Hi there!
If you are on this page I’m guessing you want to know something about me. So let me start by saying, I’m glad you’re here.
As you know already, my name is Lisbeth McKinley. I also go by Lis (rhymes with Is or Tis). Feel free to call me either.
I started coaching professionally in 2021 but my journey to being a curious listener started much, much earlier.
New York
I grew up in Manhattan, the child of an advertising copywriter and an attorney.
My parents were cultural, though non-religious jews. My deeper roots extend to a family of immigrants who came to this country in the mid-19th century from Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe. I’ve always been fascinated by the stories of where people come from and what experiences - good or bad - may have shaped them.
My parents divorced when I was eight and both remarried so I soon gained an expanded family of step-parents, step-brothers and step-sisters. As the second “youngest” I spent a lot of time figuring out my place in this new configuration.
I was a goofy, curious kid yet sensitive to the needs of others. I liked to be in the center of my group of friends as the one they came to, to confide in, or get advice from. But I also felt outside the “clique” which helped me jump from group to group with no specific allegiance. I was very independent from a young age and more than a little stubborn.
I studied journalism as an undergraduate and thought of being a photojournalist but I didn’t have the ambition. Not sure I had the talent either. My early career bounced up, down and eventually sideways to California.
San Francisco
A trip to visit friends in the Bay Area led to my decision to move to California. I loved the weather, the outdoors, the diversity and the sense that everything was new, including the thinking.
In my early 30s I returned to school for a masters degree in psychology and worked in community mental health. That led to jobs in healthcare operations and project management.
Then I met my husband, an elementary school special education teacher, when we were both 41. We got married when we were 46 and I gained a new step-daughter, Christina.
We live in Oakland, California with our two cats and a dog.
At 49, after leaving my corporate job, I launched a successful home organizing and move management business.
I called my company LET’S MAKE ROOM because I recognized how the act of partnering with my clients to make room in their physical spaces had a parallel impact on their mental and emotional wellbeing.
By creating this mental space, my clients had the “room” to live how they wanted or even discover parts of themselves, not yet realized.
Eventually, I discovered that coaching created a new way for me to engage in my client’s self-discovery. Together, through dialog, my clients identify the real challenges or goals they want to accomplish, and what they need to address or resolve to achieve their desired outcome.
