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Lisa Carmen Wang’s early life was filled with a healthy dose of balance bars and floor exercises routines. An American gymnast of Chinese descent raised in the northern suburbs of Chicago, Wang became a four-time US National Champion, winning once as a high school junior and three times as a senior.
She was also a 2007 Pan American Games Champion as well as a key member of the U.S. senior national team, representing the country at three World Championships.
The following year Lisa left the world of active competition after gaining admission to Yale University where she completed a degree in American Studies and Literature.
Her professional career began as a hedge fund analyst on Wall Street before later transitioning into entrepreneurship. She founded her first company, Fooze, a late-night food delivery startup in NYC in 2015.
Lisa then launched SheWorx, a leading community platform of 20K female entrepreneurs. It was then acquired by Republic, a global $700M alternative investment platform where she served as Head of Brand.
Today Lisa is a serial entrepreneur, angel & crypto investor, keynote speaker, branding advisor, writer, and executive coach.
She hosts the Profit to the People podcast while serving as a Branding Advisor to fintech and crypto startups.
Lisa is currently writing her first book with Harper Collins about her hard-earned lessons as an unapologetic women's business leader. It is scheduled to be released in the Fall of 2022. Says Lisa:
“It’s called the “Bad Bitch Business Bible,” with my definition of a “Bad Bitch” being a woman who unapologetically takes charge of her body, her boundaries, and her bank account. It encapsulates my lessons as a bad bitch, a woman who has navigated a very male-dominated business world — from my early days on Wall Street at a hedge fund to starting my own company and pitching in Silicon Valley to navigating the venture capital world. And now the fintech and crypto space.”
Lisa’s website homepage emblazoned with the mantra “Money, Power, Sex” reflects the underlying core of her no holds barred message about women in the world:
“It has been around embodying that because I think the tradition money and power looks a certain way, namely, “Wolf of Wall Street” buttoned-up, aggressive men and sex. Women are often just seen as objects resulting in a lot of shame, embarrassment, and humiliation. And shame is the lowest form of emotion. If women are enshrouded in shame especially around their bodies and sex there is no way they are going to have money or power.”
She adds that there have been a lot of hard-learned lessons along the way as a young woman of color in terms of the dominant white male culture:
“As a woman in the business world, you are often underestimated. You are not seen as being an insider. And so these are all of the lessons they will never teach you in school. I hope to share that with women who are coming up in business and have big ambitions to create change and build empires. I want to help them avoid the same mistakes I made so they can really command their worth in business deals, negotiations, and investments”
Reading Into Her Future
Asked about what books have had the greatest influence on her mindset and thinking, Wang offered this:
“So the first book I always recommend is called Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz which is a study of self-image. And as someone who is all about self-awareness and asking the hard questions to create a better version of oneself, it had a real impact on me in terms of realizing just how much control I had over my thoughts…..
….And how your thoughts create your feelings and your feelings create your actions along with the ripple effect in terms of how you show up in the world.” I happen to be a very cerebral person so I think a lot, sometimes too much. But this book explores how you are the creator of your own mind and your own universe and your own reality. I am very much a proponent of that.”
Lisa says that with her women coaching clients, she has them take a “Radical Self Responsibility” pledge
“Because at the end of the day, you are responsible for you, you are responsible for your own results. Sure, I can give someone all of the advice and help in the world and all the perspective shifts. But if they don’t take control of your mind and go take action nothing changes.”
Lisa cites another book that she says has impacted her more recently entitled “How To Think Like A Roman Emperor.” Written by Donald Robertson, it features wisdom extracted from the Stoic philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.
“It’s actually interesting how it’s similar to the message of Psycho Cybernetics. I think Psycho Cybernetics takes more of a psychological approach while How To Think Like a Roman Emperor takes a more philosophical approach.”
She says that Robertson as a cognitive behavior therapist explores the intersection between history, philosophy, and psychology in his book. Lisa was particularly struck by the Stoic philosophy around remembering death.
“It is helpful to remember that death is inevitable for us, particularly when we think about the small battles we get caught up in life. This is certainly true when you think of Marcus Aurelius, one of the most powerful men ruling an entire empire, in terms of how much he had to control his mind, and how much corruption he had to have the strength to avoid.”
Lisa offers this concluding thought:
What really matters, what doesn’t matter.
“These are just two of the books I return to over and over again because they’re really helpful in terms of realigning oneself with the reality of life. In other words, the reality of what’s within your control and what’s not within your control.”
