I believe you have a story to share and an impact to make in the world in the way that only YOU can.

You may or may not already be on board with this exciting idea. Either way, it might feel like a daunting task. Particularly if you already have a full calendar.

If your soul longs to make a difference, I’ll see you inside! xo, Janeen

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Janeen: Well, hey there, you guys. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I am Janeen Alley, and you are listening to becoming the c e o of your life today. So I am going to be doing something a little bit different over the next couple of weeks because I’m going to be in and out traveling quite a bit with my family

[00:00:19] in the month of August. We are gonna go pick up my son in Portugal. He’s lived there for two years on a mission for our church. And then we’re gonna take him to school, and then we’re going to be with my mother-in-law for her 80th birthday and my family as well. So there’s a lot of really, really super fun things coming up for the month of August and what I’m going to do, I am going to share three secrets with you over the next three weeks.

[00:00:46] And I am going to be sharing a little bit about my life and what it means to me to become the c e o of my life. So this, the first secret has to do with rising above the mundane, being able to get out of the [00:01:00] weeds of your life. And I’m just gonna drop a little teaser for you here for secrets number two and three.

[00:01:06] Secret number two has to do with reigniting your passion for life. And the third secret of becoming the c e o of your life is all about making an impact in the world. I believe that one of my missions in life is to help empower women who feel ordinary to do extraordinary things, even if they feel like they struggle with self-doubt or imposter syndrome or all of the other things that seem to come up for us.

[00:01:30] I have been in the productivity space for a while, and I feel like there’s even more. I feel like my message and my mission is evolving, and here are some of the things that have resonated with me as well as with my clients. So my clients say things to me like the busyness of my life is causing me to miss the very life I’m striving to create.

[00:01:49] I had another woman recently text me and say, I’ve craved a service-oriented un mainstream life for as long as I can remember. I know I’ll be shown when it’s time, but so [00:02:00] far I really don’t see how to do it. And I was reading something else recently. This is what she said, kind of speaking along along the same lines.

[00:02:08] She said, we’re living in a world where humankind has produced so many challenges with climate change and polarization. disenfranchising, those different from us and it’s clear that the thought and gut-based inclinations that got us here won’t get us out. We need to connect to something greater.

[00:02:26] And this last one that I’m gonna share really resonates with me. She said, I wanna live my life and my commitments and give myself permission to live a deeper purpose. I would love to organize my life around my intentions to leave the world a better place, but I feel like I need a roadmap.

[00:02:39] And I think oftentimes when we feel like there’s more for our lives, we get stuck because we ask ourselves questions like, well, who am I to make a difference? Or, I don’t even know where to start with this. I’m so overwhelmed with the things that I’m doing right here, right now.

[00:02:55] So if any of these things resonate with you, I want you to stay with me over the next three weeks [00:03:00] because I’m going to be sharing some secrets to help you to make the impact that you feel called to make. I’m hopefully going to get you into a very different state of being. I have experienced not only the excitement and the joy, but also the relief of letting go of my own self-doubts and my own imposter syndrome. And what has transpired from that is that I feel alive and I’m realizing that I’m making an impact in the way that only I can.

[00:03:29] And that is true for you as well. You have something special. You have a spark to share with the world that cannot be done by anyone else but you. And that is what I am here to help you to create. Not only that, but I’m going to help you to learn how to make time for the thing that you feel is calling you.

[00:03:50] I am gonna share a little bit about my life. I know there are a lot of people that are newer to the podcast that have just tuned in because of the change of the [00:04:00] name and all of the things.

[00:04:01] So if you are brand new to my world, welcome, I am super excited that you’re here. I wanna just share a little bit about my personal background and also what inspires me and the things that I’m hoping to do that will help to make an impact in the world.

[00:04:16] So, like I mentioned, I am Janeen Alley, I have four living children and I am married to Merrill. He is an Air Force dentist, and we have lived all over the world. It really has been a privilege for us to serve in the military, but also all of the different places that we have lived.

[00:04:33] It’s been incredible. We’ve made some amazing friends in all the places that we’ve lived, but we’ve also been exposed to a lot of different cultures and people of the world and that has been such a treasure to me. So when I was a child, I don’t think I’ve ever told this story before, but when I was a child growing up, I grew up in Spokane, Washington and I have three siblings.

[00:04:53] My oldest brother, Brian, is my biological brother, and then I have two siblings in between us. My brother Kevin is [00:05:00] adopted from Korea and my sister Minda, I’ve actually had her on the podcast, she is adopted from India and if you missed that podcast episode with her, go and listen to it. And her story is so inspiring.

[00:05:10] She’s such an inspiring person and she just wrote a book, a children’s book about her life. And so I will for sure be pulling her on the podcast when that is published because I want you guys to hear a little bit more about her story again. My parents were married in 1969 so I would say I would consider my parents activists. I remember my mom telling stories about black arm bands and campus activities and things that were very different from my campus and college experience. But I am proud of my heritage. I feel like I come from a long line of people who stand for truth and social justice.

[00:05:45] My grandpa actually was a preacher in the south and he was very involved in the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties. I actually have a picture of him at the Dallas airport picking up Martin Luther King Jr. At a conference that he was putting on, and they were [00:06:00] collaborating together on that.

[00:06:01] That is a part of my history that I just really love. I feel like I come from a line of people who just really love people and are concerned about other people’s wellbeing and their experience in the world. My dad is a physician. My mom is a teacher. She has two master’s degrees and ended up teaching English as a second language to adult immigrants in Spokane when I was a kid.

[00:06:26] But they wanted to adopt kids that had physical disabilities on purpose. They felt like with their background and their training and how they were educated, they would be more aware of their needs and they’d have better access to care. And so my sister Minda, she is a paraplegic, she’s paralyzed from the waist down.

[00:06:44] And my brother Kevin Had tuberculosis in his hip and had multiple surgeries when he was a child. But beyond that, not only did we have an international immediate family, but my parents were always welcoming in other people from different nationalities to be able to help [00:07:00] them in their journey in life.

[00:07:02] So we lived pretty close to Whitworth College at the time. Now it’s Whitworth University, but we had college age kids that would come and stay holidays with us and we’d take care of them because it was too expensive for them to go back to their home countries. We had people from Africa and Asia and South America.

[00:07:18] They were always coming in and out of our home when I was a child. And that helped me to kind of broaden my worldview. There was one experience though that I had as a child that really shaped the way that I see things. When I was 11 years old, my family took a trip to Korea for two weeks and then to India for about two and a half months, and it was a really unique experience for me at that time of my life.

[00:07:45] I can say with confidence that this trip changed my life for, for multiple reasons, not just because I was in a different country, which was really neat, but I had never experienced poverty like I did when I was in India. Like literally [00:08:00] seeing the sights and smells and taking it all in was so different from anything that I had experienced.

[00:08:07] And that included people who were living on the streets, not finding places to shower or take care of themselves or go to the bathroom. And I still remember being in cabs and rickshaws when we were there, and having people come up and ask for money and just feeling sick to my stomach that I wasn’t able to help.

[00:08:27] I still remember specific faces and vivid memories from that period of time in my life. While we were in India, because my dad was a physician, he wanted to spend about six weeks in a hospital and when we were there, we lived at the home of the hospital administrator whose wife was also a physician at this hospital.

[00:08:47] And it was Really different. I mean, I remember taking a bath or taking a shower from a spigot that came up to about shin height on me and using a bucket. And the, the drain literally went [00:09:00] right out the house and into the yard on the outside of the house. And I also remember that there were shrews that would fight underneath the cots that my siblings and I slept on at night.

[00:09:10] And seeing their little shadows from the light that would spill into our room from the crack in the door into our room, and seeing the shadows of these mics, or these shrews literally fighting and tumbling underneath our beds at night. And the reason why we didn’t catch the shrews was because they kept the cobras out of the house.

[00:09:28] And that was of course way different than my house in Spokane, Washington. So From a very young age, I had this impression of the stark contrast between my life and lives of children that were similar to me living on the other side of the world that had

[00:09:46] pretty different access to resources than I did. And because of this experience that I had as a young child, I knew that it was part of my mission to make a difference the world. And I know that there are things that I can do right here in Colorado that [00:10:00] would help with the problems that I see just in my community here outside of Denver.

[00:10:05] But. I feel like it is part of my calling to be able to connect with people who live in different countries and different circumstances and have very little access to healthy resources like water and plumbing and food and those kinds of things. So I’ve spent a good portion of my adult life, of course, raising my kids.

[00:10:27] I have been privileged to be able to homeschool my kids, and I’m gonna talk a little bit more about that in just a second. But also feeling this nudge for more. And part of that nudge for more came actually as I homeschooled my children, because as I was schooling them, and again, immersed in the studies and the things that they were learning about different cultures

[00:10:48] and people around the world and feeling really as inspired by the things that I was learning. But even though I felt this nudge for more, I was also feeling helpless to do anything outside of [00:11:00] my immediate sphere of influence like my children, my family, and my friends.

[00:11:05] Now, don’t get me wrong, I do feel very powerfully that being a mom is incredibly important work, but there comes a time when it’s not quite as busy. Life isn’t quite as busy as it was when I had little kids around all the time, and through my experiences of not only my childhood experiences with the international

[00:11:27] siblings and friends that we encountered, but also through my life of traveling the world as a military spouse and educating my children, I can look back and see the Lord guiding my life to be a force for good in the world. So like I mentioned, I am a military spouse and we’ve been really fortunate to have two overseas assignments.

[00:11:45] We’ve been stationed for four years in Japan, and then immediately after that we were transferred to Germany where we lived for another four years. And in between those two assignments, I got the impression to homeschool my kids. And I had people ask me like, impression from who? [00:12:00] Impression from God. It wasn’t something that I just created and this was a real struggle for me.

[00:12:06] In fact, not only just having my kids home with me all day and trying to think of ways that I could educate them without the support of a teacher or a school system or anything over there. ’cause we lived in a foreign country. But also because this was a new country for me and we lived in a German village, I felt isolated from friends and family.

[00:12:25] Not only because I lived around people who didn’t speak my language, but also because of the time change. I wasn’t able to get in touch with people as easily. In Germany it was challenging and I really struggled. Not only did I struggle with the isolation, but I also struggled with the weather. And I’ve talked about this quite a bit on the podcast, but because of my struggle with anxiety and depression, and with my background in wellness and fitness, I knew how to take care of myself, but I wasn’t taking care of myself during this time that I was stressed and anxious.

[00:12:56] I had to figure out new ways to learn how to dial in my health [00:13:00] and make that a priority. It was something that I literally had to take a stand for in my life to make happen. If I didn’t do that, it wouldn’t have happened, and I’m gonna talk about taking a stand next week on the podcast. But at the end of these experiences of living overseas and all of the things that happened with my mental and emotional health there, and kind of rising above those challenges and taking better care of myself and feeling really empowered to do all of those things, I had another impression to start my business in 2015. And I’ve had the opportunity to create courses and a podcast and a community and a platform from these nudges and these promptings that I have felt, which have been such an incredible blessing in my life. I have learned how to coach, which has really been a privilege.

[00:13:52] It has been an honor for me to work with the women who have moved in and out of my life and have allowed me to be part of their journey. But you might [00:14:00] think up until this point of the podcast, that my story is super unique. Let me just tell you, so is yours. You have a journey, you have experiences in your life that have taught you lessons that will be able to help other people.

[00:14:18] I did not think that my story was really anything special until more recently, and it’s not special because it’s better in any way than anybody else’s story or experiences. It’s special because it’s mine. Well, I want you to understand this. I want you to hear me say this, and you can even push pause on the podcast for a moment to kinda think about this for a moment.

[00:14:37] But I want you to think what are your unique experiences? Because these experiences are often a guiding light to how we can make a difference in the world. We are all here to lift and to love and encourage and support each other and make the world a better place. These are the kinds of things that bring our souls

[00:14:56] joy is living from our truest and highest self. [00:15:00] This is what creates a life that is steeped in meaning. And I believe that if we collectively use our unique ideas and life experience, we can solve the problems that we are up against in the world. We often don’t know when or why we’re called to do the thing that is ours to do, but I think we can all agree that there are things that need to change

[00:15:22] in order to live in a world that is socially just, environmentally sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling for all people. So I feel like my mission is twofold. I work with women who are looking to transform not just themselves, but also our future. And fortunately for me, I’ve also been privileged that the work that I do in my business helps to create means to further equity and social justice in the world.

[00:15:50] I’ve been able to support organizations throughout my entrepreneurial journey. Like water.org and Kiva International. So here [00:16:00] is the truth about the situation that we are in altogether globally. The time truly has come for the feminine to rise. And I’m not talking about women per se.

[00:16:12] I’m talking about the feminine energy, the yin energy that is within all of us. Both women and men need to find their full expression of their yin energy in order for us to balance the overbearing yang of the patriarchy. This is something that I have learned from Lynn Twist that has changed my life.

[00:16:35] And I think also, not only have I learned this from just looking around and my experience running a business, but also because I’m a yoga teacher and because I actually teach yin yoga. This is something that the principles of yin and restorative yoga are things that have literally changed my life. They have changed my nervous system in a way where [00:17:00] I am a lot more peaceful.

[00:17:01] I am not so fiery and so hot. In my temperament, and I’m able to soften into my experience, we need to uplift an enliven, heart-centered, feminine values. Like I said, this isn’t just for women. This is for all of us. We need to uplift values like compassion, and empathy, and nurturance, and diversity, and equity and humility and love.

[00:17:25] When we do this, we’re going to be able to collectively bring balance into a new world,. A world that is a you and me world, not the world that we’re currently living in, which is a you or me world. The you and me world does exist in my imagination. I think it does exist in our future. It’s what we innately desire to create.

[00:17:51] But we can’t get there if we’re continually downplaying our greatness and talking ourselves out of the impact that we feel called to [00:18:00] make. Now, listen, I totally understand imposter syndrome, and I really do understand self-doubt. I have felt those two things many times, probably even today. And I understand that you might think that your mission is insignificant, but this is the furthest thing from the truth.

[00:18:19] I used to believe this about myself as well, and now I just don’t pay attention to any of those voices. And listen, there isn’t a right way to do life. You might be looking around and feeling like you’re doing it wrong because you’re not doing it the way that you’re seeing everyone else doing it.

[00:18:36] If everyone was the same, if they all had the same way of doing things, or if they all had the same mission, life would be pretty samey and it would be pretty boring. Right? Your ideas and your dreams are yours and they’re perfect, and they are what is needed right now. I remember, and I, I think I’ve shared this story before on the podcast, but I remember [00:19:00] when I first started to dream,

[00:19:03] i, I have to tell you, I’m now somebody who is a huge believer in dreams, but that hasn’t always been the case. My dream was to become a mom and after I became a mom, it didn’t really go any further than that. But my very first dream when I started to dream of something outside of my family, something that was just mine, was to become a yoga teacher.

[00:19:25] And it’s kind of funny that that was the first dream because I had had school dreams and I had had other dreams and all of that kind of turned off when I had kids. But then from that point, my very first dream that came to me was becoming a yoga teacher. And I really hadn’t done any yoga at that point.

[00:19:41] I had done a little bit, I had a, I had a Rodney Yee, D V d, I could do that D v D over and over and over again. I think sometimes I still have that flow memorized, but that was it. That was kind of the extent of my yoga experience. But from there, because I gave myself permission to [00:20:00] dream that dream, so many other dreams have been born.

[00:20:03] So many of them have been realized. Some of them have not even been realized yet. But I feel like your mission is to bring your dream to life, and I’m here to help you do that. And that is what becoming the c e O of your life is all about. And I did a podcast a little while back talking about how this tagline kind of came to life.

[00:20:27] So this tagline came to life because I was working with one of my beloved clients, somebody who I have worked with for many years actually. And she is the person that I created the burnout breakthrough for, and also becoming the c e O of Your Life Mastermind. I created these programs for her and other people like her, and she was in this space where she just was like, ah, I’m just so frustrated with my life. Because her husband had just gotten a pretty hefty promotion at work, something that he was really excited about, but she was not super on board because [00:21:00] of the amount of time that this new position at work was taking.

[00:21:03] And she felt like she was waiting around a lot of her life. So I was trying to help her to see like, what if you have a thing that’s yours, what if you were able to create space for that thing by becoming the c e o of your life, meaning you’re able to simplify or delegate or eliminate things in your life to make time for your mission, for your purpose in this life.

[00:21:29] And that is how this podcast was born. That’s how my Mastermind was born, is because I feel like all of the things that I have experienced in my life and the ways that I dream and have visions for a better world, and also the work that I do with my clients and the women who I love so much who have allowed me to be part of their life journey and the things that they want to accomplish. It’s all kind of coming together for me, and that is what feels really exciting. So actually, I know that I [00:22:00] started off the podcast telling you that there were going to be a three week series.

[00:22:03] It’s actually because I spent quite a bit of time kind of going through the story, I’m actually gonna make this a four week series. I just, on the impulse making that decision. So stay with me for the next four weeks. I’m gonna be covering the secrets of how to do this and how to rise above the mundane, reignite your passion for life so that you can make a difference in the world.

[00:22:25] So I want you to stay tuned. Alright, you guys. So if you’ve been inspired by this podcast so far, like I said, I want you to continue to listen in or if you wanna connect with me just reach out. I would love to book a call and find out ways that we could connect and I can help you to become the c e o of your life.

[00:22:42] So all you need to do is just go to janeenalley.com/ceo and make an appointment with me, and we will connect over there.