Fred LeBlanc, the energetic drummer and lead singer of the band Cowboy Mouth is back for a second visit this week to talk about his brand new release, “Open Arms.” It was fun having him join me for this interview about the new music the band is putting out, along with an updated version they’ve done of their hit, “Jenny Says.” 

What Fred LeBlanc and I talk about in this interview:

• His new EP, Open Wide 
• Thank God I’m a Country Boy, which is on the new EP
• “King of The World,” a song that is about him, on the new EP
• How the Coronavirus impacts touring, and his take on it
• How to reconnect with joy, and keep choosing it

Get the New EP, Open Wide.

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How do you embrace change, when everything feels like everything has turned on it's head? In this short episode, Paula talks about the inspiration, intention, and action you can take to find calm in the storm.

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Tara McMullin joins Paula to talk about the many ways she's pivoted in her life and business in recent years. In this fun interview, we talk about "What Works" and how you can jump into authentic leadership as a business owner.

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-Running a small business
-Podcasting and how it’s a growing industry
-Our backgrounds, which are both in religious studies
-The What Works network, and how she engages with small businesses
-What happens when your personal values are misaligned with your business
-The importance of independent thinking and personal agency
-The What Works rule of “no advice,” and valuing experience over expertise
-What happens when we “live a Story”
-Being an Enneagram 3, and not chasing accomplishments
-Our similarities: softball, religious studies, podcasting
-How to Jump Start Your Joy: do what you say you will, question your assumptions, and expect success

Resources
The Art of Gathering by Pria Parker on Amazon
Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business by Paul Jarvis on Amazon
War of Art by Stephen Pressfield on Amazon
Enneagram Institute

Get the full show notes here:  http://jumpstartyourjoy.com/2020/03/9-ways-to-cope-with-overwhelm-during-hard-times

Join the Thursday live chats: https://paulajenkins1-gmail-com.ck.page/73765b29a5

Amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, school closures, and shelter in place announcements, no doubt you're feeling a bit overwhelmed. In this episode, Paula shares 9 ways to work with, and tame, overwhelm in your life.

4 Things to Try:

Stop worrying about trying to find the silver lining, or the bright side of the situation

Embrace “let it be” instead of “let it go”

Notice the emotions and feelings that are present

Mindfully choose what is most important, and what (or who) you want to give your energy to

Five things to consider when working with overwhelm:

Can this thing wait?

Take a break from the situation

It’s OK to treat yourself

You are not your thoughts

Sleep is important

Kayla Butler of Ivory Mix is joining me this week to talk about how she started her business, what it’s been like growing a stock photography site, and how community has been the center of her business from the beginning. In this episode, I'm delighted to be talking all about joy, creativity, and stock photography at 'Ivory Mix' with Kayla Butler.

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-Her early love of drawing Disney stories, and desire to be a Disney artist
-Going into interior design as a career
-Getting burnt out once she was in a director position and no longer creating designs regularly
-Choosing the name “Ivory Mix” as a blank canvas for her to try new things
-How creative people keep hitting up against the wall of possibly becoming more involved in running a business than doing the creative pieces, and how to juggle that
-How giving away quality, free, incentives can help build a strong community
-Growing a business while working a 9 to 5 job
-Creating a business that is niched, and different than a standard stock photo site
-Importance of building authority and how to do it
-Ways to jump start your joy: gratitude, random acts of kindness, and creating boundaries

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.

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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