This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 112 / Accepting What Is And Getting Into Action with Jessie Harris Bouton

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

One thing I know to be true about confidence is that it grows the most (and at the deepest level) during our toughest times. Today we are going to talk about how you not only make it through your challenges, but how you might even leverage them to thrive. I’ve invited Jessie Harris Bouton to join us today because she built a super successful business while dealing with challenges I can’t even imagine. A mom of 5, a wife of a cancer survivor, an entrepreneur who makes millions while working part time, a business coach and founder of The Millionaire Mompreneur Project - Jessie created what she couldn’t find, a business model for motivated women who want meaning, money and freedom on their own terms. “Become her in your mind” - Jessie Harris Bouton You can learn more about Jessie by visiting www.millionairemompreneur.com or follow her on IG @jessieharrisbouton To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com. Get your copy of Validation Is For Parking.

Holiday season is here and I know I'm not the only one making a list and checking it twice. And rather than asking Amazon to suggest gifts, I've taken all the stress out of shopping for my nieces and nephews by choosing KiwiCo to help me give awesome. Each box is kid approved by a crew of kid testers to ensure they're age appropriate and seriously fun. You can go above and beyond a trending toy with a subscription that keeps on giving. Each box features new projects every single month. For example, we've dug for fossils and made our own rocket launcher, which are things I would never be able to do on my own. You can give awesome to this holiday season with KiwiCo. Get your first month of any crate line free at KiwiCo.com forward slash WW30.

That's your first month free at K-I-W-I-C-O.com slash WW30. One thing I know to be true about confidence is that it grows the most and at the deepest level during our toughest times. You want real, unshakable, lasting confidence? Choose to trust yourself when the you-know-what hits the fan. Choose to trust that you'll find the light during your darkest times. Choose to trust that you'll come out the other side of any challenge and not only come out of it, but come out better, stronger. I am Nicole Kalil, and we're going to talk about how you not only make it through your challenges, but how you might even leverage them to thrive. Now, I'm not saying you're going to learn to enjoy your hard times or that

I've figured out how to eliminate any of the hard feelings. Basically, I haven't figured out how to make our failures, fears, or challenges not suck. But we're going to talk about how to use them to make you better and maybe how to shorten the experience a little bit. I've invited Jessie Harris-Boughton to join us today because she literally built an uber successful business while dealing with challenges I can't even imagine. A mom of five, I mean, I already started sweating on that alone. A wife of a cancer survivor, an entrepreneur who makes millions while working part-time, a business coach, and founder of the Millionaire Mompreneur Project,

Jessie created what she couldn't find, a business model for motivated women who want meaning, money, and freedom on their own terms. Jessie, I'm tired. I know from working with so many women and talking to so many women that we all are. So thank you for being here to talk about building success, not just in business, but in all aspects of life. And I really want to ask how you've done it in the face of such significant challenges. Nicole, like we can't even dive right in. We just have to take a moment and say, like, I'm inspired by the intro you just gave me. And I actually, if I could have a side gig, I would just follow women around and do their intros. Like, I don't know why I love it so much.

It's like, but yeah, and then we'd have like the theme music as you walked out. Anyway, it's so powerful. And I feel like I just want to point out right now to everybody who's listening is it's so easy to get caught up in like just life that we forget that our story matters not just to us but to others and there are a lot of things and as you were sharing it was like hot dang I am so inspired by this one like oh she's me she's me so just you know thank you for seeing me and obviously for having me here but um yeah to circle back around to your, I guess, direct question of starting out is like, if I'm being honest, for the longest time,

my struggles and my failures were not things that I actually used as stepping stones to grow. I, by default, my dad passed away when I was 11 years old, unexpectedly. And that kind of set me out on a pretty negative pace. I was a very happy, positive person, but I still struggled a lot with depression. And the minute things went wrong, just kind of leaning into that instead of seeing that I had a choice to, you know, make something different, come from it and grow through it. And, um, kind of fast forward a few years in my life, I just started to

really realize that nobody was going to come save me and that my life was going to continue to go downhill if I didn't just start standing up for more of what I wanted and take control. And it's really been a 20 year journey of me doing this, this personal development, this growth. And, you know, I feel like I've come so far and I'm really proud of the place that I am and the lessons and the stories and the exercises and examples that I can share with people. And I'm sure we're going to dive in here in a few minutes to some of them to help people live a life more in tune with their dreams. But the truth is I'm still a work in progress. I'm so glad that you said that. And I'm so glad that you shared that this has been, you know, a 20 year plus journey. I think a lot of times outside looking in, we think, you know, other women have it just

figured out or we see the mountaintop, but we forget the climb that got them there. So I appreciate your transparency. I want to talk about some of these hard times, but I want to ask the question that I think, well, I know I want to know, and I'm sure a lot of people listening walk me through a day in the life or a week in the life. Like you have five children, you're running an Uber successful business. You have a spouse, you I'm sure have, you know, things you need to do for yourselves and other commitments. And how does that look this running a multimillion dollar business on part-time work? Yeah, absolutely. So the level that I perform at now is a level that at one time was extremely intimidating and actually

saw is like, it's superhuman. Nobody can do that. But, um, I realized that the reason I'm able to perform at this level and still feel happy about it is because I've just done so much growth. And I'm very, very passionate about mindset, including strategy at anything, life and business growth strategy is absolutely important. But if you don't have the mindset first, the strategy to me is a, is a moot point. And so for me, I learned a long time ago that we attract what we are, not what we want. And so the way I internalized that was that I needed to start acting as someone who already achieved the things that I wanted to have in the future. And so for me, a long time ago, it was wanting to go from a six figure business owner to a seven figure business owner.

And most people, including me was like six figures is successful. Like that's amazing. But I could not act like a six figure business owner and expect to make it to seven. And that was just a simple mindset shift that I started to apply to my business growth. And then of course, also my life growth. Cause I was like, I don't want to be a seven figure business owner who worked a crap load of hours. I had all of these kids and, you know, a lot of other things coming down on me. And so I realized that I needed to really build my dream business around my dream life. And so I always have a lot of things pressing on my plate. Um, I own the millionaire mom from our project, my online coaching empire, which is a seven figure business. I also own a brick and mortar physical therapy clinic with my husband in our hometown, which is a seven figure business. I also own a brick and mortar physical therapy clinic with my husband in our hometown, which is a seven figure business

and employs 10 people. I have the five kids ages 11 to two. My husband is a current cancer survivor, which is amazing, but we're also still going through a pretty aggressive health journey. He needs a kidney transplant now. Can't get a transplant for at least five years, feeling a little overwhelming. He's not feeling the best and not able to show up as he'd like to, but I just, you know, saying those things that for me, it was looking at every single day, not wanting to have any regrets. And I didn't expect to get emotional. I tell my story all the time, but you know, I lost my dad when I was 11 and I live with the fear and it's not really fear. I'm actually very much at peace.

God and I are in a good space together of, you know, just the uncertainty of my husband's health. And for me, no amount of success or money or anything. I've always been this way, but especially now more than ever is worth not having time with your loved ones. So I really take a look every single day at what do I want my day to be like and how can I make my business fit into that? You know, I want to still have my morning time for me. It's very easy. I could get caught up in what I got to get up early before the kids do, because they get up at seven. I got to get up at four and I got to do all the housework and I got to do my coaching stuff early in this and that. And I don't,

I'm just not willing to sacrifice anything anymore. Not myself, not my family, those, and not my God time. For me, my faith is a very important part of my life. It wasn't, that's a whole story for another day, but for 20 years after my dad passed, it wasn't, no, me and God are good again, but I'm just not willing to sacrifice those things. So if we look at like a day in the life of me, it's really making decisions from the space of what do I want my day to look like? Not necessarily what income goals, not necessarily how many people coming into this or that. It's like, I'm going to figure out how to make those things still happen as long as they fall within what feels good to me.

So when we talk about working part-time hours, you know, in my businesses, obviously in my clinic, I really do own more than operate now. We've built a really amazing staff there. We've been for over 20 years, but I still do have to be there, whether it's physically present or checking in online as an owner, that's really, really important every single day. I always say growing your million dollar business is math, not magic, which means you have got to plug in and be there, you know, a big part of it. But, um, in my online coaching empire, I actually built that seven figures by myself as a one woman show. I do now have an assistant and I don't know why I waited so long, but you know, I am able to pass some things off, but the majority of it is still me

behind the scenes. If you look at my website, I built it. If you look at my, you know, I am able to pass some things off, but the majority of it is still me behind the scenes. If you look at my website, I built it. If you look at my, you know, anything, my, my live event tickets, like I've done it all. I just have like my gal sending your gal an email for podcast stuff, right? It's the little things that's not important for me to necessarily spend my time on, right? It's something you say, and you don't necessarily say it like this, but I believe in it too, because the time is our most precious commodity on earth. And so for me, I just realized I could start, excuse me, outsourcing some things like that. That isn't necessary for me to do the back and forth emails that take up a lot, right?

Because I don't want to be on my phone doing that while I'm doing homework with my kids. And in the past, that's what I was doing. So I really try to take that 10,000 foot view and look at what I want my day to look like and how can I figure out to fit my businesses into that. And I'm also really, really, really dedicated. You know, people talk about batching. There's only two things that we have control over in life. And then as our belief and our action, that's it. Everybody is women. We all think we have control over more. We don't believe in action. And so for me, it's important to recognize that a lot of times we pride ourselves on being multitasking women and we'll do 8% here while we're doing 10% there or 12 here and five and three. It really should not be a wonder why we don't get a hundred percent results anywhere. So for me, I really go all in a hundred percent of

whatever it is that I'm doing when I'm doing it. And I can compress hours into minutes because of that. But that happens also because I believe it's possible. If I'm being honest, a long time ago, I didn't believe that was possible. So I couldn't do it. And I finally flipped the switch on that mindset thing, understanding, right? That success is 90% psychology and 10% mechanics, meaning 90% the mindset and 10% the effort or action, what you do. And for me, once I started to flip the switch on that belief, I just started to be able to make it happen and started to get results that matched my efforts. So good. There's so many good things in there and we agree mindset and action, right? So belief in action. I couldn't agree more. Talk to us about how you connect to manage your beliefs and your mindset when you're faced with really challenging times. I always say it's easy to have a positive mindset when everything's going well, right? When everything's going according to plan, it's easy to trust yourself. But you know, in the face of your husband needing a kidney transplant and him not feeling his best and in the face of maybe a bad day at work or something going on with one of

your kids, how do you manage your mindset? How do you make sure the belief stays strong during those times? So the truth is for the longest time, let's, I'm going to take you back to I welcomed baby number five on New Year's Eve, 2019, 2020. So December 31st, 2019, baby Lorenzo came to our family, which is amazing. Then we move into 2020, March, three months later, the pandemic hit. Three months after that, my husband got diagnosed with his first bout of cancer. So in between all of this, I lost my part-time house helper because of the pandemic and my part-time babysitter because of the pandemic. I was homeschooling three of my five kids. I was potty training one and I had one on the boot, right. And trying to like navigate all these, the businesses, all the things. And I was like

managing somehow, some way. I think every single student at the Stokes school where I live saw my boobs on the cameras for the school. If I'm being honest, but I'm like, dude, I was performing. I was managing. I was keeping up somehow, some way, probably not thriving, definitely in survival mode, but managing. But when my husband got sick, which we had known he was sick for a while, we didn't know what was happening. But when he got diagnosed, it was another six months before we actually diagnosed, he had three cancers. And in that six months time, he lost 80 pounds and the pandemic was really an issue for us. We couldn't get into some of the world's best doctors, but that's what he needed because his cancers were caused by a kidney transplant he had 15 years ago and the medication he was on. So the super long story short here is I was at a

space, it was actually two days before Christmas. He weighed 80 pounds less than he had six months previous. And they called us December 23rd, 2020, and told us he had to come into the hospital, be admitted right away. We finally know all three cancers. We have a course of treatment and not sure he was going to come out, not sure that he was going to come home or that he would still be with us in a week later. That's how sick he was. And for that whole six months, this, I promise you friends, this all plays into the question that you asked Nicole. For that whole six months, I fought and I fought and I fought and I fought and I fought because I didn't want to accept what was. And on this day that we got the call, December 23rd, two days before Christmas for him to come into the hospital

and be admitted and start treatments. I just, I don't know what it was, to be honest. I had, I was reminded of an Eckhart Tolle quote, and I'm going to paraphrase it. I never say any quotes ever perfectly, but it kind of goes like this, that if a lot of times people are unhappy and unfulfilled, plain and simple, because they aren't willing to accept what is. And for the longest time of my life, I was unhappy and feeling unfulfilled. And especially in this time of feeling really frustrated, trying to manage these two businesses by myself, these five kids and my husband being so sick, I wasn't willing to accept what is. Luckily, some of that is good. It's how I got in with one of the best world's cancer doctors who found the third cancer and we were able to start treatment. But I just decided in that moment,

I was so mad. You're not going to take my husband away two days before Christmas with my five babies. And it was in this moment that I was reminded of this quote, you have to accept what is, and you have to make decisions from that. And this is what moved into the next six months. My, obviously my husband is still here. We actually did not go with the treatment that they told us to. We ended up doing something completely different. Doctors later on did tell us they agreed it probably would have killed him. And the fact that I was super insistent on not doing what didn't feel right, following my heart, it's probably the only reason he's still here.

But I just started making decisions from really what it was that I wanted, not what I didn't want anymore. And that's how I started to apply this in my business too. So my husband slowly, but surely starts to get better through this. I found myself being able to pass off more in my clinic during this because I really looked at what is it that I do have control over and what do I not? And I actually went from working about 30 hours a week in my coaching business. This is where the whole part-time hour stuff really came in. I was about to close down my coaching business because again, no amount of money was worth it. Right. And I just knew that there had to be a better way, even though I couldn't find a business

model that other people were doing that would work for me. And I couldn't find mentors and people who could give me help. Actually, a lot of the suggestions that were being made to me were to do things that just didn't feel right to me. And yes, they may have worked for other people and it might've been a good suggestion, but it didn't feel like a great suggestion to me. And again, I'm just at this space in my life where I will not compromise. That's one thing that I feel like death does is it allows you to really get an alignment of like, no, I'm not going to compromise. And I went from, this is where I actually kind of have a story of years ago. I went from 30 K a

year to 30 K and 30 days in my business. And then went to 30 K weeks and then 30 K days and then 30 K hours. And, you know, we, it's a super long story, which we won't go into, but it was just simply deciding like, if this isn't working, what could work? And if somebody else hasn't done it yet, why can't I, maybe this is why I'm going through these things. You know, I hate when people say everything happens for a reason in truth. I can't stand that because what, okay. Didn't make me feel better about my dad dying. Didn't make me feel better about my dad dying. Didn't make me feel better about my husband being on the brink of death. So what made me feel better is what can I make good come from a bad situation? And that's where I really started to lean in. And I was like, oh my gosh,

I have so many women, especially moms that are in my life that feel the same as me. And I'm going to figure out a way to do this whole part-time hours thing and so on. And obviously we switched up our marketing. We switched up our coaching platforms and all the things. And if it didn't work, it didn't work. I had everything to gain and nothing to lose because I was already closing my doors. And I was already, you know, saying goodbye, like saying goodbye to my husband, like everything gained and nothing to lose. And I took that big risk following my heart, even though I was terrified and I just went all in. And obviously on the other side of that has been a lot of success, but again, there's

also been a lot of failure. And that failure that came was just for me, like a stepping stone. Actually, you said something earlier and I feel like somebody needs to hear this right now, but we talk a lot about people. I'll get people to come to me. And I'm sure there's people listening right now. We're like, I really have a fear of failure. Jesse, can you help me get over that?

Nicole, can you help me get over that? This fear of failure. And I actually used to think I had a fear of failure too, but failing is easy. When failing happens, you get to quit. You get to regroup. You get to take a pause. You get to try again. But when you're in this space of actually being successful and failing happens, you

actually don't get to take a pause or quit. You have to figure out how to show up because there's people depending on you. There's people watching. And it really always was for me a fear of success. I didn't know it. I couldn't identify it like that at first, but now on the other side, I can. And you also said something about like the poop hitting the fan, the poop hits the fan at every level. Oh my gosh. And I actually think it hits the fan harder, new levels, new devils, and bigger businesses, bigger problems. For me,

the things that we come up against right now are way bigger than I was running my little 30K a year business. But I have become the person in the process of this journey that now is able to get through it. And that is where the growth has happened for me. I had no no choice when you, when you're met with death, you have no choice, but to figure out your way through it. You don't get to quit. You don't get to pause. And I think that's something that I gained through all those years ago, losing my dad. And it's a beautiful thing that I'm so proud of, but it's something that I need to teach

people. You can actually still instill in yourself if you haven't had those life and death situations too. Yeah. Okay. Well, I hope people were taking notes because there are so many amazing and impactful moments and points in there, but I want to revisit the concept of making decisions from what you want versus what you don't. I think there's a universal principle that what you resist persists. And I think it's so easy in all of our lives, regardless of gender to, you know, think about what we don't want, what we don't want to feel, what we don't want to have happen and get stuck in worrying and all of that. And what's really challenging about that is you end up more often than not creating the things you

don't want and your focus is so there so this concept of focusing on what you do want how do you want your day to look what what is important and sort of this creating something in your mind first that doesn't exist in reality yet um do you ever have moments where you're like, this is a little cheesy, or this is a little silly, or this is like, I'm telling myself this thing and I'm not even sure I believe it yet. Like, how do you make that transition from focusing on what you want when the evidence isn't there yet? I'm going to probably bounce all over the place again. So hopefully you have your pen and papers ready guys. But I think that it's all really going to be helpful because this is such a great question. I used to think a lot of it, I was so frustrated because it really felt like just believe it and it will come. And I just don't believe that at all. There's action that's associated there. And I feel like it's misrepresented. Um, me too. If I see another

person say they manifested a Range Rover, I'm like, please stop making it sound like you, like popped out of thin air. Yes. Unless somebody drove a car into your driveway and left you the keys. That's not how it worked. There was action involved. So it's not that I don't believe in belief or that I don't believe in manifestation. I just don't like the way it's being represented. So please keep going because I'm with you on this. Totally agree. Yeah. There's, there's action that has to go along with it. And for the longest time for me, I thought like I wasn't having the success that I wanted because I just didn't firmly believe it in my heart. If you can catch the sarcasm guys here, this is a lot of sarcasm. Um, I'm also a former professional

300 mile per hour world champion race car driver. So, um, this comes into play again, because it's a huge part of my story. And it's a huge part of, I think what has helped me really own and embrace the power of belief first and foremost. So the reason why I tell you I'm a former professional race car driver, but also a world champion race car driver is because I raced over 650 races in my time, in my years doing that. And I won all but one. There's just no possible way that I could get lucky to win all 649-ish, right? Of those, especially being the youngest one out there, the only female in my division at the time. I now 15 years later, still hold the title as the winningest driver in both the male and female categories of my division.

You just don't get lucky to do that. And what it really came down to was this idea that you're posing as a question of believing that I was a world champion long before I became one. And what I want you to think to yourself about, like think while you're right here with us right now, close your eyes even if you have to. I want you to think of a time that you felt like a bad-ass. And if for some reason you're the person right now, it was like, I really can't think of a time where I've ever felt really proud of myself, like a bad-ass. Well then think of a time that you want to exist.

Okay. And I want you to think about who you're showing up as. Like everything I'm about, you guys, here is simple and high impact. I am not about jumping through hoops. I am not about working hard. I'm not afraid to work hard. In fact, I probably work hard or as hard as lots of people out there, but I'm very much about working smarter. I'm all about the, like, get me to the finish line fast and as the winner, not one or the other, you know? And so for me, I envisioned like, what would it feel like to be a world champion before I ever got behind the wheel of this race car ever. And I imagine like actually close my eyes and imagine myself at the finish line, jumping up and down people like in the race car driving world, like

they spray soda and champagne all over you. It's so silly. But like, I really went there and I envisioned hearing them say my name at the time I wasn't married. So I was, you know, Jesse Harris, world champion. And I was like, what do I look like? How am I standing? How am I breathing? What's my facial expression?

Like, am I, you know, walking in like slyly to the room when they announced my name at the big, you know, event or am I walking in like Queen Beyonce? Boom, boom, boom, boom. And I started to just become this person every single day proactively. So I call this Rush State. My first book is called Revving Up Self-Happiness Through the Power of Intentional Living. Rush is an acronym for revving up self-happiness. For me, that has really been what my life is about, is taking the crap and trying to find happiness in it. And so I call this the very simple,

but highly impactful exercise, Rush State, where you just close your eyes and you proactively every single day at the start of your day, become the version of you who's already that world champion or already that seven-figure business who's already that world champion or already that seven figure business owner or already that part-time business owner and world leader and

philanthropic person. Become her in your mind. It's been proven, science proves that if you can envision it, if you can actually close your eyes and envision it, then you can start to build it step by step. There's this great quote, again, paraphrasing here by FM Alexander, that goes like this. People don't choose their future. People choose their habits and their habits are what determine their future. And so for me, I just believed that these people who were so much further ahead of me with all these fancy quotes were not just meant to be shared on Facebook and Instagram, but were meant to actually be lived by.

So even though it felt very hard and awkward for me to do, very woo-woo, right, as people say, I just kept doing it. And the more I kept doing it, not only did it start to feel good and something that I looked forward to, but it also started producing results that matched my efforts. And that was where I was like, okay, I just, I caught a glimpse of what it was that was going to take me there. It wasn't some secret, right? There's always, everybody's looking for the secrets to success, the secrets to whatever, you know, business goal you have. For me, it's just showing up one step each day, every day as the best I can with where I am

going from first year to second year, third year to fourth year, fifth year to sixth year and so on. And that's, I believe why I've been able to maintain and sustain and scale in my life and in my business, because as much as I'd love to go from zero to hero, like worker B overnight, it's just not the way it works. And there's not enough people out here talking about that. Like you said earlier, Nicole, social media, it's so easy to see the highlight reel and like, Oh, where she's gone from, you know, year one to year 10. And it's like, Oh, if you could have only really seen in between. So I'm really passionate about sharing these things. And so that's why I'm appreciative of you actually asking these types of questions. Again, very powerful. I really appreciate that. It's not just words. Like you can feel an

experience and the example, and I'm so glad you brought it up because I had it on my list to talk about like the fact that you're a race car driver is incredible. So, so many powerful things there. And I hate that we run out of time, but I want to make sure that people can find you so they can get more of this. So your website is millionaire mompreneur.com. Yes. I know you have a free Facebook group. That's also millionaire mompreneur.

We're going to put all of this in the show notes. If you want to find Jesse on Instagram or Facebook, just search Jesse Harris Bowden. And thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your story and being such an inspiration. Okay, I'll close by sharing that personally, this topic couldn't be more relevant. We've moved for the, I don't even know how many time at this point, because I've lost count. I've been overwhelmed with book launch. I have a major health issue

with my dad. JJ has needed some extra support and we got a new puppy. I know there are people facing much bigger challenges. And I'll also share that I'm about as overwhelmed as I can be, but here's the silver lining. I have so little time to worry and overthink. Normally I'd be dealing with my perfectionist tendencies, but because so much is going on, I'm getting messy. I'm taking imperfect action and letting myself off all the hooks of doing anything perfectly so I can be who I need to be for the people I love and what matters most to me. And I keep telling myself over and over that the only thing missing is hindsight. I trust that all of this will serve a purpose. It will serve me.

I just don't know yet how or when. I get to trust myself. As Jessie said, become her in your mind. You can do this too, because that is definitely woman's work.