This One Thing May Be Holding You Back From Finding Your Purpose with Lisa Nicole Rosado
I met Lisa Nicole Rosado recently in a super aligned, crazy way. I was hosting a room on the app Clubhouse that Lisa found herself in and we ended up having a 40-minute incredible conversation. We both knew we needed to connect on the podcast. Keep reading to learn how Lisa uses her ADHD to her advantage as a successful business owner, finding her people, her passions, and founding We Are Women Owned. We also chat about supporting other women, astrology, and how your spiritual journey molds who you are as an entrepreneur.
Who is Lisa Nicole Rosado?
Lisa is the founder & creative director, chief motivator, and big idea generator of We Are Women Owned. After a decade as a retail buyer in New York City. Lisa founded the lifestyle blog, The Style Theory, and online boutique TST Collective where she partnered with brands like Birchbox, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Spanx.
When she couldn't find a welcoming, supportive community for emerging business owners like herself, Lisa created We Are Women Owned, and in addition to being the go-to platform for discovering shopping and supporting women-owned brands, We Are Women Owned also hosts a community and series of in-person and virtual pop up shops and events for female-identifying small business owners. She's been featured in MindBodyGreen and Martha Stewart. Lisa is an NYC born, Latina, winged liner lover, and personal assessment enthusiast.
Lisa and I met recently and in a super aligned, crazy way. I was hosting a room on the app Clubhouse that had to do with productivity, Lisa says “and that's something that I'm always thinking about, especially now that I have officially been diagnosed with ADHD. So it just like I was like, I'm gonna pop in.” She had planned on just listening in while she worked, but I called her up to speak and we “ended up having like a 40-minute incredible conversation about productivity and just life as an entrepreneur.” From there, we both knew that “so many women would benefit from this conversation.”
An Entrepreneur with ADHD
Lisa went through most of her life struggling with ADHD without even really knowing. When she started her career as an entrepreneur and was having to show up for people, she started to feel anxious, having autoimmune issues, and struggled with motivation and focus. She went to the doctor because she was feeling so bad and “I remember going in it's so funny because I'm telling you I suspected this since middle school. The doctor goes, it sounds to me like you have ADHD. And I just looked at her I'm sure like she had seven heads.”
A few months after that she saw a psychiatrist and was officially diagnosed. “There's almost like a grieving process that comes with it. I don't know how to explain it. Like, there are days where I'm like, Yeah, like, my brain is awesome. And then there are days where I am so hard on myself, and I'm frustrated because I feel like, I'm punching a brick wall. And I'm not getting anywhere.” Sometimes, our brains can feel amazing, but sometimes we have to allow them some extra rest.
Part of Lisa’s process to help take care of herself now is being aware of her energy levels and really listening to them as “an entrepreneur, as a woman, but also as someone who has ADHD, and also, you know, some autoimmune issues.” She also had to mourn the time that she could run every single part of her business accepting now that she can’t do that anymore. Having to shift your life so much can be really frustrating because you’re still surrounded by people who are always on top of things and always have so much energy. She’s learned to focus on what she’s grateful for instead, like all of the growth We Are Women Owned has experienced.
Until this last year, Lisa was “just rolling with the punches. And I didn't think too much about, you know, caring for myself or, or getting the proper care that I needed. So I didn't put too much thought into what ADHD, meant, for me, as a woman, as a wife, as an entrepreneur, as a daughter, as a sister.” She has discovered that there is so much to love about her “ADHD brain,” and she finds comfort knowing that a lot of entrepreneurs also have ADHD. She now is able to share the story about her long journey to a diagnosis and to acceptance.
She also realized other things about herself. “I've discovered that for a lot of my life. I was really great at masking.” When she was younger, no one understood the struggle she faced, especially in relation to subjects she wasn’t interested in. She thrived in the classes that she enjoyed but would barely pass classes that didn’t hold her interest. But at that time, she had no idea that it was a neurological problem causing her struggles.
Now, she uses that newfound knowledge to find her passions, “it's just very interesting to see if there's something that I'm interested in, I can soar in that area. But if it doesn't hold any interest, like whatsoever, it's daunting, I don't thrive.” The struggle showed up even more when she became an entrepreneur. She didn’t have a set structure and was the one making her own schedule and decisions. But because of that challenge, she’s been able to figure out the best way to thrive. Learning how to harness something that can be a downfall for most people and then using that to fuel and mold her passions is why Lisa is the successful woman she has become.
Find Your People
When Lisa first decided to become an entrepreneur, she was searching for connections with people through blogging. She thought blogging was her thing because all of these people had similar interests. “And so I started [The Style Theory] because I love fashion and beauty and talking about lifestyle and all these things. And maybe that's a way to make some connections.” But that didn’t end up being the case, it didn’t feel aligned for her and the huge community she was hoping to build didn’t happen.
Needless to say, the start of her journey as an entrepreneur wasn’t smooth. She felt alone and isolated. When we don’t feel like we have someone who understands the situations we’re in or someone to lean on for emotional support, we can feel depressed and lonely. But there’s always something we can do about it, for Lisa, she started hosting in-person events to support female small business owners. “And that really started out of a need for me to get my brands out there paired with my desire for community. And it just it went from like for like a tiny, teeny tiny pop up with four brands, including myself. And then two months later, it was 17,” and since then it has snowballed and fueled a sisterhood.
Something that’s really important for Lisa to share and ingrain in women is “I want you and your business to get visibility, but I also want to encourage you to think about the connections you can make and the relationships you can foster with one another because that has been such a game-changer in my life and my business. And it's just so cool, just to see these women, and how they've supported each other throughout the years.”
She didn’t arrive at this place quickly or easily though. She did so by trusting what felt right for her. Now, she’s watched everything come together and has been able to create something she’s passionate about, build connections, and serve an amazing community of women. So right now, if you’re reading this and you’re struggling to be yourself in your business or in your life, just go for it. You can have some things planned, some money saved, but you have to be able to shift and change throughout the process, allow yourself that space and time.
But it’s important to go in full force with the right people around you, especially ones who are on similar journeys. If Lisa hadn’t taken the huge leap into entrepreneurship and starting the WAWO community, she wouldn’t be where she is now, so her biggest piece of advice to you is “Try to have something in place for sure. And just go into it, make sure you're surrounded by the right people where it feels very balanced and you two are supporting each other. Even if that's just one person.”
Take the Time to Find Your Purpose
At this point, I had to know how Lisa knew this was her path. She had done so many different things. How did she know it was time to move on then finally find “her thing”? Lisa said entrepreneurship wasn’t a decision she made overnight. She’d been feeling like it was a step she was supposed to take for years. She didn’t even have much of a plan in place, she just felt it, no money set aside or anything. But she had realized that she was doing so much for other businesses, like working in retail for small companies, and not being compensated enough or feeling like she had zero room for growth.
She was pouring her heart and soul into her job without much reward, so she thought “why don't I do this for myself? That's where it really started for me.” She started running her online shop, but still found things that didn’t feel aligned, “there was such a detachment and I couldn't place it.” Even so, it was the step she had to take to get to where she is now. She used her experience in retail and in starting her own small company to fuel events and supporting women starting their own retail entrepreneurial journeys.
For almost three years, she knew in her heart that she was meant to help and support women in their journeys, to share her own knowledge, and to build a community. “So I want to encourage people to leave room for those things to happen and maybe to even expect it and to give yourself grace. I don't believe in the word failure or the definition of it. Everything that I've done up until this point has led me to here.” This is where I added that there are so many experts and coaches and courses out in the world that it puts pressure on so many of us to figure it all out now, to get it all done. That part of giving yourself grace is giving yourself time because the universe “knows exactly where your spirit needs to develop. That's why you feel uncomfortable when [Lisa was] in that job, [she] felt uncomfortable because [she was] being squeezed. So [she] would jump to the next level, and then jump to the next level [after that] and keep [going from there].”
It’s important to give yourself the freedom and time to try out different things to find what your true purpose is. Lisa says that when you don’t “you really take away your progression. Whoever's listening, if you're in a situation where like, this is not where you want to be, just know that you're there for a reason. And it is meant to inform you or prepare you for that next level.” Just be aware that your situation is serving its purpose at the moment, whether you “understand it fully or not.”
For Lisa, trusting in herself and her intuition to know what feels right is what has made the journey a little easier. When she’s making decisions, she listens to how she is feeling and why something might not feel aligned. She is able to be more in tune with herself. A few years ago she started to get into astrology, and personality traits like perfectionism began to make more sense. During her exploration, Lisa learned that she is a “Virgo sun Pisces rising and Sagittarius moon, they're like, also opposite from each other. So I feel like you can almost look at it as almost conflict, which I definitely feel internally sometimes. But it also kind of makes you a little more well rounded. So with the Virgo sun, yes, we like order and perfection. Whereas the Pisces is more of the dreamer, the more ethereal, you know, more flexible, more fluid.” Now, Lisa focuses on listening to “the call of what [I] need in the moment.”
Business with a Cause
When it comes to supporting businesses, Lisa pays close attention to the story behind a brand. She’s always had a deep appreciation “for brands that really care about people on the planet.” It’s one of the most important things she thinks about in terms of who WAWO serves and showcases on their platforms. And brands don’t have to be perfect or experts either, but she does pay attention to brands “that are mindful and conscious.” She’s learned that there’s no such thing as perfect throughout her journey towards being more “sustainable and eco friendly. So even if a business, you know, has a long-term mission of achieving something that does, in turn, better our planet, you know, or communities that really speaks to me.”
For the longest time, Lisa felt a big disconnect between the fashion world she was in and wanting to move towards eco-friendly and sustainability. But at that time, eco-friendly didn’t sell. Over time, she’s made it a point to bring a spotlight to brands that align with her values for herself and WAWO. She says, “It started to just happen organically. And what was really cool is we hosted a Latino owned virtual pop up in support, and celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, in 2020. And so many of the Latino business owners that applied were in the eco-sustainable space, they gave back in really big ways.”
But of course, as a business owner, money is always a factor. Lisa, like many of us, wishes “that weren't the case, I wish there were another way to go about things.” Her most important goal though is to serve as a positive role model for others. She’s been able to take her hardships and turn them into “power in vulnerability and, and honesty and authenticity. And so those are the brands I want to work with. They exemplify that as the founders, but they're also trying to figure out [how to] aside from running [a] business and doing what [we] can to see it thrive and survive, what can [we] do for others and the planet?”
Affirmation
I listen to the promptings of my inner wisdom and take action will full trust and love.
Links From the Show
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