Christy Tending is back for her sixth visit, and this time we’re talking about how our lives and businesses have recently evolved. It’s a living discussion, and one that started when we met to co-work at a cafe this summer and found ourselves diving into a conversation about how we’d recently had a very mindful and impactful experience of making decisions that have intrinsically changed who we are, and how we approach things.

In this episode, Christy Tending and I talk about:

• How things can reach a point where it’s no longer possible for you to continue doing what once worked for you
• How Christy quit drinking and the reasons why she chose to make that change
• The intrinsic connection between making decisions as a consumer, capitalism, and politics
• How I called bullshit on the idea that “the other shoe was about to drop” in my personal life and marriage
• How nagging is a choice, and how to stop nagging (zen moment: just stop)
• How you can create a business or an offering, or a podcast, by focusing on the things that seem easy to you
• What’s easy for you is not necessarily easy for anyone else (and how that leads you to discount the power of what comes easily)
• Why it’s important to talk about the role of racism, alcoholism, climate, and other pieces of our heritage that we don’t find acceptable with our children
• Why and how stating what your business stands for, and how it has evolved helps you find your true audience (and why that’s OK)
• How we evolve and become more comfortable with stating what words fit us (anarchist, Buddhist, etc)
• The roles of studentship and conversely, being a “guru”
• Studentship: What it looks like to be a student of your own process, and of learning new things as you go
• The possible role of self doubt and the inner critic when you complicate things
• The balance of really not knowing the outcome of any situation, and finding our way to be confident and share our expertise around something
• The wisdom of leaning on others in your community for knowledge and leadership, instead of acting like one person knows everything (which they don’t)
• The importance of having community in business
• We all have access to the divine any time we want it, and we all have access to politics and power whenever we want it
• That capitalism tells us that if we are good at something and it is lucrative: we’re supposed to do that thing until we drop

Resources
Christy Tending’s beautiful new website

Christy Tending’s podcast: Tending Your Life

Learn the 7 things to consider when you're looking to follow your joy, passion, or bliss in creating a business or coaching practice. You CAN build a business that feels easy, you just need to take some key things into consideration.

In this episode, I talk about:

• How to embrace letting things be easy
• Why you tend to add complexity to something
• The change in vibe and acceptance when you keep things simple and focused on what comes naturally to you
• How you can create a business or an offering, or a podcast, by focusing on the things that seem easy to you
• What’s easy for you is not necessarily easy for anyone else (and how that leads you to discount the power of what comes easily)
• Your zone of genius as explained by Gay Hendricks
• Don’t shy away from doing whatever feels easy for you
• The possible role of self doubt and the inner critic when you complicate things
• How to jumpstart your joy: petting puppies, listening more than you talk, and “eat the ice cream”

Resources
Join me at "She Podcasts Live" in Atlanta, October 11-13
How to Be Everything: A Guide For Those Who (Still) Don't Know What They Want To Be When They Grow Up by Emilie Wapnick on Amazon
The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to The Next Level by Gay Hendricks on Amazon

In this episode, I’m overjoyed to have EB Sanders joining me to talk about her work as a career coach, and how to design a career and a life that works for you. She has an amazing background of being a teacher, then a staffing and recruiting professional, and now she is a full time career coach helping creative people discover work that makes them happy. EB and I hit it off from the moment we said hello, and it was such a treat getting to pick her brain about how people design a career, as both a full time employee in a corporation, or as an entrepreneur.

In this episode, EB Sanders and I talk about:

• Her joys of creating a book about being strong as a little girl
• Working with creative people to help them get to the next level of whatever they are working on in their lives
• The various definitions of what it means to be creative, from engineers to CPAs, to those trained in the traditional arts
• Her road to becoming a business coach: from teaching, to staffing and recruiting, to coaching
• How people approach wanting to change careers, or look for something new in their job, and what else is usually going on in their lives
• Being creative is not being lazy
• Taking a nap can be a creative reboot
• Why keeping a salaried job may be the best choice for you
• Why being challenged at work is so key to your enjoyment
• How defined roles and responsibilities play a role in your job satisfaction
• Defining your values to help lead the way in discovering what you want and need from a job
• How to have the difficult conversations you need to have, to keep a healthy working environment alive (and why it’s not just up to management to create that environment)
• How to turn around a toxic working environment yourself
• How to structure a successful one on one meeting with your manager or supervisor
• Don’t shy away from doing whatever feels easy for you
• How to jumpstart your joy: petting puppies, listening more than you talk, and “eat the ice cream”

Resources
EB Sander’s Website
Use the code “FRIENDFAM” to get 15% off any of EB’s programs
EB Sanders on Instagram
The Artists Way by Julia Cameron on Amazon

This week on Jump Start Your Joy - I’m sharing all about how you can be both a planner, and allow room for creativity and spontaneity to play a role in your life or your business. As a planner at heart, I feel a sense of calm and “everything is right with the world” when I’m able to make a list, or, plan a trip.

What I’ve come to discover after doing a podcast for awhile is that the magic of any creative process happens, though, when you make the plan and then don’t cling to it too tightly. I struggled with doing that for a really long time - of planning, but not needing to control the outcome once I’d figured out the plan.

This week on the podcast I’m sharing how:

• You can make a plan, start working towards it, and leave yourself the space for creativity to take hold
• Set aside purposeful space to allow creativity to show up
• Become comfortable with releasing control of a situation
• Joy shows up when you leave room for it
• Artists Dates and how they can give you new ideas
• Trusting others can help you get your work done, and aid in further trusting yourself
• Rethinking what success looks like for you may shift how you approach what you “need” to do

Franny Burkey is a baker, shop co-owner, and pastry maker at the dreamy “Franny’s Cup and Saucer” in Point Arena, California. She whips up gorgeous cakes, delicious donuts, some amazing gluten free treats, all while working with her mom (and co-owner), Barbara. The shop itself feels like the embodiment of joy, with it’s sweet gifts, tasty treats, and loving atmosphere. When I started creating my list of who I wanted to interview for Jump Start Your Joy, Franny Burkey was definitely one of the first names I wrote down.

And, Franny herself is really one of the most joyous and endearing folks I’ve ever met, and so it was a real treat to get to chat with her for a bit about her childhood, her outlook on life (and business), and what she loves about her work.

In this interview, you’ll hear about:
– Franny’s childhood, growing up in Northern California, and having two parents in the food industry
– How Franny comes up with flavors for her delicious Friday donuts<
– How Franny and her Mom work together, and run the bakery
– The secret of how Franny gets up early, and her positive outlook on why it’s not “so bad”
– What she does to relax, including mixed martial arts and running
– How they’ve established what to buy for their shop in a small town, and what their ideal price point is
– How many wedding cakes Franny makes in a year, and why she loves working on wedding cakes
– My own wedding cake and how Franny designed the cake for our four year old son (with a robot, rabbit, Yoda, and Lightning McQueen)

Resources
Franny’s Cup and Saucer website
Franny’s Cup and Saucer Facebook page (check out the donuts here)
Sunset Eating Up the West Coast from Amazon (Franny has two recipes in this 2015 book)