Whole-Ass People: The Case for Purpose at Work and at Home feat. Luisa Anderson

What do immigration law, spiritual awakenings, and Zoom meetings have in common? For Luisa Anderson, they all revealed one truth: we’re not meant to live fragmented lives. In this episode of Taking Back Monday, we talk about what it means to live and work in purpose - not just have purpose at work.

From translating legalese for her immigrant community to launching a podcast after the end of a decade-long marriage, Luisa shares how she stopped compartmentalizing and started living as a whole-ass person. No more splitting yourself between work-you and real-you. It’s all one life - and it deserves to be a meaningful one.

Key Takeaways:

 → Finding your “why” is meaningless until you feel it in your bones—purpose is lived, not borrowed.
 → Great leadership is translation: bridging not just language gaps, but cultural and emotional ones.
 → Remote work makes connection harder, but more important—don’t let convenience kill humanity. 

Key Moments:

00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:16 Luisa's Origin Story
01:31 Challenges of Legal Translation
05:17 Finding Purpose in Work
07:42 The Importance of Communication in Leadership
09:42 Work from Home Dynamics
13:20 Louisa's Career Shift and Spiritual Awakening
16:46 Living a Purposeful Life
20:46 Closing Thoughts and Farewell

It's time to say "goodbye" to the Sunday Scaries.

Connect with Alyssa
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Transcript

Alyssa Nolte: 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome back to Taking Back Monday. I am so excited that you decided to say goodbye to the Sunday scaries and hello to a new future of work. And I'm even exci even more Excited to introduce you to my new friend, Louisa. Louisa, welcome to the show.

Luisa Anderson: 0:13

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited to be on today.

Alyssa Nolte: 0:16

Well, one of the questions we always love to open up the show with is, you know, what is your origin story? How did you become the person that you are today?

Luisa Anderson: 0:25

So the person I be I am today starts all the way in Dominican Republic, third world country. Beautiful nonetheless. But my family immigrated from there and it really shaped everything that I am and that I do today. Um, I very early on, like had this passion for helping my community understand what they were getting into being non-English speakers. You know, 30 plus years ago when we first arrived, um, it was really hard for us to understand all these documents we were signing, like. My family was really into buying property. They own a lot of property in the town that I grew up in, in Massachusetts, and a lot of us were going through the immigration system and we would hire these fancy lawyers that, you know, we barely understood and I tongue that was not our own. And I really, really quickly realized like, what is all this that we're signing and how can I be the bridge to make sure that we are understanding. These documents that could impact our lives in ways that we don't understand.

Alyssa Nolte: 1:31

Yeah, I mean, I'm not even someone who, uh, has to navigate the world in a second language, and some of those legalese documents are hard for me as a native. English speaker with a college education to navigate through. So I can't imagine someone who's immigrating here and trying to figure out like, what the heck did I just sign in a language that you are still learning yourself.

Luisa Anderson: 1:52

Yeah, and that was, you know, that was hard. It drew, what it did for me is started my career as my career off as a paralegal. So I wanted to be able to translate and feel confident in my translation for my community, and I became a paralegal. And used my bilingual skills to be able to be that bridge. And it really has just shaped me because honestly, I think what it has done is allowed me to be even more like, um, understanding, I think, than I would be if it was just in one language for me.

Alyssa Nolte: 2:26

You almost have to play that like double layer of empathy. So not only are you trying to translate this into a. A level of understanding that even someone who doesn't have a legal degree can understand, but also crossing that barrier of language and helping people understand, okay, not only am I explaining this to employed terms, I'm explaining it to you through a translation process. We're playing telephone here of like, this is what it means in English, this is what it means, you know, in any other language.

Luisa Anderson: 2:57

And also the cultural component of it, which is something that I think gets missed a lot. I think a lot of people, which can be true I think in some circumstances, but just going back to what you mentioned earlier, you know. Legal ease is, it's a whole other language in reality. It really is a whole other language. So I think translating that, not just like word for word translation, but being like, Hey, this is what it ultimately means for you and. I think I was really able to do that and I think my passion for like helping people and being sort of that bridge, which is what I consider myself to be in the work that I do and love doing every day, um, really comes from having that cultural experience. I understand the way that my culture views the world and therefore I can translate. A lot more freely so that they understand what I'm saying, not just understanding the words that I'm putting out there. And I think for me, what that really did is not only allowed me to like be a lot, you know, create a lot more empathy, but it really allowed me to understand that. The impact that I can have in the world is it, it can seem so small. I'm like one out of, I don't know, however many million paralegals are in the us you know, and that's beautiful and that's wonderful. Um, but in the day to day, you know, true to your podcast, you know, on, on a Sunday evening, when I'm thinking about doing that nine to five, if I don't really like, take a step back and realize that the impact that I'm having. On every single person's life and their family's lives that I touch every single day. I think it can be quite like boring and like, ugh, this is like such mundane and meaningless work. But I actually don't look at the world that way. I wake up, I. Every Monday, and I'm excited to, I work from home, but I'm excited to sit at my desk and I'm excited to talk to my clients and I'm excited to be able to tr whether it's a translation or whether it's filling out documents for an application. It's really, um. I think it's really empowering the way that I've been able to, through my own process, see the world and understand the impact that I get to have on people's lives on a day-to-day basis.

Alyssa Nolte: 5:17

There's two things that you said that I wanna touch on. So first of all, I wanna touch on the importance of, you know, we've all heard the importance of understanding your why, right? And I think that it's easy to say that, like, oh, find your why. Read this Simon Sinek book and, and you'll have the secrets to, you know, enjoy your workplace. Again, it's not really always that easy, right? Because. Yeah. Okay. You're a paralegal. You do the, you do all of the very minutiae heavy work, right? That takes a lot of brain power, a lot of time, a lot of attention to detail, but if you just look at it as you're processing and pushing paper and moving people through the process, rather than looking at the fact that like. One, one mistake from you could change the course of someone's life, right? Versus, you know, if you have a lot of empathy, maybe you change their life for the better. So really finding ways to connect. Your everyday nine to five to something that actually matters. I think it, we as people have to figure out how to do that, right? So when I left college I wanted to, I had a bunch of options. I could have gone and worked for a big company, I could have worked for a nonprofit. Um, I ultimately ended up joining a startup. And my rationale at the time, you know, looking back, I probably didn't articulate it this well when I was first making that decision, but I wanted to be someone whose work mattered every day. And I felt like if I went to a big company, I. You know, if you work a day there, then I guess you're just one of many, and your work doesn't really matter. But at a small company, you know, you're one of maybe even one, and all of the sudden, every day that you do something actually means something and has, and makes a difference. And there's a lot of pressure that comes with that, right? Because if you, you know, if you make something successful. And if you really screw up, well then that's on you too. You get both sides of that accountability. Um, so I think really connecting to your why, um, and authentically to your why.'cause you can't just copy and paste. Like you have a very different why than I would ever have in the exact same position. But authentically understanding who you are, what you care about and what your why is, I think is really, really important for people.

Luisa Anderson: 7:23

Yeah, I totally agree, and I think that until you feel that, that. You know, what you mentioned earlier is like finding your why is meaningless. That phrase is absolutely meaningless until you have felt that in your heart space.

Alyssa Nolte: 7:40

Yeah. Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. Um, the second thing I wanna touch on is, you know, you talked about the cultural context of translation and, and that makes so much intuitive sense because of course, the way we experience language changes from culture to culture. But I think there's a broader implication in what you said, um, Justin, like corporate America. So if you're in a leadership role. I think that in order to be a great leader, you have to be a great communicator, and to be a great communicator, you have to be able to translate. Your ideas, your vision, your understanding, your experiences into something that your team can understand in the context of the culture in which they exist. And that may be your corporate culture. That might be their personal culture if you're an international organization. Um, but it's almost like the ability to play the mental gymnastics and do the translation for your team is what's gonna make you a great leader beyond just being the one in charge or being the boss.

Luisa Anderson: 8:41

Yeah, I totally agree, and I hadn't actually thought about that until you just mentioned it, but it's so true to everything that we do because like you said. Communication is the most important thing. And I mean, I think it's the most important thing in general. Um, I think communication can make or break any relationship and is the difference between a good leader and a not so great leader. And I think it is, like you mentioned, it has so much to do with being able to get to the same level as the other person. You know, they mentioned for children, it is like, don't speak at them from up here. Get down to their level and speak to them here. And as a leader, you do. You really have to get down to that level of where that person is, and you have to really understand the way that they view the world, right? Because when you ask a task from them, I. What is the vision? Like what through what eyes are they looking at it, or is their immediate response to look at it from, you know, a company culture perspective? And that I think that gets even more difficult when you have a workforce that works from home because.

Alyssa Nolte: 9:48

it's 10 times harder. Don't get me wrong. I love working from home. I love sitting with my feet up. I have my dog in my office. Like, don't get me wrong, I will never go back to an office. However, there are so many downsides that I think us as work from home, um, proponents aren't necessarily willing to admit. And I will admit it. Like think about all those people who've never had a chance to work in an office. You miss out on so much to build human to human relationships when you can't hide behind your Zoom screen.

Luisa Anderson: 10:20

Yeah, it's so true. And you can mute your Zoom screen and you can cut, shut your camera off and you can say you're having connection issues. Where in the office. They're right there. They're in front of you. And I'm one of those people who I, my face just tells, just says everything.

Alyssa Nolte: 10:37

I like to think I have a poker face, but my husband assures me that I do not so. Maybe he just knows me well enough that he knows. No, but not only that, I just feel like when I get into these conversations. I have to go outta my way as a leader to not be so tactical all the time. Like to not only be focused on if we have a 30 minute conversation. Yeah, 25 minutes of that should probably be about actually getting something done. But it's okay to have five minutes of like, how's the wife? How's the kids? What did you do last weekend? Show me a picture of your dog. Like, so we try to, actually, I don't think we did this on purpose, but it is how it's been going. We open up our calls, either open our calls or close our dogs with like, and here's our, here's the dog. Right call over the dog to sit on my lap for a few minutes while we close out this call. And we always joke that that's our reward for having a good meeting is getting to see everyone's, everyone's puppy. But when I worked in an office, I didn't have to try so hard, like I knew that so and so had a sand volleyball tournament last weekend and I knew that, you know, this other person was, um, struggling with dietary issues. So she was trying to go vegan for a little bit to figure out like. What was making her, you know, break out and all of those things in those struggles. But I also got to see when people were really winning at life when they got a big project and they did a great job, or the flip side when they were really struggling and a client was just giving them a headache. Right now, it's kind of out of sight, out of mind, unless I go out of my way to check in and proactively ask and ask with a genuine level of care. Because I don't know about you, but I've had people in my life who you can just tell they're asking because they know that they're supposed to, but they don't really care what you say.

Luisa Anderson: 12:13

Yeah, I, I completely agree. It's like we lose online, we lose that whole person aspect of work being in an office, because people, you get to see people, you know, they have to show up like their whole person. You see them. They come in, you know, how are they dressed? You know, what are, what is their energy telling you? Are they feeling happy, unhappy, you know, kind of like are they wedding their, wearing their wear, their wedding ring anymore? You know, all those things. And I do feel like that makes us lose, like that whole person aspect where when we have these meetings, we only talk about whatever we scheduled this meeting to talk about for 30 minutes. And so you see that person and you see them in such like a com compartmentalized manner that you are losing so much more of who they are.

Alyssa Nolte: 13:01

We're reducing people to the single dimension in which we need them, not necessarily their whole three dimensional personality.

Luisa Anderson: 13:08

Yeah. And that I think that has created a lot of like niche, you know, a lot of like smaller niches that perhaps wouldn't exist before.

Alyssa Nolte: 13:17

Yeah, no, I agree a hundred percent. Um, you know, when you think about kind of your career journey, um, I. I think you, we did like a pre-call and you told me you started as a paralegal, but then you changed course. Like what? What was that change and why I.

Luisa Anderson: 13:33

So I really, long story short, had a spiritual awakening, um, right after a 10 year marriage ended that I could not have seen coming at all. Um, that spiritual awakening, it really prompted me to, you know, I already lived and worked in purpose. I did, but it was kind of falling off. I was starting to focus a lot on like all of the societal things. Was my life supposed to look like? What should I be dressing, like, what should my house look like? And all of those things. And so the spiritual awakening really prompted me to look deeper and kind of. Live in purpose because it was like one aspect of my life was in purpose, my work, but really every other aspect of my life, I just existed. I was literally just like floating. And so that created a shift for me where it was like, yes, I do work in purpose, um, nine to five, but I wanna live in purpose. And so I started podcasting as a way to. Share the message and just really show people after my awakening, like what we are capable of overcoming because we are so much stronger than I think our society allows us to believe for a myriad of reasons. And so that really just woke me up, is the best way that I can put it and to. Like having this false idea that my nine to five is just like one part of who I am and that the rest of my life doesn't all come together. What I really realized and what changed my life and changed their trajectory that made me really go into podcasting was realizing that I am one whole person and one aspect of my life does not exclude another aspect. So if I'm miserable on Monday morning. With the work that I'm gonna go sit down and do at my desk, then that is translating in one way or another into another aspect of my life, and I just wasn't paying attention to that.

Alyssa Nolte: 15:29

Yeah, the idea. Know that we are, we're whole ass people, not just, not just, um, you know, the one dimensional person that we are at work. And then, you know, I, I live my real life, quote unquote after, you know, my, my five to nine instead of my nine to five or my weekends. And I, I've never really lived that way because I'm, like I said, I joined a small business. When you join a startup, it really becomes like all of your life. Um, but it, it permeates throughout because. If it doesn't go well, it's, it's your fault and it's your problem and you're probably not making any money that month. Um, but I think that a lot of people are waiting for, for a good life to happen to them. That's my experience. When I talk to people, they're like, well, my boss sucks, so, you know, therefore I can't enjoy what I do at work. And oh, you know, I'm not living. You know, I'm, I'm living to, or working to live, not living to work. And like all of those things and we create this dichotomy where you either get one or the other, but never both. Um, so when you're, when you're talking to people, when you're podcasting, when you're having these conversations, is there one thing people can start doing to, to move towards this idea of, hey, you can be a whole ass person, not just a one dimensional character.

Luisa Anderson: 16:46

I live and die by going within. And for me that's meditation. I do do the silent, like, you know, Buddha look in meditation, and I know that's not super popular, but I. Honestly, it was the life changing thing for me. After my awakening, I really learned to stop. I didn't know how to do that. Stop and listen to myself. When I started to listen to my inner voice, I. There were no questions about what I needed to do next because my inner voice was very clear. Like it was just clear. I listened to myself. I listened to my passions, I followed my heart, and that led me here to the place where my life is one big thing. Like my life is my life. It's not like I have work and I have this and I have this, and I have that. My life as a whole is in purpose. I live and die in purpose. I go to sleep in purpose. And, um, I really think that going within, in whatever way that works for some people, for some people that's walking, for some people that's baking. You know, it's many different things for people. But everyone that we have on our podcast, on the Flying Upstream Podcast, it all comes down to the same thing. It all comes down to go within, listen to your inner voice. But first of all, you just have to stop.

Alyssa Nolte: 18:07

I have. Um, so meditation has never worked for me. My, I just cannot do it. But I have what I call puttering time, and the team is very familiar with puttering time. It's basically Alyssa's just gonna walk circles around her house or around the neighborhood or whatever she wants to do. For an hour. Um, and I usually come out of puttering time. One, one day I vacuumed my carpet for like an hour and I just would pause my vacuum every once in a while and I'd like drop a voice note into my phone. So I probably look absolutely insane'cause I'll just be walking down my sidewalk, walking my dog and I'm just like talking aggressively into my phone. They're like, what is wrong with her? But it's, it's those moments where I'm not allowing myself to try. I'm sitting in the quiet moments where I'm not asking my brain to do anything and just letting it go wherever it decides to go. And sometimes that's a podcast that I'm listening to and has nothing to do with anything. And sometimes that I write entire business plans in the 15 minutes I'm walking around the block because it just comes to me. And so to your point, what necessarily works for me and works for you won't work for everyone. But the key is finding and going inside yourself to figure out what does and does not work.

Luisa Anderson: 19:17

Absolutely that, and that feels like magic to me. Every time. It is just every time that it happens, you know, like you mentioned, like even vacuuming or whatever it is for, for people, it just, it's magic. I call it magic every single time that happens.

Alyssa Nolte: 19:32

And for me, I don't know about you, but for me, consistently, it's when I'm not. Doing anything entertaining on my phone, like I'm not scrolling on TikTok, I'm not on LinkedIn. I'm not even really talking to anybody. Usually I end there after I've kind of got the initial idea flushed out'cause I need to like work it through. But the original inspiration almost never happens inside of my phone.

Luisa Anderson: 19:54

Uh, it's never happened inside of my phone for me, but yeah, I think you're right. It's just, it's what you said earlier and I don't remember your exact words, but basically it's when you allow yourself to kind of do nothing, you're not forcing your brain. I. To produce. You're not forcing yourself to think about any specific thing. It's just like existing. It's when you allow yourself to just exist. It's almost the way that I phrase it is your soul comes through. It's like your soul, uh, is finally able to be heard when you can finally allow your human brain to stop trying and to stop taking control.

Alyssa Nolte: 20:33

It's almost like having a conversation with someone and you finally shut up to let them ha join in the conversation. Like your brain needs to shut up so that, that your soul can actually come through.

Luisa Anderson: 20:42

Absolutely. That's, that's 100. Yeah. I love that. I'm gonna take that with me.

Alyssa Nolte: 20:46

I love that. Well, um, I could talk to you all day long, um, but you know, when you were thinking about all of the incredible people that you have a, have had a chance to meet or that you follow or that you listen to, who is leading the charge? Who is taking back Monday?

Luisa Anderson: 21:00

You know, my cohost, um, Kristen Eros, um, and I'm not saying this because she's my cohost, but she is a mother of two little tiny humans and she is a board member of some school. Uh, bored and she is an amazing wife and she is an amazing daughter and she's an ever presents niece and an amazing friend to me and an amazing co-host and business partner with all the things we have going on every day. And when I think about who is taken back Monday and who is not allowing society and like the pressure of everyday life to rule their life, she is the embodiment of that.

Alyssa Nolte: 21:44

I love that. Well, we'll have to send her an invite to get on the show too. We can double down on this conversation. Um, so if someone, Lucy, is really connecting with you, if they wanna learn more, where can they find you online?

Luisa Anderson: 21:56

so they can find me at www.flyingupstreampodcast.com. Uh, there's a little bit of my story there. There's all of the links, all of the information, and. They can reach out and we can chat. We can have them on our podcast or share their story, which is what we love doing on there.

Alyssa Nolte: 22:14

Awesome. We'll head on over to her website. I will drop that in the show notes. Thank you so much for taking back Monday with me.

Luisa Anderson: 22:20

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I love this.

Alyssa Nolte: 22:25

Thanks for joining us on taking back Monday where we say goodbye to the Sunday scaries and hello to meaningful and fulfilling work. If you enjoyed today's episode, let's connect on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear your thoughts, and if you found value here, share the podcast with your network. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a review. It helps us inspire more leaders to join the movement. Until next time, let's take back Monday.