01.09.2019
Episode 91: Lisa Goodman, Founder of GoodSkin™ Clinics
Summary
Lisa Goodman, Founder of GoodSkin™ Clinics, set out to create a laid-back lifestyle for herself when she opened her business. Instead, word spread like crazy and her business mushroomed into a multi-location operation. Along the way, she went through a divorce, unexpectedly fell in love with a French guy, moved to Paris, and now lives between LA, New York, and Paris.
In this episode, hear how she pulls off life in three time zones, what motivated her to take on more than she meant to, and why her clients started calling her aesthetic method, The Untouched Look™.
Transcript
| Announcer | Welcome to WHERE BRAINS MEET BEAUTY® hosted by Jodi Katz, Founder and Creative Director of Base Beauty Creative Agency. |
| Jodi Katz | Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today I am joined by Lisa Goodman. She's the founder of GoodSkin Clinics. Welcome to WHERE BRAINS MEET BEAUTY®. |
| Lisa Goodman | Thank you. |
| Jodi Katz | ...and something unusual today, first for our Podcast. We're joined by Henry, the dog, who's sitting with us, so comfortably relaxing while we record, and we've never had a dog as a guest on our show. |
| Lisa Goodman | I'm so pleased. Thank you for [inaudible 00:00:33]. He goes everywhere with me. |
| Jodi Katz | You mentioned that you, actually, are always traveling ... two weeks here, two weeks there ... and Henry goes with you. Tell me about that process and that rhythm. |
| Lisa Goodman | I got engaged to a French guy a couple years ago and wanted to still have my whole, full life and not ... have a relationship, have a business, have my dog. I just started flying with him, and he'd go 14 hours. He's totally fine. He's really, really good on the plane. There's always someone who loves him, and he's really good. But, now, what's crazy about Paris is, if you go, he expects his little piece of croissant in the morning, and if you try to hand him bread, he knows the difference, and he won't have it. We're just getting the vibe for New York, though. That's a new layer ... is starting our New York clients and stuff. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh. So, you're bringing the business to New York? |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. I've been coming twice a year, at the most three times, and then I just decided to make my life more crazy because we ... I love all my New York clientele so much that we decided to be here once a month starting in January. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh. That's great. |
| Lisa Goodman | Mm-hmm (affirmative). |
| Jodi Katz | I understand the process for Henry ... a lot of travel for him, but what about for you? Do you always have a suitcase packed. Are you just reissuing the same two weeks worth of wardrobe? |
| Lisa Goodman | The honest truth is that I have hormones. There's some days where I'm like, "I can do this," and I'll wear the same clothes. Then, there's other times where I feel so crazy, and I'm like, "I don't want to wear the same thing," and, "I can't pack this," and, "I can't handle this." No. I don't have a rhythm yet. I don't have a schedule. I just try to exist where I'm at ... kind of thing. Sometimes it feels easy, and sometimes it feels impossible. |
| Jodi Katz | I would imagine that you are the go-to person for travel tips for your friends. Is this true? |
| Lisa Goodman | You know what's so weird? I don't know why they don't ask me. I think they always just assume I'm on another time, so they're like, "Where is she even?" They might probably just assume that my traveling is so crazy. Don't ask her because it's just nuts. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. We never, ever talk about product on this show because we're always talking about career journey and things like that, but I guess when someone is traveling as often as you, I do want to know what skincare you using on the plane, and what are your tips for not feeling awful and disgusting when you get off that flight? |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. That is such a good questions. There's a ... I'm not supposed to plug people, but there's a facialist called Beba, and she makes a spray that is hydrating, and has antioxidants, and smells good. I put it in one of those little perfume things, and, actually, that's something that I really like. A lot of people recommend the [inaudible 00:03:10] water. That's nice, too. I just ... For me the use something ... I obviously believe in skincare, but I also run myself pretty ragged. For me to, then, take care of myself, it has to be something that I look forward to. It has to have a really good smell. I just has to be ... 'cause I'm not enough of a person who's ... stays on my regime. I don't get on the plane, and I'm like, "I'm going to still do my five steps." I just can't. |
| Jodi Katz | The sense of ritual and pleasure is important in addition to that [inaudible 00:03:41], is what I'm hearing. |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. Yeah. Right. For me, I guess, the priority of having a plan doesn't outweigh ... I'll scrap the plan unless I really like it. Does that make sense? |
| Jodi Katz | Mm-hmm (affirmative). |
| Lisa Goodman | I will, kind of, show up feeling kind of crappy 'cause I'm like, "I'll have more wine. I'll eat the food." Then, I'm like, "Oh. I shouldn't do that again." Then, I ... a couple days later ... I really have not ... three years, I've been doing this, and I haven't gotten ... You'd think that I would sit down and say, "I'm gonna actually have a rhythm. I'm going to have a schedule. I'm going to have the things that I do, and I'm going to feel better." No. I have not figured that out. I have not figured that out. |
| Jodi Katz | Well, you can, right? |
| Lisa Goodman | I can. |
| Jodi Katz | That's an opportunity for you. |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. What I think ... The one thing that I have, though, is I used to not take him, and he's added a level of stress, but he's also ... I feel ... Wherever I'm at, I feel kind of like I'm at home, so having my dog with me really helps. Then, I always have these ... We use them in my office a lot. They're like Eucalyptus sanitizer wipes. I have little things. I'm always like, "Where's that?" But, otherwise, I've tried not to get too attached to things, because lo and behold when I used to do that, you lose something somewhere. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lisa Goodman | Then, you're like, "Where's that thing?" That's the biggest thing I've had to learn ... is not get too attached to something because, inevitably, I'm going to lose it or I'm going to misplace it. Then, I'm going to be freaking out that I can't find this or have that. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. That makes sense. Let's talk a little bit about what you've been traveling the world doing. Are you a dermatologist? |
| Lisa Goodman | I am a Physician Assistant who specializes in dermatology and injectables. |
| Jodi Katz | Okay. So, you're not a plastic surgeon either? |
| Lisa Goodman | No. |
| Jodi Katz | But, you're an aesthetics expert? |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You do it long enough ... Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | You told me that you studied alongside a plastic surgeon in France, and you, sort of, had this- |
| Lisa Goodman | ... epiphany. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah ... purpose, sense of purpose. |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | ... walk us through that moment. |
| Lisa Goodman | Do you want to hear the quick backstory, the super quick backstory? |
| Jodi Katz | I'm comfortable. Are you comfortable? |
| Lisa Goodman | I'm comfortable. I was working for ... I, basically, was that overachieving, anxious kid who felt like I always had to study. I was at college at 17, and then, at 22, I had finished my Masters already. At 23, I got the opportunity to work, and ... I wanted to go back home to L.A. I got the opportunity right out of grad school to go work in, at the time, what was one of the best offices, the top office in L.A. I worked there for ... under a dermatologist who, basically, taught me everything for nine years. Then, I worked for ... again, after that ... who was the top, top. You can go ... At that point in the industry, there weren't as many people doing Botox, there weren't as many people doing fillers. You had these well-known doctors in their 60s who had kind of come up with these products, and we associated them. We, as consumers, associated these people ... I can say his name because I didn't work for him, but the Dr. [inaudible 00:06:41] of the world. We associated these people with knowing the most, being the best ... Dr. Klein, Ernie. When you're inside the industry ... What you guys don't realize as consumers is, now, there's all these people to go to, but ten years ago, nine years ago, there wasn't. I had already been working for who was considered the best, so I thought, "Oh. I know everything that there is to know." I've seen celebrities injected all the time. I've seen everything. By the time I got this chance to shadow a plastic surgeon, I didn't show up thinking that I was going to learn. I showed up thinking I was going to be the straight A student who got to show off, to be quite honest. Because, I'm like, "I'm coming from L.A., and I've worked with the best." I honestly wanted to write off part of the trip, so a friend got me the opportunity to make it slightly business. When I showed up and basically ... a whole other world of how to do this industry was opened to be because ... and, you wouldn't, unless you come to my office and experience, or you go in an European office ... I treat a lot of European clients, and they come in totally at home, into my office, because my office is, basically, a big room like this. American offices are a little ... We're used to the American model of medicine where you go in a small room, you wait for someone, you wait a while, and then they go to the ... You just kind of feel like there's always a room going. The European model is more ... We sit down. We talk about you're actual anti-aging goals. We talk about how we're going to keep you looking the same, and then you discuss a plan for a little while. Versus the American's ... Most girls don't think that way. They think ... I need to go get some Botox at a quick place. That's how they talk to their friends. That's what my reference was. To go in and see this other model, I was like, "Whoa." I obviously learned some advance techniques, and then I went back and told my boss, at the time, because I was ... been there for 12 ... 10 years or something, like, "I've seen the light. We have to do it like this. This is the way. This is the way." You know? She was like, "Yeah. No." So, we parted ways, and then I opened my own place a couple of years ago. I had sunk all my savings into it with my ex-husband. We put a TV in the ... We had this little closet that had all our supplies, and we put a TV in there because I thought that I was going to just see ... My plan was that I was just going to see three clients a week, and I was going to have a baby and chill, or something. Basically, none of that happened. In the beginning, my sister-in-law was scheduling people from her phone. We just had nothing prepared because I thought no one was going to understand what I was doing. I thought everyone needed the American concept to feel safe and that, unless there was this huge dermatologist name ... I didn't have my pictures on the wall. I wasn't put in any publications, yet. I just ... I was in a nice area and a beautiful building because I wanted to be, and I wanted to share a nice space with people, with clients. But, I truly thought three people would show up and I would be treating three people a month. My ex-husband thought this was going to be our, like ... We're going to go at lunch, and watch TV, and hang out, and within the first month, it was ... It was awesome. It was really awesome. Then, since then, just been keeping up with it and trying not to let it grow to fast, but also, then, you want something to grow because it's exciting, and you meet people who ... They're so happy that ... to be your client, and you're so happy that they're so happy. Then, you're just are like, "Oh. Yeah. I'll show up. I'll go to New York more. Okay. I'll do this." Along the way, I got engaged to a French guy, a different French guy that the plastic surgeon, and his visa ran out. I had gone through a divorce, obviously, and his visa ran out, and he went back to France, back to Paris. I thought it was going to be just a little fling. He invited me out, and we had only been dating three months. He invited me out. He took me to Venice and proposed, and I freaked out. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh, my goodness. |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. I freaked out and was like, "I'm not ready. This is too much," and, "I just got a divorce." I didn't tell him any of that, but I basically had an inside nervous breakdown, and then went back. My clients from L.A. were like, "Don't worry. I've had five engagements. You'll be fine. It'll be no big deal." That was three years ago. That's why my life is Paris, and New York, now, and then, L.A. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lisa Goodman | Paris, New York, L.A. ... |
| Jodi Katz | You thought that you would have very few clients a day and be watching TV in this nice little space that you created? |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. I thought I was going to have a baby and stay married to the other guy, and ... yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | We fast forward, let's say, a few months, you have an enormous amount of clients, and I'm guessing, they all came word of mouth? |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. I had clients that followed me that I didn't expect. It's crazy. I still have clients two years later find me, and I'm like, "How?" They'll track you down ... that I never really knew I made an impression on, and yeah. I think when something is special and different, women ... It's a funny thing. I'll have women tell me, "I really want to tell everyone about you, but I don't want you to be too booked for me." I'm like, "Well, let's help each other." Like, "Thank you. Please tell, and I promise I'll be respectful of the time ... I'll give you the time that you're giving me. It'll work both ways." Yeah. People tell people. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. Let's talk about your philosophy. It's called, The Untouched Look. What does that mean? |
| Lisa Goodman | Our clients started ... My clients started calling it that. What happened was, I didn't ... I came back from Paris, and I was doing this more, sort of, consultative approach, where, instead of you walking into and office and saying, "I want Botox here. I want fillers here. I want these lips. I want that." It was ... I actually learned how to touch and feel someone's face and diagnose their source of aging. Okay? Then, I'd sit, and make them a plan, and say, "These are the ... couple things involving these particular fillers you need to do to look your best." What happened was, I didn't actually have before and afters at that time. My whole body of work ... I had to leave at the other office. We started to take photos of people during the process, and I started to do these techniques. I was already a good injector. I had clients say ... I already had a good aesthetic, but the ... For the first time, I had beautiful lighting, and ... natural lighting and a body of work that ... where people would just come back. They'd look at their photos, and they'd be like, "Oh, my good. I look so much better, but I don't look different." They were the ones ... They came up ... I don't know exactly who, but more than one person was like, "I just kind of look untouched, but I look better." Yeah. They came up with it, and then we trademarked it. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah. I like it. |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | It's a really cool philosophy. Does someone need to be scared about how they go to? |
| Lisa Goodman | I think you should be. I think you should be. I think that, unfortunately and fortunately, in the ... It's a good thing because it makes it accessible to lots of people, the fact that we can have nurses and PAs, like me, doing this, and we can have MediSpas. It makes it accessible, and I'm all about accessibility. But, there is no exact training to do this. You could be a nurse in the ER one day and injecting the next. My sister's a nurse. She works with me now, but I put her through the most rigorous training and made her go through Europe to a course in the Netherlands for three days where she worked on cadavers, which sounds creepy. That's the kind of training that I personally believe should be done before you're touching someone because ... especially ... Obviously, when we're younger, we think nothing bad is going to happen and it's all fine. And, there's some really scary things that can happen with this stuff. Not to scare people, but there's been cases of blindness. There's been ... and, and ... Yeah. That lip injection might not be so harmless. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | Not everyone has access to you. |
| Lisa Goodman | Right. |
| Jodi Katz | How do they find this untouched look in their own community? |
| Lisa Goodman | That is partially why ... I trained my sister, and we trained another nurse in L.A. that works with us now. I really am about ... To be honest, I really enjoy training nurses. Nurses have a different price, and it does open up ... I grew up where the most ... I couldn't afford to go to dermatologist when we were kids. It was ... We had Kaiser. It was ... If I wanted anything ... It was a Clinique counter at the time, which really couldn't solve any problems for me, so I didn't want to expand the business in a way that was too exclusive, if that makes sense? |
| Jodi Katz | Mm-hmm (affirmative). |
| Lisa Goodman | I keep my clientele, kind of, exclusive. My life is just a little too nuts, so I have to have some limits on it ... with the amount of clients that I take, but that is why we're actively training nurses and being in big cities ... L.A., New York. We have a lot of people that fly in. We've told a number of clients ... We have clients that live in Montana, or clients that ... Some of our clients that have gone back, we'll educate them. I have no problem sharing. We have clients that come from Hawaii, and we educate them. Hey. This is what you should ask for or look for in a provider. It comes down to asking where someone's done their training, looking at their body of work, what's their aesthetic like, look at the people in the office. It just all goes together, but you can't just assume just because your friend sent you or 'cause it's a low .... it's the price you want. You know? |
| Jodi Katz | Right. You mentioned that you actually touch your patient's faces and you can diagnose their- |
| Lisa Goodman | What I'll do ... Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | ... their, I guess, aging spots. |
| Lisa Goodman | Mm-hmm (affirmative). |
| Jodi Katz | What are you looking for? |
| Lisa Goodman | The next ... We are ... That might be the biggest fallacy. People think, if I go and have a lot of facials ... If my skin looks good, then everything underneath is going to look good. I'm going to age well. But, basically, we're feeling for bone loss. As we age, we don't lose bone symmetrically. |
| Jodi Katz | I'm touching the bones on my cheek, and there's going to be bone loss here. |
| Lisa Goodman | There will be bone loss. |
| Jodi Katz | Or, there already is, and I don't know it. |
| Lisa Goodman | ... probably a little already. Yeah. Our bones, actually, shrink ... I'm most interested in bone loss with age. Some people are most interested in fat loss. I'm just, particularly, most interested in bone loss. |
| Jodi Katz | That's why people's noses look different as they age because the structure's actually changing? |
| Lisa Goodman | Honestly, most of the time ... There's this big myth, as well, that our nose grows a lot and our ears grow a lot, but really, it's everything around those areas that is shrinking and losing support for the cartilage that's on top of the nose. Women, particularly ... We do lose quite a bit of bone. Even by the age of 35, we'll see it. |
| Jodi Katz | I'm looking for it right now, and no one can see me, except you. |
| Lisa Goodman | It's probably more in your jaw bone because I think- |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah? |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. Honestly, it would be hard for me to give you a ... super accurate without touching you, but just from ... I've done this so much. I already kind of know. You're right bone on your cheek bone is smaller than your left one, and your jaw ... |
| Jodi Katz | Oh, my god. |
| Lisa Goodman | I think you're born with a slightly more narrow jaw, and having a more narrow jaw already ... There is actually a science of aging. Different ethnicities age differently, but what people don't know is that the way ... The understanding of how we actually age has ... The knowledge of it has grown leaps and bounds in the last 15 years because it's become a billion dollar industry with Botox. And, Allergan is investing so much money into studies on ... What is the best way to do the injections? How does it look the best? Where do we really need to focus? Do we need to build bone? Do we need to build fat? Is it really all about skin? When you saw facelifts in the 90s, they didn't know all this about bone and about fat loss, which is why people look so pulled ... kind of, pulled around a skeleton. We've seen in the last ten years ... As we see more ... I think, in America ... When you go to Europe, you don't see these, kind of, scary faces. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah. |
| Lisa Goodman | ... injected faces. It's not as assessable to get injections there. There's no MediSpas. There's no, like ... I can walk in and get what I want. There's a barrier to entry. Here, we've seen ... I ... Personally, I feel like I've seen better work, and I've also seen more poor work. I am still seeing better because our understanding of aging is getting better. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. If I'm looking to, I guess, slow signs of aging, would I want ... We talk about bone density for the rest of our bodies so that we can walk and [inaudible 00:19:16] as we age. Is there a way to manage bone density in your face? |
| Lisa Goodman | There's not yet. I want to create a tool. |
| Jodi Katz | Okay. |
| Lisa Goodman | Yeah. There, actually, is not yet, and I want to create a tool because ... Think about it, too, sometimes ... You might have heard, probably ... people telling you, "Oh. You need ... You lose fat with age, and so you should do this filler." I do believe in that, but I'm more about preserving the bone of your face to hold up the structure because sometimes we look a little bit better with some fat loss. I know my face has ... just losing some baby fat. Most of my clients are like that, too. I do tell them ... Right now, there's not really a tool to use, but obviously, you just ... like, having a healthy lifestyle, and trying to sleep, and take your greens, and ... You can't really lift weights for your face, yet. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. But, that's totally where I'm at right now, in my head. When I was, I guess, in my 20s, I had the baby fat, right? |
| Lisa Goodman | Mm-hmm (affirmative). |
| Jodi Katz | Then, that disappears in my 30s, I guess. |
| Lisa Goodman | Right. In your 30s, your bones also shrink. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. It's like ... |
| Lisa Goodman | It's all kind of shrinking and falling. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lisa Goodman | By your 40s ... Half the time, people come into me, and they all think that it's loose skin, but they've actually done studies to prove it's not a lot of loose skin. It's actually a lot of loss of support. That's why you see the models ... a lot of them are from Norway, where they have ... That's why I know ... A lot of times, people's ethnicity ... I can guess people's ethnicity based on touching their face, just from touching so many of the same. Polish tend to have smaller cheek bones. Asians have a flatter malar cheek bone. You can know, if you also know the signs, how they're going to age and what you can prevent. But, back to why models tend to age really well, they have really strong bone structure. [Nords 00:20:57] and Swedish people do tend to have that strong bone structure. |
| Announcer | Thanks for listening to WHERE BRAINS MEET BEAUTY® with Jodi Katz. Tune in again for more authentic conversations with beauty leaders. |
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