Chaos to Calm with Micro Investments | Jenna Hermans

I am so grateful to Jenna Hermans for joining me for this conversation!  Please check out her website to learn more or reach out: 
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Transcript

Jenna Hermans: 0:05

and my kids, they hear the alarm go off. I have a 7:00 PM alarm. And they go, oh, it's seven o'clock. Courage, compassion, and calm. like, yes, And these are little things, and that's one of the biggest takeaways from the book is that you don't have to overhaul your life in order to get to calm. It is tiny, micro, 1% things that you do, right? These are micro investments that have profound impact later on

Peter Callahan: 0:41

Hello, and welcome to the fresh perspectives podcast, where our intention is growing together. And leading with love. I'm Peter Callahan. And I believe we each have incredible capacity. To continue to learn and evolve. As individuals and as a species. And Britain way more to love. And a lot less fear. Into the world and our daily lives. Changing can be hard. And I've found that even if nothing changes. Having the courage to see our challenges from a fresh perspective. Can change everything. I'm so glad you're here. And I'm so glad today to be speaking with my new friend, Jenna Herman's. And Jenna is living proof that you can create a life of calm within chaos and overwhelm. She uses her bachelor's degree in psychology. Master's degree in organizational management. And over 15 years of human resources experience to build strong teams, both at work. And at home. Jenna is the co-founder of be courageous, a busy mom before. Uh, coach and new author talk about today. She's been seen in Forbes, the sun L Yahoo and more, and Janet takes an intentional and inclusive approach. To help people implement tools that put organization and systems. Around their busy lives that infuse calm and more joy, helping them go from as her book is called chaos to calm. Which launched in May, 2023. In our conversation today. We start off with what Jenna means by calm. And really then get into one of my favorite topics in general intentionality. And how being overwhelmed gave Jenna the courage to try a new approach to her parenting and her self-care. And really interesting story of how she overcame her fear of being an evil step. Mom of three young kids. We also discussed journaling, working with our inner critics, how to be real. With our emotions while doing our best, not to hurt our kids or the people we care about that are maybe around us. Uh, what to do when you don't trust the child, your kid wants to hang out with so definitely some parenting topics today that I hope are applicable to all. And then we get into how to put comment to action through her five steps. Um, including some really interesting tools around room reminders. And as you heard at the top, With these micro investments. So glad to have you with us. Keep it here. welcome Jenna. Thanks so much for being with me today. It's an honor.

Jenna Hermans: 3:31

Thank you for having me, Peter. I'm so happy to be here.

Peter Callahan: 3:35

Nice. Awesome. I'm just grounding in for a moment. I know you were just coming from a lot and I was thinking of the irony, and if you come all frazzled to an interview, people aren't going to buy your book, it's like I worked for a mindfulness Institute for four years and it's every meeting I show up to it. Like I'm selling mindfulness. Sorry. I'm super late. I like just got in. I'm a mess. It's like that extra. are you always company? Yeah. And you speak to that beautifully. Thank you. Oh, I'm not always calm. I come back to calm much more quickly because of these practices.

Jenna Hermans: 4:03

Exactly, exactly. And you know, I think also another thing is that for me, calm doesn't mean Quiet. It doesn't mean slow. That's not what calm means to me. Calm means I'm in flow. It means that I have energy. Calm means that I am, that I'm activated, that I'm in it, that, but it's activated from a great place, from a place of where I'm excited, that I'm happy, that I'm, that I'm feeling good and in I'm just in my flow, physically, mentally, spiritually, in flow. And that's what calm is. I'm not in fight, fight or freeze. So if I am and I get jacked, right, I get super jacked and super excited and that's me in my calm, me and me sitting quietly meditating. That's also me in my calm, but yeah, it's funny that when you're trying to sell mindfulness or calm or whatever, if you come in, you're like, I'm coming in hot and I'm not, not sure what's going on, and I'm all frazzled and people are like, holy shit. Yeah. Um, are you credible? I dunno about that.

Peter Callahan: 5:05

Well, and chaos to regulated has way less of a catchy tune to it. So I don't know if

Jenna Hermans: 5:10

It's not as fun.

Peter Callahan: 5:12

maybe centered, settled. Yes. Yes.

Jenna Hermans: 5:16

I had grounded as a, as a word in there for a long time, but it can be misconstrued. Right? The word grounded can. Yeah. So it's like, that's not the word.

Peter Callahan: 5:26

And one of my favorite teachers, Pema Chodron, talks about groundlessness, which kind of blew my mind of like, there actually is nothing tangible or permanent to hold on to. So it's kind of acknowledging this paradox of, yes, I'm grounded and I don't I don't also need the ground. It's like I can be groundless and still remain centered, attuned,

Jenna Hermans: 5:47

sure.

Peter Callahan: 5:48

Yeah, I've been listening to a lot of you, you're just so real, and You're quickly becoming pretty famous. I'm waiting for Oprah to, to pop onto your PR list, but, um,

Jenna Hermans: 5:58

your lips, from your lips. Peter, bring it on. Oprah. I'm behind the phone waiting for you. Same here, and thank you, Peter. I'm so happy that we've, we have this as now our, our third or fourth time connecting, and every time we do, we just laugh and have such a great time and say really ridiculous, fun, awesome things. So looking forward to more ridiculousness right now.

Peter Callahan: 6:20

that was a great, great pitch for what's to come. And I did let's let's, can we lead with your book too? Cause I just think it's awesome. And do you mind just, telling us what it is? Chaos Too Regulated, I think is what we were just saying. Could, could have

Jenna Hermans: 6:33

That's what we were saying would've been a, a great way of describing the book, but that is not as catchy as the actual title, which is Chaos to Calm. Five Ways Busy Parents Can Break Free From Overwhelm and don't let the subtitle, um, deter you if you are not a parent, because the book is not just for parents, it is for anyone. But really because of who I am and what brought me to calm in the first place, it was because of the overwhelm that came with parenting and running a business and trying to sort my own stuff out. But it was because parenting took me over the edge into the overwhelm edge, that that's where I needed to find my calm. So the stories within the book are parent oriented, but the goods, right, the goods of the book, the meat and potatoes of it are. Are for anyone who considers themselves to be overwhelmed and feeling like life is running them and that they're not running their own lives, and there's just too much to do and not enough time, and not being able to do what's important to you and that you're not taking care of you. Right? So anyway, all that to say, the basis of it is five pillars of calm, and those are habit, efficiency, communication, community, and self care.

Peter Callahan: 7:56

So we're going to maybe circle back to those five if we can in a little bit. But like we said before, I'd like to have a slightly different conversation. If you want to get even more deep into some other parts of the book, please Google. Jenna Hermans, and you will find so many other conversations. We're having a slightly different one today. But thank you. Yeah, it's beautiful. And I also, from listening to many of those, know that you also chose parents because part of the goal is to be able to choose an audience who can self identify, right? And to be honest, this is one of the struggles that I have that I continue to work on. Open minded and open hearted leaders is the closest I've gotten. Please email me if that actually resonates you because I'm not sure that's actually anyone's self description. So I'm still very much working on that. but in your, the people in your life who are in this field saying, well, we've got to pick something. So let's focus somewhere. And, and I didn't even know originally about be courageous, which is officially my favorite. Consulting firm name. Cause I find. Courage, compassion, curiosity to be some of the most important traits under the word love. We're going to break down love into some important components. Courage is absolutely one of the ones that comes up for me. And I just love what you and your husband Kyle have created and put out into the world. I heard you say to, you know, do what's important to you and one of the themes I would love to touch on that is definitely a theme of the things I talk about is intentionality and bringing, you know, as much intention to our lives as we can. I'm so grateful, Janet, to have found... Some degree of intentionality and all the wisdom that I've been able to take in from people like you and many others and just to hear how diligently, maybe as a word that resonates with you, you're practicing and doing these things. I'm curious to hear what started you on a path to intentionality.

Jenna Hermans: 9:39

Yeah. You know, I, intentionality, I'd love to be able to say I intentionally chose to be intentional and that was a decision I made all these years ago. And next thing you know, now I'm living the most intentional life that I can. And that would be a lie. Be such a lie.'cause that's not how it happened. I used to live just one day at a time. I mean, I always lived with integrity, right? What's the best thing that I could do for me, for my community, for society, and thinking about my impact in the world? But it all sort of happened serendipitously. It wasn't like I was saying, I strive for this particular thing and everything I'm doing is in service of that, right? Like, Especially when I was in grad school and I was doing human resources at the time for a fashion company, I wasn't thinking, I'm gonna climb the H HR ladder and be C H R O of a business someday and let this is on that path to that and intentionally go and do that. The way that I found HR in the first place was serendipitous. The reason why I got my master's in organizational management was serendipitous. It was allowing for the universe, or whatever you wanna call it, right. The reality to kind of influence me as I interacted with it. So my first job coming out of college was actually as a preschool teacher, and I thought that I was doing that in while I was getting some additional units through community college because I wanted to learn Spanish and some other things before I wanted to go to grad school for genetic counseling. Quickly realized, no, that's not actually what I wanted to do because I love biology. I love genetics, I love helping people and talking people through big life decisions, right? We'll come back to values and big life decisions later, but that was not the avenue that was right for me and I needed to find a new job because I realized I don't actually like being a preschool teacher. I love being in preschools and I like being behind the scenes cut to many years later where I ran my own preschool for many years'cause I loved it so much, but that was not the job for me to be, a preschool teacher. And I found myself in a role of administrative assistant for a very large real estate company under the VP of Comp and Benefits. So, Technically the umbrella of human resources of HR and coming out of that, alright, in time to get a new job, right? I'm still, I'm very young and this was not going anywhere, especially'cause my boss got fired. So don't need an an administrative assistant for someone who's no longer in the possession. Right? Need to find myself a new job and got connected to the director of Human Resources for said fashion company. And it was Juicy Couture actually. So, which is so funny, that full circle, it's like back in vogue to wear Juicy Couture, Valore, zip ups and pants. It's just so funny to me. I wish I had kept all my stuff from all those years ago. I would be being able to resale that right now. Oh my gosh. I could retire. Done. I have so much Juicy Couture, all the bedazzling on the

Peter Callahan: 12:58

juicy. Yeah.

Jenna Hermans: 12:59

Right. Oh my gosh. I had like vintage Juicy so I meet the director of HR and she's like, oh, you have HR experience. Come be my recruitment coordinator. And I thought, cool, that sounds great. I'd love to do that. And so it just, right, the, the intentionality of I'm going after this thing is, wasn't there, but just allowing for life to show up and for me to make. Decisions, right, to make good decisions. So anyway, going back to intention, it was only later that, and really in my parenting role when I became a parent, was when I truly discovered the concept of intentionality or had a new relationship with it, of how do I show up in the everyday because my, everything I do, the micro moments to the big moments now have such a profound impact on somebody else, right? On these young people. I am role modeling to them 24 7. So with that, I mean that is heavy, right?

Peter Callahan: 14:09

Yeah, I just felt it. Thanks. That's good.

Jenna Hermans: 14:13

That is so heavy. So the concept of intentionality really hit me once I became this person who's role modeling to young people who live under my roof and see all of my colors and all my shades and all my crazy, right, all my crazy and all of my, all of my good stuff too. But the, how can I intentionally be the best parent I can for them? How can I be the best colleague? How can I be the best partner to my partner, who's also not just my partner in life, but my business partner, Kyle, as you mentioned, right? run, be courageous together. But truly as I discovered the concept of intentionality, it, it really took over, not took over my life, but it, it, it sat with me at the wheel, as I'm holding onto the steering wheel, it's within my hands as I turn and go where I'm going it's always in the forefront of my mind now of what my choices are and how that affects everyone around me.

Peter Callahan: 15:10

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Wow. So that intentionality I'm hearing. I think an experience I've had, maybe not, not as quickly as you might've taken to it. I'm a slow learner, so it's been a, it's been a good journey for me, but, um. To recognize that there is this deeper intention and I use intention setting so many leaders and clients or as a primary like let's get our values down as you spoke to will circle back there, but then also let's be really clear about what is most important in this situation in this context for this conversation often whatever it might be. And so it's really interesting to hear that. Once you realized that was possible. It was almost like you couldn't unsee that anymore. Like, well, I can be, think our culture, we've, we've honed on this term woke and turned it into something terrible and not not useful. Right. But it is kind of what we're speaking to, like waking up to see the world. There's not a single threshold, but to see a little bit more clearly and recognize while we can't choose what happens, we can always choose how we respond or to be able to respond instead of react. Tonight. Talked about the Viktor Frankl quote many times, but to be able to, yeah, it's just so fascinating that you've really touched into that and just to fill in some of your story here as well. You, you became a mom, obviously you and Kyle were dating, so it took a little bit of time, but to how old were the three kids when you sort of came into their lives?

Jenna Hermans: 16:33

Yeah. The three big kids were one, three, and four when I met them. And now we're going on, it's been 12 and a half years since we've been in each other's lives. And then we added a fourth child to the mix, uh, almost seven years ago. Yeah, so there was an intentionality actually in choosing to be a parental figure to them. As you know, my story, which I'm happy to share with your listeners as well, of I, when Kyle and I started dating, I wasn't thinking about, oh, we're gonna get married someday, and all the things, right? It wasn't, I was young. I was very young. Prefrontal cortex isn't even fully formed yet until, what, like 25, 30 years old. So I'm still in that threshold and I, I didn't think. That I was gonna fall in love and wanna build a life with this person when we were dating. But as soon as that love kicked in right, and he felt it too, and, and all of a sudden this feels like a serious relationship and not just an enjoyable time together, uh, I had a choice to make. I. Because I have my own experience with stepparents and I knew the, the very strong impact a stepparent can have on someone's life, right? For the good, the bad, and everything in between. And so I ended up ending my relationship with Kyle because I was scared. I was scared and afraid of being a negative influence on these kids or treating them like others, of treating them differently because they weren't from my own body. Because I have experienced that in my own life. And as many who don't do self-reflection, And even if you do self-reflection, we so often default to what we are familiar with and what we're programmed to do, right? We are programmed by our own family origin and our own experiences and, and we're we often, right? So maybe we'll say, oh my God. All of a sudden I heard myself and I was, I've turned into my mother, We are programmed by our experiences to speak, to show up and act the ways that we have experienced. And so I was afraid of being a figure in their life that resembled figures that I've had in mind. it was after complete devastation and sadness for so many weeks after we broke up, uh, that I did some intense journaling around, around this and realized, wait a minute. Just because that's the way that it was done. Like that's what I'm familiar with. Doesn't mean that that's how I need to show up for these kids. I can do it differently. I can intentionally choose to go against the grain, to go against the, the generational experiences and break that cycle with them and approach them the way that I had wished to have been approached. Right? The whole concept of re-parenting. If you're, if you and your pa you know, of course you're in the coaching world, we all know re-parenting. I didn't know at the time'cause I didn't have that link. I didn't have that nomenclature and that vocabulary at the time, but that's what it was. I decided to reparent me and to do it differently with them. And that's my, and that was the beginning, right, of that intentionality of going in and saying, all right, it's gonna be different now. And I'm watching and recognizing and reflecting on my own behaviors and actions in past to dictate now how I wanna show up.

Peter Callahan: 20:01

So powerful, Jenna. Wow. Thank you. Absolutely. And I think I said this to you before, so I apologize, but we'll, we'll record it here. Just this idea of living through an experience. To then inform us and be maybe considerably more skillful than we or someone else might be without that relatable experience. And I mean, the, I too have had some very challenging step situations in my past, um, as a stepchild of more than one step mom and. a trope. Disney movies, you know, there's, it's, Cinderella was written a long time ago, right? Long before there were divorce attorneys. Like, this is, so this is a beautiful message to me. To put out into the world to anyone who maybe is divorced and dating or is even just dating someone who may already have children and this opportunity, whether you've been a stepchild or not, to be able to bring intentionality and create this experience of. you know, to bring in like secure attachment and a feeling of getting our underlying needs met, a feeling safe, seen, supported, all these concepts to really be able to, to offer that up in a way that someone who hasn't maybe brought this level of reflection is an essential word or intentionality into, you know, just the information we're taking in. I mean, it's so fascinating, it's all out there, but if that's not the kind of stuff you're searching for, if those aren't the books you're reading. Certainly the algorithms aren't going to give it to you if it's not something that you've intentionally sought out. So that's where to me, it's like, it's so fascinating how we each come to this in our own ways. And I really heard. Journaling as a big piece, and I know for my wife, Mackenzie, journaling was certainly her meditation. She's got like dozens of journals from her childhood, some of which, you know, we've gone through. She's had me read a little bit, and I learned things from my 14 year old wife. Like, wow, that is deep insight that you have there. And just that, that ability to free flow and reflect is just, it seems to really... Really help our brains. I know there's research on journaling too, how similar it is to meditation and there's some other ways to do that. But can I, I mean, it's making me curious, actually, Den, is that, is journaling still a practice for you? To what degree, you know, is, is that part of what you bring up in chaos to calm as one of the tools?

Jenna Hermans: 22:21

Oh yeah, it is a huge tool for calm, and I journal, I go through seasons of consistent journaling, there'll be times for months, right? I'll journal every single day, multiple times a day, even sometimes. Um, and then I'll go for months where I journal very infrequently, very sporadically. And it really, um, Depends Right on what's going on in my life. And again, the intentionality of what I'm trying to get out of that experience as well. But I, what I love is that it's always there for me. So when I do feel overwhelmed, when I do, when I'm having a harder time, or I'm noticing right, like things are sticky, if something's really sticky and I don't quite, I, I can't get beneath it, right? Or it's, it's got a lot of heat behind it. Then I go to the journal and I, and that is my therapy. That is my meditation. That is my way of unpacking and getting deeper understanding and, and, and really getting to like all the different roots of why I am feeling that way. And it could be that I end up at the end of that session writing, like, get some fucking sleep. You are just tired, right? But generally, you know, I'm getting some nuggets of information that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise because I love talking to my friends. It's great. I love that we can share and chat with each other and you and me, Peter, we can sit here and shoot the shit and talk about all kinds of really amazing things. But I know when I sit with my own self, And I'm not afraid of judgment, which I'm not afraid from you, Peter, but I'm a human being. So I'm probably not gonna go and and release and think, tell you every single thing that I've ever thought or, or thoughts that are occurring to me in this exact moment, right? But in the journal, it is safe, it is free it, it is happy and willing to accept everything that I want to say, and I can jump around and I don't need to get you back on track and say, well, Peter, I was actually thinking about this thing and it made me think of this thing, which got me to that thing. No, I can just go from A to X and not give you the rest of the alphabet when I'm doing it in the journal, right? And so I love that it's a tool there and I recommend it to everyone. And it doesn't always have to be writing. I think a lot of people get scared or overwhelmed by the concept of taking a pen or pencil and putting it to the page. And I say, fuck that. You can talk, do a talking journal, right? You can speak, do voice notes to yourself or into an Otter app or whatever. Some sort of app or software or not. You don't have to do that at all. You do what works for you in getting out what's inside so that it can make space for new thinking, for making connections for, for getting to places that you couldn't get to when you have all of that stuck in there, you know?

Peter Callahan: 25:17

absolutely. Absolutely. And there's a bunch of research around, especially what you're describing free form journaling, right? To just either put the pen to paper or I've actually, so I have a annual intention sort of that I set, right? I have a habit that I, that I work to build every year that's gone to different levels of success. And actually journaling has been at two different years for me now has been my practice for the year. So I have. Whatever 365 times 2 is, I have at least that many, I think I have over like 1, 200 journal entries. Every single one was voice texted into my phone. Like, that's certainly, I'm just an auditory learner, obviously I like to speak, I have a podcast, not a blog for a reason. Um, it's just, it definitely is what works for me. And one of the things I'm still working on overcoming, Jenna, sometimes I do fine with this, and other times it can hold me back from journaling, is this like, well, what if someone does read this? You know, and like who, I hope one day when I'm dead, my kids have that level of interest to go through whatever I have by then thousands of journal entries, but probably not like the likelihood and anyway, that's, it takes away so many of the benefits I think to try and cure it. So it's not like I'm actually curating, but I can even get hung up on myself. With oh, I don't think I want that in writing, just in case one day when I get super famous, you know, it's that ego piece, right? Of like, none of this matters, like, it's not important. And yet, so I, is that, is that something you ever have to, to work on too? Especially, you know, you're getting out of the public even more now. We were talking about, you know, this potential pressure to like, well, I need to show that I'm calm, otherwise I'm not credible. Like, how does that, how do you work with that inner critic sometimes?

Jenna Hermans: 26:53

Oh, well, you know, the, that I used to have that inner critic a lot and it's still, it still definitely pops up. I would say truly that whatever I'm experiencing is a part of the human experience and I, instead of being scared of it, I own it and think, huh, how can I make that a teachable moment for myself and for others? So whatever is showing up and whatever the things that maybe I'm embarrassed about or ashamed of, you know, it's probably not new news. I mean, there have been bazillions of people on this planet for, we don't even know how long will we do? We have science, but I don't know. So the Wes actually me, I don't know how long, um, and What is it? There's a saying that there is no such thing as new thoughts, right? There's no new thoughts, there's no new ideas. And so whatever I am thinking is something that someone else has most definitely thought of before, right? Whether you action on it, that's something else, right? a whole nother story. But if I'm thinking it, and we are all of one mind as a, as a species on this earth, we are all interconnected. There is someone else on this planet that is feeling, thinking, having a similar experience in their own, filter, their own shape of it, And so if, if I can let someone else know that they're not alone in the awkwardness and the embarrassment and whatever, then I, that actually makes me feel good. That makes me feel good to know that like I can put myself out there and I can fuck up or be embarrassed or whatever, and someone else can be like, yep, that's, I, I I do the same. She's a real human being and I'm a real being and we're, we're all, we all have it.

Peter Callahan: 28:35

Yes. Oh, my gosh. Absolutely. Though, it's, it's making me feel into this, like the paradox of vulnerability, like it's, it's risky to be vulnerable, because we may be judged or whatever else. And it's risky not to be vulnerable, because we may be missing connection that we may be able to create trust, helping someone else. So I love that you can touch into https: otter. ai It has a really positive ripple effect, impact on someone's life.

Jenna Hermans: 29:07

Yeah. That's, that's really the goal. I mean, writing a book alone, that's, that's a, that was a huge vulnerable effort on my part because there's a lot of me in there. I mean, I am there when you read it, Peter.'cause You will, because it's fantastic. And I'm not just that'cause I'm the author. I've got lots of reviews and people telling me it's a fantastic book,

Peter Callahan: 29:26

Way to read the positive ones, not just the negative. That's great.

Detached audio: 29:29

yeah. Well, you go find a negative. I, I dare you go find it. No

Peter Callahan: 29:33

right. saw you have five stars on Amazon so far, so that's

Jenna Hermans: 29:38

but truly it, I I put me into that book. You, when you read that book, you'll know me better because I am vulnerable, I am open, I am sharing. And that's because as parents, right, or not right, you don't have to be parent to read this book. But as parents, we end up being vulnerable because our kids see us at all the phases. And when we try to hide that from them, we're, it's like we're discounting saying that you can't be that way. You cannot be vulnerable. And if you do, that's weird. You showing up and making mistakes and being embarrassed or those, those feelings that we feel, those negative emotions, that those are, those aren't okay. And we don't do that here. I don't do that. You've never seen me do it. So that means that's not okay. That's unacceptable. You're not allowed to do that.

Peter Callahan: 30:28

great. Yes. And my belief is they're feeling it when we're holding back anyway, to be authentic. And this stays with intentionality, this morning, I got really frustrated. It's my wife said, Oh, can I leave 10 minutes earlier? It's your second week back to work after four months away. I've got to wrangle two kids for a couple hours in the morning and then get them somewhere else. And, and just the way she asked it, which she told me later, my intention was to be collaborative and to bring this up, like, Hey, is it okay? If I leave a few minutes early and. You know, like my initial answer is always like, well, of course we could do whatever you want, but it just wasn't necessarily planned. And the way I related to it. I just felt immediately. Like my temperature go way up inside like this, this is infuriating and I'd only been awake for 10 minutes in my defense but it was this paradox of, okay for me to be frustrated, angry, I don't, I don't have any interest in putting Mackenzie down or in, you know, sending this right back at her. It's not her fault that I'm having this experience. And yet I am having this experience. And, you know, actually sat on the cushion for a couple minutes, which I'm not always good at in the moment, especially when we've it's the morning, we've got stuff to do. So It's like what I need most to do the least amount of harm possible to my wife and two children is to sit down for a moment and take a few breaths. And I didn't get down to zero, but I went down from 10 to at least a five and was able to be a little bit more calm and focused. And, you know, I just have my cushion right here in my office at all times. So I could just pull it out, sit down. I didn't have to go anywhere and that was super helpful, but I still wasn't, I'm still not sure. Jenna, honestly, I'm curious how you. work with this to, show that authenticity. Well, my lens kind of a Buddhist lens is I want to do the least harm possible. Like I want to make as many positive impacts while also being authentic and real and creating space to, for everyone to have the experience they're having.

Jenna Hermans: 32:18

Yeah, I actually had a similar experience with my, with my teenagers, um, relatively recently. So back in little history, my husband's also in a band. He's the drummer of a band called El Cajon. They play locally and and around the country sometimes too. It's super fun. Check'em out. El cajon music.com, shout out. Um, so anyway, whenever they play around town, that is my excuse to go out and have a great time, right? Like that is my night out. I have so much fun. I'm not with the kids. I hire a babysitter now. I don't,'cause I got teenagers that stay at home with the six year old. that is whenever they play. They, whenever they have a gig, that is my night out. Right? That's how it's been for years since he started in this band that I look forward to having no responsibilities for those set hours while I'm there listening to their music and dancing my ass off and having a great time. And just, I think it was just last month they played a show that was at a place that was for all ages, And my teen girls wanted to go. And at first I just, I thought, I'm like, no, it's not gonna end up happening that they're going, because they already know they're, they need to watch their brothers and whatever. So I'm not worried about them going, but I was like, yeah, of course. And like if you could've gone, that would've been great, but you can't, because you know you're watching your brothers tonight. And we already talked about that. We already set that expectation, all those things. And then they're like, well, but what if we could go. what if we could create, you know, some sort of great problem solving here that we could make it possible for us to go? And I felt the heat rising in my skin, and I didn't fully know why at that moment. I didn't know why, but my my whole body started activating. I wanted to cry. My, my blood was hot. Like I'm, I can recognize what happens to me physiologically, right? In knowing, okay, my, my stress hormones are, are coming out and my nervous system is activating because I can feel it. But I didn't have the, the mental capacity at that moment. I hadn't thought it through yet to understand why am I having this reaction? Right?

Peter Callahan: 34:30

We get activated And it's just happy. It happens so quickly and just overtakes us. Totally.

Jenna Hermans: 34:34

exactly. Kind of like, you know, when you touch the stove, you're not thinking, oh my gosh, it's hot. Let me take my hand away. You know, your body just does it. And then your brain catches up, right?'cause our brain doesn't work that fast, but the body knows. So the body's activating, but my brain doesn't know why yet. And they actually figured out how, like someone called a friend, Hey, can you come and babysit my brothers while I go do this thing? And they made it happen. And I started crying and having a really hard time with it. And I had to go sit by myself for a while and figure out what was going on. Right? And When I, when I did that, I put on some meditation music and I sat quiet with myself and I'm like, what is up with this? Why am I so upset? Like, I love my kids. We have so much fun together. We love going dancing together. They've been to tons of Kyle's shows, the other all ages shows like, what, what is it about tonight that I'm having, I'm struggling with? And I realized it was because it had been months of me being on, like on parent mode for months without any sort of break for so long. And I'd really been looking forward to not being a parent for like three hours. Right? I was really looking forward to not having responsibility or, or keeping eyes out for someone else and being responsible for another person for just a couple hours. And my daughter, my eldest, she noticed that I was upset. She came over to me and says, I see that you're really upset about this and now it's an added logistic for you. You know, I'm not gonna go. And I said, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You are not, not going because I'm upset. One, please don't ever dimm yourself and your joy because someone else is upset, right? Like that, that is not okay. Two, I am a grown woman. I can deal with my emotions. Not all people can say that, but I'm like, you know me, I, I can figure this out. This is not going to crush me. Right? I'm working through understanding why I'm upset and I am just, gimme like 20 more minutes and I'm gonna be good to go. But you may not not go because I am, I'm having a reaction to it. It is me adjusting to a new plan. I just need an adjustment period. I'm mourning the night that I thought I was gonna have and I'm adjusting to the night that I'm going to be having instead. So go get your ass ready.'cause you know, you do your makeup and your hair and all the things and. we're gonna get outta here. And that, that was the, the intentionality was like, that was some like hardcore muscular intentionality right there of like, I need to show up so good right now with her, because I know that whatever I say right now is going to make an impact.

Peter Callahan: 37:26

Yes. Incredible. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. That is, yeah, a vulnerable story and Yeah, I totally resonate, totally resonate, especially with the transitions. It's one of the things toddlers are teaching me. Like, we all need some time for a new plan to say like, Okay, we're done playing. Let's go to dinner. We don't like that as adults either. We accept it because it's cultural or whatever else, but it's not actually helping our inner system. So that's, that's one piece. The other fear that I could imagine your daughter having is probably subconsciously, but I don't want you to build up resentment toward me. I don't want you to be resenting me for... So that's, that's beautiful to be able to have that emotional intelligence and hopefully communicate in a way that she trusts, like, I believe you, like, what you're saying is true. And this is not going to come back and bite me. You're not going to use this in some later argument and. You're still allowed to, and that doesn't mean you're just going to respond beautifully like, of course, anytime, you know, it's, it's okay to have that response is such valuable modeling. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. but I did want to circle back to, speaking of kids and parenting, how quickly with a positive intention, what, especially when we're with other people's kids or to gathering with lots of children around, especially as they get a little bit older, asking this question, what do you want to be when you grow up? Because you had a really strong reaction to that, as I often do. And, and I just love, just to reference, there's a great children's book that's also for adults called The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. Very strange title in some ways, but it is. Beautiful. And I love that answer. What I want to keep teaching Claire is the answer to that question. What do you want to be when you grow up? Kind,

Jenna Hermans: 39:16

Hmm?

Peter Callahan: 39:17

like a orienting. That's certainly what Mackenzie and I focus on is like an orient, right? Do the least harm possible. Be kind first. And Soft front, strong back. How can you bring humble confidence to as many moments of your life as possible? So anyway, you had a wonderful response to that earlier. Could you mind just riffing for a moment?

Jenna Hermans: 39:37

Absolutely. And I, and I also wanna can kind of go off for just a second to, for us to then come back, which is to piggyback on what you just said. to be kind and to do the least harm and to, and something that I tell my kids, right, where there's all this talk,'cause they're teens and there's talk of college and all of this stuff, what are your next steps after this? Right? starting from a very young age, what I tell them is, I say, I don't expect that you're gonna go and follow any particular road, but what I do ask. What we are modeling in our home is that you are an active member of society and that you are a kind good person. Our baseline is what we say all the time, and I'm so glad we've already started cursing because this, there's cursing. This too is don't be an asshole, right? As long as you're not an asshole, then great. Be a good kind person and a contributing member of society. That is all that I ask

Peter Callahan: 40:36

that's been,

Jenna Hermans: 40:37

kids.

Peter Callahan: 40:38

that's a large ask on some level because I am a recovering asshole. So I use the word jerk most of the time now, recovering jerk, but it's really, I had so much insecurity that I related to this world with this arrogance. That did significant harm and it took me a long time to have the courage to receive most of that feedback. I took, you know, You're an Asshole as a compliment for my teens and early 20s. You know, because I was so insecure and so guarded from that feedback. So anyway, that's, for some of us, that's not even a small, that's a very significant, you know, uh, vision to have. Which I love, I'm with you on.

Jenna Hermans: 41:14

sure. And, and even popped up yesterday. May I share a story, another story

Detached audio: 41:18

with

Peter Callahan: 41:18

please, absolutely.

Jenna Hermans: 41:19

So I was talking to my 13 year old son yesterday, and he calls me, he goes, Hey, can I hang out with this friend after school? and I said, no. And he goes, oh, why? And I said, I'll tell you when you get home. But the answer is no. You may not hang out with this kid after school today. And coincidentally, coincidentally, the night before I had gotten a text from another mom, One of my son's friend's moms, that says, have you had interaction with this kid before? And if so, what have you experienced? Because here's what I'm experiencing and what my son is experiencing and what I've seen him do. And that include racial slurs, Manipulation into unkindness. it pushing people around being physically abusive and being verbally abusive. and I trust this mom, right? Like her and I, we have a good rapport and I know she's not gonna reach out to me and just talk crap about a kid to me, you know?'cause she's like, have, what have you done? I don't know what to do with my son and yada yada. So, and my son has had interaction with him before where there was a physical altercation, but I thought it had smoothed out and we haven't had a lot of interaction with that kid since. But hearing that from the mom the night before, about the same kid, my kid calls says I have a play date. And I say, no. So he comes home and he asks, why, why can't I hang out with this kid? And I said, well, here are some things that I've heard that this kid does. Let's call him Charlie. Right? So we have, we're not just saying kid, my kid, his name is Sky Cool. I'm happy to say my kid's name is Sky. Sky. You may not hang out with Charlie because I've heard that Charlie is saying really unkind things and treating people disrespectfully and is not being a nice person And I said, have you experienced this? What have you seen? What have you heard? And he goes, yeah, I've seen him act that way. And, but he doesn't act like that to me. And I said, well, I'm glad he doesn't act like that to you. That's great. But do you think it's okay that he treats those other people that way? That he is segregating people based on how they look right. And treating them differently because they're younger or they look different, or whatever it is. Right? With the different examples that Sky gave me about. Charlie, and he's like, yeah, I've told him I don't, you know, I don't, please don't do that. And then you'll stop for a second. And then he starts again. And so I was telling Sky, I said, you know, there's a saying of you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time with, And even though you know what he is doing is wrong, by spending time with him, you, it's normalizing this for you. Right? The more you're exposed to it, the more you think it's normal. And then you inadvertently start acting that way too. It's not a choice. This is basic human ing. Humans do this. and you're also telling him by spending time with him, knowing that he acts this way, that you're okay with it, you're fine with him acting this way, you're cool with that behavior. So my no is because, one, I don't want you turning into an asshole. And two, it's sending a message to Charlie that this is not okay, and he needs to change his behaviors if he wants to keep hanging out with you, right? Things need to change.

Peter Callahan: 44:29

This is so powerful. And it reminds me of why I focus on leadership so much. One definition of leadership is every action we take. We're showing ourselves and everyone around us what's important to us, who we are, what we care about, what matters. And it sounds like you spoke to Skye beautifully, just exemplifying that it's like, we vote with our, with our dollars sort of deal, like wherever you put in it, it maybe won't get to values necessarily today, Jenna, but I love this idea of when, when generally you ask them what's really important to you. And I have no idea. I don't know. I'm like, great. Let's bring up your calendar and your credit card statements.

Jenna Hermans: 45:05

Mm-hmm.

Peter Callahan: 45:06

are your resources, right? Where you're spending your time and your money is, is where you are valuing things, you know, for better or worse, and again, it comes back to just awareness and intentionality, like, alright, how's that? What are the results you're getting? How's that feeling in your life? How's it working for you? There's some opportunity to tweak and change, how did he respond? I'm just curious as a 13 year old, what, what did he come back

Jenna Hermans: 45:26

He, He, said he understood, right? When I asked him, I said, does this make sense to you? Like, does it, do you understand why I'm saying these things? And he goes, yes, I do understand and that does make sense. And I told him, I said, like, realistically, I know I can't control if you hang out with Charlie at school. I, I know that I can't. But what I do have control over is who you see outside of school. And that's where I'm going to help make sure that you're surrounding yourself with people who aren't assholes. I. Right. And I told, and, and then also I explained to him right at the same time, or I asked him, I said, since you've started doing, he's really into Rubik's cubes, like super into it. He could do seven by sevens. Like it's awesome. I said, when you started doing Rubik's Cubes and you found other friends who do Rubik's Cube like, or someone who was interested, all of a sudden you guys are spending time together, they're doing more Rubik's cubes, right? And I said, and when you met a friend who was doing gymnastics and you thought, oh, I wanna try that. And then you started spending more time with him. Now you're doing so much gymnastics, like he does flips off of all kinds of things and there's all these names, like the hero flip and the back forward fold, whatever. and I said, you did you notice that by spending time with these other people that you're more into interested in those things now? Right. Things that you wouldn't have been exposed to originally or that now that you've had that peak of like, oh, that's really cool, I wanna keep doing that. It's because you're spending time with those people. And so when I referenced back. To that. Like not just saying, here's the negative and why I don't want you spending time with the negative, but rather, here's a positive example of it as well, right? Where now you're doing so much better with your flips and your gymnastics because you're around people who really care about pushing themselves and trying harder and getting better and practicing. And you're doing better with your rubrics too, because you have friends and you guys are talking about it and, and one-upping each other and who can go faster. But it's, it's all for the positive. It's not hurting anybody. And I think because I, I talked about the positive influence of, of other people, in addition to the negative influences, that also helped him to understand and see that dichotomy of the influences of right and wrong, good and bad, you know, that yin and yang of where do I wanna place my time and energy and intention and that'll get bigger and where I don't want it to go as well. And he took it well to answer your question.

Peter Callahan: 47:47

Yes. And what a cool way to. help bring intentionality into his life and

Detached audio: 47:54

Mm-hmm.

Peter Callahan: 47:55

it's just such an Awesome. Just that having that conversation, however much sticks, it sounds like a lot did or doesn't like just for you making the time creating the space to have that conversation gives him the best chance of building up these muscles of awareness and intentionality and kindness, compassion. It's really beautiful. Wow.

Jenna Hermans: 48:15

Yeah. Thank you for that. But yeah, I mean, going back to your original question, around, you know, when, when people ask kids What do you wanna be when you grow up? And we were talking about that before we started recording, and as you heard me say, you know, I got really heated about that because it's, uh, it's a very common question. what's underneath the question Has more of the message than the question itself.

Peter Callahan: 48:44

Right, right. And this message of you, you need to, you can only be one thing you need to decide now.

Jenna Hermans: 48:51

You have to place identity, right? That it's identity, that what you do is now who you are versus I am me and I do these things, right? It's like, no, I am a lawyer and that's who I am, and everything I do is around being a lawyer. It's like, no, no, no, my friend. No self-actualization doesn't come from that

Peter Callahan: 49:14

exactly, I'm working with many people in their 40s, 50s, who have totally changed direction, and like taken that leap, there's, I've got some conversations on the podcast about that, like, yep, took a total left turn, and Reinvented myself in, you know, I like to think a lot of those people did some values exercises and clarified what's important to them and who they are in order to have the courage to do that, it's likely take some intentionality because otherwise you're taking in the cultural conditioning that just is describing what we're saying. That's the reason I believe one of the reasons that question is asked so often. And I was speaking to sort of the, the, five or so questions that we asked. What do you want to be when you grew up? Where are you going to college is if we all have to go to college. What are you getting married is probably the next one. And then when are you going to retire? And then I say, when are you going to die is like the last one we should throw

Jenna Hermans: 50:00

Mm-hmm.

Peter Callahan: 50:01

because I'm going to start asking the

Jenna Hermans: 50:02

Yeah. When are you gonna have kids It's like,

Peter Callahan: 50:06

When are you going to settle down? Like, when are you going to wake up?

Jenna Hermans: 50:11

Exactly. Exactly. gosh. While those people are working to live, you're like, no, I'm, I'm, or rather, excuse me, living to work. It's like, no, I want to work to live right. To live the life that I want to live, not because I'm identifying as this thing, and all my life is around that thing.

Peter Callahan: 50:29

exactly. And so let's, what are some of the questions? I'd love to just make sure we wrap up with as many. Sort of practical tools, practices people can take away, right? I think that's essential to. Take this. All right. Hopefully you enjoyed our conversation. And now what? Right. What do you want to do with it? And with this question specifically, maybe we can circle back to chaos. com, to be able to ask, what are you really interested in? Right? part of me wants a default generation, not even talking about vocation necessarily. So what are the other kind of questions that you like to ask?

Jenna Hermans: 51:01

I like to ask what, what piques your interest? What is a creative outlet that you have right now? Or not outlet for a child, but like, what is something that you enjoy doing? What do you like to learn about? Right? And for adults, especially people who are finding themselves very overwhelmed and don't have, you know, they're just like work and family and whatever. I say, what are you doing for you? What are you doing for you? What fills your soul? What fills your cup? What is something that you're doing that makes you feel good and alive? That you know, puts you in a well-rounded, comprehensive self, right? That it's not just partner and parent and colleague and boss and all of that. Like what makes you, you and how are you feeding that youness, with children, What, what interests you? What do you like to do when you go home and you're done and you've had your screen time or whatever, you know, like all the things that are, the things that are the draws that draw you in after you're done being drawn in by the externals. What do you like to do? What do you enjoy doing? Right? What do you look forward to? Each day, who do you enjoy spending time with? Ooh. Why? What do you do together? Why do you enjoy spending time with that person? How do they make you feel? Bringing it back to the present No child should be thinking about and maybe sure, they can think. Let's imagine and think and play and role play for sure, all day long. Think and play. But to have the question of what do you wanna do when you grow up? Or what do you want to be when you grow up? it's putting someone in such a, in a box With the best of intentions. With the best of intentions, it's actually doing that mental construction of putting someone in a box and they define themselves by this box and make all their life's decisions towards that box.

Peter Callahan: 53:02

Or feel not good enough because, as myself an example, I never quite knew how to answer that question and I would throw answers out there and maybe I'd get a positive response. Or, maybe as I once said to my therapist, and he and my parents who were getting divorced at the time both kind of laughed in my face in my recollection like, Oh, I want to be a professional singer one day. Now, to their credit, that was not a good idea from where my vocal cords are at that I've been given in this life. But, it was, it was such a challenging response. Like, really Pete? Like, I was like six or seven. Like, you want to be a singer? That's hilarious.

Jenna Hermans: 53:41

Oh, poor little Pete.

Peter Callahan: 53:44

right. Don't worry, my therapist and I spent a lot of time with him. He's doing much better now. Thank you.

Jenna Hermans: 53:50

your inner child. Inner repeater Little is. He's a happier boy now. Good?

Peter Callahan: 53:54

exactly. And I was, you know, I had a good amount of awareness back then, so I think part of me knew, like, that's not how you should respond to me right now. Like, I had a little bit, because part of me always wanted to be a pilot. Like, that was my answer for why, like, I want to fly airplanes. That's what I want to do. And then we had like a career day and a friend's dad came in. My mom wound up dating a pilot later on after the divorce and conversations with them, I was like, actually, I want to be a dad a lot more and it just doesn't draw me in. And I've spoken to many pilots since as I'm currently becoming one as a hobby. That is part of what I do. And the evening is study aviation, is. It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't necessarily, people really make it work in a beautiful way, because you get all, it's just like in the military or anything else, you have lots of work time and you're away. I just don't like missing too many dinners a week. That's just my, like you, Kyle travels and

Jenna Hermans: 54:40

We are back to values.

Peter Callahan: 54:42

exactly, like we're each making our own choices, but even at like 10, I was like, nah, I think I want to be home for dinner every night. Like, I didn't have kids until I was 34. I know then that that was a priority, but some part of me was like, nah, we'll see about this flying thing later.

Jenna Hermans: 54:56

Yeah. And I think that's one thing we don't give kids enough credit for is that they start seeing the importance of things way before we do. Right. Before, actually, I wanna say before we do, but rather.'cause we all have that, right? We knew that back then. You knew that. You just called that out. But there's something that happens along the way that we think that our priorities need to change. Again, that whole live to work and work to live thing that the kids know from very young, especially, you know, like my kids, my husband travels a lot for work, for our cl, for our clients to bring in revenue so that we can live the life that we wanna live and do all of that, right? And just'cause that's our business and living out our purpose. It's not necessarily for money. It's really so that we can live the, our dream. We're living our dream. This is our dream.

Peter Callahan: 55:48

Right. And I'm sure he finds this time meaningful that he's spending, right? Cause otherwise he wouldn't just guessing. He wouldn't be set because we're always sacrificing one value by upholding another value and it's, that's to me, the harmony and the paradox.

Jenna Hermans: 56:01

Exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, my kids see it where they're like, daddy's not here again. And there's a part, you know, of me that that's like, oh yeah, you're right. he's not here. And, it's not like the family's not important. Right. As soon as he's home, he is home. He is here, we are doing dinner and as many meals as possible together every time that he's home. so it's reminding them, but they see it. They're like, the what is important is that our family is together. Right. And that, that is what's important to them. And that if they have families, they've, they've talked about this, my six year old talks about this. Well, I think it's funny in his mind, he's like, I'm gonna live with you forever. And I'm like, yeah, you say that now. And that's really cute. And you're not gonna want that when you turn 18.

Detached audio: 56:49

Um, but that the values that kids see that from a very young age, that they pick up on what is really important, and it's usually family, They see the importance of family because that's what they need for their own psychological safety, Is knowing that they're safe and that their family's around and that they, they have a place to go. And so, but somewhere along the lines that priority and that value oftentimes gets blurred by society saying other things are more important, like making money and schmoozing with clients or whatever it is, right? Whatever you're doing. and then all of a sudden come full circle later, you realize, huh, what was more, most important the whole time was being with my family. So, and you never hear someone on their deathbed said, I wish I worked more. Like there's all the sayings of, they're on their deathbed and they go, I wish I spent more time with my family. I wish I worked less.

Peter Callahan: 57:44

I wish I was honest with myself about that I wanted to do this thing, but it was fear that was holding me back, not, you know, the risk aversion, I love the idea that the research from, from people in their last days speaks to, I regret the things I didn't do that I felt drawn to and was just too afraid, not the things I did and failed.

Detached audio: 58:05

Mm-hmm.

Peter Callahan: 58:06

That really inspires me. So yeah, absolutely. And I think our culture is doing a better job with the valuing family. Not that everyone has to, of course, right? You can be a lone wolf and find meaning and purpose in lots of other ways. But I, I think we're still very much in this transition of, yeah, yeah, family first. But, but this client needs to be like, this project's due tomorrow. So whenever you get it done, it's fine. You, whatever you need to do, like, well, which one? I just talked to so many clients who were like, yeah, we're saying we're doing these things and they're hiring you as a coach. And yet that's not how I'm feeling from my boss. It's not everyone, but. It still feels like a large transition from my small sample size.

Jenna Hermans: 58:41

Absolutely. No, and it's, I I don't think that your small sample size is, you know, like this one-off community at all. That's the norm,

Peter Callahan: 58:50

and so, what are some of the most useful tools? What in the feedback that you've gotten since Some better friends of yours have actually read the book, and people are giving you feedback, but what are people actually sending back that they are finding most useful from the book? I'm curious.

Jenna Hermans: 59:04

Hmm, that's a great question. one of the things that I've heard a lot is that, and this is, and this is me being really vulnerable, That there's a lot of things in the book, and I know this'cause I wrote it. there's not like, there's a lot that's new, but there's a lot that's not, there's not a lot of new in the book. And I say this because. The, a lot of people have said, I needed the reminder or I needed to hear it in this time of life, at this exact moment, in this way, and none of it's new. It's all the same stuff, right? No new thoughts. Bringing up full circle to what we were talking about earlier. No new

Peter Callahan: 59:41

principles, which

Jenna Hermans: 59:42

Exactly. And so what some people have said is, I needed to hear it. From you. I needed to hear it in this way, and I needed, I needed to hear this right now. And it's really, it helped so much, but I knew this, but I needed to hear it differently or hear it again. Um, another which I'm like, yeah, I, I wish for me too was I wish that this book had come out 10 years ago when my kids were younger. I hear that so often, so great. I'm using it now. I'm, I'm implementing this stuff, but I wish I had it sooner. wish I that this existed earlier. Yeah.

Peter Callahan: 1:00:22

are kind of paradoxical pieces of feedback, right? Because it's like, well, I got these from several hundred other books, you know, I assume if I live long enough to have the courage that you do to actually write a book, too. Pretty sure I'm not gonna have any new thoughts either, right? And yet I, I really trust Jenna that your unique, authentic expression of those, the stories you're telling, right? It's resonating with, and that's part of putting this out into the world. It's resonating with the people that it's meant to. It's, it's giving that reminder, right? This other translation for the word mindfulness, remembering, remembering what's important, remembering where we want to focus. That is intentionality. And so that, yeah, I, I really appreciate your, your vulnerability there. And to me, they don't, they don't, it's like this reverse, it's like a cliche, like, well, good. That means I got the, got the right ones in there. Like those, those are accurate to them because they're based on things that many other humans. And every religion has unearthed these are in there. So do you mind maybe go through the five

Jenna Hermans: 1:01:21

Yeah. one, the first pillar of calm, which also serves as the first chapter, is efficiency, It's how do you do the things that you have to do? With as little effort as possible so you can make for more space, time, and energy for the things that you want to do, right? It's as basic as that, and it's utilizing two different things. One is your time. And the second is your energy. And so it circles back actually to self-awareness, especially with the energy, it's the self-awareness of understanding that we are cyclical creatures and reflecting upon when do you have higher energy times or days or you know, times of day. do you have lower energy, times of day, as well as what are things that you do that increase your energy or decrease your energy as well. And that could be food, that could be an activity that could, you know, there's so many things that we do in our context, in our world that can increase our energy or decrease it. And so having that self-awareness to understand your energy, because it is something that can be cultivated and manipulated, right? You can Increase it, decrease it, all of that manually. but without the self-awareness, we end up just going with whatever's happening to us in the world versus the intentionality of, I'm going to choose to do the thing that's gonna increase my energy so that I can show up for the next thing I'm gonna do with as much of my mental faculties as possible. as much physical strength as I can, right? As much patience and creative problem solving that I can do for whatever I'm about to go into. And then the other part of it, like we said, is time. Right? So it, and when I say time management, when it comes to efficiency, it's, we have, we all have 24 hours in a day. We all have'em, right? No one has more, no one has less to and feel that way for sure. And as a parent, right, we know that a lot of those hours and a lot of that time can get eaten up. But truly, You can make your time work for you versus being a slave to it. And so I, I really lay it all out in the book, how you can utilize your calendar or understanding your flows and building habits around those. Which leads us into chapter number two, second pillar of calm habits. They kind of go hand in hand the efficiency and the habits together and noticing what serves you and what doesn't. And then building an infrastructure around what does to support it, to make it keep going, and then to actively and intentionally remove or create distance from those that don't.

Peter Callahan: 1:04:09

Awesome. Yes. Absolutely. That your energy question too, like you said, self awareness is needed, and I actually offer this up when I help organizations with interviewing, it's one of my favorite interview questions. Cause you get, not only do you see, get a sense of someone's self awareness, what tasks or activities within project management or whatever this role is, give you energy and which one's type of work drains your energy. Cause there's going to be some of both in here. And then you can find out, alright, does this person like what we really need? Does that give them energy? And are they aware of what actually does that for them? Because that's a great sign, too, if they are. So, really appreciate that. And habit formation, I mean, this, this word discipline always comes up. I, I tend to like the word discipline, but I'm able to, you know, not everyone holds it in the same way. It can feel very top down. For me, it feels like self honesty and self compassion. And by being with the results of what I'm doing, I trust that this is benefiting me. So I do want to do it. Even if I don't want to do it, I really am connected with the results I get. in that case, I really want, which is the case for showing up at work. We don't like, right. Everyone's like, well, I can't, I don't have the discipline. I can't do it. We'll just somehow you're still getting your paycheck and that's not your favorite thing. So how do we bring that level of commitment to ourselves and not just these external forces?

Jenna Hermans: 1:05:26

Absolutely. And I love that you know, the way that you approach discipline. And one of the things I, I believe discipline is also love. It's self-love. Right. And I have, I actually have an alarm, I have three different alarms that go off on my phone every single day to remind me of different things. And one of them has the word discipline in there. And right next to it says discipline and self-love. I love me. And that is at four o'clock every day that that goes off and says, discipline. I love me, it is to remind me to stay committed to. The things that are important to me, The habits that I have cultivated and nurtured, and I want to keep'em going, do it at four because that's generally right around the time when I'm with my kids also. So it's let me rein myself in and transition into this next phase of the day, right? And then I have it other times. I have three words, compassion, courage, and calm. Gentle reminders to the self, and these things. Now they're in my phone. I don't have to actively think of them, right? I don't have to actively remind myself that these are important things for me. They go off every day at the same time and they now, you know, I don't even have to look at my phone to see the words. They're obviously, that's the same thing all the time. And I can just be like, oh, and my kids, they hear the alarm go off. I have a 7:00 PM alarm. And they go, oh, it's seven o'clock. Courage, compassion, and calm. like, yes, And these are little things, and that's one of the biggest takeaways from the book is that you don't have to overhaul your life in order to get to calm. It is tiny, micro, 1% things that you do, right? These are investments. It's like putting a, a little bit, they have to keep the change, you know, from your, bank accounts. If you use your debit card and it's like round up and put the change in your savings account sort of thing. these are micro investments into a high interest bearing savings account when you do these micro things, right? Just one little thing that have profound impact later on, you just start little, you start with one little thing. You have, you put one alarm on your phone of a message, of a mantra, of something that you want to remind yourself of. Put it in your phone, have it go off every day. You don't even have to do it every day. It's already done for you. It's this tiny micro little thing that you can do that can make a profound impact. And that is what the book is telling you. Micro, tiny little things can make such a profound impact for you. Don't overhaul your whole life. No, that's not what it's about. That's overwhelming. And we are not talking about overwhelming That is the the, we want the absence of overwhelm. Tiny little things you can get. Whatever it is that you're trying to achieve, just start small.

Peter Callahan: 1:08:16

Deal. Thank you. So useful. Yes, and I've heard you speak to this on other interviews too. Just start anywhere. Just, just get started and see what it's like. And I use phone reminders very often. I've had hourly chimes for mindfulness. And right now I have, I use my calendar a little bit more. So I have a reminder every morning and it pops up. It's just funny in some ways. It's similar. I have compassion and courage, creating a fun, safe, loving home for my family and all beings. So that the first time I look at my phone most mornings, that is what I see. Remind why am I getting out of bed again? Oh, yeah. All right. In some mornings it resonates more than others. Like, yeah, yeah, right, but it's reminding, right? Reminding. And then the amount of times that I hit my little button and say, please remind me later today or tomorrow, especially for me with relationships and connection, because that's stuff I want to show my care for people. And for some reason, I'm still selfishly wired on a bunch of levels. And it's so helpful for me to be like, Please remind me tomorrow at 8am to text him good luck in your surgery tomorrow. I want to be the type of person who just remembers that. I'm not often. And yet it, I, my friends know that I do this and it's still meaningful to them. So it's like, it's okay to use technology to support us in this habit formation, in these reminders. And I really appreciate that you. You know, wrote in a book to then go back to your phone and use it the right way. That's, that's perfect.

Jenna Hermans: 1:09:41

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And use every tool you have available to you. Why? Why shouldn't we? every tool that is around can be helpful in some way, right? Done with intentionality and integrity. Use it all. Just because it's technology doesn't mean it's evil. No. Use it for your benefit. Absolutely.

Peter Callahan: 1:10:00

So it was efficiency, habits. We won't go through the other ones, but just as the teaser, the other three were what again?

Jenna Hermans: 1:10:05

Uh, they're community, right? Who do you have around you and having the right people around you to support your calm, support, your family, your goals, who and included in that are the people who you should not have around you. and how do you create distance from them

Peter Callahan: 1:10:18

Was it Charlie? Who did we say earlier?

Jenna Hermans: 1:10:21

Oh yeah, it's Charlie. It's definitely Charlie, and he's still 13. And piggybacking on that, it's like he's still a kid. He's still learning. And I even told my son that I was like, He's still a young person. We're all works in progress. We are all evolving. I'm still evolving. I'm changing. I'm growing. You're growing. Your sisters, your brother. We are all still growing and evolving. So the person he is right now may not be like, he may not act that way in months from now. A year from now, we don't know, but right now It's a no

Peter Callahan: 1:10:48

And maybe he'll ask your son, why can't we hang out? And your son might be able to have a skillful response that plants a seed. Who knows?

Jenna Hermans: 1:10:54

Yeah, it says because you're an asshole, No, never say that.

Peter Callahan: 1:11:02

that's perfect. Oh, it's because we can say, oh, it's because you're an asshole. Like if you're less of an asshole, I'm happy to hang out. Like, oh, Why, thank you, I didn't, this is how I would have responded as the asshole 13 year old. Oh my god, I didn't think of that. Thank you so much. Your mom must be awesome.

Jenna Hermans: 1:11:21

Um, so community the fourth is communication Right? How it, it's how we build relationships and trust through our words and through listening as well, So because communication isn't just a one way straight, it's not just what we say, but how we listen, build rapport, trust, all of that. Um, and the fifth one is self-care. How do you take care of you, Which we so often forget. We forget taking care of ourselves, or we think it's like, it's gotta be this big self-care Sunday. I am gonna go do all the things and have a whole retreat with my boys and have, you know, a massage and pedicures and manicures with my friends. And no, it's, that's, that's not what this is. It's not superficial or surface self-care. We're talking about deep, systemic self-care, and again, micro moments. It's the little things that we do throughout the day that care for us, not the big overarching. Those are great too. Please rock on. Keep getting your massages. I wish I could get one every day for sure, but as a typical person who doesn't have endless means and has children and work and responsibilities, what can I do throughout the day to fill my cup so that I can show up to my family and my work? And you, Peter, and every person I interact with as my best, most whole, authentic self.

Peter Callahan: 1:12:38

Yes, absolutely. That feels like a pretty good place to leave it despite still having questions. I do love that you put self care at the very end, what led you to put that at the end rather than the beginning, because I do like that to not just home and well sleep, diet and exercise. And then if you get those down, give me a call. I got some other tips for you.

Jenna Hermans: 1:12:58

Mm-hmm. you know, there, it was very intentional at putting self-care at end one'cause it was, one of the ideas was what is all this in service of, right? All of getting your efficiencies in order and your routines and your habits. You've got the right people around you, you're effectively communicating and, and all of that. What is that all in service of? Yes, it's calm, but it is in service of taking care of you. And that is the core fundamental. And also like self-care is this huge marketing thing. Everyone's saying, do this as a part of your self-care and do that as a part. And it's like, no, that's, that's not what it's about. In my opinion. That's not what it's about. Putting it first would've minimized the importance of what self-care is as it relates to calm. All of those other things, getting your habits in place, getting your efficiencies, and then realizing, oh, I can now, I now have the ability to communicate how I wanna get my self-care done. I now have the ability to create a habit around self-care things that I wanna do right? And I now know how to build that routine and the efficiency in my day and my week, et cetera, around that thing that I again, wanna do to take care of me. I now have all the skills that I've learned throughout the book that I can implement now at this point.

Peter Callahan: 1:14:20

Yes. And then that could be a positive feedback loop. As I work with so many wonderfully bleeding heart, you know, educators, healthcare professionals, That's Self care feels selfish, right? Often, I hear this, it feels selfish. And yet, I love this idea that you're speaking to. Like, well, I take care of myself that creates more space for me to then be there and take care of others. And it's some, there's no perfect balance. I love this word, harmony over balance. Like, how can we harmonize that cycle? So we're checking in enough to care for ourselves and we offer some So much of life is about giving and receiving love and if we don't receive from ourselves from others It's going to limit how much we have to offer inevitably.

Jenna Hermans: 1:15:02

100%. Exactly. You can't, like, I mean, it's such a cliche thing, but you can't pour from an empty cup. Just the truth. And self-care is filling your cup so you have something to pour from.

Peter Callahan: 1:15:15

Exactly.

Jenna Hermans: 1:15:16

It's not selfish. It is basic human. Basic.

Peter Callahan: 1:15:21

Awesome. Alright, I promise not to ask him that question

Jenna Hermans: 1:15:24

like, I, I'm trying to refrain from saying more about self-care.'cause I have an acronym that I like to use in something that I talk about,

Peter Callahan: 1:15:32

It's too late now. Now you started it. So

Jenna Hermans: 1:15:34

Oh my gosh. Okay, so I call them the brilliant basics, brilliant basic. When someone asks me where do I begin on this self-care, on not self-care, but on my calm journey, I'm so overwhelmed, I don't even know where to start, where, where do I start with? Where do I begin? And I say, you go back to the basics, the brilliant basics, and my acronym for that is Cheer. C is Connection. And no p I don't need to explain to you what connection is. And your listeners. If everyone here is on the personal development journey, then they all know what connection is. But if I have to say it because I should, because we're talking about it, it, is connecting to what's outside of what's under your roof, what's in front of your screen. It is reminding you of who you are and making you feel good connection to other human beings, connection to other parts of yourself, connection to nature, to what's bigger than this, right? Connection and it can look like a five minute check-in on the phone with a friend. It can look like a two minute walk outside. It can look like feeling the sun on your skin and the wind in your hair. Just reminder of you are more than just all of this and our day-to-day tasks and responsibilities and all the things.

Peter Callahan: 1:16:43

Yeah, this all practice that I've been hearing about a lot. Ah did as an acronym so Awareness like looking at something beautiful nature something like that. Wait is the W So awareness, wait, and then exhale. So give yourself 10, 20 seconds, just take in the awe, and it's, the research is already starting to kind of blow minds, and it's so much comes back to slowing down, right? So I'm not going to keep slowing you down. but yes, cheer,

Jenna Hermans: 1:17:10

cheer. Uh, the H is basic Stands for hydration. Just getting in your basic needs of hydrating yourself. you go. Exactly. If you've been seeing, if you've been watching our YouTube, we're both sitting here drinking throughout the whole time. Mm-hmm. so hydration first. E is on in the same vein. Eating well, eating. It's, it's making sure that you're nourishing yourself. And again, as parents or just as busy people, sometimes we just forget to eat and then all of a sudden, oh my gosh, I'm starving. And you just go for the quickest, easiest thing around you versus the intentionality of having been like, okay, well I know I'm gonna have to eat at some point, so let me get the thing that I know that I should have or want to have, or whatever it is. Right. The intentionality of choosing how you're gonna fuel yourself. So eating well. The second E is exercise. It's movement. We don't need to talk about all the benefits of moving. The high level is the that it is the happy hormones that you get from it. Longevity, long-term health, mental health, all of the things, exercise. And again, don't have to go out for like a marathon every day. Don't even have to work out for 45 minutes, 30 minutes, two wall pushups, one walk around the block. Just a little bit of movement.

Peter Callahan: 1:18:24

yes.

Jenna Hermans: 1:18:25

Brilliant. Game changer.

Peter Callahan: 1:18:26

I hear so often I'm too tired to exercise and my response is always, have you tried exercising?

Jenna Hermans: 1:18:31

Mm-hmm.

Peter Callahan: 1:18:33

Wow, weird how I got all this energy. Takes money to make money, takes energy to make energy.

Jenna Hermans: 1:18:39

Exactly. Exactly. Oh my gosh. the last letter, maybe you can guess it.

Peter Callahan: 1:18:44

Rest, we need to

Jenna Hermans: 1:18:44

Yes, we need to rest. Just active recovery of resting and just taking your eyes away from the screen, looking at something else, thinking about something else that isn't just work. Listening to a podcast, listening to a song, just sitting in silence, just resting your mind. Getting as, I mean, all the research talks about sleep, how important it is to get consistent sleep every night. Sure. We're not gonna get into that important part of rest. Napping, mental rest, all of these things so important. And what's great about Cheer right, is that, again, these are basics. Brilliant, the brilliant basics, because all of them, one done every day or as often as possible, will prevent mental health issues. They also, when you're in mental health crisis, in addition to obviously doing what you need to do to take care of you on maybe a pharmaceutical level or whatever it is, these are phenomenal tools to support you coming out of, let's say a light depression, anxiety, those kinds of things. You know that I'm not a, I'm not a medical professional by any means. I've talked to many of them. So I'm not saying, okay, you're gonna be cured of your bipolar disorder by practicing cheer. Nope, not saying that. Please don't follow any medical advice that I have. what I will say that whatever you're doing, When you practice cheer, there's a high possibility that it will enhance the positive effects of whatever it is that you're already doing. these are things that if we've got parents in the room like you, Mr. Callahan, that we do these for our kids, right? We automatically do these for ki our kids.'cause, you know, they're so important that they rest, that they eat, that they hydrate, that they have connection with people, that they move, right? We, we create so much structure around them to make sure that they're doing these things every single day. And we see when they're not, because they don't know how to put up a filter and pretend that they're not hangry, that they're not exhausted. Right. as I see you rubbing your eyes, you're like, yes. Oh my God, I so know. Right. But we don't do those things for ourselves anymore because the, we do that for ourselves last, right? We put ourselves last in so many ways. We put the work first. We put our kids first. We put everything and everyone else first before ourselves. So I'm gonna get off my Ted, my high horse and say, thank you coming tech. Talk about the basics.

Peter Callahan: 1:21:11

Is it scheduled yet? I know this is one of your goals, to give a TED Talk. How are we doing on that?

Jenna Hermans: 1:21:16

not scheduled yet. No, but I also have not been working on it. So when I start working on it and putting the intentionality of energy and focus into that, Peter, you will be on the first of the list to know when it is happening.

Peter Callahan: 1:21:28

Thank you. Well, I could, I'm on your email list, so I'm sure I'll get the update once. Thank you.

Jenna Hermans: 1:21:37

Thank

Detached audio: 1:21:37

Peter, so much.

Peter Callahan: 1:21:38

Jenna. I'm so grateful to you for this conversation and giving me way more time than we had scheduled today, as I think we did last time. Really appreciate it. I. think we both have parenting to go do and probably a stack of emails. So thank you

Jenna Hermans: 1:21:50

Oh

Peter Callahan: 1:21:51

for the time.

Jenna Hermans: 1:21:53

I'm like, uh oh. Thank you so much Peter. And, um, I'm, I love our conversations as always. Look forward to the next time that we connect.

Peter Callahan: 1:22:01

Me too. Me too. And I'll put it in the show notes, but just remind folks of the best website. I know you've got a couple.

Jenna Hermans: 1:22:07

Um, so we've got BC r g s for Be Courageous, right? Bcr g s is the the consonance of Be Courageous and, uh, jenna hermans.com to learn more about calm and chaos to calm. And you can sign up for my newsletter through that site or jenna hermans.com/newsletter. I have a blog that comes out every other week, and if you on my newsletter list, you will know about it in addition to other calm tips and other engagement with the calm community. those are the best ways to find me. I'm also on social media and all that crap. But get me in your inbox. You'll get calm. Not too much. Twice a month. That's how often you'll get calm in there.'cause it's too much. Otherwise I Too much calm. Who needs that? Just

Peter Callahan: 1:22:50

I appreciate your bi weekly rhythm of the blog and the newsletter I do. Similar with the podcast. No one needs this every week. Certainly, I don't have the capacity to create it. So

Jenna Hermans: 1:23:00

right? We all have enough

Peter Callahan: 1:23:02

it's going to take me four weeks to just edit this podcast. Thank you again. I'm really, I really hope we find ways to stay in touch. I'm really grateful for your time. And yeah, thanks for what you're putting into the world, especially these four humans.

Jenna Hermans: 1:23:14

Oh, thank you, Peter. Thank you for being a recovering asshole and turning things around for, for all the other assholes out there. I really appreciate you

Peter Callahan: 1:23:22

Absolutely. At least in most moments.

Jenna Hermans: 1:23:27

you're a rockstar, Peter. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day.

Peter Callahan: 1:23:34

All right. A big, thank you to Jenna or. This conversation, you can check her out at Jenna Herman stock com. We'll put a link in the show notes. And thank you so much for being with us for this conversation on the fresh perspectives podcast. If you enjoyed it and found it useful. I would be so grateful if you'd be willing to take a moment to subscribe. Offer any feedback or comments and share with a friend, if you think they might benefit from listening? Thank you for your curiosity. Wishing you courage, compassion and calm.