EP: 127 Protecting Your Energy: Building Confidence And Success Through The Power Container With Jenna Banks

 

Protecting your energy is crucial for building confidence and achieving success. The ‘power container’ is a tool to maintain energy, avoid burnout, and prioritize what truly matters in your career and life. For today’s episode, we have Jenna Banks, an author and thought leader whose work has been featured in media outlets that include Forbes, POPSUGAR, ABC, NBC, and CEOWORLD Magazine. Today, she discusses the concept of the “power container” and how it can be used to maintain your energy levels and avoid negative influences. She also delves into common challenges that women face in the workplace and shares strategies for building confidence and resilience, even in difficult situations. Throughout the conversation, Jenna emphasized the importance of your energy to your confidence, self-worth, and quality of life. That’s why we should protect it at all costs. Tune in now and discover the power of protecting your energy!

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Protecting Your Energy: Building Confidence And Success Through The Power Container With Jenna Banks

I have an exciting update for you. I am pleased to announce that I completed my second career and leadership coaching certification. The first one was in the way back machine with a company and organization called IPAC in the 2016-2017 timeframe, but I wanted to focus even more on career and leadership.

I learned that through the work that I do with all of you, which is working women. I am here. I feel like my purpose on this earth is to help you all get the careers of your dreams, speak up, advocate for yourself, and mind your mindset. We talk a lot about that on this show, and importantly, get paid. This certification was a true labor of love for me. I’m so excited. I’m pumped to share it with you, and I want to tell you, let’s celebrate.

To celebrate, I’m opening up my coaching calendar to help you if you have been feeling stuck in your career or if you want a different career or pivot, or whatever you want to do. I am going to invite you to take advantage of a special Launch Your Dream Career or Business, a personal one-on-one coaching session where you are going to work with me to create a crystal-clear vision for the type of career or business that you want, the income level you desire, and what it takes to make that happen fast. We are going to uncover hidden challenges that might be sabotaging your success in your career or in building a business that you love.

My hope for you is that you are going to leave the session renewed, re-energized, and inspired to finally create that career you love once and for all. Whether that means you are going to be getting a new dream job, you are quitting your day job, you are starting a new business, you are getting more organized, or you are creating a plan. I’m all around these career topics.

Go and visit my website, BraveWomenAtWork.com. You can click on Schedule A Discovery Call, and that’s how you will get to my calendar. I’m opening it again for a short period of time just for you. What are we going to talk about now? I have brought back one of my former guests, Jenna Banks, for a follow-up conversation. We had her way back in June 2022. Don’t the years feel super long? I don’t know. June 2022 feels like a few years ago. Several years ago, we talked about her book and the importance of self-love and making that a priority.

 

 

When we prepped for that first show, Jenna and I talk, and we had so much left over. We talked about this concept of the power container, and I didn’t want to let that go. I didn’t want to let that be on one of my spare notebooks in that first conversation. I thought it would be good to bring her back on again to talk about the important topic of power and power container.

During our discussion, Jenna and I chatted about what the power container is and where it is located in the body. The signs when the power container is full or empty, why we self-sabotage and or put our own happiness second behind everyone else’s. That one resonates with me so much. Ways to heal our power containers, thoughts around boundaries and different phases of our careers, and how saying no earlier in our career can be a great thing to do to set the tone of what we will and will not tolerate. We also talk about my term being a career doormat or replace doormat, which I absolutely have been before. We talk about so much more in our conversation.

Here’s some more about Jenna. As an author and thought leader, Jenna Banks’s work has been featured in media outlets that include Forbes, PopSugar, ABC, NBC, and CEOWORLD Magazine. Early in her business career, she worked in the consumer product space with brands such as Hasbro, Mattel, and Lego, as well as entertainment companies including Sony, Warner Brothers, and USA television networks.

In 2012, she founded an online marketing products business from the ground up, which she sold right before the onset of the pandemic. Since then, she’s been following her passion for helping women live to their fullest potential through her writing, her speaking engagement, and the Jenna Banks Show, which can be streamed on BINGE Networks TV, Roku, Apple TV, Google Play, and Amazon Fire TV.

Before we get started, if you are enjoying the show, you know I always ask, please leave a rating and review in Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It does motivate me to keep on creating awesome content for you and bringing on guests for you. If you have already left a rating, review, or any feedback, I thank you so much. Your support of the show means the world to me. It also helps the show get visibility, gain, traction, and grow.

You can also share the show with your family members, friends, or colleagues on your social media feeds. Finally, if you haven’t yet joined the Brave Women at Work Facebook community, go ahead and do that now. We continue the conversation in between episodes over there, and it would be an absolute pleasure to have you join our group. Let’s welcome Jenna to the show.

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Jenna, welcome back to the show. It’s so great to have you again.

It is an absolute pleasure to be here with you.

How have you been? What’s been going on with you since the last time we talked?

I have been great. There are lots going on. I’m always evolved and new projects it seems. We made a big move. I moved into a new place, so getting all settled in and how about you?

Since we last talked, I have a second book coming out. I didn’t tell you that before. It will be the second in the series. It’s a teaser for everybody. It’s called Lessons in Confidence. We have a whole new group of women that are going to be sharing their stories on confidence and the struggle to gain confidence and harness it to their greatest fulfillment and success. That’s exciting. I’m pumped about that and working with some amazing clients. Like you, I’m never bored. I only have something going on.

That is amazing. Congratulations. What a wonderful topic to write about. It’s an important subject for women, especially when it comes to the workplace. That’s an area where a lot of women struggle, and some of the areas that I focus on as well are the things that help build confidence. I’m happy you are doing that and I can’t wait to read it when it comes out.

I will send you an advanced copy as soon as it’s available for sure. I will send it via email and if not, you remind me. Some people come into the show at different points, and we welcome them all, wherever you are in your journey with reading the show. If you did not know and didn’t pick up, Jenna has been on a prior show. Your book was coming out, I Love Me More: How to Find Happiness and Success through Self-Love. Wasn’t it around International Women’s Day that it came out?

It was. Time flies. It was around then.

Go back and read. We focused on the idea of self-love in that last episode, so go back. I wanted you for folks that are reading for the first time, for you to go back and tell us a little bit about your backstory and how you have gotten to where you are now.

It was pretty intense. I do write about it in the book. I had a bit of a traumatic background, traumatic childhood, and a very strict upbringing. I end up leaving home at the age of fourteen to go to another family member’s home, only to have that be as bad, if not worse in another way. I was on my own at an early age. Around fourteen is when I didn’t have any parental guidance.

I had to figure things out on my own. I dropped out of school. I got my GED. I tried to do college but was having a hard time focusing. I ended up getting into the working world. I also had some suicide attempts, a couple of. I ended up getting pregnant at the age of nineteen, which saved my life. Thank goodness because my son gave me a reason to be grounded and focused and gave me some purpose.

I was able to start focusing on myself and my healing journey. It was more survival at that point before I got into the healing. I realized that I became very independent at an early age. I left my husband. I got married at nineteen as well. I had my son at 20, and then I got divorced at 21 or 22. I moved to another country, The Netherlands, came back, and then started working.

Through that whole process, it was quite an experience of learning to trust myself, love myself, trust my intuition, and know that it was guiding me in the right direction. I started to focus on my career and let that guide me. It’s that newfound sense of internal knowing like trusting myself which is what I hadn’t been raised to do, and then the upbringing that I had and let that guide me in the business world.

It did not lead me wrong. It led me very right in the business world. It served me well in leadership and made it into management quite quickly, and ended up becoming an entrepreneur and then back into being an executive management and then entrepreneur again. Over time, I followed my instinct and intuition and trusted myself and my inner wisdom, inner knowing, and learned to love myself.

I ended up selling my last company in 2019 right before the pandemic hit and that afforded me the ability to have time to write my book and start to tell my story and dive deeper into some of the thought leadership areas that I have been working on writing about and working on with my show, having various guests on my show called the Jenna Banks Show, and here we are now. Hopefully, that sums it up in a nutshell.

You have a windy, long journey. We all have but I applaud you for sharing because so many people hold that inside the traumas and shame. I have had people ask me, spoiler alert, the first chapter that I wrote in Brave Women at Work: Stories of Resilience, which was out in October of 2022. I had some family members and some close friends say, “Why did you write about your burnout story? Why did you write about infertility? Why did you share those things? Keep those in the family.” I was like, “I just can’t do it. I’m not wired.”

Maybe I hit 40 and I was like, “Forget that noise. I’m not going to keep that inside anymore.” I felt like I needed to pay it forward and help other women. I have had women and it’s made my day, my week, and my life to say, “You helped me with your story. Thank you for sharing.” I applaud you for sharing yours.

Thank you. It’s the reason why I talk about it as well. I also hid from my stories for a long time and want to fit in. We want to please people. We want to be what others want us to be. Especially when you are in survival mode, you want to put your best foot forward. Especially being in our masculine energy, I have been doing a lot of research on that.

I’m working on another project and writing another book, but it’s fiction this time, but diving into the masculine and the feminine. I was in my masculine, which helped me a lot in leadership. Intuition is more on the feminine side. I have been working on fostering that even more. Sharing our stories helps others understand that maybe it is okay to share it, to talk about it, and to have gone through that.

Maybe it helps others deal with some of that shame that you mentioned. There’s a lot of shame that we wrap around our stories that aren’t so pretty. Whether it is infertility struggles, not having the right degree, having suicidal tendencies, or whatever it is. We squash those down and we are taught not to talk about them, hide them, and keep them in the family, but how else are we going to learn and grow if we don’t let others know that it’s okay that we all deal with our stuff and you are not the only one?

Sharing our stories helps others understand that it is okay to share them, to talk about them, and to have gone through them. It can even help others deal with some of that shame. Click To Tweet

We are giving everybody permission on this conversation in this show to share their story. Whether it’s with a friend, a colleague, someone trusted, your spouse, or your partner, don’t hold all that inside. We know that shame is healed by sharing and not by keeping it stuck. It’s shared by giving light to it and giving it oxygen. Giving your story oxygen is what we are challenging you to do and asking you to do.

One of the things I wanted to move towards is when we were prepping for the last show, you and I had so much to talk about that. I was like, “I got to have you back eventually because we were talking about self-love.” I went back to my notes and I was like, “This whole thing is like a power container,” and you talked about male and feminine energy. I too and there are a lot of women reading and people tuning in the show that have operated out of their masculine energy because that’s what we are taught.

I’m giving you fuel for your show. Maybe we need to teach how women can own female and male energy, not just male energy when navigating the corporate world. Maybe this is related but you talk about being powerfull and being a powerful woman and I wanted to have you talk about the power container. Can you tell us what that is in your own words?

The power container is something that it sums up how I have come to look at the world over my crazy lifetime and operate in a more powerfull way. I spent a lot of time observing power dynamics and power within me in times when I felt it go away from me. Even small instances like looking at somebody else when walking down the street to see if they are looking at me and like me.

There are all kinds of ways in which we are either giving our power away to others or letting it be drained away from us as in people-pleasing tendencies or powering up times. I noticed that I felt charged up when I was doing the things that were making me happy. For example, listening to music, taking an online course on a subject that I wanted to study, or reading a book. That charged me up.

I’d pay attention to those energy signals within my body, what makes me feel good and on top of the world. When I start to feel drained and not so good, I would attach it to a feeling. There are certain people, I’m sure, you can recollect being around that where you feel icky afterwards. You have some interaction with them or you are around them and you feel not good. You feel drained and gross.

I have noticed interactions I have had especially as a single woman where there’d be some man. All of a sudden, he would say something to me and I’d be in this weird situation where my conditioning and programming as a people-pleasing woman will come up and make me say things that didn’t behoove me that placated this person’s behavior but didn’t make me feel good afterward.

What I would do is go home, journal about it, think about it, reflect on it, and say, “I am reverting to people-pleasing behaviors or old programming as a woman that I’m taught to. Socially fit in and make sure everyone else is okay. I don’t want to make sure anyone’s offended or make sure anyone’s feeling badly in any way.

As a result, I was sacrificing my own comfort. I would start to unpack some of that stuff and say, “That is me draining. That is me not feeling powerfull, full of my power.” That’s me giving my power away, letting my power be drained. Becoming aware of what the power container concept was for me and paying attention to my power container constantly like, “How do I feel? Am I powered up or am I feeling drained? Why am I feeling drained? I was in this situation and I was feeling icky. Why was I feeling icky?”

You start to backtrack it. My goal now is to always feel as great as I can, and if I’m not, I need to know why. Am I not practicing self-care? Am I not taking care of myself, resting properly, taking time off, spending time in nature, going on walks, listening to music, and all the things that fill up my power container, or am I giving too much of my power away? Am I looking to others for my sense of worth and stuff like that? That’s how I have come to define my power container.

For everyone, it’s not a physical box or a thing. It’s a metaphor. If you go deep within, it sounds like you know. I’m feeling powerfull. I’m not feeling a lack of power. Is there a place where you say, “It’s in my heart or the power container is in my heart?” When we tap into our intuition and into our bodies, do you believe that power container resides in a certain part of our body?

For me, it resides in the solar plexus heart area. Imagine you have like a battery that sits somewhere between your stomach and your chest and you can feel it. Right now, I’m in tune with it and it feels full of energy. I’m energized by this conversation and I get a charge from connecting with other women who are doing amazing things and sharing my story.

All the things that I have done to fill myself up journaling and reading. I feel full, but let’s say we were in a bad conversation and I was giving away my power, I could feel it in there. It feels uncomfortable. That’s what it feels like. You feel this discomfort. Knowing where that sits and giving it the metaphor of a power container helps you identify it and start to question, “What is this feeling?”

I live so fast for so long for my type A gals out there. You probably could resonate with this. You are ambitious and you are moving from one thing to the next. What I have learned through my own journey and the work that I do with women is that I used it as a numbing agent. Some people do shopping online. Some people watch Netflix.

I’m an over doer and I still have a problem with that where my husband will be like, “You are going into robotic mode.” I have to slow down enough to even listen to what you are calling the power container because sometimes I ignore it. I don’t know if you have ever had that, but I sometimes ignore the signals that my power container is not even full.

That is such a good point you make. I’m so glad you brought that up because most of us aren’t in tune with that. We aren’t in tune with that feeling. That’s why giving it this metaphor of a power container. Imagine this. You wouldn’t come home at the end of the day, go to sleep, and not plug in your cell phone because you need that thing charged up to use it the next day. As you are going to be constantly chasing a charge when you need the phone.

It’s the same thing with our power container. You have got to find that battery signal. Where’s that charge battery symbol? Is it on low? Is it on medium? Is it on high? Once you can figure that out, then you know how to operate on powerful or when you are operating on powerless. I’m sure many of your readers are type A like you and I both are. I identify with being a type A. If we want to accomplish all these things we want to accomplish, you need your energy.

The problem is, especially as women, we tend to give so much of our power away unconsciously because of the way we have been programmed, conditioned, and raised in a patriarchal society, and not to go down the feminist rabbit hole too much. We are in a patriarchal society. Especially as type A businesswomen, we tend to lead with the masculine, especially if we are in leadership.

Women tend to give so much of their power away unconsciously because of the way they’ve been programmed in a patriarchal society. Click To Tweet

If we want to have the energy to be able to accomplish all of our goals and dreams, we are going to need our energy. We need our power on full. We need to look at the ways as women that we have been conditioned to give our power away. For example, let’s look at gender roles as women. I know so many women who believe, “I was raised that women come home. They cook, clean, and serve their family in these female roles.” Now that’s changing a lot, especially with Millennials and Gen Z, but my generation is Gen X.

My grandmother was my mother. She was constantly harping on me about the gender roles as this is what a woman does and this is what a man does. That programming was there. Many of my friends in my generation feel the need to do that. They have to come home and “do the female things.” Who’s to say what’s female and male? We can split the housework. We can split the child duties. We can but some women feel that being a woman is doing all of that. There are so many women who feel like, “I have to be superwoman. That is my strength. I am the strong one. I can do all of that,” but we cause ourselves burnout by doing all of that.

The one takeaway for women reading this first part of our conversation on the power container is knowing that you have one, you need to charge yourself, and you can’t run on empty indefinitely. I ran on empty indefinitely and then, there you go. I got sick. I always want to put that PSA out there that you are not a robot. You have to make sure that you are powerfull. You have that container and it’s full. You have mentioned a couple of examples, but I want to highlight them. How can we fill that power container? Does it change or is it different by person?

It is different by person. I can share some of the things that charge me up and maybe mention some things that might resonate with you as well. It goes with that programming of self-love sounds selfish. Taking care of myself first would be selfish. In our last episode together, that resonated with you. That feeling of taking care of myself first sounds selfish, especially when you have a family or you are married, even if you have no kids but you are taking care of your extended family.

It does sound selfish that making yourself a priority is what you should do, but that is how you charge up your power container as you make yourself your number one priority. Getting over that conditioning and programming that sounds narcissistic and selfish is key because how can you take care of yourself when you are conditioned to believe it’s bad? That is a gender programming issue.

It does sound selfish that making yourself a priority is what you should do, but that's how you charge up your power containers. Click To Tweet

If we understand that we need to take care of ourselves and put ourselves first, that’s the first step. Understanding how is important. I have talked to quite a few women who don’t know what makes them happy because there’s been so used to giving, self-sacrificing for everyone else, and getting their value and worth out of how well they take care of everyone else. They don’t even know how to take care of them and what charges and fills them up. Another clue that your power container is running low is you feel resentful. You feel resentful toward others the ones that you are caring for because you are not getting your needs met and you are looking to them to do that.

In all reality, they can’t help you because you don’t even know what makes you happy. You don’t even know what charges you up. You don’t even know what you need. You are hoping that they can give you what you need, but ultimately, you have to give you what you need. That is the key. I can’t tell you what it is for you, but for me, I know that I need some time alone. I need stillness. I need to read a favorite book or listen to one of my favorite audiobooks. I need to go out for a walk on a sunny day. I need sunshine, I need nature, and I need to connect with friends, female friends. I need my girl time. I need to take time for myself, whatever that means at that moment. I need music in my day.

Sometimes I get out of the habit and then I feel the difference. I’m like, “What am I missing right now? I need my music.” Nobody can provide that for you. These are things that you learn by spending time with yourself, journaling, self-reflection, being alone, and getting to know you better. Developing your relationship with you is huge so that you can fulfill your needs, and know what makes you happy and what charges you up.

You say, “Honey, I need you to watch the kids tonight. I need you to make dinner for everyone. I need to go charge up.” That’s okay. When you come back, you are going to be so much happier. Here’s another one, women with the guilt. We might go, “I’m going to take some time for me.” We come home and we are like, “I didn’t do what I normally do,” and we feel guilty.

That doesn’t help the container.

This is why I talk about the things I talk about and do some of the writing that I write about on topics like guilt. It’s because this plagues women way more than men. I have learned from psychologists, countless thought leaders, and scientists even about what guilt tends to be more than anything. It can be an indication on some occasions that you are doing something truly wrong, but most of the time, probably 95% of the time, it’s an indication that you are breaking a habitual pattern.

95% of the time, guilt is an indication that you’re breaking a habitual pattern. Click To Tweet

I have never heard that before. That’s interesting. When we feel guilt, there may be a pattern that we are breaking. That’s new.

It’s huge if you think about it, because if you do go to break a pattern like, “Honey, please take care of the kids tonight. I’m going to go off. I need some girl time.” You come home and you feel guilty and then you let that have its way with you, then you go right back into the pattern. That’s what guilt does. It keeps you in the status quo. You have to use to feeling a bit of discomfort as you make some changes, especially when it comes to undoing some of these deeply embedded, programmed social behaviors and conditioning especially when it comes to gender roles.

That’s also an interesting point. Power container is an inside job, but we have to remind you it’s an inside job. You have to take responsibility for that. You can’t take care of the kids, work hard, do all the things, and then expect other people to recognize, “You are looking a little drained.” By that point, you probably are going to snap at people. You are resentful, angry, and all that stuff.

I’m more of a morning routine person, so I’m much more of an early bird than a night person. We are reversed in that aspect. I have a small morning routine. Part of the ways that I would load up and make myself powerful for the day are meditation, prayer, and talking to a friend early in the morning. It’s another morning lark and all that stuff going on a walk, reading books, and things like that. Do you gauge yours in an evening routine or throughout your day? How do you gauge the power container for yourself?

I do mine throughout the day. If I need to take a break, that’s another thing. We can work. Sometimes I will get up early even though I’m not a morning person. I will wake up and the first thing, I start working. I have my goals I’m trying to meet and I can burn myself out. I tune in like, “What do I need right now? Do I need to stop, take a break, go out, and go for a walk?”

I took a three-hour break even though I got some stuff accomplished in between because us type As, we can’t not help ourselves. The guilt would pop up. “You are supposed to be doing X, Y, and Z,” but I needed it. I needed to get these things done and also take a little break and listen to my audiobook on the way and do some errands.

You have to listen to yourself and give yourself what you need. When you do that, you feel like you care about yourself and someone cares about you. Someone loves you and that’s you. You love you. You need to listen to what you need and give yourself that. That’s why you have to make yourself a priority. Who else is going to do that for you?

No one is going to do it for you, and then the resentment builds. For our gals, I have my day work and my night work, but my corporate work for our women that are working in corporate. You might be wondering, “I wish I could take an extended break.” I would challenge you to say and welcome you to take a ten-minute break. Walk around your building. Go and talk to a coworker. When you need to take those breaks and you are feeling like, “I’m a little drained after six hours sitting at my computer.” Take breaks. I also learned the hard way that I would eat at my desk during lunch.

Anytime I hear a client say that now, I’m like, “Please leave your desk periodically.” It’s not healthy. I can’t quote the source, but I know there are studies you can look out there in the interwebs on. The more meetings you have especially if you are in management or higher, the less productive that you are. I don’t know why we haven’t learned this yet. After meeting six, like, “Let’s call it, people.” Nobody’s powerful at that point. I’m making sure that women in corporate that have a 9:00 to 5:00 can do this too. It might be in smaller chunks but you can do this. You can monitor your power container.

I 100% agree with you. I’m so glad you brought that up. There are also other ways in the workplace that we can monitor our power containers. For example, not saying yes to everything. Seeming like an office doormat is not a way to feel powerful or be seen as powerful. We have got to learn when to say no, and that gives you a charge when you want to say no, not just to get at someone or be nasty.

It’s more about paying attention to how I feel when this person has asked me to do this thing and it’s not necessarily something I have to do. I have got already overloaded workload. Do I want to take this on? No. You could say no and that’s okay. You will feel good that you have taken care of yourself. You will get a charge from that because you will know you have your back.

Another way is boundaries. I talk a lot about boundaries. Boundaries in the workplace are also very important. I had somebody I know tell me after one of my powerful women events. She had attended it and I forget whose stories she heard, but she went back through her work after hearing that. It was in a lunchtime situation. We talked about boundaries.

One of her colleagues had been undermining her and it was draining her power container. She was feeling drained all the time and not feeling happy in the workplace with this particular new colleague. He proceeded to challenge her in a meeting and she decided, “No. I’m going to set my boundary here.” She stood up for herself after he interrupted her very rudely and she said, “Excuse me. I wasn’t finished speaking yet.” He looked at her and then he stopped. The energy shifted. She felt her power come back. She felt it and there was this shift in the room. She took back her power, finished what she was stating, and it made her feel fantastic.

That is another way you can monitor your power container in the workplace. Is someone draining you? Is someone you know crossing your boundaries? Are you not standing up for yourself? Are you not using your voice? You can feel the discomfort when it happens and you could feel your power come back when you hold a boundary and when you use your voice.

You can feel your power come back when you hold a boundary or use your voice. Click To Tweet

I have one personal example that happened and this was flattering. Sometimes the ego comes into play. Someone asked me to be part of a mentoring program and I was thinking about it. A tip here is when you get offered something, I used to respond immediately. “I can do that. I’m your go-to gal.” Now I go, “Can I have a couple of days? I will get back to you on that,” because what I’m doing is checking in and now, I can use new terminology such as the power container, and that intuition to check in to say, “Do I want to do this?”

I was self-abandoning. I was abandoning myself and my needs and stuff. In this case, it was very flattering. Your ego is like, “That’s so great that they asked me.” I looked at the requirement and it’s ten hours. I’m like, “I have a 4-year-old and an 11-year-old, and my job, the work I do with women. Do I have ten hours? Do I want to do this?”

At that time, I couldn’t. My schedule would not allow it even though in my mind I did go through that process. Even with all of the work I have done on myself and through the work I do with women, I still went through the process. Everyone, you still have to go through this even when you feel like you have graduated. I went through a couple of days of like, “I should do this.”

Did you feel guilty a little bit?

I felt guilty. I was like, “I should.” I told my husband. He’s a guy. He’s like, “Do it. Don’t go back and forth on this.” I went into my meditation and my own time. I was like, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t have the time to fully give.” I did turn it down and keep me in mind in the future as my calendar allows, and they were gracious. I still felt guilty a little bit, but then after that process, I felt so much better because I showed up for myself. I wanted to share that example because it’s real and it happens to all of us all the time.

I’m so glad you mentioned taking time to reflect, and it’s okay to say, “Give me 1 day or 2. I will get back to you. Let me get back to you on that.” That’s important because it does give you time to tune in to your power container and say, “How is this making me feel? How is this sitting with me? Is it making me feel happy and charged up? Is it making me feel uncomfortable and like I want to say no?” That’s okay. You could say no. We don’t want to be everything.

To all people at all times. I would also say for women reading that are earlier in their career, “I see you. I get you. You might be wondering, ‘I have got to say yes because I don’t want to be seen as the person that doesn’t take on projects.’” I would say within reason. I was the person like, “I will do everything,” and then it led me to illness and into a chronic condition, and you don’t want that. You can still balance the need to drive a powerful career with also being powerful within yourself, having a power container full.

You can still balance the need to drive a powerful career with being powerful within yourself. Click To Tweet

I will also piggyback onto that and say that we may think that doing the people-pleasing thing is going to help us with our career, but I have learned the opposite. That is when you say no and you know your worth and your value, it sets the tone and they see you differently. They start to see you as leadership material and management material. When you say, “No. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to go into move into X, Y, or Z role. I want to get into management,” You can’t be getting the office coffee. Did we talk about the coffee story?

We did that one time and I did that one time and go back and listen to the whole story. I did that once and I told my boss who was also my mentor at the time. I’m like, “I will never get your coffee again.”

They will ask you, especially if you are in a male-dominated industry like you have been. The story resonates with you but there’s also that whole hierarchy thing that guys like to play. You have got to be careful about that as well, and you have got to hold your worth hold you. Respect yourself, value yourself, and know your worth. When you do, others will see you that way as well. It’s important.

It’s not about being bitchy because you don’t want to come off like that. I certainly don’t feel like I have ever come across as bitchy in any of my working situations ever, whether I was in leadership or not. I have declined stuff readily. I have also held my value and my worth and seen the reaction of my bosses. It’s like, “She knows her worth.” That’s the energy to do it in.

I totally understand the balance. I appreciate you challenging my own belief system in real time because I fought for the longest time and it sounds like I still got some remnants in there. When I was younger in my career, I had to do everything and I did. I became the office doormat. The office doormat means that you do everything for everyone. You do all the projects. Everyone comes to you for everything.

It feeds your sense of worth like, “I do all the things,” but everyone takes advantage of you and that, my mind is, what the office doormat and I have been that in many jobs. I love how you have challenged it because it wasn’t until I hit mid-career or upper management. Even more where I was like, “No,” because I’m not doing all of the things anymore. I refuse to be the doormat any longer. I love that you are pointing out, “You cannot be the office doormat even younger in your career. You can set those boundaries whether you are 20, 40, 60, or post-retirement. You can set them at any point in your working and professional life.”

Being the office doormat means you do everything for everyone. You do all the projects, and everyone comes to you for everything. What that does is feed your sense of worth, but everyone takes advantage of you. Click To Tweet

The sooner you do it, the better in my opinion.

I was late to that game. I wish I would have known you a lot sooner. That would have been helpful.

Again, it’s not your fault. It’s none of our fault. We weren’t raised that way. We didn’t have mothers who were raised that way. No one could set that example for us. We are doing a lot of stuff that’s new in our generation, Gen X and Millennials. Even more so, Gen Z blows my mind. We are making a lot of progress, but hopefully, Gen Z gets there a lot faster and we can break this chain once and for all.

I’m so glad I have two daughters, so I’m going to be their teacher and their student. I have a feeling through this. Since we talked last, you mentioned briefly at the front of our show about your show, the Jenna Banks Show and I have not had the privilege of watching them yet, so I want to go. Tell everybody where they are. What are you covering in the Jenna Banks Show?

Believe it or not, I decided instead of doing a podcast, I jumped right to video. I launched it on YouTube and now, it’s on my own channel called The PowerFULL Women Plus Channel, which you can download on Roku, Google Play, and Amazon Fire. Also, BINGE Networks TV. They picked it up as well, which they are on all kinds of platforms.

If you can’t find the PowerFULL Women Plus app, try BINGE Networks TV, and then it’s still under PowerFULL Women Plus under that. Jenna Banks Show is all about helping you live life to your full potential, and it’s super broad in its focus because there are so many different ways that I can focus, whether it’s finances or belief system, as you mentioned.

I do cover challenging our belief systems and talking about things like self-love, guilt, and all of that. I have been getting into trauma and healing trauma because if we want to live life to our full potential, we should understand them, learn them, heal from them, not hide from them, be okay sharing with them, and truly healing, not just surviving them.

It needs to be focused on right now. A lot of healing needs to be done with men and women. The feminine energy. It doesn’t just relate to women because we have been living in our masculine so much of the time, and so all of us could use to live more into our feminine energy. I explore topics like that. I have got a show coming up on Power to someone who founded the Power Institute, so we are going to get into that. Abuse as well, because anything that causes trauma, talking about it openly. I give authors, speakers, coaches, and some celebrities a chance to share their stories, wisdom, and insights that can help us live to our full potential. That’s what the show’s about.

You are the only guest I have had on that has their own TV show. Good for you. You went straight for it. People will ask me, I’m like, “I’m not ready for video. Maybe someday.”

I have been off a lot. It’s a lot of work to do video, but very rewarding. As long as it continues to fill my power container to do it and I feel like it’s serving others, then I will keep on doing it. I have been doing it a couple of years now and it keeps getting better and better. I hope you all tune in.

I’m going to go tune in for sure. I want to remind everyone of your book, I Love Me More: How to Find Happiness and Success through Self-Love. I know it’s available on Amazon. It’s all the channels. They can find it anywhere books are sold.

Also, Barnes & Noble. Amazon is the fastest and cheapest way to get it. That’s where I tend to get on my book. I got it on audiobook on Kindle and all the eBook options, and then hardcover as well.

I’m going to ask and I’m going to tell people to go back to read your original answer. I asked this of all of my guests, what are 1 to 2 ways women can be braver at work? I want you to go back, everybody, and go read the first show because it was also awesome. Do you have anything different you want to share like any parting wisdom on women being braver at work?

In the conversation we had, I’m going to give you a different answer, which is to tune into your power container at work. Be brave enough to say no to that thing you don’t want to do out of the spirit of, “This isn’t in my job description and I don’t feel like doing it.” Live in it. Be in your power and say, “I can’t take that on at this time,” and own it.

 

That’s hard to do especially if you are used to saying yes to everything and people-pleasing, which so many of us have been in that spirit in that space, myself included, for way too long. It was hard. It took a lot of courage and a lot of bravery to break those patterns, but you will feel that charge. You will feel your power container. Charge up with your own power, the power that you have been given away. That would be my takeaway on that.

Thank you so much. As we are closing here, where can women find you and your awesome work online?

My website, Jenna-Banks.com. There are links to my show there and my book and my free email series I have got out that’s called Love Notes to Myself. It’s a follow up to my book. It’s a way to give yourselves some daily self-love reminders because it’s hard to practice self-love when sometimes you don’t even like yourself. Overcoming some of those hurdles of the negative self-talk and learning to like ourselves and then love ourselves is what the Love Notes to Myself is all about. You will find all of that on my website, which is Jenna-Banks.com.

Jenna, thanks for coming on and chatting with me again. It was so great to catch up with you.

It was my pleasure and truly an honor to be here and have this conversation with you. Thank you so much for having me on.

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That does it for my conversation with Jenna. I hope you found our conversation both valuable and inspiring. Here are some questions to journal or reflect on before the next episode. Where is your power container in terms of its level? Is it at full? Is it needing a little tending to? Are you running on empty? What do you need to feel good and increase your energy? Do you give away your power or self-sabotage like Jenna and I talked about? We gave some examples. If so, when and in what situations does that self-sabotage show up?

How can you take care of yourself in the next week? PS, you can read my first show with Jenna back in June 2022. It’s Episode 76. Go and read just talking about her book and self-love. As a reminder, please rate review and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The show is also available on Google Podcasts and Stitcher. Until next time, show up. Monitor your power container and be brave.

 

Important Links

• Schedule A Discovery Call
• Jenna Banks
• Jenna Banks Show
• Apple Podcasts – Brave Women at Work
• Spotify – Brave Women at Work
• Brave Women at Work – Facebook
• I Love Me More: How to Find Happiness and Success through Self-Love
• Brave Women at Work: Stories of Resilience
• I Love Me More: How to Find Happiness and Success through Self-Love – Amazon
• Barnes & Noble – I Love Me More: How to Find Happiness and Success through Self-Love
• Love Notes to Myself
• Episode 76 – Past episode
• Google Podcasts – Brave Women at Work
• Stitcher – Brave Women at Work

 

About Jenna Banks

As an author and thought leader, Jenna Bank’s work has been featured in media outlets that include: Forbes, popsugar, ABC, NBC and CEOWORLD Magazine.

Early in her business career, she worked in the consumer products space with brands such as Hasbro, Mattel, Lego as well as entertainment companies including: Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and USA Television Networks.

In 2012, she founded an online marketing products business from the ground up, which she sold shortly before the onset of the pandemic.

Since then, she’s been following her passion for helping women live to their fullest potential through her writing, speaking engagements and The Jenna Banks Show which can be streamed on Binge Networks TV, ROKU, Apple TV, Google Play and Amazon Fire TV.