Amber: Jillian, welcome to the podcast.
Jillian: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Amber: I'm so excited to have you. I have so many places that I want to go in our conversation, but for now, and just to begin, I'm going to ask you the hardest question that I know you're going to love. Can you give us a little introduction about who you are, both like professionally, but also just like about you and your family and things?
Jillian: Yes, I love this. And yes, this will be the hardest question of the day because I have to decide like, what am I today? What kind of coach am I today? I am a wife and kind of a serial entrepreneur. I've owned my own businesses since my early twenties, but my favorite and most recent and current business is this coaching business I started just under three years ago. And I started it after my own kind of self-discovery journey.
When I connected the dots though, it made perfect sense that this is where I landed because I've always done this work. I was in corporate for 13 years and while owning businesses on the side, but I've always done the work of being a leader, managing teams, doing trainings, teaching, helping people in their personal and professional life. And so it made perfect sense that as I kind of went on my own journey of self-discovery, which happened after a tumultuous move back to my hometown that just unloaded a bunch of stuff, as you can imagine.
But what actually happened when we were moving is we were in the thick of probably the hardest month of my life. I was unpacking boxes and this box tipped over and out of it fell a business plan that I had written when I was 24.
Amber: What a story, this is so fun.
Jillian: Oh yeah, it's so fun. So I opened it. When I started in corporate, I actually worked for my uncle who was in restaurant franchising, but just in business building in general. And he always would ask me in my early twenties, he'd be like, if you could build any business, what would you build? Well, once a year he would ask me that. And actually two of the concepts that we built as a franchising company were my brand that I worked on and helped develop and kind of came up with the names and all of those things. And those were actually our first businesses were franchises of those brands.
But I found this business plan that I had written for a wellness center and I was going to be the motivational coach is what I called it in the business plan. Because I don't even know that I would have known what life coach was back then. I just started sobbing and was like, oh my gosh, I've known all along that this is what I was meant for.
And I allowed that, thank God. I allowed that role to still show up in everything that I did. But it was at that moment that I was like, all right, it's my turn. I'm going to do this thing. And so at the time I was flipping houses with my husband. So I had left corporate and we were in real estate and I loved it. And I got to pick the colors and I got to do the design of all the houses. It was so fun. But that was his passion.
I'm like, it's my turn for me to go after mine. So I did. I hired a coach. I started a certification program. And about a year and a half later of unpacking all the blocks and all the beliefs, I launched my business. And so started heavily in life coaching, and I have sort of evolved into life and business. But I always say like 90% of what I do, regardless of who I'm coaching is life and brain coaching. So, yeah, that's where I'm at as of today.
Amber: Amazing. So I'm going to push just because I know that it's hard for you to say it. But who do you work with right now?
Jillian: Mostly female business owners. I still have an incredible group of moms and even just other career women that I serve and I love them so much. I have a group program that most of them filter into. But the direction I see happening right now is mostly female entrepreneurs. I love this so much because most of what I do is the life part of it.
I always say like, we got to get your house cleaned up first and let's really focus on the life part. That's going to allow you to have this foundation to either grow if you have an existing business or start a business that is rooted from that place. I'm really passionate about that message.
Amber: So good. I can't remember when I created a podcast called Your Business Sweet Spot I think months ago based on a conversation that we had. I gave you credit in the episode, too, because I love the word sweet spot. That's what I want to ask you a lot about today. And I think that what you just shared is so relevant because it is so much life. Even when you're business coaching, there's so much lifestyle and relationships and like you said, the brain stuff into business. And so I know everyone listening is in for a treat. Thank you for sharing your story. I didn't know that story about your business plan.
Jillian: Oh, I thought I told you that.
Amber: It was like the golden thread of all of your jobs and all of your experiences was like coach.
Jillian: Yeah. And it just made perfect sense when I was like, OK, this is where I'm going. I'm like, I have so much evidence, which is just so powerful.
Amber: So powerful. Okay, so let's start. Let's just like your concept of the sweet spot. How did you land on the word? But also, like, how did you land in your sweet spot?
Jillian: I remember talking to you about this after I had had that word kind of like drop in for me is when I start coaching with someone, we divide their lives up into containers. And it is my favorite thing just from a brain perspective is like we can have this overriding message that life just feels really hard or really overwhelming. But it's a lot easier to manage to that when you look at your life as a compilation of all of the containers that exist within it.
For me, I have my own container, which is me and my mental, physical and emotional and spiritual health. I have my marriage container. I have my parenting container. Sometimes I divide that up into a Jason Sadie container. So that's depending on what season we're in. And then I have my business, of course, family, social life. I just kind of like to see it as these buckets.
And it really helps to identify, like, where is there sufficiency already? Where can I create more sufficiency within this container? Where can I extend it into abundance? As I've explored that concept for multiple years now in my own life, and I tend to spend time in this whenever I'm journaling or kind of stumped on, like, what do I want to work on? I'm like, well, let's visit the containers and see what's happening in each of them.
It's also a place I love to take my clients when they're like, I don't know what I want to talk about today. Or a starting point is like, let's just visit each of your containers so that I can learn about you and your life and where you exist in your days. I remember coming to that call and going like, I visited my containers this week. And I really feel like I have found this sweet spot where the way that I am existing, the beliefs that I have, the way I'm showing up and the results that I'm creating in each of these containers in this season, which is a really important thing. And I know we'll come back to that.
But it just feels like this incredible sweet spot where things feel abundant much more than they don't. And it felt easeful and authentic and so aligned. And so I have completely run with this concept that that is really what I help people do. I help them find their sweet spot where it really feels like we can have it all. And it's evident because of what we choose to see within each of these containers.
Amber: Yeah. If you don't follow Jillian yet, you should, because I think on your social media, you demonstrate it, like you share what your sweet spot is micro. So I think maybe we can distinguish. I know you haven't used those words, but I use these words a lot, like micro and macro.
Micro sweet spot is like what you do on a day to day basis. And then like overall macro, you're doing the business that you want. You have the relationship that you want. Can you speak to that?
Jillian: Yeah. Micro leads to macro always, right? And like how we spend our days becomes how we spend our life and how we spend our minutes becomes our weeks. And so I have designed very consciously these ideal days that build an ideal week. And of course, there's lots of room for messy. Like we plan for the messy. I always love to think that I exist at 80, 20, 80% of the time.
Like if you do the math, that actually allows for a lot of imperfection because we know that's life. And we know that allowing and almost planning for the mess is actually what allows us to keep moving forward in belief that it's working. But I designed my days very consciously. I built this business. The first thing that dropped in for me as a concept to teach was just the words choose you. And I think as women specifically, but just as a society, we are so conditioned to look outward for the answers, to look outward for who we are and to always constantly be showing up for other people first in order to feel fulfilled.
And when I had started my kind of self-discovery journey, when I first was like walking into my business, that's what I realized I had been doing. So when I found that business plan, I was feeling so lost. We had moved across the country back to my hometown. And I'm like, I feel so disconnected. I feel so lost. And from the outside in, though, it was like the checkbox life.
We had this incredible business. I have a beautiful family, my own and extended, a beautiful home, an incredible husband. I'm in good health.
I really felt like I should be really, really happy and really grateful. And I was wronging myself for the fact that I didn't. What I realized is I had just been looking outward and going, I've checked the boxes and I'm making my decisions on what I believe will keep the most people outside of me happy.
Why am I not? That's when it dropped in, is like, you have to choose you. You have to do what you want. You have to take care of you first. So that is the foundation of everything I teach within each of these containers, is how are you showing up for you so that you can show up for them? That's really at the basis of how I design this. So like I always talk about, like, you first, first thing.
Every single morning, I spend dedicated time to me, and that is how I design my day, is trusting that a well cared for me allows me to show up as my best for everyone and everything that I care about most.
Amber: Yeah. You use those words a lot. I love it, especially as women I think whether it's like consciously or subconsciously learned, our value comes from how we help other people and we burn out. To me, the sweet spot is like opposite of burnout. It's like a sustained, thriving way of being.
Jillian: I have never showed up so well for everyone else. I think that's the beautiful ripple effect of it, is like the way that I show up in my family, the way that I show up for my relationships, the way that I'm able to serve in my business feels so abundant because I am so well cared for.
Amber: It's like the imagery of the pitcher in the water. Like, you're always filling the pitcher, which is you, so that you can always be pouring because you just have so much overflow.
Jillian: Yeah. And I love like all the analogies and metaphors of your mask first. But I think we can take it deeper, right? Like when you really think about physical, mental, emotional, spiritual health as your foundation for how you show up in every container and how this applies to business blows my mind still so much because it makes sense when you think about your family and how you physically show up for them or how you can care for them. But to be in a place of fulfillment and abundance when you are building a business, which we all know is its own really deep growth journey, no matter what.
But man, if you are well cared for as you're building this probably new, maybe scary, big thing that doesn't always feel like it's working, but if you are really well cared for and rooted so deeply in your truth, the way you build that feels so incredible. I really think that that can be the container that we don't see it clearly until we do. And it's like, whoa, this makes such a difference.
Amber: Yes. I think too specifically as a coach, one of my first coaches, her name is Katie. She talked about how clients plug in like energetically to us. And I always think about that because I know my clients plug into me. And if like I'm not leading myself, you just get stuck dry. If you don't know how to like restore and rejuvenate and replenish, I think that you do that so well. And it's very intentional. Every day I see you like pressing your coffee with writing like it's useful for people to see what does it actually look like to do that.
Jillian: Yeah. I love talking about this because everyone's like, well, I've got young kids. And I'm like, I know. And so my 90 minute morning routine, now that I have 11 and an eight year old probably isn't going to work for you. I really love to help people design what I call like sacred rituals. And so morning and evening. And then I teach it what I call a reset ritual that I actually use between every single one of my clients.
I use it when I'm transitioning from coach to mom or mom to coach. But I'm not one that prescribes a morning routine. I'm not a 5 a.m. clubber. I'm like, find what works for you, even if that means spending five minutes in your bed before anyone knows that you're awake, taking a deep breath, asking yourself, how did you sleep? How are you this morning? Good morning. Just give yourself that space before you grab your phone, before you start serving other humans to check in and just center yourself. If that's what you've got space for, take that and build from there.
And again, like, I love my morning routine. It's very regimented. Everyone's like, I know exactly what you do every morning. And I'm like, yeah, me too, because I've been doing it consistently. And that doesn't mean it goes perfect every time. And I bring my kids in on a lot of it. I mean, I've been doing this for years, so I found ways to make it work in the different seasons.
Amber: Yes.
Jillian: But just taking that moment to just check in and say, hey, how's it going? Like someone else you love.
Amber: Like someone else you love.
Jillian: Exactly. Yeah.
Amber: It's like when I wake up and my girls come down, I'm like, hi, how'd you sleep? And I'm like,
Jillian: Yeah, we do it.
Amber: We don't have the same feeling to ourselves.
Jillian: Let's greet ourselves with that same type of love every morning.
Amber: Something that you said back when we're talking about containers, you said you look for the sufficiency that already exists. It kind of just said the same thing with like five minutes. Like you're looking for places, not like what's missing or like what do I need to tear down and start again? I feel like the sufficiency is where it starts and then the sweet bud grows. Yes?
Jillian: Yes, totally. And I think you teach this so beautifully and I'm going to botch this, but you say loving what is.
Amber: Yeah.
Jillian: While wanting more. Like there's this baseline that we get to create of like really finding what is good and then building from there, whether it's through gratitude practice or through just really focusing on creating things that work for you and letting them be enough and then building from there.
Amber: Yeah. But most people have a hard time with that because they're like, but right now sucks. And maybe it's not like that extreme, but let's talk about it because I feel like some people it's like, no, this is a mess. How can I build if I hate what's happening right now? What would you say?
Jillian: I would point them to like, let's unpack what is working. Your brain, obviously our brains are wired, but that's just like a primal safety mechanism to just negative bias everything and point out the problems, which are threats in the good old days, right? Of like, yes, we have to go live by keeping you vigilant around what's not working, around what's going wrong. I love watching the videos of like neuroplasticity, you know, where you see the brain actually like reacting. Oh, it just blows my whole brain apart every time.
But if we can center ourselves around what is working on a regular basis, which doesn't take a lot of time, it's a conscious decision. And this is why we'll get to the reset ritual. But it's such a powerful way to reset yourself because throughout our days, we're going to be given plenty of opportunity for our primal brain to show up and tell us the day it's not, or everything's going wrong, or let's just start on Monday.
All the things we are so conditioned to when in reality, it's a conscious choice to actually find the good and choose it over and over and ensure you teach gratitude too. But really rewiring your brain can be as simple as writing three things down that are great that have happened in the previous 24 hours every day. We know through of our RAS system like what we focus on, we find that's going to help us start seeing what is working.
Our brain's going to start filtering out the rest of the information and pointing us to that. So I think that's so valuable to be able to create sufficiency. And when we visit your containers, our brain is going to first deliver like, here are all the problems, that's why I hired you, because I've got a lot of problems. You know, everything sucks, every container. When we do this and we shift into sufficiency, it just blows their mind because they're like, man, this feels so different.
Amber: Yeah. The other thing that I'm going to chime in on, I'm curious your thought. In the beginning, when you start doing gratitude, it feels like you're faking it. It does. Like you're not doing it wrong just because you're like, I feel like this is not real. It's like it feels not real because you haven't done this. You haven't practiced this.
Jillian: And your brain is going to resist it at all costs. It's like you're putting us in danger here. Our brains are like, oh no, if we're only focusing on the good, we're not vigilant to the threat.
It's so valuable to recognize like there are going to be some resistance. It's going to feel uncomfortable. It's going to feel like you're faking it until you make it.
But in reality, what you're doing is creating new connections in your brain that are going to allow you to see things differently. And my favorite example of this is from The Compound Effect, which is just such an awesome book. But he talks about how he and his wife were struggling a little bit, and he didn't even tell her for a year, was write down one thing that he loved about her every single day.
And nothing else in their life changed circumstantially. And a year later, their marriage was the best it's ever been. And then he had a year of all the things he loved about her and he gave it to her. I love that so much as an example.
Amber: I love micro. I love thinking in micro because I think our brains, it's like, oh, I have this big problem. I have to have like a really big solution. I love that your like antidote is, oh no, actually, I'm going to go like way smaller solution. I said a lot of little things.
Jillian: A lot of tiny, itty bitty baby things. That's actually where the magic happens. I have to tell you. So in my group program and collective right now, we're doing a challenge about morning and evening rituals. But I added in a component where in order to win the challenge, they have to get coached every day for 10 days. They're like, I'm having such a hard time coming up with something to get coached on every day.
After like three or four days, I'd given them a heads up. This will happen because we're so used to going that's not big enough to get coached on. That little tiny thing doesn't feel important enough to bring to my coach. And so we wait until these big moments. Well, life happens in the in-between. Life happens in the tiny moments.
The stuff we're coaching on has become so important. They're like so shocked at how this has shifted the way they view what they bring to the table for coaching. So awesome. And I love thinking too, like so many people are prescribing date nights in marriage. That's great. But what's happening in the day to day? What's happening in the in-between?
Amber: I'm going to recap something that you mentioned, but you said sacred rituals and reset rituals. Are there any other like frameworks that you would include? The containers? I've heard it called like the wheel of life.
Jillian: Yeah, very similar.
Amber: Sacred rituals, reset rituals, your relationship with yourself and choosing you. Are there any other Jillianisms that you would add?
Jillian: Yeah. So my two very foundational things that I teach any one of my clients are unconditional commitment and radical responsibility. So outside of really this idea of choosing to believe that caring for yourself first is the most important decision you can make. And there's a lot of resistance to that.
I will sidebar on that. There's a lot of resistance. There's a lot of guilt that shows up. When I ask someone to ponder that belief, it makes them feel uncomfortable. It makes them feel bad. It makes them feel like they're doing something wrong, whether it's religious conditioning or just society's conditioning that we have existed in for so long. There's a lot behind that. And so that does take some time and some work for them to build the evidence that it's safe to show up for themselves first. But unconditional commitment is very similar to your version of it of like, I'm here until it works.
Amber: Yeah.
Jillian: I talk about this all the time is when my clients come in and we work through getting clear on what they want. The next step for me is helping them develop an unconditional commitment to the outcome because the path is never linear. We talk about this all the time, but it kind of feels like a big roller coaster ride. And so to decide I'm on, I'm here, I'm on this path until it works and I might change paths. I might find different ways to get there, but I'm committed to the outcome no matter what.
This is when your why outweighs your why not. When you're in the moment of making decisions, it drives your behavior. Like this is why I always say like conscious creation of my days happens ahead of time because I know my in the moment self, I always joke, your in the moment self cannot be trusted. And so I make decisions for myself ahead of time. I decide what workouts I'm going to do. I map out my day.
Do I allow for flexibility within that? Yes, of course. This is part of what I teach too is letting it be messy and not requiring perfect conditions to still allow it to count. But it is making decisions ahead of time because we know our in-the-moment primal brain is going to choose efficiency.
It's going to be emotionally driven. Like we know all of these things now, which is so powerful. So we can put them to use through making decisions for our future self ahead of time.
That's what allows unconditional commitment in my eyes to exist is that constant devotion, which I love that you have reframed my discipline over to devotion, but that constant devotion to the outcome, no matter what, no matter how long it takes, no matter what it takes, no matter how many things we have to try or how many tries we have to give it, we're committed to the outcome no matter what.
Amber: So good. Because I think in life and in business, it's easy to like plan your day and make a business plan on paper in a vacuum, in the safety of your office, without kids and without refund requests and without people saying they don't want to work with you or without all the conditions that happen that make it feel like you can't do it.
I think unconditional commitment, the level of integrity that I think you live, you guys should know this, like Jillian does these things at a very high level. Like she's not just spouting ideas. You really live that way. You also teach it in a really powerful way too. Can you talk about how radical responsibility has shown up? Because I think when we talk about like the sweet spot and conscious creation, it feels very like feminine, but when I hear like radical responsibility, it's confronting.
Jillian: Yeah. So I love talking about radical responsibility because at the end of the day, we only really have power over ourselves and our reaction to our circumstances. What radical responsibility teaches you is that you are the common denominator of every container in your life. Like we joke about the Taylor Swift, “It's me. Hi, I'm the problem. It’s me,” but the beautiful thing about that is that you are also the solution.
It takes massive amounts of ownership and massive amounts of responsibility to recognize the power that you actually have. And I always say like this work really teaches you the power that you have. And with that comes responsibility. We have the power to create our experience in every moment. That's also a lot of responsibility. So it's really seeing, I am responsible for how I feel and how I feel is based on what I'm choosing to think and believe.
I am responsible for the outcome and that's all based on what I'm choosing to think and believe. It's so powerful, but it's so beautiful to see that taking ownership at that level of like I am in charge of my experience every minute of every day. You can create anything from that belief.
It gives me chills and I sweat a little. Like it's so important.
Amber: Yes.
Jillian: And yeah, I just I think those two concepts combined again, like you said, it's almost like where the masculine energy kind of fit. But with that, there's so much beauty in.
Amber: Yeah.
Jillian: I'm here until it worked. And like I have the power. Circumstances happen all day, every day. How we exist in them. It's what we choose to do with them that creates our experience and creates the outcome of that day.
Amber: Yeah. I have two lines of thinking that I want to go to. The first one is when you were reading Byron Katie, you're like, everything great. And like how to balance the being in the doing and things like that. And then the other thing that I was going to ask you about is how do you walk people through not weaponizing what you just said? Because I work with a lot of coaches, and so it's easy to weaponize what you just said about like, I'm in charge of my thoughts and feelings. I'm in charge of my experience. So when I'm sad, I'm doing this to myself. Like when I'm off, I'm doing it to myself. Like how would you talk about not weaponizing it, but using it in an empowering way?
Jillian: Yeah. So good. I think the beautiful thing about teaching this work is really allowing people to exist in their truth and in their feelings. So when I'm feeling a negative emotion, I'm using quotation marks on the screen. But when I'm feeling a negative emotion, I can recognize that I'm choosing it, and I still allow it.
I think coaching is such a beautiful space to allow for that. Because when you're coaching, and as you coached me, and as I coach all of my clients, I'm not talking you out of that. I'm actually helping you stay in it until it moves through you.
I actually love that you said like weaponizing it, because it can almost feel like something massively wrong then when we're feeling these harder emotions. But like, my gosh, how do I rush out of this? The flip side of this is teaching yourself how to feel, how to let those things move through you, and actually consciously choose that.
Amber: It gives you the chance to actually do what you want to do. So one of the other things that I was thinking of is how well you grieved Remy, your dog, dying. Because you were working together during a pretty intense time for you and your family. Remy was really young, you didn't eat it. It was kind of like an awful way to get sick and just all of it. You handled it so empowered, because I think you let yourself be sad and to grieve. And you showed your kid how to grieve, and you gave yourself what you really wanted, which is to be sad. You didn't want to skip it.
Jillian: Yeah, I consciously chose that experience. And I think that's the beautiful thing is when we recognize this power, we can actually choose that. And when we learn more about how our emotions are stored in our body, I find such beauty in the hard. The more we learn about the importance of letting our feelings move through us as we're experiencing them, instead of pushing them down and trying to talk ourselves out of it, like you said, that's the weaponizing side of this work. But I think the beautiful thing to teach with it is really allowing for that part and letting it teach us.
Consciously choosing those harder experiences and letting it teach us, letting those things move through us so that we can move through them. And I think that is such a beautiful example. And so much of that was driven by my desire to teach my kids that what they're feeling gets to be safe all the time. I was in my own level of grief just because of my connection with Remy, but I experienced it as it happened. And I will honestly say at 40 years old, I think that's the first time I've probably fully allowed that to happen. Fully.
I gave myself so much space. I consciously built my days to allow that to happen ahead of time and after. And man, the lightness, of course, there's still waves of that grief, but like, I have no regret about the way that I experienced that. It was so beautiful. Quite honestly, it changed the life of my kids. And as much as I thought it was going to be at a detriment to them at a certain points, it has cracked open our kids emotionally, especially our son in a way that I don't know when else in his life that would have happened.
I choose to believe that's why she was sent to us. I'm so thankful for the knowledge that we have in this space that letting those things move through and choosing that consciously is part of the work.
Amber: On top of your beautiful way of grieving and giving your kids a space to feel sad.
And like you said, you also still showed up with unconditional commitment for your goals. At the same time, I think the sweet spot to me is like holding lots of things at the same time.
Jillian: Yeah.
Amber: Because if you were grieving, putting your dog down and you were still coaching your client, like there's still things that you wanted to work on at the same time and both were welcomed and worked on in really powerful ways.
Jillian: Yeah. I mean, you do such an incredible job of teaching duality, but like that was such an incredible thing to be holding because and again, going back to like the unconditional commitment and the responsibility piece of it is I consciously chose both every single day. And I would say I still do because life is not sunshine and rainbows and clients falling out of the sky and perfect. It's happening all the time. And so I think like if I'm always waiting for the perfect circumstance, I'm going to always be waiting instead of letting duality exist all the time, all the time and seeing it and choosing it.
So that means there may be a container that feels like it could use some work and need some nurturing. And you can still feel like so abundant over here. So I love the duality and really choosing the duality of life. It's always there.
Amber: That's so good.
Jillian: That's like the full spectrum of human experience anyway. Like I can be grieving deeply and thriving.
Amber: And even early, like there's never going to be a season. I'm sure you want to come back to seasons too because that would be interesting for me. There's never going to be a season, even great seasons where everything is perfect. That's not what the sweet spot means. It doesn't mean that conditions are perfect.
Jillian: If everything's perfect, we're missing the point. We're human. We're here to be messy and imperfect and get it wrong. And I love that part of humanity. I'll talk about seasons because I think it's so beautiful to see the option we have to choose this sweet spot and design it based on the season that we're in. Like if I was to design a sweet spot for my entire life, I would be feeling like I was getting it wrong a lot. To me, that would be like a perfectionism umbrella. Like here's my ideal outcome, no matter what's going on.
Amber: No matter what, yeah.
Jillian: Yeah. And I love that the season can either be the season of life that you are in, whether that's young mom or whatever, or it can literally be the season, which for me right now is the summer season where our kids are out from school and my priorities are different in the way I've designed this and the way that I'm showing up for it and the way that I have built this schedule and my priorities. It's specific to this two months time while my kids are eight and eleven.
Amber: Yes. This is perfect, but I was going to ask you about this because I feel like there's macro seasons and micro seasons. Can you talk a little bit about how you live in two places? Because I think that's like a beautiful example of a macro way of life.
Jillian: Yes. So we had moved our life up to my hometown in Washington. That was my crumble and then my rebuild. We'll call it that. We lived in Spokane, where my whole family was and my husband from Michigan. And so we had built a life in Arizona for 18 years and then moved to Spokane.
We just kept coming back to, like we've built this beautiful life here in Spokane, but it still doesn't feel like home to us. So we listened to that and against probably everyone we knew other than the people that were still waiting for us in Arizona, against probably their wishes and belief of what was right, we decided to move our family back to Arizona. But before we did, we were exploring some like fun coaching conversations of just really visualizing the future and where do we want to be in five years and ten years.
And, I do that a lot. He's an entrepreneur, too. So we've got big dreams all the time. We talked about how we would love to have a place in Coeur d'Alene, which is about 30 minutes from Spokane to spend our summers and then spend our winters down in Arizona when our kids were out of high school. That was what we talked about is like our 10-year plan is like when the kids move out, we'll do like six months, six months. I was like, why not now? Why don't we try to build this now?
Before we moved back to Arizona, and we talked about the before and afters of this house at the beginning, but we bought this little shack in Coeur d'Alene, which is this beautiful lake town in Idaho, and we completely remodeled it. Now we spend our school years in Arizona and we spend our summers up here in Idaho. And yeah, we get to immerse with the cousins, which was really when we saw them anyway. You know, everyone's like, well, we miss your family. And I'm like, I see them more now.
Amber: Yeah. Something that you said, the question, I'd like to play this game, like, wouldn't it be cool if... And then the second question, why not now? It gave me chills because I'm like, oh, that's such a next level way of understanding that game of like, what do we want? Why not now? Why can't we get a piece of that right now?
Jillian: Well, the really fun part about that question is the next day. So at the time we knew we were moving and I hadn't started my business yet. I was waiting until we moved and we didn't have an exact timeline, but we knew it was going to be like three to six months. And so the next day, Dan goes, what are you thinking of your business? I'm like, I'm just going to wait until we get there.
And he goes, why not now? So I built my coaching business in the midst. We'd already sold our house. We were living at my parents. In transition, we hadn't bought our house in Arizona. We were remodeling the Coeur d'Alene house. And that's when I launched my business because of that same question.
Amber: Well, you had an unconditional commitment. Maybe you didn't have that word back then. One of the things I think Alex said, he said it, he's like, he did it in a very masculine way, but I still think it's true. Basically, he didn't say it this way, but this is how I would say it. You need perfect conditions to maintain too. And if you don't need perfect conditions to start, then you won't need perfect conditions to maintain. And that's how a sweet spot can be cultivated over a long period of time.
Jillian: Yeah. And if we need perfect conditions to start, we may never start. There's always going to be something that gives our brain this really evidentially based excuse not to. I mean, I had every reason not to. And it was like, if I can do it while we're moving, I can do it anytime.
So really when I developed this idea of unconditional commitment, because I had a coach at that time was like, what's keeping you from starting? And I was using that reason. And she said, what else? And I said, well, of course, like fear of failure. And she said, well, what happens if you fail? And I go, I won't.
I was like, I was here until it worked. And I didn't even use those words. But I remember being like, that's not going to happen. I will keep going until I figure this out. And that was the basis. That was like one of my first videos I ever made was on unconditional commitment.
Amber: So good. It's such a powerful response. What happens if you fail? Oh, I won't. That's entrepreneurship in a nutshell. I know we're not talking about entrepreneurship specifically, but I feel like you can only fail if you just choose to stop. It's when you fail, that is when you're in control.
Jillian: But I love that that can trickle over into any container. Like you talk about a marriage container is I will keep showing up for this until it works, until it gets closer and closer and closer. And that allows us to detach from maybe what our partner is choosing or what's going on with them. And it's such a beautiful concept to go, I'm here no matter what. I'm going to keep going no matter what. That's so beautiful. And I think that can apply in so many places. It really helps you step into your power in that container.
Amber: So good. We're going to wrap up. I have one more question because I think this will speak to… I mean we could create a whole podcast on this topic, but the sweet spot is so personal. How do you discern between what you really want and what you don't want? Maybe you're distracted by what other people are doing. Like, well, Jillian lives in Arizona Coeur d'Alene. That sounds good, but does it actually? How do you help people decipher what do you really want?
Jillian: Yeah. It's really peeling back the layers and helping them to go inward. And this is actually where I start. But if I could drop you 12 months from now and you walked this path that is just for you, that is aligned just for you based on what you know you actually want. Because my favorite question is, do you actually want that? Eight times out of ten, it's a no on the first time.
Or when someone's like, I'm trying to do this, I'm trying to create this habit and it's not working and I actually want the outcome. That's my first stop. But I love to help them just, I'm going to drop you 12 months from now. And what do you see? When you feel the most aligned, the most you, the most abundant, what do you see? And we start from there in every container and we paint the picture. I love doing like these sweet thought strategy sessions have been so fun because when you hear strategy session, I think it's like, we're going to go make a business plan.
And it's like, no, no, no, we're going to make a sweet spot plan. We're going to drop in your dream visualization and we're going to reverse engineer this and we're going to create a path as her, as the version of you that has what she wants already. And the coolest part, which is the sneaky part, which is my favorite, is it's never that far off from...
Amber: I know. Oh, it's so true.
Jillian: The best, because I'm like, your five steps from that right now.
Amber: But it's the consciousness that was missing.
Jillian: Yes. Even when I was designing my sweet spot for this summer, it's not that much different from my year school year, but it felt so intentionally different because I'm building in space in my weeks with different priorities. It feels so abundant and it feels like it clicks. I don't actually go to a chiropractor. I always say I should probably, but it's like, I can imagine that when you leave the chiropractic office, if you've had a good adjustment and a good experience, you feel lighter, like you're walking a little taller, you're flowing easily. You feel lighter, things just clicked into place. That's what alignment, that's what your sweet spot is.
Amber: Yes. Something that I think will tie it all into a bow, based on where we started, you talked about sacred rituals and reset rituals. I think a lot of times, to me, ritual means you're just doing it on purpose instead of just doing it unconsciously. Most people live their lives asleep or sleepwalking through life. Waking up in the morning and getting breakfast and then your kids wake up and you say, hi, you could do that every day, not intentionally, but the moment you bring intention to it, I'm going to wake up and make myself a yummy breakfast and be grateful for the day and be excited for my kids when they wake up, same activities.
Jillian: Yeah, exactly.
Amber: Different consciousness, completely different experience.
Jillian: 100%. Everything is a decision. It's up to you whether it's a conscious decision or a sub conscious decision. I love it so much that most of the things we do are going to be the same from the outside in. It's how we experience them that changes that. That's what I mean. It's like you're right there. Very rarely are we completely burning everything down. It's small tweaks. It's how you're choosing to experience it. It's what you're choosing to believe while you're in it that really creates the sweetness of the sweet spot.
Amber: Well, it's like that beautiful story about the guy who wrote his wife, The Gratitude.
Jillian: Yeah.
Amber: It's so easy for our brains to be like, it can't be that easy. I teach a concept called the Coaching Core Four, where it's like four things that you have every day to grow your business, basically. It's simple. It's not hard and people don't do it. It is simple stuff stacked over time. To me, it's like that's the sweet spot. It is. Finding the simple things to do now.
Jillian: Oh, I love this. I love this.
Amber: Do you think we missed anything? Like you want to talk about?
Jillian: I don't think so. I think this was like such an all-encompassing view of like what's available through this path and choosing it, consciously choosing it to let it be sweet. And again, that doesn't mean it's perfect and sunshine all days. It's letting the hard be sweet also.
Amber: Which is a skill. It's a perception of life, which I think you've cultivated amazing. And I know your clients have too.
Jillian: Thank you.
Amber: How can people hang out with you, find you, read more about you?
Jillian: Yes. I am on Instagram at Jillian.Clothier.Coaching. Clothier, C-L-O-T-H-I-E-R. My website is JillianClothierCoaching.com.
Amber: Perfect. And like I said, I think Instagram is specifically a unique place because you document how you cultivate your sweet spot every day, but there's an energy to it. So it's like, yeah, like you're posting like your morning or like when you watch your kid play or whatever, there's like the energy to it, like the intention. So definitely that's where I would start is your Instagram.
Jillian: I love to hang out there.
Amber: Thank you, Jillian.
Jillian: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
