Transcript: Happy Healthy Wealthy and Wise with Jill Wright

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Helen Thompson: Earlier this year, I put together an episode of First Time Mum’s Chat titled, How to Tap Into Your Intuition and Follow Your Inner Voice, with Jill Wright, a mindset mentor, time management guru, podcast host, and an alignment coach for mums. I’ve recently heard from Jill who excitedly told me that she’s just finished writing a book, Happy Healthy Wealthy and Wise, which launches this week, which is the culmination of 20 years of work.

I was honoured to have the opportunity of previewing Jill’s book, which is geared towards anyone who wants to create a better life for themselves and is willing to do some work to get there. It is a collection of the most impactful and inspiring quotes, ideas, practices, habits, tactics and strategies that Jill has come across in the past two decades and is intended to support people in improving their lives in any area where they need a bit of a boost.

You’ll hear Jill talk about her book, her motivations for writing it and her exciting journey getting there.

And so, so, so much more.

Hi Jill, and welcome to First Time Mum’s Chat. Congratulations on completing Happy Healthy Wealthy and Wise. You must be excited with the coming launch later this week. Can you start by sharing with my audience about your background and how the book project evolved?

Jill Wright: Yeah, thank you so much I’m glad that you liked it. I’ll tell you a little bit about me first and then how I got started with the book. I am a mom of 2, and when I first decided not to go back to work after the birth of my second child, I started a business and it was in the midst of the pandemic and when everything was getting really tough, and I was trying to open a retail thrift store. So, it was like one thing after another that was hard that fell out of my control. The daycares were closed, there was no care, there was no help for the kids and I started to just have a lot of overwhelm from all of the external circumstances that I couldn’t control.

I really wanted to dive into how I could control my own mindset and my own actions because that’s the only thing I felt I had control of and I did a deep dive into personal development and that’s sort of how the book came to be. In the meantime, I also started working as a podcaster and a motivational speaker and coach time management and intuition and, so all of that kind of came to be in the form of this book. It was a document I actually started it in my early twenties.

I’ve been into personal development a long time and it was meant to just be little reminders for myself of what to do when I was having a hard day or little things, tips of wisdom that I thought, Oh, that resonated with me, I want to remember that and so I kept a little log of these things and over the years, especially during that time in 2020, 2021, 2022, it got really big, this document as I continued to learn. I just said, this can help so many other people other than just me, having it sit on my computer. So yeah, I did the work of turning it into a book.

Helen Thompson: I think that also helps mums too, because as you say, you’re overwhelmed and you’re frustrated and you know you need that bit of personal development. Sometimes you don’t know where to go. You don’t know what to do. So your book’s called Happy, Healthy, Wealthy and Wise?

Jill Wright: Yes.

Helen Thompson: That’s a great name.

Jill Wright: Thank you. I felt as I was trying to get organized with all of these, these pieces of information that I had for myself, these 4 sort of themes or pillars appeared really easily and I was able to put things into one of these 4 categories and it really just felt like all the things I wanted life to be, all the things I wanted out of my life. I think we all do.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, absolutely. What are those 4 pillars?

Jill Wright: Well, there’s so many different things, but the way that I’m framing the book, the first pillar that you go through is happy and happy is really to me about finding your own joy and not defining happiness on someone else’s terms or comparing to anybody else’s version of happy. It’s really digging in and understanding for your own self what that is.

The healthy portion of the book is less about physically being a certain way or achieving a certain type of health, it’s more about overall feeling good in your body, feeling good in your mind, I talk a lot about mental health in the health section.

Wealthy, it worked because it rhymed in the title, and I sort of define wealthy as abundant. So with that umbrella I’m able to really dive into how we can create the things that we want in our world and how we can feel gratitude and feel abundant in many areas financially, but also within our careers, within our families, within our friendships. There’s so many areas of our life that we can feel abundant and really how to focus on that.

Then the last pillar wise is the pieces of wisdom that I’ve collected that have really helped me level up my mindset and understand the world in different ways than I had previously. The little tidbits that changed my perspective and I love to share those because they made such a big difference for me. As I coach and teach my students, I also see those little aha moments going on for them with many of these concepts in the wise chapter. So it’s pretty cool.

Helen Thompson: I like that. I like what you say about healthy because, people think of healthy as dietary and eating well, which it is, but it’s also healthy inside of yourself and healthy in how you feel about yourself and I think that comes into the wealth as well. You’re wealthy if you love yourself and love who you are and work out that abundance through that. Also, from memory, you mentioned in your book that time is something you find, time is something you make. Can you tell me your thoughts on that?

Jill Wright: Yes, I hear so often moms, especially we’re so busy, there are so many things that are obligations, responsibilities, whether like self induced or culturally induced or just responsibilities we have, we’re busy. The response I get often when moms are first hearing about the work I’m doing, they’re like, yeah, but I can’t find the time to do it and my response is always, you don’t need to find time, it’s not hiding, it’s there. You just need to make the time. You need to rearrange your perception of how you’re spending your time first by understanding where it’s going because so many of us feel like it’s out of our control. The day flies by or it drags on, one of the two, but we don’t really feel like we’re at the driver’s wheel of life and so time feels like it’s just lost to us. So if we can understand where it’s going, first off, see what is actually in real life happening with our time, then we can start to make more conscious decisions on what do we want to spend our time on? It’s a bit of a journey, but it does become very enlightening to understand and to see the results in your life when you start to shift into spending time and making time, creating the time to do the things that you want to do.

Helen Thompson: Yeah and did you put in an affirmation, I’ve put here I have more than enough time to do everything I want to do.

Jill Wright: That’s one I use every single day and it started just with that. Affirmations are something that has been hugely transformational for my own mindset. Cause your subconscious listens and whatever you tell it, it believes, right? So even if you have to fake it a little bit in the beginning, that’s where I started. I didn’t feel like I had enough time, but I said, you know what, I’m going to work on this affirmation. I have more than enough time to do everything I want to do and repeating that to myself every day as part of my commute to work, I have this little process I go through with myself and I added on to that as the months went on because I found that it was working and I said, I have more than enough energy to do all of the things that I want to do. Then it turned into I have more than enough resources to do all the things I want to do. There’s 3 or 4 more that I throw in there and it just gets your brain thinking without you even needing to do any of the work because it’s your subconscious mind doing it, but it gets your brain thinking of okay, she has more than enough time, how can I prove that to her.

You activate your reticular activating system in your brain and it’s going to look for what you’re telling it is true, to bring you examples in your life. So if you start with an affirmation like I have more than enough time to do everything I want to do, you have to also pair that with just sort of being aware as you go through your day of little pockets of time as they appear. Maybe you’re standing in line for a coffee and the person in front of you decides who knows why, but they walk out and then you’re one step further. Well, that might’ve saved you 2 or 3 minutes, right? That’s time. It all adds up throughout the day, but you have to look for it.

Helen Thompson: I think that’s very true. I think a lot of people don’t think of it like that. They think of time as just something that flies by, but they don’t think of how to make their own time. I think it’s also making time to laugh and time to communicate with yourself as well as other people, but to communicate with yourself and find out where you’re going and being able to laugh as well. A good belly laugh I find is so therapeutic.

Jill Wright: Yeah, there’s nothing better, right and we forget about that because we’re so busy in the day to day and all of the gunk and all of the heavy stuff that is present when you’re dealing with raising babies. There’s a lot going on. Quote unquote, you don’t have the time because you don’t make the time to focus on the smaller things that can bring you joy and that laughter can give you a big release. It’s really wonderful.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, I always like to mention this with laughter. Have you ever heard of the movie Patch Adams?

Jill Wright: Yeah.

Helen Thompson: Robin Williams, the doctor in Patch Adams, he always used to make the patients laugh. He used to find out what the patients wanted and encouraged them to laugh, to be able to release all the tension, especially with the guy with cancer and he was a grump and he went in there and did everything he could and eventually he made him laugh. I just love that movie. As you were mentioning there, making you laugh and having that belly full, I think it’s so good for moms, for babies, for kids and being with good friends. It’s just such a good thing to just release all that and just laugh. Sometimes I laugh and I cry because you’re just laughing so much that you release emotions through tears as well.

Jill Wright: That’s right and for me, I know that when I have a good cry, it’s such a therapeutic kind of release. I came across a statistic that said laughter gives you five times the release that crying does and I thought to myself, well, laughter is way more fun than crying and if it does a better job of calming my nervous system, that seems like the better way to go, doesn’t it?

Helen Thompson: Yeah, absolutely. So I’m sure there’s stacks of topics in your book that we haven’t actually mentioned.

Jill Wright: Well, I think that the nice thing about the book is that it’s structured in a kind of unique way. So I like to talk about that when I’m talking about the book, because the original intention is a page a day calendar. That’s what I wanted this book to be. Instead of a paperback, I want it to be like a page a day, you know, you stick it on your mirror, you look at it, one that stuck with you and most of them go in the garbage, but every day you have a fresh sort of thought.

Then I thought to myself, well no, these are so valuable, I don’t want them to be thrown away, I want people to have them. So how can I have that experience in a more permanent kind of way? So what I came up with was this paperback that’s more of like a guidebook. So the intention isn’t to read it from cover to cover. The intention is really just to keep it on your bedside table or your coffee table and living room by your desk. Whenever you want like a pick me up or a boost of inspiration or you’re feeling like you could just use a little bit of motivation maybe, you can flip it open to any page and there’s a lot of white space, easy to digest, one page is all you need at a time and the idea is it can be kind of a companion to go through your life. If you want to focus on one of the four, you know, happy, healthy, wealthy or wise, you can do that, but to have it as a resource is really the intention. So I always like to put that caveat in because it’s not a traditional kind of self help book.

I find that it’s interesting also because most of the work that I do, as you know, is mom centric, my podcast, Grow Like a Mother. All of my coaching has been mom focused and this book isn’t specifically, which might feel like a bit of a derail almost. I find that the information is just as relevant to me as a career woman as it is to my role as a new mom, as it would be to my cousin who’s graduating high school and starting on a new challenge in the world. So no matter what stage of life you’re in, this can act as a resource which I find to be such a broad kind of audience. So it’s definitely super helpful for moms because we are in the thick of this and we need this information all day as reminders, right?

Helen Thompson: It’s an inspirational thing for mums to be able to just pick up and glance at when they need to, if they’re feeling down or if they’re having a tough day, they can just pick up this and think, oh, this is what another mum’s going through, this is what another mum’s gone through, this is the affirmation I can use or I can adapt it to what I want.

Jill Wright: Yeah, exactly and we don’t have an hour or two to sit down and read a book, as mamas, not usually right. I slept when my baby slept, and I took every minute I could to do something for somebody else. So I wouldn’t have had time to get through a book, even if I had wanted to, whereas if you’re breastfeeding and you have the book right beside you, it’s easy enough to pick up or if it’s a really tough moment, you have a resource to go to. Cause I know when I’m in like fight or flight mode, my nervous system is all whacked and I’m overwhelmed and I can’t remember the things that are good for me to do.

I can’t remember what I’m supposed to do to calm myself down. So to have a little resource handy, flip open a page and have a lifeline, it’s really cool and not every tip and trick and piece of wisdom or affirmation is going to resonate with each person, but the trick is to find those ones that do and really work them into your routine so that they become second nature and you’ll start to find that you don’t have to think about them anymore. The goal, I guess, would be, you’ll eventually stop reaching for the book and it’ll all be just integrated and embodied in you and yourself, and you’ll be able to get through your days with a little bit more ease.

Helen Thompson: I love that, I think that’s so good because it’s such a good resource for mums. I’m just reading some notes that I took. There was a bit you said here, I loved what you said about imagining a big red traffic light, that immediately resonated with me. I’m just reading this, it is a great way to put a stop to those negative thoughts so you do not get consumed. So what’s that about?

Jill Wright: So, this came from my mom’s therapist when she was deep in the throes of anxiety. One of the things that the therapist told her, if you can notice that you’re going down a negative thought pattern, or you’re starting to get anxious about something or worried or whatever negative emotion that you’re trying to avoid maybe and try to not have as often in your life, for her it was anxiety.

So what you do is if you can notice it right away, she used to put her hand up right in front of her face, like stop, because it was such a visual, it sort of snapped her out of her state and made her mind to think about something else. Science has shown that all it takes is 5 seconds to break the patterning in your brain for a habit.

So if you’re someone who gets worried and stressed out, like, maybe the baby’s not falling asleep or maybe you’re trying to start feeding, and it’s really difficult, and it’s struggle, and you’re doing the baby led weaning, and you’re scared, all the things, right? If you can catch yourself going down this path of negative thinking, or of anxiety, or of stress, and just imagine a big red stop sign, or a red traffic light popping up in front of your face. Or if you’re by yourself and you don’t care if you look silly, put your hand up in front of your face and just for five seconds, if you can take your mind off of that stressor that you were about to indulge yourself in, you start to slowly lessen the strength of that neural pathway.

So what happens is over time, if you can take those five second breaks, especially if you catch it early, the pattern eventually dissipates. You get control. It’s mind over matter, and it’s just in those quick five seconds and something we have control over if we’re paying attention.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, I think I’m going to try that one, because if you think of that red light, or even putting your hand in front of your face, it does make you think, oh, what am I thinking about? We go into autopilot sometimes as mums and I think what you’ve just said is so relevant when it comes to mums, particularly when they’re so overwhelmed.

I think it sounds a wonderful book. Is there any tips that you’d give to a mom who is going through anxiety or needs these affirmations?

Jill Wright: Yeah, for sure. Well, first off, thank you for the opportunity to talk about the book and share it. Thinking back to when I was a first time mom and going through some postpartum depression, and even if you’re not, the things I wish I could tell myself, which I hope that somebody needs to hear this today, would be ask for help, trust yourself, and don’t take everything so seriously.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, don’t take everything so seriously. I think it’s a very good one.

Jill Wright: It’s so hard, everything feels so serious and so big and it’s new and you want to do it right and you don’t want to screw it up and it feels like the weight of the world is on you. When you look back in six months or a year, some of the things that you’re worried about, you’re not going to remember.

Helen Thompson: So if somebody wanted to find your book how do they go about doing that?

Jill Wright: Yeah, so I’m on Instagram and Facebook. The handle is Grow Like a Mother, for both, and that’s also the name of my podcast. So there’s lots of episodes there to dive into on all kinds of different topics specific for moms. The book is available sort of everywhere books are sold, on Amazon, in all countries and versions of Amazon. You can also get it through my website, which is JillWright.ca.

Helen Thompson: Thank you, Jill, for being here, I really appreciate it and thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.

Jill Wright: Thank you so much. It’s been my pleasure.

Helen Thompson: I hope you find hearing about Jill’s new book and the four pillars she refers to as fascinating as I did. I highly recommend getting Happy Healthy Wealthy and Wise, which is available from Amazon worldwide from this Sunday, November 26th. I’ve included a link in the show notes to the book on Amazon and I’ve also included links to Jill’s website, social media and the earlier podcast episode we did together.

These can be found in the show notes at MyBabyMassage.net/podcast/147. I share each episode on the First Time Mum’s Chat Instagram page and you’ll hear me chatting live with folks I’ve interviewed from time to time. Please support me by following me and I look forward to meeting you during one of my lives.

Next week I’ll be talking with mum, Jessica Dawson, about her first book, Pospartum: The Expectations and Reality of the Fourth Trimester, which was written to create an invaluable resource for everyone embarking on the adventure of motherhood. Be sure to listen to this episode when it comes out and please subscribe to First Time Mum’s Chat via your favorite platform so that you get quick and easy access to all our episodes when they are live.