Jump Start Your Joy

Jill Stanton of Screw the 9 to 5 is my guest this week on the podcast. She’s a true force to be reckoned with in the online lifestyle entrepreneur space, and I’m really excited to be speaking with her about how she has created a lively, exciting brand and community that’s built from an authentic and interesting space. Having started in 2012 with an affiliate skincare site, and changed and shifted the focus and approach of her business, Jill and her now husband Josh, have grown their business into a full time gig with a team. And now, with their new son, Kai here, they are looking at how they shift their business again to include time and space for a child.   Jill and I have a very fun, fast paced discussion about how she has evolved her online business over the past 6 years. She started in the beauty and skincare business, and met her husband Josh who was using social media to support venues while he was a bartender. The two joined forces, and took their collective knowledge to create the business “Screw the

This week on the podcast, I’m revisiting the conversation with singer and songwriter Morgan Bolender. Morgan is known for her song entitled Mary Oliver, which has gone viral on YouTube. She started her career as a 3rd grade special education teacher and then started on a journey to quite literally find her voice, and listen to her heart. We met at Danielle LaPorte’s White Hot Truth event at Grace Cathedral, where Morgan opened the event for Danielle. I’m so thrilled she’s here today to share about the amazing journey she’s taken to find her voice.⠀ In this episode, Morgan and I talk about: -          How she was introspective and oddly serious as a child, with solitude bringing her joy -          Her song writing process with partner Scott -          What brings her joy: little joys, hugs, and setting intentional time -          Her journey from being a teacher to becoming a singer and song writer that started with her saying “Take me where I need to go” -          Living on an organic farm and hearing her ow

This week on the podcast, I’m delighted to speak to Debbie Augenthaler on grief, trauma, and healing. Debbie is a psychotherapist,  the author of You Are Not Alone: A Heartfelt Guide to Grief, Healing, and Hope, and she has a private practice in New York City. After losing her husband, she was unexpectedly faced with grief, and found that losing someone that close to you causes ripples of effects; and that the impact of grief does not neatly follow the stages that we’ve all read about. Grief strikes everyone differently, and grieving is not a linear process.   Yes, you go through waves and stages, but the day to day experience of profound loss was not something she found referenced in books. Debbie was grateful to find a therapist during her own time of grief, one who held space for her to grieve. Working in the financial field for many years, Debbie was in New York for September 11, 2001. She saw the impact of loss again, among her friends and coworkers. This time, however, she also saw that since she had al

This week on the show, I’m exploring the 4 pillars of joy: Inspiration, Mindfulness, Action, and Fun. If you’ve been listening awhile, you know that I think of joy as a wayfinding emotion. I have seen joy dance with people, reach out for people, even when they are in their darkest times or most difficult times. Joy can look like a tiny inkling of hope, a little nudge to call a friend or a doctor; joy looks like that second in your life, like several guests and so many of my clients have sited - that you know that there is “more” to your life than whatever your current crappy circumstances are. That you know you want more, desire more, that you personally are meant for more than what you’re experiencing right now.   This week we’ll look at one of the quotes that inspired my show, and I’m going deeper with it around HOW to find more joy. What I’ve seen in the fact that joy is a choice is that there’s more to it. Joy can be lived out in multiple ways. I see that there are patterns in how I’ve danced with joy in

This week I’m so excited to have Doña Bumgarner on the show as part of the Friendpreneur Series. This series highlights conversations I have with friends, who are also entrepreneurs, and we dish the behind the scenes realities of starting a business, and what it looks like in real life. Doña Bumgarner is the powerhouse behind the “Nurtured Mama” blog, the voice of the “Nurturing Habit” podcast, and an amazing coach. Doña is a dear friend who I met through coaching. She and I share so much in common - we are both project managers, both coaches, both podcasters, and both moms to first graders. I really loved getting to talk to her about her journey and where she’s at. We also talk about her experience in my “Jump Start Your Podcast” class, which is where she got her start for her show, which is in its second season. Why you need to listen: There’s a lot of becoming an entrepreneur that’s about highlighting your strengths, and leaning in to what you already know and what you’re an expert at. The thing is, there’

Kerri Powers is a singer, songwriter, and musician, and she has just released her latest album, Starseeds. I’m so honored and delighted to have her on the show this week to talk about her creative process, about getting honest and telling your truest story, and about how music is a connecting force. It was a real treat getting to speak with Kerri, who is as soulful as the blues music that she writes and loves. What I love about Kerri is her deeply intuitive nature. She’s “present” like no one I’ve ever met, truly in the moment with you, and speaks her heart. Kerri opens up about her love of blues, sharing that it resonates with her soulfully. I can relate to this, as part of the mission of the show is to talk about what happens when someone chooses joy, even in the most improbable and difficult times in their lives. There’s a deep truth we each can find when we “go there,” into the dark, into the hard stuff, and see what’s waiting. Kerri gets this too, sharing that “there’s a lot of beauty in darkness and joy

This week on the show, I’m joined by Emilie Wapnick, Jamie Ridler, and Melissa Dinwiddie for a roundtable on being a multi-passionate person. As a multi-passionate, or multi-potentialite (or scanner, or renaissance soul), we can relate to having lots of different interests and not wanting to narrow our work or creativity down to focus to just one thing. This roundtable focuses on the unique challenges of putting structure and planning around the creativity and myriad of interests that each of us have. It’s a great discussion! This episode is airing this week in honor of the Multi-passionate Must Haves bundle, which is on sale from May 15-17, 2018. It includes 17 amazing courses, programs, and resources specially created for multipotentialites, like you. If you bought all of these goodies separately, you would pay $1585, but you can snag it all for just $97 during this sale. Here’s why you need to listen to this episode: I know that from working with a lot of creative people, many of whom identify as a multi-p

This week on the show, I’m thrilled to have Lindsay Ambrose and Natalie Sager joining me to talk about their new book, Peaceful Mamas: The Mind, Body, and Baby Connection. The two joined together to write this book after meeting at a conference in Chicago, and bonding together over their love of Hal Elrod’s book, The Miracle Morning. Seeing how it could be tweaked, evolved, and applied to the transition around motherhood, AND seeing their like-minded approach to being moms, the two came together to create this new and unique offering for parents.   Why you need to listen: Natalie, Lindsay and I dish a ton of very actionable and useable ideas for moms and parents. From both the mindset shift that we all encountered upon becoming parents, to other practical things, like how we go about setting a routine, and how we’ve helped growing children process their own emotions. This is especially poignant for me as I’d struggled with a morning routine quite a bit when my son was younger. There was something about the tr

Suzan Colon is a yoga expert and speaker, and the author of the book, Yoga Mind: Journey Beyond the Physical, 30 Days to Enhance your Practice and Revolutionize Your Life From the Inside Out. I’m thrilled to have her on the show this week to talk about her work and her book. Suzan Colon is a former senior editor for Oprah magazine, Details, Jane, and Harper’s Bazaar, and I have found so much inspiration in what she shares with us this week. In 2002, shortly after becoming a yoga instructor, Suzan’s friend Francesco had a diving accident that rendered him unable to use his legs or arms. Suzan felt a strong sense that she could help him, and that he could use the properties of yoga to help him heal from the mental, emotional, and physical trauma he’d endured. In her book Yoga Mind: Journey Beyond the Physical, 30 Days to Enhance your Practice and Revolutionize Your Life From the Inside Out, she chronicles the first 12 months after Fran’s accident, and, artfully weaves in the lessons of practicing a Yoga Mind fo

A recent hot topic with my mastermind has been that of confidence. About two months ago, we did a webinar for the first time on it, and found that it was such a deep and wide topic. This episode is a two-part one … today you’ll get to hear part one on my show and on Wednesday, part two is airing on Liz Applegate’s show, Midlife Schmidlife. There are a couple of things I know to be true about confidence: nearly everyone, at some point, struggles with feeling self-confident. While it’s not unusual for other people to look and act extremely confident, the thing I’ve found (especially in talking to so many guests for the podcast) is that at some point or another, everyone doubts themselves. And I want that to sink in for you. Even published authors, even rock stars, even the front man of a band, or the voice of a super villain – every single one of them has shared with me that they don’t always trust in themselves, and, they feel like other people likely have it more together than they do. The other thing that’s

As an illustrator, designer, and artist, Mandy returned to drawing after a fairly long absence. What I’ve noticed about people who have a grasp on joy is that they often are actively making space to do the things they love in their lives. They take the time to listen to what their heart is saying to them, and they are open to the nudges that they get from the universe along the way.   In the last month, I’ve been talking a lot about this - and  I’m calling “Practicing the vibration of joy.” In a nutshell, it means that joy is more than a simple choice, but it’s also a choice that you must take action on to really feel the benefits of the emotion of joy. Simply put, you’ve got to DO something joyful in order to then feel the emotion of joy, and so, I’ve been looking at ways that people have made an intentional point of actively following joy. Mandy Ford and her work really stood out for me, and so this week I’m re-sharing the interview with her (that originally aired in Season 2 as episode 97). Link: http://ju

This week on the show, I’m excited to share a solocast all about why joy matters. I recently had a series of aha moments around the interviews with Fred Leblanc and Julia Samuels, along with the work I’ve been doing in Tiffany Han’s Inner Circle - that led me to a realization that joy isn’t just a choice, but it’s a necessity and it’s something we need to make room for everyday, in some way. This big aha moment has roots in four places: Living a joyful life, and being dedicated to joy means going beyond choosing joy. This first part comes from the Henri Nouwen quote, “Joy is a choice and we must keep choosing it.” It means actively practicing joy and spending time with joy. Joy is energy, and we can choose to engage with this energy. (Fred Leblanc from Episode 125) We can carve out time for joy, making it something we add to our days, purposefully. Life will continue to throw difficult things at us. (Julia Samuel, Episode 127) This ties in with the Law of Attraction, and setting aside time to “play” with joy

This week’s interview with personal stylist and coach, Rayne Parvis is one of those special and fun discussions that really feels more like a chat with an old friend than an interview. Rayne and I hit it off from the start, and we laugh so hard in this interview that it’s a total delight to be sharing it with you this week. Rayne has been very joyfully styling clients now for the past few years, and she taps in to her own gift of being able to “see you in your best potential.” She loves helping people pair down their own clothes, pick out what works, and shop with them to find new pieces to compliment their style. What I love about Rayne is that she took the time to answer my own bizarre questions , including - what styles look best on someone who is 4 foot 10? Do these ¾ length sleeves make my butt look big? Why can’t I let go of these shoes I bought in Boston 20 years ago, but have never worn? You’ll want to tune in for the answers, because Rayne and I have so much fun going through all of these questions a

This week, I’m delighted to have Lara Heacock joining me for the second installment of the Friendpreneur Series. This series focuses on conversations with friends, who are entrepreneurs. Many of the people are friends I’ve met either through the show (and have been on before!) or through contacts in coaching. I’ve found that starting and running a small business is something very new to many of us, who have grown up without examples of people who are entrepreneurs in our day-to-day. I had the pleasure of meeting Lara in coach training over three years ago in the Courageous Living Coaching Certification program. She’s so full of life and joy and I have loved getting to know her better, and seeing her grow her coaching practice. She’s joining me this week for the Friendpreneur Series to share about her new book - Practical Kindness, and balancing a 9 to 5 job with her coaching. We laugh, we share lots of entrepreneur tips, and I know you’ll love getting to know her. Lara and I talk about: Bringing kindness and

On the show this week, I’m delighted to be joined by Julia Samuel. She is a British psychotherapist who specializes in grief and bereavement, and founded the UK Child Bereavement charity, that works with children who are grieving, as well as those who are grieving the loss of a child. She is the author of Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death, and Surviving. Julia is a truly delightful person and I really enjoyed getting to speak with her. At first blush, grief may seem to be a strange topic to be covered on a show about joy, but, I see the two emotions as beautiful bookends to each other. Both states are vulnerable in their own ways, both grief and joy are deeply personal things, and each of us experiences them in our own ways. What I love so much about Julia Samuel’s book is that she honors and understands that the journey of grieving is different for each person, and that it’s different based on who you have lost in your life. She chose to divide the book up into sections based on the person’s relationship t

This week on the show, I'm explaining the basics and tactics of content planning and strategy for your retreat, podcast, or blog on this solocast. Learn how to take your idea to a solid plan that you can execute using project management and inspiration. It's one of my favorite topics: Figuring out the building blocks of content strategy for your own brand. I’ll be explaining how this can be applied to planning a retreat (which is where I first started playing with this approach), but it’s also something I teach in my podcasting class about how to define your show and what it will be about. It’s a little bit project management, and a lot of defining your brand and creating the building blocks of marketing, which are both things I do in my day job. In short, this episode looks at how to get the ideas you have in your head, the one that you want to turn into something to share with the world, and get them out, on paper. From there, you'll see how you can take the idea, and begin to plan how you will share it - w

Fred LeBlanc is the powerfully energetic drummer and lead singer of the band Cowboy Mouth from New Orleans, Louisiana, and I could not be more excited to have him on the show this week. What draws me to Fred is his true dedication to joy, to choosing it, spreading it, his dedication to elevating the vibration and awareness of everyone at his shows. From his lyrics and the way he gets a crowd excited to the way he encourages others, Fred is an amazing example of positivity, love, and good energy. I feel so very lucky to have gotten to speak with him. If you see Fred perform live with Cowboy Mouth perform live, you will witness how his dedication to bringing joy to every moment permeates the show, the music, and by extension, the crowd. Fred talks about how he made the decision early in his career to leave the successful punk group Dash Rip Rock because he could feel that the anger and firey energy of the group and music were killing him. Around this time, he was reading The Power of Positive Thinking, and he w

Confidence coach, marketing mentor, and dancer Tanika Mason joins host Paula Jenkins to talk about how to shine with confidence. Tanika shares how to build confidence as an entrepreneur so that you can build a dream business you love.

Self care expert and activist Christy Tending joins host Paula Jenkins for the Friendpreneur Series to talk about self advocacy, becoming a mother, and running a business. Mompreneurs unite!

Amy Smith joins the show to talk about how to set loving boundaries, honor what you need, how to have hard conversations with compassion, self love and kindness. As two life coaches, and joy experts, Paula and Amy have a light and joyfilled discussion.