Why You Know What to Do but Still Don’t Do It: Authentic Voice Leadership
What happens when you already know the strategy, have invested in the courses and coaching, and still find yourself stopping when it is time to actually execute?
I joined Dr. Leslie Baylis Davis on Authentic Voice Leadership for a conversation about execution blocks, procrastination, perfectionism, analysis paralysis, visibility, pricing, Brainspotting and why knowing what to do does not automatically mean you will do it.
We also got into an important distinction that gets lost in a lot of mindset and productivity conversations: not every stalled action is an execution block. Sometimes the strategy is wrong. Sometimes the next step is vague. Sometimes the method, workflow or expectation simply does not fit the person trying to execute it.
The useful question is not simply, “Why am I procrastinating?” It is, “Where is execution actually breaking down?”
When Knowing What to Do Still Does Not Produce Action
Dr. Leslie started by asking what I mean when I talk about an execution block.
You have probably seen the patterns. They get called procrastination, imposter syndrome, analysis paralysis, perfectionism, overwhelm or self-sabotage.
Those labels can describe what is happening, but they do not automatically tell us what needs to be fixed.
If someone is avoiding a task because the next step has never actually been defined, that is a clarity problem. If they are trying to follow a strategy that does not fit how they work or the business they want to build, the strategy or structure may need to change.
If those practical pieces make sense and the person still repeatedly stops at the same specific action, then an execution block becomes much more useful to investigate.
Why Avoiding the Task Can Feel Better for a Moment
One part of our conversation focused on what happens at the moment someone decides not to do the thing they have been arguing with themselves about.
Maybe it is publishing the first blog post, sending the networking email, making the sales offer, stating the price or becoming more visible.
You wrestle with it. Then another perfectly respectable task appears. Suddenly the laundry has achieved strategic importance.
The tension drops when you decide not to do the uncomfortable action. That moment of relief can reinforce the avoidance, even though the guilt comes back later.
“Your brain, it will lie to you flat out. Its job is not to make you successful. Its job is to keep you alive.”
That does not mean every avoided task is a deep internal block. It does mean the moment you turn away from an action can give you useful information about what is actually happening.
Not All Procrastination Is the Same
We also talked about something that gets flattened in a lot of productivity advice: delay is not always the same thing as avoidance.
Sometimes a person is still putting the pieces together. An idea is sitting in the background while the thinking develops. From the outside, that can look like procrastination even though useful cognitive work is still happening.
That is different from having the pieces, knowing the next move and repeatedly walking away when it is time to make it.
Sales, Pricing and the Moment the Block Gets Specific
The conversation got especially practical when Dr. Leslie described enjoying the coaching portion of a sales conversation and then wanting to avoid the moment she had to state the price.
That specificity matters. She was not avoiding the whole call. She liked the call. The interruption appeared at one very particular point.
That is the kind of pattern worth paying attention to.
“You never charge what you’re worth. You charge what the outcome that you’re giving is worth.”
Your worth as a human being does not belong on an invoice. A business price reflects the service, expertise, support and outcome being offered.
Where Brainspotting Fits
Dr. Leslie and I also talked about Brainspotting and how I use it when a genuine internal block appears to be present.
I do not assume every stalled business action needs deeper processing. Strategy problems should be addressed as strategy problems. Clarity problems should be clarified. Poorly designed workflows should be redesigned.
Brainspotting becomes more relevant when the practical pieces have been addressed and a repeatable internal interruption remains around a specific action.
In This Episode We Discuss
- What an execution block is and what it is not
- Why strategy does not automatically produce execution
- Procrastination, perfectionism and analysis paralysis
- Why avoidance can briefly feel rewarding
- Productive versus nonproductive procrastination
- How selective procrastination can reveal the real sticking point
- Networking and visibility blocks
- Sales and reluctance to state your price
- Why “charge what you’re worth” can create an unnecessary identity problem
- Christian business, service and being paid for your work
- Where Brainspotting can fit into execution work
- Jennie’s own history of struggling to market her first business
Watch or Listen to the Full Episode
Overcoming Execution Blocks & Self-Sabotage: Rewire Your Brain for Business Growth with Jennie Hays on Authentic Voice Leadership with Dr. Leslie Baylis Davis.
Authentic Voice Leadership Episode Transcript
Prefer to read the conversation? The full transcript is available below. It has been lightly cleaned for readability, punctuation and obvious transcription errors while preserving the substance and conversational language of the original episode.
Read the full episode transcript
0:00 Jennie Hays: Yeah. See, your brain, it will lie to you flat out. Its job is not to make you successful. Its job is to keep you alive.
[Music]
0:15 Dr. Leslie Baylis Davis: Ever feel like you've invested in all the courses and coaching, but when it comes time to take action, an invisible wall stops you from doing the very thing you know you should do?
Today, we're sitting down with Jennie Hays, an Execution Block Specialist, mindset mentor and former paramedic of over 20 years. Jennie helps entrepreneurs clear the subconscious blocks and safety mechanisms that keep them stuck in self-doubt.
Today she's sharing how our brains lie to keep us safe, why traditional mindset work often misses the real problem and how body-led Brainspotting can permanently remove the blocks holding you back.
Before we dive into that, did you know that we have a free community of spirit-led leaders just like you? Head over to AuthenticVoiceLeadership.com right now to join the conversation and grab all of the exclusive free resources from today's guest.
So, welcome, Jennie. I am so glad that you are here. Let's dive in. We have so many good things to talk about today.
1:12 Jennie: First of all, Leslie, I want to tell you how much I've been looking forward to this. We had such a great meeting, and I really enjoyed getting to know you. I think this is going to be so fun today.
I'm Jennie Hays. I'm an Execution Block Specialist. And what I do is I help entrepreneurs who have done all the courses, they've spent all the freaking money that's in their pockets pretty much, and they still can't do the thing.
They keep looking for another course or another coach because, well, this time it'll work.
I do it because that's where I used to be. And I found this technique that changed my world completely. And I learned it's not about the strategy. It's about aligning the strategy, but it's about breaking the blocks, those execution blocks that keep you stuck.
2:00 Leslie: Oh, I love that so much. Can you talk a little bit more about execution blocks and what that is?
2:06 Jennie: Yes. So, we all see them. We see them everywhere we go. People call them imposter syndrome, analysis paralysis, self-sabotage, the list goes on.
But basically, it's the thing inside when you go to do something that says, “I'm not doing that,” even though you know strategically you need to, even though it's been sitting on your desk for months.
What it is, basically, is it traces back to something old and it's your brain protecting you. It's saying, “Yeah, we're not going to do this. We can't be seen that way,” or, “This isn't perfect enough,” and it will shut you down.
What I found is that usually it takes a lot more than just, “I'm going to push through this,” or, “Well, I'll just try this new strategy and work my way around it.”
3:04 Leslie: Wow. So tell me about the brain and how it keeps us safe in that way.
3:11 Jennie: Yeah. See, your brain, it will lie to you flat out. Its job is not to make you successful. Its job is to keep you alive.
And unfortunately, fortunately, in the world we're in today, our risks are not the animal that's chasing us to kill us, right? It's not the guy hidden around the corner in the dark alley before there were lights.
It's actually the stress. It's putting out the new thing. It's being seen. It's the risk of isolation from other people, which used to kill us.
Back many, many millennia ago, if you were ousted from your family or your tribe, you died. We have this picture of the lone wolf surviving and being tough, and that was few and far between. Most people who weren't part of community died.
And so your brain says, “I can't allow that to happen. I'm going to protect you in spite of yourself.”
4:25 Leslie: In spite of yourself. Yes. Isn't that lovely?
4:30 Jennie: Yeah. And it takes a long time for people to understand that.
I used to see this in the diet industry a lot. I used to be an insulin resistance coach, and I learned that people don't get a dopamine hit from cheating on their diet. They get a dopamine hit from deciding to cheat on their diet.
You get the thought in your head: “Oh, well, I'm just going to have a couple of Oreos. No, I'm not going to have them. I don't need them. It's not good for me.”
The minute your brain convinces you that you can have those Oreos, it's okay. The brain's thinking, “Sugar, fat, sustainability, keep us alive. If you quit eating, you're going to die. I'm going to get you to eat those freaking Oreos.”
The minute that you allow the brain to get what it wants, it releases the dopamine and you feel better.
Which is why, when you're staring at that blog post you need to put on your website, but it's the first one and you're afraid and worried about it, your brain says, “You know what? You probably need to wait a little bit. It's not the right time of year. There's some laundry to fold.”
And the minute your brain goes, “Yep, we're going to do that instead,” you get this dopamine hit. You get a reward, which is why you feel better after you didn't do the thing that you know inside you need to do to build your business.
And then the guilt comes back because not only did you not do it, but you didn't do it and it felt good.
6:25 Leslie: Oh goodness. Is this why people procrastinate so much?
6:32 Jennie: This is a big piece of it. Now, there's also productive procrastination, which I didn't know even existed until a few years ago when I spent money on one of those really big courses that I can't say I didn't need, but anyway.
[Laughter]
Productive procrastination, when you have a mind that's atypical, so neurodivergent is the term that's flying around right now, ADHD, whatever, sometimes you have to sit things in the back of your head and allow things to ferment, to come to full life.
So there is productive procrastination where you're still putting the pieces together. And then there's nonproductive procrastination, which is usually due to a block where the pieces are mostly together and you're going to go do it because it needs to get done, and you're like, “It doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel right. I'm going to turn away and walk.”
7:39 Leslie: That is fascinating. I didn't realize. Sometimes I procrastinate, but I think it's the productive procrastination because I'm not a natural procrastinator.
Or I used to be, but somewhere in my doctorate program taught me that I wasn't going to get anywhere in life if I didn't finish this thing. And I was the only one setting my deadlines, right?
So I learned how to do that. But wow, I didn't realize there were two different types of procrastination. Do you work with people that are neurodivergent and have focus issues too?
8:12 Jennie: Most definitely, because I'll tell you, a lot of entrepreneurs are neurodivergent. We don't fit in a box.
But before I dive into that, I really want to go back to what you said about your procrastination. So we're talking about blocks. You are a prime example of somebody whose block is going to stick out like a sore thumb.
Because someone like yourself, you just said, went through grad school. “I had to learn to set my own deadlines and do the thing.”
But I bet there's somewhere in your life that you set that deadline and then you're like, “I'm going to reset the deadline. You know what? I'm going to push that deadline out just a little further.”
And it's not everywhere. It's just that one area that feels like you can't quite stick to those rules and that deadline. Would you identify with that?
9:11 Leslie: Yes. Let me think. Sometimes I stress about my deadlines, and I have to push a few of them back because I was not able to get done what my overambitious self thought I could.
9:26 Jennie: Right. And that's a little different than the person that's pushing it out because it just feels yucky to do it.
I see this a lot with networking. You and I met through a really cool thing called ListMatch. So if you guys haven't checked that out, check it out. It's awesome.
We are both aggressively networking, but what I see consistently in the people I work with is that they know they need to network. They know the value of networking, but it's like, “Okay, next Friday I'm going to send the emails. I'm going to start picking up the phone. I'm going to reach out to people.”
Friday comes and they're like, “Oh, there's something else I need to do.” Or it just doesn't feel good. So they're like, “Okay, I'll push that till the next Friday. I can skip this Friday. It's okay.”
So it's not about not being productive. It's about the lengthening and pushing away of the task because it doesn't align with what you think you need to be doing, even though you know you need to be doing it.
10:39 Leslie: I found it. It's not the networking, but it is the workshops. I want to have a Q&A workshop where we get together and go deep into a few things every month. And I've only done one.
10:57 Jennie: So that's it. That's the thing. We found it.
Nine times out of ten, that is not a scheduling issue. It's not, “That just adds too much weight to my plate.” It's something inside that's, “Yeah, it was fun. I enjoyed it, but gosh, there's something there.”
And then that's what we dig down into and figure out what kind of block it is.
11:25 Leslie: Wow. I can tell you it's nerves. It's like, “Do I know what I'm going to talk about?” I'm not really sure exactly why I procrastinate on that particular thing because I really enjoy it once I show up.
11:36 Jennie: The question you just asked shouts imposter syndrome to me. There's a piece of you that says, “I don't know that I have what I need to get this done. Are people going to see that I don't know what I'm doing?” Would you align with that?
11:49 Leslie: Maybe. Sometimes. I feel pretty confident with my content. But what do I not feel confident about in it?
What is it that's keeping me saying I don't know how to do that, even though I know how to do it because I love it? Yeah. I guess it could be.
Oh goodness. I was not prepared for this. Here's my brain. We're going to dig into my brain a little bit.
12:30 Jennie: Here's the thing, though. This is the coaching side of what I do, actually digging in and helping you identify it.
The nice thing about the technique that I use is that you don't have to do any of that. All you've got to do is come and go, “You know what? I want to do the workshops, and when I go to do it, it just feels like it's too much. I wonder how to start the conversation and get the questions going.”
Then we figure out where it is in your body. We figure out where it is in your vision, and then we lock down and clear it. You don't have to understand it. I just get really curious and I want to know.
13:17 Leslie: I love this kind of stuff, by the way. Poke around in my brain all you want to. I'm here for it.
One of the things I'm thinking about is I used to really push off any kind of call that would have sales attached to it. I've had to walk through a lot of things with it.
Now, I love to have the coaching conversations that people show up to. If we book a complimentary coaching session, I absolutely enjoy it. I love it. And then I don't want to pitch.
I think some of my audience is probably going to relate to this. I don't want to ask for the sale. I just want to serve the person in front of me. And I understand that what I have to offer will serve them.
But for some reason, I still don't want to do it.
I don't want to ask for the, “Hey, you know what? I think what I have will help you. Do you want to do it?”
Okay, yes. But how much does it cost? I don't want to talk about the cost. Let's not talk about the cost. It's worth every penny, but I don't want to talk about it.
14:46 Jennie: And that is 100% a block because you're enjoying the whole thing. You love the whole call until it gets down to the number.
The reality is that you know the number and you know why the number is the number it is. It's not because you pulled the number out of the sky. There's costs. There's training. There's hours involved. There's all this other stuff involved.
But there's a little piece of you that says, “Are they going to judge me? Are they going to reject me? Are they going to push it away? Are they going to feel that what I'm offering is worth it?”
In the coaching world, and this is unfortunate but it's real, we have used the phrase “charge what you're worth” so much that we have begun to identify what we charge as what we are worth.
So when someone rejects that, they're also rejecting who we are. And so I firmly believe that you never charge what you're worth. You charge what the outcome that you're giving is worth.
15:55 Leslie: That's it right there.
16:03 Jennie: And sometimes just knowing that is enough for people to go, “Okay, I can fix that. When I'm doing the sales pitch, I can feel okay about it because I'm not charging for me. I'm charging for what they're going to get.”
But some people need more. What you do is find out. You go into that next sales call. You remember that before the call. You get through the call to the point where you have to talk about money.
And if your gut goes, “I don't want to do this. I hate this. I don't want to say those numbers,” even though that's what's fair, that's what's good, that's what I need to charge, now we've got a block.
16:37 Leslie: And I find it doesn't matter what number it is. It could be $100. It could be $10,000. It doesn't really matter. I don't want to say the number.
I've waited tables a lot through my life. I think about it like I'm taking food to the table. I bring them the check, they pay. I expect them to leave me a tip.
17:03 Jennie: You expect a tip because you did service.
17:06 Leslie: Yes. But then transfer it to my own business. When it comes time to deliver the check, I'm like, “Ah, here's the check. You don't need the check. It's on the house.”
Some of that, I think, also has to do with the fact that at the restaurant you are physically giving them food.
17:29 Jennie: Right. And you are in a situation where there's an expectation.
I'm assuming that your audience knows that you're Christian.
17:41 Leslie: Yes. If they don't, they haven't been around enough.
17:46 Jennie: One of the first entrepreneurs that I coached many years ago came to me with a problem. She did editing and publishing for Christians specifically.
She said, “As I'm starting this business, everybody's expecting a discount or for me to do it for free because we're all Christians.”
That was one of the very first blogs I ever wrote because it was like, why do we expect a discount from somebody? Why do we expect that we have to give the fruits of our labor for free just because we're family?
18:28 Leslie: That's good, because we really do. I've been in ministry for so long.
I'm finding this part of your makeup, what you do, is part of how you operate in your daily life. How do I charge for just being what I offer to the world?
But you don't offer to the world what everybody else offers. It's uniquely designed within you for that purpose. That's a tough lesson to learn, especially when you're walking in personal development and leadership development for other people.
When you're straddling mission versus entrepreneurship, understanding that your mission work is still getting paid for it, but all of it is going as an offering, whereas for entrepreneurship you've got to make money. You've got to keep food on the table. You've got kiddos. You've got to feed them.
19:39 Jennie: Exactly. And I'm not super nice if you don't feed me.
[Laughter]
Your ministry becomes that tithe, actually an overtithe because it's much more than 10% of your life. But we lose that translation and start to think, “Well, they're doing ministry, so they should be doing it for everybody all the time.”
And that is the shortest way to burn out.
20:05 Leslie: Yes. My husband and I have been in ministry for a long time. I've even found that in the music industry it's the same way because we're worship leaders.
To get paid to come and do a concert, for example, the average thing we've been paid is either nothing to maybe $400 or $500 for the whole thing. Most often we don't get paid. We're just leading worship.
In the music industry where it's not worship leading, they're getting $50, $60, $70 a ticket, and then you have the overhead cost, of course. But when you're Christian worship artists, even the big names, those are either free concerts or $10-a-head concerts.
That mentality carries through many veins of our work and our life's work.
21:01 Jennie: Right. And it's a balance. How much of what you're doing in your ministry does need to be sacrificial, and how much is actually entrepreneurial? Where do we draw those lines, and how do we figure out how to live while we're still giving back?
Because I guarantee you that while we're supposed to give as much of ourselves as we can, God never said, “Now make sure you starve to serve others.”
21:33 Leslie: Right. He was about building us up as people and understood our humanity.
I'm actually going through the Old Testament with my husband. I have never pronounced so many weird names in my entire life. Why couldn't you just name all these people in Israel Joe or Lisa?
[Laughter]
21:55 Leslie: I want to go back to why you think we have a block for the ask.
I think that's pretty common in the work that we do and with a lot of the entrepreneurs and business owners, especially ones that are either solo or just getting started.
It's a conversation I have regularly. I deal with it myself, and I'm also dealing with it with others. I'd love for you to poke at that a little bit.
22:26 Jennie: What I find when I'm going in and helping remove the block is that a lot of times the cause is just an old story.
I wish we could say it's always that Mom said this, Dad said this or you did this when you were little, but the story is different for everybody.
Sometimes when you're doing the block reset, you'll find the block, and sometimes you just heal it.
What we do when we're doing a reset is we're basically looking for the landmines. That's what it is. It's a landmine.
Usually, you experience the world through your body in 3D. It comes into your brain, and your brain looks at it and says, “Is this something that is going to kill me if I forget it, or is it too much for me to process right now?”
If the answer is no, it puts it in long-term storage. It becomes as important as what you wore last Thursday. There's no emotional tie to it.
If the answer is yes, this could kill me or hurt me if I forget it, or it's too much to process right now, it basically builds what I like to call the landmine, encapsulates it and stores it. “We'll look at this later. We'll deal with this later.”
The problem is that now we have a money story. We have something in our brain that every time we start to think about asking for that price, we hit that little landmine and feel that, and usually we avoid it.
We do everything we can not to feel that.
Traditional mindset teaches us to tiptoe around it. All those affirmations, all the exercises you do, the limiting-beliefs exercise, which I still teach because it's still valuable, teach you how to avoid it.
You have to maintain it because if you don't maintain that exercise, eventually your brain's going to go back to the path of least resistance, which is right into that landmine.
So what we do with the reset technique is use your body and your brain. It's all over Zoom. There's no magic or mystery to it. It's neuro-based.
We go in and let the body finish processing that memory in a safe way so that the landmine is gone.
25:15 Jennie: It's amazing. It's insane.
When I first started doing the technique and was watching people who had been stuck for months or years, they'd come back to me two weeks later and say, “Yeah, I did this and this and this and this.”
And I was like, “Do you know how many months we've been trying to get you to do those things?”
They're like, “It just was easy. There was a little bit of discomfort. I looked at it and went, yeah, okay, I'm just going to do it.”
25:54 Leslie: It sounds so simple, yet it sounds so complicated. So weird.
26:00 Jennie: I actually had a client who, when I was doing the process with her, the whole time kept going, “This is so weird. This is so weird.”
She was dealing with a guilt issue. You can do a lot of different things with this technique. I just focus on entrepreneurs.
One of the things I'll sometimes do is the lie versus the truth. You'll see this in mindset work, where it's like, “What's the truth and what's the lie?”
Every time she would go into the lie, she would come down and crunch down. Then she'd go into the truth and could breathe, and she was up and open. It was subconscious. It wasn't intentional.
At the end, the things that were making her cry at the beginning, the things that kept her stuck, she was able to laugh at.
27:15 Jennie: It changed everything for me and my business 100%.
Like I said, I used to do insulin resistance coaching. I made $267 in my first three years, not counting what I finally added up the other day as almost $30,000 in courses and coaches and money that I spent trying to learn how to market, how to do this thing.
I did one Brainspotting session, which is the technique that I use for the reset, and I was profitable in four months.
28:01 Leslie: That's a huge jump.
28:05 Jennie: It's insane because what was keeping me at $267 was the conversation that I had with the last coach I hired, which was, “I don't want to make a list of 20 people that I know and have to reach out to them and tell them what I'm doing and try to sell them.”
I was very against it because my brain was protecting me and said, “You don't want to be seen as a failure again.”
This is not my first round in entrepreneurship. When I was in high school, I joined Amway. I didn't sell it. Then I joined Mary Kay when I was first married. I didn't sell it.
This had happened over and over again, and I didn't want people to know, “Oh, she's doing it again.”
28:51 Leslie: I resonate with that. I was 18 years old and started Mary Kay.
I grew up in an entrepreneurial family and was 18 years old trying to do Mary Kay parties, and I didn't even wear makeup. I was allergic to it.
I wear mascara and lipstick. Usually it's very muted. I couldn't even wear the makeup, but I was trying to sell it because I knew I wanted to do something that was my own.
29:33 Jennie: But you can't build a business if you can't say the price.
My husband and I, in this same time period and before, have a successful remodeling business. It's his business. He brought it into the marriage.
There's something different about selling for somebody else. I've gotten sales awards my whole life. I could sell for you because it's for somebody else.
You don't have the emotional connection. Your brain doesn't say, “You're going to be ousted. You're going to be hurt. You're going to die.”
It says, “You need to do this, and you need to be really good at it because this is how you're going to succeed. This is how you're going to feed yourself and stay in your home.”
For some reason, the brain cannot figure that out on the other side.
30:30 Leslie: Why in the world does our brain think we're going to die?
30:35 Jennie: Because back when it was wired in early humanity, I tend to ascribe to creation as opposed to evolution, but it doesn't matter which way you look at it. It was still hard.
It was hard to survive whether it was 6,000 years ago or 600,000 years ago. It doesn't matter. Your brain had to protect itself.
31:07 Leslie: It's interesting to me that we make these little stories and they turn into these little landmines.
Logically, asking for the number or saying the number is not going to kill you.
It's interesting to think, why does my brain think it will?
31:28 Jennie: Because you will be either embarrassed or ousted from the tribe, which will cause you to starve.
31:36 Leslie: But not asking for the sale causes you to starve.
31:39 Jennie: Yes. Yes, it does. And why it can't put those two things together, I don't know.
Something very odd is that women especially, now it's not just women, but we're being very general here, women in general have more money blocks than men.
Men have been taught, even if they feel it, do it anyway. It doesn't matter. Which is why men in general tend to charge more money and tend not to have a problem starting their business and getting going as quickly.
Whereas women, we're taught to trust our intuition, trust our instinct, respond to our bodies. Our brain is saying, “You're going to die,” and we go, “Ooh, it's telling me something.”
So there is a small percentage of women and a larger percentage of men who can just push through it, which are those people that are very annoyingly doing very well and you're like, “Why am I still stuck here?”
32:41 Leslie: That's really good. I think about how we hide behind the stay-at-home-mom identity because we know that we can nurture our children.
Some people are wired for the stay-at-home-mom thing. That's great. I'm not. I love to be home with my children, but I love to work.
It's interesting to think about why we might hide behind some of our identity roles.
33:12 Jennie: And again, it's that safety because if you were in a tribe of people and you couldn't go to the grocery store, if you pissed them off, you didn't eat.
33:30 Leslie: Wow. That's primitive and insightful.
33:35 Jennie: So next time you're on that call, thank your brain for making it hard because it's just trying to protect you.
33:44 Leslie: What is one thing you could say to someone who is listening to this going, “Yeah, but how?”
I know we can reach out to you and have help, and I would love for you to share how people can get in touch with you, but I also want to know if there's one thing that could push somebody a little bit further in understanding themselves.
34:10 Jennie: There are all different levels of blocks. Things that will keep you stuck for years and years, and things that once you identify them, you can push through. Sometimes it's just helpful to identify the block.
The conversation we've had today about the sales calls might be enough that when you do your next sales call, you're like, “Okay, first of all, I'm not selling me. I'm selling the product. I'm selling the outcome.”
“And I know that my brain, for some reason, thinks that I'm going to die, and I'm not going to die. Okay, I can do this.”
Sometimes that's all you need. Sometimes you need something more.
You can do the limiting-beliefs exercises where you basically do the truth and the lie and start to build that proof. That can be really helpful.
There are a lot of little things you can do as a stopgap to make things work.
In my opinion, if the block is persistent, there comes a point when you may want someone who knows how to work directly with the block.
I'm not the only person who can do it.
35:15 Leslie: You're a good choice.
35:21 Jennie: I'm a good choice. I'm really good at it. I love it. I absolutely love it.
I've done about 250 sessions now. I've had two that I called failures, and they weren't really failures. They were learning experiences. It was miscommunication.
People get something out of it. It's not about me. It's about the technique.
If you want to see a little bit about how the reset works and how it taps into your brain, think to yourself right now about the last time you were irritated by something.
It could have been that fight with your husband over the laundry on the floor. It could be traffic.
Once you think about that and get a picture in your head, feel where it is in your body.
36:18 Leslie: Okay.
36:23 Jennie: Where do you feel it?
Leslie: Right here.
Jennie: Okay. Concentrate on that and think about the situation. Open your eyes and look all the way to your right just with your eyeballs, thinking about that situation and that feeling.
Then come back to center, still thinking about it, and go all the way to the left.
Still thinking about it, still feeling it. Is one side stronger than the other?
36:51 Leslie: My left is stronger.
36:59 Jennie: Your eyes are helping us locate where the activation is connected.
A lot of times people feel the activation in the stomach, shoulders or somewhere else in the body. I've had one person feel it in her leg.
We use the eye position and the sensation as part of the Brainspotting process.
37:17 Leslie: It's really interesting because when I looked to the right, it was almost difficult. And then when I looked to the left, it was like, okay, I can see that.
37:31 Jennie: So it may actually be on your right because if it's too hard to look at it, we'll sometimes use techniques called dosing, where you look over and then look back, look over and then look back.
There are different ways to work with it so it doesn't have to be painful or uncomfortable.
37:53 Leslie: That's amazing. Before we go, how can people get in touch with you to walk through these blocks with you?
I feel like so many of us need this, even if we didn't know we did. We've got to get unstuck. So how can they find you?
38:08 Jennie: JennieHays.com. And you want to make sure you spell it right. It's Jennie, and then there's no E in Hays.
Or you can email me directly. It's just Jennie at JennieHays.com. I try to make it super simple.
I'll also give Leslie a link to a free resource people can check out.
Don't give up on the mindset stuff because it can be good maintenance and a good stopgap.
But if you know that the block is there and it's not going away, there comes a time when it's time to address the block itself.
39:08 Leslie: Jennie, you are amazing. Thank you so much for sharing so much with us. You've been so generous with your expertise and with your thoughts and your vulnerability. I really appreciate it.
39:22 Jennie: I love it. Thank you so much for having me on here. This has been fun. We need to do it again.
[Music]
Leslie: Hey, Radiant Leader. To dive deeper into our resources and connect with a powerhouse circle of like-minded leaders, come join our free community at AuthenticVoiceLeadership.com.
I will meet you right back here next Tuesday. Your voice matters. Lead wild, lead free. Stay radiant, my friend.
About Jennie Hays
Jennie Hays is an Execution Block Specialist, Brainspotting Practitioner and business coach for coaches, consultants and service-based entrepreneurs.
She helps capable people figure out why strategies they already understand are not consistently turning into action.
Her work distinguishes between a true execution block, a strategy that does not fit the person and a plan that is simply too vague or poorly structured to execute.
When an actual execution block is present, Jennie combines rapid block resolution and Brainspotting with practical business strategy and execution design to help clients return to clear, measurable action.
