“I think sometimes you go into coaching with this perception that you’re going to come out a completely different person, but I want people to know that that’s not true. You are still going to be you, but a 10.0 version of you. And that’s a good thing.” – Jenn Vasquez

I’m talking to one of my very first clients in today’s powerful interview. Her name is Jenn Vasquez and she is one special soul. 

Jenn and I actually go way back because our kids were in the same playgroup circle. When she heard from one of the other moms that I was a life coach, she signed up right away.

What happened as we coached together off and on over the next several years was an absolutely incredible transformation.

Jenn was told from a very young age that she had bipolar disorder and spent YEARS trying to navigate that diagnosis. Finally, in 2015, as a new mom, Jenn saw a counselor who was certain that it was a misdiagnosis. Instead, she told Jenn she was suffering from PTSD.

Jenn scratched the surface in learning about this with the counselor, but with this newfound knowledge, she was ready to dig deeper into what was going on inside of her.

She was ready to heal her thoughts. She was ready to heal her beliefs. And she was ready to live in her authenticity.

When we first spoke, Jenn was lost. She felt anxious as a wife and anxious as a parent. She felt incomplete.

We had to go in and heal some major trauma from Jenn’s childhood and completely flip her entire belief system about herself. 

AS JENN DUG DEEP INTO HERSELF THROUGH THE PROCESS, SHE LEARNED:

• How intergenerational trauma impacted her entire family and childhood, and how to break the cycle
• What her biggest bullet hole was and how to flip it 
• What her true life calling is
• How to get visible and share her story with the world

…and so much more

Jenn’s journey is a truly powerful one that has allowed her to embrace every aspect of herself with a confidence she never had before. She is a magnificent woman and I can’t wait for you to get to know her on today’s episode. Listen at the top of this page.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

→ Apply to coach with me

→ Continue the conversation in my free online community

→ Get The 4-Day Accomplish Your Dreams Free Training 

→ WORDS TO DELETE episode

Full Transcript:

Episode 129: JENN’S COACHING STORY

This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 129, Jenn’s Coaching Story.

[music]

Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fear-facing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife, mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. We can’t fear the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman you were meant to be. Let’s do this.

[music]

Hello Ms. Unstoppable. Welcome to another episode of the show. I have a treat for you today. I have Jenn Vasquez, a client of mine, on the show to talk through her coaching story with you. Jenn and I worked together in 2015 when I was getting my business off the ground. We took some time off. At the time, I didn’t have anything else to offer her for support. Then she came back to me in 2020 when I opened up the doors to my Living the Dream program which is my program for established clients.

This past year we’ve worked together to knock some more goals out of the park for her. Jenn is such a joy to listen to. I can listen to her talk all day long. I’m going to declare it now, I believe that Jenn is going to be a huge success. She’s a huge success now, but in the future with a speaking and writing business. In fact, I see her being a household name in essence.

You’re listening to her now before she hits it big. She’s like the next Glennon Doyle, hearing her story, and what she’s had to overcome, and us getting her back on track with her calling, which we both believe is writing and speaking, and her just owning her power over these past few years, especially this past year as we’ve worked together.

Just get ready to hear a really powerful story that I hope will inspire you and motivate you to see that change is always possible for you, as long as you believe it can be. Enjoy this interview with Jenn. I hope that you will leave it feeling even better than you do right now. Enjoy.

All right, Jenn, it’s the day we are recording your interview about your coaching journey. Our journey together started a long time ago in 2015, right?

Jenn Vasquez: Yes, 2015.

Lindsay: You and I knew each other a little bit personally. Our kids were in a similar playgroup, and then the playgroup had a lot of drama. [crosstalk] I guess we were probably connected on Facebook and stuff is what I remember, not anything more. Then you ran into somebody who else was in that playgroup. Do you remember the story?

Jenn: I do.

Lindsay: You said, “Hey, what’s Lindsay up to?” And she’s like, “Oh, she’s a life coach now.” You found me. At the time I guess I was doing my very first Life Luvers Challenge. You did it. You rocked it. Then you did Unstoppable and Authentically Awesome from there. Let’s just go back to Jenn in 2015 when you heard I was a life coach and you signed up for Life Luvers. Do you remember where you were at?

Jenn: Yes. It’s funny because I really wanted to say this full story. I started seeking counseling for myself. My husband and I were having really hard times, new parents and navigating that. He was traveling 80% of the year. I had hit a super, super low. I had been told from the time I was a kid, like a pubescent child, that I had bipolar disorder. I was seeking counseling thinking that in my mind, I had bipolar disorder and I just needed all this help, and I might need medication but I just couldn’t find the right help.

It just so happened I just happened upon this counselor, and we’re talking, and she’s evaluating me and she goes, “They said you have bipolar disorder?” I said, “Yes since I was like 13.” She goes, “No. There’s no way. There’s absolutely no way you’re bipolar. You don’t give any of the typical symptoms of being bipolar.” She’s like. “PTSD.” I’m like, “Oh, that’s new.” She’s explaining everything to me.

I sat there and was just trying to take it all in. It was really overwhelming. I worked with her for a little bit. I felt really good working with her, but it just never felt like we were fully tapping in deeply into what was going on inside of me. I felt like we were just scratching the surface.

All these things lined up. I ran into this friend that you referred to earlier and asked about you. I don’t know, it just happened naturally. I looked you up and, of course, the Life Luvers Challenge is happening. It was shocking. The universe and the world were aligning for us to come together because everything that was in your programs was exactly what I needed to tap into my old wounding and just healing my thoughts and my belief system. It was the missing element, really.

Lindsay: It sounds like you were at a place of almost, I don’t know. What would you describe it as?

Jenn: Before we started?

Lindsay: Yes, when we started, because almost like a reckoning or something.

Jenn: It was. I was lost. I felt like crap all the time and I was so tired. I was just so tired of feeling like crap every day because I had so many good things going in my life. I was just anxious about being a parent. It just seemed like more than normal. I was anxious about being a wife. I felt like I didn’t know how to do things that were, I guess you’re supposed to naturally feel like you can do. Everything just felt hard. I just felt incomplete in my therapy. I was just looking for something else. I didn’t know what that was until I saw the Life Luvers Challenge.

Lindsay: To give everyone a backstory, at this point, Jenn, you had Sophia. How old was Sophia then? She would have been five in 2015?

Jenn: Yes, about five.

Lindsay: Oliver would have been how old?

Jenn: Two.

Lindsay: You had little ones. I share that because I think in those early years for a lot of women, that’s when they do have this whatever we want to call it, reckoning or something of, “I thought I would feel different,” and instead it just brings up even more of your shit. You’re like “Shit, now I have these little people and I have this family. What am I going to do here?”

Jenn: I think it’s also like, as women, we feel like we’re supposed to feel complete in motherhood and our wifehood. That’s not true. If anyone is feeling that way, just speaking from personal experience, and Lindsay as well I’m sure, that ain’t everything. [laughs] It’s just not everything we are.

Lindsay: I’m so glad you brought that up. It’s so true because I feel so disassociated from that, but going back to my journey and I remember being a mom then I’m being like, “Oh, shit, I still feel like shit.” It’s actually now intensified.

Jenn: Yes, totally.

Lindsay: Then you and I do Life Luvers. At that time, it was my beta group and so it was free. You went through that. Then you signed up for Unstoppable. We did that. Then we did Authentically Awesome. tell everybody, in a nutshell, the first results that you manifested.

Jenn: Gosh, it was a lot. I feel like these programs, they just do a lot. The first round, I healed a huge amount of trauma. Honestly, I would say if we wanted to do a percentage of my belief system, how we flip that it, was probably easily a good 60%, 70% of my belief system was flipped around to be more positive belief system. There were some missing elements, but I didn’t realize that until much later, and we’ll get to that I’m sure.

The trauma was a huge one because I was just living and I was reliving my trauma, actually, every day, through my husband, through these crazy sound triggers. I was emotionally spiraling out all the time. That really got even keel. I became an entrepreneur. I started my own hair business.

Lindsay: We’ll come back to that.

Jenn: We’ll come back to that. [laughs] Actually, what’s funny about the first round of Unstoppable, Authentically Awesome, doing that with you, is that I opened a crap ton of doors of abundance. It was overwhelming.

Lindsay: Let’s talk about the trauma, too. No matter what childhood anybody has or past, we all have trauma to heal. We all have things where we diminished our power. It was scary to our brain. Jenn, you had a childhood, how would you define it?

Jenn: For lack of appropriate word, it was fucked up. [laughs] I’m a survivor of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. I had a mom that was checked-out. She was so busy being in survival mode, being the provider for my dad and my sister and I, that she was just not seeing what was happening in the house. I was a child that was not only being abused, but I was not heard. I wasn’t seen. I was not supported.

This family, with all the wisdom and tools I have now, and all the knowledge I have now is like it is shocking the amount of dysfunction and intergenerational trauma that is in that family. It goes back generation after generation, and it’s just getting repeated. The thing that was a game-changer for that family was really me because I was the one that was like, “No, thank you.”

Lindsay: You had already started to break that cycle, but you were still getting pulled back into it because you were unhealed. By you doing that healing work, you’ve continued to break that cycle, and now [crosstalk] fight it as much because [crosstalk]–

Jenn: Oh, yes. It’s not even a fight now, even. During our first round, I was grieving what connection I thought I had to family. I think what the healing element there was that I wasn’t really missing out on anything. I thought my brain was making me think that that was still safety, having the family unit, the traditional family unit. We’re kind of taught, society is that we should disregard how the family unit is functioning just for the sake of having a family.

Lindsay: Damn true. You were like, “Okay, I’m not going to do this. I have the competence to go out and do this my way.” Then you manifest the hair business, which just popped into your lap. A little backstory for people too, Jenn used to do hair. Then you were stay-at-home mom. Then in Authentically Awesome, did you even decide like you wanted to start working again? I don’t remember that, if you did.

Jenn: No. I was really just all about healing, finding my authentic self, and just tapping into that new belief system and that manifestation. Apparently, I’m a crazy manifesting generator sometimes when the vibes are right and the energy is there. It’s insane because I wasn’t looking. I wasn’t looking at all, to be honest with you.

Actually, funny enough, I was actually considering letting my license go. In the same week that I considered that, I had someone come over for a different playdate through the church that I was at, at the time. She’s still a hairdresser but she just got into a quick little conversation with my husband as everyone was getting ready to leave. She goes, “Yes, I’m a hairdresser.” He’s like, “Go talk to Jennnifer.”

She comes over to me, and she starts telling me about it. I’m like, “This is weird because I’m really considering not doing this.” She’s like, “No, don’t.” We got to talking and she let me do a couple of examples with her in her salon studio. Then she was like, “Why don’t you just work at my salon studio and just build your business?” I’m like, “What?” [chuckles]

Lindsay: Wow. That’s my memory of it was it just fell into your lap. It was just like, one week, you’re like, “I got this opportunity,” and I was like, “Oh.”

[laughter]

Then you started to have that business. I think it’s important to note that we did Life Luvers for about a month. You and I did Unstoppable for about three months. The three months after that, we did Authentically Awesome.

What happened is, Jenn being Jenn, Jenn just goes in and she does the work. She had a really great transformation the first three months in Unstoppable. Then it was tricky because then you still continued to change and manifest, but then it became too much. At the time we didn’t have things like, “Oh, upper limit problems, and let’s internally integrate this stuff.” It became hard for you to hold it.

Jenn: Authentically Awesome, funny enough, this time around was wonderful. It almost felt like a breeze because I was just like, “Authentic.” I was just tapping into my authentic self and that vision, but the first time honestly, I hated Authentically Awesome the first round. It was a fight.

It was like a fight to the death to get through that and even with you. At the time, we were sending in all of our workbook information. You were reviewing it. I think you’re just trying to still be like uplifting and positive. At the same time, you were like, “This sounds a little like maybe your inner critic is coming through, or maybe you’re self-sabotaging here a little bit.” I’m like, “What? I would get upset about it, and I wouldn’t tell you.

We didn’t know, of course, about the upper limit problem. We didn’t know how to navigate that yet, and also about the vacillator at the time. I was super black and white thinking at the time.

Lindsay: It either had to be authentic or it’s not authentic, and this is good, and this is bad. It’s bad if I have these negative feelings. Again, I hadn’t discovered that myself, and you were still growing and progressing, but it was still just like it wasn’t solidified yet.

Jenn: It wasn’t. Funny enough, we did happen to, this higher calling, we had some conversations about it in Authentically Awesome. You were trying to push me and get me to navigate that. I was just so resistant. It was almost like I manifested this business and it was like, “Oh, look what I manifested. This is perfect for me. I’m going to make money. I’m an entrepreneur.” It just was super easy for me to do. It’s still an absolute blessing, but at the same time, it wasn’t the calling.

Lindsay: Now, what I’m hearing you say, Jenn, is, “Let me just focus on this hair thing,” because the calling was too much, and, “Look, I’ll just do this other thing.” That’s what happened. Walk us through you and I part ways because, at the time, I was like, “Okay, you’re a little bird now. You go fly. Call me if you need me.” Then from 2016 to 2020, you were on your own?

Jenn: Yes.

Lindsay: What happened then?

Jenn: Well, I did my business for about two years.

Lindsay: Two years?

Jenn: Two-ish years. I tore myself to pieces through that business. Any circumstance that could have gone wrong in that business, it pretty much did. My husband was still traveling 80% of the year, so I only had like two days to commit to my business. That’s taking clientele and possibly even growing my education and my skills and my talent, and which is important, because you’re constantly growing your skills in that industry, or you should be anyway. I still have a little one at home too, Oliver, so I’m still navigating mommyhood with a young one. I vacillated the shit out of that business.

Lindsay: “I love it. I hate it. I’m in. I’m out.”

Jenn: Yes, I did horrible– I made this one little mistake, “Oh, you’re the worst hairdresser ever.” It got to the point where I was exhausted by that internal fight and that whole thought process and those beliefs that I’ve had as a businesswoman that I was just like, “Screw it. I can’t do this. I just need to stay home.”

Right around that same time I was staying home, I was still not fulfilled. I knew how to do the work. A lot of the tools, I was still implementing from your program, but it just wasn’t enough. Again, I found myself in and out of counseling. I didn’t know why I still felt like crap. Then then I was like, “I’m going to school.”

Lindsay: I remember seeing on Facebook that you’re going to school and I was like, “What? This is not aligned with Jenn.” I’m like, “Okay, well, she’s not asking for help. Don’t say anything. Maybe she’s grown and changed. Don’t judge it, Lindsay.” I watched you do that, and then is there anything [crosstalk]–

Jenn: Then COVID.

Lindsay: Yes, and then COVID. COVID happens, and then I say to my established clients last summer in 2020, I was like, “Okay, anyone who wants to come back, I have the Living the Dream thing. It’s only for established clients. We’re going to go through- I’ve redone Unstoppable, and Authentically Awesome. I’ve added some things. You’re going to get ongoing support all year long.”

You come to me for Living the Dream. Our biggest goal was tapping into your calling [crosstalk] to that right. What was that other big goal? For some reason, I’m spacing on it. It really was just like–

Jenn: I think it was just still healing and the mindset work.

Lindsay: Yes. I told you, I remember on our concept was like, “Jenn, I have this other inner mean girl voice called the vacillator. We both have it and now I know how to coach you through it. This upper limit problem thing, this is the other thing. This is what’s stopping you.” I taught you those things. We go with that and then what happens from there, Jenn?

Jenn: Well, first, I respectfully declined your offer. [laughs]

Lindsay: First, I was like, “Okay, Jenn, great. We’re going to move forward.” Then she’s like, “Oh, Lindsay, I just don’t have the money.” I’m like, “Jenn, no, you have to [crosstalk]?

Jenn: It wasn’t even the money, not having it. It was that I had help and I had support and acknowledgment from my husband, and even my mother, who was like, “Just do it. Just do it. We’ll figure it out. We’ll figure out the finances. Just do it.” I even told you that, but I felt like I wasn’t worthy of that money being spent on my investing in myself. Those years that I had not been with you and working, I had been tearing myself down and letting those thoughts come back a little bit.

Tony had lost his job because of COVID all this stuff. I was like, “I want to make my own money. I’m not doing this. I’m called to do something bigger.” It was getting louder I was just beyond frustrated and beside myself by the time I reached out to you. Then, of course, for some reason, I tried to self-sabotage the whole offer.

Lindsay: I was like, “No.”

Jenn: You fought hard for me.

Lindsay: I even remember, I was driving to lunch with Jason, and I got your email and I was like, “Fuck, no.” I was so pissed that whole lunch. I was like, “I need to get home right now to reply to Jenn.” I was like, “Point number one, point number two, of why you’re not talking yourself out of this.”

Jenn: Oh, you called me out. It wasn’t even rude. It was true. It was just the truth.

Lindsay: It was just like, “You say you want this. I know you want this. Don’t talk yourself out if this.”

Jenn: Yes, exactly that. It was exactly that. My reply was like, “Well, you’re not wrong.” [laughs]

Lindsay: Yes, and so then we got to work.

Jenn: Got to work. This time through Unstoppable because you start with Unstoppable, because you start with Unstoppable, then Authentically Awesome, then we go to Living the Dream. This time through Unstoppable, I tapped into some really deep-rooted stuff. Our favorite one, which is there’s something wrong with me, that belief was—Whoa.

Lindsay: We had many coaching calls where I was like, “What does this come back to, Jenn? ‘There’s something wrong with me.’” You’re like, “Shit.” I was like, “Repeat after me. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Jenn: There’s nothing wrong with me. I realized, my history with psychiatrists, and psychologists, counselors, therapists had contributed to that belief, actually. That was one of the biggest bullet holes for me that instill that belief. Giving my power away through my marriage, or whenever I’m upset about how things are not going, and the vacillator was so strong like, “Why didn’t I give that girl enough credit?”

Lindsay: Yes. Well, we had never tapped into her before, so it’s understanding that. You’ve healed so much this year, a whole layer.

Jenn: Oh, yes.

Lindsay: It’s not that the healing before didn’t work. It was just like, that just opened the portal to then, and then it was brewing for a couple of years for you. It created more problems, so we just had to go in and heal that really deep shit.

Jenn: Yes. I think because we were able to get deeper in there and heal, I was able to embrace my truth as a woman and as an abuse survivor. I finally realized, after navigating a lot of sadness because it was so uncomfortable for me, I don’t know if you remember, I was really not happy about being sad all the time.

Lindsay: Yes, because you had gotten used to being in anger, right?

Jenn: Oh, yes.

Lindsay: I was like, “Jenn, we’ve got to get below this.” Finally, we started cracking that wall and get into that sadness.

Jenn: Yes, and the sadness was (exhales). It was intense. It was deep. It took a while. It was weird. I would say this in our calls. I know the sadness was necessary, and I knew that I needed to get through it, and just feel it, and deal with that, and be okay with being sad. I feel like that was really such a gamechanger for me through the process. Right around the end of that processing that sadness, I got to this weird neutrality. I was like, “I’m sharing my story.”

Lindsay: That was the calling we had tapped in on before. I don’t remember what we called it. Writer, speaker, healer, something along those lines.

Jenn: Yes, something like that.

Lindsay: It was like, “Jenn, this is what you’re supposed to do.” It was such a strong truth in the both of us. I just remember like, “This is it.” Then you didn’t do it, and I’m like, “What the hell?”

Even, we had a session where it was like, “Oh, I’m going back to school,” but then you weren’t really into it. Then we had another session, “Should I go back to school?” I was like, “Jenn, no.” We coached on it. It was like, “This is not for you. You’ve got to go into your calling.” Then you started to finally accept that, but you had to accept it in yourself first and heal yourself first and really be like, “Yes, I had survived this abuse, instead of still like being in the storm of it.”

I remember that in our consult, you were like, “Well, my shitty childhood, this–” I was like, “Listen, it was shitty on paper Jenn, but you continually telling yourself this is going to keep you stuck there.”

Jenn: Yes, and it’s true. It’s true. Once I was able to change my focus, especially on it just being it was shitty, however, I gained so many strengths that I use every day today as a survivor of that, that I don’t even feel that anger or that sadness anymore. That was a part of my story, and it’s a small part of my huge story of Jenn.

Lindsay: Yes, and too because you healed it, now you can go share it without it hurting so much.

Jenn: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Lindsay: You started to work on your blog, design it, and then you launched it. When was the actual launch date? Was it June?

Jenn: It was June 18th or something around that time.

Lindsay: Yes, so it was June. We worked a lot behind the scenes this year for then you to finally produce that. Also, you took on a little side job from a member in our community at that time, and started bringing in some of that money, which was totally unexpected.

Jenn: Totally unexpected. She had reached out and said– She actually just had put a post like, “I’m thinking about hiring someone to help me.” I’m just wondering what kind of personality traits would be like in alignment with who she was. I just sat there. I don’t know. I felt like I was one of the first people to see it.

She posted when I was on the community. I was like, “I want to generate income. I’ve always thought about doing virtual assistant, but I don’t know where to start.” I just reached out to her and I said, “I have no idea what I’m doing, but here’s all my personality assessments. [chuckles]. I am a very quick learner. I feel like I would be a good match for you if you really have the time to teach me.” She was just like, “Yes, sure.” [chuckles] We did, and it was great. I suddenly was a contractor.

Lindsay: This goes back to again, Jenn, you are such a great manifester. You deliver so much value just being you that you snap your fingers, and you can have whatever abundance you want, which is something you and I have been working on you with you even more of like, “Lindsay, I want more money.” I’m like, “Jenn, you have it in your inner circle right now. You can tap into whatever you want, whenever you want, by just being you because, again, you deliver so much value just energetically being yourself.”

That’s where you’re at right now of like really owning, “I’m an entrepreneur now. I can just walk into a room, and people love me.” At our live event that we had just a few weeks ago, it was like, “I just can’t believe everyone is saying all these things about me,” and blah, blah, bah. We’re like, “What? This is you. Quit making it outside of yourself, and just accept your greatness.”

Jenn: Absolutely.

Lindsay: You’ve owned your power this past year in many ways. Now, it’s really accepting your greatness and continuing to own that power. Is that how you see it too?

Jenn: Oh, yes. I will say I think one of the biggest things for me that I was so stuck on was that when you do coaching, you see your coach or other people in the group that you’re working with. You see them living this practically 10 life.

Lindsay: Or so you think.

Jenn: Or so you think. Again, it’s the whole outside looking in thing, and the whole comparison thing. You think to yourself, “Oh, shit. I am not growing enough. I’ve got to up my game. I’m not doing the process right,” or something like that.

The truth of the matter is, and I finally embraced this, is that shit is still going to happen in your life. It is still going to happen. There’s going to be setbacks. There’s going to be a circumstance that comes up, a hardship, a negative thought that you thought you got rid of or you thought you healed. These things are going to come up, and it’s just a part of the growth game. It is there for a reason.

It is so funny because I think one of the biggest, “challenges” for me, because it’s a thought, is that accepting my greatness doesn’t have to be hard. I am great. I have power. I am deeply empowered. Just see it and live it. Embrace it. It’s okay. [chuckles] It doesn’t change who I am.

Lindsay: Too, that was a big thing this past year, was like, “Oh, everybody else is better. My coach is blah, blah, blah.” I kept saying, “Jenn, I have my problems too.” We were having to do that to heal that vacillator that looks at things in black and white of like, “There’s always going to be struggles. Things are probably going to be 50/50. If not, maybe you have 80/20 thrown in there sometimes, but there’s always going to be good and bad.”

Then you accepting that in yourself because there’s a part of you that was like, “Until I’m perfect, then I’ll be great, then I’ll be ready.” I was like, “No, you’re ready and you’re perfect exactly how you are right now, so go out there and launch.”

Jenn: Yes, and I think that’s one of the challenges to this is that you have to—I want people to know that I think sometimes you go into coaching with this perception that you’re going to come out a completely different person. That’s not true. You are going to be you 10.0. And that’s good.

I always thought maybe my corky humor, and my sassiness, and my fire is not really who I am. It is absolutely who I am. That’s why a lot of people love me because I just say stuff, and I’m funny about it. I just feel like you are a new person. You’re elevated. You’ve leveled up. You’re thriving emotionally and mentally, and you cleared out so many of your blocks, and you’re healed. I think that is what the difference is. It doesn’t mean that you’ve lost you. You’re just tapping into authentic you.

Lindsay: What I hear you say, Jenn, correct me if I’m wrong.

I hear you say you’re not going to change who you are at your core, but you’re going to take those qualities of you, like your fire, for example, and use them in a way that’s authentic versus in a way that you had used them in the past, me included in this, because I can be fiery too, is in what we call our “inner mean girl way” of having a wall up, being angry, being snarky and resentful, and instead using it as like, I want to fight passionately for these causes, and fight passionately to help women, and do all those things.

We’re channeling it in an authentic way, and we’re giving you the courage, too, to go out and do that. You and I coached a lot on women’s beliefs, and being powerful women, and all that stuff, so having that courage. What you said too, is like the healing aspects. It’s not being channeled in these ways that are detrimental to you in society and your family and all the things but in a way that’s productive.

Jenn: Absolutely. Absolutely. Exactly.

Lindsay: Good. Jenn, wrap us up. Two questions for you. First one, what would you say are your biggest results to date from coaching?

Jenn: Gosh, biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest? Honestly, I just feel like tapping into my authenticity and living it is a big one. Most of my life, I’m 38 years old, and I thought I was the incarnate of the thought, “There’s something wrong with me.” [laughs] That’s what I believed for the longest time, like there’s something wrong with me. It’s not true. There’s nothing wrong with me, actually.

I had to deal with some crazy stuff. I had to navigate it, heal it. Now I can be exactly who I was meant to be and serving this world. Now I have the confidence and, really, just the light to share my story with the world and to let people know that, “You are not your circumstance. You are not your hardship. You are not the trauma that you lived through. That is not your identity.

I’m here for you, babe. because I was in your shoes. I’ve been there. That is not who I am, so it’s sure shit not who you are. You’re this beautiful light in this world and it’s time for you to tap into that and be it.” I just feel like that right there, the fact that I can say that to you, is a huge result in itself. Also, knowing that I can just do things, I can do really hard things that– I was in massive action basically the entire year. There were hiccups, sure.

Lindsay: You were with your healing, especially.

Jenn: Yes.

Lindsay: New block, going to heal. New block, going to heal.

Jenn: I feel like I generated having my virtual assistant business, and I had that help, and I navigated it and now I’m doing it. Now I have my own client. They’re probably going to be a very long-time client, and I’m very happy with them. They’re in alignment with me and I–

Lindsay: And knowing what’s in alignment for you?

Jenn: Oh, my gosh, huge.

Lindsay: Yes, because before it was like, “Where am I going? What am I doing? Who am I?”

Jenn: Exactly. I feel like that is one of the biggest questions I ask myself every time someone asks me, “Do you want this client?” I’ve actually had them reach out to me. She was feverishly reaching out to me, for me to be her VA, but there were a lot of red flags. I had to really sit back and look at those emails and wonder, I don’t– just don’t feel in alignment with me because I see these red flags in this conversation. I feel like this is not going to serve me and it’s probably not going to serve that person, either to work for them.

Lindsay: Trusting yourself.

Jenn: Which I can. Even just saying that now is like, “Oh, wow, I did that.”

Lindsay: Yes, because that’s still work we’re working on. I was like, “Jenn, trust yourself. You know what you’re doing.” Now you’re accepting your greatness, except by trusting it. Look at you. You freaking did it, there. That’s freaking awesome.

Jenn: I know. Then I just whip up. I wouldn’t say whip up. There was a march just to putting that website together. Here’s a bit about myself. I had someone help me navigate a couple of things on there. Once I got to that point, I was like, boom, and I exploded and I just put it together and I was figuring out a little bit of code. I finally accepted just because something doesn’t happen at the timeframe that I originally decided doesn’t mean it failed. It just means it didn’t happen in the time that I thought it would be done.

Lindsay: Again, nailing that black and white thinking.

Jenn: Yes. I am in this place now, and this is just so strange to say out loud because I feel like embracing it. I am in such a place of probability now. There’s no more like, “Maybe, that could be a possibility.” It’s like, “Oh, that’s going to happen. It’s a matter of when.”

Lindsay: Yes. That goes back to your belief in yourself.

Jenn: It just still feels foreign sometimes because it’s the whole integration of believing yourself, the confidence, the trust yourself. I feel like we’re in a society that if we’re taught anything is to trust everyone and what everyone else is saying except for yourself.

Lindsay: Totally. I think it goes back to the big thing we were working on, is there something wrong with you, and you continuously saying, not true, not true, not true. Finally, you let that go. Now, it’s like, “Okay, there’s nothing wrong with me, so why don’t I just trust myself?”

Jenn: I just do it.

Lindsay: You were spinning in for so long was, I need to figure out what the thing is that’s stopping me.” It’s nothing. There’s nothing stopping you, Jenn.

Jenn: That’s the thing when we don’t trust ourselves, and we don’t just do it, if we don’t just push ourselves to just do it. I finally realized, like you’ve actually mentioned this in a previous podcast, like words you don’t like to say. Maybe that’s not the right title, but “try.” Trying like that. You don’t try. You don’t try anything. You’re either doing it or you’re not. It’s true. We are either doing something or we’re not doing something.

For me, it’s like, “Okay, I’m going to do this.” Well, did it fail? Maybe, it did fail, but you know what, now I just know how to approach- if I want to try again, I know what not to do next time, or maybe it wasn’t in alignment for what I was really supposed to do anyway.

Lindsay: That goes back to what we were teaching this year with going all in is like you can intentionally go in and try and be like, “Oh, I’m going to try volleyball this week.” When you’re in that energy you’re like, “Oh, I’m just effing around.” When I was really teaching, it was like, go all in. If you want this, let’s go. That’s what allowed us to really pull what the stuff that was stopping you, which was, there’s something wrong with me and all this stuff.

Jenn: I feel like that’s absolutely what you just said. When you go all in and you are doing it, you were taking the actions to like, I paid for my LLC, I paid for that website, I paid for that domain, it’s like, you start feeling things, and you’re like, “Oh, shit I got to work on that? Oh, here’s a thought. Oh, oh, here’s a belief.”

It’s not a perfect process. I want everyone to understand that it’s just not a perfect process. You start shedding these layers of these thoughts, these beliefs, and you’re like, “This doesn’t even serve me. I’m doing it. I am literally doing this and nothing is going to stop me so why am I–? What am I doing wasting my time thinking this thought?”

One thing was like, if I ever ran into something on the website, I was like, “Oh, I’m just too stupid to figure this out.” No, I’m not. I just don’t know where to go right now.

Lindsay: You have the tools to recognize that, right, Jenn, like, ”This is a thought. Here’s how to change it.” You had the coaching of seeing things that you weren’t seeing. I’m like, “Jenn, you’re not seeing this.”

So much fun. Jenn, somebody’s sitting here, and they’re like, “Okay, maybe I should sign up for coaching.” What would you tell them?

Jenn: Gosh, I hate saying this, because it’s a Nike slogan, but just do it.

Lindsay: That’s what everybody says, just do it.

Jenn: It’s true. What’s so interesting to me about this process is everyone in this process is from a different background. We all have a different story. We all have different personalities. We all have different strengths. We all have different talents. We all have different weaknesses.

The thing that was magical about this process was that it actually served everyone in a different way. Even if you felt like, “That doesn’t really resonate with me,” and it did with someone else, and they would talk about it, for instance, in the coaching call or in the community, you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t think of it that way.” It just keeps those cogs turning and that inner work going because you realize that there is going to be something, or really, there’s everything in the system will resonate with you.

It’s just like our group coaching calls or one-on-one coaching calls, it’s just that whole navigation of the content, or the belief system, or the healing that it will work. There are things that will serve you and this. It’s just figuring out how because we’re all different.

I feel like it’s shocking because there are other systems out there that you can read advertisements for and you’re like, “It sounds really exciting but I’m not sure if it’s serving every person.” I feel like I witnessed this on two different occasions serving so many different women for so many different worlds. We are witnessing our growth and our healing. That alone is so magical. Coming from someone who has a dark past, so to speak, I can tell you, this has been better for me than therapy has been for me in the past, this action, this change in my belief system, the homework, keeping myself accountable, you keeping us accountable, constant going all in and you just saying, “Hey, you’re not doing it. Come on. Step it up. Step it up.” It’s like, yes, we need that. People need that.

It’s also because we have someone out there helping us navigate our thoughts and everything. You can’t trade that in with just traditional counseling, you just can’t. This has such extreme value. Honestly, it’s priceless to me, because there, I feel like I was trapped. I felt like I was trapped for so long. Now, it’s just like I am the vision I had for my authentic self. I am that person. Anyone who does this process can be that person as well.

Lindsay: Yes, so many nuggets right there. It’s so true. The process is powerful. You customize it based on who you are. I’m there and whoever else is there to help customize that for you. I don’t even know what– You just said it so well, Jenn.

Jenn: Thank you.

Lindsay: All right, Jenn, thank you for sharing your story with us.

Jenn: You’re welcome.

Lindsay: Of course, everyone needs to go follow Jenn and her blog and online. Can you tell everybody where they can find you?

Jenn: I have my Instagram, which is beautifully bent, never broken, nothing special, just spelled out like that and all together, and then my website where all my writing is and my content is, is beautifullybentneverbroken.com

Lindsay: Jenn has these stunning photos on it from a member on our community that took them. Man, what a fun year Jenn it’s been to watch you grow and to see you lean on the community and you help the community.

Jenn: I know. I know. Sometimes I still get shocked by it. I’ll sit there and I’ll start thinking about it and just the journey this year, and I’ll just start– I’m just sitting in a mode of trying to integrate everything and I started thinking about the whole year and I’m like, “Whoa, that was a lot. Oh, my gosh, did that really happen?

Lindsay: I’m in the same face that we’ve wrapped it up and we’re in our last few weeks, is like, “Holy shit, how did I hold space for that all year?”

Jenn: [laughs] I don’t know.

Lindsay: I’m like we did all of that. That’s what was so cool about the group too, is that we’re a lot of people have career goals but everybody has such different goals that they still happen based on the process, which is so cool. Thanks again, Jenn, for sharing your story. You’re always so much fun to interview and to coach and to hear from. That’s why everybody has to go follow you.

Jenn: Thank you so much. I had so much fun.

[music]

Hey there, Miss Unstoppable. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend. Send them a picture of this episode via text, via email, share it on social media, I’m sure they would be so appreciative to know these strategies and tips on how to accomplish your dreams. If you are ready to guarantee you’re going to accomplish your goals and dreams, then it’s time to start coaching with me.

In my nine-month simple success coaching system, I am going to walk you every single step of the way to ensure that you get the goals and dreams that you want. The first step is to apply for a free 60-minute consult call. Just go to LindsayEpreston.com/apply to get started. As always, my friend, remember, you’re only as unstoppable as you believe you can be, so believe in yourself. You got this.

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