We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joan Jakel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Joan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?
I learned right out of the entrepreneurial gate to embrace “crazy” and dive into the land of taking risks. In 2001, I had my dream job. I was General Counsel for a corporation with a diversity of invigorating roles including handling the legal affairs, overseeing Human Resources and heavily involved in operations as a Senior VP. I enjoyed significant perks and benefits with my position. It was everything I worked so hard to achieve – a lifetime in the making and I had arrived.
In the blink of an eye, it all changed. I woke up on the morning of 9-11 excited to celebrate my birthday, until I turned on the television. In absolute horror, I watched the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. In a sickened haze, all I could think about was the tragic loss of lives and all of the dreams that died with the dreamers. It was impossible to wrap my head around the fact that thousands of people died, as did their unfulfilled dreams because they thought they had “tomorrow” to fulfill on them.
This moment was not only permanently etched in my mind, it fueled my soul to refuse to waste one single moment in the pursuit of my dreams and helping others go after theirs. When I got honest with myself, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. So while others were running away from fear, I ran directly into it. In that moment, I decided to set up my own law firm and dedicate my practice to helping other entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses. I
transformed my employer into my first client and hit the ground running on the fast track to learn entrepreneurship.
To this day – I’ve never looked back. My business has evolved over the last 23 years, as have I. My focus shifted from practicing law to personal development coaching for entrepreneurs with a healthy dose of creativity and artistry on the side. But I’ve never wavered from helping dreamers develop the skills, gifts, talents, mindset and belief system to turn their dreams and vision into a reality. And I never will.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Hello Everyone! My name is Joan Jakel and I’m an Empowerment Instigator – equal parts personal development and mindset coach, attorney, entrepreneur and creative maverick.
I personally don’t think any of us are defined by a single role or title – we’re so much more than that! We’re a powerful combination of the various roles we’ve alchemized over a lifetime.
My professional career started nearly thirty years ago as a business attorney with a passion for serving entrepreneurs. I built my own law firm and dedicated it to helping entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses. I wasn’t just a legal advisor, I was one of them. I was an entrepreneur, in the trenches, figuring out my business as I taught others how to figure out theirs. We grew together over the years.
I’m relationship-driven. Many of my clients have been with me for 10, 15, 20 years as I’ve advised, coached and counseled multi-generations of family businesses. While law got me started, my heart and soul moved me into personal development coaching – guiding people to become the person they need to evolve into to achieve their dreams and their larger vision of what’s possible in life.
One of my superpowers is seeing people’s potential before they do, so I coach to what’s possible rather than what “is.” One of my greatest gifts is being a highly intuitive empath which gives me unique insight through my ability to cut through the noise and tap into the wisdom of emotions and energy.
My combination of logical and analytical with emotional and intuitive enjoys a third layer to round it out – creativity. In 2011, I decided to become an artist. I moved to Napa and immersed myself in classes and programs to learn how to combine creativity and personal development while mapping out a new vision to serve clients.
It led to designing my first art studio on the Napa River, displaying my work in an art gallery, teaching classes and leading retreats and masterminds while creating new programs designed to guide people to find their unique path.
My mixed medium art has been referred to as “Subliminal Coaching” given all the layers of messages, images, words and objects it contains. Ultimately, it is designed to inspire, empower and fuel the soul to passionately ignite exploration and self-discovery.
Given my entrepreneurial spirit and advocacy for journalling as a means to process life, I created and self-published, on Amazon, 24 journals with my collage artwork on the cover. Each client receives a journal, hand-selected with the perfect messages just for them.
My entire life has been in the pursuit of what stirs my heart, daring to follow it and having the unstoppable conviction to achieve it. Purpose, passion and values aligned to create my path while audacity nudged my courage to help me excel at taking on big change.
Similarly, my clients are purpose-driven entrepreneurs who are craving more meaning with less stress and struggle. They are often facing a transition in life or business, staring down a personal or professional challenge, navigating significant change and need help finding, and implementing, real solutions. They need a seasoned guide to help them work through the messiness to tune into their own wisdom and rise up into their innate greatness.
I’ve packaged a lifetime of lessons, wisdom and business savvy into coaching programs that catalyze action and instigate results. Clients learn how to tap into their inner guidance, eliminate limiting beliefs and reprogram critical, negative self-talk to ignite their confidence and develop the mindset of a winner. They learn how to stop giving away their power and learn how to live life by their own rules and standards. Ultimately, they learn how to courageously and authentically use their voice, skills, gifts and talents to make a bigger impact – in their lives, businesses and communities.
People ask me all the time: How do you navigate roles that seem so diverse and appear to have nothing in common, such as being an artist and an attorney?
The answer is easy – it’s not the diversity of the roles, rather it’s the common thread that each role serves. They provide a means to the same end. They are the avenues of engagement to deliver on my mission:
Coaching people to wholeheartedly step into their lives, tap into their vision and courageously create a life they LOVE.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
About 9 years into my business, I went through a crushing divorce. Life was hard. I was seriously struggling to navigate my personal life and I had to figure out how to keep operating my business and serving my clients without missing a beat. I literally remember pulling myself out of a fetal position crying behind my locked office door to gather myself to meet with a client. It was brutal.
I was not finding joy in my practice and knew I needed a change because I couldn’t sustain my life and business in this condition. As I took a serious look at my life, I shook it up from the roots!
First, I doubled down on personal development attending conferences, retreats and workshops. Then, I signed up for my first art class through a community education program to try out a new hobby that was totally different from anything else I was doing in my life. Next up, I amped up my health, nutrition and fitness. I started running mountain trails every day which combined physical exercise with the healing power of mother nature – a perfect balm for me. Finally, I learned how to meditate which led to discovering true inner peace and accessing my inner wisdom which helped me handle everything on my plate.
Ultimately, what started out as my greatest challenge turned into my greatest gifts. I moved to Napa and became an artist. My business practice shifted to personal development coaching, which I absolutely love and have a natural gift for it. I started running trail races throughout northern California and even placed first and second in my age bracket. Meditation led me to know myself at the deepest level and has provided every answer to my life’s questions. Ultimately, my ex-husband and I became friends and grew from the experience.
Morale of the story – your greatest gifts are often packaged as your biggest challenges. Look for the gift as you unwrap the challenge – it won’t disappoint.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
My favorite way to stay connected with my clients is to delight them with unexpected surprises made from my creations with authentic messages from my heart. When I started in art, I created my own image for my holiday cards. My preference was to send a Thanksgiving card so my card would arrive before the deluge of holiday cards. Each year, I painted a new piece of art around the theme of gratitude and used it for the image om the card.
I sent a personal note with each card to each client and let them know I was grateful for them. I also use unique postage stamps with character for added flair on the envelope. I can’t tell you how many people still text me photos of the cards that they’ve kept over the years. One client actually paid one of his invoices and included a photocopy of the card telling me how much it meant to him!
When I created my journals on Amazon, I sent signed copies to my clients with a personal note on the inside cover. I let them know how much they mattered to me, shared my newest creation and gave them a huge surprise and delight in old fashion snail mail.
I also created stickers from my artwork and sealed their package with one of my stickers. It was a HUGE hit! It also resulted in increasing my sales when people ordered more of the journals once they experienced them in person.
I also share my art electronically through my newsletters and will often make graphics or quote cards using my collage art as the background with an aligned personal development message.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.JoanJakel.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/joanjakel/
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/joanjakel/
- Other: https://linktr.ee/JoanJakel Amazon Author: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Joan-Jakel/author/B087ZYJPLM?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1705427982&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true 2024 Visionary Planner Gift: https://joanjakel.myflodesk.com/visionaryplanner
Image Credits
KariAnne Munstedt