We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lysanne Lapierre a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lysanne, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

The road to success is as unique as the individual defining it. It isn’t about chasing someone else’s version of achievement but about understanding yourself, honoring your values, and designing a life that truly matters to you. Yet, so often, we’re conditioned to measure success through external markers—titles, possessions, and accolades. The disconnect arises when we adopt these societal norms as our own, leaving us endlessly striving, yet rarely fulfilled.

As a young adult, I dreamed of owning a Porsche, convinced that it would define my success. For years, I felt like a failure for not achieving that dream. But as I grew older, and I learned what truly mattered to me. I realized it wasn’t the car I was chasing—it was the feeling of freedom and joy it symbolized. Driving my own convertible with the wind in my hair, I discovered I had already achieved that sense of liberation. The Porsche wasn’t worth the sacrifices it required—sacrifices that clashed with my values of family, health, and balance. That’s when I learned: success isn’t about possessions or the corporate ladder – it’s about living a life that feels authentic and aligned.

Today, as a personal leadership and career coach, I help others uncover their unique version of success. Through an iterative process of awareness, alignment, action, and accountability, I guide clients to reconnect with their authentic selves and design lives they truly love. Success isn’t a single destination; it’s a lifelong journey of realignment and growth. It is about the power one feels from being the leader of your own life.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Embracing Change, Empowering Growth
Change is the only constant in life, and how we navigate it shapes who we become. Guiding others through life’s challenges and transitions is at the heart of my work. From corporate consultant to mompreneur, non-profit leader, and now personal leadership and career coach, I’ve faced challenges that became opportunities for growth. These experiences taught me not just to embrace change but to thrive in it—and that’s the mindset I help my clients cultivate to design lives aligned with their deepest values and goals.

Coaching to Empower One’s Personal and Professional Journey.
I am Lysanne LaPierre, a personal leadership and career coach dedicated to helping individuals create meaningful lives. My coaching is built around the 4 pillars of Awareness, Alignment, Action and Accountability. Together, we uncover opportunities, challenge limiting beliefs, and align goals with core values. Through focused action and consistent accountability, clients discover their true potential and build lives they genuinely love. While personal growth is possible on one’s own, working with me as their coach accelerates the journey—propelling clients toward the life they’ve been dreaming of with clarity, confidence, and purpose.

Navigating Transitions to Find Purpose
With 30 years of experience in business, entrepreneurship, and the non-profit sector, becoming a coach felt like a natural evolution—a culmination of my passion for self-improvement and helping others. When I discovered I was expecting twins, I realized that my demanding consulting lifestyle wasn’t sustainable for our family. It was a tough decision to step away, but it aligned deeply with my values and what mattered most.

Over the years, I’ve reinvented myself as a mompreneur in the fashion industry and later as a leader for a non-profit start-up. Along the way, I discovered that my greatest joy and sense of purpose came from helping others grow and thrive. Coaching is a true partnership, where we strive and thrive together to become the best versions of ourselves.

Relationships Are My Super-Power
Trust and safety are key to achieving the results one desires with coaching. My approach is both compassionate and challenging to help one move forward in a kind and supportive way. Through one-on-one coaching and tools for self-reflection, I help clients navigate life’s changes with clarity and confidence. Whether seeking a career pivot, launching a business or next act, finding work-life balance, or exploring retirement, my coaching offers a safe space to explore possibilities and take empowered steps forward towards designing and living a life one truly loves – one where you shine your authentic light into the world.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

“You’re having twins!”

Hearing those words, I was flooded with a mix of emotions which set me on a path of self-reflection and evolution that I never could have anticipated. While the news wasn’t entirely unexpected—we’d been on a fertility journey for a few years, partly due to my stressful career and constant travel—it still stopped me in my tracks, forcing me to ask, “What now?”

For some, this might have been welcomed news, but for me, nicknamed “the planner,” this was not in the plan. I had completed my MBA, returned from living in London to help launch the North American operations for our consulting firm, and was on track to become a partner. “The plan” was to have one baby while I worked and then another in a few years while working part-time. But twins—how were we going to make that work?

Deep down, I knew the lifestyle I was leading wasn’t sustainable—for my health, my relationships, and not for our growing family. I also knew that it would be better for our twins, who would already be sharing my attention, if they didn’t also have to share me with my demanding job. Listening to my heart, and with the support of my incredibly understanding husband, I took the scary step of walking away from a successful career and income to pursue what truly aligned with my values.

So, pivot I did. First, I pivoted into being a stay-at-home mom. A few years later, I realized I needed something for myself, so I ventured into the fashion industry—a fun, new career that reconnected me with my creative side. Ten years later I pivoted again helping to launch a clothing related non-profit and then finally transitioning into coaching, where I feel I have found my true calling.

While the path wasn’t always clear, and the nagging voice in my head often asked why I left my consulting career, I now see that initial pivot as exactly what I needed. It gave me the freedom to explore my many interests and passions, helping me reconnect with various aspects of who I am. I often think that if I’d had a coach at that pivotal time in my life, I would have been more confident in my choices and might have replaced that nagging voice with an empowering “you’ve got this!”

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

You Have All the Answers Inside You: Unlearning the Need for External Validation

For much of my life, I was insatiably curious and always in search of more—more information, more books, more podcasts, more resources—convinced that I needed to know everything before I could be truly successful or make a meaningful impact. It felt like I was constantly chasing a “holy grail” of knowledge, never quite feeling that I knew enough or was enough.

Over time, I realized that this constant search wasn’t the solution. The key wasn’t accumulating more external information and validation; it was about looking within, exploring my past experiences, examining limiting beliefs, identifying my strengths, and finding true belonging within myself.

Along this journey, I was frequently told that I should become a coach, partly because of all the personal development work and resources I had gathered and shared. When I started my coaching course, I quickly discovered that coaching wasn’t about sharing what I knew—it was about unlocking what was already inside the client. It was about helping them clear away limiting beliefs and rediscover their own inner wisdom. I learned that real growth doesn’t come from acquiring more knowledge, but from trusting in the knowledge and power we already possess within ourselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lysannelapierre.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lysannelapierre/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562862402834
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/ lysanne-lapierre-0b919855

Image Credits

Jackie Schon Pierce