Day 137: Lisa Cunningham
“… look at all your experiences as a learning process. Don’t beat yourself up for making a mistake. Just learn from it and don’t make it again, you know? I think people spend too much time ripping themselves apart or being their own worst critic.”
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Toni Reece: Lisa, thank you so very, very much for joining us on the Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Lisa Cunningham: I’m Lisa Cunningham. I’m a freelance writer and editor living in Florida; Tampa, to be specific.
Toni: Well fantastic. So Lisa, when you think about that word inspiration, who do you think you inspire and how do you do that?
Lisa: I try to inspire everybody close to me — my sisters, my brother, my friends — mostly by living a Christian life and, you know, having the values that I grew up with — honesty, integrity, and treating people fairly, being tolerant. I aspire to that; don’t always make it, but you know, just try setting an example. I’m the oldest of five kids, so it kind of comes with the territory.
Toni: You’re the youngest of five children?
Lisa: No, the oldest.
Toni: Oh, the oldest, okay.
Lisa: So I had to be the role model. I had to forge the way, so to speak.
Toni: Oh, I can imagine. So Lisa, when you are setting the example, you know, to your friends and your family, how do you think that you might help others to explore their own potential?
Lisa: Well, I like mentoring. I like teaching people new things and networking, hooking people up with each other so they can learn. The lady I’m writing my biography about her forever, and she was very much into that before it was really a big thing. She mentored students at the University of South Florida. She put her sister through college. She herself benefited from an aunt who put her through college, and she had a Master’s degree back in the 50s when not many women went that far in education. So her thing is always to tell people “Don’t thank me, just do it for another woman.”
Toni: And is that what you do, Lisa?
Lisa: I try, yeah.
Toni: Can you give us an example of some of the work that you do or how you’ve touched other people in that way?
Lisa: Well, one of my friends is over in South Korea right now, but she lives here in Tampa. She’s about 28, and she’s 20 years younger than me almost, but she was working on a book about her travels. She’s like a Christian missionary and she does documentaries. So it’s really interesting; she was working on like a memoir and she didn’t know a whole lot about writing, so I helped her put that together and kind of organize it and, you know, just have her thoughts make more sense. She paid me a little bit for that work, and it was very rewarding.
Toni: And so … go ahead, I’m sorry.
Lisa: She obviously repaid me by writing a testimonial on my website. She’s always trying to find me work as well, so you know, the more people you help, the more it helps you in the long run.
Toni: Absolutely. Now let me ask you, Lisa, what do you need to be inspired?
Lisa: I like to read a lot.
Toni: What types of books do you read?
Lisa: Oh my goodness … I read biographies, I read mysteries, some history, even some humor. I like a lot of different books. Of course I read the Bible just about every day, so that inspires me, too. What inspires me? Just my relationship with God, my relationship with other people. I try to focus on having good relationships and being friendly with my family and everybody, and that inspires me; just being positive.
Toni: Have you always been positive?
Lisa: No. I grew up in a family that is the other way, so for a lot of years it was hard to be positive every day.
Toni: So, the people that are listening to you in this interview or reading your interview now, they’re going say “Well then how did you … if you grew up in a family that wasn’t that positive, how did you …?” Because you sound through this interview very positive and very matter of fact about you just love this life and you know, that you treat people fairly and living that Christian life, so was it an evolution for you to come into being a positive person or was there a moment in time when you said “Nope, you know what? I’m no longer going to be negative?”
Lisa: It was an evolution. I tried to put positive people around me. And I’m still like that, you know? Like somebody most recently said “Let’s go out to lunch with these two people” and they’re like – to me — they’re a downer, you know?
I didn’t want to be rude to my friend, you know, but I’m not going to seek out those kind of people either, you know, because they do … I mean, I don’t know if Oprah says it or what, but depressed people do kind of wear you down and they kind of affect your attitude. So I’m always telling my sisters and everybody, you know, just try to … your best friends should be people who have the attitude you want to have.
Toni: Is that how you became more of a positive person than you were?
Lisa: Yes, that and my faith in God, working at it every day.
Toni: Do you think your writing helped you?
Lisa: My writing, yes, because I like to interview people who have had a happy outcome, other cancer survivors. And after going through cancer myself, I’m kind of … I’m still not very tolerant of people who have colds.
Toni: You’re not tolerant of people with colds?
Lisa: No. I’m like “Okay, that’s like a problem for a couple of weeks – try having cancer for a year,” you know?
Toni: Oh, gosh. Well congratulations for being a cancer … for surviving cancer yourself.
Lisa: Oh well, to me it was not that hard, because I was young and I was very healthy, so to me it’s harder when you’re about 70 and you have go through … my dad right now has colon cancer. He’s in Stage IV, and he’s going through the chemo, and you know, he’s 81 years old. It’s not easy to get up every morning and go do what you gotta do. And he was depressed anyway, so you know … he’s getting through it though with humor, so I really believe in humor. If you’re not a God person or whatever, then humor is always a good tool.
Toni: Well gosh, I would imagine going through cancer at a young age would also change a mindset from being negative to positive.
Lisa: Yes. It makes you appreciate every day more, but then that sort of wears off after about 10 years or so and you don’t have cancer, you know? You kind of go back to, you know … some people do go back to how they thought before, and that can be a slippery slope.
Toni: Yes. Do you find yourself helping other people that are in a similar situation?
Lisa: Yes. Not as much as I would like to, because I have to make a living. My goal … if I could ever retire, my goal would be to help people, other cancer survivors, and that’s something the lady I’m writing about did, too. She would go to the hospital. She didn’t shirk from going to the hospital and sitting on the bed and talking to them for an hour or two, whatever they needed.
Toni: So let me ask you, Lisa, how do you explore your potential going forward? What do you do to keep honing your craft and staying positive and exploring your present potential and your future potential?
Lisa: I just love to read. Any time I have a question, I go online and I seek it out. I love doing research. I don’t know if you can over-research, but you can get bound up in that and getting worse then … so you always have to keep reminding yourself of your priorities, I guess.
The old to-do list and all that kind of thing, that really works for me. And, you know, obviously at New Year’s you evaluate your work and see what you want to do this year and what’s your top priority. Right now I’m trying to get an agent, so that’s proving to be an interesting experience.
And the thing is, look at all your experiences as a learning process, you know? Don’t beat yourself up for making a mistake. Just learn from it and don’t make it again, you know? I think people spend too much time ripping themselves apart or being their own worst critic, you know?
Toni: Oh, I can imagine that that’s very difficult to hear when people continuously rip themselves apart.
Lisa: Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of people outside of writing, they have no clue what it’s like to sit there and write, and so because they have no clue or they’re kind of scared of it, they just totally misunderstand and they sort of like look at you like you’re a freak, you know? I mean really, you know? They’re like “Why don’t you go do something else? Why don’t you be a teacher? Why don’t you be this or …?” You don’t understand; this is what I was born to do. God gave me these gifts, and I have to use them, you know?
Toni: Right, right.
Lisa: And they’ll be like … they’re in sales and they’re making all this money. I’m like “That’s not what I’m about is making a whole lot of money. What I’m about is sharing this gift with other people, you know, and helping other people.” That’s what God cares about. God doesn’t care how much stuff you’ve accumulated.
Toni: I think that is … you said a lot of really important things in this interview, but I think you just kind of summarized it very, very well, didn’t you? I really appreciate, Lisa, how honest you were in this interview and for just kind of sharing your story so that other people who might be stumbling with their own writing or their own goals can listen to you and say “Yeah, you know what? It isn’t about making that money and having all those … it’s doing what you love to do” and that’s what you’re saying.
Lisa: Definitely. This is what I tell my nephews, too. They’re all like in their teens and, you know, they’re not really sure what they want to do. And I’m like Do what you love; the money will follow.”
Toni: Yeah, yeah.
Lisa: That saying is so true, you know?
Toni: Well, Lisa, thank you so very, very much for being part of the Project.
Lisa: Oh, you’re welcome.
Toni: We will include a link to how people can get a hold of you at the end.
Lisa: I’ll send you my link.
Toni: Okay, fantastic. I really appreciate meeting you and thank you for all that you’ve told us today.
Lisa: Oh, well thank you, Toni. It’s nice to talk to you.
Toni: You’re quite welcome. Take care, Lisa. Good luck to you.
Lisa: Thanks. You keep up the good work now.
Toni: Well thank you.
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For more information about Lisa Cunningham: prosetogo.squarespace.com/
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