Humans Leading

Your Dreams Deserve More Attention with Janet Tanguay

• Dr. Jillian Bybee • Season 2 • Episode 8

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 46:25

Send us Fan Mail

Vision boards can sound like arts and craft time for out-of-touch people, but they’re actually a practical tool for your brain, your boundaries, and your burnout recovery. 

In this episode of the podcast, I sit down with Janet Tanguay, SBA certified business advisor and CEO of Hammock Way of Life, to break down why vision boarding works for analytical, high-achieving people who want real change and a life they don't need a vacation from. 

Janet calls her method “when science meets woo,” and we dig into what that looks like when you’re trying to build a meaningful life while also juggling work, family, and constant mental load. 

Janet shares examples from corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and everyday clients, plus the common mistakes that quietly sabotage goals. 

We also go deep on the habits that make the vision real: small actions, accountability, breaking routines, and protecting time for yourself with clear boundaries. 

If you’re burned out or stuck, this conversation offers a grounded way to start dreaming again without needing to overhaul your whole life. 

You can find out more about Janet's work and connect with her here:

Join me for more over on social media:


If you’re ready to kickstart your journey (or your team's journey) to a less stressed life, I’m ready to help you! You can get in touch about 1:1 coaching or inviting me to facilitate a workshop for your group, get in touch via my website. 

Welcome And Vision Boards Reframed

SPEAKER_00

Hello, and welcome to Humans Leading, a podcast for overwhelmed people looking to live less stressed, more satisfying lives. I'm Dr. Jillian Bibe, a pediatric critical care medicine physician, mom, certified stress management coach, and wellness trainer who uses my personal experience with burnout recovery to help others do the same. This podcast is for anyone who is feeling frustrated or overwhelmed with their current way of living and looking for practical ways to make an impact in their lives today. If you're looking to feel less stressed, less stuck, and more fulfilled in your life, this is your podcast. I'm glad you're here. Hello and welcome back to Humans Leading, a podcast where we talk about how to live less stressed, more satisfying lives. I'm really excited to bring this episode to you today because it explores something that I think will be a little bit surprising to some of this audience, and that's vision boarding. And also a little bit about manifestation. I haven't talked about it much on the podcast or written about it on my blog, but for the past couple of years, I've been vision boarding seasonally in order to better think about how I want my life to feel, but also what I'd really like to be doing in the upcoming months. This is rather than just trying to hustle toward climbing the ladder of my career or have achievements, but really think about how I want my life to feel, what I want to be doing, especially being conscious of my energy level in the upcoming season. This has been a really helpful way for me to pause and reflect on what happened in the past few months and what I'd like to focus on. I'm curious what you think about when you think about vision boarding or manifestation. Because if you're like an earlier version of me, maybe it makes you roll your eyes or feel some aversion, or you're not sure why someone scientific is talking about something so woo-woo. But as today's guest and I get into a little bit in this episode, vision boarding is a science-backed way to help your brain pay attention to things. At any one time, our conscious minds are only aware of a small amount of the information that's coming in. Our brains are filtering out a ton of what's coming in and keeping it from us, which means that we may be missing out on information that we'd actually like to know. But we can make things more significant to our brains by telling them what we care about. Today's guest talks a little more about that and her process, which she describes as when science meets woo, which I absolutely love. In our conversation, we also talk about the importance of boundaries and scheduling and time for yourself, and also the importance of getting out of your routines and patterns in order to make change and live a life you love. Obviously, that's something that's very close to my heart because one of my signature phrases is if you'd like a different experience, you have to do something different. And that means committing to the change, making it happen. I had a lot of fun recording this conversation, and I think you'll really enjoy it. Before we dig in, let me tell you a little more about today's guest. Janet Tangwe is an SBA certified business advisor, creative strategist, and CEO of the Hammock Way of Life, where she guides people in fulfilling their dreams by creating good connections and opportunities. Janet is currently working with a hundred certified Hammock Way of Life vision board coaches from around the world. She's also a mixed media artist, an author of two children's books, and a book series on doing business in New York State. She produced her first record, Smell the Rain, under her record label. Janet's memoir, The Hammock Way of Life, Leaping Toward Joy, was just featured on a billboard in Times Square in New York City. And two anthologies, Inspiration to Success, The Entrepreneurial Journey, and Unstoppable Women in Business are being published this year as well. She also runs a weekly virtual creative mastermind group and is known in her circles as a superconductor. I had such a great time talking to Janet in this conversation, and I love her business name. As I say in the beginning of the episode, Hammock Way of Life is more of what I've been trying to do lately. And I hope you enjoy it too. Without further ado, here's our conversation. All

Meet Janet And Hammock Way

SPEAKER_00

right, Janet, welcome to the podcast. Hi, thanks.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00

It's nice to be here. I appreciate the invite. I was wondering if you could tell listeners a little bit about you, your business, and how you came to be doing the work that you're doing.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. So my business is called Hammock Way of Life, and I help people manifest dreams faster. And I do that through vision warding. I named my business the Hammock Way of Life because I want to be in hammocks more often. And I that's my dream. And uh several people have that dream as well. Uh, but if it your dream is something else, I help people manifest whatever that dream might be. And I work with individuals, uh couples, and also corporations. So um that's that's what we're about. We train people how to become certified vision board coaches as well. So I have a hundred uh plus vision board coaches from around the world.

SPEAKER_00

Well, there's a lot to dig in there, so I'm really excited to get talking to you. Um, what made you start doing this? And by the way, I love the name the hammock way of life because I am one of those people who wants more hammock time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. A lot of uh, you know, branding people said, Oh, you can't name your business that people are gonna think you either sell hammocks or or that you're lazy or something like that. And so it's been great. People think of hammocks when they see me now, and uh it's been a great uh uh branding uh name for a business. So I'm really, really happy that I sucked my guns around that, right? So yeah, um, yeah. So I was working with entrepreneurs, I've worked with uh startups my whole life, and um they kind of said, when are you gonna jump off and do your own thing and and what would it be? And I kept saying, I just want to be in a hammock at this phase of my life. And so finally I did jump off just before the pandemic and uh still doing business advising. And I I always start with vision boarding. I always start because I work with a lot of creative entrepreneurs and they really want to see the big picture of their businesses. And uh then during the pandemic, some of them went back to work in in large companies, uh, maybe closed their businesses or pivoted in some way. And so that's how I started getting into these larger companies because they were working in divisions of the companies and and then worked in other departments and with executive leaders and all of that. And and uh it's just grown into something that I I couldn't manage on my own anymore. So that's when I started inviting other people to do what I do. And um, you know, my biggest competition is people that do vision boarding in sort of a different way. We really have uh brought a lot of tools to the table that make our program different.

When Science Meets Woo

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we're definitely going to get into that because I think um, you know, the audience of people here listening is probably a group of high achieving, very analytical women. And so I can imagine um as they hear the words like manifest, vision board, um, sometimes that causes people's eyes to roll. And so I'm curious when you, you know, you encounter those people because obviously you go into corporate spaces too. Um, what do you say to those skeptical people who think vision boards are fluffy and woo-woo nonsense?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I say when science meets woo. We've we've brought in lots of tools like quantum physics and neuroscience and business models, and uh we can do the woo. We bring in uh, you know, um improv and sound healing and all the other stuff, right? But we, you know, it's a broad range of if they want the science, we bring it in if we want the woo. I love skeptics, I love it when people come in. And I'll give you a couple examples um that have come in. One one uh executive leader came in and said, Oh, what do we have a lot in common with our my kindergartner, you know, because of the glue sticks and scissors. And uh at the end, he put his phone down and said, This is the only contemplative time that I've had, other than the eight minutes that I bring my daughter to school. And I put my phone down and really focused on our goals. And he became our biggest advocate, brought it to every division in the company. And uh, and we had a brother-sister team recently. The brothers came in like this, the sisters were all about it, and the brothers at the end were like, I want to share this with my family and my wife. And and uh it was it was great. And then um, an individual client that I worked with um kept coming upon a vision. She was uh transitioning careers and wanted a certain kind of look to her office space, and she couldn't find it in these magazines, but she she had it in her head. She had to have this kind of office. So she finally put this picture on the board skeptically, and she ended up getting her dream job for the dream salary, and the office just happened to look like the picture that she put on the board. So sometimes, no matter how much you resist and all that, it you know, if you let go of that idea that it has to be a certain way, it manifests different ways. And so teaching people that, like I said, is is a dream. I say I'm guided by goosebumps now when those things happen because it's powerful and um and I've seen it work over and over again.

SPEAKER_00

I love so much of what you just shared, especially the skeptical part. I also do a lot of work with skeptical people who, you know, don't buy into the fact that we have to take care of ourselves as human beings because of course we do, but they haven't learned how. Um and so, you know, you mentioned science and a little bit of neuroscience. I guess what is the science that's behind the process that you do?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it it sort of says that you have to be aligned and ready for whatever it is that comes next. And so I think when people are skeptical, they're in that negative space where they can't meet whatever it is. Of course you're not going to meet it. When I hear the skeptics, I'm like, yep, you're not gonna meet it probably because you're not aligned. You're not thinking positively, you're not thinking it's already here. I'm about to get it. It's it's in that negative headspace. So it's it's a matter of getting them out of that space long enough so that they can meet whatever it is that the possibility is that they they desire.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think that's such an important distinction is you know, the words that we use create the reality of our lives and you know, what is possible for us. And I think people can um get lost in toxic positivity, obviously, but I don't think that's what you're talking about here. I think it sounds like what you're discussing is the possibility of what's out there for us. And I really liked something that you said on a different podcast I listened to of yours, which um you sort of mentioned a minute ago, which was to get out of the way or lose the attachment to the whatever the process is going to be. So I wondered if you could talk a little bit about that.

Detaching From Outcomes And Money

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. I I think people are attached to outcomes and and they don't always happen in the way that you think they might happen. So, well, you know, when you say you want to be rich or or wealthy, what do you what do you really want? Like do you want money? Money is paper, and so it's just a pile of paper, right? Or, you know, however it comes. But what it's it's the abundance that it gives you, the joy that it gives you, the feeling that it gives you that I think people are really all about, right? That hammock time or whatever it is that that their dream is, that's really what the dream is, not the piece of paper that's called money. Money will get you there, but it's not the end result. So I think it's just getting people aligned with what their true real vision is in this in this process. So, and 98% of people die with unfulfilled dreams, according to the the wealth advisory group. And so, um, so how can we flip that script and get people to think positively and and help fulfill those dreams? That's what I'm I'm trying to do.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think that work is so aligned with what I do, you know, work with a lot of people in healthcare and high-achieving. And a lot of times, just like you said, we're thinking about what we want to get or do or the title, or you know, in the case of that office, we're thinking about it, but obviously the office means so much more. What does the life I'm able to have look like? And so, um, you know, a lot of people can think that vision boarding looks like, you know, Pinterest looking nice or a poster board and these crafts that you're talking about. But what does your process actually look like for getting people toward more of these deep things?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Other than that, it's it's basically getting them to feel into it. I really want them not to just put on a bunch of pictures on a board and you know, look at them once in a while. I really, I really help them feel what it feels like to already have it here so that the universe kind of says, Oh, it's here. Let's keep giving in more. So to have gratitude around that, to celebrate the wins and and to take action. I think people look at the board and they think, oh, that's the end of it. And it doesn't have to be big action, it can be very small action, like make one phone call, send one email. Um, if it's fitness or health, go for a walk, right? If it's if it's buying a car, go test drive a car. If it's buying a house, go to go to a grand opening at a at a house, an open house. And so um little things can lead to big, big results. But I think sometimes people's dreams seem so overwhelming to them, it's so far from where they they want to get that they don't dream, they don't feel, and they don't take action.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think that's so true that uh a lot of times we don't a like that person you were talking about, we don't have space, we don't create space to contemplate, to dream these dreams. And so I think that's you know, part of why what you're doing is so valuable is obviously carving out that space for people who wouldn't necessarily give it to themselves. And then I love that action piece because I think that's where a lot of us get hung up. You know, we dream and we put things up there and we say, okay, universe, I'm ready. Right. And then it doesn't come. So that's it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, talk with a travel agent or or just you know, start uh learning a new language. If you want to go to a new country and find out what what they're interested in, you just never know where those little steps might lead, right? And if you're aligned with those smaller steps, bigger things happen.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I think, like you said, not getting too focused on exactly what the thing is, you know, it doesn't have to be I'm gonna go to this place by this specific time and this specific way, because uh, I don't know about you, but when I've done that for myself, the universe is like, haha, that's not the plan. There are side trips and other things that uh we get put off on. And a lot of times, you know, once you declare and then start taking action in a certain way, the thing that comes to you is actually way bigger than the thing that you may have imagined for yourself. At least that's been my experience.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if you heard this on one of the podcasts. I tell this story this is because it's so funny to me. I used to put a picture of a Buddha in the middle of my board to me that meant slow down, do yoga, meditate more. Um, and I ended up at the largest Buddha temple in China. Um, I was working for uh a chamber of commerce that sent me to China. So you never know where things are gonna end up. And so uh yeah, be careful what you wish for is one of my biggest cautions in doing this work.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I did I didn't hear that story, but I did hear you share on a different podcast to be careful about the things that you put on your board as possibly having, you know, these alternate you know, definitions and alternate ways of coming out. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that.

Building A Board That Works

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Double meaning uh is is uh what we look at. I look at everyone's board after they work with me and make sure that nothing has double meaning. Some of the things that I see are uh nailed it, crushed it, that could manifest very differently, or a family affair. Um, so you know, I want people to really understand what they're what they're putting on there and even just negative things like no debt, that the debt word could stand out, right? So instead of no debt, you could say this much money in the bank and be specific about the amounts that you put in, right? Do you want a certain number of whatever it is and and make sure that that that number is on there so that um it's aligned with um a goal.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think uh in listening to you talk there and listening to you talk in other venues, you know, you describe how a lot of people have been really successful with what they put on their vision boards because they've been so specific. So, what has that looked like?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, so many, so many things. People have manifested how you know, second homes and uh a specific dollar amount, children, um, you know, and things differently. Sometimes what happens is that it manifests differently than the original thought. And I and I tell this story with the permission of my client, one of my early clients who who was single at the time and uh just kept going on bad dates. And so, and so she uh did a vision board, she had a picture of one woman's hand holding champagne glasses, and I said, What is what is this all about? And she said, Well, you know, I I I see myself with you know someone uh in champagne, and I say, Yeah, but it's one person's hand. And she partied a lot that summer with with her girlfriends, and so we we redid the board, we repurposed it, and she met um her husband. I went to their wedding. Um, and then uh she at the time she also said that she wanted a baby, but she was also starting a business. And it turned out she was an only child, and so she didn't want uh really the uh a baby, she she wanted a family, and her husband now has a huge family, extended family, and that really what that brought her joy, just having the family. So even though she thought she wanted the baby, she really wanted the family, right? And the family can't improve her husband. So I do think even when you think you want something, it it manifests very differently in the end.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think that's the part about thinking about how we want to feel or what it is that we want from that thing that we're trying to manifest rather than the just thinking about the thing itself, because otherwise we get stuck or you know, we get so fixated on something that often the universe is giving us signs toward something else, um, but we miss them because we are doggedly pursuing something. Um, and then we get to that point and we're like, what now?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Signs. I I actually get literal signs when I get signs, but yeah, I think people don't pay attention to signs enough. Whatever your sign is, it is so important to pay attention to. I mean, now, you know, hammocks are what I look for. If I'm in an environment with hammocks, I'm like, I'm probably in the right spot.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's part of the beauty of the science of this, too, is you know, from a neuroscience perspective, by putting things out on a board or saying things out loud or say actually admitting what is important to you, you're telling the world and the universe, but also your brain, hey, these things are important. So for you, it's hammock, hammock, hammock. And for me, um, you know, I notice bodies of water, or um, my dad passed away a year and a half ago, but he loved birds. And so whenever I see certain birds that he liked or things that remind me of him, I'm like, oh, dad, dad, you know, this nice memory. And I think my brain notices that. And some people are like, oh, I didn't see that at all.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes you don't, yeah, uh that's a great, that's a great analogy. And and this weekend that happened. Last weekend I I went for a walk at a track that I go to, and May is when my father, my father passed um uh in 2008. And um buttercup was what he called me. He called me uh buttercup, and uh so I see buttercups sometimes when you know I feel like he's around me or whatever. And so they usually come out in May. The day the year he died. I I saw a huge field of them. And so uh at this track where I go, I usually see buttercups. And last weekend I went and I don't know what it was about my visual perspective, but I didn't see them. They usually up against the fence and I walked around and I was like, oh, I don't see the buttercups. And so last weekend I went and I looked a little farther out, and they were near the trees this year for some reason and they were thriving. There were these, they're they were taller, and I thought, wow, I and again, I look for signs. So what am I missing by by looking at things too closely? I need to expand my vision wider as well. So that that's the messaging I feel like I need to pay attention to this week.

SPEAKER_00

Love that. Um, both because you're you know embodying and doing the work alongside of everybody, you know, not positioning yourself as the you're an expert, obviously, because of all you've done. But I think that's what most of us are trying to say who do some version of this work is like, I'm on the path with you. I also need these things, I certainly teach the things that I need to learn. And, you know, being able to broaden your perspective and widen your vision. What if you're dealing with somebody, you know, like a person who's might be listening to this show who is burnt out or feel like they don't have any time for themselves and they don't have access to one of these things. You know, how do they get started with thinking about what that might look like in their own life?

Burnout Boundaries And Protected Time

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, um, I'm someone who who has suffered from burnout, so I get it. Um, and you have to schedule time for yourself. Like I set you have to set boundaries, and I have started to set boundaries for myself. So in the morning, I want to exercise, I want to meditate, um, I want to eat right, and then I do the same at noontime, right? Or lunchtime, right? So I also need to move. I'm on Zoom a lot. I work from home and I I'm on Zoom a lot and I want to be able to move. So I schedule myself in now. And I think that's so important. And people sometimes don't like it. They try to squeeze into that time. If they find out that I'm doing that, they're like, can I meet you here earlier or later in the day? And can I, you know, take that lunchtime and and all of that. But I have to treat myself like a client sometimes and just set those boundaries. And it's made a an you know an impact and a difference by doing that.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's such an important thing. And I also, you know, hear a lot of response to that, which is, you know, I couldn't possibly do that because I think the discomfort of that other person thinking a thing about me, you know, is something that it takes time to get over. Or maybe you don't get over it, but you just decide, like you're saying, that your priority of yourself matches as much. that person's opinion or more probably because yeah it's your life and your well-being.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And like you said, you know, sort of modeling that behavior for my clients is important. So I'm I'm taking the whole month of July uh off because I'm an introvert and I need creative time and I want to not only plan my business for the next year, um, I also have some creative projects that I put on hold for a while. And so I know that I need that downtime to create. And I have these great ideas in my head that I've not been able to get to. And I know that if I keep doing that, it's not going to be good for me overall. So I really want to show that. And so when I end up getting a book on a Timesquare billboard or I you know uh finish projects, um I can show people how how it's done, how I did it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think that really lands for me. That's been something I've been thinking about also as an introvert in an extroverted type role. Yes. Yes is how do I do things for myself and how do I quiet all the other noise and voices and give space because I'm sure people ask you too how do you generate so much? You know you have a hundred coaches that you've trained and you've had this business and I think you just gave us part of the answer which is A, I have boundaries while I'm doing it. But then also it's amazing that you carved out an entire July where you're going to do things. What are you what are you going to do for yourself?

SPEAKER_01

I'm writing a a second song. I have a song that's on Spotify called Smell the Rain with uh Jaya Rael and um Bob Frederick and uh we're I'm doing a second song it's in the works um and I'm writing a screenplay. So those are the two creative projects and then I have some really great uh workshops coming up in in my business that I I uh one of them is uh energize your vision and uh it's people for people that have vision boards and uh our coaches are gonna come in and and give people connections ideas feedback on how to move those visions forward uh and then the second one is a workshop uh on visioning for the visually impaired and so we're gonna do a global workshop on uh on that which again needs some planning so so those are the those are the projects I'll be working on in in July that's exciting not down completely not yeah oh I'm getting my book into airport uh uh bookstores and retail shops so yeah yeah I mean this is a great segue talk a little bit about your book yeah yeah so it's a memoir I wrote during the pandemic um I wrote sort of funny stories from my life I have a lot of funny things that have happened over time and then a friend of mine said you should relate it to business you you work with startups it could be you know a lot of the lessons that you're teaching around fear and moving forward and and uh you know going with the flow are are all great business lessons and so I did that and then found a publisher and she said why don't we make this a journal too that could be so people really be reflective around business and their own goals and manifestations that they want to achieve so that's what we did. It's a combination of my stories with business and journal and it's a great vacation read. I wanted it to be simple a lot of times when I'm uh reading I want to read quickly a chapter put it down come back to it and so if I have to read a long chapter and I never know when the break is coming um I wanted to make short chapters that people could be reflective about and and uh it's it's helpful a lot of people that uh aren't reading are suddenly reading my book which I love that to me is special what a great compliment um I'll have to see if my husband will be open to that as a person who neither reads nor creates contemplate yeah I love I love all the people that are reading the the book and and sharing it with their with their clients too who might be you know anti-reader.

Stories About Vulnerability And Fear

SPEAKER_01

So do you have a favorite story from the book or one of the standards I do actually I have I have a couple um do you want to hear here my two favorite ones so the two favorite ones are one is um uh in college I had one course left to take I I started as a business major and then I ended up as an English major and I had just a court one course left to take I had taken all the I required all my fulfillments you know for the for college and so I looked at music theory which was complicated I only you know know how to play chopsticks on the piano so that's not good. Wine tasting looked good except we had to memorize all the regions in most of the world and so I was like that seems like a lot of memorization. So I landed on a three-dimensional design class and so I went to to the class uh almost toward the end of the semester and we were given a two by four that we had to create a box out of we had to create a box with a two by four not using nails so we had to find an adhesive for the box and create this whatever it was the box. So I went into the shop and I made a box had four sides of lid that fit perfectly I was so happy with my little square box with the lid on it with the adhesive that I use which I don't know what it was super glue or something. And um so I bring it you had to bring it under wraps in the class and so everybody's was under a towel or a sheet or something like that. And so I I put it underneath the um the the sheet and then the first person that got up unveiled theirs and it was like the Eiffel Tower it lit up it had drawers that came out it was spectacular. Okay so the bot the the person comes out and their their theirs lights up and you know I'm I'm overwhelmed with how beautiful this this their box is so I get up to show mine I'm already humiliated because of my little box compared to this studio R major who's probably been there the whole the whole four uh you know uh years of college so I get up and I go to put my box on the table it nicks the table and it falls apart. So not only do I have this four sighted box that doesn't look that great now I have a crinkle box. It's I'm trying to hold it together I talked about the box I put it back under the thing and I'm like I'm gonna fail college this is I had needed three credits and this is it right so I go home this pre-internet I had to wait for my grades in the mail I get my grades and the professor gave me an A plus I could not believe it. So I went to talk to him and I said this must be someone else's grade obviously my box was not the best box and he said it takes vulnerability to be an artist you didn't run out of the room crying you stood there and talked about it. It wasn't the best but you're you understand what it takes to be a great artist. And he said now get the heck out of here before I fail you so that was one story about just being persistent and and not you know caring what other people think. I mean there were snickers that obviously it wasn't the best thing but I I hung in there and I think that mattered in that moment. So um the other story is a third grade teacher uh who uh his his thing was he came in with a paper bag and he said to a group of you know eight year old third graders that we had to eat whatever whatever was in the bag. And so he uh started naming all these things that it possibly could be at first he said it could be bad bugs and a bunch of us sat down we you know I I stayed standing but a bunch of my classmates sat down and then he said it could be uh grow like moldy cheese or liver I just didn't think he would make us eat something that might make us sick so I stayed standing I stayed standing until it was just myself and this other guy a guy that had been bullied in in school it just came down the two of us and the and the teacher look kind of looked over at me like stay in there kid and I it the moment he he did this I just couldn't stay in he slam the bag on the table and it made a really loud sound and I in my head I couldn't think of anything that could be in the bag that would wouldn't choke me. I thought it might be a ruler I thought it could be a rock for some reason the loud sound made me sit down and what happened was he pulled he pulled the thing out of the bag and it was the biggest most beautiful lollipop that I had ever seen in my whole life it was big and colorful and round and Paul Comperoni got the uh but got to keep the lollipop and um and that one was about fear you like we are stopped by fear right from leaving a job because we can't afford health insurance or we are just afraid that we can you know might fail. And so I relate that that particular story in the book to uh business and why people don't leave jobs that they feel stuck in.

Breaking Routines With Community

SPEAKER_01

Yeah I think you know in that one particularly there are a lot of different ways that our fear can get in our way and keep us back from things and you know just thinking about what we started about talking about with vision boarding and manifesting you know how do you see fear come up for people as they make their boards yeah they that some I think sometimes people are afraid of their own success right that that it's just too much for them to think about what if I do what if I get everything I want will I still have dreams or you know what's my next dream and and so I see people being just afraid of of their own um their own dreams and and what happens when when they do get there and um or not being able to to see the possibilities see the steps that they could take to get there. Like it just is such a big leap that they can't see the smaller steps. So I think it's helping some see the smaller steps and get out of their own way to go above it, around it. I sometimes when I'm working with artists when they paint something I have them look at it close up, far away on the ceiling on the floor rip it up you know whatever it is just a different perspective sometimes shifts everything. And it it can be small. It doesn't have to be huge.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah those little steps that you mentioned you know how do you shrink yourself from okay this is what I really want my life to look like this is a dream life. How do you make those little steps?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah I I think you just you just see what perspective again and I don't think it it it's always a straight path. I think you can you can go above it or around it or small, you know, you can turn around and you know there's so many different ways that you can look at things from a different perspective that uh that's what I have people do. I have them take just a different turn. We might go to a you know I might have them go to a different coffee shop or uh just do something different out of their routine. People get in routines and patterns that keep them stuck. And so getting out of those routines and patterns is is important.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah I'm sure a lot of people's little light bulbs just went on when you said routines and patterns because I can imagine whether you're you know a successful creative entrepreneur or you own a different type of business or you have a different professional job, you know, you have been doing things one way in order to get to the place that you're at right now. And I think a lot of the work that you do and that I do is asking people to consider doing something differently, which is obviously where that fear comes up for them. That seems terrifying. But you know reminding them also that they're not the only ones doing those things. I can imagine doing vision boards in a group can be really powerful for that reason too. You see other people also willing to take a shot on themselves.

SPEAKER_01

So maybe you are also yeah the group the group is yeah always always very powerful in fact we've worked with some groups where people didn't know they worked in silos right a lot of us work in silos right and so they you don't get to see your coworkers anymore or or you know you're working on a project and you don't understand how the other person relates to your project. And so it was a group of teachers who uh were brought together they usually only came together at a staff meeting at the end of a long workday with a bunch of kids and so they didn't really know each other personally and so they started working on these vision boards and realized that several of them loved gardening and really wanted to teach the kids how to garden and how to compost their their school happened to be in a food desert. And so it was so powerful to see them all there were four or five in the same group that said oh I've I've always thought that space could be used for this too. And so they ended up creating a community garden out of it. And so um that was beautiful. I've had other people come in who are musicians didn't know that other people were musical in the group and came together as a band. And so lots of other you know when you when you come together as community you can really create big bigger dreams.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah it's amazing what can happen when you're willing to you know say the thing that you really mean or that you really are lit up by because so many of us keep ourselves from that or we think life is supposed to be one way. I got myself into trouble because I made my life all about medicine. So that's how I burnt out is because I didn't do other things. And so any low stakes way, you know it's pretty low stakes to put things on a board, right?

SPEAKER_01

Like no one's gonna come and audit you or fail you in a class um which sounds terrifying by the way I may have run out of the room right yeah and wellness is such an important you know piece of this and in fact the next iteration of my company is to there's usually five or six dreams that people have and they usually are around health and wellness fitness travel business family um which I think love right that those sorts of things and so we're we're probably gonna have different divisions where people are just focused on health and wellness and so and you know you can be held accountable there right that people can start to hold each other accountable for for saying that you're going to exercise or eat right or something like that. So uh any sort of of thing the accountability piece becomes an important part of this process.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah I think that's such a great call out that our lives are multifaceted. And I can imagine as people hear you talking about that sort of is the same thing that my clients have when I give them a wheel of life it's like oh no there's so many directions that I could go. How do you help them with that as they're making a board? Do they focus on just one area or you know overall a great question.

SPEAKER_01

So I tell people they can either do an overall whole you know wellness board or they can break it down into pieces. It especially is helpful when I'm working with entrepreneurs who have multiple ideas I find that a lot that you know shiny object syndrome comes of like I could do this I could do this I could do this. So I say let's do it all let's create five vision boards and see which one really resonates with you. And so that's how I break it down a little bit. So it can be it can be for anything but businesses are like I said my primary wheelhouse. So we tend to focus on that one that really lights them up. I have them talk about it and then I can tell by that process which one probably they should pursue first in that process.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's such a great benefit of working with you know you as someone who's teaching and facilitating or a coach is you know a lot of times you've learned to tune out those signals to yourself that are the oh this one looks good or you know this is the one that lights me up and sometimes when we're with other people they're like I can feel that your energy is different you know and then I think especially my group of people they are learning still that they have feelings and excitement and yeah they have uh totally suppressed those parts of themselves for years because you know they have been doing things either because they were told they were good at it, they light they were lit up by it at one point, but they aren't anymore. Or unfortunately some of them are doing it because they other people want them to do it.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly right. Yeah yeah I tell people never start a business when someone else wants you to start it I've seen lots of businesses fail because of that. So um it has to be something that you feel joy about. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah and same with job uh you know jobs and positions and everything I recently actually I'm still in the process of trying to get rid of one of my leadership positions that hasn't paid for any of my time in several years. And I have completed that cycle but that person said oh I wish you could find a way to um have enough bandwidth to do it. And he understood he's not trying to pressure me but there at an earlier part of my career I may have because he said that been like oh maybe I can maybe I can just do the thing that he's asking because he really wants me to um but now you learn about the language you have the language you said you said it already that you have to tell people you don't have the bandwidth and you don't have capacity.

SPEAKER_01

Those are two things that I learned to say early on because everybody wants me to be on boards and you know I pick a few every year and I can't be on all of them right and and so I have a list I have a running list and you know I'm hope hopefully I'm helpful and in some capacity with some of them and um but to take it all on isn't going to benefit anyone.

SPEAKER_00

So

Troubleshooting Manifestation With Action

SPEAKER_00

yeah absolutely I love that I don't I heard someone say that on a different podcast the other day she doesn't say I can't because people will automatically try to persuade you how you can and so um if she says I can't go to that meeting after five o'clock because I have to pick my kid up someone will try to persuade her. But when she says I don't do meetings after five I pick up my kids um it's a little bit harder of a boundary to then argue with for somebody. So I really liked that she said that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah yeah I think I think it's important to set boundaries around anything that you want to do if you want to spend time like I said for exercise or or fitness your mental health whatever it is that's it's so important that people understand that. And I feel like people are getting a little bit more respectful around it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah I think especially when you have a either an entire business uh focused on things that are about your wellness or for me I also have you know a a business and a um a wellness director title and all of these things that make people cued into the fact that this might be an important value in your life and hopefully gives them permission to do it too. But they do tend to bother me a little bit less about it because I've made my whole career about that now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah yeah I think it's just a matter of redesigning it you know I I was afraid too I had a you know job that I loved and and I I you know was afraid because of money or whatever else and and it has been remarkable like you know 10 times what what I made before right so it's uh it's much much better to let go of of things when you when you're not a hundred percent happy and and just redesign it you can still do the things you love but it doesn't have to be in the in the way that you're stuck in right now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah as I listen to you say that I'm curious you know obviously pivoting your life can be challenging do you use vision boarding or your the tools that you teach to other people to do that for yourself?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah so there's this thing of when you hold space for other people you don't have to do a lot once you've set it up and they're in their they're they're in their group you're I'm still holding space for them. And so a lot of times I'll be helping people find images and if we were working with magazines and not digitally uh and and awesome with the so I'm I'm looking through magazines and things will pop up and so I'll make sure to cut those up so I always have a running vision board right now I have a pile of papers and when I have enough I'll recreate my vision board. So my visions are always changing and getting better and um I repurpose the board so I take off things that I haven't achieved yet and remove them, you know, move them over. And usually it's if it if it's a dream that I can't achieve myself it's because someone else is a part of it. Right. There's some other person or thing or something that I need that you know I need to get everybody aligned or on board before I can move it forward. So um but yes so um in fact one of my clients said you should just come and bring your hammock with you and hang out with us in your hammock because I've worked with them a number of times and they know I'm good at holding space, but they said I could be bring my hammock with me. So yeah it's funny.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah so you know as we sort of move toward the end of our talk I was wondering you know there might be a woman out there who has tried vision boarding or journaling or manifesting but nothing's really coming from it. So I was wondering in your experience if you see that happening what's actually happening for that person are they just doing the wrong technique or is something else going on?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah so that if there's if there's any technique, I would say the the these are the few um make sure to put the most important thing in the vis in the middle of the board and then cluster the other parts together so that it's not scattered because I think that it comes sometimes manifests if you scatter things over. So if you want all wellness and travel and business and love or whatever it is make sure to cluster those things together a new career um more time on your own creativity whatever it is just cluster those things together um and and then taking time to really feel into it feel like what it would feel like to be already there already in your life right I see when I do this I meditate I have people meditate with me and the smiles right when they have their eyes closed you can just see them feeling into this dream. And so they can do it on their own. They can feel whatever it is they feel and then taking action those action steps to really get to where they want to go. I think that's another really important piece of this so I guess that that would be and then have somebody hold you accountable for it and get out of that negative headspace. The minute you say oh this is not coming true it's probably not going to come true. So get at get you know constantly reshifting every time you hear yourself saying that um I've stopped using you know this is a a theater technique right you've probably heard uh before in improv where you say yes and instead of yes but and it makes a huge difference I've stopped saying the word but if I find catch myself I try to shift it to yes and and that that makes a difference. So it's the language that we say around these things that helps people manifest faster.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah it's that getting back to that possibility again and not cutting something off when you don't know or because it's scary, but just really giving it some room I think that's one of the things that I'm not very good at is I like things to happen really quickly. And that's another way I've had to let go of what the process looks like is not only do I not know exactly what it will look like, I have no idea how long it will take or and I'm not directly in control of that. And so you know building my own business is a felt like I declared that I wanted this thing five years ago and I'm still just like a little bit farther. But like you said the part of me that can hold a business and hold space and do things is a different person. And I wouldn't be able to create the things I create now if I hadn't gone through that whole process. So also not to get down on ourselves because things are taking longer than we want them to.

SPEAKER_01

The bigger the dream the longer it takes right the universe needs time to catch up with it. So definitely give it time and space and you're right not not having control over how it's going to appear is really important. So yeah.

Links, Music, And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_01

I love that it's sort of a mic truck moment um where can people find you obviously I'll link in the show notes to all the places but yeah I'm I'm everywhere probably um I'm on uh hammockway of life.com is my my business name and you can find me on Instagram and Facebook as Hammock Way of Life Jazzyjan is my LinkedIn handle or Janet Tangway you can find me there and uh on Amazon uh look up Janet Tangway and you can find all the books.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Great. I love that I'll also link the books in my show notes that way people can find them easily.

SPEAKER_01

Great. And Spotify too um Jazzy Jam um and Jay of Rael is where you can find the smell the rain song.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Great well I will link to that. I just want to say thank you for this conversation. I hope it is a and I know it will be a great introduction to vision boarding and manifestation for this audience.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks for the opportunity. This is great. Yeah I am enjoying meeting more of your audience so that's great. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you got something out of it that will stick with you and help you live a less stressed, more satisfying life. Even if it's something small, these little things add up to big things over time. If you enjoyed this episode I would love it if you would rate and review the podcast on Apple or Spotify. I also invite you to subscribe to make sure that you get all the newest episodes as soon as they are released. And for bonus points if there's something that really landed with you I would love it if you could share with a friend or with your network. That's how you can help humans leading grow and reach a bigger audience. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time

Head Shot

Dr. Jillian Bybee

Host