The Book – Soaringwords

SOARING into Strength: Love Transcends Pain, The Book

Would you love to have the inner strength to “Never give up,” and to inspire your family and friends to overcome life’s obstacles with grace, humor and courage?

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While writing her memoir, songs naturally accompanied the stories of transformation in each chapter. So, Lisa created an inspirational playlist to share with you.

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Interested in sharing your impressions with friends or a book group? Download the discussion guide here.

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Endorsements

Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar

Co-founder, Happiness Studies Academy

“SOARING into Strength is an authentic coming-of-age story that provides us with a much-needed compass to navigate life’s challenges. Lisa masterfully weaves sound advice with comforting stories—which is precisely what we all need, today more than ever.”

Dr. Bernard Beitman

Founder, Coincidence Project; visiting professor, University of Virginia; author, Connecting with Coincidence

“Infused with her expansive love and deeply lived knowing, Lisa Buksbaum’s elegantly inspiring words will soar into your hearts to transform the isolation of illness into loving connectedness. Her profound faith and several tumultuous life experiences opened up powerful synchronicities and pathways to creating this global healing organization that models how to take active roles in self-healing through compassion for others.”

Chip Conley

New York Times best-selling author, Wisdom@Work; founder, Modern Elder Academy

“Like a flowing river, life is never still. SOARING into Strength is an emotional tour de force that takes you on a fast-paced journey through many twists and turns with bracing candor, abundant humor, and steadfast determination. Buksbaum is a compelling and reliable guide who will transport you to distant shores, somehow wiser and definitely more hopeful.”

Joselin Linder

Author, The Family Gene

“Whether tending to a blind duck at the local park or beating the crap out of bullies while they were attacking her younger brother, Buksbaum’s biting humor and indomitable spirit will inspire you to become the hero of your own life. After experiencing multiple setbacks and challenges, Lisa launched Soaringwords, a global movement to inspire millions of people to believe they are stronger than they ever imagined.”

Chris Mackey

Fellow, Australian Psychological Society; author, The Positive Psychology of Synchronicity

“Buksbaum writes with great warmth, honesty, wit, and wisdom—infused with a deep spiritual and intuitive understanding. Lisa has a transcendent capacity to describe personal life events involving challenge, loss, and grief in a way that is profoundly heartening and uplifting. SOARING into Strength spells out the formative and synchronistic experiences that led Lisa to establish Soaringwords, a remarkable organization that has touched the lives of vast numbers of people, including those impacted by serious illness. Lisa’s story demonstrates how vulnerability can be merged with personal strength and resilience, especially when expressed with love and compassion.”

Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman

Best-selling author, Transcend; professor, Columbia University; host, The Psychology Podcast; writer, Beautiful Minds column for Scientific American

“In a world sorely needing hope, faith, and enduring and endearing role models, SOARING into Strength provides a roadmap for living a life infused with kindness, wisdom, and humor. This memoir is very relevant in these fraught times. Buksbaum transcends life’s traumas and challenges with steadfast determination, abundant moxy, and an enormous heart. I highly recommend this powerful, enjoyable read.”

Megan McDonough

Founder, Wholebeing Institute

“Being human holds magnificence, the mundane, and mourning. Lisa weaves the threads of her life in a wonderfully relatable and heartfelt way, drawing us into our own human experiences by reading hers. This book gives hope, even when life is unexpectedly harsh.”

Rachel Epstein

Director, American Institute of Mental Imagery (AIMI)

“An emotional tour de force where the protagonist is often led by the small still voice that resides within. SOARING into Strength inspires us to listen to our inner knowingness as a powerful compass that will guide us along rocky terrain of life. Packed with evocative stories and beautiful imagery, this book will touch the deepest recesses of your soul.”

Dr. Dan Tomasulo

Academic director, Spirituality Mind Body Institute, Teachers College, Columbia University; author, Learned Hopefulness

“Lisa Buksbaum heals her pain with love and takes us on her journey offering hope and inspiration. She shows us not only how to bounce back—but to bounce forward.”

Dr. Isaac Prilleltensky

Co-author with Ora Prilleltensky, How People Matter; former dean, School of Education and Human Development, University of Miami; former vice provost for Institutional Culture, University of Miami

“This is an authentic, captivating, and inspiring book. Turning pain and suffering into meaning, Lisa reminds us that we can all matter, even under the most difficult circumstances. I had a hard time putting the book down, and I know you will too. It will engulf you and invigorate you.”

Dr. James R. Doty

Founder and director, Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University; New York Times and international best-selling author, Into the Magic Shop

“SOARING into Strength is a moving narrative of how the author, challenged by her own family health difficulties, resolved to create an organization that uses Positive Psychology to not only allow self-healing but to also allow one to pay it forward. A powerful and poignant story of the power each of us has to heal ourselves.”

Dr. Jane Dutton

Co-founder, Center for Positive Organizations, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan; author, Energize Your Workplace, Awakening Compassion at Work, and How to Be a Positive Leader

“Lisa Buksbaum is a marvelous storyteller who generously shares her life story with the whimsical nostalgia evocative of Judy Blume; the searing emotional tightrope of trauma and loss of Joan Didion; and the side-splitting, consistently wry humor of David Sedaris. You’ll fall in love with a beloved cast of characters and discover the healing power of kindness and courage.”

Dr. Ken Harris

Founder and director, Mind-Body Wellness Education Center; transformational teacher, author, speaker, and healer

“This book is a treasure to read. The author takes you on a journey through childhood into adulthood with such intimacy and details that evoke joy, sorrow, and laughter. I found myself tearing up, smiling, and laughing aloud. I so enjoyed getting to know this courageous and audacious heroine. This deeply personal memoir shares so many universal truths that anyone will relate to and be inspired. As a doctor and healer, this book has had a lasting impression on my soul.”

Dr. Kim Cameron

Professor emeritus, Management & Organizations, University of Michigan; professor emeritus, Higher Education, University of Michigan

“This is an unusual kind of book, but then Lisa Buksbaum is an unusual kind of person. She has had a positive impact on hundreds of thousands of people, and this book illustrates why. You will be uplifted, inspired, elevated, and informed as well as moved to tears and caused to think deeply about your own life and those of loved ones. Lisa’s stories and examples, most of them deeply personal, illustrate key principles regarding well-being, resiliency, compassion, unselfishness, purpose, and triumph. I guarantee that you will be moved and enlightened by this book.”

Dr. Lea Waters

Psychologist; researcher; speaker; author, The Strength Switch

“A journey through trauma to growth that is insightful and inspiring. Lisa Buksbaum shows us how we can heal ourselves and extend that healing to others.”

Dr. Lisa Miller

Founder and professor, Spirituality and Mind-Body Institute, Columbia University, Teachers College; author, The Awakened Brain and New York Times bestseller The Spiritual Child

“Awakening is a quest. Each one of us has the innate ability to open our eyes, our hearts, and our deeper being to a profound connection to the field of life. This is our birthright. SOARING into Strength is a magnificent memoir that offers a front-row seat to Lisa Buksbaum's quest with a heightened sense of awe, gratitude, and resilience. Synchronicity, faith, and deep knowledge of Positive Psychology propel her to transform trauma into a wellspring of healing for herself and for others.”

Dr. Lucy Hone

Author, Resilient Grieving; co-founder, Coping With Loss community

“Lisa’s story of how she found a way to transform pain, stigma, misery, and loss into an opportunity to help reduce those things in others is inspiring. It’s so important we all learn how to talk openly about illness, disabilities, and grief, and stop pretending they're not part of life. Lisa’s work makes life’s hardest moments that bit easier.”

Dr. Margarita Tarragona

President, Mexican Positive Psychology Society; psychologist; author, Positive Identities; faculty, University of Pennsylvania Online Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology

“I loved this book! I have been a guest expert on the SOARING into Strength podcast and met Lisa at several international positive psychology conferences. But now I feel I have had the opportunity to know her in a much deeper way. She has invited me, like all of her readers, into her life. I laughed a lot and I cried when I read SOARING into Strength, and I could almost feel the love coming out of the pages. I admire Lisa and Soaringwords, and I hope many people will be touched by her experience like I was.”

Dr. Michael F. Steger

Founder and director, Center for Meaning and Purpose; professor of psychology, Colorado State University

“This book greets you as an autobiographical collection of stories but is truly a meditation on strength, positivity, and resilience—an ode to how we can keep going during difficulties, big and small, while still preserving a sense of grace, beauty, and lively encouragement of others. Lisa Buksbaum emerges through this book as a shining and positive presence for other people, with a purpose for encouraging others that is hard-won.”

Dr. Richard Tedeschi

Pioneering scientist and psychologist who coined the term Post-Traumatic Growth; author, Transformed by Trauma

“In her memoir, Lisa Buksbaum offers us stories from throughout her life in an engaging style and the insights that show how we all learn from joys and sorrows. It is no wonder that her organization Soaringwords is also a combination of those essentials of life. Many readers will come to reflect on their own life stories and see them in a new and more meaningful light after reading Lisa's work.”

Sharon Salzberg

Author, Lovingkindness and Real Change

“SOARING into Strength is a beautifully written reminder to keep going, to keep loving, and to keep faith, gracefully enabling the reader to recognize their own heroic qualities of compassion, courage, and vigor.”

Sheryl Sandberg

Former chief operating officer, Meta; founder, Lean In and Option B; best-selling author, Lean In and Option B

“One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned since I lost my husband Dave is the role we all can play in lifting each other through hardship. But sometimes it’s hard to know what to say or do. In Lisa Buksbaum’s Soaring into Strength, you’ll find the right words and thoughtful gestures to offer support to people in your life. This book will help all of us show up for those who need it most.”

The Chronicle of Philanthropy

“After a trifecta of calamities, Lisa Honig Buksbaum founded Soaringwords, a charity that seeks to help ill children and their families to heal. Everyone can pay-it-forward by doing something positive for someone else. It’s great to hear, ‘This was the happiest day of my life because I learned that I could make a difference.’ That’s the gift of Soaringwords.”

About Lisa

Lisa always found herself in the role of a helper during times of crisis.

Since she was a child, Lisa wanted to help. Whether it was rescuing a blind duck at a park or defending her younger brother against bullying when he experienced severe asthma attacks.

As an adult, a phone call at 4 o’clock in the morning launched a trifecta of trauma that changed Lisa’s life forever.

Three experiences with death and illness occured in her family in just 10 months—her beloved brother died suddenly of an asthma-induced heart attack, her father was battling lymphoma, and her son became catastrophically ill. When her family’s world imploded, Lisa felt as if she had become irrevocably damaged.

Instead, she collided with her calling during a sunrise walk along the beach at the height of her son’s illness. Lisa heard the word Soaringwords, and suddenly knew why she was born.

Lisa channeled her passion and resilience into a global movement to inspire millions of people to never give up.

Her lifetime of experiences helping others through trauma, grief, illness, and setbacks—combined with her own personal experiences—led her to founding Soaringwords, a not-for-profit with the mission of inspiring children, families, adults, seniors, and health care professionals to take active roles in self healing to experience greater physical, emotional, and mental well-being.

In this memoir, readers will laugh and cry—often on the same page—as this feisty protagonist models how to become the hero of your own life through helping others and gratitude.

Today, Lisa is an internationally recognized Positive Psychology thought leader who has inspired more than 500,000 people. Wherever you are within your journey, this book is a must-read tool to provide illumination and inspiration as you seek to become the best version of yourself, even in the face of overwhelming obstacles.

SOARING into Strength Book Launch

We are excited to collaborate with your organization in order to bring the inspiration and experience of the SOARING into Strength book launch to your staff and all the constituencies you serve.

Click here to view a PDF of the collaboration letter for:

Corporations Not-for-Profit Community Partners Health and Human Service Agencies