Rise From The Ashes
"Burnout to Brilliance: Great CEOs, No Burnout"
Leadership is tough. Burnout makes it tougher.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Rise From The Ashes is the ultimate podcast for visionary CEOs and executives who refuse to let burnout rob them of their brilliance, legacy, and impact.
Hosted by Baz Porter, this show isn’t just about surviving leadership it’s about transforming it. Each week, we delve deep into the art and science of thriving at the top, combining actionable strategies, spiritual alignment, and raw truths that reignite your purpose and optimize your energy.
Here’s what you’ll get:
- Bold Frameworks: Learn the exact steps to conquer decision fatigue, streamline your mental energy, and reclaim control of your leadership.
- Spiritual Awakenings: Explore the intersection of purpose, alignment, and success to lead with clarity and connection.
- Transformational Insights: Hear unfiltered stories and practical wisdom from world-class leaders who’ve turned their burnout into brilliance.
This isn’t just a podcast it’s a revolution for leaders ready to rise, inspire, and leave a legacy that outlasts them.
Rise From The Ashes
Burnout to Breakthrough: Lisa Y. Collins’ Path to Healing the World
In this powerful episode, Lisa Y. Collins, a racial healing leader, life coach, and author, shares her journey from burnout to building a heart-centered business focused on trauma and racial healing. Lisa opens up about overcoming corporate discrimination, finding purpose through mindfulness and trust, and creating Conscious Freedom Life Coaching to help others align with their true selves.
Discover how addressing personal trauma can unlock spiritual oneness, the role of community in healing, and Lisa’s vision for a global movement inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King. With her five keys to a fulfilling life gratitude, joy, service, authentic connections, and seeking help this episode offers actionable insights for anyone ready to rise and thrive.
Colorado’s best business coach, Baz Porter, has a new mindset strategy mentoring service to help you unlock new heights of growth, prosperity, happiness, and success. Book your first meeting with the coaching visionary at https://www.ramsbybaz.com/
Friends, as our time together comes to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude. Thank you for joining me on this bold journey of self-discovery and leadership. My mission is to help you rise from burnout to brilliance, because Great CEOs deserve No Burnout.
If this episode struck a chord with you, please share it with someone who could use its message. Together, we can spark a revolution in leadership, one conversation at a time.
I’d love to hear from you whether it’s your biggest aspirations, your toughest challenges, or the lessons you’re uncovering. My door is always open, physically in Boulder or digitally at www.ramsbybaz.com.
Ready to take things deeper?
If you’re tired of confusion and craving clarity on your path to purpose, let’s work together.
Visit my site and schedule a coaching session to discover how the RAMS framework transforms results, breaks limits, and builds legacies.
This is Baz Porter, signing off with immense gratitude. Stay bold, stay true, and remember you always have a partner in your corner who knows the weight you carry and the greatness you’re capable of.
Until next time, keep rising.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Rise from the Ashes podcast. I am your host, Baz Porter, and it is a privilege yet again to be here today in front of you and with my next guest. Her name is Lisa Collins. She lives on the West Coast of America. I'm going to let her, as always, introduce herself. Lisa, it's a privilege to have you here. Please introduce yourself to the listeners and also the world.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. My name is Lisa Collins. I am a small business owner, assistant professor, an author and a practitioner of healing trauma healing, racial healing, healing all around the board and I'm really honored to be with you today.
Speaker 1:Now the honor is mine, firstly, and can you tell the audience a bit about who you are? And you mentioned you were a list of things. What does that actually involve?
Speaker 2:Yes, I started off as a public educator and what happened for me is that I burnt out and I couldn't self-rescue, and that began my study around trauma, and in that time also, I began to heighten my spiritual self, and what that did for me is that allowed me to be able to connect on a spiritual level to help me to be able to live in my purpose. And so I work as assistant professor, I teach at leadership, I'm an author of a spiritual book and I really am service to people who want to be their best selves, and that's my story is that I learned how to be better and be on my path, and I know other people want to do so too.
Speaker 1:I love that. When you came into our corporate doing this small business thing many people struggle with the transition over. Can you share a story that was a mind-blowing career change for you? But what life lesson did it actually teach you in that process?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a great question. For me, I had a small business as necessity years ago and it was to be able to do some work for the city at one point and I needed a business. That's how I started my business, but what happened in probably 2019 or around there, is that I had experienced some corporate discrimination and I had applied for a job and the job was taken away. I got the job and it was rescinded, and what happened is all of this business started coming to me, like the universe sent all this business, and what I had to do is I had to take a breath and I had to trust. I had to trust. I call it being in the tunnel. I am in the tunnel and I want to see the other end of the tunnel, but there's something about trust, about just trusting what is happening right now and just being in my skin in this day, and that was the launch of the business I have today.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned trust and the horrific stigma of racism in today's, not just in the corporate world. It exists everywhere that humans exist. How did you start trusting yourself through that stigma of being I'm going to air quote this because I believe this but the minority in what you were doing?
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a great question. I hit my knees like I was floored by what was going on and any kind of human power I had to grasp to rise myself up, to fight, to go to court, to do all of those things at the core of me. To fight, to go to court, to do all of those things At the core of me. I needed to just be still, and by being still at the core I could start to apply some of the things that I had learned around trauma. It's like you are on the cycles of trauma right now. You need to break free by having a healing community of support. And then I took a breath. It is our breath that just carries me into the next moment. And by me taking a breath and standing still, then the answer started to come. I just said yes to whatever came in my screen, if it felt right.
Speaker 1:I love that. I mean that takes a hell of a lot of courage to step into that space. I love that. I mean that takes a hell of a lot of courage to step into that space.
Speaker 2:And especially in today's world. When you look at your company now and what you've formed over the years, what makes it so unique and what drives what gravitates people towards what you do know, I think very similar to yourself. I am working from the heart. I'm working from the heart and I want to be of service to people. It's not about what they can do for me, it's really about what can we help together, and I'm not canned, it's not. If you come to work with me, then I have this canned pitch that I'm going to do with you. We talk and then we form what you need. And to me I'm authentically of service in this way to be there for people in a way to help them connect to their greatest good, and that is unique, I think, in business.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is unfortunately because people don't see things the same as others, and this is conflict arises. So what you do is very important, I believe, and having that approach, different approach to it. When you were going through the transition of learning to do what you're doing now, trusting who you are, to do what you're doing now, trusting who you are, was there anybody that really helped you or guide you into that?
Speaker 2:into the space you're in now. Yeah, there was. There were a number of people that really helped me. One of the things that I did right away is that I thought I need to get rid of this racial trauma. I don't want to carry it around in my body anymore. I want to be free of it. And when I went to get help from a lady who is the founder of Conscious Freedom Life Coaching, I interviewed her At least I thought I was interviewing her the way the universe works, as I heard my friend say, this person for two years and she's pretty good and I said I'll be the judge of that and I'll let you know right now.
Speaker 2:That didn't work out the way I thought. I went to interview her and she said to me why did you stay so long in a place that was harming you? And I didn't have an answer for her and we began to work together and through Conscious Freedom Life Coaching I was able to heal my past traumas so I could heal my racial trauma. That is a very important tool because we want to heal racial trauma first all of us but we have to go back and do the foundational work. That was foundational and also interpersonal neurobiology, studying here with a practitioner for a year that helped me get down to the root causes and my what they call mothering other pathways that I had needed to rebuild or heal, and that helped me. And then I'd say there's many things, but lastly I'd say energy medicine. I had no idea what energy medicine was, and the way that it was introduced to me is that my heart was racing and I was standing still.
Speaker 1:And instead of being the snarky I don't believe in that it was made real to me in that moment where my friend brought my heart rate down three times in one day when we look at quantum physics which is what that is at the basis level of it and we look at division or racism, how would you say the two combine to help, firstly, be present to what the issues are? And secondly, how do you use that to heal not just the now the but, as you said earlier, the generational side of it? But going back into the vibration of the DNA?
Speaker 1:of it to go, is that? Me or isn't it me? What's really real? What isn't real? Could you speak to that, if you will?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is wow. I mean there has been a lot of healing that I've done to just undo the past and past lives. So at first I thought it was me. So first of all I needed to do what has happened in this lifetime and I worked on that. What has happened harm in this lifetime Then for me, I needed to go and forgive.
Speaker 2:I needed to go and forgive. Once I got toward the healing, give back the shame and then forgive myself, ask for forgiveness for me and then forgive the people. That frees up energy in my body to do different things. And then from there then I needed to lean into where am I going to bring this energy into our world today and how am I going to help other people do what I've done so that we can have a synergy around moving forward? I have no idea what I was in past lifetimes. I could have been a man in past lifetimes. I could have been a white man in past lifetimes, but to really lean into the energy of our community well-being instead of the isolation that we're not one.
Speaker 1:What I like about this subject is the way you presented that and the realization from yourself of we're a collective, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Speaker 1:David Corbin, who is the mentor of mentors if you've ever heard of him, look him up. If you haven't heard of him, he's done multiple books he said to me once we are entrepreneurs having a spiritual experience. Steve Jobs said the same thing many years ago. That defining moment of we are energy and we come from that place and the experiences that we've had have influences on us now. But they also build resilience and they build grit or stamina, and that is what most small business owners, entrepreneurs, have different from, say, the corporate world or most people in the corporate world, because they have a limitation in the corporate world that you're going to live at wage nine till five or whatever you're working with. But that recognition of resilience within your life, how did that start to show up, especially with this delicate subject of race and color, because that's prevalent in this day and age and it's used as a weapon a lot of the times to belittle people and keep them in this framework of. You're not good enough, but you and I both right true.
Speaker 2:I think it first showed up when my life left the path of I talked about earlier with you, about my marriage my first marriage and it was riddled with alcoholism and drug addiction. And being able to leave that and take a path that your life is completely changing, that gives a resilience there that you know things can change. When I think about, when I look at you and when this is the thing that really captured me is that if you are hurting, I am hurting. And when I got to that point I said, oh, this is not about race, this is not about how we look, this is about who we are, about our spiritual oneness, and that if you're hurting and I'm not hurting, that's not okay. And that's the message that is in the book that the spiritual book I wrote. It's not I came through me, it's not from me, that we are one and that is the place that we need to get to all people and it's our collective work.
Speaker 2:And it's really hard to get there because people want to do the surface stuff first. They want to talk about the harm and spin in the harm. So I work with people on who are you, do you know how to recognize your own feelings? Do you know when you're in and out of the cycles of trauma? And then let's start with that. After that, how do you lean into because we know conflict is something that needs more information how do you lean into the discourse without attacking and blaming and bringing that kind of violence into the situation?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like what you just said then about leaning into something that is somewhat difficult to challenge in a lot of ways, because our belief systems, our egos are going doesn't exist. It's not a part of me. I'm separate from that, but actually I'm not. And I want to touch on your book slightly, because you mentioned it twice now. What's it called?
Speaker 2:because I don't know what it's called oh, it's called love and light, a guide to peace and oneness and I'll put that link in the in the description below and also in the blogs.
Speaker 1:I love that Guide to Oneness Awesome. That link will be in the chat below. Please check it out. And if you want to pause this right now and go back, please write it down and just go and check it out. When we look at resilience and resilience overcoming adversity in our own lives, you mentioned earlier about leaving a relationship or walking out and starting under fresh. Many people have done it, but not many people have done it through alcoholism, drugs etc. And that's a different take on it, because with that becomes abuse, With it comes violence, as you said earlier, but also with it becomes hope and courage. Can you touch, if you will, on a bit of that turning point of going? I'm done now. What? What happened? What was the pinnacle moment for you going? Time for a change.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, hope. You mentioned hope and I would say that I wasn't really thinking. I wasn't thinking, period. And what happened to me is life happened to me, real, real time, fast and furious Life happened to me. And real time, fast and furious Life happened to me and what I found myself is at a turning point. And for me, what happened is that I burned all the bridges and I pushed away from that relationship, but I was left with myself, like I played a part in that relationship, and I found myself really with no friendly direction to turn to. I was alone and I didn't have any idea how I got to where I got to and I was willing to do the next thing in front of me. And so help came and I took it. I took it.
Speaker 2:Did I believe it? Not necessarily had I lived through horrible things, oh, yes, yes, very horrible atrocities that I had lived through, but none of them pushed me to the point where I thought you know what I'm going to change my life. But that day, that early, early day, I'll never forget it. I was sitting there with nowhere to go and no one was asking for me or calling for me. Nowhere to go and no one was asking for me or calling for me, and that was a day that, when help came, I took it and it was like I called it pulling the thread. That thread led to another thread, led to me actually taking the action to change my life, and I think it's a pivotal place where you're alone, it feels dark and you just cry out for help. And the help came. It came in the form of people.
Speaker 1:That's a very powerful statement there. I was just on a client call before we were speaking and the person I was speaking to had a problem with asking for help and they couldn't, for a very long time, muster up the courage to say I need somebody to facilitate me and hold me accountable from going A to B. But that moment of realisation within yourself of I need help, what was that feeling like in that moment? Was it a weight on the shoulders? What was it? Did you cry? Did you break down? Did you just go through a celebration? What happened?
Speaker 2:What happened for me was that I had doors closed on me, my parents hanging up on me, another I was going to join the army, my recruiter hanging up on me yelling at me. Family, another family member and nowhere to go, nowhere to stay, no, nothing, no money, nothing but the clothes on my back, shorts and a shirt, nothing but the clothes on my back shorts and a shirt. And it was through that situation I just felt I heard about a place that they would take me to stay there, and that's where I went. And from there, my life I had a spiritual experience and my life changed. And the spiritual experiences, I was able to hear where I couldn't hear and I was able to see where I couldn't see and take responsibility for the actions I had taken.
Speaker 1:See, what I couldn't see and take responsibility for the actions I had taken.
Speaker 1:So that moment where you started to see the truth behind the veil. Some people call it clairvoyance or channeling. There are many different clairsentient gifts that we actually possess as human beings that we don't tap into or we're too scared to. How does that show up in your work? Today you're talking small businesses, corporate sector. How do you walk in front of a corporate ceo and go by the way? Your life's fucked. And this is why these gifts are. They're not and they're. Everybody possesses them, but we choose, as you did, to step into them with confidence and use it as an empowerment to accompany all the other gifts that go along with it to help other people. How does that show up in your life?
Speaker 2:Yes, I don't know if they know that it's showing up in my life, but what happens is that we connect and I don't know, I'm not in charge of it, but when I'm able to talk to them I seem to ask the right question. That gets to their heart. And once we start talking and they are vulnerable with me and we, I help them. I hold them in this space where they can let the thing that they've been carrying in their backpack, they can take it out and we can examine it together. So I do that for people who and it happens sometimes in conversations like this, it just happens and I lean into it and it's not always business, and it's not always business and I try to leave that service to them, that love with them in conversations, literally in conversations, one person talking to another person.
Speaker 1:And that makes you very real and approachable for a lot of people who are, quite frankly, scared, and scared of mainly their own power, their own shadows, their own thing, the possibilities of what, if it's very important, of what you do, you keep doing it, because if you're not, I'm that person. Yeah, you're not.
Speaker 2:I'm them. We're the same person. I was afraid of everything and anything, and so I started the healing work to remove the shadows, to put them in the light, to say, ok, that feeling doesn't really feel like me, so I think so. Thank you. Yes, I'm no different than they are. I may be a little bit ahead of them and I want to pull them up.
Speaker 1:I may be a little bit ahead of them and I want to pull them up. Yeah, that's the difference You're ahead, but not egoically, just in the journey of where you've come from, and that service is very much needed today, in every aspect of the world. When I go to businesses and I'm sure you're the same most of the problems and the systems that they're going through are a result of something the leadership management are going through externally in their own lives. Have you found that happening in your, in your circles?
Speaker 2:absolutely. Sometimes it's putting the card before the horse, but I always want to check in with people to see how they're doing and, authentically, we are whole, we're always whole, and so anytime there's lack, then that lack seems to move, that energy seems to move into different places. So I find, when I do some work here with local school districts, I do some work with the National Park Service, that when I'm able to talk to them authentically and just tell them this is what my intent is and make sure that our intent is in the same place, and then ask them about some of their things that are going on with them and fold that work into the improvement cycle of changing All of that is possible, possible and for their well-being and health too. So anyone I work with, I'm asking them how are you doing, what is going on with you? Because it does inform their work that energy does transfer.
Speaker 1:Yeah no, I love and I think working with schools is very important, and I mean, I'm not for schools, I'm not that person, but people like you who have that nature they can go and speak to the younger generation and be heard and seen in these environments is very important. If there's anything you would like to give to the schools as a gift or as some advice, what would that be? Generically, you don't have to be specific.
Speaker 2:As some advice. What would that be? Generically and have to be specific. Yeah, I think schools we have one job in schools in my career in public schools and even in private schools is to care for our constituents, which are those littles right, and it doesn't matter how old they are. Those young souls need cultivating, they need love, they need care, and one of the things that we haven't really done for children is we haven't looked at them as little human beings and we haven't helped cultivate them as people, and so one of the things that I think schools really need to do is focus on kids who are experiencing things that they're not telling you. We need to look at what traumas they're bringing into the school. Instead of trying to put a bandaid on a major gash. We need to examine hey, what's happening with this student? And it's really funny because I had created a tool for schools to use and what I heard back was, if we use this tool to find out what traumas that our students may be carrying, we'll have to do something.
Speaker 1:Yes, Welcome to the real world. That's what you're there to do. You're not just teaching, you're nurturing the future I want them to care.
Speaker 2:I want them to care for students and families. That's what I really want, yeah, but that's what I really want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's a hundred percent and that should be in the focus of.
Speaker 2:It should be in the goddamn job description when they come to the to be employed you would think I don't see care in the job description and because of the systems, the way that the organizational structure, sometimes it takes out the heart. I just want you to care. I care as a teacher. I cared as a teacher, I care as a teacher today, whatever I'm teaching, I care about my students. I just that's what I want schools to do. And if you were, let's say there's a crust built up between you and care, then hey, let me help you with that, let's help take away the crust so that we can get to the care for you, for management, for everyone involved yeah, I love that message.
Speaker 1:So if you're listening to this and you see an issue within education, wherever you are, please care front it. Don't confront something because you cause more conflict. If you go there with compassion and open heart but truth and authenticity, you're carefronting something and it brings a more deeper conversation to the topic in hand. And also, please reach out to Lisa, because I'm not that person. I'm just not for many reasons. We look at resilience and building resilience. Can you share with the audience five tips that you've learned over the course of transitioning from where you were in that environment to what you're doing now into the present moment, not only to look forward, but what is that? The tips you would share with the audience from your own experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, for me, the first thing was getting to know myself, like really well, like being in touch with my body. And because of the way I grew up, I wasn't necessarily in touch with my feelings, and so being in touch with your body and knowing when your body is telling you something that you're not ignoring that so that's the first thing is getting in touch with your body. How do you do that? You start to listen to your body oh, I have a headache, oh, that's nothing. And you start to have a conversation and a relationship with your body. And one way that I did that is I did that through meditation, through quiet time, through guided meditations, through walking and nature.
Speaker 2:I have many ways that I connect through music. Music is a wonderful way for me to connect to myself and that helps me to know myself better. So when I get in situations and there's things happening, I can stand up for myself and I can create a boundary when something is not working for me, instead of just I'm just going to make it through this, I can say excuse me, can I have a minute? That was my one of my best tools. You know what Can I get back to you? And then I started to be able to self-rescue.
Speaker 2:The other thing is joy. Joy is for us, but we don't experience joy enough. I started to look for joy. I started to look for things that I love doing. I started to look for things that made me happy. And then the other thing is service to the world and those around me and I want to love and bring that love to me. And so that may be picking up trash as I walk down the street, that may be smiling or helping, asking somebody if I can I carry your groceries for you, that may be, and it's all authentic, and those things help keep me in my purpose on this earth.
Speaker 1:I love that, especially the joy. I think that's overlooked in a lot of people's lives these days. They get sucked into the perceived bad things or the negative that's going on. They fail sometimes to go. What can I be grateful for? What can I have enjoyment in my life? Is it the kids? Is it the grass? Is it waking up? Is it something simple? And the thing about meditation you said I advise every single person in the world, if you're not meditating, even 15 minutes a day, of being present with yourself and just allowing yourself to be 15 minutes.
Speaker 2:All it takes as a start and it will change beautiful it will change your life, it totally will change your life and that that is one of the most important things of self, for the start of self-awareness and also, I think, self-acceptance.
Speaker 1:When we look at global movements and causes, you're heavily into causes and giving and being a center of that. If there was one global movement you could start today. What would it be?
Speaker 2:wow, one global movement, what day. I have a dream.
Speaker 2:I I have a dream, much like dr martin luther king, I have a dream, much like Dr Martin Luther King I have a dream that in every city there's a place where people could go and be heard and then they can experience healing, and that people would be there to welcome them and care for them, much like you do on this podcast, make a safe space for them, and that they can go there and they can say the things they need to say, that no one's going to judge them, no one's going to admonish them, but they're going to care for them and help them to heal. That is a dream of mine I love that.
Speaker 1:I want to ask you something now that I don't know if you have an answer to what is the meaning of healing for you the meaning, the meaning of healing for me is for me to be my authentic self, my higher self, the self that's not human.
Speaker 1:for me to be that being and to serve the purpose that I came here to do, I like that when we look at future and your aspirations, where do you see yourself or where do you want to be Now? You mentioned the global movement. If you could facilitate that, how would you start that today could facilitate that, how would?
Speaker 2:you start that today. I think one of the things and this is just when you ask this, because I just saw right before we got on some platform that changes things into different languages the work that I've done around trauma healing and the trauma instrument, the assessment, to be transferred into different languages and for people and also paper pencil where people can identify hey, this may be in my backpack and I didn't realize it and for people to be able to have that healing across the world, I would love to see, years from now, that instrument is being used globally, everywhere in any aspect that it needed to be transferred to, and that those healing modalities are happening everywhere, that there's training for people who are really interested in making our world better and that we're all coming together in this huge synergy to provide this love to the world.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love. One of the things I like about you is your heart and whatever you are doing, even on sharing this with me, you're very present with your heart, and that's a rare, somewhat rare, commodity in life. We have an abrasive world around us. Is there anything you'd like to share with the audience of? If they want to get hold of you, or a tool they could use, something that isn't tied up to you, what do you want to share with the world right now?
Speaker 2:it's entirely up to you. What do you want to share with the world right now? I would say that to the audience, that you are important, you are loved, whether you feel it or not, a hundred percent loved, and if I was going to give you something, I would give you. There's free meditation on my website. You can download it, and you can get my book on my website e-copy of the book for free, and what that book does is it tells you can get my book on my website, an e-copy of the book, for free, and what that book does is it tells you how to have a relationship with yourself, how to be quiet and how to take away the things in the world that have you, as my, one of my mentors is spinning on the outside of the bicycle wheel.
Speaker 2:We want to be in the middle and our world will spin us, but what I wish for you is I wish for you peace and love and that you are able to get those things, and you can look at my blogs, look at my website. I show my story about how I started walking down that road, and I would love for you to walk down it too. You don't have to walk down it with me, but just know it's possible.
Speaker 1:Could you just share the website with the audience so they know where to go. It will be in the link below. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It is lisaycollinsmynamecom.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you very much, Lisa. It's a privilege to have you here today. If there's anything else I can do for you, please reach out For myself. It was a joy for me.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for having me the privilege is mine, lisa, I will assure you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing From everybody else. If this inspired you, please share the message. It's free. If you'd like it, please subscribe. It isn't a lot of money, so I don't know any of my cents and it helps me carry on with the stuff that I'm doing. I'm Baz Porter. This was Lisa Collins. Thank you very much for joining us. This is Rise from the Ashes and another joyful episode From myself. Live with purpose, my friends, and inspire with legacy. Have a blessed day.
