Facing Fear, Finding Purpose: The Inspiring Business Journey of Leo Aspite

If you have ever wondered whether it is too late to change your life, your career or the way you lead, you need to meet Leo Aspite, business coach and facilitator with The Alternative Board Gosford on the NSW Central Coast.

Leo is not just another business advisor. He is a man who has rebuilt his life with intention, faith and grit, and now uses every lesson to help business owners step into their potential, face their fears and build businesses that actually support the life they want to live.

This is his story and the inspiring messages at the heart of his work.

The shy engineer who refused to stay small

It is hard to imagine it now, but Leo started his career as the quiet engineer in the corner. Brilliant at his work, terrified of people.

He could see others progressing, taking opportunities, stepping into leadership, while he sat back thinking, “I could do that. So why am I not?”

The answer was simple and brutal. Fear.

Instead of accepting that as his personality, Leo made a decision that changed everything.
He chose to walk directly into the thing that scared him most.

A friend asked him to teach CAD programs at a community college. Public speaking. A room full of people. The ultimate nightmare for a shy engineer.

He said yes.

For three months, every weekend, Leo arrived early and was physically sick before class. Not metaphorically. Literally out the front, being sick, then wiping his face and walking into the room anyway.

After a while the nausea eased. The fear softened. The teaching became normal. Then enjoyable. He started to love his students, their journeys and the feeling of helping people move towards their goals.

That decision became a defining fork in the road.

“That was the moment that meant I could have the life I wanted, not the life controlled by fear.”

Fast forward twenty five years and that same man is delivering keynote speeches to hundreds of people at Crown Casino in Melbourne, completely calm and in his element.

Same person. Different story. All because he chose to face fear instead of letting it dictate his future.

From corporate pressure to purpose driven living

Leo has spent more than 25 years in operations, consulting, small business ownership and corporate management at regional and global levels. He has led start ups, engineering teams, mid sized businesses and large international corporations.

From the outside, it looked successful. Inside, the cost was high.

He was flying constantly, eating on the run, working six to seven days a week, constantly away from family and pushing his health to the edge. Like many executives, he could see the warning signs and knew it was not sustainable.

This time, instead of waiting for a crisis to force change, he did something different.

He created an exit and succession plan from day one of his MD role. He knew he could only sustain that pace for a limited time, so he designed his way out, on purpose.

When he eventually stepped away, it was not into retirement. It was into a more aligned version of success.

Leo rebuilt his life around:

• Health
• Joy, passion and purpose
• Relationships and time with family
• A sustainable workload
• Contributing to his local community

He changed the way he ate, moved, worked and rested. He layered in boundaries, two calendars that honour personal time as highly as business commitments, and a commitment to never again sacrifice his wellbeing at the altar of productivity.

The result is a very different version of success. One grounded in balance, humility, joy and impact.

The Alternative Board Gosford: local vision, global tools

Today, Leo channels his experience into his work with The Alternative Board Gosford, where he facilitates peer advisory boards for established business owners across the Central Coast.

In simple terms, he:

• Brings 6 to 10 non competing business owners together in a boardroom environment
• Helps them workshop their challenges and opportunities every month
• Uses proven tools and frameworks from The Alternative Board
• Holds them accountable to the business and life they actually want

Underneath the structure is something much bigger.

Leo has a clear, unapologetic, purpose driven goal:

To help 100 Central Coast businesses prosper in the next three years, so they can employ local people and reduce the daily commute to Sydney.

For a region where thousands of people spend 12 to 15 hours a week in the car just to get to work, that is not just a business goal. It is a community goal. A lifestyle goal. A legacy project.

The Alternative Board is his vehicle. Purpose is the engine.

The real challenges behind most businesses

One of Leo’s strongest messages is that while industries change, technology changes and the economic climate shifts, the core challenges in business remain surprisingly consistent.

They usually fall into a handful of categories:

• Time
• Money
• People and staff
• Vision and strategy
• Exit and succession

Whether you run an engineering firm or a local service business, those pain points will feel very familiar.

Underneath all of those, Leo often finds the same root causes.

Fear.
Self doubt.
Lack of self worth.
Avoidance of difficult conversations.
Feeling alone at the top.

As an engineer at heart, Leo loves root cause analysis. He keeps digging until he finds the real blockage, and quite often, it is the business owner themself.

Not because they are not smart enough, but because they are human.

That is why his boards are so powerful. They are not just strategy sessions. They are safe spaces where business owners can be honest, vulnerable, challenged and supported by other people who actually understand the pressure.

It is business therapy with financial outcomes.

Self love, worthiness and the courage to change

If you strip everything back, Leo believes two inner truths sit under most business and life challenges:

• Self love
• A sense of worthiness

Without them, fear runs the show. You stay small, say no to opportunities, avoid visibility, put yourself last and live a half version of the life you could have.

With them, you make different choices. You face fears. You get help. You invest in support. You back yourself. You build businesses that work for you, instead of breaking you.

Leo models this in his own life. He has walked through deep grief after losing his first wife. He has raised three boys. He has rebuilt his health, his career and his relationship with work. He speaks openly about prayer, gratitude and asking for help from something bigger than himself.

He is not pretending the journey is easy. He is proof that it is possible.

Faith, gratitude and the law of attraction in real life

One of the most powerful parts of Leo’s story is how he talks about faith and gratitude in a grounded, practical way.

After a serious motorbike accident in New Zealand, only six weeks after his wife passed away, Leo found himself in hospital, with three young children at home and no one left to look after them.

He prayed in a way he never had before. Help came. Friends stepped in. Support arrived.

He realised that prayer could not just be a last resort in crisis. It needed to be a daily relationship.

Now he prays every day, mostly in gratitude and mostly for others. He sees everything in his life his new marriage, ocean views, beautiful family, aligned clients, meaningful work as something to be grateful for, not something to be taken for granted.

He talks about the law of attraction in simple terms:

• Work on yourself
• Get clear on what you want
• Take aligned action
• Stay open to the doors that open

He is quick to say, “You still have to do the work. God opens the doors. You walk through them.”

Leo’s core message: face your fear and start now

If Leo could go back and give his seven year old self one piece of advice, it would be this:

Face your fear.

Not in a motivational poster way. In a practical, week in week out way.

Book the thing. Turn up shaking. Do it anyway.

Teach the class. Deliver the presentation. Have the hard conversation. Ask for the sale. Sit at the table. Apply for the role.

Repeat it often enough and it stops being terrifying and starts being normal.

From there, everything else opens up.

The best part is, he does not pretend you have to be perfect at it. He simply asks you to start.

Why business owners on the Central Coast need to know Leo

If you are a business owner on the Central Coast who:

• Feels lonely making big decisions
• Is tired of spinning your wheels
• Wants your business to support your life, not consume it
• Is ready to be held accountable in a supportive way
• Knows you are capable of more but feel blocked by fear or self doubt

Then Leo’s work with The Alternative Board Gosford may be exactly the space you need.

He brings:

• Real world experience from corporate, small business and ownership
• A deeply human, compassionate approach
• Strong boundaries and professionalism
• Practical tools that help you work on, not just in, your business
• A genuine desire to see Central Coast businesses thrive and employ local people

Most importantly, he brings belief. Belief that you are worthy of more, and that it is not too late to change your story.