Unveiling the Power of Self-Belief with Emily Jaenson

Speaker 2: 0:11

Welcome to Side Hustle City and thanks for joining us. Our goal is to help you connect to real people who found success turning their side hustle into a main hustle, and we hope you can too. I'm Adam Kaler. I'm joined by Kyle Stevie, my co-host. Let's get started, all right? Welcome back everybody to the Side Hustle City podcast. Guess what Kyle Stevie is in the building today? Yo, buddy, kyle Stevie, emily Janssen's with us also. Emily, how you doing.

Speaker 3: 0:42

I'm great Thanks for having me, guys.

Speaker 2: 0:44

Yeah, thanks for being on the show Like you've been blowing up, like what's going on here, with these confidence building speeches and all this other stuff just going viral and you're rocking it out right now. You got this whole TEDx thing that you were on and I guess people caught wind of it. Now you got these corporates knocking down your door trying to get you to come speak to their people. Huh.

Speaker 3: 1:08

Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the intro, jumping right in. Yes, I have been doing keynote speaking for the last year and talking about confidence and confidence as a skill set, and that if you feel like you don't have it, it's fine. You can build it by practicing confident behaviors that will change your attitudes. I was not born a confident person. I was the shy girl hiding behind my mom's leg. I couldn't even dial the phone to order a pizza because I did not want to talk to a stranger, and I realized that my personality, that sort of skill I had around confidence, was lacking so much. I was never going to achieve any of my goals if I couldn't put myself out there, and so I had to decide to change. And what I do now is tell that story, talk about my evolution to becoming more confident, from can't order a pizza to speaking on stages in front of thousands of people, and also tell the stories of the women who've been on my podcast. It's called leadership is female, and the women who come up on there are either female executives in sports, that is, 80% male at management level and above, so they've broken through barriers to earn those seats and also just executive women who are crushing it, and I want to have a platform for them to tell their story. The purpose would be to just to share the tips, the tricks that got them to where they are today, and I think if we all share that good news like we're going to be in a better place and we can help each other to level up in our lives and careers.

Speaker 4: 2:52

I want to talk about the not ordering food or not ordering pizza. If you only knew, I have twin brothers are two years younger than me and both of them had the same phobia of like ordering a fast food restaurants at the drive-through. I mean, I got to tell you I made a ton of money just driving up there and ordering for them was like five bucks every trip. Yeah, I did so. Weird. That part's a weird phobia, isn't it? Like some people can, like I can get in front of I don't know however many people will have me to speak, but when it gets to like one-on-one settings, like I, just I started thinking about what I'm saying and I start stuttering and I started sounding stupid in my own head and I kind of freak out to the point where I was just like all right, I got to get this conversation over with and get the hell out of here.

Speaker 3: 3:37

Yeah that every time I tell that story I see so many heads nodding, like people resonate with that. So much that sort of that fear of talking to a stranger. And I think it's you know, when you're younger I think that's the first time you really break outside your comfort zone, like you're always introduced into settings when you're a kid, like you meet your teacher and then you're with those 30 kids for a whole year. You join a soccer team. Your parents walk up with you, you meet your coach, you meet your teammates. You're with that group for three months. It's like you're always introduced into these little like subcultures. But then when you have to go to one-on-one whether it's ordering a pizza or, like me, my first job was with the Chicago Bulls I had to make 80 phone calls a day to try to sell people season tickets and I was like and on one hand living my dream job that I had broken into the sports industry, and the other hand every day was an absolute nightmare because my job was like making cold calls.

Speaker 4: 4:36

Yeah, at minimum wage almost.

Speaker 3: 4:38

Oh my gosh, like below minimum wage. You wouldn't believe what we got paid. I mean, I could barely afford the L train to get out there.

Speaker 4: 4:45

I know the marketing department for a couple of the minor league teams. Well, this was back when I was in high school and it was you. Find out what they're getting, what they're making for the hours they're working. You're like, holy, you better make it. You better make it to the general manager.

Speaker 2: 4:59

That's the only way to like get your return on investment back and that's, that's one of them, and I got calls from a UC, from the Bearcats, trying to get me to buy football tickets this year after they got rid of their coach and got a whole bunch of transfers who are not playing well together right now. And it's a good thing I didn't, because tickets were 11 bucks the other day and they were trying to sell them to me for like 150 a pop or a game. So yeah, I get it. They were calling me. You were doing that job. That's not a good job.

Speaker 3: 5:27

I know. And then, five months later, you burned through all the good leads and you're down to people who bought a t-shirt and you're trying to convince them to sell Tracking that, oh man. Yeah, yeah, like hey, I saw you bought that Bulls t-shirt. Do you want full season tickets? They're you know this? This many thousand dollars per seat. They're like are you is this a prank? This is a prank call.

Speaker 2: 5:48

Yeah, I'm guessing, michael Jordan was not playing when you were doing this.

Speaker 3: 5:52

These were the younger than that.

Speaker 4: 5:54

Those are the. Rose years. We kept getting hurt. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3: 5:59

Oh gosh, yeah, those were rough, those were rough, rough years Walk past the Michael Jordan statue each day to get into the office. Which was cool Growing up in the city and you know, cheering for them for two of those three peats. But we were not in like the golden era by any means. But you know the Bulls had a really good sales training program. They remained in the top four in the NBA for ticket sales, despite having a not great team for a very, very long time.

Speaker 4: 6:26

Yeah, Chicago's got some oddly, oddly, oddly loyal fans because it's a city with so much money, yeah, and so large, such a huge market, and their teams consistently suck so bad. It's like being a Knicks fan and a Mets fan. It's like like, why are you doing that to?

Speaker 2: 6:43

yourself. They love to suffer because they actually have the White Sox, who've won two recent world series, and they won't go to those games, but they'll go to. Cub games. Would you go to the? South side, I mean the Cubs have won a world series recently now, but I mean you had the White Sox who won two with Paul Conerco and nobody wanted to go there. They kept going to Cubs, Like what is the deal? It's because it's the Bears it's nostalgic.

Speaker 4: 7:07

Oh well, the Bears, no team oh.

Speaker 2: 7:09

God the Bears right now.

Speaker 4: 7:10

No team in history has made more money off of one season than the 85 Bears.

Speaker 2: 7:14

Oh, it's crazy. They had a rap song and everything. You don't remember this.

Speaker 3: 7:16

You're a Bulls scaffold.

Speaker 4: 7:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean even now, like every year's, they do a thing about how great the 85 Bears were. We're like, yeah, we get it. Okay, we got, we understand they went 15 and one. They lost the day in Reno Got it.

Speaker 3: 7:31

It was a long time ago, you know we had the you should get in my Instagram feed every Halloween All my friends from back home. One of their husbands is dressed as 85 years.

Speaker 2: 7:44

Yeah, everyone's Mike Dicca that Saturday not live skit the super fans.

Speaker 4: 7:48

That was the best thing to come out 85 bears besides, I don't know. I always liked Richard Dent. He was yeah, I mean I'm was five when they won. I Like watching highlights of Richard Dent because I played more of like an outside linebacker, defensive end through college.

Speaker 2: 8:02

Yeah that was, that was your guy.

Speaker 4: 8:04

Yeah, because he was way more athletic than I was. I was just happened to be way better looking.

Speaker 2: 8:11

So, emily, you've got, you've got a top 200 podcast, female podcast. This is like I mean, it's, it's blowing up. You've got your background in triple a baseball. Who did you? Who are you the GM for?

Speaker 3: 8:58

The Reno aces, so the triple a affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks yeah, consistently had one of the best farm systems in the league that had not Produced the way it should until this year. Not the GM anymore, but there were 17 former aces on that D-Bex roster, which is fun to watch because for years, I mean, we had over 200 Transactions per season and it was just a pitching carousel they were up, they were down, they were up, they were down, like we were the bench depth, as they were developing that talent, and it was really fun to see what to watch this season and just and see some of those guys that you know we're playing right here in Reno, whose Dreams came true being a like getting their call up, but then for them to make it to the World Series and I think the future is bright, like there's so much great young talent on that team.

Speaker 4: 9:56

So can we Rewind it a thousand steps? How did you go from cold calling in the Chicago Bulls Ticket sales office to the general manager of the Reno aces?

Speaker 3: 10:07

Yeah, so the business of baseball, the business of sports, really starts with ticket sales. Like you have to put bots in seats in order to have a successful franchise. That's how. That's how the whole the payroll is started. So I learned and grew very early in my career to understand Ticket sales as the lifeblood of any or sports organization. I then went on to sell sponsorship, which is the other very key ingredient. So all of those advertisements that you see in stadium Is, you know, keeping the franchise running and keeping the lights on. And so when I landed in Reno In 2013 the wayback machine I I took a job in their sponsorship department and I was brought in to sell sponsorships and Two years later I was vice president because I made the team a lot of money, reorganized their department, you know, provided a lot of growth for the company. And then my husband I got an opportunity in Houston, texas, and he was coming out of the military and this was his first corporate gig. So we moved to Texas and I worked in major events For the city of Houston. So it was I had there was a Super Bowl during my time there, a world corporate games, houston sports awards show, like after the Astros and won the World Series like, got a chance to work in Major events on the sales side, see how that all came to fruition. And during that time I kept in touch with the aces and specifically keeping an eye on their business development and sharing ideas, staying in touch with the president, staying in touch with ownership. And they had grown while I was gone. They added a soccer team under their sports portfolio and they needed someone to come in and have an eye directly on the business of baseball. And they had done, you know, interviews, people around the country and at the end of the day decided they knew they wanted to hire. They just had to convince me to move back from Texas and I did so. I earned that role through understanding Business and the business of sports because in a GM role in minor league baseball, big part of your job is managing that relationship with your affiliate, with that farm director. I'm taking care of the team, all of the logistics that go around, ensuring that player development is super solid. But the major, other major piece of my job is running the business inside that Ballpark hmm, so how much? was so. So that's what I did. I wasn't. The D-backs are pulling all the strings for who is playing in what game and any one of their affiliates like from From MLB down to single a. You know our manager at the triple a level is activating what they're telling him to do from Phoenix and that's that's for every Based all organization like. That's the way it works. They're their rosters essentially. You know hundred and fifty guys that are spread out throughout all these teams, including the Dominican Republic, and they're trying to figure out what player to move when, when they're ready to move up to that next level, so they could have the best guys at the top level. And so all we're doing underneath is Ensuring that people are healthy, the facilities are up up to par, they're getting from city to city, everyone is dressed and well fed and, you know, supported.

Speaker 4: 13:56

So how much money did you so from your time in Houston? How much money did you make with your YouTube videos teaching people how to steal signs?

Speaker 3: 14:05

I never worked with the Astros okay.

Speaker 4: 14:08

Well, I mean, you guys like I would feel like if I had that little ace in my pocket, so to speak, because you're going to the aces, yeah, our trump card, I would use it and say hey, you know, I Know how Houston did it, because this was prior to them getting caught.

Speaker 3: 14:23

right, you, I got it was and it was. It's such a. It's such a like a Tarnish on what happened, because that was after a hurricane, harvey. Like living in the city during that hurricane and being demolished and homes flooded, like people were People, things were crushed and it was hell. Like living there at that time and Then, all of a sudden, the Astros like went on this run and finished with the World Series title. It like lit the light back on in the city, gave us something to cheer for, the way that sports does, especially after such a horrific tragedy that really uprooted Hundreds of thousands of people's lives. Like I'll just say it just sucked that that we had Katrina people too, like you have people coming from New Orleans to Houston.

Speaker 2: 15:21

They had moved to use family. And then here they go with another hurricane.

Speaker 3: 15:25

Yeah, and we started their lives and then you know that was Katrina, was what 2005, and this was 2017. So, like a little bit more than 10 years later, like you're just washed away by this other horrific storm like Was hell. So the Astros gave us something to cheer for. So, like speaking from a person who was there during that time, I I mean lying if I said I didn't just ignore it and focus on the bright light that it like gave to the city yeah, we ignore a lot of stuff here in Cincinnati, but this is the home of Major League Baseball.

Speaker 2: 16:04

So now you're, now you. You have this experience, as this Is the feet of female GM. So what, how many female GM's are there?

Speaker 4: 16:16

and what years were these? What seasons?

Speaker 3: 16:18

so this was 2018 to beginning of 2022, and then I was also at the club from 13 to 16. So, but what? Almost four years as GM.

Speaker 4: 16:31

Yeah, I think you missed an opportunity, I think in 2013. I was still good enough. I think it's not the second term, I was a little bit too old. But that 33 to 36, that was pretty much my prime Athletic that was.

Speaker 2: 16:44

It was at the softball league. Is that what that was? No, no, no, no, no. It's real baseball. Huh, softball's stupid. Yeah, I agree. So, emily. So now you're you're speaking. How did this, how did your this GM gig Turn into this confidence Building public speaker, ted talk with three million views? How'd that happen? Like how that transition go.

Speaker 3: 17:09

Yeah, thanks for asking so when I got the job, you know came with this like subtitle of First woman in 20 years and I wasn't really sure what to do with that title. I was kind of like, you know, I earned this role and it's kind of weird that there's all these headlines With this description. You know I want to come in here and crush it in my role and I don't want to be worrying about this other stuff. But I realized that it's it's an honor and a privilege and I'm, you know, so happy to be here until the baseball winter meetings of my first year and I Was asked to be on a panel for a women in baseball breakout session and there were over 300 women in the room and I was on stage, you know, being interviewed with a couple other girls and speaking about my experiences and I. It was a ton of fun and I left the stage, just you know, expecting to say hi to people, but like a line formed in front of me and one moment after another said I didn't realize I could have this job Until I saw you and that's really where the light bulb moment happened that I was like all right, I get it like this is. This is about Representation as well, and showing what what you can do if you know you work hard, you put yourself in the right position to earn that role. So I'm gonna start talking about it more. So I was speaking so many places just about my job and I started like layering in just little lessons that I had learned through being in business and when I would be done talking to like the chamber or commerce or some business at some meetings, the organizer, a couple of people in the room, would always be like I really love that. You added some value there by not just talking about what you do every day, but by teaching us something. So that's kind of where speaking was born. And in 2020, I think, me and a lot of other people started a podcast and that podcast I started interviewing women who worked in the sports industry that's, over 80% male at management level and above and just told their stories, their tips, their tricks, how they got to the top, how they continued to succeed at their job, and we wanted to share that knowledge in the hopes of helping somebody else go after a big dream. And my growth and then all that I learned from speaking to these incredible women in their interviews on the podcast led me to this idea that if you can increase your confidence, really the sky's the limit. And that had been what I had learned, that had been what so many of these women had learned, and so I had sort of distilled that down to these behaviors that I believe you can practice today, that can change your confident attitude, because confidence, I believe, is a skill set. I don't think you're born with it. I think you can grow it. And I did a TED talk about it, tedx, and I think the world kind of agreed because a year later it had three million views. And as a result of the popularity of that podcast, I started getting calls from companies asked me to come and share that message with their employees. And this new business was born, just sort of by doing the next right thing, seizing the next opportunity, and continuing to put in that layer of like hard work, like I'll figure it out. I believe in this idea, working hard towards it and putting in the effort to make sure it was the best it could be and the next opportunity came around. So that's how we're here today.

Speaker 2: 20:51

In short, Okay, and you got a book now too, a guide to increasing your confidence, and that's going to be coming out in the spring of 24.

Speaker 3: 20:59

It is yeah, so kind of again like what was the? What would be the next step? I was getting messages from so many people asking me for more. Can I have a half an hour of your time? Can I tell you about this problem? I really loved your talk because of this like, do you have any more information? And I wasn't ready to do thousands of one-on-one Zoom calls with people. So I was like, hey, maybe we could put this into a book. And I had kind of had that idea burning in my brain and a few people had asked me like, are you going to write a book next? And you know, honestly, within a month of that question starting to burn, I had a publisher reach out and I've been working with them for about a year and the book will be out spring 24.

Speaker 4: 21:52

So your TED Talk was six. Keep pull that back up the exact title, so I don't butcher this. Six tips for building your confidence. What are they like? Six tips or six behaviors, or whatever.

Speaker 3: 22:07

Yeah, six behaviors. So research tells us that behaviors can change attitudes. If you start behaving in a certain way, you can start seeing yourself differently. So I have six behaviors that I talk about. If you practice those, you can start to change your attitude to that of one of more confidence, because you've seen yourself kind of make it through this tough situation and therefore expanded your comfort zone a little bit further. Like our brain likes being really comfortable and it prefers that. But if you push that boundary and you live through it, your comfort zone's expanded a little farther. So that's how this is applied behaviors to attitude. So, adam, you asked about oh no, kyle, you asked about the six behaviors. Number one is count yourself in. So three, two, one go. When you want to or need you don't really want to, when you have to have an uncomfortable conversation or confrontation that you'd rather turn on your heel and run in the opposite direction, you can use this three, two, one go and that counting will get you started and the momentum will keep you going. And I've used this a ton of times in my career for having, like really difficult conversations where I would rather, I think, a lot of us have been in a situation where I'd rather pretend we didn't see it than, like, confront it, and that tip has helped me to engage more confidently in those situations.

Speaker 4: 23:48

I was thinking like waving players, Like you're like.

Speaker 2: 23:50

that's all I was just thinking like man those conversations.

Speaker 4: 23:52

Yeah, buddy, and this was your dream.

Speaker 2: 23:53

Guys that think they're still hanging on, you're better than.

Speaker 4: 23:55

I am Thank you for your service. Goodbye.

Speaker 2: 23:58

We just had that with Joey Votto, fan favorite. You're 42 years old or whatever at this point.

Speaker 4: 24:04

Or she could always say it's not coming from me, it's not me.

Speaker 2: 24:07

Yeah, it's not me, joey, it's not me, you know, I look the diamond backs are the ones that tell me what I have to do.

Speaker 4: 24:12

You know I love you, Joey, yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:15

We could add that in Number seven, displacing blame.

Speaker 2: 24:19

Oh, there we go. Look, you just gave her. Now she got seven tips, One for every day of the week. We gotta rewrite the book, oh boy.

Speaker 3: 24:26

For every day of the week.

Speaker 2: 24:28

I love that the things we accidentally teach people on this podcast. Weird thing, she grasped on right onto it and added it to her things. But you also have these five intentions to change your life. You know, you did that and you know I guess you kind of found out that you can do a lot of things that you maybe previously didn't think you could do before, because of the kind of the way that society frames what you thought you could do.

Speaker 3: 24:55

There's simple things that you can do that can help you to reach new levels. Like I'm here to live a big life, like you got one shot at this, like you might as well freaking try. I say all the time like, why not me? And I think we spend a lot of time, people spend a lot of time thinking she can do that, he can do that. Oh, look at her, look at him and it's like, why not you? You know, so I've sort of broke this down a little bit. Like you think you're not confident in life, well, why don't you try doing a couple of these tips that I share and see, like, what kind of results it can produce for you? You think you're too busy and there's not enough time the day, or you know people have other hardships or things like that. But like, what about intention? What about focus on the things that you want to get done? What about doing the most important things that only you can do, rather than filling your life with this busy work? Like these are just tools that I teach to businesses or to women, and a lot of times it's reminders, it's re-centering, it's thinking like, okay, like I thought I was really confident, but then, when I think back on it, like I probably should have approached that customer differently. Or maybe I could have closed that deal in a different way. That would have led to greater opportunities for myself and the company. Like if I would have been brave enough to say this, you know I wouldn't have left something on the table. So all of these really have implications for businesses. They say if you have more confident employees, they experience less fear and anxiety. They have increased motivation because you're feeling like, oh, you know, I'm confident I could take that on. They have greater resilience. So you get beat down, you get a no. You know something doesn't work out, while you're confident that it'll happen for you in the future. You've improved relationships with your colleagues because you're not worried about this competition amongst your peers and you're bringing your authentic self to work because you're confident enough to be you. And if you can show up like without a mask on, you're going to perform better because you're not hiding from your company or your customers or the situation. So you know confidence has implications that we might not have even considered like across the whole board that can directly impact the success of not only that employee individually but the overall corporation as a whole.

Speaker 4: 27:23

Do you like focus with your clients on body language. I mean, it's one thing to mentally say, all right, do this, do this, do this, do this, do this, but when you come across it as a timid person, not like a reserved person, like reserved people can look confident. They're actually the scariest confident people because you're like I wonder what that's, I wonder what that? person's thinking what are you thinking, buddy, Tell me. But the ones that, like you, just see it in their body language that the first negative result might be okay. But there's not much behind that afterwards. Like how do you say hey, like how you present yourself to the world and that first impression you give from your body language is so much more important than what you say or how you relate to people. They wanna see how you carry yourself and how you're relating with yourself mentally. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3: 28:18

Yeah, no, absolutely, and I am not a body language expert, but a lot of these tips do have to do with your physical action. So when I'm talking about three, two, one go like the way it's described is you're kinda hyped up to like say what you gotta say and you're not gonna be holding in when you've pumped yourself up to have this conversation. Or I talk about taking a seat at the table, and I'm not metaphorically speaking, I'm saying actually take a seat at the table. And this is from a behavior that's been noticed by many people, where women especially will kinda wait around the edges of the room for a meeting or for like a board meeting. They'll wait for the seats to be filled and then kinda fill in at the end, like everyone else sort of sits down, and sometimes it's like musical chairs, there's like not a seat left and so they stand in the corner. And I've interviewed so many people on the podcast who've said to me like a huge tipping point in my career was when I actually took my physical seat. I was like what am I doing? I'm standing here watching everyone else sit down and like one of these girls is she wrapped some of the biggest names in baseball. She signed one of the biggest contracts to date and she said earlier in her career she was like waiting for everyone else to sit down and then she wasn't even talking once she was at the table and she was like, all right, well, in order to be the agent I envisioned myself to be, I need to speak up, I need to take my seat, I need to represent my client and get the deal done. So those behaviors were absolutely associated with, like the attitude outcomes that she wanted. I tell stories about. You know my behavior around taking my seat at the baseball table all the time. One seemingly very simple piece of my job was to greet the visiting team when they arrived at the ballpark. And it's like Emily, it sounds so easy, like you're just saying hello, but there's a lot of other, you know, build up to this moment in time where all these guys have been traveling since probably three in the morning because you're taking first flight out in in our pacific host league to like get to the next city after playing till, you know, 10 o'clock the night, before everyone's dog tired and they arrive early afternoon at your ballpark and they're getting dressed for that night's game and I needed to go in and say hello and introduce myself and I was like the only literally there's 30 gms and triple a baseball and at the time in 2018, I was the only woman. So they're expecting to see somebody else and you can see how all of this can kind of like build up to create this like roadblock between like taking that action, and so I was like all right, I need to plan around this, so I'd have the clubby call me. When the visiting team arrived, when they were unloading from the bus and everyone was downstairs and the managers were like in their, in their space and I would grab business cards off my desk and I would, you know, march across the ballpark, head downstairs, go down with the clubhouse, knock on the door and when they opened the door first season in 18, like it was the first time they were meeting me and they were expecting some dude, you know some, some guy, to like say hello. And so I would have the cards in my hand, extend my hand and say hey, I'm Emily, I'm the GM, welcome. If you need anything while you're in town, you know, let me know. And then we just kind of start like shooting the shit. And every time I introduced myself, the home stand went off without a hitch, like they knew me, I knew them. There was a problem, we got through it together. Every time I didn't introduce myself, I was like back on my heels. So that behavior of like taking a seat, like in my role and really stepping into it was huge for me. It would have been easier to just stay in my office and just, you know, ignore it, but really stepping into that space and behaving like I should in that role really increased my confidence. And then if a problem arose, I was like, oh, but I talked to that guy you know yesterday, his whatever he'd tell me some stuff and we got to know each other and like, no big deal, if there's an issue like, I'm prepared to handle it, because you know, we know each other now. So I would say that, yeah, like body language, behavior is absolutely integral and these, these, these behaviors kind of all come with.

Speaker 4: 32:56

Like this is how you would do it is that common for a general manager to go and meet the opposing team?

Speaker 3: 33:03

it is. I can speak for AAA for sure. I mean, you might know him already if you've been GM forever at another level. But there's a lot of there's a lot of turnover. You know managers, coaches are all moving around and in in minor league baseball, like the GM's run in the show, like you're overseeing from ticket sales to sponsorship, to merchandise, to the actual game, to the umpire arrival, like the whole thing goes under your umbrella. And the more people that you know and know you, the easier your job is, because you don't like to do business with a stranger did you ever feel the burden though of of?

Speaker 2: 33:46

you know you're the first female GM in 20 years did you feel like you were carrying like the weight of of other women and I have to be successful, I have to prove this for women everywhere like did you ever feel like that and how did that affect your performance?

Speaker 3: 34:03

if you did um, I would say, yeah, partially. Um, I definitely no one really asked me to. You know like you take on these things as, however you want to identify it as a leader, or you could be a martyr, or you could it could be a burden, or it could be a privilege, like it. Just it depends on what frame you want to set it in. And for me I knew that, uh, you know whether I deserved it or not, like I was going to be judged, maybe a little bit like the lens might have been a little bit tighter on my performance, um, and for me you know, I I maybe it was growing up playing sports my whole life it was like another layer of competition, like, oh, I'm going to be great at this and, um, if I'm good, then that's going to make space for other people because they're going to see somebody else, you know, do this job and and know that it can, it can happen. So I would absolutely say I was aware and, um, I stepped into it as as a leadership role, um, but I don't think I ever held it against anyone. I mean, for me it was more of like a challenge, um and you got that sports background, though like what sports?

Speaker 2: 35:19

did you play and do you think your coaches in your sports because I, you know, I'd never really played any uh, everything was, you know, on the black top, like I didn't play anything like organized. I'm a playground, playground, I'm playground legend.

Speaker 4: 35:34

But you like pick up sports all the time when you see Adam in person, that's exactly what you think you're like. Damn, that guy must have been nasty on the playground.

Speaker 2: 35:43

Uh well, we grew up in a hood too, so it was, yeah, the worst of the worst. There were no rules. So you, you're, you're playing sports. You've now you do this public speaking. How much of that? Because a lot of people say sports in these, these people you meet throughout your sports career. They're always trying to motivate people. They're always trying to make their players confident. You had to pick up some of this stuff that's in your book and some of the stuff you talk about from some of these people that you encountered throughout your years in sports no, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 36:15

I mean I. I'm a parent now. I have three kids and they're involved in sports and my husband was in sports and all of our friends played sports like we had an intramural kickball team last year. We were champions right like we're you're not playing around. You're like yeah, wreck, league champions it started as rec and then, when we won the first game, we're like we are not losing, we are winning the championship um garbage not real serious. Real fast the beers went away and we were like stretching before the game started what about fantasy football and fantasy baseball?

Speaker 2: 36:49

do you play those two and just like try to dominate those leagues?

Speaker 3: 36:52

no, I have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise my face would be like in the computer or phone screen um all the time. But you know, to your, to your point, like I actually had a girl, um, a good friend from my youth. I played, travel, soccer. I played a lot of sports. I played basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, um, soccer was my main main sport and I played club soccer and um, I had posted something about a keynote I had just given and Lauren wrote oh man, this all started at the in the hotel room, um, in in, uh, in minnesota, like at one of our tournaments, and I thought that was so funny because that was one of the first times that I was a shy kid and I had been with this team for like three years and I had like two close friends and the rest like only heard me talk when I was like calling for the ball, you know, and I had finally come out of my shell and I had told this like really funny story about Gatorade at our like team party and she had remembered that and I was like you know, there was a lot I learned about leadership in my youth and but I could only speak up in the rooms where I was very comfortable, like when it was everybody that I knew. And a lot of times, even if it was everybody I knew, I would get so, like, concerned about what I was about to say. I thought you could see my heart like moving my shirt. It was beating, you know, so hard. But I definitely learned leadership principles there and those are still the books I read. Like you know, we're watching that constantly in the house. I'm getting inspired by the athlete journey Like these are people who are, they have a big goal and they work hard every single day to get there. And so I think that's why you know business people are so inspired, because your dream in business is, it is and it can still be so big, whether it's a revenue goal or growing your company or an IPO or whatever it might be. That's your gold medal. And so I think that these athlete stories really resonate across boundaries because, at the end of the day, it's all about motivation. It's about getting up every day and wanting to be better than the last and in reaching the goal that you set for yourself.

Speaker 2: 39:12

You know what I think you know I think happens too, and especially with even with you and our startup people. When I talk to startup folks and when I talk to side hustlers and you know people that are before their side hustlers, before their startup people they are nine to fivers. They're afraid to leave their job and then when they get out, I think they have this like imposter syndrome thing going on and they're like, oh, I'm not good enough, like that's you know. But the problem is, if you never break away from that, you're always going to trust somebody else to essentially write your script, write your life script for you. Until you break out of that nine to five world, you get over this confidence problem that you have, you get over this imposter syndrome as an entrepreneur, you're never going to leave that and you're always going to be beholden to this overlord, who may or may not even be as good as you at what you're doing. And here you are taking orders from them and your life and your mortgage payment, your car payment are dependent on this person delivering, not you delivering. Do you ever? I mean, I guarantee you encountered that all the time. But how do you talk to people that you see that in?

Speaker 3: 40:27

Yeah, well, I mentioned this earlier. I say all the time and I've said it for a long time, and the difference is now I believe it. It's why not you or why not me? Because all of us, we're all just people, right, and certain people are born into maybe more opportunity than others. But, like, aren't the stories that we resonate the most with the ones of the bootstrap? The one of like, you know, you're saying like, oh, I was born in the hood, you know, this is how I grew up. Or me, I'm born in a town of 3000 people and my mom was a librarian and my dad was hardworking in construction. And like it's like why not break, you know? Why not have big dreams? Why not you? Why not break the mold? Why not work after it? You have to believe in yourself first, and that that takes time, you know, to get there, to believe that you can be the one to do it. But for me, it started every day with just saying like, why not me? Why not me? You can apply it anywhere. Never ran a marathon, why not you? You could run a marathon your legs working. Like, get out there and start the training. It's step by step to get to get to your goal. You want to start a podcast? Okay, well, tons of free information available on the internet that'll tell you exactly how you can do it, and you don't need any fancy equipment. If you have a phone, you could start a podcast. So, like, quit putting these invisible barriers in front of yourself. Like things can be as hard as you want them to be, but if you believe in yourself and you're resourceful, like sky's the limit.

Speaker 2: 42:06

Well, and Emily too. One thing I noticed about you. I mean you, obviously, I mean your background's awesome, coming from this farm town. You know parents that you know one of them's a teacher, the other one's a construction. You know these are just all American. You know work, do your job. You know eventually retire type of environment, right, yeah, maybe when you're 65, you might retire and you get a pension, hopefully from maybe the state or somebody Everybody I know that retired died like within it's crazy years, except for my grandpa.

Speaker 4: 42:41

Yeah, only like with the one person like everybody hustling dude like you.

Speaker 2: 42:45

Just there's nothing there Like. But my point is is that you don't. You seem very humble and I have a problem because I, where I came from, and what we accomplished like one in 100,000 startups do what we did and I I feel like because of that, I want to tell everybody about it. You know, I want to tell everybody. I want to scream from the mountaintops. I'm so proud of it Like I was gonna.

Speaker 4: 43:08

You know, who knows what would have happened to me if I hadn't just done this thing right or that thing right, good thing you don't do CrossFit and it's a good thing you don't do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, because those three things together I'm a I exited. I do CrossFit, my friend times oh, I don't do that. Yeah, yeah, and I just want to talk about there. Yeah, they love talking about it. God, you'd be in suffer.

Speaker 2: 43:30

But no, I but this is this is me telling you like I felt like I have to scale it back, like I have to pull that back because you end up looking like a jerk instead of someone people want to go to for advice, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4: 43:44

The fine line between helping people by giving them you know, like I did this, you can do this. That fine line between that and listen to me, mother, I'm like my poop doesn't stink. Look how great I am as a person. Yeah, this is my this is my new ride.

Speaker 2: 44:02

Yeah, but look at Emily, like all the stuff that she's done, these barriers she crossed, like, coming from where she came from, but like, but you don't seem like the type of person who would be boastful about that, even though it's your business to tell people about what you did, to qualify yourself as someone who could help them.

Speaker 3: 44:21

Well, I've talked to a lot of women specifically about sharing their accomplishments, and how many people don't? I did a, I did a talk a month or two ago and afterwards this woman came up to me and she's like oh my God, I feel like you were meant to be here today to talk to me specifically.

Speaker 2: 44:45

And I was like what's happening?

Speaker 3: 44:47

She goes I just won this huge award. She said, never mind, I shouldn't say I just wanted. I wanted three weeks ago and I haven't told anybody. And I'm like what? She goes yeah, I just thought I would be bragging about it. And I go well, tell me a little bit more. And she tells me more. And she tells me that one, her company, helped with her, her nomination, the people who worked underneath her all wrote like testimonials about how great she is at this line of work that she does. And then she had to, you know, do an interview for it and then ended up winning. It was like top architect in Portland or something.

Speaker 2: 45:31

Like it's like a crazy award.

Speaker 3: 45:33

She's like I haven't said anything and and I was like well, you know how do you think your staff feels? She's like what do you mean? And I go. Well, they stood up for you. They said how great you were and you didn't say anything about the fact that you won. Like they could perceive that as like you don't care or that it doesn't mean anything to you, and it meant enough to them to go out of their way to nominate you. I said it meant enough to your company to get behind that effort and support. You know you winning that award and you know, looking at it this way, like I think it's I think it's a worse image that you're turning your back on winning than it would be to tell everybody how happy you were that you won it and thank everyone who helped you along on your journey. And so we talk a lot about, like how to do that successfully, and I never want to be in a position that's like you know, look at me. But I, at the same time, I want to say like I need to use these as examples of things that I've done, because you can do them too. Like I'm just I'm a girl from a 3000 person town that had a dream and and chipped away at it, and there's no reason why you can't do that too, whatever that dream is for you.

Speaker 2: 46:49

Well, you'd be the perfect person to ask this to. Is there a victimhood problem in America, and is it? I feel like it's holding a lot of people back.

Speaker 3: 46:58

Yeah, it's. It starts with insecurity and I talk about it in one of the behaviors like a huge turning point in my career was when I started to cheer other people on rather than competing with them. So I could sit here and make myself miserable If I logged on to LinkedIn and just looked at every single person who got a promotion or raised. Today, and I was like oh, look at what they're doing. Oh, I wish I could have got that job. Like we could go down and create this entire environment of feeling like absolute crap If we just compare where we are to where other people are. That's not your journey, that's theirs, and it is a waste of time and energy and headspace to think about what everyone else is doing and not what you're doing, like work on yourself and what you want to achieve, and stop competing and start cheering. So I do talk about that because I think that you know we can get really wrapped up in in the things that are negative in our lives and I just, I just choose not to do that. Like I've had a lot of really bad things happen to me too, but that's not the focus of my talk. I lost my mom to cancer a couple years ago is absolutely horrible. But rather than letting that bring me down every day, I think that I should do the things that I would call her about and tell her like Mom, I did this. You know that we're continuing that relationship even though she's not here on earth anymore. Like I'm still, you know, thinking like what you know my mom would be so happy if I did this thing, or she'd be so proud of me. Here's what she would say Like I can still live in this state of joy because I had her for as long as I did, rather than every day saying like, oh, my mom died, so I can't do these things. She would be devastated if her death led to me.

Speaker 2: 48:59

She doesn't want that for you.

Speaker 3: 49:01

You know, I think like maybe people can take a little bit more of that perspective in their life, like who are you influencing or who are you impacting by taking the negative road, by taking the victim mentality? Like what if you owned up to it and just like set your sights on something bigger and better for yourself? Like what would happen then?

Speaker 4: 49:19

The idea is that jealousy eats you alive and the other person you're jealous of couldn't give two shits less about they're not in your, they're not even, you're not in their consciousness, you know they don't care about you, like they're on to their own thing. They're doing the thing that you're jealous that they're doing. So you know you got two choices you can either stay bitter or you can you know find something then that inspires you.

Speaker 3: 49:45

Yeah, stay bitter or get better, like that's oh, there we go oh man tagline have you used that before? I don't know so many ideas.

Speaker 2: 49:55

What is this? This is crazy.

Speaker 4: 49:56

You better trademark that before we launch this podcast this one guy who was, who had a, he was, you know, at the one every time marketing for his book. Yeah he was a musician from Canada and he was like the. We called him the Canadian Confucius because he was like every five fifth line was like he just came up with like yeah, stop. So I can write this in my notebook.

Speaker 2: 50:16

Yeah, yeah, it was pretty wild. And then we had Alan Stein on, who played basketball I think Division 2 or whatever and he, you know, met all these NBA players and now he goes in. He was a strength trainer for a while, yeah, and now he goes in and he speaks and he does a lot of the same kind of stuff you do. I think he's more focused on speaking to athletes and stuff and you're out here with the companies and everything but a lot of the stuff that. I mean you could not play at a high level in sports if you had this negative and anti attitude and if you were constantly jealous of the other players on your team and you were constantly. You know you weren't playing your role. You weren't doing the things that you're good at. You're more worried about what they're doing and the attention that they're getting and all this other stuff. It's just like that's not. It. Go hit the gym, get better at your jump shot or whatever it is you do and be a better person and quit worrying about what these other people are doing. I mean, essentially, that's what you're saying, emily.

Speaker 3: 51:10

Yeah, no, totally, you got to be. You do your own thing, get inspired, not jealous.

Speaker 2: 51:17

Well, that's what you did, and you definitely did your own thing. Emily, I know it's getting close to an hour here. I want to give you some of your day back, but we really appreciate you being on the show sharing your experiences. It's good to have people on here who are, you know, essentially breaking barriers that you know other people are afraid to even attempt, and it's good that you're putting the word out, you're building confidence in people and you're changing lives. So this is, this is awesome. So tell everybody how they can get a hold of you LinkedIn, a website, any of that stuff.

Speaker 3: 51:51

Yeah, so it's Emily Jansen, J-A-E-N-S-O-N. That's where you can find me on Instagram or LinkedIn. And then the podcast is leadership is female, and that's also on Instagram as well, If you want to follow along. We're on every podcast network and I will tell you guys that the listenership is 30% male, so it's not all. It doesn't have to be. It's interviews with women, but it doesn't only need to be consumed by women, because these are they're just leaders in their company and business and that lessons are applicable for all of us. It's just a space to highlight female leadership. So that's where you can find me and follow along the websites. Emily Jansencom and thank you guys so much. This was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2: 52:38

Well, Emily, we really appreciate it. You've been awesome. Congratulations on all the success and all the future success. It's going to be great.

Speaker 3: 52:46

All right, thanks, guys. Look forward to staying in touch. Thanks, emily, see you.

Speaker 2: 52:49

See you. Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Side Hustle City. Well, you've heard from our guests. Now let's hear from you. Join our community on Facebook, side Hustle City. It's a group where people share ideas, share their inspirational stories and motivate each other to be successful and turn their Side Hustle into their main hustle. We'll see you there and we'll see you next week on the show. Thank you.