Business
For the last but not least episode of season 3 of my podcast, I welcome Lisa Ryan who is the Chief Appreciation Strategist at Grategy. As a Certified Speaking Professional, a Certified Virtual Speaker and the best-selling author of ten books including “The Upside of Down Times: Discovering the Power of Gratitude”, she shares a lot of information on how to become a professional speaker and what gratitude means in day to day life. Lisa also co-stars in two inspirational films with other personal development experts including Jack Canfield of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and John Gray of “Men are From Mars/Women are from Venus”. While she’s not doing a lot on stage speaking recently due to Covid19, she is doing a lot of masterclasses, virtual training courses, and webinars. She’s also enjoying spending the “bonus time” she has with her husband of 24 years and her two very spoiled cats – Simba and Tinkerbell. Latter makes an appearance in the podcast too. In our discussion we cover the experience of lockdown in the USA, and how her life has changed since March. Lisa’s passion for speaking developed when she was working in sales. Her speaking engagements have changed with Covid19, and resulted in her doing those from home. However, the audience connection is missing, and it is more difficult to engage with people. She is also helping companies to engage better with their employees in order to reduce churn through educating them about gratitude. Gratitude for her is all about the human connection, and showing care to employees and fellow human beings. Covid19 makes it ever so important for companies to see employees as people rather than a ‘cog in the system’ of a business; this is also about accepting that people might work at different times of day. Lisa covers part of these topics in one of her books and talks us through the other bestsellers she wrote, including a gratitude journal and strategies for retaining talent. We discuss the way a good gratitude journal can be written and how it helps people to focus and reflect on their achievements. She gives her top tips on how to journal too. We finish the podcast with her sharing her experience of starring in a film, and she talks about her dad having a stroke, and how this experience influenced her life. He certainly had an influence on her developing an interest in gratitude. If there was one thing she would recommend anyone to do, she would encourage everyone to take a 30 days gratitude challenge. You will get going after that, even if you don’t notice the difference yourself, people around you will! A great podcast and story from Lisa. If you want to find out more about her, and how to book her as a professional speaker, please visit www.LisaRyanSpeaks.com Volker coaches transformations (career, life & business), and helps individuals and companies through change. He is also a mindfulness trainer and productivity expert, consulting companies on soft skills around sales and business development. In his podcast he interviews successful people and wrote a best selling book about the advice.