Lisa Buksbaum
Lisa Honig Buksbaum, MAPP, MBA
CEO & Founder, Soaringwords
Professional Speaker Biography
Lisa Honig Buksbaum is a passionary: a visionary driven by great passion and action. An intuitive healer, well-loved inspirational speaker, workshop leader and facilitator, Lisa has shared her wisdom with thousands of people throughout the world. Three experiences with death and illness in her family during a ten-month period motivated her to launch Soaringwords, a not-for-profit organization she founded to inspire ill children, families, adults, and healthcare professionals to take active roles in self-healing.
Since 2001, Lisa has shared Soaringwords’ SOARING into Strength Positive Health Initiatives with more than 500,000 people. She’s been featured as an expert on ABC News, Fortune Small Business, USA Today, Delta Sky Magazine, and CEO to Watch in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Lisa graduated with honors from The University of Pennsylvania; holds an MBA in Marketing from Columbia University Graduate School of Business; and a Masters of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) from The University of Pennsylvania. She has a certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a certificate from the American Institute for Mental Imagery.
Lisa has been a keynote speaker, moderator, and panelist at dozens of professional and scientific conferences including the International Positive Psychology Association (2019, 2015, 2013), European Positive Psychology Conference (2018, 2016, 2014), Canadian Positive Psychology Conference (2018, 2016, 2014), and International Positive Education Network (2018, 2016). Lisa has led workshops as a scholar in residence and at grand rounds at leading universities, medical schools and nursing schools, including University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, UVA School of Medicine & UVA School of Nursing, NYU, Columbia University, Tecmilienio University in Mexico, and Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan. She has spoken at Advertising Women of New York, 100 Women in Hedge Funds, MGM Grand Women of Color Conference, and Working Mother Media Diversity & Inclusion Conference. She has led professional development workshops at dozens of Fortune 50 companies such as Accenture, Cigna, Cisco, Eli Lilly, Facebook, Google, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, New York Life, SONY, Verizon, and Viacom.
Lisa lives in New York City with her husband, Jacob. Her pride and joy are her two grown sons, Jonathan and Joshua, daughter-in-law Evelyn, and delicious grandbaby Charlotte. She gets her energy from swimming each day and connecting with people in meaningful ways.
Soaringwords’ SOARING into Strength Positive Health Initiative is delivered through 24 virtual workshops embedded with customized video content from leading Positive Psychology practitioners anchored with several empirically-valid behavioral exercises. The SOARING into Strength Initiative has been chosen as the mental health component for the global pilot launch of the World Economic Forum’s Healthy Cities and Communities Initiative. The SOARING into Strength initiative has been launched in Jersey City, Silicon Valley, Tampa, and the State of New Jersey.
SOARING into Strength Scientific Model: After inspiring thousands of children to take active roles in their own healing in 196 hospitals around the world, Soaringwords codified its unique approach into a scientific prototype called the SOARING into Strength positive health model to enhance the well-being of ill children, families and adults grappling with challenges and trauma. The model stands for Shifting, Optimism, Altruism, Resilience, Imagery, Narrative, & Gratitude based on seven empirically- valid Positive Psychology components. To date, the SOARING into Strength model provides globally-replicable interventions that result in a positive elevation in mental, physical, and emotional health to accelerate transformative healing for thousands of children, families and healthcare professionals.