Laura Dionisio spent 18 years as an aerospace systems engineer before she started helping high-achieving founders stop being the bottleneck in their own businesses. What taught her most about fear, pressure, and trusting herself wasn’t the high-power career, it’s the gym.
In this episode, Laura tells the story of the day fear showed up somewhere it wasn’t invited: her sacred gym time. Mid-warmup on her leg press — a machine she’s used every week for years — she caught herself talking herself down from her usual weight because of something scary happening in her business.
Thank goodness she wrote herself a note in her training journal the week before reminding herself she needed “to go heavier next time”. In that movement she chose to trust last-week-Laura and ignore the unease she was feeling. She’s done this enough to know what she’s capable of.
Her process: name what she was feeling (fear), load the bar as she had noted (more weight with confidence), execute at a high level (mechanical tension and control to complete the set).
Later that same day she talked about the scary business project, without fear. All born from a place of self-trust she created for herself in the gym.
Her experience is a core muscle moment belief: what you practice under the bar, you can practice everywhere.
In this conversation, Laura and I chat about:
Why “compartmentalized confidence” isn’t a thing
How to tell the difference between fear and being under-warmed-up
What it looks like to stop being the bottleneck in your own life or business
Laura’s ritual for walking onto a competition platform without losing her nerve.
All things she practices in her life.
On the personal side, we talk about the boudoir photoshoot she gave herself for her 40th birthday, and why it hit different than the one she did at 26. That grown-ass-woman confidence.
Laura’s experience in the gym; the sense of empowerment, the confidence in knowing what she’s capable of has bled into every part of her life. She actively chooses to use the gym to learn how she can show up and perform better each day. By the end of this episode, you’ll understand why and get some practical tips on how.
Listen to the full episode now.
ABOUT LAURA
Laura Dionisio spent 18 years as an aerospace systems engineer before founding Lead Intact®, where she works with high-achieving founders who’ve scaled to high six and seven figures and quietly run everything themselves. She helps them stop being the bottleneck in their own business by building operational structure that fits the person, not just the company.
She’s been training seriously since 2010, with roots in CrossFit and competitive Olympic weightlifting. She credits the gym with teaching her most of what she knows about fear, progress, and what it actually means to trust yourself under pressure — and she brings that same philosophy to how she works with founders. She treats the gym as a lab for discomfort, knowing firsthand that the confidence you build in one place transfers everywhere else.
Laura is the host of The Pivot Point Podcast and stays most active on Instagram @laura.m.dionisio.
GET IN TOUCH WITH LAURA
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/laura-dionisio
Instagram: @laura.m.dionisio
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lauramae.d
Reminder: The first five episodes of Muscle Moments and all companion content is available for free. After, all podcast episodes will remain free and other content will be made available to paid subscribers who make this work possible.
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