In this soul-stirring episode, Gail Doby welcomes long-term collaborator and peer Lisa Kahn back to the podcast to look at the cartography of a 12-year professional relationship. Lisa reflects on her multi-generational roots in design, her early days as an in-house designer for Lutron Electronics, and the critical moment she hit deep-seated burnout.

The heart of the episode explores the anatomy of a business turnaround. Lisa shares an unforgettable strategy from 2009 when, staring down a zero-cash payroll nightmare and a dropped design deposit, she used her credit card to buy 50 blank notes. By writing unprompted, radical “love letters” of gratitude to 50 critical mentors and allies, she completely shifted her financial energy current—resulting in a $3 million influx of business in under 60 days without asking for a single project. Furthermore, Lisa and Gail lean into a beautiful, vulnerable space regarding their concurrent work on trauma processing, addressing the dark shadows, and moving beyond the exhausting habits of people-pleasing and self-protection.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

The Academic Rejection: Why Lisa initially explored transitioning to design education, only to realize the traditional structure of academia couldn’t contain her vision.
Rethinking How We Work: Gail’s pivotal advice to Lisa that it wasn’t the interior design profession burning her out, but the structural architecture of how she was executing her business.
Sanctuary as a Tool for Resilience: Moving past the superficiality of aesthetics to design rooms that physically cradle the human nervous system through ritual, incense, and sound.
A Survivor’s Light: Lisa opens up about coming to terms with surviving past domestic violence, and how she translates that survival into a profound message of healing through physical environments.
The Neuroscience of Aesthetics: Lisa’s current academic obsession with neuroaesthetics, sacred geometry, and Harvard’s 85-year landmark study on human connection.
The Barn at Sanctuary Naples: A breakdown of Lisa’s incoming 5-acre Florida headquarters, detailing workshop spaces, content studios, an outdoor music amphitheater, and immersive live learning retreats.

Lisa has been a guest on the podcast before. Listen back to her previous episode, “Grow As You Go or No?”, here.

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e2-shownotes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFhmiZdHZWw

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

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GAIL DOBY
Welcome to the Creative Genius Podcast. Lisa, this is number three for us. We’ve done two others before. Yes.

LISA KAHN
I have loved both, so honored to be back.

GAIL DOBY
It’s great to have you back. And it’s so interesting ’cause I looked back at your records to see when you and I met and it was January twentieth, two thousand fourteen.

LISA KAHN
How about that? It’s been a hot minute.

GAIL DOBY
A hot minute. Hot 12 minutes. Twelve more minutes. Yeah. Well, I thought we would just kind of meander down a path today. So we’ll see where this path takes us. And I’d love for you to just take it where you’d like to. So let’s start first with how you got into design.

LISA KAHN
Yeah.

LISA KAHN
Well, I actually originally got into design because honestly, I grew up in a family business and my mom is and was a designer. And so, you know, it was a very natural thing for me to do. you know, design was very much part of my household. You know, it was what I did on spring breaks, it was what I did on summer vacations, you know, we really

all worked as a family. there were three kids in my family. And so all five of us would climb in the car during summers and drive to the business and all work there because it was also a retail store and be involved with all of that. So yeah, it was just a very natural thing for me to do. It was not actually what I thought I wanted to do. You know, my mom said to me, Lisa, you’ve got a knack for this. You really should follow design and do it. And I’m like, no way. You know, this was in Northwest Ohio. Everything was on such tight budgets and everything was

At that point, you know, this was a long time ago. So Waverly was a division of Schumacher and they put out these wallpaper books that had like 12 things that all matched with borders and fabrics and everything. And that’s what you did for everybody. And I just thought to myself, if I have to be working out of these Waverly books for the rest of my life, I just don’t think I have the fortitude. but you know, I just hadn’t really been exposed. And so when I went to college and ended up changing my major from business to design,

because I just realized at some point that I really needed that hands-on creative outlet every single day. it really my life went in directions. I couldn’t have imagined, you know, I ended up taking a job for Lutron Electronics as their corporate interior designer right out of school, which took me away from Ohio to Pennsylvania. And then I got married there and, you know, ended up moving to Florida and really getting into design then. And that was when I really saw.

what design could be, because when you have bigger budgets, bigger projects, you know, bigger contacts, there is a world out there that I just had no exposure to. And that’s when I really fell in love with our profession. It really is just truly what I’m meant to be doing.

GAIL DOBY
It’s a natural for you. I look at all of your board behind, all the inspiration, all the things you have behind you. And it I just look at how and I just think about how it connects to all the projects I’ve seen of yours and yeah that through line that you have of the peaceful, the serenity, the

all the things that are so important to you. So it’s really cool to see that ’cause that is authentically you. And I know you and I’ve had a few conversations about being authentic to your brand, right?

LISA KAHN
Exactly. Pivotal one scale. Life changing. Yes.

GAIL DOBY
Well, it was better than the day when you said this was like what was a near death experience?

LISA KAHN
Exactly. my gosh.

GAIL DOBY
That kinda.

LISA KAHN
So good. It does. You know, Gail, you have helped me transform my life more than once. So I have to thank you for that.

GAIL DOBY
Well, I I hope it’s in a positive way. gosh. So all right. So you went to Lutron, you got married, you moved to Florida, you had kids, you found that this was your passion. This is all great. It’s wonderful. And then what happened?

LISA KAHN
you know it is

LISA KAHN
You know, and then after I had done a bunch of amazing projects, we had really, you know, grown the firm, I just found myself really burned out. and I couldn’t figure out why. I just really thought I fell out of love with design. I thought that I didn’t want to do this anymore. I explored all kinds of things. I explored what would happen if I became a sales rep. I’ve known lots of designers who’ve gone and done that. I looked at what would happen if I left the

field of actually designing and went into education because I love teaching and I love young people and I would love to inspire, you know, the next generation of designers. But when I looked into that and met with one of the universities, I realized that, you know, I don’t know that the world of academia is quite ready for LisaCon. So that was not really a great fit. And the more that I looked around, I just felt like I was thwarted at every turn. And it was actually around that time

that one of my design colleagues recommended that I call you. And so you and I had a conversation. You were on the way somewhere. I don’t remember what it was. You were doing something amazing, I’m sure. And as I was telling you...