Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is Jennifer Jane Young. Jennifer is an intuitive leadership coach and consultant who works with entrepreneurs and business leaders around the world. She's also an international speaker and the author of Say Yes to Your Yes, How to Trust Your Gut and Take the Leap. Through her workshops, talks, and signature podcasts, Finding Your Flow and My Intuition Made Me Do It, Jennifer has helped entrepreneurs worldwide shift how they lead their businesses, transforming lives along the way. Jennifer, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you to the show, and thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:01:01]:
Thank you, Susan. I'm so excited to be here. I adore you. I think you know that already, so I'm honored to be here.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:08]:
Well, it's mutual. And I'm so excited about your book. Ever since, you know, you introduced me to it, I'm like, we've gotta get you on the show talking about it. So let's just start at the very beginning, which is always a very good place to start. What does say yes to your yes mean, and how can it help our listeners make better decisions?
Jennifer Jane Young [00:01:34]:
Say yes to your yes for me has become a strategy, I would say, in my life, and it's all about listening to your intuition. It is all about following the breadcrumbs that your inner wisdom will lead you towards, the path that your intuition is leading you or trying to lead you towards, which I believe is always leading you towards what is in highest and best for you, into your next level of growth, into the changes that you are ready for. Say yes to your yes is a journey of trusting your intuition and taking those leaps. So not just staying with, like, the desires and the visions, but actually going out and doing the thing and allowing yourself to take those risks and trust that wisdom that we all have inside of us.
Susan Friedmann [00:02:26]:
Which makes me ask you, how can someone learn to trust their intuition when you're making a business decision, which can be major or even just a personal decision? How can you do that?
Jennifer Jane Young [00:02:39]:
We are all intuitive. I think that's the first thing that's really important to mention. A lot of people come to me and they're like, oh, I'm not intuitive. I'm like, yeah. You are. Everyone has intuition. It's not something that just some special people have. The extent to which you can hear your intuition or feel your intuition is how clear your channel is.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:02:59]:
Right? And when I say your channel, it's like our brains take over a big part of our lives. Right? And so in my book, I talk about the left brain and I talk about the right brain. And the left brain is all about logic and analytics and like facts and experiences that we've already had, information that we already know. And the right brain is more where creativity lives and imagination and stepping into the unknown and what I see is infinite potential, whereas the left brain is limited potential, limited information because it's only what we already know. The computer has already downloaded and saved. And so in order to access our intuition, we have to get out of that left brain lane and we have to do something that so many of us don't want to do, which is slow down. So when we're moving really fast in our lives and we're functioning in our habitual patterns and we're just doing what we've been taught and how we were conditioned to be and think. We are just functioning on automatic.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:04:03]:
Right? And when we're functioning on automatic, we're just functioning with information that we already know. When we slow down, we allow our nervous system to come into its relaxation response, which I talk a lot about in my book also because I'm a former yoga therapist. So you'll hear me talk about the brain and the nervous system. When we slow down, our nervous system will come back into that relaxation state, and then the channel to our intuition will be a lot clearer. And so it's a lot easier to hear your intuition. That's one part. Everybody ends up at some point getting a little nudge or feeling like they're supposed to do something. The second part is actually trusting it and doing the thing.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:04:46]:
It's like I call it like obeying your intuition. And that part requires us to take imperfect action, to be vulnerable, be willing to make mistakes, be willing for things to not maybe work out in order to actually get to know our intuition and build a relationship with it. Because everyone's intuition speaks to them differently, right? For you to really understand how yours works, you need to actually spend time with it and practice it and get to know how it speaks to you. So it's kind of like there's the listening part and getting a really clear channel open so that you can hear it. And then there's the having faith and actually taking action to see where that brings you after.
Susan Friedmann [00:05:31]:
So you said practicing. How would we even go about practicing this trust?
Jennifer Jane Young [00:05:37]:
You gotta feel the fear and do it anyways. That's the really raw honest answer. I always tell people it's always and only about that one step. You don't need to think any further than that. And to be honest, I tell people, it's kind of a waste of time to look farther than that because life changes all the time. And so that one next step that you're going to take is going to define, it's like I see it as a red carpet. It's like going to define the next part of the carpet that unrolls. And then that next step is going to define the next part of the carpet that unrolls.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:06:12]:
All you need to do is just take that one next step in the direction of your intuition. Let me give you an example. I think that'll be helpful. I'll use the example of me having this inner knowing that I was meant to live in Mexico, that a part of my life was supposed to be in Mexico. I could have just thrown myself into Mexico and started a whole new life, which would have been like skipping a lot of steps. Instead, I went to Mexico a couple of times before I decided to actually settle there and live there. I had this inner nudge that was like, there's something about Mexico that's calling me. I was like, okay.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:06:48]:
Let me go see, like, what is this? What is this feeling I'm having? What is the purpose of it? And so I went to Mexico on a trip, and then I got some confirmation of like, oh my god. There's something here for me. And then I just kept taking those next steps until I decided finally to fly myself and my dog to Mexico and actually settle in there.
Susan Friedmann [00:07:07]:
And that was a real leap of faith, which is, obviously, I know part of the title of your book is just taking that leap. It reminds me of that movie, Indiana Jones, where he literally takes that leap of faith onto that walkway where there's this abyss, and this walkway crosses the abyss for him. Yes. It is trusting that intuition. It's funny when you said that about going to Mexico, because I remember we were living in Cincinnati, and then we decided we were going to go back to England. I wanted my kids educated in England. I thought the system was better, and of course, it wasn't the same system when we got back there and everything. But as I was leaving Cincinnati, I had this feeling, we're coming back here.
Susan Friedmann [00:07:56]:
It happened, I think it was like six years later
Jennifer Jane Young [00:07:59]:
Yeah.
Susan Friedmann [00:08:00]:
That we went back to Cincinnati. And I was like, I knew we were going to come back. The pieces obviously didn't fit together because I was thinking, we're going to England, we're gonna be staying there, we're gonna live our lives there, and that wasn't the case at all. We spent more time now in The States than we actually have in England.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:08:20]:
Yeah. Exactly. And I think there's two parts to this that I wanna mention. I was teaching this yesterday, with a group. Sometimes our intuition is going to nudge you, yesterday with a group. Sometimes our intuition is going to nudge you towards something like me, the Mexico thing. And it was pretty literal. I felt like I was supposed to have a life in Mexico, and I went to Mexico, and that's the life that I was meant to have.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:08:40]:
And I lived it in there. It was all very clear. Sometimes our intuition leads us to something and that's not the final destination. And so I always tell people like, don't get attached to the initial feeling or vision that you have, because that might just be one of the steps leading you towards something a lot bigger. Right? It could have been like I was getting this nudge towards Mexico and I went once and then maybe I would have met someone from England and then moved to England instead, you know? So it's not where it's leading you is not necessarily the final destination all the time. So detachment from all of it is really important so that your intuition can then guide you to where it's actually trying to lead you.
Susan Friedmann [00:09:25]:
There are some barriers that people have to face when trying to listen to their gut. What are some of those barriers and how can we overcome them?
Jennifer Jane Young [00:09:36]:
Fear is the main one. And then under fear, there's, like, subcategories. One of the barriers is making a mistake, making the wrong decision, things not working out. So that definitely gets in the way of people taking action. Fear of, like, what other people think will think about you if you do the thing. Fear of hurting or disappointing others can also be a barrier. I know for me, that was one when I knew that I was supposed to move to Mexico is, like, I was so overwhelmed with guilt around leaving my family. But the biggest, biggest, biggest one, I think, Susan, is the fear of the unknown.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:10:15]:
That is really what trips people up because it's kind of like it's amazing our left brain, and I talk about it. I love my left brain. I use it for so many wonderful things, but it can kinda be a bully sometimes because its job is to keep us safe. And in order to keep us safe, it keeps us small and comfortable and in a territory of stuff that we already know. It's like, if you stay in this territory, you already know what's gonna happen there, so there's no risk. Whereas when we step into, like, leading more from our right brain and from our intuition, we're stepping into the unknown. We're stepping into new experiences and things that we've maybe never done before or tried before. And that unknown is the biggest thing that I see that gets in the way of people taking the leaps that they wanna take.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:06]:
Yes. And what comes to mind as you said that is so many authors, and you being an author, you know how this feels, is that you've published a book. This is your baby. And now there's an unknown in front of you. What's going to happen? How's this going to help you? How's this going to lead you to other opportunities? Because it's not just about the book. It's about what opportunities are now being opened for you, and that it can be pretty scary for many authors.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:11:40]:
It really can be, and I keep saying my book is my North Star now, and so I'm following it. It's not following me. I'm following the lead of the book. It has taken on a life of its own, which means that I don't know where we're going next, and it is creating a ripple effect of its own and an impact of its own. And I don't know whose hands this is going to fall into, whose life is going to change. And so it's full of unknowns and uncertainty and excitement as well. If I would have been really rigid with the plan for the book launch, and I would have not allowed some space for the book to kinda tell me in which way it wants to go, I probably would have missed out on a lot of opportunities.
Susan Friedmann [00:12:25]:
For somebody who is just starting out, and they've never really listened to their gut, what would you suggest would be the first step that they should take?
Jennifer Jane Young [00:12:38]:
Just play with it and practice in your day to day life. Like, really, really simple. When you wake up in the morning, before you run into your day and rush into your day, take some quiet time in the morning and just listen. Listen inside of you and ask yourself, what do I need today? What am I excited about today? What am I being called to do today? How am I being called to spend my ten waking hours or however long you're awake in a day? You can even use it, like, to choose what you're gonna eat for lunch. Just close your eyes and tune in and be like, what am I really craving for lunch today? So practice with really, really simple things. The other thing I would say is start to integrate practices of slowing down and stillness in your days so that you can actually have moments where your intuition can speak to you and you can hear it. Because if you're always go, go, go and rushing and moving and you're in your stress response, which is the survival state of the nervous system, the channel of your intuition is gonna be so unclear. It's gonna be like static Or, like, when you're trying to tune a radio station and you're, like, in between two and it's just very, like, staticky, and you can't quite find the the station, the channel.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:13:56]:
That's sort of how it is with our intuition on a day to day basis when we're not taking those moments to pause and slow down.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:03]:
I think that's probably one of the most challenging things, is that slowing down and having quiet time. Because there's so much noise around us, and especially now, even more so with social media and feeling the pressure to look at this platform and that platform, and who's doing what, and then there are all these emails, and life goes on, and there's so much noise that to stop, slow down, and just listen, and sort of go inside of yourself, I think that's probably one of the most challenging things. What do you think?
Jennifer Jane Young [00:14:42]:
It is the most challenging thing because we have been conditioned to believe that it's the hustle and the doing that is going to bring us towards what we desire and our achievements. It's a global societal conditioning that has sort of brainwashed us in a way to believe that that energy, the masculine energy of doing is more powerful and more valuable than the feminine energy of allowing and surrendering and stillness and gentleness. And I know from experience that every time I slow down and I rest and I take care of myself, that's when I come back to my inbox the next day or two days later or a week later. And there's just like all of these magical opportunities that have dropped in without me doing anything, you know? And it's not about doing nothing. It's about finding the balance between the masculine and the feminine. It's finding the balance between the right brain and the left brain. But we are in a world that is very left brain led, and that's burning us out.
Susan Friedmann [00:15:50]:
Talking about that, if you've got some uncertainty, let's say, in your business, how would you think that intuition would help us with that?
Jennifer Jane Young [00:16:01]:
Well, it's going to lead you down a path of flow and ease instead of you having to work harder and do more and be on more social media platforms and post more often in your week. I find that intuition very organically puts us into the eighty twenty philosophy. It's the Pareto principle. So where 20% of our effort is bringing 80% of our results versus what most of us experience is 80% of our efforts are only bringing us 20% of our results. Intuition in your business is gonna help you shed the things that are not important and not align and get you more focused on what really matters and helping you see the steps and the actions that you can take that are more enjoyable, way less work, and more in alignment with who you are. So more integrity. So many of us are out of integrity because of all of these shoulds and strategies and the next new thing that we're being taught that we need to do to be a successful entrepreneur. It pulls us out of our integrity all of the time.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:17:08]:
If you really slow down and think about what you truly desire and how you truly desire to run your business and the business that you truly desire to have, and you let your intuition guide you to that answer, my bet is that 80% will wanna be shed.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:23]:
Yes. Now do you have any light little tricks or ways in which you can use your intuition to, let's say, test, should I do this or should I do that?
Jennifer Jane Young [00:17:35]:
There's one practice that I love to share with people, and it allows us to acknowledge all parts of ourselves cause all parts of ourselves are always involved in decision-making. So we work through an exercise that I call the head, heart, and gut exercise. Let's say your intuition is telling you to launch a program and the person is struggling to be like, am I supposed to do this? Am I not this? Like, what's going on here? I invite them to sit down and make a column on the left that has a head, heart, and gut space. And then you sit down and you say, okay, what does my head have to say about this? Think about your left brain, the logical brain, the one that's tied to the ego, then you just brain dump. What are all of the things that my head has to say about this? Then you go to the next one down and you say, okay, what does my heart have to say about this? How do I feel about this on an emotional level? And then you go down and you do the same thing for the gut, which is your intuition. Then once you've pulled out everything that you feel are present in the head, heart and gut, you make another column on the right. And then you look at your head list and you ask yourself, what is valid information here that I can bring forward with me in this experience? I'll give you an example of valid versus invalid. Valid information is if you're gonna launch this program, you're gonna need a VA.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:18:50]:
Let's say that could be a valid piece of information. So you might want to put that in the column on the right. Another piece of information that the head might have said is like, oh, don't do this thing. This is going to fail, and then you're going to look like a failure in front of everybody. That's not valid information. You don't want to bring that along the journey. You just do that for the head and the heart because sometimes the heart are big, beautiful heart sometimes has a lot of deep emotions around things and some of it is helpful and sometimes some of it is I'm acknowledging it. I'm gonna process this, but I don't wanna bring it with me.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:19:22]:
Your gut, it's like you never really have to worry about what your heart and your gut are telling. That's one exercise that I get people to do when they're pretty sure that they're gonna do the thing. The other really simple exercise that I get people to do is as they think about the thing that they wanna do, to ask themselves, is there a sense of urgency or obligation around this? If you feel urgency, which is like a fear of missing out or, oh my god, if I don't do this thing tomorrow, my whole business is gonna crash and fail. Or if I don't do this thing, I'm gonna miss out on the opportunity of my lifetime or whatever that is. An obligation is obligation. It's like, does it feel heavy on you? If any of those two things are involved in the thing you wanna do, I would say that's not intuition. That's not wisdom that's speaking to you. You should feel relaxed and excited when it's intuition, but not stressed as if you're about to die.
Susan Friedmann [00:20:18]:
It's funny because I get a tingling if somebody says something and I feel that's the right thing because I get this tingling all the way through my body. And I was like, oh my goodness. Yes. I think that's it. But other people get it in different ways.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:20:35]:
Which is why it's so important to practice so that you can build a relationship with your intuition so that you can get to know how it speaks to you. I was speaking with an entrepreneur the other day who was in one of my sessions, and she was like, I don't feel my intuition ever. I don't think I'm intuitive. And I was like, I'm going to veto that. I don't think that that's true. And so we continue to talk and she was like, you know, I hear voices all the time. And I was like, that's your intuition. You're more auditory.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:21:03]:
You hear stuff. Some people feel stuff. Some people get visions. Some people hear stuff. Some people get tingling sensations. I get chills down my spine. There's a lot of different ways.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:14]:
I'm pleased you brought that up because that's absolutely yeah. I mean, we all get information in different ways. I'm always when people say, Oh, I heard it. Something spoke to me. And I was like, Wow, I've never had that. I can't imagine. Or people seeing things, symbols or colours or something. And I'm like, no, I don't process that way.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:35]:
I'm more kinesthetic and I feel things. That's the way I realize that I've got to trust that part of me when I get those feelings. Then this is a great segue, Jennifer, for you to tell our listeners how they can find out more about you, the book, whatever you want to tell them.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:21:56]:
The best place for people to find me is on my website at JenniferJaneYoung.com. From there, people can link off to a couple of different places. One is the landing page for my book where they can access some book resources and see where they can buy my book and all of that stuff. I also have a free Facebook group that we just started, which is actually a place where people can come and practice saying yes to their yes and trusting Nerd I've got and taking the leaps in community with me and with the other participants. And then I got a couple of other things on my website. From there, you can pretty much link off to anything that I am up to right
Susan Friedmann [00:22:31]:
now. I'll put that link in the show notes, Jennifer. Listeners, go check it out. There are some wonderful things, that Jennifer shares. I know you said you had something to leave us with, your golden nugget. What do you want to share with our listeners, Jennifer?
Jennifer Jane Young [00:22:49]:
Your intuition will never give up on you. It is really important to know this because some people get all caught up in their head when they get an intuitive nudge, and then that's when the urgency can kick in. Oh my god. If I don't do this thing, like, you don't have to worry about that. If it's really your intuition and you don't do the thing right away, it's going to come back and speak to you again. It's going to come back louder every time. Even if you don't listen to your intuition for years and there's something that is truly meant for you to do or experience, you're gonna keep getting the nudge and it's gonna keep getting stronger. You'll get that confirmation over and over again that you're supposed to do the thing.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:23:31]:
You can relax in the knowing that your intuition will never abandon you when it's really meant for you.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:38]:
Well, my intuition told me that I should have you as a guest on the show, and I went with that intuition.
Jennifer Jane Young [00:23:45]:
I love it, Susan. I'm so happy to be here. It's been really wonderful.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:50]:
Thank you for sharing that wisdom and going deep and making it so understandable. It isn't woo-woo. It used to be thought of as woo-woo. As I told you, twenty, thirty years ago, I had a dear friend, Lynn Robinson, who was talking about intuition business. And it was really tough because people thought this was woo woo and wasn't acceptable. But things have changed now, so that's beautiful. Thank you so much.
And listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you want it or expect it to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales.
Because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return that you were hoping for. Go to Book Marketing Brainstorm to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
Here's how to connect with Jennifer:
Website: JenniferJaneYoung.com
Her book: "Say Yes to Your Yes"
LinkedIn
