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I’ve known Lisa Hesse for decades. When you live in a community like Ann Arbor for as long as I have and also are part of a smaller, tighter community–the running community–one is bound to bump into the same people from time to time.
I knew Lisa coached runners, particularly women. And I knew she was a Girls on the Run coach as well. What I didn’t know is the depth to this person and the many challenges she’s faced.
Lisa is a 59-year-old runner who expresses with absolute certainty that running has been her North Star. Running has been the activity that has helped her through any number of “lifequakes”, those messy, twisty challenges of life. It has been, she says, both her superpower and kryptonite.
She is a Nationally Board-certified Health and Wellness Coach, an ICF Professional Coach, a “neuroscience nerd,” and “a big believer in the idea that it’s never too late to change our narrative while honoring what we bring with us from the past.” She also is the founder of the Southeaster Michigan Chapter of Girls on the Run in 2001.
Lisa started running at age 13. She has 19 marathons, including four Boston Marathon finishes, to her credit.
Lisa now is a Life and Mindset coach focused on helping women, particularly former women athletes, rediscover the athlete inside each of them. Her approach is one of self-discovery. I believe that people who have been through life challenges with understanding, compassion, and empathy make better coaches. But one of the things I admire about her approach to coaching is that she does not apply her own life experience as the template for what she advises her clients to do. Rather, as she says, it allows the space for her to help her clients change their narratives.
Just after this podcast was recorded Lisa let me know she has been diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder known as Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy or CIDP. It is a disorder of the peripheral nerves characterized by gradually increasing sensory loss and weakness associated with loss of reflexes. CIDP is caused by damage to the covering or sheath of the nerves (myelin).
“I know, without a doubt, that because I see my world through the lens of my body, I caught this early,” she wrote to me.
Now in another of her own “lifequakes” Lisa is facing a potentially existential threat to part of her identity: Athlete. “It’s yet another threat to my sense of Who am I? “
I hope you enjoy my conversation with Lisa.
Where to find Lisa: https://lisahesse.com/
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-hesse-6b606a7/
What is CIDP?: https://www.cedars-sinai.org/health-library/diseases-and-conditions/c/chronic-inflammatory-demyelinating-polyradiculoneuropathy.html
Book and website, The Body is Not an Apology with Sonya Renee Taylor
Intro and Outro Music by WILDES https://www.wildesmusic.com/
Thank you for listening.