We’re looking forward to introducing you to Lisa Nicholson. Check out our conversation below.
Lisa, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
Exercise is the thing which brings me the most joy lately. I love how my body feels when I’m pushing hard, comfortably uncomfortable in the effort, working up a good sweat. I feel so alive when I’m breathing hard and pushing my edge, and I actually crave that feeling. I work out at least 5 days/week, and mix it up – sometimes it’s riding my bike with a friend or two, or hiking with my husband. Sometimes it’s pounding out 45 minutes of HIIT on the Peloton. Sometimes it’s strength training which I picked up again while doing physical therapy after an injury a few months ago. If I have extra time in the morning, I might do 30 minutes of strength followed by 30-45 minutes on the bike. And I always make time to cool down and stretch so I can get back to it the next day without hurting myself. I especially love exercising outdoors. The wind in my face, the sun on my back, the scents of sage along the trail, all of these sensory experiences just add to the joy.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Lisa Nicholson, licensed acupuncturist and owner of Balboa Park Holistic Wellness Center. We offer acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, craniosacral therapy, and even medical cannabis coaching to our patients. It’s a general practice, with a specialty in helping people who are going through breast cancer treatment. Conventional cancer treatment is hard on a person’s body, and my business focuses on helping people to reduce the collateral damage and feel as good as they can while undergoing the care which is working towards getting rid of the cancer. Things we help with include nausea, fatigue, neuropathy, brain fog, hot flashes, stomach upset, anxiety, cancer-related PTSD, post-surgical pain, healing radiation burns…if it’s a side effect of cancer treatment, I probably have something which will at least help a little bit. I even run a breast cancer support group which meets virtually 2x/month.
What I’m working on right now is writing a book about navigating the process of going through breast cancer treatment. It’s designed as a one-stop resource for answering almost every question which might come up during diagnosis, treatment planning, treatment, and survivorship. It’s written from a practitioner perspective, but it has tons of stories from my patients and from my own experience as a breast cancer patient which makes it more “human” than the typical practitioner-written book. The manuscript has been through the first round of editing, and the next step is polishing it up before a final edit. I’m aiming to have it published early in 2026.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who taught you the most about work?
I’d have to say my Dad. Really, I’m my father’s daughter is so many ways. He was a dentist who split his time between a private practice and working for the State we lived in. He really enjoyed forensic work, and for the State he worked in the Medicaid fraud and abuse department, serving as an investigator and expert witness in adult dental fraud cases. He was as much an artist as a scientist and he loved to do his own cosmetic dentistry. I started working in his office when I was 16, and was quickly running the front and back office. I learned how to interface with customers, answering the phone, scheduling appointments, filling in the chart notes, billing insurance. And I also assisted him chair-side. I mixed filling materials and cement, held the suction unit during procedures, handed him instruments, poured the models from the impressions he took, viewed and catalogued x-rays. If it needed doing, I did it. And I learned all about how to run a small business in the healthcare space. He taught me how to set boundaries with grace, in a way where it felt natural and nobody was angry. At times I hated working for him, but the experience really set me up for being ready to run my own acupuncture practice. I was his primary assistant for 13 years until I relocated to go to acupuncture school.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
This is really a tough one. I grew up being taught that failure simply wasn’t an option, and I took that to heart in a big way. In my 40’s, I dusted off my bicycle and gradually got obsessed. I started with 20 mile rides, but that quickly became 50, and then multi-day cross-state vacations, 100 mile rides, 200 mile rides, and more. Every new distance unlocked the curiosity of what else I could do. I joined the Randonneurs group – a world-wide organization dedicated to ultra-distance self-supported bicycling. I raced in Race Across the West in 2014 as part of a 4-person team. Later that year I had an epic failure on my first attempt at a 1200k ride (that’s over 700 miles!). That experience didn’t thwart my enthusiasm, I did a “post-mortem” and tried to learn where I went wrong and how to do it differently. I did complete a 1200k ride the following year, as one of 45 American women to finish Paris-Brest-Paris.
Then in 2017 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It started out looking like an easy stage I diagnosis which would need surgery and radiation. But I don’t do anything half-a$$ed, and it turned out that my tiny tumor came with huge risks and a genetic surprise which led to me needing chemo plus additional surgery. My fitness was knocked back to baseline, and there were days when I struggled just to get out of bed. I was so sick after my 3rd chemo treatment that I was truly ready to quit, and my doctor managed to talk me into sticking it out through the final round. What I learned from this is that the “limit” of how hard I can push is whatever it NEEDS to be. And I realized that if I kept up with continuing to push through longer and harder rides with more and more sleep deprivation, eventually my search for a “limit” was going to get me killed. And not in a hyperbolic sense.
After my treatment, I was desperate to get back to long distance riding. But I found that once I started training, I was bored and restless after about 50-60 miles. I did finish one century (100 miles) ride because I needed to prove to myself that I could get back to that level. But I had also promised myself that I would quit when it was no longer fun, and it was DEFINITELY no longer fun to be pedaling for 10+ hours. I still love to ride, but these days most of my rides are 40-60 miles at a much more leisurely pace. I learned that I need to take more time to literally smell the roses and see the sights rather than focusing so hard on finishing and winning the prize. I don’t know if I would have ever learned that lesson without going through the challenges of cancer treatment.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
Yes, it really is. I had a mentor a number of years ago who always told his “followers” if you don’t show up authentically everywhere you show up, you will always come across as a fraud somewhere. That resonated, and I’ve really gone out of my way to be as authentic as possible in public. I might share too much of my personal life and feelings with my customers and in my social media, but I do it because I’m authentically ME whether on Instagram, in the clinic, or at home with my cat.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
As a cancer patient, I’m acutely aware that 10 years are no guarantee let alone more than 10 years. And I tell my cancer patients that the prognosis is one part of their story which doesn’t need to define them. Nobody is guaranteed the next year, or day, or even hour. I could walk across the street and be hit by a bus 5 minutes from now, or I could live to be 100+. There are things I would love to do while I still have time on this earth – lots of places I want to see, people to help, new foods to taste. But there’s really nothing I’m doing which feels unnecessary or like I’m wasting precious time. I guess what I DID stop once I really got that years weren’t guaranteed, was pushing myself to crazy extremes to find my limit. I’m much more content to be “comfortably uncomfortable” than miserable while exploring the edges. And if I want dessert, I eat it with enthusiasm! Life is too short to deny myself simple pleasures like that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://balboaparkholisticwellnesscenter.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/acupuncturegeek/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisanicholson/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BalboaParkHolisticWellnessCenter
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/balboa-park-holistic-wellness-center-san-diego-2?osq=Balboa+Park+Holistic+Wellness+Center
Image Credits
All images are my own photography
