117: Making Space for Rest with Jordan Maney
Rest is the fuel you need for your work and your advocacy. That's how today's guest, Radical Joy Coach™ Jordan Maney, thinks about the far-reaching impact of true rest, unlike anything I've ever heard before. I had the privilege of meeting Jordan earlier this year at a conference where we had the opportunity to spend a lot of time together.
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Show Notes
Rest is the fuel you need for your work and your advocacy.
That’s how today’s guest, Radical Joy Coach™ Jordan Maney, thinks about the far-reaching impact of true rest, unlike anything I've ever heard before.
I had the privilege of meeting Jordan earlier this year at a conference where we had the opportunity to spend a lot of time together. The way she coaches around rest is so dynamic that I invited her to be a guest expert inside the Coach with Clarity Collective and the feedback was overwhelming. Her training on rest received more love than anything I've ever offered inside the Collective.
That’s how powerful Jordan's work around rest is, and that’s why I’m excited to bring her to the podcast. You’ll find so many gems in this conversation and get so much out of her work. Enjoy the episode!
Topics covered
- How Jordan helps creative and intuitive business owners
- Lessons Jordan learned from her first venture into entrepreneurship
- The messy, uncomfortable side of pivoting
- Jordan’s path to becoming a Radical Joy Coach™
- What you need to remember about the refinement process
- How Jordan defines rest
- Why we need to pay close attention to the energy we give out
- Turning your attention back to yourself
- Making time for rest
- Why everything in our calendar seems too important to cut
- Getting very clear on your actual capacity
- The rest-capacity relationship
- The several different types of rest
- Why Jordan believes we should aim for harmony instead of balance
- The connections between rest and advocacy
- What sustainable advocacy looks like
Resources mentioned
- Jordan Maney’s Website
- Jordan Maney’s Program | The Hibernator
- Jordan Maney on Instagram
- Jordan Maney on TikTok
- Jordan Maney on Facebook
- Jordan Maney on Twitter
- Coach with Clarity Mastermind Application
- Coach with Clarity Podcast Facebook Group
- Coach with Clarity Collective Waitlist
- Connect with Me on Instagram
- Email Me: info@coachwithclarity.com
Now it’s time for you to show the world what it means to be a Coach with Clarity! Screenshot this episode and tag me on Instagram @coachwithclarity and let me know what you’re more excited to explore in future podcast episodes!
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TRANSCRIPT
Well, hello my friend. Welcome to the Coach with Clarity Podcast. My name is Lee Chaix McDonough, I'm your host and I am so thrilled that you are joining me for my discussion today with Radical Joy Coach, Jordan Maney. I had the privilege of meeting Jordan earlier this year at a conference, we got to spend lots of time together and I was so taken by the way she coaches around rest. It is unlike anything I'd ever heard before. And that's why I also invited her to be a guest expert inside the Coach with Clarity Collective, my membership program. And I have to tell you, her training on rest received more feedback, more emails, more love than just about anything I've ever offered inside the Collective. That is how powerful Jordan’s work around rest is and that is why I am so excited to bring her and her work to the Coach with Clarity Podcast. So, I'm gonna stop talking so we can get right into my conversation with Radical Joy Coach and Rest Expert, Jordan Maney.
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Lee: Well, hello, Jordan, thank you so much for coming on the Coach with Clarity Podcast.
Jordan: Thank you so much for having me. This is a pleasure.
Lee: Oh my gosh, the feeling is 100% mutual. I just adore you, I adore your work, I am so excited to really dive into, what I think, is a topic that does not get enough attention and I want to shine the light on it. So today we're going to be talking about rest. Just even saying the word rest, like breathe that in.
Jordan: I know.
Lee: But before we do, let's find out a little bit more about who you are and the work that you do for the world.
Jordan: So howdy everybody, if you can’t tell that I am obviously from Texas, I opened with howdy. I'm based here in San Antonio. My name is Jordan Maney, you can also call me the Radical Joy Coach, and I help creative and intuitive business owners rest; because when we rest we can dream. And when we dream, we can act and Lord knows there's a lot of things that need our attention and action right now. I came to this work because I truly believe you can learn to take rest or rest can take you and I went through the not fun experience of having rest take me and built this framework from that experience to help other very lovely but oftentimes creative people who do not you know, really enforce their boundaries, who need to get good about that, who are feeling sapped and zapped from the the world, the state of the world. Who want to do something but also still return to their joy. We start that with rest. So I'm so excited to be talking about this today with you.
Lee: Me too. I feel extra special, lucky because I actually got the opportunity to meet you in person in Texas. You were a speaker in the Feel Good Money Live conference in Austin, in April hosted by Megan Hale, which was outstanding. That was really my first introduction to you. Then we got to hang out a little bit in San Antonio a few days later, which was so amazing,
Jordan: Dreamy!
Lee: I mean it really was.
Jordan: It was a dream sequence out of a movie, it was wonderful.
Lee: It was and I am so grateful for that because I feel like I got to know you on an even deeper level. And you are just such an amazing person. You bring so much vitality to everything that you're a part of. And I'm just so excited to be featuring you on the podcast today. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your journey as a coach. Because you, I mean, you are the Radical Joy Coach. But I suspect it took a while to get to that point. Am I right?
Jordan: Oh my god. Oh my god. First of all, I also want to say Coaching with Clarity is the perfect name for you. Because having never met you before, you exude this calmness and confidence that like at first it was just like, “Oh my!” Like, it almost feels like you're drawn to that energy that you put out because it's just it's so grounded. It's so grounded. So I just love, I just love everything about you! But, um getting into this work – like any coach…
Lee: I’m over blushing by the way. I just, full transparency. I'm like near tears, so thank you for that.
Jordan: I love it. I love it. I definitely feel like it was like most coaches kind of ass backwards, where it wasn't – it was lots of detours. It wasn't something that I was like, “Oh my god, I'm going to become a coach!” No. I definitely started out into the small business world with a wedding planning firm. Absolutely loved it. It was called All The Days. And I call that my business school because I learned so much of what I don't want to do, how I don't want to conduct myself, from that experience. And so it was a through a client experience where I just wanted to be super perfect. I wanted to absolutely be validated by the client being happy with me that I over promised, I under delivered. I had absolutely no boundaries. It was really, really, really breaking me down. And through that experience, I don't even want to dive into it, but it definitely uh, it definitely laid into me in a way where I was really struggling with my confidence, really struggling with my concept of what I'm supposed to do in the world.
I think a lot of times when people get into coaching or small business in general, especially if it has anything to do with your creativity, or intuition or anything like that, it's very easy to be like, to compare yourself to the prescriptive paths maybe other people are taking that seem so clear cut. Maybe even get a little envious, that they seem so clear cut of bachelor's, master's, doctorate, great. Medical, uh college, then I'm gonna go to medical school, then I'm going to enter, like, it's almost, there's a true envy that comes from [unintelligible] when everybody else is moving along. And so the beauty of that time, though, of being lost in the woods, that you really get a great opportunity to pay attention, and to see what's going on around you, and to see your place in it. And so I had this gnarly client experience, and I mean, it was gnarly for them too, in 2018. I knew at their wedding, I was like, I can't do this for too much longer. But I had absolutely no clue how that was gonna happen. I had a networking series called Brash for women business owners in San Antonio that I really loved pouring into. And I also was on the board for the LiftFund Women's Business Center in San Antonio, still am. So I had this passion, but I didn't know how to monetize it. I didn't really know what to call it. But I was already practicing, pouring into women business owners, pouring into small business owners in the small business community. And for the most part, that community being made up of people who really wanted to change the world. So, obviously 2020 happened and live events kind of disappeared for a minute. Which gave me a lot of time to think, and a lot of time to pivot. And what we don't tell people when we talk about pivoting is how messy it is.
Lee: Oh, girl, so messy.
Jordan: Messy!
Lee: And hard.
Jordan: The messy middle!
Lee: And uncomfortable. Yes!
Jordan: It's not comfortable. It's not easy. There may be an ease in it, but it's not easy. And it also can feel like “Am I making?”, you're not going to get the validation or affirmation that you've made the right decision immediately, it's going to happen after. So 2020 was the year of the pivot. And I thought, because I had been doing a lot of like DEI training for the wedding industry – I really thought like, maybe this is my space. Where I'm going to jump into DEI for small business owners, teaching from a justice lens, coaching from a justice lens. And then my body and brain was like, nope, nope. They're not that either. And what was so wonderful about the process of getting to the Radical Joy Coach was I had a friend Jen Siomacco, who used to run Catalyst Wedding Magazine. I would write for them [unintelligible] wedding magazine, it always had different takes on the wedding industry. And they had gotten to a place of being like, I need to get out of this. I want to open VVITCH Digital, which is this amazing social media and branding agency. Jen made that jump, maybe six months before I made that jump. And I say that because if you're thinking about taking a different direction, or pivoting or changing, you're going to have these little moments, these little, little signs of other people who are there to catch you when you do.
Lee: Yes, yes.
Jordan: So it was so wonderful that I got to go through the branding process with Jen and the whole team at VVITCH Digital, they took amazing care of me. And through that process, I was constantly reforming what my framework was. And the great thing about refinement, and the process of refining is so often we think that, “Okay, I gotta find this thing that's outside of me. I gotta find this far away thing.” and it reminds me of like the end of the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy was like, “I won't have to go much further than my own backyard to find what I'm looking for.” So every time I would refine this framework, and it would shift a little bit and shift a little bit and shift a little bit. Every Sunday on to Instagram, I would post the word “rest”. Just a reminder, like rest, you know, just rest. The work I was doing 2020 into the beginning of 2021, was really more aligned to how can we make a bigger social impact as small business owners, and in that work of solely justice, solely DEI. But I'm talking about rest and then I keep shifting and shifting and shifting and shifting and shifting. And realizing that a lot of the people that were coming to me, were incredibly aware of what needed to change in the world. Incredibly able to actually change it. The problem, the disconnect between the doing, the dreaming, and the acting, was rest and capacity; was understanding that these structural, institutional problems are not going to be solved by each of us individually saying, “I'm the superhero, I'm going to slay this dragon all by myself,” it was going to come from us leaning on one another. And moving in a very dynamic way, where just like, “I have the capacity to move forward. I need to fall back for a little bit. I have the capacity to move forward. I need to fall back for a little bit.” Kind of like breathing.
Lee: Yeah, it's a really communal process then. It's not each of us in our little silos doing our thing. It's about the integration and seeking support and providing support, like the reciprocity of it.
Jordan: 100%.
Lee: Okay.
Jordan: 100%. And that's really where that, just that constant refining, that constant, really dialing into what people who are showing up to work with me were saying and feeling and asking the right questions. That's really where the coaching framework for rest being the vehicle for our joy really came from. And honestly, it has been a joy to develop it, it has been so fun to see how it lands with people. And I'm so happy that I get to do this to be quite honest.
Lee: Well, I am too because it is much needed. And you are clearly made to educate and coach and be the light bringer around all things rest. So first off, before we even dive in, I just want to thank you for sharing your journey with us. Because what you've shared is, so often what I hear other coaches go through. That process of refinement that feels like it's never ending, and in many ways, it never is. Because we're always refining, we're always growing. And so to give voice to that, I think is really important because it normalizes the fact that I don't know if there's ever a time where we feel 100% ready to go, to share our message, to launch our programs, to write our book, to do our podcast, whatever it is. But if we can get to like 85% ready, you know, and understand that the refinement will continue through the work. I think that is such an important point to remember. So for everyone out there who's feeling like they're in that constant revision reiteration process, you're not alone. We all are. It's part of the work. So keep doing it. And don't let it stop you from putting yourself out there as the amazing which you are, which is what you're doing.
Jordan: Thank you. Oh, I'm so appreciate that. And also like the refinement process, the refining that happens. The refining that happens, it's so important to remember when people are questioning like [unintelligible], change in something again, that's okay. It's okay. It's a part of that process of refinement. It's a part of realigning, aligning, realigning, aligning, and it needs to make sense to you, and only you because if it was anybody else's vision, somebody else would have it.
Lee: Yes. And I guarantee no one is paying as close attention to your business and your revisions as you are. So even though it fees like “Gosh, I'm never getting it out there!” Like, no people are going, they're gonna see and hear it at the moment they need to so just trust the process.
Jordan: 100%
Lee: Alright, so let's dive in to what you are really known for, which is rest. And I think before we even have the conversation, maybe we need to define the terms. So what are we really talking about when we're talking about rest?
Jordan: Oh, that's such a good question. So I define rest, straight out of the gate when you work with me – if you don't even work with me, you're just coming across my work somewhere on the interwebs. Rest, think of the word, eat, E-A-T. Rest is the energy, attention, and time that you return to yourself. Simple, very simple.
Lee: I love that acronym.
Jordan: It is and thank you.
Lee: And I love to eat, so it's easy to remember as well.
Jordan: Same! It like a, it's a form of nourishment.
Lee: It is it is. So energy, attention, and time walk me through each of these.
Jordan: Perfect. So oftentimes, we will send a lot of our emotional, mental, physical energy out to other people, other causes, other needs, other work. So many different things that we have going on in each of our individual lives we’ll send energy out to that. But the problem comes, when we don't return any of that care, any of that concern, any of that back to ourselves. And we have so many examples of that, especially with women, where it was like, “I will give everything. All of my energy out to the rest of the world and I don't need to have any for myself.” Which is a farce, a lie, a fallacy.
Lee: Thank you.
Jordan: You need that energy, right? We need that energy to keep ourselves grounded, to keep ourselves sustained. And when we don't have it, we've also seen, we also have plenty examples of what happens when that gets to a critical breaking point. So energy, my first therapist said this to me – Patty, wherever you are, I hope you're doing well. She said, “All of your physical, emotional, and mental energy comes from the same bucket.” So if you were to have a very physically demanding day, you probably would understand, “Man, I'm tired.” But what happens is a lot of times we will have emotionally or mentally draining days and we're like, “Why am I so tired? Why do I feel unrested? What's going on?” You got to pay attention to the energy that we're putting out. And oftentimes, even if we don't feel like we're putting out a lot of energy, we are. When you show up for your friends, and you listen to that conversation for the 14th time about, you know, maybe them in a relationship that's not going well, even if you are present, the act of simply being present and listening is a lot of energy. So learning to really begin to listen to yourself about what energy you're putting out and making sure that you are returning as much, if not more back to yourself.
For attention, I think attention is a really hard one and it's one that I struggle with as well. It's so easy, especially with our devices and our screens to give our attention to a new streaming platform, a game, an ebook, anything that we can get that quick dopamine hit from
Lee: Yeah.
Jordan: But so often we will not pay attention to different sensations in our body that are trying to tell us something, or we won't pay attention to hunger cues, where it's like, we look up and it's been four or five, six hours and you haven't eaten anything yet. Or we won't pay attention to emotional needs that are not being tended to, maybe in our core relationships. But we don't really have those cues and those triggers because we're not as practiced at really turning that attention back to ourselves. We’re really good about paying attention to when you're driving and making sure that you know, there's nobody in front of you when you're driving. If we're on our devices and making sure that we respond as quickly as possible to a text or an email. We're really good about pouring that attention out. But we're not good about just turning that scope back and looking at ourselves. What's going on with the mind? What's going on with the body? And the connection between those two? How is this a cycle of behavior that I have that indicates, “I might be going into a depressive episode pretty soon,” or “My anxiety is really, really, really, really high. I know because I'm paying attention to the following.” Getting a really clear view of the energy and the attention. And then time is the easiest concept to understand and I also think the hardest one to execute.
Lee: Yes.
Jordan: Because it is, it is one, it's a finite source. We have lots of what I call demands in our life. Right? We have, people have children, you have school, you have school for your kids, you have to eat, you have to pay your rent, you have business demands that you need to take care of. There are so many things vying for our time. And often, when people come to me, they're like, “I'm finally ready to rest.” And I'm like, “Great! So what's coming off of your plate so you have more time?” It's like, “Uh, well, I can't take, I can't take that off. Oh, I absolutely cannot take that off. I can't take that off.” And oftentimes, it's not so much that “I can't.” it's that “I don't want to.”
Lee: Yes.
Jordan: “I don’t want to take that off.”
Lee: Because everything on my calendar feels so important. And I think because of the way, for me at least, the way I've structured my life, so much of what I choose to do is so connected with what matters most to me, that to say no to something really feels like a loss. Like I'm having to give something up. But I also know because I've heard you speak, and I've invited you into the Collective to be our guest expert, I know that I have to learn how to say no to the things, even some of the things that I find really important. If I'm going to carve out that time to rest, or else, I'm just not going to be able to keep going.
Jordan: One of the things that has been incredibly difficult for me to come to terms with, I have peace around it now. But especially in my 20s, it was really hard for me to recognize was my capacity for empathy. Everybody always tells me like my CliftonStrengths is, my number one strength is empathy. And I burned myself out because of that. The hardest thing to really come to terms with in my 20s was my capacity to care and care well. Not care just on a superficial level, not be like, “Oh my,” not just sympathy, but true empathy. Caring with action, that's how I like to think of it, is very low. And if we're being honest, for most people, it is. To care and do? That's a lot of energy. That's a lot of attention. That’s a lot of time. And so one of the biggest lessons from my 20s and I think it's something that hits everyone eventually is, you cannot – we talk about scaling all the time in business, but in our personal lives, to be a really good friend. You cannot do that to thousands of people, to even hundreds of people.
So when you come to this work around rest, you have to start making really difficult decisions around who's gonna, who's in the core of my relationships who can get the best of me? Right? Who isn't? What is in the core of my caring, my energy, my capacity that can get the best of me? And what isn't? And that's a really hard question for overachievers, all of the kids who were in gifted and talented in high school, really organized, very passionate, very driven, mission oriented people to do. Because we want to do everything, we want to help everybody, we want to change. If you have that gumption, or that urge to change the world. It takes a little bit of optimistic delusion, right? So sometimes we're like, “Oh my god, I can do everything!”, you can't. So coming to grips with what your true capacity is, to accomplish things is jarring, but also incredibly liberating.
Lee: It is and I know a cornerstone of your work is around capacity, and specifically the relationship between rest and capacity. How do you describe the connection between the two?
Jordan: Oh, such a good question. So capacity, I always like to when I introduce this concept to people I want them to imagine like a garden right, like really lush, beautiful garden. All of those plants require water. Oftentimes, our capacity is the vessel that can hold that water. Think of the water as rest. We fill that back up, we can, we can grow and expand our capacity. However, most of us when we're coming to the concept of “I really need to rest, something truly needs to change.” Our capacity is probably the size of a water bottle. You're not going to be able to give all of those plants, all of those demands in your life, the nourishment that it needs when your capacity is 40 ounces. Some of those plants are going to have to go away. Some of those plants might actually just have to straight up die, which sounds dark, but capacity is your, is really that availability to meet the demands in your life. It's that energy that you have to meet the demands in your life, and to meet it in such a way that it doesn't deplete you. You don't end up at a deficit at the end of every day. “Oh, just took too much out of me.” No, no, no. So when we start to have this conversation between this really dynamic relationship between what rest is and what my capacity is, you can then start to honor what your capacity threshold is. When you start giving yourself energy, attention, and time, you understand “Oh, that's not,” it's almost like a budget. “That's not in my energy budget this week, to be able to do that. I don't have the capacity to do that this week, or this month, or maybe this year.” And when you start talking about time like that, and I'm not I'm not saying in an hour, right, a lot of the rhetoric around rest, and burnout prevention and recovery is tied to productivity. And I don't teach that. Because it's, it's kind of a, it's really just a farce. You can absolutely be more productive. But it's not going to be an overnight thing.
Lee: No, we think that if we –
Jordan: It's gonna take you some time.
Lee: Yeah, if we can hack our way into saving time, “If I could just save more time, then I'll be able to rest.” But actually, what happens is, if we're even able to save time, we think “Well, okay, the rest will come later, because I need to do this, this and this.” And so anytime that we just regained we're automatically pouring it out again, and we're not slowing down to give ourselves that energy, attention, and time that we need.
Jordan: Yeah.
Lee: So I'm curious Jordan, talk to me a little bit about what rest looks like. Because I think I know, for me, at least, when I, when you first introduced me to the concept of rest, of course, my mind went immediately to physical rest, whether it was relaxation, or sleep, that's where I went. But you have a much more developed view of what rest can look like. Can you can you talk a little bit about that?
Jordan: Yes, so I have what I call a Rest Stack. And I really have to give so much praise, and thanks and appreciation to Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, who is a researcher and author and researched this seven kinds of rest. So emotional, mental, spiritual, creative, physical, social, and sensory rest, seven kinds. The easiest cue to understand of “Oh my God, I need rest.” It's physical rest. “Oh, I feel really, I didn't get enough sleep last night.” or “I haven't moved my body in a really long time and I'm feeling kind of icky.” Very, very, very easy cues to, to understand. Spiritual rest? That could take years to be like, “Oh, something's wrong.” And oftentimes, for a lot of us who are diving into spirituality or intuition, really returning to ourselves in a way, it's taken some time. So when you see this spectrum of the types of rest and the kinds of rest that exist, it can also be jarring because you're like, “Whoa, in what other ways have I not been nourishing myself?”
Lee: Yes.
Jordan: Right?
Lee: I didn't even realize too, that there were, well, first off that there were seven different types of rest. That was like a revelation to me. But then actually, when I started thinking about some of the practices I put into place, really, during the early pandemic stages. When all of a sudden I had two kids at home who were doing virtual learning, I had a business to run, I had a husband who owned a dental practice that closed down for two months. Like there was a lot going on, that we were trying to balance.
Jordan: Yeah.
Lee: And so on some level I knew well, first off, something had to give. But I also found that as I was watching the news, listening to podcasts, getting all of this information, consuming all this content around the pandemic and other things. It was completely overwhelming. And I stopped watching the news. I decided I was still gonna listen to podcasts, and I was still going to, you know, read some of the newspapers online. But I could not see the visual images anymore. They were just too distressing. And in hindsight, what I realized was that I needed sensory rest, like all of that was just way too much. And so your framework, I just find it so helpful in terms of helping me and others identify where they are out of balance and how to come back into balance through rest.
Jordan: Yeah, because the truth, and I'm so glad you use the word balance. The truth is when you, I don't like to use the word balance, because I think of a teeter totter or scale. And that's essentially just tension, right?
Lee: Yes, yes.
Jordan: Y'all I love the word harmony. So some things could be –
Lee: Ooh, I do too.
Jordan: Right? It just feels so much better. It's, it's more dynamic, it reminds you that something's maybe two kinds of rest right now, those are the two most prevalent ones that you need, but the other ones are in the background still able to contribute, right? I definitely think sensory rest is one that we don't talk enough about. Because we're living in a time where we have so much sensory input, whether we want to or not. It's really hard to escape the constant barrage of information, new things that we have to do, new trends that we need to pay attention to, you don't know who this person is, this album just dropped. Oh, by the way, here, push notifications on your phone, and your computer and your iPad. Like so many things are coming in into you, and you're not processing most of it. And so when your stress levels are up, we're at the beginning of a pandemic, we're feeling that growing anxiety and uncertainty. Kind of leaning it out and saying, “I'm gonna take that off my plate. I'm not going to be listening to, I'm not gonna be taking in news in the way that has often been prescribed.” Like I, I stopped that about 2016. I don't sit down and watch the news anymore. And yet, I still am incredibly informed. I listen to NPR’s, ugh, I can't remember the name of the podcast, but they update it every hour. It's five minutes. What's going on in the world, what you need to know. I got really engaged in my local news – what's happening that I can actually change. Because oftentimes, I feel like most news on a national or global scale, there's no CTA. It's like, here's trauma, here's trauma, here's trauma, here's trauma, here's trauma. Here's a puppy at the end. Good night.
Lee: Exactly. And you're left wondering, what do I do with this?
Jordan: What can I do?
Lee: Exactly, exactly. So this is this is actually perfect, Jordan, because the last question I wanted to ask you was about the connection between action and rest. And specifically, when we are feeling called to take action around something that we're passionate about. So maybe, maybe even going so far as to say we want to be an advocate for someone or something. What are the connections that you see between rest and advocacy?
Jordan: Perfect question. When I think it was around 2014, I started to dip my toe. And I mean, my toe, dipped my toe into the waters of activism and advocacy, and just having a better understanding of the mechanics of it. What that looks like to organize on a local level, how you interact with people. And one of the things that I found so interesting was that so many of the young people who are either campaigners, or organizers for maybe more established organizations, like an NAACP or Planned Parenthood. They're tired. They're very, very, very tired. A lot of the structures of these organizations require so much of their labor, that they have nothing left for themselves at the end of it. And because that has sort of worked, I'm using that term lightly. Oftentimes, we don't want to rediscover or recreate a process. Even if it might be better for us. We just will copy what's been done again and again and again. So a lot of nonprofits, a lot of advocacy based organizations, they see that like if you have usually young people straight out of college, they've got the time, they got the energy! Just push them to the brink of death almost, and then we'll get a new crop and we'll get a new crop and we'll get a new crop and we'll get a new crop. That doesn't work and what happened was, I would see a lot of people who became friends so burned out from the work, that they didn't even want to touch it anymore. What a loss.
Lee: Yeah.
Jordan: Right?
Lee: Yeah.
Jordan: What a loss. And I got really, I would always, I'm always obsessed with biographies. So I'd see lots of pictures from like civil rights era icons, writers, all types of and even salon owners, a lot of freedom, freedom rides and sit ins were funded by black woman salon owners, which I'll come back to this point, I promise. When you figure out what it is that you stand for, and can act on those two things. It's very easy to make sure that you are aligned to that, it's very easy. There's a cost of work and [unintelligible] impact being done, when you are not really grounded and what those values are. And you're not really grounded in the best ways for you to show up and act in such a way that still is sustainable. Meaning you're not throwing your body down for the cause, right? Because, yes, we've, we have lots of examples of what that looks like. But it shouldn't take that. And I refuse to believe that it's going to take that moving forward.
Lee: Not if we want to be sustainable.
Jordan: Rest. Yeah. Absolutely not if we want it to be sustainable.
Lee: Like sustainable advocacy. Yeah.
Jordan: It's not the, oh my god. Here's a prime example. When we first found out about Russia invading into Ukraine, and when we first found out about Roe v. Wade, possibly, more than likely being overturned, was online and I had to get off my social for a little bit. Lots of input on “Oh my god, this is!” lots of reactions, lots of outrage, lots of hurt, lots of takes on what was going on. And immediately, the first thing I like to do is go to trusted sources. The second is take a global impact and make it local. San Antonio has an amazing, amazing Ukrainian owned cheesecake restaurant that turned all of their their revenue into something that can be donated to a fund for Ukrainian people, survivors of what's going over there, easy as pie to get engaged and involved in that. But when all you do when something scary, or terrifying or dark reminds you about how harsh the world and cruel the world can be comes up. If the only thing that you have the energy to is to react, you will never act. You won't do. You will just kind of spiral in that reaction. And so getting really clear about what your values are, getting really clear about what your rest and your capacity is to contribute. Because so many of us are like, “I gotta take up the mantle and lead the troops.” Nobody asked you to do that. One of my favorite things is nobody’s asking for another Martin Luther King Jr. There's one of him. There's only one. Nobody's asking you to become an icon or a leader. We're just asking you to find the way that you can sustainably contribute. Because that over time is so much it's think of exercise, you know, how they have like the high impact interval training? I think it is. And then there's also lots of studies that have shown that low impact steady state exercise is just as effective. Do the same thing here. Nobody's asking you to step up to the podium. What is the best way that you can sustainably show up for the causes that you not only care about, but want to act on? And my favorite quote of all, “When they go low, we go local.”
Lee: Yeah.
Jordan: What is going on in your city council meetings, what's happening there that you can really show up to and impact. Versus things that are happening across the world can feel very scary and frightening and uncertain, but your ability to impact that is a lot, lot smaller. So how can we change that conversation around collective advocacy, advocating for other people's rest. Whether that's sickly, whether that's better ventilation in a hospital, not hospitals – in hotels and restaurants, places where a lot of hospitality workers are. Where can we find rest and policy? How can we impact that locally? And how do we find that sustainable space of showing up for causes we care about and actually acting, I usually see a gap between the caring and the acting and with rest, and with honoring your capacity, instead of pushing yourself to show up in ways that are not going to be sustainable. It's going to be a one and done. Find the ways that you can show up sustainably and really push the needle forward.
Lee: I love that. I love that. And I love that. Rest is what bridges that gap between caring and an action. Jordan, I feel like we could talk for hours and hours, hours about this. So maybe we'll just have to have you back on the show in the future.
Jordan: I would love that!
Lee: Yes, but until that time, please let us know where we can find you, where we can connect with you, and where we can learn about all the great things that you're doing.
Jordan: Yes, so if you want to you can head to my website, jordanmaney.com. j-o-r-d-a-n-m-a-n-e-y.com. You can find me on Instagram as the social media channel I'm most active on @TheJordanManey. I believe it's @TheJordanManey for Tik Tok and I'm also on Facebook at Jordan Maney. Yeah, I love talking to people get in my DMs. I love having conversations. So I would love to see some of y'all show up in both places.
Lee: Yes, we will have links to your website and your platforms in the show notes. And for people who are listening relatively close to when this episode drops in mid June. You are definitely going to want to check out Jordan’s program The Hibernator. Jordan, can you give me a brief description of what The Hibernator is all about?
Jordan: Yes, so I love small business and we love to use the term accelerator incubator and I love that but I was like “What's something that's the very opposite of that that really encourages people to rest?” I was like, The Hibernator! That’s perfect.
Lee: Love it. So perfect.
Jordan: So clever, but it's a small cohort. It's a nine month program where we really focus on recognizing what type of rest that you need, how to integrate that into your life. Even the structure of the program is different because we'll do sprints. We'll have like five weeks on and then we'll have some time off for all of what we learn to integrate. It's gonna be a lot of fun and I can't wait for it to go live but yes, come, come, come join us in The Hibernator.
Lee: Excellent. Jordan, thank you so so much for being on the show today. I've absolutely loved speaking to you and we will definitely have you back in the future.
Jordan: Thank you. I so enjoyed this time with you. I so enjoy these conversations. And I so enjoy the work that you're doing. So thank you.
Lee: Thank you.
Jordan, thank you so much for coming on the show. Y’all, I just love her so much, and the work that she is doing around rest. And I know that might sound like a bit of an oxymoron – work around rest. But truly, the way Jordan approaches rest as fuel and our advocacy is incredibly powerful, and I know that you will get so much out of her work. And if The Hibernator sounds interesting to you, check out the show notes. We'll have links to that program as well as Jordan’s website and her social media platform. So be sure to connect with Jordan, and be sure to come find me over on Instagram and TikTok @CoachWithClarity, I would love to connect with you there. Let's also connect next week when a brand new episode of the Coach with Clarity Podcast drops. So if you're not already following or subscribed to the show, be sure to do that now in whatever podcast player you use. And then next week's episode will appear automatically in your feed. So until then, my name is Lee Chaix McDonough, reminding you to get out there and show the world what it means to be a Coach with Clarity.