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Jump Start Your Joy®

This vibrant show dives into the inspiration, intention, and actions that bring a positive outlook to life, even in challenging times. Lovingly curated as a retreat from the everyday, each episode invites you to step outside routine and engage with uplifting stories and fresh perspectives. Guided by Henri Nouwen’s reminder that “Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day,” the show explores how resilience and purpose can turn ordinary moments into opportunities for joy.
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Now displaying: January, 2019
Jan 29, 2019

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

Jan 22, 2019

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:

  • What are the big things you want to create this year?
  • What are the big things you want to bring into your life, if you take away the current limitations you may feel are holding you back?
  • If you could map out anything you wanted for life, what would it look like? If nothing was off the table, what would you do, and who would you be?
  • What are some ideas that have been coming back to you, time after time, that you’ve pushed aside because they are not “practical,” or don’t fit in your life right now?

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

 

Jan 16, 2019

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:

  • Her earliest sparks of joy: food, and going on a scavenger hunt for a new skateboard that had her name spray painted on it
  • How she started Headbands of Hope
  • The insights she learned working for Make a Wish, and having met the owner of Toms shoes as she was creating her company
  • Sometimes the things that are most earth shattering and game changing are the simplest
  • How to get to inspiration from frustration
  • Her Mic Drop workshop, and how it fills the need of having more women speakers at conferences and conventions
  • Why we both love Will Ferrell and how we feel that he creates connection with others through humor
  • What schools and parents can do to provide children with a more well rounded point of view and better life skills
  • Her upcoming book, which is due out in November 2019
  • How to jump start joy in your life: unplug: remove yourself from the screen, play more, and develop a writing habit

Resources
Jess Ekstrom’s Headbands of Hope website
Jess Ekstrom’s Mic Drop Workshop website

Jan 8, 2019

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.

  1. Life is Sacred
  2. Love is our Nature - we serve, nature, and find connection
  3. Wisdom is our Power - Jonni talks about finding the intelligence of love, and reconciling the appearance of resistance and opposites.
  • We also talked about “embodied leadership power, which equals the ability to influence the environment around us.”
  • Wisdom can enliven and awaken the truth of who we are

4. Fulfillment is our Purpose - we find our purpose by fully understanding who we are

 

Jonni Pollard and I talk about:

  • His earliest sparks of joy as a child - playing with other kids, playing games, and any kind of games where he could evolve and find excitement
  • Being a multipassionate, where he reflected that he felt that the many different things he enjoys in his life are all just different ways that his soul and purpose is revealing itself
  • The filters that we use from the outside looking in, and how it changes the way we see ourselves
  • The desire of creative beings to become expressive
  • Our conditioning as children and the pervasive ideology that we learn as young people
  • How adopting and conforming to social ideals causes immense suffering
  • The four golden insights that set the pillars for the Golden Sequence
  • What happens when energy does not flow naturally
  • The dissonance that fear creates
  • Why we need to connect to our purpose and our humanity
  • Jonni’s thoughts How to Jump Start Your Joy: wake up and connect to the world around you, meditate for success and to affirm your humanity, and to show your best connected self to whomever you first have contact with in the morning

 

Resources

Jonni Pollard’s website

The Golden Sequence by Jonni Pollard on Amazon

1 Giant Mind Podcast

1 Giant Mind App

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