Meet Heather Leih of Central Phoenix/Biltmore Area

Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather Leih.

Hi Heather, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I think it’s difficult for anyone to get the depth of me unless I start with my childhood. The adversity and diversity in how I grew up lead me to every rebirth junction, as I smashed each stereotype I met. I became, and still am, an enigma. But most importantly, what I embody in my art, be it modeling or creative directing, even in my professional services consulting and design business, I stay on the human side. I advocate for truth, peace, and love with the focus always aiming to give back to this world. That’s the “Leih” way.

I lived in a children’s home with 70 other kids from 14 to 17 when my mom’s ovarian cancer came back the second time. At 17, she eventually passed away while I lived at this alternative care home, and there would begin my cognizant heros journey. I recognized I could no longer dissociate through life. Life had been happening to me for so many years and it seemed as though I was not out of the woods yet, and wouldn’t be for a long time.

Sunshine Acres Children’s Home is a place where kids whose parents couldn’t take care of them can stay, whether it was long term or short term. The concept of the care system was to partner with the children’s caregivers, and support them until they were fully capable of taking their children home. This was not a foster care system, and you would not age out of their care at 18 years old. I will say, other than it decorating my entire world view, it was some of the best years of my life. Even to this day. I was one of the lucky ones.

With my biological family, I was the youngest of 6 kids, all of which but two of us were out of the house by the time I was 14. As I mentioned before, we had the early hardship with my mother’s ovarian cancer starting when I was in 6th grade. However, the deeper and more insidious layer that plagued our family for many years, still to this day, was the passed down generational trauma. Some of which was constructed with mental illness, suicide, and a lack of understanding that you are to build children up knowing they will become something in this world worthwhile to themselves and those in their circle of influence. That is mostly everyone’s parenting goals anyways.

The reason I feel it’s so important to bring these things up before delving into my modeling or business career, is because as much as I can try and articulate the pain or how instrumental this period was in forging my pathway, unless you’ve been through similar circumstances, you will never understand what it’s like to go through the world as an imposter. I have forever love and respect to all the people who helped me along the way, whether it was for decades or even a brief moment in time. I hope mostly with sharing my story, other than benefiting Sunshine Acres Children’s Home, it can breathe hope, connection, and deep admiration into the depth of our human existence and spirit. We really all are here needing eachother. Otherwise there wouldn’t be many of us, I would just skip rocks all day with my dog.

My dad, “Father Leih”, as I call him sometimes, worked as a Scientist and Engineer at Boeing in their Apache Helicopter division. He would leave work in the afternoons to take my mother to all her doctor appointments. However, as much as he did his best to carry our family through the trialing times, the 7am to midnight routine with a sick mother was no place for a 14 year old. When I moved back home with him at 17 after my mom passed, I realized quickly both he and I had some growing to do, as does any father and daughter relationship. You see, I have a commitment to my dad for all that he has done. I recognize and step up to being his legacy. I admire his dedication of service as a navy pilot engineer veteran who served in Vietnam. My father came from hopping in grocery store dumpsters to find food with this mother, and still kept a more than stoic demeanor despite all the challenges our family faced. What I honor of him most of all is that he encouraged us to harness the freedom of our imagination and choose our own path, no matter the circumstances. He is the person behind my company name, Leih LLC.

At 17, deep in the trenches of our grief, our bond lead to me doing improv classes. We both felt since I had crippling depression and anxiety from all the hardship over the years, I could develop a better sense of agency. I never believed I could model, but he and I started these activities so I could try new things and develop my own sense of identity. Being a traumitized young girl with ADHD already smothered my entire life, so we chose to look around this new world from taller heights in my heels. Eventually, one class, casting, or job after another proved me to be a person of natural talents in entertainment and storytelling. My model bookings lead to me become published with Vogue Italia, print Vogue UK, Levi’s Austria, LA Fashion Week, national and international travels, and celebrity high fashion designers. Amidst the crippling identity crisis I suffered much of my youth with, I was determined to go as far as I could and grow this new character I was creating. Each work I negotiated, with the support of some, ultimately permitted me to receive respect and recognition on each creative project I executed.

It wasn’t until around 22 that I knew, after helping multiple small business owners by that time ontop of my modeling career, I wanted corporate structure. I ended up running a professional services department for a billion dollar tech company, where I streamlined the entire customer experience and products through my own successes as a design consultant. I had a team of around 30 people at that time, and even trained the sales teams on our products and services.

Eventually, I recognized I had a natural way with people, and decided it was time to leave the role and pursue a degree in psychology at 26. Quickly years after, it was overwhelmingly apparent that I couldn’t wait through an entire school curriculum. I knew dropping out was right for me, and before I did, I completed as many “real world knowledge” classes such as philosophy, logic, culture, developmental psychology, etc, before eventually jumping the educational institution ship to work in the freelance ocean. I did not leave the school without also being able to join their Phi Theta Kappa Philosophy Honor Society, and was also apart of the Dean’s List.

There is so much I could say even on that note, but what I’ve recognized above all about people’s “successes” is that it’s not the outcomes you should look at when architecturing your own life’s design and desire. I had an incredible amount of mentorship in different areas of my life because I constantly chose to seek out the people and ask them the right questions. I found correlating lessons around the mindset and values they based their decision making on that enabled them their magical and unique life experience.

I suffered for many years even still, as a result of my childhood trauma and some domestic violence, before going into a grant-funded trauma rehabilitation program. They say that the more childhood trauma you experience, the more likely you will befall other potential life adversities. I learned that if you don’t teach people how they can perceive and articulate their own life experiences, they will go through all kinds of situations and circumstances that are completely avoidable. I try and speak my thoughts as much as I can on why supporting efforts to educate humanity on history, philosophy, psychology, culture, and sociology is better than allowing some to fall face first into the pile of a self fulfilling prophecies of hardship.

What I am proud and honored most of all to share on your platform, is that through resilient efforts, you will be able to find your true soul purpose and your people. It’s not about where you arrive at that matters, it’s the conscious commitment on how you navigate your way to getting there that does. Never stop educating yourself, being curious, showing your love despite how others make you feel, identifying your values, holding to your boundaries, and I promise you will find yourself in the places that you always dreamed about.

A deep love and appreciation for Jerry Leih, the man behind the name of my company Leih LLC, and the critical intervention care I experienced in childhood from Sunshine Acres Children’s Home.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think for me, because I grew up in poverty and mental illness, my road was fated for hardship from the beginning just because I was born into a type of a family. Childhood trauma is one of the most insidious diseases that affects the individual throughout their lives in so many ways; all unique to that person. That’s why I believe the best intervention for childhood adversity needs to be done early, and with abundant educational and art rehabilitation programs. All this couldn’t be done without a solid community that aligns with your values as well. Your imagination is your super power, to believe is to eventually receive with the right planning.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a model, creative director, entreprenuer, and consultant for business and design. All this work comes out of Leih LLC. I work with only so many clients and projects at one time. This helps make sure I give the most to each project, and so that I can also focus on the industries and businesses to be the most influential. I am most proud that each one of these services I provide with my company was truly built into before I moved on to the next in my career progression. I also think because I have worked with some of the highest levels in each of these areas, I really give my clients a well-rounded perspective, and it also adds to my never-ending creative ideas I produce and execute on. I think because of my childhood, I also have as a company a very strict mission with asking all clients I work with to think of their give back. I believe, as a true artist and business person, we have a responsibility to be creative and also thoughtful to help our communities, planet, and universe with what we can do.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I’m sure there were moments of luck that happened, as anyone has a set of odds, but what I mostly focused on was planning, strategy, and executing each thing that was in front of me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.leihllc.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatherleih/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heather.leih/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-leih-763b882a/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@leihllc
• Other: https://www.leihllc.com/words

Image Credits
Jim Hesterman Noah Shepherd James Deak