¶ Empowering Women to Find True Value
What is it that you do to help women get to that place of understanding that the true validation lies within ?
The first thing that we need to do is give ourselves evidence that we are valuable . The fact that we have an irreplaceable DNA , the probability and the combination of our time of history we're born , the experiences , our aptitude , our personalities , all that combined allows us to be so unique and rare that nobody will ever be us and nobody was ever us .
So that in itself , that probability makes us an irreplaceable woman in history period , which means that we are valuable simply because nobody will ever be us .
Hi , I'm Linus Woods Mullins and I love to help women to vibe , to be more vibrant , intuitive , beautiful and empowered in their life . So come on , there's so much going on with women these days when it comes to being able to move forward and then , at the same time , juggle all the things that they have going on in their lives .
And I have with me today someone who is a two times number one bestselling author and entrepreneur and a mother of eight children talking about juggling . She has over 20 years experience training women and was featured in Forbes in their top self-worth coaching programs .
January's bold dream is to build a school that was designed to train women with practical skills to manage their lives , and she's done this for the last 15 years training women for free , before realizing that , in order to reach millions , she had to learn to build a business and to do so while prioritizing her family .
So today we're going to be talking just about that how are you able to get all of those things done and , at the same time , pursue your life's dreams and , in this case , probably your life's purpose ? I want to welcome January Donovan . January , so wonderful to have you on the Vibe Living Podcast .
Thank you so much for having me and for the opportunity to be able to just get real and raw and share Absolutely .
People in general are overwhelmed , but I think that women in particular have been overwhelmed for a long time , and since we have so-called broken part of the glass ceiling in terms of just being able to go to work and maybe grow within our careers , the pressures have even been greater .
And I'm just wondering what are some of the things you talk to women about ? Juggling that and handling it in such a way that they are also honoring themselves while taking care of everyone else ?
Sure Great question . So just to take a step back , I think we have to kind of see the state of our culture . In the last 100 , 150 years we've had the privilege to be able to actually have our voices of contribution in society .
Now we can work outside our home , we can be both a mother , and so that transition obviously has provided us the opportunity for you and I to be here . So , in context of the world changing , the infrastructure of our family life is changing .
Our grandmothers are not there to give us advice , our aunts , our uncles , the family infrastructure , but also the internet , has changed the way we communicated . So there's really a massive , radical shift in the state of our culture communicated . So there's really a massive , radical shift in the state of our culture .
Secondly , most women today are underskilled due to the shift , because they , I'm sorry , overwhelmed , because they are underskilled .
In that time of transition we needed to also learn new skills on how to manage our mind in a world of internet , how to manage our boundaries , how to discover our value in a culture that tells us our values based on our performance , our production . And so most women today are simply underskilled .
There's no training in how to be a woman , how to be a wife , how to be a mother , how to have a career while also having a mother . You have to go outside the infrastructure of our school system to even learn decision-making skills . We make 35,000 decisions a day .
Our life right now is a combination of all those decisions made minute by minute , day by day , year by year . And if we lack that one skill alone , decision-making skill , that could be essentially our own demise .
But to think about it , where do you go to learn how to honor your value , how to pivot , how to manage your mind , how to build a routine , how to communicate yourself effectively ? We go into marriage without even knowing the skill of effective communication , which is 7% words , 38 percent tonality , 55 body language , all of this blindness .
We're not born knowing how to be a woman just because we are one . So the change of infrastructure , the lack of training and then , thirdly , I think we have arrived in our culture of sort of this confusion where we were trying to find our place in history , and women today are valued based on external results .
We call it the poisonous pea in the woman's school . How perfect are you ? That's what we revere women that are perfect . How powerful are you ? Oh , what position do you hold ? What are your possessions ? That's why we buy name brand clothes . That's why we buy the nice car right ? Not essentially because we value it , but because it makes us feel more valuable .
And so women are suffering , proving pleasing and not knowing their rightful place to honor their value . Value because for decades , literally , our brains are conditioned to fight .
To be valuable , to be seen , we have an innate need to want to feel validated , to feel important , and so we have got to address these three radical issues that I believe are the root cause of why women today are overwhelmed .
You know , you said something that was very key , and that was the whole idea of value . Women want to know that they are valuable , but the interesting thing is that the true validation doesn't really come from outside . It comes from within . So what is it that you do to help women get to that place of understanding that the true validation lies within ?
What steps do you take to begin to kind of rein them in in terms of looking outward and instead look inward ?
I think we've had great evidence of how our brains work , which is a fascinating gift that I think we have in the last , especially 35 years , and because women today are conditioned to believe that they're only valuable if and when , and so the first thing that we need to do is give ourselves evidence that we are valuable .
The fact that we have an irreplaceable DNA , the probability and the combination of our time of history we're born , the experiences , our aptitude , our personalities , all that combined allows us to be so unique and rare that nobody will ever be us and nobody was ever us , so that in itself , that probability makes us an irreplaceable woman in history period , which
means that we are valuable simply because nobody will ever be us . The rarity of our existence . But see , I can tell you you're valuable , but you won't believe it because for decades you were told what makes you valuable is your grade .
You won't believe it because for decades you were told what makes you valuable is your grade , what you look like , how popular you are , and so that literally , the you know , understanding the science of our brain has been now conditioned in our 95 percent of our brain , our subconscious conditioning . It's like a language linus , like what you know .
You know when you're a child that this is a pen , because through the process of repetition you were told that this is a pen , right , and so that becomes a language .
Now , if I was told at a young age that what makes someone beautiful is what she looks like , because I pass by the grocery store and there's this magazine , it says beautiful , and I don't even have the awareness to a distinction of what a good performance is . It's just literally the process of repetition .
It becomes the language of my conditioning , our 95% of our brain , the subconscious conditioning . We need to be aware of this subtle conditioning . That has happened not because our mothers didn't know to tell us that our value was not contingent on the external , and rewire that . So , it's a translation replace the language that women have and rewire their brain .
¶ Building Self-Value and Skill Set
It's interesting because , while it's invaluable for us to learn how to find our validation from within and stop looking from other people , there's also a double whammy in terms of why we want to do that Because looking for our value outside of ourself is self-limiting , but also that self-limitation can affect the people around us . How does that work ?
Well , I think that you can't tell your child you're valuable unless you understand your own value . You can't preserve your value and honor and command respect from your spouse , from the men around you , if you don't hold it for yourself . We just can't give what we don't have .
So it's limiting , in a sense , that we are unaware that we're devaluing ourselves and we literally lack the skill . Because here's the challenging part . Let's just say we rewire a woman's brain and say my worth is unconditional , I am an irreplaceable .
15 days wiring , 60 days rewiring right , you literally impress it like somebody who's learning English , speaking French every day . It's literally a physical wiring in our brain . That's happening . Let's just say we do that .
But the problem , linus , is that if I lack skill to communicate my boundaries , to build a rhythm of life that honors my value , if I don't know how to present my highest and best self all of which are skills if I don't know how to make a decision , if I don't know what I want and don't want to honor my value , I can wire that all day .
It's like affirmation without skill set . It doesn't work , because I can tell myself a story I'm valuable , I'm valuable , but I have no skill to actually defend my value .
So that's why in the women's school we talk about rewiring our mindset , but building the right skill set to hold , uphold our value , so that we're not susceptible to external manipulation of saying you're valuable and if one , go get your , your PhD , go borrow $100,000 because that will make you feel more important .
Now , if that's what you're calling is , go for it , but the motive matters . If the motive is so that I can prove myself to the world or revenge all of us , then we realize why we're unfulfilled . It matters .
But if I'm doing it because I know that this is what I was created for , that I'm created to build a business while being a mom of eight , pursue a life of excellence and greatness , make no excuses for myself , not because I want to show off to the world , but because this is what I'm created to be , that's a different narrative .
That's a different narrative . Now tell us a little bit about the school that you founded , and how does this school ? It is called the woman's school . How does that support the principles that we just got through talking about ? What kinds ?
of things Honestly . I was the reason why the school started because nobody ever showed me how and I suffered for it . I was a good woman . Nobody showed how to make choices , nobody told me how to say . I got into myself in a position where I didn't like who I was .
I was making choices that exacerbated my stress , my anxiety , to a point where I just did not like who I was . I was making choices that exacerbated my stress , my anxiety , to a point where I just did not like who I was .
And so I had a mentor in college who I met my freshman year in college and said January , what kind of a woman do you want to be ? And I thought you don't have a choice , elena . And she said , yes , you do . For three and a half years I met with her every single month and and she gave me homework .
My first homework was to get rid of comparison competition . Make my bed . Make my bed so that I could feel accomplished and build a routine that woke up in the morning so I could pray , plan and prepare myself for the morning . It changed my life , and so she taught me skills after skills .
So the school was born out of my own wound , and also the privilege and the gift that the woman gave me , because I realized I wasn't alone in my suffering . Good women suffer unnecessarily unfulfilling lives of regret where they don't like who they are simply because nobody showed them how .
And so the woman's school is really a how-to school and say listen , where do you go to learn how to be a woman when your grandmother , your mother , is no longer next to you ?
But , more importantly , we are so distracted you know that even though your grandmothers are making a great meal , maybe having graceful conversation , you're not actually receiving it because you're just on your phone , we're , we don't have the infrastructure anymore . So the woman school is a training school . We go deep into women's self-worth .
We give you hundreds of skill set . We teach you to design every arena of your life , the woman you want to become , your self-image , your mental , emotional , physical and spiritual health , your friendship , because we don't even know how to be a friend . Loneliness is an international epidemic in an internet world what have we been the cause is ?
What do you think the cause is for women in particular , who are feeling lonely , especially when they have families and friends , and still feeling lonely in a room full of people ?
I think it's a lack of communication and lack of depth . So I could be with somebody for three hours in a party and never have meaningful conversation because I lack the skill of actually going deep . Secondly , we are so wounded we haven't processed our wounds that I cannot receive . I could be with you and there's a wall of vulnerability .
I can't say how are you ? There's a lot of sincerity and genuineness to receive and to give , because we're so afraid to be vulnerable , because of being hurt . So it's a lack of communication skill and it's a lack actually , it's fear of not knowing our value and , I think , more importantly , because we are entertained constantly . Those are three of the reasons .
We then mask our loneliness and lack of depth through entertainment .
¶ Rediscovering Self-Worth and Purpose
We can scroll through social media , we can binge watch movies and never get to a point of asking what does my heart need ? Who am I ? Who do I need to become ? What conversation , what kind of friend do I want ?
There's no more standard and last , there's no life by design , which is what we teach For you to say these are the kind of friends I need in this particular season of my life , these are the standards . This is why I'm not going to also settle for . This is the kind of friend that I am . We can design ourself through neuroplasticity .
So that's really what a school does is you know ? It's deep work . Anybody that's gone through our signature course .
It is a six month journey of interior work and I think because life is busy , linus we just go a little podcast here , a little read here and a little insight there , and what we do is that we I would say we do a cafeteria style for our need for training . Olympians train daily in the quiet so that they can become the world's great .
This is the Olympics in our lifetime , the very woman that we ought to become , and yet we settle for a little bit of this and a little bit of that and expect greatness no-transcript , because you have to live with yourself and who you're not and who you were created to be .
This is why training is really the antidote to your desires , and one of the reasons why I wanted you to come on this podcast is that I want to send a message to women 40 and over that it's never too late . My class is between the ages of 45 and 55 . I'm 67 .
Yet , and still , every day , I'm still working on myself in terms of things that I want to do , where I want to grow . It's an ongoing quest and I really want to know what kind of words you would have for those women who think maybe it's too late for me . Do you feel ?
Is it really ever too late to be able to learn and to make changes that are going to ultimately benefit you and your quest ?
Well , I guess you have to make a choice . You just say , well , I'll risk the next 10 years , 20 years of my life and live a life of quiet , desperation , life , thorough . Or I'll say , today , I have a choice , today , one step forward towards living the life that I want , so that I have a shot of fulfillment . It's a choice .
And I think that if you're sitting in here like January , it's too late . Study women that are designing your life . Chances are you're saying it's too late because we're the average of the five people we surround ourselves with . Chances are the women around you are convincing you it's too late ? Or maybe they're far too distracted .
They're just doing a lot of minimal things that are distracting them to pursue the things that they are deeply created for .
So I would check the kind of friends that I'm surrounding my mindset with , because that matters and , more importantly , I'm asking you for the women here that are , you know , 45 , because a lot , we have thousands of students across 40 plus countries and a lot of them are actually between 40 and 60 .
I just had this one woman I was doing a training and she's sitting there . I'm teaching her how to dream , because dreaming is a compounding skill set Women . You're always told to dream , but never how to dream . And you know you need to learn to manage your imagination , manage your mind to dream .
Anyway , I'm teaching her dream training , and she's 70 and it's her birthday and she's in this training and she's like I'm trying to discover the dream of this season . And she's sitting there and I just thought I said Paula , before you even continue , and she's around hundreds and hundreds of women .
I said I just want to pause and I hope that one day I am you , that I have enough humility to know that I've never arrived , that I've evolved every single day of my life to die to my old self , to give rise to my new self . And so to all of you listeners , I'm asking you our world , if you look outside , has gone mad .
We don't know what a woman is . We've convoluted the definition of the relationship of both men and women . We've lost the reverence of what it means to be a woman . We need your voice . We need your wound to give us wisdom . We can't have you just sit there and do nothing when the next generation are confused , are overwhelmed because they're underskilled .
We need your voices of contribution so that we don't just let go of the next generation and not fight for ourselves and our children . We need each other .
This is so true . And you know , I really do believe that we mentioned something about surrounding yourself with friends . I believe that , you know , god puts people in our life for a reason , for a season , and many times those seasons pass and we need to be able to grow with those seasons instead of insisting well , no , no , we've been friends for years .
Well , you know , nothing lasts forever when you really think about it .
So the idea of being prepared to make that choice , to make a change , is one of the first steps , I think , in anything , and sometimes you have to do things incrementally , but just as long as you're moving forward and making the change and you know , I've had friends in my life for 60 years I'm very blessed .
They've been our friends for 60 years , but there were times along that way when we weren't in contact and there was a time back in our 50s when we decided to reconnect because we were losing so many friends and family .
You know , we're at that stage of life now where you begin to lose people and connecting yourself with your past means , you know , or staying connected means you know , reuniting with people maybe that you've met before . So even though people may be in your life for a reason , for a season , that doesn't mean that they're necessarily gone forever .
It just means that you're moving to something else and to find out , to rediscover or discover new things about your life with the help of this new input and I want to also send a message to women who are listening to such a wonderful wisdom is that much of these things you inherently know within , but you've covered it up with so much dogma and so much
brainwashing and what you see on social media . That's somewhere along the line you lose yourself . But I do believe that within all of us we have that inner voice , that intuition , holy spirit , whatever you want to call it . The truth , and what I hear January saying also is that she helps you get in touch with that Now .
For those of you who want to find out more about January Donovan and listen to her wonderful wisdom , all of her links are there in the show page . This is a woman who has definitely spoken into so many women's lives , and she can make a difference in your life as well . There was one thing I was going to ask you You've had eight children .
What are their ages ? January , oh , thank you .
Three , four , seven , eight , 12 , 13 , 14 , 16 . I can't believe I did that fast , and usually I want to do that fast . So I had four under four and I thought you're wild and crazy , that's it . I had four under four and I thought you're wild and crazy , that's it . And we did it again , four under five , and so I feel extremely blessed and grateful .
I think there's a redemption of the way we need to view motherhood , because the way we think of motherhood is the death of dreams that the children are sort of a nuisance in our life , and I just believe so much in the beauty and the radiance that comes from motherhood , which is why I teach skills .
Yes , I mean interesting , If you're talking about outer validation . Every time I look at my children , I realize , wow , I have four daughters , they're all in their thirties , they're all successful .
And I just think to myself wow , what a blessing to be able to look at small portions of myself and aspire to continue to grow and to learn and contribute , not just for them , but for myself as well . You know , to continue to pour into you and January . Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your philosophy here on the Vibe Living Podcast .
It's been wonderful having you here today , thank you , and thank you to all of you who are listening . I know there's literally probably 50 million podcasts out there you could be listening to , so taking the time to listen to us , I really do appreciate it , and thank you for making us the top 10% of Apple Podcasts .
Now I want you to do me a favor , please . I want to hear your opinion about this podcast and the other ones that are here . Just all you have to do is like , share , comment and subscribe to this podcast . It's been wonderful having you , and I hope that you are really working on being more vibrant , intuitive , beautiful and empowered in midlife .
In other words , I hope that you are having a fantastic and vibe day . Everybody . See you later . Thanks for listening to the Vibe Living Podcast and don't forget to subscribe , like and comment and share this podcast . Have a fantastic day and don't forget the vibe . Bye-bye everybody .