We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lisa McClanahan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Lisa, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
I discovered my purpose through one of the most difficult seasons in my life, by walking through a divorce. Prior to starting a family I had a very successful corporate career in Human Resources at a wide variety of corporations from government contractors, high tech firms, retail, and non-profits. I loved working with senior leaders to develop highly creative, innovative, and thriving teams and organizations. Once I started my family, I was fortunate enough to be able to stay home and be a full time mom. I loved this season. Soon though my marriage started struggling and I was left to become a single mom with two young kids. When you loose your career and your role as a wife it really causes you to reflect on the question “Who am I?” I had spent most of my life up to that point defining myself by what I did, jobs I had and roles I fulfilled. But those things are constantly changing. It was like building a house on shifting sands and I realized I could no longer define myself in that manner. I needed something that wasn’t shifting and changing constantly. For me that was realizing that I was defined by a Creator who totally loved me and would never leave me. That I am a child of God, as everyone is and that that would never change. Standing on this foundation I was able to shift and start to reflect over all my past careers, roles, and hobbies and life in general and I discovered a pattern emerged. Almost all of my experiences were about working and helping people become all of who they were, uncovering their purpose, and helping them to live their identity and purpose out right where they are in their families, organizations, and communities.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Because of my past experiences I have a passion for helping people discover their true self, their purpose, and help them live these things out courageously in their families, organizations and communities. My why is I envision courageous people being change agents in their spheres of influence, creating a vibrant, innovative, and generative world. I believe when people are their authentic self and doing their why that everything changes! I offer highly relational retreats, courses, gatherings, and coaching sessions to individuals and groups that help us grow in awareness, communion, and connection with God, ourselves, and others.
Examples of some of our offerings are:
Identity-Who am I?
The Crazy Truth of Who You Are
Enneagram Coaching Sessions
Living From Your True Self-Using the Enneagram to be grounded in your true self
Why am I here? Uncovering Your Purpose
StrengthsFinder Assessment and Coaching
APEST Assessment and Coaching
Live Courageously!
Crafting a Vision for Your Life
The Word Made Flesh in You
Lead Courageously!
Crafting/Clarifying Your Shared Vision
Lead Courageously-Transformational Leadership Framework.
We provide facilitated sessions for organizational leadership teams to grow in their ability to fulfill their vision and impact their communities.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
For me the three most important qualities and skills that have impacted my journey were and still are practicing acceptance, forgiveness, and love. Acceptance – I’ve come to learn that everything and everyone belongs, the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly. Because of this I practice being present and open to everything that occurs. Learning to accept what is, love it, and trust that it is for me.
The second skill is forgiveness. I do my best to live in a posture of releasing others from my judgment and acknowledge that we are each simply doing the best that we can, with what we have, each moment of every day. I try to remind myself that I do not know the other’s story and I’m only seeing a very small fraction of their life in the moment that I’m interacting with them. Letting go of my judgments creates space for new possibilities to emerge.
The third skill is love. Practicing extending loving kindness to myself and others as we all figure out how to live our lives and walk this journey is crucial. It takes humility, patience, and vulnerability to love well.
All three of these are big concepts that require us to practice them on our journey. The more we practice them, the less they are concepts and the more they begin to simply be part of who we are.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
At Greater Grounds, we love collaborating with others. It’s a core part of we are as a spiritual and educational collaborative where inquisitive minds and deep souls convene to share ideas, and learn about and from each other. We come from various spiritual traditions and join in proclaiming the supremacy of Love and are committed to practicing love of God, ourselves, others, and all of Creation.
If you love working with people and helping them live and lead courageously we would love to connect with you! Feel free to email us at [email protected].
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.greatergrounds.net/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greatergrounds
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.mcclanahan.71
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-mcclanahan-05ba31a3/
