The Power of Idea Generation over Advice-Giving with Jenny Warner

*Transcript is unedited (for the most part)

Gianna Diggs 0:05
You are listening to the mompreneur mindset podcast, a space where we empower you to build an aligned business. So you can spend less time on the things you think you should be doing in your business, and more time with the people you love. I am your host, Gianna Diggs. Let’s get into it.

Welcome back to the show. So in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about idea generation over advice giving with my guest, Jenny Warner. And we are going to look at this from two perspectives. One as a parent, because Jenny is a parenting coach, and the other as a business owner. So a little bit about Jenny. She’s a mom, wife and lover of life, who was certified in life and parent coaching. She enjoys helping others connect and transform their lives for the better. Her wish is to help parents find peace and feel empowered, so that they may experience wonder and joy daily. So without further ado, let’s get into the interview. Hi, Jenny. Welcome to the show.

Jenny Warner 1:12
Hey, Gianna, good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Gianna Diggs 1:15
Yes. I’m so excited about our discussion today. So we’re going to talk about idea generation over advice giving. And we’re going to approach this episode from two perspectives. Because like I said, In the beginning, Jenny is a parenting coach. But we’re also going also going to look at it from the business side. So now, starting with parenting, talked to me about idea generation, when it comes to parenting your children, like what exactly does that look like?

Jenny Warner 1:45
So, for those of us that our parents, I think we know that there is a mountain of advice that people like to give, and it’s all with the best of intentions. Absolutely. I totally get that. But we have our own way of wanting to raise our children. And so when people are giving the advice I have found, it often really shuts down the conversation. Because the person that’s giving the advice has the expectation that it’s my way or the highway, I’m giving you this advice, you need to do it.

Gianna Diggs 2:25
And then we’re good, right? That

Jenny Warner 2:29
every single situation is different. Every single parent is different, every single child is different, no matter what the situation is that you’re walking into, it will never be the same again, it will. It’s not the same as has been in the past. All everything’s always different. So where their experience from the place that they’re coming from, had been this, they also have this little, what do you want to call it? Shiny vision of what it actually was. And they might be forgetting a few little nuances to actually, you know, what got them to what they consider to be their successful outcome. So always just, I take the advice from people, you know, you listen to it, oh, thank you very, very much. But then we all have our own filters. And so what I like to say is when people give you the advice, that’s great. But we, as humans, and we as mothers, and we as human mothers have the greatest gift in the world, of being able to create through our own intuition. And we create our own experiences, we create life, we create our businesses, we create our family, through our own intuition. So to give the permission, of listening to that advice, through the lens of use your information, take that as a perspective. So what I coach around and within my community, what we’d like to say is share examples, share stories, share ideas, that’s all fantastic. I’m not saying don’t share information, but it’s the whole perspective of don’t have the expectation that they’re going to do it and they’re good done. I gave you my advice. You’re golden,

Gianna Diggs 4:37
right? And I think a lot a lot of that is because generational, right it’s like I was raised this way. So I’m gonna raise my children the same way. And we often don’t recognize that that doesn’t work. Right, like, you know, might have gotten yelled at as a child and I can say personally, I try not to yell at my daughter and a lot At a time show, if I do yell, she’s like, Mommy, you’re yelling at me, and she corrects me. And I can think of many times where adults have said, like, don’t talk back to, you know, don’t don’t talk back to your mom or don’t talk back to a parent or it’s not necessarily her talking back to me, but her kind of correcting that behavior. Yeah. And, and me being okay with her correcting me, because usually, it’s just like, I’m your mother, I want to acknowledge you if I want to, right. And it’s like, no, I Okay. I apologize. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. I was just frustrated with what I’m trying to tell you. This is why I yelled at you. And my grandmother, and that

Jenny Warner 5:37
is totally, yeah, that’s exactly the advice they want. Everybody comes with their own wounds. Everybody comes with their own baggage, I like to say, you know, there’s a whole set of luggage that comes with every single human being right? And that gets projected, the baggage gets open stuff falls out

Gianna Diggs 5:55
of the bag, right? And I was gonna say that my grandmother says, like, why are you explaining something? To her? However, he was one time I was like, she was three. And I was explaining something to her. She’s like, why are you explained like, She’s three. And I was just like, because she needs to understand why she got in trouble. Right. It’s like, most of the time they can’t, like we know with the with our brains, like most kids don’t understand why they’re being yelled at. Or, you know, why you’re being punished for something. And so in US explaining it, it’s them on having a, you know, trying to have a child understanding, of course, of why they’re getting in trouble. So I love the idea of not necessarily doing something as a parent, because, you know, my mom did it, or my grandmother did it. But really just taking what works. And going with that, and kind of leaving the rest.

Jenny Warner 6:48
Well, and I think you nailed it on the head that in the past generations, our grandmothers, our mothers, and in some case, I’m a little older than you so even myself, we there was like one way to parent, there was like the Dr. Spock book, and this is the way you did it. And you, you know, your baby has to cry it out at night. And you know, you put them in timeout, Swat, SWAT him in the butt, whatever, you know, this is the way to do it. This is the way you parent. And in the last 20 years, there has been so much research that has opened the door to find out that like brain science in kids, it’s just fascinating. That’s why I got in to parent coaching this. I had to go through a number of things with my son, you know, we’ve been through therapists and all kinds of things, brain science and nervous system science. Fascinating. And it just it explains so much. So to be able to be open, like you said, to having a conversation that would have human beings just for our children. Yes, they need to learn, but they are like our greatest teachers and our greatest mirrors. And it’s fascinating to talk to our kids, right? To actually have that connection and have a conversation. Yeah, you don’t need to talk at them, you can talk to them. And

Gianna Diggs 8:16
I totally agree, because I do it all the time with my daughter. So how can idea generation help solve some of the biggest problems that parents have?

Jenny Warner 8:27
Yep. So I’m in research that I have read. And through many mediums that I have been part of to be able to integrate, and then my own research, I have found that the biggest problem that parents face is fear. And I mean, when you think about it, you know, you’re worried about worried sphere and holding on too tight is fear. And controlling is fear. And, you know, all of these things really surface and circle around fear, which because we want to protect our kids, that’s our job. But how that can be rectified is that you feel as a parent that you have support. So you can have a support, you know, with your partner, you can have support with your friends. But oftentimes, you know, we may have like lifelong childhood friends, we might have friends from our kids daycare, or our kids school, or neighbors that are friends. But that might not be the same way that we actually want to raise our child. You know, again, with the whole advice and you can take little bits and pieces, but it’s finding your parenting tribe is probably the best tool The best system that I would suggest, and that is just in talking with people. So yeah, there might be one or two people from your daycare or your or your kids school that have similar philosophies. It might be Facebook groups, it might be, you know, parent groups, it might be, you know, your auntie, maybe not your mom, or it may be kind of, you have to be a bit more discerning with the parent knows that you. Yeah, yeah. And those that you let in, because one of the problems that you’re facing, because you’re, you want to be able to not be judged. I think that’s another one of the biggest, and that goes along with fear that you’re doing something wrong, because you, you can’t screw up. It’s life. And we all have our own journeys to live. And our kids are our kids for a reason. So I don’t know, any parent, that does not want the best for their child. So that’s what I mean, but you can’t screw up. As long as you are always operating from the place of, I want to do the best thing for my kid, I want to do the best. And that oftentimes is I want to do the best thing for me. And I’ll be discerning with the information that I am gathering. And I’m going to I’m okay with trying this. Nope, that didn’t work this time. I might take a little piece of that and try it with a little piece of this next time. That is the best method that I would say, to help you feel secure as a parent, knowing that you’re walking into an odyssey, you know, yeah, you’re always going to be faced with challenges, right.

Gianna Diggs 12:02
And I think that that’s powerful, because a lot of times, I was actually just watching a video, maybe yesterday, of NeNe Leakes who she’s starting Real Housewives of Atlanta, and she was it was a clip of her talking about the mistakes that her son makes and how it’s not a reflection of her how, like people who are also on the show, we’re trying to say, well, your son is doing this, and it’s a reflection of you. And she’s like, it’s not i No one raises their children, for them to be the worst that they can be right, we all walk into parenting without wanting our children to be the best humans that they can be. And at some point, because our son is was grown at that time, it’s like he has to make his own decisions and his decision on a reflection of me, you know, I raised him in the best way. But I think as a society, we always look at what children do, or what you know, someone does as an adult. And we think it’s a reflection of that person of their parents, right? Oh, but that’s how they were parented. That’s why they are this way. And in some, sometimes, it can be true, right? If we give our kids a certain amount of leeway to certain things, you know, we we do mold behaviors in that way. But I’m talking more on like the negative side where, you know, she’s like, Well, he did this, and I didn’t raise him that way. But I can’t that’s not a reflection of me, because he does it. And that’s his choices. He’s a human like, I think that we have to get to a point where we treat our children as humans, right, that there are people too, so they are going to do certain things that we may not always agree with, but like the same way how I can make a mistake, like my daughter can make a mistake. And I think as a society, we’re not there yet.

Jenny Warner 13:39
Yep, nope, totally, totally. And I mean, going back to the brain science, a brain in a child, it wasn’t fully formed until they’re 25. So there are all these like neuro circuits not to get all technical, but all of these neural pathways and circuits and all of this information that they take in is what forms them right? Or what’s even just the perception of it. So you could be sitting on a couch, playing cards, go fish with your child, and they’re going to have a completely different perception of what that interaction is your you know, that’s actually not a that’s just fun, and that’s just playing but telling them not to put their sippy cup on the table because it’s gonna get wet. That is, you know, your your perception is let’s not damage the furniture. Their perception is I can’t do anything right. So we can always back to your point of what she said. We can always influence the perception of our child’s what our child is thinking. Right? So,

Gianna Diggs 15:07
right, like, you know, I that’s, that’s funny that you say that because I always tell my fiance that, you know, I don’t want to be the cause of any trauma, right? Like, you know, a lot of parents are the cause of a lot of children whose trauma, and I don’t want to be that person. But I also recognize that I can’t dictate how my child to take something, right, like I, you know, I can try to be, you know, mindful of how I’m speaking to her and how I’m doing certain things. But at the end of the day, if something causes some, you know, subconsciously causes something for her to keep in her mind, like, I can’t control that, but I can just be mindful of how I speak to her, or how I say things. And going back to your example. You know, I studied neuro linguistic programming. So, you know, in studying that, I now realize, like, instead of saying, don’t do something, it’s more of like, put your sippy cup on, you know, on, let’s say, the kitchen table instead, rather than saying, Don’t put your cup on, because how kids brains work, they’re gonna pick up on don’t, and they’re going to, they’re going to picture in their mind doing it rather than not doing it. Like they don’t can’t process negatives, going back to Brain Science, right? So it’s more so like, I remember that. And so when I say don’t do something, and she does it, I’m like, oh, negatives, okay, do this instead. Like, instead of, instead of don’t squeeze the juice, like, hold the juice so that it does like this way, so it doesn’t spill out, and then show listen. So

Jenny Warner 16:38
and that totally goes back to your account your point about talking to them like they’re a human being. So give them the explanation of why because then we’re more apt to understand and not do it again, or not take it as a personal affront that they did something wrong. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Gianna Diggs 16:57
So is there I know, we kind of touched on a little bit, but is there a time where it is appropriate to maybe give advice to another parent or take the advice of like, maybe your parent or your aunt or someone in your family? Like when is when is like you can? Because I know for me, sometimes it’s like, my how my brain works at times, like I don’t want to take no one’s advice, right? Like, I’m against, I’m always like, No, I’m not taking anyone’s advice, right? Like, when is it appropriate to kind of reframe that in your mind to say like, Okay, that’s a good point. I’m going to use that. You know, yeah. When is it like appropriate to actually take someone’s advice?

Jenny Warner 17:36
Yep. So, and that goes back to, and I know that I’m talking semantics here. But I would consider advice being like, life threatening is a bit too dramatic. But you know, what? I see your child has this terrible rash, I would go to the doctor, if I were you, or I see this, you know, I would do this, if I were you. Your child is about to run across the street, I would go grab them if I were you. So if there was something dramatic, like life threatening or something like that, maybe not life threatening, maybe you can, we can dial it, dial it down a notch, but something physically or your child, you know, when they get a little bit older, this was actually a situation that I had to coach through where one parent, the two girls were friends, and they were twins talking in the bedroom, and the one tween showed the other girl that she had been cutting. And so the girl, the friend told her mom, and so the mom told the girl who was cutting her mom, that’s when you give advice. I think you need to do something, you know, you need to be aware of this. So there’s an example. Going back to, you know, listening to stories, listening to ideas. Listening to different perspectives, I think is all huge. So, yes, people are going to say, let me give you some advice. But take it in the grain of I’m using my discernment. I’m using my intuition to cherry pick what might be best instead of having the expectation that I have to do that, or that’s the only way to do that. What they said is the only way

Gianna Diggs 19:54
Right, yeah. All right. So now, let’s kind of move on to looking at it from the business. His perspective? And what I degeneration looks like in that space. So in your opinion, yeah. What does it look like? Let’s say in like maybe a coach client relationship, since you are a parenting coach, right? Like, what does idea generation and coaching look like? Yep. So

Jenny Warner 20:19
kind of going back to what we were talking about with intuition. I absolutely believe that within us, we have all of our answers. And so my job as a coach is to ask you the questions to lead you to figure out what it is how you can best solve the problem that you’re facing right now. Because again, I’m not going to know all of the nuances. I don’t know the baggage that all of the baggage that you’re coming with, I don’t know, the baggage that your partners are coming with, that are lending to some of those issues. I I don’t know, the environment from a time from the ability to put enough time into a situation to help resolve the situation, you know, you might be working a second shift, your husband or your partner might be working, you know, this shift, and nobody’s there, when the kids for an hour when the kids get home. So I can’t tell you pick your kids up from school and have the you know, debrief with them on the way home from school on how their day was right. That’s not going to work. Because that’s not how your system, your family system works. So it is gathering information. It’s asking questions, and it’s letting you I kind of talked about that Odyssey. It’s letting you here’s guard real information. Here’s a map on what situation kind of all entails. But it’s I’m going to help you figure out how to go through this river, how to go over these rocks. I’m going to help guide you. I’m going to I’m going to shine a flashlight, but you’re going to figure out your way. My flashlight is asking you questions

Gianna Diggs 22:23
like that. Yeah. So we’ve kind of talked about this with parenting. But when is it appropriate to give your client advice?

Jenny Warner 22:34
Mmm hmm. I’m gonna go back to the when there’s a threat of physical harm mental harm. Yeah. Because that’s really their journey. And I do not want to shut down that conversation. That conversation needs to be ongoing. And they need to be open to trying new things, and exploring on their own and using their intuition. Whereas if I give advice that gives them permission to not listen to their intuition, right? Right. I love that. So that takes away their power.

Gianna Diggs 23:29
Right? I love that. Because I was gonna say, um, a lot of times you see, especially now that the coaching business, regardless of what niche you’re in, is exploding. Where, you know, there are coaches that are like, you listen to me, or like you’re not doing your job, or like you’re not doing your job as a client. And I’m glad that you said, really focusing on your intuition, and leading your relationship with your clients with your intuition. And as far as like fostering their intuition, because it’s just we call it like the bro marketing, right? Like, it’s all of this, like, here’s, here’s my methodology, follow it. Right? It’s not a it’s not a let me take something, let me take, okay, here’s my methodology, I want you to take what works, and then use this part, right you are use that part, and then make it your own. And then, you know, they get upset when a client is like, this system is not working for me. And it’s like, you’re just not doing it. You’re not doing it correctly. And it’s like, no, that’s not it. There are parts of whatever system you have that just don’t intuitively work for me. And so I think that, especially if anyone who’s listening is thinking about going into coaching, that’s very powerful tool to have. Because, you know, we can’t expect the same way with our children. We can’t expect for them to listen to everything we tell them. I can’t expect my clients to follow everything that I say word for word. Yep. Because then we’re removing the part of us that society has kind of taught us to ignore, which is going within and using what’s within to kind of progress forward.

Jenny Warner 25:08
Yep. And I think the other thing is, if you ever come across anybody who tells you that they have all of the information, they have all the wisdom, they have all the knowledge. call BS, because there is no one person that knows everything. And so you may be the one that uncovers, you know, the next golden nugget. And even if it’s just the end goal, you know, the next golden nugget for your family, boom, there you go. That’s, that’s what you need. It may not have come out of a book, it may not have come out of, you know, scientific research, but it works for you.

Gianna Diggs 25:49
So let’s talk about a mom who might just be getting started in business, and maybe they’re not able to hire a coach. Right? And I know, we talked about intuition, as I just said, as being like a method, but like, what idea generation methods? Would you recommend someone could try?

Jenny Warner 26:06
Yep. So I think, when I was so excited to talk about this, because as so I came from corporate world, I was in corporate HR in the finance business for 25 years. And so I saw incredibly successful female executives, I saw very successful up and rising stars. And I always looked at those women like, Oh, my God, how did they have got everything together? How the hell are they doing that, Oh, my God. And then I got to know them. And they don’t have everything together, they may have this little piece of the pie together, but not so much over here. So I think we, as mompreneurs have the best of all worlds. But it’s also scary as hell. And it’s hard, there is nothing harder, because we have the passion to want to grow our business. We are doing it from home. So we have all of the distractions at home, we’ve got the beauty of having our kids around us. But we also have the distraction of having our kids around us. And for me, in particular, I don’t have any of my friends who are entrepreneurs. They’re either stay at home moms, or still working in the corporate world, or teachers. And so I you know, as I was navigating all of this, that’s one of the reasons why I started my business is I had no body to lean on, I had no idea how to balance all of this. And I had such this, you know, this passion to get this message out to help figure out how to connect with your kids on a deeper level. But I had no idea how to do it. And so that affected my parenting. Because, you know, I had all of these questions going on over here. So then I wasn’t paying attention and connecting to him over here. And I think that is from now the other mompreneurs that I’m talking to. That’s a very common thing is that? How do you balance all of it? Right? How do you balance all that? And so I think joining groups, again, whether it’s it’s Facebook groups of other mompreneurs, listening to Jana, to find out what we’re up to them do, and don’t look at, you’ve got that beauty of being able to, okay, I’m gonna cherry pick from this, I’m gonna cherry pick from that I’m gonna cherry pick from this. But having having a tribe having people who may not be your next door neighbors and may not you know, they may live across the country, but they understand because they’re walking in my shoes. They know. That’s the tribe to go to. Yeah, to be able to generate ideas. And I tried this hub, you know, how did it work out for you? Yeah, it didn’t. It didn’t so much for me. Well, I tried that and yeah,

Gianna Diggs 29:43
yeah, I love that. I love the idea of community. That’s kind of what has helped me in my I always say my newish journey, right? It’s just being around people who are like minded and I have so many screenshots of Oh, I like that idea. I screenshot it on my phone. I go back to it. Should I add that to something different? So community is definitely a key in, in being able to get your business up and running without the help of an outside person.

Jenny Warner 30:15
And again, kind of going back to the whole generational thing, right? This is fairly new. I mean, like in the last really like 15 years, 1015 years, and really, in the last five years is when it has exploded. So there really isn’t a roadmap, right. And back in the days of bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan, there was the expectation that you had to be able to do it all and to do it all by yourself, you were a woman, you are strong, hear me roar, which is all true. With a community, you don’t put that on yourself that you have to do this all by yourself. And that if you can’t do it all by yourself, that you’re weak, right? That’s just not how human beings are built. We are social creatures, and we need one another. Right? It’s using your intuition and using your discernment to figure it out.

Gianna Diggs 31:28
With Yes,

Jenny Warner 31:29
who’s noisy? Who’s supportive and helpful?

Gianna Diggs 31:33
All right. So I know we talked about not giving advice, but in a situation where mompreneurs might be struggling with maybe adjusting their mindset to generating ideas, instead of giving advice in both their parenting and in their business. Like what, what would you tell them?

Jenny Warner 31:51
Yep. I think just go into things without expectations. I think that it’s as simple and as hard as that, it’s really easy to say. Because when we’re giving we’re again, going back to when you’re giving your advice, or when you’re receiving advice, it is coming from the heart 99% of the time. And because there is such passion, and you know, you’re coming to it out of being being of service. And you want them to not feel the pain or not be in the situation any longer for them to benefit. But you need to let that expectation go, you need to. And the same thing when you’re that’s both when you’re taking and when you’re giving, receiving and, and, and giving. Let go of the expectation. Yeah, I love that. That just makes life so much easier, also, because then you’re not holding on to it and you’re not wasting your energy. Right.

Gianna Diggs 33:01
I love that. Because I also what I think about is like I’m in a phase of trying to just have fun with the things that I’m doing within my business. And even within the show of like releasing the expectations of what how many people are going to listen this week, or how many people are going to buy this offer or just allowing it to use my intuition, of course, to just get led into the direction that spirit wants me to go. But all in all, so just releasing the expectation of if it doesn’t come out the way I imagined it. And I think that that is, like you said probably the hardest thing is releasing the expectations of what we envisioned. Because it’s not to say don’t have a vision for it. But if you know rather than attaching yourself to the outcome, just kind of letting letting it come to you and letting whether it it comes to good or it comes bad, right? Just being open minded to what’s going to come.

Jenny Warner 34:08
And that’s the whole other super incredible thing about like manifesting, right. You know, this is the vision that I have, this is what I’d like I you know, more prosperity, more abundance, more community more, this more, something better. That’s the perfect way to let go of the expectation or something better. And I want to clarify a little thing about because I don’t want people to get hung up on. I’m getting advice. If you just follow further is we’re talking about connecting with our kids and having a conversation with them. As you’re connecting with somebody and wanting to help them benefit help them get out of the situation that’s painful to them or whatever, as you’re giving advice. Just take it that next step and give the story behind it or give the why. Because then that gives a bit more flavor. to what they were, what they went through to get to that stage to be able to give the advice. It gives you a bit more color gives you a bit more flavor to, to where they’re coming from, or why they think that that advice is good. And that will then give you more information for your intuition to chew

Gianna Diggs 35:23
on. I love that I’ve never thought of, you know, telling if you’re giving advice to a client, for example, of telling your client, like why I’m giving you this piece of advice. So I love that you said that. And I think I’m going to take that and put it in my back pocket. You. Yeah. So before we wrap up, can you just let the people know where they can find you online?

Jenny Warner 35:51
Absolutely. So I have actually just launched my new website, actually, it launches may 1. So it is I shine bright.com. And it is the letter I shine bright is spelled b r i t e.com. And I’ve got a whole bunch of articles on their science based evidence based that are very, very helpful. I also have from the website, you can get into my network, my community where we batted around ideas all the time there. I’ve got monthly themes of the most common parenting situations and then we kind of brainstorm different ways we do lives in there. So you can get to that from I shine bright.com And then on social. I really just on Instagram right now, which is AI, underscore, shine, underscore bright, B R I T.

Gianna Diggs 36:58
All right, Jenny. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. I took a lot of notes. There’s a lot of nuggets that I hope you know, all the fellow mompreneurs listening can take away with both their parenting and their business.

Jenny Warner 37:13
I’d love it. Get your tribe get your community we can do it. All right,

Gianna Diggs 37:17
thank thanks so much.

Thank you for listening to the mompreneur mindset podcast. I hope you found today’s episode valuable. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode, I would love it if you could subscribe rate or review the show your support, it really means the world to me. Also, if you want to join in on a discussion about today’s topic, and seek guidance, assistance and advice from fellow mompreneurs I invite you to join the mompreneur mindset community. You’ll find a warm and supportive group of women who are eager to help you achieve your business goals. So head to www dot Gianna diggs.com backslash community for more information

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