You Don't Need a Plan to Start Over. You Need Permission to Choose Yourself.

What does it actually take to build a life and a business that are actually yours, not just impressive on paper?

Jen Baxter has rebuilt her career three times: eight years in health insurance, a job in book publishing that ended on a Zoom call, and now her own business helping nonfiction authors build their audience on Substack. 

Along the way she's had to figure out what stability even means when the ground keeps shifting, how AI upended the copywriting world she'd just landed in, and why the version of herself she'd been performing for everyone else wasn't actually who she was.

We talk about the pause that comes before every real reinvention, the martyr role she played for years without knowing it had a name, what it means to build something creatively instead of just profitably, and the identity work she didn't know she needed.

If you've ever felt the quiet tug of "maybe there's something else," this conversation is for you.

🔗 Get clarity on your own next move: beldenstrategies.com/clarityconsult

What You'll Learn
⭐ Why "stability" doesn't mean what it used to
⭐ How to recognize when you're playing a role nobody actually asked you to play
⭐ Why the pause before your next chapter is the work, not a delay from it
⭐ How to know when you're building a business that's actually yours versus one that's just familiar
⭐ Why creative fulfillment matters as much as the financial plan
⭐ How to do the identity work that actually changes what you're capable of building

Key Insights

Stability Isn't What It Used to Be
After watching her company collapse on a Zoom call, Jen realized chasing a "stable" job might be riskier than building her own thing. The old rules about safety don't hold the way they used to.

The Pause Isn't Empty. It's Where the Choosing Happens
Jen didn't rush back into stability after either major life disruption. She let herself stop, even when stopping felt like falling behind, because moving forward without first asking what she actually wanted would have just rebuilt the same life again.

The Martyr Role Often Gets Praised Right Into Place
Jen spent years as the one who "had it handled" while caretaking for sick parents — a role she didn't choose so much as absorb, partly because the people around her kept thanking her for carrying it.

Building a Business Creatively Matters as Much as Building It Profitably
Jen realized she'd been setting up her work to protect the parts that feel creatively alive to her, not just the parts that are easiest to scale. That distinction, more than any strategy, is what makes the business sustainable for her.

Timestamps

 00:00 Intro: meet Jen, three careers and three reinventions in
 03:12 The Zoom call layoff that changed everything
 08:18 How AI upended the copywriting job market overnight
 09:58 What "stability" even means anymore
 13:00 The power of the pause
 18:51 Bali: realizing it's a choice, not a sentence
 21:09 The uncoiling — letting go of who you had to be
 24:00 The martyr role nobody asked her to play
 27:43 Learning to live — and build a business — creatively
 36:07 What is your "enough"?
 37:47 Oxford, writing, and the identity she almost missed
 44:17 NLP, belief work, and the fear of being left behind
 53:17 The legacy question

Resources and Links

Find host Kristin Belden on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinbelden/
Or at https://www.BeldenStrategies.com

Sign up for Kristin's newsletter Big Deal Energy: https://www.BeldenStrategies.com/newsletter

Connect with Jen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenbaxter/

Sign up for her Substack: https://jenbaxter.substack.com/

If this conversation resonated, share it with someone who needed to hear it, and consider leaving a review. It helps more women find these conversations!

#careerchange #careerreinvention #womeninmidlife #permissiontochooseyourself #burnoutrecovery #creativeentrepreneurship #midlifecareerpivot #womenleadership #buildingyourownbusiness #substackstrategy #aiandwork #womeninbusiness #legacy #over40 #kindofabigdeal #kristinbelden

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hi everyone, welcome back to Kind of a Big Deal. I'm your host, Kristen Belden. If you're enjoying the show, please hit the subscribe button. It helps more awesome folks like you find us. Today I sit down with Jen Baxter, and what I love about her story is that it's not one reinvention, it's several. Eight years in health insurance, a job in book publishing that ended on a Zoom call with 20 minutes notice, and now her own thriving business helping nonfiction authors build their audience on Substack. But what made me want Jen on this show wasn't just the career story. It's what she's learned about the space between who you were and who you're becoming. The pause, as she calls it, that it isn't wasted time, it's the work. We get into the moment in Bali when she realized her old life was a choice and not a sentence, the martyr role she played for years without knowing it had a name, and what it actually means to build a business and a life creatively instead of just profitably. Can't wait for you to meet her, so here we go. Hi Jen. Hi, Kristen. It's so good to see you. I know this is so fun. I've really been looking forward to this. The amount of times that I've said recently that I got connected to this amazing woman through this other amazing woman.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

It's just bringing me so much joy in my life right now, and you're yet another one of those women that I was introduced to through Melissa, who was just recently on the show. I had posted a question on LinkedIn about Substack and if folks were seeing the value and kind of what their thoughts were and how they were navigating that. And Melissa tagged Jen, and Jen and I then got together. And she's just again one of those women who is so generous with her knowledge and so fun to chat with. And it turns out we had a very similar experience in our careers right around the same time, which is also pretty crazy. That I'm sure informed how we're building what we're building today in some way, and I'll be curious to dig into that a little bit with you. But I am just so thrilled that you're here, and I know you're gonna have so much wisdom and incredible nuggets for folks. So thank you so much for agreeing to come on. Oh my god, thank you for asking me because this is so fun. We just touched on the fact that you've been building your own business for about the last three years. I'm in year three. I'm in year three. Yes, same. So why don't we start there? Tell us about what you do and the work that you care about.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Okay. So I help nonfiction authors develop their audience primarily over email to promote their work, market their books, launch their books. And Substack is sort of the best place to do that right now, and the place that I enjoy the most. So that was kind of the organic thing that happened that got me here. And I work with them, I'm a copywriter and content strategist too. So I help them set them up on Substack, you know, understand their messaging, understand the value prop, who their ideal reader is, and get them past all the hard parts of thinking through, you know, okay, what's the value? Why am I doing this? What's my plan? And then also I have someone that I work with who does the design assets, so it looks good, so they can get to the fun parts, which is just writing regularly and you know, connecting with people. And it started as a side project, and I just really enjoy it. And it got to the place, and I'll get to this, where it became more than a side project, but not quite enough to sustain me and pay the rent. And so then it sort of developed into my own business where I'm a copywriter, so just took a couple copywriting, like you know, regular copywriting clients on retainer who were launching books but also had newsletters and podcasts and needed regular help. And then leaning into understanding how to create AI tools, like custom AI tools using Claude, for authors that had books and articles and really wanted a tool to sort of help them with their business. So all those three things have come together. That's how I landed in year three. But it started originally, I was working for a book publishing company here in Austin, Texas, and I was on the marketing team as a digital strategist, writing author websites and setting up newsletters and doing all those things and leveraging their LinkedIn to help them launch their books. And then we all got laid off on a Zoom call. It was sort of one of those stories, right? Where, okay, sorry, we ran out of money. Like laptops shut down at 5 p.m., health insurance ends at midnight, you know. We're keeping 20 people on as a skeleton crew, you know. See ya. Yep. So I know a thing or two about that. Yeah. So that happened in 2023, and I had been I mean, number one, I had just gotten a raise literally three days before. So I wondered if that was a joke. And then I had also, I'm from San Francisco originally, and I moved to Austin for the job, and I had just signed a lease on an apartment. So I was like, okay, right, right. What happens now? And I was working, I had started a Substack as my own newsletter on the side while I was working full-time because authors were asking me about it. And in 2021, I didn't know what it was. And a few copywriting friends were like, Oh, yeah, it's a great newsletter platform for journalists to have a paid newsletter. And at that stage, everything was behind a paywall, it was a totally different platform than it is now. And so I got on there and I thought, oh, I should be doing this. Like, actually, I should start this for myself. And then I talked to our CEO, and he's like, I love this idea for you. You ought to do that, and maybe we'll turn it into a service. So I started it thinking I was developing my own paid newsletter on the side while I was working with authors. And then that happened, and I had to think about things. I hit pause because that's typically what I do when I get a massive life transition that I was not quite prepared for. I thought, all right, I'm gonna take a few months and just think about this. And I realized, okay, I'm gonna try to develop this Substack thing as a side business and look for another full-time copywriting job. And I wasn't 100% sure about book publishing. You know, I love working with entrepreneurs, they have a different attitude than maybe the traditional non-aut non-fiction author that's wants like an advance from one of the big five. So I was kind of, you know, like, all right, I'll figure this out. And I joined a mastermind to just figure out this Substack part, thinking I was starting my own paid newsletter. And then, you know, fast forward six months, and actually what it turned into was the fact that what I love is talking to people about, you know, what makes them unique and what their special sauce is, and that who their ideal reader is, and you know, these creative ideas that they have and how we can actually leverage those to make it work with their business, and and started like a newsletter that has a a lot of them in it while also kind of hitting some of these book marketing goals that they had. And I the my network were nonfiction authors. So once I figured that out with this mastermind, someone was like, I think actually one of like I've got a friend who needs help with her, like she just got on Substack and she's got this massive Instagram audience, and like, can you help her? And I was like, sure. And then I did, and I was like, Oh, this is good. And then it turns out this woman actually has a massive audience. So she knew someone at Substack who she had worked with on her first cookbook, and so she met with her, and then she came back to me and I was like, wait, was I right? Like, was I doing that? And she's like, Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what Christina does with it with her clients. And I was like, Oh, okay. Right? Oh, proof of concept. So then I just reached out to authors I had worked with at when I was at Scribe Media and uh who had asked me about Substack originally, and I'm like, hey, I've kind of figured out this Substack thing. You want to try? And they were like, sure. Because I had set up their original newsletter and they were they were writing regularly and they were like building an audience for their next book. So that's how it started, and then I just did, you know, as much as I could. Like I wrote every week and I networked on Substack, which was an amazing place between I'd say 2023 to 2025. Like it was just I met so many editors from women's magazines who had left media and they had the same idea I did, and they didn't know what they were doing. So they got on there, but they knew how they knew women's magazines really well, so they knew how to do all that stuff too. And then they'd have like community Zoom calls and they'd do writing groups and they'd uh answer questions and they'd give you feedback about your work. And I was like, This is incredible, incredible, yes. And you know, like online writers that I had read for years who were like, This is like the old blogging days, this is great, and they were doing that. Nobody knew it when they were doing it, you know, nobody really understood, we're all just figuring it out. So that was how it started, and that was kind of really where I kind of it all took off for me. And then meanwhile, at the same time, I'd say, like, if we're talking about end of 2024 and really started looking for uh copywriting jobs seriously, AI was really in the picture, yeah. Yeah, and that just changed the landscape completely. So I then it turned into as I was filling out applications online and getting interviews and emails, people were like, Well, so now tell us how to use AI in your writing process. And it was so I mean, it's it's it's a conversation now that's polarized, but then it was like I would come from a copywriting mastermind where the person was like, No AI here. Like, if you turn if you show me anything with AI, no way. Like, don't bring it in here, to then applying for a job where they're like, So talk to us about how you use your tools, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Interesting, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

And I was like, This is crazy. So then things kind of picked up, and I hired another coach, and she was like, Look, let's just say for a year you go all in on this business. And if you don't like it, you don't like it. But I would say that you know, you're in year three, like you could probably replace your full-time salary. And and I think you ought to just try. And if you don't like it, then you can start applying for jobs. And at that stage, like the landscape for jobs, especially with copywriting, was so unstable. I mean, yeah, people were getting laid off left, right, and center. And if they were in a job and they were holding on to it really tightly, they were not very happy. Right. So I was like, it was the first time in my life I was like, wow, it could actually be more stable to have my own thing right now. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

I think that's true in a lot of ways right now. I think so too, right? There's what do we even mean by stability anymore? I think is a real question. I mean, there was just a New Yorker article about what this is gonna mean for the next generation of the workforce, and I know we're all talking about this, but it's like if there's no entry-level jobs, then how do you even launch your career, right? So we're all navigating this at this end of our in this stage and season of our lives, and there's gonna be folks that are having to completely rethink what a career even means. And so I think in so many ways, it's actually kind of a strange, maybe silver lining to both of our kind of non-expected moments in our lives where it's almost been this forcing mechanism to try out something that we might not have tried had it not been for that shove off of the hill, so to speak. And I wonder if it is almost as you were sharing some of your origin story of the business, I was thinking about how a lot of times they say some of some of the great artists like best creations are when they have a limited set of tools. And it's because you're kind of forced into going, okay, this is what I've got, this is what I have to work with, this is what I'm gonna create. And I feel similarly to how my business began, which is there was no other option at that moment, and I didn't have all the tools at my disposal. I didn't have a business plan, I didn't have the grand vision. It was just okay, I'm gonna get this going. And it's kind of amazing. I think that we hear a lot from some of the folks that are further along or the bigger names that, oh, don't quit your day job until you've, you know, found out that it's like you've got it all figured out. I'm like, well, what if you didn't have a choice? You know, what if you were like, it just happened? And so I think there's it's a yes and, right? If you're if you've got a solid job and you're thinking about building a business, I love that. But I don't think it's the only way. I think that there are other ways to jump in feet first and figure it out because you kind of have to. I would love to hear from you maybe a little bit more about that pause that you mentioned, because this is something that continues to come up in so many of my conversations, and it's something that now that I reflect on in that you know summer of 2023, I wouldn't have called it that then. I would have called it a deep pit of despair. What is even happening? Now I can recognize it for what it was, which was something in my body or my heart or whatever you want to call it, was like you don't you can't even move forward yet because you don't know what's happening to get the like foundation that you need to just move forward. And so that pause it was so important in figuring out how I wanted to go into what was next. And I wonder if that was intentional for you. You just said that when you hit these moments of these kind of inflection points, you take the beat. Is that something that was learned over time, or is that something that you recognized in this most recent iteration?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

No, I've honed this one. I mean, when you felt that, did you feel that? Like, was there sort of that intuitive knowing of like I just can't, I need time? Is that I think so.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

I think so. Like now, when I look back at it, there were moments where you know I had a few interviews here and there, and I would have this full body no. I mean, it was literally like I would shut down, I would get off the call and just like feel totally depleted. I was already depleted, so it's like the battery didn't have much in it in the first place. And then I happened to read a book called Wintering.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Oh my god, May. Yes, Catherine May. Catherine May. I so I found her on Substack, and I have sent that book to friends. I love it, and I love her I love her. I love her.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Oh, that gives me chills. It was so bizarre. It was in my pile of books. Yeah, someone had gifted it to me. I have no idea who I was.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

I've sent it to friends because it's so powerful. It's and it's so beautifully written, it's so readable, and you get lost in it. It's one of those books that you just don't want to put down because you feel like it's a friend talking to you. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Oh my god, that's such a great way of saying it. And I think that came along at just the perfect moment. Because her whole premise, right, is take the time that's needed. It's you have to recognize the season of life that you're in and honor it. Mm-hmm. 100%. And of course, this has nothing to do with we all need income to survive. So I'm I'm kind of like putting that over here on the shelf and saying, right, recognizing that a pause can look different for people, but mentally, what it means to actually take the space that you need and to recognize. So anyway, you said that you honed it over time, and I'm curious, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

That's so interesting that you brought it, Catherine May, too. So so the money part aside, because I had made some good choices, especially at Scribe, where I had financially I landed on my feet. And one of them was that actually I was saving some money to do this thing on the side. Because, and I had even said to the CEO, like, I know that you'll always be here and this job is stable, but I also know like the instability of as a copywriter, what I do, right? And often creative services marketing, like that's the first thing to go when there are time tough times. So I said, you know, I think it's a good idea I have something like this on the side. And he was like, Yeah. So I had money set aside, and I am, and I don't have anyone depending on me right now. So I recognize the privilege of that, except at the same time, I feel like I what we're taught for what we're talking about, I have honed this pause based on putting myself in those privileged situations where I know it's not gonna last forever. So I've set some money aside, and somehow in the back of my mind, or not even in the back of my mind, but like instinctively, I'm thinking, okay, what if this goes away, what would I be okay, what would I like to do? And so I a couple times in life have been depleted like you, and not necessarily even that I lost my job, like the first time was I had a career at Kaiser Permanente, like in a whole different life where I was in health insurance for eight years and sales and marketing, and that was super stable, and financially I was in a great space, but both my parents died of cancer, like really close together in like five years. And so I felt like I lived my whole life in a hot medical center, right? Like it was just a lot, and I was exhausted at the end. So I had friends who were like, It's time for you to quit your job and travel. Like, you're not married, you don't have kids, like you gotta do this. And at that, that was the first time where I was like, I can't do that. Like, what? Like, number one, that was my identity, right? And number two, like that was the only thing that had me rooted in in that in life, right? Like all these all these other things had changed. And then I you know, a few things happened and it just became really clear that like, oh god, I need time off. And one was I was getting really burned out, and two was that I actually had an amazing financial planner who was like, Oh, this is a great idea. Like, actually, if you're the kind of permission person who needs permission to do something like that, I'm giving you permission. Wow, you can do that. And I was like, Oh, what does that even look like? You know, like really, but that was the first time I realized, like, because it was a shift, like it was it was an amazing experience, it changed my life. That's like for another podcast, and at the same time, I will say, for the first six months, I was like, I gotta, I gotta do this, I gotta do that, I gotta get here, I gotta get there. I only have a limited amount of time. And I mean, I mean, I just lost my I was exhausted, like I was more than depleted, and like person my personal life, not by any fault of my own, right? Just by the way that life moves and the way that the rhythms happen, was pretty much you know, gone. Like it had totally changed. So uh hanging on to that and gripping onto that really tight would have been a disaster and probably made me ill. And I I had like life taught me like this is when you have to let go, and you have to actually just go lean into what's happening, the change that's happening. And so that's when I really learned about the power of the pause, because you have to kind of what we're talking about in the beginning, like you have to ground yourself in really understand, oh, okay, I get to choose actually. Like all of these outer circumstances have happened, but I get to choose how I respond. So there was a point at which I was in Bali in Indonesia, right? And I had left my job and I was sitting there with a group of people. I had probably done like a yoga class, like it was all very cliche, but like I did have this moment where I was like, oh my god, this is a choice. Like, I don't have to go back and live that way anymore. Like, I get to decide this, nobody else gets to decide this. And I feel often like I think about this a lot. Often life can choose you, right? Life shows you what's next, but we're so at least me, I am so at war often with the person that people tell me they think I am, and the person that I instinctively inside feel most comfortable with. Yes. Yeah. And so when life has kind of given me those options, right, then okay, am I gonna be at war with myself and like kind of shame myself for choosing the person that I'm most comfortable with because I'm not choosing the responsible version that other people have told me is okay. So I feel like the when the scribe job went away, it was actually just one, it was just another example of that. And I had, we were talking about this before we got on, I house it for friends a lot, again, single person, no kids, right? So I had a friend who was in Netherlands, another copywriter, and we met traveling and we were in touch. And so she was like, why don't you just come here and house it for me? I'm going to I'm going back to the UK with my boyfriend for three weeks. I need someone to w, you know, water my plants. Just come stay here. You can write, you can hang out, it'll be great. And I was like, I'm gonna do it, you know. So that was like, and I wrote a that's when I started my newsletter really seriously. And that's when I wrote about the power of the pause. Because I was like, oh, and again, it took a couple weeks. And I was on a bike ride, and I was like, oh God, I remember, I forgot. It's like this, I call it like this uncoiling. It's like we have wrapped ourselves so tightly to fit in to this new life. And for me, it was a new job and a new city. With actually book publishing was new for me, copywriting was old, but book publishing was new. And I just had myself so tightly wound to get all the things done and handle all the things, and I'd had some health stuff going on that I was on a bike like through this park, and I was like, oh god, that's right. You actually have to give yourself time to unwind, to un uncoil. Because that's the only way that the next step is gonna you're gonna feel right about it.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Yes, that makes so much sense to me, and it totally resonates because I feel I have called it the detox. Yeah, which is the same of the uncoiling, which is I, you know, once you have found your way out of that, it's a really strange feeling sometimes because you go, Oh, I almost don't recognize it's like I don't recognize myself, and yet I recognize the truest form of myself, which is a very awkward thing at at the same time to go, yeah. I don't recognize this new version because it's so f yeah, like far from that tightly wound go, go, go, like never stop energy to letting yourself actually sit in that version of yourself that is truest to you, and go, oh hey, old friend, like there you are, you know, and like I'm curious for you if you have found in those moments, I think especially in that first iteration you were talking about after leaving health insurance and then going and traveling and recognizing that you have that uncoiling happening. Was there anything about yourself that you were surprised by or that you found or like re-found again in that kind of truest version of yourself that you had either buried in order to like you know keep that other version of yourself going? Hey, quick pause before we get back into it. If you're listening to conversations like this one and something keeps nudging you, like I know I'm at some kind of turning point, I just can't quite see it clearly yet. That's actually exactly what I do. I work with women leaders who are in the middle of something a career shift, a business that's ready to evolve, a moment where what got you here just isn't cutting it anymore. Sometimes what you need most isn't a whole program or a big engagement. You just need a few hours with someone who can help you see what you're too close to see yourself. That's the clarity session. It's a focused, one-on-one conversation where we dig into where you are, where you want to go, and what's actually in the way. You walk away with real direction, not a list of homework, but genuine clarity on your next move. If that sounds like what you need right now, I'd love to talk. You can find all the details at Beldenstrategies.com slash clarity.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

That's like such a big question. You have no idea. I know. Like, oh my god. So big one. I know. Well, so I think the best way to describe that especially is the limit you're in the liminal space, right? Yeah. Where you're actually letting go of the old version of you and you're not actually in the new version of you yet. You don't even know what that looks like because you're still detoxifying, uncoiling, and you know, and recovering. You're in the recovery phase, right? So everything about how I mean, if I let's be honest here, let's not be dramatic. Was it everything? Financially, I was probably aligned with who I really was. But pretty much everything else, even down to some real friendships, totally out of alignment with myself. And also, you know, in a very real place of martyrdom, because I had just had two older parents who were sick, and I had older siblings, a brother and sister, who had young families, and they let a lot of it fall on me. And I took on the, you know, the martyr role of oh, poor me, you know, all my friends are traveling and getting married, and I can't do that. Like, I'm stuck here, I'm stuck in this, right? I definitely had that, and I don't even think I even understood what the word martyr meant. Yeah. It just was, I felt like something that was sort of passed on to me. Because, in many ways, a lot of those people praised me for it. Right, right. You're so selfless, all of these things. Thank you so much. Like, you're amazing, like, this is so great, but you know, at the end of the day, they're like, Okay, bye, you know, you've you've got this. You know, my mom, I'm like, can someone just bring groceries? I'm exhausted.

unknown 27:14

You know?

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Yes. You're waving your white flag, going like, and where's my help?

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Oh, it was a big thing. So I it took a long time, and I had to really understand that like there was a new version of me, and this new version of me was definitely not going to be a doormat. And that wasn't that comfortable either. So, you know, you learn, like you learn. And I think that what was most surprising and exciting, and like a revelation in a lot of ways, was one I realized, wow, I'm a really adventurous person. Like, I actually can just book a ticket somewhere, book a hotel for one night, show up and have absolutely no plan, and be like, okay, let's see how this just rolls, like they see how this unfolds, and absolutely meet people and feel like, oh wow, this is right where I'm supposed to be. Like, I followed my intuition. Like, I never saw myself as that person before. And then the other thing that was a revelation was, oh, and look, I can write about it and and photograph. And then sometimes people pay me. So all of that happened, and there were two parts of it. The one part was the personal development part, right? Like that, like I can, I have an intuition, and oh my god, when I live by it, it it works, like it serves me. Right. I can actually trust in life, right? Yeah, nothing's perfect, but like right works. And then the other part of that was oh, and I'm a really creative person, not just that I write and photograph, but that I can live life creatively. Right, because I sorry, keep going. Well, because I wasn't married and I didn't have kids, and uh, there was a lot of grief around that.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

So a lot of it was sort of check understanding, like, wait, is that do that's a do I is that a choice I need to make? Like, what is going on? Actually, look at this. If I had done that, I wouldn't have this experience right now. Right, yes, exactly. Right? So now I have this opportunity to like live my life creatively. What does that mean? What does that look like for me? It's obviously gonna be very different than my friends who have already made that choice and they are locked and loaded with like family times and family obligations, and right? And oh whoa, I get to how like how do I do that?

SPEAKER_02 29:46

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yes, and did anything I just love that you said live life creatively. I think I've that has been bopping around in my mind a lot lately. And I'm curious if this is also applying to how you're thinking about your business now. Yeah, because I found that even in the early iterations, you know, first year of my business, I wasn't even thinking about it that intentionally. It was kind of similar to what you were sharing before, where it's like you fall into these things and you're kind of m pulling this thing over here, and does this fit? And I realized at some point that I was doing well on paper, let's say. Like I had a good first financial year, but I was like, well, what? I'm not building a business though that feels interesting to me at all. I'm building something that feels very similar to an old role that I had, or something, kind of to your point, fulfilling a version of myself or things that I was quote unquote good at based on skills that I had built, you know, over the last few decades. And again, there's nothing wrong with that, but I wasn't I wasn't realizing it or being intentional about it. And so I've had a few moments over the last few years where I've started to really think, no, wait a second, I am a same creative person by nature, you know, art major, painter, all the things that matter to me in building or creating. And not to say that that has to be what I build my business around. However, what are the of those that I am drawn to and that I care about? Is it the creation? Is it the thinking strategically? What are the things so that I can pull those more directly into my business in a way that feels like I'm building a business creatively that feels right and exciting, not just a means to an end, in order to like, you know, make my mortgage, which is also very important. But you know, how do I do both at the same time? So I wonder if that's showing up for you also in how you're thinking about your business today.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Oh, all the time, because all the time, because I, you know, I'm I kind of am not a hundred percent sure I'm cut out to be an entrepreneur forever, right? Like, I'm not sure if like I like a regular paycheck, I like health insurance, I like being part of the team, I like having people to cover when I go on vacation. I'm happy with all that, right? So that works. However, though, I do have to say, like, I really love working with nonfiction authors. I've never worked with fiction authors, so that's why I say that, but like I really love it. Like, I get off calls sometimes, and I'm like, oh no, I love doing this. And if I got a job job with a book publishing company, I wouldn't be doing this. And then I think to myself, okay, could I would I would I continue to do this on the side? And I think, yeah, I just love it. So I feel very like you, like that speaks to how I'm I'm setting things up that are creatively fulfilling. Yeah. Because that is something that they value, because they could not do that without me. They would flounder and then not start it or start and stop, but now they're just up and running and they're enjoying it, and like it amazes me sometimes when you know, all the stuff that they get on there and do after I've just given them like a good foundation, and I can do it quickly, and it's easy for me. And like, I'm like, all I have to do is price this right and then get a nice pipeline, and here we go, right? Like, yeah, okay, like this is actually this feels good. So that's why I I kind of think, well, I don't I don't not, I mean, I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this because I don't I don't want to scale that and get rid of that. That's the best part, right? Exactly. Right? Like, I don't want to outsource that to somebody else. So the writing part for myself, which is uh odd to say, but like when I was traveling and writing and photographing, I was like, oh, this is this is like okay, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And I know that this is a really good way to explain this to you. I know that I need to be either do I need to be always doing my own writing work because doors open for the next thing in life and they always come through my writing. And it doesn't, yeah, and it doesn't mean that I love it, and it doesn't mean that I get up from my desk every anyone who's listened to this. I am not up from my desk at 10 p.m. going, that was great. Like I get in the bath sometimes and I'm like, I fucking hate this. Like, whose idea was this? And let's go get a job. What are you doing? Right. However, right, I will tell you from the first story that I started with, you know, and it goes back even further than that. Every door that has opened for the next real chapter in my life has come through me doing my writing work and either somebody finding it or me saying, Okay, I'm gonna do this, and then reaching out to people and saying, you know, do you need help with this? Or what do you will you take a look at this and give me feedback on that? Right? It has always come through that. So I now just am respectful of my life path and my life energy and my creativity, and I say, Okay, thank you, you know, and then let's figure out how to set that up so I'm not driving myself into the ground, you know, at my desk, so I have a carpal tunnel with my back hurting, undercharging. You know what I mean? All the things that we all do. I do all of them. So that's like the balancing act of business. That's like where I think I the other thing that surprised me about this is that I do kind of like working with I I love working with entrepreneurs and seeing how their mind works because they're so creative about their business.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Right? And I think I'm more fearful of it. And I'm a little fearful of it too, because like I don't I don't know how to outsource things yet.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Yeah, I know. It's like I feel like we're at such a similar moment in our businesses where it's like we've built it as, you know, to this moment and it's evolved in its own way. And people will always say, Well, when are you gonna get an you know admin? Or when are you gonna get a body blot? And I'm like, what are you even talking about? I can't imagine. And I, you know, I get it. There's exercises of like track your time and what are you doing and all of these things. And then I'm like, well, that just feels like one more freaking thing that I need to do now that I'm not thinking about, that I don't have time to think about. And so I I imagine, and I from a lot of the women that I've actually worked with, I think everyone kind of hits this moment at some point, right? And then there will be in another year or two or three another, you know, kind of moment, another inflection point, another kind of like emergence of something that is coming from that. And I think it's the trick is in being mindful of it and present with it. Because as we were talking about before we started recording, a lot of times we can end up building blindly or following the advice of what society tells us, which is build, scale, grow more, more. Like I I more and more recognize that the real value for me at this stage in my life is building a business that is exciting to me. And of course, to your point, there are my that pendulum swings, it's not even just daily, sometimes it can be hourly, right? You wake up and it's like, this is so much fun, and then the next hour you're like, what is happening? Why am I doing this? So that is so real, and yet I've never had more fun in trying to kind of sort through it and build it and figure it out. And I think that the real value for me has turned into getting to follow that. That alone feels like this massive gift. And of course I want to make money, and of course I want to like be able to do cool things with my family and go on vacations and all of the rest. But I think it also comes back to this notion that people have been talking about lately, which is you know, what is your enough? Because, and and you have to be able to say that. And it doesn't have to be a number necessarily, but I think it has to be a otherwise you just keep chasing the next goalpost, right? Like, okay, well, I built this to X amount of revenue or this amount of clients or this amount of freedom. Okay, well, the next mile marker is gonna be, you know, a few miles down the road. And so if you're not present enough to even acknowledge that you've hit those moments, I think that's when things get a little tricky because it can be a never-ending cycle. You can always just keep building and growing and scaling if that's what you choose. But I'm not interested in a lifestyle that requires me to be with my business 24 hours a day. Like that's not interesting to me, you know. I've got a family, I've got other hobbies, I've got other things that I'd love to do. And there is a moment of needing, I get that there's some people that have built a business that is kind of running on its own and making a ton of income, but I think that's the the what is it, the not the norm, but the what is that? The outlier term. Yes, thank you. The outlier, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

And also, you know, we don't we didn't see all the sacrifice and all the years of failure that went into them getting that exactly. Like there was a lot, there was a lot that we did see. Totally, totally, yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

I'm so curious about like the moment. I don't know if you can remember this, but as you were talking about how writing has continued to open the doors for you and kind of let you emerge into the next season. Like, what made you pick up the pen in the first place? Like on your travels when you had this realization, going, okay, I can write about this, I can photograph it. Do you remember what the kind of energy was behind that?

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Well, okay, so this is I actually was on a podcast with Toby and she loved this. She was like, I didn't know this. So I went to Oxford, I did my undergrad at Oxford. Okay. And which is not a normal thing to do for a kid from San Francisco, and so I headed over there at 19. It is a a kind of a long story, but I I was I was at a college there at a doing kind of a gap year at a private international baccalaureate college through some friends of ours, because I had a very contentious relationship with my mother. And we were at a very bad point. And uh the one thing that she always told me, and and it is, you know, well, you're such a good writer, and I was like, whatever, you know, okay. And so these neighbors of ours who I was part of their family, they had like the big family I always wanted to be a part of because they had five kids, and they had all these cousins, you know. So basically, they sort of like gave us this idea, and I went over to Oxford and I was at this private college for a year, and during that time I took a tutorial at my college that I ended up going to, Manchester College, and my philosophy tutorial was with the dean, and at that time he was very flamboyant, very eccentric guy, and he took me aside one day. We were in the quad and on this bench, and he said, So you're a pretty good writer. So, you know, like have you ever thought about applying here? And I was like, I could never get in here. Like, I was like, This is no because I could never get in. He goes, Well, don't be so sure because actually we have a London university degree, and this is the last year we're offering it, and then we're gonna actually matriculate and be a full-fledged university college, but you know, I think you could do it. And he said something that like literally changed the course of my life, and he said, I just have to ask you, like, could your parents afford it? Like, can you do they do they have the money for that? And I was like, I thought I was like, I never thought of it. I go, I yeah, I guess they could. And he's like, Well, if I were you, I would take the money and run. And I was like, Oh. So then I just did I just applied. I didn't tell my family. I actually did the you have to do some essays. I was already there, I did the interviews, it was like 25 pounds. I was like, I'm just doing it. Like, she's not she's not gonna say no. And then I also did what she wanted me to do, and then I went home and I told her, and she wasn't that excited about it, but she was excited that like at least you know, I had gotten on the track, the path that she wanted me on, and then I got in, and I it was like, whoa, and then it was like a thing, right? Because I mean I was doing a London university degree at an Oxford college, and I was the perfect kid for that. Like I was polite, people liked me. Obviously, I could write well enough, I loved reading, I didn't have to do any math or science or anything, it was all literature, and we could pay, and it was like cheap. I mean, I say that to you today, but this was England in the 80s, and so the the exchange rate, like it was less than a state school in the US. Wow, yeah. I know, like it was it sounded like it was like this big deal, but and especially back in the 80s and 90s, like none of my friends paid for university there. I mean, universities are free, so they had to pay for their board and they had to pay for their books and stuff, but like there was no tuition. So I didn't really understand that at the time, but like that was like the opportunity of a lifetime. And so that was the first time that that happened where I was like, like I just said yes because that I was like, I'm not saying you don't say no, and I was super excited and I couldn't get far enough away from my house, my family, and you know, like done. If you call me a writer, great. I like I just remember being like, you know, at at 19, did I really want to be a writer? I told everyone I did, Kristen, for sure, but like I think I really just wanted to get far away from home. But I think too having been back enough times now and having my friends, you know, I'm still in touch with my friends from university. Every time I'm there, even if I I go to Cambridge. I think really what happened is I walked into that place and I was like, I am never leaving. I don't know how. I think it was more of like something well, we talk about like who you really are inside that intuitive knowing where you're like, Oh my god, I'm never leaving. I don't know how this is gonna happen, but I am never. That feels right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so that happened again when I went traveling. Right. Like I landed and I was like, and I and I was hesitant and I was scared, and I was so in the mindset of the life that I was living in San Francisco and the years that had been so, you know, like very emotionally draining. That I got to Bali and I was like, oh wow, I know this place. I like, huh? I think I'm just supposed to be here. And it's such a healing place that obviously I needed to heal. Like that was it. And I still, it still took months for me to like allow myself just internally the space to be like, you know what, you deserve to heal. And I think that's a lot of times in this culture what we lack. Like we lack giving ourselves that space to be like, I have to take a breath and like reflect on what just happened so that I can make a different choice.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Do you think part of that is yes, it's a societal thing, but it's also I think potentially, I'm only speaking for myself, there's a fear in what it might mean to let yourself take that time because it might mean that you have to answer some questions that you're not ready to answer or that feel deeply uncomfortable, or might put a spotlight on relationships, habits, things that are in your life that really are not, they've either served their purpose or they were never meant to be there in the first place, whatever it is. Yeah. So I wonder how much of it might also be the allowing ourselves not only because it's not what we think we're allowed to do, but also allowing ourselves the I think it's like a level of bravery needed to kind of let yourself go there.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Yeah, I mean, putting the capitalism aside, because right, because capitalism sets us up to be scared that we can't pay our rent and that it's you know it's never gonna work.

unknown 46:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

So if we put that aside and then we look at just the inner stuff, because we can do that here. I feel like personally for me, there is that voice that says, Oh my god, I'm gonna be left behind. Like people are not gonna respect me for this.

unknown 46:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

And I'm gonna get left behind. Yeah. Right? And not and like it can be professionally, it can be in my family, it can be friends of mine who are like, oh how nice you retired early, right? You know, like making little jibes, right? But like that feeling of not belonging, because you have to let go of the belief system that you came from, and it's it is hardwired. So this is something else that like with this third pause, right? Like after Scribe, I've started doing this NLP training, which has been so like mind blowing because it's about looking at our beliefs and our identity and our subconscious and how the experiences it's the meaning that we make of things that happen to us, especially between the ages of zero and three. So it's it's it's yes, it's important and it's you know, it it means a lot that things happen to us and and people have a lot of trauma, but it's the meaning that the kids make of it, which is why you can see two kids who are similar in age and go through the same thing in a family and respond totally differently, they're making meaning of it differently. That's right. And so with this next, like I really wanted needed to do it when I came back from Bali, and I kind of got back into my life in San Francisco. That's where I first found out about this place called Marin NLP because I met people who were doing it. But to be honest with you, I'd already made so many changes and let so many relationships go, and it was coming back as this person who now is gonna be a freelance writer in the most expensive city in the country. Like, I mean, if that wasn't already crazy enough, like now I'm gonna do NLP and tell you all what I believe. No.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

But this time I was like, no, now I really need to. And it's and it's so interesting for the work that I do with authors because I'm only I'm doing it now for myself. And it helps a lot with the entrepreneur thing because I have to look at my identity, right? Like, and do I see myself as this person? Do I actually see myself as this person who can like have the revenue going like this and still, you know what I mean, and still stay in it and not panic every month? Right? And where did that belief come from that I wasn't that person? So for me personally, with that, that's that's where I'm coming from. But now I've had like my teacher do different demos with people who have talked about launching their book. Like I was didn't know that wasn't what I was thinking about. And whereas I'm coming from, like, oh, when an author doesn't follow my strategy that I've laid out for them, there's something wrong with my strategy. I didn't either I didn't connect with them enough, or I didn't put the foundation in right, or something wasn't working. I didn't know something, right? And after working with authors for three or four years, it's such a personal I mean, it is going through that creative rebirth again, where now you're it's a new identity, and I've helped so many people step into that new identity without even realizing that's what I was doing. You know, because they don't identify as a writer or an author if they are writing a nonfiction business book. They identify as an entrepreneur that has a method to share, or a thought leader, right? Or someone who, yeah, someone who has a story to tell, but they're not a writer, they're not an author, like and they really do need to step into that identity in order to promote it and connect with people. So I was already doing that, and now I feel like I got language and tools, and then I could see, wow, like there's a whole belief structure that I didn't even know existed. And so that has a lot to do with how the writing has opened the doors for me. Like every single time it's about my beliefs and my identity of who I am, and when I step into the fact that okay, I can write this thing, and then I give it to someone, I just allow, I allow it to come to me through that. Or I think what has happened in a few times, and I'm trying to think of different examples. I mean, sometimes with clients, where somebody has come to me and said, Oh, I read this thing you wrote, would you write this for me? I want it, I want something like that. And then I've been like, Oh, I think that could be the next thing.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

Yeah, yeah, it's funny, right?

SPEAKER_00 51:04

How it can be. Yeah, so you pay attention to that, right? And then I have to be at peace and in well, and the NLP land, we call it in rapport, and I love it. I love it. That at its core, like Marin NLP, is all about being in rapport with yourself, being in rapport with others, and being in rapport with life itself. Oh, I love that. That's beautiful. Isn't that beautiful? So when you are in rapport with yourself, then those things come to you and you're like, oh, I think that actually that could be the next thing. Like it could be that easy. I know the work isn't gonna be that easy moving forward, but actually it could be that. It could be that easy to step into that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then if you're really in rapport with life itself, you're like, okay, I'm gonna just keep taking the steps forward towards that.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

That's such an interesting way of thinking about it because I do feel at times it's like almost the joke that it takes some level of delusion to be an entrepreneur or to build your own thing, right? And but I think what we're actually saying is that it's that we're actually more aligned or in tune with ourselves and the world around us, and it's not actually delusion, it's actually listening rather than seeking for the external either validation or permission or the framework or the structure or the whatever, whatever. And so I think more and more about that that we can joke about it being delulu, but ultimately it's it's the inner knowing that we're tapping back into that we've all gotten away from for so long, or maybe it's been there and we haven't been away from it, but we didn't really recognize it for what it was, or we learned to quiet it down, right? I think this is happening so much with mid-career women in particular, mid to mid to later career women that are going, oh, wait a second, this has been here the whole time, and now I have to maybe not refine it, but allow myself to actually let that guide me versus the first reaction being to question it. And and then maybe allowing it, right? The maybe the first reaction being one of allowance versus I gotta question it 45 ways to Sunday before I allow it to just be, you know.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

So that's why I love the name, the title of your podcast, like kind of a big deal. And when I first saw it, I was like, I love this. So I used to belong to a women's co-working space in Marin called the High Free. And I love that. Yeah, and and Grace, the founder used to always say when she was coaching women, especially in the early days, but it still happens now, she knew she was on to something because she started it started as a place that women going through these transitions could come to actually get support and a place to work on their thing that was outside of the house, right? Uh like so that they could take themselves seriously because she kept coaching women too who would come and go, Well, I'm gonna have this business idea, I'm gonna do this thing. She's like, but then there is this little thing that I sort of kind of always and she's like, and that's always the thing.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Oh my gosh. That is you're hitting on something. I'm so curious. And I know we're way out of time, and so I but this round two is gonna be a question around that for you, and what that kind of is there a smaller voice happening that you're hearing kind of come out in these moments? In a way, that was kind of the Substack thing for me.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

And I and I'm sure I was thinking, I mean, I'm always in touch with her, so I'm I always think about that, right? And especially I was with all those women, it made a huge difference in how seriously I took myself as a writer, and it took a long time to take myself seriously as a writer, right? So um, like the Substack thing, well, like kind of like the newsletter thing. You know, some people are making money with paid newsletters, but I I don't know, maybe there's kind of a thing with authors I could do. Yeah. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

I know it's the that disclaimer. It's like we have to protect our heart a little bit in the beginning, you know, to say maybe, and then when it gets to kind of see its full formation, is when the really cool stuff starts to happen. Okay, I don't want to stop before I ask my one question that I ask every woman that comes on the show, which is of course around legacy and you know what we're all building towards, because I think, right, I like to think of it as the beautiful thing that we're building towards every day, not as just the thing that we're gonna leave behind when we're gone. So, Jen, what does building a legacy mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 55:37

You know, I I feel like actually I have not quite articulated that before because I'm not my like in terms of my business, it's probably not at the point where I'm really quite doing the legacy work yet. Because as we talk this through, it will have a lot to do with helping people change their mindset around their I around their writing and around their creative career. Yeah. You know, helping them step more into that identity. I mean, that's that's yeah, and I feel like that is something that I am so invested in right now in myself, that organically I will hit a point at a certain stage where I'll be like, okay, now I'm ready to help other people. Yes, a hundred percent. And that makes the best teacher. Yeah, and so all of these bumps and ups and downs and waking up going, why am I doing this thing? I need to get a job. Right. And I may get a job. Like, I'm I, you know, I'm all for getting another book publishing job. So if you're out there and you're thinking you need you want a good marketer, like I'm I'm all in. And I also believe that like I'll continue with the NLP work and helping authors develop their audience, and it will probably morph into something around helping them really step into their identity and changing their belief structure so that they can really do work that feels aligned, like we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 57:13

That's incredible. It's so it's such a it's the piece we don't always talk about, but it always is the most important piece, right? To your point, you can have all the strategies and all the business plans and all the things, but yeah, if there's that thing holding you back, or someone shared recently, like if you want the world to take your work seriously, then you yourself have to take it seriously. You have to speak into your like maybe not desire, but your the importance that you believe it holds, right? Or the thing, it it's so easy to pull ourselves away from the and seriousness might not be the right word for it because I don't mean take it seriously from you know that kind of traditional perspective.

SPEAKER_00 57:56

Well, how about intention? You know what I mean? Stepping, having me like in doing what you intend to do, setting your intention and and really owning the your identity around that. Yes, and stop with the disclaimers.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

My husband at one point when I was starting out, he's like, if you tell me one more time, if it works, or you know, I can always have plan B, he's like, stop it.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

I love saying which is why I love I love the title of this podcast. Like, I love the name.

SPEAKER_01 58:27

I'm so glad. It was one of my favorite things that happened when I decided to do this. So that that tickles me that you enjoy it too. So I'm so glad that we're in each other's ecosystems now. And I just so appreciate you being so willing to be open and share your story here. It means a lot to me that you trust that I will hold it dearly, and that folks will, I'm sure, resonate with so much of what you've got to share here.

SPEAKER_00 58:53

So I feel like you just helped me like think through some of my story. Oh, good. I feel like I just had a little bit of a session where I'm like, actually, if I think about legacy, it's actually gonna be about helping people do the change work to like step into the side of the like and I've known that. Like as I'm doing this work with myself, I'm like, oh, this is probably gonna be the next thing.

SPEAKER_01 59:16

Mm-hmm. Yeah, there it is.

SPEAKER_00 59:18

Yeah, like right now, it's like the nuts and bolts of helping authors market their books and build their audience, but like actually, it's probably the next thing is probably gonna be some identity and belief work around it.

SPEAKER_01 59:32

Yes, it's when those two worlds collide that you care so deeply about and have experienced yourselves, it's really amazing the power that comes in that, I think. And you know, you have this this really beautiful, interesting skill set, but to also have worked through some of your own evolution and identity and all that work that is that required to actually emerge into that next season of our lives. The fact that you can bring those two worlds together, like that is so that's where the magic happens, and that's when you know it's you're you're having fun because you're getting to do these two pieces that you care so deeply about. And uh it by bringing them together, it makes a whole other world that you get to be a part of. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:17

So thank you, Kristen. I really appreciate the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:22

I love it, I love it. Amazing. Well, Jen, you are kind of a big deal, more than kind of a big deal, and I'm just so grateful to know you. So thank you again.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:31

Thank you too.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

All right, I'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:34

Okay. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

Thank you so much for listening and spending some of your time with me here. I hope our conversation sparked some new ideas for you. If you enjoyed the episode, please make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's next. And if you're ready for even more tools and stories, head on over to Beldenstrategies.com slash newsletter. I share fresh insights, stories, and tools for women leaders every week. Until next time, keep building, keep evolving, and remember that you are kind of a big deal.