My name is Lisane Basquiat. I own a female-focused, gender-inclusive, co-working space and business accelerator. What that means: I help entrepreneurs to build, grow, scale their business while also addressing the personal development that they need in order to be strong and effective leaders of the companies that they found.
My Journey
I went into corporate and I worked within financial services. I also worked on organizational change management projects and business transformation projects. This basically involves taking something that is a little messy and a little complex and complicated in its system and helping a group of people to understand what it was.
A group of business leaders to understand where they actually wanted to go and then helping to ensure that we got rid of the things that were in the way. Clean things up and make whatever changes were needed in order to reach their business goals.
But it always started with a goal. The formula that you enact to get to the things that you want really stayed with me and stay true in all areas of my life.
By 2008, I had built a career. I was a corporate executive, and I’ve always been a very creative person. I’ve always been very spiritually connected. I kind of wore those two hats in parallel for a while, where I would do the corporate thing and work in financial services…
“Do Better” and My “Stirring”
I was in that environment of “do better”. Do better than the next person, get the next thing, accomplishment, accomplishment. And there was a duality to it because on the other side, I was also very deeply spiritually connected. I also understood that we are human beings that step into these roles and play them out.
I had this moment, I was talking to a couple of people on an instant chat and involved in a meeting that was happening on some video conference thing. And I started to have the stirring, something was going on and I didn’t even know what the thing was. But there was something within me that I really needed to….
Yes, I was really busy. I had a lot going on. I was a very busy mom and executive, but in all of that busyness I had a friend call me to ask for something or to tell me that she or he was on a cliff…I would have dropped everything or I would have found a way to respond to that person, and I didn’t in that moment.
And when I say stopped, I don’t mean like, go to a mountain someplace to have a retreat for six months. I was expanding this life energy that I have. And also, to pay attention to the relationship that I was in with myself. The relationship with myself and the relationship that you’re in with yourself is the longest love affair that you will ever be in in your life.
There is an allure to doing. Running with the pack and getting up and working every day and back-to-back meetings and having people that you can vent with about your life and about the challenges that you’re experiencing in life and completely understand and get that.
And there’s another way to live.
Understanding the True Calling
So as I began to look within myself, I started to realize… started to think about how I could actually help because that’s really what the stirring was for me.
It was to clean up your own stuff so that you can truly live your purpose. The emotional legacy that we’re living, bequeathing to the children that we have and the families that we’re part of.
