Seen and Heard with Prue Aja
Ready to manifest a life that's aligned and energised? Seen and heard helps you deepen your connection to your higher self, evolve your mindset, and step into your full personal power. Through stories, live coaching sessions and interviews you will feel inspired and motivated empowering you to live a purpose-driven life by design.
Seen and Heard with Prue Aja
Janey Martino: The Power of Rituals, Intentional Goals, and Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Generation
In this episode of the Seen & Heard Personal Branding Podcast, I sit down with Janey Martino—an accomplished entrepreneur, coach, and co-founder of the globally recognized mental health platform, Smiling Mind. Janey shares her unique approach to balancing structure and creativity, the importance of rituals in daily life, and her mission to empower the next generation through emotional intelligence.
We dive deep into:
- How rituals can transform your life, one small step at a time.
- The journey of building Kintsugi Way, Janey’s coaching business focused on intentional growth and alignment.
- Her groundbreaking work with Smiling Mind, supporting over 9 million people worldwide and 20% of Australian schools.
- Why emotional intelligence is the key to creating lasting change for families and the next generation.
- The power of leaning into your creativity and embracing the unknown.
If you’re ready to build a more intentional life, empower the next generation, and explore the balance between structure and flow, this episode is for you.
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To work directly with me, bookings are available at https://www.prueaja.com
I am so incredibly excited to share this podcast episode with you. I have been working with Janie Martino for nearly 10 years doing her personal brand photography, and every time we talk or catch up or do a shoot together we go so deep, so quick, and that is why I wanted to get her on here. We love talking about spirituality, business, wellness, all of those things, so I hope what you get out of this episode is really beneficial. A little bit about Jenny Martino she's an uber successful entrepreneur, business leader and coach. She's known for founding Smiling Mind, which is Australia's number one mental health app, and Katsingi Wei, her coaching business, with multiple successful exits in media, fintech and health tech. She's also a passionate advisor and investor in startups and helping individuals and teams reach their full potential.
Speaker 1:In this episode, we go into the importance of thinking less and feeling more, also aligning your goals with your values, implementing rituals into your daily life, no matter how big or small if it's just taking five minutes to have a cup of tea and looking to the morning sun and how Smiling Mind is empowering the next generation through emotional intelligence, which I believe is going to save many, many lives and make an incredible future for our world and the people, so I hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome to the Seen and Heard podcast, created for you if you're a consultant, coach or creative and want to enhance your connection to your higher self, evolve your mindset and embody your personal brand, creating freedom, fulfillment and success. Whether you're leveling up or navigating a new chapter, this podcast helps you own your power and show up confidently to be seen and heard. I'm your host, pruaja, personal brand coach, photographer and motivational speaker. So nice to have you come in and chat and always go so deep, so quick. Whenever we see each other, we do.
Speaker 2:It's joyful.
Speaker 1:We love it we do love it, which you know, it's January. I just want to dive in a little bit about what last year was about for you and what your big vision for this year is. I'm going straight there, oh okay.
Speaker 2:Love it. So last year for me was about bringing Kintsugi Way and sort of transitioning into coaching and working with people one-on-one, bringing that to life, but in a really organic, more experimental way. So I think I've known you for a long time and you've seen many of my businesses come to life and I'm very planned and organised and intentional, which I think is great. But I feel that what that has led to is being in my head around how I bring things into the world and create, rather than also like leaning more into my feminine and my creativity and just allowing things to evolve. So I decided with Kintsugi Way because very much came inspiration and passion and the connection and joy I get from working with individuals and seeing them grow and move through challenges and me helping to facilitate that process that I decided to, yeah, just take a very different approach. So it was a lot of testing and learning with methods and how I work with people, with a kind group of sort of small group of people that were willing to do that with me. I'm doing a hypnotherapy course, so I'll complete that this year and bringing in business and talking to people about, like founders and individuals around, how they show up at work but understanding that we're just one whole person and so things that block us and patterns we have that hold us back as leaders or in the workplace or in our businesses are exactly the same ones that hold us back when we walk through the door at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I would say last year was about experimentation, connection, birthing, kintsugi Way. This year is very much around consolidation of that starting to work with groups like co-founders, groups of leaders, like co-founders, groups of leaders and then and working more on that sort of interpersonal like how we show up as individuals and how the impact that has on both us and teams and and senior people we're working with, and also continuing on with some of the content that is coming out of the thematics when I work with people. So there's two books I launched just before Christmas that really were based on lots of the frameworks that I see working with the people that I've been working with. So, I guess, continuing some of that evolution and experimentation but bringing it into the day-to-day and also allowing people to access if they can't or don't want to work with me individually there are tools and and sort of things that I know work that they can have access to well.
Speaker 1:I just think it's incredible that people will now be able to have access to Janie Martino, because you have worked with some really incredible companies, built incredible businesses like Smiling Mind, and I feel like you've kind of been behind the scenes of things and, you know, done incredible work and now people can work with you and understand, you know, get to know your tools that have helped make these incredible transformations. Can you, would you mind sharing a couple of the big highlights of your career so people can actually cause you don't? I know you don't really talk about it, but I know you've done amazing things and I'd really like you know people to know a bit about what you have done in the last 20 years. You don't have to go 20 years. Let's think about your top three. You know transformations that you've done in businesses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think and most people expect this to all be positive, which it absolutely isn't for me which I think is where the gold is, and the whole philosophy of kintsugi way around. You know that beautiful Japanese philosophy of putting gold into the broken pieces and creating a piece of ceramic that's even more beautiful, and I I connect with that. Uh, so much so. The top three for me are absolutely the creation of Smiling Mind, I think that is. I've never earned a cent from Smiling Mind.
Speaker 2:It's a not-for-profit organisation, it's purpose-led and the reason and in saying that, it has brought me by far the most joy of any of the businesses or organisations that I've brought into the world because it's had huge impact. You know we've had nine million downloads. A quarter of schools use our program and we've got big plans for Smiling Mind to get into every primary school in the next five years and we're determined to have that happen so we can make systemic change. So it's the ability for me to be able to say I have had preemptive mental health tools and things that I've used since I probably was in my 30s that have been transformational for me and I want our future generations to have that as their business as usual, and you know so, that to me, is absolutely number one of something that I'm the most proud of and that has brought me the most joy and growth but, um, I just want to, um, like that is just going to be such a game changer.
Speaker 1:I remember when I was learning meditation and someone saying that if every eight-year-old was taught how to meditate, we would have world peace by the time that generation became adults. And you're actually doing this. Yeah, and for the people that don't actually know what Smiling Mind is, can you give a little, a quick overview of that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so we started. We've been going 12 years. We started in mindfulness meditation and utilizing that as a preventive mental health tool, sitting alongside curriculum-based social and emotional learning modules that were able to be utilised in schools. But the beautiful part of our program is we also had an early learning to adult program that was free and accessible and that still exists in our app for everybody. So, you know, families use it together, adults use it, workplaces use it. So we really had that approach of like a full community approach and creating that flywheel that allowed us to not only have a program that was, you know, in schools but that could also be utilized in the home. So we had, you know, full access to family units and also, when young people came home and felt the feelings they could tap into the program.
Speaker 2:In the last 12 months we've broadened it out to create what we call build mental resilience and strength and we've created content and programming around each of those, again mapped to the curriculum but also accessible at home.
Speaker 2:So, if you look at the app, we've actually replatformed it and it's got, I think, 700 to 800 pieces of content in there to build mental fitness and emotional literacy.
Speaker 2:So we have generations of people that can grow up and recognize and embrace the emotions they're feeling and also know what to do to regulate. They're feeling and also know what to do to regulate. So we just felt that mindfulness it was a great entry point. But now that we have the trust and the footprint that we do in the community, we're really keen to broaden our program and have that penetration of 100% of primary schools just to make sure that, yeah, as you said that everyone grows up with similar to PE classes. Everyone grows up knowing that moving your body and having some kind of embedded physical activity is good for you, and we want people to feel the same about their mental fitness. It's exactly the same Like we put so much time into our physical fitness and our physical body and, very literally, to the fitness of our mind. So that's that. I guess that's how we wanted people to start framing it.
Speaker 1:And the incredible thing about that I've even witnessed with my daughter, who's 14 and is very emotionally aware, like she even pulls me up If I kind of yell about something I'll get frustrated. She'd be like, mom, you realize, this is your thing, like I actually haven't done anything and I'm like, oh my goodness, and just having that awareness of you know how she's feeling, she really listens to her body and where she's at, if she wants to be social or not. And if we look at, say, our parents' generation and I know with my parents and then their parents, you don't talk about emotions, you don't talk about feelings, you don't talk about where you're at. It gets pushed down and this is what I personally believe causes illness. It's when emotions aren't felt and talked about and if people aren't seen and heard and process that. That's what causes so many of the health issues.
Speaker 1:And this is just my belief and from what I know and what I have seen and personally felt um happen. So this work is actually really, I guess, like you know, healing a generation, but also preparing and getting the next generation, you know, clear-headed and like empowering them and making huge, huge change. So and I love that if you're really focusing on working with children as well and getting into schools. It's incredible work saving lives yeah, we're.
Speaker 2:We're really proud of it and super excited about what's to come. Um, so that would be one. The second one would be, I think, what most people would see as an epic fail. It was a company that I so I built a company, sold it to ANZ Bank and spent some time in the bank there, and while I was in the bank, that's when I started investing in other early stage businesses and advising, and one of those businesses was one called Unlocked. It was an incredibly strong business idea. It was a B2B model, global.
Speaker 2:From day one. I was a seed investor in it and had a capital register with all the who's who on there and built very quickly, so within three years, had the ability to have the run rate revenue to list and we built it towards an IPO. The founder decided to step back from the CEO role and so I was to take that on and list the business, and we were all prepared to do that. And then Google removed us from the place for about eight weeks before we were to list the business and we had all investors lined up and we'd done the roadshow. And, yeah, it was just the most unbelievable couple of months trying to like fight that in court and move through that process as the leader of a business which, unfortunately, we were unsuccessful doing that. So we had to. The business was placed into administration so I'd gone from, I guess, having a number of successful businesses I'd built, exited, I'd created Smiling Mind and this business also was an incredible business and very successful very quickly and quite high profile to it not existing and having to tell the team that it was no longer and investors, and so I think that for me was what you look at from the outside and say a huge career smackdown and it took me quite a long time to recover. And I was very, very lucky to have one of the investors in the business come and say come and run my venture portfolio, which I ended up doing for a couple of years and that really allowed me to restore my confidence and have time to, I guess, just really work on.
Speaker 2:What does it look like when something isn't successful? Like I remember someone saying to me you know, everything you touch turns to gold. Someone saying to me you know everything you touch turns to gold. And like before this happened and it was very public and it was just a really big blow and there was a lot of you know my identity as a business leader and a previously successful I guess founder. In external terms. What does that mean, you know, and what does that mean for how I, my performance, how I see myself, how others see myself, which at the time, I cared a lot more about as well, and I felt ashamed, you know, of what had happened happened.
Speaker 2:I also think the Australian ecosystem doesn't deal with failure in quite the same way that other places around the globe do. So. Where we grow up, um, you know, not necessarily being as resilient to failure and embracing failure as much as we can. But if I look at that from a personal growth and transformational point of view, that's why it's in my top three, because I actually I'm more grateful for that experience than I ever could be now looking back at it.
Speaker 2:One, because you know not everything you do is successful and that doesn't mean that you're not a great leader, a great operator. You know, sometimes things are in your control, sometimes they're not, but you know basing and also, who was I without my business persona, my business skills? You know, and being able to be much more focused on that and clear on that, I think has given me then the ability to bring something like Kintsugi Way into the world in a very different way. That just allows the concept and the work to lead, rather than it being about me or my identity or my next thing. So just like that letting go of ego, I guess.
Speaker 1:I'm wondering. Oh, there's so many things there I want to mention. Firstly, huge going up against. Was it Google? Yeah, like that's not you it's not, but something you mentioned there about you know who you were without that job or without that position and being seen as that person, and I feel like that's a huge awakening point for people to go through as well. I felt the same thing when I moved up here. It was almost like a shattering of the mask, of the facade even though it wasn't really a facade, but it was kind of like this mask that I built up around me to label and put myself in a box and be seen a certain way and it got to a breaking point where that just had to shatter and be actually, you know, come back home to who I really was and my true, authentic self.
Speaker 2:What I'm curious to know, like what did you go through to get to that point? Like, I mean, I think the the very public, you know perception of failure was probably the best thing that could, because it just forced me to, it just forced me into like, if you think about your transition, it was intentional and you know, you followed your intuition. I hadn't been doing that like I and, if I'm honest, like the work I'm doing now is that's where my heart is, that's where I feel most aligned and I'd lost. That you know. And I think sometimes, if you don't listen, the universe will do that for you and give you a little tap and if you don't, A big slap.
Speaker 2:It's going to be a big slap, exactly. So I think for me, I'd love to say that I did this, but I didn't. Uh, I you know it was done to me and for me really, um, so that I could have that shatter I think were the words you used and then rebuild it and reconnect with what was really important to me, what I love to do, because I think a lot of the things, because I am a really I'm a strong operator and an executor and so and I'd attached a lot of my worthiness to getting shit done, that my brand and um, and that sort of drive driving energy, uh, which still has a place, but I think, you know, it just has started to take more of a back seat and just be invited in if and when necessary, rather than being out the front.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, which actually leads me, just before we jumped on, we're talking about, you know, moving into this year with thinking less and feeling more, and I feel like that's kind of aligned to the intuitive things. How does your intuition show up, or how do you know that you, you know when the mind's getting in the way and which one to listen to, and, yeah, what does that? How does that show up for you?
Speaker 2:I think for me and I do a lot of work with people on this, which is why, like I wanted a really strong theme this year of think less, feel more, which is why I wanted a really strong theme this year of think less, feel more it shows up when you're just more focused on outside than inside, and what I've started to learn really notice in the last 12 months especially, is when something doesn't feel good, like a conversation will give me a sort of an upset feeling in my stomach, or I walk into an environment and my body doesn't feel as alive. You know there's components of it that shut down a little or like just starting to notice that I think I, prior to you know, a year or so ago, I was not tuning into all that gift that we have access to every day of. If something doesn't feel good in your body, there is a reason for that and go, go search for it. And even if your head's telling you something different, your body doesn't lie how you feel in someone's presence. You know, and when you sit down and connect with your very best friend and you know how much that fills your cup and how does your body feel after that exchange it feels alive.
Speaker 2:So it was that. Yeah, it's that life. So it was that. Yeah, it's that it's, and I just we don't utilize that tool anywhere near as much as we could or should. So it's also about like, what can we bring in in terms of somatic practice and different things to to keep ourselves in touch with that?
Speaker 1:definitely um, which I want to talk about, one of your books which is about rituals, but I also just want to bring up. I sometimes find like I intuitively know what I've got to do and but sometimes the biggest thing and the biggest step, I get this like my body's like oh no, I feel tired, or start being distracted or avoid doing that and doing all the other things on my list of things to do except that thing, and it's like, okay, well, my intuition says that that's the important thing, but why can't I do it? Do you ever get that? Or is that just something that I struggle with? And how do you? You know you ever get that, or is that just something that I struggle with?
Speaker 2:And then you know I definitely get that, but I think what you'll find is that's your, that's still your mind. It's not your body. Yeah, and, and one thing I've really noticed, particularly working with a lot of women, is just to watch our words. Like how often do you tell?
Speaker 1:yourself out loud that you're tired.
Speaker 2:For instance, I've noticed like on the weekend I was saying to my partner and I'm like oh, stop saying it, because now I'm telling my body this, I'm affirming it and manifesting it and getting a vicious cycle yep and I got into a real trap of that and I think that's probably also woken me up a little bit to the power of like feeling into your body and actually what is your mind versus your body? Is that? You know, being perimenopausal, I'm perimenopausal, I'm this, I'm that, I'm tired and I was like, am I or am I just? And I'm not discounting, there's plenty of symptoms.
Speaker 2:But I also found myself talking about it constantly to other people, to the boys at home, to anyone who would listen, and just to myself. And then I really I just stopped. I was like I am, I'm so I do a lot of emotional freedom technique and I put it into one of my the, the sessions, and I I put I'm tired and menopausal and I just to just stop that limiting self-belief and I've had so much more energy and I hardly feel tired, oh so good yeah, it's the story we're telling ourselves and it's like you get the opportunity to rewrite the story that you want.
Speaker 1:So doing the tapping that helps integrate the new story.
Speaker 2:Not necessarily it helps. It's like emotional acupuncture. I guess it's more about sort of processing and freeing yourself of, like the limiting self-belief or the story that you're telling yourself or the memory that you have in the subconscious, or whatever it might be. It might be small, it might be large, but yeah, so I do that with myself a lot and I have for many years, but I've been doing a bit more work with that and hypnotherapy just to tap into those patterns, because a lot of great work we can do consciously and talk through and have, I guess, tactical and practical ways. But it is really nice to also be able to, if we need to, to move through some of those sub things that sit in the subconscious that might be holding us back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, and that's actually yeah, why. I love kinesiology as well, how that directly talks to your body and it says you know where there's a block and where that emotion comes from from the past as well that wasn't healed or talked about or seen, which these kids of the next generation hopefully won't have to deal with as much. So tell me a little bit about you've got these two books, and I don't want to say the name wrong on it, but one of them's about rituals and one of them's about goals. Let's firstly start about the rituals. So tell me a little bit about what, how, what's involved in that book?
Speaker 2:Well, it's a really simple book and it's really to set people up, because what I found nearly everyone I work with some have some form of routine or ritual, but very like lots of people don't or didn't, and a lot of the time that was because they're incredibly busy and had big lives. You know families and young families, big businesses, and so it felt like a mountain that was almost impossible to climb to build in rituals, and so what I work with people on is what is just like one small thing, just like just one. It could be making yourself a cup of tea before the kids wake up and just enjoying that, not looking at your phone Right and writing three things you're grateful for. It could be a five-minute meditation or tapping routine. You know a sequence. So very, very small things that allow people to carve out time but not feel like they need an hour or two hours. Of course, an hour is ideal if you can, but a lot of us can't, particularly with young families.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I've been there and that doesn't mean it's not going to have powerful impact. So the rituals book is all about. There's lots of different concepts around what those rituals may be that people can sort of select from. There's a lot of like empowering sort of statements and mantras that they can pull from, and and then there's a daily. There's a daily sheet that they can write those in um write what they're grateful for at each end of the day, yeah, and just be able to have something small but powerful to start seeing the shift and change that even something like that can bring.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. Actually, I would love to just quickly share one of my rituals, or my morning rituals. Almost two hours long, and I started waking up at 5am when my daughter was young, because I realized that's the only chance I was going to get more time in my day was to wake up earlier. But something me and my partner do every night is one of us us and this is just before we go to sleep is what was your rose and thorn today? And it really makes you go back through your day to just, like you know, look at what, what your day was, and find what was that moment that was a rose, what was a beautiful moment in the day, and then what was a moment that was a thorn, that was hard in that day, because I realized, like it takes a bit of energy to do, because you're like, oh, I'm just ready to go to bed and let's just go to sleep.
Speaker 1:But when you take that time to reflect and go, oh, wow, I did so many amazing things today. I had some really beautiful interactions and it might have just been that little conversation you had with the person that you bought your coffee from, and it just lights you up and it's especially nice if you have that to share with someone. So I actually used to do it with my daughter at the dining room table when it was just me and her. So it's nice to just have that moment and share and, you know, quite often it might be a moment of gratitude for each other and a rose moment we had together. So we both share that individually and it's just a really nice way to wrap up the day and fall asleep with that. You know that light in your heart and that gratitude feeling of your day and the lesson that came from the thorn, potentially Exactly.
Speaker 2:That's amazing and also the thorn you can often find through having a conversation as well that you can quite naturally reframe that as well or look at it differently, or have your partner look at it differently, or you partner look at it differently, or you know. It just gives you an opportunity to expand on it and change it or see it in a different light, which is really cool, as well, yeah, instead of just that, you know in the afternoon how was your day.
Speaker 1:You know that little, those little moments aren't going to be shared with that question, but going that deeper, do you have a ritual that you love to do daily? I?
Speaker 2:I love to do tapping every day if I can, yeah, and I will change what I'm working through and what I'm saying according to, because it only takes a few minutes to do so. That's something that, particularly in the last sort of six months, I've really lent into. I just find it really powerful. But meditation, you know, is another one for me that I just am obsessed by, always have been, or at least for the last 20 years, yeah, I would say that would still be in. But what I find with a lot of people I work with, especially if they're really in their heads, meditation can be hard sometimes to do initially, before we start implementing some other rituals to support just taking those moments. So the other thing I would say that I love doing and do-do is just keeping my phone out of my room, um, and never having it in my room at night. Yeah, because I think, and I really encourage all the people I work with to do that wherever possible.
Speaker 1:I noticed the difference, yeah, between like it's a definite like not looking at my phone in bed at night at all, but sometimes I have caught myself, you know, instead of you know, looking at the time and you're like, oh, there's a message from someone, and the next minute you're on Instagram. And then I find and I really have noticed the days that happens, the whole day becomes disjointed, yep, whereas I really like to keep my mind and, you know, keep my energy whole and to myself as long as possible in the morning, because once I start work and working with my clients and putting myself out there and doing stuff, the energy goes like this, but that's my moment to keep it contained and whole and not have other things Inputs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like make that about you, yeah, so there's so many good tools now as well. Like I have a little Alexa eco dot in my room so I can just say, alexa, what's the time, that's my alarm, what's the weather today? So I can talk to um, but yeah. So I think there's lots of other options too, because people say, oh, but I need it there for my alarm, but you really don't and I think you it is, as you say, transformative.
Speaker 2:If you don't have that there, the first thing I think it's something like 85 percent of people the first thing they do with upon waking is looking at their phone, that's sad it is.
Speaker 1:It is whereas we could be going outside and looking at the sun, and sun in our eyes as well. I just want to point out I noticed you're wearing one of those wellness rings.
Speaker 2:Oh, the aura ring, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:How has that helped your routines and rituals? And your health and wellness.
Speaker 2:That's really been. I got one fairly early, and what that's done for me is a couple of things. I put a lot more emphasis on my sleep since I had this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm quite competitive, so I don't like getting a bad score.
Speaker 2:That's been really healthy for me because it allows me to see how much sleep improves all of my other markers that I'm doing.
Speaker 2:It allows me, like it integrates the exercise that you do and you can enter all of that. It tracks your cycle, which I think is really helpful. Um, and, honestly, the other thing for me is that it just keeps me honest about looking at, oh, that day I I didn't eat that well, I had a few more wines than I normally would, and I've got a really low HRV and my resting heart rate's really high, and so it just is a reminder about the things that are really not that good for you and those much more infrequent and you know, uh, than if I didn't have that daily reminder. So, yeah, it's really just education for me. There's a lot of people who are a lot more technical with it than I probably am, but it's been very transformative for me in just continuing to build healthy habits and really understand the impact of what I do and don't do on the markets that matter, especially as you sort of push up into 50 plus.
Speaker 1:Yeah and yeah, seeing the data and feeling it and going, oh okay, I feel off today because I did only sleep six hours and instead of just going make sure you sleep nine hours and you're like, yeah, I'm going to try and do all these things, but you know, if you don't track it and understand, Now I want to jump into the goals book, Is it GORU?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, japanese word for goals, and why I loved it is because the Japanese language has so many. Often one word means many different things. So this had this was more than just goals. It was ambition, and had lots of beautiful words associated with it, because goals mean different things to different people as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it was a recognition of, and really the work I do with people. I do a lot of work around values because we go through life and I believe we know what's important to us. But using that as a consistent anchor, like having real clarity on what really matters to me, why and how do I use that in my day-to-day, week-to-week and my big decision-making to make sure if one of my goals, for instance sorry, one of my values is joy and courage or two.
Speaker 2:And so when I sold a business to ANZ Bank and I was in there full-time, I wasn't able to really live and express that value within that organisation as much as I would when I was out creating or working with founders and doing some of the other work. I did so for me, although I'm very grateful for that time and it was a really awesome experience to transition the business in there, I didn't stay there because it was a really awesome experience to transition the business in there. I didn't stay there because it was out of alignment with the way I want to express my values and I want to live. So I think it's just a really good. It's just a good checkpoint definitely.
Speaker 1:I found when I was getting my coaching certification, a good way to test someone's values is to say to them so like, give me one of your other values Curiosity, curiosity. So if I said to you, I don't think you're very curious at all, you just like very black and white and you know, follow the rules, yeah.
Speaker 2:Did you feel?
Speaker 1:how that felt in your body.
Speaker 2:Totally Well, I was quite fortunate on that because you know that I'm not like that. So even hearing you say that was very funny, but um, but yeah, no, that feels that doesn't feel good at all. Yeah, it doesn't feel like the truth.
Speaker 1:the truth, you know. It's a good way to test it. Yeah, because if someone says, if someone said to me, you're not authentic, like that is so triggering I'm just like I cannot be any more authentic, like I am.
Speaker 1:Just I I've restricted, I so particular about posting anything Like it has to be just so purely authentically me that, yeah. So I found that was just a really fun, interesting way to test out and it just made me think, because one of my values is freedom, integrity, authenticity and adventure and helping people. Okay, I've got a few, but I've realized I haven't been on any adventures in probably three months. For most people that's, you know, normal. But like I like, I'm like oh, I really am have a calling to just go and do something adventurous and a bit wild and risky like that, that lights me up.
Speaker 2:That's good. I can see that for you. I love that. Um, yeah, it's so important and and that's like even just that reflection is so like, and we like, unless we're really clear on the values, and then having those really play a leading role in setting goals was what I wanted people to do, and what I work with people on is like, well, if we're not clear on our values, then there's lots of work we do together that we don't know whether we're heading in the right direction. So let's like create that as the foundation and set goal setting.
Speaker 2:you know, and that's the think less, feel more. Goals tend to be all about doing, and that's fine. Goals should be productive, where possible measurable. So I'm all for that. But start with the values, alignment, and start who you want to be and how you want to feel. Then go into the okay, what am I going to do to feel that way? What am I going to do to be and show up like that?
Speaker 1:Exactly. It's not just going all right, I want to have a fancy sports car. It's going well, okay, well, how's that going to make you feel and is that aligned? And then the manifestation part added into there is like, okay, we'll bring that feeling into the now and how can you meditate and start putting your body into that vibrational frequency, for it to come into your life as well?
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, so I've come up with what I call the three Bs.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is betterment, belonging and becoming so like betterment. What do we want to like? How do we want to grow? What do we want to do throughout the year to be and feel better? And then belonging who's our tribe, how do we belong to the tribe that we love and how do we belong more to ourselves? And then becoming like how, who do we want to be and how do we want to feel like day to day and how will we become that? Um, so yeah, so it doesn't mean you don't still have very distinct things to do, like one of mine last year around belonging was to join a choir, you know, because I love singing and I just wanted to meet new people and be part of something like that with music and that form of expression. So it was still very much something to do. Yeah, it tied back to how I wanted to feel and what I wanted to belong to and also probably your other values as well.
Speaker 2:And how much singing like that's why they sing in churches it raises your vibration then, yeah, yeah, and it also works on your vagus nerve, which is really so important for your nervous system, and like there's so much benefit to singing, like don't get me started, um, if it's just karaoke people, totally yeah, or if you want to sing mantras.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to add a one last thing before we wrap up. Um, my partner's mom is a kundalini master teacher, and so we do kundalini practices as well, and it's interesting it's not talked about enough, because you know how the whole breath work thing is huge right now. What I love about kundalini is it is sound, it's singing, it's breath work, it's yoga and movement and it's meditation, so it's all of them in one, and it does shift energy in your body as well. So I just wanted to drop that in there while we were on that. Now, where can people find you and connect with you?
Speaker 2:Well, probably just through kintsugiwayco is the best, because they can drop me a line there, check out the books or, yeah, just email me and say hi, yeah. So love to hear from people and, obviously, smiling Mind Like I'd love people to be able to use that resource. It's free, like if that's something that sounds appealing and is going to be supportive for them. It really is a great practice and there's some really short, impactful content in there too. That, again, if people want to build it in and just have a small daily ritual, it's a really good one. So I'd love people to to access that and use it as much as they can amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, so nice. It was great to have a chat with you, as always, and I'll pop all the details. To chat with Janie in there or see the work that she does in the show notes Sounds good. Thanks, brooke. If this episode has inspired and motivated you and you know it could help someone in your network, please share it on your favorite social media platform. To explore other ways you can work with me as a personal branding coach or photographer. Visit Pruajacom or join one of my personal brand transformation retreats where you reinvent yourself and walk away feeling excited and energized, with clarity on who you are and photos to show the world. Thank you for tuning in and remember to own your power and shine your light. I'm your host, pruaja.