When More Strategy Isn’t the Answer: Salty Ginger Talk
For several years, I thought I had a strategy problem.
I bought another course. Hired another coach. Learned another marketing method. Each time, I thought this one might finally be the thing that made business work.
Then I would get to the part where I actually had to promote myself, be seen or ask someone to work with me, and execution stopped.
I joined Joe Canfield on Salty Ginger Talk for a long-form conversation about the very nonlinear road that eventually led me from paramedicine to entrepreneurship, Brainspotting and the work I now do around execution blocks.
This conversation was recorded before I developed the SCAN framework, but the distinction underneath SCAN is all over it: sometimes the problem is not that you need more information. Sometimes you already know enough and something else is interrupting execution.
When Another Course Looks Like the Answer
One of the most useful parts of this conversation happens when we get into my first coaching business.
I had done the research. I had invested heavily in courses and coaches. I understood the material I was teaching.
Yet every time I reached the promotion portion of the business, I shut down.
Instead of recognizing the pattern, I assumed I was still missing information.
So I bought more information.
That is an expensive loop, and it is not unusual.
More strategy only helps when strategy is actually what is missing.
The Difference Between Not Knowing and Not Executing
Eventually my husband pointed out a fairly inconvenient number: I had made $267 in three years.
I had spent considerably more than that trying to learn how to make the business work.
The problem was not that I could not learn business strategy. I could.
The problem appeared when the strategy required visibility, promotion and putting myself in front of other people.
Years later, after learning Brainspotting and using it with clients, I was sitting at my desk convinced I simply was not meant to be an entrepreneur.
Then the obvious question finally occurred to me: why was I using this tool with everybody except myself?
That was the beginning of a very different way of looking at business follow-through.
Sometimes the Strategy Is Also Wrong for You
There is another important piece in the interview that is easy to miss.
Resolving the block did not simply make me better at forcing myself through the same business model.
It helped me recognize that I did not particularly enjoy the work I was trying so hard to make myself build.
I was much more suited to work where I could identify a problem, address it directly and help someone move forward.
In other words, removing the internal resistance did not mean blindly executing somebody else's strategy.
It made it easier to see what actually fit.
That distinction is a major part of my work today. Not every stalled action is a block. Sometimes the strategy, method, structure or expectation is the part that needs to change.
Why Being Capable Somewhere Else Does Not Prove This Should Be Easy
The interview covers a lot of my earlier career, including paramedicine and working in my husband's remodeling business.
I had evidence that I could work hard, learn complex things, make decisions and perform under pressure.
None of that automatically translated into being able to market myself.
That is worth noticing because capable people often use their competence in one area as evidence against themselves in another.
“I can handle all of this. Why can't I just do this one simple thing?”
The selectivity is often useful data.
If you can execute difficult things all day long but consistently stall around one particular business action, the question is not whether you are capable. You already have plenty of evidence for that.
The better question is what is different about this action.
From “Something Is Wrong With Me” to a Specific Problem
Near the end of the interview, Joe asked if there was anything important we had not covered.
My answer was the line that eventually became central to my business:
“You're not broken. You're just blocked.”
I still believe the core of that.
I would add one important qualification today: being stuck does not prove that you have an internal execution block.
Sometimes the plan is vague. Sometimes you need a better strategy. Sometimes you need a smaller next step, different structure, different cadence or a method that fits you better.
But once those things have been addressed and the same specific interruption remains, that is useful information.
In This Episode We Discuss
- Jennie’s path from paramedicine into entrepreneurship
- Career pivots and nonlinear professional paths
- Burnout and recognizing when work no longer fits
- Starting an insulin-resistance coaching business
- Spending heavily on courses while still struggling to market
- Imposter syndrome and fear of being visible
- Why more strategy did not solve the execution problem
- Discovering Brainspotting and eventually using it personally
- Money blocks, visibility and business performance
- How Brainspotting is used in Jennie’s work
- Why a strategy can be workable and still be wrong for the person
- The idea behind “You’re not broken. You’re blocked.”
Watch the Full Episode
Watch my full conversation with Joe Canfield on Salty Ginger Talk.
Salty Ginger Talk Episode Transcript
This was a long-form conversation, so the full transcript is tucked below. It has been lightly cleaned for names, punctuation and obvious transcription errors while preserving the substance of the original conversation.
Read the full episode transcript
0:00 Joe Canfield: Hey guys, thanks for joining us here at Salty Ginger Talk. Returning listeners, it's great to have you back. If you're new to the channel, really glad you joined us.
We've got an awesome guest today. Her name is Jennie Hays. She coaches and teaches a process called Brainspotting to help you get unstuck. That might be around food, personal issues, physical issues or business.
She was a paramedic for a long time, worked in her husband's remodeling business, and she's going to come on and talk about her story and what she learned from those things.
1:02 Jennie Hays: I am super excited. I've been looking forward to this for a while. I'm excited to see what we dig up and talk about. We had such a great introductory meeting.
1:24 Joe: What we love to spend time on is all the things our guests have learned through the experiences in their life.
Rarely does someone wind up where they set out to wind up. Nobody has a linear path.
The other thing we find is that people get to where they're at by taking action. Good things don't just magically happen.
2:49 Jennie: The broad overview would take about two hours. No, I'm kidding.
It's just been a very windy road.
When I started off in junior high and younger, I was going to be a famous country singer.
Then I got into accounting competition in high school. I was absolutely going to be an accountant. I got into my first accounting class and went, “Oh, we're not doing that.”
Then medicine was calling me. I ended up being a paramedic and spent about a decade in the 911 system, hospitals and clinics.
Then my whole world changed. I couldn't keep doing it anymore. I needed to do something different.
I ended up starting to coach insulin resistance. While I was a great coach, I was a lousy businessperson with a big, big L.
Eventually I ended up working with ZynnyMe. They taught me Brainspotting, and it was night and day. It turned my life around, turned my business around and put me in a place where I really love what I do and the people I work with.
46:21 Jennie: I had to learn how to promote online.
Every time I would take another course or spend more money on something, it was like, “Oh, this is going to be the answer.”
I'd get to the promotion part and I'd shut down.
It was like, “I'm not a doctor. I'm not an expert. I'm learning from all these people who know the molecular structure of every single thing. They're not going to want to learn from me.”
Typical imposter syndrome. But I didn't see that.
I thought I just didn't have the right tools.
So I would spend another couple thousand and another couple thousand, until one day my husband came in and said, “You've made $267 in the last three years. You have to get a J-O-B.”
I kicked and screamed and cried, and I landed working with ZynnyMe.
I started as their VA and eventually graduated into business coaching with them. They're the ones who taught me Brainspotting.
I was using this tool with my clients, and the same clients who before were struggling week after week were doing a session or two and then doing the thing and succeeding.
Do you think that clicked in my brain? No.
I had to go four years until I'm sitting at my desk one day crying, thinking, “I just can't be an entrepreneur. I'm not meant for this. I'm not built this way.”
Then it dawned on me. Well, duh. Why don't we Brainspot it?
And I did.
Now I do podcasts. I'm on TikTok. I'm on Facebook. I'm marketing. And I have a business that not only pays for itself but contributes to the household.
1:09:27 Jennie: For me, a very obvious example was what we just talked about: throwing all this money at courses, thinking I was going to find the right course and the right fix.
My landmine was not feeling like I was good enough to do this. I wasn't a doctor. I wasn't, fill in the blank.
When I did the Brainspotting, the resolution was: you don't really enjoy insulin-resistance coaching as much as you thought.
You're really more of that paramedic: come in, fix things and move on, rather than work on the same issue for months and months.
So why don't you do something you love, like Brainspotting?
Instead of trying to do what everybody else is telling you to do, why don't you make this your business?
You know all the stuff now. You've spent enough money. You've done enough things. Figure out what works with you and makes you happy and do that.
How many times have I told clients, “Do what you love and do it your own way”?
But I had a landmine there preventing me from doing it.
1:14:02 Jennie: The first thing we do is an intake conversation just to find out what's going on because I do need to do some differentiation, make sure that it is something we're dealing with and not just a habit or something like that.
1:27:52 Joe: If someone was interested in this, what's the easiest thing for them to do?
1:27:59 Jennie: I do a free consult. It is not a sales call.
If you want to work together, I would love to if it's appropriate, but I really want to get to know you. We know where you're stuck. I'll let you know what Brainspotting can or can't do, and then we can decide together.
1:33:23 Jennie: I think the biggest thing, and this is something I like to stress in my marketing and my presentations, is that you're not broken.
You're not broken. You're just blocked.
It's just your body trying to do what it's naturally designed to do. So it's fixable.
Even if you feel like you're at the end of the world, if you're like I was sitting at your desk in tears, it's not because there's something wrong with you.
1:34:00 Joe: That's great. That's powerful. I love that.
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.
