174 Jennifer Love: Soaring To Success in Flow

Jennifer Love’s mission as CEO of One More Woman is to help women entrepreneurs scale their businesses beyond $1mm+ with healthy profits – and she shares how to get into inspired flow.  A Shark Tank conquering, 5X serial entrepreneur who built the chocolate wholesaler NibMor, Jennifer shares why success doesn’t have to be hard.

Melinda Wittstock:         Jennifer, welcome to Wings.

Jennifer Love:                   Thanks for having me, Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:         I am so excited to talk to you, of course. Always want to start these Minisodes with what the big inspiration is in your life right now.

Jennifer Love:                   You know, one of the things that I’m really inspired by right now is nature and birds. That might sound like a little like, what? I’m finding so many lessons from birds right now. I recently moved from New York City to Santa Barbara, which is if anyone’s been to Santa Barbara it’s a very magical place. I live up on this beautiful mountain overlooking the ocean, which is incredibly expansive, and I’m finding that nature has so many lessons. Birds, parakeets, hawks, hummingbirds, owls, they seem to be showing me a lot of things lately. There’s so much inspiration that I think we often overlook because we get so busy, busy, busy in our lives and nature, birds, all kinds of animals, have an amazing gift and ability to show us so many things if we just stop and pay attention for a moment. [crosstalk 00:01:24]

Melinda Wittstock:         Gosh, it’s so appropriate you should be on a podcast called Wings.

Jennifer Love:                   Right?

Melinda Wittstock:         I mean, but I love what you’re saying because when we stop and just breathe and observe it means that we’re actually in the moment. That’s where all power is, is like right now.

Jennifer Love:                   I was watching, I’ll give you a short story of this specific lesson I learned. This was maybe two months ago. I took a power pause, power pause being I went outside here at my property. Just soaking up the sun, breathing deeply, a little bit of like a meditative moment for myself in the middle of the day. There was this hawk that was in the canyon and it was just being held by the wind. It was allowing the sun and myself and just all of the nature that was surrounding it to just support it, to just hold it there in this wind as it was floating. Then it got the clarity that it wanted on this thing that it wanted to go after and then all of the sudden you see this hawk swoop down. With such grace and such ease it picked up this, I don’t know what it was, some kind of a rat or some kind of a small prey, right? Then just so gracefully take off.

I was like that is really how it’s meant to be in business, in our lives, to allow ourselves to be held by, and supported by, all that is around us. That the Universe has our back if we allow it. To get the clarity that that one thing that we really want, to allow ourselves to be deeply supported by those around us, the environment around us by the Universe, to then gracefully with what looked like ease even though it was preparation, even though it had the clarity, it knew, it was ready to go. It looked effortless when it took off. I was like that is it. Thank you. Thank you, hawk, thank you Universe, for that mini lesson on my power pause break for showing me that it really can be that easy.

Melinda Wittstock:         To look at you with all that you’ve achieved, you know, from Shark Tank, hundred million that you’ve raised, all the amazing things, just looking at the success of One More Woman it would be hard from the outside looking in to look at you and think you have any challenges. But of course, all entrepreneurs have challenges, right? Like we all do at all different parts of this journey. One of my missions is to de-stigmatize that a little bit for women and give them permission that it’s okay not to be perfect. That we have these challenges all through the journey. What are some of yours right now?

Jennifer Love:                   Well you know, I think one of mine still right now is that, you know, you look at my bio and all that I have achieved. It looks impressive. I read it or I say it out loud and I’m at this place now where I kind of laugh. I’ll turn to an audience and I’ll say, “That sounds really impressive doesn’t it? I’m exhausted, are you exhausted? I’m exhausted just reading it. Just saying that out loud.” I’ll turn to them and I’ll say, “You know, so much of that was driven by my own ‘not enoughness’ story. My own in order to be of value in this world I had to go do, do, do. I’m in the process, and have been, for several years now of unwiring that from my brain …”, which I’d love to talk to you about today, “… and reframing it so that I can step into a place of it doesn’t have to be this struggle. It doesn’t have to be so hard and painful. That we can design our business around our life affording us the ability to have more freedom and more joy. We don’t have to feel like a slave to our business.”

The challenge for me, now, is to continue that process of allowing that to happen, which, you know, going back to the lesson of the bird. It was such a great demonstration of that for me. It’s kind of this slow burn and churn of really integrating what I intellectually know and am reframing to integrate into all the areas of my life to really step into that fully and completely embody that in every way. That, I’ll be honest is still the challenge for me right now. Coming, you know, leaving New York City and the buzz, buzz, buzz of go, go, go and the reinforcement of this very success driven and what does success really mean, society that we live in. That it’s almost fashionable to be working crazy hours, 16, you know, hour days. It’s not healthy, it’s not sustainable, and it doesn’t need to be like that.

I’m wiring that for my own self to step into a place of grace and ease as I continue to build more and more women in a very, very different kind of a way.

Melinda Wittstock:         I love that. It’s so, there’s so many echoes in my own journey, as well. As a serial entrepreneur, as an ex-New Yorker, as a strive, strive, strive. I remember there was this one day when my daughter just said to me, actually, she wrote it down on a piece of paper. She just said, “Mom, you are enough.” I swear to God I burst into tears, you know? I think it’s just wonderful to come to this understanding of how, I mean, I saw some people call it flow state. It’s a wonderful place once you get to that point where you allow yourself to just be in the moment and see yourself as being enough.

Looking back over all the triumphs and I’m sure challenges along the path, what would be your top three go to pieces of advice for women in business and entrepreneurs wherever they are in their journey?

Jennifer Love:                   You know, I think one of the greatest ones is grit and DIY-ing it is great at a certain early stage in your business. In order to really step into your zone of genius, in order to really step into the ability to grow and scale your business effectively, you’ve got to step out of DIY. You’ve got to get support. I love this quote that, and I’m going to change it to woman instead of man. It goes something like the smart woman makes a mistake, learns from it and never makes the mistake again. But the wise woman learns from the smart woman and never makes the mistake in the first place.

Melinda Wittstock:         I love that. This is exactly the reason for Wings is that we can all, if together, we can lift each other up. Like if we fly together, sticking with the bird theme, if we fly together we can all soar higher.

Jennifer Love:                   That’s right. Getting the support that we need, and so many, I think so many of us, and I know back in the day I had that mentality I can do it myself. So many women specifically have the mentality of I can take it on, I can do, do, do and I have to care for everyone else rather than caring for myself. Then make everything outside of them a priority over themselves. We’re all guilty of this, we just are. The moment that we really begin to make ourselves a priority and say I really want to step into and fully own my genius in the world. If you put your energy, 80, 90 plus % on that not only do you feel more joy and more ease and it’s more fun, but you’re actually better. Then your business begins to really thrive and you fill in the gaps of the other areas by getting the support you need whether that’s team, abundance partnerships, advisors, whatever that looks like for you based on what you need, or mentorship, right? Then you really begin to step into a much more powerful place.

I’ll give you an example, if we have a little time, I’ll give you an example of this from last year. One More Woman is still in its early stages, we’re technically three years in, and last year I had the opportunity to have sponsorship from one of the largest financial institutions in the world. I found myself sitting in San Francisco the night before the meeting and I was fully prepared in terms of a deck, the research that I had done on this company, even who I was going to be meeting with. I had even looked at her Instagram account and I knew that she was either in the middle of decorating her home, or buying a new home so I knew some of the stuff that was going on for her.

I was like ready on all merits of preparation and yet I had that feeling of oh my gosh, we’re still so early stage. Are they really going to want to do this deal with us? Sure we’ve had some early success with our reach and yet, that self doubt was starting to creep in. I thought, do I really want to sit with this or do I want to do something about this? It’s not that no matter how far you come in your evolution of business and your evolution of personal and spiritual growth, these things are going to come up and they do for all of us. This is the thing that we just don’t talk about enough, which Melinda, I so appreciate you doing this and exposing these things. I sat there and I said no, I’m going to reach out to my inner circle, including my advisors. I sent a text out to seven people in my inner circle. I said, “I’m at this crossroads right now and I’m in need of words of wisdom and good ju ju.” I outlined what was happening for me.

Scenario one is like I go in and I nail this. Scenario two is like I wow my doubts and this stuff that’s coming up for me is kind of overtaking me and who knows what’s going to happen. Within minutes of me sending this text out my advisors, my abundance partner and all these people in my inner network started firing off all of these things. “Jennifer, you’ve done this before and you’ve landed huge deals. You’ve got this. Go in and be yourself.” La, la, la, la, la. The next day I walked in there, Melinda, and nailed it. Instead of feeling alone, I felt energetically the seven people were on both sides of me. I carried, I walked in the door kind of carrying them with me energetically and sat down in that meeting and landed the deal, ultimately. It was a six figure sponsorship deal for One More Woman. The woman that I ended up meeting with said it was the best meeting she’d ever had about sponsorship and she felt like it was the best fit from any conversation she had ever had.

Now, I don’t know if I had not taken the time to really reach out for the support that I needed if that would have happened. This is to me just a great example of it doesn’t matter where we are in the evolution of our personal development or our business. I mean, I’m a serial entrepreneur 20 years in the making, right? I have five businesses under my belt at this point. Yet, I was sitting there experiencing that. That’s the difference, we get to decide in that moment am I going to ask for the support that I need or am I not? Coming back to the words of wisdom, number one you’ve got to ask for support. You’ve got to get the support you need. You’ve got to stop DIY-ing it.

Melinda Wittstock:         Absolutely we do. Often women take so long, or don’t do it at all, or we don’t surround ourselves with enough supportive people who have our back. Really, ask for help. Surround yourself, learn from a successful person. What would be your third piece of advice?

Jennifer Love:                   You know, I wouldn’t have said this years ago, but I think one of the greatest things that we can do as entrepreneurs is give ourselves the opportunity to really go deep with personal development. By that I mean, and that can look different from person-to-person, right? That can be a meditation practice. That can be some kind of a religious practice. That can be power pauses, as I call them, that can be going and doing things like Landmark or whatever it is that’s important for you to evolve. If you allow it, entrepreneurship can become an accelerator to the evolution of you.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah, we joke on this podcast, and God knows my listeners have heard this so many times that, you know, if you want good therapy become an entrepreneur.

Jennifer Love:                   Yes, exactly. Giving yourself the spaciousness to digest and reflect. I think actually I’ve been in the process of building out what I call the entrepreneurs job description. A huge part of that job description is giving yourself the spaciousness to digest and reflect upon what’s going on for yourself as a leader, and for you personally. It all comes back to affecting your business. That would be another part of, you know, my advice is deeply invest in you, in your own growth.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yes, absolutely. Jennifer how can people find you, work with you, help your mission?

Jennifer Love:                   You know, there’s two main ways. One of the things that I’m on a mission to do is really help to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. I do that through this process I call rewrite your money story. Anyone who has a group of people that you want me to come and share this process with and deeply support them and helping them understand what’s actually happening, get them on track for what I call the millionaire mindset, reach out to me and I’m happy to come do a workshop, a talk, a round table, whatever it is to share this process so that more and more and more women can step into their confidence. Can step into how their brains are currently being wired and reframe, rewire them.

The second thing I say is, you know, if you’re looking for deep support on getting to a million dollars and beyond in your business, our programming with our money mavens or money masters program might just be the right fit for you. Reach out for what I call a millionaire strategy session. We’re going to help you have a breakthrough in that call and whether it’s the right fit for joining our programming or not, the goal is to help you have a breakthrough so that you understand what’s going on in your business and what you need to do in order to evolve it to the next financial level.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh that’s great. It’s so interesting how so much of us is really in our minds, right? We can clear all of those limiting beliefs and have that good relationship with money and moreover, a good relationship with ourselves. Miracles happen when we’re able to do that.

I want to thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Jennifer Love:                   Oh, I love that. Yes, we put on our wings, we’re talking about birds, it’s all good. I loved being here.