Jen Gilchrist: Empowered Woman’s Leadership

Natural Born Coaches, episode number 458. Welcome to the Natural Born Coaches Podcast, the place where smart coaches come to grow their businesses. Ready to take your coaching to the next level, then you are in the right place. Here’s your host, mark Ney.

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Hey coaches. Welcome back to another episode of Natural Born Coaches, the podcast for your coaching business. I’m Mark Ney. Today’s guest was introduced to me from someone who’s been a big supporter of the show. I’ll give a really quick shout out to Nicole Holland from the Business Building Rockstar Show.

She connected me with the awesome Jen Gilchrist, who is today’s guest. How are you doing, Jen? I’m doing great. Thank you. That’s good. Well, thanks for coming on the show. I’m going to give the listeners a really quick bio, let them know more about you, and then we’re going to dive in and talk about lots of cool, fun stuff for the next 30 minutes or so.

How does that sound? Sounds wonderful. Thank you. As an entrepreneur for 17 years and a spiritual mentor for seven years, Jen has gone from struggling single mom to a six figure business owner, making money, doing what she loves to do, and empowering others to do the same. She supports messengers to gain clarity with their unique spiritual gifts, and their message teaches ’em strategies that will take their business to next level of visibility so they can make a bigger impact in the world.

While experiencing new levels of freedom, time, energy, and money in their purpose-driven business is Jen’s gift and passion to work with coaches, authors, messengers, speakers to take their soulful message out into the world, and then they can create a much bigger impact on that world. So Jen, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about what you’re doing right now in your business?

Well, I am just really excited to support people and really going into more alignment and more deeper into what is their true purpose and their calling in this world. I’m noticing a lot of shift changes happening for people, whether they’re reevaluating, whether target audiences, or what they’re really inspired and passionate to do, and so that is something that I’m really excited to help.

Will get more clear on so that they can create more fun in their business and also just create more visibility because when you’re speaking from your passion, it always just attracts your crowd very effortlessly. So I’m Canadian. When I hear shift changes. We think hockey, you know, when they’re swapping out players, getting back onto the ice and stuff.

But I’m guessing you’re talking about a different type of shift change. Can you tell us a little bit more about your shift change, where you went from struggling to all of a sudden there was an aha epiphany kind of. Bright moment where everything changed. Yeah. For me, I was been self-employed for 17 years.

I was a single parent. I had a hairstyling business and also specializing in weddings, and I loved my job. It was creative and fun, but I would come home from work feeling extremely overwhelmed, bombarded with to-do lists, and just completely using food and alcohol as my only way to release. Stress basically.

And it got to a point where that just wasn’t working for me. Everything kind of felt like it was starting to topple down and I was feeling like I was getting further and further behind. I ended up getting into a car accident, which was really my wake up call of sorts. And at that moment I really realized that things needed to change in my life.

I was completely scattered and all over the place and miserable, and I didn’t know what to do. So I prayed actually, and my grandfather. Came to me in a dream. It was this very vivid, clear dream and he really woke up within me, this sense of myself that made me know that I really wasn’t actually alone and that there was a lot of mind, body, spirit connection that I was missing.

So when I woke up from that dream, it was extremely vivid. I haven’t dreamed of him in over the 20 years before. Prior that he had passed and, and I had this sense of calm. More so than I ever had experienced, and I didn’t have all the answers. But that next year kind of sent me into this personal growth where I really started reading probably every self-help book that you could possibly get your hands on.

And from there, it just kept leading me through synchronicity to go into healing myself and getting to know myself more, learning meditation practices, and my intuition just popped wide open. And that’s really where I found my passion with my own purpose and how. I now really love helping others to also connect with their unique gifts and purpose and manage their balance and overwhelm so they can actually create a business and a lifestyle that is enjoyable to them, and that also feeds their soul as well as being of service.

So I know you’re working with lots of different types of messengers, but of course a big part of that is coaches, which is what this podcast all about, you know, helping coaches. What do you see as the biggest issue or biggest mistake that coaches are making and how can they fix that? I think trying to do it all themselves, especially when you’re new in the business, you know, you’re kind of new and maybe you’re not making the money that you’re wanting to be making quite yet.

You’re investing a lot, learning a lot, which is all, you know, part of it. But for me’s, learning how to really delegate and prioritize early on how you can get some support that you need, whether that’s through your family asking for support or whether it’s actually through your business. I know. For myself personally, when I moved to online business versus being, um, an in-person brick and mortar type business as a coach, I immediately had to get a VA because the tech and all of the opt-in pages and all the things that I knew that would be required of me to get my message out, I was just overwhelmed by, or I felt like it was tedious.

And so even before I started making money, I decided to get the support of. Getting a virtual assistant, that’s just one possibility. So my life before coaching was bricks and mortar as well. It was in real estate. And I know it was a little bit of a shift because I was used to being around a lot of people every day, you know, into the office.

And we could shoot the breeze for a few minutes before the workday started and talk about what happened on Survivor last night and all that fun stuff. But you know, it’s a very social aspect when you’re around a lot of people. And I imagine you’re. Past business was as well. Did you find it difficult switching to where you’re suddenly on Skype a lot in run of a day and dealing virtually with people?

Definitely, I think there’s a lot of sense of, uh, yeah, that’s different way of communicating and then there’s just so much of it. You’re actually kind of alone, right? Like when you’re creating or when you’re doing the other parts of your business, you feel isolated. So that would be the other thing I would say what you’re leading into is, is having community.

Like for me, having a like-minded community of other entrepreneurs and people around me has really kept me stay fueled and inspired and motivated when I’m down in the trenches working really hard. You know, end of the light at the end of the tunnel. Just having a community of people that get it, that are celebrating you is really huge as well.

Right? Yeah. ’cause I know especially in the winters, again, in Canada, we deal with a little bit of snow depending how bad the winter is. But there were some days in, not so much, just past winter, we’d actually a pretty mild winter, so it was better to get out. But the winter before that was a horrible winter with 10 feet of snow all the time.

It was just, we got. Bombarded and there were days when I’d be on Skype from 8:00 AM my time till 10:00 PM at night. You know, just nonstop. It can be a little bit depressing if you let it be, if you just work, work, work all the time and stuff. And it was definitely a shift for me as well. Uh, when it comes to coaching and you could connect with people virtually, that’s awesome.

But you also have to kind of get out and get some fresh air too, because if not, you’re gonna go crazy. Definitely that work life balance. It’s like all work and no play is never fun. Just being outside and like, I like to start my day or take little stretch breaks throughout the day or you know, go out and just be in nature and take my deep breaths and kind of sit with myself and create my, what I like to call my inspired action list as opposed to my to-do list from being outside actually.

So you’re inspired action list. To it. How does that differ from a to-do list that’s more fun to do? I’m guessing it’s not the boring nuts and bolts stuff, or is it just a different way to name the list? It’s a different way to approach it. For me, I mean, everything I do, I work. Going back just slightly to my personal story, I realized through my awakening process that a lot of what I was overwhelmed by was energetically overwhelmed.

I was a highly sensitive person, and so for me, when I am on the computer all day or. Working with people all day, sometimes that in and of itself can be extremely just draining. And so pretty much everything that I approach, I approach it from a, from a energy level as well as a practical level. And so how I start my day to come up with my to-do list, you know, it’s so different when I start my day.

’cause I mean, it’s not like I’m perfect, trust me, this is just something that I notice when I do apply works so much better that when you roll outta bed and you’re immediately like a slave to the notifications, you’re checking email on your phone. Before you’re even awake, you’re on Facebook and before you know it, the day is just kind of happening.

It feels like it’s happening to you. Suddenly you’re a slave to all of these things that aren’t quite done. ’cause the list is really endless, right? So how I like to start my day instead, and what works better for me is when I just. Give that space to myself in the morning. I don’t look at any of that stuff yet.

I give myself a few moments and I do a little, what I call A TLC, body meditation. I can tell you more about that later if you like. And I just kind of close my eyes and be present with myself. I do a quick little meditation, maybe a little journaling about. What I’m inspired about my big vision or what project I’m creating.

Give myself a few minutes of space and then I literally connect with and I ask for, and I set the intention for, you know, what is gonna be most in alignment for me to be most productive and in my passionate in service today. And I really just approach it from that perspective and I open up that spiritual.

Support, if you will, whether you call it God or universe or higher self, however you look at that for yourself, I really open up to that higher possibility of information, and I just allow thy inspired list to bubble up for me, and sometimes it’s very different than what I would’ve thought I quote unquote, should do or need to do or feel the demands and responsibilities to do, yet when you approach it from that perspective.

Because obviously these things need to get done. You have a different way of looking at it. It tends to be, maybe you start with your creative projects first and then go down to the email so that you’re not bogged down. And then when later on when you try to, like for me, if I start with my emails and then go to something creative, it just doesn’t work.

So it just kind of allows you to set up your day with, what do I wanna do? You’re in charge. These things need to get done, and what am I inspired to do right now? At the end of the day, everything works out so much quicker and easier, and it all gets done. One thing I started doing is I flipped when I’m doing my writing for my book, because I’m working on my book and previously I had laughed it into the evening or night.

When things were dying down a little bit. But by then your brain isn’t always firing in all cylinders, right? ’cause you’ve been just working all day and some of the stuff that you talked about. So actually this morning I did it where I’m getting up not quite in the 5:00 AM Club yet. I know a lot of people, a lot of people listening are in the 5:00 AM Club, including my client, Jen, who listens a fair bit.

So Jen, if you’re listening, I’m fortunately I’m not in the 5:00 AM, but the. Five 30 and then start writing right away and, uh, get my minimum 500 words towards a book. And right when I wake up and today I end up going upwards of a thousand, just shy of a thousand. But then the other vantage, besides my brain being weight and getting it done first thing in the morning is throughout the day, ideas are popping in my head about that chapter section that I was working on, because I think my subconscious is probably, it knows what I was working on this morning, and then I’m getting ideas all throughout the day.

So. If that’s working much better for me than actually riding at night before bed when I’m not on my A game. I’m just, you know, bogged down and other stuff going on. Me personally. Yeah, well that’s exactly it. It that’s what you’re inspired to do, and it just sets the tone for the rest of the workday to be coming from that energy instead.

Yeah. So that’s awesome. I’m hearing it from a lot of coaches too. They’re talking about how important it is to give that first bit of the morning to yourself, you know? Oh yeah. That’s boundaries. No one can touch it. This is Jen’s time. This is Mark’s time. No one else can get in here because. You could literally be working 24 7 if you let yourself work 24 7.

If you didn’t have those boundaries up. I know I could very easily go that direction pretty easily, probably. Yeah. And that brings me to, prior to doing what I just said to you in terms of my little meditation ritual is prior to that I do do that. I have about an hour in the morning. ’cause to me, balance and self care is, is like a vital, it’s a part of your job.

It’s no longer as an entrepreneur, it’s not really the fluffy thing. If you have time to do, it’s now I’ve realized that it’s definitely. A priority that I just literally put into my schedule and into my calendar, and I start my day with either a little bit of physical movement or exercise, a nice healthy green drink or breakfast.

You know, I give myself that meditation, or I like to have my coffee out on my back patio and hear the birds and just kind of give myself that space. So whatever it is for you. Set your day up for success by ringing in as much balance that you can. Because like you said, you could just work to no end very easily if you’re not careful.

Exactly. So have you ever had a point in time here where you’re just thinking, I’m done, I’m forget it, I’m getting out of this and moving on, I’m going back to the old business or something like that. And if you ever had that time, how did you get past it? Because I’ve been self-employed my whole life, so even my other business is a self-employed business.

Right. So there’s really like, it’s all just me being, you know, learning about boundaries, I think. So it’s not so much that I ever felt like I wanted to give up on coaching, because for me, that’s just my heart and soul and passion. But there are times definitely, for instance, like when I was like going to launch something, you know, suddenly there’s just, you’re working our program, there’s deadlines, you’re, you’re crunching, and before you know it, you’re really starting to let go of that.

Balance and that self care that you normally might have into your schedule. And that’s really the most crucial time. So something I do and I teach my clients to do is called the TLC Body Meditation. And I think this fits in perfectly ’cause this is about what I always do to reframe myself in this moment.

And that just means just quickly to talk. Listen and commit to your body’s needs. And the more that you do this, so you just kind of close your eyes and feet flat on the ground and your hand and your heart and your belly, and just kind of be present with your breathing. And then the first is T. It’s it’s TLCI like the acronym.

It’s kind of double meaning talk to your body. So what does my body’s need for me right now? And you might notice like where you’re holding tension, when you actually slow down and be present with yourself, you start to notice like where all this tension and stress is building up, right? So you can just put your attention there and ask it.

You know, what do you need for me to feel imbalanced and inspired or. And passion or you know, whatever it is that you’re wanting to bring in, whatever you’re feeling low about. And then you listen. The L stands for listen. So you kind of just listen and you just be aware and notice, and this is a practice.

’cause sometimes our minds are spinning like wild tops and we can’t, you know, slow down. So it’s a definitely practice, but when you listen, start paying attention to what your body’s needs. Really are, this is really key in staying in alignment with your life and your business in general. And then when you kind of notice, like maybe just notice any thoughts or ideas like, oh man, I could use a massage.

My, my neck is really much more tight than I thought. Or, you know what, maybe I just need to set this down and go for a 10 minute walk. Or maybe I need to actually take a vacation. Like maybe you need to take a day break. That’s what comes to me sometimes the full day to just drive to the ocean or whatever.

Then you have to commit. The C stands for committing to that. ’cause you can have all this awareness and information coming to you, but if you don’t take steps and take action on it, it’s not gonna help anything. So for instance, when you asked me that, what came to mind was I did that process with myself when I was going through a launch and I was just cramming and pushing and all of a sudden I couldn’t get the talk written.

Here it is in a couple of days, this workshop that was gonna, you know, be a big, integral part of it and I just couldn’t get it done. And I kept pushing and then my body said, you know what, you just need to go. Take a day break, and I argue when you find yourself arguing with your intuition or yourself, that’s the time to listen.

Mm-hmm. So I was arguing with myself, I don’t have time, I’ve got this to do. And then I just remembered and I listened, and it’s like, okay, you just need to take the day and go to the water, go to the ocean. Just let it go. Let it go. And so. I heated the call after a couple more days of trying to perilously work and get nowhere, and then when I did that, I literally just felt so refreshed and rejuvenated that on my drive home I was by myself.

Literally, the entire information thing just like downloaded and dropped right into my head. Like everything that I’d been working to try to figure out it took for me to actually kind of let go of it all. For it to actually come back and reorganize into my consciousness in a way that I could actually move forward with it.

So my suggestion is always just, well, you know, besides getting support and all of that, really just check in with yourself and what your needs are in that moment, and realize that it’s your duty and responsibility to yourself and your job, and your business and your support that you’re gonna be for your clients and for your children, and for your spouses.

You’re gonna be so much better. You’re gonna be able to show up so much more for them and really enjoy yourself as well. If you just learn to fill up your love cup and, and really pay attention to your needs and, and heed the call. Yeah. It’s not the end of the world if you take a day to go to the ocean and relax.

It’s funny, we get feeling guilty as entrepreneurs for taking. You know, a day off or something like that. And if we were working nine to five and you got two weeks, you wouldn’t feel guilty at all. But we’re entrepreneurs so that we can have that flexibility. But then often we end up working 24 7. So gones at advantage of working for ourself.

Now I know you deal a lot with intuition and you write about it a lot with your stuff. I read some things in there. A lot of people listening might think well. I, I don’t really believe in intuition. It seems kind of, you know, woo woo and kind of out there, someone listening that hasn’t tuned into their intuition before.

Any tips that you could give them to kind of access that? The TLC body meditation, I can give you a link for that at the end. It’s in one of my free gifts. That is one of the first things. ’cause really, I mean, there’s millions of studies probably on meditation and how just slowing down and being present helps you.

So how I would explain what meditation, one of the key things that it does that will help you unlock your intuition and actually just release stress. Us and gain clarity is to, you know, not be in the future or in the past. So, so often we’re worried about all these things way out ahead of us, that we can tend to feel extremely overwhelmed to the point of either being frozen or just like scrambled or frazzled, right?

Which not a lot of success happens there. You’re not gonna hear your intuition there. Or if you’re in the past, like beating yourself up for not getting this done, or feeling resentful or judging or just upset or angry about. What happened or didn’t happen yesterday, right? Those are all examples of how you’re not being very present.

And when you’re present is really when the magic can happen. That’s when your creativity can be sparked. That’s when your intuition, your conscious awareness of your intuition will happen. And from there, the next step for me is always to ask. So if you just stop and breathe and start to slow the mind chatter, that has to be.

Part of this, otherwise you won’t hear it, you’ll miss it. But then it’s just asking, I mean, some people pray, some people set intentions, some people you know, just it’s about making a commitment even to yourself about just kind of opening up the possibility of asking for support, and you just would be surprised at the thoughts and ideas and feelings that start coming to you through repetitious signs and feelings.

I think anybody can relate to getting a feeling about something, and that is. Part of your intuition, your body and your emotions is a definition tool in that sense. Just feeling like something’s off or feeling like, for instance, somebody says, oh, I’m fine, but you’re feeling that they’re not. Like you get that sense about it, and that is one way that your intuition is working for you and really your intuition is just being able to perceive something that’s not seen.

Now, I’d love to hear how you handle your discovery calls or enrollment calls. Can you tell us how you do those? Well, I start out setting up the, my intention before I start them. I always do this with my day and with every project I ground, I meditate. I ask for spiritual support with my angels and God and my higher self, and however you look for that.

And ask for this to just be of the highest potential and good for everyone involved. And I really want that to be a win-win. And that’s really how I set the space up. And I asked to just be able to be guided to be the greatest support that I can be. And then when I get the caller on the phone. We start off a lot of times with a quick intention setting as well, and then I approach it from there so that we both are kind of aware of just creating our own little space of, you know, your ringer’s off.

My ringer’s off. We’re setting the to-do list aside and we’re really gonna be present with one another here. Then I ask them how I do my discovery calls. It’s really kind of getting curious about them. Where are you at? You know, what’s going on for you? And I really wanna connect with them and, and really get to know and understand where they’re at in their life or business.

What are their biggest struggles, you know? Then we get clear on what is their bigger dream or vision for themselves. Like, what do they really desire? I think helping people get clear on what they actually desire. Is a big deal. People don’t often know like, what do I desire? I don’t really, really know. And so getting clear on that and then we move on to seeing how I can, I always offer a few resources right away that they can put into action, and then we can explore how I might further support them in their business.

And how, how long are your calls generally? I usually do 45 minutes. Okay. So I’ve been asked this question a lot lately. Anyone listening to the show would think, well, mark, you’ve asked this. You know, the last so many interviews, but I’m finding a lot of people have gotten back to me that listen to the show and say, that’s really interesting for them.

They pick out different things. Oh, I like how Jen does this with her discovery calls, and I like how Mike did this and so on, and, and then you can kind of pick and choose what works for you. I’m 30 minutes from my calls, but I’ve also heard some people that do two three hour type, you know, marathon. Calls.

So yeah, thank you for sharing that. So you’re right in around 45 minutes. Yeah. I mean, I say 30, but I always set aside 40 because 30 is where we’re doing all discovering, and then if we end up being a good fit, then that extra 15 minutes kind of works into being able to explore those options, so That’s right.

Exactly. Yeah. And always remember too, people, there’s no harm in putting an application form in place or an input form to get more. Information. So that’s what I’m doing now is just to get as much as I can before, so we’re not spending time on some things that could be handled before the call, so Oh, definitely.

Yes. Yeah. No, that’s great. So I know you’re working on some things. You’re launching something cool, and I’m wondering if you could tell us what that is, and we’ll see if there’s any, I know there’s lessons in there for coaches as well, but tell us why you’re doing that and decided to do that partnership.

Yeah. I partnered with Alexander’s Grace. I’m actually a co-founding member of Alexander’s Grace, which is a premier online. Business academy for coaches and entrepreneurs, and I’m really excited about it for a lot of reasons. It, I’m excited to be able to bring together a community of people, like the people that I’m working with that are creating the content and the training modules are just amazing.

They all have a different strength to bring to the table. They’re all extremely heart-centered and soulful beings as well. So it’s kind of like you get this very. United group front with a lot of wisdom. We get to showcase actually a lot of different guest experts that are six and seven figure business owners in our academy as well.

And it’s gonna be a year long place that coaches can come and get the tools that they need. It’s like, you know, you have this calling in your heart and you know that, you know you’re working really hard on your own, but sometimes just being in that community, it’s like an incubator of sorts to help you build up and really fuel your business so that you can actually be seen and heard.

By those clients that are waiting for your services. So the people that you’re partnering with, did you know them before or was this something that all came about? You just met each other and decide to take the plunge? A little bit of both. I mean, been on Facebook. Brad Bergson is the visionary of this entire organization and he’s their CEO and he and I had been on Facebook for a while together, so we’d been following one another for a while, and pretty much he pulled together this team of people.

And so then we kind of formulated a group to where we were kind of brainstorming and kind of mastermind and really cultivating and creating this like this started out one vision and together it’s kind of. Through masterminding has evolved and evolved as we’ve worked together on online setting to see how this really could look and how we would want to, if we were gonna work well together.

And then I think what cinched the deal was, we all recently just did a photo shoot and a filming shoot actually, where we had full film crews and we did all the filming for like the preliminaries of, of some of the modules. And for our launch that’s coming up here close to September 1st, we’re launching the academy and.

We really got a bond and it was like immediately, it’s just those people that you connect with and you’re like, oh my gosh, I just feel so familiar. You get me, I get you. And just the whole concept of coming together, supporting one another, helping each other be accountable, helping to inspire, helping to believe and support each other’s personal brands within the company, because that’s really what we’re doing.

We’re all personal coaches as well. So through this process, we are building our own business as we build a unified. Academy at the same time. And we’re also gonna be adding in a life coaching certification course for people. It’s a three month fundamentals course for those people that aren’t certified yet that would actually like to have that as well.

So it’s really exciting. Yeah. So if we wanna find out more information about that and about you online, where would we go? Uh, you can find me@empoweredwomensleadership.com and you’ll have all kinds of information and resources there. I have some really good, fun free gifts and actually a free gift that’s not posted on my site that I would like to mention based on the conversation we had today, if I could.

Sure would be empowered women’s leadership.com/free. Dash gift. Got several gifts, but that one is really cool. It has a lot of those TLC meditation. It has a lot of ways that I take my clients through delegating so they can have more time in their life, self-care and things like that. Just ways to be a leader in your business and life and have it support you.

So that was one packet I wanted to give you. That’s not visible anymore on my site, but it’s still available. And the other thing would be with Alexander’s Grace. It’s alexanders grace.com. And you can just go there and check that out as well. There’s just a abundance of resources and wisdom that I’m sure that you’ll enjoy.

There’s different programs as well that we’ll be adding. Awesome. And people can also get more information on this interview@naturalborncoaches.com slash four five eight. That’s slash 4 5 8. Well, Jen, thanks for doing this. I appreciate you popping by the podcast. Thank you too. It was nice to meet you. So we’ve had Jen Gilchrist on the show today.

She’s a speaker and a Soul Success mentor. Thanks to Jen and thanks to you guys for tuning into yet another episode. I’m Mark Muney and I’ll see you on the next Natural Born coaches. Thanks for listening to the Natural Born Coaches podcast@naturalborncoaches.com. See you next time.