How to find your midlife purpose and leave the BS behind

Your Dream Business

English - December 12, 2022 00:00 - 45 minutes - 41.6 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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Previous Episode: How to tackle the Christmas period as a business owner

Next Episode: The mistakes I’ve made in business and how they’ve changed me

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Jennifer Zenz-Olson, founder of Laughing Lotus Wellness and a Transformational Purpose coach, motivational speaker, podcaster and best-selling author.

We talk all about the highs and lows of mid life, and how empowering it can be. I love everything Jen has to say, and I know you are going to get so much from this episode. As always, I’d love to know what resonates with you and what you think, so please feel free to connect with me on my social media!
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
● What do we mean by mid-life
● The positives of mid-life
● Why you need to harness your energy and use it to help you
● How to tell that you are out of alignment with your purpose
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE
There is a different confidence and power that comes with mid life, and when you embrace it, it’s really beautiful.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Jennifer Zenz-Olson Instagram
Laughing Lotus Wellness Facebook
Laughing Lotus Wellness YouTube
Laughing Lotus Wellness Website
Wendy Hill’s Fab Female Nutrition Club
Transcript
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing?

So this week I have a interview, which is my second to last is my penultimate interview for the time being. Like I said, I am taking a break from interviewing, I'm gonna do solos and I'm gonna keep 'em short and sweet. I'm gonna do some real practical tips and advice. So this is one of the last interviews you're going to hear. I've got one more in two weeks time.

This is the lovely Jen Zen Olsen. She is so, so lovely. I met her through networking a while back and you know, you just hit it off and I really love what she says. I love how she is and I know you're going to get a lot from this episode, so there's probably no point in me saying anything else. I'll just hand over to Jen.

I am really excited today to welcome to the podcast the very lovely Jen Zens Olson. Jen, how are you doing?

Jennifer: Oh my gosh, so good. So excited to be here with you. I'm so excited for this interview and this chat today we're gonna have today. I know it's gonna be amazing.

Teresa: Honestly, I am like, you know when you meet someone online, I'm talking to my lovely listeners and you're like, oh no, we should be friends. Like, and isn't it funny as an adult to be like, yes, so I really be friends with you. Can we be friends?

Jennifer: Totally like friend crushing on someone. You're like, isn't too soon to ask for a second date. But I really like you.

Teresa: But obviously it's funny when you're older, like making friends with people, but but also how I don't like you when I meet someone. Oh, yeah. No, you, you, you're the person.

Like, so I am so grateful that, luckily Jen felt the same way and we've been hanging out and, and that she's on the podcast. So I'm really excited about this. Jen, we always start exactly the same way by you explaining to my lovely audience who you are and how you got to do the thing that you do today.

Jennifer: Okay, so I work with really successful middle aged women who are at a place in their life where they are maybe...

I am really excited today to welcome to the podcast the very lovely Jen Zens Olson. Jen, how are you doing?

Jennifer: Oh my gosh, so good. So excited to be here with you. I'm so excited for this interview and this chat today we're gonna have today. I know it's gonna be amazing.

Jennifer: Totally like friend crushing on someone. You're like, isn't too soon to ask for a second date. But I really like you.

Teresa: But obviously it's funny when you're older, like making friends with people, but but also how I don't like you when I meet someone. Oh, yeah. No, you, you, you're the person.

Jennifer: Okay, so I work with really successful middle aged women who are at a place in their life where they are maybe dealing with all sorts of things that are shifting and changing in the worlds, like perhaps empty nesting or needing a career change, relationship things a maybe aging parents, and they feel like they've got all these layers kind of covering them, and they're facing this place in their life where they know that they need to make a shift. I call it a lane change. They know that they need clarity.

They've maybe lost touch with their purpose, but know they wanna do something big and they're not sure anymore how to go about that because it's like they had an idea at one place in their life and it shifted and transformed and evolved because we do.

And they've landed this place where they are feeling stuck. And so what I do is I work with women to help them get really clear about where they've been, where they're going, how they're going to do that, just outlining their strengths, their talents, their gifts, and also their unique energetic signature, which is something special that I do because I'm all about the energy and we sort of figure out their, their lane change.

And sometimes that means a really big shift. Sometimes it means a small shift, and we just needed to reconnect with parts of ourselves and then off they go. We just get them totally fully empowered feeling their strengths, their legacy, honestly, the impact that they can create, and then we get them going back out in the world and leaving a trailblazing, beautiful fiery place is so that they're, like I said, creating that wonderful legacy.

Teresa: I love it. I love it so much. So, a stupid question, start off with, what do you call midlife? Like what ages?

Jennifer: Yeah, that's interesting. I, I just created a Facebook community for, for, it's called Midlife Repurposed. And I, and I invited some of my friends, my friends are in their thirties, and they were like, excuse me, like, it's super funny, like, like slightly offended and like, listen, here's the deal.

Everyone defines it slightly different. I know many of us probably think between like 40 and 60. I would say, I think between 35 and 65, I probably have a little bit bigger mindset only because I'm not saying 35 is midlife, but you're preparing for it. And some women actually start going through physical changes in their bodies. Sooner than others.

So I would rather someone have some awareness about what's coming and, and sort of have this idea of preparation and awareness versus waiting till I'm smack in the middle of something. And now I might be in a, in a struggle, a place of, of conflict, and now I'm searching for, for some resolution.

It's like, let's, let's get ahead of the game, right? Let's have some awareness and, and make those kind of changes in advance. Give ourselves permission to know what's coming and step into that power even sooner, because I love that kind of legacy.

Teresa: You're so right. It's funny. I need to connect you with the lovely Wendy Hill from Hill Start Nutrition, who has a group called Fab Female, and she talks about perimenopause and menopause. She's a nutritionist and, and so she talks about that. But what's cool is like I am 43 now. I always say that very tentatively like, I can't remember...

Yeah. And then we do the math and I'm like, oh yeah, no, that is right. And, but like, You know, I hadn't really thought about things like the menopause because you like, I like to pretend I'm very young, still , but being in Wendy's world, actually, like you said, it's kind of taken the, the mystery out of, you know, well that happens when you're older or that happens, you know?

And actually, like you said, there are so many people specifically just talking about this, and I apologize if you're a man and not having this part of the conversation, but there are so many people who start perimenopause far earlier than people would imagine. And, and therefore they don't know, like, and they don't know that's what it is.

And I feel very privileged now to have been in Wendy's world so that I'm more equipped with those things. So like you said, even though, you know, if I, they might be big, excuse me Jen, I'm very young and vocal. I do think there is that kind of, that kind of having an awareness of kind of what's coming, but you know, not in a negative way. The other thing that's really interesting that kind of sprung to mind as you spoke about this. In terms of the challenges of this age, right? And the fact of children growing up, and even so I've still got children at home, but they're teenagers like they don't have the same needs as they used to or they sort themselves out, you know, which is, has some real benefits.

FYI, people when you, you don't have to deal with them all the time. Conversation is a difference. Like, you know, but also like, yeah, and those challenges that them growing up were, oh God, let's don't hear it. But relationship changes. And one thing that's really fascinating, I found fascinating at the moment is we know, I know a lot of people whose relationships are breaking down or coming to an end..

I literally spoke to someone the other day. I, I replied something on Instagram to her and she DMed back and said, my husband and I have just, he's just left me like, and it came from what she said, like a bolter at the blue. It did from my point of view. Now, I didn't know him in particularly I know her, but, and then, She said to me, you know, I dunno why I've just said this to you, but you are my example of someone going through this.

Cause obviously I did, I was divorced, what it's now, 8, 9, 10 years ago and obviously I've remarried. And, but actually that, and when you were talking about like them being stuck and one of the things I thought about was, and one of things I spoke to her about is I didn't know who I was anymore and I think when it comes to the children and the careers, and even if your relationship goes, you know, doesn't have any problems. It's like you in your life, you, you get to, you know who you are, you know where you fit, you know who's around, you know how it looks. You feel comfortable and you are in your comfort zone. And when something happens that takes that out, I literally remember like God, I was wild.

Like I'm not even kidding. When my husband is nice to my ex-husband. I was wild, like cuz I didn't know who I was. I didn't know how I was meant to behave. I remember going to parties on my own and being like, what am I meant to do here? Like, and I think we always think that it takes something as big and dramatic as that's happened, but actually this age range you're talking about these little small shifts and changes are happening all the time, aren't they?

Jennifer: Right, right. They are. That's, I think that's really a testament to what I think of, you know, as people refer to midlife as a crisis. Right? So I was saying one of, one of my passions is the only narrative we have is midlife crisis, like the only that is the most depressing thing on the planet that we only have one way of looking at it.

And instead of seeing it as a crisis, can we look at it as evolution? Can we look at revolutionizing the idea and the relationship we have with it? Because you're exactly right, it's, we're in incessant change. So what who you are and what you're standing for at 20 and 30 and 40 look very, very different.

And, and to your point, you know, relationships can, can break down. We have kids, I, I, so I have a aging ailing dad who's in hospice. I just launched my child into college this year and at 40, what launched this passion and the mission that I have right now in my career is I went through this. I lived through at 40 in a perfectly beautiful private practice providing psychotherapy.

I hated going to work everyday. And I created it. It was my dream. And so I think I felt like, how did my vision get so wrong here? That I'm here and I'm peeling myself out of bed every day and I'm creatively like, how can I miss work today because I don't wanna face it. And so, and I knew something was wrong, and what happened was I felt kind of broken, to be honest.

I felt like something is deeply wrong with me. If this was my mission, if my purpose was supporting people on their journey, which by the way is way too small of a nugget. So part of it was that I wasn't even super clear about my purpose at that time. I narrowed it down and I was, I was absolutely lacking creativity, inspiration, motivation.

And I knew something was wrong on the inside. I was like, something is a mess here. And who do you talk to? My friend said things to me literally, Tracy, my friends would say things like, Jen's always had her poop together. I'm not gonna swear on your podcast I'll be appropriate. So, so, right. So they, they, my friend said things like that to me.

Jen knew what she wanted do when she came outta the womb. Jen's got it together. So who do I go save to someone when I look like it's all together. I've got the rocking career, I created my own business and I've got a good reputation and a good community and great clients. My clients were, were absolutely stellar.

I've got all this stuff going. The house, the kid, the husband, I mean, so it was like all the boxes were checked and how come I feel totally a mess. What, what is wrong with me? So I turn that really inward and I find that that's what happens is we get to that middle space and we're like, look, I, I did all the boxes.

And you're looking around going, yeah, like, how did I get here? Is, and the real question of midlife and a mentor said this to me a million years ago, and I was trained to be a therapist. He said, the question of in life is, is this enough? And I don't know why it stuck with me. And I, and I started really like returning to this question of, is this enough?

And my, my answer was no. And I didn't know what it was gonna look like. I, I had worked my tail off for my training, for my license. All the education, the, the investment in it. When you do those things, you end. So when you go how spoiled am I. They're like, I just don't feel happy.

Teresa: Yeah, I know I put everything..

Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah. It was like a really like rough mind space of how, how do I deal with this and what do I do and who am I to, to shift gears like this? So I don't want other women to go through this. I don't want other women in that stage where they're feeling stuck and they might be facing a whole handful of things and lots of times what happens, is people in midlife don't realize they've got a purpose problem underlying all of it. I think it gets stacked up, you know?

Teresa: Well, this is what I was about to say to you in terms of like, you know, if I was having a marketing conversation with you, I'd go, you know, how are we finding your perfect customer? And your perfect customer might not know that they feel like this.

Jennifer: That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

Teresa: They, you know, because exact, for many reasons, but exactly one you said that one, they might be sat there thinking, what am I moaning about? Like, seriously? Like, I've got the house, I've got the husband or the wife or the, whatever, you know?

And I've got the job or I have my own business or like, and my friends think I've got it all together. Like you, Jen, I was always the one to like mother and give advice to and be the leader cuz I am a natural leader. I can't out myself, even when I shouldn't be. I try and take over. not always a good thing.

Like I, and therefore when things go wrong in my world, I find it very hard to open up and be vulnerable. And, and when I did, they didn't like it. Because that's not my role. My role is to be the funny, loud, hilarious, like, you know, got it all together. And if she hasn't, it's just funny and she find it funny.

Like, so it was really hard to be funny. But, but like I said, I think there are a lot of people probably listen to this and I would guess that my, my lovely audience that listening to probably bang on your audience, like, yeah. I feel like they're probably going, there's something, but I dunno what it is or and I dunno how to communicate that. And I dunno what to do. Cause if I can't, if I can't communicate, how earth can I communicate to someone else to then get help for it? And I don't need help, I just need to get over myself. In fact, I heard someone say that just the other day. Just need to get over myself. So how, how do you help them identify themselves?

Jennifer: You know, it's, what it is is for people particularly because I think, like you said, what happens is we can sort of have these layers that cover us, that are, that are, that are really symptomatic, right? So how do we know we're out of alignment?

I mean, I think that's one kind of question is how would I know and there could be like you're lacking inspiration. You're lacking motivation. You're starting to find reasons to check out of life because you don't wanna be there. You might be isolating, you might be drinking too much, you might be filling the spaces with shopping too much.

There's all kinds of things that can actually also look like mental health issues that might be showing up that are really a piece of, if I looked underneath all of that, if I really got to the road of what's going on for you, you might look at me and say you know what, I, at one point I really knew what I was doing here in my life.

And now I'm not so sure. And I think it's sometimes why, you know, for example, empty nesting gets so tucked into this because if the kids leave and the kids were kind of the glue. So, so, and I don't know that anyone will know here, but I've got over 20 years of clinical social work experience was psychotherapist for, for like over 20 years.

So when I speak to this, this is kind of that, that clinical experience talking, but when, when the kids move and they became the glue, everyone feels onward again. Now we're like, well wait a minute, if I'm not a mom, right? This is one of those things that people will do for purposes. They'll say, well, it's a role.

Nope. It's a task. Nope. Yes, it is legacy. Yes, there's a piece of that, but there's actually something that's so much more about that and, and so we can miss that. And if I look at you and in the middle of your crisis, you're going like, my kid just moved out, my parent just died. I'm in the weeds.

But you wanna talk to me about purpose? Yeah, I do. But what we'll do then is what we have to do is go in and we have to attend a first to these front facing issues that if there's stuff that feels like it's coming unglued and now I need the bridge from this place where I'm in a hot mess state.

Over the purpose, you can't get there if you don't have some support. And so that's really where I started shifting of, you know, around my, my messaging to lean into this midlife thing. Let's revolutionize that and can we change the relationship we have with it. So that you could actually look at your purpose, because there's probably some evolution.

We evolve as human beings. I hope that you do but that can be scary to fit right? If we're doing something along the way. Hope we're up. We're evolving. What we might have to do is take a look at these front facing things. And so lots of times that's, that's what it is. It would be, you know, look at the front facing issues.

What's going on for you? Is it marital? Is it, is it empty nesting? Is it, you know, grief? There's so many pieces, is it hormonal? Whatever it is. And we just say, okay, what are these things? We're gonna attend to this upfront, we're gonna make sure that all is well here. And then we would move more deeply in that purpose work because you might need, because it...