Meet Laura Smith Biswas | Health and Wellness Entrepreneur & Author

I am a California native but grew up living in a lot of places including Buenos Aires, the Washington D.C. area, the intermountain West and the Northeast. I returned as an adult to California which has always felt like home to me. Along my journey, I experienced my fair share of difficulties. My father, whom I loved very much, died of a brain tumor when I was starting college. This was soon followed by the death of my brother, Spencer, at age 21 in a hiking accident and then my youngest brother died from sudden heart failure. A few years later, I began to remember a period of my childhood where I was traumatized sexually. All these experiences impacted my health. As a young mother, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and somewhere inside I knew there was a link between this illness and my difficulty holding in the secret and pain of sexual abuse. My doctor explained my cancer from an immunology approach, that trauma increases our susceptibility to illness by lowering the immune system. That rang very true for me. I knew my body had been holding these secrets back until I could handle dealing with them, but there had been a cost to that.

These challenges shaped me into a much more compassionate person and inspired me to start transitioning my work from corporate finance in the biotech industry towards a more personal contribution that integrated both science, psychology and spirituality. I began this transition after I completed a Master’s program in Spiritual Psychology.

I knew I wasn’t alone in facing death, illness and trauma, so I started creating resources and tools to help others. One of my greatest desires is to help others experience more love during their lives rather than face an end where there is regret, loss and grief over what had or hadn’t happened.

One of the things I developed was a book called The Cosmology of Love: 70+ Ways to Experience Greater Love. It’s a resource to help you understand your specific needs for love and how to talk with others about it. My desire in writing the book was to assist individuals and families to engage in the discovery of what love means to them and to foster specific conversations on love that can facilitate better relationships over time.

I love building ventures from an initial vision and bringing them to fruition so I’ve created a number of businesses that are at different stages of development. Cadence Communications & Research was the first, founded in 2008 which provides professional services in the healthcare market. It is well established in the marketplace and ranking on the INC 500/5000 list three times in our growth history. Out of this company, I co-founded Csequence to establish a science-based education company in the cannabis space. It provides easily digestible medicinal cannabis education solutions for businesses and clinicians.
Now my passion is to contribute educational resources that are focused on the emotional and psychological areas of life through my latest venture, TheLoveMandala.com. It is in its early stages, but is focused on bringing together resources in the areas of grief, anxiety, trauma, and relationships. I’m currently preparing to launch a workshop that enables deeper love in relationships.  This focus is what I expect will keep me happily engaged for the remainder of my career. Having been through more than my share of life’s difficulties, helping others navigate theirs with a full set of resources is deeply fulfilling to me.

When my friends and family come to visit, I’m the first to try to get them to go outdoors. The great thing about my area is the abundantly good weather which allows for every meal or activity to be enhanced through a beautiful outdoor setting. My list of activities includes a beach walk before sunset, visiting Lotusland or the Getty Center gardens and taking a day trip to Santa Barbara. If they love a good glass of wine, then spending time on the patio at The Stonehaus or The Malibu Cafe drinking a good crisp glass of sauvignon blanc would be next. If they enjoy hiking, then the trails overlooking the ocean in Malibu never disappoint. Spa time is always one of my favorite options, with The Ojai Valley Inn and Spa my first place to book a massage. In Santa Barbara, my favorite all gluten-free menu for breakfast and lunch is Lilac Patisserie which never disappoints. A day trip the other direction to Los Angeles would be last and include stopping for a chocolate tour at Letterpress Chocolate, shopping at Abbott-Kinney, grabbing Jeni’s ice cream in Los Feliz or devouring some tacos from Guisados.

I always seek out help to grow and been supported by a beautiful string of people that have been like pearls in my life. Each one contributing something different to my evolution. I was very fortunate to have good bosses that helped me to build confidence as a woman in my corporate roles and to learn how to lead at Cadence. I was blessed by many teachers and healers that helped me move through grief, regain my center, and live a more authentic life. Some important coaches and business partners that deserve a significant shout out are listed below. I respect how they contribute with authenticity, collaborate with joy, embrace difficulties with both intuition and analysis, and extend trust as we create new businesses from scratch. To name a few: Susanna Brisk, Jennifer Urezzio, Stephanie Miller, Kerry Myers, Sugata Biswas, Angela Bronow Davanzo, Emily Anderson, Susanne Blassingille, Zachary Moore, and KC Hildreth. My partner in love, Sabu Quinn has been a steady, daily support of encouragement and love that I could not do without.