It’s dreadful, isn’t it? The feeling of being stuck in life. When your lack of confidence overcomes your desire to pursue something new and challenging — or perhaps when you’re stuck in a work-life cycle that you feel unable to escape from.
It’s natural to feel this way. The thought of moving out of our comfort zone and plunging into unknown terrains intimidates the best of us. And procrastination prevents you from trying something new or putting your energy towards something that you love.
Amelia Earhart said, “The most effective way to do it is to do it!” And to add fuel to the fire, I’d also like to quote Hal Elrod, who said, “Let today be the day you give up who you’ve been for who you can become.”
These are two compelling quotes from two very strong personalities. And to elaborate on the importance of finding meaning in your life by building the right habits, I have another powerful personality, Jen Sincero, in this episode of The School of Greatness. A renowned author, Jen has learned hard lessons that have helped her thrive. Going from being broke to having financial freedom is not just a familiar plot in movies: it has also been the plot of Jen’s life.
Together with Jen, we’ll discuss how overcoming your fears can help you turn your life around and get unstuck.
Jen Sincero is a #1 New York Times best-selling author, a success coach, a motivational speaker, and a badass! Through her various seminars and speaking engagements, Jen has helped transform the personal and professional lives of countless people.
Feeling frustrated at her 40-year-old self with an empty bank account, Jen rose to become a successful entrepreneur traveling the world. Her book You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life, has spent over four years on the New York Times bestseller list. It is available in over 35 languages and has sold over 3 million copies, and is still growing in popularity globally.
Her follow-up books You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth (2017), You are a Badass Everyday (2018), and Badass Habits (2020), are incredible reads and bestsellers as well. With her signature brand of motivational comedy, Jen’s work has appeared in multiple media outlets like Comedy Central, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Oprah Magazine, The Dr. Oz Show, and The Howards Stern show, to name a few.
Jen is both hilarious and exceptionally wise, and I expect this interview to be an inspiration for many.
Every successful person has one thing in common: a string of habits that they swear by. Most of these habits are so small that you may be shocked to realize the immense benefit that they result in.
“The thing that shocked me the most when I started out was the habit of belief and the habit of speech. … Back in the day when I was living … in my garage and was figuring out what my problem was, I was almost angry hearing over and over again [about how our] thoughts and beliefs create our reality. … But when I finally got over my grouchiness and just signed on, … this habit changed my life. … To really shift your mindset and be really conscious of your words, thoughts and beliefs, is one of the most powerful things you can do.” – Jen Sincero
The words that we use are so powerful, says Jen, that they can actually create our reality.
“If you tell something to yourself over and over again, it starts to create a new groove in your belief system, and you start thinking differently. And if you take actions over and over, you start to believe differently. … I believe in myself in a lot of areas, and I don’t believe in myself in many areas too. … I didn’t believe that I could make money, but I was done being broke. … So even when I didn’t know how I was going to get there, … I was [still] really excited to do [something about ] it. … So I started with that, and then I took the actions and [worked on] my thoughts, beliefs, words, and habits, … and slowly my belief started getting bigger and bigger.” – Jen Sincero
It doesn’t matter if the world is against you, or if you don’t believe you have the resources to achieve your goals. … If you make the choice to believe in yourself — and then behave that way — you can do pretty much anything. That level of confidence is nothing short of a superpower, especially if — like Jen — you’ve endured decades of challenges and frustration. That’s when you should be most excited about adopting new habits that can help you rewrite your life’s story.
At points in life, we as humans tend to be faced with a kind of scarcity mindset, where we question our abilities and our potential to grow our finances. While some of us allow this fear to dominate our thoughts and beliefs, a few of us rise up to the challenge and focus on taking steps to develop the skills we need to create personal financial abundance…
With one such story, Jen explains how:
“One of the major steps I took was hiring a coach over a decade ago [when the concept of coaches was alien]. I heard this coach speaking on stage, and it was as if she was speaking … right to me. She was helping women entrepreneurs with their finances specifically, and her fee was one-third of my annual income at the time. … And because I had really made the decision at the time, … instead of finding the reason why I shouldn’t pay her the money, … I [started looking for] ways to pay her this money.” – Jen Sincero
I’ve always been curious about investing time or resources into things that scare us, so Jen and I talked about this. Specifically, I wanted to know what she felt was more potent in terms of personal growth: workshops and coaching, or simply the act of doing something scary?
“[The action and the lesson] are both valuable … and will both kick your ass! … [With coaching,] what I learned was that I was a total badass, and that I was not screwing around because I was doing every single thing [that my coach told me], no matter how terrifying it was. And I tripled my income in three months after starting with [my coach].” – Jen Sincero
Before starting on her path to success, Jen used to feel intimidated by people so wealthy they owned private jets and similar luxuries. Jen believed she would never achieve that level of abundance. Yet at some point in her journey, Jen took it into her own hands to change her belief. With that shift, she began scaling heights that had never been imaginable to her before.
Jen believes in the power of chanting mantras. Her mantra, “Money comes to me easily,” helped her create a money-making mindset.t. But is having the right mindset enough?
“Every time I [felt] that I can’t afford [something], I would say ‘money flows to me easily and freely.’ And because I am human and I love to be right, I now set about proving that money [indeed] flows easily and freely to me. … It really kicks your butt in a great way if you’re serious about it. And if you write a mantra that feels good, you do not have to believe in [it] at first.” – Jen Sincero
This made me even more curious, since telling ourselves things that we don’t believe to be true — like “money comes to me easily” when we don’t feel like it does — can feel dishonest and wrong. So how do we make it feel true? How do we make saying these things feel good and right, and continue feeling like people with integrity?
“[It depends on] how you define integrity. … I think there’s integrity in respecting your excitement. It has great meaning to you, and you think that it is going to improve your life in so many different ways. … [If you believe that] you are great at [something], you feel good.” – Jen Sincero
Many of us tell tall tales about our past. Sometimes, we even begin to feel like some of those tall tales are 100% true. And that’s okay — memory is a tricky thing. However, what we actually need to be doing is thinking about our future memories. Imagine what those memories will be today, now, before they’ve happened. By imagining them now, Jen says you’re manifesting those memories. It’s a way of connecting us to the future spiritually, and letting that connection fuel our beliefs and decisions.
Folks, this interview with Jen Sincero was filled with so many power-packed ways to unleash your potential by embracing your experiences, and forming new beliefs. There was a lot that I could not cover in this post, but you can use this link to listen to Jen and I talk about her experiences and learnings. You’ll love her raging and badass personality!
“Allowing yourself to be whatever’s in your heart, regardless of what anybody says,” is Jen Sincero’s definition of greatness. And if you desire something and want something deeply, the universe has the tools and resources for you to manifest it.
To learn more about the impact that Jen Sincero is creating in people’s lives, check out her website here. And if you want to follow her social footprint, you can find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Do you like what we are doing at The School of Greatness? Do you find value and inspiration from our meaningful conversations with impactful people? If yes, I would be forever grateful if you could give a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, and share this episode with as many people as you feel would benefit from it.
And don’t forget to tag Jen (@jensincero) and me (@lewishowes) on Instagram with a screenshot of your greatest takeaways from this episode.
Before I end this episode, I would like to leave you with Jen Sincero’s three truths of life: “Reality is make-believe, fear is the best compass towards greatness, and you are a BADASS!”
To Greatness,
Music Credit
Kaibu by Killercats
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