Meet Lisa Kalmin, a transformational coach with 37 years of experience in helping individuals shift their perspectives and realize their true potential. From her own life-changing transformation journey to coaching over 40,000 people worldwide, Lisa’s expertise lies in shifting mindsets and generating breakthroughs. Discover her insights into transformation, breakthrough coaching, and her work with INSPIRE Coaching, along with her practical advice on embracing risks for personal growth. MysticMag has the pleasure.
What can you tell me about yourself and about your professional background?
My name is Lisa Kalmin, and I grew up in Houston Texas in the 70s. I’m 65 years old now, which seems a bit old to me. I’m Jewish and grew up as what I would call a “Jewish-American princess”. The stereotype of that is that princesses love jewelry, they love shopping, etc. That was all true for me and I had a really great life with friends, family, and parents who loved me. My parents got divorced when I was in my 20s and it was a big deal for me. It felt like a real break in my family, my base, and my foundation. Following that, I participated in personal development work, which I call transformational work; and it was profound for me, life-defining even. Out of that, I completely shifted not only my perspective about myself, but I really tapped into my desire to make a difference for people.
I love being a leader and making a difference for a group of people, so that’s how I found myself in transformation. I have trained and coached transformation, which is, in a nutshell, mindset work. Transformation is you shifting your perspective and your worldview, the way you see the world. I’ve been doing that for 37 years and had my own company for 18 years, called “WorldWorks”. On top of that, I’ve also worked for other companies, and I’ve trained and coached over 40,000 people throughout the world over the years, including Asia, Latin America, the United States, etc. I also have a book about this exact topic called “The Problem Is How You See The Problem”.
I ended up in this work because I experienced it and it was so impactful for me that I wanted to share it with other people. I feel very blessed that I found my calling and my purpose; that I found what I’m supposed to be doing in the world.
What are the main differences between life coaching and transformational coaching?
What life coaching and transformational coaching have in common are the outcomes that people are looking to produce, either as a coach or as a client. They often include expanded levels of joy, happiness, freedom, relationships that are close and connected, achieving new levels of income, business success, etc.
However, life coaching is generally one-on-one. It’s a coach working with a client. Oftentimes, life coaches are trained to work with clients to work approximately 10% on their mindset and roughly 80-90% on their strategy and their actions. Transformational coaching is distinct in three ways from that. First, it’s almost always experiential, meaning that people go through an experience.
For example, if I want to learn how to ride a bike, I can read a manual, I can watch a YouTube tutorial, but the best way to learn how to ride a bike is to get on a bike and practice, learn balance, and feel balance. So, in transformational work, you’re usually involved in an experience, whether it’s within a group, or with your coach. Therefore, the learning sticks, it is cellular learning!
Secondly, the focus of the transformation is the framework a person is looking at the world through. When you shift your perspective and your mindset, you shift everything about how you are taking on life. You immediately see new opportunities and possibilities and have the confidence to take action urgently and then generate a new level of results!
Thirdly, transformation focuses on how the person is being, on the qualities of how they’re showing up in the world, versus just what they’re doing. We are human “beings” first and foremost, not human “doings.” There are strategies there, too, but the approach is not as heavily focused on them.
What are the ideas and principles behind breakthrough coaching?
Let me just define what breakthrough means for me. A friend of mine said it this way, and I loved it – “breakthrough is when you’re in exactly the same place and things are exactly the same as they were, but everything looks different”. A breakthrough requires a complete shift in how you see the world, what you see as possibility, and what opportunities are available to you.
Secondly, breakthrough coaching has people shift and expand how they’re showing up. For example, someone who’s shy has a breakthrough and is showing up as confident, or somebody who has been closed, in their head, and analytical, showing up open-hearted and connected. It can also be someone who’s more assertive or even aggressive, showing up as more open and caring or somebody who’s more expressive and not very grounded, showing up as focused and grounded. There are a lot of examples that can be used, but the point is that there is a shift in their being and that results in a shift in actions and has a different outcome and result.
Can you share a few details about the work that you do through INSPIRE Coaching?
I love INSPIRE Coaching. I own it with my best friend and transformational trainer Lynne Sheridan, who has also done an interview for MysticMag recently, and our focus is twofold. We have a membership and we call it “Living Transformation”. Twice a month we have a group of people who come, and we take on a distinction, focus on one aspect of transformation, and dive deep into it. It’s online and it’s available to anyone who wants to grow and expand. There are two 90-minute sessions per month, so you get two master trainers in a month for 3 hours. It’s an affordable, low entry cost.
The second thing we focus on is what’s called our “Badass Women’s Leadership Summit and Retreat”. We have a vision of empowering women to own who they are and to live into their divine essence as not only moms, sisters, spouses, and business owners but also as leaders; and we concentrate on the next level of their transformation.
We are committed to women stepping into their divine feminine to access leading and creating results with ease and grace vs. push and control. This work also supports women in using their voice to support their families and communities in a collaborative way…which we think is a woman’s magic! We have a retreat coming up in October, actually.
As an author, what books have you written and are you currently working on any projects?
I’ve written one book and it is called “The Problem Is How You See The Problem”. It’s a very accessible book. I think of it as a bit of a handbook. Someone could open it up to any chapter and have the perfect thing they needed to hear that day. It’s an easy-to-read guide to how to live by these principles that I’ve been talking about, to live transformation, shifting your mindset, shifting your experience, shifting the way you see the world, and the qualities you want to bring out. The project that working on currently is writing a workbook, a companion for my first book, so people can actually have it like a journaling partner, as they go through the book.
What is your standpoint on taking risks in life? What advice would you give our readers in that regard?
I was just talking to somebody yesterday about how much I love being comfortable. I really do, just as we all do. I love my comfort zone, I love being comfortable, and have learned that if I don’t take risks – I don’t grow. If we think of our comfort zone as kind of a box we like to hang out in, outside of that box are things that feel uncomfortable to us or are a challenge to us.
Now, I’m not saying you’ve got to go jump out of an airplane, I’m saying taking a risk may involve having a conversation with your boss and saying “I’ve worked here for 5 years, I’ve been a great employee, so may I have a raise?”. That would be taking a risk. Maybe they say “Yes” and maybe they say “No”, but the key to taking a risk not that you get the result.
The key is taking the risk. As soon as you’ve taken the risk, you’ve popped yourself out of your own comfort zone, so you have actually grown. Your comfort zone has already expanded by the fact that you’ve taken the risk.
So, if you’re risk-averse, start with smaller things. Maybe you’re risk-averse emotionally and opening up and sharing your feelings is difficult for you. If that’s the case, start with people who are close to you, and who love you no matter what. If you’re risk-averse in going out in public and doing something, take a dance class, go to a poetry reading, do whatever that is for you. Take a risk once a week and see what happens in your life. See how you grow. That would be my coaching!
My guess is that all of your biggest growth and expansion has happened because you took a risk. You got married, had children, changed jobs, started a business…You are already a pro at this!
To learn more about Lisa and her work, you can visit her website at lisakalmin.com
