with guest Jamie Cox

Jamie Cox is on a mission to make brands less boring. As a brand strategist and designer, she works with solopreneurs, founders, and entrepreneurs to help them identify their target audiences, size up their competition, and re-energize their businesses. She's also the founder of Strange Salt, a collective that brings creative folks together to build great brands; and the host of Scope Creep, a podcast for solopreneurs who want to ditch the corporate hellscape and build a values-first brand. Jamie lives in Nashville with her husband, Cory, and her two rescue pups, Georgia and Snoop. When she's not working, you can find her exploring a new hobby—currently bread baking, restoring her 1930s Chandler & Price printing press, and eating her way through Nashville.

Personal website: www.jamiercox.com

Company Site: www.strangesalt.com

Podcast Site: http://scopecreepshow.com or https://pod.link/1678640164

Follow Jamie on Instagram at @jmercox. 

Follow Scope Creep on Instagram at @scopecreepshow

Joe Bukartek empowers people to live intentionally. As host of the podcast, Intentionally Ever After [www.IntentionallyEverAfter.com], Joe is an ultramarathon runner and pickleball enthusiast, living at the beach with his family as part of his own curated intentional lifestyle.

As a board certified Intentional Lifestyle Coach, Joe helps individuals to have lives and careers that are wildly more fulfilling. Ready to curate a life of intention? Connect with Joe on his website [www.joebukartek.com] or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joebukartek/.]

Joe also helps emerging adults build lifelong success beyond the nest in his specialized program, Intention to Launch. This results-driven partnership guides participants as they prepare to leave home and discover their ideal lives. Ready to launch? Check out [www.IntentionToLaunch.com]

If you would like to have your own intentional conversation with Joe, either on or off the air, visit https://www.joebukartek.com/contact

Check out more episodes at intentionallyeverafter.com

Transcript

0:06

I feel like international can be so many different things for so many different people. And for me, being able to show up authentically in a new space or an old space is all about like knowing what I need and knowing what I don't need. Just as important. This is intentionally ever after. Join Intentional Lifestyle coach Joe Brokercheck for a series of personal conversations and coaching sessions with various people about how living with intention shows up for them. Greetings everyone, and welcome to another episode of Intentionally Ever After. Today, I am delighted to be chatting with the great the effervescent Jamie Cox. Jamie, welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. I'm very excited for this. And can I just say you have a great podcast voice. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. I will. I will. I will take that. I appreciate it. Thank you. Jamie, will you kindly introduce yourself to folks? Yeah, I am Jamie Cox. I am a brand strategist working with small business owners. Mostly solar producers. Start ups, any sort of early stage company to help them find their brand purpose and connect with their audience. I am also what I call a serial hobbyist. I like to try a lot of different things and just have a lot of fun. In my free time, I very much value my free time and believe it's important to have a have a life outside of work. I didn't always have that. And I live in Nashville with my husband and my two sweet dogs named Snoop is our youngest, who is seven, and Georgia is our oldest, who is 11, and they are both two little fluffy, cute dogs. I love it. Thank you for sharing your voice. Sounds awfully familiar. Jamie, where where might I have heard this voice before? I am also the host of Scope Creep, a podcast for solo producers and for anyone who's interested in ditching the corporate hellscape and building a values first brand that just premiered this year. We are finishing out season one actually today. We are recording right after this, and it's been a wild ride, a fun one. I love being on a microphone, so if you can't tell us, yeah, I thought that's what it was. I thought that might have been it. Yeah. Awesome. Yes, I may or may not have listened to nearly every single episode thus far. Well, thank you. Yes, of course. Jamie. What I'd like to do is go into rapid fire mode to begin this interview portion where I'll ask you to give a shortened, abbreviated response to these questions, knowing that we will go back in and in-depth a little further. Are you are you ready? I feel like my answers might already be short, so we'll see how much I can expect. No, that's okay. No need to expand yet. I will happily help tease that out later on. Okay. Okay. Here we go. Jamie, What does it mean to live intentionally? I think it's all about knowing yourself and just recognizing what you need, what you want, and what you don't want. What is one change in habit that has had an exponential payoff? I started spinning like stationary bike in 2019, and it has just changed me exponentially in a lot of different ways. So I'm excited to talk about that one. That's like one of my new hobbies I could talk about forever. Well, okay, stay tuned, sports fans. Here we go. What have you said no to that has made a significant impact in your life? Mike Callander Ever since COVID, I've been like a hard no on a lot of events. And while life changing, what area in your life feels just about perfect? My personal life with my husband, my husband, my husband and I just have one. Well, we're going to dig into that. Yeah. And my dogs, I just love it here. Who is someone you admire and what do you admire about them? Okay, I'm going to cheat a little bit. And these are two friends who are married, so I'm counting them as one unit. I'll allow it. My friends Stephen and Janie Jones, they are both artists and they are just like living their truth, living their best life, and just kind of like leaning into the things that bring them joy. And I love it so much. Cool. What do you imagine some people admire about you? I hope that they admire my authenticity and my ability to show up as myself in kind of like all scenarios, I don't really bifurcate my personality based on who I'm with. So Jimmy Kocsis concludes the rapid fire portion of today's episode. I do. Well done. Well done. Well, that remains to be said. Well, okay, great. It actually, it's up to the public to grade you. Hopefully that so I can subscribe and review. There you go. Okay. So one thing I'd like to share is that when listening, especially the initial episodes of your podcast scope creep, I heard the word intentional quite a bit used by you and your co-host, and I was delighted. I was like, Hey, and this was after you had agreed in Principle two to join me on this show. So I was delighted that you used the word with relative frequency. At least you did your current definition of living with intention, living intentionally, knowing yourself. Do you mind digging into that a little deeper? Yeah, of course. So I say knowing yourself because I feel like intentional can be so many different things for so many different people. And for me, being able to show up authentically in a new space or an old space is all about like knowing what I need and knowing what I don't need is just as important. But I always think about it in terms of my creativity. So I'm a creative person. I have been a designer, I've lived a lot of creative lives, but I've always felt like my creativity was like fleeting, like when it was there, it was there and I need to act on it. And when it wasn't there, I could not force it. And so I really had to acknowledge that in myself. And like when I was working creative jobs as like a designer, it was really hard to get myself the space that was like, Oh, I'm not actually feeling creative today and this is not going to be my best work because I had a deadline I had to deliver. And so now that I know that about myself, I really have to like give myself space that like if I do feel that creative burst of energy, I have to have enough space to be able to act on it. So I carved out time in my schedule. For example, like I know myself, I know that if I get excited about something I have about 10 seconds before I am excited about it. So I need to move. Yeah, yeah, Yes. So I mean, we'll talk about the calendar situation too, but like knowing myself has also been, you know, making more time for those things that like, Oh, I know I'm only going to be creative for like 10 minutes today, so I really need to lean into it when I'm feeling it and not force it when I'm not and be able to put stuff down, walk away and come back to it when I do feel it. So I don't know. And it looks different for a lot of a lot of people. Like, for example, if did you ever read Daniel Pink's time or its science of timing is how it's called? I am familiar with the messaging, but I had not read it. Yeah, he talks about like, you know, typically in the morning is is better time for this in the afternoon is better time for this. I'm not an early morning person so early morning I'm like okay I'm in. I plug away and do the things that I'm like accounting, like bookkeeping, those sort of things that I have to do to run a business. And then in the afternoon is when my creativity flows. So that's when I try to schedule things. So that's a little bit about being intentional by knowing yourself, know thyself. Yeah. And not forcing it. Not forcing it when when you know that it's not the right time for you to do those things. Yeah. Which I feel like it's not the right time more than it is the right time for me personally. Yeah, well, that's. That's powerful knowledge, right? As long as you have the hope or the expectation that at some point it will be the time. Yeah, I'm always optimistic that it will be at the time. Eventually I'll always come back to it. That's what I always like. If I put something down, I'm like, If it's meant to be, I'll come back to it. Yes, very good. Okay. I don't want to get yet into the calendar anything, but it sounds like this might be related to when you choose to do certain items, but because of your enthusiasm and because it was the second question on the rapid Fire list, I'd love to hear about the change in habit of spinning and how this has transformed you. Yeah, so I would say Austin found me at a time when I didn't know I needed it, but in 2019 I had really experienced my first like my first death in my close family as an adult. And it was like, Oh, I am dealing with grief that I've never felt before. Like it was an unexpected family member who died. And I was like, I do not know what to do with all of this. All of this emotion, all of this energy. I was still in all sorts of ways and somebody invited me to a spin class at like a new gym opened in town and I was like, lol, sure, that sounds dumb, but yes, I'll go like, what else do I have to do? Go home and lay in bed and cry maybe. Yeah, yeah. You probably done that to a little bit. Yes, I did. Oh, I did that a lot. So I went to the spin class and I saw you. It was the most insane thing I've ever experienced and not in a good way. The person next to me passed out. Sorry, it's not funny, but it is. They passed out and they were trying to clip off their bike and they passed out and fell underneath my bike pedals. Again, it's not funny. It's funny because it's so uncomfortable. It is quite uncomfortable. Now is just one of those stories that you tell hypothetically about a friend who did this thing and we find out it was, you know, that's what my friends that I went with thought my friends that I that I fell off my bike because I was in the very back and I was like waving to the instructor, trying to get their attention, like, Hey, hey, man, down over here. The whole class stops and they had to help this person out. But they're underneath my pedals and I couldn't get out of my bike because I didn't know how. If you've ever been to a spin class or like, cycle, you like, clip into those stupid little shoes. Sure, sure. Huh. And anyway, so they're just started by pedals. I'm trying to stop. It's just like a comedy of errors. Eventually they get out. They were fine, for the record. Sure. And ever since then, I was like, Yeah, this is the sport for me. Yeah, Like, this is exciting. This is the type of unexpected variety that I need in my life right now. Yes. And I mean, honestly, looking back about now, and I don't think I've thought about this, I don't think I had laughed that hard since I had experienced that death in my family. And it was just like, wow, what a relief of energy, of laughter, of all the emotions this was. And I went back, I went to I would do, That's wonderful. Okay. Okay. Now, I'm sorry. At what point did the laughing begin? Oh, like I will say, I'm not great about not laughing in like those situations. So probably immediately, like I was trying to help the person, but it was like, I don't know what I'm doing either. I would say it was immediately. And then me, my friends that I went with got drinks afterward and I was like, cry laughing for an hour about this situation, especially because they thought it was me. And they were just like, Oh my gosh, are you okay? And I was like, What are you talking about? Yeah, relatively speaking, you're fantastic, right? You stayed up, right? Yes. Yes, I was fine. So, yeah, I end up going to a different gym after that. Just one that was closer to my house with some other friends. And it was just like I said, the thing I didn't know I needed, I had prior to this never really like, I'm not to say I didn't learn to express my emotions, but I just had never had the space to do that. And if you've ever been to a spin class, you know, it's just like a dark room and you have an instructor and you're on a bike going nowhere. It is so, so, so, so silly. Like you're pedaling so hard and literally not going anywhere. And I was like, Wow, what a lovely metaphor this space is. So I just stuck with it. I did it for I'll Say in Tokyo, it started like March 2020, so probably like six months. I was like Rider or Die at the Speed Studio most days of the week. And it was just so fun. And then when Copan happened, I bought a bike at home, got really into it. I actually ended up training to be a spin instructor and then became a spin instructor in 2021. And I taught at a gym, which was really fun and just opened up a whole new world of like, Oh, this is the thing. But I say it changed me in a lot of ways because it just like, obviously there's the physical benefit of that. Like I've never felt more like athletic than I do in my present body, but then also just mentally, I don't know where I would be without that, like, without having that space to deal with that, to sit with all of those, like really hard emotions and experiences and giving myself the space to do that. And then like, even looking professionally, like when I became a spin coach, I was like, Oh, this is a great tie in with the work I do as a brand strategist. Like it's really about empowering people to do the thing that they already can if they already signed up to do. Like you showed up to the spin class, why throw it away? Same thing like you signed up to build a business. Why are you not going to build the business? So it just these really beautiful parallels kept coming up for me in that space, and I just stuck with it. I loved it. It's opened a lot of doors, so thankful. That's fantastic. Seemingly, though, again, from this initial experience, the benefits were not exactly the same as day one. You came back for day two because Why? Because you thought something else might happen. Drama. I love it. Yeah. No, you know, I think I knew. So I went to the one gym and that happened, and that was just kind of like a funny footnote, honestly. But it I knew I was like, I like this thing. It's challenging in a new way that I haven't really experienced. I wasn't the gym itself was not for me. And I was like, I kind of just want to see what else is out there. Like how, how are other people doing this challenging thing? So I tried a lot of different like formats of that. There's a lot of different types of spin. Yeah, I think I just really I love a challenging thing. Like I love after like a really hard day of working. I always think about this after a hard day of work where I like, maybe I'm having a hard time solving a problem. I love to do something really challenging that I know I can't do because I'm like, Hmm, see, girl, you got this. You can do it. You can do it. You might not have had it earlier, but you got it now. For example, what's what's the thing that you know, you can do that's challenging, that you that you want to have that experience. Yeah. So well spin is one of those things. The other day I was working on a project and I was I get anywhere with it. It was a struggle. I came home well, actually first I drove across town to go to a yoga class that I like, only to get there and realize I didn't have any of my yoga equipment, none of my clothes or anything. So I was like, That was my moment of like, Jamie, get your life together. What are you doing? And then I went home and I was like, I don't want to do anything now. I'm too sad. But I was like, You know what? You're going to feel better. You're going to feel better if you do a hard thing right now. So I, I have a bike at home and I did a Tabata class, which, if you don't know, is like two, two one intervals. And it's really hard and it's really exhausting. So I did that and I was like, Yeah, yeah, you got it, You got it. You're going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Yeah. Is it necessary for it to be a physical exertion exercise for you? Is that what you picture when you do it? I don't think so. I mean, there's other like. I mean, I talked about hobbies at the top of this too. Like, there's other hobbies that are challenging for my brain in a way, and challenging for other people to like. Drawing is something I love, but I'm not great at it. The other day I just like, was like, I'm going to unplug and just draw a little bit. And it was like I was like letting go of any sort of expectation of that, knowing it was going to be a challenging brain exercise for me and, you know, somewhat physical exercise for me to to move my hands in that way and all of that. But but I was like really proud of the thing I made at the end of it. And it was hard. It was hard. And it kind of made everything else feel a little bit better That happened the rest of the day. You know, all the all the problems I didn't solve were solved in the moment. Yeah. By drawing. Will you kindly discern what doodling from drawing? Mm hmm. I feel like all of what I do is doodling. To be honest, I. I was waiting for you to use that word right, because of the set up, but you didn't use it. You continue to say draw. And I thought that was noteworthy. Yeah, I think most of what I do is doodling, especially like some of the people I think of, like, who are drawing. I'm like, Wow. They are like using a technique of like cross-hatching and sketching and I don't know, I would draw slightly when you have these words. Yeah, they sound good, right? And they're like drawing like portraits and all of this. But I'm like, No, I'm just drawing like, silly things. Like the other day I just drew a bunch of cheese and sausage, like a little charcuterie board, and I was like, Yeah, that's a doodle, that's a doodle. I love it. I love it. Now, just picturing what that would look like if you feel like you, I'd be delighted to see your, your doodle, your drawing. If you're talking to you, you can tell me if it's doodle or draw. Oh, I don't know any arbiter of that. That's why I ask the question. But I think I think you I think you cleared it up. It sounds like the pressure to present a particular outcome with any particular techniques that might be more drawing. Yes. Yes. In the absence of that would be doodling. Yeah, I like I like that definition. I like that. I also love to create things for the sake of like creating them and keeping them to myself. I lived like I said before, I like I've lived a lot of creative lives and so much of that was, look at this thing I made. Look at this thing I made, Oh, I'm going to sell this thing I made oh, this thing I made is going to go on a billboard, whatever. And I'm like, I find so much joy now in like, I made this just for me. My eyes only love it. I love it. It's like a little selfish thing. I get to keep like that. TV I'm wondering if you can connect a couple ideas for me in my practice to my coaching practice and really in my life. I'm a big fan of running experiments, both for myself and my clients. What do you want to try, write, try? Because you either think it'll bring you more clarity into what you really want or because you think it might benefit you somehow, whether it's clarity or towards your goal, towards your fulfillment experiments. What experiments? Right. Keeping it light in the spirit of doodling. You haven't yet used the word experiment for what you'd like to to do. See view serial hobbyist. You talked about creativity a whole bunch. Do you connect with the idea of running experiments, or how would you connect those ideas of creativity and experiments? Experimentation? Well, I mean, most of my creativity, I would say, is an experiment because it's so much of it is trying like trying the thing that you might be better at. Maybe you discover you're not bad at it, maybe you discover you have some sort of natural talent to it, which I don't know if I totally believe in that, but yeah, so much so much of the creativity part of me and like the hobby part of me, all of those things are really ingrained because I it's like the low stakes activity that doesn't have to have an outcome. It's like, Oh, I can try this thing experiment if you want to use that word and decide if it's like a good a good way to spend my time, if you want to call it that, or a good way to like, use my creative energy or my brain in some way to like, expend that energy that I have. And I think I say serial hobbyist because I have such a I'm not really attached to a lot of the hobbies that I have. Like, I just love to try things. I am like a lifelong learner. I've always felt that way and I see other people do something. I'm like, I want to try that. I want to try it just to try it. I don't want an outcome from it. I there's experiments that for me last that long that it's like, Oh, I just want to try this and see if I'm good at it. And then there's experiments and hobbies that last a lifetime. Like, I mean, going to spin class, That was just an experiment that I was like, Sure, what else do I have to do? And now here I am four years later, still talking about it. Never shut up about it. In fact, we're going to edit it out. Actually, there will be no references spinning whatsoever in this episode. So can you imagine a five minute episode? Yeah. Yeah. And then there's other hobbies and experiments that you know, are really touch and go, like during, like quarantine. The pandemic, I picked up so many little hobby sort of things that I was just like, Oh, this is interesting to me today. For example, I started doing like Punch Needle, which is like manual rug making, if you will. Like instead of having a tough dang gun, you just do it by like one needle punch at a time. And it was just like my brain needed. I did maybe one or two things that took about a few hours total and I was like, not for me anymore. And I just kind of put it to the side. You've checked the box? Yes. It'll come back to me if it's meant to be. So yeah, but then there's also other things that are like the long game. Fun fact about me. I have a printing press from 1930. I think it's 1932. It is a Taylor Price Craftsman Printing Press. And for those of you who know anything about that, it weighs £3,000 and it is humongous. And it has lived in my garage for eight years and has never well, not never printed anything. I've never printed on it. It's been in my garage for eight years. We built a garage around it. That's how big it is. And I finally a month ago, my friend Nieves, who is a printmaker and she used to own a print shop. She was like, Hey, how's your printing press going? And I was like, You know, that's a great question. Do you want to come over and look at it? And I like had to give myself eight years to be able to ask for help from this person I've known for a long time. And she was like, Oh my gosh, absolutely. Let's look at it together. And she she just gave me all the clarity I need. She was like, You're about 1% away from being able to print. And I was like, Wow, eight years, eight years, eight year experiment. Wow. That's I don't know how had anything else in my brain to relate that to right now. That's not true. A lot of the words you said in combat in this exact combination, it's the first time I've heard any of this. I'm still working. I figure out what the hell a tough thing. Needless to. That's the other part. Okay. Oh, experimentation. I'm like, I don't know if I connected the dots or just opened up a whole new universe. That's kind of like sometimes how my brain works. But, yeah, it's all an experiment. This is fabulous. Thank you. This. This is way more than I could have hoped for when I asked you to draw a comparison, you did not think that you were going to have this conversation today, did you? In some version? I of course, of course they did. At the specificity. No, there's no way. Let us say no for a moment, shall we? Oh, yeah. I mean no. Yes. Calendar saying no to particular events that has made a significant impact in your life. Will you kindly tell us more? Yeah. So let's say I moved to Nashville. This is like a long, long story, as it always is. I moved to Nashville in 2013, 2013 or 2014, and I feel like since I moved here, I have not stopped. There's something every night if you live in a city with entertainment, you know there's something every single night. And we have a great community here and a lot of friends and there is something every night to go to. And then in 2020, with that kind of stopped, it was like, Oh, now what? I don't have these things to go to to do. And it was just like, Oh, I have to have to sit with myself. I have to do do this instead. And that just kind of at first it was really uncomfortable. It was like, Oh, I'm bored. I don't have anything to do. Which obviously is true. I have a house full of random hobby materials that I could have picked up at any time. But I was just, yeah, it really had to sit with that. And then slowly I became more comfortable with that and I was like, Wow, I love being in my house. I love being with myself. I love spending time with my husband like we have a great backyard. We sit in our backyard all the time. And I was like, Oh, this is the thing that makes me feel a lot more calm than I used to. It makes me feel like less anxious. All of those things. It's like spending time with myself and making time for myself and the things that it fills me up and are not as draining. I'm like an extrovert. I'm like, I always say I'm an introverted extrovert, Like I love being around people, but at the end of the day, I just really want to like, decompress without anybody else. So at the end of the day, I really just want to spend time with myself. And so in order to do that, when the world started opening up again and people were like, Oh, do you want to hang out? Do you want to hang out? Life happened really fast. It was like we were all like, Oh, this is such a nice season of life. And then as soon as things opened, we were ready to get back to 2019 and that speed of life. And and I was just like, I don't think I'm interested in that anymore. I have really been intentional about saying no to things every night of the week. For example, I'm like, I've realized my limit, my limit is I can hang out with other people and like do an event thing, like go to go to a bar, go to a show, whatever, one night a week. If I do it more than that, I am struggling. And I don't know if that has always been the case or it's just been since I've had that downtime, like my brain and my body has shifted toward that. But I've just been really a lot better about saying no to the things that I feel like half hearted about. If somebody is like, Oh, do you want to go to the show? And I'm like, I've heard that be at once, sounds fun, but I don't really care about them. Then I'm like, No, but if somebody is like, Hey, you want to go to the show? And it's like a band that I've never seen and never see again, I'm like, Oh, hell yeah, let's do it. But I have to say no to those things in order to be able to say, Hell yeah to the things that I want to do. So just make a time for myself on the calendar. And yeah, I, I've had to teach myself. It's okay to say no, like I'm not hurting somebody's feelings by being like, Oh, I can't hang out tonight. That's life. So it sounds like a large a large category here is social life. Cutting that out and not feeling the pressure to do all the things. Yes. Yeah. And I'll I'll say too, like since starting my own business, I've had to learn to say no to projects to that aren't like that. Good fit that are going to make me that are going to, you know, give me the energy to do other things besides work. I mean, I've worked on a lot of projects that are just draining and it's like at the end of the day, I don't want to do anything. So I have to find the projects that I want to say yes to instead and give myself space to say no to those, even if it's like, Oh, this is a great paycheck, or This is like a cool thing that would look cool in my portfolio or whatever. It's like, But at the end of the day, is it going to make my personal life work? Because I'm tired from working, you know, a ten, 12 hour day right over at my computer? Yeah, sure. But you kind of alluded to paycheck, right? You have to seemingly be at a certain level of success to be able to say no to some things, don't you think? Absolutely. I mean, I still find myself I won't say that I'm like to the point where I can say say no to any project if it comes across. I wish I was that way. I told my mom the other day, I was like, I mean, am I happy Professionally? Yes. What I love to never work again. Also. Yes, I would love to just, you know, use my wall punch needle and make rugs all day. Right. Hang out in your garage. Yeah. They're printing press. Right? Exactly. But, you know, you got to pay the bills. But I yeah, I mean, I it is definitely the first year I was doing my own business. I was like, I need to say yes to everything. And it was experimentation. It was figuring out what I like to do, what was a good fit, what was it? But it was also like, Oh, I have to pay my mortgage. And that meant saying yes to a lot of things. I built so many websites. Well in the first year of my business that I was like, I never want to build another website again. And you know what? I said yes to building a website this week because it is like, Oh, you know, that paycheck would be nice. Like I'm getting ready to go on a vacation and I could use some extra money. So that's also giving myself the space and knowing myself to be like, I can do this one website. I'm not going to do every website, just one. I know myself giving myself space. Yeah, No, no, no. I like that. Can we stick with this example? Because I think it's it would be helpful because it's not you don't have a no that is overly rigid. Your form, obviously you just said yes. Right. So it wasn't that rigid. So when you agreed to do it seems like it's a qualified yes. So yes, I'll do this as long as what? As long as what? What do you insist upon when you agree to do this? Yeah, I would say in this specific context, it's like as long as it's still my primary work as a brand strategist. So I'm like, yes, I'll build this website if it feels strategic. If you have done this strategy, work with me or with somebody else. And it's also like the timeline. If it's not urgent, I don't believe anything in the marketing world is urgent. Sorry, unpopular opinion. No Marketing emergency. Yeah, there's no marketing emergencies. So it's like, that's not like urgent if it doesn't break my process As far as, like, the strategy piece, like if I just feel like I'm aimlessly building something that isn't serving anybody, it's not going to serve the client because they don't have any sort of goal in mind or any sort of like tools in place to help them meet whatever goal besides this website, then that's like that's a no for me. But if they are like, Hey, this is something that we have on our radar. We're working toward these things. We know our audience, we know our competition. We have all of these assets already. Are you interested in coming alongside us and building this? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because that's also like, oh, less less of a lift for me. Now, if it's that, you know, oh, we don't have anything. We just need a website that is so much more work than the other. And that's when it's a no for me, because that is draining good. That sounds like wisdom, that sounds like past experience or experiences that have led to this decision. I don't know if anybody has ever used wisdom to describe me. I feel like chaos is good for me. It's all in the packaging. It's all in the marketing, right? Tomato, tomato, perhaps? Well, it sounds like it. I mean, it's it's past knowledge, past experience that you're using to make future decisions. Yes, that is very true. And I feel like back to that kind of like knowing yourself and like giving yourself space, I had to give myself space to like re learn things and be like, oh, you know, I thought that a year ago, but now I'm experiencing something different. So I'm going to kind of change, change my perspective there and maybe say yes to it more. And that's that's growth, baby. It is. That's what that is. Yeah, I'm hearing it that way. Awesome. Jamie, what in your life is just about perfect? Yeah, I will say my home life with my husband. Just one. Just one husband and my two dogs is really great. Pre-pandemic. We were both, like, running 100 miles an hour all the time. My husband's in a band and has been in many bands, and so he was like touring and playing shows and all of that. And the world slowed down. We slowed down and we were like, Oh wow, we have everything we need right here. And that was just a really beautiful thing. And so we've both been really intentional about like, say, no carving out more time for us and like, even for, like, seen our families, we don't live where our families live. So like knowing that's kind of our priority is to visit them more often, to travel, like kind of getting aligned on those things has been really nice and really important to just building this like life we love. I mean, it sounds cheesy, but it's it is very nice. We're always like, Oh, we love our house life. Like we love our dogs just because we've like, really been like these are the things that are important to us and these are the things we want to invest our time in. And it's the same thing like when we have friends, Like I'm like, Oh, I love, I love our friends. I'm so happy to hang out with you guys, but I only want to do it sometimes. I don't want to do it every day because I just really love my love, my house and my self and just being at home. That's fabulous. It sounds like you and your husband have a way of calling out these affirmations, right? Yeah. I love this part of our life. I also love this part of our life. Well done. High five, right? Yes. I imagine that's how it plays out. Yes. Yeah. And it's such a great way to like I mean, it hasn't always been this way. And it's just nice to be able to like, acknowledge, like, oh, wow, look at all the things we've done to build this life that we do love. And so it's nice. Look, look back behind us. So it's good. That's fabulous. Do you have any sort of practice, marital practice in form, like a marriage meeting, a regular coming together to go over your notes and ways forward? Do you have any kind of rituals around that? I mean, to say no, but also, yes, our annual our weekly annual, our weekly meeting is a budget meeting. And it's great. I mean, it sounds like not sexy at all. And it's not, but it's like so much we get to spend time together. We like, spend an hour together every it used to be Mondays. Now it's just kind of like Tuesday, Wednesday, sometimes. But we sit down together, we go through like everything. And it's kind of like, again, that reflection, like, Oh, we went out to dinner last week, remember that? It was so good and like, going through our transaction. Yeah. How you spent your time and money. Yes. Yes. Right. And then we're also like looking forward. We're like, Oh, we're planning for this big trip. We're planning for, you know, these some yard work, whatever those things are, and just a nice way that we get to spend time together and a productive way to spend time together. Yeah. So I would say like, it's not sexy, but it's important. That budget meeting sounds fabulous and it sounds like it happens fairly regularly too. So it's always we are on top of it. It's fabulous. Not sexy, you know, shirt and all that up. No, no, you're not. But it sounds like it's part of what makes the two of you successful at getting what you want. Yes. Yeah. And just like getting aligned, too, on things like when we're talking about like, we want to spend money, spend time on these things, you know, maybe this is more important right now or, oh, I think this is more important. And it's we're just able to have those conversations and like money. Money is not an easy thing for a lot of people to talk about. And it's really just opened the door. I don't know if it's always been easy for us to talk about either, but like doing that weekly thing has just always has just changed the way we think about money a lot and made that conversation easier. May I dig a little deeper? Yeah, of course. In your relationship, do you have one person who is more in charge of the finances than the other? I will say yes, but in different ways. So for example, Corey's like very in, Corey's my husband. He is very into like investing in like long term financial planning. So like I'll say, he's kind of more in charge in that space. And then like the day to day sort of things, like I always know how much money and I think this comes to you from like owning a business and like knowing my income and, and being hyper aware of that. Like, I know more about like the day to day expenses, what's in the bank account, all of like what's on our credit cards, all of that. But I don't think either one of us has more power, if you put it that way. Like I think I think we have the things we gravitate toward because of our interest and because of like our our daily habits. But neither of us have like more decision making power or like more in charge of one thing or the other. Like, we're both very I've always been like hyper independent, so I want to know everything I can. And he's that way too. So I think knowledge is power. We're both equally knowledgeable and equally powerful because of that. That's great. And you're both equally as bought into the idea of maintaining that constant communication. Yes. Yes. Which is huge. It's huge. Seemingly, seemingly. Since this is the perfect part of your life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. I love this part of my life. That's cool. Will you tell me about the fabulous Steven and Janie Jones? Yes. So I have to say, I thought about this question a lot because I was like, there are so many people that I admire. And it's just a it's an interesting thing to think about and thinking about, like the qualities that I admire about them, but just a little bit about them. So I've known Steven and Janie for we've known each other. I'll say, for maybe like seven or eight years. And we actually became Internet friends during we didn't really know each other. We saw each other at a conference. We both live in Nashville or we all live in Nashville and we became Internet friends during COVID because they were just like making cool things. And I was like, you know, cereal hobbyists. I was like, Oh, what's that? What's that like? Wanted to see. So I started just talking to them on the internet. Eventually we got coffee and started hanging out and we've been able to work together on a few projects, like professionally, creatively, all of that, But they're both artists. So Janie was a product designer for a long time. Steven is a brand designer, and they both just really started leaning into the things that actually brought them joy and that. So Steven now he had his own brand studio and now he he started exploring Muay Thai. So he's a muay Thai trainer slash fighter, I guess. And he was like, Man, I really love the sport. How can I marry my creativity with it? And he started drawing patterns and creating like super creative and fun Muay Thai fight wear. And it is just the coolest thing to see that come to life. Like to see him kind of like he still does the brand design stuff, but really to see him like pursue creativity in a whole new way that I'm like, Oh, I would never ever thought to connect those two things. And now it's like, seen it, seen those things come to life and seen his love for the community and his had been able to bring that creative part to his community. It's just so beautiful. And then Janie, they're just like the creative power couple. I love them. So Janie was a product designer and I believe, sorry, Janie, if I'm misspeaking, but I think she still does a little bit of that work, but maybe not as much, but she has really leaned into illustration, and I've just really admired, like the things she does. She and Steven collaborate. She does some like drawing and illustration for the fight where he does, but she's also like doing spot illustrations for brands, doing portraits. She's done these like corporate portraits, she's done food illustrations for events and just seen like her lean into that illustration space and being like, you know, product stuff was fun, paid the bills, it was great. But now I really want to do this thing that actually brings me a lot of joy and lets me be creative and lets me like lean into those things has just been so great and I just I always enjoy having a conversation with her to just like a silly creative conversation. We both love food and animals and we just like send animal photos back and forth of our dogs. So they're just great. Every time I spend time with them, I'm like, Oh man, I have so much creativity to give. If I can just tap into it and find the things that are like, light me up, you know? Yeah, yeah. What a cool formula and a great model. Yeah. Not just to view from afar through the internet even, but now. Yeah. To benefit from that relationship. That sounds pretty good. Now we're real life friends, so that's fantastic. What do you imagine some people admire about you? I think my authenticity, my ability to show up as myself in all places like this that you're seeing right now is what you'll see if I'm talking to a client. It's what you'll see if I'm talking to my family. It's what you'll see if I'm on stage talking to people. It's what you hear when I'm on scope creep like I lived too long in my former professional life trying to be like, button up Jamie, corporate Jamie, getting stuff done. I just belong in like, my corporate life doing things. And I was like, Oh, why do I feel like crap? Well, it's because it didn't feel like me. It was like I was trying to be whatever, but I thought everybody else needed me to. Sure. And it turns out there is a lot of value in being yourself. Who would have thunk? Well, hang on a second. You're presenting it in an obvious kind of way, but so many people try to provide value to other people, whether it's called people pleasing or really just providing value. How did you figure out at what point did you figure out that being yourself is also a value not just to you but to other people? Yeah, I think people started to gravitate toward me and like the things I had to share when I was like sharing them more candidly. I think people think that being professional is like being no personality or being like being emotionless robot. I think when people can see themselves in you and be like, Oh yeah, this person has real emotion, real enthusiasm, real whatever it is. Like people can feel that and people can relate to that and it just makes you more of a relatable figure that's like, Oh, I do want to listen to this person and listen to what they're saying. And and that's where you get value is when you when you tune in and when you listen to the things and maybe listen to the things you don't want to hear. I think that's something else that I have been very good at is giving my unpopular opinions. I think I spent a lot of my, again, corporate career like in that people pleasing space. And I don't think I've ever been like a true people pleaser, but I was like kind of like more go with the flow than I think I am now. Very like, Oh yeah, if that's what you think's going to be the best idea, let's do it. And in reality, I'm like, But have we thought about this? Like why this might not work because of these things? So being able to say things people don't want to hear in a in a kind but honest way, I think is just like, you know, people gravitate toward that in that authenticity. So, yeah, I think I mean, it's valuable to be yourself because nobody else is like you. And there's a lot of robots out there and it's boring. It's boring. People want to be be entertained. We're in a world right now where people want to be entertained. And so being yourself, that's entertaining, being, being the like, weird, silly person you are. And if you're not weird and silly, that's okay too. But like, maybe you're very like to the point and blunt. People are going to love that too, because there are lots of people out there who who need that or who are like that. So being yourself, being yourself is so, so, so. So I just love it. Yeah. It's a good it's a good thing. I agree with that. When if ever do you catch yourself slipping back into old tendencies, being the buttoned up go with the flow. When do you catch yourself? Oh yeah. I mean, all the time, all the time out, like, and maybe not in the moment, but like, it's like I have an out-of-body experience, like, oh, I'm doing the thing. But I think what's an example of that maybe. Yeah. So I think back to kind of when we were talking about like, Oh, I hate building websites, but I'll do it every now and then when I take on a project that maybe isn't a good fit for me, I can feel myself or I can see myself or like in hindsight I'm like, Oh, I was doing that thing. For example, I take on this really big project here and it's a great project. I really enjoy it. I enjoy the work, but the longer it goes on and like the harder, like the little tedious things that I'm not as good at that it goes into. Like toward the end of this project, I find myself slipping into that people pleaser Corporate Jamie Because I'm like, I just want this to be done like, I just want it to be over. And so what, I'm trying to get out of something, I feel like I can backslide into that space. Sure. Because I'm like, Yeah, sounds great. Let's do it. Let's wrap this up. Yep, sounds good. When in reality I'm like, Oh, I don't know. That's right. I don't know if we should do that. Yeah, but I'm like, No, this is please end. This is this is helpful. And I feel also relatable. I think, you know, it's probably impossible, near impossible to avoid that previous tendency altogether. I still think it's reasonable to replace it entirely. So I think it can be helpful that when you notice it, that's the first thing is noticing when it's happening. What do you do when you notice it? Well, one one rule that I like to implement for myself, because I think I think a common thread in all of these things that like has me backsliding into that sometimes is just conflict. And I don't really have a problem with conflict. I've always been like a, Hey, let's talk about this, let's sort this out type of person. But when those things arise, I have like two like gut reactions. One is like, sounds good and the other is like the other is like, this is terrible. Like, like the gut reaction of like anger, that sort of thing. So the way I keep myself from slipping into either of those patterns that I tend to have is I give myself a 24 hour rule. Again, there is no marketing emergency. I'm like, I'm going to step away from this. And I'll maybe even if I'm like, if this needs a response right now, if it's an email, for example, I'd be like, Hey, I'm thinking about this. That will be my response. I'll get back to you tomorrow or I just won't respond and get myself 24 hours. I'll walk away clearheaded. I'll go get on my spin bike thing through, get all my, you know, anger, energy, nervous energy, whatever it is out and come back with a clear head. And just again, like knowing myself, knowing that's my reaction to things and then being able to give myself the space to process that in a in a healthy way. Not at somebody else. Not, not and not in the moment. It sounds like you're giving yourself permission to pause, put in a built in a buffer and if need be articulate that buffer, say, well, let me get back to you. Yes, right, exactly. And I've I've worked in so many roles, too. I think disassembled where that comes from, where everything felt urgent, it was like I need a response right now. And that was where that like, I'm going to do the response that my brain wants to give right now. And it's maybe not nice. So now I'm like, That's not productive. So. Well, it's not you that you've found a way to give an immediate response, but not an immediate solution, right? The immediate response is, I'll get back to you. Yes. It's like the Band-Aid putting something on hold. Yeah. Immediately and letting them know that their call is important to you. I'm going to start responding to emails that way. Your call is important to me. I need 24 hours to think about it. I mean, you let them know that's setting a clear expectation, right? Yes. What a wonderful benefit you'd be providing to that person. Yes. I mean, even if I am responding to something right away, I sometimes don't want people to know that I'm responding right away. So I'll use my handy Gmail schedule feature. I'd be like, send tomorrow at 8 a.m.. Wonderful. That's great. Yes, Yes. You know, make wait. Make them sweat as appropriate. Of course. Yes, Yes. Jamie, this has been delightful. This has been so fun. Before we conclude, what other thoughts might have in the name of intentionality that you would like to share? Yeah, I talk about this all the time. It's one of the things I'll never shut up about is the importance of getting a hobby and like building a life outside of work. I always say that I'm like a recovering workaholic. I get a lot of value from work, and I think that's just like how I grew up. I grew up on a farm. We worked a lot. I saw my dad working, I saw my mom working all the time. So I think I, you know, not purposely, but it's not like they were like your values tied to your work. But my brain was like, Are you tied to your work? You saw it. You saw it. Yeah. You experienced that for sure. Yeah. Yes. So I spend a lot of time working all all the time and being so invested in that work. Even if I wasn't working, it was just like my brain was in that space. You were engaged with it anyway. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And it, it caused me a lot anxiety that I didn't know. I didn't know I had and I didn't know how to deal with at the time. And the thing that has helped me mitigate that and it seems like, you know, as a business owner, it would be easy to fall into that again and be a workaholic. But it's like I honestly feel the least attached to this job than I have to any other job, even though. It's my thing. I think some of that is like, I trust myself more than I trust anybody else. But it's also like, Oh, I've given myself, I've done this work so I can build a life that's actually like that. I'm living not just like kind of a bystander in right? So anyway, I say all of that to say that. I just hope other people like to see the value in building a life outside of work and, and finding like those weird, you know, go by the 1930s printing press and build a garage around it. Like go do the things that like spark that little bit of joy in you and you don't know why and just go explore those it build something that maybe it's just for yourself and that's important to you. Building stuff for yourself is equally as important as building stuff for other people. So that's my parting words. I think that those are good ones. Those are the ones you twisted around. So you mentioned more about the the printing press, but love some good stuff in there. Jamie, thank you once again for your careful consideration of all these questions and sharing about a day in the life or the life, the intentional life of Jamie Cox. Really appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. This is so fun. To be continued. Perhaps. Mm hmm. Goodbye for now. Bye. This has been intentionally ever after, hosted by intentional lifestyle coach Joe Booker. If you would like to have your intentional conversation with Joe on or off the air, visit intentionally ever after dot com. Thanks for listening.