752 Janine Hamner Holman:

We all have that ‘inner bully’ auto script running in our brains, keeping obsessing in the past or worried about the future, and it requires a conscious effort to move yourself into the present moment because that is where your power – and empowerment – resides. There’s a lot of talk these days about the transformative power of conscious leadership, so today we break down what it means to be a conscious entrepreneur and how to step into your full power with my guest today Janine Hamner Holman who is an expert in conscious leadership, organizational development, neurobiology, and what it takes to attract and retain world-class talent.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and download Podopolo. Follow Wings of Inspired Business there and join the Wings community so we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who works with purpose-driven CEOs and entrepreneurs to help them create what she calls “people thriving” organizations. Janine Hamner Holman is an expert on conscious leadership and organizational development, best-selling author, and host of the podcast The Cost of Not Paying Attention.

Today we dig deep into how to become a conscious leader and what it means for your business success.

What does it mean to be a conscious leader? What is the connection between our spiritual growth and our ability to let go of old subconscious programming have to do with growing a successful business? Why does who we’re being matter more than what we are doing?

Today explore these questions and more, including how to attract and retain top talent, with Janine Hamner Holman, an expert on conscious leadership, organizational development and neurobiology. Janine is the CEO of the J&J Consulting Group where she brings more than 30 years of experience to her work with purpose-driven entrepreneurs and executives to help them grow their businesses by empowering people thriving organizations.

Today she shares the 6 driving principles of conscious leadership, plus the necessity for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in business, and why women are best placed right now to transform business as we know it.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Janine Hamner Holman, and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Janine, welcome to Wings.

Janine Hamner Holman:

Thanks so much. I’m so excited to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love talking about conscious leadership and we see more and more people using that phrase, but what does it actually mean and what does it mean in practice?

Janine Hamner Holman:

Melinda, I love that question. It’s one of these terms that actually means something a little bit different depending upon who you’re talking with. Really ultimately what conscious leadership is about, regardless of who’s talking, is bringing the way that you lead out of your unconscious and into your consciousness. And so being deliberate about the way that you lead. When I talk about conscious leadership, I have distinguished six different principles that are core to conscious leadership. The first is understanding our mission, vision, and values. So whether we’re talking about an organization, a nonprofit, me, myself, what are my mission, vision, values? Getting grounded in that is then going to lead to everything else. So that’s where it all begins.

And then just making a decision to be a leader. We have this idea often that leadership is something that is earned or that is conferred. With our new title comes leadership. My perspective is that that’s all nonsense and that leadership is a conscious decision that we make and we can lead from any position in an organization. I would love to give you an example if that would be okay.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s really interesting because the best teams in my mind are teams where people have agency, they feel empowered that they can lead within their own realm. That it’s not just some sort of command and controlled top down, do it because I said you have to do it kind of thing.

Janine Hamner Holman:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

Expand on that. This is really, really important to making a company really great as opposed to math.

Janine Hamner Holman:

Absolutely. And so about a year and a half ago I had the privilege of talking with a CEO of a major hospital chain here in Southern California. And so a year and a half ago that was at the height of COVID. And he was telling me about this day that he spent walking through his hospital talking with his employees. And if you’ve ever spent any time in a hospital that many people there wear scrubs. And so it can be hard to tell what their job is just by looking at them. And so he came across a gentleman and he asked that gentleman what his job was and the gentleman said, my job is to clean the floors. And the CEO said, thank you so much, especially with everything that’s happening, ensuring a safe environment for our patients is so important and I really appreciate your work.

And then he walked on and he came to another gentleman and he asked that gentleman, what is your job here? And that gentleman said, my job is to have my floors shine so that my patients heal faster. And the CEO said to me, I still remember that guy’s name. That guy is a leader in this company, in this hospital chain. His mission is exactly the same as mine. We just have different jobs. We just go about it in different ways. Obviously his job is that of a janitor, but he is a leader in that organization because he has decided to be. And all of the patients on the floor know him. He is invested in them and in their health. I love that example because obviously the CEO, he’s a leader in the organization, but you wouldn’t necessarily think that someone whose role in the organization is to clean the floor is a leader and he is because he decided to be one.

Melinda Wittstock:

There are so many things, so many directions we could go from here in terms of how to unpack that. I want to start by looping back to what you said at the beginning about consciousness, which is really awareness, being aware, being in the present moment and being aware of even extending to what’s your zone of genius. And through to what you just said right now, a shared mission.

Janine Hamner Holman:

That’s perfect because that’s actually the third conscious principle. It’s like you’d already seen this, which you haven’t. That’s the third principle of conscious leadership as I have created it, is self-awareness and emotional intelligence. And often when we hear self-awareness, we think of that as it is said, being aware of myself. And that’s half of self-awareness, is understanding and a very important half, understanding what’s happening inside me. The other important thing about self-awareness is understanding, how do I occur to other people? One of the really interesting things that can happen as the statistics say that as human beings go up the chain of command, especially in as you were earlier talking about, command and control organizations, hierarchical organizations, the higher we rise in an organization, the less awareness we have of how we occur to other people.

Which is why this idea of self-awareness and emotional intelligence is so important, because it’s about, yes, getting clear on what do I care about and what’s important to me, but then also how do I occur to other people that I’m coming in contact with? And the reality is, especially in today’s business world, more and more, almost regardless of what your role is in an organization, most people are in some way or another client facing, whether their job is IT working obviously on the back end, but then they’ve got to talk with the folks in the organization to understand what people need, their, quote unquote, clients, are all internal. But understanding how we appear to other people, how we occur to other people is really critical in owning our own leadership.

Melinda Wittstock:

The self-awareness thing is actually very interesting. because I think most of the time people are thinking about the future or they’re obsessing about the past.

Janine Hamner Holman:

About the past, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Or they have some internal dialogue going on that’s entirely driven by the subconscious, the inner bully voice, that kind of stuff. And all of that is antithetical to being self-aware. To me it’s being in the now where the power is. Because what you’re doing in this moment right now, Janine, you and I talking about all of this, is we’re both creating our future and hopefully inspiring others. So the power is in the now. I think that’s a huge part of that self-awareness.

Janine Hamner Holman:

Absolutely. And as you said, we are almost always thinking about, what do I need to do tomorrow, in five minutes? Or God, I cannot believe that thing that I did or said or beating ourselves up or puffing ourselves out about that thing that we did or said. But unfortunately, you and I know share a curiosity about the brain and how things work inside of our brains, and that’s actually what neurobiology is about. It’s about understanding what’s happening inside of our brains. Because sometimes what’s happening inside of our brains is really not very helpful. And so this concept of how hooked we get thinking about the past is all part of our amygdala, which is the most ancient part of our brain. It got set in stone before humans could speak. So that’s how old it is. And the only thing that our amygdala cares about is am I safe?

What about now? How about now? Now, am I safe now? And so that part of our brain, the reason that part of our brain gets so hooked on things in the past and the bad things in the past, the things that we wished we had said differently or that I wish I had not done that thing or whatever it was, biologically the reason that that’s happening is because that part of our brain only cares about keeping us safe. And it thinks, as far as it knows, we are still roaming the Serengeti and there are tigers. The scary thing that you did or the dumb thing that you did or the unthoughtful thing that you did, as far as our brain is concerned, because again this is all pre-language, as part of far as our brain is concerned, we are in danger, physical danger because of that thing that we did, that thoughtless thing that we said.

And so our brain is going over it and over it and over it to try to teach us to not do that again. That’s evolutionarily, that’s the purpose of that constant tape that is rolling in our heads. I think understanding that can help us then also release it. Because we are not roaming the Serengeti. And the fact that I said that thoughtless thing, does not mean in fact that my life is in peril. And I got it. That wasn’t good and I’ve learned that lesson. I’m not going to make that mistake again. I will make another mistake because that’s part of the condition of being human. And that’s what that tape in our head is all about.

Melinda Wittstock:

100%. It’s so interesting, Janine, when you think about the fact that science tells us that 80% of our actions are driven by our subconscious mind, things we’re not even aware of, and all these things are formed in our childhood. It’s sort of like you have the world being run by a bunch of toddlers. Right? And how that manifests in business. And so talk to me a little bit about how people come into this awareness, because often the things that trigger you are actually an opportunity, a real clue to what is? What are some of my beliefs that I got as a child? They weren’t even my own, I didn’t have the agency, I didn’t even have a fully developed brain yet. And yet I’m letting these things drive my life. And like you said, an opportunity to release.

What are some practical steps for people to do that, to just ditch, actually understand what’s driving that or get rid of the things that are not serving them in business or in life?

Janine Hamner Holman:

I love that question. And again, when anybody is talking about conscious leadership, that’s part of what we’re talking about, is bringing these things forward. Because until we distinguish them, it’s part of the reason that all of the 12 step programs begin with just an acknowledgement of whatever it is that my challenge is. And the same is true in therapy, the same is true in coaching, the same is true if you are a basketball player and you’re hiring a coach because you want to get better at free throws, the first thing you’ve got to do is admit that you’re not very good at free throws. And so when we can begin to pay attention to either what that tape is that is running my life or what those things are that are waking me up in the middle of the night and I’m realizing like, oh man, that’s not how I wanted to show up, that then gives us the opportunity to start focusing on these things.

An easy way to start trying to distinguish them if it feels mysterious what I’m talking about, is what’s often called journaling, which is literally just writing down your thoughts and writing down if you can distinguish that voice in your head from yourself. Those things that you would not say to even the person that you hate the most on the planet, that’s not you, that is the voice of your amygdala. And so writing those things down and writing the things that you have regrets about and then looking for the through line. One of the things that people also can do in this domain is actually what’s the fourth and fifth and sixth principles of conscious leadership, which are, number four is listening. Number five is openness, vulnerability and willingness to be uncomfortable. And number six is being curious. And so we can enroll other people.

And this takes a willingness to be uncomfortable, but also a willingness to be curious. You can enroll other people and you can say, hey, I’m really working on my self-awareness and understanding what’s running me. And so it would be really helpful if you could share some of those things with me. You could do this with your best friend, you could do this with a partner, you could even do this with your kids if your kids are into this kind of stuff and at an age where they can do it. And starting to think about, what are those things that actually I would prefer it if it went different? I’ve recently had the opportunity to have conversations with two different gentlemen, one who was the founder and CEO of blinds.com, which went on to become the largest blinds company in the world.

And then another one who was a senior leader at IBM. And unfortunately both of these gentlemen had tragedy in their lives. Both of their wives died. One through cancer and one actually through suicide. It put both of them into a period of really looking at themselves, at their lives, at what they wanted to be able to create. And the CEO of blinds.com, whose last name is Steinfeld, not coming up with his first name right now. He admitted, I think he kind of knew it even before his wife died of cancer. He knew he was not a very empathetic kind of guy and he never praised anybody. And if he asked you to do something and you did it 95% of the way, he would focus on that 5% that wasn’t what he wanted and he would yell at you about it. Not really a conscious leader.

He was certainly the leader of the organization. He was the CEO and its founder. And through the death of his wife, he went through this major period of introspection and he realized that was not how he wanted to be, that was not how he wanted to show up, that was not how he wanted to treat people. And it was such a revelation for him that he actually changed the mission of the company. And so this was a company that was making blinds for windows, and he changed the mission of the company for every employee to be the best version of themselves that they could be. And by doing that, and then by living into that, the company took off. They significantly increased their market share. They had their first $50 million year, the company really began to hit its metrics because he changed the values of the company to focus on its people.

Melinda Wittstock:

That is so important. We’re living in this time right now where not a day goes by where I don’t see some headline about the great resignation or these days quiet quitting, and what keeps your employees engaged. If your employees are not engaged, if they don’t love what they’re doing, they’re not going to be productive, not going to get the results that you want. It’s not going to be a happy place for them really or ultimately for you. It makes sense to really think about, from CEO, founder, management, executive level team perspective, is what’s your vision for how you want your team members to feel? What’s the result that you want them doing? What’s the best way to get that result?

In your mind, what are some of the biggest mistakes, at any stage of a company from startup where a lot of, particularly female entrepreneurs, can fail to hire early enough or have clarity of the result that they want from this person thinking of it as an expense rather than an investment, all the way through to when you’re saying rapid scaling or you’re trying to get, you’re much further along and it’s really about getting more productivity or better innovation or any of these things. What are the biggest mistakes most people make along that trajectory in terms of their team, in terms of hiring, in terms of managing?

Janine Hamner Holman:

I think one of the biggest mistakes that companies make is focusing so with such laser attention on their outputs, on their metrics. Is my EBITDA what I need and want it to be? Am I beating the competition in these kinds of ways? Are we expanding market share? And not enough on, how are we connecting to our people? What is the experience of our people here inside this organization? Because as you were just saying, if we’ve got people who love what they do, if everybody has the perspective of the janitor who’s having his floors shine that so that his patients heal faster, then what you’re going to get is higher customer retention because the experience of your consumer working with your people is that your people love what they’re doing and so they are excited to purchase this brand.

One of the things, I was talking with somebody, I was talking actually with two different people yesterday, both of whom I realized were stuck in 20th century leadership. And our opportunity is to be thinking about 21st century leadership and maybe even 22nd century leadership. Because the reality is that the demands of leadership today are very different than they were when I was coming up in the world of work. When I was coming up in the world of work, you just put your head down, you did a good job, shut up, took whatever the boss doled out and went home and cried in your hog and dosser in your pinot. But that was the reality of how work was sometimes. And today, the reason that people are talking about the great resignation and quiet quitting is because the millennials and the Gen Zs who are coming after them, and let’s be clear, the oldest millennials are now 41 years old, so these are not kids anymore.

And they’ve grown up in a very different time with a very different set of parameters, such that when they think about what they want from a job, this idea of having a boss who cares about them and cares about their development, having a workplace where they’re excited to go every day, having colleagues who trust them, having what’s often called psychological safety at work, they demand that. And if they’re not getting it, they will leave. And in two and a half years, 75% of our workforce will be millennials and Gen Zs. So if we haven’t started paying attention to these things that they are demanding, we are going to be in a heap of trouble. And this great resignation, it’s being called that because for the last 20 years on average, two and a half million people in the United States have quit their jobs voluntarily.

And Melinda, these aren’t people who retired, these are not people who got laid off or fired. These are people who voluntarily quit their jobs. Now since March of 2021, so for a year and a half, we are sustained at four million people a month. And some months it’s been as high as four and a half million. So we are almost double what has been the national average for the last 20 years. And this is the end product of these folks when they don’t have the kind of work environment where they feel inspired, where they feel excited, where they personally connect to the mission, vision, values of the organization, they will leave. And so a lot of companies, they say, well, our mission is to provide great shoes. Our mission is to help people manage their money effectively. Our mission is to whatever. But that’s not going to keep an employee excited about coming to work.

And so really digging in to that mission, vision and values and doing some of it with your team members, and even if your team members is one other person or it’s all you, you’re a solopreneur, getting really clear about what that is that you’re up to will enroll other people in your mission. I am on a mission to have the world of work be one in which everyone can thrive. And so when I say that, there’s a whole group of people who get excited about what I’m up to. And so when we get really clear about whether it’s just me or whether it’s my company, or whether it’s the world, or whether it’s anybody else’s company, organization, nonprofit, when we get clear on what it is that we’re up to and state it in a way that is enrolling and engaging, I actually think that that’s the first thing. It’s the reason that it’s the first of my principles of conscious leadership. But I think it’s the first thing that any organization should set out to do is to get really clear on those things.

Melinda Wittstock:

Janine, I think this is a tremendous opportunity for female founders and female CEOs and executives, because I think just naturally we have a lot of these inclinations, we really lean into, I would say our archetypal feminine power, because it’s a real power to be able to develop relationship, to have empathy, to be able to leverage our intuition and inspiration and be in that realm and not just the masculine running on a task, treadmill, hustle, all that stuff, right? So given the fact that the whole business universe is really shifting in this direction, it’s happening anyway. Do you think women are, I don’t know. Well-

Janine Hamner Holman:

Ideally positioned.

Melinda Wittstock:

Ideally, yes. Because I believe we’re ideally positioned, if we just step into, it’s right there, it’s right in front of our noses.

Janine Hamner Holman:

I absolutely believe that as well. It’s so interesting that this is coming up in this conversation. I was at a workshop led by a brilliant young woman named Julie Dean, and she’s actually a voice instructor. She’s a professional singer, and she’s gotten very interested in the heart, mind, body, voice connection. And one of the things that I was talking about in this workshop, and she was doing this workshop both for people who are professional singers and also people who are professional speakers, keynote speakers, which is why I was there. One of the things that I said is that I have had this idea for a very long time that my voice is too low, my speaking voice is too low, my singing voice is also low.

And it was fascinating having that thought in my head, going through this workshop of all women, because one of the things that came out of it, is that one of our many, many opportunities at this moment in time as women is to be speaking powerfully to other women and to be speaking powerfully to men. There are a lot of men out there who are very interested in promoting leadership of women and who look around and realize the fact that 1% of the fortune 500 CEOs are women and 0.02% of those are people color. That looking for new voices is incredibly important today. And so as women who are often naturally wired more for the kinds of conscious leadership that I was talking about before, not that men aren’t wired that way, but women default into that direction.

Women absolutely have a leg up in being these kinds of leaders. And so whether you’re the janitor, whether you’re the CEO, whether you’re anywhere in between, whether you’re out there thinking about possibly starting a new business, and back to our friends, the millennials, 75% of millennials believe that at some point in their life they will have their own business, which is massively different from all the generations that went before them. I never had a plan to own my own business. Here I am almost six years later as a business owner, six years later having my own business for the last six years. And it was not part of my plan. I sort of fell into it as of often happens in life.

I believe that women leading with and leaning into our empathy, our joy of helping support other people, our communal perspective back in the day, there’s reason that there’s these distinctions of hunter gatherers and farmers and warriors and berry pickers, women were the ones who were in the village focused on how is everybody here doing? And the reality is, in 21st century leadership focusing on how are my people doing? How are my employees doing? How are my customers doing? Is what’s going to get you to the rate of return to the EBITDA, to the business metrics that you’re looking for. And so that internal community, personal focus that many women have as their default is part of what is going to set the world on fire.

Melinda Wittstock:

I couldn’t agree with you more. And so Janine, how did you get into this whole field? Tell me a little bit about your backstory and how you dominated conscious leadership and helping people with not only their executive leadership skills, but also team management and all of these things. What was your journey to get to where you are?

Janine Hamner Holman:

Like many people it was a completely non-linear one. My first plan was that I was going to be a lawyer, and then I had the opportunity to work at a couple of big law firms in New York City. And I thought, oh no, this is not what I want to do. I did a very small pivot and I went to work for non-profit organizations and I ended up being in non-profit leadership for almost 20 years. And through that work ended up leading a lot of change that was going on inside of the organizations. One organization completely shifted its mission, two organizations totally changed the way that they did their work. I ended up leading those change processes. And along the way, often I was either the head of development, which in the world of non-profit is fundraising, or I was the CEO or COO or executive director.

And so what that meant was that I was often training people and I got really curious and interested in how often people are not trained. And then in 2008 when the economy started taking another downturn, I thought, all right, do I want to continue doing this? And ended up actually taking some time off and got recruited by Waste Management, the world’s, world’s largest trash and recycling company, a Fortune 200 company. I went to work there for a little over eight years. And one of the things that was really fascinating to me was I came in with one set of job description items, and very quickly that list expanded such that I was managing a portfolio. By the time I left, I was managing a portfolio of over $30 million.

They never trained me on what it is that I was supposed to do. And really you’re going to give somebody a $30 million book of business and not tell them what’s expected and not teach them how to do it. But so often, and especially people who get promoted, you were a great line inspector and so now we’re going to promote you to be the foreman, but we’re not going to teach you how to manage other people. We’re just going to promote you and assume that you know how to manage other people. And the field of leadership is, it’s the reason that there’s 8 billion books on leadership, is because people don’t get trained in how to lead and how to manage. And so I got really interested in that.

And then was looking, in 2016, starting to think about leaving Waste Management and realized that this combination of things around conscious leadership, around emotional intelligence, around diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, which of course took a lot, became a big national focus two and a half years ago with the murder of George Floyd. All of these things that I focus on are key to setting us up for effective 21st century leadership. And so I really felt called at that point to start my own business. And so that’s what I’ve been up to now for the last almost six years.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s such an interesting trajectory. The non-linear aspect of what you’re talking about in terms of your career. Mine is very much similar. Right? It’s all kinds of skills and roundabouts. I don’t know, I get the sense that a lot of young women are really in a rush, don’t necessarily need, or they have to do it in a certain way or what they should do as opposed to going in their own direction. What would you recommend? I have women of all ages that listen to this podcast and all generations. I’ve just learned so much more sort of self-acceptance that it’s going to happen the way it’s going to happen, to really be focused on the why and the what and not what the how, and just be, I don’t know, it’s just much more of a flow state. But I certainly did not start out that way.

Janine Hamner Holman:

I think very few of us do.

Melinda Wittstock:

Entrepreneurship has made me much better, more conscious, more aware. Right? Because it just has. And so what kind of advice would you give to women in that sense? When you look backwards in your own life and you connect the dots and to someone who’s a little bit younger coming up that everyone has their own path.

Janine Hamner Holman:

I love exactly what you just said. Everyone has their own path, it’s so easy to say and so hard to do. And if I were in my 20s and 30s, this isn’t how I operated then. And when we can take a breath, when we can get focused on what my mission is in the world, and that mission can change and grow and evolve over the course of our lives. And so it’s kind of like having the long view, which honestly I think is easier when we are in our 40s and 50s than when we’re in our 20s and 30s. 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, I think it’s easier to have the long view. If I were talking to myself when I was in my 20s and 30s, I think ultimately I would say, it’s going to be okay and you are going to be okay. I remember when I hit 25 and I was living in New York City on the lower east side, which was a rough and tumble place back then. This was in the late 1980s.

I was living in a one bedroom apartment with two other people. And all of our furniture was hand me downs or cinder blocks and pieces of plywood as a bookcase. I remember having this like, this is not how a grownup lives, and 25 is a grownup age and I need to get my stuff together here. I look back on that and think, sweetie, that’s so sweet that you thought that. It was an important thing for me, because it lit a fire under me. And so I think even these times when we can be maybe a little hard on ourselves, definitely ease up, help that voice, help realize that the only thing that that voice in our heads is trying to do is keep us safe. I often will say to that voice in my head, thank you so much. I got it.

Because all of that voice is trying to do is keep me safe. And that voice says really unkind things. And so practicing kindness towards ourself and kindness versus niceness. Niceness is, I don’t want want to rock the boat, I want to make sure that everybody likes me, and so I’m willing to pretzel myself, give that up. But lean into niceness, which is really about, I’m willing to speak truth to power, I’m willing to stand up for those things that I care about and I’m willing to be kind to other people and kind to myself.

Melinda Wittstock:

The kindness to yourself is the biggest single thing. I would say beyond that, just gratitude for all the things that are going your way, large and small. Because the more your brain is focused on that, the more of the things that come into your life that you’ll be grateful for. Because the universe is, she likes that, she wants more of that. Rather than dwelling only on all the things that you know didn’t do well enough or the thing you forgot to say or that this or whatever. You just get more of that kind of chaos. This is so important. I wanted you to be able to share a little bit about your podcast because you’re a fellow podcaster. So tell us a little bit about that and what you’re doing there.

Janine Hamner Holman:

Great. I am. I started my podcast a little over a year ago, again with this idea that if my mission is to have the world of work be one in which everyone can thrive, obviously I’m not going to achieve this mission in my lifetime. That’s a big honking mission. And to get as close as I possibly can, I need to use all the tools within my toolbox and find some more. I got trained up a little bit and what it means to podcast and launched my podcast. It’s called The Cost of Not Paying Attention. And so we focus on all of the things that we are not paying attention to, usually in the world of work, but not exclusively. And what the cost is to us of those things that maybe consciously or maybe unconsciously we’re not paying attention to. I’d love it if you come and check us out.

Melinda Wittstock:

And of course it is one of many podcasts that we have millions of podcasts, in fact that we have on Podopolo, my company. So join there and check it out. And then what’s the best way to find you, to work with you, Janine? Because I think there’s so many people that really need the training in so much of what you’re doing. How do you work with your clients? Who are your clients? What’s the best way to become one if it calls?

Janine Hamner Holman:

The best way to reach me is either through LinkedIn, I’m the only Janine Hamner Holman there, or just to shoot me an email. I am Janine@jandjcg.com. So and written out, jandjcg. My clients are, usually I come in either through the CEO or somebody else in the C-suite or human resources. And often I am hired to do the county of San Diego, which I just love this. The county of San Diego has a leadership academy for anyone who has been in a position of leadership for less than five years. They do it every two years. It’s an eight week academy. It is looking at everything about leadership from soup to nuts. And I was their keynote speaker back in May and now they’ve hired me back a couple of other times to do both speaking and consulting with different parts of the county.

So sometimes I come in to do a keynote speech and then we end up working together. Sometimes people hear me and they’re like, oh my gosh, we need some of that. And sometimes it’s people who are interested in getting their organization up leveled. And so I work with organizations from little organizations. I’m working with real estate company that has seven employees all the way up to the county of San Diego and some big trash companies, because obviously I know one or two things about that world, and municipal governments and the Port of Los Angeles. All kinds of different businesses. And so if you’re realizing we’re having some challenges finding and retaining the best talent, or we keep hearing about this diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging thing and we just don’t know what we’re supposed to do about it or our people keep talking about emotional intelligence.

I’m going to be working with a police force up in Northern California and they want to train their whole police force on emotional intelligence. People come into my work from lots of different doors. I have two different websites, jandjcg.com and janinehamner.com. The Janine Hamner one is really my speaker website, but they both tell you a lot about me and feel free to check out either one of those and get in touch with me that way as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

Fantastic. Well, Janine, I enjoyed our conversation. Thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Janine Hamner Holman:

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Melinda, for having me. It’s truly been a joy.