Lisa LaMaitre – Canberra’s wise woman

After being the victim of countless crimes, Lisa LaMaitre has made it her mission to inspire woman through her “Oprah-like” events.

In December last year, Lisa LaMaitre created Canberra Wise Women, a project which shares motivational stories of women from the Canberra region. She created the project after experiencing PTSD from a spate of crimes targeted at a business she owned with her husband from 2006 to 2010.

“We had in total eighteen incidents requiring the police, they included a very large home burglary and also four armed robberies at our business” she said.

“I went on to have counselling for PTSD for eighteen months and I have done a lot of personal development and personal growth in that time, as well as a lot of courses and training.”

Lisa moved to Canberra twenty-five years ago to study at the Australian National University. In her second year she met her future husband and they have been together ever since.

Alongside her work with Canberra Wise Women, Lisa also runs an IT consultancy company, a health business, teaches and is qualified as a Reiki master. She endeavours to use her wealth of knowledge and experience to inspire others.

“What I have learnt to value, I always valued them but I really value them now is staying motivated, being positive, being inspired and hanging out with other likeminded people.”

“Canberra Wise Women is my way of sharing those things with other people. I don’t want to keep them all to myself. I want to share them with other people and let them have positive experiences and be inspired to live a life of quality and a life where they can thrive.”

The premise of Canberra Wise Women’s events is simple, it is an intimate live event, and there is an interviewer and three local Canberra women who share their stories. The interviewees are remarkable.

“A number of them are businesswomen but we have had an athlete, someone from a not-for-profit and a designer.”

Perhaps, a defining moment for Lisa after her December launch was an Oprah comparison.

“People described it at our launch as being like an Oprah event which I thought was really nice for an opening of a new business to be given the comparison to a multi-million dollar company that has been around for decades.”

Photo credit: Tracy Lee Photography