How to See the Possibilities for Fulfillment at Work and at Home with Lisa Canning

Christine Li: 0:00

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. This is Episode Five. If you're interested in learning how to create life on your terms without adding more stress, this interview with Lisa canning is for you. You're going to hear how several years ago, after a lot of stress caused by work, and a minivan implosion, she decided to make a dramatic pivot in her career. That pivot changed both her work and family life for the better. Let's go listen to how this mother of eight created the life of her dreams. Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together. So that you can focus on what's really important, and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the make time for success podcast. Welcome back to this call. Or I have the pleasure today of introducing new, the wonderful Lisa canning. She is the mother of eight children. And the author of the book, The possibility Mom, I have brought her on to the show, so that you could get a sense of her genius, and of her spirit for living and living life. Well. So welcome to the show. Lisa,

Lisa Canning: 1:49

thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

Christine Li: 1:53

Could you tell us about yourself how you got to this point in time and the journeys you've been on? You've been on multiple journeys, I'd love for you to share just a few.

Lisa Canning: 2:04

Yeah, sure. Well, I am. I've got eight kids. And yes, I know exactly how they all got here. And there. They're all mine. I love them all. But I definitely did not go into my married life thinking I was going to have eight children, because for a really long time, I had a limiting belief that you could not succeed in your career, and have one child, let alone eight children at the same time. And so my journey really is one of breaking down I guess what I'm going to call what success looks like and coming up with your own version. So I started my career in interior design in my hometown of Toronto, Canada, I had the very unique opportunity to host an HGTV show. And that launched my career and my broadcast television career. So I've worked both in front and behind the camera with people like the Property Brothers and on several HGTV shows as a production designer. And at the exact same time as building this busy interior design and TV career. I was having children very rapidly. So I have four boys and four girls all under the age of 11. And there are no twins. So basically, if you can do the math, every other year, I've had a baby. And so as you can imagine, as I was growing this business, but also growing my family, it became increasingly more difficult to keep up with both and everything came to a huge implosion one day in my minivan when I had basically forced myself and told myself that success looks like going back to work just a few days after giving birth, and bringing a baby to a job site. And I just remember sitting in my minivan with so much exhaustion with so much pain in my body with pain in my mind with guilt and all kinds of feelings. asking myself how I had gotten there. Like how I had convinced myself that this was the place to be that you know, leave your other small kids at home and just days out of hospital, bring a newborn to a messy construction site with saws and dust and all the things and I just asked myself that day, How on earth did I get here. And there has to be more to this, there's got to be another way that a woman can follow her dreams and feel like she is contributing to her family but not at the expense of her health, her marriage and her kids. And so I just went on a journey from that point on in time management and personal development and trying to figure out what it means to live a life of happiness and freedom. And that brought me all to write about it to tell others about it in my book the possibility mom how to be a great mom and pursue your dreams at the same time. And so now what life looks like is coaching so I coach moms, both in personal development and in business. And I have eight kids and I live in Southwest Florida with my husband, Josh and all those people.

Christine Li: 5:07

Yes, yes, yes. And your life is a big success, really big success. And you've been helping others to embrace the success in their lives, too. I have so enjoyed getting to know you over Instagram and over the internet, because you share so much of the enthusiasm for life that you have, and the enthusiasm for just having things be what they are, that you're very present with your children, you're very, very present in your work. And that you don't really have to think about limits. Just before we got on this call. I was bemoaning my inability with tech. And Lisa was just right on that and said, we've got to change that limiting story. So, Lisa, thank you for sharing the whole backstory. Can you tell us what your thoughts are about how you had that limiting thought that success? And having children are going to be in competition with each other? Yeah, that's

Lisa Canning: 6:10

a great question. And I think my story is a pretty common one, I had amazing immigrant parents who did not take anything for granted, you know, they were always very much instilled in us the value of hard work and the value of striving for success. And so I had only really seen modeled, you know, my parents, they got married later in life. So they they had two kids, and they both worked right up until they got married, and they were working when they had so I didn't have many other models besides what I saw around me immediately, that would sort of challenge a different perspective. It was only much later in life that I start to see examples of larger families or people working from home and that I'm that kind of a thing. And so I definitely just developed a bit of a sense of this is what success looks like you go to school, you get good grades, you get a career, you work really hard in your career. And then later on when you have like $30,000 in the bank, maybe then you start thinking about having a family. You know, maybe when you buy your house, like that's when you start thinking about having a family, I have not really seen it modeled around me, people getting married younger, and then having their children younger. And on top of all of that starting their career, all I had seen modeled was people who were very established in their careers and then starting a family. And so I think that's a pretty common story. Like, you kind of just see something and you say, Okay, well, that's probably what it's gonna look like, it takes a lot of risk and thinking outside the box, and, you know, stretching, I guess, of your imagination, even to consider something else.

Christine Li: 7:51

Yes. And I think we are encouraged to think of things, well, this goes first, then that comes second. And then only then can you afford the next thing rather than thinking how can I get this faster? or How can I make this all work in harmony? Right away.

Lisa Canning: 8:06

And you know, and for me, what it is, is that I had never really considered to define success internally. So I followed that path. I you know, I did, I did get married younger, I did have my first baby younger, but I did follow the path of work hard invest in your career. And what was so challenging for me was all I was doing was emulating the careers of others, down to the smallest details. And when I think about it, and articulate it, it's pretty comical. Like, I would literally look at a girlfriend of mine, who was in the interior design, and I would almost make like a checklist like, how does she have her hair? What's her brand of handbag? Like, what car is she driving? What kind of projects is she doing? What magazines Has she gotten published in and I literally just had a checklist in my head. And I would literally copy like paint by numbers. And I was miserable. This is the thing I would work hard for these things. I would get the shoes, I would get the projects and then do them. And then I would ask myself the question like is this it? Like Is this it? You know, there's a really great movie that just came out Disney's new movies soul. And this is a bit of a spoiler. So skip this part if you don't want to hear it. But basically, the main character has this dream of playing in with this band finally becoming a jazz musician. And he gets to do it. And he asked that similar question outside of the music hall Afterwards, he literally asked the question like, Is this it? Like I did it? But now like, or am I supposed to feel something else? Aren't I supposed to feel like this amazing sense of like, accomplishment or what have you but he didn't feel much different. And that is I think what I was experiencing and I didn't have words to say what it was like I didn't have the words or the clarity to say I want to define success differently. For me, it came from an area of great pain, an area where I just couldn't push myself any further. And I knew that it would cost me too much. And that's when things really had to change.

Christine Li: 10:21

Yes, that minivan moment that you had? Yes. You have mentioned, the words work hard several times since we started this conversation. And I'm going to ask you to elaborate just how hard were you working back in TV? And how hard were you driving yourself with the checklists? And what is your reflection on hard work and working hard right now so that our audience members can maybe reflect for themselves? To what level? Are they succeeding in managing that level of stress, and work and hopefully not stressing?

Lisa Canning: 11:03

Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. So what it looked like back then, was very long days, hard work back then was, you know, wake up at the crack of dawn, get everybody in the house all set up. And then as soon as humanly possible, like leave the home in order to work. And so that looked different in different seasons, when I was working in, when a television show was actively being produced, like shooting, I would easily be leaving my house as early at seven o'clock, like I would make breakfast for everybody, I would lay it all their clothes, and then I wouldn't even see them. Sometimes I'd literally just like, give my husband a kiss on the cheek and be like, I'm so sorry, see later. And then he would manage all the kids, I'd be off to work. Those days were long and exhausting and grueling. I would, you know, maybe FaceTime the kids to say goodnight to them, like, this is really bad. Like, as I'm describing it, I'm like, Whoa, Nelly, oh, I would FaceTime the kids to say goodnight, I would grab dinner on the road, I would go to another job site or another appointment in the evening. And then I wouldn't roll in the door until sometimes, you know, 10pm. And that was consistent. And I would tell myself in those seasons, this is just a season. This is just because we're actively shooting, you're only doing this for a few days, and that there is some truth there there. Were there were some times when it was these brief, you know, weeks, let's say. But the challenge was, I just keep saying yes. To all of those kinds of activities or experiences, you know, I would wrap a season and have already said yes to the next one, without really consulting my husband without really checking in with myself on Is this what you really want? It was just sort of like, of course, you're going to do another season of television? Because like, why wouldn't you? Of course, you're gonna make money for your family. Because, you know, that's why you're doing this all. But I never had the confidence to ask myself the question, at what cost? Is this coming at Lisa canning? I never asked myself that question. And it took my husband really to be like, our life is unsustainable, you know, like it was it was him who really forced me to ask myself these really challenging questions. So that's what working hard looked like back then it was a lot of guilt, it was a lot of feeling pulled in multiple directions. And it was a lot of just simply pushing myself to the point of utter exhaustion, and to the point of under tension with the people I really cared about. So what what life looks like now is that I would say I still work hard, but it's very different. I would say I work hard, but I work hard on everything. Meaning at that period in my life, you know, if you were to picture like a pie or a wheel, I was really only invested in caring about improving the part of the pie that was my career and my wealth. That was it. And everything else, I was just fitting into the teeny tiny crevices that that piece of the pie didn't really occupy. But what life looks like now is a little bit more of an even distribution. If you think again of that lead pi or that wheel, I would say that I work hard in all areas, my spiritual health, my physical health, my relationship with my spouse, my relationship with each of my eight kids, my contribution to my community, my contribution, you know, to the finances of our family, I would say it's a much more integrated approach. And so from a practical sense, in terms of my schedule, I no longer do work that takes me out of the house at 7am. As a coach, you know, I basically have two pockets of deep work time of day. I've actually just for fun if this is interesting to you. I've actually transformed my schedule literally just in the past few days because I was craving a little bit more freedom. And so what I'm now doing is I have weeks where I'm on and weeks where I'm off. So the weeks where I'm on are the only times I work with clients, those are the only times that I have group mastermind coaching. Those weeks are very busy, they're very intense. Those are the kinds of weeks I'll have, like, maybe food delivered to the home so that everything in the background is working really well. But then, in exchange for that the following week is literally off, like Dr. Christine Li does, that sounds good.

Christine Li: 15:38

Like, it sounds amazing. That sounds

Lisa Canning: 15:40

literally off. So like, if I want to do something workwise, I can certainly do it. And I'm not saying it's like literally offer, I have my feet up the entire week. But kind of you know, I'm gonna check email in that week, I'm gonna still be on social media, maybe doing some of those kinds of things. But I'm going to experiment in this next season, what it looks like to just be really intense and head down in some weeks, and then be completely free. Because what I was realizing was that I wasn't having as much time to be creative. And I love creative pursuits. Again, my background in interior design, I love making things I love taking something out of nothing, you know, and then creating something beautiful. And I just found that being fixed to a schedule where I had to sit at my computer not happy but where you know, where I was, needing to be present to clients. Of course, doing that, throughout the week spread out, wasn't allowing me that creative freedom that I was craving. And so I'm going to experiment with this in the next season. And I'll let you know how it works.

Christine Li: 16:49

I love it. And I wish you the best with that it sounds like a great plan to just say I'm focusing, I'm focusing on relaxation, and I'm focusing on work, I'm going to give myself both, one doesn't have to eliminate the possibility of the other. And I'm just marveling at you, Lisa, because I'm sure my listeners and I are thinking how does this mother of eight sound so calm and grounded, and the experimentations that she's able to add in, it's amazing. But I also believe that you're the boss of your time, tell us some of the secrets that you use, or some of the techniques to just make sure your mindset is healthy, and that you maintain that possibility mom, attitude.

Lisa Canning: 17:45

I'm a work in progress in this one, you know, it's interesting, I try to always look at my life from a bird's eye view. I can get in the weeds often still in my thoughts. So that's what I mean about my work in progress. So you know, like, I'll launch a program. And if I don't get the exact results I want, I can find myself really just retreating to similar behavior, like, you know, oh, gosh, like this didn't work. See, I told you, you couldn't do it. Like, how come it didn't work, I'm able to recalibrate quicker. But I am very hyper aware of looking at my life, from a bird's eye view. Meaning that I know that tomorrow, I'm probably going to get that sale I wanted, I maybe didn't get it right there on the webinar, or maybe a phone call that I thought would go a certain way or hope to go would go a certain way didn't go that way. But that doesn't mean that tomorrow or the next day or even a year from now, that same person won't move forward with something. So I really do try to keep almost this, like literally, if you were to picture your life like a line, I try to pull the camera back. So I can see a lot of that line. And I find that is a helpful thing for me in moments where I can tend to go back to previous patterns of spiraling thoughts. And I really try my very best to be as neutral as possible about my own thoughts. So this is what I coach my clients. And I know that you care a lot about this to Dr. Christine. But I really have to just be like sometimes if I get frustrated or overwhelmed, I just sort of take that thought and be like, that's just the thought and pause. I think pausing has probably been the best strategy. If I'm being honest with my reflection here. Just the ability to pause instead of to jump in to like a tornado spiral of thoughts to just pause. You know, even that visual is really interesting. Like, you know, this is kind of a scary visual, this would never happen in real life. But you know, like, imagine your, your feet are on the edge of a whirlpool. Like, instead of just like diving right into the Whirlpool. I think that's kind of a good way to go. Explain like what I do now I now just, it still might feel as perilous. Like it still might feel scary. But I pause, and I kind of just like look at the Whirlpool. And I kind of now almost give myself an option. It's like, Okay, well, do you want to jump in? Or do you want to turn around? I wish I could say that it was so easy and had like the levity in my voice that I'm describing it with. But that is probably the my best strategy is, I try to give perspective to everything with looking at my life, almost like a timeline. And then I try really hard to remember that I can be neutral about a thought or a situation and choose whether or not to kind of jump into the spiral or retreat from it and choose another option.

Christine Li: 20:44

Yes, beautiful advice. So wise, I'm wondering if you see with your coaching clients, the resistance to being able to own the ability to pause, the ability to choose the ability to say, I've got more in me, I'm capable of more the self doubting stuff.

Lisa Canning: 21:07

You know, I think it all comes down to control. I think so much of this has to do with wanting to control things or being uncomfortable with controlling things. So then we're not going to try, right, so I just wrapped a really interesting it's, it's a new venture for me, I just wrapped a live three day experience helping people build their personal brand. I think we're in such an interesting time in history where, you know, especially with Coronavirus, people have had to become innovative and where so many people are creating these 678 figure businesses from their lives, like just from their life, like the products they use the the the way, they homeschool their kids how they cook like, it is such an interesting time to be on be an entrepreneur. And so I've been coaching people in this live experience on how to build, you know, your first product, your website, all the things. And it's interesting to observe the people who move forward. And the people who do not the people who I observe to move forward or happy to produce something and get feedback and be okay, if it's not good enough. But the people who don't move forward are almost paralyzed by getting something wrong or doing it wrong. And so then they don't even try. And where I think this comes down to is like needing to control potentially, that fear of judgment and failure if you do fail at something. And I just think the faster we can get comfortable with failure, the faster those self doubt, and then all the things that we tell ourselves can become faster to recalibrate, on, I'm not School's out for me on whether or not I will be able to, quote unquote, I don't want to say heal myself, but like, will I ever get to a point where I don't have negative self talk? I'm not entirely sure. I'd be curious to see, you know, in five years from now, will I have no, like negative self talk? I don't think so. Because I think they'll just be new things for me to new new things there was, there's always going to be a new new thing for me to encounter. So I'm sure I'm always going to have these thoughts. But it's just such an important tool to learn how to recalibrate, to learn how to be okay with failure, and move forward anyways, because that's just my observation. And both myself and the people I coach is that that's the single biggest defining point almost is like, can you deal with failure? And if not, let's let's help you get there.

Christine Li: 23:41

Beautiful, beautiful. You're making me think that you weave in your spirituality, into your life and family and work so much. Does your spirituality and your involvement in the spiritual community help you to avoid some of that negative self talk or caving to that talk?

Lisa Canning: 24:05

It's okay. I don't know where I'm going to go with this. But I used to be almost like embarrassed about my Catholic identity, like I would not intentionally not talk about it, I would intentionally be like, kind of put it in its little closet. Because I didn't want people to judge me. I felt like people might perceive me a certain way if they knew I was so religious. And so I kind of just like kept it very much to myself. But the more I got into the areas of personal development, growth, mindset, any of this stuff, and I always had a little bit of a, what's the word like I would kind of filter out things that maybe weren't in line with my Catholic, you know, upbringing or what have you. But the more I got into personal development, the more I just kept seeing the alignment. There was just different language being used, but you know, I'm sure there are exceptions. Very specific exceptions that I won't go into. But for the most part, it was kind of just like different language, but very similar concepts. And so kind of where I've landed, is that you need to make a decision on this point that I'm about to say, is everything in life for you or not. And I have come to the conclusion based on personal experience based on, you know, theology, philosophy, what I've learned about my own Catholic upbringing, and what I've learned in coaching people who have a similar belief system, to me and people who do not, is that's kind of the question you need to get a very clear answer on for yourself. That is the point of life to be happy all the time? Or can suffering can discomfort, make you become the person you're meant to be? And that question of like, Can everything in life be for me, including the suffering is a really, really, really important one to gain clarity on. And my personal opinion is yes, like, I've been through a lot this year, we moved our family from Canada to this beautiful community we live in, in Southwest Florida, we moved intentionally for more quiet, more peace, a little bit more of a pedestrian lifestyle, my husband suffers from clinical anxiety. So for us, it was also thinking about sunshine, and, you know, escaping the six months of Canadian winter things that I kept observing were very challenging for my husband. And but it was a lot, it was a lot, we went from having a lot of support and a lot of help, both paid child care and the support of you know, parents and, you know, a community to essentially starting from scratch. And I kind of i didn't i didn't realize how challenging that would be. And it was it was very, very, very difficult. There were many times when I asked myself the question like, Did we make the right choice? You know, do we make a mistake? Have I ruin things for my family. But where I've landed now, about 12 months out, so we moved, you know, a time of recording we moved about 12 months ago. And I now remember that bird's eye perspective, I was saying so when I pull back the camera of my life, and I can see everything that's occurred in the last 12 months. And how all of that pain and suffering, how that has impacted my life for the better. I feel so confident to say that, yes, like, even in suffering, we can find peace, even in suffering, we can find joy, and that even though it's hard and so annoying, and when you're in it, it doesn't feel like that at all that it can be for our benefit.

Christine Li: 28:05

Yes, beautiful. I'm so glad you're weaving in your spirituality with your work because I think there are lots of parallels with personal development and lots of ways in which we can deepen our experience when we think about other ways of proceeding our own experience that there's so many different angles and if we're just stuck on one, and we feel like that one is not good enough for public viewing that it has to stay in the closet, then we're just stuck period. So let's take what we can use let's take what alleviates our stress let's take what opens up new possibilities and run with it let's just go see what happens. And least I'm so glad you have made it through this year. so beautifully and with so much richness. I love watching you enjoy the Florida sun and enjoy the children creating the new home in Florida. Could you share with us I just want to hear about your kids as I could you tell us just what are some of the best things about being the mother of so many children and creating this wonderful life with them? Ah, this

Lisa Canning: 29:26

is a this is a this is a fun question. Well, you know, it's never boring like it's just it's constant and sometimes that constant You know, sometimes I wish like okay, let's just like pull it back just a little bit here but there is a lot of joy in my home. You know, it's an interesting thing. The youngest child so her name is Colleen she's a year and when I come out of my bedroom, you know she sleeps adjacent to us and in a you know in my walk in closet, I was gonna say in an adjacent room, but let's be real here. It's my walk in closet. She sleeps in my walking closet. So when I come out of my bedroom, and I greet my children in the morning, it is astounding. Like they pop up out of their chairs of breakfast, they run over to Colleen and they give her like kiss after kiss up your kiss like, it's like royalty has come into the room, it is so fascinating to watch. And I didn't teach that, like I didn't, I didn't say to my older children, oh, hey, like, it's really important to greet your siblings, when they walk into the room, I never, I have never articulated that that is a completely innate thing that has, that I observed in my older children. And so I just I think that's the coolest part is that it's a it's a community, like I live in this little, you know, community of people who genuinely care about each other. Like, of course, my husband and I, we do things to foster, how to be considerate, how to be polite how to help other people, but I'll be honest with you just so much of that in a large family comes out naturally, there's only one of me. So naturally, you can imagine, like, if I'm making a peanut butter sandwich or whatever, like I can only do one at a time. And so what naturally happens is kids, grab a knife, make it for themselves, but then also make it for someone else. Like I don't think I've ever really been like, help your sister put on her shoes. Again, certainly sometimes, yes. But I just naturally out of the things that we do getting out the door sharing meals, my children have, by necessity learned those skills. And I think I would look on the outside of large families. Like when I was younger, and observing a lot of these large families that I would come to meet later in life, I would see chaos. And I would see, I don't know, like a lot of noise, I would see how on earth can they like function like that's what I would see on the outside. And I you know, and I'm sure there are people who see me like in the street or, you know, see me at a restaurant, we often get very interesting. Like when we're out at a restaurant, like when we're having a meal in a restaurant, it is very interesting that some of the comments and like the just, you know, it's just very interesting. And so I'm sure there are some people who look at me, and they say like, Oh my gosh, how do they function, but like being in it, it's like a little orchestra, they all kind of have their part, sometimes the music sounds good. It really doesn't. And my job is to conduct you know, I don't play the instruments for them, I I'm literally conducting this little orchestra and, and it's a lot of fun. I think that's the thing I would I wish that people would know about large family life is that it truly is a lot of fun.

Christine Li: 33:04

And you have a very cute orchestra. It helps that they're completely all beautiful and adorable, and I think, reflect the love that you show to them. And one thing, I'm just taking notes as you're talking, what I wrote is that there's a difference when you create out of a environment of love. versus when you're trying to create out of an environment that's kind of more stress hampered. And I think just the ease the ease that the children must feel because they know they're in a loving home has got to help the families functioning as an orchestra, that love makes things a lot simpler and easier and better and more fun.

Lisa Canning: 33:49

You know, and it's really a beautiful place to, you know, put the exclamation point on this conversation. And this is why I care about coaching. We cannot as mothers give when we do not have. I've said this before, and I'll say it again, I do not believe that God created motherhood, for us to be miserable. And as my dear friend and mentor January Donovan says all the time, overwhelm is often just a lack of skill. So you know, if you're overwhelmed because of clutter in your home, it's not because you're a bad mom. It's because maybe you were never taught how to organize a pantry. If you're overwhelmed by the way your children behave in public because they're prone to throwing tantrums or you know, whatever talking back to you. It's probably because you were never taught yourself how to manage, you know, a toddler how to discipline appropriately. You know, if you're overwhelmed about work life balance, let's increase in skills like come on. To my website, Lisa canning.ca, I got lots of resources to help you with that kind of stuff like, overwhelm is often just a lack of skill. And so that's why I believe in coaching so much, because if you're unhappy with your life, and this is where it has to be, you know, the point of life is not to be happy, in my humble opinion, right? I don't I don't believe we're supposed to have constant happiness. But we're also not supposed to suffer every single minute of the day. I just don't believe that. That's it, either. And so what do we have to do to change a situation if you are really struggling? If you're really suffering? If you're listening to this, and you're feeling like I just want an ounce of, you know, piece, I just want an ounce? I just want a little teeny tiny bit like how do I get that? And really, it comes down to mindset and skill set everything in life is, what is your mindset around that? And then are there skills that we can help you with in order to make your situation more peaceful?

Christine Li: 36:09

Wonderful, let's go. Let's get in touch with Lisa. It's Lisa canning,

Lisa Canning: 36:14

Elisa canning.ca is my website and come on over to you know, join the party over at Lisa canning on Instagram, at least.

Christine Li: 36:21

It's wonderful. Check her out on Instagram stories. Lisa is always dropping wisdom. Sometimes it's on a walk. Sometimes it's in home renovation, just like a room redo. She has all sorts of different things to share with you. Thank you, Lisa for taking the time to tell us how to make time for success. today. I have loved this conversation. Thank you for being here. It's my pleasure. Thank you for listening to this episode of The make time for success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website make time for success podcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.