When you transition from working a full time job to being in your
business full time, a lot can change both in
your business and with your mindset as well. And that's why today I'm
excited to have Jill Lanier on the podcast to talk all about
it. Before we dive into this episode of the Mindful Marketing
podcast, I gotta give a shout out to our sponsor, Riverside.
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notes and use the coupon code to get your discount today. Now I'm excited
to have Jill on the podcast today. Jill,
welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm excited to
be here. Yes. I'm excited to just dive into
the work that you do and and really share it with our listeners because I
feel like you got a little bit of an inside peek since you're one of
our members. But but share, a little bit about your
journey. So you started your business while you had a full time
job. What what excited you or or sparked that interest in
starting your business? Well, I I believe that
whatever you do, whether you're working full time or not, you
still have some sort of obligation to
express yourself and give back to,
the world to make it a little bit better than it was, you know, when
you came. And so I felt like mindfulness, which is
what my business is built around, is a way to do that.
It's a way to help people cope and navigate
better with the stresses of modern living,
whether you're working or whatever you're doing, climate, what's going
on in the world. And I feel that it's a way to tap
into your inner resources for doing
that. And so that was what I felt excited me, and I felt
would be something that people would find helpful as
well. Yes. Yes. And you know, I'm all about the mindfulness piece
as well. I think, our minds can be such a an amazing thing, and
also they can be our worst enemies at South Chime. Mhmm.
So talk to me about this mindset shift for you
transitioning from part time entrepreneur to full time
entrepreneur? Because this is what you're doing full time now. So what was that shift
like? So it took a lot of prep
work. I wasn't you know, I wanted to make
sure I wasn't jumping out of one frying pan and into
another and not being prepared. So I took a lot of
time just working around what are my
offers, how do I reach, my audiences,
and really getting grounded in that. And then as
I got closer and everything evolved and started to fall into
place, I realized I need more time
just to get the business to the able
to
think about what is it I want to do just to be
able to hold that. Because
when you're in that grind, like, you don't have a lot of
mind space or capacity to think, be creative in a way that I didn't, before
my time.
Be creative in a way that I didn't, before my time
opened up. So, that's a little bit of the benefits. And
I write about this in my newsletter, because part of what
I'm trying to tell people is it can be as
simple or as complex as people
want. If you only get the ability to
just be calmer, that's a lot, but there's so much
more you can get depending on how much of a habit
you make it. And so, I wrote about that
transition, around the time when I made it, and just
how my mindset just shifted, and I just felt
freer. And so I write about how it is my
experience to live in a city like New York City where I, I
live and, and had worked, and just to be practicing it, you
know, day to day, and just the ways I incorporate
my environment into that practice that
gives me a little bit more, what do you call it,
resilience? Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that
you called out this calmness that has come with this
kind of transition into the next chapter of your career,
which is owning your own business and being that full time. I'm
wondering how mindfulness played into that journey even more.
You mentioned that you kind of lean on some tools and
to guide you through this process. Are we talking, like, meditation, journaling?
Like, what are some of the practices that help you balance,
you know, working and enjoying your life?
So I do do meditation. And I as I said, I
have a regular practice. And by practice, I mean
something that you do on a recurring regular basis
over time, which is also known as, a
formal practice. You have an informal practice, which is when you kind of do it
ad hoc as needed or as things come up during the day. So I have
a daily practice. And another thing that I've tried to focus on, and and now
I have more time to do, is to build and connect with community.
And so being with others is so important
to your well-being. And specifically, by that, I
mean supportive community that feeds you
and then you feed others. I had,
listened to a podcast by someone who was writing about
stress, and he said micro stress is like the slow
silent killer. But in order
to maintain, a healthy balance, you
should find and connect and situate yourself with
others doing similar things, and doing those
things together in order to improve
your well-being mentally and physically. So this
being with other people of like mind towards a
positive goal is very key. So one thing that
I did have time to do once I was had more discretion over my
time, my partner is a creative writing
workshop leader, and he's tapped into a lot of creative community.
So one of them is a small writing group. We meet once a week.
We have over the summer, we've been meeting in a community garden, which is a
nice setting. And so in that way, I'm able to
express other parts of myself. It's not just business, business, business. Go,
go, go. It's this creative outlet that I have. So
that's one thing that I have focused on, and I wanna expand on that.
But that was one thing I was able to start doing in
June when the summer hit that is is another part
of my practice. That's so beautiful. I love this so much.
I, I think that there's something, especially for those of us who have
businesses where we run it online. Right? Like, a lot of
our interactions are digital. And but
there's something that is so magical and
powerful when you get in the physical space with community members.
Mhmm. And I sense that when you're talking about this. I love that you go
into the garden and you're focused on your, like, creative work. There
is definitely a powerful, shift that happens
when you do that. And I love that that's part of your practice. I like
that you use the word practice too because labeling
it practice to me definitely makes it feel more intentional,
because it's something that you do regularly, which I love.
Okay. So my next question is about your relationship with your marketing
and how that changed when you made this transition. So for example,
you mentioned that you write your newsletter. Has
anything changed when it comes to content creation or social media when you
made the shift from, you know, your full time job to being a full time
entrepreneur? Definitely. So for one thing,
I was, since I was still working, I felt
very self conscious about putting myself out there because
I wasn't yet maybe ready to reveal
that part of me and and the extent to which I
was pursuing that. So I was very self conscious
about posting things on social media, and I
kind of limited myself really to Instagram and,
Facebook because I felt like, well, with all of the volume of
things flowing through social media, you know, it wasn't
likely that, somebody would see it before I was ready. But
once I did leave, I made it a point to get on
LinkedIn. And my my goal had been to do that
by June, but I was able to do it a little earlier. So I was
I got on by May. And so that is like a
different experience of content creation, who my
audience is. Like, Facebook and Instagram are more kind
of fun. Mhmm. But, LinkedIn's a little bit
more formal. So I keep that in
mind. I'm mindful of what content goes
on which platform. And a lot of it can go
on all 3 of them, but sometimes I will change up the
imagery, or I will just post certain things to
Instagram and Facebook, and then certain things just on
LinkedIn. So that's a big shift that I made, when I went,
you know, to full time entrepreneurship. Yeah. It's just being mindful
of, you know, what who am I, speaking to?
Who's who's going to see this? Yeah. Okay. I wanna dig in more to your
content plan because it sounds like you have quite a few
pieces at play here. You've got the newsletter. You're on LinkedIn,
Facebook, and Instagram. Walk us through your
process. Is there a, kind of, like, signature piece of content
that you focus on? And then how much time are you spending on all of
this? I want all the details. So I wanna tell you,
I, of course, have been following you for a while. And so when I
first went on, decided to go into social media, I
was doing all the things. I was following, you know, my pillars. I
had my pillars. I was doing, several pieces of
content per day, you know, for each pillar and and
my newsletter and everything, but I wasn't really getting that much traction
initially. So I had to pull back. And I took a break from
social media and then just focused on my newsletter.
And then after a little while, I came back to it, but with more
intentionality, which is also a key part of mindfulness.
I said I'm not gonna do all the things. I'm going to I
started with just one pillar, going back. I start back
with Facebook and eventually added Instagram
back, and I was just gonna commit to those 2 days.
And so my social media content is based
on my newsletter content. So I
have that structure. I write my newsletter. The
following week, I, create the content
based on the newsletter. So following that little recipe
that you have is just like a little introduction, three points why you
should look at this, and then an invitation to engage
and or please sign up for the newsletter. So I committed to
that, and that was manageable. And so
that discipline, a practice of just showing up
consistently with what I had committed to and not worrying about
being on every day and all of this was very
helpful to especially, I'm still working full time,
of managing the discretionary time that I had at that point
to just show up every you know, when I said just
regularly, weekly. Then I added LinkedIn and, you
know, kinda folded that in. So that's really been,
my formula. And so I would say I spend and I never
really thought about it, but I use the weekends to kind of firm up
and finalize everything. So as
I got more into the habit of it, it it was
less hard to come up with stuff. And so I would
say, you know, maybe I'm spending 6 hours a
week just creating the content,
doing the writing. The main heavy lift is my newsletter.
Yeah. And and even that, I've gotten a kind of
habit with that of, you know, what do I wanna say? Sometimes I have
themes for a given month, and so I can break my
content out into smaller bites that people can
handle, not overwhelming them with like a 2,000 word
post, but breaking it up and, you know, teasing it out and saying,
oh, I'm gonna talk about this this week. Next week, I'm gonna talk about
this. Stay tuned for that. And so that has made,
even writing the newsletter a little easier because
I am following a theme and creating
content so that it's not like, oh, I'm starting from
ground 0, each time. And then as things
come to me, I can inter disperse that with stuff that I feel I wanna
share, you know, at Hockley. But again,
this structure and knowing what I'm committing
to, what I want to share with people, what I think they'll find
of benefit, that really kind of shapes my
content, you know, formula and and format and everything like
that. Yeah. And how often are you publishing your newsletter?
Once a week. Okay. Weekly. So did anything change
for you to frame this question? I feel like sometimes when we go all
in on our business, we feel the pressure to
do more or show up more or show up differently. Did
you have that moment where you went from, you know, your
full time job to full time entrepreneur and you felt the pressure to show up
more or differently in your business? I didn't because I'd
grappled with that before while I was still working. And
even though I have more time, I'm still sticking to
that because it's manageable and
unstressful to say, I'm firmly committing to
these 2 days or these 3 days. And as other things. So
that's opened up space to say, oh, here's something that might fit
into one of my other pillars. I'm committed to
my Monday post, which is promoting my newsletter
on Instagram, and then Tuesday, I promote it on Facebook,
and then I have my Wednesday industry, sharing. So
something that I'm promoting somebody else. And so
those three things I'm firmly committed with, so I don't feel
pressure to do more than that. Consistency is
the key. And so making sure I'm showing up on
those days, and then if something else comes up on my
Thursday 1, which is my thrive with me pillar, and Friday
is just something fun. Like, I don't worry about those so much.
And so like mindfulness, which is a practice, which as I said
earlier, is something you do recurringly over time,
this is my mindful approach to social media, which is
making a commitment, being intentional, and then
doing that again and again and again, week in, week
out till, you know, I'm people can know
to expect me. And I feel comfortable of saying, oh, I have something
for people to fall into because I'm regular with it. It's not
like, oh, I haven't been around for, like, 3 months. Here I
am. You know, it's just ongoing. So it's not it's
less opportunistic and more, I think, you know, giving
to others. Yeah. I just sense that in all of the work that you do.
It's very generous, and still very mindful of
your own boundaries and your own well-being, which, you know, I
love. I wanna circle back to something you said earlier, though. You talked about
how you were hesitant to show up fully
when you had your full time job, and then you felt freeing
when you transitioned. But I know a lot of people who are listening
are in the position you were in. They have their job, and
they're they have their business. And there's this
conflict, this balance of, you know, I'm showing up in my job, but
I also wanna show up in my business. So now that you've you're on the
other side of this looking back, is there any advice you'd give to
someone who's still in the full time role and running their business,
especially around showing up for themselves in their social media
and in their marketing? Any any advice for that group?
What I would say, and this is how how I approached it,
is everything depends on your
particular circumstances. And so what I say as
a mindfulness instructor is when I lead a meditation,
it's always a guidance that's an invitation. So nothing
that I tell people, they don't have to get it right.
They're not forced to to try and do what I'm
saying. If they need to step back from that or adapt it, they can.
So what I'm gonna offer is, you know, given my particular
circumstances, you know, what people might think
about. 1, think about what is your situation
at your job? How comfortable do you feel
about sharing that? Do people know that you're doing this on the
side, or maybe they don't know? So you have to weigh those two things.
If it feels like, you know, you don't feel comfortable
to do it, maybe do your social media in ways
that still feed you, but are
mindful of, you know, who might see it and how they might
react to that. Maybe they are aware of it.
So in that case, you might feel comfortable to say, hey, look what I'm
doing over here. Kind of doing this, you know, on the side
right now or whatever. And they can get a taste of it because
possibly, they may benefit from what you have to offer.
So those were things that I weighed for myself. And
even after I made the transition, I was
still cognizant of, well, she
never talked about this at work. Now all of a sudden, she's doing
that. They did people did know that I did
mindfulness, and I had even led some sessions
for a couple of for my department, and then one that was
like a sort of sister department to us. So they were aware,
but not maybe necessarily aware to the extent to which I was pursuing
it. So when I did launch my LinkedIn, I
wasn't sure whether I should just start posting or make an announcement that I
had made this transition. I chose to make an announcement. I got a
really good response from that. And I said, here's what
I was doing. Here's what I'm doing now.
Here's how I'm feeling about it. And, you know, I got a
really good response. So there's people that
I who knew that I was doing this, and so, of course, they
knew about it and had been kinda following me. But, other
people were new to it, and so a few people signed on to my newsletter
or they follow me on social media. So, I mean, that's kind of maybe
a wishy washy answer, but it's just how I approached it and how
I felt comfortable. And, with each passing
day, I'm feeling more comfortable to show
myself and, you know, the kinds of work specifically
that I wanna do as far as a mindful practitioner and guide.
So that's upcoming or unfolding now. So
more of, you know, this is who I am as a mindful
practitioner. And in my business, this is what I'll be doing.
Yeah. And and a lot of what I hear you saying is very, like, values
aligned and values driven. And it's a conversation I've been having a
lot with people lately because I think that in order to be
values driven, you have to make an intentional, almost like
self declaration of what those values even are,
so that you can kind of weigh in with yourself to see if what you're
doing is aligned or not. So for those people who are in this
decision making process of trying to sort out what their values
are, what are some of the things that you suggest they look at?
Well, just one of the key tools that I like, the simplest
thing anyone can do is to pause a moment and
breathe, and then just take some time to
notice what am I feeling inside
or what's going on around me, and to let
don't try to solve it or answer it, but just be
open to what might come to you. And so you may
find, oh, my values tell me that I should
be more open and visible and share this,
and it will probably go okay.
Or even if it doesn't, you're on that trajectory
anyway, so this might be the nudge to kind of
go full force. And the one thing I used
to perform in another life. I used to sing. And
there's an experience you have as doing something, and then
there's how other people receive it. And especially when
you're a singer, there's these sort of zones. So there's the people
close-up. You have to perform in a way that reaches
the people in the back row. Yeah. Everyone is
depending on how far out they are from you, they'll
experience it differently. So you have to be mindful again of, you
know, I'm reaching the people in the front, but I really need to magnify what
I'm doing to reach people in the back. And so
it may seem like all eyes are on you, but people have so much stuff
going on that very likely what you
feel is so obvious
is not going to translate that way to your
audience. I mean, it's even hard enough to get the people you want to see
you to pay attention. So that's one thing that I
learned as a performer is I would be when I first got up, I'd be
shaking, I'd be nervous. And then someone would say, oh, my goodness. You look
so calm. How do you stay so calm? So that is one thing
that I would tell people is, again, how you experience
yourself and how your audience is, whoever that it may
be, and even strangers, is gonna be so different than how you're
perceiving it. It's hard to notice that,
But trust me, that's something you have to take on faith that there's a difference
there. So you can probably be a little freer than you think you
can. Yeah. Oh, I love this. I used to be a singer too.
So I I totally relate to that, sing to the back of the room
statement, especially since I tend to be very
soft spoken. And so even, like, in acting and
things, it's like you've gotta project your voice. You've gotta be able to be heard.
And I love that because I do think, especially in
marketing, specifically social media, there's so much comparison
to other people. And I think it's very easy for
us as business owners to slip into all sorts of emotions when
it comes to social media. You know, did our post get a lot of
likes and comments? Or we see, you know, someone else doing something
similar, and their post has a lot of likes and a lot of comments. So
what are some of the things that you know, you mentioned your daily practice, and
I'm curious if you have any part of that practice that helps you
with kind of the emotional journey of putting yourself out
there online. Anything that you do to to keep yourself grounded
or just manage your emotions, all of the emotions that come along with this
vulnerability. Well, I don't have anything
specific. It's just the practice is what
shapes and helps me to manage that, whether
it's with the business or in life. So that
habit is so important. I can't stress that
enough because it builds the muscle for you to have the capacity
to roll with the things that are coming, whether you can expect them
or not. So part of what my meditation
practice helped me to do is to become more tolerant
of discomfort. And so when I notice that
arising in my practice, I will sit with
that and just notice it and say, oh, I'm
feeling, I don't know, agitated, or
nervous, or irritable. And so when
I noticed that, I just sit with that. And sometimes what I found helpful,
I'm a very visual person, I will assign characteristics
to that emotion. And and it it helps
you. It doesn't make you suppress it, but it does
help you disconnect from it just enough so that it's
not overwhelming. And then I imagine, oh, if this
was a person or an object, it would have this these characteristics.
And when you can stand back and look at it in that way, it just
breaks that tie where you're embodied in something. And so the
key is to be able to toggle back and forth between being embodied, which you
want to be sometimes, being able to step back so you don't
get overwhelmed. So that comes out of my
practice. I have formally practiced since
about 2018 or so.
So with a daily practice, and I
set a time for, like, 20 minutes. That's manageable.
And if I feel pulled to, like, skip it, I'll say, 10
minutes, Jill. Surely, you can take 10 minutes for yourself.
Even if it's 5, just to keep in the habit of it. And
however it flows, it flows. Sometimes you're really in the zone.
Sometimes you're a little distracted. Just whatever time you
commit to, just go with that because that habit of just
showing up for yourself on a daily basis is what's going to
carry you through on the long term. So that's what helps me
manage whatever is coming up with, you know, my social
media or my business is things will come up, things will go
down. You know, it's not this straight level thing once
you figure out, oh, I'm doing this. It's a lot of stool. Some
things open more questions than what you started with. And that's always gonna be the
case. So realizing that and then managing that,
which I I've done with my, meditation practice has helped.
Yeah. I found the same thing. And and the thing that I found too with
meditation, specifically, is that the more I did it,
the more I felt my own like, my confidence in myself grow because
I was able to commit that practice to myself. I will
say, once having kids, all the rules went out the window. That
it made it so much harder. So I'm still trying to find my practice
again. But when I was really consistent with it, I found that even
taking those 5 minutes a day for myself, it
it really set the tone for the rest of the day.
And I felt like I already accomplished something for myself
that day. So I was able to, like, take in all the emotions of
whatever, running a business in life, a lot. I
wouldn't say it was easier, but maybe more gracefully because
I was able to yeah. Because I was able to, like, have that time for
myself. So I a 100% agree. Any
last thoughts or questions that you wanna leave our audience with today
around mindfulness and integrating it specifically with their marketing?
Yes. What I will say is 3 tools
that are just fundamental to mindfulness
are these attributes. And there's a lot of them, but three main ones
are gratitude, compassion,
self compassion, and humility. So gratitude is
just, you know, being thankful for whatever is happening in
the moment or ongoing. So I don't have a big following,
but I am thankful for the ones that I have. I, over
time with the discipline, I've gotten like a little
consistent following on Instagram and and LinkedIn.
So gratitude, compassion, or self compassion.
You cannot have compassion for others until you allow
yourself to have this. So don't try to be
perfect or feel like, oh, I've gotta do this perfect.
You know, some things you've talked about. I've gotta show up
curated and whatnot. Have grace. Like, you know, if you
can't be perfect, you tried, and the next moment is an
opportunity to do better. And sometimes you won't choose
better. It's not about being perfect. It's about, am I aware
of what's going in to this present moment, and can I show up
in that moment as best I can in that moment? And
sometimes it won't be up to a certain standard, but you
get to try again every moment, the next day, the next
week. Humility is to understand that what you're going through,
even if this is not exactly the same as someone else,
we all as humans have similar experiences, so you are
not alone in whatever challenges you're
experiencing in your business. Somebody else has gone down this path.
Somebody else will go down this path. The humility is to know I'm
doing what I can in this moment as best that I
can. I don't compare myself to other people. I don't
even compare myself to myself. I just show
up as best that I can and and
go with that, and just keep doing that each moment, each
day. So those three tools are,
what I would offer. Very beautifully said. I cosign all of
this. And for those who are listening who are like, I need more Jill in
my world, you have the mindful meditative toolkit. Can you
tell us more about this resource? Yes. So
this is something that came out of my practice of writing. So
that was another daily practice I have. And so it helped me
to, incorporate or internalize
these values. So, it's a very simple guide of
how even when you don't have a lot of time,
you can even you can do this. So, it is maybe a thought
that, oh, I gotta spend an hour. No. These are very simple
tips that can be done in small blocks of time,
can be adapted to a per person's particular
unique circumstances, and the point is to get
started. And to get started, you can do it in small
blocks. As you get that habit under your belt, you
may find you want to do more, and you wanna make more time for it.
But the steps in the book are very simple. It's understanding
those attributes that I talked about, ways to
integrate that into your actual life. So this sort of
informal practice that I I mentioned earlier, you know,
being in community, finding community, noticing,
connecting with nature. That's another key thing.
And you know, it doesn't have to be camping. You know, just going
out, noticing what's around you. Some very, very simple
tips. And especially for a busy entrepreneur, I think it will be
perfect, you know, for them if if they wanna try this and see how
they can integrate that into what they're doing. Y'all get this
toolkit. I'm gonna put it the link in the show notes, onlinedre.com/333.
Jill, thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you.
I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to speak with you. Yay.
And thank you, dear listener, for tuning in to another episode of the
Mindful Marketing Podcast. Make sure you give us a 5 star rating on
Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It helps keep us in the top 100 marketing
podcasts, and that's because of you. Coming up next in our
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you wanna know all the social media news and updates, top
content pieces, and get some inspiration for what to post this month, make sure
you join us then. Next week on the show, I will be talking
about rest as a marketing strategy, which is the perfect
next step after this conversation. So stay tuned. I will see you then.
Bye for now.