Leela Cosgrove is not your average entrepreneur. Pulling herself up from housing commission roots, she’s built an impressive entrepreneurial and philanthropic empire that has earned her friends like Richard Branson and led to her launching the Australian chapter of the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN). She joined editors Cec Busby and Adam Bub on the First Act podcast to share her incredible journey.

Breaking the poverty cycle

Growing up in a housing commission estate in the Brisbane suburb of Zillmere, Leela had the odds stacked against her. Yet, she says her innate sense of hustle was evident at a young age.

“Zillmere was an intense area; a lot of drugs and violence, and a real rhetoric that anybody who grew up there was doomed to repeat that poverty cycle,” says Leela.

“But in my very formative years, the two strongest female role models in my life ran a business – my mother and grandmother had run a second-hand bookstore. So, I knew from a very young age that business was something that I wanted to do,” Leela recalls. “I was always selling something, making something, doing something.”

After high school, Leela started working temp roles in corporate land, but soon discovered that admin jobs weren’t for her. Signing up to a freelancer website gained Leela the opportunity to begin writing content for major business strategy consultant, Jay Abraham.

“I was getting paid $9 an hour and everybody around me said, ‘You’re crazy, you’re getting ripped off’,” Leela reveals.

With her innate sense of bold independence, Leela looked at it differently.

“I’m writing these articles for Jay Abraham, whose content is worth tens of thousands of dollars; I’m getting sent to his seminars. The education I received for that tiny amount was worth so much more than the pay. It was hard work, but the four years I spent working with him was such a crucible. I learned of the foundations of business and made a lot of connections and a network that were crucial to me being able to grow my own business.

“I worked hard for it because when you grow up in a household where there’s no food in the fridge, or the phone might be turned off, then you just don’t have the luxury of that middle-class guilt around money. So, I just wanted to make ALL of the money!” Leela laughs.

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