Founder Of The Fearless Factor at Work: Jacqueline Wales AKA The Fearless Boss – S2E56 (#84)

S2E56 Jacqueline Wales.m4a – powered by Happy Scribe

For there or recording or live. Alright. Three, two, one. Welcome. Welcome back to Boss Uncage podcast. Today we have a special guest. And just to give you a little back story, it’s kind of like ironic that we’ve crossed Pass because you guys have heard me talk about being fearless over and over and over again. But today we have Jacqueline and I’m gonna deem her the Fearless Boss. Welcome to the show. Jacqueline, how are you doing today?

Great to be here. Thank you. I’m doing wonderful. Thank you. And yes, fearless is a good label. I’ll go with it.

So I mean, for those that can’t see the video and you just listen to the audio kind of members, the book club, you should see her background like she has like, 10,000 books, like literally on these bookshelves behind her. So let’s just dive into this story a little bit like, who are you?

All right. Who am I? Is a very good question. I’ve been asking that most of my life. But if we’re looking at who am I in terms of what I do, I coach executive, women entrepreneurs, millennials, a bunch of people on how to become and really did get their fearless on. And what does that mean is about teaching them how to take the next step and then the next step and then the next step, getting out of mindset and behaviors that maybe be getting in the way of who they are and who they want to be. And a lot of it has been based on my own life story of several decades of getting my own fearless on and figuring how to take the next step on many, many different occasions throughout the decades.

Got you. So that’s kind of like a solid segue, right. So you’re in a hell of a niche, right? It’s one thing to be a coach is one thing to be a business coach. But you’re like a fearless coach. That’s like a very detailed niche. Like, how did you even get into that spectrum into that space?

Well, that’s the story, really. It’s about how did I deal with my own fear in order to become the expert on fear? And it started at a very early age because I grew up in a family where there was a lot of violence, there was sexual abuse, there was all kinds of stuff. So fear was really embedded at a very, very early age about running and hiding and making sure that you observe the behavior around you so that you could kind of figure out out what was coming next. You could Telegraph what was coming next and get out of the way. So I learned that at a very, very early age, and I put myself through a lot of different scenarios in life, left school at 15, left home at 16, moved from Scotland to London, and then went through a series of events that children born, adopted, blah, blah, blah, drugs, alcohol. I ran the whole gamut of one of the things you’re not supposed to do in your life because they give you grief. And it was a lot of it based on fear. It was the fear of basically what was going to happen next. And the wrong stuff happened. So I’ve done a lot of transitions throughout my life. And so we’ll start with just a chronological Scotland, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, Amsterdam, New York, Folly, San Francisco. Again, back to Northern California. That’s the circular route of my life over the last few decades. And in between, there was a lot of challenges that had to be overcome that were primarily fear based. And I had to learn how to deal with it. And so the learning that I got from writing books, making music, taking up martial arts, all kinds of the travels and landing in places where I couldn’t speak the language where I knew nobody, all of those things where the foundation for what became in my is, frankly, when I started my business and it was a business started on nothing more than a good idea, which has been a theme for my life. Seems like a good idea, right or wrong. And you figure it out as you go along and, you know, there it was. I do training on how to be a coach. But that was about it. And then they said, Well, what’s your niche? And I said, fearless because I am being fearless. And I have been fearless. And I’ve done stuff that most people look at and they go, I wouldn’t go there. Yeah, well, I did. And I’m right or wrong. You figure it out as you go along. So The Fearless Factor was my first book, and I wrote it primarily as a credential because I had no background that I could relate to or other people could relate to, like, corporate backgrounds or building a business or whatever. I’ve done the opposite of that. I’ve lived my life very horizontally. So there’s a piece in there about, you know, again, being fearless is the courage to take the next step. And that has lots of experience in that. And that became what do you want to teach other people how to do?

That’s a hell of a journey. So I’m just thinking about so you’re saying you didn’t even start this side of your business venture until you were about 50. So 50 years prior to, like, let’s just start off in the beginning. Like, where were you born? What country were you born?

I was born in that first ten.

Okay.

As for the Port of Leaf, which is right by the adults, my dad was the dock worker. My mother put whiskey labels on whiskey balls. That was the family that I grew up in. My dad was an alcoholic. So I give you something to think about right there. But, yeah, that’s where it started. And then as I said I moved to London when I was 16 on New nobody. I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have a job, and I had a boyfriend to the first night I was there decided to let me know who was Boston. And I let him know that I was leaving, period. And the saga continues. And there was a lot of adventures, put it that way. And a lot of it was born out of basically stupidity until I started to get this smarter. But the business of creating a business of becoming my own boss. And I love your title of being boss encaged, learning how to engage myself as a professional has also been part of the journey. And that’s another piece that I can speak to people about in terms of the insecurity, the self doubt, the lack of confidence, to feeling like you need more credentials, you know, in order for you to step out into the world and be taken seriously, that’s a lot of what people get caught up in. And I certainly did.

So I mean, just talking about credentials. I mean, obviously you had a business career to a certain extent before you started your fearless journey of coaching, right. And I think one of them was a master facilitator, and that was in Bali. Let’s talk about that a little because, I mean, obviously that’s part of who you are as part of your journey to becoming fairly. So let’s talk about that a little bit.

Well, I need to take some water just a minute. That actually came after I started this business, taking people to Bali. I built a house in Bali back at the early part of the 2000, and originally we thought it was going to be a family vacation home because we were living in Paris at the time and realized about six months into it that we were building a business. And it was a business that I’d never been in the hospitality business. And I was building amounted to a five star luxury Villa. And we had a staff at the time, eleven people, and I had to train them from the ground up to not only learn the English language, but to deal with housekeeping service, food and beverage, all the things that go into operating a piece. And I was dealing with village people. I was dealing with people who had no experience. So there was me with no experience and then with no experience and having to figure out how to make that happen. Well, eventually, I used that as a base for retreats for small groups of women, mostly highly accomplished women who came to be with me for a week. And I would take them on a journey of self discovery through the work that I had created. So that’s the master facilitator piece right there. I’m a real, no bullshit person. I truly believe that if you’re going to change, then let’s get real. Let’s get honest and that journey is hard for a lot of people because we have so many stories about who we think we are and getting caught in a negative mindset that you have to break down those barriers. And that’s what a lot of the work was about in those retreats was let’s start breaking down barriers. Not easy work, but you’re willing to show up for it. Fearlessly courage to take the next step. Then great things happen. So these became very transformational. And that was credit to not only the work that had created, but to the women who participated because it was asking a lot. And I ask a lot of my clients anyway, you come to me with the story and I’ll tell you in a heartbeat if it’s bullshit or not, and that’s what it’s all about.

Nice and again, I’m just laying the foundation for the past to kind of build up into this, right? So if you could define yourself in three to five words, I mean, obviously, I think fearless goes without saying what three to five words would you choose to define yourself practical?

No bullshit, grounded, strong. And I would say very capable, very capable. I mean, I’m adventurous. I definitely want to challenge myself over and over again. I’m never finished with that piece.

Right? So let’s just dive into your business a little bit. So you have this fearless brand and you’re coaching people and taking them on journeys and educating them on how to be successful in being fearless. So what services comes along with that? Like, what are you delivering to your clientele?

So what I will deliver to my clientele is there’s a lot of educational pieces? So, for instance, I’ve just recently last year created a six week Fearless Change program that is designed as a space for accomplished women for the most part, who are in different fields to come together and open themselves up and be vulnerable to whatever changes they need to be made and supported by coaching and educational content that I helped create with an instructional designer. So we talk about the inner game which is developing are looking at your belief systems, looking at your mindset, looking at your behavior. We also create a plan for what actions you’re going to take to change that up. We look at your communication habits. Most people are lousy communicators. They don’t really know how to have the conversations and so forth. So we take them on a journey through their communication style. We also take them on a journey of how to be authentic in the world and how to build your resilience and your resourcefulness so that you can deal with challenging times and so forth. I also take them into the influence piece. What’s your power dates, one of your allies, who are your allies? And how are you being influential in the world? Because being an influencer is far more of a peace than being just an influence. And then ultimately, if you’re going in for career transition or even any kind of life transition, we’ve got a format for them to work through. There’s a lot of exercises that a lot of insights is a lot of time for reflection. And as we know, a lot of the change process is involved in reflection, which is why each chapter of my books, both The Fearless Factor and The Fields Factor at work, have what I call a deep dive. It’s a series of questions that are designed to get you to think about, who am I? What matters to me? Where am I going? What’s getting in the way and then find the solution for yourself? Because it’s not about giving people answers. It’s about giving them the questions so that they can find the answers for themselves.

Wow. I mean, that’s definitely. I would say that’s kind of like an Academy, right? It’s an Academy, that’s itemized out to hear the right mindset in becoming fearless, which is very powerful stuff. So on this journey of educating and coaching and stirring people in the right direction of becoming fearless, you probably had some crazy adventures on this, right? You may have had some experiences that most people wouldn’t experience in that sector. So what is the most craziest thing that you’ve experienced dealing with a customer in that space, on educating them on how to become fearless?

I don’t know if it’s a crazy experience, but I once had a client who was the CEO of a company and said, Absolutely, I need to change. Things are not working for me. I need to put the time in. We had a three month contract to start with. Well, by the time I got through to the second month with her, nothing had changed. And now this was highly unusual for me, because I can usually break through the stuff within a couple of weeks, at least, so that people can start to reframe and start to think about how they’re approaching whatever the situations are. But this woman was completely entrenched in holding onto habits that we’re not serving her. And in two months, I started to think to myself, Is it me as my coaching? Am I doing a bad job? You know, you start to question your own thing, and I realized now this was all about her. So I ended up firing her. I said, You’re wasting your money, you’re wasting your time and you’re wasting my time, frankly, because if you’re not going to do the work, there’s no point being here. So there are times and I’ve done this more than once in my life where you have to fire a client because they’re just not showing up to do the work. And again, I don’t stand for any bullshit. And that’s the first thing. And I don’t work for everybody either, because there’s some people who want their handheld. I’m not a hand holder. I’m like, okay, come on, tell me your story. What do you want to do? All right, let’s look at what you need to do to move beyond that. So that’s want to talk about changing fast, because I took years to get over my bullshit, and I want to help people get past theirs in the shortest amount of time, because you don’t need to hang around with this stuff.

I could definitely appreciate that, because, I mean, to your point, a lot of people not necessarily a bullshit, but they’re full of the drama, and they don’t know how to release that drama, to move on, to become more positive. And they stay in the negative Nancy mindset and don’t realize that’s what’s holding it back. That’s their anchor. And they have to cut that shit loose and sail free. So I definitely commend you in that spectrum, because that’s not easy work, telling somebody that they have baggage and telling them this is what you need to do to you, change your baggage. And they’ve been doing it for 20 years. Ten years like that’s, asking for a heart attack of stroke, just dealing with that drama itself.

Yeah. It can have that effect. That’s like, will you all be to do what you want me to unpack all this stuff? It’s like, yeah, but one of the things I’m well known, if I create a very safe environment for people to do that, I have a very strong personality. You can clearly see that right now, but. And it doesn’t work for everybody. But for those who want, somebody says she’s a truth teller and an ass kicker. That’s what she does. She’ll tell you the truth and she’ll kick your ass if you’re not going to go the way that she thinks she should be going.

I be nice. So you can visually see you like, I’m telling you the truth. Turn around and kick him dead in the ass. Now get out here and get the work done. That’s definitely funny. So you’re a business, right? I mean, are you more of an S Corp. C Corp. Llc or your a combination of both?

I’m an LLC sole proprietor, LLC. Yeah.

Is there any particular reason why you’re structured in that fashion versus any of the others?

You know, at the beginning, I knew nothing about nothing. I’ll be honest with you. It’s like we’re just going to figure this out as we go along. I’ve been riding by the seat of my pants forever. It’s like I jump into stuff and I go, oh, how does this work? And it works or it doesn’t work. So I set the company up as an LLC, figuring sounds reasonable. Let’s do that. So that’s where it stays. Yeah.

Got you. So we always hear about the perception of something that’s a 20 year success to be perceived as an overnight success story. And you just alluded to like, you know, you didn’t start this journey until you were 50, right?

So it’s just four at 54.

That’s a testament to people that are in their 30s talking about. They don’t know what the hell the next steps are. Their life is over and by all means, you could still make changes. You could still step forward and you can still be highly successful in your 30s or 40s or 50s or 60s. It really doesn’t matter. So definitely you’re a living example of that in this journey. Like, how long did it take you to get currently where you are right now?

I’ve been at this now for 15 years.

Wow.

That gives you an idea of just how close I’m getting to the 7th decade at this point. But I’m definitely of a mind that age is all by attitude, and it’s just a number. I mean, I’ve been I’ve been incredibly physical all my life with martial arts, with CrossFit, with other things that just keep me moving. So I like to think that I’m in better condition than a lot of folks my age, frankly, but I think it’s got to do with a mindset issue, too. I think it really is about how do we keep the right attitude about what we’re doing? And there were many times that during this last 15 years where I was like, Where’s the clients, Where’s the money? It’s like, yeah, they’re not coming. So when they talk about success and clearly marketing is perception, let’s taste it. It’s like you can look great on the page, but you might not have a whole lot of substance going on in the background, but there was Ling years and then there was really great years. And this is the nature of this business. It’s the swings and roundabouts. And if you are, if you’re feeling like you don’t have the strength for it because, frankly, this takes a lot of strength to keep standing up every day and believing that you can make something out of it. And I just spent 2020 reinventing yet again. The whole field is factor brand and thinking about programming, thinking about how I can serve people differently and how is that going to be working? Because we’re now in a virtual situation. I could have sat there and said we were in all the clients go because my biggest client decided that they were done for now. And so I thought, Well, OK, I can sit here and feel sorry for myself or I can decide to get up and create something different. And that’s what I did. So I invested a great deal and everything you’re looking at today has been created in the last year.

Nice. I mean, I love that. I love the fact that like you’re saying, like, you’re going on to the seven decade, but it’s 100% mindset. I could totally see you being 110 and having as much spunk as you have right now, kicking someone in the ass, telling them how they should be focused and what they needed to do. And the thing is as you get older is the more experience you have to be able to put those cards on the table and depict a clear funnel to say how to get to the promise and how to get to that next level. So yeah, definitely. I definitely appreciate I’m enjoying this conversation if you haven’t noticed, by the way, right. Thinking about this from a standpoint, if you can go back, right. Cause you’re saying you kind of start this when you were 50. If you can go back, let’s say you could time travel. Is there one thing that you would want to do differently if you could do it all over again?

Yeah. I think I would probably want to get a real clear business sense foundation how to run a business as opposed to bits here and there. I wasted so much money over the early years. Well, that looks like a good idea. Let’s go chase that. And they’ve got some ideas that might help me to get there. And it turned out it was not where I needed to be. And I’ve had this conversation with many coaches, and they go, yes. I mean, if I look at what I spent in the early days, it’s $100,000 disappeared overnight, and then you look at that, what you get for it. So the developing of a clear business acumen would be my journey backwards.

Great. So let’s just kind of travel again, right. Do you remember or recall anyone in the first 50 years before you kind of Dove into this space? Were you influenced by any entrepreneurs and your family, or was it somebody that you knew that kind of given you the entrepreneurial bug? I.

Think there’s an entrepreneurial mindset doesn’t necessarily translate into being an entrepreneurial business. But I definitely had nobody in my family that came even close to what I’ve managed to achieve in my lifetime, including going to College. I was the first one to go to College in my entire network of family. And that came later in life. It didn’t happen early. And then again, that was a choice to go back and get educated. So if I look at individuals that I admired over the years, they had a lot of they had a lot of energy and passion for what they were doing. And I don’t know that I fully recognized at the time. I just thought they were interesting people, and they looked like they were doing some really cool stuff. And so maybe at a later point when it became obvious that it was time for me to do something. And again, I’m very transparent. I like what you see is what you get as fairly comfortable, wealth wise for a long time because I married into it. So I had occasion to just raise the family, do the things I wanted to do, make music, write books, travel the world, blah, blah, blah. I had a great life for a long time until suddenly the money wasn’t there anymore. So you’re like, okay, what are you going to do now? And that’s really what drove me just starting my own coaching business. It was like, what do you think you’d be good at? And I had a coach at the time who said, You’d be great as a coach because of all your experiences. And I thought, what the hell I do anything else at this point. So let’s give it a go see what happens. And I really found my calling. I mean, it was just this is it. This is what gets me out of bed in the morning. What would if you woke me up at three in the morning and said, I have a problem? I okay. Let me tell you how to get your head around that one.

It’s very interesting. And I think it’s one of those things again, going back to our listeners, right. If you’re on a journey and you’re trying to figure things out, it doesn’t matter if you’re 18 or if you’re 50, there is a solution to that problem. You just have to seek out that solution to get those answers. And once you start understanding the answers and accepting the answers, then you can actually be open to transition into the next phase. And that’s what you’re delivering on this entire episode. That’s the message that I’m getting for you. And again, I appreciate that because people need to understand and need to take heed to what you’re saying. So going into your family, right? You’re saying that you’re married. So how do you currently or have you juggle your work life with your family life?

Well, my kids, by the time I started this were either in College or high school. I was kind of relieved of the burden of being there every day for motherhood. And I have been a very independent woman and one of my girls specifically to be independent and raise them that way. So when they went off to College, I would have to remember to call them. They never called me, and I never called them. So like, as long as I don’t hear from you, you’re doing fine. So getting on with my own work has always has been relatively easy, even when they were kids. And I was writing my first book and my first book, what to Twelve Years to Write. It was a semi autobiography novel. I would say to them, if the doors closed, you can’t come in. If the door is open, you can come in and they learn how to respect that. And I would have my time compartmentalized for the different roles I was doing. So I’ve been very fortunate and that the kids who are now adults, my oldest is 45 and my youngest is 30, and they all had very different parenting experiences. And that’s a whole other story unto itself right there. Yeah. I mean, it’s never gotten in the way of anything, frankly, got you.

So I think you alluded to something. I mean, earlier on, you said you were the first person in your family to go to College, and then you just said that both your kids went to College. So I mean, in being that you’re an entrepreneur, do you think College was like something that supported currently where you are, or is it more so a journey to kind of find out what you want to do for me going to College?

I was inspired by I just given up my first trial for adoption. I got pregnant when I was 19, didn’t know who the father was, and I had her for about three months. And then I gave her up for adoption because it’s clear it wasn’t going to work. And the woman who handled that said to me, I think you’re smarter than you think. And this was really the first opening for me, the fact that I might actually have a brain in my head that was worth thinking about, literally. So she encouraged me to go back to school. And for me, that meant in England, I had to do something called on A levels. It’s what you usually do between 15 and 18 in the English school system. Well, I didn’t have my O levels, and I didn’t have my A levels, but I managed to bullshit my way in to forget the O levels. We’ll just do A levels, and I got the A levels. And then I was encouraged to go to College. So it was really, really the Don College piece for me was about some kind of proof that I had a brain in my head because I grew up with a message that I wouldn’t amount to anything. And I grew up with people who are semi literate. So there was no books in the house. There was nothing that really encouraged any kind of intellectual curiosity. And yet I’ve been intellectually curious. My entire life. When I was a child, I would read the dictionary because I wanted to learn new words. So there’s always been that curiosity piece. And curiosity is one of the big pieces of my work. I want people to be curious. Be curious about why you do what you do. Be curious about what matters to you. Be curious about what’s possible for your future. I’d be curious about where you are right this minute. This very second in this reality, because this is reality. Right now, past is done. Features not here yet. This is your only reality. So getting curious about what is it that’s going on for you? So education for me became really, really important. But even after I got my College degree, I still wasn’t convinced I was that smart. But over the years, I’ve learned what a myth that was. And again, the stories we tell ourselves, because that’s really what this work I do is all about what’s the story you tell about yourself. And then how do you change that story? That becomes the bigger piece. So see, my kids, my kids went to top universities in this country, and I see them now, one of them as a senior software engineer who entrepreneurially started her own business at the age of 24 to create an app that was eventually bought out by a government entity. And she’s 33 years old and just bought herself a million dollar plus home.

Nice.

You just kind of look at that. And you go, I must have done so right now. Of course, she has a father, too. So he has something to do with it. But and the other one went to College and left after the second year and ended up in being an executive pastry chef. And she’s much happier doing that than she would have been getting an education. So to the point about education, it’s been a big factor in our family. Punishment for my kids was taking their books away. That was it. If you’re acting out, the books are covered out of your room, that’s it interesting. So what was your major while you as a school history and I specialize in medieval history because I love the idea of heretics.

That is so interesting and crazy at the same time, like that’s way over here. And you’re like way on the other spectrum. But I think in that process, you were conquering fear the entire way. I mean, that it that you just said you dealt with adopt adoption, right? You dealt with going to school and then just figuring out what you wanted to do in school. And then even with your kids later on, they’ve kind of went through something similar as well, like one daughter was going to school. But then she became a top chef. And the other daughter figured out how to create an application and get it sold. It’s like this crazy how these journey that he’s Forks and these roads happened. But on every single journey that you depicted, there is an opportunity to conquer fear at every single step of the process. So with that, I mean, do you think before you knew that you were going to dive into fear, were you sprinkling parts of those elements to your kids and to yourself without even knowing that you were doing that?

Probably. Yeah. I mean, I don’t think I was very conscious of the fact that that was that. I mean, I remember my kids being like, five, seven years old and we were living in La at the time, and they were going to take a class after school. And I said, well, you can walk through this class meant they had to cross Sunset Boulevard, which is a pretty big Boulevard. And everybody you can’t expect them to cross the street by themselves. And I said, Why there’s four, they wait for the lights, and then they cross the road and they’re fine. And I will come and get them and I did the same thing in Paris when my kids have to get on a bus to go to school. And I put my seven year old on a municipal bus, and I said, don’t forget where you got to get off. And she went to school, and people would say to me, She’s only seven years old never go. Yeah, she got brain in her head. She configure it. So teaching them to be fearless in their own way, and they talk about it now as adults, they say, yeah, we got a lesson from you about taking chances. And there’s a lot of other stories that I’m not at Liberty to talk about. But they saw from certain instances that this piece about being fearless are dealing with the fear was a very big piece of the overall arc of not only my life, but in some instances, their life too.

Definitely very interesting. So I’m very interested in figuring out. Okay, what is your morning routine look like your morning habits.

So I get up usually around 530 and between five and 530, and the first thing I’ll do is check in and see what the headlines are on the news. Then I sit down and I have a Journal, and it’s a gratitude Journal, and I usually write a page in my gratitude Journal. I also do brain exercises. So I have these little puzzles that I do in the morning just to keep the brain stimulated. It’s building shapes, and it’s good for brain work. There’s a book that I’m reading like right now. I picked a book off the shelf the other day there called Smile at Fear, and it was written by Tibetan Monk, and I hadn’t looked at it in years, and I looked at it on the shelf the other day. And as it turned out, I was on a call with a client, and her bookshelf had the same book behind her. And she’s dealing a lot with their own fears right now. And I suggested that she read this book. So I’m reading Smile. Let fear at this moment, working on my public speaking talents, skills, whatever you want to call it. So I’m taking a program on that. So I’m usually involved in doing some kind of learning that takes me up to about 07:00 in the morning. So between five and seven, there’s an awful lot that I like to pack in to that particular time. And then after that, the day gets kind of rolling. I try to work out five days, six days a week. So I have a gym buddy. I go in my garage. He goes in his garage where on Zoom period. So that’s another piece of my morning routine got to be physical.

Wow. Wow. So you alluded to books. And again, if you cannot see the video that I’m seeing right now, if you’re just listening to the audio podcast, you have essentially four book cases behind you and all of them are filled to the brim with books. So obviously for our book club, you got to make some recommendations to pull out your book. What are the books you’re reading currently and what books have helped you in your journey?

Well, I’ll bring out my books to start with, and I will hold this up. This is the first book. It’s A Fearless Factor. It was written specifically for women in midlife, but what’s in there is applicable to anybody. I share a lot of my own stories throughout my books and my own journey. And then I invite others to share their stories. So it’s a combination of things. The second book from the Fearless Factor series, if you like, is at work. And what this was designed as was a virtual mentor for managers and others who are really interested in leadership, who want to understand how to build their self confidence, their self awareness, how to communicate more effectively, how to build trust in themselves and others looking at how they’re motivated and what the motivation looks like. I also talk about dreaming big and building your vision and questioning your values and establishing your values. And then I have a section here on accelerating your opportunities with Goals and Goals is my acronym for Great Opportunity for Accelerating Leadership Success, great opportunities for Accelerating leadership success. And that’s what this book is really all about. And at the end of every section, there’s about ten questions, seven to ten questions that are designed to again to get you thinking about this because you know yourself, you read a lot of these books and you go, yeah, get back to these exercises later. You don’t. You just keep moving along and you don’t go back and you do the exercises. So at the end of the book on the fields factor at work, I repeat all the questions that are throughout the book and telling you to look for the gaps, Where’s the gaps and what do you need to be paying attention to? So these are my own personal books. You want to know some more?

Great. What books would you recommend generally for someone that like, let’s say, just go back maybe 20 years. A book that you may have read to kind of help you get over that hump of fear and step into being fearless.

I think Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero’s Journey was a big piece of my understanding because what I realized was that I had been on a quest. The Hero’s Journey is about someone who goes on a quest and they have to overcome challenges, and they have to kind of look for. The Holy Grail is a hero’s journey. You’re looking for something specific a lot of the time. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but the Hero’s Journey spoke to me in a big way. He has a quote that I absolutely love, and it said the privilege of a lifetime is knowing who you are. Now I read that 20 years ago. The privilege of a lifetime is knowing who you are. Do we really know who we are unless we take time to explore because we are an amount of different things and frequently how we see ourselves and who we think we are is based on other people’s opinions of who we are. And that becomes our imagery. And I can see you’re nodding your head in agreement there, because that’s the truth of it. So again, how did you get down to the essence of who you are? That was a very important book for me. For the entrepreneurs out there, there’s a great book by Dori Clark, who I truly admire. She’s got a book called Entrepreneurial You, and it goes through the various things that one has to think about in becoming an entrepreneur. And she actually started her business about the same time as mine. But she had a family accomplished background before she started it. But she writes regular for HBR. She’s got a program called Recognized Expert Course that I’m actually part of. And there’s a whole bunch of other things that she does. So I really admire her. And I really appreciate her work, the book that I thought, and I’m just going to pull this off.

Doing a lot of she’s rolling back into her library.

This is a book called An Everyone Culture. And the reason why I’m holding this to a comp is because for the last few years, I’ve been doing a lot of behavioral assessments. I’m certified in 360 assessments that measure behavior, scientifically measure behavior. And so I’ve been doing a lot of work within organizations. And we know most organizations are hugely dysfunctional. It’s like, what are organizations have in common people? What are the challenges of every organization people? How do you address a lot of these issues that you need to do? So when you talk about being a boss encaged, it’s really about how can you be a great leader? So the Everyone culture is about becoming a deliberately developmental organization. And I love this idea of deliberation deliberately. It’s what I talk about. Be deliberate in your change process. Be deliberate in figuring out what’s really going to make your life happy, what’s gonna fulfill you? Because let’s face it, Navis wants to get to that wooden box thinking, yeah, that was he. So what you want to get to the wooden box thinking? Well, I gave it my best shot. In fact, that’s what I told my kids when I’m dead, you’re gonna put a little stone up somewhere that says she gave it her best shot, you know, because that’s really all we can hope for. But that’s again, not taking the next step, you know, give your best shot. Take the next step. So I love this book because it talk about organizations that were transparent organizations that really believed in honesty and creating a psychologically safe space, because that’s really important. You’re not going to be vulnerable. You won’t give yourself permission to speak up if you can’t feel safe. So this is all about how do you create that safe space? And I wish to God there was more organizations that really embrace this and created that because let’s face it, you’re spending 80% of your life in the workplace and a lot of it is miserable. So how do we get happy? It is true. That was a big one.

This is very, very true. I think the book choices that you’ve got me, they’re definitely a wide range from mindset to entrepreneurism. And I definitely appreciate those books. And I’m going to take heat and get my hands on a couple of the ones that you recommended. So going into the next question. So books is one thing again, it seems like you’re a very system oriented person. So what software do you currently use or software that you currently use that you would not be able to do what you’re doing without.

Well, if I look at my online programs right now, we’re using something called 360 is 360 articulate. I think it is where you build courses everybody knows about Thinkific you’ve probably don’t think if it courses yourself, you have the video, you have the PDF, and that’s pretty much it. But this program allows a lot of fun for me. So I have ways in which people can visually interact. We’ve got videos, we’ve got challenges, we’ve got quizzes. And so that’s rise 360 Articulate. That’s my main one right now. Other types of apps that I’m using. Trello is good for organizing content, and I definitely would recommend that as a possibility. I’m using a lot of spreadsheets right now. I’ll be honest. And to be totally Frank with you, I hated spreadsheets for years. It’s like ill data and lines with lines of information. I have a creative mind. I’m like, let me write a book. I don’t need to put it into an Excel spreadsheet. But what I found was that like I said earlier, you asked me to go back to 15 years ago. Acumen business acumen. Yeah. If I’ve had a bit more systems in play at the beginning, I might have saved myself a little bit of heart take. So I have a system that someone in India created called Orderly, and it’s all about keeping your life ordered. And it’s all in a spreadsheet. And you just have to enter the data and then you got to be consistent with it. But that’s it. So I mean, there’s so many apps out there, frankly, and everybody’s got their own preference on them. So. Off the top of my head, that’s what comes to mind.

Great. So let’s say I’m 50 years old, right? And I want to leave corporate miracle. I decided to become an entrepreneur. I’m time traveling back and I’m in your shoes at age 50, and I’m like, what the hell do I do next? What words of wisdom would you give to me to help me cross over and become fearless and continue on my journey?

So having been in a safe environment, I you had a check coming in. You had health benefits, and you had all kinds of things that kind of added up to security in your life. Stepping off of that platform into your own space, that in itself, just the impulse to do that is a fearless move right there. So again, courage to take the next step. So if you were saying to me, I’m really done with corporate, I would send say you. So what is it that really excites you? What is it that really matters to you? So there’s a whole plethora of reasons out there as to what that could be, but to take that next step to really say, okay, I’m giving up a paycheck here. I’m giving up the security. What am I going to get in return? There ain’t no guarantees. So you got to be comfortable being uncomfortable. That is it. Get comfortable being uncomfortable while you figure out what needs to be done. I got a client right now. We really should leave an organization. She’s been with it for 16 years, and she’s terrified about what’s out there. And I like to say to her, there are people because she’s a very prominent person involved with climate change. I said there are people out there waiting to hear from you, and you have to believe that. And you have to believe that what you have to offer is something important, because if it’s just chasing after another page text, it’s not enough reason to do this. But if you really feel passionate about something and it’s not just about following your passion on the rest will follow that’s bullshit. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a passionate individual, but there’s a lot of practical details necessary for me to do what I need to do. I would say get clear on your motivation of why you feel the need to make this kind of shift. And it’s not just about where I get to work at home more often. That’s great. I love working at home. And frankly, now that we’re in this virtual reality, I can perfectly happily live here. I do not need to get in my car and drive 3 hours to Palo Alto when the traffic is bad for 90 minutes, minutes of a workshop. Let’s just get on Zoom and I’ll deliver it plenty of energy. It works. So the point being is get clearing in your your vision of what it is that you want to be doing so in order to be fearless, get comfortable being uncomfortable. Take that next step, knowing that it’s just the next step and then the next step, because if you think too far ahead, you’ll never do it. You got to stay right here right now. What is it about right now that’s going to give you the motivation to take that next step.

Whereas directly from the Fairless boss yourself, man, definitely words you should definitely listen to and take action on. So how can people find you online? Like what’s your Facebook, your Instagram, your website handles.

So the website is the fearless factor at work. Com. The fearless Factor at work. Com. I’m on LinkedIn and you can find me under Jacqueline Wales. Facebook is the same. Jacqueline Wales I don’t do Instagram and they don’t do Twitter because I only have so many hours in the day and I can’t be bothered with them. Although I’ve been advised lately that I should be on Instagram, I’m like, yeah, okay. One more thing to do. We’ll get there. So that’s pretty much it for my profile.

Definitely cool. Cool. So just going into, like, a bonus round, a couple of bonus questions for you. And this one I was going to ask you if you could be a superhero, who would it be and why?

My first reaction to that question is always Wonder Woman. She comes out of this historical background. She’s able to time travel. She has all these capabilities and strengths, and we all love the bracelet that stops whatever challenges are coming in. So that would be the automatic one for me. We’re talking about superheroes looking at Marvel people, the Black Widow. She’s pretty cool. She’s got a lot going on and her thing. So.

That’S that so another bonus question for you. If you could spend 24 hours with anyone dead or alive, uninterrupted for those 24 hours, who would it be? And why?

You know, I think it’s interesting because I’ve always felt like Oprah Winfrey and I could have a great conversation for 24 hours. And I know she’s like the figure that a lot of people would point to, but with her story in my story and our passion for what we’re doing in the world, I think we would have an amazing conversation for 24 hours.

Yeah, I can definitely concur with that. I could totally see you and open sitting down in Hurler huge backyard, drinking like a Margarita or something, having this type of conversation for 24 hours, and it’ll probably get really detailed and really insightful as well. So this is the time of the podcast on this journey of this conversation that you and I have had, you may have done some questions that you may want to ask me. The microphone is yours. And do you have any questions that you like to ask me?

Well, I really appreciate that the the conversation we’ve just had. And so my first question is, what’s your greatest challenge right now?

My greatest challenge is I think, like many entrepreneurs like myself, it’s time I have systems in place, and I’m always constantly tweaking and modifying systems to optimize my day even more. And every single time I get a system in place, something else that’s going to piggy back on what I’m doing to scale and expand makes me have to update my system again. So it’s a constant evolution, constantly growing and modifying things. So for me, it’s trying to figure out, like, when is enough going to be enough? And honestly, I don’t think anything is ever going enough is going to be enough for me. So I’m constantly juggling and modifying on a day to day basis.

So you realize this is to do with choices, don’t you? It’s like, what choices are you making? As you’re saying, it’s never enough. What is enough? That becomes a bigger question, isn’t it? What is enough? And I’m sure you have some very big goals. So what is your goal for the next year? So.

The next year, I mean, for me, it’s essentially taking this podcast and expand it’s at global scale now. But I want to make it more than just go. I want to be able to get to tens of thousands of individual entrepreneurs, small business owners, and bring them into the system to help educate them on their journeys, to give them insights like what you deliver today. Somebody has never heard you speak before and they hear you speak now. It’s kind of like, where have you been in the reality? Everybody’s there. We need outlets, more outlets like this to give access to entrepreneurs to tell their stories so that the world can hear it. So my goal is I have listeners now, but I need more listers. I need to be on a wider scale. The irony is I had a podcast earlier today and he was saying, if you’re not screaming loud enough to create enough haters to be knocking on your door, telling you why you hate you, then you’re not screaming loud enough. And that really resonated with me is like, I need to scream louder. I need to magnify. I need to make my voice. And what I’m doing on this podcast Echo around the world.

That’s important, and I can totally relate. It said to me many times, you are the best kept secret. I’m like, I’m no longer interested in being a best kept secret. Let’s make a lot of noise in the world and let’s get it out there. So I love your vision. I love from where you’re going to go with this because you are changing lives and you are informing people about the opportunities and the possibilities for thinking bigger, being bigger, being more available, giving yourself to the world. That is a gift. And I think one of the things that I’m really loving is that there are so many people with great gifts and they’re starting to have a much louder voice. So I’m hearing your voice today. I think it’s great. So that’s my two questions for you today.

Definitely. Well, I definitely appreciate you taking the opportunity of your schedule and just being completely transparent and being fearless in dropping so much different information and Nuggets about your journey and how you got to where you are and even delivering the message of what you can help people get over. I think you are a hell of a coach. And I’m happy that we found each other on this journey. So, again, I appreciate you. Thank you for coming on the show today.

My pleasure to thank you so much. Forward to continuing the conversation at a later date.

Definitely essay grant over.