Season 1 -Episode #2
Guest: Jamie Hanley
Transcription (*created by Descript and may not be perfectly accurate)[00:00:00]

Shannon: From makeup industry, marketing to yoga instructor and studio, owner to mental health therapist, author and podcaster. We will be chatting with Jamie Hanley. Let's dive in.

are you at a crossroads in your career or in life? Well, don't worry because life's next chapter is waiting. This is the second act success podcast. I am your host Shannon Russell.

I'm a television producer turned boy mom turned business owner podcaster and career coach. If you are looking to start a new career, or begin a fresh chapter in life, then get ready to be inspired with stories of women who have done just that. We will share advice and offer steps. You can take to help figure out what your true calling in life really is.

It is time to shine. So let's turn the page and get started.

Welcome to second act success.[00:01:00]

Welcome to the podcast. My friend, I am so happy you're here with us. Today we are going to chat with Jamie Hanley. Jamie has many acts in her story and every one of them is fascinating. Jamie is an entrepreneur. She started her career working in marketing, in the makeup industry for brands like Sephora. She then found a love for yoga and began teaching and even opened her own yoga studio. Now she is a mental health therapist and shares her brilliance through the Spiritual Counselor Podcast and her book, the Anxious Goddess Workbook.

Let's meet Jamie Hanley as she shares her journey to Second Act Success.

Hi, Jamie. Welcome.

Jamie: Thank you so much for bestowing the honor of being your first guest on your very own podcast and congratulations to you, mama. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. And [00:02:00] yeah, we do go way back and we have been through quite the career transformations over the time that we've known each other, which is a as, also an honor to, to witness.

Shannon: You were, you were with me five and a half years ago when I opened Snapology. And here you are today on my very first podcast. So you've always been such a supportive friend. Thank you.

Jamie: You've just grown it to this beautiful community and employing lots of lovely people and creating a space for parents that feels safe. I just so appreciate, you know, you think of the business part and the parent part. That's what makes for a second act is that you can right?

Shannon: Absolutely. It's amazing what we can do when we put our minds to it, right? Let's kick it off with your journey, you graduate college and what did you think you were going to be doing with this life of yours?

Jamie: I went to college thinking I was going to be in broadcast journalism and I did all those courses. And then I had a minor in [00:03:00] business as well. And I had some cool internships. I worked at NBC. I worked at XM Satellite Radio. While I was at XM, I worked beneath Angelica Ross, who is the most incredible, amazing, inspiring woman.

She's like way up there. I want to say at ABC now she was amazing. So like I knew her back when, and she produced a show on XM where they had like this beauty segment. And so I would like help her produce that segment on the show, like she gave that to me as part of my internship. And I was like oh this is really cool.

Like, I could do like marketing or like broadcast journalism business. Like I kind of saw it all kind of coming together just with a topic I was interested in. And then I ended up working in a retail shop in the mall. It was like a makeup store.

When I left college, I was networking and got a [00:04:00] internship at Cosmopolitan Magazine. Which then landed me at a beauty PR firm, which was torture.

Shannon: Oh,

Jamie: You know, it's, it's not easy to live in New York City on 22,000 a year and work like 12 hour days

so I left there, moved home and. I lived with my parents and found a job at a local beauty company where I became the administrative assistant, to the CEO there. And she was amazing. Another amazing mentor, right? Angelica was such an amazing mentor. Kathleen was an amazing mentor and another woman that I worked with there Marie., and they just like threw projects at me.

And yeah, I had to do a lot of admin stuff and I got to work on like the marketing stuff and the sales stuff, and the product stuff, and be in product development meetings, I learned so much there. That was a really, really good experience.

Shannon: Right, like education like that, you maybe didn't get in New York.

Jamie: Exactly like you, you actually [00:05:00] like would go out to the warehouse and like, see where the products were and pick orders or take care of a customer service issue. Like I got a little bit of everything. F there, lovely women that they were, they heard about a administrative assistant to a senior vice president of marketing at Sephora in New York City.

Was moving up in the company and they were looking to fill her position and like, bless her heart. Kathleen was like, yeah, you should go for it. She was like, go and follow that. And like, don't let anything hold you back from where that takes you. So I did that and I.

Again, another amazing mentor, Betsy Olam, who was the senior vice president of marketing for Sephora oversaw, all the retail marketing, the website, everything and that was amazing. And I stayed there for over three years. And at the same time I met my husband and [00:06:00] I moved to Hoboken with him and we got engaged and, I started doing yoga at a studio in Hoboken, and, did a yoga teacher training there.

And I was thinking like maybe when I move back home and have kids and move away from the city, I'll want to get a yoga studio.

Maybe that'll be the business that I have when I decide to go that route. I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Like I would be late at night in college, like planning, like my own makeup line. Like I would write a whole business plan and come up with creative ideas and whatever, like just.

Shannon: I can believe it. Yeah, of course.

Jamie: And I bounce ideas off my roommate and she'd be like, oh, I would do the, like the design for this or whatever, you know, like we would just, it'd be fun. My brother's an entrepreneur, my father's an entrepreneur, my grandfather. So it's, it's like in our blood, it's just, I feel like we've grown up around that.

And I ended up with that in [00:07:00] mind.

Leaving Sephora for Lulu Lemon to be the marketing manager for their first store in New Jersey. It was very like community. Like you go out and you meet all the yoga studios in Bergen County and like everywhere you can find and rally people.

But truly it was quite a negative experience. The person that I worked for, was very, uh, fatphobic. You know, I offered up like, let's get this person to be the ambassador. Let's get this person to be the investor. They have a beautiful yoga studio. They're really lovely bubble.

Well, you know, we look for people to have a certain body type. And how many times have you made it to yoga this week? How many times did you go work out? It was very. toxic the whole thing.

So got out of that toxic situation after. Like six months or something. I was like, this is not okay for me. And my mental health, like I'm out of here. This was a long time ago. I [00:08:00] do think some things have improved since then, from what I can tell though, I don't shop there.

Shannon: Right. And it comes down to your morals at that point.

Maybe a positive thing that came out of that is that you were exposed to all these beautiful yoga studios and you were meeting people in the community. Like, did that play a part in your next decision?

Jamie: You bet it did Shannon. Thank you for helping me get around because I was really going down the rabbit hole of, I was like, yeah, that was really bad.

You're a hundred percent, right. It absolutely did because I had just graduated that teacher training and I was looking to get practiced teaching yoga.

So it, it did, it connected me with several yoga studios up in Northern New Jersey, where then I was able to teach and, get my feet wet in that.

I was like, I'm gonna look for a yoga studio space and start doing that. So I was looking for that while I was teaching up north, and then I found a studio space and renovated it.

Shannon: But how did you know where to start? [00:09:00] Coming from marketing, okay you knew how to promote it and get the word out there, but how was it that you just knew how to set this up and start as a business owner?

It's a big transition.

Jamie: I did work at the front desk and at the yoga studio in Hoboken for awhile. And I did a mentorship again, mentorship program with Liza Bertini, who was the owner of Devotion Yoga at the time. And she was my mentor. And so I was upfront and open with her.

Like I want to open a studio and she helped me. She looked over my business plan. I worked at the front desk and kind of saw how things ran and took it all in. And then once I was ready and once we found the space and it was ready, I was like, all right, thank you.

And so again, a really valuable mentor. This is the theme of our podcast, Shannon mentorship,

like think, I think It might be.

Shannon: Because, you felt the confidence, you felt like you got the education from that experience to go and start [00:10:00] it yourself. And you took that leap, which it was really scary because now you haven't been working in your more corporate job, your corporate career. So you're taking everything you have and just putting it into this new business. How did it go with launch when you first started, you opened the doors, what was that like?

Jamie: The launch was awesome. And in the beginning, you know, it took a while to build. Um, but people knew about us and there was a time when things were pretty busy and then yoga really exploded and it became so common. There was like a core community and it was a lovely space where we had, um, you know, like classes of like a dozen people, a few classes a day and a really wonderful, um, place. When I first started teaching, I also did some work teaching with a group called Kula for Karma, which went into like different mental health facilities and brought yoga into these facilities.

So I'd already experienced the intersection of mental health and yoga in that situation. [00:11:00] And then I opened my studio and people were like reaching out to me about yoga for different mental health addiction, fertility, anxiety, whatever, all sorts of things. And I was like, oh, this is really interesting.

Like, I like this. I like working specifically here and. from there went to, I'm going to go get a master's in mental health counseling.

While I had the studio while I was running yoga teacher trainings, while I was interning at community mental health facilities, working with eating disorders.

Shannon: Okay, wait. And weren't you pregnant around this time as well?

Jamie: I got pregnant right after I graduated and I was still volunteering at a local nonprofit as a counselor and doing yoga therapy at their place and running the studio. While I waited for my license and then. You have to do hours to get your full license. It's like the never ending process to [00:12:00] be licensed as a mental health professional. But it's worth it. It's well worth it.

But because I had two pregnancies within the process, it took me twice as long. So, you know, those people who aren't second acts and go all the way through with the things but that's not me. So here we are and it's all good.

Shannon: You also had your studio at the same time. So you had money coming in from that. So that gives you the opportunity to kind of take your time with, the other.

Jamie: So many people go to school and work and intern at the same time. And it's like crazy difficult to juggle all those things. But in health care, like that's kind of the situation that people get put in. So I was lucky that with the studio was a little bit less, like it was more automated at that point and my mom helped a lot with it.

Like it takes a village. It was a really nice community for her and her friends as well. , you know, like yoga for healthy aging and functional movement and, [00:13:00] and those kinds of things really strong awesome. And we would also have like yoga for cancer classes and yoga, restorative, yoga, yoga for anxiety. So like we were offering a whole bunch of Types of approaches.

Shannon: That's amazing for the community, just to be able to offer that.

Jamie: Yeah. I definitely am somebody who finds meaning in her work by helping others. That is an important value that I hold for sure.

Shannon: So what was next? How did you get from there to here?

Jamie: In order to get my license, I was working at a higher level of care facility and worked there through my second pregnancy with Ronan and we moved and then the week after my husband got laid S then I got to throw my, managing my own mental health as I'm pregnant and try and keep it [00:14:00] together, working at a mental health facility and taking care of the three-year-old. And running a yoga studio, pregnant it was like another, I mean, amazing. Thank God we survived and it was intense.

Shannon: Curve balls curve balls and

Jamie: Another pivot

Shannon: At least you kind of, you know, the skills more than other people of how to kind of calm yourself, center yourself, figure it out, right.

Jamie: Oh, my gosh. No, well, at that time, I didn't know. I, I did, I, I did. And at that time I had two really use them a lot and get help and, you know, go back to therapy and get the additional support that I needed because I was the angriest pregnant woman you've ever met. And your whole life. Yeah. So yeah. Well you probably weren't on the receiving end of any.

Shannon: Okay,

Jamie: Right.

Shannon: [00:15:00] Lucky for me.

Jamie: But I was, I was pretty irritable. Um, cause I was scared of what, you know, the uncertainty. As people who practice counseling and mindfulness, meditation, yoga, any kind of holistic grounding, censoring interventions, like there's a reason we teach them, we teach what we need. I teach what I need..

yeah.

Shannon: You do that well,, you really do.

Jamie: Thanks.

Shannon: but you have that calming presence that I think makes other people feel well. So you're doing it for yourself and for

everyone around you.

Jamie: That's co-regulation is a cool mental health nervous system thing. Um, so yeah, so I worked there in order to get the hours for my license. Within all of that chaos happening. And then I got my license and I was like, yes, now I can finally have this studio and the practice in the same space.

And so I built this itty-bitty closet inside my yoga studio. That was not an ideal setup at all. It was beautiful. People liked it. It was [00:16:00] like a tiny house therapy office. It was cozy. It was very cute. And it worked for the time being while I was building my practice. But like within a year I couldn't. Use the space anymore because I couldn't have clients coming when people were doing yoga. So I was like, okay, let me get another office nearby. So I go down the street and an office park and I decided to rent a four unit space and renovate it and rent it out to other therapists. And it's going to be amazing. And it was, it was amazing for the first we moved in April of 2019. So it was amazing for the first, like 10 months, 11 months, and then pandemic hit. And we all came home um, and it's starting to come back, but I would say like a quarter of my clients still want to be in person when they can be, but like three quarters of my clients are like, [00:17:00] Nope, this works for me. I'm happy to be here every week and do this work virtually and it works. You can just never know. I think the pandemic really, it drastically impacted the counseling industry in the incredible need for care. And then, the complete change in technology. I never thought I'd be able to work from home. And, oh my God. As a working mom to do laundry while you work is phenomenal.

Shannon: That really is. It's like, you're, you're able to help so many more people throughout this awful pandemic, but in a different way, able to just balance so much more from the comfort of home. So what did you do with your studio?

Jamie: It was time to start thinking about letting go of the studio because it was just getting to be too much. My private practice was full. I was, you know, seeing like 25 people a week teaching a couple of yoga classes. And it just became a lot so it was time to sell and I put it out there to a few [00:18:00] people who I thought would really do well.

it on and make it successful and continue it. , the woman who ended up buying it, bought it in January of 2020, which was terrible timing for her she converted it to virtual it's Elevate Yoga. She still has a core group of virtual clients and teachers who are in her virtual studio. But the physical space itself has been closed.

Shannon: Uh, well, at least she was able to make the virtual switch.

Jamie: She did she converted it to virtual. So I'm gladthat she took it and that they continue to have a community there. And I'm in private practice. And most of it's on the computer, but, um, I go in my office a few days a week, but the work from home flexibility is, is really huge.

Shannon: So you've kind of had three careers so far, if you think about it, or at least [00:19:00] going from makeup industry, marketing side to the yoga studio, teaching yoga as a licensed therapist, was there a theme between those three different careers? Like what do you think brought you to today to what you're doing?.

Jamie: Well, when I think back, I was like the philanthropy chair of my sorority. When I went to Sephora and when I worked at the beauty company and Holmdel, I would do all the charitable baskets At Sephora, I did all of their cause marketing work. I fielded all the charity requests, I always had this. being drawn towards helping in some way, like I like to contribute good in the world. And reflecting back now, I realize I was so anxious I am not a person who by nature wants to go out and like make small [00:20:00] talk with people. Public relations events are all small talk and hobnobbing with the beauty editors and I was so uncomfortable and awkward. It was just not a good fit for me.

Shannon: And you pivoted, so that's, that's good self-awareness..

Jamie: Right. I recognized a discomfort and that I was also feeling drawn to something that was more helping individuals. Like I wasn't getting enough of that from the, just like, oh yeah, you need a basket for this charity raffle thing. Sure. I'll make it, send it off to you. Like that. Wasn't filling my cup as my meaningful work enough. And on top of that, I like social anxiety is real. I have social anxiety, like, you know, I like have deep conversations with like people that I know well, um, as opposed to like really surface level conversations and small talk with people. I don't know. I felt first with yoga, like, oh, okay. I can help [00:21:00] people on like a smaller, more personal scale with that. You know, and then, and then everything changed.

Shannon: Are you happy you made this decision to get into this line of work?

Jamie: I'm so happy that I've made all of these decisions. And I try to remind my clients of that all the time that like, Okay, whatever your college major is, it doesn't mean that like, this is the be all end, all like it's going to be okay. If sometime down the road, you decide, you feel more drawn to something else. Every experience that you have has value, and then it leads you to the next thing. And you have to trust that. And I remember being young and not realizing that. Definitely something that I work with young adults around a lot. I'm really happy with where I am now and it's allowed me to, you know, like I said, I love to teach and to expand that into writing a book the course of the last year, as I said, I am an anxious person, and I'm a [00:22:00] counselor, so over the course of the past year, I wrote a book, the Anxious Goddess Workbook: A Survival Guide For The Modern Moon Child. It is really beautiful. It's illustrated by Kelly Rose Burgess. She is a digital illustrator and artist, and it is colorful and interactive. There are coloring pages. There are worksheets, there are really fun creative activities. And then there are trackers. There are ways to keep track of your cycle, the moon cycle, and how to use a lot of spiritual tools to support your mental health, that's one of my specialties is working with spirituality. And, and really filling up your, your mental health apothecary as I call it with different ways to take care of yourself and fill your own cup. So we're actually now even working on an Oracle card. I'm so excited.

Shannon: I love the book. It's beautiful. Like you said, the illustrations, the [00:23:00] words, the tools that you provide, I think are just excellent and very, very valuable, especially now. And what we've all been through the past couple of years.

Jamie: We all

Shannon: yeah, so the cards are, The Oracle cards are next on your list.

That'll be out soon. We can expect it?

Jamie: I am excited. We're looking at having them hopefully in this summer. And they are like a translation of the book into a deck where you can like play with them and pick and get kind of direction on what you can do to support your mental health that day. And I have a podcast as well. The Spiritual Counselor Podcast, we talk about the intersection of mental health and spirituality. And yeah, it is a wonderful place to be because as a mamapreneur, you get to decide how you spend your time and that's okay.

Shannon: That is a gift and you're really taking what you want to do, what good you want to put into the world and you're doing it in all these different ways. I feel like what [00:24:00] you're working on, all these different avenues are all going to the greater good of the people around you and your community. I just am so impressed with everything that you're doing.

Jamie: Thank you, mama.

Shannon: As someone who works in mental health, you know, making these decisions to a second act, to kind of figure out what you're doing when you feel stuck, what can you offer? You've been through it. It's a big decision when I was venturing from the entertainment industry into being a entrepreneur and opening a business. It was lonely. There were a lot of days of self doubt and feeling like I couldn't figure it out. Do you have words of wisdom?

Jamie: Well, I think that we're both proof that it can be figured out that, but it can't be figured out in a silo. Like you have to mentors connect with other entrepreneurs, access courses online, like try and get some sort of roadmap wherever you resource it from. [00:25:00] And trust that you are capable and step-by-step bit by bit, you will accomplish each goal one at a time. You know, like take it. My dear friend Sherry wants to gave me excellent advice because I do all the things. She goes, Jam, how do you eat the elephant? She goes one bite at a time.

Shannon: I've never heard that!

Jamie: Cause like I never want to eat an elephant and it like stuck in my brain that like step-by-step bit by bit. You will get there, you can figure it out.

Shannon: And follow your heart, kind of like you did, you knew that one thing didn't feel right. And maybe you accomplish your goal of working in the makeup industry. You tried that and you said, okay, it's not a great fit. Let's follow my heart into something that might feel better.

Jamie: Yeah.

Shannon: Just think really hard inside of what will make you happy because we get one life. So look, let's make it all that we want and it's not working for someone else [00:26:00] or maybe it is, but just finding your path it does

Jamie: Yeah.

Shannon: work out in the end. It just might not be overnight.

Jamie: To not should on yourself about. I should like this job because it pays a lot of money. I should stay here because it's what my parents wanted me to do, which I should be in this role because it would I'm successful, right? Like, why are you really choosing to stay in whatever situation, like you're saying, follow your heart. You still got to pay the bills and have a roof over your head and be practical, you know? It can be done.

Shannon: Any tips on saving your mental health as you're going through that process?

Jamie: It's so difficult when a partner is not supportive. And so. On the flip side, it's ideal when a partner is supportive because you need some kind of support system. If you are going to be a mamapreneur, if you're going to [00:27:00] be a parent entrepreneur, any gender. I think a support system is essential and you have to find time to take care of yourself. So. Hopefully, you know, your work will be part of what fills you up and you can't take care of your kids. Do all the laundry, do all the . Like it's a real quick road to burnout. I promise.

Shannon: Right. And you having two little kids on top of your practice on top of writing a book, starting a podcast. You've got a support system between your family and your husband, but there are still a lot of times where you're figuring it out in the moment.

Jamie: I started being an entrepreneur in 2008 is now 2022. So I'm 14 years into some kind of entrepreneur and only now do I have like two people that I work with, one person, project manager and administrative, the other one illustrator and designer. [00:28:00] My Instagram posts wouldn't look like they do. Like, I pay somebody to do them,, About also choosing where you spend most of your time. You know, I want to focus my time on writing the content out of the mental health knowledge that I have. So. I really encourage working parents to outsource or delegate whatever they can, whether that means you get some kind of food prep service, or you got a cleaning service, or you start doing sheet pan meals and you get grocery delivery. Like anything you can get off of your plate and off of your mental load awesome. Any working parent, not just an entrepreneur. So, you know, noticing how you want to spend your time. I mean, if you're somebody who loves going to the grocery store and that's your, that's your me time. Great, good on you. But I'd rather spend my me-time taking a nice long hot, relaxing shower.

Shannon: Everybody's got their

Jamie: thing.

Right.

Shannon: Walking around target helps a lot of moms..

[00:29:00]

Shannon: All right. It's Five Fast Qs time. This is the part of the show where I ask each guest every week these five same questions. Are you ready?

Name, one thing that these different chapters in your life have taught you?

Jamie: I think again, going back to the importance of mentors and community. That they just are essential in, um, learning and evolving as an entrepreneur. We can't go it alone.

Shannon: Number two, would you recommend taking a leap into a big life change to your best friend?

Jamie: Absolutely. If it was practical and realistic, I am also again, Capricorn risk averse. I'm privileged to be able to have gone through all of these evolutions of my career because of the support that I've had, uh, both financial support that I've received and familial support. It is kind of a privilege to be an entrepreneur and it takes a lot of hard work at the same time.

Shannon: Okay. One piece of advice for [00:30:00] someone trying to start a second act?

Jamie: Prioritize just prioritize your life. What's gonna make you happy. Like to me, it was like, I need a job where I can be flexible and be available for my kids to go to their stuff. Like that's going to make me happy. That's on my priority list. I want a job where I help people. That's also on my priority list. Like, what are your non-negotiables in your life that you want to prioritize and then build your career around that.

Shannon: That's such great advice. What does your next chapter look like?

Jamie: My next chapter looks like sharing the Anxious Goddess Workbook and Oracle Deck with as many anxious goddesses as I can. And continuing to be a service to my lovely clients, health and continuing to be a mental health advocate and being a [00:31:00] model. And a mama friend, and I just want us to get to summer so we can like hang out in the backyard that,

Shannon: I love it. I love it. All right. So lastly, just tell our audience and our listeners where they can connect with you?

Jamie: So you can find me on my website at jamiehanley.com and you can find me on Instagram at jamiehanley_.

Shannon: Well I want to thank you so much, Jamie, for sharing your story with us today, I'm excited to see what is next for you. Be sure to connect with Jamie at jamiehanley.com on Instagram at jamiehanley_. The Anxious Goddess Workbook is available on Amazon, lulu.com, and at Barnes and noble.

Thank you for joining us. I hope you found some gems of inspiration and some takeaways to help you on your path to Second Act Success. To view, show notes from this episode, recommend to guests with a great story and learn more about us. [00:32:00] Visit secondactsuccess.co. Before you go, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. So you don't miss a single episode. And if you are enjoying our time together, please leave a review in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Reviews only take a few moments and they really do mean so much. Thank you again for listening. I am Shannon Russell, and this is Second Act Success.