's not far from the forest. Um, and it's just such a beautiful venue.

It's got a lovely lake on site and it's just. Filling your cup up vibes of being in nature, but also being surrounded by so many incredible women as well. Yeah, and I'm just gonna touch on that. You know, it is so important as women, the way that if you go back. To ancient history of women. The way that we were is every single month we would come together.

And of course, tampons, sanitary towers, wasn't they? They didn't exist. So [00:13:00] what women would actually do is they would come together on their bleed. They would go up to a place called the Red Tent. They would heal together. They would sing, they would create, they would. They would nurture one another. And obviously that in the modern day world has really got lost.

But it is really important as women that we collaborate, that we nurture each other, that we're. Open that we are vulnerable, and that is really how we can start to create the ripple effect in the world. And you've probably already started to see that kind of, that tip, even with films like Barbie, the, uh, Marvel film and, and you know, the world has started to wake up to this divine feminine movement that is already happening.

And. Yeah, through attending events like this, it's really a place for you to start to thrive as a woman. So for my talk, it is at 1130 at the tp. [00:14:00] Marquee. There are several stages. There is so much for you to do at the event.

Of course, if you are listening and you're part of my tribe, I love, love, love seeing you in person, giving you a squeeze, and actually meeting you in real life. It, there's nothing that. Fills me up more and obviously with me being all the way down south and my events mostly down south, I have got quite a few of my tribes that are attending and I will be getting you into a little group chat.

Get my eyes up, get. Getting everybody into a little group chat to make sure that we all meet up together at the event. So that's gonna be amazing. You can even book yourself some VIPA glue for your, your tribe and come together and meet for lunch or something. That would be quite nice. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

So, yeah, if you're thinking about it, the, the information is gonna be in the show note information. Underneath the podcast, so you will be able to get your ticket there. And yeah, my talk is gonna be all about how you can [00:15:00] essentially zoom out of your life and create your new identity, which is obviously something that Lisa knows a lot about with vision boards.

It's more than sticking a picture. On the wall and then that's one and done. It is really about who do you need to become for that vision board to come to life. That's what the talk is gonna be all about. It's gonna be really interactive. I'm gonna pull somebody out of out of the audience. Audience, and I am going to show you in real time how quickly you can power manifest.

So. Yeah, I'm really, really excited about my talk. Could you give me some more information about some of the different things that people can expect from attending the event and what they're gonna feel like when they arrive versus what they're gonna feel like when they leave? Ooh, that's a good question.

So, like you said, we do have several [00:16:00] different areas of the festival. So we've got two stage areas. We've got a Marques stage and a TP stage. We then also have four workshop areas. So we've got a Zen 10 spirituality, 10 lifestyle business, and Career 10 and a Wellbeing 10. So inside those work, those workshop attempts, you are gonna get workshops.

Based around those, those things. So for example, the Zen temp might be a bit of yoga, a bit of breath work, some meditation, spirituality, temp might be some, um, a catch up record, some he, you know, healing some energy work. So that's the kind of thing you're gonna get inside the workshops. We're also gonna have a transformation zone.

This is gonna be a drop in for transformation questions. So inside there we've got silent counts. We've got an endo buddies, uh, we've got, um, someone doing human design. So there's different things that you can drop in and ask those questions, like on a one-to-one basis. Then we also have our experience zone.

So in the experience area we've got things like ice steps, um, fire walking. Uh, arrow [00:17:00] breaking, uh, cacao ceremony, craft sessions. So there's lots of things inside the experience. We also have a shopping village on site, so that's gonna house 50, uh, small businesses. Um. We also have a pamper area, so you can go and get yourself a little pamper, you know, a reflexology or be a little reiki, you know, so you can go and get yourself a little pamper session.

Um, and then we also have some entertainment throughout the two days. So we have a silent disco, we've got a silent movie. We have, um, some singers scattered throughout the two days. So it is a jam packed two days, I'm not gonna lie. What I would absolutely love and I can't wait to see is people coming in to the festival with that open mind of just having a good time, but then walking away, feeling inspired, empowered, and just ready to really smash whatever they want to do in their next step of their life.

Amazing. So I've been to lots of events like this in my time, and of course I run my own event, which is a real mixture of somatics intuition versus strategy for [00:18:00] business. And what I can always say is that you walk in as one person and you always leave feeling like you can take on the world. And if you could bottle that feeling.

Forever. Well, you would just be absolutely flying. So if you are considering it and you are thinking, this sounds like something that I need, something that I want, then you know what to do. Come along, check it out and you won't be disappointed. Obviously this is a business podcast just. One more question to end.

So with running an event like this, how could you tell me one of the trickiest things that you have had to manage and what has been the highlight of this experience for you as a business owner? Yeah. Well, I think there's lots of pieces of a puzzle that [00:19:00] you need to fit together when you're running an event, especially at this size.

You know, we have got a forecast of over a thousand people attending. Uh, I think we're currently at 907. Last time I checked. So, you know, that's a, a lot of people to manage. So, so we've got the tickets in site to manage. We've got all the speakers. We've got over a hundred and I think it's 110 speakers in total between all the workshops, experiences, and the talks.

So there's a lot of people to, to manage. So I would definitely say, um, organization is absolute key. Uh. The biggest tool that has helped me is a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet we use actually has everything on. We've got it just in one place so all of the team can access it. Time, um. I wouldn't say I've got anything that's been the particularly hardest.

One of the things that's took the longest it, which obviously I didn't anticipate to take as long, has been the whole speaker process because we've got the application process, then the selection process, and then you know, making sure everyone's, um. Got their information that they're sorted and then obviously making sure everyone knows what they're doing.

So I would say the speaker, uh, process in total, because there is so many, probably took a lot longer than what I anticipated. Um, but I wouldn't have said, it's hard, if that makes sense. So it's not hard, it's just taken [00:20:00] longer, therefore needs more energy to give to it. Wow. I've managed. In total 25 speakers in my time and that, so it's not hard.

I, I completely understand what you're saying, but it is, yeah, it's, it's getting all of those pieces information and different people sending you things from different places and then trying to pull it all together and putting it all into one place is a job. Yeah.

Yes. So I think like my, my lesson, especially with people like me, my biggest lesson is that, that now I know that takes that long and that much energy. I know that, that I just need to block the whole diary out just for that rather than trying to do other things at the same time. And I think that's just a lesson that, you know, you have to go through these lessons, don't you?

Yeah. A hundred percent. And what has been the biggest joy and, and something that you, just like a moment that you are like, oh, I'm just so, I'm so proud of myself. [00:21:00] I think the fact that it's all coming together, you know, I am super proud of me on the team because. It's not an easy task and it is our first year running it as, as obviously just the tick, me and the team.

So the fact that we've done this and got this for, and we're at 907 tickets, which, so that's the biggest we manifest today. It's, it is, that is something to be really proud of. But in terms of what I, um, I'm most excited and about seeing. People leave with that feeling of being bottled up, like you said, if we could bottle up that feeling, that's what I'm excited about.

Watching them just dance there. Let their hair down at the silent disco, you know, watching them just enjoy the, the singers and the entertainment and just coming out of a workshop and going, oh my God, I've just had the biggest light bulb moment. And you know, just things like that are really gonna light me up.

Understand. I'm really excited to come and I'm really excited to meet you [00:22:00] in person. Thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. I'm really looking forward to sharing it. If you could leave with final thoughts of your final thought or something that could take away for this episode, what would it be?

I would, my final thought would be, you are enough and will manifest as ready for you. I love that. Thank you my darling. Thank you for having me, Laura.