Showing up as your most authentic self to create your brand is the future for women in perimenopause and menopause. I’m joined by speaker and personal branding expert, Juju Hook, to talk about how you can create your own personal brand.
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Key Takeaways
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Search for what lights you up. When you find that one thing that brings you joy, create your personal brand around that. [14:15]
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Don’t wait for the other shoe to drop. Create your own success by finally embracing what it is YOU want to do after all these years of pleasing everyone else. [26:00]
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Commit to doing the mirror work. Stand in front of your mirror and speak to yourself. Ask yourself what you want to do and listen to the answer. [29:35]
About Juju Hook
Juju Hook is a consultant, coach, and speaker. For more than a quarter-century she developed brand strategies for corporations.
Today, through online programs, live events, and one-to-one coaching, Juju motivates, inspires, and educates PrimeTime women in topics related to business, life, and relationships.
She holds a BA in English, an MBA, and is a certified coach and a yoga teacher. Juju lives in San Diego with her husband and her son. You can find her branding blog at StrategicJuju.com and her program for PrimeTime women at PositivelyPrimeTime.com.
You’re Entering Your Ultimate Prime Time
Put your hand up if you have kept yourself, your hopes, and your dreams on the back burner for most of your life. You put your family, your friends, and your career first, but you’ve never really given much thought to what it is you actually want to do.
I’m joined by Juju Hook, a branding expert who works with women in the prime of their lives, to talk about how you can reclaim that essence of who you really are and finally create the life and career you’ve always wanted. Your perimenopause and menopausal years are the absolute best time to reinvent yourself - as Juju says, they’re your primetime!
Juju shares her amazing wisdom that’s come from personal experience. There came a pivotal moment in her life when she knew her destiny was for greater things - and when she finally had the space to do it in her family life, she jumped at the chance.
Speaking with Juju, you can see the tremendous potential that you have. You can take what you already love and what you’re already good at and turn it into something uniquely you. You can start your own business based on YOU: your personal brand that makes people want to buy from you.
Juju encourages you to think outside the box. If you’ve had a career in marketing, you don’t need to just keep being a marketer for the rest of your life. In fact, this was Juju’s own career, which she’s since reinvented to help women with their personal branding.
Showing up Joyfully as Yourself
What makes your new brand work is that you’re showing up by being your most authentic self. People love to work with other people. When you shine through and bring your whole personality to your brand, you’ll naturally attract the kind of people you want to work with - and who want to work with you.
But of course, there will be people out there who don’t like what you’re putting out there. Juju is here to tell you that that’s absolutely okay! You don’t have to be everyone’s cup of tea. She shares her best advice on how you can handle negative feedback and criticism.
But ultimately, when you’re showing up joyfully as your authentic self, you will start bringing in money and success!
This was such a joyful conversation with Juju. By embracing our beginner’s mind, following what our heart and head knows we’ve always loved and wanted to pursue, and showing up authentically, we will have success in rebranding ourselves during our Prime Time!
Share with me in the comments what your Essence of Influence is. As always, you can ask me anything and let me hear your thoughts in the comments below. If you have questions, email team@drannacabeca.com.
In This Episode
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Why your perimenopause and menopausal years are the best time for reinvention [6:00]
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How you can apply your skills and expertise to something entirely new and different that will fulfill your menopausal years [11:45]
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How joy and clarity on who your authentic self is can bring money and success [17:45]
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What you need to know about hearing negative feedback when you’ve created a personal brand [19:30]
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What power there is in the beginner’s mind [28:20]
Quotes
“There’s a beautiful pivot if you can figure out how to apply your mastery to a new thing.” [11:09]
“If you can show people who you are and express who you are, you’ll attract the people who want what you have. It’s understanding that ‘I have enough, it’ll work for me, too.’” [16:08]
“You can’t go your whole life wanting to do something, or wanting to try something, and then deciding, ‘oh well, it’s too late. I didn’t do it. My ship has sailed.’” [27:53]
“I really invite women to lean into whatever this thing is that you feel you’re too much of or that you’re pushing down, that you don’t want people to see about you. Because it wants to come out and it was meant to.” [32:42]
Resources Mentioned
Discover Your Essence of Influence
Join Juju Hook's PrimeTime Posse on Facebook
Check out Episode 42: Food As Medicine To Help Anxiety w/ Ali Miller
Follow Juju Hook on Facebook | Instagram
Join the KetoGreen Community on Facebook
Buy Keto-Green 16
Follow Dr. Anna on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
Related Episodes
132: Developing A Culture Of Love & Kindness w/ Amber Trueblood
130: The Link Between Your Beliefs & Your Longevity w/ Dr. Mario Martinez
111: What Is The Secret To Health & Longevity w/ Tracee Gluhaich
Transcript
Juju Hook:
Everybody has an essence. There isn't one that's bigger or better than the next. When I go to the department store and choose a perfume, I don't choose the best one. I choose the one that's mine. My scent that I like. And this is the same way that branding works. If you can show people who you are and express who you are, you'll attract the people who want what you have. I've never met a woman who I'm like, "Yeah. Well, you don't have enough essence. We're not going to be able to wrap a brand around what you have." Every woman I meet is remarkable in some way.
Dr. Anna:
Welcome everyone to the Girlfriend Doctor podcast. Today I want to talk about your influence. Maybe your insecurities. What's holding you back from really experiencing life to your fullest? And how you can authentically show up in the world. I know that many people view menopause as a disease or an illness, but it's no more of a disease than puberty is. It is a transition. It's a time to be embraced and it's another stage of life. And I like to say breeze through menopause into your second spring.
Dr. Anna:
And today we're going to just talk with an expert in this area named Juju Hook. She is just amazing. She is going to tell her story and I love that what we're going to talk about in this episode is really about touching into what our essence is. What are we made of? What are our true desires? What drives us to be who we are and how we can show up better in the world as our true, authentic self. So let me introduce you to Juju. She, after launching her successful online branding program and blog at age 48, also developing more than 50,000 fans, Juju launched her book, Hot Flashes, Car Pools, and Dirty Martinis: The quintessential guide for turning midlife into primetime. She has received rave reviews of this book as well as her speaking and her engaging and her online audience. She capitalizes on her 25 years of experience in corporate branding, strategic planning facilitation, and special events with industry heavyweight clients like Jacuzzi and AutoNation Direct.
Dr. Anna:
She stepped into the speaking circuit to rebrand middle age for women. And today through online programs, live events, and one to one coaching, Juju motivates, inspires, and educates primetime women in topics related to business, life, and relationships. Don't you love it called primetime? I do too. Well, here we go.
Dr. Anna:
Welcome Juju to the Girlfriend Doctor podcast. I'm so excited to have girlfriend time with you here today.
Juju Hook:
Oh, I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for having me. This is super fun, super exciting.
Dr. Anna:
Well, I think often we say, okay, when we worry about losing our mojo or getting our juju back. How did you get the name Juju?
Juju Hook:
My name is Julia. My dad always called me Juju. And after I had my son and my friends were all having kids, 19 years ago, their kids called me Juju because that's how they pronounced it. And when I went online when I took ... I closed down my ad agency some years ago and decided to build an online brand and I knew people would remember Juju more than they would remember Julia. And it worked. So I love it. And it's exciting to have all these women call me Juju because it feels really personal and it's just ... I don't know. It's a fun way to go through the second half of life, honestly.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah, it suits you. I told my audience that's what we're going to talk about today. In the perimenopause, menopausal transition, just like with puberty, this is a transition in life. It is not an illness. It is not a disease. It is not anything else. It is the opportunity to redefine ourselves or to better define ourselves. And I think that's what's really, really important. So I want to start out talking about this identity. Creating our identity or renewing our identity during this time. And when we talk about brands, I've rebranded myself as the Girlfriend Doctor.
Juju Hook:
Yeah, I love it.
Dr. Anna:
I love it too. It just really does open up that more personal piece of conversation. So I think that just creates this, instead of behind the desk, side by side on the couch type conversation.
Juju Hook:
Yeah. And the brand includes your listeners. Now they're part of it too, which is just a really ... You can feel that come through. So I think that's awesome.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. Thank you. Well, let's talk about this and this creation about this identity crisis that many of us are experiencing. Like all of a sudden I'm empty nesting or this transition in life, I'm in this phase, what's next for me? Well, the fog is lifting I like to say. The fog has lifted.
Juju Hook:
Yeah. One of the things that I heard that I felt as I approached 50 ... And I owned an ad agency, I had a crisis inside my business, I was losing a big client, and I just had this moment where I thought, "Oh my god, I'm irrelevant." A younger agency is going to be what a national player what's now. If I go out and try to replace this, they're going to want this and they're going to want that. And I had all this stuff inside my head about who I was that my identity was so tied I think to the career that I had built over time and I just really had a hard time seeing my way out of it. And I went on a journey. I started talking to women in midlife and I realized that almost every woman I talked to believed to some extent or another that the older we get the less we're worth. And it just was so insidious that I really started to try to unpack it. What were women thinking about? And it really is an identity shift. It really is a chance to, I think, not just reinvent, but to finally express.
Juju Hook:
We spend so much of life ... When we're young we have this really clear picture of what the first half of life is supposed to look like for us. Everybody's got their plan. I'm going to do this and then I'm going to go to school and then I'm going to start a family or not, whatever the plan is. But nobody ever tells us that we need a second plan when that one's done. So we just make this assumption that well, I'm just going to chill. I hear women tell me that, I'm just going to chill. And I'm like, "Wow. You're going to chill for 35 years. Because that's a long time to just pack it in." And I think it's an awesome time to reinvent because by the time we're 50 we're ready for everything. We know how to do amazing stuff by the time we're 50. So it's the best time I think for reinvention.
Dr. Anna:
I like the word reinvention. I like that too. Reinvention, reimagination, dreaming. Like what is our dream job? What is our dream-
Juju Hook:
I do too. I call it primetime.
Dr. Anna:
I like that you call it primetime.
Juju Hook:
It's our eight to 11-time slot. I sold advertising forever for corporate clients and that's the best shows. People who are on in primetime, who show up in primetime, they're the ones that really they're ready. They got it all together. Women at 50 are in primetime. It's our primetime.
Dr. Anna:
Yes. Yeah, I agree. So how do we tap into this? How do we do this?
Juju Hook:
I think for me, one of the things that I hear women so often do is compare. Either I'm comparing to someone else or I'm comparing to who I used to be. And the challenge with those comparisons is that we're gauging ourselves so often on roles that we play. So I often ask women, "If you could tell me 10 things about yourself, but you're not allowed to tell me any relationships that you have, or any jobs that you've filled, or anything you like or don't like, tell me 10 things about you or about your essence." Women are really stumped. And I think we get further and further away of what's at the core of our being. Like if you were a bottle of wine or if you were a scent or if you were a bag of coffee beans, what would your top notes and your under notes be and your flavor? And we lose touch with that.
Juju Hook:
I met women who told me, "I've been cooking for my family so long I don't even know what I like to eat anymore. Couldn't even really tell you what's my favorite food." So I think the reinvention isn't so much I'm going to become something new. It's I'm going to discover who I am and shout it from the rooftops. I'm going to play the game full out because it's my time now. And it's very freeing I think.
Dr. Anna:
I love it. And I see it too. I see it happen in women in my communities and that I've worked with. Just kind of a beautiful transformation. Claiming your passion. Because you recognize that okay, well, it's not a downhill. This is a passionate phase. Our energy, our energetic body within us, our spirit within us doesn't age. So [crosstalk 00:09:12] making sure the external cage of it continues to be healthy and our minds clear, that's all part of what I call my keto green way of living. But that's critically important and then just recognizing, look, we've got a long life to live. And every morning I read a devotional called Give Us This Day. It's a small Catholic devotional. And in it, if I don't get to read anything else I read the blessed of the day. And it just talks about someone in history that lived by their standards, created an amazing life. And often they're post-childbearing years. I think of Rosa Parks. She one of the blessed of the day. Chief Seattle, that's a guy. But I mean, so many people just over ... And Mother Theresa for sure. Just this continuing tapping into our passion, tapping into our desires. What gives me joy?
Juju Hook:
Yeah. What do I like? What do I enjoy? What's pleasurable? And I think too, for a lot of us, we surf. And whether or not you have kids, we're mothering things all along. There's this whole mothering phase. Whether we're mothering kids or pets or projects or books or jobs or friends or whatever. And then there comes a time when our body makes this shift out of the mothering phase. And I find that a lot of women are really called to contribution on a different level. So some women are circling back to things they've always wanted to do. I always wanted to paint or I always wanted to design jewelry or I used to be an amazing dancer and I never finished it. I chose something more practical instead. And for some women it's kind of, I have mastery in this subject but I'm done delivering it in this way. I don't want to be this thing anymore.
Juju Hook:
Or I talk to women who say that I was never better at anything than I was at being a mom, so now it's going to be all downhill from here. And there's kind of a beautiful pivot if you can figure out how to apply your mastery to a new thing. Like I work with a lot of women who are building brands around, well, I used to be a CPA and now I'm a money coach. Or, I used to be in corporate marketing, which is the way I was, and now I'm helping women with their personal brands. So there's this whole baby with the bathwater thing where women are like, "Screw it. I'm going to be something totally new." And when you realize, gosh, I can apply this mastery in a new way that fills me up and have new connections and a new expression of myself, it just starts the contribution on an entirely different level I think.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. And I think that's, again, tapping into what makes us happy. And when you said that this kind of tapping into what really drives us, and I always ask clients too, "What did you love doing as a child?" [inaudible 00:12:05] that child. Do you find that that's helpful, tapping into who you so wanted to be or experience as a child?
Juju Hook:
I think so. And I think for me, there's something about menopause that takes you back to that. Like I always laugh that I think part of the reason why Facebook took off is because 50-year-old women wanted to reconnect with their high school boyfriends in some way. There's all this kind of, what Christiane Northrup calls unfinished business that we have. And a lot of that really is desire-based. And I know a lot of women like me chose some type of practical application of whatever it was that really excited them. I always wanted to be an author, I always wanted to be a writer. And I started to write ad copy. And there was money in it, and then I became a strategist, and then I became an agency owner. So I had this whole career that ran parallel to my passion. But I never really said what I wanted to say. I never really wrote my words. I always wrote somebody else's words. And it wasn't until I was going through perimenopause, menopause where I ... But at that point I thought, I really have something to say here. And it was scary too because you feel like ...
Juju Hook:
This is another thing I see women do. It's like well, everything's been coming to this. And now there's this whole feeling of pass or fail. Like, what if my whole life I wanted to be a writer and now I write a book and it stinks and it turns out I was never really good at this in the first place? So there's kind of that voice in the head that wants you to stay small, wants you to not try it. So you get all these crazy thoughts about oh, this is risky, this is scary. And if I can get women to push through that, then you do get to relive those dreams from your youth. The calling I think is what it is really. That desire.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. That's good. So what do we need to do to tap into our personal brand? That part of our ... That influence ... The way we ...
Juju Hook:
I would really search like you said for the things that are lighting you up. And it's hard to say what do you enjoy doing because oftentimes by the time you get to 50 we're not doing anything for ourselves anyway. We don't remember what we enjoy doing. And I see people say, "Well, what are the kind of things you do where you lose time?" And I don't know about the women listening, but I never really had the opportunity for that for the longest time. It wasn't like I could choose between oh, do I want to do this today or this today? I was busy. So I gear women more toward who are you? Like what's at your core? What's at your essence? How would you describe yourself as a flavor or as a scent? I talk to women a lot about what they're drawn to in terms of values as well. Because our values are also at our core. And we attract people who share our values. We hang out with them, we marry them, we vacation with them. And if we can also get in really ... Sometimes we can get in touch with who we are but we're very in touch with what we believe. And that'll bring us back to who we are.
Juju Hook:
Why do you believe that? What caused you to believe that? What happened in your life that drove you to that? And that gets you to what's in your heart. And I think it's really easy from a branding standpoint, especially from a personal branding standpoint showing up on social media and things like that, that we want to try to be attractive. And there isn't a normative definition of attractive. There's no such thing as an attractive person. I'm attracted to a person. They're attracted back. So it's an individual connection each and every time. And everybody has an essence. There isn't one that's bigger or better than the next. When I go to the department store and choose a perfume, I don't choose the best one. I choose the one that's mine. My scent that I like. And this is the same way that branding works. If you can show people who you are and express who you are, you'll attract the people who want what you have. It's just understanding that I have enough. It'll work for me too. I've never met a woman who I'm like, "Yeah. Well, you don't have enough essence. We're not going to be able to wrap a brand around what you have." Every woman I meet is remarkable in some way.
Dr. Anna:
And Juju, tell us the benefit of doing that and doing this work.
Juju Hook:
Well, there's lots of benefits. First of all, you get to spend your day with the kind of people who you want to spend your day with. In my mind, the biggest benefit of branding in a really authentic way, putting yourself out there in a really authentic way is people get to see all of you and so they can choose you. If you don't show yourself completely, then what they get is some watered down, held back version of you, which they're not going to come for. When you show yourself completely and you attract those people who really value what it is that you have and what you're about and what you believe in, then you're surrounded by those people all the time. And you live in a state of flow because you're spending all of your time energetically with people who appreciate who you are and that's a beautiful state to be in. That aside, there's a real business case for it. Because if we can attract our ideal client, then we're going to make money. And there's a business case for being a premium brand. There's a business case around being able to charge more because you're clear on what you stand for and how you're going to show up and what that person on the other end is going to experience.
Juju Hook:
So I think the work in and of itself brings joy. There's joy in self-discovery. But it also brings money. It brings affluence. It brings success.
Dr. Anna:
And I think joy and clarity. Right? Like it takes away that vibe, that confusion. You touch base with your core, your likes, your dislikes, authentic self. And I think that that is how we will change the world, by being authentically who we're designed to be and that's really important.
Juju Hook:
There's a detriment to being something that you're not or feeling that you need to be something that you're not. We pay a price for that in terms of stress and worry that we're going to be found out and all of these things kind of showing up and putting on. But for so long branding has been about that. About creating an image. And man, it's hard to live up to the images that we create for ourselves. Versus, I'm going to show myself and trust that I'm enough. I'm as much as anybody else is and it's going to work because my people will come. And I've never seen it not work.
Dr. Anna:
Very cool. No, I love that. And I think that showing up authentically and not worrying about the outward response, but worrying about your ... Because that's the other fear. We may have 99 people who like us, but we'll focus on the one person who doesn't.
Juju Hook:
Yes.
Dr. Anna:
Why is that?
Juju Hook:
I don't know. I mean, rejection feels painful. And I always start from the place with women when we talk about this, that there are likely just as many people who won't be attracted to you as who will. And I once heard Deepak Chopra say that what other people think of me is none of my business and I have always loved it. And it's hard to hear that. It's what we have avoided trying to hear our whole lives. Nobody wants to hear that. I also think oftentimes when we're triggered by that feedback, it's because it echoes the feedback we have in our own head. The things that bother us the most that we're judged about by other people are the things that we judge ourselves on. So we hear it, and what other people say is not nearly as unkind as what we're saying in our own minds and so it reinforces a very negative feedback loop. And there is learning to let go of that when we show ourselves completely.
Juju Hook:
But one thing I do know is that when women work from purpose, I think that's the other aspect of it. It's not just who am I, but it's also how am I going to serve. How am I going to show up? How do I contribute? What's my contribution? What's my purpose? And when we're in purpose, whether we're in purpose for money or whether we're in purpose for enjoyment or whatever it is, we have a reason to show up that's bigger than us, and it's much easier to move past what we perceive as criticism or rejection if we're doing it in service to someone else. I can show up every day for the women that I serve because they're counting on me and in purpose with them. It's much harder for me to show up every day for myself. It's much easier to give out. So I think when we find that really nice combination of purpose and essence, it gets easier with time.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. And that self-confidence and self-reliance, I think that a healthy enough opinion about ourselves-
Juju Hook:
Yes. For sure. Yes.
Dr. Anna:
Now, you wrote a book and I love the title. Hot Flashes, Car Pools, and Dirty Martinis. Let's talk about that.
Juju Hook:
I wrote the book because ... Back to the day that I was telling you about when I lost a client. I owned an agency. I heard I was about to lose a big client. And I had a seven-member team on the account. It was a big deal. And I had this moment when I thought, "I'm not going to be able to replace this client. I don't know if I can do this." Which was crazy. I was 20 something years into quite a successful career. And I reached for a glass of pinot noir, as we so often do I think when we're challenged. And when I hit perimenopause, I started to have a complicated relationship with wine. I didn't feel good after I drank wine. I had a lot of negative self-reflection after I did it. But I felt sick and so I thought, I don't want to drink this wine because I'm going to feel terrible tomorrow. So in a moment of what turned out to be not tremendous brilliance, I mixed up a couple of dirty martinis and I woke up the next morning and my head was pounding, it was raining, my in-laws were in the house, we had a flood.
Juju Hook:
I forgot to wake my son up for school and he and I had a knockdown drag out. And it just escalated and escalated and escalated. It was only 8:30 in the morning. I had already felt irrelevant, hungover. I had been over-involved in my teenager's life. I had felt ashamed in front of my in-laws. Just all these things that had sort of become my norm that I didn't recognize. And I took my son, I dropped him off at school. He ran away. We had a fight. He ran away. Through the second story window out into a rainstorm. I mean, it was kind of a ... show morning, for lack of a better phrase. I took him and I dropped him off at school and I was still pretty worked up and the principal called and said, "We noticed that Christian's kind of worked up and I just wanted to check and see what's going on at your house." And I said, "He's not really committed to his studies. He's kind of skating by. He won't really apply himself. I'm really frustrated." And I kind of went off.
Juju Hook:
And he said, "You and I have a really nice relationship and I don't know that I would say this out loud to every parent, but I don't think this is about him. I think this is about you." So he challenged me to go do something that I was terrified of. He said, "He's 13 and he doesn't need you in the same way anymore. And I know that's really hard for moms and it would be really good if you could find a thing that you're ..." Just like you and I are talking about now, right? So I decided that I would start public speaking. I came home, I told my husband. I just had a moment when I realized I think, my god, I haven't given myself a chance all this time. I've been wrapped up in my son. I've been wrapped up in this business. So I've never really given myself a chance to do what I want to do. So I called my husband and I said, "I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to have an agency anymore." And he said, "What do you want to do?" And I said, "I think I want to be a motivational speaker."
Juju Hook:
And he said, "What does that look like?" And I said, "I don't know. I have no idea." He asked, "How long do you think it'll take to replace your income from the agency?" And I estimated five years. And then I went out and I started talking to women and asking them about were they sharing these same feelings I had, and they all did. I heard I'm irrelevant, I heard I'm running out of time. I couldn't possibly start anything new. I don't have enough time. I heard I'm invisible. I heard that it's inappropriate for me to do these things. I heard that it's noble for me to be selfless. I should give myself away. So I started recognizing that women were just really affected by these kinds of lies that we were all telling ourselves and it led to a book and the book led to ... Within about, I guess maybe a year and a half, two years of that moment, I was on stage for the first time in front of thousands of screaming women and it just changed everything for me. It was an awful morning that totally changed my reality. And I had it all. I had everything that I find women are going through.
Juju Hook:
I was drinking too much. I was living through my kid. Helicoptering. Snowplowing for him. I was, I think, playing really small. And even though I was successful, I was not happy. I wasn't energized. And it just changed everything for me.
Dr. Anna:
How does your life look now?
Juju Hook:
Oh my gosh, I love my life. I have a business now. I have, I don't know, 50,000 online followers. I have a group of 1,000 women online called The Primetime Posse where we just talk about this kind of stuff. I have a private group of 15 VIP clients called The Cut that are all women in primetime who are building personal brands. We do an immersion experience over nine months, which I absolutely love. I have a really great relationship with my husband. My son and I have an awesome relationship. He's getting ready to go away to music school, god willing, in the fall. And I'm happy. I'm in purpose all the time. I'm calling all the shots. I'm not waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Dr. Anna:
Very powerful. Very powerful.
Juju Hook:
Yeah. It feels powerful. I feel empowered now.
Dr. Anna:
So from that conversation, you recognized that okay, this isn't my dream world that I'm living in. This is not how I want to continue. I can't take another day of this. But what is it that I'm so driven to do? Is that ... What was the-
Juju Hook:
I think what I realized was that I had been hiding a little bit. That I had done all these things. I had succeeded in all these ways that were relatively safe. I was doing well, but I wasn't playing at my edge. So I tried things that I knew that I could win. And the things that I knew that I could win were not the things that made me feel full. The idea of writing a book, of putting myself out there, of getting on a stage, that all was terrifying to me, but it made me feel something. I think also I knew that if I don't do this, I'm never going to forgive myself. You can't go your whole life wanting to do something or wanting to try something and then deciding, "Oh well, it's too late. I didn't do it. My ship has sailed." And I didn't really know what it looked like. I think for a while I was a little bit in that stage of I know what I don't want but I don't really know what I do want. But it didn't take me long to turn it around and to start ...
Juju Hook:
I think too, there's real power in that beginner's mind and we lose touch with that after a time. We get to be 50, we know everything. There isn't anything we don't know. And it had been a long time since I had tried new things. And I had a lot of first new things. I had webinars and I started a blog. No one read it but my mom. All my early blog post comments are all my mom pretending to be someone else. She's called Nancy, but she's always like, "Oh, I think this is so bright." I still laugh about it. She's passed on now and I go back and read her blog comments. But it was all new for ... Every single thing was new to me and it was really energizing. It was really thrilling. And I hadn't felt thrilled in a long time.
Dr. Anna:
I love it. Juju, so what would you tell all the people that are listening to how they can experience this? And again, that tapping into our essence. And also the fear of making a change. Because life gets comfortable.
Juju Hook:
Sure does. I started with mirror work. I started going to the mirror every morning and looking in the mirror and saying what do you want? What do you want? Because I didn't know what I wanted. I only knew what I didn't want. And it was very confronting, but I kept asking the question until I knew until I had a desire in one direction or another. And I got really clear around how I wanted to feel. I got really clear about the fact that I wanted to feel positively influential. I wanted to influence people in a way where I felt useful. And once I kind of knew that I wanted to write and speak and that I wanted to be influential, I just got curious. I think curiosity's a really big part of it. We forget that we don't have to have the answers. We can have the desire and begin to manifest the desire and be curious about how it will show up. And that was a lesson for me too, to not have to control everything. To say, "Okay, let's try this and see where it goes." And I think the other thing that was a really big lesson for me was that everything is a series of actions and course corrections.
Juju Hook:
Every day that we're reinventing and doing something new, we act, we learn, and we course correct. We act, we learn, we course correct. And we put so much emphasis in am I doing it right or am I doing it wrong? Am I going to pass or am I going to fail? Is this going to be a success, is it going to be a failure? And the biggest learning experience I've had is that if you don't measure things that way, if you choose not to measure things that way, you can stay in a space of curiosity and things really start to form. They start to take shape.
Dr. Anna:
No, I love it. I love it. I'm reflecting now on what I wanted to be when I was little. And I always say, at six I knew I wanted to be a doctor, but I also wanted to be a ballerina and a nun. And I always joke [crosstalk 00:31:14] being a physician by default. But the truth is that's a triad of energies. And the truth is now, in my life as a girlfriend doctor, I'm a physician/educator. And physicians are teachers. And that is grounding me in the physical sense. And then I have to have fun, so there's the ballerina. If I'm not having [crosstalk 00:31:37] each other. I mean what's the point, right? And then every part of my work and my practice and my life has a spiritual component, hence the nun.
Juju Hook:
Yes, and you're guiding people spiritually too I think. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Anna:
So embracing that, I feel so more connected now with my Girlfriend Doctor brand and this essence that ... And then I am having tremendously more connections.
Juju Hook:
It brings happiness. I always tell women too, the things that people ... During the times when you felt like too much ... We've all felt like that, right? And one of the things I can remember, that I had forgotten until this time in my life, was being in a room with all my girlfriends when I was little and having my mom say, "You're the only person I can hear." And thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm too light. Like I'm bossy. I'm talking too much. I'm too loud." But really tapping into that made me realize that I have a voice. I have a voice I've never used. And at some point maybe I came to believe that my voice was too loud or that nobody would want to hear it. So I really invite women to lean into whatever this thing is that you feel you're too much of or that you're pushing down, that you don't want people to see about you. Because it wants to come out and it was meant to.
Dr. Anna:
Or designed to. Designed to your [inaudible 00:33:01] for sure.
Juju Hook:
Yeah.
Dr. Anna:
I love our conversation. Thank you Juju for being with us today. You've shared so much. There's a lot to noodle on for sure. But please tell our audience ... Well, you have a gift for our audience, number one.
Juju Hook:
I do.
Dr. Anna:
So talk about this gift that you have for our audience.
Juju Hook:
I have a system called The Essence of Influence. It's an assessment that women can take and it's around the concept of showing up consistently in our personal brand. So it's really hard to show up every day and put yourself out there like we were talking about earlier. And one of the things I found through my work with these women is that if we can identify kind of an archetype, kind of a character that we want to be ... Like, I have women who are scientists or women who are ... Like with the Girlfriend Doctor. With you, right? Women who are reporters. Or a correspondent of some type. Or an activist. And if I can really understand my essence of influence, I can live inside that essence and it helps me to show up every day, and when I get that pushback, like you said, from either people don't like me or they resist or whatever if I'm in my essence of influence it kind of rolls off a duck's back. If I'm a scientist I can put on my lab coat and I can start to talk about the data.
Juju Hook:
And it's just a really helpful way to build that early confidence to stay in the game until we feel in our power around it. So I have an assessment where you can find out your essence of influence and then it tells some stories of women who share that essence, so you can see how to show up. And it's free.primetimejuju.com.
Dr. Anna:
Say that again. Free.primetime-
Juju Hook:
Primetimejuju.com
Dr. Anna:
Primetimejuju.com. Got it. Free.primetimejuju.com. All right, so everyone takes that and share it with me. Definitely post in the comments here what your essence of influence is. I want to know from each and every one of you. So post and share. I'm excited. When you talk about this and especially when it comes to social media influence, do you mean to show up every day on social media?
Juju Hook:
I mean show up consistently. [inaudible 00:35:19] is about consistency. People need to see you in the same place in the same way. You don't have to show up every day. But one of the sort of misnomers about branding and about content, in general, is that we have to constantly be trading all this new stuff or people are going to be bored. And the truth is it's much more effective to speak about the same things over and over again from different angles and different ways. But when we do we need to show up with a consistent voice. So like I help women to identify issues or items that they're willing to give voice to and I suggest take a season. Pick five or six things you're willing to give voice to and talk about those things. So it's not a matter of how often you have to show up, but people need to consistently see who you are so they can choose you. I always compare it to if you were in one of those giant lecture halls and you saw a woman in it every single day. She had on the same cool, red trench coat with a black belt and black pumps and she was walking down the street from behind.
Juju Hook:
Even if you never saw her face, you'd always recognize her. And even if she never showed herself completely, you would come to have an idea of what she's about. And as long as she shows up the same way all the time, then that attraction grows and grows, right? But if every day you show up in a new way, you show up someplace different, you're reinventing, recreating something new, nobody really has an opportunity to settle into who you are. And what I love about the essence of influence and then having a set of things that you talk about is it takes away that need to, "Oh, I got to come up with something new. I got to ..." Right? And it allows us to get deeper and deeper into talking about what we think and what we stand for. What we're willing to back. Those kinds of things. And those are meaningful discussions. They're riskier in the sense that they're polarizing very often. But they're meaningful to people and they're attractive.
Juju Hook:
So I don't know that you have to show up social media every day, but whatever you say you're going to do, you got to do, if people are counting on you. And when you show up you need to show up in the same way. People need to know that what they see is what they get and that they can trust that what they think they're going to get is what's really there.
Dr. Anna:
I hear you. I hear you loud and clear. It's such sage advice. All right, tell us that ... Free.primetimejuju.com. J-U-J-U.com
Juju Hook:
Correct.
Dr. Anna:
And your book is available everywhere books are sold?
Juju Hook:
Yep. It sure is.
Dr. Anna:
Well, thank you for your time today. Thank you for being with-
Juju Hook:
My pleasure.
Dr. Anna:
Our community. I know we'll have more discussions to come for sure.
Juju Hook:
Thank you.
Dr. Anna:
I enjoyed my discussion with Juju very, very much and I hope you take away from this discussion that it is never a bad time to be authentic. And if we are just working, and often that we find ourselves in this situation where we are doing for others so much we forget what we truly like, who we truly are. And that over time, it's like wearing a mask and we have to take that mask off now, today, and creating that authentic life for ourselves so that we show up with passion, joy, and happiness in everything we do and what that means to redefine us. Or just to expand who we are and how we feel and really tap into our happiness. I had fun in this discussion because it did bring me back to what I wanted to be as a young girl. A ballerina, a nun, and a physician, a doctor. Those were three things that I recognize now that I have to incorporate into my life. It is part of who I am. That essence that I tapped into as a young child is truly all parts of me in one way or another. And when I show up in this way, it does make a difference. And I hope you feel that too.
Dr. Anna:
I am thrilled to be here with you as your girlfriend doctor. I am receiving questions every day from you guys and testimonials. And I just love it. I loved in our keto green community where women are there to share their authentic self, their concerns, and also sometimes their boundaries, their barriers, their blockages. And that helps us as a community to create a safe space for us to work through these situations. So definitely check out my keto green community and be sure that you're joining us there and active there. And if you haven't been in my keto green 16 challenge, you need to. Follow my emails, contact my team, whatever you need to do to get into our keto green 16 live challenges. Because they are super inspiring and fun. A lot of good women there.
Dr. Anna:
Thank you for being with me today on The Girlfriend Doctor podcast. I look forward to seeing you next time. Take care.
