Day 269: Dr. Lisa Chu
“When I talk about ‘the music within us,’ I’m talking about when we connect with that place inside us where our vibration, our energy is aligned with our passion, it’s like music to our ears. There’s a different sound to how we present ourselves in our lives when we are connected with the music within us, and that’s sort of my metaphor for the essence in our nature coming out.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Lisa, for agreeing to be part of this Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Dr. Lisa Chu: My name is Lisa Chu. I am the founder of The Music Within Us, and I am a life coach, writer, speaker, musician, and former physician who promotes people finding their own voice and the truth in their heart, and that they live creative lives.
Toni: Well, let’s ask that very first question, which is who do you think you inspire, and how does it happen?
Lisa: Well, I think that story of the example of my own life, having been a classically trained musician since the age of three, having gone to Harvard, graduated from medical school, and done sort of all the right things and followed the rules very well, to where I am now, which is living in California having founded my own violin school, and now becoming really a mentor to others who want to create the life that they want to live. I think that that’s inspiring to people who are very familiar with the rules and have played the game successfully and are just wondering what it’s like to cross that threshold into something bolder and more unique.
Toni: So you really are setting an example by telling your story.
Lisa: Yeah, I really feel like in my life, that’s how I’ve been inspired in terms of reading stories of real people who have done things that I never really thought were possible until I, you know, read about it or met someone who had done it.
Toni: How do you think by living this example and showcasing yourself as an example to people it helps them to explore their potential? How does that happen? How do you get to someone’s potential?
Lisa: Well, I do think it starts with seeing a model a different way. I think that when we … the first way that we come to seek inspiration is a feeling of longing or perhaps discomfort or something missing from our daily life, and so we go on a search. When we search, it’s these images of life and being alive that comes to us and speaks to us. And I think, you know, real people telling their story honestly and where they came from and how they got to where they are, that’s a huge piece of the journey for those that are seeking it, so I think showing the example is a very important first step.
Toni: Absolutely; and it allows someone to think … you know, you’ve spoken to being a classically trained musician, correct?
Lisa: Yes.
Toni: And a doctor prior to that, or in addition to a classically trained musician, a physician. I mean, I can imagine that people are looking at that career path going “Wow, I don’t know how those dots connected, but it’s pretty cool!”
Lisa: Yes. It’s sort of like, when you see someone, when you witness the courage in another person, it does speak to your own source of courage inside. There’s something about that, that human connection that we get.
Toni: Well, that leads me into the next question, which is, what inspires you?
Lisa: Well, I … you know, seeing people … I’m very inspired by transformation, witnessing transformation in others, and I’m also inspired by people who truly are living with passion and doing what they love to do. I think it’s palpable when you see someone who is truly living from a state of joy and working in something that brings them alive. It’s obvious, it sort of connects with that.
When I talk about “the music within us,” I’m talking about when we connect with that place inside us where our vibration, our energy is aligned with our passion, it’s like music to our ears. There’s a different sound to how we present ourselves in our lives when we are connected with the music within us, and that’s sort of my metaphor for the essence in our nature coming out. I’m just inspired whenever I see that, and it speaks to me. That inspires me. I’m sort of … I want to be that for other people.
Toni: How did you come to realize that this essence, this music inside of you, the creativity, the spark, would play a part in your own courage to move you forward? How did that realization happen for you?
Lisa: Well, I guess the story that I would tell is that I was … I went to medical school, frankly, because I was expected to. In my family, education was a really high value, it was a priority, and the assumption was after college you go to some sort of graduate school; it doesn’t just end in college. That was just so people know … that’s the base assumption that I was operating on. I went to medical school. My brother is a doctor, I’d seen it done, it seems very doable, but it was not my passion. It was definitely a path to secure a career route that would do good for society, and these are all good things, but it wasn’t something that I loved.
You know, the first realization was that I didn’t have to go to a residency and do what everyone else around me was doing, and that was sort of my first step of courage when I looked around and said “You know, who says that I have to?” When I realized that, it enabled me to look beyond the options that were presented to me in that system, and that’s what sort of led me to my next job, which was in finance, as a venture capital finance person working in medical devices. And that sort of opened me up to the whole business world.
When I was there – and I was really there for idealistic reasons, thinking that I could help to discover the next great medical technology that might change the game or a particular field in medicine — I was having a conversation with a colleague who was also a MD, who had been in venture finance for now 15 years, so he was older than me. I remember him … we were talking, and he asked me, you know, “What’s your number, Lisa?” I said “What do you mean?” He said “You know, everybody in this business, it’s your … to get to a particular number – so what is it? Twenty million, 50 million, 100 million?” And he was talking dollars.
I was just stunned, because I didn’t really go into it for that reason. I was not going after a number. He said “Because when you get to your number, then you’re done. That’s what we’re all here to do.” I just really couldn’t believe it, and I said “Well, you know, what if you don’t get to your number? How do you reconcile living your life for this thing that might not happen?”
The conversation evolved to the point where we were talking about what we would do if we had the number. I heard myself say out loud, completely unexpectedly “If I had my 20 million, I would open a violin school.” It totally surprised me to hear me say this, because I had sort of put away that dream that I had when I was four years old to be like my violin teacher who taught me from age four to 17. We went on concert tours, and I played at Carnegie Hall when I was eight years old, and the Kennedy Center, and Moscow when I was 14 — just a lot of world-class experiences at a very young age — and yet I was sort of told not to pursue music as a profession because it was not as reliable a way to make a living.
And so to hear myself say that I would do this, it really woke me up to something that I had been putting off, saying that, you know, I have to just make all this money or whatever it was, do this career, and then do the things that I really dreamed about doing. And that moment really indicated to me that there was something else that I could be doing with my life that was a more passionate place. So actually, within a few months, I resigned from my job and moved to California and opened the violin school. It was pretty quick after that conversation.
Toni: It sounds to me the way you’re describing yourself and your story is that it really was … your breakout moment was when you realized you had freedom of choice. And when you had freedom of choice, that created your freedom.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s a great observation, and I think it’s been an unfolding, because it’s been sort of small realizations. It’s like, what’s the next door that I’m going to open? It didn’t just all open up at once. This sort of progression that you hear in my story, you know, even continues.
I mean, my violin school was based on the classical training that I got when I was growing up. It was basically the model of teaching that I had received. And what surprised me in the school – I had it for five-and-a-half-years — it was successful. I brought my kids on concert tour every year. It was a very intense program, just like the one that I came up through, and I realized that it was not giving back to me in the way that I expected, because here I was living my dream, right?
It was supposed to be a dream, and to experience what was essentially burnout from that after five years was really stunning to me, and it really … going through that physical exhaustion that I experienced, which was a result of basically taking full responsibility for everyone and everything that happened in the school, my life brought me two things: The field of life coaching, which I discovered … it just sort of appeared in my life, there is no other way to explain that, and a program in music healing. Both two modalities I had actually been training in myself for the last year, and that’s really opened me to this other whole realm of freedom that I never knew up until this point.
I started doing improvised music for the first time in my life. I’m now recording a CD of all improvised music. I had never played anything prior to last year that was not written down or that I had not heard before. And so, to even realize that I could create music is this latest opening for me, and it just … it’s brought me another level of joy that I never imagined before.
Toni: Well, that seems like an absolutely obvious answer for the fourth question of the Project, which is, what are you doing now to explore your own potential? So in addition to branching out and doing things with your music that you hadn’t done before, what else are you doing to explore your own potential?
Lisa: It just like … I mean, the flood gates have opened because I … you know, anything and everything that’s some expression of myself I’m doing. Writing – I’ve always wanted to write a book, and I’ve really rededicated myself to my blog, which is sort of evolving into my first book on this journey. Like I said, I’m recording a CD of improvised music. I’m actually now part of an acoustic rock band, which is so much fun. I mean, it’s all music that I’ve never played before or not even necessarily listened to before, but that I bring another layer to just from my listening and improvising.
And being a coach and a speaker – I really want to bring this story out there so that people hear what’s possible, and I really, from Gail’s teachings, have really learned the power of authenticity and being very transparent about my process. I think it’s very important for people to know that we’re in an age where there’s a lot of, kind of ideal life and visioning going on, which I think is great for people to set big goals and dream big. What I would like to show is the process, the turtle steps, the baby steps and what’s that like.
Because you know, actually when I taught violin, that was sort of my goal was to teach children, you know, what it means to dream about something is the step that’s right in front of you — these small steps, the consistency, and the daily practice, and that long-term commitment to something. And what I realize now is that the adults need to remember that. As we change directions, we need to remember to be gentle with ourselves as we take the small, daily steps.
Toni: Absolutely. Just great advice, and your journey is so interesting that the information and the descriptions that you have shared with us just in the 15 minutes has really been fascinating. We wish you the best of luck in all of these different roads and journeys that you’re on. It’s really amazing. Thank you for being with us today and sharing just a snapshot into this with us.
Lisa: Thank you so much, Toni. It’s been an honor.
Toni: Take care, Lisa.
Lisa: Thank you.
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For more information about Dr. Lisa Chu: themusicwithinus.com, www.themusicwithinus.com/2010/05/24/take-two-from-last-night/
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