Be A WBE That Leads Without Losing Herself

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios. It’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here with Renita Manley. Another episode of Women in Motion. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today’s episode is be A WBE that leads without losing herself. And our guest today is Lisane Basquiat with Shaping Freedom. Welcome.

Lisane Basquiat: Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: Renita, this is going to be a great episode. This is an important topic.

Renita Manley: Yeah, it really is. I’m really happy to have Lisane in with us today. She is going to be helping babies learn how they can be leaders without losing themselves. Because a lot of our wives are moms. We’re caretakers. Some of us have 9 to 5 jobs, and we’re also involved in communities or they’re also involved in the communities. So listen is going to definitely be here to give us some tips and some guidance to show us how to be that leader without losing who we are.

Lisane Basquiat: I’m really excited to be here today. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for inviting me.

Lee Kantor: I guess we wanted to share a little bit about the background of your work, and, you know, the kind of the work that you do every day.

Lisane Basquiat: Absolutely. So I am a former corporate executive. I was in corporate working primarily in project leadership and leading these very large, enterprise wide organizational change management projects, along with technology and that kind of thing. And I fell into coaching while doing that, and very soon after decided that I could do the best work. If I were to step outside of corporate and do the work of helping people to fill or resolve the gap, the delta between what they want and where they actually are. And so I took my coaching and took my, uh, corporate background, the deep knowledge that I gained there and started a company called Shaping Freedom. And the goal and intention shaping freedom is to help people to contribute more positively to their environments, whether it’s professional or personal and really specifically within their families, because I think that that’s where everything kind of starts and ends. And so the work that we do is to help people to be in better relationship with themselves as they’re navigating their work and navigating the challenges that life presents to us always.

Renita Manley: That sounds really good. So it’s 2025. We’re about to go into the fall and holiday season. Let me ask you a question. How do you see women right now losing themselves? Like what’s what are some signs that you’re you you’re lost yourself. You’re gone. You just completely lost yourself.

Lisane Basquiat: The biggest sign, and that was kind of the point for me, is when you realize that you are doing more for other people, that you’re open and willing to show up more for other people. And as the shiro and other people’s lives in a way that you’re not willing to do so for yourself. That was a turning moment for me. I was in a really busy day working in corporate at the time and had like a chat going and a meeting going and and had this one moment of realization that as a mother, a very busy mother, mother to two children, as a wife at the time, as a colleague and and running a business, um, in parallel to my corporate role, I was showing up for every one of those roles and wanting to do it exceptionally well. But the one person that was on in my life that I wasn’t willing to step onto the stage for was myself. Uh, and so I think that in 2025 and this is like 20 years later, this is still the, um, position that so many women and so many professional women find ourselves in. We do all the things for everybody, and we expect ourselves to show up fully for these goals and objectives that we have. But if we don’t take care of ourselves, we are, first of all, not modeling for the people that we care about. What what life can look like when we’re willing to take care of ourselves. And and we’re trying to really pour from an empty cup. And I know that sounds cliche, but I really believe that we need to learn how to type a differently.

Lee Kantor: So what do you see as a as like something actionable for an individual? Like how are they recognizing that this might be them, that they might be the the person we’re speaking of? Are there some symptoms, some signs, some signals that are clues that lets a person know that they haven’t been kind of in balance or in harmony with, you know, kind of being the them that they want to be?

Lisane Basquiat: That’s a great question, Lee. The first is when you find yourself stepping away from what you know, you truly believe in meaning when there’s a misalignment from your values. If your value is family. If your value is getting things done with authenticity and you find yourself kind of stepping away from that, that’s probably one sign. And that’s kind of like a sign to the extreme. But it happens in little ways. It’s when you, uh, choose to, um, do more than, you know, you actually can accomplish when you’re feeling overwhelmed is a good one. Uh, if you find yourself losing passion for something that you know is truly, truly important to you, when another sign is when you see that the relationships around you are starting to suffer because you are kind of out of harmony with the things that are important to you versus the things that you also want to accomplish. Uh, another sign of getting to burnout is when you, um, find that you’re not doing things that are fun anymore. Like when you just don’t have time for the things that keep you going. For me, it’s when I go weeks and weeks and weeks of just sitting in front of a computer or thinking about just work, just the things that I know I want to accomplish professionally and, and find that I have weeks and weeks of not being in contact with people that are important to me.

Renita Manley: Oh yeah, that definitely.

Speaker5: Sounds familiar.

Renita Manley: Especially to me. I’m really bad at myself. All I have to ask you this, I do feel like a lot of babies and small business owners. We do know about burnout. We know about being reactive versus being intentional. But yet we all find ourselves in this cycle of pouring more than what we have to offer. So how can we stop that from even happening in the first place? I know we you just talked about the symptoms of it, but how do we actively go about stopping ourselves from putting ourselves in that bad place in the first place?

Lisane Basquiat: Yeah, I think that I think that a lot of, uh, a lot of what gets us to that place is this deep seated belief that we have to prove something, that we have to prove something to people outside of ourselves that we can’t say no. That say that being selfish is a negative thing. And, uh, and that when it comes down to a choice between ourselves and what someone else needs or wants in that moment that we choose, that we have to choose that other person. So the ways to put a stop to that is a to make sure that you’re clear about what your priorities are, what’s important to you. Very often we set off into our day with our list of 3 to 5 things that we’re going to accomplish for the day. And before you know it, we’re responding or reacting to a sense of urgency that’s coming from other people. Everyone’s trying to get all their things done. So I think it’s really important to make sure that you’re very clear about what you are going to accomplish, and that you stay focused on that, and that takes practice. Another thing that you can do is to take a break, take a moment. You don’t have to. And I know some of this sounds overly simplistic, but it is. It’s these little teeny steps that get us into that ditch of burnout that we really have to watch.

Lisane Basquiat: So one is making sure that you take a couple of minutes to just breathe in the middle of the day, or if something when something happens, making ensuring that you give yourself time to process the information that’s happened. And a really good thing that I want to share with all of you is three questions that you can ask yourself when you’re confronted with a situation where you know that you’re doing a little more than you should be doing. The first is what’s really going on here, right? So when you’re really busy, when you’re feeling overwhelmed, and those moments where you feel like you’re being pulled in a thousand different directions, as many of us are while we’re working and also dealing with our families and different things that are going on. Taking a moment to stop, to ask yourself what is really going on here and giving yourself a second to actually hear the answer. Sometimes what’s going on is that you’ve had back to back meetings every day for seven days in a row, and you just need a break. Sometimes what’s really going on is that you’re saying yes to projects, or to doing things that you just simply don’t have the bandwidth to do. So taking a moment and asking yourself, what’s going on here? Can have incredibly positive, um, an incredibly positive impact on the moment.

Lisane Basquiat: The second question is, is this thing mine or is it theirs? Someone comes to ask you for something. Sometimes we get sucked into getting involved in something that, quite frankly, is not ours. So taking a moment to really ask ourselves whether this is for us or whether it’s for someone else, or is there someone else who can do this thing for us? And then the third thing is to ask yourself the question of what is really the truth here. Um, it’s a it’s a very powerful question because a lot of times when you ask yourself what the truth of a situation is, it cuts right through the things that you believe you have to do or the things you believe that you should do. And it gets down to what is real for you if you’re going to take the proper care of yourself that you need to in order to really accomplish the things that are important to you. We go through the week and very often we accomplish a lot of things for a lot of people. And if we’re not prioritizing our piece and prioritizing ourselves as the ones that we’re expecting to drive this car, we wind up places that we really don’t intend to be.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you think that, um, this kind of hustle culture and grind culture is really not working out for a lot of folks that were being kind of, uh, slaves to our, our devices and our tools. And those are are engineered and designed for just continuous use. You know, they’re made for you to scroll forever. They’re made for you to you know, your job nowadays is for 24 over seven. Everybody has to be working nowadays. Uh, but don’t you have to kind of learn how to take control of some of these devices and have them start working for you again, like they were originally designed to do.

Lisane Basquiat: Lee, thank you so much for bringing that up. I yes, I was traveling, as I mentioned to you all before we started with my granddaughter, uh, over the last couple of days. And she’s eight and at one point she held up her iPad and were on the plane, and she had, um, uh, her mom, my daughter had put a little limit on her phone on her recording in progress. And so it said, uh, and so it said screen like screen limit over or something. And I think that that’s just it, where we learn how to be great friends to other people. We have to learn how to be great friends to ourselves. We’re amazing parents, most of us to other people. We really have to learn how to parent ourselves. We have to put limits on the amount of time that we’re willing to scroll endlessly. We have to move ourselves away from that. And sometimes it’s harder to move away from something that it is than it is to move toward things that bring you joy. If what you’re looking to do is to relax, and if part of that is checking in with people that you care about or looking to see what’s going on on the internets, do that for a limited amount of time and get rid of unfollow.

Lisane Basquiat: Do not like the things that are not bringing you joy. The things that are that are making that relaxation time harder than it really needs to be. We don’t. These are just suggestions. These are suggestions that we look at the endless bits of information that are scrolling out there. We have the ability and if we want to be in internal congruency, it’s important for us to make the decisions and take conscious. Take a conscious moment of decisiveness about what it is that we’re going to allow in to ourselves and what we’re not going to allow. And scrolling about all kinds of the horrific things that are happening are just not, um, helpful. And you know it in your body as you’re scrolling, as you’re going through your scrolling. Pay attention to what you’re feeling. And when you’re feeling crappy, get rid of that. So that’s a great question, and I think that more of us need to understand that, uh, these devices are tools. They’re tools for us. And I think we’ve turned it around. We have it a bit twisted.

Renita Manley: It sounds really good. And it makes a lot of sense that, um, we’re supposed to be taking advantage of these devices, but, yeah, it seems like we’re allowing them to take advantage of us. So I do want to also ask you something. Um, for lack of better words, you you’re presenting yourself as a vessel of information for. For small business owners, for babies alike who are trying to ground themselves. If I might ask what? What makes you the special vessel that can deliver such a powerful word to our babies who might be feeling like they are losing themselves or they might need a stronger foundation? How are you qualified? What makes you the one to to break through and tell us what we already know? But we’re just not listening? Yeah.

Lisane Basquiat: Uh, that’s another great question, Renita. Um, what makes me the the guide? I would see myself more as a guide because we all have to do our own, our own work. And what makes me credible in sharing that is a I have 23 years of experience working within a corporate environment. I know what it looks like to work these 12 14 hour days to that to to be, to multitask. To do this as a mother, to do it as a former wife, and to want to do every single thing excellently. I so that’s what has me understand what it’s like to live the life of a very busy entrepreneur. I’ve been an entrepreneur since 2008 full time, and so I know what it takes to navigate the nuance of entrepreneurship the feast, the famine, the, um, the work ethic that it takes, the hard work that it takes. Most of us who are entrepreneurs have that locked down. You don’t need me to tell you about that. What I can help you with is how to bring quality into your life experience I can help you with. How do you shape a foundation? A personal foundation that has you rooted in what your values truly are, what a boundary is, how to set one with yourself, and how to set one with other people.

Lisane Basquiat: I can help you to understand what the strategies are that you’re currently running in your life, that are getting you, the results that you want to have, and the strategies that you may be implementing on autopilot that are getting you to the places that you don’t want to be. Um, ineffective relationships, horrible communication, um, uh, not standing in your truth and your power and your confidence as you’re navigating your role as an entrepreneur. What I can do is help you to get to a place where you are confident about your ability to navigate the emotional and mental aspects of life. And what makes me credible is that I am not just hanging a shingle and saying that I know how to do it. A I’ve done this work myself. There’s nothing that I’m teaching that I’ve not tried and mastered for myself. I am in this practice right along with everyone else. I am a certified coach and have been for many, many years. I am an advanced practitioner and teacher of neuro linguistic programing, which is NLP that a lot of folks have heard of, which is really just the ways that we use language to program the our, our brain waves and I’m sorry, language to program our, um, psychology and the ways that we actually show up in the world and the ways to use language to deprogram the things that take us away from where we want to be.

Lisane Basquiat: Um, I am a teacher of that. I am an advanced practitioner of it. I’m an advanced practitioner of theta and a slew of other things that I bring to the table to ensure that I have more than enough in my toolkit to support very busy, very accomplished, very smart, very intentional women just like myself. I’m doing the work too. It’s a practice. And I also know the difference between showing up in the world as a person who is unhappy and unfulfilled, even while grinding away, hustling away, wanting to have all the best relationships, business results, family, and the folks who are willing to do the work to actually get themselves there. So I’m in it. I’m in it with you. I’ve been there. I can share more about my story and the ways that these tools have helped me. Once we get into a room but I want us, I believe that we can more positively contribute to ourselves and to our families, to our neighborhoods, to our state, to our country. And I think that it all starts with ourselves. And so if you’re willing to do the work, I can get you there. And I have lots of experience doing it.

Renita Manley: I once heard Shonda Rhimes say that years ago when she was scandal, scandal was extremely popular. Shonda said that when she is in season and she’s writing, she’s not going to be the best mom, and she has accepted that. And then she said, then she is being a great mom and and therefore her family. Then the producers and directors are going to be upset because she’s not going to be showing up there. What do you feel about how she’s balancing that thing? Well, that thing called life and how? Well, what do you think about her approach? I just wondered.

Lisane Basquiat: About. Yeah, about what she’s saying. I think it’s a very common challenge that a lot of people put themselves. I think it’s an illusion. I think balance is an illusion. When I was in corporate, that was all. That was the corp speak. It was, you know, work life balance, work life balance. And then someone told them, I heard someone say something years later, and it was that there is no such thing as work life balance. There’s no such thing. There’s harmony. Right? What we can do is we can get to harmony, especially for those of us that don’t have lives that are so prescriptive, where it’s like you spend eight hours working, you spend eight hours doing other things, you spend eight hours sleeping. That just is not the reality for most people either, within corporate and certainly not for folks who are entrepreneurs. Right. So if you’re looking for work life balance, you’re always going to fail Because life does not work out that way. You can line it all up and then one kid gets a cold, it throws off the whole thing, or you have a teenager who needs you and it’s going to, you know, pull your energy there and throw everything off else off. What you can do. And what I strive for is harmony. And what that means is I know what my priorities are, and I know within my priorities the difference between, uh, I have adult children now, but the difference between someone who just needs something from me, um, and someone who really needs me and all of me in that moment.

Lisane Basquiat: And so I know what’s important to me my children, my family, the friends, my community are, are so important to me. And I also know how important my work is to me. And so I’m showing up 100% for everybody with 100% of myself. And what that means is that AI, in learning and setting boundaries and in speaking clearly and in communicating with people. It helps me to get myself out of this illusion that I can break myself into very neat quadrants and be everything for everybody. I can show up here for you in this conversation. Me, Lee and Renita having a great conversation. I am right here. If one of my kids called with something big that was going on, I’d probably ask you to hold for a second so I can deal with that. But I’m here with you. I’m not thinking about the other things that are going on, because guess what? When we hang up, those things are going to be there waiting for me. And I’d rather be in communication and connection and present with this conversation here so that we are all where the three of us are creating a space that’s going to be helpful to other people. There’s enough time. We believe that there isn’t, and there is enough time for the things that are important to us. And some of the things that we spend our time doing are not like other people’s agendas, other people’s sense of urgency, other people’s, you know, antics online.

Lisane Basquiat: If we don’t have time to actually scroll for those. Learning how to set boundaries, understanding what your values are and how to live in alignment with those, um, healing up the parts of ourselves that are running the show in a way that we don’t want our show to be run, and forgiving what needs to be forgiven in the past so that you can clean up the space between yourself and your past, and the space between where you want to be and where you are, enough so that you can bring 100% of yourself into, uh, into your future and into your present And the ultimate thing is joy. And I think that’s something that we believe is nonsense or or fantasy. And I am here to tell you that you can live in joy. There’s a difference between happy, which is maybe what happens when you’re at a club or a party or, you know, hanging out with friends and joy. Joy is I know that I can handle anything that’s coming my way. I know I’m in the driver’s seat of my life. I have quality relationships with every single person I’m in relationship with. Doesn’t mean everything’s rosy all the time, but it means that I know that I’m doing the work to bring quality into my life. And the more you bring it towards you, the more joy you feel and the more peace you feel. And that’s what most of us want now.

Lee Kantor: To lead a life that is closer to joy or includes joy. Uh, can you talk about the six week online experience shape your foundation core that you’ve created just for web, uh, West certified women entrepreneurs? Uh, because I think it’s so important. We’re touching upon a little bit now, but this six weeks online experience is going to really go deep and really give, uh, make an impact on a lot of people. So can you talk about what your objective is for that course and also how people can sign up?

Lisane Basquiat: Absolutely. Um, so my objective is for us to spend six weeks, it’s two hours a week. I think one of the sessions is 2.5 hours, and there are two hours a week over a six week period where we are going to go really, really deep into who you are, what you want, what’s standing in the way, what your beliefs, what the beliefs are that are helping you to accomplish the things that you’re accomplishing. So we’re going to look at what’s working for sure. And we’re going to do more of that. We’re going to look at the things that are not working. And I’m going to teach you how to release those things from the story that you’re living out every day. We’ll look at some programing, meaning how are you, how were you programed and how are you programing yourself toward having the results that you’re having right now? We’ll look at patterns. We’ll look at limiting beliefs. We’ll look at um, uh, as I mentioned before, your values, what do you value and how you actually bring connection between what you value and what you want and what your actions are every day in support of that or taking away from it. We’ll look at the behaviors that, um, that you’re putting into your life story and, and the behaviors that are getting you. The results that you are that you want to have will go through. Some of it will be looking at energetic systems as well. The energetic systems, the chakra system within our systems that help us to get clear about where we are in different facets and aspects of our lives, we will. It’s it’s a journey. It’s an incredible journey of doing what they do. When you build a house, it’s like the potting, making sure that the potting is all taken care of.

Lisane Basquiat: You can’t. It’s not about going in and blowing everything up. It’s about taking a look at things one piece at a time and making sure that you have a strong, clear foundation and that you’re not operating simply from your will, but from an undercurrent of confidence and knowing that you have the tools that will allow you and get you to a place that you truly want to be. Um, many people have gone through this program. The results have been incredible. It’s a safe environment. This isn’t about walking out feeling heavy or any of that. It’s about getting in. We’re going to do the work together, and you will leave with a completely new and fresh approach. There’s not any one way anyone who says there’s like this one program that’s the end all and be all. I don’t know that that’s true, but what I do know is that this is a program that is developed with you in mind. I know what this world looks like. I know what it feels like, and I know that I have watched myself, and the clients that I’ve worked with over decades go from being resentful, overwhelmed with anger as their home, emotion, Motion frustrated? Um, not maybe putting all of their intention and attention into work because they, um, were confident in their ability to have quality personal relationships. But we’re going to look at is all of it, because how you do one thing is how you do everything. And my intention is for you to walk out of this clear, clean, ready to move forward, confident and with willing to take on, to receive a little more joy from yourself.

Renita Manley: Right? You really got me excited when you mentioned the word chakra, because now I know that really means you’re going to be tapping into some some more inner inner elements for these who are out there that are interested in those different aspects of your wellbeing. And one final, very brief question that I want to ask about the workshop that’s coming up, um, for any VBS that I’m interested in signing up, is this going to be more like a Individual personalized experience? Or do you have more of a group approach to the workshop?

Lisane Basquiat: So we’re doing this as a cohort. So we’re going to come in together as a group. It’s going to be online. Uh, I, we, uh, we, we bank is actually handling the registration process. So I think you can, you know, put the information in there for them. Uh, this is a program that I’ve shared publicly, uh, many, many times that we’re bringing specifically for this group of, of individuals. And so we’ll do it as a group. Um, it is a safe. I am known for curating safe environments for people to grow and to learn. Uh, there’ll be some meditation included in it, and, um, and it’s, again, it’s an environment where it’s safe. So it’s not about coming in and, and feeling like, uh, you will feel welcomed. You will feel seen, you will be heard and you’ll be supported toward the next level of your personal growth for sure that I can guarantee you.

Renita Manley: Perfect. And if you’re listening to this and you are interested in signing up for this program, um, if you’re listening to this before October 16th, um, I guess I should ask listeners, should listen, should we be signed up? Um, the program begins September 11th. That’s right. Can anyone happen in the middle of the program, or do you recommend we start from September 11th through October 16th? Every Thursday, every Thursday, September 11th through October 16th. Should we be signing up on that for that first week and then attend every Thursday? Or can we be hopping in the middle and then finish it out?

Lisane Basquiat: You’re signing up for that first week, and you’re going to be on a journey with the other bees that choose to join. This is going to be a we be only space, and it is a program that’s specifically designed to build on itself from one week to the next. So you’re not hopping in and out of it. You’re going to come in for a start. We’ll get together on the 11th of September. We’ll start this journey. Um, you’ll I’ll share more about what the program’s going to actually look like over the six weeks. We’ll go through the six weeks together and then 30 days after, because a lot of times we go to these programs, we get all rah rah, and then we walk away and we forget about it. I don’t want that to happen. What I want is for you to take this information, to apply it practically to your life, which is what you’re going to be doing from one week to the next. There’s no homework, but it’s more about awareness and consciously practicing the tools that you’re going to be learning. We’ll get together 30 days after and we’ll look to see how you’re doing and check in and tweak and course correct whatever needs to be course corrected. My goal, my intention is for you to get this information to solidify your foundation, the core of your being, the core of who you are and how you’re showing up so that you can leave this so you will leave this program and positively impact the other folks that are around you, your family, your community, your work.

Renita Manley: So for certified listening, go to Rebecca West website WBEZ. Hyphen. Events or calendar? I might be messing up, but at the top of our website there is a tab. Go to the events tab. Go to the month of September. Click September 11th and sign up for Shape Your Foundation. It is going to be amazing! Lee. You can take us out.

Lee Kantor: All right. Um, listen, um, if somebody wants to learn more about your business or connect with you, is there a website? Is there an easy way to connect?

Lisane Basquiat: Absolutely. Go to. Com. We’re also on all social media platforms. I also have uh, Shaping Freedom with Lee San Basquiat podcast. Uh, that is an amazing, amazing resource. Uh, talking about all of these things as well. So just look up shaping freedom or listen Basquiat and, uh, and we’re out there. You’ll find information.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing such important work. And we appreciate you. Thank you. All right. This is Lee Kantor for Renita Manley. We’ll see you all next time on Women in Motion.

Speaker6: Come sit down with. Me.