Lisa Garland: How Grit, Grace, and a Mother’s Will Built a Foot Care Powerhouse

There is a particular kind of quiet in a pediatric oncology ward. It isn’t silence- not really. It’s the low hum of machinery, the soft padding of nurses’ shoes, the rhythmic beep of monitors that becomes the soundtrack to a life suspended. For more than a decade, this was the world Lisa Garland inhabited. It was a world measured in IV drips and blood counts, a world where a mother’s strength is forged in the crucible of a child’s illness. She sat by her middle son’s chemotherapy chair, the sterile scent of the hospital a constant companion. In her hands, she held not just his but also a stack of textbooks. Between treatments, surrounded by the quiet courage of sick children, she quizzed doctors, she questioned dietitians, and she taught herself a new trade. This is not where one expects a business to be born. It is not a story of venture capital or boardroom epiphanies. It is a story that starts, quite literally, at the feet- and with the fierce, unrelenting love of a mother who refused to let her family break.

Lisa Garland, a nurse with 33 years of experience running the gamut from the high-octane chaos of the ER to the steady rhythm of Cardiac with National Defense, did not choose foot care for its glamour. “Let’s be honest,” she says with a frankness that defines her, “toenails rarely do.” She chose it out of raw, unvarnished necessity. With a daughter and two sons, her life took an unimaginable turn when both boys were diagnosed with different cancers before they were old enough to fully comprehend the world they were fighting for. The subsequent decade became a marathon of hospital stays and treatments. A traditional nursing career, with its rigid schedules and demanding hours, was no longer possible. She needed something that could bend around the unpredictable contours of her life.

So she studied. In the liminal space of the chemo ward, she completed her foot care course. It wasn’t a career change; it was a lifeline. It was a way to keep her skills sharp, her mind engaged, and her family financially afloat while remaining anchored to her sons’ sides. It was here, in the most sterile of environments, that the seed of a profoundly human-centric company, TiredSole™ Complete Medical Foot Care Inc., was planted.

The Genesis of an Enterprise

TiredSole™ wasn’t conceived in a brainstorming session with whiteboards and buzzwords. It was born in survival mode, forged from the stubborn conviction that work and life should not be adversarial forces. “I needed to build something that allowed me to raise kids, manage hospital schedules, and still contribute financially,” Lisa explains. The company, founded in 2013 in Ottawa, Ontario, started with a simple, powerful premise: one set of feet at a time.

What began as a solo act of professional survival quickly revealed a gaping hole in the broader healthcare landscape. Lisa saw firsthand how foot health was often relegated to an afterthought, a minor detail until it became a major, limb-threatening crisis. She saw patients, particularly those with diabetes, who lacked access to preventative care and education. She saw a system with cracks, and she decided to fill them.

TiredSole™ grew organically from this mission. It evolved from a one-woman operation into a multi-faceted company dedicated to solving real-world problems: providing access to advanced medical foot care, actively working toward the prevention of limb loss, and, crucially, creating a robust training ground for other nurses to do this vital work with excellence. “We’re filling the cracks where the healthcare system doesn’t always reach,” Lisa notes, a hint of playful defiance in her voice. “And if I can say this with a wink, we keep people on their toes in every sense.” The name itself is a masterstroke of branding; relatable, a little weary, but hinting at the relief that lies on the other side.

A Foundation of Care and Knowledge

To mistake TiredSole™ for a simple podiatry clinic is to miss the point entirely. This is not just about clipping toenails. The company’s core offering is advanced, medical-grade foot care delivered wherever the patient is- in clinics, in their own homes, in long-term care facilities, and in hospitals. The team of nurses is a specialized unit, trained to manage the complexities of diabetic foot care, advanced wound treatment, and preventative strategies that can, without hyperbole, save a limb.

What truly sets the company apart, however, is its philosophical underpinning. “We’re not just ‘service providers’; we’re educators and advocates,” Lisa insists. This is the unique architecture of her business model. A session with a TiredSole™ nurse is a two-way exchange. The patient receives expert clinical care, but they also receive knowledge. They are taught how to care for their own feet, what warning signs to look for, and when to seek immediate help. They leave not just with healthier feet, but armed with the tools of self-sufficiency. It’s a model built on empowerment rather than dependency. And true to Lisa’s character, it’s often delivered with a dose of humor. “Yes, sometimes with a few corny jokes about toes thrown in for good measure,” she laughs.

This educational mandate extends to her careful adoption of new technology. In a world chasing the next shiny gadget, Lisa’s approach is one of measured curiosity. “I treat new tools and techniques like new shoes: they have to fit comfortably before I’ll walk miles in them.” Whether it’s a nail brace system for ingrown nails or low-level laser therapy, every innovation is rigorously tested and researched. The primary metric for adoption is simple: Will this tangibly improve patient outcomes? Feedback from her nurses and patients is a critical part of the evaluation. If a piece of tech doesn’t serve a real-world purpose for real people, it remains on the shelf. It’s a balance of a fascination with innovation and a deeply grounded, human-first pragmatism.

The Power of the Collective

Lisa is the founder, the face, and the driving force of TiredSole™, but she is the first to state that its success is not a solo performance. She speaks of her team not as employees, but as a community. “The magic of TiredSole™ isn’t me alone- it’s the team,” she says. “It’s less a ‘hierarchy’ and more a community pulling in the same direction.”

This community is a carefully woven tapestry of collaborators. There are the nurses, selected for their combination of skill and heart. There are the managers who ensure the complex logistics of mobile and in-clinic care run smoothly. There are the educators who are shaping the next generation of foot care specialists. There are the Chiropodists who dedicate specific days solely to TiredSole™ patients, and even the vendors who ensure every tool and kit meets exacting standards.

In this ecosystem, patients and their families are also viewed as active collaborators. Their feedback, their trust, and their stories are what keep the team sharp and perpetually reminded of the profound importance of their work. As the CEO, Lisa’s role is fluid. She wears all the hats. One day she is a leader, charting the company’s future. Next, she is an educator, guiding a new nurse through a complex procedure. And on another, she is a clinician herself, hands-on with a patient who needs her expertise and, perhaps, a laugh.

Her deepest passion, the one that truly illuminates her, is teaching. “Watching a nurse go from hesitant to confident in advanced diabetic foot care is the best kind of payoff,” Lisa shares. This is the legacy she is building. She believes that knowledge is a resource that multiplies when shared. The curriculum she has developed goes beyond technical skills like bracing and ingrown nail management. It dives deep into the softer, essential arts of care: the bedside manner, the psychosocial aspects of chronic illness, and the ability to read the subtle signs that can prevent a catastrophe down the road. Every nurse she trains becomes a new outpost for quality foot care, extending the company’s reach and impact. This ripple effect is, for her, the most satisfying part of the job.

Forged in Crisis, Crowned with a Purpose

Every leader is eventually tested. For Lisa, that test came not in a negotiation or a market downturn, but with the global shutdown of COVID-19. “Overnight, clinics shut down, patients were stranded, and our nurses were scared,” she recalls. It was a moment of profound uncertainty. The challenge was threefold: keep her team safe, keep the business solvent, and ensure her vulnerable patients did not lose access to essential care.

Her response was not one of an elegant, pre-planned strategy. It was a masterclass in adaptation. “We pivoted hard, “Lisa says. The company mobilized, focusing on home visits and leveraging technology to bridge the gaps. It was a gritty, exhausting period she describes with characteristic humility as being held together by “more duct tape and caffeine than strategy at times.” But they made it through. The crisis affirmed her core belief about leadership: it’s not about having all the answers. It’s about the willingness to adapt, to improvise, and to keep showing up, especially when it’s hard.

This resilience and commitment to excellence have not gone unnoticed. The walls of TiredSole™ are adorned with accolades that speak to their standing in the community. They were awarded Top Choice in Ottawa for Foot Care in 2020, 2021, 2024, and 2025. In the intervening years, Faces Magazine named them the Best Foot Care in Ottawa in 2022 and again in 2025. Yet, when Lisa speaks of her proudest accomplishments, the plaques are not the first thing she mentions.

“I’m most proud of the lives we’ve impacted,” Lisa says, her voice softening. “The patient who kept his leg because we caught a wound in time, the nurse who found her calling through our training, and the families who trust us with their care. Those are the wins that stick.”

The future for TiredSole™ is bright and ambitious. The next chapter is focused on expansion and collaboration, with more training programs, new services, and even the exploration of franchising to carry the company’s model to new communities. The mission is clear: to elevate foot care from a niche service to its rightful place as a frontline of preventative healthcare.

Finding Balance, Owning the Story

For a woman who has spent so much of her life navigating the emotional marathon of hospitals and the demands of building a business from scratch, the concept of balance might seem abstract. Lisa finds hers in sweat and motion. “Balance is a funny word- some days it looks like chaos with a side of coffee,” she admits. “But for me, it’s the gym.”

Spin classes and Pilates are her sanctuary. They are the spaces where she can clear her head, ground herself, and reset. After years of absorbing the trauma and stress that came with her sons’ health journeys, exercise became her method of healing from the inside out. It’s the personal maintenance that allows her to show up as the best version of herself for her company, her family, and her patients.

When asked what message she hopes her journey conveys, her answer is as direct and powerful as the story that precedes it. “Resilience doesn’t look glamorous while you’re living it,” she states. “It looks like doing a foot care course beside your child’s chemo chair. It looks like building a business because you had no other option.”

Her philosophy is simple and profound: lead with grit, never stop learning, and never underestimate the power of humor as a form of medicine. Lisa Garland’s story is a testament to the fact that our greatest purpose can be found not in the absence of hardship, but in our response to it. She built a company not just to fix feet, but to heal, to teach, and to empower. She is a reminder that the most successful ventures are often those that are deeply, irrevocably human.

“If my story reminds someone that they can push through their own impossible season,” Lisa concludes, “then it’s worth sharing.”