Light Up Your Life: Joy with Jillian Schecher

Light Up Your Life: Joy with Jillian Schecher

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 144 of the business development podcast. And if you've struggled to find joy in your entrepreneurial career or in your life, it is fleeting for so many of us today, we are bringing you joy expert, Jillian Schecher, you are not going to want to miss this episode.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said business happens over years and years value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal and we couldn't agree more.

This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get. Expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences. And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business.

Brought to you by Capital Business Development. CapitalBD.ca Let's do it. Welcome to the Business Development Podcast. And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 144 of the Business Development Podcast. Wow, I can't believe how fast we're clipping along here. My gosh, do we have an absolute rock star expert guest for you today.

I know that each and every one of you has struggled at one point or another with finding joy, me included. And today I'm bringing you a joy expert. Today we're bringing on Jillian Schecher. Jillian Schecher is a vibrant CEO, author, and lead facilitator renowned for her multi passionate approach to joy and mindfulness coaching.

With her mission to empower individuals to embrace their innate joy and awaken to lives that they love, Jillian has authored the Daily Joy Journal and pioneered the Joy Sessions. Immersive experiences that illuminate the path to greater balance, abundance, and joy in all facets of life. Grounded in her belief that joy is intrinsic to every individual, Jillian fosters spaces of self compassion and authenticity, guiding clients to unlock their full potential and live fully present in each moment.

Whether igniting laughter in group sessions or finding solace in quiet moments with books and cuddly companions, Jillian embodies the perfect blend of adventure and home comfort, infusing every interaction with warmth and genuine human connection. With her superpowers as a master manifester and a highly sensitive empath, Jillian lights up the world, inspiring others to shine brightly from within.

In a world yearning for joy and authenticity, Jillian Shecker is the beacon of light guiding countless souls to embrace their true selves and live boldly in pursuit of their deepest desires. With laughter as her compass and empathy as her guide, she empowers individuals to unleash their inner joy warriors and create lives that radiate with purpose and fulfillment.

Get ready to join Jillian on a journey of self discovery and transformation where every day is an opportunity to laugh, love, and live out loud. Jillian, it's an honour to have you on today.

Jillian Schecher: Kelly, I'm literally like, I know I'm the joy queen, but I'm crying over here. That was the most truly magical intro I've ever heard or felt in my whole life.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow.

Jillian Schecher: Like, thank you. And will you write for me?

Kelly Kennedy: I'll send that on over and you can have somebody shout it from the rooftops at every single introduction from now on.

Jillian Schecher: No, truly, like, I'm very emotional over here. Wow. That was really, really, really special.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, thank you. You're really special. I really appreciate you coming on today.

You know, we talked about this before the show and we're going to get into it after your story. We'll be back. I know that a lot of entrepreneurs, me included, have really struggled to find joy and happiness in what we're doing. We know it's meaningful. We know we're changing the world. But it's really friggin hard.

And I think that we think about work a lot. And I know you've done that. You fell into that struggle as well with even the stuff that you're doing and trying to find a way to distance ourselves and just find happiness in the day to day, not always striving for the next thing is really hard. And I think it's super cool because I know you've been on a show with Ben Spangl as well.

And I had Ben come on for our new year show to try and give some mindfulness coaching and like help people. And one of the things he really spoke to you was finding joy in the moment. But I think it's really hard for a lot of us.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, this is the funny thing about joy. And I know we've got a lot of room to chat, which I love.

I can already feel that all the wisdom bombs dropping in. But it feels like, you know, we think that joy is this bright, shiny experience. And I write a lot about this, that that's not actually what I believe it to be. I feel like in all of my, Personal experience and research and work with clients and, and multiple people and groups.

It's actually what I found. It's very different for everyone. Joy is not what we might think it is. It's actually, it, I feel like it's actually in alignment with how we most want to feel and what we most want to experience. And so this is where I do a lot of work around joy based values. Like how do you most want to feel?

And. And, and let's get you there because then you get to feel aligned with that. And that to me is one aspect of joy. Does that make sense?

Kelly Kennedy: Totally. Totally. I think too, it's like, as we grow, I think about the things that I used to find a lot of happiness in before I was an entrepreneur and I really struggled to find happiness in those same things today.

And it's like, sometimes I wonder, it's like, what is it that actually makes me happy? It's like, I'm kind of caught in this in between sometimes where I don't know what that is anymore.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah. Yeah. And it gets to change. It doesn't. Oh, it's not always the same. And it's also in workshops. I'll ask people, what is joy mean for you right now today?

Like not yesterday or last year. Again, I think many of us think that, you know, even as we start out as entrepreneurs, it's like, you have this idea of what you want to do. And this is why it's really important to tend to our why along the way, because you can lose track of what actually is fulfilling, what actually feels good.

And then you end up doing the things in your business, like maybe the mechanics that don't feel good and wonder why you're not happy any longer. Also why maybe you are poor. Profitable, but not actually fulfilled. And all of these other questions. Right. So I feel like it's kind of like a bit of a moving animal.

Kelly Kennedy: It is. I agree completely. And it's so funny because I've had, you know, I've had the pleasure at this point of interviewing so many amazing, amazing people that have achieved incredible success, incredible success. And a lot of the times they'll come up and they'll say, yeah, Kelly, like I'm super happy right now.

And now I work four hours a day or whatever it is and then I'll look at them and I'll say that's great. But what about the 10 years that you slugged to get here? Are we just forgetting about all that like insane hard work it took before you got to be happy? And sometimes I kind of question, is that what I want?

Do I want to slug for 10 years before I get to be happy?

Jillian Schecher: Yeah, yeah. And that's, I honestly feel like why I'm here. It's to teach and show and practice. I'm very humble in my work. I'm often alongside everyone else doing it, but it's really that joy is actually a practice and it requires us to tend to ourselves along the way.

And I can't tell you how many leaders and business owners I work with who have everything that you and I would want after years of hustling and are feeling empty. And then that's where I come in is to like, rebuild that alignment with what you actually want to experience. So I'm like, let's do this now, guys.

Like, let's not wait until, you know, we have the yacht, let's actually like do it, like feel good along the way so that we get to experience the inner and outer richness.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. And I hope that we can impart some of that wisdom today, because I know there's a lot of people listening right now that are like, Yes, please, Jillian, tell us how, how do we get happy in this thing?

Because we're doing great things. And I think most of them are happy in their work. I really love my work. But I love my work. But I also feel the grind of my work in order to keep up at the level of performance that I'm at. I expect myself to keep up that, right? And sometimes I wonder how much of my challenges are self imposed, right?

Like how much of this is me and how much of this is really just the reality of my situation in a given moment. But we can get into that. What I want to know first is take us back to the beginning. Who is Jillian Schecher? How the heck did you end up on your path?

Jillian Schecher: Oh, wow. That is such a loaded question.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Where to begin? Well, honestly, when I think about joy, like when I, when I do feel like I am the embodiment of joy not meaning that I feel all the great shiny stuff. All the time, but a lot of the time, and I have been like that most of my life. Like most people would say that about me, like, Oh yeah, she's joyful.

Like she loves to laugh and have fun and be late about things. When I look back, like I was very much into, like, I would just have these pictures. I have images of my childhood that are like very much nature driven. It's like watering flowers. That was joy. Flowers were always joy for me, always in grandma's garden, smelling peonies, you know, standing in a pile of ants, like kind of just like, I was a massive tomboy.

My brother was my hero as much as he hated me following him and his friends around. I hated wearing tights. Like I was very much like ready to like party in the most natural way. And just was always kind of in awe of life, I think. And that's a piece that I'm proud. I still have is like. A bit of that on and really being able to see like the magic of life.

I mean, I had a very loving family and, you know, and I'm very honest about my story because it is a story of, you know, like I would say a pain to power story which I believe we all have in many different ways around like the places where I disconnected from myself. So one thing I do say about joy is that I believe it's actually who we are.

And when you look at kids and animals and nature, even, you can see like that, that is like that most natural element is, is those qualities of like peace and love and joy. Yeah. And so I feel like that, that is who I was. And I was the embodiment of it. And then there's places I can see where I kind of left myself by the side of the road, you know?

And so it feels like, you know I was kind of in a codependent family. Again, super loving. I never say any of my truth or my path and feel any pity around it or martyrdom. Like it is very much, I see every single piece of it is being so purposeful in me being able to light up the world from the inside out now.

So I have a lot of gratitude for every aspect of it. And there's some, just some like honest truths, you know my dad was an alcoholic and awesome guy, just frigging drank too much and smoked his brains out. And he died really young at 57 of a heart attack. And that really exploded my life. So that was, I think like just from a very young age.

And so most of the people I serve have experiences of this, of, Of sacrificing yourself to make those around you happy. And I feel like, especially with the funniest people, you know, when we look at Robin Williams or lots of the comedians people who seem like the funniest, most gregarious people are often the ones who have maybe also left themselves in certain ways.

Right. Making sure that everyone else around is actually happy or feeling good. Meanwhile, we are the ones that could be suffering silently.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, and I, I don't know, I kind of feel like on some level. It's just part of humanity, right? I think on some level we all have to sacrifice our happiness on a certain level for the people around us.

And I, you know, I haven't seen another way of doing it yet.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah. Yeah. I, I feel like I've found a bit of a method for it. It feels like there gets to be win wins a place where we get to honor ourselves and have people in our lives that honor us and we want the best for everyone, you know, where it's very very mutual and.

Respectful. And it feels like a new way. So I'll share a little bit more about that because it's part of my reclamation of joy required me to actually put myself first. And it is now when I teach others and you know, it is, I think, like part of the issue I see with a lot of people where it's, you're not happy and not feeling good because you actually don't.

know how to feel because you've been disregarding yourself for so long, right? So that was the piece around for me where I put everyone else ahead of myself. And again, no, it is very human. I would say, absolutely. Cause we want the best for those around us. And I think even from a protection perspective, Perspective.

It's like, I want to feel safe. So I'll make sure you're good. So that I feel good, you know, especially as a kid. Right. So a lot of that, and then that just turned into a, you know, I would just say like getting further and further away. And then when dad died, you know, it was just like, you know, anyone who's had someone close like that.

It just felt like my life exploded. That's the best way to describe it. And I didn't know how to handle it. I, I hadn't really been able to be with my own feelings. I went and made sure everyone else was okay. So that's one of the major places where I feel like I left. It was like, I'm just going to go do this.

I'm going to, I got to shut off because I don't even know how to cope with this. And, And so that led to me drinking a lot of Vina Tinto. So I would just, you know, at the time, okay, I've done a lot of things. We should back up. I got a psychology degree. Okay. Way back when. And then I went and taught English like most people do with a degree or did at that time.

I mean, did you go teach English?

Kelly Kennedy: I did not, but I don't have the degree.

Jillian Schecher: Okay. Well, there's still time. There's still time. Anyway, so I went and taught English and I loved like being overseas and just. You know, travel and everything. So I thought, Oh, I'm going to go and get a master's in sociology is what I thought I would do or psychology.

So I started going back to school, but I was selling shampoo at a beta. And I kept on getting mesmerized by everyone cutting hair. I would get in so much shit for watching people cut hair. And I realized I actually didn't want to have my head in the books anymore. I just wanted to like live and be. And I ended up Quitting school and going to hair school.

Wow. Much to my parents, Disney. Yeah. It's like what you're what I want to be a hairstylist. So I did that. So this is kind of like the path is just so windy and crazy, but so awesome because I, you know, I was very much able to just follow my heart and pick up all these skills. So I did hair for, I don't know, five years or so and loved it and met so many amazing people and I was able to connect so deeply with them.

I think I was joy coaching way back then. Yeah. Some of them you know, and then I when my dad died, I just, I couldn't, I couldn't show up for people in that way anymore. I, and I'm not, I can't hide my emotions. So I ended up getting a grant to go to, to go to school and I went to design school and I did design and photography and kind of just shifted gears there as well.

And so I was able to just kind of carve out a path that was 2009. I started, that was my business was built or started building it as a brand designer and photographer way back when. And I was doing odd jobs on the side, flower shop and little joy things. And meanwhile, that was around when dad had passed.

So that's when I kind of started using alcohol to numb. And just you know, noticing like the wine once, when a night was turning into more and the line was being crossed and I was starting to obsess about like not wanting to drink or not doing that again, or, and that led to quite a few years of, I would say, disconnection from myself to the point where I was blacking out probably every night.

And not without drinking too, too much. Like not, yeah. I wasn't drinking the whole box of wine, but it was the box of wine that did me in .

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. . No, no, that's fair. And, and you know what I mean? I, I hear that story a lot. And it, and you know, I mean, I, I, I get it 'cause I, I get it. I get the idea of like, compartmentalization, right?

And just like finding a way to like separate life. And I think, you know, I've been in business development in enough years now that. You know, I mean, I got really good at compartmentalizing because you have to be on all the time, whether you're feeling shitty or not. It's just part of the day to day, right?

You can't, you can't go into a BD meeting feeling like a sack of crap.

Jillian Schecher: We're letting them know that you feel like a sack of crap.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, like, I think, I think I definitely went that way as well. I definitely have, didn't, didn't end up with any type of alcohol abuse or anything along those lines.

But I could definitely see how it, it very much is possible when you're trying to compartmentalize and you're feeling like crap inside. I totally feel for you and I'm very sorry that you lost your father so young.

Jillian Schecher: Aw, thanks, Kelly. Yeah, I mean, I, I appreciate it. And I also feel like again, one of those places where, you know, in law of attraction, we look at contrast, not as a place to stop us or harm us, but a place to really deepen into the experience you're here to have.

And I don't love that everything happens for a reason. I feel like that can be so, so Invalidating when you're going through a really hard time, but I do feel like we give things meaning and I feel like I can sense my dad now with me. And I sense how proud he is. And and like, I get to kind of rewrite the history of even our family, like kind of heal that lineage of this addiction.

And my brother's been doing the same thing too. It's really amazing.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. So take us into that. You're, you're, you're drinking a box of wine a night.

Jillian Schecher: You're like getting a box, which I thought was brilliant. It was like pretty much having a Slurpee in your fricking fridge, you know? So not a good move.

Kelly Kennedy: So take, you're, you're, you're there.

You're at rock bottom. How does it turn around?

Jillian Schecher: It turned around with me deciding if I wanted to live or not. Yeah. Truly like, because it had been such a problem I, and yeah, it was just, it got so progressively, it got so much progressively worse. And then at the end, just blacking out and making really shitty decisions and, and not even really, truly feeling like myself at all.

And. I don't. So for anyone who does have the experience of addiction, it is so incarcerating. It's just like, it's not living. It's actually like, you're at the mercy of something outside of you. That's what it feels like. And so, yeah, I made the choice to live and I chose sobriety and that path, like that was probably one of the, that moment was the easiest decision for me to make because it felt like such a clear choice.

Like either I'm doing this or I'm not, you know? And And yeah, and then I did, you know, my own atonement, meaning and this is, I think where all the compassion comes from, from the joy as well for the joy work is that I realized so deeply that, you know, all of the pain, all of the mistakes, all of the places where I may have hurt myself or others if I could learn from that and take it forward that it would be worth, like I could make it matter.

Right. So it's like making it matter. And that's when I forgave myself deeply for all of it and was able to move forward knowing, like, I'm not actually here to be perfect. In fact, I think it was possibly perfection that was also contributing to everything. Because it's just so unrealistic and it's like a massive sabotage.

It's on our shoulder all the time. The critic just standing there. So, so I was able to, I call it. The place where I came home to myself. And it feels like where I truly started living, I mean, the, the path from sobriety forward was a tricky one, but I do, I feel like, holy shit. I'm here. Like my relationships with my family, the people in my life, like it's, it all feels so aligned now, but at the beginning, like it, I realized it wasn't the drinking that I, Was into as much as, well, the numbing of the discomfort actually, but then also the swallowing down, you know, myself to, to make sure everyone else was okay.

So I took like, so I turned into a massive no person, right. From a yes to a no, like the pendulum swung massively. And I remember my family was scared of me. My mom said like, I don't even know who you are anymore. Like, I'm afraid, you know, and I'm like, holy shit. It felt so foreign to me because I was like, I finally feel like myself and the people I love and love me don't even actually appreciate or support like this path for me, you know, even my mom didn't, she was like, you have a drinking problem.

Like I, I was like, mom, I was drunk every time we talked, you know, but hit it really well. So, so I feel like it was more the relationships that were the issue. As I got sober and, you know, now I notice when things get uncomfortable, like when the people I love are suffering or shit's going down and it's like, you don't know how to handle it.

And I still feel like that initial desire to like numb that discomfort. But now thank God I have the tools and I've been able to build them literally for myself and others to support that sturdiness when it feels like. Everything is wobbling.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, and, and you know, I want to speak to alcohol just for a second because I think we live in a weird time.

Alcohol is in a weird time. It's like we've kind of sat down with cigarettes and decided as a group that we're not okay with cigarettes, right? But alcohol is one of those things where you could go to somebody and be like, yeah, I'm not drinking today. And they look at you like, why not? Like, what's wrong with you?

Like, what was that experience like for you suddenly, you know, going from somebody who would have always had a drink in your hand at an event or something like that to someone who's like, yeah, I'm not drinking anymore. Was that potentially some of the challenge in even with your own family being like, Whoa, like, that's what you're like?

Jillian Schecher: You're no fun.

The thing is, like, I'm so much more fun now. Like I'm more fun now and I can remember things and I feel good. Like just like with, cause I was a smoker too. I mean, yeah, I used to love smoking. And I remember when you're in the addiction, you feel like you can't have joy without the thing. And it wasn't until I quit smoking.

I read Alan Carr's the easy way to quit smoking, which I was like, yeah, okay, I'm going to read a book and it's going to make me not want to smoke. But actually, you know, and this is the realm that I now work in is the realm of awareness. And it is a powerful realm because once you know the truth, you can If you want to live consciously, it's really hard to disregard it and deny it.

Right. Yeah. So what he said was, you know, when you, the thing about addiction is you think, okay, this is me absolutely paraphrasing it and dumbing it down, but it's like, you think that you need the thing in order to be joyful. But actually it's it's the removal of withdrawal symptoms that actually feels good for you.

So if you can simply get through the withdrawal, which for nicotine is three days, I'll call, I don't know how long like the physical withdrawal, yeah, is that you could actually feel good all the time. Yeah. And by good, I mean like a better baseline, right? Like, cause we're not here to feel good all the time.

I don't think actually, but it's like, I realized like in that moment, I was like, Oh my God. So I was smoking thinking, how can you even be people be happy? Like literally judging people and I realized, no, like they're happy because they don't smoke. Cause they don't have the withdrawal. They don't have the, yeah.

So that was powerful. And I find the same with alcohol. Like the brain, you know, the brain is a powerful organ. I consider it a magic wand. Like the mind, I believe is truly a magic wand. It's like, but we need to use it consciously to support the focus and the expansion of the things we desire. So with alcohol, even that, like that was always a battle, you know, I think the thing with alcoholics or people who have drinking problems is that, you know, even though you could say, no, you never do.

And that's how I knew I had a problem. Like it, it was never a no, you know? So so yeah, I, I agree. I think people were like, probably a little sad. It was quite a lot of fun. You know, my husband might not say the same, like, he always thinks I'm fun, but you know, he would see the effects afterwards. And I have to ride that rollercoaster with me, which I'm sure was not fun at all.

And but I remember some people just being like, Really? Never again? Yeah. Like ever? You know? Yeah. And I'd be like, yeah. And they're like, well, what if it's like bartering with someone to, and I just think of it like I've had the same experience, like, you know, I think we're all the same with weight loss.

Like we're all actually mirrors for each other. So what happens is if you release something that's not working for you, then it could potentially be a mirror for others around what may not be working for them that they might not be ready to fully see. Sure. Sure. So again, stay in your keep doing what you're doing so that I can feel comfortable.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Jillian Schecher: God forbid you change and I start to have to look at myself like let's not shift this shit, you know,

Kelly Kennedy: right? Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's alcohol is a weird one because it's like, we've, we've, Kind of normalize something on a certain level that when people try to walk away from it, there's so many societal things that keep people from being able to do that.

So it's really hard. I think, I think like smoking, like smoking less so it's become a lot more demonized.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: But alcohol specifically still lives in this really weird place where it's like, if you want to make better choices for your life and quit drinking alcohol, society looks at you like you're crazy.

And it's like, Of the opposite is somewhat true.

Jillian Schecher: Right? Yeah. Yeah. I remember. So, you know, as I was walking my path, I find it so funny. This is why I'm so passionate about leadership and this new, this new era of leadership, which I believe deeply is actually. About walking the walk and I talk about how we're here to inspire rather than rescue or control or even manage, like, it's like, how can I just walk the walk when I got sober and I stumbled upon meditation, which we can talk about because that was a game changer.

I was like. You guys have to meditate. Like I was like the meditation, like station, right? Like you got to do this cause it feels so good. And it's going to change your life. And everyone needs to do this from now on. And they're all like back off, you know, like you told us what to do. And it's also kind of creepy when someone's like, so like, this is the best thing, like a little culty, you know, so no one wanted to do it.

And so I was like, fine. And I just, I decided to kind of just really release. And I've realized this deeply as well, like healing my codependency tendencies, really stepping more into unconditional love. And the more I've done that in my life and allowed people to be where they're at, where regardless of where that is, has created so much more peace for me personally, but it's also really improved my relationships.

Because no one wants to feel judged or like they need to be different for you to accept them more. Right. So with my brother, you know, especially, you know, he was drinking too. And I was just like, you like trying to impose my path on him. And I remember one time we got in a fight because I was like, just let it go.

Like, look, it's ruining your life. Like is alcohol ever helped your life. What am I going to do, Jill? Like go to the bar and drink a diet Coke. And lo and behold, this past year, like he literally went out to the pub with his buddies and drink diet Coke. And I was like, Oh my God. No, we, and we also, we went out for lunch once where both of us probably would have had like, I don't know how many pints and wings, you know, and we're both drinking diet Coke.

And I was like, holy shit, look at it's happening. Like it's actually happening. And it's not because. I forced you to, or, you know, like blasted you with it. It's literally because he's been walking this path.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. I can relate to that a lot. Actually this year has been a big year for me too. Even like changing, like it wasn't uncommon for me to go to lunch and have, you know, two beers and then go back to work or whatever I needed to do.

And I'm finding too, it's like, now it's like, I need to perform at 110 percent and even those two beers or one beer at lunchtime is enough to not allow me to do that. And so I'm finding that just out of like necessity, I have stopped drinking and I don't feel bad about it. I don't feel bad about it. I see this as like a healthy baseline for going forward.

And it's, I'm not against alcohol. I think for the, for some people it's fine, but I think for some people it can become a real problem and you really have to make that judgment of. Who am I? Which, which side of that fence do I fall on? And, and be honest with yourself.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah, I love that. I also don't judge alcohol or people who drink.

I'm down with it. Like, it's truly whatever feels right for everyone. I, it always comes back to me in terms of like, are you feeling how you want to feel? And is this supporting that? Why? You know, like, what do you most want to experience? And, And, you know, the things in your life, like what is contributing to it?

What is taking away? And for a lot of people, it's not a problem at all. Like, and for those who it is a problem with, I would just say, like, to have a look at that and be willing to maybe explore it again, compassionately, like, is this serving me, you know?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, it's usually, it's usually not the alcohol.

There's something else underneath. There's something underlying that is the real problem.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah. And if I may, you know, for me, sobriety has nothing to do with substances to me. Like the definition of sobriety to me personally is having the courage to feel. Yeah. It's having the courage to feel so we could talk about booze, but I'm like, let's talk about scrolling.

Yeah. Let's talk about sugar. Let's talk about, you know, gambling or sex or like whatever is the thing that we're doing to numb the feelings.

Kelly Kennedy: And let's talk about feelings for a second because feelings is something, you know, I mean, my fiance is very much like you. I, I see a lot of her in you and she's Shelby, Shelby, but that's okay.

She'll love that.

Jillian Schecher: You can call me Shesher.

Kelly Kennedy: She is, she's awesome. She's super in tune with her feelings and, and I know we'll be in conversations sometimes and I'll be struggling because I'm one of those people who just shuts down. Like, and it's not like, it's not like I'm shutting down, but like, I think I really do struggle sometimes to get deep.

With with my feelings, even with myself, like, let's get real. I'm not talking about like a conversation with someone else. It's like even getting to that moment and being like, Kelly, are you okay? Like, are we really good? Like, what are we actually feeling right now? And I know I'm not alone in that. I know there's plenty of men out there who really struggled, probably men and women who struggle with connecting with their feelings, like that's just not.

I grew up in a time when it was like, get over it, figure it out, move on, do the thing you need to do. Like, I'm so performance oriented. I'm so goal driven, performance oriented that, like you said, in the beginning of our conversation, we can just completely overlook our feelings. We can just kick them to the side, shut them down, and do what we need to do.

To a point where, like, I know, like, sometimes, We'll struggle with connection just because I struggle maybe with connection with myself and I don't, it's like, how do you fix something that you're not even sure what's wrong or how to do it?

Jillian Schecher: Yes. Oh my gosh. You're hitting me in the heart right now, Kelly.

Like, so for me, I do, I love working with men. And for exactly this reason, I feel like we haven't as a society really given men permission to feel. And so the men that I work with, it's the exact same thing. It's like, what, how do I actually feel like being able to actually identify, feel the feelings and then go from there.

And it's so empowering. And what I need to say about men is like, give, when I give a man some tools to like, here's like, here are the feelings, here's how to feel the feelings and simply begin to hold space for men to actually feel and share how they're feeling, begin to articulate it. Because again, like I feel like, and.

You know, you could consider this a judgment, but based on the men that I've worked with and what I've seen in my life, it's like, there's even a lack of ability to articulate around the feelings because no one has taught you to. It wasn't very much modeled. It's just not the way we raise, have raised men.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny. Like, I think back to like one of the most impactful things that's hit me recently. And like, literally like three nights ago, our, we have a baby boy, he's three months old. Well, almost four months old. He's so sweet, but he got, he got sick. And in the middle of the night, he was really crying, had a really bad fever.

And it was time, like we'd, we'd put it off. We'd done everything we could for him. It was time to take him to the hospital and see if we couldn't get him some help.

Jillian Schecher: And I

Kelly Kennedy: remember like I had to stay home because we have three other boys as well. And I had to stay home and Shelby went. And I know like in that moment, the feelings that I was feeling for my, my baby boy, like I, you know, I cried, my eyes were watering.

I was feeling horrible for him. The fact that he has to go to the hospital at four months old. And. For me, like, that was probably the first time that my eyes have watered.

Jillian Schecher: Like, right here. This is salty wetness.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, like, it was just like, it, but it was, it was the overwhelm of that situation and just how bad I felt for my baby boy in that moment.

But it's like, Yeah, it takes something that big sometimes to really feel, you know what I mean?

Jillian Schecher: Yeah. Yeah. I do. And thank you for sharing. I think that's so important and congrats on, and how's he doing now?

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, he's good. Yeah. We're good. We're good. It was just new parent. I'm, I'm a very new parent, new parents, parents and feelings, but yeah, he's good.

He's good. He's better now, but yeah, it freaked the crap out of me in the moment.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah. Yeah. And so like the thing about the feelings is the ability to just feel it instead of stuff it or numb it. And what happens is so, so when I got sober, that was the most uncomfortable part was the feelings. And so I was studying like how to actually feel better.

I was reading Pima Children's book called Living Beautifully. She's got a few really good books that I highly recommend for people who are going through it. And in it, she spoke about a neuroscientist named Jill Bolt Taylor who had a stroke and studied her own recovery. And she found that a feeling only lasts 90 seconds.

And literally that was why I'm sober right now, I swear, because I don't know if I would've been able to get through it without that piece of wisdom around. Okay. So if it's only 90 seconds, so, so it's actually my desire to push it away. Okay. Resist it. That's making it persist. And, or my, my, the places where I might grab onto the feeling and then just spiral downward call every single person I know, talk about the discomfort, like really focus on the shit you don't want to have happen, you know begin expanding it so that you feel actually worse.

So I was like, okay, well, there's another alternative here. And it's literally sitting with the feelings. And that kind of coincided with my meditation. Experience where I stumbled into lifestyle meditation, the first class, the first day met Mandy trap, who's now one of my best friends. And it changed my life so massively because it was the first time I actually came home to myself and was able to just like be without, and I resisted meditation for years because it's like, Oh my God, what's going to happen in there?

Like, I don't even want to say it. See what's going on in there, you know and so, yeah, that was the piece around it. So I was like, okay, so I can sit meditate, be a witness, become a witness to not only my thoughts, but also my feelings. And it kind of helped me to begin holding space for myself and just know yeah, I can get through it.

Like I can get through it. And that It's actually on the other side of the discomfort that joy lives pretty often, right? It's, it's also, you know, I learned this or heard it from Brene Brown years ago, and it has stuck with me is that you can't selectively numb your feelings. So if you're numbing pain, you're also numbing joy.

And when I got sober, I actually found like, The joy was freaking gratitude. I felt was so immense, you know, and I started noticing almost anxiety around the good things in my life, feeling like, Oh my God, what if something happens? Yeah. What if this gets taken away or what, what if something happens to the people I love or, you know, my puppy or my husband, like, I don't know.

Lots of kind of fear almost around the joy and the feeling of all of it. So, so I really had that experience and yeah, and now I also teach people how to kind of raise the joy ceiling too. Like let it in.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Like that's not the first time that I've heard that. And so I find that really interesting because it's like, you get rid of the negative things and you think you're safe, but then you hear the same thing.

People are then, then the fear just switches to what if I lose this thing? That's great. And then does that just lead to self sabotage? What does that lead to?

Jillian Schecher: Well, and this is why we do the work. Like this is why. So this is, you know, the work that I do and it's why I call it the practice of joy. I have the joy method.

We can dive into that if we want to, but it's really like that ability to feel the feelings no matter what they are. Even just give room to them. So feelings are also emotions, which is simply energy in motion. So everything is made of energy. Yeah. And if I can just allow that feeling to move through again, I can get to the other side of it instead of it getting stuck.

I mean, I feel like this is where disease is literally created is from just the holding of all of this shit that we could literally let go and experience that lightness of being, which most of us seek. Like I would say most people say they want to feel peaceful. Actually, you know but if we're not willing to feel the grief or the pain or the frustration or the anger it's really true.

It's going to be tricky to experience the piece that we desire.

Kelly Kennedy: Is it a choice? Like, can you like, Because I can tell you that when I'm feeling things and I shut down, it doesn't feel like a choice. It doesn't feel like I have a choice in that moment to be like, I'm going to feel this right now. Right? It feels like my body's like, no, you're not.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah, I get it. And that is a literal shutdown. But what I would say, so this is where the mindfulness component comes in. It's being able, and this is the practice of joy. Okay. And it's like why I journal it's why I do all the things I do. It's why meditate it's that ability to actually meet yourself in it, in the discomfort it's saying, okay, I'm noticing myself shutting down.

It's having awareness of our bodies, of our emotions, of our perceptions and sensations. So that in a moment of shutdown, I can say, okay, I'm feeling myself shut down and then actually take care of myself. Like, what do I need to do for myself? Do I need to go sit in meditation? Do I need to just lay down?

Do I need to have a time? Like we need to bring the time outs back to adulthood, because we typically don't. And then what we do is we're in reaction mode and often doing things that are stress induced that actually aren't in our best interests or in the interest of the people that we are in relationship with.

And it can just lead to a lot of turmoil. So I feel like, well, I know it feels, it is an automatic response, right? So fight or flight, fight, fight, fawn, freeze. I mean, there's stress responses. So what you're speaking of is an actual automated response in the body to stress, but we're conscious beings. So.

So there are spaces where you have the time to, or there will be a space cause there's space between every single thought. So there's a space between that stress response where you get to choose, okay, I'm noticing I'm in a stress response. I'm actually going to do a, B or C to bring down my stress you know, support my nervous system and be able to respond in a way that is actually, you know, helpful for me.

And. In my life.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. I, I know that I talk to a lot of people who feel, and I don't know whether it's like, I want to call it the overwhelm of the world. Like I genuinely think we live in a time now with too much information. We know too much. We just know too much. And it's like, you know, I know people that'll get down about the war in Ukraine or they'll get down about the latest and greatest you know, civil rights thing going on.

It's so impactful in your experience. How can people find joy? Oh, and does it come down to they just have to not pay attention to anything going on in the media for people that are susceptive to that?

Jillian Schecher: I, yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: What do you do? How do you handle that?

Jillian Schecher: How do you find joy when the world is suffering? Is that the question?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah. Okay. So, oh, I love it. It feels loaded, but I'm going for it. So there's like many kind of component components it feels like to this question. And the thing is, it's like, I really feel like it's important for me to share that I'm not the authority on anyone else. So I'm going to share what I believe, what I know to be true that has been helpful for others.

But I also would invite whoever's listening to actually break, like always filter other people's wisdom through your own internal wisdom to, to feel like, is this true for me? Right. Cause this is really tricky. I mean, like I feel, so I'm very, I am very spiritual. I'm not religious, but I'm very spiritual.

So so I look at things in terms of energy, but also from a soulful perspective and like, there's a few components to this and I don't want to go too deeply into all of it because it will take for sure the whole time. But what I want to say is like, I deeply believe that we actually light up the world from the inside out.

Okay. And most of us tend to look outward, especially when it comes to suffering. It's part of our human nature. And this is beautiful heart. Heart felt component that we're born with is like to care about others. So it can be really hard to, to feel okay when others are not okay. But if we bring this back to what I was sharing about my childhood, even where I would sacrifice myself to make sure others were okay, what I'm seeing is like, I feel like we're all actually empaths.

We all actually have the ability to feel others, others pain and others joy. Like that's part of our abilities. Whether or not we want to hone it. Right. And so if I'm tapped into the suffering of the world and I'm focused on how to fix the world, like I know that is the absolute path to suffering for myself.

And the reason I know this is because I've tried to do it my whole life and it actually almost killed me really, truly, it almost took me down. And then I just think of the oxygen mask and how, you know, How important it is for us to tend to our own light. So I see each of us in the world as a light and, you know, I actually have a vision and my mission is all around lighting up the world like a field full of fireflies because I saw it in a meditation.

I saw a field. It was the expanded vision of what I was doing in the world. And so now when I go back to that vision, I see us all as these lights. And if, if, if so, you know, there's people who are in conflict and experiencing horrors. You know, their light is dimming. And so you notice the other lights in the field.

So my light might want to give to that, to that experience and what's going on out there. And then what begins to happen? My light begins to dim and then I start giving from depletion and then, you know, soon enough I'm dim or, or my light is actually gone. So what I truly believe is that like from an energetic perspective is if I can mind my own light, if I can honor my own energy, it doesn't mean I don't look.

It doesn't mean that I'm not tending to that energy, but I'm doing it from a place of overflow, meaning I'm not looking at it every day because I can't because it will take me down. Right? It's I pay enough attention to it, to honor it, to send like blessings, prayers. Like I, I, you know, I'm deeply sending light out into the world every day.

I teach people how to do this, how to actually amplify the light in the world. But I'm, but as an energy, Well, I actually call myself a joy wizard. Okay. There it's out there. So it's like really managing the energy and noticing the energy and noticing how I'm feeling, how I'm feeling is my compass. If I end up in despair, it's okay for me to go there every here and there.

Okay. I'm noticing what's going on in the world. I'm down in despair. But if I stay into despair and get down into hopelessness and stay there too long, you can imagine what that would do for my light. And then what does that do for the world? So it's how do I tend to reality in a way that actually serves supports my light so that I can actually be a light for others, right?

So I manage it. I don't watch the news. Like, very rarely am I watching the news I, I tend to it when I need to, and that's about as all as I do, all I do, English but then I'm actively working on my energy every single day. So in meditation, I do a tree of life meditation and I'm actively sending light out into the world, energy out into the world from an overflow state and praying, adding everyone into my prayers.

And I know it's like, Oh, love and light. But I'm like, I deeply believe in the power of prayer. I've seen it, like, change lives, save lives. And, and it's part of my practice.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. There's something, you know, regardless of what you believe in, there's something about praying to a higher power that allows you to release it from you.

And I think that's really what it comes down to is that as humans, we can only do so much, right? Regardless. And you can't hold the weight of the world. And there's something about a prayer that just lifts that weight from you.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah, and if I may also add, from an energetic perspective, it's, it's very, like, as humans, we want to look outside of ourselves.

I feel like the path gets a lot deeper. And more potent, the more that we're doing the inner work, actually, so because the thing is, if I'm looking out and I'm judging things as good or bad outside in the world, and then I'm trying to make the world different for me to feel better, what happens is my joy becomes conditional.

You know, from walking the path of addiction with family members, we lost my brother in law in 2022 and overdose. We walked many years with him in a horrific addiction and did everything we could and literally, there comes a point where you need to actually detach with love. I feel like this is kind of the energetic of what's going on now is the ability to detach, but still remain loving about it.

Still handle things energetically. Yeah. And that to me feels like it preserves my well being as well as the same time as others. There's also the perspective of. I want to look outside in the world, but what is actually going on within me? So I like to use relationships and the world as a reflection of myself.

Not, it sounds very narcissistic, but it's like in a way in which like, because my human nature may want to judge, you know, you as doing something wrong or bad. And you need to change it for me to feel okay. Right. But what if that exact energetic is within me and what if I tended to it within me? So I'll give you an example of a family member and some suffering.

Okay. Contrast. We have a family member who's going through, you know, a Kind of a Parkinson's diagnosis sucks. Awful. Wouldn't wish that on anyone. And we were all together on a family vacation and we were all stressed out because he wasn't using his Walker, like was refusing to use any support. And I was just like in such high anxiety.

It like, Oh, it's one of the times where like, I would want to grab a drink, to be honest with you, to like numb that discomfort because again, something I can't control it's outside of me. Right. And I remember saying to my mom in law, like, I wish he would just surrender. Yeah. And in that moment, I flipped it onto myself.

I was like, and I actually, I just heard like, who needs to truly surrender here? Yeah. And I was like, boom. So the, the thing that I'm desiring for someone else is actually my piece to be working on where can I surrender my need to control this person for me to feel safer. Okay. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Where can I, where can I detach with love and trust that he's got his own outcomes, his own life path and that I can love and support, but I actually can't control.

That's where I actually have control is my response to the external world and to the people around me is instead of making it about them and about what needs to change out there and who needs to do what and how they need to do it. Like you can feel how frigging conditional this gets. Yeah. It's like, what if actually.

I release all of that with love and I send love and I focus on how I can feel okay about what's going on because I can't actually change a lot of it.

Kelly Kennedy: I find it so funny because you had me thinking about entrepreneurship there because you know we're speaking to a lot of entrepreneurs and I know most of them.

are doing. They take it on to themselves. They don't let other people make their business choices for them. If they want success, they try to find a way to get that success. They don't wait for someone else to give it to them. But yet with our joy or with our feelings about things, we do give so much of that to other people.

Jillian Schecher: Oh yes. Yeah. We say you're the thief of joy, but it's like that cannot be thieved, which that has not been given. In Shakespeare, I

Kelly Kennedy: was gonna say, okay, Merlin.

Jillian Schecher: I've been talking in old English lately, don't mind me. It happened in a course of mine recently too, so many, but truly like. You know, joy really requires us to take full accountability for our experience.

Right. Yeah. And really see ourselves as the co creators and the deliberate designers of our lives, our businesses, our relationships, like it's not happening to us as much as it can feel that way.

Kelly Kennedy: But, oh man, and I, and I get it, I do get that, but it can really feel like it's happening to us, can't it?

Jillian Schecher: Yep, it can. I'm like 100%. Like, I'm in the practice with you. You know, there's times where it really does and like, why and why me? And but that's when, that's when I deepened into the joy work around really seeing things as the opportunity for growth. And I know deeply that we're here to grow. Like, if I think about, okay, what is life, what is this life truly about?

Like, what is it truly about? I know it's for me to have the biggest Impact that I can have. While feeling as good as I can possibly feel, knowing that that doesn't mean I'm going to be feeling comfortable and that there will be contrast because the contrast or the things that we might not choose actually support us in revisioning.

And as much as we all want to get to the place where everything's good, right. And it feels okay. I had a client recently says, I just want to feel aligned 24 seven. I was like, okay, well, Might as well be an angel in the clouds eating bonbons.

Kelly Kennedy: I just want to never have a bad day.

Jillian Schecher: And I have to remind myself too, like as much as I want to feel good all the time, like I'm actually here to grow.

What does that mean? It means I'm going to get the opportunity to practice myself as a deliberate designer of my life. I'm going to get the opportunity to revision as entrepreneurs. How many frigging pivots have we done, right? Especially this past four years. Like, holy shit. So it's really knowing that that stuff, when it happens, it's not here to hurt us or harm us.

It's often here to show us where to revision. And when I look back at all of those uncomfortable places, I feel like a lot of it served my highest and best good. I just didn't know it at the time, but it did serve more alignment for me.

Kelly Kennedy: Jillian, that's absolutely amazing. And I do think it is, I don't know, it's, it's, it's a lot because obviously if we could, if we could just be happy all the time, we would choose that.

Right. And it does feel like something like if we can have even an ounce more control in that, I want to have it. I want to have that ounce more control. Cause if that, if that only makes me 1 percent more happy in my life, that's what I want to be. But I think for some people it can just feel, and I do feel like specifically for entrepreneurs, my gosh, we're just, We don't know when to give up.

We don't know when to just be happy with ourselves. And I am super guilty for that. I know plenty of my friends are guilty for that. Plenty of the people we've had on the show are guilty for that. We're just constantly striving and we don't even know what the hell we're striving for half the time. We're just striving and we're really good at it.

Jillian Schecher: Yes. Striving award goes to everyone.

I know it, like I know it. And honestly, I experienced it. Okay. As an entrepreneur, I also experienced it. And what I also know to be true is like the thing when we're in striving where we can tend to get very outside of ourselves. And what can happen is that the things that truly matter go to the wayside.

And we're allowing the mind to actually dictate what What is going on for us and I feel like the more people I can speak to about this, the better so that I can support aligned living aligned, growing aligned, aligned business building where you get to come along for the ride. So it's not just your goals or dreams that matter.

It's actually how you feel along the way. And it's also the people that you love, like. Like at the end of the day, we all know on our deathbeds, we're not going to be saying we should have worked more. And I know it's this passion and this drive. Like there's so much passion and drive in what all of us do, but it's how to enjoy life and enjoy the magical middle in between the striving.

So, and when you're striving, it's knowing why, like being more intentional about what, what I'm doing, what is the impact of this? And like, because I feel like 50 percent of the stuff we might be doing doesn't matter as much as we think it does.

Kelly Kennedy: True. But it's like, it's hard in that moment to separate that.

Like, I think for me, and this is one of the struggles that I've had. I've talked with a lot of incredibly successful entrepreneurs. And so I look at them and I say, okay, well, I want to be like that one day. So what is it going to take Kelly? What do we got to do? And it's so funny because I'll talk to them and I will ask them, I said, you know what, like, are you happy with where you're at?

And they'll be like, yeah, I'm super happy with where I'm at. I work like four hours a day. Now we have a good income. The company runs itself. Life is great. And I'm like, okay, that's amazing. But what about like, how long did it take for you to get there? And they're like, oh yeah, like it was like 10 years of grinding and striving and doing everything that I could to make that happen.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: And so like, I guess for me, this is what I see. I see a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's also at the end of the tunnel. Like, there's a lot of striving and hard work that's going to have to happen for Kelly before he gets to that great life at the end of the tunnel. And it's like, my gosh, like that's a long time to wait sometimes.

Jillian Schecher: Yes, it really is. And here's, and like, the truth is we don't know how long the tunnel is,

Kelly Kennedy: or if we're even going to make it.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah.

It's so true. So, so to just like be super transparent and real a couple of years ago, I actually, so I've, I've spent too much time in the sun as a kid. And as we all did, like, hello, hello, Fabio tan. Like, oh my God. Anyway, so now I've got some skin. Like I need to go get mole checks all the time and all this might be TMI, but whatever, this is how I roll.

So a couple of years ago I had some biopsies done and one came back as melanoma just in situ, like just the beginning, but hearing the C word really shook me up, you know, because you know, I still feel, I mean, I, I feel super young. I feel like there's so much for me to do. I feel super vital and yeah, just like passionate about life.

And it was like, holy shit. Like, oh my God, No, this can't be like, it can't like, you hear that word and you just think I'm going to die. Like, that's kind of like the first thing I think probably most people feel or like, I don't want to, right. And so I let, I moved through what I call the joy method. I allowed myself to feel those uncomfortable feelings.

And then I used it to like actually focus on feeling better and, and moving toward joy, like actually regardless of any of it. So I'm fine. Like, it's all fine. They removed it. I'm good. But what that showed me was like how, you know, change. And like losing my dad, losing loved ones having people get sick.

Like it's just, it shows you how quickly things can actually change. And I think, you know, I was talking about a friend recently who lost her father suddenly as humans, I think we have this like perceived permanence so that we'll stay sane and keep, Doing the things we're here to do, right? It's like, you don't want to know that you don't can't think too much about mortality or how quickly things could end or you'd be depressed or in despair.

Right? Right. That's right. But it's how do we bring that? That knowing along the way to, to really make each day as magical as it can be and, and really tend to, and this is what my work is, you know, supporting entrepreneurs and actually bringing joy along the way. It's not just about the business you're building, although that is amazing and all the things you're doing is amazing and your drive for success is amazing, but your family is also amazing.

And your health is also amazing and your home is also amazing. It's like how to make all of those quadrants actually a focus and a priority so that you get to experience harmony and, and, you know, you don't look back and say, okay, I I'm here now, but what did I lose? What did I have to sacrifice along the way?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And like, I see what you've done here and you've essentially modeled your life, your business all around the idea of happiness. Like on some level, you've probably found harmony in a way that most people are just have never even thought might be possible. Like I, I look at what you've done and I think I, there's probably a lot of people listening today who are thinking, how the heck did she do this?

Like, how did, where did the idea for the joy journal come from? What might that do for me? Can we talk a little bit about, about, you know, first off. How it led into the coaching and then how that led into the joy journal.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah, for sure. Thanks for asking. Yeah. So so the coaching, so I stumbled on the meditation bit, I think I remember people asking me to coach them before I even took any coach training and I was like okay.

Like let's do like, well, I don't know. Okay. Sure. But I also, when I was drinking, I was studying and reading so many different authors and self help books and you know, so much so much of that work and I knew I wanted to be a coach one day, I just knew it wasn't the right time, you know, I had to clean up my own act first.

So when I got sober, it was kind of like, Oh my God. Now I can kind of pursue coaching. So I stumbled upon meditation. I got into more alignment and then I, then I started listening to law of attraction, Abraham Hicks, and it just felt like my soul was like, yes, like this is what I know to be true. And life started changing and shifting.

And then I attracted law of attraction coach training. I told her I wanted to do coaching. I was like, yeah, I think it's going to Erickson or, and she goes, well, my friend. Tanya is a Law of Attraction coach, trainer, and I was like, like, you mean like Abraham Hicks Law of Attraction? She's like, yeah, I'm like, holy shit.

So obviously I signed up for that. I did two rounds. I did just a kind of six or nine months. I don't know. We made it way longer. And then a Masters in coaching with her. Love her, Tanya. We're her, Chuck. And I started coaching the first month I was in that class, like in, in class, because I think I was just, it was part of my path for sure.

And this is the thing about my path. Yes. It was really windy. I mean, I didn't tell you about working in the women's prison or at a psychology office or like all these other things, but it doesn't really matter because all roads led to now. Right. So, so did the coach training started coaching and it, you know, I created the joy sessions, which is the workshops I.

Do, but also teach others to do I started that as a practicum project. It was like how to get as many hours as possible, do a group thing. Right. And so I put together the joy sessions, which includes, you know, meditation prompts that I use, like it, you know, everything that is what I do now is a part of the path that I, Personally walked.

So I was sharing with people, the things that changed my life and the things that I created in human design. I'm a manifestor. I don't know if you study human design, but so like have these visionary tendencies that I didn't really recognize, but it's like very easily like. I am a creative, like I'm absolutely creative.

So it's like creating the things that, you know, that I needed and then the potentially the world needs. So I started doing these sessions in my living room and I, I did a four week program. Like I remember women just running into my house, kicking their shoes off to sit and meditate and journal. And it's where the joy method was born because I was just doing like meditation, journaling, and these sessions.

But I was feeling like something was missing and it was the inspired action piece. Yeah. So I pulled in a lot of like my psychology training, lots of CBT mindfulness, meditation, and kind of, it just all actually like it wasn't conscious. Again, I was just kind of building tools that I knew would be helpful.

They were helpful for me and others. And that in that. Those sessions, that's when I did this expansion meditation and saw the joy sessions, like kind of expanding into bigger places. And then when I thought I couldn't expand, it ended up expanding to an amphitheater in Rome with me and my husband playing guitar and like all of us, thousands of people meditating.

And then the meditation was like, how much bigger can this get? But then it expanded to this field at dusk and it started lighting up with fireflies. And I was just like crying and and it was like, wow. So like, that has been kind of the vision ever since is, you know, I know I'm not here to do this alone.

So that was joy sessions soon after that, I think just being in community, people started maybe like, again, big in energy. So probably feeling the vibration of what I was up to. And I got asked to go do joy sessions at Lululemon. And that was amazing working with their community. And then it just kind of began, like it continued to expand from there.

I'm just like, I'm such an excited, like I just share what I do. I love social media. I gotta be honest. Like I love social media still. I know it's changed a lot, but I find it's such a potential for connection and I don't care like the algorithm. Yeah, it can get frustrating, but I still make so many amazing connections on there.

And Really value that. So, I mean, I feel like I built this aspect of my business very much through social, especially through COVID. And the journal was part of the homework that I would give in the sessions. And so I started in my living room and then in 2019, I built I took Amy Porterfield's course and I built the joy sessions online program.

Before COVID got it online and did like a couple of rounds of that. And people were like, you should make the joy journal. Like, cause I would assign joy journaling as homework. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like I know I'm kind of busy. Right. And then during COVID I was actually slotted to go to do joy sessions at the PJ party and at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge.

And the day we were going, everything shut down and I had moved a whole launch of the, one of the online programs to catch all these people. And then, and I was also in a lot of debt. We're like, I'm putting it all on black. You know, like I'm just going for it. Who cares? Put it on my visa. And I got dinged with two years of, of tax payments same week.

And then everything shut down and I was like, whole. I mean, you should have a whole other podcast around like what happened for entrepreneurs. But as I know it happened for everyone else. Right. But so that was one of the pivotal points in my business where, where at the time I was like, Oh my God, this is awful for the whole world.

But what did it allow me to do? Cause I was like, I need to get a job. But no one's hiring. And then I was looking for jobs and I was like, okay, what would I do? And, and I've seen, you know, positions, but I would want to use my programs. And then I thought, well, why don't I just work with corporate companies and leaders?

And I think a couple of months later, I called in my first leader. Chris and and he then hired me to work with his family and his team. And. And, and he threatened me literally. So it was Chris who threatened me, said, if you're not going to make this journal, I will. And I was like, okay, I'm going to pay.

And you know what, like the income that came in at that time, I invested in Bill, like creating the journal, the first journal. So thank you Chris and thank you contrast for like supporting that in the world. So, so yeah, it feels like the joy journal is it's like more than a journal. It's actually a program.

The original journal, the gray one is a daily journal. Ritual like, and you know, that might sound witchy, but I would call it a daily practice. It supports using your mind as a magic wand. It employs like law of attraction and cognitive behavioral therapy and theory, mindfulness, and everything that I know to support feeling better.

Because I think that's the other thing with joy is. It might feel ridiculous to be like, I'm not feeling very good. Joy doesn't even feel possible for me. But joy is actually not like we think of it as an end destination, but it's actually who we are. Right. So what it requires is for us to tend to ourselves.

So this is why I built the daily practice is to remember who we are, how we're feeling, how we want to feel, what we want to experience and allow what's not working to actually fall away more easily to support our maximum alignment. So, so the journal allows that piece is to support us in, in feeling better.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Like I said, I think, I think for a lot of, you know, like high performance individuals, my gosh, like one day just goes into the other and the next thing, you know, a week's gone by and then a month's gone by and a year's gone by and you're like, holy crap, like where did I find time for me? And, and, you know, I mean, I'm guilty for this.

I know a lot of entrepreneurs are guilty for this, where I like kind of look back and it's like, what did I do this week that was fun or that I enjoyed? And it's like. Holy crap. Like I just worked. I like, I like, I did the best I could that week. And I tried to be there for my family and I tried to be there for my loved one.

And, and I tried to be the best version of me that I could, but sometimes it's like, it feels like so much is required of us as leaders, as entrepreneurs, as people trying to change the world in one way or another, it can just be really hard to focus on who we are and what makes us happy. Cause sometimes it just doesn't, doesn't matter.

It feels like it doesn't matter at times. At least I felt that way.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah. And this is what I would literally say is the practice of joy. It's remembering yourself along the way, like feel good on the way to your goals. Yeah. Make how you feel matter. Does that make sense? It does weird grammar.

Kelly Kennedy: No, I know what you're saying, Jillian.

I know, I know. And I, I can tell you every entrepreneur is like, I get it. How the hell do I do this? Tell us how, what's, is there a secret? What do we not know here?

Jillian Schecher: Okay. Well, like, you know, atomic habits. Did you read it? I bet you read it.

How to build better habits faster. I call them joy habits. So I look at the practice of joy, like building a joy habit.

And it's a bit of, it's a process. It's a practice just like anything else. So it's like, if I want to, I need to practice feeling better. It's the same as if you want to feel fit or strong, you would go to the gym and work out. Right. So if I want to feel good in all aspects of my life, I will tend to do it.

Like I will make the non negotiable time for myself. But what I want to say is this is not easy. Like I'm just going to be a hundred percent honest. And you said, I've done it. I'm the happy, I'm like, no, I'm doing it. Like I'm absolutely in the practice and I still mouth guard work sometimes, you know, when you're like in it and you're like, wake up.

Grab the laptop, start working. I'm in a launch right now and I'm really trying to, to practice in bot. I'm calling it embodied leadership, which is where I make how I feel matter while I'm launching, while I'm marketing, like while I'm sharing, while I'm doing pretty much anything is not no longer disregarding myself.

Because if, if I'm not here, what does any of it matter? Right. If I'm not tending to my light, if I'm not honoring my life force, literally my energy, then none of this even matters. So it's really realizing, you know, that like. I started like, I'm really thinking about legacy too. Like what is the legacy that we're leaving?

And it's very much like branding. So branding for me is, is less about the visuals. It's more like, what is my energetic impact in the world? And I even think, so I think like branding is legacy. It's the same thing actually. It's how are people feeling around you? What are you, what, what are you creating in the world with your energy?

And how do you do it with yourself instead of like leaving yourself? You know, along the way it requires discipline, just like anything else. So I call it sacred discipline because making yourself a priority is the most important thing you could ever do. And it's like, you know, built starting small, like, what does this look like to start small?

And then actually like feel better, like feel, and maybe we do because the thing is, yes. Okay. Success driven entrepreneurs. Yes. And is it sustainable? And is it true? Like, are you truly happy if all you have is business and financial success? Cause the people I work with aren't like, they're actually honest about it's actually not feeling as good as it could in all aspects of my life.

Kelly Kennedy: No, and I think the reason is that most of us start a business to get free, but we don't end up free. We end up in some levels more involved and tied down than ever. And yet what we're still hoping for is that we get to freedom. Like when I think of financial success, what I really think of. It's freedom, freedom to do what I want to go where I want to hang out with who I want and to, you know, buy what I want, whatever it is, it's about freedom.

It's about peace and happiness. But it feels like at somewhere along the line. Is that even realistic? Or is that just a friggin dream? We've all sold to ourselves?

Jillian Schecher: Well, and I would say if you want to experience freedom, where can you feel a little more free today?

It means can you create more freedom today, knowing that it is not something that miraculously happens.

We are the ones who decide to give it to ourselves. We are the ones it's not even, it's not like if I say I want peace, it means that I'm going to have the opportunity to choose peace. It means I'm going to have the opportunity to see conflict. Or drama and not bite the hook. It means right. Like it feels like, like we're very active in our experiences.

So if I want freedom, I need to be actively choosing freedom. I need to be taking inspired actions that support me and feeling free now. You know I gotta be honest, Kay. Like I, so I love business. I love building my business. I love everything I'm doing. I get taken out of alignment very often because of how much I love what I do.

Like, I could be in creation mode all the time. Like I don't, I don't even actually know how much I work. It's a lot. Yeah. Most of it doesn't feel like work. Yes. So like that, I would be honest about if you don't want to work a lot, don't run your own business.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. I say that all the time. I say that all the time.

I'm like, if you're going to start a business, you better damn well love it. It better be something you eat, breathe and sleep because that's what you're going to be doing.

Jillian Schecher: And I need to practice discipline to put it down. Like I'm the one I've decided, like, you know, Oh, and all my programs, even I'm going away this weekend and I'm thinking, Oh my God, they've got to do this.

This is right. I'm working on a good Friday. We're working in it. Right. Yep. And like, I'm, there's no problem there. I love working and I'm probably not going to get through all my to do's and what I've had to do in order to experience more joy is actually release the idea that getting things done. Brings me peace because as long as we're alive, especially as entrepreneurs, you're going to have a ton of things to do.

So it's actually like I shifted it to in, in the journal, the new one, it's called the get to do list. Yes. And it's actually like, you're also on that list, like your self care and your. Well being is a non negotiable. That's part of your to do list now going forward. If you want to feel better, you know, on the way to all of your dreams and goals.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also being able to celebrate all the dreams and goals that you've already achieved. Like we'll set those goals and then meet them. And then what? Just keep going, like it's never ending.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally, totally. It's just a moving target. And I've, I've, I mean, we've, we've had so much success on the show and I'm blessed.

Honestly, I'm so thankful that we have. But it's like, it's like, oh, we won another award or something really cool just happened. Great, on to the next thing, like it's really hard to find. To just stop and celebrate that moment. And I know I'm not alone in that. So many people struggle with that same thing.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah. Yeah. So I am a big celebrator. It's something I also encourage is like, where are you winning? Right. You know, knowing that the things we tend to with our minds, the things we focus on, we expand. So let's focus on the wins and what we desire instead of what's not working or. What shade is hitting the fan this week?

It's like, you know, let's look at those as the opportunities for growth. What am I taking and moving forward? And then let's look at like, where am I winning? How do we like, just tending to that with the mind will expand the good things.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, I, so much of what you're saying. really just boils down to you need to become aware of your own joy or what makes you happy and try to prioritize that.

And I think like sometimes it can feel like in entrepreneurship, like we're just too busy to do that for ourselves. You know, and I know, I know you've even struggled with that because it's like, you're super high performance. You're doing big things. You're in the middle of the launch right now. I'm sure there are moments where you're like, Hey, I'd love a break, but I can't take it because I got stuff to do.

Right. And it's hard in those moments to prioritize joy.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, oh, I should really walk Lily . It's like o'clock pm . Yeah. And I'm like, she's a small dog. That's why I got a small dog. It's all good. . Yeah. No, and I like to just be so honest about how human I am. Like I'm not, I'm not perfect at this either.

It is an absolute practice for me too. And I think I love what you said. Which, what did you say? You said joy. Oh. So I need to share a formula. Okay. I'm all about the methods and the formulas. Okay. But this is, I feel like this is how, when you ask how it's so it's awareness plus action equals alignment.

And I feel like awareness is so powerful. It's probably the most powerful thing that we have. And I actually feel like awareness is very healing. For those who want to be conscious in this lifetime. So awareness, I've got the awareness that something's not working or feeling good. Then I move myself through what I call the joy method.

Noticing the thoughts, shifting them to better feeling thoughts setting powerful intentions. The thing is, is when we realize that our focus is so powerful instead of having the contrast to support a shift of attention, what if you could just wake up and say, what do I want to have happen today or this week?

Right. Like super, super I'm big on intention setting. Cause I just see it like paving a pathway for ourselves. And I think that's how I've also had so much success and sustainable successes because it's less do it. Like it's more, it's truly more about the being. And I found all these hacks around like.

I focus on the wins. I'm raising the vibration. There's frequency to the things I'm doing because of how I'm treating them and honoring them. Right. Not just doing them. And, you know, I've had to simplify my business over and over and over again, because I find it does take me out of alignment.

And I'm not saying I don't want to expand, but I'm saying, I don't make expansion.

My focus, I make. My impact in the world, my focus, I literally make like that feel the fireflies. Like if I can impact one person today positively and support you in, in maybe tending to yourself better, that's more light in the world. And boom, I like, to me, that's the most important thing. But for me to have the impact I'm here to have, I need to honor my energy first.

And so it's where I've brained it in. I'm like, no, I don't need a huge team. I don't need a big, like, I don't need, I don't Anything big or massive. I can be the low and slow one. And I actually now I teach others how to do this work. So it's like, and I don't have to do this myself. Yeah, it just feels like I've made simplicity more of my focus than expansion.

And it's been very helpful for my joy levels.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, you know, you talked about intention and like, for me, I've done things to do this week lists for over a decade, and that's how I've done my work, whether it's for a client or myself or whatever else. And it's like, it's not exactly the same kind of thing, but I've always found that writing down the priorities for the week for me.

has made sure that I actually hit them. I feel like if I didn't do those things to do this week, my top things to do today or whatever it is that I'm doing, I would not have been as successful as I am because it's like, and I don't know like how that goes together, but there's something about writing something down that makes it happen.

Jillian Schecher: Yeah, snaps for you. Can I, can I May I tweak that a little?

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely.

Jillian Schecher: May I add a suggestion to it?

Kelly Kennedy: Please do.

Jillian Schecher: Write how you want to feel along the way. How do you want to feel as you do those things? Add that to your list.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, like a feeling is what? 90 seconds? Like it's not a big ask, is it?

Jillian Schecher: No. And it's like, can I honor, like, even when I'm feeling good, like you know, that all of it is fleeting. Like it's all changing. Right. I think also it's knowing we're not here to always feel good. Like that, that is where we err, I think is thinking like, I need to feel good all the time. No, actually I, so here, get a little wooey as a soul, having a human experience, I actually came here to feel all of the feelings, have all of those experiences.

And do I need to stay down in the lower ones for too long? No, I can have them and move myself up that scale by using my mind, focusing on what I want instead of the thing that's really shitty or feeling shitty.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Jillian Schecher: Right. And so I got to share the analogy. I have to do this analogy. I'm going to like, this is probably going to be the major thing that I'm now known for as the shit stick, but I'm going to share it anyway.

So it's knowing that our focus is like a magic wand. Okay. Yeah. Wait, I wrecked it. The focus is like a stick. So in law of attraction, each focus is like a stick. This is what's going wrong. It's a shit stick.

There's flies on it. So we don't want to focus on what's going wrong. We want the magic bond, which is my crystal selenite stick. And this is what. Could happen. It's what do I want instead? So every time we have the contrast of what we don't want, it's, what do I actually want instead? And the more that we're able to reframe like this, this will change everything.

And it does for me, like very, very regularly, because I have this shit stick moments too. It's like, no, okay. Not here to wreck everything. You know, it's not going to take me down. It's just like, where can I read vision? I just see it as being revisioning and as entrepreneurs, we're all visionaries. So it's like, yeah, it's just seeing it as something to shift.

Shift the energy, shift the focus with.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. And yeah, that's amazing, Jillian. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on and spreading some joy with our listeners. You know, you're talking to a lot of entrepreneurs and leaders right now who are like, my gosh, yes, we all need more joy. Believe me, we all do.

But I want to get into, you're in the middle of a launch of something pretty big right now. And it's specifically focused at entrepreneurs, leaders, people changing the world. Can we talk about that?

Jillian Schecher: Yeah. Oh my gosh, should I show you? I just got them in this week. So what is kind of unfolded is not just the leadership journal.

So I created a new daily joy journal. And it's nice and black. It's kind of double the size of the original. This is definitely more of like a planner. It's not just the daily practice. Or daily ritual. It's I'm going to take it along with me. We set our goals in here are joy based goals. So again, like what are those goals, but how do you want to feel along the way to those goals?

And then we go through the four quadrants and it's a quarterly journal. So it's going to support you in like how you feel along the way, bringing yourself care in as well. We identify the, your needle movers. So it's kind of like a business leadership journal meets joy journal as well. Because I feel like this is the next way.

Like, this is the new era of leadership is embodied. It's I'm walking the walk. I'm setting a positive example. I'm, I'm honoring my own energy. I'm tending to my life force in my life. You know, there's like, I just see so many people, God bless, like get like lots of illness, lots of sickness, like lots of things, lots of people going down right now and I'm like, no, it doesn't have to be like this.

Like we can actually make our joy, our alignment a priority while changing the world. And making it even better. Yeah. And being the visionaries we're here to be and feel good.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And, and it is the leadership edition of the joy journal, correct? That's the right, the right wording for it. So people are looking right now, it'll be summertime.

So people are hearing this show in the summertime. So I imagine right now it's in pre order, but by summertime, it'll be very much available, I assume.

Jillian Schecher: Yep. Yep. Available at the dailyjoyjournal.com.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. Okay. So the daily joy journal dot com, they'll be able to order the leadership edition of the joy journal guys.

It looks awesome. I know you can't see it. We do an audio show primarily, but it looks really great. Go check it out. You're seeing it right now. I did. I did. Yeah. And I think that there's a lot of people here who are thinking, you know what? Yeah, I could use a little joy in my life if that's the thing that might help.

What are the other services that you offer that could maybe help some of the leaders listening right now? We're thinking, yeah, I'm going to get the joy journal. But what else can I do, you know, can you come and do classes for our company? Can you do some one on ones with us? What are some of the services that you offer Jillian through your company?

Jillian Schecher: Yeah, thanks for asking. Yeah, I do. I do joy session workshops. I do corporate coaching, team coaching, and one on one coaching as well. So it really, I just truly love meeting people where they're at and supporting is. As best I can for the most amount of people. So yeah, it just really depends where people are at.

So I would just say, reach out and let me know where you're at and what would serve you and we can talk about possibilities.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Amazing. Well, Jillian, that takes us to the end of our show today. Thank you so much for gracing our stage. I really appreciated this and I really, really enjoyed our conversation.

It is Jillian Schecher Inc. What's the, what is the website to be able to check out your coaching stuff?

Jillian Schecher: Sure. So JillianSchecher.com

Kelly Kennedy: JillianSchecher.Com. Perfect. We've had Jillian Schecher with us, joy and mindfulness coach. It was absolutely amazing until next time we'll catch you on the flip side.

Outro: Kelly has 15 years in. Sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca See you next time on the business development podcast.