Invest In Yourself – Jeanne Omlor

Jeanne Oomlor

Miriam: [00:00:00] Hey, I am so happy to have with me Jeanne, and I would love for you to start out by explaining your name because it is not spelled the way it sounds.

[00:00:09] Name Meanings

Jeanne: So if you think of Aja Gbo and you add an N, not after the gbo, not gbo, but an N after the Jaja part, Jean, you would be saying my name correctly? Yes. And where are you from? I’m actually from California, but I grew up in Australia, but I happen to have a French name.

Miriam: Usually there is a meaning behind a name and why someone calls someone what they do.

Jeanne: Do you, would you like to share that story? I’m pretty sure I know why. You know, St. Joan of Ark was a warrior. Ah. St. Jon Ark was fierce. She’s a young, fierce woman and it’s kind of funny that I was named after her cuz I’m pretty, I’m, I’m pretty much a warrior in my life. been through a lot of tough stuff and like, I can see why my parents without realizing why called me, you know, after, named me after St.

Jon Ark. Yeah, [00:01:00] I love it.

Miriam: My name Miriam, has multiple meanings, but one of the meanings which my family never fails to tease me about is stubborn. Mm-hmm. . And to be honest with you, I’m super proud of my grit, so I don’t mind that it’s stubborn, but also part of the name means deep waters. And I love that because that’s what I try to bring to people and it’s also what I try to elicit in people.

I think names are important, right.

Jeanne: I love names. Yes.

[00:01:29] You are Amazing

Miriam: So welcome. I had sent you a form and said if you had one message you wanted to share with the world, you said you are amazing. And then with grit and determination and the right mindset and strategy, you are ready to have anything you desire right now.

I know lots of people in this part of the world, in, in all parts of the world are facing some pretty hard things. And so I wanna talk about grit and determination and mindset. Let’s start there.

Jeanne: [00:02:00] Sure. I will say that people in the world at all times in history are all going through a lot of, there’s always hardship.

Always hardship for some people. For others, of course, there’s always people that are not going through financial hardship.

They’re going through other types of hardship perhaps, so. Barring, you know, people that are in third world countries and really have no access to any kind of help, I would say. And even some people in third world countries pull themselves out of the gutter and they managed to, to make things happen cuz they have some, some sort of mindset.

Opportunity

Like my mindset mentor was grew up in the slums of India. And he somehow made his way to Canada and, and, and, you know, now as a mindset mentor and has made millions of dollars. So having said that, sometimes you’ll be in a position where you could pull yourself up. I know in parts of Africa, that’s actually impossible.

Okay, so, so let’s just get cut people a break when they don’t have access to, to opportunity. Okay. Yes. [00:03:00] Some places are just so to say, Oh, it’s all fix your mindset. Well, it’s not enough sometimes, right? But for folk in America and other more developed countries, really, we are very entitled. Right? We don’t feel entitled.

We are entitled. Okay. And first, I, I just feel like there’s just a lot of complaining about people’s lives in America cuz they have no idea how bad it is in other countries. You know and, and I know how bad it was. And I’ve been to Kenya, I’ve been to Egypt, okay. I’ve been to Turkey. So I’ve seen countries where things ain’t so great, you know, and, and you know, you see that these people have very little opportunity actually.

Okay? Some people do have opportunity there.

[00:03:44] Changing Your Mindset

Jeanne: Having said that, so to me, this is what I tell my clients, and some people do not like this, but I will repeat it here. Digging ditches in Siberia in Sub-zero Conditions. He’s hard. That’s hard. [00:04:00] That is us, most of us, what we’re doing. And a single mom that has five different jobs and, and never sleeps and taking this to school and all of that and running them childcare and, and that’s hard too.

That’s really hard. Okay.

So my message is that what we’re, unless it’s truly hard, like digging ditches in sub-zero conditions in Siberia, it’s pretty hard. Most of what we do- unless we’re the single mom running around, blah, blah, blah.

That’s hard. Or the single dad, for instance, most of what we do is not that hard. It’s not that hard.

So when people say, Oh, it’s so hard to , , that is not hard. And they’re like, Well, yes it is. I’m like, No, it’s actually not hard.

You’re telling yourself that is hard. You’re sitting in a warm house, eating good food. And you might have financial struggles, but you’re not out on the streets. Okay.

So I think that how, what we tell ourselves about the hardship [00:05:00] is important. What we tell ourself is what we believe. And if we believe something’s hard, it’s hard. So my message is figure out what really is hard and stop complaining if it’s not ,

Stop Complaining

number one thing, if people stopped complaining about their lives, their lives would change. Know. Do we complain? I complain, but I’m really conscious of it. Like, No, don’t complain. You know, don’t complain. And when I have a negative thought, I go, Stop it. Okay? I literally go, Stop it. There’s so much you can do to frame how you’re thinking that changes your life immediately. By reframing it.

Miriam: I have this huge smile on my face because I do ask my kids to listen to my podcasts and they’re gonna be like, What did you feed her? This stuff?

Because I say this all the time. You are speaking my language. Yes. What you say really makes a difference in your mindset and. I also say it’s sort of where you compare yourself to. A lot of times people sit there and compare [00:06:00] themselves to people better off, and then they’re like, Oh, it’s so sad,

if you look the other direction and compare yourself to someone who’s so much less, better off, you can just be grateful. And what I’d really prefer is if people compared them, the them of today, to the them of yesterday. And the question is, have I made some improvements in my life, in my mindset, in my thoughts?

Have I done anything to pour energy into making me a better me so that I can enjoy this life in a better way?

You could speak that all day long and I would be cheering you on saying yes. Yes. More

Talk about grit, because that was mindset . Talk about grit.

[00:06:40] Talk About Grit

Jeanne: Okay, so grit, well, I’ll give you some grit. When I first. Became a solo parent, cuz I wasn’t always a solo parent. I was like, Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? I had a one year old and a four year old. I was in New York City.

I had no money coming in. Kind of started, you know, partially homeschooling . It was sort of like kindergarten kind of homeschooling and taken to the park every day. I thought, okay, I’ve got, [00:07:00] I’ve gotta do something. I’ve, I’ve gotta, you know, what do I do?

And I started a kids’ blog and I worked nonstop on this kids’ blog and I became quite well known. Kids fashion, lifestyle blog didn’t make a lot of money, but it showed me how to be consistent every single day. Okay, this is awesome. I loved it, but it wasn’t bringing a lot of money in. Okay.

But it got me out there and then, I’d go to these trade shows and get sponsors and it became quite well known in three months actually.

People wanted to be, and they sent me tons of designer clothes for my kids. Awesome. I thought, well, I can’t eat designer clothes. So my kids were well dressed though, and I thought, I have to do something and I have to do something. I have to be on mind site. You know, I can’t get a job cuz how would I pick the kid?

It’s a Process

I don’t wanna get a job. I’ve gotta be able to, I’ve gotta figure this out. So I thought, you know what? What am I gonna do? And I started going through this list of things. I know I’ve always wanted to coach people, but I couldn’t coach when my life was not like authentic cuz it wasn’t authentic in, in that relationship.

And I thought, you know, can’t do that. Okay, now I can coach. So I decided to coach. I got certified online in my [00:08:00] pajamas. Okay. And then I thought, I started following business people and I thought, hmm. How am I gonna do this? How am I going to build this business when I’m taking care of my kids all day?

And I thought, ah, the only time I’m ever gonna do this is at night. I, I, I’m not stupid. I did the maths and I had a, a sort of coach that I, you know, we kind of group coaching a bit here and there and, and she was saying, You need to put at least 25 hours into your business per week to grow it. And I thought 25 hours.

Okay. I thought, Okay, I gotta find, I gotta find hours. I gotta find hours every day. So what I did was I would take care of my kids all day long and I’d sort of do bits and pieces here and there, you know, But, And I put ’em to bed at seven, and I would work from seven till midnight every single night for two years, except I took weekends off.

Find Your Rhythm

Okay. I never watched media. Because it was a waste of time. I thought, How can I possibly know no media? And then after maybe [00:09:00] a year, I thought, Oh, you know, it would be good to have some levity in my life. So , maybe I should just let myself watch one show per week. And I chose Mad Men. And I would watch one episode, a 45 minute episode, and that was it on Sunday evenings.

That was my treat cuz I knew if I got, you know, into Netflixing and I thought that will eat my life up. I cannot spend a minute. I was so mathematical about this. So I, that’s how I built my business, was from seven till midnight. Every night. Wow. And then, and then the girls got a little older and I got some babysitting in place and I probably got like four hours of babysitting and then I could, you know, not have to stay up those late hours anymore and do it in the day.

Discipline

So the grit is, I did that day in day out, learned how to run businesses. Learn how to coach, learn how to get clients, and then, then I’d go out and, you know, network so that I’d have to get a babysitter and go out in New York [00:10:00] City and network and, and you know, I wish I’d known about online earlier because I could have saved myself a lot of pain.

But that, that was my life and it was gritty, you know, And I, I just did it. I didn’t go, Oh, I wanna stay in bed. I knew that if I wanted to build that business, I couldn’t miss a night. I couldn’t say, I’m not gonna do my, I did it every single. Yeah. For two years.

Miriam: That is, that is grit.

Incredible discipline. And one of my favorite quotes says in the contest between the water and the the rock, the water always wins because as it whether it’s drip by drip, by drip. It doesn’t matter. As long as you keep doing it, you will get there. You know, doing it and refining, you know, I don’t think you should be so hard on yourself about the online space because that didn’t become a thing

at the time you’re talking about. It wasn’t quite a thing.

Jeanne: Yeah, it was 11 years ago. A lot of people were making a lot of money online already.

Miriam: Okay. Well I was trying to help you feel better about, Oh well it’s ok.

[00:10:59] It Is What It Is

Jeanne: [00:11:00] I don’t feel bad. Cause I feel it just is, And I think that’s the other thing. I think when we accept what.

I mean, that’s all there is, is what is. Otherwise you have these useless regrets that you can’t change something. Anyway, so my thing is we just have to accept what actually is a situation and accept it. Yeah. And if you can change it, great. I can’t change what happened, you know, and what I didn’t know. But you know, what happened is I became a really great offline business strategist coach.

So when I did come online, I wasn’t some person that learned, you know, a marketing trick and right started.

Miriam: Right, right. You had, you had the feet on the ground experience Yeah. To bring into this space. So one of the things that I think happens with people when they lose their way. Sometimes people lose their way, even if they’re high performing they get maybe separated from their [00:12:00] values at some level.

And I wondered if you could talk about how, how you see people getting separated from their values and then how to reconnect them. . You mentioned earlier you didn’t feel like you could coach because you were in an inauthentic space. I think what you were saying is what your life was like on the outside did not reflect what your life was like on the inside.

So there’s this lack of congruence. This happens to people a lot. So talk, talk about the value space, getting separated from it.

Be Real

Jeanne: I feel like Well, for me, I, there was no question of me being a life coach. My life was in shambles, So that’s what I started being, and then I could say, Look, I, I, I had courage to leave that relationship with two children with no money.

So that’s authentic. That’s real. And people, mm-hmm. are like, Wow, okay. If you can do that, so can I, Or you know, something scary like that.

So disconnection. I feel like what happens, what I’m seeing, seeing is that sometimes [00:13:00] people, well, first of all, They’re making it, that making money is a bad thing. It was never bad in the first place.

Okay. I lived years being this sort of virtuous, starving artist, you know? And I, and I realized how dumb that was. Okay. But I think what happens is they sort of start to lose interest in what they’re doing. And then it’s like, well, I’m, I’m, I’m making money, a lot of money with it, so I’m just gonna keep doing that.

And then, you know, you can sort of sense their heart’s not in it. Okay. And they’re kind of lost, but they feel like they have golden handcuffs. You know, and that happens in corporate all the time. But then it’s kind of the question, what do I do? Okay. And I think that question of what do I do? Most people, most people do not have the courage.

Get Past Fear

And I’m just gonna be really bold here. Most people lack courage. Mm-hmm. , we all have fear. We gotta get past that. We’re all gonna have fear. We’re never gonna be fearless. Right? I do lose some fears about certain things, but I’m never gonna be fearless. However, [00:14:00] Most people do lack courage, and it looks like they’re courageous, but when you start talking to them, they’re so scared of, of taking a leap of faith, of investing in a business.

Like, you know, a lot of people I speak to say, I really wanna be a coach. And they get on the call, but then by the time the call ends, they’re back in their fear zone of, Well actually, you know, where I am now is not that bad yet. They just divulged that they’re they’re they’re dying inside. Yeah, but they cannot.,

[00:14:27] Do What You Want

Jeanne: Summon up the courage to actually just change it, you know? And that’s a shame. It’s a shame because they are never going to get the life they really yearn for if they can’t get past that Karate Kid challenge, you know of face your fears. Take courage and do what you say you wanna do with your life instead of just talking all the time. Most people just say stuff.

So how to reconnect is to get really clear on what you actually desire. What do you actually deeply [00:15:00] desire? Most people don’t know what they wanna ask them. What do you want? And they go, I don’t know. I said, Well, that’s important.

They actually sometimes get teary eyed when I say, What do you want? They’re like, Nobody asks what I want. Nobody cares what I want. You think your kids care what you want? Not really. You think your, A lot of people’s spouses don’t care what they want. It’s they, they literally are stepped, stopped in their tracks and they’re like, Wow.

I never even get a chance to ask myself what I want.

Number one question, What do you want? What do you desire?

Once you figure that out, you need, people need to do whatever it takes to get to their deepest desire, or they will die with a song in their heart.

Miriam: Yes, I agree. I agree. Let me ask this question, because sometimes for people, the leap of courage seems too big, and I really think that courage is a muscle and that you try smaller things that feel scary and you get better and better at trying bigger and bigger things, right?

False Evidence Appearing Real

What, [00:16:00] what seems to be some of the gatekeeper type things that give people courage in your experience?

Jeanne: It’s really just this, I feel like, well, I know with people in fear, you know, they say it’s false evidence appearing real, F e a r. They’re, again, the way they’re looking at things is such a huge monster.

That is out of proportion, the fear.

When I first started my, my business, I was broke and then, then I went through, you know, the actual divorce and I was in deep debt from that and all sorts of stuff.

I thought, What am I doing? And I thought, I really need to make this happen because life is short. And if not now, when? When, if not, that’s my motto. If not now, when, when I get 10 years older, when I am demoralized because it’s not worked for so long, when my kids are [00:17:00] in college, then I might be tired cuz I’ll be like 60 something right?

When I don’t know, when my job gives me a raise, I mean, you could find a bunch of wins and people find those over and over and over. They’re just scared.

The roadblocks are, they’re, they’re, they’re larger than life fears that are, are way larger than the actual life.

Your desire to get the life you want has to be far larger than the fears your, your faith.

Has to be larger than your fear.

[00:17:30] What is Your Life Worth?

Jeanne: I mean like what’s your, what is your life worth?

What’s it worth? Is it worth investing?

Is it worth investing? Or is it worth being so afraid of spending money on yourself and developing yourself that you’d rather keep XYZ amount of money for that coach or mentor, whatever, or whatever it is you’re gonna invest in. You’d rather just keep that money.

And not have the life you want because you can’t take a risk. Now that’s the thing. People take risks for stupid things. Like you just spent so much money on this stupid risk. [00:18:00] Okay. And they will spend so much money on getting a new car or

new clothes, which are not going to make you any better off unless you really needed that car cuz your car was breaking down.

They prioritize getting a new car when they really didn’t need one. Cuz they just want a new car, new clothes, blah, blah, blah. Going to restaurants that will never develop you. It’s never, so they don’t invest in themselves.

They just spend money.

Miriam: That is so worth saying. Again, people don’t invest in themselves, they just spend money. There are two different things. Yes. I wanna say on a previous podcast, we were talking about the difference between assets and expenditures. And an asset has the ability to give you a return and.

Many of these self development things have the ability to give you a return. Yeah. They cost 5,000 or $10,000 and usually your income goes up two or three x of that afterwards or more.

Take Risks

Jeanne: You know, I’ll give you an example of a current client. This woman she [00:19:00] sought, she works three jobs. She’s a single woman working three jobs, teaching.

You know, you don’t get paid much teaching in, I think it’s Connecticut, where she lives leading in a. Rental, and she’s slowly, she’s a worker, you know, slowly three jobs all over the place. Slowly had developed a mortgage fund, okay? And she wanted to work with me, and I saw her just look at me and she just went, Okay, I have to do this.

I have to do this. I know I have to do this. I’m gonna do this. She goes, Okay, the only way I can do this is if I take 10 K outta my mortgage. Yeah, she took 10 K out of her mortgage fund to work with me. Yeah. That’s a huge risk for somebody that doesn’t have a spouse. That was it. Working as a teacher and just working.

Open to Receive

Okay. And I know how long that took her to get that fund. I know I have to do this to change my life and I know nothing’s gonna change if I don’t invest in you and you’re the one.

Okay. I said, Okay. So she pays me in. Right. It was 10 k. I charged 10 K for one of my programs, [00:20:00] and the next day she goes, I can’t believe it. She needs me this message. And she says, I just got a message from the person that’s helping me find an apartment that I became eligible to get a 50 K grant that they’re gonna dump into my mortgage fund.

Very soon. Wow. So what happened there? If your fists are so clenched tight, how can you open them to receive? They’re so tight they can’t receive.

Her mindset is just so completely different. She’s ha she’s gonna be able to quit two of those jobs soon. Right. And then get more time. So it’s not like, you know, all or nothing.

So that is somebody who decided she was gonna change her life and she did something extremely hard that most people would never do. Yeah. And they would never say I’m gonna.

[00:20:47] Invest in Yourself

Miriam: Yeah, no. What I appreciate about what you’re saying is whenever you invest in your self development, and that could be going to the university, that could be getting a certification.

It [00:21:00] could be through coaching. I mean, you and I, that’s what we do and we believe in it. There are lots of different ways to build yourself up. Now, I wanna put a caveat and a caution out there. There are some people who love taking joining programs. Yes. They’re not necessarily into taking the action, so it’s not enough.

To just get involved in the program or take the class or this or that. There are some actual trickle down actions that have to happen in order to change your stars. So it’s not just words, it’s also work, but it’s doable. And I mean, really what is the alternative?

Jeanne: The alternative to, to, to not developing yourself, developing yourself and being stagnant and then being sad and, you know, and, and not, I mean, People’s lives.

I was just thinking this last night I was going to bed and I, I think a lot about these things and I thought people’s lives are precious if people could see how I view their life, it’s like a [00:22:00] jewel. Okay? They have this jewel, they’re living and they’re not optimizing it.

They’re just wasting it. They’re being unhappy. They’re, they’re going to a job they absolutely hate, which affects their relationship, which then affects everything, and they’re willing to literally throw their lives away because they’re too cheap to invest in themselves. and then when on their deathbed they’re gonna go, Why didn’t I invest?

Respect Your Life

Why didn’t I take a leap? Because on the deathbed, apparently nobody is saying, Gee, I wish I’d gone into work more. You know, they’re saying, Gee, I wish I’d had better experiences and, you know, had a better family life and spent more time with my kids.

And, you know, and, and having a business gives you that, you know, Luxury.

Miriam: Freedom. Freedom, yeah. It gives you that freedom.

Jeanne: So when I look at people’s lives and they’re like not respecting it and they don’t know, they’re not respecting it, I’m not blaming, They just are in this thing of this is life and I have to hate my job because they’re brainwashed. I [00:23:00] have to hate my job and this is life.

Oh, you know, that’s how it is. It’s not how it is. That is not how it is. That is how it is because they’ve accepted and they’ve created their life and they’re also not understanding that they are not, they’re not exercising their own power over their own lives. Yes, they are. They are disempowering themselves.

Miriam: Yeah. Let me take a little bit of a tangent here. I love your history. I love the ways that you took yourself from point A to B to Z.

What is next in your level of business or personal development?

[00:23:41] What’s Next?

Jeanne: I was just talking to a colleague about this yesterday cause I, you know, you’re always thinking about a person that’s a high performer is always thinking about what’s the next step, right?

Yes. Yes. So my thing is to help people understand that a lot of their lives you can create.

You know, I wanna do a media company and like [00:24:00] positive media and not people all killing each other. Right? I could do more of a, you know, a mindset manifestation, create your own life kind of thing, and reach a wider audience and help people.

Cuz you know, even if people hear one positive thing, it can make their day and it can actually inspire them to take a bet on themselves. Make a bed, Make a bet. Make a bet on themselves, Right? Or, or do something. And people have come to me and said, Oh my gosh, because of that live you did, I did just do Facebook, Facebook Lives that made me do this.

I’m like, Great. Just from one live, they, they reach out and I’m like, Wow. That’s on a very small scale. So, and I’m not the only person inspiring people, but I’m me and nobody else in the world is me. So therefore I’m valuable and my message is gonna be different from somebody else. Just because, Yeah. And it, yeah.

Skill Sets

Miriam: Yes, and it’s, it’s going to impact somebody that maybe I wouldn’t impact. And I love [00:25:00] this notion of even when you’re successful, there’s always a next level of you. That’s something I’m always talking to people about. The skill sets that got you to the current level of you are not the skill sets that will take you to the next level of you.

So A, where do you wanna go? And B, what do you need to learn?

I especially love that you’re looking at how do we create positive media. I know on our end we need, both of us have a hard stop coming up that we need to get to pretty soon.

[00:25:31] Where to Find Jeanne

Miriam: I’d like for you just to share how people can find you and then we’ll wrap things up.

Jeanne: Absolutely. So it’s really easy to find me cuz it’s just my name, Jeanne Oomlor. You could find me on Facebook, you could find me on Instagram, you could find me on LinkedIn, you could find me at jeaneomlor.com. So it’s so simple.

Miriam: Perfect. We’ll put all that in the show notes.

And as I mentioned when we first talked, we like to gift our guests with a donation in their name to one of four charities. You chose the Mercy [00:26:00] Ships because they give free surgeries to people in need off the coast of Africa. So we’ll be sending that off today. Jeanne, thank you so much for your time.

Really appreciate it. This is a pleasure.

End Credits

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts, or wherever podcasts are found.

Full audio episode found here.

Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

All LeaveBetter Podcast episodes can be found here.

Music by Tom Sherlock.

If you are curious to know more, please contact me!

As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.