we're supposed to work like we don't have children and parent like we don't have a job wow and that can really weigh on you [Music] hey everyone welcome back to on purpose the number one Health podcast in the world thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen learn and grow now I'm really lucky in life to have a great group of friends and these friends are just not doing everyday things they're doing
incredible things and helping other people do that as well now one of these friends is a guest I have on the show today she has a new book out that I can't wait for you to hear about and she has something exciting as well for you
to discover when you pre-order the book so I wanted to hang around for that as well I'm excited and remember I always talk about how pre-orders really help authors orders really help authors and as an author myself I know how much
hours and time and energy goes into writing a book so when one of my friends puts in that energy puts in that effort I love to support them with all my heart and all my joy and I love that our community does the same but today's
guest is none other than Jennifer you're born and raised in Minnesota wife mother and entrepreneur who aims for two things daily helping others wake up to life and staying in comfy pants Creator and host of the top rated gold digger podcast
she's helped thousands redefine success and Chase bold dreams through her decade-long work as a leading online personality and educator welcome to the show Jenna Kutcher and today we're talking about her new book how are you
really Jenna thank you for being here oh my gosh Jay this genuinely feels like such a dream come true I'm getting so many brownie points in my mom's world for being with you today but thank you for having me this is such a Dream well
no we became friends I think now it's like three years ago I think when we were in Puerto Rico together yeah we're going to be with your beautiful family as well and then we hang out in Napa more recently and I know you and Rodney
have been connecting and collaborating and so I I was so happy to to do this with you honestly it's it's my greatest joy to you know just see friends doing credible things and support them and I think that all of us are really looking for that I
was saying to my team today that I really love doing what I do but what I'm excited about is having history with people so I love the idea one of my greatest values is when I'm 50 and then when I'm 75 it's like I want to look
back and I want someone to look back with and that's why I think friendships are so important to me too because when you can look back at 20 30 40 50 years with the same people and say look what we did that's what we did and that's
what we did together right you know I really appreciate that so thank you for giving me this opportunity but you the title of your book is how are you really and I love that you you know very much emphasize the importance of that
question and the depth of that question because I think today we ask how are you all the time so I wanted to ask you to start off with then I'll answer the question too to be honest and vulnerable how are you really today uh In This
Moment uh and then I'll have a go at telling you how I am really too I can't wait you know I I didn't make a mistake but when I named the book that I should have known that every time I talked to someone now they ask and I'm I'm being
called into honesty which I think is so beautiful and there is such a big differentiator between like how are you and it's like good fine busy but like when you feel safe especially when you're with someone that you love and
you know and they like lean in and they're like but how are you really you're like okay and I've been describing this season of my life so I have two little ones very little so one is three one is a few months old and I
said the season of life I feel stretched and I feel stretched in a beautiful way because I have so much love for being a mom but I also have never loved my work more and it just sometimes feels like a lot of love to carry and it's like the
fullness of it is never lost on me and so we're in this season of like total sleep deprivation at home my toddler recently started sleeping in a big girl bed there are probably five times a night where there's a little one on my
feet saying mommy mommy and I'm in this season where it's like this energy can only come from something other than myself because I feel so electrically energized and excited about the work I'm doing but also like the life I'm living
offline so to answer your question it all feels heavy and full but in the best way possible now how are you really yeah I know thank you for that very uh full rich and you know textured answer I think one of the things I loved about what you said and it's it's inspired my response as well is you were saying that you're in a particular season and I think that that is such a healthy way of thinking how you are and I think often we do one of two
things we we look at things too minutely where it's like this is how I am right now and that can feel like a lot of pressure because I could feel totally different within 30 seconds of drinking some water or going on a walk or looking
outside the window or we some of them say well this is how the year is going and and that's sometimes scary as well because it feels like we can't control anything until December 31st and we have to wait till Jan first again
so I love that you use the word season and I would say that I'm in a season right now and I feel like I'm I'm constantly in this season I'm in a season of like lots of growth lots of being outside of my comfort zone and I'm
in a season also of I'm actually finishing writing my second book right now so I'm in the process of completing a creative Journey that takes everything out of me and I'm about to open up to a new world of creativity because I'm now going to
have that time and energy back to translate in another Direction so I feel like I'm at this transition and I find that transitions are always tiring and exhausting because you're about to complete let go and sign off on something and then you're thinking about what to do next and and that's always like that little moment of discomfort and unease that yeah it comes with that transition so that's how I am really oh my gosh you know it's interesting
there's so much that goes into writing a book that I think is surprising and until you do the journey you don't recognize that and one thing that I think is fascinating that our friend Brendan burchard actually told me that I
thought was so beautiful is that when you're writing a book it really does feel like your life's work right like you pour your heart and your soul and your everything into it and he said something to me and he said you know Jenna um this is not your life's work
this is an important piece of work in your life and I thought oh that is so beautiful because it's so tempting to like dive head first in and like kind of crawl out of the hole when you finally get there so I thought that was such a
good reminder for all of us who are working on projects or relationships or careers or whatever that might be or your health of like this isn't your life's work it's just an important piece of work in your life yeah wow that
that's such a refreshing perspective and I I love that little shift in mindset that changes it completely but but let's dive in you know both of us get very I think honest answers and and vulnerable answers and
you know I I think that it's probably taken us some time to get to be able to do that and you talk about this in your book the idea that some of us actually afraid to answer that question uh and acknowledge the problems and the challenges and the
discomfort that comes with that question so we often find it easier to say I'm fine it's okay you know the usual the same old but you're actually saying that it's healthy to try and acknowledge accept and go there why is it critical
necessary and integral for us to try and face the real answer to that question why is that so important when I think about the question how are you really a lot of times people think about it in context of conversation with someone else but
really when I think about it it's about coming home to yourself and we live in this culture where it's like we're constantly distracted it's really easy for me as a mom to see it with children where you're like children don't know
how to be bored anymore they don't know how to be creative anymore they're so used to being like pacified with screens or different things and when I look at it through the lens of children I suddenly see oh wait adults are like 10
times worse we are the kind of people who bring our phones to the restroom with us like we skip shavasana at the end of a yoga session because we don't believe we deserve the rest like there are so many ways that we avoid getting
quiet with ourselves and it's really easy to do because we are busier than ever right like busy is the badge of honor if you're busy you must be doing well and what I think is really fast needing about that is that we start to
tune out like The Whispers of like our own soul like the Divine pieces of ourselves that are guiding us so that we listen to the noise of the world and it gets really uncomfortable and it gets really hard to discern like what is my
intuition what is my soul telling me what is the world telling me and how do these two coexist and I think that in truth you know with the culture that we're in they have to coexist but there's a difference between being the
passenger on a journey and being in the driver's seat and a lot of times the noise of the world is the driver's seat for us and our intuition might be that garment that hasn't been updated since 2010 that's telling us like redirect redirect redirect and I feel like whenever I talk to people and they're going through a massive life change whether it's a breakup or a career change or a health change you ask them like did you have that inner knowing
like did you have that ping and a lot of times they'll say yeah I knew something was offer I knew I needed a change or I knew I was out of alignment but I didn't listen and so this idea of like how are you really isn't necessarily just about
in conversation it's about how am I really am I faking that I'm enjoying my life am I putting on a public persona for the World online but offline and miserable am I really yearning for something different and so it's really
this invitation to get quiet with yourself and to learn how to invite in that margin in that time and Jay you are one of the best at helping people get to that place I mean your meditations have been this constant in my life because
it's this invitation of getting quiet and I I don't know about you but for a long time I've always just told myself like I can't meditate my brain is too busy I operate at a higher level all these things but I had to train myself
in how to do that just as I had to train myself to run a race or to work as hard as I do yeah I love I love what you spoke about there and how it's beyond the conversation but the idea of listening to our to our real selves and
listening to that voice and you're so right I loved what you said about how we are constantly feeling or we say things like I wasn't aligned or I wasn't listening then so that means we know it's there but we keep trying to put it
off and it's almost like I it's it's I mean this is a a very crude example but but it's just reality I was having a bit of pain physically recently and it was recurring like it just kept coming up and more often and then my
trainer my my uh physical trainer he said to me he said have you had this before we were working out or have you just had it now and dad got me to think about it and then I started to think about it and I couldn't remember when
and then this weekend I went to a trampoline park with uh one of my closest friends and their kid like their son's like two years old and so we went to a trampoline park messing around with him on the trampoline park obviously I got too carried away I felt like I stretched something came back again I was like oh no it's definitely triggered through physical activity realized that two years ago I felt the same thing while playing basketball
and I was like wow I've been feeling something physically for two years but I waited for it to get really bad and happen more often to listen to it pay attention to pay attention and that's something physical what about something
emotional and mental and relational and People based and so I love what you said about the idea of listening and silence and Stillness being the best place you can listen how have you learned and I'm intrigued by this how have you learned
as someone who is busy who is a mother who is an entrepreneur who who is a wife you play so many roles you know you're writing a book on top of all of that how have you found what is stillness to you and I'm asking that to you as who
you are because I think when people talk to me they know I meditate they know I have these practices I I was lucky enough to be a monk for three years where I learned so many practices but as someone who's in the real world in
challenging situations constantly what does Stillness mean for you and what does it look like for you yeah there's this chapter in the book called my soul shavasana because I used to go to yoga and I did it for the workout I like
missed the whole point right like it's called a practice not an art like we're supposed to be practicing it and as an achiever and someone who loves to achieve I always was the person in the class like comparing myself like did I
get that bind can I do the headstand and at the end of the class it pained me to lay on the mat like I told myself like you didn't deserve this you didn't sweat hard enough you know all of these things and when I look at my life it's so easy
to delay rest it's like we keep pushing the Finish Line further further and further I'll rest when I'll rest then I'll celebrate when and we like keep pushing these lines out so that we never arrive and what I think is fascinating
is that I've honestly had to learn how to rest I've literally had to look at it kind of like a couch to 5K but in Reverse like I'm running the 5K daily how do I get myself back on the couch without feeling guilty without feeling
like I'm lazy or complacent or any of those things because I really think our culture has confused contentness with complacency and if we're content we believe that like we should be achieving more or we're not using our full
potential but I think being content is the most beautiful gift you can give yourself it means that you're like fully in the moment you're fully filled with gratitude you're fully present you're in life as it's happening and so for me
getting quiet with myself there's this part at the end of the book where I joke because I'm like I love listening to like incredible personal development people who are like you know you wake up and you do your morning pages and you do
your meditation and you do all these things because I think that's beautiful but in this stage of life I am clinging to every second of sleep I can possibly get because I'm up in the middle of the night and so I'm like oh my God I would
love those things but rest comes in these tiny infinite small moments for me and one of the things that I've had to do is that I often feel pulled in many directions so there's this line out there for working mothers because I
believe all mothers are working but specifically women with careers who are also mothers and it's like we're supposed to work like we don't have children and parent like we don't have a job and that can really weigh on you
like it can really pull you and so I've had to adopt this practice of when I cross the threshold into a room whether it's an office my bedroom the house the living room my daughter's room like whatever that is I have to really like
plant my feet and like actually cross through with intention to just be here now because my brain could be thinking about an email while I'm reading Dr Seuss and my I could be writing an email and thinking about nap time or or
nursing or whatever it is and so I've really had to just invite Stillness in really small segments in my life and prioritize that in a meaningful way but I really yearn for and look forward to those days where I can have more of that
and I think that again we look at Seasons and if I've learned anything specifically about motherhood It's All Temporary it's all fleeting it all goes by so fast and so just kind of being where you are but knowing where you want
to go that's kind of where I'm sitting today oh that's beautiful yeah I I couldn't agree more too I I wonder as you were saying that and I'm literally just sitting with you and thinking with you and and hearing you out and I'm like
how have you made sense gen of your identity of Who You Are because I you know the book really does dive into like who you are and and I find like we've we adopt so many titles I I often say to my team I'm like I find it really hard to choose a title for who I am and what I do I really don't enjoy it and so whenever they ask like oh Jay what do you want us to put from your bio onto this thing I'm like I don't like that uh you know human
being being human yeah exactly exactly exactly and when someone asks me like who are you and what do you do my answer to that is I am someone who's trying to help people discover their purpose and live up to their potential whatever that may be like that's who I am I'm not an author or a podcaster or a coach or a which is all the things I have to say I am to make sense and then I think about that how many things do we say about ourselves so that
it makes sense to other people but may stop making sense or feeling sense like to ourselves so how have you made sense of your identity as more titles more expectations more achievements and things come in the mix more
responsibilities how do you see yourself I'm intrigued by that yeah I love this because I really struggled so there's this idea of identity foreclosure I learned about it on my podcast there was an amazing woman Dr Maya Shanker who came on and yeah
she's great she's amazing and she was talking about it and she said something that had just stuck with me and she's like it's the same reason why we hang on to genes that don't fit and we complete degrees when we know we don't want to
even finish them and work in that area it's this idea of like well I've already come so far and why would I make that a waste of time or why would I change and I have really had to learn how to welcome change into my life because I
feel like I am constantly on the precipice of like who I am becoming and for me my career path has been all over the place so I worked in Corporate America had a fancy five-word title then decided to pick up a camera my camera became my vehicle out of that job and Jay just like you were saying like author podcast all these things those are just the vehicles to get your mission out into the world right like they're not necessarily who you are
they're just the methods to get the message and so it's been super interesting to me because I feel like I'm constantly changing and evolving and to me the mission matters so much more than the method and so for me like being
a mom is like my number one thing it's like my identity marker and I think some of it too is because I yearned for it for so long we went through a lot of obstacles in starting that and so I always said like if I'm ever fortunate
enough to have that title I will never take that title for granted because I watched other people get that and it pained me to see like you don't know the miracle that this is um but I agree I think that we are Visionaries and the way that we do our
work is like like the missionaries of the mission and so it's like the methods of that and so I always try and I'm from the Midwest so a lot of people aren't super familiar with the world we're in and so try describing a podcast your 93
year old grandfather I'm like Grandpa it's kind of like a sermon where I talk about business and it's like a radio show but you can listen to it anytime and so it's like none of that matters more than the mission and who we are and
I think who we are offline is more important than who we are online yeah yeah yeah I couldn't agree with you more I think the I I always I was saying to a friend yesterday the other day that I feel like the stuff that I get to do
in my private life is even more fun than the stuff I get to do in my public life yeah and and most people are unaware of the the private life and and and I get joy out of it and and I think there's something about that that I think is important to protect what I what I find fascinating about what you do though Jenna especially with this book is like you're really trying getting people to bust the myths that our generation kind of adopted like
hustling harder having to have this have have that wake up at this certain time and tell me about the times when you did Hustle Hard and because what I find different about when you say that is you're not someone who didn't know how to hustle hard you're someone who definitely knows how to hustle hard and and was successful hustling hard but then realized that shortcomings which is why I I appreciate it from your perspective so when you're
in that corporate job in America and you're hustling hard can you walk us through about why the romanticization about hustling hard kind of you know didn't work for you so I want to preface this because I think this is an important point and I think your
audience will really resonate with this but I feel like we live in such a polarizing time in so many different ways but part of that polarization is that we feel like we're there's two camps especially for Achievers there is
the hustle culture camp and then there's the manifestation Camp the manifestation camp and the hustle Camp they believe that only one of these can exist and so what's interesting about me and my book and my ideology is it's kind of like
where the woo meets the work like where the vision meets the ACT action and it's in a sustainable way that keeps you in your life and so I tell this story about how I was in my corporate job and I sat down with my boss and she gives me my
Five-Year Plan like gives it to me doesn't ask me about it doesn't ask me like what do you want what do you see for yourself like what's next for you and it was this wake-up call of like I am literally climbing a ladder that someone else is putting in front of me without ever checking in is this what I want is this what I envisioned for my life do I want the promotion if it means more responsibility um and I've had these different seasons
in my life and I think that everyone hits them where they're we look at our time and money but we don't look at our energy and I think energy is everything and so there are seasons in my life where I traded my time in order to make
money and then there are seasons of my life where I have been able to take money and get back time right things like instacart or Uber or whatever that looks like but a lot of times we forget about like our energy and I don't know
about you but like I've arrived at certain places and I've gotten to these goals or these big milestones and I land there and I'm like I thought this would feel different like it looks great but I thought it would feel different maybe
I'm not going hard enough maybe I need to do more maybe it's the next thing that'll feel good and I've recognized that that's not the case like I want to live a life that feels better than it looks and so I have had these seasons of
hustle that have led to burnout but after the burnout for me I always have this breakthrough and the Breakthrough is usually that somewhere in the course of the pursuit I got off the path and now I've got to redirect or figure out a
new map or reassess the direction I'm heading and I've pivoted so many times in my career and thankfully I've pivoted successfully but I've gone from being a photographer to a watercolor artist to a speaker to a podcaster to a course
creator all of these different things and I believe that people have followed me because of my energy not because of the time or the money but like they can feel the heart and they can sense the alignment and so I feel like there's
this really called to people to pay attention to like how are you energetically feeling like I haven't slept a full night in three weeks but I am so energized and excited because I have never been in alignment better in
my work life like I've never felt more in alignment and so it's this interesting thing where we focus so much on time and money and that a lot of times attributes to the burnout attributes to The Hustle but if we check in with ourselves and see where our energy is I think that can be the compass that then guides us forward what are some of the things that you found that you feel drain your or our energy and what are some of the things that
give and drive your energy because as soon as you talked about the the ratio of time money and and energy I I was completely with you I I think those money and time are always like the levers that we're trying to play with and the real thing
that we're missing out on is is energy so I'm completely with you but yeah what are the things that drain and drive your energy or you think generally maybe more scalably drain and drive all of our energy yeah I feel like if you pull up
your calendar and you hate what you see coming up that's a good sign that you're out of alignment have you ever looked at your calendar and you're like who booked this and then you're like oh no that was me like I said yes to all of these
things and I have been in Seasons like that um and really recognized like I am not looking forward to life like I am dreading these agreements or I'm over extended or I'm stretched too thin and I feel it and a lot of times it's us
saying yes and not having boundaries and so for me I'm actually quite introverted a lot of our friends surprisingly are were the people that can stand on his stage and talk to thousands of people but if we get into a room with strangers
we're like the ones like awkwardly standing in the corner and so really paying attention to like what sort of boundaries do I need to have in place that protect my energy but allow me to do work that's meaningful and so when
the pandemic hit and life shifted I was like I have been training my entire life for this I started my business in a town of 1200 I live in small town Minnesota I've been trying to convince people that so much can be done digitally over the years and all of a sudden I'm like oh I can like open my laptop do my work close it and get back to life and so I think it takes a really great deal of self-awareness because my husband Drew
you know him he's an extrovert he could talk to anyone it is his like greatest dream to like go to the gym and talk to Bob while they're walking around the path like and figure out his life story and to me that kills me like small talk
kills me and so it's like what is this self-awareness on what drains you and what drives you and how do you try to pursue this blend of it because I think we're over this idea of balance like if you look at the definition of balance
it's maintaining a perfect balance of something and like balance is a moment it's not like something that you can master and so for me it's like what does this blend look like if I say my values are being a mom but I'm committing to a
work trip that takes me away for two weeks am I in alignment with what I say is important to me and I think a lot of people right now if they looked at their calendar and they said you know my values are my health or my family or my
relationships or this important work that I'm doing but they looked at their calendar they would see that they might have gotten off course and it's not a bad thing it's just an invitation to course correct so in that example which I think was such a great one are you saying that we have to be more selective overall priorities in a particular season absolutely if you are able to and honestly Jay and I think it's important to note like it's a
privilege to be able to say yes and no to Opportunities right some people don't have that invitation to just say you know I'm not gonna agree to that if that's something that's going to pay the bills but at the same point in time one
thing that I've been doing a lot lately is if I get an invitation when I'm in person with someone because I just like love people's energy and I'm so prone to say yes I'm like the kind Midwest girl I've been saying let me check my
calendar and get back to you on that because a lot of times when I over commit on things energetically in the moment it feels right but then when I look at it a week from now a month from now I'm like oh shoot like I shouldn't
have committed to this so there are boundaries that I think can be really important that can buy yourself the time to really assess is this the right opportunity is it shiny is it going to guide me forward is it going to serve
others is this a clear yes us or no and I always think it's either like a hell yes or a heck no and you've got to pick more of the hell yeses in your life how have you learned to say no recently to people who you deeply love and people
you know care for you and and then you still want to say no for your values like have you have you had to do that recently like how have you I'm so good how have you been yeah okay tell us walk us through that a little bit because I
think yeah I I had to do it the other day I had someone reach out and they're like yeah I need you to do this thing and I I send them my response but I want to hear yours and then and then all that to it but yeah tell tell me how you deal with that I'm intrigued so boundaries are something that I think people are afraid of because when you think about boundaries you think about like keeping something or someone out right like you
almost picture up like a fence around and that feels scary but I have found that boundaries keep us in our life like the life that we're meant to be leaving and when we have good boundaries it really invites us to like be awake to
the life that we say we want so for example when I was pregnant with my first daughter Coco I blacked out the entire year following her birth I had not a single commitment on my calendar for an entire year now was that scary
absolutely did I fear that I would lose momentum yes did I wonder would I become Irrelevant in that year of course but I said that being a mother was the greatest gift the biggest miracle that I could ever invite into my life and you
better believe I was going to live that way and I just didn't know what to expect I didn't know if I would Thrive if I would be flailing like I didn't know and I wanted to give myself space and time to adjust to that new life and
that new version of who I was and so I put up bumpers like I think about bowling and I think about boundaries as like bumpers that keep us in the lane that keep us aligned and from falling in the gutter and so I told my team I said
if any inquiries come in I don't care who it is I want for you to just send this polite decline to them I don't want to hear about it because I'm going to want to say yes I don't want to see it because it's gonna make me antsy that I
should do it and I just want you to send this out and if it's the right thing I truly believe it will come back in the right timing I believe that that will happen and so I also have a note on my phone that I use often and it's when I get an invitation that's wonderful or from somebody I love and all it says is oh my goodness like thank you so much for considering me for this opportunity I'm so flattered and I'm so excited for
you right now I have to politely Decline and I want for you to know that this in me declining it is not a reflection of you or your opportunity or the work that you're doing it is solely a reflection of the values that I'm living and me
saying yes to you right now means that I'm gonna have to say no to what is most important to me and right now that is my family I truly hope you understand I can't wait to work with you in the future I'm cheering you on as you go
wishing you the best and I also include a caveat that says I hope that in me doing this it is an invitation for you to lean in and live out the values in your life as well wow what a message that's amazing that's that's such a
beautiful I haven't memorized because I need it off I know I was like wow that is that's like a deep genuine word for what message I I love that I I mean even just the the depth of that message is is so powerful and I just want to take a
moment everyone is listening or watching just to acknowledge that that often you can have a message that says hey thank you so much I'm grateful but can't do this right now I hope you understand and that's great but the depth of that
message to even remind someone to follow their own values to to explain what your value is right now I think so much is lost in not communicating our values and our priorities and I don't think that we need to create a world where we can more
easily explain our priorities and our values without feeling uncomfortable about them and I think often people think they need to lie or make something up or construct I'm busy right I'm busy like yeah and and it's like when when someone gets that message not only do they not understand you actually haven't helped them understand what they need to learn for themselves as well and so yeah I went through it recently I sent a similar message uh
where I was really explaining that I was like you know this is why I struggle with this and I was even explaining my struggle and how hard it is for me to say no but how I know that if I say yes I'm actually Gonna Let You Down even
more later and and I just wanted to make you aware of that and yes I did tell my life story a little bit but it was the same point that I was like I need to really explain the context behind this message and this no and I think what
that ends up doing is it actually creates really beautiful opportunities and I'll always say to someone I'll say I'm sure you can understand it I'd love to know if you do and 99 of the time someone will come back and say of course
I understand it I protect my time in the same way or whatever it may be and and then you go oh okay we actually are more aligned than we think so I I love that advice it's so great uh Jenna what so you know the books in three parts the
first part is who you are yes and and that's what we've been talking about I would highly recommend that everyone dives into it because the book talks about everything from uh Jenna's childhood to you know her feelings about
motherhood and I I am not asking her to repeat what's in the book I would love you to go and read the book uh and dive into it and then helps you figure out who you are and and how to be clear about your values and priorities which
we're realizing are so integral to know and as we know if we don't know our values and priorities we will be living based on someone else's or an adopted sense of values and priorities but in the second part of the book you talk
about who has you and who you have right and and this I think I gravitated towards this a lot because I think sometimes we if we have good networks and communities and families and units we often take it for granted because we assume that's
just how life is so can you talk to me a bit about how you've constructed healthy community and support systems around you and given yourselves the permission to lean on others because I find like that's what most of us don't want to do is we don't want to depend on others and make people feel we're dependent on them so the second part is that who you have and who has you because I recognize that like we are in this season of life and in this
area of like the world where we have never been more connected but we also don't feel fully known and I think there is nothing worse than being in a room filled with people and feeling lonely like loneliness isn't just the act of
being alone it's feeling like people don't know the real you and I feel like we're in this world where that is so common it's like have you ever entered a building and you know that if you just exit stage life left like no one would
question who you were where you were if you were even there and I feel like we're kind of walking through life in that way and we're also in this era where people post you know bachelorette parties and there's like 20 people in
match swimsuits and you're like I have like three close friends and like is something wrong with me or like why don't I have this like Village around me and a lot of it is because we aren't showing up allowing ourselves to fully
know others and to be fully known and I think that the pandemic actually gave us this really unique invitation because for so long we were able to separate like career Jenna and Mom Jenna and marriage Jenna and friend Jenna and all
of a sudden we're doing everything under one roof and we're forced to communicate in different ways and we're forced to learn how to be a good friend from afar and we're forced to be reminded that like we need to reach out just as much
as we hope people reach out to us and what's interesting is I've had this practice for I don't know probably 10 years where every single day when I think of people I text them and it'll just be I know I've sent you a few I've
sent your wife a few like where if you come into my life or my mind or I see something and I'm like oh Dave would love that or whatever that is to just reach out like the universe is guiding me towards this opportunity to encourage
or check in or just be there for someone and oftentimes it comes in the form of like no need to respond just want you to know I'm thinking of you or I saw this thing like if you want to share how you're doing like just check in
um but when I think about when we're really feeling lonely a lot of times our Act is to like close up and to like close ourselves off and I really think it's this really uh great opportunity for us to reach out and to seek and when
you bring up like help there's this chapter where it's like when one plus one equals a million and it's my story about how I like was white knuckling so much of my life I think a lot of us do that where we wear all the hats we can
do it we're just getting by we're holding on with all of our might to like keep the control and life often gives us these opportunities or it forces us to open up our hands and for me when we went through two pregnancy losses I was
in this place where I was like I have to show up to work I had to show up and shoot a wedding as a wedding photographer after getting this news and I recognize like I cannot do this anymore like I cannot I've built something that requires me to show up to
get paid and right now I can't show up and I can't keep doing this to myself because life is not always going to invite us to show up sometimes life calls us to like slow down and to be and to sit and I had run my business by
myself for years and years and years and I finally got to a place where I said three words I need help and it transformed everything for me and it's been really fascinating being in this season of motherhood and launching a book and all of these different things where I'm like usually I'm the helper and so asking for help is so uncomfortable but it stretches you in ways that allows you to invite people in and one of my friends Ali stroker she is
in a wheelchair she's an incredible actress and she once told me this story that totally changed the way I look at asking for help and she said a lot of times people will come and try with good intentions to help me in my wheelchair
when really I don't need it but I've learned to recognize that for some people being the helper is the greatest gift I can give them and when she said that it really made me pause and think there are so many people in my life who
love to help who find joy in being the helper and if I can give them the invitation or the opportunity to do that suddenly who I have and who has me expands and a lot of times it's like our pride it's like Pride's utter Chokehold
that like keeps us from like opening our hands to what's possible and so it's that white knuckling that is not something that you can maintain and it's something that really keeps greatness out of your life yeah and and Jenna you
touched on it there it was you know I really admired your bravery for doing it in the book as well you you talk about the time where you find out that you're you know your baby didn't have a heartbeat and and I feel like you know that the book is is full of
that level of vulnerability and I think you talk about a lot of things that we also don't ever talk about uh and and definitely obviously people that we don't announce on Instagram and that potentially is in the right Forum
anyway but I wanted to ask you about when you look at that Community around you one of the things that's really benefited me I said this to someone the other day they were like oh you it seems like you make some really good decisions in your
life and I said yeah because I had people in my life who told me all the bad decisions they made yeah and I'd say all the good decisions I've made in my life is because I've had a few older people in my life who've told me about
all their bad decisions and that gave me so much hindsight and it gave me so much awareness that it allowed me the space to think about things a bit ahead of the time and so I can't take any credit for the good decisions I've made I can only take I can only give the credit to the people who shared their either poor decisions with me or as in your case you're doing this book challenges or heartbreaks that they went through in order to be
hopefully more prepared or or more equipped to to deal with certain things and so I was like the best mentorship is actually not good advice the best mentorship is just an honest experience of what someone's going through can you
talk to me a bit about like how you've shared and how people have shared with you and how that's such an important part of building that community and you're doing it through the book of course there are so many things that are
taboo which is crazy where it's like so many people are experiencing it and it's a part of the human experience but nobody's talking about it and it is so isolating right like you feel like you are broken or you are the only one or
it's your fault that you went through something and years ago we lost one of our best friends in a car accident and I found myself going back to his social media feeds to feel connected to him and he didn't know when he was talking about
Taco Bell or posting that funny Family Guy meme that like that would be a part of his legacy right like we don't think about that but every single post we're hitting publish on online is a piece of our Legacy like we don't do what our parents did and have scrapbooks and all the little you know Trinkets and put it in an album these days it's so digital and I remember when I found myself like going to look through his old tweets or
things just to feel connected to him I vowed to myself that like what you see online will never be just a highlight reel it will always be real like r-e-a-l my real life and I have stuck by that through thick and thin through the good
through the bad because when I get reminded of a memory on Facebook I want to remember that actual moment and not just the shiny and when we went through our pregnancy loss for me part of it was helping people to feel less alone
because one in four people women experience that but two it was to give meaning to the experience I think as people that are optimistic or positive people where I was like life is teaching me a lesson and even when that lesson is
inconceivable or you don't have a reason or you can't really pinpoint what that is I really clung to this belief that like I'm going to give meaning to this mess no matter how I can and there's this story in the book that I love
um and it's called what Brook Shields doesn't know and I was at this event with all these incredible women and there was this President of a company that I worked with and she was a woman and she came up to me and we were
talking about her children and she said do you know that I went through IVF seven times in order to have my daughter and this is like years ago like a decade ago and I said oh my God how many times did you want to give up and she said
never and I said how is that possible like IVF is the most excruciating process like there are so many layers to it and so many things and so many hopes and dreams and failures and things that you just like hate going through and she
said I didn't give up because one time I was watching an interview and Brooke Shields said that she did IVF seven times to conceive her daughter and if she can do it seven times so can I and I think about like that Brooke
Shields doesn't know that she's responsible for this beautiful girl named Maggie who lives in New York City but her vulnerability in sharing that story inspired a total stranger to get herself in the ring of something that
was told to be impossible by doctors but created a miracle and I think that stories have this opportunity to do this and I think that vulnerable stories invite people to again step into their own vulnerability and I've learned so
much about like the things that I try to keep hidden the things that I'm afraid to share the things that I'm thinking that everyone else is thinking about me those are called The Human Experience those are the things that connect me so
much more than pretending like I have it all together I don't have insecurities or that I don't worry and so I've just believed in the power of story and the power of real and when you put real story to life that's what really
transforms other people's lives yeah and I definitely think you do that in this book so so wonderfully right like this there's so many stories whether it's personal whether it's career based you know I think it's so important one of
the things I try to do and think like a monk when I wrote it was I don't talk about any enlightened experiences so I talked about all my worst meditation experiences yeah because the goal was inflatable because it's relatable and
it's true like there were just so many poor meditation experiences and I think it's very easy to be like well you know this was this amazing experience I had and everyone's like well you know like like you just said like someone's gone
through seven of the most difficult excruciating things to get there but that story is so much more powerful tell me a bit about you know the third Act of the book goes into like people setting their goals living their truth achieving
it making a plan I want to ask you a different question because the book breaks down how you do that and what to do so so if anyone who's wondering how Jenna goes from who you are to who you have and who has you to then what you're
going to do about it to actually build it through what I'm more intrigued by is what's a worthy goal like what's a worthy Pursuit because I feel like everyone talks about goals and goal setting and everyone kind of has goals
or may have goals but when I was young all we ever learned about was setting smart goals right specific measurable achievable realistic and time-bound but no one ever told me what a worthy goal was and as I've got an older I have I do
believe that there are worthy Pursuits and there are Pursuits that will let us down as you said there's so many goals that you hit and you go well is that it so so how do you help people think about is there a way of knowing what a healthy
worthy pursuit or goal is yeah I think it's one that feels good that the pursuit feels good and the end product feels right and for me I think it's really interesting I remember Jay we were together in Puerto Rico and Brendan
threw Brendan burchard led us through this exercise and it was envisioning these scenes that we want for our lives like what would true success look like and he had already gone through the exercise of like envisioning your best
moments of Life all these things but I loved how he framed it because it was like Envision these moments before they happened so that when they happen you are fully awake to them and for me the scene that I envisioned was like
pancakes on a Saturday morning looking out at the lake with my family and it's funny because every time we make pancakes on a Saturday morning Drew will look at me and I will be like teary-eyed and he'll be like we're living it like
this is the scene and we're awake to it because how many successful people do you know who have done all these amazing things in their life they say they missed it they missed it because they were just in pursuit of the next thing
or the journey didn't feel good or they arrived and it wasn't where they thought they wanted to be and so when it comes to setting a goal I want you to ask yourself what feels good like what in the pursuit feels good and here's an
example I did this visualization exercise after our two losses I was like unpacking my grief and really trying to like face it because I had buried it the first time and I was like I've got to figure out how to not move on from this
but how to move with my grief like how do I move forward carrying this grief with me as a changed person and I did this visualization exercise and my friend was leading me through it and she was like Envision the most vibrant
version of yourself like you are fully Alive energized excited about what you're about to do for your day and she said this line where it was like put your fingers in the finger slots like step into where your toes are like what
do you see and what do you feel and it was funny because I was doing this meditation there are tears streaming down my face and I'm envisioning this little girl in pancakes and Drew and this Persian rug and like all of these
things and in this Vision I had on jeans in a white linen shirt and I opened my eyes after the visualization and I had on yoga pants and like an old college t-shirt and I was like I want the baby in the pancakes but if I can't even live
today with the jeans and the linen shirt how do I expect to become a fully different person when the thing that I want arrives right like sometimes the waiting season is just as important as what it is that we're waiting for and
the same thing goes for goals sometimes the Journey of working towards the goals should be enjoyed just as much as she achieving the goal itself and so I've learned how to make sure that the pursuit feels good but that the goal is
truly my definition of success because my definition of success isn't shiny it's not great it's literally a bag of gluten-free pancakes but when I'm living it I know it and I'm awake to it and I think nowadays it's like with the
internet you could follow the fashion blogger and then follow the home decor and then follow the health nut and our brain tricks us into thinking that we need to do and be all of those things in order to be happy but if we go back to
the beginning of the conversation where we talk about like contentedness is a gift it's not complacency like how can you be at peace with your life and what does that look like as you work towards the goal and so for me it's like more so
about the journey because if we know anything the journey is ninety percent of the pursuit and the actual goal achieving is two percent and so I want my life to feel good while I'm working towards that thing yeah I think that's a
great definition and I'm really glad you clarified that because I think we often been set goals by default we adopt goals from our parents our friends our family Instagram Tick Tock social media we we just we have a goal without even knowing
we have one and so I think making it a more conscious intentional process is so important and I encourage everyone who wants to live their truth who wants to authentically discover who they are who wants to make a shift or a change in your life right now maybe you're going through a transition maybe you know you need to start one please order Jenna's book today because it will truly guide you and be that helping hand that we all
need on that path and sometimes I think a lot of people and I can honestly say this for myself and that's I I truly back what I'm about to say is that I often felt alone in my transitions in life from a physical point of view but I
would say that books and people in books have definitely been that navigation guide and helping hand that I've needed and so often I haven't necessarily been able to turn to someone right next to me to know what's going on because they may
not have experienced what I'm experiencing but someone in a book has experienced that explain something similar and that I feel now so close to that person that I've never met and most of the people I'm talking about are not
even alive from books that I've read so I really believe that that if you're in that transition if you're in that Journey if you're struggling with who you are if you're trying to figure out the people around you if you're trying
to make a career change if you're having you know struggles with motherhood and that journey and your identity right now Jenna really I want to be honest like very vulnerably and honestly captures her story and and shares the insights to
help see what you can apply uh Jenna I thank you so much for writing this book for thank you for taking the time today and as you know we end every on purpose episode with the final five which is a fast five round where every question has
to be answered in one word or one sentence maximum so Jennifer I've trained my whole life for this you've trained your whole life for this you're already prepared Okay so the first question is what is the best advice you've ever received done is better than perfect nice I like that we've never had down the show which is good what is the worst advice you've ever received just keep on reaching what is the first thing you do
every morning and the last thing you do every night look at my baby monitor I love it the honesty see this is why I asked that question I love love the honesty uh fourth what is the biggest risk you've ever taken leaving my nine
to five job to become an entrepreneur nice and Fifth and final question if you can make one law that everyone in the world would have to follow what would it be to take a gap year before doing what you think you want to do and figure out
who you are wow great advice I like that one I I took one before University and one three after so definitely definitely you're the example I agree I agree with that advice everyone Jenna kocher the book is called how are you really living
your truth one answer at a time make sure you grab a copy of the book and Jenna has a special uh gift for us that we're gonna get as part of this I want you to head over to Jenna kutcher.com forward slash Jay uh we will put the
link in the captions and the show notes and everywhere else so Jenna kutcher.com forward slash J as in my name Jay j a y and you will be able to see this amazing gift that she's going to give you a bit of a sneak peek about so Jenna over to
you yeah so I wanted to think about how this would be most valuable because my book is not about finding my truth or sharing my truth but inviting you to find your own so I gathered a bunch of our incredible mutual friends and did
Deep dive interviews that aren't public you cannot find them anywhere and put together a course that is in theme with the book so on topics like identity career relationship balancing things shifting careers all of those things it
is all inside of an incredible free course that you cannot get anywhere else and you will get it when you pre order or order the book and you can find that at jennica.com Jay I love it Jenna thank you so much for doing that because
yeah like you said I I think so many of these things and things we're all struggling with we need to hear it from lots of different voices lots of different faces and so the fact that you've brought them all together is just
absolutely brilliant so please everyone check that out subscribe for that sign up for that agenda gucci.com forward slash J uh Jenna thank you so much for joining me today I can't wait to see you again I can't wait to see your family
again I'm just uh so grateful we got to take this time out I really hope everyone will read your book devour it apply it practically put it into their life and I can't wait to see it change so many lives so thank you for this work
uh thank you for your life and thank you so much for this opportunity thank you for pouring into all of us I'm speaking on behalf of all of your listeners myself included I know that you have left a huge lasting imprint and I think
it's really easy as someone who creates to forget all of the incredible ways that you are creating Ripple effects in lives in Generations in families and I can can speak from my family's experience you have done just that so
thank you for the work that you do no thank you so much uh everyone who's been listening or watching make sure you follow Jenna across social media and make sure you tag Jenna and I with any of the nuggets of wisdom the insights
even pages from her book take screenshots tag us both let us know what's resonating with you what's connecting with you I genuinely love seeing you with a book open from the podcast with sharing something from one of our guest Pages because to me it it shows that we're connected it shows that we're listening learning from each other and so I genuinely go on Instagram myself uh regularly and we'll you know go through posts and tags and everything
and I love seeing you all bring so much love to the podcast uh thank you so much for listening everyone I'll see you again next week for another episode and a big thank you to Jenna again thanks everyone if you want even more videos
just like this one make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book think like a monk from think like a monkbook.com check Below in the description to make sure you order today