Who is Janine?
Janine Bolon is a seasoned entrepreneur with a background in analytical biochemistry, having worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 15 years. A dynamic figure who combines her scientific acumen with a drive to teach, Janine has blended her interests in technology, business, and personal development to support others in achieving a balanced and successful life. She is the author of 20 books, a creator of 112 online courses, and hosts four podcast programs along with a radio show, all of which focus on helping people balance work, family, and creativity without succumbing to burnout.
Episode Summary:
In this enlightening episode of “Five Questions Over Coffee,” host Stuart Webb is joined by the multifaceted Janine Bolon. An entrepreneur, scientist, and educator, Janine shares her journey from the pharmaceutical industry to becoming a homeschooling advocate and business owner. Having authored numerous books and created multiple online courses, Janine reveals her secrets to maintaining a well-lived life without burning out. This episode dives deep into how established professionals can transition smoothly through major life changes using structured systems and creative insight.
Janine Bolon, struck by lightning as a child and driven by a lifelong passion for understanding systems, discusses her methodologies aimed at helping people navigate the rapid advancements of technology and personal career transitions. Throughout the discussion, she highlights the importance of building systems that allow for creativity and freedom, noting that systems create the space for creativity to thrive. Additionally, Janine offers expert advice on how to leverage existing contacts, avoid common entrepreneurial pitfalls, and maintain clarity amid major life changes. Her strategies offer listeners the opportunity to explore unconventional yet highly effective paths to personal and professional success.
Key Takeaways:
Systemize for Success: Janine stresses the importance of creating systems to enable both business scalability and freedom for creativity.
Clarity Over Chaos: Instead of seeking more clients, focus on clarity and effective systems to improve revenue streams and workflow.
Avoiding Activity Traps: Busy doesn’t always mean productive; it’s crucial to differentiate between meaningful progress and mere activity.
Perfection vs. Progress: Waiting for perfection can delay revenue generation—embrace progress instead.
Build Authentic Relationships: Genuine and helpful interactions can often lead to significant business opportunities over time.
Notable Quotes:
“I help you with clarity because you’ve already accomplished a lot, but now you’re trying to move forward with this knowledge.”
“Systems create the freedom for your creativity. What kind of lifestyle are you wanting with this business?”
“Waiting for everything to be perfect is what’s delaying your ability to bring in revenue.”
“Every morning I wake up and I go, hot damn, I get another day.”
“If you don’t have your polestar in alignment, you will never make where you want to go.”
Resources:
Five Questions Over Coffee Podcast
Janine’s Article: Available soon at free stuff link.
Master Contact Sheet training: Exact URL pending, available through Janine’s blog.
Contact Janine Bolon: Website
For those seeking inspiration or insights into managing transitions and cultivating creativity, this episode with Janine Bolon is a must-listen. Stay connected for more engaging and informative content from “Five Questions Over Coffee.”
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Transcript
Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.
SPEAKERS
Janine Bolon, Stuart Webb
0:00:00 - (Janine Bolon): Foreign.
0:00:23 - (Stuart Webb): Hi and welcome back to five Questions over Coffee. I’m delighted. Today I’m joined by Janine Bolon. Janine, now this is a fascinating, a fascinating introduction and I’m going to just, I’m just going to have to sort of say if we get time to dive into this, I’d really love to. When Janine Boland was young, she was struck by lightning. Now that is a really interesting way to start anybody’s introduction, but she’s always loved figuring out how things work.
0:00:50 - (Stuart Webb): She was a scientist. She’s a scientist to a core. And she has dug into the mysteries of life and tried to understand why things are the way. I understand absolutely where she’s coming from with that. But after working in the pharmaceutical industry for 15 years, she’s dropped out, homeschooled her four children and. But she’s always had a side business in her life and she shares with others how to manage a well lived life of children, family, friends and clients while not suffering from burnout.
0:01:20 - (Stuart Webb): She’s now written 20 books, 112 online courses, four podcast programs and a radio show which all express her desire to share her systems and routines with others. And we’re going to get much more into Janine’s life as we talk about this. Janine, thank you for coming and spending a few minutes with us with so much going on. I appreciate how busy you are and therefore this must be a big stretch for you. So thank you so much for doing it.
0:01:44 - (Janine Bolon): You are so welcome. And I absolutely love being able to help other business owners not make my mistakes. I’m always like, I’ve made the mistakes, let me teach you my mistakes. And then you go make new ones. Don’t make the ones I made.
0:01:57 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah, I know that feeling so much. Let’s just dive in a little bit too some of that stuff. Now then, then you must have an ideal client, somebody you’re trying to sort of really reach out and help describe what the sort of problem it is they’ve got, what is it that they’re doing as a mistake that you look at, I can help you from, from getting the third degree burn that you’re about to get to turn that into just a bonus gold.
0:02:21 - (Janine Bolon): Right? Right. We’re going to try to keep you from getting burnt at all. Okay. We’re going to try to keep that flesh nice and nice and calm. Right? Very calm. I think the biggest one with people that I work with, they’re already very accomplished. Like my people, they aren’t beginners in the sense of they’re starting fresh. Like, never written a book or never started a business. They’ve actually started a business, and they’re in a massive transition.
0:02:48 - (Janine Bolon): You know, they’ve either built the business, they’ve written the book, they’ve raised their family, all right, They’ve already accomplished, like, a career, they’ve started a nonprofit. I mean, these are the type of people who come to me and they get stuck because what they accomplished in the past is not helping them move forward with the way tech is happening so fast and so quickly. They’re getting all kinds of information.
0:03:10 - (Janine Bolon): So the thing is, is they don’t need a new course. They don’t need another book. They don’t, they don’t need these things. They need somebody who can help them tweeze out. Okay, this is what I’ve got. How do I move forward? So I like to share with people. I help you with clarity because you’ve already accomplished a lot, but now you’re trying to take this stuff that you have, this knowledge that you know, and then you’re trying to build some sort of a revenue system or a revenue stream with it, and there’s so much conflicting information.
0:03:40 - (Janine Bolon): I say, look, okay, all I’ve got that I can offer you is that I’ve been running businesses since I was 10 years of age. I’ve written, I’ve had 18 different businesses. I’ve had these type of careers. Do you want some help from that perspective? And they’re like, absolutely. And so those are my people that I’m. That I’m working with.
0:04:00 - (Stuart Webb): You’ve got such a wide range of helping them. What, I mean, we could get into sort of some of the ways in which you help, because I know you’ve got a scientist career, you’ve got, you’ve got alternative therapist career. But, but what are some of the mistakes you’ve seen them do? What are the things you watch them do and think, oh, not like that.
0:04:19 - (Janine Bolon): Right. Well, I really took that question of yours to heart and I, and I sat down and I was like, what are, what are the mistakes that people are making? Because I usually focus on what they’ve done. Right?
0:04:30 - (Stuart Webb): Yep.
0:04:30 - (Janine Bolon): And it’s, it’s what you’ve done, right, is what. Where we drive forward. But here are some of the mistakes that they have. And, and I won’t go through all eight of them. I thought what I would do for your people is I’ll create an article where I list out all my notes and they can go get the article later, blah, blah, blah. But for now, I’m just going to give the top four instead of all eight because I’ve been doing this for a while and I have a different group. But there’s three challenges that they’re all working with.
0:04:58 - (Stuart Webb): I want to, I’m just going to break in. I’m just going to break in at this moment. Jenny, before you start this and say when that article that Janine has just mentioned, we will have it. If you’re now looking at this going, I want that article, I want that article. We will have this at five questions over coffee.com forward/free stuff. I will make sure that Janine’s article is there. You can go get it. Because I can feel people already saying, can I get that? Can I get that now, Janine, don’t keep that promise for long.
0:05:26 - (Janine Bolon): I, I, I won’t keep you dangling too long, but I will need 24 hours because I’m still writing it. Okay, but I, I will send the link. But yeah, there is an article coming out on my blog. And the, the thing is, is there are three challenges that most of them are working with. Like, there’s the surface problem. The surface problem is I need more clients. I need more clients. I need more clients. Right.
0:05:47 - (Janine Bolon): I hear that so many times. And so that’s the surface problem. And I like to get a little deeper because you don’t need clients, you need a system, because you don’t have a system to handle how people are working with you. The real problem is, what is that repeatable system that you have for dealing with people as they’re coming into your life? And then the last one, this one’s very emotional because usually the people I’m talking with have had some sort of major life transition, a disruption. They’ve had a divorce, all the children have left home, they’ve sold their business, they’ve written the book. They don’t know what to do beyond the book. And that’s where things can get really muddled so quickly.
0:06:26 - (Janine Bolon): And so I like to say they’re afraid at the emotional level. There’s a fear there that they will have to work as hard the next 10 years as the 10 years previous. And I like to share with them, nope, we’re going to make it super easy, super simple, so that every day you wake up and you know exactly what you’re going to be doing that day, no matter if something horrible happens in your life. Because we’ve all had it.
0:06:53 - (Janine Bolon): I like the Buddhists. You know when the Buddhists say life is pain, pain is expected. And then they go, but suffering is optional. So what we try to do is help keep you focused on keeping that suffering as an option, not as a requirement. So that’s kind of the. The areas that they’re primarily challenged by. I wanted to kind of talk to you about that, but. All right, to your question and to your point, what is.
0:07:17 - (Janine Bolon): What is it that they do that doesn’t help them move it forward? The first one is they create something new. They constantly are creating new. The problem that a lot of them have is that when they come to me, they. Their creative side has been so sequestered and so highly structured, and they weren’t able to really express their creative side. They go into this massive creative Mode for, like, 10 years. They’re creating a course, they’re creating a new book, they’re creating, creating, creating. I even myself saw myself doing that, but I was only creating as my clients wanted, the next piece.
0:07:51 - (Janine Bolon): That’s the difference. You don’t create without an audience there. You create with your audience. And so that’s kind of where the challenge is. The second one is they try every marketing tactic they’ve heard at once. So they’re on social media, podcasts, YouTube, they’re speaking. They’re doing email newsletters, they’re networking, and they may do paid ads if they have enough money in the bank. And I’ve watched people go bankrupt doing that. And so we don’t want that to happen to you.
0:08:18 - (Janine Bolon): The third one is they mistake activity for progress. And I know we’ve heard this before, and this is something that I suffered from, and I know what an easy rabbit hole that one is to fall into. Alice, I get you. I understand why that may have happened, but really, it’s like your calendar is full and you’re doing all these things, but are you actually having conversations with people on the phone or Zoom or, you know, pick your messaging? But texting is not a conversation.
0:08:54 - (Janine Bolon): I know a lot of people think that is, but believe it or not, people are craving to have people talk to them. So texting is just setting up the conversation. Just want to let you know that. So, and the last one, and this one is my favorite, because this is, I’d say 20% of my clients. They’re waiting for everything to be perfect. The website needs work. They want a better headshot. They want to finish their book first.
0:09:18 - (Janine Bolon): And perfection is actually what is delaying their ability to bring in revenue. So those are the top four.
0:09:24 - (Stuart Webb): Do you know, Jenny, we could have four podcast episodes just on those four points. So I will not dive into every single one of them. But there are two which really struck with me as you were saying it. And you know, the two that I’m just going to highlight here and just sort of expand upon a little bit. The activity, which is busyness. You know, the thing which I hate about people who are busy is you can be a busy fool. You are, are chasing the wrong thing. I am so concerned with.
0:09:53 - (Stuart Webb): But you know, my business is a lot about sort of helping people realize that businesses don’t fail to scale in the way that they expect. What they do is they fail to create the value as fast as they leak value from the business. You know, they’re pouring new leads into the top of the funnel. They’re chasing, as you said, that new customer. And what they’ve recogn, what they don’t recognize is the fact that old customers have leaked away because you haven’t kept in touch with them, you haven’t spoken to them, you haven’t done the simple stuff.
0:10:24 - (Stuart Webb): And you can be so busy forgetting to do that that you are, you are effectively leaking great value. And, and I see a lot of people who are doing exactly what you said, they’re very busy with activity, not recognizing that a lot of that activity, one possibly should be systemized into some sort of automated system to do that for them to sort of create the, the same level of activity but with no effort from them. But, but also they’re doing the wrong thing because it doesn’t actually help them move the, the value chain any further up because they’re, they’re working on the wrong thing. They’re working and being a bottleneck. So, you know, all the decisions come through them. They’re very busy making decisions, but natural. The rest of the team is sitting there waiting for somebody to make a decision so they can move on.
0:11:09 - (Stuart Webb): It isn’t the same as being an effective organization. And an efficient efficiency is, is under misunderstood so often.
0:11:17 - (Janine Bolon): Right? And I like to talk about KPIs and a lot of people like roll their eyeballs. You can see them like, oh my God, don’t talk to me about key performance indicators. And I’m like, but I don’t know how to run a business without them. I, I don’t know how to monitor and take a temperature check of my business. And it’s not just revenue. Revenue comes at the end. All right? Revenue is at the end of the system chain. It’s not the beginning.
0:11:45 - (Janine Bolon): And so one of the things I like to share with people is like how many people have you spoken to on the phone this week or zoom? Both are fine. Right. And did you invite them to the next step? And that’s what I like. Those are the two questions I ask. And you can just see people’s face kind of go, what? I’m like, that’s what we’re asking. What. What kind of opportunities have you presented for yourself? So when they say, I, I need more clients, I need more clients, I’m like, have you gone to your master contact sheet? And I’ll make sure, Stuart, that you have this. This is a free training that I have on my blog on the master contact sheet.
0:12:21 - (Janine Bolon): And when I talk to people, they’re like, well, I don’t know that many people. I said, you don’t know. You don’t need a lot of people. But when I downloaded everybody out of my phone and I downloaded everybody out of Facebook and Everybody out of LinkedIn, because you can do that. And I downloaded all those people, and I have a team member that has started setting up conversations. And I’m like, oh, and by the way, make sure you put some sort of note down there, because I’m not going to remember them.
0:12:48 - (Janine Bolon): I have currently 3,828 people in my master contact sheet. These are people who have reached out to me. It’s not me going out to them. And so they’re not cold leads, they’re warm. They’re people who already know you. Now, I have had a few people. Now, going to be honest here, I’ve had a few people where I reached out and they’re like, how do I know you? And I’m like, great question. We connected back in 2019.
0:13:13 - (Janine Bolon): A few things have happened since then. Do you want to catch up or is this, like, not something you want to do? Like, I am always inviting. I’m giving them an out. Why? I don’t want to deal with people who are hesitant around me. They either make the decision yes or no. But if they’re like, oh, I don’t know if this is a good foot, tell me more. I’m like, not my people. My people are like, yes, let’s move to the next step. Let’s. Let’s get to know each other. Like, those are my people.
0:13:39 - (Janine Bolon): Maybe you want to work with the hesitant people, that’s fine. But that’s not my. That’s not my purpose.
0:13:45 - (Stuart Webb): And I do think that sometimes with that sort of strategy and once again, just sort of expanding a little bit on that, people sort of say, well, we’ve got to, you know. And I Get so frustrated with this. Well, the next step has to be the same. No, it doesn’t. The next step has to be to have another meeting or the next call. Have another call. Well, the next step can be, hey, we’ve had a great time. Let’s do this again in six months. I mean, it doesn’t have to be the sale every single time. And I do get somewhat frustrated with people who think that, you know, reach out on LinkedIn, get a sale, move on to the next one. That, you know, we’re human beings, we sometimes we need time to just build the trust, build the communication, and then go, yeah, you know, that, that was a good time. I’m, I’m happy to do that again in a few months time. Or, you know, the next step would be for us to explore that solution. Let’s go. Let’s go do that. Let’s. Let’s actually put a time in the D for that. But it doesn’t have to be that every single time.
0:14:38 - (Janine Bolon): And I will let people know I’m a relationship marketer, and I have a very long window before somebody will fork over cash. But when people fork over money, they’re forking over anywhere from 9,000 to $50,000 for me. So to me, I am not going to rush that process. Enough people have been rushed, and I don’t, I don’t rush them. And so that’s why the whole process and the whole program is called revenue without rush. If you’re looking for a quick fix, I am not your person.
0:15:06 - (Janine Bolon): If you’re looking for something that because you’re desperate, I am not your person. However, if you’re desperate but you’re willing to put in a little time, and a little time is six months, then we can help get you out of that situation. But, yeah, it’s one of those situations where you’re like, look, the best kind of businesses build their systems. And that’s why one of my icons is a turtle, because the turtle’s carrying his whole thing like he’s got his whole, you know, the tortoise and the hare is a wonderful mythos, especially for sales. All right. And the whole purpose is you’re going to make sure you make it. And the other thing I like about turtles is they live a long time.
0:15:47 - (Janine Bolon): They’re not going to burn out. They’re moving at their pace. Thank you.
0:15:52 - (Stuart Webb): And they do well on it. Janina, I. I’m fairly sure that this next question, I mean, you’ve already delivered huge amounts of value in the last couple of minutes. But is there one, one piece of, a two piece of advice that you would leave with people? You know, I’ve already referenced that. We will have your stuff at the, at the link with the free stuff link. But. And that’s back on state on the, on the, on the, on the screen now, which is the five questions ever. Coffee.com
0:16:21 - (Stuart Webb): forward/free stuff. But is there a one or two pieces of advice that you’d like to, you know, past do you, what you pass without, without question to people?
0:16:33 - (Janine Bolon): There’s two. And I was looking over, I was looking over my notes because I had like five or six and I thought, what are the most important here?
0:16:40 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:16:43 - (Janine Bolon): And I think the first one is if you’re a highly creative person and you want to start making revenue for yourself and you really want to build that side hack or what have you, if you’re highly creative, build a system. Systems create the freedom for your creativity, the challenges. A lot of creatives have been so controlled for so long. They bust out and they’re like, screw it, I’m going to do it my own way. I’m not listening to anybody. It’s all about me and I’m going to do it my own way. And then they wonder why they’ve taken a year and they still don’t have a style, still don’t have a marketing campaign. They still don’t have a system for handling new people. They’re not getting the consignments that they want. They’re not getting people coming in and saying, hey, can you do this for me?
0:17:26 - (Janine Bolon): And that’s where I want you to be in six months. Not flailing, still flailing around after a year. So highly creative people see structure and systems as loss of freedom. They don’t really because they’ve had external control of that. However, if you’re the one building a business, you’re the one wanting to build this creative business, then what you do is you make sure you have your time for creativity and then you build out your systems for the lifestyle you want. And that’s where it becomes very personal, very private.
0:17:57 - (Janine Bolon): But it helps to have somebody like myself or Stuart. I don’t care who you pick. Pick somebody. Pick somebody who can say, okay, now let’s make sure we walk you through so you can get you revenue by the end of it. So I highly recommend that you definitely start talking to Stuart because he knows what he’s talking about. If he attracted somebody like me to get on his freaking show, he obviously has systems in place.
0:18:18 - (Janine Bolon): Because my Team only operates in systems. And the system has to fit your life so you don’t burn out.
0:18:24 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah, yeah.
0:18:24 - (Janine Bolon): It’s not imposing a system. It’s like, what kind of lifestyle are you wanting with this business? What are your current engagements? Some people have children, some don’t. Some have a 9 to 5. You know, it just depends on what’s happening to you. And so talk to Stuart about it so he can get you in the right direction. Yeah,
0:18:44 - (Stuart Webb): you’ve got another one. I can feel it.
0:18:46 - (Janine Bolon): We got a second one. Yeah, yeah. What is your version of success? And people hate this question, but it’s like, literally, is it revenue? If you totally make your success based on the money, you’re in for a long haul. You are in for a side hack that is going to burn hot and you’re always going to be selling. And you will have it on your breath. It will come out on your breath. Or is your measure of success how many people you help?
0:19:19 - (Janine Bolon): Is your measure of success how many people you actually contact this week? For me, it’s how many people can I help in a week? And if I keep in that mode, I’m making my five phone calls a day. I’m hitting my marks, I’m hitting my thing, and then something happens like a kid has to go to college and all of a sudden they don’t have an apartment and we’re scrambling. I may not get all five people in that day, but I got one phone call in as I’m making phone calls, helping my kids out with whatever’s happening at uni. Right.
0:19:50 - (Janine Bolon): So, you know, life happens. But if you have that system in place, it can adjust to what level of success you are guiding yourself in.
0:20:00 - (Stuart Webb): Can I just throw one other into that? Because I think it’s another great measure of success, which is don’t hear enough people talking about. And they, they. We talked a little bit about it just now. People will turn around and say, I need more sales. But actually, one of the great measures of success is whether or not you’ve got the right number. Because, you know, if you doubled your business tomorrow, if you. If you’ve got 10 clients and you threw in another 10, you could break your business. And a lot of people chase after those 10 thinking it’s.
0:20:28 - (Stuart Webb): But in actual fact, that could break your business because you just cannot cope, particularly if you don’t have a good system or even if you’ve got a system that’s scaled to 10 and it’s not scaled for 20. So you can actually chase after the number and that number can be the bat, could, could break your business because it’s, you’re just not ready for it. So I think too many people don’t think about what’s my number, what is the number of customers I really need, and what have I built in terms of a system in order to be able to accommodate a doubling or a trebling of my, my number.
0:20:58 - (Stuart Webb): You, you’re chasing five contacts a day, which is so easily scalable. You know, you are, you are just keeping things ticking on because those five, you know, yes, not all will result in a new contact, but if you were chasing revenue, you could easily break because you could. Your team at the moment is set up for X amount, Y, a man could easily break.
0:21:20 - (Janine Bolon): So a good point. And one of those things that I constantly am working with people of, don’t worry about scaling. Make sure that you’re getting the numbers you need right now. And then when you get ready to scale, call Stuart.
0:21:34 - (Stuart Webb): Number situation. Let’s move on to what brought you to here, Janine, because you’re somebody with such an interest. As I said at the beginning, you’re a scientist, you’re a book author, you’re a podcast guest, podcast host. You have 112 online programs. What gate, what started that path? How did you get from where you were to where you are? What was it, a book? A course? Being struck by lightning? What was the thing that got you from where you were to where you are now?
0:22:11 - (Janine Bolon): Well, it started with me going back to college as an adult after 20 years. So I had gone to uni and gotten my baccalaureate in science and analytical biochemistry. So I’ve always been very much steeped in technology. And for those of you who may or may not know about biochemistry, it’s the study of cells at the molecular level. So pretty tiny stuff. And it required you to have the same education as engineers because you were working with many of the same instrumentation. So kind of a hardware junkie at the same time.
0:22:49 - (Janine Bolon): And so I was going back to college and I was getting the degree that I thought I was getting as an analytical biochemist, which was, I wanted to know how to live well because I thought college was going to help me live well. And my family did a beautiful job in raising me. I lived to 18, you know, but at age 18, you were kicked out of the house. They were done. Like it, there was no, there was no going back as far as they were concerned. It’s like, figure it out, kid. You’re on your own. You know, you were booted out the door.
0:23:21 - (Janine Bolon): And, and so I wanted to know how to live well. And I’ve always had a side hack, I’ve always had a side business because I just never felt like one job could encapsulate everything that I wanted to learn and do and experience and have. So when I went back to my master’s, I started coaching everybody on money. And when I say everybody, I was helping freshman students, I was helping faculty members. I ended up going before the board of the college that I was in and I gave the principles of the 60:40 rule.
0:23:53 - (Janine Bolon): And then back in 2005, if you can go back that far, far, I ended up taking my master’s thesis and creating it into a book. And I was called Vain. Because you were so vain. You were self publishing. Now it’s all the rage. I feel like, oh, finally everybody’s caught up to my party. But back then, Amazon only sold books. And I got on Amazon after jumping through all their hoops and spending $225, I got onto Amazon and people thought I was a big name. So that’s how it started. It was my master’s thesis, which was called Money.
0:24:30 - (Janine Bolon): It’s Not Just for Rich People. And that was the beginning.
0:24:34 - (Stuart Webb): Wow. Wow. That’s a more interesting origin story than anybody else has had, I’m fairly sure. And I say that as one biochemist to another, so.
0:24:46 - (Janine Bolon): Right. Which is one of the reasons Stuart, I’m like, oh, this is going to be great.
0:24:53 - (Stuart Webb): Look, Janine, I, I think that’s, that’s an incredible story. And you know, that led you into understanding things about business and, and book publishing, but you’ve obviously just not stopped. You just, you just keep reinventing yourself, don’t you? What, what is, what’s next for you? And you, you’re now helping people out with, with systems and building their business. You’ve got an. If you’ve got an eye on the future that you’re thinking about, you know, or are you just happy to live today?
0:25:20 - (Janine Bolon): I always have an eye on the future. And that is because I know how precious this life is. When you have a life altering event like getting struck by lightning, you don’t take anything for granted. You don’t take the fact that every morning, and you’ll forgive me, but every morning I wake up and I go, hot damn, I get another day. I mean, seriously, you don’t come through certain aspects and certain experiences without having an attitude. And so that keeps me going.
0:25:51 - (Janine Bolon): And the reason I have an eye on the future is my last child. I have four My last child is wrapping up their final semester in college, so my business is going to change again, right? Because now more time is going to be opening up. I don’t know. I paid the last tuition payment two weeks ago, and so I. Responsibilities are falling off, but new responsibilities are coming. What does that mean? I choose.
0:26:19 - (Janine Bolon): I just don’t accept new responsibilities. I’m making very discreet choices on what am I going to do, and I cannot encourage you enough to make choices based on what you want to do.
0:26:31 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah, brilliant. Absolutely fantastic. Now, that leads me to my last question, which is, well, probably you’re thinking to yourself, the one killer question he hasn’t yet asked me, and I can’t wait for him to do it. But I don’t know what that killer question is. And so therefore, Janine, what is the killer question that I should have asked you, which I haven’t yet. And obviously, as you know the question, you better answer it for us as well.
0:26:54 - (Janine Bolon): The question that I would love for you to have asked me is what drives me to keep moving forward.
0:27:04 - (Stuart Webb): I have a funny feeling you have a really great answer for this one.
0:27:08 - (Janine Bolon): I do. My father was in the Navy, and I remember as a very young child, he always said, if you don’t have your polestar in alignment, you will never make where you want to go. Now, for those of you who may not understand nautical terms, because there are a few. A polestar was the old way they used to navigate the masted ships. And it is very daunting as a young child when you’re taken up into a ship, whether metal or wooden, and you get to go into the crow’s nest, whatever that may look like, and you get to see that. And then you’re told, now where are you gonna go? And all you see, 360 degrees is water.
0:27:53 - (Janine Bolon): There’s no land mass. There’s nothing. What do you say? What do you do? And that’s what I turned to my dad, and I’m like, I don’t know where. I don’t even know where land is. You know, I’m eight. I. I don’t even know where land is. I just let him drive the boat, right? That’s what I said, Drive the boat. And that’s when he taught me, oh, you’re going to need a sextant. And he goes, and in life, that’s your moral compass.
0:28:17 - (Janine Bolon): Yeah, have your sextant figure out where the sun is, figure out, blah, blah, blah. And then when it turned night, he was teaching me how to navigate by the stars. So A pole star is how you navigate at night when nothing is around you but water. And I’m sure if you were listening to this, you’ve had something happen in your life where everything was burned to ash, where you felt like there was nothing left, and you had 30 days to get your act together.
0:28:42 - (Janine Bolon): It’s like, I’ve lived this once or twice. You have 30 days to get your act together and figure out what you’re going to do for you and your family. So make sure you know, you have your sextant, you have your mobile compass, and you have a pole star. And that’s what drives me forward.
0:28:57 - (Stuart Webb): Janine, I. I am speechless. I love that. And I think it’s probably the most important thing that you, despite the fact you’ve said everything’s important, having I. Having. Having that star, having something which you focus on and keep you going. You know, so many people, I think, fail to understand the importance of having that, to keep them centered, to keep them going towards something. Now, that can be.
0:29:24 - (Stuart Webb): That can be a measure that you put into your business. It can be something where you turn around and say, I know that if I help. And I. I’ve said this to so many people who come to me and say, I don’t like sales, don’t sell, then in that case, start helping people. So maybe you just reach out and you say, I’m going to help a few people today. Some of those people might pay you, some of them might not. I don’t know that it.
0:29:46 - (Stuart Webb): That it matters. Go help somebody. And if that’s your North Star, if that’s your polestar, then use that as your compass to say, how many people have I helped today? How many people have I reached out today? How many people today have said thank you to me because I did something for them, Whatever it is, go do that, Janine. That’s been inspiring for me. I really appreciate it. And I know you do. You do all sorts of things. You have.
0:30:09 - (Stuart Webb): You have coffee, coffee mornings where people could join you on this sort of thing, don’t they? So we’re going to put some of those links into our free stuff. We’re going to point you towards where Janine does some of this stuff, because I think she’s one of the most helpful people we’ve come across. And I love the fact that she’s come and spent a few minutes with us today. Thank you so much for doing that. Janine. I’m just going to ask one question.
0:30:30 - (Stuart Webb): Would you. If you’re listening to this and you think I’d like to hear more from people like Janine. We get people, few of them as inspiring as this, but go to fivequestionsovercoffee.com you can use that to subscribe to the to the to the RSS feed that will give you this podcast on a regular basis and you will get to hear about people like Janine coming up and talking about some really important stuff like this. Janine, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us.
0:30:54 - (Stuart Webb): Really appreciate it. And thank you for being such a generous guest.
0:30:59 - (Janine Bolon): My pleasure. Take care of yourself.
0:31:01 - (Stuart Webb): Thank you.
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