We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lisa Carrington Firmin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lisa below.
Alright, Lisa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My mission is to educate and assist people and organizations to be the best they can be. Specifically, my mission after the military is to share my expertise and experience to help others. In my first role once I left the military, as an Associate Provost In higher education, I found myself able to be innovative and share my leadership with others. Now, I share the culmination of all my experiences to run my own company as an entrepreneur, consultant, and author. To do this, I use my own experiences as a leader (in peace time and in combat), as a higher education professional, as a sexual assault survivor and as someone who suffers from PTSD, drawing from my time in the military, higher education and as an entrepreneur and writer. I especially love sharing stories of underrepresented individuals, groups or those that are seldom or not heard from enough. For example, I have written the stories of women, minority (racial/ethnic) and LGBTQ individuals, sexual assault survivors, trauma journeys, etc. I also like to share my leadership with others, I gain deep satisfaction from teaching others so they will not have to suffer the way I did coming up the leadership ladder. I can reach back and help others to gain a promotion, have the confidence to change jobs, to show vulnerability, to learn what it really means to live an authentic life both personally and professionally. Leadership can be transformational, and I want to share this concept with as many as I can. I work as a consultant, speaker, and writer from a place of my own joy, pain, and trauma lived experiences.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a Latina, writer, award-winning author, poet, grandmother, and Bronze Star-decorated combat U.S. Air Force veteran. I am a first-generation college graduate and have worked hard all my life to make my mark and to help others, am still very service driven. When my mentees or protegees are successful, I am too. I practice servant leadership. After serving 30 years in the military, I was able to transfer my leadership skill set to a successful career in higher education as the founder of the Office of Veteran and Military Affairs and the Top Scholar program at The University of Texas at San Antonio. I left higher education recently to concentrate on my own business and my writing. I’ve published two books, Stories from the Front: Pain, Betrayal, and Resilience on the MST Battlefield (April 2022) and Latina Warrior (October 2023), with my publisher, Blue Ear Books. I’ve written many articles, books chapters, participated in radio, podcasts, and a TV documentary. I am especially pleased to be able to work alongside my publisher as co-editor for the Veteran Book Initiative, where we work to help military and veterans share and publish their stories. I am certified nationally in Diversity and Inclusion, have extensive leadership expertise across various Industries, and created training materials regarding the prevention of sexual assault. It was my absolute honor last year to conduct leadership and sexual assault prevention training with active-duty US military personnel. Sharing my own experience after having been silent for 40 years has been transformational in my own healing and well-being. I have given up some of my own privacy to help others, specifically with the type of poetry I write which celebrates the joys of my Latina culture, family and life and provides an intimate reflection into the invisible wounds of MST, PTSD, trauma, hardship, and combat. My art has been exhibited or shared nationally at various universities, VA Healthcare systems, conferences, summits, and galleries. I am a storyteller who writes, speaks, and provides consulting services in Leadership, Veteran Culture, Transitions, Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and Diversity/Inclusion. I am a person who has had the privilege of being successful in the military, higher education, as a business owner, consultant, writer, author, and poet. I use my hard learned lessons, real hardships, and challenges along the way to help others be successful. I am driven by ganas, the Spanish word for drive, desire, and ambition to get ahead in life. My logo, Transformational Change Through Leadership applies to individuals personally and professionally. One can indeed change the trajectory of one’s life, I am living proof that the demons of sexual assault, discrimination or combat do not define me, I have learned to accept what I’ve lived through and use it to help myself and others.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
I never knew that by sharing my deepest and most personal feelings about my sexual assault, combat, and PTSD would be so difficult yet so liberating. In other words, displaying and sharing my vulnerability, allowed me to become empowered and I now can live an authentic and full life. I have shared in my books, through writing stories and poems. I could never be authentic in the military. I was an expert at compartmentalization and never showed weakness. As a Latina and a woman, I already had two strikes against me.
Let me explain. I write and speak about real stuff, nonfiction, my own and others. I disclosed my diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder due to my combat experiences, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and discrimination. I do not hold back, I speak and write from my heart, soul and the trauma and pain of my experiences. And I also found that I can write from a place of joy. But I did have to exorcize the demons in my mind before I could do that. Never in a million years could I have foreseen speaking before hundreds or publishing books about my most intimate and personal traumatic experiences.
What is truly amazing, is that I never had written a poem before 2021 and in 2023. I published a unique autobiography told in verse, poems, prose and art. I partnered with another woman combat veteran artist and she created original art for the 50 poems in the book. That is a lesson in itself, having a creative collaborator and business partner. We amplify each other, separately or together, as we have much in common and can use our artistic expression to reach many.
The insight is that one is never too old or too young to explore their creative side. I have unleashed a part of me that had been repressed for years. It is truly liberating and empowering. I encourage others to try something new in the arts, just try, paint, write, sculpt, build, just do it. It will become a wonderful outlet and perhaps even a new livelihood for you. The healing aspect of my writing cannot be overstated, writing continues to be my salvation. My healing journey is not over, but it is so much further along due to the power of the arts.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
My entire life has been one of resilience. I have succeeded when I was expected to fail, overcome many hardships and challenges, not the least of which were being sexual assaulted in initial military training or serving as a commander in combat in Iraq’s Sunni Triangle, I believe that my ganas are my superpower, that inner desire or drive to achieve, to be someone worthy of existence on the planet. I never reported my sexual assault in the military, never told a soul. Until 40 years later when a young Latina was murdered at Ft Hood (now known as Ft Cavazos) in Texas. When I saw her face, I saw my own at 21 and it brought back all that ugliness that I was forced to endure. Right then, I decided I had to do something, to make a difference, to drive change in the ranks, to make up for having remained silent all those years. So, I did and still am, I am not letting what happened to me define who I am or keep me from living life fully. I wrote a book about military sexual assault, told 14 stories from the Vietnam era to present day and included my own story. It has changed my life and countless others. I am no longer ashamed as to what happened and do not see it as a weakness. I stand proud to share my story and am reminded every day of how doing so has helped others.
I came forward, spoke out publicly to drive needed changes in the military and in our country. I serve on multiple boards at the federal, national, and state level to help impact change in policy, programming and to assist others in their journeys. I will never give up, never be silent ever again. I work hard each day to help active-duty personnel who cannot speak up, I can be their voice. I work hard every day to help my fellow veterans know they are not alone. Okay, so I was assaulted, was a commander in combat and suffered from PTSD. Now, what am I going to do about it? I live my life every day to earn my space on the planet and to help others move through, get past their trauma. I am on the other side now, grateful for my service, all my experiences, both good and bad. Find the lesson, the good in everything, channel the challenges and the bad into something worth living for. It is what brought me to speak up, write, and create a business to make an impact for myself and others.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lisacarringtonfirmin.com/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-firmin-97584a12
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ColonelLisa
Image Credits
Headshot: Matt Roberts. Podium shot by Latina Style magazine. Others attributed to Lisa.