IN THE SPOTLIGHT WITH LAURA BARTLETT

A serial founder, storyteller, and unapologetic main-character energy, Laura Bartlett embodies the words she lives by: “life is the occasion.” Laura doesn’t wait for special occasions, she creates them. Her style, her presence, and her attitude all say the same thing: life is happening now, so show up for it.

Best known as the former founder of a globally recognised luxury travel magazine, Laura built an international brand from sheer tenacity and a refusal to be told “no.” What began as a bold idea in her twenties evolved into an empire that carried her and her team around the world and back again.

But it’s what she did after selling her magazine that makes Laura especially magnetic. With the courage to walk away from the identity she built, she stepped into a new era, one defined by personal freedom, radical self-belief, and the audacity to redesign life exactly how she wants it. No hustle-for-the-sake-of-hustle. No performing for the industry. Just alignment, and a wardrobe that says, “I didn’t come this far to blend in.”

Avid reader, deep thinker, and queen of collapsing timelines, Laura doesn’t just talk about stepping into your next level; she lives it. Her story is one of persistence and the kind of inner work that doesn’t make the highlight reel but transforms everything. A woman who rebuilt herself from the inside out and now shows others what’s possible when you choose yourself on purpose.

Whether she’s on screen, on a plane, or on her next adventure in the countryside, Laura Bartlett is proof that reinvention is always available and that the most powerful thing a woman can do is back herself, dress for the life she wants, and believe she’s worthy of every single good thing coming her way.

Over to you, Laura… 

So, Laura. What’s your story? You’ve lived multiple lives — from the girl with a dream to a global magazine founder, and now a woman in a completely new era. How did you become the Laura you are today?

At fifteen, I had a thought that shifted the course of my entire life. What if everything we have been told is a lie? Not in a rebellious way, but in a way that made me look at the world and realise that most people were following paths they never chose, living stories someone else wrote for them and calling it a life. That one question made me feel like I had been unplugged from the script and plugged back into myself, and from that moment, I knew I would only ever follow my own guidance.

I grew up feeling chosen. Not entitled, simply aware that my life was always meant to be different. My dad was the king, my mum the queen, and my brother and I were the prince and princess of this tiny kingdom we built together. It made me believe that life could be magical, that you could live inside your own Disney movie if you had the courage to back your own imagination. That foundation shaped everything because once you have felt that kind of love, safety and possibility, you never settle for a life that asks you to shrink.

Becoming the woman I am today was never about strategy alone; it was about living by one rule. My life, my body, my timing and my truth. I have always chosen the path that made no sense on paper but made perfect sense in my soul. That is how my last company was created, the business that became my vehicle to see the world. That’s how I learned to trust myself more than any external opinion. Every chapter was built on my ability to listen to the voice within and act on it, even when the outside world thought I was crazy.

People often assume my story is about ambition, but it’s always been about freedom. I built a life where I answer to no one, where I wake up every day and choose myself, where the only authority over my life is me. I have lived multiple lives already, and each version of me has been a direct result of trusting my own inner compass. That is how I became the Laura you see today. A woman who walks her own path, refuses to apologise for who she is and continues to design a life that feels like it belongs in a movie, because that is exactly what I came here to do.

What did you have to believe you were worthy of to get here? You’ve spoken about stepping into a higher version of yourself. What belief changed the trajectory of your life and work?

I had to believe I was worthy of an extraordinary life, not the kind of life people talk about in theory but the kind of life you feel in your bones long before you see the evidence. I always felt like I was here for something different, something bigger than the timelines society hands out, something that looked nothing like the path people expected from a girl like me. That belief became the baseline. I had to believe I was worthy of a life that felt cinematic and self-created, a life where magic is normal and where the visions I see are not fantasies but memories from my future self, calling me forward.

To step into that reality, I had to believe I was worthy of trusting myself above anyone else. My inner world has always been louder than the outside noise, and the moment I treated that inner knowing as truth, everything started shifting. I stopped asking for permission, I stopped waiting for signs, and I stopped needing my choices to make sense to anyone who wasn’t living my life. I followed the quiet guidance inside me, even when it asked me to walk into the unknown or walk away from what looked successful. That self-trust became the turning point because it allowed me to choose alignment over logic, intuition over approval and destiny over doubt.

The belief that changed my trajectory was simple. I realised my intuition had never been wrong and that I was allowed to build an extraordinary life simply because I chose it. Once I owned that, my entire reality started rearranging itself to match the woman I had already decided to become.

What do you know for sure? After everything you’ve transformed — financially, emotionally, spiritually — what feels absolutely true for you at this point in your life?

What I know for sure is that feminine energy built everything I have. People saw the flights, the hotels, the adventures, and the magazine that took me around the world every single week. What they never saw was what was actually creating my success. The candle-lit baths after ten-hour days, the journaling, the rituals, the way I followed my joy like it was oxygen, the way I protected my peace, and the way I put myself first without apology. That was the real engine.

We live in a world that glorifies burnout and makes women feel rewarded for how much they can carry, how exhausted they can be, and how far they can push themselves before they break. I never subscribed to that. Even at the height of my career, I was deeply connected to my feminine energy, my softness, my creativity, and my inner world. I always knew that my power came from alignment, not force, from intuition, not urgency, and from pleasure, not pressure.

Selling my company confirmed it. When I stepped away from the identity I built, the truth became impossible to ignore. The success I created was not because I hustled harder than everyone else. It was because I knew how to receive. I knew how to tap into the part of me that is guided, connected, intuitive, and deeply feminine. That is the part of me that built an empire, and that is the part of me that continues to lead my life now.

What I know for sure is that women are far more powerful than we have ever been led to believe. When a woman is rooted in her femininity, when she trusts her intuition, when she follows what feels good rather than what looks impressive, she becomes unstoppable. My life is proof of that. My success was never built on exhaustion. It was built on alignment, devotion to myself, and an inner strength that has nothing to do with hustle and everything to do with who I am when I am connected to my truth.

When did you realise hustle wasn’t your superpower anymore? You built a global magazine through determination and drive, yet your most aligned success came when you softened into receiving. What shifted?

It happened the morning I woke up in my new cottage in the countryside, the home I bought in cash, the place that made me mortgage-free at thirty-eight after spending my entire life debt-free. I stood there in silence, looking out of the window, and it hit me. I had collapsed a timeline. I had done something society tells us has to be earned through struggle, sacrifice, and suffering, yet I had done it by following my joy, trusting my intuition, and building a life that felt good rather than one that looked impressive.

That moment was the turning point. I realised the version of me who built a global magazine with sheer determination and resilience was powerful, but she was not the version who got me here. The woman who got me here was soft, intuitive and deeply connected to her femininity. She was the woman who refused to live in fight mode. She was the woman who trusted the energy behind her decisions more than the logic. She was the woman who rebuilt her entire reality after going bankrupt eleven years earlier, without abandoning herself.

Waking up in that cottage made something undeniable. Hustle had never been my superpower; alignment was, receiving was, and above all else, joy was. The quieter I became, the louder my guidance became. The softer I allowed myself to be, the more life opened for me. That morning, I understood that my success had come from choosing myself, not from exhausting myself.

What shifted was my identity. I stopped being the woman who created through force and became the woman who creates through frequency, and the moment I owned that, everything in my life started matching the energy of the woman I always knew I was becoming.

How do you handle criticism? From public rejection to private reinvention, you’ve faced it all. What’s your relationship with criticism now?

I learned that criticism is never really about me; it’s a confession. People reveal their limits, their fears, and their projections every time they judge someone who is living freely. I am their mirror, not their target. When someone criticises me, they’re telling me who they are and what they have not yet allowed themselves to become.

I don’t take advice from anyone I would not be willing to switch places with. Most of the loudest opinions come from people who have never taken the risks I have, never backed themselves the way I back myself, and never had the courage to live outside the script.

I don’t shrink from it, I don’t internalise it, and I do not let it shape my identity. Criticism does not tell me anything about my worth; it only tells me how much someone else is still resisting their own potential.

Who did you have to become to sell your business and step into a new timeline? Behind every reinvention is deep inner work. What did this era ask from you as a woman?

To sell my business and step into a completely new timeline, I had to become a woman who trusted the unseen more than the seen. I had to trust my inner world more than the evidence in front of me, I had to let go of identities that once kept me safe and powerful and walk into a version of myself that had no blueprint, no guarantees and no applause waiting on the other side.

This era asked me to go deeper into self-trust than I ever have in my life. It asked me to surrender the version of me who built an empire with her bare hands and evolve into the woman who could walk away from it because she was no longer available for anything that did not match her frequency, it asked me to stand firm in my knowing even when it made no sense to anyone else, it asked me to trust decisions that felt like leaps, not steps and it asked me to honour endings even when they arrived with silence, not celebration.

This chapter became a spiritual initiation. It asked me to release my need for outcomes to feel safe and to rely more on the quiet guidance within me than on the external world. It required me to recognise when a cycle had completed and to close the door with grace, even when applause was absent. It reminded me that my power lives in my intuition, not in my titles, and that certainty is something I create within myself, not something I wait for. It shaped me into a woman who can hold the unknown without breaking and choose her future from a place of truth rather than fear.

Selling my business wasn’t just a transaction; it was a decision to walk into the life I had seen in my visions for years. It was the moment I chose alignment over identity and destiny over logic. This era taught me that reinvention is not about becoming someone new; it’s about returning to the woman you were before the world tried to convince you to be anything less.

What does freedom look like for you now? You built a publishing house, only to find yourself tethered to the empire you created. Now that you’ve exited, what does true freedom mean?

Freedom now is living by one truth. My life, my body, my rules. I am living the kind of life women are told they need a man for, and I am doing it by trusting myself completely. I treat myself like a queen, and I let my soul set the pace of my days. Some mornings that looks like long walks in nature. Other days, it is candlelit baths or quiet time at home, and every week I have a day with my mum, which is my favourite part of the entire week because it grounds me in what really matters.

True freedom is waking up and choosing what feels good without permission or pressure. It’s being loyal to myself, letting life unfold naturally instead of forcing outcomes and  living slowly, intentionally and with a softness I never allowed myself when I was building an empire.

Freedom now is living a life that feels like mine. A life where I choose joy, presence and the people I love. A life that finally matches the woman I have become.

If you could do it all again, what would you do differently? Not from regret, but from wisdom — what would 2025 Laura tell early Laura to do another way?

Honestly, nothing. Every chapter unfolded exactly the way it needed to. The wins, the lessons, the pauses, the redirections, and the moments that made no sense at the time. All of it shaped the woman I am today. The only thing I would whisper to her is this: trust your intuition sooner. That voice inside you is the truth. You do not need permission, proof, or validation. You already know.

I wouldn’t change the journey, only the speed at which I believed myself.

You famously say, “life is the occasion” — and you dress like it. What does glamour mean to you, and how has expressing yourself through style supported your identity, confidence, or brand?

Glamour to me isn’t something I put on; it’s just who I am. I don’t dress up to be seen; I dress up because it anchors me into the highest version of myself. Life is the occasion, so I show up for it. My style is part of my identity because it reflects my standards, my confidence, and the woman I choose to be every day. I do it for me, yet it always inspires people around me to rise with me, which is exactly what my brand has always stood for.

What’s the message you needed to hear at the beginning — that you now live by? If you could whisper something to the earlier version of you, what would it be?

If I could whisper anything to my earlier self, it would be this. You already know, trust the feeling. It will guide you every time.

As an avid reader, which books or ideas have shaped this new era of your life? What stories, authors or philosophies have helped you evolve into the woman we see today?

In my twenties, I read every self-development book I could get my hands on, and the one that truly shifted something in me was Think and Grow Rich. It was the first time I understood that the mind is the gateway to everything. But the older I got, the more I realised it’s not about how many books you read, it's about how much you actually implement. Knowledge is only power if you act on it. These days, I read for pleasure more than education and have developed a rather unhealthy obsession with erotic fiction, a girl gotta eat!

What song should we add to the CEO Radio playlist for you? The one that feels like your anthem, your energy, or the soundtrack to this next chapter.

Level Up by Ciara, it’s unapologetic and reminds me to never settle for less than I deserve.

What’s next for you? You’ve mastered reinvention — what’s the future that’s calling your name now? 

We live in a world of oversharing, and one thing I’ve learned is that the wrong people can block your blessings if you give them too much access to your vision. So I’m keeping what is next sacred. I’m just going to let my life speak for itself. The right people will witness it at the right time, and the rest will simply watch it unfold.

To follow Laura's ever-unfolding journey head over to her Instagram page.