0:02 – Catherine Kontos
Hi, everyone. A special podcast today because I have somebody who I really just love as a human being. coming Yeah. reason. Okay. That said yes to being on this podcast. Jennifer, you know that. I really admire you. Jennifer Hill is a visionary entrepreneur, executive coach, and speaker whose two decades of leadership and media presence have positioned her at the intersection of business consciousness and innovation. She is also the founder of OptiMatch, which I use. I’m a client there because it’s just a phenomenal platform to use when you’re trying to match people. And hence, RetreatMatch and RetreatBoss, that’s what we do. So thank you for being here, Jennifer, with me today on this podcast to share everything, all the amazing things that you do.

1:15 – Jennifer K. Hill
Oh, thank you, Catherine. And shout out to our mutual friend, Marucia. If it weren’t for her, we would have never met her.

1:21 – Catherine Kontos
It’s so beautiful that we were in that same room and that our paths have just intertwined ever since.

1:27 – Jennifer K. Hill
I remember the first time I met you in that room. Ah. You described who you are and what

1:33 – Catherine Kontos
What? I’m like, did you just drop from heaven? were my literal words.

1:37 – Jennifer K. Hill
I think you even told me that. I do remember.

1:39 – Catherine Kontos
I think you said that. You’re like, I’ve been wanting to meet someone just like you. That’s fantastic. So yeah, so today we’re going to be just hacking out some questions because you’re such an interesting person. Beyond just, you know, what I know about you, but like everything on social media, the people you know, the people you meet, the people you match, the things you do, where you speak, where you go. It’s just really, really fascinating. And I feel like you’re such a jet setter. At least that’s what it looks like. Right. And, but I know you do travel a because oftentimes I’ll like right up to you and you’re like, oh, I’m, I’m in Bali. I’m on a hot time with this person. I’m like, who is this woman? I love her. Anyways, I just love your energy and you have an incredible gift. I’m like throwing flowers at you like crazy right now, but it’s okay. Anyway, you have this incredible gift. I’m like, like, I’m like, Where I will be in a conversation with you for 15 minutes, and you’ll have matched me up with four or five people in that 15 minutes, and then it doesn’t end there. We’ll end the conversation, and for the next, like, month, I’m getting these emails, like, and we’re not just talking about any connections, right? Because there’s people that connect, but they don’t connect great, you know? But I’m like, where does she get this? Like, that’s a gift. Like, to remember somebody on the spot, have their number, talk to them, send them a voice note. All of a sudden, I’m connected to this incredible person, and I’m like, that’s just a gift that you have. And my goodness, it’s an incredible gift to have. It’s an incredible gift to have. And, of course, it matches with and aligns with your company, OptiMatch, right? Like, it only makes sense.

3:22 – Jennifer K. Hill
Yeah, it’s funny. All the credit goes to my business partner, Julian Adler. So he helped me sell the first company I built and sold in 2018, which was in the recruiting space. So how this all kind of morphed. I didn’t understand people, Catherine. Like when I was a little girl, to me, it was like he and she got books on how to be a human. And everybody got these little manuals on how humans worked and what we’re supposed to say and not say. And when I opened mine, it was blank inside. And so that led to decades of depression and broken relationships and misunderstandings. So by the time I’m in my 20s, I’m like, I have to figure out these weird creatures called humans and why they say one thing and do another. And so I studied humans. I’ve always been good at studying people. And that’s where I started studying people. Well, it turned out I was a bit of a jerk. As much as I studied them, I was like, oh, let me just push this button and do that. And then in comes my business coach, Julian, who’s now my business partner. And he’s like, Jen, everybody’s designed differently. And what most people don’t know about me, Catherine, is that much as people like you and generous, kind people say wonderful things about me, I was a jerk. I was a recovering jerk, I mean, I was a jerk first and foremost to myself and also to the people in my life, to my ex-husband, to some of our team members, to my family. And so this whole… The journey has been out of survival, of studying continuously. And when Julian came to me after I sold my last company, which he helped me sell, and said, Jen, why don’t we create an algorithm that mirrors your intuition for matching people? I was like, you see me. And that’s how we wound up creating this proprietary formula that literally, I tell people, Catherine, it’s like in my brain, have you ever seen the movie X-Men with Xavier, the head of the X-Men? That’s what it’s named after. Do you know it’s like a superhero movie? I did not.

4:59 – Catherine Kontos
No, I’m not a big fan of movies like that.

5:02 – Jennifer K. Hill
I love superhero movies. I’m like, Doctor Strange is my life goal. By the time I die, want to be Doctor Strange, which is a Marvel superhero. But in this other universe of X-Men, there’s this guy called Xavier, and he’s the super teacher of all these people with superpowers around the world. And he has like the, I forget even what it’s called, but he has a school for superheroes. But he has a superpower where he puts on a helmet and he can see every human on the planet. And he sits in this room. That’s what it’s like to be in my brain. It’s like every one, but it’s everybody I’ve met, not obviously people I haven’t met. But that’s what it’s like to be in my brain, it’s just like the supercomputer that tracks everything and everyone I’ve ever met.

5:39 – Catherine Kontos
Wow. And it’s like photographic, right? Is that what you’re saying? In some ways it’s photographic.

5:45 – Jennifer K. Hill
It’s just like, it’s almost, it’s more nuanced than that. It’s like I feel an energetic thread. Like if you ever see the X-Men movie, you would see that Xavier can literally look out over all, I almost see people as sparks of light. Wow. And then I can almost feel like you’re vibrating here. And then I can feel that there’s a thread that connects you to the other person. Like today I was on a call and there was a lovely new guy I met. And this guy’s name, a lovely guy, Jess Larson, I know who has a popular podcast, one of the top in the world on innovation. His name just kept being yelled at me. And this is what it’s like until I get the words out and say, I must introduce you. I keep getting yelled at by my intuition. So finally I’m like, I’m sorry, Brandon. I was like, I have to say, do you know Jess Larson? He’s like, he’s my best friend. We’ve known each other for years. And so I either get these messages because people already are in each other’s orbit or it’s because they’re meant to know each other. Wow, incredible.

6:34 – Catherine Kontos
And did you program your OptiMatch with your brain? That’s what we’ve done.

6:40 – Jennifer K. Hill
That’s what we’re working towards. Julian has the next level, the next iteration of the algorithm, but the first one works. mean, given that it’s our beta and our early one, you’ve seen it, it’s about 87% accurate. So we’re not at 100%, eight or nine times out of 10, we can predict it, but it’s better than most. Yeah.

6:56 – Catherine Kontos
And it’s really useful. You know, it gives me, from the way I use it for my clients and for any staff I are, that’s one of the first things that I put out there is like, I want to know, yeah, I want to know how I can work with you, you know, and how I can optimize, you know, optimize your work and the quality of work you put out, because I’ll understand you better by doing this, right? And vice versa, you’ll understand me better. I give them the results. I tell them, this is me, and this is you, and this is how we work together, right? So I’m the type of person that, you know, there’s people that are gatherers, right? So they gather information before they make any decisions.

8:33 – Jennifer K. Hill
You’re a person who handles this person. No. And I was like, I’ve noticed I’m starting to get more and more triggered. And so we got off the call and I called my governor. I said, screw him. Call this person. It was probably them. And we don’t want to report this as fraud. So I called. And it was them. They did take the money out. Now, normal old Jen, recovering jerk Jen, would have lost her stuff and ripped somebody a new a-hole. But I remembered he had answered our matching questions. And sure enough, to your point of the people who like to gather information, what we call apples, 41 is the highest score you can get in that category. 20 is average. Zero is low. This guy was a 37. And what we’ve learned is that people who are very highly motivated by information, they’re not being jerks. They’re not obstinate. They literally don’t have enough information to give you a yes. And it’s not 100% of the time, but a lot of the time with high apples, we see that they will be a no before they’re a yes, because there’s not sufficient information. Wow.

9:26 – Catherine Kontos Yeah, it is. It is something that is eye-opening for me. And it’s so helpful to understand. I studied psychology.

9:35 – Jennifer K. Hill
not that I don’t know that, right?

9:37 – Catherine Kontos
But you don’t know that when you’ve interviewed a person, right? You’ll get an idea of something, but you don’t really know until you’ve worked with them. It takes a long time, in other words. Even if you’ve studied psychology, it takes a long time before you realize, okay, this person works this way. They don’t even know it sometimes. You don’t even know yourself really how you are until somebody points it out to you and says, look, this is what this says. And does that make sense? Yeah, that totally makes sense.

9:59 – Jennifer K. Hill
And it’s eye-opening, even for the individual when they’re speaking of themselves. Yeah, it’s funny you point that out. So my entire life’s work and my dream, my vision for humanity, is what I call the golden triangle of connection. Connection to self allows for connection to others, which allows for connection to purpose at the top of the pyramid. Now, why does this tie in? This is everything Optimatch is about. That’s why we give people these reports. The reports are to help you better understand yourself, because I was unconscious. I didn’t know until my late 20s. Probably, that’s being a little bit gracious, but probably mid to late 30s. I didn’t know how I was motivated. I only found out I was autistic in my late 30s. And I was like, oh, that’s why I take everything everybody says so literally. And then, oh, that’s why I’m obsessed with numbers and patterns. But the minute we start to learn and we deeply love, accept, understand ourselves, that then extends the capacity to others. But the reason so many of us are so impatient and reactive with our partners, business, romantic, friendship, otherwise, our children, is because we are projecting onto them that they’re misbehaving. But we don’t even understand ourselves. When we can come to a place of clarity and calm and coherence within ourselves, then we can go out in the world and nothing. You’re like a Neo in the movie The Matrix where, like, guns are, like, the gunshots are coming at him. And he’s just, like, whoosh, moving in slow time, whoosh. And there’s no impact on you. And that’s the capacity that we all have as humans. Now, does it mean that any of us who have done a lot of work, I spend two hours a day normally in meditation. Reflection. I’m using 160 different tools. It’s normally 30 or 40 that I do affirmations and other things. But does it mean you’re going to be perfect? No. The goal is not perfect. The goal is to be resilient. So, like, I’ll be very straight with you, Catherine, and your audience. There was something that happened yesterday, and I had had three things back-to-back, right? And the first thing, I’m like, ah, no worries. This is awesome. I was gracious and easy with it. Second thing that happened, I was like, oof, okay, that hurt, but I’m going to get through it. But the third thing was a little thing. It wasn’t the end of the world, but by the time it happened, I was in tears. And God bless my husband. It was amazing. He’s like, honey, it’s going to be okay. But it’s just like, and again, did I let it impede me? I didn’t cancel any meetings. I still jumped on my next call with my co-founder. But old Jen, years ago, I might have, like, gone into a hidey hole, you suck, I’m out. You suck, I’m out is like my story I used to have when I was in an unhealthy state. And I used to be in that state. My goal is we all have these not-self themes. We all have the skew. I’m not good enough, whatever it is, mine is you suck and I’m out. And normally I would just pull away from people, but instead I leaned in, I asked my husband for help, talked to my business partner, and I lost maybe 10 minutes of my day rather than days, months, weeks, years. And that’s my intention for everybody. I want that so badly. As somebody who’s been so unkind and awful to myself and others, I just wish we all knew there’s another way. And listen, if I’ve been recovering , and I’ve been, I was bulimic, tried to take my own life, hated myself, drugs, alcohol, anything you can imagine, I did it. If I can do that and get to a place of inner peace, there’s hope for all of us.

13:12 – Catherine Kontos
And there is, you know, and thank you. Thank you for telling us all that, because you don’t know who’s listening. And I’ve realized that, you know, through the work that I’ve done, at times I was like, I’m doing all this, but is anybody really hearing my message? Is it helping anybody? Am I doing this right? Am I, you know, I started questioning myself suddenly and it’s happened many times since. And this was at the beginning of my inspiration, you know, like talks and stuff like that, right? Where I didn’t know if anybody even cared about what I was talking about. And suddenly I got this message on Facebook, on Messenger, and saying, Catherine, you’ve helped me so much. You have no idea. And she just went on and on. And I’m like, it was like such a gift. I’m like, finally, like I got the message to continue this work. And I’ve noticed that you’ve started, well, I don’t know if you started speaking, but I’ve noticed you’re speaking. Is it on this topic? What is your talk about right now when you go out there? Because you look very comfortable on that stage, by the way.

14:11 – Jennifer K. Hill
Thank you. I’ve been speaking for about 20 years on and off. I am building my last company in the legal field. I used to speak at a lot of their biggest conferences, law firms, and corporations. And as it turned out that I sold that company and I’ve still been speaking, it moved to a lot more online, of course, during the COVID years. And I did that 17-part series with Deepak Chopra. But then fast forward, in the last three years, I’ve been delivering a keynote. Thank you. And variations of it called Cracking the Code of Human Connection. It actually started at an entrepreneurial event I was speaking at on an island in Croatia. And it started with Cracking the Code of Human Connection Lessons I Learned with Asperger’s. And then I’ve shortened it now just to Cracking the Code of Human Connection. And the one, the talk I just rolled out in Bali is called Listening for the Spark of Light in Everyone You Meet. And that was actually birthed out of December of last year. I was, I’m so grateful, like, you know, Catherine, I introduced so many thousands of people. I just don’t even think about it. And a lovely gentleman, Keith Hodges, who lives here in Lisbon, said, Jen, you’ve been so gracious with your introductions. Please let me give you one of my sound healing things. I’m like, all right, whatever. I had no idea what to expect. So it’s 10.30 a.m. on a Thursday in early December last year. And he said, well, what do you want to work on? And I said, well, I’ll be straight with you, Keith. Since I’ve been a little girl, I’ve had the recurring nightmare that I had to save the world. I don’t know if you or anybody else has ever had that, but literally I remember these nightmares I had. Five years old, I’m working with superheroes. And trying to save a school bus full of children, 13 years old, I’m floating on a piece of earth looking back, realizing I failed to save humanity, right? So I had these recurring nightmares ongoing my whole life. And Keith’s like, okay, mate, he’s like a British guy, he’s like, okay, mate, we’ll work on that, it’s a good one. So he starts raising it, I have no idea what to expect, I am dead sober, like no plans, nothing involved. And all of a sudden, whoosh, I drop right out of space and time. And the first thing I hear is laughter, and I’m like, what? And it’s the universe, Catherine, and it is laughing at me. It’s like, you are so cute. There is nothing and no one to save, but your only purpose, and the purpose of every human being, is to re-remember the spark of light in yourself. And then to look for that spark of light, and to reflect it to others when they’ve forgotten that there are sparks of light. And a few months later, I was walking down the streets of Lisbon, and a children’s book came through me called The Palladian Princess. That I was like, I didn’t even know what I was doing, I was narrating it. personality. who are in there Tears are falling out of my face. I was like, I didn’t mean to write a children’s book. And then a friend of mine’s a filmmaker who animated it into a short film that’s now on YouTube. And then it’s all just kind of been birthed. And then a couple months ago, there was a gentleman who came by my house who was a new contact and got referred. And I’m always willing to meet people. And I found myself falling into the trap of judgment. It’s this, this trap that we all fall into. We forget to look for the good in one another. And so I was falling into this trap of judgment with this guy and he was bragging and dah, dah, dah. And my higher self comes in and says, he’s reflecting the parts of you that you haven’t accepted where you sometimes name drop or brag. Can you accept that? And can you look for his spark? And I was like, oh my God. So I started listening and I asked him, and this is my favorite question asked when I’m facilitating retreats or when I’m, you know, doing big talks. And that’s to have people do some heart focused breathing by heart math and then look each other in the eye and say, what matters to you? So in that moment, when I shifted from judgment and interest in curiosity and compassion, I looked in this man’s eye and I said, what matters to you? And he broke down in tears on my terrace and said, my son, he’s schizophrenic and he’s been homeless on and off. And my sister had gone through the same thing. So now I teach other people to number one, notice that we have a lens. It might be judgment. It might be fear. might be whatever it is. to number one, notice the lens we place on everybody. In the end of the book I’m working on right now, The Recovering , I talk about my dad and the lens, how I used to see my dad through and through that lens and how one day I cleared it up when I was 25 and I was like, dad, I love you and I’m so sorry. I’ve been listening to you like you’ve been my whole life. And we had an agreement. My mom, my sister, everybody agreed. And my dad broke down and he’s like, Jenny, he’s like, thank you. And he’s like, you don’t know what it’s been like. I pulled decapitated children out of burning cars. He was a firefighter and drank his whole life. And that totally changed everything. And so the whole idea is, number one, can we notice that we have a filter. You’re a jerk. You’re this. You’re that. I’m a jerk. This person’s this way. This person’s that way. Number two, can you choose a different filter? Can you choose? Like, I chose a filter for my dad of unconditional love. And just like I did with that gentleman, I chose the filter of curiosity. And then number three, can you come from a place of no filter at all? Could you just be with another person with no attachments? And that’s my dream. I truly wish, from the bottom of my heart, Catherine, I could give every human being that gift right here, right now.

20:27 – Catherine Kontos
So those words in the past, what, three minutes that you’ve been speaking, four minutes, every single word that you said could literally change someone’s life and perspective. And I hope whoever is out there listening hears that. Hear something from one of those things that you said and takes it with them. Because, you know, we all, it’s part of human nature to judge, okay? Because it’s the way we survive, right? We’ve got to make a decision. Is this threatening or is this, you know, something I trust and move forward? So judgment will always be there. But, you know, in a way, there’s that type of judgment. And then there’s the judgment of making a decision that this person is bad, this person is mean, this person is nice, whatever that is, right? When you create that, you have to also understand, but where is this coming from? Did I do anything for this result to come back to me? And then we take it personally. And then that whole dynamic changes. And what you just said changes that dynamic, because you’re putting it out in a different way, in a different perspective. And I want to thank you for that. Because it will change someone’s life hearing what you just said, and their relationships. So I really appreciate that. So you’ve written a book about all this. So I’m working on it right now.

22:02 – Jennifer K. Hill
It’s in process. You can go to my website, JenniferKHill.com and sign up and subscribe to the newsletter. And you’ll be one of the first people to find out where you can get the book and all the things. But yeah, it’s part of my life’s work, I think, is just to show us all that, you know, I was just on a call with somebody else earlier today, and we were talking about this other gentleman, much like me, went through bulimia and all the things and was just awful and opioid addictions and was in the service. And we were talking about sometimes those of us, like, imagine you have somebody who never goes through any hardship, and maybe you’re fortunate, maybe you are one of those people. I’ve had friends like that, and I’m like, oh my God, how fortunate are you? Right? To have not gone through that. But then in the same way, a piece of coal becomes a diamond. Sometimes those of us who chose, and I do believe this is soul school, I believe we choose a curriculum, like, oh yeah, let me try on alcoholism, let try on drug abuse, let me try on bulimia and suicidal ideation. Like, I see it as this is soul school. And instead of this happening to me, it’s happening for me. And I chose my parents. I chose my ex-husband, my current husband, the things I’m going through. And when we look at things as though we’re the creators, co-creators of… But moment by moment by moment, we take our power back, and we’re no longer in effect. So if you have, if any of you out there, if you’ve been through hardship, through loss, through things that you thought would break you at the soul level, that means that you have equal and opposite amounts of light, of miracles, of magic, of wonder waiting. And it may take a day, a month, a year, but I tell you, I’m living proof you will get there. I never thought I would see my 18th birthday, and I’m sitting here before you.

22:11 – Catherine Kontos
Well, I’m so happy that you are here with us, because you are, you are a light. You are just this incredible light that dropped out of heaven, like when I first met you.

22:14 – Jennifer K. Hill
Thank you.

22:19 – Catherine Kontos
What’s the one risk you’re glad you took in your life?

23:42 – Jennifer K. Hill
Opening my first company, and I have to give kudos to my ex-husband. I always try and say, like, he saved my life. I’ve seen past lives, and he actually was my son, God, thousands and thousands of years ago, and he saw me stab through, and I had healers tell me that… … And he made a vow in that moment to save my life and every future life, and he has. And in my early 20s, I was in the middle of all the drugs and alcohol and everything. And when I was working in a job, I was making six figures very early on, wildly successful, working in a nine-to-five job for somebody else. I went to open my first own company, and I failed. When I say I failed, imagine making like $180,000 in whatever the year was, 2008, and dropping down to $5,000 when I opened my first business in, I think it was 2009, right around the crash. And I failed epically. And I was just ready to throw in the towel, so I went back to work with somebody else. And after a few months of working with them, it just wasn’t the right match. And God bless my ex-husband, he said to me after I left them, that partnership I was in for a few months, he said, Honey, you have more clients than you’ve ever had before. Why don’t you go build your own recruiting firm? And if it weren’t for him encouraging me and believing in me and my best childhood friend giving me a little book called How to Build Small Business for Dummies, you know, if it weren’t for all of this I wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t be living the life of an entrepreneur. I’d be stuck at a desk job and not traveling the world and doing what lights up my soul.

24:05 – Catherine Kontos
You know, it takes that one person to believe in you, right? Sometimes, because we’re not believing in ourselves, especially when we’re starting something up. And it really, just hearing the words like, believe in you, and having that support makes a huge difference in anybody’s life, no matter what age, no matter what age. What are you up to now? Is there anything else that you’re creating that you’d like to share with us?

25:09 – Jennifer K. Hill
Gosh, everything is a creation. Well, as you know, we have the Jen Hill tribe, the WhatsApp tribe that you’re a part of. And it’s just been crazy. I mean, it’s been magical. Like, I’ve had so much magic. There’s been so much pain. But for everything that’s been painful I’ve gone through in the last year, four years, five years, there’s been equal and opposite and even more magic. And one of those gifts was Johan giving me the Jen Hill tribe. It was so magical. So he gifted me this tribe of 36 people. I think Maruxa was one of the first people in it who he… It was given to me in February, and then it’s just organically grown to 307 of us. So for the first time, we’re going to open it up to the public. People can’t join it unless they meet me, and they’re aligned with the ethos of the group. But it’s JenHillTribe.com, and people can find out there. And we actually have your beautiful testimonial up there and several other testimonials from members. And it’s just been incredible to hear the magic that’s happened. I was on a call with the tribe a couple weeks ago, and one guy, Sam, said I need to ask him if I can use this as a testimonial for the site. He said, I was interviewed on a podcast lately, and he said, who are the three most influential people in your life? And he said, well, my mom, my dad, and Jennifer Hill.

25:25 – Catherine Kontos
She changed my life, and we all did that a year before. I love that. If you were to pick one place in the world that you feel is the most transformative for you, where would that be?

27:40 – Jennifer K. Hill
Maldives. The Maldives was so transformative because you’re nowhere. You’re everywhere and nowhere. Like, you And in Hawaii, there are so many, like, big islands nearby, and it just feels more commercialized. And going to the Maldives, it feels like traveling to outer space because it takes, at least coming from Lisbon or the U.S. or wherever, it’s hours and hours and hours, and you get there. And then I remember we had the funniest thing because it was during COVID for my 40th birthday. So it’s like they had just reopened travel, right? And here I am, and we’re flying from Lisbon, and there was nobody in the airports, right? And we had all of Emirates First Class because we had tickets booked during COVID to go to Bali. And, of course, all the flights got canceled and everything. So we had a credit, and prices were just, like, nothing at the time, right? So my husband and I booked a trip to Maldives, and we were able to book First Class using our old credits. And we had all of First Class all to ourselves. Literally, it was magical. And I was wearing a unicorn onesie on the flight to celebrate my birthday. So I’m going through Emirates to the Dubai airport, get picked up, get taken up. But here’s the funniest thing. So we arrive in Malay, I think is what it’s called, in the Maldives. So we arrived in Mali, and we didn’t realize that there was like another two and a half hour plane ride. We had to get on like a commercial jet. So we waited around for five hours. I’ve been traveling 30, 40 hours at this point. I’m exhausted. I’m like, I’m almost in tears. I can’t do it. And then we take off in this commercial jet, and it has to stop. And there’s not as many flights because it’s during COVID. The first island we stop on on our way to our island, they can’t get the luggage thing open. And so they can’t refly the jet because nobody remembers how to open it because everything’s been done in COVID. So we had to have an emergency speedboat come out to this island from whatever island we were at. And you’re just in the middle of nowhere. Then we got out there. And I remember one of the days we did this special sand dune sea tour where you’re out in the middle of the ocean, there’s a sand dune, and you stand in the middle of the ocean on these jet skis. And there’s these little crabs walking through white sand. Then we had dinner one night where they built a couch into the sand and served us dinner while watching whatever movie landed on us. Green under the stars and bats are flying above. And it was just otherworldly. was very ethereal. Wow. That sounds amazing.

27:45 – Catherine Kontos
And I can understand what you’re saying when you’re saying you’re like in the middle of nowhere.

27:49 – Jennifer K. Hill
Nothing. If something happens, you’re done.

28:12 – Catherine Kontos
What a time, you know, what a time to go there during COVID when it’s, you know, people already have this fear and then you’re going, I’m just going to go nowhere. So one tradition that you’ve seen, like before your eyes that has stuck with you anywhere in the world.

29:53 – Jennifer K. Hill
You know, what I loved is I’ve been honored to get to build two schools, one in Nepal and one in Senegal, actually with my dad on both occasions. And my mom and ex-husband joined me for the first one in Nepal was the dancing, the dancing and the music. I think that’s the thing that’s missing in a lot of Western culture. I literally wake up, I kid you not Catherine, my first thing I do. Every morning as I listen to a thing, shout out to Nico with Vision Espresso. A friend of mine, Nico, has a company called Vision Espresso where my future self talks to me. So I do 10 deep breaths and then my future self says, Jen, your life is amazing, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, at the end of this beautiful six minute thing that I listen to my future self is music. And I start every single day dancing and my husband’s like, everything is dancing, is dancing, etc. And when I was in these villages in Nepal and Africa and other parts of the world, they danced, they sang. In Nepal, I was shocked and awed, Catherine, that they had so little. They had no running water. They had no toilets. They had nothing. But I’ll be darned if they didn’t dance and sing every day. And I love it. So now, you know, since that trip I did for my 40th birthday, something shifted and I don’t miss a day of dancing and singing. Like sometimes my husband and I will walk down the street. We were in Amsterdam lately dead sober and we’re walking down the street and we’ll pick a song like, look at this stuff. From The Little Mermaid, look at these arches, aren’t they neat? Wouldn’t you think these cobblestones make it complete? So one of us will start singing, the other one will pick up the lyrics, and then we’ll sing and dance like we’re in a Broadway musical walking down the street, and this wine starts like clapping for us in Amsterdam. So I’ve made a part of my life being so inspired by these other cultures to sing and dance wherever I go.

30:37 – Catherine Kontos
I feel the same thing when I go to Cuba. They don’t have much, right? And when I go there, they’re happy, they’re dancing, they’re singing, they’re eating what they have, and they just treasure it. And you come back humbled. You come back humbled, and you take that lesson, and you include it in your life. And there’s nothing faster that clears energy than music. Nothing. Yeah. So when I’m feeling down in my home, right, let’s say I’m home and I’ve had a bad day, right? Three things that happen. The thing I do is I just blast some music and I start dancing and singing. And I feel so much better. And I’m not going to tell everybody I have an emergency list.

31:21 – Jennifer K. Hill
In fact, I should probably add that to my emergency list because I have a list on my phone. So it’s on my screensaver of the heart-focused breathing Sedona method. And as my business coach, he teaches me to get related to reality. But I should probably add dancing and singing to that because I like to have these emergency tools in my tool belt. So that way, when you are at your worst, like, what can you do in that moment? And sometimes, you know what? You need to have a cry. Sometimes you need to just be with your emotions and feel them and let them pass through. Science tells us it takes 90 seconds to feel an emotion. Otherwise, it gets stuck in the body. So sometimes we also just need to feel it out. And that’s why music can also be great. If you’re feeling angry, play some really strong music. You’re feeling sad, play some sad music. Get it out of your system. Exactly.

31:34 – Catherine Kontos
Yeah, thank you for sharing those tools because I’m sure people will start looking them up and being like, okay, I’ll add that to my list. What’s the one thing that you want to leave, you know, the community that’s listening to this? it’s the one thing that you’re going to leave. Thank you.

32:25 – Jennifer K. Hill
To know you’re enough. I think that the greatest inquiry and thing that plagues us as human beings is feeling like we’re never enough. You hear this from billionaires and superstars and people who come from all walks of life and people of nothing. And no matter who we are, no matter how much money is in our bank account, we all feel that we’re never enough. And you know what? When you love and accept yourself and you tell yourself, I am enough, it doesn’t matter how many likes you get, how many comments you get, or how much money is in your bank account. You are the richest person in the world when you love and accept yourself and know that you are enough exactly as you are. fact, I’ll leave everybody with a little thing that my husband so beautifully says to me often when I’m having a hard moment like I was yesterday. He says, honey, I love you as you are and as you’re becoming.

32:48 – Catherine Kontos
Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Jen. Thank you for being here and sharing your wealth of wisdom and truth. Tricks and stories. It was truly beautiful. Thank you for being here. And I know people are going to take away a lot of great little nuggets of wisdom that you just shared with us and actually live it in their daily life. So I appreciate you. Thank you, Catherine.

32:56 – Jennifer K. Hill
And thank you to your audience. May you all have a week filled ahead with magic, miracles, and wonder, and the wisdom to recognize and appreciate all of it.