Foreign.

Welcome to the Own youn Choices on youn Life podcast.

I know you are here wanting to change and rewrite your story.

You are desiring to step into the impact that you know you were here to create.

I am here to guide you with the proven tools and strategies used by myself and our speakers

to support you in taking radical responsibility in your life and learning how

to own your choices to change your story.

My name is Marcia Van Winesburg.

I am a storytelling business coach,

master NLP trainer, speaker, podcaster and seven times published author.

My clients have found freedom and purpose from overcoming their shame stories and learning

how to share them with the world.

I am so grateful you are here.

Let's get started.

Foreign.

Welcome back to the show.

I am so grateful and excited that you get to hear this interview with myself and

my friend Megan Weir.

We are the co leaders of the heartwired CEO

Mastermind and the live event and we are sharing an interview with Lisa Blanchette and

Lisa is one of our members now.

Lisa is a change coach,

a facilitator, a trainer, a midlife catalyst who helps women and leaders navigate moments

when life feels uncertain and everything is up for renegotiation.

After 25 plus years leading transformation across industries and her own journey through

burnout, Lisa guides women in midlife to rewrite the stories that limit them and live a

life that feels like theirs.

She also partners with leadership teams to build alignment, strengthen collaboration and

lead people centric change with clarity and confidence.

Her work blends lived experiences, practical tools and a deep belief that change is

personal,

courageous and possible at any age.

Which it is.

So I'm so excited to be able to share Lisa and her purpose with you.

Welcome to the podcast.

Lisa, Megan and I are so thrilled to be able

to sit down and connect with you.

Happy to be here, both of you.

This is going to be interesting.

It is.

We never know what's going to come up, do we?

So Lisa, let's hear for our beautiful community, who you are, what you do,

and why you are so passionate about this work.

So Lisa Blashette, I am a change coach and also a change management strategist

and for me, at my core, I really am a change coach.

I have had the opportunity to spend a few decades in corporate and also had the greatest

gift to be able to decide to leave.

And when I was in it, I didn't believe I had a choice.

I didn't know there were other options.

And now that I do, I want every woman to know that she has opportunities she can rewrite the

Stories, the beliefs that she either, you know, took on herself or that were, you know,

given to her over time.

And you get to choose.

You get to choose what's next.

And that is really what fuels me, that freedom that I found in knowing who I am.

Cause legitimately, when I was in corporate,

I couldn't have told you, really, what my favorite anything was.

I was so busy on autopilot, just doing life,

that going with whatever was around me that I didn't know those things.

And so getting to know myself has really created that spark for me as to why I want

that in everyone else.

And then the change management part of that comes from that is what I did incorporate.

And I just love watching teams grow.

I love watching teams come together.

I love helping them navigate.

There's the ooey, gooey, messy middle of that.

But there's also what comes out on the other side is this clarity and this knowing that

they can trust each other, this knowing that we can do that thing that seems so difficult

yesterday.

So needed, my friend.

And the crazy thing is, I love it.

I love this change space, which I get called

an odd duck for and other things, and that's okay.

Ooh, odd duck.

People think that's an odd duck.

I love that.

Love change.

Yes.

I want to ask a question about being stuck on autopilot for so long.

What was that like? And when did that turning point moment happen

for you to create a change from that?

I would say I was on autopilot for my entire Life up until 2015.

Wow.

From just the childhood, needing to be the responsible one.

My mom was sick.

I was the oldest, and I got told every week I was also the responsible one with a good head

on my shoulders.

And so that just turned into what needed to be done, got done.

You know, I wasn't the girl that had dreams of getting married in a white dress.

I didn't think about the future very much.

I just thought about today.

What do we need to get done today?

And as that evolved into my career, that evolved into,

oh. What I had to look at was my dad, who worked for the same company's whole life.

And also that was that generation.

So when I stepped into kind of that first big corporate role, it was, ugh,

you're just going to keep advancing.

This is where you're going to retire from.

This is a thing you're going to keep doing.

And, you know, it was reinforced because I was

very successful.

I continued to climb the ladder.

I did all the things and early in 2015,

and I mean, even the year before that.

I didn't use the word burnout because I didn't

know it in 2015,

but what it was was I was beyond exhausted.

My doctor really wanted me to take time off work.

I was too stubborn, because that's another trait that I've had to focus on, the

stubbornness.

Because not only did she know want me to take time off for my mental and my physical health,

because there were some real concerns.

But my marriage was on the rocks.

I rarely had quality time with my son.

I was commuting downtown every day.

So I was up before he was gone and many days home after he was in bed.

And friends?

Hmm.

No time for those.

So that connection was also.

Something was very much missing in my life.

And in that last year with that organization,

I got put into a role that just didn't match me in any way, shape, or form.

And it was a shock, but it was a moment of, this cannot be it.

This cannot be what I'm meant to do.

I cannot live like this.

I felt so disconnected from everything.

It didn't feel okay anymore because I had had that feeling before of disconnection, but it

just wasn't okay anymore.

And it was that then.

Making a choice.

It was making the choice that this was not going to be the life for me anymore.

And eventually being blessed with the opportunity to leave that organization.

And I took off.

Eight, nine months.

And I got to know who Lisa is.

And I went away for a couple of days for the first time by myself ever.

I sat in my own silence.

The WI fi was not working.

There was a giant snowstorm.

All the things the universe wanted to make

sure that I wasn't getting distracted by things.

And over that course of time, I got to know.

Start to know who I am.

And that reinforced that there is something very much more here.

I don't know what it is, but I absolutely know that I'm going to find out what it is and find

that glimmer of possibility and choice.

So much power in taking the pause, isn't there?

Very much so.

It is something I talk with my clients about a lot.

You know, we get so caught up in the do, do, do, but we are human beings, not human doings.

Mm.

Oh. It is so much a part of what, you know, how we need to show up every day is

in that pause.

Yeah.

And when you can take an even longer pause, all the better.

Yeah. Where the power pauses are the catalyst for you to take those power

moves.

And I commend you, especially being in

corporate for taking that time away to refill your tank.

Because that's not something that is easy to do, is it?

Not at all.

And not something that anyone else

understands.

Right.

There was a lot of shame and judgment as to

why I wasn't jumping back into that next thing, Going to work for the competitor, et

cetera.

Yeah, like,

no, no, no. Because, of course,

being the responsible one, I hadn't really let anybody in on how bad things were in my life.

I hadn't talked about any of those things with anybody that was around me.

So why wouldn't I just jump into that next thing?

Yeah.

Truly, this is such a potent conversations, specifically for those that are

on autopilot and you being the change catalyst that you are, Is it easy for individuals who

are on that autopilot to implement change that can really take them in a direction that's

completely different from the way they're living today?

Easy? No, we want it to be easy, but it's not easy.

Because even though I was on autopilot and anyone else that is,

you are still making choices.

You're making choices to be on a pilot.

You're making choices to not make other choices.

And all the behaviors and the habits that come with that for me at that time was 42, 41 years

I've been doing things.

I've been living life that way, been doing all

those things.

And so to then figure out, well, oh, wait a minute, but if I turn that switch off bit by

bit, every little aspect and big aspect of my life, I now need to make decisions.

I now need to do something different.

I need to.

To show up and have just even the simple thing as a new habit, which habit.

I'm not trying to simplify habits, but it is just that you can create one new habit, but it

is just a small piece of that.

So it is not easy.

No,

it's that sense of urgency or that sense of, like, where I am now,

not anymore, I am done.

And knowing that it's not gonna be easy,

but it's going to be worth it,

and it's going to be, oh, so much better than where my life was before.

That's a topic that so many people can.

I know people feel autopilot, like, stuck in burnout.

Now that you've been on this journey yourself, what are some of the cues that you catch

yourself where it's like, oh, I think I'm going in not the direction that I should be.

Like, how do you catch yourself when it's like, I'm not going back to where I was.

But I know that this is not the direction for me.

Yeah. I think one of the ones that is more tactical is your calendar.

Some of the habits that I worked on for kind of the first five years after leaving

corporate was to create space for myself.

So the pause.

But I. I talked, you know, for myself, to create space for myself.

And that means a lot of things to me.

But the tangible, tactical way that shows it

up is in my calendar.

And it's blocking time aside,

whether that's my morning routine or some specific park that I go to two or three days a

week, it's that time.

And it's noticing that.

Huh.

I haven't been doing whatever that thing is for you.

So, you know, for me, I haven't been going to Louisville or I haven't been spending that

five or 10 minutes stretching and doing my journaling in the morning.

So it's the awareness and the noticing of that.

But I say the calendar because it's looking at your calendar and going,

okay, it's Friday.

You look back and you think, huh,

I feel.

Fill in the blank.

Whatever that is for you.

I feel exhausted.

I feel over whatever.

And you look at the calendar and you go, huh.

That time that was supposed to be mine,

I was doing something else.

Or. And maybe I'm.

I wasn't always doing something else, but I

was focused or worried or doing some other things that didn't allow me to.

That space that I know for me, is so important.

Mm.

Yeah.

We spoke about this at the live event, but it's like taking that oxygen mask first for

yourself right before anybody else.

Doesn't matter how much you love the other

person.

We're no good to the other people if we aren't taking that mask first.

Yeah. And I do think, Meg, that that comes across very cliche, especially for

women,

and that as women, you know, we don't really know how to be selfish and put in that oxygen

bow on ourselves.

What do you mean?

I'm not going to put it on my child first.

What do you mean? I'm not going like.

No, you're not.

You have to put it on yourself.

And I think, you know, I know that's been one

of many threads through this journey for me, is making that choice.

And this word selfish isn't even a word that I think about in that space.

It's a choice.

The choice is, I'm putting myself first today.

Yeah. It's that simple.

And it's because I need to put myself first,

not just in the oxygen analogy to Be able to help others.

But I also need to put myself first.

Cause I can't go and live my big *** dreams if

I am not doing that right.

Ultimately, those dreams are gonna help even

more people.

So it, it is in the big picture, similar, but it's very important for me.

Yeah, I'm just gonna say louder and louder and louder just exactly what you're

saying, because so many people need to hear that message.

And I'm so curious because you are so convicted in this message in the way that you

share it, which I love.

If people are almost curious and they're looking going, okay, I know I'm in an

autopilot.

I know I'm feeling burnt out.

But I listened to how Lisa's saying, like, put myself first.

And I'm like, I don't have a clue how to even do this.

I mean, we also know even just not asking for help or putting yourself in a position to

receive help, the whole armor of I'm going to do it myself.

So if they're looking at it, what are some of the things.

I know you said calendar.

Is there anything else where people can get

started to recognize? Like, where are they not prioritizing

themselves?

Well, I think so.

Not prioritizing self, but prioritize by doing

something small.

So, I mean, like, you make one different

decision today.

You don't have to try to tackle all of these things or say that every time someone asks me

if I want to go out, I'm going to say no because I need to stay home and do my.

My own thing.

Well, because that's not necessarily true for you.

But the next time that somebody says, hey, can you do this for me?

Or hey, do you want to go here?

Before you automatically say yes,

Even if inside you're resenting that and not wanting to.

But before you say yes, you pause and the pause might even be another couple seconds.

And what you may,

you know, practice saying, let me get back to you,

or no. And I know for a lot of women going right to no is difficult, which is why I'll

work with my clients.

Like, let me get back to you,

or I'll let you know tomorrow.

Because the no seems, oh, I can't say no.

But yes, you can.

And you just have to do it just once today, just once, and then do it once tomorrow.

Could be on completely different things.

Because when you say no to whatever that ask is,

you are actually prioritizing yourself.

You're saying yes to yourself.

Mm,

I love it.

I love it, love it, love it.

And I'm curious how much has your own quality of life changed over the last 10 years while

you're doing this work?

And as well as pouring into clients, doing the work that you love doing.

Night and day doesn't.

I just got chills when you asked me that

because I haven't yet really kind of found the words to describe that transformation for me.

I mean,

there are the people like, you know, of course, like my husband, that have been in my

life throughout this journey.

Still, 10 years later,

he'll be surprised by something that I say that I either want to do or like something we

should go and, you know, look at or whatever it might be.

Because before the life was I worked.

I just worked all the fricking time.

So when it even came to the weekend and there were plans with a grandparent, he took my son

and they went because I was still working on the weekend.

It happens less often now, but it still happens where it's like, oh, wait, you want to

come? But in the beginning, like, I would get ******

off.

Like, you're not asking me to come with you or

you, I want to come with you.

And he's like, well, no, because, like the last 20 years, you haven't.

And I also have so many new people in my life now that were not part of my life 10 years

ago.

A lot of people aren't here anymore in my

life, in my space.

And so it's been a difficult journey to kind of, you know, to bring to words for me.

But night and day,

I am just in every facet.

I am not the person I was in 2015.

In every way that I prioritize my health, I prioritize taking space,

but it's me doing it.

But it's also me.

Then in every second, in every conversation,

I'm doing that for others.

It's constantly reminding.

It's like a little mini, like the coach in me.

It's who I am.

It doesn't go away.

It's not something I just do with my clients.

It's who I am because I know what's possible

when you choose to change your life.

And thank goodness you had the courage to take the pause.

Hey, hell yes.

Yeah,

it's mind boggling.

Would you agree how many people are running?

Like, whenever I meet with my clients, I'm like, okay, where are you at?

0 to 10, stress level,

7 or 8 out of 10.

And it's normal.

Especially in corporate, I'm like,

far out.

So how does one experience your work? How do they learn more about you?

Tell us all the things.

All the things.

Well, so they can experience my work, you know, from just from a social media

perspective, from following me.

This is Tennessee.

The things that I'm sharing, the things that I'm talking about.

But really there's two kind of core areas for me.

One of them is leaders as well as women in midlife and working with them from a coaching

partnership.

For me, partnership is the key aspect there.

So there's.

Especially if we think about in midlife, there

is so much going on in our own lives.

Right.

We are depending on if we're moms, we are

probably, you know, moving into that empty nest.

We've also got parents that we're now taking care of potentially.

We're deciding that enough is enough.

There are career changes.

There are changes based on relationships and

health, things going on.

And nobody taught us how to manage all of this change.

It's not something we went to school with.

It's not a life skill that anybody realized

that we should all have.

And so it, for me, it really is a gift.

And it's an honor to be a part of someone's

journey to help them through that.

And it's a similar journey in the corporate

space, in the teams.

Because when you take a team,

think of restructuring.

And even if you only change one person on that

team, which it's often more than that,

you've changed the complete dynamics of that team.

But you also, in a restructuring,

you change people's roles and responsibilities.

So now that the organization changed things for those humans,

those humans didn't put up their hands and say, I want a new job.

And as an organization, you have a responsibility when you change the rules to

support your teams through that.

And that's really as my other gift for me is

helping those teams get clarity.

Because at the end of the day, we show up to work and we all spend a lot of time at work,

and we don't show up there to fail.

And. But what we're really seeking is clarity.

What is my job?

How do I do it well? How are you going to define me doing it well?

And so those are kind of the two really empowering spaces for me that I'm magic.

You certainly are.

I love that you own that.

I love that you own that.

Well, Lisa, we've had the honor, the absolute honor of working with you over

the last.

As we record this 11 months inside our Heartwired CEO mastermind.

Hard to believe we've been together this long.

Cause it just feels like yesterday.

And yet it seems like you Know, just to witness your growth and evolution over this

last under a year has been profound.

Can you share a little bit about how this experience has been for you?

Yeah, for sure.

So I think I would go back almost a year ago

now.

Exactly.

I didn't know either of you.

And not that I didn't just not know you.

I hadn't even heard of you.

It's not like I was following you on social.

Like, who are these incredible women?

I don't know.

And I still don't know.

Like, there isn't something that pushed me that is tangible.

For me to say, this is why I'm going to jump in and be a part of this program.

I truly believe, like a lot of things in my life, it was a universe.

It was the nudge that I came across Marsha's profile.

I saw a couple things and thought, oh, there's something very familiar about her.

I've never met her, I don't know who she is.

And then, oh, look, there's this heartwar at

SEO Heartwar.

That's how I live my life.

I talk about heart centered change.

It's how I invite leaders and organizations to lead change.

I'm like,

I'm intrigued.

Little did I know what I was stepping into though, because the way that you guys shared

in terms of, it's the blend of masculine and feminine energy, it's the strategy as well as

the body.

Yeah. So the first couple of times that Meg introduced her magical work,

the first time in particular,

what the heck is this?

What is she trying to get me to do?

And okay, I'm gonna roll with it.

Cause that's the choice I've made for this

year.

I'm gonna roll with it.

But I don't know what this is and I don't know why I'm doing this.

It was.

That feeling was only slightly less there the

second time that you had us doing whatever that was probably so not that one, I'm

guessing.

But I'm like,

okay, I don't know what this is, but I have worked really hard to choose curiosity over

judgment.

So that's exactly what took over for me in those instances.

I didn't understand it.

I appreciate it, but I, I wouldn't put myself in the understanding bucket of a lot of your

work, Meg.

But I feel it.

I know that things have changed.

And then the combination of the integration, the balance that you two bring,

it makes that support feel like it's well rounded and it's, you know, if one of you is

sharing something and then the other one.

And maybe, like, we're looking at you like,

huh?

And then the other one will then say something that connects the dots for us.

Right.

And you just play off of each other so very

well that way.

It's been.

And I can't believe the year is almost up, but

it's been an incredible experience.

I can't either thank you for sharing what you just did.

And I mean, I think it's such a beautiful thing because we've just really loved being in

this space and supporting and seeing each of you grow in so many incredible ways.

And I love how you said curiosity over judgment.

We were laughing about this earlier.

This was me probably a year and a half, two

years ago, just curious as to what this is, because I didn't even really understand it, to

be honest.

And I know it's changed me in so many ways, and I'm so grateful to be able to do this

work, even if I still don't always understand it.

It's okay, Lis.

Right, Exactly.

That's the beauty of the choice, that I don't

have to understand it.

And that would be like another one of those

huge differences over 10 years.

Ten years ago, everything was planned out.

I had to know every next step that was happening, whether it was personal.

And now.

Yeah,

well, that's the power of this work.

That's intangible.

Right.

Like, and I've shared this before, but, you

know, within my own masterminds that I led, I always said, there's going to be a part of

this experience that doesn't make sense.

And you're going to be questioning, why are we doing this?

Why did I invest this money into receiving this?

And it's the intangible work that allows you to create tangible action.

Would you agree?

Absolutely. And I think the rational part of me goes back to what a saying

that I use, which is that we're human beings on human doings.

And to me, that is very much what I have felt, is that more of that.

I can describe it exactly.

But this is different in here.

And the capacity that I have to then manage and do all the wonderful things I want to do

on a day or a week or whatever is much greater because there's a better foundation, it's

clearer,

and it has increased my capacity and it has reduced so many of those.

You know, like you said, there's so many people that just work on a 7, 8 level of

stress because it's in here, which is what I mean.

Marci probably would agree.

It's what makes it Harder to explain.

It is.

And. And I think that most people, though, I.

I mean, whether they're entrepreneurs, they're in corporate, they're in business.

Like,

if you ask them if they are wanting to learn how to grow their capacity, the answer is yes.

Like, yes, I want to know.

And I do believe there is a thought that it's.

I have to do more.

That was always my belief.

I. It really was.

Right.

Because that's, you know, we get measured on the things that we do and the

titles that we have,

even ourselves.

We get measured when our to do list.

And we check all those items off.

Right. Like, how many women.

And I mean, it's.

It's men and women, I'm sure will add things to the to do list.

Oh, yeah, check them off.

Yeah.

It's the doing.

We have been brought up in a world of doing.

Yeah,

a hundred percent.

And we all want this capacity piece.

But it's not like our nervous system is this balloon that just continues to grow and grow

and grow and grow.

It's. We have this nervous system that's cluttered, filled with past memories, events,

experiences that our body's been holding onto.

And this is the intangible work where we get

to clear away that clutter,

that excess debris, so we create more spacious, more breathing room.

So, yes, we're increasing our capacity.

Our nervous system isn't changing shape or

form.

It's just clearing what no longer serves.

So that's the intangible piece that is like,

oh,

I have so much more capacity to continue to grow and scale and expand to that next level

without having to do said 10 steps that are totally against my body's blueprint.

Very well said.

Exactly.

Just kidding.

I'm gonna leave that there.

Is incredibly well said.

It's so interesting, though, because, you know, I think with capacity,

it's while doing this work, you can start to look back and say, wow, like, how I'm handling

this today is different than a year ago.

How many different opportunities I'm holding now is different than a year ago.

And the shoe drops over here, and my reaction's different.

Like, you start to notice those things, and it's like, oh,

capacity.

Like, you get to hold more.

I often laugh when people say, you know, the start of the new year and my goal is

expansion.

I'm like, well, get ready, because you've got

to learn how to hold the opposite first.

And that's where it can be such a challenge.

So I applaud you for still one of my favorite

stories of somebody who just found us and really jumped in.

And I think that this is such a message because, yes,

you do.

You know, for the most part, people have to get to know you and.

And build that trust, et cetera.

And we were doing a lot of that and showing up

and sharing.

But when you let people see who you are and you're authentic with that,

but also see, like, that we are who we say we are, like, I think that that's an important

piece.

And you've also were able to make that

decision that it's just such a great story because you literally connected just from

Instagram profile alive.

And then we started to have a conversation.

And I love that.

Yeah. And a younger version of myself would think that's absolutely nuts.

Right?

Right.

But this version of me is right.

There's a reason why I saw that.

I don't need to know what it is, but I just

trust.

Trust.

I. I trust in myself, I trust in the universe, and I trust that this is okay.

This is showing up for a reason.

So then curiosity kicks in.

Right. And I think, you know, it's.

Curiosity kicks in, and it's also going back

to where we kind of started that, creating space.

So I have space intentionally in my life to explore that curiosity.

Yeah. Not just another thing that I gotta go back and look at, maybe.

But no, I have space to explore what that looks like and what it also feels like.

And I know part of that was that the way that I saw you guys showing up was a piece of that.

I didn't know that back then, but I do know that over the last few months.

Right.

That is because one of my top values is

authenticity.

And it's like, oh, look, that's what that looks like.

This doesn't feel fake.

It doesn't feel forced.

It just is.

And that is the thing that I am focused on.

Mm.

And it just continues to give permission, doesn't it?

It's just.

It's permission that you get to share who you are,

because then your clients will find you.

People will find you.

Those connections are made when people get to see who you are at the core.

Mm.

Yep. And we all, as women, need to give ourselves multiple permission slips to do

all the things and to be all the things.

Yes.

Isn't that the truth?

Mic drop right there, my friend.

Well, it has been such an honor, Lisa, to walk alongside you over these past 11 months.

So excited to see where this next year takes you and beyond.

You're just getting started.

I am just getting started.

And I love that you have both been a part of

this journey.

We are so grateful.

We're so grateful.

And the tools and skills and everything that you get to help people with will help so many

people because this is something that is only continuing to be an issue for people.

So I'm so grateful that you're doing this work.

Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Own youn Choices.

Own youn Life.

If you love this episode, I invite you to tag

me on social media with your takeaways or share it with a friend.

Please. If you Feel called, take 30 seconds to leave a five star review and I will be forever

grateful.

Until next time, Remember, when you own your choices, you truly own your life.

Sam.