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Do you long for a sense of calm and balance in your busy life as a parent and business owner?

Our guest, Jenna Hermans, will be sharing effective strategies that you can implement to create a more peaceful and grounded experience, even with the demands of your daily lives.

Jenna co-founded Be Courageous, an agency that breaks the mold by fostering courage in business environments. Her early years in Human Resources gave her a firm understanding of the corporate landscape while management of a preschool allowed for hands-on exposure to the challenges parents face. These experiences culminated in the birth of her book, Chaos to Calm: Five Ways Busy Parents Can Break Free from Overwhelm,’ painting a picture of compassionate leadership. The book offers practical tips and strategies to help busy parents navigate the challenges of daily life, find groundedness and calm amidst the chaos, and create space, time, and energy for you.

I made a choice. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I cannot. I will not. Things need to change. – Jenna Hermans

Role of Courage in Transformative Change

The journey towards a tranquil life as a busy parent and/or business owner requires immense courage. It essentially means making brave decisions like taking calculated risks, letting go of unhealthy habits, and embracing change for the betterment of your personal life. By leveraging the tenacity embedded in courage, parents can make transformational changes that lead to increased peace and balance, even amid the demands of a hectic life.

Tactics for Maintaining Tranquillity

Applying strategic tactics can make a significant impact in maintaining calmness in your daily life. As a busy parent and/or business owner, employing practices like efficient planning, developing healthy habits, prioritizing communication, immersing oneself in a positive community, and practicing self-care can lead to a smoother and more peaceful experience. The key lies in learning to incorporate these tactics during times of peace as well as chaos, thereby making tranquility an integral part of your day-to-day existence.

Vital Elements of Self-Care

Self-care is not just beneficial for one’s physical health, but it also plays a crucial role in maintaining mental well-being and ensuring stability in a busy life. Jenna Hermans emphasizes simple and basic self-care elements like staying hydrated, eating healthily, incorporating physical movement, getting adequate rest, and fostering human connections. Adhering to these fundamentals not only enhances overall well-being but also bolsters resilience to manage the challenges that come with a fast-paced life.

Listen to the episode to hear more about Jenna’s journey jumping into entrepreneurship and how she applies her tips in her own life.

Connect with Jenna:

Visit her website: jennahermans.com + bcrgs.com

Calm downloadables: https://jennahermans.com/downloads/

Follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn

Get the book, “Chaos to Calm”

Transcription

00:00:00

Easiest one. Okay, let’s go. Okay. I’m trying to think of something. I feel like I’m so repetitive.
00:00:11

I feel like on every single episode, I say, I’m so excited to be here with and so just tripped myself up because I was like, I should say something else. What’s a trial today.
00:00:25

It’s what a treat it is, or what a pleasure it is to have I’m super stoked. That’s very casual, and that’s like, my language of how I talk. I’m going to write those all down. You’ve done this before. I can say what a treat.
00:00:44

I think I like that book. So fun. Okay. All right. Thanks for your help.
00:00:48

Welcome. What a treat to have Jenna Hermans on here today. She is the co founder of NC. Okay, I’m going to start over because, see, I already stumbled on one part I write down. I’m like starting again.
00:01:04

What a treat to have Jenna Hermans on here today to chat with me. She’s the co founder and COO of Be Courageous, a transformation agency and a high performance coach and the author of Chaos to Calm Five Ways Busy Parents Can Break Free from Overwhelm. And I’m so excited to talk to you about all of those things and so much more today. Jenna, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for having me.
00:01:30

I’m so happy to be here. Yeah, well, I am really glad that we got connected.
00:01:39

I’m so excited to hear everything that you are doing. And also, let’s start I almost don’t know where to even start because you have so many things, and I want to hear about every single one of them. So let me put it back on you and say, take us from how did you start? I want to talk about the book, but also, you’re a business owner and also a mom of four kids. So many things.
00:02:06

So that’s an open ended question about where you want to start. But yeah, take us to how you started your business and then super quickly up to why you wrote the book, but then we’ll dive into that more later so you don’t have to go too much into that. Sure. So really high level. I used to own and run a preschool when I was in my early mid twenty s, and that was the beginning of my entrepreneurial ventures, was with this school that was very near and dear to my heart, and I was there managing the school when I met my husband, my now husband and his three children.
00:02:41

And through the experience of having him running a preschool, I was like, oh, he’s got three kids. They’re all preschool age. I can kick it with them.
00:02:52

That’s like, such a jumped off into entrepreneurship, partnership and motherhood kind of all in one fell swoop, which was a lot of fun and a lot of change all at once. Right. And then from there, we ended up moving to the San Francisco Bay Area because we were living in Los Angeles at the time. That’s where we all met and that’s where my school was sold. The school came up here where we had no family, no friends, just like starting kind of from scratch and just.
00:03:28

Because you just wanted a new thing. I went to UC Davis, which is not far away from San Francisco. I went there for undergrad and would come to the Bay all the time and fell in love with it here and had know inside of my soul one day I’ll live in the Bay Area, told my husband about that. He came here for business and he fell in love with it too. And so next thing we knew, we were spinning our wheels figuring out how can we move here or get relocated here so that we could live here with our kids and make it a thing in our new lives.
00:04:04

Lo and behold, we were able to manifest that. I was just going to say that sounds like some manifestation right there. You’re like, this is one thing I want to do. And yeah, that worked out. And then after we moved here, we got married like six months later, had a baby a year and a half later and started business six months after that.
00:04:24

And that’s where Be Courageous was born, where I’m a co founder with my husband, that we have it together. That’s funny. I was just talking to somebody else who also co founded a company together with their husband. I think that’s so interesting. Cool.
00:04:43

So wait, what though brought you from you were like, okay, I’m a preschool teacher, ran the preschool and then Be Courageous is different than that, obviously. So what were those fears changing for you where you’re like, let’s start this other kind of thing and how did you decide to do that? Yeah, so my background is actually in human resources, and so I was doing HR before the preschool, after the preschool, during the preschool, actually, right as I’m running this business and doing the finance operations, the HR, doing all the things as the administrator of this educational facility. And then when we moved to the Bay, new HR jobs was in asset management and then in tech and decided to quit my tech job when I was pregnant, when I was very pregnant and then just didn’t go back straight away as we were figuring out kind of what are our next steps. And my husband had gone from being an external consultant, working for a consultancy, then going internal at a large organization where they hired him to do innovation internally.
00:05:49

And then he got headhunted by an external consultancy again, went back out. And when he started, then all the different clients he had prior to going internal at that organization, they’re like, wait, so you’re going out on your own now you’re doing your own thing? And he goes, no, I’m actually working for this other consultancy. And they’re like, oh, bummer. So that planted a little seed of like, maybe he should go out on his own.
00:06:18

And he has run businesses before, back before he was working as the consultant. I’ve obviously, as I just shared, ran my business before and have started businesses and figured, you know what, why don’t we do this, why don’t we start our own consultancy? I’ll run the back end, he’ll be client facing. And I can also do HR consulting and HR contract work under that umbrella as well. Oh, wow, cool.
00:06:44

So how long has that been? That was.
00:06:50

Almost six and a half years ago when we started Be Courageous. And it’s definitely gone through iterations to what it’s become now. Whereas I’m not doing HR consulting anymore, and if I do, I take on very particular clients and I’m like, yes, okay, that jazzes me up. I’m super stoked to work on that. But otherwise we of courage, right?
00:07:17

And infusing courage into organizations, planting seeds of courage, doing talks, coaching experiences, workshops for organizations and do coaching as well, and at the various levels, mostly at high level for our clients and their teams to infuse courage and now calm into that narrative as well. I love that. That’s so unique. I’ve never heard of another company that focuses on that. Infusing courage into companies.
00:07:51

Where did you come up with that? I know you said it was kind of similar to what he was doing before, I guess bringing innovation. You said he was brought into bringing innovation into companies, but it was kind of like that’s the piece that he saw missing or that could see making a big difference in other companies. And you’re like, that’s where we’re going to focus, is like courage. Yeah.
00:08:13

So really that was his brainchild was like when we’re working with organizations and doing innovation, I was doing design thinking facilitation as well back in the day. But what was interesting is the thing that was always showing up was the concept of being courageous, right? You have to be courageous to go beyond what’s already been done to get out of the comfort zone of oh, this is where I’m familiar. This is where my boss will be comfortable, where the organization will be comfortable and to make an intentional choice. To be courageous, to do something different and create newness, to go into new frontiers that haven’t been explored before.
00:08:53

And it could be something very small, right minutiae tiny little moments, and it could be something really large. Courage is subjective to the person that’s feeling courageous or not. And so by being able to assess an organization to see where is their courage at, right? Like, how are they doing, and is there a kind of foundation of psychological safety and people having high communication and making sure that first doing an assessment of the organization itself and then being able to plant seeds of courage through talks and speak engagements and workshops and get thinking and behaviors to be different by understanding. Okay, here’s where they are and here’s where they want to be.
00:09:40

Let’s take them on that journey through these various things that we can do. So the workshops, the speaking, let’s do the coaching as well. Nurturing the people within the organization and the leadership. So this comes from all levels. This isn’t just let’s go top down or down up.
00:09:57

You’ve got to come at all the different levels to support a culture of courage and then taking them on expeditions from there to ensure that it is withstanding inside. That when the moment of courage can arise. Right? It’s like your moment has come. Are you going to choose courage or are you going to choose fear or comfort that you feel empowered and you’re like, no, I’m going to choose the courageous choice.
00:10:23

Yeah, I absolutely love that. That is so cool. Do you feel, okay, wait, two things. I know you mentioned all the different ways that you can do that, like workshops, talks, things like that, but are you generally coming in for a one off workshop, or is it more like you’re working with somebody for a company for six months and then you’ll kind of do all the things depending on what makes sense.
00:10:44

I feel like people are going to want to be like, how do I have you guys come do this in my company? So let’s go there for a second. Yeah. So we have multi month engagements. We also do one offs, like a one time workshop or one time speaking engagement.
00:11:01

And so it depends on the client and their needs that we end up having a conversation and creating the experience for what would work for them based on various different touch points of budget, desires, culture, bosses, all the different things. Cool. That’s amazing.
00:11:25

Have companies found you guys? And they’re like, this is what I need? Or do you find that you have to kind of go to kind of put that out there more? Because people have never really considered bringing in a company to help them work on the courage inside the company. We’ve actually never marketed or advertised.
00:11:40

We get all of our clients. Either they come to us, they find us, or through word of mouth and repeat clients, a lot of our clients come back for just more and more because there’s so much work that can be done. Right? Yeah, that’s true. I mean, I could see that.
00:11:56

I obviously have no idea, but I could see that. That’s so cool. I love that. I just love such a unique kind of business. And so tell me a little more about how you and I know I want to talk about your book too, but I find this really interesting too.
00:12:08

I feel like obviously this all is going to lead into everything else and being so obnoxious for people listening who are like, what is she talking about? But I’m also so curious how you work together because I do think co founders, that’s always interesting, just that dynamic between two people kind of running the business. But also well, we said you’re a high performance coach yourself. But also I think you kind of mentioned that he’s more the client facing, or maybe I misunderstood that more the client facing one, and you’re kind of more like the behind the scenes of the business. Or am I saying that wrong, I guess?
00:12:41

How does that work in terms of what you two do day to day? Yeah, no, you’ve totally got that right. He is very client focused. He does majority of the client focused work. I also do high performance coaching in that he’s a high performance coach and he focuses on courage.
00:12:58

I’m a high performance coach as well, and I have a different approach where I kind of skin it through the calm angle, where I infuse some courage in there as well, of course, because that is a key fundamental, obviously, of the foundation of not just our business, but who we are as individuals. So that is a key element that gets brought into all of what we do, no matter if it’s, again, workshops, coaching experiences, events, yada, yada, yada. But yeah, he is a lot more client facing in terms of our big clients. But since I’ve actually had this book that came out in May, which we’ll talk more about, of course, that I’ve been actually more client facing now than I was before since I finished doing the HR consulting. So now I’m coming in in a different way from a cultural perspective or through a lot of LND or employee resource Group executive leadership as well around bringing calm into the narrative.
00:14:01

And that’s where I’m starting to not starting. I have begun being client facing again, but from this new narrative. Cool. Okay, so, yeah, tell us where did the idea for the come from? Assuming you’d been doing this and now you were like, where did the idea come from?
00:14:19

When were you like, okay, actually, now I’m going to write a book. Oh my gosh. It came from me having my own chaotic, overwhelmed, crazy moment in time. Right. Again, like I said, we moved up here, just got married, had a baby, started a business.
00:14:39

My husband’s now traveling, client facing. He’s traveling a lot. And it was an incredibly overwhelming time. Right? And I noticed I started getting these panic attacks and anxiety attacks.
00:14:53

It was just too much for my nervous system to handle, and I was just trying to survive each day, but it was completely unsustainable. And there was one particular moment that I was sitting, and I remember it was afternoon, the baby was probably seven, eight months old, napping, and I’m breast pumping at the time, sitting there, like, letting the body do its thing. The kids are about to come home from elementary school needing snacks, homework, help, love, attention, all the things. And I had yet another panic attack because it was all too much. My husband was out of town again, and at the end of that panic attack, I made a choice.
00:15:39

Like, something hit me and a choice was made. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I cannot. I will not. Things need to change.
00:15:47

And in that moment, I was reminded of my education. I have a psychology degree. I have an organizational management master’s degree. I ran a business for over five years. I was doing human resources in the corporate environment, helping infuse what was my favorite thing in HR is around culture.
00:16:09

And how do you create a culture that is of inclusion and togetherness? Before, this was a big buzword in the corporate world. And so I’m like, wait, I have all of this experience and all of these tools that I used in the corporate environment, in my business environment, I should bring those into my personal environment to make all of this run so much more smoother, because we can why have I not done this before? Right? But love those epiphany moments where you’re like, wait a minute, it’s so great to have it, but you’re also like, why didn’t I think of this before?
00:16:44

But it just drops in sometimes, like, in a certain moment. And I mean, especially as an overwhelmed newish mom, like, I was a mom, but I hadn’t done the newborn thing and all of that. And having gone through I’m in postpartum still, and the amount of overwhelm that a mother feels in postpartum is there’s nothing like it. There’s absolutely nothing, nothing like, prepares you for that. So I’m not with it fully.
00:17:11

And so, yeah, needing that AHA moment to be like, oh, yeah, I have all of that. And so I started implementing it that. You just said you were doing with a seven to eight month old baby. I was like, oh, my God, I couldn’t do anything at that stage of life. Yeah, it was so much.
00:17:33

And at that point, it felt like it was just too much, and my body was reacting to the too muchness of it all. It was not okay. And so in that moment, made the decision, not living like this anymore. I’m going to start implementing tools of ways that I know that I can make all of this run so much more smoothly and for, I don’t know, year, two years. Implement, implement, implement.
00:17:58

Doing all these things, making the home run so much more smoothly, make me feel so much more grounded and calm and feeling like, oh, I’ve got a handle on this now. And that was when our son, our youngest, started preschool for the first time. And when you start preschool, when everyone’s coming in, where are you from? What do you do? Do you have other kids.
00:18:22

Everyone’s sharing stories because they’re all new to this. And everyone’s like, wait, I want to meet more parents that have kids the same age so that we know what everyone’s going through or making friends for the kids that playdates for all the reasons to connect with parents. And in sharing our story and my story, people are going, wait, so you’ve got four kids, a traveling husband, a full time job, and you don’t have help, and you moved away from your family? Like, you’re here with nobody. You must pay for help.
00:18:53

No, we don’t have paid help. Well, how do you do this? You’re calm, you have your shit together. How are you managing all of this? And so I’m like, oh, well, I do this and I do that.
00:19:05

And I’m laying it out, and they’re like, you need to write a book. I would so read that book. You’re doing something different. And I didn’t immediately start writing a book. It wasn’t like, AHA, these people have told me to write a book.
00:19:17

I will go write a book. It was a seed that got planted. And I was like, no, I’m not an author. I do, HR. I do operations.
00:19:26

This is what I do. But I’m also an avid journaler and reader, and I love to write, I love to reflect, and that is a big part of my own practice. And after getting that question enough and that seed being planted, I thought, what am I doing differently that other people aren’t? And it’s obviously like, there’s things that I’m saying that they’re like, oh, my gosh, I didn’t even think of that. But there must be other things beyond just those things that I listed that make me have a calmer experience as a busy parent.
00:19:56

So I started writing it all down as it came up. Writing, writing, writing. And next thing I knew, I had content for a book. Oh, my gosh, wow. I love that.
00:20:08

Yeah, I mean, to a certain extent, it’s like once so many people have asked you the same question. It’s like, now you can just hand them a book and be like, here’s the answer. Not have to keep saying it over and over again. Oh, my God. I want to ask you what are the things?
00:20:21

But I also that’s literally the book. Are there one or two or three kind of main things that you usually share from the book here are kind of the top things you would tell us takeaways or implementations that we should keep in mind? Absolutely. Well, so if we go high level, just like a tick above that, I’d say that what I discovered through the reflections of what is it that I’m doing? It came down to these five different pillars of calm.
00:20:50

There were themes that arose. And so these themes are now, like I said, the five pillars of calm. And the first one is efficiency of how do you get done the things that you have to do with minimal to no effort, right, with the hope. And the purpose of that is that then you have more space, time and energy for the things that you want to be doing, not just the things you have to do. The second is habits.
00:21:15

What are those healthy habits that we have in place that support us and support our calm versus habits that are not serving us and ditching those? Number two. Number three is community. Having community around, realizing when you’re isolated and as we were when we moved here. And then just the parent experience that is right now in our culture of the nuclear family being so tight and we’ve gone away from intergenerational homes and moving away from our families for work or opportunity or whatever it is and building new lives away from our built in community.
00:21:59

How do you create and intentionally create a community of calm of people who add to your life in positive ways and this is a harder part of the same topic, but also exiting out of or distancing from relationships that add to your chaos, that are toxic to your energy. So that’s the third. The fourth is communication. How do you communicate? And that includes listening to build trust rapport so that you can get the support that you need to create your calm.
00:22:37

And the fifth is self care. How do you take care of you? And it’s not big self care sunday go for hours, spend lots of money, massage, facial, nails, the whole thing. It’s micro moments. Ways that you can anchor yourself of things that fill your cup in the morning, in the evening, throughout the day.
00:23:00

Little things that don’t cost you anything, but that retain your energy or increase and cultivate your energy inside so you’re taking care of you as much as you’re giving to everyone else. Yeah, it all makes sense. And I could see how being really intentional with all of those things would really help. I love that. I love how you’ve kind of packaged that up into ways to think about it and things you can implement.
00:23:27

And so then within each of those is that like each chapter, I imagine and within each of those you have kind of like how to do it, like what to do in your life to bring those up. Yeah. And so it’s a mix of tangible, tactical things that you can do and implement straight away in addition to mindset shifts, right, questions where you’re thinking and reflecting and being able to see things from a different perspective or a different lens. So it’s a mix of both of those things. But the biggest takeaway from the things.
00:24:01

That are you just cut out for a second right after you said the biggest takeaway. Can you say that again from whatever you were going to say? The biggest takeaway was the biggest takeaway. From this book after or during reading, is that you in the moment, there are natural pauses to go and implement. Right.
00:24:21

And that at any point, you can flip through the book and the nuts and bolts are right there. There’s recaps of every chapter. There are moments that are called your turn, where you’re going and you’re doing something right then and there, and so that it is guiding you through how to do this in real time. And even in the beginning, I say pause, stop. You don’t have to keep going if you’re ready to action on something, which you should pause the book, don’t keep reading.
00:24:47

Do that thing. Come back to it when you’re ready, or if it’s overwhelming. Right. Pause. And then come back when you’re ready.
00:24:54

But it is filled with tangible, tactical ways in every chapter and under every pillar of things that you can do straight away. Right? So, like, you were asking me, what are some of those things? And the thing that I love to say is actually the first thing that I implemented in my own life when I was in that chaos spiral and couldn’t get out and was like, okay, no, I’m making that choice I did was meal planning.
00:25:27

I looked at what is the biggest stressor that I have every single day. What is one thing that every single day, if I got this under control, I would feel so much relief, and that we can do this. And at the preschool, had to meal plan because we supported the meals for the kids there. And so every week writing out, what are the meals of the week, what’s the grocery list against that one day? Shopping for all the things and then having it all ready.
00:25:57

So it’s not like you walk into your business as a chef or at a preschool right. If you have a restaurant or not, it’s, oh, I know what we’re making today because we have it written out. Here’s the menu. We’ve got all the food ready. It’s not a surprise when you walk in, oh, my God, what am I going to do?
00:26:16

And come 430 every single day. Right? That was a huge stressor for me. Every day, 430. What am I going to make for dinner?
00:26:23

Like, oh, man. I have no idea. Wow. Yeah, no, I try to do that. I try to meal prep as much as possible.
00:26:32

And it’s so clear, the weeks, that it doesn’t happen, because I totally get that feeling like, wait a minute, there’s nothing to make. You don’t have the right things. Or it’s just like having to think about it. It’s like if I would so much rather put I mean, it’s less time if you have to think about it on one time on a Sunday night, but even if it was like the same amount of time, but all in one chunk of thought processing and then not having to think about it at all throughout the week. Oh, yeah.
00:27:03

And the emotional load of it. Right. So let’s say hypothetically, you spend 15 minutes a day on thinking about, what am I going to make for dinner? And you put that all together into, let’s say you’re just doing Monday to Friday. So then you have an hour and 15 minutes that you’re dedicating on Sunday to my Monday through Friday meals.
00:27:23

One, and you’re not taking that long, honestly, to do it. And two, you don’t have your cortisol going up for that amount of time at all on Sunday versus having your cortisol up, your stress hormone rising every day for those 15 minutes, for that hour and 15 minutes across five different days. The physical detriment that you’re doing to oneself by having that stress hormone showing up every day consistently is incredibly detrimental to the body and the mind versus if you were to, let’s say, have that stress one day on Sunday for 15 minutes leading up to your meal planning. So not only are you not stressing every single day in the moment, but you’re also helping yourself long term by preventing that stress response that takes years off of your life. Yeah, I never even thought about it that way.
00:28:18

That’s a great if nothing else, that’s what can convince you to be like, yeah, this actually makes sense. This is worth it. I feel like it’s one of those things where people can be like, yeah, I know it’s a good thing to do, but put it off for weeks and months and just never implement. That’s what I love about what you said about making time in the book to implement, because it’s even one of those things where we’ve all read a book with tips that are about something that we wanted to do or learn or improve on and then just never actually do the things after reading it or during reading it. So I love how you’ve kind of broken it down like that.
00:28:55

Like, here, go do the thing and then come back and read the next part. And I imagine even if you only read the first part, you’re already going to be better off. Not that there’s any reason you wouldn’t, but you’ll start to feel better as you go. Yeah, which is great. I love that.
00:29:12

That’s your first tip, you said. So where my brain went with that was like what was like the last thing where you’re like this when this thing fell into place, you were like, okay, I feel fully calm. Sure. That moment never fully happens. I’m sure you kind of come up with especially now that you think about things like this, you’re thinking in this way, you’re probably always going to come up with more hacks and tricks and tips and maybe have to write another book and someday, who knows?
00:29:40

But is there kind of like a thing where you were like, this was like the thing that for you? I. Know, it would be different for anybody where you were like, I don’t know. I now feel like this helped me achieve my calm and you could write the book. Yeah.
00:29:56

So I think it’s not anything I realized in real time. It again was upon reflection of what are all of the things now that I have in place? But what really was it that upon reflection that I feel like, oh, since I had these in place, this is what’s been able to get me into my calm or to be a high performer with the four kids and all the things once I was able to get back into myself. And what it really was was honing in on my self care. That was the thing that I realized that that was the biggest, most influential element of owning my calm.
00:30:39

And then being able to create the book and run the business and do the things from a place of groundedness. I love that. I was afraid. I thought you weren’t going to have an answer for that. I was like, that’s probably a hard question.
00:30:51

Like, what’s the last piece? Yeah, it’s a super hard one. But what I realized was that in reflecting again upon the concept of self care and that being the fifth pillar of calm but that going even deeper into it what I realized is that with my clients and myself and everyone I talk to, especially mothers and high performers and people who have businesses and entrepreneurs, is that we lack taking care of our basic needs, our very basic needs. That one. As parents, we make sure that our kids do right, but that we are not doing for ourselves.
00:31:29

And when we lack having the basics in order, that is when things start going haywire and we have mental health issues and anger and anxiety and overwhelm. And it’s because we’re missing these key fundamentals of humaning that we’re not taking care of ourself. And I’ve created an acronym to help remember them that hopefully your listeners will take away and to remember for themselves as well. If you’d like for me to share. I’d be happy to share.
00:32:03

Please share that. I think we definitely need it. So the acronym is Cheer. C-H-E-E-R. It’s like, Yay, we got this.
00:32:15

Let’s take care of ourselves and get ourselves care in check. I’m going to save the C for last because it’s my favorite. I needed either a different spelling, but words ending in C are uncommon. Too good. That’s too good.
00:32:34

So h is for hydration. We forget to hydrate ourselves so often and there’s all these memes going around of like, I never drank water as a kid and I think it’s so funny as Millennials, right? We didn’t have water bottles or hydro flasks or whatever that our parents packed for us. And it’s like, oh, there’s a water fountain everywhere we go. If we’re thirsty, we go to the water fountain, but that now we send our kids everywhere with water bottles, and that is a thing.
00:33:05

And there’s a popularity surge in the water bottle world where everyone is like, oh, look at my cool water bottle. But I’m so glad that this has come to the surface because we need to hydrate. Our bodies are over 55% water, and that’s on the low side, and that if we don’t have hydration in our cells and they’re shriveling up because they don’t have enough water in them, how can we possibly show up and be our fullest selves when literally our cells are shrinking because they don’t have what they need? Yeah. Great way to think about it.
00:33:38

Oh, my gosh. Basic. Yeah. Profound in its simplicity. Yeah.
00:33:47

Which I love. I think so many things are a lot of the things that are best for us. It’s like, okay, I should have known that, or It makes so much sense now that you pointed out. But am I going to do it if I’m not consciously thinking about it or being intentional about it or having somebody remind me? It probably not.
00:34:09

Absolutely. And then what’s great about all of these as I go through them is that they’re all interconnected as well. Right. That when you drink more water, then you’re going to probably sleep better, which we’ll get to in the R, and so they all cascade into supporting each other. And so number two is eating well, right?
00:34:32

It’s eating and nourishing yourself, making sure that you are sustained, that you have your meals and your snacks, and that you’re being intentional and thoughtful about what you’re putting in your body. Just like we do with our kids again and again. It’s one of those things where even when we were talking about meal prep, I’m only thinking dinner. And obviously I pack my son a lunch every day, too. I do make sure I have groceries for what he wants for lunches, and then I think about dinners, and then I get to lunchtime every day, and I have nothing planned for me.
00:35:04

I have no idea what I should have for lunch. That part does. Even when I think I’m being good and meal prepping, I don’t even consider making sure I have nourishment throughout the day until dinner. And that’s only because I’m thinking about it for them. Yeah, exactly.
00:35:21

The intentionality of I’m going to feed myself well, I’m going to put food that brings up my energy and take care of me. Right. And all food is sustaining. So whatever that is, just making sure that you’re taking care of yourself from that space, that you’re putting energy into your body, literally, so that you can continue to put energy out.
00:35:43

Just reminds me, I forgot my vitamins today.
00:35:48

The third one is or the second E is exercise movement. Right. Again, basic need. We have PE because the kids need to move. Right.
00:36:01

And we need more than just an hour a day or 30 minutes or whatever it is that PE is. But the importance of movement in our worlds and how it gets the blood flowing and serotonin and dopamine and all those things when you’re activating and moving yourself, that we get the happy hormones and so that we can show up and have a happier, healthier day. And again, it also increases our energy as well when we have that movement. So there’s so many and I mean, I don’t need to go into all the science. I think that you and listeners all understand the benefits of exercise, and even when it feels like a huge feat of like, oh, I don’t have time to go to the gym and do an hour whatever it is.
00:36:39

That you can still get the benefits by going for a walk around the block. Just doing like, a five minute walk or doing two push ups in between calls or something, right? Hula hooping. That’s my gold hula hoop right there. That is my little movement that I like to do in my office in between.
00:36:56

Right? And so it doesn’t need to be an hour, 45 minutes, 3 hours, I need to go for a run, and it’s got to be at least this many miles. It’s like, no, just something small. It doesn’t need to be a big thing, especially when you’re just getting started. Yeah.
00:37:13

Love it. All the things we should be doing. So wait, I just want to try to remember. The first one was oh, my God, I already forgot. What was the first one?
00:37:23

I’m remembering. Cheers. So the first one was the H, because we’re saving the C. Oh, right. Now, H was hydration.
00:37:32

The first E was oh, my God, I’m only remembering eating. That was the second one. Was that the first one? That was the first E was eating. Okay.
00:37:46

Hydration eating and then exercise. Yeah. Okay. Next is the R, right? And the R is rest.
00:37:56

And so that encompasses sleep. That encompasses naps, that encompasses just not doing right, taking the time to recover. And if you’re exhausted, we don’t need to push ourselves when we’re in a state of exhaustion to go further, further, because one, we’re not going to do it as well, and two, it’s just hurting your body. Right. Again, if we talk about longevity of ourselves, if we want to be here for the grandkids and great grandkids and all of that, like, pushing yourself when you’re already at an edge is not healthy.
00:38:28

So resting, remembering to rest, get proper, consistent sleep, which is so hard as a parent, and especially as a parent of young people, but doing our best, right, to try to get that consistent sleep, to get those hours in. Because all the science, as it’s become a very popular research topic of the past ten years, all the science shows that sleep is pivotal, so important for taking out the trash for recovery, of the body of muscles. Learn, like recovering from the day for the brain to make new memories to process, to have the neurotransmitters in the mind so that you can show up for the next day clean and clear and ready, and not with all this muck from the day before. So there’s so much going on in sleep, and when we get too little of it, it really shows up. We see it, right.
00:39:24

As new parents, when we have very little sleep, the simple things like folding laundry and doing dishes seems so hard and so much and it’s really because you’re not getting enough sleep. Yeah. The little simple things seem so much harder. So if you get sleep, it’s like, oh, it’s like magic. You get one night of full sleep, the next day you’re like, I’m a different person.
00:39:51

Totally. We can all picture that. And also yeah, as many times as I hear that people always tell you how important sleep is, but it’s just like you still don’t do it, still don’t prioritize it because all the things seem more important in the moment. Right, but it’s like, no, those things all rely on actually getting the rest you need. So that should be prioritized.
00:40:16

I don’t know why it’s so hard. It’s like we don’t want to stop. Oh, the momentum is going, but I’m in flow. That could be a reason. There’s so many reasons of like, I just have too much to do and so I can’t, I can’t afford to sleep because then what’s going to get left behind and what’s going to get missed and overlooked if I were to rest?
00:40:37

And it’s like there are other ways to prioritize and there’s other there anyway, I’m now thinking of putting on my coaching hat, but ultimately, rest is so incredibly important. Okay, so what is the C? Because now I’m dying to hear the best for last. So c is connection. Connection with human beings that aren’t just under your roof.
00:41:04

Right. It’s with nature, with the bigger things that are outside of just these walls. Connection to something bigger than ourselves that we belong into this earth, this community, this place that we are. It’s not just staying in the minutiae of the little things, but being connected to the bigger, the wider. Right?
00:41:27

Yeah. Love it. Awesome. Okay, so that’s cheer. And that’s kind of all related to the self care kind of piece of things we should be doing to take care of ourselves that’s been going to I like the way you put it before the humaning things or something you said.
00:41:46

I think that there’s such this people associate oh, self care. It means, as you said, oh, I have to go for a spa day, or I’m selfishly taking care of myself in some way that I don’t deserve or don’t need or something. But the way you put it, that’s how you’re humaning. Those are the things you need for being a human. That’s such a great way to think about it.
00:42:11

It’s basic humaning. That’s what it is. Right. And if you have those in check, you’re going to stave off isolation, depression, anxiety, overwhelm. All of those negative things that tend to show up are usually stem from lack of those basics.
00:42:31

Yeah. And so those are basics, one, for preventing those things from happening, and two from getting out. If you find yourself in a place where you’re feeling depressed, you’re over anxious, you’re having a hard time, if you start by getting back to your basics, you’ll see that most likely unless it’s a clinical issue, which happens as well. And we’ve been noticing, science has been showing also that even people who are clinically in these situations of needing to take medicine for antianxiety, antidepressant, et cetera, if they get back to the basics and need as high of doses of their meds and can eventually go off their meds as well on certain levels. Right?
00:43:21

I’m not talking like extreme extreme or like bipolar or whatever. So I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not coming from that perspective by any means. Not saying I’m an expert, but the research and the studies speak for themselves and that when we get back to basics and do these things that the humaning, it just makes everything easier, which. Calms you down, calms your body, calms your mind, calms everything.
00:43:48

Yeah. I love it. What do you think is the main or number one takeaway? You want parents. It’s parents, right?
00:43:58

I mean, the book doesn’t say moms, right? It’s parents. Busy parents. Yeah. It’s for anyone.
00:44:04

You don’t even have to be a parent. That was actually something I was going to ask before. I was like, it sounds like something kind of anyone could use. But I’m sure there are certain things that might have to do with having a family. But yeah.
00:44:14

What would be like one takeaway for a busy parent or any reader of the book? Let’s say that you want people to really be able to leave with or feel after having read the book. The main goal for me after you’ve read the book, parent or not, is that calm is achievable, right? The busyness, the overwhelm, all the things that we feel or experience or put into our lives, there is a way to approach all of it with calm and to do it from a calm place that you can find your calm and maintain your calm. And through reading the book, doing the practices, talking, like all the different things.
00:44:55

But what is achievable? And that by starting small, you can reach whatever goal you’re trying to reach that it is so feasible you can get there. I love that. And you’re like a great example of that because without even having this book, you literally sounds like you turned things around, like just by trial and error and figuring out what worked. And it must be really cool to see people who have read the book and are now like, hey, I’m feeling so much better.
00:45:29

Oh, that is my favorite thing. I’ve gotten so many emails and DMs and messages, and it’s been such a joy hearing from readers saying, oh, I just read one chapter and this is something I took away and I’ve already implemented, and it’s been a game changer. Wow. Fills my heart so much. And so that’s my favorite thing is getting messages from people telling me that they’ve read it or implemented even just one thing and how it’s been so beneficial to them in owning their calm.
00:46:01

Yeah, that must be so cool to hear. I love that. So tell people, how can people buy your book? Like, where can we find it if somebody listening is like, I need this in my life. Which I feel like everybody, by the way, needs this book.
00:46:13

Yeah. Here’s the thing again, it’s not just for parents, but for the business environment. As an entrepreneur, as somebody who works in business, ambitious or whatever. It’s the same pillars that are brought into doing this in the work environment, personal life, and professional life. So literally, it translates everywhere you go.
00:46:36

When you have these tools in your toolbox. Where you can buy this book is anywhere. Books are sold so that’s online, in your local bookstore, you can go. And if your local bookstore doesn’t have it in stock, you just ask them, hey, I want to get this book, chaos to Calm by Jenna Hermans. They’ll get it for you on my website.
00:46:55

You can get the book there, find all the different links that it’s sold through, as well as downloadables and resources that you can print on your own, like the meal plan, the meal planning sheet, in addition to a sheet that’s called 2 Minutes to Calm. How do you get calm in 2 minutes or less? And it has various different ways that you can do that. So when you’re like, I’m stressed and I have something coming up soon. Okay, here’s a quickie little thing that I can do to get back to Calm.
00:47:25

Okay? Amazing. I think we will link directly to that in the show notes. That sounds like something people should click over and grab right now. Amazing.
00:47:33

Okay, well, I always ask people and we can take this in two different ways I also ask people, what’s one last word? No, I first always ask, what’s one thing you wish you knew more about when you first started your business? You could say, like, when you started your business or before you set out. To write the book. In this case, either one.
00:47:52

It’s a great question. So one thing I wish that I knew before starting, be courageous. And probably any big venture right. Was laying in the infrastructure in home as well as in the business. I wish that I’d had this infrastructure figured out.
00:48:13

It’s like, okay, we’re taking on this new venture, we’re going to build this business. How do I make sure my home is set up? Because so much energy and focus will be here, but I don’t want that to fall off the rails. Yeah, great one, great answer. Any last word of advice to entrepreneurs or busy or people who feel chaos in their lives?
00:48:37

All right. Being proactive is one of the most important things that one can do, and that includes self care. How do you get ahead of it, right? So that you’re not only needing it when you’re desperate and overwhelmed and having panic and anxiety attacks like I was, but before you get to that point where your body is like and freaking out. How do you to be proactive and say I’m not there yet so I think I don’t need it, but rather instead I’m not there.
00:49:07

How do I stay like I don’t want to get there? How can I make sure that I stay on my positive, healthy path and own my calm even if I don’t think I need it, but doing some reflection in that to get ahead of potential chaos? Yeah, that’s great. I love that own my calm term too that you use. That’s so good.
00:49:33

Amazing. Okay, well, tell besides finding the book, how else can people connect with you or find you online or if they want to find Be Courageous or any of the other things for connecting with you? Yeah. So be courageous. The website is Bcrgs.com.
00:49:49

It’s Be Courageous without any vowels, so makes it a lot shorter. And my website personally is Jenahermans.com, my first name and my last name. And I can be found on Instagram, on Twitter, on all the LinkedIn. I’m mostly active on LinkedIn and on Instagram, but pretty much you just do a Google search, Jenna Hermans or Chaos to Calm and Jenna and you’ll find me. I’ll be there.
00:50:16

Okay, awesome. Well, we’ll link to all of those things so people can do that easily and hopefully go read the book right now. I think it’s so great. I’m glad you have created this and put this out into the world and thank you so much for coming on to talk with me about it today. Thank you so much for having me.
00:50:33

It was such a pleasure there.