About Lauri-Ann Ainsworth
CEO-Turned-Author & Speaker
I brought self-love to the boardroom and proved it's strategic, not soft.
I didn’t set out to write or speak about self-discovery and self-leadership. I arrived at this work because I lived the questions I now explore.
After more than a decade working across corporate leadership and the entrepreneurial ecosystem, I found myself living a pattern I now see in many high performers: success on the outside, quiet depletion on the inside.
I was overriding my needs, ignoring my intuition, and pushing forward in a career that looked impressive but slowly disconnected me from myself.
In other words, I was practicing self-abandonment, and eventually it led to burnout.
Those lessons stayed with me. So when I later became CEO of Richard Branson’s Centre of Entrepreneurship in the Caribbean, I chose to lead differently — putting self-awareness, wellbeing, and personal responsibility at the center of how we developed leaders and built our culture.
That experience, along with the questions it raised, became the catalyst for The Self-Love Mindset™, the framework that now guides my work on self-discovery and self-leadership.
Leading with Wellbeing First
When I led the Centre of Entrepreneurship, I made wellbeing the foundation of everything we did not an afterthought, but a strategic priority.
I integrated The Self-Love Mindset pillars into our programs, culture, and leadership approach. I had my team lead from their zone of greatness and strengths. We built an organization where self-discovery and self-leadership weren't just talked about, they were practiced, modeled, and embedded into how we worked.
But I learned something critical: organizational change only works when individuals take responsibility for themselves.
You can create the best culture, offer comprehensive programs, and lead with wellbeing first, but if leaders don't stop abandoning themselves, burnout wins.
That realization became my book, The Self-Love Mindset: Why Personal Wellbeing is the Ultimate Business Strategy, published by Wiley & Sons.
The Work Now
Today, my work focuses on helping people develop the life skills most of us were never taught: self-discovery and self-leadership.
I work with organizations and leaders who understand that wellbeing cannot simply be delivered through programs or perks. It begins with individuals learning how to understand themselves and take responsibility for the way they live and lead.
Through speaking, workshops, and advisory work, I help leaders:
• recognize where they may be abandoning themselves in pursuit of performance
• develop deeper self-awareness about their strengths, patterns, and values
• take responsibility for their wellbeing, happiness, and fulfillment
• lead their lives and work with greater clarity, alignment, and sustainability
This work is grounded in The Self-Love Mindset™, a framework that helps people reconnect with who they are, discover their zone of genius, and contribute more meaningfully to their work and the world.
Because when leaders learn to stop betraying themselves and start leading from a place of self-knowledge and self-respect, everything changes — their wellbeing, their leadership, and the cultures they help create.
