Excited to be a guest on the Project Loving Myself podcast.
“So much of life is spent waiting. Waiting for the right relationship, the next achievement, or the moment when everything finally falls into place and happiness can begin. But what if you've been looking for it in the wrong place all along?
On this episode, we talk with Maria Leonard Olsen — bestselling author, TEDx speaker, attorney, mentor, and host of the *Becoming Your Best Version* podcast. Through her own journey of recovery, reinvention, and self-discovery, Maria has learned that the most important commitment you'll ever make isn't to someone else—it's to yourself.
We explore why so many women tie their happiness to external validation, how people-pleasing quietly pulls us away from ourselves, and what changes when you stop waiting for life to make you happy and start taking responsibility for your own fulfillment.
Episode Resources
✨ Get Maria's Ebook "" — featuring practical wisdom and life lessons from inspiring women who have been guests on her podcast.
✨ Download the — if this conversation is making you realize how often you've looked outside yourself for happiness, these prompts will help you reconnect with yourself, reflect more honestly, and start choosing yourself in a deeper way.
In this episode, we explore:
✨ Why happiness can't be built on someone else's approval
✨ The connection between people-pleasing and self-abandonment
✨ What self-commitment looks like in everyday life
✨ How social conditioning shapes the way we define happiness
✨ Why becoming your best version starts with the choices you make every day
✨ Small daily practices that create a more meaningful and fulfilling life
If you've been waiting for a relationship, achievement, or someone else's approval to finally feel happy, this conversation might change where you start looking.
Connect with Maria
📸 Instagram: @FiftyAfter50
🎙️ Podcast: Becoming Your Best Version
🌐 Website: www.MariaLeonardOlsen.com
About: The podcast that brings you back to yourself through real self-love.
Not the curated version. The kind you practice when you're heartbroken. In conflict. On the edge of change. When choosing yourself feels terrifying — or selfish.
This is for the high-achieving woman who has been giving everything to everyone — afraid of being too much, or never quite enough — and is only just realising she's been last on her own list for far too long.
You've built an impressive life. You show up for everyone who needs you. But somewhere along the way, you stopped showing up for yourself. And now you wonder why love, in all its forms, still feels just out of reach.
Each episode brings real conversations, honest tools, and practices to help you build the most important relationship of your life: the one with yourself. Because you are the love you've been looking for — and how you love yourself shapes every other relationship in your life.
Hosted by Sanaiyah Gurnamal — two-time TEDx Speaker, love and relationship expert, and Love Alchemist. 20+ years of experience. 5,000+ women helped.
Make LOVE your power move.
You don't need permission to choose yourself. But if it helps — this is it.”
Connect with Sanaiyah
https://www.instagram.com/sanaiyahgurnamal
https://www.facebook.com/sanaiyahgurnamal
https://www.tiktok.com/@sanaiyahgurnamal
YouTube: http://bit.ly/SanaiyahGurnamal
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanaiyahgurnamal
https://open.spotify.com/episode/75BR0NHFYmkcUToQiiWOeW?si=mtWfr9ZRTeCREhA-afu1qw