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Podcast Episode 32

with Jeni Raitsin (Solopreneur Space)

Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time with Jeni Raitsin 

Jeni Raitsin @leisurehacker is a Tel-Aviv based, high-performance coach and founder of “The Solopreneur Space.” Jeni helps female solopreneurs from all over the world to ditch overwhelm and thrive consistently without burnout through practical tools of energy management and mindset work. Jeni doesn’t believe in one-size-fits-all formulas or generic life hacks. Through her personalised coaching approach, Jeni helps her clients to discover the most effective way to creating the life YOU desire for yourself.

Jeni Raitsin
INTERVIEW NOTES

Katerina: Hi, Jeni. 

Jeni: Hi, Katerina. Thank you for having me. 

Katerina: I’m so glad you have time to come to the podcast. This podcast is about resilient entrepreneurs and I think you are one of those entrepreneurs. But just before we start, sort of discussing different aspects, mindsets and energy management, which I’d love to know more about, could you just tell the listeners a little bit about yourself? How did you become a high-performance coach and happiness coach? I’ve never met one. So just a little bit about your journey. 

Jeni: I started as an architect. I studied architecture and I’ve been an architect working in a small firm here in Tel Aviv as well for about a decade. And I love that I love design. But something wasn’t feeling right and it didn’t feel like it was my true purpose in life. And myself struggling with all kinds of mental health issues and wasn’t really happy with what I was doing kind of started this personal development journey. Started reading all the books about personal development, listening to podcasts, going to lectures.

Started writing my own blog about personal development called the Leisure Hacker, just sharing my ideas, my understanding of personal development, ways to hack leisure and kind of cultivate happiness. And as time went by and gotten more and more into the personal development world, I got a certificate as a happiness coach. And with the time, I realised that what I want to do is help people cultivate happiness in their lives and entrepreneurship is one of the best ways for personal development in my eyes.

So now I help entrepreneurs, basically mostly early-stage entrepreneurs to get things done without burnout, to cultivate happiness. I’m a high-performance coach and I don’t coach on happiness because as an Enneagram 3, I’m a doer. I know how to get things done. I’m a planner. I take all my knowledge from architecture and from planning and I kind of switched it to entrepreneurship and now that’s where I help people with today. 

Katerina: Yeah, I mean you said you’ve been an architect for a decade. I mean it’s quite a move, isn’t it, from the corporate career. And you are quite a successful architect as well. I came across some interesting, you know, awards for your design, in your architecture and design. And it’s been 12 years. It’s quite a career, isn’t it? So what really, you said you weren’t happy. But what was the challenge you had moving from the corporate career into entrepreneurship? 

Jeni: That is a great question. I feel like it’s a very big mindset shift. A lot of times people, when they switch, I did a big switch because I also not only switched to entrepreneurship from the corporate world, I also switched my profession. But a lot of the time, people think that it’s enough to be good at what they do and love what they do and kind of become an entrepreneur.

But entrepreneurship, it takes a lot more than just being good at what you do and your ‘zone of genius’, as it’s called. It’s more about running your business, being a business owner, facing all the struggle, like imposter syndrome, and time planning and planning and time management and comparison and everything that comes from entrepreneurship. So, for me, I think that is why part of the reason I love being a high-performance coach because I started as an entrepreneur. I quit my job. I started a social enterprise related to the architectural world. It was reusing underutilised safe spaces in the city.

It was really in the safe zone of architecture, but kind of dipping my foot into the entrepreneurship bottom. And I realised that the most, the thing I struggled most with were the mindset. And once I’ve kind of learned how to, I don’t want to say overcome it but reduce anxiety and the stress that comes with entrepreneurship, learning how to do all the mindset shift, manage my energy and not my time, I realised that this is, this is the big issue with entrepreneurs and that’s why I love helping others with that. 

Katerina: Yea. Thank you for explaining. You know, you mentioned the mindset and you mentioned the struggles entrepreneurs have when they, you know, start, you know, working for themselves on their business. And again, there’s increasing evidence about the impact of, well, there is a relationship between the mental health conditions and entrepreneurship and just like you said, you know, you end up having anxiety and stress because you keep just working for yourself and you will, sort of at the beginning of your entrepreneurship journey, the money is a big issue,, right? You have to figure out how to start making sales and stuff like that. But you know, you mentioned the mindset. How would you define the mindset and what is the right mindset for the entrepreneurs to have?

Jeni: That is a great question. I feel like entrepreneurs, first of all, need to learn how to fail. I think failing and getting up is a huge part of this journey. As a recovering perfectionist myself, I had to learn to let go of the nitty-gritty details, having everything perfect and just let it go and take action. And I  feel like this is a huge part of entrepreneurship, taking action, trying, taking messy action, trying, failing, getting up again, taking action. I think what people sometimes misunderstand about entrepreneurship, that they think it’s like a linear journey. We start, we set a goal, we work really, really hard. And I see it as a circular process. We set goals, we plan them, we implement, take action. We reassess, we see what’s working, what’s not working, set other goals. It’s just a process and we need to keep going because it’s endless that journey. 

Katerina: Endless, love it. But you know you mentioned it Yeah it is. Well, it seems like yes it’s endless. But, and yeah I was chatting to Michael Freeman who published several papers about mental health and he said that entrepreneurs have this bug in their mind, sometimes even when they’re failing one business they’re already in the process of starting a new one. And they already kind of planning their next venture, but you said…you know you have to kind of learn how to fail, but so what was your biggest failure in the last couple of years. And how did you overcome it?

Jeni: I think every failure and this is the other part is just a learning experience. And don’t try to see setbacks as failures, but just as opportunities to learn and to change. I have to say that I am not sure, and maybe it’s just my perspective of things but I don’t see anything big fear of failure in my future. So the social enterprise I started didn’t work out, then and work out as I plan.. back to make it’s just, it was a redirection to where I am today so it was a great opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship, get into that community, learn, kind of what I didn’t want to do and what I did want to do it gave me a lot of clarity about your mind my business. And I feel like clarity is also a huge part because sometimes we think we want to do something.

And we don’t understand the consequences of that business we’re starting, and the social enterprise was really in one place and it made me realise I don’t want to run a big company. I want to be a solopreneur, I want to work from home and have an online business that allows me to travel. And this is kind of what pushed me into coaching into an online. I am now creating a space that is online for entrepreneurs like me, and I feel like it’s, it was just a good switch. 

Katerina: Yeah, well you know you mentioned also being a perfectionist. And did you say recovering perfectionist? If there is no such thing as a recovering perfectionist, can you actually stop being a perfectionist?

Jeni: There are some strategies. I think you can… I think it’s just a realisation that if you wait until things are perfect if you wait until the timing is perfect timing is right, you’re never going to get anything done. You’re just going to be stuck in that place of redoing your brand colours,  tweaking your copy for your website and rewriting every post. I was in the hours and not getting anything done and part of entrepreneurship is doing things and trying and, again, taking a messy action and you can’t be a perfectionist, it’s… I feel like perfectionists and procrastinators are cousins. And a lot of times people think it’s a great thing to be a perfectionist because you’re very meticulous and track makes everything perfect, but I feel like it’s one of the things that hold entrepreneurs back from success, a lot of the times. Yeah, I’m working on that and I think of myself as a recovering perfectionist. 

Katerina: So yeah, I mean on your website you know… your coaching programme you have like three pillars you have the mindset. You have energy management and also happiness. So under your mindset, you talk about dealing with procrastination perfectionism. You know procrastination like the other are some practical strategies intrapreneurs can, you know, use to stop them from procrastinating because again, sometimes timing is everything when it comes to intrapreneurial activity. Yeah, time is a very important factor so how can business owners stop themselves from procrastinating?

Jeni: Oh, this is the big question. I think I and has, I have two answers for that. I feel like, um, first of all, procrastination, a lot of the time comes from mindset blocks from fear from something that from limiting beliefs, from something internally that’s blocking us, and kind of figure out what’s stopping us, whether it’s fear, whether is fear of judgement fear of failure, whether it’s lack of self-worth or self-confidence and really need to deep deep deep inside and try to figure this out and then to work out whether we’re the therapist or coach or a mentor or friend or by herself but just to figure it out.

And the more practical part of it is really set ourselves… set really really smart specific roles planned and out and schedule it to create deadlines for ourselves. And actually plan, create the best circumstances for us to succeed. Scheduling tasks. Planning, managing our time better it’s kind of hard to get into it on. Yeah, no issues, cause for procrastination and poor level setting and planning for ourselves, we can schedule times to perfect our performance, and then kind of prevent procrastination, as we go along. Yeah, I mean it’s with, with the mindset. Sometimes you know how do you get rid of this voice in your head, telling you, you know, you know, you’re not doing the right thing or you know that the internal critic, how do you get rid of that little voice inside of your head and how do you change your negative mindset into a more positive one.

So through practice, we can definitely read our mind, even on the subconscious level and that is what I do in my coaching, just working on our self-worth and our confidence will help with that…self-critic. And also just taking action. Yeah. Why kind of separating that inner critic, that inner voice from who we are, from our self worth and learning how to take action despite this fear despite this. What am I not good? What if I’m not. If it’s the wrong kind of move what if, what I said doesn’t work out? So kind of separating that and working on our self-worth through affirmations through all kinds of practices of, you mentioned happiness but positive psychology as well. 

Katerina: Yeah, so how long you’ve been a founder of the solopreneur space? Is solopreneur space has been running for three months now for three months, okay yeah, that’s before that you had the leisure hacker? You still… while you’re looking at it you know you you offer the coaching now, because the solopreneur space is a membership programme, right? So, so you’ve been a coach for how many years?

Jeni: Now, about a year and a half a year and a half. 

Katerina: Okay, so what was the greatest sort of challenge since the start since you’ve begun coaching what was the greatest challenge you’ve had as a solopreneur?

Jeni: I think for me, again, as I said, I did a coaching certificate. I started doing workshops here in Tel Aviv and started coaching people. And I been developing my coaching method I feel like for years, even before I became a coach, but the hard part was the business part, learning about marketing, learning about sales, learning how to run my business and not just be good at coaching and my zone of genius, but actually being good as a business owner and just everything that comes with that sales, Instagram, everything that comes with being an online entrepreneur was a struggle for sure. 

Katerina: Yeah, well how do you say with solopreneurs overwhelm is a big problem right because you have to learn so many things so sometimes you just like out of your comfort zone and that there is so much to learn. How do you stay on top of things? How do you know what to learn next and what to focus on?

Jeni: I think having a clear vision of what I want for myself and what I want for my business and what I want for the solopreneur space, really helped me with the overwhelm and this is also what I teach because there’s so much going out there in the online world in the entrepreneurship world. We all as beginners sin with shiny syndrome object ..syndrome, we see and we want, we want to have a podcast and we want to do, emails and we want to think, but we want, Instagram and we want to start a new programme and do this and do this and then get lost, and overwhelmed with everything that’s going on. And I feel like having a very, very clear vision for what we want for ourselves.

For our business I feel like our business should support our lifestyle, a lot in the entrepreneur world, because we want lifestyle businesses, businesses that support our lifestyle and being really clear about what we want do we want to travel. Do we want to spend time with our kids and eat in the afternoon? How many hours do we want to work a day? How is our business gonna operate, are we running big programmes, are we just doing one on one just being really really clear and trying to steer our business into it one step at a time? And I feel like this is what helped me found the idea of the solopreneur space. I feel like this is what I wished I had three years ago when I started as an entrepreneur. Just that guidance, and that support and that community not doing things on your own because like you said, it’s so overwhelming and you kind of get lost in everything that’s there, and having that container really really helps.

Katerina: Yeah, no, I agree with you because there are so many experts and they say oh you have to, if you would just follow this strategy you can make so much money and then you know when you just start to start a business, it’s easy, you know…a few years back, I started an Amazon business ..I closed my business a few years later, but when I started my Amazon business.. I just signed up for all sorts of programmes, and I even purchased some of the some of the tools I’ve never even tried and now I started kind of digging through, you know, what I did back then and then I was like, Why on earth, you know, I just paid so much money for this programme or that programme or this this this funnel creation, and I’ve never actually used it and it’s so important to be very focused and like you said, you know, have smart goals, and then be very strategic about what you want, how you want to get there. And because again it’s easy to just get lost and, you know, tonnes of information you get online free, as well as paid and yeah so for small business owners, this is important to be focused…

But you know you mentioned the time management, how, what can solopreneurs do to manage their time because many people start something as a side hustle and they have full-time jobs and families, and they do things in the evening so how can they manage better their time and be more focused on their business to achieve the best results?

Jeni: I’m gonna say something controversial. I don’t think they should manage their time. I think they should manage their energy. One reason for that is time as a finite resource, we all have 24 hours, and especially when we have a nine to five job, a family, our life, and we’re starting the business, time management can also only get us so far. Because there’s a limited and unlimited amount of hours during the day, when we manage our energy it’s a totally different thing when we manage our energy. Energy is infinite, and we can with the right actions we can create more energy, and then we can do work in less time and be very very focused and effective and not productive. I think like time management teaches us how to make the most of every hour of the day, but energy management helps us be efficient, and work smarter and not harder because a lot of the time people use time management to just quit and have more and more and more one.

And in the end, we’re tired. We’re exhausted, it takes a toll on us, mentally, emotionally, physically, and this is not the point in entrepreneurship. In my eyes, we create our own businesses, not just to have that freedom and that money, but also to enjoy our lives. This is how I see it. And I feel like, with time with energy management, it’s. This is how we can achieve that. Yeah, look at it that I guess this is the first time I hear this concept of energy management and I know this is your signature programme. You know, the component right of the programme but can you just tell us a little bit. Maybe just how we can manage energy, do we need to sleep, eight hours to be refreshed, or is something to do with physical exercise.

Just maybe that one strategy to manage. Yeah. Energy Management energy actually has four components, which is physical energy, emotional energy mental energy and spiritual energy. So the physical part is the easiest part to understand this is like you said, we all know that it’s sleeping. Well, it’s resting, it’s our nutrition or exercise, this is taking care of our physical energy. But besides our physical energy, we have the emotional energy and mental energy we can manage. In order to be more efficient and get more done and emotional energy is basically the quality of our energy is how we manage our emotions, according to situations. It’s our ability to be creative and to make good decisions as we go. And I feel like it’s key for entrepreneurs, especially in stressful situations.

So a lot of the time we get into a really really stressful situation and we kind of lose it we don’t know what to do. We’re really stressed we’re anxious and end up either not doing anything or making wrong decisions just because we’re really really stressed and hectic. When we manage our energy in a better way. We can make sound decisions, no matter what the situation. And we can do it through meditation, we can do it through journaling we can do it through exercise as well. Really really being aware of our personality type can really be beneficial for example, but she said, I don’t believe one size fits all because we’re all different people. If we’re introverted, for example, so we are energised by being alone by complaining our thoughts, maybe journaling meditation just being with ourselves, if we’re extroverted, we might be energised with other people and so constitucion.

So we need to be really aware of who we are, what we need and how we can re-energise, and our mental repeat is our ability to focus and like you said, the focus is key for entrepreneurs and, again, we can do it through breathing techniques. We can do it through all kinds of ways and just harness our energy in order to be able to do whatever we were ever on for how long we wanted, because this is like the purpose of being able to sit down and just be creative, whenever we want.

And we need the beauty of energy management. This is why I love and I’m so passionate about this concept is that once we manage our energy all the time. It’s like a lot of time people say like, I’m going to work all week I’m going to work 16 hours a day. And then I’m going to rest the weekend on. Then I’m going to take a vacation and I say, doesn’t work like that it’s like saying, I’m not going to eat, throughout the week and then I’m going to eat on the weekend. It doesn’t work like that. The same with energy and self-care. If we kind of switch our thoughts and perceive self-care with the same importance as our business tasks and learn how to re-energise throughout the day. We can get more things done sustainably and not fatigue yourself and not get to burn out really fast and that happens to a lot of entrepreneurs. 

Katerina: No, thank you so much.. I mean it’s it’s it’s fascinating and yeah what you’re saying it makes a lot of sense, actually. Yeah, forget about the time. If you have a lot of energy and positive energy you can achieve things in a shorter period of time. Right. And, you know, I’ve read somewhere that for example, you know Elon Musk he’s working like hundred hours a week and he sleeps like five hours, or something like that for five hours tonight and interesting how he’s how he can achieve so much. We’re having so so little sleep and you know how can you work so so many hours, but then again I guess maybe five hours is enough and then he’s basically because he is driven mainly by this positive energy to auto know, driven by vision, it’s something that helps him to stay more energised but yeah that that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, definitely. But you know you… you also happiness coach, right? And you, you just arrived at this positivity and and and happiness and it’s it’s really a pleasure talking to you, but have you. Have you ever had any mental health struggles in the past?

Jeni: I did, I feel like people who see me today can be we imagined a person and was a few years ago, and I feel like with personal development, and obviously therapy, but also tools of positive psychology, really helped me be optimistic be happy. I used to struggle with anxiety. A lot of the time was burning myself out in my work really really tired. Anxious all the time. And just had a different outlook on life and I feel like this journey of personal development really literally saved my life, and I seem like I really believe we can change nothing is permanent. Obviously, I’m not talking about chronic mental illness. The situation can be bettered with tools of positive psychology through therapy through coaching, whatever, help we can get. But yeah, thank you. I’ve not always been this positive person that I am, and I feel like practising gratitude, all the time really really helps. Just because we if we’re not happy with what we have will never be happy, more and entrepreneurs, always want more and more and more money, more clients, we’re bigger than you like just taking the time and pausing and being grateful for what we have really kind of switch things for me and it sounds like a small thing. But it really makes a huge difference. 

Katerina: Yeah, but do you have bad days, sometimes?

Jeni: Of course. 

Katerina: So, how do you stay motivated how what keeps you going? How do you stay motivated?

Jeni: Um, that’s part of energy management, which is peppered with energy. And I think it’s really related to the example you gave about Elon Musk and spiritual energy doesn’t have to do with religion, it can be if we want to. But it’s more of a connection to a higher purpose, and that is what keeps us re-energised and actually like this is what keeps Elon Musk operating and doing these great things and for me, as you see my bigger purpose and seeing my vision and knowing I want to help people and knowing, just having that purpose. I feel like that’s what keeps me motivated and the hundred days just seeing the big picture and my goals and kind of keep working towards them.

Katerina: Yeah. So, oh, you know, since, since the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey was there, you had to do a lot of self-development and learning. But what was your biggest mistake, you know as an entrepreneur. What can you tell, say, starting intrapreneurs? What advice can you give starting intrapreneurs to avoid mistakes they’re about to make because again you’ve started… you..you’ve done your journey already you know for a year and a half, nearly two years. But what was the biggest mistake and what advice would you give to the starting intrapreneurs to overcome…not make that mistake. I’m losing my words…

Jeni: I think we’re both to the, you know, I feel like it’s a hard topic to talk about. Yeah. And it’s really really getting deep but I feel like I’m.. If I could give myself three years ago and advice I would say, first of all have clarity about what I want and how I want it, and because like you said there are so many things out there there’s so much information. And I feel like the great part of entrepreneurship, which is also like the biggest struggle for entrepreneurs. There are so many options and then we get really really overwhelmed by everything and I feel like I would have saved a lot of time I don’t regret the journey I did but I feel like I’ve would have saved a lot of time, if I would just like sit down and be really really clear and honest with myself about what I want to do what kind of business I want to have, and just go for it, instead of trying to do, what other people are doing what other people expected me to do. And the second advice is not doing it alone. We’re all very very fiercely independent, we think we know better we think we can do it on ourselves, and I see like when I started, I kind of wanted to prove maybe to myself to others that I can make it on my own, but getting help or getting a mentor or coach or a business advisor or whatever you can just to help you. I feel like it’s a sign of strength and not a sign of weakness. And I wish I kind of realised that early on in my. Yeah. 

Katerina: Do you have any family members or close friends who are also entrepreneurs or is it just you know…

Jeni: My family is very very old school, old fashion. And I didn’t have any friends that were entrepreneurs today in my journey and the community I’ve built in a solopreneur space in my online space. I met a lot of really really good friends and supportive people that are entrepreneurs because they feel like other people. And it’s funny to say but they just don’t get the struggles that come with entrepreneurship, if they’re not in that they can, they can be supportive and I have a very great system they… my parents, my family and friends, really understand this journey. Like, under entrepreneurs and I feel like the community is very very important in that process. 

Katerina: Yeah…. no no you… you’re quite right because I’ve had some conversations with the female entrepreneurs and they say, you know, sometimes you know if their partners or not…. Also, entrepreneurs, it’s very it’s very actually hard to for them to understand what they’re going through because intrapreneurship is can be can be quite lonely and you have to have some kind of a network of, you know, other intrapreneurs friends, or mentors to help you through, but yeah that that brings me to another sort of question about your Solopreneur Space programme. Could you just talk about that a little bit about the programme and, and why is it important for solopreneurs to have a high-performance coach. 

Jeni: The solopreneur space is actually a membership and not a programme…. A lot of the time I’ve done business coaching programmes and a lot of programmes… The fact is that a lot of the time we go to a programme we learn a lot of things, but then the hard part is actually implementing that information we already have. We know what we’re supposed to do, but we’re just not doing it, and that is why the solopreneur space is awesome i love it, it’s an ongoing membership, it’s a very very low ticket but high touch container for people who can’t afford a full-time coach, but can have that support for me. I’ve guidance from a high-performance coach, a community of like-minded women and accountability, which he like is getting things done. And the Solopreneur Space actually provides all of that for solopreneurs, it’s, it’s what I started it because this is what I wished I had when I was starting a mentor that can guide me through all this overwhelming of the beginning, a community of supportive, ladies and we have  amazing, amazing female entrepreneurs there and just accountability we have weekly accountability threads that I go to I check in the beginning of the week I helped set goals and dungeon, weekly, and I checked by the end of the week to see progress, because if you like. It’s not just setting the goals and doing the work. It’s also the most important part is going back to see what worked, what didn’t work and kind of keep that one like we said in the beginning, It’s a circular process it’s just not like a linear one. And, yeah, and I just love… I feel like it’s bringing me so much joy and I love the community so yeah we just like you mentioned these it’s making someone actually. 

Katerina: Yeah, and I guess with coaching, how do you make people to actually work and achieve those results because again, their results are your, you know, reviews and the feedback on the work you do, right? And then, how do you motivate those people to achieve their best… I mean that that can be quite a struggle isn’t it for, for coaches. 

Jeni: Yeah, it’s not easy, especially in a group setting but we do it in a couple of ways. So first, I do monthly workshops where I teach my signature framework of getting done. I have a method that I teach during the workshops. We have called twice a month that I keep people accountable, and then we do like hot seat coaching. We really dig deep, if we have something limiting beliefs or mindset blocks or if there’s something that’s blocking us, we talk about it. We try to figure that out. And we have a 24 seven community on Facebook so I have Monday, motivation to keep people going we have a huge library of personal development resources workbooks that accountability threads and the thing about this membership and that is what I love most about it, that it’s ongoing. It’s not like we have a month or three months that we go. We’ll learn something we do and we finish it, it’s an ever never-ending process because I believe that running a business is a marathon, it’s going to do it for the rest of our lives. And mindset and personal development isn’t something you can do once, and be done with that, it’s not you can you can meditate for one day and say like okay I feel better. The same way you can. You can do anything once and be successful over that it’s an ongoing process and that is why the support of the solopreneur space is ongoing. And it’s kind of guiding you hand by hand throughout this journey and we talk things through and we cheer each other on. And it’s just an amazing community. 

Katerina: Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna actually drop the link to your solar printer space and I guess Yes. You know, I’m sure there are other listeners that perhaps went through the same struggle as you when you just started your business and needed that sort of support so that they can check you out. But, you know, I guess. Another question I want to ask you is, is to do with the current sort of situation. And a lot of businesses are pivoting, and they had to rethink their business models because of the COVID pandemic. How’s the business being more business has been during this difficult time and would you advise people who perhaps lost their jobs to give entrepreneurship a try.

Jeni: During this uncertain time…. I feel like for me my business just actually grew, and this past few months. All my business is online, and I wasn’t online. Our community is worldwide. And I feel like, especially in times of pandemic community support mindset work, personal development, it’s even more important than ever. Just keeping yourself accountable to being yourself motivated as supportive is crucial. During this time, if I recommend people to try entrepreneurship. I have to say yes and no. I feel like entrepreneurship is hard. I’m not gonna say it’s amazing, it’s, it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done. But it’s not for everybody and I see a lot of people that struggle with that. And I feel like you’re not very very passionate about it… and if it’s not the thing you want most, so I wouldn’t recommend people I don’t think everybody should become an entrepreneur, God and it’s not for everybody. You really need to have resilience, you need to have great, you need to have that drive that drives you, and if you’re just doing it because you think it’s gonna be easy or you think you’re gonna make a lot of money. I think I think No, I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody. 

Katerina: Yeah overnight success just takes about seven years. 

Jeni: Yeah. Is it true yes it’s just people don’t… don’t see all the hard work behind successful companies, and sometimes it’s just years of struggle and not having clients and not not, you know, having people understanding your vision but actually pushing through the difficult times. 

Katerina: Thank you so much. And, yeah, I guess it’s, it’s not the right or wrong answer… just whatever you feel personally it’s the right thing to do. But, but I guess the next question I want to ask is just getting back to the sort of managing your own sort of mental well being. How do you relax, how do you recharge? What’s your personal strategies to keep your mental health in check?

Jeni: And so I feel like there’s no one way for people to re-energise and it’s really personal for me. I have a morning routine that I keep every morning and really keeps me balanced, and I journal every day. I practice gratitude, I do my affirmations and I start my morning with that. So, I will have that energy throughout the day. And part of my energy management strategy is actually scheduling throughout the week, things that we energise me for me is going to the beach. I love the beach… I love the sunshine. It’s meeting with friends, at least once or twice a week just to be around positive people, and an exercise and try to exercise, at least twice or three times a week, and it’s going to keep me. It’s not only for my physical health, it’s also for my mental health so this is my basic strategy.

Katerina: No, it’s cool thank you so much for sharing this, and I guess just to wrap up with, you know, our audience are female intrapreneurs. So, we know, you know, females they’re there, they’re likely to have depression, like, you know, depression and anxiety, what advice to give to female entrepreneurs? 

Jeni:  Specifically, a few… And see, like, if you said, if we go to depression and anxiety I think like, reach out, don’t be alone in that reach out for the help you think you need if it’s a therapist or coach or a support group or a friend. Just don’t go through this alone I feel like it’s key, especially like you said female entrepreneurs, we, we think we need to do it on our own, we need to be independent and fears and not ask for help and I feel like that vulnerability and that ability to get support is a strength, and I would wish everybody would see it this way, and kind of reach out to whatever support you need. Don’t be afraid to outsource, don’t do everything.

Katerina: That’s the word. That’s the word… but thank you so much for coming to the show and yeah I wish you all this success and you’re doing a great job and you make people happy. 

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