We were lucky to catch up with Jacintha Payne recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jacintha, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
We all have an idea of what we want our lives to look like and who we want to be. But some days, life can feel like it’s on autopilot. It’s easy to get lost in the busyness of the day and end up feeling discouraged with the lack of progress. My mission has been to help people cultivate a habit of intentional living where we’re mindfully taking action on the right things at the right time with joy.
Jacintha, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I had a tough childhood. Pretty early on I realized the kind of person I didn’t want to become. I kept various journals with running lists of the things that I wanted to be true of me as an adult. I figured that as soon as I was old enough to be out on my own I would just start doing the things I needed to do to be the person I wanted to be. But life is messy, complicated, and full of things we don’t have any control over.
My career has provided me with opportunities to lead teams, manage the development of employees, oversee large projects, and hire talented people. I’ve learned that each day is a fresh opportunity to wake up, show up, and make a small step towards the goals I’ve set for myself and the person I want to become.
In 2016 I started my blog over at JacinthaPayne.com. At first, it was a place to write and discuss a little bit of everything. Over time, the focus became more narrow – doing the right things, at the right time, with joy. In 2020, my husband and I started a design and marketing company called Marketeering. And in 2021, we did a soft launch of our “parent company” Make Every Moment Count. It has been greatly rewarding to work from home and sustain the needs of our family.
When I talk about what I’m doing with JacinthaPayne.com and makeeverymomentcount.co and the overarching mission, I like to use language like “we” because it’s a journey that we’re all on together – I’m still learning. We’re a brand about growing, so we invite others to come along with us to learn and grow together.
Our brands offer resources to help keep people focused on doing the right things, at the right time, with joy. Our resources range from blog posts to printables, books, and consulting.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Life is a constant pivot. The truth is, the future is always unpredictable. We can’t hang all our hope on how we intend to shape our future. But we also shouldn’t stop trying to move forward and work hard towards our goals. We have to plan and be proactive stewards of our resources and time.
I desire to hold the tension of mapping a specific route to reach the desired destination while also being open to detours, reroutes, or the need to adjust plans completely. Because the most important thing at any given moment isn’t about what goals we’re pursuing, but how we’re reacting and responding in the moment. It’s how we’re learning, growing, and being shaped along the way.
An example of this showing up in my own life are the days when my husband and I have a touchdown scheduled. What’s a touchdown? A touchdown is a term we use for the days we set aside to talk about our goals, adjust the budget, or simply gauge how we’re doing. These days are almost always met with some range of a small hiccup to a complete catastrophe.
A few examples of the hiccups and catastrophes included:
– We got an alert that our identity was stolen and all of our credit cards got closed down.
– A large number of important pieces of mail got lost in the black hole of the postal service system.
– We got stuck in an endless loop trying to fix paperwork at the DMV.
– Calvin went to the hospital because his ears were bleeding.
– Our basement flooded. every. single. time. it rains.
– Someone in our home had an abnormally high fever (103+) or some other form of health issue.
– Our car had a flat tire, dead battery, or some other issue.
– We found out the school we enrolled our kids in was embroiled in a major controversy – so we decided to pivot -homeschooled for one more year.
– One of our chickens died.
– Our internet went out.
After all these attempts and failures, we finally had another chance for The Best TouchDown Ever. My husband and I had been planning to meet for months. We wanted to get on the same page with our budget and talk about our goals for the next year. We were so excited about the prospect of many upcoming projects, but we needed to meet to strategize and get on the same page. We arranged for childcare, we found a coffee shop, and did everything we could to make it fun. But as soon as we arrived at the coffee shop and had everything out on the table, I realized someone was hacking my social media accounts and website. While trying to get everything safe and locked down, we realized the external hard drive with all the previous budgets wasn’t powering up.
In that moment we had to reassess: what’s most important right now? Securing the accounts I had worked on for years from getting hacked? Finding out how to recover our budget information from the external hard drive? Using the precious time we had already set aside to pick a different date to meet and try the whole process again?
I mentioned that I try to hold the tension of mapping a specific route to reach the desired destination while also being open to detours, reroutes, or the need to adjust plans completely. In moments of chaos like this, when all my best-laid plans seem to be failing, one method I’ve found to be most helpful is to reflect, reassess, and reroute.
Reflecting – Taking the time to reflect on the things that have taken place over the year has proven really helpful. If there are important things you’ve missed out on, take the time to mourn missing out. But don’t let that be the end.
– It helps me see how many things we set out to do were accomplished – in rerouted, indirect ways.
– It provides an opportunity to revisit the motivations behind why we do the things we do.
– It grounds me with a sense of thankfulness for all of the good things that happened.
– It allows time to process the difficult things we’ve walked through and how they affect and shape us.
Reassessing – Reflecting is an excellent way for me to understand where I’m at right now. But Reassessing is taking that information and using it to determine what needs to happen next.
– It allows us an opportunity to think through whether or not we’re focusing on the right things at the right time.
– It provides the freedom to remove goals and areas of focus that are no longer important.
– It helps us double down on the goals that are healthy and good for our family.
Rerouting – The final step is taking all of the information you’ve been processing and responding by mapping out an updated path for getting there.
– It gives you clarity for the ways you need to prepare for your next steps towards your goal.
– It injects confidence as you pursue your goals by breaking them into smaller steps.
– It makes rerouting in the future more manageable and less discouraging.
In that moment at the coffee shop, with my dreams of The Best TouchDown Ever crashing around my ears, I had a strong impulse to immediately jump into fixing the hard drive. After all, I had been compiling a bunch of information for our budget conversation on that drive. It was the culmination of months of work. Instead of following my impulse, I stopped to reflect on the motivation for why we were wanting to meet in the first place, reassess what is best to focus on at that moment, and rerouted our plans based on what we thought was most wise.
We ended up deciding to make sure our accounts were safe and secure. This was a long process. And this meant that once again our budget and planning conversations were put on the backburner. But because we took the time to get a clear picture of our options, we knew we had made the best choice. Not to mention, with a situation like hacking where time is important, we were thankful we were able to fix everything without any interruptions.
The list of TouchDown catastrophes and chaotic days goes on and on. Life for us, especially on the days we’re planning to be productive, is one big pivot. That’s why making every moment count is so important to me. It’s about knowing what the ultimate aim is and moving towards it. This means, in our home, people will always come first. So if someone is sick, we stop and care for the people who are hurting. We keep rescheduling. We get up and keep trying again.
When my husband and I are working we try to always be available to listen to our children. Obviously there are times when we have to wait (a meeting, working on a tight deadline, etc.) but ultimately, if they want to show us something, we’ll take the time to go look. The result is that there’s a closer bond.
After doing this hundreds of times over and over, it’s easy to become weary. I know what it looks like to give up. I’ve seen numerous examples of people like that in my life. People who gave up on me and people who have given up on what’s ultimately important because it got too hard. And, in the end, their life is left with a big void.
The most important thing at any given moment isn’t about what goals we’re pursuing, but how we’re reacting and responding in the moment. It’s how we’re learning, growing, and being shaped along the way.
Hope is not controlling the future; it’s casting aside the fear of the future. We do this by embracing things outside of our control while being faithful with the things we’ve been entrusted with. All the while, knowing that whatever comes our way shapes us for our good and the benefit of others.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
A large majority of our contacts come from our free downloadable resources. And a good chunk of these are coming directly from Google searches for things like “Brain Dump Template”, “Day Planner Template”, and “Habit Tracker Printable.” We put a big emphasis on creating tools that are both functional and esthetically pleasing to look at. This emphasis helps our products stand out in a search. Then we cultivate a relationship with these contacts through our newsletters highlighting new resources and products.
I’m a firm believer in giving away quality products like these for free. It helps build trust and establish credibility with new contacts and gives them something to share with a friend to spread the word about the brand.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jacinthapayne.com – www.makeeverymomentcount.co – www.marketeering.co
- Instagram: @jacinthapayne – @memc.co
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JacinthaMPayne
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacintha-payne-78125534
- Twitter: @jacinthapayne
- Youtube: @jacinthapayne8473
Image Credits
Jacintha Payne, Ali Henderson