We were lucky to catch up with Jana Stern recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jana, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about the best boss, mentor, or leader you’ve ever worked with.

I am lucky enough to have had a number of really wonderful mentors and leaders who have helped me along my journey.

The most impactful would be the woman who interviewed me for the first high-end retail job I ever held, Debra.

As soon as I started my role, she made ever effort to help me to understand every facet of the business – from the clients to the merchandise to the importance of understanding relationships, she truly made it her job to show me as many parts of the business (as a part time employee) as she possibly could.

One of the best things she taught me was a nugget of gold I have held onto throughout the years and applied to every part of my life (not just in business). That nugget was “manage up”.

Basically, as an employee you are used to being managed and having tasks given to you to do. You expect to be guided and told how to improve, but what you aren’t taught is how to manage up – how to acknowledge that sometimes you don’t like being told what to do (or even who is telling you).

Manage up means manage your manager. Understand their psychology, their ways of being, and work with them to help them to be a better manager.

I have used this with my parents, with other managers and bosses, and even with partners!

Throughout my time working with Debra she offered me many wise nuggets that I still use, and I am lucky enough to stay that 20 years later she is still a dear friend. I attribute our friendship to “manage up” because she was always coachable and coached me too!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Whenever people ask me how I got into my industry, I always say that it got into me.

Becoming a full time psychic was not something that I knew was going to happen which may sound weird because, you know, maybe as a psychic I should have seen it coming? But no. I was pretty hellbent for most of my young life that I wouldn’t be allowing myself to hear voices for a living.

Eventually though, the magic crept up on me and Spirit made it so that I couldn’t deny my gifts any more.

It started after a (trigger warning) suicide attempt in my early 20s. I was clinically dead for 11 minutes, and when I came back into my body, I could hear loud and clear that I had a mission to accomplish.

The next thing I knew I was carrying an oracle deck everywhere I went, reading people on the street and delivering to them important messages from their loved ones on the other side, or just giving them the guidance they needed in the moment that Spirit was trying to get them to see, but maybe they hadn’t fully heard yet.

I started to receive energy healings and studying hermetics and metaphysics, and the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. I spent a long time delving into the mystic arts and I began the process of becoming a healer myself through a 3000 year old mystery school. Around the same time I started learning about astrology and the cosmos.

I always had the gift of gab, and was an excellent listener and advice giver, but once I started to channel my gifts with intention, I really stepped into my power. I found that I was able to help people truly step into their power too. I taught about the principles of self love & empowerment, as well as coping with mental health struggles using spiritual tools.

13 years later and I am blessed to teach and guide hundreds of clients. I offer a variety of readings and healings including The Life Activation, Aura healings, Crystal healings, Astrology readings and Psychic readings. I teach about astrology, crystals, intuition and more.

Having entered the web3 space, I am blessed to not only have two NFT collections (as well as a number of physical products for sale), but I also do psychic advising for projects and teams based on astrology and other modalities.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Most of my journey in this physical reality has been about resilience.

From a young age managing my father’s mental health issues, to overcoming my own BPD & eating disorders, to coming out of abusive relationships, to becoming a solopreneur running my own business, I have heard countless times in my life that I am a strong person.

For me there is only one way to move through life and that is to simply keep going. Some days that might look like staying in your PJs for 24hrs in a row and moving from bed to couch and back again. Others days it may look like planning a charity clothing swap event with 250 women and 14 vendor booths. At times you may feel like you can barely get the dishes done, and other times you may feel like you can help your clients totally change the way they look at their lives.

Whatever the feelings are on any given day, so long as you forgive yourself for the “unproductive” days (which, by the way are often when we process our emotions the most), the feelings will pass and you will get back up better and more resilient than you were before.

Remember that you’ve survived 100% of your bad days and your good days probably out weigh the no so great ones. Focus on gratitude and see the lesson in everything because gratitude it the silver lining that surrounds the resilience.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

Any good coach/healer/teacher/guide/etc needs to have one important quality to be truly successful – integrity.

There are a lot of people in my industry with huge egos exploiting people for their vulnerabilities. Not only is this terrible for the industry and those who are trying to provide guidance from a loving place, there is also an energetic repercussion when as a society we follow leaders who abuse their power.

In my opinion, we are all humans.

No politician, celebrity or “guru” should be worshipped above any other.

When we truly speak from our own humanity with integrity, I believe that that makes us better people.

When guides or leaders speak with integrity about their own humanity and the things they are struggling with in realtime, it levels the playing field and truly empowers others to see that their own suffering is a choice.

I pray for a society where we value integrity above a great sales package or branding.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://JanaStern.com
• Instagram: https://intagram.com/janasternhealer
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/janasternhealer
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/janastern
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/janasternhealer
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1mQgC0ejYxl2mrGxp-yXRA

Image Credits
https://mrkoa.com/