We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Janne Robinson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Janne below.

Janne , appreciate you joining us today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry?

I believe that no one gets out of bed for money.

We get out of bed because we are in searching for meaning in our lives.

One of the biggest gaps in the education system is that no one sits you down and asks you, “What are your gifts? What gives your life fulfillment, meaning, color? What happens intrinsically and organically around you when you’re simply existing? What gives you energy?”

I wish every single person was given the opportunity of doing purpose work and answering those questions before committing to a career.

Purpose is the meaning behind what we do.

One of my mentors, Dianne Whelan in her film ‘500 days in the Wild’ says, “We used to live in a society. Now we live in an economy. “

I believe that being shaped by an economy means that individuals and companies sometimes miss the heart beat of why we’re here.

I’ve worked with over 200 individuals 1-1 to name their purpose. Some of them stay the course of Corporate America but pivot slightly. Others leave and start their own companies.

But all of them desire a “why” behind what they’re contributing their life to.

Money is important, because we do live in an economy but it’s not what drives us.

I’ve also the last two years moved into Corporate America to do the same thing. Name a companies purpose, values and create a culture of meaning and belonging that will attain, and retain people who believe what that company believes.

This is important work because at the moment I believe we’re at a moment where many people are feeling a deficit for meaning.

While owning your own house, car and climbing the ladder of success is rewarding——I have had many calls with people who have “won the game” and made it so to speak financially and they tell me it’s empty.

Whether we have all the money in the world, or we’re just covering our bases—a core human need is fulfillment and meaning through contribution.

My work addressed that gap.

Can you share your Why and Purpose with us?

There’s a quote by Ethan Hawke that I love and feel summarizes my career over the last 12 years.

He says—to thrive as human beings we must express ourselves, but before we can express ourselves we first need to know who we are.

For the last decade, my work has been focused on working with individuals to create authentic belonging in their lives.
Part 1: Know who you are. Return to your self and your truth and trust that above everything. This is the direct way to experience connection and put our power back into our body.

Don’t simply belong—create belonging in who you are.

My work then shifted into working with individuals on what is often the last step in building a life that contains the truth of who are—purpose.

Our work is often the hardest leap to make.

No one asks you what your gifts are and many of us end up in careers that are a “means to an end.”

We think it’s the “lucky ones” who get to do what they love and have work of meaning. We spend 70-80% of our energy in our work and much of our identity and financial stability lives here.

Re-creation of this part, and trusting the voice that quietly says “not this” requires deep courage.

I’ve done over 200 purpose sessions 1-1 and supported individuals, entrepreneurs and CEO’s to name their gifts, their purpose.

This is Part 2: Express yourself. Your art, your voice and your business is an expression of who you are.

I believe that to have a life, relationships and a business of meaning—you need to trust that you are the only you that will ever exist.

Individuals > I support individuals to create lives, relationships and businesses of meaning through returning to the truth of who they are and naming their gifts.

Organizations > I support organizations to create cultures of meaning through clarifying purpose and values with CEO’s and founders (top down) and working directly with teams through workshops and leadership coaching to foster connection and belonging (bottom up).

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.

It was 3:45 PM PST. I’m sitting in a show suite office in Edmonton, Alberta. I’m wearing a grey suit coat with white and black pin stripes inside the sleeves that’s a little too tight on my shoulders.

There’s an Americano that’s 3 hours old sitting in front of me with curdled cream floating on the surface. To this day I cannot drink Americanos from Starbucks–they remind me of a life that I hated. Like when you get sick off of your grandmas potato and leek soup as a kid and all it takes is looking at leeks in the grocery sore to viscerally remember feeling one stuck in your throat at 3 AM as you hugged the toilet.

I had bartended the night before, and was at my second job I hated selling condos for a developer in downtown Edmonton.

I hated it. Both jobs. Drunk people. Green pints of beers and cheesy music until 3 AM.

There are moments in our life where we have no idea what is next but we know it’s not this.

I had sat I in many guidance offices in Edmonton, considering both Journalism and Creative Writing Degrees but never felt sold.

Why did I need a degree to write?

I could write. I had been writing since I was in Grade 3.

Writing isn’t open chest surgery, it’s telling stories.

I picked up the phone and called my mom.

“I’m moving to BC. I have no idea what I will do there but I need trees.”

A few months prior I had a conversation with an award winning author and cinematographer, Dianne Whelan and when I told her about my situation she said, “Change one thing. What’s the easiest thing you can change?”

Location felt like the first thing that needed to happen.

Mid sentence a woman walked into the office. I had 15 minutes left on the clock.

“I know you’re closing in 15 minutes–I am traveling from out of province and leave tomorrow and would really love to see my unit on Whyte Avenue. Could you take me there?”

I was checked out of the job and my entire life but I also have integrity so ten minutes later we were walking in hard hats through a half finished condo unit and she was telling me about her father being sick.

“I am buying this condo to take care of him. I have a cabin in BC that I don’t know what I will do with. I could be hear for years. I don’t want to rent it to just anyone but it also feels ridiculous to keep it open.”

My eyes grew wide. “This is going to sound crazy but I just decided I was going to move to BC. Where is your cabin?”

Her cabin was on the Sunshine Coast of BC, where I had been kayaking months prior with Dianne Whelan. It was on my list of potential places to land.

I was waiting for a $10,000 pay out from the developer (that never came). When I shared with this woman my situation financially and how I was waiting for the money to move she said, “You can live rent free in my cabin until the money lands.”

I did not end up living in her cabin. But I want to share that once we make a choice–the universe lays out a red carpet for us.

I ended up interning with Dianne Whelan. I would drive 3 days a week an hour and a half north of my cabin to her place and sit beside the wood stove, listening to CBC radio and she would say things like, “Write Canadian Geographic and see if they will do a story on my Everest Book”.

“I don’t know how to do that?” I would say.

“You’ll do great”, she would respond.

“Teach yourself how to use social media and then start one for the book”, she’d say.

I would put my nose into “Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook” by Gary Vee and absorb as much as I could. Figure out Hootsuite and different softwares.

Dianne was my fast track into entrepreneurship.

She had audacity and courage and wasn’t afraid to put an idea of herself on the map or the menu.

When we are in the beginning phases of betting on ourselves and believing in ourselves–we need someone exactly like that to show us it can belong to us.

Through her courage, I found my own.

I began to write, publicly. No longer in the “Notes’ on Facebook or my Tumblr blog.

My voice and writing gained momentum–some poems and articles being read over 2 million times.

I transited into being paid full time as a writer.

I remember making $4000 USD a month as a writer and being so proud of myself.

My transition into working with people and purpose work happened quite organically.

I choose writing. Clearly.

Coaching and mentoring people was something that people pulled me into.

I have always written honestly, and openly. I joke that I share slabs of my heart with this world for a living.

People were warmed by the humanness.

I know now it is not unique to be vulnerable on the internet, but a decade ago I was one of the OG’s being vulnerable on the internet.

As I began to explore personal development, professional development and consciousness it seeped into my writing.

In 2015 I was spending 4 hours a day responding in length and with care to peoples emails, comments and messages.

There questions were, “How do I change my life? How do I be honest with my partner?”

I realized that money was energy, and that there was an exchange happening.

I opened my doors to mentoring and coaching and filled my calender immediately.

After working with 100’s of people 1-1 I created a program called “Meet yourself in Truth” which 8,000 people moved through and in 2020 I launched a one year program called “Your Truth is Your Medicine” which 1000 people have been through.

I had over 1000 people live on hot seat coaching calls desiring to use honesty and truth to create more alignment and fulfillment in their lives.

We made half a million dollars in 3 days.

I have also started a feminist apparel brand with titles of my poems “This is for the Women Who Don’t Give a Fuck” and “I will never be a well-behaved woman” printed on the front that have consistently generated six figures and helped me to sponsor my business visa to live in Encinitas, California.

I have published two books of poems. The first book, “This is for the Women Who Don’t give a Fuck” has sold 23,000 copies since 2017. 1% of books sell 5,000 copies, and that is not a stat for poetry.

My second book “There’s cobwebs on her Vagina” came out in 2021 and is titled off a poem I wrote after working with a woman recovering from a deeply religious childhood, and other client experiences of suppression–one who was a poet based in the Middle East who had to write under a fake name for safety and had friends who were artists who had been killed for their expression because they were women.

I do public speaking, have hosted retreats internationally and facilitated workshops in Ecuador to Morocco.

The last 5 years my work has focused more deeply on Purpose Work. I found that in working with thousands of people on authentic belonging–their career was often the last shoe to drop. The hardest.

Having a named and defined purpose helps people to make the choices they need around their career, and companies.

I have worked with 200 people 1-1 naming their purpose and helped over 120 women start a business based in purpose in my Mastermind Program.

Most recently I also stepped into Corporate. I met a CEO surfing in Encinitas who asked me to host workshops at his corporate retreat. People cried for the first time in 30 years in my poetry workshop–shared with each other about their miscarriages, their grief.

I was brought deeper into that same company doing Purpose and Values work and leadership coaching with the CEO and C-suite and Executive teams.

I have since been working locally with businesses in Encinitas to name their Purpose and Values on the wall.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

In 2014 I had an abortion. I wasn’t expecting to write about it. But the morning after my appointment, my entire experience and process poured from my fingers onto my keyboard.

It was so honest that it scared me.

Up until then as a writer I had written things that were safe. Things that I knew would take–things that danced around true vulnerability and openness with my audience.

What I wrote included the neutrality and non neutrality of my process.

Everything from friends and family members who were neutral to those that weren’t.

A doctor who I went to for medical advice who said, “Don’t get an abortion, you will regret it”. And how I looked at him and said, “How dare you push your personal opinion on me. I am not here for your personal opinion. I am here for your medical opinion. If I was a 14 year old woman who had yet to find the spine of who I was—those words could have impacted my choice and every woman’s choice.”

It contained small moments–like the day before my appointment, where I sat in front of my wood burning stove and moved through a guided process from one of my mentors and said, “Hey little soul. I don’t know if you’re in there. But if you are–thank you for choosing me to be your mother. I feel so grateful you chose me. Right now isn’t the time. I am not ready. If you want to wait, and come back when I am ready–well I would sure love to be your mother and meet you then. And if you’re ready to be born right now, and don’t want to wait and want to find another mother–I will also respect and understand that”.

It talked about the fact that mothers weren’t allowed in the procedure room, only boyfriend. And how my boyfriend not only hadn’t showed up, but had changed his phone number the day of our appointment. Completely oblivious or aware that I might need him.

What I wrote was so honest it scared the shit out of me.

I had written mostly gentle, safe and digestible pieces up until this moment.

I decided to sit on it for several months with no expectation of publishing it.

I didn’t want to share it while I was still processing my experience and I didn’t want to share to bash my lame ex boyfriend.

There needed to be a reason I shared it and I wanted to wait.

Months and months later, I opened it up.

I decided to publish it.

Abortion was swept under the rug with shame. I had so many people close to me who shared they had had abortions, once I opened up.

It felt “taboo” and outdated that we didn’t feel safe to talk about this experience that so many of us walk.

I have been called the shame exorcist by many people, and this was one of the first moments I decided to walk the rope to normalize something so human.

A woman I met in Arizona one said to me, “Janne. Your name in my language means you are not alone”. I feel that is a part of my work as a writer in this world.

At first when I decided to publish it, it was only with the 30 million readers. Not with my friends and family. Not on my social media channels.

I didn’t want to be in a coffee shop years from now stirring honey into my coffee and make eye contact with someone across the stir sticks to see someone I went to high school with who would blurt out something like, “Hey Janne… I read that article and…..”

It’s interesting that from a psychology perspective 30 million strangers was more scary than the 100 people I knew and was close with at the time.

But the morning I received the email from Elephant Journal that said, “Congratulations your article has been published” I remember staring out of my kitchen window and watching rain drip off the prayer flags hanging above my wood shed and knowing deep down that I was going to share it with everyone.

And that was okay–because I was at peace with my choice and no one could alter the light within me.

I shared it on my personal social media accounts that day.

I received over 400 emails messages and comments from that article.

I was called murderer in the comments section by my first highly religious boyfriend and man I slept with from Sherwood Park and I was called woman of the year by someone I worked with.

One of the messages read, “I was 14. My father dropped me off at the clinic and told me not to tell anyone. Not even my own mother. I went through my procedure alone. I am 40. You are the first person I am telling”.

In that moment my purpose walked up to me and I understood that teaching through my story, and being vulnerable in the experiences we hold shame around was part of my work.

It continues to be one of the most important and challenging lines I walk.

Was there a moment you almost quit?

I have had a business and self generated income for 12 years. The last five years my company has done between $300-$500k per year.

I have had “oh shit” moments where I floated things on lines of credit and I have also seen a payout from stripe that says, “350, 000 will be deposited into your bank account in 1-3 days”.

But I hit a big wall 3 years ago.

I hit burn out and then in my burnt out brought on a business partner and when it fell apart, I had a settlement and I also had “I’m too fucking tired to work” debt.

I had 70k of debt and felt completely empty.

All the business mentors and friends around me said things like, “Teach women how to make money writing” and I went bleh–not interested.

I decided to teach a “This is for the Women Who Don’t Give a Fuck Mastermind”.

I didn’t entirely know what it would be–other than it would be for renaissance women who were deeply creative, multifaceted and struggled sometimes to complete their ideas or capitalize because they were so much woman and creativity.

I started to shape the program through conversations I had with women through voice notes on instagram–asking them what problems they were dealing with if they were a renaissance woman and a business owner.

Those conversations shaped the curriculum and content for the program.

Over 4000 people filled out the application–I made $300k in 3 months for the Mastermind and signed $70k of 1-1 clients in the same 3 months.

I cleared my debt and was up $300k.

My idea for the Mastermind wasn’t as clear or sexy as “make money as a writer” but my gut felt like teaching personal development but a little spicy, and I am so glad I followed it.

The program has now generated $560k the last few years.

If you have debt right now, don’t let it define you. Don’t believe it. The energy of debt tells you that you are finished and to quit and get a job for your uncle–don’t.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jannerobinson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jannerobinson/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jannerobinsonauthor/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janne-robinson/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JanneRobinson

Image Credits

Hannah Clair Photography | https://www.hannahclairephotography.net/
Ali Kaukus | https://www.alikaukas.com/
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