Here's Where It Gets Interesting - 131. Embrace Your Almost with Jordan Lee Dooley

Episode Date: May 18, 2022

In this episode, Sharon and entrepreneur, author, and podcast host, Jordan Lee Dooley have a discussion about the lessons to learn in the almost spaces of our lives. For many of us, achievement of one goal leads us to feel like the finish line is always moving; we’re always reaching to complete the next goal. Jordan advocates for slowing down and redefining contentment, and to consider it active engagement in our lives no matter where we are in relation to our goals. We can find this active contentment by looking for ways to serve, finding a hobby, getting curious, checking something off our bucket lists, and plugging in to a good community. The “almost” space is also a great place from which to pause and evaluate; sometimes our dreams shift and change, but change does not mean we have failed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Taste the many flavors of our cultures. Eat with us. Taste the many flavors of our cultures. Dance with us. Join in. Feel the beat of the drum and celebrate. Come. Walk with us. Indigenous Tourism Alberta. Hey friends, thank you so much for joining me. I am delighted to have you with me today. And I'm also delighted to be chatting with Jordan Lee Dooley, who I think if you don't follow her already, you are going to get so much out of this conversation. I know that I did. I had a number of takeaways that I think you are going to also share. She has a new book called Embrace Your Almost. share. She has a new book called Embrace Your Almost. Find clarity and contentment in the in-betweens, not-quites, and unknowns. And don't we all have many of those in our lives? So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Thank you so much for

joining me today. I have my friend Jordan Lee Dooley with me. How are you? Girl, I'm so good. I'm so excited to be here and just looking forward to this conversation. I've really been looking forward to it for several days now. So happy to be here. Well, congrats on the release of your new book, Embrace Your Almost. There are so many things I want to talk about with this, but can you just give us a little introduction? If people aren't already following, you didn't read your first book. Who are you, Jordan?

How do I describe? So I write books. I podcast. I always like to say, I talk on the internet is kind of what I do, but I really have a heart for helping people build and pursue their dreams while prioritizing their health and wellbeing. And this book kind of embodies why the way I describe my story in a brief nutshell is I had a lot of success really early on in life. I started a business when I was in college and that

kind of took off on the internet pretty quickly. And by the age of 25, I had built a seven figure business. I had written my first book, which was a national bestseller. I was on the 30 under 30 list with success magazine, like had a lot of like big things that happened. And in many ways it was like, it was such a gift. Like I I'm so thankful for it, but it kind of created this expectation in me that if I just do all the right things, then I'll get the things that I want. Um, and things will just work out that way. And in many cases that can be true. But then I look back at the last couple of years of my life and it was like, right. As I thought everything was going according to plan. Like I was checking off all the boxes of all the

milestones in life and all the professional goals and everything, everything kind of went sideways. And it was also ironically right around the time when the world shut down, right around the time COVID hit, I also had a bunch of personal setbacks and kind of personal crises that happened and really disrupted my timeline and my plan for my life. So that's kind of where this was born out of is this idea of like, man, like everything was going according to plan. And then I got thrown a curve ball or something totally threw me off course. Or now all of a sudden finding myself with all these unmet expectations when I thought I had perfectly reasonable expectations. That's a brief overview of my story, but I spend a lot of time talking about navigating on my expectations now

on the internet. And that's what this whole book is kind of embodied and what it's about. But that's kind of a brief nutshell of my story and what led me to this book and where I'm at now. I love the subtitle too, which is find clarity and contentment in the in-betweens, not quites and unknowns. And who right now doesn't have some of those, right? Who doesn't have some not quite or some unknowns or some in-betweens happening in their life? If you say no, you're probably not being honest. Or you're probably about to have some. That's right. They just haven't happened today. Yeah, exactly. But read this book now. So when they happen next week, but read this book now. So when they happen next week, you are prepared. You know, a lot of my story is very tied up in these ideas of the not quite and the almosts and the unexpected. And I can now look back and see those breadcrumbs of things that I absolutely did not anticipate or things

that were disappointing that happened in the world or happened to me. And I can now see a lot of positive that I was able to g more about the idea of contentment when things are not quite or in between or almost, because right now I feel like so much of our culture is very focused on making things happen, getting things done, achieving the impossible to find contentment in not doing those things. That's actually kind of a struggle for me sometimes. Yeah. Same. I mean, I'm an achiever through and through, and I got really used to, like I said, setting a goal, taking all the right steps, achieving it. And I think what I actually kind of got in the habit of, and I'm sure maybe you can relate to this is sometimes when you do cross that finish line on a goal or a milestone in your life or

the next thing, I always just call it the next thing that applies differently for all of us. Sometimes it feels like the finish line moves like that sense of like, ah, I've made it like doesn't always come. A lot of times it's like, okay, so what's the next thing? How do we do this? Even better the next time. And whether it's you had a kid and now somebody's like, when are you having your next kid? Or if it's, I achieved this level in my career and now it's like, I got to go for the next level. So regardless, there's always a next thing. And so what can start to happen is I know for in my life, I started to feel like I was kind of on a hamster wheel of just like the finish line always moving. And so even when you do achieve

something or cross the finish line on something, it can still feel like you're always almost there. Like, man, I still don't feel like I've arrived or I'm at this place of just like satisfaction and peace in my life. And I think that's partly because there's a lot of good marketing in the world that's constantly telling us you need more and you need to have it all and you can have it all and you can do it all, all at the same time, by the way. And I think that can be true in short sprints. Like there's such things as good seasons where it really does seem like everything has really worked out well. But this idea that that's like this like ongoing reality that will exist consistently is not realistic.

And so once I had a lot of disrupted dreams and kind of setbacks and things that kind of threw off my expectations and timeline for my life, I had to kind of start digging into this idea of contentment. And I always kind of thought that it was you're happy where you're at. You're just happy with it. And that's it, you're happy where you're at. You're just happy with it. And that's it, you know? And it's really hard to feel that and to feel happy where you're at when you're really not where you want to be or when something feels broken or upside down or incomplete. And so I started to really dig into it. And what I found is that I think there's two things. One,

contentment doesn't simply mean you're just happy where you're at and that's that. It actually can mean that you make the most of where you're at and you still long for the thing that you hope for. You still keep your eyes set on that. Like, it's not that you just lose all ambition or desire or whatever. It's that you go, okay, that's what I'm aiming for. The mountaintop over there is what I'm walking toward. And this journey is getting really long and I'm really tired and I'm really starting to complain and get miserable in it. So the challenge of contentment I think is, okay, how do I make this a little bit more of an enjoyable hike?

How do I make this a little bit more of an enjoyable journey? Can I bring a friend along? Can I stop and have a picnic? Can I find a hobby that I enjoy and do that along the way? Like point being is like, how do you make the most of where you are while still aiming for where you're going? And in that sense, contentment is active. I think sometimes we think it's this inactive, like I'm going to sit down, I'm just going

to be happy where I'm at. And I've really found there's a big difference between complacency and contentment. Complacency is passive. It's plopping down and saying, well, forget it. This is dumb. I don't want to do this anymore. And kind of just losing all intentionality and effort and focus on what, where you're going and why versus I think contentment is not passive. It's active and it's really actively making the

most of the journey. And it's actively continuing to take steps forward, even when the journey gets long, knowing that and believing that there is purpose even in the process and even in the middle. And so I kind of had to find that it's like that tension of like, I still am longing for where I hope to go. These things that feel out of place in my life, but while they're not here, how can I make sure that I'm still living a very full, vibrant and abundant life? Because if I put that on pause until I get everything I'd like, I'll probably never get there. I'll never enjoy my life because I a fantastic way to reframe what contentment is. It's trying to find ways, even small ways to make the journey more enjoyable. It's not about like, well, I guess I live in this mud pit now because this is where I've decided to be content. You can still be walking towards the mountaintop, but looking for ways to make that process more enjoyable and enjoying, enjoying getting there. You know, I kind of had to figure out like, how can I make the most of this unknown, this middle, this journey. And a couple of things that really helped me

one surprisingly was serving, like finding ways to make a difference in other people's life in my real life. Like yes, donating to causes I believe in and doing things like that, but I'd always kind of done that. And sometimes you don't see the outcome of your impact, right? Or like the actual like impact in real life. And sometimes when you can serve in your actual community, it can be really life-giving. Because I think sometimes we get stuck in our own heads. We get so focused on what's not going right in our life or like what feels out of place that we don't see the bigger picture. And so it helped me a lot to just find ways to serve. One simple way we did that is through a program called safe families, where we taking kids for short periods of time and provide like a refuge for them while their parents get, you know, back on their feet from whatever crisis

they may be walking through. And that's just one way we did that, but there's so many ways to serve. And so finding just a way that feels like it aligns for you and like doable for you can be such a like healing, encouraging, life-giving activity that just helps you kind of get out of your own head. Another thing that I really found helpful was finding a hobby, a hobby where I could enjoy the outcome of my efforts, not something I was selling, but like, you know, that could be DIY projects where you do something in your home and you get to then enjoy what you created or gardening where you then get to enjoy the flowers you planted or the fruit that you, you planted or anything like that. Things like that. So serving, finding new hobbies. Another thing that was really helpful for me was learning new things, like getting curious. I think

sometimes when life doesn't go according to plan or we face a setback or we're not where we thought we'd be, sometimes a hard part of that is we find ourselves kind of with a void of like, well, this thing in my life was supposed to be taking up this space, or I was going to be pouring my time into a marriage or into a new career path or whatever. And that didn't quite work out. So what do I do with this space? And I think sometimes the willingness to learn something new and, and fill that space with growth and learning is really valuable. And sometimes it can just be fun things. Like I asked my dad to teach me to play poker just because I thought that'd be fun. Didn't really need to learn to play poker, but I was like, what is up with everyone? And like the poker phase, I need to understand why this is so important. So anyways, that was kind of a fun thing I learned about. I also learned

more about like women's health and hormones and just things that were interesting to me that I found interesting and fascinating. And so reading more books and, you know, learning to play a new game and things like that, just finding things that are interesting to you and learning about them can be a great way too to make the most of that journey and just fill your time with something meaningful and valuable. And then one other thing too, I would say is doing some of those things you've always wanted to do. Because I think sometimes when life doesn't go our way or not in the season we thought

we'd be or something goes sideways, sometimes we tend to put our life on pause without even realizing we're doing that. Don't let this be a season that becomes a wasted season. If you feel like just nothing's going how I thought, or there's something that's kind of incomplete in my life, try to actually use it as a time to maybe check something off your bucket list to do something you've always wanted to do. Maybe it's time to write the book. Maybe it's time to go on that hot air balloon ride or take the trip to Italy or do the thing that you've always just kind of wanted to do, but never really let yourself or never had the time for like, this could might be the opportunity to do that. And then the last thing I would say is like, get really plugged into some

good community, like maybe open your house for, you know, more hospitality, try to get plugged into some groups, like in a way, just do life with people in ways that are maybe different from what you've done before. And maybe outside your comfort zone. I think those five things can be just some really great ways to bring people along for the journey, learn something new as you're going, make it a more enjoyable process because you don't know when it'll end. You don't know when you'll get to the next thing. And I think just leaning into how can I make a difference where I'm at? How can I learn something new? How can I find a project, a hobby, an activity that brings me life and is enjoyable and that I get to enjoy, not just enjoy, but enjoy like the results of those simple additions into our life can add a lot more fun and spontaneity

and joy, even in a time where it's like, geez, this is not what I thought it would be. I love all of those. That's fantastic. And I love too, that your focus on helping in your community is how can I make a difference in my community rather than how can I end all world hunger, which feels very paralyzing. And I mean, it's a worthy goal, but it feels like I can't do that from my house here in Minnesota. I'm just trying to start this business. I would like to help, but I can't, I can't do all of that. Instead of focusing on trying to do everything and fix everything, focusing on making a difference where you are, just make a difference, make a difference for one person does not have to

mean make a difference for the world at large, make a difference for one person and the ripple effects will take care of themselves. Oh, totally. I mean, I love that you said that. And even that example is really good because I think as we kind of become more and more aware of different problems that exist in the world, especially now that all that information is so accessible to us that it can feel like, oh my gosh, I feel like I need to do something about all of these things. And I think like for, in our case, like we started to be more exposed to like the foster care system and the brokenness of a lot of the system. And it starts to feel overwhelming, like, gosh, we want to fix everything. We want to try to change all of this. And I think what we found through the program,

like say families is like, okay, we might not be able to like reform the whole thing, but if we could step in before kids even have to go into the system and maybe even try to prevent that, like that's the one simple difference we can make through that. And that's just an example, but yeah, I mean, I, I think finding the couple of ways in your life or the one way in your life that you can consistently make a difference in that is more, I think, effective in some ways, but just, and it's, and it's honestly less stressful because you're going to carry such a huge burden and such a huge weight of the world that really was never meant to bear. It's not that you can't care. It's not that you can't donate. It's not that you can't be involved in those causes. But yeah, I think sometimes,

and you also can't always have a hands-on experience with those really big worldly causes. And that sometimes feels disconnected. So I think you're right and spot on in a lot of that and really rolling your sleeves up and getting your hands in the dirt and being actively involved in what's right in front of you, you experience a lot more of that, like, oh, I can see the difference this is making even more so than maybe when I am a little bit more at a distance involved in something either through donations or something else. And I had a really good piece of advice given to me. It was pick your cause. And it's not like pick your cause forever. It's pick your cause for right now. Pick the thing you can be involved in that you can make a difference in. You don't have to understand or be involved in every other possible

problem because you won't be able to give your all to anything. It's kind of the same message of you can do anything, but you can't do everything. And I think just coming back to that, that applies in so many areas of life, but especially in this area, especially when you have a big heart and you start seeing kind of the other areas and the things that people need help with and all the ways you could be making a difference. But I think just that piece of advice, like pick your cause and start there, making them perfect for enjoying music and podcasts. Get up to 55 hours of listening with active noise cancelling enabled, soft microfiber cushions engineered for comfort,

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the Blue Cow logo. Dairy Farmers of Canada. Amazon's Black Friday week starts November 21st with new deals added every day. Save on home goods to deck their halls, toys to stuff their I want to get back to another chapter in your book that I really resonated with, which is about how adversity can create clarity. I wholeheartedly believe that. So tell everybody that's listening, what do you mean by that? What does adversity can create clarity mean and how can they apply that? Yeah. So if you think about something that you've walked through in your life, that's hard. Maybe you've walked through loss or maybe you've walked through some sickness or maybe you've walked through a breakup. I don't know, something that was just challenging in your life. Think about how much that shaped your direction of

what you care about, of who you empathize with, of what you want to learn more about, of how you want to get involved in the world. I think sometimes our sufferings or our setbacks or the hard things in our life, as much as they aren't fun to walk through, they really give us perspective because in many ways they cause us to pause. They're a disruption, regardless of how big it is. So any kind of disappointment or suffering or setback, those are disruptions in the direction that we were walking and the things we were doing. And a lot of times, and I found this through my own experiences, a lot of times those disruptions do force us to pause and really sometimes slow down and kind of really reevaluate like, wait, where am I going? Why am I going there?

What am I pursuing? Is that the right thing for me? Because we live in this world that's constantly telling us like, you can have it all, you can do it all. Right. I mentioned that. And while that's a great sentiment in many ways, it's not all that realistic when you actually bring into reality, like real life and the fact that people get sick and things go sideways and things go wrong and you know, life is hard. And so anyways, what I think is really important to understand about adversity is sometimes it's the thing that will pause us because we're just constantly moving at a thousand miles a minute. There's always another meeting, another thing, another activity, another commitment. And sometimes it's the adversity that almost

is jarring enough to stop us in our tracks. Is this thing that I'm so determined to do that I just maybe I'm experiencing a setback in, is that truly a value of mine? Is that something I actually value? Because in a world that's constantly saying like, you can do it all or you can have it all, I think the key to a successful and fulfilled life is identifying like, what is right for you? Like, what do you actually want? What do you actually value? And sometimes it's through suffering and adversity and setbacks that we actually get the opportunity to really think about that because it throws us off course. It makes us rethink things. So I know that's what happened in my life. It gave me a ton of clarity about, wait, some of these things I was doing, I was just doing because I thought I was supposed to or because I thought

they'd be impressive or they sounded good. But like, I don't think I actually enjoy them or I don't think I actually really care about like that goal or this thing. And the point I'm trying to make is that adversity is really an opportunity to reconsider what do you actually really value and what's important to continue persisting on, continue getting up and trying again. And what's not, what's something that you're maybe arbitrarily doing because it sounds good or it looks good on Instagram or because your friend did it, or because your parents maybe growing up told you you were supposed to do that or want to do that or should do that. But once you experience some adversity, sometimes it's that first opportunity

to really step back and reevaluate what matters to me. And I think sometimes we think that if it's the right decision, it has to be the easy decision. That's right. And that's not true. That's not always true. The right decision is not always the one that feels like running through fields of daisies while you with your pet unicorn. You know what I mean? That feels like climbing boulders with like darts being thrown at you. boulders with like darts being thrown at you sometimes. Yes. And the death of a dream sometimes is for the best, but it doesn't mean that you don't grieve it. I also like this chapter in your book that's called uproot the lies you believe. What kind of lies are people telling themselves? Yeah. Well, so I remember I was sitting in my therapist's office. Okay. And like dealing with a lot of different thoughts and

pain and whatnot. And I said something like, this is just never going to work out for me. I had run into several brick walls and it was specifically in the area of like building my family. We had several losses in a row. And I was finally at the point where I was like, well, screw it. Like this just keeps going wrong. And I'm trying to do all the right things. Like I don't understand. And so I shared that with her. I'm like, this is just never going to work. And she looked at me, she goes, be careful how many times you think that thought. And I said, why? She goes, because it only takes 200 thoughts to become a belief. And once it becomes a belief, it's really hard to get it out. And I was like, Ooh, I think I've probably already thought it

200 times, but it was really eyeopening for me. And so a few weeks after that appointment, that had just kind of sat with me and like kind of just been marinating, you know, and stuck with me. And then we were doing some yard work and I was trying to pull out these monster weeds that had grown. Cause I'd kind of neglected yard work all summer. It was such a hard summer for us. And so we kind of finally got around to it. And I found these weeds that, I mean, some of them had grown as tall as me in this one planting bed. And I was like, how in the heck am I going to get these out? So I'm pulling and I'm tugging. I'm like, I cannot get that out. And I don't know where the idea came from, but I just had this idea of like assign each weed a lie that you've started to believe. And I was like, that's so weird, but

okay. So I started to do that. And I started one by one, there was like six or seven big weeds. And I was like, this is the lie that this is never going to work out for me. And I just somehow found this superhuman strength to rip this thing out and almost landed on my back. And I did that with each lie that I had started to believe, this is never going to work out for me. This is my fault. God's forgotten about me. Whatever those lies often become, when we are walking through something that feels unfair or when our plans go sideways or whatever, we can just start thinking like these subtle lies or these subtle thoughts that begin to solidify inside of us. And we almost have to like uproot them.

And I think the physical activity of doing something that was representative of kind of what the heartwork I was doing, if you will, was really therapeutic and really kind of a turning point for me. It was pivotal. It was like, okay, I do have some say over what I allow to take root in my life and what I choose to believe. It's not that those thoughts will never come up again, but do I entertain them or do I like kind of try to keep uprooting them? And so, you know, I think my best piece of advice is like really consider like, what are the thoughts I think a lot when things don't go right? Or when

I walk through a hard season, maybe when my husband's sick or when I go through a loss or my plans go sideways or people keep getting picked over me in my career, even though I've been working my booty off, like whatever it may be, start asking like, what are the lies that you're believing? Do you feel forgotten about? Do you feel like life is unfair and you're the only one suffering? And start working through like, where's that coming from? And then how can I uproot it? And it really helps to assign a physical activity to doing that. Whether that's decluttering, like everything you throw in the throwaway bag, like let that represent a line. Don't get rid of it until it does. And just that exercise for our minds can be so helpful and so pivotal. I love that too. That the corresponding

physical activity does something different in your brain than just thinking about it. Totally. Well, and we can sit there and think about it all day long, but I think sometimes what the question then becomes is like, okay, cool. Now what do I do about it? And it's something that you consistently work on. I don't think it's like, oh, I uprooted these weeds and therefore it's like gone and I never struggle with it again. But it's like, it's this, I think empowering and an active way of saying I'm taking ownership over some of these things that I've allowed to kind of take ownership over me. Like these lies have been oppressive, you know, and I need to figure out a way to kind of take back some of that land a little bit. Like

I need to regain some land in this because I feel like I've lost a lot of ground. And then also continuing to do the work of like, I think it helps to have accountability. I think it helps to see counselors if it's a season where that's a need for you. But regardless, doing something to kind of represent that you are making the decision to make the turning point and continue starting to believe what is true and not what is a lie consistently makes such a huge difference in kind of that process. You also have a chapter in your book called prioritize your priority. And it kind of seems like, well, duh, we prioritize our priorities, but do you find that a lot of people say that something is a priority, but then don't actually prioritize it. Is that

your experience? That and also that we try to have five priorities in our life. And I actually, in the book Essentialism, the author, I wrote about this in the book, the author points out that priority was always a singular word. And then we eventually tried to make it a plural as if we could like bend reality. That was really eyeopening for me. And it started to influence, you know, I think there's a lot of things that I value in my life and that are responsibilities in my life. So I would say they're priorities. My family is my priority. My home is my priority. My business is a priority. These are all priorities, right? They're all important things. They all hold a lot of weight in my life. But I think what I had to learn, especially in the season of like the clarity that was coming through adversity is, okay, this idea that these things can all be priorities is actually kind of like pulling me in so many directions and I'm overwhelmed by it. But yet they're all important. So what do I do with that? So I came up with this concept of identifying a present priority. So if you get clear on where am I really going and why, what do I value?

What am I working toward? Where do I, where do I hope to be in five years? I love the five-year mark because it's big picture enough, but it also doesn't feel like this, like my whole life, what do I want to do with my whole life? So in the next five years, where would you like to be? What would you like to see improved? What would you like to see different? If you could call the shots, if it was, if everything went according to plan, what would you love to see?

So that way you have an aim, something to kind of drive your ship. Even if things don't go exactly like that, it gives you a focus. So you start there and then you reverse engineer. And then you say, okay, if that's where I hope to be, what needs tending in my life? What do I need to focus on in this season of my life for the next three to six to 12 months? So you think much shorter term and say, what's the top priority? Like what is the thing that needs the most attention? And you might find, well, I think it's my finances. Like if in five years I want to own a home, I've got to get out of the student debt. So the next six months, my present priority is getting out of debt. Does that mean you abandon your marriage and your job and all the other

responsibilities? No. It just means that those things shift to best support the priority you've named for this season of six months or 12 months or whatever you decide for the short term. So you might say, okay, so our date nights are going to be more budget friendly, or I'm going to try to pick up more hours at work so that I can get to this goal faster. It's just, you're shifting the way you're stewarding your other responsibilities and primary things, things that you appreciate, things that you do prioritize. You're treating them in such a way that they support the present priority rather than take away from, rather than distract from. And sometimes that means some

shifts in your lifestyle for a short period. Sometimes that means some different decisions you otherwise wouldn't have made, but allowing something to be the present priority that is going to move the needle closer to where you ultimately want to be in the next five or so years. And then continuing to reconsider what that should be every six months or every 12 months, whatever you decide. Sometimes it stays the same for more than two years. Sometimes it only stays that way for two months, but always kind of considering what should be my present priority this quarter or this year. That really helps guide and everything else can fall in line. I've found in my life, I'm able to steward all of my responsibilities so much better

when they fall in line with a clear priority. So for example, in my life, at one point, my present priority became my health. I found a lot of things that I needed to work on. I had adrenal fatigue, thyroid issues. I was like, I've got to go on a healing journey. I didn't abandon my business. I didn't stop being married. I didn't stop taking care of my house.

All those things are important. But I reconsidered how I would do those things so that they were supporting my health and healing journey. So I said, okay, I need to hire some help. Maybe we need to draw back on a few projects. Maybe we're not going to grow year over year. Maybe we'll have a few years where we maintain, or this year we're going to just keep it simpler. You know, and I just edited, edited how I was running my business, how I was running

my, my home, the way that the things that we were saying yes to as a couple and the things we were saying no to. So hopefully that helps, but I think that's a way you can have a clear priority without abandoning all the other things that you would otherwise consider priorities. I love that. Identifying one clear priority and then adjusting your other responsibilities to support that clear priority. It doesn't mean like we stopped being married. Right. And I think that's what's so challenging because the way that we talk about important things in our life is often through the use of the word priority. So we think all of these valuable things that matter to us that we want to do a good job with, whether that's our kids or our home or our jobs or whatever, we consider them priorities, but then we just get confused

because then everything's a priority, which really means nothing is. So that's where it's helpful to say, Hey, these are all incredibly important things. I guess you could call them priorities, but what's the top like present priority that everything else will make sure that it supports. And then I can actually steward those things better because I'm more aware and clear on how I need to be stewarding those things or saying yes to those things or saying no to other things. So it just makes it a little bit clearer. I love that. If you could have your druthers and somebody picked up your book, Embrace Your Almost, they read it, they closed the cover, what would you want them to have taken

away from this? I would say two things. They're in the subtitle. I want them to take away clarity on what do you actually want in a world that's constantly telling you you should want to have it all? What do you actually value? And I pray that by the time they close the book, they're crystal clear on that. They're like, oh, I've been maybe pursuing things that aren't right for me, or these are the things that I do need to do. So I hope they walk away with clarity on that and also with an action plan of how they can make the most of the middle of the season of their life they may find themselves in when life doesn't go according to plan or when they're waiting on something to finally work out, or there's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of maybe even anxiety around the outcome of something

to find more peace with that. I often, in the book, I talk a lot about liking your life because we always hear the cliche, like build a life you love. And that's the ultimate goal. Absolutely. But life can be hard and it can be hard to love, especially when things don't go how you thought. And so that's where the challenge to, can you at least like your life? Can you build a life that is lovely and that you enjoy, even if there's some things that feel incomplete or imperfect in your life right now, those activities we talked about serving, finding hobbies, like doing those things to make your life a little more enjoyable. That's the goal. So I want you to walk away with an action plan of how you're going to do that in this season of your life,

as well as clarity on where you're really going and why. I know we were talking before too, about you have some journal entries or some journal opportunities that people can download from your website. Is that right? Yeah. So we created a study guide to go with the book, which is essentially just a beautiful PDF with a handful of questions to reflect on at the end of each chapter that kind of compliments the theme of that chapter. So you can grab that on my website at JordanLayJulie.com. That's just right on the homepage. Click the button, grab it. We've been going through that on my podcast too. So if you're a podcast listener and you want to listen to something like that, you can also just follow along that way. But yeah, we just created a guide because this is something that takes some like

reflective work, even though there's a ton of fun stories and relatable stuff in the book. I want it to be something that you feel like you walk away with a plan from and something that you feel like you can implement. I love that. And where can people find you on the internet? Their website is Jordan Lee Dooley, but if they want to follow you on social media, where would they do that? Yep.

So my website and social all kind of match. So jordanleedooley.com is the website and then at Jordan Lee Dooley on Instagram and Facebook and Tik TOK. I really enjoyed embrace your almost. Thank you so much for first of all, writing this coming on the show today. I really gained a lot from your perspective and I love what you had to say today. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for reading it. Thank you for sharing your community here. And thanks for having me. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon says so podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review. Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories

or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.