We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lisa A. Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lisa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

Before I started working in the health and fitness industry, I was a social worker for the state of Michigan. I had been a foster care worker for four years but what I really wanted to do was land a job with the federal government so I was always on the federal job site searching for open positions. I believed that not only would it be a more prestigious job title but that, if I chose the right position, I’d also get paid to travel. After months of searching and applying I came across a position for an unpaid internship at the United States embassy in one of several countries around the world. When I applied I had the opportunity to take my pick of which city I’d prefer based on the options available. I chose Rome, Italy as my first choice. I was accepted. I had been chosen to work at the United States embassy for ten weeks in one of the most beautiful and historical cities in the world. Since it wasn’t a permanent position, I didn’t want to resign from my job at the state of Michigan so I requested an unpaid leave of absence. All I wanted was a guarantee that I would have a job when I returned. I was denied. Now I had a decision to make which, to me, was a no brainer. I quit my ‘good’ state job, cashed out my 401K and moved to Rome. That was the first time I can recall relinquishing control and surrendering to radical obedience and it has served me very well in my personal and professional life ever since. Having more faith than control of how the future would unfold was a monumental shift in how I lived my life. And now, how I run my business. However, it hasn’t failed me yet so radical obedience it is.

Lisa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I used to be overweight and I was extremely self conscious about it. Back in January of 2012 I decided to stop trying to DIY my weight loss and I hired my first personal trainer. Tiffany was great and helped me to lose my first 30lbs before I had to discontinue our sessions due to me relocating overseas. However, everything that I learned from Tif about exercise plus the momentum I had being 30lbs down, kept my motivation and determination high and I went on to lose another 35lbs on my own. Losing 60+lbs was life changing for me. Not only did it do wonders for my confidence and life expectancy, it introduced me to an industry that I ultimately fell in love with. After returning back to the U.S. I decided to become a personal trainer myself (I actually went back to work at the same gym as Tif :) It was also around this time that I began studying nutrition and making my transition to become a whole food plant based vegan. Although I lost my weight before becoming plant based, I 100% attribute my ability to maintain my weight loss AND my sharp cognitive performance to my plant based lifestyle.

After working at the gym with Tiffany for some time, I decided I wanted to step out on my own and I started my first company in 2015. It was called FITCAMP360 and what initially started out as a traveling fit camp quickly pivoted into an online personal training company. After some success I decided to target professionals (more specifically black female entrepreneurs) to help them see how their personal health impacted their professional performance and we began doing business as Professionally Fit. Soon after launching Professionally Fit, I quickly realized there was a segment of the population for whom quality holistic health and wellness coaching was not fully accessible. I launched The Black Health Academy in October of 2017.

The Black Health Academy is an E-learning platform where we prioritize combating chronic lifestyle disease by taking a whole food plant based approach. Every month we provide live online educational experiences to ensure participants are empowered with the knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully state their case for fair and honest healthcare, chronic disease prevention and mental health. Our education experiences and e-learning platform are complimentary however for those individuals who are prepared to do the work in a curriculum based coaching program, we have two signature offers. PHARM TO TABLE Plant Based Coaching Program is a ten week group coaching program for individuals battling chronic lifestyle health challenges such as overweight/obese, hypertension, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, mild cognitive impairment, kidney or liver failure, food addiction and mood disorders.

I created PHARM TO TABLE nearly 5 years ago and hundreds of students have successfully completed the program. The PHARM protocol for combatting lifestyle disease is extremely effective and is now available for licensing to health coaches and health professionals who are sick of helping their clients to MANAGE conditions which have proven to be reversible. In order to receive an invitation to license the PHARM curriculum individuals must successfully complete our second group coaching program, The Plant Protocol™. The Plant Protocol™ is a plant based coaching certification. It is for health coaches and health professionals who are interested in mastering how to take a plant based approach to combating chronic lifestyle disease for their clients/patients whilst also mastering cognitive behavioral coaching strategies to address behavior change and lifestyle modification. In The Plant Protocol™ we focus on three primary areas: MASTERY of the science, INTEGRITY in our messaging and personal lifestyle and CONFIDENCE in our ability to effectively coach our clients through life changing transformations.

Years from now, I want the work we do at The Black Health Academy to be credited for extending the healthy life expectancy of people of color. I am most proud of the thousands of lives we’ve positively impacted since our inception in 2017 by providing high quality education and guidance on how to combat health challenges which most people believe or have been told are irreversible, runs in their family or that they must rely on a cocktails of prescription drugs to manage for the rest of their lives. There is no better than feeling than hearing someone begin to re-imagine and bring back to life those dreams that they once thought were lost because their health was a liability as opposed to an asset. I wake up everyday and get to do the work of my heart’s desire. It’s truly a blessing.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

Working as a health coach, especially as a plant based professional, I believe the first most important quality is integrity. You MUST live the lifestyle you are coaching others to adopt. If you’re not, you run the risk of watering down or compromising the effectiveness of the process because you are not consistently doing what you’re asking others to do. This is one of the worst positions to be in for two reasons: (1) when you are taking on the responsibility of helping someone to restore their body or mind back to a state of homeostasis, they deserve the absolute BEST version of you as their coach. Anyone who’s had to fight their way back to health knows it isn’t easy and the last thing they need is a coach who isn’t at peak performance herself. And (2) when you don’t practice what you preach, as a coach, you may find yourself publicly minimizing the work required to get the result because privately you’re not doing it yourself. That incongruence causes cognitive dissonance and can wreak havoc on the coaching relationship.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most effective strategy I’ve used for growing clientele is consistency. Consistently showing up to my classes and coaching sessions even when the turn out is low. Consistently showing up on social media even when my engagement isn’t what I desire it to be. Consistently stating my perspective even when so many people may disagree or have a completely different point of view. Consistently doing what I tell my clients to do even when I REALLY want to make a difference choice, Consistently refining and perfecting an offer in my business that I know is valuable and solving a real problem as opposed to jumping from one offer to the next just because the last one didn’t produce the revenue I wanted. As a result of our consistency throughout the years, our brand and services have gained credibility and a really significant core community of clients and students who sell our services as much as we do.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lisaangelsmith.com & www.theblackhealthacademy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisaangelsmith/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisaangelsmith1
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaangelsmith/
• Other:
  Apply for PHARM TO TABLE: https://www.lisaangelsmith.com/apply
  Apply for The Plant Protocol™: https://www.lisaangelsmith.com/theplantprotocol
  Book Lisa A. Smith to speak: https://calendly.com/lisaasmith/booking