Lisa Baue

10/12/2026

Home run for leaders! Those words from Megan Stamos made my day. 🥰

As the daughter of a funeral director and now a fifth-generation funeral home owner, Megan knows the weight and the beauty of carrying a family legacy forward. Knowing my stories met her right where she is means more to me than I can say, because that is exactly why I wrote this book.

Thank you, Megan, for reading, for leading, and for sharing your heart. 💛

If Wake-Up Calls has been part of your journey too, I would love to hear from you. Every copy and every review helps fund scholarships for women in our profession through the Funeral Women Lead Foundation.

Grab your copy here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1966629435

10/10/2026

In our profession, we give so much of ourselves to the families we serve, and we are so often the last ones we take care of.

This World Mental Health Day, I’m sharing a few of the practices that have helped me refill my own tank over the years, so I can keep showing up with my whole heart.

Swipe through, save the ones that speak to you, and share them with a colleague who needs the reminder today.

You cannot give what you do not have, and you never have to carry this work alone.

Cheering you on, always! 💛

10/09/2026

Every day in our profession, you give. To grieving families, to your team, and often through your nights and weekends too.

As we celebrate World Mental Health Day on October 10, I’m asking you a question that may be harder to answer than it sounds: what do you have left to give?

I’m sharing some honest reflections on the weight we carry home, and an invitation I hope you’ll accept this week.

Read the full article below. 💛

Every day in our profession, you give. You give families your compassion, your steadiness, and your full attention in the hardest moments of their lives, and you give your team your patience and often your nights and weekends too.

10/06/2026

"How are you doing?"
"Fine."

In our profession, I think "fine" might be the answer we give most often. We spend our days holding space for families in their hardest moments, and we are so often the last ones to check in on ourselves.

I'll be honest with you. I use the Calm app, and it has been a real help to me, especially when things get stressful. Those few minutes of guided breathing remind me of what I love about scuba diving, which I wrote about in Wake-Up Calls. Once I'm under the waves, all I hear is my own breathing, and I feel my whole body relax and my mind go quiet. I can't slip underwater on a hard day at work, but I can always find a few minutes to breathe.

As I shared in the book, "we can't survive, much less thrive, in this world of death all the time without taking time for ourselves." Caring for yourself is what gives you the energy to care for your families, your team, and your community.

And if you lead a team, please hear this too. Your people are carrying more than you can see, and building a culture where they can recover and grow starts with you.

As World Mental Health Day is around the corner, I invite you to join Calm Health for a conversation on resilience with Dr. Chris Mosunic, Dr. Dr. Lise Deguire, and Chibs Okereke, sharing practical tools to manage stress for yourself and your organization.

Thursday, Oct 8
1:00 pm PT/4:00 pm ET

Register HERE:

https://health.calm.com/resources/webinars/building-resilience-during-challenging-times/

Cheering you on, always!
Lisa

How can organizations foster resilience? Join our upcoming webinar to learn actionable strategies for helping employees navigate stress, adapt to change, and thrive during challenging times.

10/05/2026

Four honors from the San Francisco Book Festival! 🏆

I'm so grateful to share that Wake-Up Calls has been recognized as:

Runner Up, Business
Runner Up, General Non-Fiction
Honorable Mention, Biography/Autobiography
Honorable Mention, Memoirs

What moves me most is the range of these categories.
Business and memoir, Leadership and life story.
That's exactly what I hoped this book would be, because in our profession, how we lead can never be separated from who we are and what we've lived through. The lessons that shaped me as an owner came from my family, my losses, my mistakes, and the women who believed in me along the way.

Your story works the same way. Everything you've walked through is building the leader you're becoming.

Every copy of Wake-Up Calls helps fund Funeral Women Lead Foundation scholarships and initiatives for women in funeral and deathcare. Thank you for sharing it, and please keep it moving so it finds the women who need it most.

10/01/2026

My heart is so full. 💛

Thank you to every woman who joined us at Wild Dunes for Funeral Women Lead's second annual Unleashed Leadership and Wellness Summit. You traveled from near and far, many of you making real sacrifices to be there, and you showed up with open hearts, honest questions, and a willingness to learn from one another. That is what made these four days in Charleston so special.

From the sessions that challenged us to the conversations over coffee and the laughter that carried us through every day. Photos only capture part of it, though. The real magic was watching this community grow stronger, one connection at a time.

A heartfelt thank you to our speakers, sponsors, and the Funeral Women Lead team who poured so much into making this Summit happen.

To every woman who was there, stay in touch with the friends you made, keep this energy alive in your everyday leadership, and remember that you belong in this profession. To those who couldn't join us this year, you were in my heart the entire time, and I hope to see you next year.

Tell me in the comments: what is one thing you're carrying home from the Summit?

09/28/2026

"She gets it. She gets me."

When Angela Ippolito-Cottam shared her thoughts on Wake-Up Calls, I had to pause and let them sink in. Angela is a licensed funeral director and the founder of AIC Wellness and Behind the Black Suit, and she has given more than 30 years to this profession. Knowing my words reached someone who has walked this road so fully means more than I can say.

Here is her full review:
"Reading Wake-Up Calls, I kept having the same thought: She gets it. She gets me.
I felt so connected to so much of what Lisa shared. As someone who spent more than 30 years in the death care industry, I found myself wishing I had this kind of wisdom and understanding when I was starting out all those years ago.
But more than anything, I feel incredibly grateful that it exists now.
Lisa is taking her life's work, her experience, and her wisdom and putting it into the hands of an industry that needs it. This book is more than information—it's an invitation to look at ourselves, our work, and the culture of the death care industry differently.
I am cheering Lisa on every step of the way as she continues to make a difference in this industry. I'm excited for the conversations she is creating, the people she will impact, and the legacy she is building.
What a gift to the death care profession. And what a gift to the people who will come after us."

Angela, thank you. That last line, "the people who will come after us," is the very heart of why I wrote this book.

I wrote it for the woman just starting out who wonders if she belongs here, and for every leader ready to help shape a healthier culture in our profession. Every copy sold supports scholarships and initiatives that advance women in funeral and deathcare through the FWL Foundation.

If Wake-Up Calls has spoken to you, I would love to hear what stayed with you. Share it in the comments or leave a review on Amazon.

Cheering you on, always!
Lisa

09/26/2026

In 1979, I was a six-foot-tall newcomer to funeral service, a little insecure and looking for someone to show me the way. Then I met Sandra Strong, the "pink lady" who walked the convention floor beside me and taught me how to lead in a man's world.

As I pack for Wild Dunes and the Funeral Women Lead Unleashed Leadership and Wellness Summit, I'm carrying her lesson with me: be the woman who is welcomed, and be the woman who does the welcoming.

Read the full story below.

Who was your Sandra? 💗

My suitcase is open on the bed, my lists keep multiplying, and my heart is already on Charleston, South Carolina. In just a couple of days, women from every corner of our profession will gather at Wild Dunes for Funeral Women Lead’s second annual Unleashed Leadership and Wellness Summit, and I can...

09/24/2026

Five honors from the Literary Global Independent Author Awards, and one of them stopped me in my tracks. 🏅✨

Wake-Up Calls has been named the Winner in the Cancer category, along with Finalist recognition in Death and Dying, Memoir, Nonfiction, and Women's Issues.

When I wrote about my mom's lung cancer, including the day my brother Paul and I pulled out our preplanning guide before her surgery and a nurse was appalled at what we were doing, I was writing about love, planning ahead, and the courage it takes to talk about what matters while there is still time. Knowing that story is reaching readers who are walking their own road with cancer means more to me than I can put into words.

To every woman in our profession who stands beside families through diagnosis, decline, and goodbye, this recognition belongs to you too. You lean into the hardest conversations with your whole heart, and the world deserves to see that.

Thank you to the Literary Global Book Awards for honoring this book, and to each of you who has read it, shared it, and passed it along to a colleague. Every copy supports scholarships for women through the Funeral Women Lead Foundation, so each honor carries our mission a little further!

Have you read Wake-Up Calls yet? Grab your copy at the link in the comments. 👇

09/13/2026

I had two very different sets of grandparents, and growing up, I never thought of them as teachers. Looking back, I see how much they shaped who I am.

One grandfather came home from war and built his town a hospital and a high school. The other could stand beside a grieving family in a suit and tie, then be knee deep in a hog pen an hour later, right alongside my grandmother, who never came downstairs without her lipstick on.

None of them ever treated purpose, presentation, and hard work as a contradiction. They just held it all, at the same time, and made it look effortless.

This Grandparents Day, a story about Pop and Nana, on both sides, and what they taught me about leading with everything you've got. 👇

Click here to read the full article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/two-hands-one-heart-what-my-grandparents-taught-me-leading-lisa-baue-gc1kc