Unmasking Your True Self: JJ Clarke’s Guide on Purposeful Living

[00:00:00] JJ: This is one of the most powerful things that we can do for ourselves, is to sit there and think about. What are the things that people say I should do, or what somebody else has said I should do, and what are the things that I really want? Because when you really think about it, we fall into our careers, we fall into this relationship, we fall into that.

[00:00:23] And that level of intentionality when you're actually thinking about, what am I actually called to do? What feels right for me? A lot of the time we're too afraid to ask ourselves the question.

[00:00:35] Jessica: Your journey to the divine is an intimate exploration of self, where you are both the seeker and the source of enlightenment.

[00:00:44] I, Jessica Paschke, invite you to break free from the ordinary, to reforge your spiritual path with courage, curiosity, and audacity. Unleash the power of your spiritual connection, stepping into a purpose driven life free of have tos and shoulds. [00:01:00] Join me on this profound exploration of rediscovery, where you'll not only redefine your own spiritual practice, but also inspire a collective awakening.

[00:01:09] Welcome to Reclaiming Our Spirit.

[00:01:18] Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to Reclaiming Our Spirit. I am absolutely thrilled. To be welcoming our guest today. I saw JJ in a room, a zoom room full of people. And let me tell you what, it was like the spotlight just shone down on her. I could not take my eyes away. And the moment she started talking, I was like, yes, she has to be on the podcast.

[00:01:41] I have to do something with JJ. So JJ, welcome to reclaiming our spirit. I'm so excited. You're here. Thank you so much.

[00:01:49] JJ: Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. I'm so excited as well. I'm buzzing.

[00:01:54] Jessica: It's so great. Can you just introduce yourself? Tell our guests just a little bit about what [00:02:00] you do.

[00:02:00] JJ: Sure. So I am JJ. I am a certified coach.

[00:02:04] Um, I'm certified in career life and confidence coaching. But I'm also a specialist around fear and helping people to navigate fear. And I became one of the feel the fear and do it anyway, certified coaches and trainers, part of the Susan Jeffers book corporation. And I'm also a business mentor. So I help, uh, leaders and coaches to start their business and to use their voice and to monetize and create purpose driven lives and purpose driven businesses that align.

[00:02:35] And also I'm a anti racism and EDI consultant. I work with corporates, organizations to. Help them to create more inclusive environments. And I'm also a facilitator and I work with a lot of corporates. I'm helping them with executive coaching, leadership coaching, career transitions, and things like that.

[00:02:54] So I do quite a few different things and all of it is based around [00:03:00] things that I love, things that I'm passionate about, things that mean something to me.

[00:03:04] Jessica: I love that. See, I told y'all, we are going to have a good conversation today. But before we dive in, let's talk about our moment of joy. As we know, joy can sometimes be kind of hard to access.

[00:03:19] TJ, what has been a moment of joy for you in the past week or so?

[00:03:24] JJ: So I'm going to tell you something that sounds like a sad story, but I'm actually going to come round to the joy, right? Okay. So I'm from the UK, if you haven't heard my accent, but then, um, you know, really high up my list is travel. I love to travel.

[00:03:39] And so last year I decided to give up my home in the UK and hit the road and become location dependent and have this kind of digital nomad lifestyle. Um, I did that for most of last year and I did that for the early part of this year. Yeah. I came back home to the UK to do a short stop off to visit my family before I travel again.[00:04:00]

[00:04:00] This was a couple of months ago now. And then I, I had some news. My mum had been diagnosed with stage three multiple myeloma cancer. And so obviously devastation and everything else. And so it sounds like there's no joy in this, but I'm going to, I'm going to get to the joy. My mum's a huge part of my life and I take my mum for chemo every Monday.

[00:04:20] The joy for me was. First of all, being able to sit there with my mum, take her to chemo, and sit there and we laugh and we joke. And even though we're going through this painful time, we just have so much fun together and I get to spend a whole day with her. Sitting there, I was talking to her and I said, Mum.

[00:04:41] How amazing is it that things have worked out, that one, I've been able to create a business that allows me to have this flexibility and this freedom to take the day off every Monday to be here and spend the whole day with you. And two, that I don't have to go back to another city where I used to live in [00:05:00] Manchester.

[00:05:00] I gave up my home so I can actually literally spend all this time spending time with my mom. And just the thought of that and being able to be with my mom and to be in the moment with her and not worry about anything except talking and having fun with my mom, that was joy. That was absolute joy.

[00:05:20] Jessica: I love that.

[00:05:21] I have goosebumps. I had a similar experience. My father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2021, and I went back because I was able to, because of the flexibility of my business, I was able to go back and just be with him and laugh and tell stories and connect, and there's something about that, the joy in that, and having that option, I think, Really drives home the point of having something that really supports who you are and doing work that supports what you need in your life and that it can adjust to whatever life brings to you.

[00:05:54] It's huge. And it really does come back into this idea of like tapping into our [00:06:00] purpose. How would you define purpose driven? Like, how would you define a purpose driven life?

[00:06:06] JJ: There are a few components that I believe needs to be involved in your life for it to be purpose driven. I, I created a, a, a formula, a framework and a formula which I use in my practice.

[00:06:19] And it's a purpose formula. And this formula is made up of your kit, your skills, which are the things that you learn through your, your work and, you know, the, the skill sets that you practice. and also your passion, which is more around the things you love and the things you stand for. And then it also adds on your contribution.

[00:06:41] How is your life bigger than you? How are you serving at a bigger capacity than you? So these are the elements of my purpose formula to create a purpose driven life. You don't need to involve intentionality because it doesn't just happen on purpose. You have to [00:07:00] make a decision every day. to live in a certain way.

[00:07:05] And the thing about it is, our flesh and our, you know, our feelings and emotions, and sometimes we can want to do things, we can fall victim to certain habits, bad habits sometimes. And we have to be able to make a decision that actually This is what I'm going to do. I know I don't feel like this right now, but I'm going to do this.

[00:07:27] And I know I feel like responding to that person right now, but I'm going to do this instead. And I know that I'm quite upset and angry right now, but I'm going to behave like this instead. And so there's a level of intentionality that is what helps to drive that purpose into your life, to make it purpose driven, and Contribution, again, is a massive part of it because if we just go around doing things because we like doing them, then how are we serving in this world?

[00:07:57] How are we creating an impact that's [00:08:00] bigger than just the things that I do for myself? So a purpose driven life needs to have all of those elements of the formula. And it also needs to be backed by intentionality. We have these different experiences in our life. for a reason. And the reason is to share with other people so that they can benefit.

[00:08:21] That's part of your contribution. And so when you live your life in a way where you share your story and you help others overcome certain challenges, then you're living your life driven by purpose.

[00:08:33] Jessica: I love that. I love that definition. And I love that you emphasized intentionality. I think that's huge. You really have to be intentional about it every single day.

[00:08:45] And it is, it is like mindfulness to the X amount. And I think when people first kind of start to look into reclaiming their purpose and stepping into that space, they don't realize how challenging that can be when you first start. [00:09:00] Is so worth it though, ?

[00:09:02] JJ: Yeah, it definitely is. And it's, it's challenging.

[00:09:06] But I mean, most of the good, the good things that's worth something are challenging, right? We have to, as a society, be better at doing hard things. You have to remember that we can do hard things and be willing to do stuff, even if it's challenging, even if it's hard, even if it's uncomfortable, unless we can get past that block of trying to stay in safety and comfort, then we can't progress our life to a place of purpose.

[00:09:33] Because purpose requires courage. Purpose requires you to actually step against the grain, go against the grain. You know, one of the most courageous things you can do is literally just to be yourself. Actually remove all the masks and stand in something that you truly believe in. If you're not courageous enough to do those things, then you can't fulfill a purpose driven life because it requires, it's a must that you have [00:10:00] those things.

[00:10:01] Jessica: I can't agree with you more. And you talk about this idea too, that part of that purpose driven life is going out and going beyond ourselves. I was just having this conversation. And Trudy LeBron, I'm in her 12 month metamind. We were just talking about this in the group yesterday, that there needs to be a shift to looking at how we, we take our life, our work, and bring it into the collective, like the difference that we're making in the world.

[00:10:27] We can only get so far independently.

[00:10:31] JJ: Yeah,

[00:10:31] Jessica: absolutely. And then it has to be more than, it has to be more than.

[00:10:36] JJ: Unless it's more than, then the only impact you're really having is just for you. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I feel like that's quite lonely and I don't know, I just feel that we're supposed to have a legacy.

[00:10:48] We're supposed to create legacy. We're here on this earth and I believe that we need to create legacy to show something for it, to give something to somebody else. And I've learned [00:11:00] on my, my journey, I've learned so much about using and understanding the gifts that you have in life. That come dressed as something else and you don't recognize that they're a gift until later on in life.

[00:11:13] And so if you live only to serve yourself and you don't expand into something bigger, then you're never giving out that gift that I believe we have for a reason. And that reason is to give to others, you know? So yeah, I think it's so important that what we're doing is more than just for us. You know, it has to be.

[00:11:34] Jessica: So that leads me to say, okay, how did you get here? Like, what is your story? What is your journey to this point? Because I'm intrigued.

[00:11:44] JJ: My journey, um, so long, but I'm going to try and cut it down. Okay. My journey started off a while ago and I was probably in my early thirties and right now I'm in my mid forties.

[00:11:58] As a black woman, I [00:12:00] grew up in a neighborhood, which was very racist. When I was a kid, I was around people who looked like me, and I never ever had to deal with race or challenges around race. And then when I moved to my senior school, I was the only person who looked like me. And my family, people would look at us like, what are you doing here?

[00:12:19] And so I went to a school where there's over a thousand children, and, um, and I was the only one who looked like me. And so that meant a lot of racism every day. And the same for my younger sister who was in her school, people from my school, the senior school, would go down to her school and be racist and bully her, and she would run to me, find me in my class and crying and tell me, someone's going to beat me up after school and things like this.

[00:12:44] So my background came from elements of that where I had to be quite race conscious. quite culturally conscious. And also when you're in that position where you're the only, it continues. You [00:13:00] tend to find that you have a pattern. So I was the only in my school for three years until my brother and my cousin came.

[00:13:08] And then after that from school, I went to college and I did law and I was the only in my class. And the lecturer said to me, I think you're in the wrong place. And no, I'm supposed to be here. And he said, no, I think you're in the wrong place. You're not going to get very far. Um, that was in my law, you know, my A levels.

[00:13:31] And then from that, I went to university and then my, in my group, I was the only one who looked like me. And then I went to work, go working in, in law firms. And I wasn't a lawyer. I decided to take a different route. So whilst I'm certified, qualified in, um, with two law degrees, I went into legal finance, managing revenue for global law firms.

[00:13:50] And in that environment, I was always the only one who looked like me. And so there was this perpetuating pattern where I'm facing being the only, being the only. [00:14:00] And I came across lots of different challenges. and um, within the environment. But what I learned to do was mask. I learned to be what people expected.

[00:14:13] I learned to be accepted and to know how to be accepted. I wanted to share that background because It contributed to who I am now because I'd learned to mask and I'd gone through a lot of my life defending myself and having to be defensive. Also, it led me to be quite insecure of myself. And so growing up, I thought I was ugly.

[00:14:38] I thought something was wrong with me and, and a lot of these things. And so going into my twenties and going into relationships. I was always kind of masking, wanting to be loved, wanting to be wanted. I was the people pleaser. So whilst in my, my work life, I was kind of a badass. [00:15:00] And again, that was all masking, trying to find a way to be accepted.

[00:15:04] In my home life, I was insecure, had no confidence, had low self esteem, and I just wanted someone to love me. I went from being in relationships which were emotionally abusive and spiritually abusive. I'm a Christian, I'm Christian upbringing and I go to church and and so I was in the church and I was in a relationship with the minister.

[00:15:28] At that point, I was still relatively new in my faith. And so I really trusted what he said and he abused that. At that point, you know, I was in a spiritually and physically abusive relationship. And it, it stripped me of a lot of things. One of them was my faith. Any sort of belief I had in myself had gone.

[00:15:48] And so after that point, I left the city. I called off the wedding. So whilst I was engaged, I called off the wedding, five weeks before the wedding. And then I had a load of comeback from [00:16:00] people in the church who kind of shunned me and thought something was wrong with me and that I thought something was wrong with me and all of that.

[00:16:06] So again, low self esteem perpetuated. And then a couple of years on from that, I hadn't had another relationship, but then, um, I'd also moved from the UK to have a job in Dubai. So I lived in the Middle East in Dubai for eight years. But as I moved there, I was there for a year or so, and I had another relationship with someone who was physically abusive.

[00:16:28] I didn't realize at the time, but I was in a cycle of abuse. And this person was physically abusing. I got scars to show for it. And I got to a really low point in my life. So whilst I should have been living my best life, and everybody who knew me, I thought I was living my best life in Dubai, and every area apart from my home life, I was living my best life, but my home life was intolerable.

[00:16:54] It was physically abusive almost every day, and I didn't know how to get away [00:17:00] from it. And I'm in a different country where the laws are not the same like it is in a Western country. The law wasn't on the side. And so, It was like a trap. Eventually, I was literally planning my own demise. I was so low that I sat down and I planned how I'm going to take my life.

[00:17:19] Because I just couldn't see how it was worth living. You know, I was in my mid thirties. I was desperate for a child. I couldn't, I wasn't having any children because I was in a relationship which was abusive. So there was no way I was going to do that. My life just seemed to be, you know, Going to hell. And so I planned how I'm going to take my life.

[00:17:39] And I sat there thinking, okay, when am I going to do it? Then I just sobbed. I was sobbing because I was thinking I'm probably going to just get it wrong. I'm probably going to just try it, get it wrong and end up being disabled. And this person having to look after me, how would I survive then? And I [00:18:00] just cried and then I cried out and I was saying, Why can't anyone love me?

[00:18:06] Why doesn't anyone ever choose me? And I heard a voice say to me, this was hard to hear. Why would anyone choose you when you've never chosen yourself? I was like, what? And I felt it with every part of my being. How would you even choose yourself? How do you do that? And then I thought, Okay, let me give this thing called life a try and see how I can choose myself then and let's see if this makes any difference and if it does, then great.

[00:18:41] But if it doesn't, I'm going right back and I'm going to take my life because it's not worth living. And so I sat down and I thought about what would it look like if I chose myself. That's what got me into this personal development journey. reading everything about personal development, trying to [00:19:00] learn everything, going on to self awareness and all this stuff.

[00:19:03] Um, I had a mantra that I, that I still have to this day, which reminds me to choose myself. I say to myself every morning as part of my morning routine, I have nothing to fear, nothing to hide, nothing to defend and nothing to protect. And then allows me to show up as myself without hiding, without being defensive, without worrying about what people are going to say.

[00:19:25] And then I always ask myself a question, how am I going to choose myself today? And I decide before I do anything, I decide what I'm going to do today to choose myself. And, and I honor that as a part of my self love, I honor that. I moved back to the UK eventually. I, you know, left the relationship. Thank God I found a way to leave, which was so difficult that he happened to be traveling because before that he refused to leave the house.

[00:19:53] So, because he knew that I would lock him out, he traveled to do a job and I had to pretend that everything was great to get him to trust [00:20:00] me. So when he trusted me, he traveled. And then I literally packed up my stuff and I moved on the same day. I left the property. I moved to a different place. I changed my job.

[00:20:11] So when he came back, I was no longer there. And he tried to find me for a few years, a couple of years, but he couldn't find me. Then my mom got sick, was sick. So I decided I'm going to leave Dubai and come back to the UK. So I did that. And I'm still really on this personal development drive, not knowing that I'm going to be a coach, not even thinking about it.

[00:20:32] So I'm in the UK and I hear Tony Robbins say something. I'm watching the video and he says something about turning your pain into a gift. I was infuriated. I thought, what ridiculousness. What nonsense. How do you turn your pain into a gift? How can I turn what I've been through into a gift? And I dismissed it, and it made me angry.

[00:20:57] I carried on this personal development journey. I'm [00:21:00] doing it slowly, and I'm still taking some time to really understand. And I came across a quote, a quote by Nelson Mandela. And this is what changed my life. This very simple quote says, I never lose. I either win or learn. So I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, I felt like I've lost a lot of times.

[00:21:20] And I thought to myself, how could I turn my losses into lessons so that I've got something to learn from. And then as I'm thinking about this, how can I turn this abusive cycle into a lesson? And I realized all the lessons I've learned from the things I've gone through in my past. And then that quote from Tony Robbins came back into my head about being a, turning your pain into a gift.

[00:21:51] And I was like, light bulb moment. It's not that I'm receiving the gift, it's that I'm giving the gift. Ooh, I like that. [00:22:00] I turn something into something and I give it as a gift. That blew me away. Nice bumps. And so I was like, okay, okay, okay. Let me, let me think this through a minute. I've gone through all of this.

[00:22:16] And then what I get to do is help somebody else and give them the gift of my experience. Thanks. That was when I understood what that quote meant. Everything started to fall into place. And at this point, I'm still not coaching. I still had no idea that, that I could even do this, but things in my life started making sense.

[00:22:36] So by this time I decided that I'm still in the UK. I'm in Nottingham where my mom is. And, um, I moved to Manchester to, you know, earn some, some good money working for a global firm again. I'm doing my job and I'm great at my job. I gotta admit, I was really great at it. I'm working for these global firms.

[00:22:53] I'm responsible for multiple, like, seven, eight figures and bringing in writing strategies for [00:23:00] revenue for massive numbers. how to generate this, how to make different law practices profitable and how to collect money, all this stuff I'm doing. And I sat there one day thinking, I know I'm so good at my job.

[00:23:14] And at first I thought, because I'm so good at it, it must be my purpose. But then I realized, no, I couldn't get it to sit with me. I'm like, this doesn't feel like in alignment with me. My purpose is not to make rich people richer. And I realized then, just because I'm good at something doesn't mean it's my purpose.

[00:23:33] And so I thought, what do I want to do with my life? I can't stay here. And I had this desire to have a business for a long time, but I never thought that I, me, little old Joanne from Nottingham, could ever have a business. Who am I? Who do I think I am that I could have a business? And so I said, I'm just going to try.

[00:23:54] I'm just going to do it. A lot of things happened in this law firm. A lot of racism again, a lot of [00:24:00] having to wear masks and then deciding, I'm going to take off all the masks. And you know what I'm also going to do? I'm going to just show up and be myself. I'm going to cut my hair. I'm going to have a fade and have patterns and then on one side, I'm going to have dreadlocks.

[00:24:15] Put up with that. And I went to work on dress down day with locks and a fade and my Nike high tops and a t shirt that says ethnicity pay gap.

[00:24:29] Jessica: Oh my gosh. I love

[00:24:30] JJ: that. I was like, this is who I am. This is who I am. And I'm going to be me. And I'm going to see how I can operate at this new Joanne in this workplace.

[00:24:44] I did that. And then, you know, a lot of things happened again with work. There's a couple more people who look like me now, but in my team and on my whole floor, it was just me and a lot of challenges still. And then George Floyd was murdered. Before that, I [00:25:00] had tried to have conversations with my workplace about inclusivity, diversity.

[00:25:05] They said, oh, we're not ready for this. We're not ready for that. And, you know, the turning point for me was when I said to my boss at that time, I said, what did you do for Black History Month? And she was like, what's Black History Month? And I thought, how can I be in a workplace that don't know what Black History Month is?

[00:25:20] And so I went on this drive to try and do things. And my, you know, I kept coming back, people saying, we're not ready for that. We can't do anything like that. And then George Floyd was murdered and I put my foot down and I said, no. We're not I'm not accepting your nose anymore. I'm not accepting your nose.

[00:25:37] This is dangerous. This created grief on a community level, on a global level. It hit us in the smallest parts of the UK. Then the company started to listen. And then I was able to create a employee network and grow it from zero to over a hundred members [00:26:00] globally. in this employee network. And, um, and it was around putting people together to have these courageous conversations about race and to be able to overcome certain things.

[00:26:10] I started sitting on boards and representing the firm on conversations around race and in the workplace and the legal industry and about diversity in, in, in the law, in the legal industry and all of those things. And, um, and I was really doing great and I was, it was, I was building up a brand for myself and I'm doing all of this on top of my job, which is legal finance.

[00:26:31] I was doing really great, but I still felt like it's still not it. This is still not the thing. And I realized that I could only do so much with the diversity and inclusion when I'm working in the workplace, I can, I'm limited. I could do more if I was external and I decided I'm just, I'm going to leave.

[00:26:50] At this point, I'm starting to do my coaching part time. You know, I got certified. I'm doing my coaching part time and I'm doing this diversity and inclusion in the workplace. And, [00:27:00] and I'm like, I don't want to do none of this finance stuff anymore. I just want to do the coaching full time. I started putting in some strategies and doing, you know, getting things to work and making more money from my coaching than I was from my full time job.

[00:27:13] And like, this is it now. I'm done. I'm ready to leave. And I left my 16 plus year career in legal finance and creating global revenue for these law firms to be a one man band and to be a coach and a consultant. And things were just going so well. Being able to create a life for myself that allows me to do the things that I love, that I'm passionate about, that mean something to me and help other people.

[00:27:45] To live a life on purpose that is powered by purpose. And that is, you know, how I got into everything and recognizing all the different parts of my life that made me who I was. And then [00:28:00] knowing how to change who I was to become who I am. And I'm still on that becoming journey every single day. And every time a challenge comes up, like when I found out about my mum, and I was thinking, oh my god.

[00:28:15] And when that happened, that who do you become in those moments? That's part of the purpose, right? Who are you becoming when things are hard? You know, in your business, in with your audience, with your clients, who are you becoming? And, um, and who are you being right now? And so that's where the intentionality comes in when you've got to sit there and think, because it's easy to slip back into old, old habits.

[00:28:40] and to hide again and just to be the people pleaser again. You have to be able and be willing to question yourself, coach yourself and make a decision on how you're going to stand up and choose yourself today. Even amidst all the turmoil, all the trauma, all the [00:29:00] challenges, you still have to find a way to choose yourself.

[00:29:02] And that's how I got to where I am and why I do what I do. You know, one of the things that I realized recently was coaching is my gift. Coaching is my calling. It's my gift. Business mentoring is my skill. It's my skill. And so I'm able to merge the two. So I do the coaching and that is my gift. But what I'm doing with the business mentoring is helping people to fulfill their purpose.

[00:29:38] So I'm using my gift in a way to help people with their identity and their purpose with coaching. And then I'm using my skill to help people to live their purpose and to monetize their message and to be better and purpose driven leaders. My life, it just rolls around that and even when I [00:30:00] go into organizations and I help them with careers or help them with diversity and inclusion, it's all about helping people to unmask, to question themselves, and to be intentional about how they show up and how they create space for other people to show up and how they live their purpose.

[00:30:19] And my whole life is kind of set up around that and I love it.

[00:30:24] Jessica: I love it. I mean, there's so many pieces to that. I do think that when you tap into and you choose purpose, it does act like an anchor in any storm. It allows you to stand in the eye of it and let it happen around you without Stepping into the chaos of it.

[00:30:39] And also this idea of unmasking. I love that term because it, it is like taking those layers off and it's excavating kind of being like the archeologist. So your soul, who am I under all of these things that were either placed upon me or I took upon myself or the stories that are happening around me.[00:31:00]

[00:31:00] And when I work with people, a lot of times when they're coming in for coaching or they're coming into business courses or whatever. There's a disconnect between the gift and the skill. And it's in that space, that disconnect that they, I think they struggle the most with getting themselves out there. So how do you help people unmask like that?

[00:31:19] How do you help them connect those two pieces so they can really step into that purpose and choose that every day?

[00:31:25] JJ: Something that I realized is the more you tap into self awareness. The more you learn about yourself, the more you are able to feel your calling, to see it, to live it, to understand your identity.

[00:31:43] It is vital. And when you are working with people who understand certain parts of what they've come through, but they don't yet know their identity, that's when or the identity that they do know is what was given to them. As a coach, as [00:32:00] a leader, as a business owner, anyone who has those sorts of positions, First of all, it's not a job.

[00:32:07] It's something that's from you, from within you, and you're, you're called to this type of work, of leadership, you're called to this. You have to start the work in you. So a lot of people come as if you've got to learn all the strategies and you do have to do all of those things, but no matter how many strategies you learn, if you're not learning yourself and, and, and taking off those layers and dealing with yourself, you will never get any further.

[00:32:33] Because you literally block your own success. There's a quote that I love by someone called Miles Monroe. And he says, What you are and how you are is predetermined by why you are. Oh my gosh, I love that.

[00:32:51] Jessica: I love that. Right?

[00:32:54] JJ: You need to recognize Why you are taking off those [00:33:00] masks, those labels, which people give to us sometimes intentionally and sometimes not, it's vital.

[00:33:06] And so when I work with a coach or I work with a leader, I sit there and I hear them talk. And the main thing that you hear them say is, well, I should be doing this. I should be doing that. And this is expected and I'm listening to them and I'm saying, okay, I know that you believe you should be doing that, but what do you want to do?

[00:33:29] I had the client yesterday, she's somebody who is brand new, you know, listening to her and she's saying, you know, I should be doing this, I should be doing that. And I said to her, I want you to eradicate the word should from your vocabulary. Get rid of it because it's tripping you up. Now, one of the things she was trying to do was be a coach and create this new life and this new business, but trying to fit it into something that doesn't work.

[00:33:56] You need to get rid of the things that you think [00:34:00] you need to do and start thinking about the things that you want to do. We're trying to fit ourselves. into expectations, other people's expectations, society's expectations, what we should do, what this guru said this should do, and all of this stuff. And we end up with creating a life that isn't even aligned with who we are, and that isn't representative of who we are.

[00:34:26] And then when we're not able to be that person that we're called to be, that we really can be, that's when we're Then we trap ourself and we sabotage ourself that unmasking has to start before you can be in any sort of leadership capacity. I had this conversation with her, helping her to unpack some of the things that she got stuck around, certain words that she was stuck around, certain existences, certain things that she thought needed in order for her to exist.

[00:34:57] She had to do something, be something [00:35:00] and this is one of the most powerful things that we can do for ourselves is to sit there and think about what are the things that people say I should do or what somebody else has said I should do and what are the things that I really want. Because when you really think about it, we fall into our careers, we fall into this relationship, we fall into that.

[00:35:22] And that level of intentionality, when you're actually thinking about what am I actually called to do? What feels right for me? A lot of the time, we're too afraid to ask ourselves the question. And sometimes when you've come from a place of no self esteem, you also feel like you're not worthy of asking yourself that question.

[00:35:42] You're not worthy of having what you want. Like I was saying before, who do you think you are? Who do I think I am to have a business? For You know, and now I have a few, but who do you think you are to become a coach and tell people or help people or ask people or [00:36:00] mentor people? Who do you think you are?

[00:36:02] This person was saying to me, now, one of her friends have said, you know, look down on coaching. This person is a therapist, I believe, or something. and looked down on coaching and made her feel really terrible. And so she was kind of coaching from a hidden place, felt that she had to almost hide. She couldn't stand in the power that she had.

[00:36:24] This is what happens with a lot of us. Somebody doesn't share our enthusiasm or our vision or our belief. So we kind of hide or we ditch it completely. or we tell ourselves that we're wrong, we don't trust ourself enough, we don't trust our intuition, we don't listen to ourselves, we don't ask ourselves questions.

[00:36:43] And if you're going to become a coach, a coach's main role is to ask questions. But we can't just be asking questions of other people. We need to be learning how to ask these questions of ourselves. So one of the main things that I do when I'm coaching is I give leaders and [00:37:00] coaches equip them to ask themselves the really hard question because a lot of the time we don't do that and we come into this profession doing what we're told coaches should be doing and doing what we think we should be doing but we're not living those practices and so we need to create that alignment by living the practice before we are showing up and trying to get somebody else to live the practice.

[00:37:25] It's almost like When I talk to people and I say, coaches also need coaches, coaches need coaches, leaders need to be led. We all need mentors. It's just like doctors need doctors and dentists need another dentist to fix their problem. We can't just think that because we're a coach, we don't need anybody else anymore.

[00:37:44] Yeah. We have so many blind spots and the blind spots are often within us. So your coach or your mentor is the thing that's going to, the person that's going to reflect things to you. You can often create a business [00:38:00] or a brand that doesn't even reflect who you are on the inside. It just reflects the outside of you and you've got no reflection.

[00:38:09] And so it's just reflecting. Other people's expectations, the things that you think you should be doing, and that's your brand, and I guarantee you, I 100 percent guarantee you, if you built a business like that, there's going to be a point in your life when you will call it quits, because you can't continue in that space and be happy and feel fulfilled, because in order for you to feel fulfilled, you have to be full, you have to be full.

[00:38:38] All right. When you are giving from that place of external and trying to do things externally, you're emptying, you're not filling. We need to always be reflective, always be looking at ourselves, always be focusing on how we move forward in different spaces. And be intentional. And [00:39:00] how is this going to serve?

[00:39:01] How is this going to help somebody else? I know I've gone through this really hard time, this really hard journey. Don't keep it to yourself. Gift it to somebody else. Gift the lessons that you've learned to somebody else. And when we do these sort of things, we create more of a life where we are driven by purpose.

[00:39:20] And then when we are driven by that purpose in our life, we can do that in our business. But when we separate, like you said, the skill and the passion or the calling, like what I was doing in my job, just doing the skill, you get to a place where your skill is, it's great and you're able to do all these things, but it's not filling you up.

[00:39:40] It's not who you are. You need to be looking at the other side of just the skill and combining it, which is why I have the purpose formula. If you can find your gift, the thing that's just in you, the gift, with that skill, and then [00:40:00] decide what you stand for. And how you're going to represent yourself in that place and you absolutely love that you're standing in there, which is basically your values, your passion and your value, right?

[00:40:11] And then think about how this is serving the world. How is this fitting in the grand scheme of things? That's your contribution. When you put all those things together, and then you think, well, how can I do all of this on purpose? with the intentionality. How can I intentionally show up and be who I know I can be?

[00:40:33] Then you can create that separation between the skill and the calling or the gift. The gap will close. If you are too afraid to be introspective, And to look at yourself and to ask yourself the hard questions and to do things from a place of uncertainty. That's another massive thing. You don't have all the answers.

[00:40:52] And so you've got to be able to step out there knowing that. And if you're willing to do all those things, then you can create a business that will just, [00:41:00] you'll love that will give you what the things that you need. You know, for me, I, I realized there were a few F's that I loved that I wanted to have in my life, which was my faith and freedom.

[00:41:11] And my family and finances, I wanted to make sure I'm making money and money is a big, important thing, right? You know, for me, in order to create the impact that I want to create, I need to have lots and lots of money. You do,

[00:41:25] Jessica: you have to have an income. You

[00:41:26] JJ: have to have the income, right? Yeah. So what's going to do that?

[00:41:30] Creating a massive amount of value in the world is what's going to give you the massive income. And the bigger, the value that you create in the world. The bigger the income. If you're just focusing on money, money, money, you can, you will be limited, but when you actually focus on just value, value, value, serving, serving, serving, and doing it from a place where your contribution in this world is being dealt with, you're helping people and then [00:42:00] everything else falls into place.

[00:42:01] I've got this, this membership or community that I recently created and people thought I was mad. You might think I'm mad too, no you won't. No, I won't. I created this community called the Purpose Driven Coach Academy, where I am literally showing up and mentoring aspiring and new coaches. And I'm offering a program which I've recently charged 2, 500 for.

[00:42:26] www. purposedrivencoachacademy. com And I'm delivering this program for free. I'm literally sponsoring everybody who wants to sign up to learn how to be coaches, how to become a purpose driven coach and a purpose driven leader to join this community and, um, and I will show up and mentor you for free every single month, you know, I'm doing the skill of the business mentoring.

[00:42:53] But I'm fulfilling my purpose by helping them fulfill their purpose. So this is also a [00:43:00] contribution. I'm making a contribution to the world because I believe that we need more coaches in the world and more people who are not just coaching because chat, GBT can tell you what to do or what to say. Well, real coaches, real coaches who are coaching because it's part of their calling.

[00:43:19] And that's not, that's a sly on ChatGBT, because I love ChatGBT, but it doesn't tell me how to be a coach. I've been helping people to become purpose driven leaders and purpose driven coaches, and I do this for this community, and I can't tell you the amount of joy, the amount of just sheer pleasure and fulfillment that I get from showing up in that community.

[00:43:42] and serving them and helping them to find their feet and share their story in ways that they've never done before. So they can actually impart their gift into the world. And it's one of the most powerful things that I've done, absolutely, without a doubt. [00:44:00]

[00:44:00] Jessica: It ripples out that secondary impact. That's what we have to start thinking about as coaches and entrepreneurs and business owners is not just the person that is sitting in front of me, what happens when they walk away and how do they change the world from there?

[00:44:16] It has to be deeper. And in order to make that kind of a deeper contribution, we have to know who we are and we have to know ourselves. And that's like a never ending journey. It's not like, Oh, I know myself. It's Tuesday. That's if it's ever unfolding.

[00:44:33] JJ: You got to a place where you thought, Well, I thought I knew myself.

[00:44:37] Jessica: Right. That always comes up again. You're like, I guess I didn't. Let's try this again. Like, you know. But the more that you understand who you are and like what triggers you and how you move through the world and what needs to be healed, you're going to move through those spaces in a self awareness that is key to one not causing harm.

[00:44:57] And then you can really make a difference and [00:45:00] really go deeper with people you may never meet.

[00:45:04] JJ: Yeah, absolutely. You may never

[00:45:05] Jessica: meet them. You may never know. Right? And

[00:45:08] JJ: that's the, that's the thing. And when you think, so if I go back to my story, the two major things that helped me to even be able to understand myself to be here was a quote from Tony Robbins, who I've never met.

[00:45:21] Who I don't know. And a quote from Nelson Mandela, who I've never met, who I don't know. And this is the thing they created such an impact in my life that, you know, that quote was the building block for me starting my, my business. I want to make sure that when I'm serving in the world. That the things that I say can be so impactful, it will be the foundation or the building block for somebody else's business.

[00:45:48] And I might never ever meet them and they might never ever meet me. And they might hear off this quote that I say, or something that I say from word of mouth or from this podcast. We will never [00:46:00] understand the true depth of the legacy that we leave behind. And this is the thing is, this is, you know, when you, when you are legacy minded and you're not thinking just about yourself and what, what you can do in front of you, when you're thinking about generations, when you're thinking about what you want to be known for in the world, then things change for you.

[00:46:23] And you have to have the ability to adapt and to grow and to learn more about yourself because you will not be able to sustain the level of growth that is required to serve and to keep serving at that capacity. You have to keep investing in yourself, keep growing yourself, keep learning. That mindset, the growth mindset is needed all the time.

[00:46:48] And so this is why I say, you know, who are you becoming?

[00:46:51] Jessica: Yep.

[00:46:51] JJ: Who are you becoming in this, in this moment right now? Who do you want to be? What do you want to be known for right now? Because if we don't keep asking ourselves these [00:47:00] questions, then we slip back into old defaults and then we get stuck. And so a lot of the times when you're experienced in business and you get into this place of stuckness where you can't seem to move any forward, Then you stop being, you stop progressing, look at who you're trying to be, and maybe you've already thought that you've become that person, so you stayed there.

[00:47:22] You still have to grow to the next level of your life, and when you grow to that next level of your life, you open up more opportunities that can support that. But sometimes when we get stuck, it's because we stopped growing personally. And expecting to continue growing professionally, we have to always keep that alignment that if you show up in your business and you don't reflect who you are in person, disalignment, it's hilarious.

[00:47:49] Right? Absolutely. Oh my goodness. You have to get real with yourself. The best thing is to recognize and to know that it's okay. To be who [00:48:00] you are. It's okay to forgive yourself for certain things that you've gone through. And whatever it is, it's not just about knowing yourself, understanding yourself.

[00:48:12] Jessica: Yes.

[00:48:13] JJ: And giving yourself permission to be who you are. Yeah. And to be who you want to be. To be able to give yourself permission to be better. to show up as a better version of myself today, and that's okay. And to recognize the things that I've done wrong and the things that I don't do very well. One of the reasons why I, in fact, the main reason why I say that, that mantra to myself every day It's because I, I can be defensive.

[00:48:41] I spent most of my life defending myself. So when something comes up, it can make me feel defensive. So I say this mantra to myself to remind myself every single day, I've got nothing to defend, I've got nothing to defend and it's

[00:48:57] Jessica: stressful times. Right. We, we go to our [00:49:00] default settings when stress happens.

[00:49:02] Now, what happens as a business owner? Stress. You're good. You're good. All the time. Stress. All the time. You know? And if you don't know what your default settings are so that you can be aware that you've shifted into them, forget about it.

[00:49:18] JJ: Forget about it. Absolutely. Forget about it.

[00:49:20] Jessica: Forget

[00:49:20] JJ: about it. So important, you know, the self awareness.

[00:49:24] You never get to that place of self awareness, of full self awareness. Like you said, you never think, okay, I know myself now. You're always on that journey. We have to be open to that. We have to be open to learning. We can't, also, we can't be in a place of ego. Yeah. We can't afford to be in a place of ego when we have this responsibility.

[00:49:45] We can't afford that. And when you get to a place where you think, okay, I'm good now, I'm self aware, I'm emotionally intelligent and all those things, that's your ego talking. Yes. That's ego. We need to be able to go past that and like question [00:50:00] ourself and keep ourselves accountable And I think that it, it becomes dangerous when we don't, because then we're almost like perpetuating a message to our clients, but we're out of alignment ourselves.

[00:50:14] And how can you, from a place of integrity, speak to your clients around an area that you're not honoring? When you're not honoring that yourself, I just feel like that's dangerous grounds. And I think we have a responsibility as business owners, we have a responsibility as coaches, To make sure that we are living first, what we're sharing, what our calling is, who we are called to be, not just, not just who we're, what we're called to do, but who we're called to be.

[00:50:46] Jessica: It's at cyclical, right? Because now we're back to, we're back to your purpose. And if you're not doing this in a purpose driven way, do you see all the, all the places it falls apart? [00:51:00] Absolutely.

[00:51:01] JJ: Well, completely. Everything will bring you back to this. Everything will bring you back to that purpose. We have to know, you know, why we are, if I knew that when I was younger, if I understood those things and I'm not, I'm not saying I wish I could regret my journey because it got me here, but if I knew those things.

[00:51:22] then maybe I wouldn't have been so, had such low self esteem, have, you know, one of the things that I did was I ignored red flags. I call it downgrading them. I downgraded the red flags. So I took them from red to orange to amber to yellow to green, just so that I could have something that I thought I needed, which was To belong to someone.

[00:51:50] I wanted someone to choose me so I would literally let go of everything about me. to do anything that somebody told me to do because I thought it meant that they [00:52:00] were choosing me. And so if I actually understood around purpose and knew what I was, who I was called to be and what I was called to do, then it would have changed my whole journey.

[00:52:10] And I think we have to think back to who we were in the times when things were difficult for us in our identity. So for me, for example, who I was was very insecure. Very lost. And just because I, I was, I had a thriving career and I was traveling the world and living in Dubai and all of those things, my career was on fire.

[00:52:34] But me as an individual, I was non existent.

[00:52:38] Jessica: Eventually it had to evolve because it was just a matter of time before it started crumbling away. It was unsustainable in life. And, and I love your story so beautifully shows that. And. This idea that then you can take that experience and say, [00:53:00] listen, don't do this.

[00:53:01] Like, not just don't do this, but. You sat with it, you reflected on it, you became aware of it. You looked at it from like a 30, 000 foot view and you're like, okay, I can, I can actually give you the tools to help you be aware when you do this. Cause I think we're human. We're all going to do that at some level, right?

[00:53:19] That's just cute.

[00:53:21] JJ: And sometimes you, sometimes you only learn from your experience, right? Being able to actually say, okay, I'm going to share this with you. And whatever you choose to do, because a lot of times people might choose not to listen to you or not to use the equipment you give them, but they're going to be able to come back to it at some point.

[00:53:39] Jessica: Yeah. And so it's going

[00:53:40] JJ: to be in there. You have to go through the experience and, um, and then allow it to come full circle, but it's, it's just important that we share the things that we learn. We, the lessons that, that we come across in our life, it's almost like. If you don't give it and [00:54:00] share it, then what was the point?

[00:54:03] What was the, you know, it's like, for me, going through emotional, physical abuse, and then getting to a place where, okay, I'm good now, and I survived it. You become a perpetual survivor. Mm hmm. I've become a perpetual survivor and don't get me wrong, surviving is good, but I do not identify as a survivor. I identify as a thriver.

[00:54:29] I use that survival technique and skill and identity and I think back to what got me here. How am I going to get to the next place? One of the things that I teach in my life coaching practice is how to let go of. Coping mechanisms. Right? Coping mechanism keep you in survival mode, right? Because when you're in the, in the, the heart of the pain that you're in, [00:55:00] you've got to find ways to survive.

[00:55:02] And so you develop different coping mechanisms. And then when you get to the place where you're past that painful, you know, you're no longer in that painful relationship or whatever, that toxicity, you've left that. And you're still sitting in these coping mechanisms, and so you need to be able to let them go and learning which ones, what, what habits you form, which are coping mechanisms.

[00:55:23] How do you let them go and how do you actually turn them from coping to thriving mechanisms? What do you need to put in place? in order to get from survival mentality to thriving. And when, when you are able to, to, to do that, again, it comes back to purpose because I believe everybody has the ability and the skills and the giftings within us to be able to thrive.

[00:55:52] And when we are stuck in survival, it's often because we haven't recognized what's in us and we haven't [00:56:00] utilized it or leveraged it in order to get to this third place of thriving. We haven't dropped the things we need to drop. Sometimes these are friendships. Sometimes these are old jobs. Sometimes these are relationships.

[00:56:12] Sometimes these are habits. Sometimes these are beliefs that we have about ourselves. And so we have to drop these things in order to, you know, you can't walk through a closed door. In order to, um, to open that door, you need to be able to go off the baggage and get through the door, right? And so, yeah. I love

[00:56:34] Jessica: that.

[00:56:35] I love that so much. Oh, you can't walk through a closed door. JJ, if there was one question that people could ask themselves, like if they walk away with just one question today, what would, what would that question be? Like, just to get started on this process, just to get, just to get that curiosity rolling.

[00:56:53] JJ: You know what, I'm going to ask the question, I'm going to ask everyone to ask the question that I asked myself today. The question I was, I [00:57:00] want to expand upon is rather than just asking, how are you choosing yourself today? I want you to ask yourself, how is your life set up to choose you? How, you know, how is your life set up to make sure that you're choosing yourself?

[00:57:15] Because sometimes we don't realize that But we are so deep and heavy in people placing tendencies, living by other people's expectations, living by what people say we should do. And so when it comes to focusing on our dreams and our purpose, what do we do? We tell ourselves, we haven't got time. I'm too busy for that.

[00:57:35] I don't have time. Because we're so fulfilling everybody else's dreams and wishes,

[00:57:40] Jessica: our

[00:57:41] JJ: life is set up to serve people in a way from a place of insecurity and fear. And that's what people pleasing and all of those things come from, insecurity and fear. Look at the life that you have now. Look at how it's set up and is it set up for you to actually choose yourself?[00:58:00]

[00:58:01] And if it is, then fantastic. Choose yourself. And if it isn't, find a way to choose yourself.

[00:58:08] Jessica: Oh, I love that. JJ, thank you so much for being here. How can people find you?

[00:58:13] JJ: Okay. So if you go to Google and you type in either JJ, the confidence coach. You'll find me, it's my old name, or if you type in Courage with JJ, then you'll find me.

[00:58:27] You'll get my website, you'll get my social media handles.

[00:58:30] Jessica: I love it.

[00:58:31] JJ: And please come and find me because I love to connect with people. I love to share content and support people in that. And, um, and if you're a new coach, then join me in the Purpose Driven Coach Academy.

[00:58:41] Jessica: Yay. Thank you so much for being here and spending time with us.

[00:58:43] Thank you, . Thank you. Thank you all for listening, and we would love to hear your response to your question, so feel free to email or find us on socials and let us know what answers came up for you and what jumped out for you in this episode. Thanks so much for being here. Have a great day y'all.[00:59:00]

[00:59:03] Thank you for listening to reclaiming our Spirit, to find out how I can help you reclaim your spirit. Reach out to me at www. jessicapaschke. com. Leave me a message and I just may share how you reclaimed your spirit in the next episode.

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