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Toni Reece: Lisa, thank you so much for agreeing to take part in this project, and before we begin with the questions, can you please introduce yourself?

Lisa Haisha: I’d be happy to.  My name is Lisa Haisha, and I’m a soul blazer, a humanitarian, and a Hollywood therapist.

Toni: Wow, there’s a lot going on in that!

Lisa: Yes, there is!  It’s all exciting.

Toni: It sounds it, my goodness!  When you think about the word inspiration in what you do, professionally but also in your personal life, who do you inspire and how?

Lisa: I seem to inspire a lot of people because I get a lot of emails from people from Facebook and Twitter, my Huffington Post blogs, and my newsletter subscribers, and a lot of my friends also think I inspire them by being a free spirit.

At one point, I felt really rigid and frozen and afraid to take chances, and once I released that fear and became fearless, I started traveling the world and really exploring my own potential and opening myself up for love.  Loving, learning to love, and learning to accept love.  That has been very powerful.  I think a lot of my family and friends have seen it over the decades, see a big difference.

Toni: When you refer to yourself as a soul blazer and you think about what you’ve been through and because of that, who that inspires, how does that happen?  How does that inspiration come through?

Lisa: How does it come through?

Toni: Yes.  How does it inspire other people?  Is it by setting an example, is it by talking to them or seeing what you’ve done?  How does that happen?

Lisa: I think it’s seeing the process.  With my clients, the way I help them is I talk to their soul.  It’s soul-to-soul coaching more than head-to-head like some therapists do.  I’ve been in therapy myself, and it’s usually very intellectual.  I bring them to a deep place.  We hold hands for three minutes and we do this thing called eye gazing.  It really takes you to a place where we’re so connected, and we’re so free at that moment because it’s our souls communicating.

Once you’re in that place, people could get tapped into their truth, into their real desires so we could bypass on the superficial wants and desires and get to the core of their needs.  When we start chipping away at that and really start working the process of their soul desires, we get something very real; and they get excited about that because then it’s doable.  I teach them more about going for their vision more than their day-to-day goals, their to-do list.

Toni: Now, how does that type of work then — when you’re inspiring them to think that way and to move in that direction — how does it help people explore their potential?

Lisa: Because they don’t look at themselves in the same way.  They look at themselves more as God creating, that God is within them.  And if God can do it, they can do it; more than “Oh my God, I’m all by myself.  I don’t have the financial means.  I have my day job.  I don’t really have the time.”, or “I’ve got this challenge or that challenge.”  They say “Wow, I can do anything”, because they’re seeing the vision.  It’s not “Oh, I’ve got to write all these emails.  I’ve got to write cover letters.  I’ve got to go shopping, get that power suit.”  It’s not about all these little tasks that may be needed to achieve a goal, but it’s about the vision.   What they’re going to do, how they’re going to give.

So many of my clients come and say, “I’m broke and I need money like yesterday”, and I take that away from them within the first five minutes and say “No, it’s not about money.”  I feel so many people now, especially, are addicted to making money more than addicted to giving up their gifts and talents.  But if you talk to their soul, that’s what their soul will say.  They have a need or a yearning and a longing to give their gifts.  That gets lost in the shuffle somewhere when we’re living on this material plane where we need a house, a roof over our head, food in our mouths.

Toni: So it really kind of … what I’m hearing is that you awaken the soul’s wants, needs, and desires to marry that with what the head is saying.

Lisa: Yes, absolutely, absolutely.  It’s very powerful because people come up with things that they never even thought of before.  I had one client who came to me because he was working … he was a very successful casting director, and he really wanted to move up.  He wanted to become a director, he wanted to act, he wanted to do all sorts of things and he said “Help me get there.”  That was the first 15 minutes of our conversation.

I said, “Okay, let’s do the process, let’s hold hands and do the eye gazing and get to the point where we’re more heart-centered and soul-centered.”  We started talking, and I said “Now tell me what you want.”

The shift in him was so dramatic.  At that point, I said “Okay, stop”, when I felt like I got a hit because I’m very intuitive, and I told him “This isn’t what you want at all.  The thing is, what you want to do is you want to come out of the closet.  You’re gay.”

He said “No, I’m not.  No I’m not!”  I said “Yes, you are.”  We discussed that.  He came to me and we unraveled that, and I had him work on that process of coming out, because that was what was holding him back.  His skeletons and his secrets were so severe because his parents were so strict and so against that lifestyle.

He came out, and not only did he come out, he made a documentary about his journey in coming out, going across the United States.  That was very powerful because he became a director, he became an actor, and he became real.

Toni: How powerful is that; that’s a great story.

Lisa: Yes, that was beyond powerful, and he was just in tears and crying, especially when the film was made and he has this great premiere, a standing ovation, and he just lost it up there sitting in the audience.  It was just an amazing moment.

Toni: Wow.

Lisa: He never would have even done that.  It wasn’t in his path.  He was going to think about how many cover letters does he have to send out to how many agents and casting people and what about his look, is he wearing the right clothes, does he need to go shopping, and will I style him …

Toni: Let me ask you then — with the work that you do with others, as powerful as it is just based on the example you’ve just given — when you need inspiration, what do you do?  What do you do to find inspiration or to stay inspired?

Lisa: Oh my goodness.  Art.  Beauty.  Anything beautiful.  Nature.  I go into the woods.  I take walks.  I hike.  I travel; and I travel alone is the main thing.  If I’m really feeling that my energy is low or I feel stagnant, I take that trip to a developing country, and I go and give.  I work in orphanages.  When you do that for a couple of weeks and then take a little time for yourself to just explore a new place, meet strangers, collect stories, make new friends, something powerful happens.  A huge shift.  You can come back and you can conquer the world.

Toni: Let me ask you something, Lisa.  There’s a lot of people that are listening to this interview or reading your transcript, and I just love the way that you said that if you need to fill yourself up you go and do some volunteer work in developing countries and so forth.  But what if someone can’t travel like that?  What would you recommend that they do so that they can experience a similar sense of inspiration like that?  What would you recommend?

Lisa: Give, give, give.  The more you give, the more your heart opens, the more you like yourself.  With soul blazing, I take people on retreats.  Again, mostly international, but the whole point of the retreats are to put you in a place for 10 days where you give during the day and you get at night.  So you’re giving, you’re working in orphanages or you’re building homes during the day, and at nighttime you get soul blazed.  We do drumming, we do dancing, which is a very powerful combination.

If you can’t go anywhere, if you can’t take a retreat, I would say hold babies in a hospital, newborns, become a caregiver, even if it’s once every other week.  There are so many places to volunteer.   Work in an orphanage.  Volunteer your time.  There’s Volunteer Match, a fantastic website.  They can go on there anytime and they list a wide variety of categories of whatever your interests are and opportunities  every day to volunteer.

Toni: I think that’s a very powerful message to give, give, and give.

Lisa: Because when you do, it’s all about love.  Everything’s about love.  Everything, everything, everything!  I’m so clear about that, which I never was before I heard the words.  But when you do the work that I’ve done it is just … if anyone could hear a message, that’s what I would love for them to hear.  We wait our whole life sometimes until we’re on our deathbed to get that, and why wait?  When you love yourself, you can do anything.

Toni: How does that all translate with what you reach for inspiration, what you do for inspiration?  How does that then help you to explore your own potential?

Lisa: Well, it helps me because, again, when you give, you’re in a more centered place.  You don’t have a lot of the chatter in your head.  When you sit next to a tree, when you hike, when you take time alone in silence — in silence you really get a lot of messages — and your chatter starts to really silence itself when you’re in nature.  Even just taking a walk.

Or if you listen to opera or classical music, something that’s soothing.  And when you’re in that place, you can think more clearly.  And for me, to explore your own potential, I have to be organized, and I have to have an action plan based on my vision.

I would say take time out for yourself to meditate, even if it’s 10 minutes a couple of times a day, and really stay focused on what it is that you desire; and then make an action plan and get organized with it.  Usually I think people need a life coach because it’s very hard to do anything on your own, especially if you’re really starting something new.

If you just have that one person that you can connect to once a week that cares about you and that is helping you create your vision, someone to throw ideas back and forth with, your process will go that much faster.  You could do it alone, but it’s a lot easier and more enjoyable process when you have a partner.

Toni: I can hear in this interview … from my perspective as a listener, what I’m hearing is that when you said that that’s all about love and that you didn’t used to think that way and now you do, and how that is such a shift in what you do and how you then must use that, use that awareness and that awakening in yourself to help others get to the place of fearlessness and that soul-to-soul coaching.  You can hear it.  It’s all through your voice and that revelation, and how that must translate into other people when you’re working with them, I can only imagine.

Lisa: Absolutely.  One of the most powerful things that has happened to me recently is my mother has Stage IV cancer, and she’s nearing the end of her life.  Listening to her and watching some of the choices she made her whole life, which were not the best most of the time, and she did it because she didn’t love herself or didn’t feel deserving of love.  And then she got into competition with people she loved, but it was “I’m not good enough to be with them” or “I’ll be close to them once I get someplace.  Then I’ll build a relationship, because then I’ll be worthy of that friendship or that closeness with the family member.”

Now she’s saying, “Oh, my God”, and she’s bonded with these people and more with me.  She has five daughters, and she always felt intimidated by me.  She was saying, “Oh, you’re living this life and you’re traveling, do all this, and I think you must look down on me because I never did those things”, and she always wanted to do some of these things.  Even if I would invite her someplace, she would not come because she would think “Oh, I don’t have the right clothes” or “I’m not good enough”, or “I might say or do the wrong thing.”

This is a very intelligent woman, a beautiful woman, and she’s a giver to a lot of people – but to her close family and friends, she felt more isolated and alone.  She said to me, “I’m dying of loneliness.  That’s my broken heart.”  Now she has made amends with everybody.  Not even that she had a bad relationship, it just wasn’t openly loving to the degree that she knows how to love, you know, knows how to receive and give love.  And she’s now broke open and has a beautiful, amazing relationship with all her daughters and her close friends and her husband.

She is saying “Why did I waste 10 years of my life to get this?  It’s just crazy.”  I said “Mom, why didn’t you come to Tokyo with me that trip, why didn’t you come to Morocco?”  She said, “Because I didn’t have the right clothes, and I didn’t want to see this or I didn’t want that, or I didn’t think that you really wanted me there, and I’m your Mom, and why would you want …” just all these issues.

Toni: It’s really amazing when you experience that and see that in others or yourself, but then the gift that they’ve given with their hindsight is learning.

Lisa: Absolutely!  Why waste time not loving those around you or telling people “I love you” and embracing it in yourself?  With love you can do anything; it’s very powerful.

Toni: Lisa, I have to tell you, you have been filled with passion in this interview, and I so appreciate what you’ve given to the people who are going to listen to this interview or read your transcript.  Thank you so much for being so generous with your information and your personal insights to that word, inspiration.  We at the Get Inspired! Project thank you so very much  for what you’ve done today.

Lisa: Thank you.  It’s been a pleasure.

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For more information about Lisa Haisha:  www.thesoulblazing.com, www.whispersfromchildrenshearts.org

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Toni Reece: Pamela, thank you so much for joining us today; and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Pamela Hawley: Yes.  My name is Pamela Hawley.  I’m the founder and CEO of UniversalGiving, and we’re a web site that helps people give money and volunteer their time to the top performing projects across the world.

Toni: Wow!  Well, let’s go right into that first question.  Based on your organization, or even from a personal perspective, when you think about inspiration, Pamela, who do you inspire and how do you do that?

Pamela: You know, I think what’s so exciting is that what we’re really doing is inspiring anyone, quite frankly, across the world.  We work with university students who want to use their spring breaks to help give back to the community by building a home in the community rather than necessarily going to Cancun.

We work with high network donors who are at a different stage of their lives, where they are going and they are helping invest their money in projects that are doing really great work on the ground; and they want to be a part of that and to see that.

And there’s even families, for example, who are going on a vacation, and as they are going on their vacation, they want to take their young children to maybe go on a volunteer trip or to donate.  We even had a family donate soccer balls.  But what it’s really, really working with is any kind of person who wants to make a difference; we’re helping them do so.

Toni: So that is where the inspiration is happening all over the place; your organization is inspiring others to give.

Pamela: Yes, absolutely.  Give of themselves and their time and their money.

Toni: Now, for you personally, how do you think … I know within your organization, but outside of the organization … how do you think you inspire others, and how might you do that?

Pamela: I think that is a different question, Toni.  I do think that that has to do very much … We’ve talked a lot about this in leadership and how one lives one’s life.  And you know, when I look at kind of my own personal philosophy and mission for my life, it is about being able to express philanthropy in a moment-by-moment situation.

So for example, when you look at what philanthropy means, in the United States we assume that it means money, but it’s really not.  It’s the love of people, it’s the love of humankind.  And so what I like thinking about is every day, every moment, I have this opportunity to express love of people.  And that could be as simple as the fact of when I’m going into the dry cleaners, I meet that person, I greet them — that person behind the counter is someone of importance — to know them by name, to ask them how their day is, and to really engage with them and express that sense of care with them.  It’s not just an errand.

And so, I think hopefully – I say this humbly – so hopefully with my own life I’m helping to inspire people to see that philanthropy is not a separate sector, it’s not a separate business, it’s not just something you do from 9 to 5.  Philanthropy is something you can do all the time.  And what I love so much about this, Toni, is that it’s accessible to anyone at any age and any time.

Toni: When you talk about this — and I love that quote that you just said which is you are providing a sense of care, not just running an errand, and I think that’s a great way to put that — and when you’re doing that in you’re walking that path and your organization walks that path, how do you think that helps others to explore their potential?

Pamela: Well, what I hope it does is open up the landscape of how many possibilities there are for each individual each day.   Sometimes I hear people say, “Oh, I want to change jobs, and I want to start making a difference, and I can’t wait until I can start making a difference.”  But what is so exciting to me is that whether you’re working at a bank, or you’re working behind a deli counter, or if you’re sweeping the lawn or the front porch, you can make a difference right now, and you can do that right now and we don’t have to wait.

And I think that, for me, is the big message.  Yes, it might be right to make a career change, it might be right to change cities or jobs.  But truly, the big change happens right now with your mind and your heart, choosing to give of yourself, choosing to be caring, choosing to take time for that individual who needs it, and not just crossing off another to-do on your list.  And so, that’s what I hope opens up or inspires for people; that sense of change and meaning could happen right now.

Toni: And it doesn’t have to cost them a dime.

Pamela: No, it doesn’t have to do that.  I think, you know, sometimes we overlook the simplest things, Toni.  One of the things that I started doing about a couple of years ago was not just paying for the person behind the toll booth for me, but paying for three people behind me.  And that really, boy … that started to kind of up your standards as far as spending money when you crossed the bridge, right?

But when I look at it, I think wait a minute, those are three people who don’t know who I am, who might go home to their dinner that night and say to their companion, “Oh, I had this lovely thing happen at the toll booth.”  And so instead of coming home and complaining about their boss, hopefully we just affected three other people at dinner who then went and told that story at work, who then went and told their neighbors, and instead of complaining about “Oh, this didn’t go well.”

People have something that seems unique to them – but it really shouldn’t be – but it seems unique to them that someone paid a toll that doesn’t know them, and they have something inspiring to talk about.  And I think that’s the key to life.  That is where change and meaning happens.  And if you do those things in your daily life, then you’re already predisposing yourself to opening yourself up to other ways to give.

And so, people who want change right now start to change right now.   Start giving right now.  Talk to a homeless person and spend time with them on the street.  Maybe be a little bit more loving with your companion at home.  Make sure that you’re sitting down with your children and truly listening to them.  Know the dry cleaner by name.  I mean, those are the kinds of things that I think inspire and open up your life to this amazing, amazing sense of beauty.

Toni: What is it that you need to be inspired?  What do you search for?  What do you look for?

Pamela: For myself personally?

Toni: Yes – for you.

Pamela: Well, I definitely have a very strong spiritual foundation, so I think if you can connect into a greater sense of … divine sense of love or purpose or that the universe is a positive place to be, I think that’s very positive if you can have some grounding there.  So that’s very important to me.  I have a lot of quiet time and meditation and prayer, so that kind of grounding is very important to me in order to stay inspired and not just feel like I’m running around all the time; that’s not the way that I want to live my life.

Number two is family is incredibly inspiring to me.  Both of my parents, Wally and Alex Hawley, are just literally beacons of light to me of being people of service and caring to our communities.  And they’ve been married 46 years, and they are just best friends with a spark, and they just constantly outreach to care, listen, mentor other people.  And so for me, the spirituality and the family is what really grounds me so that I can do more good in our world.

But if we don’t have our own personal lives in order — if there isn’t that sense of love and kindness and compassion there — we first need to work on that, and that will give you a wonderful basis of inspiration so that you can do other good in the world.  And so I really attribute what is going on in my life to what my parents have modeled and have given me by their supreme sense of giving, caring, and love that they share with me and others.

Toni: What a way to describe your parents.  And just so I can clarify, did you say that your parents were “best friends with a spark”?

Pamela: Yes.

Toni: I love that!  I absolutely love that!  When you talk about … You had this fantastic example, and the way that you’ve described that is so beautiful … so you’ve got this great sense of inspiration and the place that you can go for this inspiration as a model … how does that then transfer into exploring your own potential?

Pamela: Yes, and help me here if I’m not answering this exactly right.  But for me then, once I started volunteering abroad, Toni — I started volunteering ever since the age of 12 – I saw a pretty disturbing situation in Mexico with my family when I was down there.  My father and I were at a marketplace and were vacationing in Mexico, and we walked down a cul-de-sac, and I saw every single begging, starving child and I — just at 12 — I was like “This is unacceptable.”

And so there was this call very early on that was this juxtaposition of this completely loving and inspired life that my parents had given to me, and all of a sudden I saw this other world that was just not acceptable; and so I started volunteering.

And when I became an adult, I started to volunteer internationally in El Salvador in an earthquake crisis and microfinance in India and with paraplegics from Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia.  And once I saw that, Toni, then I realized “Oh, my life has to be devoted to these most impoverished people across the world” in a way that is strategic and quality and impactful and inspires people to give; because they trust, because they know that we vet the organizations and that we’re working with quality organizations on the ground.

So what happened is that coming from this basis of inspiration, two things happened for me.  Number one, I wanted to commit my own personal life to be a loving person, very much from the model my parents had given me.  And number two, I wanted my – I guess you could say professional life – to be devoted to impoverished people across the world and to helping uplift the standard of living there in a strategic and quality way.

I would like to add one thing, however — which is when we talk about poverty – what is poverty?  We have to be very careful with that definition.  Many of these people might not have money, but there are a lot of impoverished people here in Silicon Valley who have a large bank account.  And so when you talk about poverty, I’m talking about financial poverty.

When you work with people in developing nations, you will rarely see a stronger sense of family — time spent with family, family meals, low divorce rates, caring about the community, connectedness with the community, connectedness to ritual and history and culture — and so we have so much to learn.  So when I’m talking about poverty, I’m only talking about financial poverty.

The point is, is that to your question, my life is devoted to helping provide opportunity for these people.

Toni: And that’s where you continuously explore your own potential, by providing that opportunity; is that what I’m hearing?

Pamela: Yes.  I think I have certain business instincts and skills in creating web-based marketplaces that help match up donors and volunteers with these quality projects and with these people who need it on the ground.  And so, that’s where I’m marrying the sense of compassion of wanting to help with the business skills, and it all comes from that basis of inspiration from my parents and from spirituality.  And that is where it comes from; and then I can go and help and use my business skills as well as my compassion to help make a difference.

Toni: It’s really interesting how your base of inspiration, starting with your parents, has helped you to know what you need to stay inspired, which helps you then explore the potential and provide the opportunities you do, that you have then transferred into your own business that is helping people all over the world.  That’s amazing.

Pamela: Thank you.  Well, we feel honored and privileged every day.  I have an amazing team here, and it’s so exciting.  Every person on the UniversalGiving team is just someone who has that same balance of head and strategy and heart and compassion, and I am so grateful to have such an amazing, committed team who is helping me with this vision.

Toni: Pamela, thank you for bringing awareness to the Get Inspired! Project and those who maybe didn’t know about your organization now do.  And also from the personal perspective, the information and the learning that you have given in this interview is so beneficial, and many, many people are going to take away value from this, and for that and your participation in this project, I thank you.

Pamela: Oh, Toni, thank you very much for your contribution to the world and inspiration.  And every moment we’ve got a chance to be inspired, so I’m just very grateful to be a part of your project.

Toni: Thank you very, very much.  Take care of yourself.

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For more information about Pamela Hawley:   www.universalgiving.org

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