Finding The Light In 9/11, Lisa Luckett Shares Story of Trauma Being Healed By Love

Pamela Bardhi.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of underdog. Today I have an amazing guest here with me, Lisa. Lisa, how are you?

Lisa Luckett
I’m great. Pam, thank you so much for having me.

Pamela Bardhi
Thank you so much for being here. Lisa, it is truly a gift and an honor. I mean, you are a rock star of all trades, speaker, author, coach, entrepreneur. Just like, such a beautiful spirit to like, I’m just pumped to get into your story today. Thank you again, for being here. So I always start with the most loaded question of probably all time. You know, what inspired you on your journey to where you are today?

Lisa Luckett
Well, it’s kind of a loaded answer, actually, in the sense of my inspiration. When my husband was killed in the north tenor tower of the World Trade centers. So in that magnificent, enormous moment, it completely shifted me and put me on a trajectory for a completely new experience. And ultimately, the experience of what is now known as PTG or post-traumatic growth. But that acronym has only come up in the last few years, but that is actually what’s available to all of us. If you choose to look at the other side of your traumatic or difficult experiences.

Pamela Bardhi
Um, PTG. post-traumatic growth.

Lisa Luckett
Hear Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) disorder. This is the other piece of it, this is the other side of it. So in other words, we have to and I don’t know where you want to jump in on this. And we talked earlier so we can go a lot of different directions. But if a lot of your listeners are in the millennial generation or younger or just a little older. We really should talk about this, because this is how we can go into the future. And actually, shift to see our life in a different perspective from a different perspective and learn from it and really move forward from it.

Pamela Bardhi
Well, Amen to that, because I’ve never heard of something actually being a growth. That sounds positive. And that sounds like my vibe. What is that all about? Because I’ve truly Never heard of it until right now.

Lisa Luckett
It’s still pretty new. And I’m super, super tuned into this stuff. So for the past 20 years, all I have done is study from the micro to the macro perspective of my own life. Our life as a culture and our global world and looking at it more like a game board and the strategic game that we are playing. And that came from literally taking my life when my husband died realizing that as a warrior, but I’m not a mean person. I’m a Virgo, I’m not gonna lay down, but as a warrior of love in the moments, within days of 911. I had this unbelievable power if you will come up from within me and then that power was like this warrior of love.

And I realized in that moment, there was no way I could let my husband Teddy and all the others die in vain. That I had to make something good come from this or the terrorists were gonna win. And that was completely unacceptable to me. But then the next breath, I might like, how do I do that? Well, what I was pulled to do and completely guided to do was take my life. To the analyst, couch to figure out the why of everything. That is what I’ve done, so post-traumatic growth has come from that study. So we can all do that, you know. We can talk about this for yourself and your listeners today and just how to reframe their lives. To literally start moving in a different direction like now, at this moment.

Pamela Bardhi
What I adore about what you just mentioned is a lot of people will be shattered into that moment. And my absolute condolences, by the way, because I can only imagine what that was like for you. But to take it on such a positive note. I’m not going to let them die in vain, how am I going to make this actually something positive? How do I grow from this that takes a lot of spiritual power, like you said? Unlike any other that I’ve ever heard to be able to have the strength to even say that because most people would just be broken. They would shut down.

But you Within a matter of days, I did the exact opposite, which I find absolutely remarkable. So if you could dive into that a little bit, that would be incredible. Especially since this is something new that I’m hearing for the first time. And it could really be impactful for people experiencing trauma, especially at that level.

Lisa Luckett
Well, apparently, there’s no coincidences in this life. And I need to back storms, you know, kind of backfill this with basically now in retrospect. I know I was being guided by the universe from the moment it happened. But I didn’t know it for many years, I didn’t really know it until about 2014. And there’s a story as to why I was prepared for 911, in this really bizarre way, so that when my husband died, I was actually ready for it. So that’s why there’s a book because there’s such a long story that goes with this. Because part of what I learned through this process on a more esoteric note. Your life is always preparing you for the next thing in your life.

So I can tell you that very specifically through my story. Teddy walked down from the 100 and fifth floor. Where he’d worked for 10 years in 1993, in the first bombing. That everyone basically disregarded and two months later, removed back in and brushed ourselves off. And went on and never thought about it. I got really, really angry about the terrorists, I really had an adverse effect from that about six months later, like a delayed response that happened. So I already dealt with terrorism, I already dealt with him, his life being potentially taken in that way, which is just bizarre. But again, nobody in our culture gave it two seconds of time.

And then I found that very strange and then my mother-in-law, Ted’s mother. Was a very troubled lady and she liked to give me some trouble and told me basically, he was going to drop dead of a heart attack. Every time I saw her for 11 years, we were married. Because while he was stressed out, he was 40 years old. We just had another baby, I had a four-month-old, a four-year-old, and a seven-year-old. But I was 41, so I was an older mother, but he wasn’t walking and had a heart attack. So what did I do? I literally played out his death over and over and over in my mind so much, so it made me insane.

And I would actually lay at night and weep at the idea and here’s the epitaph of that story. We have such powerful minds, we have such powerful imaginations. That we can get ourselves just as torque over the idea of an event as the event itself. But what we never see in that moment of panic and that worry and that rumination. By the way, we are now living dimensionally bigger with COVID. Right. So what we don’t realize is that every time there’s a traumatic event in our world in our lives. It’s always flanked by the magnanimous aspect of the human spirit. In other words, people show up for you.

People shower you with kindness if you allow them to. So there’s a big discussion in this and why I’m so interested in speaking to you and your comparison here is that. I don’t think that there’s a lot of wisdom being shared with you guys. You’re getting a lot of guidance into how to move forward into this crazy world we’re in. But I promise you, it’s available. Like that’s all I care about is getting you guys to say, wait a minute, okay. Here’s 911 and I could have been victimized by it. And it hurts for everyone. But here we are. 20 years later, what have we learned from that? What do we learn? Are we still pointing the finger and blaming? Or answers? Yeah, we are.

And until we shift to see 911 in a different way and a new light in a different perspective. We’re not going to be able to get unstuck or loose in that very tightly constricted. We find ourselves in places where there’s no circulation. So the way you do it is say this, instead of why is this happening to me. Our defensive posture, I’m on my back foot, what do I do you lean in and say, wait a minute, why is this happening for me? What am I being shown, what am I supposed to learn here? Because here’s the joke. This is what I didn’t know. And I want to share with everybody that we’re actually here to struggle. We’re not here to be happy.

Happiness comes in between the struggles you’ve achieved when you’ve moved through them. And you’ve succeeded and you’ve survived, but not only survived and this is the ultimate goal. It’s to serve and thrive. So if you go through your events, here’s where I am. I didn’t know what I was doing. But I just moved forward because I was being pulled by intuition, I was trusting myself. I wasn’t looking outside myself for validation. Because let me tell you something, no one knew what to do.

The world had completely shifted on its axis and the literary leadership. There was no leadership because our country is so young. It’s only 250 or 400 years old. We are adolescents in comparison to the other cultures we deal with. And what happens to an adolescent, when they get hurt or hit, they react. So we have been reacting as a culture from leadership down for 20 years and even the years before it. But really for 20 years.

Pamela Bardhi
Wow. And what would be the steps to create actionable steps to actually happen, which will then turn into hopeful habits. You know, it’s almost like reprogramming the mind a little bit?

Lisa Luckett
Well, it’s just so here’s the thing, it’s just kind of sharing wisdom with you guys like, this is what I learned. No one taught me this from my life, you’re not, here’s the sad truth. It’s just a reality, this information is not coming from your grandparents, it’s not coming from your parents. You’re gonna learn it at the moment right now because this is where the culture is shifting to. And more and more enlightened conversations are happening. So this is really about enlightenment, this is really about waking up. This is really about the universe shifting and showing us a new way so that all the old systems have to break for the new ones to come in and restructure.

So if you look at 911, it was really more of a birth canal to a new order. If you want to back it up a little bit. So actionable steps are the next time something happens to you or that boyfriend breaks up with you. Or that girlfriend or whatever you say, wait a minute, why did that happen? For me? Like, what did I do in that situation? What was my role? When I spoke? And we had that conversation? Did I think about what I was saying and how was it going to land on her? I was gonna land on him, did I consider his position? Am I making assumptions that I know without asking? That’s available right now.

Pamela Bardhi
Right? And compassion and understanding the other person? I mean, that’s, that’s huge.

Lisa Luckett
And understanding that people can’t overnight. This is Pam, this is one of the things that is really so obvious. But so choose until you see that no one’s like you. No one sees things. Nobody sees things. I thought everybody saw things the way I saw them for the longest time. And the truth is, that couldn’t be more opposite. You have your lens and you have your experiences behind it. That’s going to show that you’re going to garner the information out of an event, based on your historic experiences. Which is why when you look at your life happening and preparing you for the next thing. Look at how my life prepared me to handle 911. So here I had terrorism, and then he was going to die.

What happened, we had terrorism and he died. So I was literally by 11 o’clock in the morning. I was fine. Because I’ve already been through it all in my head. So if you take those difficult things when you get fired, you know nothing. There’s no failure in anything. That’s another piece that’s really important. Every time something ends, it’s an opportunity for redirection. easy to say, not necessarily so easy to do. But that’s when you start to really question. And so we want to move forward in our world in a healthier way as you guys. If you look at the last 20 years, being bookended, literally bookended by two, massive. Unprecedented collective traumas that functioned to change the world’s forever 911 and COVID. In between, we had countless numbers of natural manmade disasters, Mother Nature and then manmade disasters.

And we’re still literally on that back foot on that defensive posture, ouch, ouch, ouch. Well, until what happens in nature and in our own psychology. We’re going to keep bringing in the same experience until we learn from it until decide to do it differently. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. So if you just back up and decide to be looking at your life more objectively. Nobody’s doing anything to you ever, they are literally doing the best that they can in that moment with the information. They’re there they’ve been given. That doesn’t mean they’re right. But it doesn’t mean the right, it just means you have a different view.

So if you have an event that happens to 10 people. You’re going to get 10 different points of view of that event. So the whole point is it kind of lessens the grip of it’s happening to me and shifts and says, wait a minute, why is this happening here? I’m being shown something here or it wouldn’t be happening. You and I wouldn’t be talking right now if it really wasn’t supposed to happen from a universal perspective.

Pamela Bardhi
Right. Absolutely. And like Lisa with that experience I know, there’s probably definitely people listening who have dealt with traumas. Or are you dealing with traumas or know somebody who is like, what would be your best recommendation based on what you’ve been through? In your own perspective? What is something that’s helped you navigate?

Lisa Luckett
Past that point. You know what, I think I don’t know how it feels to you to say this, but my generation, I’m 60. So I was born in 1960 and I was in that generation of women that didn’t ask for help. And if you ask for help, you’re selfish, so hopefully, we’ve changed that message a little bit. But the truth is, there’s a book called, The go-giver, which is a great parable. If people have heard that that’s a great understanding that basically gives more and you’ll receive so it’s a law of reciprocity. So if you’re really hurting, you need to let people help.

Because they are projecting themselves into your situation. If your parents have just died and your friends want to help you and they’re sad. They feel sad for you, but they’re sad for themselves because they see themselves in you. And these are things that we aren’t really taught, right. This is not a conversation that we’ve really had in our culture. Because we’ve just avoided death in general, it’s just so shushed and quiet. But it’s really important to let people come in and help you. And if you’re on the other side and you’re the person wanting to help just show up. Just do for them what you know, you can try to do what they need, but there’s really not much you can do and bring food and flowers.

But really, it’s about staying in touch over time. Because when someone dies, most people go back to their regular lives six. About six or eight weeks afterward and that person’s left on their own. And in my case, for 911, it was about a year until the first anniversary, and then everybody kind of disappeared. But it also needs to happen to people. You need it to happen so that you can ultimately work your way through the window of grief. Which just takes time, there’s no getting around it or through it, medicating it. You’re still gonna wake up, it’s gonna be waiting for you. So my suggestion is just live in the moment and let it flow, let it be where you are.

Try not to judge yourself. No shitting on yourself, as we say, there is no shitting on yourself. I shouldn’t be doing this, I should be doing that with respect to the process. And you know, as far as a friend watching, just be thoughtful, just remember to just show up for them. I was literally showered by my kids and I was showered from around the world, him for years. And I still get it with the anniversary coming, I will still get an influx of love from people. Because it happened to everybody. 911 was the first collective trauma we’ve really ever had.

And as the United States, we’re nestled between two huge oceans and two benign neighbors. We thought we were safe, we were also an adolescent. So one of my theories and one of my little quips I’ve come up with is National, adolescent. We are nationally young and you guys okay, sorry to say this. And please don’t blame all the boomers, it was happening a lot Long, long before us. But it is your next part of life to plan. So how can we take this as my call to you guys? How can we take the next 20 years, pivot them and look at them differently and objectively and see it from the other person’s point of view?

And we can do it with 911 if you want to. Because look how we went into the Middle East where we always ask. I think in the 60s and when JFK was elected people really wanted to bring democracy to underprivileged countries. There was really genuine heart-centered love there, there was a real genuine motivation there. 20 years later, 40 years later, maybe not so much. Maybe it’s more about oil, maybe it’s more about money, maybe it’s more about airfields. And maybe we didn’t ask enough questions. So I’m not saying it was the right thing to do. But I’m saying maybe we need to look at our own behavior.

Pamela Bardhi
Right. Now that makes absolute sense. Oh, my goodness. I mean, when you say collective trauma just for anybody listening who’s not familiar with the term, like, do you have your own definition.

Lisa Luckett
Something that affects everyone? So COVID Alright, so let’s talk about the two we have, right? We have 911. It’s fascinating. And I’ll tell you why. 911 happened with literally the metaphor, minutes of the advent of the Internet and 24-hour cable news. You cannot have a dark screen, you have to have a story running. Which is when the manipulation and manufacturing of information, I’m not saying fake news or any of that stuff. I’m just saying they had to dig deeper and deeper into stories and find more and more quote-unquote experts.

But were they really experts. They were 20 degrees removed from the real experts, but they were available for the interview, but they had a title kind of thing. So 911 happens eight years after the advent of the internet and 93. 80 countries lost someone in those attacks in the Pentagon and we never talked enough about the Pentagon or Shanksville. Shanksville never made its destination. They brought that plane down with the passengers and I mean, there’s a book called, Let’s roll by a woman named Lisa Beamer and her husband was Todd Beamer. And he led the charge and they have it all on recording. Oh, I’m getting chills from this. Anyway, that’s an amazing story of courage and bravery, and patriotism. Just fantastic.

But at the World Trade Center, what happened is we all had an hour From when the first plane hit in five of nine. When the buildings fell at 1030, we turned on our TVs and watched those buildings fall in real-time. Just think about that, this isn’t watching a die-hard movie on TV. This isn’t watching anything from Hollywood, this is real life, it can never happen again. You will never be that naive again. We don’t have, no there’s icons like that in the world, you know, there might be others. But it will always be the next one, not the first one, and that we all watched in real-time made it very personal for all of us.

So the collective trauma of 911, as the collective trauma of COVID is, happened to each of us personally. And that’s why it’s more than a news story. You may have just seen the skyline with the Twin Towers to know that they’re not there anymore. Even that kind of connection. If you ever went to New York, and many people always visited those buildings for years. You just stood next to them and saw they were enormous. They were overwhelmingly majestic, they were wonderful. But if you even touch them, you feel it. So that’s my point when something is personal. It’s not a news story anymore. And that’s where and then the idea that it opened our world because with 911. The internet and 24-hour news became a feeding frenzy of information and it lasted four years.

Pamela Bardhi
Wow, I didn’t realize the connection there. I didn’t realize that cable news went 24 hours at that point.

Lisa Luckett
It started with the Gulf War in 1991. We have to remember how long it takes for things to shift in society. Hmm, you know, it’s the slowest moving like education is. Everything’s 30 years and one of the things that’s really a parallel that works for me. And hopefully will work for you and your listeners. Think of it as if you think of it as a birth canal to a new and better order, let’s say better work on forward in a good way. Okay, this is not the end, we are just getting started. If you look at the AIDS crisis in the 80s, it literally brought everyone out of the closet, not just gay people. It brought all their families that brought it out of hiding into a conversation.

So then in 2014, society shifted enough that we could have gay rights, but it started there. And we as a culture, we haven’t, I’m sure there’s tonnes of studies out there. But there’s so much noise and there’s so much competition for our attention. We can only hear sound bites anymore. How do we get that information that’s very soothing and understandable? Out into the population so that we know we have a bright future. And I have all my money on you guys because let me tell you something, my generation two yours. My daughter’s just a couple of years younger than you. We went from being raised as children who were to be seen and not heard in an adult world.

So parenting did a complete role reversal. And as a result, you guys have been fed and hopefully the ways that you feel, so loved that you feel cared for that you feel supported in a more complicated world for sure. But with that confidence, I see I want to add that. My call to action for you guys is what do you want the next 20 years to look like? It’s in your game, you guys are right, poised, and ready to take it. So because the world right now is spinning and weak and when as soon as you decide you can move forward? And how do you do that? That would ask that to you and to your listeners? What can be done today? Who do you like that you’re listening to or hearing or reading that you want to continue to push that conversation forward?

Pamela Bardhi
I love that. And yeah, I mean, we didn’t even think about the two collective traumas that have ensued and then all these different perspectives on it and question for you, Lisa. Like what has been something that has inspired you or sort of led you into your spirituality? Because this is a very deep insight. And it’s like, where did it originate from? Everyone has that awakening moment, right?

Lisa Luckett
I think so. Well, actually, I think you guys were all born awake. Actually, I believe that anybody born after 1990 actually was born into different energy of which you are more sensitive. So your bodies are more sensitive. We didn’t even know gluten allergies were, I mean, people could be celiac. But that was a very rare thing and it came along with diabetes. And that was just a strange medical condition. Now, kids are dairy intolerant. I’m sure there’s more toxic toxins in the system. But it’s also if you guys are more sensitive. You’re also more emotionally sensitive, you’re also more empathetic, you feel each other. I’ve always felt that I was different in my world. I really really didn’t fit in my own family in the world at all and not a good place to be.

I’m very happy that you guys now as your collective can say, Wait, this is who we are now. That really hurt and let me tell you why and not be shamed for it. But my wake-up call came basically about 11 o’clock in the morning on 911. I mean, I was being guided by the men and I got off the couch with my boys who are little, I just brought my daughter to school a little late, she hadn’t been feeling well. And a friend called to tell me that he asked me what tower my husband was working in and I said. The one with the antenna on it, why? And she said, well, turn on the TV because a plane just hit it and took off the top 15 floors.

Well, you and I both know, that’s not correct information. She didn’t ask me what floor he was on, because she just told me that he was dead on the ground. Because he was on 105 to two stories from the top. So that began in my experience, the first wave of continued misinformation and why we really need to turn the TV off. We need to disconnect from me, we need to disconnect from the news media. Because one of the things that’s really important to know. And I was in the radio business in New York for 15 years, it is not a community service. It is about ratings. Ratings are about money and there’s nothing that sells better than fear, though 20 years of the spin that happened. So there was an emotional symptom. My opinion.

There was an emotional centrifugal force that started to spin. When those buildings fell, as we watched them, we started to collectively freak out. And that freakout looked like a chicken running around with its head cut off like darting and jerky and frenetic circles. Then what I saw in my mind’s eye was a stagecoach barreling down the mountainside. Because the driver had let go of the reins and it felt like everybody just let go of the reins and still have let go. We still never pick them up. We’re still spinning and so we’re in that spin. And so what happened in that spin is wherever we were broken. As a family, as an individual, as a business, as a culture, we broke further.

Meaning, if you drank you drank more, if you gambled, if you had you know extramarital affairs, you have more. If you shopped more, if you were on Wall Street, you lent more money. So don’t be surprised that in 2008, the housing market brought us down. Because that was all part of that collective spin. So where we are now 20 years later, when it actually matters is we have to just understand where we are. That we can start on twisting the knot. But you and that’s why I’m so excited to talk to you, Pam. Because you guys are you guys are the future. You can do this.

Pamela Bardhi
Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, it’s just crazy to see different perspectives on what actually happened, because I was so young at the time. Yes. Remember, I was just I think it was fifth grade for me. We didn’t really understand what happened, you know. And I remember watching those tower towers fall and I was just like. I couldn’t turn off the news, because I wanted to know if people were, okay, what happened? Who caused this? And like, all this, like questions and I just remember just feeling this dark energy for days. You know, everything kind of paused and stopped what they were doing and it just the world fell silent. Yeah, that whole even after?

Lisa Luckett
Yeah. And you know what, Boston to Washington was in what you guys were on the epicenter? Yeah, because the planes left Boston and Washington’s involved in Newark, in New York, obviously. So between that population, there’s 50 million people in that population. All of which had or were one or two degrees removed from someone who died. It was very, very impactful for us on a very personal level. But the question to you and to your friends is, how do people handle you? What did the adults do?

Pamela Bardhi
I mean, honestly, the adults just didn’t know what to say around me. They were just, you know, watching the news and praying. That was it, that’s watching. That’s about all we had. Yeah, that’s all you can do. Nobody could say anything, teachers couldn’t even comment, they would just cry. And they would just, you know, like, you don’t even know anybody. You know, he didn’t know anybody. It was just like this sadness that couldn’t be replaced and it went on for weeks.

And I remember that feeling, that darkness. It took months even as middle school kids to sort of pick up on the teachers to kind of be like. Because the headlines weren’t going away and all that. But after a couple months, it sort of started to simmer just a tiny bit, but still, as a nation. Everyone rose up more than ever. That’s when you start seeing all the different foundations start to pop up and different things happening. So the trauma response we saw was just like a unification

Lisa Luckett
Unbelievable patriotism lasts for like two years and then it’s we seal it over so the theory being humanity. The fight-flight and freeze reflex, the amygdala, right. That protects us when we’re scared has been on Oh, hyperactive drive since 911. And it never has been quiet. So it was great for two years while we all were helping each other. There was beautiful love energy that all the social walls came down. And we were all equals and very unified and patriotic, and it was beautiful. But we didn’t learn and we didn’t treat it. We didn’t really stop long enough to study what was going on. We’re just still reacting. So one of the two, two questions prompted the book that I wrote and the two that would follow.

I’m not sure I’ll get to them, but certainly the first one. Why were we so emotionally unprepared to handle 911 as a culture? Where was all the wise counsel to get us through it? And the answer is 20 years later, we’re still on that, so as to his questions and that’s my challenge. If you will for lack of a better word and my call to action for you guys is what do you want to deal with that. And if you understand that life is a balance of three things, the mind, body, and spirit in our American culture. We have just as an analogy when high school seniors are getting 1600s on their essay, T’s and four-point nose and being tutor for better A’s. But they still can’t get into the College of their choice.

Have we not maximized academics. When Olympians and professional athletes have to take steroids to compete? Have we not super served physical fitness? But I asked you this, what have we done with the emotional leg? Nothing, literally, a little religion here or there, but really nothing, so we tipped over. So here’s the lay, here’s the so we just tipped over, do here’s your call to action, do you want to write the stool? Do you want to set it up? Right again, because there is an unbelievable opportunity in the right brain in the intuitive. Sensory creative center that we have not even tapped in yet.

And what I believe is the gross domestic product of the United States is innovation. What if we decide to make that our innovation. Because the other side of this, which is kind of problematic is we’ve got tech running full speed ahead and as humans. Are we even close to catching up to that in our humanity? So I would like to ask again if you guys are the year where it is why AI? Why are we developing all this? Not that it’s wrong? Just tell me why? And it can’t be because we can. That’s not the right answer.

Pamela Bardhi
It’s for it’s really more so for business efficiency and automation and convenience. Really, I mean, that’s the only reason why it’s happening.

Lisa Luckett
Well, we’re also eliminating jobs, because the average person isn’t smart enough to do the stem programme. You know, you can’t just do science, technology, engineering, math, half of the population, you know. And what’s amazing is the mind that’s taking us there is a very special mind. If you look at the Asperger’s factors and the autistic factors of Silicon Valley. I would bet 80%, maybe 50 or more percent is on the spectrum at some level.

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Baeza, all are persons with high-functioning autism, which is fine. I mean, I’m all about loving stuff, I mean, it’s sci-fi, it’s the best. But the point is that it’s a different mind, It’s not a mind that says it is not a heart-centered mind. It’s a mind that can get us into outer space, which is extremely cool. And I love more than anything, but we have to stay in that balance. That’s the only reason I asked that.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. I mean, yeah, these are, these are questions for the future for sure. Like, why are we doing what we do? Is this intentional? Become aware of our conscious decisions? Without a doubt? And I mean, what are some of your recommendations and like. From your books and you touched a little bit on book one and can you give us a little bit of insight on Book Two.

Lisa Luckett
Book two kind of is just the more esoteric, so it’s the macro. So I’ve given you a lot of it, I’ve given it in the national adolescence. I’ve given a lot of it in the three legged stool, I’ve given a lot of it in just the idea of shifting perspective. So if we want to go forward, and again, for you guys for the next 20 years and it’s going to be what 10 years look like? What’s 20 years because 20 years from now. This place is going to be pretty unrecognisable and you have a choice right now to slow it down for a minute. And have these conclaves of thought, thought leadership. What do you want your world to look like? I didn’t know it, I thought everybody was a visionary thinker, I see bigger pictures.

A lot of us do. So put all that together and form what you want. Because then you just have to manifest it. Then that’s where the energy comes in and the shift into the universe and part of that awakening. So my company is called COEs Mina, enlightened living and COEs. Mina is a made-up word now meaning kindness. There’s a long backstory, but when I named it in 2007, I was enlightened. Does anybody even know what I’m talking about? And now it’s exactly the right name because it was always the right name. Because it’s all about enlightenment.

Pamela Bardhi
That’s incredible. Everything that you’re talking about is absolutely brilliant. We can shift our own paradigmz and that’s for sure. And that is what you’re saying through both of these books, which is super exciting. Super, super exciting. I appreciate that insight. Big time.

Lisa Luckett
Yeah. And I love that you said that, because that’s so when we talk about what our action steps are, you know. I’m calling it a call to action is if we each changed a little something. If you decide to look back on that fight, you have your parents or that office situation that didn’t go well. That went well take it from the positive, why did it go? Well, what happened in that exchange? What did you do differently that time that you’ve not done before that worked? So it’s not always negative. I can just, in other words, shift what I love to call this, go to the 10,000-foot view and look down without emotion and just see it as that strategy. It’s fun, It’s like a strategic game when you get all of that drama out of the way.

Because that’s what we’re really here to do. We’re here playing a game, as you know, in this contrast of the third dimension on planet Earth. Which is super trippy and our next conversation would be all about that. But it’s really fun, I mean, I do believe we have a brilliant future. And I really believe in you guys, because we listen to you. That’s the interesting part about the parents of today, our parents, my mother’s 86. She says of my brother and I and our 60s, but you’re the kids like we don’t know anything.

And now because of technology, you guys, Trump us and then you were asking you to help us. So a humility when I am one of the things out of our generation, your parents generation. Maybe not your specifically, but many of us, I always introduce myself and I should begin with this conversation as a recovering no at all. Because that was our training, that we know everything. And the answer is we definitely don’t, but we’re all willing to learn.

What Would Her Older Self Tell Her Younger Self

Pamela Bardhi
So that’s incredible. Lisa and one question that I always mentioned and I always ask all my guests. What would your older self tell your younger self, based on what you know now?

Lisa Luckett
Probably very cliche and I would think a lot of people answer this and that is to just lighten up and not take it so seriously. That it is a game that we’re getting that this is a gift to be here. I beat the heck out of myself forever. And still do those grooves are deeply instilled but yeah, be nice to yourself. But don’t be selfish like there is a point in humility and gratitude and think of the other person’s point of view. If I wish I had known about self-awareness, I wish I’d known about introspection. I wish I had known just about what I was inherently given on the planet that was so misunderstood was in fact, emotional intelligence.

Pamela Bardhi
Right? Becoming self-aware. Your emotions? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And now, Lisa, what are you working on now? In your world? What’s what’s next,

Lisa Luckett
I do think I’m going to just take the show on the road for the summer. What you’re just kind of working up to the 20th anniversary and just talking about the book. Because the book is really about, it’s called the light in 911, shocked by kindness, heal by love and it’s a memoir. I wrote it so that people could connect with me because I’m giving you my story. And I’m actually sugarcoating it. But what I’ve learned and heard from many people, is that I just felt like you were talking to me the whole time. And I could just relate to all of it and it will really help explain your parents because it’s somebody in my generation. But mostly because it’s about healing from trauma.

It’s about choosing being the operative word to see the silver lining in your experiences. Which is what we’re kind of talking about here. Because it’s not always bad, It may not be at the same weight. Right? Like the chi, so I had this my country was attacked, my husband was dead, all of his friends are dead, many friends of mine. I could easily have been tipping into the abyss. But I had the kindness of strangers, keeping me from dropping off the edge. So it’s not necessarily as big as the trauma but there’s this there are these silver linings right there.

These glimpses of hope there’s these magnificent, what are the words just these magnificent gifts. Are these magnificent magical moments that save us, we just have to be open to receiving them. And then the kindness of strangers, which is always there and I’ll leave with this thought that I would call that the goodness of a situation. It’s the goodness and so that was my experience in the years that in the months have followed 911 I just got a lot of goodness.

Pamela Bardhi
Thank you so much, I appreciate that. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years, almost a year since 911. That blows my mind.

Lisa Luckett
It’s interesting, too. We as adults can’t understand your life because I had 40 years before 911 and technology and all of that. So I have a foot more in that camp than this one. And you’ve only grown up in a post 911 world even though you’re in middle school, like do you remember a lot before that?

Pamela Bardhi
Surprisingly so yeah. Good friend. Yeah, just just always been ever shifting. I feel like for my generation, it’s just always been changing happening all the time. And I think that’s why we will adapt and why we’re easy to do like, you know, let’s do a side hustle. Let’s do this, let’s see, you know, like, just a lot more adaptable, if you will.

Lisa Luckett
Yeah. Entrepreneurial spirit. There’s a lot of well, and that’s our country. We are entrepreneurs, this is a beautiful part of our national humanity. And that’s, that’s exciting and I’m thrilled that you guys have that and that you’ve been allowed to be who you are. One of the things that’s really beautiful about your generation and the Gen Z years. Everybody behind them is that you’ve been able to grow into who you are, instead of what your parents wanted you to be.

And we just planted you in this ground and we watered and fed you and gave you some sun and you grew up into who you are. We weren’t judging you, we didn’t say you had to be a doctor or a lawyer. You can be an artist, you can exercise your sexuality, you can do whatever you do just want you to feel loved, and to have good lives. And that’s genuine.

Pamela Bardhi
Right through it’s so interesting to see the intergenerational differences, you know, for sure, personality-wise, growing up societal standards, everything’s super different. But it’s fascinating stuff. Absolutely.

Lisa Luckett
Something we could talk about for hours and hours, but I’ve kept you a long time already.

Pamela Bardhi
Oh, you’re a rock star. Just want everyone to be able to find you and your awesomeness and how to contact you.

Lisa Luckett
Yeah, so pretty easy. lisaluckrtt.com that’s where the book overview is. My bio is there you can get me on email lisa@ lisaluckett.com.

Pamela Bardhi
Thank you so much, Lisa, for being here. Today. You are a total rock star. I love your wisdom and your insight. Thank you so so much.