A conversation with Leisa Peterson, former financial advisor, bestselling author, and mindful money coach. Leisa shares her extraordinary journey from childhood poverty and financial trauma to building wealth, surviving a mass shooting, and ultimately discovering that true success isn't measured by the numbers in your account.
What does it take to shift from surviving to thriving when life throws you the unthinkable? In this deeply moving conversation, Laura Rotter sits down with Leisa Peterson—former financial advisor, bestselling author, and mindful money coach—who shares her extraordinary journey from childhood poverty and financial trauma to building wealth, surviving a mass shooting, and ultimately discovering that true success isn't measured by the numbers in your account.
Leisa grew up in the poorest county in New York State, hiding from bill collectors and watching her family's car get repossessed. Yet she became skilled at building wealth from a young age—driven by fear of repeating her parents' struggles. After two decades as a successful financial advisor, a life-altering tragedy during a mass shooting forced her to confront a profound question: "What am I really here to do?" The answer led her to walk away from financial security to start a coaching practice focused on the inner relationship people have with money—not just the spreadsheets and investment returns.
This conversation is essential listening for any woman who has achieved external success but still feels controlled by scarcity, or anyone navigating a major life transition and questioning whether they're worthy of pursuing their heart's desires. Leisa shares her powerful AWAKE framework for moving through difficult transitions, why mindfulness alone isn't enough when it comes to money, and how clarity about your financial plan brings more peace than any amount of wealth accumulation.
Leisa Peterson is a bestselling author, former financial advisor, and mindful money coach who helps people transform their relationship with money from the inside out. After spending two decades building wealth and advising clients as a financial professional, Leisa survived a mass shooting in 2014 that changed the trajectory of her life. The experience led her to walk away from financial security and start a coaching practice focused on helping people understand the intersection of money, mindfulness, and meaning. She is the author of The Mindful Millionaire, which has become a bestseller displayed alongside classic money books at Barnes & Noble nationwide, and The Money Catalyst, a fictional parable with journaling prompts designed to help readers explore their money stories. Leisa has been featured on Huffington Post (where she started her writing journey after a chance meeting with Arianna Huffington) and speaks internationally about conscious wealth building, financial trauma, and the importance of understanding both the practical and emotional aspects of money. She lives in Sedona, Arizona with her husband and has been practicing daily meditation since 1999.
💡 Early money trauma shapes lifelong patterns—but awareness can change them: Growing up with bill collectors calling, car repossessions, and a parent dealing drugs created deep scarcity patterns in Leisa. Even after building significant wealth, she discovered she didn't have a healthy relationship with money. Recognizing this disconnect was the first step to healing.
💡 You can be good with money and still not have a healthy relationship with it: Leisa was excellent at building wealth from a young age—saving, investing, and achieving financial success. But external success doesn't equal internal peace. Many people who are financially secure still operate from scarcity and fear rather than abundance and freedom.
💡 Worthiness is often the hidden barrier to pursuing your dreams: When Leisa spoke to a group about her life transition, a woman asked how to make big changes without waiting for tragedy. Leisa's answer: "The challenge was about worthiness, pure and simple. What is your relationship to being worthy of allowing yourself to pursue your heart's desires?"
💡 Mindfulness and money need integration, not compartmentalization: Despite meditating daily since 1999, Leisa realized she was compartmentalizing money and skipping over it in her mindfulness practice. True transformation requires bringing conscious awareness to your financial life, not just your meditation cushion.
Connect with Leisa:
Books: The Mindful Millionaire
Website: WealthClinic.com
Stay connected:
Connect with Laura on LinkedIn
@Rotters5 on X
Connect with Laura on Facebook
Subscribe to my YouTube channel
Get your free copy of Unlock Your Money Blocks Workbook: Your step-by-step guide to unlocking your blocks to financial freedom.
Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment or financial advice. It’s for informational purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.
Laura Rotter
What if the greatest barrier to the life you want isn't your bank account, but your belief that you're worthy of it? In this episode, I talk with Lisa Peterson, author of The Mindful Millionaire, and the Money Catalyst, who grew up with. Bill collectors calling and cars being repossessed, yet built wealth from a young age, but Lisa discovered something profound.
You can accumulate all the money in the world and still not have a healthy relationship with it. After surviving a shooting that took her doctor's life, she walked away from a thriving financial advisory practice to help others understand the inner work that money requires. Lisa shares her five step awake process for navigating life transitions.
And reminds us that we don't have to wait for tragedy to give ourselves permission to pursue our heart's desires. If you've ever felt stuck between financial security and living authentically, this conversation will move you. Please listen.
Narrator
Welcome to Making Change With Your Money, a podcast that highlights the stories and strategies of women who experienced a big life transition and overcame challenges as they redefined financial success for themselves.
Now here's your host, certified financial planner, Laura Rotter.
Laura Rotter
Welcome Lisa to the Making Change With Your Money Podcast.
Leisa Peterson
Thank you so much, Laura. I'm so happy to be here.
Laura Rotter
I'm excited to see where this conversation will take us. Lisa, I will start, as I always do with the question, what was money like in your family growing up?
Leisa Peterson
Not so good. Not so good. It was very stressful. My parents came out of high school, got fell in love, got married, had no education, no real. Career. It was pretty rough. And I was born nine months after, literally to the day of their, after their marriage. I figured that out one time when I saw their, they, I, they didn't tell me this, but yeah, so we didn't have any money growing up, but we.
I had a lot of love and just a lot of stress around money, and that was my most foundational system of beliefs. I, I'd say that would later cause me to go into finance because. I learned as best as I could. I'm sure you've noticed this, Laura, in your career. Some people are just good with money. They might not even be able to pinpoint why, like they didn't get a good reference at home, but they just figured it out on their own and then started, in my case, building wealth from an early age.
That was my story, but I always like to say that. Even though it wasn't good early in life, I was able to build wealth at a pretty young age because I think I was so afraid of not repeating what I had lived when I was little, and I would later find out. That I didn't have a healthy relationship with money, regardless of how much money I had, and that changed my life when I started to realize that was what was happening.
Laura Rotter
I love that and so much to unpack. I'm curious, Lisa, how it was communicated. You mentioned the stress and the sense of scarcity. Was it outright said, we don't have money for that. How is it communicated?
Leisa Peterson
That would happen. The other thing that would happen is I remember getting a car repossessed. Probably when I was around seven or eight and the bill collectors leading up to it, and that that would begin a pattern.
I think probably from five or six. Where keep in mind, I was born in 66. Credit was becoming available, right? For my mom and my dad, and they both had credit, but my mom was the one who I think wasn't good at managing that. So. It was communicated by don't answer the phone, or If you answer the phone, it's not us.
We're not here. So lying and deception and stress, and there was never enough. And so I think it had a lot to do with me starting to figure out around eight what money was and how it worked. That I wanted it and that I was gonna start, start a business. I start a business like, I'll pull your weeds, just give me money.
I'll do anything like that. Yeah.
Laura Rotter
Oh, wow. Clearly very well communicated that money is a scarce resource and you have to watch out. I often think about this myself. I grew up not with that kind of money scarcity. And yet there was a lot of financial insecurity, and I'm not as aware as you were of how exactly that was communicated.
And we were two daughters, my sister and I, and we both became primary breadwinners of our family. So clearly whether or not we were aware of it, there was a message that like, we are gonna earn. And we're not gonna be dependent on other people to take care of us and, and other people can grow up in the same circumstances and came away with very different messages.
As you said, can be unique to each person.
Leisa Peterson
Yes, most definitely. I see it in my children. I have two adult children, a older daughter and a younger son. They grew up in the same home. They have very different ways. And my brother and I completely opposites.
Laura Rotter
It's so interesting. So Lisa, this is a show about life transitions and specifically how that impacts our money and how our money impacts our lives.
And I know you've been through transitions in your life. What would you like to share with our audience?
Leisa Peterson
I think the one that comes to mind happened about three years ago, and I'm still living into it, which was my husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer and in our mid fifties, and it was a time that I had.
Really, I started my company back, I guess seven years prior to that, so 11 years ago. And so my company had reached this epitome of like success that I had been working towards all those years. And then he got the diagnosis and I realized that my heart wasn't in the business. Even though I had worked so hard to get it where it was, and I decided to close down a lot of the parts of my business, I didn't shut it down completely.
But I told everybody in our programs that we had over a hundred students at learning in different programs, and I told everybody that I wanted to focus on his health and I wanted to focus on his healing. And I had the financial resources like this business, doesn't it? It hasn't been like. We built wealth before I started this company, and I just knew I was supposed to make a transition.
And, and what's fascinating about that transition, there's many things, was. It was probably perfect timing. In hindsight, I'm someone who likes to do something for seven to 10 years, and then I like to make transitions, so I probably was getting ready for that. But then this gave me a time of, okay, I can do this, and I can do it very intentionally and purposely to be with my husband and support his journey.
He really appreciated it because he's always been like, I was the primary breadwinner and he would like take care of me and take care of the kids, and he did everything. And so for me to be like, honey, I'm gonna put you as the priority, he's probably been waiting his whole life for that. Like
he, he really liked it. He liked that I cared so much about not. Because I was working way too much and I wouldn't have been able to be there for him. And so when I say I am still living into it, I have not made the decision to go back and create the business the way that it was before I have. Paced myself and chosen different things that I do in my business.
Since then, like last year, I did a lot of retreats here in Sedona and in Hawaii.
Laura Rotter
I'm gonna stop you for a minute. Yeah. 'cause we have no idea what your business was initially. Oh, yeah. Transform. Okay.
Leisa Peterson
Sorry.
Laura Rotter
Tell us.
Leisa Peterson
Yes. Coaching about people's relationship with money. Yep. So I had been a financial advisor. I left that to start this company.
So I had a very thriving financial advising business that I walked away from after a tragedy in 2014. And I had been working with people in money for two decades at that point, and I decided that I wanted to focus more on the inner relationship that people have with money. Not as a psychologist, but more as a practical mindfulness teacher who brings people's attention to the awarenesses of this relationship.
And that business evolved over the years, but it was very, it's always been focused on. The importance of understanding and being, being educated about money and the practical aspects of money combined with what's happening inside. How is scarcity making your decisions? And do you wanna live more abundantly?
And if so, let's create a pathway to drop away patterns of scarcity and move into patterns of abundance.
Laura Rotter
I love that I was drawn to this work after many years as an institutional investor on Wall Street, Lisa, through mindfulness practices that had me recognize the choices I was making to stay in a career that was no longer fulfilling and how.
This scarcity plays into people's decision making often without them realizing it. And that the first step, like you said, is the mindfulness and that's how you begin to change and the interplay between actual. Financial nuts and bolts, what's coming in each month and what's going out each month, and together with the mindfulness, the heart work, if you will.
So I love that you were drawn to do more of that.
Leisa Peterson
Yeah. I think it's often said that we teach what we most need to learn, and I knew that there were things missing in my life regardless of how much money we saved, accumulated, made, and this business and starting the work that I do was the beginning of giving myself permission to.
Become the person that I think I really wanted to be, but had absolutely no idea how to get there. Because I'll pause and say I started meditating daily in 1999, and I still to this day do that. And mindfulness is beautiful and it's wonderful and it changes your life in so many ways. But I think I noticed, or maybe around the time that I started my company, so that would be like 15 years into this meditation thing, that we can compartmentalize our lives.
Even with a mindfulness practice and money gets very compartmentalized and people can just skip it all, skip over the whole thing, and I didn't wanna do that anymore.
Laura Rotter
It could not have been easy, like you casually said, perhaps it wasn't casual, but you just said give yourself permission. And I hear that and I think, wow, I still struggle to give myself.
Permission to perhaps not push so hard to build my business to, to give my, can you share how you came to that?
Leisa Peterson
I was giving a talk at a camp a couple weeks ago and I was telling my story and. One of the women stalked me and she was like, wait, and I think it's tied to your question a time out. She said, okay.
I understand you made this life transition of starting your company because of tragedy. 'cause I told a story of what happened. She said, but hopefully we don't all have to go through tragedy to get there to like. Give ourselves permission to create this life that, that we want or to start a new company like I did or make a big transition in our lives.
She said, so what can you tell us? And I was like, oh, there's 50 people like this hanging on every word you say. And you're like, say something intelligent. And I was like, honestly, I'm not sure. That I felt in that moment when I started my company that I was worthy of doing it. And I'm not sure if I would've ever had the guts to start the company without this tragic circumstance, but, and this is a big but.
Now we know. Now I know that the challenge was about worthiness, pure and simple, like that was the awareness that I didn't have at that time that we all need to know about now, which is what is your relationship to being worthy of allowing yourself to pursue your heart's desires?
Laura Rotter
So much comes up for me.
When you say that, first of all, I, I, you're, it keeps coming up in my mind. What is the tragedy you were referring to before I go on? Yeah,
Leisa Peterson
I don't even have to go into too much detail 'cause sadly this is just a part of the life we live in. I was at one of these shootings that we hear about and I did not get injured, but my doctor, who I was.
He was running two minutes behind, was shot and killed, and other people were shot, and it was the most horrifying thing you could ever imagine. The shooter looked at me and said, you might wanna leave now before he pulled out the gun. And yeah,
Laura Rotter
God.
Leisa Peterson
And in the experience, like that's one thing that's a horrible thing that no one should ever go through, but.
I think that it happened at a moment in time where I was eager to make a transition in my life, but I could not get the, I couldn't find the place of energy. Both my parents are gone. I have my husband and my children, a very tiny family. Like I could not get the. Frame of reference of like, how would I, as a, the provider to my family who needs benefits, who needs all these things, like how could I leave all of this when I, we all depended on it and the shooting happened and in I had this out of body experience in the middle of the mayhem with people running in every direction and trying to get out of this building on the third floor of a building.
And something stopped me, and I know it was this mindfulness. When you meditate, you have this sort of ability to step out and become like a witness to what's happening. So I wasn't in my body, I was watching everything happen, and as that happened, I looked back down at myself and was like. The you are not.
Your fear was the first thing. Like you are not your fear. You think you are the fear, but you are not this fear. Your life is so much bigger than this fear that you've been holding onto that keeps you small and not doing what you're here to do. So I ended up having this conversation with God in that moment.
If I am spared and I live through this, I am going. To do something different. I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go. I get the message like, God, I get the message. There's no coincidences. I'm here and I'm gonna live through this and I'm gonna make a difference in the world because I know that I have the capacity to help more people than just myself and my children and my husband.
So yeah, that changed things. Realizing I'm not the fear. Also said, girlfriend, you're worthy of whatever it is you want in life. How could you think that you're not worthy of it? How could you think that you need to diminish because of health insurance benefits? That's what many of us are like. I feel like I'm not alone in there.
I woke up in the middle of the night last night, which is crazy pants. I couldn't remember where I was or who I was because in the dream, I had just lost the job that I walked away from. And I was like, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? And then I woke and I had to sit with girlfriend. You've been taking good care of yourself.
You're, you're okay. You did it.
Laura Rotter
Wow. That. So powerful. Thank you for sharing that. Lisa and I, when you brought up the idea of worthiness, it just echoes in my head. This is a small example, but women specifically, because this really stuck with me. I met with a woman, she was recently divorced and talked about her situation.
I told her what my fee is. I quote a flat dollar fee for annual financial planning relationship, and I never, I didn't hear from her again for a year. And then she called me and she said, Laura, I didn't feel worthy of paying for services to help myself. And that so stuck with me that. Women in particular will spend on our families.
We'll take care of everyone else. Your hu. But taking care of ourselves. It's so hard to feel worthy. Maybe a manicure not much beyond it. And it's such powerful question you're asking us and that you asked of yourself.
Leisa Peterson
Yeah. 'cause. I am gonna guess that there are probably a lot more people like me where there is a way to do it.
There is a physical pathway and you can see that it could be possible, but the mindset. Isn't in alignment there, there hasn't been enough time spent on nurturing the understanding of like yourself, your life, your joys, your purpose, small purpose, big purpose, like what? I feel like purpose just changes in the phases of life that we're in, but like paying attention to what?
Gets you excited and gets you really fueled for life. That takes time, that takes energy. You don't, just like when people say, oh, what's important to you, or What do you value? Unless you've spent a lot of time on that, you're probably barely scratching the surface.
Laura Rotter
Yes, and as I, I will go quickly through this.
I'm so excited to hear the rest of your story. I'm sure I shared with you, I'm at the end of a financial life planning mentorship where I am asking questions to help my clients really grapple with what's important to them. And. The light bulb. As a matter of fact, I had one client who I painted a picture of what his life could be like in a couple of months based on his answers and what he said, and he's gave me this terse, like my life will be the same in the next couple of months.
And then I got this. Email from him saying, I realize that was coming from fear and I wanna continue our conversation. And by the same token, Lisa, I am now taking a course on holding space. We've just had our first meeting and we were left with the question, how do you hold space for yourself? And it really made me think that I'm working to hold space for others.
Do people hold space for me? Do I hold space for myself? So it's really very interesting, all this work.
You are not the sum of your earnings. You are the sum of your earnings. If you are ready to use wealth to create more freedom and flexibility, let's align your finances with what matters most. Together, we'll build a plan that balances. Your scarce resources of energy, time, and money. So you move forward with clarity, confidence, and less stress towards a life of true abundance.
Learn more at www.trueabundanceadvisors.com and schedule a short conversation.
I'd love you to share. I know you to be a writer, how your. Purpose, if you will, has progressed.
Leisa Peterson
Yeah, so I, I started the company and funny story just coming to me right around the time after the shooting. I went to a conference called Wisdom 2.0 in San Francisco and I was still having really bad PTSD and I was very curious to talk to some of these people that I had read the books of.
Brother Steinle, RAs, David Steinle, RAs, uh, just this amazing monk. I got to have these beautiful conversations with all these people, Jack Kornfield. Somehow he and I magically ended up taking a walk for 10 minutes together, just he and you. Crazy. But I was in the zone of needing help because I was in such a bad way.
So at that same conference, I was in line for the bathroom and it was a long line and. I turned to see that Ariana Huffington, who was speaking at the conference, was in front of me in line. So we start talking and the next thing I know, I said I, I've always wanted to write and. Is there any chance like that I could write for Huffington Post?
And she was like, yeah, here's my card. Reach out. I would love for you to blog on Huffington Post. And it took me three or four months to actually respond. And I am not a chicken, but like when it came to writing. I was like, what have I done? I don't know how to write. I've written business stuff. I've never written anything, so I did it.
I started writing. Within six months, an agent, a New York agent, literary agent, reached out and said, what you're doing, what you're writing about is so unusual. I think there's a book inside of this. I will help you if you're interested, and this is one of the. Agents in the world, but I didn't know it. I thought it was a scam.
Kind of funny because I'm a funniest person. I'm like, nobody, this doesn't happen to anybody. So then my friend checked her out and was like, no, she's the real deal. So she's, and she said, I never do this, but I'm just really inspired. And so she nurtured me for years while I learned how to write.
Ultimately we were able to sell the Mindful Millionaire Book to St. Martin's Essentials, and it's been a bestseller. It's when you go to Barnes and Noble bookstores around the country. It's typically right there with the leading money books of all time, which blows my mind. Crazy. And then a couple a year ago, I got inspired to write my new book, the Money Catalyst, which is a fictional parable.
Never done that before, but I found that money, uh. Is so difficult for many people to look inside of this relationship. I felt like it would be fun to write a story so that other people could look inside of like the Alchemist, where you look in some inside of somebody else's story and you're like learning from them versus being in on the spotlight.
And then there's journaling questions that go with it. But. That's been writing for me, and I would say that this writing thing, I may only write one book every five years, but it is deeply fulfilling in many ways. Yeah.
Laura Rotter
What surprised you about the fact that you became a writer?
Leisa Peterson
When you come from. A background like I do where your parents aren't very educated.
My dad, I forgot to mention like my dad dealt drugs for most of the time that I was growing up.
Laura Rotter
Oh my God.
Leisa Peterson
The people we hung with were the people that would sell drugs, not the people that educated people, not people like they were rough. A lot of our, his friends had been in and out of prison. In the United States, we don't talk about it a lot.
But there's a caste system and when you come from parents who don't have a high degree of education and a lot of trauma, you end up te, you end up speaking in what's called like a, oh gosh, there's a term for it. But anyways, there's like proper English and then there's this other English, and we don't even talk about it.
But that's what happens. And so when I first wrote Mindful Millionaire. To be able to write a book, I would write it in the way that I think, which is this what's called Casual Register, which is the lower middle class vernacular of communication, and I translated it into proper English. I think that someday, maybe I'll just write straight from what comes through, because people are curious about what that might look like.
Yeah. But why I say that is I'm really proud of myself that I could. Change my circumstances in this lifetime, not just because of money, but also like to become so well educated and to be able to understand a lot of complicated topics. Even without that strong foundation, early in life,
Laura Rotter
I really, I hear it's a term that people might not like, but self like that you've really worked on appreciating yourself, having gratitude for yourself, for what you've been through and what you've achieved and continue to achieve.
Yeah. I'm wondering from your books, like I love the name, money Catalyst, are there, we talked about at the beginning, catalyst for transformation. Are there any recommendations you can make to our listeners who themselves may be going through a life change and questioning things?
Leisa Peterson
Yeah, there's a process inside the Money Catalyst and I'm looking it up so I get it right, but it's, it was something that came to me that I wanted it to be like so simple for people to follow, and it's a five step process.
Called awake, and a lot of people write to me and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm, I've printed it out. I've blown it up. I'm going to use it every day because it's so simple. So if it's okay, I'll just take us through those steps. Is that please? That would be great. So the first step, it's an acronym, is awareness.
And the idea is that whatever's going on in our lives, money or transition or what have you, we must first start at this awareness of what's happening, and we can use somatic practices where we're just like, what's happening in my body? What's happening in my mind? What's happening in my life. Become aware of what's going on, that's gonna help you a lot.
The second stage, which I think ties into even the worthiness, it's a W, but it's willingness. Are you willing? To go explore this further. Are you willing and able to move into this journey of learning what's going on? Just willingness, super important. Then we move into appreciation, and this is. An interesting one because appreciation can be like gratitude.
It can be looking at the situation in front of us and finding one thing that we can appreciate in all that's going on. My husband, when he got diagnosed it. When I, we were going through this, even though it didn't fully exist at that time, but we could sit there and appreciate how fortunate we were financially and the quality of our relationship and the health of our relationship with our children.
That. We could create this incredible nurturing environment for him because of where we were and how hard we had worked to that moment in time. So we just appreciated that we could do this and that we could work together. Then we move into kindness. Now this is back to your comment about self love. This one is the one where I break.
So if I'm inside, if I'm in something really painful and I pull out wake, I am totally fine until we get to kindness. Kindness is just as we, as you can imagine. Can you be kind to yourself in this moment? I think the reason this one's so hard for me and why it had to be here is I was raised in a home where my father, I think he knew our circumstances weren't great, and that.
He wanted so much more for us, but he didn't really have the tools to help us very much so he, when something would go wrong, instead of being like kind and compassionate, he would be that one to be like. Okay, pick yourself up. You need to go forward. Like very harsh. When I needed kindness, he did the opposite.
Go work for it. You can do this. Like you are stronger than this. And would even get like mad at me even though it didn't make any sense. And so inside of me and maybe other people too, 'cause it, I think it's resonating with a lot of people. It's, it's hard when everything's blowing up to stop sometimes and just say.
Where can I be kind to myself in this moment before I do anything else? Where can I be more kind? And so that'll often cause me to cry. And then the last one is embodiment. Let's embody whatever it is that's coming through here and. Even embodying awareness, willingness, appreciation, kindness, like we're a totally different person.
By the other time, by the other side of it, now we get to go forward and see what, what happens.
Laura Rotter
Okay. I love it, and acronyms are always so helpful when you're going through something.
Leisa Peterson
Yeah. For me it's like when I make really big mistakes, like those are, that's when I'm like, oh, and when. You have a podcast like, or you, when you own a business, like the more you put yourself out there and the more people experience what we do and the world gets like bigger and bigger, if you make a mistake in front of a lot of people, like it's not easy, but it's gonna happen.
Laura Rotter
Luckily, I, I have many things I can pick on about myself, but being a perfectionist is luckily not one of them. Yay. But I would just never do anything if I, and I do think that aging softens this a bit, right? Yes. To curse, who gives a hoot? It's the point yet I know. Being human. There is that voice that's watching what I'm doing, that imposter syndrome that's there as I'm taking this course, trying to be aware how I approach spaces like this and what voices are in my head and am I feeling something in my heart and am I feeling something in my stomach?
It's really, the embodiment is fascinating work. And to take it out of the story. 'cause we all have the stories and to just say, great, we're gonna have this story. You'll be here for next couple of seconds, and then it's gonna go away. And then it'll be back next. But where is it? Living in my body is, I found more of a challenge than I anticipated.
Leisa Peterson
Yeah.
Laura Rotter
Love that. It's part of the work that you are recommending.
Leisa Peterson
Yeah, money gives us lots of opportunities for embodiment. Yes.
Laura Rotter
Lisa, that's a great segue to the question that I like to ask towards the end of our conversation, which is, how has your definition of success shifted? It's pretty clear that it has, from the time you were eight years old and knew you wanted to, you wanted something different.
And so how has it shifted and maybe even your definition of financial success?
Leisa Peterson
My definition of success used to be about all the external checking, all the external boxes. And while I'm proud of the person who did all of those things, that's not. Important to me anymore. I have respect for it. I see my children have a little bit of that in them and I honor that.
But now success is. About freedom of expression, probably more than anything else. Mm-hmm. Because I didn't really have the tools to express myself for such so much of my life. And then I was in a career finance that didn't necessarily, it wasn't about who I was, it was about doing the work and doing it to a certain level of performance.
And so this chapter of my life, it's about. Can I push myself outside of regularly, outside of my comfort zone to explore topics, particularly around finance and the world that we live in today that are very uncomfortable for myself and for many readers, and yet shed light on understanding of topics that you and I know probably a lot about, but most people don't.
And so. That's my definition of success that I had. The ability, the wherewithal and the the platform in which to write and share. And then there was another question tied to it.
Leisa Peterson
Oh, it was okay. Bouncing back and forth between success generally, which the achievement of titles and things and financial success in particular definitely rhyme with each other.
Certainly women from fields. Like what we where in and where in.
Leisa Peterson
Yeah. I'll say something about finance, because this is so important in the work that you do. I cannot say enough about the importance of people understanding. Their financial plan and how they can live the life that they're here to live, especially in that sort of second chapter of life far too often.
I witness people stressing about money, but then having invested no time or energy in the planning piece of it. And so some of them would probably be totally fine if they saw the plan. Others might have some work to do, but not looking at it and not getting help from someone like you to put all those pieces together.
A travesty because most everybody will be happier on the other side of that process. And so have, having been a former financial advisor, having done that work for myself and seeing the joy that I get because I do know my numbers very well and how they'll take care of us for the rest of our lives, it brings me great joy and peace.
Laura Rotter
Thank you so much for saying that. I think I'm often surprised by how much peace comes just from the clarity. The first step of not avoiding your numbers, but actually looking at them and understanding them. And by the same token, I left Wall Street and started this business. 'cause of a deep belief that is echoed in everything you've said today, Lisa, which is we've got to stop the relentless pursuit of more.
It's killing us, it's killing our planet. It's. Killing our communities. It's just, and the message is exactly the opposite. More people come to me, they think it's for more, you're gonna make my money grow. And I feel like my biggest gift is creating a sacred space to explore what's really important to you and to make sure you don't lose it.
I'm privileged to work with people that once they have the clarity. They're fine. I am not gonna put them in investments that will quadruple in a month because that means they could lose it all in a month. And there's sometimes a lack of understanding that the work is around the clarity, the plan, the map.
That of course, will always change once it's in place. But that's the work and not like, how do you make me more and without understanding. What do you want the money for and what, it's just a tool to help you.
Leisa Peterson
Yes. And like even something that nobody seems to talk about. Something like the drawdown schedule that could change over the course of your life and for various reasons, but like, how about that's the goal, just knowing what that looks like and having a plan?
Yes. It's funny how these things, because they're not sexy. They don't get sold. People don't know how important and meaningful they are and that they're probably gonna need someone else to help them with it. But there you go.
Laura Rotter
So as we're getting ready to say goodbye, Lisa, so what do you wanna, what do you wanna make sure that you say before?
Leisa Peterson
Yeah. Transitions are beautiful. I think that we can go through them and. And not feel like we survive or we can go through them and feel like we thrive. The difference is up to us and how we rise to the challenges that face us.
I've seen over and over again that the most difficult hardships I have faced have always led me back to becoming a better human for. The world for myself, and I'm really proud of that. But that takes work and bravery and showing up for yourself over and over again, even though you have no idea if it's gonna work.
I'm just here to tell you that it will work if you put the time and energy into it, like that's all you have to do.
Laura Rotter
Wow. Yeah. I'm hearing and I'm not making it up, the idea that we can't control what happens to us. You've mentioned several events in your life that were really life changing. We can only.
Respond. That's the one thing we can control. And even that doesn't feel like in our control, even that is the awake acronym, but having the tools to have that little moment before our reactivity. And to recognize and there are various ways and meditation is one way. Reading your book sounds would be helpful as well.
I will of course, have links to, you have two books at this point? Yeah. Yeah. I'll links to both those books in the show notes. Thank you. Do you also, you, you mentioned running workshops. Do you still do that?
Leisa Peterson
Yeah, probably in 2026. There will be some in-person retreats here in Sedona, maybe even in Hawaii.
But I, from time to time, I think right now we're recording in the fall of 2025, but I think early 2026. I'm gonna do a book. Club with the Money Catalyst. Ooh. Which is just a really fun way to have my assistance, but to dive into your money story, and I'm thinking about that, but I just go with what feels good and what people ask me to do.
So if that sounds interesting, reach out and say, Hey, that sounds fun, but I am here for service. If people have questions, feel free to reach out. Email me. I'm happy to answer questions. I just love being of service.
Laura Rotter
Thank you so much, Lisa. I really enjoyed our conversation. You too.
Narrator
Thanks for listening to Making Change with your Money certified financial planner, Laura Rodder specializes in helping people just like you organized, clarify, and invest their money.
In order to support a life of purpose and meaning, go to www.trueabundanceadvisors.com/workbook. For a free resource to help you on your journey. Disclaimer, please remember that the information shared by this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. It's for information purposes only.
You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.