Jessa: I am, John. Thanks for asking.

John: Jessa is the founder of Lez Be Nomads and The True You Revolution. After her father was tragically killed, she chose to create a space for others to get clear on who they are and why, making it a powerfully active process, rather than an unconscious default. Jessa, take a minute, fill in some gaps from that intro and give us a little glimpse of your personal life.

Jessa: Absolutely. I have a background of about two decades working in technology in various realms and just lived kind of a pretty average, status quo life. I was going along you know the standard American Dream. I had a house. I had a nice car. I had a good job. I was working on the marriage, house, white picket fence, 2.3 kids and I was tragically miserable inside. It didn’t make any sense. The more I fulfilled on this so-called dream that everyone was aspiring to, the more miserable I got.

So for me, when my dad was killed, it really got me to kind of wake up and question like, “Who am I? What am I here for? What am I waiting for? What am I doing?” It caused this massive shift in me of, “I’m not just here to make money and live out this little vacuum packed dream.” There was so much more to life and to being and to connecting. So that kind of transformed my life into this space of, “Okay, totally different. Something other” which has led to my pet project Les Be Nomads, as well as the programs that I took on in the Freedom Journal process. So it’s been a crazy, wild journey.

John: More than that journey, Jessa, what would you say is your area of expertise? What is your specialty?

Jessa: Really my heart and my soul and my passion is about helping other people find what it is that inspires them. I’m quite a book nerd. I love reading nonfiction. That’s my free time favorite thing to do. A lot around psychology, neurology, philosophy, biology, just this intermingling and dabbling a little in the “woo” if you will, like some of the spiritual concepts that align with or intermesh well with the sciences. So it kind of created this concept for me of the true you, that unique, authentic you that’s deep down inside. I like to refer to this as your inner black sheep.

We spend so much time and energy in society, in the world, wasting this energy, trying to hide that true you, trying to keep it down, trying to fit in and be normal and do the American Dream thing. I just think if we could start shifting that energy to – instead of holding down and holding back who we are and what inspires us – living from that inspiration, we kind of become our own source of kinetic energy and we start creating and building and growing and we give other people permission to stop trying to fit in and stop trying to be like everyone else and actually do what inspires them and the energy just grows and builds.

John: So within the true you, what’s something that we don’t know that us, as entrepreneurs, that we just again we don’t know but we probably should know that can really help us in our lives?

Jessa: Something I find really interesting and exciting is the way that our brains filter and process that information. It’s a natural process. It’s part of our survival instinct. For example, when I was 17 and saving up for my first car, I finally – the nerd I was – I finally decided on a Pontiac Vibe as the most amazing car that I could ever have. It’s totally versatile. It’s kind of cute and suddenly, at the moment I decided that was the car I wanted, suddenly every other car on the road was a Pontiac Vibe. Everyone had one except me.

It’s the awareness that it’s not that suddenly there were more Pontiac Vibes on the road or more people were driving them. It’s that I had shifted a filter in my brain; based on the chemistry in my body, my emotions, and my thought processes that told my brain what’s important is Pontiac Vibes. I want to see more of those. So my brain said, “Okay, I’m not gonna cut that information out. When it passes by, I’m gonna make sure you’re aware of it consciously.”

So that very process, when you take that out into the rest of your life, you can completely shift and transform. You can create a business. You can create relationships. You can create just about anything you want in your life by utilizing just that one ability to kind of reprogram and process the filters in your brain.

John: What’s kind of funny about that is I’ve literally never heard of a Pontiac Vibe, but I guarantee if I drive out of my parking lot today that I’m gonna see a Pontiac Vibe. I’m gonna be like, “What? I didn’t even know that you existed and there you are.” So, Jessa, take us on your Freedom Journal journey. How did you hear about the Freedom Journal? What was the goal that you set and how did you crush it?

Jessa: To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure where I heard about the Freedom Journal – probably my favorite resource, a Google search – but it showed up and I knew I needed something to help me get clear. I was missing something and I’d been treading water for a good year on these two programs that I’d been wanting to launch; one being the True You Revolution and this kind of personal process of reprogramming those filters in your brain, and the second being the Freedompreneurs online business program and how to get their tech online. So I’ve got these great program ideas.

I’ve got people who are interested in them and I have no idea how to get them out there, what’s missing, and like I said, I’m treading water. So when I got into the Freedom Journal what was amazing was I started doing the daily logging and the ten-day sprints and I’m looking at, “What actions am I actually taking? What am I actually trying to accomplish?” I realized I’d just been really busy looking busy and doing a lot of work that had nothing to do with actually getting the True You Revolution or this online training program out into the world.

So one of the big things that just blew me away as I worked through the Freedom Journal was how much lack of clarity I had around goals, not only the big goal. I knew the end result goal was I’d have these courses available out online and people would be enrolling them and I’d be teaching them, but I didn’t have daily clarity. I didn’t have SMART goals by the day or by the ten-day sprint, I didn’t have this kind of more narrow, specific, detailed goals.

So one of the things that totally transformed what I was doing as I worked through the Freedom Journal, when I’d do that end of the day kind of journaling process and how did my day go and what did I get out of it and what did I learn? I also then would open up my Google calendar and I would actually block out four to six hours of the next day with specific, “These are the next steps I have to take. This is the frog that I need to eat first thing in the morning. This is the two or three more really key things alongside my freelance web business and tech work that I was doing.”

So that way, I was always daily actually having clear. I wouldn’t wake up and get to my computer and go, “Alright, what do I feel like working on today” because that clearly wasn’t working for me. So that process with the Freedom Journal helped immensely.

John: What’s so interesting about this is it goes back to what we were talking about earlier in Fire Nation this lack of awareness. If you don’t know what a Pontiac Vibe is, you’re probably never gonna see it. It’s just not gonna enter your conscious. If you don’t actually sit down and look at what you’re doing day-to-day, you might not be aware that you’re just doing this busywork that’s not really pushing the ball forward.

You have to be accountable and that’s why taking a pen, putting it in your hand, putting that pen to paper and writing down what you’re doing and why you need to do X, Y, and Z, and then if you’re doing that at the end of the day looking back and saying, “Am I really getting closer to my ten-day sprint goal? Am I really getting close to my overall 100-day goal?” Be held accountable by both humans and by that accountability partner that won’t let you fail, the Freedom Journal. Now Jessa, what would you use for words to define productivity? What does that mean to you?

Jessa: Before the Freedom Journal, productivity was really about looking busy. It was staying busy and getting lots done, without any goal or like you said without any awareness of what I was actually getting done. Now it’s so much more clear that productivity is directly correlated and related to where I am, where I’m going, and what the goal is, and what the end result is meant to be, and then what results I’m getting out of the work that I actually do. Am I actually achieving those goals? That’s productivity really. It doesn’t require a lot of busywork. It requires really clear focused work.

John: Now how do you define the word discipline? What does that word mean to you?

Jessa: Oh, well that’s a loaded word. In the work I do, I talk a lot about how we have definitions and every human is walking around with their own dictionary in their head and every word means something pretty different to every person. Sometimes it’s closer than others. Discipline earlier in my life was very much related to punishment and hard work and grueling.

Usually, it was unpleasant and now again, it kind of ties back ... Well, I guess it’s different than focus, but it really ties more into commitment and passion more so than any kind of negative connotations. There’s a lot too when you’re disciplined and you’re focused and you’re passionate about what you’re doing, you get stuff done.

John: You just get stuff done and I think that’s so important, Jessa, that we all understand that everybody has different definitions for different words. I’ve had over 20 people who have completed the Freedom Journal give their definition of discipline and everybody’s given a different answer in some way, shape, or form. That’s fascinating and it has been interesting this word specifically, Jessa.

A lot of people have negative connotations to discipline, which is fascinating because it’s something that I never even thought of going into it. I always looked at productivity, discipline, and focus as good, positive words because if you had these things, you were going to achieve greatness at some level, at some stage. But for a lot of people, discipline is just that and that it is discipline you actually having somebody telling you what to do or having to keep your nose to the grindstone, even if you might not want to.

So it’s fascinating at Fire Nation. That’s why we have to get out there and see what the outside world perceives and not just stay inside of our own head. So that’s very important, but then Jessa, as you finished up with, if you can set up a plan and then execute on that plan, you’re going to be disciplined. You’re going to make that happen. So moving onto focus, what does that word mean to you?

Jessa: The huge aha around focus really came back to this space of needing to schedule out my actual tasks and do it at the end of the day for the next day so everything was clear because it’s just way too easy to be lazy, to just kind of roll into the default and, “Oh, I’ll check my email. Oh, I’ll do this.” yeah, so having that clarity and be able to just hone in on, “This is what I’m doing right now. Turn off all the notifications. Turn off all the alerts. Turn off my email and just do it.” Man, I usually got stuff done in less time than I even scheduled myself for because I was so in a space of focus and clarity.

John: I hope you gave yourself a little treat, like a reward or something, for being a good girl?

Jessa: Well, I have to say the first maybe 40 to 50 days of my Freedom Journal experience, I was at it every freaking day and I got into the Facebook group for the Journal and I was like, “How are you guys doing this? I can’t keep this pace up.” I finally said, “I need a vacation” and I took two weeks and I got sick while I was on vacation because my body was like, “Oh, finally we get a break.” I realized there has to be a balance. Somewhere in that discipline and that focus, finding a balance of life and incorporating all of that into a beautiful work of art.

John: Yeah, I think I remember that post actually that you wrote because something that a lot of people misinterpret with the Freedom Journal is that it has to be 100 consecutive days. It’s just meant to be 100 days. If you take the weekends off, if you take every 10th day off, just go back to the last day that you were. Don’t skip a day. There shouldn’t be blank pages in your Freedom Journal and we’re actually down to just a couple thousand of the first version of the Freedom Journal.

So when Freedom Journal 2.0 comes out, and this is why, Fire Nation, it’s great to have a Facebook group or just some kind of community so I can learn again where I messed up or where I wasn’t clear enough. It’s very clear during the FAQs that like, “Hey, this is a 100-day challenge, but not a 100 consecutive day challenge. If you want to do it consecutively absolutely, but if you want it to take 125 or 150 days, that’s okay too.” Jessa, I love that point that you made about winning tomorrow today.

That’s where you don’t just wake up the next morning not really knowing what you’re doing. You’re planning that out beforehand and that’s actually a key, key component of the Mastery Journal. I have you every single night win tomorrow today by writing out the time you’re gonna start your morning routine and then the time you’re gonna end your morning routine and then what you’re going to accomplish during that morning routine segment so that you can win tomorrow today.

As always, if you want to learn more about what’s going on with the Mastery Journal, visit themasteryjournal.com. Jessa, you are gonna be crushing the lightning round coming up here. So don’t go anywhere. After we thank our sponsors, we’ll be right back. Jessa, are you prepared for the lightning rounds?

Jessa: I am. Bring it on.

John: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Jessa: Oh, so for me it was just this constant feeling of inadequacy like, “I don't know enough. I’m just not enough period.” What I’ve realized too is that story stops me from everywhere in my life, not just in being a successful entrepreneur but in launching these programs, in having romantic relationships and stepping up as a leader in my community.

All the time, it’s that little voice in the back of my head saying, “You don’t know what you’re doing. Somebody’s gonna call you out on it. You’re a fraud.” So that was really the struggle and learning to overcome that and just hang up on that voice – thank it for its opinion and move forward anyway – was the only way to make this happen.

John: The imposter syndrome, Fire Nation, lives within us all. What the best advice you’ve ever received?

Jessa: You feel that “Oh, I wish I could do that” or “Oh, wow, how cool would that be?” Just do it. Whatever small step you can take in a direction of that inspiration is totally worth it and sometimes it’s just in taking that first step, the next step shows up and the next step and you get a few steps in and you realize actually what you were inspired about isn’t quite it, but now you can kind of see around that huge wall that was off to your right and you can see actually what you really are excited about is over there.

But if you hadn’t taken the first step, if you didn’t just go initially, you would never have gotten around that blind spot and seen what’s really there and what’s really possible in your life.

John: What’s a personal habit that contributes to your success?

Jessa: The power of energy behind emotions and I know this sounds a little bit on the “woo” side, but really when I pay attention to where my emotions are at even, for example, while doing the Freedom Journal there were a couple days in a row I would get to this point where I was like, “Oh, why am I doing this? This is miserable. It’s so much work. I don't know why I’m still trying.” There was a lot of negative emotion and just yuckiness kind of hanging around.

When I take that action to eat the frog, if you will, do that first thing that … When I realized it was that first thing that I was putting off and not doing, it was sucking all my energy out. Once I finally just said, “I’m gonna go take it out.” Suddenly, all my energy was back and I was ready to just run a marathon. So for me, it’s really paying attention to what emotions are going on in my body and when I’m feeling heaviness or negativity to really just address it and say, “What’s causing this energy drain?” and take that on immediately. That’s affected everything.

John: If you could recommend one book, what would it be and why?

Jessa: In the last few years, the most transformative book for me was Infinite Possibilities by Mike Dooley, which is a little bit more on the Law of Attraction side of things.

John: He’s actually a past guest of EOnFire.

Jessa: Oh wonderful. That’s awesome. I’m trained to teach his Infinite Possibilities. More recently, if you want something a little more maybe down to earth and highly entertaining at the same time, You Are A Badass, by Jen Sincero, has been phenomenal.

John: Yeah, the audio version of that book, by the way, is really the one you want to go for in my opinion because it just gets the message across. Fire Nation, if you haven’t already, you can get the audio version for free at EOFireBook.com via Audible. Now Jessa let’s end today On Fire with you giving us a parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you, and then we’ll say goodbye.

Jessa: Just take that first step. When you’re feeling the fear, but you know that’s there’s inspiration behind it, that there’s excitement there, just take that first step, whatever tiny, baby step you can, and start launching into creating that business you want to create, creating the life you want to create, and just doing it. Just go because I’m telling you, you won’t regret it. You really won’t.

To get in touch with me, my website is JessaGreen.com, J-E-S-S-A, and Green like the color. I’ve got information out there about the True You Revolution, as well as the tech work that I’m up to, and a nice community and space for those of us who are unique, but not alone at Lez Be Nomads.

John: Fire Nation, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with and you have been hanging out with JLG and JLD today.

So keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com. Just type Jessa in the search bar. Her show notes page will pop up with everything that we’ve been talking about today. These are the best show notes in the biz; timestamps, links galore. Of course, head directly to JessaGreen.com, a lot of great stuff over there and Jessa, thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we’ll catch you on the flip side.

Jessa: Thank you.