All right, welcome back to The Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And I'm excited to have a guest today, Lisa Even. How are you? I'm good. I love your name because it's Even. At first I was like, where are we going with this? And it just plays really well. I love it. And I love your brand. And guys, listen, the reason I wanted to have Lisa on the show today is because we talk about it's never too late to create the life you were meant to live, your best life, your best lifestyle. And, you know, Lisa is a speaker and a coach, and she says a culture and joy connoisseur, which I love. But she's spoken to organizations all over. She's a well-known person in the space of team and cultures and leadership. And, you know, you talk about, I kind of wrote this down, helping you and your team happen to the world and not the other way around. So I wanted to kind of start out just asking you what that meant. And maybe you could backfill that a little with your background. So tell us a little bit about you before we get going here. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Welcome back to The Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And I'm excited to have a guest today. Lisa, even, how are you? I'm good. I love your name because it's even. At first I was like, where are we going with this? And it just plays really well. I love it. And I love your brand. Guys, listen, the reason I wanted to have Lisa on the show today is because we talk about it's never too late to create the life you were meant to live, your best life, your best lifestyle. And, you know, Lisa is a speaker and a coach, and she says a culture and joy connoisseur, which I love. But she's spoken to organizations all over. She's a well-known person in the space of team and cultures and leadership. And, you know, you talk about, I kind of wrote this down, helping you and your team happen to the world and not the other way around. So I wanted to kind of start out just asking you what that meant. And maybe you could backfill that a little with your background. So tell us a little bit about you before we get going here. Yeah, absolutely. That's like my life's mantra is you happen to the world, not the other way around. And I think as leaders and people of leaders of our lives, if there's maybe something that you're like, that happened, I'm always like, well, what are you going to do to happen to it? We get to, you know, we don't have control over a lot of things, but there are certainly things that we do. One of the things that I always say is, you know, I grew up, my dad worked at a car dealership. My mom was a hotel housekeeper. you don't get to pick like what you're born into. And I was really lucky that my parents are amazing souls. But from a money perspective, you know, when it was time to, are you going to go to college? I had a woman at an internship in high school asked me that like, Lisa, where are you going to go to college? And I was like, well, we don't pay for a piece of paper in our family. Like, we don't have money for that. Like my dad always was like, so you're going to take a loan for a job. You're not guaranteed. He just couldn't pragmatically make that work. And I think about from a you happen to the world she looked at me she goes oh honey the world is really big out there do you want to go like and I was like yeah kind of and she goes okay let's do it and I when I think about not only happening to maybe a circumstance that you didn't pick but also just someone like making a really good ripple effect early in my career I think about Brenda almost daily of like you changed the entire trajectory of my life and so yeah I love that so this is a great this is a great way to start the episode because the ripple effect is so key. I love this idea of intention of what you're creating or doing in the world because, you know, as a lot of listeners know on our show, we've got these 12 prosperity pillars that I have a poster for that I've kind of pulled together from all these people I've worked with over the years. And the first couple of them are, I create my life and I take personal responsibility. I think when you have the intention of I am creating my life, then you can then look forward into that, what you call ripple effect, which I love. I think that's, it's such a foundation to really creating all the stuff we're going to talk about today, like, you know, happiness and intention and stuff. So, so backfill for us, like you've obviously, you know, you weren't born this powerful speaker and communicator. And so where did, what was your background and how did you get into this space in the first place, as far as all of the amazing people that you're helping and leading right now. Yeah, absolutely. I always say I grew up in healthcare, so I was a non-clinical healthcare leader, and I had lots of people underneath of me. And one of the taglines that I developed early on was, have good ripple effect, that everything you say and do at work and at home is a ripple, happier, crappier choice. And so, you know, it took a year or two to really catch on. But the first time I heard out of earshot someone say, hey, was that good purple effect? Like they were like self-reaching themselves and holding themselves accountable. That's really where that tagline came from. And I used it in health care. And then we were moving states. So we were living in Wisconsin, wanted to be closer to family back in Iowa. So when we moved, I thought, okay, I want to get out there and do some training and speaking. and I was in the back of my mind, I was like, okay, it's all about impact, which is the ripple effect and happening to the world and hopefully creating a little joy. So it's been a really fun ride to be an entrepreneur after leaving corporate. Well, and it shows that, you know, when you find something you're passionate about, you can really move into that and you can grow through it. And I'm curious because there's a lot of things you could do. You've really focused on leadership and culture in work. So is that the place that you feel most of the effect happens or why did you pick leadership and culture and to focus in on that? I think the biggest reason why is when you think about the leaders that maybe you had, I would say like, there's a really great quote where it's like your leader. And I would also say like coworkers have more effect on you than your therapist or your doctor, like from a mental health standpoint, they do. And when we think about being in the workforce for what, like 90,000 hours. I just always say like, I want to be in a space, in a place, an environment that has a little bit of fun, but also gets a lot done. And so that for me is, I think the driver of why when I hear people talking, even friends of just like, oh, my job, this, or, oh, my job, that I'm like, you need a better leader. Yeah. Well, and, and, and I guess it's, it's this combination of the perspective you have on what you're doing and then the leadership as well. And how do you, I mean, you obviously have an amazingly happy, you know, let me, let me say it this way. Great personality, a lot of energy, which you may have always had, but I think there's a lot of, a key to a lot of that is that you're also doing what you love. And I think if people were doing more of what they love, they actually would have more energy. Oh, absolutely. It's like a chicken egg. Yeah. But with that said, when you go into organizations, I would imagine, or even in general, there's a lot of people that are just not happy with their job, with their intentions, with everything. How do you help them make that shift to be, you know, number one, being responsible for knowing that they impact the ripple around them, but also realizing that they don't have control over their leadership. They don't have control over their managers. So how do they, where do you start with someone in helping them to, is it create awareness and then, you know, just a vision of what they can create? How do you start with that? Because everybody can't start in a happy mood right yeah and actually most of the audiences that i talk to i say at the beginning like yes i've had too much coffee and yes i'm always like this just because and i say like you do not have to have my energy but if you need to borrow some like i'm i'm your person but it's contagious right so it helps right it's so true and we talk a lot about i ask them questions like you know what's your favorite season and they'll say you know i'm like where are the people that love fall where are the people who love spring and they raise their hand at the different seasons and then i say what do you do to prepare for those seasons and then they tell me you know like scarfs in fall and pumpkin spice and they give me all of these different things and i say well what if people prepare for you what if you know when you're walking down the hall people kind of prepare for who you are and they get you almost like look at yourself in reverse of like i had an employee who we had a doctor walk through our office and she just turned to turn to me and and goes, Dr. So-and-so is always just a little bit disheveled, isn't she? And then we kind of started having a conversation about how people show up. And she turns to me and she goes, you show up busy. And I was like, in my mind, I'm like, I'm not busy. I'm fine. I'm, I'm energetic. And it took me about three days to really realize, no, no, I'm showing up busy. And that awareness to like, how are you showing up? And really what weather are you bringing? Are you kind of that storm cloud? Are you like a little bit fun and bright and just having a little bit of like I happen to it. And so I can decide how I show up and I can prep for how I'm going to show up just like people prep for me. Yeah, I actually love that idea because just when you were saying that, how do you show up? It first of all, people are going to start thinking, oh, because people do care a lot about what they look like and what they feel. And so you could play on that a bit. But, you know, I've had that happen as well. And you could be the most happy, energetic or even productive person. But I'll have people tell me that once a while. Well, all the time, actually, man, you're really busy. I know you're really busy. And I want to say, I'm here. Like, what do you mean? I'm busy. But being there, showing up, being there versus how do you show up for them? It is two different things. And so, but it makes you think of that perspective. How am I showing up? So I love that. I think that's really good. And I think the more people think about that, probably the more they're going to feel they can intentionally affect their ripple. I mean, absolutely. Right. A hundred percent. I will sometimes ask that like an audience. I'll say if you could give a present at your next meeting, you're going to walk in and you're going to give someone a gift and you get to pick whatever gift it is. Maybe it's the gift of like more time, you know, trips to Mexico, more coffee, whatever the gift you think would be to give to the person that you're going to give this gift to. It can be intangible, tangible. What are you giving them? And then I say, you know, and then they share what they're giving. And it's always really fun because sometimes people will be like, it'll be like all of our paperwork completed and perfect. You know, I get like everything's done. Yeah, everything's done. And then I'll say, well, what if you're already giving that gift? Like, what if the gift is your presence and how people experience you and like your energy that you bring into the room? And I think I would say like that's where it starts is it starts with us. And then you can start to think about how are you encouraging team members to show up in different ways, too, because if you're you as the leader kind of cranky, that's contagious as well. I love that. Actually, I believe that I saw that in when I was kind of working through some of your bio and some different things. I saw the statement you said where your presence is a present. And I thought, oh, man, that is so good. And you know what, though, you know, we all most strong leaders have a little bit of an ego, too. It's like, you know, you kind of like, I don't want to feel like my, hey, you're lucky to have me here. But the point is, so many of us show up, but we don't show up present. We're just there. And I really like that. And I think you just said something I want to bridge into, which is it starts with you. How do you show up? And rather than just like this, most of our audience is self-mastery, personal development. And it's not so much that as much as your impact on the world is how are other people seeing you show up. It can't just be an internal game. But then it extends to how as a leader or a business owner or a CEO or even a family member, husband, spouse, whatever it is, how do you impact others? How can you hold your team accountable? Because you can't force people to see that in themselves. But what can you do to help people become more aware of that and hold them accountable as your team to also show up and be present? Yeah. And I'll have to give you the link to some resources that I have. But one of the things that I do with audiences a lot is I will put like a list of values up on the screen and I'll say, OK, we're going to talk about how we got this way, like how we got to be who we are. Because some of you in this room are like, Lisa, I do not want to people anymore today. Like, I just can't do it. And so they pick their top values. Yeah. And then I say, like, where did those come from? And I share a quick story of Shane and Andrew. And Shane's kind of my jokester. And Andrew is my, like, straight-laced guy. And I, you know, I give my team this list of values. And I say, will anybody share their top value? And Shane raises his hand. And he says, humor. And I say, well, Shane, why did you pick humor? And he goes, you know, this guy never gets serious. And he looks me in the eye and he goes, you know when you have a crappy childhood? And the whole room goes quiet and they're literally like, what? And he goes, yeah, you make jokes. And I could just see like, Andrew is kind of his friend of me at work. Like he's constantly like sighing, like, come on, man. You know, it's like, I want to be like, we can hear that. And you know, he looks at him kind of like, huh? So you're not trying to be an idiot every time we turn around. Got it. And so part of the work that we have to do is figuring out what people care about and why, because you carry your values with you. everywhere you go, whether you're talking in, you know, chit chat about like, what are you doing this weekend? Kids, family, faith, you know, sports, hobbies. But we also talk about them when we're mad. Like they're not loyal. That guy does not trust me. You know, like we list them. And I literally say like, if you want to start to help people collaborate and hold them accountable, find out what they care about and how they got that way. Because that will give you a lot of insight into how to then start building some bridges on your team. Yeah, that's a great suggestion because it reminds me a lot of, as a host of the Franklin Planner podcast and Stephen R. Covey, who wrote, you know, Seven Habits, you know, he talks about seek first to understand, then to be understood. And the idea here is that it's really hard to influence or impact your team members until you understand them. And ironically, when you get them, when you relate to them and you understand them, it's not hard. And that's a great point. You know, you don't ever take the perspective, oh, this guy's joking all the time. This girl's joking all the time. Maybe it's because they did have a really difficult time with this or that. And it's their coping mechanism. They're not just like the class clown right And so when you understand that it not only will help them to you know do better with you communicating but now you can communicate better and you can have more effect because you right You have a better understanding because you know we all heard that adage you know somebody you could run into you have no idea what kind of day they've had. And so you have to understand that. And I guess it goes back to starting with you. What do you do with, because I'm sure, you know, in your, in your profession, you deal with teams that are dealing with, you know, negative or bad situations or bad communication or bad ripple effects. What do you generally recommend for them to do to turn that? And maybe it's partly what you're saying, you know, get relation, you know, communication and be able to relate and things like that. But, you know, when you're dealing with difficult situations as a team leader or a manager or an owner, where do you start with that? How do you, how do you navigate that? Yeah. One of the things that I do is I say, okay, zoom out first. So assuming that you're thinking your presence is good, right? You're like, okay, I'm showing up in a good way. And you're starting to like teach your team a little bit about looking at values, like how people got that way. The third order of business is really to zoom out and say, what's going on in my culture. And I have a chart that I usually use. It's like attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs. And so we're going to look at, you know, I'll usually say like, if your team was just, you know, standing right behind me. How are they doing? Like, how are they doing? And then you write down like, well, some of them are happy. And usually I'll make a joke like, and we know that one guy. Yeah. Right. They get to kind of write down like if I zoom out and just talk about them as if they were right there, I'd say they're this, this and this cranky, complacent, you know, frustrated, stressed, what have you. And then the second thing I ask them is, OK, what is it normal to see? and I'll give them some examples like you know maybe it's normal for us to walk out of a meeting and say well that could have been an email or maybe it's very normal for us to see like hit reply all and then you're like why are they sending it to everyone not everyone yeah right this right I had one of my favorites was I had a brand new employee I'm a leader of leaders so I'm they were like two up and in my office about the second week that they're there I do like a one-on-one And I said, you are new here. What's the most interesting or odd thing that you've seen? Like you have fresh eyes. Like what's, what's odd around here? And she kind of looked me up and down almost as if like, do I trust you? And she goes, do I want to say what I'm really thinking? So I waited and I waited her out and she goes, um, do we take a lunch here? Like, do we take a lunch? And I knew what she was talking about, but I kept a poker face and I said, HR would like me to let you know. Yes, please take a lunch. And I said, well, what do you mean? And she goes, well, I went to go take a lunch. I'm used to going like on a quick walk over my lunch hour. The role that she was moving into that she had just moved into was very desk centric. Yeah. And it's a salaried position. So, you know, they just kind of fit that in whenever. And she, she goes, I went to go take my lunch. And one of our nurses turned to me and said, where are you going? We work until the work is done. And I said, well, first off, you bumped up into her values, right? Like she values, like get it done. And I said, secondly, you have an interesting behavior of this little pocket of your culture, of our ecosystem. I said, it's really an unwritten rule that this group doesn't take a lunch and they work until the work is done. I said, here's my advice to you. That's a norm. If you're going to change a norm on that team, I invite you to go back and say to her, hey, I'm going to work until the work is done after I take a quick walk. And then a couple of weeks later, I saw her in the hallway. I'm like, are you taking a lunch? And she goes, sometimes. No, even funnier, a few months later, that nurse that told her that hurt her knee and had surgery. And then her physical therapist told her she needed to do more walking. And she turns to that lady and she goes, hey, I'm walking with you at lunch. And all of a sudden that norm, that that odd behavior had shifted. And so you really want to look for like, how are we doing? What are the weird, good, bad, like things you want to keep, things you want to get rid of? And then finally, beliefs. Like, what is the truth? What do they truly believe? Like, oh, it's always like that. Yeah, nothing changes. around here? Or do they believe like, no, actually like let, we can change that. We can, you know, the organization has our back. And if you can really zoom out and start to tinker in those spaces, it allows people a framework to talk about the bad thing. And then they know the language to be able to say like, Hey, I want to change X. I see it as a behavior or a norm that like, I want to get rid of that. And then I can bring it up and say, okay, team, do we like this? like what are we going to do with it is complaining okay and you can start to do some like solving in your one-on-ones and then solving in the bigger groups well it's interesting because i think um when people take accountability and they're you know they're trying to uh impact their organization then they are going to be more apt to say let's take a second is this an actual organizational policy thing or is it an individual leader or manager above me is it their personality and And, you know, I really liked what you said as far as basically you could address it before you do something. Just acknowledging that that's something that they believe or they feel or they have as a norm, just acknowledging it sort of allows you to be a little bit more influential on changing it as well. So that's really good. I like that a lot. One other quick experience, and maybe a lot can relate to this. In healthcare, we are amazing to our clients, our customers, right? like our patients, but we are awful to each other sometimes. And I was watching because attitudes turn into norms, which turn into beliefs like over time. And I was watching this one where we would go in with a patient, love on them, and then we would come out of the room and we would be jerks to each other. So in my one-on-ones, I took a poll and I said, Hey, are we too busy to be friendly? And I got eight yeses out of 20. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I was like too busy to be friendly. And then slowly I had to chip away at that and say, well, what if we could be both? What if we could be both? And, you know, shifting behavior from, well, it's normal for me to bark at this person that's on my team. When you think about how you're showing up and the gift that you're giving, I'm like, what if the gift was something else? And so you've got to do a little bit of finessing with it, but it's a lot around awareness, you know, watching and zooming out and thinking, is this okay? Do we like this? Do we not? And then the team can weigh in and be like, no, we don't like this. Yeah. I think that is like, literally you said awareness. I think that is probably one of the biggest, um, better traits of high level leaders is that they are aware because then that leads to better questions. Otherwise we're all in a routine. We're all doing our thing. You know, you don't ever step back to say, Hey, like, are we really like that? Like, you know, But you don't ask those questions if you're not aware. And I think that awareness is lacking. And I also think it leads to, and I know we don't have a lot of time here. We could probably go forever. But I think it leads to an area I wanted to ask you about, which is just most people are not, they don't slow down enough or they're not consciously aware enough of are they creating happiness? Like, are they doing this for a reason? Are they creating joy? And we talked about that a little bit before we got going. And I wanted to just have you kind of give us some of your thoughts on this idea of joy, because on one hand, I think there's probably a lot of people that believe, you know, work and joy don't really go together. And then there's other people that are like, I only want to have joy unless I'm not going to do my work. So but how do you craft truly becoming passionate and fulfilled about what you do and having joy while, you know, navigating the corporate world, the leader, the business world? What do you do? Yeah. OK, so for me, real quick story. I was like, we were sitting on the couch one night. I turned to my husband and I said, we chase a lot of things like our kids and the laundry and our responsibilities. And we even put it on our calendar. Like even when to change the furnace filter, when to give our dog like her medicine. I said, we chase and we measure it. Like we put on the calendar of all these things that we're going to do. And I said, I just, we need to chase something else. Like I am so burnt out. And he's a nice, quiet guy. He's like, okay. He's like, how do we do it. I was like, I don't know. Give me a few days. We ended up hanging a whiteboard in our bedroom and we started to make a list of the things that brought us joy. He laughed when I was like, can you just put this right by our bed? He's like, people don't have whiteboards in their bedroom. He's like, oh boy. Yeah. He's like, Lisa. Don't bring work into the bedroom here. I can't, but I was like, here's my case. You know, I want to dream about joy, make a list of things that would bring us joy. And sometimes the only time we're together is when we fall asleep and when we wake up and I want to make a list and I want to see that list when I fall asleep and when I wake up. And so we started to do that and started to take our list and put it on the calendar. And then we started measuring it. We literally sit down once a month with a drink and we look at our calendar and we're like, do we have enough? Like, do we need to add some joy? And we've been doing that for almost eight or nine years now. And our friends, like they learned about it. And then I decided, well, why can't we do this at work? So we actually created a joy calendar at work of, of really fun things that we could do in like 10, 15 minute increments. I always say like, joy is not on top of it. Like, where can I like sneak it in? It doesn't have to be big. And so when you think about the work that you're doing, it's really around like, am I be intentional about putting joy on the calendar? And then the other thing I'll say is two things. Crappy to happy is one of our favorite joy challenges. There are a ton of unglamorous things that you do in your day, laundry, dishes, Excel spreadsheets, phone calls, whatever it is. I like, even at my work, I would walk up to a team member. I'm like, all right, crappy to happy. What do we got? And it was an acknowledgement of like, I know some of your things are not glamorous. And they're like, yeah. And I'm like, all right, that's the crappy. What's the happy. And so we think about putting joy either before, during or after. And then the other disclaimer I would give is you're going to go to your team and say, let's do a joy calendar. And some of are going to go, eh, and they're going to be like, no, we don't want it. And I always say like, joy is very unique to you. And so you have to like desire permission and belief. You have to want it. Give yourself permission and believe it. If you do not want to have joy, I had a woman stand up and say, I have enough joy. Thanks. And I was like, that's right. You're right. Whether you want it or you don't, you're right. And so sometimes you do have to say to your team, if this is not for you, perfect but if it is perfect but it's also cultural right you're trying to set that culture which is ultimately a thing you can't measure so i'm curious one last thing to you so were you guys just anecdotally measuring it or just focusing and tracking your joy on this whiteboard i am kind of curious so it started oh this is a 7.3 i know this is our metric we actually do laugh and say it is a metric in our family we measure it in a couple of different ways at first it was like I want to have three joy items off that whiteboard this month. And then now we kind of track it in a couple of different ways. Like, do we have enough? I color code it so I can just kind of see like, okay, we got some joy over here. We got some joy over there. And then for us, we are like tracking, like not to the minute, but just like chunks. And some people, like when you start a joy calendar, I always say, just make sure there's some joy somewhere on there. As if I said, you know, like, can you show me your calendar where is it because you know what you measure where you're going to see results and so if that's just a I just need to have three off this list or I need three hours and then really quick we had a we took our kids to a movie and they were so naughty and it was supposed to be a part of the joy calendar and we're out we had to leave early because they were like throwing popcorn and rolling on the floor distracting the people this turned happy to crappy pretty quick is what you're saying yeah it did we're in the parking lot I turned to my husband. I'm like, we can't count this as joy. Like this is not joy. We need another one. We need another one. Our kids started running around in the grass laughing and he like looks over. He's like mission accomplished. I would say. Oh, that's great. So don't miss the joy when something goes wrong and you have to pivot. It counts. Like just notice it and be like, nope, that didn't work. Let's try something else. Yeah. A little bit of grace and acknowledgement. I like how you said that because here's the thing. We put intention and KPI metrics and focus on work related things. We need to do that same thing with joy. And I think that's like anything else. If you have an intention that you want more, you actually can track it and focus on it. Like you said, what you focus on grows, you know, where your energy goes, you know, your happiness is going to flow. Right. So I love that. And I really appreciate you being here and sharing these ideas. I think that there's a huge value for people in business and outside of their business, because that's where the two merge together, right? Your life, your career, you're creating fulfillment, if they can simply, you know, take that seat of awareness and they can really look at what their ripple effect is, look through the perspective of other people. And like you said, really track and measure the impact and things are having, whether it's culture or whether it's business and things. So I really love that. And I appreciate you spending, you know, like I said, I wish we had a little bit more time, but before we do, can you, is there anything else you really feel like you would like to leave our listeners with? I mean, cause I think this is such a great topic to put focus on. How do you keep that going in your day to day besides like your joy calendar and stuff? Or is there anything else you would suggest strategies and tactics you'd want to leave them with? Yeah. You know, I just recently was, I was at Caitlin Clark. I'm from Iowa, the basketball player, Caitlin Clark. I was at her Jersey retirement where at the end of the USC game, they retired her Jersey and the announcer said there will never be another 22. there will never be another Caitlin Clark. And I remember sitting there thinking, we all kind of have our own Jersey retirements, right? Whether that's the end of our lives or the end of our career where we turn off the light and we walk out the door for the last time. And I just think about that stuck with me of like, there will never be another insert your name. And when I think about it in that capacity, like we have this really big opportunity to happen to our world. Maybe we won't be the next Caitlin Clark, but when it comes to like everything we do from now until that Jersey retirement day, it's a big deal. And so you have an opportunity to happen to it. So get going. I love that thought. I love it. I love it because on so many levels, I think sometimes it's a real stoic philosophy too, to, you know, imagine what it's going to be like, you know, what, what effect do you want to have in the end and bring that back into the present moment. So, well, great. Well, I really appreciate it. What the best way for people to be able to connect with you I sure they going to want to feed on your energy a little bit So like what the best way for them to connect with you so I can I can put those in our show notes Absolutely LisaEvan And then I on Instagram LinkedIn and Facebook Awesome Well I put all those links in there. And I do think it would be nice to kind of get back together. We have a, we have a deep dive mastermind group that we would love to have you kind of come back to as well. But, you know, listen, for those of you listening, I know we talk about a lot of different random things from mind, body, money, business, and lifestyle. But I think at the end of the day, when you take a perspective, if you're trying to create the life you're meant to live, and I believe it doesn't matter where you're at, it's never too late to do that. And you got to start today. At the center of that, I think you really need to maintain this idea of what type of joy, what type of effect you're having in your life. So I hope this message has helped you. And if you have any questions, feel free to hit me up on The Daily Mastermind on Instagram, Facebook. I always put my contact info in the show notes. And so once again, it was great to have Lisa even on the show. And we'll look forward to talking with you more tomorrow. Have a great day. That's like my life's mantra is you happen to the world, not the other way around. And I think as leaders and people of leaders of our lives, if there's maybe something that you're like, that happened, I'm always like, well, what are you going to do to happen to it? We get to, you know, we don't have a control over a lot of things, but there are certainly things that we do. One of the things that I would say is, you know, I grew up, my dad worked at a car dealership. My mom was a hotel housekeeper. You don't get to pick like what you're born into. And I was really lucky that my parents are amazing souls. But from a money perspective, you know, when it was time to, are you going to go to college? I had a woman at an internship in high school ask me that like, Lisa, where are you going to go to college? And I was like, well, we don't pay for a piece of paper in our family. Like we don't have money for that. Like my dad always was like, so you're going to take a loan for a job. You're not guaranteed. He just couldn't pragmatically make that work. And I think about from a, you happen to the world. She looked at me and she goes, oh honey, the world is really big out there. Do you want to go? And I was like, yeah, kind of. And she goes, okay, let's do it. And when I think about not only happening to maybe a circumstance that you didn't pick, but also just someone like making a really good ripple effect early in my career. I think about Brenda almost daily of like, you changed the entire trajectory of my life. And so, yeah. I love that. So this is a great, this is a great way to start the episode because the ripple effect is so key. I love this idea of intention of what you're creating or doing in the world because, you know, as a lot of listeners know on our show, we've got these 12 prosperity pillars that I have a poster for that I've kind of pulled together from all these people I've worked with over the years. And the first couple of them are, I create my life and I take personal responsibility. I think when you have the intention of I am creating my life, then you can then look forward into that, what you call ripple effect, which I love. I think that's, it's such a foundation to really creating all the stuff we're going to talk about today, like, you know, happiness and intention and stuff. So, so backfill for us, like you've obviously, you know, you weren't born this powerful speaker and communicator. And so what was your background and how did you get into this space in the first place as far as all of the amazing people that you're helping and leading right now? Yeah, absolutely. I always say I grew up in healthcare, so I was a non-clinical healthcare leader and I had lots of people underneath of me. And one of the taglines that I developed early on was have good ripple effect, that everything you say and do at work and at home is a ripple happier, crappier choice. And so, you know, it took a year or two to really catch on. But the first time I heard out of earshot someone say, hey, was that good ripple effect? Like they were like self-reaching themselves and holding themselves accountable. That's really where that tagline came from. And I used it in healthcare. And then we were moving states. So we were living in Wisconsin and wanted to be closer to family back in Iowa. So when we moved, I thought, okay, I want to get out there and do some training and speaking. And I was in the back of my mind, I was like, okay, it's all about impact, which is the ripple effect and happening to the world and hopefully creating a little joy. So it's been a really fun ride to be an entrepreneur after leaving corporate. Well, and it shows that, you know, when you find something you're passionate about, you can really move into that and you can grow through it. And I'm curious because there's a lot of things you could do. You've really focused on leadership and culture in work. So is that the place that you feel most of the effect happens? Or why did you pick leadership and culture and to focus in on that? I think the biggest reason why is when you think about the leaders that maybe you had, I would say like, there's a really great quote where it's like, your leader, and I would also say like, coworkers have more effect on you than your therapist or your doctor, like from a mental health standpoint, they do. And when we think about being in the workforce for what, like 90,000 hours, I just always say like, I want to be in a space, in a place, an environment that has a little bit of fun, but also gets a lot done. And so that for me is, I think the driver of why when I hear people talking, even friends of just like, oh, my job, this, or, oh, my job, that I'm like, you need a better leader. Yeah. Well, and I guess it's this combination of the perspective you have on what you're doing and then the leadership as well. And how do you, I mean, you obviously have an amazingly happy, you know, let me say it this way. Great personality, a lot of energy, which you may have always had, but I think there's a lot of, a key to a lot of that is that you're also doing what you love. And I think if people were doing more of what they love, they actually would have more energy. Oh, absolutely. It's like a chicken egg. Yeah. But with that said, when you go into organizations, I would imagine, or even in general, there's a lot of people that are just not happy with their job, with their intentions, with everything. How do you help them make that shift to be, you know, number one, being responsible for knowing that they impact the ripple around them, but also realizing that they don't have control over their leadership. They don't have control over their managers. So how do they, where do you start with someone in helping them to, is it create awareness and then, you know, just a vision of what they can create. How do you start with that? Because everybody can't start in a happy mood, right? And actually most of the audiences that I talk to, I say at the beginning, like, yes, I've had too much coffee. And yes, I'm always like this just because I say like, you do not have to have my energy, but if you need to borrow some, like I'm your person. But it's contagious, right? So it helps, right? It's so true. And we talk a lot about, I ask them questions like, you know, what's your favorite season? And they'll say, you know i'm like where are the people that love fall where are the people who love spring and they raise their hand at the different seasons and then i say what do you do to prepare for those seasons and then they tell me you know like scarfs and fall and pumpkin spice and they give me all of these different things and i say well what if people prepare for you what if you know when you're walking down the hall people kind of prepare for who you are and they get you almost like look at yourself in reverse of like, I had an employee who we had a doctor walk through our office and she just turned to, turned to me and goes, Dr. So-and-so is always just a little bit disheveled, isn't she? And then we kind of started having a conversation about how people show up. And she turns to me and she goes, you show up busy. And I was like, in my mind, I'm like, I'm not busy. I'm fine. I'm, I'm energetic. And it took me about three days to really realize, know no i'm showing up busy and that awareness to like how are you showing up and really what weather are you bringing are you kind of that storm cloud are you like a little bit fun and bright and just having a little bit of like i happen to it and so i can decide how i show up and i can prep for how i'm going to show up just like people prep for me yeah i actually love i love that idea because just when you were saying that how do you show up it first of all people are are going to start thinking, Ooh, cause people do care a lot about what they look like and what they feel. And so you could play on that a bit, but I, you know, I've had that happen as well. And you could be the most happy, energetic, or even productive person. Um, but I'll have people tell me that once a while, well, all the time, actually, they're like, man, you're really busy. I know you're really busy. And I want to say, I I'm here. Like, what do you mean? I'm busy, but, but being there, showing up, being there versus how do you show up for them? It is two different things. And so, but it makes you think of that perspective. How am I showing up? So I love that. I think that's really good. And I think the more people think about that, probably the more they're going to feel they can intentionally affect their ripple. I mean, absolutely. Right. A hundred percent. I will sometimes ask that like an audience. I'll say, if you could give a present at your next meeting, you're going to walk in and you're going to give someone a gift and you get to pick whatever gift it is. Maybe it's the gift of like more time, you know trips to Mexico more coffee whatever the gift you think would be to give to the person that you're going to give this gift to what it can be intangible tangible what are you giving them and then I say you know and then they share what they're giving and it's always really fun because sometimes people will be like it'll be like all of our paperwork completed and perfect you know I get like everything's done perfect yeah everything's done and then I'll say well what if you're already giving that gift? Like what if the gift is your presence and how people experience you and like your energy that you bring into the room? And I think I would say like, that's where it starts is it starts with us. And then you can start to think about how are you encouraging team members to show up in different ways too? Because if you're, you as the leader are kind of cranky, that's contagious as well. I love that. Actually, I believe that I saw that in when I was kind of working through some of your bio and some different things. I saw the statement you said, where your presence is a present. And I thought, oh man, that is so good. Like, and you know what though? You know, we all, most strong leaders have a little bit of an ego too. It's like, you know, you kind of like, I don't want to feel like, hey, you're lucky to have me here. But the point is so many of us show up, but we don't show up present. We're just there. And I really like that. And I think you just said something I want to bridge into, which is it starts with you. How do you show up? And rather than just like this, most of our audience is self mastery, personal development. It's not so much that as much as your impact on the world is how are other people seeing you show up. It can't just be an internal game. But then it extends to how as a leader or a business owner or a CEO or even a family member, husband, spouse, whatever it is. How do you impact others? How can you hold your team accountable? Because you can't force people to see that in themselves, but what can you do to help people become more aware of that and hold them accountable as your team to also show up and be present? Yeah, and I'll have to give you the link to some resources that I have, but one of the things that I do with audiences a lot is I will put like a list of values up on the screen, and I'll say, okay, we're going to talk about how we got this way, like how we got to be who we are, Because some of you in this room are like, Lisa, I do not want to people anymore today. Like, I just can't do it. And so they pick their top values. Yeah. And then I say, like, where did those come from? And I share a quick story of Shane and Andrew. And Shane's kind of my jokester. And Andrew is my, like, straight-laced guy. And I, you know, I give my team this list of values. And I say, will anybody share their top value? And Shane raises his hand. And he says, humor. And I say, well, Shane, why did you pick humor? And he goes, you know, this guy never gets serious. And he looks me in the eye and he goes, you know, when you have a crappy childhood and the whole room goes quiet and they're literally like, what? And he goes, yeah, you make jokes. And I could just see like Andrew's kind of his frenemy at work. Like he's constantly like sighing, like, come on, man. You know, it's like, I want to be like, we can hear that. And, you know, he looks at him kind of like, huh, so you're not trying to be an idiot every time we turn around. Got it. And so part of the work that we have to do is figuring out what people care about and why, because you carry your values with you everywhere you go. If whether you're talking in, you know, chit chat about like, what are you doing this weekend? Kids, family, faith, you know, sports, hobbies. But we also talk about them when we're mad. Like they're not loyal. That guy does not trust me. You know, like we list them. And I literally say, like, if you want to start to help people collaborate and hold them accountable, find out what they care about and how they got that way, because that will give you a lot of insight into how to then start building some bridges on your team. Yeah, that's a great suggestion because it reminds me a lot of as a host of the Franklin Planner podcast and Stephen R. Covey, who wrote, you know, Seven Habits, you know, he talks about seek first to understand, then to be understood. And the idea here is that it's really hard to influence or impact your team members until you understand them. And ironically, when you get them, when you relate to them and you understand them, it's not hard. And that's a great point. You know, you don't ever take the perspective, oh, this guy's joking all the time. This girl's joking all the time. Maybe it's because they did have a really difficult time with this or that. And it's their coping mechanism. They're not just like the class clown, right? And so when you understand that, it not only will help them to, you know, do better with you communicating, but now you can communicate better and you can have more effect because you're right. You have a better understanding because, you know, we've all heard that adage, you know, somebody you could run into, you have no idea what kind of day they've had. And so you have to understand that. And I guess it goes back to starting with you. What do you do with, because I'm sure, you know, in your profession, you deal with teams that are dealing with, you know, negative or bad situations or bad communication or bad ripple effects. What do you generally recommend for them to do to turn that? And maybe it's partly what you're saying, you know, get relation, you know, communication and be able to relate and things like that. But, you know, when you're dealing with difficult situations as a team leader or a manager or an owner, where do you start with that? How do you navigate that? Yeah. One of the things that I do is I say, okay, zoom out first. So assuming that you think your presence is good, right? You're like, okay, I'm showing up in a good way. And you starting to like teach your team a little bit about looking at values like how people got that way The third order of business is really to zoom out and say what going on in my culture And I have a chart that I usually use It like attitudes behaviors and beliefs And so we going to look at you know I usually say like if your team was just, you know, standing right behind me, how are they doing? Like, how are they doing? And then you write down like, well, some of them are happy. And usually I'll make a joke like, and we know that one guy. Yeah. Right. They get to kind of write down, Like if I zoom out and just talk about them as if they were right there, I'd say they're this, this, and this cranky, complacent, you know, frustrated, stressed, what have you. And then the second thing I ask them is, okay, what is it normal to see? And I'll give them some examples. Like, you know, maybe it's normal for us to walk out of a meeting and say, well, that could have been an email. Or maybe it's very normal for us to see, like hit reply all. And then you're like, why are they sending it to everyone? Not everyone needs this. Right. I had one of my favorites was I had a brand new employee. I'm a leader of leaders. So I'm there like two up. And in my office about the second week that they're there, I do like a one on one. And I said, you are new here. What's the most interesting or odd thing that you've seen? Like you have fresh eyes. Like what's what's odd around here? And she kind of looked me up and down almost as if like, do I trust you? And she goes, do I want to say what I'm really thinking? So I waited and I waited her out. And she goes, do we take a lunch here? Like, do we take a lunch? And I knew what she was talking about, but I kept a poker face and I said, HR would like me to let you know, yes, please take a lunch. And I said, well, what do you mean? And she goes, well, I went to go take a lunch. I'm used to going like on a quick walk over my lunch hour. The role that she was moving into that she had just moved into was very desk centric. And it's a salaried position. So, you know, they just kind of fit that in whenever. And she goes, I went to go take my lunch. And one of our nurses turned to me and said, where are you going? We work until the work is done. And I said, well, first off, you bumped up into her values, right? Like she values like get it done. And I said, secondly, you have an interesting behavior of this little pocket of your culture, of our ecosystem. I said, it's really an unwritten rule that this group doesn't take a lunch and they work until the work is done. I said, here's my advice to you. That's a norm. if you're going to change a norm on that team i invite you to go back and say to her hey i'm going to work until the work is done after i take a quick walk and then a couple weeks later i saw her in the hallway i'm like are you taking a lunch and she goes sometimes no even funnier a few months later that nurse that told her that hurt her knee and had surgery and then her physical therapist told her she needed to do more walking and she turns to that lady and she goes hey i'm walking with you at lunch and all of a sudden that norm that that odd behavior had shifted and so you really want to look for like how are we doing what are the weird good bad like things you want to keep things you want to get rid of and then finally beliefs like what is the truth what do they truly believe like oh it's always like that yeah nothing changes around here or do they believe like no actually like let we can change that we can you know the organization has our back and if you can really zoom out and start to tinker in those spaces, it allows people a framework to talk about the bad thing. And then they know the language to be able to say like, hey, I want to change X. I see it as a behavior or a norm that like, I want to get rid of that. And then I can bring it up and say, okay, team, do we like this? Like, what are we going to do with it? Is complaining okay? And you can start to do some like solving in your one-on-ones and then solving in the bigger groups. Well, it's interesting because I think when people take accountability and they're, you know, they're trying to impact their organization, then they are going to be more apt to say, let's take a second. Is this an actual organizational policy thing or is it an individual leader or manager above me? Is it their personality? And, you know, I really liked what you said as far as basically you could address it before you do something. Just acknowledging that that's something that they believe or they feel or they have as a norm, just acknowledging it sort of allows you to be a little bit more influential on changing it as well. So that's really good. I like that a lot. One other quick experience, and maybe a lot can relate to this. In healthcare, we are amazing to our clients, our customers, right? Like our patients, but we are awful to each other sometimes. And I was watching because attitudes turn into norms, which turn into beliefs like over time. And I was watching this one where we would go in with a patient, love on them. And then we would come out of the room and we would be jerks to each other. So in my one-on-ones, I took a poll and I said, Hey, are we too busy to be friendly? And I got eight yeses out of 20. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I was like too busy to be friendly. And then slowly I had to chip away at that and say, well, what if we could be both? what if we could be both? And, you know, shifting behavior from, well, it's normal for me to bark at this person that's on my team. When you think about how you're showing up and the gift that you're giving, I'm like, what if the gift was something else? And so you've got to do a little bit of finessing with it, but it's a lot around awareness, you know, watching and zooming out and thinking, is this okay? Do we like this? Do we not? And then the team can weigh in and be like, no, we don't like this. Yeah. I think that is like, literally you said awareness. I think that is probably one of the biggest, um, better traits of high level leaders is that they are aware because then that leads to better questions. Otherwise we're all in a routine. We're all doing our thing. You know, you don't ever step back to say, Hey, like, are we really like that? Like, you know, but you don't ask those questions if you're not aware. And I think that awareness is lacking. And I also think it leads to, and I know we don't have a lot of time here. We could probably go forever, but I, I think it leads to an area I wanted to ask you about, which is just most people are not, they don't slow it, slow down enough, or they're not consciously aware enough of, are they creating happiness? Like, are they doing this for a reason? Are they creating joy? And we talked about that a little bit before we got going. And I wanted to just have you kind of Give us some of your thoughts on this idea of joy. Because on one hand, I think there's probably a lot of people that believe, you know, work and joy don't really go together. And then there's other people that are like, I only want to have joy unless I'm not going to do my work. But how do you craft truly becoming passionate and fulfilled about what you do and having joy while, you know, navigating the corporate world, the leader, the business world, and things like that? What do you do? Yeah, okay. So for me, real quick story. I was like we were sitting on the couch one night. I turned to my husband and I said We chase a lot of things like our kids and the laundry and our responsibilities And we even put it on our calendar like even when to change the furnace filter when to give our dog like her medicine I said we chase and we measure like we put on the calendar of all these things that we're gonna do And I said I just we need to chase something else like I am so burnt out and he's a nice quiet guy He's like, okay. He's like, how do we do it? I was like, I don't know give me a few days we ended up hanging a whiteboard in our bedroom and we started to make a list of the things that brought us joy he laughed when i was like can you just put this right by our bed he's like um people don't have whiteboards in their bedroom he's like oh boy yeah he's like lisa don't bring work into the bedroom here but i was like here's my case you know i want to dream about joy make a list of things that would bring us joy and sometimes the only time we're together is when we fall asleep and when we wake up. And I want to make a list and I want to see that list when I fall asleep and when I wake up. And so we started to do that and started to take our list and put it on the calendar. And then we started measuring it. We literally sit down once a month with a drink and we look at our calendar and we're like, do we have enough? Like, do we need to add some joy? And we've been doing that for almost eight or nine years now. And our friends, like they learned about it. And then I decided, well, why can't we do this at work? So we actually created a joy calendar at work of really fun things that we could do in like 10, 15 minute increments. I always say like joy is not on top of it. Like where can I like sneak it in? Doesn't have to be big. And so when you think about the work that you're doing, it's really around like am I being intentional about putting joy on the calendar? And then the other thing I'll say is two things. Crappy to happy is one of our favorite joy challenges. there are a ton of unglamorous things that you do in your day laundry dishes excel spreadsheets phone calls whatever it is i like even at my work i would walk up to a team member i'm like all right crappy to happy what do we got and it was an acknowledgement of like on a scale yeah some of your things are not glamorous and they're like yeah and i'm like all right that's the crappy what's the happy and so we think about putting joy either before during or after and then the other disclaimer i would give is you're going to go to your team and say let's do a joy calendar and some ever going to go, eh, and they're going to be like, no, we don't want it. And I always say like, joy is very unique to you. And so you have to like desire permission and belief. You have to want it. Give yourself permission and believe it. If you do not want to have joy, I had a woman stand up and say, I have enough joy. Thanks. And I was like, that's right. You're right. Whether you want it or you don't, you're right. And so sometimes you do have to say to your team, if this is not for you, perfect but if it is perfect but it's also cultural right you're trying to set that culture which is ultimately a thing you can't measure so i'm curious one last thing to you so were you guys just anecdotally measuring it or just focusing and tracking your joy on this whiteboard i am kind of curious so it started oh this is a 7.3 i know this is our metric we actually do laugh and say it is a metric in our family we measured in a couple of different ways at first it was like I want to have three joy items off that whiteboard this month. And then now we kind of track it in a couple of different ways. Like, do we have enough? I color code it so I can just kind of see like, okay, we got some joy over here. We got some joy over there. And then for us, we are like tracking, like not to the minute, but just like chunks. And some people, like when you start a joy calendar, I always say, just make sure there's some joy somewhere on there. As if I said, you know, like, can you show me your calendar where is it because you know what you measure where you're going to see results and so if that's just a i just need to have three off this list or i need three hours and then really quick we had a we took our kids to a movie and they were so naughty and it was supposed to be a part of the joy calendar and we're out we had to leave early because they were like throwing popcorn and rolling on the floor distracting the people this true happy to crappy pretty quick is what yeah it did we're in the parking lot i turned to husband i'm like we can't count this as joy like this is not joy we need another one we need another one our kids started running around in the grass laughing and he like looks over he's like mission accomplished i would say oh so don't miss the joy when something goes wrong and you have to pivot it counts like just notice it and be like nope that didn't work let's try something else yeah a little bit of grace and acknowledgement i like how you said that because here's the thing we put intention and KPI metrics and focus on work-related things. We need to do that same thing with joy. And I think that's like anything else. If you have an intention that you want more, you actually can track it and focus on it. Like you said, what you focus on grows, you know, where your energy goes, you know, your happiness is going to flow, right? So I love that. And I really appreciate you being here and sharing these ideas. I think that there's a huge value for people in business and outside of their business, because that's where the two merge together, right? Your life, your career, your creating fulfillment. If they can simply, you know, take that seat of awareness and they can really look at what their ripple effect is, look through the perspective of other people. And like you said, really track and measure the impact and things are having, whether it's culture, whether it's business and things. So I really love that. And I appreciate you spending, you know, like I said, I wish we had a little bit more time. But before we do, can you, is there anything else you really feel like you would like to leave our listeners with? I mean, cause I think this is such a great topic to put focus on. How do you keep that going in your day to day besides like your joy calendar and stuff, or is there anything else you would suggest strategies and tactics you'd want to leave them with? Yeah. You know, I just recently was, I was at Caitlin Clark. I'm from Iowa, the basketball player, Caitlin Clark. I was at her Jersey retirement where at the end of the at USC game, they retired her jersey. And the announcer said, there will never be another 22. There will never be another Caitlin Clark. And I remember sitting there thinking, we all kind of have our own jersey retirements, right? Whether that's the end of our lives or the end of our career where we turn off the light and we walk out the door for the last time. And I just think about that stuck with me of like, there will never not be another insert your name. and when I think about it in that capacity like we have this really big opportunity to happen to our world maybe we won't be the next Caitlin Clark but when it comes to like everything we do from now until that Jersey retirement day it's a big deal and so you have an opportunity to happen to it so get going I love that thought I love it I love it because on so many levels I think sometimes it's a real stoic philosophy too to you know imagine what it's going to be like what you know What effect do you want to have in the end and bring that back into the present moment? So, well, great. Well, I really appreciate it. What's the best way for people to be able to connect with you? I'm sure they're going to want to feed on your energy a little bit. So like, what's the best way for them to connect with you? So I can, I can put those in our show notes. Yeah, absolutely. LisaEven.com. And then I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Awesome. Well, I'll put all those links in there. And I do think it would be nice to kind of get back together. We have a deep dive mastermind group that we'd love to have you come back to as well. But, you know, listen, for those of you listening, I know we talk about a lot of different random things from mind, body, money, business and lifestyle. But I think at the end of the day, when you take a perspective, if you're trying to create the life you're meant to live, and I believe it doesn't matter where you're at. It's never too late to do that. And you got to start today. At the center of that, I think you really need to maintain this idea of, you know, what type of joy, what type of effect you're having in your life. So I hope this message has helped you. And if you have any questions, feel free to hit me up on The Daily Mastermind on Instagram, Facebook. I always put my contact info in the show notes. And so once again, it was great to have Lisa even on the show. And we'll look forward to talking with you more tomorrow. Have a great day.
