Courage Is a Skill

In this episode of The Impostor Syndrome Files, we explore the powerful truth that courage isn’t something you’re born with, it’s something you build. My guest this week is Jen Hardy, COO at the Academy of MotivAction. Together, we discuss how early life experiences shape our inner stories, why emotional awareness is key to personal growth and how courage and vulnerability are interconnected. Jen shares her own journey from feeling like an impostor in the classroom to stepping into her voice and owning her role as a teacher and coach.

We also talk about how self-sabotage often shows up as a protective strategy, how to start identifying the unconscious patterns that keep us stuck, and why courage is a skill that must be practiced in order to build resilience and self-trust.

About My Guest

Jen Hardy, the COO at The Academy of MotivAction, is a transformation-driven educator, speaker, and coach who bridges logic and emotion to create lasting impact. A former public educator and state championship soccer coach, Jen left the traditional system to pursue a broader mission—empowering individuals to harness resilience, clarity, and emotional intelligence under pressure. With expertise in neuroscience, behavioral science, and communication, she helps people break through limitations, build confidence, and take decisive action. Beyond her work, Jen is a lifelong learner who thrives on deep conversations, is always juggling at least two books, and still finds joy on the soccer field.

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Connect with Jen:

https://motivaction.academy/

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Transcript

Kim Meninger

Welcome Jen. It's so great to have you here today. I would love to start by inviting you to tell us a little bit about yourself.

Jen Hardy

Yes, ma'am, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm also excited to be here. My name is Jen Hardy. I'm the COO at the Academy of MotivAction, where we are supporting and restoring and training the humans behind the titles we're supporting high-stress professionals could be first responders, educators, people, corporate executives, things like that. Anyone, anyone who's dealing with high stress, which today's world is pretty much everyone, right? But we're specifically supporting self-leadership, understanding your own reactions, your own thoughts and setbacks and self-sabotaging behaviors and all those types of things, right how to navigate yourself first, so that you can then be the leader you're desiring to be or be who it is you're desiring to be, and whatever that role might be.

Kim Meninger

I love that. That is definitely very timely. How did you get here? Have you been doing this work for long?

Jen Hardy

No, I mean, I wouldn't say I've been doing this work long. I'm a former educator, and I'm someone who was doing what they wound up doing, and ended up being good at what I was doing. And along that time frame, having those moments of self-doubt, having those moments of is this really what I should be doing? Is this really what I meant to be doing? Or, more specifically, if they find out I have no idea what I'm doing, when am I going to get you know, when's the rug going to get pulled out from underneath me? I was a state championship soccer coach and teacher, and we got there very quickly. I built a program, a state championship program, in only five years, a brand new school, but every day was what am I doing? How am I doing this? If they only knew. I mean, there were, there were so many moments of not feeling like I belonged there, not feeling like I should be there. I was, you know, teaching is basically public speaking. You know, it's basically public speaking, but to little people, to young people who, like, want to make you wrong all the time and call you out on everything. And I had a fear of public speaking. Had is the key word there. I've learned through this work that I didn't have a fear of public speaking. I had a fear of being heard. I had a fear of being seen, a fear of being known, more importantly, more unconsciously, a fear of being rejected, ridiculed, exiled, right, for what I did know or didn't know, or anything of that nature, and uncovering those things has allowed me to give me give me my voice, to do things like this, a podcast, to speak on stages, to share with other people, and now Helping others communicate and navigate themselves is something I'm just so passionate about supporting.

Kim Meninger

That's it's so fascinating to hear you say that, and I've got, like, a couple of competing thoughts, so I just want to zoom in a little bit to what you were talking about before, of doing you, how did you say it you ended up doing?

Jen Hardy

Ended up doing what I wound up doing, but I wound up being good at it.

Kim Meninger

Yes, yes, yes. And so I really want to, I want to stick with that for a moment, because I think that happens to a lot of us. Most of us don't we might have plans when we're younger on what we want from our careers, but oftentimes we just end up following the path and we and, you know, we end up in spaces we didn't expect to be in. And I wonder how much of your self-doubt was a function of the fact that you were maybe not in the right job, versus just the experience of doing something new that you weren't prepared for. Because I just think that a lot of times this was true for me. I was in high tech, and I did my job pretty well, and everybody around me thought I was doing a good job, but I didn't always feel that way. I had a lot of impostor syndrome, and then I went out on my own and started my own business, started doing the work that I was, felt like I was meant to do, and a lot of that went away. And so I just wonder if there's a connection there between those feelings and not being in the right job. I don't know how. How does that land for you?

Jen Hardy

I think it can be either, to be honest, because absolutely could we be in the wrong job. And that's why we feel the way we feel, that I don't belong here. It shouldn't be here. I don't know what I'm doing if they find out. You know, a lot of those common thought processes that happen when, when we're talking about impostor syndrome, but I also feel like. Like there's so much around culturally, around what we're allowed to do and who we're supposed to be, and a way that I just forgot his name, dang it, the cultural editors, right? People who are unintentionally, subconsciously out of our awareness, editing how we experience reality and basically creating it for us, because we're not aware yet. We're too young to know like we don't have it filled out. We haven't figured it out. Maybe we don't know things. But the reason I say it that way is like I, I'd had no intention of being a teacher and a coach, none. In fact, if you told me I was going to be a teacher and a coach when I was 18, I would have told you to go, f yourself like no way. Never happening. Um, but life happened the way life happened. I got out of college thinking I was going to be involved in strength coaching. A little bit different, right? Because I loved fitness and exercise science and how the body works and how the body moved. And my family is a very fitness family. My dad's had, you know, health clubs since before I was born and I got out, and turns out, like I really had to start by working with the general public. And I hated the general public. I'm like, This is not easy. And my father at the time, just said, Hey, why don't you get your, your teaching degree as a backup plan, in case, you know, you don't figure out what you want to do with this for now, he's always a big believer of have a job till you get a job, right? Do a job till you find the love of your job, of love that you want to do. And I'm like, Oh, fine. I didn't want to do that. But here's someone who I look up to and respect telling me this is maybe a good idea. And so I did it. I went back and I got my teaching degree, and lo and behold, everything I was doing when I got out of college ended up falling apart, falling through, like, all these things happened, and like, you know, the worst of best circumstances, I end up teaching. And I'm like, I don't want to do this. And my first four years specifically were awful. I mean, just it was miserable, to be perfectly honest. And it wasn't until I got to Austin and Vandergrift and started teaching and coaching that I started to feel a little bit more in flow. But the teaching part was still just awful, just public speaking in every day and not knowing what I was just feeling like I never knew what I was teaching and I never knew enough. I'm not smart enough. I don't know how to do this pretending like I knew what I was saying. You know, sarcasm was my best friend, and I don't believe in sarcasm in many, in many regards now. But I was just deflecting because I was just so terrified all the time. But the funny, why I say that I believe it could be either, is because I left teaching and coaching to find out that I am a teacher and a coach. It is who I am. It is what I love. It's just I didn't love it in public education number one. And to your point, to put them together, I wasn't teaching and coaching the things that I wanted to teach and coach, you know, kind of blending those two together. It wasn't I was in the wrong field. I may have been in the wrong element of that field.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, I think that's really important too, especially for people listening who maybe they really do enjoy the work. Maybe it's not the functional role, that's the problem. It's the environment. It's the setting in which they're doing it.

Jen Hardy

Yeah, absolutely could be, right? And then just again, like, for what purpose are you choosing to do it? I mean, in my case, I think I the whole I'm doing what I wound up doing, and I'm really good at it. Was like, me realizing I did this because my dad said it was a good idea. And it was like, Well, sure, what else can I do? I'm just going to follow the path, right? I'm going to get out of college, I'm going to get the job, I'm going to get married, which I also did, and not in the badly, like, you know, like I just took the cultural steps and, and they didn't work for me, you know. So it's, yeah, there's just so many elements there.

Kim Meninger

Yeah. And I wonder, did you consciously do anything in that in between where you are now and when you left what you were doing previously to reflect or connect with what it is that you wanted to do?

Jen Hardy

Oh, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, yeah, I had a few different rock bottom moments, you could call them, that were good slaps in the face. But the one that really pushed the needle forward was just a bad breakup. It was a bad breakup that felt like a different version of the same story, where I must be the problem. I must be broken, and at that point, I was just so low that I was like, I'll do anything. And a friend of mine happened to invite me to a landmark event, which is a personal development course, if you for anybody else who doesn't know what that is. And I got slapped in the face of reality in three days, real hard, but in a beautiful way. And I. I was going in there to figure out why I couldn't find love and like, what was wrong with me, and why do I keep any of these crappy relationships and healing that and in reality, I ended up healing a lot of family wounds and a lot of self-worth through family wounds. And it's been an ongoing journey that was seven years ago, maybe eight now, but that was, that was the turning point. That weekend, and me starting to really look into things catapulted me into like wanting to do more self-development, personal growth more and more and more and more, and uncovering that I was doing what I wound up doing. So what else do I want to do? And then, in that what's keeping me here. And the only thing that was keeping me here, which is a lot of people, is fear of uncertainty. You know, if I leave the quote-unquote guaranteed job, which, that's the funny part, right? There's no guarantee of anything, right, at any point in time. I mean, goodness gracious, look at our education system right now. But yeah, I was, I was scared of the uncertainty on the other side. And when I got past the uncertainty and decided, like, the uncertainty is more interesting than staying here and just posting, for lack of better word, just said, Screw it. And I, and I eventually just jumped the leap and the net will appear right and I left, and it was the most beautiful thing I've done. It was not easy. I'm not gonna say it was easy, but worth it, worth it in every regard.

Kim Meninger

And I think that's a really important distinction to it as cliche as it sounds, right, the things that are most important or more most worthwhile typically don't come easy, and that fear of uncertainty is built into how we are wired as humans, and so it, it's always going to be there in some way. I think it's interesting even that you had talked earlier about recognizing that you weren't afraid of public speaking. You're afraid of being heard. And I think that's important for, for everyone to think about too. Is what, what are you afraid of? And then what's the deeper fear there? Because I think sometimes we ha, we define, you know, identify superficial fears, when in actuality, it's something much deeper than that. And we have to get to that first before we can take those leaps that you're describing.

Jen Hardy

Oh, I agree. Oh my gosh. And this is something we dive really deep into. In in the work that we do, whether it's privately or with, with groups and companies, is recognizing how often our whole lives have been spent avoiding the emotions that we never wanted to experience as children like we develop these survival techniques and these survival skills and these stories and these parts of ourselves to protect us from these emotions that felt like they were threatening our survival in some way. And let's be honest, as a, as a child under the age of seven, they might have been, you know, it felt like that because we didn't have the frontal, frontal cortex to understand it. It, it didn't, or maybe it did. Gosh, we don't know, right? And so we developed these protective strategies, and I think a lot of things that come along with impostor syndrome. I hate the word syndrome, by the way. It used to be. It used to be impostor phenomenon, not syndrome. So let's start referring to it as that. Something wrong with you, but we, you know, but like I was saying, like, we've, we've been practicing these survival techniques our whole life, because that's how it felt. If I don't do this, if, if this, if I don't uphold it this way, I could be abandoned, I could be betrayed, I could be shamed, I could be exiled. I could be pushed out of the tribe. You know, and then to that right as well that built like this box, this this encampment, this these boundaries that if I start to bump up against those or go beyond them, like become a badass executive or go on my own business, I'm challenging the norms and the expectations of what this culture and this tribe or my family or whoever has said was okay and acceptable to still be a part of us, right? And that yanks you back in and I think that's where self-sabotage comes into play a lot. It's like we're bumping up against or even removing ourselves. We're going for something for us and not for just the tribe. And it's like, oh, no, you shouldn't be doing that, you know? And there's just, I just said a lot, so I'm gonna stop.

Kim Meninger

No, no. That's, that's perfect. I think that's exactly what we are unconsciously doing so much of the time. That's keeping us playing small. Like you said. It's just, it's kind of bumpers that we've put artificially around our lives that we're not willing to extend beyond. And I wonder whether it's based on your own story or based on some of the work you do, if there are any kind of practical things that you would recommend to people to start to do that work, to start to maybe, uh. Get more insight into where it's coming from, or to just start breaking down some of those, those bumpers that are, that are out there.

Jen Hardy

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's hard to see your way out of your own story, right? We don't know what we don't know so. But I do think some of us, we do know, we know it's just, are we willing to, like, actually sit with it and consider, like, where did this come from? When did I decide? You know, there's so many beliefs we have that if we just ask ourselves, when did I decide this? A lot of times you didn't realize. You never did. It was imposed on you. It was projected on to you. It was again required for survival. And it's like, Okay, well then is, is that still required of me? Is that something I actually still believe? You know, so taking some time to notice your patterns, to notice when you have those thoughts and those physical reactions and in what situations specifically right? So for me, it was public speaking was an obvious one. That was an easy one. Avoiding confrontation was an easy one, which doesn't really work when you're a coach. I couldn't avoid confrontation. So I think I leaned so hard into it that I went, you know, don't ask me a question unless you want to know the answer and like and I will give you, and I would be really, you know, blunt, which I believe in. But with a 16-year-old, you know, you still have to have some tact, you know. So I think the, the fastest way to start is to start looking at your patterns. Start noticing where you have reactivity. Start noticing where you're self-sabotaging. Notice the procrastination. Notice where you're always saying yes when you want to say no. Notice where you feel like you always have to do it alone or it's not going to be as important. Notice where you feel like you have to go save the day all the time. Notice those patterns you know once could be a pattern, could be a coincidence. Twice, might be a pattern three times or more, it's a freaking pattern. Let's break it down. Let's figure it out. And then and, and then learn to revel in it. Learn, learn to roll around in it and be okay with facing it. And I think that's what stops so many people, is what you're going to find, what you're going to learn, because you're going to realize there's some responsibility that you gotta take for how things have been going, and it doesn't feel very good, you know, I know it happened for me, the relationship I had with my father. I realized the role that I was playing and that I hadn't been telling him I loved him for years, because it was my way to pull the strings. It gave me some power, and in reality, it was giving me the opposite of the relationship that I wanted. And when I realized that, I got to go have a conversation with him about it, and I got to say I'm not doing that anymore. It's not who I it's not who I it's not who I am. It's not how I want this to be, you know, and that completely changed the trajectory of our relationship, but felt pretty disgusting at first, to be like, oh, cool, I'm doing that. But again, it puts the power back in your hands.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, it puts the power back in your hands, but in it also, I would say it, it allows us to see something that we didn't know existed, right? And we can't change it until we acknowledge it. And I think that's a really big part of what you're saying. It's interesting because you mentioned Landmark. I did the Landmark three-day experience too many, many years ago. Actually, it was, it happened to coincide with 9-11 and I did a lot of the work that you're describing too with my own relationships with my father, and it led me to a conversation that not only shifted my relationship with him, but actually unlocked a lot of other things that were a function of that. So I think when you talk about the patterns, it's so important to look at it that way, because a lot of times we are looking at the problem as the problem, as opposed to a symptom of the problem, right? So think like, oh, I'm a procrastinator. That's the problem. No, that's not the problem.

Jen Hardy

Yes, ma'am, that is, those are yes symptoms, exactly, noticing your symptoms, your symptoms.

Kim Meninger

That's right. And I love that you bring up the physical reactivity too because I think that's where a lot of the information comes from. We are so quick to dismiss our physiological responses to things, or you want to stifle emotions because they're uncomfortable, but I always talk about that emotional reaction or that physical reaction as your body's check engine light, right? It's like it comes on for a reason. It's not something. To dismiss, and if you just get a little bit uncomfortable and spend some time with it, to think about what just made that happen, right? What was going on in that moment inside of me, in the environment that I'm in, you can learn so much about what your triggers are and how you're relating to your environment.

Jen Hardy

Yeah, it's we're just not taught to do that, you know, and I have no idea how to be with that. We're just such a dissociated culture in the first place. I feel like sometimes people stop to do that. Any side did. And I was like, I don't know what I'm experiencing. Like, you want me to label this, you know, but it fit. And that's the point, though, right? It takes practice. And the first practice, as you mentioned, the first practice is just start paying attention. Just get aware, acknowledging something, something isn't right, something feels off. Oh, I notice. I always do this here. I always this. Always happens there. This is the experience I have, like, just start noticing the symptoms, the patterns, the presence and that that's, I mean, that's the first step to really being able to do anything, because, again, you can't do anything about the things you don't know.

Kim Meninger

That's right. That's exactly right. And I think it's also important to recognize, because a lot of us have been told implicitly or explicitly to essentially suck it up, right? And so there is a, a lot of motivation to not sit with uncomfortable feelings, because it feels like wallowing. It feels like self-pity. It feels like we're going to get stuck there, and that we're feeling sorry for ourselves, as opposed to looking at it through this more productive lens that you're describing, of just trying to understand it. It's not about, you know, getting, getting swept away by it, but to the more you pay attention to it. And I say this as somebody who grew up with I'm a pretty dramatic person. I've always been a pretty emotional person. It's coming back to haunt me in the form of my 10-year-old son, who is very similar, but my mother always used to say to me, get a grip, right? And that was her way of saying, You're overreacting. And so I didn't feel safe to experience my emotions, because she always told me that I was too much. There was just, you know, you have to put it all away, and it's not, it's not appropriate, or it's not safe to bring that out into the world. And I think a lot of us have experienced that too. And so it can be hard sometimes to say, gosh, if I spend some time looking at this, I might actually feel something that I don't feel safe to feel, or I might actually go to a place that I've been told not to go.

Jen Hardy

Yep, oh man, do I agree? Yeah, that. And I think that's a different version of some I was trying to allude to as well. I Yes, we're taught it's either not safe, it's not okay, it's not acceptable, you're too much, right? You're too much, you're not enough, you're not enough, you're bad, you're broken. And it the funny part to me is, especially in like that parental situation, right? Your emotions, they didn't know what to do with them. And it's that way in most situations, when someone's like, you're just being this, oh, you're just being that. Oh, it's too much. I can't believe you get a crap. Hold it together. I personally think it's my belief system that they don't know how to navigate whatever you're experiencing, and so there, though, therefore they must shut it down. Yes, and I just had a podcast with a different gentleman who and we had this beautiful conversation around learning how to navigate yourself, your own emotions, your own experiences, and all the things that are happening when that stuff comes up that most people label as too much or, you know, can't handle it. You learning you, which is why we teach self-leadership, allows you the opportunity to then be with others and whatever they're experiencing so that they get to be whoever they need to be in that moment. We don't make it mean anything about either one of us. And in fact, we then increase our ability to be human. We increase our humanity because we're able to navigate experiences without it having to mean anything about each other, and instead just being experiencing each other.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, that's so powerful, because you're absolutely right. I think one of the things I joke about is that we think that we are operating in a world where we're all sort of rationally interacting with each other. That's not what's happening. We're triggering each other all over the place and not realizing it. We're making up stories and making assumptions about why other people are doing what they're doing.

Jen Hardy

Oh, man, right. Goodness, yes, but that makes it scary, you know? I mean, and again, if you haven't, if you don't take the time to figure yourself out first and start to rebuild your own worthiness, accept yourself for the experiences you're having. How the heck are you supposed to do that for somebody else? Or with somebody else?

Kim Meninger

Exactly, and that's true for leaders. It's true for parents. It's true for so many of the roles that we play in our lives.

Jen Hardy

Absolutely.

Kim Meninger

And so I also want to acknowledge that this is not work that's ever done.

Jen Hardy

Yeah, no. It’s part of the journey, man.

Kim Meninger

It's part of the human experience. But I think it is a journey worth going on, because every step forward is worthwhile, and it's it just makes you that much stronger. And like you're saying, it's not just for yourself, it's for your especially those of us who are so motivated to, to be available to others, right, to be of service to others, it's not possible to do that work without doing this part first.

Jen Hardy

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yes.

Kim Meninger

So I want to bring it back to you for a moment, if that's okay, and just add and just ask you, how are you today, versus what the story you started with? Right? Like, where are you in the journey?

Jen Hardy

Yeah, I love that you brought up. The journey never ends, right? It's a master knows that they're never they never master anything, right? It's a constant learning. It's a constant experience, and I I want to just piggyback really quickly on what you just said about it's not about getting to the end, and it's also about learning how not to feel. Because I hear all the time like I want to manage my anger, and I'm like, I mean, I don't need to, I don't know that manage is the right word, right? It's navigate, is my word. Like, I want to be able to ride it, yeah, you know. And because you're human, you need to experience it, getting a trap, getting it all stuck and trapped, up and shut down and pushed away, like we tend to do, is what leads to disease, right? And, and all the problems. So I have a lot of people who are like, oh, I want to get really good at this. Because I want to just like, you know, be able to just manage it. And I'm like, no, because I hear manage is like, just stop it. I'm like, no. So with that said, I would say it has been a journey since 2016 of, of that, of learning how to navigate the thoughts that come up about, let's go back to imposter syndrome. You know, not enough, too much. You know, bad, broken, wrong, any of those. And obviously they, they distill out into much more specificity, not smart enough, not good enough, not capable enough, whatever it might be, noticing those stories when they come up, noticing the emotion that is attached to it, and how it's being triggered with the person in front of me, or the things that I'm doing, and finding new ways to navigate and getting more information. So I, you know, I am speaking on stages now, which I could have never fathomed doing before, you know, and I am constantly bumped up against with my current career. Because, you know, life's a journey, and financial situation for the past 16 months has been a struggle. And my business partner and I built this program, the cares program, to support high stress professionals, as I mentioned, and it was new, and we were having to get back out there and basically kind of rebuild momentum, and it's been slow, and like the impact that's had on my relationship, and having to use the tools I have to navigate my relationship, not falling apart because of financial strain to navigate the both business partnership and friendship I have with my business partner and make sure that we stay good. And you know, really nothing that we teach is theory, like it is practice and it's practice daily. I mean, I just recently got out of what I would call a really heavy freeze state. I'm not even realizing I was there. I was stuck in my own vortex. And even with all the tools that I have, and I want people to know this, like, you can still get stuck and you're because you're human, stuff still happens. You know, it'll be joke like new level, new devil. So. But where I'm at now is, is much more aware the ability to catch and witness and I have an environment a group of people who I trust with my life, and more importantly, I trust with my thoughts and, and can share freely and openly, and who will call me on my bullshit when they hear it and I love it, we have a Marco Polo group between four of us, and then I also have my sister and my, my partner, my guy and those between those six people, I. I know I'm supported. I'm I know I've got people who will say, hey, what just came out of your mouth? What are you talking about, right? And so that's been huge too. Is really, for lack of better words, cleaning up my environment, noticing who's who I'm allowed, who I'm willing to spend my time with, because our environment is a dramatic impact on everything we're talking about, and whether that be work or that be at home, or that be your significant other, or both, or family, or whoever, I mean, they're having a dramatic impact on how you view yourself and how you're able to keep yourself where you're headed. That's very easy to get sucked back in as well.

Kim Meninger

And I want to go back to what you were talking about earlier, with some of the childhood patterns in the seven-year-old versions of ourselves, and the fact that we don't have the sophistication in our brain to process a lot of what we're experiencing and feeling. And I think that's a really important distinction. What you just said between adulthood and childhood is oftentimes we stay stuck in situations, assuming we have no power or agency, when, in actuality, we do, and so we repeat a lot of the childhood patterns because we feel like that's the only way to that's our only option. Whereas we get to decide, right? We get to decide what environments we put ourselves into. We just to decide the people who surround us and that we rely upon, and that's a very big difference.

Jen Hardy

Yep, yep. You may remember this from Landmark. It was one of my favorite things that I've taken forward, we feel like we have no choice, right? Like we really do, but that's because life doesn't show up as chocolate or vanilla chews. Typically, it shows up as vanilla chews. That's right, and that some people are going to hear that and be like, let them, but that's how it feels. Right? We feel like we are sitting in a situation where there is, quote, no choice, but there's always choice. It's just, are you willing to deal with whatever's going to be on the other side of that choice? I've had to, I mean, I know we're, you know, I tend to go to personal life more than, than work life, but I think they bleed into each other so much, you know, I've my mother lived with me for a period of time. I had to kick my mother out of my house, you know. And I lived for quite a few months thinking that I had no choice. She had nowhere to go. She's at that point in my, in my life, thinking she was in her early 60s, you know, she has nowhere to go. She has no money. Like, I have to let her stay here. She has no choices. Therefore, I have no choices. And I finally got to a point I was like, No. Like, my health is a problem now, like you're impacting my mental and emotional health, just being here, like we had a really volatile relationship at that point in time, we're great now. And she would say the same thing, and I but I had to sit down and kick her out of my house, you know. And that was vanilla choose, you know. That was hard. It sucked, and it was the best thing I ever did for myself. But again, I think this is what stops most people, is the fear of what I'm going to actually have to do to take care of me in whatever way that looks.

Kim Meninger

Well, and it sounds like you're having said that you're in a good place with your mother now that it was probably good for your relationship too, and it probably wouldn't have gotten to where it is today if you hadn't done that. So I think that's important for people to understand too is the experience in the moment can be really hard and it can feel really scary, but you almost have to take a leap of faith if you know what's right for you and you understand yourself in the way that we're talking about that there is more on the other side that you can't see yet.

Jen Hardy

Yeah, and very easy. I've had plenty of instances where the opposite happened and nothing good came out of it, but except for me, right, like, I got to be okay with me, and I got to move on, and I got to let things go. But, that whatever that was with the other person, you know, it's done. It's over. We don't talk anymore. There's no relationship there anymore. You know, it could be both. It could be either or, but you're worth choosing you.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, yeah. And I often think about the fact that we are very loss-avoidant as humans. And so whenever we're trying to make a decision about something that might happen in the future, we go through the laundry list of everything that could go wrong and all the ways in which we might lose, but we don't do it on the other side, which is, what do I lose by staying right? What do I lose by not making a choice? And I think that's a really important piece of the equation to make sure…

Jen Hardy

Totally. Well, and I think also with that, it's people think courage is just something like you just have, you know, and what we're talking about is courageous. And courage is a skill. It is something that must be practiced you? You have to take the chances. You have to you have to lean into the vulnerable moments and have the courage to do so for the possibility of all the yucky stuff, hurt, harm, loss, deficit, injury, death, pain and all the beauty, right, the love, the connection, the compassion, the joy, the zeal, the miraculous. You can't, you have to risk one for the other, and that requires vulnerability, which requires courage. And courage is a skill. The more you do it, the more you try it, the more you practice it, the more resilient you become.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Gosh, Jen, I touch you. Just such an inspiring conversation, and I'm so grateful to you for having it with me. Where can people find you if they want to learn more about you and your work?

Jen Hardy

Yeah, the easiest place to find us is on our website. It's MotivAction dot Academy. So it's not.com it's not.org It's one of those things. It's motive with no E action dot Academy. And that is, everything's there, our, our emails, our phone numbers, our socials, links to set up a call. It's just it's the fastest one-stop shop to find us excellent.

Kim Meninger

Well, I'll make sure that's in the show notes as well. And thank you again, Jen for being here, and thank you for doing the work that you're doing. It's really important.

Jen Hardy

Well, I appreciate it. I really enjoyed the conversation as well.