Resilience in Midlife: A Journey from Oncology to Grief Coaching with Lisa Boehm

Did you know that 75 percent of women experience significant life changes and stressors during midlife? In this episode of Spark & Ignite Your Marketing, we are joined by Lisa Boehm, a coach for midlife moms who are burnt out, overwhelmed, and seeking more joy. Lisa’s journey from oncology to grief coaching is one of profound transformation and resilience. We also delve into her entrepreneurial journey and her marketing tactics to grow her business. Listen to her inspiring story and gain actionable insights to navigate your midlife transitions.

Key Topics Covered:

1. The Power of Resilience: How Lisa turned personal tragedy into a mission to help others.
2. Midlife Transitions: Practical advice for navigating the unique challenges women face during midlife.
3. Entrepreneurial Insights: Lisa's marketing tactics and business strategies that have fueled her success.
4. Hope and Healing: Insights into maintaining hope and finding joy even in the darkest times.

 Lisa’s journey is a testament to the power of resilience. After a successful career in oncology, she found herself at a crossroads following the tragic loss of her 17-year-old daughter, Katie, in a car accident. This devastating event prompted Lisa to reassess her life and career, leading her to become a grief educator.

She has successfully navigated the transition from a traditional career to running her own business. In this episode, she shares her marketing strategies, emphasizing the importance of authenticity and connection. Lisa discusses how embracing her true self and sharing her story has helped her build a strong, supportive community. She also highlights the significance of using social media effectively and the value of connecting with other entrepreneurs.

Follow Lisa:
Rising Strong Mental Health & Resilience Podcast (risingstrongpodcast.com)
Lisa K. Boehm | Instagram
Lisa K. Boehm | LinkedIn

P.S. Ready to spark your unique opportunities and ignite your marketing?

1. 📞 Schedule a Complimentary 15-minute Fit Call and let’s delve into your goals and answer any questions you may have.
2. 📘 Read Beverly's book Marketing For Entrepreneurs a quick guide filled with actionable steps to help make your brand and business shine even brighter. 🎙️Or listen to Beverly's Podcast where she interviews entrepreneurs to get inspired and gain new business and marketing insights.
3. 🎓 Learn more about marketing and Enroll in Our Courses designed to bring clarity to your business efforts. They're easy-to-understand and self-paced, perfect for busy entrepreneurs like you.

Transcript

0:09

Outro Music

Beverly: 0:25

Did you know that according to a 2020 study, 75 percent of women experience significant life changes and stressors during midlife, such as empty nest syndrome, career transitions, and the lost of loved ones. Welcome to another episode of Spark Ignite Your Marketing podcasts and joining us today is Lisa Boehm. She's a coach for midlife moms who are burnt out, overwhelmed, and seeking more joy. Lisa's journey is one of profound transformation and resilience. And after Over 33 years in oncology as a radiation therapist, a personal tragedy led her to pivot her career to become a grief educator and mental health podcaster. She now uses her empathy and experience to support those struggling through midlife transitions. Outside of her professional life, Lisa loves connecting with people, speaking on stages, and is currently working on an exciting new clothing line. Lisa, it's a pleasure to have you here today. Thank

Lisa: 1:22

you so much, Beverly. My pleasure.

Beverly: 1:25

I want to start with the origin story. You went from an oncology and radiation therapist, which I'm assuming was a little bit of a challenge of a career, a lot of People struggling because they're going through cancer What made you go from that career to breaking out on your own and doing your own thing?

Lisa: 1:43

I feel like I have always wanted to be an entrepreneur. There's always been something inside of me when I, Experience something new when I talk to people, doing different things. I think I could do that. And as much as I love my work in oncology, it's been a part of who I am for 33 years. But if I walk away in an already short staffed situation, I feel like I'm putting somebody's life in danger by not having enough therapists there. What a radiation therapist does, I am the person who gives radiation treatments to cancer patients. So as you said, very emotionally taxing I don't think you could be, anything but emotional when you have people's lives in your hands and actually after I had my kids, so going back 24 years, once I started having a family, I really cut my hours back like part time. I've been part time most of my career. And that was mostly to be able to separate more effectively my job and not bringing it home, but I knew that I wanted more and As a way to cope this will all come together I promise but as a way to cope with my stress and my anxiety and everything else in life I turned to fitness and holistic health care and actually became a health coach About 15 years ago and love that but then we fast forward to 2015 and we lost our 17 year old daughter in a car accident. And as you can imagine your entire life, career, family, and otherwise is completely turned upside down. And it really makes you take a good long look at where you are and where you want to go. I wanted to help other people as much as there were books. There were resources after we lost Katie, but there weren't the resources that I needed. And what I mean by that is you can open up any book and listen to any podcast. And it's a lot of doom and gloom. I even had people that I knew friends who said to me face to face, Lisa, You know that your marriage is over now, right? You know that your son, my son was 15 when Katie died. You know that your son is looking at a lifetime of mental health struggles and probably drug use. These are the messages I was getting either, supposedly helpful resources or even friends and family. And I thought, Whoa, I cannot do life, I cannot do grief this way, and I wanted more hope. So I actually became educated as a grief educator, and started working with grieving moms,

Beverly: 4:43

and wrote

Lisa: 4:43

a book, and did all those things, and then life pivoted again! And, we're talking eight and a half years now after Katie died and my son came to me last summer and he said, mom, I'm really struggling. Here is a young, strapping young man who works in the trades. He was struggling. bad. His girlfriend had just moved out. His grandfather had passed away. Our family dog had some major surgery. We almost lost him. And I don't know that my son had actually dealt with his sister's death yet. It was that moment when I thought, okay, I have done all of this stuff to help other people. And now it's time for me to step up for my son. But what he needed from me was more reassurance. He didn't want mom coaching him, but what I could supply for him were other stories and to bring people together. Much like what you do, Beverly, you bring people together on your podcast, sharing a common underlying message, right? And that's what I created. So I believe that I created something for Katie in her honor, and that was the grief community and it's not just for my son, honestly as a frontline healthcare professional who worked through the pandemic I was watching people fall all around me from mental health and not to say that healthcare professionals were the only ones that took the brunt. I think it knocked us all out at the knees in different ways, I look at my neighbors, my community, my family, my brother, people are struggling. And I just thought, Lisa, this is a space that is the next part on your journey. So that's my very not so short answer for you.

Beverly: 6:40

I don't think anybody's journey is really that short. That's the beauty of the journey is there's these twists and turns and either we listen to our gut or listen to the kind of world around us, or we continue through and we're not ready for whatever that looks like. But I hear so many entrepreneurs say that there's like an echo in their soul that keeps coming back to the thing they're supposed to be doing. Lisa, all of us, everybody has a story and so many of us carry trauma and tragedy and extreme amounts of loss in our lives and turning a loss into a productive outlet in some way, shape or form is so incredibly healthy and so many levels. I believe I love this idea of taking it, writing about it, but I also think it puts you in a very vulnerable position as an entrepreneur. And there's been times that I've shared some of my vulnerability around loss in my life. And I just know like pushing the post what you do is extremely vulnerable work when you put yourself out there to share stories of Katie and your son and you're very brave and very courageous to share your journey and to help others in that process. You talked about lots of twists and turns, but has there been a significant plot twist that has changed the course of your journey since you've decided to do this work?

Lisa: 8:02

I would say, all of the twists and turns, I would say the underlying thing with all of them has all been the same. And that is to give people hope. I don't think that we can ever have too much hope, right? It doesn't matter what we're struggling with. We need the belief, we need the hope, we need the encouragement that things can and will be better. So I would say that is the caveat. There's that part of me that's always going to be a caregiver of some kind, and it is, so it's just morphed and changed. I'm still doing that, but in different ways.

Beverly: 8:43

Hope. For my husband and I, it's hope and faith. It's like the things that we always lean into to get around and through tragedy and trauma in our lives. You said, I refuse to accept this existence that everyone was telling you, it's going to be this, it's going to be that. And all the things that you're saying, I know people who actually have experienced something similar and have been those statistics. So for you to be like, no, that's not the answer that I'm looking for. And I want to craft and create something different for people who won't accept that as a possibility. You had to fight for that, which is interesting too. So who are your customers? Who do you serve and what problems do you solve for them?

Lisa: 9:24

I have many streams of income. Currently I have my grief business. Within that, I have a book, I have grief coaching services that is just for grieving mothers who want to learn how to heal. And then over on the other sphere I've got one on one coaching. So anybody who wants the help, To, deal with whatever they are going through. We work a lot on mindset. I am working on some group coaching but I've also added some merchandise. right now there's a real need for, and a desire for people who are looking for a clothing line with inspirational sayings. And right now that is something that's, helping me create a little bit of an income while I build up my podcast and my coaching. Rising Strong Mental Health and Resilience is my podcast. And when I started out, it was more of let's talk to everyone. And as an entrepreneur, you quickly figure out that's not the way you can do things. We all want to help everybody, but really when we talk to everybody, we talk to nobody. Yeah. Season two has really become about supporting midlife moms and we talk about boundaries and we talk about burnout. I feel like burnout is a word that has forever and ever has been associated with work, right? You're burnt out from work. But as we were talking about before we hit record, I think you get to This age, I'm 55 and I am dealing with, empty nest syndrome. I am dealing with aging parents. I am dealing with coming to the end of my radiation therapy degree, which is ultimately what has defined me for more than half my life, and we've got all of these stressors and all the to do's and all the Shoulds my one friend says don't should on yourself. Such a good thing to remind myself of I should do this I should do this and I feel like we are burnt out. We are burnt out at this age We're trying to figure out this thing called menopause like we were saying earlier, it affects our memory, it affects everything, physically, spiritually our marriages, our friendships and so on and so forth, that thing in itself is a massive thing to deal with. And then we've got all these other things that I just mentioned, like parents and kids. So just really helping people really simplify things and help them come up with a simple plan to move forward so that they aren't feeling so burnt out. So they're not feeling so overwhelmed so that they actually have some time. Hello for themselves. Like at this point in our lives, we should be finding maybe a little bit more me time. We should be finding time to pursue the things that we really want to do. So helping people do those kinds of things.

Beverly: 12:28

Everyone needs a coach of some sort. I just feel like everyone needs, really a coach and a therapist would be the best combination if you want to move forward in your career or whatever, you also need a therapist to make you look back and get rid of some stuff and process and all of that. You need both to have the life I think you deserve and one that brings you joy and. Real satisfaction and fulfillment. And I talk all the time about the two things that are like the finites are time and money, right? We're always trying to balance those two areas as an entrepreneur. Where do I put my time and where I get the most money and what does that look like? Before we get on the call, I talked about how the last couple of years have been really challenging because I have a business and I'm also a military spouse and I have a nine year old and I have the start of the certain time of life, the menopause and the lack of sleep and all kinds of things. So just when I feel like I was sitting in my stride past, like the baby stages and my kids more independent, now I am in this other stage, so I have two children. One just graduated from high school and then one is nine. So I have the, like bridging that as well. My parents are retired, but they're fairly healthy, but my husband's parents are much older. So we have to worry about them. There is a lot in all of this we have to deal with. And lives are messy, like it's not like controlled and ordered and as much as we try, I try to be organized and planned. And there's always the ABC that has to happen, especially as a military while life, I can plan for a, and might get C, but life is complicated and it can be very overwhelming very quickly if you don't have the right tools and ways to process that and Taking time for ourselves. As a mom, is that even like a reality?

Lisa: 14:16

What I have encountered a lot and speaking of my own experience, I would say 100 percent of my clients all fall into this category. Mom guilt, right? I think as women, for myself, I've been a mom for 26 years. This is ingrained in us. and I'm also, an employee, and I always check all the boxes first. I don't know why. And I don't mean any disrespect to any men that are listening. But I feel men are more easily in a position where they can, like my husband will go off and go golfing for 18 holes and I'm so happy for him. He needs to unwind. He needs to be with his buddies. And he always asks and it's always respectful. And if I ever said nah it's not a great time, he wouldn't go. I know he wouldn't. I put, my needs, I'm getting better, but my needs are number 95 on the list. And I, it's always in the back of my mind this week, I'm going to do something for myself. Lots of times it doesn't happen. And I think we need to get better at that. We need to start figuring out what we can take off our dang plates. Do we have to do it all? Yeah. We have to do it all

Beverly: 15:34

this week. No, a lot of the time. No, there's a lot of societal pressure. I think for women, we are in a very unique time in history where there's been such a huge gender shift in this country of roles and responsibilities and what's expected and, having it all. And there's all this noise around being a woman and what is expected as a mom and being a career person. You have, all these kinds of voices that are competing for your attention. And I think it's real easy to, To your individual voice to be silenced in some of that. And that's where I think we don't take the time. Like you said, there's the guilt for the kids. There's the guilt for, and I'm not putting aside anybody else's parenting guilt, but as a military mom, when the husband has gone a lot, there's a lot more guilt of you have to be present for your children. And there's a lot of unique challenges as a military family as well. I think the older I get though, the wiser we get. And I think that our voice is found of this is not going to work. Like the burnout happens or whatever. This is not working and something has to give, or I need to figure some other way. And having a path in that is awesome for people to know there's a path. And, I teach mindset structure and systems is pro is huge for a business, but mindset structure and process or systems is also good for a person as well. Like you said, maybe you don't need to be the one cleaning the house. Maybe somebody else can do the housecleaning. Maybe you can offload some of these, delegate them to other people which I have learned to do for my own sanity's sake as well. I think it's interesting that when you look at the statistics, even the statistic I started off with I've recently been diagnosed with ADHD and this is interesting that the doctor even said this, so many women in menopause are being diagnosed with ADHD because for so many years they were able to mask. And then you add the element of hormones and everything else on top of it. And the mask is impossible to keep. And that's what causes a lot of the burnout is that a whole generation of women have been silenced in this ADHD world. And. Now we're able to get some of the systems in place. And I hadn't even thought about that or looked at that until my own child was diagnosed with it. And I saw the testing and was like, Oh my gosh, like I could answer. Yes, I could answer. Yes. It was only because I was advocating for him that I was able to advocate for myself. We need people talking about this. So many girlfriends, Lisa are telling me, no one's talking about this. We're all silently struggling in our own little worlds, putting up on social media, all these perfect pictures of our lives, all the perfect moments, trying to be perfect, trying to give our kids the best life, give our husbands the best life, give everybody the best life. And we're in just in the struggle of constantly balancing out the juggler trying to keep everything in the air without getting hit in the face and having a black eye. So many of my entrepreneurial friends talk about it too. How do you balance being an entrepreneur and your family life and trying to find the place with which you feel the most comfortable. Even with my team, we talk about priority and they're a little bit younger. And I talk about priority because if you learn it when you're younger, maybe it'll be easier for you when you're older. I agree with you, men they have their own burdens, their own things they have challenges with, but this is something that is very real for women who are of a certain age that are constantly being put up against in the society, in this world.

Lisa: 19:00

We add, and not

Beverly: 19:01

to just

Lisa: 19:02

talk about menopause, but I think that the physical changes that go on. In our bodies, as you mentioned, we're not sleeping as well. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm a hot freaking mass without a good night's sleep. Amen. Crappy night's sleep all in a row. And then a year and two years. How do we actually effectively cope? We don't. And yet we're trying to live as if we were 35 when we weren't in this phase of life, but we can't. Because we physically and mentally are not capable. I think we have other superpowers at this age, honestly. I think we do, when we try to do the same thing over and over again with the same result I think that's the definition of exactly right. But we do.,

Beverly: 19:53

I feel like more people are talking about mental health and some of those kinds of things. What is one aspect of your business or even like the decision making process that you figure out for your business that has changed the most over time of how you've developed this particular business for yourself.

Lisa: 20:12

Even though I've pivoted lots and it looks like I've gone from extreme to extreme, I have learned so much and I take a little bit of that with me into the next thing. I think what COVID taught me, COVID is actually when I started my grief business, COVID taught me we can have amazingly successful businesses without leaving our houses. Really and truly, and I think that's where it gets, I'm going to say easier being an entrepreneur is not easy, when you think about not having to drive, I'm a speaker, I'm a facilitator as well, if I don't have to drive to an event, I can have my sweat pants on below the screen, and even the time saved of doing in person things. Huge in the grief world, there were many, and still are many grieving moms, grieving parents who don't, aren't, don't feel ready to have a face to face conversation. They feel safe if they can be online and they feel safe if they can turn off their camera and just listen and watch. I think that was a huge thing for me. Sadly our phones. I will be the first put my hand in the air to say that, it runs my life a lot of times. But if you can effectively find a way to be on social media in an engaging way that brings value to people, you're good. I think whether you like it or not the digital age is here. And I think you either get on board or you get off the train I just don't think that there's a way that we can effectively run a business in 2024 and beyond without embracing that and finding a way to make it work for us.

Beverly: 22:03

The surgeon general just put out yesterday. I don't know if you saw that in the news, they're talking about putting out a warning on social media, like they do for cigarettes. For kids about the consumption of social media and what it does. And I think they put out, don't quote me on this. Cause I, again, I read it very quickly in my endeavors on the web, but it was like four hours of social media can cause anxiety, depression, drug use, a day, four hours. I think the average was like 4. 8 hours or something like that. And yeah, to think about that from when I was a kid to what kids are doing today, like 4. 8 hours. And you remember when we were kids, you're of a similar generation, TV consumption was the evil, right? Too much TV is going to turn their brain to mush. I don't know how many times I heard that from my grandmother. These are the new challenges that kids face as they're Developing with this social media, I believe, I don't know if you believe this too, you're in the mental health space. So I wonder, this will be a pendulum switch, like the next technologies that's going to come out is like how to harness social media in a minimal way, like how to tap it down a little bit.

Lisa: 24:19

I don't know any mental health statistics around that, but I was just taking a seminar with a fellow who was just teaching you how to use LinkedIn a bit better. And that's what he was alluding to. He said if you look at the numbers, people are using social media less and less, at least. Our demographic, people are more self aware. I can't speak to the teens or the young adults or the kids, but we, as adults are becoming more keenly aware that social media is stealing our lives. And I know that sounds dramatic, but it's stealing hours.

Beverly: 24:53

Yes, it is. And time is finite. No one's going to say when they died, I wish I spent more time on Instagram. I did read recently, again, a recent thing that there are kids that are buying dumb phones, not the smartphones, dumb phones, like the burner phones to go out with at night so that they aren't constantly recording and that there are more present in what they're enjoying. So I do think the younger kids are maybe even more so than us aware of what it's doing to them. their buying decisions may shift where this industry goes, but we can only hope, right? That the kids will solve all the problems, as a generation let's hope the next generation fixes some of these generations, some of the things that we, Because, you and I have bridged both. We grew up without the cell phones and all the things and had a really amazing, youth without, that wasn't documented a hundred percent and all of that. Oh, goodness. There's no proof of anything anywhere. However. We also see the value of the connection and the sharing of good information and the access to information that we worked so hard to have in the amount of learning and knowledge we can appreciate both sides, like the importance of that and also the importance of the information and what that looks like. There's going to be a pendulum switch with what that looks like. I'm not sure, but I think I see it coming. I live in the space of social media marketing all the time. And I think the younger kids are going to be like, I don't want as much of my life out there. I want less of this. And marketers are gonna have to change and figure it out. The key though, you said it was useful information that actually contributes to the conversation. If you're able to share that useful information that contributes and is authentic and real, that's going to resonate and that's going to do well, no matter what. You have been helping people with mindset and grief and some of those things for a while. Is there a particular heartwarming interaction or something where somebody, told you how what you do impacts their life.

Lisa: 26:50

I don't have it in front of me, but so this may not be word for word, but working with people, especially one on one, I love that. I love that so much. You really get to know somebody, after working with somebody for a few weeks, she went away on holiday. And I think as a coach, you're always afraid that your people aren't going to come back. But she came back and she said, I have to tell you something. She said, I had an epiphany. She said, I was so focused on this hardship in my life, all the challenges, all the muck. That's all I was allowing into my life, but she said when I was on holiday, the muck, the hardship, all of this stuff didn't go away, but I was happy. And she said, I realized that I can carry both things at the same time and, that all of these things aren't silos in our lives and we can have them and we can balance them and just circling back actually, Beverly, to what you said about, finding balance in our lives. I think for myself, when I let go of that notion of, the seesaw and the balance, but allowed myself to be able to carry everything. To be able to carry the sadness and the grief and the joy and the, and that's what this woman was saying is she said, we've worked so much on mindset and perspective and where we put our energy, she said, it just made me realize that I do have these other things in my life. But it's all about where I choose to focus my energy and it's not forgetting about the hardships, but to focus on the good things in my life and the more energy I put into those things, the more good I seem to have in my life.

Beverly: 28:41

You talk about balance. And I always joke there's nothing's an ever perfect balance for me. I'm usually doing one area really well it's of the five, spiritual work. Usually one area is going exceptionally well. And the rest of them are just existing or somehow. So it's and it's based on what's happening at that time or what, where your energy is or where you're feeling the most fulfilled or there's all kinds of options. But when you were talking, it made me think about something. And it's actually revel, revelatory for myself because it's so true. Talk about mindset and systems and process and some of that for myself. That's what I focus on, but I read somewhere that the president has three suits or whatever, that's their choice. Three suits every day, whatever they're going to wear. That, that whoever's in the president's circle is always minimizing choices and decisions so that they can make the choices and decisions that matter. So if there's ways that you can remove some of those choices and decisions from yourself to make it easier for you, there's just so much in his brain to have to figure out every day that I think it was Obama when I read it, like he had a tan suit, a blue suit and a black suit and the tan suit was all controversy. So really it was like the black suit and the blue suit and like the red tie or the blue tie, which one are you going to wear today? It's really simple choices that help us not get bogged down in all the details that you can get higher level. Even with entrepreneurs, not working in your business working, on your business, like this higher level perspective of what is the best for my life and my choices and my energy Balance has never been something that I haven't tried to achieve. It's just maybe having more positives than every aspect of my life is something that I would like more of the fulfilling moments that truly matter in this world. Think that's important. When I was 19, I almost died. I actually planned my funeral. So I'm like the, on the opposite end of the, this a little bit. And that gave me such clarity of what is important at 19 to be very humbled about how short life is and that it only takes a moment to change everything. And that perspective really informs. So much of my life now. The things that matter are the connections. The people that we love.

Lisa: 31:04

You're right. And not to bring grief back into this, but there's a book out there and it's not a new book, but it's called, I Believe it's The Seven Regrets of the Dying. And it was written by a hospice nurse. And she just would sit with people. That's what she would do, is sit with people who were dying and. Over years and years and years had collected this data. It's a really short and simple book. And the message is basically, that you're right. Are we going to regret

Beverly: 31:34

not working more? No, we're going to clean our house more. Is that going to be the thing? Houses, the

Lisa: 31:41

regrets were all around I can't remember the exact words to use, but essentially if your dad wanted you to be a school teacher, you were a school teacher, but your heart was really to become a musician that you didn't follow your own heart not spending more time with family, not spending more time with friends. So you get the gist of what this is all about. And I think if we can sit down with our calendars every day or every week for five minutes and really highlight the things like you say, prioritize, what are the three things that are absolutely critical to my business that I complete? And then maybe take a magic marker and put in, or I'm a paper and pen girl, and, insert three segments of time for us or for our friends. It doesn't have to be an entire afternoon,

Beverly: 32:30

right?

Lisa: 32:31

It might be a walk with a friend for 15 minutes.

Beverly: 32:35

But I think

Lisa: 32:35

we need to think of these things and put some priority on those as well, not just the darn to do list.

Beverly: 32:42

The darn to do list. I'm obsessed with to do lists. But you need to be on the to do list too. I think that's the key, is just to make sure you're a part of the to do list that you have. So if you're looking into the future, and you're looking at your long term legacy and the vision you have you're going to be continuing to evolve and adapting your business as things evolve and adapt. What do you see as the trends in your industry? What do you see is happening with this idea of grief and connecting and coaching on your end? I

Lisa: 33:17

really don't think that is ever going to go away. Sadly I think that there's going to be more and more need. For support as we get older. Even I look at my son's generation, 24 year old guys, he has friends that he talks to about sad stuff or about losing his sister. And I think we're seeing this generation coming up that are a whole lot more emotionally intelligent than we ever were. And because of that, I think the need more people are going to be accessing therapy, counseling, group coaching, call it what you will, but so I don't see that going away. I think the need is greater. What I can see if you want to call it a trend, I don't know. Is that there's going to be more need for niche specific support. I think we're anybody who's listening. That's an entrepreneur knows that. You can't be everything to everybody. Like I said earlier, I am, a grief educator and speaker and author specifically for mothers who have lost a child and more specifically teens or young adults. Like you can see how specific that is. Immediately people find my stuff there. It's either a quick yes or no. Like this lady is for me or she's not. And we have to be okay with not being people's cup of tea. But I think the more niched we are in our businesses, the better off we're going to be.

Beverly: 34:52

Even if it was only a hundred people who've had that experience, which I know there's far more that you serve is, this is my story. I am one of you. I have a shared experience. I've gotten through the other side. This is how I did it. And it may not even be, I've gotten to their side. I'm still struggling with it. Even what does that look like eight years later? There's a lot of phases to grief. It never fully goes away. You learn to live with it, but it never fully leaves you. It changes you fundamentally. You've been, on that path and you know what it looks like for somebody who's just starting on that path. So there's so much about grief that isn't, it's just not as clearly defined and having people who know the path and helping people through the path, I think is really important.

Lisa: 35:36

When we lost our daughter, to me, that was the ultimate loss, now that I'm further out from that still carrying it, but I see loss in everyday life that everybody is facing.

Beverly: 35:47

I just

Lisa: 35:47

had a conversation on my podcast about empty nesting. When our kids move out and that that empty yuck feeling, that's grief. Or, it doesn't have to be loss of person, even retirees, people transitioning, in midlife from full time day job, normal thing to retirement. They feel a sense of loss of identity, purpose sometimes. And that's where a lot of my coaching, even as a grief educator, it might seem weird. But how that has just rolled so beautifully over into coaching women through burnout, because I think a lot of what we're feeling is grief of our youth, grief of, so many things.

Beverly: 36:33

You've been growing your business, now let's talk a little bit about the business side of things. You've been growing your business. Has there been one marketing tactic or a campaign type or a tool that you've used and tried and were actually like surprised by its success? I would say

Lisa: 36:51

that the whole get in in front of the camera thing, I fought it for a long time. I am not a runway model. I am not, I don't have abs of steel, I am Joe average girl kind of thing. And, my house does not look like it came out of a magazine and, the whole thing. So I really resisted. I felt so much friction with that whole idea of having to be perfect, but I feel like when we can be ourselves and we can be authentic. And you know what, you might see a pile of dishes in the background or something, here's Lisa, here I am. And I think people really resonate with that more than the dang perfection. If I had any words of wisdom to anybody is be yourself, try not to, I know it's easy to look at somebody else who's really, appears to be knocking it out of the park and try and be more like them. But just don't just be you because people are going to just love you and follow you and sign up for your stuff

Beverly: 38:02

for

Lisa: 38:02

you, and that really ties into what we were talking about earlier are all these preconceived notions of how we should be. People are tired of that. So tired of that. They're looking for authentic this.

Beverly: 38:18

There's so much tied to video. I've told all of my clients, you need to do video, like from the last two, three years, since before COVID, like this is where things are going. This is what's happening with social media. You need to be on video. You need to be talking, get in front of people. And I didn't. Six months ago, I said, I think it's time that I take my own advice and just get over myself. And you know what, there are people who don't like me, but they're not the right customer for me anyway, exactly like me are the ones that want to work with me. And that's actually the kind of people I went over with anyway. So it's almost like a self selector, which is perfectly okay. That's actually really good The not being everything to everyone is okay back to your kind of niching thing. Like maybe I'm too much for some people. Maybe I'm not enough for some people. That's okay.

Lisa: 39:04

The more that we can, be like when people can see us and they can hear us and they can hear our words, it just helps them get to know us because I think everything in business comes down to relationships, everything. And, I've been a blogger for years. I love to write. It's something that's very easy for me, messages can get lost in the written word. And people don't really get to know me by reading something that I wrote. They might get a gist of what I'm about, but they don't really, but we do a video like this together, Beverly, or we do a 30 second reel or that's how our potential clients are going to get to know and trust us. Yes.

Beverly: 39:49

The podcast, even it's a whisper in your ear. And how many people get to whisper in your ear? That's a pretty intimate, like activity to whisper in someone's ear. And to, for people to, for my listeners to take the time to listen to what I have to say and let me whisper in their ear and share stories that I know that I think, you Will inspire them in some way, shape, or form is extremely giving to me in many ways. And the hope is that there's value in that, obviously, and then they keep coming back and listening some more, but you're right that the power of the word, whether it's the written, the visual, the auditory, all the senses give you a different aspect of the person. Whether it's the voice, the non verbals, the way someone writes, it just gives you another window to look into that person and see if that's somebody you want to hang out with, do business with. And engage with in some way, shape or form. The more ways you are available, the more ways people will find a way to work with you, be with you, friends with you, whatever that looks like. Is there been a marketing mistake you've made in the past? And what have you learned from it?

Lisa: 40:58

Okay. I've had more than one here, but I am going to, I'm going to sum them up together. And I heard this and I thought I knew better, but I did it anyway. The mistake I made was making the assumption that I knew exactly what my potential clients wanted. And I threw hours upon hours, like I'm going to, I'm going to just guess that it was at least a hundred hours of my time. and my labor into building a course that nobody bought. Had I taken the time to, have a few phone call conversations with people or polls or anything that was going to bring me information, data feedback, call it what you will. I could have Save myself a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears, but I made that assumption and I did the thing and I learned a lot. I built the course I went through, there were, I'm coming to this mindset that there are no failures. But they're just stepping stones, right? Because you always learn something from things, even if they don't pan out. But I would say that would be a big aha moment for me is take the time to do the research, never assume anything.

Beverly: 42:20

I have a question from a marketing perspective from that as you're telling the story, a hundred hours of content. Can be repurposed. Lisa, are you able to take sentences and quotes and things like that and use that in your marketing now? Can you mine from that? I have been, and

Lisa: 42:39

you're right. You have to go back with fresh eyes. Like I literally had to retire it into my computer for a while because I just couldn't look at it because it made me feel so bad. But then when you're, when you are creating content and if you can get to a place where you can actively repurpose. You're golden, right? Like you're saving yourself time, blood, sweat, and tears, all the things. But yes, I've pulled out modules out of that and I've made the mini courses or I've made something a bonus or I've pulled something out and, find, found a different way to repurpose it. So absolutely. You're right.

Beverly: 43:13

The next section I have is the lightning round. So it's a little bit less chit chat back and forth, but it's just rapid fire questions and you just give me your gut answers and have a little fun with it. Okay. So how have you created and maintained lasting connections on your entrepreneurial journey?

Lisa: 43:30

Definitely through social media. which tool? I would say it's morphed. I would say it started in Facebook, morphed into Instagram. And now, LinkedIn seems to be a place where I'm really creating a lot of relationships. I like LinkedIn for relationships.

Beverly: 43:47

If your business had a voice, what word or emotion What resonates from its core, resilience.

Lisa: 43:55

It's the underlying factor in every thing I do. Grief, mental health. The podcast, my coaching, I think we've got to have that before we can take the next step. How would you define resilience? I define it as the ability to bounce forward, not to bounce back because I think when we've been faced with any kind of adversity, we can't go back to the same people we were. I will never be the same human that I was before I lost Katie, but I can bounce forward and being able to do that will get me and anybody else through anything.

Beverly: 44:39

Which book, podcast or entrepreneur has left an indelible mark on your journey?

Lisa: 44:45

Oh, there's so many on my entrepreneurial journey.

Beverly: 44:50

Yeah, if your heart work is intertwined in that, it can start from the, personal move to professional, but somehow has impacted that. Yes.

Lisa: 44:59

This maybe isn't a professional entrepreneurial specifically, but Mel Robbins, I love her shoot from the hip style, she's 55 like I am, she talks about all the things and I feel like I can bring a lot of that into my work, even though she's not directly telling me how to do marketing or she's not directly telling me how to do any aspect about my business. I just love the way she talks.

Beverly: 45:32

She talks a lot about ADHD too, which is amazing. Like she, she is great. I really like her too. I follow her stuff. I want to have her at my dining room table to have like dinner with her. So yes, she's like everyone's best friend.

Lisa: 45:44

Back to what we just said I think Mel is super attractive. I think she's, she's got a lot of things going on, but she's not out there trying to find the best filter or the best this or that. And, She's dishing the stuff in her life that has gone to crap and she's being real and I think that's why people like you and me gravitate to her. So I think that gives me permission to be me at the same time, which I really appreciate.

Beverly: 46:14

What's one unconventional tool or app that has become your secret weapon for success? And how has it revolutionized your workflow?

Lisa: 46:22

It's called voice recorder.

Beverly: 46:25

Yeah.

Lisa: 46:26

And it looks like a little old fashioned tape. Cassette tape, those of us in our generation. And the reason I love this is when I'm putting together a keynote or I'm putting together anything, sometimes I can think things through better if I say them out loud, I'll literally walk around the house with my phone. And sometimes my keynotes have just put themselves together, I can think faster than I can type. So it's been a great little tool.

Beverly: 47:00

What do you do to keep your entrepreneurial spirits alive? How do you feed it?

Lisa: 47:07

I love meeting new entrepreneurs. And since COVID is hopefully behind us going to more networking events and not even going at it as a, I'm a professional and I want to meet other professionals, but just, I want to meet people. I want to hear their stories. I want to, what are you doing in your business? And it might be something totally different from what I do. From a marketing perspective, I bet you when I go to these events, I bet you at least one person that I talk to says, Oh, you got to talk to so and so they're looking for a speaker or, Oh, this person would be perfect on your podcast. And I always go away with something for my business.

Beverly: 47:55

If your business prowled the animal kingdom, which creature would it embody and why?

Lisa: 48:02

Because my word was resilience, the, a picture of a leopard just came into Okay. My mind just stocking in prowling and Yeah, doing it's leopard thing.

Beverly: 48:15

This blaze forward segment that we have next is actually two pronged. I think to look forward, you have to look backwards a little bit. So what is one piece of advice you wish you had

Lisa: 48:27

I am going to say, I know it sounds cheesy, follow your heart. Radiation therapy has been a fantastic career for me. It has served me well, but I would not have chosen that again. My, that was a push from my family. And I think that I, Would have chosen differently and maybe chosen heart work, different heart work earlier on.

Beverly: 48:54

What do you think you would have chosen?

Lisa: 48:57

I would have chosen something where I could use my creativity and use compassion and bring all these other things in just in a different way.

Beverly: 49:09

Yeah. What practical advice would you offer to a small business entrepreneur who's either just starting or maybe pivoting right now to jumpstart their journey, like helping them seize an opportunity or it's a strategy or an approach that they could put into action right now. I'm going to

Lisa: 49:30

give you

Beverly: 49:30

two.

Lisa: 49:31

Okay. For one, I think. Absolutely, hands down, get connected, find an entrepreneurial group in your community that gets together, whether it's once a month, once a week, whatever it is, get involved, those people are going to help you. And number two is to get a coach, I totally think, and I am living proof, you can DIY it, it's going to take you 10 times as long, 10 times as much money, 10 times as much blood, sweat and tears. If you can invest in finding the right person to help you, you are going to grow faster, you're going to be happier, you're not going to be as burnt out. And I just think if you're starting out, do it the right way. Start with a coach.

Beverly: 50:20

All good bits of wisdom that we all should have followed earlier in our lives. So before we go, Lisa, please share with our listeners where they can learn more about your business and how to keep up with all the latest things that you're doing.

Lisa: 50:34

The best place is to check out my website at rising strong podcast. com and the same handle on Instagram rising strong podcast. And I am over on LinkedIn and it's a long link. That's Lisa K Boehm, author speaker, but if you put in Lisa Boehm, B O E H M, you'll probably find me.

Beverly: 50:59

Thank you so much, Lisa, for joining us today.

Lisa: 51:01

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Beverly: 51:03

So as we conclude this episode really just great wisdom from Lisa. She shared her wealth of knowledge and expertise in mental health and midlife coaching. And to our listeners, I really hope that you found this episode as enlightening as I did. Remember you can implement. Any of the tools and insights that we shared today into your small business, and don't hesitate to reach out to Lisa or myself. If you have any further questions or need assistance with something we talked about today, stay tuned for more inspiring conversations and actionable tips to ignite your marketing journey on future episodes of the Spark and Ignite Your Marketing Podcast. Until next time, keep sparking and igniting.