The Life Before Everything Changed — From Mormon Housewife to Stand‑Up Comedian: Part 1

What happens when life, the life you were raised in, the beliefs you inherited and the identity that you were handed no longer fits the person you're becoming? And what happens when a devout Mormon mother of three walks away from the only world she's ever known and steps onto a comedy stage instead?Today's guest didn't just change her life, she rewrote it. And she did it halfway through. Stay tuned. You are going to join this conversation. I'm your host, Michael Herst.Welcome to one more thing before you go. Today we're pulling up a chair for a story about reinvention, courage and the wild messy beauty of starting over at midlife. We've talked about it.I had to do it and Leah had to do it. Leah Renee is to her knowledge the only ex Mormon housewife turned stand up comedian performing across US and Europe.She's a four time Edinburgh fringe performer. We're going to talk about that.A mother of three, a former college athlete, a photographer, a videographer, a social media expert who walked away from social media, a woman who once gave birth to a ten pound baby in her kitchen, and someone who lost ninety pounds by rebuilding her entire identity.Her 2025 sold out show, best cult ever, explored why she stayed Mormon, why she left, and what it means to rebuild a life that finally feels like her own. Leah, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Funny to hear it all squished together like that. It's, I guess that's a kind of a near death experience.My whole life just flash before my eyes right here on a podcast.

So I'm glad I could convey it that way. I'm honored. I think today we're going to, I'd like to explore kind of a couple of, you know, big ideas.What does it take to rebuild your identity from scratch? I, I like that, that approach because I did it myself. I was injured in line of duty. My audience, my community knows this.And then I had to figure out how not to be a copy anymore. And I was a sergeant and going to be a lieutenant and go on up the line at my colleagues and they got cut.Now I have wonderful conversations with people from all over the world like this. So I think that we can talk about that a little about why you chose the life you want and instead of the one you were handed.And I think it took a, it's going to be a good conversation.

Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate you giving a little bit of backstory.I think we make a lot of surface judgments on people and then we find out, oh you were a cop. I mean that, that was something I've listened to a few of the episodes. I knew that you had like a background with.Your dad was in journalism or you were. So I've got bits and. But your dad. Okay. And then I just. He interviewed you interrogated her.

Exactly it. Well, yeah, journalism and really journalism is almost like being a cop. They interrogate people.You know, I'm like situations what the story wanted now give it to me now. Well, I like to start at the beginning. Like any good story, that's where it starts. I know you grew up Mormon. You grew up devout Mormon.I've listened to some other episodes that you were on. You were in a single parent home with a military dad. What did that world feel like from the inside out? I grew up with a single mom.

It's interesting when you were doing the intro and talking a lot about choosing a life rather than the one that was given to you, I would actually say I chose a life of Mormonism as a kid.That was, that was a big transition for me because although my dad was, what they would say, active in the Mormon church he regularly attended, that was his faith system. He wasn't really hardcore about it. I think they talk about the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.I think Mormonism is very much in his heart. I think he is a very honest, wholehearted person, but he's not one of the strict rule keepers of every tiny thing.You know, even though he was in the military, he's actually a lot of fun. He was a pretty chill dad. And as a. He was a single dad for 10 years, so we ate a lot of fast food, watched a lot of movies. It honestly was.I thought it was really fun and I had a good relationship and still do with my siblings. It almost felt like a ten year slumber party. You know, my, my dad is a very good hang.It was when I was a teenager that I, in finding how I wanted to approach not just the Mormon church, but decisions that I made. I looked to how my siblings were and I've talked to them about this before and they said that they're fine with me sharing some of their experiences.Both my older sister and older brother got into drugs and alcohol and all kinds of stuff and it broke my dad's heart. My brother ran away from home and was in a treatment center. My sister had also spent time in a treatment center. And I saw how it hurt.My dad and I decided that I would be the golden child around, I don't know probably 10 years old. And then when I was about 14, I had an experience where I realized I wanted to be a very spiritual, devout person.And from that point developed what a psychologist would call scrupulosity, which is like a religious form of ocd.So in terms of keeping, keeping the commandments, I actually sort of made the decision to live a new life because my dad, my dad was a very normal Mormon.When I hear other people's stories about my parents made us wear our church clothes all day on Sunday and we had to buy vanilla extract that was alcohol free because they didn't want any alcohol anywhere in the house. You know, stuff like that. He wasn't strict like that. He, I think did a very good job, but I became strict like that. I became the hardliner.So my dad stayed about where he was. And then I took it to, to an extreme because it made me feel safe.And they've done research on this that oftentimes when kids develop ocd, it's a loss of control. So a parent will die or there'll be a divorce or something.And because you're, your foundation has been shaken, then you try to grab onto something solid and that could be like contamination, OCD or counting or, you know, different things that I might not be able to control this, but I can control that. And so you focus on that. So I really focused on my obedience to what I believed was God.And then later in my life realized that I linked the church and God as the same thing. But when I started to find things that I didn't agree with in the church, then it was like, well, do I not believe in God? I'm like, not necessarily.I just don't believe God would have these specific policies or would choose to do these lawsuits or get out of these lawsuits or treat a certain group this way. So I, I separated the idea of love for God with love for church.And don't, I don't know that I necessarily left God, but I definitely got to the point where I didn't feel like the, the way that the church was run was run in a way that supposedly had a direct line to Jesus about how to run the church. I'm like, well, I think Jesus would have said, no, can't do polygamy. Sorry, you, sorry 50 year old Brigham Young, you can't marry this 13 year old.Like, I think, by the way, I'm not totally sure on that. Don't fact check me. I do know that some of the Mormon prophets that had multiple wives did have teenage wives.I Don't know if when Brigham Young was 50, he married a 13 year old. I, I will have to look that up specifically just in case somebody fact.

Checks me, but just in case. Well, I, I won't fact check it. It's all good. I, I mean, I feel the same way about Catholic church.I grew up Catholic and I walked away from the Catholic Church many years ago.And the primary reason that I walked Catholic church was the fact that when my mother and father divorced my mother and we, we were with my mother and she was excommunicated, which moved us down, included us kids. We had three kids. I have an older sister, myself and my younger brother. So we couldn't go to church.And I thought, you know, I started thinking even at a young age, I thought you're supposed to embrace and help people through these kind of things and instead of excommunicating them because divorce happens. It, you know, it just.

When you got, you got exc. I knew Catholics didn't believe in divorce per se, but I didn't know you got excommunicated.And you, they wouldn't even let you in the building or you couldn't take.

Eucharist, you couldn't take, you couldn't take communion. You could go in, but you couldn't take communion. And there were certain things you could participate in, you couldn't get.You know, there was, there was a whole list. It's been a long time. I won't tell you how old I am. It's been a long time. But there were so many things that you couldn't do and you couldn't.To me, that was hypocritical and you know, my mother brokenhearted because they excommunicate her. She went to a multitude of churches. She went to a Nazarene church, a Baptist church, a Southern Baptist church. There is a difference.She went through. What else, what else did she go through? Presbyterian. She ended up Presbyterian, I believe, when she married, remarried Burrow.My stepfather Burr was a Presbyterian. And they kind of embraced her and, you know, it changed her outlook on life because she was missing something. She was devout Catholic.I'm talking about, you know, the head,.

Pray, the rosary, everything.

Yeah. And, you know, it just kind of broke her heart when that happened. And I thought, I want to reevaluate even my own on that.I still believe in God and, you know, and angels and the whole concept. And I just don't go to Catholic church.

So for that reason, it's quite similar. Mormons have quite similar stuff with excommunication. They call it the sacrament.And so if you're excommunicated, you can't take the sacrament, but you can. If you've been excommunicated, you can come back.So I don't know if Catholics allow you to, like, do first communion again and go back into it or if once you're out, you're out. I'm not sure the difference between those, but it could be. Yeah, just terrible to lose your community like that.

Well, and to be honest, us as kids, I think it was just by association, you know, they didn't. The kids. Because all the way back to when I married my other.Married twice, my first wife, we went to get married in the Catholic Church and she had to go through classes and they allowed us to get married to Catholic Church catechism. Yeah, the whole. The whole deal. So. But it's still. It. It just. It really. It just changed my view on. On so many things in regard to.And I have family that's actually that are Mormon and that have grown up on church as well. From another side, my Aunt Patty, she's got. What do you. Well, there's a couple of them have died actually.Unfortunately, three of them actually have died. But when she married her husband, he's Mormon, so she became Mormon. And then my wife has aunt.An aunt and an uncle and a bunch of cousins that also are Mormon. And they seem, you know, they seem to enjoy what they're doing. But I also know that that's a whole different story.But, yeah, it's interesting how they kind of take the same view as you, that they're not. This is to the letter of the law, this and this and this. Anyway, I. Sometimes I wonder.

No, no, I. I think it's great.I mean, there's definitely more people that are Catholic than Mormon, and so sharing your side of it, I think helps to show the similarities and the differences. But I know when I was really young, my parents divorced when I was three, and then a few years later, my mother moved to Ireland.So it was the 90s, so we didn't. There wasn't FaceTime. There wasn't, you know, cheap.Like people take for granted the fact that you can talk to someone on the other side of the world for free any time of day you want.Whereas you and I are old enough to remember where it was like 50 cents a minute or a dollar a minute, depending if it was peak time and how far it was.So I didn't really know my mother very well, and I think the church really helped Be that other parent that I didn't have and a parent that I could please. And it.Yeah, things were spelled out really explicitly, and I. I think that really helped me in high school to have identity, to have something to work towards. A lot of times people talk about religious trauma and how difficult it is and being scarred from it.And I. I don't mean to make light of anyone else's situation that experienced that. My personal life in the church was pretty good.I. I didn't experience the kind of abuse or shunning or shaming or things like that that I know many other people have. So I want to recognize that that's happens for a lot of people. It was pretty great for me.And that's one of the reasons why I did a show, talking about the reasons that I stayed. Because sometimes I feel like a freak when I tell people I was Mormon and they're like, oh, when did you leave? I'm like, a couple of years ago.They're like, that recently. I'm like, because most people, when they leave it. It's when they leave, they leave the house and they realize, oh, mom and dad are.Aren't watching me, so I could, you know, and they start to experiment with things. So many people who leave leave in their late teens and early twenties.So it is rare to leave after, you know, after that point, after being married and having three kids. But you, I. I think from what I've heard from your podcast, and what I understand about you is it's like, it's gotta feel right. Like it's.It's never too late and it's never too early. Like, it. Instead of saying, well, I put all my time in it. I may as well.And it's like, it just feels so good to follow the thing that you really know. And so from the time that I started to question it to when I considered myself fully out, it was quite gradual, but it was following that does this.How does this, like, feel in my belly? Like, what. What am I? And that's something that you're taught as a Mormon, is to follow your feelings.You know, the, the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. And. And I learned that skill in Mormonism. The flip side of that is anxiety, because the still small voice will put things in your mind.So I'd have little kids and be like, oh, wait, she's taking a nap. She hasn't made it. Oh, what if she's dead? And then I'd run in and she was fine. And then it's, you know, doing the Dishes.And, like, I just had a thought. That must be the Holy Ghost. So I've. Yeah, I've chilled out a lot. But Mormonism teaches you to listen to your little. We call it like, Jiminy Cricket.

Yeah, we all have Jiminy Crickets. And I think. And, you know, I think the universe. I wholeheartedly believe. I appreciate you noticed that in the podcast.I wholeheartedly believe that the universe will put you where you need to be and that you just have to follow your heart and your passion and what you feel is best for you at the right time. You shouldn't be forced into. Nobody should be forced into anything that they don't want to be a part of or within. And that doesn't.Not specific to religion that's in any situation. And that you have the opportunity to reinvent yourself. And every reinvention, it always has a moment where a crack, a question, a shift happens.And, you know, you. You and I both experienced that kind of a thing. I mean, I think the moment you first realized that your.The life you were living might not be your own gave you an opportunity to kind of reevaluate and redefine part of your purpose. Right.

Yeah, I sadly, I always wish that I had the one moment that I knew kind of thing that it came to my mind that, oh, this is. This is not for me. I will say that there were little. There were little hints along the way.Mormons will call this your shelf, to put something on your shelf. So, for example, I never liked polygamy, ever. It's not talked about very much in the church. It was practiced until the early 18. Sorry, early 1900s.And then it was done away with the practice of it. However, the belief in it or that it exists is still there.So while Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, all these early prophets were polygamous, Right? Now, if you have more than one wife, you will be excommunicated. So that's how I grew up thinking like, no, Mormons don't do polygamy.And then you're like, well, they used to. You're like, that's weird. Well, it was a different time, you know, and then you don't know that. It's like, no, that was not normal there.When you actually do your research and you find out this was in newspapers, like, the US Government was terrified of the Mormon Church getting big and powerful, and they had, like, they had a perpetual immigration fund, so they would pay for people to come from overseas, kind of like indentured servitude. But I. I Would say a bit nicer. I haven't done a to a ton of research, but it didn't seem like it was extremely abusive.It seems like it was a good deal for people who were in Europe that wanted to come to America. The church would pay, and then when you got here, you would work and you'd pay off your debt, and then that would pay for another person to come.So the government saw this as like, oh, you've got these polygamous guys that are bringing all these people from overseas. At that time, there was a lot of xenophobia. There still is, but, you know, with like there.The certain parts of Europe over the years have experienced discrimination when they've come to the United States. And so it was definitely part of that. But I didn't know that polygamy was taboo when they practiced it.It's just sort of like, oh, yeah, it was normal to marry a 15 year old because people died really young there. And, you know, in childbirth, it's harder when you're older. So. So you just kind of put it on your shelf.You're like, okay, polygamy is weird, but you know what? I didn't live in the 1800s. Maybe that was normal.And then over time, you start learning a little bit more about it, and then you're like, oh, that's weird. I didn't.And all the reasons for practicing it and the ways that they kind of justify polygamy, over time you just start going, mm, the math ain't mathin'. And so that item on your shelf becomes heavier. There were things about race in the church that I didn't know about. I didn't know how they.They would say people of African descent is how it is put in the church. Because there are people from all over the world that are members of the church. So is it just a brown thing?Because, like, the island nation of Tonga is almost 70% Mormon and they have brown skin, but they're not from Africa. So is it just like a white versus not white?And I would say specifically in the Mormon church, they prohibited people of African descent from holding the priesthood. But women are also forbidden from holding the priesthood. Or I should say not authorized. Forbidden sounds a little bit more harsh.So I was used to not having the priest, and I thought, that stinks that they did that. But they changed that in 1979. So I thought that's how I put I. When I found it, I found out, wait, what? Black people couldn't have the priest.Black men couldn't have the bracelet. That's weird, but I'll put it on my shelf. And then you find out, no, it wasn't just the priesthood.It was actually also women who would go through the Mormon Temple, you know, all these things. And so they started to add up. And eventually I. I left.But it wasn't one moment other than I would say during 2020, there were a lot of moments that just started to confirm my decision, decision to want to leave. Because I saw how people reacted during the pandemic to the simple act of wearing a mask, which I know it seems controversial.We have a very individualistic nation, but the ideologically, someone who's willing to serve a mission for the church, go overseas, knock on doors, give two years of their lives at their own expense because they love Jesus and they want to help humankind.That same person refusing to wear a tiny piece of fabric on their face just in case they would infect someone whose grandmother has compromised immune system was insane to me.That the logic that I just realized how tribal Mormonism, like just how very much the same we were to any other group, whether it's another religious group or Philadelphia Eagles fans. It's like, oh, this is a group where you're gonna follow whatever the group is saying, even if it doesn't line up. And not all Mormons.There are plenty of Mormons that wore masks, but there was enough of them that I started to realize we ain't special. You know, we're just like any other group. I thought when you got baptized, magic, fairy dust, you were kind of this. Yeah, a saint.That's why they're called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.And I thought that the majority of believers that had entered into that sainthood had an above average level of compassion and understanding for people. And then when I saw it was.Didn't seem to make a difference, I was like, why am I putting so much of my time into this if it doesn't make me any more special? I don't. That sounds awful.

No, it's not awful at all. I think I've had a lot of conversations. I've had 600 interviews on this podcast.And during that time period, I've talked a lot about religion and various religions in regard to people who have left, people who are devout, people who are still there, people have walked away completely. And the thing that.And the commonality that I found within that, as well as being in law enforcement, I mean, we saw people at their best, people at their worst. We saw the best people at their worst.Okay, you get to see all walks of life when you're a law enforcement officer, just like paramedics and EMTs and firefighters. Same thing, but not so much as a cop. And the thing that you could look around and you kind of. You see it in organized religion quite a bit.And I've talked about it throughout my last six and a half years, you know, not consistently, but have numerous conversations that organized religion has this.This methodology that kind of makes you seem like if you're in this group, then you're better than this group, this group, and this group and this group. Instead of saying we are all human beings and that we all, all should take care of each other.No matter what you are, no matter what color you are, no matter what race you are, no matter what religion you are, if somebody needs help, you should help, period.You know, I was grateful to have a father that taught me that much when I was very, very young, because I grew up in the 60s and 70s and I grew up in a racial time period. I watched all of that transpose. I got outcast because I had friends that were black. And when I was a small child especially.But, you know, my grandparents, my grandmother, I didn't speak with her for two years after I married my first wife because I invited two Latino, two Spanish guys that I went to high school with and a black guy to my wedding. And she said, they can't come into the. They can't come in. They can't.

So she didn't go to the wedding.

So she didn't go to the wedding. Okay. So we didn't talk for a couple years.And in fact, we didn't talk until my grandfather was on his deathbed and I came over anyway, you know, and I said, this is not your decision. This is my decision. Because my father died. I wasn't there. It was a very young age when my father passed away.And all because the family is that this conversation can go way, a whole different way. It takes a couple hours. I didn't have a choice in that. And I didn't have a choice.And when my mother died as well, because of family squabbling for one reason or another. And when I go back through, my grandparents were from Mississippi and then West Virginia, and racist. Very, very. From that perspective.And I gotta say, I'm grateful my father taught me differently. But back to what we were saying. I have noticed through these conversations and through personal perspectives that religion has.Organized religion has the methodology that we are better than you are. And that goes across the board, whether you're a Catholic, a Baptist, a Mormon.Everybody thinks that our church is better than your church kind of a thing.

I would say it's specifically with Mormonism. I would say it's similar to Judaism in that there is the idea of being a chosen people.I definitely know other religions where it's like being a chosen people just means choosing God. But then there are specific religions that feel like there's a chosenness. I'm not Jewish, so maybe the chosen people thing.I've seen Fiddler on the Roof many times and I have Jewish friends.I, I don't know how it plays in real time in other faiths, but for the Mormon Church, the only baptism, for example, that they see as valid is one done by a priesthood holding member of the Mormon Church. So when I was a missionary and I would meet people and we would like. Your mom would have been a dream person to knock on her door, right?Because she was church shopping and she would have told us her story about Catholicism and we'd been, that's terrible. And God said, let everyone come in.And you know, we, we would have, we would have been salivating over, oh, this is exactly who the kind of person that we're looking for.So sometimes we would meet somebody like that and we would teach them and then invite them to be baptized and they would say, oh, I was baptized, I was baptized as a child. And we're like, yeah, but it doesn't count.Doesn't count because the person, the person who didn't, didn't have the authority in the same way that you as a cop, if someone's neighbor saw them speeding and they stopped them and gave them a ticket, it's like you don't have the authority to do that. Sorry, I, I know I'm breaking the law, but you don't really, you can't do that.So Mormons do have a very specific belief that they are the only true and living church upon the face of the earth. And that is why they're so, I don't like the word aggressive. Enthusiastic. How about, about sharing it?Because they're like, we are the only ones that have this. You know, it's like penicillin or something. It's like this is the only thing that's actually going to cure it.And that's why they're so committed to sharing it. Because in order to live with God as, as they believe, you have to be baptized and confirmed and then eventually go through the Mormon Temple.So they're eager to do that.That was always something that I Thought was interesting with other churches that believed baptism was essential and if you didn't have that, you'd go to hell.

No.

And it's like, well, what about like everyone in China and India and many people, like, they never heard the name of Jesus. They can't say he's their Lord and Savior because no. So what do they all go to hell? I'm like, more than half the world is going to hell.Like, that's insane. And Mormons don't believe that. But, so, yeah, I, I think they put their money where their mouth is.And I, I enjoyed that aspect of it and the structure and honestly, like, feeling special.And I, I know that's kind of embarrassing to admit, but a lot of my self esteem came from the fact that like, I'm, you know, I'm part of the only true and living church. I mean, there's, there's songs you say, I'm not, I'm not making it up. Like there is a kid.There's a song, I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I know who I am. I know God's. But like, it's like I'm, it's not just like I'm a Christian or I believe in Jesus. There are plenty of songs like that.But it's like I am a part of this group which is the only one that God has given his stamp of approval on. So I've always been a very confident person. And losing that faith, I think was gradual because I was losing that identity.So I relied on people like Richard Rohr. If, you know Father Richard Rohr, he has an extremely inclusive everybody welcome.Rather than, he said if, if everybody went to the Methodist church on Sunday, Go there, have a great time, listen, learn. And then the next Sunday, ideally, the Methodist pastor would say, I don't want to see anybody here next week.I want you to be at the Presbyterian Church or at an AA meeting or in the park.Like, move around and don't get stuck so into your little group that you lose touch and that you forget that as Richard Rohr would say, Christ is in everyone. Like that Each, each person that you see is Christ.And to treat everyone with that kind of dignity and love and respect than getting in your little bubble, which I respect.

I, I, you know, I, I think that that's a wonderful opportunity for us to understand again that we're all human beings and we all seek the same things. We all want to be loved. We all want, you know, to be included. We all want to be part of Something and you know, we all, well, I want to go to hell.We all want to go where we, where we think we should belong, you know, and I knock on wood if anybody's listening. I don't want to go anywhere anytime soon, just for the record. But so, yeah, I respect that part of it.I think we as humanity should take a broader look at all of that and take everything into consideration. I was grateful. My mother searched for churches.When I went back to university, I did a lot of theology and learning about different philosophies as well as religions, including Zen and Buddhism and a whole slew too long of a list and kind of having better understanding how we all fit together and the different perspectives on how, how and why we think what we think and, and where we're going to end up and, and so forth. But yeah, we could, we could, we can. You can come back. We'll talk about that again. Hey, let's talk about. Sure. I'm a dad.I never had a baby, but I helped.

Jo, thank you.

I helped to deliver. I was in the delivery room. Helped with the birth of both of our kids because I think that's life.You gave birth to and, and as a cop, I ran on calls that did this, but not this one in particular. You gave birth to a 10 pound baby in your kitchen. That's a story within itself. How, how, how that happened.

So I did home birth with all three of my kids. So one was a bedroom baby, one was a living room baby, one was a kitchen baby and all of them were nine and a half to ten pounds each.So it was very much on purpose. The ones that you ran into were very much unintended. I'm sure the back of a taxi cab or the lobby of the hotel or something. Yeah, cars.

I've delivered, I've helped deliver a baby on a car on the side of the road. I stopped him because he was doing 110 miles an hour down a mountain pass and I pulled him over. He said, my wife's having a baby.I said, you're going to kill everybody. So I will stop, be polite here.But she's having a baby now, so you know, we like got medical up there on route and yeah, we delivered a baby on the side of the road. That was the most interesting one.

Yeah, 110. I mean, that's always whenever someone's being crazy in traffic and I want that perspective. Take. Well, maybe someone's having a baby.Like you actually know someone where. That, that was the case.Yeah, we just, I just Carry a prosthetic belly around in case we're late somewhere and you just put it and we're like, you know, then they're like, you're good, you're good, go ahead. Yeah, I'm in Philly. So they say, go ahead.Yeah, I, it honestly it, it had to do with the way that I felt about God and the church because Mormon women don't ever hold the priesthood. The main thing that women have is motherhood.And you are taught from a very young age that motherhood is the highest and holiest calling, that it's next to the angels. You're a co creator with God. And I always dreamed about being a mom.And especially with my own mother leaving, I committed to myself that I would break the cycle and I would be an amazing mom and I would do everything right.And of course, you know, you break that promise within, you know, the first month of pregnancy when you down a bag of Flamin Hot Cheetos, you're like, I'm already failing as a mom. But I, I didn't, I wouldn't call.

His panic because I, I had pregnancy sympathy with my wife and I put on £30.

So it was, it was to support solidarity. Yeah, that's, thank you for your service.

Absolutely.

Go. Yeah, yeah. I, I didn't want to hand off that experience to somebody else. I think I've always been a control freak.And when I was pregnant, I got pregnant right away. When, after I got married and we didn't have insurance and we were in college and I remember just looking at how much it would cost.At that time I was kind of anti government assistance and, you know, very self reliant. And I went to an open house at a midwife place and they showed us a film called the Business of Giving Birth.And I learned so much about the American healthcare system and the way that we view birth and how it's been done for thousands or millions of years and how it's been basically since not even the industrial Revolution. I would say a huge turn was right after World War II.They had a lot of empty hospital beds, the country had a lot of money and they basically medicalized birth to the point where they shamed a lot of midwives and the wisdom of women. And it was considered, you know, extremely safe and clean and modern to have a baby in a hospital.And I don't want to shame anybody that's had a hospital birth. I think the best thing is for someone who's expecting to give birth the place that they feel the most Comfortable.And for a lot of women, that is a hospital. And I'm not. I'm not pooping on that. I don't know if I can swear I won't just, you know, can be a little explicit side on your podcast. Crap. I'll. I'll.I'll bring it up to pg.

I know what you're thinking. It's all good.

Yeah, I. I don't wanna. I don't wanna crap on women that have, you know, they. You have kids, you've been crapped on enough. So I. I just. I wanted to experience that.And I thought it would be a really spiritual experience to kind of walk up to the veil and pull that person to the other side. Mormons believe that your soul exists before you're born, that right now there's. In some realm, there's bodiless spirits waiting to get a body.And I believe that they had little people that either had chosen me to be their mom, or I chose them to be my kids or whatever kind of prearrangement. And I didn't want somebody intervening and saying, yeah, you're not really as far along as we want, so we're going to go ahead and do a C section.Like, I wanted somebody who would, like, I don't know, burn incense and let me listen to my woo Woo music and walk around and drink a milkshake. If I. I didn't want to be on a bed with a needle in my back, you know, it. It just didn't feel comfy for me.So I did three home births, and they were easily the most difficult thing I've ever done in my entire life. I cannot. You just. It's such. It's. When you're. Towards the end of your pregnancy, you look down at this giant belly and you're like, how.How is that gonna. Like when you buy a really big sofa and you try to get it in the front door and you're like, that's.Ooh, are we gonna do, like in Amsterdam where they, like, pull it up a window on the second floor with a pulley? Like, how is this gonna get out?

It's gonna be like a friend. The Friends episode. Pivot. Pivot.

Yeah. Yeah. And my baby did. Had to pivot. My first had shoulder dystocia, which is where they get caught on your pelvis. So, yeah, it was.It was hard, but it was empowering. And, yeah, it's.I think the process of having kids, I mean, speaking as a woman growing a baby, experiencing that, the highs and lows, what it Is like to be responsible for other people and for their development changes you as a person.And I think for comedy, there are a lot of comedians that want to be kind of edgelord comedians about, oh yeah, and blah, blah, and this dead baby, blah, blah, or this guy got cancer or oh, he's a make a wish kid. And they just kind of, and you're like, no, I actually know people that have children that have cancer or have it.There's, there's a compassion and an understanding that I think is nice to have prior to going into comedy rather than starting as a young person and being, and then going, oh, I wish I hadn't said that.

So I think there's a line, I mean, there's a fine line within that because look, I, I, I agree with you and I applaud you for, for the way that you, that you had that experience with all three of your kids.You know, as a, I was a very proactive father and you know, I participated in every aspect of, of Diane's pregnancy as well as the birth mutually, of course. And to me, it was a miracle happening. It was watching a wife girl was participating in that.We read to Caitlin and to Nicole when she was, they were in the womb, separate kids, not twins. You know, we read to them, we talked to them all the time. It was, it was an experience. It was an experience I'll never ever forget in my life.You know, even you say on the job, I helped deliver babies. Every time that even happened. You know, it wasn't a lot, but it did happen on several occasions.And it was still a miracle to watch life and to say, wow, it's magical, welcome to the world kind of a thing. And so, yeah, that's, that's it. I applaud you. That's cool. Very, very cool.

Thank you.

Can we talk about you losing £90 in a year and a half?

Sure.

I think that transformed you. I mean, transformation teaches you about discipline and identity and self worth and, and things like that.Can you share with us what that did for you and how it could maybe help someone experiencing that? And that is where we're pausing. Part one of this incredible conversation with Leah Renee, can you feel it?We're standing right at the edge of her turning point. The moment she realized the life she was living wasn't the life she was meant for.So trust me, you don't want to miss part two, because what comes next is the moment everything changed. In part two, Leah shares the exact breakthrough that set her entire transformation in motion.The methodology she discovered the courage she found and the story that absolutely blew us away. And you won't have to wait very long. Part two drops this Sunday right here in your feed, taking the place of our usual over the teacup special.Don't worry, Diane and I'll be back the following Sunday. Until then, stick around please, because there's always one more thing before you go. It's and this is going to be exciting.That's a wrap for today's episode. I hope you found inspiration, clarity and a few new perspectives to take with you.If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe, like and follow us and stay connected. You can find us on Apple, Spotify or your favorite listening platform. If you head over to YouTube, you can get your full video version.Have a great day. Have a great weekend. Thank you for being part of our community. Until next time, I'm Michael Hirst. This is one more thing before you go.