My business origin story: What I do and how I got here.

There are some new email subscribers here – hi! – so I thought I’d reintroduce myself and tell you about my business origin story. This is a story most of you – new or existing readers – have not heard before so read on!

I am the founder of LORA Concepts Inc. and a workplace confidence and engagement facilitator and consultant.

In other words, I help leaders make their people want to stick around and thrive in their roles.

I have a unique ability to relate to the issues that affect professionals’ and high achievers' confidence, engagement, and happiness at work. I have nearly two decades of experience in high-pressure corporate roles, including business development, treasury management, credit underwriting, strategy, employee enablement, and adult learning. I have enjoyed and benefited from each of these opportunities but have also experienced the many challenges that can accompany them.

I help professionals and high achievers navigate those challenges.

I bring LORA Concepts Inc. to life through a down-to-earth and genuine approach, built on my corporate experiences, master's level business education, and extensive research. Through effective corporate training, engaging presentations, and transformative consulting, I bolster professionals' and high achievers' confidence, engagement, and effectiveness by empowering them with relatable and simple-to-implement ideas and tactics for elevating their mindsets, honing their focus, managing their stress, and engaging with their clients, employees, or partners.

Most of my nearly two-decade career was spent in financial services.

On the whole, I really enjoyed my time in commercial banking. I was afforded incredible opportunities and continued to learn until my last day there. Yet, as with all jobs, there were things I did not enjoy. At one point, early in my career, I found myself in a role with considerable pressure. I was stressed out all the time. I invariably got the Sunday blues. I was negative and down. I was miserable.

Almost on a whim, I decided to do a yoga teacher training program. I was relatively new to yoga but the studio where I practiced was starting a new wave of teacher training and assured me that it was the best way to deepen one's own practice. I felt I needed a distraction so I signed up.

I viewed my yoga life as being very separate from my work life.

I was a banker during the day, Monday to Friday. I was a yoga enthusiast in the evenings and on the weekends. To me, the two worlds were very separate.

Except, as it turns out, they were not.

A few weeks after starting my yoga teacher training program, I was sitting in my office one afternoon and was startled to realize that I was not miserable. I was even… happy? I thought, "This can't be right." Nothing had changed in my environment. I had the same ridiculous workload. The same cantankerous clients. The same complex processes. The same cumbersome technology. The same colleagues. My sudden change in attitude didn't make sense.

Then it dawned on me: It was the yoga teacher training! While yoga teacher training certainly involves a lot of physical practice, it also includes a lot of philosophy. So, not only was I learning about the human body, I was also learning about the human psyche. And, notwithstanding my insistence that my yoga and banking worlds be kept separate, the former was having a major impact on the latter.

That's how it goes with mindset interventions.

Once a seed is planted, it takes hold and can lead to benefits in all areas of life. As I learned about yoga philosophy and the concepts of managing one's thoughts and achieving inner calm, I was learning about new ways of being. It had never occurred to me to try to manage my thoughts before. I had not previously considered that I could change the lenses through which I viewed life's events. As a result of these new perspectives, the ways in which I interacted with my responsibilities, colleagues, clients, and workloads all changed, too.

That is when my eyes were opened to the power of interacting more consciously with one's inner world.

Our inner world has a deep impact on all aspects of life, including at work, including in corporate settings.

I loved working in corporate. I love the excitement, the intensity, the multiple priorities, the collaboration. What I did not love was the belief that performance and inner calm are mutually exclusive, that maxed out stress is a necessary part of the equation, that a person cannot be both a high achiever and someone who honours their inner calm.

For my origin story, what started as a distraction and hobby led to a deep passion for managing one's inner world and how these ideas can apply in very practical terms to professionals in corporate settings.

While my work still includes some elements of mindfulness and yoga philosophy, it has evolved and expanded to include many aspects of managing one's inner landscape and how that affects key workplace skills and functions.

Curious if what I do would fit with your place of work? I love to chat! You can contact me by replying to this email or book a chat with me. 

With gratitude,

Stephanie 

LORA Concepts Inc.

workplace confidence & engagement

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p.s. The information, insight, and advice I share through my work is meant to exist alongside whatever else you may be doing to bolster your mental health, manage stress, or improve your well-being. Nothing I share is meant to replace directives or treatment plans provided by your doctor, therapist, or other healthcare professional.