Hello and welcome to Unshakeable with Human Design, everybody. I’m your host, Nicole Laino, and I’m not by myself for a change, and I’m so excited to bring this guest on. Lisa is a friend. I have Lisa Malia Norman here with me. She’s a women’s health and wellness leader, educator, breast cancer survivor, and mama, feminine wisdom and embodiment leadership coach.

She’s also a nonprofit founder and CEO. She helps people connect to their innate wisdom, trust their intuition and embody their sacred purpose so they can build a lasting legacy to access a life of deep satisfaction, clarity, and unapologetic joy. I am so happy to have you here, Lisa. Welcome to the show.

Oh my gosh, Nicole, thank you so much. This is an honor and a privilege and I’m so excited to dive into conversation with you because I think we have so many beautifully aligned ways and views of looking at women in leadership.

I believe the same thing and that’s why I asked you to be on the show and I’m excited to have this conversation, to talk about this new paradigm of feminine leadership that we’re stepping into. Before I do that, I want to call out that Lisa is a 3/5 sacral manifesting generator.

So she’s a fellow mani gen over here. And Lisa, I gave that intro, which was basically your bio, but what else can you tell the audience? Introduce yourself to them. Tell them what I didn’t catch in that bio, which always sounds a little sterile, but what do they need to know about you?

So I think, what people could know about me is that, I grew up in a small town and I had a big family. And so it was really easy for me to blend in with the big family and let everybody else take the lead and let myself just be a little bit invisible and felt a little bit safe.

Just seeing, how I have tapped into my human design, my magic, my power, and my medicine, and what really motivates me and inspires me today is that sacred purpose that we talk about. And that is what really calls me forward and calls me to do this work that literally, I can’t sleep unless I show up for it.

And it’s so out of the way that I was brought up to be behind a microphone, to be visible, to be taking a role in leadership. But like I said, I think that just speaks to finding your purpose and stepping into it. And then you unapologetically give yourself permission to go for it.

You brought up that word unapologetic and I know you said that you have some experience with your human design. How has your human design and understanding it helped you be more unapologetic, if it has at all, if it’s helped you step into maybe being seen, being able to sit behind that microphone, being able to claim your space or your sacred purpose.

What has human design helped you do in that and what has it brought out for you?

Yeah, I love that question because first and foremost, I found it very validating. I think that there were times in my life, as a mani gen, you do have multi passionate, multi interest, you’re multi faceted, and you want to say yes to everything. And you do try a lot of things. And also, you add that to my profile three of being the experimenter.

I looked like somebody that never wanted to take good advice and always was a little bit reckless. And even in the way that I go about learning now, I find that I really like to roll up my sleeves and dig in and make a little bit of a mess and then come out the other side and go, oh my gosh, look at what I learned.

And I think my mom probably terrified her in many ways, trying to raise a child like this, but also for me, again, it just came back to feeling really validated and getting to learn how to use some of those things that I maybe even shamed myself a little bit for. Thinking that, why can’t I just follow the rules?

Why can’t I just do it the way everybody else does? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if I did? And just giving myself that permission to make a mess, to learn the way I want it, to learn and really figure it out and get to know the ins and outs of everything I was doing.

I love that you brought up that validation and that permission to do it your way. Cause I think a lot of times we’re not even looking at what we got out of it, we’re just looking at, the process was bad. We shame ourselves for looking not like everybody else’s path.

And it doesn’t even matter if we ended up where we wanted to, or if we’re proud of where we are. It didn’t look like everybody else’s past. So people think I’m a flake. And I think that’s a really big mani gen thing is that people think I’m a mess. People think don’t know where I’m going.

They don’t really trust me, which is why every type needs to trust their path. And we all have a different, we all have something

Absolutely. That’s like I said, I think it’s just very validating.

Well let’s talk about what you do, and what I brought you on the show for is, I think we’re stepping into a new paradigm of leadership. That is what I feel.

On the show, we’ve talked about the cross of the sleeping Phoenix change where we’re going to be stepping into more of an energy of individuality and more energy over brute force necessarily. What is your take on feminine leadership versus the way that we’ve looked at leadership in the past?

Absolutely. This is my heart and soul you’re speaking to right now. There absolutely is a shift in the paradigm and I think whether or not you can actually name it, you’re probably having some feelings around it. You see this rise in feminine voices. You do see the rise in feminine leadership and you do feel, I would say probably a stirring or a calling in your soul, especially if you’re listening to this podcast. Where there may be something more on your heart, or maybe you know that there is something more possible, or you have a vision that keeps tapping you on that shoulder.

And feminine leadership, at its core, it’s a remembering of who we are and the innate power that we have and that we hold. And it is an awakening of the feminine spirit of Earth wisdom that is coming through to us in a much more holistic way. There is individualism in that, of course, because we are meant to show up in our unique magic, and our unique medicine, and our unique gifts.

And this is where feminine versus masculine differs, in that even if you are a woman leader in, say, a corporation, you are still filling a very specific role. You are wearing the different hats, fulfilling the roles, doing the things that have always been demonstrated as successful, typically in a male dominated industry, in a formula that was designed by men for men.

And while that is wonderful, and we need women making those shifts within those spaces, feminine leadership is really a calling to be able to show up as our whole selves in these spaces. So bringing your wisdom and your insight and your magic into those spaces, I know often can feel really scary and like that’s never been done before.

It’s unfamiliar territory for most people. But actually having that be able to affect you, start on a very small level first in your home, in your life, in your community, allowing yourself to tap into that wisdom that you know is awakening within you.

Feminine leadership is just that. It’s a much more nourishing, life giving, life force, energy way of creating, and producing, and leading. It is your whole self showing up in the collective, for the collective good in a way that is regenerative and resourceful versus goal oriented, extractive, dominant, depleting, leading to a lot of the things that we’re seeing today in our bodies, as far as depletion goes, and in our environment, as far as depletion goes,

Now, I feel like the person listening to this maybe is like, I believe in feminine leadership, this all sounds really good, she might be thinking, but if it’s not goal oriented, if it isn’t all of these things that we’ve been accustomed to, does that mean that I can’t achieve? Does that mean that I can’t have goals?

Does that mean that I can’t be successful? Does feminine leadership suddenly mean I’m surrendering to the fact that I won’t be? Or that I’m just going to lean back completely and not get anything done, and not go where I want to go? Do I have to surrender to that? What are your thoughts on that?

I love this question, because I love to demystify feminine leadership, because I think there are a lot of misconceptions that one, it can be very passive, because you hear a lot of the feminine is meant to just relax, receive, surrender. And while that’s true because traditionally we haven’t been taught that.

So that’s part of the unlearning that needs to happen. But the balance is that feminine leadership is really outcome oriented. And of course you can have goals, you have a vision that you can follow, that you can trust. And this is really going to be the most courageous path you ever walk, or that you ever take.

I do hear this a lot. Will I lose my edge? Will I not be as successful? But all I can tell you is you will feel more powerful than you have ever felt before. You will feel more whole than you have ever felt before, and you will probably accomplish things that you never even imagined possible.

I couldn’t agree more and I think that what I’m taking from what you just said and the experience I have as well. Same thing I tell people with human design. That feminine does not always just mean women either. It’s feminine energy. Is that how you look at it too? That tapping into the feminine is not, male female, it’s a different energy and it’s a different type of energy. With human design, one of the benefits is you have to recognize that you play your game. Mani Gens, we play our game.

As a 3/5 Mani Gen, you have a specific game that’s going to involve you doing lots of things, and you’ve got to get real comfortable with the fact that this is your way. Projectors, you’ve got to get comfortable with your game and you have to know what your game is. And I think that’s part of this too, is recognizing that maybe we’ve been playing a different game.

We haven’t been playing our game. If you’ve been playing the male dominated, masculine driven, fully masculine game, and there’s certainly things in your human design that can tell you whether you have a lot more feminine energy or masculine energy, what your balance is. But in general, nobody benefits from being 100 percent on one side.

So, what is your game here? There’s a different game to be played, and you just might be able to win the race when you play your own game. And I feel like there’s sort of an essence of that to this feminine leadership. Yes, if you look at it like, the game is all masculine, so we’ve got to play this game. Maybe you bring your best self when you surrender to more of the feminine game. And then you bring something completely new and different and powerful to the table. I don’t know if that resonates for you or if that jives with what you teach and how you approach it.

Absolutely, absolutely. I think part of that game is just really understanding what your purpose is, who you are, and how you do want to show up as your whole self. And the more we individually do that, as you started this conversation off of an era of individualism, the thing about honing our own energy so that we can stop wearing all the masks and all the hats and start shedding all of those things that don’t really fit us.

The more each of us can step into our own powers so that we’re not trying to hold all the things. Everybody is holding something really important that nourishes the whole, and then we are all more resourced, then we all have more energy, then we have all more ability to do what’s really important and meaningful.

So how does somebody know if they’re stepping into feminine leadership or not? How do they know if they’re playing that game or are they leaning too hard into the masculine? How do we know like how do you approach this of helping people find their authentic feminine leadership?

Or being able to tap into this and understand what it is for themselves and start to work with it. Where do you start?

Well, I will tell you, I think most women, and this is not uncommon kind of wait till things got really hard and they were pushed to the brink of exhaustion, or burnout, or a health crisis. In my case, that’s what it was. You pushed yourself too hard, that you just kept driving, you kept ignoring your intuition, all the ways that you didn’t do the things that light you up, fill you up, nourish you, replenish you because you were so driven in this one area.

And it may have served you for a while. There’s definitely nothing wrong with that when you need to jump into survival mode sometimes. We’ve all been there, but being able to recognize when enough is enough and it’s time to make a shift. And my message now is really trying to catch women before they reach that point of a health crisis, or burnout, or total despair to answer those whisperings that are on their soul, because there is one.

It’s there. There is something inside of you that you have had to shut down for a while. And it is just begging to come out and begging to be heard. So most often women will approach me from one of those two places. Either they’ve reached a breaking point where they don’t know what else to do and there’s got to be a better way, or else they’re in it and they have enough awareness to say, there’s gotta be a better way. Just help guide me through this process cause I’m ready to go.

Do you feel like most women are ready to surrender to that process? Or that it takes some experimentation? Or do they have to get to that breaking point where they’re like, I can no longer continue this way? How do you get them to start listening before? Don’t give us the step by step, I’m not putting that kind of pressure on you, but I think that recognizing that there’s a whisper and there’s a call and actually answering it are two different things.

And I have certainly found in my own experience, both with myself, I had a burnout breaking point with my corporate job. That’s what caused me to leave and then had to surrender to finding myself and listening to guidance in myself. And that did mean being open to things being different than they were.

Being open to money changing, or not being as sure of where things were going. Being okay letting the wind take me where it will and then learning to work with intention behind it. But I do find that some people say they want to surrender.

But they’re still holding on for dear life, and anytime they’re given something outside of what they’re used to, that resistance comes up. I’m curious what your experience is working with people.

Yeah, that’s absolutely true. I would agree with that 100%. Comfort is very intoxicating. You want to hold on to that comfort and what you know really hard. And it’s a terrifying process to let go of that. My own journey of that was scary.

It felt hard for me. I was holding a lot of things. I was doing it all. And I felt like if I put anything down, we’re not going to make it. And it can be that real. Like I’ve been there. I get that. The answer is in there if you sit in conversation with it for a minute, you already know, even though you don’t want to know, you know, and just giving ourself permission, and the ability to trust that.

And that sometimes takes time. You can have a quick breakthrough, of course, but developing that trust with your intuition, because that’s really what it is, right? This whisper on your soul, these intuitive nudges, this calling you forward, everything that you think is possible, but you don’t even know how.

It takes a lot to develop a trusting relationship with that part of you that you haven’t tuned into before. So sometimes it’s a remembering, it’s an undoing, it’s a deconditioning, and sometimes it’s just getting really uncomfortable in the unknown and developing a relationship of trust with what it is that you really want.

I used to joke that I used to negotiate with my intuition really hard. I know what you’re telling me to do, but if we could just put that on the calendar for this day instead of this day. Maybe we can do this in a couple of years, but not right now. Those were always harder battles to fight than just listening to what I was being called to do.

Yeah, it took me a long time to fully surrender to it because my mind was always wanting to attach to something concrete. Something sure. I want to go that way, but how can I lay out the steps perfectly to make sure that I get there?

There was always a part of me that was looking for it to be linear, and that is one of the things that I love about human design is that it does give you a framework for surrender. It says, your surrender is going to kind of look like this. You’re a generator. You’re going to surrender to an uh huh and uh uh. You’re going to trust what feels good, even when it’s scary. And that gives you a point of reference to say, when I trusted what felt good before, rather than trying to necessarily understand the intuitive guidance, because those whispers, that’s another level of intuition and diving into and really trusting, what am I being told now? What are my whispers? But the interesting thing to me is that even with the process that we give you with human design, people will sit through readings with me and I’ll tell them, this is your Incarnation Cross.

This is your purpose. This is the storyline of your life. Here are these activations. I’ll go through the whole thing of what their life looks like and they’ll be like, what do I do to get there? And it’s like, mm, yeah, that’s kind of,

Yes.

I told you, you’re a projector, you’re gonna rest more.

And they’re like, oh, I can’t do that. it’s like, well, what did we do this for? And I’m not angry about it, it’s just you have to point out, we’ve gotta get the monkey off your back. The addiction is to the way it’s always been. And now we’ve got to trust in something that I get you haven’t tested yet, and that’s where I always wonder with your three line, were you able to attach to something new because you are such an experimenter, you are at the gift level detached from the outcome and just like, all right, I’m used to things not working out the first time. So here we go again. And there’s just that built in resilience the three that someone like me, I have a one line where we want to know. Let me make sure that I have all the steps and I have everything written out in clear delineation, how this will all go.

That’s what a one line wants. The three lines just like, ah, screw it. Let’s do it.

Mm hmm.

Let’s try it. See what happens.

I can completely appreciate that. And then also I am a Capricorn, so I do love a strategy and a to do list and boxes to check. So certainly, we have never been shown how to follow our purpose. This was never taught to us in school. You’re not going to get a certificate at the end of this. And so a guide, I think, is really important, right? Like you or myself to really show them. And I think that by living an example of what’s possible is first and foremost, where people can look and say, oh my gosh, maybe it is possible.

How did you do that? And while I can’t say the steps I took are going to be the steps that are going to work for you, I can certainly find a process that’s going to help you find that method that’s going to work for you.

Do you think that’s part of why we’re seeing the pull away from traditional school, we’re seeing the pull away from traditional work environments, and I always wonder, is it true that we can’t really thrive in those environments, or is it just that perception where people are like, I’ve got to do my own thing in order to be my own person?

Do you feel like some of the changes that we’re seeing in the structures that we all work under, things pulling apart, the resistance to change, and people either leaving because change isn’t happening in these structures. So they’re like, I’ve got to go forge my own path.

Entrepreneurship, I look at coaching and a lot of the training that I’ve done in my business as like college. It’s a new form of college where I get to choose the curriculum, I’m picking my path, I’m choosing who I want to learn from, I’m not going to one university, I’m going to a few, and I’m putting that together to give me what I intuitively feel that I need.

Now what’s actually guiding those purchases can be different things. Sometimes it’s not intuition, sometimes it’s totally lack. But do you feel like from your own intuition, your own vibe, that maybe some of what we’re seeing of the changes in what people are choosing now have to do with this more feminine path that we’re pursuing. People listening to their intuition rather than what they’ve been told always.

Yeah, absolutely. I think people aren’t as willing as they used to be to put their health on the line for the sake of providing, or having that consistent pay check. I think people used to be very used to that. You just worked, you did everything you did for the company and your family almost came second. You were providing for your family, you putting your health and your relationships at risk. And I don’t see people as willing to do that anymore. And I absolutely do think that there are large organizations that are doing things really well, and that they have a thriving impact on the inside of their organization and on the outside.

And that is something I really discuss with my leaders and we dive deep into. The success isn’t just all your outward output. It is the internal workings of your system. That you are having an equally good impact for the people inside your organization and outside of your organization.

And there are those doing that. And we need those models in existence. But for those that look really successful on the outside, but we know that the inner workings of it are toxic and unhealthy. I just don’t think that they can last. And they certainly aren’t having the impact. And people notice, people are much more discerning now, they know, and they’re looking for a better way.

And it’s going to take each of us individually, and each of us collectively to do that. And it sounds like a tall order, and it is, but I think the more we stay true to our values and our vision and that hope for the future, for the legacy that we’re creating and building here, it’s absolutely necessary.

I totally agree what you’re saying about the large organizations that are making attempts to change and to shift and to make it a beneficial environment for the people inside and outside of the corporation or outside of the organization. And I think that you’re seeing that too with who they choose to bring into their organizations to help make that change.

I think that’s a real tell, are you bringing people in who are bringing more feminine leadership techniques, ways of tapping into yourself, and helping people access themselves, and caring about the employees as much as they care about their bottom line. And that’s, I think, where you’re starting to see who really means what they’re saying, and who’s just giving lip service to sound good. I see the change in a lot of these organizations, and I think that what we’re going to see is the ones that survive and the ones that really learn to thrive in this new environment are going to have a different directive from the inside out.

There’s an intolerance for people just being cogs in a wheel. That I don’t think the generations that are coming up now are going to tolerate that. They don’t seem interested in just working for a company because it’ll pay the bills or it’ll give them benefits.

Yeah. That’s not the world I want for them. I have a lot of hope for them and happy to do what we can to carve that path.

So tell everybody a little bit more about the work that you do specifically with your clients and the way that you weave this into the work that you do every day.

Absolutely. I’m learning those lessons myself as I go and building the organization that I am, and working with women who really want to tap into their intuition, and answer the calling on their soul, and help them step into their highest self and their highest use of their energy and their gifts.

And that’s where it starts. These are women that really want to leave a lasting legacy and have a meaningful impact in the world and have a joyous experience along the way. We work one on one together, and we work in small, intimate groups together, and it’s really about building that network of possibility and limitless possibility together.

A lot of my work is founded in midwifery. That was my first career. My first calling was as a midwife and later on being diagnosed with breast cancer. I know the power that women hold within them, both intuitively, innately, what we were born with. I’ve seen women tap into it again and again during childbirth.

I’ve seen them tap into it again and again, facing a breast cancer diagnosis, or even possibly leaving this earth and this body, and helping women tune into their sacred purpose in all of those moments and their sacred power and how they can show up using that power, whether or not they’ve had a child or they’ve had a scary health diagnosis.

Knowing that power is always there within you to tap into. And that’s really what the calling is right now, to be courageous enough to say yes to that calling. And to do it in community, I think, is really the most impactful way so that we can all look at each other in the eye and know we’re not alone.

Know that we can step into our own unique power and have that reflected back to us. And for me, I love working in community. One on one is fantastic and wonderful, but I think really a community of women is the old way, right? That’s part of that remembering when we supported each other in community and brought our gifts to the table to really support and nourish each other.

And I think that’s honestly the way forward.

I love you making that connection between midwifery and being able to birth this sacred purpose and being able to tap into that. Cause obviously we’re talking about creation energy. And what women are able to do when they are giving birth, when women are fighting a difficult, sometimes life threatening diagnosis, what we’re capable of.

I sometimes think we forget just how powerful we are. And I love that you help women tap into that.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s the calling of our times and to get to witness it, I can’t believe I get to do this. Because I see the power in women. I just see it. It’s right there. And when I get to see them witness it for themselves, there’s nothing better.

It’s a beautiful thing and I think that’s one of the things that I resonate the most with, with the work that I get to do is seeing people step into that power. I think it can be kind of an overused term right now we hear, step into your power, be your most powerful self. truth is, when you start to recognize yourself, everything comes from that place.

You make better decisions from that place of power. You feel powerful and people respond to that. I think that there’s a frequency that you send off when you are in your own personal power, when you believe in yourself, when you’re really, really grounded in who you are. I call this show Unshakeable for a reason because that’s where everything comes from, my life changed when I became unshakeable, not because nothing touches me.

And I say that all the time, we’re not impervious, but we are unbreakable. We are unshakeable in the way that when something happens, I can handle anything. I’ve got this. And I think that childbirth is one of those moments of, you can handle anything. Because it is frightening. It is painful.

There are moments, I’m sure, where every woman feels like, I don’t know if I can do this. And then they do.

Yeah, and it does help to have somebody there looking you in the eye going, I know you can. I know you can. And you know you can. And so let’s do this.

And I think you need that at every

know, you’re right though. You really do. And that’s that community piece. That’s how we do this.

No, I love that. And I love what you do, and I love the message that you’re bringing to the world, and the guidance that you’re bringing to women to bring people together so that they’re able to tap into what is innately theirs, that intuitive guidance that they have, and you’re helping to usher in and birth this new paradigm of leadership that I think is really necessary in this world. And certainly necessary with the changes that are coming. And I think what we’re all seeing right now is that there is a new dawn coming.

You just have to have the courage to step into it, and that courage starts in you. So, thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us, sharing your message with us. Can you tell everybody where they can stay in touch with you, and how they can learn more about you and what you do?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Nicole. I am on Instagram. I am on LinkedIn, Lisa Malia. Instagram, my handle is @lovelisamalia. And my website, of course, LisaMalia.co. And hopefully in the show notes, there’ll be a couple links here to come find me. But I love connecting with women. If you have any questions, just know that I’m an open book.

Reach out to me, send me a voice memo. I’d love to connect. And I answer all my own messages. Let me know what resonated for you, what questions you have, or just what you’re working through right now. If there’s anything I can do to support you, I’m here for it.

Thank you. Yes. And we will link all of it up in the show notes for you. We will always take care of you there. Just go to the show notes and click any of the links that we have there for Lisa and you’ll be able to follow her there. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, listener, for making it all the way to the end of this episode with us.

We couldn’t have this conversation without you. We appreciate you. And remember, in order to have an unshakeable business, you must first become an unshakeable human. So thanks for letting us help you become unshakeable with human design, everybody. We’ll see you next time.