Day 259: Jennifer Jolly

June 16, 2010 at 12:35 am, Category: Inspiration

“I have tried to tell people why I go for these runs and why I would do that.  Even my boyfriend, he’s ‘Why do you go run for an hour or two hours?’ and it’s like that’s the only time that my life slows down enough that I can be really inside myself, and something about that exercise and that running and that being in nature makes me feel really connected to the planet that we live on as well as to myself.”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Jennifer, for agreeing to be part of this Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Jennifer Jolly: My name is Jennifer Jolly.

Toni: And Jennifer, what do you do?

Jennifer: Well, I do all kinds of things, Toni.  I am the Good Idea Gal, so I do TV and radio and print appearances and media appearances across the world really talking about simple good ideas – the  little things that make a huge impact and difference in your life.  Things like saving money, saving time, saving sanity, that one thing that you hear about and you say, ah, that is such a good idea.  That’s what I do as a Good Idea Gal.

Toni: Oh, fantastic.  Well, Jennifer, when you think of that word inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how does that happen?

Jennifer: That is such a good question, and it’s such a hard question to think about who I inspire.  My hope is that I inspire my daughter.  Really that’s who I do all of this for.  She’s now 9 years old, and she, you know, looks at me and the entire world makes sense.  Every choice I’ve ever made, every path I’ve taken, the corner I’ve turned, and my hope is to inspire her that when she looks at me, she sees a strong, intelligent, very sensitive woman who really has navigated life on Planet Earth with integrity, and I go back to strength and all of those things that make us human and vulnerable and yet pretty spectacular on Planet Earth.  That’s what I hope that my child sees when she looks at me, and that’s who I hope that I inspire the most.

Toni: Well, Jennifer, when you are creating and living this legacy that you are using as an example for your daughter, what do you think happens not only with her I would imagine, but with others around you, that helps them to explore their own potential?

Jennifer: I know that when I am being my best self, and that sounds a little Oprah and a little cliché, but I know that when I am living in my highest being and being my best self that it inspires that in others, that we create that mirror for the world around us.  So when I’m being honest, when I’m being true, when I’m being sensitive, I tend to attract that or be attracted to those kinds of people around me.  I’ve really, you know, I really am aware of and take note of the miracles, and that inspires me, and I know that that inspires all the people around me so much, so little tiny miracles.

Let me tell you a story first and this will all make sense, hopefully.  When I was a teenager, I grew up in a really small town in Alaska, very middle class, very hard-working family of commercial fishermen.  Now you’ve heard this story over the last couple of years, so it’s a very similar background to Sarah Palin.  Work … no problem with the work ethic.  That’s been there from a very, very early age, but there was something else always out there for me.  In my high school graduating class, there were only two of us who left the state of Alaska and went to college somewhere else, and it was always so very hard – I’d go home to Alaska and people thought I was really weird, and I’m really a sensitive person.

And then, I went into journalism, and boy, talk about needing a thick skin.  I was a TV news reporter, and, you know, kind of had to face safe negativity everywhere I went for my job, for who I was, for the lines I was crossing, and  *04:09 took so much out of me, and I really got depressed.  There was a time in my life …  So I mean naturally I wake up, I’m happy, I’m bubbly, I’m energetic; it’s actually quite annoying to those around me.  But I found myself in deep dark horrible depressions, and one day I walked out into the woods in Alaska and I just sat there and I was crying, and I had this inspiration that, you know, whether it’s God or whatever it is, said you have to look around you.  You have to open your eyes.

I went home and I started that day – and this is now 21 years ago – that I started writing five good things about today, and it started out as, you know, the cat … feeling the cat that I petted, or seeing the wildflowers at the side of the road, and little things, and I could barely think of five, and after a couple months of doing that it turned into 10 and then 15 and now today 21 years later I have hundreds of thousands of little, teeny, tiny good things about today, and that has inspired me and keeps me so inspired as I go through the ups and downs.  And there’s a lot of them in this modern kind of manic life that we’re all living, but that’s been a huge, huge inspiration for me.

Toni: Thank you so much for sharing that.  It sounds as though, you know, however that came to you at your darkest moment and, you know, for your belief or others who are listening to the interview and will, you know, take this upon their belief, it’s amazing that the words were you “have to” and it’s almost like you have to do this, pay attention, in order to get to what you want, which was to live that fulfilled life.

Jennifer: Yeah.  Be in the moment.  See … I’m sitting in my beautiful home office in Northern California right now and I’m looking outside and I see flowers on the trees and I hear the birds chirping and again it sounds so cliché, but it’s little, teeny, tiny things, you know?  When my boyfriend reaches out and touches my cheek, or when my daughter laughs really loudly, it’s just these little moments, and when you add them up, they build a very inspired life.

Toni: Well that leads to the next question of the Project, which is what inspires you?  So what else happens around you that inspires you?  What do you need to stay inspired?

Jennifer: Again, it’s a wonderful question, and in thinking about doing this interview I went for a run, and I live in Northern California and I live just outside of San Francisco, and my parents come to visit me from a little, teeny, tiny town in Alaska, and they do not for the life of themselves understand how their child could have left such a pristine beautiful place and moved to a big city.  But then I take them up to these trails that I run o “Oh, okay, now we understand how you can live here.”

So I was running on that trail last night, and you know, that’s what I need.  I need nature.  I need to feel … I’m a bit addicted to those runs and I don’t look like, you know, a long-distance runner, but I really am one, and I have tried to tell people why I go for these runs and why I would do that.  Even my boyfriend, he’s “Why do you go run for an hour or two hours?” and it’s like that’s the only time that my life slows down enough that I can be really inside myself, and something about that exercise and that running and that being in nature makes me feel really connected to the planet that we live on as well as to myself.

So that’s a really long answer to a pretty simple question, what do I need to be inspired?  I need that connection with myself.  I find that in running.  I also need love.  I need my family around me.  I tried to live a long time as this, you know, modern woman, this modern news reporter who didn’t need anything.  Well you know what?  I need my family.  I need my daughter.  I need my family that I have created around me, which is now my boyfriend and his two sons and my friends.  I really, desperately need that kind of loving situation around me, and I need to give it as well as receive it.

Toni: Oh, it sounds like it’s absolutely lovely, it does.  I mean, between your need for nature and this sense of community with family, and what an awesome way to describe what inspires you.  Are there tools and resources that you tend to reach for on a consistent basis?

Jennifer: I absolutely do, so when I run now I take my iPod and I listen to books on tape, and I have listened to just about everything that Dr. Wayne Dyer has written, and I especially like his talks.  I don’t know if it’s the tone of his voice or just what he says, but oh, it just reaches me really deeply as well as Deepak Chopra, who he does a lot with.  Those are the quickest tools to get me sort of back to my highest self and centered are a run in the woods, nature, and a book on tape with Wayne Dyer’s voice in my head.

When I’m traveling, which I travel a lot, I travel usually to four cities a month, I need to take my running shoes and again some sort of audio version of a book, and very quickly it can make me feel just calm and centered again.

Other tools that I need to really help find inspiration are sleep.  I need to take care of myself.  I need sleep, I need regular exercise, I need healthy food, and those things are also tools that I turn to a lot.  Lately I’ve been feeling kind of nervous and scared about books that I’m writing and an upcoming trip to New York, and just feeling sort of out of whack and out of balance.  One of the things that Martha Beck, one of Oprah’s inspirational women, she told me one time was, “When you’re really feeling overwhelmed, like oh, I just have so much to do,” like so many of us mothers are right now and really every day, she said, “Do nothing.”  And that’s been a pretty fabulous tool, too, is at my most sort of crazy busy moments to just sit down not even with a book, not even with television, just sit down and breathe – that’s been an amazingly helpful tool as well.

Toni: So Jennifer with everything that you’re pursuing and you’re a very, very busy woman, what do you do to continuously explore your own potential so you can keep propelling yourself forward on this journey?

Jennifer: I do absolutely nothing.

Toni: All right.

Jennifer: I just live.  I just live.  No, it’s funny.  I have these two really, really dear friends, and one of them is a man who is about – he would kill me if he knew I was telling you this – he is about 20 years older than I am, but he is my best running buddy, and we met … he literally tripped on me getting out of the water over at Aquatic Park in San Francisco.  We were out doing open water swimming and I was stretching by the, you know, side of the road and he literally tripped over me, and that was now six years ago, and a long run with him somewhere on the streets of San Francisco or in the mountains in Northern California can fix everything for me.

It’s like every idea and project, everything makes sense just when we’re running and just kind of … it’s like therapy, we’re talking but not really thinking about what we’re saying, so that’s been amazing for me, and really just not trying.  When I get kind of desperate and try really hard to make something work it never works, and I …

Toni: So you’re working … yeah, try to force it.

Jennifer: Right.  I can’t force anything.  When I relax, when I do what I need to do to take care of myself, the opportunities just open up to me, and it really is miraculous every single time.  I mean, I’m one of those people who oftentimes lives paycheck to paycheck, and I, oh my gosh, I worry, how am I going to make ends meet, and then I go for a run and then everything is fine.  Miracles happen all the time that way.

Toni: You have given a very inspiring interview, and I can see how your daughter must be very inspired by you, and to just be so honest and open about not only what inspires you but how you translate that into your own life so that particularly your daughter can be inspired by you is pretty fantastic, and we can’t thank you enough, Jennifer, for showing up to the Project today.

Jennifer: Toni, it is absolutely my pleasure.  Thank you so much for letting me be a part of this.

Toni: You are welcome.  Take care, Jennifer.

Jennifer: Okay.  You too.

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For more information about Jennifer Jolly:  www.goodideagal.com

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