This week, two big things hit me at once: the joy that comes naturally to children, and the Netflix special with Brene Brown, where she talks about the vulnerability that adults experience around joy, making it THE most vulnerable of emotions. What gives?
When did being joyful get to be hard? When did it become vulnerable to be joyful and experience joy?
If you’ve watched the Brene Brown special on Netflix (and you really should, it’s amazing), you’ll know that she shares that in her study of shame and vulnerability, she has discovered that people state that joy is the most vulnerable of all of the emotions.
“You can’t have joy without allowing yourself to be seen. Joy is the most vulnerable and terrifying of all human emotions. Vulnerability is the birthplace of joy. True belonging requires you to be who you are.” – Brene Brown
As children, joy is easy. It comes naturally. I know this first hand, from this week. Yes, my son and I had lots of experiences that were planned out and intended to be joyful, like visiting Mrs. Grossman’s sticker factory, and the Charles Schulz Museum. Even without planned events, I’ve seen how my son can make a game out of just about anything at any time, how he will still belly laugh in the back seat for no reason, and how he’ll befriend any animal or human he meets because for him, the world is still full of possibility. He has not yet built up the sludge of Stories that adults carry with them, that tell them to be careful, to act a certain way, to not trust, to be worried.
Resources
Brene Brown: the call to courage (link to:https://www.netflix.com/title/81010166 ) on Netflix
Kennolyn Camps (link to: https://www.kennolyncamps.com/ )
Paul Selig joins the show to talk about his journey to become a psychic and channel, and share about "The Book of Truth." Paul channels the guides in this episode, and they share the truth about the nature of joy in the universe.
In this episode, Paul and I talk about:
– his earliest sparks of joy in drama and theater
– his journey to becoming clairvoyant, clairsentient, and then telepathic and psychic
– how he built his practice as an intuitive
– how he channels, and receives the texts that he shares
– what it feels like to sit in channel with The Guides
– difference between channeling, and when he is in the role of a psychic
– if everyone has the ability to tap into channeling
– what The Guides have to say about the pursuit of joy in this life
– what it is like to honor the call of being a channel, and the impact it’s had on Paul’s life
– if The Guides were present in the time of Moses, based on the fact that the phrase “Here I am” is found in the Old Testament, and very similar to what The Guides share in The Book of Truth
– what balance looks, or doesn’t look like, for Paul
– how to jump start joy in your life
Resources
The Book of Truth by Paul Selig (on Amazon)
The Book of Mastery by Paul Selig (on Amazon)
Paul Selig’s Website
Link to the webinars and seminars run by Paul on his website
YouTube Video of an interview with Paul Selig on Waking Universe
Learn all about the basics of making taking care of yourself a priority, and why you might be having a hard time making that happen in your life. A great lookback lesson full of joyful ideas on self care.
I think it boils down to two things that influence decisions and when and how we eventually decide to take better care of ourselves.
1. “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will. But if you are determined to prioritize your own life, you can.” – Greg McKeown
If you don’t set up and defend your own self care, something or someone else will. Some people call this setting boundaries (which is a topic for another post). If you don’t literally mark off time on your schedule, and take the mindful steps to practice self care, it will not happen on it’s own. You have to carve out the time to take care of yourself, or other things will always get in the way.
2. “I’ve never seen any life transformation that didn’t begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit.” – Liz Gilbert
And this really is part two of Greg McKoewn’s quote as well – There’s a breaking point in there somewhere around feeling frazzled and not addressing self care, and it’s often that breaking point that means you dig in and become determined to make a change. Sadly, it often only happens when we get to a breaking point, either burnt out from pushing too hard for too long, or, to the point where we are frustrated and can’t deal with ourselves anymore.
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (on Amazon)
Andrea Owen: Your KickAss Life episode 181 with Heather Chauvin
Liz Gilbert on Transformation
Stasia Savasuk is an amazing style coach, has an outstanding Tedx Talk, and is the founder of Stasia’s Style School. She’s joining me on the show, and I’m delighted to share this interview. We giggled our way through our discussion, and had a hilarious time talking about style, what lights us up, how to find what kinds of styles fit YOU, and, all about Stasia’s inspiring story of becoming an entrepreneur.
In this episode, Stasia and I talk about:
Resources
Stasia Savasuk’s website
Stasia on Instagram
Stasia’s Ted Talk on “Dressing for Confidence and Joy”: https://youtu.be/L5n3V0VYGNg
Liz Applegate is a coach, entrepreneur, founder of Tame Business Overwhelm, and host of Midlife Schmidlife. I feel so fortunate to call her my friend, to share a birthday with her! And to have her on the show this week to talk about how you can tame your business overwhelm, define your own process, and, get shit done.
In this episode, Liz and I talk about:
-Taking action, even when it feels overwhelming
-The wisdom of procrastination
-The difference between self care and numbing out (and how to know the know the difference)
-Dreading the first step of something, or getting started with something
-How to keep projects or work moving when you have a family or other priorities in your life
-Finding a happy medium in process and commitments
-Getting curious about your own process, and listening to your intuition about what works best for you
-How to tame business overwhelm
-Setting up habits to support your process and getting work done
Resources
The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin on Amazon
A Mastermind Shares Proven Ways to Feel More Confident In Your Work and Life - Episode 132
A Mastermind Group Shares About the First Two Years of Being an Entrepreneur with Guests Julie Houghton and Liz Applegate - Episode 100
Finding Connection and Support as an Entrepreneur with Liz Applegate and Julie Houghton - Episode 41
As an entrepreneur, setting boundaries and definitions around the work you do, and around your schedule and time are two of the kindest things you can do for yourself and your growing business. When you’re in charge of your own business and dependent on the income from that business, it becomes easy to get caught up in wanting to help “everyone,” and working all the time. I want to assure you that when you make it a point to define a niche of who you work with, and set some structure around when you work, you’ll find that it’s better for you, for your clients, and for your business.
Setting Boundaries is a Way of Being Kind to Yourself as An Entrepreneur
This week’s show is all about setting up the mindful steps to design a business you love, and the kind of business you dreamed about when you started out on your entrepreneurial journey. In Brene Brown’s book, Dare to Lead, she shares her thoughts about creating clarity as a leader.
“Over our years of researching and working together, we’ve learned something about clarity that has changed everything from the way we talk to each other to the way we negotiate with external partners. It’s simple but transformative: Clear is kind. Unclear is Unkind. I first heard this saying two decades ago in a 12-step meeting, but I was on slogan overload at the time and didn’t even think about it again until I saw the data about how most of us avoid clarity because we tell ourselves that we’re being kind, when what we’re actually doing is being unkind and unfair. Feeding people half-truths or bullshit to make them feel better (which is almost always about making ourselves feel more comfortable) is unkind. Not getting clear with colleagues about your expectations because it feels too hard, yet holding them accountable or blaming them for not delivering is unkind. Talking about about people instead of to them is unkind. This lesson has so wildly transformed my life that we live by it at home.”
What Dr. Brown says here about being a leader at work is one that you can layer onto your work as an entrepreneur, and it’s the departure point for this week’s show (which you can listen to above).
I’m asking the questions of:
How can you create clarity for your work, when you are your own boss?
How can you be kind to yourself?
How can you set up guidelines that are ultimately kind to you, and to your clients?
Dare to Lead by Brene Brown on Amazon
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron on Amazon
Time Tracking App: At Work for iPhone or Android
Fiverr for editing and other small entrepreneur support tasks
Episode 74: Helen McLaughlin on Curiosity as a Foundation for Living
Episode 112: Alexandra Franzen on Rejection, Defeat, and Terrible Bosses
Kate Bee is a former journalist, and the founder of The Sober School. I’m excited to have her on the show to talk about embracing sobriety, and how she works with women to create an alcohol free life they love. Growing up in England, Kate started drinking as a teen (where the legal drinking age for beer is 18 in a pub), and it was a habit that she continued well into her working life after college.
In this episode Kate Bee and I talk about:
Resources
Kate Bee’s website, The Sober School
The Sober School course, starting April 2019
Kate Bee is a former journalist, and the founder of The Sober School. I’m excited to have her on the show to talk about embracing sobriety, and how she works with women to create an alcohol free life they love. Growing up in England, Kate started drinking as a teen (where the legal drinking age for beer is 18 in a pub), and it was a habit that she continued well into her working life after college.
In this episode Kate Bee and I talk about:
Resources
Kate Bee’s website, The Sober School
The Sober School course, starting April 2019
Renee Linnell is the author of The Burn Zone, and a serial entrepreneur. At age 33 she woke up one morning and realized that she had very unintentionally joined a Buddhist cult. What had started as a quest for spiritual learning, and finding a place that felt like home to her turned out to be an intense group well versed in brainwashing, and converting others to bring in money to help support the larger cause.
In this episode Renee Linnell and I talk about:
Resources
Renee Linnell’s website
The Burn Zone by Renee Linnell on Amazon
Francesca Hogi is a dating and career coach, 2 time Survivor contestant, and a lawyer. She and I met last year in Atlanta, and I loved her take on life and love, and very much wanted to get the chance to chat with her more about the crossroads of joy and relationships. More than anything, I love that the heart of her work is all about love: how to find it in relationships, and how to find love in the work you do. We had a fun and light filled discussion and I feel so grateful that she joined me this week.
In this episode Francesca Hogi and I talk about:
-Her early love of reading, and not knowing what she wanted to be for a career
-Working as a lawyer
-How she was interested early on in relationships and dating
-Attending the Match Making Institute
-How baby steps brought her to become a match maker, and later a coach
-Becoming an entrepreneur
-Advice for finding the right relationship
-Celebrating our “unconscious genius”
-Aiming for contentment and joy in a relationship, and looking at what you prioritize in finding a partner
-Jumpstarting your joy by talking to strangers, taking a social media break, and keeping a gratitude journal
Resources
Francesca Hogi’s website
Francesca on Instagram
Francesca on Twitter
Francesca’s free mastermind
Sharon Prentice is a psychotherapist, spiritual counselor, and author of the book Becoming Starlight: A Shared Death Journey from Darkness and Light. Her journey includes having lost her daughter, and her husband, and then having a shared death experience with him when he passed away. At the time, she experienced the presence of the divine, and was instilled with a sense that everything (including the passing of two people she loved so much) was just as it should be. I’m thrilled to have her on the podcast to talk about her shared death experience, and how that event shifted so many things in her life.
Inspired by the Immense Love She Felt in a Shared Death Experience
One of the things that Sharon shares in her book and on the show is that at the time of her husband’s passing, she was still incredibly angry and upset with God for the loss of her daughter several years prior. Stephanie was born, and passed away the same day, and Sharon fell into a “newfound love of darkness that I carried with me always. Not as an anchor but a new way of living in the world that I had come to know was cruel and unforgiving and God-less.”
This event was spiritually book ended for her when she lost her husband. In the moment that he passed, Sharon felt herself being transported into what she calls Starlight. Surrounded by love, presence, and divinity beyond words, she sensed she was whole, accepted and loved beyond comprehension by a God that she had turned away from.
“I felt more whole, more forgiven than I’d ever felt before. I now felt nothing except an all-encompassing love and compassion. My heart held no fear, no anger, no grief, no struggle. I was complete just as I was -- I lacked nothing. Deep down, I suppose I had always known this; I had just forgotten it for awhile.” (pg 123)
In our interview, Sharon talks about his even more. What strikes me, and why I find this inspiring is that this love and compassion is something that the Divine holds for each of us. It’s not held for just a few. When I think about this radical acceptance, I wonder what would be possible for myself if I accepted the abundance, love, and compassion that is meant for me?
In this episode Sharon Prentice and I talk about:
-Her early childhood at Cape Cod, dancing and listening to music
-The spiritual nature of the ocean and why it draws us both in
-Sharon’s work with the terminally ill, and why she feels it’s her life’s work
-The spiritual nature, and root of, all therapy work
-Her Shared Death Experience, and how it felt like coming home
-Jesus and my favorite passage in the Bible (Father, Father, Why have you forsaken me?”
-Centering Prayer and meditation
-Her husband Steve’s last breath, and how it provided an entrance into a Shared Death Experience for her
-How to jumpstart your joy: wake up with a smile, tell the people in your life you love them, and focused prayer
Resources
Becoming Starlight: A Shared Death Journey from Darkness to Light by Sharon Prentice on Amazon
Sharon Prentice’s Website
Sharon Prentice PhD’s Facebook page
Other resources for Grief, Death, and Dying:
Episode 168: Jonni Pollard on How to Awaken to The Truth of Who You Are
Episode 127: Julia Samuel on Grief Works, and the Stories of Life, Death, and Surviving
Episode 141: Debbie Augenthaler on Grief, Trauma, and Healing: You Are Not Alone
Here are the top 8 reasons why, if I could choose to be any spaceship in the galaxy, I'd choose to be the Millennium Falcon:
1. The Falcon is a named character in the movies, with personality, and a story arc.
2. The Millennium Falcon is fast, or, is it really just super smart?
3. This ship is part of something much bigger than itself.
5. The Millennium Falcon is a symbol of hope.
6. The Falcon is always waiting for the right people, and it’s a great get away vehicle.
7. The Falcon is a connector between main characters, and they have a connection to it.
8. The Millennium Falcon is a home.
Episode 59: Finding Joy in “Star Wars in the Yard” with Russell Hurst
The Ways the Millennium Falcon Were Different in “Solo: A Star Wars Story”
L3-37's Story Changes Everything We Knew About the Millennium Falcon
Solo: A Star Wars Story on Wikipedia
Solo: A Star Wars Story Has Franchise's First Main Female Droid
There are so many ways that choice (and your mindset on choice) impacts the level of joy in your life. This week on the podcast, I’m exploring the topic of choice with these five great angles:
Resources
Oprah’s interview with Maya Angelou from December, 2000
Michelle Obama on “When they go low, we go high”
Women, Food, and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything by Geneen Roth on Amazon
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo on Amazon
Wayne Dyer on Choosing Love or Fear
Gemma Hartley is the author of” Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward,” and I’m thrilled to have her on the podcast to talk about emotional labor. Defined as “the invisible work women do to keep people around them happy,” emotional labor is a topic that doesn’t get talked about a lot, and often takes a toll on women and relationships. I’m excited that Gemma has opened the door for this discussion by addressing the topic, and offering thoughts on ways to move forward.
Resources
Gemma Hartley’s Website
Gemma Hartley’s original article “Women aren’t Nags, we’re just Fed Up” on Harpers Bazaar
Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward by Gemma Hartley on Amazon
This week on the show, I’m taking a look at how I grew my business while working a 9 to 5 job. I’ll walk you through the inspiration, intention, and actions I took, and share reflections on how you can use these same tips to start or grow your own business.
See all of the show notes on the website, here:
http://jumpstartyourjoy.com/2019/01/how-to-start-a-business-when-you-have-a-9-to-5-job
Resources
Do a Ten in Three.
The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Even though we are a couple of weeks in to 2019, it’s a great time to take a few minutes and map out your plans. I’m a big fan of sitting down for an hour or so and getting my thoughts for the year out on paper. I started doing something I call the “Ten in Three” in 2014, and in looking back at that first list, it’s fascinating to see that I have completed all but one thing (getting PMP certified, #2).
Set the Intention for your Year
You might feel, like I know have in the past, like life is moving fast and you don’t have time to really stop and soak in what’s going on. You might feel like you’re on a trajectory with your career that now feels just OK, but you know you want something more than what you’re currently doing. Or, maybe you have not stopped to think about what it is that you want to do with your one “wild and precious life” since college, and feel a bit lost.
The beauty about taking an hour or so to get your thoughts in order about what you truly want to accomplish (instead of being in a reactive mode), is that it provides you with a little time to put some mindfulness and intention around your year.
Set a timer for 15 minutes and get out a blank pieces of paper or journal page and work through these questions to sort through your intentions - try to keep the answers in a list or bullet format so you can easily see the key ideas that start to emerge during this process.
Here are some questions to ask yourself as you start this process:
Choose the Things You’ll Focus On
The next step, after you’ve spent the time doing a highly productive brain dump, let’s get sorting through those thoughts.
Look over your list, and taking a moment with each item you’ve written, let the idea settle into your heart. There may be some of those items on your list that are “maybe some day” type items, and others that feel like they resonate with your soul.
Take a highlighter or colored pen, and mark the ideas that feel like the ones closest to the things you truly want to focus on.
Set Your Ten in Three
Once you’ve sorted through the ideas, it’s likely that there are a handful that are bubbling up as main ideas you want to bring to life. Take a look and see what you’ve got, and narrow this list down to the top ten that you want to bring into reality.
My process has been that I pick ten items that I want to complete, and spread them across three years. There’s a lot of pressure online to “do all the things,” and that leads to being totally overwhelmed. Once you’ve narrowed it down to three big goals for a year, you’ve limited the the things that will get your attention, and increased the likelihood each one will get completed. I’m also a big fan of this method over something like a Bucket List because it gives you focus, instead of being a big long list hanging out there that feels too long to ever finish.
You can download the fancy downloadable, printable sheet to remind you of your Ten in Three by clicking here.
Two notes on the Ten in Three: while the instructions here are simple, this process can be one that takes a couple of days. Allow yourself the time and space to do this in a way that feels right for you. Make the commitment to yourself to finish this once you’ve started.
The other note that I like to point out to people about the Ten in Three is to be kind to yourself if, say, midyear, you realize you don’t want to do one of the things you added. It’s OK to change your list, depending on what life throws at you. The only thing I haven’t finished on my list is #2, and it was an intentional decision for me to not pursue getting a PMP certificate. You can change your mind, too.
Resources:
Download your Free Printable Ten in Three sheet here
A Better Approach to A Bucket List, episode 117
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Jess Ekstrom is the energetic CEO and founder of Headbands of Hope, and the developer of the Mic Drop Workshop. I had the pleasure of meeting Jess in Atlanta last year, and knew from the moment she shared the mission of her company (and it only further made me love her when she quoted Will Ferrell) that I wanted to talk to her more, and to have her on the show.
Jess’ story of creating Headbands of Hope is one that resonates on all three of the Inspiration, Intention, and Action tenets that have been a part of Season 4 on Jump Start Your Joy. In her time working with the Make a Wish Foundation, she noticed that children didn’t like to wear a wig after having gone through chemo, and that many of the little girls preferred to wear a headband instead. Inspired by seeing an unmet need (there was no central place offering headbands for kids), Jess created Headbands of Hope with a “buy one, donate one” business model similar to Toms Shoes, and created a simple and impactful business that’s brought hope to children in every children’s hospital in the US.
It was Jess’ intention to make an impact through a simple but powerful way - to brighten the day and provide a boost of confidence to children going through chemo. And it was her own action to bring this idea to life that now feeds back to the inspiration and support of others.
Jess Ekstrom and I talk about:
Resources
Jess Ekstrom’s Headbands of Hope website
Jess Ekstrom’s Mic Drop Workshop website
Jonni Pollard is a meditation and wisdom teacher, with his teachings stemming from the Vedic tradition. He’s the author of "The Golden Sequence," co-founder of the 1 Giant Mind Learn Meditation course and the 1 Giant Mind Teacher Training Academy. As a true multipassionate, he’s also been an actor, and an avid skateboarder and runner. Jonni now works with corporations, individuals and at events teaching others how to “get into the highest state of love to connect to our humanity.”
The Inspiration of the Four Golden Insights
I truly enjoyed getting to speak with Jonni, and felt myself sinking into the conversation in a deep way. One of the most inspirational parts of the discussion for me was when we walked through the Four Golden Insights, which are the pillars for the work Jonni does.
4. Fulfillment is our Purpose - we find our purpose by fully understanding who we are
Jonni Pollard and I talk about:
Resources
As entrepreneurs and solo-prenuers, let's look at a new definition of abundance that makes room for the lives we want to lead, the people we want to reach, and the we way want to show up in this world. Learn how on this final episode of 2108.
This week on the show, Andrea Owen returns for a second visit and this conversation is, hands down, the hardest I’ve laughed in quite some time. Andrea is a coach, author of two books (52 Ways to Live a Kick Ass Life and How to Stop Feeling Like Shit), and she’s the host of the amazing “Your Kick Ass Life” podcast. She and I talk about how to be taken seriously even when you’re not a serious person.
As an entrepreneur, and a woman out doing business in the world, I am betting that this episode will resonate with you strongly. It’s getting at the heart of some deep seated conditioning, and calling into question something my own personal inner critic is pretty tied to: as a person who does serious work (life coaching, business coaching and project management all require an understanding of deep emotional or business acumen), I often worry that if I present my light heartedness in front of others, my ability to be serious and taken as a credible intelligent person will be dismissed.
What I love is that in this chat, Andrea calls bullshit on this, for both of us. She says it’s “inner critic bullshit” that’s just getting in the way of our being our true selves. And, I agree with her.
I also love that this discussion goes meta and self-reflective on itself, as we start out talking about how we’re both silly people at heart, and how as humorous people we both worry that we can’t ALSO be serious. After laughing our butts off (you’ll have to listen because it is funny, I laughed out loud when I was editing this episode), we then dive into deep and serious territory. We talk about the death of her father, about numbing out, about PTSD, about the serious shit.
In other words, the conversation itself shows us that yes, you can be funny, and serious all in the same 45 minutes.
Inspiration and Intention:
Where are you undermining or downplaying your own natural way of being because you feel like they are not “acceptable” to others?
How can you look at those traits as a gift, using a different lens? Who are some other people you can identify (and maybe even look up to) that share those traits with the world?
In this episode, Andrea Owen and I talk about:
Resources
Your Comfort Zone: A Rant (Episode 257 on Your KickAss Life)
Andrea Owen on Episode 115 of Jump Start Your Joy
How to Stop Feeling Like Shit by Andrea Owen (on Amazon)
52 Ways to Live a KickAss Life by Andrea Owen (on Amazon) - her first book
A project manager with 20 years of experience, Paula breaks down how to take the basics of project management & apply the skills and toolset to your small business as an entrepreneur. A great primer in running a project & insights on what to look
Self Advocate, activist, mentor and coach, Christy Tending joins the show with a fresh take on leaning into our uniqueness, owning our imperfections, and waking up to our own freedom.
Sarah Von Bargen of Yes and Yes joins Paula to talk about how to build joyful, intentional habits, how to question the messages in the world around us, and how you can craft your most mindful and meaningful life.
Are you having anxiety about the family Thanksgiving dinner, your spouse's company party, or spending the holidays with your inlaws? In this episode, Paula talks about how to create an intentionally joyfilled holiday season.
Welcome to Season 4! This week on the show, I’m doing a solocast to kick off Season 4 and taking a look at the direction the show will be headed this season.
This week on the show I’m talking about:
– the three steps in the process of going after your dreams: inspiration, intention, and action
– why you need to build in time for rest and activity
– the bookends of emotions
– hanging on to the “anchor” of good times, even when you’re faced with difficult times
– my amazing time on the NKOTB Cruise X in 2018
– how people around us can inspire us and remind us of who we are and what’s important to us
Resources
8 Great Reasons to Start a Podcast / Episode 146
Kate Swaboda – “Courage When You Hate Your Job” on her Your Courageous Life Podcast
New Kids on the Block Cruise recap from 2017
Books
Art of War by Steven Pressfield
Lunar Abundance by Ezzie Spencer
See more pictures from NKOTB Cruise X 2018 on my Instagram Feed.