Lisa’s Second Mountain

 

 

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Listen to Episode #17 here

 

Lisa’s Second Mountain

Could you imagine starting over and pursuing a new remarkable life? My guest co-host and I speak to an old friend of mine, Lisa Slavid, who’s starting a new chapter or as we conclude, she’s beginning to climb her second mountain. She is a great guest because of her remarkable solo life. She’s also an expert in strategic planning and gives you some tips about how to become a better planner, including how to plan to climb your second mountain. We covered a ton of great topics including asking whether you have money problems or time problems or perhaps both. We discussed the book, The Four Agreements, and the dangers of human domestication. I disclosed how much I like it when people bet on themselves. I also cried in the interview. One last thing. Do you want to get involved in helping get the Solo word out? Do you have some social media skills and want to help? If you do, please let me know. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Let’s get started.

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Our guest is Lisa Slavid. Lisa is an expert in strategic planning, positive psychology, strengths building, motivation, and innovation. She has many years of experience designing learning workshops, programs, and keynote speeches. She’s also working with organizations from corporations, universities, and nonprofits. She’s an organizational consultant and executive coach, a Semester at Sea trustee and the Director of Organizational and Performance Management at UC Santa Barbara. Lisa is also the Creator of Peadoodles, the cartoon. Welcome, Lisa.

Thanks, Pete.

We are joined by a guest co-host who was a previous guest on the show, Isabella Imani. Isabella is an LA-based relationship and behavioral coach specializing in helping clients through inner alignment and goal setting. She has several years of experience in personal development and partnering with the leadership of Fortune 500 companies such as Blue Cross Blue Shield, Live Nation, Viacom, and Paramount Studios. She’s also a professional speaker and previously worked in HR and operations. She was the guest on the emergency Corona pandemic episode. Welcome, Isabella.

Thank you, Peter.

It’s great to have both of you here. Lisa, I thought we would start by asking you to tell our audience and Isabella how we know each other.

We know each other because we both started as resident directors in 1994 at the University of California Santa Barbara. I feel like I remember meeting you in the interview venue and you don’t remember that.

I don’t remember that. First of all, Lisa and I were both alive in 1994 and eligible to work.

We were RAs with Master’s degrees.

We manage residence halls. We were paid not well to manage residence halls at UC Santa Barbara. I managed San Nicolas and you were in Santa Cruz.

I was in Santa Rosa, the first residence hall at UC Santa Barbara.

It was a hard job, at least the first year.

There was a lot of transition.

Lisa and I became good friends, close, thrown into the fire.

I remember a sunset walk because it was also at the beach, so it wasn’t that hard. We had a top ten list of top ten things that don’t suck.

We did? It sounds like such a thing we would have.

Especially with Letterman at the time.

Do you remember any of those things?

Working by the beach was one of them.

It was an idyllic location. This is in Goleta, which is about thirteen miles North. Anything else that people need to know about us knowing each other? I don’t remember meeting you during the interview process.

You were in one of the foyers and we’d said hi to each other. You said, “I think everyone here is a potential new colleague, so I’m going to make friends.”

Do you have any embarrassing stories from one another that you can share?

I’m sure Lisa has some about me.

Yes, but I’m not sharing them.

I don’t mind. If they come up, please don’t hold back. I’m sure that was funny. I will tell people what I remember about Lisa. One of the great things about Lisa was, first of all, she was highly competent. She was good at this job. She’s whip-smart but then she also has this creative artistic side, which I remember her exploring. Even back then, you were drawing a lot if I remember correctly.

I think I drew us and our two friends, Steven Kenay, all as Simpson characters back then.

We were both mostly single back then. Sometimes some things don’t change. We were not as good at it as we are. There was a lot more angst and anxiety. I felt like a little bit of a fish out of water. I was an East Coast boy. I’d moved there from New Jersey. I dressed like an East Coast boy. Up to that point, I had a very provincial life. I hadn’t traveled much. I was excited about going West and then I ran smack into this challenging job as a 24-year-old. It was useful to have a good friend like Lisa that I could rely on both personally and professionally. We would go on walks and talk and so on. We had some other friends, Steven Kenay who have since been married and have two children. They live in Santa Cruz. We would do burrito nights. We would play cards. That was probably weekly or biweekly. It used to happen frequently.

You used to grade us on how we made our burritos.

I still do that sometimes, how well people wrap their burritos.

What’s the strategy here?

Don’t overstuff, that’s the first thing because otherwise, your burrito becomes a Tostada.

If you make it too wet, it starts to fall apart and then you get an F on your burrito.

I get a lot of C. Steven got good at it and he’s a competitive person. I’ve done burrito nights my whole life. I retired them in the last couple of years, but I did twenty-plus years of hosting burrito night. It’s a big winner. People love burrito night.

I can’t wait for the next one. We’re going.

We’ll see, but burrito and I had a long run. Anything else that comes to mind that we need in terms of basic?

The thing too is we would talk about more than just work. It was cool to hang out with you because you were curious about other things. I got to hear a little bit of an inkling of where you’re going to go with your doctorate about, “Why would that be?” You’re positing questions. That’s what I enjoyed.

It’s fascinating that Lisa and our lives have diverged in many ways. We’ve come back together and there are some interesting parallels that are happening. It’s funny how that is. Lisa stayed at UCSB and moved around the university a bunch. I left and I went to all places like Columbus, Ohio to do a PhD. We did have some other things in common. We both went on Semester at Sea multiple times. We both date women. Lisa was probably dating more women than I was back then.

For me, as an aside, I had always had a very progressive attitude. I grew up in a diverse neighborhood. I was the white boy in a black neighborhood growing up. I went to a diverse state school and had lots of different types of friends, but Lisa was my first close gay friend. Our entire staff was incredibly diverse at the time. There were six hall directors. I was the only straight white man for at least one of those years. The nature of the conversations, the perspectives and so on, I was open to it all. For me, it pushed me way ahead of a lot of my peers in life.

Lisa stayed and I left. I did this academic career. I’m back in Southern California on sabbatical. I’m contemplating what’s the future of the next chapter in my life might be like. Lisa’s not contemplating it. Lisa is turning the page. What’s cool about her is I typically have two types of solo episodes. One is with an expert who might be able to impart some wisdom and ideas in the world and one is with someone who’s living a remarkable life. In this one, we have both together. Do you want to talk about the second chapter and what prompted what you’re doing?

For a while, I’ve been contemplating. Working at UCSB has been fantastic, but I’ve been there for many years. Part of the longevity of that has been I’m able to do Semester at Sea and travel four times around the world.

Maybe tell people what Semester at Sea is.

Semester at Sea is an academic program that takes about 500 or 600 college students around the world for academic credit for the same amount as it would cost to be at a land-based campus. We go to about ten different countries. We study on the ship in between ports and then the students go explore sometimes with their faculty in the ports. It’s transformational. The community that forms on the ship is amazing. It’s been cool to get to meet experts from all around the world and hear from them what life was like back in their home campus, company or country.

That has kept me young and also at UCSB for a while. A couple of years ago, I started percolating this little bit of friction between work and some other things I wanted to do. I realized it wasn’t about work, it was about time. The more I thought about it, the more it started quickening. I wouldn’t call it a health scare, but I had a health anomaly in 2019 where my ear was tingling. I call it my Spidey sense. I went and got it checked out and everything was fine, but it was still an anomaly like, “Why is my ear tingling?” During that whole piece, I zeroed in on, “What’s important right now given impermanence?” To me, it was launching this next phase and not waiting five years.

Is impermanence a nice way to say we’re all going to die?

Yes, it’s a nice way but it’s also a wise way.

It seemed less. Isabella talked about this in our previous episode. Words matter. You say bad versus you say challenging.

When that happened for you, was it an immediate realization like, “I got to go do something different.” What was that process where you’re like, “This is the second chapter, this is the end of the first one, this is me leading into the second one?” Was it a gradual process or was it definitive?

It started to feel like a gut process. It involved several beach runs. During the beach runs it got clear about what was important. I didn’t want to lean into or think, “I only have a year left.” That wasn’t the philosophy I wanted to lean into, yet that thought crossed my mind. I leap through to the second part of that, which was “What’s important? What do I want to do? What do I want to put out into the world as my contribution or gifts?” It was a lot more around art and spending time with my family who are spread all around the country and other friends too. That was the time freedom. As soon as I felt this click, it was like going to a life chiropractor and everything aligned like its time.

I like that term of life chiropractor.

I do too. I liked that you talk about alignment. That’s something that I talk about so much in my work. My little tagline for describing what I do is, “Reprogramming subconscious behavioral patterns through inner alignment and goal setting.” The inner alignment portion, at least in the context of my job, encompasses a lot of psychological and coaching frameworks. When you say inner alignment, it’s crazy because that’s targeted energy.

You’re a life chiropractor, Isabella. That’s incredible.

I never thought about that but maybe I should add it to the title. When you started to get this emotional tug of like something feels out of alignment, for some people that can be scary. They’re like, “What do I do? Do I stay in this job?” There’s more or less internal conflict. There are one or two options. You either stay where you are or you move forward and take action. You’re moving forward and taking action. That bravery that comes with it and that courage, can you explain what that process was like for you? I know you’re living it.

Part of my role has been strategic planning. Sometimes I apply that to my life. I was like, “What things do I need to move to make this happen?” Once everything clicked, the decision was going to happen. It was scary, empowering and exhilarating.

How long ago was this?

A year.

I think that’s important.

To share that it was that long of a process?

Big changes don’t happen like they do in the movies. Little changes can happen fast like tidying up. That can have an important effect but big changes, especially if you’re going to undo many years of living in Santa Barbara, working at a university and pursuing a particular career. It takes a lot to make that change.

It’s a huge shift in your mindset.

It was and there was a strategy at different levels. When I decided that, I also decided, “Let me drop down to 80% the time at UCSB and up the consulting I was doing externally.” That was part of the experiment. I also decided, “Let me get out vending my cartoons a little bit more and doing more markets and fairs to see how viable those were.” The third element was UCSB is not just a safety net. It was also thinking about, “This is a meaningful career. How do I wrap it up here?” Also, “What is my work left to be done?” I had a great conversation with my mentor and supervisor, Willie Brown, who had just surfaced here.

He’s brilliant and kind. He gave me a lot of flexibility too. I told him early and he said, “You got to follow your heart and your gut. The other piece is, “If anything changes just let me know.” He also shared when I asked him, “What would you like me to work on this last year?” He said, “Anyways that we can continue to touch people’s hearts and souls here at UCSB.” He’s been a huge reason I’ve stayed and it’s hard to leave but after years of coaching other people, it was clear that I have to follow my own advice. The energy is taking me away from here. I’m grateful to UCSB because I can leave and start healthcare. I can start a pension and not everyone can do that.

I understand. There’s a certain privilege in terms of being solo. If you were married with children, this might become harder. The fact is that you have lower burn rates. I always talk about that. You can reduce the expenses that can allow you to do this. You also took care of business financially for many years in terms of both the place that you worked, but then also I know how you live. You’re an experience type of person. You’re not a material type of person.

That’s an excellent summary.

A couple of quick observations because I want the audience to learn a little bit about strategic planning. I think we should use you as someone who teaches it, talks about it and writes about it, then someone who’s now turning and using it on themselves. One of the fascinating things is that if you’re lucky in life and if you take care of business, your money problems go away but they’re replaced by time problems. You’re either have money problems or time problems. Unfortunately, some people have both. You realized that you have time problems. You are no longer struggling to make ends meet. You were struggling to do all the things that you want to do and most importantly, not do the things you don’t want to do.

This happens a lot in people’s careers. They get good enough, they move up the chain and they start to have more and more responsibilities. Sometimes they get further and further away from the things that get them excited. They’re spending a lot of time around a rectangular table under fluorescent lights talking about stuff that you know deep down is not going to make anything matter. I’m not saying this is for you per se, Lisa. What I’m saying is you go, “I’m not sure I ever want to sit around a rectangular table anymore under fluorescent lights.” That may prompt some changes.

The second thing I want to highlight is I love that you didn’t just jump in. One day you walk in, you hand someone your resignation letter and you’re like, “I’m going out in the world and I’m going to make my new way.” Rather you started to experiment, “What will this next chapter look like?” That’s reminiscent of a previous episode where I talked to entrepreneurs. We talk about, how do you spin up a new business and when do you quit your day job? A lot of that was after trying it out and paying attention until you get to a point where you go, “I can do this or I have to do this.”

I love that you said that too because when I started my company, I did something very similar where I love what I’m doing. I was head of HR and operations for a management company. I loved the company and I’m head over heels in love with everyone there. I realized that there was a disconnect in terms of alignment. I still loved people, but I didn’t love it in the capacity that I was doing it in. It was very similar to you. I was like, “What do I do now? What’s the balance here?” I’m sure we’ve all heard the thing where if you’re going to take that next step, do your regular 9:00 to 5:00 because that’s what pays the bills and incrementally shift out of that. What you can do in the meantime is while you do your 9:00 to 5:00, basically from 5:00 to midnight, that’s when you can devote that time to your passion. You can maybe dabble in it a little bit. Maybe start that website and see what happens. Maybe draw a few of your cartoons that you’re proud of where you’re like, “This feels good. This is doable. Maybe if I attend some more art shows and get some external feedback.” I love that you did that because that’s thoughtful and strategic, which sets you up for success for this next step.

That resonates. It reminds me of Hudson’s Theory of Adult Development and the four quadrants. There are the doldrums, which is the only one you want to gently move out of. Cocooning, which is you’re just getting new information and resting up. The new adventures, where you go out and meet people. Adding to your 5:00 to midnight thing, that’s also a great time to go out and have new conversations with people and hear how they put it together or what they’re exploring. The fourth phase is the go-for-it phase when you’re ready to launch. You can be in different phases for different aspects of your life. The only one that they suggest that you gently move out of is the doldrums.

We don’t know what’s happening with Corona at the moment. It feels like people are doing a lot of cocooning and this is a new thing for them. I live in a world of new adventures and going for it all the time. Probably my problem is I don’t cocoon well. I’m a bad cocooner.

It doesn’t work that way but if you want to call yourself a bad cocooner, go for it.

I think that’s great but what’s interesting especially the doldrums thing can help spur change. Who knows if we’re still alive and things were getting back to normal? I want good to come out of this scare, which is people are thinking about their impermanence. They’re thinking about their day-to-day and starting to think about what a second chapter may be like. If I can ask you this, Lisa, can you give the readers a primer on strategic planning like the basics of it to help orient them, and then how you use those principles as you were moving forward with the second chapter?

I use a model called Appreciative Inquiry, which is building upon what has energy, what gives life and energy to something or what’s going well. It’s not so much appreciative like, “You are great.” It’s appreciative like, “Let’s build upon this.” It builds upon itself.

You asked yourself, “What’s going well?”

As you start to think about planning for what’s next, there’s what’s called the 4-D model. There is an Appreciative Inquiry comment in it. David Cooperrider and Dr. Diana Whitney did a lot of research on this and have great material and books on it too. They made a research that when you do planning with organizations if you give them the opportunity to think about past successes and their strengths, the challenges that come up, they feel more capable of solving. The 4-D model is Discovery, Dreaming, Designing and Delivering.

If I may, it sounds like discovery is this impetus. I recognize that there’s some disconnect between where I am and where I’m at.

Discovery might even be before that. It’s essentially a cycle of renewal. The discovery is a time for reflection. It’s like we go so fast and people are making huge decisions off the cuff, which is a great skillset. What happens when you slow down, get a moment to reflect, talk to other people in the room and instead of fear, build upon some wisdom? The discovery is let’s talk about recent successes. What worked well? What do we feel excited about? What gives us energy? You post questions. There’s an Appreciative Inquiry interview. You post the question of, tell us about your successes. Tell us about your strengths. What’s giving you energy right now? The classic question is what are one or two big bold wishes you have for the future? That’s the dreaming part.

Can I ask you those questions then? I want to flip it back on you since you’re our case study here. I feel like that might be helpful for our readers. I’m curious what was going well, what wasn’t and what was that reflective process like? Sometimes we get paralyzed with fear during that discovery portion of it. Something that I realized when I’m working with my clients and Tony Robbins said this well, is questions are the answers. Sometimes we don’t even know what questions to ask ourselves. When you were asking yourself, “How do I move forward? What is this next stage in my life? What was going well? What ignites this passion in me?” What was that like for you?

It has its own impetus in terms of this ear tingling. For me, all along I was operating under the assumption of time like, “I have time to do this job and to write those books, continue cartooning, do merchandising for that and to consult.” I realized I might not have all that time. There’s a valuable space to this too, which is why a lot of organizations work with what their values are. I also do a lot of work with people. It’s along the lines of The Leadership Challenge by Posner and Kouzes. It’s about what values guide your life. For me, the question that emerges is what’s important and what do I want my contributions to be for this next phase of my life?

The fact that you study and talk about these things, did you start to go, “Maybe I should use some of these things on myself?” Was it that you had your Spidey sense and then it set you down a path and you’re like, “I have this whole repertoire of models that I can use?” Did you fully sit down with a piece of paper and work it out or did you work it through your head as you went on hikes, beach runs and so on?

I worked it out more through my head. I have applied a lot of these models to my life over the years but this was one where I added that element of impermanence to it. Talking about alignment, everything snapped about to not procrastinate this and step into it.

I love that you keep coming back to the word impermanence because something that we find too, especially when we’re goal setting and we’re trying to accomplish our goals. When we can identify as our goals and embody it as being a part of our identity. Those goals are more likely to come to fruition and be more sustainable long-term. When you’re committed to this where you’re like, “I won’t be here forever. What do I do now?” It’s a part of your identity and there’s almost this race against time.

I have this thing I call the Big Day Theory, every day is a big day. Part of the reason I feel that is I have a lot of things I want to do. I’m filling my days, my weeks, my months, my years and I have fewer years than I did. Lisa and I had lunch. I was up in Santa Barbara on business. I saw some old faces. Lisa and I got to catch up one-on-one and it was delightful. I have so much affection. For me, it was an interesting reflective day and seeing a little how the town had changed a bit, seeing how my friends had changed, everyone was 25 years older, we’re not quite.

I walked away knowing that I had made the right choice by walking away from that place. Santa Barbara is a sticky place. It’s hard to leave. The weather’s beautiful. It’s gorgeous. It’s an easy life if you can afford it. I was glad that I went off, had adventures, built a career and done all these things. Lisa then tells me that she’s leaving and I was like, “Wow,” because of the stickiness of it all. I was delighted to hear that because I think Lisa is bigger than UCSB.

The affection is mutual. That was sweet. I’ve been tracking you. You’re big in my life, what you go and explore with The Humor Code, talking to people around the world and taking risks. When you started your quote like, “Every day is a big day,” I jumped. That quote resonates with me. I have a side project in my head thinking about cool people in my life who have neat quotes and I love to draw them with their quote. You need to know that after we met a couple of months ago, you called me a couple of weeks later and you said, “Lisa, I want you to know that I’m excited and proud of you. I love it when people bet on themselves.” That’s been one of my guiding stars through the nervousness part of this.

Anybody out there who’s betting on themselves? I’m a big fan of that.

This is cool to witness too. I know that you guys have a deep relationship and I’m just getting to know both of you in real-time. Have you guys read the book called The Second Mountain? Essentially, it talks about our first mountain more or less is ego-driven. This is a generalizing statement where we’re conditioned to go to school, go to university, get that job, the family and the cars. Some people spend their whole lives trying to reach the top of that first mountain. Many of them don’t. For those that do, maybe it ends there. It’s like we’re expected to get this job, to have that higher-earning salary, to have this family of this idea.

The second mountain is what they talk about, which is where most people don’t ever get to you. If you are fortunate enough to get there, it talks about the importance of the second mountain where it’s less ego-driven. It’s all about how do I serve. Watching both of you talk about your careers and for Lisa especially, coming out of your first mountain. You’ve spoken a lot about this and the common denominator here for both of you is adding value and contributing. You’ve already had your long career at UCSB, but what’s cool is witnessing you go through the second mountain and it’s more about contribution. I’ve heard you say contribution several times which is cool. What I love about also continuing to this conversation, and this is the nerd in me referencing many books, is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. It’s one of my favorite books. It’s a quick and easy read. I know Peter and I talked about this before. It starts in the first five pages talking about human domestication.

Thanks for returning to that because we did not address that enough in the previous episode and I regretted it.

Essentially, what it talks about in terms of human domestication is what I said about the first mountain. We’re expected to fit in these little boxes our thoughts. Who knows if eating ice cream for breakfast is right or wrong? Who writes these rules? The fact that you’re coming out of this and you’re saying, “I had a great career,” and that doesn’t take away from the now that’s a part of you. You’re like, “I’m choosing something more. I know that life is so much more than just what I had here in Santa Barbara.” You’re betting on yourself and you’re saying, “I’m going to take this risk because life is short.” I think that’s powerful to witness, especially in you as well, Peter.

What are the four agreements, to quiz you too?

The first one is the impact of your words. Say what you mean.

Use your word in the service of light and truth.

Always do your best. Even if your best is getting up in the morning, if that’s the best that you can do, you did your best. The other one is don’t make assumptions. The last one is don’t take anything personally. These are powerful and very simple agreements to live by especially as we talk about this with the readers, how to come out of that thought process of “This is what’s expected of me.” Many people, especially SOLO readers are like, “What is expected of me at age 30? What is expected of me at age 50?” Bringing it back to that, who cares what is expected of you? What do you want to do with your life, and then do it? That’s so powerful.

I do think there is something about if you live your life to make other people happy, you’re going to make yourself unhappy.

I do like the first part of that book too. If you’re doing nothing else, learn The Four Agreements. The first part of the book to is about the hundreds of agreements we make with people all the time that we’re unconscious about. That relates to what you’re trying to do with solo living or remarkable life is bringing some of that consciousness out of like, “What are you agreeing to?”

It’s like, “Where does it say that I have to do this?” Lisa, what is the second chapter going to look at? People who are reading are like, “What is this woman going to do?” What are you going to do? Are you in the delivery phase? Are you in the designing phase?

Who knows what phase we’re all in? I’m in the designing phase with some delivery and some experimentation in that too.

To the best that you can, what’s the second chapter or the second mountain looks like?

A quick note too, I have another mentor because when you do leadership development and strategic planning, you get a lot of cool mentors and consultants who work with you. Lou Anne Daly wrote a book that talks about out-dwelling and indwelling, and the journeys of that. Out-dwelling sounds a lot like the first mountain where you’re accumulating things and you’re on the tracks. Indwelling is what’s important?

 

There’s a little bit of a mini-lesson here in a “show don’t tell” way, which is the number of books that you two have referenced. I don’t know if the average person knows this, but books are a cheat code to living a good life. There are these common denominators of very successful people. One of them is that they take care of themselves. They’re good about getting sleep. They eat well and they exercise. Lisa already referenced exercise. Isabella, we were talking about this before. She’s talking about the hike that she’s going to go and the good healthy food that she ate. Reading books is one of those other things. It’s very difficult to find a highly successful person who not only doesn’t read but doesn’t read a lot of books in part because there’s what’s called a compounding effect of reading books. Reading 1,000 books is not 1,000 times better than reading one book. It’s 10,000 times better than reading one book. People might be like, “Another book that I got to read,” but that should be a welcome moment. I’m going to list all of these.

I love that you saw that. Growing up, I had a turbulent upbringing and a non-traditional upbringing in many ways. I didn’t have mentorship. I started college when I was fifteen. We lived in poverty and we didn’t have that. I decided at an early age, I wanted so much more for myself. That’s exactly what I was going to go after and living it. I’m grateful for that. What I realized too is with the turbulent upbringing that I had, that also didn’t allow me the opportunity to have a lot of mentors. A goal that I made for myself, which is one that I live because you are what you do, not what you say will do, is I read a minimum of one book a week. I’ve finished three and then I listened to a podcast.

Let’s not forget about the importance of those podcasts.

They rock especially if you have to stay at home for long periods of time.

What’s cool about it too is unless you’re learning something new every single day, then you’re still reliving. This is where a lot of people get in the same mindset and going back to your impermanence thought. If you’re living, breathing and doing the same thing every day, it’s not going to be any different than it was. Unless you’re constantly learning or you’re challenging yourself to try that new dance class or meet that new person. It’s all about learning and that’s what pushes the needle incrementally. If you do this often enough and it’s a consistent part of your behavior, you’re not going to be the same person months from now. You’re constantly going to be evolving. Going back to your point about books as well, it’s another form of mentorship if you can’t get it directly. It’s also another form of pushing the needle and expanding your mind because it’s your mindset that gets you from point A to point B.

There’s some interesting neuroscience and all that too about how we get stuck in the habits. What happens when we encounter something new and how it activates all types of new neuro-pathways.

Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about that. He is a neuroscientist who talks about epigenetics and how our genes are more or less passed down from generation to generation and our environment plays a factor in our thought. If you are triggered by a certain environment, that will trigger your thoughts. Your thoughts trigger your emotions. Your emotions trigger your behavioral patterns and you get in this cycle until you can elevate your thinking outside of that.

What are you going to do? Tell us everything.

I was trying to think about sometimes it’s more fun to see something visually, but when you’re talking about living a good life, it reminded me of one of my cartoons, Asparagus Tips, which are a bunch of asparagus giving tips. One of them is like, “Get outside for a little bit.” The other one says, “Floss daily.” The third one is saying, “Be Awesome,” but I’d like to edit that too, “Read a book.” I’m going to update that for the show. What’s next is going to be a blend of wherever consulting and coaching takes me and cartooning. There’s a lot to do. People ask me, “Lisa, are you worried about when you don’t have the 8:00 to 5:00 anymore? Ironically, it used to be 9:00 to 5:00 according to Dolly Parton.

I am not worried because this is what my weekends look like. I’ll read, I’ll go for a run, a hike or a walk with friends on the beach, then I’m doing things. I’m thinking about what idea do I want to do over here with the cartoon? What product could I do? What cartoon do I want to draw? Even on the way down here when I’m driving, cartoons pop in my head. They pop in the middle of the night. I have other things I want to do too.

Let’s talk about Peadoodles because we’ve referenced it a couple of times. One thing that you’re going to use is to work on your art, work on Peadoodles as well as other artistic projects that you have. I love your Peadoodles. I remember when it popped up in my social media feed. How many years ago?

I started Peadoodles in 2009, but it started going viral in 2014.

I probably saw it early on many years ago. I’m sure I reached out to you.

You did. You said, “You’re killing it.”

I knew that I had reached out because I was moved by it. Also, because I did one of these little Tiger Woods fist-pumping motions because I knew that Lisa had this in her way back in the day from seeing her doodle and fuss around when we had quiet moments in our life. I was like, “This is great.” I’m going to do a poor job describing Peadoodles. What exactly is a Peadoodle?

They’re mainly one-panel cartoons that play on words. They don’t typically involve people. They started with fruits, vegetables, small animals and inanimate objects. That was fun. When they came to me, it used to be doodling in the margins. I got a tablet and the margin, suddenly I was doodling on the computer and then Facebook opened up to the world beyond the .edu. They embody a lot of my values. Almost 99.9% of them are nonviolent. Celery stalking is necessarily nonviolent.

I have one in front of me. It’s a picture of a four-leaf clover that’s been anthropomorphized. It has a little three-leaf cover with a little smiley face and little tiny arms. It says, “Actually, I feel pretty lucky just the way I am.”

You don’t need to be a four-leaf clover to be lucky.

I’m looking at this one here. It’s a mint leaf cartoon. It says, “You can do it. You’ve got this.” Underneath it says, “Encourage-mint.” I see the play of words. It’s so cute. It’s very charming.

The other one is a small key like a key that you’d put in a lock. It’s with a little face and little tiny arms. It says, “I’m a little door-key.” I could see all of these in you.

My favorite quote is, “A creative adult is a child who survived.” I’m a sucker for a good quote and I don’t know who said it. What I love about witnessing your second mountain in real-time is seeing you as an adult as well as expressing your creativity and this playfulness. I think that’s something that human domestication is lost over time. We tend to take ourselves super seriously for whatever reason. I love seeing the side of you emerge. It’s exciting.

Sometimes I know the name of the episode beforehand. Sometimes it comes to me afterward and then sometimes I get it while we’re doing this. This episode might be called “Lisa Slavid’s Second Mountain.”

It could be the Pea Show like a green pea.

You started doing these Peadoodles. You’re going to be doing more of these as well as these other projects like you were saying the idea of this picture of the person with their saying.

I have lots of it. It just flows. It’s part of the engagement piece. When one’s doing what they love or when I’m doing what I love, it’s generative, it’s sustainable and it just comes. I have over 1,400 of these and they’re all original. I won’t say no one’s ever said encourage-mint before. This was original. If I’ve seen that someone else has done it, I don’t draw it. The field’s gotten a little bit crowded because people love a good food pun. I might have had a little something to do with that. What I want to do with these is there are great opportunities to put them on to apps and all of the emojis and make some merch.

[bctt tweet=”As soon as you feel everything click in your head, it’s almost like going to a life chiropractor.” username=””]

What I love about these is I even got a message from a relative who said, “Lisa, I hope you don’t mind. I sent the encouragement over to somebody who was working internationally and can’t come home and has two kids.” To me, that continually highlights that these little doodles are based on the values of kindness, some humor, and compassion for sure. They’ve become vehicles of love. It’s meaningful to me to see when they get shared. It’s not so much the ego of like, “I have 200,000 likes.” There was a little ego there. It’s more like, “People are using this as expressions of love and caring with one another and to be able to have a little bit of magic.” They’re pixels and then they get spread around the world like that. To me, that’s meaningful.

You talk about your values and I love hearing you say kindness and compassion. Where do those values stem from you? Tell me more about that. That’s a different story for everyone but you as the artist, as the creator wanting to share your art with people.

These stem from my family and from people who I met along the way too, who I also consider family. Lots of mentors, teachers, and colleagues. UCSB is a pretty magical place with great people. I’m honored for all the students I’ve met throughout the years who have also taught me this playfulness. It can be intergenerational playfulness, but the values come from my mom and my dad. They both taught me in their own ways about respect. My dad taught me about always shaking people’s hands and being perhaps a little bit gentler with someone who might be much older than I am. Not to give them firm handshake because they might have arthritis and nuances like that. They’re both compassionate.

My mom is empathetic and compassionate. She was a social worker for twenty years for patients with Alzheimer’s at the VA and also creativity. I remember vividly waking up one morning and my mom had been away on a trip. I woke up and in my room was an easel and a plastic sword, which was cool for me because I loved the whole superhero thing with Wonder Woman. The easel was like art. I was encouraged all along the way and they allowed me to be an imaginative child and with lots of books. The books will stand out to me. I got a little teary-eyed because I love my friends and I’m lucky to have them both still alive. I was supposed to see them but I don’t think I’m going to get to do that.

That’s a beautiful story. What I love about hearing you speak is how you’re bridging your passion with your existence, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that there might still be an element of fear as you’re going through this discovery design phase of your life. Can you talk a little bit more about how you’re able to say, “I’m choosing passion?” Not necessarily over fear because that is coming with you. That’s a part of the entrepreneurial process or life in general. You’re choosing more or less that. You’re allowing your passion to drive the fact that you’re able to burn your boat and pursue this full-time. Can you explain that process? What that’s like for you with bringing that fear and overcoming it in pursuit of your passion?

As much as I have a handle on it, it has been about planning. As Pete said, I didn’t just jump into this. There’s been a year of planning. I also downsized. I lived in an adorable cottage solo up in the mountains. I’m a little bit closer to town with a roommate. My friend, Gary, had an extra room. He was gracious enough to say, “Come on in.” I cut my housing costs by 50%. I took steps that even though that was a big change, this is going to enable me to have more time freedom and just talking to people.

 

You’d be a little less cocooned. You’re placed up in the mountains alone versus you’re down in the city and you have someone who you’re close with.

Making sacrifices for the things that you love is what I heard too because sometimes people are also fearful of that. I know that I was. When I was starting my career, I was like, “My goodness.” I was making a substantial income and I’m grateful for that executive role that I had. I was like, “Am I going to have to lose that in order to pursue this life of freedom that I want?” Thankfully, it didn’t take me too long to build that back up by the grace of God and a lot of hard work. That isn’t always the case. Making those sacrifices, that’s to be expected when you’re pursuing a life of meaningful purpose.

There is something that needs to be stated here. There’s an interesting tension that exists. For someone who’s considering the change that Lisa is and Isabella did, often you take a step back financially. That’s seen as a sacrifice. I’m giving away a steady income and some of the security knowing that check. There’s a Nassim Taleb quote about there’s nothing worse than a regular paycheck in terms of living your best life because it can make you lazy. It can make you play it safe and play it secure and so on.

In the case of Isabella, we were already seeing this. You might have taken a step back temporarily, but you’re doing financially as well as ever with your own and on your own terms. What is going to be fascinating for you, Lisa, and this is not a requirement of your second mountain, but it’s a possibility of a second mountain. If you allow yourself to dedicate more time and energy resources to your art, your art is scalable in a way that your university job is not. You might end up making less money for the next 25 years than you did in the previous 25 years. That would be fine. You can do it, no problem. There’s a chance that you just don’t make the same amount of money, but you make ten times the amount of money as a result of that. Your Peadoodles bring people joy and people will pay for value. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with turning art into commerce. What I’m excited about is to see what could happen as Peadoodles moves from 10% of your efforts to 50%.

I’m excited about that too. I was always hesitant to make my artwork for me, to put pressure on these little ones. I don’t feel like I’m doing that. I feel like I’m making art and I’m trusting the universe and putting it out there and seeing what happens. You’re right, it’s scalable and even if it’s not, I’ve invested my time where I wanted to.

This is not a requirement for your second mountain. It’s the potential of the second mountain. It wasn’t going to happen if you’re still doing your 9:00 to 5:00 or whatever it is.

If I can acknowledge this and I don’t mean to be political with it but to me, I often wonder, if we did all have healthcare, what other dreams people would be pursuing?

This is an interesting thing about this country which is, on one hand, it’s one of the better countries in the world to be an entrepreneur and to be innovative as demonstrated by the great innovations that are being produced. The question becomes, if there were some systematic changes and you don’t have to tie your healthcare to a job, might people take more risks?

Do more of their passions, grow more things, whatever that might be.

Entrepreneurship is all about risk and reward, it’s correlated. I want to ask about your switch, your move down the mountain. You have a Facebook post. I’m not on Facebook much, thankfully. I have been a little bit more because I’ve been trying to get the word out about SOLO. I’ve leaned a little bit back into it. I came across one of your Facebook posts. Lisa writes, “Being a strategic planner, I’ve been very methodical about my upcoming move. I’ve known for over three months that I would be moving. I’ve been sorting, giving things away, upcycling,” What’s upcycling?

It’s re-using something. The simplest example is, “This shirt has holes in it. I will use it to clean.”

“Marie Kondo-ing (truly letting go of things and lightening up), properly disposing of things and donating to my favorite local thrift store, yet here I am with moving week being this week and somehow still finding myself in that phase of, ‘Holy shit, this is still a lot of stuff’ and dropping things haphazardly into boxes and bags. My conclusion, there’s no escaping that part of moving, at least for me. Kudos to those of you who have reached this level of adulting.”

They got even crazier. If you saw my car. I’ve moved but there are still things in my car. I don’t know where they go. There’s no sense to what is in the boxes.

I noticed that because I went through a little a similar thing. I’ve learned that thankfully early in life. I had to pack up the house that I had been in for ten years in order to have renters and move into my box in the sky. I needed many fewer things. I also love a good tidying up process both emotionally and psychologically. I had exactly the same thing. I started way early and as it was approaching, I was like, “There’s a lot to do.”

[bctt tweet=”It’s great and exciting to have people bet on themselves. ” username=””]

This is a friendly reminder to people. You want to start early on things as a result of that. There is something that’s freeing about that experience. What makes tidying up difficult is something called loss aversion. You’ve got this t-shirt. Sometimes there’s a psychic value associated with a t-shirt like an important concert, an important person or important time in life. The average t-shirt, there’s no psychic value in it. You say, “I haven’t worn this t-shirt in a year.” I’m a grown man. I don’t wear many t-shirts anymore anyways. It’s not like when I was in my twenties and I lived in t-shirts. There are a potential loss and a potential gain to upcycling it, turning into a rag or donating it.

You probably shouldn’t be throwing away t-shirts because you can use them for other things. The gain is the space in your closet, in your bag, in your box, whatever it might be. In terms of decision-making, it’s sitting there amongst a bunch of other t-shirts, which you have to think, “Am I going to wear that t-shirt or not?” You then say no. You’re saving decision-making time and energy but there’s a potential loss, which is giving it up. You have to recognize that, “I’m losing this thing” and the anticipated regret of, “What if I ever need it or want it?” That pang that you have with it.

I would add to that pang too. I’m trying to shrink my consumer footprint. I don’t want to have to give up something that I might need to buy again.

That’s where the regret comes in.

It adds to what you’re talking about.

Yes, indeed. It’s like the old clothes that you wouldn’t wear anymore, but you’re like, “I might need them for a Halloween costume.”

I love that you say that. One of the questions that I ask my clients is what are you willing to lose in order to gain? This is an exercise that we do in terms of assessing our old-self versus our actual-self and then our ideal-self. Essentially, what we’re trying to do is bridge the gap between our actual-self in our ideal-self. I ask them, “What are you willing to lose in order to gain?” Are there certain people that are not adding to your success or this new ideal self that you’re trying to show up as? Are they holding you back? Are those trinkets? Are those memories? Is this adding to your mental and emotional clutter? If it is, remove it to the best that you can. It’s not easy but assessing that. Ask yourself that question is.

As you’re taking on this new chapter of your life, that’s not saying remove my old identity at all. It’s saying what parts of that do I need to strip away from? Maybe it’s that person that used to play small working at a university. Maybe I need to lose that self in order to gain this new entrepreneur life that I’m showing up as this person who speaks their truth and stands with that momentum and lives in freedom.

Getting rid of stuff is so difficult that Marie Kondo uses this as standard, which is does this bring me joy? That’s designed to overcome loss aversion. I can tell to those of you who are considering doing this, especially if you’ve been hunkered down for a while and trying to make your space a little bit more livable and cleaner is I have done all of that. Lisa, you’ve done all that.

I’ve also moved 25 times in my life.

 

The fascinating thing is you almost never miss those things. I have a big box of clothes that I didn’t bring with me on this hiatus to Los Angeles and I can’t even remember what they are. I don’t miss them. It probably would be fine if someone just took that box and dropped it off at Goodwill and my life would not be altered in any meaningful way.

There’s a TED Talk about being a minimalist. Sometimes people think minimalism means living cheaply or leaving with whatever. That’s not it. It’s just not having more than you need. Living a simple life but one of quality. That’s a big takeaway. As you elevate in the second mountain that you’re taking on, it’s the quality of life. What quality of life do I want? Is it one of the possessions which I already have? Going back to what you said earlier, is it one of the experiences? Not just ones that I curate for myself, but curate with other people?

Your t-shirts are not going to help you achieve your life goals.

You talked to Pete about the decisions. The less you have or if you can make a filtering decision, which is I’m just seeking quality, then you spend less energy on sorting and packing. I haven’t worn this. Even physically moving it around in your closet or in your cupboards. Using that quality filter helps us free up our space to do bigger dreams.

Isabella, one of the things that you were saying, it’s easy to talk about t-shirts. It’s much more difficult to talk about people. What you were referring to and this probably was not a word that you use, I noticed, but I will use it, which is toxic people. It’s a little bit of a buzzword so I hesitate to use it. There’s a conversation that’s starting to happen in the public vernacular. Certainly, there’s been work research on this from an organizational standpoint. Oftentimes, removing a toxic person. A person who causes conflict, who’s mean, negative, a bad example and who doesn’t uplift, has more of a benefit to an organization or to a person, than adding a wonderful person.

This is connected to that idea of loss aversion. Loss aversion is a special case of what’s called the negativity bias. The negativity bias essentially says that negative things have a much bigger effect on our emotions, health, well-being, attention, moods and nearly everything about us than positive things. One of the paths to living a remarkable life is not adding more and more good things. It’s removing those challenging things, those bad people. Those things that are in the way of what it is you want to achieve.

I know that for me and anyone, but I’ll just talk about my experience. When I was starting my company, it was scary. I got so much pushback of what qualifications do you have or who do you think you are? You might be too young or whatever it may be. I heard it all and it was interesting. I heard a lot of that feedback from the people that were closest to me. What I had to do was I had to use my discernment to say, “This is the acting out of fear, questioning because they’re fearful of my success and they’re projecting and projecting,” and that’s okay. Being as grounded as I am, I’m grateful that I was able to see that.

The reality is if I continued to allow those thoughts and those behaviors to influence from that place of fear, that might have held me back significantly. It got to a place where I was like, “What behaviors can I no longer tolerate as I level up?” I even had to look at that in terms of my dating life where I was like, “If I’m going to be this boss Isabella, CEO of a company that will soon grow exponentially, what even mindset disciplines do I have to enact now?” Does that mean not dwelling for three days if the guy doesn’t call me back? No, I don’t have time for that. I need to start letting go of even my toxic behaviors. That’s never happened but in the off-chance that it did, I even had to say, “What toxic behaviors do I have to let go of within myself to say that I won’t allow this as I free up mental and emotional space for this elevated person that I’m becoming?”

[bctt tweet=”Using your quality filter helps you free up space to work on your bigger dreams.” username=””]

Lisa, you’re embarking on the second chapter. This is not a show about dating per se, but it’s hard to ignore completely when you talk about solo living. One of the cool things about living a remarkable life is that it has this ironic outcome of making you a really appealing partner. People are energized and excited by people who live their life unapologetically, who are making art, creating things, waking up saying, “This is a big day.” We’d like to be around people who are inspiring, energetic, fun, creative and so on. I’m curious in terms of where you’re at. Have you noticed any of that? Where are you with regard to relationship-wise?

Because I’ve been wrapping up at UCSB and launching new things, I haven’t noticed. I’m running the race. It’s a solo race and the time freedom that comes with that has been relieving. I’ve had the great honor and joy of having had great relationships throughout my life. I’m grateful to those people. I’m not saying no to relationships in the future, but my filter is on not now. Also if the right person came along, I trust the universe. I trusted that would happen. It’s been so freeing to focus on some of these projects, on this change, on reflection. To me, that added to the time freedom. I’ll leave it at that. There’s a little energy here and there. It’s like the middle of the marathon. There might be some flirting but we’re not going to stop and have a date in the middle of the marathon during these changes.

I have this thing about solo but not alone. You use the marathon metaphor, which I think is cool. You run a marathon but it’s not as solo as you think it is. For example, you need someone to set up the marathon. You need volunteers who are going to hand you cups of water. One of the things as I’m listening to you, Lisa, as you talk about this, is you’re responsible for what’s happening in your life. You’re the engine and you’re making it go. Maybe you’re not having love affairs along the way, but you’re not alone in this. You have this roommate who clearly has been a supportive person. You talk about your boss and encouraging you, not trying to hold you back or hold you down.

One of my exes is storing stuff for me.

That’s a neat idea in terms of remembering that we need people and we should be careful who those people are. I do this all the time where I keep referencing previous episodes. In a previous episode, the Dating Friends and Sleeping with Strangers episode, we talk about what makes a good friend. This is my list, trustworthy, reliable, energizing and then I haven’t figured out the exact word for it. A good friend you can go to with good news and they’ll celebrate with you. You can go to them with bad news and they’ll commiserate with you. They don’t go, “That’s good, Lisa. I’ve got this book coming out too.” It’s great when things are going well.” That’s not a good friend and a bad friend is like, “That sounds tough. I know exactly what that’s like because I got these tough things going on in my life.” Your friends aren’t competing with you.

The power of proximity is a real thing. I know there was a study done about it. The power of proximity. I’m sure we’ve all heard that. The five people that you’re surrounded with the most can add to your success or take away from it. Being mindful of where you place your energy, especially in times like this where it could feel a little uncertain. It’s not as grounded as before. Making sure that people add to that level of stability especially to support you during times of uncertainty. That’s so cool to watch this journey evolve for you.

Lisa, any last ideas to come back to some of the strategic planning stuff? If someone’s reading and they’re inspired, what’s the first step that you would suggest that they take to move that inspiration into action?

Find a good person to be mutual. Ask that question of each other. Maybe they have their own good question, but find a good question that helps you evolve.

What might that be like if you were to go back and try to get back to your run on the beach?

My question was what’s really important? I wrote down Isabella’s question, what are you willing to lose in order to gain? It could be what do you want to gain? It could be what if I could have more of something that didn’t involve money but more of something in my life by design?

Mine would be what if I never had to sit in another faculty meeting? What if I have never had to sit around a rectangular table with fluorescent lights. I’m not saying that’s my question, but that’s one that popped into my head.

I put the Appreciative Inquiry spin on that, which you typically take the wording and make sure instead of saying, “What sucks about this place?” You say, “What’s one or two wishes you have for the future?”

That’s the approach we’re in rather than avoiding.

Sometimes for people, you do have to ask what the pain point is. That is part of the motivation to move.

Negatives are sometimes more motivating.

I just want to add because the thread of this conversation has been fascinating and I also want to add that UCSB was still rewarding. As I’m moving onto my second chapter of offering things, it still is. It was a meaningful role.

It’s not about UCSB or The University of Colorado or whatever company that Isabella worked with. It’s about organizations. They serve a purpose and they can often serve as a platform and a place for growth, a place to get health care and a steady paycheck, and to have collisions with impressive people and so on. I’m not disparaging. I write about this in my book. Sometimes it’s time to take either a bigger place, a bigger platform or a bigger perspective, all of those things. It’s just that you may not find that in your home institution, in your Fortune 500 company, in your government job. That’s my only point. I appreciated my time there also. I traveled around the world twice within four years because of the experiences I had there and because of the people I met and I’m grateful for it.

I just wanted to make sure no one thought I was leaving toxic colleagues because I’m still working with them for three months and they were awesome.

 

I don’t think it sounded like that. For me, the thread that I heard was less about even the corporation’s portion because I thrived in mine and I loved all of mine and everything that I have. It was the most amazing experience. For me, the thread that I’m hearing is the human domestication portion of it. It is a matter of thinking outside the box because every role that I ever held led me to where I am and everything played its part. I got to a place in my life where I was ready to think outside the box and do what I want to do on my own terms. It was going back to what you said and Tim Ferriss writes about this in his book, The 4-Hour Workweek, lifestyle design. When I was thinking about leaving my job, the simple question I asked myself is all things being equal if all payments were equal if I were making my millions, what would I be doing? I landed on this and I’m like, “This feels right. This is an alignment.” Pursuing that relentlessly because that’s the purpose. That’s the driver.

Part of my messaging that’s been clear to me has been about how everyone is creative. I don’t mean just arts and crafts creative but by the definition of creativity. We’re often comparing ourselves to big C genius creatives, but everyday creativity. That’s what a lot of my work has been. If we are doing an episode, that is part of the message I would want to get out there too. It’s about how do you increase your own sense of agency through creativity?

The first step in that is to say, “I’m a creative person.” I started thinking of myself as a creative person years ago. I managed to recreate my childhood energy. The inner child is alive as a 40-year-old. Once I started thinking of myself as a creative person, referring to myself as a creative person and to others, guess what I started doing? I’m creating.

I’m thrilled that you two did this. Lisa had other plans that were canceled and she still came down. She left the bubble of Santa Barbara and came down to the big city to sit with us. Isabella has been so great about saying yes to everything that I have asked her to do. One of the ideas that are important to do is if you want to encourage people to live a remarkable life, it helps to tell them what a remarkable life might be. That’s difficult because there’s no one remarkable life. There are only remarkable lives. Lisa’s path is a path where she is clearly leaning into this.

I like this PERMA model, Martin Seligman, Pleasure, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievement. Lisa has always leaned into the R which is a relationship. Whether it be in her partnerships and her ability to maintain positive relationships even after breakups. The fact that even though we don’t see each other much, have this connection many years later. She’s always had this engagement, this artistic and creative part of her person. To see it keep rising up in her and something that she’s leaning into with her second chapter is fantastic. With her doing that, who knows the A, the achievement might follow as a result. I’m excited about your remarkable life, Lisa.

I am too. You’re going to do so well. I’m excited.

Isabella, thanks for your first guest co-hosting gig. I’m going to give you an A-minus as a grade.

He’s saying there’s always room for improvement.

[bctt tweet=”Find a good question that helps you evolve.” username=””]

That’s fair. I deserve an A-minus for that.

Lisa, I’m not going to give you a grade. You are great, thank you so much for being here. Thank you to everyone. I’ve been overwhelmed with the number of people who are reaching out to me, calling me, sending me text messages, sending me social media messages, telling me how much they’re enjoying the show. It’s been so encouraging. It’s making me work harder than ever on this side project so much so that I’m looking forward to growing it. Thanks to all of you, the readers. I hope that you are happy, healthy and finding ways to thrive during these uncertain times. Thank you. Cheers.

 

 Important Links

• Lisa Slavid
• The Four Agreements
• Semester at Sea
• Peadoodles
• Episode – Living Remarkably During A Pandemic – The Corona Virus Edition Previous episode
• David Cooperrider
• Dr. Diana Whitney
• The Leadership Challenge
• The Humor Code
• The Second Mountain
• Dr. Joe Dispenza
• Dating Friends and Sleeping with Strangers – Previous episode
• The 4-Hour Workweek
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/lisa-slavid/
• https://www.Instagram.com/peadoodles/?hl=en
• https://www.Facebook.com/peadoodles/
• https://ImaniMvmt.com/
• https://www.Instagram.com/imani.mvmt/?hl=en
• https://Geni.us/shtick2business-mcgraw
• https://www.Amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Freedom/dp/1878424319
• https://PositivePsychology.com/appreciative-inquiry/
• https://CDN.HudsonInstitute.com/_wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/WP_DevelopmentalPerspective_2013.pdf

 

About Lisa Slavid

Lisa Slavid is an expert in strategic planning, positive psychology, strengths building, motivation, and innovation. She has over 25 years of experience designing learning workshops, programs, and keynotes speeches, working with organizations from corporations, universities, and non-profits. She is an organizational consultant, an executive coach, a Semester at Sea Trustee, and the Director of Organizational and Performance at UC Santa Barbara. Lisa is also the creator of the published “Peadoodles” cartoon series.

 

About Isabella Imani

Isabella Imani is an LA-based Relationship & Behavioral coach, specializing in helping clients through inner alignment and goal setting. She has more than seven years of experience in personal development and partnering with Leadership of Fortune 500 companies-such as Blue Cross Blue Shield, Live Nation Entertainment, Viacom, Paramount Studios. She is also a professional speaker and previously worked in HR and Operations. She was also a recent guest on the emergency corona pandemic episode.

 

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