Start With A Win - Tania Khazaal: How to Lead Yourself, Your Family, and Your Business

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

In this powerful episode of Start With a Win, Adam Contos sits down with family healing expert Tania Khazaal for a raw and revealing conversation about where true leadership really begins. Beneath the surface of business success, executive titles, and polished social media lives a deeper truth: the health of this shapes the strength of your leadership. They explore the unseen emotional patterns, quiet resentments, and unspoken struggles that silently impact performance, connection, and fulfillment. This episode challenges listeners to confront what they may be avoiding, rethink vulnerability as strength, and rediscover the sacred power of human connection in a distracted world. If you’ve ever wondered why success can still feel empty - or why burnout follows you home - this conversation will open a door you didn’t know needed unlocking.Tania Khazaal is a mentor, speaker, and bold advocate for families navigating the pain of estrangement. As the founder of Tania the Herbalist Inc., she helps women and parents release guilt, build grounded confidence, and become the healthiest version of themselves so they can lead their families with strength and hope.  Blending faith, emotional regulation, and practical repair strategies, Tania equips families to move out of panic, rebuild trust, and create homes rooted in safety and connection. Her mission is simple but powerful: restore what’s been lost, strengthen families from the inside out, and build legacies of love in a divided world.00:00 Intro02:20 This self-state has more of an impact than people realize!04:03 Why do we sacrifice this for business?07:45 When you can learn to do this, you will be a better leader!10:00 Why is no one talking about this?13:01 Is it this simply and powerful?16:40 How to overcome the fear of being this!19:10 There is a difference between this and calm.20:38 Biggest piece of advice and it comes back to THIS.===========================Subscribe and Listen to the Start With a Win Podcast HERE:📱 ===========================YT ➡︎ https://www.youtube.com/@AdamContosCEOApple ➡︎ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/start-with-a-win/id1438598347Spotify ➡︎ https://open.spotify.com/show/4w1qmb90KZOKoisbwj6cqT===========================Connect with Adam:===========================Website ➡︎ https://adamcontos.com/Facebook  ➡︎ https://facebook.com/AdamContosCEOTwitter  ➡︎ https://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOInstagram  ➡︎ https://instagram.com/adamcontosceo/#adamcontos #startwithawin #leadershipfactory

Like, I think that's the biggest thing is people are lacking real human connection because of the distraction of social media and the fast-paced world and the AI and everything. That human connection is more important now than ever. And it starts at home. Yes, it could be in the workplace too. I think it's so important. But that's probably the biggest thing that I would tell people is like, look at how sacred the family unit is in a world that's so busy and distracting. And you could find your sense of belonging anywhere else, essentially now, especially with ideologies and all these different things.

But it comes back to family. Welcome to Start With a Win, where we unpack leadership, personal growth and development, and how to build a better business. Let's go. Coming to you from Area 15 Ventures and Start With a Win headquarters, it's Adam Contos with Start with a Win. What does true leadership look like when it starts at home, especially in families struggling with deep divides? I like to say, if you're going to be a great leader, you need to start at home. Well, today we're exploring that from a profoundly personal place, healing, family. family estrangement. My guest, Tanya Kizal, is a powerful leader in this space. Through her faith-based

and practical approach, Tanya equips families with the tools to rebuild connection and create legacies rooted in resilience and hope. Her work is a reminder that leadership isn't just about the boardroom. It begins in the hardest conversations at home. This episode will challenge how you think about leading both yourself and your family, because we need to lead ourselves and our families first to be good business leaders. Tanya, welcome to start with a win. Thanks for having me, Adam. Hey, it's, and I know you've got a huge following online.

You do a lot of great work when it comes to helping people get themselves right in order to get their business and their leadership right. So I want to really dive into that today because I think there's always something we can learn in order to improve ourselves. But I want to start with, how did you get to where you're at in the business? Give us a little bit of your background. I know you've done a ton of business. consulting and coaching as well as a lot of, you know, work of basically teaching people how to help themselves improve. So give us a little bit of flyover on your history. Yeah. So, I mean, funny enough, my actual professional background, I graduated from business and finance and all the

things, I worked my way up the executive ladder in the corporate world. And I transitioned to becoming an entrepreneur when I essentially saw my mom on her deathbed from like too many pharmaceuticals. She wasn't doing very well. And I was like, there's got to be something that I can do for her. Funny enough, I was also the estranged child, which ties into everything that I kind of talk about. But I just realized, wait, there's got to be something more that I can do. And I actually during this time struggled with chronic anxiety, insomnia, endometriosis, IBS, like health issues, all of the stuff. And when I started to work towards this new passion that I had and trying to build a business and all of the stuff, it's like a lot of my health issues went away, which was interesting

because I was doing everything right. I was eating right. I was exercising, taking all the supplements and drinking the teas and all of that, which not to say that it doesn't have an impact, but I realized my emotional state had such a bigger impact on my ability to be healthier and happier and navigate the business that I was building. And then from there, I transitioned kind of through each level of then I went into health consultations,

which led me to learning how much of your inner work leads into your health and happiness and success, which led me into some business coaching along with some life coaching, even though I don't really like that kind of cliche term of life coaching, which led me into now being like the emotional healing expert and family coach that I am. Wow. That's pretty powerful. And I get to talk to a lot of CEOs, boards of directors, things of that nature, and do a fair amount of business coaching myself.

And it seems like every time we start to see problems with a business, with a leader, with, you know, just you see the pain in somebody when you're at a conference with them or, you know, some sort of a public get together. And you always look at me and go, how are you doing? And there's always a problem, but it always seems to start at home. And we, we ignore that in our professional lives. So, I mean, what is your perspective on that? Why are we seeing ourselves sacrifice our family lives for business when it shouldn't be that way? I mean, yeah, you definitely nailed that so well. It's true because people have that automatic innate to just say, I just got to focus on my work. distract myself in my work, grab the next thing on my schedule, that level of success is going to

somehow help the problems that I have either at home or internally. But really, the level of happiness and calm and clarity and alignment that you have in your home feeds the success and everything else so much bigger. And I think that a big part of that is like, you don't, you have the tools, but you can easily find the tools to build your business, to, to grow and sales and marketing and all of the stuff, but rarely do you get the tools to say, okay, well, how do I communicate that same thing in my home? How do I navigate the tough situations and hard conversations at home? How do I deal with my teenager? How do I deal with my adult child who's got all of these issues that now are coming up after I thought I gave him the best life as a child?

How do I deal with my marriage and, you know, my husband being stressed out and me being triggered by him and all of these things? You aren't given these tools. And because of that, you're just kind of learned to suppress them and go and distract yourself with something. something else and that's just the way it is. But really, it's not just the way it is. It's because you don't have the tools. And, you know, realistically, I don't remember getting those tools in business school. They didn't give them to us. There's no like MBA and an, oh, by the way, here's your psychology part of that. So emotional, it's essentially emotional intelligence. Then no one's teaching you that. They'll teach you like intellectual intelligence, okay,

but not the emotional aspect, which is actually the most important part. So let me take you to a conversation I had in a hallway at an event. I was talking to another CEO and I looked at him and I go, he goes, do you have a business coach? And I said, yeah, why? He goes, I'm struggling. And I go, are you okay? And I didn't ask if his business was okay. And he's asking for a business coach.

But he's like, no, I'm not. And I said, well, what are you doing about it? I mean, where should we take that conversation? Because if we hold up the mirror as a CEO, where should we start by taking that conversation? Where do we want to start looking in order to start unpacking this and move ourselves forward? And you talk a lot about family dysfunction and estrangement and things like that. You're an expert in that space. So I want to get a little deeper into that because it always seems like, you know, the uncomfortable stuff when we go.

home and then we deliver it to the office. But the reality is everybody around us is delivering that to the office also. Well, a big part of that, Adam, is just pride. People don't want to admit that my marriage is falling apart or my family or my child isn't speaking to me or I'm having issues with my teenager because then you feel like you failed as a husband, as a wife, as a parent, whatever it is. So there's a lot of pride attached to that. And because of that, they choose to suppress it and don't want people to know about it. But really, that's the culprit of their lack of success or happiness. So for me, I mean, it's a very deep conversation, but I typically, I love how you even mention the mirror because I do start with a lot of mirror work. And it's

like, okay, what do I need to work on? Like, what is not great about me? And everybody has that. So it's like you have to put your pride and your ego and your hurt aside and say, what do I need to work on? Do I react too quickly? Am I easily triggered and easily offended by things, all of these things are tough conversations that you have to have with yourself and say, okay, so where's step one? Where do I want to start with that first thing? What is the most important thing to me? Is it reconnecting with my child, having a better relationship with my child? Is it my marriage? Is it whatever it is, it does start at home? Because when you can learn to, for example, effective communication, when you can learn to effectively communicate and work through situations at

home, you're going to become a better leader in business and communication with, with partners, with suppliers, with marketers, whatever it is, you'd naturally become a better communicator because you understand the psychological and emotional aspect of what's happening within your home. If you can't, then you're going to struggle. So it starts with having that hard conversation of like, what do I have to work on? What are, what does my family tell me that I'm doing wrong, all of those things that typically we don't like to, we don't like having that conversation because it makes us feel like we're a bad person. But it doesn't mean you're a bad person. It just means that's the area of growth that's

available to you and that you need to lean into more than ever. Ooh, that's powerful. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. It means that area of growth is available to you. That's very powerful. And I think that takes a lot of the ego pain out of that situation. So when we look at ourselves, when we hold up the mirror and we go, okay, my family life is struggling. I would venture to guess that most of the time also, and I'm generalizing here, but I think this is probably true. There's personal health. So the person's not taking care of themselves first. Is that common? Or is it just, I mean, it seems like they play together. That's a good question. So I was doing years and years of health consultations, right? I was like the health coach and all of the stuff. And what's interesting is

I definitely noticed a difference with people not taking care of their health. Like if you're not eating right, you're not exercising and being super late. And you're not. you're not moving, 100% that has an effect on your mood, the way you show up, everything. But what's really interesting is I also saw the other side where people were, they're like, I exercise, I work out, I eat right, I diet, I have no toxic stuff, even to their detergent. It's like super healthy, yet she had stage four cancer. I'm thinking of one person in particular.

And this is when I was like, oh my goodness, there's a whole silent epidemic that nobody is talking about because I started to dive into the emotional physiological aspect of things. I was like suppression. Like for women, for example, the suppression of expression is the number one reason for autoimmune. It's like you're just swallowing everything that you want to say and that bottles up inside. And so when I started to talk to her, she's like, well, I haven't spoken to my mom in four years. And I was like, okay, so there's forgiveness, there's, there's resentment. There's these emotions when you hold them inside fuels cortisol, fuels your body, everything. So it's like, no matter how good and everything you're doing on the exterior, the interior is struggling heavy. So for me,

that was the biggest wake-up call where I was like, okay, yes, how you live is super important, but how you're processing your emotions and your ability to turn the page in the book of your life and all of that has a direct impact on your health as well and your level of happiness, which I think is the most important. Then you start to feel better internally. Naturally, you're like, well, if I need to live better, I have this excitement about like who I am, so I want to do better, I want to look better, I want to feel better. I love that. And it's interesting. You can see somebody turn the corner when they, when they go through that realization. You have an employee. You have a colleague or a friend or what have you. And it's like a light switch comes on with them so many times. When they start working on themselves, then at some point, you go, what have this? This is like a new you. That's exactly it. She actually want to make better choices because you feel good. I love that. That's, I mean, that's, I mean, that's,

It's very inspirational. It's so true. And I'll be the first one to say, I've hit burnout before. It's not just burnout of work. It starts at home and becomes burnout of work and then goes back home. And then you have this constant combat going on. Because you're stressed out at home. So you're taking out all your BS from work at home. And then at home you're stressed out. So you take that and you're just, you know, kind of slugging yourself into work and you're feeding it there. And it's a snowball effect and it runs both ways. Let me ask you this. So we come with this realization. We've held up the mirror. You know, you can whiteboard all your problems, whatever it is. But you've got to do something about it.

Where do we start? How do you have that conversation at home with a spouse, a child, something like that, where you're not just going, okay, you win. And I'm not saying that from a perspective of just giving, of, you know, giving all the power away of running the household or something like that. It has to be a partnership, but we want them to understand that we understand they're in pain also. And we want them to meet us halfway or somehow or do we're, I don't understand what that looks I love that you're saying that because a lot of people do come and they're like, I can't work on something if the other person's not willing to meet me halfway. And I was like, I don't agree with that. Someone has to lead by example. Right. And that typically resonates with the other

person. When you're saying, like, where do you start? The simplicity. way is just awareness of the things that are affecting you. Like when I say awareness, that means, okay, you come home from work or you're walking into your house. What are the things that are, and I don't like using the word trigger because I feel like it's used so loosely. So I like to call it, like, what are the things that are activating you that are setting you off and start to notice that over the days? And don't do anything else. Just notice it. I'm noticing that I'm getting bothered when they're saying this. I'm noticing that this is bothering me. When the dishes are that, whatever it is, what is bothering you? Because that's an indication of, okay, why is it bothering me? Right? So,

perfect example that you see all the time in the family. Without even talking about the children's sake, I'm going to talk about, like, say, a couple. Husband comes home. He's had a super stressful day at work. You know, wife is at home, whether you're a stay at home or you've been working all day and he comes in and he's grumpy because he's dealing with whatever shit he was dealing with. Naturally, you're like, well, why are you coming home grumpy? You should be happy. You're at home now. Change your energy. leave it at home, all of that. And then he's kind of like, leave me the F alone. And then now an argument happens and they go upstairs and he storms off.

And she's sitting in the emotions of he doesn't care. I thought he'd be happy to see me. It's about me. So now she's making it about her. Meanwhile, he's like, it has nothing to do with you. He's not realizing all of that. Versus, and this is, this is like common. And this is what builds resentment in homes.

This is what creates a lot of issues and eventually creates a distance. And that distance, often that same communication, is being used on kids and wondering why the kids are becoming emotionally unavailable or distant or not able to communicate versus learning simple communication hacks like I'm aware of him triggering me. Why am I aware of, like when I'm aware, why is that happening? Remove myself from the situation and say, okay, what is his situation? That level of compassion takes you out and says, you know what? I know you seem like you have a rough day. Go upstairs, wash up, do what you got to do. come downstairs. Don't even bring you up. This is not about you right now. And when you can get to that

level of understanding and an emotional, you know, intelligence, it's not, most situations of people's reactions are not about you. So stop making everything personal or personal attack. Then in the evening, for example, you open up and show a little bit of vulnerability and say, hey, I want to talk to you about something that just made me sad. You might not have meant it that way, but I just want to talk to you about how I felt. He's in a completely different state now. And he's more open. And his masculine side kind of comes out. He's like, I'm so sorry. You never meant to make you feel that way. You feel heard. He feels like he got space. It wasn't a misunderstanding. That level of communication, if you can do that in your home and you do that with your kids where everything is not a personal

attack, just makes everything so much healthier and better. So powerful. That is so powerful. The whole process of witnessing the situation instead of judging and reacting in the situation. People enter, yeah, people enter the conversation and the situation is like, I have to be right. I have to prove myself when it's like most often than not it has nothing to do with that someone comes in grumpy someone's angry someone says something it's either their pain it's their emotion it's their troubles it's their struggles something it's not you so stop taking everything personally but that's also a big problem of what we're dealing with in society now is everything is a personal attack when most often than not it's just someone projecting their pain and struggles it's it makes me think you're you're never

going to be rewarded for how hard you fight in an argument you're only going to be rewarded for how much you care. 100%. And it changes the trajectory of like every aspect. Like you feel less tense. You show up better. You start everything just kind of gets better because you're like, it's not about me. It's about them. Awesome. That's amazing. So there's amongst leaders, it seems like there's a lot of guilt and fear when it comes to connecting. And because I think we have to wear this, this big, you know, shield or this stature in the business. But we need to leave that at the door when we go home.

How can we overcome that guilt and fear of being, you know, appearing weak or whatever, both at work and at home? I mean, it's, you know, because you want to be your authentic self, right? You don't want to be trying to be something you're not. You know, oh, that person's all tough and, you know, leadershipy and whatever. But you're lying to yourself if you're doing it one way at home and one way at work. So how can we combine those things where we still build the trust and the authenticity as a leader, both at home and at work? I mean, you said the word authenticity.

I think their issue is, as people are, first, they're afraid of vulnerability, but the healthy kind of vulnerability. They feel like I have to, you know, especially in a CEO, for example, position or anything. executive position, you, you tend to feel like I might not be looked up to as well if anybody knows that I'm struggling with something. And same thing at home. I'm the father. I'm the mother. I'm the matriarch. I'm the patriarch. Whatever it is, you feel like I can't let that weakness show. But, and I always bring it back to the emotional intelligence aspect is because a great leader is actually able to show the emotions, to show the vulnerability and show how you're navigating those hardships to really show that, hey, I'm a human. I have life struggles. This is how I'm navigating

it. When you can share that level of emotional vulnerability, even in the workspace, people feel more relatable. They're more attracted to you. They listen to you more. They feel like they can trust you more because they know that you're a human at the end of the day. But most people are afraid to do that because they think it shows weakness, but it actually shows strength. I think it's interesting you said that because, and I've, I've dealt with a lot of friends who are in the military, special operations, SWAT teams, things like that. And it's fascinating because the more advanced you get into the, you know, this warrior mindset, it seems like the higher level of emotional intelligence you find in these people.

And they're able to deal with these super high stress situations so calm and collected in so many instances because they're, they're just, so in tune to the feelings of people around them. And it's been fascinating. Now, we also have that blow up in our face because people internalize things. Right. But ultimately, it comes down to, you know,

if you have the support system and the mechanisms in order to not have to internalize them, like, you know, at home or in the colleagues or, you know, other, you know, measures that are put in place by these different groups, you know, you know, counseling or... I love that you, I love that you, you just said something that really caught my attention is

they're saying so, calm. And I want to make sure people know that there's a difference between numb and calm. Oh, that's good. Right? Because numb is like, I'm no longer feeling. So you're not, you're not internalizing, but you're also not feeling. Calm means I feel all the feels. I do. I feel the emotion, everything, but I don't internalize it and allow myself to still process and stay calm through that feeling. Incredible. That's, that is very profound. So, So, Tanya, you do a lot of mentoring and speaking around this type of wellness and, you know, family, you know, I guess rejuvenation, if you will, you know, putting these things back together. What's the biggest piece of advice that you find yourself giving on a regular basis right now with, you know, all the different pressures people face in society and families and things like that?

The biggest thing that I would say is learn to how sacred the family unit is and learn how I can improve the family dynamic. There's always room for growth. Even if you've been married for so long, your kids are older. There's always room to better connect with people. Like I think that's the biggest thing is people are lacking real human connection because of the distraction of social media and the fast-paced world and the AI and everything. That human connection is more important now than ever. And you need to bring that back to feel like. like that sense of belonging, that sense of happiness, all of that. And it starts at home. Yes,

it could be in the workplace, too. I think it's so important. But that's probably the biggest thing that I would tell people is like, look at how sacred the family unit is in a world that's so busy and distracting. And you could find your sense of belonging anywhere else, essentially now, especially with ideologies and all these different things. But it comes back to family. I love that. It comes back to family. And, you know, by the way, I'm sure Tanya sees this, you know, in her work. But it seems like everywhere you look on social media, people live this, you know, some sort of a polyana lifestyle and things are great in their families. Everybody faces the same struggles. And that's the reality. It's just, how are you dealing with them? And it's,

it's like exercising. We have to have a system and a process and an effort on a regular basis in order to make these things great in order to, you know, in my journal, you know, how many times a day did I tell the people in my life. I love them. Things like that. Right. You know, to remind us of that. So this is incredible, Tanya. You've delivered a lot of great information here. If we want to learn more about you, where can our listeners find you online and on social media? Yeah, good question. Tanya Cazel. My website, Tanya Cazel.com, social media. I'm really active on Instagram, Facebook. Just started up on TikTok. and yeah, that's where you could find me. Handles at 10XO.

Awesome. All right. Make sure you check out Tanya at all of these social media channels. She's really done a great job of helping drop these little truth bombs throughout the day as to how we can become better for ourselves, for our families, for our relationships, and for our businesses, for that matter. A great leader starts at home. It doesn't start in the office. You just carry it to the office and distribute it there. So this has been a great conversation.

You've given us a lot of wonderful information. I do have a question I ask all the amazing leaders on Start with a Win. How do you start your day with a win? Prayer. Every day. Don't miss a day of prayer. Because it just, it really grounds you and recognizes that I would never have the life or the blessings or anything

that I do without God. Love that. So nice. Tanya Kuzal, thank you for your inspiration today. Thanks for helping us. And thanks for starting with a win. Amen.

Thanks, Adam.