#148 Catch the Thought and Shift the Mind for a New Reality

Transcript of Interview

Find Your Voice, Change Your Life Podcast

Podcast Host: Dr. Doreen Downing

Free Guide to Fearless Speaking: Doreen7steps.com

Episode #148 Leisa Reid

“Catch the Thought and Shift the Mind for a New Reality”

(00:00) Doreen Downing: Hi, I’m Dr. Doreen Downing, and I’m host of the Find Your Voice, Change Your Life podcast. In these podcast episodes, I get to interview people, some who I’ve not known yet, and it’s an exploration, like sitting down for a cup of coffee with somebody and say, tell me who you are, and what was the struggle for you about finding your voice?

Today we get to hear from one of my new friends, Leisa Reid. I’ll tell you about her in just a moment, but I just want to say hi. Hi, Leisa. 

(00:34) Leisa Reid: Hi, I’m so excited to be here. 

(00:37) Doreen Downing: I’ll read your bio. As a speaker who has booked and delivered over 600 talks, Leisa Reid trains entrepreneurs how to get booked and stay booked as speakers. Leisa is the founder of Get Speaking Gigs Now and the CEO of the International Speaker Network. She’s passionate about teaching you how to get your talk ready to rock so that you can get on stage quickly and confidently. 

Today, I know that she will be sharing her number one secret that she uses to get speaking gigs, so hello again, and let’s get this started.

(01:29) Leisa Reid: I can’t wait. 

(01:30) Doreen Downing: Yes. Well, I always am curious about how we come into this world and it seems like we’re natural speakers, and a lot of us have a little more extroversion energy, a lot of us have a little more holding ourselves back just because we’re born with it, but environments either encourage or don’t encourage one way or the other.

I’d like to hear in terms of you thinking back early on about whether you had a voice or not? What comes to mind when you think about that puzzle about you and your voice? 

(02:10) Leisa Reid: Well, there’s so many facets to childhood, but a couple of things that stood out to me of why I felt I had a voice. My dad, actually both of my parents were teachers of some capacity.

My dad was very supportive of me being independent. I always felt like he and I were on the same level. Like he didn’t treat me, like a kid in a way, like he took care of me, but we would always have deep conversations, even when I was a child. We would have really thoughtful conversations.

I didn’t feel like I was a child who couldn’t say what I felt or thought. Now, did I ever have experiences in which that wasn’t true? Yes, but just like a broad stroke, I felt really supported in that way. 

(03:03) Doreen Downing: I love the sense of a broad stroke because I get you being a curious little one and going something like, “Dad, why is the sky blue,” and that he would do more than just say, “Well, it’s blue because it always has been blue. Sometimes it’s gray and sometimes there’s clouds and sometimes it’s dark.” Just seems like it’s the beginning is a question and a curiosity and a response of when you say something or ask something and there was a response, an answer for you. 

(03:39) Leisa Reid: He was a curious child himself. I think certainly curious through his entire adulthood. As he was learning things, he would share them in bite-sized pieces to me. He would be studying—just to give a little bit of background. He was a hypnotherapist for most of when I was growing up. That was his career for the most part. He would be studying NLP and all different kinds of general semantics and talks of subconscious and all these different types of really cool beliefs. He would share a couple of things with me and he would help me learn how to reframe, or I learned how to hypnotize myself as a little kid when I had a hard time going to sleep or when I was sick.

A different type of childhood, I would imagine most people don’t have that experience. I had some different experiences in that regard. 

(04:32) Doreen Downing: Well, he obviously valued the inner realms. Oh, my gosh. Then to open you up to more of what was inside of you at a very early age. That sounds fabulous. What about your mom?

(04:48) Leisa Reid: My parents divorced when I was two. I think a lot of my issues with not enough-ness or feeling like I couldn’t have what I wanted stem from that prelingual experience of just literally not physically having my mom in the same state. So, I would imagine, as a two year old, I don’t remember this, but I would imagine that that would be traumatic and that would be tough. 

But my mom moved up to—we’re talking Alaska. It was pretty far away from a lot of places. My mom moves up to Alaska and I would go and see her. I would take a plane as a kid, like a five-year old by myself.

I would go from Fairbanks, Alaska, fly to Anchorage, Alaska, and visit my mom on the summers or Christmas or spring break. I always had a relationship with her and a close relationship, but untraditional. A different type of relationship. 

(05:51) Doreen Downing: Yes. There’s something about when I just realized how you are as somebody who is able to probably travel around easily and with all the speaking gigs that you must do before COVID, probably.

This whole sense of, well, your mom is there, she’s at a distance and all you have to do is to do something to make the connection. I’m imagining that will show up in your personality later on in life too. So, wow. What a different origin story that is. 

(06:30) Leisa Reid: Yes. We all have something different about us, right?

(06:34) Doreen Downing: Yes. With your dad, I get that. Oh, gee, you have a voice. You could ask and you can inquire and you are heard. That’s really fabulous. I won’t go into the details about what that separation was like, but like you say, probably there was some sense of loss or something. 

(06:53) Leisa Reid: Yes, it was so non-cognitive because it happened at two years old. Me growing up, it just is what it was. It wasn’t like I ever remembered them being together or remembered living with my mom. I just remember, this is how life is. Like the fish in the water, I’m not noticing the water. That was just how we did it.

(07:17) Doreen Downing: Yes. Did you have siblings or do you have siblings? 

(07:21) Leisa Reid: I do and I don’t. 

(07:25) Doreen Downing: There you go again. Oh, my goodness. This is really wonderful to get the, “Yes, and “Well, maybe.” All at once. 

(07:34) Leisa Reid: I am my mom’s only child and my dad remarried. He married his second wife, had a daughter, the same age as me, and then they had a son, and that was my family unit, like my nuclear family unit for most of my life from age five to 14.

Then they got divorced. My dad eventually married another, but by the time he got married, I was already an adult. My step mom now has children, but we were not ever in a traditional sibling type relationship. 

(08:18) Doreen Downing: Family unit. Yes. 

(08:20) Leisa Reid: Yes. That’s why I was like, “Oh gosh, I don’t know. It depends. Actually, I consider myself—to make it even more complicated, Doreen. I now have two sisters because my brother transitioned to female. I used to say I would have a sister and a brother, but now I say I have two sisters. 

(08:40) Doreen Downing: Oh, I just want to keep on going. I need to know you. This is so fascinating to have a human being right in front of me, a beautiful human being, by the way, and just radiating. You’ve got a really wonderful heart. I can tell. Then, already, what you’ve just said to us around your comfort with telling your story. 

I know you wrote to me and I understand that actual public speaking, which is one of your expertise now and what you help people with wasn’t actually a real challenge for you. It seemed like you were pointing to more of the personal conversations or relationships. We can go in either direction. 

(09:29) Leisa Reid: For public speaking, a lot of times, people think all public speakers are looking for attention or need to be the center of attention or whatever. I want to have that spotlight. I don’t consider that my reason for doing it. It’s more about teaching and providing transformation. If someone said to me, “Oh, go speak on something that you have no idea about and just make them laugh.” I would be terrified. Like I would not want to just go up there for no reason.

But if I’m prepared and I know I’m going to be providing value, then yes, I have no problem being up there. I actually love it so much. It is one of my greatest joys. But on the personal side, one of the pieces that I started to learn about myself was finding my own voice and being comfortable, actually not even stating what I wanted, but knowing what I wanted.

It took me to stop the clock and really go, okay, wait, hold on a second. I remember I had a therapist and she said, “I want you to write a list of things, your needs and desires, your physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.” That’s what she said. Here I am. I’m a graduate. I have a master’s degree.

I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I said, “I don’t understand the assignment.” She said, “Well, I want you to write down,” she repeated it, “Your physical, spiritual, and emotional needs. Just write them down,” and I’m like, “I don’t know what you mean. What are you talking about?”

I was that blind to those parts of me. I had gone through a divorce myself, which is also why I was seeing a therapist. I really had to sit down and think, “What do I want? What do I need?” I was able to write them down, finally. Finally, I made myself figure it out.

That was a really big shift for me because it was me actually being aware of what I wanted or needed. It was like the first step. So, that’s where I lost my voice, not only externally, but internally. 

(11:50) Doreen Downing: Well, that brings up my curiosity of the comfort in saying, “Hello,” especially if you had something, but how was it especially given that your father was somebody who valued inner awareness. Have you ever asked that question? Speaking of a therapy question? 

(12:12) Leisa Reid: Yes, sure. Well, that’s your wheelhouse. 

(12:15) Doreen Downing: It was just like, how did she get to have comfort in one sphere and not so comfortable in another, but here we go again, the contradiction that exists for you in what I’ve been noticing so far today. 

(12:33) Leisa Reid: Yes, I think I have thought about that and there’s probably multiple answers. The one that comes to the top of my mind right now, my dad—and this was important for him growing up—he had to be very independent given his circumstances. Single mom. Then here I am. He’s a single dad and he taught me how to be really independent.

Just like you could say too much water and you’ll drown. Too much independence, it’s like, don’t rely on anyone else because you can figure it out and you can only rely on yourself. I don’t think he said that directly, but just really instilled independence in me. For me to ask for something from somebody or be open to receive something from someone was uncomfortable.

(13:22) Doreen Downing: That’s more of the personal, relational. Well without uncovering or exploring more, that begins to help me understand how somebody is so comfortable in one realm but less so in the other. I know it helps me think about my own story without going into it deeply, but I was asked a similar question, not by a therapist, but by a group of friends who were upset with me. They kept saying, “Well, how do you feel?” I’m, “Oh, I don’t know.” I don’t know what that is. What does “feeling” feel like? 

(13:59) Leisa Reid: Right? I can relate to that. 

(14:01) Doreen Downing: I guess with independence, there’s a lot of doing, figuring things out. With being, it’s a different realm.

(14:10) Leisa Reid: Yes. 

(14:10) Doreen Downing: The exploration or the voice that comes from, “I can do this. I can figure that out.” It’s different than, “This is what I feel. This is what I believe.”

(14:21) Leisa Reid: Yes. I don’t learn how to feel. 

(14:24) Doreen Downing: Yes, and Lisa, express it, right? 

Well, I want to move on. I have some other questions I’d like to explore, but I have to take a break, a quick break, so that I can give people the opportunity to learn more about how they can get my Seven Secrets to Fearless Speaking. We’ll be right back.

Hi, we’re back now with Leisa Reid, who is fascinating. I am already intrigued by Leisa’s story and where she grew up, how she grew up, and the split in her life that happened between her parents and how young she was. 

Yet it became something that brought her to an independence, that she could count on herself to figure things out, but when it came to, “Oh, how do I feel? How do I express something within me to another? How do I ask for something?” I don’t want to say weakness, but what was it? It was less developed. Let’s just put it that way. Obviously, you’ve developed it because look at us, conversational, here, both of us.

So, Leisa, I said I wanted to ask more. What would you say, when it comes to you finding your voice, whatever realm we’re talking about, what was the greatest contribution? What do you think helped the most besides the therapist? 

(16:01) Leisa Reid: Yes, well, I dove right into some personal development workshops right after my divorce because, mentally, I knew enough about the subconscious, and I thought, “Wow. I really miss some stuff here.” I obviously have some blind spots because I probably wouldn’t be divorced if I didn’t have blind spots. I didn’t want to repeat the same patterns. Left unaddressed, I knew that would happen as well. 

I dove head on into some personal development workshops and really started to uncover some of my own limiting beliefs, and trying to be more aware of them and trying to catch them in the moment, and shifting and increasing my consciousness around relationships and my own interpersonal well-being.

I ended up working for the company, which they wanted someone to help with business development through speaking. I was actually, not only a client of theirs for many years, but then I worked for the company for eight years as well. 

That was a big—so, was it one thing? No. It was like a million workshops, Dr. Downing. It was about a million workshops. 

(17:13) Doreen Downing: Yes. Getting my PhD in psychology was more in those rooms where I did, let’s say, psychodrama and journaling. Those were much more self-growing than sitting in a class learning about Freud. 

(17:34) Leisa Reid: Yes, when you really get intricate about, or I would really get intricate about a thought or a belief that I could catch, I’m like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Like when I wrote my first book, I remember wanting to be an author, but I caught myself one day thinking, Oh, it’s going to be a lot of work to find something, like I’m doing this little internal grumble and I went, “Oh my gosh, I just heard that.” 

I immediately shifted it. The next day, I’m hosting my international speaker network meeting. A woman walks in and she said, “I’ll do all the work. All I need is a chapter. It’s really easy. Who’s interested?” I’m like, “Girl, yes.” So, when I shifted my thinking, I would see immediate results, usually, not always, but that would be one example where I saw immediate results.

(18:22) Doreen Downing: You just gave a really beautiful, deep piece of wisdom right there. Change your mind and be surprised at what shows up, maybe in the next moment or a few days, but changing the inside. It feels like the message I just heard from you there. 

Let’s move forward then, because obviously, all those workshops helped you become—the word that you used earlier today—aware, self-aware. You just demonstrated it a second ago with your example. 

Let’s move into how you found yourself on stage because you said to me that it was not until you were 40. 

(19:06) Leisa Reid: I got hired by that company when I was 40. This is back in 2013. The job was to go out and speak as much as you can and bring clients into the workshops. That’s what I did. My first year I booked 83 speaking engagements and I would go out. It was all in-person and I live in Orange County, California. There’s lots of places to go. I didn’t have to get on a plane to do that. I would just drive to places. 

I would do that and I would bring clients in each month and into the different workshops. Then do it all over again in the next year. When they told me you get to teach about something that you love, that works and that’s your job—

(19:52) Doreen Downing: Because you’re being a participant in it.

(19:54) Leisa Reid: Yes. I already believed in it. Then the fact that I would get to go and speak about it, to me, was like a dream come true. My bachelor’s and master’s degrees are in Speech Communication. It’s not like a real big leap. I knew that I would be really good at it. 

(20:09) Doreen Downing: Yes. Oh, fabulous. Well, then, let’s move into what you do currently. You’ve got a book. For those who are not watching, I can see it, there’s a book in the background. 

(20:23) Leisa Reid: I had started that organization, the International Speaker Network, it was a different name at the time, but I started that in 2013 as well, because I knew enough about how I operate. I thought, “Oh gosh, I don’t want to do this all by myself. I bet there’s an easier way to get on more stages, learn how this whole thing works, the whole speaking thing works.” 

So, I surrounded myself with other speakers and over the years, they would ask me for help all the time. They would say, “Leisa, how did you get so many bookings? How did you do that? What are you doing? What are you saying to people? How does it work?” One day, this gentleman, a member of our community, we were talking on the phone and he said, “Leisa, tell me about your speaking coaching business.” I said, “Oh, I don’t have one, but thanks for asking.” 

I didn’t know what else to say. We finished our call and I had that conversation with myself. Sometimes you have that come-to-Jesus moment. I said, “I am never saying that again.” I went home and I bought the URL, which is getspeakinggigsnow.com. Within two weeks, had my website fully developed, and up with a webinar, and everything.

I realized people need help with that. They want to be speaking, but they don’t know how to actually figure out where they should be speaking, who would say yes to them, why does it all make sense, how does it all work? I thought, “Well, I guess that’s what I’m here to do.” 

(22:00) Doreen Downing: Oh, yes, and the response to the question, “Hey, do you have a speaking coaching business?” It feels like when you were thinking about doing a book, both times, I heard that you just shifted yourself, and within moments, pretty much, it all landed for you. 

(22:24) Leisa Reid: There’s something so powerful about making a decision. Yes? 

(22:28) Doreen Downing: Yes. 

(22:29) Leisa Reid: I say that with all of my clients. I’m like, we are going to gather and make decisions about what your message is going to be, how your soul’s wisdom is going to be expressed, how your brilliance can come out. When we give that space and then make a decision, I can put the stake in the ground, like this is what I stand for. Man, that feels really good. It’s very empowering. 

(22:52) Doreen Downing: Yes. I think that’s almost where I like to leave because we’re out of time, but I do want to open the floor one more time to see what might want to come in terms of a message. And for sure, let us know how to find you. It will be in the show notes. Is it the one that you mentioned before? The website?

(23:11) Leisa Reid: Yes. If any of your listeners want five top tips to get more speaking gigs, if that’s your jam, you can go to getspeakinggigsnove.com/tips. It’ll take you right there. Free tips for you. 

My words of wisdom, I mean, often come from my dad. When I think of him, he’s not in a physical body anymore, but he would say, “Do what makes your heart sing.” That advice has never let me down.

(23:39) Doreen Downing: Well, let me just sit with that for a second here. Do what makes your heart sing. That’s beautiful. I mean, I feel like I could do a whole podcast just on that phrase with you. Just unravel what that actually means. We have to know we have a heart like when you had to go to the inner discovery and feeling the power of the heart and then what is the sound of singing from the heart? Is it actually a doing or is it actually a being?

You can see I’m already just going on what you’ve just given me. 

(24:15) Leisa Reid: I love it. I love it. 

(24:17) Doreen Downing:  You can tell I’ve had a wonderful time today with Leisa and I know you have too. She’s given this wonderful tip, “Sing from your heart.” Thank you, Leisa.