Why Laughing at Life’s Absurdities Might Just Save You with Janet Hogan
Can Humor Really Heal Your Pain? Yes—And Here’s How.
In this unforgettable episode, Janet Hogan joins Kellan Fluckiger to share how humor, honesty, and shadow work can free us from quiet despair and unleash our true selves.
From the depths of financial ruin and emotional breakdown to the liberating power of laughing at life’s ridiculousness, Janet shares a journey that’s inspiring— a call to action for anyone tired of pretending everything is “fine.”
🔥 You’ll Learn:
- Why humor disarms fear and unlocks transformation.
- How to identify your emotional shadow—and laugh your way through it.
- What “quiet despair” really means (and why it’s more dangerous than you think).
- How to stop hiding your gift and start living in joy, truth, and lightness.
🎯 Want to Start Your Own Transformation?
🧠 Take Janet’s Core Needs Quiz: 👉 https://janethogan.com
💬 Book a free 15-minute follow-up call with Janet (if you complete the quiz)
🎧 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it
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✅ Interested in what Kellan's been up to? Or want to learn more about Kellan, visit https://kellanfluckigermedia.com.
🎁 Free tools + community: www.yourultimatelife.ca.
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Transcript
Welcome to the show.
Speaker A:Tired of the hype about living a dream?
Speaker A:It's time for truth.
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Speaker A:You have infinite power.
Speaker A:Hello and welcome to this episode of your ultimate life, the podcast that I created just for one reason, and that's to help you, listening or watching, to create a life of purpose, prosperity and joy by serving with your gifts and talents.
Speaker A:I am grateful to have Janet Hogan here with me as a guest, special guest today.
Speaker A:Welcome to the show, Janet.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker B:It's an absolute honor.
Speaker A:Well, I'm delighted.
Speaker A:And so we'll just jump right in.
Speaker A:I'm not going to spend the time introducing you.
Speaker A:That'll sort of unfold as we get talking here.
Speaker A:So I'd like to ask you first, and I don't want you to be bashful.
Speaker A:I want you to be fulsome, as a matter of fact.
Speaker A:So tell me the things that Janet, in her life right now, intentionally is doing to add good to the world.
Speaker B:The thing that I'm doing to add good to the world and be the best version of myself in the process, because I think that's how we do the greatest good.
Speaker B:So it's an, for me, it's a never ending journey, is to help people understand who they really are and come to terms with some of the painful aspects of their life that they might not have been confronting.
Speaker B:And so at the moment, how I'm doing that is experimenting through humor.
Speaker B:Because I think humor making people laugh makes some of the painful, unspoken aspects of our life more bearable and more ready to be digested.
Speaker B:A lot happens when we laugh.
Speaker B:We open up and then we become open to and receptive to something that we might not have been ready to accept before.
Speaker A:So I love that.
Speaker A:And we're going to dive into several pieces of that.
Speaker A:You said two things in the beginning.
Speaker A:You said, help people become the best version of themselves, which is a sort of cliche phrase that we all use in the personal development world.
Speaker A:And you said by being the best version of yourself.
Speaker A:And so that is a way and a fabulous way to help people be the best version of themselves.
Speaker A:So why do you equate being the best version of yourself with helping others and adding good to the world?
Speaker B:I think how we transform ourselves is how we resonate with others.
Speaker B:It's almost on an energetic level.
Speaker B:So how I, and I agree, I hate that trite expression, becoming the best version of yourself.
Speaker B:It's the first thing that popped out of my mouth.
Speaker A:No, it's okay.
Speaker B:It's not an absolute.
Speaker A:But it's, you know, it's just one of those things.
Speaker B:It's not an absolute.
Speaker B:Becoming a happier, more contented, more joyful version of myself.
Speaker B:But I feel that we do that in the way that we least want to do it, which is actively embracing discomfort, the things that we're most scared of.
Speaker B:So I did an exercise.
Speaker B:It wasn't even that long ago, might have only been about six months ago actually, where I wanted to break down.
Speaker B:I mean, we all know that we're scared of stuff, you know, and of course it's a, it's a fear mongering world that we live in.
Speaker B:We only have to tune on the turn on the nightly news to, to know that it's all about, this is what you should be scared of today, folks.
Speaker B:But also I feel that we've got our personal brand of fear within us.
Speaker B:That's almost like it's our job to identify what that fear is.
Speaker B:It might be a fear of scarcity.
Speaker B:It might be around money.
Speaker B:It might be a fear around asking for help.
Speaker B:It might be a fear of making a mistake.
Speaker B:I mean, you know, there are hundreds and thousands of different types of fear.
Speaker B:But to get clarity on what it is that we are personally each of us most afraid of and going there, the place that we least want to go to.
Speaker B:So when I did this exercise on myself, and I've been living in Bali for 12 years, and I've been fascinated by personal development, just like you, Kellen.
Speaker B:So let's say I've done a lot of this work on myself already.
Speaker B:But to my surprise, what I discovered was that my greatest fear was actually getting up on stage, wanting to make people laugh and everyone just sitting there, po faced, going, she's not very funny, thumbs down to her.
Speaker B:That was my fear.
Speaker B:And so I thought, right, I've got to go there.
Speaker A:How did you figure out that was your fear?
Speaker B:I was running, actually I was running a group session with someone else.
Speaker B:We were running it together and he was doing the part on what are you most scared of?
Speaker B:And we had a list of about 18 different types of fear.
Speaker B:And I thought, oh, he's going to run it.
Speaker B:I might join the folks and do the exercise myself.
Speaker B:And it jumped off the page at me.
Speaker B:It's to do with the fear of being visible.
Speaker B:And, you know, that's a very common fear, the fear of being seen and coming out of obscurity.
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:And I realized also that there was an aspect of that fear.
Speaker B:It was the, the air.
Speaker B:It's two things.
Speaker B:It's what you're scared of, and then who would you most like to be?
Speaker B:But you're telling yourself, I could never be that.
Speaker B:And I was thinking, you know, the people I admire the most are the clowns, the comedians, the people who have the courage to speak out when everyone else is staying silent and putting a funny spin on it.
Speaker B:And I thought, they're my heroes.
Speaker B:And yet I'm saying to myself, I could never be that.
Speaker B:And I go, okay, I've got to stop saying that.
Speaker B:And even if I fail, even if I'm not funny and no one laughs, that's totally okay.
Speaker B:At least I've gone there.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:I love several pieces about it.
Speaker A:One, identifying it, being honest about it, and then saying, I don't care if I fail.
Speaker A:I'm going to put fail in air quotes because that's a constructed definition.
Speaker A:But even if I fail, I'm going to do it anyway, just to try it and say, I did it.
Speaker A:There it is.
Speaker A:I did it, I went there, I did my thing, no matter what the outcome.
Speaker A:So I want to go back to the best version of yourself.
Speaker A:What do you think the differences, some of the differences are between a person, you, me, any of us that are just sort of going along.
Speaker A:I use the phrase addicted to mediocrity but just kind of going with things.
Speaker A:And a person who is actively trying to be the best version of themselves, what is that?
Speaker A:What is the difference there?
Speaker B:I think the difference is if you are attuned to that whisper of.
Speaker B:That whisper of quiet despair that you feel in yourself, you go, how come my life on paper looks fine?
Speaker B:I've got a roof over my head, I've got money in the bank, I've ticked all the boxes.
Speaker B:I'm in a good relationship, I've got kids, I'm a successful human being.
Speaker B:Why is it now with all those boxes ticked, I feel so unhappy?
Speaker B:What is that feeling of quiet despair?
Speaker B:What is it that I'm not seeing?
Speaker B:And I think it's being sensitive to that feeling.
Speaker B:It's like a wake up call, but it's a whisper, a quiet one.
Speaker B:And doing something about it.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:And doing something about it.
Speaker A:Because.
Speaker A:Because I love the phrase resonated with me, quiet despair.
Speaker A:Because we get locked up in the idea that I feel this thing, I'll shut up and go away or can't do anything about it anyway, or it's not my season, or it's not the right time, or I've got all these obligations, or, you know, a whole hat full of excuses that are all true meaning.
Speaker A:I have all these things, but not a reason not to do that.
Speaker A:What made you jump on the journey of answering the call to quiet despair?
Speaker A:What made you jump in there?
Speaker B:Well, here's the thing, Kellen, I didn't.
Speaker B:I heard that, that whisper of quiet despair when I had everything.
Speaker B:I had a multimillion dollar waterfront mansion, private beach next door, living in Australia's equivalent of the Caribbean.
Speaker B:It was a.
Speaker B:It was an idyllic lifestyle.
Speaker B:And that's when I felt the whisper of quiet despair.
Speaker B:And I didn't do anything about it.
Speaker B:What I did was I did my default behavior, which was it was a Sunday, and I went, oh, I'll quieten this feeling by doing some work.
Speaker B:So I went up to my office and solemnly ticked off some more things on my to do list.
Speaker B:And so by ignoring that feeling, things cruised along in that way for a while.
Speaker B: And then we were hit by the: Speaker B:So my belief is that if you don't pay heed to this feeling of quiet despair, you're going to get whacked around the head anyway.
Speaker B:It's going to come and get you.
Speaker B:It's like we were just discussing prior to this that we've got a cyclone coming for us right now as I speak.
Speaker B:And you can ignore the warning signs, you can ignore the gusts of winds and the heavy rains, or you can do something about it, and if you don't do something about it, you're going to get bashed around.
Speaker B: nd so that's what happened in: Speaker B:So I got to a point where I wanted to check out.
Speaker B:I just, you know, shame is what it's all about, of course.
Speaker B:And I'd taken out a risky margin loan which set a bonfire to our accumulated wealth.
Speaker B:And I just watched every day as we were losing so much money that in the end I had an equivalent to like a nervous breakdown.
Speaker B:It was like a total meltdown where I couldn't put two thoughts together.
Speaker B:The synapses were no longer firing.
Speaker B:And I went up to my husband at 2 o'clock one morning and I said, listen, I just don't want to be here anymore.
Speaker B:I can't do this anymore.
Speaker B:I think if I disappeared, the world would be a better place.
Speaker A:So what happened?
Speaker A:Did you take.
Speaker A:Obviously, since we're talking, you didn't take action or effective action on that.
Speaker A:And I'm not joking about it at all, because a couple times in my life, I actually attempted to end it.
Speaker A:And so I.
Speaker A:In this, as serious as it is, what happened?
Speaker A:I mean, you felt like that you had a dissociative event or a nervous breakdown or whatever you want to call it, and that acted as a wake up call.
Speaker A:What happened next?
Speaker B:I think what happened, the reason I felt so much shame, Kellen, was that I took full responsibility for losing all our money.
Speaker B:I felt it was all my fault.
Speaker B:And this goes back to programming from my childhood about being the naughty girl.
Speaker B:So once again, I.
Speaker B:I committed the extreme, the ultimate act of vandalism with everything we've worked so hard for, for the last 30 years.
Speaker B:And I think it was one gesture that pulled me off the edge, which was my husband, who'd been really angry about it up until that point.
Speaker B:He just put his arms around me and he said, darling, we can get through this together.
Speaker B:And it was just like this tiny light that I wasn't alone in that point.
Speaker B:And from there, over a period of months that turned into years, I found myself just having to find out what the hell am I supposed to be doing with my life, because I've got all the material assets, and clearly that hasn't ended well.
Speaker B:What is it that I'm doing wrong?
Speaker B:And that's when I went on my journey, as so many of us do, to try and find the answers externally.
Speaker A:So I'm going to dive into a thing you just said.
Speaker A:Clearly I'm doing something wrong.
Speaker A:Up to that point, you were doing exactly what you thought you were supposed to be and doing everything right.
Speaker A:And so when that all burns down, does that really mean we're wrong?
Speaker A:Or does that constitute a doorway, an invitation to a different possibility?
Speaker A:And I ask that not because I have a thought about an answer.
Speaker A:You can make it wrong or you can not make it wrong.
Speaker A:But it just seems to me, you know, we're divine beings, we're dual.
Speaker A:We have a spiritual element, we have a physical element.
Speaker A:And for whatever reason, you can make up stories.
Speaker A:We have a world where we worship money and we create value by how much you have or crap you have or whatever you've accumulated.
Speaker A:And I walk down this, you know, we share that sort of experience.
Speaker A:And so what do you think?
Speaker A:Do you think it's just a wake up call to look at something larger instead of having the narrow view of.
Speaker A:I won't call it even.
Speaker A:Stupidity, ignorance, myopic view of what is really important.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's not stupidity.
Speaker B:I agree.
Speaker B:And I never judge anyone for wherever they are in their stage of life.
Speaker B:I'm not particularly religious, but apparently there was a line from the Bible that went something along the lines of, forgive them Lord, they know not what they do.
Speaker B:And you cannot blame someone for just being unaware.
Speaker B:And I was incredibly unaware at that point and I still am.
Speaker B:I mean, it's not like I've got 100% awareness, but I'm a little more aware than I was back then.
Speaker B:And I think where the awareness brought me was that we are wired to do.
Speaker B:That's how human beings measure success.
Speaker B:And I agree we have to take action, but from a foundation of knowing who we are.
Speaker B:So I wasn't, I was doing things wrong because I was being someone who was not me.
Speaker B:It was the being that was wrong.
Speaker B:So I was being like so many of us, the self sacrificing martyr, just putting my head down, working really hard, you know.
Speaker B:We ran six different businesses, a cafe, then an advertising agency, then we did massive land development, then we ran a wedding, destination wedding business of all things, and creative consultancy.
Speaker B:And these were all aspects of doing, but none of them actually felt fulfilling.
Speaker B:So that was the quest.
Speaker B:How do I get this feeling that is the opposite to this inner void, this, this lack of feeling full?
Speaker B:How do I get that?
Speaker B:What is that all about?
Speaker B:So that brought me back to, okay, what am I really supposed to be doing with my life?
Speaker B:How am I supposed to be.
Speaker B:Who am I?
Speaker B:That's, that's the question I think we probably all come to.
Speaker A:Oh, but I want to, I want you to answer it now.
Speaker A:So you've had the meltdown and an awakening, an invitation, as it were, to explore a larger context, something more meaningful, more powerful, more valuable, more, you know, find the right word.
Speaker A:And so if you were, if it was in the.
Speaker A:If it is in the being, which I agree, and who you were being before was somebody else.
Speaker A:What is valuable to you now?
Speaker A:And who are you being now?
Speaker B:What is valuable to me is probably the aspect of myself that got squashed in childhood.
Speaker B:And I'm only sharing this because I think it's universal.
Speaker B:So I don't think I'm alone in speaking about this, but something, an aspect of our true being tends to, from what I observe, get repressed in our childhood.
Speaker B:And it sits there as a very heavy emotion.
Speaker B:So it's like we have a signature heavy emotion.
Speaker B:It could be sadness, it could be frustration, it could be anger.
Speaker B:Of course we feel all these Things, but it tends to be.
Speaker B:This tends to be one that weighs us down like a big, big anchor on a tiny boat.
Speaker B:And so mine was sadness.
Speaker B:So I understood that.
Speaker B:So while we're carrying around this excess baggage of sadness, it's almost like being permanently pregnant.
Speaker B:We're carrying it in our stomach.
Speaker B:It literally weighs us down, and it makes the experience of joy just about impossible.
Speaker B:So for me, it's been, And I see that for others as well, and it's been about the processing.
Speaker B:Sadness in itself is not a bad thing.
Speaker B:No emotion is hate.
Speaker B:It's wonderful.
Speaker B:If we're feeling something, numbness is probably the worst.
Speaker B:But if we can start to sit with this heaviness that we're carrying around, this leaden weight, whatever it is, and just be with it and start to then release that, what happens is that then creates space for the light.
Speaker B:And then we go, okay, now that I'm feeling lighter, what is it that might help me perpetuate this feeling where I'm constantly feeling like.
Speaker B:And for me, the answer was clear.
Speaker B:It was in making others laugh, helping others see the silliness of life.
Speaker B:Because I had no silliness.
Speaker B:I was way too serious.
Speaker B:So that's clearly where I feel I have to go now.
Speaker B:And I'm only a tiny, tiny way along in this journey.
Speaker B:But that doesn't matter.
Speaker B:It's not about being the world's best.
Speaker B:It's not about getting public acclaim.
Speaker B:It's about staying true and in alignment to what I have to do so that I don't feel that I'm letting myself down.
Speaker B:So that, for me, is the light.
Speaker B:If you like seeing the silliness, connecting with others through a mutual recognition of how ridiculous life is, and feeling the release and the connection within that, a giant.
Speaker A:It's okay.
Speaker A:Whatever it is that's happening, it's okay.
Speaker A:And a lot of it's funny.
Speaker A:Like, who could have predicted.
Speaker A:Who could have said that this or that would be the case?
Speaker A:And someone who hasn't even released a little bit of that anchor and has that giant ball of whatever that heavy emotion is in them, has no space.
Speaker A:And I love your description about letting it go, sitting with it and not judging it, but letting it gradually go and creating space for something else to take its place.
Speaker A:And for you, it was just pure the ability to both laugh yourself and to make other people laugh.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's very interesting that there's an endangered species of frog, Kellen, in Australia.
Speaker B:And why it's so unusual is it gestates.
Speaker B:It's the male, it gestates, it's young in its stomach and it gives birth to them as tadpoles out its mouth, if you can believe that.
Speaker B:It's kind of a metaphor for what we do when we're releasing that energy, we carry it around, we gestate it for most of our lives, whatever that dark energy is.
Speaker B:If we don't, by the way, it tends to show up as depression, chronic depression or anxiety.
Speaker B:If we could only know how to actually.
Speaker B:It's almost like we need an emotional midwife here, which I believe we do.
Speaker B:It's very hard to do this on your own, to actually release that.
Speaker B:It comes out the top of us.
Speaker B:Maybe not through the mouth, but at the top of the head.
Speaker B:It comes literally at the top of us.
Speaker B:And that's when we start to free ourselves up.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:Yeah, feel that.
Speaker B:Yeah, that.
Speaker B:That wonderful lightness of being.
Speaker A:So is.
Speaker A:I love this.
Speaker A:I talk to lots of people, guests on shows, this show in LA show and television show, and the different things I have.
Speaker A:And I hear so much, so many different ways of describing this release and this freedom and this evolution and this awakening and a hundred different ways.
Speaker A: or: Speaker A:And that's cool.
Speaker A:Talk about this.
Speaker A:And then when we experience for ourselves this.
Speaker A:For ourselves, we almost always feel this yearning to help other people.
Speaker A:Wow, this is so good.
Speaker A:I want to share it.
Speaker A:I want to help somebody with it.
Speaker A:Is that true for you?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I think at that point what happens is we go from woe is me to hey, life is fun.
Speaker B:And so we get out of our own way at that point.
Speaker B:And then in my own experience, and of course, some people are more people oriented than others.
Speaker B:I'm more people oriented.
Speaker B:That's when I just will automatically strike up conversations with strangers.
Speaker B:Anyone I sense has a feeling of sadness around them.
Speaker B:I go to those people and just start talking to them so they feel less alone.
Speaker B:And that's just in a very small way.
Speaker B:But when you can actually start to affect people in a larger way as a group, then it starts to gather up its own momentum.
Speaker B:But that's my driver.
Speaker B:So you could even say it was selfish in a way, because it makes me feel better in that process.
Speaker B:It lights me up when I make that connection.
Speaker B:But I think this, again, this is universal.
Speaker B:When we are not carrying that heavy sack of potatoes around, what happens is we then seek connection.
Speaker B:So instead of our focus being all about what's wrong with my life and blaming others, all the politicians and all the people out there for making my life such a misery.
Speaker B:Instead, what we do is we go, oh, actually, there's nothing wrong with me this life.
Speaker B:There is joy here.
Speaker B:And if I sense that someone is suffering, then I'm going to go towards them automatically, because I'm part of a much bigger system than my little physical body.
Speaker B:I'm part of a much bigger system.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:And, you know, it's funny because you're right.
Speaker A:We're focused inward on this, and when that's gone, it automatically turns us outward.
Speaker A:And I ask this often when I hear people say that in however many different ways they've said it, and then they go to.
Speaker A:And then I ask the question, well, great, you figured it out for yourself.
Speaker A:And so now you're released and joyful and happy.
Speaker A:What is in Janet's heart that makes it important for her to help somebody else get rid of their ball of crap in the stomach?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I think at this point, and this is the turning point, where we drop everything that we were taught at school.
Speaker B:School did not help in helping us understand our gift.
Speaker B:In many cases, it.
Speaker B:It forced all of us to a level of mediocrity.
Speaker B:You know, if you weren't good at math, I'll get a math tutor so that you can at least be average instead of identifying, oh, you're really good at this, or you've got a talent for this.
Speaker B:There's a.
Speaker B:There's a.
Speaker B:A wonderful measure of intelligence, which you're probably aware of.
Speaker B:Helen Kellen called the Howard Gardner eight Types of Intelligence.
Speaker B:Are you familiar with that?
Speaker A:I'm not.
Speaker A:Tell me.
Speaker B:I love it.
Speaker B:Because it's a very simple diagnostic tool.
Speaker B:It takes about 15 minutes to complete.
Speaker B:And what it does is it teases out.
Speaker B:This was created by psychologist Howard Gardner.
Speaker B:I think he might have been from LA back in the mid-80s.
Speaker B:And so you know how at school we.
Speaker B:The focus has been really on compliance, keeping us compliant, which means we have to learn how to read and to write and add numbers up.
Speaker B:And that's pretty much been the limit.
Speaker B:And if we weren't good at one of those three arbitrary things, then we weren't very smart.
Speaker B:So what he said was, no, there are all these different ways to be smart.
Speaker B:You might have strong interpersonal skills.
Speaker B:Your intelligence might be around how you relate to others, or it might be intrapersonal, how you see the world from a more philosophical, spiritual perspective.
Speaker B:You know, your ability to understand yourself.
Speaker B:Or it might be naturalistic.
Speaker B:You know, back in the days when we lived in caves, someone with naturalistic Intelligence would have been our equivalent of Einstein.
Speaker B:You know, they understand the environment, they know what, what animals to hunt, what, what plants to cultivate.
Speaker B:If they were cultivating plants, they're totally attuned with their environment.
Speaker B:Or it might have been kinesthetic, understanding your body and how it relates to your mind and all of that.
Speaker B:So in a matter of moments, you can actually do this quiz and find out your top intelligences, the ways, not how smart you are, but how you are smart.
Speaker B:It's nothing to do with IQ and I.
Speaker B:This is the area where I work, helping people understand what their actual gift is so that they're not barking up the wrong tree.
Speaker B:And yeah, so I knew that my intelligence was linguistic.
Speaker B:It's about language, and it's also interpersonal.
Speaker B:It's about people.
Speaker B:So now that gives me some valuable clues.
Speaker B:Okay, so what could my gift be?
Speaker B:It's all still foggy at this stage, right.
Speaker B:We have to try a lot of different things.
Speaker B:But basically where I've gone in the last 10 years is to help people figure out who they are through words.
Speaker B:And using words gives clarity.
Speaker B:It's not the final solution, it's not the end product, but it gives us an entry point.
Speaker B:So I help people become clear on what it is that they need, their core needs.
Speaker B:Now I'm looking at how I can use words to create fun stuff and funny stuff because I love writing.
Speaker B:So, so the next step, once we, once we've released our sack of potatoes, of sad energy or negative energy, then we are open to the possibility that we might be good at something.
Speaker B:But what is it?
Speaker B:And so that's the next step, getting clarity on what that gift, what is the nature of that gift?
Speaker B:So I can start to focus my energy in the right direction.
Speaker B:So that's the next step.
Speaker A:I love that and thank you for teaching us that.
Speaker A:So I'm going to look it up after we're done.
Speaker A:Eight types of intelligence.
Speaker A:I don't think I've heard that before, so I'll be curious to go play with that.
Speaker A:So specifically, what do you.
Speaker A:I know you're getting into improv and comedy because you have discovered for yourself that helping people do that, one, overcomes a fear that you had, and two, allows you to help people release their second potatoes through laughter and communal enjoyment.
Speaker A:And that whole community support feeling that we get, especially when we laugh together.
Speaker A:What is the work like?
Speaker A:What is your mission and your work?
Speaker A:How are you now visioning the world after Janet has finished with us?
Speaker B:Well, I think one of the big problems that anyone in the personal development world faces is that people don't want to go within.
Speaker B:They want to stay in a space where they blame external factors for everything.
Speaker B:And most people are scared of lifting the lid on themselves.
Speaker B:You know, the comments that I've received from clients say, yeah, but what if this is a Pandora's box where I don't like what I see and I can't put all the demons back?
Speaker B:And I always say the same thing.
Speaker B:Well, in my experience, that has never happened.
Speaker B:That's fear.
Speaker B:That's speaking to you right now.
Speaker B:That's never happened.
Speaker B:When you see who you really are, that's where the love is.
Speaker B:So for me, it's how do we make personal development more fun so people don't shy away from it?
Speaker B:And to give you an example, I want one.
Speaker A:I want to know how you make personal development more fun.
Speaker A:So have at it.
Speaker A:Go for it.
Speaker B:I think there are a number of factors.
Speaker B:I think it's, it's.
Speaker B:It's a collective.
Speaker B:It's a number of people coming together, ideally in a physical space.
Speaker B:And together through words, we identify our two extremes, who we are not.
Speaker B:So it might be someone, for example.
Speaker B:I'll use myself as an example.
Speaker B:Okay, so now we're getting into the realm of shadow work.
Speaker B:I don't know if your listeners are familiar with shadow work being in la.
Speaker B:I'm sure they probably are.
Speaker A:But if you're not, shadow work is that side of you that you're scared of.
Speaker A:The dark side, the whatever.
Speaker A:Lots of names, but that's enough info.
Speaker A:Keep going.
Speaker B:Yeah, so this is where we use words to help people make visible what has been invisible to them.
Speaker B:Their shadow.
Speaker B:That's a blind spot.
Speaker B:And so we just take people through a whole list of different ways that they may show up.
Speaker B:So I identified myself straight away as someone who was self sacrificing.
Speaker B:Okay, so that's my shadow side, the martyr.
Speaker B:I put everyone's needs ahead of my own.
Speaker B:And then we go, okay, what's the flip side of that?
Speaker B:The side that you would never in your wildest dreams ever be.
Speaker B:And so the flip side of self sacrifice is neediness, being constantly needy, saying, I want this, I need this.
Speaker B:Okay, so in improv shadow work, what we do is we get a chance to be that side that we've never allowed ourselves to be, but in a comedic situation.
Speaker B:So then we get the audience involved and we say, okay, what's the situation where it would be really inappropriate to be needy?
Speaker B:All right, so in this real life example that I'M using here.
Speaker B:Someone said, well, let's say you're in charge of rescuing a drowning person at sea.
Speaker B:It would be inappropriate to be needy in that situation.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:So then I had to act out the person who's in charge of rescuing this person, but I had to make it all about myself.
Speaker B:So we got some people on the stage.
Speaker B:There was the drowning person who was just yelling and waving their hand around.
Speaker B:And then there was my two ic, the person who was trying to keep me on the straight and narrow.
Speaker B:And so I was saying, well, yeah, yeah, I know we've got this mission, but actually, I think at this point, it should be acknowledged that last week I was working at McDonald's behind the counter.
Speaker B:Now I'm in charge of this important mission.
Speaker B:And I just think that we should recognize that at this point.
Speaker B:And so now I'm being ridiculous.
Speaker B:And the audience are not just sitting there at that point.
Speaker B:They're starting to laugh because it's so ridiculous.
Speaker B:And so my two ICs saying, yeah, yeah, no, that's.
Speaker B:That's wonderful.
Speaker B:And I also think.
Speaker B:And I know there's a drowning person out there, but I also think that it's my lunch hour, and I haven't taken it, and I don't want to sacrifice myself.
Speaker B:I need my lunch.
Speaker B:And so this goes on and on and on until it escalates into something ridiculous.
Speaker B:What's happening is I'm feeling the connection with the audience who are laughing at how absurd this is.
Speaker B:And I'm going, oh, my God, that was really fun.
Speaker B:I loved being needy.
Speaker B:This aspect of myself that I've never, ever given my.
Speaker B:Myself permission to be.
Speaker B:So that's just an example.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That that was relevant to me.
Speaker B:We all have these diametrically opposed aspects of our shadow self, how we're showing up.
Speaker B:Most.
Speaker B:Most people, our friends and family can probably recognize it at a thousand paces, but we can't.
Speaker A:Right, Right, right.
Speaker B:And then the invitation is to be the opposite of that.
Speaker B:The part of you that you could never in your wildest dreams, imagine yourself being and allow yourself to be that and have the approval of your fellow humans, saying, you're funny.
Speaker B:That was really funny.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:No, finish.
Speaker B:If there was more just to say that in that particular session, other people played out their shadow aspect and got a similar response.
Speaker B:You know, there was the manipulative coach who was saying, I'm not going to touch you doing Reiki, and then touching this person and saying, I'm not touching you.
Speaker B:And they.
Speaker B:They, for them, the devil was being someone highly manipulative.
Speaker B:And yet as they were being this highly manipulative person, everyone was laughing because it was so ridiculous.
Speaker B:So this played out over and over and over.
Speaker B:And it's just a great example of how by using humor and laughter, we can release something that we've been holding onto.
Speaker A:You know, there's a lot of this negative thing.
Speaker A:We're so afraid of it.
Speaker A:We're equating, you know, that's bad and, you know, some form of death or dismemberment or banishment if we be this thing that's so terrible.
Speaker A:And yet when people laugh with us and, you know, it's a form of not only releasing, but acceptance.
Speaker A:Acceptance and stuff.
Speaker A:Earlier you said several businesses that you had before you imploded.
Speaker A:What are your businesses now?
Speaker A:What do you do now?
Speaker A:Like, is this work that you're doing now for people as you do do it for businesses and stuff, or.
Speaker B:So at the moment, I'm still doing my.
Speaker B:I'm working one on one with people.
Speaker B:I work with people to take them through their shadow so they identify what it is or who they're not.
Speaker B:And the shadow, by the way, I think it's probably the least understood part of us, Helen.
Speaker B:You know, we almost see it as a monster.
Speaker B:I liken it to being an overprotective bouncer, an inappropriate bouncer at a nightclub.
Speaker B:It's just not letting the right people in.
Speaker B:It's being overprotective.
Speaker B:It's what keeps us small.
Speaker B:So I realized that for us to really step into our power, we first have to make friends with the shadow.
Speaker B:We have to befriend it, not get rid of it.
Speaker B:Then from there, I help people actually understand what their gift is through doing diagnostics, like I mentioned before, the eight types of intelligence and many others as well.
Speaker B:And then from there we can start to direct our energy, which at that point has been kind of broadly focused.
Speaker B:We can start to make it laser sharp towards a particular.
Speaker B:Ideally, who is our ideal audience, what do they want or need, and how do we deliver that through our talent and our passion, the two coming together.
Speaker B:So that's what I'm doing on a one on one basis.
Speaker B:But I'm kind of taking a sabbatical now.
Speaker B:I'm giving myself the space to actually develop this humor further and see how I can translate it to personal development.
Speaker B:It is a work in progress, but that's where I'm at in this journey.
Speaker A:If someone wants to follow you or find out more about you, I know you Said you're in sabbatical a bit right now, but someone's curious, wants to chat, wants to.
Speaker A:I don't know if you do a lot of social or any social posting or if you write medium articles or whatever, where would that be a good place to as a follow up to hearing you talk, what would they need to do?
Speaker B:My website's probably the best place to understand what I do and why I'm suggesting that too.
Speaker B:There's a quiz there where you can identify what your core needs are.
Speaker B:Because that's where I find as a, as a recovering martyr, I never understood what I needed and I never thought that was important anyway.
Speaker B:So I start there with needs.
Speaker B:And we're not talking about more money in the bank or more friends.
Speaker B:It's the more what would I say?
Speaker B:Concepts of need, like, I might need to feel more power, I might need to feel more connection.
Speaker B:I might need to feel more freedom.
Speaker B:There's something about putting this into words through a process of elimination.
Speaker B:So there are 150 or so options with this quiz.
Speaker B:So you can start to become clear on, okay, what is it that I need?
Speaker B:And that sets a goal, if you like, a target.
Speaker B:So anyone listening to this, if they go to my website, JanetHogan.com, they'll scroll down and find that quiz link and do that.
Speaker B:And then I'm happy to jump on a 15 minute call if you've done the quiz.
Speaker B:Just to help you.
Speaker B:We call it the Triangle of Success.
Speaker B:There's a way of reading the results that give you your life's mission statement.
Speaker B:And because I'm a word nerd, I'm very good at helping people become clear on what their life's mission statement is.
Speaker B:And so I'm happy to do that for any of your listeners.
Speaker B:And if they want to go further with it, they can do that.
Speaker A:What a generous.
Speaker A:What a generous offering.
Speaker A:So, Janet Hogan J A N E T H O g a n janethogan.com find out what your core needs are.
Speaker A:That is a valuable thing.
Speaker A:And you know you can think in your mind, wow, it's just another silly test.
Speaker A:But the truth is those words that you're talking about really matter.
Speaker A:And helping people find the words that light them up or shut them down.
Speaker A:Both.
Speaker A:Either.
Speaker A:Both is important.
Speaker A:So what did I not ask you that you want to talk about that you'd like to leave people with in terms of either humor, laughter, personal development, shadow work or anything else.
Speaker B:I suppose what I'd like to the thought I would like to leave people with.
Speaker B:And I'm hopeless at one liners, by the way, so I'm not going to crack some funny joke I think is this, after hearing all of this, if I go back to where I was, I would be saying, yeah, but that's not me.
Speaker B:I don't have a gift.
Speaker B:And I would say to that little voice, yes, you do.
Speaker B:You absolutely do have a gift.
Speaker B:And if you don't pursue that gift and put it out there and share it with others, in other words, if you squander it, that's where you come to the end of your life and go, I never discovered who I could have been.
Speaker B:And that dreadful, dreadful feeling of letting yourself down, if I can spare one single human being that feeling, that's pretty much why I'm here.
Speaker B:So that's what I'd like to say, that you do have a gift and you do owe it to yourself to find out what it is.
Speaker A:You do owe it to yourself and you actually owe it to everybody else too.
Speaker A:Because the best thing that we can offer to the world is who we really are and what we really have outside of all this baggage and gobbledygook.
Speaker A:So delightful.
Speaker A:Thank you for being with us today and sharing your delightful story, your wisdom and your humor.
Speaker A:And I encourage you to go check out our website and find out more about Janet.
Speaker A:Thank you, Janet.
Speaker B:Thank you so much.
Speaker B:It's been an absolute joy to be here with you.
Speaker B:Kellan.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:You're welcome.
Speaker A:I want to encourage you to go back and listen again.
Speaker A:There are lots of wisdom, there's lots of possibilities there for you.
Speaker A:And before you say yeah, but take another listen and do a little work to move you forward to create your ultimate life right here, right now.
Speaker A:Your opportunity for massive growth is right in front of you.
Speaker A:Every episode gives you practical tips and practices that will change everything.
Speaker A:If you want to know more, go to Kellen Fluker media.com if you want more free tools, go here.
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