We recently connected with Janet Jaimes and have shared our conversation below.

Janet, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

The story behind my mission starts when I was five years old. I was run over by a lawnmower and hospitalized for most of my kindergarten year.

At that time, due to religious practices, my family could not accept blood transfusions and I needed one. The doctor mentioned to my family that if I didn’t get one, there was a possibility I wouldn’t survive.

But I did.

I lost a partial foot and half of my calf muscle, which requires me to wear a partial prosthetic.

You can only imagine how my elementary and middle school years were not easy. I was taunted, laughed at, and bullied for a long time. This made me feel like I wasn’t deserving of love. I had low self-esteem, always worried about people pleasing, and didn’t love myself.

It wasn’t until I was 20 years old when I moved away from my small town to Los Angeles that I started to experience a different kind of life. I had a psychedelic experience for the first time in my early twenties and it opened up my heart.

Therefore, I began to study more about our state of mind and higher consciousness which led me to discover meditation. Meditation and sitting with plant medicines help me grow self-love, build my self-worth, and helped me realize I have a purpose.

Once I had these astounding realizations, my mission to serve communities around the world was birthed.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My mission and soul purpose birthed two online businesses.

The first one is Gaeanovo (Gah-Ya-Novo), a conscious marketing agency that helps mindful brands and nonprofits around the world have a voice in a digital world.

The second business is my personal brand, it’s a spiritual life coaching brand helping individuals globally on how to design their lives and live their dharma (soul purpose).

See, before my big spiritual awakening, I was working in the music industry doing various jobs like journalism, graphic design, social media, and even event management. After having a few realizations about my soul’s purpose, I was feeling super drained and unhappy with the work I was doing.

That’s when I decided to quit my full-time suppose dream job; a job I had worked so hard to get. I decided to use my valuable skills in a more meaningful way.

This is when Gaeanovo was birthed. I changed the narrative around how social media affects our lives – taking note that it can be toxic, I aim to help mindful brands like Coaches, Mentors, Authors, Yogis, and Non-profits learn how to utilize marketing channels like social media consciously and to help them fulfill their purpose.

From paid social, social media management, and creative design services to consulting and coaching, our full stack agency supports individual people, mid-large organizations, and freelancers who want to become social media managers, too!

Since then, my brand has become recognized by celebrities and thought leaders like retired NFL player Ricky Williams and reality stars and astrologers the Astrotwins because how my brand speaks the same language as their target audience. We live a conscious lifestyle, not just post about it.

After Gaeanovo was birthed, it was clear to me that there is a need to spread knowledge and expertise on how to live a purposeful life. After taking several courses and diving deep into research, I decided to become a Life Coach.

My traumatic lawn mower experience among other unique situations helps me understand people’s struggles to the core; such as, not having any support from family, having no money to start any business, moving away from a toxic environment, and even people pleasing.

My personal brand not only offers life coaching for those who want to live their purpose but also branches out to specialties such as how to become a conscious digital nomad, how to start your own business, and how to consciously maneuver through a spiritual awakening.

What sets both of my businesses apart is the real-life experiences that serve as wings on my back to provide. My lawn mowing accident only covers 5% of so much more that has manifested into my life to help me become stronger, wiser, and more empathetic – valuable qualities brands and people need to also live a life designed by their vision.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Before moving to Los Angeles, I was working at a bank in a call center. My goal was to move to the city and transfer, however, to do so I had to first quit then move and apply again. I moved to Los Angeles without a job.

Within the first couple of days, I started applying to the same bank again among others roles like telemarketer, customer services, and as a server. It took a long time to get back into the bank so in the meantime, I was hired at two different places.

I had not only moved to LA to get away from my small town but also to get into the music industry and work as a journalist.

After four years of living in LA, working from job to job including at the bank, I had finally landed my first assistant job at a music-tech company. Oh, I was screaming and jumping with so much joy to finally have my foot in the door.

Quickly my role grew from being an assistant to working alongside with the CEO and CFO. I wore many hats – from administration work, training new interns, running our social media, graphic design, event marketing, and traveling to different states to promote the brand at special festivals.

I was finally living the dream I had always hoped for.

When I first started at this company, I came on part time and later they offered me a higher position at full time hours. I accepted under one condition, I didn’t want any restrictions to traveling.

See, travel was also another passion of mine. I was traveling around the US so much and had already gone to India and Canada – I had plans to do some more international travel.

Management accepted.

One winter season, I went to Thailand for my birthday. As I was away, the business underwent a restructure which was crucial for my presence.

When I came back, management said, “you cannot go away like that anymore and work remotely. You need to request vacation days before leaving since you have a lot of responsibilities.” Did this break my heart? Yes. A boundary was immensely crossed but I was caught up in the whole… “I’m getting paid well”, “I am in my dream role.”

But sooner than later, my joy of working there started to go down hill. While I was pamped with a pay raise and local work travel trips, my cup wasn’t being filled. I was using alcohol and food to cover up my emotions. I was unhappy again. I lacked self love. I wasn’t feeling good about myself at all anymore.

Then here came knocking on my door a spiritual awakening. I had an incredible ego-death experience at a retreat one weekend. It became so clear, this job was no longer serving me.

This career breakup was emotional, deep, and hard to have because I started thinking, “all my hard work is going to go to waste.” The even harder part was when I had to tell my boss who I became close with that I was leaving. She was of course heart broken and begged me to stay; she said, “We will give you what you want,” – regards my international travel trips and stressful responsibilites I didn’t want to have anymore.

Saying I was leaving the first time was very hard to the point I said yes to her offer but something inside was yelling and screaming I was making the wrong choice. So for a second time, I said, I am leaving.

When I was working at the bank and quit to move on wasn’t as difficult as this music-tech company. Why? Because I didn’t care about the work I was doing at the bank. It was just a job. But this music tech role, was a job I had worked so hard for, for many years. It was part of the reason why I moved to a whole other state. But my people pleasing self was not going to win this time. My inner happiness was not there anymore. And, if there was anything to help me reassure my decision, I had to simply ask my soul and heart, “are you happy here?”

It’s never a wasted time unless you learned something.

Since I worked along side with the CEO and the CFO, I had an “in” on how to build a business. I was exposed to high level marketing, operations, management, and how to create successful events.

I immediately put into action this experience when I built my business. These experiences showed me not only how to manifest a successful business but also how it’s totally ok to walk away or say no to things that don’t serve you anymore.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

When I walked away from my supposed dream job, I didn’t have a lot of money saved up but enough to buy me time to start looking for other opportunities. I had not yet come up with the idea that I wanted to start my agency. I started applying to freelancing jobs and even picked up a part time serving job at a local restaurant.

There was absoultely some shame around working as a server again. My mind would sometimes tell me, “You are too good to serve when you’ve worked at some a dope job!” But that was all ego and once again people pleasing tendencies. Society is so good at tellling us what we shouldn’t do and how working as a server is “low”. But, none of that is true, now is it? Who is to say that is true?

I had to battle through these ego thoughts and I’m glad I did because this serving job paid well enough to only three days a week so that the other days were only focused on building a portfolio of freelancing clients.

A woman who guided the retreat when I had a spiritual awakening was looking for social media help. She reached out to me after I stopped working full time. Later, she became my first freelancing client.

She was a mindful and conscious brand. I loved working with her. I was creating social media posts on topics I held so closely to my heart! I realized this was fulfilling.

Then an idea sparked in my mind, what if I solely focus working with brands who are conscious? I would say to myself, “I speak the same lanaguge, why not?”

Slowly my client base grew, grew, and grew to the point I quit my serving job and started traveling a bit. I didn’t have to invest anything up-front because my client base was paying for my salary. It wasn’t until the pandemic hit is when I had so much time on my hands to work on projects.

Nothing was open, therefore, I would spend most of my time working or on hobbies. My client base was growing rapidly that I was started thinking, I need to hire a VA. I realized having a team to help me manage these clients would take the load off my plate.

The idea of creating a meaningful brand grew quickly inside my heart. I began researching, researching, talking to mentors, and finally said, I am creating this thing!

Since I already had freelancing clients, I had money saved up to help me invest in registering my company, designing a website, and hiring a copywriter to write my brand identity copy.

In less than two months, the company went live and abundance began to flow in beautifully.

In conclusion, if you’re looking to build a business and are currently working, do not go off spending it on the next iphone upgrade or a new pair of shoes. Start setting money aside specifically for your business.

If you are not working and want to start your business now, picking up one or two freelancing clients related to your niche doesn’t hurt so you can not only build experience but also save money for when it’s time to launch your business. Even if it means to pick up a part time job somewhere while you build your business.

And, do not think of getting a part time job a negative thing because it may not be related to what you want to to build. Change narrative and consider your part time job as a bridge job – it’s getting you where you’re at now to where you want to be.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.janetjaimes.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_janetjaimes_/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janetjaimes/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@_janetjaimes_